PC Build Advice/Review Thread

**Jojimbo** · 2012-09-05 20:53

Originally Posted by Adajer

I really dont advise going with any non current gen gpu. 660 ti is almost twice as powerful as the 570, uses 2/5 of the power or less, and runs cooler. I'm not sure if the older cards have adaptive vsync capabilities or not. oh yeah i really forgot to point out all gtx 660 ti's, 670,s and 680s come with a free copy of borderlands 2. cant beat that with a vegetable.

Where did you get those numbers from? It's more like 25-30% faster at 1080p, only when you go to 1600p where the vRAM becomes an issue does the 660Ti take a 50-80% lead. It's also nowhere near 2/5 the power, 660Ti uses ~135W depending on OC with the 570 using ~215W

**SubzeroDiabolos** · 2012-09-05 21:00

I'm not planning on O/C at all.

Anyway, re-revisited

Spoiler: show

**Adajer** · 2012-09-05 21:07

I actually went to cross check after I typed that, meant to say 560 ti with performance which still isnt twice as fast. I misspoke, my bad. But I still wouldnt recommend a 570 over a 7950 or 660 ti

**Don Katsu** · 2012-09-05 21:12

Currently using

Case: Antec Three Hundred
Mobo: ASUS 785G AM2+
PSU: Antec Earthwatts 650W
CPU: AMD Phenom II 955 Quad Core (3.2 ghz)
GPU: ATI Radeon 4850
Memory: DDR2 8 GB Patriot 1066mhz

I'm wondering if I should bother upgrading the video card to a Radeon 7850 or just build a new system altogether. Any advice would be helpful

**Jojimbo** · 2012-09-05 21:15

What is this build for exactly? You could do a bit better for the price if gaming. If you have no desire to OC then aftermarket cooler is a waste of money. That 660Ti is a bit expensive, you can get some for under $300, I would personally go with a different SSD. Can't comment on MB. 16GB RAM is only needed if you use RAM intensive programs, for general use/gaming 8GB is more than enough.

Originally Posted by Shinebox

Currently using

Case: Antec Three Hundred
Mobo: ASUS 785G AM2+
PSU: Antec Earthwatts 650W
CPU: AMD Phenom II 955 Quad Core (3.2 ghz)
GPU: ATI Radeon 4850
Memory: DDR2 8 GB Patriot 1066mhz

I'm wondering if I should bother upgrading the video card to a Radeon 7850 or just build a new system altogether. Any advice would be helpful

You could always just get an 7850 and if you run into a bottleneck upgrade the rest of the system. The CPU/MB is a bit outdated but should work, what would your budget be for a rebuild?

**hey** · 2012-09-05 22:26

Originally Posted by SubzeroDiabolos

I'm not planning on O/C at all.

Anyway, re-revisited

Spoiler: show

That cpu is garbage. Please don't buy it. If you are boycotting intel, and absolutely cannoy buy their vastly superior cpus, you are still better off getting an older amd cpu that isn't bulldozer.

**RKenshin** · 2012-09-06 10:12

Gotta say again, as others have reinforced here, you're hurting yourself by sticking with AMD.

You don't even have to take our word for it, just check out some of these benchmarking stats from the breakdown on the previous page:

Spoiler: show

But hey, it's your money.

I just don't understand why you would pay the same price for a CPU that performs not just a little worse, but far worse than the equivalent Intel.

**SubzeroDiabolos** · 2012-09-06 10:32

For 1, because i'm building this PC myself, and I have 0 knowledge how the CPU + CPU socket on mobo connection types. If I change CPU to intel, I need to change mobo.

If you're feeling that nice today, feel free to show me parts (cpu + mobo) that are an upgrade or equivalent, at the same cost ((I insist on same cost. Will not pay 50$ more just for an intel tag) they need to work together, obviously)

tl;dr: I don't mind intel, I just don't know how the socketing works for the cpu.

**Isiolia** · 2012-09-06 11:14

Originally Posted by SubzeroDiabolos

For 1, because i'm building this PC myself, and I have 0 knowledge how the CPU + CPU socket on mobo connection types. If I change CPU to intel, I need to change mobo.

If you're feeling that nice today, feel free to show me parts (cpu + mobo) that are an upgrade or equivalent, at the same cost ((I insist on same cost. Will not pay 50$ more just for an intel tag) they need to work together, obviously)

tl;dr: I don't mind intel, I just don't know how the socketing works for the cpu.

Socket type is the easy part. If you're looking at Ivy Bridge (current series), then LGA 1155. The more complicated part is picking a chipset, especially if you're on a budget. A quick chart to look at would be here. I don't mean to make things more complicated than they need to be, so if you want to be simple about it, buy a Z77 board and be done with it. Your options for one in the sub-$100 range are few, but they do exist.
If you're really really sure you never want to overclock or do a dual GPU, then an H77 board is fine too - though most of them are micro ATX as well. Prices tend to be lower. Personally, I'd rather spend an extra $20 and have options down the road, but up to you.

Beyond that you have Z75, which is almost nonexistent at retail (at least for stand alone motherboards) and older boards that can support Ivy Bridge CPUs with a new enough BIOS, but might prove to complicate things as a result (for example the feedback on this board that was spec'ed in Tom's Hardware's recent system builder guide).

If you're dead set on not overclocking, then the similarly priced CPU to look at is the i5 3470 (or i5 3450 if you need to shave a few bucks). If you have a Microcenter nearby then you can get the 3450 for $150 (or a 3570K for $190), if not the 3450 is around a $190 CPU. A touch more expensive than the Athlon FX, but much better performance per dollar.

**Jojimbo** · 2012-09-06 11:15

You aren't paying $50 more for an Intel tag, you are paying $50* more for a better CPU. Still need to know what you are going to do with PC so we can optimise the build a bit better. For instance, do you really need 16GB RAM, you don't have a HDD at all in your revised build, or a PSU. Do really plan on never OCing *anything*?, care about what case you end up with?

* Damn, CPU and MB prices went back up today

EDIT:: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/gIqh

No need for aftermarket cooler as it can't be OCed, plus cheaper locked CPU (could get 3570 for $200)

Can't support SLI if you wanted a future upgrade, or overclocking if you wanted to extend the life of the CPU. Included types of components in your revised list.

**RKenshin** · 2012-09-06 11:22

Well, you're not paying $50 more just for the Intel tag... as you can see from the benchmarking results above you're paying for a rather substantial boost in performance.

If you're going to toss out a grand on an entire new system build, the last thing I'd advise is to get cheap on one of the most important components. Nothing is worse than throwing out a ton of money on latest-gen parts only to be bottlenecked by getting cheap on the main one. It's like spending tons of time/money preparing a gourmet meal and then deciding to cook it in the microwave.

But that's my opinion. If performance isn't that important to you, then you of course can build whatever you want/feel more comfortable with. In which case though, you probably don't need such an expensive GPU either.

**Nitsuki** · 2012-09-06 13:55

Also thanks to this thread i almost went for 16gb of ram when i didn't actually need it, i am totally comfortable with 8gb right now, only thing i have gimped sorta is my msi 560ti which is now IC'd anyways. I am glad i switched out of amd myself. Btw, a great z77 mobo w/ and easy to use bios is the gigabyte z77x-ud3h, it's a fairly low price and does what it needs to do.

**Stromgarde** · 2012-09-06 14:05

Finished upgrading my system with the Samsung 830 and all I can say is holy shit. I had no idea how big of a bottleneck hard drive access speeds can be. I've built entirely new machines from scratch and experienced significantly lower performance gains than this.

**Nitsuki** · 2012-09-06 14:34

Only thing that makes me not want to get an ssd is my laziness, lol. I just finished reinstalling windows on my old hard drives and my games over again, i just don't feel like going thru the process. Other than that, i may just do the ssd and just reinstall all the games again, thank god most of my stuff is on steam, so it's as easy as moving the folder pretty much.

**Caiyuo** · 2012-09-06 14:43

A friend had actually mentioned something similar in that he was wondering what problems there might be using something like ntfsclone to go from a mechanical to SSD. Assuming the partitions are sized accordingly, would there be concerns? All I know of is the importance of setting up sata ahci in the BIOS prior to installing.

**SubzeroDiabolos** · 2012-09-06 14:52

Thank you for your responses everyone.

Originally Posted by Jojimbo

Still need to know what you are going to do with PC so we can optimise the build a bit better. For instance, do you really need 16GB RAM, you don't have a HDD at all in your revised build, or a PSU. Do really plan on never OCing *anything*?, care about what case you end up with?

Like I said, i'm going to be gaming max settings + frap recording and video rendering.
I also host a small minecraft server on the main computer so there's always a small chunk of RAM taken for that.

Besides, the RAM is so cheap imo that 2x8GB at 75$ is a good deal.

I must have linked the wrong thing, because the last build I posted should have included this as HDD Corsair internal SSD 180GB 120$

For the PSU, someone said that I wouldn't need anything other than what I have so I believed that.

I will never - ever - O/C anything

No, I don't care about the case. I just picked something cheap that could fit a full ATX mobo and the GPU. My current case is antec 300 and it's not too bad (had to move HDDs for the 5850 to fit though) so I figured antec 1100 would be fine. Open to suggestions though. (is the one you posted earlier with the i5 core big enough for the GPU and mobo type?)

I'm going to the store today so I need to get a final build asap

**Jojimbo** · 2012-09-06 14:59

What store? They might not have half the stuff we recommend. 4*4GB would be a better option imo, it'll be faster than 8GB sticks.

**SubzeroDiabolos** · 2012-09-06 15:11

Microbyte is the only store we have here. I just called, this is their pricing on some items

Intel core i5 3470 = 186$
Gigabyte GA-H77-DS3H = 105$
Geforce GTX 660 ti = 325$

and the SSD they have in stock is a 256 GB for 200$, don't know the brand.

**Jojimbo** · 2012-09-06 15:14

And you can't order online? I personally wouldn't buy any SSD other than Samsung/Crucial/Intel (there are a few other specific models within other manufacturers but most are very expensive compared to alternatives)

**SubzeroDiabolos** · 2012-09-06 15:19

I can, i'm just not sure i'd save any money from doing so because of shipping. Also I live in canada, so it has to be a canada based store.

Am I wrong of thinking that well, an SSD is an SSD, no matter what the brand is? By that I mean, even if it's the cheapest brand, it's still going to outperform a 7,200 or 10k rpm, right?

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