First time builder looking for input

[Elysium]

Looks like a very nice setup, PTROTH! I would wait until Nov. until you buy the components, as the X38 boards become more readily available.

[fstroupe]

Yeah, check out the onboard sound first. It is pretty incredible for onboard. If it isn't good enough, there are some other options besides Creative.

[PTROTH]

Case research - P180B vs. P182 - from reading reviews it sounds like the 182 has some marginal improvements over the 180 (which tends to get pretty positive reviews), including better cabling options. the appear to be nearly identical, but the 182 is $25 more than 180. Is it worth paying for?

**** questions follow:
"Standard ATX" mobo form factor = 12" x 9.6", yes?
Mini-ATX is for small form factor cases, right?
If the 5.25" bays are for DVD/CD and the 3.5" are for HDs, what is an external 3.5" bay for?
Why would one need 4 5.25" bays? Do people really have 4 DVD drives?
What exactly are expansion slots for - GPUs, sound cards, etc?
Why might one need 7 expansion slots?

[Elysium]

Originally Posted by PTROTH

**** questions follow:
"Standard ATX" mobo form factor = 12" x 9.6", yes?
Mini-ATX is for small form factor cases, right?
If the 5.25" bays are for DVD/CD and the 3.5" are for HDs, what is an external 3.5" bay for?
Why would one need 4 5.25" bays? Do people really have 4 DVD drives?
What exactly are expansion slots for - GPUs, sound cards, etc?
Why might one need 7 expansion slots?

1. Yes, standard ATX form factor is 12" x 9.6".
2. Yes, mATX is for SFF (small form factor) cases, such as the Thermaltake LanBox.
3. External 3.5" bays are for floppy drives, which fit into a 3.5" bay, but have to be accessed outside of the case.
4. People need many 5.25" bays because many people have DVD drives, reservoirs for water cooling, temperature readouts, fan controllers, and other things. 5.25" bays aren't just for DVD drives.
5. Expansion slots are for GPU, sound cards, etc. like you said. You need 7 expansion slots on the case because there are 7 slots on the motherboard. Many people have GPU cards, sound cards, RAID cards, cooling fans, etc, located within the 7 expansion slots.

Hope that answered you questions!

[onebxr]

you might want to ask one4 about the p180, he wasn't too happy with its performance.
-1

[-Rogue5-]

Just wanted to throw in might 2cents as per the quad or dual; while it might be overkill for gaming now, for general purpose computing it's a no-brainer and down the line it will pay dividends in terms of gaming. If you're willing you could always overclock the lower-end quad substantially to gain some of the lost clockspeed.

Furthermore, with new games like Crysis and BioShock and even the Orange Box, you'll probably be more GPU limited than CPU limited anyway. Fortunately, the 8800GTX you have listed alleviates any GPU concerns : )

peace,
-Rogue5-

[halutzparilla]

regarding with OCing Quad or any other CPU per say, its a HIT or MISS scenario
like my situation for instance People say they could get 3.5-3.7ghz on e6600 without
suffering temp build up on air but with my case i was only able to OC upto 3.024ghz at 1.4V
with 335FBS and with 50-55C idle which is certainly scary... unfortunately as i lower the CPU Volt it becomes unstable...

Like he said this is first build and its a lot safer to take the higher clocked CPU than the
lower Quad, down the line there will be newer CPU with Quad, since utilization of such
is very minimal to handful of programs and games.

well in the end its a personal preference on this matter... this is my input:
Buy the E6850 then ditch the SLI idea its a waste of money.
if you really have money to shell out take Q6700 but still SLI/Crossfire waste of money.

just my 0.02$

[PTROTH]

Yellowhello - Uh, do people still use floppy drives? Sounds like there are lots of wonderful gadgets out there with which to fill my case! I had no idea! I said earlier I'd rather spend more now and just play instead of tinker, but I'm starting to see the appeal of mucking around. Thanks for answering the queries.

Onebxr - I'll send a pm out.

Rogue5 - Quad does seem like a no brainer, as you say. Once I actually buy and build the thing I'm might come back to you guys (and gals?) for help overclocking.

Halutzparilla - I think I'm sold on the quad. I'll wait to see how everything works (especially games) before really thinking about OCing. I'm also sold on the single GPU. I was somehow under the impression that I might need SLI/CF to play games like Biohazard, Crysis and other demanding games. Sounds like not.

Thanks for all the responses. I appreciate your taking the time to answer my queries. With all the encouragement I've gone from "determined to get a new laptop" to "I wanna build my own desktop!"

The hard part, of course, is convincing the better half that it is now a total waste of money.

[fstroupe]

The Q6600 should easily overclock the mere .22 gHz to get Q6700 performance with most mobo/ram setups. Even with stock cooling...though I don't believe in stock cooling. Q6600=$279 Q6700=$539. The two processors are the same in all other respects.

I don't keep a floppy in my cases, but I always keep one around just in case. Has come in handy several times.

[Elysium]

Originally Posted by PTROTH

Yellowhello - Uh, do people still use floppy drives? Sounds like there are lots of wonderful gadgets out there with which to fill my case! I had no idea! I said earlier I'd rather spend more now and just play instead of tinker, but I'm starting to see the appeal of mucking around. Thanks for answering the queries.

I still use floppies for flashing BIOS's and the like.