 Advice, Recommendations For A Noob, here's my parts list |
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 Oct 1 2008, 04:01 PM
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Member  Group: Members Posts: 31 Joined: 1-October 08 Member No.: 242,653  |
i've never built one before, any advice good forums etc i should be reading? Any components below i shoudl avoid or change? if so...what do you recommend and why? thanks! NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard 4GB Kingston Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 x 1024MB - not sure about kingston, might go with Dane-Elec or Crucial Single 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 (graphics proc) 1000 Watt Power supply- no idea who makes these or what is good/bad about diff ones????i High-Performance Liquid Cooling - again, who makes this, what should i get???? Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 3.0GHz 8MB Cache 1333MHz FSB 1TB SATA 3Gb/s 7,200RPM 32MB Cache Killer K1 Gaming Network Interface Card High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio - probably soundblaster, just cuz i know the name? 22" Samsung 2253BW – 1680 x 1050 (2ms) Widescreen Flat Panel Chiefmax SILVER STEEL 10BAY MID TOWER QUIET ATX CASE |
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Oct 1 2008, 05:35 PM
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 Distinguished Member Group: BC Advisor Posts: 929 Joined: 24-June 06 From: Pace University - New York City Campus Member No.: 73,266 |
Building a new PC can be a confusing and exciting experience. Kingston makes very good memory, you can use them or Crucial or Corsair. Given the cheap price of memory, go for as much RAM as your motherboard will support, that would be 8 GB. For a good power supply, I suggest getting one from either Corsair or Silverstone. Your processor is rediculously expensive and a bit old, you can save yourself some money and get a newer processor by getting a Q9550. It's about $700 cheaper and only slightly slower than the one you chose. I also suggest, a newer motherboard than a 680i. A 780i would go well with that. Water cooling is great if you do some extreme overclocking, otherwise stick with air cooling. There's also a greater chance for something to go wrong with water cooling. A good aftermarket CPU cooler would do better than the one you get with the processor but not as well as water cooling, a good middle ground. I hear the ZALMAN CNPS9500 is a great aftermarket CPU cooler. Also, unless you play a ton of online games I don't suggest a Killer NIC card, the benefits are minor compared to the cost. Same thing is true for the audio, you have it on-board so you don't need a card. If you make music or simply want a good soundcard, the Asus Xonar line is considered top-notch. Finally, I recommend getting a full ATX tower case. Some graphics cards will not fit into a mid tower and a full ATX tower is usually easier to work in and cool. The Thermaltake Armor Series VA8000BWS, gets high marks.
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Oct 1 2008, 09:55 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 31 Joined: 1-October 08 Member No.: 242,653 |
wow, ok, glad i posted now...thanks for the heads up.
q9550 will save me some serious dough, which is appreciated, and i also appreciate the heads up on the motherboard. Air cooling...cpu cooler....what do you recommend.... honestly i thought these things cooled themselves until someone else told me i shoudl get that 'high perf liquid cooler' thing..... i'm a noob remember? so i'll buy the zalman you mentioned. as far as audio...you're saying i don't need to buy a sound card at all? where do i plug in my mic and speakers?! i don't do much online gaming..... i used to be a killer at Halflife TFC and CounterStrike.... but being in the army and fighting 2 wars in SE Asia keeps me busy enough these days, so i think i'll also pass on the NIC i was going to get.... but i'll still need something...any thoughts, or just go to pricewatch.com and buy the cheapest NIC i can find....what will fit the 780 motherboard you mentioned? I'll take the money i'll save on the cpu and spend it on another 4gb of ram i guess. Wow... just realized that i haven't thought about USB or Optical drives at all....how will i load software..... any recommendations here.... i don't even know what USB ports are connected to on the inside.... but i'd like quite a few of them, maybe 6 in the back, 2 in the front. keyboard, mouse, printer, 2 external drives, thats 5 in the back.... plus in the front for charging my iphone and whatever else comes by. I'm clueless when it comes to this..... so can someone give me ideas on solviing these two issues? Provided i put it together correctly and can get it running....this'll be a decent computer i think! I'll need more help and input i'm sure...keep it coming! This post has been edited by Schoelman: Oct 1 2008, 10:05 PM |
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Oct 1 2008, 11:46 PM
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#4
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 SPAM Magnet Group: Global Moderator Posts: 13,894 Joined: 6-May 04 From: SW Louisiana Member No.: 363 |
QUOTE as far as audio...you're saying i don't need to buy a sound card at all? where do i plug in my mic and speakers?! QUOTE just realized that i haven't thought about USB With the recommended mobo, you have onboard sound(7.1 channel), with the jacks(6) located on the back of the computer.Most cases will also have front audio jacks(mic/headphones). The one recommended does, along with 2 USB ports. The mobo has 6 external(on back of computer) USB ports, and 4 onboard(internal). Any of the optical drives here, should suit your needs. I use LG, and Samsung, and haven't had any problems with them. A couple of other good brands are Lite-On, and Asus. -------------------- I love being married.
It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy, for the rest of your life. |
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Oct 2 2008, 02:24 PM
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#5
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Distinguished Member Group: BC Advisor Posts: 929 Joined: 24-June 06 From: Pace University - New York City Campus Member No.: 73,266 |
Most high-end motherboards have on-board audio, you do not need a separate card unless you want more audio options or higher quality audio. The 780i comes with a NIC built in, you don't need a NIC card. I have a 780i motherboard and it is very full featured. I assume you will be using Vista on this new PC. If you get 4 GB or more of RAM, you will need 64-bit Windows. There are several ways to cool a CPU, the Zalman cooler I mentioned uses a fan to cool the chip and heatsink. This is air cooling.
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Oct 15 2008, 03:14 PM
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#6
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Member Group: Members Posts: 31 Joined: 1-October 08 Member No.: 242,653 |
64 bit windows.... ok, do i have to go with vista? should i go with vista?
xp is what i'm familiar with.... is there a 64 bit version of win xp? Also, can someone answer some CPU questions for me? What is teh difference in CPU's? what is better? ie: should i go with a 3Ghz over a 2.8? or is quad core/dual core etc better? It used to be easy.... a 486 was better than a 386 which was better than a 286....lol Also... when it comes to ram.... some explanations.... i can buy 1 gb sticks, or 2gb sticks, or i guess a 4gb stick..... which is better....what're the differences? nothing real technical needed, just a 'this is better cuz it does 'x' faster etc....' thanks |
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Oct 15 2008, 03:53 PM
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#7
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Member Group: Members Posts: 31 Joined: 1-October 08 Member No.: 242,653 |
also, to save some loot, i'm thinking i might go with AMD? would i need a different motherboard if i get an AMD CPU? and i'd need recommendations.... something fast and 'futureproof'.
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Oct 15 2008, 05:46 PM
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 Forum Regular Group: HJT Sophomore Classmen Posts: 340 Joined: 6-August 08 From: Canada Member No.: 228,067 |
There is a 64-bit version of XP...I think it's still supported by Microsoft, unlike the 32-bit.
Remember that not all programs and drivers work with the 64-bit operating systems. There are programs and drivers specially designed for the 64-bit systems. I think most computers today just use 32-bit, the 64-bit ones are mostly used by professionals. -------------------- My Defence System:
Avira AntiVir Personal - Free Edition, Comodo Firewall and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware |
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Oct 15 2008, 06:55 PM
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#9
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 Forum Addict Group: BC Advisor Posts: 1,206 Joined: 28-September 06 From: New York Member No.: 87,553 |
I would go with 64-bit Vista over XP. 64-bit XP had stability issues. Anyway, they have come out with 64-bit drivers for most thing's now. I'm running 64-bit Windows Vista on my computer, and besides a few minor thing's, I'm glad I chose it over regular 32-bit! My only problem was I had a cheap old printer, and it didn't work on 64-bit. You may want to check if you have any important peripherals, such as printers, external drives, cameras, etc., that don't have 64-bit driver's.
Sometimes just reading benchmarks is the easiest way to tell you what processor is better than another. I really like the ones on tomshardware.com http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/desktop...chmarks,31.html. It compares a lot of processors doing many different tasks. Now for ram, you should proably get 2gb sticks. This is because most motherboard usually only have 2 or 4 slots for ram. If you buy four 1gb sticks, and later want to upgrade, you'll have to remove some, if not all the sticks and put bigger sticks in. Now if you put two 2gb sticks so you have a total of 4gb, then in the future, you don't have to remove any sticks and spend more money. This post has been edited by Sterling14: Oct 15 2008, 07:00 PM --------------------  |
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Oct 15 2008, 06:57 PM
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#10
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Distinguished Member Group: BC Advisor Posts: 929 Joined: 24-June 06 From: Pace University - New York City Campus Member No.: 73,266 |
Don't go for 64-bit XP, get 64-bit Vista as it has a more mature, compatible, and stable implementation of 64-bit technology. 64-bit is becoming more popular these days with many games and applications supporting it, very few programs will not work with 64-bit and those will not are often less well known programs. Almost all major commercial software works with Vista 64-bit. Also, 32-bit programs will usually run normally on a 64-bit system since Windows tricks the program (or emulates) into thinking that it is on a 32-bit OS. The main reason for choosing 64-bit is that you can have several times the amount of RAM in the PC than 32-bit allows. In a 32-bit operating system, you can use up to 4 GB of RAM whereas in a 64-bit one, you can have over 100 GB of RAM. Another reason for 64-bit is that it allows for certain 64-bit exclusive instruction sets resulting in increased performance from applications that support it. The difference between the two processors I suggested is largely price and the technology used. The Q9550 is a newer type of processor that uses 45 nanometer technology resulting in a more efficient processor over the 3 GHz. model. You should go for a quad core machine these days, newer programs and Vista is able to manage all the cores rather well giving you an increase in system performance. In the RAM department, the type of sticks determine how much RAM you have in your PC. Most PC's allow for four sticks, if you were to have four 1 GB sticks, you would have 4 GB of memory. If you go with the motherboard I suggested, you can have up to 8 GB of RAM in it, that would mean you would need four 2 GB sticks of RAM to get that much memory. If you get an AMD processor, you will need an AMD motherboard. Right now, most of Intel's Core 2 offerings are more advanced and in some cases outperform AMD's processors. However, AMD's processors work just fine in many situations and are a less expensive alternative to Intel.
This post has been edited by DJBPace07: Oct 15 2008, 06:57 PM -------------------- |
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Oct 18 2008, 12:15 PM
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#11
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Member Group: Members Posts: 31 Joined: 1-October 08 Member No.: 242,653 |
ok, thanks for the replies....
what i'm hearing is this.... stick with intel products... go with 8gb ram via 4x 2gb sticks (its the most my mobo can handle) and go with vista 64bit. |
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Oct 18 2008, 02:49 PM
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#12
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Forum Addict Group: BC Advisor Posts: 1,206 Joined: 28-September 06 From: New York Member No.: 87,553 |
Yes that sounds good. For Intel, you may want to go with one of the quad-core processors that starts with a Q9, for example, Q9300, Q9400, Q9550, etc.
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Oct 19 2008, 10:46 AM
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#13
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Member Group: Members Posts: 31 Joined: 1-October 08 Member No.: 242,653 |
thanks, someone above recommended the q9550, so i think thats what i'll go with. I leave for iraq in a few days, and i'm anxious to get started with the build.... i was thinking of using pricewatch.com for all the components, etc.... but most people on here i've noticed use Newegg, why is that? the prices on pricewatch are sometimes a LOT better.
Unrelated question..... here at my house i have a dlink dir 615 wireless router, hardwired into my desktop, and i'm trying to make the signal reach my Wii..... any ideas on how i can make it reach? Its in another building on my property...and using my iphone to find out where my signal stops (from the house) i'm finding that i'm short by about 10 feet....maybe less. |
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Oct 19 2008, 10:53 AM
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#14
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SPAM Magnet Group: Global Moderator Posts: 13,894 Joined: 6-May 04 From: SW Louisiana Member No.: 363 |
QUOTE but most people on here i've noticed use Newegg, why is that? the prices on pricewatch are sometimes a LOT better. Because NewEgg has, what I consider to be, the best customer service on the internet.They ship fast, and if there's a problem, they're quick to rectify it. -------------------- I love being married.
It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy, for the rest of your life. |
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Oct 19 2008, 11:34 AM
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#15
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Forum Addict Group: Members Posts: 6,842 Joined: 3-September 05 From: Killeen, TX Member No.: 33,068 |
I use Pricewatch, Newegg, and Tiger Direct...primarily.
Each has plusses and minuses (when compared to the other two) but I find that Newegg typically provides free or reasonable shipping and seems to maintain a more current inventory. TD is more likely to have components which are not "today's news". Pricewatch can offer same components, sometimes cheaper...but vendors are not mainstream. PW has a greater selection of everything available than the other two but the prospective buyer has to work a little more to compare prices, shipping, etc. Louis I also think forum members get a Newegg discount, but I may be confusing that with another forum I frequent (I never bother with the discounts). This post has been edited by hamluis: Oct 19 2008, 11:36 AM |
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