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On January 14 2013 16:40 Alryk wrote:
So, I mentioned on that youtube video that the scenarios were GPU bound, and somebody's response was "did your fanboy ears hear how he explained that AMD caches their cores differently? That alone explains the difference!"
My brain hurts.
Reading youtube comments is bound to do that. I wouldn't advise it. Shit, even on a lot of high tech forums you still get people saying completely retarded stuff that makes absolutely no sense. Yet there they are saying it, and half the time even have some random website as a source.
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On January 14 2013 15:51 Myrmidon wrote:
Any situation where HT and slightly more L3 cache are going to make a difference, i7-3820 should be mostly close with i7-3770k. No such trend exists in that data.
Trine 2 1080p:
8350 - 58 fps
3570 - 38.8 fps
3770 - 47.28 fps
3820 - 31.96 fps
When some things are off by dozens of percentage points, is the data really worth looking through? I mean, if you can figure out what's horribly awry, then that's good, but there's no basis for discussion here. It's not like even figuring out what's wrong would give us the "correct" results. May as well bring up the topic you want to discuss and ignore this debacle completely.
i didnt even bother to look at the 3770/3820 results. Yikes.
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CX 500w $29
Get 2x2gb of ram for $25 instead. 8gb is cheap, but $20 would be a bigger upgrade in the motherboard, case, even gpu
dont like the cooler but sticking just to newegg, whatever
660 as you say, is overkill for sc2/dota. the 280 for $80 is a much better deal for his needs
You can get a good, NEW, 64gb-80gb high quality ssd for $65. You dont need more than 60gb of storage if you are just playing HOTS/dota2/w7 and general office/usage programs.
Ditch the dvd drive and for an extra $17 you might get 80-120gb on that ssd
200r is a great case but for $50 i think its a bit much. theres a few $30 cases on egg i believe, nzxt, bitfenix merc alpha if i recall.
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On January 14 2013 16:46 Infernal_dream wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2013 16:40 Alryk wrote:
So, I mentioned on that youtube video that the scenarios were GPU bound, and somebody's response was "did your fanboy ears hear how he explained that AMD caches their cores differently? That alone explains the difference!"
My brain hurts. Reading youtube comments is bound to do that. I wouldn't advise it. Shit, even on a lot of high tech forums you still get people saying completely retarded stuff that makes absolutely no sense. Yet there they are saying it, and half the time even have some random website as a source.
its amazing you go on tomshardware forums... more than half the replies are just bad advice. It's so sad, they just say wrong things over and over. Anandtech's forums are pretty bad too, although not as bad as TH (i guess their reviews and articles are like that too). [H]ard has a surprisngly terrible forum given their high quality articles and benches. OCC's forum seems pretty weak. OCN has the best forum i've ever seen anywhere.
the british oc forums always seem pretty spot on from what i read (im not sure why they all have mafia guys as their portraits though, US mafia guys...oc.uk or whatever).
TL actually has a pretty solid forum in regards to tech advice. The downside to going to high quality forums like OCN is that the traffic is a lot lower. It doesn't really get into specialist stuff or modding or overclocking but the people here at least know what it is. I do get surprised how few people here buy second hand or mod compared to most enthusiasts though.
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He said around $800 as a goal, so around $800 it is. If he'd said $1500, then we'd need to reevaluate... but at $800, Capstone is going to last a lot longer, 200R is a lot nicer, some people actually use over 4GB of RAM, something was said about running more-demanding games as well, etc. Though even at $800 I'd consider cutting elsewhere for an SSD too. CX500 is only $29 after rebate. There were some unlisted rebates above.
Most enthusiasts (computer forums types) swap parts more frequently, so sale value of their old parts is higher because they are less outdated at the time of selling, and a lower remaining life expectancy on used goods they purchase is less of an issue. Also, a tighter upgrade cycle means more money spent, and some are scrapping harder on budgets? Also, tweaking / mods / upgrades are hobbyist kinds of endeavors; the means to an end becomes a focus in of itself. Hence lower interest in modding and buying used.
Also note that it's hard to get an unbiased sample from a population just by looking around casually, trying to see their habits. As an example, some subforums may have more modders than others, and not just the obvious ones. Add on top of that the fact that memory is unintentionally selective. That said, I do believe that the prevalence is significantly higher elsewhere.
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hyper 212+ is $15, that would be better than the cooler you chose and would be a decent price for it.
You are right, the rosewill is a better psu, but the cx500 will last him a very long time as is. He won't be pushing 100% load on single gpu, even with very heavy overclocks, so it wont be a matter, and for the price difference, its worth it. the 430 has acceptable noise, ripple, and efficiency too, its not a bad psu.
I disagree the 200r is a lot nicer. It's a very solid case, lots of room in the back, but i just dont find the price worth it. maybe other people just prioritize the case more. this is coming from someone who switches out the heatsink or motherboard every week and used a few different cases, i just didnt find the extra space on the 200r over the newer nzxt cases a big deal (over the gamma, maybe though, but even then gamma is only cramped when you are trying to hide an ssd behind the mobo and got 6 fans).
games are designed around 32bit so you dont really need more than 4gb for gaming. Even the 64bit games, wont, for a while. Ram is so cheap, and it'll only plummet in prices. When you need 8gb, you get 8gb for $20 in a year or two, meanwhile, the money is better spent elsewhere. That's the beauty of building your own computer, you can swap parts in a flash and sell the old parts for funds for it. It's all so fungible.
If he needs more than 4gb than by all means get 8gb, but all ive seen him say is gaming. i dont even know what 'demanding' games require more than 4gb (and thats including tons of other stuff open, browser, music, etc). He did mention a 2nd monitor, it's possible you'll use more than 4gb with gaming and a second monitor if you put a ton of stuff on that 2nd monitor but even that's a bit unlikely for most people...
ram is so easy to upgrade. Get 4gb for now and if you really need 8gb, then get it then. people talk about how customizable a computer is, but then buy parts as if they will never sell off the old parts and they MUST use the part in question for at least 6 years or something. I dont think I've kept any of my computer parts for more than 6 months except my motherboard, ram, and hdd.
If you aren't an enthusiast, and swap a part out 2 years later, upgrading it will be cheaper too. You can't say that makes a difference. Hardware is so fungible, there is no more money spent on a higher upgrade cycle (depending on how you buy, I mean i upgraded to an i5 build for free from a phenom ii build that i pocketed money from upgrading to from an athlon ii cpu....). We aren't talking about upgrading builds here, we are talking ram. Oh no, non-enthusiast loses out on $5 because he bought new ram and shipping fees on selling his old ram on ebay! Meanwhile he was able to make a $20 better computer when he build it, at the time he needed it.
Not to mention, you'd notice $40 2x2gb RAM more than you'd notice $40 2x4gb ram. That's how little 8gb matters, but that's also a bit you are losing, while ram specs aren't very important, that's still a good couple frames slower.
anyways i think the parts you picked out are fine, but I'm pretty sure he said $800 because, like most people who say $800, he has no clue what he's doing (no offense). I mean, he picked out a prebuilt for christ sake. I dont think dude realizes he can make a very high quality computer for under $500. I think he figured an i5 build with similar performance to that prebuilt, would cost $800, when in reality it only costs around $500+ (or, more appropriately, performance that he could use for his needs, i mean for example 4gb of ram is obviously less than 8gb but he only needs 4gb).
And didn't he say he needs a monitor, and peripherals? And, he wanted dual monitor? So I think that's cutting his budget too. He also said if he could spend less than $800, that that would be great for him.
You got a lot of people here coming saying they got $1000, they think they need to spend that much to play sc2 just on medium, and they want to save money. They dont need to hear about an i5 build or i7 build with 680s, they want an APU build for $200 and pocket the money, they just didnt think they could get alienware $1000 performance on a $200 APU build, or whatever. It's kind of a case where the client doesnt really know what they want...
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Just curious, isn't it bad to use an ssd for internet browsing? i'd imagine that the amount of temp files that i go through while browsing would be quite a lot.
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On January 14 2013 20:35 wussleeQ wrote:
Just curious, isn't it bad to use an ssd for internet browsing? i'd imagine that the amount of temp files that i go through while browsing would be quite a lot.
Even cheap SSDs can handle dozens of gigabytes of write actions per day and have a good lifetime. Internet temp files don't really cause that much IO traffic. In general, the death by repeated writes scenario of SSDs is rather unlikely under normal circumstances.
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On January 14 2013 20:35 wussleeQ wrote:
Just curious, isn't it bad to use an ssd for internet browsing? i'd imagine that the amount of temp files that i go through while browsing would be quite a lot.
Well, according to my own personal experience, at ~1.5 years and counting (and I use my PC a fuckton, being a stay at home dad), no problem.
That's ignoring all the theory stuff Myrm had explained that made me feel comfortable with it.
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On January 14 2013 20:35 wussleeQ wrote:
Just curious, isn't it bad to use an ssd for internet browsing? i'd imagine that the amount of temp files that i go through while browsing would be quite a lot.
We have CCleaner for a reason 
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On January 15 2013 00:48 AznBoy00 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2013 20:35 wussleeQ wrote:
Just curious, isn't it bad to use an ssd for internet browsing? i'd imagine that the amount of temp files that i go through while browsing would be quite a lot. We have CCleaner for a reason
I don't think that was the point, though. The point was the (potentially) unnecessary wear due to all he writes (of the temp files). Storage space wasn't itself a problem. But all this is beside the point, as apparently it's irrelevant.
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On January 14 2013 19:39 Belial88 wrote:
And didn't he say he needs a monitor, and peripherals? And, he wanted dual monitor? So I think that's cutting his budget too. He also said if he could spend less than $800, that that would be great for him.
Oh shit, that's right, I forgot monitors and peripherals were needed. Even just by that, $800 is too much on the computer itself then.
Core i5-3470 - $185
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115234
G.Skill 2 x 2GB - $22
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231253
AsRock B75M-DGS - $55
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157335
Sapphire HD 7770 - $115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202011
Samsung (errr, Seagate?) Spinpoint F3 1TB - $65
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185
LG CD / DVD burner - $17
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136259
Antec Neo Eco 400C (no power cord; use an old one) - $40
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182066
+ Show Spoiler [alternative] +
Corsair Carbide 200R - $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139018
Check the related peripherals threads listed here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=278114
edit: if you're worried about SSD writes, just forget everything for a week or so (surely you're not going to destroy your SSD that quickly). Record the LBAs written by looking it up in some utility—or some kind of health / wearout indicator—before and after the week. Extrapolate out to ten years and see if you'll run out in that time. Hint: vast majority of people won't. Also, rated cycles is a conservative estimate that the vast majority of blocks will meet, not the average block.
Something else is much more liable to fail first.
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On January 15 2013 02:50 Myrmidon wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2013 19:39 Belial88 wrote:
And didn't he say he needs a monitor, and peripherals? And, he wanted dual monitor? So I think that's cutting his budget too. He also said if he could spend less than $800, that that would be great for him. Oh shit, that's right, I forgot monitors and peripherals were needed. Even just by that, $800 is too much on the computer itself then. Core i5-3470 - $185 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115234G.Skill 2 x 2GB - $22 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231253AsRock B75M-DGS - $55 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157335Sapphire HD 7770 - $115 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202011Samsung (errr, Seagate?) Spinpoint F3 1TB - $65 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185LG CD / DVD burner - $17 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136259Antec Neo Eco 400C (no power cord; use an old one) - $40 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182066+ Show Spoiler [alternative] +Corsair Carbide 200R - $50 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139018Check the related peripherals threads listed here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=278114edit: if you're worried about SSD writes, just forget everything for a week or so (surely you're not going to destroy your SSD that quickly). Record the LBAs written by looking it up in some utility—or some kind of health / wearout indicator—before and after the week. Extrapolate out to ten years and see if you'll run out in that time. Hint: vast majority of people won't. Also, rated cycles is a conservative estimate that the vast majority of blocks will meet, not the average block. Something else is much more liable to fail first.
Are there parts in here that are just too outdated for me to be able to update reasonably? I take no offense to anything being said about me not knowing anything because it is extremely true. I am completely lost as to what I need in order to play games. I mainly play SC2 but would also like to play more graphically intensive games like maybe crysis 2 or Skyrim on high settings or maybe even higher. And If I was going to update in the future in order to play the next gen of graphically intensive games what would I look to upgrade? The Graphics card? RAM? or a whole new Motherboard and CPU?
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^ The CD/DVD is too outdated for you to use reasonable ^^. I'd toss that, you could get a significantly better upgrade if you put that money elsewhere.
Do you live near microcenter (go to microcenter.com, see if they are near you)? Do you live near a best buy (they happen to price match microcenter, but you need to call them as they sometimes try to weasel out of it).
If you lived near a microcenter, you could significantly drop the prices on parts and increase the quality of them. Or to be more specific, you can get a great deal on your cpu, gpu, motherboard, case, from them.
You need to be more specific about your needs. Do you want a computer to play just starcraft 2? Or do you need to play crysis2 now? Do you want a computer that can max out crysis2 on 1080, or play on high settings on 720/1080? You can always upgrade in the future, it's very simple to, that's the whole point of building a PC - sell the parts when done and buy what you need, when you need it. Prices drop in the future, so it's easier to buy what you need now, and then buy upgrades as you need them in the future.
That GPU will max out sc2 and dota and such games, and will handle crysis and skyrim on high settings pretty well. It won't be bleeding edge, if that's what you want, but you don't seem to have the budget for that either (or at least without making some sacrifices, which, frankly, we are already doing a lot of for your build, but it wouldnt hurt the actual performance of it for the most part).
It's very easy to update ram. You just sell the ram you got and buy new ram. Prices plummet on ram. I would advise you go with 2x2gb (2 x sticks is better performance than 1 or 3 or 4) - you likely won't ever go above 4gb for a gaming build, and in a year or two it'll be $20 for 8gb and a very simple upgrade (and you just sell yuour old ram for $10). Going with 4GB is not a sacrifice, really - to put it best, as long as your desk is big enough, having an even larger desk doesn't make it any easier.
Also, I'd recommend you go with a solid state drive. big fail not having an SSD on an i5 build, even if it's so limited in budget. You can find some great lower capacity drives for under $100 easily, if not $60. How much storage do you need? I've only used 50gb on a computer that plays sc2, general usage, all office suites and torrets and such, crysis 2... skyrim might be big, and hots is only going to be an additional 8gb. An ssd would be a huge boost over an HDD... but if you really need 130gb+, then you'll have to use an hdd (think of an ssd to a hdd like an i5 to some single core pentium, its a huge difference, besides cpu, it's probably the most noticeable thing besides having at least 4gb of ram, for an sc2 build).
There's a new GPU every other month, and a GPU in the class of the 7770 or gtx 460 will handle any modern game on high graphics, if not ultra. I'd strongly recommend you go with a GTX 460 on ebay for $60-80 though - at your budget, you are a bit limited, and you need to do things like buy used. As long as you buy from a good seller, you are fine (just post the ebay link up in here and we can make sure the listing is just as legit as anywhere else). You'll probably want a 1GB model.
Dont worry about future proof - when you get into products like i5 and 7770s and 460s and even 280s, they are so ridiculously strong that they will be quite 'future proof'. On the other hand, future proof as a concept doesnt exist. It's stupid for many reasons. Buy what you need. You could spend $1000 on a 3960x, but it'll be just as outdated as an i5 3570k at $169 in 5 years, but both of them will power on very well until then. THe whole point of computers is that you can upgrade them easily, and you can.
LGA 1155 is a dead socket (funny when everyone said buy z77, its a bigger dead end than p67/z68 - like i said, anytime someone says future proof they are bullshitting you, no one can read the future quite frankly and games are way behind hardware anyways), but will still be more than powerful enough. New generations of CPUs won't be a dramatic increase, sandy bridge and phenoms are doing just fine. A bigger performance boost is overclocking - a 3570k at 4.5ghz will be much stronger than a haswell or broadwell, probably even skylake, (next 3 generations of intel chips, think 4-6 years) at stock.
Anyways, the build I picked out for you will outperform the build Myrmidon picked out - I picked out a stronger GPU, CPU, and motherboard for you, which is what is important. Myrmidon picked parts out assuming you just buy from the egg, but if you can buy from microcenter, and ebay, you can increase your performance and stretch your dollar more. The PSU and case he picked out are better quality, but higher priced than what I picked (you dont need more than what I picked out for power, and it's significantly cheaper, they are both high quality PSUs, and the case I picked out will save you a ton of money so you can get a much, much stronger CPU and mobo and be in budget). I didn't include a cd/dvd drive because those are outdated as floppies and that money is better spent elsewhere.
If you were to buy purely off newegg, instead of ebay or microcenter, his choices are really all you have though. But a gtx460 is a stronger GPU for cheaper (its cheaper because it's older gen, but that's a bit of a misnomer because gpu generations are created so often that it's not like it's missing any features comparatively, and personally id go with nvidia over amd gpu but that's just opinion, and that's not a factor in why i would recommend the 460), and a 3570k and UD3H is about the highest quality i5 and motherboard you can possibly buy within reason, much better than the mobo+cpu myrm picked out, but like I said, you wont be able to afford it if you dont cut the corners I did for you or live near a microcenter.
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What graphics card would you guys recommend to play dota 2 on Max settings on a 24", 1900x1080 screen?
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On January 14 2013 20:35 wussleeQ wrote:
Just curious, isn't it bad to use an ssd for internet browsing? i'd imagine that the amount of temp files that i go through while browsing would be quite a lot.
Chrome uses quite a lot of different types of drive cache, so I could see it potentially writing a lot of cycles in the long run. I haven't tested the exact amount / day however. But it isn't really a (big) problem unless writing 4k chunks constantly for days. If you for example have a torrent client that doesn't cache, it can potentially turn quite severe in a few years. I've also read that sleep mode is not healthy for the SSD, but I'm not sure if that rumor comes from the amount Windows writes when it goes to sleep or that various SSDs had bugs in the past due to sleepmode.
As a sidenote, the estimated lifespan varies a lot between type of memory used, size on the disk and nm, but for example Intel stated that the 520 can do at least 20gb writes for 5 years, and that's quite a lot more than average usage.
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Where do you guys go to find good deals on sale? Do you just regularly check sites like neweggs/tigerdirect on a daily basis?
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On January 15 2013 06:54 TheAppetizer wrote:
What graphics card would you guys recommend to play dota 2 on Max settings on a 24", 1900x1080 screen?
Dota2 wont require much to run on max settings.
I have a 560ti and i am getting 80 - 100+ fps all maxed out.
So anything from 560ti and up would be a safe bet.
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On January 15 2013 07:27 baoluvboa wrote:
Where do you guys go to find good deals on sale? Do you just regularly check sites like neweggs/tigerdirect on a daily basis?
Overclock.net -> Forums -> Online Deals. Favorite that shit.
Pricegrabber.com (or a similar website, there are tons like it) for a quick check. I dont even bother checking it, just whenever I buy computer components, I put each component in it's search just to make sure I can't find it elsewhere cheaper.
You can also just get some chrome extension or browser extension that does price matching. I forget what I use (not on that pc anymore), but it's some extension that will pop-up whenever I look at something, showing me if cheaper prices exist, and it compares to newegg, walmart, tiger, frys, ebay, amazon, real quick for me. really helpful, just started using it but really helped out. It's especially helpful when you buy high end stuff like TIM or aftermarket modding parts, it can get confusing which small tech shop carries what for the lowest price any time of the week, between xoxide, frozencpu, sidewinder, petras, etc.
Newegg and Microcenter. I sometimes check frys and tigerdirect but im always dissapointed, never seen anything cheap on those sites. Newegg on average has the best prices but I rarely buy stuff from them, because the best price for something is usually elsewhere. But newegg also runs a lot of insane specials, so if you keep an eye out and are patient you can save a lot of money through them.
I also pricecheck everything on wal-mart.com. You'd be surprised how often they are cheaper than amazon, ebay, and newegg. I buy just as much from them as I do from newegg.
Best Buy sometimes has some great prices. Most of the time they are a huge rip-off but when they sell shit cheap, they do it right. Price matching, insane discounts, rebates. They also price match Microcenter and Newegg, which is unheard of for a big box store. So you can get a 3570k for $169 from them even if you dont live by Microcenter. They won't match bundle discounts though.
Ebay can be great for some older stuff - heatsinks and GPUs, imo, are best bought through ebay. More specifically, heatsinks (because you are really paying for price/performance, not a specific heatsink, i mean the h50 is shit at $70 but if its at the right price of $30, as it happens to be right now on ebay, then it's a steal) and older gen GPUs (for whatever reason, older series GPUs sell for super cheap, regardless of their power, so you can find a 480 for $100 right now on ebay even though it outperforms the 7850.
petrastechshop for accessories, frozencpu has a 5.1% discount on everything, sidewinder gives free shipping on $25+.
Just a note - I don't check prices ever. I just float ebay because I sell lots and buy lots through it, so I happen to see stuff a lot there. But I just sign up for newegg newsletter and I see the deals. If there's a really special deal going on, the overclock.net online deals section will have it up instantly. If you just set that to like your homepage you'll know every deal you need to.
When I'm actually buying stuff, there's just a quick list of sites and stuff that I check the exact component on. Like I see the CX500 is super cheap on egg right now, I do a quick check to make sure that MC, Frys, MC, walmart, amazon, ebay, doesnt have the CX500 for cheaper, instead of just all quality 300w+ psus, and then buy it whever it's cheapest.
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EPT
