Help building a PC

[Lemod]

Hey

So I want to start buying parts to build my own PC and any help or advice would be apperciated. I guess I'll try and use Bolkonsky layout:

Why are you upgrading?
project out of personal interest, gaming rig
Where does your old one fail?
older, small hdd, struggles to play shogun 2

What is your budget?
$1200ish USD

Where do you live?
US, IL

Can you build this computer yourself, or do you need to buy prebuilt?
I will build it myself.

What are you current system specs?
CPU 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8400
Graphics Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS
Motherboard Mobile Intel PM45 Express Chipset
Memory 4GB, 1066MHz DDR2
HDD 320GB 7,200rpm
OS Vista


What screen resolution will you be using?
1440 x 900

What websites/stores can you purchase parts from?
Newegg and amazon and anywhere else you can suggest

Do you need to purchase peripherals?
no

When do you plan to buy this computer/parts?
Now and whenever I am willing to just sit around waiting and hunting for the best price.

I don't have very much experience so I won't be overclocking or anything.
but I have always wanted to tryout this crossfire or SLI setup I always hear about

[Bolkonsky]

OK so what I'd recommend for this, after talking it over with Crazyeyes:

CPU - Intel 3570k $230
MOBO - GIGABYTE GA-Z77X $149.99
RAM - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB $44.99
HD - SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM $69.99
GPU - Galaxy 66NPH7DV6VXZ GeForce GTX 660 Ti $309 (+ Free Borderlands 2)
Case = COOLER MASTER HAF 912 $59.99
PSU - Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W $69.99
Disc Drive SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner $16.99
Cooler - Thermaltake WATER2.0 Performer $62.99

+ $100 for an operating system. That's $1129 and leaves some room for a decent 1080p monitor. At 1080p, you're looking at 60fps with Battlefield 3 on highest, The Witcher 2 on highest without UberSampling, and just about any other game maxed out. Overclock that 3570k and you'll get some really good framerates with Shogun 2. You have a nice two fan open top cooler on the 660 as well, so you can overclock that too.

You're looking at these kind of frame-rates, stock, at 1080p, with the 660ti:




We got a color scheme for you and everything, in there.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

now i will improve upon that with combo deals like a boss.

Motherboard + Operating System saves $15 drops cost down to $1115
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1032382

CPU + GPU saves $20 brings us down to $1095
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1050224

CASE + DVD BURNER $9 saved brings us down to $1086
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1024948

1920x1080 Monitor to get the most out of Said GPU $129
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824009365

$1086 + $129

Total Cost $1215

[Lemod]

nice i like the sound of that build. especially with that CPU+GPU deal, thanks!

but im thinking instead of getting a nice monitor maybe should get a bigger HDD? or PSU? I do eventually want to try and put an extra card. would that 620W antec be enough?

[Crazyeyesreaper]

no point in SLI at this time, 660 will be replaced next year at which point 1 single card at the high end will equal what you have also if your not an experienced user willing to trouble shoot multi gpu CAN be a pain in the ass, granted ive had no issues but others have endless issues. or weird glitches.

besides 2 gpus on your tiny resolution would be a worthless investment 1920x1080 or higher for multi GPU, even then scaling doesnt really make the second GPU worth while untill hitting 2560x1440

aka 1080p tends to be around 50-70% scaling some games hit 80-90% 2560 x 1440 or higher scaling tends to be 70-90% aka your getting more from that second GPU.

Theirs also the fact that most people thinking they will get another GPU down the road seldom ever do,

Unless you download alot of stuff or have 100+ steam games you wont fill a 1TB that fast, next upgrade for your rig would be a 60 GB SSD minimum aka use it as a cache drive to speed up the HDD< or 120gb minimum for OS install then run all apps off the HDD.

For SLI and Overclocking you would need a good 800w PSU, most ppl may consider that over kill then again i killed an HX 850 with a system that should have only been drawing 600w simply because i had alot of HDDs.

Its about balance.

the setup above is well balanced it has a screen that matches your GPUs capabilities nothing really bottlenecks except the HDD. and considering new GPU releases come out every year, multi gpu makes less sense now than it use to. as of right now its expected that the unreleased GK110 which has been used in NVIDIA's TESLA GPUs aka super computing is about the same performance as 2x GTX 660 Tis but slightly slower thatn 2x 680s,

its a long story but take my word for it if non of the above is really making sense stick with what we out lined.

besides even if we remove the monitor change the PSU, you end up around the same price you are now but bottlenecked with the low res monitor, so if you buy a second GPU you will see need a better monitor to truly see any performance scaling benefits.

[Totalheadache]

yeah +1 for what crazy said. i'd go with something like a 670 for the higher end resolutions 1920x1080.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

660 Ti is about 10% behind the 670 and its $100 cheaper, overclocking takes it close to 680 and thus the MSI selection

heres even used your favorite site instead of mine lol
http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-ge...n-oc-review/11

with an overclock the 660 Ti managed to go toe to toe with a stock 680 in Crysis 2 and 3DMark 11,

as verification
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/M...Edition/1.html

Stock MSI Power Edition before manual overclock vs GTX 670


Techpowerup! overclock results far lower than Guru 3D but regardless card goes toe to toe with the 7970 GHz edition in BF3

[Totalheadache]

well 660 ti seems like a no-brainer then...

i wonder for my next gpu it will be worth waiting for say the equivalent to the 660ti re 780 or what it will be called.

660ti does pretty well at the res I use 1920x1200 but not quite good enough yet to merit me changing the 580.

(i'll be looking for at least a 30fps jump).

[Crazyeyesreaper]

well rumors are flying now

http://legitreviews.com/news/14009/

15 SMX units vs the 8 SMX units in GK 104

this would put the 780 about 10-15% slower than 2x 680s lol if rumors are true, no ones taking much stock in them right now we know GK110 exists we know its a beast, but what we dont know is if NVIDIA will release it or not,

AMD and NVIDIA specifically splan their releases 6 months apart in order to give each other room aka no monopoly if each company is on top at certain points in the year but i digress its still gonna be a friggin beast if it does come out.

but yea 1336 cuda cores in the 670 and 660 Ti x2 = 2672 Cuda cores
GTX 780 = 28 nm and 2880 Cuda cores supposedly
GTX 680 sli = 1536 x2 = 3072 Cuda cores now by extrapolating data we can surmise depending on clock speed it should be roughly on par with 2x 660Ti or 2x 670's in SLI which is a HUGE jump.

but again its rumors and well even if it does come out gonna cost a kidney and a lung to own it. lol