Building my first desktop (gaming) PC: opinions, suggestions?

J

jwburks1976

New Member
Hello all, this is my first post here. I've been having a problem lately, and by "lately" I mean the past... 10 years? Heh... with computers. That is, I buy a computer (like a Gateway, this is pretty much the only brand I've ever bought)... and 2 years later, something happens. Mostly, this involves the video card breaking down, somehow. In my first computer I recall the power supply dying. The computer would shut itself off and come back on, rapidly, damaging the hard drive. Me second computer, the ATI card's cooling fan fell off then it melted (it stunk). My third computer, my nVidia card's cooling fan fell off and then it melted (it stunk, too). Well, this happens with every video card I buy, so I will just stop at my third computer. I replaced the video cards, but they fell apart in one way or another, eventually. I don't know what it is about video cards. My most recent computer (the one I'm typing on now) is a Gateway P-173 FX "Gaming Laptop". After this computer I have learned there is really no such thing as a "Gaming Laptop", and I was foolish to waste my money on it. And recently, can you guess what happened? The video card has gone to @&)!. As usual. I was playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (simply because after all this time, I still haven't finished the game, I guess, and I was bored)... then one day, while I was playing the game, my laptop just powered off on its own. And then, even while sitting here staring at it while it sits in the desktop, it would still power off on its own after about 20-40 seconds after powering it on. The only way I can use my laptop now is to disable the video card's driver in System/Device Manager. At first, I thought something was wrong with the registry somehow, so I reinstalled Windows. Everything went fine until Microsoft Update installed a driver for the video card. I have tried installing the newest driver from nVidia's site, and even the driver on the manufacturer's support site for my laptop, here: http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/2008/GodzillaFX/2906087R/2906087Rnv.shtml

Well, I do not want to turn this into a help thread for my laptop. I just wanted to explain that I am done with buying computers. It seems to me they are built cheaply and they are not built to last. From now on, I build my own computers, or I don't use computers anymore. I'm tired of being jipped. So I read this entire site, top to bottom, then bottom to top: http://www.build-gaming-computers.com/

I'm not completely braindead to computers, as I've changed out video/sound cards, RAM, optical drives, etc. I have taken off heat sinks to clean them, and the fan, and put them back on... I'm no expert, but I'm not afraid to "get in there," either. So after spending the entire day yesterday, from sun up to sun down, doing research, I have picked out these parts to build a new gaming PC. Since this is my first time, I could use some opinions or advice. Maybe I picked out too-expensive parts, or the wrong brand. I have heard Asus makes great motherboards, and Corsair makes great power supplies, so most parts are those brands. Please tell me what you think. You may ask, why these parts? Well, I was willing to pay up to $1,000, but next month I will be able to go higher. This seemed good to me, but those of you with experience may think differently. I chose a 6-core CPU because, well, why not? And I chose AMD instead of Intel because their 6-core CPU is actually affordable :P I've never had an AMD computer, but I've only ever heard good things. And in my experience, both nVidia and ATI cards fall apart... at least when you buy a pre-made computer. My girlfriend's video card burned out a few months ago, and it has this little, flimsy cooling fan... then I saw the "Twinfrozr" that MSI uses. That is why I chose an MSI card. The longer this computer lasts, the better. Well, anyway, here are the parts I've chosen. I'm open to suggestions, but please tell me why you would change something. I'm looking to learn, as well.

CPU & Motherboard:
Asus M4N75TD Motherboard
AMD Phenom II 1055T
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6624295&CatId=4297

Memory:
Corsair DDR3 240-Pin 4 Gigs
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6613461&CatId=4534

Hard Drive:
Seagate 1.5 TB SATA
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4138742&Sku=TSD-1500AS

DVD Burner:
Asus DRW 24X SATA
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6078414&CatId=89

Heatsink (Aftermarket Cooler):
Cooler Master RR-V6GT-22PK-R1 V6 GT Multi-Socket CPU Cooler
(reviews say its hard to install, but lowers temperature really well, so maybe it's worth the annoyance)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6514354&CatId=4922

Video Card:
MSI R5770 HAWK Radeon HD 5770 Video Card
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6078144&CatId=3669

- or -

MSI N460GTX Cyclone 1GD5OC GeForce GTX 460 Video Card
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6500400&CatId=3669

Not sure which to do here. The motherboard seems to be built for nVidia. And I hear good things about the GTX 460. But then again, I hear AMD and ATI cards work better together, so this confuses me.

Power Supply:
Corsair HX850W 850w Modular Power Supply
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4668507&CatId=2534

850w may seem like a lot, but who knows what I'll put into this thing in the future. Besides that, I tried to go down to 750 and found that it cost exactly the same price! ( http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6391007&CatId=2533 )

Case:
Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower Black Case
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4146085&Sku=C283-1187
 
well i cannot say anything about what you wrote up there since have none of them, but if you want something that works well, i would recommend my set up below, had no problems so far with it. building pretty easy if you know what you are doing or if not it is very interesting and i think everybody loves it, even if they get annoyed.
Also for the benefit of others can you put down your budget for this... thx
Dunno about others but would not recommend MSI for anything really, the quality from my point of view sucks a bit, but thats just me.
 
If your building it for gaming, I go with a quad core 955. The 1055 won't perform any better. Video - Go with a superclocked EVGA GTX 460 - Much better than the 5770.
 
jevery said:
If your building it for gaming, I go with a quad core 955. The 1055 won't perform any better. Video - Go with a superclocked EVGA GTX 460 - Much better than the 5770.
Click to expand...

The black edition 955 is only $20 cheaper, really. That's why I chose the 1055, but why wouldn't it perform any better?
 
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StrangleHold said:
The 955 C3 is 50 bucks cheaper then the 1055T. Overclocks better and eaiser.

Drop the 7200.11 drive and get a 7200.12 or Western Digital Black or Samsung F3.

If your going to game, get something better then the 5770. Atleast a 5830/GTX 460.
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Yeah I'll probably get a 460 anyway. And the hard drive may be too big. I have a 200 gig HD on this piece of trash and have never filled up (but I have come close).
 
7200.11 had problems with firmware. What ever size you get stick with a .12 if your going with Seagate.

Just noticed your just getting one stick of memory. You would be better off getting two 2gb. sticks so it would run in dual channel.
 
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StrangleHold said:
7200.11 had problems with firmware. What ever size you get stick with a .12 if your going with Seagate.

Just noticed your just getting one stick of memory. You would be better off getting two 2gb. sticks so it would run in dual channel.
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Good thing you mentioned the firmware. Get 7200.12, gotcha.

Dual channel... gonna have to read up on what that is. I assume it just means memory access will be quicker this way... I was trying to be efficient since 4 gigs is the max for each slot.
 
Dual channel gives you more memory bandwidth, I was running single channel when i RMA'd my memory and it really impacted badly on performance.

Not just in games, things in windows loaded slower and everything seemed less repsonsive.
 
linkin said:
Dual channel gives you more memory bandwidth, I was running single channel when i RMA'd my memory and it really impacted badly on performance.

Not just in games, things in windows loaded slower and everything seemed less repsonsive.
Click to expand...

I hear you. I will make sure to do this then.
 
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