So the laptop I've been using for the past seven or so years finally died. Decided that I want to get a desktop to replace it since I never really took it anywhere. I'm intending to use it for gaming as well as graphic design and 3D modeling/rendering applications. I know I'm going to need a 'good' graphics card and a fair amount of RAM, and I'm also looking for a 1TB HDD and small SSD, but I was hoping you guys could make some more specific suggestions. Links to specific machines are definitely appreciated.
I was looking at the models that Xotic PC sells, since I had originally planned on buying a new laptop from them and like the customization they offer. Having a lot of trouble understanding the operational differences between their models and if I should even be buying from them at all. I'm really only interested in getting something prebuilt or that I can configure online and have assembled for me though.
In terms of price, I'd like to stay under $1500. Ideally closer to $1000 since I don't already have a monitor, mouse, or keyboard.
Thanks in advance, and sorry for such a general and uneducated question.
Have you considered building a PC?
I have, but I know almost nothing about computer hardware. Having a hell of a time just trying to figure out what I should be buying. I realize that building my own would likely be cheaper and the knowledge I'd gain would save me money on future machines, but I really don't want to deal with it at this point.
[QUOTE=4444;40353217]I have, but I know almost nothing about computer hardware. Having a hell of a time just trying to figure out what I should be buying. I realize that building my own would likely be cheaper and the knowledge I'd gain would save me money on future machines, but I really don't want to deal with it at this point.[/QUOTE]
Then I think you may have come to the wrong place. In all honesty, people here are going to INSIST that you build it yourself.
Anyways, where are you located?
Also, [url]http://facepunch.com/forums/243[/url]
Yeah, I was sort of expecting that. Hoped I'd have a bit better luck here than the PC Building section though.
Midwestern US.
Check if there are some small tech shops, that sell self built PC's.
In my location, there are quite a few Sellers, that build PC's at a much better price than big companies.
Some even let you choose the parts, and assemble it for you.
I actually took my dead laptop in to one and ended up talking to them about buying a desktop. They gave me a parts list and a price, but I ended up ignoring it since another of their employees had just got done telling about me how great of a brand Acer is.
I guess I could post that here though and someone could tell me if it's good or not. Dunno why I didn't do that to begin with.
[table="width: 450, class: grid, align: left"]
[tr]
[td]ATX PE689 Case Black[/td]
[td]$69.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Cougar 750 Watt ATX PSU[/td]
[td]$99.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Intel DH77KC Motherboard[/td]
[td]$119.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Intel i5 3470 Quad Core[/td]
[td]$219.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]SG 4GB DDR3 1600Mhz [I]x2[/I][/td]
[td]$78.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Plextor 128GB M5S SSD[/td]
[td]$119.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1TB Western Digital HD Blue[/td]
[td]$89.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]LITE-ON 24X SATA DVDRW[/td]
[td]$25.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]EVGA GEFORCE GTX650 PCIE 1GB[/td]
[td]$139.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Windows 7 Home Premium[/td]
[td]$109.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Labor[/td]
[td]$90.00[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
1,229.55 total with tax.
Are these acceptable parts and prices? Are there any obvious issues? Looking at it now I'd be tempted to double the RAM, downgrade the SSD's size, and swap the 650 for a 660.
Not real sure on what I'd do with the SSD. The guy who made the list said I should have one. Would putting Windows on it impact anything other than startup time?
Thanks for the advice.
Alternatively you could ditch the SSD, then put that money towards a better GPU
Boot times aren't really that important, and if you get a 32gb SSD you aren't gonna get anything else on it
You want a 60GB SSD really, 32GB won't fit enough to be useful.
The other thing is, if you downgrade to the weaker AMD CPU instead of upgrading the GPU, you're gonna get a fucker of a bottleneck when you try to upgrade later on
Also
[QUOTE=4444;40353034]graphic design and 3D modeling/rendering applications.[/QUOTE]
That's the sort of thing you don't want to cheap out on the CPU with
[QUOTE=4444;40353955]I actually took my dead laptop in to one and ended up talking to them about buying a desktop. They gave me a parts list and a price, but I ended up ignoring it since another of their employees had just got done telling about me how great of a brand Acer is.
I guess I could post that here though and someone could tell me if it's good or not. Dunno why I didn't do that to begin with.
[table="width: 450, class: grid, align: left"]
[tr]
[td]ATX PE689 Case Black[/td]
[td]$69.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Cougar 750 Watt ATX PSU[/td]
[td]$99.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Intel DH77KC Motherboard[/td]
[td]$119.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Intel i5 3470 Quad Core[/td]
[td]$219.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]SG 4GB DDR3 1600Mhz [I]x2[/I][/td]
[td]$78.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Plextor 128GB M5S SSD[/td]
[td]$119.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1TB Western Digital HD Blue[/td]
[td]$89.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]LITE-ON 24X SATA DVDRW[/td]
[td]$25.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]EVGA GEFORCE GTX650 PCIE 1GB[/td]
[td]$139.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Windows 7 Home Premium[/td]
[td]$109.00[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Labor[/td]
[td]$90.00[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]
1,229.55 total with tax.
Are these acceptable parts and prices? Are there any obvious issues? Looking at it now I'd be tempted to double the RAM, downgrade the SSD's size, and swap the 650 for a 660.[/QUOTE]
This build is pretty unbalanced - you should ask them for a lower wattage PSU; try getting a Seasonic X-650 (The new KM3 version if you can, not the old KM one. It'll be on the packaging [url=]here[/url]) if you can. Otherwise, just ask for a PSU with 4 PCI-E x6 power connectors, and have it be from one of these companies: Corsair, XFX, Seasonic, Enermax, PC Power and Cooling, OCZ or Cougar. If they don't have anything other than the Cougar they suggested in this league, just get that one. Ask for a motherboard with two PCI-E slots, the one they suggested only has one, and the 750W would be wasted on it completely.
Now comes the most important part - you'll want at least a GTX 660 Ti at this budget, and GTX 650 is simply too slow. You should get one of these card really:
AMD: 7870, 7870XT, 7950, 7950, 7970
Nvidia: GTX 660 Ti, GTX 670, GTX 680
If he tries to sell you a card that is not there, chances are it'll be a shitty one. I'd try to a get Samsung Series 840 SSD, if they have those - they have great read speeds, though the write suffers compared to the "Pro" model. Also, I'd try to get a different case than that one, but it won't be all that important for the performance of your computer.
The SSD seems like it's going to be the thing to go in favor of a better graphics card. I tend to leave my computer on a lot and use hibernate instead of a full shutdown when I do turn it off. (This is probably bad or something, idk.) And for game load times, my old laptop was a stock Inspiron 1520, so I'm sure this will be much faster even using a normal HDD.
In terms of the CPU, will I be unable to utilize the i5 3470 to its full extent due to the other hardware, or was Winner just speculating that I wouldn't actually need it?
[editline]20th April 2013[/editline]
GoDong, am I going to need to change the motherboard even if I get a different PSU? You said that it would be unable to take advantage of the Cougar, but is that also an issue with the other PSUs you recommended?
[QUOTE=4444;40354299]
In terms of the CPU, will I be unable to utilize the i5 3470 to its full extent due to the other hardware, or was Winner just speculating that I wouldn't actually need it?[/QUOTE]
From a friend who does lots of work with Adobe stuff, Premiere and Photoshop will eat anything you throw at it. It rapes his 3570k
The CPU would only get bottlenecked in games, but most design stuff is completely CPU driven unless you have a stupidly expensive workstation GPU
[editline]20th April 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=4444;40354299]
GoDong, am I going to need to change the motherboard even if I get a different PSU? You said that it would be unable to take advantage of the Cougar, but is that also an issue with the other PSUs you recommended?[/QUOTE]
It's not that the Mobo doesn't support the PSU, it's that it only has one PCI-E slot, meaning you can't SLI / Crossfire if you ever wanted to.
[QUOTE=kaze4159;40354331]From a friend who does lots of work with Adobe stuff, Premiere and Photoshop will eat anything you throw at it. It rapes his 3570k
The CPU would only get bottlenecked in games, but most design stuff is completely CPU driven unless you have a stupidly expensive workstation GPU
[editline]20th April 2013[/editline]
It's not that the Mobo doesn't support the PSU, it's that it only has one PCI-E slot, meaning you can't SLI / Crossfire if you ever wanted to.[/QUOTE]
I have a 2500k, I use Premiere, After Effects & Photoshop. Except that my ram gets eaten with video editing, it runs perfectly. I also play stuff like Planetside 2 and such maxed...
It should be fine shouldn't it?
[QUOTE=Killervalon;40354355]I have a 2500k, I use Premiere, After Effects & Photoshop. Except that my ram gets eaten with video editing, it runs perfectly. I also play stuff like Planetside 2 and such maxed...
It should be fine shouldn't it?[/QUOTE]
Not raped as in it can't run, raped as in it instantly grabs as much as it can without crippling your system. i5's are great for editing
If you have it, Premiere will use it :v:
[QUOTE=kaze4159;40354331]It's not that the Mobo doesn't support the PSU, it's that it only has one PCI-E slot, meaning you can't SLI / Crossfire if you ever wanted to.[/QUOTE]Assuming that I got one of the PSUs that GoDong mentioned, am I still going to need to get a different motherboard, or is that only if they only have the 750W Cougar available?
[editline]20th April 2013[/editline]
I realize this is essentially the same question that I asked in my last post, but I still don't quite understand.
[QUOTE=4444;40354299]The SSD seems like it's going to be the thing to go in favor of a better graphics card. I tend to leave my computer on a lot and use hibernate instead of a full shutdown when I do turn it off. (This is probably bad or something, idk.) And for game load times, my old laptop was a stock Inspiron 1520, so I'm sure this will be much faster even using a normal HDD.
In terms of the CPU, will I be unable to utilize the i5 3470 to its full extent due to the other hardware, or was Winner just speculating that I wouldn't actually need it?
[editline]20th April 2013[/editline]
GoDong, am I going to need to change the motherboard even if I get a different PSU? You said that it would be unable to take advantage of the Cougar, but is that also an issue with the other PSUs you recommended?[/QUOTE]
If you only get a motherboard with one PCI-E slot, you might as well get a cheap 450W power supply with two PCI-E 6/8 pin connectors, instead of an expensive 750W PSU. You simply wouldn't be able to utilize that kind of power. You could go for a 500W PSU, and then get something like a GTX 670 - CF/SLI is not a perfect solution just yet, so a single PCI-E slot isn't [I]necessarily[/I] a problem, it just limits you upgrade path. Even then, the motherboard they advised you to get is way too expensive for what it is: ask them for the cheapest B75 or Z77 motherboard (as long as it isn't Biostar or Foxconn, pretty much), and you should be fine with that if you aren't going to overclock.
Awesome, thanks. Pretty sure I get it now. Or at least until someone else posts and I get confused again. :v:
[QUOTE=4444;40354523]Awesome, thanks. Pretty sure I get it now. Or at least until someone else posts and I get confused again. :v:[/QUOTE]
Just remember to get the warp-drive with x78b9 chipset, otherwise you might get trouble with the reflux-combinator on the northwest bridge chip - mainly leading to artificial RAM corruption, GPU recalibration issues and CPU PANKeake misogony. Just make sure your HDD supports the GLIp-5 protocol - if it doesn't you should definitely get the x78b9-y chipset for added expansion-capabilities.
Why not just get the I5 as stated, high ram say 16gb 1600,a semi decent card, SSD etc. But save on the case and get a better monitor.
[QUOTE=Winner;40354159]Do you know how nice it is to have your computer boot up in 20 seconds
Well worth a 32GB SSD[/QUOTE]
My pc boots in 26 seconds (just timed it for you) with a 7200 rpm hdd. Welcome to windows 8
See if you can just take the parts to them and let them build it.
I haven't picked out a build in forever, but it's a helluva lot better for only a bit more:
[img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/1L5LnkC.png[/img_thumb]
[editline]22nd April 2013[/editline]
You also save $45 in MIR.
[QUOTE=altern;40372135]My pc boots in 26 seconds (just timed it for you) with a 7200 rpm hdd. Welcome to windows 8[/QUOTE]
Woah is me with 44 second boot time off a 7200RPM HDD in Windows 7. SSDs are nice for high bandwidth things like screen capture, that's why I plan to get one frankly. Also prices are getting low enough.
[QUOTE=4RT1LL3RY;40375807]Woah is me with 44 second boot time off a 7200RPM HDD in Windows 7. SSDs are nice for high bandwidth things like screen capture, that's why I plan to get one frankly. Also prices are getting low enough.[/QUOTE]
"Woe"?
And really, POST times are the biggest insult to boot time - my desktop uses an SSD, and the Windows 8 boot-up is incredibly fast, but because of the POST time my 3-year old laptop with a 5400RPM HDD is just as fast. Still, ~18s is plenty fast, but it's just ludicrous that POST time takes longer than the OS loading itself.
[QUOTE=4444;40354523]Awesome, thanks. Pretty sure I get it now. Or at least until someone else posts and I get confused again. :v:[/QUOTE]
Don't get a no-name brand PSU btw - keep it corsair or seasonic, I agree you'd be perfectly fine with a 500W in any kind of single GPU configuration though.
[editline]22nd April 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;40375850]"Woe"?
And really, POST times are the biggest insult to boot time - my desktop uses an SSD, and the Windows 8 boot-up is incredibly fast, but because of the POST time my 3-year old laptop with a 5400RPM HDD is just as fast. Still, ~18s is plenty fast, but it's just ludicrous that POST time takes longer than the OS loading itself.[/QUOTE]
My mobo has a prompt to enter the RAID controller config for about 5 seconds which is the single longest part of my bootup time, it's a bit annoying haha
[editline]22nd April 2013[/editline]
I'd say get a 128GB SSD, just because you won't be worrying about space as you might be if you just installed your most used programs on a 60/32GB one. And you've got room for a game or two as well.
[editline]22nd April 2013[/editline]
Don't buy an OCZ ssd though - i've got one and it's not the best one I could've got
[QUOTE=waxrock;40375356]See if you can just take the parts to them and let them build it.
I haven't picked out a build in forever, but it's a helluva lot better for only a bit more:
[url]http://i.imgur.com/1L5LnkC.png[/url]
[editline]22nd April 2013[/editline]
You also save $45 in MIR.[/QUOTE]Hadn't thought of it before, but I'll definitely see if they'll let me buy my own parts. Really appreciate the list as well.
[QUOTE=Generic.Monk;40375862]Don't get a no-name brand PSU btw - keep it corsair or seasonic, I agree you'd be perfectly fine with a 500W in any kind of single GPU configuration though.
[editline]22nd April 2013[/editline]
My mobo has a prompt to enter the RAID controller config for about 5 seconds which is the single longest part of my bootup time, it's a bit annoying haha
[editline]22nd April 2013[/editline]
I'd say get a 128GB SSD, just because you won't be worrying about space as you might be if you just installed your most used programs on a 60/32GB one. And you've got room for a game or two as well.
[editline]22nd April 2013[/editline]
Don't buy an OCZ ssd though - i've got one and it's not the best one I could've got[/QUOTE]
I've got an Agility 3 64GB and really, it was a okay deal at the time. Right now I'd probably go for the Samsung 840 (Pro) - if you don't do much writing, the read times on the non-pro are just great as well.
You'll probably find they won't like you buying parts elsewhere.
Plus the fact that if you take the hour or so to put it together yourself you'll know the machine back to front and if an issue occurs you may already have some valuable information/experience.
[QUOTE=Generic.Monk;40375862]Don't get a no-name brand PSU btw - keep it corsair or seasonic, I agree you'd be perfectly fine with a 500W in any kind of single GPU configuration though.
[editline]22nd April 2013[/editline]
My mobo has a prompt to enter the RAID controller config for about 5 seconds which is the single longest part of my bootup time, it's a bit annoying haha
[editline]22nd April 2013[/editline]
I'd say get a 128GB SSD, just because you won't be worrying about space as you might be if you just installed your most used programs on a 60/32GB one. And you've got room for a game or two as well.
[editline]22nd April 2013[/editline]
Don't buy an OCZ ssd though - i've got one and it's not the best one I could've got[/QUOTE]
only disagreeing with "keep it corsair or seasonic"
Silverstone, Enermax, OCZ/PC Power and Cooling, Rosewill, some FSP, some Thermaltake, Antec, some Cougar, EVGA, Fractal Design, and NZXT. That's just off the top of my head. Most of these will have higher quality units or a better value.
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