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    Can I have your Tots BODYCOUNT02's Avatar
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    Dumb Gaming rig from scratch help needed

    Ok so its been a while since i even took apart a tower , so any suggestions on how to get aquainted with putting together a rig would be much appreciated.
    Anyway, to the meat of this post. I want to build a tower completely from scratch, I have no old parts laying around. I have about a 1500$ budget to build a new rig from scratch. These are a few of the builds my friend helped me put together. Any new suggestions( missing anything) or modifications are extremely welcome. Also i was thinking about SLI but honestly I am not sure. Again thank you for helping me out

    http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mny8yc

    http://pcpartpicker.com/p/69tkRB

    Keep in mind that i have not build a pc in probably about 12 years.

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    Can I have your Tots BODYCOUNT02's Avatar
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    *EDIT* The motherboard price and the GPU are not showing up for some reason, so I am open to replacements. I do not want to spend more than 1500 but a little bit over is fine, a little under is preferred :D. Thanks guys

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    Can I have your Tots BODYCOUNT02's Avatar
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    last one i swear lol. this one is a bit pricey, im not sure what to reduce to get it to budget...

    http://pcpartpicker.com/p/74KcP6

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    Criminal Lawyer is a redundancy ModJPB's Avatar
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    Default Gaming rig from scratch help needed

    That last one is a much better build.

    Do you need to have wifi? It is a desktop so you wouldnt be moving it around, so why not just use an ethernet cable? Connecting by cable is better for gaming.

    The ssd drive you chose is an older model, did you look at the samsung 840 evo or 850 series. They should be around the same price as you chose. Also I would bump the ssd drive up to at least 256gb and get a smaller hdd if you dont need the backup storage memory. FYI ssd drives start to slow down after they reach half full (or half empty depending on how you look at it.) Get an ssd drive twice as big as you anticipate needing.

    If you really need to cut the budget... Get an i5 4670k, still overclockable and has 4 real physical cores. I havent used an optical drive in over two years do you really need it? You can install windows from a usb flash drive instead of optical. As mentioned before skip the wifi and use ethernet cable. last resort, the gtx 960 is still pretty fast.

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    Can I have your Tots BODYCOUNT02's Avatar
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    This is the one id really like but its extremely over budget
    http://pcpartpicker.com/p/gNFKbv

  6. #6
    Keep honking. I'm reloading Mokona512's Avatar
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    What other tasks besides gaming will you be doing? (will you be doing any server type workloads or doing some video editing, or creating and rendering 3D models?)

    If your focus will be primarily on gaming, then you can go for a build like this, and overclock the crap out of the CPU and GPU

    http://pcpartpicker.com/p/cRbT3C

    This build assumes that you already have a copy of windows 7, or 8

    Keep in mind that the parts list that you linked to, are missing prices for some components such as the videocard and motherboard.

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    Keep honking. I'm reloading Mokona512's Avatar
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    (annoying 5 minute edit limit)

    For a system build, you can cut costs by skipping the DVD drive, especially since the OS can be installed from a flash drive more quickly, and that will probably be the only time you ever use the DVD drive :)

    If you do not have an extra copy of windows either from a broken system, or if you are planning to replace your current system and sell off the parts, then you can add a copy, and then go with a lower cost mid sized ATX case with support for a 140mm fan in order to stay within your budget.

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    Boycott shampoo! Demand the REAL poo! Scipio's Avatar
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    I would preferably skip the OS, or if you must, get Windows 8. Like Mokona mentioned you should have extra copies of them somewhere, and Windows 8 is better than 7 because the upgrade to Windows 10 is free with 8, and 7 is set to be outdated within a couple of years.

    Wifi card is unnecessary, since you'd want a solid ethernet connection on most games.

    Will you really need a 2 TB HDD? This would all depend on the work you use the computer for, but as a gaming rig it's pretty much useless. I would buy a 1 TB or skip a HDD altogether and get a bigger SSD.

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    Keep honking. I'm reloading Mokona512's Avatar
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    While SSD's have gotten better, you often do not want your most important documents and other data on it (when they fail, they they often offer no warning. With a hard drive, they often show signs of failure before giving up, thus instead of having to fall back on your most recent backup, you may have enough time to manually back up everything before replacing the drive, thus nothing is lost.

    Many files do not benefit from an SSD, and thus keeping them on a secondary drive is useful. The second drive also acts as a local backup of your SSD, and allows you to reformat with no fear of lost data on the OS drive.

    There are also certain applications which are write intensive, but will not write at a high enough speed for a HDD to be a bottleneck. those applications are better off using a HDD, as you will put less wear on the SSD (which has a limited number of write cycles). Depending on what you do, you will want to avoid unnecessary writes, e.g., I do some video editing, image editing, and 3D modeling, and sometimes work with 4K assets. I put around 40-50TB of writes per year on my SSD)

    PS, an HDD is also great for a large steam library. some of the smaller or lower end games, do not really benefit from an SSD in a really noticeable manner, thus it is best to keep the bulk of the random games on the HDD.

    Other than that, if you have a pretty good robust external storage solution (or a high performance NAS, then you can get away with ditching the hard drives, and going with a single 512GB SSD)

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    Criminal Lawyer is a redundancy ModJPB's Avatar
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    Default Gaming rig from scratch help needed

    You can delete the intel ethernet card. The motherboard you chose has the same intel ethernet chip already built onto the motherboard.

    I would stay with the H80i or some other watercooling system. Not only does it cool better, it will be much quieter than an air cooler. After a week your ears will thank you.

    Do you have any hdd or dvd drive you can salvage from an old system to reuse.

  11. #11
    Can I have your Tots mach10's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AOD_Scipio View Post
    I would preferably skip the OS, or if you must, get Windows 8. Like Mokona mentioned you should have extra copies of them somewhere, and Windows 8 is better than 7 because the upgrade to Windows 10 is free with 8, and 7 is set to be outdated within a couple of years.
    Microsoft is offering upgrades for Windows 7 to Windows 10 as per last week or so. Either is a good choice.

    Also, DO NOT get the 970. The specs listed aren't what is being delivered. Either get the 980 or get AMD.
    http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/0...rd-ram-issues/

    I'd also look for a CPU/mobo combo deal for the ones you are looking for. Might be able to save a hundred or so.
    Last edited by mach10; 03-03-2015 at 10:23 PM.

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    Can I have your Tots mach10's Avatar
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    Last note, avoid Seagate consumer HDs. They are 2-3 times more likely to fail than the competition. As of the last testing round, Toshiba drives and Hitachi Deckstars were the best.

  13. #13
    Keep honking. I'm reloading Mokona512's Avatar
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    For the failure rates, it is hard to find conclusive info, while back blaze had some good info, that data was not completely reliable since the servers and workloads were different for many of the drives.

    as for the videocard, the GTX 970 is a 3.5GB card. (yes the last 512MB can be used, but it is not useful since that last 512MB runs at the same speed as the memory found in videocards from over 10 years ago. (so while it is faster than most current system RAM, it is still too slow by GPU standards)

    Even with that in consideration, from a GPU standpoint, it offers some of the best price to performance ratios available, and for gaming at 1080p to 1440p, it will be fine for current games. For current games and settings which force it to use 4GB of video memory, the settings are generally going to provide a poor gaming experience even with 4GB non cripples (e.g., using DSR, or forcing 16x AA)

    The main concern over the 3.5GB vs 4GB, is that if a developer decided to use use a current game engine and simply just increase the texture resolution, but leave the lighting and reflection resolution and other computationally intensive tasks the same, the GTX 970 can be around 15%+ or more slower than it otherwise would be if the memory was not crippled. (There are no games available that are doing this, so the only way to test it will be for you to do something like grab a copy of unreal engine 4, and start adding random high res textures. Due to how fast the memory normally is, it is not a bottleneck, and thus higher res textures have a only a very tiny impact on performance (provided you do not increase the bump mapping and the effects added onto deformed surfaces, and other things that require additional special calculations to be made. Once you use more memory than the card has and it begins using slower pools of RAM (e.g., that last 512MB, or system memory, that is when you get a very noticeable drop in performance.

    If needed, look through some of the benchmarks for each of the games https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/..._Gaming/6.html

    The R9 290x really excels at games like Assassin's Creed IV, since it is horrible inefficient, and the 290x has not been crippled

    The main area supporting the 970 in terms of price to performance, is the ability to overclock it. They can be overclocked very well, and the GPU boost stuff will always use the max clock at full load, regardless of the game since nothing pushes it over the normal TDP limit, and temperatures never get hot enough to impact it.

    Overclocking will only get better when people further reverse engineer the bios, and figure out how to force higher voltages.

    Ovrall, for current gaming, the GTX 970 can offer a better price to performance ratio, provided that memory limit is not forced.

    If you do not mind a little more noise, and what to not risk potential issues with some future games ;if the developers decide that the new norm is 4GB VRAM, and keep the computational stuff the same, but up the texture resolution, then a card like the R9 290x will be less likely to have an issue with such a game. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-548-_-Product $330

    PS if there is any game that the R9 290x cannot handle, then the GTX 970 will not have any hope of handling it either. The performance of the 290x, GTX 970,and GTX 980 are close enough to pretty much be within the same performance bracket of 60FPS 1440p gaming

    4K is not really viable for demanding games on any of these cards without 2-3 way SLI or crossfire.
    Last edited by Mokona512; 03-04-2015 at 04:54 PM.

  14. #14
    Criminal Lawyer is a redundancy ModJPB's Avatar
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    Wow that is some hatred for Nvidia. Despite the crippling of the card, the GTX 970 is still faster and cheaper than what AMD has to offer. For the PRICE the GTX970 is still a winner. Unless you are playing on multiple monitors, at 4k resolution and running modded add-on texture packs then I doubt that 4GB vs 3.5GB will ever be noticed for a couple of years from now. Heck are there any games that even use up the 2GB of most the GPUs installed in systems now? As mentioned in reviews the only people that notice the difference are programmers and editors, who generally work with raw data.

    Yes, what nvidia did, not being truthful with the specifications, is definitely a concern, but they did adjust the price appropriately and it is the best performer for that price.

    Now I will play the Devil's advocate. The only concern I have with the GTX970 is the TDP limit reduces its overclockability. It does not overclock well at all!!! If you want to overclock, then I would suggest getting a card that is not a reference design and has adjustable TDP and voltage. If you can't find one and still want to overclock then maybe look at AMD and see if when overclocked that it surpasses the GTX970 performance.

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    Can I have your Tots BODYCOUNT02's Avatar
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    hmmm, any suggestions? I am not too savy when it comes to video cards, so I am kinda relying on second opinions a lot at this point.

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    Can I have your Tots BODYCOUNT02's Avatar
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    http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qTRqXL

    I believe this is the one i will stick with, despite some of the negativity of the 970. Any suggestions or modifications?
    Its slightly over budget and i haven't even accounted for shipping ( time is not really an issue, so i will opt for the cheapest possible) or sales tax. Hopefully it won't go over 1750 total price.

  17. #17
    Keep honking. I'm reloading Mokona512's Avatar
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    That build will also work well, but why are you going with 4x 4GB memory instead of 2 8GB.

    Same price but better performing memory, and leave extra slots for you to add even more memory.
    http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair...6gx3m2a1866c9r

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    Keep honking. I'm reloading Mokona512's Avatar
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    annoying 5 minute limit

    Do you need that monitor, (I recommend skipping it, it only has a static contrast ratio of 600:1 which is really poor and no color calibration tool will be able to work with it, as it will be unable to complete the test charts.

    Dynamic contrast is based on overall luminance and it not quick to respond, thus pretty much everyone disables it.

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    Can I have your Tots BODYCOUNT02's Avatar
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    I need a monitor unfortunately since I don't have one laying around . Any suggestions as to what I should get around the same price or lower? Also in regards to the ram I heard it can boost performance if I split it 4 ways instead of 2 8gigs.

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    ~HaKuNa MaTaTa~ AOD Member AOD_Sworn Assassin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AOD_BODYCOUNT02 View Post
    I need a monitor unfortunately since I don't have one laying around . Any suggestions as to what I should get around the same price or lower? Also in regards to the ram I heard it can boost performance if I split it 4 ways instead of 2 8gigs.
    I run a macbook pro connected with a minidisplay port to hdmi cable to my 52" flatscreen.. so if u have a TV u may only just need a cord :)
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