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Forums > Hardware Forum

building a new pc, halp pls (24 comments)

( Forum: HW)

Posted by fragmaster_ @ 16:39 CST, 22 November 2012 - iMsg

time for a new desktop pc.

the last one i built was in 2005 and i haven't really followed up with hardware since.

i'd like to play some (newer) games and be able to stream HD shows/movies/sports to my TV (so I can avoid buying a ps3/360/apple tv) without running into performance problems. my current laptop is super sluggish when i'm doing stuff on the side while streaming which is very annoying. oh and i plan on re-using my samsung syncmaster 226bw screen.

so the parts i put together are gonna run me about 900-950 EUR total. i would've liked to stay closer to 800 EUR but i don't really wanna cheap out and bitch about it later on.

couple of questions right away:
- is the mainboard ok or will a cheaper one be good enough? i basically chose this one because it has a ton of USB ports etc... for phones, external hdds, cameras etc.
- should i maybe get an i5-3470 + cheaper h77 mainboard over of a 3570+z77 combo (planning on overclocking it) and try to get a deal on a better gfx card instead?
- a 480w power supply should do, right?
- not sure yet if i wanna use win7 or win8. the last windows OS i used was win2000...

CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K 4x 3.40GHz So.1155 BOX ~ 200,00 EUR
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H Intel Z77 So.1155 Dual ~ 105,00 EUR
GFX: 2048MB Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 Aktiv PCIe ~ 205,00 EUR
RAM: 8GB G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1600 DIMM CL9 Dual ~ 35,00 EUR
CPU cooler: Thermalright HR-02 Macho Rev.A (BW) ~ 35,00 EUR
power supply: 480 Watt be quiet! Straight Power E9 CM ~ 80,00 EUR
HDD: 1000GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ~ 65,00 EUR
SSD: 128GB Samsung 830 Basic Series 2.5" (6.4cm) ~ 95,00 EUR
tower: BitFenix Shinobi USB 3.0 Midi Tower ~ 50,00 EUR
bluray player: LG Electronics BH10LS38 Blu-ray Disc Writer ~ 70,00 EUR

lemme know what you think. thanks.

Edited by fragmaster_ at 16:41 CST, 22 November 2012 - 4314 Hits

<< prev HW thread || next HW thread >>

<< Comment #1 @ 20:45 CST, 22 November 2012 >>

By

Jamerio :

I would go for the i7-3770K if I was you.

I reckon you will need more than that 480 watt psu.
look into the kingston Hyper X SSD over that SSD.

I had quite high fail rates on the seagate TBH. Never had a western digital go wrong on me. Just dont buy green series.

Asus Maximus V Gene for mobo, its more, but I heard good things about it. If you want to OC etc

There should be tons of gpu charts with the data you need. but if you get the above it will last you a good few years.

Might aswell get 16 Gb ram too.

<< Comment #2 @ 02:09 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

cityy - Reply to #1

I agree on everything except getting 16GB of RAM.
I know the price drop between 8GB and 16 GB is ridiculously big but it's money that can be saved as you will never need 16GB unless you run virtual machines extensively.

Edit: IIRC, corsair has decent powerful PSUs for around 100 bucks. The PSU is defenitely not the component of a pc where I'd try to save money.

Edited by cityy at 02:13 CST, 23 November 2012

<< Comment #4 @ 03:25 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

tbone - Reply to #1

Would you go for the i7 purely for the extra cores? The actual performance of the CPU would improve the game performance over an i5

<< Comment #8 @ 08:45 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

Jamerio : - Reply to #4

I dont think it will do much for games, but it will allow your system to be a work horse and a gaming monster and its always good for the epenis.

plus if you want to do things like stream etc, the more resources you have the better.

For the sake of 10% more money on a system that will be good for at least 2/3 years you might aswell go for it as the older you get, the more likely you are to stop gaming and use the pc for development stuff.

<< Comment #6 @ 07:30 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

cumrag - Reply to #1

samsung 830 has proven to be quite reliable.

<< Comment #23 @ 12:22 CST, 24 November 2012 >>

By

mar- - Reply to #6

This. And Kingston disks is kinda known for BSOD, even with the latest firmware. But it might depend on which disk controller its using ect.

<< Comment #12 @ 17:18 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

fragmaster_ - Reply to #1

what benefits would i get from an i7-3770k over an i5-3570k? i mean yes i wanna do multiple things at the same time here and there, but it's not like i wanna compress a movie, run CAD and do photoshop at the same time.

and as far as i know gaming-wise the i7 doesn't make much sense compared to the i5. plus i'd definitely have to get a radeon 7870 instead of maybe upgrading to a 7950 or so.

keep in mind technically i'm already over my ~800/850 budget (which is ok, sort of) but i don't wanna push it even closer to 1000 EUR.

<< Comment #13 @ 17:27 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

Jamerio : - Reply to #12

well if you sure you wont use the extra cores then go with i5,it will still be a good machine regardless for non gaming stuff, its just when you built a system the cpu and mobo are the two main things you want to future proof cos they are the hardest to rip out.

have you thought of looking to see if you can get the cpu or gpu second hand, you might then be able to get more for your money, and cos its quite new, chances are it wont be old.

Edited by Jamerio at 17:28 CST, 23 November 2012

<< Comment #3 @ 03:21 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

tbone

It looks like a good build, but after experiments with an older processor I might be inclined to get a slower cpu and a better video card.

Since pretty much any modern processor will be able to stream stuff, and your other concern is games, I think it's worth pushing more into getting a more powerful GPU.

But really, your build will run everything so up to you.

You are right on the ram, you could always get 16gb later, just remember to upgrade before they switch to a new format and prices become insane. The machine I'm currently using only takes ddr2 fb-dimms. 8gb costs like $200

Also, why bother with a blu-ray player? Get a dvd-drive second hand and push the funds into the GPU.

If I was going for a new pc I would probably choose between 7950/670/7970. I recently got a 660 gtx, but I'm probably going to SLI.

<< Comment #5 @ 06:52 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

p0rt

alot of ram =

ddr3 1333mhz 21.2gb/s

its obviously faster the HD textures in your swap/page file on your sata III 6gb/s drive

<< Comment #7 @ 08:40 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

zkyp

Whatever p0rt says, I agree to.

<< Comment #11 @ 10:04 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

p0rt - Reply to #7

HD textures are 12mb + big, the average map uses 30 - 80 textures, + models+textures

if you have 16gb +, you can probaly load the average full map from RAM, 8gb is normal detail textures

<< Comment #9 @ 09:13 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

kevz

current build looks fine. if u wanna overclock then maybe go 550 watt psu but otherwise ur good to go.

<< Comment #10 @ 09:32 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

Six16

Seems like it's a decent build, like others have said you could probably get a higher watt PSU, something like a 600W would be better.

<< Comment #14 @ 18:29 CST, 23 November 2012 >>

By

Erk

I would get 16gb of ram while they are still practically giving it away. They are taking measures in an attempt to raise DDR3 ram prices, so it might be more expensive later on. With 16GB you can safely turn of the swap file in windows which stops the slow disks being used as memory.

For windows, get Win 7 unless you want to deal with a tablet OS on a desktop. I have Win 8 on my livingroom PC, which is used for streaming movies etc. and a lot of configuration and menus are hidden in a "1 fullscreen app at a time" system like you would expect on your phone. Your desktop in Win 8 is essentially a fullscreen app running a GUI for using your normal desktop programs.

I would also get a different case where the disks are placed with the front/back facing the sides and mounted on vibration dampening silicone rings. A long gfx card could easily end up blocking 2-4 disk slots in the case you selected (not sure if mine would even fit).

As others have said, get a 600w PSU of good quality. Your PSU will deteriorate over the years so a 650w PSU might only deliver 550w after a few years. Also a lot of PSUs are not able to deliver their rated power, even when new. I never save money on the PSU as that and memory are usually the top two reasons for an unstable PC.

Edited by Erk at 18:30 CST, 23 November 2012

<< Comment #15 @ 02:57 CST, 24 November 2012 >>

By

fragmaster_ - Reply to #14

yes i'd definitely prefer win7, but i read somewhere the next directX for example will be win8 only and won't even be available for win7, so i'm thinking i might as well go with win8 right away. even though i don't really like the whole apps / tablet setup.

and yeah 16gb for 30 EUR more seems like a good idea.

Edited by fragmaster_ at 03:00 CST, 24 November 2012

<< Comment #19 @ 09:41 CST, 24 November 2012 >>

By

Erk - Reply to #15

Most of DirectX 11.1 will be available in Win 7. The statement from MS is an attempt to force gamers to Win 8 where they have their app store and are attempting to make everyone used to their metro interface in hopes that you will pick up their tablet and mobile OS. They know that games makers will not adopt a DirectX version on a large scale unless there are a lot of gamers on it. Which is why it took years before Dx10 was used effectively (most gamers were on Win XP).

If you really want to go Win 8 and have a valid XP/Vista key, then you should go the upgrade route while it is still cheap (30 euros or so for a limited time). Atleast that is what I did on my living room computer, as XP was starting to get really old and I wanted to see what win 8 was all about. Doubt I will upgrade my win 7 install on my main computer, unless MS fixes the menu systems in Win 8.

I normally skip every other Windows Release for consumers.
98SE (good) -> ME (bad)->XP(good)->Vista(bad)->Win 7(good)

Edited by Erk at 09:45 CST, 24 November 2012

<< Comment #20 @ 10:47 CST, 24 November 2012 >>

By

cumrag - Reply to #19

you forgot 2000, one of the most stable

<< Comment #21 @ 11:21 CST, 24 November 2012 >>

By

fragmaster_ - Reply to #20

i never even used win xp, went from 98se straight to 2000 until about 2005 or so when i sold my pc and bought a macbook.

<< Comment #22 @ 12:03 CST, 24 November 2012 >>

By

Erk - Reply to #20

Win2k was a business line release. They didn't merge until Win XP.

<< Comment #16 @ 04:44 CST, 24 November 2012 >>

By

p0rt

windows 7 has 10 more years of support left from ms

support cycle began when all the enterprises hate win8 and ms wants 70% of them to move to win7 from xp in the next 2 years

<< Comment #17 @ 05:06 CST, 24 November 2012 >>

By

fragmaster_ - Reply to #16

lol we actually just upgraded from xp to win7 at work.

<< Comment #18 @ 06:42 CST, 24 November 2012 >>

By

p0rt

they will laugh at ms if they are forced to use opengl for nasa flybys and simulations, hollywood movies etc, unless your at uni and doing computer science

<< Comment #24 @ 13:55 CST, 26 November 2012 >>

By

well i went a little over the top i guess... what was supposed to be an 800 EUR build ended up costing right around 1000 EUR.

- Intel Core i5 3570K 4x 3.40GHz So.1155 BOX
- ASRock Z77 Extreme4 Intel Z77
- 3072MB Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950 WindForce 3X Aktiv
- 16GB (2x 8192MB) Corsair Vengeance LP Black
- 530 Watt be quiet! Pure Power L8 CM Modula
- Thermalright HR-02 Macho Rev.A (BW)
- 1000GB WD Blue WD10EZEX 7.200U/min
- 128GB Samsung 830 Basic Series 2.5"
- Antec Three Hundred Two Midi Tower

that should last me a while. now i just gotta figure out how to put it all together and install windows. it's been many many years lol.

Edited by fragmaster_ at 13:56 CST, 26 November 2012

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