Firelady

Good luck... Asus and Gigabyte have ( in my opinion ) the best product support. Drivers, manuals, utilities...they are well structured and easy to update. If you have no problems after the start up ( at least few months ) DON'T do a BIOS update. They also recomend that, if the rig is stabile ...don't changed. Don't bother with the MB or Video tweak utilities, unless you are a Power user, most of the time, with the factory settings all will be fine. Many people don't realize how powerful are today CPU and GPU...most of the time you will not need ANY kind of overclocking. The only worth investement is...memory, in this case, much more is better...lol. During all this years just a few times I used a mild overclocking...but in the long run, is better to avoid...think at a light bulb, the higher the voltage, sooner is the death. If you don't use a Win 64, now is a good time to try...you will be surprised of the performance. The entire quantity of memory will available to be used by your software ( games...mostly...lol ). Windows 7 64 is a good choice and if you want, a second partition with XP SP3. Believe me, I don't run a super rig ( Athlon 64 X2 7750, 8 Gb Ram, 500 Gb HDD, GForce 9800 GTX+ ) but so far I have not encountered a game who not run. Use some good software to maintain with regularity the Win ( TuneUp Utilities, Perfect Disk ) and you will never have problems. And in some way...is also fun to build your own rig, to knew every bolt and screw...lol. You have not mentioned what power have the Power source...for your rig, it must be somewhere between 600 - 800 W, maybe more, because the most power eating are thr CPU, MB and video card.

FSB - Front Side Bus It's the frequency used by the device ( CPU, memory, MB-CPU slot ) . The best is to read first the MB manual, it explain a lot about memory, types of memory , connectors etc. In your case, the best match is when the CPU , the memory and the MB run at the same frequency - 1600 MHz. For CPU find the producer page and read the specs. Same thing for the memory producer, sometimes they specify a different voltage than usual for certain frequency. Try to avoid the water cooling, better invest in silent but powerful fans, 12-14 cm in size. Look for the Air Flow ex. : http://www.scythe-usa.com/product/cpu/034/scsk1000_detail.html You will have to dismantle your case to install the fans, especially the front, depending on the age of your case, in front must be a place for 9-14 cm, side 8-12cm, rear 8-12 cm. If you could find, buy a small fan controller, 3,4 in in size, you will be very happy in the summer...lol. Try to find fans with 4 pins at connector, that will allow to MB auto control, especially for CPU and System fans. Also is a good idea to make some holes in the upper panel and install also a 14 cm fan, to blow the hot air up. When you begin to install Win, after the last restart, but BEFORE Win want to make updates, install the software from the MB CD ( MB drivers first, Video second, audio last and reset after each installement). LOL...you have a LOT to learn to master your toy... Cheers

Hey Donnato I watched this topic for a while...I had ONLy build rigs, by my self. I still remember my first build PC, it was an Pentium IV... They never failed, actually some of them are still in use , after so many years. I followed some simple rules: 1. First choose the MB. It's one of the most important piece of the rig. Not too expensive, not too cheap. And without onboard video cards, worst choice in my opinion, but cost affective for companies. When you choose a MB they are several important factors : the max FSB supported, number of memory slots and the connectors ( SATA, IDE, External ). The tricky part is to sincronize the FSB of the best CPU you could afford with the memory and the MB. That's all, same FSB for CPU, MB and memory. 2. CPU...see above, maybe try to find the " Black " series of what you desire. Why ?...Because the "Black " series have the multiplier unlocked and are much easy to overclock. 3. Memory - as much you could afford. Regarding memory, in a Win32 enviroment, the MB will recognize no more than ~ 3 Gb. In a Win64 environment, ALL the memory installed will be available. About AHCI...is a pain in the ass, try better RAID or even IDE Compatible. When messing with BIOS, try first to understand what do each of the settings. The only effective settings changes are those reffering to Memory access timing. Those settings could really boost the system with ~ 15 - 20 %. And NEVER do more than one modification...if you have problems, just simply load the menu - Load default settings. For a successful overclock you have to know something about physics, for instance : If you modify the FSB or the multiplier, you will have to modify also the core voltage. Just be careful...

Wow !!! Simply wow ! What a welcome ! I really begin to feel that STILL are some good and decent people in this world. Not like others... A Happy Easter for you, with all the best wishes from me.

After browsing the forum I realized ( with joy) that I will be in the company of some very appreciated people ( Meo, AlexScorpion, ZOmbieUK and so on...sorry not to remember all ). Reading all those posts make me feel ...better. A tone of cookies for all of you !

Hello everyone My name is Firelady and I intent in the near future to move my quest and adventure mods series - A Quest for Heaven - from Nexus to TES Alliance. I need some hints about how to use the site ( upload files, images related, descriptions ). Also, if somebody is interested in voice acting, male and female voices ( especially female ) for the final episode of the AQFH saga, please contact me. Short story, glad I meet you TES Alliance. Firelady