My First Build, Any Thoughts?

sketch145

sketch145

sketch145

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2 Mar 2009
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This is my first build which I put together last week, spec is as follows:

Coolermaster Elite 335 case
Gigabyte MA78G-DS3H Mobo
AMD Athlon x2 7750 BE *cough*dual core phenom*cough* (OC'ed to 3.2Ghz)
4GB Kingston Hyper X pc-8400 Ram
500GB Hitachi Deskstar OEM Hard drive
22x Hamsung dual layer DVD+/-RW
500w OCZ stealth PSU
Dual boot, Windows Vista home premium 32 bit/ Windows 7 beta







So what do you guys think? sure beats my pentium 4 :D

The problem however, as I'm sure you've guessed by now, is that its running on the Mobo's integrated graphics, which are pretty good for integrated but I need something more substantial.

So if anyone could spec me a graphics card for around £100 (prefferably ATI so it can run in hybrid xfire)that would be great.

I mainly use the PC for photo editing (has to handle the 30MB images from my camera),for light gaming, and occational audio/video editing.

Also any other upgrades you would recommend.

Thanks.

(sorry for the epic post everyone, also unsure as to whether this should be im the GPU specific forum, feel free to move if this is the case)
 
:eek: ooh that is nice, I can get the VAT off if I put it on the work account, had XFX in my last PC so would be good to go for them again.

cheers for the reply.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone, good call on the cable management did look a bit of a mess to be fair.

sorted it out now as best I can


and with the case fans on


and finally in the dark


hmm I feel a side window coming on:D
 
yes I think the hard drive should be closer to the bottom but the SATA power connectors from the PSU are all on one cable and its already a stretch from the HDD to the optical drive (and I dont really want to move the optical drive down)

I'll probably order an extension for it when I get the graphics card, and probably another akasa fan to light up the back.

also thinking about getting another 500GB hard drive and linking them in RAID 0, would it be worth doing this with drives this slow?
 
@acid, I got given the disks for 32 bit because 1 of my friends computers died so he gave me the discs because he bought a new one with vista already installed, to be honest I'm waiting for windows 7 to come out and then I'll definitely get the 64 bit version. I've got another 4gb of kinston RAM to bung in when I do as well, it's annoying being limited to 4gb especially with all the image editing I do.

So in short, if I wasn't such a cheapskate, I would definately go for 64 bit :D
 
@Booza Its strange but on this motherboard the ram channels are next to each other.
(it goes ram1 ram2 ram3 ram4 instead of ram1 ram3 ram2 ram4) had to double check the manual myself because it is an unusual configuration.
 
@mjones the hard drive feels more solid than it looks in the picture, the brackets that hold it are actually metal where they attach to the drive so they shouldn't be in any hurry to break.
 
would an 4750x2 work in hybrid crossfire with the onboard graphics?

not that I'm going to be getting one just yet, but maybe in the not too distant future when the price has come down.
 
64 bit for £7!!! This I must investigate.

thought the 4870 may be overkill, I reckon I can get to 3.4-3.5Ghz if I upgrade the stock cooler. but then I may still be limited by having only 4GB of ram (I've heard that some newer games can happily use up to 6GB) and at some point I'm going to have to think about a faster hard drive. (£100 samsung SSD perhaps, although I havn't looked into these) but theres going to be a point where the cash runs out :D
 
WOW! cheers for the info acidhell2 just ordered the 64 bit so with any luck it will be here next week, 8GB RAM at last, this will help immensely with my image editing.
 
To the best of my Knowledge (only done it once on a friends computer) to get hybrid crossfire to work:

first you must have a motherboard with this feature (should say in the manual)
make sure you've updated to the latest BIOS (this may not be neccessary so feel free to try without)
next enable the onboard graphics in the BIOS but set the primary graphics adapter to PCI-e
then download the latest catalyst from ATi's website
plug the monitor cable into the graphics card (not the onboard socket)
install Catalyst driver 8.5
when the system restarts onboard graphics should still be enabled in the BIOS as well as PCI-e

Windows vista sp1 or later is required for hybrid crossfire.

feel free to correct if I've missed anything.
 
Grimley, you are a mind reader:eek: I was just looking at a new cooler and was wondering if the thermalright would fit in my case.
 
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ditching the LED front fan (because it is uber loud on 12v) and nothbridge fan and going with either scythe kaze's or noctua 120mm fans front and rear and a zalman passive northbridge cooler, also thinking I might go for this CPU cooler, seems quite good for the money. to be honest I dont really need a new cooler yet, my athlon x2 7750+ is running at 3.2Ghz but still runs at 26 degrees idle and around 45 at 100% load.

Any thoughts/advice?
 
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