My first computer build

[The Farmer]

Alright, so I'm asking YOU, the tech wizards (and whatever the feminine form of wizard is (unsure if it's witch)) of Chief Delphi, for some advice on my first desktop build. I have the parts selected, but not ordered yet. What I want to know is the compatibility of the parts I have selected, and I figure that this was an adequate place to ask if they are compatible. I already have some components, so I'll list those first:

OS: 64-bit version of Vista

Monitor: Acer H213H 21.5" widescreen LCD monitor

Mouse and keyboard: Microsoft Wireless Media Desktop 1000

The parts I'm getting (from newegg)

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Disk Drive: ASUS Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive Model DVD-E818A3T BULK

Sound Card: Turtle Beach RIVIERA 5.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card

Power Supply: CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

Speakers: Logitech S-220 17 Watts 2.1 Multimedia Speaker System

RAM: CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-6400C5

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU fan: ZALMAN 9500A 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600

Video Card: SAPPHIRE 100265L Radeon HD 4830 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card

I'm fairly certain that these are all compatible, however, my knowledge is limited when it comes to the subject of computer building.

P.S. This comp is going to be only for gaming, and perhaps CAD, but just that.

[EHaskins]

OS: I'm running Vista x64 on all of my machine, and I'm happy with it. Some older apps have issues, but most have work arounds.

Case: I've used other Antec cases and been happy. No issues.

HDD: No issues.

Optical Drive: no issues.

Sound card: Since you aren't buying an extraordinary sound card I have to ask why you don't want to use the motherboard sound?

PSU: No issues.

Motherboard: Looks like a good board. CPU is listed as supported.

RAM: You could get faster RAM, but it should work. I'd also suggest getting 8gb if you can afford it.

Processor: FANTASTIC processor! That's what I'm running in my machine. I experimented with OCing mine from 2.4 to 3.2ghz without any issues, but found the stock speed to be more than adequate.

CPU Cooling: Unless you intend to overclock you can just use the stock cooler included with the CPU.

Graphics: I'm not a ATI fan, but you shouldn't have any issues.

Speakers: No issues.

[Akash Rastogi]

You're good to go.

I'm working on a similar build right now, Except mine requires DDR3 RAM so I had to sell my 4 gigs of DDR2 OCZ Fatality =(

And yea, I'd say just go with the onboard sound. Its the same if not better than the sound card.

Have to ask though, why 64bit?

oh also if you don't mind buying a used one off of anandtech, i suggest a Thermaltake armor stacker. the thing is a beast. I've owned Antecs before and they are chill too. very nice selection of parts.

[EHaskins]

Originally Posted by lilstogi11

Have to ask though, why 64bit?

If your system memory + video memory is greater than 4gb you need to have 64bit to take advantage of all of the RAM.

You can view the effect of this on 32bit machines from Task Manager and checking the total amount of memory on the performance tab, or by running msinfo32 and checking the Installed Physical Memory and Total Physical Memory fields on the system summary. If there is a discrepancy your system isn't using some of the RAM installed in your system.

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by EHaskins

If your system memory + video memory is greater than 4gb you need to have 64bit to take advantage of all of the RAM.

You can view the effect of this on 32bit machines from Task Manager and checking the total amount of memory on the performance tab, or by running msinfo32 and checking the Installed Physical Memory and Total Physical Memory fields on the system summary. If there is a discrepancy your system isn't using some of the RAM installed in your system.

Wow yea that totally skipped my mind. haha, dumb question.

[Tristan Lall]

So, what's the budget? Also, do you plan any overclocking?

You look like you're on the right track for the most part, but I'd question the choice of processor. The Q6600 has a good price-to-performance ratio, but it's getting old, and is about to be retired by Intel. If you want four cores—note that you don't necessarily need them—you should consider a Q8300 instead (it will cost about $40 more than a Q6600, and should be available any time now), or even a Q9300 (for a bit more money). These have larger instruction sets (mainly, they add SSE4.1, which could come in handy, and drop VT, which is no detriment to you), are more energy-efficient (fundamentally because of their smaller transistor size), and are faster (both in clock speed and FSB speed). If you'd be satisfied with two cores, you could also use an E8500 or E8600 (which have much higher clock speeds), and are priced comparably to the Q6600 and Q8300.*

The cooler will be fine, but then again, retail Intel processors come with good enough heatsinks (OEM ones don't). Unless you're overclocking significantly, or want to have a quieter fan, there's no need for an aftermarket heatsink. (For non-Intel heatsinks, verify the component clearance between the heatsink and the motherboard. This is usually described on the heatsink manufacturer's website.)

The hard drive is probably fine, but you might want to consider moving up to one of the 640 GB versions (it's got higher data density than the 500 GB drive, but also uses two platters—as a result, it will be a little bit faster). It won't cost much more. Good move going with the Caviar Black—the extra warranty period is worth the increased cost (however, the extra cache is useless).

If you've got another system on the same LAN, then you don't strictly need the ability to write CDs/DVDs; you could pass files over the network to burn them remotely. But it it were me, I'd spend $30 or so on a DVD burner. Although most in that price range are pretty much equivalent, you should shop around to find one that supports all major formats (some omit DVD-RAM, in particular).

I wouldn't bother with the sound card—your motherboard has integrated audio, and you've only selected a 2.1 channel speaker system anyway.

With the price of DDR2 RAM what it is (very low), you might want to think about another 2 GB (or 4, if you'd like). 4 GB of RAM will be just fine for now, but if you're planning to keep this computer for a while, you'll probably appreciate having 6 to 8 GB in three or four years. If it's out of the budget, don't worry about it. Your RAM could stand to be faster if you're planning on overclocking, but this won't make too much difference (your motherboard will apply an appropriate FSB-RAM speed divider anyway).

The case, video card and motherboard all appear to be solid choices. (Given the good price of the Radeon 4830, you could easily add another one in Crossfire at a later date, if performance was insufficient. It will run at PCIe 8x, but that will be fine.)

*When multiple applications (or more precisely, threads) are running, and have lots to do independently of each other, the quads will be significantly faster. At this point, though, most games and many CAD programs don't do much to assign tasks to multiple threads. This means you'll get better performance, but it won't often be twice the performance of a dual. (For technical reasons related to the processor technology, it's easier for Intel to add cores than to add single-threaded performance.)

[The Farmer]

Wow, thanks for the feedback! It seems I was on the right track, so after reading it decided to go edit the cart a bit to remove what was deemed necessary (CPU fan, sound card, etc) and got 2 sets of (G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory), but I'm keeping the processor I've already selected, partially because I"m saving money buy getting a combo deal with the CPU and the Video card, and mostly because my budget is near maxed. ($988.34 out of $1,111.12).

Thanks again, I'll tell you how well it works when I"m finished.

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by EHaskins

If your system memory + video memory is greater than 4gb you need to have 64bit to take advantage of all of the RAM.

You can view the effect of this on 32bit machines from Task Manager and checking the total amount of memory on the performance tab, or by running msinfo32 and checking the Installed Physical Memory and Total Physical Memory fields on the system summary. If there is a discrepancy your system isn't using some of the RAM installed in your system.

There's actually an even better reason to use 64-bit Windows: it allows the allocation of more memory to individual processes and to Windows itself. In 32-bit Windows, up to 2 GB of private address space can be allocated to every process (in user mode), and up to 2 GB can be allocated to the Windows kernel (within the 4 GB virtual address space that is assigned to each process, but which is not actually represented in RAM unless it's being used). By using a pagefile, 32-bit Windows makes sure that up to 4 GB of physical RAM is being shared by a (potentially-infinite) number of processes with their own dedicated 4 GB virtual address spaces. The 4 GB virtual address space limit is absolute on 32-bit Windows, no matter how much RAM is installed.

Even on server versions of 32-bit Windows, which use physical address extensions (PAE) to address more than 4 GB of physical RAM (up to 128 GB), these same per-process limits still apply to the virtual address spaces (though they can be adjusted so that up to 3 GB can be dedicated to user mode and 1 GB to kernel mode, by using /3GB and other boot switches).

In 64-bit Windows, each 64-bit process can access up to 16 TB of virtual address space, split evenly between the Windows kernel and user-mode memory. 32-bit processes running in WOW64 (Windows-on-Windows) can be set to access the full 4 GB, probably because there are no longer any 32-bit kernel tasks operating in that address space. In addition, the physical memory limits are much higher (when not arbitrarily restricted for Microsoft's business reasons)—up to 2 TB.

Having extra memory available might make CAD work a bit easier, because very large models could be loaded and worked on. (Realistically, you'd be hard-pressed to need even 2 GB for a FIRST robot's CAD model.) I've only ever encountered difficulty with the 2 GB user-mode limit when doing thermal simulations or mechanical animations in Pro/MECHANICA—I think it leaks memory somewhere....

Also, it's not really system RAM + video RAM > 4 GB. In 32-bit Windows, in versions prior to XP SP2 (or maybe SP3), Windows assumed that driver writers knew what they were doing, and would instruct devices to do something graceful when they couldn't continue to map their own memory over top of a free portion of the up-to-4-GB physical memory space (because other processes wanted to use it). The trouble is, most such drivers (largely video) just bluescreened and crashed, instead of trying to decrease the amount of (video) memory being used.

This problem arises because the port-based I/O used on small devices is inconvenient when trying to work with several-megabyte chunks of memory (like on a video card). Instead, direct mapping of video RAM to physical memory addresses (but not actual system RAM) is used to simplify and speed up addressing of the video card, by pretending that the video card's memory is just an unused part of 4 GB of physical memory address space. (When you install RAM up to the physical address limit—4 GB without PAE—there are no more unused memory addresses.) On systems with the /PAE switch enabled, drivers could map the video memory above the 4 GB limit, but it seems that few hardware producers understood this, or were willing to compel certain users to enable PAE, maybe because of the stigma of an insignificant performance penalty. (As it happens, the no-execute function's NX bit requires PAE, so many users with Opteron/Athlon 64 or newer processors would already have had it enabled, and could have seamlessly taken advantage of such a change.)

As a workaround (probably to prevent people from blaming Microsoft for crashes being precipitated by bad drivers), in later XP service packs, and ever since, there exists a large memory "hole" caused by devices which map their own memory on top of the 4 GB address space, leaving less for other processes to see as physical RAM. If you have around 4 GB installed on XP SP3, that's why it will show up as somewhat less, depending principally on the amount of memory on your video card.

So, you can address the problem of not using all physical RAM by upgrading or downgrading. If you downgrade, your video drivers will probably crash. If you upgrade, you just have to hope that the driver writers have provided stable 64-bit versions for you to use.

The bottom line is that 64-bit won't generally increase performance (and nobody here has suggested that), but rather provides a way to address and allocate more memory to programs and to the operating system. You don't need it now, and it might be a while before average consumers really need it at all. But it's absolutely needed in the server market. So 64-bit Windows is stable and ready to use, and its adoption in the home market will simplify the maintenance of the Windows platform as a whole, by minimizing the need to support 32-bit and 64-bit versions of everything.

[wilsonmw04]

My only concern is the quad cores. There are very few applications that use them. If this is gaming machine, i'd stick with dual cores. Another suggestion i would make would be get rid of the wireless keyboard and mouse. There's nothing worse than getting lag from your mouse and keyboard in the middle of a boss fight because the batteries are dying.

I've built my own rigs since i got my first Gateway P-90 when I went away to college. Ars Technica puts out a periodic system guide that is a great start when building a system. With your budget I would look at the "Budget Box."