Hey spcr, help me with building my first pc

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Sun May 04, 2008 1:05 pm

So ive decided that i want to build my own pc, and i would very much like it to be as quiet as possible. Im only a newbie when it comes to computers, and this will be the first time that i have ever built a pc completely from scratch.

I plan on buying an e8400 as my cpu, and i would like to get the antec p182 case. i would like some advice on what motherboard and other accessories to get. Im not really that much of a heavy gamer, such that i dont need like a card that will play crysis on high.

Which hard drives would be good? I was thinking of getting a 74gb raptor, and then another drive.

My ideal price is around 1000.

Thanks

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Sun May 04, 2008 1:30 pm

Welcome. I'd recomend Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L for motherboard. Good and doesn't breake your budget. For VGA card: HD 3850, HD 3870 or 9600 GT are pretty good. They play most games on high and Crysis is playable at Medium and when you turn some graphical goodies off. Which is pretty admirable. 8800 GT's aren't that expensive either.

Raptors are fast HDD's but generally considered quite loud. Maybe you should think single 500 or 750 GP Western Digital Caviar GP ( GreenPower ) series HDD's which are chamption of SPCR atm.

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Sun May 04, 2008 1:32 pm

well would suspending the raptor make it any quieter? or is there just no way to make it quiet, because im guessing its spinning quite fast..

FartingBob · Post by **FartingBob** » Sun May 04, 2008 1:42 pm

Dont get the raptor. Its not quiet, and its performance is definitely not worth the extra cost. The latest standard speed drives such from samsung and especially WD are much quieter, and nearly as quick.
Of course, the new VeliceRaptor drive (the 2.5" version) is quick and quiet, but way to expensive right now.

For GPU i would highly recommend the Nvidia 9600GT. Its not overly expensive, is very power efficient and is the best bang for your buck right now.

Not a motherboard expert, but the Gigabyte GA P35 series comes highly recommended, with plenty of connectors, a good layout and a fair bit of BIOS options to play with. Theres a thread here explaining the different models in the series.

Power supply is important, don't get a cheap one. The one that comes with the Antec 182 i here is OK, but if you want really quiet computing you'll want to swap it out. But if your not sure then try the included one first and if you need to buy a quieter PSU later.

DO take out the fans that come with the case. Replace them with whatever takes your fancy, i suggest looking over the SPCR recommended fan list for ideas. The Scythe slipstream is currently the favoured choice of many.

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Sun May 04, 2008 2:49 pm

hey thanks for the advice

anybody have my comments or experience about the ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP ATX motherboard? i like it cause it has onboard wifi, and its not too expensive either.

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sun May 04, 2008 2:50 pm

P182 doesn't normally come with a power supply. I'd go for a Corsair VX450W or HX520W if you are doing the P182. I think the cables are long enough (I don't usually buy cases that large, I'm more of a Antec Solo kind of guy).

I'm all for the Scythe slipstreams if you aren't going to use a fan controller go for the 800 RPM version. If you are going to use a fan controller grab one or two of the 1200 RPM version and the rest 800 RPM (you most likely won't need the higher RPMs in most fan positions but it's nice to have one handy when you do, though in a pinch I suppose you could use one of your included tricools). If you get tight on money but plan to go with fan control of some sort (even if it is only doing the 5v mod) the cheap way out is Yate Loon 120mm sleeve bearing fans.

Oh, and seriously read any article on SPCR about the P180, P182 cases. You don't want to just slap a fan in any open position. There are choices to be made about how many fans to use and where to put them.

If you want a performance drive I'd go WD6400AAKS and if you want to save money in the long run I'd go for the 500GB Green Power. Don't worry about Raptors or RAID. Just get a modern drive in the Green Power (250GB Platter) or SE16 series (platter sizes vary you want the 640GB version that has 320GB platters).

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Mon May 05, 2008 4:05 pm

ok got a question, im on ncix.com and im looking for the WD 500gb GP, http://www.ncix.com/search/?categoryid=0&q=WD5000AACS which one is it?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Mon May 05, 2008 6:46 pm

Hello,

I think it is this one:

embedded long URL

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Mon May 05, 2008 7:45 pm

hey thanks neil, i wasnt too sure which it was.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Mon May 05, 2008 9:35 pm

FartingBob wrote:Dont get the raptor. Its not quiet, and its performance is definitely not worth the extra cost. The latest standard speed drives such from samsung and especially WD are much quieter, and nearly as quick.
Of course, the new VeliceRaptor drive (the 2.5" version) is quick and quiet, but way to expensive right now.

I have to agree, there's really no point in getting a Raptor now. It's already 2 years old so others have gained up in speed. But I have to disagree a bit with the loudness part. I happen to own both 150 gb raptor and a Samsung T166 320gb and I prefer Raptor's noise over T166. It probably has a bit to do with the fact that my T166 is housed in Antec MX1-enclosure. I keep the enclosure on my computer table, and when I turn it on, it makes the whole table vibrate. It has louder idle noise and the low rumbling seek noise is imo more annoying then sharp clicks from Raptor.

Too bad VelociRaptor is so expensive in Canada. Here one can be bought for 243â‚¬, not super expensive compared to 164â‚¬ for 1Gb GP. 500Gb GP is probably a fine choice.

bfung wrote:I plan on buying an e8400 as my cpu, and i would like to get the antec p182 case. i would like some advice on what motherboard and other accessories to get. Im not really that much of a heavy gamer, such that i dont need like a card that will play crysis on high.

D8400 is a good choice. Buying a motherboard pretty much depends on what you need or want. For example there's not much difference in features between Abit IP35 Pro and Abit IP35-E, but the price difference is 50â‚¬. Consider if you are willing to pay that extra for potential RAID support, 2 extra sata ports, and extra eSata and 1Gb LAN ports in back panel. If it's features you want, you might also want to postpone your build by a month or so until new motherboards with P45 chipset are released.

About graphics cards... I'd probably get a 9600GSO, that was just launched. It's a bit slower then GT, but it's also cooler and a lot cheaper. For example here in Finland XFX 9600GSO is 104.90â‚¬ and XFX 9600GT is 145.90â‚¬, so it's almost 30% cheaper.

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Mon May 05, 2008 9:49 pm

thanks for the advice, i already got an e8400 and 8600 gt bought so far, so im still looking for the others to buy. you guys are great help, thanks a lot.

figment · Post by **figment** » Tue May 06, 2008 6:24 am

For motherboards, the Gigabyte P35-DS3L is pretty popular. It handles everything you'll need and doesn't waste your time with things you don't. For the price difference, you can get the DS3L and a Wifi card which is as good or better than what the Asus P5K/WIFI. I'm also a big fan of my Abit IP35 Pro because of its nice layout for cabling in the P182 and the integrated fan controller (Abit uGuru's FanEQ controls 5 fans on the Pro model, and only two on the IP35 or IP35-E). I only paid an extra $30-40 for the upgrade from IP35 to IP35 Pro.

For harddrives, I recommend avoiding the Raptor line. It just doesn't fit your requirements. The only advantage Raptor's have is a slightly reduced seek time. Even with hardcore gamers, the benefit is limited. For all other speed tests, the latest 7200rpm drives from WD meet or exceed it, with less noise and a lower price. The 640GB AAKS model is a favorite, but the 500GB sibling is a cheaper (and lower performing) model.

For PSU's you should take a look at the newest Seasonic PSUs, Corsair's line and the Modu82/Pro82 line from Enermax. The Corsair VX series is probably the cheapest. The Corsair HX and Seasonic M12 are both very similar, modular drives. Enermax's Modu82/Pro82 PSU's are the new champions of silence (according to SPCR). I have one of the Modu82 and all of the cords were long enough to run behind the motherboard tray. I'd assume any of the ones I mentioned would be the same.

sjoukew · Post by **sjoukew** » Tue May 06, 2008 12:01 pm

bfung wrote:hey thanks for the advice

anybody have my comments or experience about the ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP ATX motherboard? i like it cause it has onboard wifi, and its not too expensive either.

Asus boards do generally have a good quality and good support. I always had and still have asus motherboards, no complaints.
P5K looks as a nice board to me. The "WiFi" onboard is just an USB2 wifi adapter soldered to the motherboard, but it works

wayner · Post by **wayner** » Tue May 06, 2008 5:43 pm

bfung wrote:hey thanks for the advice

anybody have my comments or experience about the ASUS P5K-E/WIFI-AP ATX motherboard? i like it cause it has onboard wifi, and its not too expensive either.

I just put together a quiet system with this mobo, E8400, an Antec Solo case, Enermax Modu82+ 425PS and a Xigmatek CPU heatsink. No problems with the mobo although I am not really using the wifi since my house is wired with Cat-6.

For hard drives I would recommend the 640GB WD. I use the elastic suspension system that comes with the Solo and the hard drive is essentially inaudible from 2m away.

Plekto · Post by **Plekto** » Wed May 07, 2008 12:30 pm

I have two of the raid specific WD drives and they are almost as fast as a Raptor - 80%+ in raid. If you want to get raid, you need their raid specific drives. If not, get the non-raid ones. The standard Raptor is made for raid use only and while it will work in a pinch as a single drive, it's not nearly as stable. And, yes, they do make the WD Green Power/GP line in raid specific models.

note - I went with two 160GB drives in raid 1 and couldn't be happier. My boot drive is nearly bulletproof(may crash, data will still be recoverable). $120 total.($60 each direct from WD, no less). Makes for a great boot drive. I have a monster WD GP as the apps/files drive. Speed or stability isn't as critical here, obviously.

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Wed May 07, 2008 2:44 pm

hey thanks for the advice, im still having trouble deciding which motherboard. My parts so far are the e8400, bfg 8800 gt, p182, vx550 and a samsung burner.

For my ram, what would be the best deal? im not looking to overclock the ram, so i just need something that will last awhile.

And for the mobo, which one would be good for raiding, cause i would like the p35 models, but i need one that will allow raiding.

thanks

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Wed May 07, 2008 4:30 pm

bfung wrote:hey thanks for the advice, im still having trouble deciding which motherboard. My parts so far are the e8400, bfg 8800 gt, p182, vx550 and a samsung burner.

For my ram, what would be the best deal? im not looking to overclock the ram, so i just need something that will last awhile.

4 Gigs of the cheapest value DDR2 800MHz. Something like this.

And for the mobo, which one would be good for raiding, cause i would like the p35 models, but i need one that will allow raiding.

thanks

If you need raid, Abit IP35 Pro is the motherboard you want. Overall excellent features, motherboard fan controls and it has the required ICH9R south bridge for raid. Anandtech review of the board. But IP35 Pro can be expensive, so it's ok to pick a cheaper motherboard as long as it has P35 north bridge and ICH9R south bridge. MSI P35 Neo2-FR is the cheapest one in newegg, and it should be a decent motherboard. Again, Anandtech review.

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Mon May 12, 2008 9:11 pm

im still deciding between the 640gb double platter WD drive, or the 500gb GP, they both seem the same, and the prices arent that far off, any recommendations from SPCR?

figment · Post by **figment** » Mon May 12, 2008 9:15 pm

The 640 AAKS is the faster, higher-performance drive, but it is slightly noiser (but still really quiet) and uses more electricity.

The 500 GP is a little slower, though for most use, you'd probably never even notice (due to the larger cache). It also uses less electricity and is almost silent.

Either one is an excellent choice. If you need the extra 140 GB, then the 640 is the way to go. If not, then the 500 GP seems to be the "responsible" (to the environment and to your ears) choice.

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Tue May 13, 2008 1:36 am

figment wrote:The 640 AAKS is the faster, higher-performance drive, but it is slightly noiser (but still really quiet) and uses more electricity.

The 500 GP is a little slower, though for most use, you'd probably never even notice (due to the larger cache). It also uses less electricity and is almost silent.

Either one is an excellent choice. If you need the extra 140 GB, then the 640 is the way to go. If not, then the 500 GP seems to be the "responsible" (to the environment and to your ears) choice.

I would have said the same thing, if not for...

bfung wrote:And for the mobo, which one would be good for raiding, cause i would like the p35 models, but i need one that will allow raiding.

Play it safe and get RE (Raid Edition) of the Green Powers. I'm not sure, if they have REs of the 640 model. If they do, at least they aren't available where I live. But I do know WD sells Caviar RE2-GP 500GBs.

And here's the marketing spin on RE2s:

"WD Caviar RE2 hard drives employ RAFF (Rotary Accelerometer Feed Forward) technology, which maintains drive performance in servers and storage arrays where rotational vibration robs performance. Time Limited Error Recovery (TLER), a WD feature, maximizes WD Caviar RE2 reliability in the enterprise by coordinating error handling with RAID controllers to help prevent drive fallout caused by extended desktop hard drive error-recovery processes."

My 2 cents.

figment · Post by **figment** » Tue May 13, 2008 6:06 am

Erssa wrote:I would have said the same thing, if not for...
bfung wrote:And for the mobo, which one would be good for raiding, cause i would like the p35 models, but i need one that will allow raiding.
Play it safe and get RE (Raid Edition) of the Green Powers. I'm not sure, if they have REs of the 640 model. If they do, at least they aren't available where I live. But I do know WD sells Caviar RE2-GP 500GBs.

I didn't see that. I'm normally against raid unless someone has a really strong reason to do it. I guess my advice would be amended to ditch the raid and go with one of the drives mentioned.

If not, I know there is a AAKS-like RAID versions, but it is much harder to find. I guess I'd agree that the GP RE's are the way to go.

Plekto · Post by **Plekto** » Tue May 13, 2008 1:17 pm

Yes, RE for raid, non RE for single drives. They do make GPs in both, and you can order them directly from WD's site - sometimes the prices are as good or better than NewEgg.

edit: the RE have a special change in their hardware so that they don't try to do error correction when they hit a bad bit of data. They just immediately give up on reading bad data and/or try the other drives in the array if it's mirroring - and then fail(CRC error - bad file)). It keeps the drives from being dropped from the array for other types of raid unless there is an actual hardware failure.

This is a big deal, IMO, especially if you are using onboard raid as opposed to a dedicated high quality card. Normal drives will try for up to several minutes to get at the data, grinding away before timing out. By that time, it's dropped of of the array and you have a much bigger problem than a bad sector or two - a full reformat and rebuild. And onboard raid controllers can have caching and similar timeouts for heavy usage. This feature gives the drive a few seconds and gives up - no dropping.

Me, I'd rather crash my program than crash my array. It's a good feature that WD adds that most others don't. It's also why my work uses these WD drives whenever it can for their raid setups. Plus, the 5 year warranty is good

http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2579-001098.pdf

Erssa · Post by **Erssa** » Tue May 13, 2008 9:45 pm

Plekto wrote:It's a good feature that WD adds that most others don't.

Others have it as well. Seagate's implementation has it's own name for it. So does Samsung's and Hitachi's feature.

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Wed May 14, 2008 9:46 pm

Samsung 203S TruDirect 20X SATA DVD Writer Lightscribe Black OEM W/

500GB SATA II CAVIAR GREEN

G.SKILL F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ PC2-8000 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-1000 CL5-5-5-15

Enermax EMD425AWT MODU82+ 425W ATX12V V2.3 24PIN Power Supply

Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L ATX LGA775 P35 1333FSB 1PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 3PCI

Antec Solo Quiet Mini Tower Case ATX Silver Black 4X5.25 4X3.5INT No PS

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Dual Core Processor LGA775 3.0GHZ Wolfdale 1333FSB 6MB Retail

BFG GeForce 8600GT OC Ti 565MHZ 512MB 1.4GHZ GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDTV Out HDCP Video Card

so those are the parts that i have looked and considered so far, but im still not really sure about getting a solo, or a p182. fans and heatsinks will be looked at after.

Plekto · Post by **Plekto** » Fri May 16, 2008 3:09 pm

Erssa wrote:
Plekto wrote:It's a good feature that WD adds that most others don't.
Others have it as well. Seagate's implementation has it's own name for it. So does Samsung's and Hitachi's feature.

I checked - you're right. Nice to know.

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Wed May 21, 2008 6:35 pm

if i am planning on running windows xp, should i get 4gigs of ram? or just stick with two?

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Wed May 21, 2008 7:22 pm

bfung wrote:if i am planning on running windows xp, should i get 4gigs of ram? or just stick with two?

This is debatable. Genrally two is enough, but some will argue that 4GB is a cheap investment. I say stick with two for now. After you get your final price tag, if you still have some budget left, get 4GB. (BTW, WinXP can't see all 4GB of RAM. It will max out at 3.something. This is a limitation of a 32bit OS.)

I'd also like to ask what this system will be used for and how much gaming will you be doing.

Why are you considering RAID? If you aren't considering it, I'd recommend the WD640AAKS over the GP.

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Wed May 21, 2008 7:47 pm

ive decided not to raid, and im going to get the 500gb green power, as i dont really need speed as much as i want quiet. Its not going to be a heavy gaming machine, i just want a machine that will be quiet, but yet it can still be used for casual gaming.

bfung · Post by **bfung** » Sat May 24, 2008 12:00 pm

which powersupply would be better in a solo, modu82+ 425W or the vx550?

angelkiller · Post by **angelkiller** » Sat May 24, 2008 2:32 pm

Judging by a noise comparison between the VX650 and the Modu82+ 625, the Modu82+ 625 has a slight edge at all wattages. I would assume the same to be true for thier little brothers, the Modu82+ 425W and TX550. I think the Modu82+ is the quieter power supply. However, I'd like to note that both of these PSUs are very quiet.