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Need help with a$2000 -$3000 gaming build

rocka4himrocka4him Registered User regular
edited December 2008 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
A friend of mine would like me to put together a media PC for him for around $2000 - $3000. I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on things I should look at to put in this system. Some of the questions I have:

Are the phenome quads on-par with Intel's at that price range, or is the i7 a worthwhile buy at this point (yes I am aware of the budget, but I don't want to spend money for no reason...)

I am not sure whether to go Liquid cooling or stick with air, is Liquid cooling easy to maintain?
(btw this is his pc so I wont be there to troubleshoot)

SSD... are they worth it now?

these are some of the questions I have, to name a few

rocka4him on

Posts

  • Lord YodLord Yod Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    The Computer Build Thread wrote: »
    The E-Penis i7. 12-15-08
    When yours has got to be bigger.
    $2042.92 + tax and shipping.
    Case
    Antec Twelve Hundred - $159.99

    Power Supply
    CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX - $119.99

    Motherboard
    Foxconn Renaissance LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - $277.99

    CPU
    Intel Core i7 940 - $569.99
    There is also a 2.66GHZ chip available for $299.99

    Video Card
    BFG Tech BFGEGTX2801024OCE GeForce GTX 280 1GB - $349.99
    Actually, you may want to buy a couple of these just to be sure ;)

    RAM
    G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel Kit - $174.99

    Hard Drive
    Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB - $129.99
    The size only gets you moderate E-Penis bonus, for a solid E-Penis consider a couple of Velociraptors for your OS/App array.

    Optical Drive
    Pioneer Black SATA Internal Blu-ray Burner Model BDR-202BK - $259.99

    Start with this?

    Lord Yod on
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  • LuqLuq Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Definitely i7. It is safe to ignore AMD entirely for the time being. It's only worth considering for budget PC's. You'll probably find Tom's Hardware's System Builder Marathon helpful. They just went over their $650 and $1250 gaming rigs. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i7-overclock,2112.html

    They'll be doing a $2500 one on 12/31 and an overall analysis on 1/1/09.

    Luq on
    FFRK:jWwH RW:Onion Knight's Sage USB
  • LuqLuq Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Also, in regards to liquid cooling etc. Unless it sounds like a lot of fun to you, you should probably shoot for creating a very stable low maintenance system that will not result in him calling you back for help. So don't overdo it on the OC'ing. I'd also recommend including a backup solution in the cost, whether it's external or RAID mirroring or whatever. These are two things I have learned from building many systems for friends and family over the years.

    Luq on
    FFRK:jWwH RW:Onion Knight's Sage USB
  • rocka4himrocka4him Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Ok So I'll drop the Liquid cooling :P, I need to learn how to use RAID mirroring or other ways or other forms of backing up, bc having peace of mind would be welcome :)

    rocka4him on
  • SatsumomoSatsumomo Rated PG! Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Instead of the Seagate drive, I'd recommend 3 of Western Digital Caviar blacks and running 2 of them in RAID0 and keeping one for backup purposes.

    SSD drives are nice and all but I think there's several problems installing an OS on them right now.

    The WD Caviar black is possibly the best/fastest 7200rpm drive you can find out there for a good price. You could also just get a pair of velociraptors and run those in a Matrix RAID/RAID 0.

    Satsumomo on
  • DixonDixon Screwed...possibly doomed CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Satsumomo wrote: »
    Instead of the Seagate drive, I'd recommend 3 of Western Digital Caviar blacks and running 2 of them in RAID0 and keeping one for backup purposes.

    SSD drives are nice and all but I think there's several problems installing an OS on them right now.

    The WD Caviar black is possibly the best/fastest 7200rpm drive you can find out there for a good price. You could also just get a pair of velociraptors and run those in a Matrix RAID/RAID 0.

    I would say go for a SSD, I've used 3 of them now in systems and not had a single problem. There very nice. Then keep a TB drive for data, they have those GTX 295's coming out after the CES show I think and they look very nice.

    I don't see why you would go for a 940 though? The 920 is very close in specs and can be OC'd to meet the 940 easily, costs a lot less to.

    EDIT: I remember someone on the boards talking about the new solid state drives that fix the write problems. The benchmarks look very nice, I haven't used SSD's for prolonged use though as they are customers machines.

    Dixon on
  • rocka4himrocka4him Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I like the idea of having 3 HDD, 2 in RAID0 and 1 for back up. The only problem...and I hope I don't sound stupid, is that I have no idea how to do that. I can/will probably read up on it and be able to do it though

    rocka4him on
  • LuqLuq Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    I would recommend looking up RAID on wikipedia for general education before you start working on procedure.

    Luq on
    FFRK:jWwH RW:Onion Knight's Sage USB
  • rocka4himrocka4him Registered User regular
    edited December 2008
    Agreed

    rocka4him on
  • Moe FwackyMoe Fwacky Right Here, Right Now Drives a BuickModerator Mod Emeritus
    edited December 2008
    We have a computer build thread, please use it.
    http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=70070

    Moe Fwacky on
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This discussion has been closed.
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