Building a new computer

[HoboNinja]

Okie doke so I got in a car accident about a month and half ago and the car was totaled so I got a bunch of money, well the thing that totaled it was the air bags so I just fixed the little stuff and am driving it with no air bags, paid off my credit card, and still have $750 left towards a new computer. So basically next paycheck im ordering the shit, my budget is $1000 but it would be cool if I could get it lower.

Here is what I have so far, basically if you see anything wrong with it let me know or if you have suggestions to lower the price let me know as well and I will love you forever and give you lots of rep.

MOBO $129.99
ASUS P7H55D-M EVO Motherboard - Intel H55, LGA 1156, Dual Channel DDR3 Support, ATX, SATA, HDMI, DVI, VGA, USB 3.0 at TigerDirect.com

CPU $199.99
Intel Core i5 660 Processor BX80616I5660 - 3.33GHz, LGA 1156, 4MB L3 Cache, Dual-Core, Built-in Graphics Core, Retail Processor with Fan at TigerDirect.com

HDD $69.99
Seagate ST31000528AS Barracuda 7200.12 Hard Drive - 1TB, 7200 rpm, 32MB, SATA-3G, OEM at TigerDirect.com

Video $155.99
EVGA GeForce GTS 250 Video Card - 1024MB DDR3, PCI Express 2.0, (2) Dual Link DVI, SLI Ready at TigerDirect.com

Optical $19.99
Lite-On IHAS124-04 Internal DVD Writer - DVD+R 24X, DVD-R 24X, DVD+RW 8X, DVD-RW 6X, DVD+R DL 8X, SATA (OEM) at TigerDirect.com

Case $64.99
Apevia X-Supra G Type ATX Mid-Tower Case - Clear Side, 120mm Fan, Front USB, FireWire and Audio Ports (Blue) at TigerDirect.com

PSU $54.99
Coolmax 600-Watt Modular Power Supply - PCI-E, 120mm Fan at TigerDirect.com

OS $99.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64BIT Operating System Software - OEM DVD, English at TigerDirect.com

RAM $124.99
Corsair XMS3 TW3X4G1333C9AG 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 RAM - - PC10666, 1333MHz, 4096MB (2x 2048MB), 240 Pin, Dual-Channel at TigerDirect.com

Shipping $17.21

TOTAL $938.12

There were some rebates on some stuff so it would end up being cheaper but im going off the non-rebate prices just in case they are gone by the time I get it, the case I wanted is sold out now so I may need to change that when I order it.

 

[Matt²]

I think you're getting ripped on price for the video card, unless the $155 is for TWO of them? I spent about $80 on my Gt220 1gig at Fry's a few months ago. And I'd get something other than Seagate (I'd go with Hitachi or Samsung, but not Western Digital) for a ltitle cheaper, maybe slightly higher for 64 megs cache. Other than that the prices look good.. I spent $1087 on mine 3 years ago.

 

[gargoyle_eva]

+1 for the graphics card rip off. Isnt the 250 just a 9600 re-brand? I'm not completely up to date on the graphics market atm but while that card is a great mid range performer that price is a bit screwy. I can get the same card for cheaper here in aus. If you can find a gtx 260 somewhere I would recomend that. Shold be too much difference in price. But then again I may be completely wrong and I'm too tired to google for more info. But toherwise it looks like a good system.

 

[PatrThom]

Just so you know, the Mobo description says "ATX" but the board is actually Micro-ATX. Don't know if this matters to you.

For $150 or so, you can get a Radeon 5770, which is much better than the GeForce 250. If you feel you want to stick with NVIDIA, the 250 is the best card in that price range, though I was able to find them for $120.

CPU: Pay the extra $10 and get the i5 760 instead UNLESS you were really counting on being able to use the video ports on the back for the 660's built-in video chip (the built-in ports won't work unless you have a Clarkdale chip with on-board graphics). The 760 isn't (technically) as fast GHz-wise, but it has 4 cores instead of 2, and it doesn't have an on-die GPU to heat it up and keep the CPU cores from being able to turbo up as fast as they might otherwise be able to go.

If you go with the 760 instead, you'll want to switch your Mobo to the P7P55D Deluxe (which should still fit that case) for another $50 (or just $20 after rebate). This board offers better SLI/XFire support and has lots more slots.

--Patrick

 

[HoboNinja]

I found them for about $120 too but they had much lower clock speed. Like 600 MHZ vs 740 MHZ. I dunno if that is worth 30 bucks or not but it was just a better card speed wise all around.

GeForce 200 Series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for the GTS 250, it is pretty much the best in the 200 series. Faster clock speed and more memory than even the 295.

 

[Necronic]

A 600 W power supply is cutting it a bit close, I would suggest grabbing an extra 200W or so. Also, I would second ditching the NVIDIA graphics card for a Radeon one. You loose out on the great warranties that EVGA or BFG supply, but you get a better card for the same, or less.

I was also going to suggest downgrading to DDR2 to save money (also, unless things have changed DDR3 doesn't provide significant performance gains), but either DDR3 has gotten a lot cheaper or DDR2 has gotten more expensive.

---------- Post added at 05:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:19 PM ----------

I found them for about $120 too but they had much lower clock speed. Like 600 MHZ vs 740 MHZ. I dunno if that is worth 30 bucks or not but it was just a better card speed wise all around.

GeForce 200 Series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for the GTS 250, it is pretty much the best in the 200 series. Faster clock speed and more memory than even the 295.

hrm, if you look at some stats that's true, but not at others. The 295 is a 1.7 terraflop processor, more than twice the 250, with ~3 times the bandwidth and 4 times the transistor count. Memory is IMHO often a red herring with memory cards, as it can be limited by bandwidth (at least this used to be the case, not sure if it is anymore.)

 

[HoboNinja]

Yeah the only reason I didn't go with ATI is because I don't know there cards at all, I have used NVIDIA in the past because they have been the better of the 2 but ATI is finally beating Nvidia performance wise I hear.

 

[figmentPez]

GeForce 200 Series - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for the GTS 250, it is pretty much the best in the 200 series. Faster clock speed and more memory than even the 295.

The 295 has a lot more shader units doing work each clock cycle. That's the difference between the 250 and the more powerful cards. Clockspeed isn't everything.

I'd go with an ATI, a lot more bang for your buck within your price range.

 

[PatrThom]

I'd go with an ATI, a lot more bang for your buck within your price range.

Right now, the best bang-for-buck NVIDIA card is the GTX 460, nothing can really touch it at the (barely) under $200 price point. If you're going single-card, you might want to consider it. Otherwise, I would go with the 5770 with the idea that you would later get a second one to do Xfire. 600W should be good enough for any single-card setup, but even though the 5770 is one of the lowest-wattage cards around, I'd move up to at least a 750W before I tried to put two of them in the same computer.

--Patrick

 

[HoboNinja]

K I am going to redo my whole build tomorrow for the computer, would do it now but super tired. Thanks for the advice <3

This is what I get for not working at a LAN center anymore and working at a hardware store, I lose all my knowledge of the cutting edge computer shit.

 

[Element 117]

Seriously. Patrick is the Computer Guru. He needs more positive rep. Or maybe just cold hard cash.

 

[HoboNinja]

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Atp4OenEdjjUdDhYSVl0aUFkTkZ3MnVjTV9LYnRiUXc&hl=en

I went with the 5770 but went with a low end motherboard, im going to spec it out on newegg as well and see what prices they have, they also have the i5 760 on newegg and not on tiger direct.

Edit: Got both newegg and tiger direct in there now, if I go newegg im going with a 5870.

Im looking for coupons to help with anything, I put one in for a free backpack

If I get it below $800 I can order it today otherwise I gotta wait a week and a half.

 

[figmentPez]

Edit: Got both newegg and tiger direct in there now, if I go newegg im going with a 5870.

That's a 4870 you've got in your spreadsheet, not a 5870.

 

[HoboNinja]

Ah my bad.

changed to a 5770 on newegg, im gonna call and see if I can get my credit card upped from 750 to 1000. I have $750 in cash so I can just go pay off $750 and then do the rest next paycheck.

 

[PatrThom]

Seriously. Patrick is the Computer Guru. He needs more positive rep. Or maybe just cold hard cash.

Just good at finding stuff (reviews, spec sheets, manuals) on the Internet, really. And then putting it together. It's a lot of fun. And I don't ever get mad if someone decides to go with something else*, I figure at the very least my advice will be helpful/make a person think.

(+$0, eventually)
TigerDirect has a couple OCZ 700W PSUs which are 54.99 and 59.99 after rebate, if you can afford to wait for the rebate.

(+$0, if you go with another vendor)
Still would get the i5 760 if at all possible (Both your builds show 750s) The 760 was only released a few days ago, TigerDirect may not have a link for it yet, but these people do and for the same $199.

Gotta stick with my recommendation of getting the P55 board. It can do full-lane (8x/8x) SLI/XFire, the H55/H57 boards can't (The H55HC board has only 1 vid card slot). This will not be an issue if you plan to never do SLI/XFire.

(+$30)
And finally I'd like to change my earlier recommendation and instead push for either going with GTX460 or ATI5830 for $199 ($30 more than your 5770). They are both neck-and-neck in any benchmarks, so instead it pretty much will come down to whether you want NVIDIA/SLI or ATI/XFire. Each has its own advantages/disadvantages.

Nothing to add about your other items, they all look plenty good enough for a gaming box...though I have to admit that I am completely ignorant about the cases you have chosen and so have no idea if they're good/bad/whatever. As long as they're big enough to hold your stuff, have plenty of circulation, and don't cut you during assembly, that's probably good enough.

--Patrick
*Unless you want me to come later and fix your stuff after ignoring my advice. That's a great way to earn my ire.

 

[strawman]

Microcenter.com has been selling the i7-930 for $199 for months now ($90 cheaper than newegg and many others). It's a quad core with hyper threading (4 real cores, 8 virtual cores) running at 2.8GHz. Paired with the right motherboard (LGA1366 anyway, so you'll have to choose a different mobo) it does triple channel DDR3, though you can still run it on dual channel DDR3 if you don't want to raise your cost in that area yet.

It's a significant step up from the i5-750 you have in your spreadsheet for the same cost.

A lot of people have compared the two and the consensus seems to be that if price isn't an issue (and since it's the same cost it shouldn't be) then go for the i7, but if cost is an issue (say you can't find a similar LGA1366 mobo at a good price) then the i5 performs nearly as well for gaming usage. They make a lot of other interesting points about whether LGA1366 is a good move, whether triple channel RAM makes any difference, what these processors are capable of in terms of multi-channel graphics, etc. Worth looking into.

I have to admit, though, that I was blown away by how quickly it converted video (average DVD converted to 720p MP4 5x faster than realtime) with an average hard drive and 6GB of RAM.

-Adam

 

[HoboNinja]

I am just going for a shitty plain jane case at the moment, have a fancy dancy see through, light up, expensive one for my current computer and its just not work the money. I am just going to put stickers all over it, I don't need to see inside it.

As for other suggestions, im taking them into consideration, im actually thinking I kind of want to cheapen the build a bit but if I spend $1000 then I spend $1000....

As for the i7 930 on Microcenter... I can't find it anywhere and the search returns nothing when I click processors.

As for SLI, yeah probably never doing it again. I did it when I first built my current computer and the performance boost is not worth spending the money on a 2nd card.


Also what are my benefits with going with the H55 chipset versus P55? I found a cheap SLI P55 board but if H55 is any better ill find one for that.

 

[strawman]

As for the i7 930 on Microcenter... I can't find it anywhere and the search returns nothing when I click processors.

The website wasn't working for me last night (database errors?) which is why I didn't post a link. But it seems to be working now, so here's the link to the processor:

Micro Center - Intel Core i7-930 Processor Boxed 582759

You can also find it doing a search for "i7-930" and it apparently turns up in the first page of search results on google for "i7-930"

-Adam

 

[HoboNinja]

Ah shit it's in-store pickup only and the closest one is 3 hours away so no go on that...

Ok since the processor is on another site that means I can get everything but it with my debit card and buy the processor with credit and order it today. So idk if I want to go with the more expensive or not yet though...

 

[strawman]

Ah shit it's in-store pickup only and the closest one is 3 hours away so no go on that...

Ah, I hadn't noticed that! That's quite a bummer. Such is life...

Ok since the processor is on another site that means I can get everything but it with my debit card and buy the processor with credit and order it today. So idk if I want to go with the more expensive or not yet though...

Go less expensive. Honestly we're talking about maybe a 5% performance increase that you'll never actually notice. Get in, get out, build your PC, and move on - there are more fun things in life to waffle about.

Like waffles. Blueberry syrup, or maple syrup? Now that's a decision worthy of careful pondering.

-Adam

 

[HoboNinja]

Only ended up being about a $50 difference so I went with the more expensive one.

Ordered from Newegg and Mwave.

 

[Matt²]

slightly offtopic, you may be able to get replacement airbags for your car for $50 or less (guessing on price, car model and damage to car electronics). See if there's a Pick-A-Part or a Foster Auto Parts or other auto graveyard near you. Glad you're ok but I think you should get the airbags fixed too.

 

[PatrThom]

As best as I can tell, here is the difference between H55/P55.

Common features:
-Both are LGA1156 and will take the same CPUs
-Both are the same process size (similar power/heat)
-Both are PCIe v2.0
-Both come with gigabit ethernet

H55:
-Fewer PCIe lanes (no sli/xfire, hobbled interface to graphics card)
-Has socket lanes for on-chip integrated graphics (boards tend to come with built-in DVI/VGA/HDMI ports)
-Slower memory access times
-Up to 12 USB ports
-Ordinary SATA ports

P55:
-More PCIe lanes (enables sli/xfire)
-No built-in graphics (no built-in HDMI/DVI/VGA)
-Faster memory access times
-Up to 14 USB ports
-Built-in Intel Matrix SATA RAID controller (!)

There may be more, but that's what I whipped up in about 5 minutes' worth of browsing Intel's site.

--Patrick

 

[HoboNinja]

Oh I thought since H55 was newer it would be better, but yeah anyways glad I went P55 then.

I should have got a different case, I just picked a cheapo one without really looking and it only has 1 fan. So if I have heat problems I will probably buy a new one but if so not a big deal because it's only $20 wasted. Edit: Ok nvm looked it up, it only comes with 1 fan but has slots for 3 more so I will just pick them up from my buddies PC shop he owns.


Edit: As for airbags, yeah im gonna go look at junkyards. If I was to get it done at a repair shop it would be $700 per air bag (2) and then another $600 or so for all the sensors to be replaced.

I need to tear apart my dash and try to fix my radio and fuel gauge because those both aren't working.


But really I think I had a shitty sensor, like the air bags shouldn't have gone off, we hit at maybe 20 mph if that. All she had was some paint on her bumper and and my license plate was bent. No damage done to anything in the engine, radiator is fine, the crash must have knocked some wires loose for the radio and fuel gauge, I already had problems with the left channel on the radio going in and out so idk.


Edit: Fuuuuuuu

Dear Nicholas Seemann,

We regret to inform you that the following item requested on your order, has recently been placed on back order:

BA26290 INTEL Core i5-760 (BX80605I5760) 2.8ghz quad-core 1 -4 AC 0 FedEx2 07-23 14:37 7/26-

The current estimated time of arrival is 7/26/2010. We do apologize for any delays this may have caused. As soon as the item arrives, it will be shipped promptly. Or if you do not wish to wait, please feel free to select another item to replace it, or you may have this item removed from your order. If you would like to request a different item, please notify us and we will make the appropriate modifications. If you have any further questions, please let us know. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,

Order Processing
processing@mwave.com
www.mwave.com
800-466-8558

Gonna see if my buddy who owns a pc shop can get it for me for around the same price before this place since newegg already shipped my other stuff.

 

[PatrThom]

So you'll have to wait a couple days for it to be faster. Heh. Irony.
MWave is usually pretty good about order fulfillment (for a place that isn't as huge as Newegg). They've been good for finding stuff that Newegg can't be bothered to carry (low volume things) but still at decent price.

If your buddy can't hook you up, try to hang on the extra couple of days. I'll be worth it.

--Patrick

 

[HoboNinja]

Anyone know if this Hannspree brand is any good?

from mwave.com

If so I may buy this next paycheck.

I have a 20" LCD TV but it's only 720p and has no HDMI and I figure I need a TV for the dorm room so I want a new monitor and I will use the LCD TV as just a TV instead of my monitor and TV.