New Computer Build, advice requested

[Hoax]

Building a machine for a friend, here's what I know:
-Budget is up to $1500
-Typically he's a MMO gamer, he'll play Borderlands but he's not much into fps.  He'll play some PC rpg's if I really suggest them.
-He doesn't do anything besides game, email, browse on his machine.  Doesn't really even watch thing on his computer much besides I'm sure a bunch of porn
-He'll be running dual monitors, which is annoying since I've never done that myself and I'm not sure if there is annoying stuff to watch out for

Current build is as follows, but I'm looking for input.  Sorry I'll get links in when I get back from classes.

-i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66ghz
-ASUS P6T x58 mobo
-Corsair XMS3 3x2GB DDR3 1333
-XFX Radeon, I haven't been able to decide between 5770 and 4890, need to go read a few reviews.
-SeaSonic M12 SS-700HM
-WD Caviar Green 500GB
-Windows 7 Home Premium

Total cost w/ tax and shipping is coming out to under $1300

Questions:
-Does he need i7?  Should I be considering i5?  I'd like the machine to last him 3-5 years and a mobo or cpu upgrade is out of the question.  Any other upgrade is a-ok.  But again he's been playing mostly DDO and EQ2...

-Windows 7, am I ok with Home Premium?  From the I Has thread it sounded like he doesn't need any of the pricier versions.

-Video card, I'll go read the reviews myself but if anybody knows off hand where the sweet spot is in the sub $200 ATI's these days I'd love to hear it.  I'm only fucking with XFX (brand loyalty) unless someone gives me a good reason to go another direction and I want a card with the full rear-exhaust fan not one of those shitty half enclosures.

-He has tons of HD storage, is there a better option for the OS/game install drive for the machine?  The 10k rpm drive was pricey and I didn't want to suggest it unless I can slim some costs out elsewhere.

-Anyone got a case recommendation in the $125 or cheaper range on the egg?  I spent too much for Lian Li on my personal machine 1+ yr ago and before that I've been burned by Antec twice and had one excellent experience so I'm done with those fuckers.  Anything else is fair game.  He doesn't need anything fancy at all, I'd need to check if he can fit a full tower but might be best to consider mid towers that can fit everything for now.  Also it has to be black.

TIA everyone, like I said I'll get some product links in there when I get home.

[WayAbvPar]

Why not slap in some extra RAM? It is cheap enough.

[fuser]

Questions:
-Does he need i7?  Should I be considering i5?  I'd like the machine to last him 3-5 years and a mobo or cpu upgrade is out of the question.  Any other upgrade is a-ok.  But again he's been playing mostly DDO and EQ2...

-Windows 7, am I ok with Home Premium?  From the I Has thread it sounded like he doesn't need any of the pricier versions.

-Video card, I'll go read the reviews myself but if anybody knows off hand where the sweet spot is in the sub $200 ATI's these days I'd love to hear it.  I'm only fucking with XFX (brand loyalty) unless someone gives me a good reason to go another direction and I want a card with the full rear-exhaust fan not one of those shitty half enclosures.

-He has tons of HD storage, is there a better option for the OS/game install drive for the machine?  The 10k rpm drive was pricey and I didn't want to suggest it unless I can slim some costs out elsewhere.

TIA everyone, like I said I'll get some product links in there when I get home.

- I'd say go i5 and switch the money on a HDD. P55 chipset is really good from all accounts and you have some better memory options 2x2GB or 4x2GB. The lack of the third memory channel doesn't hamper it at all. EQ2 is pretty processor heavy but an i5 should be fine.
- Windows 7 Home Premium is ok, long as your not looking for bitlocker/xp mode/join a domain/offline fines(keeping a local version of a network) etc your fine.
- Regards to video card, what size of monitor is he gaming on? It seems the 5770 can keep up with the 5850 until you cross a pretty high resolution threshold.
- Drop in an SSD instead of a Raptor, $280 for 80gb is crazy tho. If you can exist in 80gb nothing will give you the performance boost that a good SSD can Intel X25-M (second gen with trim support).

[Pennilenko]

The machine in the OP will be fantastic, and it will be fast. Just go with it.

[Sky]

Why not slap in some extra RAM? It is cheap enough.

6GB is decent, and watch RAM prices, they are a-rising. I was going to pimp miine out with another 4GB and the price went from $45 this spring to $85 for the same sticks (on the egg).

EQ2 is very cpu-intensive, also likes a lot of vram. Not sure on good video cards, but make sure it's got a big slab of fast vram and at least a 256-bit memory controller. The 5770 only has a 128-bit, the 4890 has a 256-bit. I don't know if the nvidia 260 is any good (I'm happy with my 8800gtx and not up on the new cards), but it does feature a 448-bit interface at $180 (the 295 has a double 448-bit controller, but is $$$). Over the years I've found the width of the memory controller has made a HUGE difference, I've had at least 256-bit since the radeon 9800 pro.

Cases, I've been happy with my Antec p180, but you've got to watch cable length because they put the psu in a separate bottom chamber...need long cables for the PSU.

Home Premium unless you need XP mode or domain joining.

HDD, I just put 7 on a WD black 500GB. Too soon to tell, until I get it jammed full of crap and get gaming on it, but it seems zippy. My XP drive is a 10k drive, so any performance issues that are tangible should be...err...tangible.

[Miguel]

-WD Caviar Green 500GB

WD Black 1TB - WD1001FALS - 32MB cache, 7200 RPM....tasty.

I'm liking the i7-920 Bloomfield Quad cores...I can't see going wrong with one.

[AutomaticZen]

You can drop down to i5 and get a better video card if he's just gaming.

[Kageh]

I'd say at this point, P55 chipset/Socket 1156/Lynnfield architecture gives you the most bang for the buck in the high-end segment. Performance is comparable with the i7s for gaming, multi-threading is available, and the Turbo mechanic works a lot better on the Lynnfields. Although it isn't that efficient in triggering and if you overclock, you'll probably turn it off anyway.

Do you plan to overclock at all? I read the Lynnfields make very good OC processors. Bloomfields are good too, but heat up a lot more. I'm using an i7 myself, am very happy with gaming performance.

ATI, I'd definitely buy a 5-series card. No need to go last-gen for such a build.

Something else I'd recommend, considering the budget and computer class: Buy a second drive and set-up a raid array. You can do a matrix raid array with ICH10R, meaning you can make a Raid 1 partition for data and a Raid 0 for games with the same two drives. It won't set you back too much money-wise, and it improves performance noticeably, while also providing "permanent back-up". I'd also recommend the caviar black instead of the green. Green is something of a server/media hub/NAS thing to me. A gamer will actually make good use of a fast hard disk.

[Sky]

Yeah, the green is more of an htpc thing, isn't it? Low power draw, lower performance, blue is regular draw/performance and black is high draw/performance. For gaming, go black.

[Ingmar]

Make sure you get the 64 bit Windows 7 since you're over the cap (you probably know this given its f13 but I run into people all the time who screw that up so just in case...)

And yeah Home Premium should cover everything he'd need it sounds like.

[Kageh]

Yeah, the green is more of an htpc thing, isn't it? Low power draw, lower performance, blue is regular draw/performance and black is high draw/performance. For gaming, go black.

Yes, although in all fairness I have to say they make them really fast nowadays (I think we're already second or third-gen with the "green" variants at most manufacturers), and they reach good transfer speeds - 75 MB/s reads are probably possible, not too bad for a "green" drive. But, if you build a gamer PC, you want performance first and foremost, so why settle for second best?

[Goreschach]

At 1500, you should pick up an ssd. Just do some research on anandtech to make sure you aren't getting one with a jmicron controller.

Seconding drop the i7 for i5 and go with a 5000 series gpu as well.

[Ingmar]

I wouldn't recommend an SSD yet, the price/GB still blows and they only get up to the 256 GB range at the moment. And those are not cheap.

[caladein]

If dual monitors are in the budget (versus something they already have), I really wouldn't worry about grabbing an SSD right now.

You'll eventually want to stick an SSD in there once stable TRIM-supporting firmwares start to ship so a quieter and cheaper drive like the Green drives make sense.  The other hard drive note I'd make is: none of the WD "color" drives are going to do amazingly well in a RAID.

I have an Antec Solo (essentially the right-side-up version of Sky's P180) and I've been super-pleased with it.  I haven't used the suspension mounts but the silicon grommets basically eliminate HDD noise from my WD Green 1TB.

I'll echo the statements: go for Core i5 and Windows 7 Home Premium is all you likely need.

As for dual-monitors, any modern graphics card will handle everything.  If he'll only be gaming on one monitor at a time, there's one or two tweaks to make and even then they're minor.  The only suggestion I'd make is to pick up DisplayFusion.

[Trippy]

For most gamers the i5 (Lynnfield) is the better value.

The Bloomfield CPUs are better for gamers if you going with multiple video cards or you plan on overclocking (probably).

Lynnfield systems are limited to x8/x8 for dual video cards, while the X58 chipset supports x16/x16 or x8/x8/x8/x8 (for quad). This does make a difference in certain games at certain resolutions/settings.

With Bloomfield the PCIe controller is a separate chip (the above mentioned X58) so you can overclock the two independently while on Lynnfield the PCIe controller is on the CPU die so their speeds are tied together. On the flip side graphics performance on the Lynnfield is probably slightly faster with a single video card compared to a comparable Bloomfield as there's slightly less latency because the PCIe controller is on the same die.

The i5 doesn't support Hyper-Threading but that's not important in most applications.

As mentioned above "Turbo" mode works a lot better on the Lynnfields.

The memory differences between the Bloomfield (triple channel) and Lynnfield (dual channel but higher bandwidth per channel) is kind of a toss up. If you've stressed >=3 cores with memory intensive applications you'll get better performance from Bloomfield but otherwise there's no real difference in memory performance in real-world applications.

[Hoax]

Little more detail about the end user on this one.

He runs a widescreen monitor for gaming and as primary display, 1900x1200 blahblah the 2nd monitor is not widescreen.  I think its just the monitor he replaced when he bought the WS and now he wants to use both.  I haven't spent any time thinking about this because every modern vga has 2xDVI outputs so who cares?  c/d?

He's currently playing EQ2 and DDO.  He played WoW, PotBS, EQ2, GW, EQ1 & SB before those.  So lets assume he may play GW2, NWNonline & APB + any other fantasy MMO that gets good buzz.  He loves anything that is DnD based and vanilla fantasy trappings more then he should.  He's not going to play tech demo fps games but I'd like him to be able to run the fuck out of Borderlands, Diablo3 & APB.  It'd be ideal if he can run the AoC of two years into the future well, that'd be a good baseline.  He doesn't give a fuck about AA or anything, not a gfx snob but wants to run at near max resolution with 60+ fps and fast load times.

I'm going to have to build it for him so there will be no overclock.

***

I'm down to 3 points for the i7 build:

1.  VGA, I need to go read some reviews, anyone got a good round up link for the current $150-300 cards?

2.  HD, I'm not sold on SSD yet, your paying too damn much and that is an easy upgrade down the road when/if he decides he wants it.  He will never bother.  The only thing he ever upgrades on this machine is a vga I recommend in 2-3 years.  I would welcome thoughts on this though and recommendations.  My bad about the green, I forgot about the colors and that was the last thing I added before I rushed out the door.  Also what about the WD 10k rpm drives, worth it or not?

3.  Case, I really don't know what cases to look at in the sub $150 range.  He liked the cheapo Coolermaster case I linked to him to give him a look at the price bracket so I think he's easy to please in this regard.

***

I'm liking the sound of the i5 build more and more but on the flip side, I went Quad over Duo a year ago for my own machine because I'm a more educated but similar user in terms of how much effort I want to put into tweaking/upgrading.  I want to do some research and price out a i5 build to give him the option and I've said I would do so.  Once I've got it I'll post it here.

[Lt.Dan]

there's a good review of the 5770 cards on anandtech. The summary is that you get better fps from older card like 4870 or gtx260 but get dx11 from the newer card

[lac]

I have a WD Velociraptor 300gb on which I run my OS. While it's a great HD there are many HD's out there who will give you a lot more storage for less money and only a small performance loss. You'd probably be better off with a good performing 1tb disk.

[Hoax]

Storage is really immaterial, except when we're talking about under 250gb on one of these SSDs though even with those you could go OS + a MMO install and be fine.  Speed is what matters but I'm not going to pay out the nose for some bleeding edge tech (SSD) when an upgrade/replacement is so easy and will cost so much less in 18 months.

[caladein]

2. You're in a bit of a tough place because Intel/Indilinx SSDs blow the Raptors out of the water.  That said, MMO installs are pretty large so I doubt he'd be able to fit OS+applications into an 80GB Intel X25-M and the 160GB one will blow up your budget.  I would just go with a good WD Black 1TB and wait for SSDs to get into reasonable territory (and for TRIM firmwares to get the kinks worked out of them).

3. I'd recommend the Antec P183 especially if you have some system-building experience and aren't planning on adding another double-wide graphics card.  If either of those aren't true, the Antec 902 is kinda neat looking and has the PSU up top.

[Polysorbate80]

If either of those aren't true, the Antec 902 is kinda neat looking and has the PSU up top.

Power supply on the bottom, actually.  My new gaming rig should be complete this afternoon, this is the case that was spec'd for it.  Despite everything I'm told, I can't help worrying that it's going to sound like a turboprop passenger plane parked on my desktop.  I'll let you know tomorrow :P

Edit:  It actually is pretty dang quiet.  Heavy as hell though.

[AutomaticZen]

I'm actually waiting for this year's NVIDIA refresh before I pull the trigger on a new box.

[Trippy]

1.  VGA, I need to go read some reviews, anyone got a good round up link for the current $150-300 cards?

Look for reviews of the ATI 5770 if you want to see benchmarks at the low end of your range and reviews for the ATI 5850 for the high end.

E.g.:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3658
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3650

[Hoax]

-I'm really not a fan of Antec, I got one amazing case from them and otherwise have had 2 bad experiences.  As they try to make shit "easier" for users it has gotten cheaper looking and cheaper feeling imo.

-Fuck SSD, too much for this build would be taking money away from something else.  I'm happy to leave HD as a future upgrade 1yr+ down the line.  So I'm thinking This WD Black and this would be the top of the line HD I'd be willing to spend money on but I think people are going to say not worth it?

-I'm going to read the VGA links, thanks for  those, gives me a place to start besides google.

[Kageh]

Case: Silverstone Raven or Raven 2 is apparently pretty good, should be in your price range, and it has a very intriguing and promising cooling concept (everything is rotated 90° clockwise and the heat can simply just ascend out of the computer, has been getting very good reviews on the sites that I frequent - if I were to build something at the moment, I'd definitely get one of those).

Are you considering used ones? $150 can buy you a used top of the line Lian Li here in EU and once you get one of those, you usually never look back.

Other cases that are good value for the money: Lancool (the "affordable" Lian Li brand) K7/K58, Cooler Master HAF 932/922, Xigmatek Midgard (last one is "cheapo" priced but you get lots of features).

[caladein]

The Black is good, but if you're gonna go with a fast system drive and a large secondary drive, the Greens are solid, quiet, and a touch cheaper (go for the 1TB man ).

I have a lot of problems with the Raptors, not just vis-a-vis SSDs but also their noise is annoying as fuck.  If you have experience with them, go for it.

[Hoax]

The deal is he has the large secondary drives, that I don't need to worry about the budget only includes a fast system drive for OS + a game install or two.  I love WD, I have found that HD noise is usually a case issue not a HD issue and for my friend whose comp is in his office he told me not to worry too much about noise.  He's almost always wearing head phones anyways so I'm not worried about it at all.

I'll take a look at those case recommends, thanks a ton for that, I fucking hate case shopping.

[Mosesandstick]

I'm thinking of a new build and since everyone's discussing...

Is there anything I should do differently if photoediting is a huge priority? i.e. CS4 gogogogo...

[Lantyssa]

My Coolermaster Mystique is a good case.  Little tight inside, but that's my only complaint.  I helped a friend assemble her system and she had gotten another Coolermaster model, with lots of room and she's been happy with it.

[AutomaticZen]

I'm thinking of a new build and since everyone's discussing...

Is there anything I should do differently if photoediting is a huge priority? i.e. CS4 gogogogo...

The i5 750 and the i7 920 perform about the same in Photoshop.  


After that it's just a matter of if you want to mess with triple channel memory.  I'd stick with the 1156 socket, and choose either an i5 or i7.

[Rishathra]

My Coolermaster Mystique is a good case.  Little tight inside, but that's my only complaint.  I helped a friend assemble her system and she had gotten another Coolermaster model, with lots of room and she's been happy with it.

Coolermaster is a good way to go.  I recently built a new system using this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119194 - and it's been fantastic.  Really roomy, easy installs.  The PSU is on the bottom, but the bottom panel is a screen so you install it upside down so it pulls in outside air.  Lots of other nice little details like that.

[ghost]

Can't wait to see the uber porn-build

[Salamok]

I picked up this case for $80 and love it: coolermaster_sileo500, Don't forget a Zalman Aftermarket CPU fan.

I'd also nix the SSD for this guy, pretty sure the flash used is still only good for 10k writes per cell, depending on usage and drive chosen that may or may not last 5 years.  I personally can't wait to drop an SSD drive in my machine but if I was building for someone else i'd pass.

If memory is cheap right now double up to 12gig and go for 64bit w7.   I could have doubled the memory on my current pc for an extra $50 at build time, now that number is at $100.  Mine is ddr2 though, my guess is ddr3 prices haven't hit bottom yet.

Occasionally XP can be confusing about dual monitors as you waste time poking around trying to get them set how you want them.  The only thing I had to do with the w7 install was swap left and right.

[OcellotJenkins]

I picked up this case for $80 and love it: coolermaster_sileo500, Don't forget a Zalman Aftermarket CPU fan.

Did you get this Zalman?  If so, is it a tight fit in that case?

[Mosesandstick]

God damn, it's been 6 years since I built my last computer and I feel as if I don't know anything anymore.

DDR3 or DDR2? And how many sticks? Especially in regards to using an i5 vs. an i7 with dual vs. triple channel. The general feeling I'm getting is that it' better to go with the i5 and probably go with 4 x 2gb?  Any guidelines on how fast the RAM should be? Is there anything more than some marginal benefit in faster RAM?

With the graphics cards, better to go with a 5850 or with crossfired 5750/5770? I figure going with an i5 gives me a bit more dinero for a graphics card...

Ninja edit: Nevermind re-read the anandtech article... 5850 it is...

Would it also be a good idea to go ahead with getting a standard HD now and buying an SSD when they're cheaper? I don't mind the hassle of wiping everything and upgrading, I typically do it once a year anyway.