Part of my computer done.

PerfectCreature

So, I currently have part of my computer done.
I cracked on a few good deals and recently purchased a hard drive and a video card and am looking to buy the case in a day or two....

The Hard drive is the Western Digital VelociRaptor 150GB picked up for $60 more than half off.
Then the vid card I picked up was the EVGA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB for $50 on clearance at a local shop.
Next the case is going to be the NZXT M59 - 001BK for about $40 shipped....I may be picking that up in a few days....
I figure the way I am finding deals, I may have this in no time...
I am getting exited.
Just left is my MB, CPU, PS, RAM, Optical drive PSU....ugh....that is still a lot though...hah.

Sherardp

During my builds, I usually part it out to break up the expense, and to shop around for good deals like yourself. If you decide on a second HDD, I would suggest looking for a deal on SSDs. Go for at least a 4gb mem kit, and you should be fine. I'm an AMD guy, but you may find some good prices on Intel if that's your choice. Check Newegg, Fry's and MWave for some good finds also. GL with the build.

PerfectCreature

I do AMD as well, and I am picking up a rip jaws 4gb combo in a few days as well....they dropped it $20....

MacLeod

Yup, if youre on a budget, cant beat AMD.

If youre just wanting an internet/email machine, this Athlon II X2 245 for $58 shipped would be perfect.

If you want a little more muscle, you cant beat this Athlon II X3 440 for $75 shipped. This is an awesome processor and, dollar for dollar, is the best CPU on the market. It comes very close in performance to procs costing THREE times as much!

For PSU, Corsair is just the best. Among the best built on the market but at a very reasonable price. 400 watt units for $50. 650 watt units for $90. All bulletproof.

For optical drive, just pick one. Theyre all about the same. I mean how much difference can their be between a $20 Sony, $20 LiteOn, $20 LG or $20 HP?

Motherboards, Gigabyte is widely considered the best quality board maker these days. Asus, ASRock and MSI are also worth the money.

PerfectCreature

Yeah, I am getting an Antec PSU I think...I cannot remember....it could have been corsair as well....do not remember....
As for the CPU, getting the Phenom II. 3.2 ghz.unless the atlon would be better than the phenom II?..and I was looking at an MSI board, it says military grade componants....
As for optical....getting a liteon for like $20 is almost standard these days.

renowilliams

There are definatly differences in power supplies, so look close at the specs as well as price. I built a new computer not long ago and I chose a Cooler Master silent pro 850 watt power supply. I never cheap out on motherboards or power supplies.


My power supply is also modular,which allows for better cable management.

Here are some pics of my build.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/renowilliams/

Mike Kozak

TB drives are pretty cheap, lots of space.

PerfectCreature

It looks all flamey and stuff haha.
Yes the motherboard is this one- MSI 870A-G54 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

CPU-- AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Callisto 3.2GHz

PSU ---- Antec EarthWatts EA-500D Green 500W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

MacLeod

Any Antec, especially the True Power, will be excellent. Most PSU's are crap. Corsair, Seasonic, Antec, XFX and Enermax are the only ones Id recommend. Corsair is my favorite.

Thermaltake's Tough Power line is very solid but their other stuff is so-so. OCZ is decent but since it costs about the same as Antec or Corsair, Ill pass.

500 watts is plenty for any basic system and for most single video card applications but if you can swing an extra $10, I highly recommend this Antec Earthwatts 650 watt unit. (it $10 off til July 27th). This will be more than enough for your current rig but best of all, if you decide to go crazy and get a big badass video card and 125 watt CPU and crank on the overclocking, youll still have plenty of headroom available.

The Athlon is unbeatable dollar for dollar but the Phenom II line is the better proc mainly due to its L3 memory cache which the Athlon doesnt have.

About the 555, this is an outstanding processor with unreal overclocking potential. There are several people on forums getting 4 GHz with this thing which is blazing fast. The problem is its only 2 cores. For 90% of people out there, thats fine. If youre just going to be doing some very light gaming, surfing the web and occasionally editing some pictures, itll be a great choice. But if you think youll venture into enthusiast gaming, or DVD encoding and stuff like that, youd really be better off with a quad core. If $100 is your price limit then snatch up an Athlon II X4 635. Its the best choice at $100. It has 4 cores to handle any kind of multi tasking you want to throw at it and its got enough muscle to handle any game out today when paired with a strong video card.

Solid choice on the motherboard.

PerfectCreature

Yeah, I was going to go with OCZ power supply, then I saw the antec and decided that it was better for the price.
I do not plan to edit media or such, just some gaming occasionally, mostly viewing video, and playing a few games, I bought boarderlands in anticipation of my new computer....so that will be the first game loaded on it.
With that said...should I stick with the phenom and the athlon?
Could the athlon be overclocked easily to 3.4 or 3.5 ghz?
I know the phenom has been steadily overclocked at around 3.7 ghz....

renowilliams

PerfectCreature wrote: »

Yeah, I was going to go with OCZ power supply, then I saw the antec and decided that it was better for the price.
I do not plan to edit media or such, just some gaming occasionally, mostly viewing video, and playing a few games, I bought boarderlands in anticipation of my new computer....so that will be the first game loaded on it.
With that said...should I stick with the phenom and the athlon?
Could the athlon be overclocked easily to 3.4 or 3.5 ghz?
I know the phenom has been steadily overclocked at around 3.7 ghz....

If you plan on overclocking you new AMD processor,I would advise an aftermarket heatsink and fan. I have a friend who has an amd quad and it does get hot when overclocking. My i7 does as well,so I bought a good air cooler which does a great job.

My i7 has a stock clock of 2.79GHZ and I have it clocked to 4.0GHZ. My ide temp is 72 F with cooling.

Sherardp

I would go Antec Tru Power model power supplies. I run a 650 no problems. Modular would be great as for nice cable management. Phenom II is a great choice on the cpu, paired with a gigabyte mobo you should be well set for some great overclocking. Plus one on the aftermarket cooler, frosty tech is usually a good reference there.

http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm

Reno your build has tons of potential for wow factor, handle that cable management in there bro, zip ties are your friend. No offense there. I have a Antec 902 case and it took me roughly 3 hrs to hide and pull cable every cable. I even went out and bought shorter cable where needed.

MacLeod

At $100, Id go with the Athlon II X4 635. You can easily overclock this thing to 3.2 on stock voltage and cooler with no problem at all. Thatll keep up with the Phenom 555 on single core games but flat out smoke it on mutli core games. Plus the 2 extra cores will come in real handy with general purpose workloads.

As for an aftermarket heat sink, you dont need one with the Athlon. I have my X3 435 overclocked to 3.4 (2.9 is stock) and Im running the stock cooler and my temps stay around 35 during gaming and maxed out at 48 after several house of Prime95. Im not saying an aftermarket cooler wouldnt be better, just that you can hold off on one if you need to put that $50 or so elsewhere.

tcrossma

I'll go against the grain a little bit and say just get a CPU and mboard and don't worry about overclocking; it's not worth it. Just buy a middle-of-the-road processor and it'll be plenty fast for what you're wanting. Overclocking just adds headaches and troubles, and it not worth it for anybody other than those who enjoy the thrill of the hunt.

My 2c.