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Advice for my First Build

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meng85   10-03-2008 at 11:36:27 AM

So this will be my first build, I intend to use it for primarily gaming but school work as well.
This is what I've planned so far: (Trying to stay under or around $1000)

PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

Graphics Card: VisionTek 900244 Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

RAM:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor

Mother Board: ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

Hard Drive:

Just wanted to see if everything thus far is compatible?
Im unsure about the hard drive and the RAM way too many choices...any advice?
Thanks in advance!


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huron   10-03-2008 at 11:50:36 AM
- 0 +

This looks good.

HDD - Western Digital 640 GB - $75 - great drive (awesome performance and price per gb)

RAM - get 2x2GB of DDR2 800 w/ low cas latency (4 if you can) and standard voltage (1.8v).

Reply to huron
resonance451   10-03-2008 at 01:01:30 PM
- 0 +

Are you overclocking your processor? No reason to get that video card unless you're running high resolutions and have a processor that can keep up. For a budget build (as opposed to a $2000-$5000 monster) I'd say a GTX260 or HD 4850 is a plenty powerful card and allows you room for other components.

For the HDD, my favorite choice is either the 640GB WD, or a Seagate with 32mb cache. The 32mb cache has solved lots of performance problems for me.

As for RAM, G.SKILL has a 2x2gb DDR2800 kit for about $65 that runs at 1.8v stock and has 5-5-5-15 timings. Can't beat that. I've used it a time or two and it's the highest rated on Newegg.

Don't forget that you need to get a case, a copy of windows, and a dvd drive as well.

------------------------------ Intel qx9650 @3.81GHz (10x multi) + EVGA 780i SLI mobo @381MHz FSB
2x EVGA 8800GT 512mb OC'd, OCZ DDR2 1066MHz 4gb
OCZ 850W PSU, Seagate 750GB HDD SATA 32mb cache CM Stacker 830 SE
Sound setup: FireFace 800, JBL 4328 speakers
 Reply to resonance451
meng85   10-03-2008 at 09:20:56 PM
- 0 +

I would like to eventually overclock the processor, just not right out of the gate though...I figure after i read up and feel a bit more confidant about it. But if you think the HD 4850 should be enough I'd be happy for the saving of a $100.

Now for the hard drive is there a difference between having a 16 or a 32mb cache? and what about rpm? does it make a tremendous amount of difference?

for the dvd drive i think i was going to go with this:
SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 22X DVD-R 16X DVD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe

as for the operating system i am going to end up using Vista 64-bit Home Premium

The case I know it's a lot about personal preference, but are there certain criteria I should be looking for as well?

Reply to meng85
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