Author Topic: Building a new PC (Read 325 times)

Clutz · « **on:** January 03, 2007, 02:53:55 PM »

O Tay, its time for conroe. It's going to break me, but I figure "if its worth doing, its worth doing right", as the saying goes. My PC is on the blink, cutting on and off at mysterious times for whatever reason and I fear I may be without soon. Mainly what I need this build for is AH. Everything else I do with a computer is generic. So may I ask what is the best? I have conroe x6800 in mind, but I need these items:

1) Mobo
2) video card
3) 2 gigs of ram
4) case/power supply
5) proper cooling that is quiet

I realize to ask what is the best could mean different things to different people, but if you guys would be kind enough to throw some ideas my way, it will give me a starting point for any research that I may need to do. Also, any comments, pros and cons, of any particular item mentioned would be appreciated as well. Thanks to you all very much, Clutz

Reschke · « **Reply #1 on:** January 03, 2007, 04:27:32 PM »

Here is what I ended up with for just a little over $1700.

1)Core 2 Duo E6600
2)EVGA 680i motherboard
3)CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
4)EVGA 8800 GTS 640MB video card
5)WD Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
6)Thermaltake Armor Jr case (case comes with 120mm fans already installed, I was going to get the Antex 900 series but I did not like the layout inside the case. I do like the angled USB, sound headers on top though.)
7)Thermaltake ToughPower W0117 750W power supply (I would have gone with modular instead of this one.)

Nomak · « **Reply #2 on:** January 03, 2007, 06:57:22 PM »

I am by no means a guru about puters. That being said here are a couple of my thoughts.....

The E6800 is a bit pricey for me. The E6600 is really a better choice IMO. It can be overclocked past E6800 speeds with just a decent air cooler.

I always use Asus boards. They have always been great for me and they are fantastic for overclocking.

If you can afford it the Nvidia 8800 series is the way to go. Forget about SLI or Crossfire. Its just not necessairy.

I really like Corsair XMS DDR2 ram. I am using DDR800 and it rocks. Its very overclockable to.

I prefer full towers. The Thermaltake Armor is hard to beat for $150. Antek has some nice cases also.

I am running a WD RaptorX 150gig 10k rpm drive. Its really fast and really expensive. If I were to do it again I would run 2 Seagate 320 gig 7200 rpm perpendicular recording drives in raid. Both of those Seagates cost less than my single raptor.

For air cooling Zalman is tough to beat. I was running a PentD805 all the way up to 4.0 Gig on a Zalman air cooler. I dont know poop about water cooling but I hope to learn once my current newegg bill is paid off

Hope some of that helps. Most of all dont rush, I did and I wish I would have taken more time picking things out.
Dave

SuperDud · « **Reply #3 on:** January 03, 2007, 07:53:06 PM »

If you buy an ASUS motherboard be prepared to upgrade the BIOS. It says that they are conroe compliant but they aren't.

Nomak · « **Reply #4 on:** January 03, 2007, 10:07:02 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by SuperDud
If you buy an ASUS motherboard be prepared to upgrade the BIOS. It says that they are conroe compliant but they aren't.

Do you know if thats a issue with all Asus boards or just one particular model?

I went from my D805 to an E6600 last week with no issues. <--P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe>

maybe I was just lucky?

Dave

Schutt · « **Reply #5 on:** January 04, 2007, 11:02:29 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by SuperDud
If you buy an ASUS motherboard be prepared to upgrade the BIOS. It says that they are conroe compliant but they aren't.

That is the case with all motherboards, and they are hard to flash if you only have a conroe. So let the seller assure you the model runs with conroe with the installed bios.

It is definetly not on all asus boards, just some and its definetly on all manufacturers, not only asus.

Quote

Originally posted Nomak
I am running a WD RaptorX 150gig 10k rpm drive. Its really fast and really expensive. If I were to do it again I would run 2 Seagate 320 gig 7200 rpm perpendicular recording drives in raid. Both of those Seagates cost less than my single raptor.

The Raptor has still a much better seek/access time, but probably the size and transfer rate for the seagates as well as the noise level make the raid option better.
Apart from that i agree with nomaks reccomendations.

Brenjen · « **Reply #6 on:** January 04, 2007, 01:48:06 PM »

Use the ASUS udate tool & you can flash the bios easy cheesy right off a saved file on the internet, no need to use floppies or anything else. I just flashed mine a couple days ago.