Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Nuke on November 02, 2011, 12:55:18 pm
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i just got a call from the alaska dividend office, and i once again am eligable for what i like to call "this state sucks anti-tax". so im gonna take my chunk of the state's oil revenue and allocate $800 of it to a new rig (not including shipping).
$800 isnt much so im not going to try to outperform my current system (which i believe is entering its death throws) by a large margin. in fact im not even putting performance at the top of my list. so this computer must:
be compact, i want a computer which doesnt break every time i try to move it. and something that i can fit on my desk (my floor bound rig has evolved hyper intelligent dust bunnies).
be quiet, my a380 fans annoy the **** out of me
be power efficient, not so much for the environment, but to reduce tdp and heat and therefore use smaller fans (see 2), and to make it so i can run it off the battery arrays we use in the sticks
equal or better performance than my current c2q rig
i intend to recycle some parts from my main rig. due to the hard drive price hike, it is likely i will use the same hard drive i am using now. i also cannot justify buying another optical drive, and i might reuse the card reader, though neither of these drives are all that expensive. i am also willing to forgo getting a better graphics card, and use the gtx260 i currently run (but buy a lesser card for my old rig for starcraft 2 non-lan parties). i will however try to get these things if budget allows.
i favor intel and nvidia. under no circumstances will i insert an asus product into my rig. msi is my perfered mobo brand right now. i used to also like dfi, but until i am certain the problems with my rig are not motherboard related this is off the radar. id be willing to consider other brands though. so i will need:
parts i definately need:
case, something with a micro atx or smaller form factor. small case preferred.
mobo, micro atx or smaller (this ultimately determines case selection)
psu, need a parts list to even consider wattage. might just use what comes with the case and adjust part selection to stay within its output
cpu, im thinking i5 or i7. i looked awhile back and a lynnfield caught my eye, it had lower tdp from other i7s, didnt have hyperthreading though, but surely new cpu lines have come into existence since then.
ram, likely 8gb ddr3
wifi card, must be compatable with my b/g router, though will try to something that also works with n
parts i might get if cashflow allows (in order of priority):
video card, likely geforce 500 series
hd, 640gb to 1tb
flash reader, cheap doesnt matter
optical drive, regular dvd burner, none of that blue ray crap
probable accessories:
high quality, high cfm, low noise fans
non-stock cpu cooler (ive never used one before)
sata hot swap bay (for backup)
nothing is decided yet, starting reserch now.
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Get i5 2500k. Best price/performance. You probably wont miss hyperthreading too much because quad-core.
You get better price/performance ratio with AMD video cards (consider a 6950). Also, the drivers arent horribad anymore.
EDIT: Also, consider a Z68 board.
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Did you read this? I found it interesting (was posted in another hardware thread earlier) Perhaps get the same motherboard and get the processor later? Sucker's out of stock on Newegg ATM though. (Gigabyte P67A-UD5)
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-overclocking-efficiency,2850-4.html
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what C2Q are you currently running? Yeah, the i5 is a pretty good balance, but at least where I am it runs around 239.99 + tax Canadian, which eats a lot of your budget, and it seems you have a relatively modest build in mind, with no overclocking in mind.
I admittedly am a bit of an AMD fanboy, but a Phenom II x4 or x6 is still going to run fairly quick, and not eat as much of your budget. Heck, the Athlon II x4 640 would be enough to get you within spitting distance of a lower end first generation i5, and that'll only set you back 99.99 + tax, at a 95w tdp. Last price/performance graph I saw puts the 640 right at the same level as the 2500k. Yeah, that does mean its only a bit more than half as fast. But still, when building on a budget that gives you a LOT of spare budget room for other stuff.
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Narf I read through the first paragraph and thought you were investing $800 back into developing more oil rigs for Alaska. Derp Derp Derp.
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what C2Q are you currently running? Yeah, the i5 is a pretty good balance, but at least where I am it runs around 239.99 + tax Canadian, which eats a lot of your budget, and it seems you have a relatively modest build in mind, with no overclocking in mind.
I admittedly am a bit of an AMD fanboy, but a Phenom II x4 or x6 is still going to run fairly quick, and not eat as much of your budget. Heck, the Athlon II x4 640 would be enough to get you within spitting distance of a lower end first generation i5, and that'll only set you back 99.99 + tax, at a 95w tdp. Last price/performance graph I saw puts the 640 right at the same level as the 2500k. Yeah, that does mean its only a bit more than half as fast. But still, when building on a budget that gives you a LOT of spare budget room for other stuff.
currently running a q9550 @ 2.83ghz and i dont like to overclock.
and im not going to exclude the possibility of going against my cpu (or gpu for that matter) preferences for the sake of stretching my budget.
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Okay so you were already within spitting distance of a lower end first gen i5. Point remains, even a Phenom II x6 is going to cost you less than an i5 2500k. if you want to go intel, seeing as you don't overclock, go with something that doesn't have the 'k' in it. It'll save you some cash and not lose you any functionality in terms of how you plan to use it.
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Okay so you were already within spitting distance of a lower end first gen i5. Point remains, even a Phenom II x6 is going to cost you less than an i5 2500k. if you want to go intel, seeing as you don't overclock, go with something that doesn't have the 'k' in it. It'll save you some cash and not lose you any functionality in terms of how you plan to use it.
having a hex core would be pretty awesome. so i am taking it under consideration.
im currently looking at cases. small case is preferable, mainly because i want to keep the shipping down to a sane level (simply living in alaska makes this somewhat difficult). im going to avoid getting anything with clear panels led lighting, or doors. its not a house for dust bunnies.
heres a cube case from a brand i trust, kinda pricy and no psu.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133187
i looked at this one awhile back, it was more expensive then, now its affordable. like the cooling arrangement, if its not enough it looks like there are hardpoints for 4 120mm fans. probably also as big as im willing to go for a tower.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811108236
this one is tiny, only slim case with full height card slots. but im not too sure about cooling and power is only 400w. given the size of the psu bay this one would be tight power wise. better fans are a definite must.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192087
this one is tinyish and has a good rating, most importantly its cheap, unidentified psu though.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811153118
and thats about it, id probibly go with a cheeper case if there is no psu.
*edit*
good tip on the phenom II x6, im gonna read some revies but this just jumped to the top of my cpu list.
*edit again*
on second thought the single core performance of the phenom II x6 is kinda weak compaired to what intel has to offer. im going to have to weigh more cores vs better cores on this one.
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k this post is about the cpu front.
on the amd side, the most expensive phenom II x6 that newegg cerries (1100t). also the cheapest cpu on my list. after some reading on toms hardware im leaning away from this.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103913
for intel i have a couple of picks. the i7-950 and the i5-2500. the i5 is $20 more then the phenom, and the i7 $50 on top of that. this is the cheapest i7 quad that newegg seems to have. but i want it and i will try to get it if at all possible. the i7 is power hungry, and the need for a higher performance psu will screw me big. so in all likelihood il pick the i5 (unless i either seriously compromise on graphics or get real luckey).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115211
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115073
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the i7 really isn't worth the extra money, honestly. The performance edge is comparatively trivial, and you'd need to spend extra on a fairly robust power supply on top of that.
I still say the Phenom is a good chip, especially if you tend to run all kinds of things simultaneously. But, at the same time, the i5 is a solid chip. I don't think you'd be disappointed with either one.
On the case... I'd go with the IN WIN Dragon Slayer, and grab a good brand name power supply. You can get away with a mid-range 500w PSU with the i5, but I've seen one too many computers plagued by crashes brought on by substandard power supplies; plus that gives you some wiggle room in terms of later upgrades.
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amd is certainly still on the plate, of course till i have a complete system plan and add up the numbers im exploring multiple avenues. going with the i5 also gives me a slightly higher frequency chip, which might take up some of the slack from not having an i7.
mobo selection tiem:
after looking at the selection of mircoatx mobos for the phenom II, im am starting to distance myself from that cpu. ive looked at several and needless to say im not impressed. i tend to go for around $120 when looking at mobos, but the best one i could find was this and its only $94, so if i go amd this is what im getting:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128440
im not going to look at the i7 just yet, and i probibly wont unless i run up a surplus of funds. for the i5:
i like this one. dispite never hearing of this brand before, but the rating is good. it has the best memory options
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157270
taking the conservative route, with a brand i trust (though not quite the features i want)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130598
and as usual the most expensive board on the page, good memory options
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128523
for the most part all these mobos are the same. better memory options translates into more expensive memory.
for ****s and giggles i did a search for an i7 board, seems theres only 1 in microatx form factor and its more than what i typically spend. i7 is starting to look damned.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130227
from here memory is easy. im just gonna look to see the general cost, ultimately i will consult the manufacturer to get recommended modules. the i7 will need 12 gigs to take advantage of the 3 channel mode. for all boards it looks like 1333 will be the speed. some of the boards i picked support faster speeds, like 1666, but none at that speed seems to exist on newegg. but here im supprised 12gb is only $70 while 8gb is around $50. so this gives me enough to continue on with my reserch. i may also consider 16gb if i have the money, depending on surplus.
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if you're worried about single thread performance on the AMD, think about the highest quad core phenom. it's clocked higher, usually does a bit better in gaming benchmarks, and costs less to boot. the other thing to consider in amd vs. intel is that amd motherboards are generally a good bit cheaper than comparable intels.
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Bear in mind that with any Phenom II you can run an AM3 motherboard instead of an AM3+ with no real penalty. I saw the one you picked out was an AM3+, you likely could get more features at the same price with an AM3 board.
EDIT: Unless of course you've already looked and there aren't any AM3 microATX boards in that range with more features. I don't have the time atm to search, just keep it in mind.
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i really wasnt too happy with the mobo selection with the phenom. right now im just trying to establish a general idea of what everything is gonna cost. the i7 is gonna get dropped. the core system only leaves me with about $300 for case, psu, gpu, etc. the phenom and i5 leave me with $465 and $435 respectively. im considering a thermaltake 600w for the i5 system, though i might get away with a 500w model with that chip, it really depends on whatever graphics card i get. $75 in the hole there. the other two chips $90 for a 750w. again actual maths need to be done to figure out exactly how much power i need.
*edit*
i7 eliminated. all the hardware is just too expensive and i wont be able to buy a new hard drive. seems i can get the works with the i7 with a $50 margin of error. the amd system gives me a $70 margin. given the better single core performance and the lower tdp i think im leaning at the i5.
*edit again*
i will likely get a geforce 550 ti. its a shorter card so i can go with a more cram happy case and thus save money on shipping. i might be able to get something better if i can trim the build abit.
*edit again*
ran my theoretical i5 rig through a power supply calculator and it turns out i only need 375 watts. so i might drop to a 500w.
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I'm running a system right now with a 95w CPU and a Radeon 4870 512mb (which draws a fair bit, needs two 6 pin connections) on a 500w Cooler Master, and it's running fine; though, admittedly a 500w one from a budget manufacturer would likely not be enough.
650w would give you a fair bit of breathing room with the i5. Mine's an Athlon II x4 620 on a cheap ASUS microATX in a Cooler Master Eite 342 case, with an Arctic Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 CPU cooler, originally built about 2 years ago. It's served me quite well.
As a side note, that Arctic Freezer is an EXCELLENT cooler, and only runs about $30 Canadian. Was really quite easy to install, at least on an AM2+ board. IIRC intel boards are a bit more annoying to install aftermarket coolers on.
EDIT: Check the requirement on the graphics card in terms of 12v rail requirements. Many 500w PSU's don't put out enough power on the 12v rail.
EDIT AGAIN: just looked, the 550ti only asks for a 400w PSU, but still I would go with a 500w minimum, from a good name.
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A PSU calc I use and would trust would be this (http://psucalc.net/), because it both takes overhead and mild overclock into consideration and suggests PSUs that have proven to be good. I still pad the power draw a bit, but the fact it gives you a list is nice. For a i5-2500 and 550ti (and a few other options) it claims 425w to be safe, but I would also bump it to 500w and use that list just to be safe. For a fair comparison it says LHN91's cpu and gpu should need 450w.
Don't know much about nVidia, but I do know it would probably be better to go with the i5-2500 if only for a more modern chipset and an on-chip gpu to fall back on that can actually DO something if the card dies for whatever reason. (more then normal intelgrated anyway)
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i like this proggie, it tells me to use a psu i looked at and can afford. :P
really worse case scenario i could always pull the 750w out of this rig.
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And yeah, you could easily do that. Or alternatively, if you plan to hang on to the old one for any reason (I hate retiring systems until they're entirely toasted) you could grab a cheap generic one to let it live on, at least as a spare box/htpc or something.
Admittedly, I nearly fried a 450w in this system once. EDIT: It started giving off a hot electronics smell while I was gaming, caught it before it fried, ended up reusing it elsewhere) Of course, that was an old CoolMax, and a piece of junk.
And I mean I hate retiring systems. The 1.8 ghz (OC'd to 1.9/2.0, can't remember exactly) Northwood P4 system, with USB1.1 and 1 GB of RAM, Radeon 2400 Pro AGP, 40 gb HD and (believe it or not) Win7 I replaced when I built this one is still acting as a basic HTPC for my aunt. The 2400 can do at least some DXVAing, which lets it handle most 720p x264 files.
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I hate retiring PC's too, to the point of being unhealthy. My computer is a frankenstein which uses parts from 3 different computers and no longer has its original processor. And even that change is so old that I'm still using a Pentium 4 3.4 Ghz single core.
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It always pains me whenever a customer tells me they replaced their laptop or PC because it 'broke down', extremely likely it wasnt a hardware failure at all in most cases. Of course nothing can be done about that, but it just show that if someone's smart and has free time he could go around buying old/'broken' PCs from others, fix them and resell.
There's a really well saturated market of mid-high level performance hardware out these days that rivals the top of the line stuff of the older generations. Best to continue doing research where needed and then make a well thought out decision. It's hard to go wrong with a decent budget of 500-600 dollar (For me personally building a mid-high level PCs for 250-300 euro (350-400 dollar), without monitor, is easily doable and even enjoyable.)
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And yeah, you could easily do that. Or alternatively, if you plan to hang on to the old one for any reason (I hate retiring systems until they're entirely toasted) you could grab a cheap generic one to let it live on, at least as a spare box/htpc or something.
Admittedly, I nearly fried a 450w in this system once. EDIT: It started giving off a hot electronics smell while I was gaming, caught it before it fried, ended up reusing it elsewhere) Of course, that was an old CoolMax, and a piece of junk.
And I mean I hate retiring systems. The 1.8 ghz (OC'd to 1.9/2.0, can't remember exactly) Northwood P4 system, with USB1.1 and 1 GB of RAM, Radeon 2400 Pro AGP, 40 gb HD and (believe it or not) Win7 I replaced when I built this one is still acting as a basic HTPC for my aunt. The 2400 can do at least some DXVAing, which lets it handle most 720p x264 files.
yea i like to keep my rigs operable. the rig i built back in 2003 still runs quite well with almost all of its original parts (though i think i gave the grforce 6 to my brother in law), exept the stock psu which was making whining noises and had to be replaced. i had a c2d rig too which got its mobo fried after a power outage. i got a new psu and mobo and made it work, but then i moved and couldnt take it with me so i gave that to my brother in law who at the time was gaming on p4 era celerons. both these rigs still run great. i think i want to have a second rig capable of gaming around the house for lan parties, and perhaps also to use for electronics stuff.
i want to explore another avenue here. and that is trying to go for a smaller form factor that microatx. i like some of the microatx slim, or mini-itx mini cases, but the low profile slots come at a cost, you need a lower end graphics card because the high end ones just dont fit. many of these cases use low profile card slots, and have less space for drives. of course i could just comprimize and get this case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192087
i looked at it yesterday. and the only problems i have with it is it has a low rating and may present cooling issues. but im going to look at other small cases and see what the system would look like budget wise. the other 2 issues would be power supply and available graphics cards that would fit in a half height bay.
*edit*
power supply reqs seem to make mini-itx non-viable. so im just gonna look at microatx slim.
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I hate retiring PC's too, to the point of being unhealthy. My computer is a frankenstein which uses parts from 3 different computers and no longer has its original processor. And even that change is so old that I'm still using a Pentium 4 3.4 Ghz single core.
oh come on, the P4 rig I keep around has literaly no original parts in it, not even the case or motherboard, let alone the cpu. 3.2 northwood with DDR2 667 ram, pci-e, sata 2... theres quite an upgrade path to be had.
It always pains me whenever a customer tells me they replaced their laptop or PC because it 'broke down'.
I love it if it means I get the 'broken' computer. I've gotten 3 dimension 8300s (among other various computers) that work perfectly that were replaced because the owners said they broke. I now use them to fix thing that actually do break in the other 2 8300s whos owners are too cheap to replace them. Really, worst case I could take the hdd from theirs, put it in one of mine, and give it back.
of course i could just comprimize and get this case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811192087
I can buy a CM HAF 912 for less, a full feature mid-tower, not to mention the poor reviews. If you are going to go mini-tower, then this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147112) wins in price, and has almost no bad reviews at all. It doesnt come with a PSU, but you said you had one in mind already.
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yea that case is horrible, after reading the reviews. il take a look at that one. part of the reason i want a smallish case is so i dont get jacked on shipping. they were more alaska friendly last time i ordered from them, so im hoping they dont screw me over too bad with that. ive only allocated $100 for shipping so if that goes over then it cuts into may rig budget.
taking that case under advisement, going with a $30 case saves money for accessories i would not have been able to get otherwise (like better fans and the sata hot swap bay). i was also looking at this one. i like where the front fan is, it can push air right into the grapics card intakes, something that my current rig has trouble with. most cases place their fans for cooling the hard drives which is silly unless your using 10k rpm drives (i seldom use drives over 7.2k). its short an egg but most of the problems people describe look impossible from looking at the pics or are so common as to be almost not worth pointing out (i used to be a professional system builder and can compensate for every case issue ive ever had).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147123
and yours, which im putting here so i can find it later.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147112
and theres this one, mesh front that i like, is nearly the same size and price, has a full rating and the same traverse airflow characteristics.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352009
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Was going to suggest the same CM Elite 342 I'm using, but apparently newegg doesn't carry it. Nice case though, for the most part.
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its likely newegg will charge me different shipping for the case than the rest of the guts (which last time they managed to fit into one fairly small box). so im not going to exclude the possibility of getting my case elsewhere. they just have to have good shipping policies to ak. they like to lock into an exclusive contract with a shipping provider, and some of them (especially ups) really gouge alaska. fedex isnt so bad, but its still double what the post office charges to ship a similar sized box. we also dont have postal delivery which kinda sucks because carrying home a box of computer parts a mile and a half sucks. add to that that neither of the major shipping companies have an office here, so the shipping from those comes through a contractor. its actually quite tedious.
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In all honesty, I'm not sure where else to even get it beyond CanadaComputers here in southern Ontario. It looks like the 343 or 341 are more or less identical internally, though I prefer the 343 in terms of looks.
NCIX USA carries the 343, $36.21 USD. I don't really know what their shipping policies are like, but I know people who use their Canadian branch and have been thoroughly pleased with the service.
http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=63283&vpn=RC-343-KKN1&manufacture=COOLERMASTER
It's not a particularly flashy case, but it's very sturdy, and gave me enough space for 2 Hard drives, the 4870, and the freezer pro. I swapped the front fan it comes with with a blue LED Lian Li one, makes it a bit more shiny, though the one it came with was a fine performer in terms of airflow.
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http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/LHN91/IMAG0085.jpg
http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h451/LHN91/IMAG0088.jpg
pardon the awful picture quality, but this is my set up. All the stuff fits in quite nicely, despite the relatively small case dimensions
EDIT: For lvlshot fail. Never could get it to work right.
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Ah, I recognize the CM Elite 341, used it to build my mom a comp. Phenom II 965BE @ stock with stock cooler and it stays cold as ice. Very good case, but the hdd mounts are lacking. Can easily shove unused power cables in the extra 5.25 bays. The side door has spots to put a cpu fan -and- a gpu fan on it btw.
The 342 seems to solve the hdd issue and otherwise looks the same, so I'd recommend it too.
EDIT: That fractal only has one 120mm and its in the front, just a heads up.
EDIT 2: For newegg ratings I tend to look at total % of each vote, 4-5 egg good, 3 egg null, 1-2 egg bad, and try to stick to 75-80% good or better. Perhaps I'm a tad paranoid, but I find its a good standard to set.
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i like the way the airflow traverses the case having a large fan in the lower part of the front panel. you really need to think about airflow. ive seen setups where the airflow from the front fans were greater than the back fans and forced air out of the passive vents (these are typically meant as intakes to draw air into the cpu fan and power supply), preventing that air from cooling anything. so typically the power supply and rear panel fans need to be more powerful than the front panel and side panel intake fans. if there are no passive vents and fans cover all holes, its generally a good idea to have equal airflow between intake and exhaust fans. ive seen situations where fans were installed backwords or worked against each other or generally configured inefficiently. case manufacturers like to add more fan hardpoints and passive vents than the specs call for, and this can lead to builders do really dumb things with them. my current case has a lot of intake power and not so much exaust power and no passive vents what so ever and it has cooling problems despite monstorous intake power.
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i changed power supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016
this one is $10 cheaper, 550w instead of 500w, 3 12v rails instead of 2, and has a lot of 5 egg ratings, and on top of that modular cabling 4tw!
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Good find, I'll have to keep that one in mind for comps I make in the future.
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so here is what im looking at now:
case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352009)
psu (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371016)
cpu (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115073)
mobo (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157270)
ram (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231445)
video card (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500193)
hard drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697)
rear exhaust fan (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835705039)
side intake fan (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835114065)
and thats it, i decided i couldn't justify buying another optical drive or flash card reader since i barely use the ones i have. im also like 50 bucks under budget. i also decided to put my current wireless nic into the new rig, and use a usb wifi dongle that i have sitting around doing nothing for this rig (although it will be in the same room as my router and i might just hard wire it in to the router instead).
i like the traverse airflow characteristics of this case. the mobo was selected for its support for ddr3 @ 1600, and ram accordingly. i decided to go with a new to me brand, so i hope i wont get screwed over here. couldn't pass up that psu, which has features i didnt think i could afford. video card was the best i could afford. fans were chosen for high cfm and low noise. the hard drive shortage as seriously killed my aspirations for a 1tb hard disk, so a 750gb will have to do. probably will throw a copy of rage on top of all that with the surplus funds.
i kinda jumped the gun here, i dont get mu check for another 2 weeks, so i have plenty of time to look for anything which might pose a problem.
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It's all good, but Caviar Green? I know HDDs are in shortage and expensive now, but couldn't you use the extra $50 to bump it up to a Blue at least? Greens are power savers, and slow even by HDD standards.
Other (admittedly more expensive) options:
750GB Caviar Black (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136283): $150
1TB Caviar Blue (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136767): $150
1TB Barracuda (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697): $140
1TB Deskstar (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145533): $150
EDIT: Don't worry about the G.Skill, they're a good brand.
EDIT 2: RAM selection page says $55, but details page says $70, could be worth looking into.
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why did i pick that one. i think i meant to get the one that was listed under it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697
looks like im gonna get a tb after all.
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Oh. Well if the $50 extra includes the HDD, you could upgrade to a 560 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500225) If you wanted with the $25 mail-in-rebate.
EDIT: Quite the gap between the 550ti and 560... If you dont mind ATI, the 6850 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908) slips in nicely to fill it both cost and performance wise.
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I've somewhat lost any faith I had in Seagate hard drives. Last one I bought had to be sent in for an RMA 2 weeks in. Now admittedly, since it came back from RMA it's been totally fine, but still. Ended up grabbing a 500gb Caviar Black, and several months later a 1tb Green (EDIT: as a media drive in another box), and been quite happy with them.
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this damn hard drive price hike is really pissing me off. i had intended to spend no more than $100 as i usually do. im already $40 on top of that and for a mediocre 1tb drive.
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I managed to get a good 2TB 64MB cache WD Caviar Black for $140 the day before Fry's kicked up the prices, Talk about luck.
Speaking of luck, How does a 1TB 64MB cache WD Caviar Black (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6076939&CatId=2459) for $150 sound?
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maybe if they dont rape me on shipping.
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First Alaskan zipcode I could find. Big state, but might give a general idea.
(http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/5576/unled3u.png)
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gound, lol, i live on an island.
should kinda point out that i cant really afford to ship each item separately. so i cant really exploit deals from multiple companies. newegg charges per box it seems (of which there will be at least 2), and i kinda have some concerns that i allocated too little for shipping.
I've somewhat lost any faith I had in Seagate hard drives. Last one I bought had to be sent in for an RMA 2 weeks in. Now admittedly, since it came back from RMA it's been totally fine, but still. Ended up grabbing a 500gb Caviar Black, and several months later a 1tb Green (EDIT: as a media drive in another box), and been quite happy with them.
my opinions on hard drives arent all that bad. i currently run a hitachi, a seagate, and a western digital (2 actually, if you include my ancient 20 gig that sits in a spare starcraft box), were talking a decade worth of drive purchases, and they all still run fine. ive seen a number of laptop hard drives fail, but these were not mine originally so i dont know how much abuse they took, all mine ultimately ended up getting used to repair other laptops.
*edit*
newegg gives me $75 as its shipping estimate so i may be able to swing an upgrade or two.
*looks at gtx 560s*
its possible, but i need to cut something to stay under budget (im $20 over). maybe dropping the expensive fans and going with cheaper ones or a lower capacity hard drive. gonna check psu calc and make sure i dont need any additional power.
*edit* power looks good.
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I'm not saying all Seagates are bad, I've got several old 40 and 80 gb Seagates running just fine, a bunch of old Maxtors, a couple of Hitachi laptop drives in externals running fine, and I've seen at least one 160gb WD die far before it should have; but in terms of the current generation of drives, I've had the best luck with the Caviars; and heard one too many reports from local shops to the effect that for every Caviar they get back with problems/for RMA they get 10-20 Seagates.
And forgot to mention, the G-Skill RAM is good stuff. I'm running 4gb of their DDR2 1066 and it's been flawless. I know at least one other person who used the Ripjaws series around the same time I built mine and they've been quite happy with it, running with a first gen i5 and IIRC a 2x5770 Crossfire setup.
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ram is getting hella cheap, so i sort by rating and get the first 1600 with 8-8-8-24 timings that was on the list. it had a good rating and a good price. the mobo description says it can take 1600 without overclocking, so hopefully i can haz some serious memory bandwidth here.
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My 1600 9-9-9-24 in Dual Channel:
(http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/4397/unled3ugx.png)
Your better timings and Intel mem controller should be a bit better then that. However, being 8-8-8 and 1600 you may have to put in the settings manually in BIOS if the board doesn't recognize XMP. This is the case with all ram above 1333 and/or lower timings then 9-9-9 sadly.
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Similar thing with my DDR2. DDR2 technically only supports 800mhz. The G-Skill was essentially certified to overclock to 1066. Had to manually input the values denoted on the RAM into the BIOS.
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newegg charges shipping per order. my entire purchase shipped for about $16. after the order was submitted and paid, they broke it up into two and shipped separately, and didn't charge me any extra.
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Similar thing with my DDR2. DDR2 technically only supports 800mhz. The G-Skill was essentially certified to overclock to 1066. Had to manually input the values denoted on the RAM into the BIOS.
ive experienced the glory of memory timings before. im supposed to be running 1066 (ddr2) on this rig, but i think its only doing 800. i did manage to get low latency timing, but not the advertised clock rate. when i got it, it worked as advertised, but because my mobo got damaged last time i moved, and could only get a mediocre mobo as a replacement, i am stuck with a lower memory clock.
newegg charges shipping per order. my entire purchase shipped for about $16. after the order was submitted and paid, they broke it up into two and shipped separately, and didn't charge me any extra.
they do that but its usually the per box charge * number of boxes. when i order one part, like the screen i ordered a couple years back, they charged me $25. since they estimate $75 i assume they plan to ship it out in 3 boxes. and it will be shipped fedex. to add insult to injury, being rural, fedex does not recognize my street address, and so delivers to the post office instead (i have a po box). and since our town has no postal delivery service, i have to go pick them up. so $75 on shipping and they dont even deliver it to my house.
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I'm running a cheap 50 dollar ASUS with an old nForce chipset and I got it to do 1066, so I can't see why you wouldn't be able to get the 1066 set up unless you got a really awful board.
Also, that really sucks, the shipping ordeal. Very happy I live in Southern Ontario right about now.
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i just figured id take the stable low latency timings and stop screwing with it. i tweaked settings for 3 hours and couldnt get it to work. there was no new bios version to flash it with, sometimes that helps. it helped with both of my dead asus boards.
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...And I had already updated that ASUS to the newest BIOS before installing it, so that's probably why it worked fine XD.
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im currently using a dfi lan party dkp45-t2rs plus. i got it a couple years ago so theres probibly a bios revision now. i might update it once i get my other rig up and running. this is my only high performance rig right now and i really dont want to do anything high risk with till i got my new rig built. im rather concerned its gonna keil over and die if i do anything to it.
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Have you picked a cooler yet? If not, Ive had a great experience with the hyper 212+. Since you dont intend to OC, stock would probably be fine though.
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Have you picked a cooler yet? If not, Ive had a great experience with the hyper 212+. Since you dont intend to OC, stock would probably be fine though.
It's a mini-tower, where is he going to find room for a 212+?
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i wish i'd gone ahead and gotten one of those now. i passed because i don't plan to overclock immediately, and wasn't sure it would fit until i laid eyes on the case. i didn't realize just how horrifically **** the stock intel cooler is. i thought it was just the same crap as with amd, a bunch of people flaming the stock cooler for the hell of it when it really isn't all that bad. i haven't actually fired it up yet and seen what the temps are, but it's just SUCH a flimsy POS. the pre-applied thermal paste was awful, it's WAY smaller than i thought, and let's not even talk about the retention pins.
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i wish i'd gone ahead and gotten one of those now. i passed because i don't plan to overclock immediately, and wasn't sure it would fit until i laid eyes on the case. i didn't realize just how horrifically **** the stock intel cooler is. i thought it was just the same crap as with amd, a bunch of people flaming the stock cooler for the hell of it when it really isn't all that bad. i haven't actually fired it up yet and seen what the temps are, but it's just SUCH a flimsy POS. the pre-applied thermal paste was awful, it's WAY smaller than i thought, and let's not even talk about the retention pins.
The problem is there are almost no good low form factor air coolers, and at least on newegg, no cheap water coolers. (lowest is about $65) The good news is that the 2500 is supposed to be cold-ish (being able to reach 4.5 on air easily) and no plans to overclock.
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Have you picked a cooler yet? If not, Ive had a great experience with the hyper 212+. Since you dont intend to OC, stock would probably be fine though.
im just gonna use the stock cooler for now. i wanted to get something better, but cost constraints. i still got some arctic silver from my last build, so that should provide a better interface than what comes with the stock cooler.
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Have you picked a cooler yet? If not, Ive had a great experience with the hyper 212+. Since you dont intend to OC, stock would probably be fine though.
It's a mini-tower, where is he going to find room for a 212+?
Just assumed he was going with a full tower, or a mid tower, my bad. :p
If you change your mind, and want a cheap ($56.99) mid-tower, I must suggest this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042). It's what I've got, and it's been excellent thus far, and save for the front panel, it's very sturdy. The front panel does feel flimsy though, yet it's held itself together quite well while being moved several times. Air flow is good too.
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i kinda think a mini tower is bigger than i want, but it can fit a full size graphics card. i was actually looking at a mini itx case, but it doesnt seem like you could cram any performance parts into such a case. it doesnt matter how much airflow you have, in a large case, its just air flowing through empty space.
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The Arctic Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 fits just about perfectly in my mini tower.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134
Good cooler if you can fit it into the budget somewhere.
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i can haz money!!!
looks like i can order stuff now. i can also capitalize on black friday sales. and knock a few bucks off and throw on a copy of rage to boot.