Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Help building a new PC (2k budget)
It's been a while since I last upgraded my PC, so my brother will help me build a new one. We are, however, kind of clueless and not really tech saavy.
My budget for this is 2k. It will be for gaming as well as heavy photo manipulation and some video editing, so I need plenty of storage space (preferably one drive for OS and main apps, one for gaming, and one for photo manips and video editing). I don't really need the best of the best, but something that can really last a few years.
I already have the basics: monitor, keyboard, etc.
Any help will be really appreciated, thank you!
Comments
Your brother is going to help you build a new computer? Does that mean you can assemble a computer from parts, and just need to know what parts to get?
What is "etc." in the list of parts you have? My usual list of peripherals is a mouse, keyboard, monitor, speakers, and surge protector. Do you already have all of that?
Does your video editing drive any particular CPU or GPU needs? Or is this a case where a good gaming system will have plenty of CPU and GPU performance for whatever the video editing requires?
Thanks for the reply Quizzical!
He can assemble the parts. We just need to know what parts to get. As for the "etc" part, that includes the basic things like mouse, surge protector, speakers all which I've already got. For the last question, this is the case where a good gaming system will cover that.
Let me know if there's anything else I need to cover. Thanks a bunch!
If your clueless i wouldent bother building one, as 2k is alot of money to throw away,
So best bet is to buy a pre built system, Alot of companies will actuly help you pick the right parts for what you need but dont make your self look vunrable as thay can also rip you off,
Then once you go parts you can have them build it for you, I know alot dont like alienware but thay do a good setup and 2k will buy you almost top of the range spec.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/3845509852.png
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
If you're willing and able to assemble parts yourself, then there's no sense in paying someone else hundreds of dollars to do so for you.
Haswell won't be much faster than Ivy Bridge, and rumors put it at about 5 months away from launch. I'd advise against waiting. Furthermore, rumors are that Haswell may be the only part to use the new socket, so it doesn't buy you any futureproofing, either. There are conflicting rumors as to whether its successor, Broadwell, will have a socketed version at all, and even if it does, it might not be the same socket as Haswell.
I totally agree with Quizzical.
Computer parts are fairly easy to assemble nowadays anyway.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
You might want to think a bit more about what your end goal is and be a bit more specific on what you are trying to build. The reason I say that is because you say it doesn't have to be the best of the best, but with a 2k budget thats pretty much what you are looking at. I mean you can grab a GTX 680 and a i7-3930k with that budget and still have plenty of cash left over to get premium parts for everything else.
If you are really looking to get the best of what you can get with a $2k budget I or others can get a build together for you and give you the pros and cons and etc. Just make sure you are wanting to spend $2k and then let us know.
What I use:
Asus PZ77 Mobo
i7 3770k
16gb ram (32 if you want, i use 32 but it's not necessary for most people)
Radeon 7970 3GB sapphire Vapour X edition
Corsair TX650 watt PSU
SSD 240GB - 500GB, you decide what you need
Windows 7 professional
Runs everything you could throw at it.
Will set you back only about £900 max and you'll spend a lot more money to make only minor improvements over this. Don't know what it will cost in dollars, US prices on hardware are cheaper. Maybe $1400?
You say a $2000 budget, and that's what I'll pick for you, because I believe in respecting the budget. You should be aware that you could lop about $500 off that budget without losing all that much, though. Without further ado, all prices including shipping and before rebates
CPU/memory combo deal: $394
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1174550
Top of the line gaming processor, plus 16 GB of system memory.
Motherboard: $178, before a $10 rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130643
Fairly high-ish end, and will do whatever you want.
Power supply: $161, before a $20 rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151121
Because a high end gaming system needs a high end power supply, and the Seasonic Platinum is the best on the market, apart from rebrands of the Seasonic Platinum.
Case: $110
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129178
Lots of perfectly good cases. If you don't like the looks of that one, then get a different one.
SSD: $350
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147190
You sounded like you needed a lot of capacity. So here's a lot of capacity. There's no sense in getting one drive for the OS and main programs, and a different drive for games anymore. SSDs are so fast that you stick everything on the SSD and it still flies.
Hard drive: $160
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148844
So you want a lot of capacity, for your video editing and such? How about 3 TB?
Optical drive: $16
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151256
Because it doesn't matter which one you get.
Video card: $450
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125439
Because a Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is the top of the line. And yes, it's faster than a GeForce GTX 680, in spite of being cheaper.
Operating system: $100
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416550
If you want Windows 7 instead of Windows 8, you could get that instead. They're not that different.
CPU heatsink: $81
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608018
Excellent cooling performance, and pretty quiet, too. If you're not going to go for a huge overclock, it's easy to save a ton of money here by getting something cheaper. But it also has a price tag that leads to:
Total: $1999.47, including shipping and before rebates. When I said I'd spend $2000 for you, I meant it.
The above equipment is virtually identical to what I use in my pc, that i listed just above. Though mine cost less.
I've tried various setups, including with a 670 GTX and i5 3570k. I find the i7 3770k is worth the extra money, and the 7970 doesn't cost any more than a 670 GTX and is quite a lot better.
My pc is a total beast and in my opinion was good value for money, setting me back only around £900. (£1000) with the SSD. Translates to about $1500.
E.g. drop down to the still high end 7950, go for a still good but cheaper psu, get a $300 processor and go with an after market air cooler instead will knock a good $400 off.
Thanks for all the replies and feedback!
Quizzical - Thanks so much! If I could save $500 without much hit to performance, I'd definitely would want to. What would the list of things I need?
Easy places to cut back:
1) Give up hyperthreading on the processor by going with a Core i5-3570K instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1174558
That also costs you 100 MHz on the stock clock speed, but it's easy to get that back with overclocking if you care about it. Hyperthreading makes no difference in programs that don't scale to more than four cores, but can improve performance by up to 30% in programs that scale flawlessly to eight cores.
By the time there are games that won't run well on a Core i5-3570K because four cores isn't enough, the sensible thing to do will be to upgrade to the latest 12- or 16- core processor fo the day, or whatever we're running by then. That's several years away, at least.
2) Get a cheaper processor heatsink:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099
That's still appropriate for moderate overclocking, but not for extreme overclocks that would risk frying the processor at room temperature.
3) Get a power supply that is merely very good, but not the best that money can buy:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182071
4) Get a motherboard that is still decently nice while being quite a bit cheaper. Take your pick:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130645
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131823
5) Get an SSD that is only half as big:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226237
Depending on how many games and programs you have, you could conceivably run out of room for them all on the smaller SSD, though 223 GB is still a lot of space for actual programs.
The Memory/CPU combo is a bad deal. CPU is fine but the memory is bundled with it for a reason. A lot of issues with that specific one. Had to move it some how lol.
The MSI board you linked is one that actually has issues with higher end GPUs. On a lower end build its a good board but it has issues with higher end GPU's.
There are many more reasons to keep stuff on seperate drives than just saving storage space on one lol. If you are smart you will stick with seperate drives. One for OS and main programs and a second as storage. One of the main advantages is extending the life of your SSD's and help keep the random write speed high (It does reduce with use) lol.
I'd also stick with Windows 7 unless you are certain you are ok with a completely different user experiences. Many that jumped on the Windows 8 bandwagon quickly switched back to Windows 7. Before anyone makes the switch I recomend you watch videos and such on how it works and then go to a store and test drive it a little. Not to mention you can ask just about any PC builder and they will tell you most of their customers pick Windows 7 still. As it stands now, windows 7 is the preffered OS for gamers and serious PC users. That may change later, but thats simply how it stands now. Many guides were created to even help consumers downgrade to windows 7 when buying a Dell or HP since the downgrade isn't offered by the manafacturer lol.
Overall not a bad build, just a few parts that should probably be changed.
74% five star ratings on the memory is bad?
What sort of issues with higher end GPUs does the motherboard have? Is it not a standard PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot?
I linked both an SSD and a hard drive. The original poster talked about getting three separate drives, with two of them for performance-sensitive things. I say two is plenty for nearly everyone, if you get both an SSD and a hard drive of whatever capacity you need.
You can go either way on Windows 7 or Windows 8. They're not that different, so it's a matter of personal preference. But you do need to get one or the other.
Actually just going by experience, wasn't paying much attention to the ratings. After looking it seems there are others mirroring my experience. I'm up to 167 rigs built in the past 3 years :P
And the mother board acts up with higher end cards. I've had to actually "Jump Start" the cards to get them working on that board. Suffice to say I wasn't going to risk selling someone a PC where I had to jump start the graphics card so the board was RMA'd twice with the same issue even using different cards. Lower end cards seemed to work fine. In the end had to use a different board so I felt comfortable with the build.
And I see now what you were saying about the SSDs, my bad on that one.
I did some additional research and adjusted a few things on the list.
Thank you for all the help!
And what did you adjust? More to the point, which other parts are you going to get? Changing some parts out isn't necessarily bad, but I've seen too many people come here, ask for help, then abruptly buy something random that wasn't being discussed and end up overpaying for junk.
^^This^^
I built a $1500 system off of Quizz's recomendations (well except for the video card I went beefy). And it took more time screwing in my MoBo and attaching the components than it did loading (a new install of Windows 7) and all the drivers.
About 3 1/2 hours tops. Building a gaming PC is stupid easy, dont be an idiot and pay someone else. If you can snap together Leggos you can build a PC.
Yes, its that easy. Just listen to advice (the right advice).
I can play Farcry 3 in 1920 x 1080 with everything maxed, and I will stress e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g maxed, and Im still rolling 35fps - 50ish fps. Same with PlanetSide 2, maxed settings and no video draw lag what-so-ever.
And I should point out I have two 24" monitors (I only game on one) but the other I can alt-tab in and out of my games and look stuff up, or watch videos on YouTube while playing, no studdering, no hang up on tab in and out, its a beast.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."