my first build. what i want...

[pantera_fan88]

ok, i just ordered my thermaltake armor blk case with the side fan.

i want to get

ABS tagen bz series 800w psu
eVGA nvdia nforce 680i sli mobo
eVGA geforce 8800gts 512MB gfx card
intel quad core cpu
500gb harddrive ( dunno which yet )
4gb of ram ( dunno which yet )
thermaltake liquid cooling system.
and ill be running windows xp.

im building it for gaming basically. what do you think. oh, btw i work 2 jobs and live in an apt. besides work i usually game or movies. so money is not huge deal b/c one jobs income is for bills and the other is for fun. and ive got nothing better to spend it on. and i NEED a good gaming pc. thanks guys.

like i said, this is my first build, ive done research on the parts and they have been good, but together does this make a good system? any ideas?

 

[mep916]

Hard Drive

RAM

I'm not familiar with the quality of ABS power supplies. They look good, though. Which quad core are you getting? The eVGA 680i does not support the 45nm quad core processors.

 

[JLV2k5]

Hard Drive

RAM

I'm not familiar with the quality of ABS power supplies. They look good, though. Which quad core are you getting? The eVGA 680i does not support the 45nm quad core processors.

Good point then. May want to consider the 780i if money permits or even a P35 if you're not OCing.

You will need Vista 64 if you want to have 4 gigs of RAM in this system(is there 64bit XP's???). Also, if this is a gaming machine, Vista supports DX10 from the newer GPUs so that is another plus.

Besides the OS, do you really need a water cooling system? Are you going to be OCing your first build or need a really silent system? If not, air cooling will do fine.

 

[mep916]

You will need Vista 64 if you want to have 4 gigs of RAM in this system.

That's a good point. I wouldn't recommend running XP x64 either. I've heard that there are several compatibility issues with that OS. If you want to run XP, get 2GB of RAM and get the 32 bit version.

 

[pantera_fan88]

hmm,, so i will have better luck with vista then? i was just scared b/c i hear lots of bad things about it. and you said im better off with the 780i instead of the 680i. and i want water cooling b/c its not as loud , as of now im not overclocking but we shall see in the future and besides water cooling looks sweet. thanks again for the help.

 

[mep916]

Do you plan to SLi two (or three) nVidia video cards? If not, I would go with a P35 or X38 Intel chipset. The only advantage with a nVidia chipset is the ability to run SLi.

 

[pantera_fan88]

yea, i was planning on running 2. thats why i thought that the 680i would be what i needed, and i heard on the 780i you can only run 3 8800gtx and ultra...which are a bit pricey.

 

[mep916]

yea, i was planning on running 2. thats why i thought that the 680i would be what i needed,

Yes, the 680i will work. Like I said, though, You will not be able to use a 45nm quad core, only the dual core. You can run any of the 65nm quad cores.

and i heard on the 780i you can only run 3 8800gtx and ultra...which are a bit pricey.

You can run any SLi configuration with the 780i. Another advantage to that chipset is PCI-E 2.0 support.

 

[pantera_fan88]

thanks ALOT for your help, clears things up a bit. since its my first build putting the right parts together is a bit confusing. so this helps alot. thanks.

 

[mep916]

thanks ALOT for your help, clears things up a bit. since its my first build putting the right parts together is a bit confusing. so this helps alot. thanks.

No problem. Good luck with the build, and post some pics of the finished product.

 

[JLV2k5]

Make sure you do some water cooling research before you jump into it. The process is not entirely that difficult(granted I have never done it) but can be risky if you do not take the proper precautions.

GL with it though. Once you succeed you will have superior cooling and a relatively silent system.

 

[oscaryu1]

Make sure you do some water cooling research before you jump into it. The process is not entirely that difficult(granted I have never done it) but can be risky if you do not take the proper precautions.

GL with it though. Once you succeed you will have superior cooling and a relatively silent system.

I've heard in some cases that they were the same as air cooling. Most likely you'll only notice a difference during load. Idle should be the same...

Just watch out for those leaks. One little hole, and down goes your whole system.