PC Build Advice/Review Thread

[Weeks]

Very good drive, have a smaller m4 in my main computer (Well, until parts arrive tomorrow). Wish I hadn't ordered a 128 gb Samsung on Friday.

[Siya]

Helping a friend build a PC (preferably before BL2 comes out, but we'll see). Mobo is kinda a place holder and he has a CD drive around. Budget is at 1600-1700. He also said he'd like a SSD, but I know nothing about SSDs.

Spoiler: show

[Jojimbo]

That's a P67 MB, best get a Z77 with an Ivy Bridge, what is the PC for? Just gaming or does he do other stuff on it as well.

EDIT:: Going to bed soon, but assuming gaming PC http://pcpartpicker.com/p/hcEH

Budget allows for i7 if they do CPU intensive non-gaming stuff, one of the best air coolers on the market as well
Good MB, could upgrade to Asus P8Z77-V (or Pro) if they want to, but the Gigabyte should be fine.
Best RAM you can get for the price, that set you had is very expensive for a 8GB 1600MHz set. Samsung RAM is cheaper than some 1600MHz sets and can OC to 2133MHz at 1.5v
HDD has better warranty and is slightly faster, good reliable SSD (could get 128GB if they don't plan to install lots of games on it)
4GB GTX 600 cards are a waste of money, they don't perform much better than the 2GB versions even at high resolutions due to poor bandwidth (at which point you need 2 or more cards for good FPS anyway) and are still beaten by an OC'ed HD 7970. For the price of that single card you could buy two HD 7950s which combined will more than outperform a single 680 an would actually be capable of powering a 5760x1080 setup.
Corsair 300r, decent case for it's price and nice clean/simple looks but I dunno what your friend likes.
750W PSU would be enough to support a second 7970 if you wanted an upgrade in the future and is semi modular, could upgrade to a HX750 or HX850 if you want a higher efficiency/headroom but system with CF 7970 Ghz in it should use around 600~650W under load depending on overclocks on CPU/GPU.

[Siya]

It is gaming yeah. Just showed it to my friend in which his reply was "It's so cheap...". He is much like me when I started building my PC a while back, found a bunch of high end parts and wanted those. He linked me stuff like https://www.serversupply.com/PROCESS...0613I7990X.htm and http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...-6gb,3264.html which I told him the 6gb wouldn't really be worth it, especially since he has no *current plans for multi-monitor displace.

[Jojimbo]

That 6GB card is almost as useless as the 4GB GTX, it has a ~10% lead at 11,520x1080 (yes, 11 thousand) which drops down to 0~1% at 3840x2160 so unless doing extreme (and I mean really extreme) multi-monitor gaming there is no reason to buy it. Same goes for that CPU**, the only reason to go 2011/X79 is because you 1) Need a Hex core CPU (you can't make use of it for gaming/general use), 2) Need additional PCI-E lanes for third and fourth GPU (you can't make use of 3+ unless planning to eyefinity 3x 1080p 120Hz screens or 3x 2560x1440 60Hz), for 1080p 60Hz a single 7970 is more than enough, for 1080p 120Hz or 2560x1440 60Hz a single 7970 can just about get 60 FPS when OC'ed, for 5760x1080 60Hz or 2560x1440 120Hz (OC'ed Catleaps, they are on sale for $555 atm) you need two 7970, for 7680x1440 you need three 7970.

Need to tell your friend to stop chasing big numbers or tell him to get multiple/bigger monitors.

Here, spent extra money on a few things, note that on a 1080p screen CF only provides 30-60% scaling instead of the 80-100% it does at 5760x1080 and is completely unnecessary anyway, at 2560x1440 60Hz it will give you a smoother experience and last longer compared to a single card though. Better MB, Case and PSU, second GPU but you could easily drop it or get CF 7950s for a single monitor setup but I suggest buying a 27" 2560x1440 monitor (Yamakasi Catleap if you can't afford a Dell u2711 or Apple Cinema Display)

EDIT:: **Misread that and thought it was at least a 3960X, do NOT buy a 990X ever, it is a few generations old and is out performed by a 2500k in gaming + lacks a lot of features modern platforms have. Also if he does find one a 3960X is equally as useless as it performs too close to a 3930k even in CPU intensive tasks which is half the price (which again performs close to an i7 3820 for gaming, which performs the same as an i5 3570k and i7 3770k unless using 3 or 4 GPUs).

[RKenshin]

i7 is a waste if you're just going for gaming. All it really adds is significant boost in multi-threading, and no games use it. Stick with the i5 3570k.

Far better off putting that money towards a better monitor setup, which will do far more towards pretty-graphics and gaming experience than nit-picking about having to have the most expensive version of every part. If multi-monitor isn't his bag, pick up a 27/30" IPS monitor of some sort:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Tpk=dell%20IPS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Tpk=dell%20IPS
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824001565
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824001523


And well, just looking above me now, yeah... pretty much am on the same page as Jojimbo.

[Stromgarde]

My laptop had a fatal hard drive failure last week, and as it was about due for replacing anyway I wanted to look into new laptop options. The Asus Zenbook Prime looks really nice aside from relying on integrated graphics, anyone have one that they are using and would recommend, or just a good suggestion in general? Budget is ~$1k, plus maybe a bit more for an SSD.

[Adajer]

Gigabyte GTX 670 10% off until 9/18. So you get a gtx 670 with great cooling for $360, no tax or shipping* and free copy of borderlands 2

[Jojimbo]

My laptop had a fatal hard drive failure last week, and as it was about due for replacing anyway I wanted to look into new laptop options. The Asus Zenbook Prime looks really nice aside from relying on integrated graphics, anyone have one that they are using and would recommend, or just a good suggestion in general? Budget is ~$1k, plus maybe a bit more for an SSD.

What would it be for?

[SubzeroDiabolos]

Well fucking OIFJ5OIJFLAKDFJGKJWRTIEGJOIERAJGOIAJDLGKJRLEJGIORJ GIOJFKLDGJOIHWOIGJSLKJF

I just bought an ASUS GTX 670 for 425$ 2 days ago. No borderlands 2. My life sucks.

[Fairy-Killer]

Well fucking OIFJ5OIJFLAKDFJGKJWRTIEGJOIERAJGOIAJDLGKJRLEJGIORJ GIOJFKLDGJOIHWOIGJSLKJF

I just bought an ASUS GTX 670 for 425$ 2 days ago. No borderlands 2. My life sucks.

You should have received a code of some sort. All 600 series cards have been offering B2 for free for weeks now. And I'm also thirding the IPS panels. I have a single U2412M; by far my favorite purchase for my machine.

[Stromgarde]

What would it be for?

School and occasional if infrequent gaming. From what I've read the Intel 4k integrated graphics is horrible for any non-browser/social stuff.

[Isiolia]

Well fucking OIFJ5OIJFLAKDFJGKJWRTIEGJOIERAJGOIAJDLGKJRLEJGIORJ GIOJFKLDGJOIHWOIGJSLKJF

I just bought an ASUS GTX 670 for 425$ 2 days ago. No borderlands 2. My life sucks.

They've been giving out codes for longer than that. Friend got one with the 660 Ti we put in his machine. Might want to check with where you bought it - if you got it online, it might have been mailed separately. If not, they may have just forgotten to give the coupon to you.

School and occasional if infrequent gaming. From what I've read the Intel 4k integrated graphics is horrible for any non-browser/social stuff.

They're fine for some older games too, but if you really want to be able to game half-decently you'll want something better. Most Ultrabooks just use integrated though, so if that's the form factor you like you may need to compromise.

[Kais]

allo again, decided to go ballz deep for laptops
currently considering:
Asus Zenbook UX32VD - $1,250
•1.7GHz Intel Core i7-3517UE Dual-Core
•4GB of DDR3 RAM
•500GB Hard Drive + 24GB SSD
•nVIDIA GeForce GT 620M Graphics (1GB)
•13.3" Widescreen IPS Antiglare Display
•1920 x 1080 Native Resolution
•802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
•Bang and Olufsen ICEpower Speakers
•Integrated Webcam and Microphone

vs.

Asus N56VZ - $1,090
•2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM Quad-Core
•8GB of DDR3 RAM
•750GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
•nVIDIA GeForce GT 650M Graphics (2GB)
•15.6" Full HD LED-Backlit Display
•1920 x 1080 Native Resolution
•Blu-ray Player with DVD Burning Options
•802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
•Integrated Webcam, Microphone & Speakers

will swap either laptop out with a Samsung 830 SSD and whatever ram
too impatient to wait for a 13" rMBP
from what i understand, N56VZ has a stronger card while the Zenbook is lighter and has a sexy sexy screen.
Leaning towards Zenbook, any input?

[Jojimbo]

For what? The Zenbook is an ultrabook; lightweight, slim, good looking but not very powerful. The N56VZ is more of a full on laptop, much better CPU and GPU, more RAM/larger HDD and a Blu-ray/DVD drive.

[Kais]

general shit, lots o' movies, light gaming, djing/production
intending to upgrade ram/sdd when applicable and i kindda don't need a optical drive honestly.
cpu and gpu i'm unsure of, dunno if what i'm doing is taxing on the hardware
i just want a 1920 x 1080 screen man

[Jojimbo]

Well the N56VZ is the better (and cheaper) laptop other than the display, zenbook has a IPS while N56 has a LED backlit LCD but that might not matter as much for your uses. Just need to determine if you are willing to give up performance and possible storage (might be able to replace bluray in N56 with SSD instead replacing HDD) for looks and form factor. Other than gaming I dunno how much of a difference there would be, not sure how resource intensive music production is.

[Stromgarde]

The N56VZ is also an inch and a half thick and six pounds. Don't get me wrong, it looks like a great machine, just very firmly on the desktop replacement end of the spectrum.

[Katagai]

Looking for advice on a new video card. My current one (MSI R5770 Hawk Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16) apparently has a faulty second fan (does not spin properly) and is rattling my case, which has been annoying the shit out of me for a few months now. Looking for something that's an upgrade from this and isn't extremely expensive.


Any suggestions?

[JetEnduro]

Looking for advice on a new video card. My current one (MSI R5770 Hawk Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16) apparently has a faulty second fan (does not spin properly) and is rattling my case, which has been annoying the shit out of me for a few months now. Looking for something that's an upgrade from this and isn't extremely expensive.


Any suggestions?

I'd suggest a 7870GHz edition