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I'm Going to Build a PC. Suggestions?

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superboyac:
You might find this thread helpful:
https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=16186.0

The people here helped me build that PC.  I'm using it to this day, and it's great.  Very helpful crowd here.

MilesOhToole:
Horses for courses with graphics cards.

AMD cards support more than two screens and some games are written specifically for AMD.

For what its worth I have an AMD card and Arkham City is just fine.
-Carol Haynes (March 25, 2012, 09:59 PM)
--- End quote ---

Well, good.  I like AMD cards better, anyway.

http://www.tomshardware.c...ck,3159.html#xtor=RSS-182  ... here, just popped up NOW, so should be current.-db90h
--- End quote ---

Thanks for the link.  I'm working on something based on that, with some changes that 4wd and Carol posted.

I had a buddy build me my custom project machine, so here are some thoughts.

1. Consider skipping 3 meals a week/haircuts/etc to boost your budget to about $1500. There's a bit of a "quality slider" effect where useful upgrades across the board are always $67 away.

Supposing you "copied" my setup from my project machine, with the passage of time my $1800 price at the time might be down a bit/ a lot.

1. I thought ahead and got the first generation Quad Core all the way back in 2006. You're right, Dual is for Dogs now. (Though not all programs can find the spare resources properly.)

2. Check with your buddies/the net about the types of little components that tend to fail when Dell / etc skimps on quality. My message is all about the $67 upgrade effect to get more/better years out of the comp beast. (You said you wanted to game, right? That says you'll be pushing the limits for hours, so you don't want an "office-spec'ed" comp where the maker cheats and banks on worker bees only typing text all day long. Get a better fan, better internals, etc.)

3. It's the Media Age, and Media is Big. I got 1.75 Terabytes of storage. It works pretty well for me to put all the apps on C: and use the spare drive for media sorting.

4. Misc upgrades. For your gaming, does it make sense to get a Graphics booster of some kind? As an example, I realized I like to do a lot of sound file encoding, so I had a special extra data encoding mini-chip added to my setup that almost doubles stock encoding speeds. -TaoPhoenix
--- End quote ---

Good advice!  Thanks.

OK, here's basically what I have, so far.  Critique away and any comments are very welcome.

Click Here

I couldn't find anything in the barebones section that matched what I wanted, so I started from scratch.

And, am I correct in thinking that I'll need USB with that case?  I assume a case comes with nothing other than fans.  I also have a feeling someone is going to tell me I'm doing this all wrong...  :D

Carol Haynes:
You don't really need the USB card - there will be quite a few USB sockets on the motherboard.

I haven't looked at the case you suggested but I would guess that will have front panel audio and USB connectors (they have cables with header to plug direct to the motherboard)

If you want an alternative case this one is truly excellent:

http://store.antec.com/Product/benclosure/three-hundred/0-761345-45003-4.aspx

My preference for a PSU would be Corsair - I have built a few systems using their PSUs now and they are beautifully built and come with a 3 year warranty. Here is one around the same price mark but 600W:

http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Certified-Compatible-Platforms-CMPSU-600CXV2/dp/B004W2T2UQ

Personally if I was building a system now I would go for Core i7 if you can squeeze it into the budget.

Have a look at some of these motherboards:

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/list.aspx?s=42&jid=0&p=2&v=28

(I really like Gigabyte boards - well made and they use ultra durable capacitors - I have been burned on other boards before!)

How about :

http://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-GA-X79-UD5-Intel-E-ATX-Motherboard/dp/B0064Z6Y9G
(full details here: http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4049#ov)

and

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-BX80623I72600K-Core-i7-2600K-Processor/dp/B004EBUXSA

I know they are a bit more expensive. (You may find them cheaper elsewhere)

What do other people think?


You may also want to think of a non-stock CPU cooler. The Antec case I mentioned above is big enough to take one of these beasts:

http://www.amazon.com/Noctua-NH-D14-SE2011-Heatpipes-Bearing/dp/B00631QFG8

(be warned they are shockingly large and you need to check it will fit on your motherboard - note this particular one is for Core i7 processors only)

They are a brilliant cooling solution and very quiet.

You didn't have a graphics card listed on you shopping list. How about:

http://www.amazon.com/SAPPHIRE-Radeon-6870-GDDR5-Graphics/dp/B005C8RTTU

This is the one I bought recently and I have found it to be brilliant - plus if you fancy expanding later it supports up to 3 displays (either as standard extended displays or one humongous EyeInfintiy display - great for gaming!!)

(I only used Amazon as a quick catalogue - you can probably find things cheaper on other sites. Not being in the US I don't know the best places to look. Having said that you can't knock Amazon's support and returns policy and their prices are usually pretty competitive.)

4wd:
I'd spring the extra $35 and get the i5-2500K - these things are probably the best 'bang for buck' CPU around, you can go up to 4.3GHz by just changing the multiplier, all on the stock HSF.

You won't need the extra PCI USB card, that motherboard already has 10 x USB2, (4 on the back, 6 on headers), ports and 4 x USB3, (2 on the back, 2 on headers), ports - so all you need is the backplane brackets if you require the extra ports.

Here's a USB2 one:


Regarding the case, (Ugh! - sorry :)  I prefer understated ones these days), since it's for a gaming rig - will you be carrying it around to friends and LAN nights?

If you are, then I'd recommend the Cooler Master Storm Scout - a lot of space inside for your build, good cable management and carry handles.

If this is a stationary object that wont be going anywhere, then whatever floats your boat - although one that has front USB3 ports to take advantage of the headers on the motherboard would be good.
These days, I would not think of buying a case with less than either 3 USB ports, (2x USB2 + 1x USB3), or 4 USB2 ports available on the front.  As an example, the Fractal Design Arc Midi which also comes with fan controller.

EDIT: Carol snuck in ahead: +1 for Gigabyte, +1 for Noctua but if you can't afford the Noctua coolers, (in case you want something a bit better than stock), then the Cooler Master Hyper series are good, (eg. Hyper 212+).

Carol Haynes:
And I have added a few edits above ...

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