Computer advice pls

[logmplus1]

Help me, lazywebs! I'm building a new computer, but having never built from scratch before, I'm not sure about components. Please, those with such techie experience, to be reading and commenting?

(People who've helped in the past: please re-read. I'm an idiot and forgot to write down the build I had before eBuyer deleted the list, and I honestly

Comments

[eldritchreality]

Everything looks fine to me except for the cpu fan.

I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of cooling a processor that powerful with an extremely budget fan. I'd look up the current fan test charts on tomshardware.com (us edition) before deciding that the fan is going to be adequately powerful for such a hot processor.

Here's a relevant looking article, though I've not actually read it, it's just what I found on a cursory search.

[logmplus1]

Hmm... This Zalman looks good in that case. It's fairly hard to find reviews about fans; the one you linked to is from 2001. That one has good reviews on eBuyer, however, and Overclock.net gives it a good review too. Tom's Hardware doesn't have any recent comparison/reviews of fans, save that it uses that Zalman regularly when benchmarking other hardware.

[one_wingx]

I think PC gamer reviewed fans this month. Might be worth having a look, as they're generally quite good about flagging up the best ones that are reasonably priced.

[logmplus1]

Eeenteresting! I'll get a copy of that, then.

[innokenti]

Although I've had excellent experience from ebuyer recently for individual items, I'm a little wary of their pricing, as it's not always great

[logmplus1]

I'll take a look at Aria and Scan, then. I had a quick compare against Maplin and Dabs, and Ebuyer was beating those hands-down.

The BenQ is very slightly more expensive; I picked the Samsung on the grounds, primarily, of its resolution, but I'll take your advice on the topic :)

On the graphics, when I looked for ASUS models, everything seemed to be on pre-order only; Scan, however, has this, which appears to be a similar model to what I was going to buy, but cheaper :D

[innokenti]

Oh, also - if your router is going to be in the same room as the PC, just connect it up with ethernet. Wireless is a complete pain in the arse. Still.

Stop those headaches.

[logmplus1]

It is, but I'd rather not have to run wires around the outside of the room; our cable connection comes in at an awkward point -.-

[chrisvenus]

Depending on how extravagant you want to be you might consider two hard drives and doing some RAID on them. You should be able to get a performance increase on reading the disk that way. Or if you have anything you want to be really whizzy even a solid state drive...

Also wrt cables I find that I've never needed to buy them. I think motherboards usually come with SATA cables which I assume will do the HD and the DVD drive. Its only 4 quid of course but if you did want to save it you could go without and then source them locally if you find you do need them.

Sounds like a fun computer though.

And I assume you are OK with putting the thing together or do you need me to dredge my mind for hints and tips for that? I think my usual thing is doing stupid things like screwing the motherboard to the case on its little mounting peg things and then finding I've got one of the case cables trapped underneath it... :)

[logmplus1]

The reviews for both drives say they don't come with the cables, as a result of them being OEM models. I hadn't thought about doing RAID for performance; I'd considered it for redundancy, but as I have well over a terra in USB hard drives, primarily for backup, and the work I'm doing isn't that valuable, I'd discounted it. I'll take a look at getting a matching hard drive to plug the two together...

I'm fairly comfortable building the thing. It's not something I've done before, but I've a few people who've offered help-by-phone if required. Plus, working at an IT company, I'm sure there'll be a handful of people willing to come over and lend a hand if required :D