Computer Building Fee, and Build Overlook

[xb2003]

Im sorry this is only somewhat about hardware....

My friend wants to blow $4000 on a new computer. And i opened my fat mouth and said that i would help him. Now im stck....Anyways i would like to know what i should charge him to do this. I have never built a computer for myself, but i would like to earn a little money, and im pretty confident i can do this, if i need help, there are nice people here that i hope will help me. But anyways, whats a going rate to tell him. I was thinking $50 initially, and $10 and hour past this. IS that fair, or am i out of line.

Im going to post the build when i get it worked out, so thats the part that will fit into hardware.

Thanks,

 

[necent]

Normally, for good friends, that would be freee.

For your charge rate, it's reasonable.

By the way, your friend want to buy a computer around 4000 USD ? I am sure, this money can buy 10 pcs high level PC already.

 

[xb2003]

Well...he isnt much of a friend, like i said, i opened my mouth when i shouldnt.

I dont know if he is legit or not, but knowing him, he will be able to come up with the money...so...

 

[usb3.0]

Just do it !

Well...he isnt much of a friend, like i said, i opened my mouth when i shouldnt.

I dont know if he is legit or not, but knowing him, he will be able to come up with the money...so...

 

[xb2003]

Here is the system....I think it looks like a dream to many people....few questions i would like to ask.

To start it off, the case:
-Antec Twelve Hundred V3 (Here at Newegg)
He is the type that would like all the LED's, and huge fans in the front. Plus this case seems pretty solid, and has good airflow(if anything i say in this post is incorrect, or can be improved, please dont hesitate to tell me)

Then the backbone, the Motherboard:
-Gibabyte G1 Assassin (Here at Newegg)
Supports 24GB of crazy fast ram, Tri-channel. SataIII, 3-way SLI, and really good onboard sound, supporting EAX 5.0.

Our Brain, the Processor:
-Intel Core i7 970 (Here at Newegg)
Its not the 990x, but its a Hexa-core Processor, easily OCed to 4.0GHz, but not much more then that. He will being playing games, and surfing the web, and i know even the most high end games load the GPU much more then the CPU...Which brings me to...

The...Attention Attractor(nuff said), the Graphics Card:
-Asus/NVidia GeForce GTX 590 (Here at Newegg)
Its the best graphics card on the market (as of the time of this post...), and, well...what else is there to say. ITs not SLI'd, because i have read multiple places that 2-3 Lesser cards are not as capable as 1 Nice one.

The...well....Ram:
G.Skill Ripjaws 12GB (3x4GB) 1600MHz Ram (Here at Newegg)
I would buy 2, to make 24GB of ram. I figured that 1600MHZ was as fast as was needed, but if im going to bottleneck, please tell me so i can fix it.

One of These (Here at Newegg) to keep the processor cool. I chose this over one of those...H50s(maybe)...because liquid(i know its not actual water) cooling scares me.

A Corsair 1200 watt Power Supply, Modular (Here at Newegg)
I know that Corsair has a good name, and 1200 watts is enough to power 4 computers like mine.

Asus BluRay Drive (Here at Newegg)
Im going to get 2 of these. He wont do anything besides install games with them, but someday a BluRay might be handy, and its not like they are expensive. And i figure 2 because then he can have 2 games handy.

Heres where it get interesting...

OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD (Here at Newegg)
I will buy 2 of these, and put them in RAID 0. This should give him like extreme performance.

Western Digital 7200RPM 1TB 64MG Cache (Here at Newegg)
I will buy 2 of these, and put them in RAID 1. This will give him good protecting for whatever files he might have...

Does that sound like a good system, all compatible and such?
Heres some of my concerns...

-Should i get a 3rd 1TB Drive, and RAID 5 it(thats where it stores a piece of data on each drive, and if you lose one drive, it can regenerate the data from the other 2, correct?)?

-This is kinda dumb, but will the motherboard have a connector for the 2 USB 2.0, 1 3.0, and Audio ports on the front? I have read all around, and i cant find the answer.

-Some have said that with a full tower chassis, that you have to buy a power connector extender for the Motherboard, and Videocards. Do i need to do that, just to be safe?

I think thats it, but i may have to edit this.

Thanks for the help, this forum has helped me alot thoug the maybe 10 posts.

Just do it !

Im going to.

 

[Dngrsone]

Out here in CA, the going rate for PC maintenance is $100/hr.

 

[iDoNtKn0w]

Here is the system....I think it looks like a dream to many people....few questions i would like to ask.

To start it off, the case:
-Antec Twelve Hundred V3 (Here at Newegg)
He is the type that would like all the LED's, and huge fans in the front. Plus this case seems pretty solid, and has good airflow(if anything i say in this post is incorrect, or can be improved, please dont hesitate to tell me)

Then the backbone, the Motherboard:
-Gibabyte G1 Assassin (Here at Newegg)
Supports 24GB of crazy fast ram, Tri-channel. SataIII, 3-way SLI, and really good onboard sound, supporting EAX 5.0.

Our Brain, the Processor:
-Intel Core i7 970 (Here at Newegg)
Its not the 990x, but its a Hexa-core Processor, easily OCed to 4.0GHz, but not much more then that. He will being playing games, and surfing the web, and i know even the most high end games load the GPU much more then the CPU...Which brings me to...

The...Attention Attractor(nuff said), the Graphics Card:
-Asus/NVidia GeForce GTX 590 (Here at Newegg)
Its the best graphics card on the market (as of the time of this post...), and, well...what else is there to say. ITs not SLI'd, because i have read multiple places that 2-3 Lesser cards are not as capable as 1 Nice one.

The...well....Ram:
G.Skill Ripjaws 12GB (3x4GB) 1600MHz Ram (Here at Newegg)
I would buy 2, to make 24GB of ram. I figured that 1600MHZ was as fast as was needed, but if im going to bottleneck, please tell me so i can fix it.

One of These (Here at Newegg) to keep the processor cool. I chose this over one of those...H50s(maybe)...because liquid(i know its not actual water) cooling scares me.

A Corsair 1200 watt Power Supply, Modular (Here at Newegg)
I know that Corsair has a good name, and 1200 watts is enough to power 4 computers like mine.

Asus BluRay Drive (Here at Newegg)
Im going to get 2 of these. He wont do anything besides install games with them, but someday a BluRay might be handy, and its not like they are expensive. And i figure 2 because then he can have 2 games handy.

Heres where it get interesting...

OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD (Here at Newegg)
I will buy 2 of these, and put them in RAID 0. This should give him like extreme performance.

Western Digital 7200RPM 1TB 64MG Cache (Here at Newegg)
I will buy 2 of these, and put them in RAID 1. This will give him good protecting for whatever files he might have...

Does that sound like a good system, all compatible and such?
Heres some of my concerns...

-Should i get a 3rd 1TB Drive, and RAID 5 it(thats where it stores a piece of data on each drive, and if you lose one drive, it can regenerate the data from the other 2, correct?)?

-This is kinda dumb, but will the motherboard have a connector for the 2 USB 2.0, 1 3.0, and Audio ports on the front? I have read all around, and i cant find the answer.

-Some have said that with a full tower chassis, that you have to buy a power connector extender for the Motherboard, and Videocards. Do i need to do that, just to be safe?

I think thats it, but i may have to edit this.

Thanks for the help, this forum has helped me alot thoug the maybe 10 posts.




Im going to.

I dont think he will be using 12G memory unless hes doing some professional design and stuff.
1200W is enough to SLI 2 FTX 580 cards which in my opinion is better then 1 GTX 590. If you do stick with one Geforce 560, then 750W would be enough:Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-750 750W

 

[xb2003]

Its accually 24 GB or ram, and i know that it will be about useless. But he wants to spend between 3500 and 4000. And he told me to make it as good as posible. So ill look into SLI'ing two 580's.

 

[Indigo]

If you really want to make it as good as possible, you'll ditch the idea of going with the i7 970 and instead go with an i7 2600k and associated 1155 motherboard. The Socket 1366 chips are EOL (End of Life) and you do people a disservice buying them those parts.

and just because a guy says he wants to throw 4000 at a computer doesn't mean you have to. If you can come under budget, you'll be even better off in his eyes. 1200 watt power supplies are overkill for all but the most extra computers. 750-850 watts is the most anyone should need in a high end system, even with CrossFire and SLI (though that depends on the cards)

24GB of RAM would never be used by someone who doesn't use the system for very intensive rendering or computational tasks. 8GB is plenty for 90% of folks, the other 10% use either less or more.