Severe noobs first build! be gentle :)

phatboyfat101

phatboyfat101

phatboyfat101

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Joined
2 Dec 2009
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26
Hey all, I'm completely new to this forum and have never ever come close to building a computer before so please be gentle with my nubbyness! Was looking around trying to spec a decent gaming pc for xmas, but could not get close to happy with anything, and after stumbling across the overclockers website (which coincidentally is in newcastle-under-lyme like me so I can save on shipping costs :P) I've decided to take the plunge with building my own.

Obviously I am very nervous spending about a grand on parts which I might end up cocking up badly, but I've been reading lots of guides etc. and I'm pretty confident I can do it. Just wanted to run these parts by you all to check for compatibility and see if I need any other parts. I've got a few questions at the bottom which might be embarrassing but I really need help :D

basket.jpg


-Do I need any more wires or do they all come with the components? and do any of the wires need upgrading or anything to improve performance?

-Should I go with the 2x graphics card or one for the same price? I've read various arguements but wanted to know what you all thought with the current and future games!

-With the overclocking package, it says that it will be affected by adding more memory, and as you can see I would like 8gb of the stuff, how much does it affect it? do I need to change anything myself due to the extra memory? and a review on the memory says you might want to invest in a memory cooler, is this necessary or very advised?

-Is the case big enough? I've read reviews and love the look, however unsure about the size, any other recommendations?

Apart from that I'm pretty damn excited, we all need to start somewhere! I'll also be attempting to get a SSD, some cable tidies, a couple of fans for the side intakes and a cathode light (as the built in LED fans apparently are very dim) but have to raise some more money for that first :)

sorry for the ridiculously long post, but as I said I am nervous! Please excuse the noob and thanks in advance <3 !!
 
Hey, I agree with what danielb91 says about going for an i7 setup, and also one other question, if this is your 1st build, do you want to go down the watercooled route, as the bundle of CPU, board and ram is for a watercooled system and not a air cooled system, so will probably be a pain to setup, and also I think the above system dont come with all the stuff for a watercooled system, just the watercooled heatsink for the CPU.

So make sure first, as watercooled for a noob first build will be quite complicated.
 
Really you don't need 8GB of RAM heck 6GB is still way overkill. To the above poster the water cooling is provided by a H50 which as hard to install as a heatsink.
 
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As others have said for £1000 you'd definitely be looking at an i7 setup for the best price/performance. Also overclocking yourself and learning how to saves a bit of money as well- the rig in my sig was my first build too :)
 
I have changed your build to be cheaper and faster. We will help you with the overclocking. Make sure you get the samsung F3 HDD and not the seagate.

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That i7 build looks very good. However, is a 1TB drive necessary for a system drive? I'd probably be tempted to get something like a 640GB WD Caviar Black. 2 platters, optimised for random accesses. The WD Caviar Black series beat the F3 and F1 in a review i read a while ago, depending on what you're doing.

You can always get a 1TB drive at a later date if you need more storage :) I always think its better to have two drives so if you need to reinstall windows, you don't run into problems backing stuff up.
 
wow thanks for the quick and detailed replies! I think it's obvious then that I should be looking at an i7 setup. I'm loving learning all this new stuff, all of your comments help immensely.
@Alfie and nocky: thanks very much for the build, but I am terrified of overclocking anything myself so have taken this into consideration and come up with this:
newspec.jpg

Saved some money on the hard drive (like SMAndy suggested) and a little on the graphics cards to allow for the pre-overclock and a slightly better motherboard. Keep the c+c coming! I can always stretch another 100 if I think its worth it, thanks again all!! :)
 
phatboyfat101 said:
wow thanks for the quick and detailed replies! I think it's obvious then that I should be looking at an i7 setup. I'm loving learning all this new stuff, all of your comments help immensely.
@alfie and nocky: thanks very much for the build, but I am terrified of overclocking anything myself so have taken this into consideration and come up with this:
newspec.jpg

Saved some money on the hard drive (like SMAndy suggested) and a little on the graphics cards to allow for the pre-overclock and a slightly better motherboard. Keep the c+c coming! I can always stretch another 100 if I think its worth it, thanks again all!! :)
Click to expand...

If you're spending all that money, probably a better idea to go with something better than the Nvidia 250.

You can get a 285GTX for 270 odd.

Or the ATI 5850 for 250.
 
I'd agree on the graphics card front...what about if you went for an i5 OC bundle instead of the i7, would that give you enough money left over for a better GFX card?

Replace the bundle with this : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-012-OB
And the graphics card with this : http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-120-PC or this if you want to save a few quid http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-148-XF&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=1502

Comes to £1102 or £1002 :)
 
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Ok then, I was unsure about them, what about if I went with the same build but with:
gfx.jpg

It raises the price by about 100, but as I said, if you think it's worth it, then I'm willing to stretch! Was going to spend about 100ish on a nice g15 keyboard and mouse, but I'd prefer to get the system right first and can settle for a crappy keyboard for a month or so :P If I settle on the above card, do you think this is a suitable build? cheers!
 
This is what i would buy (kept the case as im guessing you like it) :

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get the 5850 over any other card out at the moment its by the far the best for the money , you can also spend a little more 30-40 quid getting another 500 or have a single 1TB HDD however i'm sure you'll be pressed to fill 500gb before reformatting anyway unless you have some mega porn/video/music stash .

As for keyboards and mice i would go with a deathadder/mx518/ms3.0 with a boogiepad/steelseries Qck+ and a saitek illuminator III .
 
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DO NOT GET AN NVIDIA CARD AT THE MOMENT. THEY ARE EXPENSIVE BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ANY AVAILABLE, NOT BECAUSE THEY COMPETE WITH THE 5*** SERIES FROM ATI.

I CHOSE THE DUAL 5770'S OVER THE 5850 BECAUSE THE 5770 CROSSFIRE SOLUTION POOS ON THE 5850 FROM A GREAT HEIGHT AND IT'S CHEAPER!
 
Also, please trust us to help you with the OC and do it yourself. You will feel more like it's your own and it really is stupidly easy these days. You can save a lot of money!
 
what do you think of this:
specg.jpg


It's 84 over your budget (minus the shipping since you said you'll be going for it).

But let me give you my reasons.

I chose a single 5850 because it's a beast of a card and later when you have money you can add another one in crossfire whereas with 2 5770s there is no room for improvement.
I chose the prolimatech megahalems as I don't like the h50 and the prolimatech cools a tad better than the h50. Also chose a fan to attach to the megahalems.
Also the i7 and gigabyte ud5 are one of the best combo you can have (i have them myself :p).
Between 500gb and 1tb I would go for 1tb hard drive. The F3 are the best performance drives right now.

Maybe later when you have money you can buy an ssd and leave the 1tb sammy for backup (that's what I'm gonna do to optimize the pc performance).

Also overclocking is very easy... I didnt overclock the rig I just bought because I don't need to for no, however I have overclocked my previous pcs and it's really a piece of cake.

Any questions, just ask :)
 
Don't worry about the build. The only ways you can break bits are as follows:

1) forcing stuff into place
2) dropping stuff
3) spilling water over stuff
4) throwing stuff out of window

Option number 4 is usually reserved for Nvidia motherboards :D
 
reflux said:
Don't worry about the build. The only ways you can break bits are as follows:

1) forcing stuff into place
2) dropping stuff
3) spilling water over stuff
4) throwing stuff out of window

Option number 4 is usually reserved for Nvidia motherboards :D
Click to expand...

Or when things don't go the way you want them to :p
 
It is probably the overclocking I'm most scared of, how long does the process take? Is it very annoying and fiddly? every tutorial I read is pages and pages long of lots of numbers and restarting, just doesn't sound fun!!

Thanks for all the builds, I'm lovin them all, your making my decisions harder not easier!
 
oh yeh and I forgot to mention, the graphics card thing is kinda got me not sure now, whether to get two or one more expensive. I was generally leaning towards nvidia due to thoughts of future 3D gaming (I will be attempting to get a 120mhz monitor anyway), the kit looks really fun! any advice or experience about these? cheers
 
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