First time builder looking for input

[PTROTH]

My 3+ year old laptop (3.2P4, ATI 9600/9700) just doesn't cut it for gaming anymore, and I'm considering building my own desktop. It would be a first for me, so I'm looking for any input you might have on this setup. Primary use will be gaming - not hardcore, but I'd like to play the new games (Bioshock, Crysis, etc.) easily, with room to upgrade/grow down the road as it becomes necessary - plus some office work.

Please let me know what you think:


Power: OCZ StealthXStream 600W
Case: Antec P180B
Mobo: Asus P5K-E
Processor: Intel Q6600
GPU: EVGA 8800GTX
Cooler: Tunig Tower 120
Memory: G.Skill DDR2 800 4GB (2 X 2GB)
Storage: 1x Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB

[Dread]

For decent gaming now and able to upgrade down the road I would recommend
a socket 775 motherboard paired with a E6600 Core 2 Duo from Intel, 2 GB of paired
dual-channel RAM and at least a 7900 or equivalent graphics card. May want
to go a bit higher-end with the games you mention, or live playing them at lower
quality settings. This would be a good starting point for a new build, cheap at first with up-gradability.

The system you have in your sig is well above this, so you'll need to answer some questions
before we can really understand where your coming from, and where you want to go.


Whats your budget?
Do you intend on now or in the future going SLI or CrossFire?
Plan on reusing any older parts to save some money like CD/DVD ROMS?
Already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse?

[gvblake22]

That is actually a very good start there! Now, to start the nit-picking, I would choose a different power supply. OCZ is known for some quality units and the StealXStream 600W is probably no different, but I have a problem with the available connectors. It only has a total of three SATA connectors all on one cable. Usually this isn't a problem if your hard drive(s) are the only SATA devices in the system. But SATA optical drives are now fairly common and the prices are reasonable enough that it makes more sense to buy a SATA optical drive than a PATA, especially since PATA connectors aren't even natively part of the new Intel chipsets (controllers are added separately by the motherboard manufacturers if they choose to do so). Anyway, my point is that it is going to be pretty hard to connect your hard drive(s) and optical drive(s) all on the same cable when they are at opposite ends of the case... Your options are to get some 4-pin molex to SATA power adapters or get a different power supply with a more generous helping of cables and connections (I vote for the second choice).

That said, I just picked up a Corsair 550VX and they are going for the same price as that OCZ unit and I am very impressed with it. It features twice the number of SATA connections and cables (six connectors on two separate cables) as well as a new 8-pin PCI-Express power connector (in addition to a 6-pin PCI-Express connector). It also has fully sleeved cables and great support from Corsair. The internal design is a little different in that it features a single, higher amperage 12V rail compared to the four smaller 12V rails on the OCZ. It has been debated back and forth on which design is better, but the fact of the matter is that both designs are fine as long as they are done right. There aren't many reviews of the 550W Corsair VX unit, but this one at Jonny Guru is very well done. Like I said, I have the Corsair 550VX myself and I am very happy with it (although I think the fan is louder than I expected).

And speaking of optical drives, I would suggest a SATA drive if you don't already have one

The Q6600 is a lot of processor for the money and considered a best buy by lots of people. But for gaming, you are better off spending that money on a faster dual core processor than a slower quad core. You would get better gaming performance with an E6850 than a Q6600 because of the higher clock speed. Since that is your primary use, I suggest going with the E6850 over the Q6600. But if you wanted the best multitasking performance or the best mutli-threaded performance, then the Q6600 would be the better buy.

Finally, if you want 4GB of system memory, you need to make sure you get a 64-bit operating system or else it will not all be recognized.

Oh yeah,
Welcome to HardwareLogic!!! :wavey:

[Yellowhello]

I agree with every single thing Blake (gvblake22) said...

And WELCOME TO HARDWARELOGIC!

[fstroupe]

Welcome to HL.

Excellent looking rig. The only nitpicking I have is don't waste your money on that rediculously large CPU cooler. Save 30 bucks and buy an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, or a Kingwin RVT-9225 Heatpipe Direct Touch cooler. Either one is around 30 bucks...I actually caught the Freezer 7 Pro at Newegg on sale for 19 bucks. I am presently reviewing one of the Kingwin Coolers, and did all of the testing below yesterday.

Load temps with the Q6600 OC'd to 2.9gHz are 29/41 with the Arctic Cooling and 28/40 with the Kingwin. The Arctic Silver 5 was only a week old on the former, and fresh on the latter, so I expect somewhere between 3C and 5C less after the AS5 cures.

Both coolers are pretty much silent using Intel's built-in CPU fan controller. So far, my fans are always running at the right speed for noise vs cooling.

Ditto about the 4 gigs of memory. Plan on getting a 64-bit copy of Vista to utilize all of your memory. If you are a "build-it-and-leave-it" kind of guy, you probably will have no problems with the driver issues that it still has. I talked to a guy last night that uses it and likes it, and has put it on all of his rigs.

[halutzparilla]

first off WELCOME TO HARDWARELOGIC!!!

now i rather buy Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
for your motherboard than that of Asus, why, gigabyte have cheaper mobo and better customer service...

secondly, yes, you would want to get 2gb RAM if your not gana use 64-bit system...

and its either you buy GeminII cooler or PRO-7 both have a great CPU cooling capabilities...

and last we love pix here so when you are starting it post some...
enjoy your rig when it finish...

[screwballl]

Originally Posted by halutzparilla

first off WELCOME TO HARDWARELOGIC!!!

now i rather buy Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

I will have to disagree with this. As an owner of this board. The system runs but has too many small quirks to recommend it to others when there are other better boards out there.

[halutzparilla]

Originally Posted by screwballl

I will have to disagree with this. As an owner of this board. The system runs but has too many small quirks to recommend it to others when there are other better boards out there.

screwball, i though you owns a 965P-DS3??? this one i link is not a DS3 965P chipset...

here is another one but i haven't have this, Newegg.com - EVGA 122-CK-NF63-TR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail i'm planning to buy this myself...

[Dread]

Wow, I totally missed the mark on this one. Please disregard my original post ;)

[PTROTH]

Thanks for the input, Dread, gvblake22, yellowhello, fstroupe, halutzparilla, and screwball. Now I have, of course, more questions.

Budget - kind of floating, but I figure around $2K for all parts except monitor, keyboard and mouse. I have existing stuff I can use for now, but will likely upgrade too down the road. I'd love to get a 30" monitor, or perhaps dual 22"es, but my situation just won't support that - I don't have a dedicated spot yet, so I'll likely be taking the monitor out when I want to use it and putting it back again when I'm done - probably daily, if laptop use is any indication. Not ideal, for sure, but that's how it'll be until we get the house remodeled - next year perhaps. For now I'll plan on using the 3-year old 17" monitor that came with a HP desktop we no longer use.

SLI/Crossfire - the concept certainly makes sense to me, but someone else on another board suggested that "single card solutions are always more stable and powerful than dual card solutions, except at the high end. By the time you'll need to upgrade from the 8800GTX to whatever, then the next generation of GFX cards will be out and you will upgrade to that." The idea was that the single 8800 GTX would handle just about anything I could throw at it today and for the near future. Another comment was "it is better to just spend ~$200-300 every 18-24 months than trying to be cute with SLI." I also heard that Crossfire's currently have more driver issues vis-a-vis games than SLIs. Lastly, I'm told this particular mobo won't support SLI.

RE: CPU - I had heard quad core is today kind of overkill for games. Any thoughts on when/if games will be designed for better performance using quads? I really notice how slow my current programs run when I run multiple programs at once - one or two spyware scanners, firefox, mspaint, VPN into work, etc. Presumably both quad and duo core will improve that efficiency. Would quad likely be twice as good as duo?

Great advice on the power supply. I really don't know enough to comment intelligently, but having more (connectors) always seems better than having less (or fewer). Right now I'm only thinking of one hard drive given that my storage needs aren't that great.

Optical - I got a recommendation for a Samsung CD-ROM 2MB Cache Sata 20X DVD+- DVD Burner for a whopping $31 on Newegg.

Cooling - If I can get by with less than the Tunig Tower I'll take it. I don't have a dog in this hunt, if you will, so am entirely open to new suggestions.

One big thing for me is to not skimp too much - I'd rather spend an extra $50 or $100 today if it gives me more options later. The budget is somewhat flexible. There's always newer and better hardware coming out but I'd rather spend my time using my computer than tinkering around with it too much. The better quality I can stuff in it today for a reasonable price the longer I can delay upgrading.

Again, thanks for the input as I am a **** at building my own. I'll look forward to getting your feedback.