I was hoping people here could give me a few pointers. I'm good to hook everything up, but I'm not sure about a few things concerning the finer details, and a general sort of critique would be nice. Here's everything I've been looking at:
Case: RAIDMAX SMILODON Steel ATX Mid Tower, one 120mm fan, three 80mm fans
Motherboard: GIGABYTE AM3 AMD ATX Motherboard
CPU: AMD Phenom II 3.4GHz Quad Core
GPU: Radeon HD5750, 1GB memory
RAM: G.SKILL 240-pin DDR3 SDRAM, 2x 2GB
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3, 1TB, 7200 RPM
PSU: COOLMAX 650W ATX 12V Power Supply
Everything else I'll be recycling from older computers.
My first question concerns the case and motherboard. This is my first homebuilt setup, though I've tinkered inside some preassembled ones, so I'm confident enough in actually hooking everything up. My problem is that I'm not sure if everything's compatible. How do I know if the motherboard I've chosen will fit in any given case? The case says it fits any ATX form motherboard, but I don't know if there's variations within that to complicate things, i.e. that every port on the motherboard will actually fit a slot on the case.
I also don't really know how good the motherboard I chose was. It seems a bit on the cheap end, yet all of the specs seem decent enough, especially that it has USB 3.0 ports. I'm not particularly well-versed in the finer points, though. As for the power supply, it seems like it has just the right number of peripheral plugins for all the fans in the case, so I'm mostly concerned about the wattage.
Aside from that, an overall review of the assembly would be very greatly appreciated. Like I said, this is the first computer I'll be building for myself, and I'm afraid there'll be some tiny mistakes I'm not expecting that'll prevent it from running. Thanks a lot for any replies.
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Majivo wrote:
My first question concerns the case and motherboard. This is my first homebuilt setup, though I've tinkered inside some preassembled ones, so I'm confident enough in actually hooking everything up. My problem is that I'm not sure if everything's compatible. How do I know if the motherboard I've chosen will fit in any given case? The case says it fits any ATX form motherboard, but I don't know if there's variations within that to complicate things, i.e. that every port on the motherboard will actually fit a slot on the case.
lets start with the case. The case you have specified will fit all the components you have listed, and will work. ATX refers to the type of motherboard form factor that it will accept, which is standardized so all the ***** holes, slots, backplates, etc "should" line up. Occasionally you run into the rare exception case, but 99% of the time everything lines up correctly
It would not be my first choice for a case in that price range though because the layout of the case overall is an older style, similar to the old chenming 601 era cases. The side mounted fan crossbar will get in the way more than help, and its a bit on the small side in terms of front to back lenght. With your hard drives pointing back towards the video card like they have it, you will have clearance issues to address with that ginormous radeon card.
For that cost, i'd get this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119215&cm_re=cooler_master_cm690-_-11-119-215-_-Product
or for $20 more, the advance pack with the extra brackets and gizmos.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119216&cm_re=cooler_master_cm690-_-11-119-216-_-Product
Keep in mind that of all the parts you buy for your computer, you will have the case longest. So it pays to get a good one you like.
Majivo wrote:
I also don't really know how good the motherboard I chose was. It seems a bit on the cheap end, yet all of the specs seem decent enough, especially that it has USB 3.0 ports. I'm not particularly well-versed in the finer points, though. As for the power supply, it seems like it has just the right number of peripheral plugins for all the fans in the case, so I'm mostly concerned about the wattage.
Motherboard, Gigabyte is a decent company. I tend to prefer Asus, but you are going with an AMD processor anyways, which I am not as familiar with so I couldn't really give you a detailed review of that specific class of board. Looks like it should work.
The power supply, well, it will work and it has a decent warrenty. We ordered some at my other job to check them out and I wasn't impressed though. had 2 fail out of the box out of 6 ordered, and all the wires are about 3 inches shorter than normal, which makes running the wires problematic in some taller cases.
Hard drive, I'd go with a western digital hard drive over the samsung one, just because I have more experiance wth western digital drives. Samsung makes generally great products but they haven't been in the drive buisiness that long.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136534&cm_re=western_digital_1tb-_-22-136-534-_-Product
Majivo wrote:
Aside from that, an overall review of the assembly would be very greatly appreciated.
You have all the parts you will need there
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Thanks a lot for the review, Kao. I forgot how the newer video cards are massive and didn't account for that in my case choice. I'll try and find a different power supply too, because I've had a lot of RMA pains in the past and don't want to go through that here. Thanks again.
note that that MB only has 1 PCI 16x slot, so you won't have the option of using crossfire in the future.
While it might be more than what you want to spend, I'd suggest an Asus MB even with AMD chipsets.
Try this one. It's not much more expensive than what you want but it is an AM3 compatible chipset.
Sure there is no USB 3.0 but it does allow xfire and DDR3.
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=26_340&item_id=021508
Of course if it's out of your budget then forget it.
But I do recommend the Radeon 5770 over 5750. The extra little difference in price is made up for the increase in power.
HDD: Samsung is fine. Just get something cheap (as long as it's a WD, Samsung or Seagate but not the .11 versions) as a placeholder for now. New > 2TB drives are coming out soon which will drive prices down so if you're unafraid to reformat a few months down the road you could probably spring for an SSD (which are finally coming down to reasonable) for the OS and a faster/larger drive for other things. Just be sure to get Windows 7 (gonna need it for newer drives).
Power supply: might want to get a better one. This is one thing that does not depreciate as fast as other parts. A good power supply is critical. Make sure it is 80+ certified and at least 650. Do not skimp on the power supply. Even if you have to sacrifice elsewhere this is the place where you will get your money's worth for years as they do not go obsolete as easily.
Try this one. It's not much more expensive than what you want but it is an AM3 compatible chipset.
Sure there is no USB 3.0 but it does allow xfire and DDR3.
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=26_340&item_id=021508
Of course if it's out of your budget then forget it.
But I do recommend the Radeon 5770 over 5750. The extra little difference in price is made up for the increase in power.
HDD: Samsung is fine. Just get something cheap (as long as it's a WD, Samsung or Seagate but not the .11 versions) as a placeholder for now. New > 2TB drives are coming out soon which will drive prices down so if you're unafraid to reformat a few months down the road you could probably spring for an SSD (which are finally coming down to reasonable) for the OS and a faster/larger drive for other things. Just be sure to get Windows 7 (gonna need it for newer drives).
Power supply: might want to get a better one. This is one thing that does not depreciate as fast as other parts. A good power supply is critical. Make sure it is 80+ certified and at least 650. Do not skimp on the power supply. Even if you have to sacrifice elsewhere this is the place where you will get your money's worth for years as they do not go obsolete as easily.
Thanks for the input, guys. I hadn't considered the possibility of doing Crossfire at some point in the future. A lot of good food for thought for me in this thread.
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