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So my tax return is gonna be around $1400 this year, and I'm looking to spend it on a PC. Here's the initial build I came up with, but I have never done this before so I have no idea if this is any good. Any help would be appreciated. If there's anywhere I could save some money without sacrificing too much quality, that'd be great.
What is your budget?
$1400 max, would prefer to spend less
What is your monitor's native resolution?
Monitor will be part of the build
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
SC2, DOTA2, Skyrim, CS:GO?/Titanfall?/various others
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Nothing performance intensive
Do you intend to overclock?
No
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
I don't know what that is
Do you need an operating system?
Looking for Windows 7, included in build
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
Monitor and keyboard. In the build.
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
Amazon Prime member so if I can take advantage of that I will
What country will you be buying your parts in?
USA
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
See above (Amazon)
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Amazon) Motherboard: ASRock H81M-HDS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($69.12 @ Amazon) Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($78.08 @ Amazon) Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ Amazon) Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card ($349.99 @ Amazon) Case: Silverstone PS08B (Black) MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Amazon) Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($73.99 @ Amazon) Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($22.95 @ Amazon) Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg) Monitor: Asus VS238H-P 23.0" Monitor ($158.98 @ Amazon) Keyboard: Das Keyboard Model S Ultimate Silent Wired Standard Keyboard ($124.91 @ Amazon) Total: $1297.98 (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.) (Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-18 14:31 EST-0500)
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Oh ya I forgot the H440 has a window, a huge one too.
Well any retailer can just take returned items and sell it as brand new, it just depends on how shady the store manager is.
The build looks okay.
You said you picked the ASUS because you don't want to be limited by the Gigabyte's long size so just fyi, the Thermalright True Spirit 140 is really tall, 170mm tall. It'll fit in the Define R4 and most cases around the $100 mark but you may not be able to add a side fan with a True Spirit 140 so just keep that in mind.
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@Cainam:
Choose a 2x4GB memory kit instead of 1x8GB. This is because of "dual channel" getting used when there's two memory sticks installed instead of a single stick.
Look at the Rosewill Capstone 450 PSU instead. The Rosewill Hive 550 might actually provide less power than the Capstone 450. The Hive's internals also are of lesser quality. + Show Spoiler +For proof regarding provided power, in its specifications the Hive 550 does 12V * 38A = 456W at ambient temperature of 40C, while the Capstone 450 is very close with 12V * 37A = 444W but measured at hotter 50C temperatures.
I don't think PCPartPicker is finding the lowest prices for you. Some of those look a little off so compare Amazon and newegg.com etc. for the various parts you chose.
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Would I need a side fan to keep the temp down if I want to OC to a reasonable level?
EDIT: like to a level a computer newbie would do with internet instructions, hope that points to around what level.
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You don't need a side fan. It can be great with two graphics cards I guess. For the computer you are building, if you find out you need more cooling, it will be more useful to install a second fan in the front of the Define R4, then a fan at the bottom, and then something at top. A side fan would come as the last option as it might mess with the air flow from front to rear.
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I think that the R4 comes with something like 2 fans.
For an entry-level overclock that will move enough air to cool down both the 770 and the 4670k. There are temperatures you don't want to attain; I think you won't get to them in a case of the R4's quality. You probably don't need the side fan, though you can add one down the line if you feel you want to lower temperatures a bit.
A delid will get you better temperature gains than more fans though.
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Define R4 has lots of fan mounts and only comes with two fans so just keep that in mind. Just adding a fan to the front and removing the top HDD cage will net you a lot of airflow for a reasonable overclock while still maintaining the low noise level.
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No.
At that price difference ($60, holyshit), you could almost buy an Accelero III Xtreme to put on the latter. edit: okay, realistically at the price, the Gelid two-fan cooler, though it's not like the EVGA can't handle itself. Just making a point.
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United Kingdom20323 Posts
On February 19 2014 05:00 Wala.Revolution wrote: Would I need a side fan to keep the temp down if I want to OC to a reasonable level?
EDIT: like to a level a computer newbie would do with internet instructions, hope that points to around what level.
If case temperatures are 10c above room temp, your CPU and GPU temperatures will be elevated basically that much, it's somewhat of a concern with combined CPU and GPU load that you have enough airflow for temperature to stabilize at a reasonable level (instead of climb and climb and just get hotter until it's like 20c+ hotter than room) but it's much less of a concern with say a decent overclock on a 4670k and a gtx760 (like 250w of heat going into case) than with say for example a 4770k delidded at max overclock paired with a few 780ti's that have been bios flashed to raise power limit (easy >750w average, at which point you either have a large array of case fans at high speeds and a ventilated room or you're in some trouble)
however NVIDIA tells us that overall they’ve been able to outright double their performance-per-watt on Maxwell versus Kepler, which is nothing short of amazing given the fact that all of this is being done on the same 28nm process as Kepler.
*looks over shoulder and then throws gtx770 out of window*
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Yeah Maxwell is going to be amazing from the looks of it.
Basically if I understand correctly they set a TDP limit and then worked from there to see what Maxwell would get them.
So if they release a Maxwell card with a 250W TDP limit instead of the 70W we have with the 750 Ti, then there's going to be some serious horsepower in the card. 250W TPD on Kepler gets you a 780 or something, I guess, so 250W TDP on Maxwell will get you... SLI x2 780 performance on a single card?
I'm curious though, these stats are at 28 nm. When they go to 20 nm, with the same architecture, how are temperatures going to be affected? Basically they can cram more transistor in a given die area; wouldn't that raise temperatures? Or do they keep the same amount of transistors as before except that now, since they're smaller than before (and more efficient), they'll produce less heat?
Edit: We should all hope CUDA-mining doesn't take off?
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United Kingdom20323 Posts
how are temperatures going to be affected? Basically they can cram more transistor in a given die area; wouldn't that raise temperatures?
Don't let delid issue fool you, we've lost temperatures on every die shrink recently. Ivy bridge on both LGA2011 and LGA1155 was cooler than sandy bridge (though the lga1155 needed glue taken off to see that)
They increased transistor density etc but temps seem fine atm, doesn't seem to me like they'll have major problems ramping up to a 200w part (780ti is "officially" only 250 or 270w iirc)
We have interesting case here where with kepler at least, optimal efficiency came at much lower than max clock speeds, at like 800mhz (when you can benchmark at 1400 on air) which naturally leads to GPU releases targeting the lower frequency (that then have massive OC headroom if you don't care so much for efficiency)
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re: 250W? I don't think 20 nm yields, prices, etc. will support a huge chip with TDP around 250W. For products this year, I'd expect things closer to GK104's 294 mm^2 than GK110's 561 mm^2. Or at least certainly under the latter. My guess would be no more than a 20 SMM part at top, so 2560 Maxwell CUDA cores to GTX 780 Ti's 2888 Kepler CUDA cores. A 20 SMM part should be less than ~250W TDP range easily, given the die shrink. That's just a dumb guess based on GK104 (GTX 680, GTX 770) being 4x of GK107 (GT 640, GTX 650), but I'd say a 250W part is very unlikely.
re: temps, heat It's not like CPU cores where you might have four taking up what's not a large percentage of some 150 mm^2 die, with some parts of the core a lot hotter than others. The heat generation in a GPU is spread over a larger surface anyway, and it's much more uniform.
re: TDP target I don't think they had a specific TDP target early on in the design. First of all, it's very hard to tell years back when they're figuring things out, how a manufacturing process is going to be in the future and even how their design is going to behave. It's hard to simulate that many changes. When designing Maxwell earlier on, they probably thought this was all going on 20 nm anyway. Also, the design target is for mobile, so tablets / phones anyway. They're just scaling up for GM107 and other parts to be released.
re: die shrink It's up to a number of factors, but die shrink gets you less heat output for the same design. Temps depend on the cooling design and how the heat is distributed.
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United Kingdom20323 Posts
re: 250W? I don't think 20 nm yields, prices, etc. will support a huge chip with TDP around 250W. For products this year, I'd expect things closer to GK104's 294 mm^2 than GK110's 561 mm^2. Or at least certainly under the latter. My guess would be no more than a 20 SMM part at top, so 2560 Maxwell CUDA cores to GTX 780 Ti's 2888 Kepler CUDA cores. A 20 SMM part should be less than ~250W TDP range easily, given the die shrink. That's just a dumb guess based on GK104 (GTX 680, GTX 770) being 4x of GK107 (GT 640, GTX 650), but I'd say a 250W part is very unlikely.
They don't need a 250w part, that's the beauty
![[image loading]](http://cdn.overclock.net/6/69/69759a86_perfwatt_1920.gif)
NVIDIA hasn’t given us hard numbers on SMM power efficiency, but for space efficiency a single 128 CUDA core SMM can deliver 90% of the performance of a 192 CUDA core SMX at a much smaller size.
Also..
![[image loading]](http://cdn.overclock.net/a/a4/a4f66181_LiteCoinEfficiency.png)
Guru3d hit 1429mhz at/below 1.212v. That doesn't really happen at all on Kepler (mid-high 1200's to low 1300's really) but power limit is probably in the way @60w
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Yeah, that's why I suggested 20 SMM as a top-end part later this year as a possibility. That would be well shy of 250W and would definitely beat GTX 780 Ti / Titan Black. In fact, organization could be significantly different and maybe they end up with less hardware than that to still beat the current gen.
Also, the prices...
Cost per transistor at 20 nm should be slightly higher than cost per transistor at 28 nm in the near future.
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On February 19 2014 04:35 Cainam wrote:+ Show Spoiler +So my tax return is gonna be around $1400 this year, and I'm looking to spend it on a PC. Here's the initial build I came up with, but I have never done this before so I have no idea if this is any good. Any help would be appreciated. If there's anywhere I could save some money without sacrificing too much quality, that'd be great. What is your budget?
$1400 max, would prefer to spend less
What is your monitor's native resolution?
Monitor will be part of the build
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
SC2, DOTA2, Skyrim, CS:GO?/Titanfall?/various others
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Nothing performance intensive
Do you intend to overclock?
No
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
I don't know what that is
Do you need an operating system?
Looking for Windows 7, included in build
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
Monitor and keyboard. In the build.
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
Amazon Prime member so if I can take advantage of that I will
What country will you be buying your parts in?
USA
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
See above (Amazon)
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / BenchmarksCPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Amazon) Motherboard: ASRock H81M-HDS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($69.12 @ Amazon) Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($78.08 @ Amazon) Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ Amazon) Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card ($349.99 @ Amazon) Case: Silverstone PS08B (Black) MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Amazon) Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($73.99 @ Amazon) Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($22.95 @ Amazon) Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg) Monitor: Asus VS238H-P 23.0" Monitor ($158.98 @ Amazon) Keyboard: Das Keyboard Model S Ultimate Silent Wired Standard Keyboard ($124.91 @ Amazon) Total: $1297.98 (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-18 14:31 EST-0500)
Retooled a little bit. Thoughts? I'm reading in a few places that Windows 8 has better performance for gaming, but from my limited experience with it so far, it seems like a shit OS, and I'm upgrading from a computer running Vista, so I've had my fill of shit OSes. Also trying to weigh the pros and cons of a SSD instead of the HD. Will it have any noticeable impact on gaming?
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Newegg) Motherboard: ASRock H81M-HDS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($51.99 @ Newegg) Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($89.99 @ Newegg) Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ Newegg) Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card ($349.99 @ Amazon) Case: Silverstone PS08B (Black) MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Amazon) Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 450W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg) Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($22.95 @ Amazon) Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg) Monitor: Asus VS238H-P 23.0" Monitor ($146.58 @ Newegg) Total: $1151.45 (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.) (Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-18 17:28 EST-0500)
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United Kingdom20323 Posts
Also trying to weigh the pros and cons of a SSD instead of the HD. Will it have any noticeable impact on gaming?
Some games, 1000% yes, especially just a ~120gb ssd thrown into such a build budget. An MMO or game like skyrim with load screens, for example right now i have Planetside 2 on my not perfectly, but still decently maintained seagate barracuda 7200rpm HDD* - i just timed hitting play button on launcher, to being ingame with UI loaded. It took 2 minutes and 35 seconds - you can do this in 15 seconds flat with a modern SSD, likewise you can jump across the 64km2 continent in spawns in a few seconds instead of waiting like 10-15 seconds there too.
*You don't have to maintain an SSD, yet have to defragment HDD's all the time if they are heavily used unless you want performance to degrade quite a lot
It's less of a deal for games like sc2 and LoL where you load once in 5 seconds and then sit on your ass for often as much as 2-3 minutes (LoL) for other people to load and then you're done accessing the hdd/ssd for half an hour, but for OS booting, interaction, any kind of loading screens in general it's pretty insane difference
Dunno about screen, tbh if you're paying $150 for a 60hz tn, might as well throw $100 more and get a 144hz/120hz strobe backlight tn if you think you'll benefit. $150 seems like a lot for that screen (relative to the price of others available on market)
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I'm really not a fan of spending near that amount and getting a 60 Hz 1080p monitor.
I'd consider spending up very slightly on the motherboard so you're not on bottom-rung construction and expandability options. It's enough for most usage though.
Case is cheapish, even at $40 level.
That memory price looks very high. Optical drive price slightly high.
Other than load times (which sometimes happen in the middle of play), SSDs don't help for gaming, but few people who get one (and not some flaky older model with issues) regret it, other than not buying a larger one.
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