New Build for Newbie

elgan

I have put alist together from review on various bloggs. I am a 2nd year student who uses VMware for practicals. My old P4 hangs and kills hours. I have to bite the bullet in order to get anything done. By all means rip my list apart, it was individual parts that were recommended but may not go together very well. Any suggestions would br great- i'm weeks putting the list together & its changed so many times.
Antec Nine Hundred
Corsair Memory 620 Watt, ATX, EPS12V, PS/2,
Asus GeForce 8500GT 1GB DDR2 PCIE DVI 459/800
LG Electronics Blu-Ray/HD DVD-ROM COMBO 16x DVD+/-RW Retail BLK
Seagate Barracuda 7200.1 500GB 7200RPM S300 32MB
Asus S775 INTEL P45 ATX DDR2 AUDIO LAN P5Q
Intel Q8200 Core 2 Quad S775 4MB 2.33GHz 1333FSB
Corsair Dominator TWIN2X8500C5DF 4096MB,
DDR2, 2x2GB(KIT), DHX, E.P.P, with FAN
Akasa 3.5" bay Internal card reader
Belkin Gigabit Desktop Network PCI Card
Samsung 23" Wide SM2333SW 5ms DVI TFT Gloss Black
The prices from Komplett.ie seem the most reasonable.

somakasvh

Case & PSU - good choices
GPU - I assume you won't be wanting to use the pc for games at all with a gpu like that
HDD - Theres been one or two issues with seagate drives recently, I dunno what they're like in general though. I use Samsung drives myself and am quite happy with them
MOBO - Although I'm not familiar with the features of the P5Q, I can't work with the horrible placement of the 24-pin power connector. I'd rather pick a gigabyte board like the P45-UD3 or better
CPU - That quad is quite weak. You'd see better performance out of a E8xxx Duo. Unless you actually need 4 cores for something...
RAM - That RAM might be a bit overpriced. You haven't listed prices though. Any 1066MHz kit should give you the same performance for less money
NIC - Do you need 2 ethernet ports? The mobo has one.

Also, If you're planning on overclocking your system, you'll (pretty much) need to buy an aftermarket heatsink for the CPU

uberpixie

elgan wrote: »

I have put alist together from review on various bloggs. I am a 2nd year student who uses VMware for practicals. My old P4 hangs and kills hours. I have to bite the bullet in order to get anything done. By all means rip my list apart, it was individual parts that were recommended but may not go together very well. Any suggestions would br great- i'm weeks putting the list together & its changed so many times.
Antec Nine Hundred
Corsair Memory 620 Watt, ATX, EPS12V, PS/2,
Asus GeForce 8500GT 1GB DDR2 PCIE DVI 459/800
LG Electronics Blu-Ray/HD DVD-ROM COMBO 16x DVD+/-RW Retail BLK
Seagate Barracuda 7200.1 500GB 7200RPM S300 32MB
Asus S775 INTEL P45 ATX DDR2 AUDIO LAN P5Q
Intel Q8200 Core 2 Quad S775 4MB 2.33GHz 1333FSB
Corsair Dominator TWIN2X8500C5DF 4096MB,
DDR2, 2x2GB(KIT), DHX, E.P.P, with FAN
Akasa 3.5" bay Internal card reader
Belkin Gigabit Desktop Network PCI Card
Samsung 23" Wide SM2333SW 5ms DVI TFT Gloss Black
The prices from Komplett.ie seem the most reasonable.

CPU: get a Q6600 instead. Yes its an older version than the q8200 but it has double the amount of cache and will perform much better in some apps due to the extra cache. Tis also a tiny bit faster in clockspeed and overclocks well if you need a little bit extra extra.
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=330169

If you are using Vmware, def go for the quad. You will want as many cores as possible if you are going to be running more than one virtual machine at a time and you always have the option of devoting x2 cores to a VM for a little extra kick if it is running slow.

A qaud will mean you can still use your PC as normal while running vmware.
RAM: skip the fan you don't need it, its a waste of €20 unless you are going to be overclocking like a mad thing. As mentioned you can go for a cheaper pc8500 kit to save a few bob.

LAN card: Why the extra one? Do you really need two? VMware can have 2 Vms networked along with you main PC OS all off one onboard LAN card.....

GFX card: as mentioned its weak for gaming. A 4670 would be a better bet
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=426717

Will give you the option of playing modern games on the rig, which with a quad, 4 gig of ram will be well up to the task.

Hardrive: consider a fast samsung 1tb harddrive for an extra €30
http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=343055

More space the better in my mind. Thst said a 500 gig should suit your needs fine if you are on a tight budget. The issue with seagates mentioned was with their 1tb harddrives not the 500 gig ones.

toco123

www.hardwareversand.de


Can we stress this as being the best for prices without a doubt?

Solitaire

Never!!

HWVS is usually the best for large orders but sometimes Komplett can surprise you

As for the list...

Q6600 is a good idea. Or a X4-810 or similar but you'd need to change the mobo and memory then :rolleyes: You will need an aftermarket cooler for a quad if you want to overclock it, otherwise don't bother.

Don't bother with giant fans or coolers on top of your RAM, you should be keeping the price down here with 2x2GB PC6400 or maybe PC8500 (if you don't mind possibly fiddling with it) for under €50. Maybe a bit more if you did go AM3...

Best HDDs are Samsung and Western Digital. 1TB at most (some offers on those lately )

Unless you intend on actually using that optical drive with BluRay/HDDVD then dump it for a conventinal DVD burner and save a ton

If you play with SD Cards all the time then sure get the card reader. Don't bothe if you're only getting it to make the PC look pretty though :P And I seriously doubt you need that network card at all.

I notice there's no case on the list. Recycling the current one? Usually that's fine but what's the cooling and airflow like in there? A hot quad likes lots of air going in, through and out.

And will you be using this for gaming or any of the odd apps here and there that utlilze GPUs? It has a huge bearing on what you'd want graphics-wise. If you don't need any of that then just plonk in something cheap and reasonably modern - 9400/9500GT, HD4350/4550 etc.

On a final note, unless you intend on adding tons of HDDs, running a very powerful graphics card or carrying it over to your next build then that PSU is if anything a bit OTT (and thus expensive). Look for good 550W models from Corsair or Antec etc. for less.

AlmightyCushion

Solitaire wrote: »

Best HDDs are Samsung and Western Digital. 1GB at most (some offers on those lately )

Did you accidentally set the delorean for 1994 instead of 2009?

Solitaire

AlmightyCushion wrote:

Did you accidentally set the delorean for 1994 instead of 2009?

Grraarghh!! Why do you think I'm posting at this hour?! This multiple time zones thing is doing my head in! Pass me that flux capaci- zzzzzz

elgan

Thanks for the info- i'll make the changes

elgan

Thanks for the info- I'll make a new list

elgan

Thanksn for the input-much appreciated