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My Official PC: Ordering Parts Tomorrow (Suggestions?)
Case:Apevia X-Cruiser ATX Black Mid-Tower Case with Clear Side, Front USB, Audio and Firewire Ports
Processor: AMD Phenom x4 945 Quad Core Edition (3.0 Ghz)
Motherboard: ASUS M4A79T Deluxe Motherboard RAM Bundle - AMD 790FX Socket AM3
Memory: Corsair PC12800 4GB DDR3 1600MHz Memory (2 x 2048MB),
Hard Drive: 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB Hard Drive - 7200, 8MB, Serial ATA-300, OEM
PSU: Kingwin Mach 1 Modular Power Supply - 700-Watt, ATX, SLI-Ready, Quad 12V Rails
Video: EVGA GeForce GTX 275 Video Card - 1792MB, PCI Express 2.0 x16, SLI Ready, (dual link) Dual DVI, HDTV, HDMI (w/ Adapter)
DVD RW: 22X DVD+R, 22X DVD-R, 8X DVD+R9, 8X DVD-R9, 12X DVD-RAM, 8X DVD+RW, DVD-RW 6X, SATA, Lightscribe
Monitor: Samsung 20" Widescreen LCD Monitor - 1600x900, 15000:1 Dynamic Contrast Ratio, 5ms, DVI, VGA
And 2 extra 55 mm fans (Blue LED)
TOTAL: 1335.80 (TIGERDIRECT)
Feel free to pick me apart as you wish.
Comments
My only suggestion is dont use tiger direct.
Ncix + their sales and price match, that computer will be a hell of a lot cheaper.
Oh, and why 2 - 250gb harddrives, just get a bigger one, wd black caviars the 640gb are good.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I'm just going to dual boot Vista and my Windows 7 beta on separate hard drives. I don't need that much space as I just recently set up a 1 TB home server for my family where we store all the music and pictures.
What's wrong with Tigerdirect? They have excellent customer service, their prices are usually very competitive, and their shipping is blazing fast, especially if you live in the midwest. Don't judge a company based off of rumors and/or a 1 time experience. I've ordered several items from them and been very satisfied. And I don't know if you are an AMD fan or not, but honestly, I'd go with an Intel based system. AMD is lagging big time behind Intel and they are not keeping up. I know the Core I7s are pricey, but the Core 2 Quadros are an excellent choice and still can keep up with the latest games. Oh, also, avoid modular power supplies. The idea is great, but it doesn't work as well as a normal supply. I just got a 650 Antec Earthwatts supply that is rated at 85% efficiency and solved a lot of instability I had with a previous modular supply. I snagged it from Fry's for 77 bucks. You really can't skimp on an important item like that. Just my 2 cents.
I gave up user Tigerdirect years ago...
Check out newegg.com Great prices, fast shipping, and quite often you'll find what you want with free shipping.
Yeah I'm not usually an AMD fan but with their prices I can't argue. I've had Intels on previous PC's and never had problems. Thing is, I'm not looking to do any extreme OC'ing. I'll admit I'll do a bit but not too much. Plus I'm not looking to run Crysis on a 52" TV or whatever people do for shits and giggles nowadays. I'm looking to run AOC comfortabley on high in highly populated areas and I want to be able to raid with my friends on WoW with zero lag. No big deal and this machine may even be a bit overkill with the giant amount of dedicated memory on the card.
tigerdirect is a respectable company but i always felt that their shipping rates were out of this world... other than that, the only thing i would suggest are 16mb cache hdds, not 8mb
I do guess you're right. I didn't realize they weren't 16. No big deal as my price ceiling was 1,500$
also...stick with your psu. the article thats been floating around that "modular is bad" is really just arguing semantics. with PSUs, you ALWAYS get what you pay for. i've been using a raidmax volcano with 630w and dual 12+v rails for at least 3 years now and i havent had a single issue with it. every point made in said article was moot.
I myself and perfectly content with this system. I'm sure no one here will argue against it one bit for what I'm trying to do. The case has great expandablitly and room for upgrades. If I feel adventerous sometime in the next few years in college I'll buy me another GTX 275 and kill any game out there
. I'm mostly looking for suggestions like the one above where I overlooked the speed of my hard drives.
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM
ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
EVGA 896-P3-1171-AR GeForce GTX 275 Superclocked Edition 896MB 448-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported ... - Retail
G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL8TU-6GBPI - Retail
AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor Model HDX945FBGIBOX - Retail
l Thermaltake Armor Series VA8003BWS Black Full Tower Case w/ 25CM Fan - Retail
Thermaltake toughpower W0105RU 700W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC ... - Retail
LG W2253TQ-PF Black 21.5" 2ms(GTG) Full HD 1080P Widescreen LCD Monitor - Retail
l LG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black IDE Model GH22NP20 - OEM
$1,274.92
From Newegg.com
Just to show you a little difference.
To the very best of my knowledge to take full advantage of the DDR3 memory you need to instal it in sets of 3 (i.e. 3x 2 gig sticks), however that may have been a condition of my Intel i7 processor and not necessarily true to the AMD chips. Anyone able to give some conformation on this?
Besides that I'd consider more than 4 gigs of ram anyway... Vista is a ram hog and depending on what game or games you're running right now you can max 4 pretty easily, with future games likely to require even more.
To the very best of my knowledge to take full advantage of the DDR3 memory you need to instal it in sets of 3 (i.e. 3x 2 gig sticks), however that may have been a condition of my Intel i7 processor and not necessarily true to the AMD chips. Anyone able to give some conformation on this?
Besides that I'd consider more than 4 gigs of ram anyway... Vista is a ram hog and depending on what game or games you're running right now you can max 4 pretty easily, with future games likely to require even more.
For Intel I7 chips it is better to have sets of 3 sticks, say 3 sticks of 2 gig.
AMD still can run in duel channel mode with only 2 sticks.
I will consider expanding to more Memory in a bit. I feel I should be safe with nearly 2 GB dedicated memory on my card. I'm glad you brought that up about memory working in sets of 3's for DDR3. That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for that I just might overlook.
i would take a look at the antec 900 case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021
it is a bit more costly than yours, but not by much, but you get a really really great case for the extra price. also, i just want to mention a few minor things. i would be careful with the x-cruiser for size + expandibility. currently, i use an Apevia X-Dreamer 2 case, and I bought it when apevia was Aspire, so I have the model that they used to ship with 300w PSUs, and look at how closely their designs are within the case(compare side by side images of the open guts):
x-dreamer 2 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144026
x-cruiser http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811144151
the x-dreamer 2 is very compact. it's not small by any means, but compared to todays hardware, i would not recommend it. the way you see the hard drive slots + optical drive slots can be a hassle. i have a 8800 GTS g80 core, and the card is so big that the end of the card sits right infront of my second hdd. i have no where else to put it else it becomes inaccessible from the cables + mobo. i have to wrap the GPU power connector around the hdd slots to get it to connect.
also, when i upgraded the stock PSU to my raidmax volcano, I had to remove the top 80mm fan from the x-dreamer 2, as there was no room for it.
hope this helps
Thats only MB that support triple channel (6 slots not 4), I7 only for now
Thats only MB that support triple channel (6 slots not 4), I7 only for now
or mobos with 3 slots
Ah ok so it is the chipset (i7) and motherboard that was making the 3x chips (for triple channel) and he is fine with the even number of RAM chips. Wasn't sure but thought I'd mention it and figured someone else here would know for sure. Thanks for the info guys.
I didnt even realize you were going with such a ridiculous overkill video card... the 892mb gtx 275 is more then enough for current and upcomming MMOs for a long time, after a while that much vidoe memory just becomes redundant.
video cards generally have a lifespan of 3 years in my opinion, with that in mind and the fact that dx11 is launching in october, and while it isnt nessairy to upgrade your card for it, you may be upgrading for it eventually.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I can't speak for the other cases but I currently have an Antec 900 and as Dark-Asylum said it's a very good case.
I quickly poked around and couldn't find anything that compared the two different 275 GTX models so my only comment would be that depending on which MMO you currently play and what settings you put it on its currently possible to top out on even a 295 GTX (no special nVidia settings, all application settings, but into the higher resolutions w/ everything on/maxed). I'm not making an argument for one card or the other because I just don't know enough about their performance difference... I think cost wise its like 50 bucks.
Just to warn you. Depending on what settings you run WoW at you're still gonna get Dalaran lag, but you should be good raiding (unless you're maxed out and on a super high resolution). Once you get it all up and running with WoW I'd suggest turing everything on except shadows and seeing how it plays (shadows is the single biggest performance hit as far as WoW settings, that I've seen, but that really isn't a surprise)
I don't really find anything wrong with Tigersdirect aside from its sorting features. I just think its funny how that business runs now that they own Circuit City and CompUSA. With newegg's enthusiast selection decreasing, you actually need to use NCIX and Tigersdirect to get some odd parts. As for the selection.
Processor is good. AMD is a very solid choice right now for good enough. The Phenom II right now is better then Core2 performance and price wise. The only competition for Phenom II is Core i7 and the future Core i5. However, I think Intel is busy making those processors unmarketable.
The Motherboard is one of the best you can choose at this point. Personally I would have went with the MSI 790FX model, but thats just me.
Good Memory, Descent HDD array.
The PSU is a huge no no for me. Kingwin just isn't a no name generic brand PSU, they make bad PSUs like Rosewills. Go to newegg and read customer reviews on it. It doesnt score 5 or even 4 stars. A quality PSU is essential for a quality system. A bad PSU can ruin the whole thing. I would aim at a 650w OCZ non-modular PSU. OCZ is rebranded PC Power and Cooling which is a good brand that supplies right amperage to the 12v rails.
For the Graphics card avoid Dual GPU solutions. They're are only a few tasks that ever take advantage of Dual GPUs. Render Farms, Super Computer Centers, and some Blockbuster Games. As a gamer or in a work setting the Dual GPU may infact be a hinderance to performance. The only exception to this rule may occur in the future with a few technologies in development. For a nVidia that would be a GTX 285.
DVD is good I guess, don't know what brand you are using. Might want a Blu Ray drive now that they are in the $200 range.
The Monitor you might be able to get a better deal. I would look at ACER and LG models. The response time on that particular model isn't too good.
Agree with cleffy, as for the HD why not try two western digital caviar blues? One of (if not the) fastest 7200 rpm HDs and at a very reasonable price for a 640GB one. Maybe go with an Antec 900 or an Aplus twin engine ATX case, I have the Aplus myself and it's an excellent case that will no doubt last me for years to come. It came with many accesories like rails for the HD and DVD and has plenty of room for the largest of GPUs, and of course it looks sexy!
Love the CPU and Mobo you have there, and I have the same RAM as you. Remember you'll probably need to manualy set the Ram speed in BIOS to 1600MHZ as with my Asus M4A78T-E it will run it at 1333MHZ unless you tinker with it. I would've chosen an ATI GPU with an AMD CPU but I doubt you'll see any problems using an Nvidia with it.
One last point have you thought about getting a gaming keyboard and mouse if you don't have them already?
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Sound great to me, but one thing: SLI don't work in most if not all MMOs so unless you plan to play a lot of FPS that is just a waste of money. A 280 GTX or better a 295 will get you better performance in MMOs (the 295 will also give better performance in many FPS games too, not in all).
also, why 2 small harddrives? I use Seagate (and Western digital) harddrives myself but there is no reason not to run a single 1Gb drive instead.
Also, get a Corsair 750W PSU instead. It is the best in that priceclass and give you a lot for the price, it will keep the electricity bill down.
I agree, the mouse and keyboards are very important when playing, good stuff will give an advantage when playing and make the time more comfortable.
I have a Logitech G11 keyboard myself, a really great keybord with some custom keys you can link to whatever you like in a game.
For mouse I use a Logitech trackman and a perific shorthand, the trackman gives a precision no regular mouse can give while the perific one can be used in several ways (you can both steer it with the tumb and as a regular mouse, most inventive designed mouse I ever seen).
Find the ones you feel works best for you, I do reccomend the perific since it saves you from the mouse arm, if you are feeling tired in the wrist you steer with the tumb instead, takes a few hours to get used too but really effective.