Newbie on first PC Build need advice & suggestions

neokenzo

I'm looking to build a pc. I am somewhat clueless on whether these parts are good or not as it was suggested by a mate of mine. I would be grateful if all you techies out there could give me your opionion on these parts, whether its good or not. If not, could you suggest a good replacement around the same price brakcet
I would be using this pc mainly for graphics, rendering and of course gaming However I wouldnt want to overclock it.

Mainboard: MSI KT6 Delta-FISR - mainboard - ATX - KT600

Processor: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ processor

Processor cooler: Cooler Master Aero 7+ - processor cooler

Memory: Crucial memory - 512 MB x 1 - DIMM 184-PIN – DDR

Hard drive: Oringinally I wanted to get the Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus - hard drive - 160 GB - ATA -100 but a mate of my suggested that I should get a hdd with ATA 133 as my Mainboard supports ATA 133. Any suggestions to which 160GB ATA 133 hdd that is good?

Floppy drive: Sony MPF 920 - disk drive - Floppy Disk – Floppy

DVD±RW: MSI DR8-A - disk drive - DVD±RW – IDE

Graphics card: Gainward GeForce FX5700 256MB DDR 5ns AGP, Ultra/880XP,Tv-Out, DVI,Retail

Sound card: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 - sound card

Casing:
Thermaltake Highest Xaser III V1000A Super Tower V1000A - tower - extended ATX

Power supply: Q-Tec Dual Fan Gold power supply - 450 Watt

Floppy cable: A.C.Ryan floppy cable - 90 cm

Fan unit: EKL Adda AD0812LB-A70GL - fan unit (x3). I am not sure which type to buy, whether 80mm or 90mm or how many to buy.

Monitor: LG Flatron L1710B - flat panel display - TFT - 17"

Am I forgetting anything? I need to get everything for the build.

Would be grate ifany/all of you could post your thoughts/suggestions regarding these parts.

Thanks in advance.

Stephen

The ATA 100 hard drive should be fine, as most hard drives are not fast enough to need the extra bandwidth of ATA 133 anyway.

joePC

I have a few points:

1: ATI Radeon 9600 Pro instead of FX

2: Go for a NForce2 based board instead of KT600(better performance, Dual DDR etc...)

3:LG 1710B, the 1720B is out now @ the same price so go with that. just an updated version.

4: Get a better power supply QTEC bad rep.....although never had any problems myself???

5:Go with a SATA 150 Hdd, PATA is out the window, you will notice better performance.

6: Go with Dual DDR get 2 sticks of 256DDR PC3200 better performance.

7: Aero 7 is quite noisey go with a Zalman or other cooler.

Well thats about it, if you take all my recommdations you will have a very good rig.

Thanks joePC.....

Great Online Store

joePC

You dont need any fans the case your getting has about 7 so theres no worries there.

You dont need the floppy cable, you get all the cables with your MB.

Thanks joePC.......

Creamy Goodness

i agree with the power supply it's dirt and i'm speaking from experience.

get an antec from www.elara.ie much better quality

Woden

on the suggestion of an nforce 2 mb which i agree with get an abit nf7-s v2.0 or an asus a7n8x-E deluxe instead of the msi

you could probably save yourself a bit of money by getting an xp2500+ and overclocking it relatively easily to xp3200+

the aero 7+ is good for the price but there is better coolers on the market, www.hitide.ie stock the zalman coolers.

thats fairly crap ram, also don't mind about the whole dual 2*256 just get one stick of 512mb and if you want you can upgrade it with another 512mb stick later.

check out this ram from OCZ 512MB PC3200 Platinum Series DDR CAS2 (MY-016-OC) or if you really want to mental check out the mushkin level 2 pc 3200 from http://www.jes-computer.de/, corsair also make good ram

get yourself a s-ata hdd as suggested instead of the ide version

i'd recommend the 9600xt instead of a 5700 but i'd really recommended a radeon 9800pro which are going for a great price from that german site above check out the sapphire lite version (that just means no games) for about 220 or the powercolour retail version for about 250

and as mentioned get rid of the q-tec fan and get an antec. that xaser case has a side panel so i'd recommend the antec 480W trueblue version with the fancy blue led's

Col_Loki

Basicly what Data said above and......

If your thinkin about gaming and an AMD then id definetly go for the AMD64 Xp3000+ and a Socket 754 motherboard. The AMD64 is one of the best gaming chips you can buy and outperforms the "barton" (regular XP) Xp3200+ easily......

Or if you cant spend anymore then go with an Intel Mobo & CPU ....... like a 2.8ghz 800mhz FSB chip (i really hated saying that ) . The XP higher priced chips just arent worth the money TBH, you dont get the performance for it. Overclocking an Xp2500+ to Xp3200+ is another option and isint that hard at all once you have decent cooling and Pc3200 Ram.....

Heres a link to a AMD64 review http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/athlon64-3000_6.html just to give you an idea.

For PSU's definetly stay away from Qtec. Best ones are Antec, Fortron, Enermax, Be-quiet, thermaltake, Zalman. 350w + and you'll be fine, just get a good brand.
(nice be-quiets with blue fans available from www.hitide.ie).

neokenzo

Firstly I would like to say thank you for all of your suggestions and ideas.
While all of the ideas look very tempting and interesting, I probably should have explained this earlier. I originally wanted to get the HP Pavilion t350 selling at Compustore for €1,599. After talking to a friend of mine, he suggested to build instead, which is better because I can get a better spec around the same price. So I thought. I have now surpassed that budget. At the moment, the list above comes to a total of around €1,800 per Komplett pricing without taking into account delivery charges. This is as far as I can strech it. I can go no more So far I've only saved €25 since I dont need the floppy cable and extra fan
So could you suggest something in the price range as anything more expensive is something I cant afford at the moment.
Also, I do a lot of video editing and processing through my pc and not solely for games. I was thinking of getting something that would be good for both gaming and editing videos.

Thank you again.

Stephen

Don't buy a PC from compustore. You will regret it. I can't stress this enough. A self-build will be a lot easier to upgrade, and you know your machine will have quality components.

neokenzo

Originally posted by Dataisgod
you could probably save yourself a bit of money by getting an xp2500+ and overclocking it relatively easily to xp3200+ide version

How do I overclock? Will the pc still be stable? What kind of problems I might face by overclocking?

Col_Loki

Ok how does this sound..........


MB ATX S754 Gigabyte GA-K8N Pro € 108,55
CPU AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Tray € 197,00
Kühler S478/S754 ZALMAN CNPS-7000-AlCu € 29,99
HDD SATA 160GB Samsung SP1614C 8MB € 105,98
KABEL Serial ATA (SATA) Advance 75cm € 3,49
Adapterkabel SATA 4-Pin auf 15-Pin € 2,50
Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS Retail € 77,99
128MB Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Lite-RTL € 217,90
DVDR IDE LG GSA-4081B 8xspeed bulk € 105,50
Floppy Markenfabrikat 3,5" weiss € 6,90
DDR PC400 512MB Mushkin CL2 Level One € 114,99


Sub-Total: € 970,79 (www.jes-computer.de - delivery under €30)

Thats the basic's which is a great machine with one of the best gaming setups available at the min.

I have left out the monitor, Case, PSU, And you might have forgotten speakers & mouse & keyb ??

That leaves you between €600-800 for that (if you choose to go with the spec's above).

For cases the Xaser is very expensive especially because it doesent include a PSU...... a couple of other options would be...

Sonata Case - Great PSU, Ultra quiet , would mean almost silence for your setup (i have this case, and the XaserII - i like the sonata much more).
Super Lanboy Case - Also v.quiet case (has 120mm fans) , no PSU so add €65 ish for a good one.

Big selection of cases try.... www.xcase.co.uk

The monitor and case are the choices that i cant really make , very user specific - depends on your tastes. The one thing i find is that after a month you couldnt care what case you have and spending that much doesent seem like a good idea (from experience).

Let me know what you think, its easy to re-adjust......

neokenzo

Thanks for the list COL-LOKI. That looks great. However, I have a couple of questions:

1. The specs looks great for a gaming pc but will it do well for rendering videos as well?
2. I presume buying from jes-computer is not going to be a problem even if the language is in German? I have translated most of it anyway but I havent tried to add to cart the parts yet. How long does jes-computers takes to ship the stuff?
3. One of the reason why I chose the FX5700 was because it has a 256MB instead of the 128MB. I presumed that the Radeon 9800 Pro is very good but these days, gaming are improving all the time. Will this be able to support most games these days? Also I would rather have a 256bit memory bus rather than 128bit memory bus. I dont mind paying a bit more for a good graphics card.
4. I was thinking of getting the NEC ND-2500A +-R/RW bulk black DVD writer instead of the LG. Is this good as well or should I just stick with the LG?
5. I've been looking for a site that sells OCZ 512MB PC3200 Platinum Series DDR CAS2 but I couldnt find it. I just want to check the price.
6. I was looking at the mainboard and if I am not wrong, it only have 2 or 4 USB ports? I have a lot of usb hardware that I wouldnt want to keep pluging it out and in. Should I get an extra USB card?
7. I was looking at some sites and I saw that they have fans for hdd, graphic cards, etc. It is important that I get a fan for those stuff as well?
8. I actually dont mind what case I use as long as it looks good and have the side door window. The thing I like about the Xaser is that it has the temperature control. Does that really works? The Sonata's does look great though.

I did not forget about the keyboard,mouse and speakers. I already have a wireless keyboard and mouse. And I was going to get the Creative I-Trigue 2.1 3300 - PC multimedia speaker system which is already part of my budget. I dont actually need a 5.1 speakers. I just need a simple speaker that sounds great to listen to music and gaming. As for the monitor, I might stick to the LG or go for the Prestigio 17". Is Prestigio good?

Thanks again.

-= neokenzo =-

Col_Loki

1. The specs looks great for a gaming pc but will it do well for rendering videos as well?

Off hand im not sure about that one, i know dual cpu rigs do really well in that area. It performs accross the board but im sure other members of the forum will tell you for sure.

2. I presume buying from jes-computer is not going to be a problem even if the language is in German? I have translated most of it anyway but I havent tried to add to cart the parts yet. How long does jes-computers takes to ship the stuff?

Ive ordered €600 worth of stuff in the last 2 weeks with no problems at all. Seems to be a well run company, im happy and prices are excellent. Delivery takes roughly a week (give or take a day).

3. One of the reason why I chose the FX5700 was because it has a 256MB instead of the 128MB. I presumed that the Radeon 9800 Pro is very good but these days, gaming are improving all the time. Will this be able to support most games these days?

Ignore the 256mb Video cards its really just marketing....... the 9800pro supports DX9 and is one of the most future proof cards on the market. The 5700 will give up the go way before the 9800pro 128mb.

4. I was thinking of getting the NEC ND-2500A +-R/RW bulk black DVD writer instead of the LG. Is this good as well or should I just stick with the LG?

I have the NEC Nd1100 DVD+R writer and im very happy with it TBH. Reason i recomended the LG is that one of my mates had alot of problems with his NEC (Nd1100 also) and the NEC support is dreadfull, there seems to be no firmware out for it (official). ND-2500 looks pretty good......... like i said ive had no problems whatsoever with mine (burning all brands).

5. I've been looking for a site that sells OCZ 512MB PC3200 Platinum Series DDR CAS2 but I couldnt find it. I just want to check the price.

OCZ is good memory so is mushkin, Corsair....... geil isint bad. There pretty much the performance brands with better timings. For a good site that sells OCZ and has free delivery (based in kildare) try www.pc-memory-upgrade.co.uk . Watch to make sure your checking the same timings...... think the Mushkin L1 has 2-3-2 timings while OCZ has 2-3-3 (i might be thinkin of the gold series).

6. I was looking at the mainboard and if I am not wrong, it only have 2 or 4 USB ports? I have a lot of usb hardware that I wouldnt want to keep pluging it out and in. Should I get an extra USB card?

It would be crazy if the motherboard only came with 2 USB......... all of the motherboards ive gotten of late come with a PCI card that has 2xUSB2.0 and it usually has a place to connect frontal USB ports aswell (if the ones on your case).

7. I was looking at some sites and I saw that they have fans for hdd, graphic cards, etc. It is important that I get a fan for those stuff as well?

The graphics card comes with its own cooling so dont worry about that. Generally people dont bother with hard disk cooling either......... its taken care of when you have a case fan or 2.

8. I actually dont mind what case I use as long as it looks good and have the side door window. The thing I like about the Xaser is that it has the temperature control. Does that really works? The Sonata's does look great though.

Yea the temp thing does work on the Xaser, but you have to place the temp sensor in the desired place....... of feck all use you can get simple software to do this for you.
Sonata is a sweet case alrite only doesent have a clear side window but is very quiet. Its dreadfull paying €250ish on a case & PSU.........specially when you compare it to a €130 sonata which is of such high build quality.

As reguards speakers and sound, the Audigy is fantastic and has better sound than any on-board you get..... that said the quality of on-board is very good these days, will you notice the difference without decent speakers?
[edit] read it again, if your getting new speakers then thats good......... surround sound is pretty sweet, would take advantage of the audigy?

The LG screen looks nice and has got good reviews from what ive read. Never heard of Prestigio !!

Woden

Originally posted by neokenzo

5. I've been looking for a site that sells OCZ 512MB PC3200 Platinum Series DDR CAS2 but I couldnt find it. I just want to check the price.

you can get it from www.overclockers.co.uk and it works out about €150 the mushkin level 2 ram is better though as its got tighter timings

neokenzo

Lets say if I had about €100 extra to spend, do you think I should get the 256MB Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Full-RTL? I assume it is better then the 128MB Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Lite-RTL. Or should I just stick to the 128MB 9800 Pro

Is Jes-computer's 256MB Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Full-RTL same as Komplett's Sapphire Radeon 9800 Atlantis PRO 256MB AGP, ATI, "Ultimate Edition", Retail?

Col_Loki

TBH if there was a €10-15 difference then mabye id think about it a bit ......... but really dont bother.

The real difference is the 256mb card on komplett and jes computer is the komplett one comes with comes with quiet cooling and games (which are crap).

I swear if i was in your position (and i was and got a 9700pro for €230 , 2weeks ago) id definetly go for the 128mb version. €100 is a big difference (especially €180 which is HUGE - the ultimate 256mb version on komplett) especially when you will see almost 0 performance difference.
If silence becomes a big thing get an Artic cooler for €11 or a Zalman HeatPipe, only advantage of the Ultimate is you dont void warenty to make it quiet........ but it costs you sooo much more.

Thats my honest opinion , ive went down the 128mb road myself.......

neokenzo

Well everything looks fine for me to go ahead with the order. I just have one other question though. If I buy from jes-computers, dont I have to pay VAT when the shipments arrive? I have bought a lot of stuff of the net from various countries, and I have been charged VAT & customs charges on a few occasion. I wouldnt want to ship €900++ worth of goods and then find out that I have to pay VAT.
Have anyone bought from Jes Computers and got charged VAT & customs when it arrive here?

joePC

Once the company your buying off is in the EU then you will not have to pay any VAT or customs when they arrive in the country.

Col_Loki

Yea exactly what joe said. Plus the german vat is cheaper aswell which is nice .

neokenzo

Cool. After some serious debating with myself, I've decided to get the Sonata instead of the Xaser. And with the E100 I've save, I think I'm going to get another 512MB Ram.
Probably will order the stuff in a couple of days.
I've heard about a dual processor mobo. What advantages of having a dual processor mobo apart from the apparent dual processor?

Col_Loki

Dual processor boards are quite expensive especially when you look at the opertron or Xeon solutions. You need to use different ram (registered) and also need to get a different PSU (EPS12v)

A cheaper solution would be an AMD MP setup. They take regular PSU's and will accept non-registered memory in the first two ram slots (MSI K7D). The problem you will find is its gaming performance will be lower than on a single cpu rig. Alot of this is to do with the limited FSB of the boards (max 150mhz , 133mhz as standard - double pumped thats 300mhz, and 266mhz) .

It is possible to mod the L5 bridge on the XP processors to make them MP compatible (has a high success rate) which might save you a few bob. What people use to do was get mabye Xp1700/1800's pop them in and overclock them to MP2400/2600 etc as they could change the multiplier. Due to the fact that the AMD cpu's are currently locked its a bit more of a problem.

Opertrons and Xeons are set to fall in price come the summer so if your strongly thinkin of going that road then wait till then (800FSB xeons are comming out).

Generally the main advantages of dual cpu's is when multitasking, but also when programs are geared specificly for dual cpu's. You wont see performance gains in the likes of games (infact they will probably suffer slightly) but you can rip a dvd while playing..... which is nice.

For more information check out this link, http://www.ocforums.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=68 . Huge ammount of info hope it helps .

BrianD3

Once the company your buying off is in the EU then you will not have to pay any VAT or customs when they arrive in the country

You still have to pay any extra VAT though. In the UK, VAT on computer parts is 17.5% Over here it is 21% If you buy say a digi camera from amazon.co.uk, they will add on the extra few percent VAT when calculating the total amount due. If they didn't do this then you would be liable for the extra VAT when the goods arrived in this country.

BrianD3

Slutmonkey57b

Actually, an ata133 drive will give you better performance than the SATA solution as there isn't a consumer chipset out yet that has a fully implemented solution (check the reviews of any recent mobos on HardOCP if you don't believe me. It isn't a problem with the drives either, its the mobo's chipset that's not up to the task. Next generation of southbridges will have full native SATA but for now I'd go with ATA133. Not much in the price and by the time you're upgrading again the 133 will be full anyway

neokenzo

I've heard about the SATA thingy. One of my friend actually adviced me not to buy a SATA hdd. He reckons they wont last long. To a newbie like me, it doesnt really matter as long as it last long enough and fast enough.

I was looking at reviews of mobo's. The Gigabyte's GA-K8NNXP seems to be getting a lot of really good reviews. Do you think its worth spending the extra €60 to get the GA-K8NNP rather than the GA-K8N Pro? Or even the Asus K8V or MSI K8T Neo?

aaf

Originally posted by BrianD3
You still have to pay any extra VAT though. In the UK, VAT on computer parts is 17.5% Over here it is 21% If you buy say a digi camera from amazon.co.uk, they will add on the extra few percent VAT when calculating the total amount due. If they didn't do this then you would be liable for the extra VAT when the goods arrived in this country.

BrianD3

How does one go about claiming the VAT back from goods not bought in Ireland? I was kinda planning on getting the VAT back as my dad is registered as a sole trader and is able to claim VAT back on a lot of goods

neokenzo

Read some reviews and the MSI fairs better most of the time compared with the Asus and Gigabyte. A friend of mine said MSI cards are not that good. Which would be the better option for me, MSI, Asus or Gigabyte?

neokenzo

Originally posted by aaf
How does one go about claiming the VAT back from goods not bought in Ireland? I was kinda planning on getting the VAT back as my dad is registered as a sole trader and is able to claim VAT back on a lot of goods

I'm not 100% sure but I dont think you can claim back VAT outside of Ireland. I know it sucks. I thought Komplett had an Irish office over here but I dont think they do as they seem not to know the VAT system here in Ireland.

neokenzo

Does anyone has a site that compares Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP, Asus K8V Deluxe and MSI K8T Neo FIS2R?

aaf

http://www.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20031201/index.html
The MSI comes out tops in this review but I'm gonna purchase the Asus K8V from JES as soon as my paypal account is setup properly. Have to wait a few days to receive pin because I need to spend more than the default limit. Bought some components on komplett.ie last night and as far as I can see, I'll be able to claim tax back on it.

neokenzo

Originally posted by aaf
Bought some components on komplett.ie last night and as far as I can see, I'll be able to claim tax back on it.

Is Komplett's invoice an Irish invoice, with Irish VAT number?

aaf

Well, I know nothing of VAT or tax or anything like that but this VAT number appears on their invoice: VAT No. IE995284IN

The IE in that makes me believe that they are registered for VAT in Ireland if that's the way you phrase it