The (new) Official PC building thread!

That's it, the end result of a build should be something that's better quality and more reliable than a stock system, not just on par with, so spec for spec you can expect it to be expensive.

 

@mike

I would probably reconsider the case that you chose. From the picture it doesn't seem that airflow is all that great. And of course what everyone has said PSU, GPU...etc

As for building something at the price of what any of the major PC companies can offer. It will be tough indeed. You've got to remember that they buy everything in bulk quantities, which gives them the price advantage already. However, if you purely stick to just price...you'll have a system that is equally as fast or maybe just slightly slower...but in the end your custom build should be way more reliable since it has way better parts.

@sam

you've got 1.8TB of storage on one of your builds...how do you have that set up? RAID 0, 5, JBOD?

Anyone,

Does anyone currently use a NAS drive enclosure at home? If you don't mind what brand and how reliable has it been for you?

 

I have the asus a8n32-sli deluxe motherboard. I have two geforce 6600 video cards. I cannot get sli mode or two displays. The motherboard does not recognize the other card at all. switched cards and monitors. Cannot get anything from lower pci-e slot. What else can I try? Updated bios reinstalled drivers removed and reseated card nothing what can I try now? Isolated my issue to the pci e slot.

 

@dash

have you tried running just a single card on the bottom PCIe slot?

@greensman, LP, Mort, Sam, etc...

specing out a box for my buddy, and he games on occasion but pretty much does a lot of "backups" he's pulling some old parts from his existing system, which he is giving away to another friend in need. Heh, I think he just wants a new system.

Anyways...this is what he will be transferring over.

GF 7800GT PCIe
I think about 4 HDD's
SB X-Fi w/ 5 1/4" breakout box
2 DVD-RW drives
1 3.5" mem card reader

So these are the specs of what I plan to send him. (all from newegg)

Coolermaster Elite 330 Case $39.99 w/$15MIR
C2D E6420 $186.00
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 $109.99
Corsair 2GB PC6400 XMS2 CAS4 $131 w/$40MIR

Question is how large of a PSU should he go with, I was thinking 600 -650W should be enough, but should I go larger?

No upgrades are really planned for this system except for maybe HDD upgrades later. He doesn't plan to OC either.

 

A 500W PSU would do for that, but it'd have to be a good one. I'd recommend something like a Corsair HX 520W, a Hiper 580W Type-R or a Seasonic S12-500. Avoid cheap power supplies AT ALL COSTS.

6spd: Just individual hard disks at the moment, no type of RAID setup at all, a friend of mine uses RAID5 and he's had too many issues, I don't fancy it much.

 

@6spdser,
The Corsair that sam recommended. $105 after MIR

OCZ StealthXStream 600 $93 after MIR

Mushkin 550200 550W $79 delivered

Hyper HPU-4R580 $99 delivered

Thermaltake PurePower 600 $105 after MIR

Antec True Power Trio 550W $80 delivered

There's a few to look at that "seem" like decent PSU's. The only one that I have personal experience with is the Antec Trio. I built a computer for a friend and he likes the PSU just fine. He's running SLi and an AMD Opty but no OC'in for him. LOL.

The others look good on paper and the reviews aren't too bad. You know about reviews tho. Maybe someone else can offer more advice but there are the ones that I would look at for "GOOD" money spent.

.....gm

edit:
Deleted the link to the XION psu. With some more research and closer scrutiny I'm also a little leery of their products at this point. Good call sam. I left the Muskin tho, at this point it seems like a fairly good psu for the money. :S

 

@sam

You are running straight discs, must be nice to have 4 x 750GB. I've ran RAID-5 before using both PATA and SCSI. I never had any issues with either, more of it seemed to be linked to the controller and driver issues more than anything. Is your friend using identical drives? RAID-5 tends to prefer exactly the same drives, RPM, Cache, RW speeds.

Anyways per your response, so you think a solid 500W PSU would be sufficient for his needs then huh? I was reading reviews on several sites and came across the Thermaltake Purepower line. Any experience with this particular one? Several sites state that the power is very stable and fluctuates from low to high on all 3 rails about 1%.

 

@ 6spdSER

yes, no picture only the top works. anyway to reset? or diagnose with software?

 

4 750GB drives would be nice, but never mind I'm happy with my mish mash of 250s, a 400 and a 160.

As per the power supplies, I'd be happy to build a PC with any of those excluding the mushkin and the Xion. Mushkin may make good memory but their first PSU outing was pretty lame, don't know if they've improved yet. Also, Who are Xion? Unknown brands in the PSU industry are dangerous!

 

I use a 320 gig sata drive. partitioned into c,d. windows installed on c using d for storage. had unrelated problem with pci-e video card decided to install fresh xp on 13 gig ide drive just to see if it recognized my lower pci-e slot. it did not, but now I cannot access my files on the 320. shows in my computer as 10mb hd. tried to remove 13 gig but now sata won't boot computer says ntldr missing. please help

 

Whenever you remove a drive, it will reset the boot list, check it's set to boot from the right hard disk.

 

@dash

Is this system a new build? Has the 2nd, lower, PCIe slot ever worked? ntldr issues can be power related, memory (RAM) related, or a failing HDD. After reflashing your bios did you reset it? Try popping out the lithium battery or using the bios jumper. see if that helps.

 

A lot of motherboards have an additional power connector on the board itself which enables the lower PCI express 16x slot. On my boards it's contained at the back of the board underneath the rear output ports (USB, LAN etc)

 

If i gave you $2800US as a budget (including taxes, $150 labour) to build a custom computer what parts would you use, i just want to get see different ideas for people, would some of you go for higer cpu speeds, more ram or a better video card. You can build any type of computer you like (media center, full tower, or mid tower)

you need to include:
case, cpu, motherboard, ram, videocard, hard drive, cd/dvd drive, operating system, and powersupply.

This is just to get an idea as i said above I want different people with different ideas. Also please post what you think your computer would be best for (gaming, video editing, . . . . )

thanks!!!!

mike

 

Wow, $2800, we're in top end teritory now!
I'll have a scout around and get back to you.
I'm thinking Quad Core (probably the 6700), 4GB of XMS2, two 500GB disks, And 8800 graphics, in a very elaborate case. I'll see what that costs, if I have a lot left over, I'll consider adding another 8800.

 

funny, when i did mine i used the 6700 4GBs of RAM (Partiot) and 2 500GB HArd drives (seagate), i also used BFG 8800 graphic card (GTS)

 

GTS, lame! Is that all you had the budget for?
Also, is this including peripherals?

 

nope, just main parts

 

@ 6spdSER

new build. 2nd pci-e worked at first used sli mode when I finished the initial build. hardly game though so had no idea it had stopped working.

 

Typically i go with Corsair RAM, but there you go
QX6700 CPU $968 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115011
EVGA 680i Board $155 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188019
4GB XMS2 PC6400C4 2x$125 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145034
(2x$40 rebate)
EVGA 8800GTX $517 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130072
($30 rebate)
2x500GB Samsung $220 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152052&Tpk=Samsung+500GB
HR-03 Plus $55 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835109136&Tpk=Thermalright+HR-03+Plus
Ultra 120 Extreme $65 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835109140
NEC DVD Burner $31 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827131038
Antec P182 Case $170 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129025&Tpk=P182
Corsair HX 620W PSU $170 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139002&Tpk=Cordair+620W
($20 rebate)
2x Scythe S-Flex case fan (1200rpm) $40 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185005

I think that covers everything. That's a 'silent' Quad core gaming build. It comes to $2601 plus delivery, but includes $130 of rebates.
Note that, despite what you might think, that 620W PSU is indeed adequate for that system.