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Help avoiding issues.

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Hello Tomshardware,

This is my first time ever building a pc. I paid $1,500 for an Alienware desktop and then had it taken apart in my living room floor 7 days later by dell's dispatched tech support. I later kicked this guy out of my house because he jacked up my pc worse than it was before he started. I decided my next pc would be custom built by me.

However, I am a little concerned with one particular component of this build. I have done lots of research for the last several months and bounced back between Intel and AMD. But that’s not my issue. First I guess you should see what I have. Here goes....

I7-930 cpu
Corsair H50 Liquid Cpu Cooler
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R mobo
Corsair Dominator 6gb (3x2gb) DDR3 1600 8-8-8-24 1.65v ram
EVGA 470 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 gpu
Kingwin Mach 1 1000w psu
2x WD Caviar Black SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5 500gb hdd
Lite-On 22x DVD Writer
Xion Predator 970 mid tower case
Win7 64 bit OEM os
Artic silver 5 thermal paste

My question is on the Gigabyte motherboard mostly. However, I would welcome any other feed back that anybody can offer that my help me to complete my first build successfully. I hope to avoid any unforeseen pitfalls that my un-training eyes may miss.

I have read that the particular gigabyte board I picked is not exactly problem free. Any words or wisdom, drivers to avoid, drivers to download, tools to download, or anything I am not even aware of to ask an educated question.

Thanks in advance for any advice that you can offer me regarding the related parts for my upcoming build.

Wish me luck.

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The PSU you chose performs well, but only has a 1 year warranty and is made by a company with a questionable history... Super Flower.

The Corsair HX850 is enough for the build and more efficient. It is a better PSU in every other way also.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...


I think the UD3R is a good budget choice.

The main reason to buy a WD Caviar Black is for WD reliability. I do not dispute this but would suggest that you get retail if you can. Last I checked the 640GB version was the faster, better deal also.

You are spending too much extra on RAM for nothing but a name. Here is some Mushkin for much less, same stats:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

That looks like a nice case for the price and I have to say that causes me great concern. I see something like that, a clear rip-off of a more expensive case, and I have to wonder who is making it and what kind of living conditions they have.

Either wait for the newer Corsair H7O or go with air. The H5O is not worth it when good air coolers cost less and work better.


Well, don't rely on newegg reviews for information on either motherboards or PSUs. People are eager to blame their motherboard for all sorts of problems, simply because that is the part they know least about.

In the opposite, people think that their PSU works great because they have so little understanding about what it does (but are sure it's a simple device) and assign any issues it may be causing to other parts, like their OS or motherboard.

If you are specifically concerned about the RAID issues reported, go with the Asus P6X58D-E:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

It's a bit more but the money you saved on RAM easily covers it.
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i do have two hard drives and was going to configure a raid. i have already bought all of my components but did go and exchanged my wd caviar black 500gbs for seagate barracuda 750gbs. my UD3R is on the way from newegg along with the case and psu. will the UD3R not allow me to raid my hdds?

Probably RAID 0 should be easy. Just make sure you have the BIOS version you need before beginning and do your research carefully. Perhaps you will need a boot disk with drivers, for instance.... although I suspect Win 7 should have this covered.

here we go. see these are the noobie questions I was try to get answer to. bios is not familiar ground for me. will this bios come with the motherboard or will it be a download. also will i need this stored to a thumb drive or can i download it after i have assembled the computer?

im not sure i want to do a raid but i bought two hard drives to do it. i was under the impression that raid zero would boost performance. is there a reason not to do it?

rrbiv said:
im not sure i want to do a raid but i bought two hard drives to do it. i was under the impression that raid zero would boost performance. is there a reason not to do it?


RAID 0 will increase your read & write speeds (should close to double), but it won't affect gaming at all (except for loading levels & save files).

However, there is also a significant amount of risk inherent in RAID 0. If either of the drives fails (or potentially just has a hiccup of some sort), you lose all of the data on both drives. If that's not a huge concern (if you take backups, not afraid of reinstalling your OS, etc.), then go for it. If that is a concern, I'd recommend against creating a RAID 0 container.

It's perfectly reasonable to just use 2 HDDs, one for your OS & programs, the other for data. Or you could back up from one to the other, in case the first one fails. You could also RAID 1 (mirror data from one to the other), but that's probably needlessly complex.

ok thx. here is another question. i plugged in the kingwin psu just to see if the blue light would come on. nothing came on at all. this is normal i hope? i am assuming that the psu doesnt come on until prompted by the entire system when you hit the power button on the case?

i did get the revision 2.0 gigabyte board as well. i hope this is the one that fixed all the problems and not the revision with the problems

thx for the help. that is all i have for now i guess. my case is not due in until monday. so if i have any more questions i will post them here and hope to hear from you both again. much appreciation for the knowledge.
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