Help me Build my First Intel

[177ine177ine]

After constant reviewing and hours of reading, I've decided to make my next build an Intel Conroe. The problem? I've never built an intel and I have no clue what kinds of things to look for.

I've been given 2000 canadian dollars to build a system, basically about 1600 or a bit more american. I've got most of my system planned out but the rest is the bit i need help with. The system is to be built at the end of september. All I have which i want so far is the 150 gigabyte raptor.

If you guys could please help me out with a system with the intel conroe. I will probably get the E6600.

My last system was an AMD 3500+ with 2 gigs of ram 4X512, a8n-sli, a 6600gt, and a 74 gig raptor. I was very impressed with the raptor which makes me want to buy the next best thing, the 150 gig raptor.

The motherboard is what really confuses me. I would like ddr2 800 support but is that really necessary. Is the price of the ram and mobo going to be too much with 800 memory? THe mobo has to be an LGA 775 though right?

The graphics card is also something that bugs me. I would like the best performance for my price, but would it be best to downgrade the conroe for a better video card. I was considering the 7900gt but it is really buggy as I've heard. I've long been a fan of nvidia but if there is something i can buy in my price range for good performance by ATI that would be amazing too.

Thanks for all your help in advance and I look forward to reading your replies.

 

[Doughbuy]

Well, 1600 bucks U.S. I was thinking of building a Conroe computer with a budget of around 2k, but if I cut out watercooling then I'll give you something around 1600 bucks. BUT, the Conroe price has risen dramatically, so unless you pre-ordered it for 340 or so, you might be paying up to 400 or so for the E6600, either way, here we go.

Case - Something around 50-100, I've only looked at high end cases so I'm not sure what you can get, but there are many options out there. I've heard good things about the TT Tsunami

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811133133

Mobo - Asus P5W-DH Deluxe $250 (Best 975X mobo for Conroe. Yes, its LGA775)

CPU - Conroe E6600 $400 (Worst case scenario)

GPU - Leadtek PX7900GT Geforce 7900GT - $270

PSU - OCZ GameXStream 600W - $130

Memory - CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) SDRAM DDR2 800 - $200

HDD - (Lose the Raptor, get two HDD's in Raid) 2 * 320 GIG SATA II - $150 (you can get them that cheap on sale)

Misc - (mouse, keyboard, dvd-burner, accessories) - $100

And that barely puts you at 1600. If you want a monitor, then things gotta start getting toned down more. I like Nvidia, and even if it is buggy, the 7900GT is a good card. And a 150 gig raptor is around 239 bucks or so, save the money and buy 2 other hdd's with more storage and raid will give you near equal performance.

 

[Plekto]

About the drives. If you have that much money, get three and do a proper raid setup. Data recovery is awful. They wanted $2400 to recover my old email(got the rest put back together) - so for now I have my old system minus 3 years of email.

As for a case, a case is a case. Invest in a good power supply.

 

[177ine177ine]

Hi. Thanks for the quick replies. That Asus board really does look good and i will probably pick it up. My local computer shop is showing the E6600 at 409 canadian dollars right now and its in stock, so that looks pretty good. I was looking towards the 7900gt and now i will probably pick it up. I don't need a monitor as i already have a 19 inch but i will probably eventually buy another.

The raid thing really confuses me. How does it work and what does it require? And what did that one guy mean when he said you should do it proper with 3 drives?

Thanks for the help.

Keep in mind i'm not purchasing until at least sept 15th area.

Thanks

 

[Plekto]

There are multiple types of Raid. Wikipedia has an excellent primer on it.

Quick and dirty, though:
Raid 0: two drives working together as one.
Pros:Twice the capacity, twice the speed.
Cons:If either drive dies in any way, everything is gone. Data recovery won't even help in most cases. Works best with identical drives, but isn't necessarry.

Raid 1: two drives paralleling each other.
Prosata is always backed-up. If one dies, you can run as-is with one or put a replacement drive in and have it rebuild itself.
Cons:Only a little faster than a normal drive. You waste a drive's worrth of space. Requires identical drives to work best.

Raid 5: A stack of interleaved drives. This is basically Raid 0 with an added Raid 1 drive for data integrity.
Pros: Speed, reliability, data is secure. Scaleable to dozens of drives. Will rebuild itself from a drive failure automatically - just drop in a new drive and reboot the box. Any drive will work, just about. Very fast - commonly seen in server environments as teh more drives you add, the faster it gets, bit by bit.
Cons: Three drives minimum, every 3-4th one is wasted space. Lots more heat and power requirements.

Raid 5 used to be la-la land for us mortals. Then you could get a WD 250 Gig enterprise edition drive for $79 and 600W+ power supplies came out. If you have the budget, Raid5 is silly fast. 500Gig will cost you ~$240 up front, though, and you need a motherboard that can handle it.

But $1600 is easily enough to make this work. I really dont recomend anyone run a system without some sort of Raid-like backup for their data anymore, given how inexpensive drives are and how they only last a year or so anymore. I've had two drives die on me in as many years. Never again.

 

[177ine177ine]

Sounds like the real deal. However, if I was to use Raid 5, doesn't that mean that the 3rd drive has to be equal or greater than the combined capacity of the other two drives that act as if they're in raid 0?

Also, is heat and a big problem and would a 600 watt power supply handle this and a 7900gt. How do you set this up on the asus mobo i'm planning to get?

Thanks for the reply

 

[177ine177ine]

Would something like this work?
http://www.infonec.com/site/main.php?module=detail&id=16544
This is one of my local shops i mite buy some of my stuff from.