Help on building a new PC

[worldsenvy]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for.

Basic stuff and a lot of Gaming, but most of the games I play are not graphics intensive (ie- warcraft 3, civ4, WoW, etc...)

2. What YOUR budget is.
About $1000 for the base cpu (don't need to buy a monitor, keyboard, etc.).

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
USA. But i plan to take it to India as I am moving back

4. IF YOU have a brand preference.
None, except that i'm sold on intel due to their performance atm.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
Yes, my 20" samsung 205B, logitech G15 keyboard, G7 mouse, audigy2 ZS platinum soundcard, couple of 250 GB hard drives.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
Yes, i have read some of the other threads and pretty much all the recent guides on anandtech and tom's hardware.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
I dont plan to overclock, but have picked my parts such that i could.



Most of the parts are the standards from the guides I've seen out there. Mostly, I'm just posting this to confirm that the parts are good and would last me 2-3 years and give me good performance even then. My last cpu was a p4 about 4 years ago, and i got killed on the upgrading because the motherboard was AGP and so it really hurt my choices. I don't want to have that same problem again. Also, most of the guides are a few months old so they may not be good choices as of now, April 08.

CPU:-
Intel Q6600.
What cores/FSB speeds should i be looking for, or is there only one type of Q6600 out there?

MOBO:-
Abit ip35 Pro


MEM:-
Crucial Ballistix 2x2GB ddr2-800
Should i go for ddr2-1066 or other memory keeping in mind i want this to last for 2-3 years.


Video Card:-
I already bought the eVGA 8800GTX so theres no choice here. (was a good deal on it)


Case:-
Antec 900.
I like the spaciousness of this case and the cooling. Since this case is gonna be in India, and its hot as hell there, and i like leaving my PC on, i figure i need it. Plus its solid and i can take it to India without worries of it breaking on me during the travel.

PSU:-
No idea here. I was thinking about the 750W pc power and cooling since thats got good reviews.

Other
Any recommendations on heat sinks for GPU/CPU. I have heard good things about zalman and thermaltake.

Also, I was wondering if having one raptor to install my Os/critical programs on would help at all, or maybe a 16GB solid state drive?

edit: Noise isnt really an issue for me, as far as cases, psus and heatsinks go...


I pretty much have most of the other stuff. Thanks in advance for the help

 

[chinaman1472]

Intel Q6600 is a great chip if you find it sub-$200, and yes there's only one chip if you're referring to the FSB and clock speed. There are different steppings on it, but I'm fairly certain most of the ones sold are about as up to date as they can be. If I were you, I'd find myself an E8400 if you can't snag a Q6600 sub-$200. It doesn't sound like you do anything very CPU intensive, so nothing will take advantage of the quad core chip anyway. The E8400 runs faster, cooler, and draws less power than the Q6600. This should run you around $230 or less.

Need all those features on the Abit IP35-Pro? The Abit IP35-E is basically the same motherboard for almost half the price at $90. The Gigabyte P35-DS3L is also a great alternative that suits the basic needs.

Memory should be chosen based on much you want to overclock. If you're not going to overclock, stick to DDR2-800. If you get a Q6600 and want to overclock, DDR2-800 is plenty. If you get an E8400 and want to overclock, DDR2-800 will supply a mild-medium overclock; you will need DDR2-1000 or better to get the most out of your chip. Also, Crucial seems to be fairly overpriced. Not saying that they are a bad brand, but there are other quality brands that are sold at a lower price. G.Skill is a common recommendation on this board, but Patriot, Mushkin, OCZ, and Corsair are also good quality sticks that can be had for $100 or less for 2x2GB DDR2-800.

Corsair Power Supplies are the common recommendations here. PC Power and Cooling aren't bad at all either. 750 watts is probably a bit overkill for you. It's well within your budget, but a 500-600 watt power supply should be suffice. Check out the Corsair 520HX for around $80-100.

Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme, Tuniq Tower, Xigmatek HDT-S1283, Arctic Freezer 7 Pro from most expensive to least expensive and best performance to worst performance for CPU coolers. Though, if you're not overclocking, it's not necessary. $30-60 here.

Can't tell you much on GPU coolers.

Not sure how well a 16GB solid state hard drive will perform, but I certainly don't think it's worth the cash. A Raptor has slight advantages, but personally, I think the disadvantages heavily outweigh them. Samsung's 750GB and Western Digital's 640GB hard drives perform nearly identical to Raptors (being slower in write time IIRC). However, for the nearly same price, you get almost 8-10 times more space (74GB 10K RPM cost $140 on newegg, $10 more than the Samsung or WD). Raptors are also louder, but that isn't much of an issue for you.

 

[worldsenvy]

thanks for the super quick reply at 4 am.

I did manage to find the Q6600 for 190 so i think im gonna get that.... and i guess i will stick to ddr2-800. I will look into the recommended motherboards and PSUs.

For the CPU cooler i read that the Cooler master HyperTX 2 is pretty good. Its also pretty cheap so... Anyone have one of these, or an opinion about them?
I would really rather have something easy to set up and since im not giong to be OCing, i just want it to run at decent temperatures... (My p4 with a zalman cnps or something runs at 60 degress when i play wc3, which is ridiculously high, imo -_- )

guess ill skip the solid state hard drive and the raptor... prices are too high, atm. I already have a 320GB Seagate HD and a 200GB Samsung hd so space isnt an issue.. just was wondering if spending an extra $100 on a quicker HD would be better




edit:- after looking at the motherboards, i figured the ip35e would be best but i cant find one anywhere (i prefer to stick to the more trusted shops out there - newegg, zipzoomfly, buy, amazon, etc.), so i may just stick with the ip35 pro. still finding reviews for the gigbyte boards...

as for the PSU, i think your right about not needing 750W... but ive heard the corsair 620 has probelms with the abit ip35 boards so i dunno....

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: worldsenvy

MEM:-
Crucial Ballistix 2x2GB ddr2-800
Should i go for ddr2-1066 or other memory keeping in mind i want this to last for 2-3 years.

If your going with Intel, DDR2 will be obsolete at the end of the year when Nehalem comes out.

 

[worldsenvy]

hmmm.. but will 4Gb of ddr2 ram still be enough for most applications in 2-3 years? Thats more important to me than upgrade ability... though if there is a motherboard that would also support ddr3 along with ddr2 id be willing to look into them...

 

[chinaman1472]

There are a few motherboards supporting DDR2 and DDR3. 4GB should be enough to for the next 2-3 years. I ran 1GB of DDR-400 for about 2.5 years (upgraded earlier this year) and to be honest, most of the apps and games ran fine (save Crysis). I just had to knock down the settings and my multi-tasking was somewhat limited. A Q6600 and 4GB DDR2 should be suffice for the next 2-3 years. But if you're trying to future proof it as much as possible, wait til Nehalem comes out.

A ton of people on this forum use the Gigabyte P35-DS3L. I can remember a few here that weren't satisfied, but are greatly outweighed by the numbers who are satisfied.

I believe the Cooler Master HyperTX2 is very similar to the Arctic Freezer 7 Pro if I'm not mistaken. Chances are it'll satisfy your needs.

 

[DSF]

DDR2 is so cheap compared to DDR3 right now that I wouldn't worry about it, and buying a combination DDR2/DDR3 isn't something I would recommend. As far as Ballistix is concerned, I hear too many people around here having to RMA them for me to want to buy them myself. I would just get some decent 1.8V DDR2. 4GB will be plenty for 2-3 years.

Also, I agree that the 750W is more than you need. It's also a pretty loud unit from what I understand.

Edit: That should be, "isn't something I would recommend."

 

[worldsenvy]

Ok, so here are the RAM choices I have narrowed it down to. All are DDR2-800 and 2x2GB

OCZ Reaper
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820227284

G Skill
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231122

Corsair XMS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145176

Now, the reason i don't know which way to go is:

1)The OCZ Reaper is not in the list of officially supported memory for abit ip35 pro
2)The OCZ runs at 2.1V

Otherwise it seems to be very recommended and the 5-5-5-18 one is only $60.

3)I am not very familiar with G Skill and there are mixed reviews for it.

4)While I like corsair, i have heard bad things about the XMS series.

5) Also, there are slightly more expensive of the same RAMs but with lower timings. are these worth it?

Any thoughts would be awesome!

 

[chinaman1472]

No company makes a perfect product.
You're better off getting something with a 1.8-1.9b rating.
The timing won't make a real difference in real world application, but it'll give you nicer benchmarks.

 

[DarkRogue]

Originally posted by: worldsenvy
4)While I like corsair, i have heard bad things about the XMS series.

Curious, what are these bad things? Corsair was one of the more recommended ones back when I was researching. I have the 2x2GB C5G kit and I have no complaints.

Edit:
Be aware that the ones you linked to with the DHX heatsink are much taller than normal, and may interfere with some heatsinks. I bought the standard XMS2 kit and my Scythe Ninja just barely sits on top of it.

 

[chinaman1472]

Also remember, people will tend to voice negatives feedback rather than positive feedback.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: worldsenvy
Ok, so here are the RAM choices I have narrowed it down to. All are DDR2-800 and 2x2GB

OCZ Reaper
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820227284

G Skill
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820231122

Corsair XMS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820145176

Now, the reason i don't know which way to go is:

1)The OCZ Reaper is not in the list of officially supported memory for abit ip35 pro
2)The OCZ runs at 2.1V

Otherwise it seems to be very recommended and the 5-5-5-18 one is only $60.

3)I am not very familiar with G Skill and there are mixed reviews for it.

4)While I like corsair, i have heard bad things about the XMS series.

5) Also, there are slightly more expensive of the same RAMs but with lower timings. are these worth it?

Any thoughts would be awesome!

Get that G.Skill :thumbsup: