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[Computer Build Thread] - Haswell? More like Has...damnit, I had something for this...

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Posts

  • RiusRius Globex CEO Nobody ever says ItalyRegistered User regular
    http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=84529&promoid=1146

    Asus Maximus Hero VI Z87 motherboard for $160 (retail is ~200), free shipping, no rebates or w/e. This is a spectacular deal if you're looking to build a Haswell system and OC it.

  • JeixJeix Registered User regular
    So I am thinking of upgrading and wanted to run some stuff by you guys, posted this elsewhere so just going to quote it.
    I am trying to use things some stuff from my old build but it is pretty dated. I am currently using an overclocked e8400 core2duo system, which is not holding up for things I want to do these days. I'm not in a rush to buy so I am trying to make smart purchase choices.

    The things I will be using from my current setup will be the peripherals, monitors, hard drives, and unless anyone thinks it is a bad idea the Antec 1200 case and Corsair TX650 power supply.

    Here is a list of what I am planning on purchasing this month, most are from microcenter locally and the deals last until the end of February. The CPU cooler is something I would have to buy soon as that deal ends tomorrow, so if I should stick with that I need to buy it soon.

    Prices have been adjusted for being after bundles, mail-in rebate deals, and shipping, but not for tax.

    I didn't see a video card deal I am interested in at the moment and may wait until march when I hear that more deals will happen.

    **CPU** | [Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor] $249.99 @Microcenter

    **CPU Cooler** | [Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler] $64.99 @NCIX

    **Motherboard** | [Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard] $119.99 @Microcenter

    **Memory** | [Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory] $64.99 @Microcenter

    **Total** $499.96

  • CabezoneCabezone Registered User regular
    edited February 2014
    What are you planning on doing with this system? Gaming, video encoding, overclocking? I ask because if you're not overclocking there's no real need for an aftermarket CPU cooler and I7's are a waste of money for the average gamer.

    EDIT: and yeah, video cards are in a bad place right now. That power supply ought to be fine for a single card setup.

    Cabezone on
  • JeixJeix Registered User regular
    Oh wow I forgot to quote that part. I will be using it for gaming, large image editing in Photoshop, 3d modeling in Maya(not animating much), steam streaming to my media center, and I would like to try twitch streaming also.

  • CabezoneCabezone Registered User regular
    edited February 2014
    I could be mistaken, someone with more CPU knowledge can maybe help out, but I don't think you're going to get much of a boost going I7 vs I5. I mean if the extra 40 bucks isn't anything to you then, yeah, why not?

    Cabezone on
  • Casually HardcoreCasually Hardcore Once an Asshole. Trying to be better. Registered User regular
    My current build is as follow

    Sabertooth P67
    8Gb ram
    Radeon 9870
    2500 i5

    My question is, what would be my most bang for buck upgrade? I'm thinking upgrading my video card for something more recent, but other then that I can't think of anything else that needs upgrading. I'm willing to put down a grand on upgrades, but I doubt a $1000 video card is really worth the price for 1080P gaming.

  • CabezoneCabezone Registered User regular
    Video card is the only real option for you, but are in a bad place right now. Do you have a SSD? That's always a great all around system boost.

  • GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    Cabezone wrote: »
    I could be mistaken, someone with more CPU knowledge can maybe help out, but I don't think you're going to get much of a boost going I7 vs I5.

    You won't for gaming, but you might for stuff like media editing and 3D modeling.

  • Casually HardcoreCasually Hardcore Once an Asshole. Trying to be better. Registered User regular
    Cabezone wrote: »
    Video card is the only real option for you, but are in a bad place right now. Do you have a SSD? That's always a great all around system boost.

    What do you mean by being in a bad place?

    I also have a SSD drive, though it's only 250GB. Enough for OS and a few select games.

  • CabezoneCabezone Registered User regular
    edited February 2014
    I have jsut recently discovered that bitcoin miners are buying up all the AMD cards, so even if you can find one, they are way overpriced. As Nvidia is the only game in town, their prices remain highish also.

    Some cheap SSD drives have recently come out, not as fast as more expensive ones but you can get a 500GB one to put games on for a steal. They have a shorter lifespan than other tech but should still last as long as most gamers take between major system upgrades.

    Cabezone on
  • Casually HardcoreCasually Hardcore Once an Asshole. Trying to be better. Registered User regular
    Well darn......I guess I'll see how things are like when Witcher 3 is released.

  • darunia106darunia106 J-bob in games Death MountainRegistered User regular
    I second the reccomendations for an ssd. I just finished building my new computer and I'm loving the fast boot times.

    Also, a friend came into town and showed me a build he wants to put together and right off the bat I reccomended 2x 4 gig sticks of ram instead of one 8 gig stick as that was suggested to me but I couldn't tell him why. Why is that?

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  • Banzai5150Banzai5150 Registered User regular
    darunia106 wrote: »
    I second the reccomendations for an ssd. I just finished building my new computer and I'm loving the fast boot times.

    Also, a friend came into town and showed me a build he wants to put together and right off the bat I reccomended 2x 4 gig sticks of ram instead of one 8 gig stick as that was suggested to me but I couldn't tell him why. Why is that?

    You need Two(four) for Dual Channel Mode. Though I would hazard to guess that the payoff is nominal at the speeds they are running.

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  • FoomyFoomy Registered User regular
    Banzai5150 wrote: »
    darunia106 wrote: »
    I second the reccomendations for an ssd. I just finished building my new computer and I'm loving the fast boot times.

    Also, a friend came into town and showed me a build he wants to put together and right off the bat I reccomended 2x 4 gig sticks of ram instead of one 8 gig stick as that was suggested to me but I couldn't tell him why. Why is that?

    You need Two(four) for Dual Channel Mode. Though I would hazard to guess that the payoff is nominal at the speeds they are running.

    Most benchmarks and tests put the difference around 5-15% boost in performance for running dual channel over single. Not much but there isn't much reason to want single channel.

    Steam Profile: FoomyFooms
  • CabezoneCabezone Registered User regular
    Foomy wrote: »
    Banzai5150 wrote: »
    darunia106 wrote: »
    I second the reccomendations for an ssd. I just finished building my new computer and I'm loving the fast boot times.

    Also, a friend came into town and showed me a build he wants to put together and right off the bat I reccomended 2x 4 gig sticks of ram instead of one 8 gig stick as that was suggested to me but I couldn't tell him why. Why is that?

    You need Two(four) for Dual Channel Mode. Though I would hazard to guess that the payoff is nominal at the speeds they are running.

    Most benchmarks and tests put the difference around 5-15% boost in performance for running dual channel over single. Not much but there isn't much reason to want single channel.

    Yeah there's no real price benefit to a single stick.

  • JeixJeix Registered User regular
    Well it sounds like I might as well get the i7 because of the media work I do, I guess I am going to purchase that Noctua DH-14 cooler tonight unless someone knows a better model for the same price or cheaper. Not sure I will overclock it right away but I like to have the option for it.

  • BubbyBubby Registered User regular
    edited February 2014
    So I have a 3 year old Alienware Aurora R3 (with the ram and video card upgraded since then), I love the look of the case but it's been rattling for about a year now. I'm usually able to make it stop for a little while by putting a little piece of wood under the front or just moving it around, but now it's so incessant that I have to take the side panel off to make it stop. It's not wires or anything like that, it's just the shitty plastic make of the case that's the culprit.

    Any recommendations for the quietest/sexiest case on the market? Preferably something with front usb 3.0 ports and maybe a mic jack. I'm running an i7 2600k, GTX 680, 2 sticks of 8gb ram, SSD + 2 extra HDD's, alienware mobo, SB sound card. I'm dreading putting all these parts into a new case, might have a friend do it for me since I know Fry's will charge me hundreds of dollars. Hopefully the alienware motherboard can be slotted into a non-alienware case as well...

    And before anyone says anything, yes I know, I don't intend to buy Alienware again. They've always been overpriced but they were a great company before Dell bought them out, now they're pretty much garbage with abysmal india outsourced tech support.

    Bubby on
  • Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    Sexy case you say?

    *cough Corsair 550D cough cough*

    It's easy as pie to build in, has lots of vents (and filters for said vents!), is really solid and yet also easily adaptable, and looks pretty damn classy even if I say so myself...

    20121104_033525.jpg

  • toloveistorebel toloveistorebel Impressive. Most impressive. Central FLRegistered User regular
    edited February 2014
    Sexy case you say?

    *cough Corsair 550D cough cough*

    It's easy as pie to build in, has lots of vents (and filters for said vents!), is really solid and yet also easily adaptable, and looks pretty damn classy even if I say so myself...

    20121104_033525.jpg

    Hmmm, did you throw a custom side panel on that? I love full windows.

    Edited for the spells.

    toloveistorebel on
  • Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    No, that's dead stock.

  • toloveistorebel toloveistorebel Impressive. Most impressive. Central FLRegistered User regular
    edited February 2014
    No, that's dead stock.

    Oooh I think I see it now. The fan shroud (or whatever that is) looked like a reflection of the monitor or something. It is shiny though, right? Just seems different from the press shots I've seen. Looks good! Joining the Corsair club myself when my Air 540 comes in later today!

    EDIT: Yeah looking at the press shots on Corsair.com and Newegg the side panel definitely looks like it has the typical matte black finish. Am I just seeing something wrong? Or do you have an older/newer/special model? Because in your picture it clearly looks like a shiny glass like material.

    toloveistorebel on
  • Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    That must be the light from the phone flash reflectiong off the screen and on to the side panel, because my case is completely 100% stock black. The only mod I did was removing the internal 3.5 drive cages because I don't need them:

    IMG_50741_zpscccdbc80.jpg

  • ElkiElki get busy Moderator, ClubPA mod
    edited February 2014
    http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2NGUc

    I need some advice, since I haven't built anything in a decade. My goal is to have a quiet system with the minimum amount of build hassle, and run everything on high/ultra settings at 1080; I don't have a specific game in mind, but I know I'm not getting a 1440 monitor anytime soon. The motherboard is a placeholder; I will not be doing any overclocking, so maybe I don't need the Z87? I'm planning to get 16 GB of 1866 memory in 2x8GB, and I'll add another pair in the future if necessary. And I need some recommendations for a reliable 200+GB SSD.

    Elki on
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  • CabezoneCabezone Registered User regular
  • Casually HardcoreCasually Hardcore Once an Asshole. Trying to be better. Registered User regular
    I personally like the 600t

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139007

    My only complaint that this thing is pretty big for a mid-tower. Dragging it around to LAN parties sucks.

  • Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    I personally like the 600t

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139007

    My only complaint that this thing is pretty big for a mid-tower. Dragging it around to LAN parties sucks.

    In white that thing is basically Star Wars Original Trilogy Stormtrooper: the case. Quite a few thread regulars own or have owned that case, it was very popular for a while.

  • Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    Elki wrote: »
    http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2NGUc

    I need some advice, since I haven't built anything in a decade. My goal is to have a quiet system with the minimum amount of build hassle, and run everything on high/ultra settings at 1080; I don't have a specific game in mind, but I know I'm not getting a 1440 monitor anytime soon. The motherboard is a placeholder; I will not be doing any overclocking, so maybe I don't need the Z87? I'm planning to get 16 GB of 1866 memory in 2x8GB, and I'll add another pair in the future if necessary. And I need some recommendations for a reliable 200+GB SSD.

    To be perfectly honest, going past 1600MHz memory is kind of pointless unless you're chasing specific benchmarks these days. And 16 gigs is heaps, 32 gigs is straight up a waste of money. No overclocking means why buy a 'K' chip and aftermarket CPU cooler at all?

    Your build list seems to have gone awry, and never recovered.

    Let's try having another crack at it:

    http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2NLZ9

    That is a complete build from scratch, everything you need excluding KBAM and speakers, with all top quality components and should run everything real nice at 1080p.

  • DjeetDjeet Registered User regular
    No overclocking means why buy a 'K' chip and aftermarket CPU cooler at all?

    He can source the K chip for less than the non-K so why shouldn't he pick it up?

  • Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    If he can get it cheaper, then yeah, grab it, why not.

  • DjeetDjeet Registered User regular
    That may have come off as brusque, but that wasn't intended. 1st thing I thought was since he's not overclocking why go K? Then I tried to find a non-K processor and I couldn't cause Microcenter has that K processor at a killer price.

  • tsmvengytsmvengy Registered User regular
    Djeet wrote: »
    That may have come off as brusque, but that wasn't intended. 1st thing I thought was since he's not overclocking why go K? Then I tried to find a non-K processor and I couldn't cause Microcenter has that K processor at a killer price.

    If he's going to go to Microcenter he could get the i5-4570 for $20 less.

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  • LD50LD50 Registered User regular
    I personally like the 600t

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139007

    My only complaint that this thing is pretty big for a mid-tower. Dragging it around to LAN parties sucks.

    In white that thing is basically Star Wars Original Trilogy Stormtrooper: the case. Quite a few thread regulars own or have owned that case, it was very popular for a while.

    The white one actually makes me think of aperture science's rather than storm trooper.

  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    Its been more then a handful of years since I've built so I'm out of the game, I came up with this:
    http://pcpartpicker.com/user/bucketman86/saved/3F6m
    I have a powersupply that will will with this, a functional hard drive which works just fine, and I bought a Radeon HD 5700 about two years ago that will work fine for now. I'm trying not to spend a ton and use what I have if I can for now. Like an OS! I still have Windows 7 32 bit so I'm not using all my memory I have even now, but my school no longer offers cheap student OS's and 7 64 bit or 8 are reallllly expensive)

  • tsmvengytsmvengy Registered User regular
    What is your current setup?

    You should be able to use your 32-bit key to install 64-bit windows 7. You just need the right disc or USB drive.

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  • toloveistorebel toloveistorebel Impressive. Most impressive. Central FLRegistered User regular
    edited February 2014
    I may be building a photo editing PC (they're just getting started and its nothing professional or that intense really) for someone and I wanted to see what you guys think. This is what I have so far: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2O6zk. Is CPU power or more memory more important? Really they would probably be just find with an i5 and 8GB but I figure the bump up to 16GB or an i7 might be worth it. I think both would be too much though. And I'm forgoing an SSD because more storage is the main concern over speed. I know the PSU is overkill but I figure that's a good one and going with less wattage won't bring the price down much.

    toloveistorebel on
  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    Thats...complicated. I bought 7 right when it came out from some student thing online and it no longer exists and my key went with it. Which sucks.
    Current set ups is: a Gigabyte EP35-DS3L, an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 and about 4 gigs of ram with said Radeon HD 5700

  • FoomyFoomy Registered User regular
    edited February 2014
    you can get legit win7 isos from digital river. id post a link to an aggregate of the links but on my phone atm, I'm sure someone will come along shortly to do it though.

    edit: heres the info

    if you have a usb stick or dvd burner you can just download a corresponding iso from digital river for your windows here(or many other places that assemble the links):
    for win 7: http://www.heidoc.net/joomla/technology-science/microsoft/14-windows-7-direct-download-links
    and then use the win7 dvd/usb tool to put it on the usb stick: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

    Foomy on
    Steam Profile: FoomyFooms
  • tsmvengytsmvengy Registered User regular
    You can't create a 64-bit USB install with 32 bit windows I don't think. I think you can burn a DVD though. And there are many utilities out there that can retrieve your key from your current install.

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  • toloveistorebel toloveistorebel Impressive. Most impressive. Central FLRegistered User regular
    edited February 2014
    I may be building a photo editing PC (they're just getting started and its nothing professional or that intense really) for someone and I wanted to see what you guys think. This is what I have so far: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2O6zk. Is CPU power or more memory more important? Really they would probably be just find with an i5 and 8GB but I figure the bump up to 16GB or an i7 might be worth it. I think both would be too much though. And I'm forgoing an SSD because more storage is the main concern over speed. I know the PSU is overkill but I figure that's a good one and going with less wattage won't bring the price down much.

    The main program this person will be using is Lightroom. From doing a bit more research its seems as though CPU power will be more beneficial than more RAM. I'll probably switch this to an i7 and move back to 8GB. Still don't have a set budget from them though, so maybe an i7 and 16GB.

    EDIT: So this: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2OhvV

    toloveistorebel on
  • Knight_Knight_ Dead Dead Dead Registered User regular
    As someone who edits D800 RAW files with regularity, you're going to want CPU power and RAM. I wouldn't go less than 16GB for someone planning to edit photos seriously in todays 24mp+ world.

    Lightroom regularly gobbles up 4-5 by itself and more when you export, and Photoshop can be insane amounts on top of that. I've capped out my 16GB many times before, and it's easy if you plan on doing stitching, HDR, or just complex composting. Also I'd totally go i7, I wish I had as Lightroom makes my i5 3570k @ 4.3 Ghz it's bitch with regularity. 100% on all 4 cores is funsies.

    Also an SSD is useful for initial importing and editing, and then you can dump the files off to a HDD array for storage and backup. i7 and 16GB of ram probably top priority though.

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