Help me build a PC please!!

[Mycompisjunk]

Hey guys,

I need some help building a PC, please see the attached info from the sticky.
If you need any more information, please ask

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
Gaming, Photoshop, Video Editing

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
in the 2000$ area

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
Canada

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.
No brand preference, but I prefer to stay with the major name brands

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
Don't have current parts (im on a laptop)

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
yes, many

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Potentially overclocking a bit

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.
1920 x 1080

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Within the next couple of weeks hopefully

10. Don't ask for a build configuration critique or rating if you are thin skinned.


Just some other notes:

I am probably going to be getting the i7 2600k processor because of the hyper-threading capabilities.
For games that I will be playing, I am going to be playing lots of FPS's like Battlefield 3, etc. Also will be playing SWTOR, so I would like a very good graphics card.

Thank you so much guys!

 

[ElFenix]

i assume you'll want the 1920x1080 monitor in that price or will you be using a tv?

 

[lehtv]

How intensive video editing and photoshopping are you planning to do? That will be the deciding factor in whether 2600K is actually money well spent over 2500K, and whether to get 8GB vs 16GB RAM.

Do you want BF3 and SWTOR (which I hear is a 40GB game) on an SSD or are you fine with 64GB of SSD space which is enough for OS + programs? An SSD (or a partition thereof) could also be used as a cache to speed up the HDD where your games and photo/video projects are stored, or as a scratch disk for the photo/video editors. How much SSD space you get will majorly impact spending.

 

[Mycompisjunk]

I will be photoshopping and editing videos quite intensively because it will be for my multimedia and graphic design classes etc.
As for the SSD, I would probably just get the OS as well as some programs like photoshop etc on there. I probably wont need to get the games on there as it won't affect the gameplay correct?

Also, I would need a monitor because I do not have one at this time so that will be included in the price.
Thanks!

 

[lehtv]

I probably wont need to get the games on there as it won't affect the gameplay correct?

Just loading times, e.g. loading a map or a savegame, or saving a game. An SSD will reduce otherwise long loading times, but most games won't have such long loading times to worry about. It also depends on the person if loading times are a problem or not.

Are you buying your parts from NCIX or TigerDirect.ca or newegg.ca (any others?), or whichever is cheapest for a particular component?

 

[Mycompisjunk]

No, loading times are not a huge deal to me, so a big ssd is not necessary, basically I want a really good graphics card and stuff like that.

As for buying the parts, what would you guys recommend? I'm leaning towards ncix because of their nice add on to build it for you.

Also for the RAM I would like 16 GB

 

[lehtv]

I think for the RAM you should just get 8GB to start with, then see how much of it is actually used. You can always easily buy another 2x4GB kit if it turns out it's not enough.

Overall it'd probably be cheapest for you to buy components from different shops and piece it together yourself, rather than order everything from NCIX. For example, 2600K is $350 on NCIX but only $320 on tigerdirect.ca and newegg.ca.

Here's a build for you:

Mobo Asrock Z68 Extreme3 $150 (newegg) OR Asus P8Z68-V Gen3 $190 (newegg)
CPU 2600K $320 (tigerdirect)
GPU PowerColor 6950 2GB $260 ($240 AR) (ncix) OR Gigabyte 570 $363 ($333 AR)
RAM Mushkin 2x4GB 1333 $45 ($35 AR) (ncix)
HDD Hitachi 7K1000.D $70 (newegg)
SSD Crucial M4 64GB $120 (tigerdirect)
ODD Samsung DVD burner $20 (tigerdirect)
PSU XFX 650W $90 ($60 AR) OR XFX 850W XXX ed. $150 ($120 AR; for future dual-GPU; both ncix)
Case Corsair 400R $100 (newegg), HAF 922 $100 (newegg), Fractal R3 $115 (ncix) or other case of your choosing

That's $1175 to $1372 (+ taxes and shipping, - rebates) for the PC itself.

That should leave you enough room for a good display, mouse, pad and keyboard, and speakers/headphones if needed. E.g. $300 display, $40 mouse, $10 pad, $100 keyboard, $100 headphones ~ $550, total $1725 to $1922 before rebates, taxes and shipping.

These are all rather personal choices, e.g. for monitor you could get anything from a standard 60hz 1080p TN panel, to a 120hz gaming monitor or a lower end IPS panel even. The mouse could be a standard optical mouse or a higher end gaming mouse, the keyboard could be a standard $25 keyboard or a fine $100+ mechanical keyboard. My recommendation: get the best peripherals you can fit into your budget. They will majorly impact your enjoyment and comfort of using the PC.

Oh and a final note: you could add a sound card to that too, see the Asus Xonar lower end.

 

[Mycompisjunk]

WOW! Thanks so much for the build tips and everything!
I will revew this thoroughly when I get home as I am currently on my phone.

 

[mfenn]

Lehtv's build is pretty good (I would choose the least expensive of all his options). Also, NCIX will pricematch Newegg and TigerDirect, so you can still get them to put it together for you if you want. You've still got a decent chunk of change leftover, so here's what I would recommend for high-end peripherals:

Dell U2410 $450
Das Keyboard Model S $120
Logitech G400 $50

 

[Mycompisjunk]

Thanks guys!

One quick question: is this case ( i know it is a bit more expensive, but I really like it) be okay to work with these pieces of hardware?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16811139009

 

[lehtv]

Yes, but the only real difference between 400R and 500R is that the latter comes supplied with a 200mm side fan. It's by no means necessary to cool your system, the 400R will be just fine. Side fans are more useful for dual-GPU setups anyway.

If you really want the 500R though, consider this combo with the HX650 modular 80+ silver PSU: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/ComboDe...t=Combo.752292. This combo is still more expensive than XFX 650 + Carbide 400R.

 

[Mycompisjunk]

Thanks, Ill think about it

This is probably a really stupid question, but what is the difference between USB 3.0 and USB 2.0? Do they both fit the same usb connectors etc?

 

[lehtv]

USB3.0 is faster, and it is backwards compatible with USB2.0 devices (which won't be able to make use of the faster bandwidth, obviously).

 

[Mycompisjunk]

Ohh I see ahah. thanks.

So right now my build looks like this:

Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V / GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68
Processor: Intel Core i7-2600k
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 or 2gb 6950
RAM: Mushkin 2x4GB 1333
HDD : HItachi Deskstar 7k1000.D
Solid State Drive: Crucial M4 64GB
Samsung DVD Burner
Power Supply: XFX 850W XXX edition ( I may be doing dual gpu later on)
Case: Corsair Carbide Series 400R Black Steel

 

[Mycompisjunk]

any other suggestions?

 

[lehtv]

How soon are you planning to go dual-GPU and how certain are you that you actually will?

 

[Sunburn74]

I'd grab a nicer case than the carbide. Doesn't make sense to me to spend a ton on expensive parts and house them in a budget box.

Not saying you have to go FT02 or Obsidian, but at least consider things like the raven 02, the 650d, nicer cases that really support the idea you have a quality rig.

 

[lehtv]

Hmm, I don't see the more expensive cases actually offering anything substantial, other than housing an expensive (yet still quite mid-range) set of components in something seen as "appropriately elite".

 

[mfenn]

I'd grab a nicer case than the carbide. Doesn't make sense to me to spend a ton on expensive parts and house them in a budget box.

Not saying you have to go FT02 or Obsidian, but at least consider things like the raven 02, the 650d, nicer cases that really support the idea you have a quality rig.

I'd hardly call a $100 case "budget". What doesn't make sense to me is buying a fancy case that doesn't have much of a performance advantage over a reasonably-priced one.

Though I suppose that's why some people drive Taurus SHOs and others drive Mustang 5.slows. :awe:

 

[mfenn]

Ohh I see ahah. thanks.

So right now my build looks like this:

Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V / GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68
Processor: Intel Core i7-2600k
Graphics Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 570 or 2gb 6950
RAM: Mushkin 2x4GB 1333
HDD : HItachi Deskstar 7k1000.D
Solid State Drive: Crucial M4 64GB
Samsung DVD Burner
Power Supply: XFX 850W XXX edition ( I may be doing dual gpu later on)
Case: Corsair Carbide Series 400R Black Steel

The rule of thumb is that if you "may" or "might" be going to put a second GPU in, that means you wont.

 

[Mycompisjunk]

Hmm, yeah I'm still on the edge as to whether I will go with another gpu later on. I'm sure the 570 or 6950 are going to be fine for a while, right?
If I do go with the higher wattage psu, will it be any dis-advantage other than the price? I will still go with the smaller psu, but just wondering

Also, I was watching the NewEgg "how to build your computer" videos, and I was wondering about what Paul meant by partitioning the HDD and I'm also confused about how to make sure the OS goes on the SSD.

Thanks again!

 

[mfenn]

The thing about an oversized PSU is that it does nothing for your performance. A higher wattage PSU will cost more and if you plan to keep the build within a certain overall budget, that means that it is stealing money from other components in the system. A higher wattage PSU will also operate lower on it's efficiency curve. In the case of an 850 vs a 650, the difference is probably 5-7%.

As for your other questions:
- Partitioning the HDD is what you do when you want to separate the drive into different logical volumes (drive letters). Some people like to put Windows on one partition and their data on another. I don't really see the need for that when you have an SSD though.
- Windows will give you a choice of which drive to install it on. However, when you have two drives in a system, sometimes the Windows installer will install most of the OS to the drive you chose, but will put the bootloader into the other drive. This will cause problems if you ever were to remove the second drive. For that reason, I recommend that people only plug in the SSD at first. Go back and plug in the HDD after you've installed Windows.

 

[Mycompisjunk]

Oh, okay I understand that makes sense! Thanks.

I'm going to be ordering soon, I'm excited!

Does anyone have benchmarks for BF3?

 

[Sunburn74]

I'd hardly call a $100 case "budget". What doesn't make sense to me is buying a fancy case that doesn't have much of a performance advantage over a reasonably-priced one.

Though I suppose that's why some people drive Taurus SHOs and others drive Mustang 5.slows. :awe:

Lol you guys are crazy. How can you tell the guy to spend more on his keyboard than on his enclosure?

I don't know about you guys but I went through a long period where I was buying new cases like every 3 months. I'd buy a case knowing its imperfections, would try to accept them, and in the end could not because they drove me crazy. Until I finally ponied up the cash and got a case I knew was absolutely perfect, I was blowing time and effort on reinstall after reinstall. The funny thing is had I simply done so initially, I'd have saved more money in the end.

Sure cases don't add to your FPS or your benchmarks (except maybe through some mild cooling advantages with overclocking) but their functionality can really affect how much you like your PC, which ultimately is the bottom line. If something about your PC nags the hell out of you, you won't enjoy it. If you're not proud of your case, you'll never be happy with your PC even if it has 5TB of SSD space and 400GB of RAM.

The issues I persistently ran into are:
1) if you sleep in the same room as your PC and want your pc to be on at night, the lights of the case can light up the entire room. Light control is important.
2) noise, noise, noise, noise... did I say noise? Sure you can add fan controllers, but they can only do so much. What about dampening? Solid side panels? Etc?
3) aesthetics (including cable management). There were many cases without open window side panels, where I couldn't even see the cables, but I knew internally my PC was a mess due to horrible built in cable management. I dreaded working in them and over time developed xray vision basically. Just looking at my case all I saw was the cables and the failure they represented (specifically how far away I was from my dream PC where the cable management is drool producing). Is the carbide close to your dream PC? Does it look like your dream pc box or is it merely a stopgap? If it doesn't look like your dream PC box, why are you buying it when you know you'll hate it 6 months from now?
4) ease of adding future parts (SSDs, sound cards, water cooling, bays and trays, etc). Essentially is it easy to work with?
5) dust management. This was huge to me. You have to have a case with filtered intakes because once you realize that its possible for your parts to remain dust free, shiny, and clean for 7 months without any hassle, you'll never go back. Plus it prevents your fan and your Hard drives from failing. My current case is incredible in its dust management. Simply incredible.

Like I said, spend what you want, but imo you guys are absolutely crazy for not telling this guy to spend more on a case, especially on a build such as this. Would you buy a car purely based on horsepower? You wouldn't buy a car based on horsepower AND how comfy and nice the internals look. You wouldn't buy a house based on how nice the kitchen is. You wouldn't marry someone based on personality and how well she dresses? No, look are important in how much you like something. Anyway if you don't believe me, check out hardocp's case modding forum and you'll instantly have a instant rig envy at how amazingly aesthetic some of those PC cases look (the forum name is a misnomer. there is very little actual modding, just sweet case selections and amazing cabling, dust management, etc etc).

<100 is budget, around 150 is midrange, 200+ is high end. Sure the budget end extends to 30 dollar cases and etc, but its still budget at 100 USD

 

[biostud]

Oh, okay I understand that makes sense! Thanks.

I'm going to be ordering soon, I'm excited!

Does anyone have benchmarks for BF3?

Even though it's a huge AAA title they still have to make a game that can run on most computers. So it's not going to need a 580 SLI setup to run.