First and probably last thread in this scary place

[CapNemo]

Since I’m a bit of a hardware noob I need some help. I’m looking to get a new pc but I need some help with the specs. I’ll obviously not be doing much over clocking so that isn’t something to take into consideration. I want it mostly for gaming. Oh and guess you need a budget let’s say 20k for now. Thanks for any help in advance.

Oh and if any of you colourful people think of a more appropriate title for the thread go for it

[StarBound]

Do you want brag rights or just something powerful?

Ok here goes and bare in mind its if your looking at it 1-2 months from now.

i7 2600(k) - R3000
z68 board (your pic) - R2300
corsair dominator 2x4gb ddr3 1600mhz ram - R800
Windows 64-bit home premium - R1200
2TB HDD - R1500
120gb Intel SSD (boot drive with minor apps) - R2000
Samsung 23" LED screen - R2500 (assuming 120hz is not your thing, nor is 3D)
Geforce 680GTX - R6000/7000 (no release date for here or pricing but 1-2 months and along those price tags)
750W Coolermaster - R1200
CoolerMaster HAF X case - R1800
Mouse/Keyboard - R1600/2000 (you can decide what you want. gamers own pref)
dvd-rw - R200
Logitech Z906 5.1 surround speakers - R4000
Logitech G35 headset (emu 7.1 and mic for VOIP) - R1000

Think thats all of it. R26500. You can drop the speakers if you have something already. Drop the screen if you have something for that already. Drop the headset if you have something. If you don't mind speed you can drop to an i5 and the gfx card down to a 560ti or wait for the 660ti. But yeah thats what your looking at. And ofc mouse and keyboard is your choice, windows if you already have it can be dropped.

[wizardofid]

Look the main issue is what do you want to do with it.
As for the 680GTX stock should be available already, and most other places from the 27th, problem is it is not worth if you have a look at the benchmarks, right now it is not good value for money, with prices drops with in the next few weeks, it will be worth looking at again, with the 6 series release of nvidia, AMD should see a price drop, which will make even better value for your money.

2600K is a over clockers chip point period, unless you playing on running it at a X 48 multi it is not worth the extra money, and you will also need a decent cooler.Now a 2500K is cheaper and gives more than enough performance, also unless you planning on oc the system high end ram isn't needed, and rather spend some extra and get 16 gig ram.

750watt PSU with a 680GTX is cutting it a bit close unless your getting a decent one with a good 12 volt rating.I am leaning more towards a 1000watt PSU min.

You can't go wrong with the Z68 but the newer Z77 is out.

[StarBound]

Gonna have to stop you there wiz.

The 680gtx uses 150-190W vs the 580gtx that sits at 244W. The 680gtx is just that much more power friendly. Price will be somewhat high on release but US pricing pegs it between the 7950 and 7970. Since 7950 goes for R5500 and 7970 for R7000 its safe to assume we will see it between R6000 and R7000.

Next on the CPU the K series is simply R100 more expensive. The i7 2600 has 4 cores and 8 threads while the i5 2500 has 4 cores and only 4 thread handling. A good budget CPU but in this case the cash can boost the cpu.

16GB of ram is pointless. I'm running 8GB ram and havent had any issues yet. Since I am running SSDs all page files are disabled and still I have not run into any bluescreens or program crashes to desktop.

Looking at overclocking and benchmarking sites they never hit the 500W marks unless they go SLI or crossfire. My setup is running off a 750W PSU and I haven't had any issues. I suppose you could always go for the 1000W PSU but that is the difference between R1200 and R2400.

No idea when intel is releasing the ivy bridge CPUs but should be sometime in the next 3 months.

[wizardofid]

Have a look the 680GTX is available at round R63XX.00 is the cheapest I have seen. You are speaking of both gpu's as if they have not been released ? But they have http://www.prophecy.co.za/batiamdb-bhd7 ... 8855e235db for a while now.Problem is AMD is better right now, trust me on that, the 680GTX just barely scraps by amd when overclocked I spend the last few months on a hardware forum with with a lot of hardware reviewers and resellers.They know what they talking about shockG is one of the most respected reviewers in SA


Show me one game that uses for the than 4 cores and 8 threads that is available to buy right now ? There is R1100.00 difference between 2500k and 2600k and 200mhz , 4 threads and 2mb cache ;)Real world performance difference is marginal, but some instances the 2600k will win by a good deal it just not worth if running at stock.

8 gig is considered now days the min, 16 gig is better....SSD's handle only so much

ivy bridge CPUs , is meh

Psu, right 750watt is enough, however which one are you going to recommend gold, silver or bronze ?Have you considered the prices differences between the ratings.If I were to get a gold rated 750 psu for the price of a silver 1000watt psu, which one will you take ?

[D3PART3D]

LOL Wiz, welcome back...

If I were to get a gold rated 750 psu for the price of a silver 1000watt psu, which one will you take ?

750w gold. PSUs are most efficient at around 80% load most of the time, no? Make it easier for the system to reach.

@Nemo

Spoiler (show)

I thought this was one of those farewell notes to the forum. Call it The Nautilus Build or something.

Anyway, StarBound's build is good but you could get away with spending a little less. For example, it's up to you to decide if you're going to take the gamble on games using the extra threads of the 2600k vs the 2500k. I know that by the time they do, Haswell will be out and I'll want to upgrade again anyhow, my nerdy instincts demand it.

Two things YOU WILL be doing: getting the SSD - I know you play MMOs and when you're loading up software that often it deserves a place on your SSD. It makes a world of difference, so at least a 120GB. Also, MSI mobo > All.

[StarBound]

I'm an MSI fan open to other options. I would have gone for the MSI x79 board but the asus rampage 4 just overkilled every other board out there.

Not sure where I read it but the PSU you use also has an impact on your power usage.

I've going to defend my point on the i5 vs i7 and the k bit. If you can afford it, why not? As for ram also I have not gone over the 8gb that I have. Think the max I've reached is 4.5gb.

[wizardofid]

Lol yeah good to be back in the thick of things.Lol star the 8gb ram thing I know emo is technical, which might see him using some cad program ect. which means extra ram, cad loves all the ram you can throw at it.

Yes if he can afford, right now the most being used game wise is BF3 which still only makes use of 4 cores ?

[D3PART3D]

I've going to defend my point on the i5 vs i7 and the k bit. If you can afford it, why not?

Well, I guess it depends on how much of a big deal R1000 is to you. Money snowballs if you handle it well. Tom's describes any gaming cpu above the 2500k as being "past the point of reason". And besides, your cpu is even more efficient if it is cost-efficient. We all love efficiency!

[wizardofid]

Tom, actually who trusts them still ? what is happening now, happened back then, C2Q any one ? only the elite programs made use of all 4 cores, how many programs did you use that supported, regularly ? 99% of programs still only make use of two cores, and now that we have a 4 core game for those c2quads are pretty much useless as they are so old.?

Simple really, there is no need to jump on the 2600K bandwagon ? It's unlikely you will use the full CPU daily to it's full potential, so why bother ?

[StarBound]

Well he did say mostly for gaming and the budget is R20k. Most games will run fine with quad cores since they were made for consoles. On the gaming side I have not used much ram past the 4gb mark but I think I have hit 5gb.

I had a C2Q 6600 cpu and its clock speed was 2.4ghz. The socket 1155 cpus are in the 3ghz range and it makes somewhat of a difference. Also believe they have a bit more cache and don't forget that the memory speed is now double that of what it was on the socket 775.

In my eyes, 8gb ram already has a 3gb built in head room for expansion while an i7 has that built in 4 extra thread handling when games start looking for a 5th thread processing.

[wizardofid]

Aah ! Just remember GHZ is never a indication of performance, bar netburst, what was intel thinking with the deep branching.

How much of the GHZ do you have to take off to get similar performance to a Q6600 ?A fair bit

[StarBound]

Nearly a Ghz but not only that, you need to underclock your ram and find some what to disable some cache. The core i series is amazing and lets not forget the turbo boost feature. If a single app needs 2 cores or still 1 core it dumps the extra cores and routes that power to the cores that needs it. So in effect you get added benefit there.

Something else on the memory front though is that unless programs start going into 64-bit territory then we wont be breaking that 4gb barrier on games. And still due to consoles that barrier won't be crossed for a while still. Sad because all CPUs now supports 64-bit.

[CapNemo]

Thanks for the advice people if you have any more feel free to share

[StarBound]

Let's redo that system from a efficiency perspective then

i5 2500 - R2000
Z68 board - R1800 (cheapest one)
8gb ddr3 1333 2x4 - R600
Windows 7 64-bit home premium - R1200
60gb SSD - R1000
1TB HDD - R800
dvd-rw - R200
mouse and keyboard - R200
Case - R600
PSU 585W odin gigabyte - R750
Geforce 560ti - R2200
22" LCD - R1400

Add it up and improve where you want to improve. But that will be a decent system. Speakers excluded though.

[CapNemo]

Well I’m trying to also in part convince myself that it is worth putting up with all the () from work, so I might just go with your first recommendation. I’ll probably skip the extras like screens headset (funny enough that is the one I have ) keyboard etc. since most of that is sorted and probably get a ups since power here can be interesting. I’ll have a look at the boards might need a recommendation later on and maybe some optimisation tips.

[StarBound]

As you said your budget is hefty so the recommendation was based on getting the most out of what you got. One of my friends was/is on a tight budget and he ended up getting a P67 chipset for R1300, an i5 2500 and settled with a Radeon 5770 because of everything the gfx outdates the fastest and can be easily replaced with better effect. Needless to say he is in the heavens with his build up from a laptop that could barely play wow.

There are a few things you can change on my first recommendation aswell if your up for it. The 680gtx is a power house, a monster of a card. But if you cringe at the price tag you can look at other solutions at around R3000 and you will still get decent performance for a good while to come. As wiz said ram is cheap so if you want to go that way and get 16gb you can but as I said I havent reached my 8gb limit in gaming yet nor am I close to reaching it. Going for the i5 over the i7 will save you cash but long run you might want to do things in the background while you game and it might handle that better.

If you know what you want, specs, features, price tag on part, brand specific then you can refine what your looking for.

[CapNemo]

Ok don’t feel like starting a new thread so hopefully I don’t get an arrow in the knee for necroing.
Last time my budget got killed by having to paint my house and fix some other things. Since it seems to have recovered a bit I’m thinking of trying again. So the requirements and budget is about the same. I liked SBs setup in the second post but I guess it should be updated a bit by now for instance it is probably customary to buy the z77 chipset by now etc.

It would be very much appreciated if someone could help me out a bit with recommendations on what one would need these days. If anyone wants to recommend a specific MB please feel free haven’t really kept up to date.

Oh should probably clarify that I’m not looking for peripherals like screens or keyboards etc. Have that covered for now.

[StarBound]

Yes the cheap p67 boards has been replaced by the cheap z77 boards. To be more specific check out the msi z77a-gd43 board. No sli/xfire but has usb3 and sata6 and ofc socket 1155 22nm cpu support. Goes for R1300.

Also i5 3570 is now the in cpu at R2000.

Check around. Posted some links in one of the threads.

http://forums.pcformat.co.za/viewtopic. ... 3#p1660583