First New Build

[jimboban]

Hi All,

After a long time planning, I think I'm about ready to embark on my first build - put a kit list together and would appreciate any feedback

I'm planning to buy it all from Scan but possibly aside from the CPU which I understand has some 'slight' supply issues at the moment (but I'm fairly sold that it's the 9450 that I want/need - so will have to search high and low )

Jim

Your Basket
QTY Price (ea) Ex VAT Total Inc VAT Remove
LN21218
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450, Yorkfield Core, S775, 2.66 GHz, 1333MHz, 12MB L2 Cache, Retail £199.95 £234.94

LN20387
Aplus EL Diablo illuminated 330 mm fan in side panel and a 250mm fan in front panel £59.99 £70.49

LN20497
LG GSA-H55LBRL 20xDVD±R, 16x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, PATA,Lightscribe, Black/Beige Retail inc Nero £16.99 £19.96

LN13080
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro - P4 up to 4.4GHz - S775 Dual/Quad Core Ready - The Favourite One! £12.39 £14.56

LN21802
500 GB Maxtor STM3500320AS DiamondMax 22, SATA II, 7200 rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.5 ms, NCQ £44.25 £155.98 x 3

LN10911
XFX REVO 64 SPU 3 Port SATA Raid Card (GAMING / MUSIC / SOHO) £19.99 £23.49

LN21259
4GB (2x2GB) Scan Twin DDR2 PC2-6400 (800MHz), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15 £50.99 £119.83 x 2

LN20297
880W HiperPower HPU-4M880-PE 85% Efficiency, w/8P PCI-E, UK + EU, Crossfire & SLI Certified £78.99 £92.81

LN16783
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Professional £67.99 £79.89

LN17162
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1* 64Bit 1Pk OEM (DVD) £89.10 £104.69

LN11646
AKASA AllInOne RED USB2 5¼" 21 Multifunction Panel with Card Reader - see info £19.99 £23.49

LN18452
Compro Tech Videomate T220 Digital DVB-T PCI Tuner Card £23.89 £28.07

LN20543
Logitech G15 New Rev.2 Gaming Keyboard, USB, Wired, Silver/Black, GamePanel LCD, Illuminated £44.29 £52.04

LN16147
Logitech MX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse, 800dpi, USB 1.1/2.0, 6 Buttons, Black Retail £42.59 £50.04

LN19954
Asus Maximus Formula SE iX38, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 1066/1200/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £140.10 £164.62

LN17654
768MB XFX 8800GTX, Extreme, PCI-E (x16), Mem 1900MHz GDDR3, GPU 600MHz, Stream 128, 2x DL DVI-I £154.88 £181.98

[BigGlenn]

I will leave it to the more experienced system builders in here but I would say this

You might be advised to post your budget and what you are intending to use the machine for, as this can help people make suggestions for you

HDD - A lot of people will advise you to steer clear of Maxtor drives but it all comes down to personal preference, I have both a Samsung Spinpoint and a Western Digital in my machine and have no complaints at all, efficient and quiet

HSF - The freezer 7 has been noted to be noisy, again I will leave this to the experts but maybe a Scythe or Thermalright would be a better choice? (I am only using the standard Intel HSF for the time being as running everything at stock)

RAM - Do you really need 8gig of RAM?? I suppose this depends on what you plan to use the machine for...?

PSU - You will probably get some suggestions re this as you may not need 880W and from browsing other threads I expect people to suggest other makes as well

I will leave it there as I don't have the experience of others on here, so they will probably come up with other suggestions

[Hicks12]

i dont know if you want advice or anything but can i just add my input?(if not just ignore my post )
CPU: you overclocking? what will this comp be used for? get a q6600 instead , and buy a scythe ninja or something(ask in hardware section) the arctic freezer is great imo(got 1) but not recommended for overclocking quads. The q9450 wont be out for awhile so told and ebuyer have oem ones for £220(not worth imo).

Case: i know its personal preference but cases like that are a gimmick and proven not too be effective at cooling, with that price range id recommend something like the antec 900(great case) and very good cooling+looks better(imo).

Ram: any reason you need 8gb? 4gb is plenty, buy some corsair cas 4 for like £60.
PSU: i only hear bad things about hiper power when they die they take parts with them(alot of the time), 880W is overkill. Something like this corsair one LN15215 620w which should be fine as your not quad sli or anything(ask in hardware for another opinion).

Graphics card: not bad but i hear bad things about xfx and their rma service, perhaps save some money and get a bfg 8800GTS for £165, very similar performance.

What res do you use on your screen? this a gaming rig ?.

Also, as far as i remember maxtor drives are ok now but would recommend getting some western digital AAKS models, great performance etc.

[jimboban]

Thanks Guys

To be honest, usage is going to be fairly varied - lots of Football Manager though

For budget - I want bits that a good value - cost is slightly secondary.

In terms of CPU, I think I am unfortunately sold on the Q9450 -had been lusting after a Q6600 for a loooong time - but it seems (to me) to make sense to spend a bit extra and go 45nm.

The case to be honest, I like the look of - has anyone actually used it? (My concerns are: Size - will the cables stretch from the mobo to the case; Power - looks like it needs 4 x molex just for the fans and the lights!!; and Cooling - do the big F*** off fans work...)

PSUs - this is where I am least sure - I am going to have 3 HDD and poss another 8800 v soon so wanted a bit of headroom...

Still choosing a screen - looking at something like a 24" 1920x1200 for day to day stuff - and probably linking to a 42 or 50 inch plasma/lcd for other stuff. (I'm intending to run 1920x1200 for day to day stuff and 1080p to the screen...)

Graphics card - what are the 1gb 9600s like - wasn't sure about only 64 streams?

Thanks for feedback so far guys.

Jim

[MSIC]

Just as a quick note before i consider posting with hardware advice, you say that you want 2 of the 768 GTX's, but you'll be playing lots of Footie Manager.... i assume that you want the graphics cards for other games aswell
I recently got FM2008 and am finding it very odd in this day and age that i cannot change the screen resolution from 1024 x 768, irrespective of resolution of my monitor (there is literally no option in the menu).
Is this true, or have i missed something?

As for the 1GB 9600's, do not buy them. Simply a pointless exercise in marketting, but NO benefit to gamers.

I also always like to ask people how important noise is to them - in this day and age, it's possible to make really really quiet computers, but get the wrong bits with wizzy fans, and you will certainly know it.

[Hicks12]

i wouldnt recommend getting a 1gb 9600 you would be better off buying a 1gb 8800GT(perhaps, not sure) because they still limited by a 256bit bus which the 8800GTX does work well with(386bit buss and 756mb ram i believe). for a 1900x1200 display i would say look for an 8800GTX bfg or evga card from some other place. Since your only playing football manager i dont think that is very intensive(am i right?) if so then having a 512mb bfg 8800GTS would see you very well and only £165.
CPU: 45nm tech is a gimick im afraid, alot of problems with little performance increase i can tell you that cos i got one xD, e8400 >.<, bios cant read temps properly etc and only intel boards work ok with them. You using graphic rendering programs etc? cad perhaps, if on a small scale or not then just save your money and get a nice q6600 because it can overclock too 3ghz easy and would save you alot of hassle and money .

PSU: i had 2 hard drives, 6 case fans and my setup in my system bit and im on a xclio 700w with loads of power too spare, 620W corsair will handle 4x 3870's i believe, was tested.

Case: the fans are a marketing ploy, dont really work and its better too just have 2x 120mm fans , as i said its down to preference but for cooling then the antec 900 is great, coolermaster 690 is good too.

[jimboban]

I do believe (from memory) that you're right!! Hopefully they'll patch FM for different resolutions at some point - only think I can think of is that FM is coded for 'skinned' display - and they would need to release (for example) a 1920x1200 skin before they could change the resolution...

I'm hoping the quad-core and 8gb RAM will keep things rather rapid for FM - which I believe is coded for parellel processing

To be honest, the most graphically challenging games I'm likely to be using aside from FM ( ;-) ) are things like oblivion and C&C3 - but I do a fair bit of high end graphical work so potentially expanding the graphics card(s) for that.

Cheers

Jim

[Hicks12]

i have c&c3 and everything maxed with my bfg 8800GTS, works flawlessly.
Oblivion works very well too. You shouldnt need 8gb of ram really, 4gb should be fine. If your doing high end gfx processing then i guess an 8800GTS would be the best bet still, sli them .

[jimboban]

This is possibly true - however for £50 it seems like a real bargain to add 4 more gigs (Especially with Blista....)

[Hicks12]

yeh but get some branded stuff like these Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

[jimboban]

I was weighing that up - as they're about the same price - is the fact that the scan rebadged stuff is 15 rather than 18 of any benefit?

[Hicks12]

woops didnt look too much into the latency only seeing Cas 5 and 5 xD, yes it would probably be better @ 15 then 18 but tbh i doubt you would see much difference, i didnt when mine were @ 4-4-4-12 and i got them down to 1-1-1-3 still the same imo. But with the corsair you get lifetime warranty and you can overclock them(move the latency down too xD) and as long as you dont go over the rated voltage(they allow -/+ 5&#37; of volt) then you wont void it. Dont know what warranty scan give but id reckon its around a year.

[LegacyOne]

Ditch the XFX REVO and use Intel RAID.

[PsychoChimp]

For the PSU a Corsair HX620 would be fine, even if doing SLI.
Or even better one of the new Enermax 625W units.

But if you're mainly playing FM2008 () and the odd game of Oblivion and C&C3, then SLI is probably overkill.
Dunno how GPU intensive your graphics work is gonna be though.

As for RAM, I think 4GB will be plenty, seeing as my FM08 (and Oblivion) flys on my machine (see "My System").

I'll go with the branded RAM aswell, although I hate to say it, maybe not from Scan as they only have a small choice.

Chimp

P.S. MSIC, I don't think you can change the res but try running it in a window (it's in the options)

[jimboban]

Thank you for all of the feedback guys -

Just about to start buying things - having made a few tweaks and changes...

Now my biggest problem would seem to be getting my hands on a Q9450!! Any idea where I can get one (yes, found them in stock at overclockers.co.uk but not prepared to pay a 25% premium!!)?

Also - anyone know what the difference is between the retail and OEM version?

Cheers

Jim

[Hicks12]

oem=1year warranty(instead of 3) and no heatsink+fan, retail has them.

OEM version might still be in stock at ebuyer @ &#163;220.