Will she work?

[TobyG]

Hey guys, ive been looking at building my own pc as the one im currently running was bought in 2003 and pretty much all out of date....1gb ram....amd Athlon Xp 3000+, Nvidia Geforce4 mx 440 with AGP8x. Ive tried to restrict myself to a budget and come up with some stuff which im hoping is compatible?

 

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-x48-DS4 intel X48

Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4 Intel X48 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

 

CPA - Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.93GHz (1066fsb)

Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 2.93GHz (1066FSB) - Retail

 

Ram - Kingston Hyperx 4GB (2x2gb) DDR 2 8500C5 1066MHz Duel Channel

Kingston HyperX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (KHX8500D2K2/4G)

 

Graphics Card - Geforce 9800 GT 512mb GDDR3 HDTV/DVI

OcUK GeForce 9800 GT 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

 

This is just to get me started.

I picked all this out and then i had a friend tell me that AMD was better? Looking on the overclockers website i saw i could get amd stuff running an AM3 mobo that supports DDR3 and at 1333MHz at around the same price? Does it make much difference? and the CPU would be PhenomII X3 Tri core?

 

If i could improve on what ive picked for a little extra cost would be a bonus aswell.

The system will be mainly for gaming and hoping i could run games at good spec, my current system couldnt even run the game X3 and thats pretty old now.

 

Cheers

Tobias

[maynardvdm]

Hi

 

All those parts are compatible. I dont know much about the AMD specs, but heard they are good. I never been an AMD fan, but price wise it is better. The intel equvilant will be a Core i7 which is quite expensive at the moment. Also wait to hear what the others have to say.

[starams5]

Hi

 

I see no problems with that build just remember that 1066 ram is 800 ram that has been tested to run within the specified voltage range at the specified timings. The user must set the timings and voltages to run 1066. If you check 1066 ram in CPU-Z it will show as 6400 Max bandwidth. The modules you selected are good sticks. Kingston has another box set of 2x2 8500 ram (CAS 7) which is not nearly as good as the sticks you selected, model # KHX8500AD2K2/4G. Notice the "A" in the model#, you don't this set.

[TobyG]

if i was to go amd, the kind of stuff i found in my price range was this :

 

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA790Xt-UD4p (socket AM3)

Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard

 

CPU- AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8 GHz (socket AM3)

AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail

 

Ram - Corsair XmS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1066C9 1333MHz TwinX duel channel

Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 10666C9 1333MHz TwinX Dual Channel (TW3X4G1333C9)

 

Does that come close to the intel stuff? I havnt looked at the amd stuff in as much detail but pretty much in all area's of this system im willing to spend that little bit extra if its gonna be worth it. The Gigabyte Intel Motherboard on Overclockers is £144 but on E-buyer its £93 so that would save me a nice little bit

[starams5]

That would be a good combination as well. I see why you selected the TwinX sticks, because they don't have any Dominator sticks for this board, see link below and scroll to the bottom of the page.

 

Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P Memory Upgrades - Guaranteed Compatible Memory for your Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P from Corsair

[TobyG]

Out of the Intel spec and the AMD spec i've looked at there, which would you recommend and think is best?

[starams5]

I have always preferred Intel but I would have to go with the AMD build on this one which has an extra core and DDR3 memory opposed to the Intel build with two cores and DDR2 memory.

[maynardvdm]

Yes. Agreed

[TobyG]

Thanks guys, i went with the amd based components and upgraded the Graphics card to a XfX Geforce GTX 260. Hopefully be ordering it all within the next few days :D and have my new pc running within a few weeks, aslong as i manage to put it all together anyway :p

[starams5]

Don't forget to post back and let me and maynardvdm know how it went.

[TobyG]

i will do, ill even try get some pics as i go. First pc i put together so hope i dont go toooo wrong

[starams5]

Since this is your 1st build I'll share a little secret with you.

 

First boot:

The only thing that should be connected is the PSU, CPU/Heatsink, 1 VGA in the primary slot, 1 stick of ram in the B1 slot. After posting I personally flash to the current bios before adding additional hardware, thats a judgemt call, totally up to you. If you need bios flashing instructions post back with the model# of the motherboard.........And don't forget the Arctic Silver 5. Good luck!

[TobyG]

She lives! I got the pc up and running first time (kinda) Once i got my problem outta the way ill get my camera stuff installed and upload a few piccies. Sorry took awhile to post back, been working hard on trying to stop all my games from randomly shutting down when playing them....havnt figured it out yet.

[maynardvdm]

Make sure you have the latest drivers for your graphics card, and make sure the pc is not getting too hot ;)

[TobyG]

My pc doesnt completely shut down just the games shut down, which is why i dont think its an overheating problem and i have the latest drivers direct from the nvidia site. What ive done is uninstall vista and hoping that running everything back on xp will solve the problem. Even though my game anno 1701 still struggles a bit a times on my computer (i didnt expect it to with what im now running)

[maynardvdm]

No it should not struggle, you have way more than the minimum requirements.

So you have this:

Gigabyte GA-MA790Xt-UD4p (socket AM3)

CPU- AMD Phenom II X3 Tri Core 720 Black Edition 2.8 GHz (socket AM3)

Ram - Corsair XmS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1066C9 1333MHz TwinX duel channel

 

Is that right?

[TobyG]

Yes thats what i have with the Nvidia GTX260 Graphics card and a 600w Powersupply.

[zinglebarb]

It makes me cry when you see a nice AMD system with a good AMD chipset and then an Nvidia card thrown at it sob sob ;)

[TobyG]

That bad? This is my first system build and my friends told me it was a good idea?

[zinglebarb]

No its not bad but the AMD stuff is all made to work together nicely. I prefer the 4870/4890 over the GTX260 myself its all about choice.

[TobyG]

ahhhh as long as that isnt the main reason my games are running slow.....thats the one part i really want to try and work out haha. Anno...simple and fun game to play.....but not when your screens jumping about the island

[zinglebarb]

I do not see any valid reason for that machine to struggle. Did you say what version driver you installed?

 

Change the driver to a few releases older perhaps

[TobyG]

You mean for my Graphics card? Im running 185.85. Also got service pack 3 for my windows xp 32-bit. DirectX version 9.0c also. When i updated all drivers i could for Vista i thought the only thing that could be left to keep the games running slow was the os, hence i switched back to xp but its still struggling with anno

[maynardvdm]

Is it just that one game that is slow or other games also. How is windows also sluggish?

[danzil]

is you XP 64 bit, i had a PC that had 4gb installed on standard XP and it ran like rubbish.

the minute i swapped a 2gb stick for the same moake 1gb it was like a different PC.

maybe PAE physical address extension may help...i will let someone else advise on that as im being shouted at for dinner,,,,,i will have a look back soon.

regards

danzil