Advice on New 600~lower Build

[cspanick]

Approximate Purchase Date: soon

Budget Range: (e.g.: 600-800) Before / After Rebates: max 600 but want to lower

System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming, and general use

Parts Not Required: no mouse, keyboard, monitor, or os

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg

Country of Origin: us

Parts Preferences: prefer asus, asrock and amd but open to options

Overclocking: no
SLI or Crossfire: would like crossfire in future

Monitor Resolution: 1600x1200

Additional Comments: I am mainly looking for a way to lower cost without sacrificing performance.

Parts:
COOLER MASTER Elite 430 RC-430-KWN1 Black Steel / Plastic Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119227

HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.C HDS721010CLA332 (0F10383) 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145304

ASRock 870 EXTREME3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157198

SAPPHIRE 100315L Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102908

CORSAIR Builder Series CMPSU-600CX 600W ATX12V v2.3 Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139019

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-4GBRL
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231274

AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor ADX450WFGMBOX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103886

LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA CD/DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106289

Total w. shipping: 597.97

 

[wasupmike]

that's pretty good actually...

1st important thing - Hitachi hard drives perform under the rest... and tend to be the most unreliable too (hence the cheap price - not worth it)

try this one instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319
- Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB: $65

or this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB: $65

2nd this is... if you're actually going to Crossfire in the future (something you should decide now), then you're going to need slightly more juice... 2 x 6850's on an AMD system will be safer with this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005
- CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX: (+$20 than yours)

so that's an important + $30 in total, i recommend changing... cause other than that... solid system for the budget

btw - if you're not going to Crossfire in the future (98% eventually don't)... then you can save $ and go for a Corsair 500w PSU

 

[Hastibe]

1st important thing - Hitachi hard drives perform under the rest... and tend to be the most unreliable too (hence the cheap price - not worth it)

Proof? Link/article?

 

[jedi940]

Nothing against the Recommend corsair PSU (in fact I own one) however, with the 6850 in crossfire, you hardly even need a 500W PSU. The 600W will be fine or you could probably even go to a 550 and still have plenty of room to spare.

You can see that even under furmark, an ENTIRE SYSTEM with 2 6850's still only draws 423 Watts and that is 423 at the outlet. Factor about 85% efficiency and the PSU is only putting out around 360W. 500 or 550W from a quality PSU company (like corsair, antec, seasonic, xfx) would be plenty. Also, since you are not overclocking, there is no extra power to worry about from that either. I would recommend any of these with confidence.

Antec earthwatts EA500 500W $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371007

CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W $60 AR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004

All are about the same price as the one you chose. I haven't read any reviews on the Builder series but I have heard that they don't perform quite as well as the cmpsu SKUs. The Antec Earthwatts would be a good alternative.

 

[wasupmike]

there have been numerous hardware reviews and people's comments/own reviews everywhere that constantly show the: Western Digital Caviar Black's... and the Samsung Spinpoint F3/F4's outperform the rest of the bunch (including hd's from their own other product lines) around that price range

as for reliability... that's just my own experience over the years... Hitachi i find the worst...

(replying to 'Hastibe')

 

[Hastibe]

there have been numerous hardware reviews and people's comments/own reviews everywhere that constantly show the: Western Digital Caviar Black's... and the Samsung Spinpoint F3/F4's outperform the rest of the bunch (including hd's from their own other product lines) around that price range

as for reliability... that's just my own experience over the years... Hitachi i find the worst...

(replying to 'Hastibe')

Link or it's not true.

I just read a post from someone who is never going to buy Western Digital ever again, because they had three drives die due to head crashes over the past five years. Sooo, in terms of personal anecdote, to each their own.

...AND my ol' Maxtor 80GB IDE drive just died on me this week, out of the blue, and Maxtor is owned by Seagate now, sooo...

 

[wasupmike]

everyone will experience a hard drive fail sooner or later... no matter what manufacturer

don't really want to start a debate... but i'll just say this for the sake of the OP... never met another tech who would disagree with me about staying away from Hitachi drives...

point is... the most recommended drives are: (tied for 1st place) WD Caviar Black's + the Samsung F3/F4's... and 2nd place Seagate Barracuda's (they've gone down over last couple years - still better than Hitachi though)

 

[Hastibe]

wasupmike, if you're going to say stuff like "the most recommended drive," actually provide some data that indicates that you know what you're talking about. I have no problem with anyone saying, "the brand of hard drives that I recommend is...", but if you're going to make statements of some authority, provide some data at least!

For instance, this article by Tom's from August, titled: Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia, which reports on Storelab, a Russian player in data recovery that recently released a long-term study comparing hard drives from a number of different vendors.

Storelab found that Seagate hard drives had a disproportionally high failure rate, while Hitachi and Western Digital -in particular- had lower failure rates, suggesting higher durability and reliability.

Storelab also tested the average hard drive age at failure, and found that Hitachi's drives won by far, operating for at least a year and a half longer than the second runner up, Western Digital's drives smaller than 500GB (see graph below).

The article goes on, mentioning that "Storelab notes that read/write head failure is somewhat characteristic for WD drives," and so on. Please note that I don't mean to say that Storelab's study is authoritative, and that Hitachi is the BEST hard drive brand, etc., etc., I just mean to demonstrate a post that actually provides some useful information about drive reliability, unlike someone just talking about personally what they think or have heard other people say, and then misleadingly presenting it as authoritative.

 

[aznshinobi]

Well my input on this is here.

http://www.squidoo.com/electronicandmore

I think some of the changes could be implemented from my 600$ budget build. IE adding the quad with sacrifice of the case. Those little things. =P It's the first post Hope it gives some insight.

 

[cspanick]

Best answer selected by cspanick.