The 'Build Me A PC' Thread

[Trippy]

So does Google. That's not unusual these days.

[Lantyssa]

I find the Hitachi drives doing well a surprise.  Ten years ago they earned the DeathStar nickname.

[March]

Any strong opinions on Monitors?  I'm thinking 27"... just not sure what matters anymore.

[Trippy]

What resolution?

[March]

I've got a basic 1920 x 1080 24" now... 2560 x 1440 seems like a huge jump - but I could be persuaded.  Cheapest price is not the most important... good value/quality is.

[Salamok]

I have 2 Dell S2740L's and think they are a great 1080 27" monitor (if you like glossy displays), it is lightweight enough for an ergotron articulating arm to handle, the edge to edge glass on the front is awesome because there are no nooks or crannies to collect dust and you can use windex on it.  It has a nice vibrant IPS panel about the only thing I do not like about it is that it doesn't have the built in memory card reader that the Dell Ultrasharp displays include.  I bought my first through dell for around $315 on sale and the 2nd was through a newegg flash sale for $250.

There is a very good chance that non touch displays will drop quite a bit in price over the next year.

[March]

I have 2 Dell S2740L's and think they are a great 1080 27" monitor (if you like glossy displays), it is lightweight enough for an ergotron articulating arm to handle, the edge to edge glass on the front is awesome because there are no nooks or crannies to collect dust and you can use windex on it.  It has a nice vibrant IPS panel about the only thing I do not like about it is that it doesn't have the built in memory card reader that the Dell Ultrasharp displays include.  I bought my first through dell for around $315 on sale and the 2nd was through a newegg flash sale for $250.

There is a very good chance that non touch displays will drop quite a bit in price over the next year.

Thanks... "highly reflective" in a monitor does give me some pause, though. 

I guess I'm trying to figure out why some 1080 monitors are $199 and others are $500... and what exactly I should care about to figure out if I only need to spend $199 or something else.  Things like 2MS vs. 6MS response, TN vs. IPS, Brightness, Pixel Pitch, good manufacturers vs. fly-by-night... etc?  On the one hand 2MS is indistinguishable from 6MS ... on the other hand 3x SLOWER!  Help, data overload...

Also, there is overlap at the ~ $350 range between 1080 and 1440 ... but the 1440 vendors @ $350 are companies I've never used... so I'm wondering if I should be concerned about that.

So... all things being equal, $250-$350 for 1080 vs. $350-$450 for 1440 won't break the bank either way - is it a pick-em situation or is the low-end 1440 market a trap of dead pixels and eventual black-screen?  Top performers? Dogs? Sleeper picks?  I'm just curious what the key metrics the pro's use.

[Salamok]

I have 2 Dell S2740L's and think they are a great 1080 27" monitor (if you like glossy displays), it is lightweight enough for an ergotron articulating arm to handle, the edge to edge glass on the front is awesome because there are no nooks or crannies to collect dust and you can use windex on it.  It has a nice vibrant IPS panel about the only thing I do not like about it is that it doesn't have the built in memory card reader that the Dell Ultrasharp displays include.  I bought my first through dell for around $315 on sale and the 2nd was through a newegg flash sale for $250.

There is a very good chance that non touch displays will drop quite a bit in price over the next year.

Thanks... "highly reflective" in a monitor does give me some pause, though.  

I guess I'm trying to figure out why some 1080 monitors are $199 and others are $500... and what exactly I should care about to figure out if I only need to spend $199 or something else.  Things like 2MS vs. 6MS response, TN vs. IPS, Brightness, Pixel Pitch, good manufacturers vs. fly-by-night... etc?  On the one hand 2MS is indistinguishable from 6MS ... on the other hand 3x SLOWER!  Help, data overload...

Also, there is overlap at the ~ $350 range between 1080 and 1440 ... but the 1440 vendors @ $350 are companies I've never used... so I'm wondering if I should be concerned about that.

So... all things being equal, $250-$350 for 1080 vs. $350-$450 for 1440 won't break the bank either way - is it a pick-em situation or is the low-end 1440 market a trap of dead pixels and eventual black-screen?  Top performers? Dogs? Sleeper picks?  I'm just curious what the key metrics the pro's use.

The problem with the low end 1440 market is mainly the construction quality and controller parts not the panel itself.  If you research the right vendors you will end up with a panel that is just a binned "lower grade" version of what is used in the Apple cinema display and due to the whole practice makes perfect aspect of manufacturing they inevitably start producing more "grade A" panels than Apple is willing to buy so these end up getting tossed into the "grade B" bin.  So you can purchase a korean 1440 monitor with a panel of the same quality as an Apple display and some vendors will even garantee the pixels but it wont have the same warranty or overall build quality.  This translates to the stand will likely suck and the input ports (DVI/hdmi/vga) will be limited and/or may have performance issues that effect refresh.

That said there are non korean manufacturers that are finally dropping prices, you can get a reasonably priced dell 27" Ultrasharp for under $600 if you shop but many people do not like the matte finish antiglare coating on the dells, HP also made a good 1440 display for awhile (discontinued now I think) and I am fairly certain you can pick it up for less than the Dell's.

My criteria when looking for a monitor is:

• IPS or eIPS, absolutely no TN panels.  a 7ms IPS panel is plenty fast enough.
• Glossy screen with a good build quality.
• Must be 27" or greater in size.
• 1080 resolution, there was a time I would have preferred a 1440 but as I get older it I prefer larger pixels.  Now once Windows better embraces the whole retina concept of logical vs physical pixels I will be all over a higher res display (sorry ye olde increase font and icon sizes to 125% isn't enough).
• I pretty much always stick to Dell's as I think they are a good value for the dollar.

edit -  oh and when I get serious and am actually researching a definate purchase I go peek at hardforum to see what they are saying about the current FOTM.

edit2 - YMMV but I find that after a day using a highly reflective display you learn to just see through the reflections, I don't even notice them anymore.

[Brolan]

Howdy all!  I need a rig that plays Planetside 2 decently and I have $700-900 to spend.  Doable?

[Trippy]

Yes it's doable. Do you need everything or are you going to reuse some parts?

[Salamok]

Has anyone here built a MAME box?

[Brolan]

Might as well start from scratch I think.  All my current machines use DDR2 memory and I think thats obsolete now.  Current video card is a GTS 450 w 1G, CPU is a AMD Athlon II X2 260 Regor 3.2GHz.

[Trippy]

Uh,yeah, starting over would be good. Do you need a new monitor?

[Brolan]

Nope got Samsung 27" for Xmas.

[Trippy]

Do you want to overclock?

[Brolan]

Nope.

[Miasma]

I haven't played PS2 in a while but back when I was, as an important note, it was cpu bound not gpu bound (assuming you had a good gpu of course).

I think it also had some sort of fiddly problem if you enabled too many cores or if you only had two but the memory is fuzzy.

[Trippy]

Here's a suggested build:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=24988486

I didn't research every component, nor did I look for the best possible deals, but that'll give you an idea what to spend for each component.

[Trippy]

I haven't played PS2 in a while but back when I was, as an important note, it was cpu bound not gpu bound (assuming you had a good gpu of course).

I think it also had some sort of fiddly problem if you enabled too many cores or if you only had two but the memory is fuzzy.

They made a couple of updates at the end of last year that supposedly boosted CPU performance.

Edit: they

[Brolan]

That looks like a good build.  I assume you picked an Intel chip because AMD is still behind in the CPU race?

[Trippy]

Yes.

[01101010]

I need to grab that vid card. I still have a $20 coupon for Newegg. 

Thanks.

[Jimbo]

Went to buy the graphic cards and the MSI is on back order!!!

I wanted to get this card : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127747

I could get the 760 version by MSI, or I could get either of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125462
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130948

Both have great reviews. I could just wait till that card is back in stock hopefully, but a lot of the MSI cards are out of stock!

[MisterNoisy]

Went to buy the graphic cards and the MSI is on back order!!!

I wanted to get this card : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127747

I could get the 760 version by MSI, or I could get either of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125462
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130948

Both have great reviews. I could just wait till that card is back in stock hopefully, but a lot of the MSI cards are out of stock!

Between the two, I'd go with the Gigabyte - their 3-fan cooler is outstanding.

[Hoax]

We are a far cry these days from the glory days of EVGA but I think they may be mounting a comeback. Their version of Rivatuner (same base as MSI's afterburner) is supposedly quite good while Gigabyte's software last I checked was quite a step behind. However, I'm pretty sure you can use Riva or Afterburner or whatever software you like with any card so who cares.

For noise and cooling I think that Gigabyte's 3 fan setups usually beat out 2 fan setups when I have looked into them so that's not just for show.

These days I usually make a decision based purely on warranty length, cooling/power/noise stats and price with no real brand loyalties.

[MisterNoisy]

We are a far cry these days from the glory days of EVGA but I think they may be mounting a comeback. Their version of Rivatuner (same base as MSI's afterburner) is supposedly quite good while Gigabyte's software last I checked was quite a step behind. However, I'm pretty sure you can use Riva or Afterburner or whatever software you like with any card so who cares.

I just use MSI Afterburner regardless of whose name is on the card - it still works just fine.

[Tannhauser]

Hey, could any of your folks give me a recommendation for a $1000 or so laptop?  For gaming primarily of course.  Also I'll use it for travel, so any under 30lbs would be helpful. 

I've been on newegg and ibuypower, but nothing really jumping out at me.
Thanks.

[Nebu]

Between the two, I'd go with the Gigabyte - their 3-fan cooler is outstanding.

Thanks for this.  Just ordered a Gigabyte GTX 760 from Amazon (Yay for next day shipping for $3.99 with Prime).  Seemed like a good bang-for-the-buck card.

[Yegolev]

I need a new powerhouse PC delivered next week.  Since I usually build my own PC, I have no idea where is the best place to order something overpowered, like a i7 with 32GB RAM and a boot SSD with enormous data drive.  Any vendor recommendations?

[Strazos]

Hey, could any of your folks give me a recommendation for a $1000 or so laptop?  For gaming primarily of course.  Also I'll use it for travel, so any under 30lbs would be helpful. 

I've been on newegg and ibuypower, but nothing really jumping out at me.
Thanks.

Check out some of the new Dell offerings.

I got this guy back in 2012 and I've been very happy with it:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0081YPUS4/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Tannhauser]

Thanks man, I'll check it out.

[Trippy]

Hey, could any of your folks give me a recommendation for a $1000 or so laptop?  For gaming primarily of course.  Also I'll use it for travel, so any under 30lbs would be helpful. 

I've been on newegg and ibuypower, but nothing really jumping out at me.
Thanks.

Spec-wise on Newegg this would be your best bet assuming you are willing to put up with the foibles of SLI:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1J21B03399

[Tannhauser]

Ok that looks interesting.  I really want good audio, my current rig is unsatisfying there.  SLI I think I can deal with and I don't need another Blu-Ray player.

Appreciated!

[Salamok]

Check out some of the new Dell offerings.

Dell has recently totally fucked up what I believe was one of their best features.  Seems like you can no longer customize their desktops, to be fair I have only looked at optiplex.  They used to have 4 or 5 models that you could tweak processor and RAM on, now they have more models but there aren't any processor and RAM options.  This is made even more ridiculous when basically all the models they are advertising offer 8gb and if you want more apparently you need to install it yourself.

[Yegolev]

I believe that Dell has stopped selling the Optiplexes, based on my recent search for a PC to fit my needs which I didn't also have to build.  When it came down to it, I just decided that 16GB RAM and a spindle-drive was good enough and went for the employee discount.