New house, new PC, need Help....

leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
edited September 2010 in Hardware
wow, it's been a very very very very long time since i owned a desktop pc.

as some of you might know, i'm working in shanghai right now, and i bought an apartment recently, and moved into it not too long ago. since i haeve a stable place to stay and call home now, i want to get a desktop to do my computing at home (getting sick of using a laptop at home)

i have been out of the building computer loop for a couple of years now, and i need some of your help to pick out some hardwares.

i need the following.

cpu, mobo, ram, psu, hdd, optical drive(DL dvd burner), the essential stuff,

i already got mouse, keyboard, speaker, monitor and such

I'm looking to spend less than 5000 chiness yuan (about 750 dollars), i do some gaming, some web surfing, some photo processing, just the general stuff, nothing too specific. (and if the components you pick is capable to install os x on, that would be great)

thanks in advance.

Comments

  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-P55-USB3 $119
    CPU: Intel Core i5-655K Clarkdale 3.2GHz 4MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core Unlocked $199.99
    HEATSINK: Thermalright MUX-120 $44.99
    RAM: OCZ Blade SuperTuned 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 $79.99 after MIR
    PSU: PC Power and Cooling 750W $139.99
    HDD: WD Black 1TB 7200rpm SATA 6.0Gbps $89.99
    DVD: Samsung DVD +/- RW $16.99

    total: 690.94

    just a quick intel build I threw together with alot of options for different config
  • leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    fatcat wrote:
    MOBO: GIGABYTE GA-P55-USB3 $119
    CPU: Intel Core i5-655K Clarkdale 3.2GHz 4MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core Unlocked $199.99
    HEATSINK: Thermalright MUX-120 $44.99
    RAM: OCZ Blade SuperTuned 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 $79.99 after MIR
    PSU: PC Power and Cooling 750W $139.99
    HDD: WD Black 1TB 7200rpm SATA 6.0Gbps $89.99
    DVD: Samsung DVD +/- RW $16.99

    total: 690.94

    just a quick intel build I threw together with alot of options for different config

    what has a better price performance ratio right now, amd x6 or intel i5???
  • fatcatfatcat Mizzou Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    leishi85 wrote:
    what has a better price performance ratio right now, amd x6 or intel i5???

    my guess is AMD is winning the price/performance war. intels win the overall speed battle

    there are many more, more knowledgeable than I on this matter
  • leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    waiting for someone to chip in on this matter
  • leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    forgot to mention, also need a video card.
  • edited September 2010
    It depends on what apps you plan to run. leishi. If you heavily into coding or other things that can make use of six cores, the 1090T is great. But for gaming, I think I would go with the i5-750 myself instead for about the same price as the 655K and just overclock it. For a psu, look for something like the Corsair TX650 or HX650 or a Seasonic in that power range instead of a PCP&C psu. Since OCZ bought them out their offerings have gone downhill a bit since they changed their OEMs from Win Tact and Seasonic over to Sirfa. They aren't bad but for the price you pay you can get better. For a video card, you have quite a few choices. The GTX460 768 MB variety have recently dropped in price and offer very good performance. And you might be able to wiggle that into your budget. Of course we don't know the pricing for you over there, so you might be able to get some things for cheaper and others you might pay more for.
  • leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    muddocktor wrote:
    It depends on what apps you plan to run. leishi. If you heavily into coding or other things that can make use of six cores, the 1090T is great. But for gaming, I think I would go with the i5-750 myself instead for about the same price as the 655K and just overclock it. For a psu, look for something like the Corsair TX650 or HX650 or a Seasonic in that power range instead of a PCP&C psu. Since OCZ bought them out their offerings have gone downhill a bit since they changed their OEMs from Win Tact and Seasonic over to Sirfa. They aren't bad but for the price you pay you can get better. For a video card, you have quite a few choices. The GTX460 768 MB variety have recently dropped in price and offer very good performance. And you might be able to wiggle that into your budget. Of course we don't know the pricing for you over there, so you might be able to get some things for cheaper and others you might pay more for.

    most of the things are a big more expensive here (some people don't realize how cheap things are in the u.s)

    there is newegg.com.cn where i will get most of the things (too bad there isn't a english version of new egg china)

    as for the psu, newegg china doesn't offer PCP&C anyways, but they got corsair and ocz, what wattage i should be looking to get?

    i don't do any heavy coding, so looks like the intel would be a better fit for me.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    Can you describe what you do intend to do with your PC? A hexa core chip is good for more than "coding."
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    A lot more than "coding"... especially when you take into consideration Turbo Core which makes the whole "most stuff won't use 6 cores" argument pretty moot.
  • edited September 2010
    There was a recent discussion on X6 vs i5-760 in this thread. There are links to benchmarks as well. Like Muddocktor said, you can benefit from X6 with some specific applications, but I would also recommend i5-750 (or 760) for general use (see the reviews).
  • leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    mirage wrote:
    There was a recent discussion on X6 vs i5-760 in this thread. There are links to benchmarks as well. Like Muddocktor said, you can benefit from X6 with some specific applications, but I would also recommend i5-750 (or 760) for general use (see the reviews).

    like you said here, if the i5 is better for general use (my usage will compose mostly of light gaming, since i do a lot of gaming on xbox and ps3, photo processing, some cad, and multimedia viewing and web browsing.

    from the looks of it, the i5 for cpu and the gpu of gtx460 would be a good choice for me.
  • Cliff_ForsterCliff_Forster Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    If your fighting a budget of $750 USD is a six core CPU really an option?

    If your fighting for every pennies worth, the Athlon II quads you can buy for under a hundred are a good deal. Use your video card for video coding and to carry the heavy load gaming and you will have a plenty powerful machine while maintaining your budget.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128443

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103882&cm_re=athlon_ii_x4-_-19-103-882-_-Product

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161338&cm_re=Radeon_5770-_-14-161-338-_-Product

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226135

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136544

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118039

    This gets you there and leaves you enough cash to buy a fresh copy of Windows 7.
  • edited September 2010
    Yeah, Cliff does bring up a good point about the budget. The AMD quads might lag the i5-750 in a little performance, but it's not so much that it's noticeable in day to day stuff. And you can get a pretty nice PhII for around $50 cheaper than the Intel or Athlon II like Cliff linked for around $100 cheaper. And the AMD boards also seem to run a bit cheaper than the Intel boards too. Either way you can have a kick ass system.
  • edited September 2010
    If you care about the budget but not comparing benchmark scores, Cliff's configuration is an excellent value. It will do everything you want.
  • leishi85leishi85 Grand Rapids, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2010
    if i were to go with an AMD platform, is it better to get a ati GPU?

    about the ram, is it better to go with ddr3 1600 than 1333?

    and for the psu, what wattage would be recommended? 600? 700?
  • edited September 2010
    A quality 650 watt psu is more than enough for that system. For ram, I would go with DDR3 1600 over the 1333 if the price differential isn't much. And that Nvidia card should do well with an AMD based system. But I don't think you can SLI them on a board using an AMD chipset, but I'm not positive on that since I don't do SLI or Crossfire anyways.
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