Desperately seeking guidance

[juandelpueblo]

Hi: Let me state from jump; I have never belonged to, signed-up for, given my name, e-mail address, etc. to anyone on any forum or bulletin board. With that said I have been reading postings on various forums and this one appears to have the more serious postings. I'm in the process of building my pc and I think I got the cart the in front the horse. But I bought all the parts first(after much research) and now I'm needing for someone to check out what I bought and, before I open the boxes, tell me if I did right or not. Let me assure all that what appears below is what I have and everything is sitting on my dining room table staring back at me.
1. work (photo and video editing and gaming
2. Done spent it!
3. US
4. not really but I got what I got
5. no
6. read, yes; searched no
7. yes, I'm a newby but definitely
8. as soon as I can muster up the courage and more info
What I have in hand:
xclio wind tunnel full tower
asus striker ll extreme mobo
intel core 2 quad q9550 lga 775
gskill 4gb ddr3 1600 pc3 12800 dual channel kit
2 bfge96512gtocxfe geforce 9600
asus 20x dvd+-r dvd burner sata model drw-2014l1t
zalman zm1000-hp continuos 1000w...
kingwin gladiator liquid cpu cooler
vista ultimate 64 bit spi
This is the whole enchilada! Please, I need help and some kind words wouldn't hurt either. Thanks

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Start off everything at stock speeds just to find out if there are any hangers & to set your mind at ease. Make sure your bios is up to date first and foremost. Use a flash drive to flash the bios. Its real easy. If you don't know how, its ALT+F2 to get into EZ Flash mode (Asus boards) - Watch for static electricity. The board may put the RAM at a different setting at first, let it do its thing until you get your OS up and running and all the updates installed.

Welcome to the forums and Good Luck!!!

 

[Quiksilver]

Argh, I had a nice long reply written up but I accidentally closed the window anyway; here's a summary of my thoughts re-typed.

1) Case: This is kind of a personal preference than a problem but, this PC is supposed to be a workstation that doubles as a gaming rig and this thing just doesn't seem to muster it for me; it just seems tacky and has too much bling and who knows about it's craftsmanship. I would generally believe that most enthusiast would have chosen a different case that is more known; like a CM690, P182/P180, and others.

2) Motherbord & RAM: Well, I got one word to describe the problem here; DDR3. Yes, DDR3; it is at thus current point in time not worth any amount of money over DDR2 bases systems. On top of that DDR3 offers a maximum improvement over DDR2 of like 5% (on average 3%). Overall you just blew a huge wad of cash on parts that weren't worth it in this segment. An premium DDR2 board like Asus Rampage Formula and 4GB/8GB of DDR2 Ram would have been more than enough.

3) Video Card: I just can't help ask why you are going to use SLI on a workstation let alone use cards that a single card can give the same performance in this case; that would be either a 4870 or GTX 260 (GTX 280 is excluded due it being over $300 total). Just seems a bit silly.

4) CPU Cooler: That heatsink is utter crap, there are quite a few reviews showing that; on top of this it's HUGE; were talking like a bike helmet sized heatsink here. There are so many better air coolers on the market you could have got; Tuniq Tower, Xigamatek S183, Xigmatek S184 Rev. 2, Sunbeam Core Contact Cooler, and a few others.

5) PSU: Not really a problem, but the one you bought it completely overkill but that never hurt anything.

Other than those little mistakes/knit-picks you've done well. I do wish you would have came here before hand though.

Anyway, welcome to the forums; you shouldn't of had to fill out any names (those should have been completely optional) with the exception of your username. Then again I could be wrong it's been so long...

 

[JackMDS]

Welcome to AnandTech's General Hardware Forum.

Maybe this can Help too.

http://www.mechbgon.com/build/index.html

 

[juandelpueblo]

Thanks for your tips. I've copied it all down. I've been usinga borrowed computer and have no printer attached. I am at a very basic level of knowledge and I have had some folks here suggest the parts that I bought. I guess what I don't want to have happen is to put it all together and find out after the fact that some of these components don't play well with each other. I blew my wad here and I can't go back to the well any time soon. Oh by-the-by my hard drive is a wd raptor 150gb. Only one for now, cuz I ran out of money. Thanks again and I know it must seem tedious dealing with us newbies, but it is what it is.

 

[juandelpueblo]

Hey Quicksilver: Thanks for your insights. Like I said I'm new at this and I was bound to screw up and what's worse is that I'm probably not through screwing up. But with folks like you I can probably get a handle on this sooner or later. None the less, everything is still returnable if it becomes necessary. I guess in my own uninformed way I was trying to build a machine that looks over the horizon somewhat and from most of what I had read it appeared to me that ddr3 was the next step, therefore, my choices.

 

[Roguestar]

Well it's done now, the best you can do it slap it all together and see how it goes! Just put it together carefully and start everything off on standard speeds etc and you should be fine. Get it all going stable on standard before pushing it harder.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Personally, I would return the motherboard, RAM, and video cards. You don't need to do an SLI setup of 9600GTs with the kind of money you're spending. You should grab a cheaper (and more reliable) motherboard and a better video card. If you really want DDR3 RAM, then DDR3 1333 is much more affordable than 1600. Otherwise, DDR2 800, 1000, or 1066 is fast enough.

 

[Chronoshock]

Originally posted by: juandelpueblo

What I have in hand:
xclio wind tunnel full tower
asus striker ll extreme mobo
intel core 2 quad q9550 lga 775
gskill 4gb ddr3 1600 pc3 12800 dual channel kit
2 bfge96512gtocxfe geforce 9600
asus 20x dvd+-r dvd burner sata model drw-2014l1t
zalman zm1000-hp continuos 1000w...
kingwin gladiator liquid cpu cooler
vista ultimate 64 bit spi
This is the whole enchilada! Please, I need help and some kind words wouldn't hurt either. Thanks

Judging by the pricing of the parts you selected, you're looking for a high quality PC. Given that, your choice of graphics cards is somewhat nonsensical. Putting two weak cards in SLI will not outperform a stronger single card. Go with a 4870, or gtx 260. If you have the budget for it, then consider a gtx 280 or 4870x2 (to be released in the coming days).

Your PSU is kind of overkill, you're better off getting something like a corsair 750tx, you'd save a lot of money that way.

As others have pointed out, DDR3 isn't really worth the price premium. Once nehalem comes out necessitating a switch to a new socket/chipset, the majority of the market will shift to ddr3 (probably) and the price will come down. Find a good mobo for ddr2, as prices have never been better ($60-80 for 4GB).

For CPU cooler I would recommend either the thermalright ultra 120 extreme or a HDT (heatpipe direct touch) type cooler like the OCZ Vendetta 2 or Xigmatek 1283.

The case is not really my taste, but if it has what you need, go for it. Aside from acoustics and cooling performance, a big portion of case preferences falls under aesthetics and feature subsets (ie case materials, toolless design, mobo tray, number of external bays, hdd slots, etc.).

Make sure you find a site with the q9550 that has reflected the price drop. Mwave and newegg are the only two selling it at that price (~340) currently.

 

[juandelpueblo]

Just got back. Thanks to all for the info. To answer some of the "why in the world would you..." questions, let just say that one graphics card was given to me, previously installed in a friends computer and the psu was an early birthday gift (next Saturday). Those choices I did not make, (not to say that I would have made better choices). But I couldn't afford two cards right now so I went with another one until I could. Flawed reasoning maybe but, there it is. To all who've commented, thanks, I have some re-thinking to do.

 

[alimoalem]

I'm sure you know we're all here to help but don't take the corrections too seriously. We all just want everyone to get the most for their money .

I'm going to list my comments...most of it will just be what others are said but here goes:

You've got a lot of expensive stuff on the list, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Generally you can get 90-95% performance for MUCH cheaper. Basically just go with the recommendations that have been given.

For the GPU, a single 9600GT may be enough, depending on the resolution you will be playing at. If you must keep one of the 9600GT's, just try it out by itself and see how it is. If you don't have enough money for an HD4870 of GTX2x0, you should after savings from the RAM and MB.