Rate my new computer build

LordBritish

LordBritish

2[H]4U
Joined
Jan 28, 2001
Messages
2,063
I'm picking components for my next build:

Here's what I have so far:

4rx9i9.jpg


Comments?

$835.94 so far :(
 
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Gaming mostly, browsing

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

Prefer to stay under $1000

3) Where do you live?

USA

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.

I need everything except case, video card, PSU, Monitor, and DVD drive.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

Reusing case, 550W PSU, and DVD Drive, and Monitor

6) Will you be overclocking?

Mildy, not going crazy here.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?

I have a 24" 1680x1050 LCD ViewSonic

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

May be soon.

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

I don't need RAID, I dont SLI/Crossfire

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

I'll be using Win 7 64bit (don't need to buy that)
 
3) Reason behind asking this question as some sales can only got thur local suppliers. Such as Microcenter, who sells a i7 930 for $200

5) which 550watt PSU? this is important as PSU may not be able to handle the new setup endangering your new parts from the PSU dying from overload.
 
Why are you getting 8gb of ram when all your doing is gaming? 4gb should be plenty. Save that $100, sell the 8800 and buy a 5850 (and new psu) with that + whats left of your budget.
 
Danny Bui said:
It's a 5 year old PSU that was only just "good" quality 5 years ago. I highly recommend replacing the PSU. Any of these PSUs would be a substantial upgrade over the OCZ PSU:
$50 - Corsair 400CX 400W PSU
$90 - Corsair 650TX 650W PSU
Click to expand...

400W doesn't sound like it's enough.

Other than being old, what's wrong with my 520W OCZ PSU?

I chose 8gb of memory because games might need more than 4gb in the future.
 
LordBritish said:
Other than being old, what's wrong with my 520W OCZ PSU?
Click to expand...

It is merely OK five years ago. But the internals likely have deteriorated with use and age - to the point that the PSU would only deliver 350W instead of 520W. No PSU lasts forever; in fact, a PSU is among the components that are likely to replaced more often than most in a computer system. This is why I would not trust that OCZ 520W to handle a modern rig even at stock speeds. By the time you put together your new system, that old PSU would have likely shut itself down upon boot.
 
LordBritish said:
400W doesn't sound like it's enough.

Other than being old, what's wrong with my 520W OCZ PSU?

I chose 8gb of memory because games might need more than 4gb in the future.
Click to expand...

Why are you even asking for advise if you are ignoring what is being suggested? lol
 
LordBritish said:
400W doesn't sound like it's enough.
Click to expand...

400W is actually more than enough. The Corsair 400CX has 30A on the +12V rail. Your current OCZ 520W PSU only has 33A on the +12V rail, not much more than the Corsair. Considering that the Corsair 400CX has been proven under more modern testing conditions to be fully capable of providing 400W, for your currently planned setup + a future upgrade to a HD5770 will be just fine on the Corsair 400CX.

Remember: it's mainly about the amperage, not the wattage.

LordBritish said:
Other than being old, what's wrong with my 520W OCZ PSU?
Click to expand...

Well that's the main reason to replace the OCZ 520W PSU. As E4g1e noted, that PSU's output capability more than likely has deteriorated over the past five years. In addition, that PSU was never actually properly tested AFAIK under real world internal operating temps of 40C to 50C. As such, no one can positively say that PSU was actually capable of its 33A on the +12V rail under real world temps.

LordBritish said:
I chose 8gb of memory because games might need more than 4gb in the future.
Click to expand...
RAM is cheap and easy to upgrade. Considering the current RAM usage of games, stick with 4GB of RAM for now and use that $110 towards a new PSU.
 
Shadowssong said:
Why are you even asking for advise if you are ignoring what is being suggested? lol
Click to expand...

I can get 4gb for now and get another 4gb later down the road when I really need it.

I had to ask about the PSU because my current PSU is functioning just fine and replacing a perfectly fine PSU seems wasteful to me.
 
LordBritish said:
I had to ask about the PSU because my current PSU is functioning just fine and replacing a perfectly fine PSU seems wasteful to me.
Click to expand...

Well as we pointed out, that PSU is NOT perfectly fine. E4g1e's 350W figure was actually a bit generous.
 
LordBritish said:
I had to ask about the PSU because my current PSU is functioning just fine and replacing a perfectly fine PSU seems wasteful to me.
Click to expand...

We've all been down this road before, eh?

If your current PSU functions fine now, there is absolutely no guarantee at all whatsoever that it would work fine with an updated, higher-performance rig that draws more power than your current rig. And I have personally seen many a "perfectly fine" PSU either shut itself down or blow up just after someone upgraded his rig.
 
Ok, so I removed 4gb of memory from the initial list and added the Corsair 400CX 400W PSU and I'm at $775.94.

Do I need a CPU Fan/Heatsink?
 
LordBritish said:
Do I need a CPU Fan/Heatsink?
Click to expand...

Only if you are going to overclock that i5-750 beyond 3.6GHz or so. Otherwise, the stock Intel boxed CPU cooler would suffice. This is because the i5-750 lacks HyperThreading, so the CPU does not get as hot as its i7-8xx siblings.
 
LordBritish said:
Ok, so I removed 4gb of memory from the initial list and added the Corsair 400CX 400W PSU and I'm at $775.94.

Do I need a CPU Fan/Heatsink?
Click to expand...
Actually, I recommend spending the extra $15 for a little bit more extra headroom:
$65 - Antec EarthWatts EA-500D Green 500W PSU

Since you're overclocking, yes, get a HSF as a CYA measure:
$30 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF for LGA 1366 and LGA 1156
 
E4g1e said:
Only if you are going to overclock that i5-750 beyond 3.6GHz or so. Otherwise, the stock Intel boxed CPU cooler would suffice. This is because the i5-750 lacks HyperThreading, so the CPU does not get as hot as its i7-8xx siblings.
Click to expand...

I think I will overclock it.
 
Danny Bui said:
Actually, I recommend spending the extra $15 for a little bit more extra headroom:
$65 - Antec EarthWatts EA-500D Green 500W PSU

Since you're overclocking, yes, get a HSF as a CYA measure:
$30 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF for LGA 1366 and LGA 1156
Click to expand...

Now that's something to think about. Since the i5-750 does not put out as much heat, 4.0GHz+ becomes realistic with that Cooler Master tower cooler (assuming that your new setup runs stably at such a high clock speed). However, be sure to disable Turbo Boost in the motherboard's BIOS when you're overclocking beyond 3.5GHz or so. This is because the Lynnfield processors have a rather aggressive Turbo Boost feature which can increase the clock speed by as much as five 133MHz steps above the nominal clock speed. (At stock, the i5-750 runs at 2.66GHz - but the aggressive Turbo Boost can increase the clock speed to 3.2GHz on single-threaded apps.
 
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I recommend spending the extra $10 for a lifetime warranty and better customer support:
$410 - XFX HD-585X-ZNFV Radeon HD 5850 1GB PCI-E Video Card + G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL 2 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM Combo

If you really don't need more than 1TB of HDD space, then I recommend this combo instead:
$150 - Corsair 650TX 650W PSU + Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive Combo

That Samsung is still a pretty fast HDD.

$45 is waaay too much money for that HSF. Get that HSF from Amazon.com where it's $30.

Use the $15 savings towards a slightly better motherboard:
$130 - Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3 Intel P55 ATX Motherboard
 
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