First Build

[babi2]

I have the following so far

Intel Core i5 2400. Paid $145

MSI Radeon HD 7770 R7770-PMD1GD5 Video Card 80$ After MIR

Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 20$ after MIR

Corsair CX430 V2 430W Power Supply 20$ After MIR

60GB OCZ Vertex Plus R2 SATA II Solid State Drive (VTXPLR2-25SAT2-60GB) $26 After $10 Rebate

Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 2TB 5900 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" $100

42" Vizio E422VL 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV (Refurbished) $237, 42" Vizio M420SV 1080p 120Hz LED-LCD HDTV [If it ever ships]

Cost So Far- $628


Primary Purpose

Games like Skyrim/COD MW/ Darksiders 2 and the mother of all games DOTA 2 on high settings.



Need ;
Memory
Mother Board with PCIE 3.0. I was thinking a cheap Z77

 

[nekulturny]

I know you already have these parts but this is worth saying. And yes, I understand that you got pretty good deals on a lot of this stuff.


-You understand that for a monitor of that size, refresh rate and resolution an entry level video card like a 7770 isn't the best choice right? Actually, its a terrible choice.

-60GB SSD, very easy to fill up. Between Win7 and NTFS formatting you will lose almost 20GB of it. A single game can easily take up 10GB of space.. See the problem? The other option other than running an SSD as a boot drive is as a cache drive, its not as effective as using it as a boot.

-Don't need PCI-3.0, the i5-2400 doesn't support the feature, even if you have a motherboard that does. Not much of a point anyway, the difference between PCI 2.0 and 3.0 performance is something ridiculous like 1-3% on average.



---

Heres some part recommendations-

Memory-http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

Motherboard-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157302
-

 

[babi2]

Thanks for the quick reply.

Just cancelled my order for the Graphics card.

I was only going to install Win 7 on the SSD. 2 TB hd for other stuff.

What graphics card would you recommend? Would my PSU be ok or should I get a beefier one.

 

[nekulturny]

You're welcome.. Uhhh.. Yea.. you have to understand that if you install everything else on the HDD like games, they will not have a speed advantage. Yes, your OS will load faster, but the only programs that will see the quicker load times are programs that are installed on the SSD.

A beefier PSU would be a good idea, especially if you're stepping up on the graphics card. The CX430v2 is a very good entry level PSU btw, and its plenty powerful enough most likely, but if you can swing it, I'd take a look at the CX500v2.

Since you have a 1080p display, while many of those games to be honest will be fine, Skyrim is one in particular that might get ugly at high resolutions. For a 1080p gaming computer at bare minimum I'd look at something like the 7850, or GTX 560 TI possibly.

This is a nice 7850 that comes in at $180 after mail in rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202004

And a 560 TI also comes in at $180 with mail in rebate, however the 7850 is the superior video card as much as I like Zotac's bumble bee yellow and black. The 7850 has twice the amount of Vram, the 560 TI is somewhat compromised for 1080p gaming in skyrim, and I suspect it is due to the relatively low Video memory.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500196

Now if you can afford to go higher on the video card, you could step up into 7870 territory. Honestly with a 120hz display, you might consider 7970s or GTX 670s, but I'm assuming those are way out of your price range.

 

[Raiddinn]

If you install games on a 5900 RPM hard drive, they are going to load SLOW.

The games need to be on the SSD, especially if the alternative is having them on a 5900 RPM hard drive.

That is what she means. I always vote strongly in favor of 128 GB and even 256 GB SSDs when the money is available for them, but also strongly against the 60 and lower SSDs because they just don't do what you really need them to do if you are going to be using a SSD in the first place.

If the alternative was a Raptor 10k RPM hard drive or even a 15k RPM hard drive, that would be one thing, but there are huge differences between that and a 5900.

BTW, Nekulturny didn't mention that you ideally want 10% of the drive space to be free (good for all hard drives) and you ideally also want the page file on there also (another 8 GBs gone, additional 14 gone in total over her numbers).

In other news, the PSU is fine. Her AsRock motherboard suggestion is fine. I would go with Crucial RAM instead, like 2x 4GB Ballistix 1600.

Maxing out all the games you mentioned on a 40 or 42 inch TV is going to be kinda difficult. For that matter even getting to high might be difficult. A 7770 definitely won't cut it, as she mentioned.

As a quick aside, it is worth noting that gaming on a TV is worse than gaming on a monitor.

I would expect that it would be tough for even a GTX 680 to max settings on a huge TV like that, so what I would suggest is just trying to get whatever the most expensive thing you can afford is and planning that you might have to manage your expectations as to how high you can set a lot of the settings.

That being said, the CX430w PSU only has 1x 6 pin connector, so that will put a practical limit on what sorts of cards you can get unless you also want to get an adapter that can convert MOLEX into PCIE 8 pin. Whatever cards you are looking at in your budget range, definitely pay attention to this aspect.

 

[nekulturny]

Heres a link, about halfway down the page, you can see where the 560 TI takes a pretty big hit compared to the 7850. Those other games you mentioned though for the most part won't care.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/549?vs=547

 

[nekulturny]

lol Raiddinn.. I'm a guy. *awkward silence*, all these months you thought I was a she!


As far as the PSU, yea the Corsair CX430 only has one 6 pin PCI, but the 7850 only uses one. The CX500v2s have 2 6 pin, which means you could run a 7870 without having to use the molex adapters. Most video cards come with molex adapters btw, I've seen very few that don't. Even my 550 TI came with one.

 

[babi2]

I will go with a 7850 then. I only play 1 game.. the mother of all games DOTA 2. and sometimes Darksiders.

Just wanted a gaming Rig when friends come over and my brother plays FIFA. I can go upto 300$ for the graphics card.. but that's my limit.

 

[Raiddinn]

My bad. I don't remember what gave me that idea, but you are right that for months now I have been thinking that.

7850 - I can't fault that choice. For the most part video cards are priced exactly according to performance without considering the effect of any short term discounts. It will be better at doing what you want than anything priced lower will be.

 

[nekulturny]

My bad. I don't remember what gave me that idea, but you are right that for months now I have been thinking that.

7850 - I can't fault that choice. For the most part video cards are priced exactly according to performance without considering the effect of any short term discounts. It will be better at doing what you want than anything priced lower will be.

Probably because I mentioned I had a male significant other, you're not the first to make that mistake.

We're not together any more, but we were for 3 years.. But once you see how ugly I am, you wont forget. :lol: Actually, I'm not really that ugly (I'd like to think so anyway), I just don't take pictures that well for some reason.

As far as the video card. The only one thats priced really out of proportion now is the GTX 680, 670s cost a lot less and the 680s barely outperform them.

 

[babi2]

Yep. Unless I start buying Nvidia Quadros. Thats what I use on my desktop. But I run NX.8, Ansys etc.. Those quadros are xpensive but cant run any games .
Maybe... Onlive is the solution.

for now I am going with 7850 unless something else is prescribed by the pros.

 

[nekulturny]

I will go with a 7850 then. I only play 1 game.. the mother of all games DOTA 2. and sometimes Darksiders.

Just wanted a gaming Rig when friends come over and my brother plays FIFA. I can go upto 300$ for the graphics card.. but that's my limit.

I'd honestly drop the SSD altogether, (save that upgrade for another day when you can afford a Crucial M4 128GB or greater).

 

[babi2]

Sounds like a good idea. Would this be alright?
http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/80194/newegg-240gb-kingston-hyperx-3k-sata-iii-2.5-solid-state-drive-ssd-sh103s3240g

 

[babi2]

Its on sale. The 60 Gig only cost 26$ .. One cannot not buy a 26$ SSD.

 

[nekulturny]

Kingston is definitely a solid brand for RAM, I'd suspect they'd be just fine for SSDs. That model specifically looks like it has pretty good reviews from newegg.

Its on sale. The 60 Gig only cost 26$ .. One cannot not buy a 26$ SSD.

Yea, I understand, and one also does not simply walk into Mordor. Its a hard deal to pass up, but I'm not sure you'll really find a practical use for it, which is why its so cheap.

 

[babi2]

Lol. just realized I do have a spare ATI FirePro V5800 DVI from work.. Any chance that could be included in the build?

 

[nekulturny]

Running video cards in non-crossfire is not something I have great experience with, I'm fairly positive it will not crossfire. I'm not sure it would really be worth it if it does work. I'm not sure (maybe I'm wrong) that you can really set it up to do the professional stuff with one video card and the gaming with the other.

 

[Raiddinn]

Kingston makes really good SSDs, that wouldn't be a bad choice.

M/F - That might have been it. Not sure who is who, but both seem pretty average. Then again even George Clooney and Orlando Bloom look pretty average to me too. I am not a very good judge of that stuff.

- Edit - I wouldn't try to do anything with the Fire Pro card other than sell it and put the proceeds towards getting a better video card.

 

[nekulturny]

I'm the fat one on the left, the little elf/hobbit on the right is my ex. And yes, he really did have the elf/hobbit thing going on in other pictures. I deleted them all though, not that you care, just making conversation lol.

 

[babi2]

Meng. I broke up with me boyfriend too. Thats why I must spend money$$$ any buy cool stuff. That fuker took the desktop he build and I partially paid for..

 

[Raiddinn]

Deleted all your pictures, huh? Must have been pretty bad at the end.

I am weird. I still have a lot of love letters people wrote me before I got married and pictures of the people involved. They are all in this great big folder that I never get out and look at. I pulled it out for the first time in like 8 years just recently because I was talking to my brother about people we used to know and I knew that I still had a lot of stuff saved from that era.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been moved from the section CPU & Components to section Systems by Mousemonkey

 

[nekulturny]

Deleted all your pictures, huh? Must have been pretty bad at the end.

I am weird. I still have a lot of love letters people wrote me before I got married and pictures of the people involved. They are all in this great big folder that I never get out and look at. I pulled it out for the first time in like 8 years just recently because I was talking to my brother about people we used to know and I knew that I still had a lot of stuff saved from that era.

Ha, actually it wasn't that bad. We just make better friends than we do partners. Personality wise, we have the same kind of sarcastic sense of humor, we amuse the hell out of each other, we're both nerds, like the same kinds of music. The biggest on-going argument we ever really had was I say Ozzy was better solo than he was when he was with Black Sabbath. But, that just isn't enough, our emotional needs are different. Hes very self-sustaining, if something bad happens, he doesn't come to me, he just holds it all in. I'm the polar opposite. Its just an inherent incompatibility that took its toll after 3 years. It wasn't even really that he was tired of being my shoulder to cry on, I got frustrated with the fact that he'd never let me in fully. He still wanted to be friends, but I've told him I still love him and we've come too far to be just friends, he told me he understood and thats that. I know him well enough to know that when he makes up his mind, hes made it up. Keeping the pictures just hinders me from moving on. Actually, that picture on imageshack is all that remains, I guess I haven't moved on that fully yet.

I understand why you and others would keep stuff like that. Some people can detach to a degree like that. I'm not that kind of person.

Meng. I broke up with me boyfriend too. Thats why I must spend money$$$ any buy cool stuff. That fuker took the desktop he build and I partially paid for..

King Solomon had a clever idea, fetch me a blade, and I'll divide the tower! My ex had his own computer his grandpa paid for him, I rarely even used it, so we had no problems with the division of goods. I guess in that sense it was a "good" breakup.

 

[babi2]

Good for you man. I had and still have my own desktop.. but it had a fire pro. I used it for work . The entertainment Desktop... I paid about 70% and he ordered parts/assembled. I offered to buy his share.. but he just decided to nab it.