Help building a computer

[Hess]

Soo I was looking around and I since the extent of my gaming is basically just Runescape and Minecraft, I want something that I can have fun with and not wanna punch a hole in the wall over lag and such.

So I found this http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.679762&cm_sp=DIY_PC_Combos-_-679762-_-Combo

I'd be adding another 4gb of RAM and this video card

Thoughts or suggestions on something I should change? Or should I just scrap this idea completely and look for something better.

I dont want to spend big bucks so ~$800 is a good amount in my mind.

Fuck all that shit I put together my own so tell me some thoughts.

Here is a list of stuff Im gonna get from Amazon (since its cheaper than new egg)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/365XQRWKNG72P/ref%3dcm_sw_em_r_ws_YOhxob1J7N449_wb

And then I'd be getting the Power Supply and case from new egg, the links are below.

Power Supply

Case

I know the case is a bit expensive but I like the ventilation it has plus the room to expand.

Also I have fans and wires on the list too but theres no need to post them here.

And I have the OS, monitor, keyboard, and mouse accounted for, just gotta buy it when I get some feedback on my rig.

So thoughts on price, product, efficiency, and if I should swap some parts for something a bit cheaper or better?

And most importantly am I forgetting anything

Edited August 30, 2011 by iHess

[Deathstar]

More RAMz is overkill at this point and don't forget your os!

any piece of shit can play those games easily. consider using the computer for more than lol runeskep.

what are you using now?

[Hess]

I'd be using windows 7 and I have a laptop Dell Inspiron 1545. I've never had a desktop though and its about time I did.

[Mike]

That specs look good. Though I wouldn't call 8GB or RAM overkill.

And is it better to have 4x 2GB, or 2x 4Gb RAM sticks? Or is it MOBO/RAM type specific?

I noticed it also has USB 3.0, is that something you will be using or is it just one of those things trying to be future proof?

And with the other GFX card you want to get, do you have a DVI slot on the monitor? Or will you be using the HDMI ports?

Edited August 27, 2011 by Porsche 959

[Hess]

I was looking around a bit more (since I'm illiterate when it comes to computer terms)

And I was looking at the Dell XPS 8300. http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-8300/pd

If I were to go for the Dell I'd be getting the i5 2400 processor. But with that in mind, would updating the graphics card that it comes with to a AMD Radeon HD 6670 1GB DDR5

[Res]

Don't buy brand names/factory built PC's. They are over priced. Build your own like you originally planned. You will also need an OS, Monitor, mouse and Keyboard.

The 2500K is better than the 2400, obviously. The K also means its over-clockable and I've heard the i5 2500k is fairly easy to OC even on the stock cooler

[Hess]

I took what you said Res, and I found this Gem.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229266

It looks like it has everything all the other comps had plus its cheaper.

All I would have to get would be a monitor which I can get from Tiger Direct for pretty cheap so that is not a problem.

So basically I'm sold on this one, so you guys are my last barrier. Are there any catches?

I figure if there is anything that is slightly poor spec wise, I can easily upgrade it.

[Res]

Hm fair price I think, but I believe my build in my topic (minus the i7 2600k/monitor) would be a better pick. Let me put it back together for you

Edit: My builds $932 not counting the monitor, and Im not even sure about the video card

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=13459474

Edited August 29, 2011 by Dpa

[Hess]

Changed the topic points

[Ewhenn]

-Get a motherboard with a better VRM phase.

-The GTX 550 isn't very good for the price. For about the same price (within $5 or so), a GTX 460 is a much faster card.

[Ewhenn]

Here's some basic rules on how to pickout a good motherboard, I posted this on another board, so I'll just copy/paste it here:

I see this question asked a lot, and a lot of mistakes made when the question isn't asked so ....

Warning: This is long and there won't be a TL:DR. If you want a better understanding read it all, if not, don't bitch or complain because it can't really be condensed any further. This focuses on the component level, versus chipsets, and should be used as a general guide to compare boards based on the same chipsets.

PART 1

To give you a general idea of why your motherboard makes a difference it's important to understand that an overclocked CPU requires more power. How much more power? Likely a lot more than you would think as it's no linear.

Overclocked watts = (Chip TDP) * (overclocked MHz / Stock MHz) * ( (Overclocked volts / actual VID at stock speeds)^2)

I'll use my chip as an example.

â–ºThe 2500K has a TDP of 95W (95 watt chip)

â–ºMY chips actual VID (voltage) at stock speeds is 1.226

â–ºMy overclock is 4.3 GHz from the default 3.3 GHz

â–ºThe volts required to run my chip overclocked as above is 1.288

So for my chip:

Overclocked Watts = 95 * (4300/3300) * ((1.288/1.226)^2)

= 95 * (1.3030) * (1.05057^2)

= 95 * (1.3030) * (1.1036)

= 136.60 W

So to overclock my chip from 3.3 to 4.3 GHz it requires 43% more power, and my overclock isn't even really pushing the chip. Lots of people run higher voltages and faster clocks, 80%+ more power isn't uncommon.

PART 2

With that out of the way, an explanation of the VRM.

Everything being equal (chipset) it comes down to a few important parts, the biggest one being the VRM (Voltage Regulation Module). The VRM provides power to your CPU, so it determines the quality of power your CPU gets. When you are overclocking your CPU it's very important to have stable power. If the voltages are swinging up and down from poor voltage regulation, this can make your chip unstable. While this won't damage the CPU, it will make your computer crash (IE. blue screen, randomly reboot, etc.). Since you are running your CPU out of official specs when you overclock, the power needs to be as stable as possible to get a reliable and high overclock. Generally speaking, the more power phases you have, the better the regulation since each phase is doing less work. Power phases operate better and regulate cleaner when they aren't hot. When the power phases "work" to provide voltage to your CPU they produce heat. Obviously the more you have, the less each one needs to work, so the cooler it runs. With the amount of power being pulled to overclock a CPU, it's easy to see how these parts would get very hot if there aren't enough to handle the increased power load.

Power phases are comprised of a few parts (SEE FIRST PICTURE):

1) A PWM controller: Marked in Green. This is like the master control for all of the phases.

2) Chokes, The parts that look like "boxes". (Labled SFC in the below picture)

3) MOSFETs, they generally look like square chips with little legs coming off of them.

4) (usually) A MOSFET driver, looks like a little chip with ~8 legs on it.

5) Capacitors, important, but outside of the scope here.

A power phase is always comprised of 1 choke and a number of MOSFETs (Groups in red in first picture). The number of MOSFETs can vary sp for this reason you can count the "boxes" around the CPU socket to get an idea of how many phases it has. However, just because you count say 10, doesn't mean it's a 10 phase unit. In this case we are looking at Sandy Bridge boards, which also needs a VRM for the memory controller/clock generator since it was moved off of the chipset and on CPU die, so those 10 phases are likely configured as 8 phases for the CPU and 2 phases for the controller, also known as 8+2. Typical configurations you will see on lots of boards are: 3+1, 4+1, and 8+2 (on better boards usually).

AMD is similar, they also need additional phases to control on chip components, so they also use a split phase design.

Generally you will see 2 MOSFETs per phase (one is high pass, one is low pass), plus a driver (looks like a "chip" with 8 legs). Cheaper VRMs will use 3 MOSFETs instead of a driver, but this hurts voltage regulation.

The mosfets used can be a couple different types:

Standard: Looks like a box with three legs, the middle one "cut" off.

Driver: "Multiple legs", better quality and higher efficiency, this combines the controller and MOSFET into one unit. This can either be a partial merge, or a merge of the 2 MOSFETs (high/low pass) and driver onto one chip (you will see 16+ legs on these types)

Also, MOSFETs can only handle so much heat before they burn up. As we know, when you overclock a side effect is that your CPU needs more power. Since the MOSFETs are what supply the power to the CPU, they get put under more strain when you are overclocking, which produces more heat. Two things to solve this problem are:

A) More phases, so each one does less work. This will also increase system longevity as each phase isn't getting worked as hard.

Putting a heatsink on the MOSFETs, to help cool them down.

Here's what will happen to your motherboard if you push a cheap VRM hard, the MOSFETs will burn, literally. Once that happens your board is shot, and depending on how the MOSFET fails, it could kill your CPU too.

PART 3

OK with that out of the way, lets take a look at a cheap board marketed for overclocking. SEE FIRST PICTURE, I'M NOT POSTING IT A SECOND TIME.

The yellow circles are where the heatsinks should go, but MSI decided to not put them on. This means the MOSFETs aren't getting ideal cooling. Good boards, especially those marketed for overclocking should have heatsink on the VRM. This means the MOSFETs will run hotter, putting them at risk of dying and on top of that gives them poorer voltage regulation as it gets worse with heat.

The Red areas are the power phases. This particular board uses standard 2 MOSFETS, which is OK, but they cheap out and use a third MOSFET for regulation instead of a driver. Not good. The final grouping is composed of only 2 mosfets, this is used to power the memory controller/clock generator on chip die.

So the end result is a 4+1 design, 4 phases for the CPU, 1 for mem controller/clock gen. The FETs aren't heatsinked, and on top of that it's using a cheap 3 MOSFET design, so each phase isn't as good at regulating voltage as a better 2 MOSFET + 1 driver design.

Not a good board for overclocking.

Lets take a look at another board that is a lot better:

First it has a heatsink on all of the MOSFETs, so they get proper cooling.

This is what it looks like with the heatsink off. It's a 14 phase board. 12 for CPU and 2 for mem/clock gen, or a 12+2 design. It's using full driver MOSFETs for the CPU phases and a pair of high/low driver MOSFETs for the mem/clock gen phases. This electronics design is a lot better at the per phase level than the other board we looked at, and on top of that it has 3x the number of phases.

Bottom line: The Gigabyte board will have much more stable voltage regulation since the electronic design is superior, and it will run cooler as there are 12 phases sharing the load instead of 4 phases. On top of that the 12 phase board also has a heatsink to even further reduce heat, which also helps with voltage regulation.

For overclocking, the second board is far superior.

Generally, I'd look for an 8+2 Phase board with proper heatsinking for overclocking Sandy Bridge / AMD Phenom II CPUs. If you aren't overclocking a 4+1 phase board is fine for quad core chips since it won't have anywhere near the power draw placed on it.

[Hess]

I found the Mobo you were talking about here and I found another video card thats the 460 for roughly the same price as the 550 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127518

I see the differences in phases and what you mean about the cooling, but what are the major differences between a p67 and a z68?

[Ewhenn]

For your intents and purposes, no difference.

For motherboards right now, I'd look at:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157265

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131771

That video card you picked out is solid for the price.

For "mid range" video cards:

AMD 6950 > GTX 560 TI > AMD 6870 > GTX 460 1 GB > AMD 6850 == GTX 460 768 mb

I wouldn't go lower than a 6850 or 460 768mb for gaming.

[Ewhenn]

Also, what types of games do you intend to play?

Depending on that you may be able to get away with less. When people talk about a gaming PC, I generally assume they mean playing all the newest system demanding games.

Also, do you plan on overclocking?

Edited September 2, 2011 by Ewhenn

[Hess]

I was checking out the Asrock motherboards while the forums were down and I was looking between the one you posted and this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157231

The differences that I noticed were the Dual Lan ports, better phases, and the amount of Sata ports it has, plus 4 3.0usb slots is nice too.

And if this accounts for anything, I'm going to be using a h100 CPU Cooler by Corsair because they had a really good deal on it so I took advantage. I was previoulsly gonna use a h80 cpu cooler.

As far as over clocking, it is something I would want to do but not to a crazy extent, I just want my build to be right so that if I do decide I want to overclock then I don't have to worry about replacing anything for a better product.

And as far as gaming is concerned, RuneScape, Minecraft (may be hosting a server amongst friends), Starcraft, thats about it.

I've only owned laptops and crappy office type desktops and of course what I do isn't really meant for those kind of computers and they get old fast, so since I'm spending money on a good computer setup, I want to do it right.

Edited September 2, 2011 by iHess

[Ewhenn]

You don't need a very powerful video card for what you want to do. RS + Minecraft don't really require much at all.

Starcraft 2 is a bit more demanding. A GTX 460 1GB will be perfect for you at 1920x1080 res, Ultra High Detail, 4x AA, it will average 60is FPS, and dip to the 40's in some really demanding spots, but still be very playable.

[Ewhenn]

That extreme 6 motherboard is a very good board. If you want the extra features, it's definately a good buy.

With that H100, you should be able to overclock a 2500K from 3.3 GHz to 4.5ish GHz without any problems at all, and likely higher if you want to push it. Just make sure the case you buy can support the H100, it will need to have a spot for a 120mmx240mm radiator.

I also have an ASRock baord and can assist as well if needed as the BIOS is very similar.

Edited September 2, 2011 by Ewhenn

[Hess]

I'm buying a Corsair 400r Case which has the dimensions and perfect room for the h100. Thanks for the help, pretty pumped to get this thing put together

[Hess]

A question on the h100 cooler, it fits the case as I said, but there isn't room for a push/pull fan set up, should I just downgrade to the h80 with a push/pull fan set up, or is the h100 superior enough to where it isn't necessary?

[Ewhenn]

A question on the h100 cooler, it fits the case as I said, but there isn't room for a push/pull fan set up, should I just downgrade to the h80 with a push/pull fan set up, or is the h100 superior enough to where it isn't necessary?

The H100 will still be better in push only configuration. Surface area > slightly more airflow.