General Help with building my new "dream machine"...

[Thorsson]

TCCD are made by Samsung. Most of the top memory uses these. The Ballistix uses Micron, but Anandtech tests put it right up at the top alongside OCZ. IIRC Crucial was best at intermediate OCs, OCZ at stock and heavy OC (Corsair were in the pack). I got Crucial for that, and for the fact that it was around £50 cheaper than the OCZ.

Since then there have been a bunch of other TCCD sticks by various manufacturers, but some you can't get here, and others are a bit of an unknown quantity. Note that any of them are very good though, real world differences will be slight.

[RichL.com]

Just an update - i was reading another forum and alot of users are having problems with Tagan 480w PSUs...now this is abit of a kick in the arse for me as ive literally ordered one two days ago...now im worried its going to fry my brand new mainboard before ive even started...not that ive bought a new mainboard yet.

Slightly worried...has anyone else used a Tagan 480w PSU? Or is using one? Problems?

Plus i think i may go for an MSI board now....they do seem to be quite featurefull (thats probobly a word) and do benchmark well too...

[RichL.com]

Anyone heard any good things about this board:

Gigabyte K8NF-9 nForce4 (Socket 939) PCI Express

So many people have had problems with Tagan PSUs (that i have just ordered) and ASUS boards im looking at other options now...gigabyte, any good?!

[Thorsson]

I saw that THG were reporting several problems with the Tagan and decided to buy an Enermax instead. Other good supplies are the Antec Neopower and the OCZ. Enermax (from Scan) was cheaper though...

I haven't seen anything about problems with ASUS boards (at least on http://hardware.mcse.ms/Asus_Motherboards/ ), but they have already published a BIOS update (http://www.asus.com/support/download...N-SLI%20Deluxe), so there must be at least one issue.

ASUS support is usually topnotch.

[RichL.com]

Thanks for your help, ive now sold the Tagan and ordered an Enermax noisetaker 600w!

Im still incredibly stuck with which board to go for, i think im not stuck between an ASUS and a Gigabyte, the msi just doesnt seem to have as many features or accessories as the rest- gigabyte any good?

BTW - Does Corsair 3200XL ram have ECC? Alot of these mainboards say its recommended as im planning on running two 512s dual channel...

Buffered/Unbuffered RAM- whats the difference/advantages performance?

[Kebab]

To just to help thoese that don't know

http://www.corsairmicro.com/corsair/...707/index.html

have a look, should clear a shed load of questions up.

Found this in another thread in this forum. Answered a lot of questions for me

[RDL]

If this is a gaming rig then presumably you actually want to play some games. Therefore even though you think you may not need it, buying the likes of a 200gb Barracuda 7200RPM HDD would be a good addition. This is a bargain at £80 and can be used for just storing data etc. on; using your raptor for games.

[Thorsson]

Thanks for your help, ive now sold the Tagan and ordered an Enermax noisetaker 600w!

Yeah that's a real beast...

BTW I can confirm that the ASUS board takes the huge Zalman 7700 Heatsink with no problems.

[RichL.com]

If this is a gaming rig then presumably you actually want to play some games. Therefore even though you think you may not need it, buying the likes of a 200gb Barracuda 7200RPM HDD would be a good addition. This is a bargain at £80 and can be used for just storing data etc. on; using your raptor for games.

Thanks mate, but for the moment i know what i want - if i do need more capacity ill keep it in mind!