Building a computer? Need advice/suggestions? Come here!

[Cortexian]

The AX series of PSU's are a little old now, I'd get this TX version. Honestly, if I had to pick one component in my system to buy the best of it would be the PSU. A faulty PSU can destroy the rest of your system if it has a catastrophic breakdown.

Video memory only matters depending on the resolution you're running really. What resolution do you plan to run at? I wouldn't bother with the 2GB unless you're at 2560x1600 or greater.

CPU's come with their own fans that you install onto the motherboard, this is probably the trickiest thing to install when doing a PC build. The one that Intel will supply is decent, if you want to overclock or just prolong the life of your CPU I'd get a better third-party cooler though. This Noctua NH-D14 is one of the best air coolers on the market right now.

Integrated graphics are basically disabled if you have a dedicated graphics card installed in your system, so it doesn't matter.

[Donut]

im approaching the point where i actually order this stuff now. i found this monitor deal on newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824254055. the fact that its on sale makes it even more desirable. thoughts on monitors other than this? the details say it is not LED backlit. is that a problem?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824236099
this one is about $50 more, but it seems pretty much superior to the first one.

E: should i mess with RAID arrays at all, or is just one hard drive ok?

[Cortexian]

Get a Samsung monitor, they are the best IMO. I have one of these and it's amazing.

Get a single Intel SSD around 200GB - 300GB for your OS/Programs/Games if you can afford it.

For file storage you can then get a couple 2TB 5,200/5,900 RPM storage drives and put them in RAID 1 (mirror). That way if one drive goes you won't lose any data, just replace the drive and rebuild and you'll be saved.

That would be the best solution.

[ThePlague]

Hey guys should this be like it is?:



It's the thermal pad from my GPU.

[Cortexian]

post pic of your GPU with cooling shit off of it

[ThePlague]

the gpu looks fine, perfectly clean and doesn't look burnt. My camera is dead atm :\

e:
This card, or this card? (no i'm not getting an Nvidia, these are going above my price range as it is.)

[InnerGoat]

Plague that's probably a protector to keep thermal paste off everything else besides the gpu core

[Amit]

Wait, so why did you take the HSF off to begin with?

[Amit]

Buying this stuff this week because I wanna get some actual high-res video for BF3:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition - $119.00
MB: ASUS M5A97 AM3+ ATX - $95.00
RAM: Corsair CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 2x2G 1600Mhz DDR3 - $38.00

The RAM timings are slow, but I don't give a fuck, this is a budget build. The prices written into the hyperlinks are different than newegg because those are the prices I'm getting these items for at my local computer shop.

I'm pairing the above items with these things that I already have:

GPU: Sapphire ATi Radeon HD 5750 Vapor-X 1GB 128-bit GDDR5
Case: Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Mid Tower ATX

ThePlague recommended this CPU cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus. It's cheap and it gets unreal reviews. I think I'll use that to OC the 955 Black, after all, that's what the Black edition is for. My only concern is that coolermaster doesn't say that it's compatible with AM3+ motherboards, but I'm sure it'll work no problem since the mounting hasn't changed for AMD boards since the AM2 socket I think.

What do you guys think?

[ThePlague]

Can people donate money to help me get a new graphics card? :C This thing is seriously fucked.