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Thinking about a new PCFollow

#27 Apr 12 2014 at 3:50 PM Rating: Good
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I put together a rig for just under $1,000 (http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1G0LXB). Let me know your thoughts.

A few things to note:
  • I don't have a solid state HD on there. Unsure how much this improves performance, if it's worth the extra money.
  • The rig comes with liquid cooling and a build-in fan, but I'm unsure if I need more cooling than that.
  • Unsure if I need to upgrade the internal network card from the on-board to an Intel LAN 10/100/1000 card. Thoughts?
  • This doesn't include the OS or any software. Smiley: frown
Thanks in advance for the tips!
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#28 Apr 12 2014 at 5:43 PM Rating: Excellent
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Demea wrote:
I put together a rig for just under $1,000 (http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1G0LXB). Let me know your thoughts.

A few things to note:
  • I don't have a solid state HD on there. Unsure how much this improves performance, if it's worth the extra money.
  • The rig comes with liquid cooling and a build-in fan, but I'm unsure if I need more cooling than that.
  • Unsure if I need to upgrade the internal network card from the on-board to an Intel LAN 10/100/1000 card. Thoughts?
  • This doesn't include the OS or any software. Smiley: frown
Thanks in advance for the tips!

An SSD vastly speeds up boot times. I would imagine it would speed load times within a game as well.
If you're not overclocking, the watercooling is probably overkill, and money you could apply to upgrade something else.
Onboard NIC should be just fine.

I put together 1. It's 100 dollars more, but you get an SSD for OS/games, and 1 TB for data. Also swaps out the liquid cooling for air. And I changed the case to Kaos recommended case.

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1G0M6M

Edited, Apr 12th 2014 7:56pm by Kastigir
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#29 Apr 12 2014 at 7:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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I went with: http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1G0MDU

Lowered the CPU from an i7 to an i5 with the potential to overclock. Could even take the slightly cheaper non-K version if you'll never overclock it.
Went from 16GB RAM to 8GB; RAM is a cheap upgrade later on if you should ever need it and you don't need 16GB right now
Used the savings to get an a 64GB SSD for a boot drive and a copy of Win7 Home Premium, also slightly upgraded the HD to a Western digital Black Caviar.

Left the water cooler just in case you ever decide to try overclocking it. Plus it only saved $30 to drop it to stock fan. With the free upgrade on the GPU, I think that's a good choice.
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#30 Apr 12 2014 at 8:24 PM Rating: Excellent
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Off topic but I don't get why all "gamer" cases go for the hideous leds, bulges and windows thing. I just don't see why you would ever want your PC to have bright lights shining in every direction or a way to look at the ugly plastic and metal inside.
#31 Apr 12 2014 at 9:12 PM Rating: Excellent
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I think a nicely assembled system with good cable management and a nice case can look pretty slick. All personal opinion though, just like some people like the look of car engines or other machines. And it's easy to have a system that looks crappy with bad lighting, cables all over, etc. Or just a butt-ugly case.

Plus, a system with stuff as basic as an aftermarket cooler, heat sink fins on the memory or a temp display on the case easily impresses the plebs who think computers are made out of techno-magic Smiley: grin
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#32 Apr 12 2014 at 11:11 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Plus, a system with stuff as basic as an aftermarket cooler, heat sink fins on the memory or a temp display on the case easily impresses the plebs who think computers are made out of techno-magic Smiley: grin

Nothing says "the future is now" like a tribal engraving on your space-age computer. Smiley: nod
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#33 Apr 12 2014 at 11:32 PM Rating: Excellent
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Demea wrote:
I put together a rig for just under $1,000 (http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1G0LXB). Let me know your thoughts.

A few things to note:
  • I don't have a solid state HD on there. Unsure how much this improves performance, if it's worth the extra money.
  • The rig comes with liquid cooling and a build-in fan, but I'm unsure if I need more cooling than that.
  • Unsure if I need to upgrade the internal network card from the on-board to an Intel LAN 10/100/1000 card. Thoughts?
  • This doesn't include the OS or any software. Smiley: frown
Thanks in advance for the tips!

A SSD speeds up boot times, and zone loading / software loads immensly. We're talking going from 45 second boot times to under 10 seconds from power button press, and a similar speed increase for program loads. Plus, a solid state drive has no moving parts in it. They still wear out over time, but much less risk of a catestrophic bearing failure.
The liquid cooling option will make the entire machine quieter. I personally would pick that Corsair Hydro 140mm unit since your case has a mount for it. Better airflow, and better components than that aztek (sp?) one. Either is going to be more than adequate though.
The internal network card is going to be fine. it's a direct bus port into the motherboard chipset, so probably slightly faster than an add in card. You only really need an add in card if you are planning on doing something out of the ordinary like bonding multiple ports, or dual network homes.

As far as your overall build, I like it except for the video card. The 750 GTX is a low end card, and it only has half the memory pipes (think bandwidth) of the higher end cards, so it's pretty crippled compared to the higher end ones. Enough that it may be noticable. You could drop the processor a bit and up the video card and get better overall performance for what my understanding of how you use computers is. If you are doing a bunch of rendering or video / music editing, you want the additional cores and hyperthreading.

Since they offier it, I would also encourage you to leave the first 1TB drive in, and add a second one in a raid 1 array. In that configuration, you can lose one entire data drive and still have all your data intact. For $70, it's pretty cheap insurance. A SSD by itself isn't going to be big enough for most people. This is about the minimum I would reccommend if you can swing it. http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1G0MQK You could always go with the lower end video card and upgrade later, but then you are spending more in the long run. Same with the ram. The SSD is worth it, but with OS and program installs you need at least the 250GB to not be constantly running out of space. The Samsung drives are generally a bit faster than the ones they had at the 240GB mark. I'm running a samsung 256GB pro series in the main computer here. The secondary actually has an older Crucial M4 SSD in it as it's primary. The media PC downstairs has another Samsung 120gb in it as its primary drive, Very few programs on it so it doesn't need as much, but even then it runs closer to the edge than I like


His Excellency Aethien wrote:
Off topic but I don't get why all "gamer" cases go for the hideous leds, bulges and windows thing. I just don't see why you would ever want your PC to have bright lights shining in every direction or a way to look at the ugly plastic and metal inside.


Part of it is the Sci Fi aspect, Part of it is to show off the technical ability. I've put lights in some of mine because I wanted to play with the technology. For a long time that was also the only way to get into a really good quality case (Thermaltake back in the day, etc.) Plus they kind of work like a night light.

Besides, who wouldn't want to show off their motherboard setup?
Screenshot
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#34 Apr 13 2014 at 1:55 AM Rating: Excellent
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ITT: Kao says your budget can go eat a **** Smiley: laugh
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#35 Apr 13 2014 at 3:45 AM Rating: Excellent
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More cases should go with the sleek and minimal futuristic look, PC's are already crippled in the looks department because of the many different parts so they'll never get the looks of an iMac but there are so few good options at all there must be a niche for one of the manufacturers to design something that doesn't look like a 14 year old dreamt it up.

Anyway, I think games are largely unaffected by SSD's? I know D3 did the whole preloading thing but that got so much hate because it caused catastrophic fps drop for a few seconds whenever you used an ability the first time unless you had it installed on an ssd or flash drive.

And if you don't install games on it, 120GB should be plenty. 64gb probably works as well though you'll feel restricted by it sooner or later.
#36 Apr 13 2014 at 6:32 AM Rating: Excellent
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Yeah, I went with the 64 just as a boot drive for Windows that stayed sorta within budget. Games can go on the standard drive. As you know, you can always find that next upgrade that'll be just ever so much better for just another $40.

I'm also the only one who thought that he might want an OS beyond buying dodgy used keys off Reddit. But if he's good with that then he could drop my OS, go with a larger SSD and stay in line. Or just drop the SSD altogether which is frankly more of a luxury item than a necessity, especially if you're the sort who never turns their system off anyway.

Edited, Apr 13th 2014 7:38am by Jophiel
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#37 Apr 13 2014 at 6:43 AM Rating: Excellent
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If you don't care much for startup time and you mainly game an SSD isn't really needed anyway so you could cut it out entirely. I'd certainly pick a better graphics card over an SSD.
#38 Apr 13 2014 at 7:32 AM Rating: Excellent
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http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1G0N44 - $1,006

Changes from Original:
- i5 processor, K series for overclocking if you ever feel so inclined. Can save $24 by dropping to the non-K version if you'll never OC. i7 is unnecessary for gaming and a waste of $70 for the budget.
- Stayed with the liquid cooling in case you decide to overclock. Can save $25 or so dropping to stock air if you'll never OC but then you might wish you had another case fan.
- 1TB Western Digital Black Caviar HD. This should last you a decent while, adding another HD is pretty trivial later on. Dropped the whole SSD idea. You can get a 2TB mystery drive for $2 more instead but I went with the reliability factor here.
- Dropped memory from 16GB to 8GB; Memory is a trivial upgrade and you don't need 16GB for anything right now. Games won't use that much.
- Upgraded video to a R9 270 - Tom's Hardware's sole recommendation in the ~$185 range. Radeon whiners can go pound sand.
- Added a copy of Win7 Home Premium. Can do Win 8.1 standard for the same price, I haven't used Win 8 and don't have any opinions good or ill
- If you're skipping an OS, go with the GeForce GTX 760 (total new value: $1,021)

Edited, Apr 13th 2014 8:33am by Jophiel
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#39 Apr 13 2014 at 9:01 AM Rating: Good
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How does one overclock a CPU anyhow?
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#40 Apr 13 2014 at 9:20 AM Rating: Excellent
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Typically you go into the BIOS and fiddle with the voltage, clock speed, etc. Some processors come with software to do this via a Windows interface but most still go the old school route for better control.
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#41 Apr 13 2014 at 10:20 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
Typically you go into the BIOS and fiddle with the voltage, clock speed, etc. Some processors come with software to do this via a Windows interface but most still go the old school route for better control.

TECHNO-MAGIC!

I doubt I'll ever decide to do that, so I'm dropping the liquid cooling system.

Edit: Nevermind, that Tom's Hardware link had the answer I was looking for.

Edited, Apr 13th 2014 11:29am by Demea
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#42 Apr 13 2014 at 10:54 AM Rating: Good
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I replicated this build using an NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti on ibuypower.com (link), and somehow it came out to $60 less. As best I can tell, the only differences are the case (Cooler Master Elite 431 vs. NZXT Source 210 Mid Tower) and the hard drive (Western Digital Caviar Black vs. generic 1TB HD with the same specs). ibuypower also has a few extras thrown in (one year of McAfee).

Are the case and name-brand HD really worth the money?
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#43 Apr 13 2014 at 11:03 AM Rating: Excellent
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Demea wrote:
I replicated this build using an NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti on ibuypower.com (link), and somehow it came out to $60 less. As best I can tell, the only differences are the case (Cooler Master Elite 431 vs. NZXT Source 210 Mid Tower) and the hard drive (Western Digital Caviar Black vs. generic 1TB HD with the same specs). ibuypower also has a few extras thrown in (one year of McAfee).

Are the case and name-brand HD really worth the money?

The case is actually a better case. As for the HD, I would go with a good brand like WD, Seagate, Samsung, etc.
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#44 Apr 13 2014 at 11:17 AM Rating: Excellent
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Demea wrote:
I replicated this build using an NVIDIA GTX 750 Ti on ibuypower.com (link), and somehow it came out to $60 less. As best I can tell, the only differences are the case (Cooler Master Elite 431 vs. NZXT Source 210 Mid Tower) and the hard drive (Western Digital Caviar Black vs. generic 1TB HD with the same specs). ibuypower also has a few extras thrown in (one year of McAfee).

Are the case and name-brand HD really worth the money?


Never buy an OCZ anything. ESPECIALLY never buy an OCZ power supply. Unless you want your computer to melt, then go for it.
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#45 Apr 13 2014 at 11:30 AM Rating: Excellent
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Demea wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Typically you go into the BIOS and fiddle with the voltage, clock speed, etc. Some processors come with software to do this via a Windows interface but most still go the old school route for better control.

TECHNO-MAGIC!

I doubt I'll ever decide to do that, so I'm dropping the liquid cooling system.

You can drop the K version of the processor then as well. The only difference between an i5-4670K and an i5-4670 is that the K version is unlocked for overclocking. That and twenty bucks.

As a counterpoint to Kao's warning, I have used that exact power supply for a couple years now, trouble free.

For the same cost, I'd take the R9 270 over the GTX 750 Ti but that's just me. See also performance charts here.

Edited, Apr 13th 2014 12:45pm by Jophiel
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#46 Apr 13 2014 at 1:01 PM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
For the same cost, I'd take the R9 270 over the GTX 750 Ti but that's just me. See also performance charts here.

Good info. I think I'll go with the ATI in that case. (Edit: brainfart)

Based on all the feedback, I arrived at this. Includes the OS, and it's under my target budget. About to pull the trigger. Any glaring errors before I do?

Edited, Apr 13th 2014 2:06pm by Demea
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#47 Apr 13 2014 at 1:15 PM Rating: Excellent
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It will work.
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#48 Apr 13 2014 at 2:30 PM Rating: Excellent
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Your budget is $1,000, you're at $981 and a Fairy laser engraving is $19 -- Just sayin'.

Once you fix the fairy engraving issue, it looks good to me.

You can upgrade the memory one tier to Ripjaws/Vengeance/etc, then use coupon code SPRING0410 at checkout for 5% off an order $1,000 or more for a total of $954.75 -- or find some other minor upgrade to put you just over $1k to use the 5% off coupon. Say... fairy engraving. Anyway, it'll help absorb some of the shipping costs.

Edited, Apr 13th 2014 3:44pm by Jophiel
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#49 Apr 13 2014 at 2:50 PM Rating: Excellent
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Another potential upgrade would be to go back to liquid cooling ($20) for quieter operation. That puts you right at $1,001
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#50 Apr 13 2014 at 3:01 PM Rating: Good
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Done. With the coupon and shipping, it came out to just over my budget. Now I have to wait a few weeks for them to assemble and ship the thing (boo, delayed gratification).

Super huge thanks to everybody for the advice. Rate-ups all around (except for Kao, who is systemically impervious to my gratitude).
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#51 Apr 13 2014 at 3:14 PM Rating: Excellent
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Awesome. Forged against the unyielding anvil of internet forum nerd crowdsourcing, it shall be a thing of beauty, no doubt.

You did go Fairy engraving, I hope.
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