Need help with building a new gaming rig

[Madruk]

Hey everyone! First time poster but been a board lurker for quite some time. Right now I face the dilema of building a new gaming rig, and I'm having trouble figuring out which parts to get despite all the good reviews here. I have a budget of around $1500, that I'm also hoping to lower asking for some parts for Christmas

Anyway what I was looking at was the following:

1.) Core2duo processor (would it be worth waiting for the mainstream quad cores coming out in Jan?)
2.) x38, x48 or p35 motherboard
3.) 8800 GT 3d card
4.) Sound Blaster X-Fi sound card
5.) DVD Read/write drive
6.) Floppy drive (just in case!)
7.) 4 GB RAM (I saw someone post in hot deals about the Super Talent 2GB sticks that I was thinking about getting)
8.) 300 gig hard drive (SATA or SCSI?)
9.) Power supply
10.) Fans and additional cooling
11.) Case (are some cases better for cooling than others? Like for example, steel or built in fans etc)

The main dilemas is I'm not sure what brands would be the best bang for the buck. I'm still looking around but any suggestions are very much appreciated.

 

[DSF]

1.) If you want a quad-core it might be worth waiting. That's more up to you to decide than us. How badly do you want/need the computer, and will you notice the slight performance gain? Are you looking to overclock your chips through the roof? The Q6600 is a fine chip, it's not like the 45nm process is going to blow it out of the water. At least not from what I've heard.

2.) P35. There's no need for the extra heat generated by X38. ASUS, Gigabyte and ABIT are all getting good reviews right now. What features do you need in a motherboard?

7.) I ordered that Super Talent RAM. Unfortunately, I had to RMA my Gigabyte motherboard (broken pin on the Northbridge heatsink), so I probably won't be building until next week or even later. If you want, I'll let you know how the RAM does if I get it set up soon enough.

8.) The bang-for-buck these days is at 500GB, and generally speaking the larger the drive the better the performance.

9.) Something in the 400-500 watt range from a reputable maker is all you need. Corsair and Seasonic both sell good PSUs. Antec has some good lines, and at the budget end I think people like Sparkle/Fortron-Source.

11.) Yes, some cases are better at cooling than others. Some cases look nicer than others. Some cases take up more space (which usually means they have more room) than others. Some cases are quieter than others. What features are you looking for in a case?

One thing I didn't see you list is a CPU heatsink. If you're not looking to overclock and you don't need very low noise, the stock cooler should be fine for you. Otherwise, you'll want to look at an aftermarket solution.

 

[Madruk]

Hey thank you for the reply

I'm actually building this comp for a few new MMO's that come out next year (namely Age of Conan and Warhammer). They will be pretty graphic intensive with the large scale PvP fights. So basically I can wait almost till May to build the computer...BUT, since Christmas is a chance to get some parts for free I figured why not start collecting some parts for it now (mainly I was thinking of basics like ram, HD, 3d card, psu, case), and maybe wait if there's something better coming out just around the corner (like the quad core cpu's).

For overclocking I am interested, but I have very little experience with it so I don't know if that would be a good idea or not.

For a case, I'm more interested in more space and cooling. I'm not really looking for a case that blasts you with noise, but some is ok.

For a motherboard I don't really need onboard sound or graphics as I'm getting cards. Problem is some of the things are confusing like cache, PCIE slots (is 2.0 the standard now?). I don't know what's better to have. I'm more interested in anything that can actually make the computer faster (with potential for upgrading later). I was thinking it might be a good idea to put off buying a motherboard now until I actually get the cpu, if I wait for the quad cores to come out.

Thanks again!

 

[CLite]

Well from your post it seems like you are going to slowly collect these parts and prep for games that are quite a few months away.

If this is correct I'd recommend only collecting the following for christmass:

1) Good LCD monitor, the prices for a good 20" atm aren't going to improve all that much, perhaps the 24" market might decrease though I don't really know.
2) Good PSU, very reasonable prices atm, I picked up an Antic EA500 for 30'ish AMIR
3) Good HD / CD-DVD

I would not get the following atm:

1) Processor, 45nm is coming out who knows you seem to be waiting for a while
2) Mobo, DDR3 coming out, and 2.0 PCI-E still finicky atm, hold out
3) GPU, gouged prices atm
4) RAM, DDR3 coming out

I'm fairly new at all this so I could be wrong, but these are my impressions from your timeline combined with all the reading I've been doing.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: DSF
1.) If you want a quad-core it might be worth waiting. That's more up to you to decide than us. How badly do you want/need the computer, and will you notice the slight performance gain? Are you looking to overclock your chips through the roof? The Q6600 is a fine chip, it's not like the 45nm process is going to blow it out of the water. At least not from what I've heard.

2.) P35. There's no need for the extra heat generated by X38. ASUS, Gigabyte and ABIT are all getting good reviews right now. What features do you need in a motherboard?

7.) I ordered that Super Talent RAM. Unfortunately, I had to RMA my Gigabyte motherboard (broken pin on the Northbridge heatsink), so I probably won't be building until next week or even later. If you want, I'll let you know how the RAM does if I get it set up soon enough.

8.) The bang-for-buck these days is at 500GB, and generally speaking the larger the drive the better the performance.

9.) Something in the 400-500 watt range from a reputable maker is all you need. Corsair and Seasonic both sell good PSUs. Antec has some good lines, and at the budget end I think people like Sparkle/Fortron-Source.

11.) Yes, some cases are better at cooling than others. Some cases look nicer than others. Some cases take up more space (which usually means they have more room) than others. Some cases are quieter than others. What features are you looking for in a case?

One thing I didn't see you list is a CPU heatsink. If you're not looking to overclock and you don't need very low noise, the stock cooler should be fine for you. Otherwise, you'll want to look at an aftermarket solution.

With a Q6600 and an 8800GT, would you go to 700-800 watt PSU?

 

[CLite]

Originally posted by: CPA
With a Q6600 and an 8800GT, would you go to 700-800 watt PSU?

If your PSU was 40% efficient and you were at 100% load all the time? Even the most conservative graphs I've seen put that setup at like 350'ish max load. I don't have the links, they are all in some of the PSU Hot deal threads in the hot deal forum. People over there had some heated debates over what is needed but they centered around 400'ish vs. 500'ish, certaintly not 700-800.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: CPA
With a Q6600 and an 8800GT, would you go to 700-800 watt PSU?

Nope. No need. 500 watts is plenty.

 

[cozumel]

Originally posted by: DSF

Originally posted by: CPA
With a Q6600 and an 8800GT, would you go to 700-800 watt PSU?

Nope. No need. 500 watts is plenty.

I always go for taking into account the aging process. IE in two years time a 500W PSU will probably only output aound 400W. Therefore if you want a PSU that will last the amount of time you keep the rig and has potential to overclock you need at least 600W imo. Obviously the 600W is overkill when you first start using it, but it does futureproof you to a certain extent.

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: cozumel

Originally posted by: DSF

Originally posted by: CPA
With a Q6600 and an 8800GT, would you go to 700-800 watt PSU?

Nope. No need. 500 watts is plenty.

I always go for taking into account the aging process. IE in two years time a 500W PSU will probably only output aound 400W. Therefore if you want a PSU that will last the amount of time you keep the rig and has potential to overclock you need at least 600W imo. Obviously the 600W is overkill when you first start using it, but it does futureproof you to a certain extent.

If you buy a quality PSU, I think you're exaggerating that issue.

 

[cozumel]

Originally posted by: DSFIf you buy a quality PSU, I think you're exaggerating that issue.

Yes and no. It all depends on usage I suppose. If you always leave your computer powered up 24/7 365 days a year and/or on full load then it could deteriorate more quickly but on the other hand if you don't typically use the PSU on full load and don't leave it switched on 24/7 then the aging process would be a lot slower. I'm just averaging out which is why used the word 'probably' as their is no definite. And yes, with a quality brand such as Antec, Corsair, Enermax etc who only use quality components then you are less likely to get into difficulties. I've just seen too many PSUs literally go up in smoke, once when I had been called to an office to 'repair' their system which was playing up and I could smell something burning as I walked in the door (the PSU)

So what it comes down to is the way the end-user treats his PSU.

Is that fair?

 

[DSF]

Originally posted by: cozumel
So what it comes down to is the way the end-user treats his PSU.

Is that fair?

Sure. I think anyone would agree that how long a component lasts depends on how it's treated.