Building a PC...

eamo55

Ok this is my first build so I'd be very grateful for a bit of advice. This is what I've come up with.

Mainboard
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=320345&cks=ACC

The only 965 on komplett. I read somewhere about these having compatability issues?

Proc
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=322632

The new Core 2 Duo. Is the next step up worth the extra 100?
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=322633

Case
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=311799

Seems to be the best value case that comes with a decent psu. Is 450w enough? I was surprised how expensive psu's can be.

When it comes to the rest I'm not too clued in. I'm looking to put in 2 gigs of ddr2 ram I'd say but as regards the brand and pc speed I could do with some recommendations.

Graphics card is another one I could do with some advice on. I'd like to buy a decent spec one but 'good value' (who doesn't ). I wouldn't be a mad gamer, partly because my current pc cant really play games. Havent a clue about overclocking etc but I'd still want to get a card that'd allow to play the latest games well.

Also advice on a sound card, dvd rw drive, mouse, keyboard, monitor etc would be much appreciated. Do I need a cd drive if I have a dvdrw drive?

Cheers!

Eamon.

Dooom

Righteo, I'll walk you through what I can. If you give an idea of your budget, and what you want the PC to do (you were kind of vague about that bit), it'll be somewhat easier for us helpers.

1. The mobo: Fraid I don't know a whole lot on it, haven't seen much on it but a google search should give you some info. Failing that, and if no one here knows, ask over on the OcUK forums - helpful lot that. Plus if you look about the site there, you might be able to save a few bucks.

2. The CPU: Nice choice, personally I'd go for the 6600, but there isn't supposed to be a whole lot of real world difference between that and the 6400. The Conroe range are scorchers in general (plus they oc like hell), so whichever one you go for will definately give you bang for buck.

3. The Case: Cases are personal choice, so go for one that you like. But one thing to consider is the cooling, pretty important. Although that case you've chosen does have decent airflow, so I wouldn't worry too much about it.

4. The PSU: One of the key components, it's important not to skimp on this part. I haven't had any personal experience with that PSU (Antec are a good make though), but 450w would be about minimum I'd say. I would recommend you go for a decent seperate PSU of abouts 500w upwards (Enermax, Antec, OCZ, Sparkle etc.), but make sure it's a well known name. Stay away from makes like Q-Tec, unless you want your PSU to explode and take some of the PC with it..

5. The Graphics: As at the start, if you post your budget then we'll be able to determine what'd be a good choice. The ATI X1800 series are good, plus they're pretty cheap nowadays. The X1900 series are the high end of the ATI lot, but are a bit pricey. If you go Nvidia, the 7900GT is a good choice, but again, there's the 7900GTX and 7950GX2 which are Nvidia's high end cards. The price tag's somewhat hefty though. All of the cards I just mentioned will play modern games with pretty much all detail settings maxed, and at a very acceptable resolution.

6. The RAM: I wouldn't be too worried about the brand, but I've heard good things about the G.Skill memory. As for speed, I'd aim for something around the PC5300/6400 mark. PC8000 sticks can be still very expensive.

7. The Other Stuff: Sound cards depend on how much you want to spend. The Creative X-fi series are good, but somewhat overrated. A Creative Audigy 4 or something along those lines would be cheap, and it'll still give you very nice sound/music.

Again, Dvd drives are dependant on how much you want to spend (just make sure it's the same colour as your case ), but go for one with decent read and write speeds. Dvd-rw drives will write and read cds aswell, so you don't need a Cd-rw drive. Unless you want two drives (although two Dvd drives would make a bit more sense if you were doing that).

Mouse and keyboard are totally down to what you like. Optical mice are a good choice (ball mice suck compared to them). Wireless mice and keyboards are handy if you don't like wires, but you'll have to recharge them (lag is another issue, but I have yet to experience it).

Monitor is pretty much dependant on whether you have plenty of desk space or not and how much you want to spend. CRT's are cheap and I still belive they're better than TFT's picture wise - albeit they can be big and heavy.

I noticed you didn't mention anything about a HDD, so don't forget that. Unless you already have one. But one can never have too much storage space.

PogMoThoin

Selection of mobo's is minimal on Komplett. Check out ocuk, there are about 5.http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Intel_Motherboards.html
I've got E6600 comin myself this week. nice chip at nice price. not worth the extra money 4 the E6700 IMHO.

I've got this ram 4 sale if your interested. Sis ordered wrong 1 by mistake off newegg.http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=3576

Dont go splashing out 2 much on a gfx card cos dx10 is just round the corner and there are gonna be a lot of changes shortly.
Most of the mobo's have onboard 7.1 sound so a soundcard can be added at a later date.
Make sure you get a good quality psu. Most important part of your build.

quad_red

PogMoThoin wrote:

Selection of mobo's is minimal on Komplett. Check out ocuk, there are about 5.http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Intel_Motherboards.html

Could you recommend a few that would be decent with a 6300 or a 6400?

Will any motherboard be made obselete by DX10 next year and the new wave of gfx cards that presumably will accompany it?

TomCo

Spike wrote:

2. The CPU: Nice choice, personally I'd go for the 6600, but there isn't supposed to be a whole lot of real world difference between that and the 6400. The Conroe range are scorchers in general (plus they oc like hell), so whichever one you go for will definately give you bang for buck.

Actually there is a real world difference - in games.

I can't remember what review site it was, maybe andandtech, but the benches clearly showed a big performance gap between the 2mb cache procs and the 4mb cache procs in games.

Dooom

DX10 won't be actually used until Vista and the games that support it arrive. By the time Crysis arrives, there'll be the usual graphics card update from everyone so imo it's a wee bit pointless getting a DX10 card when they first appear.

Dooom

TomCo wrote:

Actually there is a real world difference - in games.

I can't remember what review site it was, maybe andandtech, but the benches clearly showed a big performance gap between the 2mb cache procs and the 4mb cache procs in games.

I never actually saw any benchmarks comparing the two, I'm just going by what I read over on OcUK.

/wanders off to find benchies.

PogMoThoin

This is the best oc'er. Top 1:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Gigabyte_179.html
This is the 1 I've got sitting ere waitin for conroe to come. Top 1:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/DFI.html
This is a great board but is 965 so no XFire. You gotta flash the bios or order new bios chip just to get it to run conroe. Loads of extra features. Top1 again:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Asus_177.html
This is 965 also so no XFire. Top1:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Intel.html

These are your main choices. No sli support for conroe only Xfire.

PogMoThoin

Benchies:
http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/07/14/core2_duo_knocks_out_athlon_64_uk/page12.html

Interesting reading:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=103025
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=2795
http://www.futuremark.com/forum/showthread.php?t=12447
http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=570
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...duo-e6300.html
http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2...o-reviews.html

ScumLord

I'm in the process of looking up parts for a new PC too, I've already built 4. One for meself, 2 monsters (no limit spending:D ) for work and one for my sister that went on fire.

The biggest problem is I don't have an internet connection at home so I have to do all me research at work so I'm completely straped for time. If ye could point me in the right direction..... or even do all the research for me that would be great:p

I really want the new stuff in it I'm still working with AGP and IDE and I feel old and out of touch because of it. I haven't read a PC magazine or online review in ages and have been slightly left behind. I'm slowly getting my head around the graphics cards.

With ATI cards gto is bad right? XT good?
I haven't had a geforce in yonks so I know little about them. GTX is the best right? I'm just working off which ones are most expensive on Ebuyer. Is the radeon 9800 completely out of date? It's still playing everything on it so far.

I'm looking at getting a Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ I was going to buy off elara.ie but overclockers seem slightly cheeper whats there shipping costs like. I know Ebuyer charge £25 no matter what.

Elara seem cheep but not well stocked for motherboards and Graphics cards
Ebuyer is well stocked but you need to buy allot to justify the shipping costs.
I always thought of Overclockers as top of the range and expensive but I may be wrong I'll have a gander at there website now.

I want a good motherboard that will serve me well for a while, are there any new advances over the horizon that will render current motherboards reduntant and old?


I have most of the other basics from the last build including PSU and DVD RW I'm debating over wether or not to get a new case I have the Ebuyer dracula one but it's cheep and noisy and I want something quieter and better quality like the Antec one I got for work. They have a good deal on ebuyer for a Antec P180 http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/91721/rb/20644502501

PogMoThoin

Ocuk charge UK£22 for bulk delivery. I bought most parts off them. Their prices are good & they got a great selection. Deliverys arrive within 4 days.

What about conroe? Outperforms Amd at lower prices.
Amd prices are coming down all the time to match conroe so you'll find good deals everywhere soon.

ScumLord

Is conroe Intels new 64bit chip? I hadn't heard of it at all. Ever since I started using AMD I've never looked back. Didn't even try looking up Intel chips.

I'm not as such looking for top of the line equipment but I do at least want the option to put the latest and greatest into the machine. That's why I'm looking for a good motherboard.

Whats the storey with ram? Intel and AMD use completely different types don't they?

PogMoThoin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Next_Generation_Microarchitecture

Ya got a lot of reading to do. Check out the links further up the thread. Intel have bounced back.
http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/07/14/core2_duo_knocks_out_athlon_64_uk/

eamo55

Thanks for all the help lads, I'll have another look armed with the advice and come back with something more detailed.

eamo55

From what I've seen Komplett seem a good deal cheaper than anywhere else. Just to take the Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 as an example, it's 225 on komplett, and around 270 on overclockers and ebuyer. Is there any other site that would match that?

Also is there any place to get a core 2 duo cpu soon? They're saying 21 aug on komplett, which will probably get put back?

Re my budget I suppose I'd be willing to spend 1000-1200.

PogMoThoin

Thats why i pre-ordered on ocuk, worth the extra quids just to have it sooner. Nobody else seems 2 be able to get their hands on conroe for weeks.

ScumLord

Wow good job you told me about those conroes I'm a bit behind the times alright..

OK so the conroe looks like the way to go I was looking at the E6400 which is only €13 more than the Athlon at €225. Is it worth going for the E6600 at €312?

The RAM is awful expensive for those systems (if I'm looking at the right stuff some of them where over €400 for 2GB). I'm a little bit iffy about which Ram I need, I know its DDR2 but there seem to be a good few different types

Are those 755 motherboards that say there for core 2 duo on overclockers the fully featured ones with speedstep or will those boards be coming out at the same time as the chips?

It's working out at

Gigabyte GA_965p_D54 €154
Conroe E6600 €312
Samsung SM-940BF 19" LCD €276
Corsair XMSZ-5400 €155

€902

Still need a good graphics card and hard drive.

I'm seriously considering buying that Antec P180 right now it's almost £40 sterling cheeper on Ebuyer than anywhere else at the moment but I don't know if I like the design. It's ether that one or the Thermaltake VB1000BWS Saprano (black) on OC. I already have an Antec case at work and I know their well made if a little bland. Any experience with these cases? I suppose there both fairly top notch.

PogMoThoin

Conroe is the right choice my friend.

I got this ram for sale:
http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=3576

There are only a few mobo's out at mo for conroe. only 4/5 on ocuk. All take ddr2 ram. Might be worth stepping up to E6600 cos its got 4mb l2 cache which from benchies seems 2 make a difference. Bought Thermaltake Armour myself, but thats what i wanted. just make sure case doesn't include psu as these are usually crap and look for good airflow. Choose any Sata hd, whatever size suits you or your budget. I'd suggest a 7900gt as gpu. can upgrade again later.