Interested in Building Gaming PC: help?

[DLM]

I have never really had great luck with pre-built PC's. With every computer purchased and perhaps upgraded the video card and ram, the games I run always froze, locked up, caused a crash etc. I have never had the experience of playing a game as I would on a console- with little errors or issues. Is this possible on a PC?

That brings us to step 2. I'm looking to order the components for a gaming PC and build it myself. I've looked over the A Step Above PC in one of the stickies and wondered a few things.

Are the components the best for the price? Could something out significantly outperform it with a 10-15$ upgrade?

Is newegg the best online shop to order from? Are there any others?

What monitor would you recommend?

I'm looking to order a gaming PC soon (in the next few days), so any tips would be great.

[RickyTick]

I have never really had great luck with pre-built PC's. With every computer purchased and perhaps upgraded the video card and ram, the games I run always froze, locked up, caused a crash etc. I have never had the experience of playing a game as I would on a console- with little errors or issues. Is this possible on a PC?

Absolutely. Even a decent "budget build" PC can handle games extremely well. The important thing is to have the right combinatin of critical components.


That brings us to step 2. I'm looking to order the components for a gaming PC and build it myself. I've looked over the A Step Above PC in one of the stickies and wondered a few things.

Are the components the best for the price? Could something out significantly outperform it with a 10-15$ upgrade?

The "Step Above" build, as well as the budget builds, were all designed to get the best bang for the buck. Without a doubt, you can spend more money and get a better performing part. It's a fine line of deminishing returns. Is it worth an extra $40 to get a 3% gain in performance? What about a 10% gain? There's a lot to consider. :rolleyes: One of the first things you must do is set a dollar limit on how much you want to spend. Tell us that, and we'll make numerous suggestions.


Is newegg the best online shop to order from? Are there any others?

I shop Newegg, Zipzoomfly, Mwave, TigerDirect, and Amazon. They are all very good. I have to say that in the past year, Newegg has stood out above the rest as having the best prices, the most specials, and the best availability. If I were building a PC today, I would shop all those suppliers and go with the best deals. It really doesn't matter if you buy 10 parts and they come from 5 different places. Others may disagree with that, but that's ok. :) I only use Best Buy and similar places if I want to actually see and feel a product. This is really important for monitors and keyboards and maybe cases.


What monitor would you recommend?

Monitors can be real budget busters. Without knowing your spending limits, it's hard to make a suggestion. Basically, I would say nothing smaller than a 22" monitor.


I'm looking to order a gaming PC soon (in the next few days), so any tips would be great.

We're here to help, let's get started. Oh, and welcome to the MySuperPC Forums.

[DLM]

The budget is somewhere around 1500-1600 including the monitor. (Although I wonder if I should put an extra hundred or two down just to cushion for better parts with having the monitor included in the pricing..) I can't tell you too much on how customized I want it considering I don't have an extensive knowledge on the components of the PC (just enough to get a graphics card upgraded). I would ideally like it to be able to run Final Fantasy XIV when it is released but if could play current generation titles (being released now) then that would be my goal. So really, if you would like to alter my price range a little to accomplish this then that is fine but the absolute maximum would be 2000 with the monitor. This is in USD.

This isn't asking for too much is it? I'm just lost and usually going to different sites just gives me more questions with conflicting answers. Please help! :)

[RickyTick]

For $1500 or so you can have a killer system that will play any game at max settings and last you several years.

I'll get started on it and post back a little later.

[RickyTick]

Give this a good look over and tell me what you think. This system will play any game you throw at it and never break a sweat.

Case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160) Cooler Master HAF932

Motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130238) MSI P55-GD80 LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115214) Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz

Power Supply (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006) CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V

Ram (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231193) G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

GPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102857) SAPPHIRE 100282SR Radeon HD 5850 1GB

Hard Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319) Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB

Optical Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106335) LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 24X DVD-R SATA Black 24X DVD Writer LightScribe Support

Operating System (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754) Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Monitor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236049) ASUS VW246H Glossy Black 24" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor

This totals $1550. There are better monitors out there, but they can jump up in price drastically. Like a Dell Ultrasharp U2410 runs about $550. You may want to do a little research on monitors.

[DLM]

Any other suggestions for the Hard drive since it recently sold out?

Any procedures that would aid in preventing headaches, such as purchasing GoBack?

[RickyTick]

You could get it from Zipzoomfly. It's on sale for $64.99 after mail-in rebate.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10010082

Or you could go with the 750gb drive. It's $69.99 if you use Promo code EMCMNNT38 at checkout.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136283&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL122609&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL122609-_-HardDrives-_-LC7C-_-22136283

The only other thing I left out was possibly a cpu cooler. The cpu comes with one, but the aftermarket ones do a better job and are not terribly expensive. Plus if you think you might want one, the time to install it is during the initial build.

I don't have any hands on experience with Goback, so I can't really say. I will say that I'm not a big fan of Norton products in general, other than Norton Ghost. You could invest in an anti-static wrist strap, but it's not completely necessary.

[DLM]

As for Norton products, I'm no fan either but I'm trying to figure out the proper restoration materials.

As for the CPU Cooler, I couldn't tell which coolers were compatible with the CPU but as I was looking through the reviews for the CPUs I came across this:

Pros: Allows a slightly cheaper upgrade path to some users who had dual-channel DDR3 ram already?

Discussion: To the people saying "faster stock speed than a 920" yes the GHz is higher, no the performance is not. In real benchmarks, the 920 WIPES THE FLOOR with the 860 due to significantly higher memory bandwidth (nearly 50% higher) and double the bandwidth for graphics.

--For overclockers, this is a budget overclocking chip, yes it's lower stock temps, but you're buying a large heatsink anyways, why not buy the chip for the socket that real overclockers use?
--For power users, the higher memory and graphics bandwidth make CUDA support, and immense multi-tasking immensly faster on the i7 920.
--For average users, you'll see no difference because you can't fully utilize either chip.

Cons: --More expensive than the i7 920, but the motherboard will probably be cheaper.
--About HALF the memory bandwidth of the i7 920 memory bandwidth
--HALF the graphics bandwidth (if you buy this to SLI or X-fire with you have no clue what you're doing)
--Only dual-channel RAM - did you learn nothing in school? if traffic is congested, add more lanes.
--Puny stock heatsink, but the same is true for the 920 as well. Pro tip: always buy a better heatsink even if you don't overclock because then your chip will last longer due to lower average temps.
--The new 6 core processor is launching in Q2 2010 and will be Socket 1366 - you want to talk buying into a limited upgrade path?

Other Thoughts: Do your own research, but watch out for people pitting i7 920's w/ 1066MHz RAM against 860's w/ 1333MHz RAM, there are a few that give an apples-to-apples comparison that show you the realistic performance comparison. Also, assuming you have a heatsink, the 920's USUALLY overclock farther (4GHz is pretty easily attainable)

My Build:
--Core i7 920 OC'd to 3.93GHz on air using the Mugen 2 HSF. Tested stable up to 4.3GHz
--500GB system drive running Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (with VMs for Ubuntu, Server 08 and Windows XP).
--3x1TB RAID 5 plus additional 500GB and 750GB internal drives (for data) with an external 500GB for backup. ~60% of total capacity is being used.
--nVidia GTX285 (revision 1)
--3x2GB DDR3-1855MHz G.Skill Pi RAM (running stock speed at 1.45v)
--Heavily modified Antec 900 case

Usually running Source games (CSS, L4D1/2, TF2), Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, Vegas 9.0 64-bit, numerous instances of PRO-E and AutoCAD, CS4, etc...
---
This post also claims something similar: Pros: Very fast, great processor, overclocks well, preety much runs everything very very well. This really is a very good processor overall.

Cons: It's cost/perforamnce ration: For an extra 20 dollars over the Core i7 920, your paying for half the PCIE bandwitdh, and half the memory bandwidth. That's right: no triple channel memory and even if you were running dual channel memory it would still have less bandwith then a i7 920 setup. So why does this processsor cost more? I have no idea.

Other Thoughts: I've never owned this processor, but I know more than enough not to buy it..... If your a fan of x8/x8 bandwith go ahead. If your running 2 single GPU graphics card, or one dual GPU card, you wont' really see a difference in this processor. I would understand going for a LGA 1156 build but if it costs more than a LGA 1366 build....why would you buy it?
-----


I understand that there are almost always negative comments about products but could you explain what he's speaking of in terms of the bandwidth for graphics? One of the comments state that this CPU can't utilize Crossfire. Is this a load of crap or should we go for the upgrade?

I'm sorry if this all sounds so cautious. I'm just trying to make sure that a huge graphics upgrade would be needed over a compatibility issue a few months down the road.

If I come across as offensive then please, forgive me. I am learning as I go.

[The Wise Monkey]

I'm not quite sure which benchmarks the writer of that piece was looking at, but here are some tests from the well-regarded tech website Anandtech:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3641

To echo the words from this article, the i7 920 is a better option if you want to:

- Use SLI/Crossfire (but the i7 860 will work just fine with either of these)
- Overclock
- Have a 6-core CPU when they are released

For every other situation, I would recommend the i7 860 as the more agressive turbo mode when utilising 1-3 cores has a much better impact on most applications,because most applications do not support multiple cores.

Another reason to go for the 860 is price. The 920 is $290 on newegg, but the 860 is $280. If you go for the 920, you will need triple channel RAM, and a more expensive motherboard as well. The person who claims that the 920 is cheaper is just being ridiculous.

With regards to the CPU cooler, check out this website:
http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=371&Itemid=62

You have every right to be cautious - it is a lot of money to spend, and you want to know that you are getting the best deals. :)

[RickyTick]

Changing this build from Lynnfield to Bloomfield only requires changing the cpu, motherboard, and ram, which would increase it by only $125.

Let me offer you some reading material that might help you make a decision.
http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/17545
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3641&p=1
These are probably the two most trusted tech websites out there.

[RickyTick]

Looks like Wise Monkey and I posted a reply at nearly the exact same time and we both linked to the same Anandtech article. Nice coincidence. :D

Looks like we're on the same page. :)

[The Wise Monkey]

Great minds think alike, and all that. :rolleyes:

[DLM]

I'm just curious but what would the 125$ upgrade look like?

[RickyTick]

I'm just curious but what would the 125$ upgrade look like?

Case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160) Cooler Master HAF932

Motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131365) ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58

CPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202) Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz

Power Supply (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006) CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V

Ram (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231225) G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

GPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102857) SAPPHIRE 100282SR Radeon HD 5850 1GB

Hard Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319) Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB

Optical Drive (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106335) LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 24X DVD-R SATA Black 24X DVD Writer LightScribe Support

Operating System (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754) Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Monitor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236049) ASUS VW246H Glossy Black 24" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor

$1713 Total. The price difference today is $163. I guess you just have to watch out for good deals. That's stll not a tremendous increase in cost.

[DLM]

Haha, the hard drive was restocked but the case was sold out. By the way, the case is more expensive than the hard drive. Things are strange these days :D Thank you for all your help. After I do more reading up on what you presented me, I'll be ordering everything. Wish me luck and Have a great New Year's!

[RickyTick]

You're welcome, and best of luck.

We're here to help if needed.

[DLM]

What do you guys think about the ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58(link in above post) motherboard having so many negative reviews? Is there an alternative board with not as much negative feedback or should I just disregard the low eggs and go for it?

By the way, cases are back in stock :D

[RickyTick]

Take a look at the Top Selling motherboards at Newegg. They all have quite a few negative reviews. It's just a theory I have, but I bet a large percentage of those problems were either user error and/or shipment damage.

Here's another really nice mobo to look at.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188039

[DLM]

What components in the motherboard damage easily? I must watch out for them.

[DLM]

In your opinion, what would be the best CPU for the Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz?

[RickyTick]

In your opinion, what would be the best CPU for the Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz?

Not sure I understand that question. :confused:

[cophrk]

just as a quik note if u didnt buy u should not that the socket and the i7 processor are diffrent the i7 uses a 1366 socket i belive look it up tho and they use the x58 chipset not the p55 that is for core i5 and allso the evga has very nive motherboards very nice im about to build one of there 3-way sli models in a month oer two good luck

[pellaz]

just as a quik note if u didnt buy u should not that the socket and the i7 processor are diffrent the i7 uses a 1366 socket i belive look it up tho and they use the x58 chipset not the p55 that is for core i5 and allso the evga has very nive motherboards very nice im about to build one of there 3-way sli models in a month oer two good luck

At least part of this is a little mistaken - the i7 bloomfields are on 1366, but i7 lynnfield (in this thread) runs on 1156. Someone with a way higher knowledge ceiling than I could get more in depth, I'm sure - I only know that much because I'm working up to building a new box myself also.

Anyway, both builds in this thread look to have the appropriate motherboard for the CPU.

[The Wise Monkey]

You are right pellaz - the i7 9xx series are 1366, but the i7 8xx series are 1156. The main benefits of the 1366 socket are triple channel RAM, enhanced PCI-e bandwidth and the ability to use the new 6-core CPUs in the future.