Thread: First Build/Upgrade

With new releases such as skyrim, rage, and bf3 coming up I decide that its time to upgrade the old family rig. This will be my first build minus the parts already installed.

Old Parts:

• Antec 900 Case: Case works great just have to dust it off.
• Zalman CNPS9700 LED CPU cooler: I'm going to keep the cpu cooler on the current rig for the upgrade. Its five years old but works great and I have to double check but it should work with LGA 1155 socket on my motherboard.
• Thermaltake Toughpower Cable Management 750W PSU: I know its 5 years old like the other parts and should probably be replaced but it works great and no problems right now. Its modular and supports SLI and its 750W which is exactly what I need. I just have to double check all the cables will fit with the motherboard.
• Smsung CD - DVD Burner: Works. Dont need blu ray.
• A Vantex Nexus fan controller: Works fine

New Parts:

• Motherboard: I was going to get the B3 version until i saw this updated model. Been through a couple bios updates and looks stable even though its pretty new. Future proof with Ivy Bridge and PCIe 3.0 and is a great price.
• RAM: 8gb is fine for me at 1333. The i5 I'm pretty doesn't support 1600 and ram is extremely cheap that if I have to upgrade it won't be that expensive. I chose this particular one because its supported by the motherboard on the ASRock website.
• GPU: I think taking 2 - 3 steps down from the top card is the best for the value. Some of the higher cards are way to much for little increase in performance. I don't really need big anti -aliasing or any of the those features that much- I can barely tell the difference in multiplayer games and don't really care. If the 880Mhz core clock and 2gb is correct I think that this a really good deal if they restock it soon.
• HDD: Nothing special. I'm not getting an SSD until the prices become lower in a year or so.
• Keyboard: Best keyboard for the price. Does conflict with the color scheme I have going but so does the ram.
• Surge Suppressor: Good review and pretty cheap
• Thermal Paste: Looks like the best out there and easy to use judging by the method Paul used in the video.
• Cleaner: Going to use to clean off the paste on the old cpu cooler.
• Mouse: The only decent left-handed mouse out there thats not too expensive
• CPU @ Microcenter $190 total: I'm getting the i5 2500k at microcenter since its only about 40min away. I'm going to be mostly gaming and don't need the extra threads i guess that the 2600k comes with for the price. Also, instead of paying extra for the 2600k I am probably going to wait for the ivy bridge to come out and get that instead in a year as my board supports that.
• Monitar @ Best Buy $180 total: 23 inch acer LED 2ms VGA/DVI/HMDI and 3 year warrenty. Very good deal imo.

I've done a lot of research and this is the best I have come up with for a 1kish budget. The computer is going to be mostly for gaming and eventually when I hope to transfer to U of M use it for adobe applications and stuff. I just have to double check the cpu cooler will fit on the board and that my power supply will work as I clean out the old one. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Pretty solid build. RAM speed doesn't mean much these days unless you plan on seriously overclocking, so I wouldn't worry about that. It seems for your purposes, a card in the $180-250 range is the sweetspot. I think there is something better than Arctic Silver but I can't remember the name; Ceramique or something?

If you have 95% or higher isopropyl alcohol with NO fragrances, you can use that and coffee filters to remove thermal paste instead of buying that stuff from Arctic Silver. Really, any microfiber cloth (something that doesn't leave behind threads or fibers) would work to clean off thermal paste, but nearly everyone already has coffee filters.

Personal taste, I love mechanical keyboards and can recommend the standard Razer Blackwidow. It is very affordable and works extremely well. It is not a silent keyboard, though. Those tend to cost a bit more and use either Cherry MX brown/blue switches or a Topre switch.

Monitors are the toughest buy, always. I prefer IPS panels for the better colors and viewing angles with a matte finish to the screen. As you are building a gaming rig, the most important stat on a monitor is input lag. This is different than response time and is rarely advertised or listed in official specs; you generally have to do a good bit of refresh to figure it out. I think the number to aim for there is less than 16ms since that is the border at which you start getting a full frame behind (assuming 60 fps).

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

Be sure your DVD burner is SATA interface; I planned to use an older burner on my recent upgrade, and forgot it was IDE. Had to buy a SATA drive locally for 50% more than Newegg's price.

Use the Antec Diamond paste! No cure time. No need to reapply ever!

Thermaltake Toughpower Cable Management 750W PSU: I know its 5 years old like the other parts and should probably be replaced but it works great and no problems right now. Its modular and supports SLI and its 750W which is exactly what I need. I just have to double check all the cables will fit with the motherboard.

I would reconsider this. Powersupplys lose wattage over time, so you don't really know how much it can do. 5 years is around where all of my psu's have died.... usually right after I added just 1 more cd drive, or hard drive.....

....yea I am not going to argue a ton, but like I said....

You do not know what it can do....

Originally Posted by kibner

Input lag
Colors
Response time
Resolution/size
Viewing angles
Unique features (3d, 1:1 scaling, etc.)
Ports/connectors
Backlight bleed
Stand
A bag of cheetos
Contrast ratio

Never even knew about input lag thanks. I already bought it though and I tried looking at on the box but its not there either. Is there anyway to test after I've got my computer up and running?