I ended up buying a prebuilt Asus desktop that was on sale and ordered a 144hz monitor off of Amazon. The core specs for the desktop should be good for a few years (i7, 12GB, 2TB) while graphics is about a $150 card (GTX 750, 2GB). I would have preferred a 760 or better but I'm running on a 4yr old machine so when the 750 can't handle games I'll buy something better.
I was hoping to get a monitor at the store too (18 months 0%) but all they had were 60hz monitors or monitors that I could not get an answer on refresh rates.
If there was a plasma in the 25" range I would buy it.
Which leads me to my question: are 240hz TVs good enough for PC gaming or is there something specific to PC monitors that makes them better?
Temporarily using a crappy 20" 720p HDTV as a monitor.. Ho Lee Fuck... Took me a while to get it so the edges were not beyond the viewable screen space. Turns out this monitor is not standard 1280x720 but is instead 1216x676. My new monitor can not get here fast enough though I might just download some games, hook it to my plasma and go steam big picture for a few days.
Which leads me to my question: are 240hz TVs good enough for PC gaming or is there something specific to PC monitors that makes them better?
Input lag is huge, enough for you to notice playing most games. Pixel density will usually be lower. Response times are just silly. Doesn't matter if you have 240 hz if it takes 0.5 a second or more to register.
You've probably noticed it already if you've played any demanding (visually or player skill) games.
This is literally the first time I'm going to try building my own PC. I basically went through Newegg and picked whatever was best rated and in my price range. I think everything fits together just fine. Any suggestions on bits that are of equal quality (or better) at a similar cost, or less, would be welcome. I want to keep it under $1.3K, before shipping, if possible.
I'm building a new gaming PC. Right now I'm at this for the bits
CPU:i5-4690k (just bought this for a build I did recently for family and it is very easy to overclock if you want, if not get whichever has the best base clock and comes with heatsink and fan), also the one you have selected doesn't come with a heatsink and fan for some reason
GPU:XFX R9 285 (new architecture that is catered towards running cooler, is faster than the 270x and is currenlty cheaper) or MSI R9 285 I can vouch for the quality of MSI's build and the cooler on this is the quietest out of any video card I've listened. The alternative is nVidia's GTX 960 which is similarly priced and is the competitor to the AMD 285 / 280 cards. The AMD 285 may produce some better results on AMD games, especially those with Mantle. However the features of the 900 series are pretty good (especially for efficient power and cooling). If you go down the 960 route I would recommend MSI's Twin Frozr or Asus Strix lines. They are priced around what you are looking at. If you are looking for higher resolutions then roll with AMD otherwise go with nVidia in this price range.
The 285 has the new chip architecture which runs cooler and puts up numbers that beat out the
PSU: The one you've listed is a rebranded Seasonic 650W drive, they seem to be similarly priced, just check on the XFX warranty.
It's been a while since I've had to do research on PC components, but I will say that I have an MSI Twin Frozr GTX 760 and it runs very well. No issues whatsoever.
I never know how to shop for a GPU. Are all GTX 760 the same? Do certain manufacturers make better boards? How do you compare boards with the same GPU?
I never know how to shop for a GPU. Are all GTX 760 the same? Do certain manufacturers make better boards? How do you compare boards with the same GPU?
Certain manufacturers do make better boards and some manufacturers also mess up builds when trying to rush and cut corners. e.g. The EVGA 970 and 980 series had the 700 series heatsinks applied to them, only 2/3 of the GPU was in contact with the heatsink and resulted in higher temperatures and high fan speeds.
Companies will put out the stock cards initially as dictated by nVida. Then they will also tend to make factory overclocked cards, better heatsinks and fans, often these are open air rather than blower coolers.
MSI and ASUS are currenlty my top two for these types of cards for the last few months because they are able to let their fans not spin whatsoever and then start spinning up as required rather than constantly making noise. MSI has the better design in my opinion as the the two fans spin up separately, many tasks only need one fan spinning rather than both.
So you get less noise, better heat dissipation and higher clocked memory plus GPU.
I have no plans on overclocking. It was suggested I swap out my current mobo pick with one from this list of H97 mobos since, as it was explained to me, the only advantage a z97 has is the overclocking support. What's your take on it?
The M.2 SSD was mostly an impulse pick. Would switching to a SATA SSD be worth it so I could invest in a better GPU? If so, which would you recommend, on both counts?
I have no plans on overclocking. It was suggested I swap out my current mobo pick with one from this list of H97 mobos since, as it was explained to me, the only advantage a z97 has is the overclocking support. What's your take on it?
RAM The H97 chips will run RAM at a max of 1600 MHz regardless of the RAM's potential speed, also make sure that the RAM is 1600 or 1333 for this chipset.
Graphics Card(s) Both only seem to support AMD Crossfire, no SLI (which I would absolutely recommend if you go down the nVidia route as your olde nVidia cards can be used to do all the PhysX work, making it possible to have a great upgrade path for single card upgrade cycles.
Z97 chipset handles multiGPU much better as well so if you want to use multiple cards or use multiple cards in the future you may hamstring yourself by the slower speeds.
Storage and M.2 port difference Z97 all the SATA ports are 6 Gb/s, H97 only 4 SATA ports are. Z97 M.2 shares SATA express bandwidth - (unlikely that you would have an M.2 and a SATA express drive as the latter is not common). H97 M.2 shares SATA 6 port bandwidth - very likely that you may need to use these SATA ports as there are only 4 of these available to you on the H97 board.
Audio The Z97 boards come with some pretty great audio when compared to the H97, audio shielding (especially good if you use the analog ports) and general electromagnetic shielding of the audio part of the motherboard. 6 analog ports on Z97 (only 3 on the H97 in case you have a 5.1 surorund). SPDIF on Z97 no optical on H97.
None of this audio stuff is important if you're using USB for everything but if you're using anything analog go fro the Z97 board or buy a sound card.
In short If you have: Analog audio - go with z97 or Want to use M.2 drive and more than 2 other drives - go with Z97 or Ever see yourself using more than one graphics card on this motherboard - go with Z97 or Overclock - go with z97
The M.2 SSD was mostly an impulse pick. Would switching to a SATA SSD be worth it so I could invest in a better GPU? If so, which would you recommend, on both counts?
If you're not doing too much with massive video and photo files go with the SATA SSD (maxes out at 6 Gb/s). I would recommend the Samsung 850 EVO (I bought the 500gb version, works great and has a 5 year warranty). Otherwise if you need all the speed go with M.2 because it caps out at 10 Gb/s which isn't capped from the current drives as far as I've found.
With the extra $120 you could get a nVidia Geforce GTX 970 or AMD R9 290 (older architecture but sits somewhere between the GTX 970 and GTX 980 based on the game however makes more noise and runs hotter, plus uses more power, multi gpu is supported by H97 if you go down this route). I would recommend the MSI Twin Frozr. This version is a normal clocked one that can trivially be overclocked with the included software and is covered by the MSI warranty. While this one comes pre-overclocked and the overclock plus extra is covered under the warranty. The alternative version is the Asus Strix, the fans produce more noise but are just as solid as the MSI model. I don't know about the Zotac or Gigabyte versions (however the last Gigabyte card I bought caught fire literally). I wouldn't trust any of the 900 series EVGA cards because they are recycling the 700 series coolers and putting them on the 900 series, not sure if they fixed this but you can't tell if you're getting one of these duds till you see the temperatures or remove the GPU's heatsink.
Also the 970 performs brilliantly in SLI so this fact may affect future buys and your motherboard choice.
HDD You could move up from that Seagate 2TB to a Western Digital Green 3TB for $20. I have 2 WD Greens that are over 8 years old and still going without a hiccup however I also have 2 WD Blacks and a WD Velociraptor and none have died, I may be bias on the brand but I have 4 other machines running the WD green drives of varying ages with no issues.
Cool. I'll be sticking with the Z97 (didn't even notice the lack of analog on the h97) and dropping the M.2 (don't really need it) for the Samsung SSD, and adding this version of the MSI GPU . I may as well add the K version of the CPU as well since there isn't a noticable price difference between it and the non-K version. Think the PSU is fine as is?
And my chosen case is gone at the nice, cheap price it was at. Damn.
Cool. I'll be sticking with the Z97 (didn't even notice the lack of analog on the h97) and dropping the M.2 (don't really need it) for the Samsung SSD, and adding this version of the MSI GPU . I may as well add the K version of the CPU as well since there isn't a noticable price difference between it and the non-K version. Think the PSU is fine as is?
And my chosen case is gone at the nice, cheap price it was at. Damn.
The PSU is fine, highly rated Seasonic one which just has a different paintjob.
You should be able to find that CPU with a fan and heatsink, it seems to be just that seller which is weird. The K version of the CPU just has an unlocked multiplier, excellent price if you want to dabble with overclocking later and want more flexibility with the overclock.
Nice find on the video card those fans will run all the time though I think the extra $20 is just for the cooler on the Twin Frozr GPU coolers (i.e. the fans stop running when the video card is less than 60 or 70C which tends to be most of the time in my case.
The leftover H97 motherboards are just weird odds and ends that resellers are trying to get rid of, which is also the reason I went with the Z97 route even though my parent's computer wasn't going to be overclocked or use multi-gpu.
My dad's home office PC is starting to die (Well it's been cancerous for about a year now, but now the problems are starting to increase in scope.)
I'm a huge fan of building my own, and I often 'feel' that you can get a better machine for the money and for the task you want to do.
But for my dad, who has a habit of breaking machines, should I bother build him a new machine or is the general wisdom to buy a ready-built from a reputable source?
We work in the same office, so I'll be able to do troubleshooting or what-not, but, I dunno.
My dad's home office PC is starting to die (Well it's been cancerous for about a year now, but now the problems are starting to increase in scope.)
I'm a huge fan of building my own, and I often 'feel' that you can get a better machine for the money and for the task you want to do.
But for my dad, who has a habit of breaking machines, should I bother build him a new machine or is the general wisdom to buy a ready-built from a reputable source?
We work in the same office, so I'll be able to do troubleshooting or what-not, but, I dunno.
Pre-built desktops have some of the most terrible parts to save money, I know because of all the machines I've had to fix while working at jobs that don't want to hire IT help to keep things going and assume a Pentium is still sufficient for daily duties and the entire case is one massive dust ball that keeps catching fire and a server that is so slow that it takes minutes for simple commits to work. I've also seen the builds use up money on shitty parts which won't otherwise sell as well. The combination gives a machine which lasts 1 to 2 years of optimal use and may have hardware failure. I think Rym found one company which allows you to customise the parts with appropriate choices but I can't remember the name.
I still make my parent's machines because they are functional, cost effective and don't die. The most recent upgrade was on a machine that was 7 years old but could still run Civilization V and Portal 2 (because my Mum likes to play games but doesn't like to admit it to her friends).
I am pretty much set on the Silverstone GD10 as a case. The rest I just threw together. I'm really not too up on what is the current best stuff to look for. I already have two fantastic SSDs that will handle OS and games, as well as a nice power supply that I will reuse. I also figure I have $300-400 left in my budget, if there are any sensible upgrades I should be making here. What say you?
I assume my video card selection is the most suspect. I don't know what the hot card from last generation is that I should be picking up at a value price, and it also seems like the selection of a 960 when I've got money left in my budget it a bit silly. Also - will I really benefit from RAM at that speed or is it overkill?
It helps with downloading Windows Updates faster, especially when Microsoft rolls out the big updates. (I have two desktops--one with 8GB, another with 16GB--and the difference is VERY noticeable.)
You don't necessarily need that much RAM, but if you want faster downloads and want to handle more processes at a time, more RAM is helpful.
Motherboard Although this case can fit an ATX (I have the GD06 which is an earlier version with almost the exact same build). Micro ATX is what I would recommend just for build ease and any maintenance. Also plug in all your cables before dropping it into your case (set the motherboard out on a box on top of the anti-static bag it comes in), once you start attaching all the parts of the case, reaching for connectors on the motherboard can become tricky. Also make sure you PSU will fit in the allocated area my GD06 was only 15cm long but it seems the GD10 allows for 18 - 22cm so you should be fine.
RAM For an HTPC I would just search the cheapest 2 stick 16gb set with a lifetime warranty (which is everything HyperX, G.Skill, Mushkin, Corsair and I think Crucial (could be more). You could even get away with just 8gb on a HTPC. CPU No need for an i7-4790k on an HTPC, might as well get an i5-4690 or 4690k and save $100. Graphics Card Assuming you want the quieter build with the HTPC I would recommend spending the extra $10 - 15 to get either an ASUS Strix or MSI Twin Frozr 2 gtx 960. These cards are incredibly quiet and the fans won't spin unless required. I have the MSI version on my main gaming PC and only 1 of the 2 fans spins up when playing on a Cryengine 3 based game otherwise it will sit there and passively cool off the heatsink. HDD I think the only thing missing is a 120gb or smaller SSD. I would go with a good M.2 drive or the Samsung 850 EVO for SATA. Then separately have a big ass WD Green for all your media.
I assume you have a bluetooth controller or are going to use your phone as the remote control.
Thanks guys. To be fair, I call it an HTPC because media is its primary function, but I use it for a lot of different things. Home file server, Steam box, and video editing (which is why I decided to go 16GB). My other PC is a shit laptop (will be upgrading to a Surface 4 I think when they announce Broadwell models.
Mentioned in a previous post that I have a very nice power supply and 2 SSDs coming over from previous build. Also have Bluetooth keyboard/mouse already
I can't remember the specs on the power supply (but am going to double check at some point). As for a monitor, I use a 42" 720p Sharp TV that will be replaced at some point in the future before this HTPC dies. I also often use the HTPC via Chrome Remote Desktop from a Chromebook in my office, or from my phone when on the go (or on the couch when they keyboard is too far away)
Comments
I was hoping to get a monitor at the store too (18 months 0%) but all they had were 60hz monitors or monitors that I could not get an answer on refresh rates.
If there was a plasma in the 25" range I would buy it.
Which leads me to my question: are 240hz TVs good enough for PC gaming or is there something specific to PC monitors that makes them better?
Ho Lee Fuck... Took me a while to get it so the edges were not beyond the viewable screen space. Turns out this monitor is not standard 1280x720 but is instead 1216x676. My new monitor can not get here fast enough though I might just download some games, hook it to my plasma and go steam big picture for a few days.
Pixel density will usually be lower.
Response times are just silly. Doesn't matter if you have 240 hz if it takes 0.5 a second or more to register.
You've probably noticed it already if you've played any demanding (visually or player skill) games.
Mobo: ASUS Z97-Pro LGA 1150 Intel Z97
CPU: i5-4570 Haswell 3.2 GHz
GPU: Saphire Radeon R9 270X
RAM: 2x4 GB G.Skill DDR3
SSD: Samsung M.2 256 GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB
PSU: XFX 650W Modular
This is literally the first time I'm going to try building my own PC. I basically went through Newegg and picked whatever was best rated and in my price range. I think everything fits together just fine. Any suggestions on bits that are of equal quality (or better) at a similar cost, or less, would be welcome. I want to keep it under $1.3K, before shipping, if possible.
CPU: i5-4690k (just bought this for a build I did recently for family and it is very easy to overclock if you want, if not get whichever has the best base clock and comes with heatsink and fan), also the one you have selected doesn't come with a heatsink and fan for some reason
GPU: XFX R9 285 (new architecture that is catered towards running cooler, is faster than the 270x and is currenlty cheaper)
or
MSI R9 285 I can vouch for the quality of MSI's build and the cooler on this is the quietest out of any video card I've listened.
The alternative is nVidia's GTX 960 which is similarly priced and is the competitor to the AMD 285 / 280 cards. The AMD 285 may produce some better results on AMD games, especially those with Mantle. However the features of the 900 series are pretty good (especially for efficient power and cooling). If you go down the 960 route I would recommend MSI's Twin Frozr or Asus Strix lines. They are priced around what you are looking at. If you are looking for higher resolutions then roll with AMD otherwise go with nVidia in this price range.
The 285 has the new chip architecture which runs cooler and puts up numbers that beat out the
PSU: The one you've listed is a rebranded Seasonic 650W drive, they seem to be similarly priced, just check on the XFX warranty.
e.g. The EVGA 970 and 980 series had the 700 series heatsinks applied to them, only 2/3 of the GPU was in contact with the heatsink and resulted in higher temperatures and high fan speeds.
Companies will put out the stock cards initially as dictated by nVida. Then they will also tend to make factory overclocked cards, better heatsinks and fans, often these are open air rather than blower coolers.
MSI and ASUS are currenlty my top two for these types of cards for the last few months because they are able to let their fans not spin whatsoever and then start spinning up as required rather than constantly making noise. MSI has the better design in my opinion as the the two fans spin up separately, many tasks only need one fan spinning rather than both.
So you get less noise, better heat dissipation and higher clocked memory plus GPU.
That is a $472 video card when while Banta is looking at something that costs around $200.
I have no plans on overclocking. It was suggested I swap out my current mobo pick with one from this list of H97 mobos since, as it was explained to me, the only advantage a z97 has is the overclocking support. What's your take on it?
The M.2 SSD was mostly an impulse pick. Would switching to a SATA SSD be worth it so I could invest in a better GPU? If so, which would you recommend, on both counts?
RAM
The H97 chips will run RAM at a max of 1600 MHz regardless of the RAM's potential speed, also make sure that the RAM is 1600 or 1333 for this chipset.
Graphics Card(s)
Both only seem to support AMD Crossfire, no SLI (which I would absolutely recommend if you go down the nVidia route as your olde nVidia cards can be used to do all the PhysX work, making it possible to have a great upgrade path for single card upgrade cycles.
Z97 chipset handles multiGPU much better as well so if you want to use multiple cards or use multiple cards in the future you may hamstring yourself by the slower speeds.
Storage and M.2 port difference
Z97 all the SATA ports are 6 Gb/s, H97 only 4 SATA ports are.
Z97 M.2 shares SATA express bandwidth - (unlikely that you would have an M.2 and a SATA express drive as the latter is not common).
H97 M.2 shares SATA 6 port bandwidth - very likely that you may need to use these SATA ports as there are only 4 of these available to you on the H97 board.
Audio
The Z97 boards come with some pretty great audio when compared to the H97, audio shielding (especially good if you use the analog ports) and general electromagnetic shielding of the audio part of the motherboard. 6 analog ports on Z97 (only 3 on the H97 in case you have a 5.1 surorund). SPDIF on Z97 no optical on H97.
None of this audio stuff is important if you're using USB for everything but if you're using anything analog go fro the Z97 board or buy a sound card.
In short
If you have:
Analog audio - go with z97
or
Want to use M.2 drive and more than 2 other drives - go with Z97
or
Ever see yourself using more than one graphics card on this motherboard - go with Z97
or
Overclock - go with z97
Otherwise go with the H97. If you're not doing too much with massive video and photo files go with the SATA SSD (maxes out at 6 Gb/s). I would recommend the Samsung 850 EVO (I bought the 500gb version, works great and has a 5 year warranty).
Otherwise if you need all the speed go with M.2 because it caps out at 10 Gb/s which isn't capped from the current drives as far as I've found.
With the extra $120 you could get a nVidia Geforce GTX 970 or AMD R9 290 (older architecture but sits somewhere between the GTX 970 and GTX 980 based on the game however makes more noise and runs hotter, plus uses more power, multi gpu is supported by H97 if you go down this route).
I would recommend the MSI Twin Frozr. This version is a normal clocked one that can trivially be overclocked with the included software and is covered by the MSI warranty. While this one comes pre-overclocked and the overclock plus extra is covered under the warranty.
The alternative version is the Asus Strix, the fans produce more noise but are just as solid as the MSI model. I don't know about the Zotac or Gigabyte versions (however the last Gigabyte card I bought caught fire literally). I wouldn't trust any of the 900 series EVGA cards because they are recycling the 700 series coolers and putting them on the 900 series, not sure if they fixed this but you can't tell if you're getting one of these duds till you see the temperatures or remove the GPU's heatsink.
Also the 970 performs brilliantly in SLI so this fact may affect future buys and your motherboard choice.
HDD
You could move up from that Seagate 2TB to a Western Digital Green 3TB for $20. I have 2 WD Greens that are over 8 years old and still going without a hiccup however I also have 2 WD Blacks and a WD Velociraptor and none have died, I may be bias on the brand but I have 4 other machines running the WD green drives of varying ages with no issues.
And my chosen case is gone at the nice, cheap price it was at. Damn.
You should be able to find that CPU with a fan and heatsink, it seems to be just that seller which is weird. The K version of the CPU just has an unlocked multiplier, excellent price if you want to dabble with overclocking later and want more flexibility with the overclock.
Nice find on the video card those fans will run all the time though I think the extra $20 is just for the cooler on the Twin Frozr GPU coolers (i.e. the fans stop running when the video card is less than 60 or 70C which tends to be most of the time in my case.
The leftover H97 motherboards are just weird odds and ends that resellers are trying to get rid of, which is also the reason I went with the Z97 route even though my parent's computer wasn't going to be overclocked or use multi-gpu.
I'm a huge fan of building my own, and I often 'feel' that you can get a better machine for the money and for the task you want to do.
But for my dad, who has a habit of breaking machines, should I bother build him a new machine or is the general wisdom to buy a ready-built from a reputable source?
We work in the same office, so I'll be able to do troubleshooting or what-not, but, I dunno.
I still make my parent's machines because they are functional, cost effective and don't die. The most recent upgrade was on a machine that was 7 years old but could still run Civilization V and Portal 2 (because my Mum likes to play games but doesn't like to admit it to her friends).
I am pretty much set on the Silverstone GD10 as a case. The rest I just threw together. I'm really not too up on what is the current best stuff to look for. I already have two fantastic SSDs that will handle OS and games, as well as a nice power supply that I will reuse. I also figure I have $300-400 left in my budget, if there are any sensible upgrades I should be making here. What say you?
Here is the actual public link. Comments appreciated.
Also, do you really need 16 GB of RAM?
You don't necessarily need that much RAM, but if you want faster downloads and want to handle more processes at a time, more RAM is helpful. That's a pretty sweet build. Good job!
Although this case can fit an ATX (I have the GD06 which is an earlier version with almost the exact same build). Micro ATX is what I would recommend just for build ease and any maintenance.
Also plug in all your cables before dropping it into your case (set the motherboard out on a box on top of the anti-static bag it comes in), once you start attaching all the parts of the case, reaching for connectors on the motherboard can become tricky.
Also make sure you PSU will fit in the allocated area my GD06 was only 15cm long but it seems the GD10 allows for 18 - 22cm so you should be fine.
RAM
For an HTPC I would just search the cheapest 2 stick 16gb set with a lifetime warranty (which is everything HyperX, G.Skill, Mushkin, Corsair and I think Crucial (could be more).
You could even get away with just 8gb on a HTPC.
CPU
No need for an i7-4790k on an HTPC, might as well get an i5-4690 or 4690k and save $100.
Graphics Card
Assuming you want the quieter build with the HTPC I would recommend spending the extra $10 - 15 to get either an ASUS Strix or MSI Twin Frozr 2 gtx 960. These cards are incredibly quiet and the fans won't spin unless required. I have the MSI version on my main gaming PC and only 1 of the 2 fans spins up when playing on a Cryengine 3 based game otherwise it will sit there and passively cool off the heatsink.
HDD
I think the only thing missing is a 120gb or smaller SSD. I would go with a good M.2 drive or the Samsung 850 EVO for SATA.
Then separately have a big ass WD Green for all your media.
I assume you have a bluetooth controller or are going to use your phone as the remote control.
What is the wattage on your power supply or did I miss that post too?