tattooed_kaos

I am new to the site, and new to Gaming and HTPC's any and all help will be greatly appreciated!!

I am Willing to buy at online store or Ebay

Here are my thoughts on stuff so far-

1. Case - Am looking at XCLIO A380PLUS-BK , it has a 360mm side fan and a 250mm front fan, and is available at Newegg for $122 with shipping. Would prefer one with a 250mm or bigger side fan and at least 1-120mm or bigger front fan, just trying to stay under $125

2. Power Supply - OCZ GameXStream 700 watt- I am not set on this, but my goal is to be between $220-250 for case and power supply.

3. Processor - AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ $159 at Newegg, free shipping

4. Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-MA790FX-DS5 790FX AMD Athlon Quad Core or AM2 64X2. I am looking for a Dual SLI or Crossfire MB with 16X PCI-E on each slot, preferably PCI-E 2.0, and can handle 8gb of DDR2 800mhz and above RAM. $210 or less

5. RAM - 4 x 1GB Crucial Ballistix Dual Channel 800mhz DDR2 $75 a set at Newegg. Would like if Ram could do SLI or Crossfire, but I don't know if that exists.

6. GPU - Prefer 256bit interface, 512mb and above, SLI or Crossfire, PCI-E 2.0 DDR2 and above ram. Want 1 to start out, then later will use in dual setup. $150-200

7. Hard Drive - Already purchased. 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 RPM, 16mb, Sata II, 3.0Gb/S

8. DVD/CDRW - Already have Generic drive, will purchase better Sata drive later

9. Cooling fans - Already have 3 Thermaltake Silent Wheel 130mm fan with 120mm mounting pattern and rounded housing, 16dBa, 1400 RPM, 54.4 CFM, 3.6w, 3pin connectors.

10. O.S. - Already purchased. Windows Vista Premium 64bit

11. Possible Fan and temperature control device - this will be a possible addition later, not part of current budget. Zalman MFC2 Fan and Temperature monitor, 4 fan RPM controller, 4 temperature displays, and system wattage monitoring. I just want to know if this is something that would be nice to have, and I will not be overclocking my system.

Total budget for the Items I need to purchase - $800 - $1000

Any help and Suggestions are much appreciated!!!!!!!!

tattooed_kaos

And as an added afterthought - I want the motherboard to have integrated HD audio, 7.1 or more, with optical or coaxial S/pdif connections, and 1080p HD support, thanks

linderman

well a few thoughts / take them with a grain of salt



A) case looks good / PSU looks good


B) 64bit windows doent have much going for it in the gaming world / please research that with plenty of google >>>>> no many people use 64 bit windows as a whole therefore they dont get much programming dedication as a whole ??


C) as for video card / for the $1000.00 system budget you will be limited to one card at first >>>>> 8800 GT would be my choice


D) I would go intel conroe instead of AMD even if I had to throw in a few more bucks and a prolonged system assembly date !


I would persue the GA-P35-DS4 and the E6850 or E8840

2 gigs of memory at first / expand later

the Intel Bearlake chipset has a much bettery memory controller and it overclocks the best of any board thus far bar NONE

anyone would be insane to rule out overclocking any more / the new bios make it easy as hell and you can get a very easy extra 600mhz cpu speed

the AMD cpu's on the othe hand are squezzed to death @ "stock" voltages therefore you wont get alot more when you are ready to "tweak" your rig

dont hesitate to ask more questions

tattooed_kaos

ok, then I need to know if the E6850 supports 1066/1333 ram, and I Have Decided on the Enermax Chakra case, blue/black. I can get it for $75 shipped from Newegg, it gets solid reviews, and has a 250mm side fan, and spots for a 120mm in the front and back, good solid construction and easy mounting. Was also thinking of getting 2 new 120mm fans, Noctua NF-P12F Quiet Case Fan.

ComputerCookie

Don't be too worried about cooling, the core duo/quad run a lot cooler than PIV's.
I can't say the same for AMD, so good change. Intel Core 2 Duo E6850/3.0GHz/4M/1333FSB.

Different versions of Vista, which one did you buy?

tattooed_kaos

I have done a lot of research into CPU, and I am going to go with the E8400 instead, I am having a slightly difficult time finding out if that CPU supports DDR3, b/c I want to Find a good DDR3 MB. I like The Gigabyte Linderman suggested, and will go with it if the CPU doesn't do DDR3. Am also looking for SLI support with both slots at full 16x

I bought 64bit Premium, but I also have a non-activated version of 32bit Premium, I am gonna try them each out, without activating, and see which works better for me, and sell whichever I don't need.

I am glad I found this site, I am definitely learning as I go, and appreciate all the help!

ComputerCookie

DDR 3? Last time I looked at it had architecture limitations, maybe thats been overcome, I thought it was consigned to GPU for ever!

I'll have to lokk at it again maybe.

tattooed_kaos

upon research DDR3 is completely out of my price range anyways, but the E8400 supports DDR2 1066 as far as I can tell, and that is right in my budget range, and should be sufficiently fast for what I am using it for.

Jtsou

I heard the E8500 was better but thats probably out of your price range, and it hasnt come out on newegg yet. I think it runs at like 3.2Ghz stock, 6MB L2, 1333 FSB....

tattooed_kaos

lol, it is better, and I already researched it, it is definitely out of my price range, but thanks for the suggestion!

linderman

the E6850 and DDR2-800 memory will give you all the speed you need, the 1066 is not needed / unless you are lucky and patient enough to catch it on sale for close to the same price as DDR2-800 with tight latencies

the corsair XMS 6400 memory is able to hit 4-4-4-12 with no trouble


make sure the 1066 your looking at is not 5-5-5-15 ????


BTW: both the E8840 and the E6850 both run at stock 3.0ghz but the E8840 has more on die cache, but that doesnt always equate to much actual performance increase ?


sounds like more hype to me ??

tattooed_kaos

well I did some more research, and thanks to Linderman now understand a little better about latency and all that, and any good 1066 is definitely out of my price range, and the Crucial Ballistix 2gb dual channel 800mhs gets excellent reviews and is readily available and easily affordable!!

I looked at all the specs between the CPU's, and the only spec difference is the E8400 is a 45nm , and has 6mb of L2 cache, and is only $219 with free shipping at Newegg, where the E6850 has a 65nm structure amd 4mb L2 cache, and costs $279 with free shipping at Newegg!!

So unless I am missing something majorly important, I do believe I will go with the better value, for the same computing power, the E8400.

I have also found my next addition that will happen probably mid summer, the LG GGW-H20L HD+BLU-RAY DISC R/W Multi drive, it can be had for between $249 and $299 on ebay or Newegg. I did a lot of looking into it, and all you need is a good enough nVidia GPU with HDCP support and DVI or HDMI out. Any thoughts on this would be helpful, I think it is a great affordable solution to not having to wait to see which if either format wins!

Also was wondering about the Zalman MFC2 Fan and Temperature monitor, 4 fan RPM controller, 4 temperature displays, and system wattage monitoring. I am just wondering if this would be a useful device to have, b/c I am now convinced that I am going to be overclocking my setup, and want to make sure things stay within safe operating zones!!

THANKS ONCE AGAIN

linderman

Hello


the E8400 is the better deal by far



sorry I dont know squat about your blu-ray device, maybe somone else will

as for the zalman fan device, thats not needed

all you need is a good cpu cooler like the zalman 9700 / verify its compatabile with 45nm cpu's >>>> I believe so but not positive

as for temps and overclocking / I monitor mine with Sensorsview pro software utility

http://www.stvsoft.com/


personally I am not a quite computer buff / the cooler you keep you rig the less parts you will burn up >>>>> the name of the game is watching your temps and turn your fan speeds up as needed / end of story

enjoy

tattooed_kaos

much appreciated, I do believe i have all the knowledge I need to build a good HTPC that will last me a while, at least the beginning of one, and will add my preference of extras throughout the summer, any more advice is still welcome, and I will post as the build starts to occur!!

linderman

enjoy



when the time comes have a look at the second generation 8800 GTS video cards they are very fast for the money as are the 8800GT video cards

I would abandon the thoughts of SLI / SLI for the most part involve nidea chipsets like the nforce 680 and nforce7 they have become rather flaky and fussy

plus with the speed of the new video cards coming out / SLI is past becoming obsolete

the new nvidea chipset video cards like the G2's will have TWO gpu's on one video card >>>> its like having two 8800 gtx cards rolled up into ONE

not to mention there are alot of bugs with SLI is doesnt work to its full potential as often as people think it does! it sounds better in theory than in actual practice


when SLI was first hitting the market is was MEANT to be the answer to super expensive video cards ; the theory being you could team up two cheap video cards to beat the performance of one high end card / that "dream" never came to life and certainly still has not

given the horsepower of the top of the line video cards, the fastest CPU's avai;able today have all they can do to serve the processing needs of one of these vid cards, having a second one if you cant "race" it; is worthless and wasted $$$$$ IMHO

the Intel chipsets now have it all over their nforce counterparts

tattooed_kaos

you have helped me figure out a lot of things, and I am going to be getting a 8800GTS that comes factory overclocked at 675 mhz core speed, 512mb. I figure this will be fine for games like crysis, especially if it looks decent with my current 8500GT!!

I was also wondering what your thoughts on a BFG 650watt power supply were? I am wondering if that will be sufficient for my build, as I will most likely never do SLI now, and the BFG power supplies have gotten solid reviews, and I could get it roughly $50 cheaper then the 700 watt OCZ

linderman

BFG power supplies are pure trash


I would NEVER run a $300.00 video card (or more) on a "cheaper" PSU >>>>> thats BEGGING for misery

I would be looking at the antec trio power 650 watt or OCZ 700 watt


thermaltake toughpower 700 watt

Silverstone 750 watt

Coolermaster Real Power Pro (only the PRO) 750 watt

tattooed_kaos

what do you think about PC Power and Cooling power supplies? I have a friend that is considering selling his 750 watt Pc power and Cooling supply, and he said he would let me have it for $90 if he gets rid of it

linderman

AWESOME dotn hesitate for that price!


PC power & Cooling & Seasonic are the only two power supply manufacturers that dont make ANY low or mdest quality units!! all power supplies by these two companies are TOP of the line