Target: Gaming (COD4, assassins creed, ....), downloading and I want to OVERCLOCK a bit...
Budget: 1000-1500 euro or 1500-2400 dollar

FIRST: is it worth it to make your own desktop over buying one in a shop??
Will I be able to make it myself?? by following tutorials?? I don't want to end up spilling 2400$ and having some pieces I can't bring together

Second: Can u guys help me solve all the "I dont knows" in here?? ;p

CPU: I dont know:
E8400 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115037 OR Q9450 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] &Tpk=Q9450

mobo: I dont know
I would like to OC and maybe leave an option for crossfire later on

RAM: corsair 4GB 1066:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145214

PSU: I dont know
depends on the crossfire or not...

OS: vista premium (get it from a friend)

case: I dont know
P182 maybe...

GPU: a single 4870

CPU cooler: Xigmatek SH13082? (or something like that)
I want a good cooler but also not to much noise...

CD/DVD burner: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827151154

monitor: I dont know 22 inch

Mouse/keyboard: I dont know

thanks!!

CPU: Depends. For gaming and OC'ing only, E8400. For multitasking, video editing, etc, Q9450.
Mobo: Rampage is fine but this is cheaper: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128336
Ram: Save yourself some money and get this set with the same timings and lower voltage: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231166
PSU: This will let you use two 4870's if you get 2 now or one now and want to upgrade later: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139006
OS: Get a 64 bit Vista, whichever one you think you need
GPU: What resolution will you be gaming at: That'll determine how many 4870's you need. Asus makes the cheapest 4870 at $255 after rebate.
CPU cooler: This is the best for anywhere near the price: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835233003
Also get this so you don't have to use push pins to mount the cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835233019
DVD burner: this one is slightly faster: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827136147

Those are good questions to ask, and donuts answered them well.

Don't worry too much. Putting a desktop together will save you money, is not as difficult as you think, and is a lot of fun to do. Follow along in the manuals (mobo, case, etc) and you'll do just fine. In all honesty, it's not bad at all. Take your time.

Good luck. Looks like you have a nice build.

I usually prefer SATA on burners and harddrives

Good work, donuts.

An IDE burner is a good idea if you get the GA-X48-DS4 and want 6 hard disks. If you can live with 5 HDD or less then you will have a SATA port for the burner and you might as well get a SATA burner. The SH-S203N is good, for example.

I am very impressed with LG's burners. I use mine to burn everything, even though I have a Plextor too, which cost 3 times more. The only problem LG has is described here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riplock

There's a Samsung burner with Lightscribe and the same speeds for $1 more.

thanks guys!!

So in my case that would be a E8400 and I'm going to try overclock it to 4Ghz

At the end the 20$ doesn't matter, but I mean can I also do it with like a P45 or X38? or should I take X48?

Nice, but I doubt about having G-skill in Europe...
Found it!! so thats a good thing...

Ok, now the question is do I even need 2?

I don't know the difference wich one do I take?

I'm going for a 22 inch screen so...?

Yeah, aevm told me to take one, so I'm gonna order him in the only shop in The Netherlands/Belgium that sells them for 80$

But I heard it's not a good one or something..

And what about the case?? P182? or is there for thesame or lower price a more silent en better cooling case??


THANKS!

anyone?? ^^^^

You should probably get Get Vista Home Premium 64-bit. Your next option would be Ultimate 64-bit, but if you don't know the differences I'm almost sure you're better off not paying for them. Anyway, compare features here and then decide:
http://support.teloep.org/vistaver.htm

CoD 4 is probably the best written game in the world when it comes to supporting multiple video cards. If that's your favorite
game, then it's worth buying two video cards. For example I've seen benchmarks where they used a 790fx motherboard and tested the game with 1 HD 3850 (I think, or maybe it was 3870???), then with 2, then with 3, then with 4. It kept getting better, and by a lot, almost linear scaling. For example, to compare, Crysis added some 30% or so for card #2, extremely little for #3 and nothing for #4.

Case: unfortunately, silence and cooling go in opposite directions. The more fans and the more airflow you have, the better cooling but more noise. For example the P182's priority is silence, rather than cooling. The Antec 900's priority is cooling, rather than silence. There are cases that do very well on both silence and cooling but they tend to cost a lot (like Lian-Li's and Silverstone's $300+ models).

You could try something like RC-690, for example. Use it as it is with a single HD 4870, and when you add the second video card (if you do, of course) also add a couple of SFF21E fans. You could also use a fan controller, so that fans run slower (and quieter) when you're just surfing or watching movies.

k, so I go with premium i think, looks good
What u mean not pay for it?

I don't have COD4 yet, so
I just mean I will play recent games and I like some decent graphics, It doesnt need to be a huge screen with ultrafine graphics but just decent.

Now the main problems are: will I take crossfire or a single 4870? Then I will be able to take a lower cost motherboard and PSU etc...

So what performance will the 4870 do? WOW at full settings? COD4 at full settings? If that is possible I don't want anything more, I'm not editing movies and doing graphic things etc... + it saves some $$ for the second GPU

So what can the single 4870 actually do?

And about the case: yea having both wil be inpossible with my budget, but the thing is maybe the sound I have with the Antec900 isnt even that much I dont know that, and maybe the P182 cools good enough to keep everything cool... I never had an own desktop so I don't know how it will be ...

thanks for the help!!

Vista Home Premium 64-bit is $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6832116488

Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit is $180
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6832116493

You decide if it's worth the extra $70. OK, it's convenient that it has SP1 already there, and it's got extra features, but $70 is quite a bit of cash too. I'm assuming you're not a student and eligible for discounts, btw. If you are then get the Ultimate, sure.

WoW will work without any problems at max on a HD 4870. In general Blizzard aims to make their games work fine on almost anything, so the HD 4870 is overkill there.

A single HD 4870 gets over 80 fps in CoD4 at 1920x1200, which is more than the monitors can usually display anyway. (60 Hz refresh rate means anything over 60 fps is wasted.)
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] =3341&p=14

Get an E8400 if you're just playing games (any games but FSX).

Tell you what, my feeling is that you'd be fine with a single HD 4870 and you don't actually need Crossfire support.

If you're not interested in RAID (and you shouldn't for a gaming machine), you can get a GA-EP43-DS3L for about $100. It has PCI-E 2.0, no second slot for Crossfire, no RAID. P5Q Pro would be better (adds RAID and Crossfire, $50 more). One of those should be enough. As for the case, the RC-690 is good value for the money. The P182 would be quieter, but a bit less roomy and more expensive.

thanks!!

I just saw another thread that showed the 4870 was prestating pretty good in crisis (40 fps), I'm not going to play that game anyway but it proves I'll have enough with a single one... Is the 4870 the strongest single card atm??

So now I save because I'll only have 1 4870+cheaper mobo+RC690+less watt CPU??? = 500$ saved !
And about the mobo, I'll be taking a 640GB 7200.11, is it right u can split a HDD in partitions?,
so the GA-EP43-DS3L will also do ok when I try to overclock the E8400 or Q9450 (just going to try that ) to 3.6-4GHz?

If all this is ok I'm almost done and ready to order!!!

Thanks A LOT man!

"Taking Vista from friends" is a good way to get in trouble. In fact, talking about it on a public forum is not a very good idea either.

Some people have hacked versions that eliminate Microsoft's checks, but those versions often come with other things hacked too and they send your passwords or copies of your e-mails to the hackers, or open ports so the hackers can read your files, maybe even modify them. Very risky. A typical example is when hackers take control of your PC and use it to send spam mail to others. Eventually you get blamed for sending the crap out, and your excuse "but I had an illegal copy of Vista, it's not my fault" will be rather embarrassing.

And then of course if Microsoft catches you you'll end up paying more than $110 to settle.

Plus, if it's hacked, I don't think you can get the periodic updates that are supposed to protect you from viruses and spyware. TBH I have no idea if they're that useful, but I am getting them anyway and so far I've been OK.




Don't judge video cards based on how they do in Crysis, unless you actually play Crysis a lot. That's a badly programmed game and the results there are often misleading.

The HD 4870 is the best card you can get under, say, $400, in the USA. The 9800GX2 and GTX 280 do beat it, at least in some games, but they normally cost a lot more. And then there's the 4870X2 that's supposed to come out soon, and then the 4850X2, etc.

There's no 640GB 7200.11 AFAIK. WD6400AAKS 640GB Western Digital is a very good hard disk at an excellent price, at least in North America. Seagate's 7200.11 series includes a 500GB and a 750GB which are pretty good, but no 640GB (unless I just haven't heard about it yet). Of course you can split a HDD in partitions. Something like 100GB for Vista for example would help keep the O/S separate, that's good practice.

GA-EP43-DS3L with DDR2-800 and E8400 should reach 3.6GHz without any overclocking. It's got a native fsb of 1600, that helps.

So:
E8400, GA-EP43-DS3L, 4GB DDR2 1066 corsair dominator, 500GB 7200.11 Seagate or 640 Samsung F1 spinpoint (wich is best?), vista premium, corsair 650W (or other brand, enough W?), Acer or samsung 22 inch monitor, Saphire HD4870, Xigmatek SH13082, coolermaster 690, Samsung DVD-burner

Is this a good system able to overclock to maybe 4GHz?

Get some DDR2-800 RAM, it's cheaper, usually.

HDD: Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB.

Yes, 650W is plenty for that setup.

Overclocking depends a lot on your luck and patience. That is, no 4GHz guarantees, sorry. See how much an E8500 costs too. If it's only $20 more than the E8400, like here, it's worth it IMO.

But isn't 1066 better for overclocking?
And first all people said take 7200.11 then they said F1 spinpoint! (other forum) and now a WD, theyre all 7200 rpm so all thesame speed? and wich one is the best quality then??
Yea, I'll take a E8500

For mobo what I'm looking for now is a mobo without Xfire and RAID but with the most performance when overclocking etc so the fastest one

What about this? Will it all work together and work well??
:

Yes, 1066 is better. OK, go for it.

LOL, of course different people recommend different things. Don't worry, WD and Seagate and Samsung all have good products. Go with that Seagate you show in the images, sure, it's a good drive.

In the first image: everything OK, I'm just not familiar with that monitor model.

In the second one:
I'd change the DVD burner to SATA instead of IDE.
Not familiar with that monitor either. In general Samsung gets very good reviews, so it's probably OK.
The Scythe Infinity is not that good. It needs two fans to achieve what the Scythe Ninja does with a single fan, for example.

You should probably shop at that second site - better prices. Give me the URL and I'll try to find you a better burner and cooler, OK?

the first shop has the best prices but he is located in The Netherlands while I live in Belgium, so transport costs will be 50 euro then...
I think I'll order everything in the first shop, exept the items that are cheaper in the second one (the town next to mine!), like the Q9450 etc...

And for the cooler I just put that one there because it has thesame price as the Xigmatek SH13082, wich I will order in another shop (the only one selling it in Belgium and The Netherlands!!)

And the burner will be this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 27151154??

And what do you think about the motherboard? is it better? can I get better ones? and the monitor?

Thanks! almost done!!