f13.net

It's for gaming. I like things that last. I don't want to deal with liquid cooling. I'd like it to be stable. I will not overclock. I have no problem hand-building shit. So, links to Amazon are fine, but I wouldn't mind NOT hand-building shit either.

I'd LOVE to walk into Fry's and walk out of Fry's but if there's a better deal online to just buy the whole damn thing, I can do that too.

Hit me with it.

I got tired of building my own so for my last go-round (a couple of years ago) I got an Alienware and I don't regret it.

Hmmmm, do Alienware coupons exist?

Obligatory: what's your budget?

Find a local shop, pick your components, dump them on the counter and hand them your credit card. In 2 days you will have a shiny new system! It is worth the $75 or whatever they charge to assemble everything and install the OS if you value your own time (and have the little bit of extra cash to make it happen).

$1500, but I'd love to be frugal and be ~$1000 if the sacrifice is like 10% performance.

No component reuse? I.e. you need everything for a new box?

I had my last one built through ibuypower.com, no complaints.

I have 4 harddrives I'll be plugging into this bitch, but the old computer is for the wife. So, absolutely no component re-use. Not even the case.

Edit: There's nothing actually wrong with this box, she's just tired of gaming on a laptop.

Edit 2: 100% chance of Windows 7 64-bit. I don't wanna mess with Win 8.

It does look as though I can walk into Fry's and buy most configurations of Alienware or iBuyPower PCs and walk out with it. Tempting. The question is, which one: http://www.frys.com/search?query_string=&cat=-68380&pType=pDisplay&fq=100311%20Gaming&sort=manu%20asc&start=0&cat=-68380&from=0&to=24

I would end up with Windows 8, but ehhhhh fuuuuckit. Ease of shopping.

I had my last one put together on Black Friday at cyberpowerpc for around $1200.

Yeah the problem with those is you don't want the video cards on the ones within your budget but the ones cheap enough so you can throw away the bundled graphics card and put in your own have crap CPUs. You are also paying for hard drives you don't need (better to get at least one SSD).

This one almost works but it's not available:

http://www.frys.com/product/7331944#detailed

It has a decent CPU (though it's last gen Ivy Bridge not Haswell) and a crappy GPU so you aren't wasting much money by throwing it away.

This one almost works:

http://www.frys.com/product/7912040?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

However chipset (H81) only has 4 SATA ports. You can work around it in theory if you buy a separate PCI-e SATA card but that would fill up all your PCi-e slots (it only has two of them). It also only has 2 memory slots so you would have to throw away all the memory if you wanted to upgrade to 16 GB. It also has a hideous case.

Windows 8.1 is actually OK. Seriously. Just avoid 8.0.

I swore I'd never get any species of 8 on my new computer, but faced with no choice whatsoever I ended up with 8.1, and promptly wondered why I ever though 7 was so great in the first place.

My recommendation for "to last" is a motherboard with the two video slots spaced out, so you can put in 2 mid-range video cards and install Arctic cooling fans (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186052) on them, because built-in fans are noisy and pathetic at removing the heat.  I'd also recommend downloading MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision (or equivalent) to manually control your videocard fan speeds (or set temperature -> speed profiles that actually cool appropriately).  Manufacturers like to set the fans on "quiet", and you start a graphics-intensive Skyrim or whatever and burn up your video.

I don't have an actual build, sorry.  I usually hand-build from newegg.com, picking parts based on reviews, starting with the CPU-mobo combo.  No clue what the current good video cards are; need  to look at VGA charts to figure that out.

I have an extra 16gb of PC3 12800 RAM (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148663&nm_mc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel&cm_mmc=TEMC-RMA-Approvel-_-Content-_-text-_-) that is in transit care of the retarded fuckwads at newegg, more than happy to sell it to you for the $127 it cost me instead of having to wait on hold to see how  these asshats are going to screw me again.

Don't waste your money on an alientware. You can get something more powerful or much cheaper at just about all of the other custom shops. I got a computer from ibuypower once and it was awesome for the price, my only complaint being the inside of the case wasn't packed like they promised and the video card/pci slot were nearly completely ripped off the board after shipping.

Buy the parts you want and pay a place to assemble it for you.

Hm. Depending on what i get, that may work.

I cycle through Alienware, ibuypower, cyberpower and my latest was via Ironside.

They're all pretty solid, and you basically build on all of them and see who strangely comes in 40% cheaper than the rest this time around or who has the least dumb preconfigured things on newegg.

Do you need a new display as well in the $1500 budget or is that just for the PC components?

I usually go to anandtech for product reviews and recommendations, he has his own set of biases but at least he always discloses his testing methodology which allows you to draw your own conclusions. He currently has a few holiday buyer's guides and ongoing review features focusing on gaming at any budget, so you might look into that. http://anandtech.com/show/7541/best-desktop-cpus-holiday-2013 http://anandtech.com/show/7557/best-desktop-video-cards-holiday-2013

If I were you I'd consider a SSD as my main system drive or some form of hybrid SSD/HD solution. The boost by the SSD is probably the biggest performance upgrade you can get and is a better use of your money than 5% more CPU or GPU performance. Another factor would be if the games you usually play are more CPU bound or GPU bound. If your games are more CPU bound I'd go for the i7-4770K, if they're more GPU bound I'd go for the i5-4670K and spend the $100 saved on a better GPU. The best bet - at least for me - would be to go for the i5 since the majority of games will be GPU bound. It's $220 at the moment.

The next question would be which gaming resolution you're likely aiming for since that determines the type of GPU you'd want. If you're content with 1080p at max settings your best bet would be an ATI R9 270X at $199 while going for best 1440p gaming will mean you need to go for a Nvidia GTX 780 or ATI R9 290 for $499/$399 instead.

If it were my money I'd buy a i5-4670, the R9 270X and go from there. If you don't need over clocking or 'extreme' gamer support the MB doesn't break the bank but I would at least go for a decent Z87 MB for multi GPU support in the future.

You'd be looking at:

CPU: $220
GPU: $199
MB: $120 (the 'best' Z87 MB is currently at $180)
8GB: of RAM $80
$200 for a decent 256 GB SSD

This would be around $800 for the basic components which would get you at $1000 or less for the full package including case, power supply and CPU cooler. $500 more would get you the the i7 instead of the i5, 16 GB of RAM instead of 8GB and a ATI R9 290/NVidia 780 GTX class GPU which is a pretty decent upgrade to the basic system.

I have 2 24" monitors. I do not need that particular part.

It's really just beginning to sound like I should buy a prebuilt or custom built box. The cost difference is within $100 and I won't have to do shit but plug it in.

You can build a pretty nice system for $1100 or so:

• Z87 motherboard ($125)
• core i7 4770 ($300),
• 16gb RAM ($130)
• 650 watt PSU ($100)
• 256gb Samsung 840 Pro SSD ($220)
• a nice case ($100)
• video card ($200)

I'll reiterate that the K series Intel processors are gimped on a few features, if you are not going to overclock I would strongly recommend you not purchase a K processor.

edit - Alternatively you could pick up a refurbed Alienware x51 R2 from the dell home outlet for $1000-$1250 (depending on how it is equipped)  these are sporting an Intel Core i7 4770 chip so you know they aren't some old crap that has been sitting around for too long.  There is even a scratch and dent for $1049 right now (not preowned and usually doesn't have scratches or dents)

Something like this is what I would build given the budget ($1,151.39 not including shipping and other extras):

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=23591332

For the case you can get anything you like that has at least 6 internal 3.5" bays. You'll need that many for your 4 hard drives + a new Windows boot drive + your future SSD drive. I picked Antec since they are dependable and relatively cheap in this case.

The motherboard choice is a little odd but it's one of the few that has 8 SATA ports, which again you'll need for your 4 hard drives + new Windows boot drive + your future SSD drive + your DVD-ROM drive. In other words standard motherboards that come with 6 SATA ports won't support all of your eventual drive collection. If you are okay with having some of your hard drive be external or getting a separate SATA PCI-e card for more internal SATA ports you can go with a cheaper MB. Something like MSI MB (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130727) at $125 would probably work well for you.

Power supply is made by Seasonic for Corsair so you are paying a bit more for the quality. You can go with one of the Channel Well Corsairs (http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/psu_manufacturers) if you want to save a few bucks.

For video card I picked one of the cheaper GTX 760's. It's easy to upgrade the GPU in the future so there's no reason to splurge now and blow your budget. I didn't check to see if there are any special deals with rebates and/or bundled games so there might be better values out there.

Ideally you would get one or more SSDs but that would take you into the $1500 range. Instead as a compromise my list has a "hybrid" drive which has a small SSD linked to a regular hard drive (like Intel's SRT technology). I use the laptop 750 GB version of that hybrid drive to boot my gaming PC from and it works pretty well. Doesn't boot quite as fast as an SSD but it's much faster than a regular hard drive. Once you get the money you can get a real SSD and put your games on that while continuing to boot off the hybrid drive (my gaming PC is setup that way).

Trippy has a very solid build that I built back in October.  The only outstanding things I'd consider are:

1.  Going Samsung SSD in place of that Seagate.  I've used Seagate platter drives in the past and they've been great.  But Samsung is owning SSDs at this moment. 
2.  That case is a great case, but it will collect a lot of dust.  I was wiping out my 900 every week.
3.  The Cooler Master 212 was a great idea in my build, but even in my build it covers one slot of low-profile memory.  If I ever decide to jump to 16g, I'll have to pull the 212.
4.  Use a static strap.

It doesn't buckle under anything I throw at it.  Good luck!

Would not touch MSI for a new build motherboard.  You turn to them when you need a replacement board for an older system (ie you have no choice but a new system)

Agree with that. Although: Price difference between an 4470K and a 4470 on Newegg is only 30$ (339.99 vs 309.99). So a K might still be worth it, unless you are 100% sure you will never OC. If that is the case there is better alternative though: Intel Xeon E3-1230V3 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116906) (3.3GHz 8MB L3). Newegg price $ 249.99, so saving $ 80 vs getting a 4770k. Xeons are the Server equivalent of the desktop i7 variants, but with the same features (except the IGP).

Edit: And if a short trip to the BIOS isn't too much hassle you can lock the multiplier at 37x (normally single-core-load turbo speed) so it runs at 3.7 Ghz permanently. Really the go-to CPU imho for anyone who doesn't want to OC (or go beyond 3.7 Ghz)  :-)

I have never ever overlocked a computer.

I'm currently on Q9450. I wish new processors had a 12MB L2 cache.

Edit: Also, I guess I could just buy a 3TB harddrive and compress my current set of drives down to 1. That would probably be smart.

Looks like I'm getting a free computer that doesn't have a graphics card. It's a last-gen i5.

Changing thread topic to reflect this.

Now I need to know what graphics card to buy.

Whats your budget?   :awesome_for_real:

What do you want? ;)

Total High End:
Radeon R9 290x or Geforce GTX 780Ti

~500$ High End:
Radeon R9 290 or GeForce GTX 780

Performance
Radeon R9 280x or Geforce GTX 760

Here is a little chart. Preis/Leistung stands for Price/Performance
(http://i.imgur.com/HCroBav.png)

Edit:
R9 290x <> GTX 780Ti Both aren't worth it. Extra premium for being the fastest cards. Better to take a card one step below and used the saved money to upgrade again earlier.

R9 290 <> GTX 780 is clearly in favour of the 290. Cost less and is faster. Major downside: very loud card.

R9 280X <> GTX 760 is a wash. 280 is faster, but costs more. 760 slower, but also cheaper. Both in a pretty good price/performance spot.

How about options in the $200-$350 range?

Good luck finding a 280/290 anywhere near MSRP. Prices are jacked way the hell up because of shitcoin miners.

wut

The Radeon 280/290 series is the series of choice for... bitcoin miners? How stupid.

I used these charts to figure out what was comparable to the GTX 570 I had that died, then hunted for a good price on Newegg & Microcenter (who have a shop local)

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/

I wound-up with a MSI GTX 760 because the Evga I bought was DOA and when I returned it they were sold-out at Microcenter that day.  I paid about $275 on sale, but the list was around what the benchmark chart has it at IIRC.

Last I checked motherboards that support Xeons cost a fair bit more $$, then again that may just be the boards needed for the Xeons I have looked at, which were all the equivalent of 2 Intel processors (so the core i7 equiv Xeon has 8 physical cores + 8 virtual cores).  

On the graphics card front how well is nVidia doing on pushing 3+ monitors from a single GPU?  AMD got the jump on everyone in this department (I think my current card can do 6), although the the Intel 4000 HD on chip graphics can do 3 displays fairly easy now, I haven't really heard much about how well newer nVidea cards handle this...

edit - price for the 4770s on amazon is flipped can get a 4770 for $303 and a 4770k is $319, IIRC originally Intel had planned on selling the K for $20-$30 more than a non K, looks like the market over ruled them.  People buy an i7 for the number of cores, one of the primary reasons you need a lot of cores is to run VMs, disabling the VT-d and vPro extensions on an 8 core chip is pretty stupid.  One of the other main reasons to want a lot of cores is to run multi-threaded programs faster for the K series Intel has also disabled the TSX extensions which impacts the performance of multi-threaded apps.

Assuming your power supply is beefy enough I'd get a GTX 770. This one is available in your Fry's right now, though it doesn't come with any bundled games:

http://www.frys.com/product/7717518

Assuming it's not beefy enough, what's the next step down?

I looked up the 770 power consumption for you and it's not particular bad. If your PSU can't handle it you'll have issues with most cards.

Edit: Computerbase gives ~277 W (under load, Assassin's Creed 3, entire system), Anandtech has 374 W in BF 3 (again system, not card, measured at the power plug)

Find a microcenter and buy whatever mATX/cpu combo they have on sale.  Slap in last year's GPU (software is light-years behind hardware) and put in as much ram as possible.  Find a diablotek with a PSU included and add more cooling than necessary as those cheap mobos dont shed heat really well.

You shouldn't spend more than $800 this way.

GTX 760.

Here's a chart showing power consumption for the GTX 770, 760 and 660 Ti:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7103/nvidia-geforce-gtx-760-review/16

It's the series of choice for clueless bitcoin miners. OpenCL/CUDA is great for number crunching but the way bitcoin mining is setup means you won't turn a profit on mining if you factor in the cost of those cards.

Looks like the MSI 760 is in stock for $260. Is the 770 actually worth the extra $110?

It will give you a noticeable boost in frame rates at higher settings and resolutions. That may or may not be worth the extra $110 to you. You can review some of the benchmarks from that same review above.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7103/nvidia-geforce-gtx-760-review/4

As I said in my computer build above, though, the video card is the easiest thing to upgrade so if you want to save some money now and get something better later that's fine too.

The most graphic intensive game I own is Diablo 3, and I'm pretty sure that's processor-bound.

I am a terrible gamer.

Edit: I guess I own Bioshock Infinite also.

Ugh, looks like I might need to make a Win7 disc and acquire a educational or msdn key.

Just go buy an OEM copy of Windows 7 at Fry's.

I'm not buying Windows because I have a key. I just don't have the disc and have no clue what version (OEM, Upgrade, Full, etc) it was.

I think I've got the problem licked already anyway.

For 1080p gaming the GTX760 seems to be enough to get the job done with mid-high quality settings on most stuff.  It's what I put in my living room gaming box (little shuttle cube) and I've been happy with it.

Picked up a Seagate Hybrid (wtf only 2.5"?) and the MSI Gaming N760.

OH WHAT THE FUCK IT'S A LAPTOP DRIVE

well suck my ass Fry's

Seagate has 3 generations of hybrid drives now, 2 of which (2nd gen and 3rd gen) are available for purchase. The Momentus XT is 2nd gen. That's a 7200 RPM laptop drive. The 3rd gen are called "SSHD" and there are laptop and desktop versions -- i.e. "Seagate Laptop SSHD" and "Seagate Desktop SSHD". The 3rd gen laptop drives spin at 5400 RPM. The desktop drives supposedly spin at 7200 RPM though Seagate is being cagey now and is not printing the RPM spec for that anymore. The 3rd gen are more intelligent in using the SSD so on the laptop side even though it only spins at 5400 RPM for the tasks that can use the SSD it'll offer slightly better performance than the Momentus XT. However for tasks that can't utilize the SSD the Momentus XT is faster since it's a 7200 RPM drive. If Fry's has the Desktop SSHD model you'll probably want that one instead as it's 3rd gen and 7200 RPM.

Benchmarks are here:

http://techreport.com/review/25425/seagate-desktop-sshd-2tb-hybrid-drive-reviewed/4

Drive versions are here:

http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/laptop-hard-drives/laptop-solid-state-hybrid-drive/#specs
http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/desktop-solid-state-hybrid-drive/#specs

I've been looking to sell my GTX 680 for awhile. It's this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130769

$350 shipped?

I don't "buy" used computer gear. General rule.

Ordered this from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-Solid-Hybrid-ST2000DX001/dp/B00EIQTKAS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1387171994&sr=8-3&keywords=seagate+hybrid

Returning that stupid laptop drive to Fry's ASAP.

I just finished building pretty much the same system as Paelos and am pretty happy with the GTX770 so far.  Totally echoing the sentiment about not building it myself in the future, though.

Hmmmm, how dicky do I want to be this Christmas season. Ordered a retail 2TB SSHD from Amazon, received an OEM one.

That is the drive-only part number: ST2000DX001

Toggle between drive-only and kit on this page for 2 TB and you can see the different part numbers:

http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/desktop-solid-state-hybrid-drive/

Do you defrag those?

Well that's obnoxious.

You can if you want though Seagate doesn't recommend you do it regularly, presumably because that causes the SSD contents to become invalidated.

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/216791en

SSHDs just look like more ways for things to break/go wrong. Fuck that.

But they are blazing fast.

Nowhere near as fast as a dedicated SSD I'd say, plus you miss out on a major boon, no spinning parts! Multiple points of failure in a hard-drive is not a good thing.


Especially with my history.

I misread it.  That's what I thought we were talking about.

Christ, I need sleep.

SSHDs fill a niche I am not sure needs to be filled. Just get an SSD for the OS and all regularly used software/games and a 4 TB green HD as datagrave.

Computer I got is this thing: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&docname=c02504608#N1387

Of course it won't drive a fucking Nvidia 760.

urghhhhhh

Just get a bigger power supply.

Am going to. Gonna love gutting this poorly fucking designed stock HP one from this thing.

What's good ~800 watts these days? Corsair modular still the tits?

You don't really need 450w for a single 760. That system shouldn't draw more than 350 watts max. Nvidia always highballs their listed power requirements for some reason.

edit: 800 whats?

Schild go home, you are drunk

I have the 6pin pcie power line plugged into the card and its saying to connect the power to it. Maybe i somehow installed it wrong. Dont think so though.

Edit: unless the main power plug on this card is the 8pin and i need to use the 6 to 8pin adapter it came with.

Plug them both in. I 100% guarantee it won't catch fire.

I dont have a way to plug them both in. Thats the problem. There are no empty 4Pin leads or an 8pin from this shitty hp power supply.

Didn't the computer come with some molex adapters? You could probably pick some up at any local tech shop.

Molex adapter for what? There's no open molex leads. I have no line from which to run the 8pin adapter to the mobo or psu.

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39720/me/object_to_which_i_target_my_anger.jpg)

Your 8 pin adapter takes 6pin input, right? Just buy a few sata to 6 pin adapters.

http://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-108494-8-Inch-15-Pin-Express/dp/B009GUP6O0/ref=pd_sxp_f_pt

Did not even know those existed.

_awesome_

Looks like I'll only need one since the card came with a 6 to 8 pin adapter. Will plug that into the PCI-E 6pin lead and plug the SATA to PCI-E adapter into the 6pin slot. Whoop. Off to fry's.

Edit: I have 3 Empty 8-pin SATA cables as well. So I can just run 2 8pin SATA to MOlex if needed and use the supplied Molex to 6pin adapter. So yea, I have outs. Rad.

No that's not good. You want a dual SATA power to PCI-e adapter so the two 12V pins on the PCI-e are feed from different sources coming out of the back of the power supply.

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-SATPCIEXADAP-6-Inch-Express-Adapter/dp/B007Y91B80

Edit: Or just get a real power supply. Fry's has some Corsairs but they look like Channel Well versions (all the modular Corsairs are CW), which are still fine, they just aren't Seasonics.

Aight. I think frys has something like that also. Trippy, how do sshd partitions work? Or should i not partition this drive?

Don't partition it. The SSD is not visible to the user on those drives.

K.

Man, i dont know if any random power supply can fit in this hp piece of shit case.

They still make dual rail psu's at under 500 watts?

Bought 2 SATA to MOLEX 4-Pin adapters for $2 a piece. Seems like it's working fine. Updating Windows now. Had the wrong key for the ISO I downloaded for Windows though. WHOOPS. Apparently my key was for Windows 7 64 discs, not Windows 7 64 SP1 discs. Balls.

Edit: Looks like it only has 8GB of RAM, rather than 16GB. But better processor than I expected, Lynnfield i7 870.

I have absolutely no clue what ISO of Windows I downloaded from some tech forum.... but my Alienware key from the bottom of the laptop worked. I have a sneaking suspicion I know where that ISO came from. >_>

IT WORKS, IT REALLY WORKS, OH LAWDY

YAY!  Just in time for xmas!  (http://i.imgur.com/QhgF3A6.gif)

Windows 7 does not have OEM keys locked to manufacturer specific installers like XP did.

Ah word, good to know.

Huh, we might have gotten the exact same card. My MSI 760 just arrived today. Easy to install, though part of that was deciding to put in a 650W power supply years ago. Thing is fucking awesome, quick too, and runs much cooler than my old GTX 260.

Glad you got your rig working!

Yea, I've had no problems with the card even though I'm drawing power through two daisychained converters off the SATA line. It has been an all-around great card.