So with the continuing downfall of Alienware in to the black hole that is Dell the chances of my finally buying one of them is now pretty much nil so over the next 6 months or so I'm going to be buying parts for a comp So off and on I am going to be asking for some advise on parts since I have not kept up with hardware and have no real desire to get caught up other then cursory looks at price and performance. To start things out here is the processor I am looking at right now. http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=52066&vpn=HDT55TFBGRBOX&manufacture=AMD&promoid=1088 And I need a mother board (the bane of my existence when it comes to comps) to go with it I need a board that has price and upgrade ability in mind I do not care about sli or crossfire or what ever they are calling it these days. Since I am a one card at a time person. I will likely be sticking in some pretty low end parts at first but will want to be able to upgrade when money permits the goal right now is to get a comp that is adequate to run games that are out right now or coming out in the near future. I am not set on that cpu either if you know one with better bang for the buck at that or a lesser price point that will work with an upgradeable board don't be afraid to say something. Also keep in mind that I will not have enough for the processor for another month or 2 if you know of something coming out that's better then something out now for that price or less go ahead and say something.
Good AM3 Motherboard: http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=52676&vpn=M4A87TD EVO&manufacture=ASUS For RAM, get any 2x2 GB 1600mhz (the motherboard's max without overclocking) kit. I'd recommend Patriot, but for some reason NCIX doesn't have any of theirs. Other than that, stay away from OCZ for RAM - I've had to replace OCZ RAM twice within 6 months of purchase for being a pile of fail. For a video card, make sure it's DirectX 11 compatible. For ATI that means 5800 series or higher. For Nvidia, you're starting at the GTX 460. If you go with Nvidia, I recommend BFG for their lifetime warranty (I don't think any other nvidia company has that). I'm using an ATI 5850 1gb and it can run every current game on max settings 1920x1080 res with up to 4x AA before the FPS goes under 60. The rest is fairly standard. Need any other info?
Don't buy hardware in stages, save up til you can get it all at once because you'll save yourself quite a bit of money or get better parts for the same price. Also, saying you want upgradability and you don't care about xfire/sli are contradictory statements. Sli provides up to 90% scaling now, not building a system with that in mind is just silly.
That's cool thanks man. but one review for that board said the mic jack didn't work is that a known problem or maybe it was just him? As to the sli thing like I said I'm am fairly behind on hardware stuff I think I remember that you had to pair the cards up for that have they changed that now? Or maybe I'm just remembering wrong but I usually have a 3-4 year spacing between my card purchases. Also I wanted to get peoples thoughts and feelings on these guys http://www.pugetsystems.com/ I did quick and dirty math on a couple of their systems they seem to be charging about 100-150 premium on the systems. If I get some steady work like I some times do leading up to Xmas I wouldn't mind a small premium if it can keep me from having to deal with some of the headaches with do it yourself building. Since in that case I would probably just drop a couple grand on one and call it a day and an extra 100 isn't going to affect things much in that situation. I was looking at their serenity line and making it do double duty as a media server. Edit: On second thought going with NCIX to put it together for me is better then those guys any way they only charge a $50 assembly/testing charge. $50 is more then fair for somebody else to deal with parts not working together or bent pins and buggered up past and such. Not to mention shipping through Canada is a shit load cheaper then shipping from the states to Canada.
Dont worry about SLI or Crossfire then. Also, you want an AMD chipset for your motherboard as Nvidia chipsets are the worst of the worst. And any Nvidia chipset for an AMD platform is YEARS old. Just like their graphics cards for the past 3 generations before Fermi, the motherboard chipsets have been the exact same thing re branded under a new name. Also, Nvidia chipsets have a serious defect and die early, thats one big reason Nvidia decided to stop their chipset business altogether. This last problem was just too costly for them. You can use Nvidia graphics cards on AMD platforms just fine, you just cant use dual Nvidia graphics cards on an AMD chipset. Same with dual ATI cards on Nvidia chipsets. FYI, the new AMD 6k series will be out in 2 months. I would wait until then to upgrade as the prices of current model cards will come down. If you are upgrading, get either an Nvidia GTX460, or GTX470 (I recommend the 470 of those, its a better card and you can find them on sale for not much more than a 460). Or an ATI 5850 or 5870. Dont bother looking at a 5830 and below if you want to use it as a gaming computer for the next 3 years or so without a graphics upgrade. That processor you selected is REALLY good for the price. If you are in to overclocking though, the black edition model might be more up your alley. The black edition has unlocked multipliers so is much easier to OC. Upping the NB clock speed on the AMD processors can give a very large performance boost as l3 cache latency is improved significantly as well as overall RAM latency. But the price difference is pretty large so only get the black edition if you plan on OCing the processor and NB cores. For memory, look into 2GB sticks at least, 4GB sticks if you can afford them. Get DDR-1600 or higher. 1600 speeds seem to be the sweet spot for price/performance right now. Also you want low timings on the RAM. Look for at least CAS latencies of 8 rather than 9. 7 if you can afford it. Mushkin is my favorite memory supplier. I have always had the best luck with them, and the highest levels of compatibility and speed headroom on their sticks. They just work. G.Skill and OCZ I have has LOTS of bad luck with. Which sucks because the guys over at OCZ are really cool people and help the community a lot. For a motherboard, I would get this: http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=52499&vpn=870A-G54&manufacture=MSI/MicroStar It has all the latest features such as USB3.0 and SATA 6gbps. It has some decent power regulation and pretty good slot layout. On another note, WOW does NCIX have expensive motherboards... :O Oh, and AMD' new CPU codenamed "Bulldozer" will be out in Q2 of next year. It probably isnt worth waiting that long though as it is almost a year away. I dont remember if AMD is changing sockets for Bulldozer or not, I dont think they are though.
Sorry to go off track a bit, but man, i remember when i would build a top of the line pc and go all out for fun(just on the website lol) And i could rack it up over 12k sometimes, now i go top of the line and its hard to push 4k.... im not complaining i just find it funny.