First Time Builder In Need of Guidance

phlegms

Hey fellow boardsies looking for a bit of advice on building a new desktop!
Basically I have been 2 years without a desktop Pc during which time I have been solely using a Dell Laptop. It was somewhat beefy when I bought it so I have been able to do some moderate Pc gaming during that time. However, it is really starting to show it's age as of late so I think its about time I got myself a proper desktop. I'll still be using my latop for college work and general web browsing so the desktop will be almost solely for gaming. Unfortunately I have fallen pretty far out of the loop in terms of Pc specs and what hard-ware is good over the last while so keep any explanations and suggestions as noob friendly as possible

Anyways, my budget is around the €1000 mark which should (hopefully) include a monitor of some sort. Although I will most likely have to spend closer to €1200 for that. I have done some browsing around various sites putting together some parts but I dont know how well they would work;

Ankermann:

Geh. A-DIS Systems Design Midi R1808 Li Black+Silver
Intel Core i7 Quad Core 920 PC1333 8MB Cache 2,67GHz retail
MB Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R X58 1366 DDR3
Samsung 1TB SATA F1 HD103UJ 7200 32mb
DDRAM3 2048MB PC1333 CORSAIR TWIN3X CL9 (2x1024MB)
DDRAM3 2048MB PC1333 CORSAIR TWIN3X CL9 (2x1024MB)
DDRAM3 2048MB PC1333 CORSAIR TWIN3X CL9 (2x1024MB)
Sapphire ATI HD4890 VaporX 1024MB PCI-E,DVI,DP,HDMI
DVDROM Samsung PATA black o.SW 16*/48*/2* intern bare bulk
DVDROM Samsung PATA black o.SW 16*/48*/2* intern bare bulk
Netzteil ANKERMANN 600W ATX 120mm Lüfter Retail
ZZ Cardreader 52 in 1 Intern 3,5" Slot
Xilence LGA CL Kühler Soc.775 C2D E6700 P4 D,E Celeron

Total- €922


Hardwareversand:

Intel Core i7-920 Box 8192Kb, LGA1366
ASUS P6T SE, Sockel 1366, ATX, DDR3
3GB-Kit A-DATA G-Series PC1600 CL9
NZXT Guardian 921, ATX, ohne Netzteil, schwarz
Raidsonic IB-861-B 33-in-1 Cardreader + Multiport schwarz
Xilence Power 700 Watt / SPS-XP700.(135)R
XFX RADEON HD 4650 1 GB DDR2 PCI-E 2.0
XFX RADEON HD 4650 1 GB DDR2 PCI-E 2.0
Samsung HD103SI 1TB SATA II EcoGreen, 32MB
LG GH22NS Retail schwarz SATA
Ultron Ultra Sound 5.1, PCI
D-Link DGE-528T Gigabit TP Adapter, PCI 32-B
Revoltec LightBoard XL 2 Serie, schwarz
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32/64-bit (Retail-Version

Total- €1.049,47



I dont have to buy off those sites, they were chosen purely because they have a good way of putting various configurations together. Buying parts from various sites is fine by me. Which brings up another hugely important factor; Im a jobless/lazy student so if there are any places I can cut corners or save a bit of money, that would be wonderful

Hope this wasn't too much for you too read, and any direction or advice you can give me is very much appreciated!

leninbenjamin

HWS is probably the best bet alright.

I'd say the best build for you would be one of the newer i5s. the i7 is wasted for gaming. mocked this up quickly anyway to show you what kind of build your money can get:



Not sure about the mobo as i'm not fully up to date with the i5 stuff but I've seen those Asus get a few good reviews. And you can save more on the RAM for sure, i just picked that at random. The other thing i'm not sure of is CPU cooler... dunno what's available for the i5 yet.

All in all you can build a very good i5 gaming machine and still have enough left over for a monitor for around €1000 (although the OS and peripherals will probably eat out the bulk of the €1200).

phlegms

Thanks for the reply!
That set-up looks pretty spot on for what I want all things considered. How future proof would it be though? I dont want to go mad over board buying the best of the best out there, but then again I want it to last me a few years. Also, how easy would it be to upgrade in the future? I dont want a system that only works well with the various hard-ware components out today.

Deano12345

phlegms wrote: »

Thanks for the reply!
That set-up looks pretty spot on for what I want all things considered. How future proof would it be though? I dont want to go mad over board buying the best of the best out there, but then again I want it to last me a few years. Also, how easy would it be to upgrade in the future? I dont want a system that only works well with the various hard-ware components out today.

LGA 1156 and LGA1366 are the newest sockets.They are as future proof as you can get.

What type of games do you play ?

Also,3 x 4650 is pointless.

leninbenjamin

phlegms wrote: »

Thanks for the reply!
That set-up looks pretty spot on for what I want all things considered. How future proof would it be though? I dont want to go mad over board buying the best of the best out there, but then again I want it to last me a few years. Also, how easy would it be to upgrade in the future? I dont want a system that only works well with the various hard-ware components out today.

the quadcore itself should last a while for gaming, as games are quite slow still to utilize them.

The GFX card is one of the newest and shiniest you can get and is one of the first on the market to support the latest version of DirectX (DX11).

The board itself will support Crossfire as well if you ever want to add another card.

and as Deano says, LGA1156 is the new mainstream platform from Intel. Only a handful of the full line-up is available to date, so you'll have a lot more upgrade options in the future.

so no reason why it shouldn't last you Donkey's. I'd say you'd be sick of an i5 setup before you had need to be rid of it.

phlegms

Deano12345 wrote: »

LGA 1156 and LGA1366 are the newest sockets.They are as future proof as you can get.

What type of games do you play ?

Also,3 x 4650 is pointless.

I dont know why I put tbh 3x4650

In terms of games I'll be playing mainly things like Crysis, Call of Duty and Empire total war which my current laptop is struggling to run.


Its good to know that those parts you selected are fairly future proof, that makes me feel much less guilty for spending so much on it!
I'm going to do a bit of shopping around for the various parts on other sites as the payment method for HWS sounds horribly awkward.

Deano12345

phlegms wrote: »

I dont know why I put tbh 3x4650

In terms of games I'll be playing mainly things like Crysis, Call of Duty and Empire total war which my current laptop is struggling to run.


Its good to know that those parts you selected are fairly future proof, that makes me feel much less guilty for spending so much on it!
I'm going to do a bit of shopping around for the various parts on other sites as the payment method for HWS sounds horribly awkward.

I like Komplett,but thats because I dont have to pay any shipping from them.

Quad cores really only help with things like video encoding.If it's just a games machine you could save yourself by going for an AMD Phenom dual core.They are clocked at 3.1 Ghz which is quite a bit higher than an Intel Quad.

Quad if you want the best windows performance and great gaming.Dual if you want good windows performance and the best gaming.

Although more and more games are starting to take quad cores advantages on board.

I've done 2 or 3 builds for €1200 here on i7,I'll find my post and I should be able to tweak it to your budgets and taste.

A few questions

What style case do you like ?

Are you overclocking ?

Do you want a quiet PC ?

Nvidia or ATi ?

Storage Requirements ?

livEwirE

Whoever you go with mate, make sure its NOT Ankermann, biggest shower of c$%ts I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with. I bought a custom built box from them 2 years ago and its never worked right, even after they replaced most of the components, steer well clear of them mate.

phlegms

Deano12345 wrote: »

A few questions

What style case do you like ?
Im not too fussy on the style of case tbh, as long as it is functional and isnt too plain. Oh, and of course not too expensive.

Are you overclocking ?
I may decide to overclock at some stage in the future but dont have any immediate plans to do so.

Do you want a quiet PC ?
A quiet PC would be lovely, however, if a quiet PC means alot more money I wont mind putting up with a bit of noise.

Nvidia or ATi ?
I would be more inclined to go with ATI, but thats purely because most of the talk recently seems to be about ATI on the graphics card front.

Storage Requirements ?
Nothing major really, a terabyte of storage should do me fine.

Questions answered above.

Once again, thanks for the help. It is very much appreciated!

Deano12345

I'll put something together later,going to have food and then install my new 4890

phlegms

Deano12345 wrote: »

I'll put something together later,going to have food and then install my new 4890

Cheers!

majiktripp

My Effort:



Sorry its not bigger, should have thought about that!
Some good offers on OCZ, its in Pounds sterling mind you and there will be a slight change in price as its at 15% UK vat shown there and not 21.5% that they charge us.
Recently ordered a Sapphire ATI card off them and was impressed, especially with their support forums as they keep threads open detailing incoming shipments of cards that are on pre-order so I could tell when it would be shipped to me.
Worth a browse around the site all the same.

phlegms

majiktripp wrote: »

Sorry its not bigger, should have thought about that!
Some good offers on OCZ, its in Pounds sterling mind you and there will be a slight change in price as its at 15% UK vat shown there and not 21.5% that they charge us.
Recently ordered a Sapphire ATI card off them and was impressed, especially with their support forums as they keep threads open detailing incoming shipments of cards that are on pre-order so I could tell when it would be shipped to me.
Worth a browse around the site all the same.

Thanks for that, it looks great!
Stupid question here: What site is "OCZ" ?

majiktripp

Overclockers.co.uk

Generally abbreviated to OCZ, sorry should have mentioned that!

leninbenjamin

majiktripp wrote: »

Recently ordered a Sapphire ATI card off them and was impressed, especially with their support forums as they keep threads open detailing incoming shipments of cards that are on pre-order so I could tell when it would be shipped to me.
Worth a browse around the site all the same.

I've found OCuk can be difficult to order off. Hassle with credit cards and the like. I've had to order off the phone as a result. Stiff ships fairly lively though, usually have it in no more than 2 days.

majiktripp wrote: »

Overclockers.co.uk
Generally abbreviated to OCZ, sorry should have mentioned that!

first I've ever heard of that. I normally see it as OCuk. OCZ is a name of a company that make RAM/PSU's and other stuff... to call OCuk OCZ makes no sense...

majiktripp

leninbenjamin wrote: »

first I've ever heard of that. I normally see it as OCuk. OCZ is a name of a company that make RAM/PSU's and other stuff... to call OCuk OCZ makes no sense...

I think your right, I've confused myself, ....been a long day... apologies! OCuk it is!

Effluo

Sorry guys but ocuk charge the Irish rate of vat when paying... So not a good choice


If you're a student, money is a very precious thing!
This is exactly what i would get if i were you,

This is a serious piece of kit for under €700 delivered with a 22" monitor(w/dvi).

Spend your extra money on an operating system(if you need one) windows 7 is supposed to only be costing €30 as an upgrade for students! A good speaker system, maybe you might wanna go for a full hd screen? And then BEER!!!

Futureproofing doesn't really exist but your psu will have enough in it for any card you may want to upgrade to in the future! (just don't go crossfire, the motherboard doesn't support it any way)

If you decide to go for a full hd monitor it may not be the worst idea ever to upgrade to the 5850... The step up to hd gaming is quite a big one.

If you wanted to go and make an attempt to "futureproof" then maybe a bigger psu 600watt with a motheboard that supports crossfire. Personally i'm thinking my next upgrade will be a second 4870 1gb(don't need it yet gaming at 1080). So maybe it would be worth the extra money?

majiktripp

Have to say that spec for that price including a 22" monitor is pretty bloody good! Would the 450w PSU be sufficent enough? I seen that the 4890 averages about 280 watts under load so there should be enough overhead there to cover the difference I guess.
Never used HardwareVersand before, will keep them in mind for the future!

Solitaire

OCUK charge Irish VAT here, but so long as you keep an eye on the prices they can still be very cheap for some things. Just make sure you don't look at the "inc VAT" prices; keep track by looking at the ex VAT prices and then adding on 20% and a bit more for luck

phlegms

The set-up Effluo posted looks great, but for some reason I have my heart set on an intel i5 cpu rather than an AMD one.

Could I maybe get one of the older cards like an ATI 4870 or 4850 (not sure which one it is) rather than the very latest gfx card and perhaps add a second gfx card at a later stage if needs be?


Im not quite sure what I was trying to say there, but hopefully it made sense

Effluo

majiktripp wrote: »

4890 averages about 280 watts under load

eh no...

That'd be total system power. (here's some stuff copied and pasted from a post i did on Budget gaming pc)

Here is an example of a full system power usage. This actually has a i7 965, 6g's of ram and other high power consuming components.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/944/12/

340watts with an overclocked 4890 and i think that's from the socket!?


The cx400 would have enough power for all those components. Those corsairs are supposed to run well enough right up to and beyond their stated wattage outputs.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/750/8 (runs at 120% load with 78% efficiency)
the thing is with psu's and these builds is that, I wouldn't go on about "you only really need this power supply for this build" if there was only a small bit of evidence to support it, but these power ratings come right across the board...

Even a corsair cx400 watt would do if the molex to pci-e connectors are ok(can't find any info on these)... I went with the 450 cause it's modular and has the "required connectors".

majiktripp

Again, my mistake, I read the 280 watts as the card only on the review I looked at on Toms Hsrdware, not the system total... brains not processing well tonight!

phlegms

Does this look at all like it would work?

Effluo

phlegms wrote: »

Does this look at all like it would work?

ya that would work, but it wouldn't play games much(if any) better than the machine i put up.

Very few games would stress a reasonable dualcore cpu.

Also not much point in getting those higher clocked gpu's when you can do that yourself(just even the auto-overclock on catalyst)

Also it's not a good idea to order stuff from hrws.de or indeed any website that isn't in stock. It could take weeks for it to come in!

phlegms

Effluo wrote: »

ya that would work, but it wouldn't play games much(if any) better than the machine i put up.

Very few games would stress a reasonable dualcore cpu.

Also not much point in getting those higher clocked gpu's when you can do that yourself(just even the auto-overclock on catalyst)

Also it's not a good idea to order stuff from hrws.de or indeed any website that isn't in stock. It could take weeks for it to come in!

It will be a while before I can fully get my "finances" together to buy it. I suppose college books come first in the money queue


Would the ram I selected work with that set up and can you see any other discrepancies in the parts I chose?
Does everything work with each other?
Also, is there anything else I would need to buy?
Like perhaps a sound card or a card read and the various cables I may need to get it working?


Once again, sorry for all the questions

Effluo

Well with the mobo i would prob get the cheaper "LE" version of that series. It has those sidewards facing sata ports(keeps case tidier) and it is still xfire capable, with a test someone on this forum showed us that the fact that one of it's pci express ports only runs at x4 speed gives a negligible performance loss. It also has less heat-spreaders on it, not sure if you need em...

The psu would also certainly cater for xfire in the future too...
ram is fine. I'd still either pay the extra €30/40 for the 5850 or just drop back to one of the basic 4890's! The overclocked version is not even nearly worth €40 more...

Don't forget you may need an operating system, 32 bit os's can only support around 3.25g's of ram 64 bits can support a lot more.

And all the cables you'll need will come with it... A different cooler may be in order if you want to overclock the i5. If you plan on getting extra fans for the midgard(not sure if you can fit any more onto it) save yourself some money and get them from hrwd.de too.
The Motherboard manual will be very helpful in telling you how to build it all,

phlegms

Thanks for the help once again Effluo!
Hopefully this will be my last proposed configuration



And then I will be getting one of these coolings fans to put on the CPU, assuming it will fit of course..

Cooler Master Hyper TX3 CPU Cooler


All I would need then is a monitor, for which I was thinking something cheap and cheerful like these:

Acer 23" Wide V233Hb - €149

LG 22" LCD W2261VP-PF - €185

leninbenjamin

Effluo wrote: »

Well with the mobo i would prob get the cheaper "LE" version of that series. It has those sidewards facing sata ports(keeps case tidier) and it is still xfire capable, with a test someone on this forum showed us that the fact that one of it's pci express ports only runs at x4 speed gives a negligible performance loss. It also has less heat-spreaders on it, not sure if you need em...

I'd be wary of the LE version. The standard version is poor enough for the heat spreaders, so i'm not sure an LE is ideal for a heat generating gaming machine.

Effluo wrote: »

If you plan on getting extra fans for the midgard(not sure if you can fit any more onto it) save yourself some money and get them from hrwd.de too.
The Motherboard manual will be very helpful in telling you how to build it all,

Midgard can take at least 3 input fans and 3 exhaust iirc. You can also fit an extra input with a small bit of DIY handy enough. Probably worth getting another case fan or two for it, i think it only comes with 2 x 120mm.

Effluo

The Windows 7 you got there is in German...
hrwd.de don't seem to do English versions yet.
Also those screens are not the best value ever... I've seen that acer cheaper in lots of places, it only has a vga input and there are reports that some of them "buzz". Don't see why you wouldn't get the screen + cooler on hardwareversand.de too!
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=25515&agid=603 €25 cheaper... Pretty much the same screen, or you could go with a iiyama for a couple of yoyo's more!

phlegms

leninbenjamin wrote: »

I'd be wary of the LE version. The standard version is poor enough for the heat spreaders, so i'm not sure an LE is ideal for a heat generating gaming machine.

Midgard can take at least 3 input fans and 3 exhaust iirc. You can also fit an extra input with a small bit of DIY handy enough. Probably worth getting another case fan or two for it, i think it only comes with 2 x 120mm.

So can I just buy any basic cooling fan and stick it in there or is there only a certain type that will fit in the case?

Effluo wrote: »

The Windows 7 you got there is in German...
hrwd.de don't seem to do English versions yet.
Also those screens are not the best value ever... I've seen that acer cheaper in lots of places, it only has a vga input and there are reports that some of them "buzz". Don't see why you wouldn't get the screen + cooler on hardwareversand.de too!
http://www1.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=25515&agid=603 €25 cheaper... Pretty much the same screen, or you could go with a iiyama for a couple of yoyo's more!

Whoops didn't realize it was a German version I had selected.
I'll look around on HWS for some monitors then. Can I get any HDMI/DVI monitor and just have it plug in and play in my PC ?

Iguana Bob

as long as yo have a hdmi output or dvi, i run my desktop off a 32" lcd. looks class. got tv from luzern tech on ebay only €380

thanks majiktripp. gonna try my first build in a few months, that site will help lots
they use air coolers in the bundles, is that enough? or would you be better off using liquid?. no point investing all that money for it to explode on me in a couple months