iLLGT3 - PC - Build Log

[iLLGT3]

Build has been completed.

 

Past

Processor - Intel i5 2500k $219

RAM - Corsair Vengeance 4GB DDR3 1600MHz $40

Motherboard - 2x Asus P8P67 REV3.0 (both caught fire, yes fire) (had a problem with RAM) $280 @ $140ea

GPU - Crossfire XFX HD6850's - 1x XFX Black Edition 1GB $170 - 1x XFX HD6850 $160

PSU - CoolerMaster GX 750W $79

HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200RPM $89

Case - CoolerMaster Storm Scout - $80

 

 

Current:

Processor - Intel i5 2500k $219

Cooler - Corsair H80 $80

RAM - Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600MHz $39

Motherboard - ASUS Sabertooth P67 B3 $200

GPU - Sapphire HD6970 2GB $240 (used!)

PSU - CoolerMaster GX 750W $79

HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200RPM $89

Case - Corsair 600T White $160

 

Total: $1,106 in current state

 

Total lifetime: $1,836

----------------------------

Future upgrades

SSD - Corsair Force 3 GT SSD 128GB

PSU - Corsair AX7/850W

[Andreas¹]

I can't see any reasons why it should work together, there are some things I wonder about though. (Speculating here, I'm an amateur at this but we got our own PC built and it works)

 

PSU -) I have the same CPU as you (:D), which I think needs 125 W, and it says the GFX card needs a minimum of 400 W = 525 W. The 550 one you have might be living on the edge a bit? I don't know about the brand either, but all I say is that if you can get your hands on a Corsair PSU, do it.

RAM -) Never seen anyone use just a single stick before, but I guess that should work too.

The OS -) Make sure you have a real Windows 7 CD and a license, and not an OEM disc, in which case it won't work to install on your new PC after you build it.

[killalldude]

Well, first ways to save money on a PC Build:

 

1) Go cheap on the case. Nobody really needs a $100+ case unless they're building a supercomputer that needs cooling. I'd say spend no more than $30 on a case.

 

2) Don't buy a sound card. For the vast majority of us, the integrated sound from the motherboard is more than enough.

 

3) Look at barebones kits. These kits bundle parts together at a lower price. I found THIS kit that comes with a case, 4GB RAM, an Intel i5 processor, 550W PSU, 1TB HDD, and a motherboard. There are tons of these kits on most online computer retailers.

 

 

Answers to your questions:

 

-Yes, you just plug in the parts into their respective slots, and when you power on the computer it will automatically go into the bios screen.

 

-It's not hard at all. All you do is turn on the system, open the CD drive, pop in the OS CD, and the OS CD will take it from there ;).

 

-Use THIS tool to calculate the amount of wattage you need from your PSU. The least you can go is what the calculator tells you. However, I tend to buy a PSU that is much larger than what I need because if I decide to buy a new video card I won't have to worry about upgrading the PSU as well :)

 

-I'm pretty sure that whatever you build will play TDU1 with no issues and TDU2 on medium/high settings (depends on what graphics card you get).

 

Hope this helps :)

[eXile]

Go Intel on the processor but the rest seems fine for me.

[iLLGT3]

Thanks for the recommendation on the PSU. I didn't even bother looking at the wattage for the mobo.

 

Killadude, I looked at barebones and I must have missed that kit. I may actually go with that instead. Just go with the current selected gfx card and up the PSU like recommended. I'm glad it has an i5. I went with the amd because they were cheaper but I'd choose intel over AMD.

 

Thanks so much guys!

 

EDIT: I noticed that that barebones kit killadude has an intergated gfx chip. How do I remove one of those and install a proper card like the one I listed above?

[Fear Deer]

Im also building a pc for me to game :) its not really bad, and no matter what ppl tell me im going for AMD & ATI

New AMD's pwn intel big time in performance and price, same goes for ATI-nVidia!

This pc should be built by January 2012, here is the hardware list incase you want to get some ideas!

(copied from the .txt i have; pricing from a store nearby!)

 

Caixa Mid Tower Fusion 14,63€

Gravador SATA DVD cor Preto Samsung SH-S223 17,99€

Fonte ATX 470W Powerlogic Magnum 235 18,73€

AMD AthlonII X4 640 3.0GHz 95,30€

Motherboard Asus M4A78LT-M 56,81€

Memória DDR3 2Gb 1333MHz Crucial 20,00€ x2 =40€

Placa Gráfica Asus EAH5670 1GB DDR3 76,31€

Disco Rígido SATA 3.5" 500GB 7200rpm Samsung 36,19€

Placa de Rede Wireless PCI 300Mbps Conceptronic 16,17€

Cooler Universal AMD Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 GT 11,45€ (pedir recomendaçao de cooler melhor em preço bom)

Teclado Logitech K120 11,05€

 

É tudo compativel(cooler com CPU, CPU com board, RAM com CPU e board, Grafica com Board e ram; etc)

 

Total:

394,63€

[killalldude]

...How do I remove one of those and install a proper card like the one I listed above?

 

You don't ;)

 

All you do is plug in your graphics card into an open expansion bay, install the drivers, and you're good to go. (You may have to set the default graphics card as the new one under system management). :)

 

And you'll be glad if you get the i5, my friend has one in his computer and it's really quick.

[iLLGT3]

Good deal. I will probably go with that barebones and go from there. I'm guessing a 1GB gfx card is good enough for most games at decent to high settings yea?

[The Queen]

This might only be my opinion but I have had past experiences with cheap nasty PSU's and it hasn't gone good. Especially those which aren't very well known as they tend to break only a few months down the line and aren't very reliable at all. It's an important part of a system build and you really don't want to be going for a cheap one. Occasionally if they break they can take other components with them and it's really not a risk you should take.

 

Just thought I would throw that in there. ;)

 

I would recommend something from Coolermaster or Corsair as they do good PSU's but they come at a cost but it's definitely worth it.

[iLLGT3]

What would you recommend?

 

Is it bad to go with a lot of wattage?

[The Queen]

What would you recommend?

 

Is it bad to go with a lot of wattage?

 

Well I would follow killalldude's advice and see how much wattage you actually need when you have chosen everything and calculate it. Then, after you have that, look around and see what PSU's are on offer. Have a look for something that is Corsair, Antec, Coolermaster branded. Those mainly have better efficiency whereas the cheaper ones may have the stated wattage but will only last a matter of hours at their max wattage and then start slowly degrading hence why they don't cost as much.

[Fear Deer]

and oh iLLGT3

Nowadays graphics card memory is not what matters the most IMHO as most of the cards nowadays are 512mb or over.

You can get really crappy 1GB cards with low speed memory and 64-bit, while you can get a very good 512mb graphics card with GDDR5 memory and 128-bit :)

You should look into the card's details before choosing, the GPU, the memory, the memory speed..etc ;)

[iLLGT3]

Yeah this GFX card I've got chosen had GDDR5 and is a 1GB.

 

Just ordered this. Don't think I'll be needing light-scribe but whatever.

[killalldude]

About PSUs:

 

Well, what I did for my build to determine the wattage was first calculate how much wattage I needed. It came to around 475W. Then I changed the video card from 1 to 2, and the wattage went up to 600W. The reason I did this was if I want to SLI/Crossfire my system I'd know how much power I'd need. Keeping the 600W in mind, I got the "cheapest" PSU with the highest wattage, a Raidmax 730W PSU. Now I have the freedom of adding parts without having to worry about my PSU. Nothing wrong with extra wattage at your disposal, even if it's a couple hundred of them! :p

 

As Queen said, it's not good to buy a cheap PSU, I spent around $50 on mine but many will tell you to spend $100 on a brand like Corsair or Antec. Honestly, I don't think you need one of these brand name ones. Just look at the user rating for whichever PSU you're going to buy. If lots of people are saying it dies on them, do not buy it! If the PSU has a high rating, then I'd say you're safe with it. It's been a year and this PSU is giving me no issues whatsoever. Beware though, there are some real crappy PSU's you don't want to touch.

 

Here's a 600W Corsair I just found on Tigerdirect.

 

Here's the PSU I have. Unfortunately I couldn't find it on Tigerdirect. I'm not sure if you can order from Newegg, but I'd highly recommend this PSU!

 

Honestly I think you'll be fine with the PSU included with the kit. I'd say buy a different one only if you need more wattage.

 

As for the graphics card, take a look at this this, it'll be worth the extra 20-30 bucks ;). I think the card you're looking at will be a bit "eh."

[iLLGT3]

I've never used an nVidia before. Only ATI.

 

May take up on another one of your recommendations. :lol:

[pyrre]

As Queen said, it's not good to buy a cheap PSU, I spent around $50 on mine but many will tell you to spend $100 on a brand like Corsair or Antec. Honestly, I don't think you need one of these brand name ones.

 

Here's a 600W Corsair I just found on Tigerdirect.

 

Honestly it's always best to go for a good brand rather than a no-name brand in PSU's (don't necessarily need to be 100$ :p), though even with a good brand you need to be careful as the cheaper ones might not be that good either.

That Corsair seems fairly good though I'd say go for this XFX Core Edition 550W. It has Seasonic insides which definitely is good. ;)

As for the Graphics card I agree that you should ditch the 550 ti, the price/performance isn't the best in that one. AMD/ATI HD5850, AMD/ATI HD6850 or Nvidia GTX 460 1GB (not SE model) would be best ones in that price range.

[Ryzza5]

I've built more than a few PC's (almost always Intel + nVidia though). I won't go into too much detail as I'm sure you can find the info elsewhere on the Internet if you search for it (hint: do searches on how to build a PC (i.e. on YouTube)).

 

1. As previously mentioned, if you're on a tight budget - a "kit" is usually the best (and cheapest) way to go. Most stores will let you make slight changes (upgrades) to certain parts (i.e. you might ask them for a faster CPU), and then you just pay the difference for the upgrade(s). Some kits just come as parts, whereas others come all built and tested for you, and in some cases you can choose to go either way (getting them to build and test usually costs $50-75) depending on how elaborate the build is.

 

2. If you are choosing your own parts, rRead all the "fine print" details about them. Most parts have more than one type of specification that's worth comparing. i.e. RAM is not just measured in capacity (i.e. 4GB), but also in speed (i.e. 1333MHz), timings, and of course what type it is (DDR3). The speed can be quite important - you want to match the speed of the RAM, CPU, and motherboard - this is called the FSB (Front Side Bus), and a common cause of bottlenecks.

 

eg. There's no point spending a fortune on a CPU that has an FSB speed of 1800MHz if you then get a cheap motherboard running at 1060MHz, as all 3 components will run at the lowest speed.

 

 

3. Building PC's is dead easy (unless you're a hopeless clutz) ;)

The only part that can get tricky (depending on what motherboard and case you get) is connecting the cables from the case to your motherboard (i.e. your Power button, Reset button, headphone, microphone, and status LEDs all connect to the motherboard using very small cables. It's not always easy to tell which one goes where due to poor documentation. Read the book that comes with your motherboard as it will have the diagrams that tell you what goes where.

 

4. As mentioned - PSU's are important, esp if you are building a PC for gaming. Go for a brand name (i.e. Corsair or Thermaltake. 600w is probably enough, but I would play it a bit safer and get 700w (cutting it fine is never good and can lead to system instability (sudden resets, etc)). Check to see if the power supply has the right connections for your graphics card (4pin or 6pin or a combination).

 

5. High-capactiy hard drives are getting quite cheap these days, but the cheap ones are usually "green" (eco) ones, which is often their way of making 'slow' sound good. If you've only got one HDD that's not very fast, your gaming performance will take a bit of a hit. There's no need to go grab an SSD (not that your budget would allow for it), but perhaps you may wish to sacrifice space for speed. I have a number of Western Digital "Black Series" (SATA2, 64MB cache) HDDs which work very well. SATA 3 is out now as well, which should be much faster. Remember, your computer has to read a lot of system (OS) files from the HDD as well as reading your game files. Having the OS on one disk and games/programs on another helps (or you can at least just partition your drive). If you do setup a partiton just for Windows, don't make it any smaller than 60GB, as the WinSxS folder can grow very large over time.

 

6. How hard is it to install Windows? Not hard - it's dead simple. If you can read and answer basic computer questions you'll be fine. It's just like installing any other program (it's actually faster than installing a few programs/games). Again, if you're not sure, do a YouTube search on how to install Windows 7.

 

A good confidence building excercise is to find an ancient (working) computer that no-one wants and then pull it apart into all it's separate parts. Leave it for a day or two and try to put it back together, and turn it on and see if it works.

 

 

Hope this helps, even if some of the points go beyond the scope of your build.

[iLLGT3]

Thanks for the info Ryzza. I've got a desktop that I no longer use that I have somewhat pulled apart before. I know what is what (for the most part lol) but this obviously is my first time from scratch.

 

What about this PSU? It's on special, and it's a Thermaltake 750W.

 

What about this Sapphire HD5830 graphics card?

 

Found a Sapphire HD5770 as well.

[killalldude]

That's a good PSU. It's also bronze certified! (Not that it really matters, but it's a plus). As for the graphics card, I think you'd be better off with the cards that pyrre suggested.

[iLLGT3]

I've never understood the Sapphire, XFX, Visiontek thing.. Why does ATI not produce the majority of their own cards?

[Fear Deer]

ATI just like nvidia produces GPU's, which means Graphics Processing Units.

Sapphire, Asus, XFX etc produce the boards; they build a board, they use for example ATI's 3470 (example) GPU, and then each of them (asus, xfx, etc....) put the ammount of memory they want, the technology they want ,and sell it at the prices the choose depending on what they built!

Therefore you can find an Asus 5570(not sure if that model exists) with for example 1GB memory and a XFX 5570 with 512mb for example!

not sure if ATI and Nvidia build graphic cards (not just the GPU) themselves but i think so.

[iLLGT3]

Ahh. I guess that makes sense. I see a lot of Sapphire cards. I assume they are solid?

 

It's such a hard decision y0

[pyrre]

Ahh. I guess that makes sense. I see a lot of Sapphire cards. I assume they are solid?

 

Yes. As far as I know there really isn't "bad" graphics card makes anymore so usually it's the best to just find the cheapest/with best guarantee (if you care about it :p) make of a certain model.

[iLLGT3]

I found this 6790 for $149.99.

[pyrre]

I wouldn't really recommend that. Check these out:

Sapphire 5850

XFX 5850

Powercolor 6850

XFX 6850

Zotac GTX 460

Sparkle GTX 460 (This is actually pretty damn cheap)

 

EDIT: The Sapphire 5850 is 10$ cheaper at newegg