[quarantine]

Hey guys, I decided I wanted to attempt building a computer. I have never fully built a computer, only replaced components like video cards, ram, etc....

I was wondering what kind of case or components I should look into first and what people would recommend for a beginner such as myself, I was looking on new egg at some cases, power supply and cooling, I kept hearing the term mid-tower and full-tower I just assumed that they were different sizes.

I am primarily building this as a gaming computer, so I am also looking at the cooling.

Also I have a pretty wide budget so I have some breathing room with price.

Looking forward to hearing some advice!

Cheers

Edited by quarantine, 26 January 2009 - 07:00 PM.

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Hey guys, I decided I wanted to attempt building a computer. I have never fully built a computer, only replaced components like video cards, ram, etc....

I was wondering what kind of case or components I should look into first and what people would recommend for a beginner such as myself, I was looking on new egg at some cases, power supply and cooling, I kept hearing the term mid-tower and full-tower I just assumed that they were different sizes.

I am primarily building this as a gaming computer, so I am also looking at the cooling.

Also I have a pretty wide budget so I have some breathing room with price.

Looking forward to hearing some advice!

Cheers

First what is your general budget so we can help you pick out some parts. On a new pc you will want to get some type of ATX case it doesn't really matter if it is mid tower or Full sized as long as it is ATX standard.

Also do not ever keep the Standard power supply's included with a case as they are made of poor quality / parts and do not put out even close to what they say. Just a heads up.

[jrm20]

Hey guys, I decided I wanted to attempt building a computer. I have never fully built a computer, only replaced components like video cards, ram, etc....

I was wondering what kind of case or components I should look into first and what people would recommend for a beginner such as myself, I was looking on new egg at some cases, power supply and cooling, I kept hearing the term mid-tower and full-tower I just assumed that they were different sizes.

I am primarily building this as a gaming computer, so I am also looking at the cooling.

Also I have a pretty wide budget so I have some breathing room with price.

Looking forward to hearing some advice!

Cheers

First what is your general budget so we can help you pick out some parts. On a new pc you will want to get some type of ATX case it doesn't really matter if it is mid tower or Full sized as long as it is ATX standard.

Also do not ever keep the Standard power supply's included with a case as they are made of poor quality / parts and do not put out even close to what they say. Just a heads up.

[quarantine]

First what is your general budget so we can help you pick out some parts. On a new pc you will want to get some type of ATX case it doesn't really matter if it is mid tower or Full sized as long as it is ATX standard.

Also do not ever keep the Standard power supply's included with a case as they are made of poor quality / parts and do not put out even close to what they say. Just a heads up.

my budget it around $1000- $1,300 give or take, not including a monitor.

I also had a few questions with parts


1) How big a difference in performance will I get with a quad-core processor, opposed to a duel-core?

2) how much ram will I need if I decide on running vista with games? Also I've been recommended Corsair for ram, I was wondering if I should go with that.


But basically I'm open to any and all suggestions.

I was looking around for a case and I came across this one, it looked pretty nice for $64.99 after rebate.

[jrm20]

First what is your general budget so we can help you pick out some parts. On a new pc you will want to get some type of ATX case it doesn't really matter if it is mid tower or Full sized as long as it is ATX standard.

Also do not ever keep the Standard power supply's included with a case as they are made of poor quality / parts and do not put out even close to what they say. Just a heads up.

my budget it around $1000- $1,300 give or take, not including a monitor.

I also had a few questions with parts


1) How big a difference in performance will I get with a quad-core processor, opposed to a duel-core?

2) how much ram will I need if I decide on running vista with games? Also I've been recommended Corsair for ram, I was wondering if I should go with that.


But basically I'm open to any and all suggestions.

I was looking around for a case and I came across this one, it looked pretty nice for $64.99 after rebate.

Your best bet would be to go for the new AMD Phenom II quad with 4gb ram (recommended) and get the fastest video card you can afford. Going this route with the phenom II will give you more budget to go with a faster video card and possibly higher quality PSU.

The core i7 cpu's from Intel are nice but the Motherboards for them are quite expensive + the DDR3 ram (the ddr3 ram is not to bad really but it is more) so that alone is an extra $200 more at least. That $200 can be used somewhere else on the system like I said above typically I suggest going towards the VIDEO CARD.

If you want more than 4gb of ram you will want to get a 64 bit operating system such as XP 64 bit or Vista 64 bit. On a 32 bit operating system it will only actually show up as 3.25 or 3.5gb of ram in windows.

4gb is fine for the ram but I do not recommend going any less than 4gb as ddr2 is so cheap and affordable now. Corsair is generally good ram but I would pick the best price to performance ratio ram you could find. Just pick the best overall deal on ram that has good reviews. Other good quality ram can be found for less such as Gskill and that is what I usually recommend as it is more bang for your buck. They offer different modules of ram at different prices also.

Quad core is more future proof and anyone upgrading here lately is going that route, some do not go quad and go dual but they will end up having to upgrade sooner than if they went with a quad. Depending on the game and what GHZ, the dual vs the Quad can be either or.

Sometimes a dual core can do the same performance as quad core in games but that is because the dual core would need a pretty larger clock rate. This is only for certain games though, most newer games that support multi cores will run better on a quad even if the quad has a lower clock rate.

[quarantine]

Your best bet would be to go for the new AMD Phenom II quad with 4gb ram (recommended) and get the fastest video card you can afford. Going this route with the phenom II will give you more budget to go with a faster video card and possibly higher quality PSU.

The core i7 cpu's from Intel are nice but the Motherboards for them are quite expensive + the DDR3 ram (the ddr3 ram is not to bad really but it is more) so that alone is an extra $200 more at least. That $200 can be used somewhere else on the system like I said above typically I suggest going towards the VIDEO CARD.

If you want more than 4gb of ram you will want to get a 64 bit operating system such as XP 64 bit or Vista 64 bit. On a 32 bit operating system it will only actually show up as 3.25 or 3.5gb of ram in windows.

4gb is fine for the ram but I do not recommend going any less than 4gb as ddr2 is so cheap and affordable now. Corsair is generally good ram but I would pick the best price to performance ratio ram you could find. Just pick the best overall deal on ram that has good reviews. Other good quality ram can be found for less such as Gskill and that is what I usually recommend as it is more bang for your buck. They offer different modules of ram at different prices also.

Quad core is more future proof and anyone upgrading here lately is going that route, some do not go quad and go dual but they will end up having to upgrade sooner than if they went with a quad. Depending on the game and what GHZ, the dual vs the Quad can be either or.

Sometimes a dual core can do the same performance as quad core in games but that is because the dual core would need a pretty larger clock rate. This is only for certain games though, most newer games that support multi cores will run better on a quad even if the quad has a lower clock rate.

Thanks for the reply! The AMD processor looks great, do you have any suggestions for a mother board? I wasn't sure what kind of restriction I would be looking at when purchasing a mobo.

Again, I really appreciate the reply!

Cheers

[jrm20]

Your best bet would be to go for the new AMD Phenom II quad with 4gb ram (recommended) and get the fastest video card you can afford. Going this route with the phenom II will give you more budget to go with a faster video card and possibly higher quality PSU.

The core i7 cpu's from Intel are nice but the Motherboards for them are quite expensive + the DDR3 ram (the ddr3 ram is not to bad really but it is more) so that alone is an extra $200 more at least. That $200 can be used somewhere else on the system like I said above typically I suggest going towards the VIDEO CARD.

If you want more than 4gb of ram you will want to get a 64 bit operating system such as XP 64 bit or Vista 64 bit. On a 32 bit operating system it will only actually show up as 3.25 or 3.5gb of ram in windows.

4gb is fine for the ram but I do not recommend going any less than 4gb as ddr2 is so cheap and affordable now. Corsair is generally good ram but I would pick the best price to performance ratio ram you could find. Just pick the best overall deal on ram that has good reviews. Other good quality ram can be found for less such as Gskill and that is what I usually recommend as it is more bang for your buck. They offer different modules of ram at different prices also.

Quad core is more future proof and anyone upgrading here lately is going that route, some do not go quad and go dual but they will end up having to upgrade sooner than if they went with a quad. Depending on the game and what GHZ, the dual vs the Quad can be either or.

Sometimes a dual core can do the same performance as quad core in games but that is because the dual core would need a pretty larger clock rate. This is only for certain games though, most newer games that support multi cores will run better on a quad even if the quad has a lower clock rate.

Thanks for the reply! The AMD processor looks great, do you have any suggestions for a mother board? I wasn't sure what kind of restriction I would be looking at when purchasing a mobo.

Again, I really appreciate the reply!

Cheers

Depends on if you want the expandability in the future or NOW for multi video cards on the mobo like for SLI or Crossfire.

The mobos that allow the FULL 16x lanes in SLI / Crossfire are more expensive and IMO it is not worth getting a sli / crossfire board unless at least 2 pci express slots can run the full 16x speed.

[quarantine]

Depends on if you want the expandability in the future or NOW for multi video cards on the mobo like for SLI or Crossfire.

The mobos that allow the FULL 16x lanes in SLI / Crossfire are more expensive and IMO it is not worth getting a sli / crossfire board unless at least 2 pci express slots can run the full 16x speed.

okay, this might sound like a really silly question, but I noticed some mobos are Intel, and some are AMD.

If I have an AMD processor, do I need an AMD motherboard?

or are they interchangeable?

Edited by quarantine, 28 January 2009 - 11:47 PM.

[jrm20]

Depends on if you want the expandability in the future or NOW for multi video cards on the mobo like for SLI or Crossfire.

The mobos that allow the FULL 16x lanes in SLI / Crossfire are more expensive and IMO it is not worth getting a sli / crossfire board unless at least 2 pci express slots can run the full 16x speed.

okay, this might sound like a really silly question, but I noticed some mobos are Intel, and some are AMD.

If I have an AMD processor, do I need an AMD motherboard?

or are they interchangeable?

Easiest way for me to explain is that you need to have the socket of the processor match the socket of the motherboard.. AMD and INTEL are not interchangeable..