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Buying/building a new PC


Knuckles

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I like to install the CPU and Memory before installing the MOBO into the case. I have big hand and those small details are easier out of the case.

 

That's excellent advice loco. Those two items I think are the most difficult items to assemble in my experience. Attaching them before screwing the mobo into the case would make things much easier I imagine.

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I attached everything except cables before screwing the motherboard in, it's much easier. All I had to do after mounting it was connect wires.

Do this, it helps.

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I attached everything except cables before screwing the motherboard in, it's much easier. All I had to do after mounting it was connect wires.

Do this, it helps.

 

and install expansion cards ( video, sound etc.)

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I like to install the CPU and Memory before installing the MOBO into the case. I have big hand and those small details are easier out of the case.

 

That's excellent advice loco. Those two items I think are the most difficult items to assemble in my experience. Attaching them before screwing the mobo into the case would make things much easier I imagine.

 

 

At least the new CPU;s are pinless. don't have to worry as much about bending a pin anymore. remember the old days?

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For the monitor, you get two choices :

 

A flat panel full hd (1080p) lcd TV (€1000 here in france for a 127cm screen) with hdmi input if the video card is hdmi capable. Believe me, Sacred2 in full hd on a big big big screen is godly, and thunder strikes flashes are.... amazing.

 

A 24" monitor (1920x1200). Some are hdmi compliant and embed speakers if you plan on plugin' a PS3 or X360 on your monitor.

 

just my 2 cents

Edited by Nihilith
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For the monitor, you get two choices :

 

A flat panel full hd (1080p) lcd TV (€1000 here in france for a 127cm screen) with hdmi input if the video card is hdmi capable. Believe me, Sacred2 in full hd on a big big big screen is godly, and thunder strikes flashes are.... amazing.

 

A 24" monitor (1920x1200). Some are hdmi compliant and embed speakers if you plan on plugin' a PS3 or X360 on your monitor.

 

just my 2 cents

definitely what I miss most about my xbox is playing on a 46" hd tv. and frame rates I think where better in most cases. that was part of my reason for upgrading my pc. to get quality better than xbox.

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I'm throwing my recommendation for thermal paste. IC Diamond from Innovation Cooling smokes AS5.

 

http://www.innovationcooling.com/

 

There was several forums that had people testing this stuff against As5 and others. I nearly every test ICD beat AS5 hands down in performance. There is a new king in town.

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Again thanks for all the responses. I should have up what I want to buy soon. I just don't want to 'build' it all and then just sit looking at it waiting to buy until my check comes in. It would drive me crazy. I may go a step or 2 below top-tier as my nephews computer is bsod'ing on him and it's really too old to invest much into it.

 

It's an old E-Machine, but with Xmas coming up and his birthday is in Jan it makes more sense to set him up with a nice new pc as a combo gift. So I may drop my total for my machine down to 2-3k and build him one. It won't be as nice as mine though :D

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list looks pretty good Knuckles. You'll have to take a few days off to build and test this beast. Take a photo to Walmart and get a custom Sacred2 Mouse Pad to finish it off.

 

Edit: Just kidding about the whole Wally mart thing! :)

 

It looks like you have a good Heatsink there. I just installed this one today.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835106123

 

I run ith the same PC3 12800 RAM as you have in your list. they require a base clock of 160 to achieve the 800Mhz memory speed. this along with speed step on turbo gives me a Range of 1.4Ghz at idle to 3.4Ghz CPU loaded speed. With the stock heatsink/fan and generic thermal compound I was Idle at 37 C and loaded hitting 57 C. With this one and Arctic silver 5 it Idles at 30 C and loaded at 43 C. I am sold on it now. The design of the heatsink and fan blow alot of air and it goes in 360 degrees away from the heatsink. My case them is running at 25 C with a room Temp of 21 C

 

I also replaced the stock Quiet Apevia 80mm fans with these 120s

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...-_-Pst02Descrip

Its neat the way they mount on rubber standoff so they will never give you any vibration noise.

 

Double check that case selection for noise level! Nothing is more annoying than reading email or Forum posts or playing Sacred2 than having to sit next to a noisy Computer.

 

I t looks to have plenty of airflow and fans. hope they have a quiet mode.

Edited by locolagarto
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Check finally cleared so I'll be ordering the parts within a few days. Think I'm going to tone it down a bit as far as splurging though.

 

More than likely I'll go with a single GTX 285 or 295. From everything I have read I don't think I'll see significant improvements in gameplay with 2 in a SLI config.

 

Also decided to go with 2 Western Digital HDD's in a RAID 0 instead of getting an SSD. The cost per GB is too much and most drives are below 160GB. Plus read too many negative reviews about them so far. I'll let a few generations go by and wait for the bugs and price to go down before thinking of upgrading to these.

 

Still getting an i7 CPU but might drop down to a 920. Again the performance difference to a 970 is minimal but the pricing isn't.

 

Same with the sound. I have some old 5.1 speakers and might just use them with a middle of the line sound card. I rarely have the sound turned up high now as most of the time whenI'm playing, my daughter is sleeping across the hall.

 

Figure my pc will still be about 3 grand especially once I throw in a digi camera and laser printer.

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Check finally cleared so I'll be ordering the parts within a few days. Think I'm going to tone it down a bit as far as splurging though.

 

More than likely I'll go with a single GTX 285 or 295. From everything I have read I don't think I'll see significant improvements in gameplay with 2 in a SLI config.

 

Also decided to go with 2 Western Digital HDD's in a RAID 0 instead of getting an SSD. The cost per GB is too much and most drives are below 160GB. Plus read too many negative reviews about them so far. I'll let a few generations go by and wait for the bugs and price to go down before thinking of upgrading to these.

 

Still getting an i7 CPU but might drop down to a 920. Again the performance difference to a 970 is minimal but the pricing isn't.

 

Same with the sound. I have some old 5.1 speakers and might just use them with a middle of the line sound card. I rarely have the sound turned up high now as most of the time whenI'm playing, my daughter is sleeping across the hall.

 

Figure my pc will still be about 3 grand especially once I throw in a digi camera and laser printer.

 

This has been a very exciting thread!

 

I know exactly where you are now. The money is in hand and the dreams are about to become reality and so you start rethinking some of the choices. You start to reason out some of the choices and cut back here and there. The main thing is that even with your planned cuts, you will still have an awesome system.

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Check finally cleared so I'll be ordering the parts within a few days. Think I'm going to tone it down a bit as far as splurging though.

 

More than likely I'll go with a single GTX 285 or 295. From everything I have read I don't think I'll see significant improvements in gameplay with 2 in a SLI config.

 

Also decided to go with 2 Western Digital HDD's in a RAID 0 instead of getting an SSD. The cost per GB is too much and most drives are below 160GB. Plus read too many negative reviews about them so far. I'll let a few generations go by and wait for the bugs and price to go down before thinking of upgrading to these.

 

Still getting an i7 CPU but might drop down to a 920. Again the performance difference to a 970 is minimal but the pricing isn't.

 

Same with the sound. I have some old 5.1 speakers and might just use them with a middle of the line sound card. I rarely have the sound turned up high now as most of the time whenI'm playing, my daughter is sleeping across the hall.

 

Figure my pc will still be about 3 grand especially once I throw in a digi camera and laser printer.

Sounds like its still gonna be a beast, regardless of those cuts.

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oh I'll take some pics :) Reason I'm ordering a digi camera too

 

My daughter has broken my last 2. Dropped one in the ocean and dropped the other down the stairs. Both DOI (dead on impact)

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Check finally cleared so I'll be ordering the parts within a few days. Think I'm going to tone it down a bit as far as splurging though.

 

More than likely I'll go with a single GTX 285 or 295. From everything I have read I don't think I'll see significant improvements in gameplay with 2 in a SLI config.

 

Also decided to go with 2 Western Digital HDD's in a RAID 0 instead of getting an SSD. The cost per GB is too much and most drives are below 160GB. Plus read too many negative reviews about them so far. I'll let a few generations go by and wait for the bugs and price to go down before thinking of upgrading to these.

 

Still getting an i7 CPU but might drop down to a 920. Again the performance difference to a 970 is minimal but the pricing isn't.

 

Same with the sound. I have some old 5.1 speakers and might just use them with a middle of the line sound card. I rarely have the sound turned up high now as most of the time whenI'm playing, my daughter is sleeping across the hall.

 

Figure my pc will still be about 3 grand especially once I throw in a digi camera and laser printer.

 

 

Honestly I don't think your really giving up much here with your cut backs. that difference in CPU will not even be noticeable with everything else it's combo'd with. I am starting to wonder if I should have done something different with my HDD's though. I had a 640 caviar Green in a external drive that I dissembled and install ed internally and bought a new 640 Caviar Black (32 Mb cache). and created a OS partition of 100Gb on it. I use100Gb C: for OS , 540Gb D: for all installed software, and the 640 Gb E: for multi media files. I wonder what a Raid Configuration would do for me. and Would I have to start from Scratch With empty Drives to make a change? 1.2 Tb is way more HDD space than I will ever use.

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I don't believe and trust any raid configurations if the raid card is not server level quality. Raid 0 is too risky for a performance difference. If one of the hdd fails, you loose everything.

I have same hdd like you have (WD Black 640gb) and I never felt it is running behind on any application or a game. It is fast enough for any applications I used so far.

 

But I love raid 5 capabilities on servers.

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I don't believe and trust any raid configurations if the raid card is not server level quality. Raid 0 is too risky for a performance difference. If one of the hdd fails, you loose everything.

I have same hdd like you have (WD Black 640gb) and I never felt it is running behind on any application or a game. It is fast enough for any applications I used so far.

 

But I love raid 5 capabilities on servers.

 

 

sounds like I just leave it the way it is then.

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sounds like I just leave it the way it is then.

 

It is just my personal opinion. Hopefully other techies in the forum will share their opinions too. Than you will have an easier decision.

WD Black series are working great with their 32mb caches. Even blue series are more than enough for most users.

 

I was able to restore data from hdds, but I never able to recover anything from raid 0 configured harddrives. As long as you have your backup periodically, it shouldn't be a huge issue but still I like to be secure with my data.

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I want to thank everyone for their time and advice. Without you I wouldn't have been able to build this pc. All the parts were just ordered and should be here in 3-4 days. And I bought a digi camera too just so I can post pics of the rig for you all :D

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