The Official PC building thread!

My room becomes unbearable during the summer (A/C) when my PC's on, and funily enough not when it isn't on. it's basically a fan heater. I use a Hiper 480W PSU, and it's pretty well loaded so I must use quite a lot of juice, and therefore put out a lot of heat.

How exactly would you draw 1KW?

 

I was looking at the AMD 4000+ and noticed that its proformance varied depending on the motherboard. How do you find the correct motherboard? I am also looking for a PSU that provides good power and cooling without being really loud, any recomendations?

Thanks

 

eparker89 ,this would be your top choice for a mobo (ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe Socket 939) a good mobo to OC with and tweaking ,check newegg.com .the Asus and True Power are very good power supplies

 

___aabbccdd___you asked about prices and newegg has a weekend sale going on Windows Media Center OEM for $110 and thats the cheapest I found after much searching for a legit copy. I looked at upgrades but thats for different OS than XP and nearly the same price.
I shouldnt have to wait long to put that Opteron in!!!

 

Unless you're a dedicated fan of SLi, you may be better saving a few dollars and going for an A8N-SLi Premium instead. Cheaper, puts out less heat, and still much the same. I'd say Hiper Type R, Enermax Liberty and Seasonic S12 are the better PSUs out there, along with maybe Antec TruePower and of course Turbocool.

 

great Deadrum33 newegg comes though again there hard to beat

 

What is the advantage of having a North and South bridge?

Thanks

 

hi guys,
I have this really old school Gateway computer that I wanna get rid of and maybe build my own comp (first time)... How much do you think I need to spend on building? I'll be using it for alot of downloading (i have a 250GB HD), and mostly to play counterstrike, surf the web and do homework haha... I have a monitor, HD, dvdRW DL, DVDROM, 128MB vid card (ati 9600XT AGP)... what else? I'm thinking...:

CPU: I'm gonna try AMD for the first time and dont know how their speed ratings or anything... AMD A64 3200+ 939 ::: $99.99

MOBO: MSI RD480 Neo2-FI ::: $101.99

RAM: 2x 1GB PC3200 RAM :::64.99 each

Vid Card: ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 Edition 256MB DDR3 VIVO PCI
Express x16 Video Card ::: 129.99

Power supply: Ultra X-finity 500W ::: 29.99

Case: Xion II Silver ATX Mid-tower ::: 54.99

GRAND TOTAL: 546.93 plus shipping/handling/taxes

is there anything else I need? Any way to improve this setup without sacrificing too much $$$??? Will this setup be okay for online gaming? I hate lag!

thanks alot guyz!

 

i would go with a better CPU at least the 3700+ or the 4000+ if you can swing it and a better power supply Antec ,True Power. and probably better ram the CORSAIR XMS is really good stuff , sammorris is really good at piecing a system together

 

ok how about this:

RAM: Corsair TWINX Dual Channel 2048MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz Memory
(2 x 1024MB) ::: 138.99
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3500+ ::: 139.99
PSU: Antec truepower II 480W ::: 77.00

and my previous stuff (unchanged):

MOBO: MSI RD480 Neo2-FI ::: $101.99
Vid Card: ATI All-In-Wonder 2006 Edition 256MB DDR3 VIVO PCI
Express x16 Video Card ::: 129.99
Case: Xion II Silver ATX Mid-tower ::: 54.99

NEW GRAND TOTAL: 642.95 plus shipping/handling/taxes

I'm trying to spend as little money as possible so I think this is about as much I wanna change? Thanks for the advise tho, I did change my brand of PSU, and upped my CPU a little bit and changed my ram to corsair... I couldnt go with the 3700+ or higher cuz it was too expensive... Does anyone know if this setup will be successful as far as compatibility and all that??? Any other changes i should make in terms of MOBO, CPU, RAM, PSU etc without ridiculously upping the cost?

Thanks again!

 

redZoneOS , wait till sammorris post his really good at pricing out a nice system for what you want to spend. i dont think thats your best choice for a mobo Asus would be my pic

 

eparker89: All having a northbridge and a southbridge does is split some of the work from one chipset to another, but other than in the case of 32x SLi boards (where it's compulsary anyway) there isn't much load shed, on my board, the southbridge doesn't even have a heatsink.

redzoneOS: As far as performance/price goes, the 3500+ is the best one to go with. XMS RAM is great but will you be overclocking? I ask as XMS is premier performance memory, and for general usage, normal stuff will do
(not cheap unheard of brands like Elixir, they're bad, as soon as I exceed my page file limit, I experience double the slowdown I should with this RAM, and dumping after playing a big game takes forever, it shouldn't)
like Corsair Value Select or GelL Value. As long as you don't OC (and even if you do to an extent) you won't experience a performance hit from scaling back a notch. I assume you're definitely after the All-In-Wonder functionality? Because underneath that card's just an X800GT I think, it ain't fast. If you are set on that, that's fine, but if you can deal with just VIVO then http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814131297R is a good deal, cheaper too and almost twice as fast.

Other than that, you should be all good. I assume you already have a hard disk and optical drive?

aabbccdd: I'm flattered! Lol. considering I don't even come from the US.

 

Sammorris: I dont think I'll be overclocking because I dont even know how to LOL so I think the Corsair value ram will be plenty good for me... As far as the Vid card (all in wonder) do you think it will be better for me to buy the one u suggested (X850) and then buy a TV tuner separately? I didnt want to spend too much money but I guess if it makes a big difference, I might as well! Also aabbccdd says u're the master mechanic in here so I was also curious about the MOBO I selected... is it any good or do you have better recommendations for similar price range??

Thank you both so very much, I want to get started with my first build this weekend so I appreciate all your input!

 

oh btw sorry i forgot to mention, yes I already have a 250GB seagate HDD, 16X sony DVD-RW DL, 16X DVDROM, 19 inch monitor, floppy, etc. etc. so I think I'm all good there... I just need advise on the other stuff I selected... thanks again!

 

redzoneOS: As I thought, stick to Value Select and save a few. A separate TV tuner doesn't mean any better TV reception, but using that with an X850XT gets you far better game performance (up to 60% faster). You can get a good Leadtek TV Tuner for not much more than you save by going with the X850 instead of the AIW2006. Master mechanic lol, I started here as a very junior inquisitive young boy who was about to embark on his first custom build. I'd gladly do it again but I don't have the money to waste on bitty components that UK sellers mess me about with, I need the job done properly. Anyhoo, the RD480 Neo2 is a good mobo, but the best manufacturer of motherboards is Asus, in particular the A8N-SLi series, albeit somewhat expensive for the upper models. I would recommend the nVidia nForce 4 chipset over the ATi RD480, it's a bit faster, not that there's much difference. But in all honesty for value sake, I'd stick with that one. Sorry if that confuzzles you a bit.

 

@Praetor

I am building a new machine and noticed your Mobo, I too have a A8n32-sli deluxe... My PCU is a AMD 4200+ Dual-core and I am running dual XFX Geforce 6600 512 MB Ved cards. for memory I have just ordered 2 GIGs of Crusail XMS 400 unbuff. sticks- Hard drive is 320 WD. My qustion is what size Power supply should i use? I was thinking 600 W any brands and mod. you can sujest? not sure what optics either "Lightscrib for sure

 

PSU: Seasonic S12 or Enermax Liberty or Hiper Type-R (600,620,580).
Optical: NEC, LG GSA-4166 or Plextor.

 

Asus/True Power are good PS also

drives: Plextor ,Lite-On ,BenQ ,NEC and LG in that order iam a Plextor guy all the way!!