Thread: Building a new PC and the headache that comes with it

I need to make a new PC and was hoping I could get some help, not sure who knows about hardware, but thought I may as well ask.

Just a few questions.

DDR3 RAM - Is it worth it right now? At these prices it seems a bit of a steal, but when you take into account the price of a motherboard that both supports that and supports a Q9550, that difference in price that was there a year ago comes flooding back. The plus side is that I'm future-proofing my PC, so when I come to make some major upgrades a few years from now will DDR3 be the main RAM and will I have to buy a new mobo and stuff to support it? I guess this is more of a question of where you reckon the industry will be a few years from now.

I'm also thinking I'll get an ATi 4850 GPU. Seems good enough for me at the moment, and it will be outdated and ready to be replaced or Crossfired (oh yeah, you just been crossfired babay ) at roughly the same time as the 4870 I reckon, and the smaller size, reduced heat and reduced price are all very useful. Of course tell me if I'm wrong please.

P.S. Is this worth it? In terms of that whole future-proofing thing I was on about before.

Build right now is looking like this:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550

Motherboard - Depends on if I go with DDR3, difference in price between mobo's is about £100, which was substantial enough for my face to screw up and frown when I realised.

RAM - Depends on if I go DDR3

ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=56&subcat=938 - Cheaper and from ASUS - although I don't know if it comes with a warranty, might call to find out.

or

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...=56&subcat=938 - Better performance and with cooler, only slightly more money, but from XFX, don't know how reliable they are.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 320GB SATA-II 8MB Cache

A couple optical drives, one DVD-RW and a DVD-ROM

Antec 300

A few 1200RPM Scythe S-Flex's to go into the case.

OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w Silent SLI Ready ATX2 Modular Power Supply


Any feedback would help.

Everything ASUS comes with a 3 year warranty... I have one of there 3650 cards.

Anyways... I have learned there is no such thing as future proofing in computers... if you buy something one day, two weeks later there will be something that out does yours... i think the hardware right now only appeals to gamers and there is really nothing out there besides encoding video and 3d that can use the power.

I say... buy what you want and wait until something comes out to upgrade at cheaper prices. Then buy a new system 3 years from now, rinse repeat. Also the only thing i don't like about DDR3 is you have to triple it up... Right now both DDr2 and DDR3 are cheap so your in luck.

I shall take your advice because it's the only one I'm getting . I have much faith in you since your av is a Sharingan.

Cheers.

I have an XFX card and have had no problems with it.

Awesome. That is the second of 2 opinions I have read, and both have been good.

That's good enough for me.

Originally Posted by Jedak

I have an XFX card and have had no problems with it.

I have had 3 XFX cards, with no problems.. I only pulled them to upgrade to a better one.

I agree with buying EVGA cause of the lifetime warranty thing... ASUS will find you a card/MoBo before they send you something new. And yes the DDR3 will be around longer... but DDR2 ain't going no where for a while. I also agree on taking advantage of the bus speeds of DDR3.

A Mac friend of mine asked me when I got my memory in for my PC, "1066Mhz that's fast what are you running the world?" I told him yes.

Originally Posted by Atanna

What is the warranty policy on XFX? I've always bought EVGA and they come with lifetime warranties on all their cards. I actually had to use it recently. I've had my Geforce 8800 GTX since not long after they were released in 2006 and it died on me a couple weeks ago. I requested an RMA, sent it back, and they sent me a newer Geforce 260 GTX as a replacement which was quite awesome of them.

Apparently it's almost as good as EVGA's which is quite a statement, but the card I'm looking at has only 2 years warranty, but they're very reliable from what I've read since the OP.

I would spend some extra on the LT warranty... those fans and etc die on most cards first. You want to make sure the fan won't conk before the card due to some voltage issues or excessive over whelming. Problem with buying after-market-coolers is that they usually void warranties on cards. Your ASUS card looks like it would do better with a Zalman or Arctic Cooler on it.

A short story about my motherboard from ASUS: I bought a Pk5 SE from newegg last year and it died on me in Dec around the 23rd. Found out the issue started with a voltage surge but it was motherboard related. Went through 3 MOBOs before I found out my memory was also dead from the surge. My memory was LT from OCZ... Sent memory in and got it back (2 day) before my 4th MOB came back (11 days). System is working, only paid one shipping and handling, the initial MOBO send in.

Moral of the story LT warranty means the company will treat you better and faster than those 3 year warranty guys.