What frustrates you most when building a system from scratch? Not having enough power perhaps? Or maybe purchasing defective hardware? Or maybe your dog sticking his nose inside the case as you power up the system; and watching him get his nose slashed by the fans. (I thought it was funny…the wife didn’t.)
I’ve built tons of PCs; I enjoy doing in it, especially when everything clicks the first time around. Connect all power and data cables, install the memory, video cards (yes, plural), drives, and CPU; set up and configure the OS, make sure all fans are spinning…you know the drill.
But every once in a while I do something incredibly naïve (for lack of a better word) and find myself wasting hours doing things like troubleshooting memory issues because I simply forgot that you need to have a 64-bit operating system to install more than 4 Gigs of RAM! Believe me I normally don’t make mistakes like this. I even drove back to the store and returned the memory thinking they were bad. I felt so “funny” when I realized what I had done, I spent the rest of the day playing Solitaire on the PC, know what I mean?
But aside from brain cramps like the one I describe above, building PCs has become easier than ever. To prove this, I watched a gamer do the above (connect the basic components and post) in 41 seconds last month at the Newegg Lanfest 2K7. So if you’ve been hesitating about taking the build-it-yourself route, questioning your technical chops go ahead and take the plunge. It’s an inexpensive way to get an awesome gaming rig, and dogs’ noses and brain cramps aside it’s not that hard.
was just wondering if you can sli an 8800 gts 640 with a gtx 768
i have not seen anything saying you cant.
thanks
Posted by: robert | January 21, 2008 at 10:41 AM
my pc is an acer aspire M1610. Is my pc SLI ready? nid an answer asap coz i'l be buying 2 8800 ultra cards b4 xmas. thanks.
Posted by: baby face | December 04, 2007 at 05:42 AM
i have an older pc that i'm not quite ready to get rid of. what is the best video card to get that has a PCI interface only, not PCI enhanced. i have a GEForce FX 5500 installed now. is this the best i can do or can i do better.
my email is rshh@columbiainet.com
Posted by: robert | November 07, 2007 at 10:18 AM
The question was asked "What frustrates you most when building a system from scratch?" Well when i build a new system, i purchase all the component first (which can take a few months, to spread the cost) so when i finaly get it together, and the system doesn't power up like it should. Where do you start? Do i have a bad MB, is it the power supply, RAM....? The system i built previous to the one i'm using now, it took me two days to figure out that the vid card was not seated properly (yes i reseated it many time while trouble shooting), flaw in the vid card, so it would not sit flat in the PCIe slot, so i had to sit the card on an angle to get it to work. That was my mid range system. The high end one i built was a real plug and play situation, which was great.
Thanks
Posted by: Skullraider | November 05, 2007 at 01:50 PM
built my SLI and after all was said and done cost 4,200.
And i'm not happy with the 32bit OS and can't wait for an xp 64bit if they ever do.
I made the mistake too.
Tring to get 4 sticks to read took awhile and a call to NVIDIA support and they were as complexed as I was till we fig'ed out to OS was XP home which is a 32bit OS.
And XP 64bit has not come out. And theres no way I'm going Vista. I'll sit on my dusty 2 gigs mem's till then or I build another SLI Ultra/pearl i think...
I Built this PC:
NVIDIA MB 6801-sli 3x16sli's slots 278.00
Intel core2 Quad 2.46gig 1,000.00
Twin (2) 8800GTX & SLI Bridged 699. and 599. -100 nine months later
750watt Power 154.00
2 GIG Crossaires 1024ram 129.00
Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtrem 229.00
Not inclueding floppy drive and
2 x DVD/CD/R-RW-Lite scribe's
and extra cooler tower for the 1000 dollor chip a must if air cooled as I like them. your looking at 3,000. plus.
This is a top 5% high end machine you'll never build this one cheaper for another year. Then I'am starting over agian.
Posted by: shadow dragon | November 04, 2007 at 11:45 AM
To anybody who wants to build a high end system for under $1500, you can't. You can make a good mid range, but high end means high dollars, like over $2000 minimum. Think about the cost of just one 8800GTX. If you could by the remaining components for under $700 (mobo, cpu, 2nd video card, HD's, at least 3gs of high speed mem.) Can't be done. Not high end. But you could get a good midrange system.
Posted by: A.Dedguy | November 04, 2007 at 12:05 AM
Posted by: yolcu | November 03, 2007 at 08:50 AM
Hey Chan,
Some advice, when you choose your MB, check how the slots are layed out. i picked up an M2N32-SLI DX MB. i installed two 8800 GTS cards in it which because of their size only left me with one PCI slot i could use. I had a X-Fi card to install and a capture card. So i had to purchase an external capture card and the internal one is now collecting dust. One more thing, dont under estimate your power supply, thought my 550W would do the job. I was wrong and i ended up putting a 1000w PSU.
If you need any more advice email me at foranime@hotmail.com
System i built
8800 GTS x2
AMDdual core 6000+
3GB RAM
Koolance water cooling
(vid cards, CPU and MB)
4x 300GB HD with dual boot XP/vista (not raided)
external Capture card (firewire)
G15/G5 Key/mouse
X52 flight stick
Posted by: Skullraider | November 02, 2007 at 09:08 AM
Hello Cano and Chan,
Make sure to check out the SLI Marketplace. Here is the link: http://www.slizone.com/object/slizone_marketplace.html
You can buy new or used parts or look at SLI bundles.
Posted by: Sam | November 01, 2007 at 09:00 PM
I'm planning to get a high-end SLI ready computer which will be used mostly for animation, videos & music production, gaming, multimedia, etc...
I can spend about $1300 (Rs. 52000) on it...
plz. send the required configuration to this ID: alternatechan@yahoo.co.in
(plz. send a detailed info about the processor and motherboard you recommend and why?)
Posted by: Chan | November 01, 2007 at 02:37 PM
please tell me how to build a good sli gaming computer that cost around $1000 that could used NVIDIAnFORCE 590 SLI MCP OR somethig ALIKE.THANK YOU .MY E MAIL cano_009@hotmail.com
Posted by: cano | October 31, 2007 at 07:25 PM