New Gaming PC

[Ninjadik]

I recently upgraded my PC but I found it I still can't run Mass Effect (PC) without upgrading the processor and video card. So I figured I might as well build a new gaming PC that will also be able to run Starcraft 2 when it releases. I ran through some threads in this forum as well as googled some other gaming builds but I was only able to come up with a few parts that I am pretty sure of. I just need advice and help on the other parts. Any advice and tips would be great appreciated. As for price, I would like to stay under 1000$ but I can go a little bit over.

This is what I have so far:

Case ($120): http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6811129021
Video Card: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6814130319 or http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6814150252 (I am having trouble deciding on which one)
CPU ($200): http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6819115037
PSU $(125): http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6817341002

This is all I have so far because I am having trouble picking a motherboard. (also, I have never built a PC or anything but my friend just told me to order the parts I want and he will do it for me, I just need to make sure the parts are compatible and such...)

Thank you!

[Cephius]

Good choices Go with the EVGA 8800GT, they rule.

As for the mobo, the EVGA 680i or 780i should suit you just fine. Buy an aftermarket cooler like an Arctic Freezer Pro, Zalman, or Tuniq Tower (It's huge, barely fits in the Antec900)

Get 2GB of Corsair or OCZ Ram (lists are on EVGA's site for which specific ram modules are compatible) and you should be good to go.

[Fallso]

Asus mobos are good, I have a P5B and it rocks ass. Good overclocking utilities come standard with all asus boards, too.

[jkim1162]

I would avoid going for a 7-series nvidia motherboard. They are plagued with video corruption bug. Supposedly a fix is on the way for the 790i by this week, and hopefully for the 780i to follow. I would wait to see how it goes.

If you aren't planning on going SLi, it would be better off getting a non-nvidia board.

[Avanarius]

I would avoid going for a 7-series nvidia motherboard. They are plagued with video corruption bug. Supposedly a fix is on the way for the 790i by this week, and hopefully for the 780i to follow. I would wait to see how it goes.

If you aren't planning on going SLi, it would be better off getting a non-nvidia board.

qft, the 680i might not even work out of the box with that cpu even.

[Cephius]

I had a couple 680i boards and on a 780i now and I haven't had any problems. I've heard of the video bug and also of the SATA optical drive problems, but I don't know how widespread they are. Every board has it's problems though.. just hope you get one that works.

[Isiolia]

I'd consider an 8800GTS rather than the GT. Slightly faster, but they use a two-slot cooling system that works better, and with less noise.

If you aren't planning on doing SLI, then there's no reason to stick by the nVidia chipsets. Intel's P35 is just fine.

Couple of good basic motherboards with that.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128337
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131278

You can get more expensive, more feature filled ones, but don't spend on what you won't use.

Keep in mind too that if you aren't using a ton of high-drain hardware, you don't need a 700W PSU. You want to buy a good unit, but a high end one designed around an SLI setup isn't necessary.

IMO, if you aren't big into doing your own hardware stuff, don't mess with overclocking. Stock speeds with a stock cooler will do you just fine, with less stress on the components.

[Cephius]

Oh, I assumed he was doing SLI because he listed two video cards. But I see now that he was just comparing them. My bad.

You don't need those mobos unless you're planning on doing SLI or overclocking, yeah. But I'd still recommend a aftermarket heatsink. The intel stock heatsinks really blow, I don't like them at all. Especially if it tends to get hot in your room, I'd shell out the 30-50 bucks on one.

[Ninjadik]

I'd consider an 8800GTS rather than the GT. Slightly faster, but they use a two-slot cooling system that works better, and with less noise.

If you aren't planning on doing SLI, then there's no reason to stick by the nVidia chipsets. Intel's P35 is just fine.

Couple of good basic motherboards with that.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128337
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131278

You can get more expensive, more feature filled ones, but don't spend on what you won't use.

Keep in mind too that if you aren't using a ton of high-drain hardware, you don't need a 700W PSU. You want to buy a good unit, but a high end one designed around an SLI setup isn't necessary.

IMO, if you aren't big into doing your own hardware stuff, don't mess with overclocking. Stock speeds with a stock cooler will do you just fine, with less stress on the components.

Thanks for all the help but being the noob that I am, I have a few questions. What exactly is an SLI?

I looked up the 8800gts made by evga but there are so many different variations of it on newegg, how do I know which one to pick? Also, I wasn't planning on overclocking or anything so can you provide a good psu that will do what I need it to?

Thanks again for the suggestions and help!

[Olo401]

I would avoid going for a 7-series nvidia motherboard. They are plagued with video corruption bug. Supposedly a fix is on the way for the 790i by this week, and hopefully for the 780i to follow. I would wait to see how it goes.

If you aren't planning on going SLi, it would be better off getting a non-nvidia board.

qft, the 680i might not even work out of the box with that cpu even.

I had that question when I was ordering my parts last week.. Boards that were manufactured after February should have the BIOS update required to support the E8XXX series C2D processors. They might not be able to support the quad-core processors though.

[Isiolia]

Thanks for all the help but being the noob that I am, I have a few questions. What exactly is an SLI?

Scan Line Interleave

Basically, it's using multiple graphics cards to draw the same picture. Two of a card working together is higher performance than just one of them, obviously =P

Some motherboards support this, usually with the ability to use two cards, some of the nVidia chipsets support up to three.

You don't exactly get twice the performance out of it, and obviously the cost, heat, and power requirements all go up with this sort of setup. I was pointing this out, as others mentioned as well, because if you -do- want to do that sort of setup, it restricts your choice of motherboards to ones capable of supporting it.

IMO, SLI isn't worth doing unless you're using two high-end cards, in which case it'd go out of your budget. Even then...my personal opinion is not to blow the bank on computer hardware in the first place.

I looked up the 8800gts made by evga but there are so many different variations of it on newegg, how do I know which one to pick? Also, I wasn't planning on overclocking or anything so can you provide a good psu that will do what I need it to?

eVGA is a good brand, my past couple cards have been by them. The majority of cards out there will be pretty much the same. XFX, PNY, and others all make good cards. The main thing you have then is RAM size. Most are 512MB, I think XFX makes a 320MB part that's a real bargain (but slightly slower as a result). There are also 640MB parts on the market.

Far as PSUs, there are a number of good choices. I've had great luck with Antec. I would look at a few and make sure that they have the connections you'll want. Modular cables are nice to have in that respect, and in interest of keeping your case uncluttered, but it's a feature that does tend to cost a little extra.

One of the big things lately is the "80+" thing, which indicates that the power supply is energy efficient. I would look for that. 500W should be plenty for running a standard setup, you could probably get away with less. -Definitely- buy a quality unit. It'd be better to spend a little extra here than to skimp. So you may well want to spend $120-130, but just make sure it's going towards features you'd benefit from, not 200-300W more power than you actually need.

Couple examples http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817371007
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817171016

[Ninjadik]

Thanks again for all the help. Will be making my purchase probably by tomorrow. Still a few minor decisions to make on parts and stuff.

[Shuemue]

Kudos to the OP for having bothered to do some research before posting and generally having a clue.

As for the advice given, I can't really add a great deal other than to say while I've very little experience of the evga components, I've had good experiences with Asus and Gigabyte boards and XFX video cards, so you're looking at the right manufacturers.

[Ninjadik]

Thank you, I been around these forums for awhile, I try to do a little reading to avoid getting flamed >_>

I went a little overboard though and this is what my order is looking like so far:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wis ... er=9356368

The 2GB of RAM seems kind of expensive. I expected to pay a little bit more than that for 4GB. Does anyone have any suggestions on cheaper RAM that's just as good?

Oh and I am having trouble deciding on the PSUs. I know the 700w OCZ is overkill but its almost the same price as the Corsair one which is 650w. Should I just get the OCZ since its rated better leaving me room to upgrade in the future?

[Cephius]

A couple things, your motherboard is out of stock, and you could probably go with one a bit cheaper like this one. Also I'm sure you know this but you have 2 power supplies on there too. Also, you don't need 1066 RAM if you're not going to overclock your computer, you're not going to be running them at that speeds anyway. You could probably get away with using these instead.

[Shuemue]

I agree that you probably don't need a mobo and ram quite that high-end, the ones ceph suggested should suit your needs perfectly.

To be honest, I would buy an 8800GT over the 8800GTS, imo it's the best bang for your buck.

As for the PSU, buy either, they'll both juice up those components nicely.

[Isiolia]

The RAM isn't particularly expensive for what it is. Name-brand, performance oriented DDR2-1066. The RAM that you typically see for a lot less money is clocked slower, usually DDR2-800. Getting standard/value RAM will also reduce it some.

Newegg has had some hefty instant rebates on G-Skill RAM lately though, so you could pay a lot less for DDR2-1066 if you go with them.
2GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231144
4GB http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820231166

I haven't had personal experience with that brand though. I usually buy Crucial or Corsair. Been considering it for a build for myself though.


The motherboard is very expensive, and given what else you're building with, there's little reason to go with it.
The X38 chipset allows for DDR3, but that motherboard uses DDR2 (and DDR3 is very expensive). It allows for Crossfire (ATI's version of SLI), but not SLI with nVidia boards.
Being that it -is- Intel's "Premium" chipset versus the P35 being their "midrange" chipset, there are bells and whistles that make it a little nicer. PCI-E 2.0 for instance.
Overall though, it's not worth the expense. If you really want official DDR2-1066 support, PCI-E 2.0 support, etc...Intel's P45 chipset is due out in a few weeks, adds those things to the P35 feature set, and should be less expensive.

Oh and I am having trouble deciding on the PSUs. I know the 700w OCZ is overkill but its almost the same price as the Corsair one which is 650w. Should I just get the OCZ since its rated better leaving me room to upgrade in the future?
Thank you, I been around these forums for awhile, I try to do a little reading to avoid getting flamed >_>

I went a little overboard though and this is what my order is looking like so far:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wis ... er=9356368

The 2GB of RAM seems kind of expensive. I expected to pay a little bit more than that for 4GB. Does anyone have any suggestions on cheaper RAM that's just as good?

Oh and I am having trouble deciding on the PSUs. I know the 700w OCZ is overkill but its almost the same price as the Corsair one which is 650w. Should I just get the OCZ since its rated better leaving me room to upgrade in the future?

Either way you get a good PSU. You just likely won't ever use 650W, much less 700. I would just look at other features as long as the thing is 500W or higher. 80+, maybe modular cables, a fan configuration that suits your case, etc.

[Ninjadik]

Thank you guys for being so helpful! Going to make the changes and make the order so I can get it by this weekend =)

[jkim1162]

I hope you didn't order it yet.

Do not get the 8800GTS 640mb or 320mb card.

Here is the order based on performance -> 8800 GTS 512mb -> 8800 GT 512mb -> 8800 GTS 640/320.

The reason being is that the 8800 GTS 512mb and the 8800 GT 512mb uses the newest g92 (9800's is also based on the g92) architecture while the 8800 GTS 640/320 uses the older g80 architecture. The 512mb gives you 128 stream processors while the 640/320 only has 96. Keep in mind this is where most of the performance comes from in nvidia cards (the 9900 coming in June supposedly has 256 stream processors).

[Ninjadik]

Thanks, I caught that after reviewing the list for the 79th time since I got to work this morning. This is the one I will be ordering: EVGA 512-P3-N841-AR GeForce 8800GTS (G92) 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail - http://www.newegg.com/product/product.a ... 6814130325