Yet another 1st time builder

Sanjuro

Trying for my first build in January. Just threw together a list of stuff I might get and thought I'd get the experts' opinions! Any comments, criticisms? Any help greatly appreciated!

Logitech G5 Gaming-Grade Laser Mouse
Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard
Lian-Li PC V1100 PLUS Aluminium Midi-Tower
Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLi Compliant PSU
Asus P5Q Pro Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.16GHz (1333FSB)
Asus GeForce 9800 GTX+ "Dark Knight" 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI
Samsung SpinPoint F1 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache x 2
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Platinum Series DDR2
Samsung SH-S223F/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter
Xilence 3.5" Fan Controller
Linksys WUSB54GC 54Mbps Wireless USB 2.0 Network Adapter

Comes to about €1035 or thereabouts.

Drift

I'd suggest getting a second 500GB hard drive. You'd be amazed how fast 500 gigs fills up especially if you've got a large music collection.

cian1500ww

Looks good mate, are you going for 64bit ?

Sanjuro

I copied and pasted the list from the one I'd saved in a document from my desktop and accidentally deleted the x2 on the harddrive listing. I will indeed be getting 2 harddrives.

I'm not sure about 64 bit. I will be using the computer for graphics programmes (Adobe Suite) and some pretty hefty gaming. I was thinking of going for 8Gb Ram, and I know Vista 64 is the only OS that will work on that. What would you recommend?

Hoser

that looks like a good system my friend

i would suggest getting a quad core..i know i have been posting in a lot of build threads and recommending quads..its because they are better in performance..and they cost around 20 more Euro..you can easily overclock it to a 3.0Ghz with no sweat and stable temprature on stock cooler. And it will show better performance using your adobe programs..encoding some stuff and listening to music at the same time with no trouble. Plus a quad will be kinda future proof..when we get to a stage where games will use the advantage of multiple cores. For example gta 4 came out for pc and it needs alot of core power for all the rendering it needs to do, also far cry 2 shown better performance on a quad then a dual core its even mention in recommendations.

also the graphics card..the 9800 GTX+ is around 170, but i would suggest investing in a Ati Radeon HD 4850 or even a 4870. You can get a 4850 512MB for around 150 which has shown a tad better performance in some games..but not all. There are plenty of benchmarks out there.

everything else looks good.

cian1500ww

Sanjuro wrote: »

I'm not sure about 64 bit. I will be using the computer for graphics programmes (Adobe Suite) and some pretty hefty gaming. I was thinking of going for 8Gb Ram, and I know Vista 64 is the only OS that will work on that. What would you recommend?

Well if you're going for anything over 3GB then your as well to go for 64bit. I don't think 8GB would be of much advantage to you. My advice is to go with the 4GB you already have and see how it works for you then add in more of you think you need.

Sanjuro

Hoser wrote: »

that looks like a good system my friend

i would suggest getting a quad core..

So would a quad core at 2.40 GHz run better than a dual core at 3.16 GHz? I don't know much about overclocking... I guess I could learn to overclock the quad core to 3.30 GHz, but I'd be worried about making it unstable.

TerrorFirmer

Sanjuro wrote: »

So would a quad core at 2.40 GHz run better than a dual core at 3.16 GHz? I don't know much about overclocking... I guess I could learn to overclock the quad core to 3.30 GHz, but I'd be worried about making it unstable.

I wouldn't recommend quad overclocking for someone new to it, they run much hotter then dual cores, which requires more attention and ideally a 3rd party cooling solution. The original choice of 8500 is OK anyway and while it doesn't need any overclocking it would do so easily. The vast majority of games would run better on an E8500 then a Quad @ 2.4Ghz but that's gradually changing - but slowly, a fast dual core is more then enough at the moment. But if you are using programs, a quad is probably a better investment for your machine overall. Besides, a 2.4Ghz Quad core is still plenty for games without any overclocking, so you're not exactly loosing out by going that option.

Incidentally it would appear you're buying a lot of that stuff because you think it looks good, eg. the PC8500 Ram - you didn't seem to want to overclock until someone mentioned it so there really is no reason to get ram that fast unless it's cheap, but PC6400 would be much cheaper normally and still has decent overclocking headroom as well.

From the description alone the 9800GTX+ sounds like it may been an expensive model, if it's over 170-175 then it's not value for money. HD4850 is just as fast for about 150-160 and 4870 at 200-230 is way faster. If your monitor is over 22" then think about a 1GB 4870 or 896MB GTX260, both around 270-280.