Time for a new PC

[Septfox]

'lo people.

 

Title says it all. I'm going to be in the market for a new computer within the next month or so, so I'd like to get a list of parts together. I need, at the moment, suggestions and information; the last time I built a computer was back when the Athlon XP 2500+ was a BOSS, so I'm more than a bit out of date.

 

Current considerations:

• 
   
  
• CPU - Phenom II, either 965 (cheaper) or 975 (faster and Black Edition). I'm willing to consider an i3 or i5 if the argument for them is compelling enough, but I'd prefer to go AMD. More on that below.
  
• Motherboard - ASRock 970 EXTREME3 - I've heard good things about ASRock, but I would really like to have an IDE connection available (I rather like having legacy things around for the rare occasion I need them) without having to resort to a PCI card, and I have no idea about brands these days, so I'd love to hear any other suggestions here.
  
• RAM - probably a pair of Crucial 2gb 1333 sticks to start with, though I'm thinking of bumping up to Kingston 1600's since it'd be around the same price. I'm not too sure about this encouraged-overclocking thing that modern motherboards have going in regards to RAM, though (back in the day, DDR400 was top-end) - how much life and reliability would I be giving up for the increase in speed?
  
• Power supply: I have no idea. Back in the day (oh god I repeated it, feeling really old now), Thermaltake was one of the higher-end brands; indeed, the power supply I have right now is an old Silent Purepower that keeps going and going. From what I've read here and there, they're no longer manufacturing quite as high-quality stuff nowadays. Help?
  
• Video: No idea yet. Probably a Radeon of some descript.
  
• Case: Cases are for people who like keeping things contained and organized pansies. We dun need no stinkin' cases.
  
• Hard drive and optical: I'd probably continue using my old Deskstar (<3) for now, which is another reason why having IDE onboard would be preferable. Optical...eh, I have a 8gb flash drive I can use, so it's unimportant at the moment.
  

 

In case you haven't noticed, I have a bit of lean towards AMD; as I said, the last machine I built used a 2500+, and I loved the thing. Only reason I stopped using it is because the motherboard refused to go a month without doing something idiotic, such as randomly corrupting data (both via IDE and SATA), bluescreening every five minutes, randomly overvolting and subsequently overheating the CPU, etc. I'll never buy another bloody Biostar, that's for sure. It did show just how bake-proof those old Bartons were, though...

Conversely, having been forced to use a Pentium 4 for several years now, I harbor a certain burning hatred for Intel for daring to release such a horridly underperforming excuse for a processor. That said, the Pentium M in my Thinkpad was plain awesome considering its comparatively low clock and powersaving bent, so as above given a good reason I would be willing to consider an i3 or i5 instead of a Phenom. Note that "AMD is getting out of the desktop market" and "<insert random Intel fanboi crap>" are not valid arguments :v

 

 

Last, I'm on a fairly tight budget. My (somewhat arbitrary, but flexible) limits are: $110 for the motherboard, $150 for the processor (based on the BE 975), $50 for the PSU, $40 for RAM (based on a DDR3/1600 8gb kit), $100 for video. Lower than those is better, but I'm willing to pay up to these limits and even fuzz'em a bit if the advantage in doing so is sufficient.

 

Any advice would be appreciated.

[FMod]

The most important question is what the PC is for.

If it's games, what games do you play.

 

Intel's midrange CPU like i3-2130 rip AMD's ones apart in Oblivion, Fallout and Skyrim, but lose out a bit in multi-core games and more than a bit in applications. You want at least i3-2130 however, because there is no overclocking i3 period.

 

Your budget isn't too low per se, but whatever CPU you pick, in games it will be limited by a subpar $100 GPU. You should redistribute it: spend closer to $200 on the GPU, but way less on CPU+mobo.

Can you wait till February 15 (and some more)? They will release AMD HD7750 that day, which is good for you, because you don't have and can't fit a decent PSU into this budget. Otherwise you can go for HD6850. It can be found for as little as $130 with rebate if you're in US.

 

For CPU, you can buy Athlon II X3 and play the "Unlock Lottery". These CPU are Phenom II X4 with L3 cache and one core switched off. Sometimes the extra core and/or extra cache will unlock, other times it won't. You can buy a cheap Athlon X3 455, then unlock and overclock it into one as fast as Phenom II X4 975.

 

Better still, go Socket FM1 and buy Athlon II X4 631. It's cheap at less than $100, it's fairly fast, it's low-power because it's 32nm rather than 45nm, and it can be overclocked as high as 4GHz if you don't need low-power.

Unfortunately Socket FM1 motherboards are more expensive than AM3+. But for that price you get 6 ports of SATA3 and onboard USB 3.0, beating Intel's offering of 2xSATA3 and USB 2.0 only. And overclocking, which most Intels don't support at all.

 

I'm not entirely sure what motherboard you should buy. Cheap Asrocks are not the same as expensive models. Some say MSI is good, IDK, but I'd stay away from Gigabyte just to be on the safe side. Asus is always good, but you might be paying a premium just for the brand. It might depend on where you are buying. In either case, it has to be one of these makers, and go for A75M chipset as the price is about the same.

 

Do you plan to upgrade this PC later, maybe add more RAM (you def don't need more than 8GB now, but maybe in 2-3 years), overclock the CPU, add a sound card, something else? If so, you may want to shop around for 4xDDR3 and good board layout, i.e. a PCI-E 1x or PCI slot above the PCI-E 16x slot.

 

One thing you haven't mentioned is the heatsink. Stock heatsinks suck, they are small, loud, with poor cooling capability and poor overclocking potential. It's always better to buy an aftermarket heatsink and a CPU without one. Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus (make sure it's "Plus") should fit right in for this build. Although you may consider it too expensive for your budget. If so, I can't suggest anything cheaper, I just don't know enough about low-end components, maybe someone can.

 

 

Thermaltake has ceased being a decent PSU maker a long time ago. I don't think they ever were high-end, but among the junk that filled the shelves 5-8 years ago they were pretty good. Unfortunately, they didn't get any better. Thermaltake never actually made PSU, they just slap their badge on OEM units.

 

Antec EA-380 were made by Seasonic, and for their price (under $50), they are great PSU. If you are doing a low-power build, that is, FM1 CPU and HD7750 GPU, 380 watts is plenty with a good headroom to boot. Good luck finding an original EA-380 though... EA-380D is not the same, they are Delta units. Same deal with EarthWatts 430, you want EA-430, not EA-430D.

 

You can check here for a more comprehensive list: http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/psu_manufacturers

With Athlon 631 and HD7750 you will only need 300W or so, but more won't hurt. Everything made by Seasonic is pretty good, so if you find such a PSU for a good price, go for it. Delta and CWT may or may not be good, it depends. If you can't find a Seasonic-made unit, even low-end Antec branded units are usually good, but be sure to find and check a review first.

Edited February 3, 2012 by FMod

[Dan3345]

I am assuming you did not see my "AMD no longer making Desktop CPU's," thread. So because of that I am hugely recommending you buy Intel. Trust me, AMD is out.. It sucks but its true.

 

For video cards, I would stick with AMD though, I feel that ATI has higher quality hardware over Nvidia, although Nvidia has somewhat better drivers. Will you be gaming or just using the computer as a workstation?

 

And assuming your HDD and DD are 4 years old I would highly suggest replacing them, new ones are much more efficient and faster.

 

Are you really not going to be using a case? 0_0

[FMod]

I am assuming you did not see my "AMD no longer making Desktop CPU's," thread.

What does it matter? He's buying a CPU, not company stock. You don't need to buy a new CPU every year, they last pretty well.

 

The only Intel CPU priced similar to Athlon 631 are dual-core Pentiums, they don't even have 4 virtual cores like i3. If he shells out for i3, it's still only a push against Athlon 631, especially overclocked, but it will take money away from GPU budget, significantly degrading game performance as a result.

 

 

HDD: Missed the part about IDE onboard... anything IDE is usually really old. Unfortunately in this budget there is little choice, because new HDD are priced sky-high these days, even the cheapest ones. A single factory in Thailand made 70% of all HDD motors, and it got flooded.

 

With a bit more of a budget, I would suggest a small SSD instead. It's still an option however. Low-end SSD still make very fast OS drives, and they can cost less than a small HDD. You have to look for a deal though, then check if it's all right, because anything with older JMicron controllers is worse than most people can imagine.

[Septfox]

Thanks for the replies, I'll er, deal with'em in order.

 

It'll be mainly for gaming, with some 3ds Max thrown in and the usual Firefox with its flash container and whatnot.

I'm not all too concerned about a bit of performance difference in games, though, unless the difference is huge. Overall performance is more important; better to do equally well in everything than well in one thing and terribly everywhere else. Overclocking will help bridge the gap anyway, if I can be arsed.

 

I was actually under the impression that a fairly modern Ati GPU could already be had for around $100. But yes, I can wait. I should probably be a "responsible adult" and get all my other ducks in a row first anyway, before indulging myself with a new PC.

 

Now see, this is the kind of information I'm interested in: unlocking cores and cache. I'd have thought they would have learned by now and started physically cutting lines instead of "locking" things off (I understand that both GPU manufacturers did this for a while), but it's good to hear that they haven't. The AM2/3 in particular...seems I would have a tad bit of future-proofing. But then, lower power and resulting heat production would be nice as well, to keep the noise levels down...I'll have to look into'em both and see. I'd probably be inclined to try for the extra core and cache though, since I've read the cache in particular helps with performance.

 

Yes, yes, perhaps, nah, most probably. Onboard audio should be adequate until it burns itself up, unless it's noisy (stupid Biostar certainly was *grumbles*). I can't see more than 8gb being needed anytime soon, but then...2gb was a large amount when I built my last system. That didn't last all too long.

 

It was my understanding that stock heatsinks only got noisy if the CPU stayed hot, such as when it was overclocked or under a heavy load; otherwise, they were adequate for stock speeds. While I'm certainly planning on picking up something better at some point, I was pretty sure that most CPUs sold these days came with an adequate stock cooler, thus why I didn't even mention it.

 

One thing I did forget to mention is that I plan on getting a Crossfire setup going at some point, which is why I was considering that board (it happens to have support). So I'll need a bit of headroom as far as power goes, as well as a potentially pairable card. In hindsight, this definitely made my $100 limit unrealistic, hrrm.

 

 

I saw the AMD thread. I just don't care :v

Unless something has drastically changed in the last decade, CPUs aren't prone to the same manufacturer-dying problems like say...video cards are. They don't require support, or up-to-date drivers, or etc. Like FMod said: they last pretty well. Further, if I go with socket AM3, I'll have a good upgrade path for the next several years regardless, since an x4 of any flavor isn't anywhere near the highest-end offerings. In a year or two I can buy the best there is for what I'm spending now, and be happy as a clam.

 

I'm definitely leaning towards getting another Ati. My x1600 is dated, but still handles Oblivion and NV at high settings decently well (infact it's usually the CPU chugging that drags the framerate down); if the newest cards are as robust, I definitely want one.

 

My main hard drive is an old Hitachi Deskstar 180GXP. 76gigs formatted. Year of manufacture: 2004. Status: as healthy as the day I bought it. Freakin' love Hitachi drives, yo. Better'n those crappy WDs or those starts-going-bad-from-the-minute-it's-installed Seagates.

But yes, it's old, and yes, I need to replace it. But aside from being noisy it's a perfectly good hard drive, so it'll do until I can work up the cash to get a modern one. 'tis not a priority.

 

I have my old aluminum case laying around here somewhere...I'll probably cut away everything so as to leave the mounting plate for the motherboard and the backplate to bolt PCI/-e cards to. So yes, I won't be using a case in the traditional sense. Screw cases. Cases killed my family, so they must die >:\

Should be ok for heat management and working around in cases has always annoyed me

 

 

Yea, I'll probably get an SSD for the O/S at the same time as getting a big traditional one for everything else. I wonder if Hitachi makes SSDs. Ishouldlookintothat, never miss a chance to be a Hitachi fanboy, s'what I always say.

 

Edit: Seems I just found my perfect board. IDE, FDD, 8 SATA connections, 4 slots for RAM, a decent amount of expansion in the back, a decent layout, etc. A bit pricy, but it seems like a really nice board unless I'm missing something.

Edited February 3, 2012 by Septfox

[FMod]

I was actually under the impression that a fairly modern Ati GPU could already be had for around $100.

It can be modern, but it won't be fast enough for modern games, except at low settings.

 

 

But then, lower power and resulting heat production would be nice as well, to keep the noise levels down...I'll have to look into'em both and see. I'd probably be inclined to try for the extra core and cache though, since I've read the cache in particular helps with performance.

Keep in mind that Athlon II 631 already has all 4 cores unlocked. It generally performs better than older "regular" Athlon II X4 CPU in games, although a little short of Phenom II X4. So it's a very good deal at the moment.

 

 

It was my understanding that stock heatsinks only got noisy if the CPU stayed hot, such as when it was overclocked or under a heavy load; otherwise, they were adequate for stock speeds. While I'm certainly planning on picking up something better at some point, I was pretty sure that most CPUs sold these days came with an adequate stock cooler, thus why I didn't even mention it.

No, they're all trash. You can hear one from across the room, even at stock frequencies. Almost anything aftermarket is better, although it takes at least Hyper 212+ to get properly low noise.

 

 

One thing I did forget to mention is that I plan on getting a Crossfire setup going at some point, which is why I was considering that board (it happens to have support).

Don't bother. The only time Crossfire or SLI is a good idea is if there is no single GPU powerful enough for you. Today that means if $600 HD7970 O/C isn't enough.

 

Sometimes it can end up being cheaper to add a second identical GPU 1-2 years later, if you bought it used cheaply. But SLI and Crossfire setups are always more buggy and less smooth at equal fps than a single-GPU setup. For instance, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and New Vegas don't even support SLI or Crossfire.

 

Something like 99% of the time, if you aren't buying two GPU straight away, you won't buy a second GPU later. A Crossfire setup will always be more noisy, power-consuming, will have less usable VRAM and less features than a single new GPU for the same performance.

 

 

Further, if I go with socket AM3, I'll have a good upgrade path for the next several years regardless, since an x4 of any flavor isn't anywhere near the highest-end offerings. In a year or two I can buy the best there is for what I'm spending now, and be happy as a clam.

AM3+, not AM3, but there won't be any new CPU coming out for it. Bulldozer (FX) hasn't turned out to be any good, at least as far as games go. Phenom II X6 is currently the best CPU for AM3.

 

 

Yea, I'll probably get an SSD for the O/S at the same time as getting a big traditional one for everything else. I wonder if Hitachi makes SSDs. Ishouldlookintothat, never miss a chance to be a Hitachi fanboy, s'what I always say.

I don't think so, but even if they "make" SSD, these are just someone else's SSD with a Hitachi label glued over.

On a budget you should be looking towards older or lower-end OCZ such as Agility 2, Solid 3, maybe even Vertex Plus. Or really anything that you can find cheap. Intel and Crucial are always good. There is very little difference in actual PC performance between different SSD.

Edited February 4, 2012 by FMod

[Septfox]

The problem being that based on what I've found, the majority of 631's are Propus-based and physically lack L3 cache. Even if unlocking only has a 50/50 chance of succeeding, it seems to me that it'd still be worth trying for. But eh, you guys would know more about the benefits (or lack thereof) than I would.

Fake edit: looking more closely, I notice that each core has a full meg of L2 cache instead of 512kb as in the Phenoms. Additionally, googling a bit found me a benchmarking session between an Athlon II and Phenom II (underclocked to make them even) that shows a whopping...5.8% performance increase for the Phenom with its L3. Welp, looks as though I'm going with FM1 and an Athlon II if I can find an adequately-outfitted board.

 

Seems I'll be grabbing an aftermarket heatsink then. I'm not concerned with something mechanical making a little bit of noise, but being able to easily hear it across the room at idle would get annoying quickly.

 

Really. I was under the impression that Crossfire/SLI didn't need explicit support by the graphics engine, the frame splitting/alternating being handled by the drivers and GPU. Guess I need to educate myself a bit more (they didn't even exist BaCk In ThE dAy when AGP 8x was awsm, you understand) and bump having two well-spaced PCIe 16x slots on the board down lower on the priority list.

 

Yea, I meant AM3+. I'm aware that no new CPUs will be coming out for it, but I'm a bit disappointed to hear that Bulldozer didn't live up to its hype, since I figured that's where I'd end up by the end of the board's lifetime. S'pose that pretty much precludes the possibility of going with AM3+.

 

*shrugs* I don't really care about the manufacturer of the SSD, as long as it works properly, seeing as it'll be the system drive and as such not be being used quite so much. But, righto, I'll look around with the names you've given me to start with and see what I can find.

Neat to hear Crucial still makes decent memory/memory-based products. At least SOMETHING has stayed constant in all these years :\

[hoofhearted4]

Seems I'll be grabbing an aftermarket heatsink then. I'm not concerned with something mechanical making a little bit of noise, but being able to easily hear it across the room at idle would get annoying quickly.

 

this really is a huge exaggeration. i know plenty of people who use the stock heat sinks with no issues what so ever, my friend even OCs a little with his. and has had no noise issues or overheating or anything. Yes, if you plan on OCing, get a 3rd party heatsink, at the very least get some better Thermal Paste then whatever the stock thermal paste is (it can really make a huge difference in changing the paste alone)....getting something like the Hyper 212+ isnt a big deal. its extremely cheap and highly well rated and you wont be wasting your money. if you wanna consider getting a good thermal paste as well, i recommend the MX-4. some of the best stuff on the market. slightly expensive as far as TIMs go, but worth it. as i said, changing the paste alone can make a world of difference, even the stuff the Hyper 212+ comes with isnt all that amazing. (still better then stock though)........but yea, you dont HAVE to change the stock heatsink or paste. you will just get lower temps if you do. as for noise, well thats just based on heat. the cooler your CPU, the less your fans run, the quieter it is (hence, good thermal paste can really help here as well) but even then, ive heard stock heat sinks on max in my friend's rig and its no louder then your GPU would be....all opinion i guess...some ppl think a pin dropping is like a jet engine.

[Septfox]

Eh, worse case if the fan ends up being too loud, I'll just rip it off and rig this old squirrelcage blower that came with my Purepower onto it. The thing is quite quiet and moves a surprisingly large amount of air for its size. Getting the air to flow just right for efficient cooling would be a challenge, but challenges are fun.

 

Speaking of Purepower, I take it the only reason I'd not be able to use this PSU is because it lacks a modern CPU power connector and uses an older 20-pin main? It's capable of sustaining 480w (peaking at 550w), which forgive me if I'm mistaken should be enough juice for a 631 and HD 7750 with some headroom. Seems like a waste to buy a new one, rather than grab a couple adapters to modernize it.

 

As far as thermal paste, I have a tube of cheapy Antec "Formula 5" that seems to do an alright job, I'd probably just end up using it. Kickin' it oldschool with silver-based, like. The MX-4 stuff is only $10 on Amazon though (which is...what I remember paying for Arctic Silver back when it was the bomb-diggity), so in the end it'll depend on whether or not I'm feeling too lazy to fill out one last order form just for a few degrees difference.

 

 

I'm feeling a little sad right now...there is a single FM1 board that has IDE (and bonus, FDD)...and it's over $200, being a pr0 gaming board. No others do. At all. Nil.

My hopes of having legacy interfaces available on a whim, dashed. Sadness :\

[FMod]

Really. I was under the impression that Crossfire/SLI didn't need explicit support by the graphics engine, the frame splitting/alternating being handled by the drivers and GPU.

Some games will just not work with CF/SLI. You may be able to force it, but then it can go buggy, show the picture wrong, crash to desktop, or just deliver lower framerate with CF than with a single GPU. Oblivion exhibits the latter behavior I think.

So forget Crossfire unless you're doing it with two high-end GPU.

 

 

Speaking of Purepower, I take it the only reason I'd not be able to use this PSU is because it lacks a modern CPU power connector and uses an older 20-pin main? It's capable of sustaining 480w (peaking at 550w), which forgive me if I'm mistaken should be enough juice for a 631 and HD 7750 with some headroom. Seems like a waste to buy a new one, rather than grab a couple adapters to modernize it.

It's a Purepower? Some of them are OK. Some others aren't, about 5 years ago I'd even be able to tell you which exactly.

 

I guess you can still use it if you are taking apart your old PC. Although I'd rather try and sell the old PC as a whole and put the proceeds towards a new PSU. Not that there is a lot of buyers for something that old though, but then Pentium 4 isn't that old.

 

 

I'm feeling a little sad right now...there is a single FM1 board that has IDE (and bonus, FDD)...and it's over $200, being a pr0 gaming board. No others do. At all. Nil.

Yes, IDE's dead. Asrock Fatality are about the only modern mobos to have it.

But if all you have is an old 76GB drive... no big loss.

 

 

this really is a huge exaggeration. i know plenty of people who use the stock heat sinks with no issues what so ever, my friend even OCs a little with his.

Everyone has his own level of tolerance. A lot of people are used to computers being loud... or at least audible. By "can hear it across the room" I mean just that, can hear it, not that it would necessarily be loud.

 

Plus, with any Athlon, you definitely want to at least be able to overclock. They aren't so fast as to be enough for everything, and they have no restrictions on overclocking. Athlon 631 for FM1 even has an unlocked multiplier (not advertised), at least when one was last tested.

 

 

if you wanna consider getting a good thermal paste as well, i recommend the MX-4. some of the best stuff on the market.

MX-4 is a pain to apply. Not for a novice for sure. There's Zalman grease... STG-2 IIRC, it's only 4 degrees worse and very easily applied.

But you say you have some Arctic already, just use that, it's actually comparable to STG-2.