Build list - first go

OrangeDagger

I think i'm finally going to take the plunge and embark on my first build. I inherited a couple of HP DX6100 from work and 4 or 5 VGA monitors as well. The DX6100s are fairly slow so I just combined the ram and hard drives to make a new PC for the parents.

I originally thought about trying to upgrade one of the HPs but with all the new parts i'd be buying I presume it would be easier to just build one from scratch. I put together the following shopping list as a first go. All I really want is a fast machine running windows 7. I primarily use it for web browsing, java programming, some web design and some GIMP/Inkscape etc. I want to utilise 2 of the VGA monitors as well, which is my reasoning behing the motherboard, with the VGA and DVI port. Am I better off not bothering about this on the mobo and just getting a stand alone gfx card instead? If I could remodel it so that for the same price I could play some newish games then that would be an option (although a PS3 is on the wishlist too!!)

http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.aspx?mode=receive&si=787054&su=89F0DF55-7683-4BAA-BCA4-3229288591DB

Thanks for any tips in advance.

IrishGrimReaper

How much are you willing to spend?

youcancallmeal

You should try and find out if it is even possible to have a dual screen setup with this motherboard. If you had one monitor connected to the VGA and the other connected to the DVI they might just both have the same image (mirrored). Maybe thats what you want though?

Komplett-Tech: Ryan

Yeah it is possible with that motherboard to run 2 or 3 screens at the same time without a mirrored effect

OrangeDagger

IrishGrimReaper wrote: »

How much are you willing to spend?

I would ideally like to spend <€600 if possible. The i5 is really boosting up the price and I'm thinking it may be overkill for what I need.

youcancallme>al wrote: »

You should try and find out if it is even possible to have a dual screen setup with this motherboard. If you had one monitor connected to the VGA and the other connected to the DVI they might just both have the same image (mirrored). Maybe thats what you want though?

I just looked up the Gigabyte site anf found the following note:

(Note 3) The DVI-D port does not support D-Sub connection by adapter.

It looks like I may have to go the seperate gpu route so. I have a couple of matrox dual monitor cards at home. They are a few years old now. If I used one of them would it be a bit pointless as they would be way behind the other components performance wise?

Komplett-Tech: Ryan

Thats very strange. We have this motherboard in here at the moment, and with vga/dvi and hdmi i have 2 monitors working on it. The dual matrox card should work too though!

IrishGrimReaper

For about €600 this would work fine.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.aspx?mode=receive&si=787256&su=E84CB158-09A9-48F3-88D8-C64D2394AA38

The things you use the computer for even an i3 is more than enough, you could go cheaper too. But €600 is ok and gives you a few years out of it for it's uses.

OrangeDagger

IrishGrimReaper wrote: »

For about €600 this would work fine.

http://www.komplett.ie/k/shoplist.aspx?mode=receive&si=787256&su=E84CB158-09A9-48F3-88D8-C64D2394AA38

The things you use the computer for even an i3 is more than enough, you could go cheaper too. But €600 is ok and gives you a few years out of it for it's uses.

Thanks for this. Would i be better off paying the extra tenner for the Athlon II X4 635? From a basic understanding of this benchmark (i.e. higher is better!!) it looks to be better http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html and from reading around it looks like the quad core is more future proof as more applications start to utilise the four cores.

Also the graphics card recommends a 500w PSU and the corsair one on the list is only 400w. Would that be a problem? Thanks

IrishGrimReaper

OrangeDagger wrote: »

Thanks for this. Would i be better off paying the extra tenner for the Athlon II X4 635? From a basic understanding of this benchmark (i.e. higher is better!!) it looks to be better http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html and from reading around it looks like the quad core is more future proof as more applications start to utilise the four cores.

Also the graphics card recommends a 500w PSU and the corsair one on the list is only 400w. Would that be a problem? Thanks

That Athlon is a good CPU. But I'm not a fan of budget quad cores

Here's a good benchmark of a few CPU's including i3 and Athlon, there's not much between them to be honest, you'll probably not see a performance decrease.


Also you should take into account, if you want to try over-clocking in the future, that i3 is quite a beast for it, stories of 4.5-5ghz can be heard

Oh and never mind what it says for the power requirements, that Corsair will handle that fine. People have powered more stuff with the same PSU.

Solitaire

OrangeDagger wrote: »

I just looked up the Gigabyte site anf found the following note:

(Note 3) The DVI-D port does not support D-Sub connection by adapter.

AFAIK it only means you can't use a passive DVI-VGA adapter with that DVI port, as its DVI-D (digital) rather than DVI-I (hybrid) its missing the four additional analog-signal pins needed to run a passive analog adapter off it. So you'd have to have one monitor use VGA and another use either DVI or HDMI.