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First time build, looking for hardware feedback
Hello, Everyone! I’m about to embark on my first build (I’m a total novice but a quick study I think), and a trusted friend suggested I check in here for advice and feedback. I’ve been impressed with the really valuable help you guys provide! I’ve been doing research, reading reviews and soliciting opinions of some friends more tech savvy than me. I’ll be running Windows 7, have monitor/keyboard/mouse and 750GB external memory already. My primary uses are home computing/browsing/high-schooler’s homework/work (will be using Dragon Medical)/ some gaming but not a lot. I’m thinking this may be more machine than I really need. So, here is my rough draft:
Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115073
ASUS P8H67-M PRO/CSM (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel H67 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131711
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRLhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277
Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697
SAPPHIRE 100328L Radeon HD 6770 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Cardhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102940
ASUS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS – OEM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204
OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W Modular High Performance Power Supply compatible with Intel Sandybridge Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD Phenom http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341016
Antec TWO HUNDRED S Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129074
Comments
If you overclock or want to, get the 2500K, not the 2500. The 2500 chip is locked vs the unlocked 2500K (much easier and higher overclocks)
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Good motherboard, ive done builds with that and i just simply love Asus stuff.
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RAM is okay, You might want to pick up 8GBs instead of 4GBs considering its only like $10-$15 more. Also, good choice by picking the 1600MHz over 1333MHz.. 1333MHz RAM will greatly inhibit any type of overclocking.
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The 6770 is pretty shitty IMO lol. Youll find yourself playing games at medium settings with decent FPS. If your going to spend the money on that type of good CPU and Mobo, you should most def put the money into a better card. Look at the 6850s. You can get them for the SAME price as the 6770 after MIR or for only like $10-$20 more and its WAY better than the 6770.
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Im not a fan of OCZ mostly because i had the most RMAs with them then with any company. (bad ram and PSU). I would look at the Corsair TX650 PSU. Its only $70 After MIR and Corsair makes some quality goods.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020
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Case is pretty good too, but if your into the whole custom looking thing. Take a loot at the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112238
Its normally a $100 case thats half off right now, and Lian Li cases in my opinion are AMAZING.
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**Totally forgot to read your opening, if your not going to be gaming much then the 6770 will be fine if your not a fan of MIRs (as im not really either). Pretty good build you got and will last you a long time.
I'd say it looks like a pretty good build for what you are describing using it for.
Good luck with it and let us know how it turns out!
As far as saving money goes, lemme look a bit deeper.
As far as the overclocking thing that was suggested before - forget about it. It won't work on an H67 motherboard anyway. That said, you may want to consider a P67 or Z68 motherboard anyway, because Turbo Boost is artificially limited on all Core CPU's when using an H series chipset. For what you are using the computer for, however, it won't be terribly noticeable, and if you are sticking with Asus for the brand name (which isn't a bad idea, they tend to make great products, but they aren't the only good motherboard manufacturer), then going to a better chipset will add money where your looking to cut costs right now.
You can save a bit on the power supply, 400+ W is all you really need (going that low is fine to run what you are putting together now, but it will limit the amount you can upgrade your computer in the future) - granted quality is more important than watt ratings, the one you have picked out is a decent enough unit. Quiz can likely find one that will come in $20 cheaper or so of equivalent quality - I don't sit on Newegg often enough to do a lot of price comparisons.
The easiest way to save money would be to go with AMD. An AM3+ motherboard plus a Phenom II CPU would take about $100 right off the top. It would benchmark lower, but in real life use you probably wouldn't notice the different, and you would have a good upgrade path to the Billdozer CPU's that are due to be released "Any Day Now" that compete favorably with the Intel Core CPUs.
Aside from that, your really just looking at nickle and dime on your individual components (like the Power Supply I mentioned) - the stuff you have picked out is all pretty good and will work together fine, it's just a matter of finding near equivalent stuff for a bit less money overall.
Also might i say, At the looks of what you need your PC for. I would look into AMD based machines, you could probably save about 30 to 50 dollars if you just went with a quad core Phenom II or even an Athlon II considering there really not that far apart in performance, and you could also pair it with a motherboard that costs around $80 and the performance of that versus the ones on your list would be virtually the same and unnoticable for what your going to be doing.
actually he specified dragon medical as one of the applications he'll be using. so he's gonna need a kick arse single threaded performance that i5 can deliver. the only other suggestion I have is to pick a mobo with a xFi audio chip for better voice recognition.
If you're trying to save some money, then an easy way to do it is to go with an AMD processor and a 970 chipset motherboard instead.
uhh... definintely go with sandy bridge.. just make sure you get the K version. The overclocking is amazing on those cards. And don't get cheap with your vid card. It will be the bottleneck. Get at least a 570gtx or 6950.
As mentioned by a few others I would suggest the 2500K, even if you don't plan on overclocking the option is there, and once you take the time to learn to OC (and you will trust me lol) you'll have a processor thats capable of some truly great numbers.
The Case is nice, I'd recommend the three hundred over the two hundred, better cooling and airflow. I'd also recommend the Thermaltake V3, although cable management on the V3 is a bit of a pain in the left nut.
Don't bother with OCZ power supplies, OCZ is stepping out of the RAM and PSU business for a reason, they suck. Any comparable wattage PSU from Corsair or Antec will suit just fine (my two personal fav's) , I would suggest a 550-600w to increase your upgrade options down the road should you see fit. (Bigger Vid cards, OC'ing etc.)
Vid Card - Don't skimp here it may seem pricey but with games becomming more and more multi-threaded (capable of using more than one CPU core) the GPU becomes ever more responsible for gaming goodness. I'd recommend a GTX 460 if your really strapped for cash, a 6850 if you can spend a bit more, or 6870 . A GTX 560 Ti or 6950 are fantastic cards for the price if you can afford it, obviously the more your willing to spend here the more performance your gonna get gaming wise. The 6770 is a workstation GPU not a gaming GPU.
4 gigs of ram should be fine 90% of the games out there run on 32 bit memory addresses and arent capable of making use of anything more than 4gb and most are programmed to not use any more than 1-2 gigs. (unless theres a memory leak or something in which case its not your fault lol) You can always upgrade later should you need it.
Other than that you should be damn happy with your purchase but I would STRONGLY suggest a better video card if you plan on doing any serious gaming.
Let us know how it goes/what ya get!
Main Rig --- i7 920 @ 3.6ghz//6GB Patriot XGS DDR3 1600@1804 mhz CAS9//HAF 932//Corsair HX1000//ASUS P6T Deluxe//2xMSI GTX570 Twin Frozr II SLI//64GB Patriot Torqx SSD// 1TB Seagate HDD
Secondary --- Macbook
From my personal experience;
CPU = Intel NOT AMD
GPU = NVidia NOT ATI (ATI drivers are a nightmare)
RAM = always Corsair
HDD = Western Digital NOT Seagate (I have a 3yr old WD Raptor and a 6mo old SG Barracuda, which do you think broke first?)
PSU = Corsair now have PSUs, so this is my pick, but I used to get CoolerMaster or Thermaltake
Case = always CoolerMaster
Input Device = either Logitech or Razer
Ready for GW2!!!
The problem here is that people are ignoring the budget. The original poster wants to bring the price tag down, and people are saying, you can spend more to get something better here, and spend more to get something better there. On a $1200 budget, sure, you do that. But not on a $600 budget.
the only problem is his specification of dragon medical as an application. dragon AFAIK does not multi thread, so he'll need the single threaded performance of intel... for his purpose, he'll have to settle for HD3000 till he can come up with a proper gaming budget. a 2500k with a xfi mobo would be a good starting point when he finally gets the budget for a vid card.
Lol i like this post because im pretty much the opposite. I like AMD > Intel, Ill never buy nVidia anymore, i love corsair but like g.skill ram better. WD does make the best hard drives though. Corsair PSUs are pretty good, and although i have a HAF 932 case. I HATE COOLERMASTER.
So I went and looked this up, because I wasn't sure how badass Dragon Medical is - I'm familiar with Dragon Dictation, and it isn't terribly CPU intensive.
The web site for Dragon Medical states:
So I think that any current generation CPU handily qualifies, and it appears we don't even need a seperate sound card, as any 16-bit recording device will do (which includes bluetooth devices, which don't need any sound card at all).
Given the requirement of any SSE2 compatible 2M cache 1G Pentium, or 2.4G dual core Pentium (which sorta contradict each other) - I think we can dismiss the actual speed difference between a Core i5 and a Phenom II as "So much faster than the requirements that your likely not to notice the difference".
you can save at least a 100 dollars by going AMD cpu.
If Dragon Medical were so processor-intensive, it wouldn't list SSE2 in the system requirements. The most powerful x86 processor that didn't have SSE2 was probably the top bin of Athlon XP, which is an architecture that launched way back in 2001, and the top bin released in 2003.
The system requirements say that a 1.66 Intel Atom can handle it, even if it isn't really recommended. For comparison, a Phenom II will have about five times the single-threaded performance of that. And that's assuming it's single-threaded. If it scales well to several cores, then the Phenom II X4 or X6 wins by more yet.
voice recognition software performance is directly tied to your machine. if you have the min spec machine,
you. will. have. to. pause. between. every. word. for. the. system. to. recognize. what. you. are. saying.
and likely still get some of the words wrong. dragon medical is essentially dragon naturally speaking with the medical term liberary plugin. i played with dragon on and off for some time now and the performance is still very much dependent on the quality of your system. granted the systems of today are much more powerful, but the software is not really being further developed anymore so there really isnt too much optimization being done to take advantage of the much more powerful systems of today. dragon would be an excellent candidate for multi threaded operations, but they arent really developing it in that direction. it's no longer owned by dragon and god only knows if they are doing anything with the software or just slapping new version number on the same software.
I recently upgraded my rig and bought an AMD 965 BE paired with an M5A99X EVO motherboard and got them both for less than £200 ($300). In the states I believe the parts are alot cheaper so take a look down the AMD route to save some cash that you can maybe reinvest in the GPU? I'd like to add that the M5A99X EVO is a very user friendly board, it makes it very easy to identify problems and fix them saving alot of time and anguish if you boot up and something isn't working (the mobo will tell you).
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Yeah, he would be just as fine going AMD over Intel. Probably wont notice the difference and would save money.
Yeah but our point is that the min spec machine is like ... 10+ years old now. Anything modern (last couple of generations) is going to be so much faster that the difference in speed won't even be relevant - you'll be more limited by how fast you can speak clearly (I don't think any speech recognition could understand, say, Bob Dylan, given any amount of computing power) than by how fast the system can process the sounds.
Dragon has a version that runs on iPhones and Atom tablets... I think a Phenom II can handle it just fine versus a Core i5, and if it doesn't in a new release or for whatever reason, the motherboard will take a Zambezi without issue.
There is no question the i5 has better single core performance than a Phenom II, and a decent chance it may even beat out Zambezi, but right now the issue is the budget, and just in getting an adequate system in under that budget.
well, all i can say is i've played with dictate since 400mhz, and a few versions of naturally speaking up to 3ghz and while cpu power does help, the software hasnt really been optimized since Nuance bought it from dragon. it's my opinion that it needs lots of memory and single threaded power to do well, but if you guys don't believe it... then go with whatever...
the fact is i stopped playing with dragon because it takes me longer to wait for it to figure out what it is i'm saying or go back and correct the errors it made then to just type the whole thing out myself. this is after i spent maybe 4 hrs on each version training it to recognize my voice...
when you say the software specs hasnt changed in the last 10 years, you really should look at the computer industry as a whole in the last 10 years. the improvements have been towards multi-threaded, multi-core computing. single threaded performance hasn't been taking huge jumps like you think it has, and even the advantages they could be taking is not really being done due to the fact Nuance has really just been squeezing the cash cow and not doing much with the actual engine.
all i can say is if i was building a machine to use dragon today, i would go intel and discrete sound card. take that opinion however you like.
girls on the internet are myths. they don't actually exist:D