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With the end of the world coming and all of that *rolls eyes* I figured why the hell not build a gaming/business rig to replace this ol' faithful Toshiba I've had for over 4 years. Sure its Dual Core TL-64 Turion may have done some damage back in the day... but this is the end of the world we are talking about!

Ok, so maybe I'm not ready to deplete my bank account like its my last few days on this earth, but I am ready for the coming of the end of the world, I'm of course talking about Diablo 3! Now I realize that D3 may not require the beefiest of systems, but I've never really been 100% comfortable with the mid to lower end hardware I've purchased in the past while gaming. I've always had those 20-30 FPS kind of rigs that play it alright, but with everything set below the awe-inspiring mark. So with that in mind, this time around I'm planning on spending a bit more on a video card than before. I also run an IT business from my home, so this box would also be used for work purposes, think 10 x remote desktop windows +.

Here is what I have already.

Monitor: 24" Dell (specs not important, it will do for now)

PSU: Brand new in box Etasis 750w power supply, according to reviews this thing was badass when it was released, very stable 12v rails. Although its kind of goes by the old school method of 4 x 12v rails, which are I want to say 18 a piece, so not nearly as powerful as the dual or single rails people have switched back to. Unfortunately I left it in the box for the longest time and just notice the other day when checking it that I got the 8 pin power connector style for the CPU aux power. Check it though it is simply 2 x the 4 pin connectors in one. I'm going to salvage a 4 pin connector (just the plastic hosing for the cables) off of an old dead psu, and remove the 8 pin, and put on the 4. That should work fine.

Hard Drive: Have plenty that I can use, will be switching to a 256+ gb SSD when they come down and I eye one up that I like.

Things I'm considering getting:

Case: Corsair 400r. I absolutely love the Corsair cases. I'm a picky S.O.B and have found the build quality of some other "High End" brands to be a joke in comparison. Don't like the cooler master cases. Even the Antec cases now seem cheap in comparison.

Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth 990fx. This particular board is nice but I'm thinking its a bit overkill, at $185 (with 15 discount on newegg) its still a bit higher than I would like. I was hoping to find a board around 130-150 without loosing any major functionality or quality.

CPU: This is where I'm torn.. I've build WAY to many APU systems for people and they work great for general use, but as far as gaming and high end use I don't feel like it cuts it for me. This sort of sucks because the older Phenom II 9xx are rare and don't seem to have come down in price enough to be worth it and the Zosma (thuban variant) is actually not as fast from what I've seen (referring to the 960 zosma). Any suggestion in this market? I've considered actually getting a drop in CPU in hope that I could pick up on Bulldozer refreshes when they work out the performance issues. Then I could take the drop in CPU and build a secondary desktop for the wife.

GPU: I was considering the MSI Twin Frozr 6950 2gb - I wasn't sure if anything in current generation lower on the ladder performed as good or better at a more attractive price range. Unfortunately I've been too busy lately to be 100% caught up on the 7xxx series. Not really interested in the Nvidia fermi stuff though.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814127588

RAM: 2 x 4gb of Corsair Vengence 1600. Its not the Dominator series, but in my opinion most of the ram hype no longer really holds much water like it used to back in the olden days and isn't worth the premium. I've also considered purchasing a single 8gb module so that I could upgrade to 16 with another later and then eventually up to 32 for that oh so sweet overkill!

Sound Card: Using on-board... I know you audiophiles would love to Death grip me to.... well... death.... right about now but I've not found an amazing difference in sound quality with my current headphones (Corsair HS1A) to warrant spending the extra cash on a nice soundcard.

EDIT: Oh yeah and I need a keyboard, anyone have luck with the $100.00 variation of the Corsair keyboard with MX switches? I had an old G15, but its been beaten up and nothing being used. Still using my awesome G5 mouse though.
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So considering all of the above, is there anything I'm missing or that you guys think is horribly wrong (and I don't mean certain brands, this isn't a brand war thread). I still want to get the bang for the buck but without cheaping out entirely on EVERYTHING.

Why buy AMD?

Buy a 2500K, that thing costs ~200€ and is as good as a 2700K as long as you don't need hyper threading and it just trashes any AMD processor out there.

Hi there,

For a 2012 build with your requirements you also want a gizmo that cuts power off to your PC when it detects an EMP shock wave to protect it from damage.

@PSU
Should be fine if you buy a Sandy Bridge dual core and a HD 6850 or bellow, but if you want peace and quiet make the extra effort and buy a new PSU. Preferably from Seasonic, thinking the 520W model.

@
CPU& motherboard. Don't go AMD....just get Intel SB.

@RAM
W/e you buy get those with low profile heatsinks so you won't have problems with CPU cooler. Also you might like the check the QVL list of w/e mobo you choose.

@Soundcard:
I'm actually satisfied by Realtek but if you want, Asus Xonar DG comes highly recommended for people like us, i hear (pun intended)

@Case:
If you like it...go for it.

@Video card
6950 is pretty good. I wanted to say that Twin Frozr doesn't have cooling for the VRM but after looking at the other custom coolers for the 6950 (like Asus DirectCu2 or XFX DD) they don't offer that either. Um if i'm not mistaking Sapphire? offers the longest warranty for AMD cards and i'm pretty sure they have a dual cooler model also. Maybe look into that or whomever offers the longest warranty for this card, in the unlikely event that the end of the world doesn't happen in 2012...

Sound suggestions... but im not planning on building Intel for a few reasons that I wont get into, even though im aware of a good performance difference. Plus I haven't fully given up on AMD although im close if there next round of refreshes don't prove some worth over this first gen dissapointment.

What your referring to for EMP is a UPS. I've got a brand spanking new 1250 APC, so im covered . As for the PSU I listed im quite sure its rock solid. This brand actually made power supplies for pc power and cooling and I think silverstone. This particular 750w is identical to one of the more popular 750w silverstone power supplies. The 6950 also has two pci power plugs on it which I can spread amongst 2 different 12v rails with this so I don't think ill end up overloading a rail even though they aren't very high.

Any 7000 series niche cards come out since last I checked that can compete with say the 6950 for around the same price or with large enough improvements in anything to warrant a slightly higher asking price?

Welch wrote:

- Sound suggestions... but im not planning on building an Intel for a few reasons that I wont get into. Plus I haven't fully given up on AMD although im close if there next round of refreshes don't prove some worth over this first gen dissapointment.

- What your referring to for EMP is a UPS. I've got a brand spanking new 1250 APC, so im covered .

- Any 7000 series niche cards come out since last I checked that can compete with say the 6950 for around the same price or with large enough improvements in anything to warrant a slightly higher asking price?

- Well if you don't want Intel then buy a Thuban CPU or Zosma. Also buy an after market cooler from day one or you will regret it, like i did.

- Wasn't talking bout UPS but i'm glad you got one. It was a lame attempt of a joke, just forget about it. But FYI a UPS won't save your PC from an electro magnetic pulse since the role of a uninterruptible power source is to keep the device connected on. So in the event of a EMP the device will be destroyed. IF it's powered off it will survive. But again forget about it, just a lame joke.

- Also wasn't talking about getting a 7000 series card, rather a 6950 with lifetime warranty. Did some checking and it turns out that VisionTek offer lifetime warranty but after checking out their custom cooled cards i gave up the idea (because they suck).

TL;DR the 6950 TwinFrozr is a fine card.

Welch wrote:

Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth 990FX
CPU: This is where I'm torn.
GPU: I was considering the MSI Twin Frozr 6950 2gb

Motherboard: How about something with LGA1155 and the Intel Z68 chipset like the Asus P8Z68-V/Gen3 (ATX) or Maximus IV Gene-Z/Gen3 (micro-ATX)?

CPU: Intel's Core i5-2500K quad-core Sandy Bridge processor performs well. If you're going to run a bunch of virtual machines, you'd do better with a Core i7-2600 (non-K), but for gaming and general use the Core i5-2500K provides good bang for the buck. Ivy Bridge is coming within three months, but this CPU will still be plenty fast.

If you've got some sort of personal problem with Intel processors, then perhaps your Sabertooth 990FX motherboard would like a Phenom II X4 960T Black Edition quad-core Zosma (Thuban with two of six cores disabled) processor. I'm not sold on the FX-8150 eight-core Zambezi.

GPU: AMD's Radeon HD7950 is the card to get at the moment. If you wait a few months, there will be more new 28 nm GPUs from which to choose. Radeon HD6950 provides excellent bang for the buck today, but you might feel some buyer's remorse when Radeon HD7870 and HD7850 arrive in a couple of months or when the NVidia competition arrives shortly thereafter.

SSD: You might as well take the plunge and put an SSD in your new build.

Arclight wrote:

For a 2012 build with your requirements you also want a gizmo that cuts power off to your PC when it detects an EMP shock wave to protect it from damage.

I've heard that the WiFi reception inside a Faraday cage sucks.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

SSD: You might as well take the plunge and put an SSD in your new build.

A mechanical hard drive may be more likely to survive that EMP though...

JustAnEngineer wrote:

The WiFi reception inside a Faraday cage sucks.

that's what external antennas are for.

I just can't recommend AMD for performance gaming. Console ports run just fine on any processor, but when you find a game that really munches CPU performance like Civ5, all the benchmarks show CLEAR AS DAY that the AMD chips suck. REALLY suck.

The much cheaper i3-2100 runs rings around the FX-8150, and even the FX-8150 is faster than the flagship PhenomII X6 for Civ5.
Just as a kick in the teeth, the i3's do this with an almost passive cooler (or you can overclock the snot out of them), whereas the 125W AMD chips will heat your whole house.

I want AMD to do better in the CPU space, but for now - in the discrete x86 processor market - they've given up. Piledriver is a server chip primarily and they'll focus on APU's for the consumer.

I just want to chip in this recent article from Tomshardware on gaming performance of sub $200 CPU's where even the lowly Intel G630 ($80) and G860 ($100) CPU's outperform AMD processors that cost 2x+ as much. If you still want AMD then that's your choice, but don't say we didn't warn you.
I also read somewhere that AMD will not be attempting to compete with Intel for high end performance CPU's in the future and will be redirecting their focus to the mobile and low end desktop (APU) market. Even though I'm an Intel guy, I would hate to see performance competition/motivation from AMD to go away.

Anyhow EMP.. d'oh. I was posting pretty late and didnt catch that joke lol. Im aware of the purpose of a UPS.

Like I said before, im also well aware of the huge performance gap between AMD and Intel. My major heartache would be supporting a company that did everything in its power to illegally screw over competition until the point where we might never see AMD restore its competitive products due to that BS. I have a hard time supporting a company like that with my personal dollars. Especially when Intel can charge as much as they do for their current processors because AMD can't quite put out any real competition against them.

If the 6950 is a good bang for its buck I wont have any buyers remorse. I've worried about stuff like that in the past and all it does is make me feel like crap that I didn't wait. Can't wait forever. As long as I can do what I want.... and do it at the level I expected then im happy. Its the pc world guys, nothing new about the next greatest thing coming out.

Welch wrote:

Like I said before, im also well aware of the huge performance gap between AMD and Intel. My major heartache would be supporting a company that did everything in its power to illegally screw over competition until the point where we might never see AMD restore its competitive products due to that BS. I have a hard time supporting a company like that with my personal dollars. Especially when Intel can charge as much as they do for their current processors because AMD can't quite put out any real competition against them.

I feel your pain. However, I look at it like this: 1) Intel gives you more performance for your money now. 2) Even the entire enthusiast market moving to AMD wouldn't change their huge market share deficit. Intel has the marjority with OEM's, thats the majority of the PC market.

Anyway, I would agree with JAE about getting the X4 960T. There are very few games that benefit from 4 physical cores over 4 virtual ones, let alone 6 physical cores. The differences you see between processors with at least 4 virtual cores is related to clock rates and per-core performance. A quick glance at this article shows that all the decent 4 core, 6 core, and 6/8 module AMD processors all perform roughly the same in a CPU constrained game. The same can be seen in the article I linked in my earlier post.

The AMD 7950 and 7970 GPU's are grossly overpriced right now because of limited supply and no competition from the green team. A 6950 is plenty.

DPete27 wrote:

A 6950 is plenty.

If you're not going for some kind of performance goal, a GTX 560 (not even a Ti) is plenty. There just aren't any games out there than need much horsepower to look good at 1080p. Fancy graphics cards only distinguish themselves from the pack at ludicrious 4MP resolutions with AA and Aniso cranked up to the point of diminishing returns.

I have an OLD GTX460 (the lowly, crippled 768MB one) in my media PC and it runs Skyrim, BF3 and WoW just flawlessly at the same 1080p as your 24" screen with high or max graphical settings and a sensible level of AA/Aniso.

At the 256bit memory interface limit is there any bandwidth constrictions for say a 6950 like we've been talking about for a 2gb model, any articles referring to this same card perhaps? I always end up buying something that is the norm (1gb now) and then in 1-2 months wish I had purchased the bigger one. This is likely what i'll end up doing for the system ram, going 8gb which seems to norm for gaming and then wishing I had gotten 8gb. Its why I'm going to see if I can push for a single 8gig module (not worried about dual channel right now) and then a few months down the road buy another identical 8gb module. Trying to stay within a reasonable budget on the ram which nowadays isn't too difficult as its fairly inexpensive, but those 8gb modules demand a slight premium

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820233218 - 79.99

If I buy one of these now, in 6 months or so I could purchase another for I'm thinking around 50ish and be at 16, which leaves room for 2 more if I wanted to push for 32 .

Welch wrote:

Like I said before, im also well aware of the huge performance gap between AMD and Intel. My major heartache would be supporting a company...

But luckily for you, the end of the world is the perfect time to do all those things you normally would feel guilty about doing!

Ahahah Touche!!! I guess what do I care about consumer markets if the world is going to be ending anyhow!

I am starting to wonder if Blizzard is going to wait for the first real confirmation that the world is coming to an end this year and then releasing Diablo 3 on that date as though to say "Told ya so, its just that epic!" Leave it to Blizzard to be over achievers

Welch wrote:

Like I said before, im also well aware of the huge performance gap between AMD and Intel. My major heartache would be supporting a company that did everything in its power to illegally screw over competition until the point where we might never see AMD restore its competitive products due to that BS. I have a hard time supporting a company like that with my personal dollars. Especially when Intel can charge as much as they do for their current processors because AMD can't quite put out any real competition against them.

Honestly when I review AMDs and Intels history I'm not sure that all that alleged illegal activity really mattered in the long run. I liken it to the spygate scandal that hit the New England patriots, where they only went out and went 18-0, crushing people by 40 points a game before finally losing in the superbowl. Did New England cheat a bit? Yeah they did. Did it matter when it came to wins and losses? No.

For the cheating argument to really hold any weight, you have to believe that AMD was more or less doing everything right and Intel's illegal activity was the major factor in their being where they are today. Thats a really hard thing to sell imo. its just like saying the buffalo bills were doing everything right and it was New Englands cheating being the predominant factor that led to a loss by 40 points. The truth is simply the buffalo bills have been a dysfunctional, directional organization that lacks leadership because they fire their leaders every year. Similarly could be said about AMD.

During the Pentium III and Pentium 4 era, AMD had a better product at a lower price, but they couldn't sell any CPUs to the big PC assemblers.

No doubt that AMD has had one heck of a rough road behind and in front of them, and I'm not 100% sure what my thoughts are on Reed. He seems enthusiastic about what he is doing, but then again thats part of the persona of being a CEO. I decided to watch some of his video's from when he was at Lenovo and he seemed exactly the same - Overly Optimistic. The company hasn't had such a great track record with CEOs but there is so much more to the company than its CEO.

Back when AMD had designs that were ahead of Intel (AMD Athalon Days, Barton Core, ect), they got no where with it because they couldn't enter into OEM markets. To deny that being bared from the OEM sector played any roll in their profits, R&D, Reputation would just be ignorant. After all some of these designs take many years to come up with, refresh, market, and finally release. Cut off the funds early on and its going to take a very long time to rebound, especially when the company responsible for that shortage benefited from your losses. Again, doesn't help when their own CEOs screwed them over and sold them down the river (Read: Hector Ruiz).

EDIT: JustAnEngineer (Beat me to it)

During the Pentium III and Pentium 4 era, AMD had a better product at a lower price, but they couldn't sell any CPUs to the big PC assemblers.

I've also go no doubt that AMD has played a bit dirty at times, and to be honest it wouldn't bother me if the companies were equal in fiances and power. At that rate it would just be another repeat of the Cell Phone/Cellular plan market .

The thing is though, you don't have that many Anti-Trust lawsuits in multiple countries (US and Europe) unless you really did some impressive illegal stuff, otherwise it may only have been in 1 country. OEMs came out and said exactly how Intel was keeping them in check too with brides and "gifts". This same stuff would have everyone up in arms if it was a politician, but for some reason if its a for profit company people totally consider it kosher. Double standards suck.

Double standards suck.

Agreed, but a handful of people that buy AMD out of this motivation won't make a difference at all. The majority is still going to buy the chip which produces a longer bar in the benchmarks, whether they actually need the processing power or not.

I always laughed at this commercial with Stuart Pankin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK0hU0OYvCI