TOTAL NOOB building his first rig !

[Kamikaze KiD]

After actually looking into it as a potential buyer, this power supply looks like a really good choice.

Unlike what I recommended last night, any 7870 would be fine, if you plan to get a pricier one, a straight up upgrade would be smarter rather than messing around with finding the best 7870, in the end it will still be 7870 and not a 7950. Just look out for good cooling and warranty I guess, your the gigabyte might be fine.

As someone mentioned earlier, you may want an aftermarket cooler on your cpu over the stock one, like an Arctic freezer i30, but check to see if your cpu is an OEM model or not as OEM cpu's do not come with the intel cooler, just the cpu alone.

Yes I plan to OC the CPU a little later down the line, maybe in two years, so an aftermarket cooler is nto something I want to worry about now.

I am really gutted, I just looked at the amazon price for the i5 and they seemed to have raised it by 10 pounds to 172.99, so annoyed. Anyone know any cheaper places?

I've never really heard of BeQuiet, are they reputable? I think I might stick with the corsair though, especially since it has a 5 year warranty! Thanks for the advice mate

I have to be honest I don;t like that case, the CM 690 I prefer windowed cases too, I don't have one but it's good. Personally I'd go for the Lian LI K63B you posted, plenty of cooling power, nice cable management and appearance wise I prefer it. Both are good choices though.

PSU, I personally own a XFX power supply and they are great, good for their price.

As for memory heatsinks, no they aren't really anything fancy unless you want to seriously overclock your RAM. DDR3 RAM runs at a lower temperature than DDR2 at lower voltages too. I have the Corsair XMS, small heatsink on top but got it mainly because of the price. Other than that memory heatsinks are for serious DRAM overclocks.

I heard the GX PSUs from CM aren't too good.

Yup I think corsair XMS will be a good option for me, and I'll probably just stick with the corsair 300r!
thanks for the advice !

Now all I have to do is look through all the reputable retailers and find where each component is cheapest

So annoyed about the i5 price increase though

[Kamikaze KiD]

I just saw this offer and could not resist

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/cool...ion-61-1443952

At that price I just had to choose the CM 690 over the corsair!
It has been ordered

[Pob255]

Nice one, I really like the cm 690 II white version, it's still the same base 690II but with a few small revisions and tweaks.

Doesn't have a window but if you're willing to mod it's not hard to add one
Coolermaster did do a windowed side panel version http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/fulli...hp?image=45936 http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...se-Review/1572
Not sure they ever sold it separately, scan has the black one for £10 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coole...es-ra-692-kwn1 but that might look a bit odd. Your best bet would be contact coolermaster and ask them, or mod one yourself.

[Kamikaze KiD]

Nice one, I really like the cm 690 II white version, it's still the same base 690II but with a few small revisions and tweaks.

Doesn't have a window but if you're willing to mod it's not hard to add one
Coolermaster did do a windowed side panel version http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/fulli...hp?image=45936 http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/artic...se-Review/1572
Not sure they ever sold it separately, scan has the black one for £10 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coole...es-ra-692-kwn1 but that might look a bit odd. Your best bet would be contact coolermaster and ask them, or mod one yourself.

Interesting, I did not know they sold them separately. I'll definitely look into it further down the line.

Thanks a lot for the help!

[Kamikaze KiD]

Could someone tell me how all this Ram business works?

I see different figures like CL9 and CL10? What is all this and does voltage matter? what about timings?

Thanks guys !

[mikeo01]

CL - Cas Latency. Basically how quick the RAM works, the clock delay before the RAM responds to requests. The lower the better, however the difference is minimal.

RAM speeds in Mhz are the ones you want to watch out for.

CL9 vs CL10 performance wise is very little unless you are running synthetic benchmarks. Word may open a couple of ms quicker with CL9 at the same frequency

Lower the voltage the less power it'll use. That's just the rated wattage, say Corsairs RAM, "this RAM will work at 1600Mhz with 1.65v guaranteed". That's all

[Kamikaze KiD]

CL - Cas Latency. Basically how quick the RAM works, the clock delay before the RAM responds to requests. The lower the better, however the difference is minimal.

RAM speeds in Mhz are the ones you want to watch out for.

CL9 vs CL10 performance wise is very little unless you are running synthetic benchmarks. Word may open a couple of ms quicker with CL9 at the same frequency

Lower the voltage the less power it'll use. That's just the rated wattage, say Corsairs RAM, "this RAM will work at 1600Mhz with 1.65v guaranteed". That's all

Interesting stuff, cheers!

[Kamikaze KiD]

So excited, just ordered most of my parts!

Can i turn this thread into my journey of building the rig? lulz or does that have to be in another part of the forum?

There will be lots of pics!!!!

[Kamikaze KiD]

Slowly the parts are arriving !!

But I must say, I'm getting slightly nervous putting it all together. My first build and all....

[kylina]

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-...-crossfire-atx This one looks good, but EVGA and power supplies... Why does that worry me?

Is EVGA bad with PSUs?

[Willzzz]

Shouldn't be too bad, the OEM was FSP afaik.

[kylina]

Shouldn't be too bad, the OEM was FSP afaik.

What does FSP mean?

[Willzzz]

FSP is a company that makes high quality PSUs.

[mikeo01]

I have to say, that is a nice looking case you have there I like!

FSP power supplies are decent, the top end are quite expensive but they're great. Personally I stick to the usual, Seasonic, XFX, Corsair, Antec etc.

Good luck with building just take your time with it, once you get the CPU chip in everything is like "phew". After that it's basically just plug and screw.

Keep us posted with how things are going

[Kamikaze KiD]

And so it begins...



OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG IM SO NERVOUS FFHFHZDZDBZDFH



okok I need to,

Keep Calm, and build the ****ing PC!

[Bonebreaker777]

I am going to build one too. Every time to are unsure or nervous, just close your eyes, take a deep breath and do it.

If a task is too complex, try to break it up into smaller, less complex tasks.

Don't be afraid to ask, no question is too stupid. Maybe the same question repeated way to often could sound a bit stupid, but never mind.

Make sure you take pictures of everything