First Time Build

[risnangl]

Hey everyone,

So yes as the title says this is my first time building my own rig. I started this thread for any questions I have on the subject.

I want to build a decent gaming rig for casual-semihardcore gaming. (GW/GW2, Aion, HL/HL2, Civ V, etc.)

Questions:

• What exactly am I looking for in a motherboard?
• What spec's do I look for to make sure the mobo is compatible with the case I choose?
• Is SLI dual video cards worth investing in?

Thanks!
Jennifer

[EzyStvy]

What exactly am I looking for in a motherboard? -> the options you need.

Maybe built in sound card
Number of USB ports
Number of ram slots
Number of Sata connections
ect

[David M]

Welcome aboard!

With a board, your choice is either an AMD or Intel board. The most reliable brand is Asus. If you are not an enthusiast and do not have any interest in overclocking, you do not need an expensive enthusiasts board. If you take the Intel route, you have a choice of buying a socket 1156 right now or waiting for the Sandy Bridge boards with the corrected chip sets to become available probably sometime in April. Socket 1366 boards are very finicky and are only suitable for hard core enthusiasts.

A gaming computers speed is primarily dependent on the graphics card. As far as SLI or Crossfire goes, you probably do not need two cards with a single monitor. There are not many games that will run faster on two cards versus having one really fast card. Buy the single fastest card that you can afford if you want your games to run fast. Right now that is either the GTX 580 or the 6970....ideally. Slower cards will still get the job done for high end gaming although you may not be able to play on the highest game settings for some games. Don't worry about this, there is not much difference between the fastest and the second fastest cards, except in price.

You did not mention how much you wanted to spend but figure on $1000 for a budget gamer and roughly around $1500 for a really fast gamer. The price difference is mostly in which card you choose.

Just for gaming you will not need more than 4 gigs of RAM. Consider two sticks of 2 gigs each of 1333 RAM. I prefer Corsair but there are other reliable brands as well.

The power supply you choose will depend on which graphics card you choose. You will not need more than 650 watts to power 98% of the cards out there. Corsair, Antec and Seasonic are the best brands.

Put together a parts list, preferably from Newegg, and the people here will help you to refine your list.

Have a look at which brands PCMech prefers....
Look here for Khalil's guide to the best computer hardware brands.
What Power Supply should I get? How many Watts? Who made it? Guide Inside.

[birddog_61]

The thing about graphics cards is, if you want to keep the ability to play each new game that comes out maxed, your going to be changing graphics cards every year or two. SLI and Crossfire both come with there own set of driver issues when running two cards together, plus a lot of games either have no support for it or very poor support so you don't see much if any improvement with 2 cards over one. If you are planning on a super high resolution (well beyond 1080) or using multiple monitors or both then you might start considering SLI or Crossfire. As David said let us know your budget, plus if you are going to want to overclock and how many monitors and what resolutions you plan on gaming at.

[risnangl]

Ok, so I did some looking around on the forums and the net. So far this is what I like, let me know if you know of something better.

I saw that the Asus Sabertooth P67 was worth waiting for so that's the motherboard... whenever it gets here.

Case:

ENERMAX HOPLITE ECA3220 Black 0.6 & 0.8mm SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

GPU:

EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support FPB Video Card

The MOBO and the GPU both support SLI so if I choose to do that later on I'll be able to.

PSU:

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

CPU:

Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600

HDD:

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Optical Drive:

LG Black 10X Blu-ray Burner - Bulk SATA WH10LS30 LightScribe Support - OEM

As far as RAM goes, I'm not sure which RAM to get yet. So any recommendations would be great.

[David M]

Since you want to go with a Sandy Bridge CPU, you will want to hold off until the new motherboards with the corrected chipsets are available in April. I think it's worth the wait.


You are going to need some RAM and an operating system.

This is what I would consider...
Newegg.com - CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model TW3X4G1333C9A G

Newegg.com - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - Operating Systems


If you really think you might want SLI in the future, I would bump your PSU up to a 850 watt version so you are already covered.

Rather than getting SLI, you could always buy a faster single graphics card, which would be more reliable plus you would not have to pay for a more powerful PSU. Also, for the money, a single card scales better than two cards.


You could save $20 with this PSU. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-005-_-Product

My wife's computer has the same 750TX that you chose and the 140mm fan is super quiet. You have to put your ear right up near it to hear it.

[risnangl]

Originally Posted by David M Since you want to go with a Sandy Bridge CPU, you will want to hold off until the new motherboards with the corrected chipsets are available in April. I think it's worth the wait.

Yes, I'm going to wait for the Asus Sabertooth P67 motherboard.

Originally Posted by David M If you really think you might want SLI in the future, I would bump your PSU up to a 850 watt version so you are already covered. Rather than getting SLI, you could always buy a faster single graphics card, which would be more reliable plus you would not have to pay for a more powerful PSU. Also, for the money, a single card scales better than two cards.

Do you have a recommendation for a better graphics card?

[glc]

Best Graphics Cards For The Money: February 2011 : February Updates

[risnangl]

Originally Posted by risnangl Case: ENERMAX HOPLITE ECA3220 Black 0.6 & 0.8mm SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case GPU: EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support FPB Video Card Motherboard: ASUS SABERTOOTH P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply CPU: Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600 HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive Optical Drive: LG Black 10X Blu-ray Burner - Bulk SATA WH10LS30 LightScribe Support - OEM RAM: CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M2A1333C9 OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM

This is my build. I was hoping for a suggestion on a monitor? Between 20-25" is the size I'm looking for.

My current one just shuts itself off after being on for a few minutes which is really annoying. So I guess it's time for a new one.

[glc]

What is your monitor budget?

I prefer the Asus monitors with LED backlight.

Cheap: Newegg.com - ASUS VE Series VE208T Black 20" 1600x900 5ms LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor w/Speakers 250 cd/m2 ASCR 10,000,000:1

Full HD: Newegg.com - Asus VE228H 21.5" Full HD HDMI LED BackLight LCD Monitor w/Speakers ASCR 10,000,000:1

24": Newegg.com - Asus VE248H Black 24" 1920X1080 2ms Full HD HDMI LED Backlight LCD Monitor w/Speakers 250 cd/m2 10,000,000:1

[risnangl]

So I have received all of the parts for my new build, I had a question about the hard drive and the jumper. My hard drive doesn't have a jumper with it so does that mean I don't need to worry about it? or do I need to find some?

[David M]

With SATA there is no need for jumpers anymore. The BIOS learns which SATA port your OS boot drive is connected to. With SATA cables you are not sharing drives on the same ribbon cable like with the old PATA (IDE) drives therefore manually assigning a drive as a master or slave with a jumper is no longer necessary.

If and when you are building a new system with more than one drive, have only one drive plugged in when you install your OS and your computer will learn which is your C: drive. Plug it in to your number one SATA port so it will make it easier for you to remember which is the port for your C: drive if you ever want to add a second drive.

Enjoy your new computer.

[risnangl]

I have another sata drive I connected after I installed the OS on the 500 Gb drive but it's not showing up. It shows up when I'm in the bios and on the boot up it lists it, but I don't actually see it listed under "Computer" where it lists my C: drive and the cdrom drive.. how do I get it to show up so I can use it?

[glc]

If it's not formatted, it's not going to show up until you partition and format it in Disk Management.

[risnangl]

Thanks, got it.

Thank you everyone for your input. My new system is up and running with no glitches.

[risnangl]

Hey, so I've been using it for a couple days now, but when I play Guild Wars, the gpu seems to be acting up. I'm getting weird lines, characters flashing and disappearing.. terrain is also disappearing...

any ideas? I updated the driver for my gpu but it's still doing it.

[David M]

Is this happening just in the Guild Wars or at other non-gaming times as well? Does it happen in other games?

[risnangl]

Just in Guild Wars so far. I haven't played anything else.

Just got an error that display driver stopped responding but recovered.. not sure why or how to fix it.

[David M]

You probably already have but make certain you have the most current drivers for your graphics card and make sure your game has its most current updates. Also, download the voltage monitoring software that came with your board and check your three voltages.

[risnangl]

Drivers are updated.

Vcore - 0.976V
+12V - 12.000V
+5V - 5.080V
+3.3V - 3.344V

[glc]

The video card might be overheating. Are you using temperature monitoring and fan control software for the card?

EVGA support phone: 1-888-880-3842

[risnangl]

What's too hot for a GPU?

Right now it says it's at 36C

[glc]

That's plenty cool - anything under 80 at full load is acceptable. Call EVGA.