PC Build Advice/Review Thread

[five]

The newegg packages are generally shit, including this one. It saves 50 whole dollars off retail prices of all the common parts, you can pick and choose each of them separately on sale in a given week for cheaper.

oh damn, yeah i had no idea whether those bundles were a good deal or not. in that case, do any of you have an recent build laying around that would fit what i'm trying to get? Or would anyone be so kind as to put together some parts for me? :O

[Yuri-G]

if it helps I just did a build that came out to around $750 after rebates. it's not top-of-the-line but it should be able to pull off some impressive graphics. I think the final build was on page 7.

[Rockstaru]

I recently graduated college, and am starting grad school in the fall at a school (full tuition and stipend, yay!), so I'm looking at building a monster PC for gaming and video/photo editing (CS5 and/or CS6 when it comes out). Could someone critique my build? (I've never built a PC before, so any advice would be appreciated.)

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128480 - GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD7-B3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard – 314.99

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119160 - COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Compucase Case with USB 3.0 and Black Interior – 154.48

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115070 - Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K – 314.99

CPU Fan: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B003XRAKLQ - THERMALRIGHT SILVER ARROW DUAL14CM ROUND FAN HEATSINK – 89.95

GPU (x3 Tri-SLI): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130595 - EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1572-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card – 329.99 x 3 = 996.97

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231452 - G.SKILL Ripjaws X + Turbulence II Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL9Q-16GBXLD – 369.99

Main Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227661 - OCZ RevoDrive X2 OCZSSDPX-1RVDX0240 PCI-E 240GB PCI-Express x4 MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - $519.99

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153134 - Thermaltake Toughpower TP-1350M 1350W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply – 354.99

Thanks!

[Isiolia]

(CS5 and/or CS6 when it comes out)

CS 5.5 just came out - though only half the apps actually got new versions.


Main question I would have looking at all that is what exactly you're trying to run, gaming-wise, that'd justify the tri-SLI setup. If you just have a single 24" monitor or something, it's not really necessary. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ling,2865.html has some results.

I mean, I can appreciate splurging n' all that - but there's little point spending more just 'cause, since you can always bank it for future upgrades.

[Olo401]

I wouldn't go with that large a SSD for your system drive. It's crazy expensive - you can get a pair of 120s for much less. If you absolutely need a system drive that large it'd be more cost effective to get a large SATA-600 10Krpm drive. In addition to that, you're going to need at least a 1TB storage drive to hold all your video/photo work.

Also, if you go the SSD route, the Z68 boards are supposedly better optimized to handle it (they're new to the market so I haven't seen much testing yet).

[Rockstaru]

The Read/Write speed on the Revodrive was what appealed to me--740 and 720 MB/s means it won't be a bottleneck anytime soon. I was going for the 240 because it seems like PCI-e based SSDs are much more expensive per GB than standard SATA SSDs, except for this one which is almost the same price as to a 256 GB SATA. The tri-SLI setup was mostly for increased performance in Premiere with the MPE, but I'm reading that CS5 doesn't support SLI setups (unless someone has more recent information on that--most articles I've looked at are from 2009/2010).

[Amastacia]

Ya I was looking at the ASUS P8p67 Pro on Newegg and it just seemed hit or miss with a lot of people. My biggest fear is getting a board that doesn't work right so I'm not sure if I want to go that route. Seems to have a lot of problems.

Right now I'm between an MSI p67A-GD65 or a ASROck P67 EXTREME4.

From what I've seen, the P8P67s are either in immediate need of RMA, or are very solid. Again, not sure how much of it is bad boards vs. enormously superhueg sample size.

Mine, for what it's worth, has been flawless.

Between the MSI and Asrock, both are excellent, I might go with the MSI if what you want is painless overclocking (their software auto-tuner is actually pretty damn good).

The newegg packages are generally shit, including this one. It saves 50 whole dollars off retail prices of all the common parts, you can pick and choose each of them separately on sale in a given week for cheaper.

Concur. Shopping individually, and using more sites than just Newegg (e.g. Provantage) can net some noteworthy savings.

I recently graduated college, and am starting grad school in the fall at a school (full tuition and stipend, yay!), so I'm looking at building a monster PC for gaming and video/photo editing (CS5 and/or CS6 when it comes out). Could someone critique my build? (I've never built a PC before, so any advice would be appreciated.)

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128480 - GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD7-B3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard – 314.99 $315 motherboard why? Just because you can? Other than assuming it's better because it costs more, is there anything driving you to spend so much? I can't see spending much more than $200 on a good motherboard, $300+ is just ridiculous given the lack of additional bells and whistles.

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119160 - COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Compucase Case with USB 3.0 and Black Interior – 154.48 Not a bad call. Especially when it comes to full towers, I often recommend a look at Lian Li, just because the lighter weight makes moving the big fatties around a little easier. But if you want good cooling and acoustics, the HAF cases are solid.

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115070 - Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K – 314.99

CPU Fan: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B003XRAKLQ - THERMALRIGHT SILVER ARROW DUAL14CM ROUND FAN HEATSINK – 89.95 Solid choice. It's pretty much a tossup between the Sliver Arrow, Archon and Noctua N-DH14 for supremacy. Depends which tests you read and what methodology is used.

GPU (x3 Tri-SLI): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130595 - EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1572-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card – 329.99 x 3 = 996.97 Again, any reason for this, or just because? Without a specific application, it's silly to spend so much on graphics horsepower. Multi-GPU gaming is always hit or miss, and there are soooo few applications where 3+ GPUs really scales well or makes a damn difference.

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231452 - G.SKILL Ripjaws X + Turbulence II Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL9Q-16GBXLD – 369.99 I really get the impression by this point that you're just spending money to spend as much of it as you can. Sandy Bridge's memory controller is so good (and overclocking BCLK is so limited) that there is very little need, or real world benefit, to uber-high-speed RAM. The sweet spot is around DDR3-1600, because after that, you start spending a lot more to get smaller and smaller testable improvements.

Main Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227661 - OCZ RevoDrive X2 OCZSSDPX-1RVDX0240 PCI-E 240GB PCI-Express x4 MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - $519.99 Consider just going with a single 120GB Vertex 3 Max IOPS. OS and applications benefit most from an SSD, file storage and games much less so. You'll still get ancillary benefits, even in gaming, thanks to the SSD, without hemorrhaging money.

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153134 - Thermaltake Toughpower TP-1350M 1350W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply – 354.99 Downsize if you decide to be sane and stick to 1-2 GPUs. 2x 570 in SLI will be powered quite handily by something like a Corsair AX-850.

Thanks!

The Read/Write speed on the Revodrive was what appealed to me--740 and 720 MB/s means it won't be a bottleneck anytime soon. I was going for the 240 because it seems like PCI-e based SSDs are much more expensive per GB than standard SATA SSDs, except for this one which is almost the same price as to a 256 GB SATA. The tri-SLI setup was mostly for increased performance in Premiere with the MPE, but I'm reading that CS5 doesn't support SLI setups (unless someone has more recent information on that--most articles I've looked at are from 2009/2010).

So along this...

SSDs are terrible bulk-storage drives. The cost/gig and actual improvement is for shit.

However, they do make excellent system drives. A system drive really doesn't need to be much more than ~120GB (esp. since games receive a much smaller boost by being installed on an SSD than your OS and regularly-multitasked applications).

Blowing a huge wad of cash on an enormous SSD is not necessarily buying you much, especially when, in certain situations, your PCIe bus will be heavily loaded by your GPUs, starving that SSD for bandwidth (esp. if you go Tri-SLI). Why not just get a good SATA3 drive, sized for your OS, and be comfortable with the fact that it will lose charge in its flash cells or run out of program/erase cycles before it's really obsolete from a performance perspective?

I'll be honest, unless I'm sitting around with a stopwatch, I can't tell a subjective difference between an old X-25M and my SATA3 Vertex 3 Max IOPS.

Almost of my games are installed on a RAID0 of old 150GB Raptor drives, and I see some improvement in certain load times or performance with the SSD system drive (versus the RAID as system drive), but playability is exactly the same once a level loads. I moved SC2 from my RAID to my SSD for shits and grins, and I'd say I save maybe 5 seconds of map load time, which, playing multiplayer, goes away fast once maps are cached or other people load slower.

One thing that worries me a bit is that RevoDrive doesn't support TRIM (it's an internal RAID0 of 2 Vertex2 120GBs, effectively, and RAID kills TRIM), so there is potential for long-term slowdown despite the SandForce controllers. On top of that, with Vertex 2 generation drives, the NAND can be sourced in multiple process nodes from multiple suppliers, with wildly varying performance characteristics and durability. Just personal opinion, but I'd stay a mile and a half away from any OCZ Vertex 2 drive if you are greatly concerned about benchmark numbers.

Past that, even my measly Vertex 3 (~550MB/s sustained read, 35K read IOPS, 500MB/s sustained write, 70k write IOPS) is so smokin' fast that I can't see doubling what I spent on it proving anywhere near double the speed.

On the topic of tri-SLI, I can't help but see it as a colossal waste of money. Scaling from 2-3 GPUs is not on par with scaling from 1-2 GPUs. Plus you have the usual restrictions on SLI/XFire of only being supported in full-screen mode. Nothing windowed can be rendered with SLI/XFire due to architecture limitations. CS5 is leveraging GPU rendering, not just computing (e.g. CUDA), so it will not scale with multiple GPUs due to being a windowed app.

Big Edit: Some suggestions to take what you want to do, and save you some money along the way.
Mobo: Any ASUS, Asrock, or MSI P67 or Z68 board that has the features you actually want. If you're interested in SLI, you're going to be looking around the $200 price point to pick up SLI support. Spending more than that is generally unnecessary.
Case/CPU/Heatsink: Fine, stick with what you have.
GPU: 2x Radeon 6950 (reference models, unlock shaders to match 6970s), 2x GTX 560 Ti, 2x GTX 570 (only if doing high-end multimonitor gaming). Otherwise, single 6950 unlocked, single 6970, single GTX 570 (580 if you feel the need to waste money) if you don't see a real need for CF/SLI or want predictable performance.
RAM: 8GB of DDR3-1600 unless you do sufficient 3D modeling or ultra-high-resolution photo editing or video editing. Of my 8GB, over 4GB is usually sitting idle. Do you regularly need to hold more than 4GB of media in RAM to edit? If so, consider a 16GB kit or a pair of 8GB kits. If not, 8GB is plenty.
Main Drive: OCZ Vertex 3, Intel S510, Crucial C300 (new firmware is good, drive is still smokin' fast), sized appropriately. 120GB is not as fast as a larger drive (quite), but the extra space is generally not used as effectively, and nearly doubling the price does not even remotely come close to doubling performance.
PSU: Seasonic X650, X760 or Corsair AX850 depending on GPU choices. Other solid choices are available in the same wattage range (and 750-850W is about right for most dual-GPU builds, with 650ish being plenty for any single GPU).

[Rockstaru]

Thanks for all the advice--as I said, this is the first PC I've ever built from scratch; clearly I went a little overboard. Thanks for reining me in a bit.

At present, I have two 1920x1200 monitors, and potentially might get a third if I can find a good panel at a reasonable price (currently have a Dell 2407WFP and a Hanns-G 28"; the Hanns-G is bigger, but the Dell seems to be the higher quality panel, so I might go with another one of them, or maybe a 3007WFP if I can cut corners on the PC itself).

It's actually not as much for gaming (though I've wanted a good gaming PC for a while) as it is for running CS5 (And possibly CS6 when it comes out). Right now, editing HD footage is a nightmare, so I was hoping for something that would make that a little easier (also why I wanted so much RAM; I've noticed PS, Premiere, AE, and the other applications in CS5 tend to eat up RAM rather quickly). I've been doing a bit more research, though, and it looks like the Mercury Playback Engine doesn't currently support SLI; does anyone have any info on how well CUDA-supported applications work with an SLI setup? (I've read that the performance boost upgrading from one card to dual SLI is a lot greater than dual SLI to tri SLI, so I think I'll only be getting two cards).

The RevoDrive's read/write speeds were what really enticed me, but your explanation really drove me away from it--I actually already own two 256GB c300 drives (got them for free...long story), so I'll just use one of those as the system drive. (I suppose I could RAID them if I really need the extra speed).

I actually found a mobo that's on sale right now for Newegg's Memorial Day sale, and it looks like it supports basically everything I would need (no Tri-SLI, but that hardly matters). Also, it's a Z68 mobo, so it should play nicely with the two c300s. One thing confuses me though--in the description, it says "VGA card required." Do they mean that it doesn't support video output via DVI-D?

Since I'm not going to do Tri-SLI, I decided to go with a 1KW Thermaltake. That's still probably a little much, but I'd like to have some wiggle room just in case I add components somewhere along the line that need it. (Unlikely, but you never know.)

All this in mind, I've revised the build a bit--could you guys give this a quick once-over? It knocked a good $1,000 off the price.

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128494 - GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard – 179.99 - VGA Card Required?

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119160 - COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Compucase Case with USB 3.0 and Black Interior – 154.48

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115070 - Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K – 314.99

CPU Fan: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835608018 - Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler – 89.99 - This was recommended on another forum over the Thermaltake.

GPU (x2 SLI): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130595 - EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1572-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card – 329.99 x 2 = 659.98

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104169 – Kingston HyperX 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3K4/16GX – 144.99

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817153118 - Thermaltake TR2 RX TRX-1000M 1000W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply – 199.99

Thanks very much guys. I really appreciate it.

[Isiolia]

Also, it's a Z68 mobo, so it should play nicely with the two c300s. One thing confuses me though--in the description, it says "VGA card required." Do they mean that it doesn't support video output via DVI-D?

Nah. What it means is that despite the ability of the Z68 chipset to address the integrated graphics on Sandy Bridge CPUs, the motherboard doesn't have a video port on it -you still need to use a discrete card. Should still be able to use software for Quick Sync access I'd think.

[Rockstaru]

Oh, I see. Well, that shouldn't be a problem, since I was planning on having two discrete graphics cards anyway, correct?

Sorry to bombard you guys with questions, but I want to make sure I get this right. Does running two cards in SLI preclude me from running more than one monitor? I read somewhere that the benefits of SLI only worked on a single monitor setup when SLI first came out; is that still true today?

[Isiolia]

Right, it's not an issue - it's a board targeted at enthusiasts, so they just assume you're not interested in using integrated graphics anyway. That's why the P67 chipset couldn't access the GPU at all.

SLI supports up to two monitors - though you can run a third card that isn't part of the SLI setup for two additional screens.

If you need more than that, you'll need to go AMD.

[Jojimbo]

You can run 3 monitors with nVidia, it's 3D Surround (can use it w/o the 3D part) and requires SLI. ATI only needs one card for eyefinity

[Isiolia]

Ah, right, I hit this page looking for it and then looked at the SLI FAQ instead.

[Amastacia]

Making progress reining it in. Just a few thoughts:

1) Decent motherboard, I've been very happy with Gigabyte in the past, but Gigabyte has been way behind the bandwagon implementing UEFI instead of classic BIOS. It's not a dealbreaker, but UEFI is a lot nicer to have (and reduces boot time, to boot).

2) CPU Fan - The Noctua is fine, but anyone who recommends it OVER the Thermalrights instead of as a comparable alternative is a tard. The Thermalrights tend to be cheaper and better, with the Noctua you're paying a premium for "German engineering". Which is funny, the Taiwanese are some kickass engineers too, they just have a lower cost of living. Were it me, I'd probably go with the Silver Arrow.

3) CUDA scaling is independent of SLI, SLI is only for rendering. I do not know how much advantage CS5 takes of CUDA, or how much CS6 will.

4) GTX 570 SLI is overkill. Especially for a PC not primarily to be used for gaming. With multiple differently sized monitors, multi-monitor gaming gets very wonky very quickly. You'd be more than fine SLI'ing a pair of GTX 560 or 560Ti cards. Realistically, you'd probably be fine with a single 570. Hell, there's little enough that didn't run fine at 1920x1200 with a single 5870, I only went to CrossFire because I got the second at closeout pricing and decided to be an idiot.

5) Thermaltake is a fabulous for brand recognition, but pretty uniformly makes terrible products. I'm not sure what components you'd add that would mean you'd need a 1KW power supply, and would seriously recommend looking at something like a Corsair AX850 instead if you want headroom. I run an overclocked 2500K, 2x 5870, SSD, 2x 10k RPM drives, 1 7200 RPM drive, CPU fan, and 3 case fans comfortably on a Seasonic X760 (shockingly, a 760W unit).

[Rockstaru]

4) GTX 570 SLI is overkill. Especially for a PC not primarily to be used for gaming. With multiple differently sized monitors, multi-monitor gaming gets very wonky very quickly. You'd be more than fine SLI'ing a pair of GTX 560 or 560Ti cards. Realistically, you'd probably be fine with a single 570. Hell, there's little enough that didn't run fine at 1920x1200 with a single 5870, I only went to CrossFire because I got the second at closeout pricing and decided to be an idiot.

I should have been more clear--Though they're different sizes inch-wise, they're the same resolution, 1920x1200. I thought it was resolution that made the difference, not inch-size--am I mistaken?

[Amastacia]

Resolution matters more, different size means different dot pitch at the same resolution. For some people, it's no problem, for another, it totally breaks the experience.

I find it really distracting.

Then again, the bezels really ruin multi-monitor gaming for me. And bezelless LCDs are both stupid expensive and generally less suitable for gaming applications.

[Rockstaru]

Okay, I think I'm almost ready to purchase and start building. One last thing: I've been taking a look at motherboards again, and came across this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157250 - it's currently out of stock on Newegg, but available elsewhere. Just a bit more, with UEFI, and getting great reviews. Any thoughts?

Thanks for the help, everyone.

[sephir]

I'm thinking of getting someone to build me up a PC.

-Amd Athlon II x4 3.0 Ghz Quad core
-Asus ATX motherboard (8usb,2pcie,2pci,2pcix1,firewire,esata,optical,gig abit ethernet)
-ATI Sapphire HD5770 1GB
-Corsair 4GB DDR3 1333 Ram (I may upgrade this down the road)
-Coolermaster gaming case w/ 120 mm fan (piano black)
-OCZ 600W modular power supply w/ 2 PCIE connectors
-Western Digital 1TB harddrive
-LG SuperDVD Drive +RW/-RW DL

This set up would be $800 all in. Or for $100 more I can upgrade to Phenom II x4 3.2Ghz and GTX 460 768MB.

Thoughts?

[Palin]

ANyone have a heatsink recommendation that won't take up half my mobo? I've looked at the Silver Arrow and this as was recommended by Tomsharedware's Enthusiastic guide, but both those things are absolutely humongous. I'm not sure I want something that difficult to install and that won't give me much room to install things later, as I don't plan on doing a huge amount of overclocking. Any smaller sized heatsinks/coolers that people can recommend?

[Isiolia]

ANyone have a heatsink recommendation that won't take up half my mobo? I've looked at the Silver Arrow and this as was recommended by Tomsharedware's Enthusiastic guide, but both those things are absolutely humongous. I'm not sure I want something that difficult to install and that won't give me much room to install things later, as I don't plan on doing a huge amount of overclocking. Any smaller sized heatsinks/coolers that people can recommend?

I've used the earlier revision of this in a couple builds for people. It's not giant. There's also this one which is similar.

Another consideration might be the closed-system liquid coolers such as the H60. You wind up stacking the radiator on top of where a fan would go anyway...possibly putting a second fan on it...but it's not that large. I haven't used the H60, but I have an H50 in my current rig.