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My first computer build



I can give you one advice regarding graphics cards.

Find someone you know at Best Buy who's willing to buy you a graphics card of your choosing, enjoy it, and every year, return it and put towards a new graphics card.

  1. Find someone you know at best buy who's willing to buy you a graphics card
  2. Enjoy it
  3. After a year have him return it and get a new graphics card of your choosing
  4. Yes they can do that
  5. Enjoy it for another year
  6. Rinse and repeat

I guess you could include profit??? somewhere in there if you really wanted to, but you get the idea.
 
Remnant King said:
I can give you one advice regarding graphics cards.

Find someone you know at Best Buy who's willing to buy you a graphics card of your choosing, enjoy it, and every year, return it and put towards a new graphics card.

  1. Find someone you know at best buy who's willing to buy you a graphics card
  2. Enjoy it
  3. After a year have him return it and get a new graphics card of your choosing
  4. Yes they can do that
  5. Enjoy it for another year
  6. Rinse and repeat

I guess you could include profit??? somewhere in there if you really wanted to, but you get the idea.
Click to expand...

Huh? Best Buy does top of the line GPU rentals for free?
 
EJOUIE said:
Huh? Best Buy does top of the line GPU rentals for free?
Click to expand...

I know someone who works there. Has his own put together desktop. He buys whatever graphics card he wants, pays the price for it of course, and has an entire year to return it. So what he does is a little before that year expires, he returns it, and put it towards whatever other graphics card there is that's better than his.
 


building a computer is easy onece you understand some basics. Just make sure everyting is compatable. I build my current computer when i was about 13. it was easy, and im far from a "computer geek". so, just take your time, and dont cheap out on anything. have fun!!
 


Here's a system that I've had planned out for a build for a few months now. Back when I first thought of it I'd planned it to be pretty top-o-the-line build for gaming but I haven't followed through with my plans due to $$. If you're serious about it though I'd love to see someone put it together or at least use it for a starting point for something else.

Case - Thermaltake Armor A60 Gaming Case - $74.99
I chose this because it supports USB 3.0, comes with blue fans and comes from a great company.
MoBo - P8P67 LE-R3 LGA 1155 P67 ATX - $134.99
This also supports USB 3.0 and goes nicely with the CPU and RAM that I've chosen.
CPU - Intel Core i5 2500k - $179.99
(Unlocked Edition for even easier overclocking, and it can reach a Turbo Boost speed of 3.7Ghz all by itself, plus I've heard of them topping 4.0Ghz on air cooling.
RAM - G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333 - $31.99
Your basic DDR3 1333 RAM with low CAS numbers for faster performance.
GPU - Sapphire 5770 Vapor-X Edition - $99.99 After Rebate
I run one of these in my current gaming system and I absolutely love it. It runs really nice and will outperform some of the 6xxx series cards when overclocked , plus it lights up blue which would go well with the blue fans in the case and in the PSU.
HHD - Western Digital Caviar Black 750 GB - $124.99
Nice HD with 750GB of storage and SATA III connection, 6Gb/s transfer rates and a 64MB cache.
PSU - Corsair Gaming Series GS600 - $94.99
I chose this cause it has the option to light up 3 different ways and coming from Corsair it's gotta be good.
Optical Drive - LightScribe 24x Dual Layer Reader/Burner - $24.99
OS - Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit OEM - $99.99
Personally I think the upgrade to 7 Ultimate is a waste of $$ so that's why I chose Home Premium.

So that's what $866.91 would get you. Not sure what kind of budget you had in mind (and that's really where you should start) but that's what I had figured up for my next system. Keep in mine though that doesn't include any peripherals like mouse, keyboard or mouse. I hadn't factored these in though because I was planning on using my existing ones.
Anyways, that's what I had figured up. Enjoy.
 
^^ need a better gpu. and id opt for a different corsair psu. u can leave lighting up to your case fans. theyll be bright enough.
 
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I'll agree that it's not top of the line anymore but I paid closer to $150 for mine and I still say it is the best $150 that I've ever spent on my computer. I'd gladly pay another $99 for a new one to run Crossfire if I ever needed more performance (I can get 60+ FPS running 1440x900 res with 4x AA that way it is now on stock settings). It's the Vapor-X edition too so it runs just a fuzz cooler and a fuzz faster than the normal 5770. 960Mhz clock and 1445Mhz memory isn't bad if you ask me. ;)
Here's a really nice page for comparing the ATI GPU's if you're interested. The Vapor-X 5770 isn't on there but it still gives you a nice idea of how things stack up.
 
EJOUIE said:
Things to look for in a motherboard besides price:

Front side bus speed - rate of data transfer from processor to memory and graphics.
Slot types - AGP or PCI express. Depends of which card you want to use.
Expansion slots - PCI slots for additional cards such as sound, or network.
USB - number of ports and locations matching to case
Overclocking - yes.
Maximum amount and type of RAM - for gaming, I would choose speed over quantity with a minimum of 6 gb.
Click to expand...

LOL do you live in 2001?

FSB hasn't been a bottle neck since HyperTransport came round
and AGP? Its been dead for years.


He wants to go Intel, So I think a 980X or 2600k will be good for him with either an HD 6870 or 6970 will work well.

we've only just begun to optimize for the 4 cores in a processor with software.

I am pushing him to buy an SSD, you have to have one now these days
 


Drunkie said:
He wants to go Intel, So I think a 980X or 2600k will be good for him with either an HD 6870 or 6970 will work well.
Click to expand...

Honestly I'd go with the 2600k over the 980X but that's just my personal preference. They are both great, great processors (as is the slightly cheaper and slightly less powerful 2500k). I'd say the difference between the two though would be relatively unnoticeable for the average user unless you're doing some serious stuff like video encoding or whatever.

Drunkie said:
I am pushing him to buy an SSD, you have to have one now these days
Click to expand...
True that, they are awesome too. I've thought about getting a small one for just the OS and maybe a select few programs to speed things up a bit. Definitely worth it if you've got the $$.
 
2500K unless you do synthetics.

Come on guys. Its not worth the extra dough.

It simply doesnt have HT which means 8 logical cores instead of four.

Which again, isn't needed for games.

a 6950 is decent.

So is a 560 Ti

They're both quite comparable.

Wait for the 560 448's and see how they do. They shouldnt affect pricing of the other cards seeing as they're a limited time deal, but its still worth considering.

Heres a fun one: Even with a 580, you can't max out the new batman. :D


When it comes to PSU's they're most efficient at 80% of their rated RMS output.

So if you buy a 1000W and only use 40% of that, you're wasting more electricity compared to purchasing a smaller one.

On the other hand, if you ever wanted to go SLI, you're kinda boned.

On SLI/Crossfire, seems to be worth it if you buy two+ cards at once. Not so much if you wait.


Memory timing and speed don't really matter.

Hate to break it to you.

Theres a fraction of a single FPS difference most of the time.
 
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