Building New PC

[Risen]

Hey guys, I'm gonna ditch my Dell PC and start building a new one, and I need your criticism on the specifications.

Specified list

Spoiler:

*Cooler Master CM690 Nvidia Ed. ATX Case SLI Ready
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... =C283-1189

*OCZ Intel Extreme Edition Dual Channel 4096MB (only 50$, the motherboard only supports ddr3)
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... =O261-7504

*Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 Processor
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... -DUO-Q9550

*EVGA GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked Video Card x2
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... =E145-0264

*EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI Motherboard
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... =E145-2037

Logitech MK300 Wireless Desktop Keyboard and Mouse
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... u=L23-0041

*Undecided Speakers


*LG W1952TQ 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... u=L49-1952

Samsung SH-S223B/BEBE DVDRW Drive
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... 8548%20OEM

Western Digital WD5000AAKS Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 500GB
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... SD-500AAKS

Ultra LSP750 750-Watt Power Supply
http://www.compusa.com/applications/Sea ... ULT-LSP750

Total cost, around 1100$
I wanna have it up and running around october 22nd, that's when Windows 7 comes out.

[Black-Hole]

ROFL... If you want a Good Critic, i would run that set up through Puget

There the leader in custom Computers, there computers beat Voodoo, Alien Ware and everything else. Give them a call and one of there techs will help you build one to your exact needs and you don't have to worry about a Warranty

But other than that i Like the setup, i personally wouldn't custom build unless you have extra money in case a piece breaks.

[Dekar]

You meant water-cooling when you wrote "h-twenty" right? The hdd doesn't transfer at 3GB/s, that's only the bus speed. My 500gb hdd does like 60mb/s. Anyway, the Logitech sound system looks totally cheap and you shouldn't don't click me soundcards as well. Just get a neat system and connect the receiver/dolby-decoder with the optical sound plug so it reaches the system without quality loss.
This one should be decent: http://www.teufel.eu/Integrated-Systems ... igital.cfm
Remember, you usually keep good sound systems way longer than PC components so better invest here. I bought my Teufel system over 4 years ago - they give 12 years warranty btw. About the rest - get a cheap CPU, their invalid drops really fast and you easily waste tons of dollars on them. I'd probably go with a cheap ~120€ AMD quadcore. For gaming the graphics card does 90% of the work anyway and usually you can insanely OC CPUs. (I've oced my old athlon x2 from 2ghz to 3ghz) And I'd probably stick with ddr2 ram, dunno how the prices are at the moment, but it's probably cheaper. Don't don't click me the network card! Just google for benchmarks, there are only small improvements under high load so the pings are bad in that case anyway. Just turn of torrent while gaming and you'll be fine! Onboard LAN usually has higher throughput anyway. Spend the rest of the money on the graphics card - that's what brings you FPS (Or keep it and don't click me a new one later) I wouldn't spend more money than I have to on a PC, you'll get twice the speed for the same invalid 18 months later! 500watts should be enough for the system - I've just ordered a 75w psu for my next system

[mib]

Cool idea of making a new pc good luck with it

[Risen]

Spoiler:

ROFL... If you want a Good Critic, i would run that set up through Puget

Well, to be honest, I'd rather not pay the extra "labor fee" they usually don't tell you about, like for instance, dell has like a 6,000$ computer? I'd be wasting 5,000$ there and it would be worse than the one I'd actually build.

But other than that i Like the setup, i personally wouldn't custom build unless you have extra money in case a piece breaks.

Actually they do give a warranty... a small one though.

You meant water-cooling when you wrote "h-twenty" right?

Woops, Was kinda sleepy and in a hurry, I meant to type h2c.

The hdd doesn't transfer at 3GB/s, that's only the bus speed.

I dunno.. it said "Data transfer rate"..actually, I just looked at another 500gb HD, it said 300mb/s.. so they probably misstyped and hit 3000mb/sec.

This one should be decent: http://www.teufel.eu/Integrated-Systems ... igital.cfm

It does look really neat.. but it's 350$ you absolutely sure it's a good investment?

Don't don't click me the network card! Just google for benchmarks, there are only small improvements under high load so the pings are bad in that case anyway.

I was gonna don't click me one because a friend told me it lowered his ping from the upper 80's to lower 60's.

About the rest - get a cheap CPU, their invalid drops really fast and you easily waste tons of dollars on them. I'd probably go with a cheap ~120€ AMD quadcore.

Would it be a better idea to switch to an intel Q9000 something? I've had a Q6600 the past 2 years and it does fine, but I just want a tad faster.

Anyways i'mma go ahead and build one the way dekar suggested, and i'll list the parts here.

[Dekar]

Concerning the sound system - It really depends on what you do. For movies 5.1 systems are great, for music stereo is probably better. You can try those Teufel systems for 2 months so just send it back if you regret it? (You have to check that, I know they offer that in Germany, dunno about international customers.) But you'll stick with such a system for a long time - so I think it's worth it. Teufel bass showoff video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRcs0xnUsvw The system in the video has a downfire subwoofer so the power is widespread and still you see what it does to the bottle Concerning the LAN card - isn't it obvious your friend lied? Hows your ping when you play with friends in LAN? 1-5ms? The actual LAN transfer is below 1ms so a LAN card can't make that much of a difference!

Spoiler for My laptop pings the router via wifi:

Code: Select all

dekar@dekar-laptop:~$ ping fritz.box
PING fritz.box (192.168.178.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from fritz.fonwlan.box (192.168.178.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=2.88 ms
64 bytes from fritz.fonwlan.box (192.168.178.1): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=2.80 ms
64 bytes from fritz.fonwlan.box (192.168.178.1): icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=2.42 ms
64 bytes from fritz.fonwlan.box (192.168.178.1): icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=2.43 ms
64 bytes from fritz.fonwlan.box (192.168.178.1): icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=2.43 ms

Spoiler for My laptop pings the router via 100mbit/s cable:

Code: Select all

dekar@dekar-laptop:~$ ping fritz.box
PING fritz.box (192.168.178.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from fritz.fonwlan.box (192.168.178.1): icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.814 ms
64 bytes from fritz.fonwlan.box (192.168.178.1): icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.879 ms
64 bytes from fritz.fonwlan.box (192.168.178.1): icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.972 ms
64 bytes from fritz.fonwlan.box (192.168.178.1): icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=1.05 ms
64 bytes from fritz.fonwlan.box (192.168.178.1): icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=0.911 ms

[Risen]

I think my friend meant his ping from BNet, I updated the list.

[Dekar]

Concerning the sound system - if you have parents who'd kill you for playing loud at night you probably better don't click me some decent headphones. Sennheiser has nice ones for about 120€. I'd go with a cheap mainboard, but that's up to you. And I just read about the new phenom black, it seems to be cheap and fast! http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/phe ... 389-8.html And better don't do sli, you'd have to wait for special sli optimized drivers for every new game and there is this micro-lag shit - I wouldn't do that though my last sli experience is a few years old. But I am not into the PC stuff anymore - atm all I play on is my xbox But I really think investing much in good audio hardware is better than investing it in other hardware since it doesn't get outdated that fast. You'll probably don't click me a new PC in 3-4 years anyway. (After you did upgrades in 1-2 years) HD-Projectors are "affordable" as well. And they seem to have stopped dropping in invalid atm - I bought mine about a year ago and it hasn't become any cheaper since then. Once you watch your first movie on 88" you don't wanna miss it again. Even if you play split screen games with friends it's still like 1.5m for each. The new PC I just ordered costs 200€ and is a dual atom with 4gb ram on an ion board - that's enough to play fullHD movies. And you might even wanna think about consoles, the xbox 360 only costs about 150€ and you get the advantage of playing with friends.

[Risen]

Yeah I might wait a little while for the SLI part, I mainly just play wc3 with friends and wc3 doesn't demand that much, although my old nvidia 8300 card had problems with it. =/

Anyways my friend does SLI with two 9800gts's and his graphics are amazing, there's like absolutely no lag with any mmorpg game.

My main reason for the SLI was mainly D3 / SC2.

Since school's starting I probably won't be up late with blasting music anyways, I usually have it on during the day and they don't seem to mind.