The 'Build Me A PC' Thread

[Sky]

Starting to consider an upgrade now that my system is nearing four years old. Main reason is really the upgrade from 720p to 1080p; looks great but it's starting to stress my system. Here's my idears, pretending I have money to actually do this. Upgraded parts would be C2D e6600, 4GB DDR2 800, ASUS P5WDH Deluxe, EVGA 8800GTX 756MB.

i5 750
4GB Crucial DDR3 1600
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro
ASUS 480 GTX 1.5GB

Carrying over my old case (Antec P180), sound card (fatality x-fi), psu (PP&C 610W 12V@49A), hdds and opticals etc. Going nvidia because I like 3d Vision, going ASUS mobo because that's what I always use. Cash register says about 950 bones.

[Engels]

Looks good to me. I have a similar older system and this looks just about what I'd upgrade to, with the probable difference is that I'd go for a i7, but that's somewhat academic for gamers.

That said, just read an article on Sandy Bridge, the new 35 nm mid range processor line from Intel that's meant to come out in Q1 2011. It gave me pause because although the performance isn't THAT much better, the chipsets they will have for them, the P67 and the H67, will have 2 native SATA3 ports. Right now Sata3 is somewhat gimped because it relies on a 3rd party onboard controller chip from Marvel.

Naturally, the new Sandy Bridge will take YET ANOTHER socket type.

[MuffinMan]

Have had this sitting in my cart for about a week. Aside from adding an optical drive, any comments or critiques? Probably won't upgrade for another 5 years again or so.

[Engels]

Looks about right to me. Is the plan to store files and install games on the 1T drive, leave the 64GB SSD drive for the OS?

[SnakeCharmer]

Skip the SSD (IMHO), ditch that 300 case.  It's flimsy as hell.  Go with a better PSU.  Pick up an aftermarket CPU cooler (Hyper 212, or whatever is the hot shit these days.  I use a Corsair H50 on a push/pull exhaust combination and love it).

[sinij]

I am actually not happy with my Radeon HD 5970 - ATI drivers are still garbage, I am getting all kinds of texture glitches in SC2. Researching problem *drummroll* its a DRIVER ISSUE! Tiger never changes its stripes - I should have went with Nvidia.

As to Athlon X6 - I have nothing bad to say about it. Cheap, quiet, stable and stock cooler is 100% adequate, so you don't have to upgrade it unless you OC.

[sinij]

Skip the SSD (IMHO)

SSD is pure joy, I got slow-ish WD SSD (its not prone to 'used' performance degradation) and it is significantly faster than my old Raptor. If your system can support 6Gig sata, go for it. Loading OS in 10 seconds or completing full virus scan in under 2 minutes is pure joy.

[MuffinMan]

Looks about right to me. Is the plan to store files and install games on the 1T drive, leave the 64GB SSD drive for the OS?

I figured on the 64gb SSD I would have the OS and whatever game I'm playing. 1tb would be for everything else such as music, movies, etc.

[Engels]

I guess if you are in the habit of uninstalling a game as soon as you're interested in another, that's ok. I've found that I am never quite ready to part with one game, even if there's a new shiny that's caught my attention. 64 Gb might leave you little wiggleroom, especially considering how huge game installs are nowadays.

Also, beware sinij's recommendation of 6Gig sata; some intel socket motherboards 'support' sata3, but the chipset doesn't; its being done by an on-board add-on controller by Marvel or someshit, and the performance isn't good. He has an AMD machine, which does have plenty of native SATA3 support.

[MuffinMan]

I've never been able to play more than one game at a time, my brain just can't do it for some reason. It's the whole reason why I still have a 20gb 360, I only ever have one game installed to the HD. I might move up to a larger SSD, my max budget is around $2000 but to hit that I'd have to go nuts.

[Morfiend]

ASUS 480 GTX 1.5GB

Might want to look in to doing SLI with 2x 460s. The performance is just about the same on the benches (leaning in favor of the 460s), and you save $100 to $150.

Anandtech bench comparison

[bhodi]

I've never been a fan of SLI. Some games don't use it very well, and it just makes twice the noise and puts off twice the heat.

The theory that you can keep current by buying a 2nd card and SLIing them later for cheap doesn't work out either, as the cards become more expensive because they are older and use old ram and such.

[Engels]

I head that in general the 460 does very very well for its price point, with the possible exception of having half the tesselation of a 470/480 card. I guess running it in SLI would overcome that limitation.

I personally would like to hear from folks that have either the 460 or the other 400 series cards.

[Morfiend]

Here is a build I put together on newegg a few weeks ago.

1      EVGA 768-P3-1362-AR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Superclocked 768MB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
Item #: N82E16814130564
$219.99

1      EVGA X58 FTW3 132-GT-E768-KR LGA 1366 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813188065
$269.99

1      CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model HX3X12G1600C9 G
Item #: N82E16820145235
$299.99

1      CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply
Item #: N82E16817139009
$129.99

1      Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Item #: N82E16822136320
$69.99

1      Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80601930
Item #: N82E16819115225
$289.99

1      Corsair Force CSSD-F60GB2-BRKT 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Item #: N82E16820233124
$144.99

1      LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04
Item #: N82E16827106289
$19.99

1      Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
Item #: N82E16835100007
$9.99

1      LIAN LI PC-B25F Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Item #: N82E16811112248
$159.99

Total was around $1650

[Morfiend]

I've never been a fan of SLI. Some games don't use it very well, and it just makes twice the noise and puts off twice the heat.

The theory that you can keep current by buying a 2nd card and SLIing them later for cheap doesn't work out either, as the cards become more expensive because they are older and use old ram and such.

I agree with you 100%. But, I have heard that the 460s SLI very very well. Its one of the first cards to make buying current gen SLI a viable option and not just good for the 3dMark junkies.

I head that in general the 460 does very very well for its price point, with the possible exception of having half the tesselation of a 470/480 card. I guess running it in SLI would overcome that limitation.

I personally would like to hear from folks that have either the 460 or the other 400 series cards.

I have a EVGA 460. The card is nice. It runs very quiet and low temp compared to my old 8800GTX (original model). I can run most games at all settings on max, except high shaders. I run 1900x1200 res on a 30 inch monitor. For a mid range $200 card it runs great. I am planning to upgrade my system soonish, and add another one in SLI. My first time ever.

[Sky]

I've not been a fan for the same reasons. I have the side of my case off due to the heat my 8800gtx pumps out on my current game of choice. And I;ve always had good luck splurging on the best gpu tech at the time, I've never been unhappy with gpu performace going that route back to the very first generation of 3d accelerators. Back then I did have 2 gpu's though, because there were two different ways of rendering, some games liked one, some like the other, so I'd swap out and boot off disks to configure the machine. Remember boot disks? Whee.

Anyway, yeah. Big bad gpu, slab o memory and fat pipeline, as many shader units as they can stuff on. Good times. The 8800gtx is still a pretty awesome card, it's mostly because I upgraded the monitor that newer games are starting to show some cracks, there's a bunch of stuff coming out that will stress it...and I want to play in THREEE DEEE (meaning doubling the workload).

I'd rather upgrade the memory in a bit (especially if prices can finally deflate a little), and the i5 looks like a good gaming cpu. And of course, saving a bunch of dough on the carry-overs, this would be the first time I haven't built from scratch, but I'm getting quite the collection of old systems and my house is small. I will probably move the C2D system into the old Athlon enclosure just to use my awesome old coolermaster wavemaster case again.

[Morfiend]

Just in case.

Guru 3d Review of 460 SLi

Page 16 or so shows the noise and such.

With the more GPU stringent resolutions and modern games you can quite easily gain 1.8x ~ 1.9x performance with two of these 200 USD cards. At a grand total of 400 USD that is mighty impressive to observe, in fact in this solution most of the time you will be even much faster than the mighty hot and noisy GeForce GTX 480. Obviously that statement remains relative as the GTX 480 will be much stronger in situations that require more frame buffer and memory bandwidth. Examples here are anything above 8xAA and say a gaming resolution of 2560x1600. But if you are a gamer with a monitor resolution up-to 1920x1200 and you think that 4xAA or 8xAA is fine, then you fall within 99.98% of the people that could be on the lookout for a solution like this. Unfortunately NVIDIA SLI solutions have one negative .. to be able to operate two or more cards in SLI mode you'll need a SLI certified motherboard. Please keep this in mind at all times though, most X58 motherboards are SLI certified, and some P55 motherboards as well. That or an nForce motherboard (which is a dying breed). But carefully make sure and check that out before opting for SLI.

[Engels]

Not to mention the higher PSU requirement. I'd not venture into SLI land without an 850 Watt PSU or above.

[MuffinMan]

1      CORSAIR XMS3 12GB (6 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model HX3X12G1600C9 G
Item #: N82E16820145235
$299.99

I've been going back and forth between 6gb and 12gb but I don't know if I want to spend that much on RAM or if it's worth it.

[SnakeCharmer]

Skip the SSD (IMHO)

SSD is pure joy, I got slow-ish WD SSD (its not prone to 'used' performance degradation) and it is significantly faster than my old Raptor. If your system can support 6Gig sata, go for it. Loading OS in 10 seconds or completing full virus scan in under 2 minutes is pure joy.

I can see the appeal of it, but until I can use one for all of my storage needs, I'm not going to bother with one.  My PC goes from a power down state to desktop in about 20-25 seconds.  Shaving 10 seconds off that won't do anything for me.   And all my viri scans and whatnot are doing while I'm sleeping.  Personally, I'd rather spend the money elsewhere.  Like the new Corsair 600t case:

[Nebu]

That case is a sexy beast.  I could see being happy with that for a decade.

[Morfiend]

Is that CPU cooler a watercooler or a new type of air cooled?

NM, I found it on newegg. Its a mini stand alone watercooler.

[Sky]

Actually, two of those evga 460s on the egg would only be $20 cheaper than the single asus 480.

I take back what I said about RAM prices deflating, they're pretty good right now. I think 12GB is a bit overkill, 6 would be plenty. I'd like to add 4 more GB to my setup, but that's a pretty easy upgrade unless things go crazy. Prices aren't back to where I got the 4GB kit for $65, but whatchagonnado? I use the current kit in my machine to judge where the market is, admittedly a rough gauge, but it's ok for generalizing. Right now that kit is selling for $93, down from about $120 earlier this year. In 2007 when I built the pc, 2GB was $340   Glad that pricing balloon passed.

[Hoax]

Have had this sitting in my cart for about a week. Aside from adding an optical drive, any comments or critiques? Probably won't upgrade for another 5 years again or so.

I don't like it when people seem like they are trying to save a few bucks by off branding the PSU.

[Morfiend]

Actually, two of those evga 460s on the egg would only be $20 cheaper than the single asus 480.

I take back what I said about RAM prices deflating, they're pretty good right now. I think 12GB is a bit overkill, 6 would be plenty. I'd like to add 4 more GB to my setup, but that's a pretty easy upgrade unless things go crazy. Prices aren't back to where I got the 4GB kit for $65, but whatchagonnado? I use the current kit in my machine to judge where the market is, admittedly a rough gauge, but it's ok for generalizing. Right now that kit is selling for $93, down from about $120 earlier this year. In 2007 when I built the pc, 2GB was $340   Glad that pricing balloon passed.

You should be fine with 6gb. That was personal preference for me. My current system has 8gb in it, and I personally wouldn't want less, but there doesnt seem to be a way to optimally get triple channel with 8gb. So 12gb it is for me.

[Sky]

My system would have 4 in it, upgraded to 8 later. Are you running lots of 64 bit apps?

[Morfiend]

A decent amount.

[SnakeCharmer]

Is that CPU cooler a watercooler or a new type of air cooled?

NM, I found it on newegg. Its a mini stand alone watercooler.

Yup, it's what I'm using at the moment, but I switched to Gentle Typhoons on a push/pull arrangement (fan/rad/fan).   Superduper quiet and keeps my CPU nice and cool, and keeps the case uncluttered and easy to work in.  I honestly can't recommend it enough.

[MuffinMan]

I don't like it when people seem like they are trying to save a few bucks by off branding the PSU.

I guess I've never really considered Thermaltake as off brand. 

[rattran]

Yeah, I've used several thermaltakes in the last few years, they make a good psu.

I have one of the Corsair H50 units I picked up stupidly cheap a few months ago, haven't installed it yet though.

[Engels]

Ya, Thermaltake isn't an off brand.

[NiX]

That case picture is terribly misleading. All the red/black makes it look sexy, but none of that comes with it.

Boo.

[Engels]

Well, ya, the motherboard is gonna be whatever color it is. As is the video card. I don't exactly feel mislead, tho.

This one would do the trick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131642

[Morfiend]

What I dont understand is why Corsair spent so much time on making the inside of the case look really nice, with all the black texture and color and cable management and then they dont include a window on that case.

Now, I'm not one to demand a windowed case and all the glowing lights and stuff, but it seems an odd choice on corsairs part.

[Sky]

Well, they probably just paint or powder the whole box at once, it would cost more to just paint the exterior. And cable management, it's usually more about air flow than teh pretty (only the cpu appears to be water-cooled).