PC Build Advice/Review Thread

[Isiolia]

PassMark is kind of hit n' miss for the results as it's based on averaged user-submitted benchmarks. Some people might have a tuned setup, others something completely screwed up, etc. For example, on their graphics card list there, the 6850 is shown marginally outperforming the 6870. At stock, that's not really going to ring true (6850s tend to have more headroom for OC'ing though, or at least did at release).

For the GPU, for AMD I'd go with a 6850 over the 6790. Not a lot more expensive, and the extra cost pretty much translates right over to extra power.
Both the 6850 and 6790 have models on Newegg with rebates though. The particular 6790 you have spec'ed there doesn't - ones that do would be $110 instead of $140, whereas there are some 6850s that are $130 after rebate.

[Siya]

A little late ;/ card was charged, just placed the order a few mins ago

[Siya]

Hmm was able to void it, just gotta wait for a refund now to reorder

[Purrrfect]

Been doing more research on the GTX 560's and people have lots of complaints with heat and noise and dying pretty soon. I started looking into Radeon but I have never had a Radeon card before so I don't know anything about it. Are there any losses with Radeon vs. Nvidia? Compatibility issues with games or something? What do you guys prefer? thanks

If you plan on using multiple monitors and thinking about a Radeon, I would strongly recommend trying to see the actual card model running with all screens on and starting a game. On the 5850's you can get an ugly flicker on the second monitor from the card adjusting the memory speed based on load. It typically shows up briefly when a game starts and causes the gpu to kick into high gear, but if you have a game that makes very little gpu use it could be right on the line and the gpu will jump back and forth making the second screen useless. When I first got my 5850 I believe I initially sent it back for exchange and when the 2nd did it I contacted gigabyte. They did provide a bios fix, but it was just a bandaid; they just set the memory speed to the max in the power save mode so it wouldn't actually change.

Other than that, I like my 5850 waaaaaaay more than my previous inferno creating, tornado sounding gtx470. I would have 2 if the mb could take em, I just never figured I'd be inclined to use more than 1 gpu. Lesson learned.

[Orochimaru7]

I thought I had my whole setup figured out but I keep questioning my choices I'm thinking about getting a GTX 570 now but now I'm trying to choose between all the brands. Which one gets the least hot, least amount of failure rate, best output, etc. I'm being picky but its a lot of money so I gotta do it right.

Also, debating on either getting this Intel 510 120gb SSD or get 2 60gb Corsair or OCZ to put in Raid-0. Just can't decide. I feel like Intel is the safe choice. Also, could I partition a SSD so I can have it Windows 7 and OS X Lion? If a SSD can't, I might just put an end to this debating and get a normal ole' HDD.

[Jojimbo]

RAID isn't best option with SSDs, I don't think they allow TRIM to be used while RAIDed yet. EVGA is a good brand for nVidia, amazing customer service/warranty from what I hear.

[Siya]

Hmm just wanted to double check since we have time before we can reorder, will 500W be enough for the machine?

[Isiolia]

Hmm just wanted to double check since we have time before we can reorder, will 500W be enough for the machine?

Should be fine. If you were using a high end GPU or multiple GPUs you'd need more, but 500W is fine for what you're looking at.

[Siya]

kk thanks! ^_^

[Kurokikaze]

Hitting up Microcenter on Friday and building this for a friend:



Does BG approve?

[Jojimbo]

What's it for? If gaming drop to 2500k and upgrade GPU, if for editing/rendering then it looks ok. Might want to use WD Caviar Black or Samsung F3 HDD though.

Lacking a PSU and possibly a 3rd party CPU cooler if you plan on OCing.

[Kurokikaze]

Some mid-high setting gaming. No OCing unless friend changes their mind in the future. The PSU in that image is bundled with the case (got both cheaper though).

Bought the parts at Microcenter in Jersey and saved about 100 bucks. XD

If you buy a Sandy Bridge and a qualifying mobo together at Microcenter - you get the mobo for half price. We paid 80 for the UD3H.

[TacoTaru]

So small question, I got home yesterday only for my wife to hand me an invoice with all my computer parts listed which she bought me for our anniversary/christmas/birthday together. So now I have roughly $1500 worth of parts coming my way and I'm getting nervous I don't remember how to put it all together <_>. I know it's a lot of herpaderp plug it in on the motherboard where it says to, but is there a good site that has step by step, just so I'm sure not to mess anything up?

[Isiolia]

So small question, I got home yesterday only for my wife to hand me an invoice with all my computer parts listed which she bought me for our anniversary/christmas/birthday together. So now I have roughly $1500 worth of parts coming my way and I'm getting nervous I don't remember how to put it all together <_>. I know it's a lot of herpaderp plug it in on the motherboard where it says to, but is there a good site that has step by step, just so I'm sure not to mess anything up?

Depends on how in-depth you need (obviously the -exact- steps will depend on the particular parts purchased).

Maximum PC usually includes a decent series of steps, with pictures, when doing a "build a PC" article, such as this one.

Lifehacker has a series of articles dedicated to the subject here.

Arstechnica did a somewhat lengthy series of articles on it, but since I wasn't wanting to watch the video portions I'm not sure how well the whole thing comes together (I assume decently, as Ars tends to be). Hardware part is here.


Honestly, most of it is relatively trial-and-error proof...the one step I've seen several BG posters miss, for one reason or another, is installing the motherboard standoffs, and trying to go too far without realizing that mistake could result in damage. So, um, for God's sake install the damn standoffs

[TacoTaru]

Yeah, I was told with the last one I helped and observed on that you should mount first and foremost and then go from there. The one thing that was breezed by that I'm not sure about is when everything is all in and ready to go, I'm pretty sure he booted up and went into the BIOS and made some adjustments. Are there a series of steps you have to go through that's universal at this point that will make it easy? Really I think I can pull off putting everything together (please god don't break a pin on the CPU) but at this point I really am clueless.

Also, thank you very much for those articles, I'm sure they'll provide exactly what I need.

[shidobu]

youtube is your friend too when it comes to guides on "how to"s

[Purrrfect]

Wow I can't imagine installing a mb w/o the standoffs lol. That would break some shit for sure...

[Kurokikaze]

Can't that cause a short circuit or possibly fry the board?

[Isiolia]

Can't that cause a short circuit or possibly fry the board?

Yes. Fairly good chance that you could flex/crack the board as well.

The one thing that was breezed by that I'm not sure about is when everything is all in and ready to go, I'm pretty sure he booted up and went into the BIOS and made some adjustments.

Most of what you'd do in the BIOS initially is ensure things got detected correctly. CPU is usually automatic, unless you're overclocking. RAM DIMMs include a chip with default settings (SPD chip), which might be overly conservative, but should work. If you paid extra for higher performance RAM, you'll probably want to go in and adjust things manually, though some memory has XMP profiles to use, which are higher performance presets to toggle (an Intel thing, not some random 3rd party mod).

Only big thing for storage can be setting SATA mode (ATA compatibility, AHCI, RAID, etc) - but in most cases if you're using Vista/7/etc you just want it on AHCI. Offhand, that's the only thing that's a pain to change later, since changing it will bluescreen Windows on startup unless you pre-tweak the registry.

[TacoTaru]

One last thing and I think I'm good. In at least one of the links I read, it said to apply what would be the size of two grains of rice for thermal paste, but when looking around I also see some people put a small glob in the center, then spread it around to even distribute it (video I saw had a guy using a plastic bag to cover his finger). Is one way better than the other or are the both essentially the same?