The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

Rick: Is it a 5400rpm drive? All 5400rpm drives run cold, even Seagates, and yes Jeff, Seagates run VERY hot. In my old case my WD 7200s ran around 44-45C, my Samsung at 40-41 (though Samsung temperature sensors are a bit dubious), the WD Greens at 37-38, and the Seagate at 57C.

 

This appears to be the only 2Tb drive made by samsung that newegg has. And its 5400Rpm
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152202
In fact, it would appear that their green drive (5400Rpm) is the only 2Tb drive they make. http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/productType.do?group=72&type=94

 

Howdy folks, warning up front if you have no wish to deal with a long post from a total newb and all the hullabaloo that will go with it. I wont be offended if ya skip right on by this one. It might even warrant its own thread and if so sorry fer sticking it here. Ok here goes nothing
I personally tend to stick to the edges of peoples attention in cyberspace as well as real space. The less I'm noticed the happier I am but alas in this instance it behooves me and my meager wallet to step forth into the glaring light of potential ridicule and barbed comments. I only do so after reading whatt must be over a hundred pages (and counting) of posts on this website from 2 threads of this year alone(yall a chatty bunch that's for sure). From what I have seen you seem like a swell bunch of blokes else this post wouldn't exist. The next bit is background for saving time in the long run by illuminating my current situation and final goals. I only wish I had discovered this forum before I had started buying components.
In my 30 plus years on this world I have owned one yes one whole computer! Crazy I know in this day and age. I bought it a little over 6 years ago from cyberpower. The reason being I didn't want a premade blahdeblah I wanted some control on customizing without knowledge of how to physically do it. Over the years I learned how easy it was to say put in memory chips or swap out a video card and have to chuckle at myself for being leery of building a computer. Unfortunately last december while I was out of town the wife was hunting for a job on the old workhorse and decided to unplug the space heater without turning it off first. Upon returning home much to my dismay I discovered a paperweight instead of a desktop. I later found out she had fried the mobo not to mention the light fixture in the defunct computer room now hums. She of course blames it on the 2 yr old for unplugging it but that IMO is like blaming the dog for eating your homework. I also discovered that basically my dinosaur and its parts are not used these days so the whole computer is essentially junked. Thankfully the HDDs were undamaged so no data loss. Life goes on and to enable the wife ongoing quest for a job we bought a netbook. Since I am now without a real computer I decided hell! It wasn't difficult switching things out of my old case I think I'm ready for saving money and building my own darn computer! I find overclocking quite intriguing and look forward to the experiencem lets do this! Much to my dismay just looking at one component (mobos) was mind boggling at the seemingly limitless models and brands. How to narrow the search? One of my goals for this computer is to finally get to play Crysis. I've wanted to play it ever since it was released yet figured my comp was no where near a viable rig for such endeavors. After a bit of research I decided on a SLI board which is in the mail now(UPS just showed up with my 360 after its 4th RROD) I'll put the specs at the bottom for those interested in this mammoth task. My coworker then convinced me to get a q6600 like his so he could help me overclock it and when I found one for 120 bucks I figured why not its cheaper than the E8400 I was looking at. The cpu arrived today and as luck would have it theres nothing with it(bought it used from amazon). The sucker is tiny! I just happened to be reading on this thread a discussion about tuniqs 120 so newegg recieved an order for one. At this point I figured I really better make my situation known before I make more impulse purchases. I only have the vaguest idea of what I'm doing and I bet burning wads of unnecessary cash. Along with building a new rig setting up a secure home network is ideal. I recently replaced a dying cable modem with the one suggested by my ISP a zyxel prestige 964 wireless router. Which after reading this forum uses a now cracked encryption WPA. How you guys can keep all this in your heads is beyond me. It's like learning a new language and my retention levels aint like they used to be. My tower has 80mm fans in it so I am guessing its headed for the scrap heap. I like many here prefer a quiet computer or computers in your cases. I have used computers for oh 20 years now but never had time/energy/meager financial pool to invade the inner bowels of the pcworld. I'm taking this as a hands on crash course on pc building/OC teachers willing that is. I have seen alot of fan discussions but nary a peep on liquid cooled heat sinks, are LC setups not as effective? too loud? too expensive? I have a million questions but I figure this is more than enough background so brass tacks time.


Goals
1 computer that (eventually) plays crysis in all its glory(starcraft2 should be fun),digitizes my VHS(yes they still exist) library as well as dvd/cd libraries partitioned or dual booted or whatever you call it so that I can use my old HDD and the programs there(XP etc) and a new HDD with win7 upon which to slowly transfer data from the old HDD to new. Suddenly I do recall something like an xp emulator to run those programs that wont on win7. Learn how to OC the bajeezus out of the cpu/ram and whatever else aside from the graphics card. Thanks to you guys discussing how theres no failsafe for your GC like on the CPU. Last thing I want to do is fry my GC right out of the gate. Make the whole thing as quiet as reasonably possible.

1 home secure network containing 1 desktop 1 printer 2+ game consoles 2 laptops I figure between the WLAN and 4 LAN ports should easily cover my needs the main concern is the security. Is it possible to change the encryption to WPA2 without buying another brand new router?

Materials purchased before forum discovery
XFX nforce 790i ULTRA (I figured 80 bucks if I mess it up no huge loss)
Kingwin Mach 1 600w ( I know i know probably way more than I need not much I can do about it now)
Geforce GTS 250 (bought this in anticipation of using as dedicated physx card eventually)
2X2 crucial PC3-8500 (Yeah I know now I could have done much better on RAM,next time)
Q6600
Tuniq 120
MAXTOR 60GB Diamond max plus 9 (figuring on making this external HD)
MAXTOR 300GB Diamond max 10
Zyxel Prestige 964

Plenty of time to let the snickers and laffing die out before replying since atm I only have my old HDDs ,cpu, and ram
Many thanks in advance for anyone willing to deal with this mammoth chore

 

I'll leave everyone else to help you with the build but I think I can answer a few of your questions to some satisfaction. Forgive me if I jump around a bit.

Most people in this forum will give you crap for getting an Nvidia based board. Most of them run hot and are very unreliable. A lot of builders avoid them like the plague. The best brands are mostly MSI, Gigabyte, DFI, Biostar, sometimes ASUS. The best chipsets to look for are real Intel or AMD chipsets. Third parties like Nvidia don't usually make very good boards. For example, my Intel board with a Q6600 on it uses an Intel X38 chipset. My AMD board with my Phenom II on it uses an AMD 790FX chipset. The brands are Gigabyte and DFI respectively.

If you are a new builder Gigabyte is easily your very best choice. They are simple, well laid out, durable, and well featured for the price. I know several others will agree with me here.

Normally I would say this is a bad buy because the Q6600 is a bit dated now. It's already a generation behind. But for $120 it was a decent purchase and is still a good performing Quad. Just not if you had bought it new As far as buying used goes CPUs are one of the only things almost guaranteed safe. They are heavily tested in the factory and I personally have never seen a dead CPU, used or new.

One buy you won't regret. The Tuniq 120 is a fantastic cooler. I use two myself

As far as your Xbox goes there is a cheap fix you can do yourself that will usually fix the RROD permanently. If you don't mind voiding your warranty, give this a shot,

http://www.llamma.com/xbox360/repair/ring_of_light_x-clamp_fix.htm

Worked wonders on mine. Been playing it regularly for months since I fixed it with zero issues.

The number one key to a quiet PC is a quiet case. I can recommend the Cooler Master RC690 here. It is a modern case with good construction quality, good cooling, and pretty low noise. Not to mention it's reasonably priced.

Liquid setups are MUCH better at cooling than any air setup. The hitch is that to do it right you need to select all the components and build it yourself. To do this properly requires a lot of study and planning and it can get pretty expensive. Think $150+ just for your cooling. Never buy the "Liquid cooling in a box" setups. They are usually of cheap quality and will have cooling issues and leaks. Even a proper liquid setup will spring a few leaks before you work out the bugs. Not dangerous because the liquid is usually non-conductive but it is a mess and a hassle.

There are a few "all-in-one" setups like the CoolIt ECO 120 and the Corsair H50 which are better than most air coolers and reasonably priced. There's no reason not to get one. They're just fairly new and nobody's really gotten one yet. Theonejrs got the CoolIt ECO 120 and has had great results with it. If you want to know more about cooling and fans, he's the one you need to talk to

Good luck with that. Crysis is unreasonably demanding. It took two(count 'em 2) $300 video cards before I could play it properly with the settings cranked. And even then most other games run triple the speed.

At $80 that was a reasonable purchase but I'd still advise against using it if you can help it. If it's all you have for now I'm sure it will work fine but Nvidia chipsets are famous for overheating and burning up even with good cooling not to mention various disk controller problems and failed PCI-Express slots.

This is basically the worst purchase you have ever made in your entire life. I doubt that PSU could put out 300W let alone the rated 600W. That thing is a house fire waiting to happen. I would shoot someone if they hooked any of my PCs up to it because when it blows it IS GOING TO TAKE PARTS WITH IT!!! Heed my warning here. This isn't a mild precaution or just my own opinion on the brand. Poor quality PSUs kill systems every day. And Kingwin has one of the highest failure rates in the business. They're what we would call a throw-away PSU.

Good PSU brands are Corsair, Cooler Master, Zalman, PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic, Antec. Most PSUs from those guys are guaranteed top-notch and if one from any of those brands dies it will go quietly without taking HDDs and your board with it. You've been fairly warned.

This is fine. Crucial is a decent brand and 4GB is more than enough for most systems. Consider this, I'm using a higher end gaming PC and I still use 4GB of RAM. As are people with even faster PCs than mine.

Haha don't worry about. That's is exactly why this forum is here. Everyone starts somewhere and it's no shame to be a noob as long as you are willing to learn and take advice. Hope I helped enlighten you a bit

Also, just for the record, PhysX is basically useless and very few games support it. And the ones that do will usually take a performance hit even if you use a dedicated card. The issue with planning for PhysX and Nvidia cards is that Ati cards won't work with a PhysX card.

Nvidia has basically failed terribly this generation and their cards are overpriced, run hot, die prematurely, suck power, and don't perform near as well as their cost would suggest. An Ati card will be cheaper, better built, run cooler, and more often than not perform better in most games. Again, this is not opinion, this is fact. I use an Nvidia card myself but it's from a previous generation. Your GTS250 is basically the same card as mine(8800GTS 512MB). The GTX400 series is the one that failed hard and the one you would be buying if you went for an Nvidia card today.

On the converse, for my main gaming rig I am using two HD5850s(Atis current mid-high end card). If you want to play Crysis cranked you are looking at at least 1 of these cards. You might even need more video power depending on your resolution.

 

Thanks hmm thats odd where did the rest of my reply go I am also new to using forums
I still live in the 19th century
Where was I oh yes thanks for the prompt helpfull replies and aye I look forward to learning something new. It keeps life interesting that way
As for the damn RROD next time it breaks I'll ponder the decision of voiding the warrenty
I wish I could go back in time and just buy a durn ps3 for twice as much oh well
So tonight I'll be looking into return policys hopefully they will be merciful. My luck I had to pick such a lousy PSU. Will keep the CPU/cooler and RAM and try returning the few other things on order

Luckily for me Tigerdirect after calling them says that if I refuse the package tomorrow then I will only be charged for the shipping and handling so I will only be out 9 bucks
So my current hardware then would be just the q6600 and 4 gigs of ram with the tuniq cooler in the mail
I forgot to put in my monitor(2 years ago christmas present) 22" sceptre Tiny compared to the beasts that are discussed but its at least a flat screen and better than the monitor I had before

 

Not a problem. Don't be offended by anything I say. You came here for straight answers and I gave you simply that. Better to learn from others' experience than learn the hard way ;P

 

Helpfull constructive comments will never be taking in offense its the nonsense 12 yr old junk that irritates me which is why most games I play are either co op or solo

 

Someone say gaming rig? LOL


http://www.cracked.com/article_18571_5-reasons-its-still-not-cool-to-admit-youre-gamer.html

 

3kJodo, I think Estuansis covered just about everything but I'll toss my 2 cents anyway.

To be perfectly honest water cooling is probably something you don't need at this point as it doesn't make a lot of sense to spend a lot of money cooling old/low end hardware unless you're only goal is quiet. If you're interested in it the liquid cooling section on XtremeSystems.com is a very good place to start learning (reading).

Before you keep that ram, the stuff you listed (PC3) won't be compatible with your new system. You need PC2 (DDR2) not PC3 (DDR3).

I would also suggest WD hdd's instead of Maxtor but that could just be me, I'm not familiar with Maxtor.

 

Yeah I may seem a bit biased but I like to think it's for the right reasons. PCs aren't something you can just slap together. They take planning and I only try to recommend what makes sense. It still doesn't have to be ultra expensive to build a good PC. The Q6600 is a well proven performer and a good core for a new build. And for now, you have good RAM, a great cooler, and a pretty decent video card. If the motherboard actually stays working I suppose it would be good as well.

Next I would recommend you get a good PSU. A quality PSU is absolutely crucial to the entire system. It affects everything from stability to temperatures. Not only that, but a lesser PSU will have less protections against damaging itself or your system, if any at all.

This is a high quality PSU. It will easily power a high end system with guaranteed performance and safety.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004

This is a fairly quiet, good quality computer case. It will cool your components very well too.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119137&cm_re=RC690-_-11-119-137-_-Product

Even with just those you already have a very decent computer capable of playing Crysis with some decent settings. With some overclocking and a better video card you can easily play Crysis cranked.

 

I was quite entertained with this author's article thanks fer tossing it up here.
I wonder what he would say about the game I've sunk the most of my free time in which
is a purely text game. If anyone used to read the choose your own adventures and care to play a large mud 3kingdoms has kept my attention for uh dang 14 years now

 

ill vouch for asus being up there with the best mobo makers, but i am basically a fanboy of their mobos, which is ironic becuase i chose a DFI mobo over their brand for uATX... though i regret it as IMO the asus bios is number 1 in my book. i hate how you cant select the acutal votlage but only go up in increments, but that might just be this one.

otherwise, everything else jeff said was perfect

PS ATI for gaming right now is the ONLY way to go. and yes please update the PSU, firstly if you get a better case the cables will be tiny, and corsair once agian is the way to go IMO.

i have a corsair H50 cooler, and it works superb. i can vouch for it.

 

Unless something goes cattywompass tomorrow the MOBO graphics card and PSU will all go back.
The Maxtor was what was in my first computer and my main goal with that will be to retrieve the data and possibly use it as extra storage and at worst bring the pc to life at least temporarily untill a bigger better HDD is installed
I thought the 790sli ultra took ddr3 chips not that it will matter since its going back
frankly I've looked at so many bloody computer parts in the last 2 months its a purple haze. As for the liquid cooling thats more out of curiosity than implementation and I will definately check out that site if only for learning purposes. I just hope a kernel or two sticks in the ole noggin. I seriously need to start taking notes

 

maxotor drives for a while now are rebranded seagates, but if you are just using an old one, then no worries. i would recommend a new sata drive aswell, as i assume your ones are IDE?

 

you are correct sir! and if you would have asked me that question 6 months ago I would have stared at you blankly

 

At this point I wonder if it would be better to eat the CPU cost and since I'm basically starting all over go with a mobo that will take an i5 750 I think thats what I have been reading about. I think I'm up to march posts and there seems to be alot of discussion over i7 vs i5 or go the amd route and try that. At some point take the q6600 plop it onto build number 2 and make that a htpc(term learned from here I feel all hip and stuff)

 

I wouldn't necessarily dump the Q6600 if you don't feel like spending big bucks. It's still a pretty fast CPU and for the price you got a good deal so I'd say use it. Video cards are more important for gaming performance as well, so unless you do something that absolutely needs a monster CPU, the full upgrade to i5 or i7 isn't needed.

Also yeah then you are fine as far as monitors go. I only use a 24"

 

Shaff,
Not playing fan boy here, I can assure you, but I would love to see some screen shots of the H50 in action. I know what my Coolit ECO can do and I've posted a lot of results of my testing on this thread. Bigwill bought one and his results pretty much mirror my own. Rick's results are basically off the charts. His CPU idle temps of 91-92C dropped 44-45C, to 47C. Granted, this is in an antiquated case, that has very poor airflow, but his results are eye-popping to sat the least. I know they are not Shopped, because Rick couldn't be bothered, wasting the time, because he could care less. He doesn't overclock, and he thinks stress testing is a waste of time!

One of the reasons I bought the Coolit was how much the ECO improved when the stock fan was swapped for a Yate Loon fan, in the FrozenCPU tests. Now that I know the cfm of the stock fan is 63 cfm, I'm even more curious.

So far the combination of the Scythe 68 cfm, 1200 rpm fan on the rear, pulling air out of the radiator, and the stock 63 cfm, 1800 rpm fan, moved to the front pushing air in, is better than any other combination I've tried to date. The one thing I can't explain is that after I was done swapping the front fan for a 53 cfm Silverstone and that one for an unknown cfm Cooler Master that came with my case, and then reinstalling the stock 63 cfm fan, it now runs much quieter. I haven't got a clue as to why!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

Sceptre makes some pretty good monitors. I have a 20.1" Naga III X20, and it's so good that after lasting through 4 years of hard use, I had it rebuilt for $100 as opposed to buying a new one. They replaced everything but the front and rear covers The big problem with almost all 22" LCD monitors is the 1680x1050 resolution. They are the same 1680x1050 resolution as my X20, so it's never quite as sharp, because the pixels are spaced farther apart because of the increased size of the screen.

Best Regards,
Russ

 

This is why I like Rick... his attitude mirrors mine at times... just gimme something that works correctly and is stable and get the heck out of the way!!! LOL.

ADD:

I think that Gigabyte is a viable mobo for your uses 3kJodo. Simple and good all in one package. As Jeff said NOTHING wrong with the Q6600, just get a good mobo and some good RAM to go along with it. IF wanting to play some games the VIDEO card is MORE important than the CPU if you ask me. BUT Sammy and the yungins here are a better resource for that debate.

OH.. and the psu Jeff linked to is dang good. You can get more power if you want to but it'll run just about any combination of cpu, video card, and other components you can think of!! I have one and it's brilliant!!!

GOOD LUCK to you!!