34 replies to this topic

[torgian]

Hey everyone.

So my desktop, after about 5 years of faithful service, is starting to die. Video card is the main culprit, it's starting to fail on the hardware side, if not software. I have an NVIDIA 8800GTS.

I did think about just upgrading the video card, but decided that I might as well build a brand new desktop.

So... I've been out of the loop tech-wise for the past several years. What are the new products that came out? I heard that Intel is making boards with soldered CPUs, instead of CPUs you can swap out in the future for upgradability. Is this true?

Please inform me. I'm thinking my budget is gonna be around 2-3000 for a new build, and yes I do build my own computers, just need help with ideas on what parts/accessories i should look into, as well as future upgradeability.

[ArmageddonKnight]

Well as u probably know alot can happen ina year let alone 5 so would be alot to go through. However both cpu's and gpu's have moved forward alot since the 8800gts days. I know...my last compuer used 2x 8800GTX's from the same period of time, and the difference between my last PC and my current one is night and day.

$3000 can get u a wicked machine.
I will put together one on pcpartpicker to give u what i think would be a great rig. I do this alot on other forums so it will be a pritty solid sugested build. ofc there wil laloways be other options jus tas good.
Anyway asuming u only need the box and whats in it this is what i would sugest to full use that $3000 budget.
If u need accessories like monitor, speakers keyabord , mouse etc. .do say so.
So...
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/199Ds
Few things about this setup.
IS VERY quiet. The CPU cooler is silent, the stock case fans are quiet, so is the PSU and GPU fans. You have NO HDD's, instead u have 3 SSD's meaning no HDD hum, however the 2 larger SSD's do cost a fair whack.
This setup isnt designed to be cheap or value for money, it uses top of the line parts from top end vendors. It will obliterate almost all games at 1080p single screen, with the exception of extreme titles like Crysis 3 with all the graphics features maxed out, at which point u would want a second GTX 780 gpu for SLI.
The CPU can easily be OC'd probably to around 4.3ghz with that cooler if u so wished which would help in online multiplayer games like MMO's and such.

This next sugestion compromises on top end parts to sqeeze in extras like a new OS , optical drive, monitor, mouse and keyboard.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/199Nc
On this we remove the the 2 larger SSD's and replace it with a HDD, and we also loose the dedictaed sound card ot use the onboard sound chip (which isnt to shabby by the way). I didnt pick any speakers becouse tbh, i dont know much about them. The screen however is lovely, its super widescreen 2560 x 1080 resolution. Ofc u dont have to go that direction u could always just get a standard widescreen 2560 x 1440, or even go for a cheap normal 1920x 1080 screen. Anyway this also lists a new OS, and optical drive, and a good gaming keyboard and mouse.

The case used in both is more than big enough for custom water cooling or AIO water cooling should u want to upgrade to that in the future. Also the 850W PSu is good for 2 way SLI since that CPU is super efficient and doesnt use much wattage even when OC'd...unlike some CPU *looks at his own*

There are plenty of other ways i can thnk of spending $3000 on a rig but these are just2 of them

Edited by ArmageddonKnight, 22 June 2013 - 01:38 PM.

[Badconduct]

With 2 - 3K, it's just brand preference at this point.

[torgian]

ArmageddonKnight, thanks a lot! You gave me a pretty good idea about what I can get. I'm not sure if I would go for three drives, but I may do a smaller drive for an OS and the bigger one for programs. Looking forward to those silent drives, it will be a first for me.

I like EVGA motherboards and GPUs, so I'm probably gonna do a combo of those. I didn't realize that ram got so big these days in a single stick. Crazy.

There's a possibility I may use this new computer for artwork and editing as well, so I'll have to get some research done.

[ArmageddonKnight]

There are so many other setups u can do with $3000,
I only went 3 drives becouse SSD dont come any bigger than 512gb. And you generaly want atleast 1 TB of drive space + an OS drive nowerdays.
U can always go for 1 128gb SSD for OS + a few games and or prgrams. A 2nd 512 Gb SSD for the rest of ur games and programs. Then a 3rd drive being a external 1tb or 2tb HDD that u store all ur work on. That way u wont needo t listen to the HDD when playing games and such and only need power it up when u want to access whats stored on it.
A bit of an extreme example for a external and portable HDD is linked below.
http://www.overclock...ir_1tb_review/1

Edited by ArmageddonKnight, 22 June 2013 - 02:38 PM.

[torgian]

So, question, why do you want a terrabyte of space anyways? I understand having a separate drive for an OS, but why that much space?

[Dragoon20005]

i imagine loading all your games into this SSD

and loading of the game must be supercharged or not...

seriously its over kill to get more than 512GB just for OS alone

[ArmageddonKnight]

Use a 128gb or 256gb SSD for OS + a few main games + some main programs.
Use 1 TB of other storage for other games, programs, music, movies, download files - patches - mods - etc etc.

I persoanly only need 1 TB myself and its enough, i end up using about 80% of the storage dirve space.
However i know people who use loads of programs store ful lhd movies on their HDD's and can easily burn through 2TB's of space.
And tbh if u go the HDD route instead of the SSD route ..1 TB even 2 TB is cheap nowerdays.

Edited by ArmageddonKnight, 23 June 2013 - 05:49 AM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Up too $3000 is like whatever you want.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/19mVd

Note: The Titan while over priced, will play MWO at 60 FPS across all three screens.
I would imagine the 780 (cheaper) would too or close to it as they are not worlds apart - But i dont own a 780 to test, i do own a titan so can say the other bit for fact.

[Kay Oss]

I would only get an SSD for your O/S drive, not for storage myself. You don't really have to worry about HDD noise in most instances. Most drives are barely audible especially if you get a green drive that powers down when not in use. This way, if you are only using it for storage, it will be dead silent most of the time. They are also quiter than a normal drive under regular use. I have all quiet fans at low RPMS in my case and I do not hear any sound from my (Western Digital) green drives.

With $3000 you certainly have a lot of choice. A nice high-res 1440P, 27" monitor might be fun

[Barbaric Soul]

why is everyone recommending only a 27" 1440p monitor. This is what monitor I use/recommend if your going with a single monitor $3000 build- http://www.newegg.co...N82E16824176177

[Patrick Wolf]

Barbaric Soul, on 01 July 2013 - 12:40 PM, said:

why is everyone recommending only a 27" 1440p monitor. This is what monitor I use/recommend if your going with a single monitor $3000 build- http://www.newegg.co...N82E16824176177

Cause it is more fun to have a titan/gtx 690/7990 etc than a $1200 monitor? Least that would be my opinion, Mckennas build is really nice especially with the triple monitors I can say from experience that tri monitor gaming is truly epic

[Vincent Vascaul]

I posted in your other thread, for that kind of Dosh I would go at least with 1/27 inch 1440p monitor though you could afford 3 with that budget (I have one myself and will be getting a couple more down the road) If we are talking a non overclocking user who does artwork I would go X79 with a 3930K for the extra threads, a Asrock X11, MSI Big Bang II, or Asus x79 Deluxe for a mobo. I would go with Noctua Fans for air cooling or Alphacool for watercooling (I recommend watercooling if your up for it.) 32gb of ram (once again if you are doing artwork and rendering) and 2x 3gb EVGA dual fan SC with ACX GTX 780's although if you aren't buying immediately there will probably be a 6gb version of these cards soon that would be better if you plan on ever going with a ultra high res surround setup.


Also Barbaric Soul, I can get 4 27 inch monitors with a stand for the cost of that one 30", and as someone who has had triple 1080p and a Dell 3011 and the 27, I can say the 27 is IMHO the best bang for the buck/experience for gaming.

Edited by Vincent Vascaul, 01 July 2013 - 01:04 PM.

[torgian]

Thanks vincent. Im thinking of purchasing in the next couple of weeks. When do you think those new cards will come out?

[Vincent Vascaul]

sent you a pm, hit me up on Teamspeak and we can go over all of the details.

[Catamount]

I agree with Vincent that more than 3GB is preferable for any kind of triple monitor setup, and 6 is definitely ideal.

Unfortunately, his build suggestion is too extravagant, even for a $3000 budget, even just for the tower. A 3930, Asrock Extreme11, and a pair of even 3GB 780s, comes to $2500, without a case, storage, PSU, RAM, or monitors. Since it sounds like rendering/artwork is going to be a minority usage, by far, and not something you're going to need every spare second you can squeeze out of a machine on every render for, I'd suggest something a hair more modest, perhaps.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1cvJK

That's $2300 for a tower, which leaves you $700 to pick up whatever monitor setup you think will fit you needs.

As for what I picked what I did:

-The motherboard is the cheapest board that I know of that will give you access to two full speed PCIE 3.0 x16 slots. My understanding is that 7970s and 680s didn't bottleneck on x8 slots meaningfully, but this will open up the possibility of later upgrades down the road, should you choose. If you think you'll just stick with this setup until you replace the whole machine, you can drop to the Extreme 6 or Extreme 4 without losing anything.

-The CPU, while not a 3930k, is still extremely powerful, but lacks overclocking of note (Haswell sucks there), which you don't want anyways.

-Two 770s will run circles around a single 780 or Titan in SLI, and be nearly as fast even without it (a 770 is 85% as fast as a 780), and 4GB is enough to play games at any resolution those cards can handle. 3 1600P monitors is out of the question for them, but at the same time, no current GPU setup would comfortably handle that; even dual Titans would struggle in many titles, especially future titles. A pair of 780s could also technically be fit into the budget, but 6GB 780s are going to be very expensive, so that wouldn't leave you much budget for a monitor setup actually worthy of that GPU setup, and they wouldn't even be that much faster. 770s give simply more bang for your buck than anything GK110 based.

Beyond that, you have a full tower case with plenty of airflow, a good PSU with 300W of headroom (850 and up is probably okay, but that particular unit is as cheap as a good 850 anyways), and enough RAM and storage to not hold you back. There are some people who have made a good case recently for going with some of the lower-end Xeons, but I know little about those chips, so you'd have to ask someone else there.



As for monitors, you haven't said what kind of "art" work you want to do, but if it's color-sensitive, you'll want an IPS display, so three of these would work and barely squeeze into the budget (you'd be at $3018):
http://pcpartpicker....monitor-vs24ahp

Alternatively, you could get a single 27"-30" IPS of your choosing, maybe a Catleap Q270 (good picture, compromising QC) if you wanted to keep from blowing enormous sums of money on monitors (they're about $400), but there are screens with better quality control, if you want to put down more money. If you went cheap enough and/or compromised other parts, you could even afford three 27-30 inch 1440p/1600p screens, but you'd never be able to afford three of those screens and a system that could game on them comfortably, if such a system even exists.

That's my .02 anyways.


On a different note, getting real tired of your ****, MWO forums This thing misformatted my post three times and lost and edit once. I apologize in advance if I had to make my post look funny just to get the forum to accept it.

Edited by Catamount, 02 July 2013 - 08:22 AM.

[B0oN]

torgian, on 22 June 2013 - 07:00 PM, said:

So, question, why do you want a terrabyte of space anyways? I understand having a separate drive for an OS, but why that much space?

Imagine frapsing something in full resolution at 60 FPS cap (or 120 FPS if the rig is able and your monitor demands such high frequencies^^).... gigabytes amass kind of horrenduously fast.

One other thing to note : doing screenshots in Downsampling resolutions (literally 1.5 times or more of native resolution squeezed into the same frame and aspect ratio; see perfect screenshot thread for more info on that ) causes giant pictures, e.g: one (!) .bmp file @2880x1620weighs in at around 13-14 mb ... over time I got more than 3 GB of pictures alone for my desktop backgrounds.

Another note: I buy all my music and rip it in .wav format, a CD ripped to my harddrive amounts to a volume of 600-700 mb tops

The audio recording and editing I do sometimes weighs even more, one song approximately 100-150 mb, depends on the underlying edits and effects.

Summa summarum: You can never have enough space, why I got me 3 TB HDD space in grand total, and after a year half of it is already filled

Edited by Rad Hanzo, 02 July 2013 - 08:24 AM.

[SuperFr0sty]

Building a PC is costly: but here's mine

PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5-2500 (3.3G) 6mb 32nm
MOTHERBOARD: Asus P8H67-M LE H67 V/S/GL

RAM: Kingston 4GB 1333 ddr3

HARD DISK: Western Digital 1.0 TB (Black)

DVD: LG 24x GSA-H24LS sata lightscribe

VIDEO CARD: Inno3D GTX550 Titanium 2gb ddr5 192bit hdmi

CASE: CoolerMaster Elite 371

POWER SUPPLY: FSP Everest Series 80+ modular 800w

COOLER: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 cpu fan

KEYBOARD AND MOUSE: Logitech MK320 wireless KB / mouse



note:

- It's around $700 to $900

- I already had my monitor

- my video card can play Crysis3 on a low setting

- it can play MWO in a very high setting 1600x900, motion blur to high

- thinking about changing my vidcard preparing for the upcoming sick games.

- In my own opinion about the processor: If you're on doing some video making, rendering or whatever you buy i7, if not i5 is ok.

[Vincent Vascaul]

Sorry cata I didnt make it clear on mine, some of the parts were advised for multi some for single. 3930K can be had for around 400 if you know where to look, a Asus Deluxe Mobo and your on your way. Also I just found out from EVGA that there will not be a 6gb GTX 780 since it would crush the titan so Nvidia wont let them.

Edit:BTW Cata, you ever on the NGNG TS3 server?

Edited by Vincent Vascaul, 02 July 2013 - 11:58 AM.

[Saxophonist]

ArmageddonKnight, on 22 June 2013 - 01:27 PM, said:

Well as u probably know alot can happen ina year let alone 5 so would be alot to go through. However both cpu's and gpu's have moved forward alot since the 8800gts days. I know...my last compuer used 2x 8800GTX's from the same period of time, and the difference between my last PC and my current one is night and day.

$3000 can get u a wicked machine.
I will put together one on pcpartpicker to give u what i think would be a great rig. I do this alot on other forums so it will be a pritty solid sugested build. ofc there wil laloways be other options jus tas good.
Anyway asuming u only need the box and whats in it this is what i would sugest to full use that $3000 budget.
If u need accessories like monitor, speakers keyabord , mouse etc. .do say so.
So...
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/199Ds
Few things about this setup.
IS VERY quiet. The CPU cooler is silent, the stock case fans are quiet, so is the PSU and GPU fans. You have NO HDD's, instead u have 3 SSD's meaning no HDD hum, however the 2 larger SSD's do cost a fair whack.
This setup isnt designed to be cheap or value for money, it uses top of the line parts from top end vendors. It will obliterate almost all games at 1080p single screen, with the exception of extreme titles like Crysis 3 with all the graphics features maxed out, at which point u would want a second GTX 780 gpu for SLI.
The CPU can easily be OC'd probably to around 4.3ghz with that cooler if u so wished which would help in online multiplayer games like MMO's and such.

This next sugestion compromises on top end parts to sqeeze in extras like a new OS , optical drive, monitor, mouse and keyboard.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/199Nc
On this we remove the the 2 larger SSD's and replace it with a HDD, and we also loose the dedictaed sound card ot use the onboard sound chip (which isnt to shabby by the way). I didnt pick any speakers becouse tbh, i dont know much about them. The screen however is lovely, its super widescreen 2560 x 1080 resolution. Ofc u dont have to go that direction u could always just get a standard widescreen 2560 x 1440, or even go for a cheap normal 1920x 1080 screen. Anyway this also lists a new OS, and optical drive, and a good gaming keyboard and mouse.

The case used in both is more than big enough for custom water cooling or AIO water cooling should u want to upgrade to that in the future. Also the 850W PSu is good for 2 way SLI since that CPU is super efficient and doesnt use much wattage even when OC'd...unlike some CPU *looks at his own*

There are plenty of other ways i can thnk of spending $3000 on a rig but these are just2 of them

Nice choice on all of those, though I wouldn't take those 3 SSDs. One at around 256 gb is plenty, and then if you do movies or something like that get a 1 TB HDD. My WD Black edition makes no noise, it's really better than an SSD array. My SSD totally failed a few months ago (got a new one), so having a HDD is also good because you can backup to it. If you build it later, look and see if 3770K prices are down, cause you might want to get that instead. Haswell doesn't provide much in the way of performance improvements AFAIK(correct me if I'm wrong). Mostly power usage. As well, THANK YOU FOR NOT RECOMMENDING WINDOWS 8 (rants about Metro UI......) Vulpes' build is quite good too.