newbie builder needs some advice!

geordie12

geordie12

geordie12

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Joined
12 Nov 2005
Posts
56
Hi All,

I've decided to have a bash at building my own PC and I could do with some assistence in making sure I get a motherboard, case and CPU that will fit together!

So far I am thinking of an Intel Q9450 processor and I want to include dual SLI Nvidia graphics cards. But the array of mother boards that support this are a little confusing....

Can anyone offer advice on the most appropriat motherboard to support this? I would also like a case that's not to large, but also quiet...I guess I am asking for to much there with dual SLI cards :)

Any help much appreciated!

Stew
 
If you want SLi then your choices should be based on the Nforce 750i chipset or 780i(higher end). What sort of screen size are you going to be using? Unless it is 1600x1200 native resolution or above then a single graphics card solution is probably better and definitely easier to use.

As for case, you could do a lot worse than the Antec P182.
 
Probably around a thousand for the PC, I have a monitor so I don't plan to buy that.

The monitor I have is running at 1280x1082 and i was hoping that the SLI configuration would give me good performance for a long time to come while being able to cope with most top end games...are you saying that I would be better getting a single more expensive graphics card than a dual config? The card I was considering was the BFG GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB GDDR3.

The Antec looks like a nice case, I was just hoping to get something a little smaller, but I am not sure I am going to be able to do that.

Cheers for your help!
Stew
 
i would have thought an 8800GTS would be able to run at that res, up the scale would be the 9800x2's etc.

bearing in mind new gfx cards are due out in the next month or so i'd wait for them tbh.
 
ok I guess it's going to make sense to wait on the gfx card to see what the new ranges bring.

I've put this together as a starting point -

- Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case
- PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad-SLi PCI-E 750W Power Supply
- MSI P7N Diamond nForce 780i SLi (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard with Free Creative X-FI Card
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.66GHz 12MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor
- Kingston HyperX 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX8500D2K2/2G)
- Western Digital Caviar SE16 400GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (WD4000AAKS) (2x for raid 0)

Am I missing anything obvious? Am I picking something that has a much better alternative?

Cheers
Stew
 
unless you're going to try and clock the living daylights out of the q9450 i'd go with pc6400 memory.

h/d wise have a look at the Samsung SpinPoint F1 640GB SATA-II.
 
Don't bother with SLI unless you're obsessed with the size of your e-peen and benchmark scores.

You'll just be disappointed that your games don't support it properly and it'll feel like a waste of money, especially at that res.

Just wait till the new range of cards come out and get the fastest card you can afford..........

Then get a mobo to suit, ie a crossfire board if you get an ATI card, so that in the future you can add a second card should it be supported better.

Oh and get a proper RAID card for you array as it'll perform much better than the on-board controller. You'll need to ask in the Hard drive section for the best advice on this.

mp260767 and shaffaaf27 are spot on about those other components, although you might want a more powerful PSU in case you do add another GPU in the future.

Oh and you've missed a DVD drive and an operating system (go Vista64). I always put a 3.5" memory card reader in my machines too as they're so cheap and really useful.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks for the advice guys :)

I've done a bit more reading and I am gonna ditch the dual gfx cards and just go with a fast single card...probably an nvidia since I've never had great experiences with ATI....but I'll check out what's released when the new ranges come out and decide from there.

Assuming I do go for nvidia, anyone got any advice on a good mobo? I only kinda picked the MSI diamond at random from the ones Overclockers were selling.

Stew
 
Capture-8.jpg


but IMO, wait for the new cards
 
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