Rate my build / help me choose a monitor please!

[Knyteguy]

Ok, sup guys, been a member here quite awhile even though I mostly lurk.

I've been working on this build making it as efficient, and powerful as possible, while staying under the $2k mark (at about $1800, which I'm comfortable with). I will be overclocking, not hardcore though. As I'm sure everyone knows it's gotten a lot less technical in the last couple years, and a lot less dangerous so I'm gonna push it a little more than on my first build.

This comp will be used for gaming (sc2 beta baby), school, some photoshop work, etc etc. I may run folding@home, but I know that folding isn't exactly highly optimized for my build.

And finally:

- HP DVD writer / rom (~35 bucks)
- Seagate Barracuda 1TB hd 7200RPM
- XFX Black Edition 850W 80 Plus Silver PSU
- Cooler Master HAF 932 combo w/ Belkin network card
- Asus Crosshair III Mobo combo w/ Corsair XMS 1600 dual channel RAM (4gb)
- AMD Phenom II 955 BE combo w/ Zalman CPU cooler
- HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 1gb GPU
- Vista 64-bit w/ Windows 7 coupon

Ok, there's the brunt of it. Do you guys mind checking for compatibility? I'm determined to get this right the first time. Would triple channel ram be better? AFAIK though there's only support for dual channel with this setup.

Also, which monitor do you guys think would be better? LG 23" or Asus 23.6"? Asus has larger screen, but LG has 50000:1 contrast compared to Asus's 20000:1 Asus also has built in speakers, although I'll be using headphones.

Thanks very much to anyone interested enough to give some input!

 

[ecom]

If you're willing to get a 22" 16:10, I highly recommend the Dell 2209WA. It is the only 22" IPS monitor that I am aware of, and it can be had for about $220.

 

[Knyteguy]

Originally posted by: ecom
If you're willing to get a 22" 16:10, I highly recommend the Dell 2209WA. It is the only 22" IPS monitor that I am aware of, and it can be had for about $220.

Hey man I just tried to find one in roughly that price range, I think Dell has em jacked up to $289 everywhere though... One of the few times I've seen hardware actually increase in price:Q

 

[ecom]

Go to Dell.com/smb and open a online chat session. It's at the top of the white portion of the page on the towards the right side. Tell whomever answers that your friend just got one for $215 (you can put something between $200 and $220 here) and then ask if they can make you a quote for the same price. They will generate a quote for you. You may get free shipping out of the deal also.

This is assuming you are in the US though.

 

[Knyteguy]

Originally posted by: ecom
Go to Dell.com/smb and open a online chat session. It's at the top of the white portion of the page on the towards the right side. Tell whomever answers that your friend just got one for $215 (you can put something between $200 and $220 here) and then ask if they can make you a quote for the same price. They will generate a quote for you. You may get free shipping out of the deal also.

This is assuming you are in the US though.

Cool, thank you. I'll give that a shot, will be ordering everything today and that monitor looks sick.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Knyteguy
Rate my build

- HP DVD writer / rom (~35 bucks)
- Seagate Barracuda 1TB hd 7200RPM
- XFX Black Edition 850W 80 Plus Silver PSU
- Cooler Master HAF 932 combo w/ Belkin network card
- Asus Crosshair III Mobo combo w/ Corsair XMS 1600 dual channel RAM (4gb)
- AMD Phenom II 955 BE combo w/ Zalman CPU cooler
- HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 1gb GPU
- Vista 64-bit w/ Windows 7 coupon

I rate it 3.75 out of 10.
It's just too mediocre for a $2K build. :roll:
I can revisit my rating if you make the move to a Core i5 CPU based sysytem.

 

[jae]

HP Black SATA 24X DVDRW $30
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB HDD $80
CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX $140
COOLER MASTER HAF 932 CASE & BELKIN Wireless Desktop Card $164.98
XFX Radeon HD 5870 $380
AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE & Asus M4A78T-E 790GX $299
G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1600 $86

Thats a little under 1200. I prefer Gigabyte but... theres probably about $30-40 in MIR.

 

[Happy00000]

I rate it 3.75 out of 10.

That is a low rate.

 

[Knyteguy]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: Knyteguy
Rate my build

- HP DVD writer / rom (~35 bucks)
- Seagate Barracuda 1TB hd 7200RPM
- XFX Black Edition 850W 80 Plus Silver PSU
- Cooler Master HAF 932 combo w/ Belkin network card
- Asus Crosshair III Mobo combo w/ Corsair XMS 1600 dual channel RAM (4gb)
- AMD Phenom II 955 BE combo w/ Zalman CPU cooler
- HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 1gb GPU
- Vista 64-bit w/ Windows 7 coupon

I rate it 3.75 out of 10.
It's just too mediocre for a $2K build. :roll:
I can revisit my rating if you make the move to a Core i5 CPU based sysytem.

Well it's around low $1800, or even mid $1700. That also includes a $47.00 game, and some pretty nice thermal paste, and a $54 Zalman cpu cooler

I'm checking out an i7 build at the moment, it's more expensive but this is what I'm looking at: Intel Core i7-950 w/ Asus Rampage II mobo combo - $800.00 and G.Skill 2x3gb 1600 triple channel ram.

It's around $300.00 more for an i7 build, and i5 really doesn't have much on the Phenom II 955. The i7-920 is slightly better, but would still fall into your category of mediocre based on benchmarks. If you can recommend a build w/ monitor for around $1400 without the GPU that'd be cool. I already bought the HIS 5870 as I didn't want to miss out .

 

[Knyteguy]

Originally posted by: jae
HP Black SATA 24X DVDRW $30
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB HDD $80
CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX $140
COOLER MASTER HAF 932 CASE & BELKIN Wireless Desktop Card $164.98
XFX Radeon HD 5870 $380
AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE & Asus M4A78T-E 790GX $299
G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB DDR3 1600 $86

Thats a little under 1200. I prefer Gigabyte but... theres probably about $30-40 in MIR.

Hey thanks man, I'm checking this build out in comparison to the i7 at the moment.

Ok I'm liking this build, I suppose I don't need the latest and greatest mobo. I originally had the Corsair 850w, but I decided to go with the XFX BE 850, since it's got 80 plus silver. Total build price for this would be about $1500.00, not too shabby. I'm mostly in it for the gaming, and AMD's processors are very competitive in that, especially for the price. I don't often encode movies, or any of that jazz so an i7 may be overkill.

Anyways any input now from anyone on this particular build?

 

[0roo0roo]

if you are going to spend on a case you should get something that is engineered for silence, like an antec p18x. the coolermaster is engineered for pointless bling.

xbitlabs is a good place for monitor reviews. what you want from a monitor is personal. there are high color gamut monitors that have high color accuracy/range, but they cost more....

read up xbitlabs guides on lcd technologies and such in their monitor selection. you should know better than to compare contrast ratios between different manufacturers, the numbers have no meaning. they are easily fudged, measured in different ways under different conditions, and have no meaning beyond comparing a monitor within a manufacturers own line, assuming they are honest enough to set the figures in a way that shows the relative difference in quality between their models. course this is just as unlikely so really its a number that is mostly bs.

 

[Knyteguy]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
if you are going to spend on a case you should get something that is engineered for silence, like an antec p18x. the coolermaster is engineered for pointless bling.

xbitlabs is a good place for monitor reviews. what you want from a monitor is personal. there are high color gamut monitors that have high color accuracy/range, but they cost more....

read up xbitlabs guides on lcd technologies and such in their monitor selection. you should know better than to compare contrast ratios between different manufacturers, the numbers have no meaning. they are easily fudged, measured in different ways under different conditions, and have no meaning beyond comparing a monitor within a manufacturers own line, assuming they are honest enough to set the figures in a way that shows the relative difference in quality between their models. course this is just as unlikely so really its a number that is mostly bs.

Hey I looked for that Antec case, I couldn't find anything on Newegg, which is where I'm gonna get everything. I ended up going with a Cooler Master case, not the HAF 932 though. Thanks too for the xbitlabs, I learned quite abit I never knew about monitors.

Here's the final build I decided on, I just put the order through:

Hanns.G 24.6" Monitor - $199 --- This was a tough choice between the Dell Ultrasharp. Bigger monitor was more appealing I guess...
G.Skill Ripjaw 1600 Triple channel DDR3 (2x2 GB) - $86
DVD Burner, $30.00
Intel Core i7-920 Nephalem - $279.00 - Wow what a choice this was to make, I went over a million benchmarks though, seemed like a good enough advantage to justify $$.
Zalman CPU Cooler 120mm $56.71
Aion: Tower of Eternity MMO $46.99
Cooler Master Stacker 830 Aluminum Full Tower - $179
Gigabyte wireless card - $17.00
WD Caviar Black 7200 RPM 1TB - $94.99
Artic Silver Thermal Paste - $8.39
Corsair 650W PSU 80 plus cert - $99.99
EVGA 121-BL-E756-TR LGA 1366 Intel X58 Micro ATX SLI Micro Intel Motherboard - $209.99
HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 1gb - $379.99
---
Total price shipped - $1721.xx

I made this as future proof as I could within budget. Next build will be much cheaper now that I have a case, PSU, monitor, etc. I've been using my PS3 w/ Linux exclusively for the past month+ for everything, so this'll be nice having a desktop again.

Thanks for the input everyone, there were some tough choices to make, and I rebuilt this bastard 50 times at least lol. Happy it'll be done with, and good to go within a week.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: Knyteguy
Rate my build

- HP DVD writer / rom (~35 bucks)
- Seagate Barracuda 1TB hd 7200RPM
- XFX Black Edition 850W 80 Plus Silver PSU
- Cooler Master HAF 932 combo w/ Belkin network card
- Asus Crosshair III Mobo combo w/ Corsair XMS 1600 dual channel RAM (4gb)
- AMD Phenom II 955 BE combo w/ Zalman CPU cooler
- HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 1gb GPU
- Vista 64-bit w/ Windows 7 coupon

I rate it 3.75 out of 10.
It's just too mediocre for a $2K build. :roll:
I can revisit my rating if you make the move to a Core i5 CPU based sysytem.

i agree, he shelled out to much money and can't afford most important thing: good monitor

dynamic contrast is least important thing when it comes to LCDs

 

[Knyteguy]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA

Originally posted by: Blain

Originally posted by: Knyteguy
Rate my build

- HP DVD writer / rom (~35 bucks)
- Seagate Barracuda 1TB hd 7200RPM
- XFX Black Edition 850W 80 Plus Silver PSU
- Cooler Master HAF 932 combo w/ Belkin network card
- Asus Crosshair III Mobo combo w/ Corsair XMS 1600 dual channel RAM (4gb)
- AMD Phenom II 955 BE combo w/ Zalman CPU cooler
- HIS ATI Radeon HD 5870 1gb GPU
- Vista 64-bit w/ Windows 7 coupon

I rate it 3.75 out of 10.
It's just too mediocre for a $2K build. :roll:
I can revisit my rating if you make the move to a Core i5 CPU based sysytem.

i agree, he shelled out to much money and can't afford most important thing: good monitor

dynamic contrast is least important thing when it comes to LCDs

Well that's hardly fair, considering that all included the price of the monitor, OS, new game, and $54.00 cpu cooler. Plus I went with a 5 egg rated 24.6" monitor in the end for only $200.00 on sale. Ya it's no IPS or TN monitor, but that's big bucks I can worry about after I graduate college.

Anyway I'm pretty happy with my purchase, it's gonna be a huge step up from gaming on a laptop.

 

[jae]

So you bought the items in your original post?

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: Knyteguy
Plus I went with a 5 egg rated 24.6" monitor in the end for only $200.00 on sale. Ya it's no IPS or TN monitor, but that's big bucks I can worry about after I graduate college.

Anyway I'm pretty happy with my purchase, it's gonna be a huge step up from gaming on a laptop.

* "Egg ratings" aren't the most reliable measures of component value or quality.
* If you're "pretty happy" with your purchase... Enjoy... It's your money you're spending.

 

[Knyteguy]

Originally posted by: jae
So you bought the items in your original post?

Nah, I went with a core i7 build, I had to skimp on a couple other things, but no big deal. I won't be able to upgrade to Windows 7 for a little more time n stuff like that.

Originally posted by: blain
* "Egg ratings" aren't the most reliable measures of component value or quality.
* If you're "pretty happy" with your purchase... Enjoy... It's your money you're spending.

Now you don't get to say much, I took what you said into account and switched to a core i7-920 build at the expense of some other parts. You can see it a few posts up.

Plus I know that the egg ratings aren't exactly 100%. Especially because when there's 50% 5 star, 50% 4 star, it's 5 star every time. I take em with a grain of salt, but it's still nice to know when 700+ people are 100% happy with their purchase. Natural human psychology.

 

[sunshinetechnology]

Originally posted by: jae
So you bought the items in your original post?

Nah, I went with a core i7 build, I had to skimp on a couple other things, but no big deal. I won't be able to upgrade to Windows 7 for a little more time n stuff like that.
[/quote]

Great changes, your new build is waaay better than the original.