The 'Build Me A PC' Thread

[Special J]

So I've manged to get myself into speccing out a system for a buddy and I haven't done a gaming rig in years, so I'm behind.


So after a bit of research I came up with this:

CPU:  Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40 GHz Quad-Core
MB:    ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3 Intel Z68
RAM:  Corsair CMZ8GX3M2X1600C8B Vengeance 8GB (2x 4GB), PC3-12800, DDR3-1600MHz
HDD:  OCZ Vertex Plus 120GB 2.5" SATA II SSD
HDD2:  Seagate ST1000DM003 Barracuda  - 1TB, 7200RPM
VIDEO:  EVGA 01G-P3-1460-KR GeForce GTX 560  - 1GB, GDDR5
Case:  Corsair CC-9011012-WW Carbide Series 500R Mid Tower
PSU:  OCZ ModXStream Pro Power Supply - 700-Watt
DVD:  Lite-On Internal 24X DVD Writer

Sound card would be a PCI card recycled from his previous system that he wants to continue using.

Add on Windows 7 and it comes in uunder the $1500 (CDN) budget and if he wants to go the SLI road and double up the GPUs, only slightly over.  I've never really been in the SLI/Crossfire game.  First is it worthwhile? And second I haven't had much luck finding the PSU requirement, a single card says a 450W supply.

[Salamok]

Don't get the Vertex SSD, there are deals galore on the top tier consumer SSD's happening.  Currently they are $30 more than the Vertex (maybe worth that even) but if you watch it for a week or so I bet you could snag one for sub $150.  I think I saw the 128gb Samsung 830 for $140 a few days ago, the Crucial M4 has been on sale repeatedly as well.  The new Intel Cherryville drives were even going for $170 a week or so ago and they are supposed to be the cream of the Sandforce crop.  

edit - Looks like here is the current deal of the day: Mushkin Enhanced Chronos MKNSSDCR120GB 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC, and you can use coupon code MEMKMYPTS20 to get $20 off of a $100 purchase, bringing it down to $109 for a SATA III 120gb drive.  The downside is you have to create a newegg business account which requires you to provide your SSN or EIN.

[Special J]

Yeah I goofed on listing that SSD as I noticed it's a SATA II.  Will find an alternative.

[Sky]

The direction the egg has been taking with the business site: I approve. A few changes they'd been making on the consumer side were bugging me from work. Still  the egg after all these years, even if they don't send me xmas swag anymore.

[dusematic]

Not sure why anyone would get a 2600k instead of a 2500k unless money is no object.

[Salamok]

At least 25% of the price difference is justified by the cool factor of watching 8 cpu threads in the system monitor. 

If you are a VM user it is also nice to assign multiple cpu's to your VM.  At work I have a Linux host with w7 running in seamless mode (always on) it would be worth $100 to assign multiple cpu threads to the w7 VM while still leaving plenty for the host OS.

Also over the life of the machine this works out to what a few $$ a month?

[Sky]

The network guy and I have really started using VMs a lot more to do modeling; 4 cores gets limiting really fast.

For a gaming machine? i5-2500k.

[Hoax]

So I'm doing a staggered upgrade for now on an aging machine. Going to bottleneck a new GPU with my old air cooled Q6600 figure it will still give a big performance boost over the GTX260 that its been running for the last 3+ years. I'm also looking at system RAM (because its practically free these days) and a SSD for steam and my OS.

Right now I'm looking mostly at GTX560ti's though not the 448 cores or 2gb versions which seem to be past the price hump.

I was also checking out 460's but what are the ATI cards I should bother looking at in this price range?

The this can't be too retarded choices would be between:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130610

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130604

but I suppose I should double check if any of ATI's stuff is beating those cards at that price point or lower if anyone has any suggestions?

[shiznitz]

I am intrigued by the new Alienware X51 small form factor PC.  The reviews are filled with quality issues, but I expect those will get ironed out over time.  I like the idea of a small box and this is much cheaper than a Geekbox or many of the brand name boxes.  I just wonder how easy it is to upgrade RAM and vid.

[Murgos]

Not sure why anyone would get a 2600k instead of a 2500k unless money is no object.

Actually, for many people who just want to run certain programs they might actually be hurting their performance by using SMT.  If the software designers aren't paying much attention to how they are affecting the cache SMT can cause issues with thrashing that you don't get without it.

SMT on something that uses it well is great and on many things is neutral but it's not a panacea and even if money is no object it may not be the best solution.

[Special J]

Not sure why anyone would get a 2600k instead of a 2500k unless money is no object.

Well that's why I post this stuff.  In the end thanks to a promotion it was a $75 difference, so not a huge deal.  He's got his box and he's happy.

OTOH when I (hopefully) can scrape something together get me a new box I'll have to be a little more frugal, so thanks for the heads up.

[MisterNoisy]

I am intrigued by the new Alienware X51 small form factor PC.  The reviews are filled with quality issues, but I expect those will get ironed out over time.  I like the idea of a small box and this is much cheaper than a Geekbox or many of the brand name boxes.  I just wonder how easy it is to upgrade RAM and vid.

There's a new Z77 mini-ITX motherboard coming from ASUS that looks like a really spiffy option for building a SFF gaming rig when combined with any of a number of very solid mITX cases from Silverstone or Lian-Li.  Most of those cases have room for a 2-slot card and a 'real' PSU.  Since you're using 'real' parts, upgrades are as with any other desktop.  SFF builds can be somewhat 'interesting' in the Confucian sense, though - the tight space makes things like cooler selection and cable management a bit trickier, yet simultaneously more important.  Alternately, use a mATX board and case if you don't need the absolute smallest PC possible but still want something smaller than a traditional mid-tower.

...I suppose I should double check if any of ATI's stuff is beating those cards at that price point or lower if anyone has any suggestions?

The HD7850 is the most powerful AMD offering in the same general price range as the 560ti.  Comparison here.

[Hoax]

Thanks for that Noisy, is anyone doing lifetime warranty these days besides eVGA? I used to buy from XFX as well but things I'm reading says they aren't what they used to be?

[MisterNoisy]

Thanks for that Noisy, is anyone doing lifetime warranty these days besides eVGA? I used to buy from XFX as well but things I'm reading says they aren't what they used to be?

I wish I knew - to be honest, I'd be surprised if a PC lasted me more than a year or two any more - I get the upgrade/new build bug too often lately, and there's tons of people at work and elsewhere that are more than happy to buy my 'old' machines.

[Furiously]

It does seem like Moore's law isn't applying the last 10 years.

[Lantyssa]

I'm fine with that.  It's nice not feeling like I need to upgrade my computer every year.

[Hoax]

Thanks for that Noisy, is anyone doing lifetime warranty these days besides eVGA? I used to buy from XFX as well but things I'm reading says they aren't what they used to be?

I wish I knew - to be honest, I'd be surprised if a PC lasted me more than a year or two any more - I get the upgrade/new build bug too often lately, and there's tons of people at work and elsewhere that are more than happy to buy my 'old' machines.

That's the thing though my old machines go to family pc's and so do my replaced individual components. Its pretty sweet to be able to RMA a gpu 4+ years down the road.

[Salamok]

It does seem like Moore's law isn't applying the last 10 years.

It just switched focus to phone processors.

[Fabricated]

Man, the GeForce 680 is flying off the shelves. It was sold out the instant it dropped on newegg, so I got on auto-notify. I walked to go get some lunch just now, and in that 10 minutes I got an email from newegg they were back in stock, then they ran out of stock again. Yeesh.

[shiznitz]

What game is driving demand for it?  My old 8800 is still doing a decent job on 1 year old games.

[tgr]

In my case it wasn't a specific game which drove it, but the fact the old 285 died, and I didn't discover it was just the 285 which died until I'd replaced the entire innard of the machine. So I decided to just say fuck it and go for the 680 instead of the 570 or 580 because "why not?".

[Engels]

In my case it wasn't a specific game which drove it, but the fact the old 285 died, and I didn't discover it was just the 285 which died until I'd replaced the entire innard of the machine. So I decided to just say fuck it and go for the 680 instead of the 570 or 580 because "why not?".

So, any impressions on the 680? My vid card, an ATI 5870, is starting to act up, so I think I'm in the market too.

[ffc]

Any recommendations for a particular power supply to pair with a 680?  The recommendation on the EVGA 680 page is a minimum 550 watts with +12v rail of 38 Amps.  I never understood the 12v rail distinction. 

[MisterNoisy]

Any recommendations for a particular power supply to pair with a 680?  The recommendation on the EVGA 680 page is a minimum 550 watts with +12v rail of 38 Amps.  I never understood the 12v rail distinction.  

I like XFX, Silverstone, the NZXT HALE82/90 series units, Seasonic and Corsair's higher end units, all of which are (I think) rebranded Seasonic or SuperFlower PSUs.

Doing a quick Newegg search, the NZXT HALE82 650W, Corsair TX650W v2, XFX Core 650W and the PC Power and Cooling Silencer II 750W would all be good choices in the ~$100 range.  Some are modular, which makes cable management easier.  Most of the 650W units also have 750W/850W+ counterparts for a few bucks more.

If you're looking to save a few bucks, the Antec Neo ECO Series 620W is a decent choice - it's a Seasonic S12II under the housing.  I've used a bunch of these as replacements for shitty OEM PSUs and in budget builds for friends/family.  For the price, they're outstanding.

[apocrypha]

I never understood the 12v rail distinction. 

I think you'd struggle to find a modern PSU without a 12V rail. It just means that one of the regulated voltages it can supply is 12V, and that's what the 680 requires.

I would also vote for getting a modular one if you can. Really makes a huge difference in getting a nice, neat layout inside the case.

[MisterNoisy]

I never understood the 12v rail distinction.  

I think you'd struggle to find a modern PSU without a 12V rail. It just means that one of the regulated voltages it can supply is 12V, and that's what the 680 requires.

I would also vote for getting a modular one if you can. Really makes a huge difference in getting a nice, neat layout inside the case.

Actually, it's pretty much impossible, since your PC will require +/-12V, 5V and 3.3V outputs to function at all, and your video card will pull a certain amount from the 12V 'rail'.  If you look on Newegg's 'Details' tab on their product pages, you'll see the output on each rail, usually in this format:

+3.3V@30A, +5V@30A, +12V@54A, -12V@0.8A, +5VSB@3A

Good quality PSUs generally use a DC-DC design - they first convert power to 12V DC then step that down in later stages for the lesser rails.  As a result, you can usually spot them pretty easily - (+12v rail amps * 12) should be very close to the total output of the PSU.

[apocrypha]

+3.3V@30A, +5V@30A, +12V@54A, -12V@0.8A, +5VSB@3A

I like the way that the forum thinks one of those is an email address 

[Sky]

Shocking!

[ffc]

Went with the XFX 650W since it was a bit cheaper after rebate.  Had no idea it was rebranded Seasonic.  MisterNoisy's math got me curious so I looked at my current PSU and see its 12v load is 408W which is pretty far off from its 500W total.  In contrast XFX's 12v load is 636W.

This model didn't have a modular option in stock, figured it wouldn't be a big deal.



 

[Chimpy]

Jesus wept who needs that many SATA power connectors (is it 12)?

[Sky]

 

[MisterNoisy]

If you're looking to save a few bucks, the Antec Neo ECO Series 620W is a decent choice - it's a Seasonic S12II under the housing.  I've used a bunch of these as replacements for shitty OEM PSUs and in budget builds for friends/family.  For the price, they're outstanding.

Dunno if anyone's looking for a PSU right now, but this PSU is $35 (after MiR) today at Newegg.

[Fabricated]

Verdict on Ivy Bridge so far is basically that it's the "tick" of the typical Intel "tick, tock" shedule in processor power. It's a small boost in speed/performance and some new features, rather than the huge leap from Core 2's to iSeries. I guess it runs a tad hotter too, which is a bummer.

[Sheepherder]

I never understood the 12v rail distinction.

Because Wattage is a measure of energy, not electricity.

[MisterNoisy]

Looks like the GTX670 benches are up, and it certainly makes things interesting, even at $400:

HardOCP
Tom's
Anand

Ordered the three-fan Gigabyte to replace my 570, which a coworker will be buying off of me.  Good times.  :)