First build ~$700 how does it look?

[Ficttion]

Hey guys I was wondering if you could look over my Monitor and my Computer Specs, leave some feedback and answer my three questions that I have at the bottom. I will be using this computer for - Basic Use, Gaming, Editing Videos (MW3 Commentaries) nothing special very simple, and then rendering the videos after Editing.

Here is my Monitor and my Computer Specs:

Monitor: Acer S211HL bd 22" Class LED Monitor - 12M:1 Contrast Ratio, 5MS response time, 1080P, 1920x1080

OS: Windows 7 32BIT

Tower Case: Diablo Tek Elite ATX Mid Tower (Comes with a 450W PSU but I am switching it out to meet the requirements on my Graphics Card)

Power Supply: OCZ ZT550W - 550W, 140mm Fan, Active PFC, 80 Plus Bronze, +12v 1 = 45 A

Processor: AMD Phenom II x6 1045T - Six Core, 6MB L3 Cache, 3MB L2 Cache, 2.70GHz, Socket AM3, 95W, Fan, Retail

Graphics Card: Radeon HD 6850

MotherBoard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-S2P

RAM: ADATA 4GB x2 DDR3 (8GB Total)

Hardrive: 1TB Seagate Barracuda

Disc Drive: Lite-On IHAS124-04 Internal DVD Writer

My three Questions (Please answer them all along with your feedback)

1. Which Graphics Card is better, Radeon HD 6850 or 7770?

2. Is everything compatible with each other? (Will the power supply work/fit with the Tower Case and the Motherboard?)

3. Is this a good computer spec? And will it work good for what I am using it for (Gaming)? Please leave your feedback on everything I listed here and tell me if it is good or not, thanks!

 

[c911darkwolf]

1. Generally higher the number the better in most cases.

2. General setup looks ok

3. Go with a better Graphics card. i/e a Nvidia GTX 600 series or a Radeon HD 7000 series card. Gaming is 85% Graphics card. Unless you play some strategy games like Shotgun Total war where your CPU has to process tons of little guys. Also Video Editing relies on your GPU pretty hard too. Since this is what you want to do i suggest you get a better graphics card tone down your Processor if you have too. You might consider a newer i5 or sandy bridge i7 processor if you are not close to budget.


a Good chart that shows CPU Power VS Cost
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_available.html love this chart. remmeber you don't need the lastest i7 39xxk processor, but a good GPU is Very important for long term.

looks like you went kind of cheap on your MOBO. this is the heart of your PC.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128510

cost a bit more, but you has tons of support for a wide range of goodies and includes sli/crossfire dual video card support. so you could geta video card now and add a second one down the road (if your PSU Holds it)

Why would you get a Tower with a PSU just to switch it out? How often do you show off your PC Case? remember at the end of the day it's just a box. Look for ones with good fan expansions and move on. also if you plan to get into heavy gaming look for a 600w+ PSU 700+ if you want to have a future with dual video cards down the road.

Just some ideas....

 

[c911darkwolf]

Your PSU has only a 3 egg raiting on newegg with only 12reviews.. go with another one. You can go look at Antec its' a good brand.

 

[Ficttion]

First things first I appreciate the feedback!

For your answer about the graphics cards, you are USUALLY right. And I was leaning towards the 7770 but if you actually go and look up reviews people say the 6850 is better and in the end it is a few dollars cheaper too. Check into it for me and let me know what you find out!

Next, you said (Go for a 7000 series card) well as I just stated above please check into the 6850 vs. the 7770 for me because I believe the 6850 may be better. The games I am going to be playing are World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, BF3 if that gives you a better idea of things. And then you said to get a new i5 or i7 CPU if I wasn't close to budget but trust me I am xD

As far as my MOBO goes will it be suitable? Because it came as a part of a barebones kit on tigerdirect which is also why I got my tower case with a 450w PSU and didn't go ahead with a higher wattage right away. The only reason I am replacing my power supply in the first place is because like I said my Graphics Card recommended a minimum of 500w.

And to sum it all up you basically gave me the idea of pointing me towards things that would allow me to use two video cards but in the end I think this is just a temporary PC that will end up getting replaced in the near future. That is when all the dual graphic cards will get put into gear and I will be spending more in order to allow myself some fun with dual cards

 

[Ficttion]

Your PSU has only a 3 egg raiting on newegg with only 12reviews.. go with another one. You can go look at Antec its' a good brand.

So I checked into the reviews on the OCZ and it sketched me out a little bit, making me concerned about the PSU. So I checked around a little bit more and found a "Corsair 650TXV2" for the same price and it is giving me another 100w. I look it up on Newegg and it has a 5 egg rating with 1,786 reviews. On tigerdirect it has 4.7 stars with 20 reviews, I will post the links below for you to check out. Compare the new Corsair with the OCZ and let me know if you think the Corsair is a better choice, also if you could figure out if the Corsair will fit in my Tower Case or not cause I am confused by that.

OCZ: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1393380&sku=O261-0502

Corsair: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7195036&Sku=C13-2800

Also if you could get back to me on the Radeon HD 6850 and the 7770 and let me know which one is better! I appreciate this all so much, thank you!

 

[quilciri]

You're going to need 64 bit win 7.

The power supply requirements on video cards are guesstimates by the video card companies on the minimum wattage for any PSU, regardless of the quality of the PSU.

What a video card actually needs is proper amperage on the +12v rail, which is easily achieved with a well designed, quality PSU of a lower total wattage.

A bit on the motherboard: Asrock's cheaper boards tend to drop features, but keep very strong fundamentals, such as the four-phase voltage regulator with solid capacitors on this board (each phase only has to work at 25% capacity to supply the processor with it's wattage. That keeps temperatures down and increases the lifespan of the platform, as well as making overclocking far more stable as the voltage sent to the processor will be within a smaller delta). Asrock's boards on the whole are very reliable (Asrock itself is a spinoff of ASUS, and was owned by ASUS for a while).

I guess that was more than a bit, sorry

Other than that, here's a starting point you can use.

$45 ($35 after mail in)
COOLER MASTER GX 450W RS450-ACAAD3-US 450W ATX12V v2.31 80 PLUS BRONZE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171060

At full GPU and CPU load, this system will only be using ~280 watts. With absolutely everything in the system running at full bore, which doesn't happen IRL (fans full on, HDD being written to, DVD burner writing, along with full CPU/GPU loads, the system will use ~340 watts.

$170
i5 2500K
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0354589

$30 ($20 after rebate)
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

$55
ASRock H61M-DGS LGA 1155 Intel H61
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157315

$24
Crucial Ballistix sport 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148419

$240
XFX FX-785A-CNFC Radeon HD 7850 Core Edition
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150608

$18
ASUS 24X DVD Burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

$75
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136769

$40
Rosewill Blackbone Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147023&Tpk=rosewill%20blackbone

Total $697 before rebates and shipping.

*if you need to purchase a copy of windows, swap the 2500k and Hyper 212 for

$90
I3 2100
http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.phtml?Ntt=i3+2100&submit.x=0&submit.y=0

which with $100 64-bit win7 home would put it at $687 before rebates and shipping.

Good luck!

 

[Ficttion]

Thank you so much for your feedback. The thing is the Motherboard, Tower Case, RAM, Hardrive, DVD Drive, and Processor are already all purchased as a part of a barebones kit.

The last three things on my last are a good PSU, Monitor, and Graphics Card. So basically after all of this I would mainly like to know if I can trust a PSU running at 450w FOR SURE. I will post a link below of one that has 650w and after mail and rebate is about the same price as the "Cooler Master GX 450W" that you posted. So let me know which one I should get out of the two please and thanks. Next comes the Graphics Card, you didn't give me much feedback on those but the most I can spend on one is about $145 therefore I need to know what I should be getting. I will list the two I am looking at and don't just go off of the numbers, I know most times the higher the number the better they are. The new one cuts the power usage in half but the other one seems to have a better performance.

Which Power supply should I be buying of the two:

Corsair 650TXV2: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7195036&sku=C13-2800

Cooler Master GX 450W: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1102739

Which Graphics card should I be choosing (If you have others that are better for $145 let me know):

ATI Radeon HD 6850: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1368436&sku=P450-6859

ATI Radeon HD 7770: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2060885&CatId=7387


Please chose a PSU for me and a Graphics Card, I GREATLY appreciate it and can't thank you enough!

 

[quilciri]

Oh yes, that particular 450w PSU will support your entire system without even breaking a sweat. the 6850 draws about the same power as the 7850, and the 7770 uses even less, so your system will barely draw 300w at full load.

That's a fantastic deal on the corsair, but since your motherboard doesn't have room for sli'd/xfire'd cards, you don't need a 650w PSU at all. Also the coolermaster is still $13 cheaper, even before it's own mail in rebate, which would make it $23 cheaper.

 

[quilciri]

As far as the graphics cards:

If you like to leave your computer on 24/7, get the 7770

If it's turned off more than 12 hrs each day, get the 6850.

 

[Ficttion]

As far as the graphics cards:

If you like to leave your computer on 24/7, get the 7770

If it's turned off more than 12 hrs each day, get the 6850.

Well I am going to be gaming a lot during the summer, but what's so bad about having the computer on for a long period of time with the 6850?

 

[quilciri]

Nothing's "bad" about it. It's just that if your computer is on all the time, the power savings of the 7770 will add up pretty quickly. If you just turn your machine on to game, browse, etc for less than half the day, the power savings don't matter as much and you can just go with the more powerful card.

 

[Ficttion]

Nothing's "bad" about it. It's just that if your computer is on all the time, the power savings of the 7770 will add up pretty quickly. If you just turn your machine on to game, browse, etc for less than half the day, the power savings don't matter as much and you can just go with the more powerful card.

Well I probably will be using the computer for about 12 hours a day if not more. I will be browsing and gaming, sometimes editing videos.