Complete Beginner Build

seretide

seretide

seretide

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Hi all, been reading through the posts for a while, had my current pc for about 5 years now and its KAPUT! i've hammered it for 5 years and its served its purpose well, its not the best components and makes etc, and was retail bought -not built so upgrading it isnt an option.

SO FEEL FREE TO BUILD AND QUOTE WHAT I NEED PLEASE!!!

I have had a look over what people are quoting in their spec's and looked over overclockers shop and have an idea of what i *THINK* i want involved in my spec but am not totally clued up why and what other items i need to add-so any constructive critism will be appreciated.
What i do know is that i want something thats going to last me another few years, and will be fully upgradable in the future.
my ideal budget would be a grand but i know i want too much for that (and ive seen a great spec on the dell (sssshhh!) xps 700 which turned up at £1400 delivered-but i dont want a dell (ssshhh!) so if i can beat 1400-great (especially as its still gotta be built too!)

Starting point for build;-

Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 2.13GHz - or the equivalent in the athlon range-BIG QUESTION AND MATTER OF OPINION I KNOW-but i'm not up to date with whats battling between intel and athlon so which brand do i choose??*

Motherboard?? dont have a clue!!! all i know is i want it to have some SATA hdd's off it, but also MUST be able to connect my ide ata 133 hdd caddy to it from one of my drive bays (2 caddies if possible would be great), firewire connection, maybe ready for quad cpus?, usb's, lan, pci express? ddr2 upto 1066mhz? nforce4? firewire?

processor cooler?

2gb branded (good) ram ddr2 800-1066mhz?

power supply 700w?-minimum? be running 2 dvd writers, and 3 or 4 hdd plus mobo etc i want something to power lots!

Case-something to hold a card reader in floppy space, 2 dvd writers, 1 hdd caddy (2 caddies would be great though), at least 2 internal sata hdd's, also be able to put a few fans in for optimum cooling, maybe a usb and firewire port at the front too?-not essential.

2 dvd+/- writers which are good all-round for types of discs and when playing burnt discs in all players etc (been using pioneer 105 for years! so maybe new pioneers?)

good 256mb min graphics card MUST have dvi out to connect pc to my plasma tv with good graphics on the big screen.

Decent sound card-but will be lined out to a surround sound amp system anyway.

card reader to fit in floppy drive space

required cables

Hdd's- sata or sata 2?
good solid c: drive, maybe something like the -Raptor 74gb, 10k rpm, 16mb cache
2nd drive- 16mb cache 300-ish GB good drive maxline 3 maybe?

all other hdd space provided by my many existing ata 133 hdd's via the 2 caddies

and finally, i think because of the connection i want to make with my tv and liking the sound of running my sky through pc for pausing/recording live tv etc i think my best best bet would be Windows media centre, i have run xp for years and if media centre does the same pc stuff and all the household stuff and extra's i'm led to believe -then thats the one for me (with remote!)

Anthing ive missed or anything else to say-PLEASE DO!

Thanks
S.
 
For starters welcome to the forum :)

On to som answers:

CPU = Intel Core Duo 2 "Conroe". I love AMD but I'd get a Conroe right now.

PSU = 500w to 600w minimum nowadays. But choose a good brand over a no-brand 700w: e.g. Seasonic, Enermax, etc.

Gfx = New DX10 cards due in a couple of months so worth holding off if you can. Or buying a cheap one for a while before upgrading.

Case = Spend a bit of money on this and get a good make such as Lian Li, Silverstone or Coolermaster. Obviously the style is subjective but there is good advice in the case section. Buy a decent case and get better cooling (quieter fans, etc) and you won't feel a need to change it for a while.
 
Welcome to the forums. Ok here I'm assuming that you have monitor etc already and I haven't included software in the budget although I have left space for it. This is the sort of system I'd be aiming for, I don't think you will see huge benefits spending much more on it really but there are 2x DVDRWs, 2x hard drives and a range of good solid components. I do know the card reader is silver but they don't have it in black and I wasn't sure from your post if you already had one to use.

CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£214.95 £214.95
MB-061-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-061-GI)
£89.95 £89.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
GX-047-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3056) (GX-047-CO)
£174.95 £174.95
HD-079-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE)
£52.55 £105.10
HS-020-ZA Zalman CNPS9500-AT Aero Flower (Socket 775) CPU Cooler (HS-020-ZA)
£28.95 £28.95
CD-035-NE NEC ND3550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-035-NE)
£19.95 £39.90
CA-005-AK Akasa Eclipse 62 Aluminium Case - No PSU (CA-005-AK)
£69.95 £69.95
SC-043-CL Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - OEM (SC-043-CL)
£48.50 £48.50
CA-009-TG Tagan TG580-U15 580W ATX2.01 Easycon SLi Compliant Modular Silent PSU (CA-009-TG)
£69.95 £69.95
HD-000-MI Mitsumi FA 404M 7in1 USB 2.0 Floppy & Media Drive - Silver (HD-000-MI)
£11.95 £11.95
Subtotal £964.10
VAT £168.72
Total £1,132.82
 
What do you use your PC for?......

An x1900 is ott for anyone that doesnt game regardless of budget.

Some cases have card readers.

700W is overkill if its a decent branded PSU, unless you plan to SLI or Crossfire.
 
"semi-pro"... thanks for the welcome and the quote, i'm gonna be hooking the pc up to my 42" plasma for medal of honour and battlefield online! and up to my normal monitor upstairs-so monitors are fine, whats quoted looks pretty much fine to me.
I will be buying a media centre disc as i dont have it, and dont want to lend it- just so i have my own when i reformat every now and then.
A few things i've remembered i can cut back on (and found the parts!)
Are a brand new acrylic tower i bought a while back and never used which i can use for now, it comes with 3 fans, 4 drive bays, 2 floppy bays (for card reader), and room for a few hdd's i also have a brand new transparent psu w/durl fans that ive never used, it is a Magna ATX 500w, has the normal power looms, and a serial ata one, ***does this mean i can only run 1 sata drive?, and is this psu good enough (or good enough for now at least-got made redundant today, but refuse not to buy new pc!!!)????***

One thing i must ask-is does this motherboard allow for both SATA and 133 hdd's -as this is vital-because i want to take the step to SATA, but have about 1TB in ata 133 hdd's that arent that old which i want ot use?????

Do you think it's worth getting the Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-062-GI) as it has firewire on it, and again will this allow me to have my ata 133 drive running?????? £123.32

"t31os"... I will be using the pc on my plasma for online gaming (not tonnes), ftping 24/7 for large format artwork (for freelance work), burning dvds, surfing the net, extracting ftp files (for freelance work), usiong large files in photoshop and quark (for freelance work)-all this at once!!! (which my current pc dies with!), so for the plasma gaming i think a decent enough graphics card is needed, and the case i have doesnt have a card reader, obviously if the x1900 is still ott -then let me know as money is tight!

"Hades"... conroe is where i'm going!!, thanks for the welcome, i think the card is fine for now, and the psu and case i already have will pretty much have to do for now!!

Price goes to £1126.05, this is minus case, and psu, plus extra for mobo, and windows media centre with remote-still good???

Will be going for the silver nec drives too!

PLEASE ANSWER MY FINAL QUESTIONS, ALL HELP MUCH APPRECIATED

Thanks
S.
 
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Right -got them in my saved cart as follows and cheaper than i though previously-if my questions in previous thread surfice i will be placing the order!!
**One thing to add though- what cables will i need to complete my build????

thanks
S.

MB-062-GI Gigabyte GA_965P_DS4 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-062-GI)
£104.95 £104.95
CP-128-IN Intel Core 2 DUO E6600 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail (CP-128-IN)
£214.95 £214.95
SW-009-MS Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre 2005 Remote Controller (SW-009-MS)
£19.95 £19.95
SW-008-MS Microsoft Windows XP Media Centre 2005 Edition - OEM - 1Pk (M93-00200) (SW-008-MS)
£64.95 £64.95
MY-058-GL GeIL 2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 800MHz Ultra Low Latency DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX22GB6400UDC) (MY-058-GL)
£109.95 £109.95
GX-047-CO Connect3D ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (3056) (GX-047-CO)
£174.95 £174.95
HD-079-SE Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB ST3250620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-079-SE)
£52.55 £105.10
CD-037-NE NEC ND3550 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Silver) - OEM (CD-037-NE)
£19.95 £39.90
HS-020-ZA Zalman CNPS9500-AT Aero Flower (Socket 775) CPU Cooler (HS-020-ZA)
£28.95 £28.95
SC-043-CL Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music - OEM (SC-043-CL)
£48.50 £48.50
HD-000-MI Mitsumi FA 404M 7in1 USB 2.0 Floppy & Media Drive - Silver (HD-000-MI)
£11.95 £11.95
Subtotal £924.10
VAT £161.72
Total £1,085.82
 
All cables you will need are suplied with the relavent hardware.

SATA/IDE cables are supplied with the motherboard.

Power lead supplied with PSU.

SiriusB
 
*****PLEASE READ THIS THREAD AND THE 3 ABOVE!!*****

While i'm on the subject!... i plan to have my tower and pc monitor upstairs, and a dvi cable to my plasma in the room below, which keyboard and mouse would i need for using in the room below the tower???-as i might as well order it with the rest of the items!

Anyone think one of my drives should be a raptor to be safe?

Thanks SiriusB, can you shed any light on my other concerns?
thanks
S.
 
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Just bought a Logitech Cordless Desktop EX-110 - Retail (KB-072-LG) recently and it works using radiowaves, so it may well work from the room below. Unfortunately I can't test this as I am not at home. The keyboard in question is the first one on the page below:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Desktop_Combinations.html

As for whether you get a Raptor or depends if you can justify spending a whole lot more money on a drive with nearly 200GB less capacity for the sake of a bit of speed. The 7200.10s are very fast drives and to be honest I wouldn't bother with a Raptor.

Still, the decision is yours :)

SiriusB
 
dont think i'll bother with the raptors then! only looking at a secure point of view-not speed.

I'll have to do some digging aout the keyborad and mouse, think i'll need a bluetooth one most prob??

any ideas if the mobo ive selected does run both sata and ide??

Just thought i'd give an insight to my current pc's;-
Celeron 1.8Ghz
512Mb Ram
60Gb Hdd
1Tb in hdd caddies

Also got a P4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb Ram, 120Gb Hdd, that i never use de to my hdd caddies being in the celeron, will use this once new pc is built, prob use for website running and other tasks.

I IMAGINE I'M GONNA BE SEEING A "SLIGHT" DIFFERENCE IN PERFORMANCE COMPARED TO MY CELERON 1.8!!!!

thanks
S.
 
Oh!!!
I'm only an amateur-stop taking the pee!!!! lol

I hope my new pc pee's all over the old one!! I hate this one i'm on now-i'm gonna burn it when the new one is ready-just for being so horrible to me for the last year!! It turns me into the hulk every other day!!!
 
Last edited:
Always great to get a new PC. And I didn't mean to come across as taking the urine. Incidently you will have to completely star out any swearies. Do it quickly or you could face a ban.

SiriusB
 
seretide said:
DONE!

I know-dont worry u didnt come across anyway other than being helpfully informative!!

Thanks again
S.
Click to expand...

:D

Vote SiriusB for Underboss!

Ahem. You're welcome. Enjoy your new awesome rig!

SiriusB
 
seretide said:
Thanks all the same

And i would vote-if i could! ;)
Click to expand...

There is a thread in General Discussion! I better stop illiciting votes now in case I am the one who is given a holiday! :D

SiriusB
 
SiriusB said:
There is a thread in General Discussion! I better stop illiciting votes now in case I am the one who is given a holiday! :D

SiriusB
Click to expand...

You would be soliciting votes, which may be illicit but that probably isn't what you meant :p

seretide, could you also edit your signature please, it is meant to be 4 lines long and I count 6 for you at the moment. The info you need is all in the FAQ.

As to your other questions, the DS4(and most new Conroe motherboards I have seen) come with 1 IDE port, so you can run 2 devices. Link here but you could always get an additional IDE controller card which shouldn't cost much or an IDE-SATA adapter. Personally I'd buy the IDE card as I think it is the better solution.

The case should be fine, I don't know anything about the PSU though. If it only has one SATA power connector then you might need adapters for any other SATA drives but most still come with both molex and SATA power connectors on the drive as far as I know - important - just connect one or the other, not both. You may also need a 20-24pin adapter for the motherboard and a 4-6pin adapter for the graphics card if the PSU is not ATX2.0 compliant(it should say on the box). I hope that helps :)
 
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