Complete novice requires some guidance.

[mycarsavw]

Right, here goes.

I've been reading for ages, compiling mental and physical lists of what I want, filling my basket with goodies and so on. I now think I know what I want, I'd just like someone with more knowledge than myself to cast their eyes over my choices and slate/praise where necessary.

I used to build PCs in the days of Win95/98 so the process of putting it together doesn't bother me at all, it's what to actually put in it that has got me scratching my head.

The new computer will be mainly used by my children for surfing t'internet, doing homework and generally messing about. If it's good enough for me for a bit of gaming, that's a bonus. Budget is roughly £650.00 to include everything. This may be flexible depending on VAT mentioned below.

On to the fun part;

Motherboard - Asus P5B Telesky - Scan code LN17290 - £91.05

CPU - Intel Core Duo E6300 - Scan code LN15047 - £118.73

Memory - Corsair 2 x 512MB - Scan code LN15367 - £86.94

GPU - XFX 7600GS - Scan code LN14797 - £62.26

HDD - Samsung Spinpoint 160gb - Scan code LN9709 - £37.00

Optical Drive 1 - Samsung 18x18 DVDRW - Scan code LN14972 - £19.16

Optical Drive 2 - Samsung 48x CD-ROM / 46x DVD-ROM - Scan code LN4884 - £11.62

Case - Antec Nine Hundred - Scan code LN16718 - £75.14

PSU - 580W HiperPower Type-R - Scan code LN11004 - £57.58

That totals £576.56 all in but I may be able to lose the VAT element so that would bring it down to £490.69

Leaving the balance for;

OS - XP Pro but maybe XPMCE - what would make me pick one over the other? I don't want Vista yet.

Sound Card - No idea if I need one, but...

Monitor - Something flat, black and 17/19" - recommendations?

Keyboard, mouse and speakers.

Would I need to add extra cooling to any of the above items or is the stock stuff sufficient for my low usage? Have I missed anything obvious out?

I appreciate any advice anyone can give, and await your feedback. If you suggest an alternative, I'd like to know why, as I said, I'm a born-again builder who is trying to learn.

Thanks in advance.

Note: Edited my post as it would appear I'm not yet permitted to post URLs so my apologies for the Scan codes

[Splash]

My only real query would be the P5B Telesky - any particular reason you went for that board?

[abeacock]

If you want to save pennies then I would drop the Antec case and get a Jeantech Phong II - they are £50, look good, great cooling, etc. CustomPC mag loves them: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/custompc/revi...-phong-ii.html

I would also drop the second optical drive unless you plan on creating a CD/DVD burning factory...

You could also save on the ram if you are not going to overclock, why not get 1GB of Corsair Value for £61.72?

For non-overclocking needs your spec looks fine as far as cooling.

[Flewis]

I would recommend getting 2GB of RAM, or 1X1GB stick for an easy future upgrade.

Motherboard might be slightly better than what you need, you would do fine with the standard P5B.

Do you need both of those optical drives, to me seems like needless expense + extra power usage.

The Antec 900 is a bit overkill for your build, you would do fine by getting a good, but cheaper case.

I would recommend an ATI X1650 Pro that would probably outperform a 7600GS.

You do not need to buy a sound card as almost every single motherboard has onboard sound which is fine for the average user.

Otherwise looks ok.

[mycarsavw]

My only real query would be the P5B Telesky - any particular reason you went for that board?

In all honesty, I knew I wanted a P5B board but couldn't decide which was the one for me, I just went for a reasonable middle ground.

Which would be better, in your opinion?

If you want to save pennies then I would drop the Antec case and get a Jeantech Phong II - they are £50, look good, great cooling, etc. CustomPC mag loves them

I would also drop the second optical drive unless you plan on creating a CD/DVD burning factory...

You could also save on the ram if you are not going to overclock, why not get 1GB of Corsair Value for £61.72?

For non-overclocking needs your spec looks fine as far as cooling.

Your comments on the case are noted, the reason I chose it was purely aesthetical. If the Jeantech Phong does the same job at a better price, that's great.

I always thought two drives were a good thing, say I wanted to backup a CD, do I now burn it to the PC and then copy back onto a CD rather than copying from one drive to another? As I said, things have moved on a bit since I last built.

What does the Value RAM lack over the "normal" RAM?

I would recommend getting 2GB of RAM, or 1X1GB stick for an easy future upgrade.

Motherboard might be slightly better than what you need, you would do fine with the standard P5B.

Do you need both of those optical drives, to me seems like needless expense + extra power usage.

The Antec 900 is a bit overkill for your build, you would do fine by getting a good, but cheaper case.

I would recommend an ATI X1650 Pro that would probably outperform a 7600GS.

You do not need to buy a sound card as almost every single motherboard has onboard sound which is fine for the average user.

Otherwise looks ok.

I'll look at 2GB RAM then, but as advised above, would I pick Value or normal if I were to make this jump?

Which is the standard P5B?

See above re Optical drives - I'm learning

Thanks for the advice on the card, I'll have a look at that too.

Define "average user" in this case. I like my music a lot has onboard sound moved on to a stage where it doesn't sound like a £3.99 shower radio?

Thanks for all the advice, it's helping a lot and I think I'm slowly starting to get the feel for everything again

[abeacock]

The Phong is not as good looking as the Antec but I've been very pleased with mine.

For copying CDs and DVDs you now just rip them into an ISO image and then burn the image back onto a blank disk. It doesn't take very long as the CPUs and drives are pretty fast.

The value ram are normally basic chips that operate at their default speed but normally won't overclock very much, they also don't have the fancy heatspreaders (read as RAM heatsinks) on them but you only have to take these facts into consideration if you want to run the RAM faster than the speed it is rated for.

I think this is the normal P5B (but I could be wrong!):
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=434330

Onboard sound now is very good, I would suggest that you go with the motherboards audio for now and see if you like it.
You can always buy the sound card at a later date.

[abeacock]

An alternative motherboard is the Gigabyte DS3:
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=437659

I've been very happy with mine but a few people on this forum (clunk I think is one) had some problems with his.

[Blitzen]

Two pieces of advice you should definitely heed:

1. Get 2gb of RAM rather than 1gb. Todays applications, whether its games, encoding, OS's all run FAR FAR better with 2gb.

2. Dont get the Hiper PSU. Go for something with some headroom. For £10 more you can go for a Corsair/Enermax/Antec NeoHE.
The Hiper is a budget PSU (i know some will disagree but thats a fact). It may look nice but they are very flakey.

3. If you want to game with this rig the consider going a little higher in the GPU department. 7900GS's or 1800/1900pros are good value and will give you a significant increase. If those are a little out of range then at least go for the 7600GT.

Note For Flewis:
The 1650Pro wouldnt outperform the 7600GS. Not only is the 7600GS a quieter card but also a little faster and more room to clock it a bit.
The 'budget' style ATI cards are way behind the budget nVidia cards tbph.

[mycarsavw]

The Phong is not as good looking as the Antec but I've been very pleased with mine.

For copying CDs and DVDs you now just rip them into an ISO image and then burn the image back onto a blank disk. It doesn't take very long as the CPUs and drives are pretty fast.

The value ram are normally basic chips that operate at their default speed but normally won't overclock very much, they also don't have the fancy heatspreaders (read as RAM heatsinks) on them but you only have to take these facts into consideration if you want to run the RAM faster than the speed it is rated for.

I think this is the normal P5B (but I could be wrong!):

Onboard sound now is very good, I would suggest that you go with the motherboards audio for now and see if you like it.
You can always buy the sound card at a later date.

Thanks for explaining things, that helps a lot.

It doesn't look like Scan offer that particular case, I'd really like to order from one online retailer to attempt to cut down multiple delivery costs. Does anything else there scream "buy me"?

An alternative motherboard is the Gigabyte DS3:

I've been very happy with mine but a few people on this forum (clunk I think is one) had some problems with his.

I read a few reports of the Gigabyte board going wrong on another forum (Build Your Own) and nothing but praise for the P5B series so for now, I'll stick with the above, albeit in its basic form

Two pieces of advice you should definitely heed:

1. Get 2gb of RAM rather than 1gb. Todays applications, whether its games, encoding, OS's all run FAR FAR better with 2gb.

2. Dont get the Hiper PSU. Go for something with some headroom. For £10 more you can go for a Corsair/Enermax/Antec NeoHE.
The Hiper is a budget PSU (i know some will disagree but thats a fact). It may look nice but they are very flakey.

3. If you want to game with this rig the consider going a little higher in the GPU department. 7900GS's or 1800/1900pros are good value and will give you a significant increase. If those are a little out of range then at least go for the 7600GT.

Note For Flewis:
The 1650Pro wouldnt outperform the 7600GS. Not only is the 7600GS a quieter card but also a little faster and more room to clock it a bit.
The 'budget' style ATI cards are way behind the budget nVidia cards tbph.

1. Noted, and thank you

2. Interesting, I'll have a look about and see what I can alter. I presume the rating (580w) of the Hiper unit is sufficient for my needs and I should just replace it with one of a better quality? Would it hurt to jump up to 600w or down to 550w?

3. I initially looked at the 7900 cards but didn't really know what to go for, I dropped down to a 7600 as it seemed fairly well reviewed. What are the big names and who do I have to avoid?

I remember paying £250 odd on a 4400GT card some years ago and it being next to useless when it came to playing (cough)Tomb Raider(cough)

As before, replies and explanations really are appreciated.

[abeacock]

I have an EVGA 7900GT and it's great for gaming at 1280x1024 full detail.

Some good names of GFX card manufacturers are EVGA, ASUS, BFG, XFX.

[vinnyT]

Jeantech phong are sold by PC World, so if you have one in your area, you could go look/buy (just tried searching on their site, no go, no cases whatever, hate thier site). Think there're around £40 - £50.

Hope this helps.

[abeacock]

£49.99 from PC World
http://www.pcworld.co.uk:80/martprd/...H/JNH70/570554

[Splash]

In all honesty, I knew I wanted a P5B board but couldn't decide which was the one for me, I just went for a reasonable middle ground.

Which would be better, in your opinion?

I have a P5B Deluxe/WiFi which is cracking, but may be out of your price range (I paid around 120 quid on Today Only), would definitely recommend a deluxe (though Scan don't seem to stock, so you may need to look elsewhere). From what I can see the only advantage of the Telesky is that it comes with an adapter to plug your house phone into which allows it to be used for Skype calls - other than that it's a plain old P5B.

Also given the price why not go with Vista? It's around the same price as XP for an OEM and it doesn't sound like this is going to be one of those machines that gets upgraded with every new generation...

[Blitzen]

2. Interesting, I'll have a look about and see what I can alter. I presume the rating (580w) of the Hiper unit is sufficient for my needs and I should just replace it with one of a better quality? Would it hurt to jump up to 600w or down to 550w?

3. I initially looked at the 7900 cards but didn't really know what to go for, I dropped down to a 7600 as it seemed fairly well reviewed. What are the big names and who do I have to avoid?


As before, replies and explanations really are appreciated.

No.2 - Its not the wattage that really counts. Its the 12V Amperage, the sustained flow of power and the quality of clean power given.
This: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=355398

or this: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=446788

or this: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=284213

are FAR better choices than the Hiper you originally pointed out and all within £10 or cheaper than the Hiper aswell.

No.3 - This is decent: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=495291
and will give you a little more oooomph!

If you arent into extreme gaming though, the 7600GS will suit you perfectly.

Hope this helps.

[mycarsavw]

£49.99 from PC World

Thanks for the link - though I'm still not sold on the case, it looks very "budget"

I like the fan control thing, and the display but is that just showy, in a system of this spec, is it needed? Can it be found/added to another case?

I have a P5B Deluxe/WiFi which is cracking, but may be out of your price range (I paid around 120 quid on Today Only), would definitely recommend a deluxe (though Scan don't seem to stock, so you may need to look elsewhere). From what I can see the only advantage of the Telesky is that it comes with an adapter to plug your house phone into which allows it to be used for Skype calls - other than that it's a plain old P5B.

Also given the price why not go with Vista? It's around the same price as XP for an OEM and it doesn't sound like this is going to be one of those machines that gets upgraded with every new generation...

I have no intention of using Skype and to be honest I'd rather remove the temptation. I have a wireless router/network already so I may just step up to the wifi board and lose the need for another cable.

Vista. You're right, I could just buy it and be done, and I keep toying with the idea of doing so, but is it not advisable to sit back, let SP1 come out then jump on board?

Obviously(?) all the hardware I buy now will be new and thus have some Vista compatibility. What version would be an upgrade on XP Pro?

No.2 - Its not the wattage that really counts. Its the 12V Amperage, the sustained flow of power and the quality of clean power given.
This:

or this:

or this:

are FAR better choices than the Hiper you originally pointed out and all within £10 or cheaper than the Hiper aswell.

No.3 - This is decent:
and will give you a little more oooomph!

If you arent into extreme gaming though, the 7600GS will suit you perfectly.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the links, all as you say, within budget.

I wont be playing extreme games, I have a console for that, but I know, with the temptation of a new machine that'll I push it and slowly slip back into machine building.

For now however, it's for the kids.

[mycarsavw]

I'll revamp my original component list and, as this is my 5th post, I'll hopefully be able to post some links in the next one.