View Full Version : First Ever Build
Hi, I'm new to the forum and was thinking about building a computer for the first time. Here's what I've come up with so far.
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2GHz (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CPUs+%2F+Processors/Intel/Core+2+Duo/Intel+Core+2+Duo+E4500+2.2GHz+(Retail+775)+?produc tId=28028)
MSI P35 NEO-F LGA 775 (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards/Socket+775+(Intel)/MSI+P35+NEO-F+LGA+775+Motherboard+?productId=28016)
OCZ 4gb pc2-6400 Vista Performance Gold (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Memory/DDR2/DDR2+800+(PC6400)/OCZ+4GB+PC2-6400+Vista+Performance+Gold+(2x2GB)+?productId=291 06)
500GB Samsung Spinpoint SATA2 16mb (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Hard+Drives/Serial+ATA/500GB+Samsung+Spinpoint+SATA2+16MB+?productId=2516 2)
nVidia GeForce 9600GT 512mb PCI-E (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/PCI-E/nVIDIA+GeForce+9+Series/nVidia+GeForce+9600GT+512MB+PCI-E+?productId=30589)
NZXT Apollo Case (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Cases/MIDI+Tower/NZXT+Apollo+Advance+Custom+Gamer-Black+?productId=25650)
OCZ 600w StealthXStream (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Power+Supplies/500w+%2B/OCZ+600W+StealthXStream+PSU+?productId=26933)
20x Samsung DVDR/W (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CD%2FDVD+Drives/Internal/SATA/Samsung+SH-S203+20X+DVDRW+-+SATA+-+Black+?productId=29919)
Vista Basic 32bit (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Software/Operating+Systems/Windows+Vista+Home+Basic+32bit+OEM+?productId=2590 1)
This all comes to roughly £515, I could probably stretch to about £550. What's the best thing to do witht the extra money?
Would all these parts work together ok?
Any help would be much appreciated so thanks to anyone who replies
I would say that with a good cpu cooler, like the AC7 pro, you will get a lot more mhz outta that chip and save money rather than upgrading etc.
Thanks. Is the fan that's provided with the CPU rubbish then ?
Do all the components fit together?
I'd lose Vista Basic and get either Win XP, or Vista Home Pemium.
Cheers, what extras does vista premium offer?
You get the nice eye candy like the transparent toolbars, sidebar... take a look here
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx
Very nice, just wondering what sort of games I would be able to play on this system. It's not primarily for playing games but I would like to be able to play some.
That will all fit together, case is a personal choice, and think your personal choise is sexy! As for the cooler i reccomended, it runs quieter than the standard fan (mine used to rattl;e) and i have the same cpu, which was running at 3.4 nicely on water about 10 minutes ago :)
Great! Thanks for your help so far guys.
AS for 4 gb of ram, you should use 64 bit windows, not to worry as with a 32bit version, download and burn a 64 bit version (unhacked) of course and you can use it with the same product key (correct me if im wrong??)
There's only a few pounds difference so I would probably just buy the 64-bit version straight from aria to save me the hassle:P. What difference would the 64-bit version make???
You can use all 4GB on 64, while 32 bit is limited to 3GB due to x86 addressing limitations.
Don't have a clue what that means but it sounds good, cheers! :S
Very nice, just wondering what sort of games I would be able to play on this system. It's not primarily for playing games but I would like to be able to play some.
I would appreciate it if someone could clear this up for me, Thanks.
You'll definately be able to play games on that, may be not at ultra high but you should have no problmes with it :)
Cheers, much appreciated. The 8800gt seems to be a better card would it be worth my while and money buying this card instead, and could the rest of the system handle it???
Oh, and before I forget do u think I will need any more fans in the case, it already comes with 2, I think.
The 8800GT is better but if you're not going to be using the extra power then you can save some money and get the 9600. As for fans get as many as you can fit :)
The case should come with enough fans so that's not a problem. My only suggestion is that if you have any CPU overclocking in mind and/or want to use HDD's in RAID you opt for the slightly more expensive MSI P35 Neo2 Fr motherboard.
£107 isn't a bad price for the 9600GT but if you've got some cash left over, it won't do any harm to opt for the faster 8800GT 512mb. It's not essential.
On the whole, the setup should be a good performer. I'd probably get an aftermarket CPU cooler and look into overclocking for the CPU to complement the 9600GT well.
I agree with the neo2-fr :)
Thanks. This question maybe belongs in another section, but are there any good online tutorials, guides etc. for building a pc. It's just that I have a good idea of where everything goes but I'm just not sure how they all connect to each other.:confused:
P.s. I'm not too confident with overclocking, but I could add a little more to my budget to get a better cpu, what do u think ??
If you do a google you can find plenty. TBH when I built mine I just guessed and it worked out pretty well... apart from a dodgy stick of RAM... that was easily changed at Aria (in the old building)
Thanks for the advice, just done a quick search and found plenty. Plus a guide specific to my chosen case.
Good work, then when you've got all the bits together, write a review and you might end up winning something!
The case should come with enough fans so that's not a problem. My only suggestion is that if you have any CPU overclocking in mind and/or want to use HDD's in RAID you opt for the slightly more expensive MSI P35 Neo2 Fr motherboard.
£107 isn't a bad price for the 9600GT but if you've got some cash left over, it won't do any harm to opt for the faster 8800GT 512mb. It's not essential.
On the whole, the setup should be a good performer. I'd probably get an aftermarket CPU cooler and look into overclocking for the CPU to complement the 9600GT well.
I think i'll go for the more expensive board, thanks.
1. What is an aftermarket cpu cooler?
2. How do I overclock and how does it affect performance?
3. Sorry for sounding like a noob!
When I mean aftermarket cpu cooler, I mean a cooler other than the one that comes included with the CPU itself. The stock cooler is fine and all but it's a bit too loud for my liking and won't get you very far when overclocking.
Probably something like an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro (should be on the aria site) would be decent value for money and allow you to get the CPU overclocked
Overclocking is changing the speed of the front side bus frequency (like, how it's 800FSB at present) in order to attain a higher overall CPU speed for higher performance. In otherwords, it's getting a Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2GHz to overclock to 3.0GHz to get similar performance to a Core 2 Duo E6850 or E8400 for example. It's quite simple to do but it'll require you to do a bit of reading and a couple of hours of your time.
As for sounding like a n00b, don't worry about it. We all start from somewhere :)
When I mean aftermarket cpu cooler, I mean a cooler other than the one that comes included with the CPU itself. The stock cooler is fine and all but it's a bit too loud for my liking and won't get you very far when overclocking.
Probably something like an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro (should be on the aria site) would be decent value for money and allow you to get the Freezer 7 overclocked
Overclocking is changing the speed of the front side bus frequency (like, how it's 800FSB at present) in order to attain a higher overall CPU speed for higher performance. In otherwords, it's getting a Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2GHz to overclock to 3.0GHz to get similar performance to a Core 2 Duo E6850 or E8400 for example. It's quite simple to do but it'll require you to do a bit of reading and a couple of hours of your time.
As for sounding like a n00b, don't worry about it. We all start from somewhere :)
Thanks for clearing it up, someone else also recommended tht cooler so I'll defo go for that. Reading some stuff just now on wikipedia on how to overclock.
It says on wiki that in some cases you can damage your components by doing this. What would be a safe speed to overclock my chosen processor to? Does it affect the lifespan of your components? (if so which ones)
I'd say to try it a bit at a time, keep an eye on your temps and stability, once they start going to high or your system starts to become unstable then go back to where it was fine.
I'd say to try it a bit at a time, keep an eye on your temps and stability, once they start going to high or your system starts to become unstable then go back to where it was fine.
Cheers, but what's the worst that can happen???
You can fry something and then your warranty will be voided
Ok, so i better be careful then.
Yup, just try it by a small amount... tbh you probably wont even need to overclock that by much really.
PeterStoba
20-03-08, 16:50
Probably something like an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro (should be on the aria site) would be decent value for money and allow you to get the Freezer 7 overclocked
Overclocking heatsinks? cool :P
O.k. I've made the recommended changes and this is how it looks now.
Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2GHz (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CPUs+%2F+Processors/Intel/Core+2+Duo/Intel+Core+2+Duo+E4500+2.2GHz+(Retail+775)+?produc tId=28028)
CPU Fan Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 PRO (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Fans%2C+Heatsinks%2C+Coolers/Socket+775/Arctic+Cooling+Freezer+7+PRO+?productId=20729)
MSI P35 Neo2 Fr (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards/Socket+775+(Intel)/MSI+P35+NEO2-FR++Socket+775+Motherboard+?productId=28015)
OCZ 4gb pc2-6400 Vista Performance Gold (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Memory/DDR2/DDR2+800+(PC6400)/OCZ+4GB+PC2-6400+Vista+Performance+Gold+(2x2GB)+?productId=291 06)
500GB Samsung Spinpoint (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Hard+Drives/Serial+ATA/500GB+Samsung+Spinpoint+SATA2+16MB+?productId=2516 2)
nVidia GeForce 9600GT (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/PCI-E/nVIDIA+GeForce+9+Series/nVidia+GeForce+9600GT+512MB+PCI-E+?productId=30589)
NZXT Apollo Case (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Cases/MIDI+Tower/NZXT+Apollo+Advance+Custom+Gamer-Black+?productId=25650)
OCZ 600watt StealthXStream (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Power+Supplies/500w+%2B/OCZ+600W+StealthXStream+PSU+?productId=26933)
20x Samsung DVDR/w (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CD%2FDVD+Drives/Internal/SATA/Samsung+SH-S203+20X+DVDRW+-+SATA+-+Black+?productId=29919)
Vista Home Premium 64-bit (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Software/Operating+Systems/Windows+Vista+Home+Premium+64+OEM+?productId=25906 )
This brings me roughly to my £550 budget.
Thanks to the people who replied you were really helpful.
Any further comments or recommended changes would be apreciated.
Overclocking heatsinks? cool :P
Typo, I meant CPU :redface:
In this day and age it's a bit tricky to completely brick a system component through overclocking. CPU's and Motherboards have thermal protection, 65nm CPU's (such as the one you've picked) seem to tolerate high voltages very well without suffering from electromigration. All you need to do is overclock step by step, use the relevant applications to monitor temperatures/stability test and ensure the chip doesn't push over 65-70*c.
All in all, there's no reason to be worried when overclocking your CPU.
It's certainly worthwhile in my opinion as an E4500 would hold a 9600GT back (just a little bit) in some applications and generally 3.0GHz is easy to reach.
edit- The spec looks good to me. Maybe if you've got another £12, opt for slightly better memory
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Memory/DDR2/DDR2+800+%28PC6400%29/Patriot+4GB+PC2-6400+C4+Extreme+Performance+%282x2GB%29+?productId =29114
These are better because they have tighter timings, which means there's less delay when you read/write to ram, although one could argue it's hardly noticeable. The OCZ kit is quality anyway so it's your call if you want to bother ^^
I might just do that. Thanks again for your help and advice
If I could get enough money together to upgrade the cpu to an E4600 (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CPUs+%2F+Processors/Intel/Core+2+Duo/Intel+Core+2+Duo+E4600+2.40GHz+(Retail+775)+?produ ctId=30451) would it really make that much of a difference. Also, would it mean that I could overclock it to a greater speed than if I overclocked the E4500.
I could free up some money by going for a smaller hard drive because I don't really need 500Gb what do you think about this (http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Hard+Drives/Serial+ATA/200GB+Samsung+SpinPoint+-+7200RPM+-+SATA2+?productId=30525)
I wouldn't say the extra £12 is worth it. Both should overclock quite easily. :)
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