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Looking for build suggestions

A

andru

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 6, 2006
Messages
176
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming, some photoshop, editing home movies (premiere elements).

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
target= $800, can go up to $1000

3) Where do you live?
Canada. Would like to order from .++++. or newegg.ca, though I will be spending time in the US in December and can order parts from newegg.com if it results in savings>200.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, board, case, ram, OS drive (I have storage drives), PSU, video card(s), DVD drive/burner.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Nothing

6) Will you be overclocking?
Nah

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
I have a 22" wide and a 19" standard that I like to use side-by-side

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within 2-3 months

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
Onboard sound/lan

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

Other:
As a side, I would like to buy 2 identical rigs: one for me and one for my wife.

Thanks in advance for comments!
 
Any chance that you can narrow down the PC build date? Basically, most of the parts we recommend today may not be good buys in 2-3 months from now.

If 2-3 months is the best you can do, make another thread around that time and ask again for help. You'll get up to the minute latest deals on hardware that way.
 
Thanks for the response Danny,

One of my rigs just bit the dust, so my build date is within the next few days!

I've selected the following, but I must admit I'm really not up to speed with current hardware.

ASUS M4A89GTD PRO: $147
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W ATX 20: $79
EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Fermi Superclocked 763MHZ 1024MB GDDR5: $242
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache: $80
AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban 6 Core Processor 2.8GHZ Socket AM3: $201
2x G.SKILL F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH Ripjaws PC3-10666 4GB 2X2GB DDR3-1333 CL7-7-7-21: $158
Antec P183 ATX Tower Case: $150
Basic DVD Drive: $25

TOTAL: $1082

Would really like to get this down a bit in price, but I'm not sure what to cut off the top/replace.
 
Not a good value as listed due to several things:

1) Overpriced motherboard
2) Mediocre-quality PSU
3) Overpriced graphics card
4) Severely overpriced RAM
 
Skip the OCZ PSU for better Quality Antec Neo Eco, Corsair's or Seasonics.

OCZ has fallen apart & the Quality isnt good anymore.
 
$331 - AMD Phenom II X6 1055T CPU + Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AMD 890GX ATX Motherboard Combo
$70 - G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-10666CL9S-4GBRL 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$80 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$76 - Seasonic S121II 620 620W PSU
$70 - Cooler Master CM690 II Basic ATX Case
----
Total: $627 CAD plus tax and shipping.

I deliberately left out the video card since I recommend waiting until after Friday to make your GPU decision. Friday is when AMD lifts the NDA on their new HD 6xxx series cards. However if you must buy ASAP or if those AMD HD6xxx cards are not in stock, I recommend these cards instead:
$233 - Asus ENGTX460 DirectCU/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 460 1GB PCI-E Video Card
$258 - Gigabyte GV-R585OC-1GD Radeon HD 5850 1GB PCI-E Video Card

Either of those cards would be a better buy than the eVGA GPU you chose.

Some additional notes about the above build:
- Updated version of the motherboard you chose

- As for the single stick of RAM, the difference between dual and single channel is only 5% at most. Going with a single stick of 4GB of RAM will allow you to upgrade to 16G of RAM later on should you actually need that much

- That Samsung is faster than the Western Digital

- The Seasonic 620W PSU is of far far better quality than the OCZ ModXStream 700W and can actually provide more power than the OCZ under real world conditions. Simply put, the OCZ ModXStream 700W is a bad buy

- Unless you were trying to aim for a super quiet setup, you can drop the case down as well to the Coolermaster listed above.
 
Danny Bui said:
- The Seasonic 620W PSU is of far far better quality than the OCZ ModXStream 700W and can actually provide more power than the OCZ under real world conditions. Simply put, the OCZ ModXStream 700W is a bad buy
Click to expand...

I agree with this. It amazes me how people spend a significant amount of money on a "700W" PSU that is realistically only a 500W to 550W PSU under best-case conditions.
 
Thanks for the suggestions folks, some good info here. Will definitely swap out the PSU.

E4g - you mentioned the mobo was overpriced. Do you mean the particular price I've quoted, or this board in general? I've always had good luck with Asus boards, do you have any other suggestions that are more reasonably priced?

The ram price was for 4 sticks of 2gb rab (ie 8gb). Maybe this is overkill for my needs... I guess I'll stick with 4gb.

As for the video cards - I haven't seen any immediate price drops, but I suppose they're to come. Has anyone else noticed significant drops on good cards? Folks I've talked to go on about GTX cards being very dependable, high quality cards... but truthfully I've never really investigated any ATI alternatives. It seems to me like I could save a good amount by switching.

Anyone have good luck with a particular ATI card in the 150-250 range?
 
andru said:
E4g - you mentioned the mobo was overpriced. Do you mean the particular price I've quoted, or this board in general? I've always had good luck with Asus boards, do you have any other suggestions that are more reasonably priced?
Click to expand...

It is a bit overpriced because it does not have an onboard USB 3.0 controller at that price point. Danny suggested the combo of the CPU you picked and an almost-identical ASUS mobo - but an updated one that adds an onboard USB 3.0 controller.
 
Ok, so after some reconfiguring here is my final proposed build:

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T - $201
Seasonic S12II 620W EPS12V 20/24PIN ATX Power Supply - $76
G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-10666CL9S-4GBRL 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM - $70
Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM - $80
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro REV.2 CPU Heatsink Cooler - $25
Samsung SH-S243D/BEBE 24X Black DVD Writer SATA - $17
ASUS M4A87TD Evo AM3 DDR3 ATX AMD 870 SB850 2PCI-E16 PCI-E1 3PCI 6SATA 6GB/S USB3.0 Motherboard - $105
XFX Radeon HD 6850 - $199
Antec P183 - $150

TOTAL:~$940

Going to spend the extra few bucks on the P183 as I've been very happy with their noise insulation in the past. Changed HD, RAM, and PSU as per suggstions by E4g1e and Danny, and decided to go with a HD6850 instead of the GTX card. Also changed the mobo to a cheaper version that does not have onboard video.

Will pull the trigger on this tonight unless anyone see's any poor choices.
 
Don't bother with that Arctic HSF. See if the Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus is available.
 
andru said:
Ok, so after some reconfiguring here is my final proposed build:

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T - $201
Seasonic S12II 620W EPS12V 20/24PIN ATX Power Supply - $76
G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-10666CL9S-4GBRL 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM - $70
Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM - $80
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro REV.2 CPU Heatsink Cooler - $25
Samsung SH-S243D/BEBE 24X Black DVD Writer SATA - $17
ASUS M4A87TD Evo AM3 DDR3 ATX AMD 870 SB850 2PCI-E16 PCI-E1 3PCI 6SATA 6GB/S USB3.0 Motherboard - $105
XFX Radeon HD 6850 - $199
Antec P183 - $150

TOTAL:~$940

Going to spend the extra few bucks on the P183 as I've been very happy with their noise insulation in the past. Changed HD, RAM, and PSU as per suggstions by E4g1e and Danny, and decided to go with a HD6850 instead of the GTX card. Also changed the mobo to a cheaper version that does not have onboard video.

Will pull the trigger on this tonight unless anyone see's any poor choices.
Click to expand...

As Danny stated, I would not purchase that Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro HSF - at least not at the price that the particular reseller of your choice sells it for. This is because that HSF is too small for today's very-hot-running CPUs - and it does not perform sufficiently better than the "freebie" stock boxed AMD CPU HSF to justify its current going price.
 
Excellent! Thanks again for all your help Danny & E4g - appreciate your time posting.

Ordering now!
 
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