Newbie trying to build a new system... HELP!

[Griffin1373]

I'll say this flat out at the beginning: I r newb when it comes to building PC's. I have a rough idea of what I want, but I'm looking for advice/suggestions on my build to see if what I'm thinking is feasible.

CPU: AMD Athalon X2 3800 Manchester core
Mobo: Asus A8N-SLI w/ nVidia Nforce4 chipset
Memory: Corsair 2G matched pair 3200 XMS with 2-3-3-8 timing
HD: Western Digital 250GB w/ 16 meg cache and 300m/s transfer rate (going to RAID 0)
Video Card: Geforce 7800/7900 GT (suggestions on better one?"
Power Supply: COOLER MASTER EXTREME POWER 600W ATX 12V UL & FCC POWER SUPPLY FOR ATX CASES (in the description it mentions intel by name... does that matter? I thought all power supplies were made to be non-processor specific?)

Will also eventually get a SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS so I'm not stuck with crappy onboard sound.

PS: I've also heard that there are serious issues w/ the 7900 over the 7800, but I can't find any confirmation of that.

 

[CalvinHobbes]

Are you getting two HD's? You need more than one drive to do RAID.
Read some reviews of RAID 0 setups to see what kind of performance you can expect.

Get the 7900GT, there were some problems with the early revisions, but that's supposed to all be fixed now.

You don't need an SLI mobo unless you're planning on two 7900's some day.

Also, the AM2 motherboards and CPUs were just released in case you want the latest and possibly greatest.

 

[dodgybob]

I wouldn't go with raid 0, if one drive dies all your data dies with it. Perhaps consider a 74gb raptor for a speedy os and games drive and then the 250gb for storage if you want two drives.

The 7900gt is 24 pipes whilst the 7800gt is 20 pipes so a 7900gt performs about the same as a 24 pipe 7800gtx 256mb. It's not worth getting a 7800 of either type anymore. The 7900gt is also shrunk down to 90nm so runs cooler. There are issues having been reported though, usually by people whos card came factory overclocked past the default nvidia specification. Here's a thread about problems with it:

http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=76334

Bear in mind a lot of people have been buying this card and its probably a problem with a smallish number of them. If you have a problem as long as you buy from a decent grpahics card maker/etailer etc you should be fine to have it promptly replaced if by some chance you receive a faulty one.

The power supply.... when it says intel it just means that it supports one of the atx standards that intel require as minimum to power their cpus and motherboards i.e. just branding ignore that and just make sure it meets the requirements fot your motherboard, anything atx 2.0 upwards should be compatible. By the way 500W would be fine for that rig. Not sure how good cooler master psus are, i prefer seasonic and fsp/fortron/sparkle ones myself.

 

[pkme2]

Here are some links that should help. Building a new rig made easier.
http://sysbuild.corsairmemory.com/report.aspx?id=2
http://www.mechbgon.com/build/index.html
http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/
The last link has to do with one of the most important parts of your new computer build.
http://www.psuinquisitor.com/
Don't try to save when a quality rig also means a quality PSU.

 

[Griffin1373]

I may just use the 250 and partition it for storage/gaming. RAID was just one suggestion made to me. At the moment i'm only purchasing 1 HDD, but the mobo I'm getting supports RAID, so I can always turn it on at a later date. I've heard that Antek's were going down a bit in quality... (I have an Antek 350W in my system now), and the ppl I play BF2 with swear by Cooler Master... just my US $.02

 

[Howard]

How long can you wait to build?

 

[Ika]

definitely go with the 7900GT; the 7800 series is all but phased out.

Also, if you want hard drive performance, dont go with RAID 0 (i learned this after reading the Anandtech RAID-0 review). Rather, get a 74gb WDRaptor drive for fast games, then get another drive (possibly 160gb) for storage.

 

[Griffin1373]

Trying to build my system within the next 2-3 weeks. which KILLS me because I know the price on these processors etc is going to drop, but... whatchagonnado. I'm pretty budget limited atm, can't really afford gettting 2 hard drives.

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: Griffin1373
Trying to build my system within the next 2-3 weeks. which KILLS me because I know the price on these processors etc is going to drop, but... whatchagonnado. I'm pretty budget limited atm, can't really afford gettting 2 hard drives.

Budget limited? Why the SLI mobo?

I'd go with a different PSU.

 

[bob4432]

i wouldn't go raid 0 (twice as likely for drive failure), and also from what i know it would wipe out your existing hdd if you decided to add another one later (but i could be wrong), you just can't put in another hdd and set it to raid 0 since you need to setup up different parameters. if i am wrong somebody please correct me.

go the 7900gt

i would go seasonic/fsp(fortron)/pc&p/xclio/enermax/antec pcus. i have read the antec stuff has gone down in quality but i have used them for the last 7+yrs and haven't seen much in quality change. i have 7yr old 300W psus that are still working with no bad caps. antec had a run of bad caps in i think their 430W models and that pissed a lot of people off. it is kind of like the ibm deathstar hdds, people need to get over it unless i am missing something.

don't get too hung up on the hdd being sata 150MB/s or sata 3.Gbs as it is just theoretical transfer speeds. a 7.2K rpm hdd will sustain less than 65MB/s, the 10K raptor and 15k scsi will be ~80-90MB/s with better seek times.

unless you need it, i would wait on the soundcard to see if the onboard sound is that bad. some people expect a performance gain when adding a external soundcard, but contrary to soundblaster's claims, it isn't going to happen. unless you get a nice speaker setup the onboard sound should suffice.

 

[Griffin1373]

Ok, I can easily cut out the soundcard, non RAID. I'd keep the HDD in the off chance I did reset my system to RAID somewhere down the line... 250g is plenty of storage space for me. Thanks for all the input, this is making my decision go a LOT faster.

 

[Griffin1373]

Edit: I want an Asus mobo, this one just happens to be SLI enabled. I don't know of any A8N mobo's that aren't SLI. anyone know of one?

 

[Howard]

Originally posted by: Griffin1373
Edit: I want an Asus mobo, this one just happens to be SLI enabled. I don't know of any A8N mobo's that aren't SLI. anyone know of one?

A8N5X
A8N-E

 

[rijet0711]

Not a bad build.. however, if you are not going SLI, A8N-E is the way to go.