Building sort of high end gaming rig. need some advice.

[waxpants1]

so these are all the parts i will use and i need to know if there all compatible with each other so it would be really great if some one could check for me.
i also have a question about SATA, do you just plug it in and it works or is there some software to install to get it running ?

CPU
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....13&cid=CPU.907

MOBO
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....503&cid=MB.526

VIEDO CARD
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....id=999.243.390

HARD DRIVE
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....cid=HD.443.877

MEMORy
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....id=RAM.346.307

PSU
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....228&cid=PS.808

COOLING THING
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....469&cid=FN.349

[hitchface]

Ok, thoughts...

What is your budget?

For a gaming rig, Intel is king of the hill. Price/performance ratios are all showing in favor of Intel right now.

Your answers will drastically change any input I have, so I'll keep my eyes peeled for a response.

[waxpants1]

I don't care for intel because AMD is alot cheaper and other than bench marks you cant really tell the dif. and im scared of getting intell because iv never had one and dont know much about intel hardware

and i dont want to make any changes i just wanted to know if all the stuff will work together but if i have to i will

[freakitchen]

Waxpants1 - I've edited your post, swearing (even badly disguised) isn't allowed here.

[Devastator]

You really should be caring. If this is high end its got to be Intel, to be honest theres ntohing to be scared of, you just put it in.

[hitchface]

You can tell the difference. Gaming benchmarks show you the difference in frame rates, which are a vital part of a gaming experience. Believe us, an Intel build will serve you far better than AMD right now.

Either way you look at it, we still need a budget from you. I can't recommend parts without it.

[waxpants1]

OK FINE ILL GET INTEL

hard drive
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....cid=HD.443.877

cooler
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....470&cid=FN.349

mobo
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....057&cid=MB.157

mem
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....id=RAM.346.314

CPU
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....834&cid=CPU.84






the bugget is around $360 because i already got the PSU, graphics card and case. but i really realy neeed to know if there compatible

[flanzig1]

The parts you picked should be OK. Don't really need the CPU cooler unless your going to OC or looking for quiet. Using an aftermarket Heatsink will void the warranty on the CPU.
AsRock boards are an ok maker, so if your going with AsRock and a uATX motherboard for budget reasons then it's usable. Would look at Asus or Gigabyte uATX boards for a bit better quailty.
Would be good idea to post the brand/model/size of the PSU. That is one area you don't want to go low budget in terms of quailty or wattage.

[waxpants1]

Originally Posted by flanzig1 The parts you picked should be OK. Don't really need the CPU cooler unless your going to OC or looking for quiet. Using an aftermarket Heatsink will void the warranty on the CPU. AsRock boards are an ok maker, so if your going with AsRock and a uATX motherboard for budget reasons then it's usable. Would look at Asus or Gigabyte uATX boards for a bit better quailty. Would be good idea to post the brand/model/size of the PSU. That is one area you don't want to go low budget in terms of quailty or wattage.

see original post

[hitchface]

You'll do fine with a coolermaster unit. You might consider knocking down the CPU a tad to make more money available for RAM. 2 gigs will be good. Besides, a gaming rig depends more on the GPU than the CPU.

I don't know how Palit is for video cards, but I do know that eVGA and BFG Tech are both quite good. BFG cards usually come factory overclocked, and eVGA has a trading program for video cards of their brand.

[waxpants1]

Originally Posted by hitchface You'll do fine with a coolermaster unit. You might consider knocking down the CPU a tad to make more money available for RAM. 2 gigs will be good. Besides, a gaming rig depends more on the GPU than the CPU. I don't know how Palit is for video cards, but I do know that eVGA and BFG Tech are both quite good. BFG cards usually come factory overclocked, and eVGA has a trading program for video cards of their brand.

seeing as 1g or ram cost $18 ill definatly get 2 and the palit card is factory over clocked @ 1900/650mhz

[waxpants1]

BTW the OS im using is winXP sp2 32bit home is it true that you can only have 1.5-2 gigs of ram?

and when i checked the mother board specs it said *FSB1333-CPU will operate in overclocking mode. Under this situation, PCIE frequency will also be overclocked to 115MHz. so if i dont over clock ill be fine right?

[TwoRails]

2GB is the sweet spot as 32bit Windows OSs only see / utilize about ~3 - 3.2 GB, not to mention that the max "per process" is 2GB. I don't have the link on this laptop to MS's KB article showing the stats or I'd post it.

[freakitchen]

Originally Posted by waxpants1 and when i checked the mother board specs it said *FSB1333-CPU will operate in overclocking mode. Under this situation, PCIE frequency will also be overclocked to 115MHz. so if i dont over clock ill be fine right?

That doesn't sound too great to me. That board's chipset is Intel's 945G, which is 'old' and has been succeeded a couple of times. As far as I'm aware, that chipset doesn't natively support 1333Mhz processors, which the CPU you picked is, and hence the chipset/memory/PCI-E bus will need to be overclocked to run at the native speed of the processor. For that reason, I'd stay well away from the board. Pick one with a P35 chipset that supports your processor natively. The standard P5K would be my suggestion

http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....019&cid=MB.157

[waxpants1]

Originally Posted by Freakitchen That doesn't sound too great to me. That board's chipset is Intel's 945G, which is 'old' and has been succeeded a couple of times. As far as I'm aware, that chipset doesn't natively support 1333Mhz processors, which the CPU you picked is, and hence the chipset/memory/PCI-E bus will need to be overclocked to run at the native speed of the processor. For that reason, I'd stay well away from the board. Pick one with a P35 chipset that supports your processor natively. The standard P5K would be my suggestion http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....019&cid=MB.157

there NO way im spending that much on a mother board

[freakitchen]

I'd question your logic, there, as both the chipset and quality of the motherboard almost entirely determines the stability of your system.

Have a look at some Gigabyte and MSI boards, (if you don't want to spend the money on an ASUS), that *actually* support 1333Mhz processors.

[waxpants1]

ok what about this one
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....328&cid=MB.157

[hitchface]

Waxpants, even with the parts you have in hand, it is going to be tough to build a gaming rig on your budget. There are ways around it, but just know that you might be asking for an apple and get a banana.

What is the warranty like on the Palit? I just read that they design their own PCB...interesting.

[freakitchen]

That would be a decent choice.

You should also consider going for DDR2-800 RAM, we recommend getting memory that's capable of performing one step faster than your processor for stability.

Note also that hard drives with at least a 16MB Cache(buffer) are now standard.

[waxpants1]

Originally Posted by hitchface Waxpants, even with the parts you have in hand, it is going to be tough to build a gaming rig on your budget. There are ways around it, but just know that you might be asking for an apple and get a banana. What is the warranty like on the Palit? I just read that they design their own PCB...interesting.

i donno not like i plan on overclocking

[waxpants1]

Originally Posted by Freakitchen That would be a decent choice. You should also consider going for DDR2-800 RAM, we recommend getting memory that's capable of performing one step faster than your processor for stability. Note also that hard drives with at least a 16MB Cache(buffer) are now standard.

will do. whats the diff between 16mb buffer and 8mb buffer is there that much performance gain

[freakitchen]

Yes, it makes a difference - hard drives are the slowest components in computers these days, so the more information a drive can buffer, the better.

[waxpants1]

but how much better? like twice the speed of a 8mb buffer? seeing as how its 16mb?

[Alaron]

No, not that big. If your budget prevents you from a larger drive, that unit will be fine. But you could jump up to a 250GB with a 16MB for not too much more: http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....cid=HD.443.877

[waxpants1]

Originally Posted by Alaron No, not that big. If your budget prevents you from a larger drive, that unit will be fine. But you could jump up to a 250GB with a 16MB for not too much more: http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....cid=HD.443.877

thats what im planning to do (i dont have an budget lol i just want something that can run crysis on high settings for extreamly cheap)

ok so heres the stuff im getting

cpu
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....834&cid=CPU.84
mobo
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....328&cid=MB.157
ram
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....id=RAM.346.307
hard drive
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....cid=HD.443.877

[Mavrick813]

I was just wondering one thing as I scanned this over, When did $350.00 become a High end Gaming Rig Budget?

I would have titled this one, Building Budget rig with some Already owned parts, Please help... Then listed what i had and what I wanted out of my money....

Heres some ideas of High End,

http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....=011731&cid=MB
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....895&cid=CPU.84
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....id=999.243.390
http://www.canadacomputers.com/main....230&cid=PS.808

High end stuff above, get the picture? And that Asus board that was recomended is far from High end...

[waxpants1]

im useing the PSU,case and graphics card(8800gt 650/1900) from my old pc and as long as i can play crysis on max its high end in my books

[hitchface]

Crysis is very physics-heavy, and the shaders are a system-killer. Don't be surprised by the fact that even the highest of the high end builds tremble at the sight of Crysis on max.

However, the guys who wrote the game were bloody geniuses and made it very efficient. So, you might be able to run everything on "High", just not "Extra High", or whatever that setting is.

As for the Palit video card, the warranty info is still important, even if you're not gonna overclock it. If it turns out that it won't handle high temperatures, or the fan dies, you're gonna be in trouble with a bad warranty. Since you already have it, I suppose that makes it convenient, but keep that thought in mind.

[Mavrick813]

Well, I was running a rig with an EVGA 680i SLI mobo, 2 8800GTX vid cards, an E6600 CPU OC to 3.2G stable, 4G ram, Vista 32 Bit, and 2 150G Raptors in raid 0. I never heard of Crysis before but a buddy of mine had it so he braught it over to check out on my rig and we couldn't set evertything to maxx cause my temps on my CPU were going higher then I liked. 85-91C at Load.

I was cooling with a Zalman 9700 LED. It seams I used too much Arctic Silver Thermal Paste.

We had to remove the Heatsink and re-seat it and then we got almost all the settings to high. For my MMORPGS I play I never noticed any issues but Crysis made my rig Moan and groan. And I had HIGH end stuff. Just make sure you take your time on things like Coolers and what not for the GPU and CPU. It's crucial to maintain your heat. The more fans the better imho, and Always try and maintain a Positive pressure inside your case that way the Hot air is forced out of any vent hole in or around the top of the case...

G/L

Mike

[waxpants1]

well i dont plan on maxing ever thing out just enuf so it looks good and plays smooth