f13.net forums - New Computer Build, advice requested

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July 19, 2025, 06:38:23 AM

we're back, baby

Oh well, seems I have to pollute my sweet new ride with my old 9800GTX+ for a while, 5870s are sold out as well.

I think I saw a grand total of about 30 cards on sale across all the "nerdy" retailers that I know here. And that was 1 month ago. Never seen any new stock since.

Apparently ATI has promised better availability "soon" though. My guess was that they rushed them out the door panicked to not be beaten again by NVIDIAs Fermi, and now that they have seen Fermi is still Vaporware they are going to keep supply really low for a while, and then throw lots on the market in time for Christmas.

Is there a particular video card that anyone would recommend? Say if price isn't that important.

You can't really go wrong with ATI 5870/5850 currently, if you manage to get your hands on one. They are the two fastest single GPU cards available, support DX11 and are fast, relavitely quiet and power-efficient.

Next to that, I'd say GTX 275 or GTX 295 from NVIDIA, the latter if you don't mind dealing with SLI configurations. The GTX 275 is easily comparable to the GTX 285 - the fastest single GPU offering from NVIDIA currently - for noticeably less money.

Performance-wise, the GTX 295 can give the 5870 a run for the money if the game supports SLI. Except for the minor detail that the 5870 is one GPU and still has reserves for being crossfire-linked with another.

I just placed an order for my new build which will be the first since 2004. This thread was a good starting point for me after being out of the loop so long. I feel these parts will suit my needs well for the foreseeable future:

Intel Core i5-750 2.66GHz Quad-Core Processor
ASUS P7P55D LE LGA Motherboard
Sapphire Vapor-X 100269VXL Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 Video Card
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600 SDRAM
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM Hard Drive

With thermal paste, a couple of new fans, tax and shipping, it was still under $1000.

Edit: I just wanted to say that I'm very pleased with this new build. It's by far the quietest machine I've ever built. I usually have no interest in overclocking but decided to bring the BLCK on this to 140 and DRAM to 1400 (putting the CPU at about 3.0 ghz). This resulted in a rather noticeable improvement, presumably from the increased memory read/write performance. With a more expensive CPU cooler, the i5 can be pushed to 4.2 ghz from what I've read.

This is just a great set of components for the money right now. I appreciate the input people have shared in this thread.

Neeeeeeeeeeecro for help

I'm looking to build a new rig in the next 2-4 months. I haven't really been following the latest hardware trends over the last year or so and I was hoping some one can fill me in.

I'm not looking for a specific build (unless you like to do it), but I'm looking to see what the trends are and what may or may not be a good deal in the months to come.

Looking for future proof stuff, dual graphic cards, 8 GB memory, SSDrives, what the latest trends are in cpu/mobos.

So money is no object and complexity doesn't faze you? Say no more.

Firstly, case and PSU. Case is almost personal preference, but cool is a big deal and the Silverstone FT02 is about as cool as it gets--in every sense of the word. Don't screw around on the power supply. Seasonic is where it's at. Minimum 750 watt, if you want to future proof and/or are serious about SLI, then get the 850. That should be enough for anything short of 8xHDDs or quad SLI.

Since you specified 8gig of memory, I'd do that and up it to 12 and go with the 2600K SB CPU. This one has hyperthreading. If that's seems a bit much the 2500 is about as good and 8gigs would be more than sufficient for it. Mobo should be P67 based--for now. Doesn't much matter what, but I'm rather partial to Gigabyte these days. If you're going to OC (and these OC very nicely), get an aftermarket cooler. Room on the mobo will probably be the deciding factor of what you actually go with.

SLI or Crossfire. This I don't particularly approve of, but if you don't mind the extra hassle it'll make that FT02 case more worthwhile. Some of this depends on your monitor. I'm going to assume you aren't afraid to spend money and want to go BIG. 2x580GTXs. Get the 3gig models from EVGA when they come out end of this month/early May. If $1200 in vid cards really bothers you, the next best thing is two 6970s. Lots of memory and a helluva lot cheaper ($750-850). Not quite as fast, but I wouldn't get too excited over the difference. If you're still at the 1080p or 1920x1200 level and don't plan on moving anytime soon, then 2x560GTXs (heavily overclocked) or 2x6870s are a lot easier on the wallet. At that res, though, I'd personally just shitcan the multiple vid cards and go with a single 580 or 6970.

I like the idea of SSDs, but don't like their pricing. One 128gig for the system (and WoW, if you care about that) and a good, fast 1tb HDD should cover things nicely (WD black or maybe Samsung F3). I don't trust anything from OCZ anymore, so I'd go Intel or Crucial for the SSD for now. Corsair might have something new soon.

Just wed and allowed to build a new pc? Win! DRILLING AND MANLINESS

Quote from: Sky on April 21, 2011, 09:52:56 AM

Just wed and allowed to build a new pc? Win! DRILLING AND MANLINESS

Hah, well she wants another $1,000 ring to match the one she got on "Day 1", so I said fine, I'm going to build a new PC.

Win.

In any case my budget is around $2000 or so, and I already have monitors.

Quote from: Shrike on April 21, 2011, 09:41:13 AM

I'm not going to budget out that much for the graphics cards, though I haven't put a solid number on cash to spend yet, I have a $2000 number in mind. I'm still running 1080s and don't plan to get anything better until maybe next year or later unfortunately.

For drives I'm looking at 2 SSD, one for the OS, one for gaming, and then standard HDD for storage. I already have about 3 TB of external hard disk space at home anyway so that's not a major issue at the moment.

I'm not into over clocking anymore, but I don't mind tinkering with it. Used to love doing that back in the day. OC'ing my 700 MHz chip to hit 1Ghz back in '98 or '99 was fun. Don't see the point in it these days as I'm not that much of an enthusiast anymore.

Unless you're doing a lot of video encoding or other computationally heavy tasks, I'd probably stick with the i5-2500K (the 2600K won't net you any extra performance in games compared to the 2500K) on P67 and 8GB of RAM. The extra $100 saved by going with the 2500K instead of the 2600K can be used on your SSDs, which are still pretty pricey relative to the amount of storage you get.

As for video, I'd look at the HD6970 2GB or GTX570 depending on how you feel about ATI vs nVidia. To be honest, my GTX560ti tears through pretty much anything at 1080p, so much more than the next step up is probably way overkill (not that there's anything wrong with overkill). You can then add a second card in SLI/XFire later on when your video demands escalate.

I really like ASUS and MSI boards, and the P8P67 Pro is right at the sweet spot for performance and features for the price. You can spend more, but you start hitting diminishing returns pretty fast above that price point.

I will eventually be dabbling in higher than 1080 resolution soon(tm) so I will want a graphics card that will be able to handle high resolutions a year or so after I purchase this.

Thanks for the posts.

Yeah, if you don't want to blow megabucks, I"d just get a single 6970 or 580GTX. They can handle 2560x1600 just fine and will probably be OK through this next round of games coming out. That's essentially what I'll be getting this July when I build my next box. I like slamming sliders to the right, so I like big frame buffers, but if worse came to worse, a 1.5gig 580 or the 2gig 6970 would be adequate for what I'll be doing for the next couple of years.

Also, if you need more, adding a second card is relatively simple (if annoying). Here, though, you do have to think about your PSU a bit. A good 750 can probably handle 2x580s without any problem, but it might be best to come up with a few more bucks initally and just get a 850 watt. The AMD cards are a bit better on power consumption, so anything that can handle 580s is golden for them.