Topic: Advice on buying or building a PC or Laptop

[PatMan33]

Correct.

On board graphics chips are not what they used to be ten or even five years ago. Some of them are pretty solid. If you can, I'd get a dedicated card, but for budget builds or size-constrained builds the integrated stuff is a worthy consideration.

One of the reasons I'm so glad to live in this time period. On board graphics are actually good. @_@

[Didero]

Huh, I didn't know that.
I'll stick to an actual graphics card for the foreseeable future, but it's useful to keep in mind. Thanks!

[PatMan33]

Beware cheap power supplies!!


**EDIT**
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Ga_26h1MU" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Ga_26h1MU</a>

[Rysworld]

Hey guys!

I'm building a new computer! I do not know much about this, so I'm hoping some of you are experienced in this sort of thing and able to point me in the right direction when it comes to not screwing up.

As it is I have a budget of $1100 with a probable leeway of about $70, which must also buy peripherals. I have, so far, used the falconguide as a rough tool for my purchases, but I am sure there are better ways to go about this sort of thing. I am new to this and would like to waste as little money as possible.

So... help?

The following is my current build. You don't have to look at all or any of those, not by a longshot, I'm just looking for general advice but if you suspect me of making a beginner's mistake with buying one of them... please check it and tell me. $1076 total, not including the OS- which I am also unsure of. I've heard Windows 8 is rather crap for anyone wanting to game on it. Is this true?

Case (Corsair 300R):  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139016 - $100

CPU: (AMD FX-6300) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113286&T - $140

GPU (GTX 660): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125443 - $234

HDD (Seagate Barracuda 500GB): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840 - $80

SSD (32GB Premier Pro): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211717 - $40

RAM (Ripjaws Series 8GB): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314 - $50

Motherboard (GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128514&T - $148

Monitor (Acer 21.5"): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236052 - $130

Mouse (CM Storm Xornet): http://www.amazon.com/CM-Storm-Xornet-Switches-SGM-2001-BLON1/dp/B005TEPB74/ref=sr_1_5?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1360282224&sr=1-5 - $29

Keyboard (Microsoft SIDEWINDER X4): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823109191 - $61

[eropS]

Again, you need to change the mobo or cpu as they aren't compatible.

LGA 1155 is an intel pin set and you have an AMD CPU. The motherboard won't take it. That was the only thing I really checked beyond the RAM as those are the two most common rookie errors.

Also some personal preference advice.

Skip out on the 1TB HDD, seems cool but you'll never realistically use it. Get something with 512 or 256 and then pick up a 64 Solid State Drive (SSD) or something. The loading speed difference is measurable.

[Rysworld]

Alright, I've changed things around. SSDs are typically used to boot the OS quickly as well as games, right?

[PatMan33]

I've got a hockey game on at the moment but I'll swing by afterwards to help out.

As far as the SSDs go, don't put your games on them. You will see some difference but given the price per gig on SSDs, it's a waste. At least until the technology gets better (or you win the lottery) keep your games on a HDD.

[eropS]

Eh, there is a video floating around with an SSD and HDD loading Skyrim and the SSD wins by about 10 or so seconds. Sure it's 10 seconds but that adds up in some way over time. It is up to you though, but I'd rotate games on it depending on how much space you have and what you currently are playing as a way to conserve space.

[PatMan33]

It will definitely load faster. But SSD space is a hot commodity and if you're going to be installing your OS on it (remember, 64 bit Windows 7 and 8 is 20gigs) there won't be much space left for games. And that's just the price of entry. As you install system updates and other non-gaming software that space is going to dwindle quickly. His drive is only 32gigs.

Anyway, this game is going into garbage time so gimmie a few to look this over.

[PatMan33]

Alrighty it doesn't look too bad. Everything is compatible this time around and the system should play just about whatever you want!

Now, you've got a video card capable of PCI-e 3.0 x16, but your board maxes out at PCI-e 2.0 x16. This isn't a major issue; however, you'll be unable to fully utilize that video card's capabilities. Additionally the hard drive is good, but if you're using it in conjunction with a solid state drive, you will want a faster HDD. Yours is 5900rpm, you will want to look at the 7200rpm drives, since they will still keep your costs down. There are faster HDDs out there but the prices get pretty high, pretty fast.

AMD screwed the pooch here on this one because there are no AMD motherboards that support PCI-e 3.0. So there's that. If you want to retool this setup based on that, that's fine. We can put something together for you. If not, it's not the end of the world but you may want to consider getting a less-powerful video card to save some money.

I looked up a drive for you: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840

It is currently on sale and costs 20 bucks more than your other one, has twice the capacity, and is 7200rpm. If this one violates your pricing, use it as a guide to choose another.

[Rysworld]

Thanks for the hard drive! Very useful.

What about this motherboard? It's slightly cheaper than my current one and has PCIe 3.0 x16 slots, AND seems to have similar specs, thought I'm not terribly good at deciphering that.

[eropS]

It's still an LGA 1155 pin set. You should look into the intel i5/i7 CPUs if you want to use those motherboards.

[Rysworld]

Oh yeah, huh.

And looks like I forgot the power supply too, like a dumbass.

I think I shall have to use this CPU.

Which brings me to $1080 with this power supply.

Leaving me, with $60 leeway from my $1100 dollar budget, $80 dollars to buy Windows 7.

Which is not enough.

Grr. I shall have to cheapen my peripherals, I think.

[PatMan33]

Indeed. Any A3+ motherboard (which would accommodate your processor) will lack PCI-e 3.0, sadly.

The most logical choices would be to either get a PCI-e 2.0 video card (which would be less powerful) or find a different CPU. I'd go for the CPU, since you can find an equivalent pretty easily.

But look... if I were building this for myself I'd scrap the whole notion of PCI-e 3.0 because it isn't even that useful in practice. We are just now scraping the surface of multi-core rendering and computing in gaming applications and as far as I know PCI-e 3 isn't going to give you any benefits. I'd look into this processor with this motherboard. You'll notice that lots of video cards advertise being PCI 3 "ready", which is advertising terms for "pay more for this feature we don't know how to use yet!"


Hey how about that, you picked the same CPU as me. You must have a knack for this.


**EDIT**
I should add that the reason I picked this motherboard over the one erops recommended (went back and forth on them for a while) is because this one has the 2.0 slot, and it's always nice to have a legacy slot. Plus extra PCI-e slot!

[PatMan33]

Just for laughs, I want to start over from the beginning because this is getting messy and it's late. (which means I'll come back to this tomorrow )

Ry, what is your budget and what programs do you expect to run on this system?

**EDIT**
ALSO! If you want more people in on this, ask over at buildapc on reddit. http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc

They are great!