My proposed build

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Hi guys. I was originally going to buy a laptop for gaming, but now have been convinced otherwise.

I'm planning on buying all my parts from Ebuyer and building a gaming rig for the first time. However, I have no experience in the field so I was hoping for some help!

The main problem that I have is compatability. I don't know if this PSU will go with that Graphics Card, the connectors etc.. so I was hoping that this list I have will all work when put together! I need to know if it'll all work before I go buying it all! Please, take a look and comment.

Any suggestions and advice welcome!

Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair SKT AM2 nForce 590 SLI DDR2 SATA 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard
PSU: Coolermaster eXtreme Power 650W PSU - ATX 12V V2.01 120mm Fan 20+4pin
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ (3.2 GHz) Socket AM2 L2 2MB (2x1MB)
Memory: Corsair 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC Unbuffered CL5(5-5-5-1
Sound Card: Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI-Express
Graphics Card: Point Of View 9800GX2 1GB Dual DVI TV Out PCI-E Graphics Card
Hard Drive: Maxtor ST3410000340AS 1TB Hard Drive SATA300 7200rpm 32MB Cache
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-S203D 20X DVD±RW/RAM/DL Serial ATA Black Bare Drive
And the case... EV Shiny Piano Black Mid Tower Case with Colour LCD Display - No PSU

Altogether, that'll set me back £936, which is far better than I would get for buying one. Will it all work?

 

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not sure on how good that case will be but the rest will be ok

I am building one soon with all new parts that is more powerful than your build but not much more expensive, I think about £140 more.

 

For the best bang-for-the-buck, you ought to go with the Core2Duo. AMD ruled the processor scene until the C2D was released - now, there's no contest.

Never heard of "Point of View"... I'd probably recommend a more recognizable manufacturer... but hey, if it reviews well, go for it!

 

Yeah, go Core2Duo over AMD.

Personally I'd get a better quality case for quality components.

I'm not sure how reliable the Maxtor 1TB drives are, some of their smaller sized models are not very good.

You can always have 2x 500gb drives in a Striped RAID Array for performance.

I would encourage anyone to build your own system if they wanted to learn more about hardware etc, but if you're on a budget you'll probably find the same PC spec for less, from some of the large PC manufacturers. Maybe.

 

Intel CPUs are where its at right now.

 

Yes, also Nvida are better in the graphics department but it'll probably change in the future where AMD and ATi are better.

 

never mind me i made a boo boo

 

The 9800GX2 is a mistake in my opinion. It's an SLI'ed card in a single card configration and from what I have read is heavily dependant on specific driver support in order to get the maximum out of the card. Nvidia have a bit of a reputation for not continuing that kind of specific support for that long, so personally I'd steer well clear of the 9800GX2.

 

cpu/mobo - go intel. also get an OEM cpu and buy your own cooler
case - a bit cheap, you can do better than that mate
o/s - gotta be 64-bit may as well go vista

Grim

 

Thanks for the feedback guys, very useful! If I'm going for an Intel mobo & cpu, I have the following replacing the old ones:

Mobo:ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP AiLifestyle Series P35 Socket 775 Socket eSATA 8 channel Audio ATX Motherboard
CPU:Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Socket 775 (3.0GHz) 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache

I think the motherboard comes with a PSU? Not sure... If it doesn't will the PSU I stated before work? Supposedly this motherboard makes it easy to overclock the CPU and ram!
As for the graphics card, thanks Modey! I've read some reviews now about the 9800GX2 and there are loads of problems.
So I've chosen another graphics card after looking around at ATI ones:

Sapphire HD 3870 X2 1GB GDDR3 Dual DVI TV Out PCI-E

Reviews say the card runs great, apart from it being a little large... Also, it's 100 cheaper than the GX2!
Grim: I know, I went for a cheaper case to keep the price under 1000, but now I have a little more I thought I'd buy a really cool looking gaming case, let me know what you think. It even has a temp display, and it glows red :grin

NZXT LEXA BlackLine Red Mid Tower Case With LCD Temp Display

Yep, it's a large case, but I know it'll fit in my dorm. Hopefully, everything will work. Graphics card is PCI-E and ram will fit motherboard..
I don't need to worry about water cooling do I? I wont be doing much overclocking (at first hehe).

Operating System.. I wasn't going to go for Vista Ultimate x64 because I know that there are loads of games, drivers and compatability issues and I don't want any. If I shove 4GB in I'll get dual channel but the comp will recognize and use around 3GB with those components, right?

 

AMD as a process is not bad and a lot cheaper too as I recently upgraded my wife's computer with an AMD Athlon 64 x2, 3.8Ghz AM2. When powered on it's processing constant at 2.8Ghz and very fast too.

If I were you and have the spare cash I'd get case wise the Antec 900. It's still a bit steep in price though at that total, might want to check www.ebuyer.com. Lastly, would you be playing games on that system?

 

Yep, I checked out that case (the one with two fans on the front) because it's a gaming case, and I loved the top mounted USB, but I thought I'd pay an extra tenner to get something a little bigger.

And yes, I'll be using this for gaming i.e - Company of Heroes, Crysis etc..

 

the power supply would normally come with the case (not always) but i wouldnt recommend using them, using cheap PSUs are more hassle than their worth

32-bit o/s only recognises up to 4gb of memory but that also includes gfx memory. a 64-bit o/s would also make use of the 64-bit cpu

Grim

 

I'm not sure if OEM Intel CPU's come with a 3-year warranty, but the retail boxed versions do. The Antec 900 Gamer case is quite a large case, I don't know if you'd need anything more.

 

Get a decent branded PSU - cheap ones aren't worth the risk.

 

its 1 year with OEM and 3 with retail

Grim

 

The P5K is a great mobo, good choice.

No, mobo's don't come with PSU's. Cases sometimes come with them fitted. The one you mentioned in the OP looks like a good one to me. Just be sure it has the correct number of power connectors and also enough PCIE connectors as you may need 1 or possibly two for your GFX card. As for overclocking, yes it's easy with this mobo, but you still need to be careful and take things in small steps. If you do end up buying it I can give you more advice on specific settings if you want. There are also some good guides to be found online.

Can't say I know much about that card. I do know that most of Nvidia's recent cards have been better than their AMD/ATI equivalents though. http://www.guru3d.com/ is a good site for checking out reviews and the latest news in regard to GFX cards.

Only if you need a system that is silent or you intend to overclock the nuts off it. Other than that a good air cooler will do you just fine.

Yes you will only see about 3.2 gigs if you go with either XB 32bit or Visa 32bit. Vista Ultimate 64 is not as bad as you say though. I have used it on my home system and the only thing I had trouble with driver wise was the sound card (X-Fi Extreme). It wouldn't keep it's speaker / headphone configuration between reboots, but I could live with that.

 

So I should go with nVidia instead.. I found that the Geforce 8800GT is better than the HD 3870 after some reviews and benchmark tests.

Point Of View 8800GT 512MB GDDR3 256bit Dual DVI PCI-E Graphics Card <--- Good make and comments from other buyers.
I also found this overclocked one... will run a little faster right? What do you think?

My PSU has 2 x 6pin PCI-E plugins, but as for anything else I don't know if this card will work.

But I don't know if the card will fit in my case. How can I find out?? Sure, the case has dimensions but it doesn't exactly tell me how much space there is for a long graphics card like this..

With the O/S I could just get hold of a x64 version and test it before I really choose. If there are no driver problems then I'll stick with it.

@Disarm, the PSU reviews for this are great

 

Some of the customer reviews have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Typical 'reviews' I see all the time:

"I've never had any problems! - ***** five stars!"
"worked first time - excellent! ***** five stars!"
"really easy to use - ten out of ten!"

etc

Which is hardly a detailed analysis of the product.