Help me build my PC 2016 Edition Catch All

I also like the Monoprice monitor arms. Have two of them on my desk right now. If I picked up a 3rd monitor, I'd triple up.

Very reasonably priced for what they are.

I'm planning to finally upgrade by graphics card. My PC specs are:

Intel Core i7-2600 3.4GHz
8GB DDR3 RAM
600W Power Supply
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti

The graphics card seems to be the bottleneck. I was looking at the EVGA GeForce GTX760. What do you guys think? My price point is in the $200-$250 range. I don't have a manufacturer preference - I just want the best bang for buck.

I don't have a manufacturer preference - I just want the best bang for buck.

Best bang per buck is probably the AMD 280X at the moment. I see a Sapphire brand on Newegg for $249 right now. NVidia's card in the same performance class is the 770, and it's about $320.

ems777 wrote:

I'm planning to finally upgrade by graphics card. My PC specs are:

Intel Core i7-2600 3.4GHz
8GB DDR3 RAM
600W Power Supply
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti

The graphics card seems to be the bottleneck. I was looking at the EVGA GeForce GTX760. What do you guys think? My price point is in the $200-$250 range. I don't have a manufacturer preference - I just want the best bang for buck.

Yep, probably the 280x is your best bet.

Third the 280x.. has 3GB of vram which will come in handy in certain titles..and is a pretty strong card at 1080P/1200P in just about every game.

I checked the 280x but looks like I would need to upgrade my power supply for it. Specs say it needs 750W.

Specs are often exaggerating power requirements a lot.

IMAGE(http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7400/58716.png)

ems777 wrote:

I checked the 280x but looks like I would need to upgrade my power supply for it. Specs say it needs 750W.

Yeah not so much. I ran 2 factory overclocked 280x's on a 750watt and they ran fine.

Shadout wrote:

Specs are often exaggerating power requirements a lot.

IMAGE(http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7400/58716.png)

The fun part of this is that it's during Furmark. Furmark does things to videocards that no games in existence ever do. They run hotter and use more power running Furmark than they will during pretty much any game out there.

So you are saying that if I run a 280x on a 600W power supply, it should be fine (my other components will not turn to slag)?

ems777 wrote:

So you are saying that if I run a 280x on a 600W power supply, it should be fine (my other components will not turn to slag)?

600W is more than enough for one 280X.

*Just to add more info, even 2 280X's seem to average about ~570W based on the benchmarks I just flipped through. Your 600W would likely run into trouble with two cards at some point if not initially, but for just one it's absolutely fine.

Ok thanks for the advice - 280X it is. Now I just have to convince my wife.

ems777 wrote:

Ok thanks for the advice - 280X it is. Now I just have to convince my wife.

Wattage isn't the the only thing you need to make sure of on a power supply these days. You need to make sure that the rail your card will be plugged into has enough amperage. I say rail because some power supplies have multiple 12v rails and the power connector for the Video Card will be running off one of the rails. You need to make sure that the rail can accommodate the amperage the card needs.

And that it has enough of the right kind of molex connectors.

fangblackbone wrote:

And that it has enough of the right kind of molex connectors.

Also make sure your build has the support of the Elders of the Internet. You know what happens if you piss off the Hawk.

hmm ok I'll look closer at the documentation with the CPU to find this information.

ems777 wrote:

hmm ok I'll look closer at the documentation with the CPU to find this information.

All the info about amperage and rails should actually be listed on a sticker glued onto the power supply itself. It will show you how many rails there are how much amperage each rail can handle etc.

Demosthenes wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

And that it has enough of the right kind of molex connectors.

Also make sure your build has the support of the Elders of the Internet. You know what happens if you piss off the Hawk.

Bravo. I'll tell Peter File you're expecting him.

Thin_J wrote:

The fun part of this is that it's during Furmark. Furmark does things to videocards that no games in existence ever do. They run hotter and use more power running Furmark than they will during pretty much any game out there.

Yeah. The PSU should have enough headroom to go above Furmark though, even if no game ever will. Most PSUs are also most efficient and stable at around 80-90% usage, so for that reason alone there should be some extra to give. Which there is with a 600W PSU. I wouldn't run that card with a 450W PSU - even if it technically was enough.

Imo a decent PSU is worth the money in a PC - which certainly is not measured in the amount of wattage. After all it's the thing sending electricity through all the other expensive hardware.

What you're actually worried about is the 12V rails, because modern computers pull almost all their power from there.

You can tell us either the make/model of the supply, or you can take a picture of the PS label and post that, or you can copy us the info about 12 volt lines. If it's a single-rail supply, it'll look something like 12V@50A. If it has more than one, it will be something like 12V1@20A, 12V2@20A, 12V3@20A, and then a subscript down below saying something like (12V total, 50A), or something like that, meaning that any one rail can do 20 amps, but the load on all the rails together can't exceed the larger number.

A note on Furmark: as far as I know, Furmark stresses the video card very hard without stressing the CPU. So, at least in theory, a game could work a computer even harder than that. I don't think any actually do, but they could, and you don't want a game to blow up your computer because you didn't size your supply properly.

That's why I like to use TDP, Thermal Design Power, for a better idea... TDP is supposed to be about the most power any given component can draw. (Intel allows exceeding it briefly, but only briefly.) Actual measurements are great, but you should size for the maximum possible load of all components in the system simultaneously.

Keep in mind that both NVidia and AMD have, in the past, recognized Furmark and throttled it specially, so a Furmark run definitely may not max out even your GPU load. It's good info, and a good sanity check, but TDP strikes me as much more important.

Add up the TDP of all your components, and divide by 12; that will give you the number of 12V amps you need. Add another four or five amps for general system stuff (motherboard and drives), and buy a supply that's at least 10% bigger than your total. (because power supplies age.) With Intel/NVidia, non-overclocked, a 430 watter is usually fine. If you're overclocking, or if you're using AMD stuff, it could be higher, possibly a lot higher.

BTW, jonnyguru.com is an excellent, excellent source for info about power supplies. They actually tear them apart and look at them, getting an idea of the quality of the components and how well-done the assembly is, and then run them through a gauntlet with various test machines. AFAIK, they're just about the only site doing that, and you should pay close attention to their opinions.

Seasonic and Corsair have typically gotten excellent marks from them, which more than anything else has pushed me toward those manufacturers. Seasonic is probably the best overall, but they're pretty expensive. The cheaper Corsairs aren't as good, but they're pretty solid, and the pricing is much more attractive.

High-end Corsairs (AX series, mostly) are pretty comparable with the high-end Seasonic, at least when I was last looking.

Sometimes you'll see screaming deals on Seasonics at Newegg; it can be a good idea to just grab one when you do, and then figure out what to do with it later. If nothing else, you can probably sell it onward and make a little money. I got a beautiful 650-watt Seasonic for, geeze, maybe it was $45?

Just stumbled across this site.

http://caselabs-store.com/

wow!

TheGameguru wrote:

Just stumbled across this site.

http://caselabs-store.com/

wow!

That company seems awesome.

I know if anybody is looking to buy from them they have a pretty active forum over at overclock.net with lots of cool information.

Wow is right. As in WOW those are overly expensive.

JC wrote:

Wow is right. As in WOW those are overly expensive.

I thought so too, but the cases are all custom built to your requirements.

I haven't bought any of their stuff personally but if you can find someone who bought a case from Caselabs and isn't happy or feels like they overpaid it will be the first time I've heard anyone say it.

Everything they build is pretty much top of the line. Doesn't get any better.

Thin_J wrote:

I haven't bought any of their stuff personally but if you can find someone who bought a case from Caselabs and isn't happy or feels like they overpaid it will be the first time I've heard anyone say it.

Everything they build is pretty much top of the line. Doesn't get any better.

Yeah, you are basically buying the Ferrari of computer cases.

Can we discuss how giant this case is: http://www.caselabs-store.com/magnum...

It has spots for 4! 4! power supplies.

Their photo gallery of builds is something to behold.

Kamakazi010654 wrote:

Can we discuss how giant this case is: http://www.caselabs-store.com/magnum...
It has spots for 4! 4! power supplies.

And two motherboards. So you either set it up as a fully redundant server in a box, two separate systems, or two servers sharing the same disk array. Pretty awesome.

General question - if I am planning to use my primary HDD currently as my backup/media for the future, how do I clean it out, other than a full wipe. There's Windows, random programs and other stuff I dont know what that won't be important once it becomes a backup HDD.

Is there a way to format everything cept one big folder of stuff I want to keep?

Or do I need to move everything to a smaller older HDD, format primary HDD, then move it back.

While we are on the topic of hard drive maintenance. I am looking to move some of my large media libraries that are sitting on ancient drives to a newer, larger drive. Are there some good Windows tools to do this besides just using Windows explorer? Preferably something with a pause/resume function.

mooosicle wrote:

General question - if I am planning to use my primary HDD currently as my backup/media for the future, how do I clean it out, other than a full wipe. There's Windows, random programs and other stuff I dont know what that won't be important once it becomes a backup HDD.

Is there a way to format everything cept one big folder of stuff I want to keep?

Or do I need to move everything to a smaller older HDD, format primary HDD, then move it back.

Assuming you have room on the existing HDD, youu could create a new small partition on the existing HDD to hold what you want to keep. Move what you want to keep to that new partition, and then reformat the old primary partition. But if you don't know what you want, or whats on there, how would you know what to move?

When I upgrade HDDs I typically install the old one as a 2nd drive, and then pull the user profile off and stick it onto my new drive. After a month or so of not needing anything, I just wipe the secondary drive completely