Building new rig...soon

[9thAF_Angel]

Hey, I know I've posted some stuff about my old (crappy) comp, but now I'm starting to look at the one I will be building for when I go to university. I know it's very early to start but I’m just looking around to see what kinda of stuff I should be looking for when the time comes. The purposes for this comp are geared towards gaming. I will of course be writing essays and such on it but it will not be used for multimedia editing or anything like that, specifically gaming. As far as money goes, don’t worry too much about "bang for your buck" I would just like to know what will work the best regardless of price. My main questions are about, cases, PSU, CPU, mobo, gfx card, ram, and hard drive....so basically the whole computer.

 

I’ll start with cases, the one I’m looking at right now for reference is theThermaltake Tsunami - VA3000BWA http://www.xoxide.com/tttsunami.html. I’m just wondering if Thermaltake is a good brand, what I should look for in a case, and what price range I should look in (I live in Canada so specify the currency please). I want a case that will be very cool (as in cold) and one that will look nice, but not be overly flashy.

 

next is the PSU, pretty straight forward, I want to get 600W, will this be enough for what I want to run on this comp.

 

CPU, this is the big question, I know I want to go with AMD, but I’m not sure if I want something that’s multicore like the X2 or something single like the FX. I am thinking it would be better to go with the X2 as games will prolly use this multicore in the future. if someone could please tell me the pros and cons of the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ vs the AMD FX-57 that would help alot. remember in not planning on buying these specific models cause I'm sure there will be better ones by the time I’m buying the parts, but I need a general idea.

 

Motherboard...I have no clue what to look for but I do know that I want something that is SLI read. I’ve only looked at two cards, http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/techspec.php?categories=1&model=246 and http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=382 but like I said I dunno what to look for in a mobo so am I on the right track or not?

 

GFX cards, I’m pretty sure I know what I want, the Geforce 7800 GTX KO but now I’m seeing that there is a 7800 GTX with 512 so what will the diff be? and will SLI work alot better with games or not?

 

Ram, I’m not sure, I know I want 2 gigs but what am I looking for? DDR? DDR2? Overclocked? I dunno what kind of RAM or what brand is best (if that even matters).

 

And last I just want to know if a hard drive can bottleneck performance. I only want a 160gb so nothing too big but as far as RPM goes, does it really matter if its not a "top of the line" hard drive, or does it just not matter at all. That’s all for now, thanks in advance for the help.

 

EDIT: I realized how hard it was to read this post without paragraphs so i decided to make it a bit easier:p.

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

ok, thermaltake is gooooood cases, when looking for a case, look for space in the inside, vents and thats about it, and also look for one that you like the design of.

 

As for psu, I use 2 Enermax noisetaker's 600watt psu, its uber uber quiet and got 2 12v rails adding upto a total 38 amps.

The enermax psu's are one of the best psu's on the market, and the price reflects that. Pc power and cooling is rated as the best psu there is, and it goes all the way upto a 1000watt, I am actually looking at the 850watt model myself.

 

Dualcore cpu's are the future, you may not of heard much about them this year, but next year you are gonna be blitzed with them. If you really dont wanna go Dc, and you dont want to spend money on a fx57, then go for the fx55 instead, which can be OC'd to fx57 speeds no problem

 

Mobo, just make sure its a socket 939 mobo, anything less = outdated and wont be as upgradeable in the future. It will still be upgradeable but not to the extent the 939 is.

As for sli ready, you want an nforce4 mobo, asus,dfi,abit,albatron etc etc

Asus and DFI are probably the best 2 makes, DFI =Overclockers choice as it has many OC options, Asus on the other hand has just as many OC options, but has stability backing it and also the shitload of goodies you get with an Asus board that you dont get with any other makers.

 

Vid card, well there are a few flavours that you may like, ranging from the 7800gt to the 7800gtx 512mb which as i said in a previous post is due out next monday.

Also there is ATI's new card the x1800's

They are of unknown quality at the moment and i cannot say if they are as good as the nvidias, on paper they are, but since the best x1800 ati's aint available yet, we will have to wait and see.

 

At the moment, AMD does not support ddr2 ram, next year it will, but the socket type will be 940 instead of 939, so if you want ddr2 and you buy a pc now, you will have to buy the majority of shit again next year, for a very slight gain in memory performance. socket 940 cpus atm will not be compatible with the new amd 940 standard next year.

 

Stick with 2gb of ddr pc3200 at 2-2-2-5, and you will have less complications setting it up than you would if you went above the 3200 mark.

 

Unless you want raid, then just stick with 7200rpm, 2 10000rpm raptors in raid, will make things load quicker etc, but IMHO for that gain it is not worth the cost of 2 raptors.

 

thats about all i can think of atm.

[walternowi]

My 2 cents:

 

Power Supply - Most overlooked component

 

If money is of no concern :D, get PC Power & Cooling TURBO-COOL 850

Otherwise, get a Seasonic S12-600

Other brands worth mentioning are Zippy, Enermax, OCZ and Antec. DO NOT go cheap on the PSU, or you will regret it. To support SLI, you need a power supply that has dual +12V rails.

 

Case:

I used an Antec superlanboy. It is a little bit small, so the air flow is not that great. I heard good things about the Thermaltake Shark case, the Antec P180 and the Antec P160 cases. Larger cases are easier to work with and have better air flow in general. Better airflow = lower temperature = higher overclock potential. Get a case with at least one 120 mm exhaust fan. Larger fans move an equivalent volume of air at lower RPM. Lower RPM = Quiet case = good for your ears.

 

CPU:

If you have too much money to burn :), get the FX-57 or the X2 4800+. Otherwise, for single core, get the socket 939 Opteron 146. It is under $200 and the word on the street is that this CPU can overclock to 2.9 - 3.0 GHz (> stock FX-57) on stock voltage and air cooling! For dual core, get socket 939 Opteron 165, Opteron 170, X2 3800+, or X2 4200+ and overclock.

 

Heatsink & Fan:

If you intend to overclock, get a good heatsink/fan. The great ones I can think of are Thermaltake Big Typhoon, Zalman 9500 LED, Scythe Ninja and Thermalright XP-120. Apply Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound between CPU and HSF. Go to Arctic Silver website and learn how to apply for best results.

 

Motherboard:

DFI Lanparty boards with the nForce 4 chipset are great gaming boards. They overclock extremely well. However, there are too many settings to tweak in the BIOS and it can overwhelm a first time builder/overclocker. MSI and ASUS also produce good nForce4 motherboards. MSI generally overclock better than ASUS.

 

Memory:

The 2 x 1Gb OCZ Platinum dual channel revision 2 is great. They have a timing of 2-2-2-5 at DDR400, and they have very good overclocking potential.

 

Video Card:

Your choice is great (I am drooling).

 

If you do intend to overclock, let the system break in and make sure it runs stable for about a month. Mean while, do a lot of research on overclocking. The following links are good starters:

 

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=28&threadid=1497607&enterthread=y

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=107925

 

I recently build my first system and overclock it. It is a great experience. Have fun and good luck.

 

Nowi

[Guest EVIL-SCOTSMAN]

I looking at your link for mobo, Id stay clear of fatal1ty, ive heard bad bad things from them boards, I couldnt say anything bad about them myself as i have never owned one, I got the asus a8n sli deluxe, which is a cool board, but there is a newer version "premium" which has a heatpipe instead of chipset fan = no noise at all, and sli is enabled via the bios instead of a card slot on the actual motherboard, but apart from that 2 differences, the deluxe and premium are exactly the same otherwise.

[9thAF_Angel]

I looking at your link for mobo, Id stay clear of fatal1ty, ive heard bad bad things from them boards, I couldnt say anything bad about them myself as i have never owned one, I got the asus a8n sli deluxe, which is a cool board, but there is a newer version "premium" which has a heatpipe instead of chipset fan = no noise at all, and sli is enabled via the bios instead of a card slot on the actual motherboard, but apart from that 2 differences, the deluxe and premium are exactly the same otherwise.

Ya, ive been looking at that board and it seems nice. I just priced everything out on newegg and the price is actually alot less than i first thought ($4000CDN). Like i said though, this is just the guidline to what my comp will be cause im sure that newer and better parts will be out by the time i buy this thing, i just wish i could build this now!:D

[emenance]

http://forums.pcper.com/index.php?

 

http://www.pcper.com/hwlb.php?&guide2=y#guide2

 

SLI get the dreamer system and save money