Final Few Questions For First Build

[TheCheesy4]

In roughly a month or two, I am planning on buying and building my very first PC. I've been asking around in various forums (including this one) and checking out reviews etc. across the internet, and have come up with these specs:

Processor: Intel Core i7 920 D0 £210 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151477
Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB £50 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804
Motherboard: MSI C58 Pro-E £150 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173974
Graphics Card: Point Of View GTX470 £300 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/202279
Memory: Corsair Dominator 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 £100 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/177345
Power Supply: Antec Signature Series 850W PSU £150 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146722
Monitor: LG 22” Widescreen Full HD 1920x1080 £130 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/194604
Disk Drive: Samsung BD-ROM with DVD+RW £55 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/191042
Case: CM Storm Sniper £110 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173955
Wireless: Edimax Wireless-N150 £15 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/220221
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 64-Bit OEM £80 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173791
Fan: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro £18 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176157
Mouse: Logitech MX518 £25 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142740
Keyboard: Logitech G11 £24 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/220243
Mousepad: SteelSeries Surface Qck £8 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Steel-Serie..._1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1275679860&sr=8-1
Thermal Paste: Arctic Silver 5 £6 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/126410
Overall: £1431

I have a few questions though, as I am understandably (I hope) somewhat nervous at my first attempt.

■ Will all these parts fit in the case, and work together fine?
■ Would this rig be able to play games like Company Of Heroes, Crysis, Metro 2033, Dawn Of War II, Dragon Age etc. on their highest settings?
■ Could someone explain what the OEM part of the OS means? How come it's so much cheaper?
■ Would my GPU/CPU be able to use PhysX?

Could you please go light on the technical-speak, as it's very confusing to a newb such as myself
Ta.

 

[rolli59]

The first thing I notice is that you have a dual channel Ram kit, go with a triple channel 6Gb kit.

 

[cygone]

The 1366 platform uses triple channel dd3, so you will need 3x2gb ram.

the MB is a PoS.

the GPU is a complete waste of money vs ATI for worse performance.

Thier are better cases and monitors avaialble for less money,

PSU is multirail, you should get a single rail PSU

 

[cygone]

fill out the template, and i will throw a far better spec 2gether for u

 

[TheCheesy4]

The first thing I notice is that you have a dual channel Ram kit, go with a triple channel 6Gb kit.

Is this one any good? It's the only one I can see for near the same price. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152065

The 1366 platform uses triple channel dd3, so you will need 3x2gb ram.

the MB is a PoS.

the GPU is a complete waste of money vs ATI for worse performance.

Thier are better cases and monitors avaialble for less money,

PSU is multirail, you should get a single rail PSU

What's wrong with the motherboard?

Regarding the graphics card, I know the 5970 is meant to be superior, but it's roughly £200 more, and I want PhysX Plus, from what I've seen, it doesn't seem to much worse than the 5970/5870.

What's all this about rails? I'm afraid you've lost me.

 

[rolli59]

That Kingston ram will work fine. GTX470 is fine. Motherboard is a personal opinion. Case and monitor is a personal opinion. The Antec PSU is fine but a single rail quality unit is this one and is cheaper http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164951

 

[TheCheesy4]

That Kingston ram will work fine. GTX470 is fine. Motherboard is a personal opinion. Case and monitor is a personal opinion. The Antec PSU is fine but a single rail quality unit is this one and is cheaper http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164951

Thanks. It comes to £25 more, which isn't too bad. Could I play games like Company Of Heroes, Crysis, Metro 2033, Cryostasis etc. on highest settings with this? And would everything work together, and fit in the case?

EDIT: Oh, and while I'm at it, what's the best security system? I'm running McAfee at the moment, and it seems a bit shite.

 

[rolli59]

I use Avast free edition on 6 computers and am very happy with it. You should be able to play everything fairly well on that system, Crysis and Metro being very hardware heavy might need some setting tweaks. It should all fit the case.

 

[Silvune]

This set will be faster out of the box due to lower CL: Crucial 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz/PC3-10600 Ballistix Memory CL7 1.65V £130, however the other set is better if you don't mind OCing your RAM as it has lower voltage (1.5V).

I'm using Microsoft Security Essentials, as well as Spybot S&D, works for me.

 

[TheCheesy4]

I use Avast free edition on 6 computers and am very happy with it. You should be able to play everything fairly well on that system, Crysis and Metro being very hardware heavy might need some setting tweaks. It should all fit the case.

Would my motherboard (I think that's the relevant part) be able to accomadate a second GTX470 in the future? I imagine that would be able to play anything well without tweak. Thanks for the help.

 

[Silvune]

Yep.

 

[TheCheesy4]

Yep.

Spiffing. These bits will apparently play anything I want on their highest settings, or at least very close to. What an interesting experience I'm sure this'll turn out to be. Now just to learn about overclocking...

 

[Silvune]

I forgot to ask you whether you were planning on overclocking or not, as I don't think the Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro is a particularly good choice with OCing mind - for quiet it's very good, but not necessarily OCing.
Depends how much you want to OC, but I think a CPU cooler around ~30-40 pounds would be much better at keeping the temps down as well as the noise in a more than moderate OC. Unfortunately ebuyer don't have a very good selection of mid-high end CPU coolers, would have to buy it from another site such as scan or overclockers.co.uk, etc.

 

[TheCheesy4]

I forgot to ask you whether you were planning on overclocking or not, as I don't think the Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro is a particularly good choice with OCing mind - for quiet it's very good, but not necessarily OCing.
Depends how much you want to OC, but I think a CPU cooler around ~30-40 pounds would be much better at keeping the temps down as well as the noise in a more than moderate OC. Unfortunately ebuyer don't have a very good selection of mid-high end CPU coolers, would have to buy it from another site such as scan or overclockers.co.uk, etc.

Just how much of an improvement would overclocking be? Is it worth it?

 

[Silvune]

I don't really know.

 

[TheCheesy4]

I don't really know.

Ah well. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Thanks for the help.