First Time PC Builder!!!

[DJ-DOO]

Hi,

I'm putting together a pc for myself for the first time. I'm just hoping that someone could let me know if the following components are all compatible....

kingston 8gb ram - 7FS5WS00
AMD PHENOM II X4 965 BD - 6BOXWS500
MOTHERBOARD (GA-MA78LMT-USZH) - 73MZWS00
WESTERN DIGITAL 500GB HD CAVIAR GREEN - 69T6WS00
OCZ TECH PSU II 600W - 6ZZOWS00
ANTEC 600 MIDTOWER - 736WWS00
SONY OPTIARC AD 7260S - 71HOWS00

Any information anyone could give me on this and compatibility I would really really appreciate it.

thanks in advance!!

Gary

[Cmdrx3]

Yes, everything looks fine there. All are compatible with each other. By the way the motherboard is US2H and not USZH.

[Altair]

Hi Gary, Welcome to the forum.

I've checked these components and it would seem that the PSU is incompatible. Your AMD CPU, like most other high end AM3 CPUs will most likely require an ATX 12V 2.3 specification PSU and this OCZ unit is only 2.2

Basically the 12V supply that feeds the CPU is either 8 pin or 4 pin. 4 pin is older and covers lower end processors, while the 8 pin is the new 2.3 spec and covers the high end processors and is fast becoming the standard. My AMD CPU requires an 8 pin supply and although i don't know for sure, i feel that yours will too.

Also 600W for a system like this is overkill, particularly with no GPU, are you expecting to add one in the future? I would recommend something like this 430W Corsair PSU, all the power you need, 8 pin CPU supply and one of the best manufacturers out there.

If you could post your rough budget and proposed uses it help us recommend the best parts for you.

[DMS]

Without wishing to contradict Altair, whilst the PSU is overkill, it is not incompatible. ATX v2.2 motherboards such as the OCZ StealthXstream II do have the both the 20+4 pin and 4+4 pin connectors required for the board mentioned. ATX v2.3 was only a minor change which introduced a recommendation for 80% efficiency (which I suspect the OCZ will be anyway) and reduced the +12V CPU minimum load requirement (which would only be relevant for low power CPUs). OCZ is amongst the better brands - certainly recommended - so there is no problem with going for it. But, being overkill, you could go for something with lower wattage to save some pennies.

As Altair says, an idea of uses would be helpful. For instance, if you are looking for something capable of running modern games you will want a discrete GPU rather than using the onboard one.

[Altair]

Thanks DMS, you are correct, I must have misread it. apologies for any misleading advice.

[Edit] i also wasn't recommending against OCZ, they are also one of the best manufacturers out there and being an 80+ certified PSU it is an excellent choice. However i only meant to confirm that Corsair are as well.

[2o2o]

The other problem missed here is the Hard Drive, it is best you don't use a "Green" or similar hard drive as a system drive as they try to spin down when not in use and are considerably slower due to it trying to reduce its power load. I have built a machine with a green drive before and the whole system responded noticeably slower. As for the PSU even if it did just have a 4pin cpu power connector it would still work perfectly fine with an 8 pin board as really the extra power is only used when overclocking.

[DMS]

Interesting. I hadn't realised they made that much difference.

Gary, for £10 more, you could get a Samsung HD103SJ which is double the capacity of the one above and should provide enough speed!

Re: PSUs, there's an interesting article on Tom's Hardware today updating their list of who makes what for whom. Well, I thought it was interesting but...

[DJ-DOO]

Hi Folks,

Thank you for all your help thus far

@Altair & DMS -

Ok firstly, my budget is £530 (€600), at the moment after making the alterations to my basket corsair psu and samgsung hd, costings are £478 (€545)..Obviously if I can come in under budget...well...woop woop!

Secondly - I am a second year Software Design - Games Dev student, will be progressing to third in September. My main uses for the pc are programming, graphics editing (basic, sprite and background editing using Fireworks etc..), sound editing (again, basic), general documentation creation (word docs, powerpoint etc). I won't be using the pc for any gaming other than testing and playing the games I create. I am basically looking to build a machine that is fast, allows me to carry out multiple tasks at once and good memory. Programs I will be using are visual studio, springsource, python, fireworks, audacity and office...

After making the alterations to the basket it looks like this...

Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333MHz DIMM 240-pin CL9 - 7FS5WS00
AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4GHz Black Edition AM3 Socket L2/L3 8MB - 6B0XWS00
Gigabyte GA-MA78LMT-US2H AM3 AMD 760G mATX - 73MZWS00
Samsung 1TB Spinpoint F3 7200rpm SATA 3Gb/s 32MB - 65QCWS00
Corsair Memory Builder Series CX430 430W ATX PSU - 75S1WS00
Antec 600 Six Hundred Mid Tower Gaming Case - 736WWS00
Sony Optiarc AD-7260S-0B 24X DVD/RW SATA Burner Optical Drive - 71HOWS00
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium OEM 64-bit 1pk - 68YSWS00

So how does this look folks?

Is there a requirement for a cooling unit? I think the fans in the case should be adequate..I think?!

[2o2o]

Your cooling will be fine, I would advise a basic Geforce GFX card as they so give performance improvments for graphics editing and of course reduce the workload on the CPU giving more CPU power to whatever task you are doing.

[Cmdrx3]

No gaming so no need for a superpower GPU, but definitely throw in a cheap graphics card and don't rely on the onboard GPU, which as 2o2o said take power away from your CPU and memory from your system. Something simple like the Nvidia GeForce GT 210 or Radeon 5450 would suffice or even the 8400 GS, just make sure you get a 512Mb card rather than a 256Mb one. At £25-30 it's not a big spend but a huge improvement over onboard graphics.