RB5-Black

I want to Build my own high spec PC. I've got enough of a clue to put it all together but the part selection is busting my head. I know Mobo/chip selection has been done in the last couple of weeks but I'm looking for some advice re the whole package.

I like the look of a thermaltake case so that's as far as I've got

Tutorials welcome.

Craig.

P1Fanatic

The main deciding points IMHO are the case (inc psu) and motherboard as they determine what other components you can use e.g how many drives you can fit in (inc hard drives and cd/dvd drives), memory speed & total memory, fastest processesor etc.

Id go for a decent size case so you dont have any trouble fitting parts inside as the smaller ones can get a little cramped. Dont be taken by a case just because it looks good. Go for build quality and space.

Dont go for some super duper cpu cooler - go for one that is quiet but still effective. Nothing is worse than a PC that sounds like the engine room in a navy frigate.

Also dont skimp on things like cables and dont forget some thermal compound (bonds cpu to heat sink to dissapate heat better). Using artic silver on my athlon allows me to overclock as without it my PC just hangs.

Give us a little more of an idea as to what you want to add to the system and what you want it for i.e. gaming or just day to day usage.

Simon.

P1Fanatic

Mobo - if you want high spec then you want something running SATA for the hard drive, DDR2 memory slots and probably PCI express for the new breed of graphics cards.

HDD - western digital raptors are pretty nippy. Prob want to run 2 drives via RAID. Although at around £115 for a 74gb drive thats expensive.

Gfx - Any of the new breed cards - ATI X800 of Nvidia 6800 ultra. If you really want hardcore then run two in SLI over pci express.

Just how high spec do you want to go and whats your budget?

Simon.

Walwal

I'm planning my own build at the minute, so here's my specs to hopefully give you some ideas:

Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester Socket 939
Not totally sure on the mobo, but it'll be nForce4 once it finally comes out
1 Gb Geil Ram
X800XT PCI-e graphics card
200 gig SATA hard drive
Tagan 480W PSU
Then just bog standard DVD drives etc.

Total price, just under a grand.

Should be future proof for a while.

Andy.

RB5-Black

well I'm looking at about £1000 all in. I have a 19" TFT at the moment so I'm sorted there. Usage would be a mix of games and Movie releated mucking around ( not bothered about TV in )

64bit I'm sure is the way to go but I'm not clued up. Was thinking about AMD's 64 bit processers but want to strike a balance between cost and speed.

TonyBurns

iTrader: (3)

Not much in it at the moment, and there are not that many programs that will at this time, benefit from a 64bit chip... (though there is suppose to be a copy of windows XP coming out soon and Intel are also heading down the 64bit avenue).
As said, cases, plus fans, but a decent case can set you back 80+ quid nowerdays
Go and check out places like www.scan.co.uk or www.dabs.co.uk for part prices, (i know scan will give you advice on your needs).
Your list of specs are a bit endless nowerdays, with dvd writers, dvd players, pci-e graphics cards, your harddrive size, sata or ata, a 128 or a 256mb graphics card.... it does get confusing.
Do a shopping list, then see what people think of the parts together

Tony

Scooby7

Im also looking at building a new gaming pc soon but just been leaving it for bit longer so the new Nvidia 4 chipset can be released as this looks like will have some good improvements.

im basically gonna look at

Viper Gaming case (Xcase.co.uk)
Amd 64 3500+ Wincheter 90nm
1gig mathed ram possibly OCZ 3700
Nvidia 6800GT (overclocked to match 6800Ultra)
Pioneer 108 Writer maybe
1x Raptor 74gig 10,000rpm personally cant see 2 in raid having a large enough performance gain to justify the cost.
Mobo looking at is Asus A8n-SLI Deluxe so can later add second GPU if needed.

I think DDR2 memory is also well to overpriced at the moment and better off sticking with some decent DDR memory especially to fit into your budget

I find spec'ing a system up to be a right pain just when i think i have decided something bloody new comes out.lol

Overclockers.co.uk dont do some bad packages Mobo/Ram/CPU although they only seem to do the 3500+ Newcastle and not the newer Winchester


Cheers
Scooby7

Walwal

Everywhere seems to be out of stock of 3500 Winchesters at the minute.

I must have looked on 5 different component sites, and every one was out of stock.

Going to be a bit of a mad rush once they're in stock, seems like every man and his dog wants one, lol.

Also, with OC bundles, have you noticed how you pay a little bit more for the bundle, as opposed to ordering the stuff as seperates?? Not much, maybe just about a tenner, but it is more. Bit of a cheek if you ask me.

Also, Scooby7, I like the look of that Viper case you mention. Love the lit up viper side panel pic in the dark. Looks class.

Andy.

Scooby7

Never added the bits up seperatly bit of cheek yeah you should get little bit of discount not more.

Im not gonna build mine till first thing in the new year as I really want the Viper case but the blue version is out in january so gonna wait for that one instead.

Im just learning as I go along really hard work keeping up with all the new technology.

be nice to get the 3700+ with the 1mb cache but the price difference is just too much.

Scooby7

Walwal

I'm a bit like you, it'll be the New Year until I do mine. I can't afford all the bits at once, so buying as and when I can afford them.

I'm just keep looking on the various sites, and getting stuff that may be on special (the RAM I wanted is reduced on OC this week, so it's been ordered this morning )

I'm leaving the CPU and mobo until last, to see if there may be a bit of a price drop. The Asus nForce4 SLi mobo has dropped on OC from £187 to £around £130 and it's not even out yet, but strangely, the Asus nForce4 Ultra mobo is still at £152. Weird or what???

Keep us informed how your build goes Scooby7 and I'll do the same (provided mine goes ok that is )

And Craig, have you decided on any definite parts yet?? Took me about 3 weeks of trawling thro reviews and forums (Overclockers forum is quite good, just don't mention buying your stuff from anywhere else, or mention anyone elses prices, or they'll ban you )

Andy.

Scooby7

Yeah let me know how yours goes mate that be good, I use extreme overclockers forums alot to check up on whats good ect.

I had a whole system planned and ready to buy then relised be better off waiting for the new Nvidia 4 chipset as its not far off.

I got a feeling we could see a price drop on the 3500+ CPU very soon but who knows, the DFI boards with the new chipset are said to be the best but no dates for release as of yet.

not sure to go with water cooling or good air cooling yet complete novice to water cooling so kinda put off but i do like to learn all the new stuff so keep up to date on it so may give it a try.

Scooby7

RB5-Black

I'll go make a shopping list and get back here with it

Daz34

That's a socket 754 cpu you know, and from the reviews I have seen its rating is quite optimistic. Same speed as an XP3400+ but with the extra cache.

Daz34

I have done watercooling in the past but now have a Thermalright XP120 heatsink & 120mm Vantec Stealth fan. It is huge, silent & performance wise not far off a decent water cooled setup without all the hastle.

AndyMoody

iTrader: (2)

CCL Computers doing the CPU on offer for £185.00 inc VAT, 20 in stock when I looked a minute ago.

Andy.

Scooby7

I never looked much into the 3700+ but cheers for pointing the difference in socket out thats no good for me anyway then.

Scooby7

Scooby7

I just looked on CCL computers the AMD 3500+ on there is a good price BUT it does not state ( as far as I can see) whether its a Newcastle or a Winchester im willing to bet its the older generation Newcastle chip but i could be wrong.

Scoob7

Dazza's-STi

M8 every one seems to have gone of on best for games tangent...

If you wan't to get to grips with what you need...
try www.ebuyer.co.uk
work through the processors and you can get bundled motherboards... check out the pecs and socket types and you will be able to work it out from there!
simply then work out what you need to pay and scale it up from there,,,
hope this helps
dazza

P1Fanatic

Being a lazy sod whats the benefit of this new chipset other than SLI? Im still leaning towards a P4 cpu myself but I dont see this chipset on P4 boards.

Simon.

Tim-Grove

Want to build a new PC soon too, this laptop is doing my head in. Hears my provisional list so far.

• AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester 90nm (Socket 939)
• Abit AX8 (Socket 939) PCI-Express
• GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit
• MSI NX6600GT GeForce PCX6600 GT 128MB DDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express)
• Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 250GB 6B250SO SATA 16MB Cache
• OcUK Value Floppy Drive - White
• LG GDR-8163B 16x DVD-Drive
• I have a pioneer DVD writer so i'll use that
• Coolermaster Cavalier 3 - Silver with Window
• Enermax Noisetaker 470W EG475AX-VE(G) SFMA Power Supply
• OcUK Value 1715 17" LCD Monitor

P1Fanatic

Ive gone the P4 route.

• Intel Pentium 4 540 3.2ghz 800FSB (Socket 775)
• Asus P5AD2 Deluxe
• Not sure on memory yet but not forking out for DDR2
• NVidia 6600GT of some sort (PCI-E)
• Western Digital Raptor 10K 74gb
• Already have pioneer dvr 108 dvd recorder
• Coolermaster Hyper 48
• Sunbeam Samurai Gaming Case
• Tagan TG480-U01 480W Silent PSU
• Already have IIyama 19" WM PRO CRT and will keep until I sort funds for a nice TFT (like the hyundai 19" overclockers are getting)

Simon.

Scooby7

P1fanatic nice spec pc there as far as the new chipset goes im no computer bothin only try to keep myself up to date as much as i can, SLI is not the only benefit of the new Nvidia chipset as only the top boards come with it and there are only a very small few available right now which are Asus boards for the AMD.

The new chipset also incorparates a new Nvidia hardware firewall system which they reckon along with the protection you can get from a AMD 64 chip will make it much more secure.

I have never really liked AMD much to be honest i think it all depends what you want the pc for and i have been just concentrating like Dazza said on a gaming pc and AMD64 chips are on top right now for gaming, but if i was building a pc for any other reason i would probably use a Intel chip.

As far as suggestions go then on advise for new pc it all comes down to personal preference at the end of the day some parts can be advised on but do you need alot of storage for instance like 250gig or is the access time an issue where as you would be best with a sata WD Raptor.

And graphics cards also depends what u need it for im gonna get one 6800Gt and maybe next year add another 6800Gt using SLI

Walwal

That'll be some rig you'll have there mate!!!!!

Andy

Scooby7

yeah I think at least by getting an SLI motherboard it makes the pc a little more future proof at least where graphics are concerned.

Half life2 is certainly running my current pc into the ground even with pretty high overclocking so be nice when do get round to building new pc and not having to worry so much.

Scooby7

DrEvil

Personally I would not go with the 6600 series cards, PCIX or not.

I would hold off buying PCI-express until a few more revisions of the boards have been shipped - if going AMD. The P4 boards (LGA775 format) are a little more mature than the AMD 939 ones PCI Express wise.

Personally, a good gaming spec would be:

AMD3500
Asus A8V Deluxe
1Gb Corsair TwinX XMS3200XLPT
Aopen/XFX 6800GT
Enermax Noisetaker 470W PSU
Audigy 2 ZS (OEM version)
NEC 3500 DVDRW or Pioneer 108 DVDRW
Floppy drive (for Bios updates)
Seagate or Hitachi or Samsung SATA hard disk

Keyboard Logitech MX series keyboard n mouse
TFT - Hyundi do an 8ms refresh 19" screen now or the Viewsonic 19" with 12ms looks good.

Hope that helps...

Scooby7

Yeah thats a nice spec pc there Dr Evil I know what your saying with the new pci-e and 939 boards but at least if i get a pci-e GPU it will be future compatible where as slowly but surely AGP are now being filtered out.

Logitech MX great advise i got the keyboard and mouse and makes computing so much better was well pleased with the mouse compared to my old un reliable one.

DrEvil

Yeah, I do agree PCI-E will be more future proof, but NForce4 is only just out.
If RB5black can wait until Feb/March, I'd say go for it, let others suffer the rev1 motherboards and rev1 graphics cards.

Nvidia/ATi will continue to support AGP for a while longer, we should see the X850 on AGP if rumours are true, amongst other updates - they've not max'd AGP yet.

I'm a little bias, currently have:

FX53 939, A8V DLX rev2, OCZ 1Gb PC3700, 6800GT
and
AMD3500 (Winchester), A8V DLX rev2, 1 Gb corsair TwinX 3200XLPT, ATi9800pro

Both are solid performers, I used to have an AMD3500 (Newcastle) in the with the 6800GT, performed really well!

But, if you want the latest, get the Asus SLI board, with a single PCI-E 6800GT for now, then you can always buy the second one later!

I've tried the Abit board (AV8) btw, and can't stand them, have probs out of the box with it.

As for the MX, best mouse/keyboard i used in such a long time, worth the money and the mouse has a recharge station

Walwal

Scooby7, are you sure that agp IS being phased out???

I'm all for going PCI-e myself for my new build, but when I look for top line PCI-e cards, there aren't that many about. I'm concerned it just might be a fad. I know agp is the standard at the mo, but the lack of high end PCI-e cards makes me wonder what's happening. You'd think loads of GFX card manufacturers would be jumping on the bandwagon for the next "big thing". But wherever you look, most of the top notch cards are agp. Hmmmm!!!

Thankfully, the PCI-e nForce4 boards (which I'm wanting at the minute) aren't out yet, so I've got time to decide which way to go. As I want an X800XT, SLi won't come into my thinking (AFAIK ATI cards aren't SLi compitable), but I did fancy the new nForce 4 chipset.

Considering it'll be a couple of months before I can afford the mobo and GFX card (going to get the processor no matter what), hopefully I'll have a better picture which way things are going by the time I buy (my decisions will be made once the nForce4/SLi/PCI-e dust settles).

Cheers,

Andy.

DrEvil

Also bare in mind there will be another change soon, ATi are releasing an SLI equivilent, which will mean yet another type of PCI-E board probably.

Its going to be the way forward, but like any new stuff takes a while to saturate the market.

WALWAL - check overclockers.co.uk, I'm sure they mentioned X800 XTPE on PCI-E from ASUS.

PS. yep: Asus Extreme AX800XT PE/2DHTV ATI Radeon X800 XT PE 256MB DDR3 VIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-061-AS)

Walwal

Thanks Doc, I've did most of my research for the new build on OC, I was just pointing out that for PCI-e being supposedly x times faster than agp, not many GFX card manufacturers are releasing cards in PCI-e format.

Granted, PCI-e mobo's aren't too common, but if PCI-e is the way forward, you'd think that companies would be looking to cash in (that's why they're in existance, to make cash).

As I said, my finances (and logical thinking) are dictating that the nForce4 mobo and (possibly PCI-e) GFX card are going to be the last things I buy for the new build machine, I've got time to weigh up the form.

If nForce4 and PCI-e are the way ahead, they'll get serious consideration from me.

You wouldn't believe I knew nothing about ANY decent hardware 2 weeks ago, and now I'm talking about nForce4 and SLI!!!. It's amazing what trawling thro computer forums and component sites can teach you (Not that I think I know it all mind, far from it, just know loads more than I did ).

Thanks,

Andy.