First Time PC build (high end)

rolleggroll

Hello everyone! After overheating the computer I am using now and losing a lot of spare parts, I have decided that it is time to take the plunge and build a new computer. I need advice on selecting certain components.

This kinda high-end computer is primarily going to be used for gaming, websurfing, email, watching DVDs, homework - in that order. I want something that has power and also silent as much as possible because this computer is going to be placed in my room. I don't mind buying only the important parts first than adding to it as time progresses. I don't want to exceed $2500 as much as possible (but I know I will) because that is how much cash I got onhand to order the first batch of parts. Oh and BTW all my parts will be ordered through newegg.com because I have no other high-end retailer around me.

I do not plan to overclock.

I will also be making a wireless network for the first time also, so any suggestions with that as well. Thanks a bunch. Forgot to add, it is my first time building one, but I have very basic computer building skills, I know how to add vidcards, soundcards, ram. I have switched out a Mobo and added a cpu, but I do not know how to tweak bios.


Case: Lian Li PC-V1000BPlus II Black ($208.99)
OR
Antec Performance I P180B Black ($129.99)

Mobo: ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe ($194.99)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ ($632.00)
RAM: CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Dual Channel Kit
***Notes*** Twinx2048-3200c2pt ($189.00)
Will start with 2GB, will upgrade to 4GB. is 4gb worth it in the long run?


PSU: Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550 550W ($118.00)
OR
SeaSonic S12-600 600W ($159.99)
OR
OCZ OCZ600ADJSLI > 600Watts ($179.99-$199.99)
***Notes*** Debating between the two. I am afraid that the antec cord will be too short, or the SeaSonic will be DoA. I am leaning towards whichever is better for Silent, gaming (heat issues), cable management/cording - in that order. ALSO I worry that they won't fit in my cases that I have in mind.

I need something like a zalman 7000 to cool my cpu.

GPU: nvidia 7800 / 7900 GTX x2 SLI...dunno which one (help please)
***Notes** Gonna be eating crap for two weeks to pay for this one. I'll start with one and save up for another. which one do you think...7800 or 7900?

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic ($116.00)
DVD Burner: NEC ND-3550A 16X ($41.99)
DVD Drive: Sony DDU1615/B2s ($19.99)
Floppy Disk: NEC FD1231H-302 ($5.99)

Boot HD: Western Digital Raptor 74GB 3.5" Serial ATA150 ($160.00)
Storage HD: 300 GB ...?? seagate?

Some wireless card to add to my computer.

A nice gamer grade headset (like a seinheiser spelling?)
and some 20+ widescreen monitor. (which can come much later)

Thank you everyone for your opinions.

Leonardo

- Consider an AMD 4400 X2 - save $160 and have about the same performance.
- Do an Internet search on the Antec NeoPower NeoHE 550. Although I usually recommend Antecs, many people have been reporting severe problems on the NeoHE models - not sure if it's the 550 that's problematic.
- 2GB DRAM should be plenty enough, unless you do extreme, consistent multitasking.

Case - Antec vs. Lian Li. Both of those cases will serve you well. People with Lian Li's swear by them. The quality can't be beat. My next case(s) might very likely be Lian Li. The price premium for the Lian Li is not necessarily due to quality and functionality, but many people don't mind at all paying the premium. They are excellent cases.

drasnor

I'd be shopping CoolerMaster for cases because I hate doors, like mid-towers, and they're a lot cheaper and more aesthetically-pleasing (to me).

Second on the NeoHE 550, they have some serious compatibility issues with certain motherboards like mine (Supermicro H8DCE). The TruepowerII works flawlessly for me though.

Avoid the Creative X-Fi cards like the plague. They have popping/crackling issues with many chipsets, possibly yours. I think there's getting ready to be a class-action lawsuit so if you do get one be sure to get your name on that. If you like Creative just get an Audigy2 ZS or Audigy4. If not, M-Audio and Turtle Beach make some nice cards.

I haven't needed two optical drives in a long, long time. With high-speed DVD burners you don't need two optical drives because you can't do disc-to-disc copying without caching to the hard drive first.

I like my Thermalright XP-120 heatsinks with Panaflo 120mm fans. They do the job for my Opteron 248's.

I'm iffy on your hard drive configuration. I would save my money and just get a big 7200RPM drive and not muck around with having two or more hard drives. I find a total lack of any sort of intelligent command queueing (ATA100) to be adequate for pretty much all desktop gaming usage so I figure the second generation NCQ on nearly all new SATA drives and controllers has got to be great.

I wouldn't do SLI unless a little birdy flies by and brings me a second graphics card for free. My 7800GTX has handled everything I've thrown at it beautifully and I drive a 24" 1920x1200 display.

As long as you're throwing money at a computer you might want to consider getting a physics card. They're supposedly going to be all the rage and you can get your bleeding edge early adopter status with your buddies.

I tend to throw a lot of money at my I/O peripherals since it's the part of the computer I use most often. I use a Logitech Elite keyboard typically on my main computer but all my others have IBM Model M keyboards. Model Ms are awesome but nearly impossible to find new these days. If someone made a mechanical keyboard with multimedia keys I'd be on it like a hobo on a ham sandwich. I use a Sennheiser HMD80 headset which is a cousin of the HD80 headphones only $200 more expensive for the mic. They're awesome but very expensive and require some soldering before you can use them. If you're going to be using your headphones a lot you'll want to get a headphone amp. I use a Crown D-75 but that's probably overkill.

-drasnor

TheSmJ

The Antec P180B is a very quiet case with excellent cooling. Between the two, I'd chose this one.

Two gigs of ram won't be too important now, but in about 6-8 months you'll be glad you have it. To put it in perspective, WinVista will REQUIRE 1 GB of RAM for the "optimum expirence", and games love RAM.

Why not overclock? You'll save a boatload of money this way and even the lower-end CPUs are able to OC to the higher end's speeds (or more) w/o any issues.

Don't even bother with SLI right now. Buy one card (7900), wait a few months till the next generation is released and the 7900's price drops by hundreds, THEN buy another for SLI and a cheap yet really effective speed boost.

I've read really bad things about both the Antec and OCZ PSUs. The new SeaSonic PSUs have a lot of good press, and I know I don't have any complaints.

I currently have two DVD drives (one a ROM, the other an R-+W), and I really don't know why. I first used the two for copying CDs back in the day, but it's been years since I've really needed to use both at once. These days I only ever use the burner.

I've been down the multi-HDD path and it really starts to suck once one of the two begin to fill up. Just buy one big and fast SATA2 drive and put everything on there. You'll be a lot happier in the long run.

Creative is in deep **** over the X-Fi problems. I'd avoid them until that gets taken care of (either in court or with reliable drivers). For now an older, cheaper, but still very high quality Audigy 2 ZS or another good non-Creative card would be a much better choice.

rolleggroll

Thank you everyone so much for your input. I have narrowed down some of my components thanks to you guys.

Case: Antec Performance I P180B Black ($129.99)
Case Fans: Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F (1,600rpm) 120mm S-FDB x 3 ($14.99)
Mobo: ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe ($194.99)
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ ($632.00)
Heatsink: THERMALRIGHT XP-120 ($49.99)
RAM: CORSAIR XMS 2GB (2 x 1GB) Twinx2048-3200c2pt ($189.00)
PSU: SeaSonic S12-600 600W ($159.99)

GPU: nvidia 7900 GTX x 2 SLI (one for now)
Sound Card: xxxxxxxx ???

DVD Burner: NEC ND-3550A 16X ($41.99)
Floppy Disk: NEC FD1231H-302 ($5.99)
HD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 400GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s ($189.99)

Wireless Card: xxxxx ???

The whole creative x-fi problems have got me real scared, so can anyone recommend a sound card that is not a creative audigy ZS2 (or should I just get that one). I for my hardrive, I have taken into consideration your advice so I will go with one big HD instead of two separate hds. I am not sure when you say "fast" HD or "SATA2" so excuse me for being too noob. I think SATA2 = SATA 3.0gb, but I am not sure. Can you guys gimme that advice in laymans terms (sorry). I still don't know which of the 7900 GTX's to get. I will follow the advice and just get one 7900 GTX for now, but I am unsure on which one to get. I have been checking out online, and the eVGA brand ones are looking pretty nice, but I don't see a difference between the different models outside of price. and advice?

lastly, I still need a premier wireless card and router. haha. Thanks for the helps guys/gals.

TheSmJ

No prob!

IMO, The Audigy 2 ZS offers you both compadibility and performance at a cheap price. I know there are other competetors who offer similar cards too, but you'lll need to wait for them to answer.

All videocards are based on the same "refrence hardware". The only difference is price, possibly better cooling solutions built on, and warranty. eVGA is a great brand, and so it BFGTech. You're going to be using nVidia ref. drivers anways, so don't worry about their own driver support.

Thrax

I give you the AuzenTech HDA X-Plosion 7.1

jradmin

You should wait till the end of the month and get a 7950GX2 if you really want the high end. It's Nvidia's new dual GPU card, and its gonna run around $600. 2 of these = quad SLI =)

For about $150 more then a GTX it doesn't sound like a bad buy.

edcentric

Give the Auzentech and M-Audio cards a good look. THE M-A is available in both rear-port and break-out styles. Both cards have very good rep, but different capabilities. Find some reviews.

Have you looked at the Seagate 7200.10 drives? They look nice and hte price is reasonable.

drasnor

I didn't count up fans, but be sure you bought enough 120mm fans to put one on that Thermalright. They come without fan so you can choose one that best fits your needs (slow and quiet for normal people, fast and loud for hardcore overclockers).

A fast hard drive is one whose seek times are low (<10ms) and sustained data transfer rates are high (>60MB/s). Most drive mfr's don't advertise the sustained data transfer rate for various reasons though almost all new 7200RPM hard drives with SATA2 (300MB/sec interface speed) and NCQ will likely have the performance you're looking for so don't worry too much about it.

You should check out brand reputation when shopping for graphics cards. Certain brands (Jaton and PowerColor in my experience) have poor build quality that's evidenced in their pricing. Read reviews. I haven't had any trouble with eVGA, Leadtek, or PNY cards.

I pretty much only use wireless cards based on the Atheros chipsets because they're well-supported under my OS of choice (Linux). That spells out to essentially D-Link DWL-G520 cards. As far as wireless routers go I use a 3com OfficeConnect A/B/G access point and a Netgear blue-box router. Both are getting a little long in the tooth but I don't move enough data over my network to need gigabit. I have to power cycle the 3com about once a month since it tends to overheat and crash but that's probably due to environmental factors (sitting on top of two other hot network devices). I wouldn't recommend the OfficeConnect APs because they have built-in antennae so you can't use aftermarket high-gain antennae and increase your range. I like having a separate router and access point because it gives my network a bit more flexibility in that I can toss the AP if I want to move to a different wireless technology or go to a full-fledged Linux router with Boot-on-LAN and not lose my wireless component. YMMV.

-drasnor

airbornflght

Yeh, I'm gonna say get the 4400 and oc, although, if you have the money, then it doesnt matter. Really, now a days, onboard sound isnt too bad really, so you could just use the onboard until you find a suitable audio card. (Didnt check to see if mobo had onboard sound)

Madball

Listen to Thrax on that audio card suggestion. That is a kick-ass card. I have that one and the XMYSTIQUE 7.1, and they are both excellent cards with none of the driver problems I've encountered with Creative products. They almost require a set of speakers or reciever with Dolby Digital and DTS decoding though. Playing games in DD or DTS is an experience.

airbornflght

Looks good to me. Doesnt list the price though, im gonna go poke around and see if I can find one, looks like a nice card.