First system build - please help

[Sacred]

Try looking at advancetec.com for some of those components aswell... They have that case with the window...and you might be able to save a few quid on the other components too, especially the memory...

Would having the window make any difference to how much noise you're able to hear when its running?

Will take a look at their prices tomorrow as am off out tonight! After all it is freshers week!!!

Student loan eh? Not wishing to be rude or presumptuous, but if you're going to be living off value beans for the rest of the year

I'm pretty fortunate, I've been awarded the maximum loan so get £6000 a year and thats after all of my rent and tuition fees have been paid for. So thankfully wont have to resort to beans on toast all year!

Looking like an excellent build now. On top of what others have said you don't really have to spend that much on the motherboard if you aren't overclocking. The standard P5Q or maybe even the Gigabyte (despite the colour scheme ) you initially suggested would run everything fine.

Well I would like to give overclocking a try, might as well try and squeeze some extra performance out of my system for free? I just don't want to burn anything out in the process.

[Lanky123]

You shouldn't have too much trouble overclocking reasonably on any of the P45 boards, but if you've got the cash it's up to you. What you definitely would need is an aftermarket cooler, like the one staffsMike linked above. I've tried overclocking on a stock cooler, temps got to about 70C under load at 3Ghz (up from 2.66Ghz).

A better cooler will make things cooler and quiter at standard speeds too.

[Sacred]

Yeah I'll get an aftermarket cooler before I would even consider doing any over clocking.

Just wondering but approx what could one expect to overclock their processor/RAM/GPU based on the above components? (although I'll probably post a thread specifically about that when I eventually get my student loan and get the system working)

[staffsMike]

Quite happily get 4.0GHz on the CPU with PC6400 RAM. The CPU will probably do a bit more but you will have to play with memory dividers and such like to free up the FSB.

You won't need to overclock that GPU at your resolution, simply isn't worth it. In fact, the CPU isn't really worth overclocking either, 2.2GHz+ and a decent graphics card is all you need.

[acrobat]

It's worth having an after market cooler even if you don't overclock. Just because it would be quieter. You can get cheap ones that are much nicer than the one you get as standard from Intel. It's starting to look really good now Sacred. And yeah I agree with staffsMike that you won't even need to worry about overclocking with that PC. It's fast, and Warhammer isn't even that demanding. I ran Warhammer Beta at maximum settings and it didn't even break into a sweat.

Also, I personally wouldn't worry too much about it being a bit overkill for Warhammer, because you might end up wanting to play other games on it. And as soon as you come across something like Crysis or Forged Alliance or Flight Simulator X or something... you will want all the performance you can possibly get. And they are games that are already out! In the coming months there will be more games, and they just get more and more demanding, month after month. So it's nice to have a bit of head room. I went nuts on my last PC and bought a top of the line graphics card that cost almost as much as my car did at the time... but it's now 2 years on and I'm still playing games with maximum settings and it still does great, so sometimes things like that work out for the best in the long term.

[Hunkulus]

The windowed case also comes with an intake fan on the gpu that may take the temps down a few degrees looks better than the standard issue for about +£5 and has the screw covers (read the hexus review), I'm not saying it's right for everyone.. the general cooling of the case though is very good and there's plenty of room to work in
Plus you can always easily review what you actually have inside the case and look at the shiny bits!

P.S definately get an after market cooler...