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You don't need an 800 Watt PSU. Also, there is no substantial reason for people to grab an X58 chipset anymore. the Sandy Bridge i7s are faster, have better overclocking capabilities and the motherboards that support them will most likely be Ivy Bridge compatible. I recommend the i7-2600k, if you want to save money the i5-2500k is plenty fast for gaming. A P67 or Z67 motherboard would go well and allow for overclocking. If you don't want to overclock, you can pick up an H67 chipset motherboard alongside either the i5-2400 or the i7-2600.
16 Gigs of ram is overkill. 8 Gigs is enough. If you do decide that you want X58. You have a ram set that is 4 pieces. X58 goes in multiples of 3. So you would get 12gb.
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just change out the CPU/ MOBO/ PSU and you will have a better computer.
2500k is $215 and is faster than the 950 which is $250
If you want 16gb of ram, your gonnna need an 1155 board, p67 is a great choice for overclocking
with 1 GPU your looking at like a 450watt power supply max, if your planning on adding another gpu maybe 500-550 at the max.
plus you will save literally like $200-300 just by switching them out. With your extra money you can get another HDD for raid or a bigger case, and possibly an after market heatsink/fan
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On September 02 2011 15:49 Boblhead wrote:
just change out the CPU/ MOBO/ PSU and you will have a better computer.
2500k is $215 and is faster than the 950 which is $250
If you want 16gb of ram, your gonnna need an 1155 board, p67 is a great choice for overclocking
with 1 GPU your looking at like a 450watt power supply max, if your planning on adding another gpu maybe 500-550 at the max.
plus you will save literally like $200-300 just by switching them out. With your extra money you can get another HDD for raid or a bigger case, and possibly an after market heatsink/fan
A) don't use RAID, if you do still want to spend the savings, get an SSD
B) you HAVE to buy an aftermarket heatsink/fan if you plan on overclocking
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On September 02 2011 16:09 CharlieBrownsc wrote:Show nested quote +On September 02 2011 15:49 Boblhead wrote:
just change out the CPU/ MOBO/ PSU and you will have a better computer.
2500k is $215 and is faster than the 950 which is $250
If you want 16gb of ram, your gonnna need an 1155 board, p67 is a great choice for overclocking
with 1 GPU your looking at like a 450watt power supply max, if your planning on adding another gpu maybe 500-550 at the max.
plus you will save literally like $200-300 just by switching them out. With your extra money you can get another HDD for raid or a bigger case, and possibly an after market heatsink/fan A) don't use RAID, if you do still want to spend the savings, get an SSD B) you HAVE to buy an aftermarket heatsink/fan if you plan on overclocking
are you srs? RAID HDD's are like 100x more reliable when it comes to not randomly failing and losing all your data, with RAID HDD's at least you can recover most if not all the data lost during a crash.
i still can't believe you would suggest not to raid T_T, are you in the fucking stone age?
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On September 02 2011 16:42 Boblhead wrote:
are you srs? RAID HDD's are like 100x more reliable when it comes to not randomly failing and losing all your data, with RAID HDD's at least you can recover most if not all the data lost during a crash.
i still can't believe you would suggest not to raid T_T, are you in the fucking stone age?
Raid is a terrible alternative for regular backups. It has no protection against accidental deletions or malware infections. In addition, you generally can't easily transfer a disk that was used in a raid array (even raid-1) to another machine without the same raid-controller and read the files. These days most of what fills large harddisks is easily downloadable from the internet (because that's where it came from originally anyway) and consequently not worthy of backups.
Raid is nice for business purposes where it can be essential to keep a machine running at all times, even when a disk fails. For consumer purposes raid is fairly pointless and can lull the user into a false sense of security. Much better to setup a solid backup strategy with an external disk or a NAS.
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On September 02 2011 15:49 Boblhead wrote:
just change out the CPU/ MOBO/ PSU and you will have a better computer.
2500k is $215 and is faster than the 950 which is $250
If you want 16gb of ram, your gonnna need an 1155 board, p67 is a great choice for overclocking
with 1 GPU your looking at like a 450watt power supply max, if your planning on adding another gpu maybe 500-550 at the max.
plus you will save literally like $200-300 just by switching them out. With your extra money you can get another HDD for raid or a bigger case, and possibly an after market heatsink/fan
Are you saing that a extra 560Ti consumes 50W to 100W?....
And about raids, only use it if you got 5+ hdds and you can have raid 0 + raid backups, otherway, Small SSD for OS only, regular hdds for rest is more then enought ( most of the really slowing down aplications are OS related anyway).
Now i wont tell you waht you have to do but in the PSU i always go the safer side, and im currently using 700W thermaltake for a q6600 (3ghz),4 gb ddr3 1 560ti 3 hdd 9 fans 1 frontal lcd panel, 1 water pump, 2 dvd-rw. (its easy to forget those little extras here and there)
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^^Measure how much of those 700 W you are actually using then. It's probably not even close.
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well... 16gb ram is overkill. get 8gb (which is still overkill imo but others seem to think otherwise) and save yourself $50
and yeah i agree with sandy bridge and downgrade psu
edit: also i'd go for 6950, unless you're a loyal fan of nvidia 
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If you're not looking to spend much then listen to most of the suggestions in this thread, however forget RAID IMO.
Just get an SSD if you require speed and a storage drive. 120GB SSD ~$150 then 1TB for storage. But you can still just rock the single drive and won't hurt you on SC2.
and YES go sandy bridge i5-2500k. You can OC out the box to 4.0-4.5Ghz easily just tweaking multiplier and vcore. It'll smash that 960 and it is cheaper. 1155 board to match
As others mentioned 8GB ram, you said you wanted to save money right?
Single GPU, just get a QUALITY 550-650w PSU. Seasonic or Corsair are good. Although a 450w may do the job as listed above, the 560 Ti is rated I believe for a 500w-550w. I know for sure a 6870 wants a 500w 30A, and the 560 Ti is a tad more power hungry. Just get a quality 550-600w and you'll be fine. The PSU is EXTREMELY important in a computer build, so get one that is AT LEAST what your GPU recommends by manufacturer.
560 Ti is actually pretty good bang for the buck if you want to go nvidia. Or others suggested a 6950, but this is really just a preference thing if you want to play at 1080p. Both will play SC2 very well.
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X58 isn't going to be a good bang for the buck compared to the Sandy Bridge generation.
If you plan on overclocking an i5 2500k + P67 motherboard (like the ASRock P67 Pro3) + Heatsink will run you about ~$350. And it beats the X58/950 combo, which is more expensive.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=100
Otherwise, you can go with an i5 2400 + H61/H67 motherboard + No Heatsink, which will you about ~$250. Which still beats the X58/950 combo in many benchmarks.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/363?vs=100
A system using a 560 Ti is going to use up about 360W under full load, so that PSU is overkill. I would suggest a Corsair CX430 V2 or Antec Neo Eco 400W, for less than half the cost.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/330
4GB of RAM is going to be about all you need. There isn't much performance gained (for the average user) from even 3GB+. G.Skill's basic 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 kit for $26 should do the trick.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-module-upgrade,2264-3.html
Now, if you're looking to REALLY save, and you want me to nitpick...
The Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200 RPM is $50 right now. It's solid and reliable.
Depending on (1) what games you want to play and (2) what resolution your monitor is going to be, the 560 Ti might be overkill. If you tell what games and what resolution, we'll have a better way to make a suggestion.
Ignore all comments about SSD, RAID, SLI/Crossfire, if you're just strictly looking to get a best-bang-for-the-buck-gaming-PC. Otherwise, give us more specifications on what you will be using it for.
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wow, raid vs ssd, nvidia vs radeon, we're getting all the pc arguements here aren't we?
It's already been said, but your mobo is 3 channel, meaning it will work best with up to 3 sticks of RAM. Basically that means multiples or three will give your most bang for buck. 6gb, 12 gb.
The only advantage the i7-950 has over the i5-2500k is the ability to have 4 extra virtual cores (so 4 real, 4 virtual, 8 total). This is good for multithreaded applications, but not used at all for gaming. The i5 actually has better arcitecture (32nm) compared to i7 (45nm). aguably, you can overclock the i5 higher than the i7.
I think at your gpu's price, you can get the radeon 6950 for cheaper and the card is a bit better. (this is contentious, but I think bias aside, the radeon is better in this case)
A comment on the hdd vs ssd: ssd's do not fail more randomly than hdd. If anything, their a bit more sturdy. However, you should decide whethere shelling out 100$ for about 60gb and your computer booting 6 seconds faster is worth it.
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I don't think there's anything arguable about it.
You can overclock the i5 to 4.5 with no skill whatsoever. 4.5 on the i7 950 takes quite a bit of TLC. I had a 2500k running @ 4.8 stable almost as soon as I got it out of the box.
SSDs don't just help with boot-up. They help with loading and application start-ups, which to a lot of people is more than worth it. Personally, I don't think it's worth the money, but it's not just shaving off 6 seconds off your boot-up.
Suggesting a GPU is kind of dumb if there's no basis for resolution/games/other uses. Just because someone can afford a 560 Ti/6950/6870/etc. doesn't mean they should just go ahead and buy it. If he's only playing SC2 on 1280x1024, it's a big waste of money.
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Thanks for the help so far guys. I've made some revisions based on your suggestions and comments I've received on other threads. Let me know what you think about the new build! (It's in bold)
Thanks a lot!
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Please consolidate to one thread. Really annoying when someone spreads it out.
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This is one thread. My only other post is on the Computer Build Resource Thread. I have only created one thread.
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On the flip side of the coin , I gotta ask if you are building this comp strictly around starcraft 2 specs or are you looking at future games and there future specs needs???
the i7 is more powerful a processor but much more expensive that the i3 or i5 proceesors from intel and as stated before the i5 is solid as far as processors are concerned. If you are going the intel route strictly , stick with the i5 (assuming you want to overclock) or until the price on i7's come down or some new future processor comes down the road imo.
Have you considered Amd processors ??? I bought an Amd processor while it was on sale, an Amd phantom 2 x4 quad core 3.2 ghz processor around the 100 dollar price range , no it was not overclockable but I got a free mother board purchased from microcenter (cincinatti store) .As far as the video card is concerned I went against the crowd and got nvidia. I bought a 440gt while it was on sale for $49.99 (nice price point for this card and i was on a budget at the time). When it comes to starcraft 2 specs and nvidia cards I wouldnt go below the 400 series and the video card should at least have 1 gig of dedicated memory minimum for ultra perforance .For the budget pc I pick up a respectable fps of 60-63 frames on ultra setting in sc2. However I would go with the 560 ti if you have the bankroll and were looking to go sli in the future.The 590 if you want the absolute best there is.However....
With a little digging around I believe you could spend less and still pick up a quality pc for less than the 900 to 1000$ pc you priced out the parts for on newegg. (dont forget the shipping) 4 gigabytes of ram is the minimum windows 7 and sc2 should run and stay in harmony together , so 8 gigs is more than plenty imo (seriously 16 is major overkill) You also forgot the new copy of windows 7 home premium you'll need for the operating system. which will add to your final cost (system builder oem windows was $110 + tax when I bought it at microcenter) . all in all I spent around 550 - 600 $ and got a NICE budget gaming rig .
One last thing be sure and buy a quality monitor and look to see specifically what the monitor size is and the highest resolution that monitor can support. If you are looking for it to support 1920 x 1280 or higher you'll probably need to shell out some big bucks for a quality monitor. Plus make sure the video card you buy supports that higher resolution. On a budget as stated before I bought a 19" asus monitor that supported 1440 x960 max resolution but only paid 110 - 120$ for. My gt 440 mated to it perfectly. Happy hunting ... but make sure to take some aspirin after you get your shopper's headache ... lol
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Consider getting the MSI version of the GTX 560. The Twin Frozr model is 20C cooler than stock models.
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I still don't understand why you're getting a Z68 and an 800W power supply
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On September 03 2011 03:20 CharlieBrownsc wrote:
I still don't understand why you're getting a Z68 and an 800W power supply
What's wrong with the Z68? Basically I'm just trying to allow myself room to add on more GPUs in the future as well as room for additional RAM.
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EPT
