Couple of Questions re: home build

Gloopy

Behold my noobiness

Hi all,

Been browsing here for a while and have found it a great help in planning my upcoming build. Looking at various online stores, I've settled on HardwareVersand as it seems to offer the best vfm.

However, I've no idea if certain items should be ideally bought locally, namely the kb (to ensure it's an Irish/UK layout), the OS (stupid question, but would it be in German??) and psu (compatible over here??).

Probably stupid questions, but hope someone can lead me in the right direction. Thanks in advance!

Gloopy

WillieDH

Keyboard, buy here or online as yes it would be german

O/S, Vista carries all languages so should be no problem

PSU, all use standard "kettle" leads so again no issue as germany uses same 240v power system as us, but probably ships with Euro plug so you need to get youself a powerlead.

Hope this helps.

Gloopy

Nice one, thanks for the Willie!

nibble

Gloopy wrote:

Nice one, thanks for the Willie!

ROFL, anyway give us a list of what you're getting so we can critique it.

Gloopy

Hmmm, only two posts in and I've made a complete tit of myself. Nice one

The word "info" should have been in there somewhere

Anyway, the rest of the rig is a little dependent on the July 22 price cuts. Originally, I had budgeted for a E6600 cpu, but if the rumours are true, and I can get an E6850 for near the same price, I might go with that. Or E6750, whatever is closest to the current E6600 price tag.

Rest of the spec;
Mobo - GA-P35C-DS3R
CPU - See ramble above
PSU - Corsair 620W HX
Gfx card - EVGA 8800 GTX
DVD RW - Samsung SH-S183A oem
Sound Card - Xtreme Gamer
OS - Vista
HD - Samsung 320GB
RAM - Corsair 2GB PC6400 CL4
CPU Cooler - AF7

That's about it, for that site. Will pick a case and kb up from Elara. At the moment, looking at a P182 and G11. Already have a good monitor, mouse and headset. As you can guess, will be a gaming rig first and foremost. Was worried the card is a wee bit ott, so am open to the idea of toning that down a bit.

Anyway, sin é

Edit: Oh yeah, will pick up a kettle lead at Elara too!

nibble

I'd change the mobo to this - http://www1.hardwareversand.de/6VLf035GGPkGJ-/3/articledetail.jsp?aid=10123&agid=659
the RAM to this - http://www1.hardwareversand.de/6VbNYxHeHAv5O-/3/articledetail.jsp?aid=10280&agid=599
and maybe get a better CPU cooler, the AC one isn't bad for the price but you could do better.

Gloopy

nibble wrote:

I'd change the mobo to this - http://www1.hardwareversand.de/6VLf035GGPkGJ-/3/articledetail.jsp?aid=10123&agid=659
the RAM to this - http://www1.hardwareversand.de/6VbNYxHeHAv5O-/3/articledetail.jsp?aid=10280&agid=599
and maybe get a better CPU cooler, the AC one isn't bad for the price but you could do better.

Okay, I know what you're saying re the Freezer Pro, but can I ask what the benefits of changing the mobo and ram would be?

Thanks in advance

dazftw

Seriously get rid of vista.. pain in the arse is all it is.. I have it and I cant have 4 gigs of ram in 64 bit.. It wont boot for me. Games crash alot to.

Gloopy

DeafVision wrote:

Seriously get rid of vista.. pain in the arse is all it is.. I have it and I cant have 4 gigs of ram in 64 bit.. It wont boot for me. Games crash alot to.

Sorry to hear that DeafVision. Is that a problem with Vista in general, or just the 64 bit though? Friends with the 32 bit are having little or no problems

far2gud

Vista is a long way off IMHO. I would stick with xp for the moment, who wants to be a beta tester for m$

8T8

Like any new OS there are teething problems just as it was with XP but if you plan your build well and dont have any tasks that are too exotic (in others words specific hardware/appliction support) then Vista works outs fine.

I'm using the 64-bit version and it's been a breeze better than I expected but thats not to say there are issues you will encounter when jumping from one OS to another and adding 64-bit into the mix.

Unless you really know what your doing beforehand and have a genuine need for the large RAM 64-bit provides I would steer clear.

32-bit version is fine for most users at this stage.

In regards the hardware i would swap the X-Fi gamer for the Music version as the gamer version is a stripped down X-Fi but the price is so small between the two editions.

nibble

Gloopy wrote:

Okay, I know what you're saying re the Freezer Pro, but can I ask what the benefits of changing the mobo and ram would be?

Thanks in advance

The Gigabyte board is fugly, has a bad layout and is not particularly impressive in any way, the Abit is IMO a better choice for the €. The ram I linked uses better IC's - tighter timings/higher clocks. And just go with the cheapest GTX, unless you want EVGA's step-up of course. If you want to save some cash consider getting a HD2900XT, it's improving all the time with driver releases and is *possibly* in a better situation than 8800's for DX10. An E6420 might not be a bad idea either, it has an 8 multi which is high enough for good clocks.

DemonOfTheFall

I had read so much Vista bashing online that I decided I had to try it. I haven't had a single issue at all, and I'd say my PC is faster than it was in XP thanks to all the smart cacheing it does. Google for all of your favourite games and apps before you decide, just to make sure there's nothing to make you regret it. My only problem is when I quit Battlefield 2142 it does the "This program has encountered an error and has to close blah blah blah", but it doesn't affect me since I had quit it anyway... Otherwise it has been flawless for me driver and stability wise.

dazftw

8T8 wrote:

Like any new OS there are teething problems just as it was with XP but if you plan your build well and dont have any tasks that are too exotic (in others words specific hardware/appliction support) then Vista works outs fine.

I'm using the 64-bit version and it's been a breeze better than I expected but thats not to say there are issues you will encounter when jumping from one OS to another and adding 64-bit into the mix.

Unless you really know what your doing beforehand and have a genuine need for the large RAM 64-bit provides I would steer clear.

32-bit version is fine for most users at this stage.

How much ram do you have? Vista will NOT let me have more than three it just wont boot

8T8

DeafVision wrote:

How much ram do you have? Vista will NOT let me have more than three it just wont boot

All 4GB is detected and running at 4-4-4-12 at DDR-2 800 speed.

If your system was unable to pick up the full amount of RAM in Windows or refused to post at all then;
* It was a RAM incompatibility fault of motherboard not Windows.
* Bios was incorrectly setup PAE could have been set wrong.
* Chipset used did not support large RAM even in 64-bit mode (although not usually mentioned the CPU supporting chipsets northbridge must also support 64-bit CPU's for large RAM support and even certain Intel chipsets did not support this meaning certain systems even when using 64-bit OS were stuck with 2GB maybe 3GB of RAM) most current mobo's now do support it properly.

nibble

Vista isn't too bad at all, if you want DX10 you're gonna need it anyway. Personally I haven't had many problems only with STALKER and the odd Far Cry crash, but that isn't Vista's fault they were just written for XP, it's pretty hard to maintain 100% compatibility across major OS changes.

DirkVoodoo

Nibble what are you on about? The gigabyte board is a very solid board and the only issue I have with them is their positioning of the IDE connector, but as most people are making the switch to SATA drives, this is really a non sequitur.

Also, I can't understand the "fugly" remark as even with a windowed case, most new coolers and GFX cards obstruct a decent view of the mobo.

Oh, and the 2900XT is a good performer, but the dealbreaker for me is its high power consumption and noisy stock fan.

And Vista is the way to go unless you have a spare copy of XP. I switched back to XP as I am happy to wait until a) I get a DX10 card that plays DX10 games reasonably when DX10 games become the norm and b) I would need another 2GB RAM to run Vista 64 as well as I can run XP.

requiem1

nibble wrote:

Vista isn't too bad at all, if you want DX10 you're gonna need it anyway. Personally I haven't had many problems only with STALKER and the odd Far Cry crash, but that isn't Vista's fault they were just written for XP, it's pretty hard to maintain 100% compatibility across major OS changes.

You can add battlefield 2142 to that as it only plays for about two minutes before punkbuster kicks you out and thats on both 32 and 64 bit versions. Also for example some codecs when installed with media player cause it stop running and this happens with alot of programs when you install add ons. Go for xp or if you feel brave just dual boot both OS on one hard drive. I don't know the benefit of the new intel processors cause the extra cache on the 6750 only gives you a benefit in memory intensive app's such as photoshop see link

Gloopy

Okay, thanks all for the replies; a lot of food for thought in there. However, I'll stick with the Gigabyte as I've just seen more recommendations for this over the Abit.

As for the cooler, any recommendations over the AF7? I will be clocking, though not to huge proportions, and not immediately. Have heard good things about Noctua and Scythe Ninjas??

Oh and I found this a few weeks ago when mulling over which OS to go with. Check it out requiem1; there's a workaround in there for Battlefield 2 (had the same Punkbuster issue), so it might just work for 2142. Of course, you may have already sorted this

papu

DirkVoodoo wrote:

Oh, and the 2900XT is a good performer, but the dealbreaker for me is its high power consumption and noisy stock fan.

.

i have one 650 psus are cheap and the stock cooler is about the same as an 8800 gts cooler , it all depends on your case and airflow , it fires up during games but im usually concentrating on the games sound and not the 2900's sound :P

TonyM.

I have both the NINJA and ARCTIC COOLER for sale, i got the 120 extreme,you can have both for €50 plus €10 postage including a new fan.

nibble

DirkVoodoo wrote:

Nibble what are you on about? The gigabyte board is a very solid board and the only issue I have with them is their positioning of the IDE connector, but as most people are making the switch to SATA drives, this is really a non sequitur.

Also, I can't understand the "fugly" remark as even with a windowed case, most new coolers and GFX cards obstruct a decent view of the mobo.

Oh, and the 2900XT is a good performer, but the dealbreaker for me is its high power consumption and noisy stock fan.

And Vista is the way to go unless you have a spare copy of XP. I switched back to XP as I am happy to wait until a) I get a DX10 card that plays DX10 games reasonably when DX10 games become the norm and b) I would need another 2GB RAM to run Vista 64 as well as I can run XP.

I didn't say it was a bad board any P35 is a good choice, TBH I just recommended the Abit on the reputation of its big brother the Pro model. I personally like my hardware to look nice and can't stand the colour scheme of Gigabyte boards, looks like they let a 4yr old with crayons loose, but hey that's just me.