Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Mongoose on June 29, 2015, 10:07:26 pm
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(I know there's some crossover with Mars's video card thread, but I didn't want to totally hijack his.)
So here's my current situation: I'm typing this on what is at its core a 2004 Dell system I bought for college, with all that it entails. That includes a Pentium 4 processor, Windows XP, and *sigh* a slowly-dying CRT which has probably given me several forms of cancer by this point. Over the years I've replaced RAM, a video card, and a HDD, plus I've swapped out a dead PSU on another machine, so I have some experience with pretty much everything beyond installing a CPU. Up until this past year I haven't been in a financial situation to let me sit down and build an actual gaming rig, at least not the caliber I'd really want, but I finally have enough set aside to have a serious go at it. But seeing as how I have only a general idea of where to start, I was hoping some of you would be willing to lend a bit of expertise.
I do have a few general ideas as to what I'm looking for, and what I particularly need some help with, so I can get those listed. Before that, though, I saw Fury mention that Tom's Hardware recently put out a list of articles for their recommended items for the first half of 2015. Should I pretty much be sticking to those for my choices, or are there any other good summary listings I should know about?
Price/Performance: Figure that's the best starting point. I'm willing to spend somewhere in the $1500-$2000 range, display included. I don't necessarily need the absolute highest-performance components that were just released yesterday, but I would like it to be as close as reasonably possible. I know anything's immediately outdated the moment you buy the parts, but I want a system that can easily handle pretty much anything I throw at it today, and still remain fairly competitive for a few years, with the capacity for requisite upgrades. At the same time, though, I'm not looking to do any overclocking, or exotic cooling, or any sort of SLI/CrossFire setup. Just a really solid no-frills system.
CPU/GPU: My preferences for these would be Intel and Nvidia, respectively, since it seems like every high-profile video issue I've heard about over the past few years has primarily affected AMD cards. I know Fury said something about some sort of brand-new line coming out from AMD in a month or two, but I'm not really willing to wait that long in order to get things started, and besides, that's presumably always going to be the case no matter what component you're talking about.
Motherboard: Absolutely no clue how that works. Halp.
Memory: What are we up to, DDR4 now? This part I think I can handle, provided someone recommends me a good brand. And I'd assume that I'd want to go with at least 16 GB, if not even more.
Storage: I know the standard procedure now seems to be to get a nice SSD for your OS partition and a few specific types of programs, and then a big-ass HDD for general storage. The former's something I don't really have any experience with, so any help on brands or performance concerns would be greatly appreciated. Also a minor thing, but since I'm one of the comparative few still dedicated to physical media, I'll need at least a BD-ROM, if not writer.
Sound: Is it even worth getting a dedicated video card anymore? I know I've heard people say that on-board audio is good enough these days for most purposes, so if that's true I'll gladly pass it up.
Display: Yeah...if I never have to stare at another CRT again it'll be too soon. I know there are a couple of different technologies at play here, but I'm specifically looking for something that would be good for gaming purposes. Resolution-wise, I seem to recall hearing that most sizes somewhat larger than 1080p are sadly hard to come buy, and I don't think I need something as insane as a 4K display. As far as a multi-monitor setup...well it might be fun, cost permitting, but not exactly a necessity.
PSU: I know the capacity depends on what exactly I'm putting in here, and I've also taken to heart the dire warnings about not skimping on it. Is there a particular brand I should go for?
Case/Fans: Now this I know next to nothing about, other than a lot of it depends on my own preferences. Obviously getting something that's easy to work with and has ports galore is a plus. Having a built-in dust filter would be handy too, since I'm not exactly religious about cleaning out my case. I'd also need some serious help figuring out the whole fan-amount-and-placement thing when the time comes.
Peripherals: Ehh, not a huge priority. Somehow my ancient 2-button generic Dell optical is still hanging on; I got a recommendation for a Logitech G500 as a decent gaming mouse, but I still haven't gotten around to buying it. Also using a generic Dell keyboard that's as old as my system; I wouldn't mind getting a nice mechanical at some point, but this one's still kicking for now. And I have a set of Altec-Lansing speakers that came off a family desktop from (I swear) 15 years ago and are still holding up remarkably well. Unfortunately I don't have the environment that would allow for an awesome 7.1 setup, at least not for the time being.
That's everything I can think of at the moment. Thanks in advance for anyone who manages to read through all of this and still has a shred of patience left to give some advice!
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The motherboard is the backbone of your system. Whatever you get, make sure that your CPU and RAM are compatible with the motherboard. DDR4 systems are starting to come out, but the choices are fairly limited and pricey compared to DDR3. DDR4 is more future-resistant, though.
Integrated graphics have come a long way, but if you want to do any sort of gaming, you should get a dedicated video card. You have plenty of room with that budget.
You might check out the hardware (https://community.newegg.com/eggxpert/computer_hardware/default.aspx) boards at newegg (used to be eggxpert.com). I have seen some excellent advice on that board, and they have a comprehensive tiered power supply list. Many people post their suggested or desired builds, and if you post a parts list, people will help you determine if the parts are compatible, and will suggest alternatives.
ArsTechnica (http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/12/the-ars-system-guides-gaming-boxes-december-2014/) and TechSpot (http://www.techspot.com/guides/buying/) occasionally do gaming builds at different price points, and I am sure many other sites do as well.
I am looking at upgrading my system soon, with a Core i5 4690, a sub-$100 LGA1150 motherboard, and 8 or 16 GB of DDR3 RAM (about $400 in parts, but it's hard to save that up with three kids in the home!). I will still use my case I bought in 2004, Corsair 600W PSU, 128 GB OCZ SSD, bigger WD HDDs, Asus DVD burner, and GTX480 video card, as well as my Asus 24" 1920x1080 monitor.
I'll keep an eye on this thread, and maybe post a suggested parts list tomorrow. Good luck!!
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http://www.tomshardware.com/t/build-your-own/
http://www.logicalincrements.com/
CPU/GPU: NVIDIA has had their own share of embarrassments, it is in no way exclusive to AMD. Also, you may want to check out my latest post in Mars' topic. But the bottom line is, whatever you get is good enough. There really are no bad choices within your budget.
Motherboard: You're going to want a motherboard with latest chipset. If your preference is Intel, then the chipset you're going to want is Z97. The problem is, all major brands have about 20 different models with slightly different feature sets. You're just going to have to do a bit of research trying to find what's the best fit for you.
Memory: We're up to DDR4 yes, but there are no motherboards supporting DDR4 yet, unless you want to waste your money on real expensive motherboards. Intel's Skylake should come later this summer that features DDR3/DDR4 support. Might be a good idea to wait for Skylake. Once you have picked a suitable motherboard, please make sure to look up the QVL (qualified-vendor-list) for supported memory brands and models for the motherboard. By selecting RAM that is in the QVL, you reduce chances of compatibility issues between RAM and motherboard.
Sound: The most important aspect to consider is what is the source of your audio. If all you listen to are mp3's, ogg's or whatever that are not lossless, then there is no much sense in investing into a sound card. On the other hand, if you have high-quality lossless audio in flac or equivalent, then it might make sense to invest into audio equipment. But audio investment does not need to be expensive, as long as you don't make the mistake of investing into internal sound cards, they're mostly useless. Instead you can look into external sound cards, like Asus Xonar U7, or any decent USB-DAC. Bottom line, if you upgrade from onboard audio, go for external DAC.
Storage: SSDs around 512GB capacity have become quite affordable. So you may not even need any internal drives other than a single SSD. For storage, any external drive should suffice. You can even hook them to a local network, accessible from any computer in the local network.
Display: Well, there really are two primary factors to consider here. The first is refresh rate. The newest fad is G-Sync (NVIDIA) and FreeSync (AMD). Although as usual, FreeSync is part of the VESA standard and thus can be supported by NVIDIA as well if they're willing. Whereas G-Sync is once again exclusive to NVIDIA. Monitors supporting either should be available in retail. If you want a monitor best suited for gaming, look for those. If you feel they're too expensive or don't like what's available, the second best are monitors that support 144Hz refresh rate. Although in my experience frames higher than 60 are usually difficult to attain in the latest titles even with the best single-GPU available today, but they're still the second best option for gaming.
Now, if you have other considerations than gaming, then you should consider monitors that have IPS panel. They have far superior image quality over the TN panels typically used in home-grade/gaming monitors. Combining IPS panel with high refresh rate and G-Sync/FreeSync is going to cost. A monitor however is a long-term investment and actually a very important one, it is what you'll be staring at every minute you're in front of your computer. A good quality monitor can make a big difference in eye strain.
All that said, take a look at Asus PG279Q. It is not available quite yet, but should be pretty damn impressive. Price tag on it is $800 though.
PSU: Indeed, watts never tell the truth about how good a PSU actually is. Build quality is extremely important and bad PSUs rated at insane watts can perform worse than good PSUs at half watts. My personal preference is Seasonic, but there are plenty of good brands. And funnily enough many of those brands use rebranded Seasonics. This website specializes in reviewing PSUs: http://www.jonnyguru.com/
Case/Fans: Fan-placement is not rocket science, since there are limited number of fan slots. For decent airflow, just place one fan in front, another in back (or up if that is an option) and you're good to go. If you do not like to clean your case, make sure you get a case that is well sealed with no extra holes and that has washable air filter in front. Another thing to consider is how big fans the case can use, I wouldn't go anything smaller than 12cm because smaller ones tend to be noisy. One more thing to consider is how easily a case lets you access the components, a case where opening side panel is difficult or a case where reaching key components is difficult is a bad case.
Peripherals: Logitech G500 is old, I don't think it is being sold anymore. You might want to consider Logitech G502 and Logitech G710 to get some pleasure into KB+M gaming. You may also want to consider Logitech M570 for general desktop use to reduce wrist strain. I use M570 at home and work, and I never use traditional mice for anything but fast-action gaming.
And last but not least, you should invest into internal components in following order.
1) PSU
2) Motherboard
3) Everything else.
Yes, PSU and motherboard are the two most important components in any PC. Make sure they're of good quality.
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Thanks for the early feedback; I'll start looking into it in more detail when it isn't so stupidly late. The pseudo-problem I'm already running into is that I see all of these myriad options and start going into some sort of "buyer's anxiety" mode where I just feel like I'm locking up. I feel like I might be better off mostly basing my build on one of those layouts you guys have linked, since at least then I'll know I have a set of options to fall back on.
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Without knowing your budget, it's hard for anyone to give anything beyond generic advice. If you can, give a figure and we can go from there.
That being said, I will also stress what has been said before, do NOT skimp on the power supply. My own preferences are Seasonic and mid-range Corsairs, modular if possible (makes the cable management so much easier).
Jonnyguru is a good site to look at, but they tend to primarily look at the higher end supplies. That being said, they have looked at mid range units, as well as posted a few 'reviews' on the dangers of low end cheap supplies.
As for a build guide, pcpartpicker.com has some as well, along with a way to spec out a build with a URL for others to look at and critique.
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Unfortunately, with Power Supplies, the important part is often the manufacturer who made the unit, not the brand on the box. Some brands will have excellent high-end equipment and atrocious mid-range, due to using a reputable manufacturer for the high-end and a mediocre one for the mid-range.
Essentially, you'll need to check reviews before purchasing one.
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Memory: What are we up to, DDR4 now? This part I think I can handle, provided someone recommends me a good brand. And I'd assume that I'd want to go with at least 16 GB, if not even more.
Storage: I know the standard procedure now seems to be to get a nice SSD for your OS partition and a few specific types of programs, and then a big-ass HDD for general storage. The former's something I don't really have any experience with, so any help on brands or performance concerns would be greatly appreciated. Also a minor thing, but since I'm one of the comparative few still dedicated to physical media, I'll need at least a BD-ROM, if not writer.
Both memory and storage needs very much depend on what you're going to be doing.
If you're just going to be gaming with some browser tabs open, then likely even 8GB could suffice. Surely not even new games require more than that? Unless you need to do some very memory-intensive things (that you couldn't have even dreamed about on your old system), 16GB definitely ought to be sufficient for many years into the future.
As for storage, well, obviously enough it depends on how much you need. Pairing a smaller SSD with a bigger HDD is very common, but it's also rather inconvenient if the SSD is so small that you can't actually fit all your programs on it but end up with some programs installed on one drive and others on another, so I'd at least get a big enough SSD that you can by default put everything there and only keep big blobs which don't have anything to do with the operation of any part of your system on the HDD (like music, movies, installers, working files, etc).
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The X99's run DDR4, don't they?
But the price on those is just WTF :banghead: sticker shock isn't enough to describe it, in my local currency it's to the tune of USD$1650 for JUST the board and cpu, and USD$410 for 32GB of DDR4. At which point one will ask, "where's the casing? the psu? and all the other required bells and whistles basic items to actually make the stupid thing switch on?" :banghead:
My old PC isn't dying a slow death yet but it's showing its age, hard disks probably have bad sectors all over even though I hope not, but it'll be at least half a year to pool enough to build something new, and that timeframe is already generous...
Haven't seen and/or dealt with computers for the past few years now (no time to follow news + I'm n00b with assembly anyway), but I'll echo the Z97 suggestion. I don't think the socket will go obsolete too soon, and IIRC there's a wide range of CPUs for the socket, say if you need to cut $$$ on the CPU for a better graphic card, maybe throw in an el-cheapo G3258 Pentium, and then go i7 4790K within < 6 months when money permits (disclaimer: this is just a brainless example, didn't think about the actual $ being spent by doing this). I have no opinions on SSDs, don't have personal experience with one, but I know I wouldn't use one even for my :( hopeful :( next build - post-failure data recovery paranoia and lack of space. I can tolerate <5min boot times.
I probably have some misconceptions somewhere in my logic since all my past... builds... were pure n00b rubbish...
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Hey Mongoose,
You're very fortunate in that I build computers for a living. I usually charge for this advice but you'll get it for free.
I've got two builds here for you. First is $1500, second is $2000 (to match the estimate you gave in your post). You can find them here:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=23AA75D02AFAFE65!179306&authkey=!ABjE4UnpHUoo6-U&ithint=file%2cxlsx
The totals listed for those PC's are subject to change based on promo code availability.
You'll notice I put in an IPS 1080P display. Higher resolution panels do cost substantially more and for now you'll probably be best off with a 1080P IPS, but you can always upgrade later.
Hope this helps,
TechnoD11
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A few incomplete thoughts on various components that occur to me immediately without any further thought:
Mouse: I use wireless. And there is no substitute to the logitec G602. Every bit as good as the revered microsoft intellimouse 2.0 it replaced after 10 years. I've never noticed any lag from wireless that most gamers decry as unacceptable. What I DO notice is the cord snagging on things and getting tugged around. That throws of my aim far more than any lag ever would.
Ram: 16 GB is a pretty solid place to be at today's prices, but by no means necessary. I just recently went from 12 gb of ddr3 1600 to 16 gb of ddr3 2400 (running at 2133 because that's all the motherboard supports) and there was no improvement. (anyone want to buy 12 gb of high-quality, thoroughly tested ram for cheap? :P) As for brand, g.skill hasn't done me wrong yet. I can vouch for their customer service actually being useful.
CPU cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212+. I've got my 2700k up to 4.6 without breaking a sweat. No functional difference to the EVO, and usually $10 cheaper as long as you catch a rebate.
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912. Beefy mid-size with plenty of room for aforementioned cooler and really big video cards. HDD bays (including 2.5 ones for SSDs without needing adapters) can be moved/removed for extra room if required. PSU bottom mounted with a pretty basic dust screen. Front mesh functions pretty well as a dust screen, though it will show the dirt. Quick puff of compressed air or even just a wipe down cleans it out. The only thing I don't really like is the massive fan grill on the top that's just open since I didn't bother to add any fans other than what came with it (no need). It has no lights or side window, which is a plus for me as mine also serves as a HTPC.
Sound card: I can't speak much about the newest sound cards, but I beg to differ with Fury about internal cards being a waste. I have a (really old) Creative XtremeMusic (PCI) that is just miles better than onboard sound (once I did battle with Creative's drivers and emerged bloody, but victorious).
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Hey Mongoose,
You're very fortunate in that I build computers for a living. I usually charge for this advice but you'll get it for free.
I've got two builds here for you. First is $1500, second is $2000 (to match the estimate you gave in your post). You can find them here:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=23AA75D02AFAFE65!179306&authkey=!ABjE4UnpHUoo6-U&ithint=file%2cxlsx
The totals listed for those PC's are subject to change based on promo code availability.
You'll notice I put in an IPS 1080P display. Higher resolution panels do cost substantially more and for now you'll probably be best off with a 1080P IPS, but you can always upgrade later.
Hope this helps,
TechnoD11
Oh wow...thank you so much for this! And thanks to everyone for your continuing recommendations. I'll see if I can sort through all of this and come up with a preliminary setup in the next day or two.
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I haven't done an exhaustive study of codecs or anything, but onboard sound seems rather great these days. Even the low end options utterly crush the CD players and other systems of the recent past. For significantly improving your audio, the thing to invest a bit of energy in IMO is finding speakers (or headphones) that you like the sound of for all the material you're going to be listening to and positioning them properly in a good sounding room. Compared to that, all the other things you could spend money on offer pretty marginal returns.
Unless you're an audiophile, in which case they offer massive psychological returns and I recommend inch-thick woven gold power cables suspended by cryogenically frozen electromagnets.
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X99 ASUS boards come with very good onboard sound. I don't use it, because I have a Xonar Essence STX from my previous build, but that build had a crappy realtek chip. If you get a discrete solution for sound, ensure the sound system it's driving is worth the extra money. If you have $300 headphones, maybe a $150 headphone amp could be a decent investment. Extra features like you see on Creative cards are snake oil; you should only really care about signal quality, amplification, EQ, etc.
In your price range, I'd go for a socket 2011 v3 CPU, preferably 5820K. Stick something nice on it, like a Corsair H105 or a Noctua NH-D14 or NH-D15 (depending on how much space you have). With the latter you will need a full tower, but it will be quieter. Water vs air is generally: Water has, typically, the same temps as similarly-priced air unless you push your chip very far when overclocking -- where it will gain the advantage (but not by a large margin). Moreover, water coolers tend to be much louder than air coolers, due to the hit-and-miss quality of the fans, the fact that they have pumps, and that they are mounted pointing outside your case. They also use more power and are harder to install, but don't take up much space and can fit in small cases (if they're designed for radiator mounts). On the other hand, huge heatsinks (for air) are heavier than just about any PCB can officially support, and only work when mounted on static hardware. If you transport your computer (such as in the trunk of a car), you have to remove the heatsink or you run the risk of breaking your motherboard.
You can get even better cooling with a custom loop, but that's probably out of your budget.
GPU is up to you. My suggestion is a 980 Ti. Can't really do much better than that.
16 GB DDR4 is fine. Two or four sticks; doesn't matter since RAM bandwidth is virtually never a bottleneck.
Get a SSD and a much larger HDD.
Case is completely up to you. Don't overspend on something that looks fancy if it doesn't have the feature set to back it up.
With this hardware, a reputable 800W power supply should be enough. If you plan on maybe adding another GPU, get 1000W. If you plan on heavy use for a long time (full load several hours every day for more than 2 years) and/or have a lot of extra components, make that 1000W / 1200W, respectively.
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Sad I'm late to this thread, but as a few people have said, the Tom's Hardware System Builder Marathons are a fantastic starting point. Never steered me wrong with a little research on top.
Another bit of advice which may or may not have been covered (I just skimmed so far): the price-performance curve. Visual: https://community.logos.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer.Discussions.Components.Files/77/0028.Price-Performance.JPG
PC part pricing exists on a curve. Near the top end of the curve, performance gains are very small next to the jump in pricing. Ergo, you are better to set a maximum budget and try not to reach it. You generally want to buy parts in the area where the curve is most similar to a linear function. This may mean that you are actually better off buying components that are not the latest generation, yet perform nearly as well as the latest generation. This can save you staggering sums of money, which you can reinvest into upgrades in a few years.
This is the way I've built my systems. My current system has just finally become 'gaming obsolete' as it's not quad-core. The base system was built in 2008. At the time, it cost $1200 for the base system components (tower and everything in it), with another $400 in peripherals. Since then, I've replaced a video card (original died), PSU (upgraded), heatsink+fan (stock one was crap), and added a solid-state drive.
If you're buying top-end components, you're generally wasting money.
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Here are a few more thoughts for you.
Bang per buck (pound in my case), AMD wins with this one 9 times out of ten, but AMD's best CPUs currently cannot match the high performance Intel chips, which is why you pay more for an Intel. However, AMD chips are perfectly fine for gaming (more on CPUs at the end of this post). I have an FX8370 which is overclocked variably by the motherboard. AMD as a general rule will overclock easier and better than the Intels. Another general rule is to go for an Intel if you are gaming as most games will run better on them because of the processing method they use, but if you like multi-tasking then an AMD would be better for you.
The motherboard is critical. Take care when connecting the front panel connectors. Try and get a higher end board if possible. If you go for an AMD cpu, then a higher end board is crucial if you are overclocking, for stability reasons. Again, if you overclock don't skimp on the cooling either, as you don't want to fry your CPU.
The GFX card is the most important component in most cases as this will power your games. I would say not to consider SLI or Crossfire as it seems to cause more problems than it is worth from what I've seen. It is very much a toss up between NVidia and AMD, but if you want to have more than 3 screens, than I would suggest an NVidia. I have a GTX 770 4GB Palit Jetstream, as I have 3 screens and a big-ass TV hooked to me box. If you do multi-screen gaming, than I would get a GPU with atleast 4GB onboard RAM.
Get a large case... full tower! Where as a midi-tower will most likely be okay, most GPUs are getting large... very large... 12 inches long large. This means that there will be problems when physically fitting the card into the case and a potential for a disruption in airflow (not definite though). You don't want to buy a new GFX card and find out that it doesn't fit.
With regards to AMD's new line of CPUs, forget waiting if you want something in the next month or two. AMD's new range is atleast a year away. It is a new architecture called "ZEN", which could place AMD back in the high-end market and compete with Intel's future Skylake range... but it is atleast a year away! I'm looking forward to "ZEN" as it shows a lot of promise and I hope that it will seriously give Intel a run for its money.
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Yeah, no worries about overclocking; I'm not interested in fooling around with it at all. And thanks for the overall pricing advice Ryan. You're right in that I'm not looking to just throw money at Newegg for the hell of it, but I do want to maybe go a bit closer to the right-hand side of the curve just for the sake of having something that I don't feel obligated to upgrade in a year or two. For once in my life, I want to actually own something shiny and awesome, and this might be my only chance. :p
Anyway, I'm still feeling things out, but hopefully tonight or tomorrow I can have at least a preliminary listing to get some feedback on. If there weren't like 50 options available for every damn thing, and each of those with its own variants, this would be a hell of a lot easier...
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It isn't easy, especially when getting advice as you have to be wary of various fanboyism as well.
I've generally always gone AMD because of price/performance ratios. If you do the same, then I would not go any higher than the 8370, as the 9xxx CPUs get very hot.
Shame about you not considering overclocking, as there are some very good guides out there and if done properly, then you can get massive performance increases for a smaller budget. However, because of this you would probably be better of considering something in the Intel i5 range rather than the i7.
I would probably suggest you very much go mid-range and only just to the right of the curve, with a view to upgradingin 18 months or so, after Intel and AMD new architectures have been benchmarked.
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Mongoose, if it helps at all, I've settled on upgrading my existing system again, which is going to necessitate a complete swap of motherboard+RAM+CPU. I also stay away from overclocking - it voids warranties - and I've settled it out in this range:
Intel i5 4590 or 4690 (depending on pricing).
MSI or Asus H97 (mid-tier) or Z97 motherboard (precise model depends on pricing).
8 GB DDR3 RAM (unless a 16 GB it goes on ultra cheap).
EDIT: Looking at Techno's builds, this is basically the core of his $1500 system, minus the overclocking. If you're uninterested in overclocking, you can drop his build to a i5 4590 or 4690 (no K), and an H97 motherboard - the only real difference between the H and Z series is overclocking support. That said, the pricing differences in the mid-range boards are negligible.
Based on sale pricing, I'm just waiting until this combination clocks in around $400 CAD. Lowest its dipped thus far is $423 in the last couple months, but I'm not in a rush. These are the upper end of the i5 range. I ruled out AMD because they tend to run hotter and their performance is not as good as their equivalent Intel CPUs, though they are substantially less expensive. I've run both over the years, and developed a preference for Intel's CPUs, though I know many people swear by AMD. As I said, my current system is running base components that are 7 years old, so reliability and longevity tend to be important to me.
Which is my other point of caution - do not confuse more money for slightly more powerful components with future-proofing. Spending 20-50% more on a component by no means guarantees you'll get 20-50% more life out of it. Usually, the performance differences are small enough that both will last you the same amount of time before an upgrade is required, one just cost a bunch more for a slight performance gain.
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@Gee1337
The latest AMD desktop chipset, the 900 series is grossly outdated. It was released back in 2011, only supports PCIE 2.0, USB 2.0, SATA 3.0. There is at least one Asus 900-series motherboard that has PCIE 3.0 support, but I've never seen it in stock anywhere. Makes me wonder if that is simply a printing error. But even if that mobo does exist somewhere, PCIE 3.0 is not officially supported by the chipset and I don't know what Asus did to make it work. But based on poor availability, I wouldn't count on it.
Even though AMD CPUs appear cheaper at first glance, they have poor performance-per-watt ratio. The fastest AMD CPU, the FX-9590 has 220W TDP which is not supported by most 900-series motherboards. Even those that do support it, have had problems with supplying the CPU with enough juice. There have even been reports of motherboard dying after prolonged use of the CPU at max. The next best CPU, the FX-8370 has TDP of 125W, this is the only FX CPU worth considering. There is also E-model of the FX-8370 at 95W TDP, but it has lower clocks. In addition, all the AMD FX CPUs are based on the 2012 Piledriver architechture, which is two generations behind.
If we compare gaming performance, I have bad news to you. FX-9590 has at times trouble beating Intel i3 in gaming performance and i5 solidly beats the FX-9590 most of the time. You can get the cheapest i5 of the current Intel generation for the same price as FX-8370.
Which leaves us with AMD's FM2+ APUs and motherboards, those actually offer much better bang for the buck. The latest FM2+ motherboard chipset is much more recent, released in 2014 and supports PCIE 3.0 and USB 3.0. The desktop APUs are still one generation behind, but at least that's better than two generations of the FX CPUs. The latest APUs more or less trade blows with Intel i3 in gaming performance, with i3 coming top more often than not. This is discounting iGPU performance, where AMD obviously runs circles around any of the Intel iGPUs.
If you really want to go with AMD, go for FM2+ or wait until sometime 2016. Otherwise, you're much better off with Intel.
AMD's net loss of over 400 million USD last year and shares falling over 60% in past three years is disheartening. I'd like to support AMD by buying their products, but it simply doesn't make any sense to buy their vastly inferior and outdated FX CPUs. APUs would be a decent choice for general purpose non-gaming PC, but I'd rather run to nearest store to buy a cheap laptop for that purpose. I would strongly consider the APUs for living room media PC though.
There have been strong rumors about AMD being targeted for a buyout. Such rumors are feasible because AMD has been operating at a net loss for many years and have accumulated considerable debt. If such a buyout happens, future of AMD is in the hands of whoever buys the company and all bets are off. In addition, Intel can intervene with any buyout because Intel owns the x86 license, which is not transferable to a 3rd party. Sure, AMD owns AMD64 which is used in x86_64, but seeing as how difficult it was to come to terms of x86 licensing when AMD cut their fab business into GlobalFoundries, anything can happen.
AMD's time is running out. They need to pay 600 million USD debt in 2019, and seeing as they haven't made profit in years... Yep, buyout is a given regardless of what happens to the x86 license. No options there.
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@ Fury
I think you need to re-read my posts as you have essentially just echo'd 95% of what I have said but just thrown in figures for good measure.
TDP is a pointless arguement in desktops. Laptops yes, desktops no! I've already said to not go for the 9xxx series. That is also why I have an FX8370.
I think you might want to watch this vid when it comes to TDP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBeeGHozSY0.
I am waiting for next year for the ZEN architecture, as it looks like it could seriously be the business. That is also why I have advised Mongoose to go for an Intel rather than an AMD as he wants his build done quickly and he is predominantly gaming.
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Okay, so. I'm starting to get a better idea of exactly what I'm looking for, at least enough to ask some more specific questions. Before I get to that though, I wanted to list the recommendations of someone at another site of mine where I cross-posted this. I know this guy has been building gaming systems for a very long time, so I figured I'd throw his ideas into the mix too, if anyone sees something to comment on:
Mobo: Asus brand, Z97 chipset
CPU: Intel i7-4790K
Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo
GPU: GTX980 (Ti optional)
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 1TB
HDD: Seagate or Western Digital, he's had equal success/failure with each
PSU: 80+ Gold/Platinum rated, probably in the 450-550W range
Case: Corsair Carbide 300R
I haven't priced out any of that out yet myself, but I do see quite a bit of overlap with other people's preferences.
So then, on to a few specific questions. I'm kind of using TechnoD11's suggested builds as a starting point.
--As far as CPUs go, is there really any practical reason why I should choose an i7 over an i5? I think I wound up putting an i7 on the Lenovo laptop I helped a friend of mine pick out a few months ago, even though I know it was probably super-overkill for their needs, but I wouldn't mind doing the same for this if there's going to be a definite visible improvement with the higher line.
--I didn't realize that DDR4 was so bleeding-edge, so again, am I going to be seeing any sort of noticeable performance difference from DDR3 outside of the potential to overclock? If not, I'd be fine sticking with the DDR3.
--I do want to go with more than 1TB of HDD space on-board; I have an older 1.5 TB Seagate external, but I already had to RMA that, so I don't exactly trust it to go the distance. I'd like to be in a place where I can throw whatever the hell I want on there and just about never have to worry about space. From what I can gather, the WD Black line that Techno recommended is a more premium WD option, so would I be okay stepping back from that a bit?
--Just looking at the nVidia options, is there anything about the Ti option for the GTX980 that justifies that price jump, or am I probably better off sticking with the basic 980? And if I do go the AMD route, is the 390X essentially on the same performance level as the 980?
--As Fury noted, I definitely don't want to cheap out on displays, which is why I'm a bit wary of the price of that Acer H6 Series (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009484) that Techno recommended. Is it just an example of a really good bang for the buck, or do I want to look at something a bit higher-end?
I'm sure I'll have more specifics as this goes along. Thanks again for all the help!
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Tom's Hardware's mid-range system is generally where I'd recommend you be, and they waffle between the upper-end i5s and mid-range i7s, depending on price. The i7 performance does not always eclipse the i5 by that much, so you're better to look at a price range you're comfortable with, then check the benchmarks for all the CPUs in that range. An i5 will likely give you a better price with similar performance, but it does depend on the week. If you look at the mid-range guide for Tom's Q1, they have a detailed rationale for the i7 vs i5 in that build, which mostly boils down to pricing. YOU DO NOT NEED THE 'K' variant processor. That signifies unlocked for over clicking, which you've said you're not interested in. There's no other reason to bother.
Along that note, Intel's stock coolers are generally sufficient for non-overclocked CPUs. If you don't mind the extra expense you can grab an aftermarket cooler, but it's not strictly necessary.
DDR4 is pretty new and pretty pricey. You'll get better bang for your buck off a low-latency higher-clock DDR3.
You can step back on the HDD if you prefer, depending on price. Speed is not essential for the secondary HDD since you'll be running your OS and programs off the SSD.
It's personal preference, but I've long been loyal to Samsung displays; it depends on the model, but the Acer's tend to be more cheaply built.
Someone else can chime in on GPUs, I'm not up on the latest with them.
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If your concern is gaming, the only benefit of i7 over i5 is hyper-threading and games still aren't threaded to a point they use more than four threads effectively. Meaning i7 yields very little performance improvement in games over i5.
You're not going to need a 3d party cooler unless you specifically buy a CPU that doesn't come with one, or you plan to overclock. Retail CPUs should always have a stock cooler with them. If overclocking is not your thing, you can save some bucks by not picking a K-model.
There simply isn't large enough performance advantage (none actually) in current generation DDR4 to worry about it. In the future there actually might have a noticeable performance advantage over DDR3, but that's most likely still years away. And by that time, who knows, maybe the latest systems do not even use DIMM anymore.
If you go with a 1TB SSD, you're going to fit all applications and games on it. Just get whatever cheap HDD, performance of the HDD is not relevant.
Again with the GTX 280? :) In my opinion you'd be better off with GTX 970, it offers better bang for the buck than 980 or 980Ti. By the time GTX 970 is outdated, so is 980 and 980Ti. AMD's 300 series are just rebranded older cards, the only AMD card that is of interest is the upcoming Radeon Nano. But we still don't know its performance or price. You're better off with NVIDIA for now.
Your PSU is not quite up to the task, especially when you're considering very high end cards like 980Ti coupled with i7. GTX 980Ti has recommendation of 600W, 980 and 970 have 500W. AMD Fury X has 650W. I would recommend minimum 700W so you won't have to worry about your PSU now or in the future. 80+ gold/platinum is very good advice though. If there is a chance you might want to use SLI or CrossFire in the future, then you're going to need even more than 700W. 2x GTX 980Ti will need 850W and 2x Fury X will need 1000W.
The Corsair case appears to be otherwise okay, but has poor acoustics. So if you would prefer your case to be really quiet, you might want to look elsewhere.
When determining whether you're making a right choice picking hardware, your best bet is always to read reviews, many of them. That goes for displays too.
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How long do you want this build to last?
HDD wise, IIRC... Seagate own Western Digital, though I could easily be mistaken on this. But Seagate's are usually quite solid drives. In my experience, I've had good and bad from a lot of companies, although I believe one of the better drives I had was actually a Samsung.
CPU wise, I would say drop to the i5, for reasons already mentioned.
As Fury mentioned, you need more power from the PSU. I would say to get atleast a 750 watt. Okay, 50 watts more than what Fury suggested, but as an audiophile I do like the headroom (okay... a bit irrelevant being an audiophile but... meh).
Finally, as Fury suggested... get a different case. But my reasoning behind this is because of the size. I think you will need something bigger, as a 10.5 inch card will dominate a lot of space! Where as that case might be large enough for the GPU, I know from my current build that it gets fiddly when connecting things like the SATA drives and the front panel connectors. There will not be a lot of room for manouvering fingers.
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Regarding Hard Drives - right now there are really only 3 manufacturers - Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba. Fujitsu still makes drives but I've almost never seem a modern one.
Western Digital purchased Hitachi in 2012, but still sells Hitachi (HGST) branded drives. Seagate acquired Samsung's hard drive division the year before.
At the moment, based on BackBlaze's documentation of consumer drives, Hitachi branded drives are the most reliable, followed by Western Digital. Seagate (especially their 1.5, 2, and 3 TB drives) had by far the highest failure rates.
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Dammit, Fury, you said everything I was planning out while I was at work today! :)
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Lots of good advice by others here. As a general rule, I would go big on the video card, monitor and speakers/headphones, and cheap out on the other stuff if you need to. I find that 120hz or 144hz makes a big difference in games and is well worth it, especially games with smooth turning motions like FS. It's fairly easy to sustain 120fps at 1920x1080 but harder at 2560x1440. Gsync/freesync is a great concept but is only supported by a few displays and has a vendor lock problem right now. 4K has no high refresh rate options (and won't for a long time) and requires SLI or CF, which have their own hassles, to get consistently good performance. A sound card still has its advantages, but you're better off getting some high end speakers or headphones first.
CPUs have had very incremental improvements for many years now, although you might as well wait another month or two for Skylake at this point. Some of the K processors are actually different from and faster than the non-K ones, like the 4790K. There are lots of very similar motherboards these days that only differ in obscure features that most people won't use, so don't spend too much there. If you're near a Microcenter in the US, they have huge discounts on CPUs and motherboards towards the end of the year, better than anything online.
A 970 or 290X is good enough for 1920x1080, with the 980 and 390X currently too expensive in comparison. A custom 980 Ti is the best high end option for about $680, but is only worth it at 2560x1440 or 4K. Note that the cards with custom coolers are often considerably faster and quieter than the reference versions. In general, most games today are console ports or indie titles that don't justify high end video cards, and people are buying them for higher resolutions and potentially VR rather than advances in game graphics.
A good case and power supply are worth investing in because they will last many years, but 650W or so is more than enough for any single card system, especially with the focus on power efficiency in modern platforms. The important thing is to get one from a reputable manufacturer.
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Thanks again for the continued help. It may seem weird, but I've been almost avoiding really digging into the details over the past few days, and when I started to do so I had some serious anxiety going on. I don't know, maybe it's what new parents go through when the reality of having their first child sets in. :lol:
So I took a look around, and went through everyone's recommendations, then I looked into PCPartPicker, which is an incredibly handy site. Using that, I put together a preliminary setup (http://pcpartpicker.com/p/v68mZL) for what I'm looking at. A couple of notes:
--I do want to go with the i7, but I stuck with the normal variant instead of the K as recommended. If I'm figuring things out right, I think the 4790 is the highest tier in the LGA 1150 category. Since you guys said that DDR4 really would be a waste, I figured that'd be where I'd want to stop.
--I put in the GTX980 for the hell of it, but I could definitely be talked down to the 970 and use that money elsewhere.
--I went with the larger 500GB SSD, so I don't need to worry about running out of space for frequently-used programs (or hell, maybe a secondary OS even). That coupled with the bigass 3TB HDD seems like it'll do the job for me. I went with the Red option from WD, though I'm not sure how the Blue line compares to it; I wasn't able to find the latter represented on the site, so I assume I'm doing something wrong.
--I'm definitely not married to any of the actual vendors/brands in here; I mainly chose them based on the closest matches to the recommendations in here. I picked the motherboard out of Techno's $1500 build, though I'd definitely be willing to go with another as I poke around a bit more and/or anyone has specific alternates.
--I didn't really spend much time at all looking through cases; this is just what my friend from the other site recommended. Techno's recommendation doesn't have any external optical bays, which I'd consider a necessity.
--Finally, this obviously doesn't include the display, since I can sit on that for a bit. Since I did want to keep the whole thing under $2000, I think that leaves plenty of room for something nice there, and perhaps even a discrete sound card if I decide to do that.
So...thoughts? Opinions? Barely-concealed derision?
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--I went with the larger 500GB SSD, so I don't need to worry about running out of space for frequently-used programs (or hell, maybe a secondary OS even). That coupled with the bigass 3TB HDD seems like it'll do the job for me. I went with the Red option from WD, though I'm not sure how the Blue line compares to it; I wasn't able to find the latter represented on the site, so I assume I'm doing something wrong.
The blue is the drive aimed at 'mainstream' systems. I have one in one of my desktop machines and have no complaints with it. The only 'problem' with them is they aren't available in sizes greater than 1TB.
The red is aimed at entry level NAS machines where the disks run 24/7. They are also slower than a blue, RPM-wise, have about a 10-20 USD premium over the blue, and benchmarks have shown them to be slightly slower overall than a blue, but are available in larger sizes than a blue. Some people have said they are basically a WD green with firmware designed for NAS use.
Warranty is the same between the two when dealing with retail packaging ( http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp?wdc_lang=en ), but IIRC, reds have a 24/7 support line and the option for cross shipping in the case of a failure.
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I personally would go with a Black series HDD, their highest-quality line. Certainly faster, though I don't know if they are supposedly any more reliable. Since yours is a data drive, I guess it wouldn't matter a whole lot and it is a substantial savings.
970. For the love of god yes. There's like a 5-10% at best performance difference between the two. Save the $180.
The K variant of the CPU is faster without overclocking. I didn't think the price difference would be as big as it is now (it was like $10 different back when I got my 2700K), so really it's up to you. Personally I would go K (using the money saved with the 970) to get the extra headroom and ability to overclock in the future if you end up wanting to. It's STUPID easy these days. My motherboard does it all for me automatically. I just select the boost I want and then benchmark/torture test it after to make sure it's stable.
Windows - why Pro? If there's not something about it that you know you need, you can save some money with Home Premium.
Memory - The one you have is very good. However, depending on how you catch the sales, you might be able to find 2400 for the same price. Just do a quick check when you're ready to place the order. It's not worth searching hard for. I think I mentioned before that I saw no real difference from 12 GB of 1600 to 16 GB of 2133 (the highest supported by my board, the RAM is 2400).
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The blue is the drive aimed at 'mainstream' systems. I have one in one of my desktop machines and have no complaints with it. The only 'problem' with them is they aren't available in sizes greater than 1TB.
Huh, that's strange; you'd think there'd be a market for drives larger than that even amongst "mainstream" users. Would I be okay going with the Green line, then? Or I could hop over to Seagate if need be: the external I bought from them a few years ago quickly crapped out and needed an RMA, but the 320GB internal on this system has been behaving itself for several years.
970. For the love of god yes. There's like a 5-10% at best performance difference between the two. Save the $180.
Heh, fair enough. I guess my e-peen can survive at its current length. :p
Windows - why Pro? If there's not something about it that you know you need, you can save some money with Home Premium.
I'm not sure how practical it'll be as a whole, but I did want to take advantage of XP Mode in Professional. It'd be a hell of a lot more convenient than absolutely needing to keep this current system set up forever.
And you're right, I might as well take advantage of the increased clock speed on the K variant even if I'm not overclocking. I'll keep an eye out for a good deal on that RAM too.
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As of yet I have not encountered anything that won't work on Home Premium. I haven't even had to XP compatibility mode (which does exist in home premium, and to be honest I'm not sure what the difference is to XP mode).
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The 4790K is good for the higher speed but does not actually overclock well, since it's close to its max speed already. It turbos to 4.4 on two cores and 4.2 on all of them, and will practically always do 4.4 on all cores (which most boards have a setting for). You might get up to 4.7 on air cooling with extra voltage, which is barely noticeable and not worth it.
The 980 is good if you can find one for $450 or so. Otherwise, you might as well spend $200 more for a 980 Ti, which is much faster. Try to get one with a custom cooler. I like my 980 but got it when it came out.
For Windows, if you're talking about 8.1 Pro, it includes Hyper-V and not XP Mode, but both are rather useless for games. I've found that VMWare (free) is a better option for an XP gaming VM, but the best thing is to keep a native XP install around, which is still possible on modern hardware with a little effort. There are quite a few broken DirectDraw games in 8.1.
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The blue is the drive aimed at 'mainstream' systems. I have one in one of my desktop machines and have no complaints with it. The only 'problem' with them is they aren't available in sizes greater than 1TB.
Huh, that's strange; you'd think there'd be a market for drives larger than that even amongst "mainstream" users. Would I be okay going with the Green line, then? Or I could hop over to Seagate if need be: the external I bought from them a few years ago quickly crapped out and needed an RMA, but the 320GB internal on this system has been behaving itself for several years.
Personally, I avoid the green drives. They are slower than the blues and are aimed at noise and so-called 'power saving' over performance.
In a way, it makes sense. Most people, AKA 'mainstream', aren't going to fill up a TB of space anytime soon, and typically anyone who wants a larger drive tends to go for the 'performance' drives.
Hitachi and Fujitsu also offer drives in > 1TB sizes that aren't that bad in performance and reliability. Seagate, I'm a bit leery about as they had a real problem with their early > 1TB drives for a while. I think they have since fixed their problems, but I've not researched their reliability rates in a while.
This is the problem with the amount of merges and buyouts in the past few years, us end users don't have nearly as many options as we used to. :(
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My experience with WD Greens is very bad; had two of them (0.5 and 2 TB) and they both started dying the exact same slow and excruciating death after the warranty expired (basically bad sectors started showing up and my OS would freeze intermittently more and more as the time went by). However when the time came to buy a new disk, I saw that people's experiences with anything else in my price range were just as terrible, so I went with a 2 TB WD Red because the extended warranty was the only thing that guaranteed something that really seemed worthwhile.
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Heh, we've reached the stage where the experts are giving directly-conflicting advice. :p
About the video card: whether it's the 970 or 980 (still waffling a tiny bit), is that Zotac brand a good one to go with? Or should I look for an Asus or MSI option instead? (I swear that's the hardest part for me in all of this; years ago I used to think that nVidia and AMD just directly released all the cards themselves, which would make life one hell of a lot easier.)
The same question goes for motherboards. I've seen both MSI and Asus recommended, and like I said I put that Krait Edition in there (funky coloring on that one) mainly because it was on Techno's recommended build list. Once you get the correct chipset/socket plugged it, it's still this insane range of options. And then there's the case, which I know is all on me...this doesn't get any easier.
As for the HDD, it looks like a 2TB Black series is still $10 more expensive than the 3TB Red series. In addition, a lot of the Newegg comments mention the Black drives being noticeably loud, and taking a longer time to spin up from a dead stop (presumably because of the higher speed), which is what it'd be doing as a primarily media drive. The corresponding Seagate Barracuda models are substantially cheaper, but the comments mention a noticeably high failure rate. I can check out Hitachi and Fujitsu as well, but beyond that I'm not really sure what my best option is, other than just sticking with the Red.
And then I still have to pick out a monitor (and a BD burner too I guess). Dammit.
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Motherboard branding: Asus makes quality boards. I have heard good things about MSI. I tried Gigabyte last time and I will never buy another Gigabyte board again. Terrible configuration explanation, documentation, and sketchy driver support.
The benchmarks on the K variant CPUs depend on the base processor. Some are genuinely faster. The majority you won't notice much difference.
HDDs: If you are running an SSD for software/OS, you aren't going to notice much of a difference between the HDD speeds. Personally, while the higher speeds offered by the Black may be nice occasionally, I don't believe they justify some of the whopping price differences. HDD speed will affect things that read/write to the HDD; if your game saves are set to the (very large) SSD you picked, the HDD is moot for gaming performance.
It is worth noting - if the Seagate drives are substantially cheaper, two cheap drives configured in RAID for mirroring are a much better investment than one more expensive drive not configured as such. HDD failure is a fact of life. RAID eliminates the pain.
It all depends how premium you're willing to go and how much extra you're willing to pay for very small performance gains.
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Hmm, RAID is definitely an idea. The 2TB Barracuda is going for only $75 now. But the more I look at these reviews (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148834), the more I feel like I should steer clear. Lots of failures within a year or two. We've only been using this same exact storage technology for like 25 years...you'd think there'd be a good reliable option out there by now.
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Zotac is good and has some nice custom coolers. Any of the Z97 motherboards around $100-130 should be good. There is little difference between the cheap and expensive motherboards except for features you will probably never use.
I don't think RAID 0 or 1 is worth it, as it doesn't prevent the need for backups and is much slower than a SSD, as well as being harder to migrate between motherboards. It's only good for servers to avoid downtime if a drive fails. Hard drives can last through many upgrades. I still use a 10 year old WD 250GB drive that has XP and many of my older games on it, including FS2.
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...But the more I look at these reviews (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148834), the more I feel like I should steer clear. Lots of failures within a year or two. We've only been using this same exact storage technology for like 25 years...you'd think there'd be a good reliable option out there by now.
I have wondered about this as well. I have an original 74GB 10,000 RPM WD Raptor that I have been using daily since my first build in 2005, a couple of WD Blue 6400AAKS drives in daily-use systems since 2008, and a 250GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 in a relative's PC since 2009, with no trouble at all with any of them. But when shopping for new drives, it seems I see a lot more bad reviews, with drives DOA or dying within a year or two. Maybe quality took a back seat to capacity in the last few years.
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Ok mongoose... I can see you seem to have been bombarded with a lot of information regarding experiences and knowledge from a lot of people regarding most parts in this machine. So I'm going to steer clear of the parts already talked about and make a suggestion regarding sound.
My advice would be to not bother getting an additional soundcard, whether it be external or internal. But instead, invest in a half tidy headset. Higher end soundcards are usually a requirement for people doing a lot of audio editing in studios. If you are just casual gaming or listening to music, then an onboard card is fine, with a nice pair of headphones. If you do a bit more hardcore gaming and fancy a bit more immersion... definitely get a headset.
When I was playing Counterstrike Source heavily, I use to have the sound from an onboard going through my mini hifi (anyone remember those?) and my DJ cans (Sony MDR v800) plugged into the hifi. It sounded pretty darn awesome and I could hear things miles away on the map... promptly started people to accuse me of wall-haxxing!
I currently use a Creative HS950. It is comfortable, has excellent sound quality and the mic is fantastic. It is discontinued now I believe and I believe I got it for about £45 (maybe $65 ish) a few years ago and it still works fine. It's a very handy piece of kit as you don't have to worry about disturbing other people when gaming at silly o'clock in the morning.
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Yeah, I'm definitely going to hold off on the discrete sound card for now; if I decide I want one later it'll be easy enough to add. I'll think about a headset down the line, though for now my current setup should be adequate.
And right now I'm going to see if I can hammer out choices for the mobo and case, because quite frankly I just want to get this thing bought already, and I feel like I've been actively avoiding committing for too long here. :p
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Okay, updated build list (http://pcpartpicker.com/p/pcJHTW). I did step down to the 970X, albeit a Zotac factory-OC'd one to keep my e-peen intact. The other change I made was going with a 3TB Hitachi HDD: just like the WD Red, it's intended for NAS primarily, but this one's running at 7200RPM instead of 5400, and according to someone earlier in the thread (sorry I'm just getting everyone muddled by now) the Hitachi brand has very good reliability. As far as the motherboard goes, I'm still sticking with the MSI Krait Edition for the moment, since that seems like the best fit on the MSI side of things. As far as ASUS is concerned, I found this board (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132512) which supports the new USB 3.1 standard, and this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132287) with just 3.0. I'm sure 3.1 is mostly a gimmick at this point, but which out of those three would you say looks like my best bet?
Oh right, and one more thing: a BD burner. I'm not even sure if anyone bothers reviewing these things anymore, but is there any manufacturer in particular that's good stuff as far as optical drives are concerned?
(Now sleep. Tomorrow case, I swear, so I can finally order some ****.)
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I would simply recommend NOT getting an OEM burner. I did that and driver/software/firmware support was completely non-existant. Unless things have changed significantly in the past year or so, there are no decent free software packages for blu ray. A retail drive should come with basic versions and save you money overall. And also just be less of a pain in the ass to deal with.
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I just saw somewhere you could probably save a few more quid... err... bucks I mean. ;)
With that card, you have picked I would say that you will definitely need a FULL tower case. The cheapest full tower I have seen is around $70, but for a half tidy case, I think you will have to spend a little more as they seem to be around the $100 mark.
This case was about $160 on Amazon with a blue scheme... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811517004 and 69% of reviewers gave it 5 stars. Obviously on newegg it is just over $100.
Save yourself $30 on the card and go for the Omega clocked edition... as all you are actually sacrificing is around 80Mhz on the clock speed. (you can get that MHz back just by overclocking the card and there are several utilities out there which allow you to do this easily.. for example MSI Afterburner seems to be the most favoured one)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500369&cm_re=GeForce_GTX_970-_-14-500-369-_-Product
With the $30 you save, you can then get the full tower case.
Seriously though, I don't want you to get a mid-tower case just to find out that a 12 inch long GPU won't fit into it!
I hope this helps! :)
P.S. i can't tell you much about blu-ray burners as I have no need for them and therefore never bought one!
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That case does look cool, but the reviews mention a few prominent negatives: several of the case fans are fixed-speed instead of mobo-controlled, there doesn't seem to be a lot of dust protection (which I'd really value), and it mentions the space behind the mobo being a very tight squeeze for cable-routing. Given that it's my first build ever, I'd definitely like something convenient on that last point for sure. I haven't done serious looking at the case yet, but I definitely will tonight...I'm starting to get antsy about this and I just want to get it done. :p
Edit: Also found this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130771) on the MSI side of things for just a bit more. Just on aesthetics, I like the red-on-black a bit better than the Krait's white-on-black, though obviously that only applies if I get a case with a side window. Between this and the three I linked in the previous post, this is the one place where I could really use an expert word or two, because some parts of the features lists on all of these are still a bit Greek to me.
(Sorry if I've come across as too pestering at any point; again, I really really appreciate all of the advice!)
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Personally, I'm not a fan of MSI ever since I had a dodgy board a few years back. I generally stay with ASUS now.
One thing I did notice about that board is that it has 2x PCIe slots. Would you be likely to be getting a second GPU for SLI/Crossfire? If not, I would look at something a little cheaper.
When I look for parts, I use www.ebuyer.com then compare prices on www.pricespy.co.uk. Whilst looking on Ebuyer I came across the Asus H81-Gamer, which looks like a board that would suit your needs very well and retails at £40 less than that MSI board, but I can't find it on Newegg and trying to shop in the U.K for parts in the U.S is not easy. I did find it on Amazon, but the price came in higher than the board you chose. I found this bizarre as in the U.K it is cheaper!
Have you considered maybe going for a micro-ATX mobo instead of a full ATX? This got me wondering as I can't see any components that would require you to use additional PCI slots.
The only reasons why I could see you perhaps getting hampered by a micro ATX is if you need connect to the interweb wirelessly and you need an extra PCI slot for it, or if you need additional connectors for chassis fans (although they can be hooked directly to the PSU iirc). With a full tower case, it might seem a bit empty inside... but is that a bad thing?
As for a case, for a $120 you might want to have a look at the Rosewell Thor V2. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147053)
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Funny you should mention the wireless, because that's actually something I will need in here, at least over the short-term. For now I was probably just going to cannibalize the Linksys Wireless-G card from this old desktop, because my parents still have the ****ty default Verizon modem/router that came with their FIOS installation, and I've just started looking at what their best option is for upgrading. This card should hold me over until I get them sorted and/or move out myself.
And holy crap, that case looks like an absolute beast. :lol: ("Cons: Mjolnir not included") I'll definitely keep it as an option.
As for SLI, in the future, who knows? It'd be nice to keep it as an available option as far as I'm concerned.
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Any motherboard in that range is fine. Just get one that you like the look and price of, unless you need PCI or some other specific feature. The headphone amp on that MSI is a nice feature but I don't know if it's any good. In general, I would use separate wifi/sound/etc. cards instead of paying more for a motherboard with those things, because they will still be good long after the motherboard is obsolete and has been replaced.
As I said earlier though, Skylake is supposed to come out soon and will have its own boards.
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Ok, if I was you doing your build, I would settle on this! Taken the prices from your build list, changed your GPU slightly (as mentioned in earlier post) and added the case I suggested.
Intel i7 4790K $319
MSI Z97 Gaming G45 $134
G Skill Ripjaws 16GB Ram £100
Samsung SSD £162
Hitachi HDD £124
Zotac GTX970 Omega Core £340
Rosewell Thor V2 $120
EVGA 750 watt PSU $94
Total:- $1393
There's your build right there! Plenty of room for adding Win 7, monitor(s), keyboard, mouse and possibly even a Hotas... with a $2k budget... depending on what you want. Wireless Nics are reasonably inexpensive these days, so if you do go wireless then don't splash out on something with all the bells and whistles.
However, if gaming online then I would recommend to stay cabled where you can to minimise things like packet loss and external interference.
If you do want a good inexpensive gaming keyboard then I would recommend Perixx PX-100 (http://www.amazon.com/Perixx-PX-1100-Backlit-Keyboard-Illuminated/dp/B00AQMUE30/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436655488&sr=8-1&keywords=Perrix+PX-1100). For a total of $65, you might as well get the mouse that Amazon suggests to go with it as well. Will all go with your colour scheme. I have that keyboard and I do think it is very good!
I'm not sure if I can be much more use to you now (if I've been any at all hehe), so good luck with that build... if you go for it!
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I do want to double-check the size of the desk ledge where I currently have my machine (I could improvise a bit if I have to), but if it turns out to be a bit too small, what do you think of this Rosewill (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147107) as an alternative option? Apparently it's a mid-ATX case, but big enough that it might as well be a full one.
Other than that, just need to double-check the motherboard stuff, and I think I'll be almost set to go. A bit more on the general side of things, what sort of other miscellany do I need to make sure to include when I place my order? I know I'll need a SATA cable or two for the requisite items, but anything else other than that? And should I bother with one of those little anti-static wristbands, or am I okay so long as I keep touching metal while I'm actually doing the build?
Edit: Okay guys, this listing (http://pcpartpicker.com/p/326zLk) should be pretty much finalized as far as I can tell, barring a potential case change. I switched to the ASUS mobo with USB 3.1 support, and even if I don't have anything to take advantage of that now I figure future-proofing for the same price doesn't hurt. If there's any reason at all why someone thinks I should switch back to the MSI board, speak now or hold your peace. That particular Panasonic BD-writer seemed to have really good reviews and comes with at least some basic software, so that should work just fine. I think I'm just about ready to load this stuff in a cart and then sit mashing the refresh button on the tracking info until it gets here. :D
(Oh right, then I have to worry about the display...)
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Other than that, just need to double-check the motherboard stuff, and I think I'll be almost set to go. A bit more on the general side of things, what sort of other miscellany do I need to make sure to include when I place my order? I know I'll need a SATA cable or two for the requisite items, but anything else other than that? And should I bother with one of those little anti-static wristbands, or am I okay so long as I keep touching metal while I'm actually doing the build?
Yeah, SATA cables are surprisingly important. When I was originally building my current system, I didn't even think about them until I got to the point that I was putting the HDD and DVD drive in place and only had one cable (gee, if I plug it into the DVD drive I can install Windows, but then I won't have a drive to install it to...). But antistatic wristbands? Bullcocks. Never used 'em, never broken anything.
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I would really stick with the full tower case. The GPU is 12 inches long! I reckon you will struggle with Blackhawk.
You can get away without the anti-static wristband, however, you have to be extra careful when handling different components if you have not earthed yourself.
When I build, I put the PSU into the case first and plug it into a wall socket. Then I touch the metal on the case a this discharges any static I have built up. I don't know if U.S sockets have an earth pin like U.K power does, so I don't know if this would be a viable solution. As long as you have discharged yourself of static, then you would not need the wristband. Personally, I do want to get one though... 32 in September so I might ask for one for me B'day! :)
As for Sata cables, check with the vendor if they are included in with the mobo package. 9 times out of 10, they are! I think 4 sata cables came with my mobo when I got it about 6 months back!
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The spec sheet for that Rosewill Blackhawk says "5 types of HDD cage placement for your long VGA card or liquid cooling radiator needs; Supports up to 11.8" (30cm) length VGA card (HDD cage NOT removed); Supports up to 16.5" (42cm) length VGA card (HDD cage removed)". For any case you pick out, you might search for info like that - maybe from reviews if the product page doesn't mention it.
My 10 year old mid-tower Thermaltake Tsunami dream seems monstrous in size, but I had to dremel a notch in the hard drive cage to clear a GTX260 and later my GTX480. Some of the newer designs are laid out better to avoid situations like that and allow full-size video cards in smaller cases.
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My cooler master HAF 912 mid tower has moveable HDD bays to clear out of the way of extra long video cards if necessary. Also thick enough for massive CPU air coolers like the hyper 212. I think you'll be fine with most modern mid towers. Massive video cards isn't a new thing. And if you're not afraid to do some cutting, then you REALLY have nothing to worry about :D
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Yes, the case size shouldn't be an issue as the video cards have been their current size for a long time. The Fury cards and some of the 970s are actually much smaller.
I have an old CM Stacker case that is over 10 years old now, but it's still nice enough and newer ones aren't enough of an upgrade to bother with. A case is something that stays with you practically forever.
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You know what, screw it, I'll go with the bigass Thor. I like the front ports being angled upward as opposed to sticking straight up with the Blackhawk, which should make them much easier to access.
All righty, putting my order in for this beauty (http://pcpartpicker.com/p/326zLk). Looks like the mobo comes with two SATA cables, so I'll just toss in another for my BD drive and that should be good. I'm sure I'll have more questions once all this stuff starts coming in, and I still have to do the display part, but seriously, you guys kick so much ass for all the help. :D
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No problem Mongoose!
I'm glad you went for the bigass case. But I would say that because I advised it haha!
Whereas the others are correct in what they say regarding mid-towers, I was thinking about ease of use for you as this was your first build and you don't want to start removing HDD bays etc... just so a bigass card can fit in a mid tower.
There are smaller GTX 970s, but I checked the size of the specific model you were getting. I still think you should go with the Omega Core rather than the Extreme Core, because of that 80MHz core speed for $20. Still, I'm sure you will enjoy that build. It would certainly destroy mine!
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Yeah, I know I could have been fine going with the cheaper one, but apparently both the clock speed and GDDR5 were increased, and the fan setup looked better. Plus I needed to get some e-peen splurge on somewhere. :p
And to answer your earlier question, yes, the PSU will have a grounded plug. (A lot of everyday electronics in the US, even up to TV sets, don't have them, but fortunately computers and monitors always do.) I'll make sure to keep it plugged in when I'm actually getting stuff installed.
Speaking of, do you really think it's worth doing the whole "hook up your components in a cardboard box and make sure everything POSTs" routine before actually doing the final assembly inside the case? I've seen people advocating both for and against it in various comment threads. I'm sure it is really handy in that it lets you avoid having to take a bunch of crap out if something winds up being DOA, but given how much space this case has it probably won't be too difficult if I need to do that.
And in happy news, my case and the HDD were delivered almost overnight (yay for living close to the warehouse), and holy **** this case is a ****ing tank. :lol: I'm fairly positive that it won't remotely fit on the lower desk shelf where my current system sits, but oh well, I'll make do. Unfortunately the rest of the system guts are shipping from Cali, so it'll probably be a few days. And now I really need to get on picking that monitor, because this is actually getting real now.
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Speaking of, do you really think it's worth doing the whole "hook up your components in a cardboard box and make sure everything POSTs" routine before actually doing the final assembly inside the case? I've seen people advocating both for and against it in various comment threads. I'm sure it is really handy in that it lets you avoid having to take a bunch of crap out if something winds up being DOA, but given how much space this case has it probably won't be too difficult if I need to do that.
I've never bothered to do that. Doing it that way, you are guaranteed to assemble it all twice, while doing it once in the case is likely the only time you will have to do it. If something doesn't work, THEN take I it apart and try outside the box.
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I've had systems fail to start the first time. It was never necessary to pull everything back out to fix it. Usually just a not fully seated module, card, or power connector. Building it outside the case first seems like a massive waste of time to me.
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A professional builder will most likely build out the case to make sure it POSTs, but personally I have never bothered.
What might be an idea is to connect several parts to your mobo outside of the case such as CPU, RAM and in some cases the heatsink... so that you can drop the mobo in as one block. It might be an idea to do this, as well as hooking up SATA cables and the front panel connectors. I would recommend that you fit you GPU last, as the size of them can often obscure other connections like SATA cables... depending on the mobo layout.
With regards to earthing yourself, fit the PSU to your case and plug it into the mains. There is no need to turn the power on at the mains either, which will keep you safe as well! Also, make use of the anti-static bag that the mobo comes in, as that will help protect the mobo when building. Don't bother with the cardboard box... in all honesty I generally hold the components by their edges and place the mobo anti-static cover on top of the box it came in, then start playing lego.
Before turning new build on, I would follow a basic checklist:-
1) CPU in securely and heatsink fitted securely
2) RAM plugged in
3) HDD/SSD/DVD/BRD connected
4) All components that require PSU power connected
5) Front panel connected
6) GPU plugged in and powered by PSU
7) EVERYTHING securely in place and screwed down where necessary
8) Monitor connected
9) Leave the side panel off just in case you need to go back into the case
10) Windows disc at the ready
Obviously, the above isn't in a particular order... but if that list is satisfied you are good to go. Be ready to jump into the BIOS straight away (usually by hitting DEL) as you will most likely need to change the boot order in the BIOS so you can load Windows.
Once again I hope this helps. If anyone else can see anything I've missed from that list, obviously please post it and I will edit this post for Mongoose to follow! :)
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Going to have to agree with the others. If you have the room in the case, mount the board in it, put in the bare necessities (RAM, video, CPU), hook up the power and see if the magic smoke comes out, and go from there. ;7
Just make sure you don't drag your feet when putting things together and touch something metal that's grounded every so often, just to be a bit paranoid. :nod:
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Oh yeah, I'm gonna have my hand glued to some bare metal in the case. :p
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Glue is an insulator.
(unverified)
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Welp, it's here. Insert the "I have no idea what I'm doing" dog meme.
I dragged my feet on monitors for a few days, but I started digging into them last night, and...hoo boy. I guess between ignorance and naivete, I hadn't realized that LCD technology has stagnated in a bunch of ways over the past several years. That TN-vs-IPS divide is a *****: if you get great color and viewing angles, you have to sacrifice the ability to see anything better than 60FPS. (You can apparently get both, if you want to spend like $900, which is a biiiiit excessive as far as I'm concerned.) At this point it seems like you almost have to grit your teeth and bear with it until OLED technology matures enough to enter the market. I did find a really highly-rated 144Hz 1ms TN display from ASUS that I'll link in here, but I still don't know if it's worth giving up on IPS, since I'm obviously going to be using my machine for more than just pure gaming. But while I figure that out, what I should ponder is whether my ancient CRT can survive 1600x1200 without bursting into flames.
(I also saw someone mention this prospective display technology whose name I can't remember, where each pixel is essentially its own electron gun. Apparently it would have been pretty much the best of all worlds display-wise...but then all the manufacturers cut off their research as LCDs became ubiquitous. Figures.)
EDIT: It's running! And installing Windows 7! And it drew some blood, so it's a real build! And I'm...freaking exhausted. :lol: You guys didn't mention how emotionally draining this would be. The build itself went really well as a whole. I can't say enough about this case's plethora of openings for cable management (just do me a favor and don't look behind the motherboard). I did run into one glitch the first time I fired everything up: when I was just booting into the BIOS, the stock CPU fan started screaming like a turboprop, and the CPU temp climbed to 70 and seemed to want to keep going. Turns out I hadn't properly fastened it into place, so it wasn't making full contact with the CPU. (Also didn't realize that even the pre-applied thermal paste winds up going all gooey when you start running.) Even without an aftermarket cooler, I figured I'd **** that part up somehow. :p It took me a few tries, but I got it to click in properly, and now the thing sounds fine. Of course I might have avoided this if Intel's directions had included any text whatsoever instead of essentially being a goddamn LEGO manual...
Oh, and here's (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236313) the ASUS TN display I mentioned earlier. But while I was looking that up, lo and behold this 144 Hz IPS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236466) pops up for a $200 discount, and it's 2560x1440 to boot. That's still about $200 more than I'd really wanted to spend as my max, but it seems like an absolute beast of a choice, and if it's going to last me a long time...hell, maybe I would splurge on it.
There's also this AOC 27" job (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824160227) that gives 144 Hz. Damn this **** is complicated...
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My God this SSD is pure sex. I can go from hitting the power button to looking at my desktop in just over ten seconds. Getting back on this old machine while I'm setting everything up is just painful; I can see now why everyone says they'll never go back to an HDD-only setup. I did wind up accidentally putting the system reserved partition onto the HDD instead (made the rookie mistake of having both connected during Windows installation, and I didn't really pay attention to which SATA ports I was using), but I copied the boot files over to the SSD and deleted the partition without incident. I've been Googling all sorts of one-off questions, and I managed to figure out how to enable XMP to let my RAM live up to its full potential, which is one more thing I had no clue about before all of this. :lol: I have some birthday gifts due to me, so I think I'm going to pick up a G502 mouse, and fiddle around with any keyboards Best Buy has on display to see what feels good.
Other revelations: a BIOS with graphical menus and mouse support! And a Nvidia control panel that lets you auto-update your drivers without having to dig through support pages! It's amazing what happens when you're cut off from all progress for a decade. Now I just need to figure out which of these half-dozen monitor and utility programs I installed off the hardware disks are actually worth keeping around...
I definitely still could use a hand with the display, though. If nothing else, I'd love to hear what you guys are using right now, or anything you're planning on buying.
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I'll give you more suggestions on monitors, but I'm using a pair of cast-offs (a 23" 2K Samsung with a cracked bezel and a 22" 1680x1050 Acer) and have never spent much money on screens (or any of my parts, to be honest). So understand where I'm standing here:
I wouldn't be concerned about high refresh rates, personally - I'd go with a 60hz IPS with decent color accuracy over a 120/144hz TN panel any day, and would be leery of spending more than 200-250 to do so.
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Good to hear that everything is working well. :yes:
And yes, LCD technology has stagnated for a long time now. Even IPS displays are rather overrated. They have accurate midtones but the black levels are just as bad as TNs, and they have other issues like IPS glow and more motion blur at high framerates. The only major benefit they offer is the viewing angles. Both technologies would be destroyed by OLED if we ever get some actual computer monitors based on that. That Asus is good overall though and doesn't involve many compromises (although it's better suited for AMD cards due to freesync). The monitor is the most important part of any build, and it's definitely worth spending some money there.
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I'm done some thinking on it, and as drool-worthy as it is, I don't really feel like I can justify spending $600 on a monitor, especially considering what I just spent on the entire system and the other usual financial commitments of life. Plus, with my luck, I'd shell out that crazy amount only to see comparable displays pop up for half as much within a year. I was also out on a shopping trip with the 'rents tonight, and I came to the realization that a 27" screen is...pretty goddamn big. Probably too much so, when it comes down to it (though it'd sure as hell match this monster of a case that, as I suspected, really doesn't fit well around my desk :D). Not to mention that there's no guarantee a single GTX970 would be able to handle new games in QHD at anything above 60FPS in the first place, at least not without toning down some settings. So at least as of right now, I'm leaning towards this 144Hz ASUS (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236313). I know it's a TN display, but I feel like if I have to compromise between somewhat-better color fidelity and unleashed framerates, I'd want to stick with the latter. Plus this particular model seems to have extremely good reviews and was recommended on a "best gaming monitors" listing or two I came across.
Also I was the brief owner of a Logitech G602 after a stop in Office Max, until I realized that I could get the same thing for $10 less on Newegg, and besides I didn't wind up liking it as much as the G502 I was leaning towards. The long-life wireless is a big plus, but I didn't like the lack of dual-function (or even sideways-tilt) scrolling, and the six thumb buttons seemed too small to use reliably.
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Welp, I went ahead and ordered that ASUS display, which should be arriving on Monday. Also picked up the Logitech G502, so pretty much the only thing still wanting is a new keyboard. Unfortunately it doesn't look like any storefront around here actually sells mechanical keyboards, so I may wind up needing to trust some reviews on that one. Still, that's a fairly low priority.
I also haven't managed to blow up the system yet, despite doing a bit of tinkering with things. I've discovered that the ASUS AI Suite 3 that I wound up installing looks like it can do a frightening number of things, though what I also discovered is that it has my CPU listed as running at 4.4 GHz, instead of the stock 4.0. It seems like that's a result of selecting the extreme memory profile in the BIOS to take advantage of the full 2133 MHz memory clock; would the CPU generally be boosted automatically as a result as well? Since I am on the stock cooler, I don't want to accidentally wind up screwing it up, though the idle temperature is somewhere around 45 C or so according to the utility.. I also discovered the built in Fan Xpert 3 utility, which can do an automatic tuning of your case fans, and then lets you select from a few preset modes. Doing that and then setting it to Standard has all of the fans running much more quietly, which is good as far as I'm concerned. There is one thing I don't understand, though: separate from the tuning is a Benchmark feature for your fans, but every time I attempt to run it, halfway through I get a warning about the CPU overheating. I'm not exactly sure what the function is attempting to do, and the temperatures afterwards don't seem any different, so I'm not sure what's going on there.
Edit: Well I figured part of it out at least. When I select the XMP profile in the BIOS, the CPU core ratio setting is changed from Auto to "Sync All Cores." I can then go back and set it to Auto on my own before leaving the BIOS. Putting it on Auto seems to make the CPU run substantially cooler, which is obviously what I want. I'm not sure why the XMP was automatically changing the setting there, though. And running it that cool allowed the Benchmark option in the fan utility to successfully complete, so again I guess that's good things. The weird thing is that the frequency is still consistently showing as 4.4 GHz in the utility...which I guess is normal? (If it helps, the BCLK frequency is set to 100 HMz, and the ratio to 44, though I can decrease the ratio as low as 41 manually.) Again, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing here; I just don't want to break something. :lol:
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Since you already bought Logitech G502, you may want to consider Logitech G710+ for a keyboard. I have it and so far it's been good. As a bonus you wouldn't need to install another software, since Logitech Gaming Software handles all G-products.