help/advice for a nooby.

[rory]

Hi, new to these forums and seeking advice on building a new pc.

so far i have purchased two components:

GPU: ati 6950 sapphire toxic 2gb.

PSU: corsair tx750m

now currently im looking for a decent motherboard, cpu, ram and hard drive to finish everything off.

I'm planning to use the gpu and psu in my aging dell, and then acquire the next components gradually as funds will allow.

I'd like to know which mobo to purchase, as Im kinda hoping for a true pcie 3, for future proofing with the hyped ivy bridge processors. also im thinking of getting an i2500k or an i5 2400, most likely the latter.

oh and a case reccomendation would be much appreciated, really have no idea with building a pc from scratch.

Bearing in mind, my funds are not inexhaustable

any help would be appreciated

sincerely

a noob

 

[kilobravo]

Bitfenix shinobi is a decent case.

And i would get me a 2500k,price difference is little and you gain a lot more at 4.5ghz.

Motherboard i would waite a little and see what comes up.

 

[yassarikhan786]

Yep, you would be better off getting a 2500k

.

 

[Grizzly]

For you motherboard Asus have recently released a lot of Z68 motherboards that have PCI-E 3.0 on them. I'm not certain it is true PCI-E 3.0 though, you may have to wait a little while for affordable motherboards with true PCI-E 3.0.

For your CPU as kilobravo said you may as well get the 2500K.

RAM I'd say 4-8GB Mushkin or Corsair Vengeance LP 1600MHz, the LP Vengeance will allow you to get bigger CPU coolers like the D14.

My personal preference for hard drives would be a Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm. There are Western Digital drives that will match this though if the Seagate is out of stock due to the floods.

Again as kilobravo said the Shinobi is a good case, the Merc is also a good case for a very low price.

It would also help us more if we had a rough number to work with for budget.

 

[rory]

Thanks for the replies guys, very helpful.

I had a quick look at the shinobi, and noticed no usb 3.0 ports. Is it a massive negative?

and do you guys think i *really* need a pcie 3.0 mobo since im only using 1 6950 2gb, although i most likely will want to crossfire and upgrade to ivy bridge cpus in a few years. What are the current prices for true pcie 3 mobos?

budget of around 400-500£.Can be stretched slightly, but i'd prefer not to

Once again any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[Grizzly]

PCI-E 3.0 for a 6950 is pointless, no current gen graphics cards can make use of PCI-E 3.0.

Whether or not you need front panel USB 3.0 is up to you, you will have USB 3.0 ports on your motherboard though and some motherboards come with adapters for a front bay or PCI slot that allow you to use the USB 3.0 headers on your motherboard.

If you do want USB 3.0 on your front panel then your best bet would be the newer Fractal Define R3 which has USB 3.0 at the front, however the case costs a bit more and I'm not sure how well that would go with your budget.

 

[Excalabur50]

2500k Gigabyte ud4 8gig ram = a nice rig and not too expensive.

 

[Tjj226_Angel]

Has any one considered the Asrock Gen 3 motherboard? The come in all different shapes and prices, and best of all there are very few bios issues as compared to MSI. I Know they don't have the same reputation as Asus, and by no means am I saying that Asrock is better than Asus, but if it helps out with the budget, then it might be just enough to think about before you choose an asus board.

 

[yassarikhan786]

You could always get a 5.25" USB 3.0 bay if you ever need USB 3.0 in the future.

 

[rory]

Aha thanks for the info guys.

However I've run into a snag.

Just upgraded the psu from a dell 425w to a corsair 750 and it seems my hdd has died?

Now the bios detects the hdd but post does not and I get the "no sata drive connected" message.

Boot order is correct. And it appears the sata connector to the mobo and the power seems to be working too.

Tried using the vista cd to repair windows, but it just goes into a blank screen. No idea what to do

 

[Grizzly]

Aha thanks for the info guys.

However I've run into a snag.

Just upgraded the psu from a dell 425w to a corsair 750 and it seems my hdd has died?

Now the bios detects the hdd but post does not and I get the "no sata drive connected" message.

Boot order is correct. And it appears the sata connector to the mobo and the power seems to be working too.

Tried using the vista cd to repair windows, but it just goes into a blank screen. No idea what to do

Try putting the old PSU back in. If that works it could be a faulty connector

If the Corsair is modular you could try using a different SATA cable.

If not try using a different connector on the same cable.

If all that fails it could be your hard drive has failed or something else is stopping it from booting.