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bestbuy or build my own

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June 25, 2013 12:55:07 PM

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP---Pavilion-Desktop---8GB...

I almost bought this machine today for $500 and the salesman suggested I buy the EVGA GTX 650Ti for $210. All that juice flowing through the stock motherboard would surely burn it out in a year right?

Could anyone help me pick out a decent prebuilt rig for playing diablo 3 and wow? I'd like to try the newer games too, but max settings aren't as important as longevity. Money is no problem, but I don't expect to pay more than $800 for what I would be doing. Ideally if someone can locate a cheap tower that can handle a decent graphics card I'd be grateful.

I tried researching parts on newegg to build my own, but got quickly overwhelmed. I didn't like reviews talking about parts arriving broken or without instructions.

More about : bestbuy build

a b C Monitor
June 25, 2013 1:35:34 PM

Well on these forums... 99% will say "build your own" and without knowing the details, here you go:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.29 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($113.24 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($71.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.99 @ Expansys US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($249.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 431 Plus (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($45.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $793.46
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-06-25 16:34 EDT-0400)

There's no OS though, so if you need that, it'll change things.

Also, if anyone happens to notice that it's a Z87 chipset and the CPU isn't for OC'ing, before

you shoot me, in my defence I'll say it's because I wanted the SLI. Hah.
a b C Monitor
June 25, 2013 1:46:50 PM

Man you're getting ripped off big time if the Best Buy salesman says the 650TI is $210. The 650TI BOOST is retailing for $175 at most online outlets.

That said for $500 I would not bother with any system being sold at Best Buy. Most include crap power supplies and load the OS down with so much junk software that it makes the PC nearly unusable.

Try this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($184.98 @ Outlet PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H87 Performance ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($112.86 @ Newegg)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.99 @ Expansys US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB Video Card ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling Silencer MK III 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($48.00 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $713.78
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-06-25 16:46 EDT-0400)

Mine's a bit less expensive but includes the BOOST, and a Seasonic made PSU, and the new Haswell CPU.
Related resources
a b C Monitor
June 25, 2013 2:17:31 PM

id return that rig. building it yourself is easier and at least you know what you put into the rig. most of the psus i find in prebuilts are similar in quality to diablotek units that dont fail in your face. for 500 dollars, a APU rig and embarrassingly low IO options is a ripoff

if you want to throw a GPU in there, you can throw a 660 in there and run your games that way. however, if you started off from scratch, you could have gotten a even higher performing rig
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
June 25, 2013 2:17:45 PM

g-unit1111 said:
Man you're getting ripped off big time if the Best Buy salesman says the 650TI is $210. The 650TI BOOST is retailing for $175 at most online outlets.

That said for $500 I would not bother with any system being sold at Best Buy. Most include crap power supplies and load the OS down with so much junk software that it makes the PC nearly unusable.

Try this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($184.98 @ Outlet PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H87 Performance ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($112.86 @ Newegg)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.99 @ Expansys US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB Video Card ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling Silencer MK III 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($48.00 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $713.78
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-06-25 16:46 EDT-0400)

Mine's a bit less expensive but includes the BOOST, and a Seasonic made PSU, and the new Haswell CPU.


I thought SLI is meant for 2 or more cards, or is it just better? The gigabyte board got a lot of negative reviews too. Are you sure I need that fancy ram too? Most of my retail desktops run fine for 1-2 years at settings I enjoy. I mainly want something that will last 3+ years and run more efficiently than a best buy build. Am I asking for too much?
a b C Monitor
June 25, 2013 2:20:14 PM

SLI means you can have two or more Nvidia cards and yes it's better, when you can find two

cheap cards that scale well; exactly like the Boost.
a b C Monitor
June 25, 2013 2:20:18 PM

you know that 90% of the people who get a good product dont put up a review right? using reviews to base reliability doesnt always work
June 25, 2013 2:27:37 PM

TheBigTroll said:
you know that 90% of the people who get a good product dont put up a review right? using reviews to base reliability doesnt always work


Where did that statistic come from?!
Not sure I'd make that kind of general statement.
I'm more motivated to write a review for something I'm happy with, but I try to write helpful reviews (good or bad) about nearly everything.

However, I agree that using reviews (as the only means) to determine quality or reliability is not smart. A lot of people have no idea how to write a good review that is relevant, taking off "eggs" or stars for things like not enough ports or features it didn't have, which was the fault of the buyer for buying without reading the specs properly.

On another note, your previous post said to take the BB system back but he said he ALMOST bought it, didn't buy it.
a b C Monitor
June 25, 2013 4:50:21 PM

oh ok then. close call there

its a thing known to retailers. If a customer is satisfied with their product, how often are they going to write a review when it doesnt grant them anything and they honestly have nothing to say about the product other than it works. but if they are unsatisified, for sure they are going to write something nasty so that they can try to get fixed up

for example,the caviar black hard drive has around 2500 ish reviews on newegg. from what i know, for sure there are way more people who have bought a caviar black from newegg than a mere 2500. the rest for sure got their product, know it works, and left it at there
a b C Monitor
June 25, 2013 5:00:07 PM

finity said:

I thought SLI is meant for 2 or more cards, or is it just better? The gigabyte board got a lot of negative reviews too. Are you sure I need that fancy ram too? Most of my retail desktops run fine for 1-2 years at settings I enjoy. I mainly want something that will last 3+ years and run more efficiently than a best buy build. Am I asking for too much?


SLI is meant for two cards yes. But don't go by what the store reviews tell you. I can't tell you how much BS and misinformation about computer hardware come as a result of poor store reviews. My last three boards have all been Gigabyte (Z77, 990FX, and Z68), and I haven't had a single issue with any of them. So some wanker doesn't know how to overclock and fries his motherboard by setting the voltage too high, and then goes on Newegg to complain about it. Don't let that scare you from buying the motherboard. Most of the people complaining about DOAs on Newegg, Tiger, etc most of the time aren't professionals or tech experts.

Quote:

you know that 90% of the people who get a good product dont put up a review right? using reviews to base reliability doesnt always work


That's exactly why I hate store reviews. And if you don't go by the general consensus, guess what? Your review gets voted way down. For instance I put up a bad review of an Intel SSD I bought (which I originally bought by buying into the myth that they were the most reliable), there zero likes and like 100 dislikes. Because that's not the general consensus. I swapped it for an OCZ Vertex 4 - which the general consensus is mostly negative thanks to store reviews - have not had a single problem with it.
June 26, 2013 11:23:09 AM

g-unit1111 said:

That's exactly why I hate store reviews. And if you don't go by the general consensus, guess what? Your review gets voted way down. For instance I put up a bad review of an Intel SSD I bought (which I originally bought by buying into the myth that they were the most reliable), there zero likes and like 100 dislikes. Because that's not the general consensus. I swapped it for an OCZ Vertex 4 - which the general consensus is mostly negative thanks to store reviews - have not had a single problem with it.


I'm guessing a bunch of fanboys were knocking your review because it didn't represent THEIR experience, which is dumb. However, some people who have an issue with a part go way overboard, warning everyone to stay away from something when really you may only be the only buyer of 100 that had a problem with it. I think it comes down to writing an unbiased review, whether positive or negative, based solely on your experience with that product and ignore people who don't like your review.

I've seen your posts (we tend to pick the same posts to answer and seems we have the same ideas in general) and I'd have to say you give some of the most unbiased and reasonable answers around.
June 26, 2013 11:31:53 AM

TheBigTroll said:
oh ok then. close call there

its a thing known to retailers. If a customer is satisfied with their product, how often are they going to write a review when it doesnt grant them anything and they honestly have nothing to say about the product other than it works. but if they are unsatisified, for sure they are going to write something nasty so that they can try to get fixed up

for example,the caviar black hard drive has around 2500 ish reviews on newegg. from what i know, for sure there are way more people who have bought a caviar black from newegg than a mere 2500. the rest for sure got their product, know it works, and left it at there


Wouldn't your theory make much more sense if the majority of reviews on that Caviar Black were negative? There are 1800+ 5-egg or 4-egg reviews vs. 470+ 1-egg of that particular drive on NewEgg out of 2600+ total.

I can see your point, and agree that some people are more inclined to post a negative review, either hoping it leads to getting the issue resolved or to prevent others from the frustration they had, but the statistics on that drive alone are completely opposite from your 90% rule.
a b C Monitor
June 26, 2013 11:36:42 AM

finity said:

I'm guessing a bunch of fanboys were knocking your review because it didn't represent THEIR experience, which is dumb. However, some people who have an issue with a part go way overboard, warning everyone to stay away from something when really you may only be 1 of 100 that had a problem with it. I think it comes down to writing an unbiased review, whether positive or negative, based solely on your experience with that product and ignore people who don't like your review.

I've seen your posts (we tend to pick the same posts to answer and seems we have the same ideas in general) and I'd have to say you give some of the most unbiased and reasonable answers around.


Yeah that's one of many reasons why I hate store reviews. There's tons of fan boys who troll store sites looking for bad reviews and that's how BS and misinformation gets spread about manufacturers and products. I'm sure the manufacturers hate it as much as I do.
June 30, 2013 12:06:26 PM

g-unit1111 said:
Man you're getting ripped off big time if the Best Buy salesman says the 650TI is $210. The 650TI BOOST is retailing for $175 at most online outlets.

That said for $500 I would not bother with any system being sold at Best Buy. Most include crap power supplies and load the OS down with so much junk software that it makes the PC nearly unusable.

Try this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($184.98 @ Outlet PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H87 Performance ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($112.86 @ Newegg)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.99 @ Expansys US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost 2GB Video Card ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling Silencer MK III 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply ($48.00 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $713.78
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-06-25 16:46 EDT-0400)

Mine's a bit less expensive but includes the BOOST, and a Seasonic made PSU, and the new Haswell CPU.


I'm probably going to buy these parts and give it a go, but how do you know they're all compatible? I'll probably reformat and use an older HD and DVD drive I have for junk storage and go for the SSD.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
a b C Monitor
June 30, 2013 12:32:30 PM

He knows they're compatible because for example the CPU is a 4th generation one.

4th Generation Intel CPUs are called Haswell and they fit in an LGA 1150 socket (as opposed

to 3rd Generation ones which fit in LGA 1156 sockets) and thus he just needs to find a motherboard

with an 1150 socket. Things like GPUs use PCIe slots on said motherboard and those slots are

forwards and backwards compatible and so forth.
June 30, 2013 3:35:00 PM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

After more reading I'm considering using this cpu instead of the i5-4430 because it runs cooler without the integrated graphics. I don't want to burn any parts out or rack up an electric bill. Where can I get info on how this 3rd gen would perform in games?
a b C Monitor
June 30, 2013 3:46:59 PM

the difference is less than a penny a year if you want to compare power bills
a b C Monitor
June 30, 2013 5:21:31 PM

finity said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

After more reading I'm considering using this cpu instead of the i5-4430 because it runs cooler without the integrated graphics. I don't want to burn any parts out or rack up an electric bill. Where can I get info on how this 3rd gen would perform in games?


That's not going to happen by switching back to Ivy Bridge. Everything is getting more energy efficient with each generation so you don't need to worry about racking up a huge electric bill. The Haswell CPUs use a smaller CPU die and use less power than ever before while producing a faster system.
June 30, 2013 5:27:55 PM

Should I buy an extended warranty or accidental damage plan on any of this stuff? I have "enough" knowledge on how to assemble and work through the bios, but is there anything I most likely to damage?
a b C Monitor
June 30, 2013 5:33:01 PM

its generally not needed
!