Oh yeah for a HTPC build, a 550 would be more than enough graphical juice for the Home Theater part, and maybe even some Minecraft. But 600-series are probably cheap enough now too to look at. I would be only be looking at efficiency and heat at that point.
It should run Planetside 2, but not on Ultra. Older Steam games and any HD you may require. This is basically the setup in my living room (I've got an A10-6700 that I bought OEM from Ebay, and it just slightly outperforms the A10-5700), but I went micro-ATX instead of mini-ITX to save about $80. Forgot to stick an optical drive in there, but shit man, I've got a spare optical drive just lying around.
If you want to go beefier, an A10-6800K would fit in that motherboard. I think it's FM2+, so you could also go with a 7700K, a 7850K, or wait 3 months until the 7600 comes out.
So...I want to build a monster gaming PC, but I haven't built a desktop PC in years, and I have absolutely no idea where to start nowadays. Do you guys have any ideas for a guy that has about a $1500-2000 budget?
I'm highly sceptical of nVidia, they have become more and more closed. PhysX is bullshit that is covered by the extra computations that AMD cards can already do.
The main issue I have with them is that they pay developers a sum of money to use a development process which adds way more stress on a card than is required because it makes their stats look good when compared to AMD. i.e. They encourage poor program development to look good when compared to their competitor. The user base as a whole all suffer as nVidia users could be getting even better performance in addition to AMD users having good enough use.
Other things that have irked me - propietary G-sync monitors rather than AMD's alternative which is non proprietary and can be used by both nVidia and AMD users.
Son of a bitch. Gaming rig needs Radeon? I have many sads. I'm an Nvidia man...
The Radeon OpenGL drivers have issues sometimes. Just read the blog of the X-Plane developers to find out about some of the wackiness he's been having with them.
I agree with the Linux drivers, I would advocate nVidia cards in all the Linux machines because the drivers just work.
With my prior comment in mind though I'm still not sure which card to get next as nVidia is not going to stop encouraging over tessellation if they keep getting better performance in games and grind AMD cards to a halt.
I am finally making purchases for my next machine and that's what lead me to uncover the Radeon/Nvidia thing. I'm very unsure which way to go. That is highly annoying.
My heart is leading toward Nvidia because it "just works"/AMD having shit drivers at times is not something I want to bother with My head tells me AMD because of the righteous outperformance over Nvidia. :-/
I've not had trouble with AMD cards over the years. I've had one game cause problems for me due to drivers, that was Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 and that was for one driver version.
If you have a Windows machine it doesn't matter if you go AMD or nVidia, just don't buy a shitty manufacturer.
Drivers are not an issue, I've had to deal with both nVidia and AMD problems.
i.e.
AMD - XFX, Sapphire, Asus, HIS If you just buy a from a random card manufacturer for a high end setup the life of the card is shortened or you get a really loud card. Sapphire and HIS make very cool running cards. XFX is rock solid and has a really long warranty, almost the equivalent of EVGA for AMD.
Actually, if you are going to use OpenGL software, drivers do matter. AMD's OpenGL drivers are much shittier (at least at the moment) than nVidia's. Otherwise, yeah, just go with a quality board manufacturer.
Yeah, I don't know much about OpenGL with regards to video rendering and such. However, I do read the blog of X-Plane's graphics engine developer, and it seems like he's always wrestling with issues concerning AMD's OpenGL drivers (X-Plane is entirely done in OpenGL for cross-platform support) on Windows whereas nVidia just seems to cruise along fine.
Planning on finally replacing the mobile and CPU of Jeremy's and my computer. 7+ years has been a good run with a dual core. Might even get a new video card.
Here is the current build for what I want in regards to upgrading Jeremy's and my computer.
I have a friend who is going to teach/show me how to install/change out these components in the next week or two.
In regards to RAM, it's basically all RAM is pretty good and whatever you pick, you're good to go? Someone suggested to me that I should buy an anti-static wristband. Suggestions?
My computer parts are in! I was a bit concerned that the shipping compnay New Egg uses doesn't required signatures. I really enjoyed how they left my SSD on my doorstep, and have the most highly of dubious ghetto neighbors that have stolen signs I've made to the UPS/FedEX people on my door along with generic magnets.
Anyhoo. I have Victor sending me the anti-static wrist band and have most of the tools recommended here. Any other recommendations? Tips? Advice? Cautionary tales?
I will more than likely be doing this next weekend. I'm excited to learn. Party scared, but mostly excited.
Every bit plugs into the bit that it fits into, and won't plug into the bits it's not supposed to plug into.
The CPU bit will sound like you're breaking it when it clicks down. That's normal but scary. Just follow the instructions exactly as written.
Other bits won't sound like they're breaking. If something sounds like it's breaking, back up and make sure you're plugging the right bit into the right bit.
Comments
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/JBk44D
It should run Planetside 2, but not on Ultra. Older Steam games and any HD you may require. This is basically the setup in my living room (I've got an A10-6700 that I bought OEM from Ebay, and it just slightly outperforms the A10-5700), but I went micro-ATX instead of mini-ITX to save about $80. Forgot to stick an optical drive in there, but shit man, I've got a spare optical drive just lying around.
If you want to go beefier, an A10-6800K would fit in that motherboard. I think it's FM2+, so you could also go with a 7700K, a 7850K, or wait 3 months until the 7600 comes out.
PhysX is bullshit that is covered by the extra computations that AMD cards can already do.
The main issue I have with them is that they pay developers a sum of money to use a development process which adds way more stress on a card than is required because it makes their stats look good when compared to AMD. i.e. They encourage poor program development to look good when compared to their competitor. The user base as a whole all suffer as nVidia users could be getting even better performance in addition to AMD users having good enough use.
Other things that have irked me - propietary G-sync monitors rather than AMD's alternative which is non proprietary and can be used by both nVidia and AMD users.
With my prior comment in mind though I'm still not sure which card to get next as nVidia is not going to stop encouraging over tessellation if they keep getting better performance in games and grind AMD cards to a halt.
My heart is leading toward Nvidia because it "just works"/AMD having shit drivers at times is not something I want to bother with My head tells me AMD because of the righteous outperformance over Nvidia. :-/
You might gain some frames, but at what cost? At what cost!?
Drivers are not an issue, I've had to deal with both nVidia and AMD problems.
i.e.
AMD - XFX, Sapphire, Asus, HIS
If you just buy a from a random card manufacturer for a high end setup the life of the card is shortened or you get a really loud card. Sapphire and HIS make very cool running cards. XFX is rock solid and has a really long warranty, almost the equivalent of EVGA for AMD.
You can just go nVidia too.
And SSDs. Wish the 500GB wasn't so damn pricey.
I have a friend who is going to teach/show me how to install/change out these components in the next week or two.
In regards to RAM, it's basically all RAM is pretty good and whatever you pick, you're good to go? Someone suggested to me that I should buy an anti-static wristband. Suggestions?
Also, the site : http://pangoly.com/en/ that Andrew suggested is pretty cool.
Edit: Didn't know Newegg makes you wait a day for the list to be public. Poo.
Mobo: ASUS H87M-E LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 uATX Intel Motherboard
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 Haswell Quad-Core 3.3GHz LGA 1150 84W Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4600
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
SSD: SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Total: $576.76.
Anyhoo. I have Victor sending me the anti-static wrist band and have most of the tools recommended here. Any other recommendations? Tips? Advice? Cautionary tales?
I will more than likely be doing this next weekend. I'm excited to learn. Party scared, but mostly excited.
The CPU bit will sound like you're breaking it when it clicks down. That's normal but scary. Just follow the instructions exactly as written.
Other bits won't sound like they're breaking. If something sounds like it's breaking, back up and make sure you're plugging the right bit into the right bit.