Building a Comp.

[Chambahs]

I was going to buy a prebuilt comp the other day, until i got !@#$%^&*ed at by everyone and their mother and was told to just build one. So here we go. Lemme know what you guys think about these parts. Right now its all i can spend on them without going over my budget.

 

Gfx: SAPPHIRE 100242L Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 - 180$ -- 150$ after MIR

Ram: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) - 60$

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - 60$

CPU: Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale - 160$

Mobo: ASUS P5K LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - 90$

PSU: Rosewill Stallion Series Single 12cm Ball Bearing Fan RD500-2-SB ATX V2.2 500W Power Supply - 48$

Monitor: Samsung 953BW 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor - 8000:1 (DC), 2ms (GTG), 1440 x 900, DVI - 188$ - 5% Off coupon...179$

Dvd-Rom: ASUS Black 18X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA - 20$

Case: Antec Three Hundred ATX Computer Case - 60$

 

And if you want to see the specs:

 

GFX: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814102747

 

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822148262

 

CPU: http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_...duct_id=0281097

 

Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...82E16813131180R

 

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817182076

 

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820134586

 

Monitor: http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=206900400

 

Dvd-Rom http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827135170

 

Case: http://www.buy.com/prod/antec-three-hundre.../207906549.html

 

Im debating on the gfx card, I dont think ill need that huge !@#$%^&* card. Hard drive, I dont need a bigger one, because i know you will all go "OMG GET MORE SPACE". 2gigs of ram is going to be fine since im going to be installing XP. And then I have to buy all the other little stuff...so yea, im at my budget. Any opinions on either 2 cheap cards that I can SLI, or one good one that isnt running me 200 bucks? Or anything else you guys see wrong? Lemme know.

Edited July 18, 2008 by Chambahs

[darkhosis]

I only have 72GB of space and I've never had any problems with it. Two old WD74 SATA raptor drives in raid. It's the only thing in Vista that doesn't get a 5.9 in that performance index, so I actually have two of the Velociraptors on order and it's supposed to be here tomorrow. Those cost $300/ea though. I care a lot more about performance than space, I've never had any issues with just the 72GB, if the Velociraptor came in a smaller size for cheaper I'd probably buy that instead. But I know lots of people like to keep tons of music and movies and crap on their hard drives. I also buy all my stuff off newegg cause they are so good on shipping & returns, so I end up paying more on some items..

 

For the hard drives, I'd consider looking into the WD5000AAKS, which is 500GB and only $20 more than the one you're getting (and also a better/faster drive regardless of the extra space). There's also the 7500 (+70), 6400 (+30) , 4000 (+10) , 3200 (+5) , and 2500 (same price, same storage). All have superior benchmarks than the one you have listed, 'specially in the critical random access time if yer a gamer.

 

The 9800GTX won't fit in some mid-tower cases, I don't know about that Antec case (<-- ok just checked and it will).

 

9800GTX cards aren't so great. 8800GTX is even better than 9800GTX if you play lots of games in (very) high resolution. I play most my games at 1600x1200 or 2048x1536, so the 8800GTX (the 768mb variety) that I'm using is > 9800GTX, course 8800GTX still costs more than 9800GTX. I was gonna say to get an 8800GTS G92 card but it seems like prices have went banzai over the last few months (only like $30 diff between the two, wtf). If you do any gaming you should get at least the 8800GT but honestly the price differences really are just about jack !@#$%^&*. I don't know much about ATI cards but 9800GTX is very good for $200 value. If I remember right just several months ago it was $500+? wtf. I paid ~$550 for my 8800GTX about 9 months ago.

 

CPU looks solid, beats out my E6850. 6850 is priced at $185 on newegg, but the one you have listed there has better benchmarks and you're showing a cheaper price to boot. (the one you picked is $190 on newegg) Seems like nowadays that's around the sweet spot. Anything better you pay a lot more $ for.

 

I always buy Corsair or Crucial RAM, but gskill is good too (altho the link you have is pointing to Kingstom ram, they're OK also). Might want to look into buying 2x2048 though instead of 2x1024. The 32bit operating systems will detect 2.75GB, but the 2x2048 is better for upgrade purposes later. Some if it depends on if yer planning on overclocking. Personally, I'd get the:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820145176

 

Which is $82 after mail-in rebate ($22 more for if you send in the rebate for 2 gigs more ram, and imho a better brand too). But they won't overclock as well as 4x1 would, not sure how overclockable Kingston memory is but since you were getting the DDR2 1066 I guess that wouldn't really be a problem. Really just depends on if you're going to attempt to overclock past 3.6GHZ. I run my E6850 at 3.6GHZ and could go a bit higher, but don't want to overclock my RAM (it's also DDR2 800). You could also save probably about $15 by going to DDR2 800 instead of DDR2 1066 (w/ your same brand and settings). Just depends on if you are planning on trying to take your CPU past 3.6ghz (well, also you can generally underclock 1066's to 800 and run at better settings, but I run my ram at 4-4-4-12 with no problems).

 

You might also want to look at:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820148070

 

Which I think is better RAM (DDR2 1066) and cheaper if you actually use mail-in rebates and don't mind waiting to get it back. You can put these at some bad!@#$%^&* settings if you clock them down.

 

The case and PSU, I dunno. I have a full tower coolermaster case that cost about $250, and a 1000W power supply.. bought these so that my system will be easy to upgrade in the future, w/o having to buy new PSU or case.

Edited July 17, 2008 by darkhosis

[»Lynx]

When it all boils down, buying cheap (what you're doing) is a waste of time when buying a PC. You're going to be out-of-date before long, and will probably run into more issues and ergo, more headaches. This is generally why I'm going Mac - less time !@#$%^&*ing around, better performance, more time doing what I actually want to do on a computer.

 

But anyway, to reply properly...

 

I'd personally save up a little longer, and purchase a Tyan motherboard, and go for Xeon processors. I was using this kinda setup on multiple computers, and they ran perfectly. Oddly enough, though - on my most recent computer, I had Quad-Xeons, but I felt that it never performed half as well. Diagnostics tests have shown that actually having more power over multiple cores doesn't always have beneficial results to performance - but I'll let you read up about that yourself and come to your own conclusion.

 

Also, don't blow Vista completely out of the water. With some (clever) configuration, you can get some good results from it. It just depends on whether you're willing to spend the time configuring it. If you're going very high spec, and especially if you're going for more RAM, I'd even say it would be wise to use Vista as it keeps the RAM in an active state. But if you hate Vista that much, or are just conservative to change then by all means stick to XP.

 

Also, don't overclock any Xeon processors. They're usually already brought near to their boil point. As for everything else - well, that's all pretty easy to choose. My personal preference for a graphics card is the 8800GTX, and PSU etc depends on the specs you've arranged.

 

 

----

Anybody know of the pros/cons to 64-Bit - I've been reading up a lot on it, but don't want to state any opinions /just/ yet.

 

-Lynx

Edited July 17, 2008 by Lynx

[Cancer+]

You could probably buy a cheaper PSU because you don't need 650 watts for your computer.

 

Yes, the computer will be out of date. But even if you bought a supercomputer with all the new !@#$%^&* hot out on the market today, it will be out of date in a month.

 

Build a computer to your specific needs. What are you going to use the computer for? As long as you figure that out, then you will know what kind of components you need in your computer.

 

 

It all looks good though.

[»Lynx]

Looks like a gaming computer to me - so I'd say jump the wagon and buy at the top of the market.

 

-Lynx

[darkhosis]

Looks like a gaming computer to me - so I'd say jump the wagon and buy at the top of the market.

 

-Lynx

It's better to buy a few steps down from top of the market... something I usually don't follow, but that's the best way to keep stuff running good and save $ in the process and you should be able to run games at a decent clip for at least 2 years with most setups.

 

I forgot to look at his MOBO and don't reaally feel like it anymore =) haha.. but, really, look at his components..

 

cpu - he's buying something better than the one i got 9 months ago. my cpu still isn't taxed by any of the games coming out. i can run m!@#$%^&* effect at 2048x1536 with graphics set to max even including some .ini twinks for even better quality (like changing AF from 4 to 16 and shadow textures). it's probably something i won't upgrade for at least another year or two and i like to keep my !@#$%^&* up to date.

 

gfx - i have an 8800gtx card that i bought 9 months ago. 9800gtx is roughly the same (well, ok, a bit better), depending on how you use it. it's a !@#$%^&*load better for stuff that uses physx (but nvidia is supposed to have physx support for 8800gtx in a future driver sometime). in most cases, it'll be better, but if you're running extremely high resolution in games it generally runs a tad worse. it should be fine for at least 2 years for running games at high settings. i imagine it won't be totally obsolete for quite some time. it's still one of the best vid cards on the market (besides the extreme top of the line !@#$%^&*, like the new gtx 260 and gtx 280, not familiar with ATI's line). review of those is at: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-gtx-280,1953.html

 

hard drive - loading times might take a bit longer, but is it really a huge issue as far as gaming goes? not really. it is moreso if you do things like graphical design or something of that sort and deal with lots of large files. regardless it's $60 and shouldnt have a huge effect.

 

memory - 2x1 gig is fine. i'd buy 2x2, but if an upgrade is needed he still has 2 more mem slots, so you could easily add another 2, or even 4gb. what games will take more than that in the next 2+ years?

 

tower - im not too keen on the midtower, buying a full tower basically makes it so you're fine to upgrade the components inside for a very, very long time. but i spent $250 (or maybe more like $300) vs his $60.

 

mobo - i didnt look at it

 

psu - i bought a 1000w psu so that i can upgrade later and not have to buy a new psu. he doesnt need 640w with what he has, but he might need it later (the 9800gtx only uses about 200-250w under load). i also did a quick search and i think you could do better for spending $110 on a psu. you could probably spend less here and get by with a 480w or 500w or look around for a better deal and maybe get a decent 750-800w for around the same price that should keep you for a while w/o needing to upgrade it.

Edited July 17, 2008 by darkhosis

[»Blocks]

Like Cancer said, it's important to know what you'll be doing on this computer. Otherwise, I'm inclined to say a computer is a computer. I do think you could either get better specs at the same price, or the same specs at a lower price, though.

 

To Lynx, I don't think there's anything wrong with buying cheap PCs. Rather, I think it's a waste of time always wanting to be on the bleeding edge. I use a 3-year-old Compaq laptop heavily, and the only trouble I've had is swapping out a fan when it started making a little noise. It's always been fast enough for me as well (I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I do run some mean engineering applications). The only component I would not cheap out on is the hard drive. Anything else you can easily change out if it fails, without losing much.

 

Edit: BTW, am I the only one who thinks 500+ watt power usage is ridiculous for a computer?

Edited July 17, 2008 by Blocks

[darkhosis]

Like Cancer said, it's important to know what you'll be doing on this computer. Otherwise, I'm inclined to say a computer is a computer. I do think you could either get better specs at the same price, or the same specs at a lower price, though.

 

To Lynx, I don't think there's anything wrong with buying cheap PCs. Rather, I think it's a waste of time always wanting to be on the bleeding edge. I use a 3-year-old Compaq laptop heavily, and the only trouble I've had is swapping out a fan when it started making a little noise. It's always been fast enough for me as well (I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I do run some mean engineering applications). The only component I would not cheap out on is the hard drive. Anything else you can easily change out if it fails, without losing much.

 

Edit: BTW, am I the only one who thinks 500+ watt power usage is ridiculous for a computer?

if you're running something like 2 geforce 8800 ultra or 2 geforce 8800gtx in SLI mode, you can just about hit that with yer video cards alone =)

[darkhosis]

lol, spent some more time on this..

 

checked yer mobo just to see if it supported SLI and it doesn't (still didnt delve much into specifics. not sure if it's a decent mobo or not). So don't need to worry about that. Then I went to newegg and looked at some cheaper cases/PSU since the ones you are buying aren't that hot anyways and not really needed for the system. For any major upgrades, you'd probably end up having to change one of those anyways.

 

I found this:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817182076

 

which is a 500w power supply with one pci-e connector that should be sufficient. it has two 12v rails. one at 15 amps and the other at 16 amps. if you're running with just one hard drive, optical drive, dual core cpu it should be enough. if you have like 3 hard drives, 2 optical drives, all kinds of !@#$%^&* in your usb slots, then it wouldnt work. overclocking may strain it. you should use:

 

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

 

you might want to spend $2 for "pro" to make sure the amperage is sufficient. also, generally you wouldnt want your psu running at -90%+ or it'll go out pretty fast (so you want it to show less than like 400)

 

but anyhoo, this power supply has a combo deal with:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811147096

 

it comes in black too, but didnt see that one on newegg. that case should fit the 9800gtx, it might go into one of the 3.5 bays, or you might have to cut, bend, or remove part of one of the bays.

 

total cost is $55. that would save about like $100.

 

i think something in the range of 550-600w would be better, but that should probably work there. unless you have a lot of extra stuff i dont know about, or intend on overclocking quite a bit.

 

but yeah. psu + case are 2 things you should really look into. you can take that any extra money saved there and spend it on a better HDD and/or memory.

[Chambahs]

Edited my first post.

 

I changed my gfx card to the 4850 because its better, smaller, and cheaper than the 9800GTX. Also, if i need to upgrade in the future, i can buy another one and use the crossfire. 2 of these babies should be good enough for a couple years.

 

Changed my mobo because i wanted Crossfire compatibility, plus its cheaper.

 

I took your advice on the PSU and got that one. I checked on that site you gave me and it seems ill only be using 310 watts lol.

 

I stuck with the case, because its especially made for cooling, its got like 5 fans and its still cheap.

 

As far as ram goes, im just going to use the 2x1gb and keep it at that until i upgrade again, then ill prolly just buy 2x1gb again and be at 4 gigs dual channel.

 

I dont plan on overclocking anything until maybe later down the road when it needs to be. Right now im on a piece of !@#$%^&*, so this thing will make me more than satisfied.

 

This is pretty much the list of stuff im getting, most of it off newegg. Ill wait a day or 2 just in case a new deal pops up. Also, I cant afford the monitor right now, but ill prolly be getting it later down the road. Lemme know what you guys think.

[darkhosis]

yah, read some benchmarks, looks like the 4850 is better. i normally just avoid ATI cards so didnt know that.

 

the ATI website says 450w+ for one, so 500w should be fine. it does recommend 550w+ for crossfire mode though.

 

might want to try:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817341001

 

if you dont mind using the mail-in rebate. the main reason i listed the other was because of the combo deal with the case. that one is $70 ($130 originally w/ $30 discount atm, plus the $30 rebate), is 600w and has huge amount of 12v amperage. also comes with 2 PCI-E connectors instead of one, and has some awesome ratings on newegg (some of the best ive seen for a psu). that could hold 2 in crossfire mode easily w/o needing to be upgraded. it's also a nice brand.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817152031

 

there's one for cheaper that might work. some negative reviews tho, lots of them relating to screw holes not fitting up properly, but definitely worth getting over the rosewill since you aren't gonna get that -20 combo deal.

 

both have more 12v (the first has a lot more) and also 2 pci-e connectors and high enough wattage to handle crossfire mode

 

and i would still change your HDD over to one of the western digital AAKS models (the WD AAKS with 250GB costs the exact same too, but if you need more storage it's like what $10 more for 150 more gigs). look up the benchmarks on tomshardware. 3250410AS has a horrible random access time and the caviars will beat it in most other benchmarks as well.

Edited July 18, 2008 by darkhosis