• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

New gaming PC

R

russilker

n00b
Joined
Nov 14, 2010
Messages
62
Hey, so after a few weeks of catching up to todays hardware standards (my last desktop build was from the pentium 4 era), I think I'm ready to build a nice gaming rig. Excuse the huge wall of text below, but I've put a LOT of thought into this, since this is a huge amount of money for me. Just looking for some last-minute tips and advice from you veteran builders out there.

A few details:
BUDGET: As much under $900 as possible (including shipping)
LOCATION: Pennsylvania, USA
PURPOSE: Gaming and watching HD movies
UPGRADING FROM: Had a G72GX-RBBX05 laptop with a C2D, GTX 260m (can be compared to desktop 9800gt), broke and replaced for new Gateway FX6840-15e desktop with i7 870 and Radeon HD 5850 (under Best Buy warranty plan, cost me only $50), selling that before even opening it to get money for this build.

Now for the build:
This is my current setup.

Explanation for my choice of hardware:
Hard drive: I needed a budget hard drive, and the hard drive in my build is single platter 7200rpm, 500gb, and only $55 so it suits me well.
Monitor: I'm upgrading from a 19" Dell 1440x900 LCD. NOTE: This is the part of my build I am least sure about. My other choice is this ASUS. If the ASUS offers better image quality, I'm willing to overlook the 1 inch size difference over the one in my build.
Motherboard: x8 x8 crossfire, heatsink on the mosfets for overclocking a 6 core in the future, usb3 + sata III + esata III, all for $100. Not much else to say.
Video card: Simply the best bang-for-the-buck card out there right now with plenty of overclocking room (I'm not even considering the god awful fermi architecture).
Power supply: Should power a crossfire 6850 config + overclocked 6 core thuban fine, thats all I'll ever need it to do.
RAM: 4gb should be fine for gaming, from what I've read. While its only one stick so it won't run in dual channel, it does leave me room to upgrade to 16gb in the future and is a little cheaper than a 2x2gb config.
Processor: As the unlocked Thuban 1090t is out of my pricerange, and the higher clock speed of the 4 core will serve me better in games than the 2 additional cores of the 1055t, I'm going with the Phenom II x4 955/965. NOTE: I know I can get the 955 and just set the multiplier one higher to get the same exact performance as in the 965, but the 955 is out of stock right now.

Explanation for hardware NOT in the build:
Case:I have an old cheap mid-tower already at home that should suit me fine for now. I won't be overclocing too much or going crossfire yet, so a small midtower should be enough. When I do upgrade the case, it will be for a full-tower (either the HAF X or the AZZA Hurrican, or whatever new cases come to market by the time I upgrade).
CPU cooler: I won't be overclocking yet (except for maybe setting the multiplier of the 955 to match the 965/970). By the time this CPU becomes a bottleneck, I will buy the Hyper 212+ cooler and maybe upgrade the CPU to the 6 core 1090t. Stock heatsink/fan should be fine for now.
Optical drive: I have an SATA DVD burner at home already, 'nough said. Maybe will upgrade to bluray drive later when prices drop.
Second graphics card: Since my case is small, I have relatively bad cooling and am low on funds, I will buy a second 6850 some other time. One should serve me fine for now.
Keyboard/mouse/speakers: Have a good PS2 keyboard somewhere at home + trackball mouse for gaming + cheap dell speakers and subwoofer + Audio Technica ATH-M50 headphones already.

Any and all advice you guys can offer would be great. I'm already a little over budget, so something like spending $20 more for a Corsair PSU of equal wattage or a Gigabyte motherboard with the same features is out of the question, the parts I am buying now should last me through all of the upgrades I planned out for the future quite fine (I'll still take these suggestions though, at least so I can learn more).

OH, and naturally, if any of you have any parts I'd be interested in that would fall within my budget, I'm more than willing to buy used from someone on here.

Thanks so much!

P.S. I am also posting this on at least one other website to gather as many opinions as possible before I take the plunge. Just FYI.
 
HDD: Ditch the WD 500GB Black drive. There has been no proof so far that the WD 500GB Blacks have been upgraded to a single platter design. Only the WD WD5000AAKS 500GB Blue drive has been confirmed to be a single platter drive:
Here's HDTune shots of a single platter WD WD5000AAKS 500GB Blue:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1035554754&postcount=377
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pJZ6uImDq...00/HDTune_Benchmark_WDC_WD5000AAKS-00M9A0.png

Here's the HDTune shots of the WD WD5001AALS 500GB Black drives:
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j63/euro-kid/HDTune_Benchmark_WDC_WD5001AALS-00L.png?t=1245627083
http://img.publish.it168.com/2009/0622/images/1547280.jpg

Here's the HDTune shot of a WD WD6401AALS Black drive:
http://i437.photobucket.com/albums/qq96/mudkip777/HDTune_Benchmark_WDC_WD6401AALS-00L.jpg

Here's the HDTune shots of the single platter Samsung F3 500GB:
http://www.alphaq.org/enginurd/hdd/HDTune_Benchmark_R_SAMSUNG_HD502HJ_2.png
http://www.alphaq.org/enginurd/hdd/HDTune_Benchmark_W_SAMSUNG_HD502HJ_2.png

Here's the HDTune shots of the two 500GB platter Samsung F3 1TB:
http://www.alphaq.org/enginurd/hdd/HDTune_Benchmark_R_SAMSUNG_HD103SJ.png
http://www.alphaq.org/enginurd/hdd/HDTune_Benchmark_W_SAMSUNG_HD103SJ.png

I have not see any confirmation whatsoever showing that the WD Black 500GB drives are of single platter design. As shown above, the WD 500GB Blue drive as well as the Samsung F3 500GB and 1TB drives do outperform the WD 500GB Black and WD 640GB Black drives. If you can find any info stating otherwise, I'll be glad to read it.

So go for the Samsung F3 500GB or Western Digital 500GB Blue drive.

PSU: Unless you have a proper PSU review backing that statement up, there's no info whatsoever showing that Rosewill PSU is fully capable of its rated 700W. Other red flags:
- No information on who exactly made the PSU. Rosewill, like many other PSU companies out there including Corsair, do not make their own PSUs. They simply choose a PSU design from multiple PSU manufacturers, fiddle with it, and then offer those PSUs for sale. If you don't know who made the PSU, you can't ascertain remotely the quality of the PSU.

- No information as to what temperature that PSU was rated at. PSUs offer different amount of wattage depending on how hot they are. As such, a 700W PSU rated at 25C (room temperature) may not be able to provide 700W under 45C to 50C (realistic temperatures). So it's extremely critical to know what the temperature that PSU was rated at.

- No information whether the PSU was rated at peak or continuous load.

- The "> 72%" efficiency rating for that PSU points to it being a very old design which means lesser quality.

So with the above rubric, that Rosewill PSU is not a good buy at all. There's a reason why good, I'm not even talking about high quality PSUs yet, PSUs of a similar wattage costs so much more. So spend the extra cash for a better PSU that that shitty Rosewill unless you hate your PC that much:
$90 - Corsair 650TX 650W PSU

Case: Does your case still use 80mm fans or something? If so, that case may not provide sufficient cooling for your planned setup.
 
Thanks for the reply. based on some of the newegg reviews tagged with "platter", only the Caviar Black drives with model number 00E3A0 are single platter, so I decided to save some money and go blue, thanks.

As for the PSU, I've been getting this same recommendation on many other sites, so I guess I'll have to find the money for a better one somewhere :/ Will that corsair 650 watt cover a highly overclocked Thuban, two 6850s in crossfire, plenty of case fans and a few hard drives? If so, I may be able to get it.

Thanks again! Any specific advice on which monitor I should chose out of the two I listed (or others in that same price range, if they're any better)?

EDIT: Going for a well-reviewed Rosewill 850watt PSU. This one is actually rated to provide continuous 850watts at 40 degrees and its 80+ certified so it should provide more than enough power for my build.
 
Last edited:
russilker said:
As for the PSU, I've been getting this same recommendation on many other sites, so I guess I'll have to find the money for a better one somewhere :/ Will that corsair 650 watt cover a highly overclocked Thuban, two 6850s in crossfire, plenty of case fans and a few hard drives? If so, I may be able to get it.
Click to expand...
Yes the Corsair 650TX would be enough for that.

russilker said:
EDIT: Going for a well-reviewed Rosewill 850watt PSU. This one is actually rated to provide continuous 850watts at 40 degrees and its 80+ certified so it should provide more than enough power for my build.
Click to expand...

Not bad. A little old for my tastes but should still suffice.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top