Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Caleb]

(Sorry I couldn't find the old thread, I know there was already one about this)

So my 2005 workhorse computer is on it's way out. There are multiple things that are going wrong with it.

So I am considering buying parts and making my own but I have some issues.

If anyone wants to read this thread and maybe give me some advice that would be great..

Anyways I have been looking on Newegg for combo deals.

It seems like this would be a good starting place.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.755219

But it doesn't come with a Graphics card. If anyone could suggest a good one to go along with that setup that would be great.


-Caleb.

[Caleb]

Also I just learned about OEM versions of Windows.  So for an extra 99 bucks I can add that to any computer I am building.

So maybe if someone could suggest a less expensive graphics card with a ton of power?

[bicostp]

2005? Multiple things wrong with it? How many capacitors on the motherboard look like this?

Prerequisite questions:

- Are you planning on reusing any parts from your existing computer (optical drives, case, etc)? If you plan on reusing the case, is it ATX or MicroATX?
- What's your budget?

I recommend an i5 2500 over the Phenom II X6. Despite it having two fewer cores, it benchmarks a good deal higher (in everything except highly threaded rendering and scientific applications) and only costs $20 more.

You can build a machine with an i5 2500k, Z68 motherboard, 8 gigs of RAM, a 1 gig Radeon HD 6870, a pair of 500 gig Caviar Black drives for a RAID 1 boot volume, and Windows 7 Home Premium for about 900 bucks. You'll get the best price/performance result Intel currently has to offer, overclocking, the ability to switch between the video card and onboard graphics (more power savings, less heat, and you can use Quick Sync for video encoding), and you'll still have 2 empty RAM slots and the ability to eventually drop in a second 6870 for Crossfire as an upgrade.

If you don't need that much, swapping the above parts for an i5 2400, H67 motherboard, 8 gigs of more appropriate RAM, and Radeon HD 6770 gets you down to under $750. You don't get the ability to overclock or use dual video cards, but you still get a really stout processor (which still beats that Phenom by a good margin except for POV-Ray and heavily threaded scientific software, this time for practically the same price) and plenty of memory.

In both theoretical builds, the two hard drives are $50 apiece, and I'm figuring in $50 for a decent case. You can easily save some money if you have a case to reuse, and you could always go with one hard drive. (Personally I like the safety of a mirrored boot volume, and Western Digital gives you a 5 year warranty with the Black line.)

If you or someone you know is in college, you can knock that Windows license cost down a bit, too.

[Caleb]

My budget is around $900 dollars.

I don't really want to reuse anything from my current stuff because it's so old.  I mean the case seems nice but honestly I don't think it's very good for ventilation.  I don't know about any of the specific dimensions or anything.



I suppose I could reuse my DVD drive but it's such a low cost thing.

The other issue that what happens if I run into a problem.  Then I am without a computer to ask someone for help!

I love AMD processors so much.  I will probably be doing some light video editing on my new rig.  But if you think the i5 2500 is better then I will look into it.

"a pair of 500 gig Caviar Black drives for a RAID 1 boot volume"  I have no clue what this means.

[Caleb]

And by the way I edited my initial post way down since it seemed like nobody was responding to it.

So to be clear. I have no fucking clue what I am doing.  I have never put a computer together from parts before.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115073

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138320

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145345

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150521

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171037

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986

I guess I can reuse my DVD drive since I bought it new a year ago.

Newegg is sold out of the 500 gig Caviar Black Hard Drives.

I still don't know what a RAID 1 boot drive is and I actually made an effort to google it.

[Torlek]

Good choice on the processor. I can't say enough good things about the i5-2500K I got in March and I had been a dyed in the wool AMD guy for over a decade.

Looks like a good mobo. I haven't messed with the Z68 chipset but the P67 chipset, which the Z68 should be an evolution of, on my AsRock mobo has been solid and good for a little overclocking work.

It's hard to go wrong with Corsair memory but if you're willing to spring a little more cash those memory timings would get better though I'm still not entirely sure you can really see the effects of faster timings.

Can't advise you on the graphics card, I've boycotted ATI since the time I had a Radeon 9800 Pro and the Catalyst drivers tried to update but somehow corrupted my Windows install. However general rule of thumb is that you get what you pay for.

700W should be sufficient on your power supply and Bronze certification will help a little bit with your energy bill. You will THANK yourself for the modular cables, they're worth the extra cost. Mind you, this beast's going to need a very large UPS if you want battery backup.

On your Windows, I personally prefer Professional but really Windows 7 is probably the best operating system Microsoft's made yet no matter which version you get. I haven't had it blue screen once in 7 months.

You should have about $120 or so left on your $900 budget after this one, plenty enough for a good hard drive or two. What bicostp means by a RAID 1 boot drive is that you've configured two physical hard drives into a RAID 1 array (RAID is a protocol for spreading data across multiple physical drives as one logical drive to get more space and/or data redundancy. In RAID 1 you get redundancy since one drive functions as a constantly updated backup to the first one. A waste of a physical drive but hard drives are stupid cheap and that way you get a constant backup and your HDD isn't a single point of failure anymore.) The boot drive is where your Windows lives and any other logical hard drives become data drives as only data lives there.

Might want to upgrade your budget by $50 or so and splurge on a tower with good ventilation and tool-less drive and card fittings. But good airflow is the only hard requirement for a case.

If you've never built one before remember to READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. Most manufacturers have good installation guides in their manuals now. Also, unless you're getting an aftermarket cpu cooler you won't need to buy heat transfer paste. Intel processors come with cooling fans with paste already applied to the bottom of the heatsink and it works quite well for stock. Getting the front panel (power button, power light, etc) plugged into the mobo can be tricky if your case doesn't have labeled plugs but it isn't that bad. When you actually get around to building remember to ground yourself. Don't shuffle around on the carpet in your socks and if you don't have a grounding strap at least grab the frame of the case, bare metal, when you reach in there and mess with the sensitive electronics. Also when you build, completely clear out the case first, and vacuum it out if reusing. A good order to install things is:
1.) power supply
2.) mobo (and connect front panel)
3.) cpu
4.) ram
5.) expansion cards (video, sound, etc)
6.) drives
7.) cables

Software installation is pretty much foolproof these days and you shouldn't have to mess with any BIOS settings beyond setting date and time unless you go for that RAID setup.
All in all, looks like a good build with plenty of room for upgrades to keep the rig up to speed for the next five years or so (generally, new video card and more RAM every 2-3 years, rebuild every 5-6). You'll be able to run any game that dare rear it's head for the next year or two at at least high settings and almost anything pre-2010 you'll be able to run at max settings.

[Caleb]

*Edit I missed the stickied thread about this stuff.*  Moving my reply there.

OK well if I understand the RAID thing correctly I could spring for 2 1 TB hard drives and attempt to set them up like that.

But it seems like the way you describe it's only about making sure you don't lose your data and not improving performance at all.

Since I already use a portable 1 TB harddrive to backup my stuff I don't see why I would bother.

I mean Hard Drive failure isn't something I would really worry about and if it did happen it would just destroy the drive and my data.  I would be able to get a new harddrive and reinstall My OEM copy of windows.

If there is any kind of performance increase then I would definitely try this out.  But if it's just going to protect my data I really don't care since I am not going to be dealing with anything of any importance on my home computer.  Just entertainment stuff.


OK so it looks like the next step is going to be choosing a well ventilated case for all this stuff.

[bicostp]

That setup looks pretty good! However I recommend getting the i5 2500k instead of the regular 2500 if you're going for that motherboard. For the extra $10 you get the option to overclock the processor, which is much easier than it used to be back in the Pentium 4 / Athlon 64 days.

You don't necessarily have to set up a drive mirror; today's hard drives are still pretty reliable unless you go out of your way to buy a cheap one. A single, decent quality hard drive is still good. I recommend a WD Caviar Black for the 5-year warranty, a Seagate Barracuda 7200.12, or Samsung Spinpoint. Just make sure your primary boot drive has a 7200 RPM spindle speed; 5400 RPM hard drives are cheaper but slower.

Unfortunately, AMD has botched the Bulldozer launch. BAD. Not only does it struggle to keep up with its predecessors in most circumstances, but there are reports of people getting random BSODs due to thread timeout errors. (Apparently Portal 2 BSODs before it even loads the menu.) Apparently it also draws power and dissipates heat on Pentium 4 levels.

As for the case, I really like my Antec 300. I highly recommend a case with a dust filter, especially if you have pets. I pop mine out and rinse it in the sink every couple months, which is a lot easier and more convenient than hauling the entire computer outside to blow it out with the compressor. I even made an extra filter for the 120mm side intake opening out of the foam they sell for replacement air conditioner filters.


=======
RAID probably isn't anything you should worry about, but basically it means you're using multiple hard drives as though they're one.

RAID 1 is a mirror: all the drives participating in the array are real-time copies of exactly the same data. You effectively pay twice as much for your storage space, but if one drive dies you don't lose anything. You would have to have both drives fail simultaneously to lose your data.

RAID 0 adds the capacity and speed of the participating drives, at the expense of safety. They call it "0" because that's how many files you can recover when one drive dies. It's great for a scratch disk, bad for storing data you actually care about.

[Caleb]

OK I will post my new setup on the correct hardware thread above.