Building A New PC - A Little Help Please?

[What's A User Name?]

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/index.php?page=form&&select=intel2

Hello people of this forum! I was directed here by Chalex after he helped me with the building of the PC. What PC? This PC:



CPU - Intel Core DUO E7400 (2 x 2.80 GHz) 1066 HZ
Ram - 4GB Corsair XMS2 800MHz (2x1gb)
Motherboard - ASUS P5QL: DDR2 SATAII PCI-e x16. 3 PCI, 2x PCI-e x1
OS - Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit
USB - AS STANDARD (6 rear 2 front)
Memory (1st) - 320GB Serial ATA II Hard Drive with 8MB cache (7,200 rpm)
CD drive (1st) - 22x Dual Layer Lightscribe dvd writer
Graphics card - 512MB Geforce 9800GT PCI
Sound Card - (As Standard)
Modem - I'll be using broadband
Network - Wireless N 300Mbps PCI card
Memory Card reader - INTERNAL 52 in 1 Card Reader
Case - Stylish Silver/Black Sigma Case +2 front usb
Power Supply/Case Cooling - 600W Quiet Dual Rail PSU
Processor Cooling - SUPER QUIET 22dBA Triple Cpper Heatpipe

(Loads of nones)

Office Software - Microsoft Works 9 (£8)
Warrenty - The £5 one
Deliver and Buld time - as standard



So, If you enter all of those and click tell me the price, it doesn't come up with any error screens. I just have a few questions to clear up -

Will The 4GB corsair ram work with the motherboard?

Will the 52 in 1 card reader work with the case (A list of cases found here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/index.php?page=imagesindex)


Steam says that this rig should be able to play L4D and Bioshock well above the recommended settings, plus Crysis above the recommended (Not gonna get crysis, though)

Thank you very much in advance!

[Isphera]

Welcome to the community. I wouldn't bother with Microsoft Works 9, you can get OpenOffice.org for free.

AFAIK - The RAM should work and the 52 in 1 card reader should also. But I am not the best person to talk to when it comes to hardware, so you might want Chalex, Col. Mitch and Phantom to answer before you buy.

[Vicious Horizon]

Yeah, welcome to the community.
I'm presuming that you're building it yourself? A tip is: Build it near a radiator, and when fitting the parts, touch one hand on the earthed copper so you dont short out the circuits, I learnt that the hard way :(

So yeah, I'd wait for Mitch and Phantom to waddle over here because I'm not great when it comes to hardware :)

[VoX]

The P5QL will require a BIOS update to be able to use the XMS2 RAM, unless of-course Asus are doing this out of the factory now. Go for OCZ Vista Gold, it's cheaper and the reviews say that Vista absolutely loves it, plus it always tends to work with the P5Q Motherboards.

You won't need a 600W PSU to run that, but it's worth keeping in if you plan to upgrade in the future.

Welcome to ATK :D.

(Moved to Gaming, Hardware and Software Forum)

[What's A User Name?]

Oh.


Probably should have pointed this out - I'm a noob when it comes to jargon.

No, I'm not building this myself. They do it in teh factoriez! People have said that just putting 'Sigma case' in the tab, they'll give me the MX one anyway, becasue there is no option to order the MX.

The RAM - The Vista Home Premium 32 bit costs alot, so not gonna change that. All I wanna know is if, when I take out the computer, plug it and and start the backup, it will work.

Really sorry to be a bit tetchy, but this has taken months to get together.

Thanks!

[Calneon]

It would be great to know your budget, because there are a few things we could improve for little cost but give a large performance boost. It's a shame that the site you linked to doesn't give prices, would make it much easier. I'd recommend http://www.overclockers.co.uk/index.phphttp://www.overclockers.co.uk/index.php or Scan (http://www.scan.co.uk/) to buy from, I know they have good prices and are reliable. Lets take a look at your choices.

CPU
A good choice for just over £100, though you could consider getting an 8200/8400 for slightly more if the budget allows. You could also get the Q6600 if you do a lot of rendering/encoding, stuff like that.

Motherboard
Good choice. Just make sure it has all the features you want, and if you plan on getting a 4850 GFX card you may want to get an X38/X48 Motherboard so you can add a second in Crossfire later.

RAM
VoX, i'm interested to know where you got your information about the RAM and MB compatability from, AFAIK it should work out of the box, it's just normal DDR2 800mhz RAM. If VoX is right it might be worth getting the OCZ RAM.

HDD
Is that a branded model, because it doesn't say so. I'd recommend a Samsung Spinpoint F1 Drive, based on reviews. Get a 500GB version and you're set, it has twice the cache of the one you're looking at.

Graphics card
A 9800GT is just a rebranded 8800GT, they are basically identical cards. Get an ATI 4850 for slightly more cost, but much better performance.

PSU
If that PSU is unbranded, I would highly recommend spending the same ammount of money on a lower wattage branded PSU. A Corsair HX520 powers my GTX280 card fine, so it will handle a 4850 with ease, and you know it's not going to explode and take your whole PC with it.

I really need to know your budget if i'm to draw up a list for you, so it would be great if you could provide that. A few other things, try to get Vista under an educational discount (if you're still in education). The card reader should say where it fits, either in the floppy or disk drive, make sure you have enough on your case. Microsoft works is a toned down version of Office, with less features, so either buy full Microsoft Office or get Open Office as Oric said.

The PC you specced will run Bioshock and L4D at pretty much max settings depending on what resolution you play at, and it will have a good go at Crysis. Though you should still consider getting a better card just so you can handle future games and if you upgrade your monitor.

[What's A User Name?]

It would be great to know your budget, because there are a few things we could improve for little cost but give a large performance boost. It's a shame that the site you linked to doesn't give prices, would make it much easier. I'd recommend http://www.overclockers.co.uk/index.phphttp://www.overclockers.co.uk/index.php or Scan (http://www.scan.co.uk/) to buy from, I know they have good prices and are reliable. Lets take a look at your choices.

CPU
A good choice for just over £100, though you could consider getting an 8200/8400 for slightly more if the budget allows. You could also get the Q6600 if you do a lot of rendering/encoding, stuff like that.

Motherboard
Good choice. Just make sure it has all the features you want, and if you plan on getting a 4850 GFX card you may want to get an X38/X48 Motherboard so you can add a second in Crossfire later.

RAM
VoX, i'm interested to know where you got your information about the RAM and MB compatability from, AFAIK it should work out of the box, it's just normal DDR2 800mhz RAM. If VoX is right it might be worth getting the OCZ RAM.

HDD
Is that a branded model, because it doesn't say so. I'd recommend a Samsung Spinpoint F1 Drive, based on reviews. Get a 500GB version and you're set, it has twice the cache of the one you're looking at.

Graphics card
A 9800GT is just a rebranded 8800GT, they are basically identical cards. Get an ATI 4850 for slightly more cost, but much better performance.

PSU
If that PSU is unbranded, I would highly recommend spending the same ammount of money on a lower wattage branded PSU. A Corsair HX520 powers my GTX280 card fine, so it will handle a 4850 with ease, and you know it's not going to explode and take your whole PC with it.

I really need to know your budget if i'm to draw up a list for you, so it would be great if you could provide that. A few other things, try to get Vista under an educational discount (if you're still in education). The card reader should say where it fits, either in the floppy or disk drive, make sure you have enough on your case. Microsoft works is a toned down version of Office, with less features, so either buy full Microsoft Office or get Open Office as Oric said.

The PC you specced will run Bioshock and L4D at pretty much max settings depending on what resolution you play at, and it will have a good go at Crysis. Though you should still consider getting a better card just so you can handle future games and if you upgrade your monitor.



It does tell you the price. Just input the info, and at the bottom, go 'Tell Me The Price'.

I'm around £50 over the budget. And, quite frnakly, with people from all over telling me to change so and so, etc, I WANT TO KILL MYSELF. This will play games on good settings for the next few years, and after that, maybe I'll get a new Graphics card, I dunno. I think you all for the input, but god almighty is this stressful. I'm happy with what I have. Very happy. I just want to know if it will WORK. I don't care if so ans so are sort of the same, or whatever, I just wanna know that if I use that Ram with the motherboard, it'll work etc.

Thank you all for you input, but I just wanna lock myself in a darkened room and cry D:

[Calneon]

Well, if they are building it for you, i'd be highly surprised if it DIDN'T work. That's the benefit of having somebody else build it right? Sorry, but the fact that you wanted to know if it would all work together made me think that you were building it yourself.

[What's A User Name?]

Well, if they are building it for you, i'd be highly surprised if it DIDN'T work. That's the benefit of having somebody else build it right? Sorry, but the fact that you wanted to know if it would all work together made me think that you were building it yourself.


It's cool. Anyway - the big question that has taken me months to find out - Will it work? Will the ram be 4gb, will the graphics card be good enough, will 600W be fine?

Thanks

[Calneon]

Like I said before, they wouldn't send you a PC that didn't work. 600W is plenty. When you say good enough, what did you plan on doing? Good enough for what?

[What's A User Name?]

Like I said before, they wouldn't send you a PC that didn't work. 600W is plenty. When you say good enough, what did you plan on doing? Good enough for what?

L4D, Bioshock, and a lot of this years games. I've also found out the 32 and 64 bit Vista are the same price, so I'll get 64

[VoX]

PSU doesn't make any difference in games, a branded 500W will handle that system perfectly fine.

Phantom, a review on Overclockers said about Corsair RAM being incompatible and a review on the P5QE (I'll dig it out later) said how the system wouldn't post with the Corsair RAM, so they used a different brand to get it to post, then updated the BIOS and then switched back to benchmark.

[Calneon]

The PC you specced will run Bioshock and L4D at pretty much max settings depending on what resolution you play at, and it will have a good go at Crysis. Though you should still consider getting a better card just so you can handle future games and if you upgrade your monitor.
Read my replies please.

[Colonel Mitch]

yeah make sure u get 64 bit if ur getting 4gb of ram as 32 bit can only use 3gb

[Calneon]

yeah make sure u get 64 bit if ur getting 4gb of ram as 32 bit can only use 3gb
It depends on how much memory your graphics card and sound card (and other stuff that use memory) are using. Eg, If you have a 512MB GFX card, then you can use 3.5GB of memory.