27 replies to this topic

[duke_Qa]

So the Mayans prophecies that the world will end in december, better get a new rig so the last months won't be spent on suffering and regret

Been looking a bit into stuff, Think I'll go for this for starters:

intel 3770k cpu $300
asus maximus V mobo $279
corsair Dominator 1600Mghz 32gb Memsticks $219
OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD $202.

That's about it for now. I'll need to research more around graphic-card and cabinet, and a bit diskspace outside the SSD. Might invest into a more badass motherboard and better memory if that is worth it though, need to look at the CPU some more.

[Pasidon]

Yayyyyy... computer dance! The rig I built 2 months ago is pretty sweet, and I only spent about 600 for the parts. I have some crazy Voo-Doo graphics card that takes up like 90% of my tower's space and everything. Ultimately, I saved a ton of money on the cooling systems since I found a very effective way on using only 2 cheep fans to cool my system using some crazy Voo-Doo math and a very small tower. Always go with the small titanium towers. You won't need to move the air as much in them. I had a few issues with the cords grinding with the fans in the small space, but twisty ties fixed that easily. I dunno why the inside of all my technology looks so redneck...

So the Mayans prophecies that the world will end in december

Shut the EF UP DUKIE............. I'm doing so well in not hearing that crap anymore. Lucky for Pasidon, people got bored of it. Let's have a challenge and see if we all can shut up about it until next year.

[duke_Qa]

Hey, throw me a friggin bone here, I need some excuse to buy it. Although FPS around 20-40 in bf3 and NS2 is also a big motivator. And since this is very relevant for my work as a 3d-artist, I'll be putting it on my expenses and avoid both tax and vat for it

Hmm, small cabinet eh. Might be something about that, my current high-end cabinet is a bit too big, so we'll see what I can find.

[Elric]

The rig i built not even 2 weeks ago cost me below 900. (with mail and rebates)

Here is the list:


Order Summary

Sales Order Number: NOT SHOWING YOU GUYS
Sales Order Date: 8/31/2012 10:42:41 AM
Shipping Method: UPS 3 DAYS



1 x ($214.99) Intel Core i5-3570 Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2500 BX80637i53570

$214.99

1 x ($135.99) ASUS P8H77-V LGA 1155 Intel H77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

$135.99

1 x ($134.99) ASUS VS Series VS228H-P Black 21.5" 5ms HDMI LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor 250 cd/m2 50000000:1 (ASCR)

$134.99

1 x ($114.99) EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

$114.99

1 x ($89.99) Western Digital Caviar Blue WD7500AZEX 750GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive - OEM

$89.99

1 x ($79.99) COUGAR CMX 700 COUGAR-700CMX 700W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Yes, flexible cable management Active PFC Power Supply

$79.99

1 x ($54.99) COUGAR Volant Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

$54.99

1 x ($44.99) G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL

$44.99

1 x ($29.00) ASUS PCE-N15 Wireless Adapter IEEE 802.11b/g/n PCI Express 300/300Mbps Transfer/Receive Rate 64-bit WEP, 128-bit WEP, WPA2-PSK, WPA-PSK, WPS support

$29.00

1 x ($17.99) Logitech MK120 Black USB Wired Slim Desktop

$17.99

1 x ($14.99) SAMSUNG 22X DVD Burner 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 22X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 24X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM SATA Model SH-222BB/BEBE - OEM

$14.99

1 x ($-21.00) DISCOUNT FOR PROMOTION CODE

$-21.00

Subtotal: $911.90 Tax: $0.00 Shipping and Handling: $15.67 Total Amount: $927.57

--------------------

[Beowulf]

So the Mayans prophecies that the world will end in december, better get a new rig so the last months won't be spent on suffering and regret

Been looking a bit into stuff, Think I'll go for this for starters:

intel 3770k cpu $300
asus maximus V mobo $279
corsair Dominator 1600Mghz 32gb Memsticks$219
OCZ Vertex 4 256GB SSD $202.

That's about it for now. I'll need to research more around graphic-card and cabinet, and a bit diskspace outside the SSD. Might invest into a more badass motherboard and better memory if that is worth it though, need to look at the CPU some more.

Don't waste your time with OCZ solid state drives right now. I think they still have some reliability issues. Pick up a Crucial M4 series instead. Proven reliability. I have a 64GB variant and it's incredible. Seriously.

You could go with the Samsung 830 series too. Those are top notch and a bit faster I think. Same reliability too.

[duke_Qa]

Now we are cooking with gas. I've had no problems with my vertex 2 as of yet, but its a bit annoying if you go into sleep-mode as it won't boot again. That might be me not doing my setup-job correctly though. But if there are better disks around for the same price I'll look into it.

nobody have any opinions on graphics cards? thought that was a big deal, at least it used to be

Apollo: "Luckily" I live in a country with high average income and at the same time no toll-barriers on electronics, so for me 900$ is like half of what I consider a good PC. I'll probably have a roof around $2250-2500 here, since I'll be subtracting the 25% vat off of whatever I buy, leaving me with a cost of around $1700-2000, which I also don't have to pay taxes on which saves me another 20-30%. Buying a computer for work on my private money would have been 50% more expensive.

[duke_Qa]

Anyway, new round new list:

samsung 830 ssd: $245

corsair obsidian 550d Cabinet: $130(more like $200 here)

Corsair AX 850w psu: $189

asus maximus V formula motherboard: $279

intel core i7-3770k cpu: $329

4x8GB corsair Dominator 1600mgz Memory:(could perhaps look at this one since I don't really need 32GB off the bat, but it is available in storage at the moment) $219

Gainward/EVGA(can't find the model in newegg) Geforce gtx 670 2Gb Graphics card: $400 ish(we'll see).

2x 2TB Seagate Barracuda harddrives, just for them storage I guess. $120 x2

That's around $2200 total, which after Vat puts it around 1700 for me. It might seem a bit stiff right now, but I think it will be worth it. Should probably buy another screen too though...

[Elric]

Your graphics card doesnt need to be that expensive. the one i have that cost under 200 bucks can run skyrim full settings no lag. Thats an accomplishment due to the fact that skyrim is a big graphical game.

[duke_Qa]

Yeah I am a bit skeptical about the price, but it is also one of the most observed/popular cards on a prize-analyzer site, so it seems to be legit. It's pretty much the same as the gtx680, but with less-than-perfect gpu-chips from the same machine, and $200 cheaper.

[Phil]

It's finally time I replaced my now almost 6 year old (!) main computer with something more current. Ever since getting myself a MacBook Air for university last year I've grown very fond of Mac OS X, so I'm going to build myself a Hackintosh (a PC built from "standard" parts that runs OS X). The idea is to set up a triple-boot configuration with OS X as my main OS, Windows 7 for gaming and modding and finally Ubuntu for some other development. Because that is not entirely trivial, I'm going for 2 SSDs to keep the OS X and Windows installation separated. Data will be stored on the regular HDDs.

• Case: Corsair Graphite 600T Midi-Tower - White (Special Edition)
• Power Supply: Corsair AX850 Gold - 850 Watt
• Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H, Z77, LGA1155, PCI-E 3.0, CF/SLI, ATX
• CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K BOX, LGA 1155, 4C/4T, unlocked
• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 412S
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2x 8GB, DDR3-1600, CL10-10-10-27
• Graphics Card: Asus GTX-660 Ti DirectCU II OC 2GB GDDR5, PCI-E x16 3.0
• Optical Drive: LG GH22NS, 22x DVD±R burner, SATA, black
• SSD: 2 x Crucial m4 SSD 128GB, 2.5 Zoll, SATA-3
• HDD: 2 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB, 7200rpm, 64MB, 2TB, SATA-3
• Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800, Wireless N Dualband PCI-E Adapter
• Bluetooth Dongle: Kensington Bluetooth USB Micro Adapter, 2.1
• Monitor: HP ZR2440w, 24" LED, IPS, DisplayPort, black
• Mouse: Logitech Performance Mouse MX, Cordless
• Keyboard: Apple Keyboard (wired)
• Speakers: Logitech Z-323 2.1 Loudspeakers

Any comments on the part selection (looking at Fen here)?


Edit: Yeah I'm too lazy to post Newegg links. Maybe I'll do that later.

Edited by Phil, 20 September 2012 - 09:44 PM.

[duke_Qa]

That is certainly one way of doing it. OSX on a custom rig? Deliciously deviant; blasphemy to all parties .
Having two OS's on a machine these days; can you hot-switch between them?
Anyway, your list is much cleaner than mine even if I had links. Then again it was a partial shopping list and thread excuse.

I ordered my stuff yesterday, pretty close to what I have up above, plus a Samsung 24" screen(seems the 24" have stopped going 1920x1200 these days, would have gone for Benq but that 1200 is important to me)

[Pasidon]

Corsair makes some pretty swell stuff. And some pretty huge stuff... my little tower barely holds their massive cooling systems.

And why an Apple keyboard, Philip? Aren't they all terribly obnoxious with weird'o symbols that aren't comprehensible to Windows? ... You are going with Windows, right?

[Phil]

That is certainly one way of doing it. OSX on a custom rig? Deliciously deviant; blasphemy to all parties .
Having two OS's on a machine these days; can you hot-switch between them?
Anyway, your list is much cleaner than mine even if I had links. Then again it was a partial shopping list and thread excuse.

I ordered my stuff yesterday, pretty close to what I have up above, plus a Samsung 24" screen(seems the 24" have stopped going 1920x1200 these days, would have gone for Benq but that 1200 is important to me)

OS X is awesome once you get to know it a little. It has a pleasant interface on the outside and Unix inside, which means I can take 80-90% of what I've learned using Linux with me. Not that I dislike Windows or Linux, OS X is just my current operating system of choice. Especially as I'm not really sold yet on the Windows 8 two-interfaces-in-one concept. The problem with Apple's offerings is that they don't have a high-end desktop, even if you're willing to pay the standard Apple premium. The iMac falls short in terms of power and advanced configurations and the Mac Pro line is a workstation - and outdated.

I wanted to get the same processor you're getting at first, but then decided to go with the almost $100 cheaper i5 and instead buy a better graphics card. I'll probably need more performance for games than general purpose computing as I don't do renders and only the occasional video encoding. It's most likely a different scenario for you if you're looking for a machine to work with.

Corsair makes some pretty swell stuff. And some pretty huge stuff... my little tower barely holds their massive cooling systems.

And why an Apple keyboard, Philip? Aren't they all terribly obnoxious with weird'o symbols that aren't comprehensible to Windows? ... You are going with Windows, right?

Did you even read my post?
Also if you absolutely must use my full first name even though it's not my screen name here, then please make sure you spell it right...

Edited by Phil, 21 September 2012 - 03:53 PM.

[Elric]

Oy. Thats loads of stuff there Phil. Why a 24" monitor? Its way to expensive you could get 2 of what i got for the price i found yours to be and the monitor i have is quite capable at photo editing. Colors and all and its only a 21" HD Asus monitor. I would also recommend a full ATX case. I just bought a mid tower and find it really small inside for upgrading and such.

[Phil]

Why would I get a 21" monitor when I can get a 24" one? I thought about going 27" at first but there was no option that really satisfied me. My current monitor is 19" and that's just way too small, especially because I have a 27" Apple Thunderbolt Display in my study room.

You might be right about the case size, I'll look into that before I order.
EDIT: Turns out this "mid-tower" is actually quite big enough at 507mm x 592mm x 265mm (20" x 23.3" x 10.4"). It's a bit bigger than my current case, which was just fine.

Edited by Phil, 22 September 2012 - 04:59 PM.

[Pasidon]

Mid-towers are big enough for anything. I even think small towers like Diabloteck are big enough for any equipment if you wire it right.

Did you even read my post?

No.

[Elric]

LOL. ok well i say 2 21"s because then its the same price but 2 monitors and they are both HD if you get the one i got.. Just saying. or find another 24" but a lot cheaper that has around the same features. I did research for 2 years to find the best parts for what i do etc. I recommend a full tower in case you want to upgrade to a better graphics card or want some fun stuff like lights and all of that. I would of gotten a full tower but i didnt have enough money to get the one i wanted at the time.

Edited by {IP}Apollo, 22 September 2012 - 09:23 PM.

[duke_Qa]

If I had the cash for it I would have bought a 30" Dell ultrasharp. Got the 27" right here now on my work-computer and it certainly is the best screen I've ever had. But its not much bigger than the 24" Benq have: Apparently Dell considers the outer-edge to be the defining edge.

I thought I had replied here earlier, oh well.

I wanted to get the same processor you're getting at first, but then decided to go with the almost $100 cheaper i5 and instead buy a better graphics card. I'll probably need more performance for games than general purpose computing as I don't do renders and only the occasional video encoding. It's most likely a different scenario for you if you're looking for a machine to work with.

Yeah, if I was really dedicated to it I would have found some double-processor motherboard and the likes. But I suspect by then I should have just bought a HP Workstation with the right specs instead of making it on my own. The local computer-shop guy claims if you can make a better and cheaper computer than them you'll get hired by them. But that might be fanboy speech. Anyway, I can easily rationalize a heavy rig in the high-spec gamer dimension, but I don't go full retard and buy stuff 4x sane just because its 4x sane.

OS X is awesome once you get to know it a little. It has a pleasant interface on the outside and Unix inside, which means I can take 80-90% of what I've learned using Linux with me. Not that I dislike Windows or Linux, OS X is just my current operating system of choice. Especially as I'm not really sold yet on the Windows 8 two-interfaces-in-one concept. The problem with Apple's offerings is that they don't have a high-end desktop, even if you're willing to pay the standard Apple premium. The iMac falls short in terms of power and advanced configurations and the Mac Pro line is a workstation - and outdated.

I've yet to find the charm. I'm the one getting called out first if the neighbor has a printer/generic computer problem, and I haven't really used a mac since I was at my computer-lab back during my studies. I don't remember much of the few hours of unix/linux I had back in senior high, so its not a big bonus for me. But seeing it used in something else than the generic standard apple-hardware fills me with devious joy, so kudos for that.

Also win8 follows the windows-rule: only get every other windows. Win7 will be good enough until whatever comes after win8, which seems a bit like an attempt to create a parachute as you jump the plane.

[Phil]

I've yet to find the charm. I'm the one getting called out first if the neighbor has a printer/generic computer problem, and I haven't really used a mac since I was at my computer-lab back during my studies. I don't remember much of the few hours of unix/linux I had back in senior high, so its not a big bonus for me. But seeing it used in something else than the generic standard apple-hardware fills me with devious joy, so kudos for that.

Well, I've never done that before so I don't know how it'll work out in the end. But I've read quite a bit and it seems you can get a near-native experience if you pick the right parts (which I hopefully did) and apply a hack here and there. Updating seems to be a bit more of a pain than usual, but it's manageable. There's also a huge "hackintosh" scene out there, check out http://www.tonymacx86.com to get an impression.

[Hostile]

I'm running on a 6 core I7 highest grade with 12 G ddr3 ram. Beat that one when attached to my 32 inch tv.