Post by Mr. Ksoft on Jun 28, 2010 4:50:18 GMT 10
I've posted this at a few forums I frequent. I know I don't come on here much at all, but I remembered there are a few techies here that are probably much more on top of things than I am.
Anyway, after five years, the time has finally come to retire my current PC and get a new one. Last time I just bought something at the store, a mid-range piece of crap because I couldn't afford anything else. This time is different-- I have a ton of money at hand and want something long-lasting and high-performing. I'll get gouged out the wazoo if I buy anything pre-built, so I'm going to try my hand at building. It gives me a better range of customization anyway.
Here's the issue: while I'm competent with PCs, I'm also completely out of the loop. I haven't been following the advancement of hardware very closely, so I have no idea what's good these days. (To give some perspective, I live in a world of IDE hard drives and AGP graphics cards, both of which are far obsolete) I've also never done a build from scratch, and while it doesn't seem that hard I feel like I'm going to overlook something.
I'm going to go down the list of parts, and give my thoughts, and if I could be pointed towards good parts that would be a great help.
Primarily, I'll be using this PC for gaming, 3D modeling & rendering, and movie encoding, if that's any help.
The budget here is roughly $2,000, so I can probably do pretty much anything. However, I'd like to save money when possible. So, if there's, for instance, a $300 processor and a $500 processor, and there is only a slight gain with the more expensive one, I'll go for the cheaper one and get a much better upgrade later when prices fall.
Motherboard: I have no idea what brands are good. I'd like to future-proof this a little and get something with USB 3.0, but I'm not sure if motherboard support is any good yet. If not, I'm fine with anything and can always get a USB 3.0 card down the line.
Processor: I believe Intel's offerings are better right now, with the i7 being the hot product? I have no idea what the model numbers mean. Also, quad-cores, if not more, are the way to go, I believe.
RAM: This has confused me from looking at stores. I see DDR3 is the current standard. However, I thought DDR3 had to be installed in threes as triple-channeled, but I see some motherboards have it setup differently, so that if you did that you couldn't even fill all the slots. This is confusing to me, since I'm used to just putting them in and having them work without thinking about it. Anyway, in terms of memory I'm looking for at least 8GB. Maybe more if the price is right.
Video card: I can't really tell if Nvidia or ATI is better right now. I've used both in the past, with my current PC having a GeForce in it. I kinda like Nvidia better. In terms of performance, I'm looking for a card that's going to play games at 1080p (to match my desired new monitor) if possible-- dunno if graphics cards are there yet. (In general, the game just has to play-- better graphics quality is a bonus, although with this money I'd like to aim for being able to run games at very high settings)
Sound card: Unnecessary. Onboard audio has done the job fine for me. I mostly just wear headphones anyway.
Networking: Most motherboards seem to have onboard ethernet, so that is good. However, I need a reliable wireless-N card.
Hard drives: I am in need of huge amounts of disk space. I'm looking into getting two 1.5TB drives, probably from Western Digital since I've had good luck with them, but I do want to know if it would be worth it to get a solid-state drive just to boot Windows 7 off.
Optical drive: Need something that'll burn DVDs as well as do Lightscribe labels (I have a bunch of these blanks laying around). Should I get a Blu-ray drive at this time, or would it be a smarter idea to wait on it?
Card reader: Would like to get one of these installed internally. Needs to read SDHC and Memory Stick Pro Duo at least.
Power supply: I know nothing of power supplies. I need something reliable that will power all the other components I pick out.
Case: I don't want anything stupid or flashy with all the obnoxious lights. I want something subtle and mostly "normal". Front USB ports are a must. Needs to have a good air flow for all these components. On that note, please add on any extra cooling that might be needed (but nothing ridiculously overkill)
Monitor: I'm upgrading my monitor along with this. I currently have a 19" LCD at 1280x1024 that feels awfully cramped. I have a few extra inches to spare on my desk. I'd like to get up to 1920x1080 resolution, which seems comfortable. I'll go to a higher resolution, even, if it doesn't cost much. The monitor needs to have a good response time for games. Is DVI or HDMI the way to hook these up nowadays? I've seen both, but I don't really know-- I'm still on VGA.
Anything else I've overlooked: Let me know.
Thanks in advance!
Anyway, after five years, the time has finally come to retire my current PC and get a new one. Last time I just bought something at the store, a mid-range piece of crap because I couldn't afford anything else. This time is different-- I have a ton of money at hand and want something long-lasting and high-performing. I'll get gouged out the wazoo if I buy anything pre-built, so I'm going to try my hand at building. It gives me a better range of customization anyway.
Here's the issue: while I'm competent with PCs, I'm also completely out of the loop. I haven't been following the advancement of hardware very closely, so I have no idea what's good these days. (To give some perspective, I live in a world of IDE hard drives and AGP graphics cards, both of which are far obsolete) I've also never done a build from scratch, and while it doesn't seem that hard I feel like I'm going to overlook something.
I'm going to go down the list of parts, and give my thoughts, and if I could be pointed towards good parts that would be a great help.
Primarily, I'll be using this PC for gaming, 3D modeling & rendering, and movie encoding, if that's any help.
The budget here is roughly $2,000, so I can probably do pretty much anything. However, I'd like to save money when possible. So, if there's, for instance, a $300 processor and a $500 processor, and there is only a slight gain with the more expensive one, I'll go for the cheaper one and get a much better upgrade later when prices fall.
Motherboard: I have no idea what brands are good. I'd like to future-proof this a little and get something with USB 3.0, but I'm not sure if motherboard support is any good yet. If not, I'm fine with anything and can always get a USB 3.0 card down the line.
Processor: I believe Intel's offerings are better right now, with the i7 being the hot product? I have no idea what the model numbers mean. Also, quad-cores, if not more, are the way to go, I believe.
RAM: This has confused me from looking at stores. I see DDR3 is the current standard. However, I thought DDR3 had to be installed in threes as triple-channeled, but I see some motherboards have it setup differently, so that if you did that you couldn't even fill all the slots. This is confusing to me, since I'm used to just putting them in and having them work without thinking about it. Anyway, in terms of memory I'm looking for at least 8GB. Maybe more if the price is right.
Video card: I can't really tell if Nvidia or ATI is better right now. I've used both in the past, with my current PC having a GeForce in it. I kinda like Nvidia better. In terms of performance, I'm looking for a card that's going to play games at 1080p (to match my desired new monitor) if possible-- dunno if graphics cards are there yet. (In general, the game just has to play-- better graphics quality is a bonus, although with this money I'd like to aim for being able to run games at very high settings)
Sound card: Unnecessary. Onboard audio has done the job fine for me. I mostly just wear headphones anyway.
Networking: Most motherboards seem to have onboard ethernet, so that is good. However, I need a reliable wireless-N card.
Hard drives: I am in need of huge amounts of disk space. I'm looking into getting two 1.5TB drives, probably from Western Digital since I've had good luck with them, but I do want to know if it would be worth it to get a solid-state drive just to boot Windows 7 off.
Optical drive: Need something that'll burn DVDs as well as do Lightscribe labels (I have a bunch of these blanks laying around). Should I get a Blu-ray drive at this time, or would it be a smarter idea to wait on it?
Card reader: Would like to get one of these installed internally. Needs to read SDHC and Memory Stick Pro Duo at least.
Power supply: I know nothing of power supplies. I need something reliable that will power all the other components I pick out.
Case: I don't want anything stupid or flashy with all the obnoxious lights. I want something subtle and mostly "normal". Front USB ports are a must. Needs to have a good air flow for all these components. On that note, please add on any extra cooling that might be needed (but nothing ridiculously overkill)
Monitor: I'm upgrading my monitor along with this. I currently have a 19" LCD at 1280x1024 that feels awfully cramped. I have a few extra inches to spare on my desk. I'd like to get up to 1920x1080 resolution, which seems comfortable. I'll go to a higher resolution, even, if it doesn't cost much. The monitor needs to have a good response time for games. Is DVI or HDMI the way to hook these up nowadays? I've seen both, but I don't really know-- I'm still on VGA.
Anything else I've overlooked: Let me know.
Thanks in advance!
