Building First Rig

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Zachariah

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I'm currently in the process of building my first PC from scratch. I've taken apart the computer that I have now and put it back together a few times so I know where everything goes. My knowledge about the parts are still a little bit iffy so if you guys can offer me some advice on them that would be super.

  • What are you going to use the PC for?
    This PC will be mainly used for gaming as I have a laptop to do all of my school work with.
  • How much is your budget?
    I'm trying to aim for below $1500 if possible but will go $50-$100 above.
  • Where are you located? (a.k.a. fill out your profile)
    US
  • Are you willing to buy online?
    I was hoping to buy everything online as there are no good computer parts store near where I live.
  • Are you going to re-use any parts from an earlier build?
    Nope
  • Do you need other peripherals like a monitor, keyboard and mouse, among others?
    Nope
  • Have you already bought any parts?
    Not yet, I want to buy it all at once so I can put it together immediately.
  • Do you have an Operating System (OS)?
    My cousin bought a Vista Home Premium 64-bit OS a while back that he's never used so I'm taking it.
  • Will you need any aftermarket cooling, such as a CPU\GPU cooler or a watercooling setup?
    No idea

Motherboard:
GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU:
Intel Core i7 920

Case:
Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Optical:
LG Black 22X

Video:
EVGA 01G-P3-1155-TR GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16

PSU:
CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply

RAM:
OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

HDD:
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS 250GB 7200 RPM X 2

These last two are the ones I'm the most confuse over:

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
I've taken my computer apart and put it back together but I have never put one together totally from scratch so I don't know if I need this or not.

COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler
From what I read the stock cooler for the i7 920 kind of sucks so I included this.

Any advice or critics would be really useful. Thanks in advance.
 
The artic silver thermal compound is very very important, it is used to create a thermal bond between your processor and heatsink, and keep your system running at a low temprature. It MUST be applied in all cases.

You will probably get a thermal pad/ paste included with your new processor, its up to you if you want to replace it with a better alternative like artic silver.

Other than that, its a very nice build in my humble opinion :)

Maybe stretch your budget and invest in a better graphics card?
A gtx 260 216 pipeline, or a gtx 275 will give you a better bang for your buck :)
 
The artic silver thermal compound is very very important, it is used to create a thermal bond between your processor and heatsink, and keep your system running at a low temprature. It MUST be applied in all cases.

You will probably get a thermal pad/ paste included with your new processor, its up to you if you want to replace it with a better alternative like artic silver.

I see but what is a good way to apply it? I've read that you should add a small dot then use a credit card to spread it around.

Maybe stretch your budget and invest in a better graphics card?
A gtx 260 216 pipeline, or a gtx 275 will give you a better bang for your buck.

Well since this will be a gaming only PC I guess I could. I was hoping to be able to get two graphics cards for SLI but I'm concern about whether or not everything will be able to fit into my case since most of the high end cards are pretty big. Any recommendations?
 
Personally I would wait and see if a BIOS update is in the works because a number of people relate slow posting and real difficulties with posting from cold with that motherboard.
 
I wouldnt go with the ocz ram, they have been having issues gettin ocz ram to work on these boards, that was in february last time I checked, maybe there's been a bios update for it recently.
 
HI Zach,
that looks like a great rig, the only suggestion i would make is to replace that 7000.10 with the 7000.12 generation seagate barracuda. the .10 gen had some issues that were subsequently solved/improved with the7000.12 generation, also you can get a cooler that will get you better results for less money than the CM v8 and v10 here is a comparative review http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...203&Itemid=62&limit=1&limitstart=18.......and maybe a DFI mobo :D j/k (that was for Super)
 
You can do much better for $1500. Something like this perhaps:
Grand Total = $1550 approximately, not counting shipping on cooler (shipping is free on everything else) and not counting any rebates.

A monster of a system that will rip through anything with ease. You can go with the cheaper Xigmatek HDT-S1283 cooler to stay within your budget. You will need to get the Xigmatek Crossbow LGA1366 Retention Kit for it though, but that's a $7 purchase or so. The total cost of the cooler and the kit will bring the total price close to $1500.

If you have a monitor that cannot do anything above 1680x1050 or 1920x1080, replace the GTX 295 with an HD 4890 or GTX 275, preferably from BFG or XFX. Be sure to register the BFG\XFX card on the respective manufacturer's website, since then you will be eligible for a lifetime warranty. In XFX's case, the warranty extends to the second owner of the card as well, should you decide to sell it in the future.
 
If you have a monitor that cannot do anything above 1680x1050 or 1920x1080, replace the GTX 295 with an HD 4890 or GTX 275, preferably from BFG or XFX. Be sure to register the BFG\XFX card on the respective manufacturer's website, since then you will be eligible for a lifetime warranty. In XFX's case, the warranty extends to the second owner of the card as well, should you decide to sell it in the future.

Thank you so much for your help.

My monitor can only go up to 1680x1050 so I guess I should get this then.

Also I added it up and it comes to about $1300 with this video card and shipping, should I trade out the gtx 275 and get two gtx 260s?
 
Nah, SLI scaling is not that great with the new drivers; lots of people over at Guru3D are reporting slowdowns with SLI setups. The full potential of the SLI setup will also be wasted at that resolution; it's meant to be used for higher resolutions where performance gains from such a setup are highest.

As for a card, I would advise getting the XFX card from here instead. Slightly cheaper, and with free shipping.

Also, since you have a little more to spend, I recommend getting this cooler along with this fan and this fan controller, so you can adjust the fan speed to your liking. You will also need to use this backplate to mount the cooler.

If the above seems too complicated, then just get one of the other coolers I recommended before.
 
Also, since you have a little more to spend, I recommend getting this cooler along with this fan and this fan controller, so you can adjust the fan speed to your liking. You will also need to use this backplate to mount the cooler.

If the above seems too complicated, then just get one of the other coolers I recommended before.

Yea that does seem a little complicated. Maybe after I've learned a little bit more about computers will I try that. I think I have a pretty good list of what to get. Thanks for your help rage and everyone else.
 
Rage's recomendations are really good, only thing I can add is that maybe you might wanna change the case. If you like the looks of the Nine Hundred I might suggest upgrading to the newer Nine Hunderd Two (902) as it has some nice features that the original 900 were missing.
 
Rage's recomendations are really good, only thing I can add is that maybe you might wanna change the case. If you like the looks of the Nine Hundred I might suggest upgrading to the newer Nine Hunderd Two (902) as it has some nice features that the original 900 were missing.

I'm planning on going with the Twelve Hundred that Rage suggests. One of my concerns is being able to fit everything inside since I may upgrade to a bigger video card later on when I scrap together more money but thanks for the heads up.
 
Oh okay then, I didn't realise he reccomended the 1200 I thought he had the 900. My bad, I should of read closer.
 
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