PC Build Advice/Review Thread

[tyven]

depends on if i had breakfast

[Meresgi]

I'll make you eggs afterwards, it will be romantic.




Bacon is extra though, that shit aint free.

[Arkanna]

What all do you need, just a tower? What are you planning to use it for mainly? Etc.

[tyven]

Just the tower. I want to play video games and watch porn and watch movies and listen to music

[Arkanna]

Ok, here you go:

Case: Antec Three Hundred. $54.99. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129042
- Cheap case, good construction, gets the job done. Free shipping, which on a case, matters a good bit. $10 mail-in rebate.

Power Supply: Corsair Builder Series CX600 600W. $69.99. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139028
- Nice budget power supply. $20 mail-in rebate.

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500k. $214.99. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115072
- The current gold standard of gamers' CPU's. This isn't the place to make concessions if you don't have to.

Motherboard: MSI Z68MA-G45-B3 ATX, Intel Z68 chipset. $114.99. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130612
- Cheapest motherboard I saw on Newegg that I'd be willing to trust that has 6-channel integrated audio.

Memory: 8GB (2 x 4GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600. $44.99. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145345
- Decent memory, good timings, well-respected manufacturer. There's a $5-off promo code for this memory until 11/21.

Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 6870. $169.99. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150561
- Pretty good video card. Will run almost all of today's games at 2560x1600 resolution with all settings cranked up, at acceptable framerates. $20 mail-in rebate.

Hard Drive: Western Digital Black Edition 750GB, 64MB cache, SATA3. $149.99. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136794
- It's a terrible time to buy a hard drive. This is the cheapest performance-oriented drive from WD as of now that actually has space to install shit. It's the same price as the Black Edition 500GB.

Optical Drive: LG multi-format DVD burner. $18.99. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16827136236
- It's a fucking DVD burner, whatever. I have a brand preference toward LG, I feel their drives are quiet and perform well.

Total before discounts: $838.92.
Mail-in rebates/promo codes: $55.

Total cost after rebates and promo codes: $783.92.

It does make concessions, but it also has it where it counts the most: CPU and vidya. I don't like mail-in rebates, but with your budget, it's good to take advantage of them so you can fit better shit under your $800 cap. If hard drives weren't such a clusterfuck right now, there would be space money-wise for a better motherboard/video card and/or more memory, but what can ya do. Lastly, it includes a k-series Intel CPU and a motherboard that's capable of overclocking it, so if you want to later, you can invest in a nice aftermarket heatsink/fan and get some extra juice out of it.

If you actually decide to build this box, there's plenty of builder's guides out there on the internet, and a ton of support here if you need it.

[Caiyuo]

ON YOUR KNEES, BIG MAN

[tyven]

ok. i am going to buy all of this. your blowjob is in the mail

[Arkanna]

Awesome, let us know if you need help building it. Also, <3 blowjobs.

[Arkanna]

Oh hey, I just realized I included the MicroATX version of MSI's Z68 motherboard. Here's the full ATX version for a couple bucks more if you want it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130621

Ma bad.

[Olo401]

I dont know anything about computers. Can someone tell me how this would compare to anything that could be built with a budget of $800 bones

http://dealnews.com/Dell-XPS-8300-Co...ng/519131.html

I want to be able to play vidya

Dell Studio XPS 8300 Desktop PC
Intel Core i7-2600 3.4GHz Sandy Bridge quad-core processor
8GB RAM
500GB hard drive
DVD burner
NVIDIA Geforce GT530 1GB video card
802.11n wireless
Gigabit Ethernet
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

You won't be playing any recent and/or decent games with that video card. That and it's a Dell designed case & stock cooling which means the thing would overheat even if you tried.

[avelle]

Looking to build a new Sandybridge system, but I'm having difficulty deciding on a gpu setup. I have a 2410 Dell monitor running at 1920x1200 and I'm looking for the best possible performance while running the highest graphical settings games can offer. There's just such a huge variety of gpus out there, it's becoming more and more difficult to decide on the best setup for my needs. I've read fantastic reviews about the MSI Lightning Xtreme Edition GeForce GTX 580 but I'm having a hard time reconciling the price difference between that and other 580s. Is a 3GB card far beyond anything I would ever need at 1920x1200? What about 2x "regular" 580s in SLI? Is that a waste at 1920x1200 also?

I'm not terribly concerned about the price, I just want peace of mind knowing that I can start up the latest game and set that slider to "ultra" like a boss and not have to worry about the FPS implications.

[Arkanna]

Even one 580 is pretty overkill for any game today, at 1920x1200. A single Radeon 6950 (especially if it's one that'll convert to a 6970 with no problem) will handle anything you can throw at it, at 1920x1200, today. I would do either that, or a 570. If money is no object, then by all means, a 580 (or two in SLI) will crush anything easily.

*edit*

Something to keep in mind. Both ATi and nVidia have next-gen parts right around the corner, with nVidia's being more firm. Probably January.

[avelle]

Even one 580 is pretty overkill for any game today, at 1920x1200. A single Radeon 6950 (especially if it's one that'll convert to a 6970 with no problem) will handle anything you can throw at it, at 1920x1200, today. I would do either that, or a 570. If money is no object, then by all means, a 580 (or two in SLI) will crush anything easily.

*edit*

Something to keep in mind. Both ATi and nVidia have next-gen parts right around the corner, with nVidia's being more firm. Probably January.

I'm aware that the next generation is right around the corner but I'm not sure I can wait that long. My 5870 just isn't cutting it for me the way it used to. I was looking at a review on HardOCP about the Sapphire 6950 Toxic card and it seemed to do extremely well, especially with the +20% power tune setting. They apparently already flash a second bios for you to 6970 settings, so that's interesting as well. Two of these in crossfire seems like it could satisfy my FPS needs, but I'm a bit concerned about the delay in crossfire profile updates I've read recently. According to the GPU charts on Tomshardware, it looks like two of these cards nearly reach the performance of 2 580s, but at about half the cost. Money is no object to a point, but there's a point in hardware where the price/performance ratio is skewed to a retarded degree.

My main concern is that I don't think a single 6950 will be enough of a performance jump over my 5870 to warrant the upgrade. I think a crossfire/sli solution is the best fit, but I've also read in the past that not all game support 2+ cards. Is that still a problem today? I'm ready to pull the trigger on a new system, I just need to iron this part out.

[Arkanna]

A buddy of mine just got two 6950's with 6970 BIOS switches on them. He's got a first-gen Core i7 system with 6GB RAM and a 30" Dell monitor with a native res of 2560x1600. With the two new 6950's, he can run BF3 multiplayer set at Ultra, 2560x1600, liquid smooth, zero slowdowns ever.

Regarding Crossfire/SLI profile delays, they do exist for sure. nVidia is better on this front than AMD/ATi.

[avelle]

What are the benefits to more Vram? Is anything over 1gb still a waste @ 1920x1200?

[Arkanna]

More VRAM can impact performance when large textures are cached on the video card. The more frame buffer you have, the less likely it is that your machine will have to swap data in and out of it. However, at 1920x1200 and under, you're unlikely to see much of an impact going from 1GB to 2GB+, at least right now.

Also important to note: in multi-GPU systems, each GPU's frame buffer contains copies of the same data; in other words, if you Crossfire two 2GB Radeons, you don't effectively have 4GB of frame buffer, you still only effectively have 2GB.

[avelle]

What is the general recommendation for thermal compounds these days? Is this fine? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835100007 It appears to be highly rated on Newegg.

Additionally, I could use some suggestions with cases. I plan on running a Noctua NH-D14 cooler ontop of an i7-2600k and I want to make sure I won't have any clearance issues with a side mount fan. I glanced over some options last night and picked the Coolermaster HAF X but I'm not married to it. Definitely open to suggestions here.

And since I haven't said it yet, I appreciate all the help Arkanna! No bjs though, sorry. Also, is this flood shortage affecting SSD's as well? I haven't looked into the pricing yet, but I was afraid to...

[jurjur]

Arctic Cooling MX-4 is pretty good, doesn't conduct either so you don't have to worry as much as with Arctic Silver 5.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835186038

[Arkanna]

What is the general recommendation for thermal compounds these days? Is this fine? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835100007 It appears to be highly rated on Newegg.

Additionally, I could use some suggestions with cases. I plan on running a Noctua NH-D14 cooler ontop of an i7-2600k and I want to make sure I won't have any clearance issues with a side mount fan. I glanced over some options last night and picked the Coolermaster HAF X but I'm not married to it. Definitely open to suggestions here.

And since I haven't said it yet, I appreciate all the help Arkanna! No bjs though, sorry. Also, is this flood shortage affecting SSD's as well? I haven't looked into the pricing yet, but I was afraid to...

Arctic Ceramique (sp?) is good too and doesn't conduct. AS5 actually conducts electricity, so there's an added dimension of worry there about slopping it around, etc.

Regarding heatsink clearance, it's really hard to say. Whenever I'm considering a new case, I just go out and Google up some reviews of the case to read, and scan through to see if anything is mentioned about difficulties with installation. It's annoying but it's the only real way to find out about these small problems without bumping into them nose-first.

You're welcome of course, even if I have to go without bj's :-/ Hard drive pricing is not affecting SSD's at all, so you're good to go. There's some great SSD's out there now for the price. If you have a SATA3 controller, I'd look for a Sandforce-2281 based SSD (OCZ Vertex 3, Corsair Force GT, Patriot Wildfire) for the best possible performance at this moment.

[Caiyuo]

:-/

^

set the bar too high, my bad