[Nastee]

This is my first post and many more to come and also this is the first time I've decided to build my own

PC from scratch and to be honest I need lots of guidance! I'll be using it for AutoCAD/Photoshop CS2

(Multitasking) and also for games like BF2. I was hoping to get this built and over with as soon as

possible but I'm not in rush and I have a full 2 months before my next term. Please bare with me and

correct me where ever I'm wrong and ANY suggestions are welcome. My budget is something around $2,500's.

Give and take a few hundred.


Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 $565.35

Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (Intel 975X Express) $269.99

Memory: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit

System Memory $177.99

Video Card: HIS Hightech H190XT512DVN Radeon X1900XT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16

$369.99

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface

$111.99

Power Supply Unit: PC Power & Cooling 510 SLI-PFC ATX12V 510W Power Supply 90 - 264V UL/ ULC/

TUV/ CE $224.99

----------------------------------
Total So Far = $1,720.30
Remaining Budget= $779.70

Okay, so far that's all I have been recommended. I'm still missing some stuff like two Hard

Drives (I want RAID 0), or Optical Drives, and probably a couple of Cooling Fans?

Hard Drives:???

Optical Drives:???

Cooling Fans:???


What do you all think? I guess my main worry is the cooling system. Any overkill? I appreciate any help.

Thanks.

Edited by Nastee, 27 July 2006 - 01:31 AM.

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Looks good, i would save yourself some cash and get the 6600 the difference between 6600 and 6700 is quite small performance wise and quad cores are out at the end of the year and then true quad cores next summer.

The PSU is really really expensive and ive never seen the brand about either probably because of the price get an Antec, Enermax or Ultra.

HDD, i wouldnt use RAID0 its risks arent worth its performance advantage and its really not practical unless you use it in the way it wsa designed with large numbers of drives. Maybe a couple of 500Gb 7200.10 drives will be fine you get a performance increase having two drives anyway with careful management any drive will do just get a SATAII with 16mb cache and youll be fine.

Optical drives just pick one that does the stuff you need there not expensive or hard to get just pick one in the end it comes down to getting it to match your case than anything else.

Youll need to pick a case i usually reccomend Antec or coolermaster or if your after something more high end an akasa. Cooling fans when you get the case find out how many fans it has itself then get what you need to make it up to at least the minimum of a 120 front and rear.

[warriorscot]

Looks good, i would save yourself some cash and get the 6600 the difference between 6600 and 6700 is quite small performance wise and quad cores are out at the end of the year and then true quad cores next summer.

The PSU is really really expensive and ive never seen the brand about either probably because of the price get an Antec, Enermax or Ultra.

HDD, i wouldnt use RAID0 its risks arent worth its performance advantage and its really not practical unless you use it in the way it wsa designed with large numbers of drives. Maybe a couple of 500Gb 7200.10 drives will be fine you get a performance increase having two drives anyway with careful management any drive will do just get a SATAII with 16mb cache and youll be fine.

Optical drives just pick one that does the stuff you need there not expensive or hard to get just pick one in the end it comes down to getting it to match your case than anything else.

Youll need to pick a case i usually reccomend Antec or coolermaster or if your after something more high end an akasa. Cooling fans when you get the case find out how many fans it has itself then get what you need to make it up to at least the minimum of a 120 front and rear.

[Nastee]

Okay, after a little more research here is my new list:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 OverClocked $$343.97

Motherboard: ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (Intel 975X Express) $269.99

Memory: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit System Memory $177.99

Video Card: HIS Hightech H190XT512DVN Radeon X1900XT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 $369.99

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface $111.99

Power Supply Unit: SeaSonic S12-600 ATX12V 600W Power Supply 100 - 240V UL, CE, CB, FCC $159.99

Hard Drives: 2X Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $200

Optical Drives: 2X NEC 3550A $78

Case: Akasa Eclipse 62 $146.95

----------------------------------
Total So Far = $1,858.87
Remaining Budget= $641.13

I don't know which 120mm fans work the best for this case. Something not crazy loud ofcourse. Any suggestions Thanks.

[warriorscot]

Any fans you want i would probably go with the akasa made fans as they are pretty good and to be honest they are the only company that makes alot of 120mm at least in terms of different models a pair or the ultra quiet orange ones would do nicely, Antec make decent 120mm as well but antec fans ive always found to be tricky to get, other comapnies make them they arent hard to get but i find akasa and antec are cheaper and tend to be better you get other fans as good but they cost more.

The Seasonic PSU is a better choice, good company more power and cheaper. You could get away with only a 500W though even a 450W save a bit of cash.

The memory you picked is out of stock either get the other cheap gskill stuff(which is better actually since its not intel only but how they manage intel only ram is beyond me) only another 10 bucks, or get corsair memory if you cant get either of those.

[stettybet0]

Actually, PC Power and Cooling is a great brand of PSU, probably the best. They make very high-end PSUs. I've used them, and they are great. And don't just believe me, they get all positive reviews from newegg.

And I have a few suggestions of my own.

First, for hard drives, I would get two of these:
Western Digital Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Cache Serial ATA150 Hard Drive

And for memory, I wouldn't go with G.SKILL. I would rather go with:
CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit System Memory. I've had some bad experiences with G.SKILL.

And for video card, I would recommend buying a lesser card now, and upgrade to a DX10 card later. I'm not really sure if you are a gamer, or if you just play BF2. If you just play BF2, the card you choose will be fine. But games of the future will run much better on DX10 cards.

Edited by stettybet0, 27 July 2006 - 02:46 PM.

[warriorscot]

Ive heard that about PC power and cooling but i dont know anyone thats ever used them and ive read nothing that would put them ahead of cheaper and from what i see better PSUs from large companies, the big question is think of the top 3 custom builders you know and ask what they use in their systems.

For my 3 its Enermax, Tagan and Antec and all three of those PSUs are used more and are actually affordable, over $200 for a 500 an odd watt PSU as we say in scotland "aye right".

Corsair costs more and Gskill aint fantastic but at those prices i wouldnt go with something else as Gskill is good enough.

And raptors are a total waste of money the performance increase of a 10000 rpm drive is nowhere near big enough to justify the high cost low life and high noise output of the drives, and did i mention they are ridicoulously expensive, and in actual usage benchmarks with windows load times and game loads the stuff you do most they can actually be soundly beaten by 7200rpm drives.

[Nastee]

Many people are telling me wait on the motherboard and also get some cheap video card until DX10 cards are released. I assume DX10 will be released with Vista? Probably in 29 years? What are your takes on this?

[warriorscot]

Intel mobos for core 2 arent easy to get and intel are slow at releasing updated chipsets so get what you can now, its certainly an idea to wait a while they are coming out independantly of Vista although you will need vista in order to play DX10 games Vista is being released January2007. By that time both nvidia and ATI will have the cards out for dx10 Nvidia will be first but to be honest by what ive read they wont be as good as the ATI offerings but ATI had the advatage of having been a major partner in DX10s creation(thankyou xbox360).

If you want to go cheaper on the vid card thats an option there also should be a DDR4 version of the x1900 coming out soon. Its up to you, you might want to wait you might not it depends if you can afford to upgrade in 6 months.

[jigga211]

I agree with whoever said to wait on the Motherboards because a lot of good motherboards are yet to come within the next month, the new Msi boards are out next week to begin with so you might find something better for cheaper as well.

I disagree with warriorscott about the raptor HD's, i use one and it loads my hd based games 50% faster, yes the price is up there and they do tend to be a little louder. And I disagree on the "low life" comment, what does that mean anyhow? I have yet to hear a Raptor that had died and btw raptors come with 5 years warranty compared to 3 year for any other HD.