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First new build in 10 years

M

MonkeyK

Golden Member
I haven't done this for a long time (since a few years before my 8 year old daughter was born) but after 5 years with a progressively crappier HP laptop, I just got the OK to build our next PC. This will likely have to last a while, so I'd really appreciate any feedback on what I am planning.

Priorities
-stable
-quiet
-low idle power (we tend to forget to turn the machine off)
-quick boot and app loading (always need it just after we finally turn it off and need to head out the door)
-decent gaming performance (Starcraft II, Diablo 3)
-preferably small

Usage:
-some gaming
-Internet browsing
-MS office type apps

Target price 1200-1400

I have no parts, and hope to start acquiring what I need tomorrow.


Proposed Components (preferred with a "+"):
Possible Cases
+Temjin TJ08-E - purchased for $100 @Amazon

Possible PSU
+LEPA G500-MA 500W 80+gold, has a fan, but 3 rails (rebadged Enermax) purchased for $120 at NewEgg, will get a $25 rebate


Possible Motherboards
P8Z68-M PRO LGA 1155 Z68 mATX - purchased for $75+tax @ Microcenter

Possible Memory
+8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengance purchased for $45 @Amazon

Possible CPU
core i5-2500K -purchased for $180+tax @ Microcenter

Possible GPU
+Sapphire 6850 $120 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908

SSD (one for boot, one for cache)
Crucial 128 GB m4 -purchased for $161 from Amazon

HD
Western Digital Caviar Green 1 TB SATA III -purchased for $108 from Amazon


Possible Monitor
AOC I2353PH 23 IPS - purchased for $190 from Amazon


Misc stuff:
Optical Drive: Lite-On purchaed for $18 @ NewEgg
Keyboard & mouse: Logitech s520 purchased for $46 @Amazon
Windows 7 Home Premium purchased for $100 @Amazon
Wifi adapter: Rosewill RNX-N600UBE purchased for $35 @NewEgg


running purchase total: $1196. Rebate, Chase, and FW should bring this total down by $70
 
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you're planning on using the monitor speakers?
is that for an appearance or desk size reason or something?
why're you buying an SSD just for caching? you could just buy 1 64gb drive, or even get the 128gb m4 and allow caching on it.
one of the main benefits of SSDs is that small random writes don't effect performance significantly
although i can understand if for some reason you wanted to performance raid the 2x64gb SSDs

you probably want to go with a 350-450w PSU to keep high efficiency during idle and still be enough for an i5 + 6850 full load
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/...enewing-competition-in-the-midrange-market/20
the 6850 + OC'd i7 920 cpu uses 280w full load
you should expect to idle at <= 100w, and many PSUs don't achieve 80+ efficiency below 20% load

for ram, maybe take a look at the g-skill sniper ddr3 1600 1.25v @ $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231461

for the storage drive you may or may not want to stick with a western digital blue or green, or seagates 5900 rpm drives as they use a few less watts (almost insignificantly so perhaps?), since performance probably won't be as crucial.
or you could go with a larger drive i guess, this seagate 3 platter 2tb hdd perhaps for more storage at a similar wattage & $110
it really seems like the performance HDD prices are way out of line lately due to the "thailand" incident
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148681

for cases the ones you listed are excellent choices
i would also, suggest looking at the antec p180 mini, but i can't find a good place to buy it atm
fractal design is making some pretty nice cases too
 
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Thank you for the responses


SSD - Great points here. I started thinking 128GB boot drive with the option to partition it to 64GB for boot and 64GB for SRT Cache, but then I got thinking that I should just split the drives out. Reduce the writes to the boot drive to keep it more reliable. On this I am thinking that I should probably just get one 128MB SSD for now, and reconsider caching later.
The plextor's 5year warranty is certianly compelling. So the SSD list will be whichever I find the best deal on over the next month among
-Crucial M4 128
-Plextor M3 128
-Samsung 830 128

HD - I hadn't factored in HD noise or power in my initial research. According to the stats on NewEgg, Power Disipation and noise for the WD Black and Blue are identical. WD Green is significantly more efficient and quiet. I am going back to do more research on hard drives.

Memory: I didn't realize that I could get low power RAM. I will update my list.

PSU: my understanding is that the power capacity of the PSU has little to do with power actually consumed. Instead I need to worry about the PSU efficiency.
Another thing that I did not note is that I prefer a modular PSU.
So that suggests the Silverstone PSU or maybe this XFX 750W


On the Monitor, yes, I plan to use monitor speakers. For home theater we use a home theater, and for gaming, I use headphones.
 
Crucial M4 128GB at $175 on newegg is the best bang for buck out of those SSD's.

If you want the PC to be quiet I'd recommend a Fractal Design R3, I'm very happy with mine. Can also get a mini tower to go with your microATX mobo.

I need to worry about the PSU efficiency.
Click to expand...
Not really. I would worry first about the quality of the PSU on the whole, that will narrow your choices down a lot. Second, I'd worry about price - don't pay for a PSU that's bigger than you actually need. For a single 6850, you only need a 400W power supply. Really. The 750W units you listed are meant for dual 150-200W GPU's, e.g. 6950 Crossfire / GTX 570 SLI. 550-650W is a good size for a single high end GPU.

I like the 2TB green drive recommended by fralexandr, great $/TB. That it's 5400rpm won't matter much when your OS and programs are on a super fast SSD.

However I don't like the 1.25V RAM recommendation. It doesn't really matter if it's 1.25V or 1.5V, memory consumes very little power to begin with. I'd just get this Patriot kit with a free microSD card for $42.
 
Lehtv, I like the look of the Fractal Design Mini tower (review: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1230-page1.html). I like that it was designed with noise reduciton in mind. After reading the review, I also like the Temjin TJ08-E (http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1215-page1.html)

I had initially discarded the WD Green based on a couple of bad reviews noting that they could get loud. Those reviews could have been anomalies, but probably wouldn't matter at all if I went the route of two 64GB SSDs, using one for SRT caching.

I thought that the xfx looked like a good quality PSU. What are the top makes these days? I really believe in investment in the PSU, my last build included a Enermax PSU which ran for most of 9 years 24x7 (it was repurposed as a server when we bought the HP laptop). It gave up last year and we replaced our server with an 65w Atom based Windows Home Server.
 
I thought that the xfx looked like a good quality PSU.
Click to expand...
It is. It's just way too powerful for your needs. Take a look at the XFX 550W instead, it'll power any single GPU upgrade you may do in the future, and even some dual GPU systems.
What are the top makes these days?
Click to expand...
Seasonic, Corsair, XFX, Antec are excellent overall but Silverstone, OCZ, PC Power & Cooling, Enermax, Cooler Master, NZXT, Kingwin and maybe some others have noteworthy units as well.
 
You can get a lot more machine for your money if you're careful about your choices (ie. spend money where it matters, save where it does not). Start out with the build from this thread. Then add a pretty decent IPS monitor for $190, Windows 7 Home Premium for $100, and you'll still have $150 left over for peripherals (or a case upgrade).

Also, I would not bother with SRT if you're getting a 128GB SSD. You won't run out of space as long as you use a little common sense about what goes on the SSD and what goes on the HDD.
 
The PSU requirements have been confusing me so I went to Enermax PSU calculator: http://www.enermax.outervision.com/PSUEngine
Which tells me that for my general configuration 90%load (probably excessive) I need 384-450w (450 based on 20% capacitor aging).
I think this means that the Seasonic SS460sl should suffice. I would even have a bit of headroom if the HD7850GPU comes out before I need to buy the PSU.
 
MonkeyK said:
OK, maybe I should scale down further on the PSU. These both look really nice

Seasonic SS-460FL 80+gold, fanless, modular: $115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151099

SeaSonic X series SS-400FL 80+gold, fanless Modular: $120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151097

both are more expensive than my previous picks, but should run quietly and more efficient
Click to expand...

Both of those are nice, but wastes of money. Unless you have fanless everything else, the PSU is the least of your concerns in the noise department.

MonkeyK said:
The PSU requirements have been confusing me so I went to Enermax PSU calculator: http://www.enermax.outervision.com/PSUEngine
Which tells me that for my general configuration 90%load (probably excessive) I need 384-450w (450 based on 20% capacitor aging).
I think this means that the Seasonic SS460sl should suffice. I would even have a bit of headroom if the HD7850GPU comes out before I need to buy the PSU.
Click to expand...

PSU calculators are generally absolute bunk, stick to real world measurements.
 
Not sure how much more a 2500K would use compared to an i3-2100, but my system (sig) with a HD6850 doesn't pull more than 180W from the wall with a Kill-a-watt meter 🙂
 
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GoStumpy said:
Not sure how much more a 2500K would use compared to an i3-2100, but my system (sig) with a HD6850 doesn't pull more than 180W from the wall with a Kill-a-watt meter 🙂
Click to expand...

In what task? 180W from the wall quite a bit less than the full load of the CPU + GPU combined, not to mention adding all the less power hungry components.
 
lehtv said:
In what task? 180W from the wall quite a bit less than the full load of the CPU + GPU combined, not to mention adding all the less power hungry components.
Click to expand...

This is whilst playing BF3 with Firefox/Afterburner/Etc. open, GPU at 99% and CPU at ~90%.
 
lehtv said:
In what task? 180W from the wall quite a bit less than the full load of the CPU + GPU combined, not to mention adding all the less power hungry components.
Click to expand...

The 6850 is 127W and the i3 is 65W, so that makes 192W. In reality, it is VERY hard to get a CPU and GPU up to their TDP without running a program specifically designed to do so (Furmark, LinX, etc.), so 180W while gaming seems reasonable to me.
 
Yes, I agree, it seems like a reasonable load in gaming. Just wanted to clarify that the maximum power consumption of the system is more than that
 
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