Hey guys, Firstly, sorry for the general subject. I've got quite a lot of questions so it's hard to narrow it down. I've split the post up into bolded sections as it's quite long. Any opinions about the choices I've made would be more than welcome. I'm aiming to build a PC that will be quite high-end, suitable for both gaming and development. There is an added complication in that my eyesight is very poor. This means getting the right TFT monitor is crucial as I am suffering from back problems through leaning towards the screen to see it. Monitor I read an article a little while ago (haven't got the link on me now) but it was mainly talking about the native resolutions of TFTs. It discussed how TFTs use different methods of scaling pixels, to varying degrees of quality, if they're not running in their native resolution. The article was around 3 years old, but if this still holds true then it gives me a problem. I basically need to find a monitor that is 24" (or above) that is really sharp and has a decent response time. It seems though, that all the monitors I can find in this size range, have native resolutions of around 2560x1600. I'd most likely want to run games at 1024x768 or 1280x1024. What would that mean in terms of visual quality (because of the pixel scaling) and can anyone recommend a monitor? This is one I've been looking at. The dot pitch seemed kind of high though, but is that normal for a monitor of this size? I'm willing to spend about £1,500 ($3,000 USD) on it because it's important I get rid of my spinal problems and take the strain away from my eyes. Motherboard and RAM I'm a bit undecided here. I've been looking at a couple of ASUS boards but this is one area I really don't have a lot of experience with. The biggest problem is they all seem to have vastly different features. I'm not into tweaking/overclocking/memory timing stuff. I'd tend to just leave that alone. I've been looking at this one and I have a couple of questions: 1. It doesn't mention DDR2 support there. It just says there's 4 x 240-pin DIMM sockets. I had a quick Google and it seems it does support DDR2, but would there be a performance penalty compared to other boards? I've seen 184-pin DIMMs mentioned, so I'm not sure what the difference is. 2. It mentions a "fanless design." Would it be worth getting fans anyway? I've never seen a PC without cooling fans so I'm a bit sceptical. 3. It doesn't say if it supports S-ATA 2. Is that what S-ATA 3.0GB/sec is? Ideally I'd probably put 2GB of RAM on there for now. I found Corsair Value RAM for £56.34. I know it's only 667 but how much would that impact performance compared to 800? Processor I'm leaning towards the Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz LGA775 but having said that, the 2.66Ghz is only £80 more. I can make that choice later, just so long as they're compatible with the motherboard, which they appear to be, then that's fine by me. Graphics Card I really like the look of the nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX. I've checked out several different benchmarks and it looks really stable across the board. I saw nts mention in another post that it would be worth waiting until ATi release their first DirectX 10 cards so I guess I'll do that. Sound Card I'm not so fussed about a sound card. I tend to use my headset a fair bit anyway. One of my mates said I should get onboard sound and get an amplifier. He said he found that to be cheaper and it still produces a pretty good sound. Can anyone verify this? Hard Drive I've got an existing 160GB Seagate Barracuda here which I can partition and use for now. Other Stuff Probably what I'm most unsure of, is what PSU type to get. Would a 400W be enough? Also, from what I said above about the motherboard, would I need to get fans? What about heatsinks? I've only ever fitted drives and cables really, so I'm walking into the deep end a bit here. --------------------------- I think that's most of my questions. I'm sorry it's been such a long read. Thanks to anyone that actually took the time to read any of it. [smile]

the "fanless" design, just means that the MoBo doesnt have any extra fans on it. Go look at some of the really
high end motherboards, and they put fans on the bios/cmos chips, northbridge, southbridge... ect.
You still need cooling fans, but dont sweat it. Whatever case you decide to get will come with plenty of fans,
and the processor should come packaged with it's own fan/sink aswell.

That said... Since it sounds like this is the first computer you have built, I'd stray away from anything
that is "top of the line". There are often bugs that you are the only one to have cauze you are the only
one with that particular hardware.

So, the graphics, mobo and processor are probably fine...(Im an AMD fanboy, so I'd honestly go with an entirely different processor/mobo)
I'd definatly spring for a soundcard though. Onboard sound just doesn't have the features of a dedicated card.
This can really cut down on the quality/features of in-game sound.
Get the faster ram(800) if you intend on playing games, get more ram if you intend on doing lots of multimedia editing.
Sony has a lot of good monitors you could look there too. But you definatly want to match native to running resoultion or you are going to see
a funny looking picture.


Lastly, some "from experience" notes. I've had issue with just about every case and processor ever as far as cooling
So I find springing for that extra case fan, and one of the Zalman heatsinks for the processor is a great idea.
Hard-disk coolers are a must too if you are going to be packing lots of them in your case.
When you get your mobo and it says "dual channel ram" read the directions 100x times and get the ram in there right.
The 2x speed bonus from correctly configured ram is worth it.

Quote: Original post by John H
Processor

I'm leaning towards the Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz LGA775 but having said that, the 2.66Ghz is only £80 more. I can make that choice later, just so long as they're compatible with the motherboard, which they appear to be, then that's fine by me.

Save yourself the money and just overclock the E6600. Especially if you wind up going with an ASUS board, as they ship with quality overclocking tools that spare you from having to go through the BIOS. The Core 2 Duo chips run way cool. There have been many documented cases of people overclocking them up to 3GHz without even needing a heatsink fan (tho this was merely to say it could be done, you should always properly cool your proc).

Motherboard and RAM
My recommendation (as in some other threads) would be for the Intel D975XBX2. This is currently the best board on the 975 chipset. I don't have experience with nforce chipsets myself but from what I've read and from friends the Intel chipsets are more stable (less problems) for Intel processors. Unless you plan to use SLI (dual NVIDIA graphics cards) I would suggest the D975 boards. My other recommendation here would be for the ASUS P5W DH Delux (I'm currently using this board).

I didn't see either of them listed at the site you posted.

You probably wont notice a difference between 667 (PC5300) and 800 (PC6400) RAM. I would suggest going for performance RAM though, just personal preference. I've had bad sticks of value/generic RAM.

Processor
The E6600 should be fine unless you really need the extra performance. As Gaiiden said you can also OC them quite well.

Video Card
R600 (next ATi card, X2800/X2900) will launch in March. It will be worth the wait ;)

Sound Card
Onboard has worked fine for me. Dedicated card might produce better sound (more features) and use slighly less CPU though...

Hard Drive
SATA2 does make a difference, at least it did for me (SATA1->SATA2). Might be worth looking at.

Other stuff
Power supplies, buy named brands only. You don't want it to go bad and take other components with it. Recommendations here would be for Antec and Enermax (Liberty line). I think you'll need more than 400W with a high end video card, I'd say at least 500W.

A heatsink comes with the processor (retail ones) which is usually pretty good. If you want better CPU cooling (especially if you OC) or less noise, currently the best one is the Sunbeam Tuniq Tower 120, my QX6700 idles in mid 20's and only hits low 30's under load (at default clocks) with fan on low.

Fans, a case usually includes the fans you'll need but you can always replace them with higher airflow ones or quieter ones. It's usually a trade off between the two, brands to checkout would be Noctua, Nexus and Arctic Cooling.

If you need a case, my recommendation as it has been for over a year would be for the Antec P180. Depends what you need though...

Hope that helps

Damn guys, thanks for the answers! I've decided I will overclock the E6600 as that seems like the right choice for me. Can anyone shed any light on the monitor situation, though? That's currently stopping me from purchasing a new machine as I need to get that sorted first. I've not had too much luck finding the answers I need so far.

Thanks again, much obliged!

I just want to add something important about the RAM/CPU.
DDR2 is dual channel so the accual speed of DDR 800 is 400 Mhz, DDR 667 is 333 Mhz and DDR 533 is 266 Mhz.

The E6600 CPU has a Front Side Bus(FSB) of 266 Mhz and an internal multiplier of 9. To get the accual speed of the CPU you multiply 9*266Mhz = 2.4Ghz. Now the CPU accesses the RAM over the FSB which is running at 266Mhz so it wont make a blind bit of difference for the speed if you are using DDR 533, 667 or 800 because the FSB is only running at 266 on the CPU and will be like a bottleneck on the data.

The gains of having DDR 667, 800 happen when you want to overclock your CPU. The main way you do this is to up the speed of the FSB so by having DDR 667 in your system you can overclock your FSB upto 333Mhz (9*333) = 3Ghz and to 400Mhz (9*400) = 3.6Ghz with the DDR 800.

I have a E6600 myself and DDR800 but I can only get it to 3Ghz (333 FSB) before it crashes when I try and boot but this is still good considering that it is using the fan that came with the CPU. If you want to get your CPU running faster than 3Ghz get a good fan like this one for about 40 bucks.
Why would you pay double or even tripple the price for an E6700 or an E6800 when you can just overclock the E6600 to higher speeds anyway.

One last thing you should look for in the RAM is the latency. It looks like this (3,3,3,10 or 4,4,4,12 or 5,5,5,16) These numbers can vary but generally anything with 3's are good 4's are ok and 5's are the worst but I wouldnt worry too much about it.

Also get a 600w Power unit.

EDIT: Oh yeah I read somewhere recently that Intel will be dropping the prices of their E6*00 range of CPU's by a lot real soon.

Quote: Original post by John H
Can anyone shed any light on the monitor situation, though?

The best 24inch monitor I know of, is this one...

Dell Ultrasharp 2407WFP 24" Widescreen LCD Monitor
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MO-009-DE

Cost £550
Native res is 1920x1200.

Running it as resolutions other than the native res, is not going to look as good as it could, but you will have that problem with any LCD Monitor as they don't contain any image processing hardware. If this is an issue for you, you could look at using a 1080p TV instead of a monitor, but they tend to be Big (at least 40inch) and more expensive (at least £1000). You'd also have to make sure that it was able to display pixels 1 to 1, which not all TV's can.

I sometimes use my Sony Bravia 40W2000 TV connected to my PC via HDMI, and it's awesome, both with 1 to 1 pixels at 1080p and with lower res games scaled using it's Bravia Engine image processor. But finding space for a 40inch TV on your desk may be a problem :)

Thanks a lot for the responses guys. I can't tell you how helpful this has been. Someone mentioned the Dell monitor to me a week ago and, checking it out, it has looked pretty good, so I'm glad to see someone from here mention it as well. I had a look at the 27" version on the overclockers site and that seems to have exactly the same features, so I'm going to get that one. [smile]

This has been bugging me for such a long time. Really wish I'd have posted this sooner instead of spending too much time thinking about it. Now all I've got to do is wait for the new ATi cards to come out (and maybe the price of the E6*00 range to drop). Then I'll start buying stuff.

Thanks lads!

Quote: Original post by John H
Thanks a lot for the responses guys. I can't tell you how helpful this has been. Someone mentioned the Dell monitor to me a week ago and, checking it out, it has looked pretty good, so I'm glad to see someone from here mention it as well. I had a look at the 27" version on the overclockers site and that seems to have exactly the same features, so I'm going to get that one. [smile]

This has been bugging me for such a long time. Really wish I'd have posted this sooner instead of spending too much time thinking about it. Now all I've got to do is wait for the new ATi cards to come out (and maybe the price of the E6*00 range to drop). Then I'll start buying stuff.

Thanks lads!

News about the X2800XTX is out. Pricing in at 600$ (same as 8800GTX), it will totally crush its competition. 64 unified shaders each doing 4 calculations, basically 256. Double the amount on the 8800GTX. 1GB of 2000MHz GDDR4 ram; 512-bit memory interface. Core clocks at 700MHz IIRC... ... Also, the X2800GTO, which will price in at 300$ to compete with the 320MB version of the 8800GTS... and still beat its competition.

The R600 is nice for DirectX games. Wouldn't want it for OpenGL, though.

Regarding monitors: if you get a 2560x1600 and run games in 1280x800, you will be fine for image quality, as the exact 2:1 scaling leaves very few artifacts.