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New rig

J

jasonprey

n00b
Joined
Sep 29, 2011
Messages
10
Hey everyone!

I'm planning on building a new rig, sometime in October. Since I'm in CA, I don't really care about newegg combo deals (TAX .) I live 5mins away from a Microcenter.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming, watching movies, web browsing, low photoshop use, Skyrim, MW3

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
lets start with a $800. Could go up if needed...

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

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget?
Case, CPU, GPU, MOBO, PSU(?), SSD(?), 24'' Monitor

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
HDD: Samsung F3 1TB 7200rpm
SSD: OCZ Vertex 2 60GB <--- ? Should I reuse it? It is too small for all my stuff so a new SSD is included in my budget.
PSU: Antec neo eco 620 <--- still good?
RAM: 2x2GB G.Skill 1300 , 2x4GB G.Skill 1300


6) Will you be overclocking?
no

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
Current Monitor is 22'', want a 1080p Monitor

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
October, or whenever there are good deals on parts

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
I have no experience with RAID, SLI.

I prefer a "silent PC", my current rig sounds like an airplane while playing a game or watching a movie in fullscreen.

Is eyefinity (2 monitor) possible with a 22" and 24'' monitor?

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I own a Win7 64bit ultimate version.


Can't wait for your suggestions ! :)
 
Please find out what voltage those G.Skill RAM are rated at.

Something tells me you're gonna have to expand your budget considering that you want a 24" 1080P monitor, a new SSD (That OCZ is rather slow), and quiet case is gonna cost around $165 to $178. Might be able to shave off costs if you drop down to a 23" monitor.

Anyway heading out to lunch now but I'll be back with a build list later if no one else sets one up for you.
 
Hi danny! Thank you! Have a great lunch.

Hope this helps http://i51.tinypic.com/adgbdf.jpg on Everest, DIMM Voltage says 1,504 V

Disregard the "quiet case". I really don't want to spend more than $100 on a case! I use my headphones anyway while playing games

I guess a 23'' Monitor would be okay.
 
there are plenty of perfectly acceptable cases for ~50 (if you can get one on a FS deal) at the egg. microcenter wont have as much of a selection as newegg of course, but not having to worry about FS and also being able to see them in person really helps. i would recommend going there today since its so close and picking out a case if you find a cheap one you like, or else coming back and letting us know what you saw that you liked. that will help us choose components for you. if youre not looking for anything flashy or having a ton of features, $50-75 should be enough. remember that if a case is too loud, you can get a fan controller for ~$20 or replacement fans for ~$7 each.

for the ssd, do yuo really think you need a new one? that is an expensive component, usually $100+, so if you can stick with the old one that would make the $800 more reasonable. I think my windows install takes up about 30GB? and then that leaves about 30GB for programs. if you put your steam games on the drive then it wont be enough, but ive always found a 7200rpm drive to be perfectly acceptable for steam. i would recommend keeping your steam games on the 1TB drive to keep yuor budget down. also, this route would depend on if you think your current SSD is fast enough for your OS. i still use a 7200rpm drive for windows, as i dont mind waiting an extra 20 seconds for my compuer to boot, or 5 seconds for a game to load. the difference between your ssd and a faster ssd would really only give you a couple seconds of improvement, which for me at least isnt something i consider when on a budget. thats completely a matter of personal preference though, so let us know what you think.

as for eyefinity, it doesnt really work with 2 monitors, since then your character/crosshair/whatever are right on the crack between screens. also eyefinity doesnt support mixed resolutions, so no, you cant do that. you can definitely use your 22" as a secondary monitor though for productivity uses like gmail, itunes, etc while youre doing your work/gaming on the 24" screen.
 
thanks ekuest.

yes, I can stick with my SSD for now if the newer SSD's are still high priced. Actually, I did put all my games on the F3 drive but my SSD is still full.

Cases that I've been looking at: Cooler Master RC-692-KKN2, Antec 900 :)
 
hmmm time for some spring cleaning maybe? think theres any way you can clear up some room? i find that when i reinstall windows (which youll want to do with a new build) i end up with a lot of free space, at least for a while, since all those random programs that you i installed an used once or twice arent there any more. 60GB is definitely about the minimum of what you can get by on for an OS/program files drive, but you should be able to manage it. at least until you get some money later to upgrade it. (might not be true if you have adobe suite and other design programs as i know those take up a ton of room and theres nothing you can do about it.)

those are both good cases and i think you'd be very happy with either. :) did you happen to see any good deals at MC? i dont have one where i live.

EDIT: checked in hot deals, and there is a cpu+mobo deal that might still be going on. i would recommend a solid z68 (ask danny about which one) and a 2500K. it looks like this will run you somewhere around $300. add $100 for a case, $200 for a monitor, and you have about $200 for a gpu. should be doable for your budget, but you either need to head to micrcenter tomorrow and get a combo, or wait to see what comes out in october in terms of MC cpu+mobo deals.
 
Last edited:
IIRC, Microcenter do have some good CPU + mobo combo deals but it's already near the end of September. So I'm not sure if those deals will still exist in October when the OP plans to buy. So please come back in a week or two and bump up this thread. By then we'll know what deals Microcenter will have on their motherboards and CPUs.

In the mean time, here's recommendations for the other parts you need:
$245 - eVGA GTX 560 Ti 1GB PCI-E Video Card
$185 - Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SSD
$100 - Corsair Carbide Series 400R ATX Case
$180 - Asus VH236H Black 23" LCD Monitor
---
Total: $710 shipped.

I went with Amazon.com as much as possible since they do not charge CA residents tax. I included a new SSD because your current SSD is a bit slower than other SSDs out there. Plus the above SSD is actually larger.

Oh and to answer your questions:
1) Yes you can reuse your PSU
2) Not sure about Eyefintiy with two monitors and monitors of different resolutions.
 
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Thanks danny!

The Asus VH236H is on sale right now so I think I'm going to pull the trigger.

I'll come back in a week or so for the CPU+Mobo.
 
Up!

Are the new combo deals out yet?

How can I check on newegg for new combo deals?
 
go to an items product page and theyll be at the bottom. the combos will likely only save you about what youd save in tax buying from amazon. the real deals are at MC and finding free shipping on the case you want.
 
yeah newegg combo deals are usually just a nice little bonus of $10 or possibly $20, not a huge saver. to save money you really have to check out your microcenter deals. there isnt one in hawai, so i never know what the deals are, but keep an eye on the hot deals forum and something should come up eventually. thats where you can save $50-100 on a nice cpu+mobo combo. that $150 2500k deal a few days ago was nice, not sure why we didnt recommend it. might have appeared after we last posted in this thread. i think it was on the 30th-2nd or something.
 
ekuest said:
yeah newegg combo deals are usually just a nice little bonus of $10 or possibly $20, not a huge saver. to save money you really have to check out your microcenter deals. there isnt one in hawai, so i never know what the deals are, but keep an eye on the hot deals forum and something should come up eventually. thats where you can save $50-100 on a nice cpu+mobo combo. that $150 2500k deal a few days ago was nice, not sure why we didnt recommend it. might have appeared after we last posted in this thread. i think it was on the 30th-2nd or something.
Click to expand...


MicroCenter definitely has nice deals on CPUs and sometimes even CPU + mobo combos. But outside of that, I've noticed everything else they carry is either the regular price or just plain overpriced.
 
jasonprey said:
Are the new combo deals out yet?
Click to expand...
Microcenter currently has the Core i5 2500K + Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H Motherboard for $300. I think that's a good deal considering that you're saving $80 without having to deal with rebates and such.
 
Danny Bui said:
Microcenter currently has the Core i5 2500K + Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H Motherboard for $300. I think that's a good deal considering that you're saving $80 without having to deal with rebates and such.
Click to expand...

Do you have a link to that deal ? Or is it in store only?


MC also has the Corsair Case for &98 including TAX, the CM690 is a little bit less.

Thanks!
 
I'm sure someone heard about the Intel SSDSA2CW120G3K5 320 Series 2.5" 120GB Solid State Drive Deal on Buy.com $169 buy.com

How does this Intel SSD compare to the M4 ?
 
jasonprey said:
I'm sure someone heard about the Intel SSDSA2CW120G3K5 320 Series 2.5" 120GB Solid State Drive Deal on Buy.com $169 buy.com

How does this Intel SSD compare to the M4 ?
Click to expand...

It's a lot slower than the M4 but a tad more reliable. Then again, the M4 is pretty reliable to begin with.
 
jasonprey said:
I'm sure someone heard about the Intel SSDSA2CW120G3K5 320 Series 2.5" 120GB Solid State Drive Deal on Buy.com $169 buy.com

How does this Intel SSD compare to the M4 ?
Click to expand...

It is slower in benchmarks, but in actual usage I doubt you'd notice a difference. I went from an X-25M (basically a 320) to an M4 and it feels pretty much the same.
 
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