Curse

Firefighter Fred · Nov 25, 2010, 07:03 AM // 07:03

Hiya there folks,
As the title implies, I am looking to get a new desktop because I am quite frankly tired of my laptop (yes its portable, but its also blah) Anyways, I have compiled a list of stuff that (I think) and would greatly appreciate any and all input on whether or not I will be making good decisions. Seeing as this could be important, I am a fairly average computer user, no video editing, but I do use AutoCAD fairly often and I do do renderings of my drawings. As of right now I dont do any intensive gaming on my PC because quite frankly I cant. I would however like to play some more intense games and therefore would like the computer to handle them at least moderately well. I think thats enough text for now, please please please ask me questions if it helps you help me

Oh, I plan on building this myself

Case; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129021
I'm thinking that the Antec 900 is a pretty good way to go. Its got tons and tons of positive reviews (did I mention it has good reviews?) which for me is a huge plus. The only downside I can find when reading the reviews is that its a somewhat small case, but the move to the 1200 would cost an extra hundred bucks, taking all rebates into account

Processor; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=19-103-849&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&Purchase Mark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=tr ue&Page=4#scrollFullInfo
Well once again this item has lots and lots of good reviews. Plus it seems like a ton of performance for a non bank busting amount.

Hard Drive; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136218
So I dont need a huge hard drive. Yes I draw in CAD but as it is I dont keep most of my drawings on the computer as it is, and I dont see that changing. I figure that because I dont use a lot of memory I can save some money in this department. This drive seems respectable, but to be honest I have no idea

RAM; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231275
First off, this RAM looks awesome. Its the important things that matter really. Anyways it seems like good RAM, a friend of mine bought some and has had no problems, plus its a good price (I think) so why not?

Power Supply; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139005
Uhm, I picked this for the sole fact that I think 650w will be enough power and the Corsairs appear to be the highest rated PS' on Newegg. If 650w isnt enough then I will probably just step up to the 750,850,etc corsair

Graphics Card; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814133326

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-531-_-Product
Well I have been told that the GTX 460 is a lot of bang for the buck so I looked into them. I also have heard that the HD6850's are even more powerful for a similar amount of money as well as having better compatibility with an AMD system. To be quite honest I could care less but I dont really know the plus's and minus's between these

Motherboard; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131646
The killer as I know roughly -4 on a scale from 1-10 about mobo's. I pretty much picked this one at random based on the price. I have no idea if this one is good or not but roughly 100 bucks is what I would like to spend.

Parting note, I would like to keep prices for each piece around the same as the stuff I have linked. If thats not possible then so be it. Thank you very much in advance for any and all input

Elder III · Nov 25, 2010, 10:39 AM // 10:39

looks like someone has been hitting the black friday deals....

The system looks good, if it weren't for the special sale prices right now, I would suggest a couple changes, but that it some really good bang for your buck. One thing that I would change is the mobo:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157198

that's very similar to the one you picked (Asrock is the stepbrother of Asus) but it has dual PCI Express 2.0 slots at x8 each instead of x16/x4. Now the advantage of that is when you decide to go with CrossfireX down the road the x16/x4 will bottleneck you. Either video card will scale really well, but if I were you I would get the 460, as I don't feel the 6850 is enough of an upgrade to merit the premium, if you get up to that point, I would say get a 6870 instead.

Iron Monkey · Nov 25, 2010, 11:07 AM // 11:07

Love talking hardware so here goes.

You know that Intel is releasing Sandybridge very soon, and that AMD will follow suite with it's Bulldozer generation? I don't think it's a great time to buy a desktop, as when the new gen comes out, the old gen will take a big dive in price, and plus, you get the new stuff

Although I usually wait a couple of months before jumping on new tech.

ATM, I'd go with a HD6870. It's a bit more cash, but it looks like a good card. For Autocad, I'm not sure, but NVIDIA CUDA could be an advantage in favour of a GTX460 / GTX470. As for compatibility with AMD, I think it's AMD / ATI pulling the wool over our eyes. I haven't heard of compatibility issues with AM3 and the GTX460. However, going ATI you can go crossfire, and you have unified drivers for the mobo and graphics card. I think dual-card is over-rated. SLI / Crossfire is OK for uber-performance and overclockers, but for mid-range, it's usually no big deal. Plus I'm not sure a 650W PSU would handle the power requirements hapilly.

The processor is good, but the i5 quad-core are also very good. It's kind of in the balance really, and fanboys will show you this benchmark and that benchmark, but really, there's not much in it. I think both choices are sound.

I second the choice of Corsair Power Supplies, 650W is plenty for your kind of build (the new gen of CPUs and GPUs actually uses less power). And I'd go with Corsair XMS memory stick (on reputation for stability).

I think you also need a CPU cooler, like a Gelid Tranquillo, nothing too extreme, but quiet. Even then, you will be able to do some overclocking and get more juice from your CPU quite easily (dunno if you can reach the mythical 4GHz barrier on the Tranquillo, or if you'd even care).

I don't know much about mobo's either, but Asus AM3 mobo's have a good rep.

For hard drives, there isn't much in them either. The WD caviar Blue Line seems to suffer bad benchmark reviews, I'm not sure how that translates in real world usage. I've gone with the Samsung F3 as they get good reviews. For the same price as the WD Caviar, I think you can get a 1TB F3. Again, I'd probably favour reliability over performance, especially if you have a SSD as a boot drive.

I recommend SSDs as well. I've got a 60GB as a boot / OS drive, and it's awesome. Loads windows and program real quick, super quiet (obviously), probably the best single-item improvement you can make for everyday usage. I also have a SSD in a UL30A, which is a CULV SU2300 @1.3GHz, and it's a great combination as well. Worth every bit the money, even though they are still very expensive compared to standard HD. Recommended models are Crucial C300 / SF1200 controllers / IBM's. Don't see them as hard drive replacement, it's not really what they're for imo, at least not yet, but as an OS / program drive they are great.

here's my current system.
Gigabyte 890GX.
AMD 1055T.
Corsair H50.
Samsung F3 1GB x 2.
OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB.
4 GB PC12800.
ATI HD 5850.
Corsair 620W.
Lian Li PC-A71.
Dell WFP2407.

I've returned to stock settings on the CPU and mobo, as the overclock does nothing for me. The 890GX also gives me decent crossfire, but in retrospect, I shouldn't have bothered. What I'll probably do as an upgrade in the end is get the latest sweet-spot graphics card instead of another HD5850. And I'll probably end up upgrading the whole package anyway. Going H50 and 890GX for overclocking was kind of a waste of money in that regard, but it was fun. Maybe when I decide to rip my whole DVD library one day...

So all in all, I'd hang in there for a while, unless you just can't wait, and aim at a 1090T + HD6870 combination, and leave a budget for a 60GB Sandforce SSD. If the HD6870 is too expensive, then it's a choice between the GTX460 and the HD 6850. Although it seems newegg is doing deals on the 460 1GB, and that CUDA maybe useful for Autocad.

Just my $0.02. It's not gospel truth, but just my experience with going through a similar conundrum recently.

Riot Narita · Nov 25, 2010, 12:46 PM // 12:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iron Monkey

here's my current system.
Gigabyte 890GX.
AMD 1055T.
Corsair H50.
Samsung F3 1GB x 2
OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB
4 GB PC12800.
ATI HD 5850.
Corsair 620W
Lian Li PC-A71.
Dell WFP2407.

I have the components in bold too.

Samsung F3 offers MONSTER performance (comparable to older SSD's), for a stupidly cheap price. Been using one for quite some time now, no issues. Quiet too.

My OCZ Vertex SSD is not the latest generation but still awesome. I agree with the comments on SSD's generally... great as a system drive, and small enough that you can back up your entire Windows system and key applications quickly, easily, and regularly - to an image file. You can then restore your system anytime, without affecting your data held on a separate bulk storage drive (Samsung F3). SSD's are silent.

I have a Corsair modular PSU. Excellent. Rides through dips and peaks in supply, and modular lets you keep things neat (you only use the cables you actually need). Very quiet.

Firefighter Fred · Nov 26, 2010, 07:25 AM // 07:25

Thanks all for the responses! I think I have gained a few insights based on them. Firstly the Samsung HDD seems like the way to go, if its bigger and faster for the same price why not? I think my biggest remaining question at this point is in regards to a SSD. Is it something that I would be very much better off with? Also if I dont get one straight off, would it be difficult to move my OS to it at a later date were I too pick one up? Again thank you very much for the help!

Riot Narita · Nov 26, 2010, 09:30 AM // 09:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Firefighter Fred

I think my biggest remaining question at this point is in regards to a SSD. Is it something that I would be very much better off with? Also if I dont get one straight off, would it be difficult to move my OS to it at a later date were I too pick one up? Again thank you very much for the help!

If you use an F3, your system will already be pretty snappy. SSD system drive would be an improvement, but I don't think the difference would be huge.

If it were me, I'd partition the F3 - small C: drive for system and key applications, and the remainder as a D: drive for mass storage (data, music, video, large applications, games etc).

That way, you can still make quick and easy system-only backups (and restores) using drive imaging software. Backups are FTW, the quicker and easier it is, the more likely you are to DO them! And if you later switch to an SSD system drive, you can just restore one of your drive images to the new SSD. That's what I did myself.

Doesn't even matter if you get an SSD that is larger, or even a bit smaller, than the old C: drive, most drive imaging software will sort that out for you these days.

The only hiccup with doing this is, it takes a bit of fiddling to get the drive assignments right - by default the old HDU partition will remain as drive C: until you tweak windows to make the make SSD become the new drive C:

Iron Monkey · Nov 26, 2010, 03:31 PM // 15:31

The main benefit of SSD's over mechanical drives and general computing, besides their read/write rates, is access time. It's a few order of magnitude faster than a HDD, which makes them a lot better at starting programs and responding to hard disk access / page file swap than HDDs. Even 10,000 RPM Raptors, despite their humongous sequential rate.

You can certainly live without one, but having experienced them, I will never go back

They're just too good to have as an OS drive. Everything loads super fast and responds quick. I suppose they are more like a luxury item.