My ancient PC is dieing (probably the PSU, at any rate it does infrequent BSODs and it needs to go into retirement), and I have been looking around for a built PC.
I've decided to eat the €50 charge to have it prebuilt, mostly to not have to deal with problems in the past of 'try to find which part is crashing the system' and then having to wait for a webshop to return a working part. Note that computer parts are luxury VAT in the NL, making all of them more expensive, hence the higher prices.
What I want from this PC:
Play games at good to decent settings for at least 3 more years, adding on a year or two if I upgrade the GPU (Or do as I did these last two years, and tweak down settings and manage) at 1980 x 1080.
Have a HDMI cable to my TV (which will only be a few meters away, studio apartment), to watch stuff in higher resolutions.
Not be too loud when idle.
1 x MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC JDXNZ3 € 249,90* (I tried to find out which the 'best' brand for 760s is, and the web is full of conflicting messages. Does it matter?)
1 x Intel® Core™ i5-4570 HW5I13 € 179,90* (I understand i5s perform almost equivalent to same frequency i7s. Is a 3.2Ghz good enough or do I need to upgrade to higher speeds for longevity?)
1 x Cooler Master B700 TN7MB1€ 69,90* (Is this a decent brand for Powersupplies?)
1 x Cooler Master N300 TQXM9C € 39,99* (I don't care about cases as long as it fits. All but the front will be obscured, and even that will be hardly visible)
1 x Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE CEBU54 € 16,99* (Won't see much use but for the price it's a nice thing to have)
1 x Samsung MZ-7TD250KW, 250GB SSD IMIM49 € 164,90* (I understand there is an issue with this line where they lose speed if they become full? For some reason the shop doesn't have the new 'pro' line available, does it matter enough to contact them, should I switch to another?)
1 x ASRock B85 Pro4 GWER14 € 78,90* (I understand that ASRock is a good budget mobo for midrange intel cards)
1 x Seagate ST2000DM001 2 TB Harde Schijf AFBS25 € 79,90*
1 x Corsair 16 GB DDR3-1600 Kit IEIF57A1€ 129,90* (I'm not sure where the price difference between RAM comes from, there seems to be a billion near identical brands)
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-bit YQBMMT € 79,90*
Steam: SanderJK Origin: SanderJK
0
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Alright, upgrade time! This is my first update to my from scratch build (and I'm hoping it'll be my last upgrade for a while) so I'm looking to beef up the one component I skimped on from the beginning: my video card. My current build is:
Windows 7 64bit
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Intel Core i7-3770K
2X8 G.Skill DDR3 @ 667 MHz
Now, keep in mind that I'm currently gaming on a single monitor at 1920x1080, but I'm looking to future proof the hell out of this build and may decide to get a bigger/multiple monitor set up down the road. That and I'm a real stickler for gaming at 60fps but I still want max settings. I want it all! Also I'd rather not have to muck about with SLI unless I really have to eventually. So aside from the price, what are the major differences between the two cards? I'm still pretty new to custom building so some of the hard numbers don't really mean anything to me. I'm getting this upgrade as a birthday gift, but I'd be willing to throw some of my own money at it if going whole hog for the 780 is worth it. What do you folks think?
No such thing as future proof. Single monitor, 1080p, 60 FPS? The 770 should be able to do that on many games at High settings. If you have to try and run Metro Last Light at a steady 60 FPS on Ultra, well have I got news for you! Ain't gonna happen, son. You could tri-SLI some Titans but that's far more money than is sane, and at that point you've gone way past the point of diminishing returns and straight into stupid town.
0
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Computer thread - I need some help building a computer.
My new house is pretty cramped, so I have been looking at getting a mac mini for the form factor and style. However, I believe I could build a better PC for less or similar.
I am looking to build a micro-ATX (form factor needs to fairly small) gaming rig. Budget is around $500-600. I don't game very often, but I would like to play some recent games (Diablo 3 comes to mind) at a fairly decent speed. Not really married to a brand, but I hear an i3 or i5 would work well on mini/micro-ATX. Also, would love to have a wireless NIC in there to avoid running cables from across the house. Thanks!
edit - was thinking of doing just a SSD for storage - but not sure how expensive a 256gb or 512gb SSD is. Or if a regular HDD would fit in the small form factor case.
edit part deux - I started doing some initial searching and came up with the following:
No need for a mouse, keyboard or monitor (already have those). Thoughts? Current total is $643.
That DVD drive won't fit, you need a slimline unit like this.
The case is designed to fit one internal 3.5 HDD (the platter drive you have listed will slot straight in) and one 2.5 HDD (an SSD will pop straight in here)
Computer thread - I need some help building a computer.
My new house is pretty cramped, so I have been looking at getting a mac mini for the form factor and style. However, I believe I could build a better PC for less or similar.
I am looking to build a micro-ATX (form factor needs to fairly small) gaming rig. Budget is around $500-600. I don't game very often, but I would like to play some recent games (Diablo 3 comes to mind) at a fairly decent speed. Not really married to a brand, but I hear an i3 or i5 would work well on mini/micro-ATX. Also, would love to have a wireless NIC in there to avoid running cables from across the house. Thanks!
edit - was thinking of doing just a SSD for storage - but not sure how expensive a 256gb or 512gb SSD is. Or if a regular HDD would fit in the small form factor case.
edit part deux - I started doing some initial searching and came up with the following:
No need for a mouse, keyboard or monitor (already have those). Thoughts? Current total is $643.
That DVD drive won't fit, you need a slimline unit like this.
The case is designed to fit one internal 3.5 HDD (the platter drive you have listed will slot straight in) and one 2.5 HDD (an SSD will pop straight in here)
Excellent - thanks for the heads-up. I haven't built a rig since my last one in 6 years and have been out of the loop (especially with this different form factor).
Does everything else look kosher for a decent gaming rig?
0
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Thanks Chris. Yea - meant to be able to play some modern games (would like to be able to do at least D3 and SC2 at high/ultra detail).
Only other worry is heat - given the small form factor. But if everything looks good (and I would love any other comments) - I will go ahead and buy everything.
My ancient PC is dieing (probably the PSU, at any rate it does infrequent BSODs and it needs to go into retirement), and I have been looking around for a built PC.
I've decided to eat the €50 charge to have it prebuilt, mostly to not have to deal with problems in the past of 'try to find which part is crashing the system' and then having to wait for a webshop to return a working part. Note that computer parts are luxury VAT in the NL, making all of them more expensive, hence the higher prices.
What I want from this PC:
Play games at good to decent settings for at least 3 more years, adding on a year or two if I upgrade the GPU (Or do as I did these last two years, and tweak down settings and manage) at 1980 x 1080.
Have a HDMI cable to my TV (which will only be a few meters away, studio apartment), to watch stuff in higher resolutions.
Not be too loud when idle.
1 x MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC JDXNZ3 € 249,90* (I tried to find out which the 'best' brand for 760s is, and the web is full of conflicting messages. Does it matter?)
1 x Intel® Core™ i5-4570 HW5I13 € 179,90* (I understand i5s perform almost equivalent to same frequency i7s. Is a 3.2Ghz good enough or do I need to upgrade to higher speeds for longevity?)
1 x Cooler Master B700 TN7MB1€ 69,90* (Is this a decent brand for Powersupplies?)
1 x Cooler Master N300 TQXM9C € 39,99* (I don't care about cases as long as it fits. All but the front will be obscured, and even that will be hardly visible)
1 x Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE CEBU54 € 16,99* (Won't see much use but for the price it's a nice thing to have)
1 x Samsung MZ-7TD250KW, 250GB SSD IMIM49 € 164,90* (I understand there is an issue with this line where they lose speed if they become full? For some reason the shop doesn't have the new 'pro' line available, does it matter enough to contact them, should I switch to another?)
1 x ASRock B85 Pro4 GWER14 € 78,90* (I understand that ASRock is a good budget mobo for midrange intel cards)
1 x Seagate ST2000DM001 2 TB Harde Schijf AFBS25 € 79,90*
1 x Corsair 16 GB DDR3-1600 Kit IEIF57A1€ 129,90* (I'm not sure where the price difference between RAM comes from, there seems to be a billion near identical brands)
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-bit YQBMMT € 79,90*
16 GB RAM is generally overkill, you can knock it down to 8 for some savings. If you like, put it towards the 3.4 Ghz i5, or just pocket the cash. Corsair is a quality brand.
I like EVGA graphics cards, good warranty service, reliable.
Alright, upgrade time! This is my first update to my from scratch build (and I'm hoping it'll be my last upgrade for a while) so I'm looking to beef up the one component I skimped on from the beginning: my video card. My current build is:
Windows 7 64bit
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Intel Core i7-3770K
2X8 G.Skill DDR3 @ 667 MHz
Now, keep in mind that I'm currently gaming on a single monitor at 1920x1080, but I'm looking to future proof the hell out of this build and may decide to get a bigger/multiple monitor set up down the road. That and I'm a real stickler for gaming at 60fps but I still want max settings. I want it all! Also I'd rather not have to muck about with SLI unless I really have to eventually. So aside from the price, what are the major differences between the two cards? I'm still pretty new to custom building so some of the hard numbers don't really mean anything to me. I'm getting this upgrade as a birthday gift, but I'd be willing to throw some of my own money at it if going whole hog for the 780 is worth it. What do you folks think?
No such thing as future proof. Single monitor, 1080p, 60 FPS? The 770 should be able to do that on many games at High settings. If you have to try and run Metro Last Light at a steady 60 FPS on Ultra, well have I got news for you! Ain't gonna happen, son. You could tri-SLI some Titans but that's far more money than is sane, and at that point you've gone way past the point of diminishing returns and straight into stupid town.
Trust me, I have no illusions about playing that monster at full settings and getting anywhere near even high 30's! And true, "future-proofing" is impossible, but I guess what I really want is to avoid having to upgrade the video card for the next, oh, three or so years at the very least. Obviously the 770 will destroy pretty much any game I want to play *now*, but the question is will the extra power on the 780 let me play at a higher setting longer?
Alright, upgrade time! This is my first update to my from scratch build (and I'm hoping it'll be my last upgrade for a while) so I'm looking to beef up the one component I skimped on from the beginning: my video card. My current build is:
Windows 7 64bit
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Intel Core i7-3770K
2X8 G.Skill DDR3 @ 667 MHz
Now, keep in mind that I'm currently gaming on a single monitor at 1920x1080, but I'm looking to future proof the hell out of this build and may decide to get a bigger/multiple monitor set up down the road. That and I'm a real stickler for gaming at 60fps but I still want max settings. I want it all! Also I'd rather not have to muck about with SLI unless I really have to eventually. So aside from the price, what are the major differences between the two cards? I'm still pretty new to custom building so some of the hard numbers don't really mean anything to me. I'm getting this upgrade as a birthday gift, but I'd be willing to throw some of my own money at it if going whole hog for the 780 is worth it. What do you folks think?
No such thing as future proof. Single monitor, 1080p, 60 FPS? The 770 should be able to do that on many games at High settings. If you have to try and run Metro Last Light at a steady 60 FPS on Ultra, well have I got news for you! Ain't gonna happen, son. You could tri-SLI some Titans but that's far more money than is sane, and at that point you've gone way past the point of diminishing returns and straight into stupid town.
Trust me, I have no illusions about playing that monster at full settings and getting anywhere near even high 30's! And true, "future-proofing" is impossible, but I guess what I really want is to avoid having to upgrade the video card for the next, oh, three or so years at the very least. Obviously the 770 will destroy pretty much any game I want to play *now*, but the question is will the extra power on the 780 let me play at a higher setting longer?
Slightly, yes. You have to determine for yourself whether it's worth spending that extra $100 now for a minor increase in performance, or keeping it and using it toward a GPU upgrade in two years time to get a vast improvement in performance then.
I'm probably not the guy to ask this, as I bought a GTX 680 2GB at Aussie prices ($650) last year...
Trying to "Future-proof" by buying the best gpu right now so you don't have to upgrade in 3 years doesn't really work out too well. Most of the time your better off getting the mid-range card like a 760, taking the $300-400 you saved and buying a similar mid-tier card 2-3 years down the road. Especially as a gpu upgrade is one of the easiest upgrades you can do.
Computer thread - I need some help building a computer.
My new house is pretty cramped, so I have been looking at getting a mac mini for the form factor and style. However, I believe I could build a better PC for less or similar.
I am looking to build a micro-ATX (form factor needs to fairly small) gaming rig. Budget is around $500-600. I don't game very often, but I would like to play some recent games (Diablo 3 comes to mind) at a fairly decent speed. Not really married to a brand, but I hear an i3 or i5 would work well on mini/micro-ATX. Also, would love to have a wireless NIC in there to avoid running cables from across the house. Thanks!
edit - was thinking of doing just a SSD for storage - but not sure how expensive a 256gb or 512gb SSD is. Or if a regular HDD would fit in the small form factor case.
edit part deux - I started doing some initial searching and came up with the following:
No need for a mouse, keyboard or monitor (already have those). Thoughts? Current total is $643.
I think that case supports full-size graphics cards, not low-profile cards. In that case I would suggest a 1GB HD7770 as your video card instead of the 7750. You could even go with a 7790 as there are some good rebate deals out there it looks like.
tsmvengy on
0
acidlacedpenguinInstitutionalizedSafe in jail.Registered Userregular
So I bought a 1440p monitor for my work machine so I can be a screen real estate baron. It turns out though, that the ivy bridge intel 4000 graphics will deliver a maximum of 1080p over HDMI/DVI, and displayport is the only way to get 1440p at 60hz. Unfortunately, the motherboard of this machine does not have a displayport out.
I've managed to trick the thing to give me 1440p at 30hz, but that's no way to live.
I've come to the build threat to hopefully get some recommendations for the cheapest, least power hungry video card I can buy that will deliver glorious 1440p over 60hz.
if it helps my work machine is running Fedora 18. I recall years ago ATI cards used to have terrible linux support/drivers, but I have no idea whether that's still the case or not.
Ok build thread, I'm throwing together a gaming PC component list for a friend. This is tower only (can include kbam for $1500 total budget, but left those out as I think that's too personal for another person to choose). I aimed to bring in under $1300 to leave $200 for kbam.
Friend specified no storage drive, hence its omission. Also don't worry about optical.
Can you sanity check me, and provide suggestions for a cooling solution? It's been a very long time since I've used a stock heatsink/fan unit but I also haven't built for awhile so I don't know what the en vogue solutions are right this minute.
Edit: I'm also aware the PSU is a bit overpowered, but I believe the "future" plan is to SLI later in life, add some storage drives, more RAM eventually.... yadda and yadda
zerzhul on
0
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
Just 'installed' my 27" 1440p monitor. For reference I just went from a 21.6" 1680x1050 monitor to this. It's.. it's so beautiful.
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
Also are there motherboards with digital audio in (PS4) or is that something I need to get a specific card for? I should be able to use HDMI->DVI since this monitor supports HDCP.
So I bought a 1440p monitor for my work machine so I can be a screen real estate baron. It turns out though, that the ivy bridge intel 4000 graphics will deliver a maximum of 1080p over HDMI/DVI, and displayport is the only way to get 1440p at 60hz. Unfortunately, the motherboard of this machine does not have a displayport out.
I've managed to trick the thing to give me 1440p at 30hz, but that's no way to live.
I've come to the build threat to hopefully get some recommendations for the cheapest, least power hungry video card I can buy that will deliver glorious 1440p over 60hz.
if it helps my work machine is running Fedora 18. I recall years ago ATI cards used to have terrible linux support/drivers, but I have no idea whether that's still the case or not.
Nearly any video card will work. Make sure your motherboard has a PCI-E slot. Probably easier to start with finding out which cards are supported best by Fedora.
I pulled the hdd and threw it in an external enclosure. It works just swell and all of the data is there. According to the blinking lights on the laptop upon boot, it is a dead CPU.
Now, my wife needs a computer, but she doesn't need anything fancy. Honestly, she doesn't need anything more than the computer she had that just died. Since she graduated college two years ago, she doesn't even need a laptop anymore.
My question is, what is the most barebones desktop I can throw together using the hard drive I pulled from the laptop? Is that even possible? Is there a way to clone the drive via USB on a new computer? Can anything else from the laptop be salvaged, like the RAM or anything? Should I just buy a pre-built?
I pulled the hdd and threw it in an external enclosure. It works just swell and all of the data is there. According to the blinking lights on the laptop upon boot, it is a dead CPU.
Now, my wife needs a computer, but she doesn't need anything fancy. Honestly, she doesn't need anything more than the computer she had that just died. Since she graduated college two years ago, she doesn't even need a laptop anymore.
My question is, what is the most barebones desktop I can throw together using the hard drive I pulled from the laptop? Is that even possible? Is there a way to clone the drive via USB on a new computer? Can anything else from the laptop be salvaged, like the RAM or anything? Should I just buy a pre-built?
What are my options friends?
If she doesn't need it for anything gaming-wise and you need a monitor and such I would just buy a prebuilt Dell or whatever is on sale. Or another laptop. Just transfer needed files over using the external enclosure.
I pulled the hdd and threw it in an external enclosure. It works just swell and all of the data is there. According to the blinking lights on the laptop upon boot, it is a dead CPU.
Now, my wife needs a computer, but she doesn't need anything fancy. Honestly, she doesn't need anything more than the computer she had that just died. Since she graduated college two years ago, she doesn't even need a laptop anymore.
My question is, what is the most barebones desktop I can throw together using the hard drive I pulled from the laptop? Is that even possible? Is there a way to clone the drive via USB on a new computer? Can anything else from the laptop be salvaged, like the RAM or anything? Should I just buy a pre-built?
What are my options friends?
If she doesn't need it for anything gaming-wise and you need a monitor and such I would just buy a prebuilt Dell or whatever is on sale. Or another laptop. Just transfer needed files over using the external enclosure.
We have extra KBAM and monitors around. She wants to game as well as she could on the old PC, which is mostly playing things like Plants vs. Zombies and Skyrim on the low settings.
I pulled the hdd and threw it in an external enclosure. It works just swell and all of the data is there. According to the blinking lights on the laptop upon boot, it is a dead CPU.
Now, my wife needs a computer, but she doesn't need anything fancy. Honestly, she doesn't need anything more than the computer she had that just died. Since she graduated college two years ago, she doesn't even need a laptop anymore.
My question is, what is the most barebones desktop I can throw together using the hard drive I pulled from the laptop? Is that even possible? Is there a way to clone the drive via USB on a new computer? Can anything else from the laptop be salvaged, like the RAM or anything? Should I just buy a pre-built?
What are my options friends?
If she doesn't need it for anything gaming-wise and you need a monitor and such I would just buy a prebuilt Dell or whatever is on sale. Or another laptop. Just transfer needed files over using the external enclosure.
We have extra KBAM and monitors around. She wants to game as well as she could on the old PC, which is mostly playing things like Plants vs. Zombies and Skyrim on the low settings.
Personally I'd toss together a i3 with 7850 or such, if you deal shop you can easily piece together a nice build for dirt cheap provided you're willing to watch newegg for good MIR and discount codes.
Taking that route and assuming you need a HD and case I'd honestly figure right around $500 for a pretty decent PC, you could knock off $100 if you had a HD and get it to under 400 if you had a case you could re-use.
iRevert on
0
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Ok build thread, I'm throwing together a gaming PC component list for a friend. This is tower only (can include kbam for $1500 total budget, but left those out as I think that's too personal for another person to choose). I aimed to bring in under $1300 to leave $200 for kbam.
Friend specified no storage drive, hence its omission. Also don't worry about optical.
Can you sanity check me, and provide suggestions for a cooling solution? It's been a very long time since I've used a stock heatsink/fan unit but I also haven't built for awhile so I don't know what the en vogue solutions are right this minute.
Edit: I'm also aware the PSU is a bit overpowered, but I believe the "future" plan is to SLI later in life, add some storage drives, more RAM eventually.... yadda and yadda
Yeah, that looks a lot like the cooler I always used to use. Like I said, just lack of familiarity with current (especially current Intel) trends. Looks like things haven't changed as much as I figured. And the Haswell vs. Ivy Bridge? Just lack of knowledge. Hence the sanity check post! Thanks!
Oh, edit: those 2x4gb ripjaws are what I have in my current PC, but the person I'm building for specified 16GB of RAM as a requirement. Not going to argue over RAM.
zerzhul on
0
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
Finding 2.1 speakers with optical input is going to be the death of me, apparently.
Having an extra 2 Ivy-E cores certainly looks great in benchmarks, but would one see any valid penalties to games? Despite lacking a 6 core model, would Haswell be better suited to a combined gaming and production rig?
It certainly sounds like a lot of Haswell's detractors seem to have had rather high expectations, and if we're talking about theoretical benchmarks or 2 minutes difference in a Max render, processor choice seems kind of arbitrary- but at the same time, $200-$300 bucks difference and possible upgradability issues lends some validity.
I pulled the hdd and threw it in an external enclosure. It works just swell and all of the data is there. According to the blinking lights on the laptop upon boot, it is a dead CPU.
Now, my wife needs a computer, but she doesn't need anything fancy. Honestly, she doesn't need anything more than the computer she had that just died. Since she graduated college two years ago, she doesn't even need a laptop anymore.
My question is, what is the most barebones desktop I can throw together using the hard drive I pulled from the laptop? Is that even possible? Is there a way to clone the drive via USB on a new computer? Can anything else from the laptop be salvaged, like the RAM or anything? Should I just buy a pre-built?
What are my options friends?
If she doesn't need it for anything gaming-wise and you need a monitor and such I would just buy a prebuilt Dell or whatever is on sale. Or another laptop. Just transfer needed files over using the external enclosure.
We have extra KBAM and monitors around. She wants to game as well as she could on the old PC, which is mostly playing things like Plants vs. Zombies and Skyrim on the low settings.
Personally I'd toss together a i3 with 7850 or such, if you deal shop you can easily piece together a nice build for dirt cheap provided you're willing to watch newegg for good MIR and discount codes.
Taking that route and assuming you need a HD and case I'd honestly figure right around $500 for a pretty decent PC, you could knock off $100 if you had a HD and get it to under 400 if you had a case you could re-use.
I pulled the hdd and threw it in an external enclosure. It works just swell and all of the data is there. According to the blinking lights on the laptop upon boot, it is a dead CPU.
Now, my wife needs a computer, but she doesn't need anything fancy. Honestly, she doesn't need anything more than the computer she had that just died. Since she graduated college two years ago, she doesn't even need a laptop anymore.
My question is, what is the most barebones desktop I can throw together using the hard drive I pulled from the laptop? Is that even possible? Is there a way to clone the drive via USB on a new computer? Can anything else from the laptop be salvaged, like the RAM or anything? Should I just buy a pre-built?
What are my options friends?
Dirt cheap system capable of doing a bit of light gaming:
That comes to a total of $379, and if you hook up her old HDD and reinstall Windows on it (you'll need to reinstall because of the new motherboard, don't worry it won't wipe anything else off if you don't tell it to), all you'll need to do is plug in a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and it should play games a great deal better than her old laptop.
Spend a couple of hundred more adding in an SSD primary drive ($90), a dedicated video card ($165), and swapping in a better PSU ($80) to drive everything, and you'll have a pretty great little gaming machine, to be quite honest. For $674!
+1
ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
Ok build thread, I'm throwing together a gaming PC component list for a friend. This is tower only (can include kbam for $1500 total budget, but left those out as I think that's too personal for another person to choose). I aimed to bring in under $1300 to leave $200 for kbam.
Friend specified no storage drive, hence its omission. Also don't worry about optical.
Can you sanity check me, and provide suggestions for a cooling solution? It's been a very long time since I've used a stock heatsink/fan unit but I also haven't built for awhile so I don't know what the en vogue solutions are right this minute.
Edit: I'm also aware the PSU is a bit overpowered, but I believe the "future" plan is to SLI later in life, add some storage drives, more RAM eventually.... yadda and yadda
This thing is meant to be an engineering / gaming rig. Now, I'm not entirely sure how much money I really should be putting into a case. I mean, if it has some fans, airflow, and space enough, what do I gain with a case that costs another 50 bucks?
Ok build thread, I'm throwing together a gaming PC component list for a friend. This is tower only (can include kbam for $1500 total budget, but left those out as I think that's too personal for another person to choose). I aimed to bring in under $1300 to leave $200 for kbam.
Friend specified no storage drive, hence its omission. Also don't worry about optical.
Can you sanity check me, and provide suggestions for a cooling solution? It's been a very long time since I've used a stock heatsink/fan unit but I also haven't built for awhile so I don't know what the en vogue solutions are right this minute.
Edit: I'm also aware the PSU is a bit overpowered, but I believe the "future" plan is to SLI later in life, add some storage drives, more RAM eventually.... yadda and yadda
I pulled the hdd and threw it in an external enclosure. It works just swell and all of the data is there. According to the blinking lights on the laptop upon boot, it is a dead CPU.
Now, my wife needs a computer, but she doesn't need anything fancy. Honestly, she doesn't need anything more than the computer she had that just died. Since she graduated college two years ago, she doesn't even need a laptop anymore.
My question is, what is the most barebones desktop I can throw together using the hard drive I pulled from the laptop? Is that even possible? Is there a way to clone the drive via USB on a new computer? Can anything else from the laptop be salvaged, like the RAM or anything? Should I just buy a pre-built?
What are my options friends?
Dirt cheap system capable of doing a bit of light gaming:
That comes to a total of $379, and if you hook up her old HDD and reinstall Windows on it (you'll need to reinstall because of the new motherboard, don't worry it won't wipe anything else off if you don't tell it to), all you'll need to do is plug in a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and it should play games a great deal better than her old laptop.
Spend a couple of hundred more adding in an SSD primary drive ($90), a dedicated video card ($165), and swapping in a better PSU ($80) to drive everything, and you'll have a pretty great little gaming machine, to be quite honest. For $674!
Add a monitor, KB&M, and a platter drive to the $674 build listed there.
0
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Ok build thread, I'm throwing together a gaming PC component list for a friend. This is tower only (can include kbam for $1500 total budget, but left those out as I think that's too personal for another person to choose). I aimed to bring in under $1300 to leave $200 for kbam.
Friend specified no storage drive, hence its omission. Also don't worry about optical.
Can you sanity check me, and provide suggestions for a cooling solution? It's been a very long time since I've used a stock heatsink/fan unit but I also haven't built for awhile so I don't know what the en vogue solutions are right this minute.
Edit: I'm also aware the PSU is a bit overpowered, but I believe the "future" plan is to SLI later in life, add some storage drives, more RAM eventually.... yadda and yadda
What's that SSD adapter thing at the end of the list? a 2.5 inch SSD will just screw straight to one of the 3.5 drive bay inserts in that case, the holes are already there, and the screws required are in the little bits bag that comes in the box. Alternatively, velcro dots!
What's that SSD adapter thing at the end of the list? a 2.5 inch SSD will just screw straight to one of the 3.5 drive bay inserts in that case, the holes are already there, and the screws required are in the little bits bag that comes in the box. Alternatively, velcro dots!
Velcro dots are the light:
The one about the fucking space hairdresser and the cowboy. He's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin
Posts
I've decided to eat the €50 charge to have it prebuilt, mostly to not have to deal with problems in the past of 'try to find which part is crashing the system' and then having to wait for a webshop to return a working part. Note that computer parts are luxury VAT in the NL, making all of them more expensive, hence the higher prices.
What I want from this PC:
Play games at good to decent settings for at least 3 more years, adding on a year or two if I upgrade the GPU (Or do as I did these last two years, and tweak down settings and manage) at 1980 x 1080.
Have a HDMI cable to my TV (which will only be a few meters away, studio apartment), to watch stuff in higher resolutions.
Not be too loud when idle.
1 x MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC JDXNZ3 € 249,90* (I tried to find out which the 'best' brand for 760s is, and the web is full of conflicting messages. Does it matter?)
1 x Intel® Core™ i5-4570 HW5I13 € 179,90* (I understand i5s perform almost equivalent to same frequency i7s. Is a 3.2Ghz good enough or do I need to upgrade to higher speeds for longevity?)
1 x Cooler Master B700 TN7MB1€ 69,90* (Is this a decent brand for Powersupplies?)
1 x Cooler Master N300 TQXM9C € 39,99* (I don't care about cases as long as it fits. All but the front will be obscured, and even that will be hardly visible)
1 x Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE CEBU54 € 16,99* (Won't see much use but for the price it's a nice thing to have)
1 x Samsung MZ-7TD250KW, 250GB SSD IMIM49 € 164,90* (I understand there is an issue with this line where they lose speed if they become full? For some reason the shop doesn't have the new 'pro' line available, does it matter enough to contact them, should I switch to another?)
1 x ASRock B85 Pro4 GWER14 € 78,90* (I understand that ASRock is a good budget mobo for midrange intel cards)
1 x Seagate ST2000DM001 2 TB Harde Schijf AFBS25 € 79,90*
1 x Corsair 16 GB DDR3-1600 Kit IEIF57A1€ 129,90* (I'm not sure where the price difference between RAM comes from, there seems to be a billion near identical brands)
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-bit YQBMMT € 79,90*
No such thing as future proof. Single monitor, 1080p, 60 FPS? The 770 should be able to do that on many games at High settings. If you have to try and run Metro Last Light at a steady 60 FPS on Ultra, well have I got news for you! Ain't gonna happen, son. You could tri-SLI some Titans but that's far more money than is sane, and at that point you've gone way past the point of diminishing returns and straight into stupid town.
That DVD drive won't fit, you need a slimline unit like this.
The case is designed to fit one internal 3.5 HDD (the platter drive you have listed will slot straight in) and one 2.5 HDD (an SSD will pop straight in here)
Excellent - thanks for the heads-up. I haven't built a rig since my last one in 6 years and have been out of the loop (especially with this different form factor).
Does everything else look kosher for a decent gaming rig?
You're going to want a better video card.
EDIT: Sorry, linked a better card.
Thanks Chris. Yea - meant to be able to play some modern games (would like to be able to do at least D3 and SC2 at high/ultra detail).
Only other worry is heat - given the small form factor. But if everything looks good (and I would love any other comments) - I will go ahead and buy everything.
16 GB RAM is generally overkill, you can knock it down to 8 for some savings. If you like, put it towards the 3.4 Ghz i5, or just pocket the cash. Corsair is a quality brand.
I like EVGA graphics cards, good warranty service, reliable.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Trust me, I have no illusions about playing that monster at full settings and getting anywhere near even high 30's! And true, "future-proofing" is impossible, but I guess what I really want is to avoid having to upgrade the video card for the next, oh, three or so years at the very least. Obviously the 770 will destroy pretty much any game I want to play *now*, but the question is will the extra power on the 780 let me play at a higher setting longer?
Slightly, yes. You have to determine for yourself whether it's worth spending that extra $100 now for a minor increase in performance, or keeping it and using it toward a GPU upgrade in two years time to get a vast improvement in performance then.
I'm probably not the guy to ask this, as I bought a GTX 680 2GB at Aussie prices ($650) last year...
One screw, a couple of power leads, a driver update, and BAM!
Your eyes will never be the same again.
I think that case supports full-size graphics cards, not low-profile cards. In that case I would suggest a 1GB HD7770 as your video card instead of the 7750. You could even go with a 7790 as there are some good rebate deals out there it looks like.
I've managed to trick the thing to give me 1440p at 30hz, but that's no way to live.
I've come to the build threat to hopefully get some recommendations for the cheapest, least power hungry video card I can buy that will deliver glorious 1440p over 60hz.
if it helps my work machine is running Fedora 18. I recall years ago ATI cards used to have terrible linux support/drivers, but I have no idea whether that's still the case or not.
Friend specified no storage drive, hence its omission. Also don't worry about optical.
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139008
GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130933
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006
Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128544
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231568
SSD : http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192
Can you sanity check me, and provide suggestions for a cooling solution? It's been a very long time since I've used a stock heatsink/fan unit but I also haven't built for awhile so I don't know what the en vogue solutions are right this minute.
Edit: I'm also aware the PSU is a bit overpowered, but I believe the "future" plan is to SLI later in life, add some storage drives, more RAM eventually.... yadda and yadda
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Nearly any video card will work. Make sure your motherboard has a PCI-E slot. Probably easier to start with finding out which cards are supported best by Fedora.
My wife's laptop just died, specifically, this laptop -
(http://www.amazon.com/HP-Pavilion-DV4-1140GO-14-1-Inch-Processor/dp/B001FWU96M/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top)
I pulled the hdd and threw it in an external enclosure. It works just swell and all of the data is there. According to the blinking lights on the laptop upon boot, it is a dead CPU.
Now, my wife needs a computer, but she doesn't need anything fancy. Honestly, she doesn't need anything more than the computer she had that just died. Since she graduated college two years ago, she doesn't even need a laptop anymore.
My question is, what is the most barebones desktop I can throw together using the hard drive I pulled from the laptop? Is that even possible? Is there a way to clone the drive via USB on a new computer? Can anything else from the laptop be salvaged, like the RAM or anything? Should I just buy a pre-built?
What are my options friends?
If she doesn't need it for anything gaming-wise and you need a monitor and such I would just buy a prebuilt Dell or whatever is on sale. Or another laptop. Just transfer needed files over using the external enclosure.
We have extra KBAM and monitors around. She wants to game as well as she could on the old PC, which is mostly playing things like Plants vs. Zombies and Skyrim on the low settings.
Personally I'd toss together a i3 with 7850 or such, if you deal shop you can easily piece together a nice build for dirt cheap provided you're willing to watch newegg for good MIR and discount codes.
Taking that route and assuming you need a HD and case I'd honestly figure right around $500 for a pretty decent PC, you could knock off $100 if you had a HD and get it to under 400 if you had a case you could re-use.
Good case, excellent GPU. Is there any reason you're going with Ivy Bridge (socket 1155) over Haswell (socket 1150)? If you change your mind and decide to go for the latest and greatest microarchitecture, then your CPU and mobo links might look more like this:
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116899
Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128591
It's $15 more overall, but you get better gear.
For a CPU cooler, unless you're going for an extreme overclock, you don't really need to worry about watercooling. This'll do just fine:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099
16 gigs of RAM is far more than any gaming p.c. needs now, and most likely for the next couple of years too. This is more than enough capacity, nice and fast, and good timings:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231445
There's no need to buy an 840Pro SSD when for gaming usage your friend won't see any difference over an 840 which just happens to have double the capacity for only $40 more:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147189
With my substitutions, your list so far comes to $1128 plus shipping.
Oh, edit: those 2x4gb ripjaws are what I have in my current PC, but the person I'm building for specified 16GB of RAM as a requirement. Not going to argue over RAM.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
Gaming rig with SLI, multiple monitors
Content creation & memory intensive graphics applications
Are these mutually exclusive?
Having an extra 2 Ivy-E cores certainly looks great in benchmarks, but would one see any valid penalties to games? Despite lacking a 6 core model, would Haswell be better suited to a combined gaming and production rig?
It certainly sounds like a lot of Haswell's detractors seem to have had rather high expectations, and if we're talking about theoretical benchmarks or 2 minutes difference in a Max render, processor choice seems kind of arbitrary- but at the same time, $200-$300 bucks difference and possible upgradability issues lends some validity.
I did a little searching myself just now, and yeah finding a 2.1 speaker system with an optical input from a company I've actually heard of is extremely hard. I did find these http://www.amazon.com/Edifier-S330D-Multimedia-Speaker-Black/dp/B002BA5JLW/ref=pd_sim_sbs_e_4, but I think you'd be better off buying a d/a converter like a Fiio D3 and Klipsch Promedia 2.1's.
gonna get on that right now!
side panel fan now installed, everything working correctly
i think i'm all done with my computer except for kb/audio!
thanks computer thread you guys were very helpful
have 7.6 for processor, and 7.9 for everything else on the WEI woo
What about this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230770
Or this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230599
Dirt cheap system capable of doing a bit of light gaming:
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147123 $30
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151077 $40
Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157334 $75
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113331 $149
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233180 $67
DVD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204 $18
That comes to a total of $379, and if you hook up her old HDD and reinstall Windows on it (you'll need to reinstall because of the new motherboard, don't worry it won't wipe anything else off if you don't tell it to), all you'll need to do is plug in a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and it should play games a great deal better than her old laptop.
Spend a couple of hundred more adding in an SSD primary drive ($90), a dedicated video card ($165), and swapping in a better PSU ($80) to drive everything, and you'll have a pretty great little gaming machine, to be quite honest. For $674!
I may build this exact PC. Thanks, chris!
So here's what I was looking at (http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Steel-Plastic-Computer-Blackbone/dp/B004A9XB6W/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pd_S_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=347UVYILQUJ60&coliid=I1H9SNQ3AEZ0HE)
This thing is meant to be an engineering / gaming rig. Now, I'm not entirely sure how much money I really should be putting into a case. I mean, if it has some fans, airflow, and space enough, what do I gain with a case that costs another 50 bucks?
@Butters @chrishallett83 to follow up I updated the finalized list of things and put it on pc part picker. Final version added an optical drive and magnetic at the original requester's additional request.
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/zerzhul/saved/24cU
*cough*
Add a monitor, KB&M, and a platter drive to the $674 build listed there.
What's that SSD adapter thing at the end of the list? a 2.5 inch SSD will just screw straight to one of the 3.5 drive bay inserts in that case, the holes are already there, and the screws required are in the little bits bag that comes in the box. Alternatively, velcro dots!
Velcro dots are the light: