So what do you think of my most recent proposed build?

VenomIreland

CoolerMaster HAF932 Black High Air Flow Tower Case w/o PSU
Quicklinx:62B2WS | Mfr#:RC-932-KKN1-GP
In stock
Price change
€136.41
€137.58 €137.58 LG Electronics 24x DVDRW S/D Black Kit SATA
Quicklinx:6MGMWS | Mfr#:GH24NS50 AUAR
Delivery 1-3 days
Price change
€25.02
€25.24 €25.24 Asus AM3 AMD 890GX DDR3 ATX A L
Quicklinx:6MFJWS | Mfr#:M4A89GTD PRO/US
Delivery 1-3 days
Price change
€142.64
€143.86 €143.86 AMD PHENOM II X4 955 3.2GHZ BLACK SKT AM3 L2/L3 8MB 12
Quicklinx:6K8DWS | Mfr#:HDZ955FBGMBOX
In stock
Price change
€155.94
€157.28 €157.28 LG Electronics 22" W2261VP 5MS DVI HDMI HD LCD TFT
Quicklinx:65CVWS | Mfr#:W2261VP
In stock
Price change
€168.40
€169.85 €169.85 Corsair Memory 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 Dominator DDR3 PC3-12800
Quicklinx:65M9WS | Mfr#:CMD4GX3M2B1600C
Delivery 1-3 days
Price change
€160.05
€161.43 €161.43 Sapphire Technology ATI Radeon 5770 HD 1GB PCI-Express HDMI Vapor-X
Quicklinx:6MRJWS | Mfr#:11163-05-20R
In stock
Price change
€183.47
€185.05 €185.05 Samsung 1TB F3 7200rpm SATA 3Gb/s 32MB
Quicklinx:65QCWS | Mfr#:HD103SJ
In stock
Price change
€74.05
€74.68 €74.68 Microsoft Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1pk
Quicklinx:68YSWS | Mfr#:GFC-00599
In stock
Price change
€106.72
€107.64 €107.64 CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus Cooler
Quicklinx:65B2WS | Mfr#:RR-B10-212P-GP
On order, stock delayed
Price change
€25.15
€25.37 €25.37 Best Value DVI - DVI cable 2M
Quicklinx:2SZBWS | Mfr#:DV-106
In stock
Price change
€6.27
€6.34 €6.34 Best Value SERIAL ATA CABLE 0.4m
Quicklinx:2MY8WS | Mfr#:RB-404
In stock
Price change
€3.85
€3.88 €3.88

Delivery
(24.556kg) €24.42


Total (inc VAT) €1,222.62




And am I missing anything? Sorry for the messy layout, this one involved as little editing as possible.

PS. I can only order from Dabs.ie, I do not trust Komplett.ie at the state it's in, hopefully in a month (The time I plan to order these parts) they will have fixed themselves up. PPS. I tried re-editing it, no luck

stephenmarr

Missing a PSU
i have that case i like it but its a massive case plenty of air cooling keeps my system nice and cool

VenomIreland

stephenmarr wrote: »

Missing a PSU

Thanks, so, what do you think of my build overall though?
PS. Added this PSU: http://www.dabs.ie/products/corsair-memory-550w-vx-psu-4Q0T.html

Solitaire

Buying from Dabs = Automatic Fail

Nearly €190 for a stock HD5770?! You can get the better version of that monitor €20 cheaper on Pixmania. Oh, and is that mobo made of diamonds or something?

VenomIreland

Solitaire wrote: »

Buying from Dabs = Automatic Fail

Nearly €190 for a stock HD5770?! You can get the better version of that monitor €20 cheaper on Pixmania. Oh, and is that mobo made of diamonds or something?

Pixmania huh? I'll give them a check.

VenomIreland

Will have to order OS from another place so the price (including shipping) will remain the same, but the build is better. Thanks, Solitaire.


PS: Sorry that you have to squint to read it

VenomIreland

Removed the ZEN Engagement thingy for everything but the Motherboard, CPU and GPU, as they will be most expensive to replace.

VenomIreland

Removed it from everything, actually, now to create a screengrab of this so I know what to purchase in the future.

Solitaire

Post a screengrab now those annoying ZEN thingies have been eliminated - your list should now be about a quarter of the size

VenomIreland

Solitaire wrote: »

Post a screengrab now those annoying ZEN thingies have been eliminated - your list should now be about a quarter of the size

[IMG]file:///C:/Users/Venom/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot.png[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/Users/Venom/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.png[/IMG]

drakshug

I'd go for a blu ray rather than the DVD writer. Future proofing.
Pixmania are cheaper but a pita for new users with verification etc. Why not try elara.ie
I'm also wary of radeons but that is just my opinion. Nvidia have always worked better than any radeon I've had. Good choice on Asus.

VenomIreland

drakshug wrote: »

I'd go for a blu ray rather than the DVD writer. Future proofing.
Pixmania are cheaper but a pita for new users with verification etc. Why not try elara.ie
I'm also wary of radeons but that is just my opinion. Nvidia have always worked better than any radeon I've had. Good choice on Asus.

I've had a look at Elara, they don't have all the items I want.

I may get a blu-ray drive in the future (i.e. Christmas) as I have a maximum budget because my parents are paying for all this (I get it for studying enough for my Junior Cert).

Solitaire

HAWK is overpriced. Get a basic HD5770 for €135 or the Vapor-X if its under €160. If you want to spend <€180 on a graphics card on Pixmania then get the HD5830 for €179.90

nVidia have repeatedly steered me wrong, their long-term driver support and horrific GPU/card/driver reliability makes AMD look like saints even at their worst!

And if you're not playing Blu-Rays on a PC why bother with an overpriced drive? You can always get one later once you need it and the prices come down a little more.

VenomIreland

Solitaire wrote: »

HAWK is overpriced. Get a basic HD5770 for €135 or the Vapor-X if its under €160. If you want to spend <€180 on a graphics card on Pixmania then get the HD5830 for €179.90

nVidia have repeatedly steered me wrong, their long-term driver support and horrific GPU/card/driver reliability makes AMD look like saints even at their worst!

And if you're not playing Blu-Rays on a PC why bother with an overpriced drive? You can always get one later once you need it and the prices come down a little more.

Yeah, I was consdiering the Vapor-X but didn't see it on Pixmania (although admittedly the HAWK was the first GPU to pop up under search so I just added to cart and moved on ).

BTW, I have some blu-ray movies for the sitting room (PS3) and dining room (Philips Blu-Ray player), so a blu-ray drive down the line would be nice.

VenomIreland

Okay, there's only €10 between the Vapor-X and HAWK, I think I'll stick with the HAWK.

Solitaire

There's only €5 between the HAWK and the HD5830 though!

Gah! No more cheap HD5770s... cheapest I've seen there was €150!

hare05

For a full build, you might want to check out Hardwareversand

They have a pretty good selection and they work out cheaper than most irish places for full builds.

I've done a quick build for you that comes in around the same price (€1150, no Windows as that would be the German version ^^). It has a 24" Samsung monitor which has received very good reviews (€219); an Intel i5 750 which would blow your processor clean out of the water with any level of overclock; a HAF case, as you like; a 5770 Vapor-X (not currently in stock, but no doubt will be in a few days); a good 500W PSU for OC headroom; a bluray burner; and some low voltage, CL7 1600MHz RAM for OC goodness.

Shipping costs are €30 to Ireland I think, regardless of the amount ordered.

Here's the bits:

Intel Core i5-750 Box 8192Kb, LGA1156

Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3

Coolermaster HAF Mini Windows 922

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB

Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 PCI-Express

4GB-KIT Mushkin eXtreme Performance Stiletto PC3-12800U CL7-10-10-24

Corsair VX550W 550 Watt

LG BH10LS30 Blu-Ray

Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus

Samsung SyncMaster P2470H

It's under the €1200 without Win7, though if you want the whole lot under €1200, you could easily find a good 22" monitor for €80 less. The Bluray drive was 140, so going for bog-standard DVD will save you over a hundred. Also, if you feel like it, the standard 5770s are about 30 quid less than the Vapor-X. Though I recommend the Vapor-X.
What I would do is save the 120 on the bluray, add another 50 of your own and go for a 5850 Vapor-X

Are you set on going AMD or considering Intel too? The Black edition 955's are great for overclocking, but if you want a real beast, you can get the 750 up to 3.8GHz in this setup without a sweat.

It's a little bit confusing to get around their site, but just use Google Translate and you'll be fine.

Aftersales service is what you would expect from a company in another country that speaks another language. That is to say... Just deal with the part manufacturers.

MAJOR EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it.... you could fit an SSD in there if you dropped the bluray for that....

VenomIreland

hare05 wrote: »

For a full build, you might want to check out Hardwareversand

They have a pretty good selection and they work out cheaper than most irish places for full builds.

I've done a quick build for you that comes in around the same price (€1150, no Windows as that would be the German version ^^). It has a 24" Samsung monitor which has received very good reviews (€219); an Intel i5 750 which would blow your processor clean out of the water with any level of overclock; a HAF case, as you like; a 5770 Vapor-X (not currently in stock, but no doubt will be in a few days); a good 500W PSU for OC headroom; a bluray burner; and some low voltage, CL7 1600MHz RAM for OC goodness.

Shipping costs are €30 to Ireland I think, regardless of the amount ordered.

Here's the bits:

Intel Core i5-750 Box 8192Kb, LGA1156

Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3

Coolermaster HAF Mini Windows 922

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB

Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 PCI-Express

4GB-KIT Mushkin eXtreme Performance Stiletto PC3-12800U CL7-10-10-24

Corsair VX550W 550 Watt

LG BH10LS30 Blu-Ray

Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus

Samsung SyncMaster P2470H

It's under the €1200 without Win7, though if you want the whole lot under €1200, you could easily find a good 22" monitor for €80 less. The Bluray drive was 140, so going for bog-standard DVD will save you over a hundred. Also, if you feel like it, the standard 5770s are about 30 quid less than the Vapor-X. Though I recommend the Vapor-X.
What I would do is save the 120 on the bluray, add another 50 of your own and go for a 5850 Vapor-X

Are you set on going AMD or considering Intel too? The Black edition 955's are great for overclocking, but if you want a real beast, you can get the 750 up to 3.8GHz in this setup without a sweat.

It's a little bit confusing to get around their site, but just use Google Translate and you'll be fine.

Aftersales service is what you would expect from a company in another country that speaks another language. That is to say... Just deal with the part manufacturers.

MAJOR EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it.... you could fit an SSD in there if you dropped the bluray for that....

I was going to go AMD, and I don't particularly like the idea of ordering from a non-english site, but thank you very much anyway, I will take your suggestions into consideration

VenomIreland

By the way, all these suggestions are making me wish Komplett was back to the way they were, I hope they fix themselves by 18th of June, as that is when I hope to order.

Rsaeire

VenomIreland wrote: »

By the way, all these suggestions are making me wish Komplett was back to the way they were, I hope they fix themselves by 18th of June, as that is when I hope to order.

I saw you are thinking of buying the 5770 Hawk. I bought it recently and you can hardly hear it at load; well worth the price for the low fan noise.

VenomIreland

Rsaeire wrote: »

I saw you are thinking of buying the 5770 Hawk. I bought it recently and you can hardly hear it at load; well worth the price for the low fan noise.

Perfect! I will definitely get it then! It performs well and quitely and it looks nice too!

Rsaeire

VenomIreland wrote: »

Perfect! I will definitely get it then! It performs well and quitely and it looks nice too!

I agree; I love the look of the Twin Frozr II cooler on the card.

hare05

What will you be using this for anyway? Is it going to be mostly gaming? Do you have an interest in other hardware / software stuff such as virtual machines? Photoshop? The interwebs?

That would be a great computer, but if this is a first build and a present and for the JUNIOR CERT, you might want to start with something a little lower priced and more focused to your needs. I did the "Big huge mega-computer-build" thing at your age ('m still using that computer now) but I'll admit I made some mistakes that cost me a fair bit to fix.

If this is a first build go for something cheaper that will suit your needs better, build it, get used to the whole overclock-break-fix-overclock2-reinstall-maintain cycle you WILL go through, then build another one for your Leaving Cert once you know what you're doing. :rolleyes:

Also... buy CustomPC magazine and check out their budget build section. £500 pounds of hardware and it can play most games at max settings. Going top end can be nice, but it's really not necessary if all you wanna do is make Crysis look nice.

Oh yeah... useful sites:

CustomPC-BitTech

PS: The main reason I'm saying this is that it's a very bad time to buy parts right now. Only 6 months ago 4GB of ddr3 RAM was easily available for 50 quid, and a 5850 was under 200. Now it's over 300. The parts you get now will be overpriced and underpowered considering the cost involved, and... adding to that inexperience and the possibility you might fry the RAM by not using adequate static protection methods (big words for 'ground yourself'. That happened to me back then, even with an antistatic band.), you could end up with a big expensive wreck by the end of it. The end being 2 hours after the parts arrive.

VenomIreland

hare05 wrote: »

What will you be using this for anyway? Is it going to be mostly gaming? Do you have an interest in other hardware / software stuff such as virtual machines? Photoshop? The interwebs?

That would be a great computer, but if this is a first build and a present and for the JUNIOR CERT, you might want to start with something a little lower priced and more focused to your needs. I did the "Big huge mega-computer-build" thing at your age ('m still using that computer now) but I'll admit I made some mistakes that cost me a fair bit to fix.

If this is a first build go for something cheaper that will suit your needs better, build it, get used to the whole overclock-break-fix-overclock2-reinstall-maintain cycle you WILL go through, then build another one for your Leaving Cert once you know what you're doing. :rolleyes:

Also... buy CustomPC magazine and check out their budget build section. £500 pounds of hardware and it can play most games at max settings. Going top end can be nice, but it's really not necessary if all you wanna do is make Crysis look nice.

I will also be doing a lot of video encoding in ripping all my DVD's and then re-encoding, then placing on an external HDD and doing a lot of gaming. Thanks for the CustomPC recommendation, I will give them a look over!

BTW, this suits my needs pretty well, IMO. I'd like it to be cheaper, but really don't want to sacrifice any parts at this stage, so the only way it could get cheaper now are the individual components get cheaper.

It will not be my first build, as I plan to make a build for a friend before that, he trusts me as I've upgraded several friends computers before and have been learning how to build since January 2009


P.S. I had totally forgotten about virtual machines, if I ever find myself needing to use one, I certainly will.
P.P.S. Also, my parents don't seem to mind me pushing the budget to the limit, and I'm greedy and selfish

VenomIreland

BTW, I don't plan to overclock excessively, just a tad as my needs grow.

Also, here's a better version of the list:


Cooler Master HYPER 212 Plus CPU Fan

Cooler Master HAF 932 PC Tower Case - Black

AMD Phenom II X4 955 - 3.2 GHz, 6 MB L3 Cache, AM3 socket - 125W - Black Edition (HDZ955FBGMBOX)

ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 - AM3 Socket - 890GX - ATX Chipset

LG GH24NS50 Internal S-ATA 24x DVD±RW Rewriter

LG W2353V-PF 23" Widescreen TFT Monitor (2ms)

OCZ Gold Low Voltage 2 x 2 GB DDR3-1333 PC3-10666 PC Memory Modules (OCZ3G1333LV4GK)

MSI Radeon HD 5770 HAWK - 1 GB GDDR5 - PCI-Express 2.0 (R5770-HAWK)

Samsung SpinPoint F3 Desktop Class HD103SJ Hard Drive - 3.5"- 1 TB - 32 MB - 7200 rpm - SATA-300

Corsair CMPSU-650TXEU PC Power Unit - 650 W


Total is:€ 1 070,39 Although I don't think that includes shipping, and I certainly won't be getting that ZEN engagement crap.

BTW, I will also be ordering the OEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit from somewhere else, maybe Dabs, as Komplett is in a shambles and Pixmania don't have it.

hare05

VenomIreland wrote: »

I will also be doing a lot of video encoding in ripping all my DVD's and then re-encoding, then placing on an external HDD and doing a lot of gaming. Thanks for the CustomPC recommendation, I will give them a look over!

BTW, this suits my needs pretty well, IMO. I'd like it to be cheaper, but really don't want to sacrifice any parts at this stage, so the only way it could get cheaper now are the individual components get cheaper.

It will not be my first build, as I plan to make a build for a friend before that, he trusts me as I've upgraded several friends computers before and have been learning how to build since January 2009


P.S. I had totally forgotten about virtual machines, if I ever find myself needing to use one, I certainly will.
P.P.S. Also, my parents don't seem to mind me pushing the budget to the limit, and I'm greedy and selfish

VMs are great once you get the hang of using them. On my e6600 pc (built in '05) I can run several operating systems side by side and network them for whatever purpose I want.
At one point I set up a system of WinXP VMs, unpatched with no antivirus and had them network with eachother and the internet (I got the idea from xkcd) and just randomly accessed warez sites in IE6 for a few hours in each of them. Then I ran a safe mode scan of each with a 30 day free trial of Nod32. Over a thousand unique viruses!

Delete the VMs, POOF! no viruses.

VenomIreland

hare05 wrote: »

VMs are great once you get the hang of using them. On my e6600 pc (built in '05) I can run several operating systems side by side and network them for whatever purpose I want.
At one point I set up a system of WinXP VMs, unpatched with no antivirus and had them network with eachother and the internet (I got the idea from xkcd) and just randomly accessed warez sites in IE6 for a few hours in each of them. Then I ran a safe mode scan of each with a 30 day free trial of Nod32. Over a thousand unique viruses!

Delete the VMs, POOF! no viruses.

I love XKCD, and I love that idea just as much

hare05

VenomIreland wrote: »

BTW, I don't plan to overclock excessively, just a tad as my needs grow.

Also, here's a better version of the list:


Cooler Master HYPER 212 Plus CPU Fan

Cooler Master HAF 932 PC Tower Case - Black

AMD Phenom II X4 955 - 3.2 GHz, 6 MB L3 Cache, AM3 socket - 125W - Black Edition (HDZ955FBGMBOX)

ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 - AM3 Socket - 890GX - ATX Chipset

LG GH24NS50 Internal S-ATA 24x DVD±RW Rewriter

LG W2353V-PF 23" Widescreen TFT Monitor (2ms)

OCZ Gold Low Voltage 2 x 2 GB DDR3-1333 PC3-10666 PC Memory Modules (OCZ3G1333LV4GK)

MSI Radeon HD 5770 HAWK - 1 GB GDDR5 - PCI-Express 2.0 (R5770-HAWK)

Samsung SpinPoint F3 Desktop Class HD103SJ Hard Drive - 3.5"- 1 TB - 32 MB - 7200 rpm - SATA-300

Corsair CMPSU-650TXEU PC Power Unit - 650 W


Total is:€ 1 070,39 Although I don't think that includes shipping, and I certainly won't be getting that ZEN engagement crap.

BTW, I will also be ordering the OEM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit from somewhere else, maybe Dabs, as Komplett is in a shambles and Pixmania don't have it.

Do you know anyone in college? Get them to buy Win7 for you through this place. Also, get the Pro version. You'll want the advanced admin features that the business versions include, if you like to tinker with (read: boredom-hack) your computers.

VenomIreland

hare05 wrote: »

Do you know anyone in college? Get them to buy Win7 for you through this place. Also, get the Pro version. You'll want the advanced admin features that the business versions include, if you like to tinker with (read: boredom-hack) your computers.

Sadly, the only person I know in college I don't know in real-life


I may as well get the pro version, it'd only be around a €20 more for OEM version, I guess.

EDIT: just checked that site, they don't have anything but upgrades, from the looks of it, and an OEM licence and media is only about €30 more, which isn't going to kill me.

hare05

Also, get this month's CustomPC. There's a good article on case modding (might be a bit advanced for someone without their own power tools) but within that is a page on cable organisation that covers all the basics.

There's also a test on energy-efficient hardware and comparisons at base clock and overclock. Remember you ain't paying the electricity bill ^^

What I found interesting is that the dual core i3-530 (dual core with HT) performed close to the Phenom II x4 965BE in media benchmarks under load while drawing only half the power the Phenom did.

Good luck with your pc!

Lu Tze

VenomIreland wrote: »

Yeah, I was consdiering the Vapor-X but didn't see it on Pixmania (although admittedly the HAWK was the first GPU to pop up under search so I just added to cart and moved on ).

Unfortunate, a couple of weeks ago the 5770 Vapor-x was on pixmania for €149, bad timing :pac:

VenomIreland

hare05 wrote: »

Also, get this month's CustomPC. There's a good article on case modding (might be a bit advanced for someone without their own power tools) but within that is a page on cable organisation that covers all the basics.

There's also a test on energy-efficient hardware and comparisons at base clock and overclock. Remember you ain't paying the electricity bill ^^

Good luck with your pc!

Thank you for all the help, I will certainly try to get CustomPC!

BTW, I know way to ground yourself without using an antistatic band, simply plug in the PSU and touch the casing of it, I've heard this can discharge you.

hare05

VenomIreland wrote: »

Thank you for all the help, I will certainly try to get CustomPC!

BTW, I know way to ground yourself without using an antistatic band, simply plug in the PSU and touch the casing of it, I've heard this can discharge you.

It can, that's what I do now. I've developed this weird shimmy that keeps my elbows in contact at all times while I'm messing with my inner parts (see what I did there? hehe...)