the point is all that flashy stuff is superfluous, its not required for anything. in my example my friends kept adding flashy shit to theirs while i built a quiet black sleeper that ate their computers for lunch without even straining itself. this is because we were all on budgets and they allocated more money for looking cool than performance.
Build me a new Desktop!
- Thread starter Jay
- Start date
So here's the revised version of my previous recommendations.
(reviews are out now, we have data!)
(All prices in $CAN, shipping included where required)
225.00 MLB - ASRock P67 Extreme6
1490.00 - Total cost, shipping included. Juuuuust under the 1500 limit. If you shop around, you might find better deals.
You will still need to supply your own case, HDD, DVD drive, etc. I assume you have some of those left over from other builds OR you will be able to find them for relatively good prices no matter where you go. I would still recommend the case I mentioned earlier, but that's about another $250 or so.
Let us know how it turns out!
--Patrick
(reviews are out now, we have data!)
(All prices in $CAN, shipping included where required)
225.00 MLB - ASRock P67 Extreme6
- Still has P67 and UEFI (not BIOS)
- Has widest compatibility (PS/2 and floppy on board)
- Better power circuitry than the Extreme4 (16phase v. 8phase)
- More USB3 and SATA6 ports than Extreme4
230.00 CPU - Intel Core i5 2500K- Almost the exact same thing as the 2600K but with 25% less L2 cache (for 35% less cash!)
0.00 HSF - Included with CPU- People are already clocking up to 4GHz on the boxed cooler. Why pay more?
120.00 RAM - G.SKILL DDR3-1333 CAS 7 2x4GB (8GB total) kit- 8GB should be enough for the next few years
- DDR3-1333 @ CAS7 will outperform DDR3-1600 @ CAS8 and with fewer heat/compatibility problems
- (Board may have to be manually set to CAS7 timings, though)
165.00 OS - Windows 7 Professional 64bit OEM- It's the main game in town if'n ya wanna game
240.00 PSU - Seasonic X850 PSU- Plenty of power for lotsa drives and two power-hungry GPUs
510.00 GPU - EVGA GeForce GTX 580 (non-factory overclocked)- I know I said to get either 6970 or 570GTX, but right now the 580 is the single-card king
- Price stabilizations in above parts allow better single card
- Slight disadvantage due to only having 1.5GB RAM on-board (compared to 2GB on 6970)
- Noticeable advantage due to being about 10-15% higher fps than 6970 in most tests
- There are faster models, but the standard clock speed will work better power/heat-wise in SLI (for later...)
---------------1490.00 - Total cost, shipping included. Juuuuust under the 1500 limit. If you shop around, you might find better deals.
You will still need to supply your own case, HDD, DVD drive, etc. I assume you have some of those left over from other builds OR you will be able to find them for relatively good prices no matter where you go. I would still recommend the case I mentioned earlier, but that's about another $250 or so.
Let us know how it turns out!
--Patrick
175.00 HDD1 - RunCore Pro V 60GB SSD
--Patrick
- 60GB is enough to be a system drive and still hold your most common apps/games
- This single drive is faster than 2xVelociraptors in RAID0. Much faster.
- Make sure to get the ProV, not the ProIV
- Larger sizes are available (at larger prices, of course)
110.00 HDD2 - HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 2TB- 2TB should hold you for a year or so
- 5k rotation speed means less noise/heat
--Patrick
Great games tend to take a lot of HD space. For example, an amazing game like Mass Effect 2 currently takes 17G, Dragon Age 2 takes 19G. These 2 games alone take 36G and well over half the hard drive. I'm sure Win 7 takes X Gigs as well. 60 Gig is a paltry limit, even for SSD standards.... they might as well throw me a bunch of floppy disks and go ask me to wing it.
SSD would be nice but isn't mandatory not when it's cost is that high for a space limit that would have looked sweet in 2002.
Any other HDD recommendations Pat?
SSD would be nice but isn't mandatory not when it's cost is that high for a space limit that would have looked sweet in 2002.
Any other HDD recommendations Pat?
Also on the note of cases, I tried to contact a few places for some sweet cases and it seems that they really don't carry them though they do carry the Antec performance line. I currently have an Antec P180 (full) and it runs rather quiet though not very quiet. This rig is going to a friend and thus I'll be buying a new case, so I can't keep it. Do you suggest perhaps I get another? Or another model that is slightly higher? Obviously, I need to carry it and the stores carry the line. I unfortunately won't order a case and pay over 100$ for shipping, they are pretty heavy.
I was maybe thinking of the Antec P183 - http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=314&Itemid=61
But it's not overly quiet... so I'm unsure.
I was maybe thinking of the Antec P183 - http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=314&Itemid=61
But it's not overly quiet... so I'm unsure.
I already made my case recommendation previously in post #26 (and then referenced it again in post #37 
)
If you absolutely must have speed/speed/speed, you might try 2 x 500GB WD RE4 in RAID0 (at $95CAN ea), but remember to back up your important data to the 2TB in case the RAID fails.
EDIT: Uh-oh, might want to put off the build for a few weeks.
Intel reports new chipset has problems, issues recall
--Patrick
)If you absolutely must have speed/speed/speed, you might try 2 x 500GB WD RE4 in RAID0 (at $95CAN ea), but remember to back up your important data to the 2TB in case the RAID fails.
EDIT: Uh-oh, might want to put off the build for a few weeks.
Intel reports new chipset has problems, issues recall
--Patrick
UPDATE: Looks like it may not be as big of an issue as you might think.
-The new chipset has 6 built-in SATA ports, 2 of which are SATA-3/600 and 4 of which are SATA-2/300.
-Only the 4 SATA-2/300 ports are afflicted.
-The Extreme6 MLB I mention above adds 4 more SATA-3/600 ports by using add-on Marvell chip(s).
Therefore, if you restrict yourself to only using the 6 SATA-3/600 connectors (instead of all 10), you'll never even be affected (this makes the ASRock board looks like an even better choice to me than I first thought).
--Patrick
-The new chipset has 6 built-in SATA ports, 2 of which are SATA-3/600 and 4 of which are SATA-2/300.
-Only the 4 SATA-2/300 ports are afflicted.
-The Extreme6 MLB I mention above adds 4 more SATA-3/600 ports by using add-on Marvell chip(s).
Therefore, if you restrict yourself to only using the 6 SATA-3/600 connectors (instead of all 10), you'll never even be affected (this makes the ASRock board looks like an even better choice to me than I first thought).
--Patrick
The CPUs aren't being recalled, it's the motherboard chipset. The CPUs are fine.
The above motherboard comes with 10 (yes, ten) SATA ports. The chipset defect means that, at some time in the future, 4 of them are probably going to go bad (all at once or really close together). Fortunately, this will be the four slowest ports. Unfortunately, it will be four out of the six which support RAID. You have four choices at this point:
-Go ahead with your build right now and only use the 4 affected ports just for DVD/CD drives (where you won't lose data if the connection fails). They're the slow ones anyway, so probably not a big deal. If/when the ports do fail, just reconnect them to the extra 4 Marvell ports instead. You will likely be able to exchange your board later under an Intel-sponsored recall (Intel is putting aside 700 million dollars to deal with this), but it is still going to be a bit of a hassle. However, if you already have a buyer lined up for your old system, you may be forced to move out earlier than you really wanted.
OR
-Wait until Intel finishes with the recall, buy the rev2 board OR one of the upcoming Z68-based boards instead (Z68 boards aren't coming out until the Spring and will NOT be affected by this recall). Build as usual.
OR
-Scrap this entire build and start over either with last-generation Intel technology (Nehalem/Lynnfield, P55/X58 chipset) or with AMD Phenom II.
OR
-Go without (continue using your current system until you can't stand it any longer).
I've put them into what I believe will be your order of preference. Keep us posted!
--Patrick
The above motherboard comes with 10 (yes, ten) SATA ports. The chipset defect means that, at some time in the future, 4 of them are probably going to go bad (all at once or really close together). Fortunately, this will be the four slowest ports. Unfortunately, it will be four out of the six which support RAID. You have four choices at this point:
-Go ahead with your build right now and only use the 4 affected ports just for DVD/CD drives (where you won't lose data if the connection fails). They're the slow ones anyway, so probably not a big deal. If/when the ports do fail, just reconnect them to the extra 4 Marvell ports instead. You will likely be able to exchange your board later under an Intel-sponsored recall (Intel is putting aside 700 million dollars to deal with this), but it is still going to be a bit of a hassle. However, if you already have a buyer lined up for your old system, you may be forced to move out earlier than you really wanted.
OR
-Wait until Intel finishes with the recall, buy the rev2 board OR one of the upcoming Z68-based boards instead (Z68 boards aren't coming out until the Spring and will NOT be affected by this recall). Build as usual.
OR
-Scrap this entire build and start over either with last-generation Intel technology (Nehalem/Lynnfield, P55/X58 chipset) or with AMD Phenom II.
OR
-Go without (continue using your current system until you can't stand it any longer).
I've put them into what I believe will be your order of preference. Keep us posted!
--Patrick
Any idea how long it's going to take for proper motherboards to start filtering their way into distributors stock?
PatrThom, what brand do you recommend for hard drives? I know a lot of people feel very strongly on the subject and I was curious as to your take on it.
Also, what would be your recommendation for dual video card setups?
PatrThom, what brand do you recommend for hard drives? I know a lot of people feel very strongly on the subject and I was curious as to your take on it.
Also, what would be your recommendation for dual video card setups?
a) The linked article gives other links talking about what each mfr is doing, and when they're doing it.
b) I try not to recommend brands. I try to recommend models (based on requirements). For instance. Seagate is pretty well known, has a good guarantee and pretty good performance, but they've also had some colossal duds. Same thing with WD and everybody else.
c) Why do you need dual cards?
--Patrick
b) I try not to recommend brands. I try to recommend models (based on requirements). For instance. Seagate is pretty well known, has a good guarantee and pretty good performance, but they've also had some colossal duds. Same thing with WD and everybody else.
c) Why do you need dual cards?
--Patrick
A) Thanks for the heads up... looks like April for the gigabyte board I'm looking at... just gives me more time to save.
B) Fair enough, I was just curious if there was one brand that you felt was more reliable than others (I've yet to have a catastrophic hard drive failure and I've had all kinds of different brands).
C) With the right SLI setup you should be able to get more performance out of two lesser cards than one monster card... and it costs less. I'm thinking Geforce GTX 460's. Two of them are $360 and theoretically should outperform a GTX 580 (need to do more research though).
B) Fair enough, I was just curious if there was one brand that you felt was more reliable than others (I've yet to have a catastrophic hard drive failure and I've had all kinds of different brands).
C) With the right SLI setup you should be able to get more performance out of two lesser cards than one monster card... and it costs less. I'm thinking Geforce GTX 460's. Two of them are $360 and theoretically should outperform a GTX 580 (need to do more research though).
More performance doing what, exactly?
EDIT: It's a legitimate question. I mean, I assume you just want MOAR FPS in your games, but you haven't said which games, or if that's even really what you're after.
--Patrick
Patrick,
MOAR FRAMEZ PLS KTHNXBAI!!!
. As for which games... all sorts... but sometimes I play games that are really hard on both the CPU and graphics card (Playing supreme commander with 7 opponents with 1000 units each and using two monitors can really strain things lol).
Games I normally play: Mass effect 1&2, Supreme Commander forged Alliance, Dragon Age, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 2, Sins of a Solar Empire (with Huge maps), Fallout 3 and New Vegas. They are all games that can be really demanding on both the graphic card and CPU.
MOAR FRAMEZ PLS KTHNXBAI!!!
Games I normally play: Mass effect 1&2, Supreme Commander forged Alliance, Dragon Age, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 2, Sins of a Solar Empire (with Huge maps), Fallout 3 and New Vegas. They are all games that can be really demanding on both the graphic card and CPU.
I wouldn't go lower than a pair of GTX 470's in SLI (about US$500) due to the much better minimum framerate increase over a pair of 460's (or even a pair of 560 Ti's!). Minimum framerate means less stuttering/slowdown. If I thought I could swing it, I'd recommend instead a pair of Radeon 6950's in XFire (about US$600) since they have more on-board memory (2GB) and a pair of 6950's will give you almost double the fps of a single GTX 580 ($US500).
...this is in games which play nice with SLI/XFire, of course. Or you could just get a single GTX 580.
If you absolutely can't hit the $500 mark, let me know and I'll see what's best at $400.
--Patrick
...this is in games which play nice with SLI/XFire, of course. Or you could just get a single GTX 580.
If you absolutely can't hit the $500 mark, let me know and I'll see what's best at $400.
--Patrick
I could probably do $500... $600 is pushing things a bit too much at the moment.
So, if I'm running an overclocked Core I5 2500k, two Radeon 6950's, 16gb of RAM and two large hard drives... should I be looking at a 1000W power supply? I'm horrible at estimating my power needs.
a) Could get one 6950/2GB right now, get another one later.
b) 850 should be enough, 1000 and up would be extra insurance if you want to add water pumps, extra drives, maybe some other expansion cards/lights/cigarette lighter at a later date.
175W - 2500k OC
25W - MLB
20W - HDD x 2
10W - RAM (est)
400W - 6950 x 2 (thermal limited to 200W max ea)
100W - Fans n DVD n crap
-------
750W or so total
--Patrick
b) 850 should be enough, 1000 and up would be extra insurance if you want to add water pumps, extra drives, maybe some other expansion cards/lights/cigarette lighter at a later date.
175W - 2500k OC
25W - MLB
20W - HDD x 2
10W - RAM (est)
400W - 6950 x 2 (thermal limited to 200W max ea)
100W - Fans n DVD n crap
-------
750W or so total
--Patrick
Discovered something after doing new research today which causes me to alter my recommendations a bit.
GTX 580 cards are thermal limited to only draw a max of 200W per card. This is the info I was using to build my previous recommendations. I have since learned that tweakers have discovered how to remove these thermal safeguards in order to get more performance from the GTX 5xx series of cards. A side effect of this is that the cards can draw up to 350W of power per card, which is way more than I budgeted for in my previous research. To keep from overloading the system, this means that I no longer endorse anything bigger than the GTX 560 Ti for use in SLI unless you are using at least a 1200W PSU (previous budget was for 850W max + 300W new discovery = 1150W needed).
So for the above build, I'm changing my recommendation to either getting a single GTX 580 and sticking with it until the next generation, or getting either one 6950/2GB or one GTX 560 Ti for now and adding another one later (assuming you stick with the 850W PSU and its lower noise/heat, that is).
--Patrick
GTX 580 cards are thermal limited to only draw a max of 200W per card. This is the info I was using to build my previous recommendations. I have since learned that tweakers have discovered how to remove these thermal safeguards in order to get more performance from the GTX 5xx series of cards. A side effect of this is that the cards can draw up to 350W of power per card, which is way more than I budgeted for in my previous research. To keep from overloading the system, this means that I no longer endorse anything bigger than the GTX 560 Ti for use in SLI unless you are using at least a 1200W PSU (previous budget was for 850W max + 300W new discovery = 1150W needed).
So for the above build, I'm changing my recommendation to either getting a single GTX 580 and sticking with it until the next generation, or getting either one 6950/2GB or one GTX 560 Ti for now and adding another one later (assuming you stick with the 850W PSU and its lower noise/heat, that is).
--Patrick
The order has been submitted and is now being processed in 3 different orders. This is my new rig that is coming in a few business days. I hope to have everything by next weekend.
- EVGA SuperClocked 015-P3-1582-AR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI
- G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL7D-8GBRH
- Western Digital VelociRaptor WD4500HLHX 450GB 10000 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
- HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 (0F12117) 2TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
- SeaSonic X Series X-850 (SS-850KM Active PFC F3) 850W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD
- Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K
- ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
- Silverstone Fortress FT02 Case
- I got a Win 7 free licence from a friend who works for Microsoft.
I'm excited.
- EVGA SuperClocked 015-P3-1582-AR GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI
- G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL7D-8GBRH
- Western Digital VelociRaptor WD4500HLHX 450GB 10000 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
- HITACHI Deskstar 5K3000 HDS5C3020ALA632 (0F12117) 2TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
- SeaSonic X Series X-850 (SS-850KM Active PFC F3) 850W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD
- Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K
- ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
- Silverstone Fortress FT02 Case
- I got a Win 7 free licence from a friend who works for Microsoft.
I'm excited.
Case is on it's way from Calgary, should have it Wed/Thu.
Concord, ON, Canada 03/21/2011 12:26 A.M. Arrival Scan
Calgary, AB, Canada 03/18/2011 1:27 A.M. Departure Scan
Calgary, AB, Canada 03/17/2011 7:21 P.M. Origin Scan
Canada 03/17/2011 5:56 P.M. Order Processed: Ready for UPS
Free shipping for a case? Yes plz.
Newegg however, have been terribly slow. Called them this morning. Apparently, I missed a confirmation call for my cell number, yet my cell never got called. Nonetheless, it got cleared up and I see the process of them shipping it to me.
I'm pretty excited to get this rig up.
Concord, ON, Canada 03/21/2011 12:26 A.M. Arrival Scan
Calgary, AB, Canada 03/18/2011 1:27 A.M. Departure Scan
Calgary, AB, Canada 03/17/2011 7:21 P.M. Origin Scan
Canada 03/17/2011 5:56 P.M. Order Processed: Ready for UPS
Free shipping for a case? Yes plz.
Newegg however, have been terribly slow. Called them this morning. Apparently, I missed a confirmation call for my cell number, yet my cell never got called. Nonetheless, it got cleared up and I see the process of them shipping it to me.
I'm pretty excited to get this rig up.
I know exactly what you're going through, Jay. One of my "fastest computer yet" builds came with faulty RAM. No problem, I had other RAM I could use...but it had to run at half speed. So for a week, I ran that system at half speed, knowing that everything could be going twice as fast.
--Patrick
--Patrick