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MadReaper

Newcomer
What's up everyone? Building a new gaming rig. Need some advice, I'm quite behind on Computers(last computer I built was a P4 1.7 about 5 years ago). Just want to know what you guys think about what I have picked out so far.

CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115036

Case
Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021

Graphics Card
VisionTek 900241 Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814129112

Power Supply
Antec EA650 650W ATX12V Ver.2.2 / EPS12V version 2.91 Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371015

Ram
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145184

Motherboard
ASUS P5N-EM HDMI LGA 775 NVIDIA GeForce 7100/nForce 630i HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131229

CPU Fan
ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro 92mm CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134

Total $932

Thanks for any help.
 
Do you plan to overclock? If so, an E7200 would be a fantastic and cheaper replacement for that E8500 -- or if you don't want to ditch the cache, an E8200 is damn-near guaranteed to overclock to the same limit. This is coming from the owner of an E8400 that did 4.4Ghz daily; the E8200 or E7200 is the best buy you can make in the 45nm dual cores. That is, IF you're going to overclock :)

If you're not going to overclock, I suggest buying the E8400. Why? Because it's (within the margin of testing error) going to perform pretty much the same as the E8500, but will save you $80. With that $80, you should buy this board instead: ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Now you have a P45 chipset which will perform far better, and you now also have Crossfire capability at the full 16x PCI-E speed. You now have an upgrade path to a quad (which you can't do in a 6xx series board.)
 
I'd stay away from Arctic Cooling fans. While some of their designs are very good and clever, I've not had a single AC fan that hasn't developed an annoying rattle after 12-24 months, and even had one fan on a CPU cooler seize up. That's their case, cooler and graphics cooler fans that I've had these problems on over a period of several years. Their ceramic bearings seems to have a fatal flaw.

Now I recommend Noctua fans with their very quiet fluid bearings. Noctua also make CPU coolers. They are not as cheap as Arctic Cooling - but the difference in quality for the price you pay really shows.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Albuquerque said:
Do you plan to overclock? If so, an E7200 would be a fantastic and cheaper replacement for that E8500 -- or if you don't want to ditch the cache, an E8200 is damn-near guaranteed to overclock to the same limit. This is coming from the owner of an E8400 that did 4.4Ghz daily; the E8200 or E7200 is the best buy you can make in the 45nm dual cores. That is, IF you're going to overclock :)

If you're not going to overclock, I suggest buying the E8400. Why? Because it's (within the margin of testing error) going to perform pretty much the same as the E8500, but will save you $80. With that $80, you should buy this board instead: ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Now you have a P45 chipset which will perform far better, and you now also have Crossfire capability at the full 16x PCI-E speed. You now have an upgrade path to a quad (which you can't do in a 6xx series board.)
Click to expand...

To be honest I have never OC'ed anything before. I'm on a $1000 budget and don't have the money to replace anything I break. (or burn down the house :D)

So I'm probably gonna take your advice on the E8400 and the mobo. I'm actually quite worried about the power supply I picked out(my last 2 just died on me :grumble grumble:)
 
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
I'd stay away from Arctic Cooling fans. While some of their designs are very good and clever, I've not had a single AC fan that hasn't developed an annoying rattle after 12-24 months, and even had one fan on a CPU cooler seize up. That's their case, cooler and graphics cooler fans that I've had these problems on over a period of several years. Their ceramic bearings seems to have a fatal flaw.

Now I recommend Noctua fans with their very quiet fluid bearings. Noctual also make CPU coolers. They are not as cheap as Arctic Cooling - but the difference in quality for the price you pay really shows.
Click to expand...

I know exactly what you mean, my current PC sounds like I left a chainsaw running in there. Thanks for the advice I'll look into it.

Apologies for the double post.
 
MadReaper said:
To be honest I have never OC'ed anything before. I'm on a $1000 budget and don't have the money to replace anything I break. (or burn down the house :D)

So I'm probably gonna take your advice on the E8400 and the mobo. I'm actually quite worried about the power supply I picked out(my last 2 just died on me :grumble grumble:)
Click to expand...

If you're paranoid about the PS(And I don't blame you. I've had four, yes four, fail on me.), here's one that's gotten very good reviews: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007

500 watts is plenty.
 
It's not about figuring out if the power supply can handle the system, it's about figuring out at which load amount does the PSU become most efficient. Also by staying well under maximum load the PSU will likely never raise its fan speed, therefore not being loud.
 
The PSU I.S.T. recommends seems like a good quality one ... but the single 80 mm fan PSUs are never going to be quiet. If you want something in that price class I'd go for this :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139003

If you are willing to spend a little more get a Corsair HX or a Enermax Modu82+ model.

Going for a 90mm cooler makes absolutely no sense (especially with such a monster case). Get a 120mm tower cooler, better cooling and more silent to boot. Something like this :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835887016

PS. you could fit all this in a Antec Solo too ... isn't the 900 a bit overkill? :)

PPS. if you want a real quiet setup replacing all the fans with Noctua ones will help (although probably not if you need to replace a fan in the horizontal plane, that's still best handled by ball bearing fans ... for instance the Scythe mini-bea).
 
I'd personally go with a Antec Three Hundred and put some sort of silent fans in it such as Noctuna's or Scythe's already mentioned. It's much more low profile (no ugly LEDs) than the Nine Hundred and at it's current price a damn good deal. I'm actually thinking about going this route myself, though I'd be "downgrading" (price wise only IMO) from a P180B. The P180B has a slight air intake issue and as you can see in Antec's latest designs actually splitting the case into two chambers isn't the great idea.
 
Chambers are not necessary, but the bottom mounted PSU makes room for a real fan on top and allows the PSU fan to run at lower RPM (and it's usually one of the noisiest fans, so that's good).
 
MfA said:
The PSU I.S.T. recommends seems like a good quality one ... but the single 80 mm fan PSUs are never going to be quiet. If you want something in that price class I'd go for this :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139003
Click to expand...
I've actually never had a problem with noisy PSU's(lucky?). Also shouldn't I stick with 500w if I plan on sticking another 4850 down the road?

MfA said:
Going for a 90mm cooler makes absolutely no sense (especially with such a monster case). Get a 120mm tower cooler, better cooling and more silent to boot. Something like this :
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835887016
Click to expand...
hmm...looks like alot less hassle too. Thanks!

MfA said:
PS. you could fit all this in a Antec Solo too ... isn't the 900 a bit overkill? :)
Click to expand...
You know after I posted I started thinking how fugly it looks too. I've actually been looking at the Antec 300. Seems nice, I think I might just get that.

Thanks for the advice fellas.
 
Noisy is relative, if you replace all your fans with noctuas, suspend your HD and put a Accelero S1 on your video card the 80mm fan in your PSU will become quite loud :)

The wattage of the Antec PSU is deceptive, because it's dual rail vs. Corsair's single rail. You won't generally be pulling a balanced load on the rails, so you will run into problems long before you hit the max wattage on the Antec (some of the higher end Corsair's are also multirail in name, but they simply couple the rails when you pull too much power from one). I'd bet that most of the time the VX450W can service heavier loaded systems than the Antec EA500.

For a couple tenners more you can get the Corsair VX550W.
 
MfA said:
Noisy is relative, if you replace all your fans with noctuas, suspend your HD and put a Accelero S1 on your video card the 80mm fan in your PSU will become quite loud :)

The wattage of the Antec PSU is deceptive, because it's dual rail vs. Corsair's single rail. You won't generally be pulling a balanced load on the rails, so you will run into problems long before you hit the max wattage on the Antec (some of the higher end Corsair's are also multirail in name, but they simply couple the rails when you pull too much power from one). I'd bet that most of the time the VX450W can service heavier loaded systems than the Antec EA500.

For a couple tenners more you can get the Corsair VX550W.
Click to expand...

Alright thanks, I think actually understood most of that.

So far I have

Antec Three Hundred (actually still thinking about this one)
ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45
CORSAIR CMPSU-450VX
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM
Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb
ZEROtherm ZEN FZ120 120mm CPU Cooler
VisionTek Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit

I decided to switch out the 4850 to 4870(I kust know I'm gonna regret getting a 4850 later)

Sorry if I'm being annoying asking so many questions, but I'm used to buying ATI cards made by ATI and it seems they stopped manufacturing their own cards. Can anyone tell me does Visiontek at least make decent cards? Unlike Sapphire(Don't ask horrible memories)

Thanks again I knew I wouldn't regret coming here first.
 
I think sapphire used to make the ATI cards you bought :)

Visiontek has a good warranty that is what you need.
 
I.S.T. said:
If you're paranoid about the PS(And I don't blame you. I've had four, yes four, fail on me.), here's one that's gotten very good reviews: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007

500 watts is plenty.
Click to expand...

And I just received the one I ordered. The cool part is the PSU label on the 500 I received lists 12v at 22amp on each of the two rails--as opposed to the NewEgg shots showing 17amp. Nice.

My favorite PSU is the Corsair 620HX but it is a bit more expensive.
 
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