New Build for a newbie

[Cornholio]

Hi. So this would be my first build. I've done a good ton of research and have come up with several drafts for the parts going into my comp. This comp will be used for intense apps like autocad and movie editors along with some gaming. The budget isnt all that important, although, I do not want to spend 1500 on the new 9750 thats out there, etc. This is going to be every piece going into my new comp so if anyone would like to give me feedback on parts, prices, or compattibility, I would be very appreciative. (especially compattibility!!!) Thanks for your time!

MOBO - Ok, so as it goes, I've seen a lot of different MOBO's and this one is very upgradable and has a TON of slots. It's not built for high quality sound and thats why its about 100$ less than another very similar ASUS mobo.


CPU - My CPU is also pretty set, its a decent price for that speed and I dont want to spend 1000 for the 9650 or 1500 for the 9750. I would prefer to go with intel mainly because I've heard from many people that they are "lightyears ahead" of AMD.


RAM - My RAM is picked out because I want to start out with 4 gigs. My Mobo allows up to 16, but for right now, 62$ for 4 gigs (2 sticks of 2G) seems like a good price, allowing me to upgrade with another stick of 4gig in the future if/when I need it.


GPU - The GPU I have is not top of the line but its pretty comparable to the nividia 9800, that is except for the lower cost.


PSU - I chose my PSU on a few different reasons: one being that it came with a combo for my MOBO (20$ off) and it has enough PCI-e and SATA connectors so that I wont have to upgrade unless wattage is a concern, which with the 700w it shouldn't.


HDD - I know that some people are going to question me about the HDD. It's OEM, big woop, I got the cable for it. But I know that right now its not gonna be that easy to fill up a 1TB drive. But hey, I personally like the sound of a 1tb drive and this particular one has had some good reviews, unlike a lot of the other 1tb drives that are often DOA.


HDD Sata Cable - Not too sure though if that is the proper SATA II connector that I would need in order to use that OEM HDD.

Cooler Bracket & CPU Cooler - The CPU cooler has gotten great reviews and I've been recommended to it on a couple of sites, that is as long as I get the 7$ bracket to ensure security.


Sound Card - I have a sound card up there just because the integrated one on my MOBO isnt really that special, not too sure if this is worth it though taking up a PCI slot and even the small cost.


DVD Burner - The DVD Drive I am pretty set on, it allows burning/reading and has the Litescribe tech which is just a bonus.


Floppy Drive OK, I still own floppy disks, don't use them, but for 7$ and a floppy cable, why not get one?


Case - I picked my case out because of the 4 fans helping out any heat issues and its got a ton of bays allowing for a raid for future hard drive or if I wanna put in a card reader or another DVD Rom or anything of the such.


Mouse & Keyboard - I picked my mouse and Keyboard out because I was already purchasing things from Newegg and just thought might as well check out their variety and reviews. Those two aren't exactly set, they are just there as something that I will get unless someone points me otherwise for a good reason or two.


Monitor - The monitor seems like a pretty good deal for a 22" monitor.


OS - Finally, my OS is set, no change, that is I refuse to not take anything Windows. I love MS and want to have a 64 bit MS OS.



I know that all of my products are listed under Newegg. That is because I have found them to be the best price along with good customer service and return policies. This again is not set in stone but seems to be my best bet right now. Also, with Newegg, like many other sites, MS offers 5.5% Cashback on all Newegg items.

Sorry for the novel. I'm just trying to be thorough. Again thanks for the time and feedback.

 

[DR.Death]

its looking good i see no faults with it but see what the other guys say

 

[farlex85]

Looks good. Only thing I would ask about that HDD is do you know what kind of platter size it uses. I personally somewhat doubt that sound card will be much of a step up from onboard, and in fact just may end up giving you more headaches on account of Creative's recent driver/vista streak. For PSU I would go cheaper, this is the one I have and it's supposed to be very well made, among the best for it's class I believe, and $40 cheaper before the mir. A corsair would also get the job done for cheaper. Overall looks like a nice build indeed, good luck.

 

[Cornholio]

After a little perusing on the ASUS forums, I saw a post about the QVL list for Vista installation. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about that. Has anyone used an ASUS board with Vista installation and can commment on it and also, does it require a stick of downgraded ram for the installation. Also, are there any compattability issues that anyone knows of ASUS mobo's and sticks of ram. Just trying to be thorough and understand my future comp. Also, farlex85, I had originally picked out that exact corsair PSU but after reading reviews on a slightly common situation of how it fried several peoples boards and such I decided to look elsewhere. Right now I got my PSU picked because it has cables that cover all 8 Sata slots and the PCI-e slots with extra peripherals. Thanks for the input, always open to more!!!

 

[farlex85]

After a little perusing on the ASUS forums, I saw a post about the QVL list for Vista installation. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about that. Has anyone used an ASUS board with Vista installation and can commment on it and also, does it require a stick of downgraded ram for the installation. Also, are there any compattability issues that anyone knows of ASUS mobo's and sticks of ram. Just trying to be thorough and understand my future comp. Also, farlex85, I had originally picked out that exact corsair PSU but after reading reviews on a slightly common situation of how it fried several peoples boards and such I decided to look elsewhere. Right now I got my PSU picked because it has cables that cover all 8 Sata slots and the PCI-e slots with extra peripherals. Thanks for the input, always open to more!!!

Can't speak to the asus thing, hopefully someone else can give you some advice on that. Should be ok though, shouldn't need any downgraded memory or anything like that. Should be a simple straight install (so long as everything comes together right). I will say if those reviews you mean are coming from newegg don't fully trust them. Hate to say it, but a lot of people simply don't know what they're doing and attribute their own faults to the manufacturers (for instance I guarantee you at least somebody there has not put spacers to hold up their board and killed it thusly, then blamed the psu). This often seems the case on newegg. As long as you yourself are prepared to do the build correctly, you shouldn't have anything to worry about from Corsair's psu's, nor the ocz. Both of those should have you covered on all 8 sata ports as well. Still, the seasonic is good, so if you are more comfortable w/ that one then definitely, I just suggested the others b/c they are considerably cheaper, and fully capable of your build.

 

[Cornholio]

Also, is there any reason I might want to consider using this P5Q-E MOBO instead? It just seems as if I've seen more usage of this one and was wondering if there's any reason behind that.

 

[DonInKansas]

As for the ASUS/64 deal, all I had to do when I installed was pull one stick of RAM and install with a single stick. Once install was done, I popped the other stick in and ran no problem. I know others who did the same thing so if you have issues, this should be a likely solution with no different ram neccessary.

Why are you getting another SATA cable? The mobo comes with 2 which will cover your DVDRW and your HDD.

P5Q-E bonus over your mobo is Crossfire capability in case you ever want to use that.

 

[farlex85]

Also, is there any reason I might want to consider using this P5Q-E MOBO instead? It just seems as if I've seen more usage of this one and was wondering if there's any reason behind that.

That one has 3 pci-ex16 slots, allowing it to run 3 cards in tandem (ati/crossfire only). It is only useful if you plan on owning more than one ati video card in the future. The board in your first post had just one slot for one video card. The cooling on the P5Q-5 seems as though it may be slightly better on the north and south bridge as well. Crossfire usually doesn't make much sense to me, as a single card can usually match or beat the performance of two smaller ones w/o the issues of crossfire. It's really only useful if going for top of the line cards, or for upgrade convenience as you don't have to bother selling the first one, you just add another.

 

[DonInKansas]

P5Q-E also has the 24 pin plugin in a much more friendly spot on the side of the mobo instead of in the middle. Wil make for much easier cable management.

 

[farlex85]

P5Q-E also has the 24 pin plugin in a much more friendly spot on the side of the mobo instead of in the middle. Wil make for much easier cable management.

That's true I didn't even notice that, that's a terrible place to put it on the other one, I don't know why they would do that. No matter where your psu is positioned, that's just inconvenient.

 

[ENIAC]

I installed Vista 64 with both sticks, no problem. But I would highly recommend purchasing memory on the QVL for your MB.

 

[Cornholio]

After a little bit of thought and research, I was wondering what some people's oppinion would be on suggesting that I put together a raid instead of just a single HDD. I was thinking about putting 2 - 500G drives in a Raid0 array to increase performance and speed.

 

[JC316]

Everything looks DAMN good except for the motherboard. Spend an extra $10 and get the Asus P5Q Pro, it's a crossfire motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131299&Tpk=P5Q+Pro

 

[Cornholio]

Thanks a ton everyone so far for your input. JC316, I didn't post but was actually considering switching my MOBO to the P5Q-E. I'm just still not sure if I should go with a raid0 set up with 2 500gb hdd's. It would actually save a couple bucks and seems like it would enhance the performance. Anyone got input on that?

 

[hat]

meh, dump the sound card imo

 

[Cornholio]

Oh yea, lol that was also part of my revision I forgot to mention. So, since my first post, I dropped the sound card, changed mobo to P5Q-E, lost the sata II cable, and changed my RAM to 2 sticks that apply to the QVL.

I'm just still wondering on other people's oppinions on a RAID0 set up for my hard drive instead of the single 1tb drive.

 

[JC316]

I don't know much about RAID, but I hear that it increases performance. I never tried it because it looked to complicated to me, but that was years ago.

 

[Grimskull]

Case.. try out this one, I bought it for my brother and its a fantastic case. Im upgrading my rig soon and will be buying the same one again. Loads of room inside, great air flow cant recommened highly enough.

GPU.. have a look at a 4870... little more money but worth it.


Just my opinion.. everything else looks good!!!

EDIT: I always put RAID0 in my PC's, the performance is brillant. have a look into setting it up on your rig.. using vista is easier than using XP to install it on OS setup.

RE-EDIT... if your looking for after market cooling.. have a look at the Zalman 9700 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019

 

[Wingo101]

Looks good, but I would rather get a Razer mouse and check for a better sound card.

You don't mention anything about speakers, why not?

 

[Cornholio]

So I think I've made my decision on the hard drives. I'm gonna buy 2 500GB HDD's and put them into a raid0. Seems from what I've read that it would be less complicated to do that from the start than go with the single drive and upgrade it into a raid later on.

 

[ENIAC]

So I think I've made my decision on the hard drives. I'm gonna buy 2 500GB HDD's and put them into a raid0. Seems from what I've read that it would be less complicated to do that from the start than go with the single drive and upgrade it into a raid later on.

That's a very good drive. But you may want to do a bit of research on this WD drive.

 

[Cornholio]

Yea, thanks a ton. That one is bigger for a marginal cost. The only thing I don't know, this is from lack of experience, will there be a major noticeable difference between that one you showed me and the one I had picked out, that is when you consider that the difference in cache sizes, 16mb vs 32 mb. If so, how would I notice? and would putting these in a Raid0 compensate for the difference?

 

[farlex85]

Yea, thanks a ton. That one is bigger for a marginal cost. The only thing I don't know, this is from lack of experience, will there be a major noticeable difference between that one you showed me and the one I had picked out, that is when you consider that the difference in cache sizes, 16mb vs 32 mb. If so, how would I notice? and would putting these in a Raid0 compensate for the difference?

The WD 640gb is actually a bit faster than that 7200.11. 32mb of cache makes virtually no difference at that drive size, that only begins to come into play around 1tb. Platter density is more important for speed there, hence my question in the earlier post. That WD uses 2 333gb platters, which is as dense as they get right now I believe. The 7200.11 uses 2 250gb platters I believe. The speed difference won't be that noticeable in every day tasks, but like you said it's more space for a marginal cost, and it is indeed faster as well.