Need advice on new build

karansar

karansar

karansar

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16 Nov 2004
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64
Location
Devon
Hoping for a bit of advice from others more knowledgeable than myself.
It's been a long time since I've built a pc (my current rig is based on an Athlon xp3200 and was mid to high end when I made it, so that'll give you an idea of how old it is), and I am well out of touch with all the new technology.
I am planning on putting a new comp together over the next few weeks. Would like to buy a pre built, but as money is pretty tight atm, I'll have to gradually buy the components as and when I do overtime at work.
It will be used mainly for playing wow with a bit of video editing/converting thrown in for good measure. I know I don't really need anything uber, but I would like to future proof myself for a bit.
Here's a shopping list I've put together after about a week's worth of browsing and trying to learn.

- Corsair TX 750W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant Power Supply
- Samsung SH-S223Q/BEBN 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer Lightscribe ReWriter
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - (ST3500418AS)
- Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express)
- Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 PC2-6400C5 TwinX (2x2GB)
- Asus P5N-D nForce 750i SLi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard
- Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775)
- Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.16GHz (1333FSB)
- Antec 900 Nine Hundred Two Ultimate Gaming Case
- Samsung SM2443BW 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor

Considering taking the plunge and moving on from windows xp to vista too.
So, got a couple of questions:
Is everything here compatible with each other?
Can anybody see anywhere I can save a few quid and get something cheaper that'll do the same job? I'm not fussed about overclocking, but would like an easy-to-use bios.
Will there be any compatability probs with the nforce m/b and the ati card?
I know if I'm going the Vista route, I'll have to get a 64-bit version, is it really worth getting Ultimate?
I'm planning on starting getting the bits together at the end of this week, so any help or advice you can give me will be most appreciated.
 
TBH, building a new rig and wanting some future proofing i would be tempted to go for a core i7 rig or even a Phenom ll rig. The E8500 is a fantastic cpu but it is £176 now. For a £40 more you could get a i7 920 or go with a Phenom ll triple core for much less. In fact the AMD rig would work out quite a bit cheaper than the 775 rig.

If you want to stick with 775 then i certainly would'nt go with a Nvidia chipset board. Intel P45 boards are argueably the best at the moment. One of the best boards is the Biostar Tpower I45 which holds several records.

I would'nt go with a Seagate hdd after the fiasco with the 7200.11 series. Have a look at the Western Digital AAKS or Samsung F1 drives. Both are excellent but i personally think the WD AAKS is better. I have one of each. Go for either 320 or 640 GB as they both have 320Gb platters and will be faster than a 500GB drive.

I found the Samsung dvdrw to be very noisy so i swapped mine out for the LG 22x drive although it does'nt have lightscribe. It is much quieter though.
 
On a 24" screen maybe get the 4870 1gb as its on offer. The 8400 is a better bnag for your buck if your staying with 775, imo i would go with x3 720 as value/performance is being proven daily on them, wait untill i7 is more main stream as the gfx will bottle neck anyway
 
BigBruiserAl said:
imo i would go with x3 720 as value/performance is being proven daily on them,
Click to expand...

Gulp! I am out of touch :confused: What do you mean?
I like the look of the Biostar m/b after checking out some reviews,it's a little more expensive but looks better. I should have put the prices in my original post, want to keep them as low as possible, get my new pc sooner, but I want the Bio now :)
Really think I should 'drop' to 8400 BigBruiserAl?
 
Really depends what your after mate if you after budget overclock and save some £££s get a p45 intel bored and the 8400 add some kingstom 1066 ram thats on offer and cant see why 4ghz is not in sight with 48701gb thats a very solid imo. If you want amd the Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition is doing very nice and would befit from video editing/converting and dont forget WOW is cpu dependent more then gpu:D
 
Thanks for your advice so far guys. Shall deffo be going for the Biostar, though still not too certain which cpu to get. Either the E8400, or 8500. As I said, I'm not bothered about overclocking, I just want a fast stable system.
Will probably go for a Hitachi Deskstar P7K500, got a few nice reviews in the ocuk shop.
One thing I am a bit perplexed over these days is Ram. I see the board can take up to PC2-8500C5DF (whatever that means). I was originally going to get PC2-6400C5, but am now totally confused.
Could you please tell a simpleton, just what the difference is (in simpleton terms). I used to understand ram when it was easy old pc3200ddr etc, but it seems technology has left me way farther behind than I originally thought.
 
ocuk117.jpg


I'd definitely consider the new AM3 X3 CPU, the 720 BE has an unlocked multiplier, so for overclocking it's just a case of increasing this. It has been performing very well in games, on the same levels as the more expensive intel dual cores and even i7. It's also backwards compatible with AM2+ boards, so will work well with the one above, means you can still use the cheaper DDR2 ram on offer.

Unfortunately the 4870 that was on offer is out of stock, the XFX is the cheapest one at the moment and still a good price. I'd suggest a 1gb card over the 512mb for gaming on the 24" monitor.

I'd take the plunge for vista 64bit, it means you can use all 4gb of ram, as XP can't see all of this. Premium is the one to go for, ultimate is a waste of money.
 
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