What's better 4 or 6 ram slots?

[Guest]

I've never built a pc before so im not sure but would the one i'm building be just as good as a pre built gaming pc?

Another thing i was wondering is the anyway to make a home built pc work with a touchscreen?

 

[RickyT23]

This machine will be better than a pre-built gaming PC!!! You will know that it was brought into the world by a person who really cared about it. All the parts have individual warranties. Because you built it youself you will be confident if you ever upgrade it.

Some tips:

1 - Make sure you put standoffs into the case before you screw your motherboard in. The case will come with standoff screws. They are little hex-screws which you can screw in with your fingers and they have a hole in the top of them where you put the screws which go through the mobo. They hold the motherboard about 8mm away from the back of the case, so you dont get a short curcuit from the back of the motherboard touching the case.

2 - First thing you do when it all arrives is take the motherboard out of the box, put it on top of a soft surface (like a towel under a piece of paper), then slot your RAM DIMMS in, then put your CPU in. When you put the CPU in be careful. It's not so hard, but you will have to clamp it in place with a tiny lever. When you are lowering the lever try and get the clamp into a position where you dont have to put a lot of pressure on it. It should come down fairly easy. If you think it feels too stiff, or you are scared you are putting too much preassure on the CPU then just try and adjust the angle of the clamp until it is comfortable.

3 - When you are putting the heatsink on, be aware of the thermal paste on the bottom of it. Intel heatsinks come with thermal paste pre-applied, so you just have to put the heatsink on and thats it.
Attach two diagonally opposite corners of the Heatsink first, then do the other two corners. Then plug the heatsink power cable to the motherboard (see mobo manual for exact position, will be three small pins, near to the CPU socket)

4 - When you have assembled the mobo, CPU, RAM and Heatsink, put the DVD drive in the case, put the HDD in the case, put the PSU in the case, then put the mobo in the case (put the standoffs in first!). Then you can start attaching all of your cables.

I would do them in this order:

1 - The case cables. (small wires for the power switch, reset switch, HDD LED etc)
These are the smallest and fiddleyest cables)
2 - The USB header (for the usb slots on the case)
3 - SATA cables (small cables included with mobo for attaching HDD and DVD to motherboard)
4 - SATA Power cables (this will be physically attached to yout PSU) - to power your HDD and DVD
5 - Mobo power cables (the 4/8pin and the 24pin huge cable that is also physically attached to the PSU)
6 - PCIExpress power cables into your graphics card
7 - If you have any case fans you can attach them to the PSU directly, or if your motherboard has extra fan headers you can put them into the motherboard.

 

[RickyT23]

I have never used a touch screen with a home PC, but im sure you can do it.

 

[RickyT23]

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Monitors/22+Inch+LCD/Iiyama+Prolite+T2250MTS+22%22+Multi-Touch+LCD+Displays+?productId=39047

 

[Guest]

Thankyou so much you are so helpful and i've learned so much already.

I almost forgot then i need a fan for the CPU dont i. Could you link me to a good one.

 

[RickyT23]

Well the Retail Core i5 2500K CPU comes with a heatsink fan! Included in the box! You could replace it with a different one, but you dont need to. This CPU is basically fast with no overclocking. You could overclock it a bit with the stock fan, but if you want to push it really hard then you will need a better fan.

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Fans%2C+Heatsinks%2C+Coolers/CPU+Coolers/Arctic+Cooling+Freezer+13+High+Performance+CPU+Cooler+%28Socket+LGA775%2F1155%2F1156%2F1366%2F939%2FAM2%2FAM2%2B%29+?productId=43268

The above link is to a great value heat sink which will perform better than the stock intel one, its small enough to fit into a smaller case (would definately fit in your proposed build)

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/arctic_cooling_freezer_13/4.htm

This shows how it compares to some bigger, more expensive HSF's.

But like I say this is optional, you do get one with the CPU.

 

[Guest]

Thats good to know that i don't need to pay any extra.

I know i am going to sound like an idiot but i think overclocking is running the cpu higher than it was intended too. Am i right or am i completely wrong.

 

[RickyT23]

That is correct. Generally you can overclock a CPU from you BIOS. The new Sandy Bridge K series CPUs are very easy to overclock. You just increase the 'multiplier' of the CPU.

The i5 2500K supports "turbo mode" so basically when the CPU is being stressed by a game for example, it will realise this and overclock itself to 3.7Ghz! It only does this when it is needed, so it will save power the rest of the time. You dont have to do anything. But you can go into the BIOS and overclock the turbo speed.

I mean you will have a very good CPU and motherboard, so if you want to overclock in the future (for example you could make the CPU run at 4.5Ghz permanently) you can. But I dont think you will need to do that for a while. This CPU is plenty fast enough just at stock speeds. It will literally chew through any game with great ease.

 

[Guest]

Again thanks for your help and i'll be sure to let you know how my first build goes.

Theres just one more thing the p8p67 board im getting will deffinatey fit the case you put on that list?

 

[RickyT23]

Yup. You will definitely get everything into that case. It fits the MicroATX and the ATX form-factors. The mobo has 7 expansion slots, and the case also has 7 expansion slots, so it will fit into the case, but there wont be much room at the bottom. The PSU will go at the top of the case. But the CASE and the mobo both fit the ATX form factor. So they will be compatible