GameBanshee Forums

Hello everyone. I recently had a short conversation with DesR85 about suggestions for building a custom computer off of a motherboard I already bought. He recommend I start a thread for better suggestions, here is our conversation:

Originally Posted by Rein
Hey DesR85, it's Rein.

I was wondering about your computer, did you get it built yet? How well is it running if you did? I plan on building my own tower and I wanted to do it the same as you. Medium quality for cheap. I already bought a mother board, but thats it. It's the EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI Motherboard by NIVIDIA. Now, I am going to be frank, I don't know jack EDITED about computers but I'm learning. I know some things like what I need to build a computer but as for specs, yeah, I'm like a rock. Here are some other things about the motherboard, I don't know if it will help: socket 775, ATX, Audio, PCI express 2,0, SLI ready, S/PDIF, USB 2.o, Firewire, eSATA, RAID. It was a total of $349.99.

What you think I should buy as far as gaming wise? I know I need a good video card, CPU, decent amount of RAM, and cooling. Any suggestions? Remember I would rather go cheap as possible but at the very minimum be able to play Oblivion.

I would greatly appreciate any suggestions. I have some other info I can give you as to what I've already looked at, but thats up to you if you want me to send it to you. Well, thanks in advance. See you around the forums.

[QUOTE=DesR85]Hey Rein,

As for my computer, I've bought most of the parts and assembled them, except the graphics card. Haven't tested it yet as I was pretty busy at the moment. I will do that soon.

The motherboard you mentioned is an Intel one, so I can recommend a Core 2 Duo E4600 2.4GHz. As for the others:
Graphics Card: Geforce 8600GT 256MB DDR3 (any brand)
RAM: Kingston 2GB DDR2 667MHz
Cooling: I used 3 fans for my computer. Two for outflow and one for inflow (Has to be big. Just make sure your casing can support it).

Hope this helps. Can't really do much as you didn't specify your budget. To get a better opinion on this, I suggest setting up a thread at the Tech Support section.

Yours sincerely,
Des[/QUOTE]

After discussing this with Des, I will add these things:

I read DW's thread about her computer and read some of the links suggested to her and according to those suggestions the 8600GT is one of the better cards for its price range, sounds good to me. 2GB sounds good but I don't know what brand is best. Also not includeing the motherboard, I would like to stay below $1,000 and even as close to $800 if possible. The one thing I was unsure of though is that (as some of you may have figured out already) I am a WoW player, and I would like to play the new expansion coming out, but it requires Vista. From what I heard Vista requires more out of a computer than XP so it might affect frames per sec. Would I still be able to play newer games smoothly on Vista with my budget? Last but not least, is every motherboard only compatable with certain parts (i.e. video card, CPU, HD) or do I need not to worry about compatability?

Thank you in advance. I plan on getting one soon though. Maybe even as soon as the next 2 weeks. I also plan on building it myself so any tips on how to properly build it would help as well. Almost forgot, towers, cheap but good for cooling and future upgrades? I don't care how ugly it is.

Thanks ~Rein~

On the rig you are building I would go with XP. I think you'll be able to run Vista fine, but I think 2 GB RAM would be minimum for it to begin with.
The experiences and tests of Vista vary a good deal and I've seen all from Vista being 15% slower to Vista being slightly faster and/or comparable to XP. Depends on the technologies used in the games etc. So there are more factors then just Vista vs. XP which many fails to understand.
For what it is worth - I've run Vista x64 for over a year now and it has been the most solid OS I've ever run from the Windows family. The only problems I've had has been software (games/applications) which failed to run on a 64 bit. But yes - Vista requires more hardware then XP.

As for your spec, I think they are decent enough for a medium powered gaming computer. I think you'll struggle a bit with high end games, lest you turn off/down some graphic settings.
One thing to think about when you upgrade/build computers is what you want to do in a year or two, meaning planning ahead.

These days from my perspective, it looks as graphic cards are the main "bottleneck" for most games. I very rarely see my CPU being maxed out, yet still experience graphic issues.

Because of this

PCI Express 2.0 doubles the bandwidth available for video cards from 2.5 GB/s to 5 GB/s, if they are also based on PCI Express 2.0 (PCI Express 2.0 video cards available include GeForce 8800 GT, GeForce 9600 GT, GeForce 9800 GX2 and cards from Radeon HD 3400, 3600 and 3800 families).

I'd suggest going for the GeForce 8800 GT rather than the 8600

I'd also insist on having XP as the OS rather than Vista myself.

Rein wrote: Thank you in advance. I plan on getting one soon though. Maybe even as soon as the next 2 weeks. I also plan on building it myself so any tips on how to properly build it would help as well.

I can refer you to a video on how to install an Intel Socket 775 CPU ([url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6NbPMQgwPM"]link[/url]). Found it pretty useful when I was assembling my new PC. Some things to take note: Do not touch the gold pins at the bottom of the processor and those on the CPU socket of the motherboard.

As for assembling the computer, I can recommend [url="http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1444"]PCStat's guide[/url]. It also contain a section on how to handle the components.

Rein wrote:Almost forgot, towers, cheap but good for cooling and future upgrades? I don't care how ugly it is.

Since the motherboard you mentioned is an ATX one, I'd recommend a tower case. I'd suggest getting those with a brand name just to be safe (brands like Lian Li, Thermaltake, Cooler Master, Antec, etc.).

As for upgrades, you can fit in a few DVD-ROM drives and a few more hard drives to name a few, if you want to, but that will depend on the design of the casing and what type of power supply you have.

What galrean said. I just built a system over a month ago and another 2 in the last two years so I have done a TON of research and I can tell you the 8800 video card is far above the 8600 in performance and the good news is prices are coming down significantly.

Also, Xandax rightly points out a minimum of 2 gigs of RAM especially if you are gaming. The issue with Vista is the drivers and even though a lot of people like to place all the blame on the evil empire known as Microsoft, a significant amount of blame lays squarely on hardware and software vendors and their failure to be proactive with drivers.

Don't go cheap on your power supply. I have seen far too many people spend big $ on a system and go cheap on their PSU and wonder why they are having so many problems. NewEgg has some ttremendous deals almost daily on good, stable psu's.

i am also currantly making a computer but im doing it from scratch and i need to know some of the best componants i can use

Invisable Man wrote:i am also currantly making a computer but im doing it from scratch and i need to know some of the best componants i can use

It's better to start a new thread and state your budget to help others narrow down the specifications.

Thank you everyone

I bought and built my computer and it runs awsome! I went with Vista. Reason for that is that the WoW expansion coming out, i believe August, requires Vista to play. That was one of the main reasons i wanted to build a new comp. Here is a list of components i used to build:

Tower: Sagitta, powered by raidmax

Video card: nvidia GeForce 8600 GT (just wanted a decent but still affordable card)

HDD: SATA WD Caviar SE16 500gb

DVD: LG ligthscribe 20x dvd +/- R double/dual layer 10x 8.5gb

CPU: intel core 2 duo desktop 64 bit 3.16 ghz

PSU: Still unsure if this is reasonable, Antec 500 watt, 80 plus certified

Fans: CPU fan, aux fan blows air away from cpu fan, side fan, back fan, and i still plan on putting another one in the front.

Its running great and the only thing i had a problem with is when it starts up it states that it failed to find a floppy drive (cause i don't have one) and i have to hit F1 to continue. from there its good. Just wondering if there is any settings i can change maybe in the bios to avoid from hitting F1 everytime i start up to acknowlege the fact that i don't have a floppy drive? And lastly, when I continue out of hibernation, my cpu fan will spin mementarily and then stop. my comp detects the jump in tempurature and automatically shuts down. Good thing i have a windowed tower or i would have been guessing for awhile why my comp shuts down after hibernation. any suggestions? I guess i can just change settings to stop computer from going into hibernation in the first place.

Thanks again for the responses. i know alot of what i bought was different thatn what was suggested here, but i wasn't planning on building a god computer and i was on vacation and my laptop stopped working. I played fable lost chapters and black and white 2 at full graphic settings and there wasn't a bit of hesitation so i'm pretty happy with the desktop. total cost was bearly over $1,000 but i couldn't expect any less than $800 useing all new components and still have a good gameing comp.

Rein wrote:I went with Vista. Reason for that is that the WoW expansion coming out, i believe August, requires Vista to play.

Wow, if that's true it's a major blunder by Blizzard!

Rein wrote: PSU: Still unsure if this is reasonable, Antec 500 watt, 80 plus certified

Antec is a pretty good brand and 500W is decent for a Core 2 Duo rig. I'm using one myself, which is Cooler Master and it ran fine on mine.

Rein wrote:Its running great and the only thing i had a problem with is when it starts up it states that it failed to find a floppy drive (cause i don't have one) and i have to hit F1 to continue. from there its good. Just wondering if there is any settings i can change maybe in the bios to avoid from hitting F1 everytime i start up to acknowlege the fact that i don't have a floppy drive?

You should remove the floppy drive from one of the boot devices, be it first, second or third (depending on your motherboard, that is). Consult your motherboard manual on how to do this

Rein wrote:And lastly, when I continue out of hibernation, my cpu fan will spin mementarily and then stop. my comp detects the jump in tempurature and automatically shuts down. Good thing i have a windowed tower or i would have been guessing for awhile why my comp shuts down after hibernation. any suggestions? I guess i can just change settings to stop computer from going into hibernation in the first place.

Either your CPU fan have a problem, or it has something to do with the BIOS settings. I think most motherboards should have a feature to efficiently control the CPU fan speed to ensure optimum cooling. Try enabling that first, if your motherboard supports it, and see if it works or not (again, consult your manual on how to do this). And yes, as what you mentioned, switch off the hibernation mode also.

If that doesn't work, then you should replace your CPU fan.

I have a 500W Antec PSU that came with my tower, and I've read that its definitely one of the good brands, so you should be good.