About to buy pc really soon! need input. PLZ 1000 -1250$ US

[inwood07]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: in 2 hours

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming, music, applications,

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: monitor, keyboard, mouse

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: newegg, ewiz, tigerdirect

PARTS PREFERENCES: intel/nividia

OVERCLOCKING: Yes mild SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:


HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM
$74.99

CPU Cooler: Scythe MUGEN-2 SCMG-2000 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler - Retail
$36.99

PS: CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power ... - Retail

Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
$229.98

Video Card: MSI N260GTX-T2D896-OCv4 GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail (will this be enough for my monitor resolution? i am very undecided about this card)

RAM: OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Voltage Desktop Memory Model OCZ3P1600LV6GK - Retail

$234.99

Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P Core i7/ Intel X58/ DDR3/ CorssFireX & 3-Way SLI/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard (ewiz)
$210

CPU: i7 920
250$ microcenter

SAMSUNG DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223L - OEM
$23.99

EDIMAX EW-7128G PCI Wireless Card - Retail
$19.99

ARCTIC COOLING MX-2 Thermal Compound - Retail
$7.98


TOTAL after shipping/before rebates: ~1130$

did i miss anything?

 

[astrodudepsu]

that looks fine to me. you've made solid choices all around.

the GTX260 will do just about anything you want at that resolution, although if you could afford the bump up to a 275 it would be of some benefit.

 

[gkay09]

^+1 All are good choices...but if you can get the GTX 275...for that resolution, it would best suit for the current games...

 

[geofelt]

I think your prices for the case and ram are too high.

A GTX275 would be more appropriate to your budget , gaming resolution, and cpu.

 

[inwood07]

$229.98 is a combo for case/ps
$234.99 is a combo for video card/ram

sorry for the confusion, but here i an update. i bought all of the parts yesterday night.
only thing i need to buy now is a the cpu (i7) from microcenter when i have the chance. i made some adjustments, here is a quick run down of what i bought.
Case/PS Combo: Cooler Master HAF 932/Corsair 750
230$

Video card/Ram: SAPPHIRE 100269SR Radeon HD 4890 1GB/OCZ platinum 6 gigs
280

HDD: WD black 1tb
90$

Mobo: Gigabyte Ud4P
222$ (Ewiz)

CPU cooler: xigamek 1283
40$

Wireless adapter: EDIMAX EW-7128G IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Wireless Card Up to 54Mbps Data Rates 64/128-Bit WEP, 802.1x, WPA, AES
20$

Total before CB/Rebates:~$923
Total Cash Back rewards:~30
Total Rebates: $65

Grand Total: ~828

what do yall think? i think i did pretty well. this is my 1st build from scratch so any advice would help me. i am kind of scared of putting the thermal paste on the cpu. what is a good and simple way of putting it on. thanks guys!

 

[mlcloud]

No DVD drive?

 

[inwood07]

omg you almost scared me. i guess i forgot to mention it, but i got the samsung sata dvd drive

 

[smithereen]

I'd upgrade to an HD4890 or GTX275 at minimum. 4850X2s are good too.

 

[astrodudepsu]

good call going with the 4890, I believe you will enjoy it more than you would have a GTX260

 

[mlcloud]

I'd upgrade to an HD4890 or GTX275 at minimum. 4850X2s are good too.

How about you read the rest of the posts before posting, you useless f*ck.

On the other hand: applying TIM (thermal interface material, aka thermal compound, thermal paste):

edit: the goal of applying TIM is just to ensure contact between the heatsink surface and CPU. Solid-to-solid, or in this case metal-to-metal contact is the best heat conductivity you'll get. But unfortunately, the CPU surface and heatsink surface aren't perfectly smooth and flat, so you'll get little bumps and holes that will have AIR between them, which is the worst at conducting heat (heat conductivity: solid > liquid > air) so in order to prevent not-very-conductive air from filling the gaps between your heatsink and CPU, you use a more conductive TIM, a liquid usually composed of highly conductive (yet not as conductive as pure metal would have been) material.

Whats my point? Use as little as possible to fill the gaps. You want as much metal-to-metal contact as possible, with TIM filling in the gaps: not TIM to be the white cream between your oreo of a heatsink and CPU.

There are currently 3 popular methods that I'm familiar with:

BB (or pea-sized, your call) dot of TIM on the center of the CPU; place heatsink directly on top of TIM to ensure even spread.

line across cores: important to align TIM directly in a line across the cores lengthwise; very important for i7s, since they're aligned as such (whereas the core2quad series have the cores 2x2 as opposed to the i7s 4x1 + cache)
[

So after aligning the triangle, you'd draw a thin line of TIM across the cores, and then press down from above straight down with the heatsink.

Thin-layer spread using credit card/razor/finger in a plastic bag or other material: just spread TIM as thin as you can across the CPU; when placing heatsink, make sure to tighten/press on one side and "roll" across the TIM to minimize the risk of air bubbles that reduce your thermal conductivity.

Which method is best? I have no clue. People get conflicting results... each to his own I guess. But the differences between each method are at most 2-3 degrees celsius, which won't be an overclock breaker (hopefully). Although if you combine a 2nd-class heatsink with 2nd class TIM application that might stack to 5-6 degrees of cooling potential that WILL break your overclock... and since the xigmatek Dark Knight is certainly no TRUE or IFX-14, you're going to have to grab every degree you can =).

Also, I'm going to be posting this sort of thing more and more into every person's build: I would recommend grabbing more hard drives (for a RAID 0 + backup) or an SSD in the future. When I say a single SATA hard drive will be the biggest bottleneck in your brand new system, I mean it. Occasionally this can grow to be a bigger problem: hard drive lag, where your actual SYSTEM stutters because your hard drive is under load. Most of the time you'll just get longer load/read/write times, and even that gets annoying sometimes, since you do have an i7 which is capable of an immense amount of work that your hard drive is incapable of following.

 

[inwood07]

thanks for the advice mlcloud, i will probably try to use the pea size method. it seems to be simple/easy method. i already have a seagate external hard drive for backup. dont know much about raid 0, but it sounds very interesting.

 

[smithereen]

How about you read the rest of the posts before posting, you useless f*ck.

You have my humblest apologies for so carelessly wasting thy sacred browser space.