The 'Build Me A PC' Thread

[Trippy]

It's better to get all 4 up front that way to you don't have to rebuild the RAID array when you add the 4th.

[Furiously]

I need to place an order today or tomorrow before years end so I'm not too picky.

As for the NAS I'm just looking for a simple solution and I appreciate the info. I'll look into the details later today and come back with more questions.  

For the monitors, probably 1920s. My main display is 2560 and these two are going to be used for visual displays or messing with extended resolutions in gaming. So I'm looking for inexpensive but quality. I was looking at the newer dell s series monitors at 27". At 370 ea. But I'm sure there is something out there that can be something like 80$ less.

I love my catleap 27 inch ips. Should be able to get them around 300 each. Bit more if you mind a couple dead pixels.

[Draegan]

I bought 4 and got the two monitors.  Should be an interesting day setting them all up.

I have to figure out how to set up my monitors.  I will have an extra 27" crappy HP monitor that i will have extra.

[Morfiend]

I haven't really been keeping up on components lately. In the release cycle, is now a good time to build a new system or do we have any major hardware releases in the next 3 to 6 months I should know about?

[Trippy]

"Haswell" will be coming out on desktops the 2nd half of next year (2013), unless it gets delayed again. It's a "tock" design so it's the same 22nm gate length as Ivy Bridge but with a new microarchitecture which mostly has improvements to the on-chip GPU. General CPU improvement is estimated at about 10% compared to Ivy Bridge.

If you were planning on buying a premium motherboard you might want to wait if you don't need something now. If you wanted a cheaper motherboard, though, you should get an Ivy Bridge now. You'll likely have to wait more than 6 months for the lower-end Haswell motherboards to become available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_%28microarchitecture%29

[Nebu]

Question:  I have a dual core Intel processor (2.8 GHz) and a GTX 460 NVidia graphics card.  What will give me the most performance boost with my games upgrading the mobo, processor, etc or a new video card?  I can only do one or the other financially.   

[Engels]

I think we'd need the processor name/exact type to know its bus type to determine if you could take advantage of a faster video card. Knowing the motherboard would also help.

[Draegan]

What is your budget?

[Nebu]

What is your budget?

Well, to upgrade the GTX 460, I'd need to spend about $300 to get a significant boost.  To upgrade the mobo, cpu, memory, and grab an SSD would run me a bit over $500.  I think that if I upgrade my system now and the card later, I may be better off.

[Draegan]

If you want to do it budget style, you couldn't probably get a good i5 chip and mobo for around 400 and then get a some kind of 560 ti or something similar for 150-200 or so.  Then you have a system that I build a year or two ago that runs almost everything at max.

A SSD and memory will run you another $200-300 depending on the size of the SSD.  Memory is like $30 or 40 if you go 8GB.  SSD is more expensive for anything substantial.  Like 250GB drives are like 200+, like $1 a GB.

[MisterNoisy]

If you want to do it budget style, you couldn't probably get a good i5 chip and mobo for around 400 and then get a some kind of 560 ti or something similar for 150-200 or so.  Then you have a system that I build a year or two ago that runs almost everything at max.

This would work, though I'd maybe skip the video card (the 460 should still be fine for most games) and add RAM to the shopping list unless the current machine is using DDR3 (unlikely if it's on an LGA775 board).

3570K + Mobo would start about $350 (ASRock or Biostar make some decent budget Z77 boards to keep the cost down) or so.  Figure about $40-50 for 8GB of RAM and recycle the drive/case/PSU and other components from the current machine and you'd be okay for a while.

[Nebu]

This would work, though I'd maybe skip the video card (the 460 should still be fine for most games) and add RAM to the shopping list unless the current machine is using DDR3 (unlikely if it's on an LGA775 board).

3570K + Mobo would start about $350 (ASRock or Biostar make some decent budget Z77 boards to keep the cost down) or so.  Figure about $40-50 for 8GB of RAM and recycle the drive/case/PSU and other components from the current machine and you'd be okay for a while.

This is what I've built.  3570 + ASRock Mobo + 8 GB memory.  Add a sale SSD and it's about $500. 

Question:  Is the on-chip video the only difference between these two CPU's?  One is $219, the other on sale for $199.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115233&Tpk=3570

Also: what speed of memory should I be looking for and how much should I worry about the cas latency?  I remember in past builds that lower numbers were better, but have no feel for how much.  I assume 9-9-9 is better than 11's. 

[MisterNoisy]

This would work, though I'd maybe skip the video card (the 460 should still be fine for most games) and add RAM to the shopping list unless the current machine is using DDR3 (unlikely if it's on an LGA775 board).

3570K + Mobo would start about $350 (ASRock or Biostar make some decent budget Z77 boards to keep the cost down) or so.  Figure about $40-50 for 8GB of RAM and recycle the drive/case/PSU and other components from the current machine and you'd be okay for a while.

This is what I've built.  3570 + ASRock Mobo + 8 GB memory.  Add a sale SSD and it's about $500. 

Question:  Is the on-chip video the only difference between these two CPU's?  One is $219, the other on sale for $199.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115233&Tpk=3570

Also: what speed of memory should I be looking for and how much should I worry about the cas latency?  I remember in past builds that lower numbers were better, but have no feel for how much.  I assume 9-9-9 is better than 11's. 

On-die video and the K-series processors have unlocked turbo multipliers, allowing for overclocking - the non-K one is pretty much stuck at stock speeds.

I don't think there's too much of a reason to go much past 1600MHz/CL9 since the cost goes up pretty quickly past that point without much of a boost to overall system performance except in benchmarks.

[Venkman]

Here's what I'd like to do:

Set up a new PC for the kids that can run Minecraft, Pottermore, Sumdog and other Flash games. I have monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers already, just need the computer part. I figure this needs to last about a year before they get into the next Xbox, but I don't just want to then throw it out either.

Dumb questions:
1) What's "good enough" without building something I'd use to game on myself?
2) Once they've moved on, can this "good enough" then become a Minecraft server? If not I'll just relegate it to media server, but figured I'd ask.
3) Is this doable in the $300-400 range?

[Trippy]

Here's what I'd like to do:

Set up a new PC for the kids that can run Minecraft, Pottermore, Sumdog and other Flash games. I have monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers already, just need the computer part. I figure this needs to last about a year before they get into the next Xbox, but I don't just want to then throw it out either.

Dumb questions:
1) What's "good enough" without building something I'd use to game on myself?
2) Once they've moved on, can this "good enough" then become a Minecraft server? If not I'll just relegate it to media server, but figured I'd ask.
3) Is this doable in the $300-400 range?

The A10 AMD Trinity "APUs" have very good integrated GPUs. The CPU part still sucks compared to Intel but the graphics are much better than Intel HD 4000 built into the Ivy Bridge CPUs. An A10 AMD Trinity APU + MB will run about $225. Then you have to add on a drive, memory, case, power supply, of course the Microsoft tax, which will take you over your budget, unfortunately. You can get a lower end Trinity APU like an A4 and you might be able to get it down to $400 if you find a deal or two.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6449/holiday-2012-amd-trinity-buyers-guide/2

And yes you could use this as a Minecraft server after the kids are done with it.

[MisterNoisy]

Here's what I'd like to do:

Set up a new PC for the kids that can run Minecraft, Pottermore, Sumdog and other Flash games. I have monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers already, just need the computer part. I figure this needs to last about a year before they get into the next Xbox, but I don't just want to then throw it out either.

Dumb questions:
1) What's "good enough" without building something I'd use to game on myself?
2) Once they've moved on, can this "good enough" then become a Minecraft server? If not I'll just relegate it to media server, but figured I'd ask.
3) Is this doable in the $300-400 range?

The A10 AMD Trinity "APUs" have very good integrated GPUs. The CPU part still sucks compared to Intel but the graphics are much better than Intel HD 4000 built into the Ivy Bridge CPUs. An A10 AMD Trinity APU + MB will run about $225. Then you have to add on a drive, memory, case, power supply, of course the Microsoft tax, which will take you over your budget, unfortunately. You can get a lower end Trinity APU like an A4 and you might be able to get it down to $400 if you find a deal or two.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6449/holiday-2012-amd-trinity-buyers-guide/2

And yes you could use this as a Minecraft server after the kids are done with it.

I was going to suggest that too - I also have a spare copy of Win7 laying around you can have if it helps keep you under budget, Darniaq.

[Venkman]

That looks perfect! Thanks guys. I'll hold onto this info until we get the taxes done near the end of the month. And I appreciate the offer alot MisterNoisy. I'll PM ya as I get closer to pulling the trigger in case you still have it

[Draegan]

Staring at the config screen:
RAID 5 or RAID 6 on my QNAP 4x 3TB drives?  I'm thinking Raid 6 because why the fuck not?  And I'm doubling my capacity with the 3TB of media I have now.

But RAID 5 gets me 8.3TB vs. 5.8 or whatever.  Whhaaaa

[Trippy]

RAID 5 will let you lose one drive, RAID 6 will let you lose two. So the question you have to ask yourself is, how likely do you think you'll lose a second drive before you have a chance to replace the first failed drive and rebuild the array? I would go with RAID 5 with only 4 drives, personally.

[Draegan]

That is what I was leaning towards and you just tipped me over the edge.  Thanks.

[Draegan]

Fuck, EVGA cards don't come with an SLI bridge.  Looked in the attic and found the one that came with the mobo.  Phew.

[Nebu]

Question: Is a 650W power supply sufficient to run most standard systems with a decent video card, HD, SSD, and DVD RW?

[MisterNoisy]

Question: Is a 650W power supply sufficient to run most standard systems with a decent video card, HD, SSD, and DVD RW?

As long as it's a quality unit, you could easily get away with a 500-550W PSU.  Assuming you're talking about something like this Corsair or similar high-quality PSUs, you'd definitely be good to go.

[Nebu]

As long as it's a quality unit, you could easily get away with a 500-550W PSU.  Assuming you're talking about something like this Corsair or similar high-quality PSUs, you'd definitely be good to go.

That's EXACTLY what I was looking at.  Thank you. 

[Mrbloodworth]

Fuck, EVGA cards don't come with an SLI bridge.  Looked in the attic and found the one that came with the mobo.  Phew.

Eh?

I think I have used about 6 cards from them, and always have those in the box, I have a ton in my spare parts drawer. You must have hit a packager that was having an off day :)

[Hoax]

What are people using to test out new ram these days? Also is prime still good for cpu testing and/or can I use it for both?

I fixed that annoying problem from way upthread by RMA'ing the video card (it was defective for sure) and putting a Corsair H60 cooling block and much better fans in. I haven't heard any complaints so I think that worked.

[Trippy]

I use Memtest86+ and CPU Burn-In.

[Outlawedprod]

I use Prime and Intel Linpack for cpu testing.  Linpack definitely puts more stress on the CPU in my experience and has let me trap OC stability issues I was not catching in Prime on Intel chips.

[Salamok]

How often do you buy a decent brand of new ram and have it fail a memtest?

[Hoax]

How often do you buy a decent brand of new ram and have it fail a memtest?

Never but I sometimes find out that a mobo slot is gone and its a good habit  to have.

[01101010]

How often do you buy a decent brand of new ram and have it fail a memtest?

Once. Was wondering why my last computer was glitching out at times in the first month I built it. I run MEMTEST+86 and found a stick of my OCZ was failing. But I took a chance on it at some insanely low price. Never again I say!

[MisterNoisy]

A friend bought my mATX HTPC/LAN party box, so I got to build a new mITX HTPC/LAN party box for pretty close to free.  :)

- Intel Core i5 3570K under a Corsair H60 (new version)
- ASRock Z77E-ITX
- 2x 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 CL10
- Sapphire Radeon HD7950 3GB
- Samsung 840 Pro 128GB
- WD Caviar Black 1TB
- Bitfenix Prodigy (Atomic Orange)
- Corsair HX650
- Xigmatek XAF 1253 fans

[Salamok]

Probably not the best idea for gaming, but after getting fed up with performance degradation on my 2 year old w7 install I switched my laptop (Dell Studio 17) over to Linux Mint (LMDE).  This turned out to be the least painful install I have done to date, everything just works.  So I have traded games and sub par performance for an insanely fast work oriented laptop.

[Engels]

I use Linux Mint (maya) at work on my desktop any time I can get away from Windows. I've tried any number of distros with various sorts of desktop GUIs and this one suits me best. Its still not perfect, but that's the compromise with Linux.

I am excited by the news that Ubuntu is going to try to get away from X Windows.

[SnakeCharmer]

Probably not the best idea for gaming, but after getting fed up with performance degradation on my 2 year old w7 install I switched my laptop (Dell Studio 17) over to Linux Mint (LMDE).  This turned out to be the least painful install I have done to date, everything just works.  So I have traded games and sub par performance for an insanely fast work oriented laptop.

Is performance degredation still a thing with Windows 7?  I've had the same install going on since whenever W7 was released and wasn't sure if my mind was playing tricks on me or if was actually slowing down due to bloat or whatever.  I was giving thought to do a fresh install but the idea of that with my slower internet connection for downloading all my Steam games and whatnot since I moved is unappealing to say the least.

edit:  Whoa that was almost 4 years ago.  Yeah, probably time for a fresh install or just moving to W8?