My First Pc Build

nani17

In around 3 weeks i'll have the money to build this I'm looking for opinions and advise if you feel like changing a few things please do. I already have a 700w psu, HDD and Cd drive



Here's the link to the site http://www.pixmania.ie

Solitaire

Just IMHO, but... If you're going for a 3DMark rig, fine. Otherwise if you're looking for a gaming juggernaut I'd look for a cheaper mobo and cooler and plow the saved cash into changing the HD5830 for a fully-fledged HD5850 instead. Not sure what other 890FX mobos are out right now but I'm pretty sure a Mugen 2 or even a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus will destroy the more expensive V8.

Also, RAM is wrong, you need dual-channel DDR3. And that's a mighty expensive case...

nani17

I just want a futrue proof rig you know somthing that i can update easily without trouble.

I have 900 to spend by all means if you can do better i would appreciate any help.

What i need it for is gaming not to extreme i do plan on getting crysis 2. I have a 24" monitor if that helps you

Edit: Is the CPU choose ok or should i go for the 1090T.

Solitaire

This is a better choice for memory modules. CPU is a bit of a sore point, as you'll have to wait for AMD's next-gen chipsets to become affordable (€120 for a basic 890GX and €200 for a 890FX... get real people!) before you can even think of trying to future-proof an AM3 build. And while the X6-1055 is an encoding powerhouse it appears to have driver issues with 3D at the moment. Think of it as AMD's Nehalem... and stick to other CPUs for games.

If you really want to futureproof a build at the moment its i7-920 or X6-1055 + 890FX all the way. But gamers are stuck with i5-750 and X4-965 + 890GX in that regard and the irony is that both are bandwidth-limited on the PCIe bus (especially LGA1156!) so trying to use USB3 or SATA3 will cut into graphics bandwidth (although its not that big an issue... yet).

EDIT - Just got your PM, sorry, very busy at the moment but I'll give you an altered build after dinner

Solitaire

A shade under €825:



This should keep you going for a while - especially if you OC the CPU and graphics card!

Case is always a subjective thing so if you don't want/like the Mini-HAF just choose a different one

nani17

What do you think of this one not to sure about the mobo.

Solitaire

Mobo is a bit pointless IMHO... €95 for pretty basic functionality. You're better off going for the GA-790XT-USB3 or even one of the 890GX mobos, horribly expensive though they are. Cheaper mobos that would usually do the trick can't OC a X4-965 safely as its a 125W CPU and any more power draw would fry their unshielded VRMs.

nani17

Well i have no clue how to OC lol

Now i think this is the one but your the wiz kid

Solitaire

Yep

hare05

Absolutely pointless post but...

ALL HAIL SOLITAIRE. LORD OF THE MICROCHIP.

There.

Now I would recommend waiting until after the summer as CPUs/GPUs are painfully overpriced right now to the point where, if you wait till September I think you could get that lot under 680 and if you wait to christmas you could get crossfire 5850's at that price with your 6-core goodness included.

I was planning a build for the summer, but I honestly can't stand the crazy pricing right now so I'm gonna wait.

Does the mighty god of transistors agree or are my predictions way off?

C.D.

nani17 wrote: »

Well i have no clue how to OC lol

Now i think this is the one but your the wiz kid

Only real advantage of 890GX/FX chipsets if your are not benchmarking or using Crossfire/SLI is USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 GB/s. No real difference in FPS between them and the previous gen chipsets. That particular board has two major issues to keep in mind:

1) To use it with a Samsung F3, it will require a BIOS update and setting the storage controller to SATA II.

2) If you use a single card setup, you have to use the lower PCI-E slot. Either way (single or dual card setup), there is very little clearance between the lower PCI-E slot and the 2 PCI slots (for example, sound cards would go here). This can significantly impede GPU cooling.

With regards to the 5830, I'd stay clear. While the price is finally coming down to something sensible, until this week the drivers available for the 5830 were RC2 drivers and incredibly buggy. Keeping in mind that this card was released in February, this is pretty bad- even for graphics card market. Proper drivers are now out, but their stability has yet to be tested.

Other than that, enjoy! Hope you have some good games lined up! Never understood the people who drop €1,000+ on a new rig but are too tight to buy games. Surely you'd want to actually use your PC and get maximum enjoyment from it? Would be like buying a sports car and leaving it in your garage as you're too tight to buy petrol for it

nani17

I never understood why people have great gaming rigs but play on a 19" standard with a VGA connection.

I'm thinking of going for the last setup I think the card Solitaire picked looks really cool plus he was right me first choice was a bit much.

As for my games line up

Fallout Vegas
Pes 2011
Crysis 2
Splinter Cell Conviction(Already own)
GTA IV (Already own)
Batman 2
Dead space 2 (If it comes out on PC they're still thinking about it.)
Portal 2
Cyrsis & Crysis warhead (Own both but wanna test them out)


That's all I can think of for now E3 is in June so ill have more to line up. I already own lots of PC games but my card/CPU can't handle my new 24" monitor. (had to say that )

I have a Athlon 64 X2 I think I need an upgrade lol

VenomIreland

C.D. wrote: »

1) To use it with a Samsung F3, it will require a BIOS update and setting the storage controller to SATA II.

That true? If so, I'll need to find a way to update the BIOS without an OS installed. Or should I get a different HD?

Solitaire

C.D. wrote: »

Only real advantage of 890GX/FX chipsets if your are not benchmarking or using Crossfire/SLI is USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 GB/s. No real difference in FPS between them and the previous gen chipsets. That particular board has two major issues to keep in mind:

1) To use it with a Samsung F3, it will require a BIOS update and setting the storage controller to SATA II.

2) If you use a single card setup, you have to use the lower PCI-E slot. Either way (single or dual card setup), there is very little clearance between the lower PCI-E slot and the 2 PCI slots (for example, sound cards would go here). This can significantly impede GPU cooling.

Links please, or I'm going to play the BS card on this one!

1) Autodetect? SATA is backward-compatible y'know...
2) That's the opposite of any other chipset in history and as I haven't heard anything of the kind in reviews, again, I'm calling BS without proof.

VenomIreland

Solitaire wrote: »

Links please, or I'm going to play the BS card on this one!

1) Autodetect? SATA is backward-compatible y'know...
2) That's the opposite of any other chipset in history and as I haven't heard anything of the kind in reviews, again, I'm calling BS without proof.

1)http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/271953-12-spinpoint-asus-m4a89gtd

2) don't have a link but I will say that I have read this in reviews as well, if you don't do this the card will run at x8 instead of x16.

Solitaire

Hmm... never heard of these issues with the chipset but it could just be Asus, they've really gone down the toilet over the last couple of years

VenomIreland

Solitaire wrote: »

Hmm... never heard of these issues with the chipset but it could just be Asus, they've really gone down the toilet over the last couple of years

Really, have they? I haven't been learning about the industry long enough to notice anything.

Solitaire

Asus used to be the golden standard other manufacturers held themselves against, but since Nehalem their mainboards have been getting cruddier and cruddier. Was hoping the next-gen AMD mobos would be an exception but... no Samsung F3 support?! That's just fail. And I haven't heard anything about reversing the entire PCIe bus layout on the new chipset so I'm guessing it's Asus kookiness (their mobos are often missing ports and stuff to cut costs)

VenomIreland

Solitaire wrote: »

Asus used to be the golden standard other manufacturers held themselves against, but since Nehalem their mainboards have been getting cruddier and cruddier. Was hoping the next-gen AMD mobos would be an exception but... no Samsung F3 support?! That's just fail. And I haven't heard anything about reversing the entire PCIe bus layout on the new chipset so I'm guessing it's Asus kookiness (their mobos are often missing ports and stuff to cut costs)

Oh well, it's a great motherboard anyway, just has it's quirks, I guess.

BTW, I read that you can use the top slot anyway, just that it'll run at 8x speed instead of 16x if you don't put it in the second slot and use the switch card (have I said that before?)

Solitaire

Switch card?... oh great, Asus got so cheap they didn't put in an automatic switch and managed to get the manual switch arrangement the wrong way around! :rolleyes::eek::o

VenomIreland

Solitaire wrote: »

Switch card?... oh great, Asus got so cheap they didn't put in an automatic switch and managed to get the manual switch arrangement the wrong way around! :rolleyes::eek::o

Yup, one of the reasons I am going to get this MoBo instead: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/197546

C.D.

Solitaire wrote: »

Links please, or I'm going to play the BS card on this one!

1) Autodetect? SATA is backward-compatible y'know...
2) That's the opposite of any other chipset in history and as I haven't heard anything of the kind in reviews, again, I'm calling BS without proof.

VenomIreland beat me to it! But yes, I was as surprised as you to find that out about the Asus MA489GTD. That said, the vast majority of boards I've worked with have had obscure compatibility issues at launch and quite often you only find out about them after you've bought it or by trawling forums- at least this has been the case in my experience.

Perhaps I was a little careless with my words- you most assuredly can run your single card setup using the top slot, but 2 years ago Tom's published an article showing that (even back then) there was a performance hit associated with running high end cards in a x8 slot vs. a x16 slot. Hard to believe that 16GB/s of bandwidth (500 MB/s per lane) could be saturated.. but the figures show something is up.

On the upside, the board has obscure features that should help builders- first time or not. I believe the onboard CPU power connector is raised so that it sits above the surrounding heatsinks and the front panel connects have an adapter that allows you to connect all the different bits to the adapter and then the adapter to the board.

C.D.

VenomIreland wrote: »

That true? If so, I'll need to find a way to update the BIOS without an OS installed. Or should I get a different HD?

BIOS update via the OS should be the last resort. Most motherboards will allow you to flash the BIOS via a USB drive and older boards via a floppy disc.

C.D.

nani17 wrote: »

Fallout Vegas
Pes 2011
Crysis 2
Splinter Cell Conviction(Already own)
GTA IV (Already own)
Batman 2
Dead space 2 (If it comes out on PC they're still thinking about it.)
Portal 2
Cyrsis & Crysis warhead (Own both but wanna test them out)

Not a bad selection at all, just made my way through Mass Effect 2 and it was epic! Also enjoying Bad Company 2 a lot- I just ninja into the enemy position and blow stuff/people up with C4 On one of the jungle maps I very slowly ninja'd my way underneath the hut a 3 guys were sniping from (it was sitting on stilts in water), laid the C4 and sat back before getting knifed!

nani17

Me again I'm worried that my 700w PSU won't do as in do i have enough connectors.

Here's what i have

6: molex
2: 6 pin connectors
1: 4 pin connector
2: SATA power

Obviously 24 pin and there's two other things i not to sure what the name is.

Solitaire

nani, would you mind telling me (through words or photos) the info on the big label on the side of that PSU? Seems odd to me why a 700W PSU would have just two 6pin PCIe connectors and no full EPS connector... I've seen 450W PSUs with better.

nani17

well it was a very cheap one. I couldn't get a good picture if the sticker because it wouldn't focus but it says.

24pin: 12V1 + 12V2 + SATA Cable.

here's pictures of all the cables

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/4536/dscn0423aj.jpg
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/9574/dscn0422fl.jpg
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/3762/dscn0421z.jpg
http://img155.imageshack.us/img155/3811/dscn0420h.jpg
http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/9343/dscn0419w.jpg

Solitaire

Cables aren't the issue. The table is. If the 12V rail(s) amperage is too low (typically a sign of a very old topology, in very, very cheap PSUs) your "700W" PSU is really only a 300W PSU and if its that cheap it might not even have the good grace to shut down or die when you exceed its real limits, resulting in explosions and fire

nani17

so i do what buy another?

Solitaire

I'd recommend it - a good 550W if you're not OCing, 650W if you are. That PSU certainly doesn't sound like its up to the task of powering an X4-965BE with a HD5850!

Look for deals on the Antec Basiq Plus 550W, otherwise get the Corsair VX550. Similat story with the bigger models - Corsair TX650 if the Antec EarthWatts 650D isn't cheaper. The Antec PSUs aren't pretty but they're from a good OEM (Delta) and the Basiq Plus even has some modular cabling.

nani17

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/655746/art/antec/truepower-quattro-850-ec.html

would this one do i think it's modular as well

in the futrue i am adding another card