The Official PC building thread!

Thanks aabbccdd,

Any reason why you recommend another mobo, and the SLI Premium in particular? I've seen a lot of talk about this one on the boards so it seems to be very popular. But i'm not convinced that it's worth the cost difference for my needs...I guess that's probably because I honestly don't really understand the difference.

I guess I should take some quality time and do my own research, but if you could provide some insight that would be great too.

Thank you.

 

the mobo has lot more options when it comes to OC(ing)tweaking etc. and if you upgrade your CPU ram etc. in the furture this board is a good match .iam sure sammorris cam explain it better lol

 

Thanks for the attempt. I don't overclock. Never tried it. Never wanted to risk breaking my CPU or something and never really saw the benefit in learning how to do it and actually doing it. I'm not that hardcore into gaming.

I think the mobo I stated may suit me fine. But like you said, the Premium would be good for RAM upgradeability if nothing else. The mobo I picked only accepts two 1 GB sticks of the DDR400 PC3700. So you can't really upgrade beyond 2 GB even though it says it can have 4 GB.

That said...2 GB realistically would probably be more than enough for me for the next few years AT LEAST. I'll give the Premium some consideration though when I put together how much this baby is gonna cost me all together.

 

Need some RAM help...

Can someone please explain to me the difference between this...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145575

and this....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145486

The only difference I noticed were in Voltage, "Timing", and "Cas Latency". Does anyone know what Timing and Cas Latency means?

Thanks everyone.

 

I dono a lot about memory, but i know that cas latency, and voltage, and timings make your ram. what i mean is that the lower the voltage and the tighter timmings are going to give you the faster, most error free ram that you can have.. btw: when mobos say that they can handle ddr400 does that mean they can go above pc3200, as long as they dont hit ddr2 speeds?

and aabbccdd.. god.. if their was a woman of you beauty (sexyness) and had the smarts that u did, OMG... i think you would be split into about a million pieces... lol..

 

FIHSNERD, so "Adriana" does it for you huh lol shes def. "Perfect" enjoy the pics

 

To my knowledge the pro XMS is the low latency CAS2 stuff, needlessly expensive imo. The X800GTO is a significantly better card than the 6600 (in fact I think that 6600 is overpriced a bit) because it is clocked better, and will run more modern games a lot better. $40 doesn't seem a lot to spend getting the performance advantage it gives you. SLi is the use of two nVidia cards together to make one mildly faster setup. To be honest, it's not particularly good value as you never get a 100% performance boost from two cards, and you don't very often see it 50% better, either. The A8N-SLi premium is just a very very good board, it's not used because of its SLi functionality. To be fair though, unless you're a power user, the A8N5X is plenty good enough. 2GB of RAM is tonnes until Vista comes along, so I see no reason to go for more until then.
Timings/Latency basically means how long a stick of RAM takes to retrieve or write information. Although lots of RAM sticks run at the same speed, some are still faster than others. You want those timings to be as low as possible, but without getting a set that's too expensive!

 

DAMN...newegg raised their price on my ram...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145486

It's now 129 after rebate instead of 118. Hopefully it will drop again. I'll wait a little while for it and see if it does indeed drop.

I may hold off in building my PC until august anyway. I hear rumors that AMD prices may be slashed when the Intel Conroe processors come out (late July still?), so I"m thinking I might be able to get a great deal on the AMD X2 3800+ in August. Any thoughts on this?

 

Hi people. Im looking to get a new gfx card and need some sugestions.
Current Rig:

AMD Athlon 64 3400+
MSI 6741 mobo
1GB PC 2700 ram
AIW ATI 9800pro
2x WD 200GB Hdd

I also have a noob question aswell lol. I currently have a VIA Chipset, and am wondering if i can straight swap the 9800pro for an NVIDIA card like a 7800GT for example or do i need a new specific mobo? I also heard that NVIDIA and VIA chipset dont mix well, is that true?

I want the system mainly for gaming and video encoding/transcoding and general office work. But i still wannna play games like Olivion and FEAR at decent FPS with some nice looking gameplay. If i have to OC i will to play the games i want nicely. Oh and the budget is gonna be around £80 ~ $140

Over to you guys, and thanks in advance!!!

 

The single core prices have recently been cut almost in half, so maybe you are better off waiting.

As for the card in your current system, as long as its got a PCI express 16x, you can do what you like if your PSU's powerful enough. The 7800GT's a very hot and power-hungry card though, If you can't do a 7900GT, then an X1800GTO may be better...

Oh no! the RAM went up to $129! Shock horror! Still £135 here. Nah, I'll stop whining, it's just mad how cheap US RAM is.

 

Thanks sammorris, i'll look into the X1800GTO, but after all the tests i've seen with ATI VS NVIDIA, in the games i wanna play, NVIDIA comes out on top. Especially in FEAR. Its recommended using an NVIDIA card, "NVIDIA- The way its meant to be played", lol wat a slogan. But thx for the info. Any idea on how to check my PSU's power, except for opening?

Thx in advance again.

 

Hey its me again lol!

Can someone if its not too mcuh bother spec me out the chapest yet something that will not slow down my computer harddrive around the 80gb- 120gb.
oooo and please i need an IDE hdd for now.
Sorry sammoris your last list was for a 160Gb which somewhat limited it so i am not reposting!
Cheers lecsiy

 

Trust me, other than in Quake 4, "the way it's meant to be played" is just an advertisement. In some TWIMTBP games ATi cards even come out on top. You can't really check a PSU's power unless you take the side off the case, but it'll be printed on a big label so you need only look and then close the case again. Installing a GPU is a little more advanced then opening the case! (Even if it is only slotting something in and doing another screw up, didn't want to make it sound trickier than it is with that remark). Trust me, the X1800GTO is a plenty good enough buy. Lol imho "The Ultimate Visual Experience" is a better slogan.
Sorry lecsiy, but you did post:

So what was I supposed to get!!!
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/97632
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/97514 (yes 160GB, but the 120s are more expensive) the same is true for WDs
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/47653

 

Sorry sammoris your right i am a stubborn Bas**** lol!!!
Also can you answer me a few questions.
Whats the real benefits of using SATA over IDE.
Also is it just like IDE as you just plug the cable in or is it very much different?

 

It's similar except the cable's smaller, and the drives often require a S-ATA power connector. If the PSU doesn't provde this, you can buy adaptors. They come free with some mobos, including Asus ones. Some drives like the WD Caviars even have molex connectors on them for you to use.

 

Also i just want to say thanks to sammoris i got the X1800Gto and it really is an awesome card to any body considering it.
really really really awesome!

 

Cheers, glad you like it! That's good to hear because I'm looking at getting an X1900GT, which means that'll be even better. Thank YOU sah for the review.

 

s'ok glad to be a help to someone thats always helped me

 

I am wanting to build a new PC. I want to use the Intel Pentium D 805 for the processor, and I want to get a Geforce 7950GX2 for it as well. I would only want to overclock the processor up to around 3.5 ghz so what kind of cooler should I get for the processor. Is 1gb of ddr2 ram good enough for running most high end games or should I get more? What kind of motherboard can I get that is compatable with the processor and the video card I want? Around what kind of power supply wattage should I go for?