# Second system, first time build help!



## djjordie (Sep 27, 2009)

Hey everybody I've been searching the net and been looking at millions of different parts and i iz completely lost  lol
Anyways I've gone to sites where you choose individual parts but can't decide on anything (because i don't know what more important and stuff). 

*Question & Price:*Can you guys suggest all the parts i need that's around $2000-$2500 *AUS *($1738.60-$2173.25 *USD*)
*
Usage:*It'll be used for games, photoshop, internet, downloading, watching movies, recording screen software (camtasia) and i plan of overclocking after i find out how lol.

Thanks everyone!  ray:


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## djjordie (Sep 27, 2009)

*1. Budget:* $2000-$2500 AUS ($1738.60-$2173.25 USD)

*2. Brands:* any as long as their trusted and reliable/good quality+

*3. Multi-tasking:* Yes, mainly Firefox, Photoshop and music

*4. Gaming: *Yes, Crysis, COD4 (can't wait till modern warfare 2's out), farcry II (only starting Crysis and Farcry II)

*5. Calculations:* Not much maybe for the occasional youtube movie

*6. Overclocking: *Yes, not sure how to do this can you recommend?

*7. Storage:* 250-500gb i have external Hard Drives already

*8. Legacy Support:* Will you need support for older hardware like parallel, serial, or PS/2 devices? *<-- *** DOES THAT MEAN LOL
*
*9. Operating System:* Vista Premium with free windows 7 upgrade (i've seen pretty much just win7 i want the compatibility option with xp software to rip from my old XP computer)

*10. Case:*(you can choose i reckon either 
1.Antec Twelve Hundred:
http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=Njkz
2.Antec Nine Hundred Two:
http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NzIy

*11. Accessories:* No

*12. Recycled Components:* No i want to have my old computer as a secondary, parts to old as well (Dell Dimension 3100):upset: LOL

*13. Monitor:* No, i'll do this

* 14. Stores:* Not really (i live in Sydney, NSW, Australia if that helps)

*15. Location:* Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (city/state/country)

P.S. sorry if your not allowed :4-thatsba to double post, i couldn't find a option to edit my previous post.
Many Thanks All!!!!:tongue:


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Have a look over these specs as a starting point > http://www.techsupportforum.com/f24...-are-6-suggested-models-with-spec-367415.html

Let us know what you like and don't like, then we can take it from there.


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## djjordie (Sep 27, 2009)

Thanks.
But thats my problem i don't know which parts are better or which to buy so fare i've chosen:
Case: 1.Antec Twelve Hundred:
http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=Njkz

and maybe for the prosessor a i7 920?

Can you please fill the rest out to make it aprox. (can be over a bit) 2000-2500 AUS? Because frankly i don't got a clue how to figure out if stuff will fit, quality brands, speeds lol etc.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

The i7 series is the fastest but they only use DDR3 ram which at this time is having issues with bad chips, proven and stable at the moment is the C2 Duo and Quad. 

Here are 2 builds the first is more stable and easier to build/setup in my opinion, the second is the i7/GTX295 will be faster but not by a lot.

Link	Disc	Price	Rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041 Q9550	$219.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128343 GA-EP45-DQ6	$189.99	30
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231246 4 Gig 1066 ram	$74.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009&Tpk=850tx 850TX	$139.99	20
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130478 GTX275	$259.99	20
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319 WD 640 Gig	$74.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106333 DVD Burner	$31.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116678 Vista U	$189.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...29043&cm_re=antec_1200-_-11-129-043-_-Product ANTEC 1200	$159.99	


$1,341.91	70
$1,271.91	


Link	Disc	Price	Rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202 i7 920	$279.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131365 P6T Deluxe	$289.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145224 6Gig $209.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130504 GTX295	$499.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009&Tpk=850tx 850TX	$139.99	20
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319 WD 640 Gig	$74.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106333 DVD Burner	$31.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116678 Vista U	$189.99	
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...29043&cm_re=antec_1200-_-11-129-043-_-Product ANTEC 1200	$159.99	


$1,876.91	20

$1,856.91	

You will not be able to order from this site but they have some of the best descriptions and images on the net.

Look over them and ask any questions you like.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

As you can see from the two builds that wrench97 configured, the i7 will run about $500+ for little if any increase in performance over the 775 build.


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## djjordie (Sep 27, 2009)

Tyree said:


> As you can see from the two builds that wrench97 configured, the i7 will run about $500+ for little if any increase in performance over the 775 build.


So what are you saying? Do i need to get a prosessor $500 like intel i7 950 and i7 450?

I just thought 920 was okay because it was cheaper, should i invest more money to get the 950/940? (i plan to overclock, not sure how far because i don't yet know how lol sorry)


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

What Tyree means it that an i7 build costs quite a bit more, for not a lot of real world performance. A build with an i7 920 may be slightly faster than a Core 2 Duo E8400, but the i7 build will cost about US$200-400 more.


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## djjordie (Sep 27, 2009)

SOZ about this post (im editing this atm)

i edited firefox entries in about:config and it kept being wierd and i didnt know if it posted of not lol.


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

Erm.

I suggest going with this setup
Motherboard: Asus P5Q Deluxe
CPU: Core 2 Duo E8400
RAM: Corsair 4GB DDR2 1066


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## djjordie (Sep 27, 2009)

Wait isn't a 920 better though because it's quad? not duo? lol idk what the difference is


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

Theoretically a quad core will perform a lot better than a dual core. In reality, not so much. Games only really use two CPU cores, and the ones that are "quad core optimized" only use the extra two cores at about 5-10%. So a dual core performs virtually the same as a quad core, but for a lot lower cost.


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## Wrench97 (May 10, 2008)

Photoshop and Camtasia will benefit from the Q9550,i7 920(Quad), for gaming only the E8500 will shine because game are not yet written to take full advantage of more then two threads, The second advantage to the 775 platform is they are stable, proven and easy to setup. With the current DDR3 issues the i7 platform can be troublesome for a first build. As DDR3 matures the problems will get worked out but at present they are not.


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## djjordie (Sep 27, 2009)

Hmm i just looked at the specs and look at a video explaining QPI and FSB , you know how the 920 is 2.66GHz and the Core is 3GHz does that mean that the core is faster or not because the 920 is hyper threading/QPI? What do you suggest?

(i'm just asking these questions because im curious and i want to learn more about computers and make some more in the future... ITS ADDICTIVE LOL)


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

That's kind of a complicated question. It's hard to compare performance across architectures because, well, there's just too many factors. Comparing within an architecture family is easy. 

If you have a Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz and a Core 2 Quad Q9650 3.0GHz you could make some interesting comparisons. For single and dual threaded applications the Duo and the Quad would be almost exactly equal, because the extra cores don't get used and they're the same clock speed. However, if you run a quad-threaded application, or multiple single and dual threaded applications, the Quad will perform much better because it can do the work of two dual cores at once. Do you see what I'm saying? The Q9650 is better than the E8400, but only when using programs like AutoCAD and Photoshop, or when doing heavy multitasking. And because the E8400 is $200 cheaper than the Q9650, we recommend it a lot more for gamers.

The Core i7 920 actually does perform slightly better running dual threaded games than the E8400 does, despite the lower clock speed. Thus something about the i7 920 makes it faster. It may be QPI, it may be a more efficient instruction pipeline, the larger L2 cache and the additional L3 cache, the onboard RAM controller, any number of things. But the improvement during games is only about 5%, and for the same price increase over a Core 2 Duo build you could get a more powerful graphics card instead, which might yield a 25% performance increase.


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## djjordie (Sep 27, 2009)

Ah interesting yeah i will be using photoshop and dream weaver but i reckon there won't be much/if any lag using the programs (i got a Pentium 4 CPU @ 2.8GHz which im guessing is bad because its 3 yrs old). And that better graphic card sounds real tempting lol 
hmm i think i'll go with the Core 2 Duo E8400.


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

Or the E8500 3.16GHz, a bit faster for a reasonable increase in price.


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## djjordie (Sep 27, 2009)

*Case:* Antec Twelve Hundred Click Here New egg.com
*Motherboard:* (atx, mini-itx, micro atx) ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 Click Here New egg.com
*Prosessor:* Intel i7 920 Click Here Newegg.com
*Graphics:* Nividia GeForce GTX 295 Click Here Newegg.com
*Memory:* CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) Click Here Newegg.com
*Hard Drive:* Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS Click Here Newegg.com
*Burner:* LITE-ON Black iHAS224-06 Click Here Newegg.com
*OS:* Windows 7 (comes out in Oct 2nd something)
*PSU:* What do i need? I'm guessing 800+? 
*Sound Card:* What do i need?
*Cooling system:* Im thinking liquid cooling maybe, (i will overclock to maybe 4GHz ish?) what will i need?

What PSU, Soundcard and cooling system should i have? Can these parts fit? I'm going to overclock to about 3.7-4ish idk i looked at reviews and they said that they got theirs to that.

Total so far with the things ive put up: 1566.95 USD OR 1,802.55 AUD 
I still need to choose:
- PSU
- OS
- Sound Card
- Cooling System
- Mouse and Keyboard
- Computer screen

and i aprox. $700 AUD to get this all in... HARD I think i won't use the computer for a while and get the parts with more money i save lol.


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

Rather than getting the GTX295 for the graphics card, get a Radeon 5870, they were just released last week and game benchmarks show it can compete at the same level as the GTX295 but for cheaper and without the issues that dual GPU cards have like excessive heat and power consumption and microstuttering.

For a PSU, for the GTX295 I'd say any 850W+ unit from our recommended brands, and for an HD5870 a 750W+ unit.

The motherboard has pretty decent onboard sound, so you don't need a separate sound card. If you're going to be doing audio recording or if you have a 7.1 speaker setup though, then I would say go with something from Creative Labs.

That leaves you with US$300 which will get you an okay water cooling system... But I'd advise against it on a first build. You're going to have your hands full as it is, learning how to set up water cooling as well might be too much. Plus if you make a mistake you can ruin half the computer. I'd say just get an aftermarket CPU cooler like the Zalman 9900 or Thermaltake V1.

For the OS I recommend Windows 7 when it comes out, it's looking to be a decent OS. If you want to get this stuff before it comes out, get Windows Vista with the Windows 7 upgrade.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

7 will be released Oct. 22.
From what i gather you don't have the money to order all at once? 
I strongly suggest waiting until you have all the funds to get the system. You have a 30 day window for exchanges in case you recvieve any defective parts.


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## djjordie (Sep 27, 2009)

Hey which graphics card is better out of these three?

*1.* Sapphire Vapor-X HD4890 Overclocked ...... HERE
AUD-$278

*2.* Palit GeForce GTX275 ........ HERE
AUD-$289.80

*3.* XFX GeForce GTX 260 + Black Edition Bundle Far Cry 2 Game .......... HERE

AUD-$299.99

Thanks!... 
PS I think 3. comes with far cry 2 (i copied the name from the site provided).


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## Phædrus241 (Mar 28, 2009)

The first one. Sapphire is a reputable brand and the 4890 is about equal to the GTX275. Palit is not so good a brand and is more expensive than the 4890. XFX has bad customer support, and the GTX260 is less powerful than either the 4890 or GTX275.


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## djjordie (Sep 27, 2009)

Thanks Heaps Phædrus2401!! wow that ae thing looks so cool lol


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## FULLmetallica (Oct 4, 2009)

oh and if your getting over 3GB of RAM you must get a 64bit OS.

4890 is the best of the three you listed above but i suggest the 5870 if you can afford it. it is a great caerd with direct x 11 support.


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