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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. |
What is your budget?
1200 - 1350
What is your monitor's native resolution?
1600 x 900
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
Skyrim. Max?
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Nothing
Do you intend to overclock?
No
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
Maybe eventually
Do you need an operating system?
Yes
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
Nope
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
Preferably stuff that has good customer support.
What country will you be buying your parts in?
Canada
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
Memory express, but if i can get more by ordering online via other retailers I'd want that.
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On October 26 2013 03:22 D u o wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
What is your budget?
1200 - 1350
What is your monitor's native resolution?
1600 x 900
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
Skyrim. Max?
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Nothing
Do you intend to overclock?
No
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
Maybe eventually
Do you need an operating system?
Yes
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
Nope
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
Preferably stuff that has good customer support.
What country will you be buying your parts in?
Canada
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
Memory express, but if i can get more by ordering online via other retailers I'd want that.
Try this on for size.
+ Show Spoiler +
That's what I would recommend, total of $966.04 without the graphics card. I purposefully left out the GPU so that you can choose it yourself. There are so many viable options I just can't be arsed to choose. In your shoes I would go with a good 7970 and call it a day since that card will run any game at ultra settings in single monitor set ups, which is something I would be looking for in a gaming rig (it also fits your budget). On Newegg you also get 3 free games (seriously we don't get these offers in Europe so unfair). However it's $350+ price tag for a good model from ASUS/Gigabyte/Sapphire and there are other, less expensive options for running Skyrim at max settings.
Other cards I might look into would be GTX660 or maybe 7870/7950. Not sure.
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I plan on buy a pc thats build by someone else. Unused but has OS and some games installed as an extra deal they are doing"
I plan on buying this and stripping it for parts. And use the left overs to build a 2nd system.
How do I go about this? Can I just open it up and take everything out and rebuild the two pc with the parts?
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On October 25 2013 12:53 jubil wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 02:35 Jonoman92 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 25 2013 02:30 jubil wrote:Hi everyone, I'm very satisfied with my new computer I built about a month and a half ago using your suggestions (my old post in spoilers below). In fact, my family's home computer's video card died right when I was receiving my parts and to compensate me for replacing it with the one I had bought, my father funded an upgraded one for me. + Show Spoiler +Well, after breaking my laptop, deciding to try building a new desktop, and needing several days to educate myself on all these parts, I can safely agree that it's a significant learning experience for someone like me with very little tech knowledge.
I was hoping to use the "typical gamer" (~$865) template. I'm not sure, however, if I actually need to spend that much to reach the minimum level of performance I'm content with (basically, hearthstone, sc2, and dota 2 on medium settings); and if in fact I don't, if spending that extra money will dramatically improve the gaming experience and/or let me keep using the system an appreciably time longer than going for a much cheaper one would.
More specifically, looking over the parts, it seems like I could save the most on the storage: either getting a 120gb ssd instead of 250gb or not getting a ssd at all. Is this correct, and/or should I be looking elsewhere in the setup to save money?
Intel Core i5-4670: $220
MSI B85M-G43: $80
G.Skill Ripjaws 2x4GB: $60
Sapphire Radeon HD7870 GHz Edition OC 2GB: $185 (and newegg says it comes with 2 free games!)
Samsung 840 250GB: $175
Western Digital Blue 500GB: $55
Rosewill Capstone 450: $60
Corsair Carbide 200R: $60
Total: $895
What is your budget?
Hoping to get under $1000 incl. peripherals and software, though 100-200 over is acceptable
What is your monitor's native resolution?
I need to buy a monitor too...
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
Primarily SC2, Dota2, and Hearthstone, and possibly civ 5, far cry 3, Deus ex, mass effect 3. I'm comfortable with flashy games on medium, though of course I enjoy higher.
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Nothing demanding.
Do you intend to overclock?
No
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
No
Do you need an operating system?
Yes. At first glance I don't like the look of Windows 8 though.
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
Yes, everything besides a mouse - monitor, speakers, keyboard, cd/dvd drive
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
None
What country will you be buying your parts in?
USA
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
None
Thank you both very much for the suggestions. With dropping the SSD and getting the Radeon HD7790 I'm very satisfied with the cost, and as I understand things, I can always add an SSD or buy a better GPU sometime in the future if necessary.
Well, the old family computer finally broke and my dad bought a new one - a Gateway, model DX 4885. He was wondering if I could take the relatively new graphics card (Sapphire Radeon HD 7790) out of the old broken computer and put it in the new one. The box just says "Intel HD Graphics" and from a brief glimpse inside I don't see anything in its PCIe x16 slot, so I assume it has some kind of integrated graphics, so the physical installation process would not be an issue. As I understand it, the only problem would be the power supply - which the Gateway website says for this model is only 300W, though the OP recommends 400-450W. So my question is, can this work? If it makes a difference, I'm quite sure they don't play AAA next-gen FPS games or anything like that, so I'm not sure how relevant the power tests of cards running Battlefield 3 on high settings are. (He actually primarily wants the newer card because the new computer alone doesn't have the same DVI connection to the monitor, and he doesn't want to use a VGA because then you apparently can't use USB ports on the monitor.) Putting in a new graphics card in order to use usb ports on the monitor heh. I thought most monitors use a separate cable for getting their usb ports to work via a usb-a to usb-b cable (usb-a goes into mobo, usb-b goes into monitor, thus connecting the monitor's normal usb ports). My instinct says that VGA vs. DVI shouldn't matter for the usb ports on the monitor but I could be wrong. Oh and my guess is that the PSU would definitely not have the needed plugs in order to power the graphics card, and that is assuming the motherboard even has the appropriate PCI-E x16 slot for it (you said you saw one, but can you tell just by looking at it? I dunno maybe.) If it was my dad I'd ask him what he needs the usb ports on the monitor for so much anyway, but I am not a very respectful son. Yeah....after actually getting the case open I couldn't find a power cord connection for the card. I guess if the power supply is that awful they don't even both including connections for stuff like that? So we canned the project and he set it up. Seems pretty stupid to me though, selling computers with 4th gen i5, 8 GB memory, a 1 TB hard drive (these specs seem good, I think)....and then such a low power supply and no graphics card whatsoever.
With that kind of mass production, sometimes most of the profit comes from cutting production costs here and there. A power supply that can just barely manage to run the included components for the length of the warranty (not not allow better) will cost less than one that's better. If they're saving $5 on each unit sold... well if they sell 100,000 units that's half a million dollars right there.
I have a friend at Intel that does almost nothing but test custom heatsinks third-party manufacturers want to use in their systems (Intel makes sure they're up to snuff so they don't get blamed for 'hot' CPUs). Most of these are intended to do a crappier job cooling than even the stock Intel heatsink, but cost less and still manage a stock chip.
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On October 26 2013 05:34 IMKR wrote:
I plan on buy a pc thats build by someone else. Unused but has OS and some games installed as an extra deal they are doing"
I plan on buying this and stripping it for parts. And use the left overs to build a 2nd system.
How do I go about this? Can I just open it up and take everything out and rebuild the two pc with the parts?
Unless his labour is free and he does no markups, why would you do this?
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What does mark ups mean? And theres no labour cost.
I would only do this if I get overall profit of course 
Its a z87 board
i5 4670k
gtx 660 ti
set up for about $600
And has samsung ssd
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On October 26 2013 04:59 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2013 03:22 D u o wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
What is your budget?
1200 - 1350
What is your monitor's native resolution?
1600 x 900
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
Skyrim. Max?
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Nothing
Do you intend to overclock?
No
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
Maybe eventually
Do you need an operating system?
Yes
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
Nope
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
Preferably stuff that has good customer support.
What country will you be buying your parts in?
Canada
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
Memory express, but if i can get more by ordering online via other retailers I'd want that.
Try this on for size. + Show Spoiler +That's what I would recommend, total of $966.04 without the graphics card. I purposefully left out the GPU so that you can choose it yourself. There are so many viable options I just can't be arsed to choose. In your shoes I would go with a good 7970 and call it a day since that card will run any game at ultra settings in single monitor set ups, which is something I would be looking for in a gaming rig (it also fits your budget). On Newegg you also get 3 free games (seriously we don't get these offers in Europe so unfair). However it's $350+ price tag for a good model from ASUS/Gigabyte/Sapphire and there are other, less expensive options for running Skyrim at max settings. Other cards I might look into would be GTX660 or maybe 7870/7950. Not sure.
Thanks a lot, I'll just have my tech buddy look into what you suggested as well. I'm sorry you don't get free stuff in eu. 8( If I do decide to get what you recommended, I'll throw you a game code or something. :D
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On October 26 2013 06:07 IMKR wrote:+ Show Spoiler +What does mark ups mean? And theres no labour cost. I would only do this if I get overall profit of course Its a z87 board i5 4670k gtx 660 ti set up for about $600 And has samsung ssd
The amount added to cover overhead and generate a profit? I really don't understand. If he's doing this at a loss than okay why wouldn't you buy it than?
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Nonono.
im saying I will but it off him.
My question is when I do strip the parts off so I can use only the parts I need and use the leftovers for a 2nd build, how would I do that?
The pc is up and running with os installed and couple games in as part of the deal.
So im wondering how do I strip out the parts and use it for my build and left overs for 2nd rig if like the bios and harddrive is already used?
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You just take it apart. There's nothing you need to do to re-use the parts.
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even when the PC already has OS installed and has some programs (games) installed on it? (its on the hard drive then right?)
If i just take that hard drive and plug it into another new PC build, it wont interfere or anything?
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Yes, the operating system and programs are on the harddrive.
If you want to use the drive as your primary drive than it will be best to format and reinstall so that drivers do not conflict. If you want to do it the hard way than you can uninstall all the drivers and find the appropriate drivers for the new hardware. If you want to use it as a secondary drive than it's just plug and play.
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On October 26 2013 04:59 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2013 03:22 D u o wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
What is your budget?
1200 - 1350
What is your monitor's native resolution?
1600 x 900
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
Skyrim. Max?
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Nothing
Do you intend to overclock?
No
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
Maybe eventually
Do you need an operating system?
Yes
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
Nope
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
Preferably stuff that has good customer support.
What country will you be buying your parts in?
Canada
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
Memory express, but if i can get more by ordering online via other retailers I'd want that.
Try this on for size. + Show Spoiler +That's what I would recommend, total of $966.04 without the graphics card. I purposefully left out the GPU so that you can choose it yourself. There are so many viable options I just can't be arsed to choose. In your shoes I would go with a good 7970 and call it a day since that card will run any game at ultra settings in single monitor set ups, which is something I would be looking for in a gaming rig (it also fits your budget). On Newegg you also get 3 free games (seriously we don't get these offers in Europe so unfair). However it's $350+ price tag for a good model from ASUS/Gigabyte/Sapphire and there are other, less expensive options for running Skyrim at max settings. Other cards I might look into would be GTX660 or maybe 7870/7950. Not sure.
Do this build but buy from memory express instead. I have used them for years and oh look you prefer them as well. When I built my current PC years ago I made the mistake of splitting parts between Newegg and memory express. The shipping costs offset the price of the build, and memory express price matches anyway. You will save the difference in shipping if there is any before price matching. Oh and the parts I ordered through memory express on the same day, and paid for next day shipping with both newegg and memory express took 2 days longer from New Egg. With memory express inside of canada next day is literally next day even in the remoteness of the oil patch I live in.
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On October 26 2013 09:05 B_Type13X2 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2013 04:59 Incognoto wrote:On October 26 2013 03:22 D u o wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
What is your budget?
1200 - 1350
What is your monitor's native resolution?
1600 x 900
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
Skyrim. Max?
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Nothing
Do you intend to overclock?
No
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
Maybe eventually
Do you need an operating system?
Yes
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
Nope
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
Preferably stuff that has good customer support.
What country will you be buying your parts in?
Canada
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
Memory express, but if i can get more by ordering online via other retailers I'd want that.
Try this on for size. + Show Spoiler +That's what I would recommend, total of $966.04 without the graphics card. I purposefully left out the GPU so that you can choose it yourself. There are so many viable options I just can't be arsed to choose. In your shoes I would go with a good 7970 and call it a day since that card will run any game at ultra settings in single monitor set ups, which is something I would be looking for in a gaming rig (it also fits your budget). On Newegg you also get 3 free games (seriously we don't get these offers in Europe so unfair). However it's $350+ price tag for a good model from ASUS/Gigabyte/Sapphire and there are other, less expensive options for running Skyrim at max settings. Other cards I might look into would be GTX660 or maybe 7870/7950. Not sure. Do this build but buy from memory express instead. I have used them for years and oh look you prefer them as well. When I built my current PC years ago I made the mistake of splitting parts between Newegg and memory express. The shipping costs offset the price of the build, and memory express price matches anyway. You will save the difference in shipping if there is any before price matching. Oh and the parts I ordered through memory express on the same day, and paid for next day shipping with both newegg and memory express took 2 days longer from New Egg. With memory express inside of canada next day is literally next day even in the remoteness of the oil patch I live in. Well I'm in edmonton, so I'm sure I can pick up 80-90% of the parts the same day, if not all of them. :D Thanks for confirming what I thought though.
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On October 26 2013 09:16 D u o wrote:Show nested quote +On October 26 2013 09:05 B_Type13X2 wrote:On October 26 2013 04:59 Incognoto wrote:On October 26 2013 03:22 D u o wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
What is your budget?
1200 - 1350
What is your monitor's native resolution?
1600 x 900
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
Skyrim. Max?
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Nothing
Do you intend to overclock?
No
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
Maybe eventually
Do you need an operating system?
Yes
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget?
Nope
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify.
Preferably stuff that has good customer support.
What country will you be buying your parts in?
Canada
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
Memory express, but if i can get more by ordering online via other retailers I'd want that.
Try this on for size. + Show Spoiler +That's what I would recommend, total of $966.04 without the graphics card. I purposefully left out the GPU so that you can choose it yourself. There are so many viable options I just can't be arsed to choose. In your shoes I would go with a good 7970 and call it a day since that card will run any game at ultra settings in single monitor set ups, which is something I would be looking for in a gaming rig (it also fits your budget). On Newegg you also get 3 free games (seriously we don't get these offers in Europe so unfair). However it's $350+ price tag for a good model from ASUS/Gigabyte/Sapphire and there are other, less expensive options for running Skyrim at max settings. Other cards I might look into would be GTX660 or maybe 7870/7950. Not sure. Do this build but buy from memory express instead. I have used them for years and oh look you prefer them as well. When I built my current PC years ago I made the mistake of splitting parts between Newegg and memory express. The shipping costs offset the price of the build, and memory express price matches anyway. You will save the difference in shipping if there is any before price matching. Oh and the parts I ordered through memory express on the same day, and paid for next day shipping with both newegg and memory express took 2 days longer from New Egg. With memory express inside of canada next day is literally next day even in the remoteness of the oil patch I live in. Well I'm in edmonton, so I'm sure I can pick up 80-90% of the parts the same day, if not all of them. :D Thanks for confirming what I thought though.
They are the best in western Canada period.
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Ah sorry didn't know why there was a retailer preference so I went ahead and just went with what was cheap. I also didn't take price matching into account either, which probably goes for something when buying parts in Canada. ^^
Have fun and feel free to criticize parts of the build you don't agree with because you never know, you might find a good sale on a pretty good part for something else which might be worth looking into.
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On October 25 2013 23:07 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 10:26 Brett wrote:It's been a while since I originally posted, but I ended up getting only one GTX780 Classified as there wasn't enough stock... Am now waiting to see what the performance of BF4 is like at launch, but I dare say I will want another card to SLI and head back up to ~120FPS. All major pc part retailers in Aus seem to have no stock and no ETA for these cards... What would everyone else recommend as an alternative to the Classified if I can't get my hands on another to pair up with my existing card? I haven't got my classified running at a particularly high OC (about 1250mhz) because it seems the voltage lock is an impediment to stability in games at higher clock speeds despite stability in testing (well known issue with games when using DX11 features on OC'd cards), so I probably could get away with 'non-top-of-range' 780's so long as they overclock reasonably well. Was considering this: http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=24887Thoughts? Voltage lock? What voltage lock  Check out www.overclock.net, they'll guide you through what's safe etc. You can add a bit more juice than stock. 1250 is a good OC considering it's cleanly >30% faster than stock reference, but you can do more, 99% Before you make a purchase though, make sure you're not CPU limited. Benchmark Battlefield 4 on 720p - A single 780 on 720p will perform better than two on 1080. If you don't have the framerates you want*, you're probably CPU limited. Unless they improved the game engine a lot, it won't be possible to consistently have >120fps, because the beta was terrible. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/L6dSHWw.png) *^pm me a fraps frametimes.csv file if you want one of those graphs with a datapoint for every frame, they are super useful ^entirely CPU limited, 720p on 4770k @4.6ghz ht on, gtx770 @1293mhz. A lot of time at high FPS, but a lot of time below 60 sub-second too. That would still be there if i had two classified 780's on the build of the game i was playing, even if i had peaks of 200fps and my fps averaged to 100, so it would be quite a pointless upgrade I hear it improved, but don't have numbers on that.
Yeah, the CPU use in BF4 is on another level, however I do believe there was a patch sometime after you did that benchmark which reduced the CPU 'pressure' somewhat and, as far as I could tell, removed the massive dips lots of people were experiencing. I will certainly check my performance as you suggested to see whether I should upgrade my i5-2500k.
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United Kingdom20323 Posts
They'd have to more than double the performance of the game for you to be able to pass ~100fps consistently on the low end (checking frametimes.. where you have a data point for every frame, instead of just the last 50-100 of them averaged) and i'm skeptical
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Is Battlefield 4 one of those games that's known for it's great game play (like Counter Strike or maybe LoL), or is it like Crysis or Far Cry where the great thing about the game is the graphics? Not that the game play in either of those two titles is bad, it's actually pretty good. But those games are more about high-end graphics for high-end systems. In which category can we put Battlefield 4?
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On October 26 2013 17:35 Incognoto wrote:
Is Battlefield 4 one of those games that's known for it's great game play (like Counter Strike or maybe LoL), or is it like Crysis or Far Cry where the great thing about the game is the graphics? Not that the game play in either of those two titles is bad, it's actually pretty good. But those games are more about high-end graphics for high-end systems. In which category can we put Battlefield 4?
Well BF series is all about the multiplayer, so I guess that sets it apart from Crysis and Far Cry.
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