Tax-refund gamer PC?? I'll build it myself!

[aphelion02]

W0W didn't check back in to get flamed...

From sticky: 10. Don't ask for a build configuration critique or rating if you are thin skinned.

 

[Chapbass]

well aph, at least hopefully maybe someone else will check this thread with the need for a 700 dollar build and get some good designs.

 

[rob454]

So I take it all you thought even though EVERYBODY was saying to get the build aphelion02 was constantly upgrading the design to and making BETTER all the time, you would be better off choosing everything yourself and screwing it up?! Cancel the order or don't come here and complain about being flamed, because IMO you deserve it for being stupid and wasting people's time...

It's not like you're paying us... We do this for FREE, and when jackholes like you decide to waste hours of our lives, you best hope to be called stupid because there is MUCH WORSE we have called others. Learn yourself a lesson in patience, manners, and plain common sense dude. We're nice to a point but when we do this for free and then you waste hours of our lives, then you order the wrong parts even though we guide you to where to buy them, then you disrespect us, then you EXPECT US to still be nice to you? Forget it man...

This thread was going from January as well if you read back further. Unbelievable.

 

[mvbighead]

All this advice we gave you and you buy the wrong motherboard and a better processor that is completely useless for that board. Unsubscribed.

1680x1050 native.
Im keeping this monitor for a while.
Overclocking....um, I don't think Im savy enough to do that yet (And Im worried about hurting my new baby).

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3774#ov

Smart 6 – Smarter PC system Management

Smart QuickBoot
Speeds up booting times.
Smart DualBIOS
Smart personal reminder of PC passwords.
Smart QuickBoost*
One-click Overclocking
Smart Recorder
Your PC's Watch Dog
Smart Recovery 2
Allows you to go back in time on your PC and retrieve lost files
Smart TimeLock
Time Controller for your PC.

While I get why all of you have your panties in a bunch, I suppose I will defend my suggestions to a point.

The OP is coming from a GeForce 6200. And he calls himself a gamer. Any card anyone posted will be hundreds of times better than a 6200.

He doesn't care to overclock, and the I5 2500K does some on its own through a feature called turbo boost, right? And from what I read on that board, it does support what it calls Smart Quickboost with one-click overclocking.

He has yet to order a VC. He simply selected the best processor for the price point, IMO. The board supports his CPU, despite the fact he has little intention to OC, so no harm. And he can throw in a HD5770 or whatever he wishes and still be immensely further ahead than he was with his piddly 6200.

Meh, jump on him if you want, but for $500, it's not a terrible upgrade. Especially when he has already stated that he has no intention to overclock.

 

[aphelion02]

First of all, the OP said he owned a sparkle hd4850 before. Sandy Bridge graphics (if he even intends to use that, which I don't think he will) will be a step down for him.

But more importantly, it doesn't make sense to look at where he is coming from, but rather what is the best possible build for his purpose and price point. Right now his GPU / system price is completely out of whack. He will be so completely GPU bottlenecked that his 2500k simply won't shine at all.

I could turn around and make the same argument that my suggestion for a i5-2400 is also going to be aeons better that whatever system he was using before, and really there is no difference between that and the i5 2500k for gaming and if you don't overclock. The difference is that on my build he will be gaming on at 80+fps and he will be at 20fps with the integrated graphics.

 

[Davidh373]

He doesn't care to overclock, and the I5 2500K does some on its own through a feature called turbo boost, right? And from what I read on that board, it does support what it calls Smart Quickboost with one-click overclocking.

The difference between quickboosts (both of them have it :awe: ) is so inconsequential, he would be much better off to have the i5 2400 than the 2500k.

He has yet to order a VC. He simply selected the best processor for the price point, IMO. The board supports his CPU, despite the fact he has little intention to OC, so no harm. And he can throw in a HD5770 or whatever he wishes and still be immensely further ahead than he was with his piddly 6200.

He spent more on a motherboard with less features, horribly overpriced RAM, and an anti-static wrist strap (<- hahahahahaha!). There is no defense for true stupidity, and no excuse for ignorance.

Now he has $150 for a graphics card which is roughly $100 short of what he could have gotten with the other design. He wasted a whole $100, just *poof*, gone, haha.

 

[jchu14]

Davidh and aphelion hit the nail on the head. That motherboard just didn't make much sense since it couldn't multiplier overclock, only 2 dimm slots, no ide (so can't reuse old optical drive), only 4 sata ports, no usb3, no sata 6gb, and the 2x pci express 16x is useless since it seems unlikely the OP will SLI/CF.

Anyways, no use beating a dead horse.

For $200, I think the best value video card for the money right now is the 5870. Newegg has the Gigabyte 5870 for $210 before $30 MIR. It's about as fast as a gtx 560 and 6950 for less money.

 

[rob454]

The difference between quickboosts (both of them have it :awe: ) is so inconsequential, he would be much better off to have the i5 2400 than the 2500k.



He spent more on a motherboard with less features, horribly overpriced RAM, and an anti-static wrist strap (<- hahahahahaha!). There is no defense for true stupidity, and no excuse for ignorance.

Now he has $150 for a graphics card which is roughly $100 short of what he could have gotten with the other design. He wasted a whole $100, just *poof*, gone, haha.

Still doesn't have a SATA optical drive either.

 

[Davidh373]

he will be at 20fps with the integrated graphics.

Probably worse, honestly... That is giving the SB GPU lots of credit.

Still doesn't have a SATA optical drive either.

You're right, but I did subtract some from what money he had left. A 250GB HDD and an optical drive goes for roughly $50.

 

[mfenn]

Wow, I go away for a day and look at the carnage! For what it's worth, I think that aph's $700 build that I quoted is still the best suggestion.

To be fair though, the OP will still be able to run GPUs that need two PCIe 6-pin connectors with his 450W, he'll just have to use an adapter. The VP-450 has 432W available on its 12V rails.

 

[aphelion02]

Wow, I go away for a day and look at the carnage! For what it's worth, I think that aph's $700 build that I quoted is still the best suggestion.

To be fair though, the OP will still be able to run GPUs that need two PCIe 6-pin connectors with his 450W, he'll just have to use an adapter. The VP-450 has 432W available on its 12V rails.

Ahh, true, but isn't that not recommended? Are the power characteristics you get from using a molex to PCIe adapter the same?

Anyways OP, I think this is the best way to salvage your situation:

SPARKLE SXX4601024D5UNM GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAJS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

LG DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model GH24NS50 - OEM

Comes out to $213.96 before rebate, 183.963 with rebate. Its slightly over your budget but you are at the point that even cutting the budget by $10 will drop your graphics performance dramatically (you will be stuck with the overpriced GTX 550 or HD6790).

 

[Steve8867]

Thank you for all of your help, if you ever look at this whole thread you can see many people made recommendations, guys there can be only one winner.

Flamming me for not choosing YOUR build is not helpful or cool.
I came here to get advice because I KNOW Im way behind the curve, maybe I can salvage this some time in the future.

Please don't fight over who is MORE right. . .or more dumb. . . .

 

[Davidh373]

Please don't fight over who is MORE right. . .or more dumb. . . .

lol, the point I was making was that you could have picked ANY build off this thread and been better off, but you wasted all our time and a lot of your budget buying crap parts... I didn't even design a build for you, be real. It was stupid, and if you are cocky enough not to realize you made some big mistakes then you deserve your horrible build... Enjoy that 10-15 fps you'll get in new games instead of the 50-70 you would have gotten with any other GPU picked out in the thread... Oh, WAIT, Please cover your eyes and ears. I wouldn't want you to think I'm not cool... because that is SOOOOO important to me

The fact is, with PC building, there is a defined right and wrong when there is a specified use for the computer. You made a lot of WRONG decisions, and the sooner you realize your mistakes the better off you'll be in the future. So get off your high horse making judgments when you don't even have a clue what you are talking about. You were definitely wrong. I easily have more experience than you. Everyone else who posted in here has more experience than you (some even a lot more than me)... I was not saying anyone else was a problem. You are just a problem. YOU picked the wrong parts, YOU overspent, YOU picked the wrong parts even though many people all pointed out the right ones.

Simply,

The 2500k YOU picked is a $40 waste since the point of the "K" is for overclocking which the overpriced H61 YOU picked doesn't support.

The RAM YOU picked offers a 4&#37; increase in performance you'll NEVER see because of the crappy GPU you are now forced into because YOU wasted money. (The RAM also costs about 25% more btw... do the math on that lol) It'll bottleneck the crap out of any CPU, what a joke!

I've already made obvious your failed thinking on the GPU... So I'm not going to keep wasting my breathe on that...

So you know, just clearing up what you thought was my intention with my replies. Everyone else did a great job assisting you, but where the failure was was the interpretation of the advice (<- That's your thing, if I haven't said that enough)... I thought it was pretty obvious, but then again you are pretty thick...

I notice aphelion02 is still trying to help you out with the GPU. What a SAINT. I couldn't find a reason to help you anymore even if you paid me lol. Take the advice, or deal with your $700 crapbox... I don't really care at this point.

 

[aphelion02]

Its not about flaming you for not spending your money the way we want it...but its the fact that you don't ask before you buy, you don't ask what makes a build good...and the result is that all the time we try to fit the best possible build into your budget is completely useless.

The whole point of asking for help here is so you can bounce ideas around and look for alternatives and learn which components work for you; that way you can get some ideas even if you don't use the build. Otherwise you are still making an uninformed choice just like if you are buying some prebuilt crap from bestbuy, and we have all wasted our time.

 

[mfenn]

Ahh, true, but isn't that not recommended? Are the power characteristics you get from using a molex to PCIe adapter the same?

Anyways OP, I think this is the best way to salvage your situation:

SPARKLE SXX4601024D5UNM GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD3200AAJS 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

LG DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model GH24NS50 - OEM

Comes out to $213.96 before rebate, 183.963 with rebate. Its slightly over your budget but you are at the point that even cutting the budget by $10 will drop your graphics performance dramatically (you will be stuck with the overpriced GTX 550 or HD6790).

The physical characteristics are theoretically worse by using an adapter, but that doesn't matter too much. The bigger issue with using the adapters is when you have a PSU with multiple 12V rails (which the OP's VP does). Hardwired PCIe power connectors will be spread across both rails, but you don't really know which rail you're using with a Molex-to-PCIe adapter, thus raising the possibility of overloading one of the rails. Short answer, it will work if the OP is careful, but it is not as foolproof has having hardwired PCIe power.

Kudos to you for continuing to help the OP though.

 

[Steve8867]

Can I still use an adapter for alt IDE & EIDE drives maybe use them for back up's or for other OS's like Linux?

BTW the box didn't come with a sys fan,(good thing I had an old one) is that normal?

I need a SATA drive duh, but maybe my old HD4850 vid card and Lightdrive DVD were not hurt in the 2010 meltdown......

Starting over is such a drag.

 

[Davidh373]

Can I still use an adapter for alt IDE & EIDE drives maybe use them for back up's or for other OS's like Linux?

Your old IDE HDD drive is going to be a massively slow bottleneck. Better to spend $50-$60 on a Samsung F3. It will cut down on the budget for the GPU, but it will not be good to use your old SSD.

BTW the box didn't come with a sys fan,(good thing I had an old one) is that normal?

Hopefully you aren't talking about the CPU fan, because then you got an OEM CPU and you'll have to pop $40-$60 on a heatsink and fan. If you are just referring to a fan out the back, that cheapo case should not be expected to come with a fan. It's $40...

I need a SATA drive duh, but maybe my old HD4850 vid card and Lightdrive DVD were not hurt in the 2010 meltdown......

Hope your 4850 wasn't damaged, save another $100 on top of the ~$150? That would be a decent plan, somewhat like what I had done with my gaming rig (I currently have a 9800GTX in my rig). If it isn't working you are still shafted into the 450-550 or 5770-6790. These cards are not optimal for extended gaming performance (like in years, not hours per day).

 

[Steve8867]

Ordered a new SATA drive and a case fan (with red LEDS!!) they should arrive Monday evening.

THEN we shall see!

 

[aphelion02]

People are much more willing to help if, you know, you actually told them what you bought. (or better yet, asked about specific products before buying)

 

[Davidh373]

People are much more willing to help if, you know, you actually told them what you bought. (or better yet, asked about specific products before buying)

Let's hope he followed my advice (as well as everyone elses) and got an F3. Or maybe he fell for the SATA 6GB/S WD Caviar Black and we can have some more laughs .

 

[mvbighead]

The difference between quickboosts (both of them have it :awe: ) is so inconsequential, he would be much better off to have the i5 2400 than the 2500k.



He spent more on a motherboard with less features, horribly overpriced RAM, and an anti-static wrist strap (<- hahahahahaha!). There is no defense for true stupidity, and no excuse for ignorance.

Now he has $150 for a graphics card which is roughly $100 short of what he could have gotten with the other design. He wasted a whole $100, just *poof*, gone, haha.

Are you kidding? He spent 78 bucks on a motherboard, one of the cheapest Intel chipset based boards around. It also happens to be made by Gigabyte so there is at least some reputation behind the MB builder.

Over-priced RAM? It's the cheapest 8Gb set available on newegg due to the shell shocker that was going on that day.

And he hasn't yet invested in a VC... big whoopty do. The build I quoted had a decent gaming card for that price point, and it would seem the OP may still be mulling over the suggestions.

Davidh and aphelion hit the nail on the head. That motherboard just didn't make much sense since it couldn't multiplier overclock, only 2 dimm slots, no ide (so can't reuse old optical drive), only 4 sata ports, no usb3, no sata 6gb, and the 2x pci express 16x is useless since it seems unlikely the OP will SLI/CF.

Anyways, no use beating a dead horse.

For $200, I think the best value video card for the money right now is the 5870. Newegg has the Gigabyte 5870 for $210 before $30 MIR. It's about as fast as a gtx 560 and 6950 for less money.

Well, he wasn't planning on overclocking, and the board was one of the cheapest Intel based motherboards he could grab (at the time he purchased it). How a base model board doesn't make any sense simply baffles me. If he's not overclocking, what the heck is the point of a high dollar board?

The whole business about the 2500k being a poor choice if he has no intentions of overclocking is simply mind numbing. Having read a review some weeks back, it compared nearly even with the i7 2600k, and was steps better than many of the previous generation i7 processors. For someone, even someone who is not intending to overclock, to look for a good price point CPU, the 2500k is probably the best ~200 dollar processors out there.

Meh, you guys enjoy your bitch fest about overclocking. I'll continue to see that the OP did what many casual gamers do out there. Buy a base model board, a good CPU, and leave his options open for a graphics card down the road. If he does have the 4850 someone mentioned, he can attempt to give it another go until he finds a good deal elsewhere.

 

[mfenn]

For someone, even someone who is not intending to overclock, to look for a good price point CPU, the 2500k is probably the best ~200 dollar processors out there.

I beg to differ. If you're not going to overclock, the i5 2500 is the best bang for buck ~$200 processor out there.

 

[aphelion02]

mvbighead, you recommended a k series processor for someone who is neither going to use integrated graphics or overclock. So basically you cost him $20, not ifs or buts. the i5-2500 would have given him the exact same performance at a lower price.

Also, for a gamer on a limited budget, you encouraged him to overspend on everything besides the GPU, which should be the core focus of the build. The 8gb of RAM is totally unnecessary for gaming. The great processor you let him have will never be able to stretch its legs because it will be limited by the anemic GPU in all situations.

You try to defend yourself by claims of upgradability. Yet you recommended a budget m-ATX mobo which is one of the least upgradable. It has less SATA ports, no SATA III, and only 2 memory dimms. Thats not to say it was bad, but your motherboard does not hold any more upgradability than any other lga1155 board.

And lastly, you totally ignore the OP's budget and situation. He wanted the best gaming computer right now he could get in his limited budget but you reduced his GPU budget by $100 when he was at a critical price point where every $20 could mean a big bump in performance. It was also clear that the OP wasn't especially technically savvy and had a very long upgrade cycle and was on a very tight budget Who knows when he will next get another $200 for a GPU upgrade. You should have given him the best possible build for his budget right now, yet you punted off the hard decisions to later and left him with an unbalanced system which does everything really well except the one purpose he wanted it for: gaming.

One more thing. The GTX 550 is a shit graphics card for that price point you recommended. This is well established in reviews where the 550 is beaten by HD6790 and both are crushed by the GTX 460 768 mb. No primary gaming build should ever include it.

 

[aphelion02]

I beg to differ. If you're not going to overclock, the i5 2500 is the best bang for buck ~$200 processor out there.

And if you are on a tight budget, the i5-2400 at $30 less is quite good too, giving up only 0.3Ghz of CPU clock.

 

[mvbighead]

mvbighead, you recommended a k series processor for someone who is neither going to use integrated graphics or overclock. So basically you cost him $20, not ifs or buts. the i5-2500 would have given him the exact same performance at a lower price.

Also, for a gamer on a limited budget, you encouraged him to overspend on everything besides the GPU, which should be the core focus of the build. The 8gb of RAM is totally unnecessary for gaming. The great processor you let him have will never be able to stretch its legs because it will be limited by the anemic GPU in all situations.

Actually, I encouraged him to spend an extra twenty bucks on a better processor that would give him the option to overclock if he chose to. And, the CPU does its own overclocking by way of turbo boost, so it'll give the guy some level of overclocking that he doesn't even have to worry about.

As for 8GB of RAM, sure, now that might be unnecessary. But in a year or two... And, with the limited base of two DIMM slots, he'll have already have 8GB and won't have to drop his 2x2 configuration to then go out and buy an 8GB set.

You try to defend yourself by claims of upgradability. Yet you recommended a budget m-ATX mobo which is one of the least upgradable. It has less SATA ports, no SATA III, and only 2 memory dimms. Thats not to say it was bad, but your motherboard does not hold any more upgradability than any other lga1155 board.

If I said upgrade-ability, my apologies. What I believe I said was future proof. Sure, I made a mistake selecting a board without SATA3 or USB3. But they key purpose of that selection is it would support the processor and memory, and at a very low price point. The lowest I had seen at the time for a board that had a reputable manufacturer. And SATA2, at this point, is something where the limits are seldom being pushed. The OP would be best served throwing an SSD in his rig at some point, and while SATA3 would've given him some advantage, it wouldn't have been the deal breaker you seem to be suggesting.

And lastly, you totally ignore the OP's budget and situation. He wanted the best gaming computer right now he could get in his limited budget but you reduced his GPU budget by $100 when he was at a critical price point where every $20 could mean a big bump in performance. It was also clear that the OP wasn't especially technically savvy and had a very long upgrade cycle and was on a very tight budget Who knows when he will next get another $200 for a GPU upgrade. You should have given him the best possible build for his budget right now, yet you punted off the hard decisions to later and left him with an unbalanced system which does everything really well except the one purpose he wanted it for: gaming.

One more thing. The GTX 550 is a shit graphics card for that price point you recommended. This is well established in reviews where the 550 is beaten by HD6790 and both are crushed by the GTX 460 768 mb. No primary gaming build should ever include it.

No, I didn't ignore the OP's situation... I simply recommended a bad video card. I have gamed a lot in my past, and I have never paid more than 150 for a graphics card. If you look at today's tech, and then look at it a year from now, they'll be on to something completely different. DX9 then DX10, then DX10.1, then DX11, then Physix, then this, then that. It changes constantly. For a gamer who was coming from 6200 NVidia card, the 550 or any similarly priced card would've given him plenty. And while there are better cards for the price point, that is beside the point (And I'll admit, there is likely a better $150 or so dollar card out there). The fact is, spending $230 on a card that'll be old tech in 6-12 months is less ideal, IMO, than buying a processor that can be the staple of his system for the next 4-5 years. How many guys do you see on these forums rocking a C2D type chip that they could have bought 4 years ago? (I've seen several.) How many do you see rocking a 7950GT if they're still gaming? (Not too many.) Point being, the processor he'll likely stick with for a good 4-5 years. Graphics card, not so much. So I suggested an upper tier processor that cost him a whopping $230, and one that automatically overclocks so he doesn't have to worry about tinkering with it. And, when he chooses to, he can if he likes.

Again, this is simply my opinion, but every gamer I know uses his computer for more than just that. I am not someone who ever suggests a $200 plus video card because it simply will be old in a short time period. You may disagree, and that is all well and good, but I simply tend to look at what the person has been doing, and what he's been used to. He sounds similar to me, someone who likes to game, but doesn't invest his entire paycheck into it. A computer can be a heckuva lot more than just a gaming machine. With the processor that he bought, he'll pretty much be able to do whatever he wants to do with it. And when he throws a better video card in there, even a "piddly" $130-$150 one, he'll still be able to play whatever games he wants with no issues whatsoever.

Here is one such example of a good card for a low pricepoint (listed in hotdeals):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...&amp;SID=u00000687