Cat...that's going to be one beast of a machine when all said and done. I highly recommend, if going Nvidia a 680 series, 2 or 4 gig model....4 gig if you can swing it. Or the 7xx series is out now, you could opt for one of those....but open your wallet...wide...lol.

For me I opt for the "best bang for the buck" philosophy....which is why I go with AMD...just as good but half the price. Although in most benchmarks, the Intel does beat AMD 90% of the time accross the board but only minimally...but that's just semantics as far as I'm concerned. We all like what we like...although I would like to build an Intel system...hell I'll need $1500 versus $800 for AMD. Go big or don't go at all....lol.

As for your quandary of to build or not...I say build, hands down build...no questions about it.

Actually I can wait for the GPU, as long as I plan for it to go in later. Good GPU's costs money. I know there are GDDR3 models for less than $100, but GDDR5 is twice as fast.

I have a friend who did a AMD build, for $600, he came out with a lot of computer. His only gripes are that no matter what he does, it runs hot (even with one of the better AMD coolers) & that the CPU doesn't support hyperthreading, even though it's 6 core.

Funny thing, AMD's best is always benchmarked against the i3, not the i5/i7. I don't get that at all. One would think that those A-10's would be ranked & run against higher ranked CPU's. Makes me wonder about build quality.

On the other side, AMD does provide the "best bang for the buck", so to speak. Many CPU's from 2-3 years ago are still sold on promo at Newegg with very high ratings. Very few negatives, the few that are usually has to do with the stock cooler. However builders usually installs their own anyway.

I have some practice, have tore this Dell Dimension 2400 down, cleaned it up, added some inexpensive components, like a 3.06 Northwood H/T CPU for only $15 (used but runs great, much better than that wimpy Celeron 2.4). Runs twice as fast as it does when I got it, even on a 10 year old HDD. Here are the specs, I just reinstalled it after a malware issue.

http://speccy.piriform.com/results/k...FffbWXVN0VHKZD

It's best to learn on older computers, that way if any mistakes are made, not much is lost except time.

Cat

Dude, I had no idea your were using a retail PC and its a Dell...lol. I have 2 Dells, one is a 2400 and the other is a 4600, with some minor upgrades. They're not bad for off the shelf PC's.

I just finished my son's build yesterday, which I had been promising him for a year now, from my old spare parts. So now those Dell's will be refurbished and polished up to try and re-sell.

For your friends cooling issue, is he using the stock CPU cooler, if so that's his problem right there. He needs an inexpensive after market CPU cooler, which will dramatically drop his temps. I recommend the "hyper 212" from Cooler Master $29.99, great reviews.

That Dell was given to me by my mother-in-law early last year. Didn't do much with it at first, but wanted to learn how to teardown & cleanup a PC, so I got some experience. Also gained some experience on swapping CPU's, it's easier & faster than swapping HDD's. And made it more desirable to use, as it now can at least boot to a fully working desktop in around 90 seconds, whereas the Celeron 2.4 was pitiful, taking 3 minutes to have a desktop with little power.

Being that it was the most powerful CPU that it would hold, I grabbed an Intel branded Socket 478 CPU fan, it keeps it cool. How cool, I don't know because Dell doesn't include temp monitors for the MB or CPU for that model, just the HDD. But the center of the CPU cooler is copper, so that helps. The stock was simply a square block of aluminum with fins & a Foxconn fan attached to the rear panel cooled it. That fan is still running also.

That friend of mine, he does have a Cooler Master CPU cooler, I believe I expressed myself wrong above. It's one for AMD CPU's. I don't know the model number, only that he gave $15 for it on promo at Newegg. Those Cooler Master ones are popular, so is Zalman, or was at one point. The thing with those, having all of those copper fins easily cuts the one doing the install & is the main negative about it.

As far as Dells goes, I was raised on them, it was in 2009 that my first non-Dell computer was purchased. For all of the gripes about them, they must have been very popular at one time, as parts are easy to find, cheap at that. Plus, they're easy to work on. The only thing about them is that most has connections on the MB that doesn't accept non-Dell components, leading to the need of adapters to plug in some items.

By far, I prefer Dell over HP.

Cat

By far, I prefer Dell over HP

Have you ever tried working on an HP, holy crap, it's a nightmare.

Your right with Dells being easy to work on, they're laid out pretty good and access to the hardware is excellent for a retail PC. That's the only draw back with a Dell, their proprietary standards, as you found out, it makes it hard to add after market hardware and components.

Yes I have & agree with you. They are a royal pain & OEM replacement parts costs more & are more scarce than Dell ones are.

There was one that I had to remove the optical & HDD from, to get good access to change RAM sticks on. And this one I'm on now, it's an all-in-one (AIO) type of PC, only the HDD & RAM are easily accessible for swapping. It's now 3 & a half years old, being that the whole thing looks like a 19" monitor, only heavier & made of almost 100% shiny plastic, I'm afraid that due to the heat over that period (yes, it runs hot also), that I may break the casing by taking it apart.

There was a guide that warned of just that, the brittleness from the heat & cooling cycles could make tearing it down & successfully getting it back together a nightmare. It was once suggested to me to take it apart & place the internals in a mini-ATX tower, but haven't found any such articles on how to go about it.

Guess it's left up to the imagination as to what to do, this thing doesn't even have a real PC PSU. It's a 120 watt notebook type one. Here's the PC & specs, the site must have been paid well to give it a 4 out of 5 star ranking in 2009. There were better PC's than this built 5 years earlier in 2004 that outshined it by far.

HP Pavilion All-in-One MS214 PC Review & Rating | PCMag.com

I did upgrade the RAM to 4GB from the stock 2GB.

Cat

HP is a real pain. The components I transferred to a new casing is from HP. When I replaced the CPU fan (I got the SilenX Effizio EFZ-92HA3), made sure of the specs and everything is matched. On the new CPU fan, the base should just snap to the motherboard with those plastic easy-snap-and-lock system. But no, HP had to make it difficult and had a very small screw holes where the plastic snap things can't go through. So, I had to dig in my tuckle box for screws that would fit and only found 2 ( I needed 4).So, McGyver to the rescue. Bent paper clips did the trick.

Here's my old fan:

Attachment 2470

and here's the new fan:

Attachment 2471

And to make it even more difficult, the front panel pins of the motherboard are not labeled (pwr sw, rst sw, hdd leds, etc.). Luckily, I found something on google.

Nice looking and all copper....the only disappointing aspect of that fan is, it only has 2 heat pipes. On newegg.com it's discontinued. So what were your temps before with the stock fan compared to the temps with the new fan. Would love to see pictures of it installed.

Originally Posted by bassfisher6522

Nice looking and all copper....the only disappointing aspect of that fan is, it only has 2 heat pipes. On newegg.com it's discontinued. So what were your temps before with the stock fan compared to the temps with the new fan. Would love to see pictures of it installed.

There's actually a big improvement Bass. I used to get a temp of 60C to 65C at idle with the old fan. And goes up to 75C to 80C when I am using the PC. Now it's steady between 45C & 50C.
Here's a shot of it installed ( I went a little fancy with LEDs becasue I saw a red LED strip on sale...hahaha).

Attachment 2472


Attachment 2473

I knew there'd be a big improvement in temps...liking the bling....I prefer blue led's. My old CPU cooler was a Sunbeam Core Contack 92mm that did a decent job...I to was in the 40C to 45C range with it.

Sunbeam CR-CCTF92-4 92mm Core-Contact Freezer CPU Cooler , free TX-2 Thermal Paste Included Inside - Newegg.com

Then I went with a Hyper 212, a second hand...but practically brand new and now I have temps in the 33C to 36C...both coolers are idle temps. It looks like you have room for a 120mm fan. I think my next CPU cooler investment that I might go water cooled.

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible with Intel 1366/1155/775 and AMD FM1/FM2/AM3+ - Newegg.com