Need a hand with new pc :)

[Kit-Fox]

Removed

[Jack]

Blargh, I can't be bothered giving you anymore advice.

But I will say this, Da Vinci has no **Filtered** clue what he is talking about, his advice is likely to kill your computer. Listen to Kitfox or someone else that knows what they're talking about. Otherwise enjoy your $700 paperweight.

[Ron Burgandy]

Tom, buy one with a plug

[Solus]

Blargh, I can't be bothered giving you anymore advice.

But I will say this, Da Vinci has no **Filtered** clue what he is talking about, his advice is likely to kill your computer. Listen to Kitfox or someone else that knows what they're talking about. Otherwise enjoy your $700 paperweight.

i think you meant KnowLedge. in which case, yeah. ignore his advice, DaVinci.

i'll just elaborate on a few points KitFox made though, he knows his stuff.

A - Heatsinks for Intel or AMD are equally annoying to fit depending on the socket used. The fitting of a heatsink should be done carefully with plenty of time to read the fitting sheet that came with your heatsink. It should also be done before you fit the motherboard into your case.
yes, definitely. CPU and heatsink fitting should be done before the motherboard is put in the case. though, I find cooler fitting particularly easy. the AM3 I use now was especially so. in any case, davinci, before you do anything, read the manuals that come with your components. its always a good idea to get to know what you're going to do before you even make a start.

B - Intel & AMD processors - there is no winner, no one maker 'beats' the other in anything. It all depends on what you intend to use the system for. Each processor has its own benifits & shortcomings, as the user it is up to *you* to decide which one has the list of benifits that suits you the most
agreed here, though for general gaming grunt, intel chips do tend to benchmark higher than AMD cores, BUT AMD cores are a LOT cheaper. so basically you get a LOT of bang for your buck here choosing a mid-tier AMD. you've indicated this is a budget build anyway so eh. AMD being the natural choice here.

C - Never ever turn on a PC without having correctly fitted some sort of CPU cooling, dont even take the risk! Never, ever ever do that.
another reason to ignore KnowLedge. he's just voided the warranty on a relatively expensive part, because he was getting impatient. Patience is a valuable thing in PC building.

D - 4Gb of ram was once big enough but given how things are escalating and how memory managment is constantly ignored or removed from the hands of developers, 4Gb if you are playing games is considered just barely enough.
yes, 4gb is pretty small for a GAMING rig. Knowledge was only partially right here, mentioning 2gb for office stuff. but seriously, 4gb is the minimum you should look for in a gaming rig. and considering ram is coming down in price pretty quickly, there is no reason really to go under 4gb. (i got an 8gb kit, G.Skill RipjawsX for less than $50 AUD for example.)

E - Never ever, ever set an unmovable price limit either in total or for a piece of hardware, the rule you should live by is 'buy the very best you can afford'
budgeting is a good idea, but as KF says, dont set a budget in stone. DO however have a rough idea of what you'd LIKE to pay.

F - Never use a PSU that comes with a case, they are cheap & shoddy. A bad power supply to your mainbaord or any of the components in your PC can result in lots of errors occuring in your system, Always without exception get a good PSU that is '80 PLUS Gold' rated, do not use anything less!
word of advice, if it's a SHAW branded PSU, steer well clear of it. a PSU is the main thing you should NEVER settle for a cheaper one. SHAW PSU's for example, are notorious for irregular power supply, over exaggerated output figures, TERRIBLE build quality among other things. REMEMBER, if you buy an especially shoddy PSU, you run the risk of damaging other components. BUY A PSU WITH A REPUTABLE BRAND NAME, like Corsair, CoolerMaster, Antec, Thermaltake, Seasonic or Asus. or even some lesser known rebrands of good brands, like Vantec. and absolutely ensure you get one that is 80+ certified. some companies like to overstate what their products can do. and if on a cheaper branded PSU it can actually deliver what it says, it most likely is NOT stable, which will cause errors as KF said, or even damage components.

G - 500W is considered just barely enough these days, please do consider the draw you are putting on your system, if you google it there are several power cacluators out there that will give you some idea of the size of PSU needed

http://support.asus.com/powersupply.aspx

Is a good start

also keep in mind, that while wattage is a good indicator, it is certainly NOT the end of the line. Wattage of a PSU is calculated from the amperage of ALL the power supply rails. a more in depth and precise method, is to look SPECIFICALLY at the 12v rail. find how much your motherboard, CPU, Ram, Video Card and HDD's etc draw together (IN AMPERES) and then add about 10-20% for a safety margin. this will add a safety margin, and ensure you're hovering near-ish to the 80% draw mark, which most PSU's can sit at quite efficiently, meaning less of a power bill.

and its also worth noting, that with most things (other than the PSU) you can get away with buying a no-name brand. for instance, with video cards, gigabyte and asus cards tend to be a little more expensive, compared to MSI, HIS, PowerColor, Gainward etc. those other cards might not benchmark as high as the Asus or Gigabyte, but theyre all in the same ballpark.

as for the AMD/NVidia discussion, go with NVidia. more of the time, there are issues with AMD cards than there are with NVidia. The heat issue that KnowLedge mentioned on NVidia, was on a PROTOTYPE of the Fermi GPU's. and hey, guess what, THEY FIXED THAT BEFORE RELEASE. it's like saying that a car with a 5 star safety rating is unsafe because an early prototype didnt have airbags. it's moronic.

TLDR:
-CPU and Coolers need to be fitted before the motherboard goes in the case. theyre easy-ish, if you read the manual.
-choose an AMD system, in particular the AM3 socket. more bang for your buck than any intel chip at the same price.
-RAM, 4gb MINIMUM, especially as it's cheap.
-PSU, get a name brand with 80+ certification, and calculate the draw of your system, compare to the 12v rail figures.

argh I love giving tips about computers, I love them so much. let me know if you need more opinions..

and the rest of us cringe when you try.

~soul

[~Dä Vinci~]

thx alot solus and kit fox, not rushing into it going to save some ect cash this comp is being made by purely selling naq hehe so it is kinda cheap,

ive narrowed it down to,

- http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-sapp ... i-hdmi-mdp

- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... ubcat=1084

currently i have 2x2gb sticks of ram should i buy 2 more sticks so it's 8gb of ram 4x2gb

[Dmonix]

-EVGA Nvidia 1Gb GeForce GTX 460 SuperClocked Graphics Card
-Sapphire 1024Mb AMD Radeon HD 6770 PCI-Express VGA Card
-1024Mb AMD Radeon HD 6770 PCI-Express VGA Card - GENERIC

GeForce - Transistors - 1950mil
Radeon - Transistors - 1040mil

In terms of memory they're much of a muchness but the GeForce has more Transistors and this can handle a higher screen resolution and more graphics shaders and post processes.

I'd say go for the GeForce just make sure your power supply can handle it, I know graphics cards are coming to be more light weight but they're still heavy in terms of power.

The GeForce uses about 150W of power and I'd expect the 6770 to be similar

thx alot solus and kit fox, not rushing into it going to save some ect cash this comp is being made by purely selling naq hehe so it is kinda cheap,

ive narrowed it down to,

- http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-sapp ... i-hdmi-mdp

- http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... ubcat=1084

currently i have 2x2gb sticks of ram should i buy 2 more sticks so it's 8gb of ram 4x2gb

Again 1120mil cores on this card, the GeForce does seem to have more processing power.

Hope it helps a bit dude

[~Dä Vinci~]

thankyou il look into it ive been looking at the geforce 460 but i read somewhere there coming to the end of there line so no more updates.. can u recommend any geforce card around £100-150 marker?

[Kit-Fox]

Removed

[KnowLedge]

Blargh, I can't be bothered giving you anymore advice.

But I will say this, Da Vinci has no **Filtered** clue what he is talking about, his advice is likely to kill your computer. Listen to Kitfox or someone else that knows what they're talking about. Otherwise enjoy your $700 paperweight.

lmao you are just jealous I can build a computer from $700 and still does the same job that your $1200 computer does :O

buying a cheaper computer also has another advantage, you can change it up in the future. you buy an expensive $1500 pc from expensive intel i7 parts with a $200 video cards you are pretty much stuck with it for the next 4-5 years.

however if you spend $700 now (on a comp that does everything that a $1200 one will) and than spend another $900 3-4 years later when you know much more about computers and now have two kickass computers.

the way I see it, people buy expensive computers so they can brag about it and it compensates for their small penis (which they can't brag about). Trust me its psychology.

[Jack]

A cheaper computer is less likely to be upgradable in the future because the parts are generally already obsolete are about to become obsolete.

I spent $850 on my computerand it'll run circles around yours. I could have gotten away with spending about $200 less and still would have similar performance. I spent more on parts that were on sale and priced at very good deal. Plus they are a bit more "future proof" than the other parts.

[Kit-Fox]

Removed

[KnowLedge]

lol do you really think users like me or a common user knows how to overclock? I tried and it failed, and Im sure I know a lot more about computers than the average bloke. I don't think you should give advising while assuming that the person you are giving advice to knows about things like overclocking.

I don't see how buying an intel i7 while not knowing a thing about overclocking is going to help users like 'da vinci'. and learning to over clock is painful because slight error results in death of the pc.. and you call your self an advice giver? you assume everyone is as smart as you about computing hardware and then you give you advice as if you are giving it to your self. only 2% of the population that uses computers know things like overclocking.

on the other hand, one can buy a simply $700 computer like the one I have and peacefully play any recent games for the next 3 to 4 years and then at the same time have the ability to change up the hardware because they didn't spent a fortune on their first computer. guess what, Im running a $600-700 pc,
it gets all my work done, it gets all my entertainment done (u know what? because I spent only $700 on my main PC, I was able to build another $600 HTPC for my TV, and now I have a sick entertainment system on my TV as well as my main desktop). Trust me buddy, I don't need to read a guide book to learn about computers, It comes to me from experience and my experience always has put me in the right direction!