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Building my first desktop...help!

post #1 of 86
7/20/07 at 6:15pm
Thread Starter 
Motherboard:
Asus P5K-VM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131187
I just picked the cheapest one. Could someone please explain the difference between all of the P5K's? Which one is the best? Whats the difference?

Case
Thermaltake Armor Series
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811133154
Good reviews? Anything cheaper I could get?

PSU
OCZ 600W GameStream
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817341002
Good reviews? Anything cheaper I could get?

RAM
Patriot Extreme 2gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820220144
Is this quality RAM?

CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 Conroe 2.66GHz
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115029

Hard Drive
Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822144415
Basic HD that I can always upgrade later

GPU
EVGA GeForce 8800GTX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130072
Its all about the 28"
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post #2 of 86
7/20/07 at 7:10pm
well I'm sure you have already seen my rig in this forum. 680 chipsets are getting better these days & SLi is a nice feature. The question you have to ask is what resolution are you going to be running at?

Personally I prefer the P35 boards, though they don't have Nvidia SLi support. They do support x-fire & great overclocking potential if that is something you are interested in.


As far as the case, I would suggest a full tower if you are going SLi with removable drive cages. The clearance on mine is .5mm. I removed the lower 3.5" drive cage to get my card in. You can see I have a mid tower & the 1 card takes up a large potion of the case.
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post #3 of 86
7/20/07 at 8:31pm
Thread Starter 
I imagine I'll be running at 1920x1200, as that is what the monitor I own does. I don't know what the p35 boards are, I'm more familiar with nvidia and I know I'll be going with nvidia SLI eventually. So you think I definitely need a full tower if I will want SLI? Think you can make a recommendation?
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post #4 of 86
7/20/07 at 8:44pm
P35 is the Intel chipset, 680 is an Nvidia chipset. Intel P35 has been more overclocker friendly, but driver issues have prevented it from being compatible with Nvidia SLi (imagine why).

The reason I recommend full tower is for 2 reasons

#1. Heat generation from 2 GPU's will be intense & drive up the case temps.
#2. A larger case will allow you to provide more airflow for your system.


I would recommend limiting your searches to system that use 120mm+ fans. They are larger, allow more airflow & run slower which in turn provides a quieter experience.
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post #5 of 86
7/20/07 at 9:00pm
Thread Starter 
Why would then I go for a p35 if its not compatible with nvidia sli?
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post #6 of 86
7/20/07 at 9:07pm
Thread Starter 
How about this one? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811156077
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post #7 of 86
7/20/07 at 9:54pm
I was not saying you should not go with the Nvidia hipset I was just pointing out the differences between the chipsets. Personally I looked into SLi but was unimpressed at resolutions below 2560x1600 for the cost.
That cost included:

-Unable to use the P35 chipset based motherboards
- having to purchase a larger PSU
- Purchasing a second vid card
- Blocking of PCI ports
- Having to reboot to use a dual monitor setup (only way to disable SLi)
- Gaming improvement was minimal based on benchmarks. (3dmarks were good, though)
-Upgrading to a new vid card setup later would be more expensive since you are replacing 2 cards

I am not saying you should not go for it, there are a lot of ppl happy with that setup. I had the cash to do it but just decided against it for the above reasons.
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post #8 of 86
7/21/07 at 1:07am
Thread Starter 
I understand, but by getting an SLI motherboard I won't have to worry about saying that I'll NEVER want SLI...I may not need it right now but I may want it soon. What do you think about the case I linked to?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811156077
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post #9 of 86
7/21/07 at 1:29am
My opinion? It's damn ugly, not to mention flimsy. How much are you looking to spend on a case? I set aside $150 myself to ensure I got a decent setup. That fan is huge, though, lol...

Personally my style for a full tower is more along these lines:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811133154

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811133132

The second one is the case I used. It can accomoate 2 cards & the 3.5" tray & the lower 5.25" tray are both removable for easy installation. It'a on the big side of the mid-ATX cases, which was why I chose it.
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post #10 of 86
7/21/07 at 2:18am
Thread Starter 
Do you really think its ugly? I kind of like the way it looks haha, and its also not that expensive. Its not like it's going to break right? Any thoughts on the rest of my stuff
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post #11 of 86
7/21/07 at 2:39am
THe PSU is definitely over-powered for what you have lol, I understand you are planning SLi in the future though.

Looks like you are trying to build a budget system to upgrade later?

Processor... I would go for an e6600 when the prices drop in a few days.

Audio- On board audio is nice but remember on board uses the main processor instead of a dedicated audio processor which can affect performance.

RAM-Here is good ram that is less expensive & offers an additional rebate

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820220144

Hard drive- That is fine for now


Motherboard... My preference

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131073

Or if you want the same motherboard at a discount & don't mind an open box-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16813131073R

DVD RW- This is cheap & it offers all the functionality you would need

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827106072
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post #12 of 86
7/21/07 at 11:15am
Thread Starter 
Well I was looking at sound cards and I saw the creative Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 but I heard that it doesn't have an internal processor so it uses the CPU? So now I'm looking for another sound card...
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post #13 of 86
7/21/07 at 12:20pm
Audigy 2 Zs- cheap You can grab one from ebay or something. another recommendation is Turtle Beach. They have really good cards as well.
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post #14 of 86
7/21/07 at 12:27pm
Thread Starter 
http://cgi.ebay.com/Creative-SoundBl...QQcmdZViewItem
Is that what I'm looking for? Anything else that can be changed?
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post #15 of 86
7/21/07 at 12:47pm
yep that is the card. Your setup looks fine. Remember in the ned it's your setup you need to get what makes you happy
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post #16 of 86
7/21/07 at 4:00pm
Thread Starter 
of course, but its nice to have some help =)
Now I gotta figure out how to put the thing together. Any tips on a good website that'll walk me through it? I feel like there's a lot of bios settings that I'll need to learn
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post #17 of 86
7/22/07 at 2:11am
Thread Starter 
just updated a BUNCH of parts


PS, I have a Viewsonic vx2835wm, its a 28" HD monitor with a max resolution of 1920x1200. I feel like cards like the 8800gtx can output higher resolutions. Is there a limit to how high resolutions can go before you stop noticing? Do any games go higher than 1920x1200? When Crysis comes out and you can run it at like infinite resolution, am I going to regret having a "low" resolution monitor?
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post #18 of 86
7/22/07 at 12:14pm
1920x1200 is by no means a low resolution monitor lol. Most people are still running 1280x1024 in the desktop mainstream market. DAmn that case is expensive, granted it comes with a 1000w PSU.



I think once you drop that 8800GTX in & start seeing how it reall performs you are going to be more like...Damn....and I thiought I needed 2! You should pull about 9,500-10,000 stock 3DMark06 scores.
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post #19 of 86
7/22/07 at 12:17pm
Thread Starter 
That makes me feel good =) I went for the case because it had good reivews, looked sturdy, was SLI certified, and came with a nice PSU. Didn't end up costing much more at all
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post #20 of 86
7/22/07 at 12:28pm
are you planning on overclocking at all? If you are you need a different HS than the stock one you are going to get

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835118019

-big & quiet, comes with thermal grease on par w/AS5.


In addition with all those fans you might want to look into a fan controller...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&Order=REVIEWS
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