What do you think?

[shocker5304]

Ive never built a computer before, and im going to make it one of the best computers as possible. ive picked out some basic hardware here are the links and what i want to know. Will these componants work together? Are they good? what would you recommend? And if there is anythign better than these please tell me. (money is low priority)

MotherBoard

http://motherboards.bizrate.com/mark...359212973.html

CPU

http://motherboards.bizrate.com/mark...329888920.html

GPU

http://motherboards.bizrate.com/mark...349375289.html

Alternate GPU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102003

Hard Drive

http://motherboards.bizrate.com/mark...297242900.html

[Staren]

If price is not a major consideration and you plan to go pretty much all out without going nuts with it, then go with the X1900XTX video card. Not a bad starting point. Around what would your price cap be? That will help us sort out the rest of your parts. Even just arbataraly saying $2,500 or $3,000 would help. We've done dream builds before and they just start getting strange after a bit. Also, if you could use NewEgg to post your links, it would help. Even if you don't end up buying there (I would recomend it), the specs are in a standard format that are quick and easy for everyone to read.

[shocker5304]

here are the newegg links. this is mainly a gaming computer, Bf2, age of empires 3, etc. my price cap is probably $1500-2000

MotherBoard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...MP=OTC-B1zrat3

CPU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...MP=OTC-B1zrat3

GPU

http://shop.atriniti.com/product_inf...odel_id=53797A

Hard Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...MP=OTC-B1zrat3

[gary_hendricks]

If you're looking to play games like BF2 and AOE3, I don't think you need blow-the-brains out performance of a SLI motherboard. Unless you are looking to expand into dual graphics cards in future.

Frankly, the current craze over SLI and CrossFire sort of freaks me out ... I mean why would people need 2 graphics cards anyway?

[shocker5304]

to tell you the truth i didnt even know what that was until you told me, so what do you sugest? i want serious performance.
how does this dual graphics card thing work?

will those pieces of hardware work together?

[Staren]

On the most basic level SLI alows you to use two graphics cards and have each of them work on half of the image, in essence cutting in half the work load on each video card so it can do more work or do the same work faster. There is a lost more to it, but that's basicly what is going on. Both nVidia and ATI have their own version of the twin video card idea. nVidias is called SLI, while ATIs is Crossfire.

The main thing these days is that most all of the high end motherboards with the best features are all designed for either SLI or Crossfire. So if you are doing a high end system, you are pretty much going to have two graphics slots if you want to use two video cards or not. Really good motherboards that can handle the most powerful processors and other parts that have one video card slot are becoming harder to find.

Now you can use one ATI Radeon card in an SLI motherboard, or one nVidia GeForce card in a Crossfire motherboard, but to use two cards, you need either an SLI boand and nVidia video cards or a Crossfire board and ATI cards.

The bottom line, what you have will work just fine, but to get the absolute best of your parts you kind of need to pick one, but ATI vs. nVidia is an old debate, and at times a rather nasty one. You just have to read and make up your own mind on what side you want to go with. Many are going with SLI right now since it is a bit older and more stable. Crossfire still has some growing pains to get past, but will be back to being a major contender soon enough.

[shocker5304]

so, i need 2 nvidia cards on my sli board? and if i only have one card i need an ati?

"Now you can use one ATI Radeon card in an SLI motherboard, or one nVidia GeForce card in a Crossfire motherboard, but to use two cards, you need either an SLI boand and nVidia video cards or a Crossfire board and ATI cards."

and all this stuff is compatable? Thanks

(im leaning towards nvidia cards because i heard that ati has buggy software)

what video card do you suggest?

Do the 2 video cards have to be identical? or can i have say a 256mb, (primary^^) and a 128 nvidia card?

[Staren]

You can use one nVidia card in an SLI board, or one ATI card in a Crossfire board. What I was saying was that you can swap brands between motherboard and video card, but if you do, you can only use one card at a time. Sorry if that didn't read clear enough.

The best nVidia vid card out right now is the 7900GTX. The manufacturer that most everyone is going to for nVidia cards right now is EVGA.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130279

This is brand new and a $550.00 peace of hardware so keep that in mind. The next step back is the 7900GT at $300.00. I think it's the better deal,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130281

but if you really want to go for it, then the GTX is the best of the best. At least for a few months. Keep in mind that new graphics cards come out very fast, but if you get the best or second best when you build, it will last you a good few years unless you "have" to be the best for the sake of being the best. I bought the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro back in March of 04 and I am just now considering upgrades.

[shocker5304]

wow staren im very impressed, thank you so much for your help.

so all my other hardware looks good? any other suggestions? please you have really good advise.

[shocker5304]

this is alot of money, dont want to waste it

[Staren]

I would go with this hard drive.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822144701

Your motherboard has SATA II connectors. You could use the slightly older SATA drives with no problem, but this would give you just a little faster read and write time so whenever the computer has to go go to the hard drive it will happen just that much faster and give you a little boost. And it's the same price, gotta love it.

Now this is a biggie. I should have told you this im my first reply. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT use a cheap power supply that comes with a case on this build. These are rather power hungry parts and if a cheapo power supply can't handle the load and goes on you, it would probobly take a few other parts with it. There is a sticky in the General Hardware section with a list of good PSU (power supply) brands. Read it. I would go with the Antec TruePowerII 550 watt. There are more expencive PSUs out there, some better, but this is a sweat spot.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103932

The best PSU if you really wanted to go nuts (this is for people who overclock and really push their systems mostly) is the OCZ PowerStream http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817711002

As far as your question about matching the two video cards, they need to be basicly the same. When SLI first came out they had to be the same model number even, or you would start to see problems, but today they just need to be the same type. For example, an EVGA 7800GT 256mb and an XFX 7800GT 256mb would work fine, but an EVGA 7800GT and an EVGA 6600GT 128mb would not. They do not have to be the same maker (though the closer the cards are to each other the less chance of a problem), but they should be the same core type and memory size.

[shocker5304]

my case is coming with a 450 watt power supply, do you think that is enough?

is there anything important im missing to start building?

here is the link to the case i bought

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWN%3AIT&rd=1

(what about this Corsair XMS-3500LL PRO? should i get that?) http://www.corsairmicro.com/corsair/...-3500LLPRO.pdf

this is the ram i decided to use too, what do you think?

http://www.4allmemory.com/index.cfm?...mory_id=173559 (guaranteed to work, but idk if there is anything better out there)

[glc]

Do you really expect a $25 case to come with a quality power supply? The answer is not only NO, but HECK NO. Thre aren't even any good 450 watt power supplies WITHOUT a case for $25. Review Staren's previous post, please.

3500LL ram is a waste. All you need is 3200 value ram, but you should buy it in dual channel kits. Newegg sells Corsair Value Select as cheap as anyone.

[shocker5304]

lol, yeah i figured that, the price seemed too good.

im reading some reviews and people are saying that the 3200 has alot of errors and high chance of getting a bad stick.

Would these sticks work with my motherboard? is DDR ram the same as DDR2?
by dual channel do you mean like for 2gb get 2-1gb ?

[freakitchen]

3200 RAM is no more or less likely to be defective than any other speed memory. You can reduce the chance of a defective stick by going for a quality brand like Corsair.

DDR2 is for Intel builds, you want standard DDR PC3200 for an AMD Build.

Dual channel memory works as you described - get 2x1GB sticks

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145579

FK

[Staren]

DDR is not DDR2. DDR2 is a newer chip design. A lot of the new Intel motherboards use it, but it it's really just a form factor change right now. It hasn't improved over DDR quite yet.

XMS, HyperX, Extreame, GOLD, all those type of RAM are for people overclocking their hardware to run faster then designed or useing picky motherboards that where designed for overclocking. Asus boards work great with standard RAM, and you wouldn't see any impovment over the higher end stuff unless you started messing with it. I've been reading this stuff for four years now, and I still only do a bare minimum of tweaking for stability.

I could give you the best price vs. performance part, then the all out high end part if you want to spend the money as I have been doing, but with RAM I'm not going there. When you get into hign end RAM, you have to start researching what others have tested, what's known to work, what's known to be a problem, what runs stable at stock speeds, and what overclocks well for your exact board.... Then when you go to buy you don't have to look at just brand and speed, but also exact model numbers and batch numbers. In this case go with Corsair or Kingston Value PC 3200. It will just work without us telling you to go read until you're ready to give up on this all together.