Cheat Engine

Ells

Well first of all, are these all compatible? Also, what video card/fan/heatsink should I get? I have no idea about those. Also, am I missing anything besides a video card/fan/heatsink? note: I have a CD drive or whatever it's called from an oldish computer.
Also, is this a pretty good build, and if you could, what would you change about it?

when it comes to software- what OS should I get?

RAM- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122

what do these mean?
Timing 5-5-5-15
Cas Latency 5

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HDD- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136074

Is there a big difference between 8MB and 16MB cache?

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CPU- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115055

Does L2 cache matter a lot for processors?

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motherboard- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128357

not really sure what south bridge is/does. Does it really matter what south bridge I have?

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case/power- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147118

is 500W plenty?

misc stuff that doesn't matter:
mouse & keyboard- http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8478845&st=wave&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1185267959364
^I have this on my current computer, it is great!

monitor- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009175

thanks for helping me again guys! I know I'm not that great when it comes to computers.

Zarr

Ells · Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 6:36 am Post subject:

I'm going to start playing WoW and I don't think my computer would be able to run it very well. My friend said his computer couldn't run it and it isn't a lot worse than mine. So I'd just be playing WoW and MS.

and 320gb HD would be plenty, I'm also going to put in a 160gb HD I have from a different computer.

stats on other HD:
160 GB Ultra DMA
7200 rpm

as for budget... I'd say around $600 tops without monitor/keyboard/mouse. I can go up to $700 if needed.

SFP+ · Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 9:55 am Post subject:

Zarr · Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 2:48 pm Post subject:

superweapons · Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 3:39 pm Post subject:

A weak southbridge can slow down your system. The southbridge is connected to all the less "performance-oriented" components (drives, PCI bus, audio, USB), whereas the northbridge handles the memory, CPU, and GPU. If you had a slow southbridge, you could experience slow file transfers (bandwidth bottleneck), slower integrated GPU performance, etc.
It has very little affect on overclocking, as most of it is controlled by the northbridge.
I'm not actually sure how well the ICH7 southbridge performs, but the ICH9 on P35 boards is fast enough to handle the 110MB/s burst write speed that my 32MB-cache hard drive can do. The ICH7 is a bit on the old side, however, so maybe you could consider the ASUS P5QL-CM with a G43 northbridge, ICH10 southbridge, and faster integrated graphics.

Hard drives. I have two different hard drives, one 200GB 8MB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s drive, and a 640GB 32MB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s. Putting aside the capacity, and since both are made by Seagate (Maxtor is a subsidiary of Seagate), the 32MB-cache hard drive is much, much faster. I can usually get a 2-3x faster sustained write speed (60MB/s), and a 3x faster burst write speed (110MB/s), compared to the much slower 8MB drive capable of around 20-30MB/s sustained and up to 40-ish MB/s burst. I'm just saying you should consider a 32MB drive, especially since capacity doubles within a few dollars beyond your hard drive budget. Heck, I even got my drive (the large 640GB one) for $60 before the combo deal with my GTX 260.

I'd recommend the E5200 processor. It offers some awesome price/performance ratios, and has an outrageously high multiplier if you're considering overclocking, as well as utilizing the 45nm Wolfdale architecture fab update.

The G.Skill RAM you selected is good. Stick with it.

I'd get the dirt-cheap HD 4650 Zarr posted. It will be much faster than the integrated GMA 4500 (or 3100), and will probably improve your computing experience all around, even if you're not going to be doing very serious gaming.

I personally recommend the Corsair CMPSU-400CX. I even wrote a review about it (although from a different account from the one I used to purchase it). Thermaltake is pretty decent. OCZ is another PSU manufacturer that you might want to try. They're one of the few other PSU manufacturers that make quality PSUs for cheap (as with Corsair). The use stable PC Power & Cooling internals (at least indicated by my source), but they don't supply as much power to the "goods" as Corsair PSUs with Seasonic internals do, and their rails are a bit less stable. They're still in compliance with ATX standards though (up to 5% rail variation, IIRC).

Ells · Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 7:29 pm Post subject:

I'll make this a little bit different build based on suggestions. Should I use the fan/heatsink that comes with the CPU or should I get different ones? Also, what case/video card should I get? keep in mind, I'd be playing WoW

motherboard- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131353
HDD- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148335
also, why is it cheaper than this one? (answer determines which one I get)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148301
power supply- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139008&Tpk=cmpsu-400cx
RAM (same as before)- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231122
CPU (same as before, keeping quad-core so I can do whatever I want if I choose to take up a new hobby)- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115055

a few more motherboard questions... what are these?
Channel Supported: Dual Channel
PCI Express 2.0 x16: 1

superweapons · Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 8:42 pm Post subject:

Newegg's supply-and-demand system makes the pricing seem odd at times.

"Dual Channel" is when two similar RAM sticks are put together on the motherboard and bandwidth is increased. So, two 1GB sticks of RAM would be noticeably faster than one 2GB stick, assuming the two groups are from the same brand and are similar models.

PCI Express 2.0 x16 is the high-performance interface on the motherboard. It's usually where you place a graphics card.

For your build, I would recommend a dedicated graphics card. Your computer will be heavily bottlenecked in many high-performance 3-D apps. This HD 4670 seems like a good deal.
Wow, almost all the HD 4770s are sold out. It's still a bit too expensive ATM IMO, drop to $80 before rebates and it'd be a good deal.

Stick with the stock cooling. The Q8200 isn't much of an overclocker with its high FSB, low operating frequency and multiplier.

Ells · Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 8:56 pm Post subject:

I guess I'll get the HDD that is $5 cheaper, but has 140GB more space.
so that video card would be good enough for WoW? If so, that would bring the total to $477, not counting a case.

Any chance you could find me a case? I seem to fail finding out if the motherboard can go with the case.

superweapons · Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 9:20 pm Post subject:

Antec 300
COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP - it's overkill though.

You could step up with the motherboard if you aren't going to be restricted to the microATX format. See the Asus P5Q Pro or Gigabyte EP45-UD3P for more flexibility.

Ells · Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 9:25 pm Post subject:

restricted to the microATX format?
I'm going to bed if like 5 minutes, I'll get back at ~3pm EST

Zarr · Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 11:53 am Post subject:

The HD4650 should be able to max out most areas of WoW on high settings, however, according to a few people, a few areas in the WoTLK expansion run as low as 30FPS even with an HD4850.

I'll see if I can throw together a build with your specs for as cheaply as possible in a bit here.

EDIT:
EP45-UD3L ($95) or PQ5L pro ($87)
Either is a very solid board, however the PQ5L pro has a slightly older north bridge(P43 as opposed to P45). The average user won't really notice a difference between the two.

Also, if you choose the EP45-UD3L, I recommend this combo. Once you take into account the $20 off for the combo and the MIR of $25, the $75 PSU is effectively $30, bringing the total for the mobo and PSU to $125. Given it does have 2 18 amp +12v rails, that's not much of a problem considering what it's powering.

Q8200 ($165) or E7400 ($120)
To be quite frank about it, the Q8200 is extreme overkill for WoW. The E7500 would work just fine. If you really must, however, I suppose you could get the Q8200.

Antec 300 ($59)
Very solid case at a great price.

2x2GB Corsair RAM ($47)
$1 cheaper than the G.Skill RAM. Can't go wrong with Corsair.

Corsair 400W PSU ($55, $45 after MIR)
If you don't trust the combo deal for whatever reason, I suppose this is the next best alternative. As said above, can't go wrong with corsair.

MSi Radeon HD 4650 ($56, $36 after $20 MIR)
Dirt cheap, sufficient to max out WoW with high settings. Integrated graphics would hardly be able to run it at low settings with a decent, consistent frame rate (as in, not loosing 20FPS for a moment after every explosion or something).

With the suggested parts/combos as well as the Q8200, despite it being overkill, totals out to $432 after rebates. With the E7400 it would total out to $387 after rebates.

EDIT2: Shit, forgot an HDD. Oh well.

kls85

Ells · Posted: Mon May 18, 2009 4:49 pm Post subject:

Zarr, the only thing different about those montherboards are the faster memory standard and 4x240pin slots instead of two, I only need two so I'll go with the one I stated earlier. Also the FSB of the processor is 1333MHz, so a faster FSB doesn't matter. And you forgot a hard drive in the build.

What is different between home, premium, professional, and ultimate operating systems?

Also, if I have a hard drive with windows XP on it, could I just use that for the operating system?