Building new PC (first time) please help

[rich3]

Hi all

I've been thinking about building my own PC for a month or two now. This will be the first I've built. My limit is £1000 to spend. I've a rough idea about the spec, here's what i've come up with so far.

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+
Asus A8N32-SLi Deluxe nForce4 SLi X16
Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200C2 Pro TwinX
GeForce 7900 GT 256MB
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 250GB 6V250F0 SATA-II 16MB Cache or Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache (not sure whats best)
Enermax Noisetaker 600W
Antec P180

Already have a Monitor, CD/DVD drive.

What do you think? Up for any suggestions that you think I should change for what ever reason. I'm a bit worried about the mainboard, been reading a lot that its not up to scratch, but unsure what else to go for.

Cheers for any help

[herulach]

WHere are you buying it from? Wpox boards are worth a look imo. AS far as everything else goes it looks like a pretty good spec, you might want to invest in a better than stock cpu cooler if youre after silence, but otherwise you should enjoy it.

[rich3]

cool thanks for the quick reply.

I'm in the UK. What cooler would you recommend?

cheers

[AtomicFuse]

www.scan.co.uk offer a wide range of components at good prices, erm as for a cpu cooler, try the Akasa , a friend of mine has one and they kick out some air and are really quiet too! Oh and (what I thought was really cool) you get a little knob so you can make him spin faster or slower

[MantisCSS]

i recomend the Arctic cooler, real quiet and does a good job!

[rich3]

Nice one cheers

[NightshadowUK]

MantisCSS has the right idea - Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 64.

As for hard a drive, go with either a Hitatchi or Samsung.

[nvening]

For HDD go for a Samsung, get the freezer 64, also why spend so much on the motherboard? 16x sli is unessasary and so is sli if you only have one (but u may like to be able to upgrade), look at the abits imo, or the non 16x sli asus

Also get a modular PSU.

And i would get 2GB of ram for games, value stuff is perfect unless you are planing of good size overclocks?

[[DW]Cougho]

I second the 2gb of RAM movement, apart from that everything is spot on

[rich3]

cheers for that, I'll have a look at the samsung HDD and the modular PSU. I was looking at going for that motherboard so I could upgrade the CPU plus add another graphics card at some point over the next few years. What make of RAM would you recommend?

[TooNice]

Well, the A8N-32 has a bunch of features that you may not necessarily find in lower end mobos. It's not a bad choice all in all. It clocks well too (at least amongst the Asus board). I am not sure what is the multiplier in the 3800+, but if it is the same thing as the Opteron 165 (9x), then it is good to go for a mobo that clocks well. If you look for a non 16x Sli Asus, look into the Premium. It overclock moderately well, and also has heatpipes.

For PSU, I went from a Noisetaker to a Seasonic S12. It is considerably quieter.

The Scythe Ninja is is almost made for the the P180, so it is worth a look. Still, you could just stick with the stock cooler first and see if you need better cooling/more silence. The stock cooler of the Opteron 165 is pretty good, though not as quiet as bigger aftermarket coolers.

If you only use a single drive, I'd go Hitachi. Or if you want bang for buck, the WD3200 series. Unless you really value silence, in which case Samsung lead.

RAM wise, the Corsair Value seems to provide good bang for buck. Not that much bang really, but I would just use dividers and save the money on other things.

[RavenNight]

Another vote for Hitachi drives, the performance is great. Also look into a Gigabyte 3D Aurora for the case, utterly brilliant.

[TheAnimus]

if you can, save the £100 up, and get a X2 4400, the reason is they have double the cache on CPU.

Well worth it imo!

[mike_dowler]

My Hitachi drive is easily the noisiest thing in my case - I'm wishing I'd spent a couple of quid more and got a Samsung. Also, the Akasa cooler is only quiet when you turn the fan down - the good thing is that the fan speed makes very little difference in cooling ability (silent -> hurricane = 1-2 deg C!) Good cooler though.

[rainbow]

tbh the deskstar hitchi is the fastest drive out there bar the raptor so if its speed you crave without great cost go for it, remember noise is a by product of power (thats what i keep telling myself any way )

[TooNice]

if you can, save the £100 up, and get a X2 4400, the reason is they have double the cache on CPU.

Well worth it imo!

I wonder.
I'd like to see some benchmarks of two Opteron/X2 at the same clockspeed, but different cache size. I suspect there is not that much difference to justify £100. The Opteron 165 might be a better choice if you really want 1MB cache. Cheaper than the X2 4400, but should clock as well.