Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: jerkins on June 04, 2009, 11:39:54 PM
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So I want a desktop. I currently have a laptop, but its time for an upgrade. My budget is 1500-2000. Here is what im looking for:
I7 processor (2.66 or 2.93 GHz)
6gb ram
Video car with 1gb memory or two with 896mb. Would like to have capability to run in SLI in future if just one card.
mobo-not sure what im looking for yet.
Bluray
dvd R/W
2 X 500 GB 7200rpm hard drive (not set on this, may go for just one larger one)
PSU - not sure yet
Sound Card - not sure
Case - not sure
Hmm, what am I forgetting (had a few beers tonight). What would you incorporate into this system? If any of you guys have time, or just enjoy browsing around and thinking up systems, please share your information.
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First of all don't even think about SLI if you have an LCD monitor. You can't enable vsync and the screen tearing is annoying as he**.
If you're going I7 with 6 Gb of RAM then you'll have to have a 64 bit OS. There are drawbacks. Do your research to make sure that's what you want. Some legacy applications won't run on a 64 bit OS. If you decide not to go 64 bit then you won't want your video card over 512 Mb or your RAM over 3 Gb.
Stay with two HD's but get one that's a bit smaller (250 Gb or less) to use as a boot and applications drive, then use the other for storage and back-up.
PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic or OCZ for the PSU. The 750W PCP&C will be all you need and it's bullet proof.
As long as you're not planning on running Vista get the Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer sound card (the version that runs about $90).
Cases are a matter of personal preference.
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Agree with baldeagle, forget about SLI, better to take the same sum of money you'd spend on 2 cards and buy one really good one. Truly you'd be better off.
As to build or buy, with that budget you could build an rocking system.
Or you could have someone do a custom build.
Either would work very well.
Just don't waste your money on alien or the mass market builds.
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One word for those that want to buy an off the shelf computer
TILDEATH
Of all the things ive read about his systems, prices and most of all customer service, you cant go wrong. :aok
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So I want a desktop. I currently have a laptop, but its time for an upgrade. My budget is 1500-2000. Here is what im looking for:
Hmm, what am I forgetting (had a few beers tonight). What would you incorporate into this system? If any of you guys have time, or just enjoy browsing around and thinking up systems, please share your information.
Ars Technica review of a "hot rod":
http://arstechnica.com/hardware/guides/2009/04/ars-technica-system-guide-april-2009-edition.ars/2
They normally do a decent job, neverbeen diasappointed with tehir recommended parts. Their build out:
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P
Intel Core i7-920 Retail
Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3-1333 SDRAM
MSI Radeon HD 4890 OC 1GB
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
DVD±/CD-RW: Pioneer DVR-216D
Case = Antec Solo though many good ones
Power supply Seasonic S12 II 380W
With their monitor (360.00), sound, and other choices they come in under 1600.00
Cheers
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One word for those that want to buy an off the shelf computer
TILDEATH
Of all the things ive read about his systems, prices and most of all customer service, you cant go wrong. :aok
+1
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Ars Technica review of a "hot rod":
http://arstechnica.com/hardware/guides/2009/04/ars-technica-system-guide-april-2009-edition.ars/2
They normally do a decent job, neverbeen diasappointed with tehir recommended parts. Their build out:
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P
Intel Core i7-920 Retail
Patriot Viper 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3-1333 SDRAM
MSI Radeon HD 4890 OC 1GB
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
DVD±/CD-RW: Pioneer DVR-216D
Case = Antec Solo though many good ones
Power supply Seasonic S12 II 380W
With their monitor (360.00), sound, and other choices they come in under 1600.00
Cheers
There's no way that PSU would work in their test. Not saying this to you, just laughing at that choice by that review team. The VC wouldn't last long.
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There's no way that PSU would work in their test. Not saying this to you, just laughing at that choice by that review team. The VC wouldn't last long.
Agreed. While the Seasonics are very strong for their rated wattages that PSU is marginal at best for that build.
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First of all don't even think about SLI if you have an LCD monitor. You can't enable vsync and the screen tearing is annoying as he**.
If you're going I7 with 6 Gb of RAM then you'll have to have a 64 bit OS. There are drawbacks. Do your research to make sure that's what you want. Some legacy applications won't run on a 64 bit OS. If you decide not to go 64 bit then you won't want your video card over 512 Mb or your RAM over 3 Gb.
Stay with two HD's but get one that's a bit smaller (250 Gb or less) to use as a boot and applications drive, then use the other for storage and back-up.
PC Power & Cooling, Seasonic or OCZ for the PSU. The 750W PCP&C will be all you need and it's bullet proof.
As long as you're not planning on running Vista get the Creative X-Fi Extreme Gamer sound card (the version that runs about $90).
Cases are a matter of personal preference.
What baldeagl said. Go with an NZXT tempest case or an Antec 900. NZXT is highly recommended by several builders as is Antec 900. NXZT appears to be a bit roomier.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146047 NZXT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021 Antec 900
Motherboards, I pretty much stay away from recommending those. I've used several and so far so good on 3 major brands, MSI, ABit, and Gigabyte. ABit is no longer making motherboards.
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One word for those that want to buy an off the shelf computer
TILDEATH
Of all the things ive read about his systems, prices and most of all customer service, you cant go wrong. :aok
+1 on this idea. Send TilDeath an e-mail or IM with your desired system specs and let him see what he can put together for you. He has a wealth of experience with what things (MB's etc) work with what cards, etc. Not to mention that his after the sale service is second to none!
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There's no way that PSU would work in their test. Not saying this to you, just laughing at that choice by that review team. The VC wouldn't last long.
It's odd but I hear from all sides about this PS issue. I've been told I need twice as much as I have been specing out and had others break out laughing when they hear that.
My tech is building what he considers to be a monster. I don't think he over powers and he builds extremely reliable stuff.
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So I want a desktop. I currently have a laptop, but its time for an upgrade. My budget is 1500-2000. Here is what im looking for:
I7 processor (2.66 or 2.93 GHz)
6gb ram
Video car with 1gb memory or two with 896mb. Would like to have capability to run in SLI in future if just one card.
mobo-not sure what im looking for yet.
Bluray
dvd R/W
2 X 500 GB 7200rpm hard drive (not set on this, may go for just one larger one)
PSU - not sure yet
Sound Card - not sure
Case - not sure
Hmm, what am I forgetting (had a few beers tonight). What would you incorporate into this system? If any of you guys have time, or just enjoy browsing around and thinking up systems, please share your information.
MB: ASUS Rampage II Extreme (EDIT: If your not into overclocking a system manually this is the highest level board I would suggest)
CPU: i7 920 (it will do exactly what the 965 will do with no power adjustments to CPU or Mem and is easily done in any BIOS)
MEM: OCZ Blades 2000Mhz Blades or Reaper Tri-Channel mem kit 3 x 2Gb
PSU: PC Power 910 or 1000
HD: Western Digital Black 640GB drives (32 meg cache 7200, you going fast put in fast drives for 4 dollars each more)
Video: 1 - 295 or 2 280's if they can be found
Case: NZXT Tempest or the new PanzerBox
CPU Cooler: OCZ Vendetta 2 w/1366 bracket (option would be a sealed CPU only H2o unit and everything including rad fit in case)
SC: Any flavor of sound card you wish
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It's odd but I hear from all sides about this PS issue. I've been told I need twice as much as I have been specing out and had others break out laughing when they hear that.
My tech is building what he considers to be a monster. I don't think he over powers and he builds extremely reliable stuff.
You don't need twice the power (though it cannot without question hurt). THe PSU is the whole thing the Personal Computer is built around. With a 350W power supply in that build, you're replacing things within a year (and possibly sooner).
With that build, a 750W would be nice, but with the i7's potential, if it were me, I'd get a 1k (to futureproof). For those who laugh and use "the minimum power supply for the job", I'd ignore them.
You're not "over powering". You are properly powering.
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I think some of the confusion when sizing power supplies is that caused by a failure to understand just what is going to be on what rail, if the P/S is multi-rail. You have to be careful to avoid overloading any single rail, and sometimes just determining if you are likely to be doing so can be tough - especially "can't see it because I haven't bought it yet". So sometimes the easy solution is to just "overpower" it and be done.
Take the Seasonic P/S in the hardware list posted - it's a 2 rail P/S, both rails rated at 17 amps. I can't find a wattage rating on the MSI site for video card, but no matter how you combine a high-end video card, a processor, motherboard, and drives, you are likely to top out one of the rails if you only have 2 - and what's worse, nothing I saw in the Newegg listing gave me any confidence that you'd even be able to determine which connector is on which rail.
Personally, I like the single rail P/S's - they take 80% of the guesswork out. The problem is, I don't like what they generally cost.... And so going the other way - A 4 or 5 rail P/S where every connector "strand" is generally on it's own rail is easier to deal with. What I really don't like are 2 rail P/S's, because you can't usually tell what's on what, and you end up doing too much "guessing and hoping".
And nothing, nothing makes a system more flakey than the instable voltages that result from an overloaded P/S rail...
<S>
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I used TD (tildeath) and am very happy with my pc. I dont like having to tweak I like to play, he preset all the safe overclocks right in the pc.
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Tildeath is the way to go :aok
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In my opinion a player is always better off to get expert help to pick the right components for their gaming system, but do the assembly, setup, and software installation themselves. In building their gaming system themselves when "it happens" they are much better prepared to do something (constructive) to solve it. Having said that, most of the magic is in knowing what parts to pick and how hard you can push them - and experience is invaluable.
<S>
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In my opinion a player is always better off to get expert help to pick the right components for their gaming system, but do the assembly, setup, and software installation themselves. In building their gaming system themselves when "it happens" they are much better prepared to do something (constructive) to solve it. Having said that, most of the magic is in knowing what parts to pick and how hard you can push them - and experience is invaluable.
<S>
A very big +1. The experience and knowledge you gain from doing maintenance/building by yourself is like you said....invaluable.
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Plus if you build it yourself, a year or 2 down the road its no big deal to do a full wipe, partition, reinstall of OS. Or even setup a dual boot with 2 OS's. Since you built it the first time, you have the drivers, you have the experience, you'll keep that system in better condition.
If you have more money than time, or are not willing to do the homework. Then have someone build to your specs.