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Build help

X

xavierq

Gawd
Joined
Jul 27, 2000
Messages
562
1) What will you be doing with this PC?
I game on and off depending on what's out. I'd like it capable of playing modern games, but it doesn't need to be the absolute best gaming rig, as I know that really drives the price up. More often than not, it's going to be used for web development. Visual Studio, Photoshop, etc.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
I'd like to stay around $1500 if I can. If I'm gimping myself with that number, I could go higher, but I'd need to justify it.

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

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget?
cpu, mb, ram, video, hsf, psu, hdd. Maybe more, will elaborate.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
-I'll probably keep my current monitors and replace them in a couple months when more money frees up.
-I've got an ATX case that's now years old, but if there's not a need to replace it (form factor incompatibility, etc) I'll probably stick with it.
-I've got some kind of sb audio card, if I had to guess it's an xgamer. Tell me if I should replace it.
-optical drives I can probably reuse

6) Will you be overclocking?
negative

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
I've got an LG W2353V and a ViewSonic P95f, the later of which barely turns on. I'd be replacing both before too long, so whatever decent current monitors support.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
My "good" computer (P4 3.0 either a Williamette or a Northwood) won't even post bios anymore, so I'm currently using a Dell P4 2.2 as my main computer. I can't even play full screen video on it. So within the next week or two most likely, unless someone can make a case for waiting a bit longer (great new hardware on the verge of coming out, etc)

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)? etc.
My friend's been talking a lot about his system that runs solid state for the main drive and a higher capacity raid for storage (prob raid 0). Something similar would be cool, if it's doable in my price range. If it's not, let me know what it would add, and what an alternative in my range would be.


10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I've got an XP Pro OEM key. I dare say I'd need to buy Windows 7 pro.
 
What case will you be reusing?
Are those optical drives SATA?
Which version of Photoshop are you using?

And yes you will need to buy Windows 7. However, you probably won't need Pro and should be fine with Home Premium. With that said, compare the features and see which of those features you'll actually use:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/compare

Do note that Intel's new CPUs are due out in April. Those will be faster, by around 15%, and use less power than current Intel CPUs. Up to you if you want to wait that long.
 
It's an In-Win full tower. Four 5.25 bays and a 3.5 rack that I think holds three, with another slot on the top. I think it came with a 300w psu when I bought it, to show it's age. If this needs replacing that's fine.

Opticals are probably parallel to be honest. If decent boards don't support that anymore, I could replace that as well. They're all fairly old except the io dual layer I got to backup xbox games, and I think that was only $30 when I got it.

I've got CS2 on this computer, but it came from my old job with it installed, I wouldn't be able to transfer it. I'd probably be obtaining whatever the current version is, is that CS5 now? I'm not really using it to it's full potential so much as opening files someone else has created and saving out images. The extend of my performance concerns from that point of view is that opening a rather large psd won't completely cripple the computer.

I'll take a look at the windows feature sets. I remember previous versions where "home" meant "for your mom". If it's not a crippled version of pro, I may go that route.

Let's assume I cannot wait till April. Are they the same socket? If I ended up waiting, would it just be a matter of dumping the new cpu into whatever you guys tell me?

Should also mention that while I'm not opposed to another brand, I've gone Intel with every computer I've ever built, except for my Cyrix 486 dlc/40.
 
xavierq said:
It's an In-Win full tower. Four 5.25 bays and a 3.5 rack that I think holds three, with another slot on the top. I think it came with a 300w psu when I bought it, to show it's age. If this needs replacing that's fine.
Click to expand...
Definitely needs replacing.
xavierq said:
Opticals are probably parallel to be honest. If decent boards don't support that anymore, I could replace that as well. They're all fairly old except the io dual layer I got to backup xbox games, and I think that was only $30 when I got it.
Click to expand...
Yeah gonna have to replace those too.

xavierq said:
I've got CS2 on this computer, but it came from my old job with it installed, I wouldn't be able to transfer it. I'd probably be obtaining whatever the current version is, is that CS5 now? I'm not really using it to it's full potential so much as opening files someone else has created and saving out images. The extend of my performance concerns from that point of view is that opening a rather large psd won't completely cripple the computer.
Click to expand...
Yes, the current version is CS5.

xavierq said:
Let's assume I cannot wait till April. Are they the same socket? If I ended up waiting, would it just be a matter of dumping the new cpu into whatever you guys tell me?
Click to expand...

Same socket yes. If you choose the right motherboard and can update the BIOs when those new CPUs hit, then yes it should be a matter of just dumping the new CPU into the socket.

So what'll it be? Wait or build now?
 
Let's go ahead and build now. Knowing them it'll be end of April, and not having a decent functioning computer is really killing me.
 
Prelim build:
$190 - Intel Core i5-2400 CPU
$123 - Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 Intel Z68 mATX Motherboard
$300 - eVGA 012-P3-2066-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores FTW 1280MB PCI-E Video Card
$95 - Corsair Vengeance CML16GX3M4A1600C9B 4 x 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$150 - Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SSD
$147 - Hitachi Desktar 7K1000.D HDS721010DLE630 1TB SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$16 - Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE SATA DVD Burner
$90 - Corsair 650TX V2 650W PSU
$100 - Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit OEM
---------
Total: $1211 plus tax and shipping

As for cases, choose your own. I recommend the following cases:
$80 - Corsair Carbide Series 300R ATX Case
$85 - Cooler Master CM690 II Advance ATX Case
$100 - Corsair Carbide Series 400R ATX Case
$100 - Lian Li PC-7B Plus II ATX Case
$130 - Lian Li PC-9F ATX Case
$120 - Fractal Design Define R3 Arctic White ATX Case
$125 - Fractal Design Define R3 Black Pearl ATX Case
$130 - Fractal Design Define R3 Silver Arrow ATX Case
$130 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Full Tower ATX Case
$130 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK Black Full Tower ATX Case
$130 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-002OR Black Finish w/Orange Trim Full Tower ATX Case
$140 - Antec P280 ATX Case
$140 - Antec Performance One Series P183 V3 ATX Case
$143 - Cooler Master HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$144 - Silverstone RV03B-WA ATX case
$160 - Corsair Graphite Series 600TM ATX Case
$160 - Silverstone RV02B-W ATX case
$164 - Corsair Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$178 - Silverstone RV02B-EW ATX case
$170 - Corsair Obsidian Series 650D ATX Case
$230 - Silverstone FT02B ATX Case
$270 - Corsair Obsidian Series 800D CC800DW Full Tower ATX Case
 
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hmm maybe power supplies haven't changed as much as I thought. I've got a Corsair HX620W that's probably five years old now. It seems fairly similar to the 650TX you're recommending. Should I replace it anyway due to the age, or is that something I could probably use in the new build?

Are MB expansion slots purely for adding more video cards now? I was concerned about how few slots there were, until I realized that absolutely everything I'd ever put in one is already onboard. I am confused about the dvi ports on it, since it says it has no onboard video.
 
xavierq said:
hmm maybe power supplies haven't changed as much as I thought. I've got a Corsair HX620W that's probably five years old now. It seems fairly similar to the 650TX you're recommending. Should I replace it anyway due to the age, or is that something I could probably use in the new build?

Are MB expansion slots purely for adding more video cards now? I was concerned about how few slots there were, until I realized that absolutely everything I'd ever put in one is already onboard. I am confused about the dvi ports on it, since it says it has no onboard video.
Click to expand...

PSUs have changed drastically. You should definitely go with a new PSU, I wouldn't trust a 5 year old PSU of any wattage.

No, but that's the most common thing they are used for. They still have the same thing you remember from back in the day that gets used on them as well (sound cards, network cards, tv tuner cards, expansion slots, etc..)

The video is actually built into the CPU. Therefore the motherboard doesn't have on board video, until you use a CPU that does. Hence why it has connections for that.
 
The description of the i5-2400 states that is has Intel HD Graphics 2000 which I assume is the on-chip video you're talking about. Is it like the old onboard video I remember, where it consumed the agp channel and you had to disable it to use an external card? Or can I run it in addition to the external card to run four monitors?

Edit: Nevermind, I just found that the answer is no, installing an external card disables it.
 
Not sure where you got that information from, but you can run multiple monitors using the onboard ports to power them.
 
http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-031040.htm#8

Intel graphics cannot be used along with an external PCI Express* graphics controller. Installing a PCI Express graphics controller will disable Intel graphics.
Click to expand...

Edit: Oddly, the article doesn't seem to actually mention this chipset, though the google link pointing to it blatantly quotes the same question being asked specifically about this series. Weird...
 
If I was able to throw a few extra dollars into this, what are things I might consider upgrading? I looked through all the items last night to see what was what and so I knew what I was buying before I bought it. I've a couple questions related to both those topics.

SSD: It looks like this drive does well on reading but is a little slow on writing. I assume that based on my tasks this won't affect me, and that's most likely correct. But if I wanted to get a little bigger drive and increase the budget on that a bit, it looks like I have more options. Would something like the Mushkin 240gb be a worthwhile increase?

MB: Is the Z68XP much better than the Z68A? Or if I went from Z68MA to the Z68A also by Gigabyte, which only adds like $5 and seems to be just slightly better, am I losing anything that I'm not noticing? What about pcie 3.0? I see the vid card is 2.0, and that I may need an ivy bridge for that to matter, but should I be concerned with 2.0 vs 3.0 on the board and card?
 
I can not recommend that Mushkin SSD due to it being based on the SF-2281 controller (Sandforce) with it's known random BSOD issue with Windows. Therefore, if you want to increase the capacity of your SSD then I'd suggest going with the $339.99 Crucial M4 256GB.

Current GPUs have not even surpassed 2.0 standards, therefore it's still a good couple years before they reach 3.0 standards.
 
Yeah I saw a fairly high complaint rate in the feedback for some of the SSDs, though Mushkin seemed to have less than some others. Didn't realize it was the controller that I had to watch out for. It seems that those Crucial drives all have about half the sustained write speed of the other drives while having a much higher cost per GB. Doubling the drive size for roughly $100 more and increasing write performance seemed reasonable to me (though not now that I know about the BSOD issue). Doubling the size for almost $200 more and not increasing the write speed isn't worth it to me. Especially since I could just wait and buy a second 128MB later if I need it and still pay $40 less.

I guess I'll stay with the 128 then.
 
Despite what benchmarks say, in real world conditions you wont be able to tell. Its also cheaper too buy a single 256gb than two 128gb drives.
 
xavierq said:
Bah, it is now, the sale ended. The 128s were going for $150 in February.
Click to expand...

All of the m4s were on sale. They always make it so its cheaper per gb too buy the larger drives.
 
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