Building a new PC - finally!

zilog_jones

I've been living in a land of PIII's for way too long...

Anyway I've been waiting for the socket AM2 stuff to come out for months - now they're out, but I don't know what to get! I'm not sure how much I want to spend on all this either - I was hoping to do it all for under a grand but that doesn't seem too hopeful judging by the price of things right now -_-. I guess my limit's about €1,200-1,300.

I'd prefer to buy from Komplett, but I'd go for anyone else if they're significantly cheaper.

Here's my list so far (needs improvement obviously):
- CPU: A64 X2 3800 (€340) - can't really see much of an improvement with the 4000, and higher than that the prices get a bit too silly.
- Mobo: MSI K9N SLI Platinum (€128) - doesn't seem to be much of a choice right now, but I am looking for something with FireWire and SLI.
- RAM: 1GB of something or other DDR2-800. Any recommendations?
- HDD: WD Caviar SE16 320GB (€115), unless someone has a better recommendation for a similar price.
- Case & PSU: Haven't a clue at all what to get - this is where I could really do with a recommendation. Obviously an ATX tower of some sort and a decent enough PSU - preferably as quiet as possible but still with good airflow. Don't want something too tacky/sham-tastic (I can live without blue LEDs everywhere ^_^).
- Graphics: Club3D Radeon X1600XT 256MB GDDR3 PCI-Express (€175) - unless again someone could recommend something better for a similar price, or recommend it'd be worth it spending a lot more. I'd like to be able to play stuff like BF2 at a decent framerate (not bothered about AA) but would I not be better off saving up until proper dx10 cards come out and just buying a stop-gap card for now, i.e. the X1600?
- Fans/heatsink: I'd like to make this machine pretty quiet, so any recommendations for a quieter fan/heatsink for the CPU? Or is the retail one good enough? I doubt I'll be overclocking.

I've already got a decent DVD burner, monitor (free 19" Trinitron! ) and peripherals, so no need to worry about them.

And yes I know it's probably not the best time to buy an AM2 system, but I can't wait any longer!

8T8

Case wise I've always liked Lian Li's stylish efforts it is a pity Komplett don't stock more of their range but in silver the PC-82 is a nice enough case (review). If you want more Lian Li cases check out OcUk the V600 & V1000 are great cases. Lian Li only real downsides are price but you do pay for quality.

The Coolermaster cases are also nice looking on Komplett site. The Gigabyte GZ-FSCA1-AN looks fairly sleek as well.

Power supplies anything from Tagan gets my vote very quiet, again quality but pricey you can get them on Komplett the detachable cables are great for cable management.

As for RAM I'd go with the cheapest DDR2-800 you can get.

As for the GPU if you can stretch your budget a tad more to around €200 a 7600GT would be a nice improvement over the X1600XT.

CPU cooler Zalman of course - when the socket AM2 version comes out as you will have to make do with the stock cooler initially, OcUK already have the Zalman CNPS9500-AM2 available for pre-order. You can always enable Cool & Quiet to keep the CPU fan noise from the stock cooler down to a minimum when not gaming or using CPU intensive applications.

awhir

good psu are tangan,sesonic,enermax.
try to get the 7600gt.
i like the Gigabyte GZ-FSCA1-AN(aroura) or the cm stacker or a nice quite case the antec p180.
i would go for the Zalman CNPS9500-AM2 when it come out.
corsair do good cheap ram.


will you be overclocking ??

and also you could wait a month and get the new intel coners they are going to kick the asses of the amds.

SeanW

Case & PSU: Haven't a clue at all what to get - this is where I could really do with a recommendation. Obviously an ATX tower of some sort and a decent enough PSU - preferably as quiet as possible but still with good airflow. Don't want something too tacky/sham-tastic (I can live without blue LEDs everywhere ^_^)

Speaking from very recent experience these would be my recommendations
APLus Qubic black case It looks nicer in reality. Cheap, looks good, functions well, and has some nice features. The only drawback is that there's no documentation with it. It's good enough for airflow, and has an exhaust designed for the more heat-intensive Intels, that said even with AMDs theres a nice trick you can do with it, you can take off the exhaust pipe and put an 80mm fan between it and the case side panel, you'd be surprised how much lukewarm air comes out.

As for power supply, I'd reccommend a Seasonic S12 500W you're going to need everything this baby has to offer going down the SLI route. That said if you're planning to do something nuts like have 2 Radeon X1900XTs or nVidia 7900GTs in SLI, you may need the 600W model.

DemonOfTheFall

7600GT - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=319688
Coolermaster Centurion - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=311365
Seasonic 430w - http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=314765

Those bits are all decent and all keep the price down aswell.

For a CPU cooler I'd go to OCUK. Komplett don't sell anything that floats my boat as far as CPU coolers go.

SeanW

The 430W will be inadequate in several ways if the OP intends to use SLI.

conzy

I know you are sick of being told to wait but..........

Wait for Conroe!!

The ~€250 Conroe beats the €1000 FX-62 so imagine what it would do to that X2 3800!!!

SickBoy

conzymaher wrote:

I know you are sick of being told to wait but..........

Wait for Conroe!!

The ~€250 Conroe beats the €1000 FX-62 so imagine what it would do to that X2 3800!!!

Realistically how long a wait are you talking? I'm thinking of updating my current system and was considering going for something AM2 based but the Core 2 Duo does look impressive.

conzy

A matter of weeks.......

The release is sometime in July.......

DemonOfTheFall

SeanW wrote:

The 430W will be inadequate in several ways if the OP intends to use SLI.

There was a X1600 in his original build plan, I think a 250watt power supply would easily have him covered.

However, I just read that the first generation of DX10 cards will be requiring 130w->300w !!!:rolleyes: :mad:

Lots of companies are preparing additional 5.25" drive bay power supplies, external power supplies and other magical things to prepare for the rape of our power grid that their inefficient new cards will cause.

conzy

DemonOfTheFall wrote:

There was a X1600 in his original build plan, I think a 250watt power supply would easily have him covered.

However, I just read that the first generation of DX10 cards will be requiring 130w->300w !!!:rolleyes: :mad:

Lots of companies are preparing additional 5.25" drive bay power supplies, external power supplies and other magical things to prepare for the rape of our power grid that their inefficient new cards will cause.

Did you see the new PSU that nvidia are shipping with the 7950 GX2?

And a 430watt Seasonic is more than enough for that system.

SeanW

No, in 2 ways it may fall short, if he plans to use SLI.

First of all, power connections. The 430W Seasonic does not provide a PCI Express connector and provides only 6 molexes. Of course you can get around that with a 2x molex to 1x PCI-E, but that will eat up most of his molexes if he's going down the SLI route. It would also make the wiring inside the PC very messy. Even without SLi, you might not have any molexes to spare after the PC is built.

The 500W model provides a PCI Express connector and that would make things a lot less messy.

Also some high end cards eat electricity under a high load, double the load with a second card on SLi and things get hairy.

The OP stated that he requires SLi so this all has to be taken into account.

zilog_jones

Thanks for the help guys. I'll definately get a 7600GT instead of the X1600XT - 4 people saying this is conving enough! I was of the opinion that Radeons were generally better value for money, but I guess it's not true in all cases. Is the Club3D one OK? I know some people who bought their 6600GT's last year with no issues anyway.

conzymaher wrote:

Wait for Conroe!!

Hmm, I didn't know it was coming out this soon - I thought it wasn't going to be until at least this autumn. But I can see Intel being jerks as per usual and changing to a different socket in the next year or so (they've done that with nearly everything else outside the Pentium Pro and PII), and the X2 is a tried and tested platform - AMD's socket change was simply to avail of DDR2 RAM (which will make a difference with the faster CPUs). That and I really couldn't be arsed to wait any longer!

Still don't know what to choose regarding case and PSU though...