Helping a friend build a PC

Thorsen said:

When it is all assembled and I turn it on for the first time, Should I just put in Win7 CD first and go through installation? or is there anything else before this phase?

Also, there will be two places I can attach the DVI cable...Should I hook up monitor to the Graphics Card or the onboard DVI link?

Yes, just pop in the Windows 7 disc. And hook up to the graphics card if that's your primary card.

Check the Device Manager after installing to make sure everything is on the latest drivers since the ones included are never the latest. I'll put up a list of must-haves a little later since I'm typing this from
my phone.

In all of the machines that I have built over the years, I have found that the GUI worked suitably enough to install the chipset drivers first and then onto the video card. However, doing in the reverse order won't hurt either.

As far as chipset drivers go..the best advice that I can give is to install Windows and then check the device manager and then physical hardware to see what is working and what is not working. In almost all previous versions of Windows...I have always installed Chipset drivers direct from the mfg. However, with Windows 7...I've found it not necessary on any box that I have used. The only outside drivers that I have installed thus far on any Windows 7 box is video card related.

Once you physically get the box built, and turn it on the first time, you will want to press F2 or whichever key it is to go into the System Setup (BIOS) and check the configurations in there. Make sure it sees your CPU, hard drives, RAM, etc. From there, all you can really do is put in the operating system disk and install.

With respect to power supplies...while they are very important....I've found that for budget builds and moderate and low-end hardware that the cheapo power supplies can get the job done. Most pre-manufactured PC's use pretty generic power supplies which are far from spectacular....but manage to power these PC's for a number of years. (Dell, HP, Compaq, Gateway, Acer, Asus, etc).

I've built many PC's in my past with cheapo case and power supplies combinations. Lately, I've used far better quality power supplies as budget has allowed me to do so and I prefer higher efficiency and quieter machines these days. But none of my machines experienced significant problems because of the power supplies used, nor have my new machines performed significantly better due to my higher end power supplies.

However, if you plan to overclock, add substantial amounts of components to your box, put in high end gaming cards, etc...you owe it to yourself to get a good power supply. No sense in risking high end parts to save a few bucks on a power supply. And I highly recommend modular power supplies as they really cut down on cable clutter...which I also hate.

Hope this helps in some way.

Thorsen said:

. I want more than enough overhead and hope that 850 will be plenty. I don't think he will need a second GPU, before that happens, we will put in a quad-core CPU.

An 850..yeah I would think that would provide more than enough. I run a quad core CPU box, 8GB of RAM, 2 hard drives, DVD driver and am thinking of upgrading my 9800GTX+ to a Radeon 5850 and I currently have a 620W Corsair which is more than enough. With my current config, I'm only at around 50% on that PSU. I truly believe that many people way overbuy on power for power supplies in many situations.

Thorsen said:

Good info. I am thinking now that 850 is way to high if you are running all that on 620. I just didn't want too little.
Should I go down to 650 or 750?

My best advice is to go here.
eXtreme Power Supply Calculator

Fill out the hardware in use or planned to use and it will tell you what you actually need. I think quite a few are shocked at how little power they actually "need" versus what they bought "to be safe rather than sorry".