PC Build Advice/Review Thread

**Zhane** · 2012-02-17 18:00

PC for FFXIV, eventually GW2...gaming only

Custom Built option

Spoiler: show

or

Dell with my discount...I could upgrade my GFX card to a Nvidia 560+ and still be under the custom built from above but does this option restrict me in the future because it's a Dell? And is that worth saving a couple hundred, if so?

Spoiler: show

**Patb** · 2012-02-17 18:41

Got the funds together from my tax return and looking to get a pc now or in the next week or two. Friend suggested I get this and thought I'd just post it here to see if there where any objections or suggestions for something comparable or better around the same price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboB...t=Combo.755238

with

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125353

I'd like to keep it around 900 but definitely less than 1k.

**Senji** · 2012-02-17 19:16

Originally Posted by Zhane

PC for FFXIV, eventually GW2...gaming only

Consider: Dell = $664 + tax + 560 + new psu + cpu cooler + inferior parts

Originally Posted by Patb

Got the funds together from my tax return and looking to get a pc now or in the next week or two. Friend suggested I get this and thought I'd just post it here to see if there where any objections or suggestions for something comparable or better around the same price.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboB...t=Combo.755238

with

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125353

I'd like to keep it around 900 but definitely less than 1k.

The newegg prebuilts can usually be made cheaper by handpicking parts on sale or with combo deals. You're only saving the 50 bucks off full retail.

**Jojimbo** · 2012-02-17 19:36

Originally Posted by Zhane

PC for FFXIV, eventually GW2...gaming only

Custom Built option

Spoiler: show

or

Dell with my discount...I could upgrade my GFX card to a Nvidia 560+ and still be under the custom built from above but does this option restrict me in the future because it's a Dell? And is that worth saving a couple hundred, if so?

Spoiler: show

In your custom build you have a 2500, you need a 2500k series to be able to OC, and if you aren't going to OC then the MB/Cooler aren't needed.

Raidmax (the PSU) isn't a recommended brand either, get a corsair/seasonic instead of cheaping out on the PSU.

As for the dell, the BIOS is probably locked so you can't OC it at all (it's not a k series anyway though), and the CPU is no better for gaming anyway

**Zhane** · 2012-02-18 12:15

Originally Posted by Jojimbo

In your custom build you have a 2500, you need a 2500k series to be able to OC, and if you aren't going to OC then the MB/Cooler aren't needed.

By MB do you mean I can go for a cheaper one?

As for the dell, the BIOS is probably locked so you can't OC it at all (it's not a k series anyway though), and the CPU is no better for gaming anyway

So this i7 is no better than the i5 on custom because the custom can be turbo boosted to 3.7GHz vs 3.4GHz?

**Almaut** · 2012-02-18 13:56

Originally Posted by Zhane

By MB do you mean I can go for a cheaper one?

You can if you stick with the 2500. No reason to pick up anything beyond $100 if you aren't going to take advantage of OCing unless the mobo has something specific you want from it. Otherwise you could up to the 2500k and go with what you already have.

**Caiyuo** · 2012-02-25 17:57

So, after my aunt's computer was a resounding success, she told a friend that's been interested in upgrading some stuff and so I checked out her computer and said I'd get back to her. It's a prebuilt Dell that's I would guess from around '06~, so it seems like there might actually be some options here, but I wanted to post here first in case there's any glaring problems. As a preface, this is a case of "my computer's slow can we make it fast" kind of subjective shit so if anything here doesn't seem like it'd make a considerable, noticeable difference, please say so.

Currently she has (on a 300W PSU):
P4 530 3GHz, Socket 775 LGA
1GB DDR2 PC2-3200

Will any socket 775 processor work as a replacement, or is there more to consider with that? She seems to basically be at the lowest end of 775 and newegg has some Wolfdale dual-cores that seem like an easy and considerable upgrade, but are there any reasons why that wouldn't work or be a bad idea? Aside from that doubling her RAM seems like the only other option, but that alone doesn't seem like it'd be all that noticeable. Wasn't really considering the hard drive or graphics card at the moment. Thanks for any help.

edit from questions friends mentioned:

The MB's a Dell 0m3918, not sure how to find what it specifically supports as I thought all that mattered was the socket-type. If it needed a new MB I'd be hesistant to do so considering replacing the MB, processor, RAM might be cost-prohibitive over starting fresh on top of whatever constraints I might run into with the case itself or the PSU at that point.

**Druin** · 2012-02-26 00:45

Hey guys my friend wants to get a gaming desktop built but neither of us have really done it before. We know some people that can put it together, but we were wondering if anyone could help us with a great build that could obviously play games like a boss, we'd really appreciate it. We've got a good $800-900 to throw around, possibly 1k..maybe. Anyways some help would be awesome. Ill keep checkin this post or if anyone wants to PM that'd be cool. Thanks in advance guys.

**Shnaklaha** · 2012-03-12 23:45

Hey guys, looking for 2nd opinions here (and i guess this is the place to do it).

I'm looking to build a....well, gaming pc since mine has been overdue for a replacement for 2 years....I'm just curious if what i have currently would be good enough for an all around good pc that can run a majority of newer games (Thinking things like Rift, BF3, etc) on high/ultra at like 60fps, and still be good as an audio editing thing (less emphasis on this part for now though).

Current specs i'm looking at on newegg (I'm going to buy the monitor unless there's a super better deal.)

Spoiler: show

I honestly wouldn't be buying the mouse/keyboard if I had some, but I think i could use the macros and everything else built in with it.....just curious if this is a good deal to get at $1,077.86 or if I should look lower/try something else. I really just need a new pc at this point runniing a 2.21 ghz dual core LAPTOP......*cringe* Mostly want something i can upgrade/work with later but built good for now.

EDIT: also budget isn't really an issue, but i'd like to keep it under 1,100 if possible, 1,200 at absolute max. tax returns ftw

**Jojimbo** · 2012-03-13 10:09

That monitor is only 1600x900 (that's pretty low), you also seem to be missing a MB/RAM, and have an inefficient/expensive CPU compared to the rest of your build.

EDIT:: Try this

It lacks OS/SSD, but you can pirate one and buy the other later. Might want to wait for end of April when Intel's Ivy Bridge CPUs are out, however there has been some indications that it may not OC as well.

**Caiyuo** · 2012-03-13 16:19

A friend is planning a build that's time-limited to April whose entire focus will be high-end gaming, is an i5-2500k still a safe bet or will Ivy Bridge really change things considerably? Also is Haswell changing sockets entirely from something that's out now / would he have to rebuild entirely then if he wanted to upgrade? He said he was more comfortable going with what's considered the best now instead of waiting until the last minute to see how Ivy Bridge changes things and I'm just trying to get an idea of how good or bad of an idea that might be.

**Jojimbo** · 2012-03-13 16:23

IB will be 5-10% better per clock than SB, currently it's not sure whether IB will OC better or worse than SB though. I have no idea about Haswell.

**Byrthnoth** · 2012-03-15 03:32

I have $1500 and want a computer capable of running MATLAB, Word/Excel, and video games. What do I get?

Unfortunately I will probably be unable to buy anything with a shorter latency than 1 week, so something like Newegg 48-hour sales are impossible for me. I need approval from two people before I can buy, and one of them is always slow to reply.

I'm not afraid to buy computer parts and plug them into each other, which is the limit of "custom building" that I'm likely to do. However, I simply don't know what's good.

**Jojimbo** · 2012-03-15 12:03

Does MATLAB prefer CUDA over OpenCL (or whatever AMD offer) and is multithreaded enough to make use of HT (additional thread per core)?

Should work, you could wait and see what 600GTX (March/April) and Ivy Bridge CPU (end of April) brings though if getting this isn't time critical.

Could drop RAM down to 8GB if MATLAB isn't RAM intensive, 2600k down to 2500k if it doesn't need HT or you just don't care that much about fastest possible [whatever MATLAB does] (2600k doesn't provide much benefit to gaming over 2500k), SSD from 128 to 64GB if you won't be using it for much more than a few programs and OS. Case is up to you, wasn't sure if you wanted a flashy 'gamers' case or not.

**mistmonster** · 2012-03-16 15:19

I have not been keeping up with the gaming systems but running Tera and SWTOR on my CAD laptop is getting tiresome. I get excellent deals on HP systems through various resources so I really need to stick with them. You think a computer configured like this would be let say better than average for gaming? Really not looking for perfection, I probably wouldn't notice but is there anything majorly wrong with this config? Thanks in advance!

Processor: 2nd Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3930K six-core processor [3.2GHz, Shared 12MB Cache]
Memory: 12GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs]
Hard drive: 256GB Solid state drive
Secondary Hard Drive: 1TB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive
Graphics card: 3GB AMD Radeon HD 7950 [Dual Bracket, DVI, HDMI, 2x mini-DP]
HeatSink: Liquid Cooling Solution
Sound Card: Beats Audio (tm) -- integrated studio quality sound
Monitor: Two HP 2711x 27-inch LED Monitors Bundle

**Jojimbo** · 2012-03-16 17:31

Originally Posted by mistmonster

I have not been keeping up with the gaming systems but running Tera and SWTOR on my CAD laptop is getting tiresome. I get excellent deals on HP systems through various resources so I really need to stick with them. You think a computer configured like this would be let say better than average for gaming? Really not looking for perfection, I probably wouldn't notice but is there anything majorly wrong with this config? Thanks in advance!

Processor: 2nd Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3930K six-core processor [3.2GHz, Shared 12MB Cache]
Memory: 12GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs]
Hard drive: 256GB Solid state drive
Secondary Hard Drive: 1TB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive
Graphics card: 3GB AMD Radeon HD 7950 [Dual Bracket, DVI, HDMI, 2x mini-DP]
HeatSink: Liquid Cooling Solution
Sound Card: Beats Audio (tm) -- integrated studio quality sound
Monitor: Two HP 2711x 27-inch LED Monitors Bundle

That's more than enough, CPU is complete overkill and RAM is a bit weird (guessing they mixed 4*2 and 2*2 sticks) and monitors are still 1920x1080 at 27" so the picture won't be that sharp but it will be enough to play anything. Just curious but how much would that cost you?

**mistmonster** · 2012-03-16 19:22

I'm going to leave out the monitors for your question..I'm not even sure my work space can support 2 27" monitors. The computer would be about $1600 with my discounts. Retail its about 3k. The memory upgrade it some kind of 10g to 12g free promotion. Not going to complain about that.. its something I can always change later. B\

**Jojimbo** · 2012-03-16 21:05

Nice, that is quite a nice saving (although horrible retail price, about $600 above what it'll cost to build it with potentially better components), defiantly cheaper than building your own for what you get even if you went much cheaper/saner 2500k route. Actually thinking about I'm wondering how the fuck they are getting 10/12GB with quad channel memory and 4 DIMMs without breaking quad-channel, they must be using 2 sticks from separate sets or something.

**Kenshiin** · 2012-03-16 22:37

Around how much would it cost to build a rig to run TERA at high settings?

**Arkanna** · 2012-03-18 13:00

Originally Posted by Jojimbo

Nice, that is quite a nice saving (although horrible retail price, about $600 above what it'll cost to build it with potentially better components), defiantly cheaper than building your own for what you get even if you went much cheaper/saner 2500k route. Actually thinking about I'm wondering how the fuck they are getting 10/12GB with quad channel memory and 4 DIMMs without breaking quad-channel, they must be using 2 sticks from separate sets or something.

I've noticed that retailers don't often seem to care about utilizing the best memory config they can. I've seen plenty of first-gen LGA1366 systems with 4 or 8gb of RAM, etc. And lots and lots of laptops that support dual-channel memory but only have something like 1x 4GB DIMM or something. Retarded. :-/

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