Author Topic: Building a new computer  (Read 5467 times)

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Offline iDante

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Building a new computer
« on: August 05, 2009, 06:47:09 pm »
So The Beast died a while ago, and now I need to build a new computer. I've been redoing the roof of my house to pay for it, so far I've got about $800 dollars worth of credits to put into a new computer.

I'm going to build a desktop for meself, as that's how I was acquainted with The Beast.

Here's the pieces I'm looking at atm:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131296
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134636 x2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130339
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136144
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.215740

1. Can anyone tell me if they are compatible? I've made sure all the numbers look good next to each other but I haven't put together a computer since The Beast so I'm a little rusty.
2. Does it seem like good deals?

Offline xmRipper

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2009, 07:51:01 pm »
My suggestion list;

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P ($110)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.0GHz ($180)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471

Harddrive:
Seagate 1.5 TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache ($120)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337
or
Seagate 1 TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache ($90)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433

RAM: Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 1066 Mhz ($55)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104073

Video Card: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 ($150)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102825


Total: $615
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Offline rayanaga

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2009, 08:23:08 pm »
My suggestion list;

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P ($110)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.0GHz ($180)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471

Harddrive:
Seagate 1.5 TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache ($120)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337
or
Seagate 1 TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache ($90)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433

RAM: Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 1066 Mhz ($55)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104073

Video Card: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 ($150)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102825


Total: $615

I would second that choice for that processor. It's unbelievably fast. Much faster then the intel you were lookin at.
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Offline LtKillroy

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2009, 08:48:49 pm »
I need to learn how to build a computer. That computer would cost many times $600 from like... Dell.
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Offline ~Niko~

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2009, 09:16:51 pm »
Is it really needed to have 1.5TB of space in your hard drive? I'd go fine with ~300 GB.

Offline GSx_Major

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #5 on: August 05, 2009, 09:56:33 pm »
Is it really needed to have 1.5TB of space in your hard drive? I'd go fine with ~300 GB.
Yes. My 750 + 220 is starting to feel very, very cramped...
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Offline The Geologist

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #6 on: August 05, 2009, 10:46:03 pm »
Seriously?  What do you put on there?

I have 2x 250 GB, and the second drive is nearly untouched. 200+ gigs free.
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Offline Smegma

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #7 on: August 05, 2009, 11:04:29 pm »
Seriously?  What do you put on there?

I have 2x 250 GB, and the second drive is nearly untouched. 200+ gigs free.

Media and games start to add up quick.

Offline The Geologist

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2009, 12:09:14 am »
Guess I'm behind the times >_>
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Offline croat1gamer

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #9 on: August 06, 2009, 12:55:15 am »
1 TB should be enough, as for the RAM, you should have a 64-bit OS.

And get a proper power supply if you dont have yet.

Im still stuck at 120 GB  >_>
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Offline ~Niko~

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #10 on: August 06, 2009, 04:54:35 am »
Do you guys know that "Delete" option is here for a reason?

Offline iDante

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #11 on: August 06, 2009, 05:07:22 pm »
Do you guys know that "Delete" option is here for a reason?
What does that mean?

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940 3.0GHz ($180)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471
That CPU looks awesome. I'll probably end up getting it. I've got a week or so to pick out pieces so I'm going slowly.

Offline PQ

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #12 on: August 06, 2009, 05:14:07 pm »
I would add a case and PSU as well if I were you :D

(damn, that's quite an expensive shop)
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Offline Espadon

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #13 on: August 06, 2009, 05:16:46 pm »
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Offline croat1gamer

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #14 on: August 06, 2009, 05:22:42 pm »
Last year, I dreamt I was pissing at a restroom, but I missed the urinal and my penis exploded.

Offline jrgp

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #15 on: August 06, 2009, 06:46:15 pm »
Is it really needed to have 1.5TB of space in your hard drive? I'd go fine with ~300 GB.
Right now I'm using 1277.95 GB of my 2079.40 GB. A shit load of ripped dvd's, music, personal backups, and much much more. I absolutely hate deleting stuff except where it's absolutely necessary.

@ iDante: depending on how much important stuff you're planning on storing, I'd recommend against getting a single huge ass 2TB drive and instead getting several smaller drives and setting them up in a RAID5 array (requires at least 3 identical drives). This way, if one of them should die you won't lose anything. (With raid5 you only lose data if two die). Whereas a single huge ass drive may only live a year and you'll be fucked when it dies since everything you have is gone.

My system right now has 4 750GB WD SATA drives (this and its earlier models) setup in linux softraid using the ext4 filesystem, which affords me the aforementioned extremely reliable and fast ~2.1TB.
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Offline Dusty

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #16 on: August 06, 2009, 06:56:50 pm »
I'd prefer Intel's E8500 over the Phenom you got there. (Because Tom's Hardware says so)

Offline iDante

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #17 on: August 06, 2009, 07:22:33 pm »
@jrgp: I must have very good luck with hard drives, I have a 20 gb hard drive that is now almost 10 years old, still working fine (ribbon cables w00t). Same with my 5-year-old 60gb hard drive.
Will take into account though.

I'd prefer Intel's E8500 over the Phenom you got there. (Because Tom's Hardware says so)
I'm not exactly looking into gaming hardware, as the most intensive game I ever play is runescape on high-res (commence, flaming).

Offline Dusty

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #18 on: August 06, 2009, 07:25:07 pm »
If so, what do you do with a cpu which costs almost 200 dollars?

Offline iDante

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #19 on: August 06, 2009, 07:37:40 pm »
If so, what do you do with a cpu which costs almost 200 dollars?
Hopefully not take 10,000 years to compile stuff.
Be able to run xchat, media player (still deciding between amarok and rhythmbox), eclipse, and firefox at the same time without horrible laggyzorz.

Offline Dusty

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #20 on: August 06, 2009, 07:43:38 pm »
I just bought myself a new computer, which has an E5200, dual core at 2,5GHz. It cost me about 60 euros and I've done pretty well so far! Also 4 gigs of RAM, as you've picked already.

I'm pretty sure you'd do just fine with any modern dual core processor, starting from dual core pentium (E5200) and Athlon 64 X2.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2009, 07:48:22 pm by Dusty »

Offline jrgp

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #21 on: August 06, 2009, 07:45:02 pm »
@jrgp: I must have very good luck with hard drives, I have a 20 gb hard drive that is now almost 10 years old, still working fine (ribbon cables w00t). Same with my 5-year-old 60gb hard drive.
Will take into account though.

Right, old drives are amazingly indestructible. Stuff from the 80s/90s lives forever. Like for my v6 tunnel/ssh access point Gish (http://jrgp.us/health) is a dell from 1998 with two 20GB hard drives, each from no later than 2003/4.

The oldies always work, but unfortunately stuff made now is shit and dies after a year. At least from my personal experience(s).
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Offline Smegma

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #22 on: August 06, 2009, 07:54:47 pm »
@jrgp: I must have very good luck with hard drives, I have a 20 gb hard drive that is now almost 10 years old, still working fine (ribbon cables w00t). Same with my 5-year-old 60gb hard drive.
Will take into account though.

Right, old drives are amazingly indestructible. Stuff from the 80s/90s lives forever. Like for my v6 tunnel/ssh access point Gish (http://jrgp.us/health) is a dell from 1998 with two 20GB hard drives, each from no later than 2003/4.

The oldies always work, but unfortunately stuff made now is shit and dies after a year. At least from my personal experience(s).

Theory of Failure is awesome.

Offline Clawbug

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #23 on: August 08, 2009, 05:10:14 pm »
I'd prefer Intel's E8500 over the Phenom you got there. (Because Tom's Hardware says so)
Toms hardware is the crap when it comes to hardware comparisons. Basically they are Intel biased at times. Besides, dual code CPU's are becoming obsolete in near future and hence there is no point getting a dual core over a quad.

AMD(former ATI) are launching new graphics cards in before Windows 7 launches, so good 2 months to go. This means that unless there is an urgent need for new hardware, it could wise to wait until then at least to see what the graphics cards cost. Might be that for the same money one could get twice as fast card in just 2 months. At least the current line up will see price cuts.

Bad situation for Nvidia fanboys, there won't be anything interesting coming out this year. GT300(GTX 300 series) will launch Q1(Jan-Apr) next year at best.
« Last Edit: August 08, 2009, 05:20:55 pm by Clawbug »
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Offline Dusty

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #24 on: August 08, 2009, 05:51:10 pm »
I'd prefer Intel's E8500 over the Phenom you got there. (Because Tom's Hardware says so)
Toms hardware is the crap when it comes to hardware comparisons. Basically they are Intel biased at times.

Since I'm an Intel fanboy I find Tom's hardware to be one of the best there is.

Offline iDante

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #25 on: August 11, 2009, 03:14:56 pm »
Hmm quick question, do most processors (the one xmRipper suggested in particular) come with their own thermal grease stuff or should I buy it separately?

Offline Espadon

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #26 on: August 11, 2009, 05:29:55 pm »
Separately. No clue if there's a different preference for desktops but in the laptop forums I frequent Arctic Silver 5 or MX7 [I think] is the preferred stuff.
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Offline Veritas

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #27 on: August 11, 2009, 08:27:35 pm »
Separately. No clue if there's a different preference for desktops but in the laptop forums I frequent Arctic Silver 5 or MX7 [I think] is the preferred stuff.
If the CPUs come with a heatsink, it'll have thermal material on the sink itself.
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Offline jrgp

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #28 on: August 11, 2009, 09:11:04 pm »
Separately. No clue if there's a different preference for desktops but in the laptop forums I frequent Arctic Silver 5 or MX7 [I think] is the preferred stuff.
If the CPUs come with a heatsink, it'll have thermal material on the sink itself.

I used to read a lot of hardware reviews back in the day, and they all said that stock thermal paste is no where near as good as arctic silver.
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Offline Espadon

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #29 on: August 11, 2009, 09:13:30 pm »
Yeah, aftermarket thermal grease is always preferable over the stock stuff.
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Offline Shard

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #30 on: August 13, 2009, 12:57:27 pm »
Media player = Winamp It really whips the llamas ass!

Offline Veritas

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #31 on: August 13, 2009, 03:38:15 pm »
Separately. No clue if there's a different preference for desktops but in the laptop forums I frequent Arctic Silver 5 or MX7 [I think] is the preferred stuff.
If the CPUs come with a heatsink, it'll have thermal material on the sink itself.

I used to read a lot of hardware reviews back in the day, and they all said that stock thermal paste is no where near as good as arctic silver.
That's really only important if you're overclocking.
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Offline a-4-year-old

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #32 on: August 13, 2009, 09:10:30 pm »
Separately. No clue if there's a different preference for desktops but in the laptop forums I frequent Arctic Silver 5 or MX7 [I think] is the preferred stuff.
If the CPUs come with a heatsink, it'll have thermal material on the sink itself.

I used to read a lot of hardware reviews back in the day, and they all said that stock thermal paste is no where near as good as arctic silver.
That's really only important if you're overclocking.
lower heat means longer life. You're right though, stock is sufficient.
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Offline iDante

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #33 on: August 13, 2009, 09:31:43 pm »
From what I've been reading about lately the stock should be good. I'm not overclocking or anything.

Here's my list for now, I'll be finalizing within a week or so.
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor - Retail $200
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103674

Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-MA790X-UD4P AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387

HDD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433

RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104073

CD/DVD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136144

Case/PS:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.215740

Video Card: EVGA 01G-P3-1155-TR GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130469

Offline demoniac93

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #34 on: August 13, 2009, 09:43:09 pm »
Been putting games, media, work, and all sorts of things on this PC since I bough it a year and a half back, and out of my 160 gigs, I have a staggering 119 gigs left...
Do you run a porn archive on your PC? O_O
Jk...But really, 990 gigs sounds like a lot of space to me.
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Offline croat1gamer

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #35 on: August 14, 2009, 12:44:52 am »
You can never have enough of disk space.
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Offline a-4-year-old

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #36 on: August 14, 2009, 08:37:31 am »
Don't buy a Seagate. Some are made in Taiwan and are good. Some are made in former Maxtor factories in china and they fail all the time. The quality is so sketchy that you're safer to go to Western Digital.
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Offline Veritas

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #37 on: August 14, 2009, 10:15:43 am »
Get an 4850 or 4870 for your video card.
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Offline jrgp

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #38 on: August 14, 2009, 03:03:32 pm »
Don't buy a Seagate. Some are made in Taiwan and are good. Some are made in former Maxtor factories in china and they fail all the time. The quality is so sketchy that you're safer to go to Western Digital.

I can second this due to years of experience with failing Seagates and all of my current rock solid, fast, dependable, drives being WD.
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Offline iDante

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #39 on: August 14, 2009, 03:08:39 pm »
Well I just ordered it, swapping out the Seagate HDD for the one in my first post.

So that's done, thanks everyone for the suggestions :)

Offline Clawbug

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #40 on: August 14, 2009, 06:21:01 pm »
lower heat means longer life. You're right though, stock is sufficient.

Longer life does not matter in this case since the CPU's live like decades. They rarely fail due to overheating. And difference between Arctic Silver and something else is non-existent. Even Ketchup works better, I've tested it, twice.
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Offline -Major-

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #41 on: August 14, 2009, 07:41:02 pm »
lower heat means longer life. You're right though, stock is sufficient.
Longer life does not matter in this case since the CPU's live like decades. They rarely fail due to overheating. And difference between Arctic Silver and something else is non-existent. Even Ketchup works better, I've tested it, twice.
it does a lot of a difference, by using a good paste you can earn a few degrees.

Offline Clawbug

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #42 on: August 15, 2009, 11:30:09 pm »
lower heat means longer life. You're right though, stock is sufficient.
Longer life does not matter in this case since the CPU's live like decades. They rarely fail due to overheating. And difference between Arctic Silver and something else is non-existent. Even Ketchup works better, I've tested it, twice.
it does a lot of a difference, by using a good paste you can earn a few degrees.
That few degrees makes absolutely no difference on anything, given that the person isn't avid overclocker running his/her system on the very edge of stability for performance. And even then, the problem of excess heat can't be solved by thermal paste at all.

As long as there is something between the CPU heatspreader and the base of the heatsink, one is fine. Be it toothpaste, ketchup or even shampoo. Of course, these compounds are absolutely not recommended for to be used.
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Offline iDante

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Re: Building a new computer
« Reply #43 on: August 20, 2009, 12:26:14 pm »
Hey-oh from the new computer. Put it together yesterday (I was very slow 'cause I haven't done it for 5+ years). There were a couple scares (putting on crappy stupid heatsink thing feels like I'm breaking the computer, video card didn't fit right at first so I had to unscrew the mobo and move it back to put it in, and then it didn't POST but it's 'cause I was missing a connection from the PSU) but other than that, it went smoothly. I've gotta say, this thing is FAST.

Anyways, I'm pretty sure this is just about one of the best computers I can get for <$800, thanks everyone for the input.