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Building a pc!


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#1
pers

pers

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Hello All !

Me and my dad are building a new computer around under $700 (maybe a little bit more or less). The computer will mostly be used for gaming, movies, music, (possibly at the same time - mulititasking), etc, and I want to multitask and game with speed. So there we go, what we've picked so far:

All prices and products i'm getting from TigerDirect.ca, because i live in Canada and there is a local store.

Parts:

For the motherboard, i'm not really sure because i do not know much perticularly about them, and btw, i want a motherboard that can be overclocked fairly easily.
I'm thinking of getting either: Asus P5NSLI NVIDIA Socket 775 ATX Motherboard / Audio / PCI Express / SLI Ready / , and it supports 4 gig of ram, but if it's possible i'd get something that costs a little bit less. $160

another one might be: Biostar 945P-A7A Intel Socket 775 ATX Motherboard / Audio / PCI Express, which also supports 4 gig of ram, and its price is a little bit more reasonable $120

another motherboard: ECS P4M900T-M (v1.0) Via Socket 775 MicroATX Motherboard / Audio / Video / PCI Express, it supports 2 gig of ram, but it has a really good price $90

out of there 3, what would be the best? especially if i'm planning to overclock my system.?

for the cpu, i have 3 choices:

either get a Pentium D 3.2ghz, with 2x2mb L2 cache, or spend almost double that and get a conroe Core 2 Duo, either the e6300 or the e6400 (both 2x1mb L2 cache), and btw, if i get the e6400 would i be able to overclock it to the e6600's level? but yet again, i need a good main board for that.. so what do you guys think? (does the L2 cache improve performance? is it important? what does it do?)

for the power supply and case what i found was a pretty good deal: http://www.tigerdire...a...&CatId=1844, tell me guys what you think of that?

for the ram, i'm getting a 1gig of pc5400 @667mhz of either kingston or corsair, both at the same price

i'll get any good hard drive between 200gb and 320gb for a good price, if you guys know any good brands, or models.. and does the buffer (16mb, 8mb etc., do alot?)

and for the video card, i'll either get a GF BFG 6600GT 128mb GDDR3, or GF 7300GT 512mb GDDR2, or switch my XFX GF 7600GT xXx edtion o/c 256 mb GDDR3 from my athlon x2 4200+.

... so anyways .. would this system beat my current system?
Amd Athlon 64 x2 4200+
2 gig PC4200 @ 533mhz
XFX GeForce 7600GT xXx Edition o/c 256mb GDDR3
200gb hard-drive @ 7,200 rpm's
300W Power Supply

Thank you all in advance,

Pers
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#2
SOORENA

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Try buying your products from Canada Computers especially the motherboard because they have cheaper prices.
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#3
james_8970

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Buying in canada,
www.ncix.com
www.tigerdirect.ca
www.CBIT.ca
www.computeravenue.ca

If you live in winnipeg, the two bottom ones have local stores which will eliminate shipping fee's.

Amd Athlon 64 x2 4200+
2 gig PC4200 @ 533mhz
XFX GeForce 7600GT xXx Edition o/c 256mb GDDR3
200gb hard-drive @ 7,200 rpm's
300W Power Supply

By todays standard, this is still a good rig.

As for the upgrade, for now I'd say wait. If you must do something right now, upgrade the graphics card but if you take this route the PSU will have to go. Sit tight for now, the rig your planning on building will only have very slight increases in performance over the computer you currently have, its not worth building a new computer.

Also a 32-bit OS can only support 3.5GB of ram, a 64bit OS can support 8GB of ram.

If you really want to upgrade the R600 (ATI newest graphics card) is coming out in may/June if it isn't delayed as well as the 8600 from Nvidea next month. These will be introducory cards to the DX10 era, R600 will be an unbelievable card. Barcelona (AMD new CPU, coming out at the end of this year/beginning of next year) will stomp all over currently available processors and will work on your motherboard.

James

Edited by james_8970, 13 March 2007 - 03:02 PM.

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#4
pers

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Buying in canada,
www.ncix.com
www.tigerdirect.ca
www.CBIT.ca
www.computeravenue.ca

If you live in winnipeg, the two bottom ones have local stores which will eliminate shipping fee's.

Amd Athlon 64 x2 4200+
2 gig PC4200 @ 533mhz
XFX GeForce 7600GT xXx Edition o/c 256mb GDDR3
200gb hard-drive @ 7,200 rpm's
300W Power Supply

By todays standard, this is still a good rig.

As for the upgrade, for now I'd say wait. If you must do something right now, upgrade the graphics card but if you take this route the PSU will have to go. Sit tight for now, the rig your planning on building will only have very slight increases in performance over the computer you currently have, its not worth building a new computer.

Also a 32-bit OS can only support 3.5GB of ram, a 64bit OS can support 8GB of ram.

If you really want to upgrade the R600 (ATI newest graphics card) is coming out in may/June if it isn't delayed as well as the 8600 from Nvidea next month. These will be introducory cards to the DX10 era, R600 will be an unbelievable card. Barcelona (AMD new CPU, coming out at the end of this year/beginning of next year) will stomp all over currently available processors and will work on your motherboard.

James


LOL, I can see what you're saying, but i'm not planning to swap my Athlon with this new build.. This pc we are building so we have a second computer at home... My athlon is fine, but my we need another pc because my dad's athlon 2600+ crashed, and we're not able to boot it, and it's old anyways... it was about time.. So we need a second pc, so might as well make is future-proof.. as i heard, i can overclock an e6400, which is quite serious by itself, to at least an e6600 ... and then upgrade everything else, if I need to... but the processor will stay future-proof for at least a couple of years.. Btw, yes, there will be an increase of perfomance over my athlon.. .. the crappy PC4200 memory? or the 2x512kb cache? lol I ran benchmarks (performance test 6.0) and my 4200+, in the cpu test, scores around 845, but i downloaded baseslines from C2D, and they all get over 1k, in fact, the e6400 scores over 1300! so yeah...
Btw, why are you telling me about the R600 or the gf 8600? or the new Barcelona CPU? When they come out, they would prolly cost at least a grand each... lol..? Just look how much an C2D extremes cost? 1.5 grand.. or a quad core.. same.. Or the 8800GTX, it's "top" model is also over a grand.. Lol, the new built for me is priced just over $700 lol... So have fun with ur r600, but i was just looking for oppinions.. guidelines.. As i see so far, nobody did leave me any friendly advice.. I'll wait for a bit more..

BTW, To whoever WILL leave me some advice, I am perticularly not sure about the motherboards.. as i said, i want to be able to overclock, and to have a motherboard that allows me that. . . So if u have any suggestions, please....

Thank you in advance,
Pers
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#5
james_8970

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I'm sorry if I some how sounded unfriendly in the post :whistling:

Anyways if you are building a computer and planning on overclocking the E4300 is the processor you want, it has a higher multipler, thus stressing the motherboard less and allowing you to achieve better results with cheaper ram and motherboard configurations. If you know how to overclock, all the Core2Duo's can reach higher levels the the E6700 aka the Core2duo extreme processor.

R600 isn't on the high range, its all across the board. The cheapest one being rumored to be about 90-100$ canadian. Bacelona, will be a new chipset which will also be releasing chips across the board for the low, mid and high end buyers. The 8600 is the budget line of the 8800 GPU from Nvidea.

Give me a price for the motherboard that your willing to spend and i'll go from there.

processor built for overclocking Note from what I can see, a fan doesn't come with that processor.

James

Edited by james_8970, 14 March 2007 - 04:22 PM.

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#6
warriorscot

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Your ideas of pricing are a bit off, for $700 you wont get an E6400 and hardware good enough to overclock, an AMD system is your best bet cheaper CPUs and cheaper motherboards, i would build the same or something similar as you allready have although the PSU is way too low on your current system for that one or your new one i would say at least 450W PSU im really surprised you havent had problems with a 300W PSU.
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#7
pers

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I'm sorry if I some how sounded unfriendly in the post :whistling:

Anyways if you are building a computer and planning on overclocking the E4300 is the processor you want, it has a higher multipler, thus stressing the motherboard less and allowing you to achieve better results with cheaper ram and motherboard configurations. If you know how to overclock, all the Core2Duo's can reach higher levels the the E6700 aka the Core2duo extreme processor.

R600 isn't on the high range, its all across the board. The cheapest one being rumored to be about 90-100$ canadian. Bacelona, will be a new chipset which will also be releasing chips across the board for the low, mid and high end buyers. The 8600 is the budget line of the 8800 GPU from Nvidea.

Give me a price for the motherboard that your willing to spend and i'll go from there.

processor built for overclocking Note from what I can see, a fan doesn't come with that processor.

James


Thanks alot James, but first of all, the processor i'm looking at isn't an e4300, i'm actually looking at an e6400... it's about $100 more than what you gave the link to.. Aloso, about the motherboard, i'm thinking it would be nice that you suggested something.. or picked out one of the ones i listed in my first post, the original one... i'm looking for something $150 plus/minus $20 ... it would be nice if you could pick something out, or suggest something..
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#8
pers

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Your ideas of pricing are a bit off, for $700 you wont get an E6400 and hardware good enough to overclock, an AMD system is your best bet cheaper CPUs and cheaper motherboards, i would build the same or something similar as you allready have although the PSU is way too low on your current system for that one or your new one i would say at least 450W PSU im really surprised you havent had problems with a 300W PSU.


Thanks for the reply :whistling: But i'm quite certain that i would like to build a computer with a C2D processor, and as i know, they beat Athlons x2 left and right.. so i'd like to give the conroe a try ... About the price, yes it might be slightly higher than $700, but not over $800, as i've checked already. And i couldn't help noticing that you mentioned that the hardware for $700 wouldn't be good enough for overclocking.. could you please refer to my original post and quickly look through the hardware i've listed? Do you actually have suggestions for any of the parts? Please feel free to express your opinions, as i'm not even sure which ram to buy, Kingston or Corsair.. things like that..

Thanks alot

Pers
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#9
warriorscot

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Of the boards you listed only one the Asus is overclocking worthy and it costs more and really i cant see how you can afford that and memory fast enough to overclock, overclocking also overclocks the motherboard and the memory unless the multiplier is fully unlocked and intel lock the multipliers meaning youll need very good memory, overclocking lets you use a cheaper CPU but you have to fork out for the best of coolers, power supplier, motherboards and memories which you can afford which is why i dont reccomend it. Also it drastically reduces the components lifetime as well and not all CPUs overclock to the same level you can easily get one that wont overclock anymore than a couple of hundred Mhz it really is luck of the draw it also has a smaller cache than a E6600 so to achieve similar performance needs a hefty overclock well past the speed of the E6600 looking at almost a full gigahertz which is difficult especially on an intel system.

Core 2s are faster than AMD x2s however for what you are using the computer for the difference is fairly minimal and AMDs lower price means they can actually be faster and really unless you can afford to do a C2D system properly i wouldnt advise it and as a second system on your budget my advice for you to have the best system it to for an AM2 system from AMD youll get a better system for your money and for what you are using it for as a gaming system relies on its GPU more getting a cheaper CPU and mobo and better gfx would get you a better system.

PS. Bugging us till we give you the answer you want wont change our advice. And thinly veiled cheek isnt to appreciated either we are volunteers here.
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#10
james_8970

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ram 200$
the asus motherboard listed about 160$
Hard drive 100$
OS - 120$ (xp)
Monitor - 200$
Keyboard/mouse 30$
Processor 270$
video card
Case - 50$
DVD drive 50$
PSU 120$
Total comes to 1300$ without tax or shipping, only way to cut costs is if you already have the monitor (if thats the case cut it by 200$ and if you get the 4300 over the 6300, cut an another 50$ if thats the case). This is just an echo from what warriorscot has already said, budget builds are the only uses of AMD's processors at the current time.

This is something I put together in 5 minutes, in order to over clock could couldn't go any cheaper, I'd still recommend the E4300 though. Warriorscot is right though, in many instance the 4mb cache is more then what you'd need, but for gaming it does have its advantages over the versions inferior to the E6600.

James
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#11
SOORENA

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You forgot the video card price James. About 160.

Edited by SOORENA, 15 March 2007 - 08:39 AM.

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#12
pers

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ram 200$
the asus motherboard listed about 160$
Hard drive 100$
OS - 120$ (xp)
Monitor - 200$
Keyboard/mouse 30$
Processor 270$
video card
Case - 50$
DVD drive 50$
PSU 120$
Total comes to 1300$ without tax or shipping, only way to cut costs is if you already have the monitor (if thats the case cut it by 200$ and if you get the 4300 over the 6300, cut an another 50$ if thats the case). This is just an echo from what warriorscot has already said, budget builds are the only uses of AMD's processors at the current time.

This is something I put together in 5 minutes, in order to over clock could couldn't go any cheaper, I'd still recommend the E4300 though. Warriorscot is right though, in many instance the 4mb cache is more then what you'd need, but for gaming it does have its advantages over the versions inferior to the E6600.

James


Thanks alot James, but it actually ins't 1300... Because i have an OS, a keyboard and a mouse, the case+PSU i found for $60, and yes, I do have a really good monitor from my dad's previous Athlon, but thanks anyways. I think you guys have given me some good reasons not to overclock, but what's the deal with the memory? You're saying you need fast memory to overclock right? And I still don't know which one to pick (it's in my original post) [PC5400 @ 667mhz Kingston, or Corsair]<------Could you please tell me which one is better?? Is it not fast enough to overclock??? Thank you for your time, James

Pers
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#13
zestron

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I made a computer and it's working great!
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#14
pers

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I made a computer and it's working great!


What the...? who the [bleep] are you?? :whistling:
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#15
zestron

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I made a computer and it's working great!


What the...? who the [bleep] are you?? :whistling:

Honestly, I just wanted to see if my signature would work.
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