New Build - Advice/thoughts/suggestions

K

kazgirl

Geek Trainee
Hiya this will be my first time at building a PC from scratch, I've previously upgraded components, adding RAM, new DVD-RW drive, graphics card etc, and so I've decided to have a go at building my own PC and so far I've put together the parts below in preparation for the build, some of the links are to ebay pages where I've bought items and some are from e-buyer or manufacturers..........I'd be grateful for any advice, opinions or suggestions.

Thanks for taking the time to look and for giving your thoughts.

Mobo: ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless - £80.65
CPU: AMD AM2 Athlon 64 x2 6000+ 3.0Ghz 2Mb cache - £122.68
Graphics Card: Asus EN8800GTS 320Mb PCI-e x16 - bought on e-bay for £65 inc delivery (I'm planning on buying a 2nd one of these b4 long to run them in SLI, not sure if my current PSU will be up to it though...any thoughts on this...???)
RAM: Patriot Extreme Performance DDR2 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400 Low Latency - £75.00 on e-bay
Case: Thermaltake SOPRANO VB1000BWS - Black - £49.00 + £10.00 P&P
PSU:Thermaltake TR2-500W W0093 - £32.95 + £6.95 P&P
HDD: Seagate(Serial ATA) Hard Drive 320GB - £44.99
DVD: NEC Optiarc AD-7173S 18X DVD +/-RW/DL/RAM/Labelflash SATA Black - £21.70
Fan Controller: Akasa FC-06BK Black 3.5" Fan Controller - 3x Fans with 2x USB2.0 Ports - £8.50
Card Reader: XPro Black Internal 3.5" 17-in-1 Card Reader With USB2.0 Port - £9.35
Case Lighting: Extra Value 12" Blue Dual Cold Cathode Kit - £2.54
Speakers: Logitech Z-10 2.0 Interactive Speaker system - bought on e-bay for £50.00
Display: 20" Samsung 206BW - £192.50



LINKS

MOBO: eBay.co.uk: Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Motherboard ''NEW'' (item 110139769862 end time 19-Jun-07 21:04:26 BST)
CPU: eBay.co.uk: AMD ATHLON 64 6000+ X2 DUAL CORE 3.0GHz 2MB SOCKET AM2 (item 170121555218 end time 22-Jun-07 23:35:31 BST)
GRAPHICS CARD: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
CASE: http://http//www.thermaltake.com/xaserCase/soprano/bws/bws.htm
PSU: Pure Power TR2 500W Power Supply-W0093/94
RAM: Patriot Memory - Products
HDD: eBay.co.uk: Seagate(Serial ATA) Hard Drive 320GB ***CLEARANCE*** (item 190124360654 end time 19-Jun-07 00:45:37 BST)
DVD: NEC Optiarc AD-7173S 18X DVD±RW/DL/RAM/Labelflash Serial ATA Black Bare Drive - OEM
FAN CONTROLLER: Akasa FC-06BK Black 3.5" Fan Controller - 3x Fans with 2x USB2.0 Ports
CARD READER: XPro Black Internal 3.5" 17-in-1 Card Reader With USB2.0 Port
CASE LIGHTING: Extra Value 12" Blue Dual Cold Cathode Kit
SPEAKERS: http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/speakers_audio/home_pc_speakers/devices/202&cl=gb,en
DISPLAY: Samsung 206BW 20 TFT SCREEN (2 MS) review cheap prices 206BW 20 TFT SCREEN (2 MS) Samsung best buy discount online uk shop


So anyway the above is what I have so far, though I am also thinking about putting in a water cooling system THERMALTAKE Big Water 745

eBay.co.uk: THERMALTAKE Big Water 745 Liquid Cooling System (item 180130158256 end time 20-Jun-07 17:02:38 BST)

but I'm not sure if I really need this or not, any thoughts....????

Total so far:

Mobo: £80.65
CPU: £122.68
Graphics Card: £65.00
Memory: £75.00
Case: £59.00
PSU: £39.90
HDD: £44.99
DVD Drive: £21.70
Fan Controller Unit £8.50
Card Reader £9.35
Speakers £50.00
Display £192.50
Lighting Kit £2.54
Operating System £50.00

Total £871.81

Plus a possible £100.00 for another EN8800GTS for SLI will make a
new total of £975.00 is this a good price for a PC with these specs....???????

Thanks again for any input...

Kaz
 
Crikey, and you're asking us?
+++Looks like you're sorted with a good system.
On the subject of PSU's - has anyone ever used two? I can't see any logical reason not to, although they can only be connected at 0v otherwise their sensing wires will become confused....if things like HDD's and ROMs were driven from a second PSU then the main one would only service the MB and video, this would remove much of the routine power..... trouble is it's not much
a small HDD takes
0.6A at 5v and maybe 0.2 at 12v so even three discs won't be much more than 15w, although spinning up should take more. Video cards are real power users I understand - hence the fancy fans, but some of this "may" be power-play - a fan only costs £2 to OEM but may raise their "game"......do card makers quote power demand? It would worry me only that this current has to go through the PCB - or are newer video-cards wired to the PSU? (Excuse my ignorance)
A larger PSU with a large fan should be quieter and maybe run cooler at lower output, so possibly more reliable...but PSU reliability is not really discussed..... along with running on battery
 
Hiya thanks Henry for your reply, on the subject of PSU's, you can get PSU's dedicated for VGA cards, approx 250W, as the graphics cards are probably the biggest power eaters.

Most new high end graphics card connect directly to the PSU via a PCI-e six pin power cable,, the 8800 GTS has only one such power connector, but the GTX and higher needs two such connectors on each card so if running say the GTX or Ultra in SLI, then you would need 4 six pin PCI-e power connectors from the PSU, though you can also use the supplied molex adapters, if you don't have 4 PCI-e six pin connections, though, I think it's best to make sure that if you use the molex adapter to try and use a connection thats not got other devices connected to it, as the cards draw a lot of power from the 12v rail.

I'm thinking about getting a new thermaltake truepower 750W PSU which comes quad sli ready, so has the 4 six pin PCI-e connectors already, and has quad 12v rails with a total of 60A and 80% efficiency, ands costs just £79.99, but this will be a later add on to my new build once more funds are available, I'll probaly put this in when I manage to get the 2nd 8800gts for SLI. (just found this PSU for £69.90 inc. delivery - see the new link below)

My main hope is that with this new build, that it'll support quad SLI, so that I can upgrade to the 8800GTX/Ultra in SLI, once the prices for these cards come down in the future, and I'm also hoping that the mobo will support the new AMD BArcelona quad core cpu when it eventually becomes available, as I've heard somewhere that the AM2 socket will support the new CPU.....can anyone confirm this for me..??????

If you want more info on PSU's Henry check out the PSU forum...its a great source of info...

The thermaltake dedicated VGA PSU can be seen on the following link:

W0130 POWER EXPRESS 250W


Thermaltake 750W PSU Link - eBay.co.uk: Thermaltake W0117RB 750W TOUGHPOWER PSU PC Power Supply (item 280125864681 end time 26-Jun-07 15:42:53 BST)


Hope this is of some help to you.

Thanks again for your reply

Karen
 
Hi Kazgirl,
I'm guessing you're UK based also, (S.London, me), but cannot recall ever seeing small psu's for video-cards, (I'll check yr link - ah yes, it looks like they'll be here soon - a great idea except it takes a 5.25" bay and the mains supply is a bit funny.), modern video-card yes , I've seen them at Computer Fairs...why do video-cards need so much power at 12v? - most fast logic is sub-5v what are they doing with that massive current, I wonder?

Thanks for the descri[ption of video-card wiring - this explains how they avoid PCB power-drops, should have been obvious; my own PC is very much low-tech and that was why, when I read yr descrition I was surprised you needed help!
AMD-Processor:
I was reading about changes to the AM2 socket; so u can adjust the voltages on the memory and processor - this may mean some extra pin-wiring, or a different socket!
I'm guessing you are a serious game-player - - - I don't at all, so my video-card is just 8Mb I understand. (laugh!)

One thing I'd like to do is watch video-casts (purely for business using broadband) -and maybe play DVD's...or more likely write one from camcorder video...but it's an area I keep putting-off and even 6 months knocks the price of a PC, so there is no rush.
Vista is memory-hungry I understand so your 2G is only IMHO a start; but I read that Vista is soon to have SP1 and as I'm not at all keen on Microsoft, I can afford to wait until the bugs are loosened, if not ironed.

Good luck, I hope it all comes together for u.
 
Hi OnStock, thanks for your info, I had considered the Intel route, but I've been a loyal AMD user for some time now, I've already bought the Asus AM2 M2N32-SLI deluxe wireless mobo, and have already ordered and paid for the 6000+ cpu, and as I already have one 8800gts, this is why I'm hoping to get another to run in SLI, rather than, buy 2 new cards for SLI, I am definitely going to get the thermaltake 750W PSU, but I think my current thermltake 500W psu will be ok until I install the 2nd 8800gts, but having read some forum posts, I think that with the 2nd GTS card, the power draw from this, as well as the 6000+ cpu, which has a 125W TDP, will definitley need the extra juice......at least I think so from what I've read, and I' a firm believer in "better safe than sorry";-) , so with the thermaltake case which has 3 fans, 1 12cm front intake, 1 12cm rear exhaust, and 1 9cm side mounted fan, and with the Asus passive cooling design, and the thermaltake big water 745 cooling system, which I've now bought, then ther should be more than adequate cooling, at least I hope so, coz I can't see how I can get it any cooler without sticking the whole thing in the fridge....lol.

There's an idea could buy one of those small beer cooler fridges and modify it to be a PC case.....hmmmm.......a future project maybe......lol.....only kidding....

But no most of the parts I listed in my original post have already been ordered now, I suppose what I'm after really is advice on whether or not I've managed to put together the parts I have at a reasonable price or if I would have been better off buying a ready made PC.....though I hope to oc the new rig as well, which is why I've gone a bit OTT on the cooling..

I recently fractured my spine and so have decided to try and get into computer modding as a less physically demanding pastime, damn but it's an expensive hobby...lol...especially when I have no choice but to have most parts delivered so have to factor in shipping costs....

Anyway thanks for your info.


Keep them coming everyone
 
Don't kid, beer-fridges are Peltier devices with a tiny fan to remove the heat, in reality they are pretty poor at keeping cool - but drinks don't get up to much and are probably cool at the start. Active cooling has be tried, but somewhere else you have to cool the Peltier device - it isn't a really good solution at present. A mains-operated fridge is a possibility (ie a food fridge, or a freezer, if you can get one cheaply), but again the heat-change is fairly small.....although you could install a bag of antifreeze (as used I believe in water-cooling systems)....by running the fridge overnight when the PC is Off, you store-up a mass of cold - which should last for most of the day....at night the cycle repeats. Hugely messy, but with water-cooling you are nearly there.
I am curious to know what liquid is in Water-cooled systems - do they add meths? I understand you can't have purely water as this will eventually snarl-up with slime....there has to be something to kill-off any life-forms. I've seen Water-system sellers with bottles of "expensive...." but suspect tis only meths or car-antifreeze...although that can be corrosive if it spilt on the MB or any metal/paint.
 
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