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First Time Building


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#1
skribbz

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Hello, I am currently in the process of picking out parts for a computer. This is my first time building a computer and I have a few questions that I haven't been able to find through google alone.

To start off I am planning on getting a Biostar AMD motherboard.

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813138197

It has an onboard ATI Radeon HD 4250 already built in. It also has one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot and two PCI slots.

I have been trying to learn as much about graphic cards as possible and it's the last thing I am stuck on. I am hoping maybe someone here could give me some tips on how to maximize the graphical performance. My goal is to be able to run a game such as Crysis on the high settings. The rest of the computer will be more than efficient at running the game, but I am worried about getting a card that will burn out or not be able to handle the graphics. Any suggestions/help that you may offer on how to get the most out of what this motherboard has will be much appreciated.

Thanks!
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#2
phillpower2

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Hi skribbz :)
One of the biggest mistakes people make when asking for advice on a potential purchase, is not stating what their budget is!
I have provided a link to a card at the bottom of the page but if you give us a budget we may be able to improve on the suggestion,
also make sure you are buying a good quality & output psu to meet the minimum power requirements a card may have
Just for convenience I have copied the system requirements for Crysis;
Minimum System Requirements
- Processor: 2.8 GHz or faster (XP) or 3.2 GHz or faster (Vista)
- RAM: 1.0 GB RAM (XP) or 1.5 GB RAM (Vista)
- Video Memory: 256 MB NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT or greater; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (Radeon X800 Pro for Vista) or greater.
- Only supplied on DVD?: Yes
- Hard Drive Space: 12 GB
- Operating System: Windows XP / Windows Vista
- DirectX Version: DX9.0c / DX10
Recommended System Requirements
- Processor: Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.2GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
- RAM: 2 GB
- Video Memory: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS/640 or similar
- Hard Drive Space: 12 GB
And here is a card for you to consider http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814130514
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#3
skribbz

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Thank you that is exactly what I was looking for. During the time of that post and your reply I actually went through all my parts and picked out new hardware. As for the budget I need it to be under $1200 dollars. I am more concerned with getting a very fast quality computer rather than cut the edges and have to upgrade a year later.

I decided to post what I have picked out right now with the price of $1025 without any graphic card, except the on-board stock. If you will I was hoping someone could let me know if everything is compatible with each part, because I may be over-looking something and also any suggestions on the build would be welcomed!

Phill, if seeing this new hardware and a budget gives you an idea of something better please tell me. Thanks!

New Motherboard: ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 AM3 AMD 880G HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813131646

Processor: AMD Athlon II X4 620 Propus 2.6GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Processor ADX620WFGIBOX

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819103706

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD2001FASS 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822136456

Ram: 2x Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model 996782

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820226103

Power Supply: Antec TruePower New TP-750 750W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.3 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC "compatible with Core i7/Core i5" Power Supply

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817371025

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811129021

Optical Drive:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16827136180

I also have a mouse/keyboard and monitor picked out.

Right now that puts me at about 1025 with about $200 left for a graphics card.
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#4
Troy

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Graphics:

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814161338

A really good card for the money and keeps you under budget. :)
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#5
skribbz

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Thanks! I was looking at this one. . .it seemed to fit all my wants/needs. Anyone heard any bad stuff about this card?

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814161346
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#6
phillpower2

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Thanks! I was looking at this one. . .it seemed to fit all my wants/needs. Anyone heard any bad stuff about this card?

http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814161346

Found the review below for you;
The Verdict
The conclusion can be quite simple. Of course HIS has another classic in their hands with this ICE4+ Turbo model. Though not perfect, we liked it very much. Next to all the customizations from the PCB to the cooling, it also has a little extra bite against the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 cards as it was overclocked slightly.

What I'm not used to from HIS is a noisy product. To date, all of their products have been silent. And the IceQ4+ cooler therefore caught me off guard a little. Once that GPU gets hot, the RPM rises to ~2500, and exactly at that threshold it really starts to move around a lot of air, making it just as noisy as the reference cooler. The positive here however is that it cools better than the reference cooler. So that was the one thing that did strike me as odd, nothing major or extreme though.

That aside, we have an eradicator card here. The 4870 ICE4+ Turbo chews up, as you guys have seen, gaming frame rates easily. Thanks to it's design, you can also tweak a little more out of it and yet again gain roughly 10% extra performance.

The good thing is, HIS isn't offering the product at a much higher price. Expect to drop a tenner or two more and that's it. So from that point of view, that's good value. The big choice obviously for you will be whether or not to go for a 512 or 1024 MB model. Well, prices just dropped and the regular 512 MB 4870 is now available at 229 USD/EUR. This 1024 MB model would probably cost you something like 249 USD/EUR.

In this high-end segment I'd say yeah, drop the extra dough and go for the 1024 MB of video memory. Especially the newer DX10 titles seem to love the extra frame buffer to work in. Though you will not see substantial performance differences at lower resolutions, at higher resolutions you will. Also think of it as an investment for the future, as graphics card evolution has proven time after time... games are getting more and more hungry for video memory. I'm however not in control of your budget and certainly a 512 MB card below 1920x1200 will get you 95% of the performance just as well.

The Radeon HD 4870 1024MB IceQ4+ Turbo is next to being a mouth full of words, worth every penny and there's no doubt in my mind you'll absolutely adore playing your games with it as it'll guarantee you high framerates, high resolutions and high image quality at a very fair price. It's an absolutely lovely product.

Go for it, we recommend it.
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#7
Troy

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Except it's out of stock. :)
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#8
adanniels

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I bought a Asus motherboard and had problems with it. I recommend MSI if you have any problems out of yours
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#9
Troy

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Personally experienced quite a few issues with various budget Asus motherboards but their high-end boards have always been sweet. Pretty much only use Gigabyte now-a-days... Haven't had much experience with MSI.
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#10
Mychael

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I've not had MSI mobo recently (as in last 5 yrs) but when I did have them I was pleased with them, things change all the time though.
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#11
Troy

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I have to admit some of the high-end MSI mobos look pretty nice... Just having a squiz on their website. :)
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#12
adanniels

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Troy do you have nvidia card recommendation at that price? that is a killer deal
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#13
Troy

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http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814150398

This one costs more for about similar performance to the HD5770 I recommended above... I'd go ATI in this case for similar performance and $25 in savings
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#14
adanniels

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well I have always heard asus is top of the line. I had this one http://www.amazon.co...83521059&sr=1-6 and it did not work at all. now the rampage looks really impressive.

I was wondering troy cuz i run nvidia
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#15
Troy

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Asus are like any other company, they have high-end options and budget options.

I used to have an Nvidia 8800GT but it started failing on me, when I was looking for a replacement I actually picked up the ATI HD5770 myself. Whenever I buy anything I look at performance/price ratio - I always want the best performance for my dollar. Fanboy status often means missing out on better performance, in my opinion it's not really worth it. Whatever's the best at the time is what I get. I think it's a good motto to run by.

In all honesty both ATI and Nvidia (and Intel/AMD for that matter) have good products that work well so it's always about research.
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