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help with new pc for mmo gaming

gavros07gavros07 Member Posts: 4

hi guys, ive decided that its time to build a new pc as the one i currently run is dated and cant handle gaming (playing rift on the lowest settings atm) , im not much of a pc buff but i mainly want to play mmo's on it on the highest settings...i know im gonna need fans and cooling and all of that but i really dont have much of an idea on what i really need. In terms of gfx would it be too much to go for a gtx 590 or radeon 6990? I also want the pc to be able to handle the games that are released in the next couple of years or so aswell. Moneys not really an issue but i dont want to spend cash pointlessly, just enough for my mmos.

Any sort of help or an idea on what i should be looking at  would be very appreciated.

Comments

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383

    Bulldozer is right around the corner, so that may change things up a bit, but right now, in my opinion, for MMO gaming, the best bang for the buck is:

    An Intel P68-based motherboard
    Intel Core i5-2500 (or 2500k) CPU
    8G DDR3 1333 RAM
    120G SSD + 1T SATA HD
    Either ATI 6950/6970 or nVidia 570

    That will run pretty much every MMO today on maxed or nearly maxed settings, be good for probably 3-5 years out (with maybe an upgrade along the way) and can probably be built for just a hair over $1000.

    The nVidia 590 is just plain a poorly designed card, I'd stay away from it. The ATI 6990 is at least useable due to PowerTune, but the price isn't really worthwhile: A pair of 6970's is cheaper and faster, and a single 6950 can pretty well run every MMO out there at 60FPS as it is.

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,449

    It would help if you could be more specific about what you want.

    For starters, different people have different ideas of what is meant by "max settings".  If you're the sort of person who will choose graphical settings to be whatever gives you the lowest frame rates, then that will require much more powerful hardware than if you just want the game to look nice and don't mind turning off a few things that bring a large performance hit without really making the game look any better.  If you want a steady 120 frames per second everywhere, then that takes far more powerful hardware than if you don't mind a choppy 20 frames per second, so long as the game runs.  If by max settings, you mean 8x SSAA and a five monitor Eyefinity setup for a comined resolution of 5400x1920, then that takes much stronger video hardware than if you just have a single 1280x1024 monitor that you use.

    I once got in an argument with someone who insisted that he could run the game at "highest settings" on his Radeon X1950, because he meant, the highest settings that his hardware could handle after turning off a bunch of other stuff.  I once saw someone argue that his Intel integrated graphics that barely ran the game at all could run it at max settings; I have no idea where he got that idea.

    If you're keeping your old peripherals, then you can get a passable gaming machine for about $600.  That won't run a lot of games at max settings by any normal definition of the term, though.  Above that, more money gets you something better up to about $1500.  Beyond that, you can spend more, but what you get isn't much better.

    The GeForce GTX 590 exists only for marketing purposes, so that Nvidia could claim that they have the fastest card on the market.  And it's a failure there, even, as it isn't as fast as the Radeon HD 6990.  A GTX 590 isn't safe, because it's too much heat in too little space, and Nvidia went cheap on the power circuitry.

    A Radeon HD 6990 is somewhat better, but its only real point is for people who think that two high end cards in CrossFire or SLI isn't good enough, and want four GPUs.  Now, if you're going to spread the game window across five monitors and have a $5000 budget, then two Radeon HD 6990s in quad CrossFireX may make sense for you.  But there are probably only thousands of people in the world for which the 6990 is a sensible product.

    Rather, you'd be better off looking at either a single GPU card, or two single GPU cards in SLI or CrossFire.  What monitor resolution do you intend to use?

  • gavros07gavros07 Member Posts: 4

    Ok, like i said im not really much of a pc wizz and dont really know the technical side of things, but ill try explain what im after as best i can so you guys can help me out. By max settings i mean the game looking nice and playing smoothly, without lagging or being choppy etc, a friend of mine bought the alienware m17x which are apparently great machines, and he plays both wow and rift on the highest settings without any issues, but what impressed me the most was aion, once again it looked absolutely amazing and played smoothly.

    I intend to play on a 1080p 42inch samsung LCD tv, as i recently bought a new tv and might aswell use this one with the pc. So your saying a gtx590 is no good? i think the graphics card is what troubles me the most, i dont want to get something that wont be able to handle it, so when star wars or gw2 is released, ill be able to run them no problem....does that make sense?

    Ive also read that having 2 gtx580's or radeons equally powered cards is also a pretty good solution

  • KhrymsonKhrymson Member UncommonPosts: 3,090

     

    Recently helped a friend build a new PC, and this is what we decided on.  Its not too expensive, and it'll easily play any game on the market at maximum settings in DX11.  And it'll easily last a good 3-4yrs before you'd need to upgrade again.  Personally though, I think you should stick with a single GPU, as SLi can be quite finicky and not always work properly, and with a single 580 no game can compete with it yet.

     

    I have a similar PC as this one, sans the new Sandy Bridge CPU and appropriate MB, and everythiung runs amazingly well.  Even FFXIV on max settings runs at a solid 60fps.  And I too game on a 40" HDTV @1600*1200

     

    CPU: Sandy Bridge 2600K 3.4ghz

    MB: EVGA 1155 Intel P67

    Case: Antec 1200

    GPU: EVGA GTX 580

    PSU: Antec 750w 80 Plus Bronze 'Modular'

    RAM: A-DATA 8GB {2x4gb} DDR3 1600

    HDD: Hitachi 1TB

    DVD: ASUS 24x

    Audio: Creative X-Fi Extreme Audio 7.1

    Heatsink: Thermaltake SpinQ

    Fans: 2x Antec 120mm fans

    Acc: Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound

    Acc: 24pin MB + 8pin Power Extension Cables




    All total plus shipping: $1609 ~ Entirely from Newegg...

  • RidelynnRidelynn Member EpicPosts: 7,383

    The GeForce 580GTX is faster than the 570GTX, or the ATI 6970 (ATI's fastest single-GPU card). It's probably 15-20% faster. But it costs 40% more (~$500 US versus $300 US for a 570 or 6970). And two of them is that much more expensive. If that fits in your budget - sure, shoot for the moon - they are faster, but at a high price premium. For most people looking for "bang for the buck", it definitely goes to the 6970 or 570 - as you get a lot of horsepower for your dollar with those cards.

    For most people playing on a single monitor, a single 570 or 6970 is more than fast enough to run most all games that are out currently at a smooth 60FPS with every (or nearly every) option turned on. Sure, a 580 may be faster, and two of them even more so, but anything over 60FPS is just bragging rights, as it won't make your game play any better.

    SLI (2 or 3 cards) 580's really only makes sense if your trying to play across multiple monitors (at very high resolutions), or trying to play with 3D (which requires a steady 120FPS), and even then it's questionable if you'd want to use a 580 over a 6970. 6970's come with more video RAM standard, which lets them run higher resolutions and levels of antialiasing out of the box, and get near equivalent performance in Crossfire (ATI's version of SLI) as the 580 does, for a lot cheaper. And it also depends on exactly which game you are playing, as some favor ATI, and others favor nVidia, which may make a difference of 20% or more in performance. Of course, 6970's are hard to find in stock right now.

    SLI/Crossfire (using 2 or more cards in parallel as a super-fast card) - I recommend against it for most people. There is a hidden cost with using multiple cards that isn't always apparent. It's more than just the cost of the second (or third or fourth) video card. You need a bigger power supply, and in the case of the 580GTX, a much bigger power supply. You need better case ventilation, and many times, a bigger case outright. There will be more heat - a lot more heat, which means more noise too, and more A/C or ventilation for the room you play in. And it will use more electricity - a good deal more, which means higher power bills (on the order of $15-50/yr depending on your electric rates). You need a motherboard that can adequately use multiple video cards: many have additional PCI slots, but very few actually have bandwidth for those slots, and it's not uncommon to see x16/x4 or x8/x4 when you plug something into those additional slots, which will degrade your performance - x16/x16 and x8/x8 motherboards are more expensive than typical motherboards. And, your at the mercy of game profiles to enable the additional cards to even work: often times a new game can take up to 2-3 months to get a good workable profile to enable the additional cards to work properly.

    For nearly everyone, a single fast card is a better solution than SLI/Crossfire. For the few that need more performance than any single card can give them, that's where SLI/Crossfire comes into play.

    As far as the 590GTX goes: it's definitely bad news. I'd stay far far away from them. Any time you see multiple videos of review samples (which are hand picked as the best cards and sent to review sites) from many different places catching on fire and blowing up... it just can't be good.
    590GTX Exploding

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,449

    There is the question of, do you really want to buy a computer right now? This isn't a bad time, so if you're really anxious to replace the computer, I'd say go ahead and buy it right now.  If you're not in a hurry, then it's debatable whether to buy now or wait. I'll explain what is coming.



    On the processor side, the next thing coming is AMD's Zambezi processor. The latest official word from AMD is August, but the lack of credible leaks does not make the launch look imminent. Rumors point to September instead. Zambezi will have up to eight Bulldozer cores, and be AMD's new high end. It's a new architecture, and by far AMD's biggest architectural change since at least 2003. Because it's a new architecture, we don't really know how it will perform.



    After that, Intel's Sandy Bridge-E is coming around the end of the year. Intel roadmaps have said Q4 of this year, but rumors say that it will be delayed until early next year. That will be a processor with 6 or 8 cores that are roughly equivalent to the cores in the Core i7-2600. It will also be expensive, and require expensive chipsets and hence motherboards. It will have four memory channels, too. It will be Intel's new high end, and will offer PCI Express 3.0. It won't be any better than Sandy Bridge processors that you can buy today, except in programs that can make use of the extra cores. It will offer enough PCI Express bandwidth to have two simultaneous PCI Express 3.0 x16 connections for use in CrossFire or SLI.



    AMD's Trinity is probably coming early next year. That will offer four Bulldozer cores comparable to a cut-down Zambezi, as well as integrated graphics on the same die. Trinity will probably be a great product for laptops, but it's not likely to be of interest to you.



    Intel's Ivy Bridge is coming early next year. I don't think Intel has yet publicly disavowed their old roadmaps saying that it would launch in 2011 (based loosely on "we'll launch a new architecture every year" back of the envelope calculations), but rumors point toward March 2012. Realistically, Ivy Bridge is coming as soon as Intel's 22 nm process node is ready. Ivy Bridge will be a die shrink of Sandy Bridge. Expect the differences to be a little higher clock speed with less power consumption, as well as integrated graphics that are slightly less bad than before. In laptops, higher clock speeds in the same TDP will be a big deal. In desktops, that won't matter so much.



    AMD's Komodo should launch sometime in 2012. If I had to guess, I'd say June, but that's just a wild guess. It won't be near the start of the year. Komodo will offer up to 10 Bulldozer cores, with whatever tweaks AMD has figured out how to make to the core after Zambezi launched. Komodo is not worth waiting for unless Zambezi is a disaster and has a lot of things available to be fixed, and even then, you probably don't want to wait a year.



    On the video card side, AMD's Southern Islands will launch as soon as TSMC's 28 nm HPL process node is ready for it. Rumors say September, but that could be delayed, and it's out of AMD's control. AMD has officially said that it's coming this year. It's not clear exactly which GPU chip(s) will launch, so the first cards may or may not be the high end. My guess is that they will be. There are also rumors that some Southern Islands cards will be made at Global Foundries instead, and that will have to wait for Global Foundries to have a 28 nm process node ready, which will probably push them into next year.



    Nvidia is using a different 28 nm process node (TSMC's 28 nm HP) for their Kepler cards, and that process node won't be ready this year. Nvidia has officially said that they won't launch their next generation of cards this year, after older roadmaps had said Kepler in 2011. Rumors point toward March 2012. When Kepler will launch depends on when TSMC's process node is ready, when Nvidia has the architecture design ready, and not least, when Nvidia can figure out how to make stuff properly on TSMC's process node. That last point is what greatly delayed Fermi, and has not historically been Nvidia's strong suit.



    Southern Islands might be AMD's upcoming "Graphics Core Next" architecture, and the biggest change to AMD's video card architectures since VLIW in the Radeon HD 2000 series. Or it might be VLIW4 and similar to Cayman. Or it might have some cards of each. Rumors point to GCN, as it would be strange for AMD to release architectural details of something that was still more than a full generation away. Still, they've said it's VLIW4 for Trinity.



    Nvidia's Kepler will be a new architecture. It's not clear how much will be changed from Fermi. Fermi was a disaster of an architecture, so there's a lot of room for Nvidia to improve.

    -----

    One notable fact about Radeon HD 6970s is that they're selling out in a hurry:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600083901%20600095874&IsNodeId=1&name=Radeon%20HD%206970

    Rumors say that it's because of articles like this:

    http://hardocp.com/article/2011/07/13/bitcoin_mining_gpu_performance_comparison/2

    Bitcoin miners saw that and were like, oh hey, we have to buy all 6970s and 6990s as soon as they come in stock.  With 6970s selling so fast, sites like New Egg see no need to offer discount pricing on them, so they don't.  That makes the Radeon HD 6970 not such a good value for gaming purposes today.  Instead, the GeForce GTX 570 is a sensible high end video card:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127552

    Note that you cannot overclock a GTX 570, as the reference cards went light on the power circuitry.  At stock speeds, it's pretty safe, but if you try to overclock it very far, you'll likely fry it.  Bitcoin miners wouldn't touch a GeForce GTX 570 (or a GeForce anything else) with a ten foot pole, so they leave them in stock for gamers to buy.

    The next natural step down is a Radeon HD 6950 or GeForce GTX 560 Ti, either of which can be had for under $250, and both are abundantly available.

    AMD could ramp up production of Cayman GPU chips to keep 6970s in stock, but it would take a couple of months to do so.  By then, they're likely to have their next generation Southern Islands cards out, so they don't want to have a bunch of older, obsolete chips that they subsequently have to get rid of at clearance prices.

    -----

    Some comments on Khrymson's build:

    For gaming purposes, the only important difference between a Core i7-2600K and a Core i5-2500K is $95.  The 2600K makes perfect sense if you run programs that scale well to more than four cores.  Most games don't, and the ones that do would be video card limited on a quad core processor.

    There's not much sense in spending a bunch of extra money for an SLI-capable video card and then only getting one video card.  If you're going with a single card, then you can save some money on the motherboard.

    It's a nice case, but there's no real need to spend $170 on a case for a single video card.  You can get plenty nice cases for a single card for under $100.  If you're looking for an SLI setup, then you do want a higher end case like that.

    If you're going to spend enough money to get a high end power supply, then you might as well actually get a high end power supply.  An Antec TruePower New is still pretty nice, but there are others that are better that have come out since then in the same price range.

    I'd prefer to get memory that can hit the same clock speeds and latency timings at the DDR3 stock voltage of 1.5 V, rather than having to overvolt it.

    A relatively slow 7200 RPM hard drive, and no SSD at all?  That system is going to be sluggish.  If you want a slow computer, you can get them for a lot cheaper than $1609.  On a tighter budget, maybe you have to skip the SSD.  But if you're spending $1200+ on a computer without peripherals, get an SSD.  And on a smaller budget without an SSD, at least get a faster hard drive.

    Discrete sound cards are a bad idea for most people.  Most people find onboard sound good enough, and discrete sound cards can often bring driver problems.

    If you pick a power supply for which you need extension cords, then maybe you should have picked a different power supply.

    -----

    If gavros07 wants a high end gaming computer, then a better starting point is post #45 in this thread:

    http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/321769/page/3

    Though I'd drop down to getting 8 GB of system memory rather than 16 GB.  I'd also get a cheaper case.

  • KhrymsonKhrymson Member UncommonPosts: 3,090

    Originally posted by Quizzical

     

    Some comments on Khrymson's build:

    It's a nice case, but there's no real need to spend $170 on a case for a single video card.  You can get plenty nice cases for a single card for under $100.  If you're looking for an SLI setup, then you do want a higher end case like that.

    Maybe not, but a stylish looking case on-air only with tons of room is nice to have when running a higher end GPU.

    If you're going to spend enough money to get a high end power supply, then you might as well actually get a high end power supply.  An Antec TruePower New is still pretty nice, but there are others that are better that have come out since then in the same price range.

    If you stick with a single GPU, you don't need more than 750w, and you could easily run a GTX 590 on this PSU.  There is no point to getting a higher watt PSU if its not needed, cause in the end it just raises your electric bill.

    A relatively slow 7200 RPM hard drive, and no SSD at all?  That system is going to be sluggish.  If you want a slow computer, you can get them for a lot cheaper than $1609.  On a tighter budget, maybe you have to skip the SSD.  But if you're spending $1200+ on a computer without peripherals, get an SSD.  And on a smaller budget without an SSD, at least get a faster hard drive.

    A 7200rpm HDD is not sluggish at all.  Its not as great as an SSD sure, but their current price don't warrant them a necessity.

    Discrete sound cards are a bad idea for most people.  Most people find onboard sound good enough, and discrete sound cards can often bring driver problems.

    Never in my life nor has anyone I've known has had driver issues using a discrete sound card.  

    If you pick a power supply for which you need extension cords, then maybe you should have picked a different power supply.

    You don't need extention cables for this PSU, it all depends on the case and whether you like having the wiring hidden behind the MB or not.  The Antec 1200 is a very large case and without an extention, you have to run the cables across the MB.  {didn't add this in so my bad, but whatever...}

     

    Here's an image of my build posted above, but with a different MB and CPU.  Yeah it was a little dusty when I took this pic, and the electrical tubing I added as an experiment to see if I could reduce my temps a little more, and it worked.  My temps dropped on average another 3-5 degrees celcius overall.

     

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,449

    "If you stick with a single GPU, you don't need more than 750w"

    High end quality, not ridiculous wattage.  As in, something like this:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088

    For some other high end platforms that aren't quite as good:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121078

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194054

    Alternatively, if you want something that is merely pretty good, then at least save some money while you're at it:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371048

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207014

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139020

    Even if it's modular that you're after, you can still get it cheaper than that:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151095

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139031

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194067

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,449

    Originally posted by Khrymson

    A 7200rpm HDD is not sluggish at all.  Its not as great as an SSD sure, but their current price don't warrant them a necessity.

    Maybe you've got different standards.  But even if you're going to get only a hard drive and no SSD, at least get a faster hard drive.

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136794

    Or even either of these would be a little faster than a Hitachi DeathStar for the same price and capacity:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148697

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

  • gavros07gavros07 Member Posts: 4

     

    thanks for all the helpful advice guys, and by reading some of the things you guys have posted looks like it will really save me alot of money, quizzical as for whether i really need a pc now or if i should wait, i only get little time due to work to play abit of ps3 or an mmo with some friends, but when i sit on a pc to play i want it to be good, im not a graphics whore, but at the same time i want to be able to get the most out of my game. Ive taken what you guys have said into consideration, heres what ive come up with, let me know if you think i should change anything.

     


    • CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4Ghz 1155pin Boxed CPU

    • MOTHERBOARD: ASUS P8P67-LE-V3 DDR3 Intel 1155pin Motherboard 

    • RAM: Kingston HyperX 12G Kit(4Gx3) DDR3 1600 KHX1600C9D3K3/12GX

    • STORAGE:  Seagate 3.5" Barracuda 500GB ST3500413AS SATA3 Seagate 3.5" Barracuda Green 2TB ST2000DL003 

    • OPTIC DRIVE: LG Blu-Ray Combo

    • VGA CARD: ASUS 1536M GTX580 PCI-E VGA Card

    • AUDIO: Creative X-FI Xtreme Audio Sound Card

    • PSU: Antec HCG-900W High Current Gamer Gaming PSU

    • COOLER: Corsair CWCH70 Universal Hydro High Performace CPU Cooler

    What do you guys think? if you think i should add/remove anything id appreciate any advice, all the parts are from www.msy.com.au , hopefully i can pay alot less for a better pc than what my mate paid for his alienware :p 




     

  • Gweed0Gweed0 Member UncommonPosts: 108

    Your build isn't horrible. A few reccomendations I'd like to add. For your budget it would only make sense to add a SSD. you will certainly notice a large differance in performance. If you don't want to add an SSD I'd still replace your 500 GB HD with a Seagate Momentus Hybrid or the WD Black as it has the 64MB cache. Like others have mentioned the 580 is overkill. I'd go with Quizzical and get either a 570 or even a 6970. This will also knock down the price of your 900W PSU. The Ram looks good as you will want to run 3 channels for your DDR3. Again for the sound card, you won't notice much if any differance than your onboard sound as Quizzical had mentioned. For your CPU I'd stick with your Corsair Hydro as well. Altogether not bad, but an SSD will greatly increase performance, even if it is only the hybrid. 

  • crazynannycrazynanny Member Posts: 173

    Nothing here on the list will improve Your PC as visible as SDD. I mean sure You'll need good CPU and GPU to fire off best graphic settings in nice resolution, no one will argue about it. But overall system and game reactivity(loading times) is really sluggish on HDD. It's like getting floppy drive instead USB 3.0 pendrive...

  • KhrymsonKhrymson Member UncommonPosts: 3,090

    If you're going to get a GTX 580 or even 570, get it by EVGA instead of ASUS.  EVGA has a much better lifetime warranty and customer service.  They'll even replace your GPU if you fry it trying to overclock, not that that is needed,{really it isn't} but they're a superb company...

     

    The 580 is overkill for sure in some games, while others it can still strain them a little.  Really depends on your resolution.  For instance I run in 1600*1200, and with everything on max in Rift I get around 45-53fps on average. {if I drop the AA off of Supersampling, then the fps ramps up to 70+}  In EQII maxed out, yeah an MMO nearing 7yrs old, and I get around 43-48fps, but in towns it drops to 28-35fps. {havn't messed with tweaking settings any}  If you play in a higher resolution, you'll prolly lose even more fps.

    If ya have the money, get the 580 so you're set with whatever is too come in the next 2+ yrs, and do make sure you get the "reference design" ~ these have the vapor chamber cooling in the center and the turbine-like fan near the end of the card and they vent 100% of the heat generated out the rear of the card/case.  The newer HD vers just have a centralized fan w/ no chamber and about 70% of the heat is vented back into your case...thats no good!

     

    Save some money on the PSU and stick with the 750 I recommended, there is no need for a 900w PSU unless you plan to do SLi, and really a single 580 is more than enough.   SLi is rather wonky to make it work properly, many times it just won't cooperate and makes gaming even worse than with a single GPU, forcing you to turn one of them off.  Its just a ton of hassle better left to the elitists wanting a higher benchmark score only...

     

    And I didn't see a case listed, but I highly suggest you get the Antec 1200.  Its a very large, yet very sleek case, with tons of room.   Here is an image of my Antec 1200 next to my 40" HDTV...its massive and looks really nice.

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,449

    Originally posted by gavros07

     

    thanks for all the helpful advice guys, and by reading some of the things you guys have posted looks like it will really save me alot of money, quizzical as for whether i really need a pc now or if i should wait, i only get little time due to work to play abit of ps3 or an mmo with some friends, but when i sit on a pc to play i want it to be good, im not a graphics whore, but at the same time i want to be able to get the most out of my game. Ive taken what you guys have said into consideration, heres what ive come up with, let me know if you think i should change anything.

     


    • CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4Ghz 1155pin Boxed CPU

    • MOTHERBOARD: ASUS P8P67-LE-V3 DDR3 Intel 1155pin Motherboard 

    • RAM: Kingston HyperX 12G Kit(4Gx3) DDR3 1600 KHX1600C9D3K3/12GX

    • STORAGE:  Seagate 3.5" Barracuda 500GB ST3500413AS SATA3 Seagate 3.5" Barracuda Green 2TB ST2000DL003 

    • OPTIC DRIVE: LG Blu-Ray Combo

    • VGA CARD: ASUS 1536M GTX580 PCI-E VGA Card

    • AUDIO: Creative X-FI Xtreme Audio Sound Card

    • PSU: Antec HCG-900W High Current Gamer Gaming PSU

    • COOLER: Corsair CWCH70 Universal Hydro High Performace CPU Cooler

    What do you guys think? if you think i should add/remove anything id appreciate any advice, all the parts are from www.msy.com.au , hopefully i can pay alot less for a better pc than what my mate paid for his alienware :p 




     

    Some changes I'd recommend:

    The most glaring problem is a mismatch between your processor, cooler, and motherboard.  You're paying extra for the unlocked multiplier so that you can overclock the processor.  You're paying extra for a fairly high end processor cooler, which only makes sense if you greatly overclock the processor.  And then you're getting a low end motherboard that can't take that much of an overclock.  Either get a higher end motherboard or a cheaper processor cooler.  (Actually, I'd do both of those!)

    If you want a better motherboard, MSY only offers two P67 motherboards at all.  The Gigabyte P67A-UD3P is appropriate for your needs and won't meaningfully restrict the processor overclock.

    I'd also get a cheaper processor.  A Core i5-2500K is $100 cheaper than a Core i7-2600K, and basically identical for gaming purposes.  The stock clock speed doesn't matter if you're going to overclock the processor anyway.  The hyperthreading on the 2600K only matters to programs that scale well to more than four cores and need the extra processor performance--and in particular, won't matter in games.  The extra L3 cache might give you an extra 1% or 2% performance, but that's not worth $100.

    Sandy Bridge has a two channel memory controller, so you want two memory modules, not three.  Get either 4 GB or 8 GB of memory in a two module kit, and clocked at 1333 MHz or higher.  Sandy Bridge only officially supports up to 1333 MHz memory, but it's perfectly safe to clock memory at 1600 MHz with two modules.  The faster memory barely matters, though, and might get you an extra 1% performance now and then, but that's about it.

    MSY doesn't offer many storage options.  An SSD will greatly improve your system responsiveness, even if it doesn't help frame rates in games.  Unfortunately, some of the SSDs that MSY offers are junk, and some are severely overpriced for the performance.  The Patriot Inferno and Pyro are probably the best of the options there.

    It's also unfortunate that they don't offer the Western Digital Caviar Black below 1 TB.  If you're just going to get a hard drive alone and no SSD, then I'd probably get a 2 TB Caviar Black and call that good enough, rather than two hard drives.  Or at least that's what I'd recommend if you need a lot of space; if you've only got 200 GB in use right now, then even 1 TB is far more than you need.

    If you want to watch Blu-Ray movies on your computer, then go ahead and get a Blu-Ray player.  Otherwise, save some money and go with a DVD drive instead.  Don't think that you're getting Blu-Ray for futureproofing purposes.  If Blu-Ray ever catches on for general computer use, then Blu-Ray players will be much cheaper then.

    At MSY's video card prices, I'd get the HIS Radeon HD 6970.  That will get you about 85% of the performance of the video card you picked for $193 cheaper.  The HIS card will either be a reference card or use HIS's IceQ cooler, either of which are decent.  I'm not a fan of some of PowerColor's custom builds, and am not familiar with Inno3D, but I'd assume that they're cheaper for a reason.  The HIS 6970 is much cheaper than the Gigabyte or Asus cards that will give comparable performance to it.

    I'd skip the sound card to start.  You'll probably think that onboard sound is plenty good enough.  If you try the onboard sound and don't like it, then you can add a discrete sound card later.

    At MSY's prices, I'd go with the Antec High Current Gamer 520 W.  If you stick with the GeForce GTX 580 or want to give the processor an unreasonably large overclock, then maybe make it 620 W.  But I don't see any need to go above that for a single card.

    Don't forget that you also need a case and OS license.

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,449

    Originally posted by Khrymson

    If you're going to get a GTX 580 or even 570, get it by EVGA instead of ASUS.  EVGA has a much better lifetime warranty and customer service.  They'll even replace your GPU if you fry it trying to overclock, not that that is needed,{really it isn't} but they're a superb company...

    Save some money on the PSU and stick with the 750 I recommended, there is no need for a 900w PSU unless you plan to do SLi, and really a single 580 is more than enough.   SLi is rather wonky to make it work properly, many times it just won't cooperate and makes gaming even worse than with a single GPU, forcing you to turn one of them off.  Its just a ton of hassle better left to the elitists wanting a higher benchmark score only...

    He's in Australia.  He can't buy from New Egg.  His choices on a video card brand from the site he's looking at are PowerColor, HIS, Gainward, Inno3D, Gigabyte, and Asus.

  • thexratedthexrated Member UncommonPosts: 1,368

    I thought Nvidia 600 series is coming out in few months. Might be worth the wait. It is likely that the mid-range version will be around same performance range with the 580 but half the price. 

    "The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,449

    If there is a GeForce 600 series coming in a few months, then it will only be a simple rebrand of their current cards.  The process node that Nvidia needs for Kepler won't be ready in time for a card launch within six months, and the actual launch date could easily be pushed back much further yet.

    In contrast, AMD may launch new cards as soon as next month.  AMD is using a different  process node than Nvidia for their new cards.  AMD has confirmed that they'll launch a new generation of cards this year, while Nvidia has said that they will not.

  • psyclumpsyclum Member Posts: 792

    Here's an image of my build posted above, but with a different MB and CPU.  Yeah it was a little dusty when I took this pic, and the electrical tubing I added as an experiment to see if I could reduce my temps a little more, and it worked.  My temps dropped on average another 3-5 degrees celcius overall.

     

    hehe for a 1200 to get this dusty, you must have taken out the air filters or never cleaned it for a year or so:D

  • psyclumpsyclum Member Posts: 792

    i would recommend that you take a step back and take a closer look at what you are trying to accomplish.  you are looking for a MMO gaming machine, not a FPS gaming machine.  the heaviest MMO in the coming year is maybe archeage which uses the cryengine 3.  nothing is going to "require" a 580gtx for a long time to come in the MMO arena. 

    you are willing to buy a machine with a 580 gtx, but you are too cheap to get a SSD:D

    you havent chose a case yet, and at the trend you are going, you'd end up with some cheap crap case that cant handle the heat of the components:D

    there are so many things wrong with your selections and you pretty much totally ignored the advice quizzy has given here it's really not worth posting more on the subject. 

  • gavros07gavros07 Member Posts: 4

    relax psyclum , i said im not a pc technician like you apparently are, im not too cheap for an ssd, i dont know the difference between an ssd and a standard hdd, thats the whole reason why i posted in the forum since their are people here that know much more than i do to show me in the right direction to get a decent pc, if you dont wanna help then save your 2 cents for another topic.

  • QuizzicalQuizzical Member LegendaryPosts: 25,449

    The fundamental problem with hard drives is that they're slow.  Whenever you want to read something off of a hard drive or write to one, you have to wait for the platter and drive head to physically move to the right spot before it can do anything.  This can take 10 ms or so.  Now, delaying by 10 ms is no big deal in itself.  But what if you need to read hundreds of small files at once, such as when loading a program, or zoning in a game, or even loading a complex web page in a browser (which usually wants to write everything into cache)?  Then you get to sit there and wait 10 ms times however many things need to be loaded, which can easily add up to several seconds, or sometimes much more than that.  And then you get to sit there and wait.

    Solid state drives don't have that problem.  SSDs have no moving parts that they have to wait for.  If the computer wants to load a small file into memory, the SSD just goes and does it, and is done in maybe 0.2 ms.  Do note the decimal point.  Multiply that by hundreds of files and it still doesn't add up to very much.

    Loading programs or zoning or whatever does require the processor to do a lot of work, too, so it's not purely loading things off a hard drive.  But an SSD will often reduce loading times by 1/2 or 2/3 or something like that.  That means that when you ask the computer to do something, it just does it pretty quickly, rather than making you sit there and wait.

    Perhaps more important is the small, quick loads while you're actively doing things.  For example, browsers frequently have to load a few small files at a time here and there from cache as you use the program.  Not having to wait on a slow hard drive means that pages load faster.  This helps with a lot of programs that have small but frequent disk accesses.  It's hard to measure with a stopwatch, but you can feel a clear difference.

    Now, an SSD usually doesn't help with frame rates in games.  But there are some situations when it will.  Online games often have to load things from your hard drive while in the middle of a zone.  They try to cover it up so that they load it long enough before they need it that you won't have to sit there and wait.  A relative handful of games are badly coded, and will cause hitching from this.  An SSD fixes the problem, by making the game not wait.

    Another problem is if something in the background decides to hog your hard drive.  It could be Windows doing something stupid, or an anti-virus program deciding that it's time to run, or whatever.  Even a game that is pretty good about covering up hard drive latency may encounter stuttering if it has to sit and wait in line before it can get anything off of the hard drive.  With an SSD, programs would get what they need and you may never notice that Windows decided to do something stupid, as you don't notice stuttering that doesn't happen.

    So does this theoretical advantage of SSDs really make much of a difference?  Go here:

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/3681/oczs-vertex-2-special-sauce-sf1200-reviewed/6

    See the WD VelociRaptor at the bottom of some of the charts?  That's the fastest consumer hard drive on the market.  And it's not even competitive with the SSDs.  And those are older SSDs, too, that aren't nearly as fast as some of the newer ones.  The VelociRaptor gets left off of the second chart entirely because its bar length would have rounded to zero pixels long.

    There are other advantages to solid state drives, too.  One is that they're dead silent.  If you don't like the annoying hum of a hard drive, going with an SSD instead can get rid of it.

    Another is that SSDs are nearly indestructible.  Shake a hard drive while it is running and you might kill it.  SSDs have no moving parts, and hence no moving parts that can break.  This isn't a big deal for desktops, as desktop cases tend not to get knocked over or dropped while the machine is running.  It is a big deal for laptops, though.

    Yet another advantage is that SSDs use virtually no power.  In a desktop, this doesn't matter much, but an SSD can meaningfully extend the battery life of a laptop.

    The only reason to get a hard drive is the price tag.  $130 might get you a 64 GB SSD or a 2 TB hard drive.

    But even if you need 1 TB of storage capacity, you don't need a 1 TB SSD.  Rather, you can get a 120 GB or so SSD, and install the OS and your main programs on it.  You can get a larger hard drive and put everything else on the hard drive.  Your OS and main programs will only need to access the SSD, so they'll be fast.  Things like videos, music, and pictures don't rely on hard drive speeds much, so it won't matter that they're on a slow hard drive.

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