Selling / Building Advice

[tommy13]

Hey!

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming, programming.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$800 Tax and shipping included.

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

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
The case and everything that goes in it...CPU, RAM, PSU, case, mobo, hd, dvd, video

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Monitor, all peripherals. Possibly a 6870 if budget won't allow for upgrade.

6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
27" 1920x1080.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within a month.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
I assume all mobos come w/ 3.0 and 6GB/s now, but that's it.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Have 7 and 8 64bit.

I've done my own research but I know you guys in this forum know loads more than me. I'll post some thinks I've thought of.

Are the WD Black Drives worth it?
SSHDs? Huh?
I'm by no means an audiophile. I have a pair of ath-ad700s. Would I benefit enough from a sound card to make it worth it? Play a lot of FPS.

Was hoping to get an i5, 8gb ram, 1tb hd, and an upgrade to my video card now(6870). Is this possible on my budget?

Thanks in advance guys.

 

[tiraides]

In my opinion, WD Black drives aren't worth the price premium over, say, a WD Blue or a Seagate Barracuda drive. While the added warranty is nice (WD Blacks, IIRC, have a five-year warranty compared to the WD Blues' three years and Seagate's two years), you don't really see a noticeable performance increase over a "normal" 7200RPM HDD.

As for "hybrid drives," HDDs with a small amount of SSD capacity, I believe that you should save up to buy an SSD in addition to the HDD. Hybrid drives, as I like to call them, do show a performance boost over traditional HDDs, but SSDs are notably faster.

Regarding the sound card, try the onboard sound out first. Get the sound card only if you feel like you're missing something.

Assuming your budget is around $600 or $700, you can pick up a Core i5 processor, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. However, you probably can't afford the video card you need for gaming at medium frame rates at a 1920x1080 resolution -- we normally recommend either the GTX 660 Ti or the HD 7950 as the "bare minimum" for that resolution. An SSD is also out of the question as we would recommend that you buy at least a 120GB SSD (or, ideally, at least a 240GB model).

Regarding your new system, I have a few questions for you:

- Which games do you play?
- How far away are you from a physical Fry's or Micro Center store?
- Which versions of Windows 7 and 8 do you have?
- How much, at most, can you save up in a month?

 

[tommy13]

You can't request any price check here. If you want help in buying a new system, please edit your thread to remove all mention of selling parts or price checks. (Mods: I'll edit accordingly.)

I'm sorry about that, I'll edit out.

Assuming your budget is around $600 or $700, you can pick up a Core i5 processor, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. However, you probably can't afford the video card you need for gaming at medium frame rates at a 1920x1080 resolution -- we normally recommend either the GTX 660 Ti or the HD 7950 as the "bare minimum" for that resolution. An SSD is also out of the question as we would recommend that you buy at least a 120GB SSD (or, ideally, at least a 240GB model).

Maybe I'll keep the 6870 for now. Why nothing less than a 120GB?

Regarding your new system, I have a few questions for you:

- Which games do you play?
- How far away are you from a physical Fry's or Micro Center store?
- Which versions of Windows 7 and 8 do you have?
- How much, at most, can you save up in a month?

1. Plan on playing the new Metro, right now SC2, BF3, New Vegas.
2. Fry's is about 45 minutes away. I would make the drive if it was worth it.
3. Home(7), Pro(8) both 64-bit
4. I can save up to about what I said, $800, a little more if it's a good month.

Thank you!!!

 

[Dangman]

Why nothing less than a 120GB?

For a few reasons:
1) The sub 120GB SSDs are often overpriced
2) They're slower than their 120GB+ brothers
3) Ridiculously overpriced. Yes it needed to be repeated.
4) The sub 120GB SSDs are not large enough for the average enthusiast/gamer these days.