New work from home & gaming rig help

Should I use Intel or AMD?

  • Intel Dual Core

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Intel Quad Core

    Votes: 9 75.0%

  • AMD Triple Core

    Votes: 1 8.3%

  • AMD Quad Core

    Votes: 2 16.7%
  • Total voters
    12
K

Kustom42

n00b
Joined
May 10, 2009
Messages
15
Hey all,


I'm looking to set up a new system for myself and not spend much more than around 800, less if I can. It's primary use will be for working out of the house for a call center taking calls for infomercials, although I would like ability to get into some gaming again. Most important is having upgrade capabilities, especially with the CPU, I want to make sure I'm getting the newest socket and best chipset for future cpus.

I prefer to use newegg for buying parts but any links to other sites will be most appreciated. This will be a completely new build with no older parts being re-used except for a 6month old 22inch monitor and a logitech wave keyboard.

I can buy parts in sequence over the next month or so and it does not need to be built tomorrow but I'm trying to have it finished in the next month or two. I have already purchased a Lian-Li case and it is on the way.

The most important thing I want to ask is power supply advice, what brands are the best to stick with and most importantly the ones to avoid. My first thought was to go with Antec Truepower as I have done in the past but I havent built a computer in almost 3 years now..

I stopped building pc's when I bought a power supply off craigslist(new sealed in the box), an x-power 800w, It was for a whole new system with over $1600 invested, hooked it all up and it turned on for about 2 seconds before it went to sleep forever... I really want to avoid this from happening again.

I'm trying to stick to Intel for CPU thats all I have ever used, although if anyone thinks I am making a mistake here and should go AMD let me know why, and am not sure if I want to go quad core or not so advice on this is helpful as well.


For motherboards the thing I am looking for help with is the chipsets that dont f**k up as I have bad experience with this in the past. (PT880 anyone?) Also I want to stay in the latest socket for my CPU so I will have that upgrade ability in 6 months or a year.

I guess this goes with the motherboard but are there any raid controllers to stay away from? I've only ever used silicon valley controllers. Are integrated controllers a safe bet now?


I dont need much help with HD's im looking to set up a stripe with probably around 500gb of space and there isnt much to look at there. The same could be said about video cards, I dont think I will use SLI or XFIRE yet but may in the future if anyone has anything to say about this it would be apprecaiated.

Memory is the same, I know what to look for there but any advice is helpful.

All help and advice is appreciated!
 
I'm in a similar situation, and this is the route I'm thinking of going:

AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103649

GIGABYTE GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128377

G.SKILL 4GB DDR3 1333
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231180

The reason why I'm thinking of going AMD over Intel is I heard that the 775 socket won't be around for too much longer and the new AM3 boards are getting a lot of good reviews. If I had the money I would go for i7 for sure.

You said you want to get back into gaming? What kind of games are you thinking of playing? I just bought an EVGA GTX 260 and I love it so far.
 
Last edited:
Please answer the questions in the sticky titled "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST" so that we can help you better.

But generally if you want a bit more longevity in terms of CPU upgrade, AMD's socket AM3 or Intel socket 1366 is the way to go. However your budget won't allow for a socket 1366 build so AMD AM3 is your best bet.
 
power suppies:
Power and Cooling
Antec
OCZ
Corsair
FSP Forton
Sparkle

all make great PSU in no particular order


for CPU.... price is the main concern, the new X4 and X3s from AMD are a great value and provide good performance but the i7 is the top of the line.... AM3 is more upgradable than 775, so i would either go i7 or AM3 IMO.

also with the HDDs DO NOT go Raid 0 on the OS unless you have a death wish for any PC that "work" will be done on.

Use a faster single HDD for OS and then if you need a super speedly scratch disk use RAID 0.

good drives are the seagate single 500 platter drives like the 1tb, or WD black 640gb or Blue 320gb which are 320gb platters....


JMO
 
Adidas4275 said:
power suppies:
Power and Cooling
Antec
OCZ
Corsair
FSP Forton
Sparkle

all make great PSU in no particular order
Click to expand...

Actually, OCZ's recent offerings have been of low quality. Same for FSP and Sparkle. I wouldn't recommend them for any decent gaming PC build.
 
Ive limited my search to PC Power And Cooling (if I can afford it), or the Antec Truepower 850w.

The G Skill Memory has got good reviews and I was thinking about using that same setup referred to earlier, I was wondering why it is so much cheaper though? The timings and voltage look good so do the reviews. Is there something im not seeing with the G Skill memory?
 
In order to stay on budget I think im going to wait on paying any amount of money for a video card and just go with a ASUS 256mb card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121259 and then upgrade in month or two when I get the cash for a good SLI or XFire setup. I think this will give me a little bit of cash to look at getting a really good mobo and PSU which are my first priorities.

What are the recommendations for AM3 socket motherboards?
 
Danny Bui said:
Please answer the questions in the sticky titled "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST" so that we can help you better.
QUOTE]

What questions didnt I answer? I didnt use the pre-set form but I covered all the questions in order...
Click to expand...
 
I did, but I will answer them again so nobody is confused...

3. Arizona,
4. Refer to main posting for details, PSU, CPU, MOBO, RAM, Vid Card(unless i buy a really good mobo with onboard video until I can afford to go SLI or XFIRE), and HD
5.All new parts except for the accessories listed in main post, I just bought new case
6. Who doesn't? And with the lower power CPUs nowaday I dont see any reason why not to..
7. It is a 22inch monitor, see post for more info
9. Most of this has been covered already, latest socket type for upgrade capability, all mobos come with raid controllers..,
10. Ive got my OS covered.
 
You don't need SLI or CF for a lowly 22" monitor:
Markyip1 said:
Just some info on SLI / Crossfire: It's absolutely not worth considering if a) you're gaming at a resolution under 1920x1200 (as you'll see no performance benefit over a single card,) and b) if you plan to buy one card now and another later. SLI / Crossfire as an upgrade path is usually a very poor idea, as by the time you're ready to get that second card, a new single card solution will likely be available that will outperform two of your older cards in tandem. Furthermore, there really is no cost benefit to the SLI Upgrade Route, as any additional cost in getting the new card can be easily mitigated in most situations by selling the original. By avoiding an SLI / Crossfire solution when it will not be of benefit, you gain a cooler running, simpler to maintain system and more importantly, access to a much better (and broader) selection of motherboards.
Click to expand...

So unless you're planning on getting a 24" monitor within three months, no need whatsoever for SLI or CF.

Which Lian Li case did you buy?

Mobo wise, the Gigabyte and Asus mobo you linked to are good choices. You haven't provided any sort of need for the MSI mobo.

CPU wise, the AMD Phenom II 940 will not work with any of the socket AM3 motherboards you chose. But if you do go with a AM3/AM2+ mobo, the Pheom X3 720 and Phenom II X4 940 are good choices.

If you don't need DDR3 RAM, I highly recommend this combo:
$270 - AMD Phenom II X4 940 CPU + Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P AMD 790X AMD Motherboard Combo
 
The MSI is AM2+/AM3 and it would work right? Thinking about the SLI post a bit more I may not need the MSI motherboard but it is the only one of the three that provides true SLI/XFire support, If I do have a possibility of getting a bigger monitor will it be worth it to pay the extra cash for the MSI board and then buy two cards when I have the cash for that?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112099 Link to case
 
I looked at that combo as well, shouldnt I go with DD3 if I plan to keep this system for a while and have upgrade capabilities?
 
Kustom42 said:
The MSI is AM2+/AM3 and it would work right? Thinking about the SLI post a bit more I may not need the MSI motherboard but it is the only one of the three that provides true SLI/XFire support, If I do have a possibility of getting a bigger monitor will it be worth it to pay the extra cash for the MSI board and then buy two cards when I have the cash for that?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112099 Link to case
Click to expand...

No. The MSI mobo you linked to is AM3 only. It does not support any socket AM2+ CPU like the AMD Phenom II 940:
http://www.msi.com/index.php?func=prodcpu2&prod_no=1740&maincat_no=1&orderby=cpu_name ASC#menu

Even if you had a bigger monitor, that MSI still wouldn't be worth the extra cash IMO. In addition, that mobo only supports Crossfire, not SLI. There are better quality Crossfire capable socket AM3 mobos like the Gigabyte you chose.

As for the RAM, AFAIk, most new AMD Phenom II CPUs will support DDR2 RAM. I haven't seen any info about any socket AM3 CPU that won't be supporting DDR2 RAM. Would be stupid of AMD to not include DDR2 RAM support in their socket AM3 PUs since AMD has made a big deal of saying that their socket AM3 CPUs will work with socket AM2+ mobos (which are mostly DDR2 RAM based)
 
The CPU may support DDR2 but I'm pretty sure a few motherboards only support DDR3. Correct me if I'm wrong.
 
From http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3512&p=3

amd_cpus.png
 
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