# Building a Gaming Computer!!!!



## DexMoney (Jun 28, 2007)

Allright guys so right now I've decided on some parts and the total cost is $1300. If you can I would like some input on how good this rig will be and possibly how I can make it a little less expensive but not sacrificing to much performance.
Here are the Parts I'm considering:

Liteon LH-20A1P 20X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW Drive
 EVGA 320-P2-N811-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video Card
ASUS P5N32-E SLI Plus nForce 650i Socket 775 ATX Motherboard
ViewSonic VX922 19" LCD Monitor - XTREME 2 ms, 650:1, SXGA 1280x1024, Silver-Black, DVI, VGA(D-sub), 170º Viewing Angles
Ultra / X-Finity / 600-Watt / ATX / Dual 80mm Fan / SATA-Ready / SLI Ready / Titanium / Power Supply
Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6600 2.4GHz 1066MHz 4MB LGA775 CPU
 NZXT Apollo SILVER case
Windows XP


OCZ 2GB Kit DDR2-800 PC2-6400 Gold Gamer eXtreme XTC Edition Dual Channel Memory
 Seagate / 320GB / 7200 / 16MB / SATA-300 / OEM / Hard Drive


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## DexMoney (Jun 28, 2007)

Plz guys a little help on this


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## cfhpantera (Jul 16, 2004)

First, that graphics card is exactly what you need. Don't settle for anything less. In most cases the 320MB 8800GTS is faster than AMD's HD 2900XT which costs around $370 right now I believe. The 640MB version of the 8800GTS is unneeded unless you play games at very high resolutions where the extra memory is a benefit.

Your motherboard is good but if your looking to save money I don't reccomend it. The EVGA 650i ultra board is excellent. It costs $99 retail and believe it or not is slightly faster than most overpriced and exotic boards except for a few 680i boards. Not only does it perform well, it is also one of the best overclocking boards available. Several sites have a review on it and I highly reccomend getting it. A chipset fan over the NB heatsink and a heatsink over the SB is reccomended for this board.

600W is overkill despite what most people are going to tell you. The most demanding system that you can possibly build right now will not draw no more than 550W under full load. You can easily drop down to a high quality 450W power supply. I reccomend Cooler Master.

Don't bother getting an E6600, instead get a E4300. It has a 9x multiplier and an 800FSB which means it can be easily overclocked. I have an E4300 with the EVGA 650i ultra I reccomended above. I have it overclocked from the default of 1.8Ghz to 3.2Ghz on stock cooling. At this speed it is much faster than an E6600 and costs around $114 right now. It will probably go to 3.4Ghz, I just havn't tried it yet. The only downside to the E4300 is that it has 2MB of L2 instead of 4MB but this is not a big deal considering the clock speed you can get out of the E4300 for the money.

Your memory is a waste of money. Look at newegg for a Transcend Jetram 2GB kit of 
DDR2 800. It costs around $74. There is a 0-2% performance difference between "exotic" memory and the cheap stuff. If you get the E4300 cheap memory will not have an affect on a good overclock.

Do you really need 320GB? Your hard drive could be a lot cheaper. 80GB is plenty enough for me and I probably won't even use 40GB of it. Despite that, drives with an 8MB cache are cheaper than ones with a 16MB cache and there is no performance difference if you look at benchmarks.

Consider getting Vista, your buying a DX10 card so your going to want Vista to play DX10 games.


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## DexMoney (Jun 28, 2007)

This is alot of great info! The reason I chose that RAM is because it currently is *$35 dollars off* and only cost $65 great deal at zipzoomfly.com.

I just have a question is overclocking a difficult process? This will be my first build and I'm pretty good with computers but not really good. Also you havent had any problems with overclocking have you? The CPU stays cool enough with stock cooling??? Is the FSB going to limit the speed?

Is Vista going to take away from the 2 gigs of ram I am getting? I heard that its not worth it.

What do you use to cool the NB heatsink and what heatsink did u put over the SB?

Thanks


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## cfhpantera (Jul 16, 2004)

Overclocking is not difficult especially with the E4300. All you have to do is raise the FSB speed on the E4300. There is no need to change the multiplier or mess around with voltages. It is as simple as going into your BIOS and adjusting one setting (the FSB speed), this will raise your actual clock speed by running in sync with the multiplier. If you have a good case and good airflow the stock HSF will easily cool the E4300 at 3.0-3.2Ghz. The low FSB speed is good because the higher the FSB the harder it is to maintain a good overclock. 800mhz FSB is prime, so if you purchased the reccomended motherboard above you simply go into the BIOS and you will see the default FSB at 800 simply change it from 800 to 1422 and your clock speed will now be 3.2Ghz instead of the default 1.8Ghz.

Be sure you purchase a case that allows fans to be mounted at the front so you have some air intake as well as some exhuast fans. Keep in mind you want to have more fans blowing out than blowing in as this creates an air vaccum effect inside the case.

You can buy a small heatsink to put over the SB as there are mounting holes available on the motherboard. You can also get a small fan to wedge on the NB as well. In my case I had a small Cooler Master Blue Ice chipset cooler laying around. I took the heatsink off and applied it to the SB and then I wedged the fan itself on the middle of the NB. What I am referring to is this http://www.coolermaster.com/products/product.php?act=detail&tbcate=152&id=2526

And yes Vista uses more resources but if you know how to properly configure your computer then it's nothing to worry about. Also if you have 2GB of RAM you don't have to worry about resource savings as much as you would with 1GB of RAM. Vista has an advanced prefetcher that loads parts of frequently used applications into memory for faster access so it will appear like Vista is using a lot of memory. The truth is vista is simply using your RAM as a cache and it will release what it has cached if you play a demanding game that requires all of those resources. This is a very well designed performace feature as Idle RAM is wasted RAM. If you want to play DX10 games on DX10such as the highly anticipated Crysis you have to get vista, otherwise you are stuck on DX9 and you will be missing out on a lot of the eye candy your 8800GTS is capable of showing.


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## DexMoney (Jun 28, 2007)

Wow thanks alot you have been a great help!


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## cfhpantera (Jul 16, 2004)

Sadly, I have nothing else to do with my time.


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## DexMoney (Jun 28, 2007)

At least you are putting it into some good use.


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## DexMoney (Jun 28, 2007)

Just one more question... I need to get Serial ATA cables and was just wondering whether i should get this one:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=504524&CatId=84
or
this one:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2076135&CatId=84
I have a Seagate 320GB 7200 16MB SATA-300 Hard Drive
Also as you would know the motherboard supports Serial ATA - II


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## cfhpantera (Jul 16, 2004)

The motherboard comes with TWO SATA cables. There is no need to buy them seperately.


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## DexMoney (Jun 28, 2007)

Nice thx man and seriously you are a great help


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## Azelino (Jul 6, 2007)

I would personally get a less expensive power supply theirs no need in 600w in my opinion 400-500 would be good enough =)
with the money you have earned from downgrading your power supply you could get more RAM


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## DexMoney (Jun 28, 2007)

Would there be much of a difference if i used a e4400 or an e4300? would spending 9 bucks more be worth it?


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## ZoomZ (Jul 25, 2007)

Get the e6600 instead of trying to push a e4300 so hard .

If your on a tight budget get the wimpy chip but the e6600 will rock at 3.4-3.6 clock speeds for years to come .

If your gona get an 8800gts get the 640 meg card , the 320 is not enough for hard core gaming .


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## frankjohn (Nov 20, 2005)

Most gamers lean toards AMD-


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## ZoomZ (Jul 25, 2007)

Some gamers USED to run AMD ,, hehe

AMD pretty much got left in the dust by the Intel C2D chips .


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## spiked232 (May 10, 2007)

I lean towards the AMD chipset as well, and I'm a hardcore gamer, I actually have 2 AMD chips working hard on my computer, and I'm a taskmaster!


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## frankjohn (Nov 20, 2005)

GO to Tomshardware and check cpu benchmark


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## Cameron_98926 (Aug 5, 2007)

I'm sorry to say but i don't think Intel dual-cores even compares to AMD i would take a single core AMD over a dual core Intel any day Intel's dual core is a joke have u seen the set up in all truth its not really a dual core they just slapped that name on it because AMD had just come out with theirs and they where getting left in the dust and now they boast they have the best processor on the market with their new quad-core but AMD's despite the price differential is a much better chip people don't realize the difference between AMD and Intel is completely in the chip layout and the pins on it AMD is used for gaming because the pins on it allow it to send the giant amounts of info at bursts where Intel's chip was designed for a constant flow which is more for running things like internet or word processing 

so all in all if you are building a gaming PC i would lean towards AMD's chips.


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## DexMoney (Jun 28, 2007)

I know that this is a big choose what you like thing but is there anyone who has built amd and intel rigs that would like to shed some light on which they think is better in their own opinion?


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## Cameron_98926 (Aug 5, 2007)

if u r sure your going to go with Intel i would say stick with the dual core


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## Tyrion (Jul 28, 2007)

I've done a lot of research on AMD vs intel since I'm trying to do the same thing you are. 
This is what I've found

1. AMD has better action for your dollar.
2. AMD Clock speed is actually higher then it looks if use the same standards as Intel
3. Intel is more energy efficient then AMD. 
4. Intel makes smaller chips
5. Intel's motherboards are more compatible with RAM. (AMD still can't run ddr3)
6. You need a special motherboard to run quad core with AMD
7. Intel has 7 to 15 percent better performance (gaming) then AMD id you by the latest chips.
8. Intel has a wider variety of uses
9. AMD has better support for Video options. (Nividia, Dual Video cards ect.)
10. Intel is more upgradable


My feeling is if you want a computer for gaming to last you two years go with AMD.

If you want a computer you can jazz up along the way with better processors (Core 2Extreme Quad) because you can't afford the best of the best, go with Intel. Like IBM in the 80's, Intel is something you can always rely on

With both systems at whatever price r5range you still get a excellent gaming experience.

I have read all of this, not experienced it.

I can show you my sources if your interested

(People who disagree... cough... Try not throwing chairs about in anger... Bad for blood pressure!::


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