Building a computer, need help!

Hey everyone,

So as the title suggests, I am building a gaming computer for myself, as I play a lot of online games. I have put together a build and would like some feedback/criticism on what I can do to make it the best possible computer I can get for my price range.

The problem is, my computer ends up going to about $1800 and I'm trying to tone it down a bit to the $1300-$1500 range, the lower the better.

Here is the build I have come up with:


-Intel i7-930 Socket 1366
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...0Socket%201366

-NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121373

-6GB Triple Channel DDR3 memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-286-_-Product

-Intel X25-M SSD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820167018

-500GB Western Digital Caviar Black SATA3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136320

-ASUS P6T LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-359-_-Product

-Creative SoundBlaster x-Fi Titanium PCI-e Soundcard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16829102024

-Coolermaster Sniper ATX Tower
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...%20ATX%20Tower

-LG Blu-Ray ROM DVD/RW SuperMulti
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...W%20SuperMulti

And I'm not sure what monitor to get, but I have these in mind (any suggestions are welcome):

-Dell u2311h IPS monitor 1920x1080p

OR


-LG E2250T-PN Purple Deco 21.5" LED BackLight
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-155-_-Product


WARNING: I am not very familiar with computer parts as I had a friend help me put this together. Am I missing any parts or do I have everything covered? Also, is it really worth it to get a sound card or no?

EDIT: Forgot to say that the monitor is not included in my budget!

Thank you in advance

For a gaming computer, absolute system speed is not that important. If you want to save a few dollars, but still have a decent gaming rig, this is what I would suggest:

1. An i5-750 or i7-860 socket 1156 cpu. Those cpus will easily match the performance of an i7-930 in most games.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...i-i5,2647.html

2. 4gigs of DDR3-1333 "value RAM" - you will never notice the difference between that and the DDR3-1600 (unless you plan to overclock) - but check prices.

3. Scrap the SSD - yes, an SSD will make your system appear to be faster, but it will not really add much to the overall performance of your games. You'd get a small increase in loading times, but it will have no effect on your fps or graphics settings (which are what really matters)

your build is good, but it's waaaay overkill for any online game (assume you mean MMO type games) - could you be more specific as to the games you want to play?

Yeah, I mainly play MMOs online. My consoles are for my shooters and what not.

Thanks for the advice so far.

So I guess I'm replacing the i7-930 for the i7-860 and getting rid of the SDD.

Any other advice?

First, one general note. Most people don't pay nearly enough attention to peripherals - keyboard, mouse, monitor, headphones, etc. These components are your interface with your machine, and in my opinion have the greatest overall affect on user experience. I've seen people build $1.5k+ gaming boxes and plug them into shitty little 1680x1050 TN monitors; unless you're a progamer going for maximum display speed, this is completely backwards.

Comments on specific components:
i5-750 vs. i7-860 is a 50% price increase for hyperthreading, +1 base multiplier and +1 turbo multiplier w/ one core. Hyperthreading is useless for you and you'll probably never be getting the single-core turbo, which means that you're effectively paying 50% more for 5% higher clockspeed (2.8 v. 2.66). I'd go with the i5.

Remember to change the motherboard also; X58 boards don't work with LGA1156 processors. Unless there are specific features that you want, go for the cheapest board you can find from a reliable manufacturer (Gigabyte, Asus, etc.). These boards have SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0.

I would not drop the SSD for anything. While they won't improve your gaming FPS, SSDs greatly improve the general responsiveness of your system and thus affect your daily computing experience in a way that benchmarks don't really capture. I no longer use mechanical drives in any of my systems, because the difference is just too irritating.

I would change the video card to a 5870 or 5850. Particularly if you're playing MMOs, the performance difference of the GTX480 isn't worth the increase in cost, power consumption, heat, etc.

Soundcard choices are pretty limited; if you want EAX 5 effects, you have to use an X-Fi based solution. That said, I think Creative products and drivers are sufficiently terrible that it's not worth using them even to get EAX. ASUS and HT Omega are generally better alternatives, particularly if you care at all about music. And yes, I do think it's worth getting a decent discreet soundcard. Many tech forum posters think onboard sound is plenty good enough, but these are the same people who are perfectly happy with $25 headphones. It all comes down to how much you care about sound quality, and what kind of headphones/speakers you're listening through; a $200+ soundcard is completely useless if your phones are garbage.

The blu-ray drive you linked to has been deactivated. Blu-ray drives don't have much utility beyond watching movies, which I think is better done on a TV anyway. That said, the prices on the cheapest drives have come down enough that they're not a complete waste of money (~$60, or +150% premium over DVD burners).

While the GTX480 is expensive, the 5870 is overpriced atm. Power consumption is irrelevant in a home setup. Heat, yes, that's a semi valid point, but what's 10-15C more in a well cooled system?

The performance difference in MMOs isn't all that great, because they aren't GPU limited with either ATi or nVidia's high end solutions, but for other games, the GTX480 handily outperforms ATi's 5870.

Overall, the GTX470 offers the best value per dollar spent for a high end gaming rig, at least at present time.

Two of them represents and absolutely unstoppable rig that will tear through any game at insane graphical settings, but it will also set you back 600-700 bucks. Overall though, 2xGTX470s in SLi is a far better deal than the overpriced HD5970, and the extra 100-200 dollars is a huge boost over a single GTX480. Cost vs performance... cost vs performance guys and gals.

100% agree. SSDs are a huge boon to a PC's performance, and arguably the single most substantial upgrade you can put in terms of overall system performance.

Agreed yet again. Sound cards are worth their weight in gold if you have the audio equipment to back them. I recently picked up an ASUS Sonar card for my desktop to connect with my receiver for media center playback. The difference is very noticeable, especially with low frequency response (dirty versus clean sub), and clear, crisp high tones. Tonal quality improved drastically, more than the other factors, at least with my speakers (Klipsch RF-63s with a Klipsch RW-12 sub)


Here is my idea for your build. It brings the cost down to $1,510.66 with shipping included, excluding monitor. Overall, it's a better balance between budget and performance.

Case: Larger, extremely refined design, impeccable quality. More expensive? Yep. Worth every penny? Absolutely.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119225

500GB Storage Drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152181
The 1TB model is 20 dollars more, if you believe you might need the extra space (500GB goes fast these days)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152185


GPU: (at $319.99, this is absolutely unbeatable in price vs performance)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130550

PSU: More expensive than it's non modular counterpart, but the cable management options will be a huge benefit to you. Not only will it look nicer, but... your components will thank you with the increased airflow from better/minimal cabling.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139010

RAM: Nothing can really touch this kit in price vs performance. Timings are very tight, speed is amazing, and it overclocks beautifully. I use this kit myself, and it's bliss.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231303

Motherboard: ASRock is the new ASUS, with cheap, overclockable, easy to setup, user friendly boards with great features and product quality and extremely reasonable prices. ASRock is owned by ASUS btw. I use a board nearly identical to this model, but mine doesn't have SATA 6.0Gbps or USB 3.0, which will be huge benefits to you in the future.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157193


CPU: I agree with Burst, go with this CPU. The Hyperthreading is a huge benefit to certain users (like myself), but from a gaming aspect, it's nearly worthless. Save the money here, and spend it on a beautiful monitor.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115215

CPU Cooler: Noctua is German engineered. Enough said. But seriously, best air coolers on the market, both in performance and noise. I sound like a cheesy ad, but it's true.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835608016

BR-ROM/DVDRW: Samsung is great, the drive looks great, it's fast (8x BluRay) and has every possible DVD burning capability at high speed. Quality, spelled with a capital Q. Cheap too!

SSD: I agree with Burst, as noted above. This OCZ Agility 2 is a great drive, and almost always beats the Intel drive in synthetic and real world testing. Anandtech loved the Agility2, and I recently added 2 of them to my workstation. Performance is great, but that's to be expected with the Sandforce-1200 controller.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820227542


As for monitors?

While IPS monitors are absolutely amazing, they are extremely expensive for total screen size. For gaming and normal video playback, a good TN/TFT panel is a very viable option. I've been told my Samsung 245BW rivals many IPS monitors in color clarity and white reproduction. IPS panels are also very iffy these days. I'd only recommend an IPS panel if you plan to spend big bucks for a professional level monitor, and those are well over a thousand dollars for a good size/resolution (and only viable if you are do editing for a professional career)

I trust Samsung's panels a lot, especially since they finally got over that ToC bullsh*t with low grade panels. Customers complained, and they fixed it.

24" of LED backlit goodness:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824001389

I'm using a 40" Sony Bravia (EX400). It's absolutely delightful and was only $500. It's so much better than gaming on a regular size (24") screen you can't understand it until you experience it (and it's the perfect size for PC monitor distance). Make room in your budget if you possibly can.

Thanks for the help so far everyone, I really appreciate it

So if I'm going to go with your build Sojar, what processor would I end up using?

The Corei7 750. It overclocks very well, and you won't miss the HyperThreading.

Do you have a Power Supply Unit???

as for 930 versus lower models I much prefer the 1366 chipset, better memory solutions abd better multi card solutions. Why does multi card matter? Because right now the best bang for the buck and preformance winner for GPUs is 2 460 GTX 1GB editions. They are around $200 each and outpreform a 480 and even a 5970.

If you truely are going for budget 5770 is the GPU you want. There is no reason to skimp on the CPU and beef up the GPU, that will end up with a bottle neck.

My suggestion, if you live near a Microcenter you can pick up an i7 930 for $200, find a good set of 2x3GB memory from a company like G.Skill (quality of corsair, price of OCZ) and then go about your hard drive and such as you currently are.

There is literally no difference between the i7 930 and the i5 750 when it comes to gaming. The i5 750 is an i7 860 without Hyperthreading and a slightly lower clock.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/46?vs=109

That's the 940 vs the 750... Note, that in 3 of 4 gaming results shown, the Corei5 750 outperforms the Corei7 940... for a gaming rig, the Corei5 750 or Corei7 8xx are amazing, and cheap.

In addition, the board I linked is able to multi GPU setups perfectly fine, with little to no performance hits.

As for memory, triple channel only boosts performance when there are more than 4 cores active (ie 6-12 cores). My rig has better memory performance than any Core i7 9xx excluding the Core i7 980X with DDR3-1600 (assuming speed of the memory is kept the same) Granted, my system is tweaked, but it is nonetheless dual channel, not triple channel. I do agree with you on GSkill though, best RAM company out there right now.

The GTX470 I presented is currently only 320 dollars, which makes it well worth the money. A dual GTX 460 setup is amazing, I 100% agree, but that adds an additional ~120-150 dollars to the price that is already right at budget.

No GPU on the market can bottleneck a Corei5 750 more than a Corei7 9xx. The socket 1156 CPUs are amazing.

Since you seem to be located in USA... Check fatwallet and slickdeals for sales. Go to hot deals forums and search for computer stuff. They have threads on full builds, but they are not always current.

Take a minute to research what ram works well with the mobo/motherboard you pick. Don't get to crazy with ram. Just find the cheapest most stable ram you can cuz it doens't help performance much. The markup on highend ram is usually not worth the performance. Just make sure you buy some stable ram from a trusted company. Memtest whatever ram you get. Saved me a few times. Use to be value ram from Corsair and Kingston were decent and easy to RMA if you had problems.

Some combos mobo/cpu can easily overclock. Research that if you really want to save money. But even if you don't plan to OC, don't buy the fastest cpu out there. There's usually a premium on the top proc and it isn't really worth it. i5 seems to be best bang for the buck.

What OS will you be running? I still run xp pro (4 gigs of ram) and don't need a lot of ram, but if you go 64bit vista or win 7, you can run more ram. DO NOT GO VISTA IF POSSIBLE.

Monitor. Dont get a 16/9 1920x1080 monitor. Get 16/10 1920x1200 res+ on a 24" if you can afford it. If I were you, I'd spend a little less on computer components so that I could get a nicer monitor. Research is key here. They have deals IPS etc panels. Much nice than TN panels if you can afford the premium. Do some research and go check out different panels. My old 1650x1050 PVA looks nicer than my newer 1920x1080 samsung because of the panel and 16x10 is better for gaming, work, etc.

If you really want to get complicated, is noise a problem? There are lots of deals on mid to high end coolers that will keep your cpu cooler and run more silent. Same goes for case fans and the powersupply. I didn't see one in your build. Does the case come with one?

The OP sounds like he's buying a Ferrari just to drive to the grocery store.

Frame rate is going to be limited to 60 fps assuming that's what your monitor supports. You can go beyond that at the cost of ugly screen tearing.

You could reach a consistent 60 FPS on GW2 with a system 1/3 the cost of this machine. All this talk about Core i7's when you'll run maximum FPS on any MMO with a Core i3. Otherwise you're building a $2000 email checker.

So, the parts that Sojar has listed are the only ones I need correct. What I'm trying to say is, I'm not leaving anything out of the Computer am I?

I'm quite thorough. Those are all the parts you will need for the computer assuming you have a full install disk for Windows 7/Vista 64bit.

Of course, that assumes you have a good keyboard and mouse to go with this system. If not, say so now, and I can point you out a few models based on your hand size and play style.

While FPS above 60 is "useless" looking purely at it from maximum or average FPS, the issue comes to the front more when you look at it from the minimum frame rate category.

While the GTX 470 might be overkill for GW2, even at the highest settings, the magic comes in with Anti Aliasing and maintaining a constant 60FPS lock. That is what having a high end gaming rig is all about.

Bleeding edge systems are silly, I agree. To some degree, so are enthusiast setups. High end and mid range systems are typically between $750-$1,500 USD. Anything above 1,500 USD (excluding monitor mind you) becomes overkill for a vast majority of gamers.

The nice thing about getting a DX11 setup (and particularly a GTX470/480 setup) is that it is very future proof. DX 11.0 is the new DX 9.0c; in other words, it's here to stay for a while. nVidia's tesselators are incredible on the 470/480 cards, or a GTX460 SLi setup. ATi's solutions are very good purchases at this time, but they may not outlast the nVidia cards. If you don't plan to upgrade for sometime, the nVidia route may be wiser (matter of opinion based on available data and historical trends)

The idea that any computer can be "future proof" when it comes to gaming is one I don't find credible, especially as more people move to 1920x1200 or even 2560x1600 resolution displays. Of course, for the average user that just needs email, youtube, and online banking, a trusty Core 2 machine will last them for literally decades; for these people, only hardware failures will necessitate upgrades.

I don't agree with what you consider to be overkill for gamers. Until mid-range hardware can hold 60 FPS minimum framerate in all games with all of the settings on max at the resolution you play at (a situation far from reality), there is a place for high-end gaming computers. Those who own 30" 2560x1600 monitors or 120hz gaming panels have even more reason to invest in bleeding-edge graphics hardware. $1.5k each year barely pays for the video cards you need to guarantee 60 fps on a 30" panel in the latest games, let alone the rest of your computer.