EPTComputer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread - Page 436
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Kupon3ss
時の回廊10066 Posts
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Durak
Canada3685 Posts
+ Show Spoiler [Original post+reply] + On October 15 2014 14:23 GeneralStan wrote: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/iY9i8jA.png) I stuck to your exact parts / desired specs as close as possible. Ended up being a shade under $1000 before shipping, so a little above your $900 budget. I think it's worth stretching to get up to a GTX 970. I also think the Haswell i5 is a worthwhile investment. If I was going to try to find something to trim, I think your storage requirements and case are a little pricey. I already cut back from a 1.5/2 TB (on newegg anyway, the 2 TB is less expensive than 1.5TB anyway) to a 1 TB HDD to get it under $1000. If you had to get it down to $900 you could always scale back on graphics, but this seems like gtx 970 level budget. You can also pick up a perfectly nice case for $50 or so to save yourself a few pennies. That's what I've got though I'm looking to order those suggested parts but it seems like some are not available or not as good a deal now as they used to be. Below is what I have found so far: Case: Cooler Master N200 - NCIX $36 GPU: ?? PSU: Corsair CX Series CX430M 430W ATX - NCIX $30 RAM: RipjawsX Series 8GB PC3-12800 - MemoryExpress $87 Mobo: ?? CPU: i5-4690 - NCIX $250 SSD: MX100 - MemoryExpress $120 HD: Seagate 1TB - NCIX $50 Subtotal: $573 Issues: First, I haven't found a comparable GTX 970 for around $350 that GeneralStan quoted. I don't know enough to find a suitable GPU substitute. Second, The mobo doesn't seem to be sold on NCIX nor MemoryExpress (or at a competitive price). Also looking for alternatives. Lastly, The PSU I found is the same as what GeneralStan suggested but modular. Will this ATX PSU fit in the mATX case fine? Notes: I already have two Dell U2414H monitors for the computer. The monitors have display port and minidisplay port so any new videocard should be fine connectivity-wise. I'm readily willing to switch out different parts for the ones I've found so far. They just seemed to be closest to what GeneralStan had and at a good price. I would appreciate suggestions so I can finally order these parts and put the computer together for my friend.  | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20343 Posts
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£285.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk) CPU Cooler: Thermalright SILVER ARROW IB-E 73.6 CFM CPU Cooler (£67.97 @ Amazon UK) Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£119.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (£140.36 @ Amazon UK) Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£77.98 @ Amazon UK) Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£91.69 @ Overclockers.co.uk) Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£288.87 @ Amazon UK) Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£288.87 @ Amazon UK) Case: Corsair Air 540 ATX Mid Tower Case (£104.99 @ Amazon UK) Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Gold 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£94.55 @ Overclockers.co.uk) Total: £1560.46 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-26 16:52 GMT+0000 similar CPU cooler, personal taste i guess better mobo expensive RAM, but all of the RAM seemed to either have big headspreaders, or it was something like 2400c11@1.65v - having 2133 at c9 is better, but these ones are also at 1.6v which means they're probably better overall and have more room for tweaking etc if you wanted to do that (probably not lol) different SSD, significantly cheaper and still great, without worrying about the 840 evo performance loss drama. I'm not sure what the final word is on that, but maybe if someone wanted to go and read hundreds of posts in the OCN thread they would see - AFAIK, some people are still having issues with them SLI 970 G1's (get the g1, not just the windforce cooler! The g1 is the better one, and the label isn't clear here) - worth the extra price IMO, they cool better, they have non restrictive power limits, they allow you to use 1.25v etc and the price difference is not all that much. better PSU, bit overkill I would also recommend some extra fans for the air 540 - if you keep the 3 stock fans, you need to add either 3x 120mm or 2x 140mm to fill out other slots | ||
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calgar
United States1277 Posts
Around $1100. What is your monitor's native resolution? 1920x1200 What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings? SC2, HoTS, D3, TF2, WoW - high or max settings What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming? Watching streams, playing chess. Do you intend to overclock? No Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire? No Do you need an operating system? No Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget? I wanted a wireless internet card but I don't really know how to pick out a good one. If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify. Don't have any requirements or preferences. What country will you be buying your parts in? US, been looking mostly on Newegg. If you have any retailer preferences, please specify. Don't really care. I looked only on newegg for simplicity. It looks like its about $100 cheaper looking at PCpartpicker if everything is ordered from the cheapest place. I noticed the newegg does not include the mail-in rebate reductions though and PCpartpicker does so that narrows the gap. Here is a build I picked out below. I don't really know anything about motherboards so I just picked one from the sample builds. I also don't really know how to pick a good wireless card. It came out a little cheaper than my budget but I'm not sure that spending more will equal more improvement. It seems the price/performance margin increases sharply from the 760 to 770 GTX. Maybe I should consider an R9 280X? [PCPartPicker part list](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/4LDhdC) / [Price breakdown by merchant](http://pcpartpicker.com/p/4LDhdC/by_merchant/) PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($223.88 @ NCIX US) Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($80.98 @ OutletPC) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($75.98 @ OutletPC) Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($123.98 @ OutletPC) Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.85 @ OutletPC) Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB DirectCU II Video Card ($178.99 @ NCIX US) Case: Raidmax Viper GX ATX Mid Tower Case ($64.99 @ Newegg) Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 450W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Amazon) Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($18.75 @ OutletPC) Total: $874.39 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-26 12:21 EST-0500 Thanks in advance! | ||
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Ovid
United Kingdom948 Posts
On December 27 2014 01:57 Cyro wrote: @Ovid i did significant edits that came out as £40 more expensive: PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£285.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk) CPU Cooler: Thermalright SILVER ARROW IB-E 73.6 CFM CPU Cooler (£67.97 @ Amazon UK) Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£119.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (£140.36 @ Amazon UK) Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£77.98 @ Amazon UK) Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£91.69 @ Overclockers.co.uk) Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£288.87 @ Amazon UK) Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£288.87 @ Amazon UK) Case: Corsair Air 540 ATX Mid Tower Case (£104.99 @ Amazon UK) Power Supply: Super Flower Leadex Gold 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£94.55 @ Overclockers.co.uk) Total: £1560.46 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-26 16:52 GMT+0000 similar CPU cooler, personal taste i guess better mobo expensive RAM, but all of the RAM seemed to either have big headspreaders, or it was something like 2400c11@1.65v - having 2133 at c9 is better, but these ones are also at 1.6v which means they're probably better overall and have more room for tweaking etc if you wanted to do that (probably not lol) different SSD, significantly cheaper and still great, without worrying about the 840 evo performance loss drama. I'm not sure what the final word is on that, but maybe if someone wanted to go and read hundreds of posts in the OCN thread they would see - AFAIK, some people are still having issues with them SLI 970 G1's (get the g1, not just the windforce cooler! The g1 is the better one, and the label isn't clear here) - worth the extra price IMO, they cool better, they have non restrictive power limits, they allow you to use 1.25v etc and the price difference is not all that much. better PSU, bit overkill I would also recommend some extra fans for the air 540 - if you keep the 3 stock fans, you need to add either 3x 120mm or 2x 140mm to fill out other slots Thanks for the suggestions. is there any reason for the 2133mhz over the cheaper 2400mhz they also do, is it because the higher latency cancels out the faster clock speed, since the 2400mhz version is around £35 cheaper? I was looking at the G1 but was trying to cut costs, but I do see everyone saying they're up at the top so maybe I should spend the bit extra on them. I have very limited knowledge on PSU's, just want a good stable PSU that will last. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20343 Posts
On December 27 2014 02:49 Ovid wrote: Thanks for the suggestions. is there any reason for the 2133mhz over the cheaper 2400mhz they also do, is it because the higher latency cancels out the faster clock speed, since the 2400mhz version is around £35 cheaper? I was looking at the G1 but was trying to cut costs, but I do see everyone saying they're up at the top so maybe I should spend the bit extra on them. I have very limited knowledge on PSU's, just want a good stable PSU that will last. 2133/9 = 237 2400/11 = 218 if it was 2400c10 it would be better, If you wanna save money and there is some 2400 (even at c11) with small heat spreaders at way lower than £140 in 2x8GB, you could take that Just a heads up, ocuk has the g1 below £290 and also has the free games on them right now - amazon seems to be out of stock and without any game codes. Having a g1 isn't that important (but it's really nice) - but the "good" cards are all pretty expensive anyway - like only £15-20 cheaper - so it's worth IMO unless you want to get specifically cheaper and not as good cards | ||
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TempusDESU
Australia87 Posts
Antec High Current Gamer 620W Power Supply HCG-620 ![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/VVvgYUz.png) Is it possible for me to upgrade to a new graphics card, such as the GTX 770?? http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1726&products_id=23960 If not, what's the best graphics card I could buy from the above site with my current parts? Or should I upgrade the graphics card AND something else (e.g power supply) Sorry, I'm really pleb at this stuff. thanks | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20343 Posts
On December 27 2014 10:51 TempusDESU wrote: Hey guys, I have these parts: Antec High Current Gamer 620W Power Supply HCG-620 Is it possible for me to upgrade to a new graphics card, such as the GTX 770?? http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1726&products_id=23960 If not, what's the best graphics card I could buy from the above site with my current parts? Or should I upgrade the graphics card AND something else (e.g power supply) Sorry, I'm really pleb at this stuff. thanks Yes, you can, but $369 is too expensive for a 770. Get this: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1483&products_id=27975 or one of the ~$250-$260 760's - http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=193_1511 or buy a 770 from somewhere else. You should pay maybe $340 at most (for a decent one), going off those two above prices for 760's and the HOF 780 | ||
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mantequilla
Turkey781 Posts
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Kupon3ss
時の回廊10066 Posts
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Cyro
United Kingdom20343 Posts
also it's very important what the system is used for and if you are able to overclock. The best budget CPU's right now are the pentium g3258 and the fx6300 | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20343 Posts
system 1: Haswell @4.7ghz core, 4.4ghz uncore, 2200c9 RAM 80 fps min 104 fps avg 164 fps max system 2: Haswell@stock (~3.6-3.8ghz core and uncore), 1333c9 RAM 43 fps min 60 fps avg 96 fps max that's a performance advantage of 86% (min FPS), 73.3% (average), 71% (max) for my system there are a few things to explain that, firstly significant RAM scaling, also potential VRAM performance scaling (i saw something there before, didn't really test it) - i used 8200, he used ~7525 - but kinda of note, the sc2 engine shows greater than linear returns for FPS with CPU core clock speed, but the perceived performance does not improve that much - so you might get 40% higher numbers from an overclock, while perceived performance only improves by 20-25%. The amount of microstutter in the engine gets way higher as you go to higher and higher performance systems. This is visible even in the pictures below - the high performance one has a much higher density of dots at the top than the bottom (a ton of fast frames) but the slow frames are not proportionally improved. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/bPrcRG7.png) vs ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/lLRdZGV.png) So.. that's the answer of what you get going from an i5 4670 with 1333c9 to a 4690k at a good overclock with fast RAM in this engine, and maybe other somewhat similar blizzard engines (like WoW) | ||
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Daye911
United States12 Posts
Case: Cooler Master elite (Idk what type but also have some extra fans on it) Power Supply: 600 Watt atx extreme gear PSAZ-CP600 RAM: 6 GB Corsair dominator CMD4GX3M2A1600C8 Mobo: MSI X58A-GD45 CPU: i7 960 @3.2 Graphics card: Gigabyte windforce R9 280X 3gb I only play sc2 and watch some streams. I have not messed with the overclocking my rig and am only getting around 25 fps when there are max out armies in 4v4 or 3v3 in SC2 and when I watch source on twich or teamliquid it lags about every 30 seconds. What should I upgrade next to help out my rig (I can only think of maybe more RAM or new motherboard)? Also would it fix things for me by taking it to someone that knows what they are doing to overclock stuff, I have the catalyst center and guru II? Any help is appreciated | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20343 Posts
when I watch source on twich or teamliquid it lags about every 30 seconds Probably an issue with internet speed/stability (or routing to twitch) unless your flash player is just freezing i'm not sure if that motherboard is suitable for overclocking CPU, but if it is (and you buy a cooler) you could get ~20-25% performance gains probably. If that's nowhere near what you want, buying a new motherboard and a 4690k to overclock would be a good option | ||
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Durak
Canada3685 Posts
 I'm concerned about picking some motherboard that's too expensive and ends up being incompatible. >_< | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On December 28 2014 13:11 Durak wrote: No one has a videocard or motherboard suggestion for me? I'm concerned about picking some motherboard that's too expensive and ends up being incompatible. >_<buy a motherboard that does what you need and nothing more, i guess do you need to overclock? crossfire / SLI? how many sata ports? if you buy what you need and nothing more, you can allocate the rest of your budget to the graphics card | ||
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ObviousOne
United States3704 Posts
The price creep is real. The longer this stuff sits in my cart while I finalize, the more I spend. My cart went from $900 to almost $1400 and I'm still missing a CPU cooler (was looking at the Corsair H100i closed-circuit liquid cooler, but yikes, $100). Realistically my expectations are that I want my PC to last 5+ years with maybe minor upgrades (storage space, for example) and potentially SLI if it's ever all I'll need to extend the life further, so I've been creeping up the price on all of the components I previously discussed and ended up a lot closer to the post Cyro made in reply to Ovid. Case $79 NZXT Source 530 Video $359 Gigabyte GTX970 (G1) Power $89 Corsair CXM 750 Memory $164 G. Skill Ripjaws X CL9 2x8GB Board $187 ASUS z97-Pro CPU $339 i7-4790k SSD $111 Crucial MX100 256GB Poked around video reviews again and found the NZXT case in a PC Parts Picker review where it blew me away. Should nicely fit everything and has removable hard drive bays to accommodate the 970. Got gifted a 1TB WD Blue for Christmas so I took that out of the cart. Realistically I could probably get by with the Z97-A ($40 or so saved), and tamp down the memory to 8GB instead of 16GB (~$70 saved). but beyond that I think I'm firmly in the $1250-1500 category all of a sudden, thanks mostly to the graphics card. The 750 Ti is about $140, meaning the most significant single price that went up in the build was the graphics card (over $200). I feel kind of cornered into spending either what's going to go in excess of $1500 with OS or stepping back down to the i5 4690k build pricing in at around $1000 total. I want to avoid buyers remorse, if I can. Will the build that started with this post here about 2 weeks ago likely keep me satisfied for 5+ years? Price per year, most of my PCs have all cost me around 200-250 dollars per year for the time that they lasted. A $1500 machine will have to last me 6 years to reach that benchmark. edit: thinking about it a little more, maybe I can keep the graphics card and just downgrade the CPU to the 4690k and save the $200 from the card upgrade that way. What you think? Decided to back down to the 4690k and keep the Windforce, unless there is a compelling argument for backing that back down to the sub-$280 range. http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Hydraslik/saved/ydBxFT Sufficient PSU? | ||
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Madslash
United States23 Posts
What is your budget? $1000, give or take $100 What is your monitor's native resolution? 1920x1080 What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings? Starcraft 2, Dota 2, Cs:Go. Future games such as GTA 5. Ultra settings. What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming? No video/image editing. Just browsing, school work. Do you intend to overclock? Perhaps in the future, but not now. Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire? No Do you need an operating system? No Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget? No If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify. No What country will you be buying your parts in? United States If you have any retailer preferences, please specify. No. Here's what I've came up with so far: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ssT3jX Please let me know what you guys think and if there's anything that should be changed in the build. Also, if it's not too much effort, could you double check and make sure everything's compatible? I believe it is, but this being my first build, I'm not 100% sure. Thanks everyone | ||
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colup
Australia1 Post
I'm thinking: G3258 with the cheapest available overclockable motherboard. (SC2 doesnt use more than 2 cores) 1 stick of 4 gig to later expand to 8 when the player finds themselves in bigger 1v1 matches (neccessary?) Onboard video inititially with whatever monitor is at hand, to later upgrade to the ideal sc2 video card and monitor? (which one? after all if the game is cpu bound and if the player prefers low detail only in 1v11 it would be a pity to get a too good video card) Rationale: Some only play SC2 and have limited interest in other games so dual core G3258 is ideal, microcentre has/had a 100 dollar deal for the z97 mobo with the g3258 for 100 US and there must be other cheap mobos (any ideas for OZ?). Microcentre deal (US only):http://www.microcenter.com/site/brands/G3258Bundle.aspx So how well will this work? I'm thinking it would be great for the starter player, yet the socket would be upgradeable if they ever wanted to play with streaming, also I have no idea about the ideal monitor for sc2 or video card so this allows the user to put that question aside for now. Monitor/video card: This is the most informative post I've seen on 144hz gaming for sc2 http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=23349760 Cryo is saying 144hz doesn't have the advantages that other games have, so should we be looking at Korean overclockable IPS displays that have more pixels? Is the only disadvantage with cheaping out on a monitor that it wont look as pretty? Is a higher pixel count preferable so theres more pixels to click on so you can select that larvae? Is there a economical power supply that can handle the entire upgrade cycle such a pc might go through or should we start with a cheap power supply that later gets replaced? Any advice is appreciated and if i get it all figured out I dare say it might be worthy of its own thread, I'll be sure to give credit where its due if I ever figure it out. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20343 Posts
i'm not sure if sc2 memory scaling is entirely latency based or if it needs memory bandwidth, but there is the possibility of losing a lot of performance if you only have RAM in single channel. Need a benchmark run to verify | ||
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