The 'Build Me A PC' Thread

[Sky]

If I'm looking at the wrong card, or there is a better one for me, I'm all ears.

The correct answer in this thread is pretty much always buy a 970.

For good reason.

[Trippy]

Thank you for the replies! I have been long frustrated with my current card (since purchase, I think).  

My budget has an absolute upper limit of $350 although I'd be happy hitting half that but if the card is twice as good, or lasts me twice as long, I'm fine spending the entire amount. If I'm looking at the wrong card, or there is a better one for me, I'm all ears.

At 1080p (1920 x 1080) the GTX 970 can run most graphics-intensive games at max settings at >=60 fps most of the time (there will be some slowdowns in some games). The GTX 970 is ~30% to ~50% faster than the GTX 960 at 1080p at max settings but it's 75% more expensive (~$350 vs ~$200) so the price/performance is not as good as the GTX 960. If you are willing to turn down some graphic settings to get >=60fps or can live with the slowdowns the GTX 960 is the better value. If you are running at a lower resolution than 1080p the GTX 960 may be good enough.

[Viin]

If you decide to go the 960 route, I have a GTX 960 I'll ship you for $100 + shipping. Briefly installed, but now back in the original box and packaging.

[Xanthippe]

If you decide to go the 960 route, I have a GTX 960 I'll ship you for $100 + shipping. Briefly installed, but now back in the original box and packaging.

That sounds awfully tempting. I don't think I want to chance the 970 just yet, after more reading. The 960 seems like a more reasonable choice given all my constraints right now.

Before I jump on this - who made it and what was the issue with it?

Thanks again, all, for the replies.

[Sky]

I'd recommend a 970 over a 960 at retail, rather than buying something that's already not ideal at 1080p.

But for a c-note plus shipping, that's the way to go :)

[Hawkbit]

Less than $1000 notebook recommendations? My mom's computer is dying. Web surfing and photo storage is pretty much all its used for, but a 17" screen would be good. Thanks!

[Xanthippe]

I am very happy with my Toshiba notebook (although the screen is too tiny at 13.3") - do they still call them notebooks at 17"?

[MisterNoisy]

Less than $1000 notebook recommendations? My mom's computer is dying. Web surfing and photo storage is pretty much all its used for, but a 17" screen would be good. Thanks!

I bought my father a Chromebook a couple of Christmases ago - his usage scenarios were pretty much identical - and I'd strongly recommend it.  My tech support requests basically dropped to zero immediately afterwards.  Best Christmas gift ever.

Added bonus is that they're dirt cheap and the batteries last forever.  Downside is that the largest ones I can find are 15" models.

[KallDrexx]

The correct answer in this thread is pretty much always buy a 970.

For good reason.

I'm assuming the correct answer is no longer 970.   Nvidia revealed the GTX 1070 which they claim is faster than the Titan X.  Comes out June 10th for $380.

[SurfD]

So, the time has come for me to upgrade my current rig.   When you reach the point that your shit is so old, It doesnt even appear on this years benchmark charts, it is time to invest in some new tech.  That being said, I am currently looking at probably going with an Intel I5 6600k CPU (though the I7 with hyperthreading is very tempting), and then I kind of hit a brick wall of "you havent been paying attention the the PC scene for FAR TOO LONG YOU IDIOT" to have much of an idea where I want to go from there  :/

My budget is probbably around 2 to 2.5k canadian for the "Box": Ie, CPU, MB, PSU, Ram, HDs, Video Card, and Case / Cooling.   Dont need externals.   Yes, I am looking for stuff somewhere in the mid to high end, but not bleeding edge range.  I hope that the new PC will last me a good 5 years or so, which is about what I got out of my current one).

Have started playing catchup checking the review sites for info, but anything you guys feel like throwing out there would be helpful.

Kind of feeling a tiny bit iffy on if I want to upgrade, as the Skylake archetecture is relatively new, and I sort of get the feeling that if i give it another 6 months, I might see a lot of things I really wish I had held off for pop out (that being said, you can play that game forever with PC hardware, so unless there is something potentially game changing I am unaware of coming down the pipe in a few months, I will  probably just bite the bullet and upgrade now.)

(something I would like, if anyone has any reccomendatons, is some kind of solution to get proper Audio out of my PS3 / PS4 through the PC.  Currently, I have the HDMI video output running directly to my monitor, and crappy analog audio feeding into my PC.  Would love some suggestions for either an HDMI input connection to the PC (which ccould then split / redirect the audio / video sources) or a way to get the Digital audio feed input to my pc.  Probably  have to go with specialist sub boards for that tho.)

Edits for my thoughts:

Been kind of partial to ASUS for my Motherboards, Kind of liking what i see from their Z10 K board.
I am assuming Samsung is the go-to name for SSD?  would 500gig be overkill, or necessissary for a system I hope to get a good while out of?  Just go with 250gig and add more later if needed?
Any idea on what the current mid  to high end stuff is like in the Vid Card Market?  Not the bleeding edge stuff, but what are the good offerings from ATI and NVidia looking like comparatively?

[Furiously]

The 1070 looks to be a monster, I'd wait a few weeks to purchase a video card cause the market might go wonky.

[Reg]

Get the biggest SSD you can. 250 gig will fill up instantly.

[Trippy]

You should wait for the NVIDIA 1070. The Samsung 840 EVO had some issues so you might want to avoid that particular model (the 850 Evo should be okay). I like the Samsung Pros but those are more expensive. And bigger is better. With the size of games these days even a 500 GB SSD would only fit 10 - 15 AAA games (plus the OS and other applications) before filling up.

[SurfD]

So, new bleeding edge Vid card coming out (Nvidia?) could do things to the market worth waiting for.  Good to know.

[Sky]

Don't worry about the market. Buy the 1070 

Can't help with the audio, I run mine through an audio receiver via optical. I recommend that setup, ditch the cheesy computer speakers for decent surround. Even my mediocre surround system is better than computer surround setups that are twice the price (not counting the receiver or sub, papa likes his rumble). Though my sub was only $100 on sale at newegg and the fiancee HAAATES it. Subsonic shit while she's napping makes for angry lady. But great gaming.

I need to get on the SSD train. Maybe jump over to W10 at the same time. After the NAS setup, though. Concert season hit hard this year, got approval to start buying opera tickets, as well...

[apocrypha]

Talking of subs, I need one. But I'm in the UK and we seem to have completely different audio equipment available here than the US. Can anyone recommend an OK, cheap subwoofer with speaker level inputs, that might be available in the UK?

Speakers I have are these: http://www.richersounds.com/product/standmount-speakers/wharfedale/diamond-9.0/whar-9.0-blk

[Sky]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wharfedale-Diamond-SW150-Subwoofer-Black/dp/B0036EEOSQ/

That's what came up in the search for my cheap-but-decent sub (a polk).

[apocrypha]

Well shit, that's back in stock, it's been unavailable for weeks. Thanks 

[Hawkbit]

The 1070 looks to be a monster, I'd wait a few weeks to purchase a video card cause the market might go wonky.

Where do we stand with mobile graphics right now? I need a notebook to dual boot Win10/Ubuntu for dev work on personal projects, but I'm hoping to grab enough of a video card to play some games. Nothing bleeding edge, just D3 and newer strategy games like Stellaris.

Dell has a $1000 Inspiron with a 960m, but those look pretty weak on the charts. Is there a good model to jump up to for just a bit more money? Or is there a major reason to wait?

[Trippy]

Get the 970M if you can afford it, It has twice the compute power of the 960M (2x the CUDA cores) and in some games you will literally get twice the frame rate with the 970M. The 970M is effectively a slightly slower desktop GTX 960.

[Hawkbit]

Thanks, Trippy. Much appreciated.

[KallDrexx]

If anyone can't wait, EVGA's B-Stock[url] has a good number of 970s for $250 ($100 less than 1070 will MSRP for).  I'm assuming 1070s are still umder embargo though since we only have benchmarks for the 1080.

[Draegan]

Laptop advice please.

Looking for a laptop to play mmos on, namely Black Desert. I'm travelling a lot so I want somethig on the lighter side and I'm not  concerned about running on ultra either. I want to spend in the 1000 range.

Looking at some flavor of ASUS ROG right now.

[MahrinSkel]

You might consider the MSI equivalents, I have been happy with mine and they tend to run a price tier cheaper for equivalent levels of hardware.

--Dave

Edit: Here's their $1000-1100 "Ghost" model, for example:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152947

6th Generation Intel Core i7 6700HQ (2.60 GHz)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 2 GB GDDR5
16 GB Memory 1 TB HDD
15.6" FHD eDP

Edit: Looks like the difference from the equivalent Asus RoG is twice the RAM.

[Trippy]

This one looks pretty good:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834234041

It's significantly lighter than that MSI model Dave linked but you give up the extra 8 GB of RAM.

Edit: also I would personally save up another $300 - $400 and get something with a 970m.

[Chimpy]

I just read a review of HPs new gaming laptops that sounded like they were comparable and much more "professional" looking outside of the red keyboard backlight. Priced pretty much in line with the other brands.

[MahrinSkel]

The price savings isn't nearly as great now for MSI vs Asus. When I got mine, the equivalent Asus was $400 more, now the differences are less than $100.

--Dave

Edit: As a caveat on "lighter is better", that lightness usually comes from smaller heatsinks, which means your GPU underclocks or runs too hot. If you actually want to game on it, the weight may be necessary.

[Draegan]

I'm actually looking between the ROG and the msi equiv. Weight is a concern but variance is fine with me.

I prefer something with 4gb video RAM I think. There is a 1300 ROG out there.

[Sky]

Think I'm going to finally get an SSD, grab Win10 while it's still free and do a fresh install to it.

Looking up my mobo (MSI P67A-GD65 (B3)) on newegg to see what it supports...I bought it in October 2011...on the other hand it supports SATA 6GB/s....

edit: so the Samsung Pro 1TB would be the Trippy Recommended Option?

[Trippy]

If you have that kind of money to spend. I haven't paid attention to what new SATA SSD models may have been released in the last year but if I was looking to get a new SATA SSD I would start with the Samsung 850 Pro and see what its competition is now.

[Sky]

I'm pretty conservative and like to keep my drives for a long time. It is definitely on the expensive side, but for good performance and a 10 year warranty, the cost evens out considerably imo. I'll look into the competition, but they'd have to be pretty compelling.

Hopefully Windows 10 won't be a pain in the ass to install. Can't remember if my 7 is 'pure' or (more likely) an upgrade from a retail XP Pro license...

[Draegan]

Sitting at the airport bored.

Any thoughts on this lenovo?

http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?itemnumber=N82E16834321437

[Trippy]

Looks okay, though I wouldn't buy Lenovo personally cause you can't be sure they aren't installing spyware/rootkits on their computers.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-rootkit-ensured-its-software-could-not-be-deleted/

[Draegan]

Totally forgot about that. Fuck them. Thanks.

[Hawkbit]

1. How long will it take the GTX 1080 to hit mobile? I'm guessing when that happens it should shift prices down considerably.

2. Any general opinions on these?

DELL Alienware AW17R3-4175SLV Gaming Laptop 6th Generation Intel Core i7 6700HQ (2.60 GHz) 16 GB Memory 1 TB HDD 256 GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3 GB GDDR5 17.3" 1920 x 1080 Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834298765
$1599, maybe another $100 promo

MSI GE Series GE72 Apache Pro-070 Gaming Laptop 6th Generation Intel Core i7 6700HQ (2.60 GHz) 16 GB Memory 1 TB HDD 128 GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3 GB GDDR5 17.3" Windows 10 Home 64-Bit Multi-language
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834154108
$1499

ASUS ROG G752VT-DH72 G-Sync Gaming Laptop 6th Generation Intel Core i7 6700HQ (2.60 GHz) 16 GB Memory 1 TB HDD 128 GB SSD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M 3 GB GDDR5 17.3" Windows 10 Home 64-Bit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA57X3H17218
$1650

They're all basically the same system; the Dell has an extra 128Gig on the SDD. They also all come with Win10 Home - I think MS allows for paid upgrades to Pro, right?