Hey Guys - Please help me with my 1st Build!!!! ($2500)

[fruees]

Guys - i'm pissed off with the majority of c**p on offer and have opted for a cool dual monitor self build.
This is my first time so i need to use your experience to make sure i don't order incompatible/stupid combinations of components......
I'm going to use it for:

Gaming
Excel calculations and market formulae
Translating
Movies

Budget - £1,200 ($2,300)

Hence, i'm going for something pretty slick. I heard that there's some cool stuff coming out next spring but prob won't be really good for another couple years.
I've had some ideas so far as to what I'm gonna buy - Please feel free to tear apart my suggestions in place of your knowledge:

Processor - Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66GHz 12M Cache
Monitors - 2X Samsung SyncMaster 2253BW 22"
GPU - 4870HD
Memory - either 4GB DDR3 or 8GBDDR2 (please suggest)
Power - Akasa 850W AK-P085FG-BK PowerMax
HD - Prob 2X 500GB in RAID (if this is possible)
MOBO - Have no idea


Thanks guys - sorry if I sound like a moron - this is my first time.

 

[zvandy]

With that kind of budget, you definitely should be looking into Crossfire or SLI. Keep in mind the 4870X2 come out in another two weeks (I might be wrong on this date, especially if you're not in the US as you don't seem to be).

As far as mobos, definitely go for a X38 or X48 to get the most out of your Crossfire set up.

Most people are going to say don't jump on the DDR3 train yet and to be honest 8gb of DDR2 is probably overkill even for your system (but it is dirt cheap nowadays...)

I'm not sure about that power supply, look into Corsair, Antec, PC PC Power and Cooling brands

Good luck with your build man, it's gunna be great

 

[bdollar]

go ddr2. make sure you are using a 64 bit OS for 4gb and over.

hdd are you thinking raid 0? or are you actually needing redundancy and thinking of going RAID 1? that will alter answers.

recommend a crossfire capabile mobo. may not want/need it now but nice to have option for better future proofing.

what kind of games do you play? that will also help with recommending stuff?

 

[bdollar]

also, did you start another of the same thread or am i missing something?

 

[50bmg]

mobo = x38 or x38

I like gigabyte

 

[pbrigido]

I do suggest 8GB of DDR2 RAM. I find myself mentioning this on many posts, and here is why. When you get a good amount of RAM in your system, you have the ability to turn off your HD caching in Vista. The benefit is that your computer no longer will use your HD for temp storage since you will have an abundant amount of RAM to use instead. For this, you will need a 64bit OS, such as Vista Ultimate 64bit in order to address all of your RAM.

Just my personal suggestion. Outside of that, nice build. It should be a great system for a while.

 

[fruees]

Cheers guys - I will go for the X48 just for future proofing and the ability to add DDR3 when it's better (if that's possible). a couple more questions:
1. do i need to worry about having dual monitors or will my setup cope?
2. for 8GB DDR2 should I get 2X4GB or 4X2GB?
3. I only want RAID because i hear it's much faster, hence which type?
4. If i go with the 4870HD, i'll be able to another another 4870HD in the future right? (or even an additional 480HDX2)?
Thanks for the help guys

 

[bdollar]

If you are just looking for speed don't raid. all real raid options aren't faster. raid 0 isn't really raid. it doesn't give you any redundancy. meaning it links two drives so if either fails you lose everything in both. someone may be a little more knowledgeable than me but I don't think the benefit of 2 500 gb drives in radi 0 vs. 1 nice storage dr (like wd 640gb) or even 1 of those for storage and a smaller 10k drive like the WD raptor for gaming is really there? you can almost get a 1tb 32mb cache drive for the cost of the 2 500's in RAID.

 

[bdollar]

oh and yes you can crossfire two 4870's with that mobo.

 

[pbrigido]

I would stick with 4x2GB for DDR2.

 

[Shadow703793]

1. Get a better PSU. That Akasa PSU is not the best of quality. I recommend you get a Corsair or a PC Power & Cooling PSU. For a single 4850 based PC Get a Corsair 550VX or a PP&C 610. For CrossFire 2*4850 get a Corsair 750TX or a PP&C 750.

2. I do hope you know that you need a 64bit OS to run more than 4GB RAM.

3. Imo, unless you are doing some very heavy CAD, photo/video editing you won't need 8GB. If you must get 8GB get 4*2GB DDR2 800. Don't get DDR3 it is too expensive now and DDR3 prices will drop when Nehalem is released (if upgrading to Nehalem you will need new CPU/Motherboard/RAM). Don't even consider getting boards that have both DDR2 and DDR3 as those boards usually have problems.

The 4850/4870 are good choices now, you might want to wait a bit so the 4870X2s are released. AFAIK you can't CrossFire with a 4870 and a 4870X2 you will need a 4870.

For motherboard I recommend X48-DS4 or ASUS P5E. Both are top quality and X48.

 

[bdollar]

shadow,

what about the ability to turn off hd caching mentioned above? seems like a good reason to go with 8mb?

 

[Shadow703793]

I am assuming the cacheing he mentioned was the pagefile.

You can see more info here:
http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

 

[bdollar]

unless i am missing something it seems like if you can afford 8gb that may be a good reason to do it.

 

[Shadow703793]

^Yup. RAM is cheap these days, but you still NEED a x64 OS to use more than 4GB RAM. Again imo, 8GB is overkill on XP unless you are doing some CAD work.

 

[pbrigido]

Here is another referrence on the pros and cons pertaining to 4GB / 8GB of RAM.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/vista-workshop,1775.html

 

[bdollar]

shadow that is where you have me confused. sorry for being a pest. if you are getting 8gb to disable the page file so it doesn't have to access your harddrive, seems like that would be benefit rather than just for CAD work?

 

[zenmaster]

Without Specifying actual parts since availability or even product names can vary across the pond I would consider the following....

X48 (I'm Partial To Gigabyte - but Asus and others are good.)
This will give you excellent XFire ability.

Q9550 - This will drop in price in a few days to the Q9450 price.
It should be a good buy in your price range.

4870X2 - This should be released very shortly and will be a great buy.
You can add a second in the future.

8GB of DDR2 w/64 Bit Vista. The extra cost is quite minimal.

Don't Worry about RAID. The gain is not a big as some claim.
Try Pricing a Velocity Raptor into your build.
The most recent tests I've seen show it destroying even the old Raptors or any other HDD even when they are running RAID 0.

Consider adding the F1 1GB Drive for Storage. It's one of the fastest drives around after the Velocity Raptor.

 

[Shadow703793]

shadow that is where you have me confused. sorry for being a pest. if you are getting 8gb to disable the page file so it doesn't have to access your harddrive, seems like that would be benefit rather than just for CAD work?

OK, what I mean is you need a 64it OS in order to disable the pagefile and get 8GB RAM. Also depending on what you do you still need to have at least a 1GB-1.5GB pagefile as some programs depend on the pagefile even if it's not needed. Even without 8GB RAM you can reduce the pagefile depending on what programs are running. You can usually disable this at around 3GB on XP. Not sure on Vista as it is a much bigger RAM hog. If you have the OS and the money go for the 8GB.