daman

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Sep 25, 2007
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OK guys im about to have about $1,500 and have always wanted to build my own computer i have bought all mine in the past from gateway. So i need help.

I'm not into overclocking since i dont have a clue of how to do it and dont think i will need it. I mostly just use a computer for watching videos and playing some games like world of warcraft.

Ok here is what i have so far if you think i should change anything at all please let me know and why. also the rest of the stuff like hard drive, ram, power supply i dont know what is good if you could give me a tip that would be nice


Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower Black Case

EVGA X58 SLI LE Motherboard

Intel Core i7 920

Cooler Master Hyper N520 CPU Cooler

BFG GeForce GTX 280 Video Card

Also i havent done this before and was wondering if all i have to do is get the parts place them together and install the discs that come with everything right?
 

a4mula

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case: great, but watch out for dust bunnies

cpu/mobo: a bit of overkill, 1156 will perform on par for less, but it's a personal choice

cooler: cm 212 is less expensive and outperforms it. If you want to spend more then premium selections would be Noctua NH-D14, Thermalright Venomous-X or Prolimatech Megahalems.

GPU: Ditch the green team this round. ATI 5xxx Series is the way to go. Love Nvidia but they're behind the curve at this point and it'll be months before Fermi hits shelves.

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint f3 or Seagate 7200.12 (500gb platters)

Ram: G.Skill ddr3 3x2gb kit for 1366, 2x2gb kit for 1156

PSU: Anything from Antec, Corsair, Silverstone, PC & Power, Seasonic. 450w baseline, 650+ for sli/crossfire. Add 200w per additional gpu.


Installation is a breeze. The only thing that's even remotely difficult is cooler installation and as long as you research it's no problem. Be careful with your cpu, the pins can and will bend easily if you're not doing it right. Don't take the pin cover off the mobo until you're ready to insert it. If you find yourself with non-functional ram or pcie slots, you bent your cpu pins and you fail at life.

 
Agree with most of the above. The only thing I don't agree with is the CPU cooler. It's a good choice, but if you're not overclocking, don't bother buying one.

To get more specific help, refer to the thread in my signature.

Case: Might want to consider the HAF 922. It's $40 cheaper, and it's essentially the same case. You save at least $40, which you could buy some dust filters to go along with it (if dust is a problem).

GPU: This depends on your resolution. If it's 1900x or above, get the HD 5850 (overkill for WoW). If it's less than that, the HD 5770 will be more than enough. It's still probably overkill for WoW, but to go any cheaper would not be very future proof.

PSU: I always include OCZ in that list. It's a good quality unit, for about 1/2 the price of Corsair. Lately, the 700W unit has been in a combo with the HAFs.

If all you're doing is playing WoW and watching videos, you're spending way too much. You can easily build a $700-800 computer that does that.
 

daman

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Ok thanks for the info so far I looked into what you told me and this is what i have decided if i can improve it any plz let me know. I still dont know what Ram to get and the motherboard i picked at first wont run the new video card so idk what one to get, I might run 2 video cards later on.

Corsair TX850W Power Supply - 850W, ATX, 80Plus
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4352342&sku=C13-2508

Western Digital WD5001AALS Caviar Black Hard Drive - 500GB, 7200 rpm, 32MB, SATA-3G
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4914330&sku=TSD-500AALS

Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Video Card - 1GB GDDR5, PCI-Express 2.0, CrossFireX Ready, Dual DVI, Display Port, HDMI
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5260768&sku=A271-5850

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64BIT Operating System Software - OEM DVD
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5213934&sku=M17-7306

Intel Core i7 920 Processor BX80601920 - 2.66GHz, LGA 1366, 4.8GT/s QPI, 8MB L3 Cache, Quad-Core, HyperThreading
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4240166&sku=CP1-I7-920

Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower Black Case
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4146085&sku=C283-1187