Building my gaming rig, opinions and suggestions welcomed!

[Siegler]

Hey guys, my name is Steve and I am building my first gaming rig. My roomate recommened me to this site, so I would like to list my parts and explain why I am going with them. I have a $2,000 (give or take) budget. I am planning to overclock (not hardcore) and play quite a range of games.

the list is so far...

LCD monitor:
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16824116355
I chose this monitor because its cheaper than my first choice, the VP930b, and according to specs, its response time is amazing. Even though I have read that this monitor is not flexible, considering the price and performance, I have considered it.

Case:
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16811133142
I love how this case looks, even though its heavy, it's cheap and I feel I won't go wrong with it.

Power Supply:
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16817103928
I chose Antec because I can trust them with their power supplies. This one is good, fairly cheap, and I know I dont need a whopping 500w, so this is good for now.


CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16819103529
I want something fairly new and fast (of course AMD) I dont think im ready for x2, its a bit pricey and as I have heard, games dont take full advantage of it YET, so im going to go with the AMD 4000+ SanDiego

Hard Drive:
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16822148039
Instead of waisting money on a raptor, I am doing Raid 0, with 2 Seagate 120gb SATA barracudas (sp?) with NCQ. I chose Seagate because they offer a 5 year warrenty and I have heard they make decent Hard Drives.

Motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813136152
I am going with the DFI Lanparty (no SLI, I dont want to do it). Before I was going to chose the Abit AN8, but hearing that DFI was the best overclocking board and the most reliable, I decided to go with it.

Memory:
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820227219
I wanted to do DDR500. This was my hardest choice, but after doing massive research, the two companies I wanted to buy from was either Muskin or OCZ gold edition (I am getting 2 gb (2x1gb sticks)). Reading some articles on other forums as well, I hear the OCZ responded well with the motherboard I am getting.

Video Card:
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16814130249
I used to be an ATI fan, but recently I feel they arent up to par with Nvidia. With their new series out, it will definatly be more expensive and some of the cards wont come out for a while. I know not to spend a lot of money on THE best video car, it would just waste my money. So I am going with the second best, which I feel this card has the best bang for buck on the high performance scale. I chose eVGA because I hear they are very reliable and this OC 7800gt gives me very good feelings.

Optical Drives
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827135136
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16827101651
I chose to get the DVD-RW thats their because its cheap. And the DVD-rom will be from ASUS, I trust them and its also cheap.

Thermalpaste:
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16835100007
Since I will overclock a bit, I will purchase this. Of course I will put the computer together, and make sure everything works first before I void any warrenties.

Speaking of cooling, do any of you reccomend a better heatsink/fan for my processor (or video card) that will drastically cool better then stock cooling?

I have my MX1000 mouse delivered the other day. I have my cyber acoustic 2.1 speakers lol, but im looking to buy some 5.1 surround sound speakers, but this computer will be built first. I'll get a floppy too, don't worry.

Granted, I love newegg, but most of my purchases will be from zipzoomfly.com, because most of their products are tax free and free 2nd day shipping. Some things that are not at zipzoomfly will be from newegg.

One last thing, I have heard that Black Friday is the best time to purchase computers. Is it worth it?

Thanks for your time to check my items out and please give me some suggestions you have or opinions.

[rspassey]

Very Nice, Everything looks compatible to me; and you should be OC that baby pretty well. Yes; you will need to change from your stock cooling (or at least that is recomended) even for minor OCing... I don't know much about heatsinks and which are better (sorry I cant help with that). Just wondering; what is turning you away from getting at least and SLI mobo for future upgradability?
Very nice part choices...this will be a killer gaming PC.

[Siegler]

well, my roomate who has been on here for about a year or so, got an sli motherboard. He got screwed because he got the eVGA 6800 ultra, and then eVGA stopped making that card.

thats one. The other reason is i hear the 7800gtx single card performs better than 2 6800 ultras. So getting SLI I feel will be a waste of money. By the time for a video card upgrade, I would rather buy the next generation card, which will have better features in terms of pixel shaders and so forth. Thanks for your reply

[Siegler]

I was just thinking, if i ever wanted to do SLI because it may be a cheaper alternative then a newer card, I might as well get the SLI board just in case if I change my mind.

[rspassey]

This is true; yet we never know when the next best video card will comeout... and if it is going to be two years from now you might want to get more performance within one year... Thus making the choice of getting and SLI mobo (and PSU if you want to spend the little bit more) a worthy buy at this moment. I am not trying to push you into getting an SLI mobo; just laying out my mindset on the whole SLI deal. But trust me; I will never go back to one card again!

[Siegler]

heh, thanks

As for cooling, my dormmate is currently installing this amazing zalman heatsink...I am very interested in buying it, but first I will see the temperature difference.
Here is a link, very pricey.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118223

But I won't buy from newegg, I have found it $20 cheaper somewhere else. :-D

[g-dogg]

Originally Posted by ryan124712 Very Nice, Everything looks compatible to me; and you should be OC that baby pretty well. Yes; you will need to change from your stock cooling (or at least that is recomended) even for minor OCing... I don't know much about heatsinks and which are better (sorry I cant help with that). Just wondering; what is turning you away from getting at least and SLI mobo for future upgradability? Very nice part choices...this will be a killer gaming PC.

actually the sandiego core runs as cool as the venice so even when overclocking Siegler wouldnt need an aftermarket heatsink, my venice (sempron 64) does 2.7 on stock cooling. btw that rig looks nice, and go with an SLI board its always better to have more options on the board even if your only using 1 card.

peace out
g-dogg

[Siegler]

Thanks for your input.

[Jaggannath]

Steve, if only everyone bothered to research their builds like you have Nice work. My only concern would be the BenQ DVD, but only because I don't know too much about them. Do you know if they come with any software??

As for SLI, you won't get screwed with a 6800 GT, but it's your choice, I don't blame you if you don't want to get it. All in all, a good build

[Siegler]

Originally Posted by Jaggannath Steve, if only everyone bothered to research their builds like you have Nice work. My only concern would be the BenQ DVD, but only because I don't know too much about them. Do you know if they come with any software?? As for SLI, you won't get screwed with a 6800 GT, but it's your choice, I don't blame you if you don't want to get it. All in all, a good build

Thanks for your input. About the BenQ DVD, this may just be plain ignorance but I treated my optical drive selections as the cheaper the better. It doesnt say anything about software except in system requirements "100MB free HDD space for CD/DVD recording related software installation." So maybe I can assume it comes with software. If not, I could just get Nero :-)

For the video card, I wanted to spend around $350-$400ish, and this card seemed the best out their to my research.

[Jaggannath]

True... I was just thinking that perhaps it might be worth considering a Lite-On, which in retail comes bundled with Nero.

[jayb1234]

Here is an oem Liteon with PowerDVD, Nero Express, and cable for a dollar less than the BenQ. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106989

[Siegler]

Nice, thanks for searchin, i'll definatly consider.

[Siegler]

bumperz

[Matt_Smi]

Looks like a very nice build! I have that Lite-ON DVD burner mentioned and it is very good, it is a bit loud, but that doesn’t bother me, it does its job very well and burns very quickly, also the software it comes with is really nice, Nero is great. I also have that same Seagate hard drive in my system for extra storage and it is a great drive, it is quiet and fast, I have had my OS loaded on both the Raptor (which I currently have sent out for RMA because of how loud it was) and the Seagate and to be totally honest there is not much of a difference in speed. With the Raptor programs install and open a bit quicker and the system feels a bit smoother, but not by much, I think those two drives in Raid 0 will be great, just make sure to backup regularly as no hard drive is failure proof. By the way what is the grand total for this build?

[Siegler]

Originally Posted by Matt_Smi Looks like a very nice build! I have that Lite-ON DVD burner mentioned and it is very good, it is a bit loud, but that doesn’t bother me, it does its job very well and burns very quickly, also the software it comes with is really nice, Nero is great. I also have that same Seagate hard drive in my system for extra storage and it is a great drive, it is quiet and fast, I have had my OS loaded on both the Raptor (which I currently have sent out for RMA because of how loud it was) and the Seagate and to be totally honest there is not much of a difference in speed. With the Raptor programs install and open a bit quicker and the system feels a bit smoother, but not by much, I think those two drives in Raid 0 will be great, just make sure to backup regularly as no hard drive is failure proof. By the way what is the grand total for this build?

Give or take a few...like $1950

I feel better that someone has had some of my parts and able to give good reviews about. My roomate/friend has the raptor, recently he had problems with it when he tried overclocking. It also has only 74gigs and I may want some more space.

What are some backup options. I dont want to spend too much more, maybe when I am rich and famous ill get Raid 0+1 haha.

[Matt_Smi]

Originally Posted by Siegler What are some backup options. I dont want to spend too much more, maybe when I am rich and famous ill get Raid 0+1 haha.

The best option is another hard drive; I use a 120 GB external HD to back up all my important files as well as my media files. If you do not have an extensive media collection than burning your files to DVD-R’s may be an option as well. But when you have over 20 gigs of music wasting 5+ DVD-R’s every time you do a backup becomes wasteful as well as slow. Another option could be backing up your files to another computer in your house though your network. I actually plan on throwing my old Dell into my closet, putting it on my wireless network and using it as a storage server, it only has an 80 gig hard drive at the moment but I may ad another one in there, this way I can also store/backup files onto that, and it is safe because it is independent of my main system.

[Siegler]

Good point, I have a laptop too for New Jersey Institute of Technology (which im a freshman for computer engineering major) and when I build my computer, I also have this one to back everything up.

For those interested, its a Dell d810
2ghz pentium M
128mb x600 graphics
1 gig of ddr2 ram
80gig slow hard drive
WUXGA screen (1920x1200 rocks!)

I currently have a cooling pad from KingWin:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834996401

[Siegler]

One question. I may reconsider my processor to a dual core 4200+. How does this processor rank up against the 4000+ in current games?

[blue60007]

For games? It's going to rank below the 4000+. You see, games can only utilize one core, meaning only half the processor is going to be used on the game. I think the 4200+ X2 is something like two 3200+'s, or something around there. So for gaming, you'll want the 4000+, single core, not dual.

[kram 2.0]

Originally Posted by blue60007 For games? It's going to rank below the 4000+. You see, games can only utilize one core, meaning only half the processor is going to be used on the game. I think the 4200+ X2 is something like two 3200+'s, or something around there. So for gaming, you'll want the 4000+, single core, not dual.

The AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ is two FX-53s in a single core. The FX-53 is an unlocked multiplier version of the Athlon 64 4000+.

kram

[Siegler]

Originally Posted by blue60007 For games? It's going to rank below the 4000+. You see, games can only utilize one core, meaning only half the processor is going to be used on the game. I think the 4200+ X2 is something like two 3200+'s, or something around there. So for gaming, you'll want the 4000+, single core, not dual.

Yeah I understand that, but when in the nearby future do you think games will utilize dual cores? If its within a year, then I might think its worth getting. If not, I will definatly be happy with my 4000+

[blue60007]

Well, he's looking at the 4200+ X2 which is two 3500+'s I believe. Either way, I don't think you'll be dissapointed. I'd rather see you go for the 4000+ because I think it will be a while before games start running multi-threads. Plus you could take the price difference between the 4200+ and the 4000+ and spend it towards a 7800GTX rather than the 7800GT. For gaming you really need to beef the video card up more than the CPU.

[Siegler]

Originally Posted by blue60007 Well, he's looking at the 4200+ X2 which is two 3500+'s I believe. Either way, I don't think you'll be dissapointed. I'd rather see you go for the 4000+ because I think it will be a while before games start running multi-threads. Plus you could take the price difference between the 4200+ and the 4000+ and spend it towards a 7800GTX rather than the 7800GT. For gaming you really need to beef the video card up more than the CPU.

Alright, thanks.

[RazorDX]

Unless you've got your mind set on strictly Seagate drives, you could get a pair of Maxtor 16MB cache drives for a couple more dollars. They are often comparable to Raptors with more storage space. You could also go for Western Digital, but they are a bit pricier (not by much though).

Newegg has 2 cheap Maxtor 16MB drives, a 200GB for 85 and a 250GB for 93. Get the 200GB, as it has much more features (quieter, more reliable, more durable). 200GB is more than plenty for a gaming system.

If you are going to get new cooling, definitely go with Zalman. You don't have to spend that much though... this Zalman HSF is plenty awesome cooling, especially paired with Arctic Silver. You can also get the same thing in a VGA form, if you want to overclock your video card. You may want to opt for the 92mm version if your motherboard has any slots close to the CPU. Several people have found that the sheer size of the heatsink covers the AGP or a ram slot. Definitely go all copper though, the AlCu heatsinks are awesome as well but for a few dollars more it's a better solution.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118115

[Jaggannath]

Why did your room-mate try to overclock a Raptor??

[Siegler]

Originally Posted by RazorDX Unless you've got your mind set on strictly Seagate drives, you could get a pair of Maxtor 16MB cache drives for a couple more dollars. They are often comparable to Raptors with more storage space. You could also go for Western Digital, but they are a bit pricier (not by much though). Newegg has 2 cheap Maxtor 16MB drives, a 200GB for 85 and a 250GB for 93. Get the 200GB, as it has much more features (quieter, more reliable, more durable). 200GB is more than plenty for a gaming system. If you are going to get new cooling, definitely go with Zalman. You don't have to spend that much though... this Zalman HSF is plenty awesome cooling, especially paired with Arctic Silver. You can also get the same thing in a VGA form, if you want to overclock your video card. You may want to opt for the 92mm version if your motherboard has any slots close to the CPU. Several people have found that the sheer size of the heatsink covers the AGP or a ram slot. Definitely go all copper though, the AlCu heatsinks are awesome as well but for a few dollars more it's a better solution. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118115

Well, I chose seagate for their 5 year warrenty and the new NCQ drives. But now I see that the maxtor has NCQ also, I will very well look more into this.

[Siegler]

Originally Posted by Jaggannath Why did your room-mate try to overclock a Raptor??

lol he didnt overclock the raptor. He overclocked his computer and maybe their was an error and the hard drive was corrupted or something, I'll ask him more about it.

[nicolaus corelius]

harddrive corruptions are 90% of the time software code error rather than actual hardware failure.
i had my windows system messed up couple of time.
BTW, ur video card is gonna be ownage and is it literally the second best. for now all the games are gonna be beatiful.

[Siegler]

Originally Posted by nicolaus corelius BTW, ur video card is gonna be ownage and is it literally the second best. for now all the games are gonna be beatiful.

Why thank you, I am doing my homework.