Author Topic: Need help choosing a new desktop (Read 999 times)

CanalDigger · « **on:** June 19, 2012, 03:30:12 AM »

After going from a '01 Dell with 256mb RAM to an HPG60 with 4GB RAM two years ago, I was pretty pumped that booting up my comp didn't take 10 minutes.
But this laptop isn't really amazing at playing games(games at low quality are sometimes barely playable) and sometimes can't handle the stress when watching anime in 1080p.
So, I'm thinking in getting a desktop that can handle games and video fairly well.
Also, the battery doesn't fit well and there is no point in having a laptop plugged in all day.

With around a $1000 budget I don't know whether to build something from scratch or get something like an Alienware.
I heard building from scratch is cheaper but then I realized my knowledge about computers is not high enough to know what to buy or who to buy from. I can do fine managing a computer just not designing one.

All I know is that, I'd prefer at least 8gb RAM and I "hear" Nvidia sucks, so I should get something with AMD technology.
Also, I have a NAS(and plan to acquire more external hdd) so the harddrive wouldn't have to be anything special.
I've seen some of the other threads, you guys definitely seem like you know your stuff. Help would be awesome.

Saras · « **Reply #1 on:** June 19, 2012, 04:25:25 AM »

Tomshardware does ocasional enthuast pc builds for set budget. Here's the last one for 1k$, should be a good starting bet.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-radeon-hd-7970-core-i5,3210.html

And Nvidia does not suck. Generally, the preferable option cycles from Nvidia to Ati from one cycle to another, but they are both very much functional at the moment.

CanalDigger · « **Reply #2 on:** June 19, 2012, 04:48:57 AM »

Like I said, my knowledge with building computer rigs is pretty basic.
Tomshardware.com definitely helps explain a lot for amateurs like me.
Too bad I missed the chance to enter that contest. $:-\$

I am starting to get the hang of this.

zzzYuyu · « **Reply #3 on:** June 19, 2012, 06:23:53 AM »

Quote from: Saras on June 19, 2012, 04:25:25 AM

And Nvidia does not suck. Generally, the preferable option cycles from Nvidia to Ati from one cycle to another, but they are both very much functional at the moment.

ATI? Oh, you're talking about AMD. Their current releases of the newest graphics cards are pretty much on the same level as Nvidia though.

Quote from: CanalDigger on June 19, 2012, 03:30:12 AM

get something like an Alienware.

Don't ever do that. They offer a lot of overkill for ridiculous prices.

kitamesume · « **Reply #4 on:** June 19, 2012, 06:28:53 AM »

the previous suggestions from the "build me this/that" threads are pretty nice, and all you'd need to do is look them up your area if they're available. as for parts not being available, well you can always look and ask for an alternative.

example:
http://forums.bakabt.me/index.php?topic=34683.0

also a build example:

(click to show/hide)

for putting the parts together yourself, well experience still is the best way to learn.

datora · « **Reply #5 on:** June 19, 2012, 08:30:04 AM »

.
As kitamesume pointed out, this tech forum has several excellent topics on building systems. There is a lot of detailed discussion about parts and their capabilities ... discussions that would help you very much in evaluating pre-built systems, also.

So, urgently advise you to use the Search function. If you click on it without entering anything, you will be asked "Did you forget to put something to search for?" and offered the option for Advanced Search, which is powerful. You can search only the Tech forum, for example.

Beyond that, I will always recommend that people build their own desktop. You get the best value for your money, and what you learn by doing it will make you a very literate user, someone who is in control of their system and won't have to helplessly take it in for simple problems and get gouged on service fees.

That's your decision. Building is not horribly complicated so long as you learn basics and are careful & methodical; there is plenty of help here to get you pointed in the right directions, and you can search youtube for videos that will show & explain in detail everything you'll need to know.

So first questions: is your budget for the computer "box" only, or does it need to include the monitor, keyboard & Mouse?

$1000 is very, very generous to build a fairly l337s rig for most gaming if it's for the box only. If you need to reserve $250 or $350 for a fairly high-end monitor, then the budget starts to get tight, but you can still do a hell of a lot for $700 or $800 on the box.

Consider that you will start off with 8 GB of decent RAM. You will not need more to start, and you can budget an upgrade for "down the road" if/when it becomes critical.

Alienware is crap for the money you spend on it. Don't get sucked in by their marketing; it's designed to separate you from your money, not provide you with good performance vs. value. Even if you go pre-built, you can get a LOT better value for your money.

Nvidia does not suck. Anyone who tells you that is a fool that you should avoid taking advice from. There are serious advantages to their products depending on what you will use them for and what your budget can handle. There are also advantages to going with other options. Keep an open mind at this point.

Since you have plenty of mass storage capacity, one of the things that will be serious consideration is to look at Solid State Drives (SSDs). Right now, 128 GB SSDs are of exceptional value for the useful size and performance; with care you can get an outstanding one for ~$100 delivered (Samsung 830 series or Crucial M4 or Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe are some of the better, although not only, options ... learn to watch for them on special and grab them fast when they turn up on one).

Are you in the U.S. ? Can you use newegg.com within the U.S. ? If not, what region will you have to purchase in? Subscribe to the newegg E-BLAST newsletter (homepage on the right edge, about halfway down the page). You'll get notices about five times a week or so with all their current deals, and you can save a hell of a lot of money by watching them.

List a few of the exact, highest end games you wish to play, also. That will give a solid idea of how much power you actually need.

But, definitely take some time to read through a few of the more recent topics here. It'll help us out a lot if you increase your basic literacy on the tech.

Then, think carefully if you want to build or buy a prebuilt and we''l take it from there.

kitamesume · « **Reply #6 on:** June 19, 2012, 09:23:45 AM »

^ i'd say 120GB SSDs has a greater $/GB ratio, going for as much as 1$/1.34GB but more commonly at 1$/1.2GB.
Newegg 120GB SSD
SSDs in itself can be used as a regular harddisk, a big enough SSD can save you money by not buying an HDD as the build's main storage BUT it is still a good idea to pair up an HDD for colossal file storages since they're the most cost effective storage at the moment.
also, an SSD has a great characteristic of being one of the fastest drives you can use, using it as a boot-drive would tremendously accelerate your system's boot-speed and regular application accesses, some games even profits from being on an SSD by cutting the time it loads by a huge amount.

also, the graphics card is the core of a gaming system. the settings desired, specially the target resolution, decides what kind of graphics card you'll need. for example at 1080p low settings you'd need at least an HD7770 or GTX560SE to maintain a steady >30fps, in aspect to that the fair and most reasonable choice in the numbers of graphic cards available would be the HD7850 or GTX560Ti where they can pretty much handle mostly everything at 1080p.

a quad core seems like a must now a days for future proofing reasons, believe me i've been there and feeling some regret of passing up a quad myself, but never the less it is still a great choice of picking the i3 line of intel or AMD's bulldozer 4core-2module line tho in essence the i3 would dominate the comparison in most occasions. i could say they can handle most of the workload of a regular person, cutting short on a heavy user but its just about the right performance for an all-around build.

as for the ram, about 4GB would be plenty of ram for a standard build and pretty much will be able to handle a regular person's workload, but cutting it short for a heavy user, 8GB would be the sweet spot for a heavy user and practically plenty for most workload.

CanalDigger · « **Reply #7 on:** June 19, 2012, 11:33:48 AM »

Wow, you guys are giving great advice.
I'm going to start browsing the forums some more and check out Newegg.

I'm mainly focused on the box atm, since I can get logitech keyboard and mouses really cheap and the monitor will probably a much easier decision to make.

Is there anything else I should stay away from, other than overpriced pre-built rigs, like Alienware?

*Also, I might be playing games like Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, and maybe Max Payne 3, but then again also I have restricted myself since I my comp could barely handle most games even at low graphics, so I may try new games, too.

kitamesume · « **Reply #8 on:** June 19, 2012, 12:56:01 PM »

for those kinds of games even at 1080p the HD7770 or GTX550Ti or GTX560SE would be plenty. heck im playing fallout3 at 720p med settings on my HD6570 that isnt even half of HD7770's performance.

you should pay attention to reviews in newegg, if the complains about them dying so soon goes over 30% then you should pretty much stay away from that.

monitors arent as easy to choose from as you may think, three factors that you'd want to consider would be the brand, type of monitor and it's native resolution at a certain size. most preferably you should aim for a 21.5" or 23" with a native resolution of 1920x1080 and preferably a led backlit to save electricity, also IPS-panel monitor are quite good but tends to be expensive. also pay attention to reviews as well, high feedback issues like dead pixel, bleeding, etc. should be indications of a bad product.

as far as the build goes everything else would depend on your taste, specially cases and form factors. personally i like compact form factors so i could fit the whole rig into hidden places.

CanalDigger · « **Reply #9 on:** June 19, 2012, 01:38:52 PM »

I like kitamesume's build example, and am starting from there and comparing the other products on newegg.

Is there a substantial difference between having 1GB of memory versus 2GB for the graphics cards?

Also, I know there won't be an OS when I get the comp assembled. Do I have to have an official Win7 disc or something?

kitamesume · « **Reply #10 on:** June 19, 2012, 02:59:58 PM »

1GB vs 2GB isn't an issue with lower end cards since the bottleneck would be the GPU first before the full potential of the ram gets used, at most the gains would be ignorable. what uses the GPU RAMs are the settings, specially going at the higher settings ends up using rams more but lower end cards cant be effectively used at higher settings because they're simply too weak to do so, but once you step onto higher end cards thats where higher capacities shines the most.
to point out as well, lower end cards are under HD7750 and GTX550Ti. middle end cards, also known as mainstream cards, are HD7750 to HD7850 and GTX550Ti to GTX560Ti, high end are HD7870 to HD7950 and GTX570 to GTX670. while enthusiasts are whatever at the top of their pyramid but most likely it'll be their HD7970 to HD7990 and GTX680 to GTX690.
usually they categorize their rankings based on how capable the cards are, cards capable of only up to 720p are lower end cards while cards capable of only up to 1080p are mainstream cards. cards capable of 1440p are what you'd call high end cards, while cards that plays practically anything at extreme settings are enthusiast cards.

theres a lot of means to get an OS, microsoft are giving away free copies of windows 7 but with a trial in them, you could extend it to theoretically an unlimited trial via a trick tho i doubt we can discuss it here. linux is free as well and they're legally downloadable and licenced. buying a copy is also an option but it costs too much to be justifiable.
a legal copy isn't really a necessity either, so long as you don't get caught you can pull off a pirate copy.

zzzYuyu · « **Reply #11 on:** June 19, 2012, 06:29:23 PM »

Quote from: kitamesume on June 19, 2012, 12:56:01 PM

heck im playing fallout3 at 720p med settings on my HD6570 that isnt even half of HD7770's performance.

Wait what. I could run it with everything on max @ 1920x1080 with my old HD5850. You're doing something wrong.

Saras · « **Reply #12 on:** June 19, 2012, 07:22:27 PM »

5850 is high end 5th gen.
7770 is med end 7th gen.
6570 is entry level 6th gen.

A high end card will toast a med end card for a good 3 generations and a low end one for 5. Your 5850 will probably be a fair bit better than 9570 if one will exist.

Also, Fallout, Skyrim... etc. are CPU bound. As long as it's better than "decent enough" the GPU has little say in their performance. Considering that, it'd highly recommend going for basically any i5, it doesn't really matter which one, by the looks of it, you'll have little use for the unlocked models, but do shell out for at least the lowest one.

I'd also hold back on an SSD, a normal HDD will suffice for now, get a decent monitor instead. And while a 7770 is good enough for now, it will not be for long. If you wish to use the same rig in two years, I highly suggest upgrading to a 7850. I would also avoid going for the 560, as the 660 will be released shortly.

Edit:
Kitamusume's suggested base rig is generally fine, but I would still suggest chucking out the ssd and exchanging the 7770 for the 7850 OC for the same price. Leaving you with some extra cash for a half decent monitor.

vuzedome · « **Reply #13 on:** June 20, 2012, 09:17:10 AM »

Definitely go for something higher for the GPU, getting a SSD with your budget isn't really wise so hold that off for when you plan on going all out.

kitamesume · « **Reply #14 on:** June 20, 2012, 10:24:38 AM »

he did mention he had a NAS, so why toss the SSD? rather toss the HDD instead, a much more logical move i think? as it bears more perks than getting an HDD.

edit: with a 120GB tho, that is unless the games he'd install would use up more than 70GB and where 40GB is reserved for the OS then it would become slightly problematic indeed.

CanalDigger · « **Reply #15 on:** June 20, 2012, 03:05:34 PM »

I am definitely going to need storage space now that I remember I need to install Autodesk and a few other programs.
I know SSD's are faster, but this isn't a $1.5k+ build. So maybe just get a 1TB HDD and forget the SSD for now. Or just keep the 500GB HDD and and put those funds for a better card as Saras suggested. At this point in time, I'd be happier with more space than the quality of a SSD.

How about Solid State Hybrid Drives? The specs make them sound good.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148591

kitamesume · « **Reply #16 on:** June 20, 2012, 03:29:06 PM »

give this a read if you're interested in that hybrid drive http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Seagate-Momentus-XT-750-GB-Hybrid-HDD-Review/1474
summary is "its good enough"

the SSD i linked wasnt even 100$ o.o i think you're seeing things.

anyway, any other concerns?

CanalDigger · « **Reply #17 on:** June 20, 2012, 03:59:43 PM »

Woops, I not sure why but I got this one ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226225 )
mixed up with the one you linked.

I think I just have to decide what kind of storage I ultimately want and continue reading up on things to make sure I have everything correct.

Wishlist: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=15466914

You guys have been a great help.

vuzedome · « **Reply #18 on:** June 20, 2012, 04:04:28 PM »

Come on kitamesume, I doubt even you will get one SSD with that kind of a budget.

kitamesume · « **Reply #19 on:** June 20, 2012, 04:30:04 PM »

^ the example i gave was my WTB, more like a wish list tho, but with a different case as i like compact cases as i said earlier. so yea if i had that much money i'd be able to get an SSD on top of a WD 1TB black.

Edit: for now i'll seat and wait for haswell in 2013, maybe i could still use my i3 that long at least.
Edit2: canalDigger can you hold for a few more weeks? seems like ivybridge i5-3330 would be releasing in about a week from now, it should be cheaper for a slight reduction in performance.