Replacing my dead 2009 build

[fourdegrees11]

The build in my sig is from 2009, though I did update the processor in 2011. It basically became a mess of constant crashes, failures to boot and all kinds of weird random bugs so it's been sitting unused for several years. I've finally gotten to the point where just having an old laptop isnt going to cut it and I want a solid general purpose desktop. I was a little skittish of putting together a build from scratch again after the headache of my last desktop so I rolled the dice on a cyberpowerpc build on the Labor Day weekend. I feel like price wise it's pretty good, but I went with slightly dated components to keep costs reasonable. I'm not a "high end" PC gamer and I dont do anything like video editing or trying to play a game with 15 tabs open on another monitor. For gaming I'm only looking forward to playing Pillars of Eternity & NWN2 @1080 on a single monitor (my last build actually struggled with NWN2).

CAS CyberPowerPC X-Nova Mid-Tower Gaming Case w/ USB 3.0, Side-Panel Window
CD LG 14X Internal Blu-ray Burner, BD-RE, 3D Playback DVD+RW Combo Drive (Black Color)
CD2 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive (BLACK COLOR)
CPU Intel(R) Core™ i3-4360 3.70 GHz 4MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1150
CS_FAN Maximum 120MM Case Cooling Fans for your selected case [case has 8 x 120mm fan locations and this is a $9 option]
FAN Asetek 550LC 120mm Liquid Cooling CPU Cooler - Extreme Cooling Performance (Single Standard 120MM Fan)
FREEBIE_VC1 FREE! AMD Dirt Rally Game Coupon
HDD 128GB SanDisk SSD + 2TB SATA III Hard Drive Combo
IUSB Built-in USB 2.0 Ports
KEYBOARD AZZA Multimedia USB Gaming Keyboard (Free)
MEMORY 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/2133MHz Dual Channel Memory (ADATA XPG V3)
MOTHERBOARD MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX w/ GIGABit LAN, 2 PCIe x16, 3 PCIe x1, 1x M.2, 6x SATA 6GB/s (All Venom OC Certified)
MOUSE AZZA Optical 1600dpi Gaming Mouse with Weight Adjustable Cartridge (Free)
NETWORK Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
OS Windows 10 Home (64-bit Edition)
POWERSUPPLY 600 Watts - EVGA 600B 80 PLUS BRONZE Power Supply
RUSH Standard Process Time: Ship within 10 Business Day
SERVICE: STANDARD WARRANTY 3-YEAR [3 Year Labor, 1 Year Parts] LIMITED WARRANTY
SOUND HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
VIDEO AMD Radeon R9 280 3GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card (this card was around $100 less then the 380 when I ordered)

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SUBTOTAL $826.00

The only thing that gave me some pause was $75 for shipping bringing me to $901. I still have to wait about 2 weeks before this is delivered. The liquid cpu cooling was only $27 more then the stock cooler, so I'm justifying that if I can find a deal on something like a 4790k in a couple years I'll be set.

I plan on picking up a 27-32" 1080 monitor soon. There's some pretty good prices on TVs compared to computer monitors, is there anything I should be concerned with? Any recommendations?

 

[nsafreak]

Well overall it looks pretty solid, not sure what the post is for since the PC is already purchased. Even with the price difference it seems a bit odd to go with the 280 over the 380 but if it's budget concerns that's understandable. It should be able to do what you're looking for just fine.

 

[escrow4]

Some very odd choices:

-> i3's can't use over 1600MHz RAM

-> Z97 for an i3?

-> 2 burners?

-> Liquid cooling - for an i3?

-> The 280 is a seriously old GPU dating back to the 7970

-> 128GB SSD for that price is cheap, should be 256GB at a minimum.

For what you want to do its fine but you could have shaved ~$200 (at least) building your own.

 

[fourdegrees11]

Well overall it looks pretty solid, not sure what the post is for since the PC is already purchased. Even with the price difference it seems a bit odd to go with the 280 over the 380 but if it's budget concerns that's understandable. It should be able to do what you're looking for just fine.

I guess just excited about having a new rig, and felt the price was pretty comparable to a similar pcpartpicker build. Yes budget was a huge factor, this is about $200 more (thanks to shipping) then I wanted to spend, but I didnt want to feel severely compromised for a $100-$200 difference. One could probably argue that I should of spent the extra $100 for a nice i5, but then that would justify a better gpu and then I'm way over budget

The plan is new gpu/cpu spread over the next 2-4 years if I ever feel the need to enhance performance. We'll see how that goes.

 

[OlyAR15]

Yeah, that is a strange build. You don't do video editing but you order not just one, but 2 BD burners? A non-OC i3 on a Z97 board with a 600W PSU? And a pretty weak video card to boot. Hmm.

 

[fourdegrees11]

Some very odd choices:

-> i3's can't use over 1600MHz RAM

-> Z97 for an i3?

-> 2 burners?

-> Liquid cooling - for an i3?

-> The 280 is a seriously old GPU dating back to the 7970

-> 128GB SSD for that price is cheap, should be 256GB at a minimum.

For what you want to do its fine but you could have shaved ~$200 (at least) building your own.

- 0 price difference for the ram

- actually the cheapest mobo offered with an i3 on their selector. Again I'm thinking if I can get a good deal on a k i7 at some point down the road I'll snag one.

- blue ray drive was a free upgrade, but I honestly wasnt sure if it reads cds (like my PS4 wont), so an extra $17 drive was added

- I've seen some favorable comparisons of the 280 vs both the 380 and 960. Price difference was also huge

- I'm okay with my HD setup

edit:
- Also the PSU was $4 less then a generic 400 watt psu

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aEdF3cP84Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESeFXwGfBsI

Like I said I'm not a high end gamer, I'm also used to consoles. Staying above 40 FPS is actually perfectly fine with me.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Some very odd choices:

-> i3's can't use over 1600MHz RAM

-> Z97 for an i3?

Well, technically, one of the lesser-known features of the Z97 is that it can overclock the RAM, even on a locked CPU. So, because he has a Z97, he can use 1866 or whatever RAM with the i3.

 

[dud]

I'm in the process of deciding whether to purchase a pre-built system or do a custom build. Can anyone jump in and comment on the System build price? $830 seems awfully high for an i3-based system.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'm in the process of deciding whether to purchase a pre-built system or do a custom build. Can anyone jump in and comment on the System build price? $830 seems awfully high for an i3-based system.

Meh, the differnce between a high end i3 like that and an i5 is only $50, probably.

CPUs are a minor line item overall - the real meat of a $500+ system is in the fiddly bits. $50 motherboards vs. $200 motherboards, $50 case/PSU combos vs. spending $150 each. And so forth.

Cyberpower and other "boutique" vendors are usually charging a pretty consistent ~$200 markup for the warranty support, assembly, shipping, setup, etc. It's worth it to most people who don't want to do custom builds for whatever reason. (Personally, I think it's about as easy as playing with lego, but a lot of people seem impressed anyway.)

 

[RaistlinZ]

Congrats on having a new rig. But if it's already purchased there's not much input we can really add.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Cyberpower and other "boutique" vendors are usually charging a pretty consistent ~$200 markup for the warranty support, assembly, shipping, setup, etc. It's worth it to most people who don't want to do custom builds for whatever reason. (Personally, I think it's about as easy as playing with lego, but a lot of people seem impressed anyway.)

I want to know how they ship PCs with big GPUs, to customers, without them ripping out of the PCI-E slot and bouncing around and killing the mobo during shipping.

 

[dud]

CPUs are a minor line item overall - the real meat of a $500+ system is in the fiddly bits. $50 motherboards vs. $200 motherboards, $50 case/PSU combos vs. spending $150 each. And so forth.

I beg to differ. The price of a new build can be greatly affected by the choice of CPU. Core i3, 5 and 7 go for about $140, $240 and $340 respectively. Depending upon the build this cost can affect the final system cost immensely. This is why I asked about the the (apparently) high total system cost of an i3 system.

 

[fourdegrees11]

Update on this. I'm not happy with cyberpowerpc's service. First, they took 3 weeks when they advertise 5-10 business days. When I first fired up the pc there was no video output. I opened the side of the computer, turned it on and got video output. Put the door back on, nothing. Turns out the way they had the power cable setup for the video card was jamming it into the card/mobo with the door closed. Fixed that and it appeared to work fine. Also, first thing I noticed with the side door open was the two installed case fans werent even plugged in anywhere! The mobo had a few more easily accessed places to plug fans in, there's no way they could have shaken loose in shipment. Just laziness and a complete failure for cyberpower. Also, my 2 TB HD was not accessible and only showed up in the bios as connected. I dont remember exactly where I went, but I eventually found a sub menu that allowed me to give the HD a location and name before I could access it through the OS. Eventually the computer just started crashing after gaming for a 10-30 minutes, with at first a bunch of large white pixel looking things flashing on the screen before freezing the computer. So I pulled the card and tried the Intel graphics, which actually work ok with the drivers updated. The computer works pretty well, so now Im RMA'ng the card through cyberpower. You would think they would immediately ship a replacement card, but no they're going to make me wait on the RMA process...

So I've been patrolling ebay and came across a NIB XFX DD 290x 4gb for $235, and somehow a NIB i5 4690K for $100!

So I'll likely be selling my 280 and i3. Figure I can get at least $200 for both

Edit: I guess my i5 deal wasnt real, someone is hacking accounts. The same person is now selling them for $78.89 under a different account