New build, but need help!

[azwebs]

OK, so I'm building a new budget gaming PC for a friend. We're both in the UK, so there's no Newegg, only www.ebuyer.com. I have put together this list of components so far, but we still need a motherboard and a power supply (from eBuyer).

For some reason, my cooler didn't save in the quote. It is an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro. I understand that the P5N-E Northbridge heatsink is too large for it and this cooler to coexist? I prefer Arctic because they've won the cooling award for 3 years now.

I need to find a motherboard that has SLi capabilities (and can support 9800GX2 SLi), and a power supply to run it all. I would be happy with an 800W minimum, from a reputable manufacturer (unit from eBuyer please!).

Click here for the Good/Bad PSU List.

As an extra note, a 650i SLi board is fine (not much noticeable difference), because I have been reading several reviews, and seen that the 7xx SLi series had problems with video corruption.

Suggestions for the motherboard and PSU are gladly accepted. Thanks for any help anyone can offer.

Edit: He would prefer to keep the price to about £1000~

 

[azwebs]

I was looking at the P5N-E 650i SLi motherboard from Asus. Firstly, I read the Freezer 7 Pro had problems with orientation in regards to the Northbridge heatsink (mentioned above), but because I have the Antec 900, I could point the HSF to the top case fan rather than the rear, and the north bridge heatsink would not obstruct it.

So, the only other problem I am having now, is many reviews have said there were issues with memory. Does anyone know if these have been solved?

Finally, I still need a PSU. Minimum of 800W, more if you think I need it.

• 4 x Molex connectors (for case fans)
• 4 x SATA connectors (one for additional BluRay Reader after christmas)
• 1 x connector for the Freezer 7 Pro (molex?)
• 2 x 6 Pin PCI-E (for Quad-SLi)
• 2 x 8 Pin PCI-E (for Quad-SLi)
• 1 x Motherboard connector

I think that should be all. If you see I've missed any required for this PC to run, please post and tell me! I'd feel stupid forgetting one cable or something. . .

Thanks again.

 

[ScOuT]

The P5N-E 650i is a good motherboard...I have had it for a while now.

- The memory can be an issue. You just need to set all timings manually. You will have to look up even the extended timings for the memory you use. It is very important to run the RAM at the exact voltage that it needs. I have not even been able to boot with a little over or a little under voltage. It also does not like all 4 DIMM slots filled, just run 2 x 2gb sticks and you won't have any issues. I have all 4 DIMMS filled and it took me a few weeks to get everything tuned in.

- The NB chip gets HOT! The stock heat sink almost burns you when you touch it. I bought a 40mm fan and bent two of the fins on the cooler. Put the screws in the fan and just push it onto the cooler. This dropped motherboard temps buy 12c right away.

- I have reached a FSB limit of 1532 MHz. No matter what I do I can not get it any higher! My Q9300 runs 1333 MHz so I can't over clock it very much. If your processor runs at 1066 FSB you'll have some more room to crank it up.

There are better motherboards out there...over all I give it a 7 out of 10. It does run very stable once you get everything set where it needs to be. Here are a few pics for ya.
_______________________________________________________________________

The 40mm fan that cools the NB, for $2 it is well worth the investment.

With the 40mm fan, lapped Hyper TX2 with AS5 and a case with decent airflow...everything runs nice a cool This is a 3 hour burn with Prime95 and I am very happy with those temps!

 

[cohen]

With the 40mm fan, lapped Hyper TX2 with AS5 and a case with decent airflow...everything runs nice a cool This is a 3 hour burn with Prime95 and I am very happy with those temps!

What vista gadget is that??

i want it

 

[ScOuT]

It's the Asus program that you can download on the site. It has about 30 things it can display, but I only have those 3 open. It really is a cool program, you can set all warnings and customize it as you need it.

 

[cohen]

Cool, are you able to give me a link???

 

[ScOuT]

It depends on your motherboard...I did some research on your motherboard and here is your link

The program is called (ASUS PC ProbeII), here is a link to the site...
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

Select your product, series and model. Then it will ask you what operating system you have. This is all the products for your motherboard. Once that is done it will look like this:


+ BIOS (8) [BIOS History]
+ BIOS-Utilities (2)
+ Chipset (1)
+ AUDIO (2)
+ Utilities (6)
+ Manual (11)

Open the utilities tab and download ASUS PC ProbeII.

 

[cohen]

oh, ok,

thanks i search my motherboard and found it.

thanks a lot