EPTLots of tournaments do list their specifications so it sounds like you didn't google at all. One example is MLG: http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/mlg/mlg-equipment Keep in mind most of the configurations used at tournaments are horribly optimized. Like the MLG specs, an overclocked 2500k is significantly better than a 2380 and a GTX 480 is dated and was also a giant waste of money for Starcraft II during its release MSRP. IPL had that official origin tournament PC which was okay I guess if those tickets were worth it. GSL lists their specs which are dated and waste of money again. etcetc. Destiny and probably lots of famous streamers list their specs, of course most of it is top of the line hardware.
Computer Build Resource Thread - Page 1458
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skyR
Canada13817 Posts
Lots of tournaments do list their specifications so it sounds like you didn't google at all. One example is MLG: http://www.majorleaguegaming.com/mlg/mlg-equipment Keep in mind most of the configurations used at tournaments are horribly optimized. Like the MLG specs, an overclocked 2500k is significantly better than a 2380 and a GTX 480 is dated and was also a giant waste of money for Starcraft II during its release MSRP. IPL had that official origin tournament PC which was okay I guess if those tickets were worth it. GSL lists their specs which are dated and waste of money again. etcetc. Destiny and probably lots of famous streamers list their specs, of course most of it is top of the line hardware. | ||
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MisterFred
United States2033 Posts
On April 19 2013 02:50 perotoss wrote: Ya, I can't seem to find anything about specific builds or endorsements or whatever, like in other sports. Usually Athletes endorse products like shoes, rackets, clothing, or whatever. I would think esports and tournaments would give high visibility to particular computer builds. I'm looking particularly for SC2, and what specific builds don't give Pros and tournaments any grief with lag, stuttering, or other performance-inhibiting factors. I was hoping for solid CPU / Motherboard / GPU combinations that consistently work well for SC2. Well it depends on your budget, of course, but if you want the best you can do for just playing SC2, it'd be something like this: overclockable Intel i5 (either the i5-3570k or the next-gen equivalent coming out in a few months) ~$220-250 decent but not overly expensive overclocking motherboard ~$120 good air cooler for cpu ~$50 (you'd be overclocking of course, SC2 needs CPU power) Then for graphics card, some mid-range thing (plenty to max SC2 - unless you like other games too, then you'd spend more. ~$150-400 And of course supporting components as needed ~$300 or more But you can run SC2 fine on a much cheaper computer too. If you want specifics fill out the questionnaire in the OP, but only when you're ready to buy. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
On April 18 2013 15:59 Ashby wrote: Okay, so I am buying some PC parts from the website below (cheapest in my area), I am undecided on the motherboard and the Power Supply. I just need 2 x Sata 3 Ports for HDD and potentially an SSD in the future and I do not plan to overclock. http://www.ple.com.auPLE CPU: Intel Core i5 3570 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz 6MB Retail Box Mboard : Undecided (Choose from this link http://www.ple.com.au/ViewCategory.aspx?CategoryId=508) RAM: G-Skill 8GB Kit (2x4GB) DDR3 Ripjaws X C9 1600MHz GPU: AMD 6950HD 2GB XXX Edition Dual Heat Dissapation HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 3.5" 1TB 64MB 7200RPM PSU: Corsair HX650v2 650W 80PLUS Gold Semi-Modular Power Supply - However, I am still Undecided (Choose from this link http://www.ple.com.au/ViewCategory.aspx?CategoryId=318 I am after a PSU that will run all the above with any issues without being overkill, and the motherboard is to meet my requirement (very little) to help with keeping the price down. Thanks in advance for any help, cheers  Ashby If you dont plan to overclock and run a ton of peripherals, then you don't need as high quality of a power supply, and you certainly don't need 650w, even if you were overclocking and running tons of peripherals. Quality > Quantity, wattage means nothing. The prices on that site really hurt, must be an AUS thing, but the xfx pro 550w is a solid, seasonic based s12iib unit with chemicons. I used one for a while with no problems, all the DMM readings on the psu were solid on both load and idle. Very quiet fan too. The FSP Raider 450w is a 'decent' psu but for only $6 more the xfx pro is a way better choice. It's similar quality to the HX650, while costing about half as much on that particular website. Corsair PSUs tend to either be overpriced or not as great in quality. You aren't going to go anywhere near max load on a non-overclocked single GPU intel i5 system, so dont worry about efficiency and things like that, you aren't going to be pushing a PSU anywhere near it's max so you'll have 85%+ efficiency all the time anyways. Caviar black hdd is a waste of money, by the way, unless you are running a professional server of some kind and lots of people need fast access to the server. You are way better off getting an SSD, it's a huge fail not to have an ssd in a modern build. You say you need lots of hdd... do you plan to RAID your HDDs? Is there something specific going on? How much storage are you currently using? I noticed a bigger performance difference going from a fast hdd to gen 2, slow ssd, than going from an athlon ii x3 to i7 at 5ghz, it just makes your computer seem way faster. Have you ever played with a recent macbook air vs some regular laptop? For motherboard, if you dont plan to overclock then just get the cheapest thing possible, the b75m-r2. It's a crap quality board but if you aren't overclocking, it doesn't matter. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=650ti 2gb&LH_Sold=1&_osacat=0&_from=R40&LH_Complete=1&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0&_nkw=gtx 650ti 2gb&_sacat=0 am i missing something? maybe the 2gb of vram? How in the world are a few of them selling for $200? | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20275 Posts
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
Also, XFX Core 450/550 being similar to current-gen Corsair HX650 is a pretty big stretch. I mean, higher efficiency, higher output capability, mostly modular cables, tighter voltage regulation, lower noise, etc. may not be huge deals to most people (especially on an item-by-item basis), but they're not worthless. I mean, where do you draw the line in quality? Are you going to lump in XFX Core with the best on the market? HX650 is maybe closer to the best than it is to the XFX. Raider is closer in most ways to the XFX than the XFX is to the Corsair. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20275 Posts
On April 19 2013 02:50 perotoss wrote: Ya, I can't seem to find anything about specific builds or endorsements or whatever, like in other sports. Usually Athletes endorse products like shoes, rackets, clothing, or whatever. I would think esports and tournaments would give high visibility to particular computer builds. I'm looking particularly for SC2, and what specific builds don't give Pros and tournaments any grief with lag, stuttering, or other performance-inhibiting factors. I was hoping for solid CPU / Motherboard / GPU combinations that consistently work well for SC2. Yea as said most of them are pretty bad. One of the IPL events, because they were sponsored by AMD, were using a weird bulldozer quad core model at 3.4ghz or something, and advertising the systems even though it's pretty much one of the WORST things you could buy for Starcraft 2, to the point of an overclocked i5 being around twice as high performing | ||
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Ashby
Australia204 Posts
On April 19 2013 04:34 Belial88 wrote: If you dont plan to overclock and run a ton of peripherals, then you don't need as high quality of a power supply, and you certainly don't need 650w, even if you were overclocking and running tons of peripherals. Quality > Quantity, wattage means nothing. The prices on that site really hurt, must be an AUS thing, but the xfx pro 550w is a solid, seasonic based s12iib unit with chemicons. I used one for a while with no problems, all the DMM readings on the psu were solid on both load and idle. Very quiet fan too. The FSP Raider 450w is a 'decent' psu but for only $6 more the xfx pro is a way better choice. It's similar quality to the HX650, while costing about half as much on that particular website. Corsair PSUs tend to either be overpriced or not as great in quality. You aren't going to go anywhere near max load on a non-overclocked single GPU intel i5 system, so dont worry about efficiency and things like that, you aren't going to be pushing a PSU anywhere near it's max so you'll have 85%+ efficiency all the time anyways. Caviar black hdd is a waste of money, by the way, unless you are running a professional server of some kind and lots of people need fast access to the server. You are way better off getting an SSD, it's a huge fail not to have an ssd in a modern build. You say you need lots of hdd... do you plan to RAID your HDDs? Is there something specific going on? How much storage are you currently using? I noticed a bigger performance difference going from a fast hdd to gen 2, slow ssd, than going from an athlon ii x3 to i7 at 5ghz, it just makes your computer seem way faster. Have you ever played with a recent macbook air vs some regular laptop? For motherboard, if you dont plan to overclock then just get the cheapest thing possible, the b75m-r2. It's a crap quality board but if you aren't overclocking, it doesn't matter. Thanks for your response, I will rethink my PSU choice, thanks. I need 2 x Sata 3 ports as I may get an SSD in the future - I have purchased 2 SSD's with both being refunded due to them failing within a month of use, hence, I cbf dealing with the potential failure of an SSD, plus it is an extra $130-$150 odd to get one. So with regards to the HDD should I just get the WD Green/Blue HDD instead of the black? And I can then add an SDD with no hassle in the future. Cheers Ashby | ||
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iTzSnypah
United States1738 Posts
On April 19 2013 12:22 Ashby wrote: Thanks for your response, I will rethink my PSU choice, thanks. I need 2 x Sata 3 ports as I may get an SSD in the future - I have purchased 2 SSD's with both being refunded due to them failing within a month of use, hence, I cbf dealing with the potential failure of an SSD, plus it is an extra $130-$150 odd to get one. So with regards to the HDD should I just get the WD Green/Blue HDD instead of the black? And I can then add an SDD with no hassle in the future. Cheers Ashby Last gen (or the gen before that?) Sandforce SSD had a lot of problems. I'm guessing that your SSD's were Sandforce, as they are generally cheaper. Current gen SSD's are much much better. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
I try not to think too much about the high side of the price range. yes but the low is basically $120. There's a few for less, but most seem to be selling for $130-155. Quite a few have 20+ bids and sold at $120-140 shipped. Sold, Auction: http://www.ebay.com/csc/i.html?_sop=13&LH_Sold=1&_sacat=0&_from=R40&LH_Complete=1&_nkw=650ti&rt=nc&LH_Auction=1 Also, XFX Core 450/550 being similar to current-gen Corsair HX650 is a pretty big stretch. I mean, higher efficiency, higher output capability, mostly modular cables, tighter voltage regulation, lower noise, etc. may not be huge deals to most people (especially on an item-by-item basis), but they're not worthless. I mean, where do you draw the line in quality? Are you going to lump in XFX Core with the best on the market? HX650 is maybe closer to the best than it is to the XFX. Raider is closer in most ways to the XFX than the XFX is to the Corsair. it is a stretch, yes, but i dont think one that 99% of people would appreciate. The 'huge' difference in efficiency would only be noticed if you were running SLI gpu mining or something, most single gpu intel systems isn't going to push any psu past 300w, especially for any signficant period of time. xfx 650/750 are the higher quality models but the 450/550 are still good units. I'd say the xfx core is a good balance of price and quality on today's market. They are higher quality than 'good' units like the CX series, earthwatts, fsp raiders, some ocz units. It's a seasonic s12iib, xfx pro is definitely a 'high quality' unit. I wouldn't call it premium like a capstone or hx, i wouldn't call it budget, i'd say it's a solidly recommendable power supply in a good range of quality and price. It's not so low quality like a thermaltake tr-2 or, say, an asrock pro3 motherboard or msi g41, and it's not so ridiculously high quality like a rosewill fortress or gigabyte ud5h or asus mive that is complete overkill and unnecessary for even extreme needs. Like the cx430 is a good balance of price and 'good enough', where higher quality than that isn't going to be utilized by most people (unfortunately I am one of the few that needed higher quality and blew out 2 cx units). I need 2 x Sata 3 ports as I may get an SSD in the future - I have purchased 2 SSD's with both being refunded due to them failing within a month of use, hence, I cbf dealing with the potential failure of an SSD, plus it is an extra $130-$150 odd to get one. any b75 or z77 will have that, and most older boards will too. Since you have used SSDs before, I dont need to tell you how awesome SSDs are, but why do you need so much storage? Are you just trying to do a raid set-up? what ssds did you have that failed? Yea, definitely go with a simple caviar blue instead of black. Waste of money to get a black, you wont notice the difference, but you will notice the difference, that the difference in money, could buy you (like if that $50+ price difference went to a better ssd or motherboard). Last gen (or the gen before that?) Sandforce SSD had a lot of problems. I'm guessing that your SSD's were Sandforce, as they are generally cheaper. Current gen SSD's are much much better. | ||
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mav451
United States1596 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + WD was making great progress with platter sizes on the Blue drives about 2-3 years ago, but then capped the largest size of Blue drives at 1TB, instead of continually advancing them up to the 3TB size. I think they were smart and realized it was directly competing with their Black/Green drives :/ | ||
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Ashby
Australia204 Posts
On April 19 2013 14:10 Belial88 wrote: any b75 or z77 will have that, and most older boards will too. Since you have used SSDs before, I dont need to tell you how awesome SSDs are, but why do you need so much storage? Are you just trying to do a raid set-up? what ssds did you have that failed? Yea, definitely go with a simple caviar blue instead of black. Waste of money to get a black, you wont notice the difference, but you will notice the difference, that the difference in money, could buy you (like if that $50+ price difference went to a better ssd or motherboard). I had a OZC Vertex 2 and I tried a Corsair Sata 3 SSD, both ended up failing and getting a refund for. I may consider an SSD along with the WD Blue 1TB HDD for storage, and no need for huge storage, just need the one HDD, and the SSD will make loading etc. awesome. And yeah, I think the amount of money saved by getting the XFX 450W is worth it if I don't need the 650W corsair PSU given my set-up. Cheers for the help | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
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S_SienZ
1878 Posts
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K Quad Core 3.5GHz Motherboard: ASRock z77 Extreme 4 SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB + a 1TB HDD for storage GFX: Gigabyte n670 OC -4GD RAM: undecided, thinking of something dual channel 8GB (is there a big difference between a 1600MHz and 1866MHz?) PSU: undecided, need help with this one Case: Tt Lvl10 GT, just in case some of the stuff I listed above won't fit, was concerned about the GFX card Comments on the build? I could go $50-100 higher on important parts like the GPU and CPU if there's something much better available. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20275 Posts
i7 performance is the same as i5 in almost all cases (only a step up for heavily threaded tasks that will highly load the GPU, in the gaming world this basically means Crysis 3 and nothing else that comes to mind atm) Asrock z77 sucks I think the 840 pro adds some unneccesary stuff or something (maybe higher write speeds?) and you can get the regular 840 for less or something, unsure there GPU, there's likely to be a more suited or better option RAM, PSU, somebody will give you a link soonish and case, there's probably a better option if you picked that one without a lot of knowledge You don't need a "k" tagged CPU and can step down from z77 if you are not overclocking, but if you are, you need an aftermarket cooler (hyper 212+ is cheap or the hr-02 macho is really powerful, quiet at affordable pricepoint and all you need unless you are going to extreme levels) and a better z77 board is appropriate, better power delivery and without the voltage misreporting and overvolting the extreme4 (and many or all asrock z77 boards) are known for And of course, new CPU's release in 6 weeks that are slightly (~8%) better at stock, potentially significantly better overclocked performance, at that time 3xxx series cpu's and z77 will be pretty much irrelevant. It's pretty silly to make a build right now because of that, but if you don't care about 10-30% more performance, a new gen does not really matter. It's hard to say which end of the spectrum haswell will be on (definitely very lower end of that at stock.. but indications seem to be towards it overclocking VERY well) so some might consider it silly to wait, too. 6 weeks is not long though, considering last major generation was 2 and a half years ago | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
You forgot to look at a CPU cooler for some solid overclocking which is possible with that CPU and a good Z77 motherboard. You should also research about great monitors to make paying for a great graphics card worth it. | ||
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S_SienZ
1878 Posts
On April 20 2013 04:29 Cyro wrote: Gaming build? Which games? US? i7 performance is the same as i5 in almost all cases (only a step up for heavily threaded tasks that will highly load the GPU, in the gaming world this basically means Crysis 3 and nothing else that comes to mind atm) Asrock z77 sucks I think the 840 pro adds some unneccesary stuff or something (maybe higher write speeds?) and you can get the regular 840 for less or something, unsure there GPU, there's likely to be a more suited or better option RAM, PSU, somebody will give you a link soonish and case, there's probably a better option if you picked that one without a lot of knowledge You don't need a "k" tagged CPU and can step down from z77 if you are not overclocking, but if you are, you need an aftermarket cooler (hyper 212+ is cheap or the hr-02 macho is really powerful, quiet at affordable pricepoint and all you need unless you are going to extreme levels) and a better z77 board is appropriate, better power delivery and without the voltage misreporting and overvolting the extreme4 (and many or all asrock z77 boards) are known for Thanks for the quick reply. Mostly gaming. Hoping to make it last til around 2016, was thinking of adding an additional GPU in SLI and additional ram if it proves necessary before my next build, which was why I decided on a GPU with 4GB of RAM, as I heard that RAM doesn't stack in SLI. Any tips on what I should be looking for in a mobo? All I did was basically picking one which was compatible with my CPU and GPU after deciding on the first 2. Reason I picked ASRock was some favourable reviews and much better prices compared to ASUS and Gigabyte. Any alternative boards I should look at that come to mind to you? EDIT: Reason I'm not waiting for Haswell is because I'm concerned about pricing of both the new CPU and the alleged DDR4 RAM that it will support. Felt it would take a while before it normalises anyway and games actually start making it more of a necessity. Or is this all unwarranted concern? | ||
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Rollin
Australia1552 Posts
On April 20 2013 04:01 S_SienZ wrote: Hi guys, looking to building a desktop after I complete my move back home after exams, and have been starting to put together a build. It's my first build so don't hesitate to point out basic stuff. CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K Quad Core 3.5GHz Motherboard: ASRock z77 Extreme 4 SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 256 GB + a 1TB HDD for storage GFX: Gigabyte n670 OC -4GD RAM: undecided, thinking of something dual channel 8GB (is there a big difference between a 1600MHz and 1866MHz?) PSU: undecided, need help with this one Case: Tt Lvl10 GT, just in case some of the stuff I listed above won't fit, was concerned about the GFX card Comments on the build? I could go $50-100 higher on important parts like the GPU and CPU if there's something much better available. Please fill out the questionnaire, or at least these: - Resolution? - Uses? Which games specifically? - Where are you buying from? - Are you overclocking? Although to start, unless you're doing encoding/some sort of professional work, the i7 is just a waste of $100 over an i5 3570(k). You're missing out on an aftermarket cooler if you're overclocking, if you're not, you're wasting money on a k processor and z77 motherboard. 4gb of vram is useless for a single monitor, for 1080p you'll never use more than 2 realistically (before shader processing rapes your framerate), for 1440p 3gb is more than enough. If a 4gb costs no more than a 2gb, sure take it, but otherwise don't. Besides, the memory bandwidth limitations with the 600 series is problematic anyway, if you need 4gb for something in particular you'd probably be better of with an amd card. The case looks like some huge behemoth that doesn't belong in 2013. The extreme 4 isn't always a great motherboard if there are other similarly priced motherboards, but it'll probably be fine. RAM speed doesn't matter except for professional work/integrated graphics. EDIT: apparently I hadn't refreshed the thread before posting lol. Following up shortly. In regards to your edit, processor pricing is static between generations (same MSRP), DDR4 is skylake, not haswell. Ivy bridge prices are likely to drop when haswell is released too, but you were already prepared to throw $100 away on an i7 ivy, so the i5 haswell really isn't going to be a dealbreaker. Also, it's better to chuck in a new card than buy an old card and SLI it (usually bad value for money unless you risk a second hand card, which may have been raped by mining/folding or excessive overclocking). Not to mention SLI is vastly inferior to a single card setup. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
Go for a gigabyte D3H series motherboard instead (z77-d3h, z77x-d3h, z77x-ud3h in order of quality). samsung 840 pro is a nice ssd, a bit on the expensive side. I'd rather settle for an 830 for value but if you got the money, definitely a great ssd. Do you pirate or rip blurays? Why do you need a 1tb hdd? Why don't you go for a RAID set-up on SSDs instead (it's basically dual channel for ssd/hdd). You could probably do something like 2x256gb SSDs for similar price and better speed. Most people don't need more than 100gb, if not 60gb, of storage. I'd avoid a hdd unless you really need one (sensitive data back-up, ripping blurays). 670 isn't really preferable to the 7950... for ram just get the cheapest 2x4gb of RAM you can find. There is a big difference in 1600 vs 1866 in terms of RAM performance, but unless you do lots of streaming and benching you really don't need anything better than 1333mhz, really. You can overclock most low end, cheapo ram to 1600mhz anyways, it's not a big deal. If you really want to get technical and in-depth with RAM, you are best getting 4x2GB of PSC or BBSE IC RAM (generally any 1600mhz+ ram with timings like 6/8/6, 7/10/7, 9/11/9, get the pattern?, gskill ecos, lots of 2gb mushkins, etc) or samsung 'miracle ram' but ram these days is harder to find, a lot more expensive, and I'm talking if you really care to spend all your time overclocking RAM and doing benches. There's definitely a great way to get a lot of money for your buck with RAM, and get RAM capable of 2400mhz for the same or similar price to the cheapest ram out there, but it takes a ton of research to figure out as you'll have to figure out on your own what the RAM ICs being used are (basically, there are only 6 types of different RAM, but RAM companies don't exactly tell you what IC they are using, and most people don't contribute anything to the enthusiast community and take off the heatspreaders on their ram to add to IC databases). edit: right now on OCN market there's some BBSEs going for $26. Those are capable of 2200mhz with tight timings at least. Awesome RAM if you are willing to put the work into them. PSU, rosewill capstone is a really high quality psu but since you aren't running many peripherals and such you would be fine with a cx430. xfx pro or pc power and cooling is a step up. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139049 CX430M. I wouldnt recommend the modular version over the non-modular because you'll need every cable anyways, but it'll likely resell for more in the future and it's the same price. All the above parts will fit, lol. It's like a doorway, how in the world is it possible that your head doesn't bang against the doorframe in china? Because it's made to a certain standard. How is every single car made in the world able to fit on US roads? Because of standards. Likewise, all cases are made to a standard. Any mid-tower ATX (ie anything that doesn't clearly look super tiny) will fit just fine. The only reason you'd need a fullsize case is to fit a custom water loop with a 360mm radiator and/or quad-SLI set-ups. Right now, imo the best case out is the nzxt source 210 for the money, but corsair carbides, bitfenix mercs, and all of the zalman cases are great too. There are higher up cases like fractal design, nzxt phantoms, higher up carbides, but it's not really necessary unless you are swapping out components all the time and the aesthetics. You'll need a heatsink for overclocking as well, so that's your 50-100 extra right there. Currently there aren't any good heatsink specials going on. you just missed the zalman lq320 for $44AR, which was an insane special, nh-d14 was 65 which is okay new... you should really wait or buy used (there was TWO different listings where the h100 was only $40, one of them even came with an h60 thrown in... i so shouldve jumped those, i thought bidding wouldve went way higher). | ||
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