Comp Died (in Off-topic)

Build me a new computer... spending limit 1500 USD.. just need a tower...
want to be able to play new games on it, and i want to have my double monitor set up still... links are appreciated and if i pick your build you get 500k CBD...

Skim this and you'll get a good concept of how far that budget will go. Plus, they list a top-notch computer that will do what you want for just 2/3 of your budget.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-a-pc,2969.html

I'll just leave this here:
http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1559734

It's one of my threads, pretty long, deals exactly with the "build your own PC" thing, what to look for, what's important, where to cut corners and where not to, stuff like that.

Has a few "sample builds" in there too, and also quite a bit of talk from others.

Or, alternatively, this thread over here, fiddling with components for a PC for soxjr:
http://www.carnageblender.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=003ClZ

What kind of game do you play, are you using any software that are CPU intensive. Photoshop 3D rendering video encoding.....

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227347

1200, comes with a 64g SSD for games and windows. Some people don't like iBuyPower but ive never had any issues with them. Great machine for pretty much anything you could want out of it.

I want to be able to play Crysis 2, doesn't have to be on max but don't want minimum either...

CPU: Intelﾮ Coreﾙ i7-960 3.20 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1366 Venom Boost Fast And Efficient Factory Overclocking: No Overclocking

Cooling Fan: Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan (Enhanced Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA) (Single Standard 120MM Fan)

Motherboard: * (3-Way SLI Support) GigaByte G1.Guerrilla Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Triple-Channel DDR3 E-ATX w/ 7.1 Creative X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity Audio, Bigfoot Killer E2100 GbLAN, eSATA, USB3, 2x SATA3 RAID, 3 Gen2 PCIe, 2 PCIe X1 & 1 PCI

Memory: 6GB (2GBx3) DDR3/1600MHz Triple Channel Memory Module (Corsair or Major Brand)

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 HD 2.5GB 16X PCIe Video Card [+128] (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA)

Power Supply Upgrade: 800 Watts - XtremeGear Gaming Power Supply - Quad SLI Ready

Hard Drive: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (Single Hard Drive)

Optical Drive: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR)

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

$1397, free shipping, 50$ MIR, 5% taken off at checkout

emailed the config to you, you can change it as wanted

Pit... i'm loving that build

If it was me, I'd add at least 4 more gigs of RAM... but, I do crazy crap with my computer, so 6 might be enough for you.

I don't really know what's a good brand when it comes to memory, but you can get 2 (4x4)s for <90 bucks from GSkill, so I don't really see the reason not to.

More ram is better yes?

Yeah, already dropping $1500 for the PC, might as well drop another $50 and go from 6G>16G

Your computer won't require more than 3 gigs of RAM in all honesty. I'd put in 8 gigs, but that's really just for style. You'd never notice a difference between 4 gigs and 8.

I've got 6 gigs at work, and I max it out quite often...

A 800$-900$ machine (just for the hardware, one assumes you already have an OS available) should be able to play that on max in-game settable options in full HD resolution easily.
Crysis 2 is not that much of a hardware hog, Crysis 1 is actually much harsher on the hardware. Or, alternatively, ramping up everything to the max by manual tweaking from "outside" the game in Crysis 2 (although you won't really notice much of a difference in image quality, but at a sharp drop in performance".

I have a relatively lousy i5-760 (superseded by quite a few relatively cheap sandybridges) with a not-that-spectacular GTX 460, and I can play Crysis 2 on in-game max everything just fine in 1280x720 windowed mode on a 1600x1200 desktop (windowed mode works a bit slower than full screen mode) with quite a bit of stuff opened up in the background, level load is not that much of a big deal even if I have a cheap "green" HDD (2 TB, but still, cheap and slow), and only 4 GB of RAM (with 2 GB of it taken by the OS and most of my usual background-running programs, so only about 2GB available for the game itself).

So, no, you don't need the most expensive CPU money can buy (it's actually mostly a waste of cash), you don't even need the most expensive video card (and you certainly don't need multiple video cards in SLI mode), RAM is dirt cheap, and a fast HDD is far more "bang for buck" than a small SSD.

If you want the best of both worlds, you COULD get a small-ish SSD, a fast moderate size HDD and a big storage HDD, all with a second-best (i5-2500) or even third-best (i5-2400) tier sandybridge ("k" version optional) on a Z68 chipset and ENABLE SSD CACHING on the fast-ish HDD. For a video card, I would say, either go with a GTX 560 or with a Radeon HD 6850 for now.

Don't build the best you can get for a budget, decide on the target performance and get the cheapest you can that gets you that performance.

You also don't need a very fancy case (unless you want to flaunt it), heavily oversizing your PSU for later upgrades that never come will just be a waste of money since it decays with use anyway and efficiency drops the less percentage of power you use (so you end up paying quite a bit extra in electricity costs over time), you DO NOT NEED LIQUID COOLING (that's also quite a pain to maintain) unless you live in a hellhole with no air conditioning and plan on heavily overclocking (WHICH YOU SHOULD NOT DO).
Also, only get a SSD if you're really, really, REALLY bothered that your PC boots up in 42 seconds instead of 19, or that the next level takes 28 seconds to load instead of 15.

SO... FOR INSTANCE...


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115073
210$ - Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz Quad-Core, 95W TDP

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125383
185$ - GIGABYTE GV-N56GOC-1GI GeForce GTX 560 1GB, slight factory overclock, most likely TDP around 160W tops

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157270
95$ - ASRock Z68 Micro ATX Motherboard (no SLI support), most likely low TDP

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231445&Tpk=z68
70$ - G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600, 8-8-8-24 timings

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227728
100$ - OCZ Solid 3 60GB SATA III SSD -> use either as system drive (just 60 GB is not so great for that) or HUGE SSD cache (highly recommended)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136767
60$ - Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache -> use as system drive through SSD cache

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136514
70$ - Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB 64MB Cache -> use as media storage drive (music, movies, DVD images, etc), no SSD caching at all

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139027
60$ - CORSAIR Builder Series 500W ATX12V v2.3 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811166054
40$ - ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with 5PCS Case Fans and a Fan Controller
Power Supply Mounted - Bottom
1 x 80mm rear exhaust fan
1 x 120mm front intake fan
1 x 120mm side intake fan
2 x 120mm top exhaust fan

TOTAL PRICE : 210 + 185 + 95 + 70 + 100 + 60 + 70 + 60 + 40 = 890 USD.
Plus shipping and taxes.

Optionally, add a custom cooler - but with so many case fans, even the stock cooler should be more than enough.
Seriously.

remember i need all the connection wiring as well...

You shouldn't need any additional connectors for any of the above.
It's supposed to have all you need included already. Look at the tech details page for each.
What additional connections do you think you might need ?

didn't realize they came with

And you also get a free game with the vid card, and you can put in some mail-in rebates for some of the components.
:)

I like Sickone's build, but I would shave off $170 by dropping the SSD and 2nd HDD. I'd also try to shave another $20 off by waiting to pick up a decent PSU+case combo, as they pop up frequently. Great bang for the buck.

Okay i have a HDD right now that all i want to do is take my movies and music off of it and put it on a 2tb HDD... thats all i need... is that possible? and both will have OS win 7 home premium

Yes, you can copy anything from any HDD to any other HDD, just stick them both in.

The OS, you'll have to reinstall that though, it's ugly to try to copypaste Windows itself from a drive to another (or, for that matter, to try and stick a HDD with Windows booting on a completely different computer).

Also, which Win7HomePremium ? The 32-bit or the 64-bit edition ? The 32-bit one is limited to 4 GB of RAM, so you'll need to use the 64-bit version (goes up to 16GB of RAM) if you're going with 8GB.

...


As I said, that above was a relatively "high-end" build, I have a much, much weaker//cheaper machine and it still serves me very well.
You could just as well go with a quad-core AMD CPU (or at most a 6-core one, but not really necessary), drop the SSD and even the fast HDD (I have only the "slow" HDD and it's working fine enough for me), go with an AMD video card (slightly cheaper for roughly same performance), and you get away with only about 650-750$ (or even less) instead of nearly 900$.

Btw dandy bridge e and bulldozer Will be release in the NeXT week

im guessing sickone doesn't check CMs

I do, but only on second logins :) Answered.

if you happen to have a costco membership:

http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11624179&cm_mmc=BCEmail_669-_-Focus-_-1-_-MarketingItemName

The A8 APUs (CPU+GPU combos) are pretty underwhelming from a processor performance standpoint, and not exactly what you'd call fast in the GPU compartment either.
You wouldn't want to play one of the newer games on high detail with them and no additional discrete video card.

The only two noteworthy advantages are power usage (they have a pretty good FPS/Watt ratio) and to a much lesser degree price (they're cheaper than similar performance completely separate CPUs and GPUs, but you have to share the system RAM with the GPU part, so you end up pretty much on par back again price wise).

That config right there is somewhat nice given the extras (Blu-Ray RW drive, the OS) and the ample RAM size (which you can fully use with the provided OS), but if you want to use it as a gaming machine, you'd really, really, REALLY want to get at least a separate Radeon HD 6750 or 6770, preferably even a HD 6850, and you'll probably end up CPU-bottlenecked in some games... not all, but enough to annoy. And you can't switch to a better CPU part chip, because the socket is different from all the other AMD CPUs (understandable, since you have both a CPU and a GPU on the same chip).
Overall, I'd drop the RAM to a more reasonable 8 GB, drop the bluray drive altogether, get a 6770 alongside it... and probably end up at somewhere around 450-500$ total price for it.