PC Builders -- Need Suggestions

[negativezeroz 5,000+ posts]

I am wanting to buy a desktop without spending a crap ton amount of money.

I've gathered some parts and am happy with the price. Just want some input on the parts I have chosen. Never built one myself so would like feedback.

edit for new config

CPU: AMD Phenom 9850 Black Edition (maybe with new fan..)

RAM : G-Skill 4GB DDR2 8500

GPU: EVGA 9800GT SC

Sound Card: Onboard until I hear it...may switch if I don't like the way it sounds

Motherboard: ASUS M3N78 Pro

PS: Silverstone ST70F

CD/DVD-RW: Lite-On SATA

OS: Vista Home Premium 64bit for Builders

Case: Tuniq 3 (black)

HD: Seagate 7200.11

Click to read more...

 

[Jmac 10+ year member]

I am wanting to buy a desktop without spending a crap ton amount of money.
I've gathered some parts and am happy with the price. Just want some input on the parts I have chosen. Never built one myself so would like feedback.

CPU: AMD Phenom 9850 Black Edition (maybe with new fan..)

RAM : G-Skill 6GB DDR2 8500

GPU: Sapphire HD3870

Sound Card: Creative Labs Audigy SE

Motherboard: Giga-Byte MA78GM-SH

PS: Raidmax RX-630SS

CD/DVD-RW: Lite-On

OS: Vista Home Premium 64bit for Builders

Case: Tuniq 3 (black)

HD: WD Caviar 500GB

780G + Quad Core Phenom is a BAD BAD BAD decision. Those boards simply cannot reliably support the power the Phenom X4s require. Bump yourself up to a 790X/790GX/790FX board if you're sticking w/ AMD. If you're going high-end, Intel is probably a better way to go unless you're going to be using it for number-crunching or you plan on using the Spider platform to its full potential.
6 GB of RAM does not make sense at all. Go w/ either 4 or 8.

The HD 3870 is also a curious choice as well. Not a bad decision, but I'd aim at the HD 4850/HD 4870 which are freaking awesome. Also, the 8800 GT outperforms it and can usually be found for less these days as they're being phased out a little quicker.

I'd stick to a more reputable brand for power supplies like Silverstone or Corsair.

I've seen a lot of WD Caviar 500 GB drives fail; I'd recommend the Seagate 7200.11 in its place. Cost difference isn't significant, plus it's faster.

Creative has notoriously poor support for Vista. I'd recommend looking at other brands of sound cards (or just sticking w/ onboard sound, which is pretty good these days).

 

[four15s 10+ year member]

jmac gav u everything i was going to say

lol

 

[GabeC 10+ year member]

if price is a concern then quad core isn't needed. a dual core proc is just fine for anything average or even hardcore gamers can throw at it.

 

[Bun-Bun 10+ year member]

I am wanting to buy a desktop without spending a crap ton amount of money.
I've gathered some parts and am happy with the price. Just want some input on the parts I have chosen. Never built one myself so would like feedback.

CPU: AMD Phenom 9850 Black Edition (maybe with new fan..)

RAM : G-Skill 6GB DDR2 8500

GPU: Sapphire HD3870

Sound Card: Creative Labs Audigy SE

Motherboard: Giga-Byte MA78GM-SH

PS: Raidmax RX-630SS

CD/DVD-RW: Lite-On

OS: Vista Home Premium 64bit for Builders

Case: Tuniq 3 (black)

HD: WD Caviar 500GB

CPU: Intel E8400 or E6600 would perform better for gaming and everyday usage (if your more into gaming and dont care about having quad core get the E8400)

RAM: 6gb? huh? get a 4gb kit... dirt cheap and I doubt youll need more. Pick any PC2-6400 to PC2-8500 kit from good names like corsair, gskill, ocz... ect

GPU: Radeon 4850 or Nvidia 9800GTX+

Sound Card: onboard is probably better then that thing now... either get the Creative X-Fi or one of the new Asus offerings... if you are on a budget though onboard sound is fine for now

Motherboard: Asus P5Q whatever (there are too many freaking models... pick one) or Rampage if you want to buy a high end mobo (but the P5Q's are no slouch)

PSU: Corsair HX620

DVD-Drive: Read good things about Samsung lately... optical drives are soo hit and miss though...

OS: Download pirated and download the patch that identifies you have a pirated windows and microsoft will offer you the WGA kit for just under $200 (or something like that)

Case: whatever suits your fancy... just make sure to have good airflow. If you want to upgrade your fans Scythe make awesome fans.

HD: Samsung, WD, Hitatchi, Seagate... buy whatever is the cheapest and is the size you want... there all good! (Hitatchi generally performs the best though unless you waste money on WD raptors...)

I just build a very similar system (but mATX in a Silverston Temjin TJ08 case) for under $1,000 and is awesome.

One thing I will say though is you do not want to cheap out on your motherboard or PSU. Corsair HX620 is one of the most solid units out there and its also one of the cheapest in its class.

 

[negativezeroz 5,000+ posts]

updated config...

 

[1rockford1 5,000+ posts]

i have the geforce 8600 gt professional series graphics card its a great card its 1 gb of memory it does need a big power surply to run this card

 

[TurdFergueson2 5,000+ posts]

780G + Quad Core Phenom is a BAD BAD BAD decision. Those boards simply cannot reliably support the power the Phenom X4s require. Bump yourself up to a 790X/790GX/790FX board if you're sticking w/ AMD. If you're going high-end, Intel is probably a better way to go unless you're going to be using it for number-crunching or you plan on using the Spider platform to its full potential.
6 GB of RAM does not make sense at all. Go w/ either 4 or 8.

The HD 3870 is also a curious choice as well. Not a bad decision, but I'd aim at the HD 4850/HD 4870 which are freaking awesome. Also, the 8800 GT outperforms it and can usually be found for less these days as they're being phased out a little quicker.

I'd stick to a more reputable brand for power supplies like Silverstone or Corsair.

I've seen a lot of WD Caviar 500 GB drives fail; I'd recommend the Seagate 7200.11 in its place. Cost difference isn't significant, plus it's faster.

Creative has notoriously poor support for Vista. I'd recommend looking at other brands of sound cards (or just sticking w/ onboard sound, which is pretty good these days).

Uh....what he said.

If You're asking opinions, I would have gone with a Pentium quad core board and proc.

Try to find an eVGA 8800GT superclocked. I got one for 240 earlier this year and I have seen them in the 150 range now if you can find them. get 2 of those and a board capable of SLI. eVGA makes very nice boards as well. If you have a Microcenter or Frys near you, parts are always on sale there. Microcenter always has OEM samsung dvd burners for like 25-30 bucks. Cheaper if you can find a returned one. I caught like 4 or 5 of them once for 11 bucks each

I'd find myself a copy of Windows XP Pro with Service pack 3. You should be able to. Vista might be better since my last build, but I still avoid it.

For Power supplies, I trust Antec or Thermaltake. I'm not baller status enough to go with a power pc & cooling one, but I would.

For Hard drives, I have a WD raptor 150 gb to run my OS and a 750 GB to store my shit. Hard drives do fail and fail often so invest in an external for your real important snuff, i mean stuff.

If you already have all the stuff you listed just build it. Not sure what your goal is, but if you just want to surf the internet and shit like that, you'll be fine. If ou are a gmaer and you were trying to build a crysis pc, change the video card.

 

[negativezeroz 5,000+ posts]

edit...I've decided to stick with the 9850BE..

 

[Bun-Bun 10+ year member]

edit...I've decided to stick with the 9850BE..

Why may I ask?

I am sure you wont need more then 4gb (I have 4gb and have virtual memory disabled and have yet to run out of ram)

i cant remember what you had for a video card...

and good choice on the PSU

 

[Jmac 10+ year member]

Why may I ask?
I am sure you wont need more then 4gb (I have 4gb and have virtual memory disabled and have yet to run out of ram)

i cant remember what you had for a video card...

and good choice on the PSU

If you're running Vista x64, you definitely benefit from the jump to 4 GB to 8 GB. I did it about a month ago and it helps a lot with load times if you use a lot of different programs thanks to Superfetch or if you multi-task a lot.
If you're running a 32-bit OS or XP x64, you probably won't see any difference, though.

As for XP, I would get Vista unless you have legacy hardware/software that won't work w/ Vista or you simply don't want to learn Vista. If you have a decent system and new-ish peripherals and software, Vista's a better choice, IMO.

 

[sue bee 10+ year member]

If it matters to you, make sure you get a "quiet" PSU and fans. Otherwise the PC will be loud as hell, which sucks if you have it in your room or where you sleep. I built a PC for a friend that had quiet fans, PSU and even the case. And as always, make sure you max out your RAM. You can always add more HDD space later even when the current SATA technology or whatever peaks, you could always just get an adapter for whatever next-gen storage connector will be used. RAM, however, is limited by your motherboard.

Max out your RAM.

 

[Bun-Bun 10+ year member]

If you're running Vista x64, you definitely benefit from the jump to 4 GB to 8 GB. I did it about a month ago and it helps a lot with load times if you use a lot of different programs thanks to Superfetch or if you multi-task a lot.
If you're running a 32-bit OS or XP x64, you probably won't see any difference, though.

As for XP, I would get Vista unless you have legacy hardware/software that won't work w/ Vista or you simply don't want to learn Vista. If you have a decent system and new-ish peripherals and software, Vista's a better choice, IMO.

Super-fetch is a marketing ploy and I have done test after test and found my system to perform much better as a whole with it along with virtual memory disabled. With no virtual memory I never fill up 4gb of ram now that is not to say that he wont be running a whole crapload of big programs (in which case superfetch is again... useless) and thus his needs will vary from mine. I am running 64bit vista.

If it matters to you, make sure you get a "quiet" PSU and fans. Otherwise the PC will be loud as hell, which sucks if you have it in your room or where you sleep. I built a PC for a friend that had quiet fans, PSU and even the case. And as always, make sure you max out your RAM. You can always add more HDD space later even when the current SATA technology or whatever peaks, you could always just get an adapter for whatever next-gen storage connector will be used. RAM, however, is limited by your motherboard.
Max out your RAM.

His PSU is quiet... it is a good choice. Not saying your saying its not just affirming that it is for anyone wondering.

As far as maxing out your ram... not always feasible. Maxing out your ram can sometimes cost 4 times the amount (or more) of going with a reasonable amount. Now I don't know the cost of a 8 gig kit right now but it may or may not be feasible for you. I suggest 4gb cause they are dirt cheap right now and you said you wanted to save some money. Also filling up all your DIMM's on your mobo is not always a smart option. Alot of motherboards don't handle it very well and there are more incompatibility issues that arrise in doing such a configuration.

 

[Jmac 10+ year member]

Super-fetch is a marketing ploy and I have done test after test and found my system to perform much better as a whole with it along with virtual memory disabled. With no virtual memory I never fill up 4gb of ram now that is not to say that he wont be running a whole crapload of big programs (in which case superfetch is again... useless) and thus his needs will vary from mine. I am running 64bit vista.

If Superfetch is a marketing ploy, why have I noticed a difference in load times ? Whenever I play a game, what used to take 15 seconds to load a map using 4 GB of RAM now takes 5 or less.
You can say it's a marketing ploy all you want, I've noticed a difference :shrug: Well worth the extra $50 it cost me to add another 4 GB.

 

[Bun-Bun 10+ year member]

If Superfetch is a marketing ploy, why have I noticed a difference in load times ? Whenever I play a game, what used to take 15 seconds to load a map using 4 GB of RAM now takes 5 or less.
You can say it's a marketing ploy all you want, I've noticed a difference :shrug: Well worth the extra $50 it cost me to add another 4 GB.

It's the ram helping then, not superfetch. If you are using up more then X% of the ram your page file will start to get used more so by putting in the more ram you are using the page file less and hence increasing performance. However if you dont actually use more then 4 gb of ram you can do the same thing by just disableing superfetch and virtual memory. I really wish you could set the virutal memory to only be used one the ram hits 90%. But no microsoft seems to thing that things need to be paged as early as 25% and somethings are paged by default unless you diable it alltogether.

do a comparison with superfetch off and superfetch on and then come back. (and turn off your pagefile/virutal memory)

I did notice some decreased load times in some applications. But as a whole my system was slower due to the constant disk thrashing off the page file and superfecth going at work... no thanks. The disk thrashing is really evident on laptops due to there lower HD performance. I couldn't figure out why so many people were coming to me complaing of poor performance on there laptop until I figured out the truth behind superfetch. they were complaining that with XP there laptop was fine but now with vista it takes forever to do even the most basic of task's. I disabled superfetch and everything was great.

Superfetch is only good for those users who only use the computer for certain things and thats all they do. Then superfetch can learn those things and cache/prefetch things appropriately. But for normal people who live dynamic lives there is no way for superfetch to predict what a user is going to use and just fills the ram up (in your case all 8gb's of it) with useless junk (wasting disk performance and power). And it litteraly doesnt stop... it just keeps going until the ram is full and even then it swaps stuff out as it sees fit... useless.