Computer Building Help:

[Lupy]

I am putting together a computer, and am looking for some help and comments on the hardware I have selected. I am fairly sure that it is all compatible, but I wanted to be sure. Also, if any of you could recommend a better quality product within a similar price range, that would be much appreciated!



Quote Newegg:

Case: Rosewill Wind Ryder RZLS142A-P BK Dual 120mm Cooling Fans and Mesh Design Front Panel Steel ATX Mid Tower $40

Motherboard: Intel BOXDQ35JOE LGA 775 Intel Q35 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard $117


Power Supply: Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W ATX12V v2.01 SLI Ready Power Supply $50

CPU: Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E5200 $80

Flash Reader: nMEDIAPC ZE-C68 All-in-one USB 2.0 Card Reader w/ USB Port $10

RAM: Kingston 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model KVR800D2K2/2GR $28

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $42

DVD Drive: HP 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model DVD1070I $30

Video Card: ASUS EN7300GT SILENT/HTD/512M GeForce 7300GT 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card $48

Extra Fan: Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 120mm Case Fan $15

[Don Julio Anejo]

It would help if you posted approximately how much $$ your components cost (so I didn't have to spend 10 minutes looking up the prices).

I would get the Asus P5K (for a lower-end) motheboard or a P5Q for a more fancy one instead, Intel is usually overpriced for features they offer (on motherboards). P5K is probably down to around $110 by now. Also, you have a normal ATX case and you're planning on getting a Micro-ATX motherboard. I don't think they'll simply fit. Plus Micro ATX has less slots to put stuff in. Unless you really need the space (in which case you should be getting a laptop anyway), get normal ATX motherboard.

CPU yours is OK for a low-end one. Q6xxx or E8xxx series are better, but they're also about twice as expensive ($200 vs. $100). Do check up E8400, when I was upgrading in the summer, it was on sale pretty much everywhere.

Video card - I seriously recommend you get nVidia 8800GT if you plan to do any sort of gaming. It's really, really cheap (probably down to $120 by now) and can still compete with $400 cards like 260/280GT.

PS: all the prices I gave are in Canadian dollars, US prices are much, much lower even after conversion.

[Lupy]

Acting on Don Julio's advice, what about this P5K? (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131182) And this E8400 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115037) Processor? And how about this XFX (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150272) video card?

[Forthork]

Either processor would be fine, whether gaming or not, the E8400 at twice the price will probably give a 30% boost in gaming performance. A different board would be a plus, Intel boards aren't very good. And do not pay $50 for a 7300GT. If you are gaming, a card like that 8800GT you posted would be good, if you are not gaming, you could get a motherboard with integrated graphics and it would be fine. If you would only do light gaming, and don't want to spend more than $50 on a card, you could do much better than a 7300. everything else looks good, but I would might look at a different PSU. The one you have looks good, but Roswell is not known for quality. The motherboard you have is great, if you have the budget for it. Chances are, you don't need half of what you are paying for in that motherboard, but overspending is better than underspending. This (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128345) should suit you needs, while saving you $85.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Asus P5K I actually meant this version (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131278), not the deluxe one. Or go for the Gigabyte board suggested above.

+1 to Forthork on video card advice. If you want a cheap board for light gaming, go for this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150247) 8600GT. Although it's something like 30-40% worse than the 8800GT, it will still run new games like Fallout 3 pretty well AND it's 60% of the price of 8800GT. But in any case it's much, MUCH better than the 7300 for only $30 more.

[Forthork]

Well, I think this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130394) for $40 after a $40 rebate, or this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143113) for $50 would be better budget choices. Both are 8600GTS, just above the 8600GT. Also, the eVGA one has a combo deal to get 2 gigs of RAM free (the RAM is $37 with a $25 rebate, but the combo deal chops $12 off.) Not that the origional 8800GT had anything wrong with it, the price is good. My only point was if you were to do light gaming, the 7300GT is greatly overpriced, and if you were to do no gaming, it is unnecessary.

[RandomLogic]

Your PSU sucks. Bad PSUs will die and take components with them, good PSUs probably won't die, but they sure won't take any component with them.

Try a Corsair 450W model, or something from Antec. You don't need anywhere near 600W. Buy quality first.

I don't know your budget, but the king of price vs performance right now is a 4850 with aftermarket heatsink. Like either of these (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161243) or this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127370) . The reference card runs a single slot heatsink and gets really really hot, plus makes a ton of noise.

Those are both absolutely far superior cards for ~$50 bucks more than the 8800gt and will stomp the crap out of it in terms of performance.

The Asus P5K is a great board, we went with a P5Q in my friends build. We went with a E7200 instead of an E8400. If you aren't afraid of overclocking a bit you can easily get a lot of performance from either chip.

Get this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835887016) CPU cooler. Its $5 after rebate. It will make less noise than any stock intel cooler, because of the larger fan and will give you more overclocking headroom.

This is an excellent motherboard. Asus P5Q (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131347)

And an excellent case (which is purely subjective on the looks side, but build quality is fantastic) would be this Antec (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042&Tpk=ANtec%20300) which has a deal if you also purchase an Antec PSU. (A good choice might I add).

Also, get Vista Home Premium 64. It is a far better OS than XP. An OEM version is ~$90-100 bucks at newegg.

[Dispozition]

Your PSU sucks. Bad PSUs will die and take components with them, good PSUs probably won't die, but they sure won't take any component with them.

Try a Corsair 450W model, or something from Antec. You don't need anywhere near 600W. Buy quality first.

I'd advise getting Silverstone. I have a 1000W Silverstone...It was cheaper than most of the 500-600W PSU's but the thing is invincible. I'd also advise getting at least a 600, not a 450. A 450W is getting close to being outdated, and it's always handy to have a little extra power in case you want to overclock or crossfire/sli.

A 7300...Ummm, god no. Sure, it's 512mb, but it's GDDR2, ATI are on GDDR5 these days...Even if it is cheap, it won't run much these days unless you play on the lowest settings. Get an 8*** at least, or even better a 48** from ATI.

I agree with the Asus Mobos. Asus make the best mobos around these days. I'm not sure about low-mid range boards, so I'll leave that to the other guys in here.

I wouldn't bother with an aftermarket CPU cooler/heatsink unless you're planning on doing some serious overclocking. I'm still using the stock Intel cooler and I can overclock to a certain extent...

I can also vouch for antec cases. I'm using the antex 900, an excellent case, brilliant airflow. The 300 is the little brother of mine and I imagine it would still be brilliant.

[RandomLogic]

I'd advise getting Silverstone. I have a 1000W Silverstone...It was cheaper than most of the 500-600W PSU's but the thing is invincible. I'd also advise getting at least a 600, not a 450. A 450W is getting close to being outdated, and it's always handy to have a little extra power in case you want to overclock or crossfire/sli.

I wouldn't bother with an aftermarket CPU cooler/heatsink unless you're planning on doing some serious overclocking. I'm still using the stock Intel cooler and I can overclock to a certain extent...

Yup, there are lots of good brands out there, but its key to know what ones. Silverstone, Antec, Corsair are the good ones. If money is no object PC Power and Cooling make hands down excellent PSUs.

Power supplies are one of the components that are almost always oversized for their application. Most people own PSUs that are sized to almost twice their rated load. Even my 550W PSU which runs an overclocked quad core, plus 9800GTX (not the + version with had a 55nm core) has at least 200W of headroom easy before I'd even begin to worry.

A 450W quality PSU is absolutely fine. But please don't get anything larger than 600W to 'be safe'. The sweet spot seems to be about 500/550W.

Aftermarket coolers are nice because they use larger fans, which to move air make less noise than stock Intel heatsinks. Thats the benefit especially if you sleep near your computer. (I do, ... I tend to get lonely)

Otherwise we pretty much agree.

(To state my PSU guild and power draw certifications, I'm and electrical engineer, I know what I'm talking about ;) )

[Dispozition]

Yup, there are lots of good brands out there, but its key to know what ones. Silverstone, Antec, Corsair are the good ones. If money is no object PC Power and Cooling make hands down excellent PSUs.

Power supplies are one of the components that are almost always oversized for their application. Most people own PSUs that are sized to almost twice their rated load. Even my 550W PSU which runs an overclocked quad core, plus 9800GTX (not the + version with had a 55nm core) has at least 200W of headroom easy before I'd even begin to worry.

A 450W quality PSU is absolutely fine. But please don't get anything larger than 600W to 'be safe'. The sweet spot seems to be about 500/550W.

Aftermarket coolers are nice because they use larger fans, which to move air make less noise than stock Intel heatsinks. Thats the benefit especially if you sleep near your computer. (I do, ... I tend to get lonely)

Otherwise we pretty much agree.

(To state my PSU guild and power draw certifications, I'm and electrical engineer, I know what I'm talking about ;) )

Fair enough. The only real reason I have 1000W is because my GPU (2900XT) is a massive guzzler and I was planning on crossfireing, never got around to it and it'd be pointless now. I suppose it all really depends on future upgrades and how long you want something to last. I don't think I'll ever need to buy a new PSU, quite frankly. 1000W will last pretty much forever, until the thing blows anyway.

[Forthork]

I'd go for the Antec Earthwatts 500. It's $50 (and you can save $25 on an Antec case with it), and it is 80 Plus certified (has at least 80% efficiency, which is good. Although I have used many cheap PSUs in the past I would not recommend it. As a power supply is connected to everything in your computer, if it fails, it has the chance to take anything with it.

[Silent Knight]

You may also want to look at the E7200 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115052) processor from Intel. I just built a budget PC for my father and this was the way I went. Even if you are not comfortable with overclocking you only have to change the front side bus speed to 1333 MHz, like the E8XXX series and it will boost this processor to 3.1 GHz. This would give you equal performance to to the stock E8400 for 2/3 the price. Also, what OS (Operating System) are you planning on running?

[The Valiant Turtle]

Allow me to post two useful links:

First: An article on AnandTech from September regarding power supplies:
http://www.anandtech.com/casecoolingpsus/showdoc.aspx?i=3413

Second: ArsTechnica's most recent system building guide (also from September).
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200809.ars

It looks like you are aiming for something between the Budget Box and the Hot Rod, but probably much closer to the budget box.

If you like the case keep it, but the Antec 300 is a good option for not much more money. Another good option from Antec is the NSK6580, which includes a respectable Power Supply for $69.99, which is cheaper than your current Case + PSU.

Ars seems to like Gigabyte motherboards, but ASUS is also popular, so I'd really consider one of those brands. It should be noted that at the lower end of the price scale AMD CPUS are a bit better than Intel (on a bang for your buck basis) and motherboards for AMD systems are significantly cheaper. At the price you seem to be targeting, I would seriously consider an AMD build.

If you stick with Intel CPUS I'd recommend the E7200 as a minimum, it's got more L2 cache and a higher stock FSB speed. The jump to an E8200 would net you even more L2 cache, but it's quite a price jump from where you were at.

If you go to a faster FSB CPU you should get RAM rated for that FSB speed, which isn't going to be that much more, but should be considered.

That's a really small hard drive your getting there, considering you could better than triple you capacity (to 500GB) for about $15 more I would definitely do it, unless you have a real good reason for wanting something smaller.

Definitely ditch the GeForce 7300 video card. If you want to keep things cheap I'd go with a Radeon 4550 or 4650 based card. Otherwise the 8800 recommendations here or at Ars are worth considering.

With what you have in here so far, the additional case fan isn't likely to be necessary, unless you plan on overclocking the heck out of it. If you want more cooling, a better CPU cooler would probably be more effective.

[Lupy]

Money is certainly an object, but time is on my side. I plan on running XP Pro. partitioned with Ubuntu (I know a good bit about software, but my knowledge of hardware before beginning this was minimal).

EDIT: I don't tend to eat much HD space, and if I have to have off money that's where it'll be.

EDIT 2: I like what I'm seeing about this case. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129033) I'm still looking at video cards, but I'm coming close to asking about a specific one...

Thanks for all the help by the way!

EDIT3: If I get a different case, what about this power supply? (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371019)

[Don Julio Anejo]

EDIT: I don't tend to eat much HD space, and if I have to have off money that's where it'll be.

Trust me, unless you format your system every few months, stuff tends to pile up. And unfortunately, most of it is stuff you will want to keep.


EDIT 2: I like what I'm seeing about this case. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129033)
IMO - no. The case is not only pretty expensive, especially considering it only comes with a 430 PSU (which is borderline and probably won't leave you much headroom for future upgrades), but it's also ugly.

PS: the good thing about ASUS motherboards is that they're extremely easily overclocked compared to a few Gigabyte boards I had to screw around with a few times. Granted that was an odd two-something years ago and a lot has probably changed since then, but I'm not a big fan of Gigabyte after that.

PPS: What is the overall budget you're trying to stay under? We could probably help by building a complete system rather than poking at components one by one.

[Forthork]

It would probably be best if you could state a budget, how much gaming you would be doing, and your willingness to overclock (not hard, but it can be, and is not a surefire thing.) That way, we could more accurately help you, as currently you are bobbing up and down between expensive and budget parts.

[Lupy]

$850 dollars is my max, something lower is much perferable. The only games I play are this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_II:_Total_War), so I'm not gaming much. Overclocking is a no, for what I'm using it for I won't need it. What I do need is to be able to run Mozilla Firefox with at least four tabs open, Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and Excel all at once. While I realize I could get away with all of this for under $500, but I want to be reasonably compatible with the next big thing for a few years at least.

[Don Julio Anejo]

This makes it easier, thanks.

Motherboard: Asus P5K (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131278) - $85

CPU: Intel E7200 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115052&Tpk=E7200) - $120

Video card: nVidia 8600GTS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130394) - $40 (after rebate).

Ram: Kingston 2x1GB PC2 6400 (800 MHz) (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134488) - $28, but feel free to choose whatever you feel.
Getting two identical sticks or a set of two is better since this way RAM works as dual channel (both sticks used simultaneously instead of after one fills up), making for faster processing. Kingston, OCZ and Crucial are good. Corsair is OK. Other brands I'd stay away from. Also, if you plan on running Vista or XP x64, get another one of these so you have 4GB in total.

Hard drive: Hitachi 500GB SATA drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145215) - $60 (after $5 rebate).

Total: $333, leaving you 500 bucks to spend on a case, power supply and a DVD burner. Point: cases that come with a power supply are usually cheaper. Antec are good, as mentioned earlier. Also look at XEON ones. With a case + PSU combo costing around $90 and a DVD burner at around $40, the total cost of your system will be slightly over $450...

PS: Medieval II ran perfectly fine with slight lag during large battles (on maximum settings at 1280x1024) on my old system of OC'd Athlon XP 3200+ with Radeon X800XL and with 2x512 RAM.

[Lupy]

Thank you much Don Julio! You win the MVP award for the thread! (And cookies to Valiant Turtle and everyone else who helped)

[Forthork]

Well I have even better news for you. You get 2 gigs of OCZ RAM for free after rebate with that card. Look under Combo Deals at the bottom, and there is $12 off this kit (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227198), conveniently priced at $12 after rebate. Also, be wary cases that come with power supplies, unless it is a quality PSU (don't trust no-name or Ultra PSUs, I would stick with Antec as they make decent PSUs and good cases.) Also also, the P5K seems to be deactivated, I would go with the Gigabyte P45 DS3L, or this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131347) ASUS board, because they are both newer boards with the P45 chipset, meaning, among other things, they is no way you would need a BIOS update to use your processor (updating the BIOS can be difficult for people unfamiliar with doing so, and is impossible without a working CPU in the motherboard.)