[korbaton]

It's been way too long since I did anything with building a computer, so who better to ask than those that know about this?

Winning the RAM on Saturday has reawakened my interest in building a computer, so I'm looking to start from scratch. I don't want to spend more than $150 on any one component, to start with. Upgrades are always an option, but without a job, I don't want to get too expensive.

What are your suggestions for a good base motherboard, and a good CPU to go along with it? I have an average-sized case, probably 2 feet square by 1 foot deep, or something like that; it's been years since I worked on my old desktop. I'll also take any other suggestions, so long as they're connected to my budding computer in some form.

*opens the cage* Let me have it.

[TerranUp16]

I'd recommend going $10 over your limit per component for the graphics card for a HD 5770 (DX11 support + Eyefinity). The HD 5750 would also be palatable though and would be within your price range although then there are last gen cards that are clearly superior deals. The HD 5770 imo will give you great performance now and down the road b/c of its DX11 support. If you want more info to make a decision yourself though, feel free to start here with the [H] review.

Now, the other issue that arises is the CPU. Both current generation Intel options are pretty much shot with the $150 price cap as the cheapest Core i5 even is $200. On the AMD side, you have the Phenom II x4 925 for exactly your limit. It's not a Black Edition so overclocking it will be a bit tougher but my impression from the AMD side of things is that the AM3 socket will be upgradable beyond the Phenom IIs and for now it should be fine even at its stock clock (and even without a Black Edition getting it at least to the "golden 3GHz" should not be much of an issue).

So, some suggestions for you to chew on before I bother going through a full build for you since your responses for those and, your future upgradability desire, will influence my final suggestions.

[cyb.tachyon]

TerranUp16 said:

words... HD 5770 (DX11 support + Eyefinity). more words... On the AMD side, you have the Phenom II x4 925 for exactly your limit. moar words lol wtf.

QFT. Though I would try to cut down on everything a little bit to spring for a GTX 260...

CPU FAN: Go with the best cfm that's the quietest in your price range. Check the measurements to make sure it will fit inside your case. Stock coolers usually don't cut it.

MOBO: Make sure you support at LEAST 16GB of DDR3 RAM (1600 support is nice), RAID, and if you're ever planning to SLI/XFR make sure it supports that and has 2 PCI Xpress 2.0 slots. Check out reviews to make sure there aren't any nasty "features" hiding around. Also, make sure you get thermal paste for installing your CPU: Generic brand is fine.

HARDDRIVES: Personally I'd get at least 2 drives and RAID them together. Make sure they're SATA 3.0gbps and 7200RPM or better. RAID is fairly close to linear improvement on performance with each additional hard disk, and nVidia makes an awesome RAID chip that some mobos have that makes it so much easier than traditional RAID setups.

RAM: I have no idea what RAM you won. Post it and we'll let you know how good it is.

DVD DRIVE: Personally I'd get both a regular DVD drive and then a combo drive. Save the DVD drive for everyday use and the combo drive for burning only. They'll both last longer that way, and your DVD read speed won't be bogged down by a simple combo drive.

POWER SUPPLY: Here's the biggest hit or miss in the PC building spectrum. Cheap PSU's are a 50/50. I've only ever had one cheap PSU go bad, but I've never had a higher end PSU die. Make sure it's an ATX12v with at least two 18A 12v PCI-E 6+2 slots. Modular means more expensive but better cable management (which means better airflow). At least 450W Continuous is good, and you'll probably want 4 +12V rails. PCB and 80+ EE are a bonus.

CASE: If you can go for it: I prefer the power supply on the bottom with plenty of room on the inside in a medium ATX case. Larger fan slots is usually better (the bigger the fan usually the better cfm/noise ratio). Two fans up top, one or two in the back, one in the front, and one on the side is awesome. Filters are a plus. Also, you'll want front USB, or a floppy slot that you can put a USB extender in. If you want a ridiculously pretty case, it's better to go as cheap as possible while fulfilling requirements and then using the $130 you saved to pay one of us to mod it for you. That way you can choose the color, lights, clear panels, and moving dinosaur heads yourself.

CASE COOLING: You really don't need liquid cooling unless you want to show off. I prefer building for negative air pressure (more powerful fans pulling air out, weaker fans pulling air in) because it reduces dust significantly and is much quieter. 120mm fans with speed switches are usually your best bet. Look for the quietest fan that pulls the most CFM.

MOUSE/KEYBOARD: This is a gamer e-peen thing. As long as your mouse has 1600+ DPI and your keyboard works it's good. Things to consider: glowing keys are easier to see, gaming mice are better wired, casual mice are better wireless. Two extra mouse buttons are handy. Laser mice work on almost all surfaces unlike optical mice. If you plan on going pro in any FPS, might as well invest in a good Logitech G5/G7 or Razer now.

MONITOR: Honestly, take your time and constantly scour newegg and tigerdirect for deals. I got my 24" ASUS for $140 that way, and I've bought quite a few other deals like that when building systems for other people. Just be patient.

If you want to give me a total budget I wouldn't mind selecting parts for you on newegg. I'm sure between TerranUp, Avalon, and I we can get you the best bang for your buck (no prostitute guaranteed with purchase though ;P)

[Avalon]

CPU Fan = Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, presuming it fits the socket of the motherboard you plan on buying, is usually the cheapest effective heatsink for overclocking (also assuming you will overclock, if not stock heatsink is fine). Gotta disagree with my Broski up there ^ about raid though, as it has very little tangible benefit on a desktop computer over a fast, single, 7200RPM hard drive (aka Western Digital Black series). Now if you wanted to do Raid 0 for mirroring your data, that's cool. Never saw the need on a desktop though, but it's an option.

[TerranUp16]

Had a Steam conversation w/Korbaton, so...

Tachyon:

CPU Fan/Heatsink: Agreed that stock stuff doesn't cut it... for overclocking, but Korbaton isn't currently planning to overclock so it would be better to just use the stock for now, and if later he decides to OC then he can buy a heatsink then and it hopefully will be cheaper and better at that time.

Mobo: Korbaton confirmed that the Phenom II x4 925 is a good choice so I asked Stug to look over some motherboards to go with that for Korbaton since Stug = AMD Master and Stug forwarded him two candidates, either of which should work just fine. Also, for thermal paste, why bother with generic stuff when Artic Silver 5 is $5 for a bottle that has lasted me almost 10 applications now (I've "loaned it out" to peeps)?

HDDs: Agreed, and nVidia does make it easy though you do need to know more than just the number of the config that you want. Depends on tech level though. RAID can require some maintenance if something goes fubar or your BIOS get reset. Imo, it's easy maintenance, but it is the kinda maintenance that if you don't know what you're doing and/or how to do it, then your computer can be out of commission or you can reformat (and remember, this would be an unexpected reformat so forget saving files) when you didn't have to.

RAM: Since it was only sitting in my living room for a bazillion days, it is 3x1GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer 1600MHz CAS 8 DDR3. I recommended he pick up another stick for $33 to complete the 4GB dual channel set-up since there are no triple channel AMD DDR3 motherboards currently.

PSU: I asked him about his power needs and he wants to keep open the possibility of either HD 5770 Crossfire or a beefier main card. With that in mind, my best recommendation is an HX650W which I conveyed to him. An HX620W can also suffice. There may be non-Corsair candidates as well but personally I have seen such great performance and reliability from them (and while when I got my HX620W, I didn't know anyone else who had one, I now know plenty- over ten at least) that I have a tough time recommending anything else for long-term usage, but if anyone else has suggestions feel free to give them because I clearly have a bias.

Case: Agreed, though he does seem intent on using his existing case. We probably should ask him what his current case is and figure out what it has since a bad case can ruin an otherwise good system (so... since you're reading this right now Korbaton... ;)).

M/K: He still uses a mouse with his laptop so I think this is covered in terms of that it's not really necessary and I don't think he's got $ to splurge. Of course, if you do want to splurge, I take issue with 1600DPI being enough as with a 1920x1200 desktop 3200DPI is barely enough for me, xD Really, with the amount of DPI you can get, it is all about getting used to it and imo more is always better because you have the option of using more when/if you want it. Anyway, if a mouse is a consideration, then my first suggestion is to figure out whether you like a claw or regular grip better. The best example of a claw grip is the Logitech G9/G9x, my personal weapon of choice ;) See if one of the club members (such as myself or Gamma) will let you try his/hers out for a brief period so you can get a feel for what it's like. For regular mice, the G5 or possibly G500 (though a lot of people complain about the thumb buttons on the G500 being pretty much unusable so consider that before instantly going, "It's newer so it's better!") or a Razer- again, comes down to preference and possibly brand loyalty. Imo, with choices like those, the G7 is unnecessary as the wireless just kills it.

Also, if you do get a better mouse, while laser mice don't require a mousepad, I highly recommend using one. My personal recommendation is a Ratpadz XT (only $20 actually as they take $5 off at checkout and shipping is free as well) because it's a winsauce mix of being smooth but still providing proper grip. Of course though, to each his own, but primarily just make sure you're not using one of those cheap ones with tiger prints and crap on it since those work terribly for most gaming mice because they are too small and provide too much resistance.

For keyboards, a true "gaming keyboard" is unnecessary, but the G11 and G15 are both excellent options. The G19 is winsauce but I doubt $200 is a palatable figure for a keyboard. Razer of course has its offerings as well. On the whole though, something that has macro keys and whose "feel" you appreciate is what you want.

Monitor: Agreed for deals. One other thing you'll really want to consider though is the panel type. Among LCDs, you have TN, PVA, and IPS. You're not usually going to get a 24" IPS although Dell and others have some newer IPS styles that still pound TN out of the water while remaining affordable and not being much worse than full IPS. PVA/S-PVA is your main alternative to TN in the 24"/below 30" range. That will net you much better color reproduction and overall significantly better and more accurate colors all-around with significantly superior viewing angles- extremely useful if you plan on doing any kind of art. The drawback is that the price is a lot more and typically S-PVA is only offered for truly top-end monitors like the Dell 2408WFP (which, as you'll note, sports 4 USB ports, a sizable card reader, and a connector for everything), so the price premium of S-PVA is typically amplified. Imo it's worth it but up to you really. The other big issue is 16:10 v 16:9. 16:9 is more prevalent and cheaper nowadays, but it's cheaper because it's smaller really. You're getting less real estate, not just in pixels but in actual screen space. 16:10 imo is definitely the way to go if you can.

A total budget would indeed help, and Tachyon I think we'll do the best we can on getting that prostitute ;)

[madhatter256]

tachyon. I love how you quoted terranup...

[korbaton]

Well, I thank you guys for your suggestions, but what I neglected to mention earlier is that my dad will shit bricks if I spend so much on a rig designed exclusively for gaming.

But let me get a job first and then we'll talk turkey.

[cyb.tachyon]

Actually the best hard disk set up would be a single HDD for the Windows Install (your "C:\") and a RAID0 of two disks for all your apps and games.

Like Avalon said, most people probably wouldn't notice the benefit of RAID 0 unless they time load times >.> I swear I've never done that....

[Zenebatos]

cyb.tachyon said:

I swear I've never done that....

I'll be the first to call BULLSHIT.

[korbaton]

Screwed by the bookstore, will try again every day this week until they cave in.

[ninjafish]

I think I'm in the same position as korbaton, I recently won an AMD Athlon x2 7850 black edition (2.8ghz which I would probably OC to 3.0ghz) and I'm trying to decide whether I want to use this cpu to build a new gaming machine or if its just not good enough for the long run (3+ years of gaming use).

Right now, my 3 year old laptop can still run 90% of the games I want to play. So I'm kind of playing the waiting game where I'm holding off on building a new machine until I have to, but would like to build a new machine in the next 4 months.

I am on a budget somewhere between 800-1000, should I consider using this cpu or would I be better off selling it and getting a quad core.

[SniperX]

ninjafish said:

I think I'm in the same position as korbaton, I recently won an AMD Athlon x2 7850 black edition (2.8ghz which I would probably OC to 3.0ghz) and I'm trying to decide whether I want to use this cpu to build a new gaming machine or if its just not good enough for the long run (3+ years of gaming use).

Right now, my 3 year old laptop can still run 90% of the games I want to play. So I'm kind of playing the waiting game where I'm holding off on building a new machine until I have to, but would like to build a new machine in the next 4 months.

I am on a budget somewhere between 800-1000, should I consider using this cpu or would I be better off selling it and getting a quad core.

get rid of that junk, the Phenom II's will easily fit into an $800 budget if you want to go AMD