Building a PC

[Sokar408]

I'm putting together a PC for the first time in my life here, so bear with me.

Now my plan is to make a PC that is a 100% ready for to run 2x Inno3D GeForce 9800GTX, however I will start out with 1.

heres the total setup:

ASUS P5N-D (Motherboard)
Core 2 Quad Q9300 2.5 GHz (CPU)
NorthQ NQ-4775-1000 Giant Reactor (PSU)
WD Caviar GP WD5000AACS 500 GB (Hard Drive)
1-2x LG GSA H55N Super-Multi (DVD burner drives)
OCZ 2 x 2 GB (SLI ready Dual Channel RAM)
1x Inno3D GeForce 9800GTX - Later upgrading to 2 of them (Graphic Card)
Antec Nine Hundred (casing)

A few questions:

SLI ready RAM and what not, will ofc work with just 1 GFX card right? (As the SLI is a future upgrade)
I have looked at the ASUS P5N-D and is worried that it won't be possible to fit 2x GeForce 9800GTX in it. Will it fit?
Also I have heard something about the ASUS P5N-D having alot problems, resulting in one being unable to play and watch video files, anyone that knows about this, and can tell me if its isolated cases, or driver issues?

Beyond this, I would like any and all recommendations you guys can give me. Any comments are appreciated

Thanks in advance

 

[Sokar408]

I'll also add, that I might consider upgrading with another OCZ 2 x 2 GB (SLI ready Dual Channel RAM) later on, but when their are dual channeled, is this gonna work out?

Sorry I'm still new to all this Hardware stuff

 

[dagger]

Don't worry about the ram. "SLI ready" is a marketing gemmick to make you pay more money for the same thing. Ram is ram, ddr2 is ddr2, and has nothing to do with sli.

See benchmark regarding 9800gtx:
http://en.expreview.com/2008/04/03/geforce-9800gtx-review/12/

Keep in mind, due to q9300's low multiplier (7.5x), you'll likely only manage to overclock up to 3.0ghz on 750i board due to fsb bottleneck.

 

[Sokar408]

I see, how do you know all this?

I'm sorry, I might be good with a PC when its turned open, and it comes to programs, but overclocking and hardware is just not my field.

What will this low multiplier mean for me? and what exactly is the function of the Front Side Bus speed?

Also I would like some answers on the rest of the questions And please, what does Dual Channel RAM really mean, and what impact does it have? and will it work with lets say, 2 sets of Dual Channeled RAM?

 

[chookman]

You might find it hard finding an Antec900 soon, cause i think they are going to be EOL soon, 1200 is the replacement.

I was still of the thought that most 7xx series Nforce chipsets didnt like then new 45nm Quads.

 

[Sokar408]

Chook man, I sure hope not, cause the 1200 is waaay more then I wanna spend a casing.

Also, I think I said this a few times, I really dont know anything about Hardware, so if there is a problem in the setup, please dont ask me if its wrong, let me know its wrong

Answers and recommendations would make me a happy panda!

 

[ZaphodB]

I see, how do you know all this?

I'm sorry, I might be good with a PC when its turned open, and it comes to programs, but overclocking and hardware is just not my field.

What will this low multiplier mean for me? and what exactly is the function of the Front Side Bus speed?

Also I would like some answers on the rest of the questions And please, what does Dual Channel RAM really mean, and what impact does it have? and will it work with lets say, 2 sets of Dual Channeled RAM?

The CPUs overall is clock speed is the Front Side Bus (FSB) x multiplier (7.5 in your case). The FSB is the data transfer bus that carries information between the CPU and the northbridge of the Motherboard. It is also generally linked to memory speed. The low multiplier means to get an overclock higher than 3GHz, you would have to raise the FSB past 400, and it's unlikely the 750i will tolerate that.

In terms of the rest, it seems ok. I wouldn't worry too much about the memory yet - I wouldn't think going from 4 to 8 Gig would give a particularly noticeable performance boost in most situations, though I may be wrong (only have 4G myself, so I'm only guessing) By the way, Dual channel means the memory controller on your motherboard has two 64-bit buses instead of one to channel data from the RAM to the CPU. This basically means you have double the throughput of information You haven't stated the speed of the RAM - For this setup it should be DDR2-800 (sometimes called DDR2-6400).

In terms of the graphics, the next generation of NVidia cards should be coming out in a couple of months, so you may want to wait and see how they perform before upgrading with another 9800GTX.


Sorry if this is a bit long-winded,hope it helps.