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(Didn't post this in the "Post Your Rig" thread because it seemed like a derail).
Like many others, the promise of SC2 beta any day now has started me wondering about my computer. My current rig should handle SC2 at low settings with a few minor adjustments (replace graphics card [install graphics card, really; using integrated one now] and downloading more RAM [sorry, I still laugh at that thread every time I think about it]) but I want something more. What I really want, is a computer that can run SC2 and allow me to do SC2 commentaries.
Since this isn't a huge priority for my already small income, building my own seems by far better than trying to pick up a ready-made rig. However, I know next to nothing about computers, at least as far as the knowledge required for such an endeavor requires.
So I was wondering if some of the obviously very knowledgeable members of tl would help me to learn. I'm not looking for "buy this, that and that," but for explanations of what I'm looking for and why I need this and not that, etc. I've never been much for following set rules, I'd rather try to understand the why so I can figure things out myself.
Part of the reason I'd like this kind of information is just natural curiosity, but there's also the fact that I'll be saving up for this incrementally so I'll need the understanding to know when something I'm looking for is on sale so I can pounce instead of having to ask "is this good?" every couple of weeks. I'm hoping to have this completed as a birthday present for myself (October) so just knowing what the best thing is today isn't very efficient.
Any help you're willing to give would be great - assume I have zero knowledge, because it's pretty close to the truth. Links, personal experience, sites to check out, manufacturers that are trustworthy, just anything pertaining to how to set up a good computer would be very helpful and greatly appreciated. Also, if you feel the need to wax eloquent on some points, feel free; I'd prefer information overload to a summary.
As for a budget, considering the time frame there's probably going to be a lot of variation in prices now compared to prices later, but I'll just say that if I can get it done for $1k (US), I'll be quite happy.
Thanks for your time!
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You basically need 7 major components, a CPU, motherboard, videocard, harddrive, optical drive, powersupply, RAM.
your estimate of $1000 if far too high for what you wish to do with your computer
i guess computer case and monitor also count oops
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Few general rules:
1) You don't need an absolutely holy shit amazing top of the line processor. You're likely to be bottlenecked by your RAM/vid card
2) RAM is good. very good.
3) Video card is also lovely.
4) Hard drive? lol whatever...
You're usually set in terms of building a nice gaming comp if you base your choices around these rules.
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when you choose your processor, remember while intel is generally better than amd, for the price difference its generally not worth it to go intel unless youre an enthusiast or need that extra bit of performance.
unless you have specific applications like video encoding, 3D rendering, or high-end audio work which specifically uses 4 cores, you don't need quad core - gaming/word processing/general desktop use is still mostly a dual or even single-core affair. however, many of the current best price/performance chips are tri and quad-core, so think of those extra cores as a bonus.
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for a gaming computer, the video card is the single most important piece of hardware. You want this to be your most powerful component. You don't need a top of the line motherboard. You don't need the fastest CPU on the market. You don't need a gajillion GB of the fastest RAM.
here's the list of importance imo:
1) video card - the major workhorse for a gaming computer
2) power supply - needs to make sure all your parts run smoothly without anything blowing up. You don't need necessarily need a lot of wattage for your power supply, just a solid quality power supply is all you need
3) CPU - you'll want at least a dual-core processor. In fact I recommend a dual processor since they're cheaper! I would get one of the lower end models of the newer lines of CPUs. Even though they're what they consider lower end of the spectrum, they're still considerably fast
4) RAM - 4 GB of RAM seems to be the sweet spot these days. I would recommend DDR3 RAM because DDR2 RAM is just as if not more expensive than DDR3 RAM these days. That being said, you're going to need to make sure you have a compatible...
5) Motherboard - get one that's compatible with everything you have. I imagine you won't be overclocking anything so you can get away with a cheaper motherboard. Also make sure it has all the things you want (look at number of USB ports, onboard sound, etc). Motherboards that support DDR3 RAM are slightly more expensive than ones that support only DDR2 RAM, but it's worth it in the long run.
6) Hard drive, optical drive, case - how much space do you want? do you need dvd writing capabilities? What kind of computer case do you want? Only you can answer these questions. Know that 7200 RPM SATA hard drives are the standard these days. And make sure your motherboard will fit into the case (don't buy an ATX motherboard thinking it will fit into a microATX case).
here's my computer that I built from parts from Black Friday and other good deals I found a couple months ago.
AMD Athlon II X2 250 CPU
ECS IC780M-A2 motherboard
ATI Radeon HD5770 1GB video card
G.Skill 4 GB DDR3 1333 RAM
Western Digital 640GB Hard drive
Samsung DVD Rewritable Drive
Antec Three Hundred ATX case
OCZ ModXStream 550W Power Supply
Acer 21.5" X213H 1080P HDCP monitor
assuming I get all my mail-in rebates I estimate this all came out to be a little less than $600. I would recommend going with an AMD build because overall it's cheaper and you still get quality performance.
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For streaming and running SC2 at the same time you will need 2 hard drives (one to run the OS and SC2, the other to be as a temporary drive for the video file and encoding) and preferably a quad core cpu.
Luckily there a ton of cheap quads today on the market, so it shouldn't be a problem for your budget.
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Just get a HD5850, 4gb ram and i5 750. Make sure your motherboard can run your shit and get as big of a hard drive as you like since they are very cheap. Mine is 640GB for 640RMB (less than $100) and I bought that about 2 years ago. Don't buy expensive computer cases.
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On February 16 2010 18:21 Sadistx wrote:
preferably a quad core cpu.
Luckily there a ton of cheap quads today on the market, so it shouldn't be a problem for your budget.
This is really true, as far as value for money goes a Quad core gets you a really good deal.
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On February 16 2010 18:27 writer22816 wrote:
Just get a HD5850, 4gb ram and i5 750. Make sure your motherboard can run your shit and get as big of a hard drive as you like since they are very cheap. Mine is 640GB for 640RMB (less than $100) and I bought that about 2 years ago. Don't buy expensive computer cases.
you'll be spending about $300 more than you need to if you go with this.
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For $1000, you'll get a rig that'll easily last you a couple of years. $700 should be enough for your purposes. Do you want a complete computer, or do you consider reusing components from your current rig?
Case: The distinguishing features are mainly design, workmanship and price: how easy is it to install stuff, and are there any sharp edges which could hurt you? Since you probably don't work on your computer's intestines often, I'd just get a cheap case that looks nice, or even reuse your old one. If you are concerned about your stuff overheating, get two large case fans if the case itself doesn't have them included.
Power Supply: Around 600W are certainly enough, unless you want to go for dual graphics cards (which I don't recommend). Don't take a no-name PSU. Even with a good PSU you can get unlucky and have it vaporize. Just read reviews until you find one that causes few problems. You will also want to consider its loudness, and maybe efficiency. Or you can reuse your current PSU if it's strong enough.
Motherboard: I've never cared much about my mainboards. I always just took the cheapest one that fulfilled my basic criteria: does it fit my CPU, does it have the slots I need (RAM, graphics card, enough USBs), and does it have any additional features I might need (RAID support or WLAN for example).
CPU: The CPU is not that important for gaming, and whatever you buy is easily fast enough for everyday office/surfing stuff. You want to do some video encoding though for your commentaries, so get a decent one. 200-250$ maybe? As far as I know, Intel is ahead of AMD at the moment. Also, buy a separate cooler, as the bundled coolers are often loud and perform badly.
RAM: The more the better, the faster the better. 4GB should be enough at the moment. You can always easily "download" more RAM later if you want. You need a 64bit OS though, or else anything over ~3.25GB cannot be used! You can use your existing RAM if it is compatible.
Graphics card: The most important component for gaming. I wouldn't spend more than $200 on it anyway, I'd buy a new one in 2-3 years when I need more performance rather than spend a fortune on a high-end one now. ATi > NVidia at the moment.
Hard disks: These are often overlooked, but are very important! I recommend getting two: a large one for data, and a fast one for your OS/programs/games. The system disk should be very fast, that noticeably reduces loading times for just about everything. For the system disk, I recommend getting a solid state disk or building a RAID 0 out of two drives. For me it's worth the additional price. Maybe you want to continue using your old data disk instead of buying a new one and having to migrate the data. Also: Think about a smart arrangement of partitions, and backup important stuff daily from one disk to the other.
Optical drives: just get the cheapest DVD burner whose color fits the case, or use you old one 
Sound: Onboard sound suffices unless you are a hardcore audiophile. Speakers are more important.
Optional: Maybe get a second monitor if you use your computer for anything other than surfing and gaming. A second screen speeds up your work considerably because you see more stuff at the same time without you having to Alt-Tab all the time.
For assembly, it'll be best to call over a more knowledgeable friend to help you. It's no rocket science though, so no worries!
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Its good that your taking initiative early, and researching now rather than right before your ready to buy.
The two best times to buy parts online are july 4'th and black friday, I really recommend saving up and waiting for one of those 2 dates to make major purchases.
Last july I bought a phenom ii 940 + motherboard for $180, gtx 260 for ~$170, and 4 GB of ram for $20 after rebates, cheaper than you'll find any of them today.
As for researching specific components, I recomend spending some time every week to reading articles on sites such as,
http://www.tomshardware.com/us/
http://www.anandtech.com/
http://www.guru3d.com/
also check out discussions on enthusiast forums like,
http://overclock.net/
Best way to make an informed decision is to inform yourself I always say ;p
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wait till october.
anyway assuming you have a 24" screen and only play sc2
cpu: A triple/quadcore deriative of the new amd sixcores
mobo: 870 chipset amd motherboard (usb3 and some other stuff + cheap)
ram: 4 gig ddr3
gfx: HD 5830/5770
hdd: any hdd with 500 gb platters
psu: 500W with a bronze certificate
all of this is hypothetically
btw these days it would be bad idea to not take a triple/quadcore amd has made them so cheap
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Obviously a whole bunch of people have posted suggestions already but hopefully you're still reading.
As has been said, the i5 750 is the absolute king of Price erformance at the moment. Along with a nice LGA 1156 motherboard (just search that term on www.newegg.com, the best site for hardware) and a good video card, you can get the core of your CPU set up for like $500 and be able to run anything whatsoever. I don't recommend running crossfire or SLI (two gpu's at once) on an LGA 1156 motherboard though, as it reduces performance.
Basically as far as parts go, you should go with a(n):
Core i5-750
Middle-range LGA 1156 motherboard, with overclocking options
Video card >= Radeon HD 4850 (in performance, not price)
2x2gb DDR3-1333 or higher (for example, 2x4gb, or 4x2gb)
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Russian Federation410 Posts
I pretty much agree with blabber, but you assuming you're buying long term and simply won't upgrade in the near future, i'd go with (all prices from newegg.com):
1. CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 925 - 140$ + decent FAN for OC Scythe Big Shuriken SCBSK - 34$
2. MB - GIGABYTE GA-790XTA-UD4 - 140$ (USB 3.0, Sata 3) or MB - GA-MA785GMT-UD2H - 90$
3. RAM - Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 12800 - 124$
4. AMD 5770 will do - 160-185$
5. WD Black 750 or 1TB - 70$ - 100$.
6. Any DVDRW if you need one, 40$ tops (Samsung, HP, NEC, Pioneer)
7. Enermax Pro 82+ (130$), Modu82+ (150$) - all 625w. TT, OCZ, FSP, Hiper are all decent, - 620W for up to 120$.
8. Antec 300 will do as a case.
Sum: 913$ for top configuration, 780$ for standard one, you can make it cheaper by throwing out the useless DVDRW.
One thing i wouldn't save money on is a good screen. Now you can get Samsung P2370 for 260$, or you can wait till March and get the new Acer GD245HQ fpr 450$, but those are TN for excessive gaming. If you're looking for an HQ stuff get Dell 2408 (1000$), NEC 2190 Uxp 1300$, 2190Uxi 1600$.
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On February 16 2010 19:10 Go0g3n wrote:
I pretty much agree with blabber, but you assuming you're buying long term and simply won't upgrade in the near future, i'd go with (all prices from newegg.com):
1. CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 925 - 140$ + decent FAN for OC Scythe Big Shuriken SCBSK - 34$
2. MB - GIGABYTE GA-790XTA-UD4 - 140$ (USB 3.0, Sata 3) or MB - GA-MA785GMT-UD2H - 90$
3. RAM - Kingston HyperX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 12800 - 124$
4. AMD 5770 will do - 160-185$
5. WD Black 750 or 1TB - 70$ - 100$.
6. Any DVDRW if you need one, 40$ tops (Samsung, HP, NEC, Pioneer)
7. Enermax Pro 82+ (130$), Modu82+ (150$) - all 625w. TT, OCZ, FSP, Hiper are all decent, - 620W for up to 120$.
Sum: 913$ for top configuration, 780$ for standard one, you can make it cheaper by throwing out the useless DVDRW.
One thing i wouldn't save money on is a good screen. Now you can get Samsung P2370 for 260$, or you can wait till match and get the new Acer GD245HQ fpr 450$, but those are TN for excessive gaming. If you're looking for an HQ stuff get Dell 2408 (1000$), NEC 2190 Uxp 1300$, 2190Uxi 1600$.
nonononono
925 is terrible for an X4. At least get a black edition (w/ unlocked multiplier), or else you won't be able to OC very well at all. Maybe up to 3.6 if you're lucky. If you won't get a black edition x4, then get an x2 550 or x3 720.
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Russian Federation410 Posts
^ LOL is 3.6/core not enough for cheap mildly-gaming PC? Why would you throw extra 100$ on a tight budget on the extra 1GHz/Core, assuming you want to get them to 4.6-4.8, which will also require more expensive cooling.
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On February 16 2010 19:56 Go0g3n wrote:
^ LOL is 3.6/core not enough for cheap mildly-gaming PC? Why would you throw extra 100$ on a tight budget on the extra 1GHz/Core, assuming you want to get them to 4.6-4.8, which will also require more expensive cooling.
For a cheap gaming computer, the x3 or x2 BE's will offer much better performance for the price. Quad cores are for people who want massive gaming rigs. Stop contradicting yourself. If a quad core was the most important part of what he was buying, he should go the i5 750, or, for a really cheap build, a propus 620.
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Russian Federation410 Posts
^ No it's not. A simple quad core is great not only for gaming, but also general OS performance and 1000 other tasks from video de/encoding to using Winrar. There's absolutely no point in saving $30 between X3BE and X4 925, because you're not gonna OC the X3 to 5 Ghz. Anything lower the 3.6Ghz X4 will be much faster, as the standard 925 vs X3BE is at least 25% faster in everywhere. As quad integration goes on the difference will increase even further.
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EPT
