First Build

[mjcxp]

Would you recommend ordering all parts for a computer at the same time, or would it be ok to order them over a period of say 4 weeks, looking for the best deals?

I am going to do my first comp build. What would you recommend. I do moderate gaming but not a ton. I do work with video encoding, etc.

I am currently thinking of this..

AMD X2 4400+
7800 GTX
Asus Deluxe SLI Motherboard - is this the best SLI Motherboard for the money?
2GB of some type of RAM, I really do not understand timings and do not know if they make a very big difference
74 GB Western Digital Hard Drive
250 GB Some Brand Hard Drive
Microsoft Windows Pro
Not Sure on power supply
Not sure on Case
CD/DVD Burner
Would I need any extra fans or anything like that?

How does that look so far.

Thanks

 

[Remedy]

I, personally. Shop around multiple places to get various deals. Example: Staples last week had 160GB Maxtor drives for $39.99. And 250GB Maxtor for $79. Those type of deals may not be at the place you're trying to order all your product from on a whole. I'd rather spend $900 shopping around from random places than to spend $1200 doing it all from one solid dealer.

JMHO.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: ReMeDy{WcS}
I, personally. Shop around multiple places to get various deals. Example: Staples last week had 160GB Maxtor drives for $39.99. And 250GB Maxtor for $79. Those type of deals may not be at the place you're trying to order all your product from on a whole. I'd rather spend $900 shopping around from random places than to spend $1200 doing it all from one solid dealer.

JMHO.

:thumbsup: Word up.

Impatience will cost you money. Patience will save you money and will be more satisfying in the long run.

 

[Hacp]

One thing I would not reccomend is the Asus Deluxe motherboard. If you want Asus, get the Platinum (I think). People have complained abouit the Deluxe for who knows how long.

 

[mjcxp]

Ok thanks, should I wait to see what the Crossfire Motherboards are like or is it worth it... I am thinking this should be a good system. Would it be worth waiting to see if there is a 4000+ Toledo(1MB) Dual Core? What type or power supply, Case would you recommend, and would i need extra fans?

 

[Remedy]

You can wait on Crossfire board and become a beta tester to see how many bugs, and issues are there, etc. First adopter. Or you can just purchase a mature product.

The Toledo is coming. But, it probably won't be available for purchase at a reasonable price til Intel makes their prices cuts during the 2nd week of August. I'm waiting on the 3800+ to be widely available before making my next upgrade(SFF). And I'm upgrading from Opterons. FYI.

Power supplies for an X2 build would be no different from a single core Winchester based build. Right now, Seasonic's S12 series is currently the best power supply to buy for the money. You're going SLI. The 7800's in a pair are your largest power consumers. An S12 500 should work out here.

If you don't understand the theory behind DRAM timings and such. Then just purchase basic value memory. Most people here build with Corsair Value select or Crucial or OCZ value. Should check the mainboard manufactures Quality assurance list for that particular board to know of any compatibility issues.

I wouldn't buy a Raptor unless I was using in some form of RAID array(No, RAID 0 is not Redundant. It's just striping.) Most recent 7200RPM HD's that hit the market in the last 6 months or so perform similarly and cost less, per Gig.

DVD Writer. Most common products is the NEC 3500 series and the BenQ 1620A series. I own the BenQ.

As far as chasis is concerned. What type of work area do you have? Some people perfer Mid-towers that can slide under the desk. Or, some perfer Enormous Towers that need Caster wheels to get around. Take a look @ the lian-li V1000. Wide selection of cases from that link as well.

Having stated all of this. If you're only a moderate gamer and video encode mostly. Why bother with an SLI X2 base system? I would invest into a Pentium-D 820 base system. For moderate gaming, it's decent. For video encoding, it's hard to knock it for price/performance of encoding. A MicroATX SFF system would be ideal for such moderate demand.

Aspire X-Qpack chassis is worthy of note here. It can handle upto 3 Drives(2 internal,1 inthe 5.25 bay) Asus,Giga-Byte and Foxonn/Case Edge have Micro ATX 945 chipset motherboards that support Pentium-D and can handle upto 2GB+ of memory. A powerful system can be built from this platform for less funds of an X2.

JMHO...

 

[Some1ne]

Looks pretty good. I'd recommend against going SLI, but that's up to you. Whether or not you'll see any performance gains from the Raptor depends on how you use the drive and how you use your system in general (and what sort of performance features you care about). You can get some decent performance boosts by using the Raptor to install your OS/programs on, and/or by placing your system pagefile on it.

 

[mjcxp]

ReMeDy, are there any other cases you would recommend that might be cheaper, such as around $70 to $100. I really do not want to spend that much on a case.

 

[mjcxp]

One other thing, dont the Intel Dual Core CPU's communicate through the FSB instead of the built in router like the AMD X'2?

 

[Remedy]

Originally posted by: mjcxp
One other thing, dont the Intel Dual Core CPU's communicate through the FSB instead of the built in router like the AMD X'2?

The difference in the way they communicate really hasn't hampered their performance at all. It's more of an impact on a technology point of view than a performance point of view. As far as cases go in the $70 range, most people here are fans of the Antec SLK3700.

 

[mjcxp]

What type of fan you get.. Most people say these things are crazy heat generators...

 

[OptyMyStix]

I build my own PC using,

www.mindpc.com

This is very good site for building PC. Really full of knowledge, with simple language.

OptyMyStix

 

[amplemind]

Get the Asus A8N-SLI Premium, has a heatpipe instead of chipset fan, so it is silent, also the Asus Deluxe will probably break on you after a few months.