Building a pc for the first time, need some help to make sure it all works.

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Thank you so much for clarifying all of that. So after that I got everything together and went to make the purchase using Bill me later and got declined. I'm confused, how did I get declined? Well this sucks it means i'm waiting a little bit I've been so excited for this computer :sad:

This is not on topic for cpu .... bill me later is a great idea IF YOU CAN PAY IT OFF before they start charging you crazy interest rates, any chance of that not happening dont use it. If you do not have a credit score (also not sure on your age) if you wanted to get started a personal loan for 1k from your credit union/bank is the best way to go about it if you have to finance. Yes you start paying monthly but its a set interest rate and you are building your credit score at the same time. With the way the economy is here in the good ole USA I personally refuse to take on more debt with all the uncertantity.

Apologies in advance for the thread hijack just hate seeing good people get into bad situations because it sounded like a good idea.
 
hey I appreciate that, I'm actually going to my bank tomorrow and seeing if i can do just that. Bill me later seems good but i looked into it and i've seen nothing but complaints. 6 months is completely enough time to pay off 1200 but like you said it's just a better idea to get a steady monthly pay from my bank. I'll let every one know when the pc is on order.

Another question, am i going to have to adjust the bios or is the ram going to run as is right out of the box?
 
The RAM will run right out of the box, but not at 2000MHz. The motherboard will most likely pick it up at a slower speed (a multiple of 133 obviously, mine set to 1066MHz by default) and it will run just not at top performance. After you get your PC set up and running, you can go into the BIOS and increase the RAM multiplier or try overclocking BCLK to hit 2000MHz with the RAM.
 
I have that RAM, works great with my i7 930 on that motherboard with that GPU...you pretty much picked out my build except I got a Diamond Radeon HD 5870 and an Antec case and PSU. That RAM works great and is easily set to 1600MHz full speed on that motherboard (it isn't detected properly, defaults to 1066MHz but with a simple tweak in the BIOS it runs at 1600 just fine). It can handle higher voltages too, rated at 1.65V but works fine around 1.6 or less usually. Mine is overclocked to 1720MHz with my i7 running at 4.1GHz so that motherboard/CPU/RAM combination can definitely overclock if you have proper cooling. I'm using a Corsair H50 but any good air or water CPU cooler should give you a 4.0 or higher overclock. The stock heatsink you can probably hit 3.25GHz without too much heat but that's about the limit of the stock cooler.

As for the case, the biggest thing I'd worry about is the 5870. The 5870 is a monsterous card, huge doesn't really even describe it, the thing is ridiculous. It's not as big as the 5970 but it is approximately 11 inches long (if you have a standard keyboard think about the main block of keys, it is about that size). It fits in my Antec 900 with less than an inch of clearance and I'm pretty sure that I can't use the drive bay behind it because it is blocked by the back of the 5870.

Do you plan on buying a hard drive? I don't see one listed in your build. While it isn't a critical gaming component you should at least choose a decent one. If you have money to burn you could get a solid state drive (or several of them to make a decently sized RAID drive) but since they cost over $100 for 64GB I don't recommend them unless load time is critical. I have a WD Caviar Black 640GB in my desktop and the load times are pretty good, it loads games and apps fast enough that it isn't annoying. My friend opted to save some money on his build (almost the same as mine, same case/GPU/CPU/RAM/PSU) and he bought a WD Caviar Green 500GB. The difference is quite noticeable as his takes a long time to boot up. A 7200RPM drive with a good amount of cache (32 or 64MB) is recommended for your boot drive. Storage drives generally will be fine with 5400RPM as they aren't used as much and seek time is usually less important (storage drives are more commonly accessed linearly than randomly while boot drives are accessed very randomly and seek is huge).
 
Wow thank you for all of that. That put my mind to rest knowing it all works. No I'm not getting a hard drive, i have one at the moment. I do plan on getting one later on but I figured i'd just use the one I have now. Is your case a full tower? If it is then i'm worried since mine is only a mid. I also at one point want to run Cross fire but two of them seems unlikely from the way you described it.

As for the CPU yeah I don't mind going into the bios and tweaking it I'll just have to learn what to do to change it for the ram and I remember you saying you got your friends to 3.25 with the stock. So I do plan on purchasing the cooler you have (maybe that and a nice hard drive as a Christmas present from the girl friend) Load times aren't a big deal for me at this point. I just want a nice gaming computer.

Oh and to further copy your pc, I will probably get that hard drive you have, will the power supply I chose work with everything?
 
My case (Antec Nine Hundred) is a mid-tower so it should be similar in size to yours. My 5870 is a bit close on the length but running CrossFire shouldn't be an issue, there's room below it to fit another 5870. The biggest issue with the 5870 is the cooler is very thick and has little to no room between two cards for airflow into the fan. If you run Crossfire you'll probably want a front fan blowing air into the two GPU's rear vents to improve cooling. I also plan on buying another 5870 whenever they get a bit cheaper. The other issue is the XFX 5870 has a fan that blows in on the card while the Diamond (reference cooler design) uses a blower style fan which draws air from both the flat front side as well as the back end of the card so if the front side is blocked the back end can still pull air in and the fan shape allows for it.
 
Alright thank you! Also the power supply I chosen should have no problem connecting and having enough for everything? Wait I just realized one of the antec comes with a 650 power supply, is that enough to power everything i have in my computer? I don't mean in the future when i run crossfire, but for now would that run everything?
 
I'm using an Antec 650W now and it works fine, just make sure it's an Antec brand PSU and not a cheap bundle-in off brand one, Antec PSU's are truly reliable to the number on the label, but some cheaper PSU's cannot provide the rated power continuously (these cheap ones are often listed by their peak output, which is the amount of power they can put out for a short time). As long as the bundled PSU is Antec (or another good brand) it should be fine.
 
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