Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, JustAnEngineer
Conza88 wrote:Hey guys n' gals ,
Budget: Around $1,500 Aus. Goal: comp that lasts, with upgrades possible. "Future-proof" as much as possible. Leaning more towards something that is stable long term.
Location: Brisbane, Australia.
Atm the path is to determine the best stuff, then get computer alliance who has most of the parts to make it (if you click their systems you can see the build/costs). Alternatively, I have been recommended [urlhttp://msy.com.au/]MSY[/url] visit their local store and buy the products cheap - Parts Prices, then they can make it for roughly $40-60. Or make it myself I spouse.
Ok, so here is what I have so far.
Components:
Processor: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz - ($289)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-V PRO (do I need pro ($249), or should I go LE ($169) Cons?)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 ($89) (what's the difference between the ram kits etc? *I'm not sure if computer alliance this on offer, but there is a G.Skill?)
Storage: 120GB OCZ Vertex 3 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SSD) ($295)
Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB ($59 reliable?)
Backup: 2TB WD external usb 2.0 (already have)
Graphics: XFX Radeon HD 6950 1GB ($225) or Radeon HD 6950 2GB? ($289)
Power supply: Corsair TX650W $119(too low?)
Sound card: Asus Xonar DX, or Asus Xonar DG? Or the integrated one? (Computer alliance has neither :s but has Creative Audigy Value Sound Card ($39)
Case: Corsair Graphite Series 600T Midcase Tower (No PS) ($229) (was looking at Corsair Obsidian 650D? but Computer Alliance doesn't seem to have it. Any better alternatives? Will these fit, be acceptable?)
Monitor: 23" Asus VH232H LCD Monitor in built speakers ($169), or Dell UltraSharp U2211H - 21.5".($177) (Looking for something with inbuilt webcam? mic? Needs to be 1920x1080HD)
DVD burner: LiteOn 24x DVD Writer SATA Black ($39)(Do blueray burners also do cd, dvd etc?)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit ($109)
Total Price: roughly $1,800
Noob here essentially, so feel free to point out stuff you might not otherwise do. I don't know much about overclocking etc. I think I'd tend to stick to all the factory default stuff as opposed to screw things up, or is it worthwhile learning and tweaking? Do you think I need a tv tuner? Or an integrated gigabit network connection? More cooling needed? Anything I am forgetting. Best place to save money on things that might not be necessary for me? More bang for my buck - get more ram?
Many thanks,
Any responses appreciated.
Conz.
riviera74 wrote:First of all, welcome to the forums!
For the Motherboard, go with the Asus P8Z68 LE and save a few dollars there. Also, I would recommend that you go with the Xonar DG since there is little or no sound difference between that card and higher-end cards generally. Also, you do probably do not need a Radeon 6950 card; instead go for a 6850 from XFX.
Conza88 wrote:Thanks . Will definitely go with the Xonas DG if I do, but apparently Computer Alliance doesn't have it - so I'll have to try find it or a substitute.
It has also been suggested by a friend I go with the AMD AM3 Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2Ghz 6 CORE CPU - ($189) and ASUS AM3 CROSSHAIR-V-FORMULA Motherboard ($299) instead...? To help 'future proof'. Thoughts?
Also, I think the current case might be a bit much. Any suggestions for other cases? Does it need to be Full? Or is Mid acceptable?
I am big on multi-tasking and pretty multimedia heavy. Mostly internet browsing, email, word processing, music & audio [large growing collection], then video, audio & photo editing, HD.
it's about 6 meters from the comp to the tv/home audio system in the lounge room, so I currently run a big cord for audio to play. Wondering if I could do the same with video and watch movies from my collection, through the comp on the tv?
It has also been suggested by a friend I go with the AMD AM3 Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2Ghz 6 CORE CPU - ($189) and ASUS AM3 CROSSHAIR-V-FORMULA Motherboard ($299) instead...? To help 'future proof'.
One more thing: get a second WD internal 2TB Caviar Green. You might need it and internal drives have a longer warranty than external ones.
saeed.ua wrote:hi,
if you go with amd route.then i suggest you wait till late September and see some amd new processor{amd 8 core buldozer}.and you don't have to buy so expensive asus motherboar.rather buy a asus 990x mobo at 200$ or less.
if you go intel route then you grab i5 2500k and save some bucks which you can use for 16 gb ram.
there some good cases with harddrive docking station-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811133182
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811133191
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811133188
riviera74 wrote:You can go the Midsize ATX route with no problem. Just avoid the really cheap cases to save yourself problems as time goes on. Normally I would recommend AMD, but Sandy Bridge has made them look worse than they really are, especially when it comes to price vs. performance at the moment (the new AMD FX CPUs need to arrive now, not September!). If you cannot get a Xonar DG, a simple and inexpensive Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live card should suffice, unless you plan to record audio from analog. If recording from analog, go for the Xonar DX.
mboza wrote:Conza88 wrote:I am big on multi-tasking and pretty multimedia heavy. Mostly internet browsing, email, word processing, music & audio [large growing collection], then video, audio & photo editing, HD.
The first half of this list shouldn't tax a modern desktop. So the question is how much money you want to spend for the video and photo editing speed.
mboza wrote:Conza88 wrote:it's about 6 meters from the comp to the tv/home audio system in the lounge room, so I currently run a big cord for audio to play. Wondering if I could do the same with video and watch movies from my collection, through the comp on the tv?
Does the TV have HDMI in? If so, you just need a suitably long HDMI cable, which you should find somewhere online dirt cheap. All new cards should have at least variants supporting HDMI, possibly though a display port adaptor. Otherwise a long VGA cable and whatever you are currently using to handle the audio signal? Or do you need component/composite output for an old TV.
Audio-wise, are you currently plugging the PC into a receiver, or just the AUX phono inputs on a hifi? If the target has digital inputs (like HDMI or S/PDIF ) then a sound card does nothing, unless you need it for recording inputs. If you are doing serious recording work, you might want a USB soundcard anyway. Easy enough to get the PC now, and buy and install the Xonar yourself if the onboard isn't good enough.
mboza wrote:Processor - unless you do a lot of video editing/encoding and being 10% faster is useful, drop down to the i5-2500K - the rest of the time you wont see a difference between this and the 2600K.
MB - unless the Pro has a feature you want, just go with the LE. Have you considered mATX boards and cases?
mboza wrote:Memory - you will barely see any difference between ram speeds, the linked G Skill set looks fine.
GPU - I would take the 1GB card, and be prepared to use the price difference to upgrade it a little earlier.
Between the MSI and the ASUS, the MSI looks to be clocked nearly 10% higher, (so will run slightly faster) but only has a 1 year warranty. I would take the MSI card, and if it does happen to die in that second year, I would just buy the latest hotness. Others will prefer the safer option of the longer warranty.
PSU - That 650W will be fine. You could easily drop down to 500W, or even lower - those are measured at the wall (input), power supplies are rated by output wattage, if you can find a Corsair or Seasonic unit cheaper than the 650W one, especially if you are not overclocking and don't plan to run SLI/crossfire.
mboza wrote:Conza88 wrote:It has also been suggested by a friend I go with the AMD AM3 Phenom II X6 1090T 3.2Ghz 6 CORE CPU - ($189) and ASUS AM3 CROSSHAIR-V-FORMULA Motherboard ($299) instead...? To help 'future proof'.
The Phenom X6 is slower than the 2500K, and that motherboard is hugely expensive. The gamble is that AMD will produce something faster than the 2500K, but still compatible with the current motherboards, while Intel will change their socket and force you to buy a new motherboard when you upgrade. But I don't see AMD making something fast enough to be worth upgrading from the 2500K, even if you ignore the motherboard cost, before they also upgrade their socket.
It would make more sense with a far cheaper motherboard, and a low/midrange X4 CPU - saving a lot more now, but accepting it as a stopgap with the intent to upgrade to Bulldozer when Bulldozer prices are low enough that you have spent less in total and finish with something that is still faster than the 2500K alternative.
mboza wrote:riviera74 wrote:One more thing: get a second WD internal 2TB Caviar Green. You might need it and internal drives have a longer warranty than external ones.
Wait until you need it.
Conza88 wrote:60 GB may be a bit cramped. Can your budget stretch to a 96-128 GB SSD?Storage: 60GB OCZ Agility 3 2.5" SATA3 SSD Drive ($149)
Conza88 wrote:This is adequate for gaming. You'd get better performance from a GeForce GTX560Ti or Radeon HD6950.Graphics: ATI 6850 1GB ASUS PCIe Video Card ($209)
Conza88 wrote:Take a look at the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium.Sound card: ... Asus Xonar DX, or Asus Xonar DG.
Conza88 wrote:Have you priced the Dell UltraSharp U2311H? IPS LCD panels have much better color and brightness accuracy than TN LCD panels do. TN LCD panels look horrible when viewed from angles other than perfectly perpendicular to the screen.Monitor: 23" Asus VH232H LCD Monitor in built speakers ($169).
JustAnEngineer wrote:Conza88 wrote:60 GB may be a bit cramped. Can your budget stretch to a 96-128 GB SSD?Storage: 60GB OCZ Agility 3 2.5" SATA3 SSD Drive ($149)
JustAnEngineer wrote:Conza88 wrote:This is adequate for gaming. You'd get better performance from a GeForce GTX560Ti or Radeon HD6950.Graphics: ATI 6850 1GB ASUS PCIe Video Card ($209)
JustAnEngineer wrote:Conza88 wrote:Take a look at the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium.Sound card: ... Asus Xonar DX, or Asus Xonar DG.
JustAnEngineer wrote:Conza88 wrote:Have you priced the Dell UltraSharp U2311H? IPS LCD panels have much better color and brightness accuracy than TN LCD panels do. TN LCD panels look horrible when viewed from angles other than perfectly perpendicular to the screen.Monitor: 23" Asus VH232H LCD Monitor in built speakers ($169).
Speakers built into monitors are pretty much universally junk. You would get much better sound quality from a cheap 2.1-channel speaker system. If you're just going to use the tinny little speakers built into a monitor, you really shouldn't need to bother with any discrete sound card.
Conza88 wrote:Will respond shortly. Here's a friends comments. Thoughts?
I disagree with the points made about taking out the HDDs and upgrading the SSD. I'm using a SSD now (Agility 2), and have thus far been pretty unimpressed. For the most part, it performs pretty much the same as two "average" HDDs in RAID 0 - but the HDDs cost just $50 each and give over 15x the hard drive space. SSDs have come up a bit in performance since the Agility 2, but not by nearly enough to justify the cost, IMO.
Depending on how much RAM you end up putting in, you'll probably want 2-4gb dedicated for use as virtual RAM on your SSD.
One nice thing about having more RAM than you need is that you can enable pre-fetching. I believe this was introduced in Vista -- when booting Windows, it now stuffs commonly-used program files into your RAM, so when you load up a program, it takes dramatically less time to load. This could be great if you're often using programs like Adobe Creative Suite. I know how long those can take to load up. This takes a lot of the kick out of the idea of purchasing a SSD for the sake of decreasing program load times, IMO.
If you intend to overclock your gfx card and/or CPU, give yourself a higher-rated PSU than 535w. 625w+ should be fine, but 535w is a little close to the edge if you OC, and may cause issues on hot days (PSU power output degrades with temperature increase) if you're doing video encoding.
Conza88 wrote:Ok, another update of where I am at. Crossed out is what I feel is locked in. Gone back up with Corsair 650W, was feeling suss about other brands.
Last issue I need to conquer is storage, OS set up etc. Which I find a tad confusing, even given the supportive answers. Maybe too much info to take in. On the Z68, there is SRT caching? Atm, this computer has 148gb with next to no space left. Big chunk is music. Videos I have in backup and watch them from there, where they run fine. Computer games I tend to have uninstalled. But backups sit on ex HD. Music is on the comp, but have it backed up on ex hd. Would it be possible to have it all on ex hd and simply run from there? Don't like the idea of having to swap things all the time to clear the drive. So a combination of both could be best? Only really looked at ver.3 SSD's, which are double speed of ver.2 but cheaper. Would there be a point in using say 60gb ver3, with another 60gb ver 2?
Unsure of combo, 60gb SSD Agility 3 + 1tb Spinpoint f3?
Or 120gb SSD Agility 3 on it's own.
Current options:
Storage: - 60GB OCZ Agility 3 2.5" SATA3 SSD Drive ($139)
- 120GB OCZ Agility 3 2.5" SATA3 SSD Drive ($209)
Hard Drive: - 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 7200rpm 32M SATA HDD ($59)
- 1TB Western Digital EALX 7200rpm SATA3 6Gb/s Caviar Blue HDD ($60)
Thanks again. Nearly there . Some price falls happened aswell. So kind of negate the bump up to Corsair 650W.
JustAnEngineer wrote:I'm not overly fond of the Antec Tri-cool fans. How much does a Scythe Kaze Jyuni fan go for in your part of the world?
riviera74 wrote:
ordskiweicz wrote:Do not buy a 64 GB SSD. You'll need more space and you want some overhead. I bought a 64 and now its a doorstop. 120 or so much more useable and worthwhile. No such a big price differential.
Conza88 wrote:Was thinking about may as well keeping this Dell monitor I have atm, 15" max 1280 x 1024... as a second monitor [thinking about playing lectures / video on this, or other and multi tasking], and getting a new one (still undecided) as main (1920x1080) it will be.
Will the ATI 6950 1GB be able to deal with that ok?
riviera74 wrote:Any Radeon card should be able to deal with multiple monitors just fine. The only question is whether the video card can deal with two monitors at different resolutions.
Hi Mike,
A better solution would be the Gigabyte S1155 GA-Z68X-UD3R-B3 Motherboard http://www.computeralliance.com.au/parts.aspx?qryPart=12790($187) and Antec Nine hundred Two V3 Case http://www.computeralliance.com.au/parts.aspx?qryPart=12328($139).
Kind regards,
___.
JustAnEngineer wrote:Compare the features of the motherboards. Does one of them have something that you'll use that the other lacks? Toss the GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 into the comparison, too. Asus has the best UEFI implementation at this time, but I'm certain that the Gigabyte boards will run fine.
The Antec Three Hundred is a well-ventilated mid-tower ATX case that works well. The Three Hundred Illusion is the same case with two more fans included and LED illumination added to three of the fans. The Nine Hundred Two V3 is larger and adds a window. Do you plan on installing a couple of huge graphics cards and lots of drives?