[jas98235]

hey everone,

ok so i bought a new computer september of last year (a emachines T3508) it has served me well, but its just not powerfull enough for my needs! it dosent even have dual core! (was shocked when i learnd that, which i only foundout acouple days ago!) anyways i finaly decided to build a pc. now this will be my first build and i dont know much about computer parts (i know alot about computers! just not whats in them) so i need some advice on what is good and what to stear clear of! a lil info on what i do/would like to do:

what i do:
a little bit of 3D modeling
ALOT ov video encoding (mostly encoding dvd's)
watch alot of movies/tv shows and stuff like that

what id like to do:
im looking to get into gaming
would love to beable to watch my HD movies (backed up onto my hard drive)

so i would like something like a entry-mid range gaming pc/something fast enough to encode my videos to dvd's fast. im looking to stay in $700-$1,000 range. i already have a good idea on which case and processor i want.

any suggestions will be gratley appreciated!

[Razer]

multiple dvd drives would be helpful i suppose, whacking great hard drive if you are backing up lots of films and imagery, graphics cards from nvidia or ati. shed load of ram wont go amiss, ddr2 is £30 or about $60 for 2 gb. and believe it or not i recommend... Vista. *braces for insults* its slightly faster than xp at encoding and since MS are discontinuing XP it will have updates every week. A lot of your components will travel from your old pc, dvd drives, mice keyboard etc and your old hdd can be employed as slave if you like. good luck and keep us psted on how it goes

[jas98235]

thanks alot for the suggestions! someone on another site gave me links and i think i got the whole thing layd out! the total will come to around $1,100 which is rite around what i was expecting to spend! wow vista! do i dare tread those waters! lol well i actuly have vista installd on one of my hard drives rite now but my computer isnt fast enough for it..runs at 80% cpu load constantly! i figred ill save some money by using some of the parts from my computer now (dvd drive, and 3hard drives)im knda short on cash rite now but i figured itll take me about 2 months to get the money for the build, but i will keep u guys updated!

[jas98235]

ok well here is the lise that im working off of:

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131142 $115 Cpu:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115017 $280.00 RAM:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231122 $110.00 Graphics Card:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130303

thats the parts that were suggested to me, i like them what do u guys think? also i will swas the case he suggested with the COOLER MASTER Stacker 830 or the Antec 900, and the psu with this:
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16817814005

so what do u guys think is it worth the money? i think it is like exactly what i wanted! and that should be able to run vista nicely!

[mcbee]

Are you going to use two GPUs? If not then you don't need a SLI capable board. Many would suggest using an Intel chipset with an IntelCPU. I would look at the Asus P5K series of boards.

[jas98235]

yea im probably gonna get 2, k ill take a look at those, but i dont realy kno what to look 4!?

[ARMIGO]

Hi,

Your not really accurate on what components you need. You say you need a computer. But do you also need a keyboard,mouse,monitor (Flatscreen) or any other components. I assume yes since you havent mentioned anything about it. If you dont need them you can delete them in the end. Which means that it will cost you less money.

Atleast you already know what case you wanna have. Since I dont know the price of the case my assembling coud be to expensive to add it with the case you want. Anyway, I searched at newegg. And I made up the following system.

Drive: LG drive
HDD:Seagate barracuda
Graphics card:XFX 8600GT
PSU:Antec NeoPower 550W
Keyboard:Logitech 920
Mouse:Logitech
Memory:Kingston HyperX 2x1GB 800MHZ
Mainboard:Asus P5K
CPU:Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
OS:Windows vista Home premium

OR!

Windows XP professional

Subtotal with Windows xp included > $ 1057,90
Subtotal with Windows vista included > $ 1027,90

This is the best assembling with your money in my view. It coud be slightly better. If you might be wondering why i added a 550Watt psu in the system. Well that's becose you might upgrade your pc in the future. With a better GPU for example. So you should probably not have to upgrade the PSU for a very long time.

The 8600 is not a over the top GPU. And since You asked for a med gaming pc. I think the 8600GT would be good enough.

Futhermore I hope your case isn't to expensive. And I hope you can add it to this system.

Question?

Who's actualy gonna assemble this system. Are you? If yes be carefull for the first time. And read carefully trough the manual. Building a pc isnt really hard to do. But you got to do it good. Becose if you screw up so does your wallet.

QUOTES

yea im probably gonna get 2, k ill take a look at those, but i dont realy kno what to look 4!?

If you really want to have the SLI MB with 2 videocards. Then ofcourse do so. Just got to say that I disadvice it. With 2 x 8800GTX your good to go. Im not sure what videocard you were planning to buy. But which card it may ever be. Im sure it isnt a 8800GTX, since it is imposibble to buy one of them with a budget of $1100 max.

So you should probably be able to buy a 8600GT. Which is the best card I think you can afford. 2 x 8600GT's really doesnt speed up anything. you pay 2 x $100 for 2 of those. And $50 - $100 more and you can afford a 8800GT which is almost as good as the 8800GTX and is definetly not equaly to the 8600GT since that card is much worse.

I hope I induced you to buy only a single 8600GT. And if your really dreaming about a sli system. You need a higher budget. And I would disadvice to think about SLI in any case. Since it only slightly boost up performance. To account it for more directly. You need to be kinda rich and have no idea about what youre doing when buying SLI. Or you have to be a gaming freak. I hope youre not.

[ARMIGO]

also i will swas the case he suggested with the COOLER MASTER Stacker 830 or the Antec 900, and the psu with this:

I dont want to sound prejudice in anyway. Since the suggester coud be a friend of yours. But he definetly dont know what he says. The PSU is good. There's no doubt about that. But since you were thinking about running your system in SLI which I disadvice. I do think you were thinking about a 8600 card. Or any other card compared to the 8600. Since you really cant afford a 8800GTS or higher. You might get a GT version. But in case you buy the 8800GT you wouldnt be able to get the quadcore which i really advice to buy with your current demands.

In this case Youd better buy the PSU I suggested. 700Watt is way to much. Even my current 550Watt PSU is to powerfull actualy. But I still do advice it in case you might buy a better videocard. You might even buy a lower end videocard then the 8600. And buy a 9800 in the future (Isnt released yet)

[jas98235]

thanks for the info, well I have 2 dvd drives in my pc right now, I'll probably transfer only one but buy a lightscribe later on, the reason I picked such a high power psu is because I will be running about 5 hard drives, and 2-3 dvd drives. No I dont even know the person who suggested the setup to me, he suggested I buy this one case which came with a psu already installed but it was $300 which is way too much.

Umm sli...I'm rethinking that, I dont think I need to run sli. Also I have like 5 extra keyboards, and I'll just use the mouse from my current pc. Also I already have a 20" lcd which I'm using for my 360 but I'll probably swap it and use it for the new pc.

I have both xp and vista already so I don't need to wory about the os. I actually don't have a limit on my budget I just wanted to stay in that range so, the case I picked (COOLER MASTER Stacker 830) is $170, but they have the Antec 900 for only $80 at my local computer store so I'll probably get that. I'm sorry but you completly lost me with the gpu talk! lol and what do you mean by if I get the 8800GT I wouldn't be able to get the quadcore? Do you mean i wouldnt have enough money?

Sorry I jumped around so much, I just type stuff as it pops into my head and I get side tracked and it sometimes doesn't make sense! Plus I barely ever re-read what I write so I dont edit it! and I can't spell for my life!

[alex]

I edited your last post for you Jas. It was bugging the hell out of me.

You need to slow down and take your time with your post's if you want accurate help.

Some people don't even reply to post's typed in the way you're doing them so you could potentially be missing out on some good advice.

Breath!!

[ARMIGO]

I'm sorry but you completly lost me with the gpu talk!

Sorry about that, I wasnt really focussing on what I exactly was trying to account for,

I ment if you take the 8800GT you wouldnt have enough money for the CPU. Atleast in Case you have a limited budget. But its seems you got no limited budget like you said. Hmm, if I had no limited budget I would buy a Q9650 quadcore processor with 8GB ram and 2 8800Ultra GPU's. Lol, im just trying to say that your very inaccurate about your budget. Id just expect you will have a maximum of $1100 then. Or atleast close to that budget.

Like you see ive made my own system setup in my previous replys. If youd like to change anything about it but you dont know what and how exactly. Just ask me what you want to be added. And Maybe I can see if it's possible.

I will be running about 5 hard drives, and 2-3 dvd drives.

Your pretty inaccurate.

Do you already have the drives and harddisks?
How many storage do you need? How many gigabyte's?
And what do you mean by 5 keyboards. I think 1 is quite enough

And furthermore like our moderator said. Please try to give us some more information and give us a better view about your problem. And you dont have to re-read and edit your messages to do so. Becose it would make it much easier for us to help you.

My previous quote is a example, since I find it quite turbid on what your ectualy trying to say since 5 harddisks and 3 drives sounds kinda retarded to me.

[jas98235]

@alex:
thanks, ill try to slow down!

ok no i said that i have an unlimited budget, which is true but i was hoping to stay in that $700-$1,100 range, the max im willing to go up to would be around $2,000.
lol i dont have that kind of money!

um. well rite now i have 3 hard drives (2x 160GB, and 1x 500GB) and im gonna buy probably a 1tb, or 2more 500GB, like i said i back up my movies and do some video editing stuff like that so i need alot of space. but im not gonna get those hard drives for awhile so im not counting them yet.
and i already have a DL DVD burner which i will transfer, and im gonna buy a lightscribe dvd burner.

lol yea i have acouple keyboards from old computer we use to have ( i have a realy nice one from my last one which im gonna use)

so what size psu would u suggest for that? a 550?

ok so lest see here so far i have this:

case:
COOLER MASTER Stacker 830
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119103

hard drives:
3from pc i have now, will buy 1-2 more down the road

motherboard:
unknown

RAM:
4GB (2x2gb)
http://www.newegg.com/product/produc...82E16820231122

DVD drive:
one from current pc
and Asus lightscribe:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827135157

OS:
XP pro (already have it)
Vista (already have it)

PSU:
unknown

video card:
unknown

so i just need a motherboard, psu, and gpu. and once again id like to stay in the $1,000, but absolute max $2,000.

hope that is easier to read :)

[jas98235]

wow! i just spent alot of time i had a nice good long post and i edited it and it was nice and clean but when i hit post it deleted it!!!! im real mad now! ok ill try to just sum it up instead of retyping that whole thing cuz it was prety long!

@alex:
thanks, will try to clean up my posts more!

ok i said that i have no limit on my budget, i would like to correct that, i already stated that i want to stay in the $1,000 range, but im willing to go up to $2,000 that is the highest i will go up to.

also i said i have 5 hard drives, now i kno that sounds like alot but i run out of space fairly quickly as of now i have 3 hard drives (2x 160GB, and 1x 500GB) ill stick with just these for as long as i can but i will eather get a 1TB, or 2x 500GB not to long after this build, the reason i need somuch space is because like i said i like to back up my movies, and i do alot of video editing/encoding so need alot of space to work in, and i will be buying a HDTV tuner so im gonna need space to record and encode.

psu, i figured since i had all that stuff i would need a big psu...mayb i was wrong?

gpu..not sure which one im gonna go with.

the 5 keyboards, lol i have extras from old pc's we had, gonna use this nice one i have from my last computer.

so i have a case pickd out, im unsure how much power i need so i dont have a psu pickd out, have no clue what motherboard to get (looking at asus p5k but not sure which one to get), have a dvd drive (getting another one not to far down the road) have enough hard drives for now but will get up to 2 more in the near future, ram have that pickd out, and unsure about the gpu, cpu defenatly sure on which one i want :)

hope thats clean and in good format! also why did it automaticly delete my post?

[ARMIGO]

Hi I got some answers for you,

Just to enumerate some of your demands.

Coolermaster stacker

This is a very nice case, It got alot of awards in this very end of 2007. But it is a expensive case though. With such a case as demand you will probably thinking about spending the $2000

Harddisks

Im using my pc for more then just gaming. I got a old pc right now, Although with 2x500GB + 250GB's of harddisks. I have a 20MB/s network speed. And I have like 30 - 40 copyrighted movies on my harddisks. It's a guess though since im not quite sure how many I exactly posess.

Im not sure how many movies you need but you were thinking about a storage close to 2Terabyte's. You did mentioned your gonna buy it in the future. Apart from that I doubt you need such alot of storage. Although you might still buy the harddisks later on ofcourse if you really like to. Nobody is forcing you to do not. But believe me, 1 x 500GB + 2x160GB is far enough. because im not assuming you would store like 100 movies on your harddisk. Personally I find I got to much storage myself.

I just got some calculation here. DVD5 movies are 4,3GB's. 100x 4,3GB is 430GB. 500 + 320GB is 820GB. So you will spend half of your storage when you posess 100movies. That's why I find it quite retarded to buy any more harddisks.

But if your really gonna store such a big amount of movies. Then you might still think about buying the HDD's in the future.

DVDDRIVE

Nice drive,m I prefer it over the one I suggested. Yes you should buy this one.

RAM

Nice ram. I prefer it over mine. Be mindfull though. Do you know what overclocking is? If not then skip the following italic text.

But overclocking is running a system component on a higher speed by tweaking the BIOS. If you use the G skill RAM then you can't run at CL4 since the memory doesnt support that.

Operating system

There's one problem with the operating system and the use of ram. I see you want 4GB's of RAM. You got to know that if you want to run 4GB's of ram that you need a 64BIT operating system. You got 2 versions of XP and VISTA. A 32 BIT version and a 64BIT version. If you have the 32BIT version you can only use up to 3 - 3,2GB. If you use a 64BIT version you can use up to 8GB's of ram.

So I should recheck if you got the right version of xp and/or vista. Becose if you don't you have to purchase the 64BIT version. And if you can't afford that you should buy 2GB's of ram.

PSU

The 550WATT Psu is good enough. I also gonna buy a new PC. A 8800GTS videocard with a Q9450 cpu and 4GB's of kingston ram. And I will run 2x500GB + 1x250GB harddisks from my old pc. And I even asked some professionals and they said it worked.

GPU

Hmm depends on how much money you actualy want to spend. In case you prefer to stay around the $1100 limit I would still suggest the 8600GT card. It's a good card. It's just not the high end on the market right now.

On the other hand, if your willing to spend $2000. I really suggest to spend more then the $1100. And get a 8800GT for $280.
Actualy the choice about the GPU is quite simple. Its a 8600Gt or a 8800GT. The only question is how much money you want to spend. You did told me you coud spend a max of $2000. But since I dont like to already forcing you to spend so much money im still questioning which card your prefer. The 8600GT is cheaper but not as good as the 8800GT. The 8800GT is better but more expensive. But is equal to the 8800GTX which is the best card available on the market right now.

MAINBOARD

You should take the P5K I suggested in my previous reply

RAID

R.A.I.D. Means > Redundant Array of Independent Disks

R.a.i.d is for the protection of your harddisks. Since your thinking about running so many harddisks I prefer to get a Raid controller for a few bucks. You got 6 levels of raid.

RAID 0
RAID 1
RAID 2
RAID 3
RAID 4
RAID 5

If your running so many harddisks I prefer getting a raid controller to run your HDD's in raid.

Each raid has his own weaknesess and benefit's

I wont make a huge tutorial and description what it exactly is. I will search for a site where they explain everything to you what it exactly is and how to configure RAID. But to cut to the point. It is some protection on your harddisks. But got to go to the theater right now. See ya.

NOTE

If you add the changes in this reply to the previous system setup of mine. I Think you have a nice machine. The only problem remains is that we have to recalculate the price.

[jas98235]

wow thanks alot for all that info!!!

well for the hard drives i have more then just movies, i have about 100GB of tv shows, god only knows how many GB of games(id say about 150-200GB at least)(thats not just pc games i backed up all of my xbox games, and 360 games) , and countless other stuff, i just bought my 500GB hard drive about 1month ago and its more then hald way full!

yea i thik i will get that dvd drive

the ram yea i know what overclocking is but im not going to, i just dont see the point in risking the damage of the parts.

i am aware that i need a 64bit inorder to use all of the 4gb of ram, i cant remember im prety sure i have 64bit vista(gotta find it to make sure)

wow ok so ill go back and find a diffrent psu!

ok ill definatly think about the gpu..but im thinking that since i will probably just buy this piece by piece i will probably go for the 8800GT,

yea i think that board looks prety good! will look over it again along with acouple others b4 i make that decision tho.

ok once again thanks alot for all the info and help! im gonna put in an application to this computer store near me (microcenter) hopefully ill get a job with them so ill get the money for this faster and ill get some discounts on the parts if i get them from there!

also i just wanna say sry for the dubble post b4, for some reason when i hit the post button on the first one it said invalid post? i wated about an hour and it never showd up so i jsut reposted, then about 3hours later the original post showd up!?