Newbie Building A Machine From Scratch

Roomic Cube

I've hads a good read of the stickies and whatnot, but i'd like to hear peoples advice which their experiences with certain products etc.

I'm looking to build a pc from scratch, it's a full build I wont be recycling anything from other machines.

- I'll be using it primarily for gaming, and some college work...but mostly gaming. :P

- I'm going to be spending around €900, possibly slightly more so I'd like it to be a bit of a beast, but I wanna get the best possible stuff I can.

- I'm not sure what graphics card to go for, or whether i should go for a dual setup with two slightly cheaper cards.

- As for RAM, I'm thinkin around 6gb along those lines, more couldnt hurt though.

- And the CPU I'm leaning towards the i7 and maybe overclock then

these are all just ideas, i'd really like some opinions and what right now would be the optimal system I could build for 900ish euro

Vergast

Out of interest does the 900 include a moniter and keyboard and mouse?

Roomic Cube

No i have a spare 30" monitor, have keyboard and mouse also.

when I say 900-1000 euro im talking to build the tower.

case
cooling
cpu
mobo
graphics card
ram
hdd

the machine basically

RoyalMarine

Roomic Cube wrote: »

No i have a spare 30" monitor, have keyboard and mouse also.

when I say 900-1000 euro im talking to build the tower.

case
cooling
cpu
mobo
graphics card
ram
hdd

the machine basically

whats the resoloution of the 30" monitor? its important when deciding what gpu is suitable when gaming.

Roomic Cube

The one I thought was 30" is actually a 26" samsung flatscreen which is - 1366x768

and I also have a philips 42" and the res on that is 1920x1080
I wouldnt use it on that all the time tho, the 26" would be fine.

Mister Man

Im also new to building (so dont kill me please :P) but couldn't you get build a Intel i7 PC with that budget?

Maybe you can't i don't know, but anyway you will be able to build a rite monster for the price

Best of luck with the build man

Roomic Cube

Mister Man wrote: »

Im also new to building (so dont kill me please :P) but couldn't you get build a Intel i7 PC with that budget?

Maybe you can't i don't know, but anyway you will be able to build a rite monster for the price

Best of luck with the build man

yeah i'd say so, i'll be looking into the i7 for sure

EDIT: I've had a look at all my funds, and i have exactly €1000 to build this machine, I can't go over that
so your advice please as to the best i could get on that budget!

Slutmonkey57b

The 5770 on the basis that "it's in stock".

If you want to have a 5850 or 5870 swap the 1366 board&cpu for a 1156 setup instead. I assume you have an old hard drive knocking around for storage, no point buying a new setup without an SSD (this is the Indilinx version of ST's SSD's)

youcancallmeal

You should be able get a very nice rig with that kind of budget. Usually the bigger the budget the easier the build. Try and put a build together and post it up then we can advise on what areas can be improved on.

Roomic Cube

what are the advantages of 1156 slot setup over a 1366 setup when it comes to those cards, because those are the two cards i'd most likely go for

also what are the ssds like?

youcancallme>al wrote: »

You should be able get a very nice rig with that kind of budget. Usually the bigger the budget the easier the build. Try and put a build together and post it up then we can advise on what areas can be improved on.

yeah that's a good idea actually, i'll put something together

uberpixie

Roomic Cube wrote: »

what are the advantages of 1156 slot setup over a 1366 setup when it comes to those cards, because those are the two cards i'd most likely go for

Socket 1156 is cheaper, gives you exactly the same performance in games as socket 1366 and is sometimes faster over socket 1366 as HT messes up performance in some games....

Core i7 is total overkill atm, Core i5 is better value and if you compare a i7 to an i5 build @ €1000, the i5 build will be faster in games as you can cram in a much faster radeon 5850 in.

The icore7 backed up with the right software is magic for multimedia and running crazy intensive apps, in gaming it's on par with the icore5 and again slower in certain situations due to HT.

Roomic Cube wrote: »

also what are the ssds like?

SSDs are a luxury, but a luxury worth indulging in... Using an SSD as your windows c: drive makes the every day running of windows faster and smoother. Boot times are greatly reduced, any application installed on the SSD will launch almost instantly e.g. no waiting for Office/open office to open as soon as you double click it's there on screen.

SSDs do require a bit of TLC though: you can never defragment one as you would do with a normal harddrive (this messes them up big style), to ensure best performance from the SSD you need to remap all you temp file folders and your pagefile to another regular harddrive (not a huge deal and easy to do if you read an online guide). Also the more full the drive gets, the more performance on the drive will drop.

An SSD is prob one of the few ways you can significantly improve everyday performance of your PC. You won't be installing your games on one or storing files, a fast Samsung F3 1 terabyte will fit the bill for games and a Samsung F2 1.5 terabyte low power harddrive will fit the bill for file storage.

One majo downside to SSD ownership:when you buy an SSD, every other computer that you use without one feels very slow!:D

Roomic Cube

Something like this then perhaps, not gonna go for the ssd yet me thinks, although it'll be something I'll go for when I get paid again

This is from komplett, I'm sure theres cheaper places to buy from, this was just to put something together....

marco_polo

Roomic Cube wrote: »

what are the advantages of 1156 slot setup over a 1366 setup when it comes to those cards, because those are the two cards i'd most likely go for

also what are the ssds like?



yeah that's a good idea actually, i'll put something together

I think was just reccomending that if you were getting a more expensive graphics card, then save some money on the board/CPU

EDIT: uberpixie said it better

C.D.

OP, don't forgot to get a PSU- you seem to have neglected to mention one thus far (or I missed you doing so).

marco_polo

Also unlike 1366 the 1156 platform is dual channel not tri-channel, so you are only looking at 4Gb of RAM.

Nollog

marco_polo wrote: »

Also unlike 1366 the 1156 platform is dual channel not tri-channel, so you are only looking at 4Gb of RAM.

I was going to say this.

You might also need a dvd drive to install retail games.
And make sure your psu has the cables and power to run that 5850.

Roomic Cube

Thanks for the advice, I'm pretty sure I know what I'm gonna pick up, if I run into any trouble, I'll post in here!