Building My First Rig

[Xanuel]

Hey guys, just wanted to clarify whether all of these parts go hand in hand and any potential upgrades. I'm spending around £400 for now and will add more when I have some spare cash lying about. As it says in the title this is my first time building a PC. Got a mate coming to supervise me who builds them for a living, just wanted to make sure on here that the parts are okay.

AMD Phenom II x4 940 am2+ 6MB L3 cache - £132


Gigabyte GA-M720-US3 AMD Nvidia 720D Socket AM2+ 7.1 channel audio ATX Motherboard - £48.51



Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Mid Tower Case - No PSU - £29.99


OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Titanium Memory Kit CL4(4-4-4-15) - £39.99


Arctic Power 700W PSU - With PCI-E, 4x SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors - Retail

Boxed - £42.99

Liteon 52x32x52x16 CD-RW/DVD Combo Drive Internal IDE Black Bare Drive - OEM - £8.99


Samsung HD753LJ 750GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - OEM - £53.99 -

As you can see with the Mobo I've made sure it's got 4 DIMM slots for upgrading the RAM, I intend on buying another one of the OCZ titanium sets when I have the cash spare. As for graphics, a mate just sold me is nVidia PNY 9800 GT for a tenner, as he's upgraded his card. Again, I've listed a good enough PSU so that I can upgrade my card at a later stage (Was looking at the ATI 4870HD 1GB). As for an OS, I have Vista 32bit. I know quad-cores are 64bit processors and it will effect my performance, but I'm just biding my time until Windows 7. Also wanted to get the Black Edition processor incase I venture into the realm of overclocking, not going to for the moment but just wanted to keep that option open. So yeah... lemme know what you think and if they're good parts, I tried to make sure that the Mobo I've listed won't cap the fsb speed as the one I had in mind before said it supported AM2+ but would reduce the fsb to 2000MT/s. Thanks for reading!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would change the motherboard for the following:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...D3-Motherboard

Perhaps go for the following CPU:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-P...he-125W-Retail

However the Phenom II 940 should be fast enough.

Also ditch the PSU as it is crap!!

Get the following instead:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/450W-...PLUS-certified

A decent 450w to 500w PSU will power your system fine.

Also check the Scan Today and Shop Offers webpages too for special offers. Also once your each 20+ posts on Hexus you can get free postage at Scan for orders over £20 excluding VAT.

[Xanuel]

Hey man, thanks a lot for the input. Definitely going to change the mobo and processor to your recommendations. I was glazing over the other mobo you mentioned but not the processor, good advice. Not sure on the PSU recommendation though, from what people are saying about the one I was going to get it's pretty good, and I'm not sure if 450-500W would power a high end gfx card. I know the 9800gt isn't really high end but I intend on upgrading it to a higher card. I'm not sure though, could you tell me what makes the PSU crap? Not doubting you at all, just not sure as to why it's not so good...

[madmanjj]

Agreed, bust stick with the 940, get a decent cooler and overclock, should be ok, upto you really though.

[Xanuel]

Had a look at some other motherboards and I was considering this one perhaps:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/GIGAB...770T-UD3P-MOBO

It seems better designed for AM3 if I were to go with the 955, and to top it off I could use DDR3 RAM, right? I was considering buying these:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148818

Doesn't seem to be that much more expensive for the new RAM and mobo and from what I've read it would increase performance a lot... Would those 2 be worth it?

[madmanjj]

Yes AM3 socket uses DDR3, but tbh theres not that much of a gap between that and ddr2 so imo its not really worth it at the current time.

[Xanuel]

Okay, gonna stick with the AM2+ socket and the 940, changing the mobo to the recommended though and keeping the PSU I had in mind so I can update my gfx at a later stage.... last question, does anyone have any recommendations on a cooler and if I'm missing anything else in the above build?

[ashikamlani]

Try the Titan Fenrir as a cooler, or, for extreme performance, a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme

How much do you want to spend on the cooler?

[Xanuel]

Not too much, I mean it depends on the performance I guess.. I don't want something cheap that's gonna break down on me after a couple of months of use.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Arctic Power are an el cheapo make. Graphics cards are more dependent on the number of amps on the 12v line rather than outright wattage. Also cheaper makes also overtstate their power ratings too and many state peak wattage and not continuous ratings.

The Corsair VX450W will do the job fine. In fact this OCZ 600w PSU for around £55 is much better than the Arctic Power PSU:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/127861

[Jasp]

The 940 is a cracking processor, my cousin runs 4 instances of Flyff, MSN, WMP and encodes a video in handbrake at the same time and it hardly breaks a sweat lol. Thats at stock clocks. I would change the PSU though, the PSUs Cat has picked are of far better quality.

[Terbinator]

Seriously change the PSU to a high performance one, the PSU component desrves some love as well you know otherwise your new system may go "Poof" even more so if you do go into the realm of overclocking.

[Xanuel]

Ahh okay, I was looking at the OCZ one before, never realised Arctic Power were a cheap brand... I heard OCZ were good but when I saw 700W I thought it would be better... Will definitely get the Stealth one though due to high recommendation on here, thanks a lot for the help guys, greatly appreciated. Anymore suggestions feel free to lemme know. I'd really like a good looking case to be honest.. don't really want to pay £100 for one though.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Ahh okay, I was looking at the OCZ one before, never realised Arctic Power were a cheap brand... I heard OCZ were good but when I saw 700W I thought it would be better... Will definitely get the Stealth one though due to high recommendation on here, thanks a lot for the help guys, greatly appreciated. Anymore suggestions feel free to lemme know. I'd really like a good looking case to be honest.. don't really want to pay £100 for one though.

The Antec 300 is good for the money:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143854

http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=811571

[Vimeous]

The RC330 is decent for a run-of-the mill PC but it has limited cooling.
I'm with Cat on this and recommend the Antec 300 he mentions, the Coolermaster RC-590 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Coole...9-x52-435-Bays) or the RC-690 (http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Coole...-Panel-w-o-PSU).
The biggest difference between the coolermasters is the orientation of the hard drives. I prefer the RC-590.

Oh and +1 on the PSU. 700W of cheap power is not the same as 550W or even less of well-reviewed, stable-under-load power.
I've not seen reviews or specs for the Artic Cooling PSU but I'd be looking for a manufacturer with more reknown in the product-type for my main PC.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Also to the OP the Phenom II X4 900 series comes with a decent cooler.





Here is a review of the stock cooler of the Phenom II X4 940BE:

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16744/5

Going for a very expensive cooler may not be worth it as the extra cash could be put into purchasing the Phenom II X4 955BE.