Good rig setup?/ why dell?/building advice

[dez93]

Hi all. Firstly, cheers for all the info you?ve poured into these pages ? I?ve been in the background for ages now, copying & pasting & learning. I?ve pretty much decided on what to buy but before I put any money down I thought I?d ask you guys & gals for your opinions on the setup and also on some related stuff. I?ve numbered questions for reference ease.

Ok, the rig will be (prices in british pounds, x means excluding tax since I?m getting it through my company and most places do tax discounts):

Chip: Intel Core Due E6600 2.4ghz £170x

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 £70 (Asus P5B-E is the competition as far as I?ve read, but i#m thinking further BIOS revisions will taken this from 1st= to 1st outright, plus I?ve had a gigabyte board for a while and it?s been rock solid)

Cooler: Tuniq Tower 120 £30x

Memory: Team xTreem PC2-6400 £170x (as recommended by yoxxy. Don?t think I?ll need 1000?s and can?t afford em anyway!)

Case: Thermaltake Soprano Black Tower vb1000bns £35.45 (nice enough, 2x12cm fans front & rear should cool it nicely. Cheap. Don?t need anything too special).

PSU: Corsair 520 £60x

Video Card/GPU: XFX 7600GS 256MB DDR2 DUAL DVI PCI-E £60x


1. Anyone see any problems with that lot? Almost all components have been recommended right here

My questions:

2-Since I currently don?t play games, should I wait to get a videocard, and see how the onboard one does? I?ll probably get into games when I have a PC that can deal with them?

3-Power: all the chat about ramping up the voltage ? this is assumedly a BIOS setting? do I need a big power supply, i.e. 620, to go up that far enough for overclocking an E6600 to as high as possible? I?ve got 3 HDDs and one optical drive.

-Philosophy: my mate owns his own computer tech business and assures me that the way to go is dell or Evesham (uk based) since not only are they about the same price, but if you buy seperates, all the warrantees mean nothing since if anything goes wrong then the manufacturer will blame your building skills. You?ll also get the piece of mind of an overall warrantee, tech support and have it bilt and delivered for you.

Having checked dell.co.uk, a similar setup to mine means I have to have another unneeded HDD, optical drive, keyboard, mouse, copy of XP, a pricey graphics card, it?s built but not BIOS setup, the memory?s only 667, and it?s £1400 compared to £600. Competitively priced my butt, even with all the extra gear I don?t want.

Evesham also gave me XP, HDD, a pricey vid card and 667RAM, but came out as £880.

So what are your opinions? Is my mate?s opinion not worth the air it was spoken into? (4) And for a first-time builder, can any of you recommend a route to minimise the chance that everything goes wrong and I end up sitting on my bedroom floor in tears, surrounded by a pile of broken electronics which will never feel the surge of electricity? (5)(p.s., I?m 25, with reasonable PC experience, sound techie mind, prepared to read reams of manuals? pages before I touch anything. I'm also prepared to give shiney coins to a cleverer person to make the building & setup problem go away).

Would it be worth me paying someone to build it for me? (6)

I wanna backup all my stuff but I?ve got up to 300gb of stuff. Any tips for how to pour this all somewhere, in it?s file structure, so I can get it back if the drives fail and need to be formatted? (7) Do people rent drivespace or portable drives? (8)

And theoretically, once the boot drive is running fine, *should* I be able to just drop the other two in an have them autodetected with everything on them? (9)

Thanks all a boatload for reading that essay, let alone replying!

Cheers

Dez

 

[mcurphy]

1. Looks like a solid build! :thumbsup:

2. The mobo you have selected does not have onboard video. I think that would be the GA-965G DS3 model. If you plan to OC, then stick with the board you have selected. The video card you have chosen will be great if you do not play games, and you can upgrade it easily in the future should you ever want to. The mid range DX10 cards should be just around the corner

3. That power supply is an excellent choice. You do not need more power.

4. I think you should build your own. I don't understand where your mate is coming from with the comment about warranties and such. You shouldn't have a problem RMA'ing any component if you buy from a reputable seller.

5. Read as many guides as you can before building. You'll get all the tips you need there. I recommend starting with This Guide

6. NO. It is not that difficult and anyone you pay is going to overcharge you, lol. OK maybe not that bad, but it is a good experience and if you have even a little tech knowledge and are willing to read up before you start, you should not have any major problems.

7. My knowledge on backups is minimal, hopefully someone else can give you an opinion here.

8. See above. I really don't know if space is "rentable." I would think it would be a better investment to secure your own physical drive for backups.

9. Yes. Windows wil automatically detect any additional drives you hook up to the system once it is running. If they are unformatted, you will need to do so before you can use them.

 

[gerwen]

Mcurphy covered things well. Building your own rig is definitely recommended to anyone with a little technical skill, and a willingness to learn.

I'd recommend the 7600GT over the 7600GS. The price difference shouldn't be that big, while the performance gap should be. GT is anywhere from 30% to 50%+ faster from all the comparisons I looked at before getting mine. If you're not playing games, the point is moot. But if you plan on playing games, get the GT.

 

[dez93]

Mcurphy you're a legend, cheers!
With the lack of onboard video (and even as i type this i realise this is dumb!) does that mean that there is NO video out at all, i.e. unless i buy a GPU i'll have to try to config my BIOS with my eyes closed?

7/8/9 - maplin (kinda the UK version of radio shack) is selling a 400gb seagate external HDD for £90 ($175) so i'll probably just get that and maybe just xcopy everything onto that. Should be a fun weekend....:roll:
cheers dude!
Dez

 

[mcurphy]

Originally posted by: dez93
Mcurphy you're a legend, cheers!
With the lack of onboard video (and even as i type this i realise this is dumb!) does that mean that there is NO video out at all, i.e. unless i buy a GPU i'll have to try to config my BIOS with my eyes closed?

7/8/9 - maplin (kinda the UK version of radio shack) is selling a 400gb seagate external HDD for £90 ($175) so i'll probably just get that and maybe just xcopy everything onto that. Should be a fun weekend....:roll:
cheers dude!
Dez

That's right. There is no video output at all unless you add a video card. Your video card will be recognized right away by the system upon first boot and you will be able to "see" your BIOS, lol.

Once Windows is installed, you will need to load your graphics drivers.

If you decide to go with a board that has integrated video, you may not (probably will not) get good OC's. There are several threads in the motherboard forum that discuss the differences between the two options and OC'ing.

Good luck

 

[yh125d]

Originally posted by: gerwen
Mcurphy covered things well. Building your own rig is definitely recommended to anyone with a little technical skill, and a willingness to learn.

I'd recommend the 7600GT over the 7600GS. The price difference shouldn't be that big, while the performance gap should be. GT is anywhere from 30% to 50%+ faster from all the comparisons I looked at before getting mine. If you're not playing games, the point is moot. But if you plan on playing games, get the GT.

Gerwen is right about the 7600GT. My school pc has a 7600gs, and my home pc has a GT, and generally, the gt gets about 50-60% better fps on every game i play. And the price increase is only about 20 bucks, maybe less. Maybe even get a 7900gs for ~150 for that much better performance

 

[s44]

I disagree about getting a better video card, unless it's eVGA.

With the 8600 series apparently around the corner, ~$150 for DX9 is a waste at this point.

 

[dez93]

s44, any chance you could expand those points a bit? Sounds insightful but as you can tell i'm only half clued up on half the subjects!
Why only upgrade to eVGA?
What's so good about the 8600 series?
so are you saying i should plug in my passable video card from the machine i'm using the guts from (HDDs, Optical, peripherals & cards) then wait until DX10 cards start to get discounted into an affordable band? I saw the 7600GT Fatal1ty whihc looks pretty cool but yeah, starting to drift up in price for something i'm not entirely sure i need....
Cheers for the thinking so far!

 

[s44]

eVGA lets you "step-up" to another (newer) card made by them within 90 days of your original purchase. So rumors have the first "mainstream"-level (i.e. $200 and less) next-generation video cards coming out in March: they'll be DX10 compatible and feature the superior architecture Nvidia has developed since the 7xxx cards.

This is a bit of a pain, though -- they don't cross-ship, for one thing -- and if you have a passable card that'll work (your current one is PCI-E, I hope) and don't play games yet, I don't see much reason not to just wait a bit for these faster-better-cheaper 8600 series cards to appear.

 

[dez93]

my current one isn't PCI-E but since i haven't been playing games this hasn't been a problem. If i'm upgrading then i'm happy to wait a while, even at slightly cramped performance....
I'll start researching the 88600s - cheers!

 

[gerwen]

If your current one is AGP, it won't fit in your new motherboard. You'll have to get a PCI-E or a PCI card.

 

[dez93]

Well that sounds like a big bag of (potential) bad. something to look into when i get home from the mines.
Having read up on the GeForce Ultra 8600s, the chat thinks they'll be out in Q3 & cost a little bit less than the 7600GT but will (assumedly) blow it out of the water? If i've got PCI, i'll wait.

This throws up new query - will a corsair 520w PSU support an ultra8600 + 3 HDDs + optical drive? I figure, since corsair are blabbing about how efficient they are etc, it WILL, BUT they were running 600w to power 8800s @ CES, chatting about how their efficiency meant 800w wasn't necessary. Thus: same applies lower down the ladder, 500w to power 8600, OR: drain of 8800 expected to be near equal to 8600 thus 600w PSU needed?

(i feel like i'm starting to geet on top of things!
...As soon as i get it bought and built and booted, my brain will flag the whole lot as 'no longer needed' and forget it all... )

 

[Roguestar]

http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp

You won't likely need more than 520W.

 

[Icepick]

Originally posted by: dez93
Well that sounds like a big bag of (potential) bad. something to look into when i get home from the mines.
Having read up on the GeForce Ultra 8600s, the chat thinks they'll be out in Q3 & cost a little bit less than the 7600GT but will (assumedly) blow it out of the water? If i've got PCI, i'll wait.

This throws up new query - will a corsair 520w PSU support an ultra8600 + 3 HDDs + optical drive? I figure, since corsair are blabbing about how efficient they are etc, it WILL, BUT they were running 600w to power 8800s @ CES, chatting about how their efficiency meant 800w wasn't necessary. Thus: same applies lower down the ladder, 500w to power 8600, OR: drain of 8800 expected to be near equal to 8600 thus 600w PSU needed?

(i feel like i'm starting to geet on top of things!
...As soon as i get it bought and built and booted, my brain will flag the whole lot as 'no longer needed' and forget it all... )

I've got that Corsair HX520W power supply. It will be more than enough for the components you specified. Actually, it could easily handle a high end gaming rig including the 8800GTX. Basically, with 40A on the 12V line it will handle anything you throw at it except, maybe dual 8800GTX's in SLI. It will handle a single 8800GTX and all of the components you selected easily. A 600W is way overkill for an 8600 class video card.

 

[dez93]

Excellent news, cheers! I tried the PSUcalculator (thanks roguestar) but it reckons i need 632 which feels like overkill. Maybe i said i was going to OC it more than is possible, tho 3.2ghz & 1.8v doesn't sound *that* outlandish from what I've read on this site.

Irritatingly, on the GPU front, mine is AGP so i'll need a PCI-E for the new board. Based on s44's advice ("With the 8600 series apparently around the corner, ~$150 for DX9 is a waste at this point") I should wait for the 8600s but since they're not coming out till Q3, does anyone have any sage suggestions of how to play this one? My half-thought so far has been to buy a complete bargain basement PCI-E from anandtech's GPU roundup, or get something used of ebay, then upgrade later. s44's chat about buying eVGA so i can upgrade sounds interesting, although if we assume that to step up within 90 days to an 8600 released in Q3 (for safety's sake, the second week of August) then i'd have to wait till mid-May to get the '1st step' eVGA card - over 3 months away.
All opinions & half-thoughts appreciated!

 

[Icepick]

I used that power supply calculator with the components you selected and chose 8800GTX for the video card and the result was 328W (with no overclocking.)

When the CPU was overclocked at 1.8V the power draw was still only 437W. Maybe I'm leaving out something else? I did keep the TDP at 85% since it is virtually impossible to run all of the components in your PC at 100% utilization at the same time. 80-85% is a much more realistic worst case scenario.

 

[dez93]

I very probably just ballsed something up. Let's hope I get all of that out of the way before the case build....:roll: