CPU: if multi-tasking, gaming and encoding stuff (that doesn't include cuda functionality, premiere, after effects, industrial 3D like autodesk) 8350 wins since it got 8 cores.
HDD: since you got an SSD yourself and not opting to raid them, go with WD, they do die an average of ~2.5 years in my experience. WD has better latency and write/read speed than seagate. Go only with Seagate if you're going to raid-0. I haven't got dead HDD though with seagate and I got 8 internal HDD from them atm.
PSU is fine
SSD: sorry, I don't use SSD :P but most of my colleagues and friends use intel ssd's
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Hmm, so what I getting at is that you'd recommend the AMD build right? But I looked at some benchmarks, ( Site 1 Site 2 ) and it shows the i-7 outperforms the 8350. If you saw my i-7 reason ($230), i wouldn't mind pay and extra $50 for better performance. (Not in gaming)
Just a question about the AMD build, would you go with the 7950 or the 7970? I'm just stating this because; 1. For the budget 2. The builds in pcpartpicker, I've seen budget builds around mine leaning towards the 7950.
HDD: It's just I don't get RAID. I've been researching about it and I still don't get it. :/
PSU and SSD: Thank you for your input!
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Raid is simple. It's a redundant array of inexpensive disks, i.e. coupling hard drives together to increase performance, redundancy, or both!
RAID0 with 2 hdds is like two buckets of water with pipes leading to them. They fill at 100ml per second. You have a litre. It will take ten seconds to put it all in one bucket, or, you spilt between the two and it takes 5 seconds, because each has a 100ml per second fill rate. Realistic you don't double performance with RAID, but you catch my drift. It splits the data across the hard drives, thus you gain more speed, but if one drive dies, they all die.
RAID1. Same idea as above, but instead of splitting the litre, you put one litre in both, so if one bucket spills, you still have all the water you wanted. It's all about redundancy baby.
RAID10. Combination of 0 and 1. You split the data over two drives, but then keep copies of both those drives as well.
RAID5 (personal favourite). You split data across three drives. Each carry data, and each carry parity (recovery blocks). So if a drive 1 fails, no data is lost, because drive 2 and 3 have enough to keep the data intact. Like recovery/repair files for rar archives.
There are also RAID 2, 3, 4, and 6, but only 6 is more commonly used and only in server spaces.
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Just a quick reply so I can answer other people's questions:
Okay what I'm getting at is that RAID splits the data to each drive. So RAID's general purpose is to basically back up the information? Like HDD 1 information is copied to HDD 2? Or is RAID's purpose is to split and transfer information?
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depends,
Raid-0 splits your data to both drives, it used for performance boosts
If you have 1 HDD that writes @ 135mb/sec then raid-0 them together will provide you a near 270mb/sec write speed. It's not a full 100% boost, but it is near. The tradeoff for this is if one drive fails your data is forever gone.
Raid-1 is what you are saying, the data is written both to 2 drives. so it's much slower.
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Seems like you already know what you want. Looks fine to me, only things to note are that XFX power supplies are made by Seasonic anyway, and that the newest WD Caviar Blue (model WD10EZEX) is actually slightly faster than a Caviar Black (and cheaper too). I know you're going for the Seagate, just wanted to correct the misinformation.
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i can confirm that XFX power supplies are made by Seasonic and 20 USD cheaper. also prefer Western Digital over Seagate due to reliability
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XFX: Wow, that is interesting to know. I might consider it if I go with the i-5 build.
HDD: I'm not fully set on the HDD I want still. I mean I know the Caviar Black has better performance than the Seagate one. I just leaned towards the 2TB on because, currently I have a 500GB HDD, and I can only fit at least 2 big games. So I just wanted plenty of space for games plus fraps/dxtory/recorded video files.
Another thing is, a part of me doesn't get how the WD 1TB is better than the Seagate 2TB. To explain, I've been looking at 2 things with the HDD's: RPM and Cashe. Because they both have 7200 RPM and 64MB Cashe. The only obvious difference to me is storage. Info to explain my thoughts: 1 TB 2 TB.
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having worked on older and newer computers Seagate's fail more often and faster than WD's from what I have seen(and that's through hundreds of units), that is the bigger point between the two that would make that big of a price difference
also another PSU brand to consider is OCZ
I would also suggest getting a full tower case(and a good one, expect to pay roughly 150-200 for a solid case).. its worth the money to have a good case, remember its an investment, a good case will last a LONG time(albeit the USB ports might get dated and fans might need replacing someday.. but that should be it)
and if you purchase from newegg, consider trying out the shoprunner trial, free 2 day shipping on almost everything.. and the trial is completely free(and if you try to cancel it goes from 30 days to 90 day trial(optional choice to stay longer)).. and extends to an entire year if you do 3 purchases during the trial(shoprunner also covers numerous other stores.. and well.. domino's pizza delivery :P)
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Yea I saw many reports of people having problems or DOA's with Seagate.
I saw OCZ's PSU's available at Pcpartpicker, and the one's I'd get are somewhat are in the same price range of the Seasonic 620 I plan to get. So I suppose OCZ at the moment is a no. But thank you for the suggestion!
Case: I see your point. I only chose the Mid Tower's because they fit the budget. I looked at the full towers, and ehhh they seem to big to me. I mean my current PC is a Mid Tower case I guess. If i could I would have gone for a Mini-ITX, but I'm to inexperienced to do a mini Mid-End build. Something like this build.
Anyways the only other tower I'd consider is the Corsair 650D. Two good looking builds I saw were this and this. But it says its a Mid Tower Case. So ehh
Yea I'm at least going to get about 4 out of 11 parts out of Newegg because of the sales that is going on.(CPU Cooler, Motherboard, RAM, and GPU or PSU)
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This thread is good for some information. If WD ever get round to making a Caviar Black with a single 1TB platter then expect that to be faster but there's no news of that on the horizon. To be perfectly honest, you'll likely only notice the differences if you're benchmarking; instead the important thing is reliability. Also the Blacks have a five year warranty, the Blues a two year warranty. I don't know what Seagate offer.
With regards to the two things you've been looking at, RPM is important, cache size less so.
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I read only the first few pages of the thread. I don't get the "platter" part and raid.
Anyways I have 2 questions for you:
Should I get the Western Digital Caviar Black 2 TB then?
I don't know if this is an ignorant comment but, Isn't any 7200 RPM HDD good? (any storage size) I can't tell what is "fast" because my current PC specs. (Windows XP Service Pack 3, some Intel Express Family Chip; GPU, Pentium 4 - 2.80 GHZ and 3062 MB RAM) Was going to say idk the HDD, but I looked it up on google (HDS722580VLSA80) and it says I have 80 GB.
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Just because it is made by seasonic does not mean you get seasonic quality. Be careful, XFX psus are not good! Watch the video.
Here's a list of PSU OEMs - Generally I would say that most seasonic units are good, so are most Channel Well and Enermax. Some FSP and Delta are good. The reason I buy seasonic is because I know they make quality, that said, corsair seasonics are good, I love a lot of Enermax units.
I am a PSU snob. I would never gget anything below platinum rating.
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Absolutely this - it's frustrating, unhelpful, and helps shit up forums everywhere. Instead of taking the time to pointlessly state a worthless opinion, try reading the darn OP.
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I would go with AMD, since with the next generation of consoles running with AMD 8-cores, multi-threading will get a lot better in games and AMD will probably be well worth the money. That is just my opinion tho, it's what I think. I am no expert. Anyways, i'm buying a new PC soon and it's gonna be an AMD processor.
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-1 - AMD is worst for gaming, a game wouldn't even make full use of all those 8 cores let alone 4 of them (plus they are slower than Intel cores). Intel has redesigned both the motherboard and cpu to work together, direct access to memory and graphics in 2nd/3rd Gen (60-80% faster). Therefore Intel is the leader for gaming purposes coupled with a good graphics card. AMD would still be good for applications and multitasking but still using 1st Gen Tech.
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my amd pc works just fine, amd is weaker overall but when it comes to power for value amd is amazing.Intel cost a lot more but in gaming terms the performance difference is not much at all.
Not to mention that nowadays there are a lot of big releases that are amd evolved so you see amd systems matching and or even outperforming higher priced intel/nvidia machines in those games. e.g. crysis 3, far cry 3, hitman absolution, tomb raider etc.
When Battlefield 4 comes out it will more than likely run best on an amd setup.
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You guys missed the part when I said, AMD might become better once the next generation of consoles are out and they work out better multi-threading to make full use of the AMD 8-cores that the consoles are using. Multi-threading isn't made for 8-cores at the moment but most likely will be in the near future.
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About editing, the 8350 may be better than the 3570k, but for multitasking, no, even less if you're getting 16gb of ram. For gaming 3770k and 3570k beats the 8350 in most games (the only case I know it's in crysis 3 where the 8350 can beat the 3770k).
Now for editing, which program are you going to use? If you're going to use something from adobe, nvidia is a no-brainer, opengl it's growing, but cuda it outperforms it by far in those programs. About editing, how much editing do you do? Because using 3770k/8350 over a 3570k we're talking about saving about 10 minutes. So you should decide on that.
If you don't understand much RAID, dont' try until you really know the risks. Speaking of HDD, if you can afford a black WD, go for that one, the warranty and customer service are really good for those 5 years, but both black/blue and seagate barracuda are more or less the same (there were a couple of seagate that were defective but you won't find those now).
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Okay about the editing part. I never edited on my life so far. I would try to edit, but it comes out in 240p or even lower on you tube because of my PC. Also I bought Left 4 Dead 2, Chivalry, Counter Strike, Orcs Must Die 2, and etc; and I just get a white screen or can't even run it.
Anyway, I plan to get: Sony Vegas Pro 12, Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, or Adobe Audition CS6. And the prices for these software... holy **. I only showed those because that's what the majority of people I know are using and the video production looks nice! But just plan to edit some game play videos, skits, and vlogs.**
And yea am considering to go back to the Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB.
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Well if you're going to get those, do get nvidia cards, 660ti or 670 (you can go with 680 but you're losing much performance/dollar).
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As other said above, you should explain what kind of Editing you are going to make. For some, there isnt much difference in the cpus, in other, it is really important. As I use my pc only to play, i would save on the Cpu (get the 3570k) and use it on the GPU.
BTW, if you REALLY want a quiet computer, you should consider: 1) An better CPU cooler 2) Buying an GPU with an Stock Cooler (not MSI's) and installing an Arctic Accelero.
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Yea. Now I'm going to go with the i-5 build.
Which CPU cooler would u recommend?
It used to be the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 2GB. I changed it to the MSI one because people claimed the GeForce one to be noisy.
Added a Thermal Compound.
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I'd go for the i7 build. If you're really getting it for the around the same price as the i5 and AMD, there's no reason to go with the other CPU's, which will end up slower. From the benchmarks I've seen, the AMD will beat the i7 on some rare occasions, but the i7 beats it by a large margin in most tests, and when it comes to gaming even the i5 beats it soundly. Plus the AMD uses a lot more power.
That said, Intel's Haswell CPU's will go on sale in about two weeks. If you've waiting 2-3 months already just researching, it may be wise to wait a couple more weeks.
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Thank you for the reply! I'm kinda leaning towards the i-5 build because of the responses the other people gave me here.
About the Haswell situation, I never heard about this till yesterday. That said if I were to buy the parts in the coming days or weeks, would I just be only missing out on the CPU and lower prices?
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Can you explain why the i5? I only skimmed the thread but couldn't find any particular good reason. Feels to me that if you're getting the i7 for a price that's only $20 more than the i5 that's worth the extra power you'll get from it.
As for Haswell, that would depend on how it turns out. It should offer somewhat better performance and lower power draw. If you're going for the i7, I can't believe you'll get a much better deal even with Haswell out. If you're going for the i5, there's a good chance that the release of Haswell will let you improve the performance or price of the build.
By the way, reading here and checking some benchmarks, the Radeon 7950 does look like a good choice. It's trading blows with the GeForce 670 for performance but is significantly cheaper and you get nice games with it.
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Yes you are right about the i-7 idea, just about $20 more. I just didn't expect to buy a monitor. Hmm maybe now back to i-7. lmao I just have to pay in total $40 bucks more because of the 16GB and i-7. (Which isn't that bad.) Thank you for pushing for the i-7!
Yea with the people's responses, I'll wait a bit.
Video Card: Maybe not the 7950, but the 7970.
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You're should be comparing the 7970 GHz Edition and the 7950 Boost, not the vanilla versions, because these are what's being sold now (just make sure you buy them and not the older products, although the old ones can be found discounted so that could work too). The 7970 GHz is significantly faster than the 7950 Boost (Anandtech comparison), but the 7950 Boost will provide very good performance. It's up to you to decide if the extra $100 is worth it for the performance boost.
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I do a lot of batch video processing and I picked Intel. Quick Sync is really really fast for encoding. I don't do much editing, usually only do a trim, resize, conversion and such, MainConcept is what I mostly use, paid software though. There's a free one called MediaCoder, never tried it though.
I always read online that gpu based solutions like cude and quicksync result in lower quality, but I cannot fucking tell, so fuck those guys posting that shit. It saves so much time I can masturbate 86 times! So if you shift about enough video, I would get the 3770K. I delidded mine for better temps.
Went with 16GB. Created a RAM drive for browser cache and some other software. Some video editing software would let you set that up as your scratch drive. Big speed increase.
Went with Intel for SSD for reliability, but Samsung is good too. Be sure to back up often. Haven't replaced my Intel yet, but a friend of mine has replaced his almost yearly in the last three years. Got OCZ I think.
BTW, don't count on MIRs. I got one out of four. Very unreliable. They told me they sent them, they never arrived. Motherfuckers. One of them said they never received it. And I only got my ten dollar from Antec, basically missing 70 bucks. Fuckers.
If the price difference to the 3770K is low, do it. 670 is about ten percent better than 7950, 7970 is maybe 5% better. So you have to figure out if the extra money is worth it.
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Haha, funny introductory post. I haven't edited yet. I'd probably do what you've been doing with videos in the beginning. That in mind I should practice. I might use the free ones you've mentioned to practice.
Upon reading the people's responses on this post, the 2 option I'm leaning towards is the i5-3570K build or waiting a bit for Haswell's product.
With the RAM, if I went with the 3570K build, 8GB would be fine right? 16GB just decreases downtime, err right? Because the editing program that I plan to get is Sony Vegas Pro 12.
SSD: Oh, you have to change your SSD in a few years? I mean the PC that I'm using, lasted for 8 years (2005 bought) and the only thing that had to be changed was the RAM which was 4 years ago.
I'm assuming MIR is Micro Center? They unreliable huh, damn.
GPU: I'm set for GTX 670
But If you were in my situation, what i-7 build would you make if you had $1500?
If you don't want to do that ^^^ , it's fine! I'm thankful for your feedback!
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get the 16GB of ram, that will help future proof your PC
also for monitor's I would get something between 22 and 27 inches that has HDMI input and supports 1680x1050 or 1920x1080(people claim this is the best.. but I find it.. rather wasteful, then again I don't have a big enough monitor to justify going to 1920)
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Holy crap man, $330. ._.
Thank you for the suggestion, but got Asus VS238H-P 23-Inch instead. :D
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Why? Its not even an IPS panel. These days, only IPS are worth buying. This panel is vastly superior.
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Ahh, thank you for catching the IPS part. And hey! See the posts you've made, and as usual, very helpful! Thank you very much!
Yea might go back to the i-7 build. It's just going to be $40 more because I'm going to buy the i-7 at Micro Center.
But because of the Haswell situation, I'll wait a few weeks.
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Mir is mail in rebate, not micro centre.
ignore anyone that uses the term future proofing, it is impossible. dumb people like that term. Buzz word, nothing more.
You can wait if you want, but new products tend to be more expensive and I tend to recommend against waiting. but when you have the money or you may kick yourself.
ssds, they burn out. have limited writes. depending on how much you stress them, you get different life spans. that said, if you have a five year warranty you can get the drive replaced if it's used up.
You should be ok with 8. 16 is only necessary if you do heavy editing. You don't. maybe layer, no need to spend that money now.
I think you would overkill 3770. just get the i5. it's good.
going on a date. if I remember, I'll post a build later.
what monitor do you have?
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MIR: Wow, derp. ._.
New Products: Hmm, I guess I can wait a few weeks like the people said here.
SSD: Damn. That is very helpful information to know.
Seems the i-5 build should be fine. Thank you very much!
Monitor: It's Hannspree 16:10. Somewhat like this one.
Enjoy your date!
Edit:
1.) Chose the Asus VS238H-P 23-Inch for the build.
2.) Also the build changed a bit because of people's
responses. I switched the CPU Cooler and Power Supply and added a monitor.
3.) If I could, I'd do this build i guess.
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June 3rd is the supposed date. So if you wait, you may benefit by getting newer, slightly better hardware (as far as overclocking goes at least) and the older stuff may drop in price a bit. Or you get unlucky. Hopefully the former, but that's why I don't wait, hate those risks :)
Yes, SSDs are reliable, but they can fail. I know very few people who kill them quickly. I don't know that many people that have had them for more than a year though. I've had one for two years without problems, but got a faster one, so now that one is steam only. No problems yet. That is why I like the five year warranty and create backups at night.
Monitor seems fine. Not the lowest of low end, but not high grade either. Like I said, I am a snob, so I bought the XL2420T because refresh.
Personally I'd go for windows 8, but that's only because it is good in my usage scenario, plus it sounds like 8.1 is going to rock. I am the exception. I love it on my desktop, but hate it on my tablet, so yeah...
Your if i could build has two different monitors... weird.
Don't buy AS5, it's ASS. You ask any respectable builder and he will say that it isn't up to snuff any more. I haven't made a build in a long time. So I will hopefully be back in less than thirty.
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Yea I wait. I saw some posts like this one saying prices won't go down that much. But no harm in waiting.
SSD: Ouch. It says in Amazon and Newegg the 840 Pro is backed up by a 5 year warranty with its regular price. So that is good.
Monitor: Thanks! Maybe high-end in the future.
Windows 8: Somewhat considering it. Went to Best Buy a few weeks ago and tried out the Windows 8 PC's. Got confused how to use the OS a bit. But if I do get Win 8 then I'll just have to learn.
Dual Monitors: Yea .. I guess my reasoning was the people who had dual monitor setups had 2 different monitors. I guess it's to distinguish the two, or have 1 (Pri) and 2 (Sec). But what am I talking about. I never experienced dual monitors my self. --
AS5: Sorry I don't get it. If you are talking about the MOBO, then maybe? (Is it because I changed the UD3H to the UD5H?)
And no prob! Take your time!
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No, if you go multi-mon you typically want the same monitor ;) You distinguish by them being on the right or left.
AS5 = artic silver 5. I added some MX4 to the cart I made, because it is better.
Go Win 7 if you are unsure. Win8, basically I just go to desktop, I don't use the modern UI, at all.
I switched out the GPU to an Asus unit. Still has dual fans. Still uses 680 PCB. Same 3 year warranty. Only difference is that it isn't overclocked out of the box. Piss easy to do though and it saves fifty bucks. The only upside with the EVGA is that you can get the 10 year warranty for free right now. But the only good thing about the ten year warranty was the step up program, which you are excluded from because you didn't pay the warranty...
Change the cooler to a Xigmatek unit that is the same, better fan, but I added two Cougar PWMs, you want to create a push pull and the cougar fans are good wand affordable without being cheaply made. You can get the non-PWM version if you want. Not sure how many fans the R4 comes with. I would buy fans for the cooler and buy case fans later, if necessary. Just because you can put a fan, doesn't mean you have to. People forget that...
Two different RAM units by Crucial. Crucial is amazing, but more importantly, not overpriced. One of them is taller, cheaper at the moment because of rebates, but if you buy later, you might want the other kit. I prefer lower profile because coolers can get big.
Toshiba 2TB because it's just as reliable as the WD with twice the storage.
The build. Any questions?
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Sorry for the late reply. Been busy with work and tiredness. -_-
GPU: I only understood about half. I don't get overclocking with GPU's and CPU's because I never did that. With the warranty part, are GPU's lifespans not long as well? As for switching out the cards, I'm a little confused because a couple of people suggested different GTX 670's. First it was this EVGA GTX 670. Next was the Gigabyte GTX 670. (Changed because people reported it was noisy.) Third was the MSI GeForce GTX 670.(Changed because saw reports it couldn't overclock.) Now I choose this EVGA GTX 670 after all those past suggestions because it had a lot of up votes on pcpartpicker builds.
Anyways to close of this part, um should I switch the GTX 670 to the Sapphire Radeon HD 7970? Only wanted to bring that up because ET3D suggested for a Radeon card and according to this benchmark, both cards perform somewhat the same.
Cooling: Thank you for the Cougar suggestion! The thing is I only know where to put the 1st fan (which is the back of the PC). Would the 2nd fan be at the front? And do I have to buy a fan controller for the Cougars'? I also don't know anything about case fans. ._.
RAM: Um, why are there 2 Crucial RAMs? Or are they just there just for me to choose. Is your build that you suggested aiming for 8 GB's or 16 GB's?
HDD: Oh wow nice! Thank you for the Toshiba idea!
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Case fans and cooler fans are the same, just used differently. The two fans are for the cooler. It ships with one. You throw that one into the garbage or use in case of emergencies pile, then you attach the two cougar fans to the heatsink to receive better results in a push pull config. So:
<- fan |heatsink| fan <-
Pull the air through the cooler more effectively. Temp drop usually isn't massive, but noise is.
You will not need a fan controller if you don't want. I don't use them, I just buy Y-cables for fans or molex adapters (lots of fans ship with them).
RAM: Two different RAM units by Crucial. Crucial is amazing, but more importantly, not overpriced. One of them is taller, cheaper at the moment because of rebates, but if you buy later, you might want the other kit. I prefer lower profile because coolers can get big.
i.e. you pick one of them, no need for both!
7970 and 670 trade blows, each is better in different games. That is how it works. For all intends and purposes, they are equal.
The Asus 670 is a great card. I see no reason to pay extra for the EVGA. If they were the same price, I would go for it, but when I created the list, the Asus was quite a bit cheaper. These are the two 670 models to compare. 50 dollar saving = Asus, less than that, go for the EVGA.
Overclocking is easy, especially with a 3570. You just click a button. Done.
GPU overclocking is a little more difficult depending on card. Kind of stupid, but still easy, usually.
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I use EVGA Precision X. It came with the card and it shows the card specs. Basically, you find some sort of benchmarking tool or resource-sucking game, and notch the numbers up several points. If the computer doesn't automatically shut down in a short time (don't worry) or the screen starts coughing up artifacts, you can bring the numbers up a little higher and repeat.
The CPU has a temp gauge and is much easier to OC. You set it to a multiple of 100 and check the temps. You can get the temps rather high and the computer may shut down the same way if you get too far in the red or the surroundings are too hot. You can safely go to 4.2GHz to 4.4GHz and forget it. Diminishing returns hit really hard at that point. It is better to start with the CPU before the GPU. Be sure to turn down the CPU a bit in case of GPU adding to the overheating or Summer weather.
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BIG note:
i respond to all your points, but i have to point a few things
1) i assume you overclock. this would add 100W to the PSU (not really accurate cuz depends on what you overclock and by how much)
also you want to be at 80% load from the PSU because its when it preform better (more efficient, depends on its rating)
2) get the 7970, not 670 (better and got free games, boosting his performance/dollar)
3) what screen resolution are you gonna be playing on?
*why the i-7 build could be about $1350.
the i5 wont have some discount?
*Alright. AMD stuff.
the 8 core only wins in Crysis, you need to set the PC usage priority (like: 30% gaming 50%encoding/non-cuda editing 20%media)
with this budget i would recommend intel for being strong in games, i own an amd (they rock the price/preformance ratio)
but this is the last CPU that will fit the 1155 socket, so next year you cant upgrade
i would wait for the new intel (2-3 months) or get an AMD as it will allow an upgrade
*The case
they all make noise -_- , get a fan controller and better fans help the most with noise.
*Um another problem I had was choosing the HDD.
if you got SSD, get the bigger HDD for more storage. speed is irrelevant with storage HDD as you would only notice it with transfer speed of huge files, and then time differences is not huge
*Wanted 16GB RAM.
good price, get it. and share the link plz :D
*Power Supply.
see my notes, but yes the MODEL of the PSU is important. not all XFX are bad or good, check the model and ask about it. same with corsair.
*CPU Cooler:
they have minimal diffrance in performance
*SSD:
any modern high end SDD would FEEL the same, you will only know that the samsung is better with some benchmarks and numbers
it may read big diffrence but it will show in milliseconds you wont notice
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*I've never experienced overclocking. The PC that I'm using was bought 8 years ago Pre made by Dell. (Surprised it's still working.) Specs: Intel Pentium 4 2.80 GHZ, Intel Express Family Chip GPU, 3062 MB RAM, 80 GB HDD, Windows XP Service Pack 3.
*GPU: You sure about the 7970? I mean I was considering the 7950 because it's $100 less and just want a Mid-End Build I guess. Original budget was $1000, but was willing to go with $1300 now. Also a comment on this post made by munetakakun said to go with Nvida for editing. (GTX 670 or 660 Ti) So I'm kinda leaning towards to GTX 670 if I go for the Intel Builds. If not, then definitely 7970 for the AMD Build.
*Screen Resolution: Says 1280 x 768
*I said the i-7 build could be $1350 because Micro Center has the i-7 for $230 if I pick it up at the store. (Orginal or closest cheap price is $314 at Amazon, also other i-7 prices. And Newegg has some discounts going on.
*Idk what to say about your "AMD stuff". Sorry c:
*The Fractal Design Define R4 has noise reduction material. At first I thought it was bs, but did some research and it's true. Yea I don't know anything about case fans. lol
*HDD: Still conflicted because some people are saying the Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB would be better for me. While the point you stated was like the one this guy said (comment from Djangosp2 at that post).
*16 GB: Ikr, Newegg has a discount promo on it
*SSD: Yea I'll just keep the current Samsung SSD I choose.
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He saying to consider what you do most with your computer when choosing a certain CPU. Also, for the 1155 part he's referring to the socket in the motherboard that the CPU fits in. Since haswell's coming out soon future CPU s probably won't be made to fit into an 1155 socket, so your motherboard wouldn't have the right socket for a CPU upgrade.
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Just one thing to clarify. You don't have to go full amd or full intel/nvidia, meaning you don't have to go same cpu/gpu brand. For performance/dollar for gaming for your budget for gaming you'll usually see the 3570k with 7950/7970 combo. If you're going to do editing/3d modelling with adobe/cuda boosted programs, you should get i7 3770k+660ti/670. BUT do keep in mind that the improvement we're talking about using a 670 over a 7950 and/or i5 3570k over a 3770k is only about SAVING TIME. So if you're making a living with this, of course get the best from intel/nvidia you can afford to SAVE TIME = make more money, but if it's just to try and hope what that's about, no. Also, of course, it's up to you to decide how much you want to spend on your pc.
And anyone saying using a 3770k over a 3570k it's future-proof, it's a lie. I mean, pay for a pc you can afford, you can't expect you're going to buy gaming pcs to last more than 2-3 years in the highest setttings.
So it's up to you, enjoy your rig hehe
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the 7970 is a great card for GAMING at screen resolution 1080, and there is no limitation on what GPU should be used with CPU. you can go intel CPU with 7970 with no problem.
BUT: if any of the software you use benifet from CUDA core technolgy. the 670 will really speed things
Micro center is known for the cheap i7 ever since the i7-920, and have great deals on other stuff so if the trip wont cost you much you should go.
what i said about the AMD was explaining why its not good at gaming but for other stuff. if this PC that you work from with media for a living, or s it just a hobby and you play games more than the other stuff.
with that screen resolution i guess its a 17 or 19 inch and not a wide screen. if you ask other im sure most will advise you to upgrade that too, as most games and media is made with aspect ratio 16:9 in mind (widescreen). a 20+ inch screen would be a signification upgrade. I say make a priority over other stuff
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*Overclocking: I think the first few months I won't. Might experiment later on. Or even not even try it at all. I mean if you see a gaming PC's life span is 2 years+, then I might as well not overclock. Like I said, my current PC was fine, till new technology and games came. I'm going go to go for the i-5 build and want it to last for at least 5+ years till I upgrade.
*Micro Center: Yea was considering to go, but after reading people's responses, think there is no need to. Most of the parts for the i-5 build are going to be from Amazon and Newegg anyway.
*AMD: Ahh I see. The percentage for me is more like: %35 Gaming %25 Editing %40 Media. And yea I guess this PC is just going to improve my hobby. lol
*Resolution: Yea my monitior is somewhat like this one. So I guess I have to buy a new monitor also. Any suggestions?
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Any modern high end SSD would FEEL the same
Thats not the point. The main difference between high end SSD would be life time and price. Samsung 840 and 840 Pro are similar enough in terms of numbers but the 840 is vastly inferior simply because it will last much shorter than the 840 Pro. This is why people do suggest some SSDs over another, for the reliability and the controller.
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i am still using an old OCZ vertex2, and i think i will replace it before it fail just for a performance boost (not soon).
apart from DOA and known fail parts, i dont know about SSD failing in 3-4 years of normal use.
i dont know of the specific model, but i think the inferior 840 would live long enough to be replaced just because its old.
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Lets see, I would go with the i7 build simply because you are doing video editing. The ram is high profile and will conflict with the heatsink so switch that to something low profile. The 840 Pro is fine although I would personally go for the Plextor M5P. Also, the Rosewill Capstone 750w is about the same price as the Seasonic PSU and as high quality but 750w, so why not.
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wait for haswell.
Either you get a newer chip, or you enjoy the price drops. Wait till June.
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intel's haswell lineup will be released two weeks from now on june 3, 2013
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Intel i5 or i7 is ideal for gaming purposes! Ensure it's a 2nd (Sandy Bridge) or 3rd (Ivy Bridge) Gen, as the have redesigned the motherboard as well to work with the CPU (60-80% overall system performance gain than a 1st Gen). These will have a socket number such as 1155, ensure it matchs up with what motherboard you get (eg: Z77 for Socket 1155).
i7 includes hyperthreading, while not used in many games, will improve your multitasking, etc. However get rid of the overclock K version, you won't even need to overclock and can save some cash.
8GB RAM DDR3 1600MHz CL7 or CL9 is optimal levels for gaming, no more or less. Buying faster or more RAM is actually quite a waste and you won't see any more than 1% performance gain from gaming. If you do video editing, raw image editing, multitasking, then you could consider going for 16GB. Don't get higher than CL9 RAM, this is timing of memory access, higher is slower timing (lower however gets more expensive).
Invest in a quality graphics card - suggest the Nvidia GTX580, GTX670 or GTX680 for hardcore gaming. Note: Nvidia series are not in order of performance. The GTX580 would out perform a GTX660 for example. 4xx, 5xx, 6xx is the technology level (higher is better technology such as directX, openGL, etc and also higher resolution supports), the next two digitals is performance - x50 is meant for applications only, x60 is basic gaming purpose, x60Ti has slightly higher performance, x70 is for quality gaming in high resolution, x80 is for hardcore gamers, x90 is for people with more money than cents (it's basically two x80s glued together overpriced).
Highly recommend a Gamer's Motherboard, such as the Gigabyte G1 Sniper 3 or Asus ROG (Republic of Gamers) Motherboard, etc. These are 10x better quality and layout than standard crappy cheap motherboards you get - it's worth it.
For Hard Drive, use a Black Edition HDD (suggest Western Digital or Seagate - 1GB or 2GB), then use a small 64GB-120GB SDD as caching on top of it (use Intel Smart Response Technology, if your motherboard supports). This will give you the space as well as the speed.
For PSU, ensure it's 80 Gold - this basically tells you of it's quality and has good stable rails.
For Fans, larger the better on the case and cpu. Use Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound for inbetween the heatsink and CPU, this will help cool it 10-15 degrees more than that grease crap which normally comes with it.
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Yes, I do a lot of multitasking. And with the new games and technology that is coming out, my current PC is somewhat still holding on.
RAM: Oh wow. I didn't know that about RAM. I was going to buy this Corsair Vengeance 16GB($125) because it's $25 off ($100). But with your helpful information, then I should get this Corsair Vengeance 16GB right? (The difference is the 1st CV has CAS of 10 while the 2nd CV has a CAS of 9.) Anyways the 8GB RAM in the i-5 build should be fine right?
Video Card: Yea I'm going to choose the GTX 670.
Motherboard: The one for the build is the GA-Z77X-UD3H. The Gigabyte G1 Sniper 3 you mentioned, would this GA-Z77X-UD5H be better as well? The UD5H has more 3.0 USB ports than the UD3H from what I saw.
Hard Drive: I switched the Seagate 2 TB to a Western Digital Caviar Black 1 TB. Yea, can't wait to experience an SSD! :D
PSU: Hmm, so should I get the SeaSonic 650W 80 PLUS Gold then instead of the SeaSonic 620W 80 PLUS Bronze?
Cooling: Added a thermal compound. And I have no idea about case fans. ._. Suggestions?
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For RAM, the Corsair Vengeance would be fine. I do however recommend CL9 rather than those CL10s. I believe it comes in various colors - Blue (CL7 - faster timing), Red (CL9 - standard timing), or Black (CL10 - slower timing). Also, make sure the voltage is standard or acceptable by your motherboard and stick with 1600MHz speed, no overclocking.
The Motherboard is good and would be suitable. I personally however don't use H version motherboards as they are slightly compressed - meaning for poorer layout and less ablility to customise/upgrade. Yes, UD5 (Ultra Durable 5) is better but more expensive that UD3 - this would give you higher temperature protection, humidity protection, plus better electrostatic and power failure protection. Also, you get more of the faster ports such as Sata 3.0, USB 3.0, PCIe 3.0, etc. You would be able to fit and SLI multiple graphic cards, etc. I believe the G1 Sniper 3 is an UD4, includes Dual LAN, Bluetooth, 4-way SLI, and builtin THX sound card (lots of people overlook and miss out on quality sound). Therefore extremely upgradable, but if you don't need all that the others would still be fine.
For the PSU, 650W or 700W is ideal - 80 PLUS Gold is highly recommended over a Bronze.
If you want quiet (but expensive) fans, then consider the Noctua series (800-1200rpm, 120mm or larger). These give a good amount of air flow, without the loud noise. Of course this will also depend on the case, which size fans, etc. Larger the fan, the more airflow and quieter it will be (don't go below 120mm if poss). This includes the CPU fan(s), a huge heatsink with large dual fans each side (rather than just can crappy small fan on top) will greatly reduce temperature and noise.
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I would say that only choose the i5 build if you really don't mind having the best of the best it is more than enough for a gaming pc.
Both the i7 and 8350 build are equal overall, your decision would probably be what you prefer, the i7 build offers a lot more processing power for non gaming tasks, but the 8350 build has a 7970 graphics card which completely trumps the 670 in performance.
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Please don't spend your money now while Haswell is just around the corner.
You'll be able to get much better specs for roughly 100-200$ less, come next September/October, if you can wait that long.
It's generally not advised to do such things while new architecture is coming out <6months time.
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don't know if anyone mentioned it, but those xfx psus are made by seasonic :-)
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Couple things.
Right now going for Intel is a bad move because the next gen of CPU (Haswell) is two months away. while is true intel has better performance in single thread apps, programs are getting more and more multi threaded so AMD has a advantage there (8 cores vs 4+HT).
WD Blacks HDDs perform great, sadly they are noisy as hell.
Video card: the best price performance out there is the AMD 7970
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Sorry for typing lots of things. But needs some input. Q_Q
Fun Fact: Took me an hour to make this post! lol
Alright so my budget now is $1300. But I guess if you want to know, I'm okay going over it a little.
Been researching for 2 to 3 months now. And like the title, I've came up with 3 builds with thanks to the people that helped me. I was looking for a Mid-End PC. That is great for gaming, editing, multitasking, and everyday use.
I have 2 Intel builds and 1 AMD build: [Edit: Added $150 to the Intel builds because of the monitor.]
Intel i-5-3500K Build($1320) [Edit: To $1500 because of responses below.]
Intel i-7 3370K Build ($1500, but could be $1350 when I explain why)
AMD FX-8350 ($1400)(Explanation under) [Edit: Most likely not going with this build.]
Now explaining myself:
*First off I'll explain why the i-7 build could be about $1350. So the i-3500K is $315. But if I go in the store myself, it's $230. So $85 off right there. Another is the Fractal Design R4 is $10 off if I buy it at the store also. (The case was originally $100, so $90 lol ._.)So I save about $100 and a little more with the current sales at Newegg. Therefore about $1350.
*Alright. I wasn't going to go for AMD till someone at pcpartpicker suggested it. He convinced me because he said the FX-8350 out performs the i-3500K. Not in gaming, but in editing and multitasking. (Example: Having a game, skype, and an internet browser running at the same time.) Here is the forum post if you guys want to see the AMD stuff. [Edit: Forget this.]
*The case was originally the Corsair 300R. But from my research, many people complained about the 3.0 USB ports and how the material in the case makes the case easily to bend. So someone suggested in the forums of pcpartpicker the Fractal R4 which I liked because he said(and other people's testimonials) that the case was great and has noise reduction material. (Want my PC to be somewhat quiet. Hope someone reads that << c:)
*Um another problem I had was choosing the HDD. It was the Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB ($85) vs Seagate Barracuda 2TB($99). I made a forum post that I made in pcpartpicker, and the people said that the WDCB1TB was fast, gives great performance, and from a reliable company. But since they said I had a good SDD, the Seagate 2TB would be fine. Also both HDD's had about the same price to help my budget. :D [Edit: Choose Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB]
*Wanted 16GB RAM, but the prices are higher than before. But the Corsair Vengeance 16GB is $100 now! So that motivated me to make an i-7 3770K Build.
*Alright I think I might get some hate about the Power Supply. People were saying I was going overboard with the PSU and thus sugguested the XFX 550W. Which is fine, but I was researching about PSU's and I want a trusted Brand and didn't want my PC to fail. So I choose the SeaSonic 620W because reliable brand like Corsair and and extra 70 wats. (yay? ._.)
*SSD: I'm probably going to get some people mad, but yea it's a Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB Sorry but want a great and fast SSD! :/
Hope you guys can help once again! Thank you for reading!(If you read the whole post, then you are awesome! :D)
Notes:
Want my PC to build cool and somewhat quiet.
Should I buy case fans? And if so, can you suggest some?
Might edit later on.
Current PC Specs:
Intel Pentium 4 2.80 GHZ
Intel Express Family Chip
3062 MB RAM
80 GB HDD
Windows XP Service Pack 3
^^ This PC was bought 6 years ago. Pre made by Dell.
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