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I'm sure this sort of question has been answered a dozen times in this thread, but in my defense, it's 539 pages.
My PC just crapped out on me. I'm thinking a rebuild is the way to go.
I'm thinking of this:
4690k $199
MSI Z97-Gaming 5 LGA 1150 ATX Intel Motherboard $125 (minus another $10 for the bundle)
8 GB of DDR3 2133 $50 for EVGA
Samsung 850 EVO 120 GB $69.99 if I get the CPU/Mobo bundle, otherwise $79.99
2 TB HDD $80-$120
Some inexpensive BR player since mine broke. Probably the LG UH12NS30 Internal 12x Blu-ray Combo Drive $40
Total: $555-$595
GPU, I'll either go with the on-board graphics, or if the NVidia 460GTX somehow outperforms it, then I'll put that in. I have cabling, etc., so I'm good there too. So I think $555-$600 is what I'm looking at, and I can swap out the PSU later when I have more money.
I'm trying to do this as cheap as possible, while maximizing performance.
I have an existing 600W OCZ Stealth XTreme PSU, and I don't have any problems with it. I know that it won't take advantage of all of the power saving options on the newer CPU, but I can turn that stuff off, and it's not going to change my current electricity bill to stick with this PSU, so whatever.
I love the case that I have, so I don't need a new one. Great ventilation, it has 3.5" and 2.5" ports for the HDD and SSD, so it's good to go.
I have an OS to install, so I am not worried there either.
Use: Mostly movie downloading and watching. I've got a disgusting amount of movies right now. I had a TB internal and 2TB external over 50% full, each, and a 2 TB NAS Drive that acts as both a media server and a backup drive.
HDD: I'm just not sure which one to go with here... Blue, green, or black? I'm figuring to go with a fairly small SSD, and I need a lot of storage. Green 2TB drives are like $80, or blue 1 TB are $55. They're all rated the same in terms of speed, but the black has the longest warranty, which I like. A 2 TB black is $119 on Amazon right now.
Memory brand: Most of what I read is that brand is irrelevant, get the cheapest shit you can get. I see ADATA for about $10 less than I can find other stuff for, but MicroCenter has some EVGA 2133 on sale for $50 right now. I've never heard of ADATA, but I know of EVGA. For another $10, I can go with G.Skill, which I've used and never had the slightest problem with, but I don't know that it matters.
Also, what kind of real benefit is there between say 1600, 1833, and 2133 memory? Is it really that noticeable?
Any input on these questions?
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WD Blue drives are what you want 99% of the time.
Green are slow 5400 rpm drives with power saving features.
Black have longer warranties.
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+ If I remember correctly blacks are the one with higher speed and louder noise too. Blues are middle ground on everything. Greens may be good for media storage, they are more silent if you care about.
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I just checked their own website. Blacks are also 7200 rpm.
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Yeah, they don't actually give an rpm rating on their website, just something like intellipoint or similar. I didn't know what that was, and was too lazy to Google it too.
My main concern isn't load time of a video, but moreso that I won't have any problems with playback once it's loaded. If it takes an extra 3-5 seconds, whatever, for the price difference, I could give a shit, and I'll have the OS and such on the SSD anyway, so boot times will be fine.
For instance, once a movie loads, it's loaded, right? There should be no need for it to read that portion of the disk again? I think I'm correct in this, but I'm not positive.
My alternative is to just get a SSD and HDD and put it on my current rig. That's the cheapest option, and the truth is that I don't really need to increase my CPU speed that drastically right now. That said, I'm running only 4 GB of RAM right now, which is not ideal, and my MOBO can only handle 1333 DDR3, and at the price it's at, it seems like a waste to buy 8 GB of 1333 DDR3.
Also, I'm not so sure that I want to have the pagefile on the SSD, so maybe read/write speeds are a bit more important than I had considered until this thought.
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Estonia4644 Posts
Almost finalized my spec, still waiting for an offer on some of the parts
But what I can't decide is which goddamn PSU to choose
I'm torn between this DeepCool DA-500M
and Corsair CX430M
Both are semimodular PSUs that fit in my budget of <60€ and semimodular *could* be better than a nonmodular one since im speccing this into a Bitfenix Phenom mATX case which doesnt have a lot of room for cable management.. I can't find a lot of information about the DeepCool one, other than it seems like an OEM design that Thermaltake and others also use. I'm torn if i should, at this price point, just go for a cheaper, more "trustworthy name", 500w, non-modular psu just to be safer than with a 400-450w one, or this random one :/ There is this one site that has benchmarked these but thats about it
500w max, but probably even 430-450 is definitely fine for now, but hopefully also 9-12mo down the line when i add a <200€ discrete gfx to complement the to-be-mildly-overclocked-i5-5675C
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
'm thinking of this:
4690k $199
MSI Z97-Gaming 5 LGA 1150 ATX Intel Motherboard
Those are last gen, you'd want a skylake CPU (6600k) with newer chipset motherboard and ddr4 now unless you want to buy 27 month old stuff with a bit of a performance deficit and RAM that will never be used again
For instance, once a movie loads, it's loaded, right? There should be no need for it to read that portion of the disk again? I think I'm correct in this, but I'm not positive.
It shouldn't be much of a problem. HDD's are only bad for playback of very high bitrate media. Even bluray file sizes should be fine i think, but the higher data rates you go, the harder it is for the storage drive to keep up. HDD's may take a little bit longer to seek in the video, etc. The closer you are to the limits of the HDD, the more you'll have to be sure to keep the files that you're using defragmented to run well but for the vast majority of media consumption, it's a complete non-issue
For instance, once a movie loads, it's loaded, right?
There's some level of streaming used, it likely only reads a small time ahead (seconds-minutes) in a buffer, rather than loading the whole video file into RAM beforehand. That means less initial load time, waaaaay less RAM usage but a small delay when seeking to a different part in the video and relying on semi-constant reading from the storage drive
Also, what kind of real benefit is there between say 1600, 1833, and 2133 memory? Is it really that noticeable?
Short answer no, long answer yes. Firstly, it's somewhat complicated what memory is actually "fast" - you can easily have 1866mhz RAM outperforming 2400mhz RAM, depending on the specifications under the hood. That being said, there is definately "fast" and "slow" RAM and it does matter sometimes to some people.
The differences seen are usually in performance in certain tasks and usually small - like a performance gain of ~5% in sc2, for example. Not something that most people care about but absolutely worth chasing if you're already overclocking CPU etc trying to chase performance, it can be a relatively free performance boost and combined with other performance improvements in the system it can add up to make a real difference
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Hi, I'm looking to upgrade a video card. Here's the details
Build:
Windows 64 bit
quad core i7 processor
32 GB RAM
Terabyte harddrive
1920x1080 resolution
Motherboard model: Hewlett Packard 2AF3
Current Video card: GT 640
Basically looking to upgrade because my friend has a crappy video card, but all the other parts are pretty good. It's just the graphics holding his rig back. So he wants to be able to play Witcher 3 and enjoy high settings graphics. Doesn't need to be super ultra settings, but he'd like to see some eye candy. But we are NOT looking to overclock. Just a bunch of casuals 
Budget:He says that he's willing to shell off a couple hundred dollars for it. Most likely $200-$300 range is what I'm thinking.
We're going to buy from Newegg most likely, maybe take a look at what Amazon has, but the main thing is that we're buying in the US. Unfortunately, we live in the Midwest part of the US, so there's none of those computer hardware super stores that are seen in the west coast and other places. Finally, he doesn't have any brand or manufacturer preferences of any kind since he's not too tech savvy with computer hardware.
I've looked around on newegg for him, but to be honest, I don't keep up with new computer hardware releases. I built my own rig, but had help with it as well. If you gents could suggest a couple of the good video cards that people are buying today, that'd be much appreciated! If you guys need more details on what I'm looking for, please shoot away!
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On September 10 2015 10:01 freeshooter wrote:Hi, I'm looking to upgrade a video card. Here's the details Build:Windows 64 bit quad core i7 processor 32 GB RAM Terabyte harddrive 1920x1080 resolution Motherboard model: Hewlett Packard 2AF3 Current Video card: GT 640 Basically looking to upgrade because my friend has a crappy video card, but all the other parts are pretty good. It's just the graphics holding his rig back. So he wants to be able to play Witcher 3 and enjoy high settings graphics. Doesn't need to be super ultra settings, but he'd like to see some eye candy. But we are NOT looking to overclock. Just a bunch of casuals Budget:He says that he's willing to shell off a couple hundred dollars for it. Most likely $200-$300 range is what I'm thinking. We're going to buy from Newegg most likely, maybe take a look at what Amazon has, but the main thing is that we're buying in the US. Unfortunately, we live in the Midwest part of the US, so there's none of those computer hardware super stores that are seen in the west coast and other places. Finally, he doesn't have any brand or manufacturer preferences of any kind since he's not too tech savvy with computer hardware. I've looked around on newegg for him, but to be honest, I don't keep up with new computer hardware releases. I built my own rig, but had help with it as well. If you gents could suggest a couple of the good video cards that people are buying today, that'd be much appreciated! If you guys need more details on what I'm looking for, please shoot away!
If its only 200-300 range, maybe the r9 390 or 390x? I usually get sapphire when I buy amd cards but they are pretty good.
If he can go a little more to 320-330 range. The GTX 970 would be perfect for him.
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
Hi, I'm looking to upgrade a video card. Here's the details
Build:
Windows 64 bit
quad core i7 processor
i7 has been an intel codename for 7 years, even if you only look at desktop parts some i7's are more than twice as fast as others. It's quite important to have the part number or at least know which gen it is
Since it's an OEM pc with a gt 640, you probably have an awful PSU in there and the case size/airflow need looking at.
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On September 10 2015 10:01 freeshooter wrote:Hi, I'm looking to upgrade a video card. Here's the details Build:Windows 64 bit quad core i7 processor 32 GB RAM Terabyte harddrive 1920x1080 resolution Motherboard model: Hewlett Packard 2AF3 Current Video card: GT 640 Basically looking to upgrade because my friend has a crappy video card, but all the other parts are pretty good. It's just the graphics holding his rig back. So he wants to be able to play Witcher 3 and enjoy high settings graphics. Doesn't need to be super ultra settings, but he'd like to see some eye candy. But we are NOT looking to overclock. Just a bunch of casuals Budget:He says that he's willing to shell off a couple hundred dollars for it. Most likely $200-$300 range is what I'm thinking. We're going to buy from Newegg most likely, maybe take a look at what Amazon has, but the main thing is that we're buying in the US. Unfortunately, we live in the Midwest part of the US, so there's none of those computer hardware super stores that are seen in the west coast and other places. Finally, he doesn't have any brand or manufacturer preferences of any kind since he's not too tech savvy with computer hardware. I've looked around on newegg for him, but to be honest, I don't keep up with new computer hardware releases. I built my own rig, but had help with it as well. If you gents could suggest a couple of the good video cards that people are buying today, that'd be much appreciated! If you guys need more details on what I'm looking for, please shoot away!
OEMs usually have underpowered PSUs, if you're going to upgrade your GPU then you should look into also getting a new PSU, unless you upgrade to some sort of mid-end Maxwell card (GTX 960?).
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Estonia4644 Posts
Hm, thanks, didn't consider those before, I had been looking at the CM B500 for a while but the reviews didn't really colour it to be very impressive, it is also considerably cheaper
Will keep these in mind while I finalize this, thanks dude!
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Estonia4644 Posts
On September 10 2015 08:50 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +Also, what kind of real benefit is there between say 1600, 1833, and 2133 memory? Is it really that noticeable? Short answer no, long answer yes. Firstly, it's somewhat complicated what memory is actually "fast" - you can easily have 1866mhz RAM outperforming 2400mhz RAM, depending on the specifications under the hood. That being said, there is definately "fast" and "slow" RAM and it does matter sometimes to some people. The differences seen are usually in performance in certain tasks and usually small - like a performance gain of ~5% in sc2, for example. Not something that most people care about but absolutely worth chasing if you're already overclocking CPU etc trying to chase performance, it can be a relatively free performance boost and combined with other performance improvements in the system it can add up to make a real difference
To follow up on this,
MHz or CL when it comes to RAM? Which makes the bigger impact? I've been looking basing my searches currently off of getting CL9 DDR3, and then seeing what kind of freqs fit my budget (currently set on 1866 because more doesnt seem to be that important)
so, what kind of a difference would CL11 vs 9(9-10-11 actually) make D:
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On September 10 2015 17:26 fusefuse wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2015 08:50 Cyro wrote:Also, what kind of real benefit is there between say 1600, 1833, and 2133 memory? Is it really that noticeable? Short answer no, long answer yes. Firstly, it's somewhat complicated what memory is actually "fast" - you can easily have 1866mhz RAM outperforming 2400mhz RAM, depending on the specifications under the hood. That being said, there is definately "fast" and "slow" RAM and it does matter sometimes to some people. The differences seen are usually in performance in certain tasks and usually small - like a performance gain of ~5% in sc2, for example. Not something that most people care about but absolutely worth chasing if you're already overclocking CPU etc trying to chase performance, it can be a relatively free performance boost and combined with other performance improvements in the system it can add up to make a real difference To follow up on this, MHz or CL when it comes to RAM? Which makes the bigger impact? I've been looking basing my searches currently off of getting CL9 DDR3, and then seeing what kind of freqs fit my budget (currently set on 1866 because more doesnt seem to be that important) so, what kind of a difference would CL11 vs 9(9-10-11 actually) make D:
Check out this post:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/tech-support/426532-computer-build-upgrade-and-buying-resource-thread?page=525#10494
You can easily calculate this yourself and compare memory. It's not 100% but it gives you a rough idea on which is better.
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Estonia4644 Posts
ah awesome, didn't realize it was that simple of a correlation/that small of a difference, thanks :D!
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
with that number being around the same, higher frequency will probably be better
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On September 10 2015 11:16 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +Hi, I'm looking to upgrade a video card. Here's the details
Build:
Windows 64 bit
quad core i7 processor i7 has been an intel codename for 7 years, even if you only look at desktop parts some i7's are more than twice as fast as others. It's quite important to have the part number or at least know which gen it is Since it's an OEM pc with a gt 640, you probably have an awful PSU in there and the case size/airflow need looking at.
Yeah I forgot to mention the PSU power. I believe it's 450 watt PSU, in which case I do think an upgrade is needed to around 600 watts perhaps since we're not overclocking? Thanks for the responses btw
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
On September 11 2015 02:29 freeshooter wrote:Show nested quote +On September 10 2015 11:16 Cyro wrote:Hi, I'm looking to upgrade a video card. Here's the details
Build:
Windows 64 bit
quad core i7 processor i7 has been an intel codename for 7 years, even if you only look at desktop parts some i7's are more than twice as fast as others. It's quite important to have the part number or at least know which gen it is Since it's an OEM pc with a gt 640, you probably have an awful PSU in there and the case size/airflow need looking at. Yeah I forgot to mention the PSU power. I believe it's 450 watt PSU, in which case I do think an upgrade is needed to around 600 watts perhaps since we're not overclocking? Thanks for the responses btw
450w is fine, most PSU's have too high capacity. The quality is the worry, especially since PSU's very often have misleading labels.
You can easily have a "450w" PSU that can actually supply only 400w, but then that's 400w peak and not 400w continuous power - and then it might be missing connectors or only be able to supply the power in the wrong voltage etc.
Those things are mainly an issue with any kind of high powered graphics card in an OEM PC (psu and case airflow not being suitable) but if you have a 6-pin pci-e power connector, a low end nvidia card should probably work fine (950, 960)
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On September 10 2015 08:50 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +'m thinking of this:
4690k $199
MSI Z97-Gaming 5 LGA 1150 ATX Intel Motherboard Those are last gen, you'd want a skylake CPU (6600k) with newer chipset motherboard and ddr4 now unless you want to buy 27 month old stuff with a bit of a performance deficit and RAM that will never be used again Show nested quote +For instance, once a movie loads, it's loaded, right? There should be no need for it to read that portion of the disk again? I think I'm correct in this, but I'm not positive. It shouldn't be much of a problem. HDD's are only bad for playback of very high bitrate media. Even bluray file sizes should be fine i think, but the higher data rates you go, the harder it is for the storage drive to keep up. HDD's may take a little bit longer to seek in the video, etc. The closer you are to the limits of the HDD, the more you'll have to be sure to keep the files that you're using defragmented to run well but for the vast majority of media consumption, it's a complete non-issue There's some level of streaming used, it likely only reads a small time ahead (seconds-minutes) in a buffer, rather than loading the whole video file into RAM beforehand. That means less initial load time, waaaaay less RAM usage but a small delay when seeking to a different part in the video and relying on semi-constant reading from the storage drive Show nested quote +Also, what kind of real benefit is there between say 1600, 1833, and 2133 memory? Is it really that noticeable? Short answer no, long answer yes. Firstly, it's somewhat complicated what memory is actually "fast" - you can easily have 1866mhz RAM outperforming 2400mhz RAM, depending on the specifications under the hood. That being said, there is definately "fast" and "slow" RAM and it does matter sometimes to some people. The differences seen are usually in performance in certain tasks and usually small - like a performance gain of ~5% in sc2, for example. Not something that most people care about but absolutely worth chasing if you're already overclocking CPU etc trying to chase performance, it can be a relatively free performance boost and combined with other performance improvements in the system it can add up to make a real difference
Thanks a lot, I appreciate the reply.
That's kind of what I figured even if I was wrong on the way the HDD handles the video, the only place that I figure I would expect slow-down is in the initial load, and then it should be loading far enough in advance to not cause any issues. If nothing else, the data stream is significantly more steady and reliable than watching something over the Internet. My NAS drive has almost no issues with playback on my TVs, and that's reading off the HDD then transferring over Ethernet, then going over WiFi. So even a 5400 RPM drive would probably perform at least comparably.
I have pretty minimal understanding of memory and how it works, but I think that in the situation of, let's say 1833 vs 1600 DDR3 on the same system, depending on the CL, the 1600 can outperform the 1833. At the least, it would significantly reduce the performance benefits, although I do not know what the difference in latency would need to be to make a significant impact.
In regards to current generation. I know the 4690K and DDR3 are old, but I know for a fact that neither of those will have any issues with 1080p video playback. If I were to play any games, I would only go back several years and finally play Half-Life 2... that's how far behind I am on games, and how little I care about the PC's ability to render high end graphics. So I would knowingly build an outdated system, but it would also be a significant improvement over my current system... I suppose if I was only talking about a $100-$150 price difference, the I would not want to intentionally build an outdated system, but the last time I looked at DDR4 it was insanely high priced... Although, if there's a major concern, I could skimp on memory as a temporary solution, and get DDR4 when I had the money to pay for it. I guess I'll take that under advisement and price out a better system vs my current build.
EDIT: Wooooooooooooowwww... a $30 difference between the 4690K and the 6600K. And about the same on the motherboard, so yeah, it's just not worthwhile to build the outdated system. Thanks for pointing that out to me.
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EPT
