Discussion Forums > Technology
Help with building a tower
kitamesume:
--- Quote from: datora on July 17, 2011, 05:48:43 PM ---.
The remaining budget is ~$300 (already higher than my original max of ~$250) for mobo + GPU, and if I can get under that by a "decent" amount, I might then go as high as ~$350 total to include an SSD. Ideally I'd want to find all three for under ~$320.
--- End quote ---
300-350$ for a Mobo+GPU+SSD?
[150$]GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990X
[100$](70$ after rebate)ZOTAC ZT-40503-10L GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5
[100$] Corsair Nova Series 2 CSSD-V60GB2 2.5" 60GB SATA II(SSD)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[350$] without rebate
[320$] after rebate
it fits! wooooo!
datora:
.
Yeah, so I pussied out on the mobo+GPU combo I was discussing most recently. Sat at my terminal with 45 minutes to go last night and finally decided to wait it out and try to do better. The Zotac card certainly looked exceptionally sweet and I'm already regretting it; the ASUS mobo I'm not as sorry: there are regular deals for very similar capacity.
--- Quote from: kitamesume on July 18, 2011, 01:49:13 PM ---300-350$ for a Mobo+GPU+SSD?
[150$]GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990X +$7.87 shipping
[100$](70$ after rebate)ZOTAC ZT-40503-10L GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 +$6.98 shipping
[100$] Corsair Nova Series 2 CSSD-V60GB2 2.5" 60GB SATA II(SSD) - free shipping
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[350$] without rebate +$14.85 = $365 w/ shipping
[320$] after rebate = $335 w/ shipping (still within reach)
it fits! wooooo! - THAT'S exactly what she said ... with great relief. ;)
--- End quote ---
Shipping (& taxes) is still moniez, and still needs accounted in budget.
Some great suggestions there, thank you. I've been looking at that Gigabyte mobo for a couple of weeks ... it's one I'm hoping will go on special for maybe $140 + free shipping, or better. I like the layout of the expansion slots about as much as any other board I've seen. It would be nice to have a PATA controller on it for flexibility (I do consulting & tech work where I have to access PATA drives) ... however, it is not a deal-breaker since I have other systems that can perform that function.
I'm gonna look hard at this model Zotac. It may well be the price/performance compromise I need to finish this build. I'm lusting for MOAR powers ... but I honestly don't need it.
The Crucial SSD is another I've looked at, but I really won't pay $100 for a SATA II 60 GB SSD. It would have to be an 80 or 90 GB for me to take it, or it would have to be more like $70 for this exact model. Formatted, it will be ~55GB, and I will use ~40-45 GB (at least) to install Win7 + linux + a couple basic software. Even a 64 GB would be better. This is an item I can wait for a few months and jump on a serious deal when it happens ... there will be several by September/October, no doubts.
kitamesume:
SSDs can wait ::), HDDs are fine enough for me right now, my other PCs are using HDDs while my main rig which always reboots because of silly little patches needs the SSD(remember the Agility1 SSD i mentioned that i got for 50% off if i bought a whole rig?) more than the others.
datora:
.
Well, finally found my video card. Have to make a choice between these two in the next ~24 hours:
- ZOTAC ZT-40408-10P GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 $159.99 + $7.56 ship
- ZOTAC ZT-40406-10P GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 $159.99 + $7.56 ship
Their prices are identical, being $167.55 (w/ ship) - $10 w/ promo (VGA46MM) = $157.55, with a $40 rebate that appears to take ~14-16 weeks (according to comments), for a total of $117.55 if/when the MIR comes through.
The tradeoff is the 1 GB VRAM card supports DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.1, while the 2 GB card supports DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.0. The 1 GB card is fractionally clocked faster, but both can be overclocked a bit up to 800/820 plus (instead of core clocks @720 MHz & 710 MHz respectively). I don't see me needing to OC these, but some small capacity is there if I wish to play with it some.
I wanted the OpenGL 4.1 for greatest forward compatibility; it has a couple enhancements for enhanced details & efficiency for applications written to take advantage of it, and I fully intend to be installing linux on the build (eventually), so want(ed) that little extra.
The speed difference is not part of the choice; too negligible to waste thought power on.
I'm trying to figure out if that 2 GB offers an advantage that's worth sacrificing the OpenGL 4.1 for the 4.0. So far, seems a few top-end games can use the extra VRAM (saw a comment about GTA4, which I will never play). As far as video and graphics go for other apps, saw one comment about video rendering that seemed to benefit slightly.
Anyone got any thoughts ..? I'm leaning OpenGL 4.1, unless there's a compelling argument that 2 GB VRAM is worth the sacrifice.
Nice Boat Bonus: both cards have Dolby True HD & DTS-HD Master Audio bitstream sound over full-sized HDMI ports; not particularly common. Overall, these cards are mad x4 power more than I had originally hoped to get for my build, so big chubby happy in my world today. ;D
kitamesume:
you`ll only need 2gbs of vram if you have above 2560x1440 of screen resolution which i doubt your gpu can handle btw. cards like GTX570 or HD6950 and above should get those flashy 2gb vram not the lower segment...
Edit: any news when they'd start making AMD Llano based laptops? i`m having my hopes up on it, betting my ass that it starts at 400$ for the dual core. ok they were already out... meh.
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