First Time PC Builder - Please Help!

N

Natalie105

New Member
Hi everyone!
New to the forum so I thought I'd start my first thread with something important!

I'm going to have a shot at building a desktop PC but I'm not too sure on whether component A will work with Component B. For example, whether the motherboard is compatable with the CPU. I think I have a rough idea of what components to get but I need to make sure they will all work with each other which is why I thought it may be a good idea to sign up to this forum and ask the experts! I've decided on my components to get however I am unsure about a few things so any recomendations would be great :]

Here's what I've got so far:

Case: http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/-/699/90...Micro-ATX-Case/Product.html?searchtype=genre#

PSU: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151783

CPU:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158333

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148900?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131950

OR​

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143263

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150466

Which one is the fastest and most powerful and generally 'the best' one out of the 5?

Motherboard: Haven't decided yet as I'm unsure about the processor so when I've decided on that, I'll find one that should support it

HDD: Ok I need help with this because there's so much choice and I get confused! Could anyone recommend me a 250GB SATA 3.5 HDD for under £40 from eBuyer?

Memory: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130429

Graphics Card: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155491 (I won't be needing anything to extreme and powerful as I will only be playing one game which will be The Sims 3 when it's out!)

Card Reader: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136402

CD/DVD Drive: http://www.oyyy.co.uk/product.php/8...-drive-sata-2mb--internal-?CAWELAID=305880952

Fan: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/63281 (I'll probablt get a 80mm one too)

Will my components I've chose so far work with each other?

Also, does anyone know of any good guides on the net to follow to help me build this PC. If something goes wrong, would anyone of the forum know what to do? Say if it won't recognise the disk or memory or whatever?

Would someone be able to suggest the best processor to get out of the ones I've chosen above?

I'd really appreciate your help :]

Thanks
 
a couple of things:

1. what is your budget
2. You really need to decide on motherboard as one of the first things.

For processors, intel=best processors, AMD=cost effective.

Intel, the top range is for gaming and graphics design, they are your core2quad extreme or i7 processors. Mid range, core2duo, is for light gaming (what you are doing), browsing the internet and maybe listening to music...all at once. The lower end is your pentium dual core. That is alright for playing the sims and browsing the internet, sorting pictures, videos, music etc, but i wouldn't want to game and use the internet or music all at the same time, it would be reeeeaaaaally slow.

AMD, the top range are about as good as your mid core2quad or overclocked core2quad low end. the mid range is about your low/mid of intel and the low end, well it's in a low league of it's own. You could play the sims 2 on it no problems, maybe sims 3 on low but you would get better performance out of a low intel of mid amd.

From the processors you have got,

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/131950 would

i would say be your best, but as i said above,

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158339

or

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/155434

would work just fine even though the price is much less. The second dual core i posted i have playing call of duty 4, team fortress 2, assasin's creed etc, all fairly hefty games, at high fps on high settings, it is a good processor.

The memory is brilliant, fine for what you need, good choice. I had the 2x1GB kit in my system and again, like the processor, gamed like a charm. I now have more RAM as you can see from the signature for higher fps for bigger, better games, but the corsair kit never missed a beat.

The video card you picked may let your system down a little though, i know it is only the sims 3 but even so it needs a decent processor or else your system will be able to take the game, but your video card will be putting you on medium settings.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/126974

i'm thinking would be better as it would easily handle everything that you would be throwing at it and is about the same price as the one you posted.

Everything else looks great, except for 2 things.

1. Where is your hard drive?

2. Your case is micro ATX, if you are trying to keep it compact, just say in a reply, but larger, even midi atx cases, tend to have (there are ones out there for micro) better motherboards and always have alot better cooling when unmodded.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-045-AS&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=

or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-160-CM&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=

or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-160-CM&groupid=701&catid=7&subcat=

are all good cases and are midi cases. They are bigger than the one you chose so allow for larger components and bigger, better cooling. But if you are after space saving, then micro atx it will be :P
 
Thanks for the reply, very helpful :] I haven't chosen a HDD yet, I need some help with that! Would you be able to recommend me a good 250GB HDD under £40 from eBuyer that would work?

As for the Processor, I'm gonna go for a Quad-Core, so shall I go for the 2.4Ghz? Is it better than those at 2.66Ghz?

My budget is around £350 but I won't be getting a graphics card straight away as I won't be needing it until June.

And yep I'm trying to keep it compact :P

Do you recommend any Motherboards? for no more than £50?

Also, is my PSU ok?
 
Last edited:
excellent, makes it all much easier knowing budget :D

I would say then:

If you are hell bent on quad core:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148900? - £162

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-086-OC - £39.09

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/126974 - £43

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-144-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=326 - £50

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-133-WD&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=768 £40

all in the case you put with the reader and dvd rw and fan you chose. - £51

That is £385 all together, which i know is £35 over what you asked but i can't find cheaper anywhere else. With p&p it is probably £400 or so, OCUK generally have cheap postage and it is always either next day or 2 day delivery.

If £350 is really the absolute top that you can pay then the processor should be first to be downsized,

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-271-IN&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=793

is excellent, you will still notice huge performance even though it isn't quad core.
 
Ok cool. What about this Motherboard?

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151482

Is it just as good as the one you recommended without the better graphics card and e-SATA connection? I won't be needing a good graphics card for the time being which is I'm asking if it's almost as good.

Also, is the OCZ memory better than the Corsair I originally chose?

Thanks for your help :]
 
The OCZ i posted are a little cheaper and is very high quality, it is gaming RAM and, so far as i can tell, is faster than the corsair RAM from personal use. I have 2 of the packs posted (4x2GB) and it is ridiculously quick. I used only 1 of the packs for a while when i was working out why 8GB wouldnt works (i had to flash the bios using ez flash, described below as it's on the mobo you found)

The motherboard, after looking it over does look very good. Asus boards are easy to use and have alot of nice little features like ez flash and stuff like that (updateing the bios more easily and more safely if you need).

Basically they are just about as good as each other, but there are few, so far as i can see, big differences:

Asus one (yours) - Has ez flash. You can easily update the bios if you need and you can also recover your bios with crash free bios. But as you shouldn't, unless you upgrade your graphics card or RAM to something mega in the future, need to upgrade the bios.

Gigabyte (mine) - Has a feature called M.I.T (Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker). This makes overclocking fool proof and very easily basically, so if you want a bit more juice out of your memory and processor by overclocking, this helps you quite a bit.

Whichever you prefer i'd go for, they will both work with all of the components posted so far so with all of these little features, that is the only thing that could sway it.

Both asus and gigabyte are reknowned for making good motherboards that are very easy to navigate around and play with and are both known for making stable motherboards
 
Ok thanks for that :]

I think I'm set, just need to make sure everything will work. What do you think?

Case: Gigabyte GZ-M2 Black Micro ATX Case http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/6279231/-/Product.html

PSU: OCZ Stealth Xtream 500W PSU - 1x PCI-E 6/8pin, 2x SATA 12cm Fan http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135159

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6700 2.66GHz Socket 775 1066MHz 8MB (2x4MB(4MB per core pair)) L2 Cache OEM Processor http://www.ebuyer.com/product/148900

Motherboard: ASUS P5N73-AM GeForce 7050 Socket 775 onboard Graphics 8 channel audio mATX Motherboard http://www.ebuyer.com/product/151482

Memory: OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800Mhz/PC2-6400 GOLD XTC Memory Kit CL5(5-5-5-18) http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146049

HDD: Western Digital WD2500AAKS Caviar SE 250GB 7200RPM SATAII/300 16MB Cache - OEM http://www.ebuyer.com/product/124733

CD/DVD Drive: LG 22x DVD-SM Internal SATA Drive / Black http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/8561724/-/Product.html

Card Reader: Hiyatek Black 20-in-1 Multifunction Card Reader With Fan Controllers 2x USB E-SATA http://www.ebuyer.com/product/136392

Does it look like everything will be compatable and fit?

Will I need any extra fans/cables?

Thanks so much for all your help!

I didn't include the graphics card you suggested as I won't be needing that yet but thanks anyway!
 
everything should fit, PSU has the right connectors for the mobo and fits all micro, midi and full atx cases. Everything should work together too absolutely fine.

Only thing is if you are paying £350 for the system, have you included the price of an operating system in that or is that on a seperate thing and £350 is purely for hardware?
 
Great! :D I already have Vista on a Disc so I'll have a go at installing that. £350 purely for the hardware which is pretty good! I'll let you know how I get on when I build it :]

One again, thanks for all your help and advice! Much appreciated!
 
no problems at all, what we are here for :)

any problems with the build or anything just pop a post up or pm me
 
Ok, a crash course in PSUs:

The wattage gives you a vague idea what it can handle. for example:

a 350 watt wont power a quad core, dual video card, 8GB RAM, 4 hard drive, 2 dvd drive, 1 blu-ray drive, 1 dvd rw system.

a 1000W PSU will be overkill on your system and will actually be very inneficient, all are under about 60% load. Newer high quality ones are alright over 30-40% usage.


The wattage won;t show you your power though. There are 2 12V rails in your modern PSU. Cheaper ones have (when you look at the side of the PSU with power ratings the one i am on about is obvious) 1 of the 12V rails probably around 8-18 amps. Better, more expensive and higher quality ones have this rail at 50-100 amps. the higher the wattage the higher the ampage, because:

wattage=amps x volts

so an 850W high quality PSU will have maybe 80amps, a low, maybe 20.

What does this mean? It means that all PSU manufacturers state the highest possible output, none will work at 850 watts all the time, 750-800 max, they can hit 850 with everything full but can;t maintain it.

A more expensive one then, with it's higher amps, can maintain high output, a cheaper one with lower amps can hit the high useage but will show the strain, createing alot of heat and being unstable, giving "dirty power". This is bad for components and the unit.

Put in the real world, i will give an example of an issue i had about a month ago:

I had a 750W PSU that came with my case, it is worth about £15. 750W, you are thinking "wow, thats alot" . I had 8GB of RAM and 2 video cards, 2 hard drives, a dual core processor and 2 dvd drives, one reader, one burner. 750W SHOULD eat that up easily, however because it was 14amps on the 12v rail then it blew when i started using 2 video cards, it couldn;t handle even about 500-600W, that is about what mine was chucking out at the time. So i bought a new, this one:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/850W-Corsair-TX-Series-ATX-4x-PCI-E-8x-SATA-PS-2-PSU-5-Year-Warranty

which with p&p was £120. This had on the 12V rail 80 amps. So even though it is only 100W difference this one is sat at about 30-40 degrees all the time, compare that to the 110 degrees that it takes for the cheap one to blow at.

Basically, if you buy the cheap one it will:

1. not last as long

2. be more likely to fail than the other, be that short, over heat, give dirty power or any number of other problems

3. Be less efficient
 
That is a brilliant PSU. Corsair make some of the best PSU, them along with coolermaster, zalman, antec etc make the best power supplies.
 
no 450W that you chose then should be fine. The 350 that you first put out in the first post would have been borderline but 450 will comfortably take your system
 
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