Building A Desktop

[Neddie]

Now, I have a few components.

GeForce 8800 GT OC 512 MB
Keyboard
20" Widescreen Monitor
Mouse

So, what should I pick up to make my new Desktop? I was thinking about a Gigabyte mobo, four 320 MB drives in SATA and a nice Core 2 Duo.

[Peet]

EVGA 680i LT SLI mobo
c2d e6420

[Pathfinder]

Well, you have many choices that you can go with on your computer.

CPU: Defiantly get a Dual Core or a Quad Core. Multi core games and apps will certainly be the future. You can get both at relatively great prices. I personally went with a quad core, but a dual core can work as well. For a dual core, you do not need to buy the absolute highest clock speed like the 3.0 Ghz model. You can get some of the slower clocked ones and overclock it to 3.0 and beyond. Dual Cores overclock very well on air cooling. Same can be done with the quad core but it cant be overclocked as much on air cooling.

RAM: Go for 2Gb of ram. It is dirt cheap now and will be of great use in the future.

Mobo: You have some choice here as well. You should stick with a Gigabyte, MSI, Abit, or Asus board since those are name brands. Other than that, be sure to look at REVIEWS and OPINIONS of the motherboard. These can tell you allot of the quality of the board and what others think of it.

Case: Seeing as how you have an 8800 you need to make sure that the case is deep enough to hold this monster. An added bonus is that bigger cases let the parts have more room to breath.

As for four harddrives, that is overkill. If you want plenty of space buy a 500gb hdd and then another if you need. If you really want allot of space they have 1 terabyte hdds available.

[Neddie]

Let us assume I have one thousand dollars to use on the remainder of the computer, and will not go over four hundred for the CPU.

[Pathfinder]

$1000 dollars would be plenty of money to get the needed parts.

Get parts from Newegg. They have awesome deals at great prices. For instance I just built my own computer for $600 by reusing parts.

[Neddie]

Well, what about...
Core 2 Duo 6750 = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115029
GIGABYTE G33 = http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128053

[Snipawolf]

A thousand dollars?

Listen to peet.

[Neddie]

That motherboard doesn't seem to perform very well... I am going to get a Core 2 Duo, but I'm pretty sure I'll pick up a better one - for cost and performance - than that suggested by Peet.

Who dares suggest a good HD maker and a RAM brand? I haven't built a machine in ten years.

[Peet]

That gigabyte g33 is a micro atx mobo and is lacking many of the features of the 680i chipset.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813188015 Vastly superior.

That motherboard doesn't seem to perform very well.

Well it's working fine for me, and I'm running at a 150% overclock (something that I was unable to do on my other mobo, with an intel chipset). It also lets you control all bus frequencies and voltages while the computer is running, which is handy.

Who dares suggest a good HD maker and a RAM brand? I haven't built a machine in ten years.

Seagate. Corsair or Patriot or Crucial. Not OCZ.

[Snipawolf]

DDR2 800 5-5-5-15 timing 2gB of RAM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231098

[Neddie]

Hurm... well, let us see who else drops in. I'm not planning on any overclocking, I can't afford risk.

Interesting, Snipa, but I was thinking about going for 2GB sticks at those timings, as I did that for my laptop after all, and I plan to dual-boot Ubuntu and XP.

[Snipawolf]

In the end, it is all your choice. I am not going to input much more, my focus is being more and more limited. I am tired already and not sure why, it is only 11:42... (Tired as in my eyes are starting to blur up a bit. )

[Pathfinder]

Well for HD makers you cant go wrong with a Seagate or Western Digital. Those are the two major brands that come to mind. Really its whichever has the cheaper HD you are looking for.

For ram I dont quite know what to go for. I personally went with
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231098

For a mobo you could get
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128059
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131196

For my computer I ended up getting
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813130098
Cheap board with good ratings. Was suggested in a Toms hardware article for its overclocking.

The mobos however are what I think would be good. I do not know loads about the Mobos so you might want to look around to ensure you get a good one. It is THE most important part of the computer after all. Also keep in mind if you want to to SLI for whatever reason make sure the board supports it and you have the necessary PSU for it.

[Neddie]

Heh, I do want your advice, but I'm a skeptic, you have to allow me that. This thing is going to be the first machine I've built since Indy SGI desktops walked the Earth, and HP had a brand of Unix people used!

[Snipawolf]

Neddie, you won't need 8gb of ram for a long time. If you buy two packs of the RAM I and Pathfinder said, it would be faster than the 2gb sticks. Would be a little more reliable, as well.

Edit: Also depends on your cooling. Overcrowding == hot.

[Peet]

Heh, I do want your advice, but I'm a skeptic, you have to allow me that. This thing is going to be the first machine I've built since Indy SGI desktops walked the Earth, and HP had a brand of Unix people used!

Put it this way...I had two intel chipsets die on me in a row. And before that one was stolen. Intel chipsets = bad karma

[Neddie]

You know, that is a good point. I wouldn't be able to use 8 GB anyway, really.

Alright, so you had a bad experience with them? I feel the same way about Dell and HP due to their laptops, so - yar.

Man, it was so easy when I was plugging in that little Indigo and playing around with all the absurd SGI demo applications...

[Evil4Zerggin]

So, you are, in fact going ahead with it? As long as you have your finances in order...

Anyhow, here's my suggestions:

Processor: Get a Core 2 Duo E6x50. When I built my computer, I felt the E6750 was the best deal, and I think it's still true now. The crucial advantage of the E6x50s is their higher (1333 MHz) FSB speeds--this will allow you to take better advantage of fast RAM. Of course, make sure you have a motherboard to support this as well.

RAM: 2 modules of 1 or 2 GiB each of DDR2 at 800 MHz. Get at least 5-5-5-15 timings; if you can, get 4-4-4-12. Don't get DDR3; it's not a mature technology yet, and as a result it's very expensive and somewhat unreliable.

Hard Disks: Generally the best space-to-cost ratios are found at 320-500 GB a drive. If you want lots of space I'd go with 500 GB drives.

Motherboard: Admittedly I'm not the most knowledgeable about the difference between Intel and nVidia North Bridges. At least make sure it supports at least 1333 MHz FSB, and has all the memory and expansion slots you want.

Power Supply: Corsair.

Case and Cooling: Larger fans don't have to spin as fast as smaller ones to move the same amount of air = less noise. You don't have to spend too much to get a decent case, but make sure you have enough room and fans.

Video Card: 8800 GT is the card to get at this price range. Like Pathfinder said, 8800s are H-U-E-G. Like a brick. I am more conservative on the overclock, since I don't want to risk reliability and the stock cooler on video cards generally isn't spectacular, but it's up to you. It does seem most people are happy with their factory-overclocked cards. Brand-wise, I'd go with either EVGA or BFG, probably the former.

[Snipawolf]

I hate evga, got three bad 6600's in a row...

[lurker]

Processor: Get a Core 2 Duo E6x50. When I built my computer, I felt the E6750 was the best deal, and I think it's still true now. The crucial advantage of the E6x50s is their higher (1333 MHz) FSB speeds--this will allow you to take better advantage of fast RAM. Of course, make sure you have a motherboard to support this as well.

That's not an advantage. Because of the higher default fsb, any x50 below the E6750 has a lower multiplier. To get an E6420 to 3.2Ghz, you only need to push the fsb to 1600. Likewise with the E6750. They're basically the same processor. But the lower x50s will have to go to less stable fsb speeds.