Putting together a New PC!!!

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G

Gargamel

Hello all. I am ready to upgrade my PC. I want to put together a completely new one. The one I have right now is a 2.4Ghz P4 with Gigabyte board dual channel etc.

I want something pretty fast. I want to stay with Intel processors and would like a board that can support over-clocking.

I am looking into getting one of the Core 2 Duo with the 4MB Cache with hopes to upgrading to the quad core soon after it is more affordable.

I am not very fluent in the new graphics technology lingo so I won't lie I am confused when I read things about SLI and Cross fire.

I definitely want dual channel memory support and good expansion options such as PCI slots and PCIe.

SATA is a must but also want IDE.

I tend to like the Gigabyte boards with the dual bios option (fail safe in case of doom).

I have selected several components already at Newegg (nice store by the way), they are the following: (note that what I have selected might not match what I stated above)

ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX
XFX PVT80GTHF9 GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 Processor
HITACHI Deskstar E7K500 HDS725050KLA360 (0A31619) 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

I think that this video card is way too expensive for what I want so I am considering dumping it.

Anyone out there that can dare recommend anything?

regards,

G
 
It comes down to price range. If you gave a price range, it would be easier. Also, NEVER mix SATA and IDE hard drives. Too many problems.
 
I've never had issues running SATA and IDE hard drives, apparently some people have. So my thoughts on that are you can do it until someone comes up with a documented case where mixing SATA and IDE was the cause of whatever problem they are having.

With just about any new motherboard you are going to have a maximum of 4 IDE devices on 2 channels. So you may consider buying a PCI IDE card if it is that important to you.

If you are planning on getting the quad, you might as well buy an E6300 or 6400 and overclock the hell out of it. A decent board and decent memory can take those a long way above stock speeds.

Don't worry about RAM slots, 2 DDR2 slots are sufficient if you buy 1GB modules. Might as well buy them now because you'll end up wasting money in the long run adding 512 at a time.
 
SNGX1275 said:
I've never had issues running SATA and IDE hard drives, apparently some people have. So my thoughts on that are you can do it until someone comes up with a documented case where mixing SATA and IDE was the cause of whatever problem they are having.

With just about any new motherboard you are going to have a maximum of 4 IDE devices on 2 channels. So you may consider buying a PCI IDE card if it is that important to you.

If you are planning on getting the quad, you might as well buy an E6300 or 6400 and overclock the hell out of it. A decent board and decent memory can take those a long way above stock speeds.

Don't worry about RAM slots, 2 DDR2 slots are sufficient if you buy 1GB modules. Might as well buy them now because you'll end up wasting money in the long run adding 512 at a time.
Click to expand...
We can argue this one ad naseum. Mixing IDE and SATA will work, but will eventually lead to errors. It is best to side with caution and not mix the types.
 
I've seen nothing documented anywhere that says they'll lead to problems. I ran 1 system with XP on it for 2 years, and I'm doing the same with this one right now for about 6 months. No problems. OS is even installed to the SATA drive.

I don't think we should be discouraging people because you have a hunch its not safe. Until there is a legitimately documented case and reproducable I refuse to believe it.
 
Only thing

The only problem I ever had mixing IDE and SATA drives was upon installing Windows....The setup would always target my IDE sorage drive as the C: drive no matter what over the SATA drive. Since on most boards the IDE interface is directly tied into the chipset there is no way to disable the IDE port in the Bios. I solved this by simply unplugging the IDE drive until after the Windows installation forcing the system to only recognise my SATA drive, designating it the C: drive.

Other than that I never had any issues mixing IDE and SATA....And I did it on atleast 5 platforms before aquiring all SATA drives.

The only way to have both hooked up and to designate the SATA drive to what you want is for both the SATA and IDE drive to be unallocated. But with 250gb of media on my IDE drive this wasnt an alternative that I could of taken.

All where AMD platforms, Intel may be a differnt story but I doubt it...

YAY !!! THIS POST OFFICALLY MADE ME A TechSpot Enthusiast !!! AND IT ONLY TOOK 4 YEARS !!!!! :D

But lets stop stealing this thread and give Gargamel the info he really came for.
 
Thanks all for the comments. I have not heard of SATA/IDE problems but it would not matter to me since I would go with one.

Anyways, I would not want to spend any more than about 1400 on this new system since I would like to keep it for a while.

Thanks on comments regarding the memory etc. One question tough, would choosing a 2mb cache processor over a 4mb cache one show noticeable difference in performance?

regards
 
Well

Do you plan on gaming or what do you need to do with your system....Does that 1400 need to include a monitor or any other external componants ?

A larger cache usually helps with large workloads like video editing and converting...making it a little quicker...

However with games, if you took a e6300 with 2mb cache and overclocked it to 2.4ghz (e6600 speeds) it would probably run the game no different than the e6600 with double the cache.

The e6600 would probably be a hair quicker with game loads though since the extra cache helps with precaching
 
JimShady23 said:
The only problem I ever had mixing IDE and SATA drives was upon installing Windows....The setup would always target my IDE sorage drive as the C: drive no matter what over the SATA drive. Since on most boards the IDE interface is directly tied into the chipset there is no way to disable the IDE port in the Bios. I solved this by simply unplugging the IDE drive until after the Windows installation forcing the system to only recognise my SATA drive, designating it the C: drive.

Other than that I never had any issues mixing IDE and SATA....And I did it on atleast 5 platforms before aquiring all SATA drives.

The only way to have both hooked up and to designate the SATA drive to what you want is for both the SATA and IDE drive to be unallocated. But with 250gb of media on my IDE drive this wasnt an alternative that I could of taken.

All where AMD platforms, Intel may be a differnt story but I doubt it...

YAY !!! THIS POST OFFICALLY MADE ME A TechSpot Enthusiast !!! AND IT ONLY TOOK 4 YEARS !!!!! :D

But lets stop stealing this thread and give Gargamel the info he really came for.
Click to expand...
Lol 4 years! Man you are slow :stickout: Only took me 11 and a half months to get booster... and it only took cfitzarl like 6 months to get addict cuz he's addicted to Techspot, aren't you cfitzarl?
 
Hello again JimShady. I plan on doing everything. I do photography as a hobby (serious one with raw files) and also do video editing with special effects such as premiere pro and after effects. I would also like to run a pro audio program such as nuendo. The gaming part, I am not sure but why not!

No the amount of money I am willing to spend does not include any monitors or peripherals and would be willing to spend it on the computer itself.

thanks
 
Ok i looked on newegg:

I cant find an Intel motherboard that OC's but I found Intel boards for Core 2 Duo:

Intel 965B

Intel Core 2 Duo

ATI Radeon X1300

1 GB DDR800 RAM

1 IDE 120 GB ---|
|------240 GB
1 SATA 120 GB--|

LiteOn DVD/CD Burner

DVD-ROM drive


Sorry I couldn't be more specific, so I couldnt give you links; Too much trouble :)

Sorry

sw123
 
Well here we go....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819115003
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131045

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820134066

Not sure if you need this fancy of a sound card for that audio editing program but chose it cause it has lots of in's and out's on the handy front panal....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16829102189

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16814150202

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16835118115

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817194003

Total on that stuff comes to $1291.00 wich leaves you little over $100 for a case and optical drives....(you will have a lot more if you dont need that fancy sound card.)

But its all pretty good stuff that will last you for some time.
 
The new DFI Lanparty UT ICFX3200-T2R is a great overclocker if u want it. Also, getting an E6400 and OCing it would be a much better idea than going quad-core.
 
sata & ide problems?

sghiznaneck said:
It comes down to price range. If you gave a price range, it would be easier. Also, NEVER mix SATA and IDE hard drives. Too many problems.
Click to expand...

problems such as?
 
Well

Rage_3K_Moiz said:
The new DFI Lanparty UT ICFX3200-T2R is a great overclocker if u want it. Also, getting an E6400 and OCing it would be a much better idea than going quad-core.
Click to expand...

For gaming, yes it would be a better idea to get a low end Core 2 Duo and oc the crap out of it, but only for gaming.

For a majority of the stuff he is going to do ( THIS IS NOT A STRICTLY GAMING MACHINE as it sounds it seems gaming is the last thing on his mind) a Core 2 Duo with the bigger cache will perform better with the type of workload he plans on doing. I left out the quad core because it totally blasts his $1400 budget.

Not saying that it still cant be an alternative but most people that come here to ask for help should not be overclocking. They come here because they dont have the knowledge about computers that we do and need the advice. We should not be reccomending that everyone overclock. Yes it is a cheaper alternative but isnt for everyone.
 
Thanks again all for the suggestions.

JimShady, that is a pretty nice set up. Thanks very much for the trouble.
That is a fancy audio card indeed. Although the audio interface in the setup I have in mind uses only firewire I would get it. I love the optical ports it has and the external volume controls for headphones and line.

One question tough, will that board support a Quad Core CPU? I would not mind getting one when it becomes more affordable.

I appreciate the help very much.

regards,
G
 
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