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Good buy?

DM19DM19 Member UncommonPosts: 122

Would this be a good buy / set up for $1400?

 

1 x Case ( Chimera Inferno 4SE Gaming Case - Flame )

1 x Processor ( Intel® Core™ i7 3820 Processor (4x 3.60GHz/10MB L3 Cache) - Intel Core i7 3820 )

1 x Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-2011] - ARC Dual Silent High Performance Fan Upgrade (Push-Pull Airflow) )

1 x Memory ( 32 GB [8 GB X4] DDR3-1333 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand )

1 x Video Card ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 - 2GB - FREE Upgrade to 660 2GB EVGA Superclocked - Single Card )

1 x Video Card Brand ( Major Brand Powered by AMD or NVIDIA )

1 x Free Stuff ( *[FREE] - Gigabyte GC-WB300D Bluetooth 4.0 / Dual Band WiFi Expansion Card - Free with purchase of ALL Desktop )

1 x Motherboard ( ASUS P9X79 LE -- 2x USB 3.0 )

1 x Power Supply ( 600 Watt - Standard )

1 x Primary Hard Drive ( 2 TB HARD DRIVE -- 64M Cache, 7200rpm, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )

1 x Data Hard Drive ( 2 TB HARD DRIVE -- 64M Cache, 7200rpm, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )

1 x Optical Drive ( 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - *Thanksgiving Weekend Specials* FREE Upgrade to LG BLU-RAY Reader Combo Drive Black )

1 x Flash Media Reader / Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black )

1 x Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )

1 x Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )

1 x Operating System ( Windows 8 + Office 2010 Trial [Free 60-Day !!!] - 64-bit )

1 x Mouse ( iBUYPOWER Standard Gaming Mouse - Blood Red )

1 x Headset ( Connectland 3.5mm Connector Circumaural Stereo Headset )

1 x Warranty ( 3 Year Standard Warranty Service )

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Comments

  • DM19DM19 Member UncommonPosts: 122

    If this is a bad buy in any way shape or form really like to know and the deal ends in 2 hours >.<

    Use to know most of this stuff but i'm pretty clueless now : /

  • miguksarammiguksaram Member UncommonPosts: 835

    While it's not a horrible system for the price they are asking it's not great by any stretch and in many ways doesn't make much sense (that tends to pretty standard for ibuypower and cyberpower though).

    If your main intension for the machine is use it as a gaming machine then spending the extra money on the i7 CPU and overkill of 32Gb of ram when you could go with an i5 3570k and 16Gb meanwhile allowing you to upgrade to a MUCH nicer GPU just doesn't make any sense at all.  Oh and let's not forget they don't actually state the PSU make/model which is always something to be VERY cautious of as a PSU failure can take your whole system with it.  Also at that price is should have an SSD for the Boot drive as a standard, this one appears to only have a HDD.  HDD are fine for storage but when you get over $1k for a new PC these days SSD for the boot drive/HDD storage drive should be the setup you look for period.

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,346
    Originally posted by DM19

    If this is a bad buy in any way shape or form really like to know and the deal ends in 2 hours >.<

    Use to know most of this stuff but i'm pretty clueless now : /

    Don't rush.  iBuyPower always has a special deal going on, and it's always about to end.  That's to try to create pressure to make you think you have to buy something right this second or end up paying a lot more, so that you end up overpaying for something stupid.  As soon as one special deal ends, another starts--and usually nearly identical to the one that just ended.

  • xK3runexK3rune Member Posts: 100
    Originally posted by DM19

    Would this be a good buy / set up for $1400?

     

    1 x Case ( Chimera Inferno 4SE Gaming Case - Flame )

    1 x Processor ( Intel® Core™ i7 3820 Processor (4x 3.60GHz/10MB L3 Cache) - Intel Core i7 3820 )

    1 x Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-2011] - ARC Dual Silent High Performance Fan Upgrade (Push-Pull Airflow) )

    1 x Memory ( 32 GB [8 GB X4] DDR3-1333 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand )

    1 x Video Card ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 - 2GB - FREE Upgrade to 660 2GB EVGA Superclocked - Single Card )

    1 x Video Card Brand ( Major Brand Powered by AMD or NVIDIA )

    1 x Free Stuff ( *[FREE] - Gigabyte GC-WB300D Bluetooth 4.0 / Dual Band WiFi Expansion Card - Free with purchase of ALL Desktop )

    1 x Motherboard ( ASUS P9X79 LE -- 2x USB 3.0 )

    1 x Power Supply ( 600 Watt - Standard )

    1 x Primary Hard Drive ( 2 TB HARD DRIVE -- 64M Cache, 7200rpm, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )

    1 x Data Hard Drive ( 2 TB HARD DRIVE -- 64M Cache, 7200rpm, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )

    1 x Optical Drive ( 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - *Thanksgiving Weekend Specials* FREE Upgrade to LG BLU-RAY Reader Combo Drive Black )

    1 x Flash Media Reader / Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black )

    1 x Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )

    1 x Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )

    1 x Operating System ( Windows 8 + Office 2010 Trial [Free 60-Day !!!] - 64-bit )

    1 x Mouse ( iBUYPOWER Standard Gaming Mouse - Blood Red )

    1 x Headset ( Connectland 3.5mm Connector Circumaural Stereo Headset )

    1 x Warranty ( 3 Year Standard Warranty Service )

     

    Not at ALL.

    An i7 isn't necessary for gaming, with a $1400 budget you can basically afford an Nvidia GTX 680, or a 670 and other better parts.

    32gb ram? LOL for what.. a 670 will also give you enough left to buy an SSD. Don't pay for Win 7 (dont get Win 8 either). 

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,346
    Originally posted by DM19

    1 x Power Supply ( 600 Watt - Standard )

    That's always a bad deal.  If it were good, they'd tell you.  In fact, they do offer some good power supplies, and tell you exactly what they are.

    Why are you looking at Sandy Bridge-E?  That's a server chip that Intel offers to sell in desktops--but they charge server (i.e., high) prices for it.  For gaming purposes, Ivy Bridge is both better and cheaper.

    Also, 32 GB of system memory is extreme overkill for most purposes.  I can understand 16 GB on a big budget just because it's so cheap, but 32?  There are some reasons to get that much memory, but gaming isn't one of them, and won't be any time soon.

    -----

    Why are you looking to get a computer built to order in the first place, rather than building your own?

  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441

    First of all: get 2x16Gb memory sticks instead, you need 2 for them to work in full speed.

    Secondly, for that price you really should be able to afford a better PSU, at least a Corsair proffesional 650W. A "standard" PSU are often a really bad buy, it might both shorten the lifetime of the computer and might use more power. OCZ also make good PSUs for a nice price.

    Otherwise are the parts fine, but you might get them a little cheaper if you look around.

  • DM19DM19 Member UncommonPosts: 122
    Thanks for the reply. Money is not that big a deal is why i went higher end on them items but could still do the GPU also and pretty much everything else. Was something i just whipped up after seeing a deal and i can edit it all. With out building it myself you know of any other sites like Ibuypower that wont rip me off to bad?
  • DM19DM19 Member UncommonPosts: 122
    Happy i made this post i see now i know even less then i thought >.<
  • DM19DM19 Member UncommonPosts: 122

    Ok so like <a data-cke-saved-href="http://www.mmorpg.com/profile.cfm/username/Quizzical"; href="http://www.mmorpg.com/profile.cfm/username/Quizzical"; title="View information about Quizzical" suhlink"="">Quizzical said they always have deals so going to wait.

    I changed a few things with the PC i was looking at as a guide to go on if you guys will look it over. This came out at about 1600.

    I'm not sure about the motherboard at all.

     


        
    Black Paladin F

    1 x Case ( Chimera Inferno 4SE Gaming Case - Flame )

    1 x Processor ( Intel® Core™ i7 3820 Processor (4x 3.60GHz/10MB L3 Cache) - Intel Core i7 3820 )

    1 x Processor Cooling ( Corsair Hydro Series H60 Liquid CPU Cooling System - ARC Dual Silent High Performance Fan Upgrade (Push-Pull Airflow) )

    1 x Memory ( 16 GB [2 GB X8] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand )

    1 x Video Card ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 - 2GB - FREE Upgrade to 670 2GB EVGA Superclocked - Single Card )

    1 x Video Card Brand ( Major Brand Powered by AMD or NVIDIA )

    1 x Free Stuff ( *[FREE] - Gigabyte GC-WB300D Bluetooth 4.0 / Dual Band WiFi Expansion Card - Free with purchase of ALL Desktop )

    1 x Motherboard ( ASUS P9X79 LE -- 2x USB 3.0 )

    1 x Power Supply ( 650 Watt - Corsair CMPSU-650TXV2 - Free Upgrade to 750 Watt Corsair CMPSU-750TXV2 ($20 Savings) )

    1 x Primary Hard Drive ( 2 TB HARD DRIVE -- 64M Cache, 7200rpm, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )

    1 x Optical Drive ( 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - *Thanksgiving Weekend Specials* FREE Upgrade to LG BLU-RAY Reader Combo Drive Black )

    1 x Flash Media Reader / Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black )

    1 x Sound Card ( ASUS Xonar DG )

    1 x Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )

    1 x Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit )

     
  • miguksarammiguksaram Member UncommonPosts: 835
    If you are still looking for other sites I would recommend you check out AVAdirect.  I can't guarantee you will get a better deal but you should be able to do a better job of building a specific (meaning you choose all parts, make/model) system via their options over ibuypower/cyberpower.
  • miguksarammiguksaram Member UncommonPosts: 835
    Originally posted by DM19

    Ok so like I changed a few things with the PC i was looking at as a guide to go on if you guys will look it over. This came out at about 1600.

     


        
    Black Paladin F

    1 x Case ( Chimera Inferno 4SE Gaming Case - Flame )

    1 x Processor ( Intel® Core™ i7 3820 Processor (4x 3.60GHz/10MB L3 Cache) - Intel Core i7 3820 )

    1 x Processor Cooling ( Corsair Hydro Series H60 Liquid CPU Cooling System - ARC Dual Silent High Performance Fan Upgrade (Push-Pull Airflow) )

    1 x Memory ( 16 GB [2 GB X8] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand )

    1 x Video Card ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 - 2GB - FREE Upgrade to 670 2GB EVGA Superclocked - Single Card )

    1 x Video Card Brand ( Major Brand Powered by AMD or NVIDIA )

    1 x Free Stuff ( *[FREE] - Gigabyte GC-WB300D Bluetooth 4.0 / Dual Band WiFi Expansion Card - Free with purchase of ALL Desktop )

    1 x Motherboard ( ASUS P9X79 LE -- 2x USB 3.0 )

    1 x Power Supply ( 650 Watt - Corsair CMPSU-650TXV2 - Free Upgrade to 750 Watt Corsair CMPSU-750TXV2 ($20 Savings) )

    1 x Primary Hard Drive ( 2 TB HARD DRIVE -- 64M Cache, 7200rpm, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )

    1 x Optical Drive ( 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - *Thanksgiving Weekend Specials* FREE Upgrade to LG BLU-RAY Reader Combo Drive Black )

    1 x Flash Media Reader / Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black )

    1 x Sound Card ( ASUS Xonar DG )

    1 x Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )

    1 x Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit )

     

    While this is a much better gaming build than your last I would still ask why the i7?  Do you plan to use it for something other than gaming that would require multiple cores or perhaps in the case of gaming multiboxing?
     
    If you aren't aware I'd like to point out that the closed loop liquid cooling system you selected really isn't any better and in some case is louder than other comparable air cooling setups such as the Noctua NH-D14.  You would really need to spring for the Corsair H100 or H100i (newer version).  Anything under that you are paying a premium for very little performance gain, especially if you aren't planning on overclocking your system.
     
    The MB is WAY overkill unless you plan to do SLI/Xfire from the get go as that is specifically what the X79 boards are designed to accomplish.  I higher end Z77 would be a much better deal for a single GPU setup.
     
    Do you plan to do a surround system setup with your system or are you an audiophile?  If not the Asus Xonar sound card is also a waste of cash and is something you could EASILY add later should you decide onboard sound isn't good enough.  I highly recommend you stick with onboard sound until after you have heard it before you spring for a seperate sound card.  These days all quality MB's come with build-in onboard sound which is easily equal to soundcards of yesteryear.
     
    Other than that your other options are right on the mark, but as I stated in my previous post I would still compare a similar build to what AVAdirect has to offer.
  • DM19DM19 Member UncommonPosts: 122

    Just wanted to thank everyone for all the help.

    After seeing just how much it costs to have them sites build a pc for you i'm going to try it myself. I''ve wanted to learn how for a very long time now and think its about time i learn and this site http://www.pcityourself.com/index.php seems to make it very easy step by step. If it blows up in my face i guess it be a good lesson learned :)

  • miguksarammiguksaram Member UncommonPosts: 835

    I'd say you made the right choice in the end.  A couple things to remember when you building your own system, a. order all your parts at the same time because you won't know what might be a lemon until you actually build the system and b. due to the possibility of lemons be sure to register all your parts as soon as you can to ensure they are covered in case of failure or DOA.

    While the above are unlikely to happen it's just a fact of life with computer parts that not all will ship in working condition, this is part of the reason the major players offer such great RMA policies.  Please don't let any of this discourage you from building a system yourself because to be quite frank no online reseller will offer you EXACTLY what you want in a system, only you can do that (or pay someone local to built it after you order the parts).

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383


    Originally posted by miguksaram
    I'd say you made the right choice in the end.  A couple things to remember when you building your own system, a. order all your parts at the same time because you won't know what might be a lemon until you actually build the system and b. due to the possibility of lemons be sure to register all your parts as soon as you can to ensure they are covered in case of failure or DOA.

    While the above are unlikely to happen it's just a fact of life with computer parts that not all will ship in working condition, this is part of the reason the major players offer such great RMA policies.  Please don't let any of this discourage you from building a system yourself because to be quite frank no online reseller will offer you EXACTLY what you want in a system, only you can do that (or pay someone local to built it after you order the parts).


    Good advice.

    I'd say of all the computers I've built, probably 15% of them have ~some~ part that has to be RMA'ed in the first 2 weeks. Usually it's RAM DOA, but occasionally a motherboard or video card will die very early on. Buying from a reputable retailer (Newegg is among the better with regard to this) makes it very easy to return and get the computer up and running. Plus if you have spare parts from an older computer or something, you can still get some use out of some of the parts, rather than having to mail in your entire rig (often at your expense, and shipping an entire computer is not cheap) and wait for the entire rig to come back.

    That sounds high, but it's a lot of different parts you order at the same time. Compared to some of the nightmares I've heard about some of the cut rate configure-your-own sites, it's not bad considering.

  • DM19DM19 Member UncommonPosts: 122

    So i've pretty much just been looking at the processor and motherboard so far and as i keep reading into them i'm changing my mind time and again so here i am lol.

    So i was going to just go high end on everything and get an I7 but yeah really no point in it like was said so going I5.

    Same with the motherboard i was going to get ASUS Rampage IV Extreme LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131802 They say its not very noob friendly and seems like it might be overkill now also but i'm not sure there.

    Ram has got me wondering also as i see a lot of 16gb with four sticks of ram rather than two and someone said get two 8gb sticks.

    I have a $2000 range. Could go $4000 but really rather not.

    Needless to say its for gaming and i play a mix of single player and online/mmo games and looking to get a set up that be as smooth for all of them as i can get.

     

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383


    Originally posted by DM19
    So i've pretty much just been looking at the processor and motherboard so far and as i keep reading into them i'm changing my mind time and again so here i am lol. 

    The difference in motherboards is mainly 2 things:
    1) Features - you get the one that has the features you need (Extra USB slots?, WiFi?, Thunderbolt?, RAID controllers?, SLI/CFX x2/x4?, aesthetics?, etc)
    2) Overclockability - higher end motherboards will have bulkier power circuitry, allowing you to keep the power more stable as you crank it up overclocking. If you don't plan on overclocking, this does almost nothing for you.

    On a $2k budget, may as well get an i7. It won't help for gaming now, and there are few opportunities to use it effectively (maybe certain software while ripping movies/music, or some rendering software, etc), but on that budget, why the hell not.

    On a Z77 motherboard, there really isn't any technical reason to prefer 2 DIMMS or 4 DIMMS. From a practical standpoint, if you want to upgrade your RAM in the future, it's easier and more economical to do if you have empty slots, rather than having to pull 2 DIMMs out to replace them with something larger. RAM really only matters when you don't have enough. For most people, they never use more than 4G (since nearly every application/game is still 32-bit and only uses 2G of RAM). But it's cheap, so why not make sure you don't run out - 8G is overkill for most people for the near future as it is, and if you ever hit a condition where it isn't enough, it's easy enough to add more.

    Really, with your budget, the real decisions don't deal with the computer itself - that is more or less a cookie cutter build right now. It lay with how you plan to use it:
    Multiple monitors (that would really be the only reason I would consider SLI/CFX)? Nice desk/chair. Peripheral layout? Nice amplifier/set of speakers? etc.

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,346
    Originally posted by DM19

    So i've pretty much just been looking at the processor and motherboard so far and as i keep reading into them i'm changing my mind time and again so here i am lol.

    So i was going to just go high end on everything and get an I7 but yeah really no point in it like was said so going I5.

    Same with the motherboard i was going to get ASUS Rampage IV Extreme LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131802 They say its not very noob friendly and seems like it might be overkill now also but i'm not sure there.

    Ram has got me wondering also as i see a lot of 16gb with four sticks of ram rather than two and someone said get two 8gb sticks.

    I have a $2000 range. Could go $4000 but really rather not.

    Needless to say its for gaming and i play a mix of single player and online/mmo games and looking to get a set up that be as smooth for all of them as i can get.

     

    Considering that you started out looking at a $1400 machine, I'm guessing that you'd prefer to spend less than $2000 so long as it doesn't mean losing significant quality or performance.

    All prices including shipping and before rebates:

    Processor/motherboard combo deal:  $379

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1141015

    That's the standard gaming enthusiast processor, together with a fairly high end motherboard that can do everything you'll want (within reason; it won't cook your meals), plus a lot of stuff you won't.

    Case/power supply combo deal:  $245 before $35 in rebates

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1149288

    Fairly high end power supply together with a big, feature rich case that will handle whatever you later decide to do with it.

    Video card/memory combo deal:  $505

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1160615

    You've got the budget to grab a top-of-the-line single GPU card, so here it is.  And you don't really need 16 GB of system memory, but it's cheap, so why not?  The specs on the memory are pretty good, and two 8 GB modules leaves you room to easily add more on the off chance that someday you decide you need more memory.

    Solid state drive:  $171

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148530

    A computer without a good SSD is slow.  So here's a good SSD.

    Hard drive:  $150

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148907

    How much hard drive capacity do you need?  Probably a lot less than you think you need.  But you were looking at 4 TB in your original post, so here's a 3 TB hard drive.

    Optical drive:  $16

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151256

    Because there's rarely point in spending more unless you want to watch Blu-Ray movies on your computer.

    CPU heatsink/fan:  $40

    http://www.amazon.com/Thermalright-100700529-True-Spirit-120/dp/B005MSOH7C

    New Egg doesn't carry it, but Hard OCP gave it a glowing review.  Reasonably good cooling performance, and very, very quiet.

    Operating system:  $100

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416550

    Because you need it if you want any Windows software to run.  Such as nearly all games.

    Total:  $1606, including shipping and before $35 in rebates.

    I'm assuming that you keep peripherals (keyboard, mouse, speakers, surge protector, monitor) from an old build.

    If you're inclined to spend more to get something special, then what do you think about Eyefinity?  You could spread a game window across three monitors for an enormous effective monitor resolution.

    -----

    So how does this compare to what you had listed in your initial post?

    The processor is, for gaming purposes, equivalent.  The motherboard is a different platform, so it lacks the LGA 2011 features (not relevant to gaming, apart from for a CrossFire/SLI setup that you shouldn't get), but is probably otherwise a little higher quality.  The difference between 16 GB and 32 GB of system memory doesn't matter.  You lose 1 TB of hard drive capacity.  Sounds bad, right?

    Well, look at what you gain.  You get a top of the line video card instead of mid-range.  You get a good SSD, which will make everything feel dramatically more responsive.  You get a high end power supply, rather than a piece of junk that is a danger to your system.  You get what is probably a substantially nicer case, albeit with a far less gaudy paint job.  You get better processor cooling.  By my reckoning, that's about $600 worth of upgrades, for a price difference of $200.

  • DM19DM19 Member UncommonPosts: 122

    Video card i think is a bit much i can always get better later on and also not a fan of  radeon cards never had much luck with them.

    Heatsink i was looking at the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608018 down side its really big but reading that its really good.

    Only other thing is why windows 8? I was thinking 8 but then so many people been saying go with 7.

  • DM19DM19 Member UncommonPosts: 122
    Originally posted by Quizzical
    Originally posted by DM19

    So i've pretty much just been looking at the processor and motherboard so far and as i keep reading into them i'm changing my mind time and again so here i am lol.

    So i was going to just go high end on everything and get an I7 but yeah really no point in it like was said so going I5.

    Same with the motherboard i was going to get ASUS Rampage IV Extreme LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131802 They say its not very noob friendly and seems like it might be overkill now also but i'm not sure there.

    Ram has got me wondering also as i see a lot of 16gb with four sticks of ram rather than two and someone said get two 8gb sticks.

    I have a $2000 range. Could go $4000 but really rather not.

    Needless to say its for gaming and i play a mix of single player and online/mmo games and looking to get a set up that be as smooth for all of them as i can get.

     

    Considering that you started out looking at a $1400 machine, I'm guessing that you'd prefer to spend less than $2000 so long as it doesn't mean losing significant quality or performance.

    All prices including shipping and before rebates:

    Processor/motherboard combo deal:  $379

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1141015

    That's the standard gaming enthusiast processor, together with a fairly high end motherboard that can do everything you'll want (within reason; it won't cook your meals), plus a lot of stuff you won't.

    Case/power supply combo deal:  $245 before $35 in rebates

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1149288

    Fairly high end power supply together with a big, feature rich case that will handle whatever you later decide to do with it.

    Video card/memory combo deal:  $505

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1160615

    You've got the budget to grab a top-of-the-line single GPU card, so here it is.  And you don't really need 16 GB of system memory, but it's cheap, so why not?  The specs on the memory are pretty good, and two 8 GB modules leaves you room to easily add more on the off chance that someday you decide you need more memory.

    Solid state drive:  $171

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148530

    A computer without a good SSD is slow.  So here's a good SSD.

    Hard drive:  $150

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148907

    How much hard drive capacity do you need?  Probably a lot less than you think you need.  But you were looking at 4 TB in your original post, so here's a 3 TB hard drive.

    Optical drive:  $16

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151256

    Because there's rarely point in spending more unless you want to watch Blu-Ray movies on your computer.

    CPU heatsink/fan:  $40

    http://www.amazon.com/Thermalright-100700529-True-Spirit-120/dp/B005MSOH7C

    New Egg doesn't carry it, but Hard OCP gave it a glowing review.  Reasonably good cooling performance, and very, very quiet.

    Operating system:  $100

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832416550

    Because you need it if you want any Windows software to run.  Such as nearly all games.

    Total:  $1606, including shipping and before $35 in rebates.

    I'm assuming that you keep peripherals (keyboard, mouse, speakers, surge protector, monitor) from an old build.

    If you're inclined to spend more to get something special, then what do you think about Eyefinity?  You could spread a game window across three monitors for an enormous effective monitor resolution.

    -----

    So how does this compare to what you had listed in your initial post?

    The processor is, for gaming purposes, equivalent.  The motherboard is a different platform, so it lacks the LGA 2011 features (not relevant to gaming, apart from for a CrossFire/SLI setup that you shouldn't get), but is probably otherwise a little higher quality.  The difference between 16 GB and 32 GB of system memory doesn't matter.  You lose 1 TB of hard drive capacity.  Sounds bad, right?

    Well, look at what you gain.  You get a top of the line video card instead of mid-range.  You get a good SSD, which will make everything feel dramatically more responsive.  You get a high end power supply, rather than a piece of junk that is a danger to your system.  You get what is probably a substantially nicer case, albeit with a far less gaudy paint job.  You get better processor cooling.  By my reckoning, that's about $600 worth of upgrades, for a price difference of $200.

    Ok it's taken me longer than i would have liked to get back to this. So i used most of what you said.

    Fan is a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608024

    GPU is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130787

    Going to take 7 over 8 also.

    The SSD I never knew about them till now and did a bit of reading but still not very sure how they work so if you could clear that up i think i'll be golden.

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,346

    The problem with hard drives is that they're slow.  In order to read anything from a hard drive, you have to wait for the platter and head to physically move to the right spot before it can start reading.  The amount of time this takes varies, but it's typically on the order of 10 ms.

    But wait, 10 ms sounds fast, you say?  Well, what happens if you have to load a thousand things at once?  Now you're looking at 10 seconds.  And a loading screen, which is boring.  Hard drives may cite speeds on the order of 100 MB/s, which is plenty fast, but that's only for sequential transfers, such as when you need to load one really big file that is not fragmented at all.  If you're loading small files, it's more like, read a little bit, wait 10 ms, read a little bit, wait 10 ms, and so forth.  In some cases, you spend over 99% of the time waiting for the platter and drive head to physically move to the next spot before continuing.

    In fact, when your computer makes you wait for something, if it's not downloading things from the Internet, it's probably making you wait while it loads stuff from a hard drive.

    Wouldn't it be great if you could skip the 10 ms penalty for switching to a different spot that hard drives bring?  Well, solid state drives can do exactly that.  They won't eliminate loading times entirely, but they will mean that you're usually not waiting on an SSD.  Many things will load in 1/2 or 1/3 of the time that they would have with even a relatively fast hard drive.  Some things will see a much bigger jump in performance than that, even.

    The upshot is that when you tell your computer to do something, it just does it, rather than make you sit there and wait and wait and wait and then eventually getting around to it.  Big games will still take a while to load, but many programs will be loaded and ready to go faster than you are.

    That only happens for loading things off of a solid state drive, though.  What a lot of people do is to get both a solid state drive and a hard drive, and install the OS and programs on the SSD, while putting bulk data (e.g., videos, music, or pictures) on the hard drive.

  • DM19DM19 Member UncommonPosts: 122
    Originally posted by Quizzical

    The problem with hard drives is that they're slow.  In order to read anything from a hard drive, you have to wait for the platter and head to physically move to the right spot before it can start reading.  The amount of time this takes varies, but it's typically on the order of 10 ms.

    But wait, 10 ms sounds fast, you say?  Well, what happens if you have to load a thousand things at once?  Now you're looking at 10 seconds.  And a loading screen, which is boring.  Hard drives may cite speeds on the order of 100 MB/s, which is plenty fast, but that's only for sequential transfers, such as when you need to load one really big file that is not fragmented at all.  If you're loading small files, it's more like, read a little bit, wait 10 ms, read a little bit, wait 10 ms, and so forth.  In some cases, you spend over 99% of the time waiting for the platter and drive head to physically move to the next spot before continuing.

    In fact, when your computer makes you wait for something, if it's not downloading things from the Internet, it's probably making you wait while it loads stuff from a hard drive.

    Wouldn't it be great if you could skip the 10 ms penalty for switching to a different spot that hard drives bring?  Well, solid state drives can do exactly that.  They won't eliminate loading times entirely, but they will mean that you're usually not waiting on an SSD.  Many things will load in 1/2 or 1/3 of the time that they would have with even a relatively fast hard drive.  Some things will see a much bigger jump in performance than that, even.

    The upshot is that when you tell your computer to do something, it just does it, rather than make you sit there and wait and wait and wait and then eventually getting around to it.  Big games will still take a while to load, but many programs will be loaded and ready to go faster than you are.

    That only happens for loading things off of a solid state drive, though.  What a lot of people do is to get both a solid state drive and a hard drive, and install the OS and programs on the SSD, while putting bulk data (e.g., videos, music, or pictures) on the hard drive. 

    Ok that helps a lot. Now i'm wondering if i should skip the hard drive and get one of them bigger 500 someone GB SSD but at same time I don't have an SSD on my PC right now and not a prob far as i can tell. Hmm choices lol.

    My thought on the 3T hard drive was that games are getting bigger every year not that I in fact need one and only have a 400gb one now I still don't fill.

     

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,346

    My standard guideline on storage space is to look at how much you're using now, double it, and figure that's now much you'll need on your new computer.  That's not just how much you have now, but how much you're actually using.

    If a few years from now, you discover that you need more space than you thought, then it's easy to buy another hard drive and add it later.  It will probably be cheaper a few years from now than today, too.

    The downside of SSDs is that they're very expensive in $/GB.  SSDs with about 500 GB of capacity start around $300, and you should expect to pay closer to $400 for the better ones.  On a $3000 budget, you can go ahead and pay that and not worry about it, but on your budget, I wouldn't.

    You can get both an SSD and a hard drive.  Some things don't benefit from the speed of an SSD; it's really only when you want to read or write a bunch of files at once that the SSD offers a big benefit.  Programs tend to load a lot of files at once.  Browsers will both load and save a lot of files at once.  Games will load huge numbers of files at once at nearly any loading screen.

    But videos, pictures, and music tend to be loaded one file at a time, so the speed of an SSD doesn't matter.  If a large fraction of your used storage space is data files like these, then get a hard drive for them so as not to waste space on an SSD.

  • DM19DM19 Member UncommonPosts: 122
    Originally posted by Quizzical

    My standard guideline on storage space is to look at how much you're using now, double it, and figure that's now much you'll need on your new computer.  That's not just how much you have now, but how much you're actually using.

    If a few years from now, you discover that you need more space than you thought, then it's easy to buy another hard drive and add it later.  It will probably be cheaper a few years from now than today, too.

    The downside of SSDs is that they're very expensive in $/GB.  SSDs with about 500 GB of capacity start around $300, and you should expect to pay closer to $400 for the better ones.  On a $3000 budget, you can go ahead and pay that and not worry about it, but on your budget, I wouldn't.

    You can get both an SSD and a hard drive.  Some things don't benefit from the speed of an SSD; it's really only when you want to read or write a bunch of files at once that the SSD offers a big benefit.  Programs tend to load a lot of files at once.  Browsers will both load and save a lot of files at once.  Games will load huge numbers of files at once at nearly any loading screen.

    But videos, pictures, and music tend to be loaded one file at a time, so the speed of an SSD doesn't matter.  If a large fraction of your used storage space is data files like these, then get a hard drive for them so as not to waste space on an SSD.

    How much will an SSD help with gaming? I will pretty much only have games on this pc which will take up an SSD space pretty fast i'm thinking so not sure of the worth of it for just games. So a friend told me today about power use of all the parts which i forgot all about. Add it all up and add 20% of that to it but not all the parts list the power use that i can see anyways.

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383


    Originally posted by DM19
    How much will an SSD help with gaming? I will pretty much only have games on this pc which will take up an SSD space pretty fast i'm thinking so not sure of the worth of it for just games. So a friend told me today about power use of all the parts which i forgot all about. Add it all up and add 20% of that to it but not all the parts list the power use that i can see anyways.

    SSD won't help with FPS for the most part, but it will help a lot with starting games, and anytime you see a loading screen (infrequent in some games, very frequent in others). Some games also stream textures from the disk, and SSDs can help a lot with the visual quality in these games.

    So do SSD's help with gaming? It really depends. You can definitely notice in a group when someone doesn't have one - they will zone/load/instance over later than you (by a lot). But will it give you more FPS or crank up the graphics options (which is all some people care about)? No, it won't. But it makes using the computer a whole lot more enjoyable when it responds much better to you. SSD will help everything on the computer, from startup times, to even just little hitches like when you click on the Start menu and your computer has to "think" for a few seconds, to those times when your computer has to "wake up" when you right click on a file folder to load and display all the contextual menus... and your games all load a lot faster.

    Personally, I recommend them to everyone, gaming or not, to the point where I will sacrifice video card budget in order to fit an SSD into a computer budget. But I don't play a lot of FPS games where FPS is all that matters.

    To most people who are concerned with SSD size, I just recommend they keep the few games/programs they primarily play on the SSD, and everything else on a traditional drive. If they start to play another game more often (or get a new one), just shuffle them around (most games you can just copy/paste and update the shortcut and be fine).

    As far as power draw:

    Find the TDP of your video card (just Google "TDP" and your video card model) - most are between 100-200W. That's the maximum design power of your video card of choice - it very very rarely will ever hit that, so it's a good safe number to use. Double that if you plan on overclocking.

    Almost every CPU uses right around 100W (again - max case, so it's a safe number to use). Double that if you plan on overclocking.

    Figure in 100W for everything else - hard drives, motherboard, lights, fans, etc. It takes a lot of fans/hard drives/water pumps/whatever to go over 100W, and for the most part this number won't change if you overclock or not.

    Add all that up - that's about what size you should get. I find that ~600W is a pretty good size for nearly all single video card builds - it's big enough to handle nearly any hardware combination you throw at it, but not so big as to be extremely expensive or overly wasteful.

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383


    Originally posted by DM19
    My thought on the 3T hard drive was that games are getting bigger every year not that I in fact need one and only have a 400gb one now I still don't fill.


    Stuff does generally tend to get bigger, but it all seems to have slowed down a good bit - hardware outpaced software there for a while, and right now I think the limiting factor is distribution media.

    For games to get much bigger, they would need to start shipping on several DVDs (which some do, but it really starts to get ridiculous and costly much past 2 or 3) or Blu-Ray/Flash/similar devices (which just haven't really caught on, or the media would cost substantially more) - and for the most part software is trying to get away from relying just on physical distribution, with digitally distribution a requirement for many. Not everyone has a really fast connection and a lot of people sit on ISPs with data caps, so the install size is still a very important consideration.

    Size has been constrained somewhat by some artificial means, and hasn't really changed much over the past few years. A typical AAA MMO game is around 15G, F2P tend to be a bit smaller (in at around 5G), and a few are very large (over 20G, generally those with lots of expansions under their belts, or very high resolution textures and voiceover assets).

    AoC is still the largest game I have on my computer (at just over 30G), with WoW right behind it (through Cata, no MoP, at 28G). SWTOR with all it's voice acting is around 20G. LOTRO is 15G (I don't have RoR). EQ1 is around 8G (missing the last 2 expansions). RIFT is just under 10G (missing the lastest expansion).

    Some newer games: PS2 is just under 10G. The last Firefall beta is 6.5G. TERA was 25G the last time I patched it (shortly after release). GW2 is at 16.5G.

    I have used a 120G SSD as my primary drive for the past 3ish years. I find it's big enough for Windows (allow around 40G for this, to include cache files and temporary file space, and the swap file). And then I've usually got room for 3-4ish games on top of that.

    Now, what I do use a lot of space for are multimedia - my legitimate (as hard as that may be to believe, it's true) multimedia collection has exploded, particularly once I started getting movies digitally in HD (720 and 1080). I'm just over 3T in multimedia alone -- thank goodness for NAS'es. So while games have been more or less stagnant, not everything has. It really depends on what you do with your computer. I find I can just shuffle all those off onto a network device, and I don't even need to consider them when planning a new computer - since they are on the network they are available to every computer, and my network is fast enough to stream it decently. But if I were to try to play a game over the network from the NAS, it would work, and it would be extremely painful.

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