Help with my build

[TheJM]

1.What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

-Multi-tabling poker. Running poker software. Want to play games like spore, but no FPS's.
Watching movies, using Photoshop, listening to music. Pokersoftware, pokerplaying and music at the same time. Will run XP still.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% sprea.

I have a budget of roughly NOK5000/$1000.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

Will buy all my parts from a norwegian site www.xd.no

Pricing in Norway is in Norwegian kroners(NOK) and NOK5 is $1 roughly. If a part cost $100 on newegg the norwegian price will be 150%. I will include the price for each item on NewEgg so you can give me suggestions in the same price range. A bit clearer: if the norwegian price is $200, and the same part cost $120 on NewEgg, other $120 parts from NewEgg will probably cost $200 in Norway as well.

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture.

I want Intel. No other strong preferences.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

Monitor. Samsung SyncMaster 204B max res. 1600X1200.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
I tried searching but it didnt go to well. I have read similar threads from the first 3 pages of this subforum. Didnt find what I was looking for.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Default.

8. WHEN do you plan to build it?

Hopefully within a month.




PARTS: (click the $link to go to newegg. Main links to norwgian site)

CPU:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz
$185 at NewEgg

Motherboard:
Asus P5K-VM, P35, Socket 775
$110

Case:
Antec Performance P182 Black
$140

Power:
OCZ 500W StealthXStream
$70

RAM:
OCZ Platinum XTC 2048MB DDR2 PC6400 KIT
$45

Graphics card:
Sapphire Radeon HD 3650 512MB
$70-90 (two very similar ones one newegg, one with gddr2 and one with ggdr3???)

Hard drive:
Western Digital 500GB Caviar SE SATA II
$90

DVD-burner:
Optiarc AD-7203A-0B DVD±RW 20x ? IDE
Want one with lightscribe or similar. Couldnt find this one on egg.

Total price in NOK is 5208,-



Overall thoughts:

I have no idea what video card I should use and what makes a good video card. I just went for one within my pricerange with 512Mb and hoped for the best. This is where I feel the most lost.

The CPU is clearly the most advanced part of this build. The other parts I've tried to save a bit on, and I dont know whether this will hold the CPU back.

I want a quiet PC, don't we all?



Thanks for reading, any and all comments are greatly appreciated.



--TheJM

 

[Urtho]

I can't read the site you've picked out so all my links use Newegg. Prices won't translate obviously but it should still give you some ideas on your options.

CPU - replace with the E8400 Wolfdale HERE. Same basic processor as the 6850 you picked out but it runs much cooler (and should OC higher if you change your mind on that point) as well as slighlty faster clock for clock.

MB - any reason you're picking a micro-ATX board? The ever popular DS3L from Gigabyte HERE should serve you just as well and is cheaper to boot unless you have a pressing need for that exact board?

Hardrive - For $20 more you can pick up THIS drive that is faster and offers more space.

Video - for your price range and gaming needs, I'd look at either of these options:

Budget

High End

I personally wouldn't skimp on your video card as it's usually the bottleneck in any gaming situation but if you're really firm on your budget limits than the lower end card should be fine for moderate gaming use.

Case - regarding silence, THIS case has been recommended before as being a good value as well as whisper quiet. Comes with a fairly high quality PSU as a nice bonus as well.

 

[chinaman1472]

Get 4GB of memory.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Great suggestions Urtho, I agree across the board:thumbsup:

E8400
DS3L
WD640 (newest fastest HD available)

If your limited to the site you linked

E8400 1345,
P5K 734,
Sonata III 829,

same
Ram,HDD, and optical that you linked.

Should be around 5000,

 

[TheJM]

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Urtho,

I have now replaced the MoBo, CPU and the case with your choices. The HD you also mentioned isn't available in Norway:-(

For video card I couldnt find the superclocked one, but the LINKregular is available. Could you perhaps comment on this or recommend some other budget cards? After saving some on the case and power I guess I can afford ~$150-170

Chinaman,

How much will I gain performance wise by having 4gig RAM? My OS is 32-bit and I was under the impression that I couldnt utilize more than 3 gigs or so.

 

[Roguestar]

You won't be able to use more than around 3.5GB but it's worth it for the extra 1.5GB. In my opinion, don't buy a pre-overclocked graphics card when you can buy a normal one for cheaper and overclock it yourself.

 

[chinaman1472]

Might as well have 1.5GB more right? RAM is cheap, and actually increases performance fairly noticeable. I've noticed the change myself going from 2GB to 4GB.

 

[TheJM]

^^yeah im going with 2x2gb RAM now.


How bout this one:
Graphics Card

 

[Urtho]

Originally posted by: TheJM

For video card I couldnt find the superclocked one, but the LINKregular is available. Could you perhaps comment on this or recommend some other budget cards? After saving some on the case and power I guess I can afford ~$150-170

Basically it works out like this in the performance/money comparisons (this is Nvidia only, others will have to chime in if you're interested in ATI cards):

8800GTS > 8800GT > 9600 GT > 8800GS

There are higher end cards of course, but in the midrange/budget segment these are the cards we're looking at. In US dollars, it works out like this for your price ranges (averages from US resellers):

$220 | $170 | $130 | $100

These are NOT exact prices mind you, just my feeling on how the various cards break down on average concerning price when compared. Occasionally you get a great deal that crosses these lines like the GTS card for $177 now active on Newegg or the 9600GT that could be had for around $105 from Amazon last week. For your revised budget, I'd look for a good deal on an 8800GT. You'll be playing at 1600 x 1200 and that needs a fairly powerful card for the newer games.

That card you mentioned on the EVGA site is a really bad deal, just so you know. You'll almost always get a better deal from online resellers than directly from the manufacturer as they will sell at MSRP (duh) and resellers typically undercut those prices by 30% or more. At the price EVGA wants for that 8800GS, you could find a 8800GT cheaper on Newegg. For less money, you jump 2 spots in the performance chain just by going with a reseller - sounds like a good idea yes?

The RAM suggestions posted by the others are good ones, btw. I knew I forgot to mention something after I posted but I was tired and it slipped by me. Going to Vista 64-bit wouldn't be the worst idea if you don't like the idea of some of your RAM not being used, but it probably will make XP feel snappier with ~ 3.3G RAM vs 2G like you had in mind if you decide to stick with XP.

EDIT -> Ok, I was curious so I just checked the exchange rates vs what is available on that site of yours. I can't read the words, but I can still type "8800GT" into the search box and look over the numbers it pops up. All I can say is holy %#*& are you guys getting price gouged over there. At your budget of $170 USD and allowing for an exchange rate of 5:1, I can't see you even affording an 8800GS, let alone what I just recommended to you. The cheapest 8800GT I found works out to around $280 USD if I'm doing it right... totally insane.

Maybe you could try and get someone to buy or have it shipped in for you from elsewhere, because those prices you're paying are crazy. If EVGA or XFX will ship it to you maybe it isn't such a bad idea to buy it directly from the manufacturer because the usual reseller advantage on price seems to be working against you at those prices.

 

[TheJM]

Wow. Breaking development. My friend who studies in USA agreed to take some parts with her. OMGGGG. She leaves 12th of May so have to order shortly. I'm thinking RAM and Graphics are the most expensive/smallest weight.

How bout this one then?
Graphics card

 

[Urtho]

Originally posted by: TheJM
Wow. Breaking development. My friend who studies in USA agreed to take some parts with her. OMGGGG. She leaves 12th of May so have to order shortly. I'm thinking RAM and Graphics are the most expensive/smallest weight.

How bout this one then?
Graphics card

Ah, that does indeed change things doesn't it?

Newegg is in play now, so you should probably order ASAP and get everything shipped to allow for any delays/problems so that the items actually make it to your friend in time. Make sure you have your friend's address authorized as a valid shipping address with Newegg and your credit card as it will cause a problem if they each don't know that address is valid.

As for the video card, nothing wrong with that card at all as it is the cheapest 8800GTS Newegg sells without a rebate. The ECS card is much cheaper after the rebate is accounted for, but that rebate is limited to the USA only. A slightly better deal IMO is the XFX card listed HERE as it includes a free copy of Call of Duty 4 for only ~ $7 more (XFX card has free shipping, MSI doesn't).

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: TheJM
Wow. Breaking development. My friend who studies in USA agreed to take some parts with her. OMGGGG. She leaves 12th of May so have to order shortly. I'm thinking RAM and Graphics are the most expensive/smallest weight.

How bout this one then?
Graphics card

You should also get the 640hdd since it's not available in Norway, Neweggs price is great on it.

And I would tell your friend to open and repack the boxes for travel. Newegg sends everything in individual oversized boxes filled with packing pellets, for instance; if you got GPU, ram and HDD she could probably fit them all in the box newegg sends the GPU in.

 

[TheJM]

Urtho,

I am not going to hassle my friend with having to send in a coupon and what not. So whether a card is discounted it doesnt really matter. I need the best price pre-discount.

If you think that card is better I will buy that. But the call of duty game isnt exactly my type of game anyway, so dont let that affect your verdict.

Regarding RAM: If it isnt a big difference between namebrands such as crucial and the lesser namebrand OCZ im not going to bother ordering it through my friend. Opinions on that?

edit: guitardaddy--- excellent tip. ty.

 

[Urtho]

Originally posted by: TheJM
Regarding RAM: If it isnt a big difference between namebrands such as crucial and the lesser namebrand OCZ im not going to bother ordering it through my friend. Opinions on that?

OCZ has kind of a bad reputation around these parts so that tends to shade viewpoints of their current products. I've personally never had problems with them but I have seen a lot of talk about the issues people have.

Regarding the video card, you misunderstand me. I just mentioned the ECS card in passing as it was in my original post as the cheapest deal around. That deal is only for US residents, however, due to the rebate restrictions so you couldn't use it even if you wanted to. Either the XFX or the MSI card are fine, if you don't care about COD4 at all then pick up the MSI card and save yourself a few bucks. Any 8800GTS card should be basically the same, as it's only extras and warranties that separate the various manufactures (XFX's warranty is better if you're curious FYI). One of those two cards should serve you well.

As for what exactly to buy for your friend to bring back with her, do a comparison of what is cheapest on Newegg vs what is most overpriced on your home site and factor in items that simply aren't available at all to you like that WD drive GuitarDaddy mentions. If she has space restrictions on what she can bring back, prioritize the small items that can be packed together - CPU, RAM, and Hardrive should all fit easily in a relatively small box. Any of the bigger items spacewise such as a case are probably out of the question.

 

[happy medium]

Originally posted by: TheJM
1.What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

<<-Multi-tabling poker. Running poker software. Want to play games like spore, but no FPS's.
Watching movies, using Photoshop, listening to music. Pokersoftware, pokerplaying and music at the same time. Will run XP still.
2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% sprea.

I have a budget of roughly NOK5000/$1000.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

Will buy all my parts from a norwegian site www.xd.no

Pricing in Norway is in Norwegian kroners(NOK) and NOK5 is $1 roughly. If a part cost $100 on newegg the norwegian price will be 150%. I will include the price for each item on NewEgg so you can give me suggestions in the same price range. A bit clearer: if the norwegian price is $200, and the same part cost $120 on NewEgg, other $120 parts from NewEgg will probably cost $200 in Norway as well.

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture.

I want Intel. No other strong preferences.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

Monitor. Samsung SyncMaster 204B max res. 1600X1200.

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
I tried searching but it didnt go to well. I have read similar threads from the first 3 pages of this subforum. Didnt find what I was looking for.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Default.

8. WHEN do you plan to build it?

Hopefully within a month.




PARTS: (click the $link to go to newegg. Main links to norwgian site)

CPU:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0GHz
$185 at NewEgg

Motherboard:
Asus P5K-VM, P35, Socket 775
$110

Case:
Antec Performance P182 Black
$140

Power:
OCZ 500W StealthXStream
$70

RAM:
OCZ Platinum XTC 2048MB DDR2 PC6400 KIT
$45

Graphics card:
Sapphire Radeon HD 3650 512MB
$70-90 (two very similar ones one newegg, one with gddr2 and one with ggdr3???)

Hard drive:
Western Digital 500GB Caviar SE SATA II
$90

DVD-burner:
Optiarc AD-7203A-0B DVD±RW 20x ? IDE
Want one with lightscribe or similar. Couldnt find this one on egg.

Total price in NOK is 5208,-



Overall thoughts:

I have no idea what video card I should use and what makes a good video card. I just went for one within my pricerange with 512Mb and hoped for the best. This is where I feel the most lost.

The CPU is clearly the most advanced part of this build. The other parts I've tried to save a bit on, and I dont know whether this will hold the CPU back.

I want a quiet PC, don't we all?



Thanks for reading, any and all comments are greatly appreciated.



--TheJM

Your suggesting a 8800gts 512mb for that?

I suggest a 8800gs at most!
Save the guy over 100.00$ Don't waste his money.

Spore system requirenments...
http://www.sporerevolution.com...equirements/index.html

 

[Urtho]

Originally posted by: happy medium

Your suggesting a 8800gts 512mb for that?

I suggest a 8800gs at most!
Save the guy over 100.00$ Don't waste his money.

Someone didn't read the thread.

 

[TheJM]

Sigh. Newegg doesnt let me place an order if i dont have a us billing address or us issued bank card, which i dont. so anyone know of anyother good online stores?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Zipzoomfly

Mwave