Exion

Hey all!

I'm new to the forums, and to the world of building my own PC, so I thought that this would be a good first post. (either that or I'm lazy )

I'm building my first PC, and am looking for opinions/suggestions; this is what I have going so far:

Case: CM Stacker 830 evo [purchased]
CPU: [COLOR=SandyBrown]Intel Core 2 Duo E8400[/COLOR]
RAM: [COLOR=SandyBrown]Corsair XMS2 2x2GB[/COLOR]
MB: [COLOR=SandyBrown]Gigabyte EP45-DS3R P45[/COLOR]
HDD: [COLOR=SandyBrown]WD Caviar SE16 640GB[/COLOR]
Optical: [COLOR=SandyBrown]Samsung SH-S223F Black SATA DVD+RW[/COLOR]
PSU: [COLOR=SandyBrown]Corsair TX650W[/COLOR]


GFX: 4870 or 4850 (purchasing at a later date)
Thanks in advance.

[COLOR=Red]~ E[/COLOR]

OldBuzzard

PSU:

Modular: NCIX.com - Buy Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W ATX Triple 12V 50A 24PIN ATX Modular Power Supply 120MM Fan 2X PCI-E - CMPSU-620HX In Canada.

Regular: NCIX.com - Buy Corsair TX650W 650W ATX 12V 52A 24PIN ATX Power Supply Active PFC 120MM Fan - CMPSU-650TX In Canada.

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When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

cozumel

Hi Exion. Welcome to the DH forum.

OldBuzzard has pointed you towards Corsair as they make excellent quality PSU's. If you want a bit more info about the Corsair VX, TX and HX range then take a look at the reviews at DH and in particular this most recent one from earlier this week. There are plenty of other reviews for alternative PSU's within the DH review section as well as on other sites.

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[hobo]eclipse

a few months back after i got this board cpu ram setup i was running a 4 rail 12v 700 watt name brand psu. wanted a nice solid single 12v rail supply and after reading this http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/Corsair_TX650W/ review from grace paired with the excellent pricing of the Corsairs i went with the TX650W, great experience so far with it and the other psu went into a htpc

So i guess its another vote for Corsair!

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Grace

Hello Exion, welcome to our forums.

I'll try to balance your system a bit. First of all, you are picking a too expensive motherboard for no real reason and only 2GBs of RAM. You should go with a P45 motherboard which supports Crossfire for a future upgrade. I'd recommend this one:

NCIX.com - Buy Gigabyte EP45-DS3R ATX LGA775 P45 2PCI-E16 2PCI CrossFireX SATA2 RAID Sound 2XGLAN 1394A Motherboard - GA-EP45-DS3R In Canada.

And of course a 2x2GB set. I'd recommend one of these:

NCIX.com - Buy Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X4096-6400C5 4GB DDR2 2X2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL 5-5-5-18 240PIN Memory Kit - TWIN2X4096-6400C5 In Canada.

NCIX.com - Buy Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB 2X2GB PC2-6400 DDR2-800 CL4-4-4-12 EPP Dual Channel Memory Kit - PDC24G6400LLK In Canada.


As for the PSU, I think this one would offer you the best value/performance ratio:

NCIX.com - Buy Corsair TX650W 650W ATX 12V 52A 24PIN ATX Power Supply Active PFC 120MM Fan - CMPSU-650TX In Canada.

Finally, I would get an 4850 if I were you. It is a fine card. Later on you could add another one (and they will most likely cost half as much as they do now) and improve the performance of the system further.

The CPU and the HDD are nice choices, they should serve you very well.

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OldBuzzard

One thing that you didn't mention was the OPERATING SYSTEM.

Run VISTA 64 Bit on that puppy! Vista 64 'comes alive' with 4GB mem, and if/when you can afford to toss in another 4GB, it will absolutely fly.

For me at least, it seems that the longer I run Vista 64, the better it gets. Part of it is me getting comfortable with the OS, and part of it is Superfetch learning my habits.

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When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

Exion

Thanks for all the replies

And thank you for helping on the other components as well; the Mobo and RAM were a couple of those things that I wasn't 100% sure on, though I do like the look of DFI's mobo more

I'll edit my original post with the revisions.



[COLOR=Red]~ E[/COLOR]

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procupine14

I agree totally, all my PCs are running on Vista 64 now accept for the lappy (vista 32) and my main gaming rig.....but thats only until I do a swap on my wireless card . ASUS and their vista 64 wireless drivers don't work AT ALL. So once I but a new wifi card that does play well in Vista 64 it will soon follow.

But yes after SP1 I started converting since it worked wonders for the issues I was experiencing with my laptop I decided to upgrade the rest of them.

My brother's new phenom system I just built for him is pretty awesome with 4GB RAM and Vista64

enough with my commentary JUST DO IT!

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Laptop: HP dv6000 - Vista Ultimate (32-bit) - AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60(2.0GHz) - NVIDIA GeForce Go 7200 256MB - 4GB Kingston DDR2 667 - 160GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive

HTPC: Vista Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Athlon 5200+ x2 - 4GB OCZ DDR2 800 - 250GB Seagate Barracuda - Samsung EcoGreen 1TB - Hauppauge single tuner HD - ASUS Radeon HD4550 512MB - ECS RS485M-M mobo - Creative X-fi soundcard

Other PC: Vista Ultimate 64-bit - AMD Athlon 4200+ X2 - 4GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 - 250GB Seagate Barracuda - XFX 8600GT XXX - DFI Infinity NF570 SLI-M2/G

Grace

Well, there is always this one:

NCIX.com - Buy DFI LP Dk P45-T2RS ATX LGA775 P45 DDR2 2PCI-E16 2PCI CrossFire SATA2 RAID HD Sound GLAN Motherboard - LP DK P45-T2RS In Canada.

Which is virtually the same motherboard, but:

a) I find Gigabyte's more durable.
b) It costs quite a bit more.
c) Trust me, you are going to look at your monitor 99.9% of the time, not inside your case.

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Exion

Thanks for the alternative, but I'll put my trust into the Gigabyte board; I'm just a sucker for shiny objects


And who's to say that I don't have a monitor in my case


[COLOR=Red]~ E[/COLOR]

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cozumel

Are you half magpie? j/k lol

I love my Gigabyte as they make rock-solid stable boards. Never had a failure so far (touch wood) and I've been using them for a number of years now.

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