First PC Build, would like comments, suggestions, etc...

Hello all,

So this is my first time building a pc...
I'm ready to buy and have done a bit of research. I will mostly be using the pc for video encoding and a bit of multimedia, a bit of games would also be fun (ex: world of warcraft hehe). Here are the parts I have chosen so far...if any of you guys have some suggestions or advice on how to lower the budget without lowering performance or how to better the performance without jacking up the price I would greatly appreciate your input .

MOBO: ASUS P5QL-E 125$
CPU: Intel Quad Core Q6600 189.99$
Case: Antec Sonata III 119$
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Hard Drive 189.99$
DVD Drive: LITE-ON 20X DVD Burner 25.99$
RAM: 2 x Kbyte 2GB DDR2 79.98$
Video Card: ASUS 9600GT 512MB 139$
Monitor: Samsung T200 20inch Monitor 269.99$
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit 179.99$

 

Your RAM sucks...get 800, 1066, or higher. Not sure if you need better RAM, but if you can get better RAM, get it...especially for $80, for $30 LESS, you should be able to get better RAM. Also, Bestbuy wtf dude.
For another $60 you could get a much better video card.
And I def would not get Vista 32 bit, if your going 32 bit go XP, if you are going 64 bit go Vista.

Oh and get the 1TB from Samsung, much faster, and it should be cheaper.

btw you also need a power supply...

 

Would this RAM be better?

Also, this might sound like a newbie question but why not the vista 32-bit?

And isn't samsung a lesser quality of hdd compared to Western Digital?

Thanks alot.

 

That I'm not sure on. Samsung's HDDs ahve been fine for most, but I think WD still take the biscuit as the better manu.

 

The PSU is included in the antec case...do you think that 500W will be sufficient for this system?

 

It should suffice, Antec PSUs are usually pretty solid.

 

Windows Vista Ultimate is really heavy, I had it for a year and it was horrible, once I down graded to XP everything was soo smooth and fast. It's an insult to your hardware to intentionally use vista on them. If you want to play games, especially if what you want to play is not DX10, there is no reason to buy vista.

 

Indeed, Vista isn't really that troublesome any more, but it does still have a hit on performance.

 

Ok, taken into consideration...but if ever i choose to go with vista, is newegg.com the cheapest place to get it (99.99 for home premium and 179.99 for ultimate)?

 

or piratebay 0$... not condoning anyone to get it there, but just an example

 

get the oem version of vista, if you do buy it, which i hope you do

becuase you are going for 4GB IMO go for vista 64 bit. i have had home premium for a year now, 64bit, and have had 0 problems. for people saying it is bad etc etc, most have been sucked in to the hype of it at release, and these children probably cannot remember back to the 98SE days when XP was JUST a bloated nice GUI OS aswell

 

Just another thing, lets say I install vista 32-bit because i'm affraid of driver issues etc, will the system still fully use my 4 gb of ram or should I really go for the 64-bit...and if I do go with the 64-bit, do any of you guys know if I WILL have compatibility/driver issues with my hardware?

Thanks

 

With Vista 32-bit you will max out at around 3.2GBs of ram or so. For the most part, 64-bit OSes dont have too many issues with drivers; not to say there arent any, but in this day one could be hard pressed to find one. As far as your hardware goes, theres nothing there 'kicking me in face'.

And sam, i could not have said that better.

 

I have Vista x64 bit Corporate, with black viper tweaks. I also have XP 32bit heavy black environment and Ubuntu 64bit on my triple boot system, and I never use the XP, I should have made it a dual boot...or triple boot with OSX on it. Once you go vista x64 bit, and you have a high-end computer, you will never go back. So many added features that you don't notice till a month or so into using it. Works great for all games too.
But yeah don't go Visat 32bit or XP 64bit. Go vice-versa, but I recommend Vistax64 Corporate or ultimate and not Home Premium.

 

Sammorris or Spamual? Spamual is a joke against my name, which while I don't mind it, Sam isn't his real name, I believe it's Mohammed.

 

This is definitely off topic but what's the difference between 32bit and 64bit, and how can I get 64bit vista, do I just buy the 64bit version or do you need special hardware? I hate vista but I've never tried the 64bit version of anything so I might give it a shot.

 

Some software is 64bit based. The software that is made FOR 64bit works about 30-40% faster on Vista 64 than the 32bit version working on Vista 32bit. If you only have 32-bit software it will work the same in Vista 64 bit.

If you want a 64bit version of Vista, make sure you buy the 64bit version. Unless you buy the Ultimate version, which has both 32 and 64bit versions on it.

 

Well if you hate vista, don't get it. As visually and functionally the both look and act the exact same. 64bit instructions means it is possible to do everything twice as fast....although that is not the reality of it. 64bit also requires some more resources.

Can I ask why you hate Vista? When you get it, you have to tweak it right away to ignore certain things and much more, but for the most part, the people who complain about vista haven't actually used it much.

 

That is true, that WD has a better reputation for hardrives than samsung. However, I was watching this show on the spinpoints and they have some sort of ram like hardware built into them for faster searching and indexing, I can't remember exactly, but it is some serious tech.

"However, we couldn't help but notice the fact that the drive's cache is a memory chip from ESMT, or Elite Semiconductor Memory Technology. Samsung has a huge semiconductor business and makes scores of memory chips, so it's curious to see the SpinPoint tap an external source for this chip"

The spinpoints also have 3 disks, instead of 6 (don't quote me on that), make writing and reading faster. The lifetime is half that of WDs and what-not, at 60 years and not 120 haha. But there is a five year warranty on them.

The WD raptors 10kRPM are one point faster than the spinpoints 7200Rpm, but the spinpoints surpass the the WD raptor's 7200 model as seen below

 

I think the WDs have 5 platters, owning both an F1 and an SE16 though, the WDs are no slouches.