Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: JOACH1M on October 25, 2012, 08:36:40 AM
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I'm looking to get a new PC that will run this game with advanced settings on. I also will like this PC to be just strictly a gaming PC. I don't Know what I should get with a budget around 1500$...
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I'm looking to get a new PC that will run this game with advanced settings on. I also will like this PC to be just strictly a gaming PC. I don't Know what I should get with a budget around 1500$...
Joach1m as much as you probably have heard this ... Contact rich at TD computers.
LawnDart
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Yup, if you don't want to take the chance and build it your self, TD Computers will be the best bang for your buck.
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Build it yourself, it is a learning experience and you feel great about it afterwards (as long as you don't blow anything up heh). Otherwise, TD can hook you up with a beauty for $1500.
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Ok dumb question who is TD? Lol
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He's a computer builder par excellence who built my rig. His name on BBS is Til Death.
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Thanks ill have to find this guy.
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here's his website phone is listed there:
http://tdcomputersystems.com/
semp
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here's his website phone is listed there:
http://tdcomputersystems.com/
semp
thanks, I see he has cases and power supply stuff but does he put graphic cards and mother boards in aswell?
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He will give you the whole setup...just get a hold of him and give him a price.
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Don't ever build your own PC Jock1m you will never have a chick again :old:
And you will talk about OP systems and nylon underpants :old:
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Hey Joe a Cheem.
I just built a new system, and posted some questions here as well. I did a lot of research on tom's hardware, and overclockers dot net/com, and there is a TON of information and opinions out there.
For 1500$ this is my opinion on how you should begin to proceed.
First, Toilet Duck(TD/Till Death) had a great reputation here. The pictures I've seen of his builds show a clean and professional job done in terms of the cabling etc. He has very strong opinions on what the best components/manufacturers are, and for the most part he has selected the best stuff for his systems. As Spikes said however, building a system isn't rocket science, and with the help of a few uTube videos and "show me how" websites, you can likely figure it out and built a system from purchased components in part of an afternoon, not counting the operating system install, drivers, tweaking and such. I was going to get TD to build my 2500$ system 18 months ago, but when I emailed him he responded that due to me being in Canada, I should just "look locally". Considering the pain that customs can be, I don't blame him. He was also just coming off the big "battle" thread where he decided to take his leave from the boards here. His first response to my inquiries was "I'm not giving any more discounts to Aces High players", which was interesting, since I hadn't asked for one, only information regarding what type of system he could build me for my budget. As I said, he has a very solid rep in both building and customer service, and you won't go wrong if you get him to build your box for you, but again, it isn't brain surgery and you CAN do it yourself. That's what I ended up doing, and don' regret it.
Now, on to the components. This is all my OPINION, which is based on others opinions that I've read through researching the above forums and sites.
1. Processor and Motherboard. Right now it boils down to deciding if you want to go with the most current 2011/x79 motherboard/cpu, or the still current but more dated 1155 setups.
1 a:The 1155 gives you several great CPU's to choose from, the i5-3570k, the i5-2500k, the i7-2600k, and the i7-3770k. The 3570k is the cheapest at around 200$ish , with the 2600k and 3770k being around 300$ and change. The motherboards will range from 130$ish for a basic entry level to around 200$ for the "best bang for buck" type such as the Gigabyte UD5 or ASUS P8* series somewhere in the middle. The i5 3570k with the UD5 board can be found in package deals for sub 400$, and if you choose to go the 1155 route, this is the best value for the dollar IMO, as the 3570k will overclock safely and easily to the mid 4 ghz range. Since you said this is primarily a system for gaming, the 3570k will perform within a few percent of the 3770k's numbers, and cost you probably more than 100$ less, money that you can invest into the GPU/vid card. So unless you plan on doing a lot of video editing or similar work, the 1155 solution is the i5-3570k most likely.
1b: The other route is to go with the newer 2011/x79 setup. Yes, it is a lot more money. Yes, it barely outperforms the 3570k, 2600k, etc, and in some cases is even SLOWER than these 1155 CPU/Chipsets. That said, there is a whole bunch of new CPU's for the 2011 just over the horizon, and if you go this route now, you'll be well situated to take advantage of these new CPU's as they are as reported so far going to plunk right into the 2011 mother boards. So, in 6 months time, you would be able to sell off your i7 3820 chip and replace it with whatever new fangled CPU suits your fancy. The i7 3820 CPU is around 300$ish, but the mother boards are a fair bit more expensive. The Saber Tooth from Asus is in the mid to high 300$ range, and the top of the food chain RIVE is close to 400$. If you go this route as I did, the CPU/MB will cost you close to 700$ instead of somewhere under 400$. For your budget, I just don't see it as viable, but I thought I'd throw this out there to give you an idea of the current playing field.
2. GPU/Vid Card. This is likely the most important component when it comes to gaming. There are obviously two options, either NVidia or AMD/Radeon. You can't go wrong with either, and you will get a lot of opinions on where the "sweet spot" of performance to price ratio lies, but Toilet Duck has it right with the selection of the 7950 Radeon. A lot of guys will say the 6870 is the way to go, and they really aren't wrong, and it's a close call here no matter what route you travel. Also, that 100$ I talked about that you save with the i5 CPU can be put to use here, and you can jump up a bit to the Nvidia GTX 670 or 680 cards. The 670 is the "sweet spot" according to many for the Nvidia cards, and you can find a basic 2gig one for 350$ like the eVGA 670 FTW LE, or one of about a dozen other brands/types. Also, if you want to spend about 150$ more than the 7950 card, you can bump up a little more to the GTX 680 for about 450$ish. One thing to consider is that the 7950 will overclock like it was built for it, with a program like Afterburner, you can simply O/C this little gem to 7970 performance levels. Many guys on the "in the know" forums say that getting a 7970 is almost pointless since the 7950 o/c's and performs so well, and it was my 2nd choice in a close call for my GPU until a sweet deal for a gtx690 fell into my lap. Anyway, IMO the 7950 is the best option for a 1500$ system.
3. Case. This is a subject of a lot of debate, and you can easily get by with a 100$ case Joecheem, but make sure it is USB 3.0 compatible or you will kick yourself later, especially if you use a thumb drive to transfer stuff around, or a million other uses for it. I was going to go with the Cooler Master CM 690 II advanced with the USB 3.0 support, and it was around 100 bucks, but I decided to go up a little to the Corsair 650D, which is a case with better construction. That said, considering your budget, I would go with the CM690 or something very similar in options and price. Remember you will likely be overclocking your little wonder CPU the 3570k, so you'll want some extra fans. The Noctua 140mm twin fans fit right in that case, and will help to shore up the cooling in this case, which is already pretty good with the stock fans. The Noctua NF-P14 FLX 140mm Fans can also replace the fans on the CPU cooler that I'll suggest next.
4. CPU Heatsink. Considering you should overclock the CPU as mentioned in order to get the full performance from it, you'll need a good heatsink/cooling solution. For air power, the Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler from Cooler Master seems to get a lot of positive feedback and recommendations, and it's around 30 bucks or so. That said, I really think that the Corsair Hydro H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler is the way to go. Yes, it's 100$, triple the cost of the best air cooler, but it's REALLY worth it for that little i5 chip, it is all the rage with most builders. TD uses it in a lot of his builds I see as well. They are virtually maintenance free, work fantastically well, and really let your o/c the snot out of your little i5 CPU.
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5. Hard Drive. This is really personal preference when it comes to brands. I know Samsung are very popular for the Solid State drives in the USA, and Crucial, Intel, and OCZ will all serve you well too. Your best bet is to go with an SSD/Solid State drive for your boot/operating system, and some of your most played games like AH etc, and then have a good 1TB data/other games drive like a Western Digital Caviar BLACK (not red or green, BOOOO). If you go with Crucial 128GIG SSD and the WD Caviar Black, both of these drives will run you about 200$. This is the best bang for your buck for having fast boot/fast loads for preferred games, and enough space for the naked pics of your girlfriend on the data drive. Again, any of the "big" 4 or 5 manufacturers will serve here.
6. Memory. TD likes to put 32 gigs of the 1600mhz ram in his builds. It isn't a bad idea, although right NOW a lot of games and apps don't use or really need it, RAM is so cheap right now it's not a bad option to stock up on it if you will. That said, if you DO go for 32 over 16 gigs, you should probably go with Win7 PRO 64, as having 16 gigs with Win7 Home isn't really worth it from what I've read here and elsewhere. Ask Skuzzy of someone else that's a brainiac with this stuff if you want a further explanation, because it makes me head hurt trying to have it explained to me. G.Skill, Kingston, Corsair, Patriot, Mushkin...there is a lot of options, but IMO going with the 1600mhz RAM is plenty, and the 1866MHZ isn't really necessary with a 1500$ system, and that "faster" RAM doesn't really perform much better according to all the benchmarks and tests you can read about when it comes to gaming software. So, with your budget and system I would say go with a 75-100$ set of 2x8 set of 1600mhz ram, with the dual channel mother board being the likely one you should get (Gigabyte UD5 for the i5 3570k).
7. Power Supply. This is a place you shouldn't skimp, so much as you can't with the budget. TD puts a 1000w in virtually everything it seems, and this isn't a horrible option, but not completely necessary either. Again, you'll get guys on every BBS on the subject degenerating into mud slinging by about page 3 of the thread over this one. Seasonic has a superb rep, but Corsair, OCZ, and Antec among others have a lot of options. You can read someplace in this hardware forum here at HTC about how one company builds several of the top PSU's and their components, I just can't find it with the search engine and I'm too lazy to investigate further to find that thread. Anyhow, a Seasonic 750w for 150$ will serve you well, but for another 50 or 75$, you CAN jump up to a 1000W jobby, and have the ability to sleep at night knowing that you sided with the most vocal side of the worldwide BBS power supply war of 2012.
8.Operating System. No brainer right, either Win7, or Win7. You can get away with "home", but if you want to add that extra 16 gigs of RAM, and want to do what all the "in the know" guys say, you should go for the slightly more expensive "Pro". I still don't quite understand why, and I don't get into all those ins and outs of the code and networking and all that stuff - see head hurts comments earlier - I just followed the lemmings over the cliff myself and bought the Win7 Pro, and shelved my Win7 Home Premium from my old box. No complaints, it seems to work the same, and that's fine.
9. Last, and most certainly least, the Optical Drive. Ask yourself if you have ever watched a Blue Ray Video on your computer, or had the desire to burn one. If you answered yes, then get one of the blue ray drives. If you're like most of the rest of us, save some of your budget money here and buy the 16$ OEM DVD burner, yay!
So, IMO, the quick and dirty Joe a Cheem new system build list.
CPU: i5 3570k - 200$
MD: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H - 190$
Case: CM 690 II - 100$
Memory: G.SKill 2x8 16gig 1600mhz - 75$
Hard Drive1: Crucial/Samsung/Intel/Whoever 128 gig SSD - 100$
Hard Drive2: Western Digital 1TB Caviar Black - 100$
CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro 100 - 100%
GPU: MSI or VisionTek 7950 AMD/Radeon - 300$
Power Supply: Seasonic 750w - 160$
OS: Win7 Pro - varies, say 120$, that's what I paid in Canada.
Optical: Asus cheap-o DVD - 15$
This total comes to 1460$. IMO it's close to as good as a system as you can put together for 1500$, and it will perform like crazy, and be nearly as fast as my system I just built for 2600$, if we had the same video card (my 690gtx will blow the snot out of almost everything out there right now). It'll be fast enough for all the major new games coming out in the next couple of years I'd say. If you're only using one monitor, and maxing out at 1920 resolution (the new 2000x monitors are 700 bucks, blah) which is likely, the 7950 vid card will serve you well for quite some time.
Now, the prices are all just estimates, as I'm in Canada and I don't really search through New Egg, but they should be close and within about 10 percent in most cases. Another thing I'll say is do some research into "open box" goods at new egg and the other big online PC stores. They quite often have crazy deals on stuff that is essentially new, but has just been opened, or returned new in the box. You can save yourself some big coin, and add that savings into your budget and climb up a step or two with some of the components, particularly the video card, the most crucial thing for gaming obviously, right?
Anyhow, as I said numerous times, this is all just opinion based on others opinions, but it's the direction I would go with 1500$. JoaCheem, If building it yourself seems like too big of a PITA, give TD a call and see what he says, he should be close in price, maybe slightly higher for the great internal cable running/organizing and superb customer service/protection/warranty(ie WORTH IT). If I was in your shoes in the USA right now, he would be my builder of choice because you just can't get that personal level of service from a big company, and he knows what he's doing to boot, and from what I've read installs your O/S and has everything all set up and ready to go for you when you open your box.
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You have 1500 bucks for a puter... :O
At least you can build a real screamer from that money :aok
1500 must be enough for an i7-hd7970(CF??)-triple head system, what would serve you for a long time.
Btw if you only play AH, a 600$ one can get the job done in the next 3 years.
A couple notes to Gman/Tundra:
-generally a very good writeup, but...
-dont buy a 7950. Its only ~7% faster than the much cheaper 7870, but is ~15% slower than the 7970. Also, in the future, the 7000 series Radeons might be in an advantage vs the Kepler Geforces, due to the much better compute performance, so i wouldnt touch the more expensive/simmilar performance Nvidia products. Also, from 1500, you might get a 7970 CF setup - totally overkill for any game in the next 2 years.
-water cooling is absolutely unnecessery for a CPU what has a TDP of 75-95W. That Hyper 212 is what i have, my old power-eater PhenomIIx4 never goes over 60C, not even when i pull it way over 4GHz, and still remains totally silent.
-no current CPU can take use of 32GB RAM. They are just not fast enough for it, and possibly wont need it before the DDR4 era comes alive (mobo-cpu replacement will be needed either way). So i would stick with 4*4GB DDR3-1600.
-PSU. A 750-800W Seasonic is fairly enough to run 2 7970s in CH, OC them as much as you want, whatever. 1000W is waaaaay overkill, and is made for the 3-way SLI/CF setups. If you arent planning to build CF system, a 600W Seasonic will be more than enough, for now and in the future too.
-AND! If you decide to build a CF system, an i5 wont be enough. Get an i7 in that case.
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Agree with everything there Debrody except the 7950 part. The RAM/PSU suggestion you give are exactly what I put in the final build list in case you missed that part or something. As for the 212/Corsair 100h20 choice, it really is personal preference as I wrote, but the i5 3570k WILL overclock much higher and far more reliably with the h100 than the 212 according to all the posts about it on the o/c.net bbs. Since the whole point of getting a 3570k is to overclock it, why not max out the capability? If Joach1m goes with a 2600k or 3770k, then yes, completely agree, the 212 is more than sufficient. I realize that the 3770k with the 212 fan is only about 50$ more expensive than the 3570k with the H100 Corsair water cooler, but with a 1500 budget, every dollar counts, and they will perform within 5% up/down of each other in most games according to about 20 different review/hardware sites.
I don't have a 7950, but based on what TH and OC boards say, the 7950 will easily overclock to close that 15% gap to the 7970, and even surpass it if you crank the cooling fan over 65. Like I said, the 6870/7870 vs 7950 debate rages on at those BBS's, and I don't plan on repeating it as I have no dog in the fight, but the 7950 will give you 7970 performance with an overclock easily for 100$ or more less. Also, you said he could get a 7970 crossfire for 1500$? How? Just one 7970 card is about 400 or higher, some of them closer to 500$. It would be very tough to build a system for 1500$ if 800$ or more is tied up in just the video cards. If you mean he can ADD a 7970 later for CF, I get it, but for right now, at 1500$ budgeted, it's absolutely impossible.
By your numbers, the 7870 is 7% slower than the 7950, and the 7950 is about 15% behind the 7970. This means that the 7870 is about 22 percent behind the 7970 right? For the 40$ difference to go from the 240-260$ avg priced 7870 to the 7950 which is capable of oc'ing to 22% faster than the 7870 seems like a no brainer to me. Granted, I'm not an AMD/Radeon expert by any stretch, and I'm not taking the 7870 ability to overclock into account, as I've done no research about it, and that could change everything. Heck, I even have a 7950 in order to compare all the nuances of performance etc, as I got a GTX690 4gig on a good trade deal.
Everything else Debrody says is good advice too Joach1m, and even the video card part where we only disagree in part, he isn't "wrong" by any stretch, and going with the 7870 is an option that a LOT of dudes on the hardware sites advise. It would even push the price down a little from the 7950 or Nvidia options, which may be something you need/want.
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thanks, I see he has cases and power supply stuff but does he put graphic cards and mother boards in aswell?
he has everything you need. even if you decide to build it yourself contact him as he will guide you in the right direction. I have bought parts from him and his systems are legendary for being top notch.
semp
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he has everything you need. even if you decide to build it yourself contact him as he will guide you in the right direction. I have bought parts from him and his systems are legendary for being top notch.
semp
Ok thanks sounds good!
Tundra that was a very helpful right up, I feel like I just learned alot! Lol :cheers:
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No prob, just remember when you DO get your new system up and running to optimize/tweak it, and go through that Black Viper site's list of things to turn off. With the SSD drive, you can move a lot of stuff off of it on to your Data drive, like music/picture folders etc, and do some little tweaks to help with its longevity and performance. Shoot me a PM, or ask here, as I learned most of this stuff from reading guys like Skuzzy's, AckAck's, and Debrody's posts here.
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No prob, just remember when you DO get your new system up and running to optimize/tweak it, and go through that Black Viper site's list of things to turn off. With the SSD drive, you can move a lot of stuff off of it on to your Data drive, like music/picture folders etc, and do some little tweaks to help with its longevity and performance. Shoot me a PM, or ask here, as I learned most of this stuff from reading guys like Skuzzy's, AckAck's, and Debrody's posts here.
Thanks, that black viper site...I like the sounds of so basically I can transfer my AH files from my other PC to this new one!? That would be awesome!
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Gman,
I have the 7950,bought it instead of the 7970 on advice from a well trusted player who knows his stuff. I run a 1080p screen with it and it's rock steady at 59/60 frames.
Jo could save some more cash with a 2700k cpu in the 1155 socket,will rum 3.9 on air stock with turbo boost or whatever they call the OC.
Also look carefully at the PSU's,I'd stay away from anything from Antec but corsair,seasonic and the new xfx psu's are all made by the same manufactor, provided you choose the right series.
I put my system together here in Canada for just over 1700$,I could get the same system today for less than $1500 since about 6 months have past!.... :rofl :rofl
:salute
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Tundra migh be right, as the 7870 is the maximum what the Pictairn can give, and the 7950 is an artifically downclocked version of the Tahiti.
Expecting all theese radeons to reach 1030-1050MHz on stock voltage (do we even need to push them that far?), the 7950 is about half way between the 7870 and the 7970.
Also, i apologize, havent checked the prices on Newegg, the 7950 is almost as expensive as the 7970, in Hungary.
I would still say, if you save some on the components like no water cooling, etc, it would be possible to build a 7970 CF. Maybe not from 1500, but 1600.
I wouldnt touch the Kepler right now, as the simmilarly performing Nvidia models tends to be a little bit more expensive then their Ati counterparts, also the Ati is way better in the OpenCl (computing performance).
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I have a new 7870 , old I7 930 OC'ed o 3.4gighz 12gig memory and 120gig SSD disk , big badsass heatsink , I never want to go to water-cooling, use big fan instead (140mm).
Startup time is within 5 seconds of Win7 start.
I push 60 frames in 1920*1200 with everything but shadows on in AH2, and its awesome in BF3, and is sufficient for War Thunder game.
/Save
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I just built something similat to gmans computer for around 900, ecept I have the case and operating system and cd/dvd player.
I used 2133 patriot memory. I paid a bit more , but wasnt that much.
If you get a SSD, get at least a 128gb.
build it yourself, you can do it.
Oh for a cpu cooler I used a 212 coolermaster i think. dropped temp by 8 to 10 degrees. They are 20.00 on sale newegg.
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See Joach lots of good advice, the last poster saved you 1/3 the price of the 212 cooler. As I said, if you look around, research, and get good advice you can save a lot. Doing a crossfire or Sli dual video setup IS almost doable for your budget. My old system is almost identical to the one two posts up, but I had dual crossfire 6850's. It would play AH almost maxed at 1920. Depending on what you need and what you currently use it may be a good step up and suit your needs too, and save you a LOT. I sold mine for 600 as a good deal to a neighbor for example.
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last note
I did my computer starting last year with christmas sales. I bought the xfx 6950 and seasonic 750 PSU on christmas deals. Then when we went to the cities in August this year I went to microcenter where they have pretty good deals on CPU and motherboards. I finished between microcenter and newegg.
Unless your in a hurry, the christmas deals are not far away, if you decide to build something yourself.
This is my MB and CPU. I prefer Gigabyte, but to each thier own preference.
CPU: i5 3570k - 200$
MD: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H - 190$
Also OCZ SSD carries a 5 year warranty versus some of the other competiters where theres are 3 year.
same as listed above in Gmans post.
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I have upgraded my rig so many times its pitiful... Right now I have
i7 2700k processor
EVGA p77 FTW mb
16 gig ripjaw ram
Dual 570 hd EVGA vid cards
950 watt PC power and cooling power supply
Dual 1 tb hard drives in raid
All neatly stuffed into a NZXT 810 switch case
Btw I went back to air cooling.
This computer started it life as an eMachine computer fr wal mart.
Also so you know I'd like you to be aware of the upgrade big you will catch when you build your own rig.
Be aware... It's rather horrendous ...
LawnDart
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Thank you all guys for the PM's and posts in tips on all this computer stuff! I still have time to make a final descision whether I think I'm up for the task of doing this on my own! :O
I really do appreciate the the support! :salute
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one thing is forget the ssd for now, you can always add it later as it wont really make your computer faster. as for having anything other than windows home not sure why you would need 32 gig of ram, "people in the know" know that your computer wont use even 1/2 of it. I got 16 gigs of ram and normally use about 40%. of course there's some applications that will "use" all 32 but none of them are games.
semp
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Forget the ssd? I would say not. Maybe it won't make his pc any faster in terms of frames per second, but it will cut boot times to under 7 seconds, and any games on the ssd drive will load much faster than on a spinner drive. If the op doesn't care about slower boot and slower primary game loads and data access, then yes solid advice.
Advising to just simply add an ssd later means a system reformat most likely in order to move the operating system to it, which is the main point of having an ssd imo. I.E. A big PITA to do it later. Yes i know someone will bring up cloning and image software to move the os later, but for a gaming system this is buggy and unstable from what I've read.
TD puts 32 gigs in many of his builds, I personally don't but just mentioned it originally so the OP would about it, and why TD does it that way. Also, people in the know "know" that games like Roberts new wing commander thing will use 32 gigs as will others eventually, so they recommend buying Ram now while it is very cheap as a future proofing strategy. I don't subscribe to this either, but having more information never hurts. I only put 16 in the build list I recommended for Joachim as his budget makes frivolous expenditure on RAM for the future bad advice.
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A simple question concerning boot times and game loadup times, especially the latter: How much does it really mean, if you can cut out seconds in startup times? Doesn't that mean, that you have to have a leak and visit the refridgerator before playing rather than doing those tasks during the loadup time? Tonight we spent about half an hour waiting for permission to take off after the announced scenario starting time, although we were supposed to be there half an hour before. It adds to a full hour of waiting time, during which any computer could have been rebooted/cold booted numerous times.
Like a Finnish excercise guru said: "A sprinter works hard to run 1/100 of a second faster. How is he going to use the time he spared?"
Just my 2 cents
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adding an ssd just to boot in 7 seconds instead of 30 is a waste of time. as for games ah loads on mine in about 4 seconds. better to use the 100 bucks to buy beer as not like you are sitting at your desk ready to shoot in 7 seconds.
semp
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Hey, I don't make the trends, I'm just following them!
I would respond that why build a 1500$ system when you can play aces high or most other games with a gts250 and a pre 1155 could/board, at a cost of 700$ tops, and spend the extra 800$ on hookers and blow as well as beer. I'll leave the answer to you.
Personally I like instant on as opposed to the 45-60 seconds my win7 older box booted with a 7200rpm drive, as well as instant loading games like the total war series that take another 30 seconds to load. It's up to Joachim if he thinks that is worth 100$ or not. MY point is decide this NOW, as adding an ssd later will be a pain as he'll have to move the os over, as using an ssd for data only....well then I agree 100 percent - not worth it.
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IMO
I like having a SSD. I enjoy the fast bootup time. I enjoy the OS and the couple programs I have on it which boot fast. I would rather have a SSD then beer. I don't always have something todo while the computer boots.
When I build the other computer for my wife and daughter I will put a SSD in that one also.
Thats just my opinion.
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Hey, I don't make the trends, I'm just following them!
I would respond that why build a 1500$ system when you can play aces high or most other games with a gts250 and a pre 1155 could/board, at a cost of 700$ tops, and spend the extra 800$ on hookers and blow as well as beer. I'll leave the answer to you.
Personally I like instant on as opposed to the 45-60 seconds my win7 older box booted with a 7200rpm drive, as well as instant loading games like the total war series that take another 30 seconds to load. It's up to Joachim if he thinks that is worth 100$ or not. MY point is decide this NOW, as adding an ssd later will be a pain as he'll have to move the os over, as using an ssd for data only....well then I agree 100 percent - not worth it.
because if you spend 800 bucks on a pre 1155 system you will not be spending your money wisely. if your budget is 800 bucks then fine but if it's 1500 then your money is better spent on a better video card or faster cpu or perhaps a sound card or speakers or a nicer hotas. heck you can even spend the 100 bucks on a better chair or a second monitor.
my system boots in about 30 seconds. games load within 3 to 4 seconds and they dont play better in ssd. I think the point is to spend the money wisely not just spend it. then again it's his money to do as he wishes. :salute
semp