EPTComputer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread - Page 28
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Xinder
United States2269 Posts
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gongshow41
Korea (South)49 Posts
I am new to building computers and am about to embark on my first build as I have recently moved and my old computer was left behind. What im curious about is the restriction the the micro-ATX motherboards will put on my build and what sacrafices i have to make over a normal sized ATX board. Its hard to gather from just spec lists and was wondering if you guys could share a little first hand knowledge. Thanks | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On September 15 2013 19:39 gongshow41 wrote: Hello all. I am new to building computers and am about to embark on my first build as I have recently moved and my old computer was left behind. What im curious about is the restriction the the micro-ATX motherboards will put on my build and what sacrafices i have to make over a normal sized ATX board. Its hard to gather from just spec lists and was wondering if you guys could share a little first hand knowledge. Thanks I could be wrong with this post as I don't have as much experience as some posters here. However I'll answer anyway, if I'm wrong or my post has incomplete information, I'm sure someone will fix that. I'll learn in the process (I love this thread just for the sheer amount of knowledge laying around here). Anyway, the way I see it, if you're going to overclock your CPU or GPU, you'll probably need an ATX motherboard. I believe that a good motherboard is essential if you're going to overclock, I garnered this when people here recommended me to take a B85 motherboard which is the micro-ATX size, when I said I wasn't going to overclock. Um, I also think that if you're going to use Crossfire or SLI (ie use 2 of the same graphic cards), you need an ATX motherboard that has the available PCI slots to do so. A micro-ATX motherboard is doesn't have the room to support more than one graphics card, though I know that at least the board I'm getting can fit in any full sized graphics card. I also think that the amount of RAM slots you can get depends on the size of the motherboard, but 8 Gb of RAM is fine for gaming. Obviously, getting a smaller micro-ATX motherboard with a micro-ATX case is cheaper than getting the ATX size, so depending on what you're planning to do with your computer, you may or may not need an ATX size. It would really help others around here give you good advice if you say what you're going to do with your computer, you should really fill out the form in the OP. ^^ | ||
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iTzSnypah
United States1738 Posts
On September 15 2013 19:53 Incognoto wrote: Anyway, the way I see it, if you're going to overclock your CPU or GPU, you'll probably need an ATX motherboard. I believe that a good motherboard is essential if you're going to overclock, I garnered this when people here recommended me to take a B85 motherboard which is the micro-ATX size, when I said I wasn't going to overclock. That's very false. While almost all 'overclocking' focused motherboards are ATX sized, you can't imply that ATX boards are better than mATX boards for overclocking. It all depends on the model. Um, I also think that if you're going to use Crossfire or SLI (ie use 2 of the same graphic cards), you need an ATX motherboard that has the available PCI slots to do so. A micro-ATX motherboard is doesn't have the room to support more than one graphics card, though I know that at least the board I'm getting can fit in any full sized graphics card. mATX motherboards have 4 expansion slots, which is enough for a 2 card SLI/CF configuration . ATX boards have 7, which is enough for a 4 card array. It all depends on PCI layout as laid out by the manufacturer. I also think that the amount of RAM slots you can get depends on the size of the motherboard, but 8 Gb of RAM is fine for gaming. ATX boards have 4 slots (up to 8 on X79 boards) and mATX boards have either 2 or 4, it's all up to the manufacturer. The take away from this is: It all depends on which model you buy, size rarely matters. | ||
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Rollin
Australia1552 Posts
On September 15 2013 19:58 iTzSnypah wrote: The take away from this is: ... size rarely matters. In other matters however, this doesn't hold true  . | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On September 15 2013 19:58 iTzSnypah wrote: None really. Unless you are an Overclocking enthusiast or want to run 3 or more graphics cards in SLI/CF motherboard size (barring micro-ITX and oversized boards like SSI EEB/CEB) doesn't really matter. It's really only aesthetics as having a mATX board in an ATX case will look awkward; that doesn't matter however unless you have a case with a window. That's very false. While almost all 'overclocking' focused motherboards are ATX sized, you can't imply that ATX boards are better than mATX boards for overclocking. It all depends on the model. mATX motherboards have 4 expansion slots, which is enough for a 2 card SLI/CF configuration . ATX boards have 7, which is enough for a 4 card array. It all depends on PCI layout as laid out by the manufacturer. ATX boards have 4 slots (up to 8 on X79 boards) and mATX boards have either 2 or 4, it's all up to the manufacturer. The take away from this is: It all depends on which model you buy, size rarely matters. Ok thanks :p I was conjecturing why anyone would ever go with ATX instead of microATX and I guess I got it all wrong. Size apparently only matters in terms of case compatibility then I guess. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20275 Posts
That's very false. While almost all 'overclocking' focused motherboards are ATX sized, you can't imply that ATX boards are better than mATX boards for overclocking. It all depends on the model. There is no mATX board that matches the z87x-d3h in terms of power phases, load temperatures etc at anywhere near the price that i am aware of ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/m5m04GM.jpg) The question is, how hard are you pushing and does it matter | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/product/2/4441/7255_big.jpg http://www.gigabyte.com/fileupload/product/2/4168/5741_big.jpg If you look at the configuration of the VRM area around the CPU socket, they are the same. The mATX board was more expensive. The 4-pin for CPU power is a bit suspicious, but there was an experiment with 6+ GHz suggesting you can run Ivy Bridge with 4-pins for power no matter what. EDIT: Oops... I didn't notice your photos are about Z87X-D3H. Read that as Z77X-D3H.  | ||
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iTzSnypah
United States1738 Posts
On September 16 2013 01:43 Cyro wrote: It's easier/cheaper to put more features etc on a bigger board, if you tried to run a high overclock on matx it'd probably blow up, haswell can pull over 200 watts. Most people are thermally limited at like 130 though, and it's aparantly easier on the vrm's to drop 12v to ~2v vrin instead of lower voltage for the cpu directly, so it's not really like AMD side where matx is suicide because the cpu is trying to pull 250 watts at 1.45 volts There is no mATX board that matches the z87x-d3h in terms of power phases, load temperatures etc at anywhere near the price that i am aware of I never said any thing about price. Also I said On September 15 2013 19:58 iTzSnypah wrote: Unless you are an Overclocking enthusiast Therefore Void. On another note the best H81 board by far (excluding the mITX ones) is the ASRock H81M. It and the ASRock H81M-HDS are the only H81 boards that have a USB3.0 header. The H81M has the most fan headers at 5 (2xCPU, 2xCase (controllable?), 1x3pin) while also having the Best audio codex (892) and I believe the best networking of the H81 selection (qualcomm atheros). On side note of that; the only difference between the H81M-DGS and H81M-HDS is $2 and a USB3.0 Header. E: Also the Budget Gamer build should be Haswell updated: i3-4130 $130 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116946 ASRock H81M $60 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157448 Also have you noticed that the entry Pentiums have gotten a 300Mhz boost this gen? Sandy G620 2.6Ghz Ivy G2020 2.7Ghz Haswell G3220 3Ghz To me it looks like Intel is trying to win at the bottom. | ||
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Leeoku
1617 Posts
800-1K Cad What is your monitor's native resolution? Don't know, prob going to buy a 21 inch? I think thats 1377*768 What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings? Dota, high (or ultra if can) What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming? Gaming will be the most intensive, possibly dual monitoring and virtual pc simulating Do you intend to overclock? If you teach me and it's simple/noob friendly yes 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? Please include a monitor seperate from budget If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify. Intel processor. Nvidia please. I also need a wireless card for desktop What country will you be buying your parts in? Canada (don't mind buying/shipping from us sites if cheaper) If you have any retailer preferences, please specify. Reliable and cheap anywhere please | ||
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iTzSnypah
United States1738 Posts
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Rollin
Australia1552 Posts
On September 16 2013 13:37 Leeoku wrote: virtual pc simulating Can you be more specific? How many VMs? What kind of workloads? | ||
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Leeoku
1617 Posts
As for VM's i'll prob be using VMware or virtual box and just simulating 1-2 instances of other OS like linux I don't know how to set up dual monitors although it should be just plugging it into to two VGA or hdmi ports...rite? | ||
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Brett
Australia3820 Posts
On September 14 2013 09:39 Cyro wrote: Sounds like you might want two 780's, you could spend a bunch going to Haswell too on the CPU front but the performance upgrade is much smaller there, hard to guarantee more than 10 or 15% in many games and applications Take a look at this - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/831?vs=764 Linked vs Titan, because the custom cooled 780's* are neck and neck with titans on the stock bios's and even if you're an extreme overclocker, titan is only a bit better (paying like 50% more for 10% better performance) but really, for the average person, they're basically identical. See this: http://www.overclock.net/t/1400319/titan-vs-780-stock-bios-reference-card-oc-battle/0_20 If you wanted to iterate on the CPU, we've got Haswell-E coming probably with solder (so it'll run cool) and 6-8 cores in second half of 2014 to first half of 2015 on the enthusiast platform, or Skylake coming with faster quad cores and maybe a mainstream intel 6 core in 2015-2016, which would basically be 2500k/2600k equivelants in the market and hopefully be more of an upgrade *I meant like the windforce model, for example. Titan only has(had? i have not heard much from them recently) a reference cooler which looked great but performed pretty bad in terms of GPU temperatures relative to the offerings from asus, gigabyte etc, but nvidia locked down the titan models and didn't let anybody sell them with anything but the reference cooler, at least at first. I'm not certain that this is still the case, but there's still little reason to buy a titan over a 780, they're soo close in performance unless you want some niche features (6gb vram, fp64 performance) or are an extreme overclocker (bios flashed, water block etc) Thanks for this post. After reading it I did some further research into the 780 and the next cycle of GPU's. By all reports the 780 is a brilliant card and an SLI set up would likely carry me through until I again decide to upgrade. The question I'm left with is whether now is a sensible time to buy.... We are heading into the next generation, and at the moment my sli 570's are still doing quite well. I have read that another line of Radeon cards are due approximately next month (probably to tackle the higher end market that Nvidia has cornered at present) and that Nvidia are gearing up for an 8xx, maxwell-based, GPU launch in first quarter 2014 to respond. Obviously the technology wheel is always turning, and there's always something else coming next, but given the potential for new products to be coming so soon, does anyone think it'd be worth waiting a few months for the inevitable price drop on the 7xx line? | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
If AMD releases a significantly better GPU before products in 2014 on 20nm process, it's going to be a larger chip that's expensive and probably won't beat 780 in performance by much. The price should be commensurate with the performance. There will be a bigger jump up if you wait for early (early-mid?) 2014 when GPUs on 20nm arrive, though the pricing at launch shouldn't be much out of line with what you can get now. It's just that the performance ceiling should go up. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On September 16 2013 15:54 Brett wrote: Thanks for this post. After reading it I did some further research into the 780 and the next cycle of GPU's. By all reports the 780 is a brilliant card and an SLI set up would likely carry me through until I again decide to upgrade. The question I'm left with is whether now is a sensible time to buy.... We are heading into the next generation, and at the moment my sli 570's are still doing quite well. I have read that another line of Radeon cards are due approximately next month (probably to tackle the higher end market that Nvidia has cornered at present) and that Nvidia are gearing up for an 8xx, maxwell-based, GPU launch in first quarter 2014 to respond. Obviously the technology wheel is always turning, and there's always something else coming next, but given the potential for new products to be coming so soon, does anyone think it'd be worth waiting a few months for the inevitable price drop on the 7xx line? Heh, you upgrade quite a lot. ^^ My current build is completely ancient compared to what you have. I wouldn't mind a single 570. At the moment I'm using: Processor: Intel Core Q6600 (2.4 Ghz) (quad core) RAM: 3 Gb Video Card: ATI Radeon 3450 I've been able to play almost every game on lowest settings up til now, including Crysis 1, Far Cry 2 and Skyrim. | ||
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iTzSnypah
United States1738 Posts
On September 16 2013 15:54 Brett wrote:+ Show Spoiler + On September 14 2013 09:39 Cyro wrote: Sounds like you might want two 780's, you could spend a bunch going to Haswell too on the CPU front but the performance upgrade is much smaller there, hard to guarantee more than 10 or 15% in many games and applications Take a look at this - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/831?vs=764 Linked vs Titan, because the custom cooled 780's* are neck and neck with titans on the stock bios's and even if you're an extreme overclocker, titan is only a bit better (paying like 50% more for 10% better performance) but really, for the average person, they're basically identical. See this: http://www.overclock.net/t/1400319/titan-vs-780-stock-bios-reference-card-oc-battle/0_20 If you wanted to iterate on the CPU, we've got Haswell-E coming probably with solder (so it'll run cool) and 6-8 cores in second half of 2014 to first half of 2015 on the enthusiast platform, or Skylake coming with faster quad cores and maybe a mainstream intel 6 core in 2015-2016, which would basically be 2500k/2600k equivelants in the market and hopefully be more of an upgrade *I meant like the windforce model, for example. Titan only has(had? i have not heard much from them recently) a reference cooler which looked great but performed pretty bad in terms of GPU temperatures relative to the offerings from asus, gigabyte etc, but nvidia locked down the titan models and didn't let anybody sell them with anything but the reference cooler, at least at first. I'm not certain that this is still the case, but there's still little reason to buy a titan over a 780, they're soo close in performance unless you want some niche features (6gb vram, fp64 performance) or are an extreme overclocker (bios flashed, water block etc) Thanks for this post. After reading it I did some further research into the 780 and the next cycle of GPU's. By all reports the 780 is a brilliant card and an SLI set up would likely carry me through until I again decide to upgrade. The question I'm left with is whether now is a sensible time to buy.... We are heading into the next generation, and at the moment my sli 570's are still doing quite well. I have read that another line of Radeon cards are due approximately next month (probably to tackle the higher end market that Nvidia has cornered at present) and that Nvidia are gearing up for an 8xx, maxwell-based, GPU launch in first quarter 2014 to respond. Obviously the technology wheel is always turning, and there's always something else coming next, but given the potential for new products to be coming so soon, does anyone think it'd be worth waiting a few months for the inevitable price drop on the 7xx line? You could always get a new motherboard and run triple 570's, as you have more than enough PSU to do so. Then sell your current motherboard, I bet it would cost less than $300 to buy a used 570 and a used motherboard with the PLX chip with 3 PCIe slots. Too bad your case only has 7 expansion slots else you could run Quad 570's. | ||
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Rollin
Australia1552 Posts
On September 16 2013 19:04 Incognoto wrote: Heh, you upgrade quite a lot. ^^ My current build is completely ancient compared to what you have. I wouldn't mind a single 570. At the moment I'm using: Processor: Intel Core Q6600 (2.4 Ghz) (quad core) RAM: 3 Gb Video Card: ATI Radeon 3450 I've been able to play almost every game on lowest settings up til now, including Crysis 1, Far Cry 2 and Skyrim. A 3450 wouldn't be able to run those frames at a nice framerate at all, easily under 30fps averages. | ||
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MisterFred
United States2033 Posts
On September 16 2013 13:37 Leeoku wrote: What is your budget? 800-1K Cad + Show Spoiler + What is your monitor's native resolution? Don't know, prob going to buy a 21 inch? I think thats 1377*768 What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings? Dota, high (or ultra if can) What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming? Gaming will be the most intensive, possibly dual monitoring and virtual pc simulating Do you intend to overclock? If you teach me and it's simple/noob friendly yes 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? Please include a monitor seperate from budget If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify. Intel processor. Nvidia please. I also need a wireless card for desktop What country will you be buying your parts in? Canada (don't mind buying/shipping from us sites if cheaper) If you have any retailer preferences, please specify. Reliable and cheap anywhere please I'm not sure what your monitor budget is, so I'm just going to add $200 CAD to you overall budget. A note also on buying from Canada: often you can get the parts you need from NCIX or some other nearby brick-and-mortar retailer. This is good as it saves shipping. More than that, Canadian retailers price match. So if the same part is $20 off at newegg.ca and you bring the internet link, add, whatever, to NCIX, NCIX will take off that amount. That lets you get all your parts from the same retailer without losing out on specials. I'm giving you a general idea on a configuration from NCIX, but I haven't checked all the retailers online. It would be wise of you to check memory express, other Canadian retailers for opportunities to price match. If you get lucky, SkyR will notice your post. He loves his fellow Canadians and is often very kind in finding price matching deals for them. But who knows, maybe he's busy for the next week or so. Relatively easy decisions: i5-4570 ($208) http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=81329&vpn=BX80646I54570&manufacture=Intel&promoid=1307 Not overclockable, pretty good given that restriction. Gigabyte H81 mobo ($70) http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=89799&vpn=GA-H81M-S2PV&manufacture=Gigabyte Chosen because it's the cheapest available 1150 mobo on ncix.ca, not for any other reason (when not overclocking, mobo choice has almost no effect on core performance). 2x4gb Corsair RAM, 1600mhz ($72) http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=55445&vpn=CMX8GX3M2A1600C9&manufacture=Corsair&promoid=1307 Similar. Decent RAM at a not-horrific price. Ok, it's pretty bad. But welcome to modern RAM prices. Bit Fenix Beta Case ($30) http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=81659&vpn=BFC-MRC-100-KKX2-U3&manufacture=BitFenix&promoid=1307 Decent case, cheap price. I can guarantee it's... acceptable... as I own an Alpha (basically the same thing) myself. Often times you can find a Fractal Design Core 1000 (mATX-sized) for about this price and I would recommend it. But it's currently $40 on ncix.ca. EVGA 500w PSU ($45 before $15 rebate) http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=85625&vpn=100-B1-0500-KR&manufacture=eVGA&promoid=1307 It's decent, and won't break the bank. Hard to find in power supplies these days. Seagate 1TB ($68) http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=65701&vpn=ST1000DM003&manufacture=Others&promoid=1307 Generally a good idea to get a hard drive. DVD-burner ($18) http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=76258&vpn=SH-224DB/BEBE&manufacture=Others&promoid=1307 USB Wireless Dongle ($22) http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=46387&vpn=USB-N13&manufacture=ASUS&promoid=1307 Sub-total: $533 ($586 w/tax estimate) Now for the harder decisions: monitor and graphics card. I'm also trying to remember you'll need to pay taxes. I'm just going to add on 10% for my convenience. For monitor, I'm bumping you up to a 23-24" 1920x1080 monitor, because who the heck wants a tiny 21" piece of crap? The BENQ gw2450hm is a great performer for the price of $170 CAD, with the ASUS MX239H being in the high-end of this particular monitor segment for $240, but it's excellent in terms of quality. http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=69380&vpn=GW2450HM&manufacture=BenQ&promoid=1307 http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=79444&vpn=MX239H&manufacture=ASUS&promoid=1307 That leaves us about $200 for a video card, which given your needs, should be sufficient. Being a bit generous w/budget, that puts you at about a GTX 660. However, at current pricing I highly recommend you ditch your Nvidia bias and go for an AMD 7950. At the same price it adds more power. The small advantages Nvidia has don't surpass that in my opinion. But whatever. The 660 is a little cheaper anyway ASUS GTX 660 ($215 before rebate) http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=76367&vpn=GTX660-DC2O-2GD5&manufacture=ASUS&promoid=1307 Powercolor 7950 ($240 before rebate) http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=84902&vpn=AX7950 3GBD5-2DHV5E&manufacture=PowerColor&promoid=1307 Bringing us to the totals (before taxes & shipping): w/BenQ monitor & 660: $918 CAD w/ASUS monitor & 7950: $1013 CAD Again, you may be able to bring that down by bargain hunting & price-matching. Is this the best for VMs? Maybe not, but I think it'll do fine and you'll be quite happy with it. You could also consider overclocking an AMD fx-8320, but I was not at all certain you would consider that noob friendly enough. | ||
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Shield
Bulgaria4824 Posts
Specs are: CPU: Intel Core i5-2410M (Link: click) RAM: 4 GB DDR3 Video Card: NVIDIA 540M (Link: click) Edit: I have all the right specs now. | ||
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