My First Build, please Check

[sayguh]

So this is my first attempt at putting together a kick butt system. Please let me know what you think.

Mobo - ASRockx38 - $107
Video Card - Radeon 4870x2 OC'd - $520
HDD Seagate 7200.11 - $60
Monitor Samsung 2253BW $210
Case XCLIO A380BK $110
PSU Corsair CMPSU 750W $99
RAM 2 x 2G Patriot DDR3-1600 $155
CPU Intel E8500 $189

Total ~ $1500

What do you guys think? It's my first build so please be gentle, but also tell me if something is horribly wrong, uncompatible or just a stupid buy.

A few notes: The Mobo runs x38 which I know is old but I don't really want to spend the money for a x48 and i want full speeds if i go crossfire, i also wanted DDR3 RAM to future proof myself. I don't know if I want to spend the extra money and get the E8600 so any comments on that would be good. The HDD and video card I got from Toms Hardware charts, just kind of pulled out ones near the top. A few of the items I found have open box specials on new egg which I'm excited about :-D

 

[coolgamer512]

First off, stay away from open box. I don't rust those things.

Also, ditch the Xcilio case, the Antec 900 is better

 

[slomo4sho]

You don't need DDR3 ram, you will never utilize it with the CPUs available on the 775 socket! Stick with DDR2 800. Secondly, get a better motherboard. I would recommend GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P or ASUS P4Q Pro.

And if you truly want the DDR3 ram, consider going with the i7 920. Expect an additional ~$300 increase in costs if you go this route.

 

[sayguh]

Since I'm new to all of this, could you explain why the DDR3 would not be utilized using a 775 socket. I did out a few calculations comparing DDR2 1066 with a CL of 5, and a DDR3 1333 CL9 and found that as long as the CPU receives more than 14 bits of information the DDR3 is the faster option. I didn't do any calcs with the 1600 but given the same CL it's going to yield even better results. Are you saying that the increase in speed will simply be too little that the difference will be unnoticable? Thanks for the quick response :-D

 

[slomo4sho]

The increased speed is definitely too small to be noticeable. RAM usually performs best in a 1:1 bus speed configuration of RAM frequency:CPU FSB. CPU FSB usually ends up being the limiting factor for higher clocked RAM as you see almost no performance increase by increasing RAM frequency to >1.

As far as DDR, only the i7 cores are truly designed to take advantage of the DDR3 standard.

 

[sayguh]

I looked around at the i7's this morning and I think that goes beyond my price range. The CPU's out for the i7 are all quad core and I don't want to spend that much, not to mention all the mobo's for i7 are new and expensive. I doubt I'd get the same bang for my buck.

As for motherboards, I'm trying to shy away from P45's since I'm thinking of going crossfire in a few months. I'd like to have either the x38 or x48 north bridge standard as it allows for full speed on both graphics cards.

I need to do more research on the mobo your def. right about that. Not too many people reviewed it on newegg and it seems cheap for what it can do. I may get it and use DDR2 RAM in it as I can get 2x the amount of ram for the same cost.

 

[billiardicus]

As others said, you don't need ddr3
Are you going to overclock? Use ddr2. You'll need a speed that is twice the FSB for 1:1 ratio. I think E8500 has a 10x multiplier, so for 4 ghz (10x400mhz), you'll only need DDR2 800. I'd get DDR2 1066 because you'll probably be able to beat 4ghz.

If you're going to overclock (and you should. It's fun and educational for the whole family), get a board that OC's well. And you'll need a better cpu cooler, so get one (I've got the xigmatek S1283...i think that's what it's called).

I don't know how big a HD you can get for $60, but I'd pay $100 and get a terabyte drive. Everytime I buy a small drive, I always end up having to buy another one.

If you want to save money, get a Centurion CAC 5 case (tons of positive reviews on newegg). I've got this one, and would buy it again.

Do you play FPS online? Have you heard of input/output delay lag? Basically, some LCD's lag CRTS when it comes to displaying the image. This means you die more and kill less. Read this http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=31&threadid=2049206

Hope this helps.

 

[sayguh]

I'm definitly starting to agree with you guys on the DDR2 issue. I think I'm going to go with OCZ Reaper DDR2 1066 2x 2 gig RAM. It's got a case level of 5.

I'm not really into overclocking so to me the motherboard not being very overclockable isn't a big deal. I just really like the mobo due to 1.) it's price, 2.) the ability to have DDR2 or DDR3 when the price goes down. and 3.) the x38 north bridge. I looked up a few reviews of that motherboard and although there aren't too many the general consensus is that it's ASRock's first go on a high end board so they did a good job with it and marked down the price so that they aren't immidiatly given a bad name. Keep the advice coming though :-D

Oh, also, I'm def. going to get a larger hard drive. It's just a matter of how big. Is it still recomended to do 1 hdd for OS and 1 HDD for everything else? Or does not having ur games on the C:\ drive cause problems?

 

[cmashwin]

why dont u get a present-generation q9300?? wud be a bit better overall, at the cost of 1-2 fps while gaming.. But wud be more responsive and OVERALL, a better buy IMHO..

 

[sayguh]

why dont u get a present-generation q9300?? wud be a bit better overall, at the cost of 1-2 fps while gaming.. But wud be more responsive and OVERALL, a better buy IMHO..

Yes yes yes completely agree. I forgot to update the post. The new version has:

ASUS P5E x38 Mobo
Q9400 Quad Core CPU

Will a 750W PSU be enough for the 4870x2? What if I also do crossfire with it? At that point i'm assuming I'd have to upgrade the PSU.

 

[sayguh]

Ok everyone, I want to first say thank you so much for your input. I'd also like you guys to welcome my new baby to the world! I just hit buy, so I hope it turns out good. Please let me know what you think of my final decision but also, be nice. It's never good to find out u made a bad choice, unless it's bad enough that I need to return something.

XCLIO A380BK Case
ASUS P5E x38 ATX mobo
2 Radeon HD4850
950W Rosewill PSU
Quad Core Q9400 CPU 2.66Ghz
OCZ Reaper 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 1066 RAM
750GB Samsung Spinpoint F1 HDD
Samsung 2253BW monitor
OCZ Vendetta 2 CPU Cooler

Plus mouse keyboard a couple fans etc. I hope it's as good as I'm excited about it :-D Thanks again guys!

 

[kotarti]

it looks good, i recently got the q9400 and a single 4850 and so far amazing.

 

[slomo4sho]

Other than the Rosewill PSU, everything looks good. I assume you picked that PSU because of the $160 bundle discount when paired with the Q9400?

900watts is a bit overkill for the setup you currently have. A quality 750watt PSU would have been a better choice. I would have considered one of these:

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006
OR
PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS750QBL 750W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817703019

 

[cmashwin]

well, since he has already purchased the system, congrats on a gr8 choice

 

[sayguh]

Yeah Slomo, I was going to get the Corsair 750W, I don't know much about power though (weird cause I'm an electrical engineer) But yeah there was 160 dollars off and I figured I can always reuse the PSU later in my next build. If getting too much power is the only thing I screwed up on, I think I'm good to go :-D

 

[kurtyboh]

looks nice, but if i coulda got 2 4850's now i would have just got a single 4870 and in a few months got another, especially with the large psu on it. Nice build though

 

[sayguh]

I'll def. be upgrading it eventually :-D It sucks the new i7 CPU and mobo's are sooo new. If this was 4-6 months down the road I would have been able to afford those. At this point the only thing I'll be upgrading before building a new rig will probably be RAIDing some HDD's and upgrading the Video cards. So if I eventually have 2 4870x2's in there crossfired, the extra power should be good :-D