Looking for "knowledgeable" opinions on my Build plan

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thinkink

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It's been a long time, about 10 years since I last attempted to build my own system. My last attempt was the Asus K7M paired with an overclocked AMD Athlon CPU. I spent over 1 grand pulling together all my carefully reviewed and selected components for that build, only to be burned by the overpriced, "professional" overclocked CPU! I never got beyond 1 single successful boot up of the system. After extensive efforts to breath life back into the dead MB/CPU combo I gave up and combined the remaining good parts with a lower end MB/CPU combo and moved on.

I'm ready to give it another try, and putting together a list for a new build.

I am not a gamer! I currently have an out dated Piece of crap emachine that has "no" tweak modification options and an annoying "freeze" problem that seems to be prevelent with this intel onboard graphics. Absolutely nothing I've tried even impacts the problem - Hardware, software or driver changes have no effect, for good or bad.

My goal is to have an up to date system with "some" overclock capability if I choose to experiment. My primary concern is hardware compatibility "AND" definately no bottlenecks in any performance areas.

Would appreciated any "educated" and knowledgeable opinions/recomendations on my current list.

Price is a serious concern - but can justify modest cost increase if it results in a reasonable improvement.



MAINBOARD
ASUS M3A78-EM AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - $78.99

CPU
AMD Phenom 8450 Toliman 2.1GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Triple-Core Processor Model HD8450WCGHBOX - $89.99

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - $5.99

MEMORY
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - $44.99

HARDDRIVE
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $64.99

CASE
NZXT Apollo Black SECC Steel Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $69.99

P/S
Use Current - Thermaltake TR2 RX 550W? Or replace with higher wattage?

I am a strong advocate for cooling - WILL greatly appreciate opinions of CPU cooling options at "modest" price!


Thanks in advance!

Chris
 
Are you using the onboard vid card?

How olds the psu? Its the back bone of your system, so a break there can cause isues down the line, and even destroy other new parts.
However, a 550W psu, and the version onsale at the egg of yours is definately fine.

As its an amd, i'm clueless on the cooler.
 
Hey, thanks for the responses guys!

I have a new LCD screen so I don't require that expense.

My budget?
I'd like to keep the final cost below $500 as I am not a gamer and don't need dual graphics cards or top of the line GPU.

The onboard graphics for my prospective MB is ATI Radeon HD 3200 - I'm not crazy about onboard "OR" ATI. Every ATI card I've ever owned had very short life span.

I prefer PCI graphics handle all the video demands rather than burden the system resources - BUT - In the interest of keeping costs down I will settle for the onboard initially. Eventually I will purchase a PCI graphics card with abundant video memory.

I am seriously considering the - G.SKILL FM-25S2S-64GB 2.5" 64GB SATA II Internal Solid state disk (SSD) $140.00

I think that would be great for the OS and my office suite. I don't know enough about these Solid state drives to make an educated decision but I presume using one would negate the need for running swap file and temp folders on a second HD. (unless I used 2 separate Solid state drives?)

patonb said:
Are you using the onboard vid card?

How olds the psu? Its the back bone of your system, so a break there can cause isues down the line, and even destroy other new parts.
However, a 550W psu, and the version onsale at the egg of yours is definately fine.

As its an amd, i'm clueless on the cooler.
Click to expand...

SORRY!
I forgot to address your question about the P/S.

I bought it less than 2 months ago to replace a 300w - I wanted to see if my current problems were related to low power. I run 3 separate HD and a DVD R/W and wondered whether I was drawing to much power from my nVidia card? Apparently not.
 
 
Puddle Jumper said:
These parts are $431 and will give you better performance.
Click to expand...

Thanks Puddle Jumper.

I like the fact that the board you recommended doesn't have onboard graphics.
The reviews I read comment on the boards ability to overclock easily.

I'm a bit concerned about the complaints about their systems freezing though.

I realize complaints should be taken with a grain of salt, but when they come from individuals that seem to have "some" knowledge of overclocking I'm inclined to listen a little more.

Who knows, perhaps they have incompatible hardware or settings screwed
up?

BTW - all the parts I listed above are from Newegg as well.
 
thinkink said:
Thanks Puddle Jumper.

I like the fact that the board you recommended doesn't have onboard graphics.
The reviews I read comment on the boards ability to overclock easily.

I'm a bit concerned about the complaints about their systems freezing though.

I realize complaints should be taken with a grain of salt, but when they come from individuals that seem to have "some" knowledge of overclocking I'm inclined to listen a little more.

Who knows, perhaps they have incompatible hardware or settings screwed
up?

BTW - all the parts I listed above are from Newegg as well.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what would case freezing issues like those reviewers mentioned. Generally newegg reviews aren't the best indication of quality because a lot of people who have no idea what they are talking abut write then and then claim to have a high tech level.

This Asus is another good motherboard that would be fine with the parts I posted before if you want an alternative to the Biostar.

Newegg.com - ASUS P5QL PRO LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
 
I agree with you regarding Newegg reviews - Here's a perfect example....
I was checking out the Vigor Monsoon III LT Dual 120mm Fan CPU Cooler. Check out one complaint I saw......

Pros: The idea is it would keep your cpu cool and maybe it does but not if you do 3D modeling/rendering.

Cons: First if you own an I7 you need to add a lot of thermal compound for it to touch. I am still idling at 40c and still get 72c+ when I render. The airflow is all proper and the direction of airflow is also correct. Maybe I need to apply even more thermal compound but that's just risky because its already quite a lot.

Other Thoughts: Will be waiting for another fan system to be released and go with that, this is just a pretty product that doesn't back up when it stands for.
Also, i called vigor about the issue with it not touching the base and they had no solution whatsoever.

Um, DUH! Correct me if I'm wrong - The Cooling base "MUST" CONTACT the CPU in order to do it's job - the purpose of thermal paste is to fill in minute imperfections between the mating surfaces. I've never heard of anyone building up the paste to gap a distance between the two parts.

I think your point is validated well here?


Puddle Jumper said:
I'm not sure what would case freezing issues like those reviewers mentioned. Generally newegg reviews aren't the best indication of quality because a lot of people who have no idea what they are talking abut write then and then claim to have a high tech level.

This Asus is another good motherboard that would be fine with the parts I posted before if you want an alternative to the Biostar.

Newegg.com - ASUS P5QL PRO LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
Click to expand...
 
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