Setting up a PC.

2006-11-06 11:47:21

#1

ilinear: Bigger. Better. ilinear.; +27|6463|Lisburn, NI

Okay, later this month, I'm gonna be receiving, building and setting up a pretty good PC for my friend.

The Specs of the machine are as follows:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (With an Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro)
Gigabyte DS3
2GB GeIL Ultra low latency DDR2 PC6400 800Mhz
BFG 3DFuzion GeForce 7600 GT OC
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB HDD
Akasa Ultra Quiet 500W PaxPower Active PFC ATX2.2
Antec Nine Hundred Gaming case

First of all, the actual specs of the PC are non-negotiable. He's already decided and ordered.

Okay. I'm confident I can build it without a hitch, but I was wondering, what stuff should I put on it?

He's already given me a brief list of the main things he wants on it, and I'm going to benchmark it for him, What do you suggest I use to Benchmark? I know things like 3DMark05 and 06, but what else?

Already going on the machine.
WinRAR
FireFox 2.0
SpeedFan
Steam
Xfire
Windows Live Messenger
Hitman Pro 2
Daemon Tools
Office 2003
Photoshop CS
iTunes
TeamSpeak2

I also want to give it a little extra, so can you suggest any Apps that'd be handy for him, bearing in mind that it'll mainly be used to play music, play games, surf the intarweb and download insane amounts of pr0n (apparently, he can't help it...)

Any help guys?

Thanks.

Last edited by ilinear (2006-11-06 11:48:56)

2006-11-06 11:51:45

#2

majorassult: I <3 ak101; +307|6681|under there hayousaidunderwear

Some pretty good virus scanner/firewall

2006-11-06 11:57:54

#3

Jenspm: penis; +1,716|6750|St. Andrews / Oslo

get him Opera, Kapersky Anti Virus, Limewire pro, Prey multiplayer (free), SmartFTP, utorrent, an IRC client and Americas Army...

https://static.bf2s.com/files/user/26774/flickricon.png

2006-11-06 11:59:51

#4

majorassult: I <3 ak101; +307|6681|under there hayousaidunderwear

Aim, some cool XP skin, fraps and ea downloader.

2006-11-06 12:00:02

#5

taxi2you: Member; +22|6662|Missouri

I would have him recheck the power supply thought. I know he has ordered it but most vid cards these days need at least 550W on their own.

2006-11-06 12:06:25

#6

majorassult: I <3 ak101; +307|6681|under there hayousaidunderwear

taxi2you wrote:
I would have him recheck the power supply thought. I know he has ordered it but most vid cards these days need at least 550W on their own.

I'm pretty sure the cards don't need 550w all to their self....

2006-11-06 12:09:11

#7

ig: This topic seems to have no actual posts; +1,199|6540

avg free, spybot, ad-aware

2006-11-06 12:14:31

#8

Brasso: member; +1,549|6648

AVG, Spybot S&D, Ad-Aware 6, ZoneAlarm, Fraps, Limewire, Azureus.

You could use CPU Burn-In (called something like that) to make sure the CPU is stable.

BootSkin is good if you want to change your standard Windows login theme and boot skin. Also try googling "Royale theme" if you're tired of the Luna theme.

Last edited by haffeysucks (2006-11-06 12:21:26)

"people in ny have a general idea of how to drive. one of the pedals goes forward the other one prevents you from dying"

2006-11-06 12:17:30

#9

Brasso: member; +1,549|6648

majorassult wrote:
taxi2you wrote:
I would have him recheck the power supply thought. I know he has ordered it but most vid cards these days need at least 550W on their own.
I'm pretty sure the cards don't need 550w all to their self....

It's highly possible they might. I had a XFX 6800 that required 450, I don't see why newer PCI-E cards don't.

"people in ny have a general idea of how to drive. one of the pedals goes forward the other one prevents you from dying"

2006-11-06 12:28:25

#10

majorassult: I <3 ak101; +307|6681|under there hayousaidunderwear

haffeysucks wrote:
majorassult wrote:
taxi2you wrote:
I would have him recheck the power supply thought. I know he has ordered it but most vid cards these days need at least 550W on their own.
I'm pretty sure the cards don't need 550w all to their self....
It's highly possible they might. I had a XFX 6800 that required 450, I don't see why newer PCI-E cards don't.

but all to themself?

2006-11-06 12:29:48

#11

ilinear: Bigger. Better. ilinear.; +27|6463|Lisburn, NI

Okay, I'll check out the PSU. PSU's okay, it says on BFG's website that it needs 350W (and 450W for SLi) Thanks for raising that, it might've screwed over his new PC. But as for Antivirus, is Symantec Corporate edition any good?

Last edited by ilinear (2006-11-06 12:39:06)

2006-11-06 16:22:13

#12

younggun: Member; +28|6662

taxi2you wrote:
I would have him recheck the power supply thought. I know he has ordered it but most vid cards these days need at least 550W on their own.

Wrong. The most powerful video cards today just barely push 230w at idle and 330w under load. Thats the 8800GTX.

500W is more than enough for any single graphics card solution out there. If you are going SLI then thats a different story.

2006-11-06 18:39:33

#13

majorassult: I <3 ak101; +307|6681|under there hayousaidunderwear

younggun wrote:
taxi2you wrote:
I would have him recheck the power supply thought. I know he has ordered it but most vid cards these days need at least 550W on their own.
Wrong. The most powerful video cards today just barely push 230w at idle and 330w under load. Thats the 8800GTX.

500W is more than enough for any single graphics card solution out there. If you are going SLI then thats a different story.

yay I was correct!

2006-11-06 19:44:39

#14

washow: Get out of MY JET!!!; +23|6730

i'm pretty sure ds3 and geil doesn't do well together

2006-11-06 20:28:53

#15

The Stillhouse Kid: Licensed Televulcanologist; +126|6660|Deep In The South Of Texas

ilinear wrote:
Okay, I'll check out the PSU. PSU's okay, it says on BFG's website that it needs 350W (and 450W for SLi) Thanks for raising that, it might've screwed over his new PC. But as for Antivirus, is Symantec Corporate edition any good?

Symantec(Norton) AV is crap. Too much of a resource hog. Stick with Kapersky, AVG or Avast!.

On your original question, if you want to benchmark the CPU give SuperPI a try. If you're gonna overclock the CPU use Prime95 for burn-in and stability testing. Also Memtest86 is good for checking for memory errors.

2006-11-06 20:58:35

#16

Kmar: Truth is my Bitch; +5,695|6619|132 and Bush

System Mechanic (PRO comes with Kapersky AV and firewall).
http://www.iolo.com/sm/

Wintask pro (You can set different modes to have different process running by just clicking a tab it will shut down all the stuff you don't want open while your gaming etc..) It's very useful to cut down those resources with a single click. Also, it lets you know exactly whats process are for what so you know if it's ok to terminate it.

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/ (I have 4 gigs of ram and it still pisses me off running shit I dont need..lol)

I would list more but they are dependent on knowing more with regards to PC use. For instance I use Pinacle for movie editing..Nero.. etc.

Also learn how to use usenet and dump that torrent crap.

Xbone Stormsurgezz

2006-11-06 21:03:30

#17

KB77Hell: Member; +0|6757|T.O. Canada

I've got Symantic corporate and it's very good...not nearly the resource hog that Norton is.

2006-11-07 07:25:14

#18

misconfiguration: GURU; +86|6414|Indianapolis, IN

Put AVG on there, it's 100% free. One of the best!!

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5

2006-11-07 07:35:52

#19

Jussimies: Finnish commander whore; +76|6602|Finland

Why everyone gets 7600gt(I have one) as teh 7900gt is better, and when played at my friend's house, he has club3D 6600gt and It could run all high exept 3 on medium and aa of. That almost outperformed my ati x850xt.

2006-11-07 08:25:16

#20

joker3327: =IBF2=; +305|6616|Cheshire. UK

VLC media player for your PROn

http://www.videolan.org/

CCleaner to keep the traces of your PROn hidden lol

http://www.ccleaner.com/

2006-11-07 11:07:36

#21

theknuck: It's pronounced Knuck, like in Knuckle!!; +45|6630|balls

avg, vlc player, nero.......all free

2006-11-07 13:42:56

#22

ilinear: Bigger. Better. ilinear.; +27|6463|Lisburn, NI

Thanks for all the responses, *notes a few*

Is there anything else you'd suggest to make this PC special? (It's his first good computer and he's super psyched)

BF2S Forums Setting up a PC.

taxi2you wrote:

majorassult wrote:

taxi2you wrote:

haffeysucks wrote:

majorassult wrote:

taxi2you wrote:

taxi2you wrote:

younggun wrote:

taxi2you wrote:

ilinear wrote:

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