Tips on building a PC for PC Gaming. (MMO's in particular)

[Lockecole7]

intentional, was hoping he'd come back with an increased budget so I could suggest the same board you picked, and some decent storage

I'm down for some decent storage advice and a mobo...budget seems to be a little larger as Im starting to realize what I really want.

[Isiolia]

Well, the motherboard, as I mentioned, I'm pleased with. I believe it's part of a new line that replaces (some of) the one that Shuemue's board was from. For me, it happened to have exactly what I was looking for (SATA RAID, Firewire) without stuff I didn't really need. ASUS would probably be good too, but some of their recent boards seemed to put the power connector in an odd place, plus they usually cost a little more.
Forgot to mention that Newegg has a $15 mail in on that mobo as well.


Storage will vary. I don't see a reason why -not- to buy at least a new system drive when you can snag a 250GB for $55 or so, with 1TB drives only a little over twice that.
If, for no other reason, that you can keep whatever drives you have intact...but also because HDDs have moving parts, so their failure rate tends to be higher than most other components.

As I mentioned, I built with 2x250GB in RAID1, partly for the redundancy, and partly for the hell of it (never had a personal machine with RAID before). I'm just swapping my data drive and external over.

[Avanarius]

I'm running a Gigabyte P45 board, the DS3 iirc, very happy with it, everything worked immediately.

All of the P45 boards I've set up so far have be extremely easy with minimal issues. It really beats the shit out of nvidia's chipsets. In fact I wouldn't even recommend any nvidia after using the P45.

[Isiolia]

My last PC was an nForce based, using an Opteron 170 CPU...wasn't bad, though it wasn't as smooth as my Intel experience.
The ones I shy away from are VIA. The system I built before my last one, put together in '02 I guess it was, wound up being a P4 2Ghz. The system I initially built was an Athlon system with a VIA chipset Gigabyte board. That chipset (at least the rev I got) was a half-baked PoS that had PCI issues or -something-. It'd hiccup every 15 seconds or so, causing a click in the sound n' a very slight pause in whatever it was processing.
Wound up just returning the whole deal and went with Intel on ASUS, which had been rock solid for me for two systems prior.

Since then I've bought more Gigabyte stuff, which has all been kickass...still won't touch VIA >_>

Though I agree, Intel chipsets tend to be stellar in terms of just plain working, and make for an easy recommendation.

[Shuemue]

I'd say you'll be pretty happy with the board Isiolia linked, and for storage I'd suggest one of two things;

If the budget is mammoth, buy this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136260

It's $250+ but it's fast as shit, and you can add slower media storage drives when funds allow

The other option is to partition a large drive like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152102

Not going to suggest raid0, I can never be arsed to set it up

[Isiolia]

Personally I would say to just go with two drives, or a new system drive and pulling your data drive from the old machine.

If you do build with a single drive only though, then strongly consider partitioning it. Only reason not to might be if you use something like a 250-320GB drive to keep initial cost low, with plans to add a data drive (or multiple) in the near future.

Generally, split your system/programs and data onto multiple partitions or drives though. Helps a -ton- if you wind up wanting/needing to format.

[Kohan]

Bad bad bad.

One rail is fine if its up to spec, Corsair make amazing PSUs. Antec makes garbage that they shove in their cases. One quality rail > bunch of shit ones.

As I mentioned, there are PSUs out there with multiple rails that are also bad.

However, have you actually looked inside an Antec PSU recently?

It doesn't matter that it has the Corsair name on it. Corsair makes plenty of good PSUs, but they also have low end PSUs that are underwhelming. There is no reason for you to get an absolute low end Corsair when you can get a better quality Antec, or honestly, a better quality Corsair that's on sale.

The advice isn't bad. Following any brand name blindly is a tremendous mistake. If you think Antec is the same PSU manufacturer they were ten years ago, then you're not paying attention to their manufacturing processes now.

[levish]

I know the earthwatts line is suppsedly made well as far as antec is concerned, have one and so far so good.

Velociraptor is a excellent hard drive (the best consumer conventional drive) if the 300gb is a bit out of budget there's a 150 and 80gb drive, just make sure they are referred to specifically as Velociraptors. Very happy with the few 80GB drives i have at work.

[Lockecole7]

Soooo put my order in, $602 before mail-in rebates, (about $85 worth I think). I already have a big HDD lying around, and DVD burners, so no need for them really. I noticed that if anything I might have slacked on the mobo...I'm not looking for anything exceptional performance wise, or any bells and whistles beside just the ability to play this game well.

CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835186134

Tower Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129042

PCU (came in a bundle, saved like 20 bucks)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817103941

GPU-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130397

Mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813186145

CPU-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115036

RAM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145184

[Shuemue]

Looks good, except I think you really needed to buy an ATI GPU.

[Lockecole7]

Looks good, except I think you really needed to buy an ATI GPU.

Any reason why? Just curious.

[Epical]

Any reason why? Just curious.

Probably because they have the best price/performance ratio on the market right now. If you aren't into spending $200+ on a graphics card (I haven't read the whole thread), the Radeon 4830 is absolutely wicked for its ~$130 price tag. Reviews on it have been nothing but praise (like the rest of the 48XX series).

[Isiolia]

It could also been due to nVidia's manufacturing processes lately as well, which have been blamed for premature failure of integrated chips in some models. I recall reading that some of their GPUs were not expected to last long either.

Or perhaps the driver issues some people have experienced.

In general I'd say ATI is just currently the better buy. That being said, for the particular price point that the 9800GT falls under, it's a good pick. The 4830 is brand new, so anyone shopping for a card around that in the last week or two would probably have wound up with a 9800GT.

[Shuemue]

ya, the 9800GT is far from a bad card, I'm just a 4000 series fanboy atm

[Lockecole7]

OKie dokie, appreciate the input, as long as they're not far and between that different, I'm not stressing much, in the end I'm content this rig will be able to do exactly what I'm intending for it. So I should be a happy camper, let you guys know how the finished process ends up.