Hello all, I recently had my laptop of 5 years burn out its video card which would cost 300 bucks to replace. Dont really feel like paying that considering i could get a nicer/comparable one for the same price. Anyway, Im out of school now and dont really have any use for a laptop anymore so im looking forward and looking to build a desktop in the next month. Im currently looking for a job still so i want to keep the cost down and because ive only ever owned a laptop i have absolutely no parts to start with. Ideally I want something with upgrade potential which doesnt cost too much and can run max games for a year or so. Ive been playing games at ultra low recently so im sure any upgrade will be well noticed but still, Ide like to be able to not think about upgrading for a year or 2. The absolute budget is $1000US. lower is obviously better. This is what ive got so far. All newegg. Looked at tigerdirect and zipzoomfly and newegg had the best prices on everything. Case COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW Black Motherboard ASRock 770 EXTREME3 AM3 AMD 770 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard CPU AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban 2.8GHz Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Video Card XFX HD-575X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 Memory A-DATA Gaming Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Power Supply CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W HD Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Drive ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner Keyboard Logitech Deluxe 250 Black USB Wired Standard Keyboard Monitor Hanns·G HH201HPB Black 20" 5ms HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor Plus cable and thermal compound for 16 bucks Total $933 Hoping you guys can tell me if ive got here what im looking for. And if there is anything im going to big or too little on. Also, im undecided on the SSD for the operating system. If i was ide get this one. SSD A-DATA 500 Series AS592S-32GM-C 2.5" 32GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive One thing i really am shooting in the dark on is the monitor. My laptop was a 17" so i cant see myself going smaller but as for quality, i havent a clue. Thats about it, Hope you guys can help me out. Thanks.
I say that is a great rig and you will not have problems with anything anytime soon also you should think about a bigger SSD 32 gb is not enough for an OS i would say 60 - 80 is enough simply because your gonna end up putting other stuff on there anyways ... also try for the X-25 Intels SSD's As for monitor i have a 23" samsung that has a 50,000:1 contrast ratio and looks awesome Samsung and HP make some really nice monitors
If your buying a new monitor always check the Dell outlet store. Ultrasharp 24s were sub 200 last week. (those are made by samsung btw) Also 750w psu may be a bit much.
Yeah, that was one thing that i know is too high. But i thought it would be nice to have one that i could use on future comps too. But ill look into a smaller one, more like 550?
550 is fine you cant crossfire anyways. x-25 intel ssd 40gb is enough, win7 is no more than 20gb, i dont know if you still follow the rule of 20% free space on an ssd but you would still have 10gb for apps. second hd for games, media. have heard about hardware issues on wd drives lately, dont know which models or if it is fixed
Found this PSU APEVIA ATX-JV650W 650W ATX12V / EPS12V Comes with a rebate that brings the price down to 30 bucks. Reviews looked pretty good. Brought the total down to 850. EDIT: Well, just looked at some more monitors and i found one i like. SAMSUNG B2230 Glossy Black 21.5" Has a 20 dollar off promo code which brings up the total to 883 after everything. Which is pretty damn good I think. And one combo deal actually brings the grand total to 883 shipped. Could i get a confirm or deny on the power supply? and after that, Ide say ill be ordering everything in the next week.
that PSU is decent not the best not the worst ... power supply should be one of the most important part of your rig just like people that buy a car then get POS tires on it ... without good tires no matter how good your car is its still gonna suck but yea its decent
if the screen itself is glossy then it will have better contrast. it will look nice, unless you have any lights on in your room or open a window. i use a glossy screen but i can blackout my room. the monitor also does not have hdmi looks like it does 1080p though not a well known psu brand...your choice.
My laptop had a glossy screen so i know about glare. As for the PSU, good points, It was basically the only thing left to save some money on. I looked back at the corsair stuff. And did a power calculator. From 3 different calculators it says a 450 will be enough. The 450 Corsair is 55 bucks and the 550and 650 are both 70. thoughts?
look in tirget direct and use google check out, sale+ mail in rebat + google check out = big savings oh and get the Level 10 Case from Thermatec lol
which calc, remember power efficiency rating too. look for 80+, many today are even 90+ leave some headroom, power output can lower over time, or you might upgrade something or add a new hdd.
The Corsair PSU is built by Seasonic (same with XFX branded too). The only difference between Seasonic and Corsair PSUs are the fans that are installed, while the Corsair are very high quality, Seasonic retains the best fans for its own labeled PSUs. Seasonic is either the top or one of the 2 top PSU makers in the world (PC Power and Cooling is typically there too) however their stuff is much more affordable. I would definitely go with a Corsair PSU over the Apevia and personally, I would buy with headroom. You'll never kick yourself as much as the day you need to buy a new PSU to replace a perfectly good one that is just underpowered.
Yeah alot of stuff is rebranded seasonic. I would buy from them over most other ones because it will probably be cheaper and almost the same or better. Safe bet.
Newegg Prices 430W Seasonic - $63 450W Corsair - $50 550W Sesonic - $76 550W Corsair - $70 650W Sesonic - $160 650W Corsair - $70
It comes down to what you want to do right now, you build on the cheap or you build for the future. There is no reason to get more than you need if you're trying to cut corners now, so two or three years down the road you have to upgrade your PSU, big deal. Odds are by that time system standards will have changed completely and it won't matter. Heck at the growth in power consumption you see on cards these days I wouldn't be surprised if you see a GPU requiring a 24pin connector. Hell, the 480 requires what two 6's and an 8 pin already. Corsair CMPSU-450VX 450W PSU won more awards than you can put on your parents mantle for editors choice, reviewers choice, customer choice etc... It'll power your system just fine right now, and later if you decide to upgrade, then you can store it or use it in a media center or HTPC.
What exactly are you trying to accomplish with this box? Do you want the best dollarerformance ratio or what? Edit: Dollar to Performance
like i said in the first post. Im looking for a comp i wont have to upgrade for a year or 2 that i can afford without a job. I see your point but if I upgrade and need a new PSU im out 50 bucks, if I upgrade and dont im out 20, and theoretically a bigger one will be more efficient.
Okay well lets look at it in a different way: You're buying an AM3 board, as we know AMD is stellar at keeping sockets relevant for a long time, so, instead of buying the Thuban, why not get the 965BE. I only suggest this, unless you do a lot of video editing, in which case the 6 cores will truly shine over the 4. But, to BOAB I'd stick with the 965 now, and a year or so down the road when you decide to upgrade, odds are the socket will have a much better option for you at that time. This will only save you 20 bucks, but it still saves you 20 bucks. Not to mention if you're just gaming and not using any hyper threading applications your performance will be better. Just to give an example, the Asus board I bought in 2005 M2N32-SLI Deluxe, was for a single core processor, bios update allowed me up to go to a 64 x2 processor, then 2 months ago they did another update allowing me to use the 965BE. It's insane that they're supporting the same chipset for give years.
A bigger one is not more efficient. You have to look up it's efficiency rating. Less efficient ones will require more for the same output costing you more later. Whether or not 6 cores vs 4 cores is faster or slower is guesswork. The 6 core can speed up some cores while disabling some for potentially better performance. This only helps if the program you use is single or dual core only. Many programs now support 2 cores but not 4. The most important factor in all this is your perception of how things run now. Your computer was shit and anything is way better. Best place to save money is on the cpu because it's an easy upgrade and either won't have a large power increase(highest is usually 125w) or you see that small jump of 30w. If you left enough headroom(20%). http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471 save like 75$. It rates 7.3 out of 7.9 in the windows experience test. My old 6000+ was 6.1 and 6.2oc. Then go for the 650w corsair. The black edition is much faster than blue if you aren't going to get an ssd. That is your weakest point of the system. It's an extra 30$ for 1tb, or 5$ if you can go down to 640gb.
Knowing how many cores he needs is basically why I asked what he plans to do with the system. From what I recall reading/hearing when the hex core determines not all the cores are in use it backs down the latter 3 to 800mhz and ramps up the primary to 3.2ghz, which would still be slower than the quad. I agree with the final statement as well, Black > Blue > Green. If you're not going to go with an SSD boot disk, at least go for a black. Although, I do believe Vraptor just released some new HDD and with a $/Gig/Speed ratio those may be your best bet. When pricing HDD you should typically focus on $:G in a similar way that you would $:Mhz for CPU's. (All other things being equal of course) Edit: The new Vel Raptors already sold-out from pretty much everywhere.