blahblah454

Well I have been doing some research on computer parts. I wanted to find a good balance between performance and price. At first it was more towards performance, and the rig was running around $2,500. But I figured at the rate computers are being researched and they are getting faster and cheaper that there is no point in spending tons, so I moved towards cheaper, but still maintain some decent performance. This is what I have come up with.

Let me know if you guys have any suggestions. Also this is a grad present to myself for finishing school and finding a good job.

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MikeSty

Quick thing: Your video card is a GeForce, but the motherboard supports Crossfire. I'm a bit out of the loop, but I believe Crossfire is ATI's rebuttal to nVidia's SLI. I don't think this is a problem unless you plan on adding a second GeForce card and linking it with the first in SLI, which, I suppose, won't work. Again, not a huge deal, maybe something you considered, but just something I want to throw out.

Save yourself $40 and have a blast building it yourself

I think you might be able to find a better video card. I'm not an authority on that, so I'd wait for Lasereth or someone more in-tune to comment on that.

Also, what site is this? The hard drive prices seem very good!

Congrats on graduating and landing a job - this is a great present! I built a computer a few years back, and I plan to keep it running lean and do exactly what you're doing! What did you major in and where will you be working if you don't mind me asking?

Dragonlich

A few comments:
- You might get a cheaper motherboard; this one might be a bit over the top with goodies you probably will never use. The motherboard is indeed crossfire, which means you can't use two Nvidia cards; you could use two Ati cards, though.
- I dunno about the Antec PSU. It's probably good enough, but you might want to look at some review sites to check out other options. I have a Corsair 520W PSU with a similar system; the reason: it's really quiet.
- The Scythe Ninja is a good cooler, especially if you want it to be quiet. The standard 120mm fan is a bit loud, though; I replaced it with a nexus fan. But depending on the sound level of the rest of the system, you may not notice the difference.
One tip: the standard (intel) heat sink mounting system doesn't look very secure; In practice, it'll probably be fine, but having that much weight wobbling around is a bit scary. Just in case, I got a thermaltake bolt-through kit, which works fine with the Scythe cooler, and is much more secure.
- The harddisks... two 500 gig harddisks? Are you going to run them as a RAID disk, and/or do you need that much space? Depending on the raid level, you either get better speed and less reliability; or same speed, only 500 gig of space, and better reliability. If you don't use raid, the second disk might be empty for a loooong time. (Personal experience...)

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One addition about the memory: if you're going to get 4 gig, you'll probably want to use a 64 bit operating system. With 32 bits, you'll only be able to use about 3 gigs of memory.

Destrox

Antec Power PSU's are deadly quiet.

I have a Antec NeoPower 650, modular cable design and quiet as a mouse.

Other than that, another really quiet HSF would be the Zalman CNPS9500. It is just massive.

And Dragonlich is 100% right about the memory, 4gig in a non-64bit environment is mostly a waste of cash these days.

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blahblah454

I was looking into the Zalman cooling units, but I read some reviews on them and all I read was sub-standard manufacturing and poor quality.

Antec also makes a 650 watt version of the same power supply, but it is $30 more and figured it would be overkill.

The mother board is also not the one I want, but it is the only one that they had in stock that kinda fit my requirments (although it was pretty high). I am looking into getting a eVGA motherboard that is built for the nvidia system. It runs about 180-200 if they are ever in stock.

And I need the 1 TB of space, I currently have 800 gigs of external HD's FULL, and 240 gigs on this computer that is full to the top. I will fill the drives pretty fast. 1 is for games and installed programs and such. The other for files like movies and TV shows. I sold my TV a while ago because I am going to be moving around lots and did not want to lug around a 50inch TV, so my computer is going to be my TV. I will download massive amounts of TV shows on it and watch them, so the 500 gigs sounds about right to me.

The site I am doing this from is www.memoryexpress.com they are a local computer store and are by far the best in the area.

I know x32 only has 3.2 gigs of ram at the most. But thats fine with me, the extra ram will more than be taken up by shitty vista or the 64 bit version. I have heard of stability issues with 64 bit. I also already own XP 32 so thats what I am sticking with.

As far as me, I took Petroleum Engineering Technologies and got a job with Baker Petrolite (a division of Baker Hughes). Its a job involving wellsite chemicals to treat well problems (scale, ashphaltine, emulsion, corrosion). The reason for me not getting the computer right away is because I will not be settled into a permanent location until August, all June and July I will be moving around the province, a week at each location.

Redjake

Overall it looks good;

A couple of recommendations to bring the price even lower with no performance loss:
1) I got 4 GB of Corsair XMS about 4 months ago for $90 - your RAM seems priced too high
2) Motherboard is waaaaay overpriced for what you need - probably loaded with features you will never even touch, get something in the $70ish range

Other than that, it looks good!

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Lasereth

Looking good!! That PSU is a good one, I used it for a year until wires got caught in it from my case and it fried. It will power your PC fine.

Good videocard, even better CPU.

Motherboard is way expensive but if that's all they have then there's no problem with it. It IS an ATI oriented motherboard though.

BTW get them to build it. $40 to build the damn thing is a good deal.

Chances are by August the market will have changed anyway and all this is worthless. As a matter of fact, it WILL change by August because a whole new generation of videocards is launching in June.

Dragonlich

I have Windows Vista 64, and have no stability issues whatsoever. But if you already own XP, I can't blame you for keeping it. At least you won't have to get used to using Vista (as in: where the hell is everything hidden?)...

AYHJA

When I always built my comps, I never skimped out on the Mobo and CPU...It's the heart of the system, and I've always had the philosophy better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it...

I agree with the sentiments on the others about the video card/mobo selection, as well as the cost of the RAM...I haven't read up on it, but you could probably get away with a cheaper heatsink as well...I used to be big on overclocking, but with todays comps, its probably not that necessary...

As far as the disks go, I like the 500 GB selection...If it were me, I'd put a Raptor up front to house my OS and use those big drives to hold some of these 4,000 pixel image sets and HD Videos I seem to be downloading these days...

So far so good though, and not a bad price either...

xepherys

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blahblah454

I can install most things myself. I have just never done the CPU or mobo. I have changed out lots of hard drives and cd drives and graphics and sound cards in my day.

That really is not the mother board I wanted, as stated before, but they never have the eVGA one I want in stock.

This is also kind of a preliminary test anyways, as prices and parts are probably going to be much different by the end of july when I am actually going to be purchasing my stuff.

And as far as ram goes. I actually want the corsair dominator 4 gig set (2x2) but it costs $220 here! Calgary SUCKS for ram selection. Does newegg sell to Canada?

And I have not read anything on the new graphics cards coming out. Anyone got any reading material on them?

Also the store here just got some 9800GTX cards in for $310 which seems like a pretty good price to me.

Martian

I don't know if Newegg ships to Canada, but Tigerdirect is a good Canadian alternative.

They have your RAM for $209.99, or $169.99 after the $40 mail-in rebate.

I'm assuming it's the DDR2 you're looking at. If you can find 4 gb of Corsair DDR3 RAM for under $250 you need to jump on that. Better yet, you need to buy an extra set and ship it to me. Even on DDR2, $220 for 4 gb isn't all that unreasonable.

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xepherys

Hmm, I know Newegg tested shipping to Canada, but I don't know if they actually do or not.

As for the mobo, what requirements do you have? What about the eVGA board do you like? What about the Asus makes it "close enough"? Name your features!

The RAM... ah the RAM. This was a steep learning curve for me. I've been building PCs for over a decade now, and things aren't the same as they used to be even 3 years ago specs wise for what's important to gaming. Faster RAM isn't terribly helpful in MOST cases unless you plan to overclock. Even then, overclocking system RAM has marginal effects. MORE > FASTER... this is the primary reason I started playing with 64-bit operating systems. If you are sticking with 32-bit, though, 4GB of whatever you can afford is the best bet I suppose.

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