Comment on my build plan

[Verwijderd]

Hello Tweakers,

This is my first post, so forgive me if I'm in the wrong place. I'm also Candian, so reading the Dutch instructions costs me a great deal of effort.

I need to upgrade, but I 've made the leap from student to employee, so where before I had time to plan, but no money to buy, I now have money to upgrade, but no time to plan a new machine.

I'm asking for comments on a planned upgrade, see below. I have a Areocool Vx-R (http://www.aerocool.us/pgs/pgs-v/pgs_v_vxr.htm) to throw this lot into. Do any of you have tips for me, warnings, recommended changes? Please give me a bit of justification for any changes you recommend. Thanks in advance for your time. I appreciate it.

Specifically I'm concerned about:
1. the timings for the RAM
2. Is 850W enough for this build
3. The fact that the mobo uses an ATi Crossfire linkage but I want an nVidia card
4. Known problems with fitting ATX mobos in Areocool cases, or possible trouble with the UPS
5. Any other points that are obvious to you, but are lost on me since I haven't been "in the know" for several years now.

#	Product	Prijs	Subtotaal
1	Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS, 2TB	€ 89,90	€ 89,90
1	Cooler Master Silent Pro M850	€ 119,20	€ 119,20
2	GeIL GV34GB1333C9DC	€ 75,80	€ 151,60
1	AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition	€ 128,-	€ 128,-
1	Asrock 890FX Deluxe3	€ 128,23	€ 128,23
1	Gigabyte GV-N460OC-1GI	€ 195,25	€ 195,25
Bekijk collectie Importeer producten		Totaal	€ 812,18

Bedankt!

[Harrie]

I havent been following the most recent things as well, but what I think is:

2) 850 Watts should be more than enough, but I can't find the graphics card you want to use. Which Nvidia one?

3) The fact that it is a cross-fire motherboard is no restriction to use an Nvidia video card. But I think you cannot use SLI on it (2 nvidia cards working together)

[ Voor 12% gewijzigd door Harrie op 26-09-2010 19:12 ]

[Flying Bobman]

I think you can even use a less powerful PSU, 850W is only useful if you are planning to add another graphics card, or add a lot of hard disks. Also, the CPU you want to buy can be cheaper if you don't buy the unlocked version, this type of CPU is only useful if you want to start overclocking.

[Verwijderd]

Thanks Harrie and Bobman.

Harrie, the card I wanted to use was the GV-N460OC-1Gl. I hadn't planned on sli'ing two together.

Bobman, thanks for the tip on the PSU, but I coudn't find a non "black edition" of an equivalently powerful chip, any suggestions?

I suppose I should clarify for all that I'm building a gaming rig and looking for the folowing priorities, in order:
Performance
Silence
Reliability/longevity

Price isn't really an issue for me right now, within reason.

On the noise note, who knows the quietest 120mm fan that would pull enough volume in through a front lower grille to improve the airflow in a tower with the PSU in the bottom, a mesh sidepanel with no fan, and a 120mm fan in the upper rear?
For info on the case see my link in the original post.

#	Product	Prijs	Subtotaal
1	Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS, 2TB	€ 89,90	€ 89,90
1	Cooler Master Silent Pro Gold 600W	€ 105,-	€ 105,-
2	GeIL GV34GB1333C9DC	€ 74,90	€ 149,80
1	AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition	€ 147,-	€ 147,-
1	Asrock 890FX Deluxe3	€ 128,23	€ 128,23
1	Gigabyte GV-N460OC-1GI	€ 195,25	€ 195,25
Bekijk collectie Importeer producten		Totaal	€ 815,18

[Verwijderd]

Welcome to Tweakers.net GJC81!,

It's good to see our efforts for a good product search and PriceWatch even reach beyond Dutch language.

Generally, we have some guidelines in place for 'what should I buy'-topics, but it's in Dutch so probably hard to read anyway. In this specific case, I'll allow the topic in English in this forum (which is not the most active one for hardware advice). If you would be so kind as to give some information about how you came across Tweakers.net and how you have experienced it so far (forum + PriceWatch) that would be great for our understanding as well. If you feel more comfortable providing that in a non-public form, you can also send me an e-mail (See profile).

[Verwijderd]

Hello Floppus,

If you could point me to the right section for "what should I buy" guidelines I'll invest the time to read it, but finding the right place to look often costs me more time than reading something directly. Also if you could let me know where would be the most active and appropriate place to put a well structured "what should I buy" post I'll remove this one and put a cleaned version in the right spot.
I can't comment a great deal on the forum, since I did make a faux pas and jump right in rather than reading around much first. The reason I posted right away is that it does seem there is a lot of expertise and information available from the users of Tweakers.net and I wanted to tap that resource.
As for the site, I find the user reviews often very in depth and quite helpful, the presentation of the rating information for products is clear, and showing the number of votes next to each rating gives an idea how reliable the rating is. The pricewatch/wishlist system is fantastic. Being able to browse so many items with reviews, comparisons and a list that saves not only the items you choose, but links to their availability in the Netherlands is phenomenal. I've never used a better hardware info site, in any language.

I was told about Tweakers.net by a co-worker here in the Netherlands when I mentioned I needed an upgrade.

I hope that answers your questions, and thanks in advance for some links to the info I obviously haven't found on my own yet.

Cheers

[Verwijderd]

Thank you for the compliments. Much appreciated.

The thing is that generally topics in English are not common nor promoted (or even allowed) on the site. A reason being that all guidelines, conditions, FAQs and so on are in Dutch. I'm not much use for hardware advice myself, but we can keep the topic running here for now as your questions do relate to your finds in the Pricewatch - and there is no really suitable place for a topic in English by policy.

I hope people are willing to take the effort to assist you

[Harrie]

I am kinda like you TS, I haven't been "in the know" as well for some years. My latest build was an AMD64 4000+ single core . I try to follow up a little, but there must be people with much more knowledge here.
But why do you want an Nvidia card? Over the recent years, it completely changed towards AMD cards being to much bang for the buck (or performance for euro ), and that is what we are most interested in, aren't we?

[Flying Bobman]

Choosing the right fan can be done by reading this test. The PSU of 600W is good, no cheap one but a lot of people underestimate the importance of a good PSU.
Nice to know that a Dutch hardware site can compete with the international ones I'm also a frequent user of the pricewatch, it can save you a lot of money and trouble (also read the shopreviews).