Building a Gaming Rig

Just ordered! I’ll link the everything I got and when I put the comp together I’ll take pics if you guys want =) Thanks a lot for the help! I think this will work out great.

Final order and items.

Processor:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition

Case:
Antec Nine Hundred Two Black ATX Mid Tower
Graphics Card:
Overclocked 870MHz 5870

Power Supply:
Antec TruePower TP-750 Blue 750W

Memory:
Corsair Dominator 8GB 2x4GB

Motherboard:
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3

Moniter:
ASUS VW246H 24" HDMI Widescreen LCD Moniter

Hard Drive:
Western Digital RE3 1 TB 7200 RPM 32 MB Cache

Keyboard:
Logitech Gaming Keyboard G110

Mouse:
Logitech G500 Programmable Gaming Mouse

Like I said I’ll probably post pics of it when I make it and it’s all done, thanks a lot for the help again guys!

i have the original antec nine-hundred. be prepared for very little room… actually i don’t even think that mobo will fit… XD

also hope they fixed some wiring issues, the top usb port and such wires were way tooooo shooort to reach any motherboard i could think of, unless you mount it upside down and wire everything through the water tube holes to it XD

Hmmm maybe the nine hundred two is larger, I really hope so because it is a beautiful looking case lol. The black looks ballin’ with the blue lights. Did I miss any components needed?

I have the Two Hundred and it has lots of room and great airflow for such a cheap case.

Ok, really good to hear. I love the blue on it lol. Btw did I forget anything? My moniter has built in speakers so do I need a sound card? I use a headset mainly.

  • check if your motherboard supports the CPU
  • check what type of memory you need (dual channel / triple channel, frequency)
  • check the motherboard QVL for supported memory kits
  • when first booting the PC properly set the memory voltage and timings as listed on the sticker (usually found on the memory stick itself), it will NOT do this automatically!
  • make sure you have a high quality powersupply with a bronze 80+ rating or better

Custom heatsink and fan highly recommended for the CPU to increase lifespan and add the ability to run the CPU at higher frequencies.

The Motherboard is made to support the AMD Phenom II’s and Athlon II’s, it works with my CPU. What type of cooling would i need for the power output my my CPU has?

Btw um…I can’t see how many channels my power supply is and that my processor and/or motherboard need.

The power supply should work fine. Make sure the case will take an ATX sized board, and it should be ok. Everything else looks good. Speakers built in to monitors are usually crappy, you might want a better speaker system. There is very limited space for speakers in most monitors, and smaller speakers can’t reproduce low frequencies as well. They tend to sound “tinny”, and can’t usually be turned very loud. I notice that you don’t have a dvd rw/blue-ray drive (blur-ray isn’t necessary yet), hard drive, keyboard or mouse listed. Without them you might get some pretty lights, but it would be fairly useless for much else… :slight_smile:

You’ve got a triple channel memory kit there ( three matching sticks ), and a mobo that is only dual channel ( only takes pairs ).
I would go with either one or two 4GB kits.
EDIT: As another note, I’m pretty sure those black edition CPUs don’t come with a CPU cooler. You will have to grab one.
Edit2: NM I guess they are including heat sinks in newer black edition CPUs…huh.

Antec nine-hundred is a fine case, my antec 300 houses everything nice and snug but still with plenty of room, and has great airflow, although your choice is not one id go for especially, buy some Zip ties and put on your creative head, your gonna need it.

yeah, black editions come with heatsinks, but the fan is really loud and it doesn’t cool the CPU perfectly down, mine peaked at 64°C.
you should buy a custom heatsink, like the Scythe Mugen 2.

Back in the s939 and early AM2 days black editions came with no heat sink.
Not sure when that changed.

hm, I only remember there were some unboxed version of CPUs, they came in those little blue boxes and were cheaper because of the lack of a heatsink

The AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition and AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Black Edition retail boxes came without heat sinks.

Do you have a hard drive selected? On such a high budget, you might put a portion of it into getting an SSD (in addition to a normal drive)
You can install Windows on the SSD to get 15-second boot times, then put any larger programs like games on the second, spinning hard drive.

CPU, Mobo, PSU, and Case look fine. You’ll need a HDD as others have said (going SSD with a storage drive is a good way to go. Either that or a raid 5 configuration). The RAM you selected is for Intel builds. You can run it fine, but your processor (and mobo) does not support triple channel, only dual (basically you’d have 2 sticks in dual channel and a straggler stick). So if you are running a 64-bit OS which you should be, I’d recommend just getting two 4GB sticks (or four 2GB sticks, but the two 4GB is better in the long run).

Thanks a ton for all the help so far! I’m trying to decide between a 500GB or a 1Terabyte HD. I have a 500GB one now and I haven’t used all the space over um…4 years. And can someone run me through how to use a SSD? How large should it be, where do I put it?

I fixed my Memory into 2 4GB Corsair Dominators.

And does anyone know any KB’s with a blue backlight in a range of 50-70 dollars? Sorry that I can’t get the Logitech G19 =(

Am I going to need an additional cooler like a fan? And am I missing any important parts? I wear a headset 95% of the time on my comp so I don’t know if I want speakers, maybe later. Do I need a sound card or is the integrated chipset on the MB good? Will the integrated Radeon 4290 on the MB run Crossfire with the 5870 I want to get?

And I could use some help learning how to put it together when I get all the parts, maybe if anyone knows and good tutorial sites or W/E?

Sorry for being such a noob at this =( But I’d like this to work out very well and last about 5 years playing games just fine.

And does anyone know any CD/DVD Drives that can also Burn? I’d like just 1 drive.

You should probably have someone physically there to help you put this together and get your OS installed. There are a lot of issues that could go wrong, and you will need someone with experience to figure them out. (Mobo Jumpers, cable connections, etc)

Be sure to read all of the hardware manuals before you start putting this together. And be sure you understand them.

I have seen people destroy brand new hardware before, because they didn’t know what they were doing. And most of the time, the “Warranty” won’t cover ignorance or neglegence.

Yeah I know someone who has put together 2 comps before so I’ll probably be fine. I’m going to get a 1 Terabyte Hard Drive, how large should the second one be that will have my OS? It’ll be Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.
Another thing. I’m trying to decide on hard drives and like I said, how large should the one with my OS be? And should my main HD be internal or external?

yea never mind… apparently my mobo is ATX form factor XD

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