Building a computer for TC (Noob alert!)

Wow, that's quite a card. Why not go for the OC'ed BFG 8800GTS 640mb? It's costs half and pushes about the same-ish power...

Plus I have never heard anything good about EVGA...

Cheers,
John
 
Lo Poly must be loaded, throwing money around the way he is.....

The card you have selected is great, but you only need a card like that if you are running games in very high resolutions....are you?

Also, beware the card will fit in your case and not interfere with your HD cage....it's my understanding that the 768 series of 8800's are about 4 inches longer than the motherboard in ATX configuration. The 640's are about the same length as the mobo, and the 320's are shorter still.

The 640's can be OC'ed to the GTX speeds anyway, while saving a couple hundred bucks.

If you have taken all this into consideration, and still want the card you have chosen, then don't bother to respond....that's your call.

Personally, I would recommend the BFG 8800 640 OC2 myself.....400.00 from Zip Zoom Fly.

Ed
 
Euphod said:
Lo Poly must be loaded, throwing money around the way he is.....

The card you have selected is great, but you only need a card like that if you are running games in very high resolutions....are you?

Also, beware the card will fit in your case and not interfere with your HD cage....it's my understanding that the 768 series of 8800's are about 4 inches longer than the motherboard in ATX configuration. The 640's are about the same length as the mobo, and the 320's are shorter still.

The 640's can be OC'ed to the GTX speeds anyway, while saving a couple hundred bucks.

If you have taken all this into consideration, and still want the card you have chosen, then don't bother to respond....that's your call.

Personally, I would recommend the BFG 8800 640 OC2 myself.....400.00 from Zip Zoom Fly.

Ed
Click to expand...
I second Euphod. The 8800 GTX is slightly over rated:
I will also never again recommenda EVGA car after the last run. After a full year of headaches with a DOA card I had to use a BFG and have had 0 problems.

Definatly look into this beauty: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143093
But for all accounts of saving cash: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143081

And I also second checking the measurements inside the case, the 8800 GTS and GTX are very long cards, and the coolmaster may or may not fit a card as long as the GTX
 
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Lo_Poly said:
Ok... monitor, case, video card... what's next?
Click to expand...

So far I think you've chosen the monitor and video card now you start to do your home work about the power supply and case.

Will your case fit the video card, does it have enough cooling fans? Have you thought about a water cooling system? How noisey is this thing going to be, you have to live with it after all. Mind you using a pair of Etymotic ER•6 Isolator Earphones would solve that problem and improve the quality of your sound system.

I'd recommend something in the 650 - 700 watt range on the power supply. Try reading www.anandtech.com and doing a search on power supplies. Note in this range a number of power supplies no longer conform to the Intel engineer's specifications, it's called the bleeding edge and you should expect not everything to work perfectly. For example the nVidia drivers have some problems and issues with Vista. Are you going 32 bit or 64 bit by the way?

Most of us will be delighted to learn from your experiences so keep us informed so we can avoid any mistakes you may make.

Thanks John
 
Euphod said:
Lo Poly must be loaded, throwing money around the way he is.....

The card you have selected is great, but you only need a card like that if you are running games in very high resolutions....are you?

Also, beware the card will fit in your case and not interfere with your HD cage....it's my understanding that the 768 series of 8800's are about 4 inches longer than the motherboard in ATX configuration. The 640's are about the same length as the mobo, and the 320's are shorter still.

The 640's can be OC'ed to the GTX speeds anyway, while saving a couple hundred bucks.

If you have taken all this into consideration, and still want the card you have chosen, then don't bother to respond....that's your call.

Personally, I would recommend the BFG 8800 640 OC2 myself.....400.00 from Zip Zoom Fly.

Ed
Click to expand...

Could you point me to that card?
And also, what do you mean by overclock? :S

GP_38-2 said:
I second Euphod. The 8800 GTX is slightly over rated:
I will also never again recommenda EVGA car after the last run. After a full year of headaches with a DOA card I had to use a BFG and have had 0 problems.

Definatly look into this beauty: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143093
But for all accounts of saving cash: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143081

And I also second checking the measurements inside the case, the 8800 GTS and GTX are very long cards, and the coolmaster may or may not fit a card as long as the GTX
Click to expand...

Sweet GP. I chose the above one (this one). It's like a hundred less and it had the same stats. You get brownie points. ;)

johnwhelan said:
So far I think you've chosen the monitor and video card now you start to do your home work about the power supply and case.

Will your case fit the video card, does it have enough cooling fans? Have you thought about a water cooling system? How noisey is this thing going to be, you have to live with it after all. Mind you using a pair of Etymotic ER•6 Isolator Earphones would solve that problem and improve the quality of your sound system.

I'd recommend something in the 650 - 700 watt range on the power supply. Try reading www.anandtech.com and doing a search on power supplies. Note in this range a number of power supplies no longer conform to the Intel engineer's specifications, it's called the bleeding edge and you should expect not everything to work perfectly. For example the nVidia drivers have some problems and issues with Vista. Are you going 32 bit or 64 bit by the way?

Most of us will be delighted to learn from your experiences so keep us informed so we can avoid any mistakes you may make.

Thanks John
Click to expand...

32-bit. It sounds like less of a pain. Btw I test drived my dad's new Vista computer and vista is awesome. I even installed Trainz on it and it worked fine. Also, I'd prefer to get a PSU after I have all the parts, so I know EXACTLY what I'll need. ;)
 
The mother board is next and probably should be first. I am not up to speed on what is currently avalable but do give it allot of thought.
 
SuperFudd said:
The mother board is next and probably should be first. I am not up to speed on what is currently avalable but do give it allot of thought.
Click to expand...

The top performing cpu is the Intel dual at the moment. Also the intel support chip set allows RAID 5 so stick in three drives and do RAID 5. The advantage is the disks are the slowest component in the computer, about 10,000 times slower than memory. By reading from three disks at once you reduce head movement and get much faster reads. You do get slightly slower writes but if a hard disk dies you just pull it out and put in a new one and let it rebuild the data.

With Vista you want solid drivers so at the moment ASUS intel chip set or Intel motherboard. You'll be taking this beast up to 64 bit within three years so room for 8 gigs on the motherboard makes sense.

Cheerio John
 
johnwhelan said:
The top performing cpu is the Intel dual at the moment. Also the intel support chip set allows RAID 5 so stick in three drives and do RAID 5. The advantage is the disks are the slowest component in the computer, about 10,000 times slower than memory. By reading from three disks at once you reduce head movement and get much faster reads. You do get slightly slower writes but if a hard disk dies you just pull it out and put in a new one and let it rebuild the data.

With Vista you want solid drivers so at the moment ASUS intel chip set or Intel motherboard. You'll be taking this beast up to 64 bit within three years so room for 8 gigs on the motherboard makes sense.

Cheerio John
Click to expand...

Can you point me to some Intel CPUs and ASUS motherboards you'd recommend?
 
Lo_Poly said:
Could you point me to that card?
And also, what do you mean by overclock? :S
Click to expand...


Here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143081

Overclocking (OC) is a term that means that the card is made to go faster than it's original intent. This particular card is OC'ed 50Mhz on the Core (GPU) speed and 100Mhz on the Memory (VRAM). That may not seem like much, however, such clock increases can result in 30 to 50 percent more performance.

Buying pre-Overclocked card is an easy and cheap way to get fast speeds without the risks of manual overclocking. Pre-overclocked cards and guaranteed to be in stable working condition, which can be an issue with manually overclocked cards.


As far as spending goes, it's always wise, in my opinion, to try to get the most cost effective machine, i.e., a good price/performance match. This will save you headaches later on when technology changes and you have little money to spend on the new expensive hardware.

With Vista and DX10 coming into the market, computers will become a whole lot more expensive in order to keep up with games.

Cheers,
John
 
Lo_Poly said:
Can you point me to some Intel CPUs and ASUS motherboards you'd recommend?
Click to expand...

ASUS P5B Deluxe LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard

ASUS P5B Premium Vista Edition LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard



Intel BOXDG965OTMKR LGA 775 Intel G965 Express Micro ATX Intel Motherboard


Intel BOXD975XBX2KR LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard


are worth comparing, the ASUS ones will normally be a bit cheaper and have have more features. I'd look closely at the Vista one.

cpus just sort the dual core cpus by price and pick one you can afford.

Cheerio John
 
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johnwhelan said:
ASUS P5B Deluxe LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard

ASUS P5B Premium Vista Edition LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard



Intel BOXDG965OTMKR LGA 775 Intel G965 Express Micro ATX Intel Motherboard


Intel BOXD975XBX2KR LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard


are worth comparing, the ASUS ones will normally be a bit cheaper and have have more features. I'd look closely at the Vista one.

cpus just sort the dual core cpus by price and pick one you can afford.

Cheerio John
Click to expand...

I chose the Intel BOXD975XBX2KR LGA 775 Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard because it has better ratings, an award, and a lot more features and beef to it.

And... Dual Core VS. Quad core?
confused.gif


Edit: And Core 2 Duo VS. Core 2 Extreme?! :eek:
 
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johnwhelan said:
Trainz only runs on one core so dual core is fine. Extreme just more expensive and runs hotter. You might get 1 more fps out of the extreme.

Cheerio John
Click to expand...

Yes but remember, I have some rather cpu hungry programs as I listed back there. I just want to make sure. :confused:
 
Dual-core is overkill for the stuff you listed.

However, multi-core CPU's are the current thing so your stuck.

Motherbords with expandability:
Gigabyte GA-N650SLI-DS4
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128044
ASUS P5N32-E SLI (nVidia 680i)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131073
ASUS Striker Extreme
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131074


CPU's:
Core 2 Duo E6750
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115029
Core 2 Duo E6850
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115028
Click to expand...
Any of the above will be more than enough for what you want to run.

EDIT read the reviews on the Intel BOXD975XBX2KR, I wouldn't recommend it, are at the very least sketchy. Also the layout of the motherboard itself is severly flawed, I atually have used a few of these boards, while they do setup it takes some serious time to assemble it (which is why I use ASUS P5N32-SLI mobos for new comps now) I would seriously look into another motherboard.
P.S. The Intel BOXD975XBX2KR is made for ATI video cards, something you want to avoid is mixing ATI mobo/video cards with nVidia mobo/video cards.
 
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GP_38-2 said:
Dual-core is overkill for the stuff you listed.

However, multi-core CPU's are the current thing so your stuck.

Any of the above will be more than enough for what you want to run.

EDIT read the reviews on the Intel BOXD975XBX2KR, I wouldn't recommend it, are at the very least sketchy. Also the layout of the motherboard itself is severly flawed, I atually have used a few of these boards, while they do setup it takes some serious time to assemble it (which is why I use ASUS P5N32-SLI mobos for new comps now) I would seriously look into another motherboard.
Click to expand...

Why do you keep recommending stuff that have large amounts of bad reviews and low ratings and low power? Do you want my computer to run Windows 3.0 or something?? :(

John, a few CPUs I picked out :):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115027
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115028
 
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