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Build-it-yourself PC
http://www.avian-gamers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20523		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  X2-PB [ Mon Jul 25, 2011 4:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Build-it-yourself PC
I build myself a new PC about once every five years. Whenever I come to build a new one, I immediately find that PC components have moved on so much that my existing knowledge is hopelessly out of date. My aim with this thread is to put together a knowledge base of sorts that is useful not just to myself but also any others planning to put together a new PC.

My aim is to gather three types of information:
  • Objective (The different types of RAM are ...)
  • Subjective (In general, AMD chips are better than Intel because ...)
  • Recommendations (Go for XYZ because it is the awesome!)

Where you know of good sources of information either for specific components or in general, please include those as well. I'll update this post as information is added.

General Requirements
For myself, I have some specific general requirements:
  • Green
  • Low Noise
  • Good performance
    • It will be a games machine after all
  • Budget
    • The full machine should keep within a budget of $1500 - $2000 as a ballpark figure to give you guys a rough idea of the performance range I'm looking at.
  • Operating System
    • I plan to run Linux as the main OS, dual booting with Windows (This may limit some of the more obscure components on compatibility grounds)

Clearly there needs to be a balance of the above, but the aim is for a machine that delivers the best performance for the constraints.

SPECIFICS
Feel free to add to the questions listed below or add additional sections. This is a work in progress.

Processor

GPU
  • Objective
  • Subjective
  • Recommendations
  • Questions
    • ATI(AMD) or nVidia? (I personally tend to go for the GeForce range, any opinions?)
    • Is the GPU thing thing to spend the money on?
    • How much onboard memory?
    • As I already have a monitor the GPU needs to have VGA or DVI outputs.

RAM
  • Objective
  • Subjective
  • Recommendations
  • Questions
    • What are the types of RAM currently used? (Last time I bought any, it was DDR2)
    • How much is needed?
    • Speed?
    • Latency?
    • Cache?

Others .....
  • Objective
  • Subjective
  • Recommendations
  • Questions
    • to be added!



Motherboard
  • Objective
  • Subjective
  • Recommendations
  • Questions
    • ATX (Have an existing ATX case)
    • Needs to be compatible with everything else(!)
    • RAID? (Is this used/useful any more?)
    • Expansion slots?
    • FSB speed?


Will add in more stuff when I get time.
Author:  Cetera [ Mon Jul 25, 2011 11:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
You've got a lot there, and I don't have near enough time to address it all.

64-bit is required these days, as 32-bit can't address enough RAM. There simply aren't enough addresses in binary with only 32-bit addressing. So 64-bit is required in any system you will build. You can still buy 32-bit stuff, but there isn't any point to it anymore. You'd be better off sticking with your 5-year-old machine.

As far as price points, here are two good articles from Tom's Hardware, on best CPUs and GPUs for your money based on pricing seen this month. They link to other more detailed, in-depth reviews, and this is a good place to start:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bes ... ,2971.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bes ... ,2964.html

RAID - I freaking love it. Every PC I build has a 4 disk RAID 5 array, as big as I can afford. Useful for data storage, backups, redundancy, and lots of space for downloading TV shows.

Modern processors are using DDR3 RAM. It is fast, but doesn't have as tight of timings as DDR2. The overall speed makes up for it.

If price is no object, I'll buy nVidia over AMD/ATI any day. However, AMD (bought out ATI) has been kicking nVidia's ass in the graphics card department for several years now. Their products are faster and cheaper. They don't have as many bells and whistles, however. nVidia's supplemental features like PhysX and others make a huge difference, and when compared on that level blow AMD out of the water. The downside is lots of games don't support it.

AMD's cards will now power multiple monitors off of one card, so instead of needing two or three cards from nVidia, you can use one AMD, if you are interested in that.


Processors, I wouldn't go with anything but an Intel. Intel lost a lot of ground to AMD once, but have reclaimed their top spots and aren't letting go. They've been absolutely throttling the life out of AMD processors the past several years. In my mind, AMD has become the budget CPU, akin to the "Celeron" of yesteryear that everyone hated.

Clock speed is much less important, but still a large factor. P4s were routinely breaking 3GHz speeds years and years ago, and no one has yet sold a mass marketed 4Ghz chip. The chips couldn't handle the heat to keep going faster and faster and faster. They can still make them go faster, but efficiency just bogs down. The faster the chip, the hotter the chip. The hotter the chip, the more juice it needs because it becomes less efficient. The more juice it needs, the hotter it gets. It is like approaching the speed of light. The closer you get, the worse your returns on your energy. That is why they have instead turned to multi-core processing. It helps a tremendous amount for programs that take advantage of it. Prior to Windows 7, it wasn't really a huge help. Now it makes a drastic difference. All modern games utilize them pretty well. The specs for SWTOR require at least a dual-core.


You are going to need a massive power supply these days. 700W+. I'd go with an 800 or 900 Watt one. Only buy those that are rated 80%+ efficiency. They are easy to find. At those power rates, anything else just costs too damn much to run.


Don't buy less than 8GB of RAM if you are going to build a system. You may not need it all now, but RAM is still pretty cheap, and you always end up needing more and more.

Don't skimp on your processor or GPU. You get what you pay for. Have a budget in mind, and build towards that. On the same token, don't skimp on your motherboard. You'll regret that too.

Get a CoolerMaster HAF (High Air flow) case. They are rugged, well built, tool-less (don't need all the screws to mount everything - except for the mobo). They also look sweet. The biggest kicker is they are the quietest cases I've ever seen. They are full of holes, and have three huge fans that come standard, plus room to expand. They move a ton of air and cool extremely well, allowing your fans to run slowly and quietly. I can generally hear the electricity in my monitor humming louder than I can my PC in my HAF, mounted on top of my desk next to my monitor, at full load. It is amazing. The thing that will kill the quiet is the addon fans some motherboards put on the southbridge these days. Those things suck, and are loud. Don't use them. You won't need it anyway. The case is that good.


For just about everything else, see that thread I did a detailed, itemized listing of components a month or two back for Daktar.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=20449
Author:  X2-PB [ Wed Jul 27, 2011 3:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Cetera wrote:
RAID - I freaking love it. Every PC I build has a 4 disk RAID 5 array, as big as I can afford. Useful for data storage, backups, redundancy, and lots of space for downloading TV shows.
I've been reading up on RAID (here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID ) and I'm not so convinced. If you have a hardware controller and the controller fails, you'll need an identical one to recover or switch between systems. If you use a software controller, you avoid those issues but you can't dual-boot OSs. These don't apply to RAID 1, of course. In all cases, proper backups are required anyway.

Cetera wrote:
AMD's cards will now power multiple monitors off of one card, so instead of needing two or three cards from nVidia, you can use one AMD, if you are interested in that.
While multi-monitor setups are really nice (I have a dual system at work) I can't afford to buy a second.

Cetera wrote:
Processors, I wouldn't go with anything but an Intel. Intel lost a lot of ground to AMD once, but have reclaimed their top spots and aren't letting go. They've been absolutely throttling the life out of AMD processors the past several years. In my mind, AMD has become the budget CPU, akin to the "Celeron" of yesteryear that everyone hated.
This is good to know. I had heard rumours that Intel was the one to go for these days.

Cetera wrote:
On the same token, don't skimp on your motherboard.
Any more detailed thoughts on motherboards? I usually just go for an ATX from a good brand (Gigabyte generally) that has all the required slots. Is there any more to it than that?

Cetera wrote:
Get a CoolerMaster HAF (High Air flow) case. They are rugged, well built, tool-less (don't need all the screws to mount everything - except for the mobo). They also look sweet. The biggest kicker is they are the quietest cases I've ever seen. They are full of holes, and have three huge fans that come standard, plus room to expand. They move a ton of air and cool extremely well, allowing your fans to run slowly and quietly. I can generally hear the electricity in my monitor humming louder than I can my PC in my HAF, mounted on top of my desk next to my monitor, at full load. It is amazing. The thing that will kill the quiet is the addon fans some motherboards put on the southbridge these days. Those things suck, and are loud. Don't use them. You won't need it anyway. The case is that good.
I do have a case already that I was proposing to reuse so I'm not going to look into a new one unless there's a real need to.


All this is really good info. Thanks. I'll update the OP when I get a moment. I want to explore more of the details so that this thread becomes a good reference guide in general (as well as fulfilling my requirements!)
Author:  Cetera [ Wed Jul 27, 2011 8:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Gigabyte makes a very good board, so you can't go wrong there. They even advertise on some of their boards (might be all of them now, I haven't looked in a while) that they were only using transistors made in Japan, not China. That saves on a lot of hardware problems and failures. If you can get one of those, I would recommend that.
Author:  Master Gui-Jan [ Fri Jul 29, 2011 12:02 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
X2,

Backups only recover what you last backed up. Recovering from a failure with a RAID array not only allows you to recover up-to-the-minute of the failure, it is usually far easier to perform the recovery. Also, failures of the controllers themselves is pretty rare, it's almost always a drive failure. Lastly, you can mitigate the issue by either buying a common controller that will be easy to replace, or buying two controllers, if you are really concerned.
Author:  X2-PB [ Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Master Gui-Jan wrote:
Backups only recover what you last backed up. Recovering from a failure with a RAID array not only allows you to recover up-to-the-minute of the failure, it is usually far easier to perform the recovery.
Indeed, but it only protects against drive failure and not user error, which is the purpose of backups!

Incidentally, the only major data loss I've suffered was as a result of suffering a power cut while moving a partition. Stupidly, I didn't do a backup beforehand.

I think the solution I'd go for would be three internal drives, two on a RAID 1 set up and the third for incremental backups, and an external drive for more occasional backups to protect against environmental damage or theft etc.


Next question: IDE or SATA? Is IDE obsolete now or does it still have some advantages somewhere?
Author:  Cetera [ Mon Aug 01, 2011 4:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
IDE is completely dead. I'm not sure that anyone even makes an IDE HD anymore. You can still get IDE optical drives, but IDE ports are getting pretty rare on motherboards these days.
Author:  Azzameen85 [ Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:40 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
IDE doesn't give any advantages as far as I know... Only if you're planning running an older OS.

A tip though.
Buy a small capacity (maybe around 100-128 GB) SSD and use it as the OS drive, with nothing but the most important stuff on it.

Boot upå times will be extremelyshort...

(Haven't had coffee yet, so excuse my grammar)
Author:  X2-PB [ Wed Aug 03, 2011 2:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Well IDE being obsolete may finally convince me to ditch the stack of old drives I've accumulated over the years.

I need to find some time to update the original post. Maybe do that on Friday.
Author:  X2-PB [ Mon Aug 15, 2011 2:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Finally last night I had a look at the Tom's Hardware website. I have to say, even with the little that I've seen of it, I'm quite impressed with the quality of reporting. The monthly reports of best hardware for a given price range are a great boon. I was also pleased to discover that there's a UK version of the site that does the same thing but considering the UK market, with prices in pounds ... even usefuller! :D

I've also done some editing to the original post, although mostly just formatting. I've added in one or two links for general information.
Author:  Cetera [ Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
I'm glad you liked it. I've been using Tom's to get my info on for quite a long time. They've been around since I built my first box. Generally i'll stay out of the market for a couple of years at a time, and kinda lose sight of what the tech is doing currently, and usually with a day or two spent back on Tom's, I'm caught up enough to jump right back in.
Author:  Azzameen85 [ Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
X2-PB wrote:
even usefuller! :D


Me thought you be british... :-?
Author:  X2-PB [ Tue Aug 16, 2011 1:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Azzameen85 wrote:
X2-PB wrote:
even usefuller! :D
Me thought you be british... :-?
It's a Joss Whedonism!
Author:  X2-PB [ Wed Aug 17, 2011 5:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
RAM speed:

Say 8Gb RAM @ 1600MHz costs $x, is it worth twice the cost to go for 8Gb @ 2000MHz?

Or is that speed of RAM just not necessary?
Author:  Azzameen85 [ Thu Aug 18, 2011 12:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
X2-PB wrote:
RAM speed:

Say 8Gb RAM @ 1600MHz costs $x, is it worth twice the cost to go for 8Gb @ 2000MHz?

Or is that speed of RAM just not necessary?



Let me answer qith a question.


are you happy with 25-30 frames a second (what the human eye can registre) or do you want 60-80 fps (which you can't see anyway).


Personally I don't think it is worth it... But that is just me...
Author:  Cetera [ Fri Aug 19, 2011 12:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
I'd say it isn't necessarily worth it for the faster RAM, but you may need to get a better, more knowledgable opinion. I'd think the video card and processor may be a bigger bottleneck on FPS, but I'm not positive about that. I'm really picky about display, and think the difference between 25 and 30 FPS is the difference between deciding to upgrade and deciding to wait, and the "content" category starts around 60 and goes to 85, where happy is. Of course, I'm still running a CRT monitor, so it makes a bigger difference for me.

For me, 20 FPS is damn near unplayable, and I'll start turning off graphics options before it gets that low.
Author:  Stilgar [ Mon Aug 22, 2011 12:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Not sure how far you are in this process... but I am doing the same thing now, here is my 2cents worth:

1. The first thing I do is research the processors I want (as mentioned, Toms Hardware is a great place to start). I generally only use Intel processors, just a comfort thing. Intel processor pricing always has a "sweet spot"... where the processor is pretty new, but the price drop is pretty noticeable. I went with Core i7 2600K LGA 1155 purchased from a local shop, as it was cheapest there (http://www.microcenter.com/single_produ ... id=0354587).

2. I then research motherboards. I have built with ASUS and Gigabyte... but my last two have been Intel boards... and I got to say, I really like Intel boards. Not as many features, but very very solid boards. I ended up finding good reviews about the Intel Extreme series, which are actually pretty feature rich, and Best Buy sold it... which I had some reward zone coupons to use, so I got a decent deal on it. The board: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ ... p67bg.html

3. On to memory... headed over to Crucial.com, typed in my board make and model, and got some memory there... I think it ended up being $115.19 for 8GB DDR3-2000 PC3-16000... http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs ... 6AA5CA7304

4. Last, but not least I will be getting a new Power Supply, as I do intend on going CrossFire with my video cards at some point, and I am going to be using my old power supply on another computer as well. Read and watched a lot about the Ultra X4 series, and I think I am going to get this one: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... =U12-40502 for $219.00.

I am going to be reusing my old case, it is a big ole thing with lots of room... and I have more then enough hard drives, and a relatively new ATI Radeon HD 5700 (I am not sure there is really is "relatively new" when it comes to video cards, they are old a month after they come out).

Regarding memory... if you can afford it, get it as fast as it comes... memory feeds the processor... hard drive feeds the memory... I am not sure the affect it will have on FPS, but you really don't want your memory being a bottleneck any more then it has to be... the hard drive will cover that!

I have been looking at getting a Solid State Drive for my new build... but ugh, they are so pricey. Read a lot of cool reviews about them at Toms Hardware... but the price point is so high. If I do get one, I will get a 128 GB, install the OS on it and probably the game I am playing at the time... 128 GB just seems so small : (
Author:  Cetera [ Wed Aug 24, 2011 12:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Learned something new this week:
You can't use Western Digital hard drives in RAID arrays anymore without lots of headaches. They've disabled the TLER function in the firmware of the drives, so when there is any kind of drive scan or recovery that the hard drive is working on to test data and sectors, it'll time out on the RAID controller, and the RAID controller will drop the drive from the array as non-responsive.

That obviously creates issues if it drops more than one drive before the array rebuilds itself. It also seems to cause Windows to freak out and really bog down even if Windows is on a separate boot drive. Of course, it may be the RAID controller on the motherboard freaking out causing the board to have issues. I've noticed from time to time that under heavy I/O on my array, Windows will occassionally lock up, and I've been beating my head against the wall trying to figure out why. I think this is the culprit.

Since I'm using a RAID array anyway, I think I'm going to try and use cheap drives and replace as needed if/when they fail, and not worry about getting Caviar Black drives for the RAID array since they cause more issues and hurt redundancy, not help.
Author:  Dragon Fire [ Sat Aug 27, 2011 10:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Cetera wrote:
Since I'm using a RAID array anyway, I think I'm going to try and use cheap drives and replace as needed if/when they fail, and not worry about getting Caviar Black drives for the RAID array since they cause more issues and hurt redundancy, not help.


Well damn, I was just about to go out and get 2 new Caviar Black drives, my current one is only 640gb and I was going to build me an array. Kind of interesting b/c those have been a favorite for the last several years.

Edit-noticed newegg has a disclaimer re RAID on the WD drives.
Author:  Cetera [ Sat Aug 27, 2011 11:12 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Yeah, it has been years since I've purchased a non-WD drive. If you can't use them for everything, though, then screw them. I did buy three 2 TB Hitachi Deskstar drives for use in a RAID 5 NAS. I'll let you know how they work out. I'm not ready to buy Seagate drives yet.
Author:  Angelus [ Fri Oct 07, 2011 2:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
With the SWTOR release around the corner, I am now thinking about getting a new box. I see Dell has Alienware desktops. Any thoughts and or experience with those machines? Lowest is on sale for around $1500 ATM and seems to have decent guts (i7-2600k, 8gb ddr3 1333, nvidia gts 560ti, etc). Does that price seem reasonable given those "main" components listed?

Would it be worth it to bump the RAM to 12 or 16gb 1333 MHz? Or even 8gb of 1600 MHz?

I have never built my own PC so am a little hesitant to purely build my own rig. Plus Dell has been good to me and my XPS 710 has served me well the last 3-4 years.
Author:  Mantison Tau'rus [ Fri Oct 07, 2011 3:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
My Alienware is a beast. It's name is Symon, and it is a beauty. I have no complaints.

Quad Core, factory overclocked, dual 1GB vid cards, crossfired.... KillerNic card... its a real gaming rig.

I shelled out for the 4 year warranty. It is liquid cooled, and if that goes bad, I know I can't fix it....

I know that Alienware costs a bit more, but they make seriously awesome rigs, and if you do the warranty, you should be worry free until you need a new one in 4-5 years.
Author:  Cetera [ Fri Oct 07, 2011 7:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
I would go with the 8GB of RAM at 1600. Also, see itpf you can bump the video card up. You want a GTX, not a GTS. The GTS are the neutered, lower cost models.
Author:  Angelus [ Sat Oct 08, 2011 1:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Sorry. Vid card is a GTX. Stupid iPhone auto correct...
Author:  X2-PB [ Sat Oct 08, 2011 2:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
I seriously need to update the OP. What can I say, been busy!

I'm still looking at bits for my new rig. I'll probably buy the bits next month and then build it in December, just in time for SWToR release (Still haven't pre-ordered yet).
Author:  Cetera [ Sat Oct 08, 2011 7:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Angelus wrote:
Sorry. Vid card is a GTX. Stupid iPhone auto correct...

Then yes, that is probably about right cost wise, and should be a great rig. The TI cards are suppowed to be pretty good. I just got a GTX 560 non-TI card 'causeup it was quite a bit cheaper, and am working on upgrading my system today to get it ready. Got one built for my wife too, just in case she wants to play (and she needs a desktop machine since I keep stealing her laptop when I'm on the road for work). Finally got my 2 GBs of data from my raid tranfered to a mirrored drive on her machine. Took forever to get it all copied and verified.
Author:  nasiobo [ Mon Oct 10, 2011 11:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Same here Angelus. I have not been gaming much since I left WOW a year a so ago, but, SWTOR has my interest right now. My current box is quite old so I'm starting to look around for a replacement. This thread was great. I'm interested to see if anyone comes up with a final list that I can cheat from :) I like taking the lazy way out when possible :D


Angelus wrote:
With the SWTOR release around the corner, I am now thinking about getting a new box. I see Dell has Alienware desktops. Any thoughts and or experience with those machines? Lowest is on sale for around $1500 ATM and seems to have decent guts (i7-2600k, 8gb ddr3 1333, nvidia gts 560ti, etc). Does that price seem reasonable given those "main" components listed?

Would it be worth it to bump the RAM to 12 or 16gb 1333 MHz? Or even 8gb of 1600 MHz?

I have never built my own PC so am a little hesitant to purely build my own rig. Plus Dell has been good to me and my XPS 710 has served me well the last 3-4 years.
Author:  X2-PB [ Mon Oct 10, 2011 2:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
nasiobo wrote:
...This thread was great. I'm interested to see if anyone comes up with a final list that I can cheat from :) I like taking the lazy way out when possible :D
As I say, I plan to update the OP and keep it updated so that people can make their own informed choice. I just need a weekend when I'm not doing something else!

My current plan is looking something like this:
i5 - 2400
GTX 560 or 570 (depending on funds once I've accounted for everything else)
8 or 16 Gb RAM (ditto)
Gigabyte m/board
2x 0.5Tb SATA drives internal
0.5 Tb external

1xWacom tablet (not games related!)

other stuff TBD
Author:  Cetera [ Mon Oct 10, 2011 9:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
So, I purchased a couple of Gigabyte boards for myself and my wife, and they seem pretty good. However, the language translation of some of the instructions, apps, and installers leaves something to be desired. I'm guessing it is coming from Japanese to English, and not Chinese, as they don't use Chinese components and I don't see a Chinese-based company not using Chinese components. Anyway, if I were going to do it again, I'd probably get an EVGA FTW board (if I was getting an Intel processer - I don't think they make boards for AMD, but I think we're all getting Intel anyway). I'm not sure of specs or specific models, but I've had EVGA in the past, and their support is absolutely top notch, and their products are very, very, very good.
Author:  Angelus [ Mon Oct 10, 2011 9:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
I am still leaning towards an Alienware thru the Dell website. I will spec one out and try and provide detailed items and cost when ready. I'd prefer to only spend $ for an i5-2400 processer but it appears I'd have to go i7-2600k with the rigs I am looking at.
Author:  Cyrus Rex [ Mon Oct 10, 2011 10:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
2 days ago after reading Mantsons post I went and build a maxed out Alienware desktop. I got it up to $10k, lol. However I was running out of PCI slots, was getting warning, but did not go back and fix.

If I get something new I'm gona have to go laptop. I am just not home enough to drop mega bucks on a desktop.
Author:  Mantison Tau'rus [ Tue Oct 11, 2011 4:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
ROFL. Yeah, you can go nuts with Alienware. My rig was about 2300, and its a beastly thing.
Author:  Azzameen85 [ Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:03 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Just noted that you hadn't included questions about a PSU on your original post...

Should be quite relevant since, it is the one sucking power from the outlet and the effecientcy of it is important considering the green pc thing... (Not that I worry of that sort of thing... all power in western greenland are green. Water based turbines.)

At any rate it is also important for the quality of experience on the machine itself, since lack of poweroutput to component would either destabilize system (tried that. my comp shifted power from one physical harddrive to another) or it won't turn on at all...
Author:  X2-PB [ Wed Oct 26, 2011 2:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Woohoo! Page 2!!

Still must update the OP!
Author:  Angelus [ Wed Oct 26, 2011 7:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Ok, here's what I ended up with. Hopefully it's a good deal for $1,680 including 3 yr warranty.

Alienware Aurora R3
Integrated 7.1 audio (I have a X-Fi Titanium card in my existing rig to pop in the new system if I want)
8GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM
i7-2600K overclocked to 3.9GHz
875W power supply
1.25GB GeForce 560 Ti gfx card
1TB 3Gb/s 7200 SATA HDD
Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Alienware liquid CPU cooling

Suppose to receive it early Nov and be able to try it for 30 days risk free. Hope it kicks butt for the price.
Author:  Cyrus Rex [ Thu Oct 27, 2011 2:20 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Nice! I am jealous.
Author:  Cetera [ Thu Oct 27, 2011 12:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
That seems like a nice system, Angelus. It is similar to my build for myself and my wife. You've got slightly slower RAM, quite a bit of a boost with the processor over mine, and also a nicer video card. I got the 560 non-Ti version, with less RAM on the card.

I think your rig will be great, and tons of fun. On mine, I can load up WoW in SW near the AH with everyone one, everything turned up all the way (except anti-aliasing, which I think was either 2x or 4x, can't remember) and I was getting FPS of 35-40. I think at one point it did dip down to 24 for a second, but it was doing a fantastic job. Out away from the crowd I would get FPS of 150-210.

WoW is pretty old at this point, but I'm sure your rig will run SWTOR very nicely, with a lot of bells and whistles.
Author:  Angelus [ Thu Oct 27, 2011 9:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
Here's hoping so!

A local store has 8GB of 1600 MHz DDR3 for $55 and 1800 MHz for $95 right now. I may splurge and get 16GB of the stuff. Or maybe keep my eyes open for some Christmas and Boxing Week sales for RAM. Can't get all my nice gifts to myself in Oct right?
Author:  Angelus [ Fri Nov 04, 2011 1:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Build-it-yourself PC
My rig arrived. Now to find a game that will test it. Windows experience score is 7.7-7.8 across the board save for a 5.9 re hard drive. May ponder a 128gb SSD boot drive to fix that right up.
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