# First build, need advice



## Hinnaku (Feb 18, 2008)

I've always used prebuilt systems, but in the next month or so I'm going to be building a computer for the first time. Since I'm completely new to the world the world of building I was looking for some advice on what I've picked out to make sure it will all work together and see if there's anything better to get for my money, so far I've picked out...


OS
Windows Vista Home Premium

CPU
Q6600 hoping to overclock to at least 3.0GHz

HSF
Thermaltake CL-P0401 110mm Full-Range Fan CPU Cooler 

RAM
OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB(2 x 2GB)

Video Card
VisionTek 3870 X2

Case 
Antec Nine Hundred

Hard Drive
Western Digital Caviar RE2 500GB

Power Supply
Thermaltake W0116RU 750W

Motherboard
Asus Maximus Formula

Monitor
Need suggestions

CD drive
Need suggestions

And then is there anything else that I'm missing? I'm planning on using this primarily for gaming, any advice anyone can give would be very much appreaciated.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Feb 18, 2008)

I recommend a Samsung 2280HD, Its 22inch and ive never had any problems with it. It has your standard D-VGA and DVI ports for your computer.  Research your Mobo, because quads have a tendency to draw more power than standard dual core cpu's. I don't know much about ASUS mobo's. As for a 3GHz overclock will be easy. 3.2 should also be easy with your after market cooling.


----------



## Fitseries3 (Feb 18, 2008)

those OCZ's arent that great. i've heard alot of complaints on them. just letting you know that. 
the q6600 should do 3.6ghz. the maximus is great... i've got one. don't use a 500gig for your OS drive. you'll be pissed when you have to reload windows and your 500gig's of data is gone.
the 3870x2 is KICK ASS!!! you'll LOVE it. for dvd drive get the samsung sh-203b


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Feb 18, 2008)

I'm running Crucial Ballistix Tracers it adds some awe to your case. the led's run back and fourth and they go faster the faster your ram runs. 

Other will have other suggestion's but thats mine.

EDIT: And fitseries3 is right, get a smaller hard drive or partition a seperate hard drive for windows.


----------



## Kursah (Feb 18, 2008)

fitseries3 said:


> don't use a 500gig for your OS drive. you'll be pissed when you have to reload windows and your 500gig's of data is gone.



Or he can make an OS partition on his 500GB like I did. I just made a 20GB partition using Windows Installer utility when you choose what drive to use...gotta format the drive anyways, you can partition the rest as a second drive and format it once Windows is installed on the primary partition. That way if you gotta wipe out XP/Vista you don't lose all your stuff.

I know partition is some old-school stuff, but I still find it very useful and effective when only wanting one HDD...or multiple OS's, etc.


----------



## Fitseries3 (Feb 18, 2008)

Kursah said:


> Or he can make an OS partition on his 500GB like I did. I just made a 20GB partition using Windows Installer utility when you choose what drive to use...gotta format the drive anyways, you can partition the rest as a second drive and format it once Windows is installed on the primary partition. That way if you gotta wipe out XP/Vista you don't lose all your stuff.
> 
> I know partition is some old-school stuff, but I still find it very useful and effective when only wanting one HDD...or multiple OS's, etc.



ok, a partition is good and all but what if the drive dies? then everything is gone. i have argued this for years and i have had it happen to me and several of my customers. in fact, i see it about 3 times a month. every time people cry over lost data. you will be crying when you loose 400gig's of music, video, pics and software you downloaded from the interweb.

at least if your OS drive dies you still have your data. and if your data drive dies you still have your OS. 

running a computer business like i do, you see this all the time. im just suggesting that you plan ahead. you'll thank me later.

@Kursah..... im not trying to attack you. just trying to be helpful. HOWS the dvd drive doing for you?


----------



## Kursah (Feb 18, 2008)

From my findings though, from working on family and friends' PC's are that they're going to need a wipe and re-install of windows a few times before an HDD loses enough integrity to even bring the possiblity of losing data. Then if it dies and you lose all your data anyways, you're at no greater loss than if the HDD died w/o any partitions.

It's true that one should plan ahead, but personally I've never had an HDD die on me...and I've only seen one HDD die ever and that was years ago in a very old system, I think it was a legacy 100MB HDD lol. But proper precautions should always be taken, I still feel that partition is one of them. If my HDD dies and I lose everything, then it's my fault for not having an extra HDD for backup in the first place, but in the mid-term if I decide to do an install of Vista over my Xp or a fresh Xp install, I don't gotta worry about losing or moving my extra junk in the first place.

But I do totally agree with Fit that it does pay off to properly prepare, as everyone's results and experiences will vary.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Feb 18, 2008)

I lost a Hard drive before, but that was due to excessive heat abuse. If you run a fan across your hard drive or drives then you should do good.  Just keep on top of the SMART systems.

I recommend a Seagate 500GB HDD with a 32MB cache.

If you want to safe guard your important data write it to a cd-rw.


----------



## Fitseries3 (Feb 18, 2008)

pepsi71ocean said:


> I lost a Hard drive before, but that was due to excessive heat abuse. If you run a fan across your hard drive or drives then you should do good.  Just keep on top of the SMART systems.
> 
> I recommend a Seagate 500GB HDD with a 32MB Chache.



PERPENDICULAR FTW!!! the perp drives write almost like a raptor. very good drives indeed.

i personally use the western digital 1TB drive and it is GREAT!!! VERY quiet. it also switches into low speed mode when not in use but switches back silently when data movement is detected. the 32mb cache is awesome as well. they can be found for as little at $219 now.


----------



## Kursah (Feb 18, 2008)

Yeah, I also like Speedfan's SMART integrity check, has some decent info that is easy to access for many. It gets the job done, and is simple enough I can show anyone how to get to it and ensure their drive health is okay.


----------



## Hinnaku (Feb 18, 2008)

Well, I would like to keep it to a single hard drive, is a parition difficult to do, or are there any negatives to that over having the OS on its own hardrive?


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Feb 18, 2008)

you'll want dual hard drives, especially if you are gaming.  You will want to keep your page file separate from windows, and your game files off of the windows hdd anyways.


----------



## Kursah (Feb 18, 2008)

Hinnaku said:


> Well, I would like to keep it to a single hard drive, is a parition difficult to do, or are there any negatives to that over having the OS on its own hardrive?



It depends on budget really, I got my 500GB for about $130 over a year ago, which really is a good deal, plus I only wanted 1 HDD in my build. Modern HDDs have pretty good read/write transfer speeds. Partitioning is easy to do, if you go into Windows Install from bootup, you'll have the option to create a partition and format it. Just gotta remember games and stuff you install you will need to change the drive letter for installation just like if you had 2 different HDD's, but that's not tough.

2 HDDs is nice also, but can be more costly...I've found 2x 250gb hdds can cost a bit more than one 500gb hdd, but either way would work well. I think I would go a decent perp 60gb hd for OS junk and a larger perp hdd for storage, gaming, etc. Some like to do RAID and such, which is nice, but costly. It really depends on your budget, needs and what you plan to do with your build.

I game, store backups of my movies and music, and such with a partitioned 500gb hdd. It's the model before Perpendicular in the Seagate lineup, but I still average around 55MB/s average in HDTach, which isn't great by any means when perp drives can go faster, and RAID can more than double that, but for my needs it's fine. I just made one 20GB partition for Windows, it's update junk, Page File, etc, then the rest of the HDD space is my second partition for gaming, programs, movies, music, files, etc. 2 HDD's is probably the easiest way to go, along with a better way...but partitioning is very easy to do, just multiply the megabytes x 1024 to get Gigabytes (HDD manufactures do that X 1000, so don't be suprised when a 500GB hdd is actually 480GB, all of them do it).

And pepsi71 has some good points, but really you won't gain any insane increases, they may be noticable, but nothing compared to getting multiple drives for a RAID setup. In previous years, having your page file on a sepeare physical HDD could net a little bit in performance increase, but nothing to write home about in my experiences with previous builds. Like I said before, newer HDD's, especially those with Perpendicular technology are damn good drives with very good transfer speeds.


----------



## Fitseries3 (Feb 18, 2008)

i'd reccomend at least a 120gig for the os drive if you install more than 4 games on your comp.
games tend to take about 4-10gig's depending on the game. software like office and photoshop also use a TON of space so watch out!


----------



## Atnevon (Feb 18, 2008)

pepsi71ocean said:


> I'm running Crucial Ballistix Tracers it adds some awe to your case. the led's run back and fourth and they go faster the faster your ram runs.
> 
> Other will have other suggestion's but thats mine.
> 
> EDIT: And fitseries3 is right, get a smaller hard drive or partition a seperate hard drive for windows.



IF you don't like LEDs going, the normal Balistix are great too. No problems with mine yet. As for moniter, I love the glossy screen for the color, and dont mind the glare because of my laptop for years. I have the Samsung 2232GW. 22 and has the glossy reflective screen. Yes there can be a glare, but the same as many laptops nowadays.


----------



## Hinnaku (Feb 19, 2008)

Thanks for the replies guys, I think I'm just about ready to order, but just a few questions left. 
Any ideas for a good CD/DVD drive?
Also, would it be better to go with a E8400 over the Q6600 if I plan on using this for gaming?


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Feb 19, 2008)

Hinnaku said:


> Thanks for the replies guys, I think I'm just about ready to order, but just a few questions left.
> Any ideas for a good CD/DVD drive?
> Also, would it be better to go with a E8400 over the Q6600 if I plan on using this for gaming?



I have a Q6600. I chose a Quad core over a dual core because of video editing and other things of interest. The quad core is a workhorse chip, i can play a game like Sim City 4  watch tv (on my computer's tuner card) and IM people, and surf the web all at once. You can do that with a dual core it would be hard to do. 

However, a Dual core processor runs faster than a quad core can, you use less electricity than a quad core chip does. It will clock higher and with less effort. A Dual core isn't as demanding on a motherboard, and the 680i series mobo will handle a dual core allot better than a quad core. (Some 680i's suck on a Quad core chip)


In the future quad core processors will be the future, eventually games will be big enough to require more than two logical cores to run games, providing hyper threading can be instituted in the game.

I ran experiments with my quad core processor and newer games  like MOH Airborne, and Sim City 4( I consider SC4 the classic stress testing program.  With two of the 4 cores shut off in Medal of Honor Airborne the game performance was slightly slower than with 4 cores on, (I'm talking seconds on loading, But one must also know its not running as fast as a Dual core can), However, i couldn't play SC4 and watch tv, and IM people as my cpu became to taxed and locked up on me. 

Since you game a Dual core should work fine.  A Quad core would be future proofing, IMO.


----------



## Nitro-Max (Feb 19, 2008)

With the right board and cooler you will get 3.4ghz to 3.6ghz out of your quad easy.

I recomend the Asus Maximus Formula Intel X38.

But if you want to save a few bucks get the Asus P5E Intel X38

Because its vertually the same board same pcb and layout as the maximus.

If you peel off the Asus P5E sticker on the mobo it actually says Asus Maximus Formula printed on the board under it.

Both have full 16x pci-e lanes

- Intel® Quad-core CPU Ready
- Supports Intel® next generation 45nm Multi-core CPU
- Intel® Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Duo Ready
- Intel® X38/ICH9R
- Dual-channel DDR2 1066/800/667 MHz Support
- 1333 / 1066 / 800 MHz FSB
- Extreme Tweaker
- SupremeFX II 8-CH Audio
- CPU Level Up
- Voltiminder LED
- LCD Poster
- ASUS EPU (Energy Processing Unit)
- 2-Phase DDR2
- COP EX 

This board suits your quad perfect why pay out more on a x48 it wont oc your quad anymore than the x38 its a great mobo for bang for buck and preformance.


----------



## Nitro-Max (Feb 19, 2008)

I have the same ram too ocz reaper its really good stuff.

What ever dvd-rom you go for you want sata.


----------



## Nitro-Max (Feb 19, 2008)

Hinnaku said:


> Thanks for the replies guys, I think I'm just about ready to order, but just a few questions left.
> Any ideas for a good CD/DVD drive?
> Also, would it be better to go with a E8400 over the Q6600 if I plan on using this for gaming?



Depends on the game lol this bits taken from another thread on tpu..lets compare Q6600 vs E8400.

3dmark 06 scores origionally posted by trans am:

I'm getting close to 19k in vista with e8400 @ 4.3 ghz c2d 4 gigs of ddr3 @977 mhz
3870x2 is clocked at 932mhz/1026 mem gpu1
932/1026 gpu2
fan at 100% default bios.
pcie frequency at 120mhz


"Ok now lets look at his setup AGAIN"

4.3ghz cpu OC
4 gigs of ddr3 @977 mhz OC
3870x2 is clocked at 932mhz/1026 OC
pcie frequency at 120mhz OC

"OK Now im also getting close to 19k but look at my setup".

Q6600 3.6ghz OC
4gig ocz reaper 800mhz "AT STOCK"
powercolor 3870x2 " 825/900 "AT STOCK"
pcie frequency 100mhz "AT STOCK"

Only thing i have overclocked is the cpu at 3.6ghz compared to his 4.3ghz

and im still matching his 3dmark 06 score and if i decided to push my hardware id get 22k easy while his hardwares pretty much maxed out.

case closed lol.


----------



## wolf2009 (Feb 19, 2008)

fitseries3 said:


> ok, a partition is good and all but what if the drive dies? then everything is gone. i have argued this for years and i have had it happen to me and several of my customers. in fact, i see it about 3 times a month. every time people cry over lost data. you will be crying when you loose 400gig's of music, video, pics and software you downloaded from the interweb.
> 
> at least if your OS drive dies you still have your data. and if your data drive dies you still have your OS.
> 
> ...



i see ur point , i agree . what do u suggest , 1 1TB HDD or 4 250 GB HDD's ?


----------



## Graogrim (Feb 19, 2008)

Unless you're backing up the data from one drive on another, all you're really accomplishing by installing multiple hard drives into your system is increasing complexity, power draw, and the likelihood that you'll experience some kind of data loss.

What I recommend is this: Get a sizeable internal hard drive, create a system partition of 20 to 40 gigabytes, and then use the rest of the drive for your "daily driving" apps and data. Additionally, purchase an external hard drive on which you can store an image of your system partition, backups of your most crucial data, and archives of old data that you don't need very often. When you're not using it, just unplug it and store it someplace safe. Voila--simplicity and redundancy.


----------



## Nitro-Max (Feb 19, 2008)

500GB lol have you got a spare 4 hours to kill formatting.

id get 2x120  or 1x260


----------



## Fitseries3 (Feb 19, 2008)

1 1tb if you can afford it, because you don't need your storage drive to move a data REALLY fast. only your OS/software drive should be able to move data fast.

you don't have to do a slow format on any drive unless your having problems with the drive.

i have been building and repairing computers for 15 years and i have tried all different ways of hard drive configuration. in my shop i deal with hard drive problems daily. the method i uses has proven itself to me to be the most flexable and data saving for the price. 

a perfect example of what im talking about is my own system....

2x150gig raptor X's in raid 0(striped for performance)(use for OS and software/games, runs FAST)
1x1tb WD greenpower(use for storage of vital data, backups of software, movies, music, etc)

you can use different drives for different price ranges...

2x160gigs in raid 0 
1x500gig for data

even a single OS drive is good...

320gig/250gig(OS and software)
320gig/500gig(storage)

the whole point is to split your data so that if your OS becomes F'ed you can format and reinstall without backing up your data(because it's already on the storage drive). if your data drive dies, your OS and software is still up and running. 

think of it this way...
lets say you have just a single 500gig drive. your OS/software and your data is all on the 50gig. one day it decides to die leaving you with......NO DRIVE! and NO DATA! you loose everything.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Feb 20, 2008)

I have 1TB of hard drive space spread out over 2 500GB hard drives. I also have it set up so my data is on a different physical hard drive than my os and games. Both HDD's stay cool in the low 30's. But thats because my Case has a 200mm fan blowing over the hard drives. I went with 2x500 because if you loose a hard drive or are going to loose a hard drive you can start copying impotaint things to the other. I'm working on getting another 750GB HDD when i can save up for it.

Nitro-Max has a good point.


----------



## Hinnaku (Feb 20, 2008)

Hmm...
Well, alright guys, thanks for all the replies. 

I think I'll go with the two drives, 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136012

For the OS and get a 500gig for storage.

But now I also have another question. I eventualy plan and getting two 3870X2s in Crossfire, would this power supply be enough for that?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153038


----------



## Jimmy 2004 (Feb 20, 2008)

Hinnaku said:


> But now I also have another question. I eventualy plan and getting two 3870X2s in Crossfire, would this power supply be enough for that?
> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153038



Well to give you an idea, the peak power consumption of a system reviewed on TPU running *one* 3870 X2 with 2GB RAM and an E6550 was 330W, so assuming that PSU is 70% efficient you'll be supplied with 525W - but this could be a little bit tight as the card alone draws over 200W at its peak, taking it to 530W or above (admittedly it might be 80% or more efficient meaning you'd have about 600W to play with, but you'd still be cutting it fine given that the system would likely need a minimum of 550W under full load). I'm not sure what other users reckon, but if you think there is a very strong chance of getting a second X2 I would recommend trying to get a PSU closer to 1kW, at least 800W with a high efficiency rating.

Edit: thinking about it, those figures in the review include the fact that the PSU wouldn't be 100% efficient, so you probably would be fine with a 750W. Might be best to go 800W + still I reckon.


----------



## pepsi71ocean (Feb 21, 2008)

look for a FSP or Silverstone PSU, IMO and get a single 12v rail psu. It will be better for your gfx cards. 

Raptors are good HDD's always had WD HDD's. The Seagate Hdd's i have i chose because it has a 32mb cache instead of a 16mb. I figured a 32mb cache on a 500gb hdd you can't go wrong.


----------

