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26th May 2009, 06:32
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Recommended Computer Parts Guide 4: AMD Kinda Wins Everything or, "Dave, you gotta add font size tags" Guide #4 and it would be a cliche to say "not much has changed" because it always seems like not much has changed if you take this incrementally. When last we met, the GTX 260 was at the top of the 1920x1200 game and the E8400 was the best processor for upper-midrange systems. In short, ATI was doing okay but still behind nVidia by a hair and Intel was pretty much winning the processor race except at the extreme low-end. The thing is, AMD has executed a pretty sneaky coup. Before, the market was primarily divided into two main segments: "budget" and "midrange/high end". Sure, the E7200/E7300 was around at the $130 price point, but for $30 more you could grab a E8400. The options when it came to video cards were "1440x900/1680x1050" vs "1920x1080/1920x1200": However, you may or may not notice that I've gone from Intel/nVidia to Intel/ATI to AMD/ATI in that little thing under my avatar. And as you know, I don't deal in mindless brand favoritism, so that should be your cue: AMD/ATI is dominating right now. Intel right now is having the exact same problem nVidia had with the GTX series. They made something that is so ludicrously powerful and expensive that it failed to gain market share, and now they are left with old stock to fill the difference. Intel wants to do Core i5 (small, cheaper i7/Nehalem) soon: and sure, that might turn out great, but right now they are receiving a walloping that's helping ATI substantially in the DIY market. This isn't to say that ATI or AMD wouldn't do the same things if they were on top like Intel and nVidia - any company winning so handily is going to end up screwing up one way or another, and the easiest way to screw up is to make something with a price/performance ratio that makes the product unattractive. So back to this coup thing. AMD and ATI have trifurcated the formerly more two-sided market: three is the magic number for 2009. They have introduced the X3 720 to compete against the E8400 and beaten Intel. They have introduced the 7750+ to counter the E5200 and beaten Intel. They have introduced the Phenom II X4s in a way that makes quad-cores somewhat affordable and left Intel's old 45nm quads with inflated price tags, making the blue team scramble to rehash what they've got. Meanwhile, ATI has taken the R700 philosophy and hit nVidia's only remaining home, the high-end, hard with the 4890. nVidia's response, the GTX 275, is mediocre at best. So what you want to do when you look through this is keep in mind that you basically want to look at three tiers of parts, not two. As such, the usual format as well as prose has been adjusted quite a bit. And speaking of adjustments, if you don't like the rigidity of full builds (they tend to go outdated more often than the full guides), hit up the 'package' area above the suggested builds, which bundles together relevant components that match each other's price/performance ratios and allows you to pick compatible parts with a little more flexibility. Keep in mind you can still screw this up if you try hard enough, but at long as you keep common sense in mind (for example, not paying $300 for a case/PSU combo when the rest of your build is $500) you should be fine. Also, feel free to mix and match between tiers: for example, a 500W Silencer on a Centurion 5 if you don't like the 690, or a 520HX on a 690 if you don't need to spend the extra for the P182. It's simply assumed that if you have enough for one that you have enough for the other. Since most of the builds here are simply combinations of those 'packages', I have listed the package combinations as well as the regular links to all components. This is a little more complex so if you want to skip it over and just buy from a list go ahead, but we'll give this a shot too. It's kind of close to what OEMs and barebones systems do, and those are pretty tempting for a lot of people (i want to buy X processor but I want to make sure it's compatible) so let's hijack it in a bit more positive of a way. I'm kind of tired of saying "this is a gamer-oriented guide" so I've thrown in some HTPC/budget-box recommendations as well. To avoid confusion though I'm not going to discuss them in the relevant section, only offer builds at the end (HTPC performance/HTPC mATX low power/"beige-box" Grandma Internet Surfing) clearly marked. CPU Bye Wolfdale. The E8400 was the best deal but the X3 720 is almost the same performance and has another core to boot. Essentially a upclocked Phenom II with one disabled (but not necessarily unstable) core, the X3 is the choice for most builds seeing as how it is both cheap and extremely powerful. It is the processor to get if you have the money and don't need a quad. Speaking of quads, let's get that out of the way: Do you work with professionally, plan to work with professionally, or heavily use as a hobby multi-threaded software like video rendering, computer-aided drafting programs like AutoCAD, or 3D modeling applications? If the answer to this is "no", buying a quad-core processor will give you zero gains. This isn't to say they're not a decent buy, but $50 or $100 in pursuit of no gains is usually considered $50 or $100 thrown out the window. The X4 series of Phenom IIs are cheap, but a X3 720 has versatility, high clock speed, and price on its side. If you don't care about price, you won't get hurt too bad by a X4, but if you have that much money to throw around use it on the GPU if you're not doing any of the above activities. The X4s have similar clock speeds to the X3 but overclock worse and run hotter as well: you can get a lot of overclocking out of a X3 720, so most of the time a X4 is kind of a bad move. Games do not care about four cores: anything worth parallelizing is today and will be on the GPU. A GPU with hundreds of unified shader processors is much more powerful in these sort of applications than a CPU ever could be, and parallelized tasks are rare for games. The few that are (in more than LOL UTILIZES UR CORES - excessive CPU utilization is not a good thing despite how much you want to rationalize your new XXTREME QUAD CORE) can be tackled with the X3's blend of pure clock speed and another core. On the topic of gaming, remember that the CPU is not a "bottleneck" in most situations. The CPU largely just does physics and AI. The former is going to be usurped by the GPU. So a 7750+ system with a 4850 is going to beat out a X3 720 system with a 4650 or 4670 or 9600GT or something. So spend most of your money on the GPU, not the CPU! Now, if you are one of those rendering professionals who neesd a quad, you have a lot of options. You likely don't care too much about budget. If you do, you can pick up a Phenom II, but you're probably not going to be buying a graphics card and therefore the most important thing here is going to be (guess what) the CPU. If you have the budget, pick up an i7: specifically the i7 920, which can be overclocked slightly to match the other two and save you over $500 in some cases. Then grab 6GB (or 12 if you want serious overkill or a RAMdisk) of DDR3-1066, an X58 board of your choice, and the normal other stuff (PSU, etc). If you don't, and are doing all those professional things in your spare time (like video or audio production) and don't have a lot of money, don't worry. The Phenom X4 isn't recommended very strongly for gamers, but if you work on heavily threaded stuff a lot and are strapped for cash, a X4 940 or 955 BE is your ticket. I would recommend this less to a hobbiest than to someone that makes this their job: the extra core on the X3 720 and capability for overclocking means that it handles both gaming and single-threaded applications as well as the occasional multi-threaded app exceptionally well. So anyway, we shouldn't have too much to worry about talking about midrange. Buy the X3 720 if you're just looking for a gaming setup and have $130 or so to spend. If you have more, spend it on the GPU or monitor as you won't get anything by spending it here. If you have less, move on to the next paragraph. So let's say you're on a budget. For reasons stated before, your best bet is a killer GPU and a 'good enough' CPU. You have two options: AMD's 7850+ Black Edition, and Intel's E5400. Both are great processors. However, the 7850+ BE is not only cheaper, it overclocks extremely well, it beats the E5400 handily in gaming, and it's easier to install than the Intel pushpins. It's a little hotter and more power-intensive though, but this is never a concern except in HTPC or small-form factor builds. Pick up the 7850+ if you don't have a lot to spend. RAM DDR2-800 is fine for everybody. DDR2-1066 is fine for overclockers. You cannot lose either way and most 800 can overclock very well. If you just want to get to 4ghz, you can probably just do it on 800. Memory speed itself does not matter at all, so if you're not overclocking 1066 won't give you a speed boost. If some is cheap, though, give it a shot! Just make sure it's manufactured by a good company, and is dual-channel (80% of the RAM you'll find is good memory, just watch out for SuperPowerMemorySpeedClockPC's VALUEMAX 4000 stuff). Brand does not matter, buy whatever's cheapest and has decent reviews - this is usually Corsair or G. Skill. If you multitask a lot, RAM is cheap. Get 4GB at least for any system (even budget), and 8GB if you feel like it. DDR3 boards are expensive (as is DDR3 itself), and DDR3 shows hilariously small gains over DDR2, both with Core 2 and Phenom II. This is probably "too much money/too little sense" trap #1, so don't fall into it. Buy DDR2 and put your money into price/performance efficient things like a GPU. The exception, of course, is if you have an i7 and X58 board (remember what I said above: if you're a gamer, Don't Buy These), and in that case make sure you buy it in sets of three, not two. 2GB, 4GB, 8GB sets are made for the people in the aforementioned trap with Core 2 systems and may even damage the CPU as they're set to run at higher voltages. So buy 3 or 6GB. Hard Drive Hard drive prices have ran into the ground over the last eight years or so. One can easily pick up a terabyte of storage for under $150, an amount of storage large even for a server at the start of the millenium. Most people feel Western Digital is one of the most reliable brands, mixed opinions about Seagate, Hitachi, and Samsung, with IBM and Maxtor at the bottom, but this is largely situational. The best HDDs around now are the 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 and the Western Digital 640GB Blue, regular, or Black. The 500GB has some wonky noise-canceling thing that is hurting its real-world performance, so the better buy is the 640GB WD. If you want terabyte storage, you can check out the WD 1TB Black which has okay speeds, but if you pair up two 640GBs, you won't much more money and they'll be a lot faster. There are some nice SSDs out now. If you have a lot of money you want to spend (and only then, make sure everything else is perfect and well-budgeted first), this is the novelty you want to invest in. The HDD is the bottleneck of nearly every computer. Any SSDs based on the Barefoot or Intel controllers are fine, but the kinds recommended most are the OCZ Vertex and Intel X25-M drives. The Vertex is a lot cheaper, the X25 is more expensive. Both are going to be outrageously expensive per GB, but for someone who works with Photoshop or something a lot and doesn't need a lot of space, it's not a bad idea to pick one of these up. Let's talk about RAID. You should not use RAID in any home environment. If you want to backup drives, back them up onto separate drives or DVDs and throw them in the closet. RAID 1-5 are horrible backup solutions and RAID 0 is Too Much Money Too Little Sense Trap #2 in that it provides imperceptable speed gains and doubles the risk of hard drive failure. RAID 0 is okay for SSDs, though, as they do not fail in the way HDDs do. Motherboard For AMD processors, the 770, 780G, and 790X are all good chipsets. The Gigabyte MA770-UD3P is the best choice for a AMD system right now, but the X3 720 and 7850+ have combo deals with the 790X which means paying roughly $10 more for a better motherboard. If you're buying a 720 or 7850+, watch for combo deals. In addition, make sure you don't get the 790FX or 790FXT which are DDR3 motherboards and therefore not a good buy at all. Look at the 740G and 760G chipsets for cheap HTPC builds. For Intel processors, the PX5 and PX3 lines have done well - P45 and P43 are both excellent choices. The P45 chipset is great, continuing the rock solid stability and performance of the P35. The P43 is the better budget system buy, paired with a E5200 it's cheap and just as solid. Most P45 boards are only a little bit more expensive though. Check out the EP45-UD3P and EP45-UD3L, the latter being the best motherboard per dollar at the moment. Don't buy any nVidia chipset (750i/780i/790i), P35, X38, X48, or X58 boards (except in the latter's case if you have an i7 processor). They are all either outdated or unstable and too expensive. Motherboards based on P43 or P45 are the only ones you should buy for an Intel system. Commonly asked question's answer: FSB speed doesn't matter, unless you're running some crazy $1.5K processor, and yes, you can run DDR2-800 on a motherboard with a FSB of 1066, 1333, or anything. Video Card The video card decision is completely dependent on your resolution. If you're at 1440x900, your choice is between the 4770 or 4850. The 4770 is better in nearly every way: it's smaller, cooler, cheaper, has the same performance as, and draws less power than the long-standing champion the 4850. The 4830 is going to get phased out by the 4770 anyway so don't consider it anymore. At 1920x1080 or 1920x1200, things get a little hairier. At the under $200 price point, the 4870 and GTX 260 216 (the 260 with 216 stream processors, make sure to check this in Specifications on NewEgg or the equivalent on your retailer of choice!) are the contenders here, and you should essentially buy whatever's cheaper. Right now that's the GTX 260 216. The old 260 has pretty much dropped off the face of the earth. New 55nm 216s exist, but there's very little if any difference. The highest price/performance for this res is the 4890. It competes against the GTX 275, but is a better buy for a variety of reasons, and is also often cheaper with rebates. It is the fastest card available without hitting diminishing returns. In short, buy the 4890 if you can afford it, otherwise look at the cheaper options. As usual with video cards, unless a card is very badly or not reviewed, pick the cheapest card of that series available, as both ATI and nVidia let other companies make their cards and those vendors will frequently compete with each other. However, if you see a factory overclocked card or one with an aftermarket cooler (usually if the cover is off or the fan is very large) for very little or no money more than another, go for it! All 4850s and 4770s should have aftermarket coolers, read the reviews to see which is the most efficient. Brand loyalty here is dumb. There is nothing intrinsically better or worse because the design was made by nVidia or ATI. The only thing that the brand influences is drivers. I think most people think nVidia's drivers are better - they seem to be released a bit slower but tend to be more stable and work better with multi-card configurations. This shouldn't impact a decision where you're comparing an inferior card from nVidia to the ATI equivalent, but it's just a heads up. Since there's so many different cards on the market right now, here's how they break down (categories/cards now rated as far as usefulness!): BUDGET: 8400GS/8500/9400/9500: These are not for gaming, they're for doing things that require a discrete card but not a powerful one. Under no circumstances for a gaming build. The 9500GT is a little better but not worth the money. (all 0/10) X1950/8600GT/4550/4570: Perform similarly, though the 8600GT's drop to around $50 has challenged the ATI extremely-low-end market. The 8600GT ranks about equal with the X1950 Pro. Still, they can't match the mid-range cards in price or performance and aren't worth buying except for HTPC work. (X1950 and 8600GT 2/10, 4550 and 4570 3/10, 10/10 for HTPC) 9600GT/4650/4670/9600GTO/8800GS/HD 3850: These are better budget cards than the cards above, but they're still not that great as far as price/performance. If you're stuck here, you're paying too much for your processor. The 4670 is the best here, but move up a notch and you'll get a lot more bang for your buck. (all except 4650 and 4670 4/10, those two 5/10) MIDRANGE: 8800GTS 320MB/640MB (G80)/8800GTS/9800GTX: These cards are outdated and not worth it for the price. They were great a year ago, not so much anymore. (all 2/10) 8800GT/9800GT Old cards that keep getting rehashed. Not worth the price either, with better ATI cards at nearly the same price point. (all 4/10) 4830/4770/4850/9800GTX+/GTS 250: 4830 is Inferior to the 4770 and is stuck at an odd price point, so avoid. 4770 is the best bet at any res below 1920x1080, but is sold out often. The 4850 is the next best thing. The 9800GTX+ and GTS 250 (essentially the same thing) are junk, rehashed cards trying desperately to compete with the 4850 and can't touch the 4770 in power consumption/heat/performance/price. (5/10, 9/10, 8/10, 4/10, 4/10 respectively) MID-HIGHEND: GTX 260/4870/GTX 260 216: The regular GTX 260 is pretty much outdated. It's not any less expensive than the 216 anymore, so we can pretty much just throw it out. This is the only market segment in which both ATI and nVidia have viable head-to-head cards. Both cards are great, but nVidia typically has better drivers and as of this writing (surely will change) has the price advantage. NOTE: When buying the GTX 260 make sure the one you select has 216 shader processors! (3/10, 7/10, 7/10 respectively) GTX 275/4890: Both kind of tied but the 4890 is easier to recommend than the 4870. The best price/performance for 1920x1080 and up, will max out pretty much anything with lots of AA at that res. (7/10, 9/10 respectively) GTX 280/GTX 285: Best single-GPU cards you can get. Pretty minor differences over the 4890 and even the GTX 260 216, so you're probably better off getting one of those and overclocking it. (all 6/10) GTX 295/4870X2: Either is fine, but just as before, diminishing returns means the single 4890 is a better bet. (both 5/10) In summary, if you have the money for a 4850 (and I personally hope you do: this is the most important part of the build!) buy it! If you have a larger monitor and enough money to buy a 4890, buy it! If you don't..maybe you can shave anything off your other purchases, or you can just get a GTX 260 216 or 4870. Power Supply: *spark* "OH GOD MY GRAPHICS CARD JUST GAINED SENTIENCE" I love this section, because it allows me to discuss one of the craziest markets in PC parts. Despite its relative simplicity (AC mains power in, DC power out) PSUs are one of the most, if not THE most, important things to criticise in your build. The PSU market is the gamiest show in town: there are bad manufacturers, misleading wattage totals, and cheap capacitors everywhere. If you want to see why a budget PSU is a bad idea, check this out. Yes, the best case scenario is popping and a dead PSU, and the worst case scenario is a "boom" and widespread hardware damage. If given a choice between two newbies to building, one with some $9.99 950W PSU and a 4850 and E8400, then another with a Corsair or PC Power & Cooling or Corsair 650W and some worthless 8400GS and Pentium D or something, I would infinitely prefer yelling at the latter about his poor choices than getting hit by liquid heavy metal capacitor death-spit flying into my vulnerable upper torso. I've had enough of that in chemistry classes. Most of the time if a PSU goes bad, it'll just go ZAP and die, but overall it's not a risk you want to take. Modular cabling is a good thing. It means you only have to plug in what you need - ATX, 4 pin, PCI-E, SATA, maybe fans on the molex connectors. They also tend to be expensive, though, and therefore out of range of most budget builds. Corsair has recently moved on from making mediocre memory to making about the best power supplies in the business, not only in reliability and power but in price. Let's use their 450W PSU as a way to explain why shopping around based on wattages alone is not a good idea. Corsair's 450W, along with some other good brands' 500Ws, can easily power a quad-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 4850. You might be wondering why this is so: for example, the 700W OCZ GameXStream is a big seller, for nearly double the (without rebate!) price of the 450W Corsair. The answer is that wattages are nothing but a convenient but overly general yardstick that has been hijacked by poor manufacturers. Let me explain how this works. Without getting too technical, the wattage rating of a PSU is based on the amount of amps it can put out at one voltage. Hold onto that for a second. There are three voltages that a PSU outputs: +3.3V, +5V, and +12V. Back in the day, everything was happy living on the +5V rail. However, there was trouble in Olde Motherboardland, as when Intel decided to introduce the power-hog Pentium 4, everything began switching over to +12V. PSU manufacturers had a problem - most of their amps were on a +5V rail, so GPU manufacturers began overstating their wattage totals to make sure people wouldn't try to run +12V heavy graphics cards on +5V heavy power supplies. This is no longer the case. What you want to look for is not the total wattage. Use it as a benchmark. Dodgy PSU manufacturers will play the old game of putting more amps on the +5V rail, which is useless for your gaming setup. So what you want to do is see how many of the rated watts are derived from the +12V rail: for example, Corsair's 450W can put out 33A on one 12V rail. This is pretty good. Look for more than 25A on single-rail systems and 20A on dual-rail systems. Avoid quad-rail systems like the plague. Or, if you don't want to get technical, just buy a Corsair or PC Power and Cooling PSU. Brand is the most important metric, amperage the second. A good brand will have reasonable ratings for amperage and therefore wattage: a bad brand will not and will use poor components too. The PSU is the largest point of failure in most systems today. Some recommended units are the 370W Silencer, 400CX, 420W Silencer, 450VX, 520HX (modular), 610W Silencer, 650TX, 850TX, and 1000HX in order of price. Buying any of the first four is fine for a budget setup, the 520HX, 610W Silencer or 650TX for a high end setup (generally the 520HX is recommended more because modular is going to be more useful than amps you're never going to use), and anything higher if you're dumb and are so desperate for something to show off that you brag about how much electrical current is available to you, in which case you must get elated when entering rooms with lots of power outlets. Corsair also has a 420HX in Europe, essentially a cheaper modular than anything they have elsewhere.. There are other brands out there. But they can't touch Corsair or PC P&C. When in doubt just buy them. I may look like a fanboy here, but they have probably been the best thing to hit this market for a while. Some other units are just as good but overpriced (Earthwatts), but most are mediocre (OCZ, Thermaltake), and some are just bad (Coolermaster, Rosewill). So stick with the aforementioned good brands and you'll be OK. P.S.: If it has LEDs, run. Monitors: Monitors are relatively simple. There are three main price points to look at: up to 22", 22", and everything over 22". Despite the sage "look at reviews!" advice, essentially the biggest deal here is resolution. A long time ago, computer monitors did 800x600 and 1024x768. Now, the smallest real LCD resolution that's worth it is 1440x900. The highest that's affordable is 1920x1200, which is only available at over 22". For gaming, you want to make sure you 1. run at the ideal native resolution of your LCD and 2. have the hardware to support it. Higher resolution and anti-aliasing both take up a lot of VRAM, but since all graphics cards you should be looking at for those res have 896-1GB VRAM, you should be fine. If it says 512MB VRAM, it's not recommendable for a 1920x1080 setup anyway. A note about HD video. Monitors have been doing what is now called "HD" for a while now. 720p, which is the lower tier of "HD", is 1280x720, which is slightly lower than the first non-widescreen monitors output after 1024x768 stopped being standardized. The number of horizontal to vertical pixels is called the "aspect ratio": non-widescreen, like 800x600, is called "4:3" and matches what normal standard TVs use. You can easily independently verify this - divide both sides by 200 and you get 4:3. HD content bound for TVs, which run at 720p (1280x720) or 1080p (1920x1080), is at a different aspect ratio: "16:9". As the CRT dies, LCD manufacturers are switching to widescreen aspect ratios. There's a slight problem however - LCDs use the WXGA, WSXGA, and WUXGA formats, which are actually 16:10. So your 1080p video at 1920x1080 on a 1920x1200 screen might slightly be stretched vertically. There are a couple solutions to this problem - black bars, for example, which was common to accommodate regular TVs, and also vertical stretching. Recently launched have been 21" to 22" 1920x1080 monitors - these are relatively small in size but boast the capability to do native 1080p. These are absolutely great buys if you have the hardware to support them, and cost $50 more than regular 1680x1050 22" monitors. I don't recommend buying those anymore because of this. These are the sweet spot for monitors - you get a higher res at a discount price. So here's the deal - if you want to view 720p content but don't care about 1080p, a 19" monitor with 1440x900 will work well. If you want 1080p content, you're best getting a 21-22" 1920x1080 or 24" 1920x1200 monitor. Anything lower and you're downscaling. And if you don't care about video, get the highest you can afford. The GPU and monitor are the best bang for your buck for gaming. Sound Cards There's not too much to talk about here. Creative Labs is the largest manufacturer of audio stuff and has been for some time. ASUS has the Xonar, HT has some audiophile stuff. If you need one consider the Xonar and Xtremegamer. Why should you spend anything on a sound card? Onboard is decent, and a lot of it supports 5.1 out of the box. Midrange sound cards are all trash (Audigy SE, etc), mostly because standards on onboard audio are getting better. However, when you play Battlefield 2 or a good quality MP3 with one, you will probably tell the difference (the former on about anything, the latter on good quality speakers or headphones). They also offer surround 3D effects if you have a 2.1 speaker system (which are remarkably realistic), and stuff like the Crystallizer that is pretty useful. I'm one of the people that thinks a nice mouse (MX518!), sound card, and keyboard are just as important as a lot of other choices in your build, especially with 6600GTs running 60fps in CoD4. Do consider these things. Not only will you do better in games (positional sound, better footstep hearing, sensitivity settings for better sniping), you'll just be more comfortable. Cases: Cheap ones: Centurion 5 is the best here. Antec 300 is okay but a relatively poor case overall, its only real redeeming feature is the price. Medium-priced ones: Coolermaster 690 is a good midrange case, probably the best. The P180/P182 is the best case out there as far as price/features, but pricey. Expensive ones: Coolermaster Cosmos 1000/1010 is good, as are Lian-Li cases. Recently launched P183 is also fantastic and has a neat new power supply specification. Stay away from any numbered (300, 900, 1200) Antec cases. Speakers/Headphones: 2.1? Z-2300 (I have them, they're nice). Room for 5.1? Z-5500. Headphones..depends on how much you want to spend. "Gaming headphones" tend to be pretty terrible, if you have a lot to spend on these grab HD555s or Audiodynamics AD700s. HD280s aren't bad either, but have poorer sound quality for not much less. Headsets with very good quality sound really don't exist, unfortunately. Most also break easily. I suggest a desk or clip on mic with a good pair of headphones. "Gaming" or "5.1" headphones are gimmicks for idiots, they have poor sound reproduction, lack anything to do with 5.1, and are in general an easy way to make people spend $80 on crappy headphones. Heatsinks/Fans: Xigmatek HDT-S1283. Less than $50, one of the best if not the best coolers. AC7 Pro is okay, but this is better. Get it! Alternatives include the Sunbeam Core Contact and basically any "heatpipe direct touch" cooler. When mounting these, don't forget to grab the backplate kit or the Dark Knight kit which includes it if you do not have an AMD processor and apply your thermal paste (included) to the gaps between the heatpipes (not all over) for maximum effectiveness. PACKAGES All prices are estimated as of 5/26/2009 and include rebates. A. CPU/RAM/Motherboard
B. Video Card
C. Storage
D. Case + PSU
E. Optical drives
F. Heatsinks
RECOMMENDED GAMING BUILDS There may be better/cheaper alternatives in the same series for video cards, etc, so please do check around . Most are only included because of their price now, which may change drastically. "FS" denotes free shipping, "PC" denotes Promo Code (often recurring, check the product page), "R" denotes an additional rebate to be deducted off the price listed. BUDGET - [A1, B1, C1, D1, E1] CPU: AMD Athlon X2 7850 & Motherboard: Gigabyte 790X-UD4P ($148 with combo deal) Video: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4770 ($110) RAM: OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 ($45) (FS) PSU: Corsair 400CX ($50) (R -$10) (FS) Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X ($24) (FS) HDD: Western Digital 640GB ($70) (FS) Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 ($50) TOTAL: $497 before $20 in rebates = $477 ==== MIDRANGE (<1080p) - [A2, B1, C1, D1, E1] CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 & Motherboard: Gigabyte 790X-UD4P ($218 with combo deal) (FS) Video: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4770 ($110) RAM: OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 ($45) (FS) PSU: Corsair 400CX ($50) (R -$10) (FS) Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X ($24) (FS) HDD: Western Digital 640GB ($70) (FS) Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 ($50) TOTAL: $567 before $10 in rebates = $557 ==== MIDRANGE (>1080p) - [A2, B3, C1, D2, E1] Note: I wasn't sure whether to put this in or not. If you can afford it, please go with at least the Mid-High End build, as the 4890 is better price/perf. This is here for 1080p on a budget. CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 & Motherboard: Gigabyte 790X-UD4P ($218 with combo deal) (FS) Video: MSI GTX 260 216 (FS) ($175) (R -$20) RAM: OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 ($45) (FS) PSU: PC P&C Silencer 500W ($80) (R -$20) (PC "Maypsu10" -$10) (FS) Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X ($24) (FS) HDD: Western Digital 640GB ($70) (FS) Case: COOLER MASTER 690 ($75) TOTAL: $687 before $40 in rebates and $10 in promo codes = $637 ==== MID-HIGH END - [A2, B4, C1, D1, E1, F1] CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 & Motherboard: Gigabyte 790X-UD4P ($218 with combo deal) (FS) Video: Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 (FS) ($220) (R -$20) (FS) RAM: OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 ($45) (FS) PSU: PC P&C Silencer 500W ($80) (R -$20) (PC "Maypsu10" -$10) (FS) Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X ($24) (FS) HDD: Western Digital 640GB ($70) (FS) Case: COOLER MASTER 690 ($75) HSF: Xigmatek HDT-S1283 ($39) (R -$5) (FS) TOTAL: $771 before $45 in rebates and $10 in promo codes = $716 ==== HIGH END - [A2, B4, C1, D3, E1, F1] Best price/perf for 1080p+ CPU: AMD Phenom II X3 720 & Motherboard: Gigabyte 790X-UD4P ($218 with combo deal) (FS) Video: Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 (FS) ($220) (R -$20) (FS) RAM: OCZ Gold 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 ($45) (FS) PSU: Corsair 520HX ($108) (R -$20) (FS) Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X ($24) (FS) HDD: Western Digital 640GB ($70) (FS) Case: Antec P182 ($145) HSF: Xigmatek HDT-S1283 ($39) (R -$5) (FS) TOTAL: $869 before $45 in rebates = $824 ==== From here, there is not much to improve performance for gaming. Here are some additional options in order of preference: Case: Replace P182 with Coolermaster Cosmos 1010 (D4) HDD: Add a OCZ Vertex 60GB (C3) or Intel X-25M (C4) Optical: Add a LG Black Blu-Ray reader (E2) or writer (E3) PSU: Replace 520HX with 620HX (D4) Adding another 4890 is possible but not recommended. At this point, save your money for another build down the road. ==== RECOMMENDED WORKSTATION BUILDS MIDRANGE VIDEO RENDERING/WORKSTATION - [A3, B1, C2, D3, E1] CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940 & Motherboard: Gigabyte 790X-UD4P ($270 with combo deal) (FS) Video: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4770 ($110) RAM: OCZ Gold 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR2 ($93) (FS) PSU: Corsair 400CX ($50) (R -$10) (FS) Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X ($24) (FS) HDD: 2x Western Digital 640GB ($140) (FS) Case: Antec P182 ($145) TOTAL: $833 before $10 in rebates = $823 ==== HIGH-END VIDEO RENDERING/WORKSTATION - [A4, B1, C2, D3, E1] CPU: Intel Core i7 920 & Motherboard: Gigabyte EX58-UD4R ($455 with combo deal) (FS) Video: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4770 ($110) RAM: Patriot 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3-1066 ($80) (FS) PSU: Corsair 400CX ($50) (R -$10) (FS) Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X ($24) (FS) HDD: 2x Western Digital 640GB ($140) (FS) Case: Antec P182 ($145) TOTAL: $1004 before $10 in rebates = $994 ==== RECOMMENDED HTPC/SPECIALTY BUILDS HTPC - LOW POWER Designed to use as little power and be as quiet and cool as possible. CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4850e ($35) (FS) Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2 ($50) RAM: A-DATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 ($43) (FS) Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X ($24) (FS) HDD: Western Digital 640GB Green ($70) (FS) Case: APEX mATX Slim w/ PSU ($45) TOTAL: $267 ==== HTPC - PERFORMANCE CPU: AMD Athlon X2 7850 & Motherboard: ASUS M3A76-CM 760G ($118 with combo deal) RAM: A-DATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 ($43) (FS) PSU: Corsair 400CX ($50) (R -$10) (FS) Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X ($24) (FS) HDD: Western Digital 640GB ($70) (FS) Case: Rosewill R222-P-BK ATX Midtower ($25) TOTAL: $330 before $10 in rebates = $320 ==== BUDGET OEM ALTERNATIVE Decent looking alternative to a Dell for basic tasks. CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4850e ($35) (FS) Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA74GM-S2 ($50) RAM: G-Skill 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 ($30) PSU: Seasonic SS-300ET ($39) Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X ($24) (FS) HDD: Western Digital 320GB ($55) (FS) Case: Rosewill R222-P-BK ATX Midtower ($25) TOTAL: $258 As always please report any dead links, corrections, etc. If you have questions, please post a thread! Just make sure to read this one first!
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"I loved the P182 so much that, when my wife's system was all noisy and needed all sorts of cleaning, I bought her one. Then, when I wanted a cat, I bought a P182. The P182 is not a cat per se, but it's still an excellent buy."
My System: 日夏子
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#2
27th May 2009, 07:54
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Nice guide again Carbon
 I'm just gutted that my recentish build is already "Outdated (Chipset) and 0/10 (GPU)" Lol, never mind, it was my first build, and I plan to improve it after christmas - I just wanted to know what the hell I was doing before I did a really expensive build, and broke everything  Seriously though, it answered a lot of things I was thinking of PMing you about, just one thing that I don't think is quite right though (I hate to do anything even remotely close to correcting you on hardware..  )But, Quote:
That's only about $100, did you mean to put under $150? Anyway, nice guide, cheers for the read, although I doubt it'll be long before someone posts "What should I buy for my new x || SUPA-ULTRA-B345T-GaMeRzzz QUAD SLI ULLTRRAA || x gaming PC?" And someone has to say, please go read Carbon's thread here *link*
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"Why did they [PS3 Slim] stick with the UFO landing on a rectangle look" --- Nilay Patel; Engadget Ep. 160 My System: FordyPC
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#3
27th May 2009, 08:17
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oh yeah you're right about the $150 thing, well nobody has to know :p
and your chipset is fine, isn't it a P43? i never said IT was obsolete. a GPU upgrade will put you in very good territory now, so don't worry :)
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"I loved the P182 so much that, when my wife's system was all noisy and needed all sorts of cleaning, I bought her one. Then, when I wanted a cat, I bought a P182. The P182 is not a cat per se, but it's still an excellent buy."
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#4
27th May 2009, 08:40
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P35 expresss.. I think anyway, unless I got it wrong in the first place
I'll have a look in a min, and yeah it is the GPU I regret not spending more on most (if that makes sense) EDIT* Yep, you're rigt as ever lol. P43e, not P35e  I'll go change my sig..
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"Why did they [PS3 Slim] stick with the UFO landing on a rectangle look" --- Nilay Patel; Engadget Ep. 160 |
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#5
20th Jul 2009, 00:08
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Somehow the package list broke on this and obviously I can't edit it, could someone fix it for me?
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"I loved the P182 so much that, when my wife's system was all noisy and needed all sorts of cleaning, I bought her one. Then, when I wanted a cat, I bought a P182. The P182 is not a cat per se, but it's still an excellent buy."
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#6
20th Jul 2009, 01:29
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hey carbon after reading ur guide here i realise how what i posted earlier in regards to a computer build is totally wasted.
So i was wondering being the total noob that i am when it comes to hardware, would u mind giving me ur opinion on what type of a set up you would recommend for a dedicated gamer please |
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#7
20th Jul 2009, 01:37
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hey carbon,
after reading ur guide here i see what u mean by the set up i had before being a waste of money, so i was just wondering , being the noob i am at computer hardware and everything. If possible could u please give me a run down or list of what you would recommend for a serious gamer such as my self for a kick ass computer please |
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#8
20th Jul 2009, 01:49
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Either use one of the builds at the bottom of the post or post in your thread with what resolution you are at and what you'll be doing (just gaming?): best to keep discussion in one place.
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"I loved the P182 so much that, when my wife's system was all noisy and needed all sorts of cleaning, I bought her one. Then, when I wanted a cat, I bought a P182. The P182 is not a cat per se, but it's still an excellent buy."
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#9
20th Jul 2009, 02:34
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ok sorry dude first time using these.
so with ur "recommend gaming builds" HIGH END - [A2, B4, C1, D3, E1, F1] is that just using the best / cheapest parts or is it just the cheapest parts that will do the job ? ? |
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#10
20th Jul 2009, 03:19
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It means it's using the parts that will maximize performance before you start paying out the nose for things that have little or no effect. The high end build there is about as high as you can go both in "luxury" (easy to put together) and performance in gaming tasks.
I drew up a horrible chart in mspaint which isn't scientifically very accurate but at least is a decent graphical aid to the whole 'price/perf' thing. 
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"I loved the P182 so much that, when my wife's system was all noisy and needed all sorts of cleaning, I bought her one. Then, when I wanted a cat, I bought a P182. The P182 is not a cat per se, but it's still an excellent buy."
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