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When using this resource, please read the 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. |
Hi guys! I am preparing to buy a new laptop and was hoping I could get advice on laptops. I realize this thread primarily deals with desktop computers (I built my own desktop computer from the old thread 3 years ago  ) but I now need a quality laptop computer. (Looking for prebuilt laptops. I built my own desktop before and I'm not planning on fucking with laptops.)
What is your budget?
I would prefer to not spend more than $1200 however if there is a significant increase in quality then I can slightly increase that number.
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
Dota 2, Starcraft 2
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
School work, music editing, music composing
Do you need an operating system?
Pretty sure these come with premade laptops.
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.
I was anticipating purchasing an Asus but I am not terribly up to date with laptop brands right now.
What country will you be buying your parts in?
USA
Purchase date
It will be within the next week.
I guess this covers everything.
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
On June 20 2015 04:33 Invoker wrote:
Didn't have money for an i7 at the time. I barely managed to get an i5.
And nothing of value was lost 
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the 390X looks like a disaster
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On June 20 2015 06:02 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2015 04:33 Invoker wrote:
Didn't have money for an i7 at the time. I barely managed to get an i5. And nothing of value was lost
Hey, man, maybe he's a hardcore video encoder.
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
On June 20 2015 06:31 trifecta wrote:
the 390X looks like a disaster
it's a 290x rebrand, no surprise
On June 20 2015 07:55 Craton wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2015 06:02 Cyro wrote:On June 20 2015 04:33 Invoker wrote:
Didn't have money for an i7 at the time. I barely managed to get an i5. And nothing of value was lost Hey, man, maybe he's a hardcore video encoder.
In which case he still improved cpu performance per dollar
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
AMD withdraw KitGuru Fury X sample over ‘negative content’
also, seems like AMD is launching a new driver with the 300 series which gives better tessellation performance on their existing gpu's
Actually, i misread that. Seems like they're boosting tessellation performance for the 300 series rebrands, but not the identical-in-hardware 7xxx and 200 series variants.
that's ridiculous. Incoming 290x to 390x bios flash improving benchmarks for the same hardware and clock speeds. Hopefully it's just an error and they'll fix it.
Yet another nice catch by pcgameshardware.de, a great site IMO but it is in german. Wouldn't surprise me at all if a lot of the sites like anand did not see a driver change like that and were caught off guard by mysterious performance improvements in the 300 series on the same hardware, because the 200 series driver was nerfed by comparison
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I'm looking at upgrading from an XFX 270 to the Sapphire Dual X 280x. Going by the Newegg reviews there seems to be some concerns about the card's structural quality but the price is right for the one I'm looking at on overclock.net (~$130). Anyone have personal experience with this particular card?
Edit: Also: On the Newegg listing is claims that a 750 watt power supply is required for this card. This seems like bs to me, I currently have a 550 watt XFX TS series powering my xfx 270 and i3-4160. Will I be ok power wise?
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
you might hit like, 300w draw from the PSU (for the whole system) with GPU highly overclocked
The price is good ~ Remember though a 280x is only about 50-55% faster than a 270 and it's straight rebrand of a january 2012 release, 3.5 year old architecture. You can't really beat it at that price, but it's often not cost efficient to make smaller upgrades
performance is roughly:
270>>>>>>>>>>>>280x>>>>>>>290>290x
so even if a 290 cost $230, the "FPS gained per dollar" would actually be better. That stat matters a lot more to me than looking at absolute performance per dollar of the GPU itself, since you're not buying it in a void and have to look at what you'll gain from the purchase. Since a 290 is harder to cool and overclock though, it would be a good buy at $200 but not so much at $250. That's still potentially worth it though, if you wanted a bigger upgrade and could cool it well.
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You only need a 750W PSU if you're running dual high-end GPUs (and overclocking at that).
Cue my standard "my system running overclocked 3770K and 2x 780s pulls only ~625W from the wall at full load." From the wall meaning that includes the inefficiency. (If the draw is 80% efficient and the computer needs 500W, it's drawing 625W from the wall).
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
I could maybe trip safety on my 550w PSU if i got and highly overclocked a 980ti, but only because of extreme and weird circumstances
+ Show Spoiler +1; maxed CPU and GPU overclock (maybe even a custom GPU bios to get past power limits) and 100% load simultaneously.
2; 15-20 watts of case fans when spinning at full speed (i have 8 fans, some of which are high powered - and i would use them to keep a GPU cool with 300-350w worth of power and heat output - and stop the intake air around the CPU cooler from heating up, as well
3; I'm considering an NVME SSD. The Intel 750 has insane benchmarks - about 6-7x faster sequential speed than my current (good buy in april 2011) SSD, 7 - 8x as many IOPS for 4k reads. A regular SSD draws only a few watts, maybe like 1-5w, but those SSD's can draw as much as ~30 watts.
it takes that much to even threaten overloading a 550w PSU while stress testing it. Craton's setup with 625w from the wall would just about overload a 550w PSU depending on the efficiency but it's a completely different class of rig. You could get a 280x and then a 2015-2016 CPU from Intel or AMD and overclock that as well and be completely fine.
My #1 could add up to as much as 500w peaks on those two parts, totalled together. That's several hundred watts more than your components. Circumstances #2 and #3 wouldn't apply at all, a few regular case fans could use like 1-4 watts total. Hard drives use some power when they're loaded, but it's less (under 10w?)
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@Cyro I don't think I'll see a 290 at 200 bucks anytime soon but I'll keep my eyes open Lets put it this way..do you see a 280x (assuming not cpu bottlenecked) playing AAA titles at highish settings at 1080p for the next 2 years?
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
Depending on your settings and FPS tolerance, maybe. A 280x is like, a bit under half as fast as the high end right now, for reference - though that comes in at ~$550-700 at the moment.
At $130 it's very appealing and you could probably grab one of those cards in a few years that's $550 now, for like a third of that price. 280x's cost $550 three years ago.
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Hmm..well you've given me a lot to think about. Now I'm considering holding off for the time being and seeing what the future holds for 290 prices (Black Friday maybe?).
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So my 5 year old college laptop is finally starting to go to shit, and I really want to get a desktop for gaming. Mainly CS:GO, and maybe some other games from time to time, but I'm not going to be playing GTA V on high settings or anything like that. Running CS:GO smoothly on higher settings is my main goal. (I installed CS:GO on my laptop just for shits and grins and got like <1 FPS on lowest settings lol)
I understand that you usually get more bang for your buck by building a PC, but how difficult is it to build one? I have very little knowledge about PC hardware and all of the different jargon and brands to choose from can be pretty intimidating let alone actually putting it together. I have some friends/relatives who may be willing to help, but if I could do it on my own that would be great.
Keep in mind I am on somewhat of a budget, so I would like to keep the price (including a decent monitor) under $700 US, maybe even less if possible.
Is this doable? Since I'm a computer newb am I better off getting a pre built PC at my price point? Any help would be appreciated.
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@Spiller
I had no clue what I was doing going in when I built my first desktop last summer. For the actual putting the parts together, I relied on youtube video's like Newegg's and did fine. As for the parts, do you need Windows OS, keyboard, etc?
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I have a junk keyboard and mouse that I plan to upgrade when I can, just want to get the actual PC first. When I had to replace the hard drive on my laptop (because i dropped it from like 6 inches off the ground lol) I bought Windows 7 from some third party site for cheap and installed it using a USB flashdrive, I still have the flashdrive so I should be able to use it still right?
If not I have a cousin who used to do computer repairs for a living who I'm 99 percent sure could get me Windows since I really don't want to pay full price for it. Student loans suck.
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Yeah you should be able to use your Windows 7.
Here's a preliminary list I threw together thats ~$20 over your budget but could probably be tweaked to duck under 700: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/WpN7Jx
I threw a monitor on the list thats on sale for a few days but honestly if you keep an eye on Newegg there's usually a wide selection on sale to choose from. I would recommend one in the 23-24" range, I use a 24" and personally wouldn't want a bigger monitor for gaming but its personal preference. This build will crush CS:GO, its a tier up from my rig and I can max out graphics at 1080p with smooth framerates.
You could downgrade the video card to an r9 270 to meet your budget, it would still handle CS:GO with no trouble.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/P6PDdC
Another option would be an AMD processor (with AMD compatible motherboard) to save some money over an Intel i5. I've personally never had an AMD processor someone else would have to vouch for/against.
As for Mouse/Keyboard, you may bet interested in these threads TL Keyboard Guide, TL Mouse Thread.
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Awesome man, thanks. I'm curious now though what did your rig cost and what parts did you use? Like I said the more I can save the better and it sounds like I can maybe cut back on the cost some without losing too much performance for what I want to do.
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I built mine last summer with an R9 270 and i3 4160, same case, hard drive, memory, power supply, and motherboard. My total cost was roughly the same as the list I linked with the i5 and the R9 280 because I had to buy windows and prices in general have gone down since then. The i3 would be fine for CS:GO and most current games but if you want any "future-proofing" I think the i5 is a better investment.
Edit: I put together a couple super-budget builds with the sole intention of running CS:GO well.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/4zT7Jx
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/xg7Bpg
Edit 2: You could shave another $50 off the i3 build by going with a G3320 instead. It would be fine for CS:GO, not so hot for really new games.
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Decided to just go for the desktop.
Pasted from r/BuildaPC so excuse the formatting please.
**What is your intended use for this build? The more details the better.**
I intend to use this computer heavily for DotA 2. Will also use it for CS:GO. Some of the other hard tasks will probably include a little bit of video editing and if possible within my budget restrictions for streaming. The primary goal is to be able to max dota2 at 1920x1080 with a solid 60+ frames and just general every day main PC use.
**If gaming, what kind of performance are you looking for? (Screen resolution, FPS, game settings)**
1920x1080 is plenty for me. Want to crushingly max out DotA 2 and CS:GO. Any other games I play will be in or near this tier. I do not play any AAA games or something that requires high enthusiast level buids.
**What is your budget (ballpark is okay)?**
$800 is the absolute max I will spend. However, I have about $150 in Amazon gift card that is included in this $800 that I would like to use up for priority sake. I am not opposed to spending the full $800 if it can somehow fulfill all my bullet points. It's been a long time since I built a comp [ ten years ] so I'm not fully aware how far my money will go. $700-750 would be really comfortable for me if this is a good sweet spot for value!
**In what country are you purchasing your parts?**
USA, California.
**Post a draft of your potential build here (specific parts please). [Consider formatting your parts list.](http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/wiki/pcpp)**
I have been using logicalincrements for dota2, but I fear this is a bit outdated [ unsure ] and on top of that I would like to see my money can get me a stream-capabale machine so I'm not sure if I should post a out-dated build here. I would appreciate a quick bare-bone list from anyone.
CPU: i3 4160
MOBO: ASROCK h97 Pro 4
GPU: R9 280
RAM: 8GB of whatever deal
HDD: 1 TB of whatever deal
PSU: Antec HCG 620M
Case: HAF 912
Monitor: Suggestions welcome!! I really liked the Dell U2312HM. I don't need anything bigger than a 24'
SSD: Unsure if the samsung/crucial ones are still good.
**Provide any additional details you wish below.**
I would absolutely like a SSD, a 128 is fine I would only run Windows and DotA on it. More space would be good, but I'd also like 1-2TB of space since I torrent a lot. I already have all peripherals. I only require a desktop and a monitor. I really loved the Dell U2312HM so any monitor like that one would be great [ It seems to be out of stock everywhere ]. I sold it recently as I was leaving the country.
Currently funemployed [ between jobs ] so saving money anywhere is highly appreciated. But I choose computers to last [ last desktop gave me a great 8 years ] so I won't skimp on money if it is a great bang for buck.
I used a Xeon for the first time in helping a friend build a $1000 ballpark budget system last year and wow that was a great deal. If it is possible or applicable for a build for myself I'd be totally open to using a Xeon chip again. I do not want to overclock my system. I'd only want to do so if the CPU/Mobo combo has literally no increase in price.
I also live near a Fry's and Microcenter. From my really old knowledge and experience, usually only the CPU/Mobo deals are great at these stores and worth looking into. Again it's been almost a decade so lmk if I'm wrong.
Brands I prefer [ but not tied to ]: Samsung, Gigabyte, Intel, Nvidia.
TLDR:
Steam game capable computer [ Dota, CS:GO ]
SSD is a great plus! Not necessary
Being able to stream is a great plus! Not necessary
Minimum 1TB of space.
- Can my $800 get me a comp capable of streaming? [ Internet is sufficient. 35mb down, 10 up. ]
- If so I'll get the parts that allow me to!
- If not, spend it on SSD/More HDD and invest the rest of the money into a more solid system that will crush my games.
Would like to buy as soon as possible unless there's some pressing reason to wait for deals.
+ Show Spoiler [PIRACY] + You can still DL windows legally and use a loader to activate it right? Prolly going for 7. Then updating to 10 later on if possible.
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EPT
