Newbie needs help.

[Waynos_Face]

Hi Guys,

Am looking at building my first desktop, i have a budget of £550, am currently considering;

Amd 9850 Phenom (2.5Ghz)
K9A2 CF-F motherboard
Thermaltake Soprano VBS1000 Case with 650watt PSU
2 x ATI HD 3650 512mb Graphics Cards
2Gb ATI Gaming RAM (800Mhz)
Seagate 160Gb HDD (7200rpm)
Seagate 500Gb HDD (7200rpm)
Vista Home Premium 32 Bit
DVD/CD Lightscribe Writer

This puts me at about £540, can anyone see any compatability problems, or have any suggestions to better components. Eventually i hope by xmas to have a K9A2 Platinum Mobo and an HD 3870 x 2.

Thanks in advance, Wayne.

 

[guest_9323wk]

Hello,

You build is fine there are no compatibility problems, where are you looking to get these components from? Have you tried looking around you can often get them cheaper somewhere else.

Thanks,

Wizkid

 

[Abarbarian]

Personaly I would not get 2 X 3650 graphics cards or the 500 GB hdd . I would put the money saved on those items towards a decent graphics card , say an 8800 GT 0r one of the newer 9800 GT range .

Reason is , yuo can get hdd anytime to upgrade your storage . An low grade graphics cards even in pairs are not anywhere near as good as one decent card .

Just my humble opinion .

 

[Waynos_Face]

thanks for the info guys, am looking at specialtech and komplett to purchase from.

 

[floppybootstomp]

It all looks ok to me apart from the 2 x vid cards. As Abarbarian said, an 8800GT 512Mb is a much better bet.

I've dealt with Komplett before btw, they've been ok but I've never heard of Specialtech.

 

[Waynos_Face]

Thanks guys, i wanted to stay with ATI, dont really want an Nvidia card, had an 8600GT and it wasnt great, only getting 2 x 3650 as i am getting them for free, will upgrade to 3870 later.

thanks again

wayne

 

[floppybootstomp]

Well you can't argue with free

I thought it seemed a bit cheap

That's an MSI motherboard btw in case anybody is interested.

Just had a look around for Specialtech and they seem ok

 

[Waynos_Face]

thanks again.

 

[Waynos_Face]

Hi,

It now seems that i cant get hold of a AMD Phenom 9850 for a decent price, so am looking at the Intel Quad Q6600, can anyone suggest compatible motherboards for ATI Crossfire?

 

[guest_9323wk]

The motherboard that you listed in your first post K9A2 CF-F is ATI crossfire enabled.

 

[Waynos_Face]

Yeah, but will it work with an Intel Quad?

 

[floppybootstomp]

All of These have Crossfire support and Q6600 support, probably best mainstream motherboards available atm, X48 chipset

But there are cheaper options

 

[Waynos_Face]

Thanks for the link,

Will have to go with a slightly cheaper option i think, unless i scrap the 500Gb HDD, what to do?

I suppose it would be better in the long term to get a decent motherboard now instead of getting another one later? I hope building the thing is easier than picking the bloody parts.

Thanks again

Wayne

 

[Abarbarian]

Hi,

It now seems that i cant get hold of a AMD Phenom 9850 for a decent price, so am looking at the Intel Quad Q6600, can anyone suggest compatible motherboards for ATI Crossfire?

They are reduced in price here ,

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-218-AM

 

[itsme]

http://www.lambda-tek.com/componentshop/index.pl?prodID=B100699

Cheaper

 

[Waynos_Face]

Thanks Guys,

Have now picked, AMD Phenom 9850, K9A2 Platinum board, 4Gb ATI Gaming RAM, Thermaltake VBS1000, 250 Gb HDD, Vista Home Premium 64 Bit, LiteOn DVD/CD Writer, come in at £504.

Have ordered it from Komplett, Lambatek and Novatech, hopefully i don't blow it up putting it together.

Thanks again to everyone who posted

Wayne

 

[Alf]

Ah, tis good to see im not the only one building a AMD machine

 

[floppybootstomp]

Ah, tis good to see im not the only one building a AMD machine

FWIW 3 of my 4 systems are AMD, flagship of which is the Black Edition 6400+ 3.2Ghz dual core CPU.

2 Asus boards, 1 DFI board all Nvidia video cards.

I've said it before though, my dualie Intel 6600 2.4Ghz outperforms my fastest AMD.

Sad but true

 

[Alf]

As long as you the one benifiting from it Flops.

 

[Waynos_Face]

Well the last of my rig arrived yesterday, so after spending about 5 hours putting it all together it is finally working and can say am v. happy with the results, think i got quite alot for my money and wasn't as hard to build as i thought, the Phenom CPU doesn't even get that hot (i read in reviews it does) and my bro has overclocked it for me to 2.8Ghz and it is stable.

A big big thanks to everyone who helped,

Wayne

P.S. What is a cruncher?

AMD Phenom Quad Core 9850, MSI K9A2 Platinum, 4Gb OCZ/ATI 8500 RAM, Thermaltake VB1000 Black Case, 250Gb Maxtor Diamond HDD, 2 x Sapphire HD 3650 (512mb) OC @ 804Mhz, Vista HP 64 Bit, Creative Labs X-Fi Sound Blaster 7.1, LiteOn Lightscribe DVD/CD, 650 Watt PSU, Samsung 19" & 32" Monitors.