Help Me Build My PC Catch-All

I currently have an nvidia 7900 GT/GTO with 256 mb of ram on DirectX 9. My mobo (asus a8n-vm csm) supports up to PCI Express 16, but not 2.0. Looking at newegg, their x16 cards run from about $25 to $80. On an old athlon ~2.2 and 2 gigs of ram, will upgrading from a 7900 to a 9400/9500 make a noticeable difference? I got Assassin's Creed for $5 of D2D, but it is dog-slow. L4D and TF2 run fine.
Thanks.

Nevin73 wrote:

For me, I need some guidance. I'll be getting a new PC in the next couple of weeks. I have the choice of building my own and buying a pre-made rig. The thing about building my own is this, I've installed everything in a PC except for the processor/MB. And I haven't really done much hardware stuff in several years. The other thing is, looking at prices (and sales), it seems like it is almost a wash between building my own and buying a pre-made rig. For instance, I found this rig on NewEgg.com for $1,339.99 (w/o monitor):

Could I save that much money by building my own PC (providing I don't fry anything)?

Since I've be going through NewEgg obsessively over the past couple of days, I ran the specs of your GamerSupreme against the cheapest comparable component on NewEgg. That came out to about $1250.

Considering that your processor and GPU are going to cost you about $590, so that means that you're paying 700 bones for your case, mobo, HDD, 8 MB of RAM, and your OS. In basic terms, they're skimping on parts.

Just price out some good quality components and you should fall into a similar price range (it might be a bit more, but a least you'll know what's in your machine).

Falchion, I think both those builds will be okay. Just remember that your brother will probably need a 600+ watt power supply if you upgrade his video to anything very power hungry. And be careful about the rails on both machines; remember if you overload either half, the computer stops working. Double-check the 12v draw on your cards to make sure they won't exceed what the power supply can provide.

Oso wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

Does anyone use AMD procs for gaming anymore?

Yeah, I just put together an upgrade using the Phenom II 955. This made more sense before the I7/I5 came out, but I'm happy.

AMD really shines in the budget end of the spectrum, the Athlon II and Phenom II dual core units provide a HUGE bang for the buck. In Tom's Hardware Best Gaming CPU's for the money the AMD procs score quite well. They dominate the >$200 part of the chart. However, on the top end, the I5 and I7 out-perform them. It is hard to resist the lure of the top end of the spectrum.

Still, I paid $169 for my AMD proc and I'm THRILLED with the performance.

I've been looking at AMD myself, the procs are a good price, but the AM3 motherboards are very expensive here, as well as DDR3 ram.

An E7400 with a G41 board and DDR2 is less than an Athlon II with an AMD 785 board and DDR3.

Where is a good place to find reviews on motherboards? I'd like to find something cheaper than the Asus P6T LGA 1366 board.

Minarchist wrote:

Graphic Design Smarts

Thanks, Minarchist. That's helpful.
I don't think she's at the point where she'll do much collaborative work yet, so I'm going to go with my gut feeling and start working on building a PC.

Currently, the build is a dual-core X2 4400 with 4 GB RAM running my old Sapphire X1950, and given how early it is in the planning stage, its unlikely that she will need much more than that.
If she does start doing some profitable work and finds the machine lacking, I'm sure she'll have a better idea of what she wants to get done. This will at least give me a platform to build on.

Just looking now, the cost of the software packages will be as much or more than the cost of setting up the PC. They're outrageous.

OG_slinger wrote:
Nevin73 wrote:

For me, I need some guidance. I'll be getting a new PC in the next couple of weeks. I have the choice of building my own and buying a pre-made rig. The thing about building my own is this, I've installed everything in a PC except for the processor/MB. And I haven't really done much hardware stuff in several years. The other thing is, looking at prices (and sales), it seems like it is almost a wash between building my own and buying a pre-made rig. For instance, I found this rig on NewEgg.com for $1,339.99 (w/o monitor):

Could I save that much money by building my own PC (providing I don't fry anything)?

Since I've be going through NewEgg obsessively over the past couple of days, I ran the specs of your GamerSupreme against the cheapest comparable component on NewEgg. That came out to about $1250.

Considering that your processor and GPU are going to cost you about $590, so that means that you're paying 700 bones for your case, mobo, HDD, 8 MB of RAM, and your OS. In basic terms, they're skimping on parts.

Just price out some good quality components and you should fall into a similar price range (it might be a bit more, but a least you'll know what's in your machine).

Thanks for the advice. I think I'll go on the adventure and buy the expensive "lego" kit. It's always good experience doing something for yourself.

Edwin wrote:

My thought process is as follows. In September of 2003 I spent $1,099.05 buying almost the best processor out at the time (Intel Pentium 4 3.0C Northwood 3.0GHz Socket 478) which last me till August 2007. That's 3 years and 11 months. In August of 2007 I spent $1,216.90 for my current PC with a Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 Conroe 2.13GHz LGA 775 that only lasted me till now. That's only 2 years and 3 months because I decided to compromise on the price and purchased a weaker processor. I know I will pay more in the end because I still have to buy a new video card down the line.

Maybe I am rationalizing it too much but I think the semi-future proofing by getting the new socket type will be worth it. I'd like to be proven wrong though.

Well in my experience the top cpus never give you the most bang for the buck.

Sure they will have a greater lifespan, but you pay 2 or 3x more for that extra 10% or so of power.

More bang for the buck is usually in the middle somewhere.

Getting the best stuff will result in you needing to upgrade fewer times in a decade. Maybe 3 times instead of 4 or 4 instead of 5 or something like that. It depends on how long you ride your machine.

Today though it seems like extra cpu power is overkill for most tasks except video encoding. Even gaming it is overkill since they design the games for the middle of the market more and more and less and less are they designing pc games for hardware that will be out next year.

I think you'd have a much more responsive system by saving your dough and grabbing a SSD to go with an i5 instead of just an i7 system with a regular hard drive.

SSDs are getting to the point where they are providing enough room for the OS, apps and some data. I think 160gb is about that point where it is enough space to move around in. You'll still need a larger data drive, but you won't feel too claustrophobic after installing the OS, a handful of apps and some documents.

By tomorrow I will have everything for my new build except for one critical component: my 5870.

Apparently TSMC screwed the pooch on 40nm production and, because of that, there are no 5870s available anywhere (5850s are out as well, they're made from the same die and any good chips are going into 5870s). Rumor has it that the shortage will last at least the end of the year as TSMC improves yields and works through the backlog of existing orders (like mine).

So that kind of leaves me in a bad spot. Unless I want to look at a $1200 paperweight for the next couple of weeks, I need a different GPU.

Any recommendations on a decent one that I can get now, but that is also cheap enough that I can replace it when 5870s are available?

OG_slinger wrote:

By tomorrow I will have everything for my new build except for one critical component: my 5870.

Apparently TSMC screwed the pooch on 40nm production and, because of that, there are no 5870s available anywhere (5850s are out as well, they're made from the same die and any good chips are going into 5870s). Rumor has it that the shortage will last at least the end of the year as TSMC improves yields and works through the backlog of existing orders (like mine).

So that kind of leaves me in a bad spot. Unless I want to look at a $1200 paperweight for the next couple of weeks, I need a different GPU.

Any recommendations on a decent one that I can get now, but that is also cheap enough that I can replace it when 5870s are available?

I suppose that explains why every website I've looked at has 5870s and 5850s out of stock.

OG_slinger wrote:

Any recommendations on a decent one that I can get now, but that is also cheap enough that I can replace it when 5870s are available?

Maybe you can pick up a 4870 and find someone here (or in the trade thread) to agree to buy it from you later to complete a crossfire set?

I've never been a fan of SLI/Crossfire builds, but recently picked up a 2nd 4850 for >$100 and it was just the boost my system needed. There may be a GWJ'er w/ a 4870 who'd like a discounted 2nd card from a reputable source.

I built a new computer for right around $1100 in April of last year and I'm getting the urge to "upgrade"

Here's what I have now:
Windows Vista (32-BIT)
COOLER MASTER Centurion Case
Antec Basiq BP500U 500W
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB
X38 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz
Western Digital 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drive
OCZ Gold 4GB DDR3 1333

Here's what I'm thinking about getting:
Windows 7 (64-BIT) ($107)
Core i5 ($200)
ASUS P7P55D Motherboard ($145)
Intel X-25M 80GB SSD ($260)
Radeon HD 5850 1GB ($299)

I will try and keep my Case, PSU, Ram, HD (for my secondary storage drive)

It's looking like my "upgrade" will cost almost as much ($1010 pre-tax) as my whole build did last year.

I could get rid of the Windows 7 w/ SSD and just upgrade the CPU, Motherboard and Video Card but everything I've heard says that SSD is the most noticeable upgrade you can make, and I'll take $100 for Not Vista but still plays games. Are there better buys in the SSD realm? Perhaps a different/better MoBo/CPU I could go for?

Would it be to my benefit to go even more all out and get an i7 and 5870?

Or maybe there's an nVidia alternative that would better fit what I am looking at?

Bonuses at work should be coming at the end of the month, so I won't be purchasing anything until then at the earliest.

Thanks for any help you all can offer.

Kaos -

Microcenter sells the i5s for $150. If you have one close to you, go and grab one. i5 is the best bang for your buck, and people say there's no difference between i5 and i7 when it comes to games, so your call.

I got that same MB for $20 cheaper on sale. Look around for deals.

You could go for a 1GB 4870 for $150, not tax your power supply as much, and get all the graphics you need for the next year or so.

Solid state drive sounds awesome. I decided it was too pricey for me, and honestly my load times are pretty damn fast with the ram and the new processor anyway.

Looks like you'll have some decent throw-away parts after you finish your build. Can probably get some good trade in value if you play your cards right. Find a friend who wants a computer that can play games, and offer to build it if he pays for your parts and the rest of the rig.

Oso wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

Any recommendations on a decent one that I can get now, but that is also cheap enough that I can replace it when 5870s are available?

Maybe you can pick up a 4870 and find someone here (or in the trade thread) to agree to buy it from you later to complete a crossfire set?

I've never been a fan of SLI/Crossfire builds, but recently picked up a 2nd 4850 for >$100 and it was just the boost my system needed. There may be a GWJ'er w/ a 4870 who'd like a discounted 2nd card from a reputable source.

I hope so. I just ordered a 4870 1GB.

I'm kinda disappointed about the shortage, especially after doing all the research, but then I really looked at what a 4870 will give me performance-wise. My current card has a 3DMark score of 4,725. My new card has a score 3.6 times higher--17,106.

I'm going to be blown away by the difference and it will let me do what I wanted: play Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 without feeling like I'm watching a PowerPoint presentation over WebEx.

OG_slinger wrote:

I hope so. I just ordered a 4870 1GB.

I'm kinda disappointed about the shortage, especially after doing all the research, but then I really looked at what a 4870 will give me performance-wise. My current card has a 3DMark score of 4,725. My new card has a score 3.6 times higher--17,106.

I'm going to be blown away by the difference and it will let me do what I wanted: play Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 without feeling like I'm watching a PowerPoint presentation over WebEx.

I'm really glad I snatched my 5870 when presented with the opportunity (not to make you feel bad). On the bright side, this'll probably hold you over until they release the 5890, and then hopefully you can pick up the 5870 for $100 less. Looking at benchmarks, you're only talking like at most 20% difference (I'm pulling that out of my butt, but I think thats about the case, I've looked at so many video card review bar graphs these past few weeks), and the DirectX 11 stuffs a non-issue at the moment.

OG_slinger wrote:

I hope so. I just ordered a 4870 1GB.

I'm kinda disappointed about the shortage, especially after doing all the research, but then I really looked at what a 4870 will give me performance-wise. My current card has a 3DMark score of 4,725. My new card has a score 3.6 times higher--17,106.

I'm going to be blown away by the difference and it will let me do what I wanted: play Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 without feeling like I'm watching a PowerPoint presentation over WebEx.

Yeah 4870 is a good buy. Probably won't miss a 5870.

trip1eX wrote:
Edwin wrote:

My thought process is as follows. In September of 2003 I spent $1,099.05 buying almost the best processor out at the time (Intel Pentium 4 3.0C Northwood 3.0GHz Socket 478) which last me till August 2007. That's 3 years and 11 months. In August of 2007 I spent $1,216.90 for my current PC with a Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 Conroe 2.13GHz LGA 775 that only lasted me till now. That's only 2 years and 3 months because I decided to compromise on the price and purchased a weaker processor. I know I will pay more in the end because I still have to buy a new video card down the line.

Maybe I am rationalizing it too much but I think the semi-future proofing by getting the new socket type will be worth it. I'd like to be proven wrong though.

Well in my experience the top cpus never give you the most bang for the buck.

Sure they will have a greater lifespan, but you pay 2 or 3x more for that extra 10% or so of power.

More bang for the buck is usually in the middle somewhere.

Getting the best stuff will result in you needing to upgrade fewer times in a decade. Maybe 3 times instead of 4 or 4 instead of 5 or something like that. It depends on how long you ride your machine.

Today though it seems like extra cpu power is overkill for most tasks except video encoding. Even gaming it is overkill since they design the games for the middle of the market more and more and less and less are they designing pc games for hardware that will be out next year.

I think you'd have a much more responsive system by saving your dough and grabbing a SSD to go with an i5 instead of just an i7 system with a regular hard drive.

SSDs are getting to the point where they are providing enough room for the OS, apps and some data. I think 160gb is about that point where it is enough space to move around in. You'll still need a larger data drive, but you won't feel too claustrophobic after installing the OS, a handful of apps and some documents.

I've never bought the top of the line anything in my life but I understand your point. Do you think the 920 is a better compromise while still retaining the features of the newer socket/chipset (more ram slots and future upgrade possibility)? The only reason why I even consider spending double on a processor compared to my past two times is that the 920 seems like a big compromise in speed which bit me hard the past upgrade cycle. I'm probably over reacting.

if you don't plan on going dual video card then the p55 chipset is potentially a better choice anyway. It is also the newer of the 2.

I thought the LGA 1366 socket / X58 chipset / Bloomfield was the newer one. Is Lynnfield the newer one? I guess I should be asking which is better.

lynnfield is newer and it is the actuall sucessor to the LGA775 chipset.
the 1366 socket is closer to skulltrail which intel never released as a consumer product. They are same generation paralell parts the 1366 is the "extreme" part

With dual graphics cards the 1366 socket has more lanes for pci-e and so it better. I think the triple vs dual channel ram comes out as a wash at the moment. Possibly the x58 boards being the "extreme" style boards they will have better OC features if that matters to you.

I think the better turbo boost a feature of lynnfield though.

I'll swap out the bloomfield stuff to the lynnfield then. It seems to make more sense financially and the turbo boost you and malor talk about.

i believe the i7 850 is lynfield if you want to up the speed

Ok so here is a revamped list.

  • Case: Recycle my old Lian Li.
  • GPU: Recycling my old Nvidia 8800 GTS till next year's Ferni.
  • PSU: Will I be able to recycle my old SILVERSTONE ST60F 600W? If not I have this CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX in my wishlist.
  • HDD: Recycling old drives till SSD becomes more affordable.
  • Casefans: Recycled
  • Mouse: Recycled Logitech MX510
  • Keyboard: Recycled old Logitech wireless

So far this weighs in at $689.95, if I can get away with using my old PSU. A savings of $464.99. I may need to price out a new keyboard as my current one that I've used since 2003 is dying. The volume control no longer wants to work.

I don't know the numbers but i am pretty sure the lynfield quads use less power than their predecessors so unless nvidia produce a stupidly powered gpu the 600 should be sweet. Also i have been told that with ram it is better to get tier 1 (people that make their own) like kingston (i think) but i don't know a great deal about that.

As far as I'm concerned, the primary reason to go with i7 is to be able to hang more stuff off it. i7s have a great deal more system bandwidth and can support many more PCIe lanes than i5 can. If you're a tinkerer, if you like to add stuff (like, say, PhysX cards or new network adapters or what have you), i7 will likely give you substantially more legs. It also has hyperthreading, which can improve throughput for a few types of load.

Personally, I don't think i7 is likely to be terribly expandable in terms of CPU, because of bandwidth constraints. i5 with its two memory lanes can support 3 procs at full speed, getting kind of choked on a fourth. So i7 should be able to support 4.5 cores on its triple-channel memory. You probably could run five real cores in a current LGA-1366 slot, but anything past that is likely to get problematic. The upcoming 8-real-core i7s next year will need some sort of architectural change to support their bandwidth needs, and it's pretty damn unlikely to fully work with this year's boards.

At this point, I would strongly suggest thinking of CPU/motherboard/memory as being mostly one unit. You should expect to replace all three at once, in tandem, rather than being able to plug in new CPUs. Further, CPUs are not advancing at all quickly anymore; they're going wide instead of fast, and there's hardly any software that uses multicore well. For 99% of the computing public, it is completely stupid to go past four cores; even going past two doesn't pay off very much. If and when you upgrade, it's probably not going to be for speed, but rather for some other feature you really want, like new slots or new virtualization capabilities. And that'll almost certainly need a new motherboard anyway.

In short: i5 is a little cheaper and a little faster in some games. i7 is a little more expensive, takes more RAM, and will usually take more PCIe devices. Don't expect to upgrade either CPU without replacing the motherboard, and probably the RAM.

I tried searching for a list of tier 1 RAM makers but couldn't find one. According to the PDF on Gigabyte's site these should work.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...

I think there are three or four Tier 1 memory makers, but I can only remember two offhand, Kingston and Crucial. I think Samsung also makes RAM, but I don't think they sell to the open market.

Of the three brands you listed there, G.Skill, A-Data, and Crucial, I'd bet on Crucial. Corsair and Mushkin are T2, but very good. G.Skill and A-Data are, as far as I know, much less stringent in their quality control.

I've been using Corsair and Crucial primarily for years, and I've only ever had a problem once, when I cooked some RAM with inadequate cooling. I do not blame Corsair for that.

Edwin wrote:

I've never bought the top of the line anything in my life but I understand your point. Do you think the 920 is a better compromise while still retaining the features of the newer socket/chipset (more ram slots and future upgrade possibility)? The only reason why I even consider spending double on a processor compared to my past two times is that the 920 seems like a big compromise in speed which bit me hard the past upgrade cycle. I'm probably over reacting.

Well there's not really any future proofing in computers in my experience. AT least it never worked out for me when I bought a mb because of the possibility of upgrading it down the road.

Intel or AMD would change sockets. Ram would change. Ports would change. Bus's would change. And so it never worked out. I always ended just getting a new mb and cpu and ram when the time was right. Even upgrading the videocard didn't always work out because the bus would change and I'd be hesitant to get a card that wouldn't work in any new motherboards coming out the next year.

IT's a myth in my experience.

Probably left over from back in the day when getting a new cpu was a big upgrade because it might be 50% faster and it would speed up everything you do. And when computers were $2000 and that was for lower end machine and so future proofing was more worth it.

Look at what is on the horizon. USB 3.0 or the optical port tech Apple is working with INtel on that would come to pc as well. Folks are probably going to want that tech for external devices like hard drives or iPods/iPhones/Android phones/etc. And of course SSD tech is really the biggest change on the horizon. As that gets faster, cheaper, with larger capacities and less problems it is going to make a big difference in the computing experience.

So that's why I don't worry about future proofing. Standards change fast and so do prices - it doesn't pay to future proof.

You only rode your computers for 3 years and 2+ years so I don't think an i5 is going to not last at least that long. And honestly the dual core you have now probably could tide you over for awhile yet. IT's a core2Duo cpu. Just pop in a 4850 or 4870 and call it good if gaming is a big reason you're upgrading. Any C2D cpu over 2ghz is quite fast for most things as far as I can tell.

I've had RAM from all these guys for the most part. (GSkill, AData, Crucial, Samsung, Corsair, Mushkin, Patriot, and a few others.) All the RAM has worked great.

I can't speak for the other guys, but Crucial's lifetime warranty is hassle-free. I did have one Crucial module go bad years ago and they replaced it with zero problems.

I only buy Mushkin for myself. They've been great, but they are also based in the same state I live in, so I feel like I'm doing some extra good that way. Anyway, their customer service has always been great with me. I had to send one stick back a few years ago and I had a new one within a week. Again, keep in mind the shipping was next day because it shipped all of 70 miles.

Otherwise I generally buy Corsair for when I do builds. Corsair is a good brand for the price/performance. I just get their cheaper stuff when I do builds because those people are generally just trying to get a super cheap computer built with good parts. And that's what I get them.