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Hello,
I asked earlier in the year about a new computer and I was given a lot of helpful answers. So I decided to save up a bit more money in an attempt to build my own computer. Here are the parts I picked out and I would appreciate some feed back on them. Thanks!
Monitor - ViewSonic 22 Inch Widescreen LCD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824116446&Tpk=VA2231wm
PSU - OCZ StealthXStream 600 Watt (Got it on Black Friday)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341010
CPU - Sandy Bridge i2500K
Motherboard - Gigabyte H67A
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128475
Ram - Gskill Ripjaws Series 4GB ( 2 x 2)
Graphics Card - ASUS Radeon 6850 1 GB (Or should I spend a bit more for a 6870/6950?)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121419
Hard Drive - Western Digital Caviar Black 500 GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136320
Case - Antec 300 (Although I am up for suggestions for a better case around 20 to 30 dollars more)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042
Optical Drive - Lite On
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106334
Windows 7 - OEM Builders
Hopefulyl I got most of it right!
Comments
I don't think it makes sense to pay extra for the unlocked multiplier of a Core i5 2500K rather than a Core i5 2500, and then pair it with an H67 motherboard that disallows overclocking and even restrains turbo boost. If you're looking to overclock, then you need a P67 chipset and want a motherboard that can handle a decent overclock, like one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131705
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128477
For the video card, it's really a question of budget and desired level of performance. If you want a Radeon HD 6850, then you could get an XFX one for the same price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150505
Asus' DirectCU cooler isn't bad, but it's not really a premium cooler worth paying extra for. If you want something faster, you could try a reference Radeon HD 6870:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150506
or a Radeon HD 6950 1 GB:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150523
But again, it's really just a question of budget and desired level of performance. Any of them will be nice cards. Note that your power supply doesn't have the appropriate connectors for a higher end card like a Radeon HD 6970. Apparently it puts all of the PCI-E power plugs on the same +12 V rail, and the rail is only rated at 18 A, so 6+8 pin would be running it out of spec. It's not a bad power supply, but it's not that great, either, so you really don't want to run it out of spec. For two 6-pin connectors, it will be fine.
Ahh ok thanks Quiz, I was just trying to see if I could have picked a cheaper Motherboard at first. I didn't know that it wasn't able to overclock so it's a good thing I came here first before I decided to buy them. As for the PSU, I should have waited until I was ready to buy my computer and I'll consider it a lesson learned.
For what it's worth, the P67 chipset allows overclocking but disables the integrated graphics built into the chip. The H67 chipset disables overclocking but makes use of the integrated graphics. The H61 chipset also disables overclocking and uses integrated graphics, and is really a cut down chipset designed for use in bare bones motherboards whose main design goal is to be really cheap.
Personally, I wouldn't have gotten the OCZ StealthXStream 600 W, as I'd have preferred to get something better. It's not a terrible power supply, though, so I'm not going to insist that you need to replace it now. It only has 18 A on the +12 V rail that the CPU power connector is on, which means that you're limited at 216 W for a processor with a TDP of 95 W. The CPU power connector is the only one on that rail. If you want to push the processor to something like 4.2 GHz, that should be fine. If you're hoping to hit 5 GHz, the power supply will likely be a problem for you.
I am thinking of probably replacing the PSU somewhere down the line, maybe in a year or two. Hopefully it'll last that long without dying on me
Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119233&cm_re=haf-_-11-119-233-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147153 <- this feels like its better than above
Ram, faster than the one you listed for not much more
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211409
Hard drive 1TB and it's $10 off, putting it same price as the one you listed for double the space
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185
Motherboard, same price, better performance, supports the faster ram listed above
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130582
Monitor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009241 <- No built in speaker
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236078 <- Better brand, built in speaker, 3 years warranty, more technologies included for $10 more
The Asus 6850 card he chose is good price vs performance. It also has a voltage tweaker which will allow him to overclock the card to match a stock 6870, maybe even better.
The case options are debatable.
Don't get memory of unspecified voltage, as it might not be able to hit the claimed clock speed without considerable overvolting. If you want 1600 MHz DDR3, which you probably should if you're going to overclock the processor, then try this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231193
Hard drives aren't just about capacity. Speed matters, too, and that's the reason to pay a price premium for a WD Caviar Black.
You might want to get the newer SATA 3 version of the WD Caviar Black, since it's the same price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136795
SATA 3 won't improve performance by itself, but various tweaks from being a newer drive might--especially if Western Digital moved from two platters to one, which they may or may not have done.
If you're going to push for a big overclock, you'll want a motherboard with more than five power phases. That one would probably work just fine if you're leaving it at stock speeds, though. There are reasons why MSI tends to be cheaper than Asus or Gigabyte, though; MSI isn't a bad brand for motherboards, but it's not as good as Asus or Gigabyte.
Actually, upon further inspection, that card takes two 6-pin PCI-E power connectors rather than one, so it looks like it's meant for overclocking. Normally a Radeon HD 6850 has a TDP of 126 W, and one 6-pin power connector means you're capped at 150 W of power draw, which limits overclocking.
Even so, I'm not a fan of overclocking video cards. They're stock clocked much closer to their limits than processors, so overclocking a video card is a lot riskier than giving a processor a moderate overclock. If you want a faster card, then buy a faster card.
Also, you're not going to match a stock 6870 by overclocking a 6850. You get 12 SMs rather than 14, so you'd have to hit a clock speed of 1050 MHz to compensate. That's just not happening on air cooling, especially without a premium cooler.
The memory chips are probably binned as 1 GHz GDDR5 chips, too. If they could go 1.125 GHz safely, then that's what they'd have been binned for. A Radeon HD 6870 doesn't just clock the memory higher; it uses faster memory chips that can handle the extra clock speed.
The ram hit 1600 at 1.55v, 1.55-1.75 is the overclocking head for reaching higher speed.
Double capacity > Neglagent speed gain. Want speed get a SSD drive. Both same RPM and the Sata 6 is for SSD.
Graphics card are not binned for what they can be overclocked to same for cpu, this has been proven time and time again with every new graphics card/cpu that are released.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/asus_eah6850_directcu/4.htm
The stock voltage for DDR3 memory is 1.5 V. The G.Skill memory will hit 1600 MHz at 1.5 V. Will the A-Data memory do the same? You'd rather have a given clock speed with a lower voltage than a higher one.
-----
If you use 200 GB of hard drive capacity, is having 1 TB available really so much better than having 500 GB available? That won't make a difference unless you use significantly over 400 GB. The speed difference will make a difference at any capacity, though.
RPM is a major factor, but it's not the only factor in determining SSD performance. WD Caviar Black hard drives are optimized for (relatively) low latencies, and hence high IOPS when dealing with small files. That's the bottleneck for hard drives, and a WD Caviar Black will ease it a little as compared to a Samsung Spinpoint F3. Now, it's nowhere near as fast as an SSD, and sure, solid state drives are great if you can afford them. But if they don't fit the budget, you can at least get a relatively fast hard drive for a small fraction of the price premium of buying an SSD.
"Graphics card are not binned for what they can be overclocked to same for cpu, this has been proven time and time again with every new graphics card/cpu that are released."
They're binned for a variety of things. If one or two SMs is defective, it goes into the 6850 bin. If the memory controller can't safely hit 1050 MHz, it goes into the 6850 bin. If portions of the chip work but can't safely run 900 MHz, it goes into the 6850 bin. Yeah, the top clocking 6850s may hit the same clock speeds as the top clocking 6870s. But 14 SMs in the 6870 versus 12 in the 6850 is too big of a gap for overclocking to bridge.
Clock speed isn't the only thing that matters. You don't really think a 3.8 GHz Pentium 4 is faster than a 3.4 GHz Core i7 2600, do you?
I like the Asus Monitor but I don't think it's 1080p like the ViewSonic?
Nvidias gtx 560, 570, or 580 blows away ATI's offerings. Even the 560 can be OC to outperform ATI cards costing much more.
Then facter Physx and cuda along with most games being better programmed for Nvidia, then factor the MUCH better drivers.
I am switching from a ATI 5770 back to green (I regret getting another ATI card because of the pathetic drivers, and CCC) I never regretted going green
For a monitor I also highly recommend LED backlit. I got this and love it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001414&Tpk=px2370
and power supply I will stick with Corsair for how beefy the componants are. They are very solid well made PSU.
My mistake, those two monitors are not 1080P
Try this one
Monitor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009261
Let buyer decide if want double storage space or fast boot time / data transfer
If have money to spare then get the Nvidia 560 TI
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121424&cm_re=560_ti-_-14-121-424-_-Product
Compared to a GeForce GTX 560 Ti, a Radeon HD 6950 1 GB:
1) Tends to perform better in games
2) Uses less power
3) Costs less to buy
4) Is likely to get larger future performance improvements from drivers, because it is a newer architecture
5) Has a better feature set
So why would you get a GeForce GTX 560 Ti, again? Well, you bring up the feature set. So then, what's the GeForce GTX 560 Ti have that the Radeon HD 6950 doesn't? GPU PhysX, which has been used by exactly three meaningful games, and can never be used for anything more than fancy graphics that I'd just as soon turn off?
CUDA, which is really just a useless talking point? So far, the only meaningful CUDA applications in the general consumer space are video transcoding. And with the industry likely to move to OpenCL, the prospects of CUDA suddenly becoming relevant in the future aren't good.
Meanwhile, the Radeon HD 6950 offers:
1) Eyefinity, so you can run up to 6 monitors from a single card, and spread a game across them if you like. With Nvidia, you're stuck at two monitors from a single card, and a game window only one one of them.
2) Morphological anti-aliasing, which is compatible with any game out there, and without the enormous performance hit of SSAA. Nvidia has nothing analogous.
3) PowerTune, which lets you cap power consumption at whatever level you like, so that even the weirdest power viruses have no chance to cause damage. Nvidia has nothing analogous--and the many GeForce GTX 590s that didn't survive the review process even in the hands of professional reviewers made this painfully obvious.
4) Broader CrossFire compatibililty with motherboards, because AMD doesn't artificially disable CrossFire through their drivers the way Nvidia does with SLI.
5) UVD 3, which is widely recognized as offering better quality video decode and playback than Nvidia's comepeting solution.
Now, maybe you care about some of those features and maybe you care about none of them. But any one of the first three is probably worth more than PhysX and CUDA added together.
If you compare a GeForce GTX 570 to a Radeon HD 6970, you get a similar analysis. Performance tends to be closer, and not a clear win for the 6970 unless you go to very high resolutions where 2 GB of video memory is enough to give the 6970 a big advantage.
The Radeon HD 6970 gets an additional advantage over the GeForce GTX 570, though, in that it reliably stays within the power specifications. A Radeon HD 6970 has the power connectors to feed 300 W to the card, while the GeForce GTX 570 only has the connectors for 225 W. Meanwhile, the 6970 uses less power than the GTX 570.
Now, AMD doesn't have a direct answer to the GeForce GTX 580, which is the fastest single GPU card on the market. Two Radeon HD 6950s in CrossFire will usually beat a GeForce GTX 580 handily, though--and the two 6950s cost less, too.
The stuff about drivers and games being programmed for Nvidia is just FUD. One could just as easily assert that exactly the same thing gives AMD an advantage over Nvidia. In reality, drivers and game support is pretty much a wash.
Sure, it's his money, so he can decide what he values. But it's not just boot time and data transfer. It's how long it takes the computer to respond and do what you told it to, every time you tell it to do something.
There's really no sense in getting a GeForce GTX 560 Ti unless you strongly prefer Nvidia, without regard to how the cards actually perform, or are one of the very few people who really needs an Nvidia-specific feature. See my post above.
Thanks a lot guys! I'll go ahead and make the neccessary changes. I also went ahead and bought a Maximum PC magazine with instructions on how to build a computer
Post picture after it's built ( :
I see this MoBo for cheap.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130571
I don't plan on doing any SLI or Crossfire as I prefer to only use 1 GPU and I won't be doing too much overclocking. Would this one be okay or is it too weak and I am silly for not wanting to go SLI/Crossfire?
Yes that board's fine
There are reasons why it's cheaper. If you get that motherboard, then assume that you won't be doing any overclocking at all, not merely not "that much" overclocking. It's much lighter on features than higher end motherboards. It's likely to be somewhat less reliable than a better motherboard would be, though it would probably work just fine for you and never give you any trouble.
If you're trying to get a cheap motherboard, I'd spend the extra $2.44 to get this instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130583
Note the difference in shipping costs, which makes the total price tag only differ by $2.44. That will get you heatsinks on some power circuitry, a second PCI Express x16 slot, and easier to access SATA ports. There are probably other advantages to it over the one you picked, too, but that's just what I saw pretty quickly.
If you're going to get the motherboard that I just linked, then get a Core i5 2500 rather than 2500K, as you're not going to overclock the processor beyond what the 2500 will allow. For personal use, I'd probably go with one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131705
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128477
But if you want to save some money on the motherboard and get the MSI P67A-G43 instead, then go ahead.
Ok thanks Quiz and Peter!