building my first pc and in need of advice pls!

[crazylegs]

Yeah I'll back Flopp's on that score the gains from SLI aren't worth the extra layout for another card...


Go with what Flopp's and Triplex have advised and you won't go far wrong..

 

[TriplexDread]

was just about to say. Nah not worth it mate that card shoudl be able to handle that res. The 640 model certainly will

Have fun building it I knw I would

 

[andrejwout]

Ok, after a lot of deliberation and advice ive reworked the spec to this..........let me know yr thoughts..i think its a great spec for price and improved on old one, give or take an opinion or two........deffo on the right lines anyway.....cheers for making this improvement possible.......

HDrive:Samsung 500GB HD501LJ Spinpoint T, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Hard Disk Drive
- £64.09 gonna stick with this.well reviewed and good price

Graphics: Gainward Geforce Bliss 8800GT 512mb ddr3 - £182 - excellent value for a good card it seems. Well done for suggesting that mateys

M'board: Asus P5K premium,wifi black pearl-specialedition- £122 - not bothering with sli and its a better option you lot say

Processor:Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Energy Efficient 95W edition Socket 775 (2.40GHz) G0 Stepping CPU - oem
- £149.08 - think its a winner

RAM: Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit
-£49 - cant quite afford more or 8500 ram i dont think, but good for starters if i wanna buy more later on -not sure whether to get 3gigs ram and run vista home or get 2gigs of 8500. Can you mix 2 6400's and 2 8500's later or not?)- qaslo i doubled the price by mistake when i apsted original spec!!

Case: Antec Nine Hundred/Ultimate Gamer Case- no PSU
£68.25 - will do job i hope, cant find a btter one at this price, as yet

PSU:TAGAN tg530 -u15 530w - £70.49 - after the long debate i opted on this.thanks for the in depth look at it

dvdrom: NEC AD-7170A-0B Multiwriter Black 18x DVD±RW - dont care much

total: £722

 

[TriplexDread]

You can mix diffrent speeds of ram but we nor no one else will recommend it

It can cause a multitude of problems down to instabilitys and also the ram running at the higher speed will drop to the lower set

 

[PotGuy]

Good spec that - really good.

Can't believe that is only £720.

Suppose you add another £200 for the 22" screen and you are closer to a grand though. Still, cracking system to be honest.

Happy Enermax Liberty user here - any of those PSUs would have been quality though.

Well done. Now you have the fun part - building it

 

[andrejwout]

yeah ive taken the price down a notch to 712£....cos of the OCZ DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 PLATINUM XTC.....even better. I really dont get the differnce in the last number.ie 15 than if its 4-4-4-12 but hey, ive got time to think.
I'd like 3 gigs but its hard to find a match to the former in a 1gig unit, rarther than 2x512.

The screen will hurt. Im gonna do this in bits over the next 2 months due to cash probs..some stuff will maybe go up, but in this climate itll prob go down.so i shld win out financially.

 

[V_R]

GFX ok however if you could stretch your budget another £80 you could get an OEM 8800GTX 768MB card which everyone is raving about at present
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130449

Take into account some of the newer 8800 series cards have the 8pin connections and so you may need an adaptor 6pin - 8pin.

Also make sure you measurements of the card do not exceed the length of your new case. They can be very long nearly and sometimes over the length of a sheet of A4 paper

Good luck

GET THE 8800GT 512MB!! Its faster than the 8800 320mb AND the 640mb and for less cash!
If you get the 640mb you will be kicking yourself, i sold my 640 for £230 (paid £260 for it originally 7+ months back) a couple of months ago for a GTX, if i'd have been any later i'd have got the 8800GT without a second thought, The GT is only about 10% behind the GTX for about £100 less, and faster than the 640 by about 15% again.

I've said this before and will say it again, if you own a 640 GTS sell it now before its worthless!. Buy a GT or wait for the new GTS's (G92's) comming soon.

And the G92 GT's use about a third less power than the G80 8800GTS/GTX's.

I am running a Corsair Hx620 in my rig and i love it, plenty of power and not a whisper.

on a slightly diff note...if im gonna use a samsung 22 inch at 1680 x 1050 (max) do i NEED to get SLI on the mobo or is it not worth bothering with?

No! I'm running a Samsung 2232BW22" wide with the GTX and i know for a fact the GT 512 will hand that res fine.

SLI = more power, more heat and more problems.

Ok, after a lot of deliberation and advice ive reworked the spec to this..........let me know yr thoughts..i think its a great spec for price and improved on old one, give or take an opinion or two........deffo on the right lines anyway.....cheers for making this improvement possible.......

HDrive:Samsung 500GB HD501LJ Spinpoint T, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Hard Disk Drive
- £64.09 gonna stick with this.well reviewed and good price

Graphics: Gainward Geforce Bliss 8800GT 512mb ddr3 - £182 - excellent value for a good card it seems. Well done for suggesting that mateys Good choice.

M'board: Asus P5K premium,wifi black pearl-specialedition- £122 - not bothering with sli and its a better option you lot say

Processor:Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Energy Efficient 95W edition Socket 775 (2.40GHz) G0 Stepping CPU - oem
- £149.08 - think its a winner Will be upgrading my E6600 for one of these in the new year along with the TT Ultra 120.

RAM: Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 800MHz Dual Channel Kit
-£49 - cant quite afford more or 8500 ram i dont think, but good for starters if i wanna buy more later on -not sure whether to get 3gigs ram and run vista home or get 2gigs of 8500. Can you mix 2 6400's and 2 8500's later or not?)- qaslo i doubled the price by mistake when i apsted original spec!! Thats fine, the speed it good, 8500 is not worth it unless your big overclocking. I have 4gb of Geil 6400 800mhz and its all good.
You can mix them but will run at the lower speed. If you can aviod it, dont.

Case: Antec Nine Hundred/Ultimate Gamer Case- no PSU
£68.25 - will do job i hope, cant find a better one at this price, as yet. Brilliant case, cooling is second to none and quiet too, I've converted two and counting to the 900 so far on here.

PSU:TAGAN tg530 -u15 530w - £70.49 - after the long debate i opted on this.thanks for the in depth look at it. Good choice, imo i'd get the Corsair HX 520 for the same ish price.

dvdrom: NEC AD-7170A-0B Multiwriter Black 18x DVD±RW - dont care much

total: £722

Comments in red
Good spec, good price.

I have hte Antec 900, great case, very good cooling, check out the gallery for pics.

yeah ive taken the price down a notch to 712£....cos of the OCZ DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 CL 4-4-4-15 PLATINUM XTC.....even better. I really dont get the differnce in the last number.ie 15 than if its 4-4-4-12 but hey, ive got time to think.
I'd like 3 gigs but its hard to find a match to the former in a 1gig unit, rarther than 2x512.

The screen will hurt. Im gonna do this in bits over the next 2 months due to cash probs..some stuff will maybe go up, but in this climate itll prob go down.so i shld win out financially.

The timings dont amount to much tbh, the RAM speed is where its at, dont worry about it.

What screen you going for? I can 100% recommend the 2232BW 22", its a fantastic monitor

Enjoy it, will be a great pc mate.

 

[Abarbarian]

Is this going to be an air cooled rig then . I don't see no cpu cooler mentioned .

Nice set up by the way .

 

[andrejwout]

mmmm.........do i need a dedicated cpu cooler on top...damn,,,,,,,,,,,,any recommendations mate......nothng to crazy mind,,,,,,,,

 

[andrejwout]

will go for that samsung as suggested..its a good beast

 

[floppybootstomp]

mmmm.........do i need a dedicated cpu cooler on top...damn,,,,,,,,,,,,any recommendations mate......nothng to crazy mind,,,,,,,,

If you've ordered the retail version of the CPU it will come with a cooler. If you're not overclocking that will do but a third party cooler is a better option.

Some decent coolers:

Scythe Inifinity

Noctua NHU12-F (I have this one on an AM2 CPU)

Thermalright Ultra 120 (need to add a 120mm fan to this)

I really don't lknow what this one's like but it's cheap and I've heard good reports:

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro

And the Samsung monitor is good (see my signature)

 

[andrejwout]

yes , its retail...ill try and overclock it myself later.........might also consider the SyncMaster 226BW 22" as a screen

Im now just checking that everyhting will fit the Antec case. Naely the motherboard etc

intel core 2 quad q6660
Asus pk-e mobo
gainward geforce bliss 8800gt 512mb

from what i can tell it does..........i changed to the cheaper mobo cos i dont need higher ram than 800mzh, im told....cheaper and allows me to buy more ram. Dont care about sli either. Im quite pleased with the balance me thinks.......even found an antec psu 650w for 65 squids.....and its well rated.........chuffedd..........thanks for links etc

 

[V_R]

Easily it will fit, i have a GTX in the 900 and still got room and thats longer than the GT.

Did you look at the gallery?

 

[floppybootstomp]

even found an antec psu 650w for 65 squids.....and its well rated.........chuffedd..........thanks for links etc

Antec PSU's were once well rated but fell from favour a year or two ago.

I've actually had three crap out on me, one of which was only 18 months old.

Buy at your own risk, the other PSU's that everybody here has recommended are better.

But hey, it's your cash....

 

[V_R]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-005-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=823

Win.

 

[floppybootstomp]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-005-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=823

Win.

That's actually the one I'd go for as well, but hey, I didn't want to appear too biased

 

[andrejwout]

right, ill steer clear on that basis i guess..........cant be arsed with that. I was just still about worried about the 520w issue, despite all the talk, cos a few people on another forum kept telling me i had to have 600 minimum.......its hard sometimes in that way. So really think 520 will handle everything with no problems?

 

[V_R]

Well i have its bigger brother, the 620w. so i am openly biased! They are damn good though.

 

[andrejwout]

did look at screens..well smart.cant wait

 

[V_R]

right, ill steer clear on that basis i guess..........cant be arsed with that. I was just still about worried about the 520w issue, despite all the talk, cos a few people on another forum kept telling me i had to have 600 minimum.......its hard sometimes in that way. So really think 520 will handle everything with no problems?

Yes, with ease.