StarDestroyer.Net BBS

I'm putting together my new system, and would be happy if some of the more knowledgeable people would look it over:

LG GSA-H20L bulk Lightscribe DVD+-RW/+-R-Laufwerk black_______41,99 €
Zalman CNPS9500 LED Sockel 478/775/754/939/940______________36,99 €
LG Flatron L203WT, 20,1" Widescreen, DVI, TCO99_______________342,32 €
ATX-N.BE Quiet! Dark Power Pro 430 Watt______________________74,18 €
Connect3D X1900XT, 512MB ATI X1900XT, 2xDVI, PCIe___________284,75 €
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe, Socket 775 Intel 975X, ATX, WLAN W54G____191,34 €
WD Caviar WD2500JS, 250GB 7200, SATA-II_____________________66,98 €
WD Caviar WD2500JS, 250GB 7200, SATA-II_____________________66,98 €
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music_______________________93,69 €
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Tray 4096Kb, LGA775, 64bit, Conroe_______295,43 €
Thermaltake Soprano black VB1000BWS no PowerSupply__________57,56 €
LG GDR-8164B Bare black 16xDVD,48xCD_______________________13,79 €
1024MB DDR2 Aeneon PC5400 CL 5, PC5400/667________________81,99 €
1024MB DDR2 Aeneon PC5400 CL 5, PC5400/667________________81,99 €

The budget is not tight, but also not infinite, so I am trying to get good stuff, but not the very best as I don't want to pay 50% more for just 5% more performance.

Thanks for any help.
I hope I didn't mess up the formatting too much

Very nice, very nice, excuse me but have you considered getting a brand name PSU like Antech, thermaltake, etc.?

Well, from what I read (in other forums) Be Quiet is a brand name :/

Here are the voltage stats of the PSU:
Voltage Max
+ 5V 28A
+ 12 V1/V2 20A/20A
+ 3,3V 26A
- 5V 0,5A
- 12V 0,8A
+ 5VSB 2,5A

Ah, good enough.

I'd swap the motherboard for something that uses the 965 chipset because you're getting the Core 2 Duo. The Abit AB9 and AB9 Pro shoud be about $50 cheaper than the Asus one you have listed. I'd also buy a 500W power supply.

Or if you want a mobo that has the wireless support shit from the get go, the Asus P5B Deluxe. That's got the 965 chipset and it's in the same price range.

Edi

How about the ASUS P5B?

ASUS P5B, Sockel 775 Intel P965, ATX for 122,97 €

P5B
P5B-V
P5B-VM
P5B Deluxe
P5B Deluxe/WiFi-AP

Those are the P5B series motherboards from Asus according to their site. Personally, I'd take the Deluxe one if you were to go for an Asus motherboard. Another good option would be the Abit AB9 or AB9 Pro (the price difference between those two is so small that the Pro model is the hands down obvious choice). The computer I've ordered is built around the AB9 Pro.

The reason I'm recommending these models, which are more expensive than just the Asus PB5 is that they have passive cooling systems that don't suffer from the possibility of breaking down like a chipset fan does. They also offer quite a bit more than just the basic models, more expandability or other features, depending what you're looking for. There's a saying we have: "A poor person cannot afford to be stingy", meaning that it is better to pay a bit more for something that will last you a long time as opposed to less for something that will break soon and force you to buy another one, thus costing more in the end. In the kind of bankruptcy that buying a new computer involves, €20 or €30 more for as crucial a component as the mobo is not that big a consideration.

EDIT: Whoops, didn't originally notice you were in Germany. Don't know the prices there, but I expect them to be not much different than here. Probably somewhat cheaper.

Edi

Stay AWAY from ASUS motherboards with fans if they still use the same design as was used in the ASUS A8N SLI(NF4 first revisions).

That fan has a well known habit of dying after 3 months of use, on the clock.

The vendor I'm buying at doesn't have the P5B Deluxe, just the P5B and the P5B Deluxe/WiFi.

I'll just go with the P5B Deluxe/WiFi then. Costs 40 € more, but better 40€ and be safe I guess.

The cheaper choices they have are:

MSI P965 NEO-F, S. 775 Intel P965, ATX, PCI-Express______87,63 €
Biostar Tforce P965 Deluxe,775 Intel P965, ATX, PCIe______116,02 €
MSI P965 Platinum, S. 775 Intel P965, ATX, PCI-Express____121,63 €
ASUS P5B, Sockel 775 Intel P965, ATX___________________122,97 €
ASUS P5B Deluxe Wifi, Sock.775 Intel P965, ATX___________169,72 €

Out of that list, the P5B Deluxe WiFi is the best choice. I looked over the MSI board specs, but there was no indication whether they had fan cooling (quite possible, it has been common on MSI boards) and they didn't have nearly the wealth of options for all kinds of other stuff the Asus board can do. So for €40 more, you'll be getting your money's worth. At the price that thing is going there, I'd have taken it myself, but the €200+ it's going for here put it out of the question.

Edi

P5B Deluxe/WiFi it is then.

Now I just have to wait a few more days for all the stuff to be there (the prices might go down a bit) and then I'll order (and have 2400€ less).

Does cost a bit to get all the other stuff I wanted (Printer, good keyboard/mouse, speakers, headphones and the like).

But the less money I have left, the better, because here in Germany with Bafög (a kind of state sponsorship of people studying) it is BAD to have money when you start studying.

Thats the reason I'm getting a new PC, getting a bigger licence for the car (to be allowed to have bigger trailers behind the car), looking at contact lenses, and thinking about getting a digital camera. Don't want to throw the money away, but I can afford to be a "bit" more willing to spend.

How the heck do you manage to spend €700 on printer, phones, mouse & keyboard and speakers?!

Because the component list for the machine adds up only to €1710 and that's rounding every number upward to the nearest full euro. You can get a good mouse and keyboard for considerably less than €100 unless you fant some really fancy super duper gaming mouse and a really fancy keyboard as well. I have all of €30 invested to mouse & keyboard and they both work very well.

One tip on buying a printer: stay FAR away from inkjets. They sell for really cheap and will run out of ink after ~30 pages, at which point a new ink cartridge typically costs €25 or more (vs printer price of €50-80). Additionally, if not constantly in use, the ink tends to dry in the cartridge, or in the print head or the tubing inside and when that happens, you're either going to have to have it expensively fixed or buy a new one. I recommend a good solid laser printer. There was a model my parents bought for around €100 that can print 2000 pages out of one cartridge and the replacement cartridge costs €78. That's far more bang for buck than you could get out of an inkjet. A laser multifunction device with printer and scanner and so forth is more expensive, but still cheaper in the long run than any inkjet I know of.

Edi

The ~700€ is: printer ~260€, speakers ~100€, headset ~80€, windows ~75€, keyboard ~70€, mouse ~50€, assorted small stuff


Here's the complete list of what I'm getting:
Canon Pixma MP800 260,28 € <-- all-in-one printer
Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard 68,38 € <-- a bit of luxury is allowed, who knows I might like it
Creative Inspire T7900 94,97 € <-- supposed to be a good 7.1 system for the price
Connect3D X1900XT, 512MB ATI X1900XT, 2xDVI, PCIe 284,75 € <-- cheapest of the x1900xt cards
MS Windows XP Home SB System Builder-Version 74,23 € <-- have to stay legal
Diskdrive 1.44 MB,3.5" black 4,78 € <-- just in case
Sennheiser PC 160 84,99 € <-- supposed to be an excellent headset
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Tray 4096Kb, LGA775, 64bit, Conroe 295,43 € <-- nothing has to be said about these
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music 93,69 € <-- cheapest of the X-Fi cards, supposed to work well with their soundsystem (the T7900 for example)
LG GSA-H20L bulk Lightscribe DVD+-RW/+-R-Laufwerk black 41,99€ <-- just any DVD burner
Logitech G5 Laser Mouse USB / PS2 52,87 € <-- I don't want a cordless mouse, and a bit of luxury ...
ATX-N.BE Quiet! Dark Power Pro 430 Watt 74,18 € <-- good PSU
WD Caviar WD2500JS, 250GB 7200, SATA-II 66,98 € <-- supposed to be a good HDD
WD Caviar WD2500JS, 250GB 7200, SATA-II 66,98 € <-- two is better than one
USB 2.0 printer cable 5m DB-117810 USB-A/USB-B 2,79 € <-- for the printer...
Zalman CNPS9500 LED Socket 478/775/754/939/940 36,99 € <-- might be over the top
Samsung SyncMaster 205BW 20", TCO03, DVI, Widescreen 337,94 € <-- supposed to be an excellent 20" LCD, and widescreen!
Thermaltake Soprano black VB1000BWS no PSU 57,56 € <-- nice case
1024MB DDR2 Aeneon PC5400 CL 5, PC5400/667 81,99 € <-- good RAM
1024MB DDR2 Aeneon PC5400 CL 5, PC5400/667 81,99 € <-- of course 2 GB
LG GDR-8164B Bare black 16xDVD,48xCD, 13,79 € <-- some DVD drive
ASUS P5B Deluxe Wifi, Socket 775 Intel P965, ATX 169,72 € <-- the Motherboard you suggested
Building the PC together 9,99 € <-- saves me some time, and guarantees that eveything works
Sum: 2.357,26 €
+7€ for delivery
+0.75% transportation insurance

Time to shake your head at the stupidity

I admit that it is too much money thrown at the mouse and keyboard.

Wish I had cash reserves like that. My PC is ~€1500 all told, but I've already got a 17" flat screen monitor (Fujitsu-Siemens Scaleoview C17-11), mouse (Logitech Click! Optical) and keyboard (MS slimline that cost all of €10) plus speakers (Labtec Pulse 285).

So it came down to

• Abit AB9 Pro motherboard ---- €158.90
• Nexus NX-5000 POWER 500W ---- €109.90
• Asus EN7900GT/2DHT/256M N ---- €278.90
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 2 ---- €336.90
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ---- €94.90
• Samsung Writemaster SH-W1 ---- €43.90
• Antec P180B case ---- €139
• Transcend JetRam 1GB 800 MHz DDR2 ---- €143.90
• Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2 English ---- €140.90
• Sony 3.5" floppy drive ---- €7.90

That adds up to €1456.10. If I had to toss in a second hard drive, a second memory module and the monitor I now have, the price would go up by almost exactly €500. I'm going to buy the second memory module later, possibly the second hard drive, but not likely. I'll also shell out for a GPU cooling fan, but not until much later, because I don't wantto nullify the 3 year warranty by installing the fan.

A lot of the stuff you have on your list is much cheaper than here. The memory modules especially are dirt cheap, there's no 667 MHz speed 1GB modules here under €100, the mobo is €50 cheaper than here and the processor €40 cheaper. I fucking hate the prices here...

Edi

The shop I am ordering at also ships to Finnland for 30€.

[EDIT]About the cash reserves: 2 years in the army have to be good for something
Like I said: here in Germany with Bafög it isn't really useful to sve lots of money for studying, as you can usually get the state sponsorship for the normal studying time (if you take to long, you won't get any support anymore).
From the money you get, only half has to be payed back (its an interest-free loan).
Additionally, this loan is limited so that you only have to pay back 10,000 € - no matter how much you money you got through the sponsorship. This can be lowered further by finishing early or finishing in the top 30% of your class.
[/EDIT]

I need to move to Germany. That is, of course, if they still do the same thing for foreigners.

You get Bafög if at least one of your parents or if your spouse has german citizenship.
You get Bafög if you are a refugee or have been granted asylum.
If you are from the EU, you can get Bafög if you have previously worked in Germany.
If you are from outside the EU, you can get Bafög if you have worked for at least 5 years in Germany, or if one of your parents has worked at least 3 years in Germany in the last 6 years.