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[Superblatt]

He's talking about your motherboard... I never tried the brand you're looking into, ASUS is well known, but their boards are sometimes more costly than equal boards from a different company... I actually use a MSI in my machine, works and runs beautifully...

500w can be a little limiting based on what you want to run... I'd suggest something a bit higher... Do it right the first time so you don't have to worry about this part again I think... Look into the OCZ power supplies, and try to score something in a 600-700w range just to be safe...

Also, I noticed you want to run Vista... More than 2Gb is needed if you're going to do any sort of gaming, media, or graphical work on it... Vista really hammers your mem resources... I'd go with 4Gb... And never go with 512 sticks if you decide to go with 2gb because when you upgrade down the road, you can easily have space to keep in the 2 1gb sticks and add in 2 more 1gb sticks, as opposed to shuffling through slots with the 512 sticks...

It doesn't appear there are any combo cases/power supplies with 600-700w. Have any ideas? This is all getting crazy expensive as is.

 

[disappeared]

$700? Where did you buy the parts?

NCIX.

And holy shit, these guys are amazing! The order shipped yesterday from Vancouver, BC, and I got it today, two provinces over. That's damned impressive considering most mail service in Canada is painfully slow. Everything was packaged to perfection. These guys are honestly the best in the biz.

EDIT: The only thing that didn't come with my order was the 8800GT (which should be coming next week), but that's because almost every place on the internet right now is sold out and has the card on backorder. :lol

 

[J-Rzez]

It doesn't appear there are any combo cases/power supplies with 600-700w. Have any ideas? This is all getting crazy expensive as is.

Save a couple bucks getting a case without a powersupply, and add in the new powersupply... And yes, unfortunately, this stuff gets expensive... That's one of the reasons console gaming picked up steam to where it is today... Sucks really, but I'd just save up and do it right the first time... Not like my one friend that built a rig and had the psu go in 3 weeks because he ran it out of it's efficiency zone, and had a PITA case no easily allowing you to work on it... He's still bitter about it and said he'd never build another machine himself again...

Between that and getting DOA parts sometimes, then troubleshooting what's wrong, it can really turn off a lot of people... Even the hardcore...

You can either give it a shot, see how others said it's running for them in comments section with a similar set up, and maybe it'll run just fine... Or, if you can, just save up a little more and play it safe...

 

[disappeared]

Between that and getting DOA parts sometimes, then troubleshooting what's wrong, it can really turn off a lot of people... Even the hardcore...

That reminds me of when my MSI mobo went. I thought it was a virus that had fucked my computer (it wouldn't even boot up). I even went so far as to buy a new hard drive to try and boot Windows from a disc again, but nothing worked. So we tried a new motherboard - the same brand and type - installed it, and things were smooth. Problem solved... until a month later when the damned mobo went again. I called NCIX, and they swapped out my MSI board for an ASUS (best switch EVER) and since then I've never had a problem with this comp.

 

[careful]

NCIX.

And holy shit, these guys are amazing! The order shipped yesterday from Vancouver, BC, and I got it today, two provinces over. That's damned impressive considering most mail service in Canada is painfully slow. Everything was packaged to perfection. These guys are honestly the best in the biz.

EDIT: The only thing that didn't come with my order was the 8800GT (which should be coming next week), but that's because almost every place on the internet right now is sold out and has the card on backorder. :lol

How did you get that for $700? I just added all your parts together and it came in way over 700.

Thanks for the feedback btw. I'm strongly considering ordering from them for my next build.

 

[shinjijai]

P5K is good, but unless you go for the premium/deluxe the DSR is better, but that's my opinion.

http://www.behardware.com/articles/679-1/product-survey-5-sata-500-gb-hdd.html <- it review a few drives, the WD SE 16 version came out on top... Hitachi, Samsung and WD were all pretty close, but WD seems to be a better choice, hence why I suggested it.

One more thing, if you really want to build an expensive rig, there's a lot of options for you... better mobo, different hd setup, memory, case... but the config i put up is for decent/good gaming at a fair price... you can get some expensive PSU, but the one that comes with the case is around $80.

 

[shuri]

I'm running on the 500w psu that came with my shitty sonata 3 case; i have a 8800gts, a 6850, 4xhard drives totalling 1.2tb of storage and and a pci audigy 2 card, and i didnt run into power problems so far.Your mileage may vary and maybe the thing will just blow up to my face this weekend, rendering me handicapped

My mobo is the asus p5k SE, comes with two pci slots, one pci-e16x, and two useless pcie 1x. The evga 8800 gts card takes so much place that one of the pci slot is useless sadly :\. Its a decent board, i wish it had more pci slots in restrospect. The board has 4 sata connectors and one ide.

 

[MrNibbles]

Ok.

Get a SATA burner for the same price, maybe a few bucks more.

That case sucks for that price. Get a cheapo simple case.
I HIGHLY recommend the CoolerMaster Cuntruion 5 cases for simple builds.
The only complaint I have is that my front audio ports don't correctly report the "you have plugged somethign in" stuff anymore. The pin for that must be broken. (Happens to every case I've ever seen, though, so whatever).

8800GT. Don't even put anything else in your cart or you might forget.

XP Pro.
DO NOT GET VISTA.

 

[Chrono]

I would go with a different hard drive. WD has had lots of problems in the past with their non raptor hard drives. I have 1 of these and just bought another a few minutes ago.

I keep reading this in GAF threads - only buy a WD if it's a Raptor. I just bought a 320GB WD for my new PC and this is making me nervous honestly. I looked up some reviews before I bought it and iirc Anand Tech said both the Seagate and the WD 320GB drives were very comparable in all aspects. I think they said the WD was quieter too, not sure though.

 

[peetfeet]

Slightly off topic but do any of you guys know any good but reasonably priced suppliers that are in or ship to the uk?

 

[IronicallyTwisted]

He's talking about your motherboard... I never tried the brand you're looking into, ASUS is well known, but their boards are sometimes more costly than equal boards from a different company... I actually use a MSI in my machine, works and runs beautifully...

500w can be a little limiting based on what you want to run... I'd suggest something a bit higher... Do it right the first time so you don't have to worry about this part again I think... Look into the OCZ power supplies, and try to score something in a 600-700w range just to be safe...

First of all Gigabyte are some of the best motherboards you can buy. ASUS are the best in the business, but theres absolutely nothing wrong with a Gigabyte, in fact, i'd recommend them to anyone with a limited budget.

And you are vastly overestimating the watt usage of his PC, which most people tend to do. Here are some figures:

Jonny Guru recorded 277W peak power consumption with an overclocked Core 2 Extreme X6800 and GeForce 8800GTX, and 327W with an overclocked Core 2 Extreme QX6850 and 8800GTX.

Natronomonas found maximum power consumption of his overclocked Core 2 Quad Q6600 and GeForce 8800GTS was approximately 345W. (More realistic stress testing drew 300W.)

PC Perspective found similar systems with a Core 2 Extreme X6800 consumed: 292W (with GeForce 8800GTS 640MB), 326W (with Radeon 2900XT) and 336W (with GeForce 8800GTX).

The fact of the matter is a 500W PSU is excessive for a single GPU system. You are much better off getting a quality 400 W PSU like an Antec (or even better, a Seasonic) as they tend to be efficient and won't damage your hardware during shortages and what not.

 

[Chrono]

^WOW @ those figures. Makes me regret buying a Silencer 750 Quad PSU, though it was only 20 dollars more than the 610W model I was considering, got it for 150. It's now back to 250 on Newegg, quite a deal.

However I hear the wattage isn't the most important thing about a PSU but the amperage on the rails, and the one I got has something like 60 amps on one powerful single rail.

 

[zoku88]

XP Pro.
DO NOT GET VISTA.

Don't listen to this man (for this part of his advice.) Just get whatever you want. There's no reason not to get it unless it really doesn't strike your fancy.

 

[IronicallyTwisted]

^WOW @ those figures. Makes me regret buying a Silencer 750 Quad PSU, though it was only 20 dollars more than the 610W model I was considering, got it for 150. It's now back to 250 on Newegg, quite a deal.

However I hear the wattage isn't the most important thing about a PSU but the amperage on the rails, and the one I got has something like 60 amps on one powerful single rail.

Don't worry, almost everyone I know that has built a PC has some ridiculous PSU, at the end of the day they aren't that expensive and you can never have too much power, one day you might want to do SLi/Crossfire and thats when you need insane wattage.

And yes, the rails are very important which is exactly why I recommend a high quality PSU with less wattage rather than a shitty one with like 700 W.

 

[beat]

That case sucks for that price. Get a cheapo simple case.

I'm a big fan of Antec's sideways HDD mounting cage. It's very handy.