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madportagee

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My budget is $1300-$1350, of course less would be nice. I was looking at a couple other builds on the forum and came up w/ one for myself. If any parts should be changed or whatever, let me know since this will be my first build. Don't really know much about MB, but other stuff im ok on.... I'm going to go ahead with vista, not much of a reason not to, and im going w/ ultimate, but w/ what im putting together, I don't know if i should get the 32 or 64bit version. Besides that here is my build as of right now.....

Sony NEC Optiarc 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe $27.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118001

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 $44.99 + $25 MIR

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM $69.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144701

Also have a seagate 250gb drive to probably throw into the build

EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR GeForce 8800GT 512MB $249.99

Thermaltake Purepower W0100RU ATX 12V 2.0 500W Power Supply $59.99

2 x G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 $44.99 each

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz $279.99

Microsoft Windows Vista 64-Bit Ultimate $189.99

Acer AL2216Wbd Black 22" 5ms DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor $229.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009094


Total: $1,342.89

This PC will be for Graphic design work as well as games if that really changes much.

Thanks for any help.
 
Thanks, that will save me $20 =)


Later on I was thinking about having dual 8800GT's, but i don't think this MB will support it.... Or if thats even worth the money a little ways down the road to use dual vid cards?
 
[quote name='madportagee']Thanks, that will save me $20 =)


Later on I was thinking about having dual 8800GT's, but i don't think this MB will support it.... Or if thats even worth the money a little ways down the road to use dual vid cards?[/quote]
I dont think that board supports sli, but when you link type out a word like

click, highlight the word and insert the link.

Im not sure if its for everyone else, but at least for me when I click on direct links like that from newegg its messed up and doesnt work.

64 bit vista though, once perfected will definately be the way to go, but right now it just causes alot of problems from what Ive heard.

I use 32 bit and havent had a single problem with it at all, so ill recommend what I know works.:D

I havent kept up with 64 vista since im not on the market looking for an upgrade, but if someone has differing views on the 64 bit edition, or upcmoing news about it, I would sure like to hear it.
 
Definitely get 4gb of RAM. Vista will eat about a gig just to boot up without any background processes.

I'm not sure exactly what your problem is for price... but I built a better machine than that over a month ago for less (about $1100 without a monitor)... mine had a better case, PSU and more RAM. I didn't really take advantage of any special deals, everything except the video card was from NewEgg. I just paid a little less than that for every component. You can definitely do better, as far as price goes.
 
[quote name='Koggit']Definitely get 4gb of RAM. Vista will eat about a gig just to boot up without any background processes.

I'm not sure exactly what your problem is for price... but I built a better machine than that over a month ago for less (about $1100 without a monitor)... mine had a better case, PSU and more RAM. I didn't really take advantage of any special deals, everything except the video card was from NewEgg. I just paid a little less than that for every component. You can definitely do better, as far as price goes.[/quote]
just so he knows though, vista 32 can not recognize 4 GB of ram, so with 4 GB of ram you'll only get like 3.1~ - 3.4~ gb of ram of actual use.


coolermaster are AWESOME cases.
 
I thought it was only vista home that maxed out at 3gb's.

Also am switching MB to one i found off of tom's
MSI P6N SLI Platinum LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI

Basically taking the difference in money from vista to switch out the MB's. So it stays at the same cost
 
My build does have 4GB's of ram and take out the monitor, it will put it around $1100. Found a couple of the parts cheaper by about $10-15, but then you are paying more for shipping then just buying it all from newegg.

That did seem to be the case most people recommended on here, and its cheap w/ what looks like plenty of room. I do have probably a nicer PSU in my current computer, that i will possibly switch out. Can't recall what it is right now, but i do know its 550watt and was around $100
 
[quote name='madportagee']My build does have 4GB's of ram and take out the monitor, it will put it around $1100. Found a couple of the parts cheaper by about $10-15, but then you are paying more for shipping then just buying it all from newegg.

That did seem to be the case most people recommended on here, and its cheap w/ what looks like plenty of room. I do have probably a nicer PSU in my current computer, that i will possibly switch out. Can't recall what it is right now, but i do know its 550watt and was around $100[/quote]

yea that coolermaster case is nice, big, and slick all perfect for power computing or gaming.

If he prefers a different brand of case or style, well thats personal preferance, but there really isnt much better than that case in terms of heat dissapation and in the end thats what really matters.

If youre gonna go sli you need at least 650 to 750 watts FYI.
 
I was just thinking about getting that same motherboard. Will my Geforce 6800GS work with that motherboard (GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L)? I assume both are PCIe so it will work?
 
Is the performance advantages worth it down the road for SLI or would it be just as good, to upgrade to a different vid card later on and stick w/ the other MB i had?

By switching to SLI it will cost me what looks to be around $100 more.
 
[quote name='cletus']I was just thinking about getting that same motherboard. Will my Geforce 6800GS work with that motherboard (GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L)? I assume both are PCIe so it will work?[/quote]

With the motherboard, yes, with vista maybe.
Older cards have some issues running vista.

[quote name='madportagee']Is the performance advantages worth it down the road for SLI or would it be just as good, to upgrade to a different vid card later on and stick w/ the other MB i had?

By switching to SLI it will cost me what looks to be around $100 more.[/quote]

That is entirely up to you, but in terms of gaming

here are the differences in performance in games you would get.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3183&p=3

As far as video editing and graphic design, im not quite sure how that would translate.

But, sli is an expensive gaming habit.
 
I've assembled a few computers and have used many for graphics and video work... I'd say I'm merely competent at PC hardware setup, at best. But if I were building this system, I would:

1. Certainly avoid 64-bit from Microsoft, as others have said. MS is restrictive in x64 to hide all their compatibility issues.

2. Consider some different branding. In my experience, WD drives are more prone to write errors, especially in SATA. And I've seen a WD take physical damage in undervoltage situations, where Seagate/Maxtor drives just write corrupt data. I just don't feel WD drive motors are consistently good. And EVGA... if I were buying NVIDIA, I'd go with something like BFG. EVGA has lousy customer service IMO, and slightly worse quality control. And whatever card you get, if you're going to do heavy gaming, I'd consider changing the video card HS and fan to something 3rd party, like a Zalman or Thermaltake.

3. Choosing a LCD monitor for gaming and graphics is tough. Just keep in mind that low response times can hurt your color representation. If you don't already have one, I find a decent colorimeter a must for making a good ICC profile... it helps even the crappiest of monitors display a more discrete range of values.

4. Invest in a surge protector with baseline EMI/RFI filtering and line conditioning, or a UPS if you're willing to keep replacing batteries. Bad AC has no problem doing damage through even the most modern of PSUs.

I don't think you can cut costs much from your current list unless you can live with less gaming performance. It's focused on running dx9/dx10 d3d games, to be sure... a graphics focus would require far less, and then I'd probably go ATI, for a slightly more crisp desktop environment.

Good luck on the build. Just one more quick recommendation... install Vista on a partition 120GB or less at install (I would do 80GB... 74.5 GiB). I will never trust a larger system partition for ANY MS OS, from what I've had to deal with since LBA 48-bit became commonplace. Besides, all the cool kids with their Linuxes always partition off the OS and programs. :)
 
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