That corsair was my original choice, and I forgot all about SeaSonic. I read an article about them, not too long ago, and everything in it, and a few things Ive read since, were sterling.
On another note, hey any input is appreciated. I have just a little knowledge, and would'nt have that, had it not been for people taking the time, out of their lives, to pass it to me.
We stand together or fall alone, at least, this is the philosophy I am finding the most peace with. Shoot I had a $300 emachine once that I threw a 8600gts in and it worked well for almost three years,
It's important for me to really build this machine well. With my own two hands. I'm looking forward to leaving this planet one day, and find comfort in the things I have built myself. Almost as much so, as the comfort I have received from those willing to give of their time, and opinions,,, well at least the ones who didn't call me an S.O.B. lol.
Oh Noes the OP went off topic, and Hijacked his own thread...eeek.
Yes, uh huh. It was a suggestion, like anyone else provided.
50% premium, where? The cost/benefit for built 1K systems is not that wide. I would agree if you are trying to create a high end gaming system (or even $1500+) where the gap increases substantially.
i-7 is a quad core right? You can stay in the $1000 range, the one I spent a couple minutes on was $979.00. What's inferior about the HDD? They aren't setting up a RAID. I've not replaced a power supply, mainboard or memory in any of the boxes received. The user is going to game but this isn't a primary gaming box .
Bloatware is rendered null with a format/reinstall, if you can build you can install Windows
Sorry, don't want to drive this off topic - suggestions are free to disregard or consider. You are free to critique them as well.
Sure, a Core i7 is a nice processor. But you're not getting one from Dell on a $1000 budget unless you take a low end "don't try to play games on this" video card with it.
As for the hard drive, notice that Dell won't tell you what hard drive they use? That's because they don't want you to know that they pick the cheapest (and likely slowest) hard drive they can find that technically meets their claimed specs. If they were going to use a WD Caviar Black, they'd tell you.
As for memory, if you're going to get 4 GB of system memory, do you want four 1 GB modules or two 2 GB modules? This is not a trick question. Dell gives you the wrong one.
As for inferior power supply and motherboard, note that Dell won't tell you what they use? That's because they don't want you to know. It's not really cheap junk, but it's not very good either.
I built the computer I'm using now about a year ago. In that time, it has never crashed. Not once. No blue screens, no random shutdowns, no lockups that required a force reboot, nothing. It's gone through lots of gaming, stress tests, firmware flashing, driver updates, power outages, and even flooding (the case got wet, but the electronics inside didn't) with not a single crash. Does Dell offer that sort of reliability? Not in their desktops, they don't.
The last computer I got from Dell had two drivers installed wrong right out of the box, a TV card for which there wasn't any software compatible with the OS, a hard drive that started randomly corrupting files, speakers that made obnoxious clicking noises when they should have been quiet, a motherboard that didn't have the appropriate slot for a modern video card, and a mouse that lost the ability to distinguish between a single click and a double click. It also flatly wouldn't boot one day for about eight hours, before it randomly started working again. Another day, it got caught in a loop of blue screening while booting and restarting for about an hour before it settled down. This is why it was the last computer I bought from Dell, and will remain so.
And then there's also Dell's willingness to sell parts that they know to be defective:
That corsair was my original choice, and I forgot all about SeaSonic. I read an article about them, not too long ago, and everything in it, and a few things Ive read since, were sterling.
A large fraction of the good power supplies at moderate wattages on the market are made by Seasonic. This includes a lot of power supplies actually sold under other brand names such as Antec or Corsair. Most power supply companies don't actually build any power supplies, but just buy them from another company and put their own stickers and such on them. Seasonic doesn't make power supplies with crazy high wattages, though.
1. Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM
2. AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX
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Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive
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1. Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
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Case Material Steel
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Motherboard Compatibility Mini-ITX, microATX, Standard ATX
External 5.25" Drive Bays 3
External 3.5" Drive Bays No
Internal 3.5" Drive Bays 6
Expansion Slots 7
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Front Ports USB / Audio
120mm Fans 1 x 120mm rear fan
140mm Fans 1 x 140mm top fan
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Dimensions(L x W x H) 18.30" x 8.10" x 18.00"
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Maximum video card size: 11"/279mm
2. LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM
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CD-R 48X
CD-RW 32X
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DVD-RAM 12X
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CD-ROM 48X
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Form Factor 5.25"
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MSI R5850 Twin Frozr II Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ Eyefinity
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SeaSonic S12II 520 Bronze 520W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
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If I did my math right this comes to $951.00
leaves some room , suprising. If he can get the school deal on his OS then thats an SSD and up the PSU a bit, if not, then just up his PSU, and should be good.
They sometimes have good deals or instant rebates that might not show on Newegg and vice versa. I have purchased some things from them and friends have as well. They don't have the reviews though. Amazon is good to check for additional reviews of items you pick.
Some other thoughts I think if there is anything that should take priority in budget it should be Power Supply. A low quality PSU is a major cause of all kinds of system headaches from hardware failure to mysterious OS and App crashes. Don't know much about Coolermaster. Used mostly Antec Truepower which I trusted and were quiet.
Case is negligible – you want to find one that has nice access and perhaps no sharp edges. Seem to have picked out the CPU/Board that works for you. I don’t know much about Gigabyte, always used Asus. I’ve had good luck with Corsair and Kingston RAM. If he is going to be doing CAD work I think the closer you can get to 8GB the better.
They sometimes have good deals or instant rebates that might not show on Newegg and vice versa. I have purchased some things from them and friends have as well. They don't have the reviews though. Amazon is good to check for additional reviews of items you pick.
Some other thoughts I think if there is anything that should take priority in budget it should be Power Supply. A low quality PSU is a major cause of all kinds of system headaches from hardware failure to mysterious OS and App crashes. Don't know much about Coolermaster. Used mostly Antec Truepower which I trusted and were quiet.
Case is negligible – you want to find one that has nice access and perhaps no sharp edges. Seem to have picked out the CPU/Board that works for you. I don’t know much about Gigabyte, always used Asus. I’ve had good luck with Corsair and Kingston RAM. If he is going to be doing CAD work I think the closer you can get to 8GB the better.
Yeah PSU to my thinking is real important, and what Ive got there, is tight, but it is a very fine PSU, however I will probably up it a bit, Ive done some reading on that very model, and I beleive it was one actually recomended for the 5850, it and it's big brother, Im speaking of this later list now.
Ive used Thermaltakes quite a bit, but dont see exactly what Im looking for from them, in my price range. Been real happy with the TR2 500watt, but highest thing Ive pushed with them is a 65 watt proc(overclocked to the clouds), and 5770, with single HD, 3 fans, 2 drives, and PCI wirelss card.
I have very good reports on the coolmaster that I picked originally, but it actually is the lesser of the two, compaired to the seasonic 550.
The Corsair, that Quiz, mentioned, a very fine PSU, on par with the SeaSonic.
The True Power series seem to all be very good, good mention there.
As I recall these ones I speak of here, that have the sngle 12v rail, are beter than the double 12v rails, whitch I think both coolmaster and thermal take dable in, tho I dont recall that these particular ones have dual 12v rails. Have to re read on that.
I am very very encouraged about the outcome of this thread. Gonna be a fun build, and hopefull (fingers crossed) all the combo's will still be on when he orders these parts...as I say 6 years in the Navy and now out... hard to nail him down, lol.
When I do this I'll try to get some Pics and post them, along with some benchs and a few Prime 95 screens. see just what we come up with here.
Thanks guys, now
GO WATCH A MOVIE YOU"VE GIVEN ME ENOUGH OF YOUR TIME FOR ONE NIGHT
Usually the reason why I check New Egg is because they've got a very good search function that makes it possible to actually find what you're looking for. Amazon may have some awesome deals, but if you can't find them, it doesn't do you much good. And I'm not willing to fight with sites like that to help someone else pick parts. New Egg's prices are competitive with other e-tailers. But yes, go ahead and search ZipZoomFly, Tiger Direct, and Amazon to see if they happen to have any of the same parts for sale for cheaper.
For a case, you want something big enough, sturdy, and with plenty of airflow. And you also want one that you don't think looks hideous, since that's the part of the computer you see. The Antec Three Hundred comes with two big fans, and room for three more if you want to add them.
Cooler Master makes some nice cases and heatsinks/fans, but their power supplies are of wildly varying quality. Antec, Seasonic, Corsair, and Enermax are the companies I usually recommend for power supplies, though some of their low end power supplies are rather meh.
Different divisions of the same company can often have wildly varying reputations. I'd buy an SSD from OCZ but not Corsair or Kingston, for example, while I'd buy memory from Corsair or Kingston but not from OCZ. (assuming suitable prices relative to competition from other companies) I'd buy a processor from Intel, but not graphics.
There are solid state drives of wildly varying quality, which depends mostly on the SSD controller used. If you buy an SSD, you want a controller by SandForce, Marvell, Intel, or Indilinx. The SSD controller may be hard to find. The brand names to look for are OCZ, Crucial, Intel, G.Skill, or Mushkin, as none of those companies sell any bad SSDs.
Yeah PSU to my thinking is real important, and what Ive got there, is tight, but it is a very fine PSU, however I will probably up it a bit, Ive done some reading on that very model, and I beleive it was one actually recomended for the 5850, it and it's big brother, Im speaking of this later list now.
Ive used Thermaltakes quite a bit, but dont see exactly what Im looking for from them, in my price range. Been real happy with the TR2 500watt, but highest thing Ive pushed with them is a 65 watt proc(overclocked to the clouds), and 5770, with single HD, 3 fans, 2 drives, and PCI wirelss card.
The Corsair TX650 is actually made by Seasonic.
The Thermaltake TR2 is a pretty bad power supply, actually. It sounds like you got away with it because you barely drew any power from it. Here's a scathing review:
Basically, if you try to draw the rated wattage from it, you'll end up with fried hardware. Thermaltake offers power supplies of wildly varying quality (kind of like Cooler Master, actually), and their TR2 is one of the bad ones.
Also, it's not a case of a single +12 V rail being better or worse than multiple +12 V rails. For really high wattages, it's arguably safer to go with several rails so that you can have overcurrent protection kick in at a few hundred watts rather than a thousand or so. If you're going with multiple rails, you do want generous allowances on each rail, though. For example, the power supply I use has three +12 V rails rated at 25 A each, even though they're only rated at 40 A in total. That allows a lot of flexibility and makes it hard to screw up the rail distribution; three +12 V rails at 15 A each and 40 A in total wouldn't be nearly as flexible, and could be a big problem if I wanted to overclock the processor. One single +12 V rail at 40 A would be a lot nicer than three at 15 A each and 40 A in total.
Yep I wouldnt even consider running my PSU on this rig, as you say, my machine draws little power, at the time I got it, I was upping from a TSO 350 watt, with the same items running, and a 85 watt processor, I beleive it was 85 watt.
Out of curiosity, what PSU are you using? Or did I miss it?
Hey got it thankyou. And thankyou for the Blackfriday tip. And as it turns out, he can't get any of the schools to recognize his credits from the Nuke program, well at least not enought to matter.
Long story short is now, he has to do a full four year program (for the engineering degree) he could've gone to some JC's and they would take most of his credits, but then he ends up with a problem getting the degree he wants, and the GI bill actually going there with him. Also it ends up being more than four years, but with him paying for most of it. So it now will be next fall, before he starts, but signed up this December, thats the cuttoff date. I think he said it's Baylor, that he's going to, either that or A&M. At least this way GI bill covers it and he gets a degree close to what he wanted.
Originally he only needed three credits for the Mechanicanical Engineering, but that appears to have gone poof with schools being , well I'll say it, straight up lieng bullshit artists, tied in with a corrupt government, that has been stealing the american people blind since the end of the civil war, and not worth the air they take up to exist.
So Im assuming he will have that e-mail, next fall. They have really given him a lot of trouble. And he has been all over the country going to schools that promised him things on the phone, but when he got there, they never delivered.
and dont ever buy a dell Yeah, my first PC was a Dell, and it was a straight up burn job. I am happy for those who have'nt had issue's with Dell, such was not my case.
First skip Win7 Home and get Professional . Its way better
Second no need to go 64 bit OS unless you have programs that require 64 bit or you plan on going over 8 GB of ram. It will cause you more porblems if you do not need a 64 bit OS. Alot of programs do not have support for 64 bit yet and it will cause problems trying to install drivers and other programs. This is from a guy who is working for a company in the process of rolling out Windows 7 to all of our users in a 330 person company.
Other then that, it looks good and by the way. Thank your Son for us gamers as it is people like him that serve this great country that allows me to play video games and live the life I want.
First skip Win7 Home and get Professional . Its way better
Second no need to go 64 bit OS unless you have programs that require 64 bit or you plan on going over 8 GB of ram. It will cause you more porblems if you do not need a 64 bit OS. Alot of programs do not have support for 64 bit yet and it will cause problems trying to install drivers and other programs. This is from a guy who is working for a company in the process of rolling out Windows 7 to all of our users in a 330 person company.
Other then that, it looks good and by the way. Thank your Son for us gamers as it is people like him that serve this great country that allows me to play video games and live the life I want.
Windows 7 Home Premium is just Windows 7 Professional with some features disabled--which is, in turn, Windows 7 Ultimate with some features disabled. Microsoft will show you the list of features on their web site. If you don't see one and say, hey, I need that, then you don't need it. Professional has some stuff that is important in some business environments, but few home users have a need to, for example, back up data to a network drive.
If you get a 32-bit OS, you'll be restricted to about 3 GB of system memory, not even 4 GB. No sense in getting 8 GB if the OS will only recognize 3 GB. That's the big reason to go 64-bit right now. 64-bit programs flatly will not run on a 32-bit OS, either, and while there aren't many of them yet, there will be more in the future. CAD programs are likely to be 64-bit, though, as 32-bit programs cannot address more than 2 GB of memory.
A 32-bit OS and a 64-bit OS need different drivers. If you want to keep some really old hardware, then it might not have 64-bit drivers at all, so it won't run unless it can use some generic drivers. Things like mice and keyboards can use such generic drivers. Any modern hardware that you buy new will have 64-bit drivers. A printer is perhaps the device most likely to run into trouble.
Another big problem for some businesses is that a 64-bit OS cannot run 16-bit software. Loosely, that means software that predates Windows 95. Few home users have any need to run such old software. It can be a big problem for businesses running some proprietary software that was coded 25 years ago by a programmer who died 5 years ago and so the software can't be updated anymore.
Either a 64-bit OS or a 32-bit OS can run 32-bit software just fine, which is what most modern software is. For example, it's probable that every single game listed on this site is a 32-bit program. And not just the new ones, but the really old ones, too.
First skip Win7 Home and get Professional . Its way better
Second no need to go 64 bit OS unless you have programs that require 64 bit or you plan on going over 8 GB of ram. It will cause you more porblems if you do not need a 64 bit OS. Alot of programs do not have support for 64 bit yet and it will cause problems trying to install drivers and other programs. This is from a guy who is working for a company in the process of rolling out Windows 7 to all of our users in a 330 person company.
Other then that, it looks good and by the way. Thank your Son for us gamers as it is people like him that serve this great country that allows me to play video games and live the life I want.
I will pass your kind words on to him, thankyou very much.
First skip Win7 Home and get Professional . Its way better
Second no need to go 64 bit OS unless you have programs that require 64 bit or you plan on going over 8 GB of ram. It will cause you more porblems if you do not need a 64 bit OS. Alot of programs do not have support for 64 bit yet and it will cause problems trying to install drivers and other programs. This is from a guy who is working for a company in the process of rolling out Windows 7 to all of our users in a 330 person company.
Other then that, it looks good and by the way. Thank your Son for us gamers as it is people like him that serve this great country that allows me to play video games and live the life I want.
I will pass your kind words on to him, thankyou very much.
Too bad the whole bit about the 64bit is completely false.
32bit can only support up to 4gb max (2^32 = 4gb). Not 8.
I have also been using 64bit since XP 64. Back in the days of XP 64, what TdogSkal said was true. When Vista 64 got to a point where it was somewhat stable, things changed drastically. I used Vista 64 for about 2.5yrs and I've been busing Win7 Pro 64 since a week before it was officially released. I have not had a single problem running any program, since XP 64 back in like 2004. (ok that's a lie, a few ancient DOS games. lol But who cares?)
As a matter of fact, 64bit is actually starting to become the standard for OSs. Not 32.
That is widely accepted as one of the most accurate market studies of PC Gaming machines in the entire world. It's very accurate (info is gathered, not entered by user) and has a large base of machines tested.
What do you see as the top OS Version?
Now click the OS Version Tab.
How many 32 bit OS's do you see on there?
Honestly, if you chose to get Win7 32bit, it's a pretty stupid move if you asked me. There is absolutely no reason to run 32bit, Vista or 7, even if you're running UNDER 4gb of RAM. Things just perform better, largely due to better processor optimization. (XP 64 to this day STILL has terrible driver issues though)
I do agree with going Pro instead of Home though. There are some pretty useful differences, any semi-poweruser would feel extremely limited on Home.
You really want to spend an extra $40 out of a $1000 budget to have some extra OS features available that you're very unlikely to ever use? Microsoft will happily take the money, but I'd think you could find a better use for the $40.
A business environment is very different from a home environment. Businesses often need to do a lot of things over a network that would be done locally on a home computer. Businesses often need administrators to make it so that most users simply cannot do a lot of things because they don't have administrator rights, while on a home computer, if you're the only user, you'd better have administrator rights or else you can't do a lot of things on your own machine (though there's a case for having separate administrator and non-administrator logins on a home computer). The extra features of Windows 7 Professional are intended to be things that businesses may make use of, but virtually no home user will ever have any reason to use. Hence the names Professional and Home Premium; that's not purely marketing speak. (Okay, so the "premium" part is.)
Look at a fairly comprehensive list of the differences between the versions:
Home Premium caps you at 16 GB of system memory, for example, while Professional allows up to 192 GB. Your motherboard caps you at 16 GB of system memory, anyway, regardless of which version you use. Professional allows a lot of people to use the Windows 7 backup thing to back up to a network drive, while Home Premium can do the same backup functions, except that it has to be a local drive. But if your son "only" has one computer, then all drives he has are local drives anyway. Windows 7 Professional includes Windows XP virtualization, so that if a business has some proprietary software that won't play nicely with Windows 7 for some arcane reason, the user can fire it up in XP and maybe it works then. But all the programs your son is likely to be asked to use should be compatible with Windows 7, as that's what the school expects that people will get--and even if something isn't, then you can likely get it to work by running it in XP compatibility mode even with Home Premium.
Even if you do get Home Premium and later discover that you need Professional, Microsoft will sell you an upgrade to unlock the additional features for $90:
That doesn't take a wipe and reinstall. The features are already there on a Home Premium version, but simply disabled. The upgrade enables the function. If the odds of needing the upgrade are less than 4/9, then on average, you save money by going with Home Premium from the start. And the odds of needing the upgrade are probably far, far less than 4/9.
I have Windows 7 Professional, by virtue of getting it free from my school, and I can definitely say that even among the features that might possibly be useful to a home user, I don't use a single one. Given what we do with our computers, It's effectively identical to the copies of Home Premium on two of my other computers.
The feature I thought I might make use of is the virtual XP environment, but it appears to be as neutered as running a copy in Virtual PC or Virtualbox (or something similar), so only the most rudimentary software will run in the first place (stuff that's so simple, it shouldn't have problems running in 7 in the first place). I had hoped to possibly use it to run certain old games that 7 doesn't play nicely with, but it was just a hopeless endeavor.
32 bit OS will support up to 4 GB of ram no problem. We have 4 GB of ram on all of our laptops with Win 7 32 bit and works just fine, sees all 4 GB. I was talking about 8 GB because that would be the next logical jump from 4. Going to 6 means two different chip sizes which is not very common if you are building your system. So Unless you plan on going to 8 GB, a 32 bit OS will work just fine and cause less problem with trying to install programs. Again, I repeat this - The user is going to start going to classes at a school, I am sure he will be getting software to use which is why I am saying going with the 32 Bit OS>
The reason I say Professional is that he is going to college? correct which is run on a what? Oh yea NETWORK which he/she will have access to which means that Professional will work well for them.
Also to those of you saying that your 64 bit OS has no problems with programs. Really? You never had any program tell you it cannot be installed on your OS. I know your full of shit but lets here you tell me other wise.
IF the user was just going to be using this laptop at home and maybe a little traveling then yea Home Prem is fine but with him going to college, it cannot hurt to have the Professional Win 7.
32 bit OS will support up to 4 GB of ram no problem. We have 4 GB of ram on all of our laptops with Win 7 32 bit and works just fine, sees all 4 GB. I was talking about 8 GB because that would be the next logical jump from 4. Going to 6 means two different chip sizes which is not very common if you are building your system. So Unless you plan on going to 8 GB, a 32 bit OS will work just fine and cause less problem with trying to install programs. Again, I repeat this - The user is going to start going to classes at a school, I am sure he will be getting software to use which is why I am saying going with the 32 Bit OS>
The reason I say Professional is that he is going to college? correct which is run on a what? Oh yea NETWORK which he/she will have access to which means that Professional will work well for them.
Also to those of you saying that your 64 bit OS has no problems with programs. Really? You never had any program tell you it cannot be installed on your OS. I know your full of shit but lets here you tell me other wise.
IF the user was just going to be using this laptop at home and maybe a little traveling then yea Home Prem is fine but with him going to college, it cannot hurt to have the Professional Win 7.
If by "full of shit" you mean we actually know what we're talking about, then I suppose that particular cliche fits, even if that's somewhat of an unconventional use for it.
Where memory is concerned, the 4GB limit comes from maximum address space, but as address space is used by more than just system RAM, 4GB is only the maximum theoretical limit for how much system memory a 32-bit OS can make use of. Your system may see and report that you have 4GB worth of DIMMs installed, but your computer will only be able to actually utilize an amount of that 4GB equal to the address space you have left over after things like your GPU frame buffer is accounted for (video RAM takes address space too; who knew, huh?).
Not only can no 32-bit OS make actual use of a full 4GB of RAM on a system after various other hardware has sucked up some of that address space, but you also guarantee that the system will lack future-proofing.
As for software, those of us who actually know what we're talking about (that is, the ones you call "full of shit") know that 64-bit copies of Windows make use of the WoW (Windows on Windows) emulator to seamlessly run 32-bit applications. To put it in grossly oversimplified layman terms, a 64-bit OS has a 32-bit OS built in. The only software that won't run on it is either 16-bit programs (which excludes all software published in the last 10 years) and 32-bit device drivers, and the device drivers mean nothing because all modern hardware has 64-bit drivers available.
In short, there's no reason to not get a 64-bit OS. It's essentially a free upgrade over a 32-bit OS.
As for the comment that the OP needs or even has reason to get Profressional because he needs Professional to network to his college, as anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of computing knows, Basic and Home Premium editions of Windows have networking functionality as well. There is NO FEATURE that is exclusive to Windows 7 Professional that is required to interface with a college network, NONE WHATSOEVER. The advanced networking features are for network and group management, things that have NOTHING to do with simply going to college and jacking into the local ethernet or wifi connection for normal student use. Put another way, if I can connect fully to my own college network with a Windows Mobile 6 PDA, then any full-fledged PC will have no issue.
What's more, you wouldn't even need knowledge of computing to know this if you applied even the most basic of logic. Obviously no college is going to require high editions of Windows that don't typically even ship on the computers the average college student walks into their local retailer and buys. It would be asinine for them to do so.
The only thing you've said in your entire post that even qualifies as true (let alone in any way useful) is saying "it cannot hurt to have Windows 7 Professional". All else being equal, having Windows 7 Pro does not prevent you from doing anything you can do with the lower editions. All else is not equal, however, because it costs most. Why pay additional cost for a set of features you won't use?
Comments
That corsair was my original choice, and I forgot all about SeaSonic. I read an article about them, not too long ago, and everything in it, and a few things Ive read since, were sterling.
On another note, hey any input is appreciated. I have just a little knowledge, and would'nt have that, had it not been for people taking the time, out of their lives, to pass it to me.
We stand together or fall alone, at least, this is the philosophy I am finding the most peace with. Shoot I had a $300 emachine once that I threw a 8600gts in and it worked well for almost three years,
It's important for me to really build this machine well. With my own two hands. I'm looking forward to leaving this planet one day, and find comfort in the things I have built myself. Almost as much so, as the comfort I have received from those willing to give of their time, and opinions,,, well at least the ones who didn't call me an S.O.B. lol.
Oh Noes the OP went off topic, and Hijacked his own thread...eeek.
Saw ya
Sure, a Core i7 is a nice processor. But you're not getting one from Dell on a $1000 budget unless you take a low end "don't try to play games on this" video card with it.
As for the hard drive, notice that Dell won't tell you what hard drive they use? That's because they don't want you to know that they pick the cheapest (and likely slowest) hard drive they can find that technically meets their claimed specs. If they were going to use a WD Caviar Black, they'd tell you.
As for memory, if you're going to get 4 GB of system memory, do you want four 1 GB modules or two 2 GB modules? This is not a trick question. Dell gives you the wrong one.
As for inferior power supply and motherboard, note that Dell won't tell you what they use? That's because they don't want you to know. It's not really cheap junk, but it's not very good either.
I built the computer I'm using now about a year ago. In that time, it has never crashed. Not once. No blue screens, no random shutdowns, no lockups that required a force reboot, nothing. It's gone through lots of gaming, stress tests, firmware flashing, driver updates, power outages, and even flooding (the case got wet, but the electronics inside didn't) with not a single crash. Does Dell offer that sort of reliability? Not in their desktops, they don't.
The last computer I got from Dell had two drivers installed wrong right out of the box, a TV card for which there wasn't any software compatible with the OS, a hard drive that started randomly corrupting files, speakers that made obnoxious clicking noises when they should have been quiet, a motherboard that didn't have the appropriate slot for a modern video card, and a mouse that lost the ability to distinguish between a single click and a double click. It also flatly wouldn't boot one day for about eight hours, before it randomly started working again. Another day, it got caught in a loop of blue screening while booting and restarting for about an hour before it settled down. This is why it was the last computer I bought from Dell, and will remain so.
And then there's also Dell's willingness to sell parts that they know to be defective:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/technology/29dell.html
A large fraction of the good power supplies at moderate wattages on the market are made by Seasonic. This includes a lot of power supplies actually sold under other brand names such as Antec or Corsair. Most power supply companies don't actually build any power supplies, but just buy them from another company and put their own stickers and such on them. Seasonic doesn't make power supplies with crazy high wattages, though.
Did ya find out if your son has a school email address? something that ends with .edu
1. Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM
2. AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX
1. Microsoft GFC-00599: $99.99
2. AMD HDZ965FBGMBOX: $159.99
Combo Discount: -$30.00
Combo Price: $229.98
Western Digital Caviar Black WD7501AALS 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive
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1. Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Model
Brand Antec
Model Three Hundred
Spec
Type ATX Mid Tower
Color Black
Case Material Steel
With Power Supply No
Power Supply Mounted Bottom
Motherboard Compatibility Mini-ITX, microATX, Standard ATX
External 5.25" Drive Bays 3
External 3.5" Drive Bays No
Internal 3.5" Drive Bays 6
Expansion Slots 7
Front Ports
Front Ports USB / Audio
120mm Fans 1 x 120mm rear fan
140mm Fans 1 x 140mm top fan
Physical Spec
Dimensions(L x W x H) 18.30" x 8.10" x 18.00"
Features CPU cut-out allows for easy installation of CPU coolers
Maximum video card size: 11"/279mm
2. LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM
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Model
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Type DVD Burner
Model iHAS124-04
Performance
DVD-ROM Access Time 160ms
CD-ROM Access Time 140ms
Cache 2MB
WRITE Speed
DVD+R 24X
DVD+RW 8X
DVD-R 24X
DVD-RW 6X
CD-R 48X
CD-RW 32X
DVD+R DL 8X
DVD-RAM 12X
READ Speed
DVD-ROM 16X
CD-ROM 48X
Physical Spec
Form Factor 5.25"
1. Antec Three Hundred: $59.95
2. Lite-On iHAS124-04: $19.99
Combo Discount: -$10.00
Combo Price: $69.94
MSI R5850 Twin Frozr II Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ Eyefinity
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SeaSonic S12II 520 Bronze 520W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
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Jonnyguru recommended, Total score: 9.7
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GIGABYTE GA-870A-UD3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
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G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL
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If I did my math right this comes to $951.00
leaves some room , suprising. If he can get the school deal on his OS then thats an SSD and up the PSU a bit, if not, then just up his PSU, and should be good.
Thankyou all, I appreciate it.
Well before I get run out of here for being a Dell user.
I will toss a few other thoughts out there. Might do some price checking on Zipzoomfly - http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Home.jsp
They sometimes have good deals or instant rebates that might not show on Newegg and vice versa. I have purchased some things from them and friends have as well. They don't have the reviews though. Amazon is good to check for additional reviews of items you pick.
Some other thoughts I think if there is anything that should take priority in budget it should be Power Supply. A low quality PSU is a major cause of all kinds of system headaches from hardware failure to mysterious OS and App crashes. Don't know much about Coolermaster. Used mostly Antec Truepower which I trusted and were quiet.
Case is negligible – you want to find one that has nice access and perhaps no sharp edges. Seem to have picked out the CPU/Board that works for you. I don’t know much about Gigabyte, always used Asus. I’ve had good luck with Corsair and Kingston RAM. If he is going to be doing CAD work I think the closer you can get to 8GB the better.
Yeah PSU to my thinking is real important, and what Ive got there, is tight, but it is a very fine PSU, however I will probably up it a bit, Ive done some reading on that very model, and I beleive it was one actually recomended for the 5850, it and it's big brother, Im speaking of this later list now.
Ive used Thermaltakes quite a bit, but dont see exactly what Im looking for from them, in my price range. Been real happy with the TR2 500watt, but highest thing Ive pushed with them is a 65 watt proc(overclocked to the clouds), and 5770, with single HD, 3 fans, 2 drives, and PCI wirelss card.
I have very good reports on the coolmaster that I picked originally, but it actually is the lesser of the two, compaired to the seasonic 550.
The Corsair, that Quiz, mentioned, a very fine PSU, on par with the SeaSonic.
The True Power series seem to all be very good, good mention there.
As I recall these ones I speak of here, that have the sngle 12v rail, are beter than the double 12v rails, whitch I think both coolmaster and thermal take dable in, tho I dont recall that these particular ones have dual 12v rails. Have to re read on that.
I am very very encouraged about the outcome of this thread. Gonna be a fun build, and hopefull (fingers crossed) all the combo's will still be on when he orders these parts...as I say 6 years in the Navy and now out... hard to nail him down, lol.
When I do this I'll try to get some Pics and post them, along with some benchs and a few Prime 95 screens. see just what we come up with here.
Thanks guys, now
GO WATCH A MOVIE YOU"VE GIVEN ME ENOUGH OF YOUR TIME FOR ONE NIGHT
Oustanding work ppl, God Bless you all.
Usually the reason why I check New Egg is because they've got a very good search function that makes it possible to actually find what you're looking for. Amazon may have some awesome deals, but if you can't find them, it doesn't do you much good. And I'm not willing to fight with sites like that to help someone else pick parts. New Egg's prices are competitive with other e-tailers. But yes, go ahead and search ZipZoomFly, Tiger Direct, and Amazon to see if they happen to have any of the same parts for sale for cheaper.
For a case, you want something big enough, sturdy, and with plenty of airflow. And you also want one that you don't think looks hideous, since that's the part of the computer you see. The Antec Three Hundred comes with two big fans, and room for three more if you want to add them.
Cooler Master makes some nice cases and heatsinks/fans, but their power supplies are of wildly varying quality. Antec, Seasonic, Corsair, and Enermax are the companies I usually recommend for power supplies, though some of their low end power supplies are rather meh.
Different divisions of the same company can often have wildly varying reputations. I'd buy an SSD from OCZ but not Corsair or Kingston, for example, while I'd buy memory from Corsair or Kingston but not from OCZ. (assuming suitable prices relative to competition from other companies) I'd buy a processor from Intel, but not graphics.
There are solid state drives of wildly varying quality, which depends mostly on the SSD controller used. If you buy an SSD, you want a controller by SandForce, Marvell, Intel, or Indilinx. The SSD controller may be hard to find. The brand names to look for are OCZ, Crucial, Intel, G.Skill, or Mushkin, as none of those companies sell any bad SSDs.
The Corsair TX650 is actually made by Seasonic.
The Thermaltake TR2 is a pretty bad power supply, actually. It sounds like you got away with it because you barely drew any power from it. Here's a scathing review:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermaltake-TR2-RX-750-W-Power-Supply-Review/902/9
Basically, if you try to draw the rated wattage from it, you'll end up with fried hardware. Thermaltake offers power supplies of wildly varying quality (kind of like Cooler Master, actually), and their TR2 is one of the bad ones.
Also, it's not a case of a single +12 V rail being better or worse than multiple +12 V rails. For really high wattages, it's arguably safer to go with several rails so that you can have overcurrent protection kick in at a few hundred watts rather than a thousand or so. If you're going with multiple rails, you do want generous allowances on each rail, though. For example, the power supply I use has three +12 V rails rated at 25 A each, even though they're only rated at 40 A in total. That allows a lot of flexibility and makes it hard to screw up the rail distribution; three +12 V rails at 15 A each and 40 A in total wouldn't be nearly as flexible, and could be a big problem if I wanted to overclock the processor. One single +12 V rail at 40 A would be a lot nicer than three at 15 A each and 40 A in total.
Yep I wouldnt even consider running my PSU on this rig, as you say, my machine draws little power, at the time I got it, I was upping from a TSO 350 watt, with the same items running, and a 85 watt processor, I beleive it was 85 watt.
Out of curiosity, what PSU are you using? Or did I miss it?
I'm using an Enermax Pro 82+ 525 W. It's essentially this, but not quite:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194059
Presumably there are some tweaks somewhere that they thought justified putting the II on the end of the name.
It was $60 after rebate when I bought it. Nice power supply, but Enermax tends to charge more for their power supplies than is reasonable.
Looks good expect for 2 things.
First skip Win7 Home and get Professional . Its way better
Second no need to go 64 bit OS unless you have programs that require 64 bit or you plan on going over 8 GB of ram. It will cause you more porblems if you do not need a 64 bit OS. Alot of programs do not have support for 64 bit yet and it will cause problems trying to install drivers and other programs. This is from a guy who is working for a company in the process of rolling out Windows 7 to all of our users in a 330 person company.
Other then that, it looks good and by the way. Thank your Son for us gamers as it is people like him that serve this great country that allows me to play video games and live the life I want.
Sooner or Later
Windows 7 Home Premium is just Windows 7 Professional with some features disabled--which is, in turn, Windows 7 Ultimate with some features disabled. Microsoft will show you the list of features on their web site. If you don't see one and say, hey, I need that, then you don't need it. Professional has some stuff that is important in some business environments, but few home users have a need to, for example, back up data to a network drive.
If you get a 32-bit OS, you'll be restricted to about 3 GB of system memory, not even 4 GB. No sense in getting 8 GB if the OS will only recognize 3 GB. That's the big reason to go 64-bit right now. 64-bit programs flatly will not run on a 32-bit OS, either, and while there aren't many of them yet, there will be more in the future. CAD programs are likely to be 64-bit, though, as 32-bit programs cannot address more than 2 GB of memory.
A 32-bit OS and a 64-bit OS need different drivers. If you want to keep some really old hardware, then it might not have 64-bit drivers at all, so it won't run unless it can use some generic drivers. Things like mice and keyboards can use such generic drivers. Any modern hardware that you buy new will have 64-bit drivers. A printer is perhaps the device most likely to run into trouble.
Another big problem for some businesses is that a 64-bit OS cannot run 16-bit software. Loosely, that means software that predates Windows 95. Few home users have any need to run such old software. It can be a big problem for businesses running some proprietary software that was coded 25 years ago by a programmer who died 5 years ago and so the software can't be updated anymore.
Either a 64-bit OS or a 32-bit OS can run 32-bit software just fine, which is what most modern software is. For example, it's probable that every single game listed on this site is a 32-bit program. And not just the new ones, but the really old ones, too.
Too bad the whole bit about the 64bit is completely false.
32bit can only support up to 4gb max (2^32 = 4gb). Not 8.
I have also been using 64bit since XP 64. Back in the days of XP 64, what TdogSkal said was true. When Vista 64 got to a point where it was somewhat stable, things changed drastically. I used Vista 64 for about 2.5yrs and I've been busing Win7 Pro 64 since a week before it was officially released. I have not had a single problem running any program, since XP 64 back in like 2004. (ok that's a lie, a few ancient DOS games. lol But who cares?)
As a matter of fact, 64bit is actually starting to become the standard for OSs. Not 32.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
That is widely accepted as one of the most accurate market studies of PC Gaming machines in the entire world. It's very accurate (info is gathered, not entered by user) and has a large base of machines tested.
What do you see as the top OS Version?
Now click the OS Version Tab.
How many 32 bit OS's do you see on there?
Honestly, if you chose to get Win7 32bit, it's a pretty stupid move if you asked me. There is absolutely no reason to run 32bit, Vista or 7, even if you're running UNDER 4gb of RAM. Things just perform better, largely due to better processor optimization. (XP 64 to this day STILL has terrible driver issues though)
I do agree with going Pro instead of Home though. There are some pretty useful differences, any semi-poweruser would feel extremely limited on Home.
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You really want to spend an extra $40 out of a $1000 budget to have some extra OS features available that you're very unlikely to ever use? Microsoft will happily take the money, but I'd think you could find a better use for the $40.
A business environment is very different from a home environment. Businesses often need to do a lot of things over a network that would be done locally on a home computer. Businesses often need administrators to make it so that most users simply cannot do a lot of things because they don't have administrator rights, while on a home computer, if you're the only user, you'd better have administrator rights or else you can't do a lot of things on your own machine (though there's a case for having separate administrator and non-administrator logins on a home computer). The extra features of Windows 7 Professional are intended to be things that businesses may make use of, but virtually no home user will ever have any reason to use. Hence the names Professional and Home Premium; that's not purely marketing speak. (Okay, so the "premium" part is.)
Look at a fairly comprehensive list of the differences between the versions:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions
Home Premium caps you at 16 GB of system memory, for example, while Professional allows up to 192 GB. Your motherboard caps you at 16 GB of system memory, anyway, regardless of which version you use. Professional allows a lot of people to use the Windows 7 backup thing to back up to a network drive, while Home Premium can do the same backup functions, except that it has to be a local drive. But if your son "only" has one computer, then all drives he has are local drives anyway. Windows 7 Professional includes Windows XP virtualization, so that if a business has some proprietary software that won't play nicely with Windows 7 for some arcane reason, the user can fire it up in XP and maybe it works then. But all the programs your son is likely to be asked to use should be compatible with Windows 7, as that's what the school expects that people will get--and even if something isn't, then you can likely get it to work by running it in XP compatibility mode even with Home Premium.
Even if you do get Home Premium and later discover that you need Professional, Microsoft will sell you an upgrade to unlock the additional features for $90:
http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Windows-Windows-7/category/102
That doesn't take a wipe and reinstall. The features are already there on a Home Premium version, but simply disabled. The upgrade enables the function. If the odds of needing the upgrade are less than 4/9, then on average, you save money by going with Home Premium from the start. And the odds of needing the upgrade are probably far, far less than 4/9.
I have Windows 7 Professional, by virtue of getting it free from my school, and I can definitely say that even among the features that might possibly be useful to a home user, I don't use a single one. Given what we do with our computers, It's effectively identical to the copies of Home Premium on two of my other computers.
The feature I thought I might make use of is the virtual XP environment, but it appears to be as neutered as running a copy in Virtual PC or Virtualbox (or something similar), so only the most rudimentary software will run in the first place (stuff that's so simple, it shouldn't have problems running in 7 in the first place). I had hoped to possibly use it to run certain old games that 7 doesn't play nicely with, but it was just a hopeless endeavor.
Just get Home Premium and save the money.
32 bit OS will support up to 4 GB of ram no problem. We have 4 GB of ram on all of our laptops with Win 7 32 bit and works just fine, sees all 4 GB. I was talking about 8 GB because that would be the next logical jump from 4. Going to 6 means two different chip sizes which is not very common if you are building your system. So Unless you plan on going to 8 GB, a 32 bit OS will work just fine and cause less problem with trying to install programs. Again, I repeat this - The user is going to start going to classes at a school, I am sure he will be getting software to use which is why I am saying going with the 32 Bit OS>
The reason I say Professional is that he is going to college? correct which is run on a what? Oh yea NETWORK which he/she will have access to which means that Professional will work well for them.
Also to those of you saying that your 64 bit OS has no problems with programs. Really? You never had any program tell you it cannot be installed on your OS. I know your full of shit but lets here you tell me other wise.
IF the user was just going to be using this laptop at home and maybe a little traveling then yea Home Prem is fine but with him going to college, it cannot hurt to have the Professional Win 7.
Sooner or Later
If by "full of shit" you mean we actually know what we're talking about, then I suppose that particular cliche fits, even if that's somewhat of an unconventional use for it.
Where memory is concerned, the 4GB limit comes from maximum address space, but as address space is used by more than just system RAM, 4GB is only the maximum theoretical limit for how much system memory a 32-bit OS can make use of. Your system may see and report that you have 4GB worth of DIMMs installed, but your computer will only be able to actually utilize an amount of that 4GB equal to the address space you have left over after things like your GPU frame buffer is accounted for (video RAM takes address space too; who knew, huh?).
Not only can no 32-bit OS make actual use of a full 4GB of RAM on a system after various other hardware has sucked up some of that address space, but you also guarantee that the system will lack future-proofing.
As for software, those of us who actually know what we're talking about (that is, the ones you call "full of shit") know that 64-bit copies of Windows make use of the WoW (Windows on Windows) emulator to seamlessly run 32-bit applications. To put it in grossly oversimplified layman terms, a 64-bit OS has a 32-bit OS built in. The only software that won't run on it is either 16-bit programs (which excludes all software published in the last 10 years) and 32-bit device drivers, and the device drivers mean nothing because all modern hardware has 64-bit drivers available.
In short, there's no reason to not get a 64-bit OS. It's essentially a free upgrade over a 32-bit OS.
As for the comment that the OP needs or even has reason to get Profressional because he needs Professional to network to his college, as anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of computing knows, Basic and Home Premium editions of Windows have networking functionality as well. There is NO FEATURE that is exclusive to Windows 7 Professional that is required to interface with a college network, NONE WHATSOEVER. The advanced networking features are for network and group management, things that have NOTHING to do with simply going to college and jacking into the local ethernet or wifi connection for normal student use. Put another way, if I can connect fully to my own college network with a Windows Mobile 6 PDA, then any full-fledged PC will have no issue.
What's more, you wouldn't even need knowledge of computing to know this if you applied even the most basic of logic. Obviously no college is going to require high editions of Windows that don't typically even ship on the computers the average college student walks into their local retailer and buys. It would be asinine for them to do so.
The only thing you've said in your entire post that even qualifies as true (let alone in any way useful) is saying "it cannot hurt to have Windows 7 Professional". All else being equal, having Windows 7 Pro does not prevent you from doing anything you can do with the lower editions. All else is not equal, however, because it costs most. Why pay additional cost for a set of features you won't use?