After two attempts to post this were lost to the comment approval system, here is a screenshot of the build I made on first pass. I plan on building this as soon as Ye Old Tax Return comes back. Any and all feedback appreciated.
Still needs a power supply and a case but those can wait until other stuff is more or less set. Also, give no fucks about the case looks. I want something with goof air flow, good access to work on the bits, that sort of thing.
It's really heavy and comes without fans, but it's great to work on, has lots of space, is good quality (less sharp edges etc.) and doesn't look like an overdone dudebro-gamer-case.
And my power supplies are usually made by bequiet.
After two attempts to post this were lost to the comment approval system, here is a screenshot of the build I made on first pass. I plan on building this as soon as Ye Old Tax Return comes back. Any and all feedback appreciated.
CPU depends on what the computer will be used for, seems to be gaming and productivity but that will last you well. Regarding the RAM frequency, unless you're heavily overclocking there isn't any reason to be buying 1866MHz, I would recomedn 1600MHz and a less flamboyant heat spreader in case you want to use a tower heat sink.
Not a fan of OCZ SSDs, the ones I've bought in the past have failed within a month but I don't have any knowledge on their recent drives. I still recommend Samsung drives due to being superfast and coming with 5 - 10 year warranties (850 EVO recommended, the boot time coupled with Windows 8.1 is pretty insane). I assume you consume enough Blu-Rays to get the Blu-Ray reader.
I personally wouldn't skim so far down as to get an AsRock motherboard with all the other expensive gear on it, I would still recommend Asus, followed by MSI and Gigabyte boards. 100% there will be a competitor which has the features you want (or a bare version in Z97).
The AsRock motherboard is the only part I would not trust. I would also switch from OCZ to Samsung if you can afford it.
Buy a good PSU and case and they they will last you many years. My PSU is 7 or 8 years old now and my old case is perfectly fine but I changed it for superficial airflow and aesthetic reasons.
I still have my PSU from my current machine. I'm still trying to decide if that is worth turning into a htpc or just taking what I can out of it and scrapping it.
For now it's just gaming and productivity as you mentioned, but I'll also be using it for video editing as well so I want to make sure I'm prepared for that. The BluRay player is for those rare moments when my parents will want discs made. It also allows me to get rid of my PS3 as I don't use it for games anymore.
This is part of my process when choosing pc parts in general: I usually go for hardware reviews on a website that is big enough to have some statistical relevance and small enough not to be as targeted by fake reviews as amazon is. I look for the best rated products, check out which of them has the fewest 1-star ratings and then start by reading all the 1-star and 2- star reviews. I check which of the people sound like they know what they are doing and if no grave problems are brought to my attention, I glance over the (usually less interesting) good reviews of a product.
I used to spend crazy amounts of time in finding the right mainboard and STILL I got one with a rare bug in the chipset that made it not work with my harddisk and I had to send it back after a total of about 24 hours of wasted time. Last time I simply bought the second or third most expensive ASUS mainboard. Worked fine for me. Before that I bought a Gigabyte board which worked very very well for me and gave me less problems than some of the ASUS and MSI boards I had before.
In the end there always is luck involved, don't kid yourself about that. You can buy the most expensive ASUS board and it can be dead on arrival or worse.
I'm looking to get a new laptop, as my current one is really outdated and acts like a low power PC. I'm looking for a small laptop that is no more than $700 and is able to do everyday computing, although it would be nice to do some light gaming on it, like Civ 5 on low settings.
After looking around, I've settled on getting this Acer TravelMate, switching out the hard drive for an 250gb SSD, and potentially upgrading the RAM to 8gb if I find it necessary, which would run me to about $620 all in all. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314515
Ok. Version 2.0. I may have gone a wee overboard or made some silly choices. As far as overboard, I'm ok with that. I expect a 6-7 year lifespan on my desktops allowing for a few minor upgrades along the way and I happen to think this fit the bill.
I used the ASUS Z97-A in the most recent build, it is a very solid board for the price.
Not sure what type of work you'll be doing if you need 2 SSDs. In the above mentioned build I also used the Samsung 850 EVO 500gb but didn't grab a M.2 drive as large sized drives weren't easily available at the time.
If you're doing lots of video or work and what not I assume that's fine but if it's just general stuff you might want to go with either the M.2 drive or the slower Samsung drive (speed vs capacity trade off). If you can afford both lucky you lol but if it was a gaming type rig I would just put the extra money into upgraded the GTX 970 to a GTX 980 or saving the money.
I am certainly going to be gaming on it but that's not the express purpose. If it were and if my investigations are correct I'd stick with the i5. Seems the i7 doesn't really show dividends there.
I am eventually going to be doing video editing and I also would like the gf to be able to use it for her Adobe stuffs. She's doing me a solid and doing the graphic design and art for my game proto so she deserves a bone.
The M.2 drive is a pure luxury. I'm curious to see how the tech works and I can afford the splurge so why not? I figure I'll use it as the boot drive and maybe keep a single large game at a time on it.
I'm having difficulty finding a straight answer to this question online so I shall pose it here: Will a B+M M.2 device work in a M Key only slot? Why is that so difficult to figure out?
I'm having difficulty finding a straight answer to this question online so I shall pose it here: Will a B+M M.2 device work in a M Key only slot? Why is that so difficult to figure out?
Yes. B and M keys were made to fit into either B or M sockets.
Thank you for the confirmation, Sir sK0pe. I had done a wee more research after my previous post, found that very image you posted, and figured it out.
It seems the drives keyed B+M will work in either a B or M key slot but will only use 2 PCIe lanes. I'm not sure about B only drives as I didn't look into those since my MoBo has an M slot only, but an M Keyed drive in an M slot will use 4 PCIe lanes. The selection on M.2 drives is small enough as it is even when factoring in B+M drives. Narrowing it down to M only drives makes it damned near impossible to find something good without a $100+ markup on a similar B+M drive. That much money for the minor gains of 2 more PCIe lanes? I'm not going to split that hair.
With these B/M drives I think we can probably go back to having small computers again. No more Mid-Tower ATX cases. Just find some way to insert the video card sideways so it lies flat across with the fan blowing in the same direction as the CPU fan. Then you can get full desktop power in something very very flat.
I have a house. My opinion is probably colored by the fact that I've always been in a house. I'll be enjoying my needlessly large full tower in all its glory.
Comments
I personally wouldn't get a gaming laptop though.
Still needs a power supply and a case but those can wait until other stuff is more or less set. Also, give no fucks about the case looks. I want something with goof air flow, good access to work on the bits, that sort of thing.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811160026&cm_re=chieftec-_-11-160-026-_-Product
It's really heavy and comes without fans, but it's great to work on, has lots of space, is good quality (less sharp edges etc.) and doesn't look like an overdone dudebro-gamer-case.
And my power supplies are usually made by bequiet.
Regarding the RAM frequency, unless you're heavily overclocking there isn't any reason to be buying 1866MHz, I would recomedn 1600MHz and a less flamboyant heat spreader in case you want to use a tower heat sink.
Not a fan of OCZ SSDs, the ones I've bought in the past have failed within a month but I don't have any knowledge on their recent drives. I still recommend Samsung drives due to being superfast and coming with 5 - 10 year warranties (850 EVO recommended, the boot time coupled with Windows 8.1 is pretty insane).
I assume you consume enough Blu-Rays to get the Blu-Ray reader.
I personally wouldn't skim so far down as to get an AsRock motherboard with all the other expensive gear on it, I would still recommend Asus, followed by MSI and Gigabyte boards. 100% there will be a competitor which has the features you want (or a bare version in Z97).
The AsRock motherboard is the only part I would not trust.
I would also switch from OCZ to Samsung if you can afford it.
Buy a good PSU and case and they they will last you many years. My PSU is 7 or 8 years old now and my old case is perfectly fine but I changed it for superficial airflow and aesthetic reasons.
I still have my PSU from my current machine. I'm still trying to decide if that is worth turning into a htpc or just taking what I can out of it and scrapping it.
For now it's just gaming and productivity as you mentioned, but I'll also be using it for video editing as well so I want to make sure I'm prepared for that. The BluRay player is for those rare moments when my parents will want discs made. It also allows me to get rid of my PS3 as I don't use it for games anymore.
I used to spend crazy amounts of time in finding the right mainboard and STILL I got one with a rare bug in the chipset that made it not work with my harddisk and I had to send it back after a total of about 24 hours of wasted time. Last time I simply bought the second or third most expensive ASUS mainboard. Worked fine for me. Before that I bought a Gigabyte board which worked very very well for me and gave me less problems than some of the ASUS and MSI boards I had before.
In the end there always is luck involved, don't kid yourself about that. You can buy the most expensive ASUS board and it can be dead on arrival or worse.
After looking around, I've settled on getting this Acer TravelMate, switching out the hard drive for an 250gb SSD, and potentially upgrading the RAM to 8gb if I find it necessary, which would run me to about $620 all in all.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314515
Hardware-wise, I know that I can get some slightly better specs if I drop my small requirement, like this refurbished Lenovo laptop and settle for a 15'' screen.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834318547&ignorebbr=1
Any thoughts or suggestions? Would the slight increase in specs make the Lenovo any noticeably better in everyday computing?
Not sure what type of work you'll be doing if you need 2 SSDs. In the above mentioned build I also used the Samsung 850 EVO 500gb but didn't grab a M.2 drive as large sized drives weren't easily available at the time.
If you're doing lots of video or work and what not I assume that's fine but if it's just general stuff you might want to go with either the M.2 drive or the slower Samsung drive (speed vs capacity trade off). If you can afford both lucky you lol but if it was a gaming type rig I would just put the extra money into upgraded the GTX 970 to a GTX 980 or saving the money.
However seems like a great build.
I am eventually going to be doing video editing and I also would like the gf to be able to use it for her Adobe stuffs. She's doing me a solid and doing the graphic design and art for my game proto so she deserves a bone.
The M.2 drive is a pure luxury. I'm curious to see how the tech works and I can afford the splurge so why not? I figure I'll use it as the boot drive and maybe keep a single large game at a time on it.
Maybe something like this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102
B and M keys were made to fit into either B or M sockets.
The motherboard specifications should state whether it is a B or M socket.
If you just get a drive which is B+M you don't have to worry as it will fit in all the M.2 sockets.
It seems the drives keyed B+M will work in either a B or M key slot but will only use 2 PCIe lanes. I'm not sure about B only drives as I didn't look into those since my MoBo has an M slot only, but an M Keyed drive in an M slot will use 4 PCIe lanes. The selection on M.2 drives is small enough as it is even when factoring in B+M drives. Narrowing it down to M only drives makes it damned near impossible to find something good without a $100+ markup on a similar B+M drive. That much money for the minor gains of 2 more PCIe lanes? I'm not going to split that hair.
Stupid PSUs!
I have a house. My opinion is probably colored by the fact that I've always been in a house. I'll be enjoying my needlessly large full tower in all its glory.
Small apartment in big city is better in all the ways that matter. ;^)
http://gothamist.com/2015/04/15/nyc_worth_it.php