First Build

[lilblam]

I'm tired of paying more than I have to and having limited choice of internal components on pre-built systems so I think it's time I try building my own. A bit nervous but with the internet full of instructions at my fingertips, some patience and care, I should be ok.

Here's the list of components and their newegg prices as of today:

CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor Model - $224
Video Card - Leadtek WinFast PX8800 GTS TDH GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail - $330
Monitor - Hanns·G HW-191DPB Black 19" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail - $175
Hard Drive - SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $115
Ram - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) ... Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ - Retail - $81
Sound Card - Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail - $33
Speakers - Cyber Acoustics A-3780rb 180 watts 2.1 Subwoofer and Satellite Speaker System - Retail - $82
Lan - Onboard.
CD/DVD - LG 20X DVD±R Super Multi DVD Burner Black ATAPI / E-IDE Model GSA-H55NK - OEM - $33
Power - Rosewill RP550-2 ATX 2.01 550W Power Supply - Retail - $55
Mobo - GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 (rev. 1.3) LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - $100
Case - COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel, SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail - $50

Mouse - Logitech G5 2-Tone 6 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB Wired Laser Mouse - Retail - $46
Keyboard - Logitech 967740-0403 Black USB Standard Internet 350 USB Keyboard - OEM - $10

OS = Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium DVD - Retail = $220

TOTAL = $1,334
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I intend to use it for gaming, audio/video encoding, high-def movie watching/re-encoding, and heavy multitasking (nothing crazy like gaming/encoding at the same time, honestly, who does that?!). Also anything else I can find to push my hardware to its limit like chess software, distributed computing projects, rendering nvidia demos and other junk I find on the internet that I can render just to experiment/have fun/learn - all that I'll do as well. Oh yeah also a lot of messing around in photoshop, but that's not an issue with any of the current hardware. Also thinking about learning Blender and trying out some 3d rendering fun.

I mean, all those youtube videos of fluid simulations have me drooling at the possibilities, though the complexity of the software and the insane time it takes to render a few seconds of something decent is ridiculous. According to my calculations based on some rough numbers of rendering times posted by various authors of those youtube videos, we'd need PC's about 100,000 times faster or more than current PC's to smoothly render particle-simulated water in real-time, or at least something that is close enough to pass off as water. Although it's really just a resolution of 300 or 400 and a pretty tiny amount of water - a few buckets worth. So to simulate a large body of water PLUS the rest of the game world PLUS AI and all that and at a much higher res than those youtube videos, the real number is probably a couple of million times faster than current hardware. Of course once we reach that plateau I'm sure I'll think of something else to drag that hardware to a grinding halt as well, and complain that we can't do that yet, but hey that's life.

Either way I can't wait - I have a fascination with physics simulation and artificial intelligence simulation and anything else with the word simulation in it and a lot of computing power. I'm getting tired with graphical shininess - I want to see some interactive physics and good AI - that's where the real fun would be, for me anyway. Online games sorta make up for the lack of AI cuz you play against humans, but hasn't anybody wished they could run into that 2for4 base and instead of going down the hallway to grab the flag, just blow up the base, pick up the burned flag among the scattered charred bodyparts, and bring it over to your base without any hallways or obstructions remaining as you blew them all up? I know you have. I'd gladly sacrifice polygons in favor of some nice particle-physics interaction. So if AMD can get their Fusion thing going (assuming the current fiasco doesn't kill them first, and for all our sakes we should hope not), I'd not mind if the graphics card is adapted to handle a large chunk of physics simulation and graphics took a little break and let physics/AI catch up to them. Down with static sprites!! K, done ranting

Back to the build, I am not sure about overclocking any components as I have never overclocked before, so that would be another first for me. So I have a few questions if you guys don't mind giving me some insight on.

- Any suggestions for different components to increase bang for the buck? (I'm contemplating getting E4300 and overclocking that instead, but I think the money saved would be marginal and I'm too lazy to look it up but I think less cache as well, so I probably wanna stick to E6600)

- Anything wrong or incompatible with my above selection, or any "poor quality" parts there?

- I know this CPU is a great overclocker, but without changing the above stock cooling and mobo choice, how far is it reasonable to go with it and still have it last at least 2 to 3 years? Is there a better overclocking mobo that is in the same price range? Based on all the benchies this CPU is plenty fast at stock 2.4Ghz. I don't want to go crazy with it and I'd like it to last. It should handle anything any game throws at it in the next 2-3 years, unless of course games take an unprecedented and sharp turn towards massive cpu-intensive physics/AI processing all of a sudden, which I think is unlikely. But if that happens (I dunno, again, with the AMD Fusion idea and whatever Intel might come up with, if they can really tap into GPU power then you just never know), and if my current build is suddenly useless, then I'll just build a new one at that time.

Appreciate any advice you guys offer.

 

[gators1223]

if you want to over clock past 3.2 ghz you are going to want better than stock cooling. As for poor quality parts, you psu rosewill doesn't have a good reputation and it is very cheap as psu's go and a psu problem can end up bring stuff down with it. This might be a good alternative

 

[ervinshiznit]

I personally don't trust Enermax, which Gators123 suggested. I would go with Silverstone, FSP, Thermaltake, Seasonic, etc.

The 640Mb 8800gts doesn't offer much of an advantage at resolutions of 1440*900, which is what your monitor supports, over the 320Mb 8800gts. Save that money for something else, like getting an awesome cpu cooler.

Here's an awesome cpu cooler: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835106061
But make sure that thing can fit in your case; it's freaking huge.

That ram is really nice...I've got that myself.

Overclocking is fine, as long as you keep the temperatures down and don't go crazy with the voltage.

 

[lilblam]

K I updated a few things. Let me know if anything is underpowered or just a bad component. I am getting a bigger monitor to hopefully justify the 640MB graphics, getting a Q6600 (I'll wait till July's price drop which should make it $225 or so I think), improved power supply, and basically avoided getting any parts that were so cheap/weak that they took away from the rest of the system. Also upgraded to 4 gigs of ram together with 64 bit Vista that can use it. Frankly all OS's should by now be 64 bit, it's weird that they're still hanging on to 32 bit when mainstream RAM is 2 gigs, and you know it's bad when mainstream is scratching at the limit of 32-bit OS's, that's when it's time to change, and I suspect that in 1-2 yrs from now people are going to 64 bit simply to meet various game/software requirements.

Anyway, here are the specs with prices as of today (stupid mobo went up..):

CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor - Retail - $485
Video Card - MSI NX8800GTS-T2D640E-HD OC GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card - Retail - $340
Monitor - Hanns·G HW-223DPB Black 22" 5ms HD 1080P supported DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail - $260
Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3500630AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM - $120
Ram - Patriot eXtreme Performance 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory... - Retail - $215
Sound Card - Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail - $33
Speakers - Logitech Z-2300 200 watts RMS 2.1 Speaker System - Retail - $99
Lan - Onboard.
CD/DVD - LG 20X DVD±R Super Multi DVD Burner Black ATAPI / E-IDE Model GSA-H55NK - OEM - $33
Power - OCZ GameXStream OCZ700GXSSLI ATX12V 700W Power Supply - Retail - $120
Mobo - GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 (rev. 1.3) LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - $120
Case - COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Aluminum Bezel, SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail - $50

Mouse - Logitech B58 930994-1403 White 3 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB + PS/2 Wired Optical Mouse - OEM - $11
Keyboard - Logitech 967740-0403 Black USB Standard Internet 350 USB Keyboard - OEM - $10

OS = Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit Single-Pack DVD OEM - $117 (ZipZoomFly)

TOTAL = $2013
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Things like mouse/keyboard/monitor are hard to buy without seeing/trying, so I'm thinking that once I get this stuff and try, I'll keep if I like how it works/feels/looks, and change if needed. I'm wondering though, is the case good enough or should I go for full-tower? And I'll probably not overclock the Q6600 so I assume the stock cooler is ok. Also, I don't really plan to upgrade it much, or add a 2nd graphics card etc. Most likely I'll just use this one and when it starts having difficulty playing games, it'll become my new "work" computer and I'll just buy a new system again from scratch for the games etc.

 

[FallenSniper]

Well, there are a few things I would change here.

I would change the Video Card to the eVGA. It's worth it for the $20 more I think.

For the monitor I would suggest/recommend the ChiMei 22" widescreen. I just got one and it is so beautiful.

As for Memory, I would actually suggest getting 3 1gig sticks. 4GB is a little bit overkill but you probably want more than 2...so I come up with 3 somewhere in there.

For the Mobo you might want to look into the p35 chipset rather than the old p965.

Just a few suggestions, but if you don't like them, don't worry, you system as it is will be just fine.

 

[lilblam]

Ok, though I'm confused about a few things if you don't mind elaborating on:

Why would you pick the eVGA for $350 with 500Mhz Core Clock and 1600Mhz memory clock instead of the MSI for $340 with 575Mhz Core Clock and 1700Mhz memory clock? I thought MSI was a popular and reliable brand as good as eVGA/Leadtek/BFG/XFX/ASUS etc? There's an eVGA for $380 that has the same clocks as the above MSI, maybe you meant that one? Though that's $40 more. And I'm not one to nitpick about little price difference, I'm just confused about why the lower-clocked but more expensive eVGA is the better choice.

As for the monitor, I'm thinking about these 4:

Monitor1 - Hanns?G HW-223DPB Black 22" 5ms HD 1080P supported DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail - $260 1000:1 contrast
Monitor2 - ViewSonic Optiquest Series Q22wb Black 22" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail - $240 900:1 contrast
Monitor3 - Acer AL2223Wd Black-Silver 22" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail - $240 800:1 contrast
Monitor4 - CHIMEI CMV 221D-NBC Black 22" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail - $250 800:1 contrast

The only difference seems to be the contrast ratio, though that of course does not mean the monitor cannot be crappy quality overall and still look bad, but it's not meaningless either. So are you saying that Hanns looks worse than the Chimei? Or you're simply recommending the Chimei cuz you know that it looks good, though you have not necessarily compared it to the Hanns?

And as for the memory, although there are no games that need 4GB now and probably in the near future, I read that you always want to have an even number of ram sticks to avoid the issue of your ram running in single-channel mode. If somebody could explain why that is, that would be nice. Although I don't think single-channel vs dual-channel is a big performance hit, I think it matters more for memory-intensive operations, as I'm under the impression that ram bandwidth is not the bottleneck in most things we do on our computers. Video/audio encoding/rendering is CPU-bottlenecked. Games are either graphics or cpu bottlenecked. Everything else is usually HD-bottlenecked. So I think dual-channel ram performance advantage is marginal as a result of everything else slowing your system down. Either way I think 4GB is good, leaves some elbow room for "messing around"

And mobo, thanks, good idea. I don't suppose there's a handy resource around here that lists chipsets and their release-dates and features all in like one place? Of all the things, motherboards are what I know least about, especially the subtleties and differences of various chipsets. The way I made the choice intitially is matching the CPU/Videocard/Case/Ram to make sure it is all supported, and looking for a brand I recognized. But I'm really horrible at telling apart chipsets and knowing what are the advantages/disadvantages there. I suppose overclockability is one, but that's prolly something people find out after they try it, not like a manufacturer-listed spec etc.

A bit of a change of plans probably based on this thread:
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/1333-FSB-Core-hitting-GHZ-stock-coolers-ftopict242247.html

This is my new mobo most likely (p35):
Mobo - GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail - $130

And now I'm thinking about one of those E6750 SOBs and overclocking it to like 3.5 or something. I think right now a 3.5Ghz dual-core wins over 2.4 Quad. On the other hand, I could wait and see if the g0 stepping quads overclock similarly, and go with that. I'd prolly go no more than 3Ghz with a quad, but that should be enough for a long time I think.