Enigma, really looking at you for this one... I'm looking to spend around 1500, but of course the cheaper the better(and easier to convince the woman )(If it can play wow maxed then im honestly happy to just spend 600 lol) I'm looking to be able to play most games on high settings, nothing too crazy though, the only pc game I play right now is WoW actually, but I would like to be able to play it maxed. I was looking at the game archage on the upcoming games section, and I would like to be able to play that heh.... I don't need a monitor, keyboard etc. etc. I can easily build it from parts. Looking for just about 1 TB of storage, no need for anything more. I'm not partial to any companies or types, if you can recommend something, I'll go with it. Anyway, id rather shop in canada so I dont have to pay any duties, iv also got free shipping from ncix, but if there's a cheaper place ill go with that. Thanks in advance, SamHamwich
Ill do some research when I get home from work today. Ncix is your best bet in Canada. Ill pick all parts from there.
Do you plan on overclocking the cpu at all? And if so, by a lot or a little bit? And how soon do you want to buy stuff? Cause Intels new cpu and chipset come out in 5 days.
There is a price drop And less power consumption as well. Most of the quad cores are only 65w now I think I recall seeing a small speed increase too. EDIT: Yes I did remember right on the speed increase. I was wrong however about the power consumption, the 65w chips will come later in the year. Here are the prices and specs for the new Intel chips to be released on January 9th 2011: i7 2600k - 4 core, HT, 3.4/3.8GHz, 95W, $317* i7 2600 - 4 core, HT, 3.4/3.8GHz, 95W, $294 i5 2500k - 4 core, no HT, 3.3/3.7GHz, 95W, $216* i5 2500 - 4 core, no HT, 3.3/3.7GHz, 95W, $205 i5 2400 - 4 core, no HT, 3.1/3.4GHz, 95W, $184 i5 2300 - 4 core, no HT, 2.8/3.1GHz, 95W, $177 * "K" versions are unlocked Also, 35 watt dual core Sandy Bridge processors will be released towards the end of next month. I really want to suggest an MSI P67A-C45 motherboard ($138) and an i5 2500k CPU. But they wont be released until January 9th. So I will go ahead and do a build for you, but just know that I also suggest waiting until later this month and go with the new Intel stuff. EDIT: I take it back, If you look around you can find Sandy Bridge's out now. I just went to the store and bought one about 10 minutes ago.
Antec Three Hundred series mini tower - $56 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=29812&vpn=THREE HUNDRED&manufacture=Antec&promoid=1276 SeaSonic SS-850HT - $115 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=55700&vpn=SS-850HT&manufacture=Seasonic Electronics MSI P67A-C45 - $141 This is "not yet out" and will cost $140.95 in Canadian Dollars. You can find it in a few days, or if you look around hard enough you can get it now. Intel i5 2500k - $216 This is "not yet out" as well. Official price should be $216, but in Canadian Dollars it will probably be around $230. Only get the "k" version if you are overclocking. If you dont want to OC, save a few dollars and get the non-k version which is the exact same thing but with locked multipliers. Prolimatech Megahalem - $50 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?...s Rev. B&manufacture=Prolimatech&promoid=1276 This is the heatsink you should get only if you are overclocking Scythe Slip Stream Kaze Jyuni - $8 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=26748&vpn=SY1225SL12H&manufacture=Scythe This is the fan for the heatsink, only if you are overclocking. You can get 2 fans if you want to and mount both of them on the heatsink for better cooling performance. But noise will also increase with dual fans. These fans are already moderately loud, so consider how loud you want your tower to be before buying a second one (or an even more powerful fan). Mushkin Enhanced Blackline Frostbyte 8GB (3x4GB) - $112 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=54963&vpn=996776&manufacture=Mushkin Enhanced Mushkin has always been great to me and they have good service too. I suggest buying two kits of this for 16GB of RAM as the price is good right now. But that might not go over well with your wife/girlfriend so I am just pricing this as 8GB only. AMD 6950 - $340 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=57630&vpn=HD695ACNFC&manufacture=XFX If you feel comfortable with it, all 6950's can be bios flashed into 6970's. This will save you $130 and give you the exact same performance as the better card (which is only a couple fps more...) Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB - $70 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=50846&vpn=WD10EALS&manufacture=Western Digital WD NCIX hardly sells any good speed 1TB drives, so this is one of your only options. Samsung SH-S222A/BEBE - $26 http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=39427&vpn=SH-S222A/BEBE&manufacture=Samsung Subtotal: $1148 -> in Canadian Dollars That subtotal is with the included heatsink and fan for overclocking, and the OC edition processor at the higher estimated Canadian price. If you want to go cheaper just let me know, I can knock a few things down to smaller amounts and/or lesser models. I would also highly recommend this: http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=56084&vpn=SSDSA2MP040G2K5&manufacture=Intel Not as a boot drive, but as a second drive just for WoW (or your other big MMO you get into after WoW) and one other big game you play (like Archage). This will improve your loading times in the games drastically and help (very slightly) to smooth out your fps since background things going on in your computer wont be sharing the drive you are gaming on. I would also like to inform you that you CANNOT run dual graphics cards in this computer. It only has a single 16x PCI-E slot. So be aware that if you are into the whole multi-GPU scene, that you cannot do that on this computer. In addition, you cannot run multiple graphics cards to their full potential with any of the new Intel products. Even on last generation Intel products there are not a ton of motherboards that can run multi-gpu to its full potential. If you wish to run multiple graphics cards, you should buy an AMD based computer.
Sounds great, thanks so much for the research, I would have replied a lot sooner but I was actually away visiting! I'm not going to be running two video cards at all anyway so that won't be a problem. I also don't think I'll bother overclocking, as I said, WoW was my main concern so you probably won't need to hehe... plus I may get greedy and not be able to keep the beast cool lol. That actually fits right in my budget, again really appreciate it, and I feel comfortable getting the parts actually. It's hard to really shop online when you can't talk to a sales rep.
NCIX is pretty big, there should be no problems whatsoever. And Im sure you could call in to a sales rep of some kind and ask questions if you need to. If you want another place with great customer service you could try www.newegg.ca, which is the Canadian site for Newegg.com. But as you said, if you get free shipping at NCIX then it is probably better to just get it from there.
So i just bought the case, pwer supply and the ram, on my way... should be getting the mobo and cpu next month lol
I'm pretty confidant that this is build is gonna be pretty kick ass from what ive got now! Can't wait!
Do not buy the motherboard this/next month. Intel announced a design flaw in the P67 and H67 chipsets. All motherboard shipments are suspended until a new chipset revision can be produced. Intel expects it to be April before new motherboards will be sold. The problem is that all SATA2 ports on the motherboard degrade over time and cause performance problems and connectivity problems. SATA3 ports are not affected. When you are ready to buy the CPU and motherboard them let me know and I can look into what would be best at that time.
The Sandy Bridge recall you heard about is what I was talking about. The CPU's themselves are fine, it is the motherboard chipsets that are bad. Intel said only 5-15% of motherboards will show the problem after a 3 year period, however people who actually have the motherboard and have done testing of the SATA2 connections show the number is much higher and people are already developing problems.
Piecing together a computer is never a good idea if you're going to do a complete build. Save up your money until you can buy everything at once. Prices drop all the time, and go up very rarely. The only instance that ever happens in, is with RAM. Not to mention you'll save yourself quite a bit of money on shipping if you do it all at once as well.
Picked up the i7 2600 and MSI P67A-C45 as soon as they were released. Needless to say I was a little dissapointed about the issues that were found but luckily this board comes with 2 extra 6Gb SATA ports (Marvel) so I was golden with my 3 SATA devices. I will probably still exchange it once Newegg gets a hold of the newer boards, but I'm at least comfortable that all is well and damn this machine blazes!
If you do decide to exchange it, see how far you can OC the processor before you do. If this is an option at all, I didn't follow what the recall was in response to.
you can OC fine on the old boards and new ones, the change will have no effect on OCing in any way as it only affects one small part of the southbridge chip on the motherboard.