Building my first PC, need advice on components

Live forum: http://forum.freeipodguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=67183

justinag06

25-07-2007 11:43:59

Hey guys so I am about to pull the trigger and buy all the components to build my first PC.

Here is what I have so far

Seagate ATA 7200RPM 400GB HDD
NEC DVDRW
Lenovo Bluetooth wireless keyboard/mouse
BFG GeForce 7900 GS OC Video card
Have a buddy that is going to get me an Intel E660 CPU for 50% off.

So I still need RAM, a Case, a MB, a PSU, and whatever else I'm forgetting.

As soon as my check clears, unless advised otherwise I am probably going to buy 2 gigs of this RAM

HP DDR2-667 PC2-5300

only $14 a stick after rebates.

tylerc

25-07-2007 11:55:11

Get Western Digital for your HD, not Seagate.

justinag06

25-07-2007 12:03:32

The stuff I already own is what I'm using. Some of it was purchased over 1 year ago, and cannot be returned.

I just want to make sure everything I buy in the future is compatible and able to run with what I already have.

dmorris68

25-07-2007 12:46:22

If I were you, I'd wait on the RAM purchase until you've nailed down the motherboard. Different mobo's often prefer different brands and timings of RAM, especially if you're a tweaker who likes to squeeze out extra performance through overclocking or BIOS & RAM timing tweaks.

Daggoth

25-07-2007 13:03:14

Case - http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119068

Motherboard -
http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128012

PSU -
http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139001 or
[b56f16335aa]if you don't plan on upgrading/overclocking the computer[/b56f16335aa] http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151021

justinag06

25-07-2007 13:24:10

[quote037b06d52e="dmorris68"]If I were you, I'd wait on the RAM purchase until you've nailed down the motherboard. Different mobo's often prefer different brands and timings of RAM, especially if you're a tweaker who likes to squeeze out extra performance through overclocking or BIOS & RAM timing tweaks.[/quote037b06d52e]

damn, I already pulled the trigger on it. I forgot to mention I want to get this built by august 20th or so, so I kind of have a time constraint.

allen626 recommended this MB for me the other day.

http//www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=246710

I would say that is in my price range, the sales associates at Fry's were trying to push me a $250 asus MB.

What do you think of the intel e6600? I can get it for $120, or the e6700 for $165? I can actually grab any intel processor at 50% discount, those two seemed to be in my overall price range though.I want to have a computer that will be able to game and hold up nicely but, my overall price range is defiantly < $800. I initially set it at $500 but I am already exceeding that it seems .

manOFice

25-07-2007 13:35:42

[quote59037eb5e4="tylerc"]Get Western Digital for your HD, not Seagate.[/quote59037eb5e4]

Seagate > WD (although I have nothing against WD)

Daggoth

25-07-2007 13:44:27

It really depends on what you're looking for in a motherboard. For example, the motherboard that you mentioned is better at overclocking, but I highly doubt that you would need a specialized overclocking motherboard for $14 RAM sticks. Another benefit of the motherboard is that it has 2 PCI Express x16, which will allow you to run SLI. The thing with SLI though is that one video card > two not so good ones, so it usually only bought for people who want top-of-the-line SLI videocards. It is better for you to upgrade your one video card than add another one in most cases.

There is little difference between the E6600 and E6700. On the other hand, if you are able to get the new Q6600 (~$300 before your discount), then you will have four cores which will be better for the future.

dmorris68

25-07-2007 13:53:37

[quote9c1ec4ee90="manOFice"][quote9c1ec4ee90="tylerc"]Get Western Digital for your HD, not Seagate.[/quote9c1ec4ee90]

Seagate > WD (although I have nothing against WD)[/quote9c1ec4ee90]
Must...... resist.......

Please PLEASE let's not open that can of worms again. P

We already have another recent topic devoted to that discussion, so let's keep it over there. And I'm all typed out on the subject. ;)

justinag06

25-07-2007 14:06:39

[quote578dce1131="Daggoth"]It really depends on what you're looking for in a motherboard. For example, the motherboard that you mentioned is better at overclocking, but I highly doubt that you would need a specialized overclocking motherboard for $14 RAM sticks. Another benefit of the motherboard is that it has 2 PCI Express x16, which will allow you to run SLI. The thing with SLI though is that one video card > two not so good ones, so it usually only bought for people who want top-of-the-line SLI videocards. It is better for you to upgrade your one video card than add another one in most cases.

There is little difference between the E6600 and E6700. On the other hand, if you are able to get the new Q6600 (~$300 before your discount), then you will have four cores which will be better for the future.[/quote578dce1131]
thanks

+kma

I canceled the $14 memory sticks as they were $25 after tax and shipping and instead got this from newegg for only $23 more as the final price.

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804

q6600 I think was around $220 for me I think.

dmorris68

25-07-2007 14:08:00

Crucial Ballistix is excellent RAM and should work well in most any motherboard. I think that was a good move.

theysayjump

25-07-2007 16:10:55

Q6600 for $220? Damn that's a tight deal. Would you be able to get those for others (me) also or is it only because you know the guy/one time deal?

tml09

25-07-2007 18:10:11

^ they did a price drop on the q6600 and dual cores a few days ago. The lowest price on it is $280. It seems to be going higher and higher after the price drop

W4FWebmaster

25-07-2007 19:04:43

[quotea86014dbba="dmorris68"]If I were you, I'd wait on the RAM purchase until you've nailed down the motherboard. Different mobo's often prefer different brands and timings of RAM, especially if you're a tweaker who likes to squeeze out extra performance through overclocking or BIOS & RAM timing tweaks.[/quotea86014dbba]

Great suggestion dmorris made. You might also want to wait, and not buy that graphics card; especially if you're looking to run Vista. The 7900 does not support DirectX 10 which is a great improvement over 9. Wait some months if you can be patient. I'm sure ATI and NVidia are cooking up a new product line to support Dx10. nVidia already has the 8800 out but once the new line comes in, I'm sure prices will drop and they will hone the cards technology.

zdub08

25-07-2007 19:29:50

[quote23bdfdd87d="W4FWebmaster"][quote23bdfdd87d="dmorris68"]If I were you, I'd wait on the RAM purchase until you've nailed down the motherboard. Different mobo's often prefer different brands and timings of RAM, especially if you're a tweaker who likes to squeeze out extra performance through overclocking or BIOS & RAM timing tweaks.[/quote23bdfdd87d]

Great suggestion dmorris made. You might also want to wait, and not buy that graphics card; especially if you're looking to run Vista. The 7900 does not support DirectX 10 which is a great improvement over 9. Wait some months if you can be patient. I'm sure ATI and NVidia are cooking up a new product line to support Dx10. nVidia already has the 8800 out but once the new line comes in, I'm sure prices will drop and they will hone the cards technology.[/quote23bdfdd87d]
does anyone know when that new line is expected to come? the 8800 cards are so expensive cry

justinag06

25-07-2007 21:48:08

[quoted5f0fb7fd9="zdub08"][quoted5f0fb7fd9="W4FWebmaster"][quoted5f0fb7fd9="dmorris68"]If I were you, I'd wait on the RAM purchase until you've nailed down the motherboard. Different mobo's often prefer different brands and timings of RAM, especially if you're a tweaker who likes to squeeze out extra performance through overclocking or BIOS & RAM timing tweaks.[/quoted5f0fb7fd9]

Great suggestion dmorris made. You might also want to wait, and not buy that graphics card; especially if you're looking to run Vista. The 7900 does not support DirectX 10 which is a great improvement over 9. Wait some months if you can be patient. I'm sure ATI and NVidia are cooking up a new product line to support Dx10. nVidia already has the 8800 out but once the new line comes in, I'm sure prices will drop and they will hone the cards technology.[/quoted5f0fb7fd9]
does anyone know when that new line is expected to come? the 8800 cards are so expensive cry[/quoted5f0fb7fd9]

Yeah I would definatly say the limit for me on a video card is around $150. I may upgrade to something crazy like that in 1 year when I have a nice paying job and can afford to buy a $400 video card, but for the next year or so this one should service me nicely.

I just want to make sure my PC runs great now and is upgrade compatible when that day comes.

zdub08

25-07-2007 22:34:42

[quote4ac5a313d8="theysayjump"]Q6600 for $220? Damn that's a tight deal. Would you be able to get those for others (me) also or is it only because you know the guy/one time deal?[/quote4ac5a313d8]
I'm also curious P. I'd be willing to pay first and throw in a little extra.

Daggoth

25-07-2007 22:55:40

[quote0e98dc9873="justinag06"][quote0e98dc9873="Daggoth"]It really depends on what you're looking for in a motherboard. For example, the motherboard that you mentioned is better at overclocking, but I highly doubt that you would need a specialized overclocking motherboard for $14 RAM sticks. Another benefit of the motherboard is that it has 2 PCI Express x16, which will allow you to run SLI. The thing with SLI though is that one video card > two not so good ones, so it usually only bought for people who want top-of-the-line SLI videocards. It is better for you to upgrade your one video card than add another one in most cases.

There is little difference between the E6600 and E6700. On the other hand, if you are able to get the new Q6600 (~$300 before your discount), then you will have four cores which will be better for the future.[/quote0e98dc9873]
thanks

+kma

I canceled the $14 memory sticks as they were $25 after tax and shipping and instead got this from newegg for only $23 more as the final price.

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model BL2KIT12864AA804

q6600 I think was around $220 for me I think.[/quote0e98dc9873]

Like dmorris said, that is great RAM. If you plan to overclock, your bottleneck would be temperature, so if you want to max it out it would be a good idea to an aftermarket cpu cooler. On the other hand, you can just keep a low budget and it will still overclock it pretty well. Finally, I still recommend my motherboard for your needs.

Daggoth

25-07-2007 23:01:13

[quotecf42c99bc1="justinag06"][quotecf42c99bc1="zdub08"][quotecf42c99bc1="W4FWebmaster"][quotecf42c99bc1="dmorris68"]If I were you, I'd wait on the RAM purchase until you've nailed down the motherboard. Different mobo's often prefer different brands and timings of RAM, especially if you're a tweaker who likes to squeeze out extra performance through overclocking or BIOS & RAM timing tweaks.[/quotecf42c99bc1]

Great suggestion dmorris made. You might also want to wait, and not buy that graphics card; especially if you're looking to run Vista. The 7900 does not support DirectX 10 which is a great improvement over 9. Wait some months if you can be patient. I'm sure ATI and NVidia are cooking up a new product line to support Dx10. nVidia already has the 8800 out but once the new line comes in, I'm sure prices will drop and they will hone the cards technology.[/quotecf42c99bc1]
does anyone know when that new line is expected to come? the 8800 cards are so expensive cry[/quotecf42c99bc1]

Yeah I would definatly say the limit for me on a video card is around $150. I may upgrade to something crazy like that in 1 year when I have a nice paying job and can afford to buy a $400 video card, but for the next year or so this one should service me nicely.

I just want to make sure my PC runs great now and is upgrade compatible when that day comes.[/quotecf42c99bc1]

I don't know too much about the latest video cards, but here is a video card

http//www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150229

DX10, Highly-Reviewed, Less than $150

justinag06

26-07-2007 05:11:57

Yeah I spent some time looking at that guy vs. mine. The idea I got from the reviews was it doesn't outperform the BFG 7900GS in the majority of games released now, and if you think it will run DX10 at any speed that is playable you are only fooling yourself.

the BFG was the highest rated 7900GS on anandtech.com
[quote9a6e41f106]
To recap, we've seen the kind of impact on performance the different factory overclocks can make with these cards. The BFG 7900 GS OC and Leadtek PX7900 GS TDH Extreme in particular do much better than the reference clocked Albatron 7900 GS, with the BFG performing the best by a slight amount in all of the tests. After our Leadtek 7900 GS, The EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GS KO performed slightly better than the XFX 7900 GS Extreme, with the Albatron 7900 GS at the bottom in terms of performance. As we've mentioned already, the core clock speeds will usually have a more significant impact on performance than the memory clock speeds, which explains how the overclocked BFG 7900 GS performs so much better than the others without any overclock on the memory clock.
[/quote9a6e41f106]

[quote9a6e41f106="aandtech"]
The 8600 GT only beats the X1650 XT and the 7600 GT, which is not where we would like to see performance. As for the 8600 GTS, it leads the X1950 GT and 7900 GS, but this still means the 8600 GTS comes in last in its price class losing to the X1950 Pro, 7950 GT, and X1900 XT 256MB.[/quote9a6e41f106]

[quote9a6e41f106]NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 GTS and GT simply do not perform any better than similarly priced hardware from AMD. GeForce 7 Series hardware priced at $150 and $200 also performs similarly to G84 based parts, outperforming the newcomer in some games and tying or trailing in others. Certainly NVIDIA can determine the value of their hardware as they see fit, and they have a good argument for pricing the 8600 series. Other hardware at the $150 and $200 price points perform similarly, so their new hardware is mostly worth the price.[/quote9a6e41f106]

Daggoth

26-07-2007 14:26:04

Yes, you are right. I personally own a 7900GS and am satisfied with it.

justinag06

31-07-2007 22:51:09

update.

bought
Seagate ATA 7200RPM 400GB HDD
NEC DVDRW
Lenovo Bluetooth wireless keyboard/mouse
BFG GeForce 7900 GS OC Video card
Case Antex P180
ram 2 X1 gb 800mhz DDR2 RAM

planning on buying
Mobo evga 680i http//www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=246714
cpu intel core duo e6700


seriously considering trading in vid card for the 320MB 8800 GTS, or the XFX 8600 GT now after some thought. I do plan on overclocking. Looks like I'll want about a 600W PSUS. Someone want to recommend a good fit for me there?

also what do I want to do about cooling issues. My case has 3 120MM fans, and room for 1 more I believe.

Daggoth

31-07-2007 22:58:19

Not sure if you even looked at my first post, but it would be a good idea to follow those suggestions.

Q6600 > E6700
Gigabyte 965P DS3 > evga 680i
PSU - Corsair 520W should be fine.

Cooling Unless you are overclocking ALOT, you shouldn't have too much of a problem with three fans.

justinag06

01-08-2007 08:16:50

hmm I did I was leaning towards the 680i because it has 2 X16 PCI express cards in case I ever want to do SLI I don't have to sacrifice or run out and buy a new board.

i shall research more.

as far as the Q6600 goes, its just out of my pricerange. Where as it costs you only $300 my friends discount through intel is only $270. Where I can get the E6700 for only $150. I was going to get the E6600, but they are sold out at the moment.

justinag06

08-08-2007 22:39:04

final build

intel e6750
Gig P65 GS3 chipset
2 gb ballistix ram
corsair 520W PSUS
xfx 8600 GT
4000 PATA HDD(

I ended up finding a nice article on anandtech that seemed to agree with daggoth so I took his, and their advice after reading some good reviews on the gigabyte chipset.

now I just need to pick an O/S. I can purchase either XP professional 32/64 bit versions or Vista Business 32/64 bit versions.

I was reading what you said earlier on the 64 bit vs 32 bit systems dmorris and was wondering you recommend for a desktop like mine.

also do you use any sort of ground to wrist attachment, or special work station when assembling your PC's so as not to cause any electrostatic damage?

zdub08

09-08-2007 00:12:11

I've never tried vista, but I think there is a danger of some applications/drivers not working (or even existing?) with a 64 bit OS. dmorris?

those wrist attachments aren't really necessary. just tap something metal to ground yourself.

Daggoth

09-08-2007 00:32:32

64 bit Vista allows you to use more than 2GB of RAM, but right now some of the drivers are still sketchy.

32 bit Vista allows up to 2GB of RAM and is doing fairly well on the drivers.

Unless you need some specific features, I recommend going with Vista Home Premium if you decide to go Vista.

I don't have the experience of dmorris, but when I built PCs, I didn't use any type of wrist strap, except not to build it on carpet, and it worked just fine. If you want to be on the safe side, you can buy $5 wrist strap at your nearby Fry's Electronics or whatever.

dmorris68

09-08-2007 06:08:50

I never use grounding straps either (although I bought one) but I'm always careful. What I and many techs recommend is to install the PSU first (if installing a new one) and plug it in to a grounded wall outlet. [bb6b22891c3]Make sure the switch on the back of the PSU is lioffli before hooking up anything.[/bb6b22891c3] This grounds the PSU & case chassis and serves as your ground. As long as you touch the metal case chassis before touching sensitive components, you'll be safely discharged. As you work inside the case you will constantly be touching the chassis and re-grounding yourself to guard against any static build-up. I've been building PC's this way for years and thus far (jinx!) have never fried anything.

Just be certain that your PSU is powered off by the switch on the back before installing RAM, cards, drives, etc. Unlike the old AT PSU's, ATX models send power to the motherboard constantly, even when the system is "off" via the front panel switch. If you don't power off the PSU itself from the back, you risk shorting out and frying something during install. This is one of the most common mistakes people make when working inside ATX PC's.