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When using this resource, please read FragKrag's opening post. The Tech Support forum regulars have helped create countless of desktop systems without any compensation. The least you can do is provide all of the information required for them to help you properly. |
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Hello TL, I got a job this summer and some money to get a pc. I want it to be able to run SC2 on ultra and plan to play Battlefield 3 and Dirt 3 on it as well. I don't want my budget to get much higher than 850 -900€, parts will be bought here since they jhave a lot of choice, reasonable pricing and free shipping. I plan to keep the pc for at least two years without upgrading it further.
CPU : I'm set on the i5 2500k, while I might not overclock it right away I want to keep the option open.
Graphics card : I'm set on the SAPPHIRE HD6950, but I'm not sure if I should get the 1go or 2go version, I heard that 2go is useless if you keep the resolution under 2500 something pixels. What is your advice?
RAM : I'm a complete newb about this, but I read that 2x 2gb is better than a single 4gb ram stick, and that 4gb is enough. Those G.Skills seems nice with a CAS of 7, I'm open for any advice on this part as well.
HSF : I want the pc to be as cool and silent as possible, it can get pretty hot in the summer where I live. The Cooler Master Hyper TX3 seems to come up a lot when I searched for a good hsf. Also do you know if thermic paste is sold with it?
Fans : For the reason listed above, I plan on getting 3 120mm fans to cool the case as silently as possible, the ENERMAX Silence have a high CFM and very low dBA and price and seem to get good reviews.
HDD : I'd like to have a sata3 1TO drive, I hesitate between the WD caviar blue and black.
PSU : I don't know how many watts the system will use, while searching I found this bad boy which seems to have very impressive specs for the price.
Motherboard : I'm not sure wich one to take, it has to support overclocking, have a 6gbs connection for the HDD and usb3, I heard a lot of good about the ASUS P8P67 Rev 3.0, is it good enough or overkill? I do not plan on using crossfire in the future btw.
Case : Nothing complicated here, this Asgard is more than enough for me I don't really care about esthetics.
Screen : This is an important part for me, I really want a high contrast and vivid colors, LED is a must and nothing more than 22 inch, this ACER falls in the description, has great reviews and is currently at 100€ under the standard price.
Now time for newb questions  I will be connecting to internet with Wifi, do I need to buy a wifi card or something? On the case I see connectors for headphones, do I need cables to connect from the mortherboard to those or are the cables sold with the mb? Do I need a sound card if I use headphones or a 2.1 sound kit at max?
Sorry for the broken english and thank you if you read until here, any advice is greatly appreciated.
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Thank you for your quick response, do you have any advice on choosing between a 1go or 2go Radeon HD6950?
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The two are similar / identical in terms of performance. The 2GB variant will perform better at higher resolutions, with higher AF/AA settings, and with texture heavy games. Also, the Reference models and some non-reference models can potentially be unlocked to a 6970 where as the 1GB variant cannot be unlocked.
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On June 28 2011 07:06 skyR wrote:
The two are similar / identical in terms of performance. The 2GB variant will perform better at higher resolutions, with higher AF/AA settings, and with texture heavy games. Also, the Reference models and some non-reference models can potentially be unlocked to a 6970 where as the 1GB variant cannot be unlocked.
I'll settle for the type of ram and motherboard you suggested, thank you for your help
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On June 28 2011 03:23 skyR wrote:
Me and Myrmidon are forum regulars who has helped many configure and optimize their configuration for their needs and wants. There has yet to be one complaint on these forums regarding a build that was put together here by us or another forum regular.
I can't blame you for thinking people just scan through retailers and put little effort into helping you as that's what essentially Lmui did. You can look through the last one hundred pages of this thread or just search some names and you'll quickly distinguish those who put effort into helping and those who just scan through retailers.
Putting together a thread with recommended configurations isn't feasible because the world doesn't revolve around America. There are people in Canada, Europe, Australia, and other parts of the world. Newegg isn't the only place where you can purchase components either, there are hundreds and thousands of retailers. Some are restricted or prefer to purchase from a select retailer while others have no preference. Each individuals wants and needs vary greatly in terms of budget, needing an operating system or not, overclocking or not, silent or not, resolution played at, settings played at, design or gaming, etc.
If you're looking for baseline builds, Tomshardware and several other websites already offer that.
=/ I'll try to put a bit more effort into posting next time I guess. My personal problem is that I actually almost never look through the weekly sales on NCIX or other websites since I've had premier partnership with NCIX for years now.
I'm just posting the way I usually do on other forums and if that's not the best way to do it here then I apologize.
The other thing is though, I've seen a good amount of people saying I just want to buy a computer just for starcraft II at around [budget], I think a basic tower around say $600, $800 and $1000 could be possible although just pointing people at toms hardware or other tech websites would probably be better.
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Woah wait a sec, isn't that NAXN Tomahawk 450W a CWT PUF? That's pretty bad.
@NeonFox:
If you care about noise, you should care about what case you get as well. Cheaper thin cases with lots of ventilation tend to not keep in noise very well, and they may have issues picking up hum from hard drive vibrations. You should look into a Fractal Design R3, which probably shouldn't need any more fans. I saw an Antec P180 Mini listed as well, which would be okay too and good at cooling (well, with an extra fan for intake), but it only fits mATX motherboards.
Hyper TX3 is popular since it's small (uses 92mm fan, whereas standard tower coolers use 120mm fans, and the largest may use 140mm fans) and decent for the price. However, you may want something a little quieter. Apparently it ramps up a bit under higher loads, like much coolers that size.
FSP Aurum is pretty decent but nothing spectacular aside from high efficiency for the price. Performance is actually a little worse than say Corsair CX series even. However, I didn't see anything that stood out as a much better buy.
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The Enermax NAXN Tomahawk line are based on CWT DSA II iirc which is pretty decent.
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I'm having a severe overheating problem with the newest computer I built. The CPU hits over 100C and shuts down under most any load, including simply navigating the BIOS. Oddly, while downloading the start-up Windows updates it held fairly steady around 60C, although for what's essentially an idle load that's still way too high. According to SpeedFan one of the fans, and I'm not sure if it's the CPU or case fan or if SpeedFan is even accurate, is only running at 29RPM. There is a notable difference in heat when the computer is on (top vents are cooler then) and when it has just turned off so there must be at least some air circulation. The CPU fan seems to be running, though I may need to double check that.
CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 255 Regor 3.1GHz
Motherboard: BIOSTAR A880G+
Power Supply: Antec Earthwatts 380W
I've got about two weeks to return components to Newegg if that proves necessary.
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Manufacturer inconsistencies in their lines are bothersome =\
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On June 28 2011 08:15 Melancholia wrote:
I'm having a severe overheating problem with the newest computer I built. The CPU hits over 100C and shuts down under most any load, including simply navigating the BIOS. Oddly, while downloading the start-up Windows updates it held fairly steady around 60C, although for what's essentially an idle load that's still way too high. According to SpeedFan one of the fans, and I'm not sure if it's the CPU or case fan or if SpeedFan is even accurate, is only running at 29RPM. There is a notable difference in heat when the computer is on (top vents are cooler then) and when it has just turned off so there must be at least some air circulation. The CPU fan seems to be running, though I may need to double check that.
CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 255 Regor 3.1GHz
Motherboard: BIOSTAR A880G+
Power Supply: Antec Earthwatts 380W
I've got about two weeks to return components to Newegg if that proves necessary.
Either you placed too much conductive paste on the chip, haven't properly fitted the heatsink or the chip was faulty. The first two are much more likely.
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I fitted the heatsink the exact same way as the previous two, both of which are running sub-40C under load.
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I'm building a new PC specifically for the following functions:
Video editing via Adobe Premiere 5.5
Playing Starcraft 2 & Diablo 3
Streaming HD to Justin.tv
I've spent well over 8 hours today researching computer parts, but the more I read the more it feels like I need to read and I'm starting to get desperate. I'm looking to purchase the PC tomorrow and hoping I can get some advice before then. For the most part ignore cost (within reason, I don't want to increase system cost by 10% for 1% performance gain...). I will be running Windows 7 64-bit.
Here are some Qs:
1. Is having a 6.0 Gb/s SATA3 connection relevant for traditional 7200rpm drives? It's my understanding they can't approach read/write speeds anywhere near that, so what's the benefit? My concern being that some mobos have only two of these 6.0 connections, yet I expect to have more than two hard drives (1 SSD boot drive + X storage drives). If 3.0Gb/s is fine for storage drives, two 6.0 connections is fine for me.
2. I'm looking to get the i7 2600k (and will overclock that bitch!). Is the integrated graphics processor useful now (or possibly in the future) for anything streaming or video editing related? I'm looking to get either a GTX 570 or 580 because I read that Adobe software loves them those CUDAs, but does that render QuickSync useless for me? Running that Virtu software and having it switch back and forth at its own will scares me a bit, but if it's possible to run FMLE with the integrated GPU and SC2 with my discreet GPU, that could be a huge benefit? If not, the Z68 mobos offer no advantage for me and I can save a little cash (and gain some USB slots) with a P67 board.
3. If I go the P67 route, I'm undecided between the Asus Sabertooth or P8P67-Deluxe... The Sabertooth has more marketing buzzwords in its description than I've ever seen, but is it actually better for OC'ing (or anything else)?
4. I'm lost as to which SSD to go with. I've had two OCZ SSDs fail on me in the past, so their brand scares me a bit, but they do seem to still have the fastest. Will an SSD even help with streaming and/or video editing? I don't mind a little extra wait on load times for software, but I do mind losing frames / reducing stream quality.
5. No clue on which power supply to get. I don't intend to go SLI and I'd love to be environmentally kind, but I really have no idea what's good these days or what this kind of system would require.
6. I'd like to keep the PC as silent as possible as I'll be regularly recording sound in the room. Any case recommendations?
7. Because I'll be doing a lot of HD video editing, will I see a noticeable benefit going for 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB? I expect there would be effectively no difference for just playing SC2.
Any other advice would be hugely appreciated too. I'm not a total computer noob, but researching today made me realize just how ignorant I've become these past few years. Ahh, old age.
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@The dude with the name I'm not going to type and I could have copy/pasted faster than this:
I'm going to take the easy ones. Intel has the most reliable SSDs. Sata6Gb/s is useless for HDDs. Silverstone or Lian Li for a quiet case with good cooling performance.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4421/the-2011-midrange-ssd-roundup/9
The rest of your questions are informed enough that I'll leave the answers to my betters, which means mostly skyR, Myrm, Wom, a1, Mav, or R1CH, as far as regulars. Anyone else answers, take it with a grain of salt.
Basically, I'm just smart enough to know when to hit up Google or not try, and you're asking more in-depth than I'm confident in my knowledge of.
Oh, and extreme.outervision.com has a good PSU calculator you can use once you figure out the rest of the build. It's not designed to sell bigger PSU's like so many of them are.
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I don't think FLME supports Quick Sync. You'd just be running the encoding off of the overclocked i7-2600k, which should have plenty of muscle. Regardless, in the future, programs may support Quick Sync. I think it'd be a good idea to get a Z68 motherboard.
An SSD shouldn't really help your encoding / video editing performance any really, unless you plan to use the SSD as scratch space and you're waiting for video to read from or write to disk. Well, it'll help a little bit in that you can have the OS/applications running on the SSD and have large file operations like writing a video file on a data HDD, which would then be not handling any other requests (good). But fps is generally going to be about the CPU I think.
i7-2600k power consumption isn't that insane. You'll reach like 120W with a pretty heavy overclock, so really most of the motherboards should be okay as far as overclocking as long as you're not looking at 4.8+ GHz.
As for other things, wait a sec and I think I can come up with a build.
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5930 Posts
1. Is having a 6.0 Gb/s SATA3 connection relevant for traditional 7200rpm drives? It's my understanding they can't approach read/write speeds anywhere near that, so what's the benefit? My concern being that some mobos have only two of these 6.0 connections, yet I expect to have more than two hard drives (1 SSD boot drive + X storage drives). If 3.0Gb/s is fine for storage drives, two 6.0 connections is fine for me.
Correct, they cannot reach SATA3 speeds. Its just marketing talk really.
2. I'm looking to get the i7 2600k (and will overclock that bitch!). Is the integrated graphics processor useful now (or possibly in the future) for anything streaming or video editing related? I'm looking to get either a GTX 570 or 580 because I read that Adobe software loves them those CUDAs, but does that render QuickSync useless for me? Running that Virtu software and having it switch back and forth at its own will scares me a bit, but if it's possible to run FMLE with the integrated GPU and SC2 with my discreet GPU, that could be a huge benefit? If not, the Z68 mobos offer no advantage for me and I can save a little cash (and gain some USB slots) with a P67 board.
From what I believe I know, most programs have specific codepaths - they're your x86, NV's CUDA, AMD's Stream, and you now have Quicksync.
Just like AMD Stream and NV CUDA, the software must be written for it. Quicksync can be significantly faster than either of these two, if the software available has plugins or updates that utilize it. I am not sure Adobe itself supports Quicksync but Adobe has always been written for Intel processors so I'm willing to believe that they would support Quicksync in some capacity.
The only major benefit of CUDA is in the Mercury Playback Engine, which is fucking massive especially if you are doing HD content. The cheapest GPU that can use CUDA in these professional applications is a GTX570 so you should go with that, do not go for the GTX580 it is not any faster and it is not worth the price premium in store.
FLME does not have current Quicksync support. High end software such as Premiere Pro/Premiere Elements, however, do have plugins that support this.
3. If I go the P67 route, I'm undecided between the Asus Sabertooth or P8P67-Deluxe... The Sabertooth has more marketing buzzwords in its description than I've ever seen, but is it actually better for OC'ing (or anything else)?
They're really there for crazy overclockers who want 5ghz. There is no point overclocking to 5ghz, I'm not sure why people even do this. Assuming you are just overclocking lightly, any motherboard with like 6+1 power phases, which is like every motherboard these days, shouldn't have issues.
4. I'm lost as to which SSD to go with. I've had two OCZ SSDs fail on me in the past, so their brand scares me a bit, but they do seem to still have the fastest. Will an SSD even help with streaming and/or video editing? I don't mind a little extra wait on load times for software, but I do mind losing frames / reducing stream quality.
It depends entirely on your filming hardware and workflow requirements. Are you dealing with high bitrate cameras like REDs or are you dealing with little flipcams? Are you compositing short videos? Are you doing lengthy productions with a lot of simultaneous streams?
Fuck yes it does help but the extent it helps depends on the hardware you have and what you do.
6. I'd like to keep the PC as silent as possible as I'll be regularly recording sound in the room. Any case recommendations?
Antec P183 and Nexus Real Silents or Silverstone FT02/RV02/RV03. Throw a fan controller in as well so you can undervolt the fans.
Overclocking will make this harder to do this, do not overclock heavily because your hardware is mission critical and you don't want to BSOD or freeze up during the critical moment.
7. Because I'll be doing a lot of HD video editing, will I see a noticeable benefit going for 16GB of RAM instead of 8GB? I expect there would be effectively no difference for just playing SC2.
Probably not I'm not you. Go with 8GB and see where it takes you. If you need more, buy some more and fill up the remaining two slots. You can't really buy 8GB sticks for a decent price so you're not missing out on anything only getting 8GB right now.
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So im looking to build a computer soon looking for about the $1000 range, was wondering if anyone here could help me choose a decent build. Looking for a nice looking tower aswell seeing as alot of people judge by look.
Im just looking to be able to run all my games on extreme and i might add a black magic intensity pro chip for xbox streaming later on.
Budget: $1000
I have monitors already need OS
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EPT
