building a new pc

[jcue]

Hello,

I'm thinking about building a new computer (fyi: no prior experience) and was wondering where to start. I want a gaming pc w/ a quad core (why? because it's bigger than duo). If anybody has any input I would really appreciate it.

[boris45]

Well jcue the first part to building a new pc is deciding on your budget,once you have that sorted you can
then look at the different components and what you want the pc for.
In your case you want a gaming pc so a lot of your cash will go towards the graphic card or cards e.g crossfire or SLI.

You know you want a Quad core socket type LGA775 so find a good motherboard that supports that socket and your
preferred graphics set up and work from there, but as i said its all down to budget.

Hope that helped a little and good luck with your build

Ps.if you need any help deciding which parts to look at let me know your budget and ill give you a few alternative setups
to look at.

[ghost.x74]

Hi jcue

Take your time choosing your motherboard. It is going to be the backbone of your whole machine. I always use motherboards made by Asus because over time I have found them to be the most reliable. That is just my opinion though. Whatever board you do choose in the end, it would be a good idea to pay a visit to the manufacturers website. There should be a support forum with a thread for each board that they make. Find the thread for the motherboard that you want to buy and look at all of the posts by other users in that thread. This will give you a good indication of how many people are having problems with the board and what the scale of the problems are. You will also be able to get a good idea of things like memory compatability and what firmware version works best.

If too many people are having too many problems with a certain board and are not having any luck solving them then you know to stay well clear and choose another. Its best to be aware of any problems before you buy rather than later on,, especialy on your first build.

Good luck, I hope it works out for you.

[BobSeager]

The other thing you can do is grab all the components you want, then choose a board which supports them. That way you're not constrained by the board's requirements/limitations.

If you go quadcore, boris is right, most are socket 775. The new i7 cores are Socket 1366, which are still a minority in terms of the number of boards available and therefore generally more expensive. I would go 775.

As far as video cards, make sure it supports DX10 (especially if you go with an older model). I like to go with last years top line. New cards are really expensive and last year's models are more than capable.

my two cents

[technoe]

I would honestly go for the new i7 processor from Intel. Socket 1366 on the mobo. First of they're fairly inexpensive for a new cpu and they're pretty hot stuff. The extreme version is over clockable just like all other extreme's from Intel. And if you get into OC'ing a lot then the i7 is completely customizable. And nowadays, a Nvidia GTX 280 card is just as good as two 9800's. Intel dropped the ball a few years back but have reclaimed their reign on the chipset world. I would even suggest either an ASUS mobo or MSI. I've had both and refuse to buy anything else now.

[Backslash]

and when buying memory try to get sticks with heat spreaders...they are great.

my $0.02

[jcue]

Thanks for the replies...I really appreciate all this great info. I'll start researching mothor boards first. thanks again

[Bishop05]

If i were to build a new PC I would use the following

Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131359" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115202" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ram (you can always upgrade to 12 Gigs of RAM)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820227365" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Video (I'm not a gamer so this would do it)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150316" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
but if I were a gamer
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814143141" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Heat sink (I'm running this Monster in my current PC and it cools great)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835154001" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

power supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817171032" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

case (you can never have enough cooling, My buddy has this case and it's pretty quite I must say)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811129021" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

hard drives (I would get 5 of then in a RAID 5 configuration or possible RAID 1+0)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136317" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[BobSeager]

You're creating a monster man

Go to microcenter and get the processor if you can, save $80

http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0300438

I have an Antec case too, really nice, weighs like 60 pounds.

I have that drive, it's slow, but it's cheap and I like it. It's a variable speed drive so it runs either at 5400rpm (slow) or 7200rpm (normal/average) depending on what you're doing.

[Bishop05]

True!

but it would last several years before you need to upgrade.

[jcue]

I wanted to future prof so this is what I got, thanks for all the help:

Thermaltake ElementS Mid-Tower Case
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-920 2.66 GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366CD:
Intel LGA1366 Certified CPU Fan & heatsink
(500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
MOTHERBOARD: (3-Way SLI Support) Asus P6T Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Mainboard Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 SATA 6GB (2GBx3) PC1333 DDR3 PC3 10666 Triple Channel Memory
POWERSUPPLY: 580 Watts Power Supplies (SLI Ready Power Supply)
ATI Radeon HD 4850 PCI-E 16X 512MB Video Card

[xXwhygodwhyXx]

One company I would recommend is asus they have the best customer support and service. Their motherboards have good warrenties. I damaged mine and sent it in then they fixed it and it took a week total you dont need to register either for their warrenty products.