Joining to learn how to build a computer - Page 4

When you buy a cpu, they usually come with a stock cpu cooler

They aren't really the best, but they keep the cpu cool enough so that it doesn't over heat

you could get like a hyper 212+ for pretty cheap, and that will give you pretty good cooling
But it may not be very quiet, or able to do extreme over clocking. But it'll be a good upgrade over a stock cooler

For the most part, all you need to make a computer is a psu cpu mobo and a power switch and a hard drive and ram
and that should be enough to make your computer work and stuff

alternatively, you could pirate a copy of windows 7, but thats not really too good of an idea

I don't really know the difference between windows, except that the only difference between ultimate and enterprise is that enterprise comes with more language packs and stuff. And its supposed to be only available for companies
Edited by Peopie - 4/21/12 at 3:24pm

Hey man. Glad to see you wandered over from clubcivic. Looks like you've already gotten plenty of help with your build. Welcome to OCN

No problem Building PC's like that is my favorite thing to do lol Fun to see all the different paths you can go as far as parts and what not.

Any who, I didn't include a CPU cooler because I didn't jump to the conclusion that you'd be overclocking, which is the only time you'll need an aftermarket cooler, stock will work perfectly fine, but if you would like to fit an aftermarket cooler in, we could probably drop to Windows Professional to have more room for a CPU cooler, mouse, and keyboard.

Also, as far as the case goes, I'm a corsair fan, and the 600t doesn't have a shipping charge right now at the egg, so it saves $20 bucks lol. Plus, the Corsair pre-built water coolers fit right in to the top of the 600t, so going with high end (pre-built) water cooling becomes easier and cheaper.

Now as far as the OS goes, I've got Ultimate 64 bit, and I haven't noticed a single difference other than the fact I can have Windows in 33 different languages lol. Home Premium 64 bit will support the same amount of RAM as Ultimate 64 bit because they are both 64-bit. The OS's that will differ in the amount of RAM they support are 32 bit OS's versus 64 bit OS's. 32 bit can only support 3GB to 4GB, I forget which one, but it's one of those. I believe it's 3GB. And then anything over that isn't recognized and becomes wasted space, time, and money. 64 bit OS's read up to like 32GB of RAM though, a crazy high amount that you won't need unless you work in the movie editing industry or something similar lol.

With that in mind, we could probably drop to Home Premium and save even more cash for the peripherals, even throw in a sound card and entry level audiophile head phones if we're lucky, and maybe an H60-H80 (which are two of corsairs prebuilt water coolers, the H100 is the best performing one out right now, but gets pretty costly. The H60 and H70 are very similar in performance, so if you're ever deciding between the H60 and H70, if you've got the cash, it's best just to go H80 to see a more significant increase in cooling.)

EDIT:

So, after dropping to premium, I was able to throw in an H60, a standard microsoft keyboard, my mouse (which I'm liking quite a bit so far, just picked it up yesterday, but we can definitely discusses mice more in depth once we are set on the OS and see how much we have left to spend), and we can afford this wonderful sound card right here, along with a pair of headphones in the $50-$75, unless you are willing to spend a little over $1500, we could be looking at $1550 - $1580 to get semi-mid level audiophile headphones that are highly recommended, being a choice between the A700's and the AD700's.

So if you are willing to spend that little extra bit for excellent audio quality, those are two of the highest recommended headphones I've seen. The difference between the two, other than one being purple and one being dark blue - black, is closed back versus open back. I'm not sure how familiar you are with headphones, so please forgive me if I'm preaching to the choir on this one lol. The AD700's are slightly cheaper, have little to no bass, but a massive sound stage because of the open air design. You can hear footsteps from a substantial difference in FPS games, and separate a river from a tree rustling in the wind in a game like Skyrim. The A700's have a close back design, so they retain more air, which means they have a smaller sound stage (though not by much from what I hear), but much better bass. This will allow you to feel more of an impact from explosions in games, movies, or music.

If you don't want to spend that extra cash to get the AD700's or A700's, my recommendations in the $50-$75 price range that will keep you right near $1500 are the Samson SR850's, which are what I use and they are excellent for the price; the Superlux HD668B's which are well recommended in the audio section here at OCN in this price range, and then to go even cheaper, save even more cash, but not lose much quality, are the JVC RX700's which may not sound like much and may scare you away with such a low price, but don't let that fool you. This little guy dominants the sub $50 market, and many even say they could get away selling in the $60 range. They are a great all around pair of headphones that don't excel at much but are good at almost all aspects of audio.

EDIT 2:
Seems I forgot to include the link, and let you know I took the recommendation of getting the Extreme3 Gen 3 Motherboard instead of the one I selected.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7ay2
Edited by rivaldog - 4/22/12 at 8:16am

Anytime man ^_^

Cool cool, so with out the purchase of headphones and a sound card, I think we can still fit Pro and a Cooler, as well as the mouse and keyboard I've thrown in for now.

No problem with Lanboy Air, it's a nice case, and as far as compatibility goes, cases are usually only a problem when you are looking for an ITX size build, which is super small and I haven't seen a big number of cases that support mobos that tiny. So let's see what we get when we switch out those parts...

EDIT:
http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

Going off the total after MIR's, we've got $50 left to stay under the $1500 budget, and I strongly suggest picking up that Asus Xonar DG It's not necessary as you've pointed out, but the difference truly is night and day between using a sound card and onboard audio. It will really help your turtle beaches shine on the PC. There are some testimonials you could check out in the Headphones section here on OCN so you know it won't be a waste, and since you aren't an extreme audiophile, the DG with that $10 MIR from Fry's (so total $19.99), is a real steal and will be perfect for you. I would also check out the deals section here as there have been ways to get it for like $16 with out the hassle and wait of a mail in rebate, but so far Fry's has the lowest price I've seen.

This is also under the assumption you want the Antec Lanboy Air Blue lol If you want the yellow that's another $20 or so.

EDIT 2:
I've been thinking about a suggestion to throw you're way. Instead of the 7970, we could crossfire to of XFX's 6870 2GB cards to give better performance for less cash, how ever, this option is a little less future proof as it provides less VRAM, and with the 6870, is a "maxed out" configuration, as in you can't improve with 6870's by adding more than two because they all only have one crossfire bridge, meaning you can only have two running at once.

For slightly more cash than a 7970, we can crossfire two 2GB 6950's now, gain quite a bit more performance over the 7970, and have the ability to throw a third card in later, but this will also require that you upgrade the PSU for three cards. This option is slightly less future proof than a 7970 still how ever, because the 7970 does have 3GB of RAM, although 2GB in a video card is plenty for now. It does offer a little more bang for your buck going with CF 6950's since you'll initially have better performance.

With the 7970 how ever, you are perfectly future proof with extremely substantial single GPU performance, 3GB of RAM, and the ability to crossfire later, only it will be extremely pricey to crossfire this card later compared to crossfiring 6950's or 6870's.

So personally, out of those GPU options, I would still stick with the 7970 option, but it's only fair we lay out all our possible cards

I've also upgraded the PSU to a very trustworthy 750w PSU that should be able to crossfire two 7970's

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7bzN
Edited by rivaldog - 4/22/12 at 2:55pm

Welcome, if you need help in the process of putting together your computer, there are lots of videos on YouTube that show you step-by-step how to build a computer. There are some very important steps to building your computer...
Always make sure you ground yourself to the computer case before touching any computer parts.
Wash your hands to get any oils/dirt/anything else that was on your hands. You don't want to ruin your computer parts before you even put them inside of your case, now would you?
Don't force any computer parts into the PCI-E slots or the memory slots, and especially don't force your CPU into your motherboard, if they aren't going in, you're probably putting it in there the wrong way. (TWSS)
Do it once, and do it right. Follow the instructions. You don't want to be there for hours trying to figure out what went wrong.