Happy Day, and a question for the puter/IT/gamer geeks

[TSD]

[quote name="roshinaya"]Go with the component that gives the best bang for the buck right now. Future-proofing is useless and buying the most expensive GPU card is isn't always the best option as the odds are that newer future ones will be cheaper and better than the expensive card you buy now. AMD is a good choice if you are on a budget, but I'd go with a Intel i5 750 or 760. The Intel's are good on synthetic benchmarks but in the end there is little difference in the real world between an Intel and a cheaper AMD.



Right now getting a CPU with a 6 cores is overkill as the most cores used by games today are 2 or 3 and by the time you need 6 cores there will be much better CPUs available. 4gb of RAM is also sufficient and the speed of it isn't that important in the real world.



As a GPU I'd recommend the NVIDIA GTX 460 1GB card, which currently offers the best bang for the buck, what brand doesn't really matter, but the Gigabyte version of it has gotten good talk, is quiet and cool. The other NVIDIA cards using the Fermi architecture are notorious power hogs and can double as space heaters. What GPU you should get depends on what resolution you will play in. The GTX 460 is good enough for playing in 1920x1080 (HD).

If you are buying a whole new case make sure to have a quality PSU. Corsair, Seasonic and the Earthwatts units that usually come with Antec cases are all known to be good brands. A shitty PSU is the only component that could fry your whole system.



I recently got myself a new gaming rig with a AMD Athlon II x3 440, GTX 460 1GB and 4GB RAM and it runs games (granted, I am a few years behind, so I am talking about games such as Bioshock, Mass Effect 1 and 2) fine with full resolution and high settings.[/quote]



You aint kiddin, my last apartment, the bedroom was small and I had my PC in there, in the winter time it was still comfortable with the window open a fan blowing air in from outside and my PC running (and thats my i7 proc, with an ATI 5850). In the summer time if I didnt have the air on full blast that room would turn into an oven (and I aint kiddin with full blast, if I had the central air set to like 77-78, it would be a sauna in there while the rest of the place was cool and comfortable.)

 

[bubbleheadchief]

[quote name="roshinaya"]Go with the component that gives the best bang for the buck right now. Future-proofing is useless and buying the most expensive GPU card is isn't always the best option as the odds are that newer future ones will be cheaper and better than the expensive card you buy now. AMD is a good choice if you are on a budget, but I'd go with a Intel i5 750 or 760. The Intel's are good on synthetic benchmarks but in the end there is little difference in the real world between an Intel and a cheaper AMD.



Right now getting a CPU with a 6 cores is overkill as the most cores used by games today are 2 or 3 and by the time you need 6 cores there will be much better CPUs available. 4gb of RAM is also sufficient and the speed of it isn't that important in the real world.



As a GPU I'd recommend the NVIDIA GTX 460 1GB card, which currently offers the best bang for the buck, what brand doesn't really matter, but the Gigabyte version of has gotten good talk, is quiet and cool. The other NVIDIA cards using the Fermi architecture are notorious power hogs and can double as space heaters. What GPU you should get depends on what resolution you will play in. The GTX 460 is good enough for playing in 1920x1080 (HD).

If you are buying a whole new case make sure to have a quality PSU. Corsair, Seasonic and the Earthwatts units that usually come with Antec cases are all known to be good brands. A shitty PSU is the only component that could fry your whole system.



I recently got myself a new gaming rig with a AMD Athlon II x3 440, GTX 460 1GB and 4GB RAM and it runs games (granted, I am a few years behind, so I am talking about games such as Bioshock, Mass Effect 1 and 2) fine with full resolution and high settings.[/quote]Thanks Rosh...this is the kind of stuff I was looking for. I am more than likely sticking wiht AMD only because , I have been using them since the old K2 days, and every unit I hav built has been excellent. Only difference is, I have had my newly departed unit so long it died. (YES jako, I keep saying unit) I am thinking a Phenom II 945 should be good enough to last me a while (quad core) as, like you said the Hexa's are really just the "newest thing." As far as GPU I have been using Nvidia chipsets for years too, but one of the "geeks" here at work swears by ATI Radeon and he is suggesting a 5770.

 

[LordKOTL]

[quote name="bubbleheadchief"][/quote]Thanks Rosh...this is the kind of stuff I was looking for. I am more than likely sticking wiht AMD only because , I have been using them since the old K2 days, and every unit I hav built has been excellent. Only difference is, I have had my newly departed unit so long it died. (YES jako, I keep saying unit) I am thinking a Phenom II 945 should be good enough to last me a while (quad core) as, like you said the Hexa's are really just the "newest thing." As far as GPU I have been using Nvidia chipsets for years too, but one of the "geeks" here at work swears by ATI Radeon and he is suggesting a 5770.[/quote]

Personally, I'm an Nvidia fan myself. Right now my rigs are split--my gaming rig runs an older 8800GTS Nvidia card, while my Media Center runs onboard ATi. When I upgrade the gaming rig, I'll likley go with Nvidia since their performance in gaming to me seems stronger for the games I play. The Media center will get an ATi because the system outputs directly to HDMI, though my surround receiver, and then HDMI to my TV; and ATi cards that output HDMI have the sound processer on the card, Nvidia's you have to gang it through an internal SPDIF connector on the video card to get audio over HDMI, or use the SPDIF out on the MoBo/Soundcard and have the reciever combine the audio with the video signal.



Really though, unless you're running a rig to get the absolute best Frames per Second in the newest and latest game for bragging rights, my advice is base your descsion on your final setup. 1st off--for a GPU anything high-midrange should be sufficient for decent futureproofing (my 8800GTS works just fine with Wolfenstein, and that card has been obsolete for awhile) no matter what the core is--Nvidia or ATi. From there--figure out if there is any special needs for your system setup. If you're using an HDMI Audio/video out, it might be wise to go with ATi. if not, and you're just using DVI-D/Analogue, optical, or SPDIF out for the audio--it really shouldn't matter. just choose the best bang for the buck within your price range.

 

[TSD]

[quote name="bubbleheadchief"]Thanks Rosh...this is the kind of stuff I was looking for. I am more than likely sticking wiht AMD only because , I have been using them since the old K2 days, and every unit I hav built has been excellent. Only difference is, I have had my newly departed unit so long it died. (YES jako, I keep saying unit) I am thinking a Phenom II 945 should be good enough to last me a while (quad core) as, like you said the Hexa's are really just the "newest thing." As far as GPU I have been using Nvidia chipsets for years too, but one of the "geeks" here at work swears by ATI Radeon and he is suggesting a 5770.[/quote]



last year I got an ATI card for the first time. At the time the Nvidia GTX 2XX series was top of the line and best buy had a ludicrous deal on the GTX285. The ATI 5850 was coming out in about a week, and in benchmarks met or exceeded the GTX285 for the same price as the best buy deal (when most 285's were above 350 dollars). So I gave ATI a shot and its been great so far.



Make no mistake, ATI isnt known for its driver excellence, and will occationally be quirky with new games (I havent experienced this, but it was a reason I stayed away from ATI in the past) whenever you see brand specific issues with games it always seems to be with ATI.

 

[bubbleheadchief]

SO far this is what I think I am going to go with:

Athlon II X4 640 Quad-Core

NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1G

ASUS M4A785-M moboard (yeah its DDR2 but still it'll work)

4G Ram

500G HDD

700w psu

Along with the box and wha not, I have it down to $688 total......well under the limit I had imposed...until I go and change my mind about something.

 

[roshinaya]

You don't need a 700W PSU, a 550W should be more than enough. But make sure it's a reliable brand. I don't know where you are ordering from but a Samsung 1TB Spinpoint F3 HDD should be a cheap and fast option. With that one you will have more than enough room for por..um games. And HDD space is dirt cheap, so no need to skimp there. You could get a GTX460 for ~230USD and cheaper if you go for a slightly less powerful model with 786mb of VRAM. But a ATI 5770 is also a solid choice if you are on a budget. And you could get a mobo that supports DDR3 for under 100.

 

[LordKOTL]

[quote name="bubbleheadchief"]SO far this is what I think I am going to go with:

Athlon II X4 640 Quad-Core

NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 1G

ASUS M4A785-M moboard (yeah its DDR2 but still it'll work)

4G Ram

500G HDD

700w psu

Along with the box and wha not, I have it down to $688 total......well under the limit I had imposed...until I go and change my mind about something.[/quote]

Athlon II X4 640 Quad-Core <---I have the same core--you won't be disappointed.



If you want full DDR3 support, go with a mo-bo like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813130247

I have that in both of my rigs and it works.



Also, power supply should depend on the amount of stuff you're pumping into that SOB. For reference, on my gaming rig i have the aforementioned 8800GTS, 2 optical drives, 2 SATA HDD drives plus one hotswap tray, a 700w psu powers it all nicecly. If you're going with only 1 HDD and 1 optical drive, 500-600w should do you nicely. plus, you can get Corsair DDR3 ram for about $100/4GB, and if you save on the PS, you could easly get up to 8GB in that SOB.

 

[TSD]

Just an FYI, the GTS 250 is EXACTLY the same as the 9800GTX+. Nvidia has been rebranding its cards (that arent top of the line)since the 9 series came out. (i.e. the 9800GT is the exact same card as the 8800GT).



So basically, the midrange cards are rebranded versions of the upper echelon of the previous generation (a smart idea actually).



84.99 new on ebay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 602_263622





furthermore if you can find one for the same price(they are close to the same price point) as your card you picked out, the 5770 performs equal or better than the GTS250 and supports DX11. Again only if you can find one for the same price as the GTS250 you picked out, the difference isnt large enough to wrrant spending 50 extra bucks .



http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rad ... 446-6.html

linked tot he start of the game benchmarks.



Surprising, most of the 9800GTX's i see online are more expensive than the 250, people are still trying to make money off the name. Video cards can be a confusing thing sometimes.

 

[bubbleheadchief]

All right....just hit the pay lots of money button (with much trepidation I might add)

Final cost: 744.40

What I am getting (all through newegg)

Athlon II x4 640

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103871

MSI 770 G-45 mobo

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813130250

4GB of DDR3 Ram (Gskill)

1TB Seagate Barracude HDD

600W PSU (hec xpower780)

I went with the Gigabyte GeForce GTS 250 1GB GDDR3 GPU. Recommended by a kid that works for me....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125310

Windows 7





Will let ya'll know once I have everything in hand nad built how it is. ANd thanks for the advice-recommendations.

 

[TSD]

[quote name="bubbleheadchief"]All right....just hit the pay lots of money button (with much trepidation I might add)

Final cost: 744.40

What I am getting (all through newegg)

Athlon II x4 640

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103871

MSI 770 G-45 mobo

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813130250

4GB of DDR3 Ram (Gskill)

1TB Seagate Barracude HDD

600W PSU (hec xpower780)

I went with the Gigabyte GeForce GTS 250 1GB GDDR3 GPU. Recommended by a kid that works for me....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125310

Windows 7





Will let ya'll know once I have everything in hand nad built how it is. ANd thanks for the advice-recommendations.[/quote]



Not bad, MSI makes a solid mobo. I have one in my core2 system. Never go wrong with seagate HDD's. the GTS 250 should be fine (and thats something you can always upgrade at a later date, the proc is unlikely to essentially be literally out of date for awhile when it comes to performance. considering multithreading is really still in its infancy)

 

[bubbleheadchief]

[quote name="TSD"]



Not bad, MSI makes a solid mobo. I have one in my core2 system. Never go wrong with seagate HDD's. the GTS 250 should be fine (and thats something you can always upgrade at a later date, the proc is unlikely to essentially be literally out of date for awhile when it comes to performance. considering multithreading is really still in its infancy)[/quote]

That's what I was looking at, the HDD and mobo should last for a while, next time ram drops i can max out the board (16G) as well as last I heard, the AMD next gen chips were still AM3 so if I want to upgrade the chip, can still use the board. Prices drop on GPU all the time, so when I decide it is time to actually go to SLI and two cards, no issue, and changing out the PSU is no big deal either.

 

[Pez68]

It's funny, several years ago, you needed to upgrade your computer every year to keep up with the games coming out. I haven't done a complete upgrade on my system since I built it almost four years ago, and I haven't found a game yet that I can't play on nearly max settings.



1 x XION II XON-101 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450W Power Supply



1 x GIGABYTE GA-965P-DS3 LGA 775 Intel P965 Express ATX Intel Motherboard



1 x SAPPHIRE 100176L Radeon X1950PRO 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card



1 x Rosewill Turbo series RT550-135-BK 550W ATX 12V ver.2.2 / EPS 12V SLI Ready Power Supply



1 x Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 Conroe 1.86GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor BX80557E6300: Had this running stable at 3.0GHz until the day I replaced it.



1 x G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-2GBNQ



2 x Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600JS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive



1 x ZALMAN CNPS9500 AT 2 Ball CPU Cooling Fan/Heatsink



I spent $900 on that system in Feb. 2007. I added the following since then, with no major upgrades in 2 years:



1 x ZOTAC ZT-88TES3P-FCP GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card: In hindsight, the original video card wasn't good enough.



1 x G.SKILL HK 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL4D-4GBHK: Upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 64 bit and figured what the hell



1 x Intel Pentium E6300 Wolfdale 2.8GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor: Overclocked to 3.7GHz with 412MHz FSB



Replaced the power supply as the fan died on it.



I always overclock, so I tend to get a lot more out of my systems than most people. I only upgraded the processor because I pretty much got it for free. Really, the only thing I NEEDED to replace was the video card, and that's just because I kinda skimped on it when I built it. That said, I guess my point is that software has pretty much hit a rut in the last few years. Even 2-3 year old systems have no problems running the newest games/software, assuming you build a middle of the road system. There's no benefit to running the latest and greatest hardware anymore, or upgrading every year, let alone every six months like people used to do.



Your system should be fine for years to come. I'm partial to Intel myself, since they seem to overclock with much lower temps, but have used both without any issues.

 

[bubbleheadchief]

like I said AMD fan since the old K2 days, although the kids at work that play WoW recommended the i5 or i7 proc, I went with what I knew...i also dont play anythign heavier than guid wars online.

I also snagged a rosewill gaming case, that has 5 fans on it which should keep everything nice and cool, if I decide to overclock.....going to wait and see how it runs after initial set-up first, then and only then overclock.

 

[TSD]

Overclocking isnt as dangerous as people make it out to be. The only time it gets dicey, is when you start messing with the voltages. I usually OC as far as I can on stock voltage and leave it at that. I got my i7 920 from 2.6 to 3.2 and left it there (was locking up at 3.4 and 3.6).





[quote name="bubbleheadchief"]like I said AMD fan since the old K2 days, although the kids at work that play WoW recommended the i5 or i7 proc, I went with what I knew...i also dont play anythign heavier than guid wars online.

I also snagged a rosewill gaming case, that has 5 fans on it which should keep everything nice and cool, if I decide to overclock.....going to wait and see how it runs after initial set-up first, then and only then overclock.[/quote]





this is the case on my PC: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... ke%20spedo



its freakin huge, but lots of fans, and plenty of room to move on the inside for upgrading purposes. Its very permeated, its basically all screen save for the side doors, with dust filters. Only gripe is the big 230mm fans (or something dont recall the exect dimension) I just know that size isnt available anywhere but through thermaltake, and the bearings went out early causing them to rattle. I just modded the case so I could mount a couple 120mm fans in the place of each of them. My PC is fucking loud, all my case fans are set to ridiculous on the cfm scale, and you hear it especially since the case is so open.



I cant imagine anyone actually reccomends systems for Wow. I played that game for about a year then burnt the discs. I used it on my frankenstein computer that got me through college and it ran flawlessly. At the time I had a 400w thermaltake PSU, 2.4ghz p4 1.5 gb ddr ram, XP, on board sound, nvidia 6800GT agp. It ran perfectly on maximum settings, so i imagine anything you buy now could run that game.



That bastard was even able to run COD4 respectably when it came out, but I built a new PC shortly thereafter in 2007.



It got me to 2007 from essentially 1999. I saved up money for a summer and bought a new gateway PC in 99 (1750 dollars I wouldnt pay near that much for a good system now) I worked at fucking browns chicken from open to close 5 days a week to save up for that thing. from then on I just kept adding and subtracting over time, still used the original 40gb HDD as my main drive in its last incarnation. original setup was a 600mhz Athlon, 256mb sdram, soundblaster live sound card, 3dfx voodoo 3 video.



I may have mentioned it before but this is the best website to review, when planning upgrades or new builds



http://www.tomshardware.com/us/#redir



alot of knowledgable people and lots of reviews and benchmarks, inlcuding a running video card comparrison chart.

 

[bubbleheadchief]

[quote name="TSD"]Overclocking isnt as dangerous as people make it out to be. The only time it gets dicey, is when you start messing with the voltages. I usually OC as far as I can on stock voltage and leave it at that. I got my i7 920 from 2.6 to 3.2 and left it there (was locking up at 3.4 and 3.6).









this is the case on my PC: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... ke%20spedo



its freakin huge, but lots of fans, and plenty of room to move on the inside for upgrading purposes. Its very permeated, its basically all screen save for the side doors, with dust filters. Only gripe is the big 230mm fans (or something dont recall the exect dimension) I just know that size isnt available anywhere but through thermaltake, and the bearings went out early causing them to rattle. I just modded the case so I could mount a couple 120mm fans in the place of each of them. My PC is fucking loud, all my case fans are set to ridiculous on the cfm scale, and you hear it especially since the case is so open.



I cant imagine anyone actually reccomends systems for Wow. I played that game for about a year then burnt the discs. I used it on my frankenstein computer that got me through college and it ran flawlessly. At the time I had a 400w thermaltake PSU, 2.4ghz p4 1.5 gb ddr ram, XP, on board sound, nvidia 6800GT agp. It ran perfectly on maximum settings, so i imagine anything you buy now could run that game.



That bastard was even able to run COD4 respectably when it came out, but I built a new PC shortly thereafter in 2007.



It got me to 2007 from essentially 1999. I saved up money for a summer and bought a new gateway PC in 99 (1750 dollars I wouldnt pay near that much for a good system now) I worked at fucking browns chicken from open to close 5 days a week to save up for that thing. from then on I just kept adding and subtracting over time, still used the original 40gb HDD as my main drive in its last incarnation. original setup was a 600mhz Athlon, 256mb sdram, soundblaster live sound card, 3dfx voodoo 3 video.



I may have mentioned it before but this is the best website to review, when planning upgrades or new builds



http://www.tomshardware.com/us/#redir



alot of knowledgable people and lots of reviews and benchmarks, inlcuding a running video card comparrison chart.[/quote]



Yeah use Toms hardware reviews alot....and for the life of me there is one other I use, but it's on my work puter so I dont remmeber the name. Yeah, your tax dollars hard at work, me researching computer parts.....LOL

That kid I ma talking about with WoW is triple boxing it when h eplays, has 3 instances running at one time...so I understand the need for the heavy duty proc and the rest of it.

 

[Pez68]

tomshardware is a great site. I use that site quite a bit, especially since I haven't had a computer running at stock settings for around.....10 years. :lol:

Overclocking isnt as dangerous as people make it out to be. The only time it gets dicey, is when you start messing with the voltages. I usually OC as far as I can on stock voltage and leave it at that. I got my i7 920 from 2.6 to 3.2 and left it there (was locking up at 3.4 and 3.6).

Exactly. Even cranking up the voltage a small amount is fine. The life expectancy on these processors is ridiculously high. So much so that even extreme overclocks typically won't see you reduce the life of the processor enough to see it die before it is obsolete. With proper cooling, of course.

 

[TSD]

[quote name="Pez68"]tomshardware is a great site. I use that site quite a bit, especially since I haven't had a computer running at stock settings for around.....10 years. :lol:







Exactly. Even cranking up the voltage a small amount is fine. The life expectancy on these processors is ridiculously high. So much so that even extreme overclocks typically won't see you reduce the life of the processor enough to see it die before it is obsolete. With proper cooling, of course.[/quote]





considering most chips in a given series (p4, i5, i7, athlon etc) are pretty much exactly the same only clocked at a different speed. and they charge you up the ass for a few hundred extra mhz.

 

[mill500]

I finally decided to put my old P3 667Mz (60g HD, 256M RAM) out of it's and my misery. No idea how old that thing is.



Went thru Dell Outlet and ordered an Intel I5-650M(3.2Ghz, 4M cache), 1 TB HD, 8G DDR3 RAM 1066Hz, nVidia 1024M GeForce 220 video. Should be here Tuesday.



I don't do much serious gaming, so I'm thinking that vid card should be OK for now. 90% of it's use will be just home office anyway. We do a bunch with QuickBooks and some pretty decent sized company files, and when customers call, just need it to be able to switch between company files a lot faster than we have been.



Has anybody done a migration on Win7 yet, and how much of a PITA is the transfer of files/settings in Win7? I'll also have it networked to another XP machine. Anybody have any experience networking XP to 7 or do I just need to bite the bullet and put the 2nd machine on 7 as well?

 

[bubbleheadchief]

[quote name="mill500"]I finally decided to put my old P3 667Mz (60g HD, 256M RAM) out of it's and my misery. No idea how old that thing is.



Went thru Dell Outlet and ordered an Intel I5-650M(3.2Ghz, 4M cache), 1 TB HD, 8G DDR3 RAM 1066Hz, nVidia 1024M GeForce 220 video. Should be here Tuesday.



I don't do much serious gaming, so I'm thinking that vid card should be OK for now. 90% of it's use will be just home office anyway. We do a bunch with QuickBooks and some pretty decent sized company files, and when customers call, just need it to be able to switch between company files a lot faster than we have been.



Has anybody done a migration on Win7 yet, and how much of a PITA is the transfer of files/settings in Win7? I'll also have it networked to another XP machine. Anybody have any experience networking XP to 7 or do I just need to bite the bullet and put the 2nd machine on 7 as well?[/quote]Sorry mill, wll be doing the same thing once i get mine put together....if I get it done before you, I will let you know what I did...everybody I know using win 7 says it rocks.

 

[bubbleheadchief]

Okay, got everything last night, built the box.....and nothing....mainly because I am a 'tard and forgot to attach the 4 pin power connector to the little slot for the actual CPU. Yes, I was that dumb, and to think I do this for a living, kind of. Anyway, brought it with here to work, and we "Technikeans" quickly got it up and running, loaded the drivers, windows 7 and the rest, and now it is ready to go home and load some games tonight.