building my very first pc :)

[vince-sebastian]

hiya everyone,
im a newbie to this but i wanna have a go at building an awesome gaming pc....

i was womdering if someone here coud give me a bit of advice on the comonents im thinking of ordering... (first time i looked at them i had a amd motherboard and an intel processor :S)

im a ittle concerned with the psu... it this one safe and sufficiant?


thanks a million

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Items in Shopping Cart Qty Your Price Total
OCZ Gold XTC DDR2 PC6400 4096MB KIT, w/two 2048MB PC6400 XTC, CL5-5-5-15
Article number: 333974
Stock status: 50-99 stocked 103.00 103.00

Point of View GeForce 8800GTS 512MB,DDR3 ,PCI-Express,DVI/Tv-Out,w/Game(Settlers)
Article number: 344083
Stock status: 5 stocked 335.00 335.00

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Socket LGA775, 8MB, BOXED w/fan
Article number: 330169
Stock status: 50-99 stocked 232.50 232.50

XFX nForce 680i SLI, nForce-680i SLI, Socket-775, 2xGbLAN, DDR2, 2xPCI-Ex16
Article number: 333219
Stock status: 9 stocked 217.00 217.00

Western Digital Caviar GP 750GB SATA2 16MB IntelliPower
Article number: 340273
Stock status: 28 stocked 195.00 195.00

Creative SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Pro, 64MB, EAX ADVANCED HD
Article number: 335480
Stock status: 3 stocked 129.00 129.00

D-Link DFE-530TX PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
Article number: 321788
Stock status: 16 stocked 9.50 9.50

NEC DVD±RW burner AD-7200S, 20x, SATA, DVD+R/+RW/DVD-R/-RW/Ram, Black (bulk)
Article number: 343952
Stock status: 42 stocked 34.00 34.00

Logitech Cordless Desktop EX110, USB/PS2, keyboard/mouse, Retail
Article number: 312544
Stock status: 90 pcs expected on stock 2008-01-08 28.89 28.89

Acer 19" LCD AL1916WAs TCO99 Monitor, Widescreen, Silver/Black, 500:1, 8ms
Article number: 321589
Stock status: 50-99 stocked 179.00 179.00

Gigabyte Triton 180 Black Aluminium Front (Without PSU)
Article number: 336277
Stock status: 100+ stocked 69.01 69.01

Fortron/Source Epsilon 700W, Blue Fan, Active PFC, ATX/EPS, SLI, 20/24pin
Article number: 315686
Stock status: 23 stocked 139.00 139.00

Antistatic Wrist band including ground cord
Article number: 317429
Stock status: 500+ stocked 7.95 7.95
Power Cable PC 2m (UK) w/fuse

[Cricket]

First of all, welcome to PC Mech.

Next, where do you live?

What on-line vendor are you using?

Most of your parts look okay except the motherboard...I wouldn't use a XFX brand motherboard, I'd get something better. I would look at ABIT, ASUS and INTEL motherboards.

You don't need a ethernet card since all motherboards have built-in ethernet now. Unless you want 2 NICs in your system.

That Fortron Source power supply is fine. Fortron Source makes good quality power supplies and is one of the few brands I build with. All my home computers have Fortron Source or Sparkle Power (same company) power supplies in them.

Your list is sort of weird...the item is not right next to the price...I thought some of the prices were odd until I figured out they weren't aligned correctly ($129 for a NIC?).

Cricket

[Alaron]

Welcome to PCMech. I've sorted your list so it is easier to read for everyone.
__Moderator__

[Mavrick813]

Wow, I see a couple of things you guys didn't notice...

For instance your MOBO has on board Ethernet you don't need the adapter.

Second, get your Mobo and your Vid card from EVGA, they offer 24/7 tech support, AND The BEST Warranties.
Mobo http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813188013
Video http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130286

Third, Your PSU could be from a more reputable company. This one is SLI Certified and A good Brand
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817256007

Fourth, What speakers are you going to be using? If your going to be gaming with a headset you don't need the sound card, If you have some sort of surround sound system tell us what you have we can help you better with that info...

Fifth, The wrsitband isn't a necessity, you can simply ground yourself by touching a piece of bare metal inside your case.

Sixth, Cpu Cooler? I don't see one listed. The stock one is OK, but An aftermarket makes a world of difference, Check this one out.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...=Zalman%2b9700

Seventh, Look for an OEM CPU, Since your going to be buying a better CPU cooler you won't need the stock one...

Eighth, User Preference but Check this out.
Ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148070

Ninth, The monitor, It seems like you were setting up a Gaming build, But a flatpanel with a Refresh of 8ms? I would look for one with a 5ms or better yet a 2ms.
Monitor http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824116096

Tenth, Your Optical drive isn't bad, but their are better to be had, For instance.
Optical http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827151154
And if you like it, I would suggest the Combo deal with the Rosewill 8in 1 media reader, All forms of flash memory and a Floppy for that rare occasion.

Lastly, Your case, Look into these brands and find something you like, Thermaltake, Antec, Lian Li, Cooler Master. That Gigabyte case just doesn't look to promising as for air flow and room. I'd hate to see your awesome gaming rig look like a rats nest of wires...

G/L
Mike

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by Mavrick813 Wow, I see a couple of things you guys didn't notice... For instance your MOBO has on board Ethernet you don't need the adapter.

Originally Posted by Cricket You don't need a ethernet card since all motherboards have built-in ethernet now. Unless you want 2 NICs in your system.

Originally Posted by Mavrick813 Your PSU could be from a more reputable company.

Nothing wrong with Fortron Source power supplies, they're one of the better power supply manufacturer's around.

Originally Posted by Mavrick813 Cpu Cooler? I don't see one listed. The stock one is OK, but An aftermarket makes a world of difference,

He may want to keep the 3 year warranty that comes with the retail processor. If he uses the Zalman, he'll void the warranty.

Originally Posted by Mavrick813 User Preference but Check this out. Ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148070

The OCZ RAM he lists is basically the same thing as the Crucial Ballistix Tracer RAM and he would have to overclock his computer to notice any real difference...and if he did overclock he would void all his warranties.

Originally Posted by Mavrick813 Your Optical drive isn't bad, but their are better to be had, For instance. Optical http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827151154

A Samsung optical drive? Are you kidding? They make some of the worst optical drives around...terrible reliability.

Originally Posted by Mavrick813 Lastly, Your case, Look into these brands and find something you like, Thermaltake, Antec, Lian Li, Cooler Master. That Gigabyte case just doesn't look to promising as for air flow and room. I'd hate to see your awesome gaming rig look like a rats nest of wires...

That Gigabyte Triton case looks fine to me...about the same as a Cooler Master Elite 330, Centurion 5 or Cavalier 3 in terms of size and cooling setup.

Cricket

[Katreat]

You did not list OS but just be aware that you will need Vista 64 to recognize the 4 gigs of ram you have, XP and Vista 32 will only see about 3.2 gigs. From all the posts I have been reading Vista 64 is getting pretty good driver support so that should not be a big problem except with older software you might want installed.

IMO, SLI is a terrible upgrade path. It is designed to make the best better. As an upgrade path, the idea of sticking in a second card sometime down the road, it just does not pay. Basically, the next generation of video card is always faster than two of the last in SLI so when it comes time for upgrade you will be money ahead just replacing the card with a new one. Perhaps the one exception to this is for people running very large monitors where SLI can really help out with high resolutions.

Based on the fact that you do not list two video cards and are not buying a huge monitor, I would suggest you switch to a MoBo with one of the newer chip sets and not worry about SLI. I would look at the Asus P5K series.

Raptors are faster, but you pay a lot for very little performance gain. From my experience they are also noisy. Generally, I don’t think the speed gain is worth the cost but I will leave that up to you. Since the 7200 HDs have gone to 16 and 32 mb caches the gap has really closed between the two has really narrowed.

On-board sound on newer MoBo’s is very good. For most gamers is it fine and uses very few resources. I would hold off on the sound card until you determine you need it. Sound cards are easy to add later. As other have posted, you don’t need a Ethernet adapter.

For burners I generally recommend Lite-on. They are reliable and if you buy retail for a few bucks more you get some nice Nero software.

If you are really into gaming, I would stick with wired keyboard and mouse. You lose a little reaction time going wireless, not much, but it is noticeable. After spending so much to get that speed advantage in the computer it just does not make a lot of sense to give some of it away to avoid a few wires.

I will disagree with MAVRICK on the aftermarket CPU cooler. If this is your first build you really should not be worrying about Over Clocking. The standard CPU cooler that comes with the retail CPU will work fine for standard operations and mild OC’ing. Also, if you replace the stock heat sink you void the warranty on the CPU. So I would stick with a retail CPU and the provided heatsink/fan.

Finally, PSU. First off, if you are planning on SLI then check out this site for required PSUs for SLI.

http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_build_psu.html

Next, check out this list for what brands can be trusted.

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=131195

If you are planning on a SLI upgrade I would recommend you stay with what Nvidea has certified. But make sure that when you pick a certified PSU you pick one from a good manufacture. If you are not planning on SLI then you can probably get by with 550-600 watts from a quality unit.

Kat

[Mavrick813]

As for the build, the Parts I was recomending are form my Build I did last year. I used same Mobo, CPU, and Crucial Ram I suggested. Reason I suggest the Zalman is 2 things.

1 at Load on my rig with stock setting my E6600 ran at 62 Degrees C, and 54 Degrees at idle.

After adding the zalman my Temps dropped rediculously, to 38 Degrees at idle and 49 Degrees at Load.

As for the Warranty the OEM version doesn't carry a Cooler, or the Same warranty features.

Added he was listing board that are known for OCing, and with that info in hand most people even Novice will tend to try and dabble in it once they realize they can.

For the Optical, The Samsung that I listed has Unbelievable reviews, and I have seen it outperform a Plextor and a Lite-on of similar makes.

I would also like to add, i was typing as you gave your input about the Ethernet adapter. And what not.

At this level their are going to be tons of opinions, but everyone gets their information from different sources.

G/L to your build

Mike