Building my first rig & dont want it to blow up.

[jessehclark]

OK every, hi! I'm new to the site- I figured it would be a good idea to get familiar with it cuz i imagine ill be needin some help soon with my new rig. Anyways, im not a 'noob' but this is my first computer that i've built from scratch. I wanted to start by running over a list of the parts and see what yall think:

Monitor: 2 17" Mag LCD, Silver, $80 each (black friday @ best buy)
Case: Antec Performace P180, $115
PSU: undecided (help!)
MB: ASUS M2N-SLi Deluxe, $70 (open box)
CPU: AMD X2 4200+, $180
Heatsink: Arctic Cooling Freezer 64, $17
RAM: OCZ (probably gold, 1gb to start out), as much as i can afford, about $100 per GB
Optical: Samsung 18x DVDRW w/wightscribe, $30
HD: Caviar or Spinpoint, 160GB, $60
GPU: XFX GeForce 7900GS 256mb Extreme, $155 after mail in rebate

OK, so, my biggest sticking points are:
1) what psu to get. i have no freakin idea. i dont even know how many watts i really need.
2)i want more ram, but damnit thats an easy way to save $100.
3) theres so many freakin cards, i dont know whats more important... i mean, a 7900gs with 256mb, or a 7600 with 512 mb? DAMNIT. ANyways, i would LIKE to go get a 7950gt and plop down $280 bucks for it, but as you might be able to see, im trying to cut corners where i can and put it where it matters..

i know ill have this case for a while, and regardless of whether or not i ever use sli, i wanted a decent mb, and a gooood heatsink. i dont need that much storage, so i cut down on the HD and i dont really feel like spending more on the cpu cuz its a big jump once you go above the 4200.. but i figured it was worth $30 to get the 4200 instead of the 3800. (also.. what about the 65watt version?)

so, what psu, what graphics card, and damnit help me find cheap ram. lol =)

anyways, i appreciate all the help i know ill get- and let me know what you think about my choices!

 

[jared17]

Give us a little more detail as to what your using this computer for, will you be overclocking or keeping it stock, and what your budget is. Based on what you have I'd say your looking at probably a 700-1000 dollar budget, but you'll have to let us know about that.

As far as a PSU goes, I'd say probably a 500 watt should do you good. I think if you can afford the extra cash then getting the 7950 GT would be a wise idea, even though the 7900 GS and GT are both good cards.

You know what, on second though, get a 7900 GS or GT, and with the extra money I would suggest changing your CPU to a Core 2 Duo, the cheapest model is the E6300, its slightly more expensive than the one you have, by 40 dollars at most I think (not to familiar with american pricing).

I'm no wizard when it comes to motherboards, so I'll leave that to someone else


EDIT: Oh, and don't worry, I doubt very much if your computer will blow up, I don't think a computer has ANY explosive components lol

 

[jessehclark]

Yes, my budget is pretty much maxed out at $1000.

I already have the two monitors, and my girlfriend bought me the MB, DVD, and Heatsink for my birthday/christmas... and i think im gonna try to get my rents to buy my the case and the psu... which leaves me with the RAM, CPU, GPU, and HD. I'll have about $500 to spend on those 4 total... i wish i had more, but you know..

so im figuring $100 for ram, $180 for cpu, $60 HD, and that leaves $160 for the graphics card. one of the advantages i saw was that while im cutting corners, im trying to do it on things like ram that are easy to upgrade later when i have an extra $100.

I think im gonna stick with the processor since i have faith in the future of the am2 socket, and im getting a good deal. i might do some overclocking, esp. since some people were claiming REALLY low temps with this cpu/heatsink setup and they were taking a 2.0 or 2.2 up to almost 3.0

 

[jared17]

Oh, well if you got it for free then no sense spending more lol. Wish my girlfriend would do that for me, she hates my computer obsession haha. But back on topic.

Try checking out a Geforce 7600, if 160 is your budget for the video card.

 

[jessehclark]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130062
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130073

well, newegg has the 7600gt's going for around $100.

theres there this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814130021

7600GS = 512mb, but 400/800 clock speeds.
7600GT = 256mb, but 580/1500

hmmmm

yeah never mind all of that, i cant turn down a xfx 7900gs extreme for $155 after rebates.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150202

too bad i cant pull $100 out of somewhere for the 7950gt. whatever. i need ram. lol

 

[Lord AnthraX]

7600GT with 256MB of ram would be the smarter choice.

 

[Nagasama]

i have the 89 watt version of the 4200 and my 2.75 overclock (i have a zalman 9500) temperature is 28* idle, mid 50's 100% loaded w p95. high 40's after gaming for several hours.
so, i think that if the 65w offers the same performance (i read about it somewhere, i will try to find the article), then your temps should be substantially lower.
this is my power supply, it works great with my rig, which is very similar to the one you are considering:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817159054

now, you may hear that this 500w is not enough. it is. read tri-eclipse's sticky on psu's in the building general p.c's section.
7900gs is a good card. if you can spring for the 7950, get it. if not save up and get one later. your 7900 will do just about anything on high settings.
i'm prol'y goin to upgrade to a 8800gts or 7950 gx2 after the new year (price cuts, yee ha). and that psu has enough voltage on the rails to run any of the three.
as far as the cpu goes, i don't really know how much of an advantage the 4200 has over a 3800. you will not get quite the oc on a 3800, i don't think...but your mobo is good, so what the heck give it a shot. for 30 bucks, i would go with the 4200, as the stock speed will be higher if you decide that you do not want to o.c. and trust me, if you are going to press the limits of an x2, get ready to do some reading and a lot of tweaking. but that's part of the fun, as far as i am concerned.
the most you can expect is close to 3.0 with one either one of these. if you find a way of getting it up past 2.85+, then let me know...cos that's about as far as i can get mine stable. but my mobo is not known as a superb oc'er. too bad my ram is.
good luck!
and, by the way it's nice to see that someone else around here has faith in the future of amd!

 

[jessehclark]

why is that? mem/clock speeds are the same (just about)... 128bit on the 7600, 256bit on the 7900....and ive heard 7900gs overclock well....

and thanks for that last post-

i think ill stick with the 4200, and i really like the 7900.. for the price of $155... looks...so...goood...tastyy.....

as for the psu, i just talked to the rents and they are puttin my bday and christmas together, so guess what - they just bought be my case AND a 600 freaaaaakin watt thermaltake... muahahahahahahaa.... it was $100, and it supports sli (nvidia certified), active pfc, etc....and its sexy...i made a mistake, no modular cables, but whatever...my case is big.

so, thats awesome... im really curious about that 65W amd, tho... and now im price hunting for ram and a HD...lol

thanks guys

 

[Nagasama]

they do

 

[jonny_uk]

I can vouch for the x2 4200 and the 7950GT(check my sig ) i can run all my games at max settings highest screen resolution with no lagging(battlefield 2142 online i play alot, looks fantastic), and thats totally stock, nothing has been oc'ed, only thing thats upgraded is the my psu to a 520w OCZ modstream, which might i add is great, the pc is so quiet now