# Building a computer



## turey22 (Jul 30, 2007)

Hello, i have a question. 

Here in a couple of months i will be going to school and i will need a computers for school and also i will be playing a little to a lot of world of warcraft. I will be doing my course in web design so i will need a pretty good computer. I have been thinking of building my own computer or going online and building it there, thru dell. I am going to get vista on it thats for sure. One of the latest video cards and processor. I havent done any research on the items. basiclly my question is, is it better to build your computer or would it be better to go to dell onlline and build it thru them? Would i save money?


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## tcusta00 (Dec 31, 2007)

Check out this thread started by BMoreRavens when he started building his PC a little while ago. There's a TON of good info in there, including links to the components and pricing. There's also some discussion in there as to whether you should build or buy.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=121516

After reading that thread I've decided to build my next PC. It seems you can do it for about the same price as buying and come out with a nicer machine.


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## turey22 (Jul 30, 2007)

that thread does show very good info but what about warranty? the only thing you will have is manufacture warranty and that is what, 1 year i think? or maybe i am wrong.


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## glennb (Sep 21, 2006)

You'll always save money by not buying a DELL computer.

It's a lot cheaper to build your own computer rather than buy a built one from any manufacturer.


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## tcusta00 (Dec 31, 2007)

Warranty on the hardware? A processor carries a three year warranty, motherboard the same I believe, other parts probably one year. Pre-built PCs have similar warranties, if I remember correctly. And if you built the PC yourself then you're already capable of swapping out the bad parts.


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## Michael D'Angelo (Oct 21, 2006)

I did finishes building my PC a couple of weeks ago and it has been rock solid. It is very fast and I have not had any problems. Below is the finished unit with everything I bought. The speaker system is something I have had for a few years.


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## tcusta00 (Dec 31, 2007)

Looks good, Mike - glad you're liking it!


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## naijai (Aug 19, 2006)

Nice setup BMore


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## Greg Alsobrook (Apr 2, 2007)

very nice mike...


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## OverThereTooMuch (Aug 19, 2006)

glennb said:


> You'll always save money by not buying a DELL computer.
> 
> It's a lot cheaper to build your own computer rather than buy a built one from any manufacturer.


That's not really true anymore. Dell has good deals very frequently, and I think HP has some great prices as well.

Most recently, Dell had an Inspiron 530 with a quad core proc and 3GB of RAM for ~$450 (if you knew the right coupon codes).

Best price for the CPU alone has been like $200. You'd have to spend weeks scrounging around for great deals to get the case, motherboard, DVD drive, RAM, hard drive, power supply and OS for < $250 total.

After I built my last PC, I swore I'd never bother doing that again. Takes forever to find all of the right components, then you have to deal with the build hassle, and troubleshooting any failures. There are Dell deals often enough that it doesn't make it worth the effort.

I ignored my own advice, and now I'm suffering because of it  I decided I wanted a silent PC, and I didn't think any of the major PC vendors offered anything that would meet my requirements. I should've looked harder. We got some HP DC7800 mini-towers at work that I'd call silent. Haven't put a load on them yet to see what the CPU fan sounds like when it cranks up, but at idle you can barely hear the CPU & PSU fans.

An example of how it goes bad:
I'm currently mid-build on my new PC. I spent a period of a few months gathering up all of the right parts for this build. I ended up using a motherboard that I had for 3-4 months at least before the new Wolfdale series (45nm) CPU's came out from Intel. I put everything together, then I get no video when it POST's. Several complete removals/reinstalls of the board into the case later, I find online that the problem is my BIOS doesn't support the new chip. So my next step is to remove everything from the case yet again, purchase and drop in a supported CPU (got one on ebay for $50), then flash to the latest BIOS, remove everything again, but the correct CPU in, put it all back in the case, then power it up and hope like heck that it goes ok. I'll have to flip that CPU on ebay if this thing works. I'm sure I've invested at least 6-8 hours just in building/rebuilding and troubleshooting this issue. That doesn't include countless hours spent looking for good deals and researching the origjnal purchases to find the right parts for the build.

I should point out here that I really do know what I'm doing  For someone that's never done this before, I think it would be a lot more difficult and would likely result in a trip to the local computer store to get them to assist with the build. My local store charges $45 to flash the BIOS. I'm sure it's $100+ to build a PC with parts you provide. There goes any savings you might've had over a Dell/HP config.

The config BMore posted has me drooling, and hoping that one/both of my 19" monitors will die soon so I can upgrade it. Biggerbetterfastermore


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## funhouse69 (Mar 26, 2007)

I agree that it isn't really cheaper to build a system these days. I've been in the industry since the the old PET PC's were out.

I think that a PC itself isn't worth building the only exception that I have to that rule is that ALL Major Brand PC's have proprietary motherboards and a lot of things built on the motherboard which has its pluses and minuses. The plus is that everything on the Motherboard is going to work well together (hopefully) the minus is if you want to upgrade your video card or sound card sometimes getting it to play nice with the onboard one isn't that easy. Lets not forget that the major brand name motherboards are usually not a standard size so it can not be replaced with your own if you want unless you plan on doing some retrofitting. 

Ok before anyone says anything it is true that a lot of motherboard suppliers these days are also including many things built on the motherboard as well so it is becoming somewhat equal in that area. Most of them with the exception of the Micro-ATX Motherboards don't have onboard video. 

So build or buy - I build customer Home Theater PC's and Servers for people and think that it would be difficult to buy either of them especially the server for anywhere near what I can build them for. 

This is all personal preference for sure...


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## Michael D'Angelo (Oct 21, 2006)

As for prices between building your own or buying a complete PC from a store I don't know about lower end but higher end stuff I think it is cheaper to build your own.

I looked at every store I could think of including Dell. Ever PC I found seem to be laking on one or two things from what I ended up with including doing upgrades on a Dell unit and the prices seem to be a lot more than I paid.

As for problems building a PC, I took a lot of suggestions that I got from people here on certain products. Then I went to newegg.com and found the product and and took the suggestion of newegg.com on what units work with it. Like the Intel E8400 processor that LarryFlowers recommended. I click on that and newegg.com said this motherboard. I also only picked up units that had very high reviews and a lot of reviews. I even click on the lowest reviews of that product to see what the problem was and if the person said if it would not work with something.

At the end of the day I built my first PC myself without any problems. Another member here help me a lot with some questions a long the way but when I finished it started right up without a problem and I have not had a problem the few weeks I have had it.

BTW a little tip for anyone thinking about building a PC. When you find your motherboard download the owners manual and look for the compatible memory list.


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

I always build my own computers - not for work but for home use. Never seen a Dell worth buying. All their machines are designed by Taiwan ODMs and manufactured in China (same for HP, Gateway, and others). Not saying they are bad quality but they have to cut corners to save costs. They also throw a lot of junk software on the HDD which is typically crap and a waste of disk space.

One inherent advantage of designing your own computer is that you can customize it for your current needs as well as beef it up for future needs to extend it's life.

If you are doing web design, playing games, and running Vista, you definitely need a graphics card.

You also need to consider which version of Vista that's best for your needs. MS has chopped Vista up into a many different flavors.

I recently built a powerful, quiet Vista desktop. I chose Vista Ultimate because I wanted the family to have all the multimedia features of Vista Home Premium and I needed to have remote administration and backup capabilities. Vista Home Premium may suit your needs just fine. Antivirus software is an absolute necessity! I have been using Trend Micro for the last few years. I used to use Symmantec but they turned it into a bloated, mediocre POS.

In order to do the job right, the most important thing is to detemine your use case which you briefly outlined (web design, WOW) Any other uses? Are you going to need MS Office, Photoshop, etc? Are you going to play games besides WOW? Today's games need a lot of graphics horse power. Are you going to do video editing, encoding or transcoding? Encoding and transcoding are very compute intensive. Do you need a Blu-ray disk drive (expensive)? What about a flat panel display? I recommend you consider a backup HDD.

Is this computer going to be in a dorm room? Most kids who use a computer at school usually need a notebook computer to lug around to class. Are you sure a desktop computer is what you need?

What's your budget?



turey22 said:


> Hello, i have a question.
> 
> Here in a couple of months i will be going to school and i will need a computers for school and also i will be playing a little to a lot of world of warcraft. I will be doing my course in web design so i will need a pretty good computer. I have been thinking of building my own computer or going online and building it there, thru dell. I am going to get vista on it thats for sure. One of the latest video cards and processor. I havent done any research on the items. basiclly my question is, is it better to build your computer or would it be better to go to dell onlline and build it thru them? Would i save money?


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## turey22 (Jul 30, 2007)

whats is better vista premium or ultimate. can put question mark my question, key doesnt work.


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

Vista Ultimate is the top of the line but the most expensive. It combines the features of Home Premium and Business. I expect Home Premium should be what you need. Check out this link: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx



turey22 said:


> whats is better vista premium or ultimate. can put question mark my question, key doesnt work.


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## turey22 (Jul 30, 2007)

kokishin said:


> I always build my own computers - not for work but for home use. Never seen a Dell worth buying. All their machines are designed by Taiwan ODMs and manufactured in China (same for HP, Gateway, and others). Not saying they are bad quality but they have to cut corners to save costs. They also throw a lot of junk software on the HDD which is typically crap and a waste of disk space.
> 
> One inherent advantage of designing your own computer is that you can customize it for your current needs as well as beef it up for future needs to extend it's life.
> 
> ...


I will be doing online classes so i will be at home. My budget is about 3-4 grand. WOW will of course be the only game i will be playing, the best game ever. I will have photoshop, Ms office and other programms that i forget the name of them. I will be doing embedding of video, like flash content, and they are going to provide that software to me. I do want a flat panel casue i really dont have a lot of room where this computer will be located at. I was already considering a backup HDD. This computer will be school use and everyday use. I will be searching the web, email, and doing research for other classes.

I want something that will be quick and effecient. something that will last me for at least 2 to 3 years with the right maintance or atleast thru school.


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

Maybe you misundertood flat panel. Flat panels are LCD based monitors. They take the least amount of desk space of any monitor. Check out: http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=19&name=Monitors

You do have room on the floor for an ATX mid-tower case?

My son would agree with you about WoW. He literally got adicted. Had to cancel his subscription.

You can build a hell of machine for $3-4K. Not sure you really need to spend that much to get a great machine.



turey22 said:


> I will be doing online classes so i will be at home. My budget is about 3-4 grand. WOW will of course be the only game i will be playing, the best game ever. I will have photoshop, Ms office and other programms that i forget the name of them. I will be doing embedding of video, like flash content, and they are going to provide that software to me. I dont want a flat panel casue i really dont have a lot of room where this computer will be located at. I was already considering a backup HDD. This computer will be school use and everyday use. I will be searching the web, email, and doing research for other classes.
> 
> I want something that will be quick and effecient. something that will last me for at least 2 to 3 years with the right maintance or atleast thru school.


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## turey22 (Jul 30, 2007)

No I understood when you said flat panel. On the tower that may be a yes ill have to check it out. I know that with 3 to 4 grand I could be a very good computer. I haven't looked into everything maybe I should but things look to be pretty expensive. I saw motherboards at around 250, monitors like 300 or more so know that right there makes me think that it might take that much to build one. I want duo processor and a good motherboard and two video cards.


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## smiddy (Apr 5, 2006)

BMoreRavens said:


> As for prices between building your own or buying a complete PC from a store I don't know about lower end but higher end stuff I think it is cheaper to build your own.
> 
> I looked at every store I could think of including Dell. Ever PC I found seem to be laking on one or two things from what I ended up with including doing upgrades on a Dell unit and the prices seem to be a lot more than I paid.


I concur with this, I look every once in a while to compare prices and there is a huge lag between the PC manufacturers and the high end equipment. Their prices tend to be higher than what it would cost to buy the high end stuff and put it together yourself. When I was researching my HTPC (which I didn't build, holding off for the HDPC-20 to show up) there is no comparison if you intend to use the bleeding edge technology compared to what is available for HTPCs.


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

If you don't have space for a flat panel monitor, what kind of monitor are you considering?

Core2Duo is fine.

You want SLi?



turey22 said:


> No I understood when you said flat panel. On the tower that may be a yes ill have to check it out. I know that with 3 to 4 grand I could be a very good computer. I haven't looked into everything maybe I should but things look to be pretty expensive. I saw motherboards at around 250, monitors like 300 or more so know that right there makes me think that it might take that much to build one. I want duo processor and a good motherboard and two video cards.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

turey22 said:


> No I understood when you said flat panel. On the tower that may be a yes ill have to check it out. I know that with 3 to 4 grand I could be a very good computer. I haven't looked into everything maybe I should but things look to be pretty expensive. I saw motherboards at around 250, monitors like 300 or more so know that right there makes me think that it might take that much to build one. I want duo processor and a good motherboard and two video cards.


Take a trip over to www.sharkyextreme.com and look at their recommendations for home built systems. They come up with system configurations in budget (arounnd $1K), mid range and extreme categories every few months.


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## turey22 (Jul 30, 2007)

okay i messed up on my last post i mean i do want a flat panel sorry.


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

You asked for 2 video cards. Do you want SLi?



turey22 said:


> okay i messed up on my last post i mean i do want a flat panel sorry.


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## Slip Jigs (Oct 20, 2006)

I just got a Dell XPS 420 and I'm totally satisfied. Q6600, 4 MB 800Mhx RAM, 2 big hard drives (no RAID for me), Geforce 512 video card, TV Tuner. 

It was about 1400 sans monitor. I don't know how that compares to a built computer price-wise, or the difference in quality of certain components. 

What counts for me is that it will boot up all the way in about 20 seconds and will render video super fast. Looks cool too. 

oh, and the other 600 I spent was on a 24 inch monitor with HDMI.


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

I believe you meant to write 4 GB (of DDR2-800) memory.

I went out to the Dell website and could not match your price although I might have come close. Here is what I got:

Dell XPS420 (before upgrades): $999
Windows Home Premium: $0
Q6600: $0
4GB DDR2-800: $80
GF8800GT: $250
500GB HDD x2 (without Dell Data Safe nor RAID 0): $100 [you would have to call Dell for this]
Tuner Card: $?

Total above; $1429.

BTW, good config! Well balanced although some might argue a higher clocked C2Duo dual core will out perform the E6600 Quad core - although I doubt you can tell the difference. Intel C2Duo CPU's (be it dual core or quad core) performance have plateaued. You can spend a lot more money for the Extreme versions and they will not run your system significantly faster. Adding a very good graphics card (which you did) and beefing up system memory and hard disk capacity provide much better bang for the buck than blowing a wad on upgrading the CPU.



Slip Jigs said:


> I just got a Dell XPS 420 and I'm totally satisfied. Q6600, 4 MB 800Mhx RAM, 2 big hard drives (no RAID for me), Geforce 512 video card, TV Tuner.
> 
> It was about 1400 sans monitor. I don't know how that compares to a built computer price-wise, or the difference in quality of certain components.
> 
> ...


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## Slip Jigs (Oct 20, 2006)

Yes, 4 GB! : )

I did forget to mention that I got $400 off the entire system because it came to over 1800 - that was using a coupon, are a little hard to find on the Dell site but they are there. 

It doesn't have SLI support, that's what the 630's are for, but I don't need that. 

But those are the same specs - except I got one 320 and one 500 drive, and they had to do that over the phone as it wasn't an online option. The tuner card with the xCelerator was about $150. the Xcelerator is supposed to take the load off the CPU for video rendering, but only the supplied Roxio supports it. 

Another goodie that came with the system was the Adobe Elements package - Premiere Elements, Photoshop elements and soundbooth - which I hear is no longer included. 

It's also pretty quiet, although I've read other accounts on that.


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## turey22 (Jul 30, 2007)

kokishin said:


> You asked for 2 video cards. Do you want SLi?


yes i would


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

OK. Getting close to making some recommendations. Still a few more questions:

Do you really want SLi? SLi requires a hefty SLi certified power supply and creates more system noise and heat since you have 2 video cards with fans. SLi jacks up the price of your system substantially. However, if you plan to use a big, high res monitor, then I would recommend SLi.

Do you think you will ever need 2 monitors? (SLi can only support 1 monitor whereas a single video card can support 2 monitors.).

Do you want HDMI out?

Have you ever built a PC before?
If not, do you have an experienced friend who can help you?



turey22 said:


> yes i would


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## turey22 (Jul 30, 2007)

kokishin said:


> OK. Getting close to making some recommendations. Still a few more questions:
> 
> Do you really want SLi? SLi requires a hefty SLi certified power supply and creates more system noise and heat since you have 2 video cards with fans. SLi jacks up the price of your system substantially. However, if you plan to use a big, high res monitor, then I would recommend SLi.
> 
> ...


yes, i would like it but i know that SLi is really not that necessary but since i want two cards and SLi will give me better performance i will have to say yes. i wont use a big or high res monitor, just a normal one. i dont think i would need two monitors at all. i really dont even know what the use of two monitors would be for. NO to hdmi out. no need for that. I have never built anything in my life but i would love to. I would like to learn on how to build one. i have a buddy he said if i needed help he would give me a hand. i dont know how much experience he has but how hard is it to build a computer yourself?


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

It's not dfficult if you've done it before  In your case, you are going to have a high end system which means among other things, you need to be aware of:

inserting the components carefully and correctly. For example, the GF9800GTX card is quite long and can be difficult to install. You will have two to install (if you agree with my Bill of Material (BOM)).
attaching the power supply and signal/control cables correctly
cable management
air flow and thermal management
possibly having to update the SBIOS
formatting the HDD
installing the OS
installing and updating the software drivers and utilities
setting up your network connection

I strongly recommend you get a friend with some experience to help.



turey22 said:


> yes, i would like it but i know that SLi is really not that necessary but since i want two cards and SLi will give me better performance i will have to say yes. i wont use a big or high res monitor, just a normal one. i dont think i would need two monitors at all. i really dont even know what the use of two monitors would be for. NO to hdmi out. no need for that. I have never built anything in my life but i would love to. I would like to learn on how to build one. i have a buddy he said if i needed help he would give me a hand. i dont know how much experience he has but how hard is it to build a computer yourself?


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## turey22 (Jul 30, 2007)

kokishin said:


> It's not dfficult if you've done it before  In your case, you are going to have a high end system which means among other things, you need to be aware of:
> 
> inserting the components carefully and correctly. For example, the GF9800GTX card is quite long and can be difficult to install. You will have two to install (if you agree with my Bill of Material (BOM)).
> attaching the power supply and signal/control cables correctly
> ...


I am going to get somebody with experience to do that. I dont think i could do the air flow and thermal management


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

I'm working on a BOM for you which I will send out later today (JST). Preliminarily, I am going to advise: 
Full size ATX case, 
GF9800GTX (x2) in SLI configuration, 
Motherboard with Nforce chipset (for SLi support), 
4GB of DDR2 or DDR3 depending on the motherboard chosen, 
> 1Kwatt power supply, 
2 big HDD (one for backup - no RAID). 
Vista Home Premium.

Are you concerned about audio? Do you need speakers? If so, 2.1 or 5.1?

What else?

Let me know what you think about the above so I try to meet your needs. Also, let me know what else you think you want.



turey22 said:


> I am going to get somebody with experience to do that. I dont think i could do the air flow and thermal management


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## OverThereTooMuch (Aug 19, 2006)

OP's original requirements include:
- New computer for school
- Lots of World of Warcraft
- Wants the "latest" video cards and processor
- Will be doing web design

After additional updates:
- Vista Home Premium or Vista Ultimate
- $3000-4000 budget
- Will use photoshop, MS Office, email web searching, etc.
- Will be embedding video/flash content
- Flat panel monitor
- Needs a backup HDD too
- Needs to last 2-3 years at least
- Wants Dual core processor and two video cards

Argument for SLI - "yes, i would like it but i know that SLi is really not that necessary but since i want two cards and SLi will give me better performance i will have to say yes."

Does anyone know if SLI adds any benefits outside of games? I didn't think that it did.

For something like WOW, isn't the 8800 GT/GTS already overkill?

I KNOW that dual 9800GTX's is overkill (on performance, power consumption and the wallet!). Those cards are about $378 each. I think the 8800 GTS's are currently a lot cheaper than that. One recent deal had them for < $100 each, but I don't think that's common. I think they're < $200 after rebates now though, with just a little bit of searching.

With CPU's and with video cards, you're typically better off purchasing the second fastest. The top of the line is usually significantly more expensive for marginal gain.

With the requirements listed above, encoding video is probably the most CPU intensive. So for that requirement, you will likely want to get a quad core CPU. The latest generation 2.5GHz quad core is around $280. The previous generation 2.4GHz is around $200. The latest generation 3.2 GHz quad core is $1500 :eek2: Seems like either of those 2.x GHz ones will be a much better choice.

Regarding "airflow and thermal management"...well, you can really get fancy if you want, but personally I think all you really need to worry about is that you have at least one fan blowing in and at least one fan blowing out, and that they are on opposite sides of the case.

I would suggest using multiple monitors instead of focusing on SLI. I think that would add a lot more value to your day to day tasks than 2 monster GPU's would. But if you're limited on desktop space, at least get the biggest monitor you think you can fit.

kokishin - I have some questions about your choices.
1) Why full ATX case instead of a mid-tower ATX? With only one or two HD's, I don't think you need something this big.
2) From what I've seen from DDR3 results, it offers only a minimal performance gain while being many times more expensive than DDR2 RAM. Don't know how long ago I saw that info though. Do you have something more recent that might convince people that DDR3 is worth it?
3) Instead of a dual card SLI solution, what about a 9800GX2 (where they're integrated into the same PCIe slot)? This would allow you to get a cheaper motherboard, since you wouldn't need dual PCIe x16 slots. And I think it would allow you to get something other than an Nvidia chipset, wouldn't it? I don't think the single card SLI solution requires that.
4) Do you think a dual HD system (where one is the backup) is safe? Seems like an external storage solution, like USB 2.0 or eSATA would be a better choice.


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

Understand that I am tying to help OP put together the system he requested (versus the system that someone else thinks he needs). I am NOT pushing OP to use highest performance graphics solution, nor Extreme Quad core, nor DDR3. I did try to point out the tradeoffs of using a SLi graphics solution (cost, heat, complexity, single monitor support). My basic recommendation to most folks designing anything is KISS.

You are most welcome to advise the OP with your recommendations.

See responses to your questions below.



OverThereTooMuch said:


> OP's original requirements include:
> - New computer for school
> - Lots of World of Warcraft
> - Wants the "latest" video cards and processor
> ...


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## turey22 (Jul 30, 2007)

thank you guys but i been thinking it over and it would be better if i wouldnt build my own computer. i dont want to break it on the first day.


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## kokishin (Sep 30, 2006)

:lol: No Problem. Been waiting for you to respond to post #32. If you change your mind, just respond to post #32 or send me a PM.



turey22 said:


> thank you guys but i been thinking it over and it would be better if i wouldnt build my own computer. i dont want to break it on the first day.


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