$800 Dota2 budget build

C

cashews

n00b
Joined
Apr 30, 2012
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12
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Dota 2, random surfing

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
800, I need a monitor.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
San Francisco

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, MOBO, RAM, Case, DVD drive, PSU, monitor, HD

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
mouse, keyboard, speakers

6) Will you be overclocking?
not at first

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
Don't have one. I plan 1920 x 1080, 22-24 inch.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Next few weeks.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
would prefer USB 3.0, probably about it.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
yes, windows 7 64bit


Here is my plan so far.

SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner $11
Antec Eleven Hundred Performance Gaming Case $70
Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W Continuous Power $35
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive $74.99
G.Skill 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory $39.99

Here is where I am lost. I hope to score radeon 6870 for around $150, a 22-24inch monitor for around $150 and that leaves about $250 or so for mobo + CPU.

I am wondering if SSD is worth the extra $40 or so dollars, and going over budget. Also, which mobo/CPU would be best, is my best bet still the i3 2120? (now that IB is released)

Thanks for any help!
 
If you can actually set aside $250 for the CPU and mobo, just go for this:
$180 - Intel Core i5-2300
$60 - Gigabyte GA-H61MA-D3V Intel H61 mATX Motherboard
---
Total: $240 shipped
 
Thank you for advice! Sorry if I am noob, but i purchased all but CPU MOBO now. Is your suggestion better than i3-2120 with more exspensive mobo? why does most cheap builds reccomends i3 and more exspensive mobo instead of i5 and cheap mATX?
 
cashews said:
Thank you for advice! Sorry if I am noob, but i purchased all but CPU MOBO now. Is your suggestion better than i3-2120 with more exspensive mobo? why does most cheap builds reccomends i3 and more exspensive mobo instead of i5 and cheap mATX?
Click to expand...
It's largely dependent on the priority of the reviewers/guides.

In this case, my priority is on performance first and then quality and features later. Since you're not overclocking, you're only gaming, you didn't mention any high-end specs in your answer to question 9, and you have a small budget, I didn't see any reason to go for a higher-end mobo when that Gigabyte would fit your needs fine.

Other recommendations focus on expansion, upgrade, and quality first and then performance. The Gigabyte mobo I recommended only has two DIMM slots so it maxes out at 8GB of RAM. In addition, that mobo doesn't support any of the new Ivy Bridge CPUs out now. Also, it cannot overclock nor does it support Crossfire or SLI. Nor does it have UEFI. However, you didn't mention wanting any of those features when asked in question 9.

So which one do you want to go with?

As for the other parts, as long as you didn't buy an OCZ part, you should be fine.
 
Awesome, thank you so much. I will go with your suggestion. Is there any preference on RAM or HD? (I picked random ones from list on google). I think you should get paid for your help danny : )
 
cashews said:
Awesome, thank you so much. I will go with your suggestion. Is there any preference on RAM or HD? (I picked random ones from list on google).
Click to expand...

RAM wise, as long as the RAM is rated at 1.5V and at speed of DDR3 1333 or DDR3 1600 RAM, it's probably a fine choice. The G.SKill set you chose would probably be the same set I'd recommend.

As for hard drive, I would have gone with this:
$80 - Hitachi 7K1000.D HDS721050DLE630 500GB 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
cashews said:
I think you should get paid for your help danny : )
Click to expand...
Just paying it forward :)
 
I second Danny on the i5-2500, in this case: Since you won't be overclocking at all, the real-world performance improvement from the 2500 is less than is justified by its $15 price premium. And even overclocked, in this case, with all four cores in use an i5-2300 overclocked to its limited maximum is equal to the i5-2500 at its stock frequency.
 
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So I ended up with the following build, but it did not go very smoothly. My first hard disk arrived DOA and second just arrived yesterday, but now I am having crashing.

Intel Core i5-2300 link
Gigabyte GA-H61MA-D3V Intel H61 mATX Motherboard link
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600)
XFX Radeon 6870 900M 1 GB DDR5 link
Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive link
SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner
Antec Eleven Hundred Performance Gaming Case
Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W Continuous Power

My computer will occasionally completely lock up, first it happened with any flash ( before disabling hardware accel) and now if i load dota, sometimes it crashes. These crashes are just complete locks, then I have to power it down. It has also just randomly restarted one time. Additionally, there are weird textures displayed in game, I am currently installing another game to see if weird textures are present in other games too. What would this possibly be? I ran memtest for 4 passes and that was fine, I havent run the CPU or GPU stress tests for long periods of time yet. I am getting close to due date for rebates, so I need to figure out what is happening soon!
 
Try booting the PC with just the onboard graphics and see if the issues still occur. Also, hit up the stickied "Basic Troubleshooting Guide" on what other tests to run.
 
so there are no abnormal textures in other game, I think my dota was corrupted install or something, as it resolved after redownloading. I have been running a blend prime 95 test for 30 minutes, I think I will leave it for 2 hours to see if there are any issues.

Would it be possible that a bad install of windows 7 could cause this problem? Another issue I had was that about 5-6 'important' windows updates refuse to be updated, citing some error. I am redownloading the iso and can try a fresh install.

Would it be more likely that a bad RAM stick caused poor installation of both the game + operating system? Maybe i should run mem test over night.

my computer hasn't frozen for a while now, but im still worried as I dont want this to progress.
 
cashews said:
so there are no abnormal textures in other game, I think my dota was corrupted install or something, as it resolved after redownloading. I have been running a blend prime 95 test for 30 minutes, I think I will leave it for 2 hours to see if there are any issues.
Click to expand...
24 hours would be better.
cashews said:
Would it be possible that a bad install of windows 7 could cause this problem? Another issue I had was that about 5-6 'important' windows updates refuse to be updated, citing some error. I am redownloading the iso and can try a fresh install.
Click to expand...
Yes. Another possibility is a hard drive corruption
cashews said:
Would it be more likely that a bad RAM stick caused poor installation of both the game + operating system? Maybe i should run mem test over night.
Click to expand...
Yes and yes.
 
EDIT: ITS BACKKKKK WTF

I ran mem test over night, no errors. GPU stress for 30 minutes, no error. small FFT for 8 hours, no error. blend CPU/memory for 3 hours, no error. Ran some of the seagate HDD tools test, no error.

The random freezes I am getting to be not during a game or something stressful, but rather, when opening a new page of internet, or clicking a link. Something like, changing from idle to not idle activity.

I am at a complete loss as to what to do now T.T : (((((

I tried removing GPU and trying integrated graphics, and now my machine crashed and looked similar to this
crashhv0.jpg


wtf?? it did it right away this time...

I JUST bought these parts, should I RMA the mobo or something?
 
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I am going to refund the mobo and ram. Should I just get the same MOBO again or try something new? if I should try something new, could you recommend something, I dont mind spending more if it means I dont have this hassle again...

Also, do you think I should return my gfx card to amazon as well, or just wait for mobo and ram and see if that fixes the issue?
 
If you're having this issue even without the dedicated GPU, it might be the mobo or CPU (mobo more likely). If you want to try something new, you're gonna have to spend more money:
$90 - Intel BOXDH67CLB3 Intel H67 mATX Motherboard
 
At this point, I really just want something that works... even if its 30-40 dollars more exspensive. I really dont need 6gb/s SATA or usb 3.0.

The main issue is, i don't mind if its the same mobo, I just want to choose the option that will maximize me not having any problems in the future.

With that said, are there certain brands or mobos that tend to work more than others, or all random?

Also, is it possible I have a bad PSU?
 
cashews said:
With that said, are there certain brands or mobos that tend to work more than others, or all random?
Click to expand...
Generally Gigabyte, Asus, MSI, and Intel mobos are good. In this case, you just had bad luck because that Gigabyte mobo has worked well for the other people I've recommended it to. So more or less random actually.
cashews said:
Also, is it possible I have a bad PSU?
Click to expand...
You'd be seeing a lot more stability problems.
 
Okay, I am going to purchase this RAM, its like 5 dollars more, but on gigabyte's relatively short QVL.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231311 is there a difference between the F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL and F3-10666CL9D-8GBXL? which one should i purchasE? both are the same price.

Then I will order the same mobo again, hopefully this turns out better than last time!

- thanks

EDIT: I changed my mind haha.

I will go with mobo you recommended, and the same RAM i listed above. hoping for the best.... any clue on whether purchasing from amazon or newegg is safer?
 
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Just ended up moving places, so got delayed. New motherboard works perfectly! Computer has been running strong with no errors after replacing the mobo. Thanks for all of the help!
 
So you bought the same motherboard and it worked fine?
 
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