New gaming rig

Well folks, after weeks of um-ing and arr-ing and a ton of research I've finally completed the order of my new PC. I've decided to go down the 'build your own' route as its gonna be half the price of ordering a complete system.

This will be the first time I've built my own PC so I was more than a little nervous about getting all the components right, there's so much to learn when you start out! So hopefully you guys won't point out any glaring problems with the spec below...unless you want to see me cry!

It'll all be arriving tomorrow!

Mobo
Asus M2R32-MVP Crossfire edition AM2

Power supply
Enermax Galaxy 850w

Processor
AMD ATHLON 64 FX-62 2MB SKT-AM2

RAM
2 x OCZ 2GB DDR2 800 CL4.0 DUAL CHANNEL ATI CROSSFIRE EDITION

Case
THERMALTAKE CASE TAI-CHI

O/S
WINDOWS XP PRO SP2 1 PK

Hard Drive
SEAGATE Barracuda 7200.10 750GB SATA UDMA 300 7200RPM 16MB

Monitor
Acer AL2416WS 24" Widescreen Silver Black LCD Monitor

Drives
2 x Plextor PX-760SA - DVD±RW

Graphics
2 x SAPPHIRE X1950XTX TOXIC LIQUID COOLED - crossfire edition

UT2007 bring it on!

I'll keep you posted on how the installation goes!....

Looks pretty nice.

omg you got the tai-chi case....

Very nice system there...

I want your monitor.

Good man! Your system and mine are close (yours is better

. Here's what you can look forward to, at least for now:

EVERY SETTING maxed (I run at 1680x1050 resolution) and full framerate on every single map.

Bah its not too hard building a PC. Slot this thing here, plug that thing there....pray nothing catches on fire....

No worries....

As anyone knows who has built their own rig, it takes time and research to find out the balance between performance and price. I've built PCs for a living since 1990. I still have software to tweak the BIOS for 286 systems, somewhere in my arsonal. As easy as it is to me to build a rig for me, there is a lot of work at the front end desciding what needs to go in the system, more than how will I build it. It depends on what ya want to use it for and what the funding is for it.

Tho, it's not what I would have built if I did one today, personally (I have my own taste in hardware from being in the business for so many years) it's still I fine example of what the industry has to offer us today.

Good for you in taking the DIY route. There is a certian level of satisfaction the first time you build your own rig...but every time is like the first time, when dealing with new hardware. I would love to upgrade my own rig I built 2 years ago, but it still is humming along nicely. We will see what software I put in it (UT2K7, COD2/3) does to the performance to see if I need to tweak it further.

Hey nice choice in case!

Did you get the Tai-Chi that comes with water cooling or the plain one?

Good luck

I havnt really looked at cases real closely for a while, so I had to look up the Tai-Chi to see what it was/has.....

lets say, anything with casters is good!

Deffinately has room to do just about anything. I vaguely remember reading a review on it. The built in water cooling is a definate plus if one wants to go that rout.

Did you get the Tai-Chi that comes with water cooling or the plain one?

I got the one with liquid cooling, slight hitch tho, the mobo has an AM2 socket and the supplied cooling block doesn't fit! So I've had to install the AMD thingy insead, my supplier is searching out a compatible block which he says should be avaliable.

In the meantime I've got the rig all up and running! It took me about 7 hours total (inclu all the softeware installation), would have been quicker if not for the prob with the water cooling block which took me about an hour to get over!

I've only just finished so I've not even had time to install any games on it! Will keep you posted

Tho, it's not what I would have built if I did one today

Yeah it's a steep learning curve, I've already seen some errors in my choices but I suppose that's the beauty of DIY, i can always change parts in the future.

Very nice work Meandevil. You will not be disappointed in what you built. Even though the Conroe processor outdoes the AM2 by a major margin, you did a fine job building that system. I am throughly impressed with your choices of the crossfire. Well have fun with it. I'm still weighing the idea of whether I should step my motherboard up from this MSI 7093 to a DFI SLI Infinity, added with an Enermax 535W, an FX-60 and a second 7600GT card. Well the good news is it wont cost me too much to upgrade the parts, but at the same time I face the dilemma of having to pay out the wazoo if I wait another 6 months to change out the boards. (Mind you that next year AMD is phasing out Socket 939.) So I will be having a lot of fun trying to find parts that I can afford. But until then not much else I can do but wait.

Even though the Conroe processor outdoes the AM2 by a major margin, you did a fine job building that system.

Yes. I'm not trying to make you feel bad about your build or anything Devil (it's a fine build), but for a little less than half the price of that FX-62, you could get an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, which outperforms that FX-62. Don't worry though, the FX-62 is still a very big performer that is certainly not going to go obsolete any time soon.