Thread: Building my first computer...

So i'm going to take advantage of newegg's black friday sales and build my first computer. I was hoping to get some input on what others think of what I'm planning on getting and if there are any known incompatibilities or other serious issues with the parts I'm planning on getting. Here's the rig:

AMD Phenom II x4 970 3.5Ghz BE Deneb
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890GX
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB)
HIS Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM
COOLER MASTER Black Steel ATX Full Tower
SAMSUNG CD/DVD Burner

I'm pretty sure this will be a good setup and everything should be fine. What I was more concerned with is what PSU to get. Based on the calculators I've used, I need somewhere between 500-550W. I've read that its probably better to get a 600W+ PSU. I do plan on overclocking and using crossfirex with the onboard graphics. I don't really know much about this crossfirex/SLI technology though.

so for PSU's I'm looking at these so far:
Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power ATX12V
SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W ATX12V
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V

The 650W is $70 with a $30 MIR, the SeaSonic is $120, and the Corsair is $95 with a $25 prepaid card from corsair.

I'd like to just get the cheaper 650W to save money as all three seem to be quality PSU's with good reviews but if there's a reason to get one of the 750W PSU's I'd rather spend the extra money.


I'll be placing the order tonight as that's when a lot of their sales end but any responses are appreciated.



Edit: I have the parts on a wishlist on newegg but I'm not sure how to share it. It's titled "Shade's new rig" but it doesn't show up when I search for it so I don't know if others can see it.

Also, do I need to get a heatsink/cpu cooler or is the one that comes with the CPU good enough? I've read that this CPU can be overclocked to 3.9GHz without upping the voltage.

Graphics Card

The last time I checked, you can't run CrossfireX with your on board graphics. Even if you could, it would make that 5770 run dreadfully slow. CrossfireX configs will only run as fast as your SLOWEST card. Something to remember for when you want to get a second card to go along with that 5770. I would normally "insert here" my recommendation for you to consider the Nvidia GTX 460 over the ATI 5770, but that is a super good price for a 5770. It is so super that you should go for the CrossfireX setup now and just buy two of them!

PSU

First off for the PSU, there are two things you should look for: Is it 80+ certified and what is the noise level? 80+ certified is a measure of efficiency. It means that your PSU is using 80% or more of the electricity from your wall and converting it into usable energy for your computer. Energy is never wasted, so the rest of the energy comes off as heat. This is why PSUs have heat sinks and fans in them. Obviously non-80+ certified PSUs are less efficient and generate more heat.

Secondly, if you are considering going CrossfireX, I highly recommend going 700w or higher. It is always better to have some extra power on hand. You never know when you will be adding a second or third hard drive, blu ray drive, beefy add on sound card, or whatever your heart desires. Having to fork over an extra $150-200 for a PSU when adding this hardware will suck. You are better off spending the extra $25-50 now.

CPU Cooler

Unless you want to go liquid cooling, I can't recommend any other air cooler than the Cooler Master Hyper 212+. I just recommended this same cooler to Arreo and he pointed out that it is only $15 after mail in rebate. I was overclocking my Core i5-760 to 4.0 GHz with this cooler before I upgraded to the Corsair H70 liquid cooler. I recommend getting a pair of high flow 120mm fans and run in push-pull config.

Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7 compatible RR-B10-212P-G1 120mm "heatpipe direct contact" Long life sleeve CPU Cooler

CPU

I have read a lot of promising things about this CPU. It comes clocked at 3.5 GHz... none of that turbo mode bullshit and is also unlocked. This thing should be able to blow the 4.0 GHz mark by a mile. This is probably the only CPU that I would recommend for a budget gaming system over the Intel Core i5-750/760.

Overall, this should be a killer system. I recommend going CrossfireX now. Although you will probably notice a huge difference in this upgrade now, running CrossfireX will make a huge difference in the games with more demanding graphics.

yeah i wasn't really wanting to spend another $100+ for a 2nd graphics card. I remember reading something about using the onboard graphics card in what they call hybrid crossfire. It's just supposed to save on power consumption as it's supposed to use the onboard for low end graphic stuff and the graphics card for everything else. That way you're not always running the graphics card. Although this would then cut back on the CPU performance but w/e I'll have to play around with it I guess.

I ended up spending a bit more to get a 750W PSU. It's modular and was only $80 (normally $160.)

Just ordered that CPU cooler.... I'm really considering getting a second card though. sale ends tues. so i have til then to decide. So for the push pull config, do I need to get another fan? or would the fan that comes with that CPU cooler and the fan that comes with my CPU work? I don't know the size of fan that comes with the CPU but it's probably too small...


Just for shits and giggles. What processors beat this one out? Other than intel's extreme edition 6 core. Most programs don't utilize multiple cores well enough to make 6 cores much better than 4 cores especially since this is faster than the 6cores i've looked at. Maybe I just haven't spent enough time looking around but as far as desktop processors go I thought this was pretty much top of the line.

How does the
PCI Express 2.0 x16: 2 (x16 or x8, x8 )
spec for the mobo affect using crossfirex? when using 2 cards i'd have to do x8 which is a drop from x16. I guess i just don't understand enough about pci express 2.0 yet. but having 2 cards would be worth the cash even with them having to run in x8?

As a fellow 5770 owner, i would recommend getting a second card. Don't get me wrong, the 5770 can run most games perfectly fine. But when you start running some of the newer games on high graphics settings, you will notice frequent framerate decreases.

But if all you're going to do is play CSS you should get a pretty steady 200+ fps with what you have, that's about what I get.

Xigmatek Gaia SD1283 : Roundup: Six Sub-$40 Performance CPU Coolers Compared

that seems to be similar to what heavy recommended in design and functionality. i already ordered the one he recommended. thanks for the info raush i'll definitely go ahead and order a second card tonight.

... damn they sold out of those cards... and there's nothing $100 or less for the 5770... So I figure it would be best to get another 5770 if i'm going to do crossfirex. Does the manufacturer matter? The only differences I can see is what kind of cooling they use which determines how much they can be overclocked by. It seems like it would be best to get a cheaper 5770 since the one i currently have doesn't have anything special for cooling and overclocking. Is this right?

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V

I have that exact PSU....I'd definitely go Corsair.

Originally Posted by DCBA-25

How does the
PCI Express 2.0 x16: 2 (x16 or x8, x8 )
spec for the mobo affect using crossfirex? when using 2 cards i'd have to do x8 which is a drop from x16. I guess i just don't understand enough about pci express 2.0 yet. but having 2 cards would be worth the cash even with them having to run in x8?

You likely have 16 total lanes for PCI-Express. This means you can run 1 card at 16x or 2 cards at 8x each. The good news is that even the beefiest graphics card on the market does not even fully utilize 8x. You should be fine with 8x, 8x when running Crossfire. I am runnint 8x, 8x with my SLI setup and it does great.

Some higher end motherboards offer 16x, 16x support for SLI/Crossfire, but nothing will utilize it. You are essentially wasting your money.

^^Thanks for clearing that up for me heavy. So I'd be fine getting any other 5770 for crossfirex since the one I'm getting doesn't really have anything too special for cooling/overclocking?