EPTComputer Build Resource Thread - Page 1425
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Rollin
Australia1552 Posts
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skyR
Canada13817 Posts
On March 21 2013 18:20 waffling1 wrote: i hear the asus boards are friendlier for OC than gigabyte boards due to software. why that board over others? what's the tradeoffs and reasoning? why? The rosewill seems to be pretty popular. $65 seems like a lot. for 15 dollars more i can get a 750W, which would handle just about anything, relatively speaking. if it was 50 dollars or so, i'd go for a 450 W. How do you calculate the power requirements? can you use CPUz, GPUz, or other programs and multiply out the total wattage? 450 is really enough for future GPU upgrades and overclocking? I'm not trying to be cheeky. as you can tell, i'm terrible with following orders without knowing the reason behind them. (I was a pretty terrible soldier too). I'm just trying to hold onto some info or reasoning that I can equip and base my decision on. Thanks very much for your help. Gigabyte often restricts some options in the BIOS for their lower end boards. ASUS boards, for the most part share the same options in the BIOS. The Capstone is popular because there is nothing better in that price range. If you're talking about the Corsair CX750 then that has a lower build quality hence the shorter warranty, poorer performance (efficiency, ripple, etc). If you're talking about something else like a Diablotek or something similar then you'd be donating money to them in exchange for a unit that won't provide the advertised power (it's the reason why they come with less cables than the real 750w units that are more expensive) and has a high potential to blow up taking more money with them. I'm not sure why you're so worried and fixated about power, we've come a long way since Nehalem and Fermi days. Technology typically moves forward in efficiency, not backwards. A GTX 680 which was previously Nvidia's flagship single GPU consumes about 200w while a Radeon HD7850 consumes just a little over 100w. You can't measure power without proper equipment. Best you can do is rely on professionals and their benchmarks. Have you even looked at benchmarks? Because if you have, you'd figure out that it's silly to go from 450w to a significantly worse 750w for more since even overclocked Sandybridge-E (hex core with hyperthreading) systems with GTX 580 consume less than 400w during load. I know some people are brand loyal so if you love Corsair so much then okay, you can get CX500 (which provides basically the same amount of power and still significantly worse btw) for about the same price as the Capstone 450. I'm guessing at no point in time you'd be doing a full fledged upgrade with an overclocked octo core and pair of GTX Titans... And even if you were planning to, you'd probably be buying a new power supply because its silly seeing a low-end power supply with these components. | ||
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MisterFred
United States2033 Posts
On March 21 2013 17:57 Nuf wrote: Hey! Thanks for the quick reply. I looked at your build, and I figured I'd show you what I have come up with. Also, I didn't mention that I already have: A case http://www.zalman.com/global/product/Product_Read.php?Idx=476 A HDD http://www.proshop.dk/Harddisk/Western-Digital-WD-Blue-1TB-2350133.html A BluRay/DVD drive A power supply; although I'm pretty sure that needs to be changed. So here's my build, I'd love feedback and suggestions; CPU; Intel Core i5 3570k http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=660227 Motherboard; I'm a bit unsure here. I'm leaning towards an MSI Z77 Board, I'm just very unsure about which one. What would you say about this one? http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=760429 GPU; MSI GeForce GTX 660 TF OC - 2GB GDDR5 http://www.proshop.dk/Grafikkort/MSI-GeForce-GTX-660-TF-OC-2GB-GDDR5-2376533.html PSU; Not sure about this one either, would love to have some recommended. RAM; http://www.edbpriser.dk/ram/kingston-hyperx-predator-4-x-4-gb-id-7082734.aspx Need feedback on this choise. I would like these as they are not too expensive and insanely fast. I think that's everything, not sure if I'm missing out on something. Please answer  You get an i5-3570K & a Z77 board only if you intend to overclock. Otherwise it is a waste of money and you should stick with the cpu & mobo I suggested. The Geforce 660 is better than the 7850 I recommended - it performs about as well as a GTX 7870. In general you go with whatever is lower in price, the 660 or the 7870 if you're buying in that price range. As for the RAM, RAM is like hard drive space: not enough is a real problem, too much is pretty useless. 2x4gb is the current standard "more than enough without going crazy." You won't see any benefit by going with 4x4gb rather than 2x4gb. And heatspreaders on RAM are useless. They're just for looking cool. So basically my recommendation (assuming you're still not planning on overclocking) is to stick with the build I suggested (though feel free to compare prices at various danish retailers to see about saving a kroner or two here and there), but drop case, hard drive, and optical drive. That brings the price down to 4715 kroner. You can then spend the difference beefing up the video card (tempting, but probably not worth it with your current resolution), or just put the money towards saving for a monitor upgrade. You might consider something quality like a BenQ gw2450hm (1300 kroner at komplett.dk). Personally I'd rather have a 24" 1920x1080 monitor with a Radeon 7850 than a smaller 1680x1050 monitor with a GTX 660, but your mileage may vary. http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=756803 Also if you want to see if your PSU is probably still good or not, just let us know the model. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Hmmm, not the best motherboards at the moment, actually. The Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H LGA 1155 Z77 ATX should be decent at that price, but it might still be worth it to get the Asrock Extreme4 there instead, as it's still really cheap. Either way, we're left with something like 300 for the other components: DS3H actually has locked voltage, avoid it. It will not work, terrible board. The Extreme4 is also a terrible board, you should really avoid it unless it's at least $40+ more cheaper than a gigabyte d3h series. I'd recommend you avoid the Hyper 212 EVO, it's overpriced crap. A Hyper 212+, and then using the $10 difference to buy high end thermal paste and a 2nd fan will outperform the EVO by more than the EVO outperforms the 212+ at stock (and would be much quieter too). I'd strongly recommend the Zalman LQ320 at newegg. At stock configuration, it outperforms the H100 (which has 2 fans, not 1 like zalman), and in equal fan configurations, the LQ320 is the best closed loop except for maybe some of the 280 rads or Swiftech 220. At $39 AR it's by far a better value than anything else right now. Way better than the H100 (unless you put 4 fans on it...). Gigabyte often restricts some options in the BIOS for their lower end boards. ASUS boards, for the most part share the same options in the BIOS. All lower end boards except Biostar do this, it's not quite accurate to say Gigabyte restricts options when it's a practice that all the big brands do. Asus boards on the lower end are frequently locked in features, just as much as gigabyte. Asrock, Asus, Gigabyte, Foxconn, Intel, MSi, they all lock features on lower end boards. The only people who don't is Biostar, which makes them great for budget boards but you really don't want to buy a low end board since the price difference is like $20-40 for a piece of garbage to world record LN2 overclockable board. LX and LE are restricted in voltage controls and a lot more. The asus p8z77-v lk has a rather low quality VRM, it's not a great board and the build quality is meh. Microcenter puts out special motherboard prices (beyond what they already have) like every other week, make sure to sign up for email specials to see them (I got my Z77X-UD5H for $79, I got my UD3H for $109, MSI Z77A-G41 for $19, Extreme4 for $69). Literally, every week they got something very insane that you can only see via email, on further discounts on boards. Right now I think it's just the z77 itx from asrock and some msi board though. It's not the worst board but at only $35 cheaper than the d3h I don't think it's worth it (I tried one out when it was only $64, but $64 is a lot cheaper than $80). Right now Gigabyte boards are the best for Z77, by far. If you are going to get a board you really should go with the D3H series (z77-d3h, z77x-d3h, z77x-ud3h in order), as they are unrestricted in controls and much higher quality. The LK is really a budget board, at a $35 price difference I'd really go for the UD3H unless you are really strapped for cash. If you were strapped for cash I'd probably go with the msi board (at $44 that is a bit high but it'll get the job done if that's what you are looking for). The Capstone is popular because there is nothing better in that price range. If you're talking about the Corsair CX750 then that has a lower build quality hence the shorter warranty, poorer performance (efficiency, ripple, etc). If you're talking about something else like a Diablotek or something similar then you'd be donating money to them in exchange for a unit that won't provide the advertised power (it's the reason why they come with less cables than the real 750w units that are more expensive) and has a high potential to blow up taking more money with them. capstone is far and away a better PSU than anything else under $100 but the XFX Pro 550w is $39 on newegg AR, which is a very high quality PSU. It's not a capstone, but it'll be more than good for a very high overclock, for a reliable system. They have a great warranty and service support too, they support second hand RMAs and warranties. You should really avoid the CX series, unless it's the CX430 for $19 and you are extremely strapped on cash. it'll get the job done, it's not a bad psu, but the fan is a bit louder, I'd say it's worth spending a bit more, if you can. But really it'll work just fine, if you are going to cut corners, that's where I'd do it (and have done it, I have a cx430 in one of my computers). CX series makes up for it's lack of quality for having the best support in the industry, worst case scenario your CX blows out and Corsair will send you a new, upgraded PSU no charge, within 2 weeks. Here's a list of good power supplies. Basically if you are using single GPU, you could just go with the cheapest PSU on this list, as they are all good power supplies. http://www.overclock.net/t/183810/faq-recommended-power-supplies | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
The problem with OCN's list is that something that's a good low-budget option like Corsair CX (lower wattage, CX750 is better than that) is put right next to expensive mega-enthusiast Seasonic Platinums and so on, and there's no way for people to tell what's a good value. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
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ZoRoXo
Norway268 Posts
Together with a http://www.komplett.no/k/ki.aspx?sku=657685 and http://www.komplett.no/k/ki.aspx?sku=757763 My current computer is a 3 year old i3 530 @ 3,6ghz, 6gb 1333mhz p7H55 board, and a 6-7 (idk really) year old 580W hiper psu that makes wierd noises sometimes when I play games. (it has been like this for about 6 months) + a 7850 and some old IDE HD's. Now this offer runs out in like 2 hours and I'm planning on going to sleep so kind of in a hurry. 1. Main question is, since this computer is for gaming and I play a pretty wide variety of games, PoE, HoN, soon heart of the swarm, Tera online, and test new games pretty often (currently mostly path of exile and those 6man partys kills the fps in my current system pretty hard) and I plan to have this for atleast 2 years, so would it be a significant upgrade? Obviously in games that support quad core it would own, but very curious about sc2. I play alot of team games and currently in 3v3 at least I have to a-move and look away lategame (sub 15 fps) and that's on lowest graphic options. I can't seem to find any decent gaming benchmarks that show an old i3 vs a new i5 2. Is there a difference between a NAS drive and a regular drive for gaming? And does it matter? I just went with this one since it was 3tb and cheaper than normal, so I can throw away my old IDE drives (one of them keep randomly restarting and gives a big laggspike) | ||
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waffling1
599 Posts
Because if you have, you'd figure out that it's silly to go from 450w to a significantly worse 750w for more since even overclocked Sandybridge-E (hex core with hyperthreading) systems with GTX 580 consume less than 400w during loa Thank you, that's the type of info i was needing. It wasn't so much that I was fixated, but that I wasn't getting anything to go by or get an understanding. (efficiency improves, but the growth plateaus, energy conversion efficiency is limited when dealing with physics. efficiency is a relatively bounded variable. even if you got 100% efficiency, it would be equal to the nominal wattage. efficiency of cpu,gpu, etc will improve, but you also have raw increases of power usage for performances. performance improves and thus power consumption increases faster. My problem is i don't know how much those raw wattage values are.) Corsair's CX series has 3 year warranty while others have 5. I guess that says something about the lifespan and reliability. But for $20.. now that's tempting.... as long as it doesn't take down my motherboard with it again when it dies. what does OCN in ocn's list stand for? i'm not getting the relevant google results. | ||
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divito
Canada1213 Posts
On March 22 2013 06:11 waffling1 wrote: what does OCN in ocn's list stand for? i'm not getting the relevant google results. Overclock.net | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
EDIT: Example of a 500 W power supply that's failing to do what's promised: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=324 | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
On March 22 2013 06:03 ZoRoXo wrote: + Show Spoiler + So i'm looking to buy some new computer parts, and I've seen everyone keep suggesting the 3570k + z77 board. But since everything seems to cost so much more in Norway i'm considering just going for some cheap package 3470. b75, 8gb 1600mhz ram for 2000 NOK ( http://www.komplett.no/k/ki.aspx?sku=752348 ) Together with a http://www.komplett.no/k/ki.aspx?sku=657685 and http://www.komplett.no/k/ki.aspx?sku=757763 My current computer is a 3 year old i3 530 @ 3,6ghz, 6gb 1333mhz p7H55 board, and a 6-7 (idk really) year old 580W hiper psu that makes wierd noises sometimes when I play games. (it has been like this for about 6 months) + a 7850 and some old IDE HD's. Now this offer runs out in like 2 hours and I'm planning on going to sleep so kind of in a hurry. 1. Main question is, since this computer is for gaming and I play a pretty wide variety of games, PoE, HoN, soon heart of the swarm, Tera online, and test new games pretty often (currently mostly path of exile and those 6man partys kills the fps in my current system pretty hard) and I plan to have this for atleast 2 years, so would it be a significant upgrade? Obviously in games that support quad core it would own, but very curious about sc2. I play alot of team games and currently in 3v3 at least I have to a-move and look away lategame (sub 15 fps) and that's on lowest graphic options. I can't seem to find any decent gaming benchmarks that show an old i3 vs a new i5 2. Is there a difference between a NAS drive and a regular drive for gaming? And does it matter? I just went with this one since it was 3tb and cheaper than normal, so I can throw away my old IDE drives (one of them keep randomly restarting and gives a big laggspike) i5-530 at 3.6 GHz to i5-3470 is not that much of an upgrade for SC2. You're gaining a bit of cache, losing a little bit of clock speed, and then getting the improvement from Westmere to Ivy Bridge. That's only two generations different, one major architectural change. If some game can really tax 3-4 cores then there would be more benefit. I would recommend saving money for a i5-3570k if you play team games. Or maybe just wait a few months until i5-4670k is released, which may or may not be significantly better. It really depends on the task, but the difference between the i5-530 at 3.6 GHz to i5-3470 when extra cores are not needed, is probably about the same as i5-3470 to overclocked i5-3570k. Different hard drives targeted for NAS use have different features. You're really asking about WD Red. WD Red has a cofigurable time-limited error recovery (TLER) figure, which isn't a big deal for you, and less head parking, increased warranty and maybe less vibration / better reliability. You can just use it as a normal desktop drive. It's modern so fairly fast for sequential transfers, but keep in mind it's a lower-power and slower-spinning 5400 rpm drive, so worse for fast accesses. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
On March 22 2013 07:09 Ropid wrote: You could look for some reviews of PSUs, waffling1. There are people that test thoroughly, check them at different power use, measure how the supplied electricity looks like on an oscilloscope, and let them run in a warm box overnight, then also open them up and discuss the insides and explain everything about why they judge a PSU as bad. There are PSUs that straight up fail to supply the wattage that is promised on the box. Some may burn down your house should the fan fail. EDIT: Example of a 500 W power supply that's failing to do what's promised: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=324 Yea johnnyguru i think really does the best psu tests. I'm sure other places do good tests but i think john's stuff is best. | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
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Capprin
United States1 Post
Around $1k What is your resolution? Likely 1280 by 1024. I will probably be using a 19" monitor, so any other recommended resolutions are welcome. What are you using it for? I will use it for gaming, coding, some video recording and editing, and maybe schoolwork if need be. Maybe. What is your upgrade cycle? My upgrade cycle is rather long. I would prefer to buy most of my things now with few upgrades necessary. When do you plan on building it? I plan on building it component for component, likely completing the full project by the end of July this summer (2013) Do you plan on overclocking? No overclocking will be necessary. Do you need an Operating System? No, I already have an OS. Do you plan to add a second GPU for SLI or Crossfire? Unlikely. Where are you buying your parts from? It depends. I will be mostly using the web, sites like newegg and amazon. Any other recommendations (In the US, of course) would be welcome. | ||
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mav451
United States1596 Posts
On March 22 2013 08:39 Myrmidon wrote: jonny works for Corsair as of late and doesn't do reviews anymore due to conflict of interest (and wasn't doing that many anyway in the last few years). The other reviewers do as good a job though. Techpowerup is probably the best and most comprehensive, but a lot of sites do at least a decent job these days, with legit load testing using appropriate instrumentation and some doing decent breakdowns. Dang I didn't know that. Welps, gotta get paid haha. | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
I think the guy does technical marketing for Corsair now, like this: http://www.corsair.com/en/blog/cat/tech/post/understanding-the-corsair-digital-axi-series-power-supplies/ On March 22 2013 09:48 Capprin wrote: + Show Spoiler + What is your budget? Around $1k What is your resolution? Likely 1280 by 1024. I will probably be using a 19" monitor, so any other recommended resolutions are welcome. What are you using it for? I will use it for gaming, coding, some video recording and editing, and maybe schoolwork if need be. Maybe. What is your upgrade cycle? My upgrade cycle is rather long. I would prefer to buy most of my things now with few upgrades necessary. When do you plan on building it? I plan on building it component for component, likely completing the full project by the end of July this summer (2013) Do you plan on overclocking? No overclocking will be necessary. Do you need an Operating System? No, I already have an OS. Do you plan to add a second GPU for SLI or Crossfire? Unlikely. Where are you buying your parts from? It depends. I will be mostly using the web, sites like newegg and amazon. Any other recommendations (In the US, of course) would be welcome. By July there will be new Intel processors and maybe some midrange graphics cards updated or released. $1000 is a pretty large budget for parts for your needs, fortunately. One thing you can grab now is say a monitor with a resolution higher than 1280x1024, honestly. Different people have different preferences here, but maybe even something that can be swiveled to portrait could be useful for coding. Dell U2212HM's on sale for under $200 at the Dell site (so you get the 3 years advanced warranty that includes exchange / dead pixels policy etc.) with coupon code: here with coupon code VNVC57F?X1269L That's a decent 21.5" 1920x1080 eIPS monitor, though I guess some people are turned off by the antiglare on it. | ||
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waffling1
599 Posts
i think i'll be able to pick a PSU. i'm only confused about mobos and how to know what's suitable/good. i'll look through replies to previous i5 and i7 recommendations, since i'm sure many people posted and replied about those cores/mobo combos. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
http://www.overclock.net/t/1354973/list-of-motherboards-by-overclocking-options And: http://sinhardware.com/images/vrm.jpg Basically, it's pretty much 99% about the VRM (especially considering I've never heard of the board with the better VRM at a price point, having worse features in any other way than another board, ie you dont see smart VRM design on a flimsy board). And it's pretty complicated, especially when most review sites do terrible, intentionally misleading reviews and they don't open the VRM and take off the VRM heatsink (any motherboard review that doesn't remove the VRM heatsink, is a bad review, because the VRM is everything, it's like doing a CPU review without seeing how quickly it does benchmark programs or how fast it is in games or programs). Like anandtech and TH do a review, and say the asrock board extreme4 is awesome, it can do X overclock on less voltage than competitor boards, therefore it's the best board. but in reality it feeds way more voltage than the other boards, and just the motherboard vcore algorithm is overly generous and underreports true vcore. So you really gotta find smart reviews. If you can tell us where you are (US, UK, etc), we can pretty much tell you which board is best based on what stores you can buy from. IE, right now at microcenter I'd go with the UD3H at $114, but honestly I'd wait a week for the next round of motherboard specials they rotate since literally every week they switch out what 3 boards they drop even further than the reduced price that they already have. I think you mentioned you said you could do microcenter, right now the ud3h for $114 is the best deal they have (combo). The cheaper boards just aren't worth it, maybe the $44 z77a-g41 if you are strapped for cash but it's a really bad board, it'll struggle to do the most basic overclock. Meanwhile, UD3H has held the world record for ln2 on ivy bridge, it's full featured, it's a great board (only drawback is a possible usb issue but that's not common and i think it's more of a bios issue and really only occurs before installing your os anyways). It has great features for overclocking, and even if you aren't going to go crazy in overclocking, everything else about the board is just very solid (better sound, VIA is a really good sound chip, better build quality, it'll last much longer, more efficient, etc). If you really want to go the cheap route, you could get the z77a-g41 for $44 and then put mosfet heatsinks onto it, you really need a thermal diode too to monitor the VRM temps since they will go above 80*C even on as low as 1.2-1.3v, which is basically stock voltage, low voltage... and then you'd be limited to an overclock of only 4.4-4.5ghz, even if you had a golden chip, which just sucks. No LLC so you'd use more voltage than necessary, and you are locked to a max of ~1.28-1.35v depending on your chip's VID, for ram voltage you can only set either 1.65v or 1.85v which is a little excessive for a 24/7 overclock (i mean 1.75v-1.8v is generally what people recommend for 24/7 ram overclocks, but 1.85 would be okay for most ICs) and you coulnd't fine tune it so you'd likely be using 1.85v for what only needed 1.7v, there's no phase control, there's just a total lack of controls all around. Most budget boards are locked like that though, including the DS3H. Biostar boards are full featured, the msi g41 is actually has a lot more features than any other board it's price level. but it just sucks. | ||
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MisterFred
United States2033 Posts
On March 22 2013 12:11 waffling1 wrote: thank you very much guys. i think i'll be able to pick a PSU. i'm only confused about mobos and how to know what's suitable/good. i'll look through replies to previous i5 and i7 recommendations, since i'm sure many people posted and replied about those cores/mobo combos. Mobos: not as hard as it looks, but does depend on if you're overclocking. The key thing to remember is that every mobo of a particular type (B75, Z77, H77, etc) all have the exact same chipset from Intel running their core features. So the variations between the different models are really extraordinarily tiny. In general they come down to how much stuff you can plug into it (did you want four or 10 hard drives attached? How many video cards?) You should quickly get the picture that the casual user doesn't need to worry about that. Actually, I think mobo is one of the key places where most people spend way too much. A cheap B75 mobo will have basically the same core performance as a $300 top-end Z77 mobo if you're trying to run an i5-3470. So remember that you're NOT buying overall performance when it comes to mobos. You're buying specialized features you may or (more likely) may not use. So... if you're not overclocking & don't have a reason for lots of expansion slots you can just get a cheap mATX B75 board. Something like an MSI B75ma-e33 or MSI B75ma-p45 for about $55-60 will do you just fine for plugging in a processor, plugging in a video card, having an extra slot if you really want to put in a sound card, and just working. The model numbers read: an MSI branded/manufactured B75 motherboard, micro-ATX size (4 expansion slots), barebones edition (e33) or slightly-less-than-barebones edition (p45). If you are overclocking then there are basically three tiers of motherboards to look at: -Cheapo Z77 board. Something like an MSI z77-g41, which can only do a basic overclock (its ability to increase voltage is severely limited), but it can do a light, low-end overclock & is cheap ($90-100). -Not-gimped Z77 board. Something like an Asrock z77 Pro4, which can handle any normal person's overclocking urges, is more than enough oomph for most people. Some of these can handle two or even three video cards, which you don't need to worry about. (~$110-$170, depending on how many video cards you want to stick on it). -Top-of-the-line Z77 board. Every feature under the sun, designed to be able to overclock using any cooling solution, including liquid nitrogen. If you could make use of the features on one of these you'd already know what motherboard to buy. ($250 & up). Edit: Regarding Belial's post above. The motherboard does a lot of distributing power to various components (CPU) & moderating that power to the right amounts, etc. This produces heat. VRMs are short for what on the motherboard is there to serve as a heatsink for itself. It's really not that big of a deal for Intel chips since they don't demand that much voltage & thus the motherboards don't generally run hot. Much bigger deal for AMD processors. So since you're smart & buying Intel, you can pretty much ignore those. Long story short, the cheapo z77s will have crappy VRMs but it won't matter since you can't OC all that much on them, the not-gimped z77 boards will generally have decent ones but don't try to burn your chip to get a few more ghz. And if you're not overclocking it really doesn't matter. | ||
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waffling1
599 Posts
On March 21 2013 14:55 waffling1 wrote: I'm putting in an official help ticket. What I already have: - Radeon 5830 1GB (yeah, i know) - Hard drive - SSD 120GB Vertex 3 - Windows 7 (can't figure out how to get it on the SSD yet, since I didn't buy a CD, but rather an upgrade from XP to W7 from an online download link - legit copy) - 2x2GB = 4GB. corsair XMS3 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145260 What I need: 0) more RAM? 1) Case (I'm really liking the Fractal Define R4 http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B008HD3EFA/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&colid=39YMPJ88RXOU&coliid=I387J11JSZY90&condition=new 2) PSU 3) Mobo (less than $150) 4) CPU 4.5) CPU cooling maybe? + Show Spoiler + is there a significant difference between the stock fan and a bought fan? (not interested in liquid cooling) I'll consider liquid cooling if it helps significantly when overclocking. Maybe I can buy pieces that will accommodate it at a later time and swap out cooling systems. (is scraping and reapplying thermal paste bad? Info: - looking to spend around $600 for the additional components i need. - I do want to overclock, but not hard core. - No 2nd GPU necessary. - Building it in the next few weeks - Upgrade cycle - 5 or so years. relatively low. - US California Orange County. I live close to Frys and Microcenter. I like Amazon and Tigerdirect, Not so much Newegg b/c the prices aren't that good on top of having to pay sales tax and usually there is no free shipping - but i'll consider Newegg. Usage: - SC2, - Dota 2, - mad internet browsing. - I do CAD solidworks 3d modeling. (Modeling is handled fine on my old rig, but rendering those models is not as fast. It would be nice to be able to keep a rig for a long time and have it be able to render those 3d models at a decent pace. I don't use CAD all the time, nor do i need it to render instantly. ) General questions I have: 1) PSU: How do i determine how much wattage I need? What is the typical power usage when running a game / browsing with a few programs? EDIT: how much headroom wattage do i need for overclocking my setup - is 450W enough? 2) Mobo: + Show Spoiler + What makes a good mobo? 3) CPU: i understand the differences between intel cores well, + Show Spoiler + but i want to understand how to judge one cores of the same "architecture" if you will (e.g. one i7 core different from another i7 core). Thanks a bunch in advance! are the i7-3770k and the i5-3570k pretty much the cores to consider in that tier range? the other i7 and i5s are inferior in performance/price? If so, you can assume these two cores when talking about motherboards. | ||
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