New Computer Build
LazarusXero
Illinois Icrontian
Hey everyone,
Okay, so I got back from the Expo and after using QCH's "Frankenstein" computer he patched together from spare parts in his basement, I find that my own home computer is slightly lackluster (understatement) and I intend to build myself a new one very soon (within a month or so).
But I need help in choosing parts. My needs are fairly average. I mostly use my computer for browsing, office stuff, burning DVD's, music and gaming (nothing system intensive; TF2, Civ V, LOTRO).
I don't need anything that is state of the art, but I would like something that will last me a few years and will give me the availability to upgrade later. My budget is $1000 and I would need a monitor.
Hope you all can help.
Thx
Okay, so I got back from the Expo and after using QCH's "Frankenstein" computer he patched together from spare parts in his basement, I find that my own home computer is slightly lackluster (understatement) and I intend to build myself a new one very soon (within a month or so).
But I need help in choosing parts. My needs are fairly average. I mostly use my computer for browsing, office stuff, burning DVD's, music and gaming (nothing system intensive; TF2, Civ V, LOTRO).
I don't need anything that is state of the art, but I would like something that will last me a few years and will give me the availability to upgrade later. My budget is $1000 and I would need a monitor.
Hope you all can help.
Thx
0
Comments
>system intensive
Cases
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129066
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146069
I've had two of the Antec 300s and they're pretty great but that NZXT looks pretty damn shiny.
CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808
CD/DVD burner (if needed)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204
RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277
PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817189014
Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135286
Some of that is probably more than you need but if you aren't planning to upgrade anything for a few years this should last you just fine. I have no idea what to suggest for the video card though. These parts alone will cost you about $470 so if you have $1000 to spend and really want to throw down for a nice monitor there's this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001414
If you want to go AMD, a motherboard with the 990FX chipset will give you many years of upgradability through the AMD FX processor when it launches. In the mean time, you could use any Phenom II: X4 for 4 CPU cores, or X6 for 6 cores. I always recommend Gigabyte as a mobo vendor.
If you want to go Intel, the 2600k is a fantastic chip, and you'd want to pair that with a motherboard using the Intel Z67 chipset. Again, I recommend Gigabyte.
For RAM, DDR3-1600 is the "standard," but many motherboards now support DDR3-1866 or DDR3-2000, and DRAM isn't very expensive at all right now. Buying high-speed/high-quality RAM will give you room to overclock if you want, so no harm in that. G.SKILL is my favorite supplier now that OCZ left the game.
For GPUs, I work for AMD, so my preference is going to be obvious, here. I love the Radeon HD 6950, as I think it's a great balance between price/performance and--if you play your cards right--you can flash the BIOS to get a 6970. You can ask others for help on that one.
For NVIDIA, the GTX 560 is the 6950's nearest competitior, IIRC.
The decision comes down to this: do you want better video performance and multi-monitor support, or PhysX in the handful of titles that support it?
For cases, I love the Antec 300 and Antec 900 for inexpensive cases, but I'd fully recommend the Corsair Obsidian 650D.
For power supplies, you can never go wrong with a Corsair unit.
For hard drives, the WD Caviar Black and Seagate Barracuda (XT) are great drives.
For SSDs, I will likely never buy anything but OCZ. The Vertex 3 is fucking baller, and the Vertex 2 60GB is a god damn bargain around $120. If that's not your bag, the Crucial C300 and Intel SSD 510 drives are good also.
I think that should set you on your way.
The i5-2500k on a P67 mobo is a far better deal than the i7-2600k. Unless you are going to get into intensive rendering applications, you wont benefit from many of the i7's features. You also save about 200$ as compared to an i7 on a Z67. In addition, I'd like to throw out that Tom's hardware recommends i5-2500k on a P67 as well, simply because there is very little performance increase to be gained from i7's on Z67, and is simply not worth the 200$, unless you are into bragging rights.
Honestly enough even ram as slow as DDR3 1066 will get the job done, Within your budget I would recommend buying 12GB at any speed 1066 or higher. Again, as tested by toms hardware, there was a 4% performance gain from 1066 to 1600 memory. I'd simply look out for a deal on RAM, G.SKILL is a great name and currently what i'm running on, and newegg has a deals for them often.
The HD 6950's are pretty much the best value right now. Not only does it perform best in its price point, it also can possibly become an underclocked 6970, which is quite a deal.
For power supplies, Diablotek, Raidmax, and Rosewill are good brands as well.
I usually mod or build my cases, so I have no comment there.
I pretty much agree with Thrax about the rest.
Thrax is dead on for mobo recs.
RAM: I've had good experience with Corsair, G,Skill, Kingston, and Patriot. I even have some brand new stuff from RMA I'm looking to sell. PM if interested and I'll get you details later.
PSU: In addition to Corsair, I'd add Seasonic and PCP&C to your available options for quality.
EDIT: I'm going to disagree with Rosewill, because they used to be really good (think Seasonic parts in a Rosewill box) but changed suppliers sometime in the last couple years and their "same" models have been getting bad reviews left and right recently. The good reviews are from years ago.
Case: lots of nice ones out there aesthetics wise, I've got a Thermaltek A90 and Antec 900, but would love a NZXT Phantom
$140 Motherboard:GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3-B3 I prefer ASUS, but this will do the job
$180 CPU Core i5 2500K LGA 1155 Boxed Processor 2600k if you wanna spend more
$45 Heatsink Thermalright MUX-120 Will get the job done.
$55 RAM G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 on sale right now buy buy buy!
$280 Video HIS H695FT2G2M Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 Yes, it costs more than the other 6950's you see in newegg, that's because it is a reference design and in 5 minutes can become a 6970. GET IT NAO! (you can get this Sapphire 6950 for $223 if you want to save some $)
$100 PSU CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W Corsair. 750w. Done
$280 Monitor Dell UltraSharp U2211H 21.5" Monitor IPS panel. unf
Total = $1135
Yes I broke the $1000, but I got you a 6970 and an Ultrasharp Dell IPS monitor.
edit. forgot the hard drive/SSD, oh well. Get an OCZ SSD and I like Samsung hard drives
Thanks again!
Thanks for the great advice (and big props to QCH for alot of time this afternoon walking through all of this
Case - Antec 900 Two V3
Mobo - MSI 890FXA-GD70
GPU - XFX HD-687A-ZNFC Radeon HD 6870
PSU - Corsair Pro Series Gold AX750
CPU - AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Ed.
Card Reader - Rosewill RCR-IC002
SSD-HD - OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G
Memory - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333
HD - WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200 SATA 6.0 Gb/s
DVD/CD - ASUS DRW-24B1ST
OS - Win7 Home Premium
After mail-in-rebates this build is $1196.
Also, here is an alternate build I did on my own to bring the price under $1000...
Case - Antec 300 Illusion (saves $50)
Mobo - MSI 890FXA-GD65 AM3 (saves $45)
GPU - SAPPHIRE Radeon 6870 1GB (saves $5)
PSU - Corsair Pro Series HX750 Silver Certified (saves $22)
CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Ed. 3.2GHz (saves $70)
Card Reader - same as above
SSD-HD - Same as above
Memory - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1066 (saves $18)
HD - Same as above
DVD/CD - Same as above
OS - Same as above
After mail-in-rebates this build comes to $988 (just under the wire!!)
So... I'd like to hear you chime in on these. Positives and negatives to both... difficulties in upgradabilitiy... time to my first potential upgrade needs... system limitations... etc... rip away!
That'll cost less AND be a better system overall.
1. I'm assuming from your response that an AM3+ mobo will still work with an AM3 CPU.
2. In reviewing RAM support for CPU's the Phenom II is said to support DDR3 SDRAM up to PC3-10600. I guess my question is, how do I know I can use higher RAM speeds with specific CPU's? And how much speed is too much speed?
3. When I reviewing RAM, the CAS Latency was discussed as being important. That was why I picked the CAS 7 in the more expensive build. Is this not as important? When should I take this into account and what is acceptable for CAS Latency in RAM?
Thanks!!
unless you like benchmarks, like, really really like benchmark scores
also, I don't follow AMD CPU's, but isn't buying an AM3+ already putting him a generation behind? or is that what the slower-than-intel bulldozer will use?
I thought the new sockets were F1 or something
I also recommend a 6950 over a 6870
Plays to future compatibility. The memory controller on AM3+ CPUs support DDR3-1866. There's a small performance gain (1866 vs 1600), but DDR3-1600 is the minimum I'd use regardless of AM3 vs AM3+.
Latency is no longer important. The speed gains are so minimal with CAS 7 vs 9 that you wouldn't experience a tangible benefit. Speed > latency.
The benchmarks you've seen on other sites are from engineering samples. Those may not reflect final performance of the FX CPUs.
Yeah, I looked at all of the 6950, but even the cheapest is still about $65 more expensive than the 6870. Considering I haven't even put my dual monitors into the cost yet, which will boost the price at least $300, every little bit of savings is going to help.
The other side of the coin is that I don't play many video intensive games. I play Civ 4, Solar 2, and a game here and there of TF2. If I was a hardcore PC gamer, I would definitely slip this one under the radar, but I need to save the money to upgrade my previous system as well for my wife.
But I do appreciate the advice though (and the ability to flash the BIOS to a 6970 is REALLY tempting!!).
and the other side of the coin is the 6950 will use less power than the 6870 and will have more features NOT related to gaming
but I understand saving $
- uses a reference cooler
- has 2GB GDDR5
- has the BIOS switch
That's the most likely combination. There is also a price premium for those cards due to increasing scarcity.What's this?
Of course each brand will have its own sticker on the shroud, but this shows what the design looks like.
not
reference bios switch
So I'm assuming that it is a cooling fan that is offset from the center of the card to the side?
j/k, although stupid, it's also not a reference design lol
okay, back on topic
But I still think this is a little over-kill for my needs. Not that there is anything wrong with this, but when we are down to one income, it makes it a little more difficult to splurge...