|
|
#1
19th Oct 2009, 04:50
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
Recommended Computer Parts Guide 5 - Turbo Button Minus The Button Well, here's the fifth revision of this god-forsaken monolith of a text. I think there's not enough words here so let me add some for those who are new to this series. I write these things because I'm sick and tired of how recommendations for (primarily gaming) PCs across the Internet are grounded in fanboyism and not in evidence. Some do a decent enough job, but those places tend to be very niche. Computer Juice is a very general-interest site and I've found that a lot of people who don't know much about these things really appreciate a break from the fifteen-year-old kids with a couple thousand dollars of their parents' money telling them they should buy a processor about as expensive as a week in a luxury hotel. This guide is designed to get you the best performance for your money for what you want to do and save the rest for having nice dinners or buying gas or something. You will not find brand loyalty here, nor will you find recommendations for things that don't fit your exact needs. In short, if you want to build a great gaming PC and get on with your life confident in the fact you've made excellent buys, keep reading. If you want to brag about how much money you spent on parts that you'll never actually utilize and that are unnecessarily expensive because they aren't marketed to anybody but enthusiasts, stop here and go to [H]ardOCP because you're not likely to like what you read. The last few months: in perspective This section is going to be a very technical analysis of the market. Feel free to skip all the way down to Overview if you're a novice or simply don't care for editorials - this section's purpose is mainly to illustrate the context of this guide and for people to get a quick summary of what's gone on in the last few months. It used to be all about the numbers. 10,000 RPM hard drives were the fastest you could get on a consumer desktop machine. Pentium 4s trending toward 3GHz. The industry used to be about making a product then pushing it as hard as it could go, efficiency be damned. But the biggest improvements in the last few years have been based on creating something modest, something that's a revolutionary technology or architecture that's inherently more efficient than even the most expensive last-generation product. We saw this with Core 2 Duo back during its launch in 2006: the new Conroe architecture had shrugged off the oft-lamented heat and power requirements of its NetBurst predecessor and created something that ran circles around it not with pure clock speed but with work per cycle efficiency. We also saw it with the introduction of RV770, which is probably better known as the chipset that powers ATI's 4800 series of graphics cards. If you are even slightly interested in the behind-the-scenes action when it comes to designing, developing, and marketing these cards, you really owe it to yourself to read Anandtech's The RV770 Story: Documenting ATI's Road to Success article, which explains how efficiency both in the chipset's design and in yields made it the superior choice over nVidia's offerings, initially in the midrange but later in every market segment. Now we are seeing a real revolution on the desktop. Lynnfield, P55, solid-state drives, small(er)-die graphics cards, and clock speed scaling are the technologies to watch. As we all know, Intel's previous Nehalem offerings (the i7 920, 940, and 965) were a large flop for the DIY market as far as both price and even performance go. They offered no appreciable gains for home users over Wolfdales at the same clock speeds, and were soundly beaten in price by cheap AMD Phenom X3/X4 and 770/790 motherboards. At launch, the i7 920 and an X58 motherboard together typically cost over $500. The X58 tax meant that while the i7 920 was only about $40 less than the Phenom X4 940, the motherboard price difference meant that an i7 for non-workstation usage was an exceptionally poor proposition. This was further exemplified in the X3 720, which meant that users could have high clock speeds and the versatility of three cores for around $120. A processor that could tie the E8400 for $40 cheaper and have extra horsepower for occasional multithreaded tasks? Sign us up, we said. Well, Intel's learned from all this, and guess what? We now have a $195 quad-core processor that is designed to clock itself up to 3.2GHz when running in single core mode and 3.06GHz in dual-core mode. This may not seem like much compared to the 3GHz E8400, but remember that Nehalem does have a modest increase in work per clock cycle, and the difference is even more extreme when it is compared to the X3 720. The benchmarks prove it, too - at stock Lynnfield is untouched by Wolfdale. And when overclocking is taken into account..well, can you say nearly 4GHz quad-core operation on a processor that costs a little under $30 more than the E8400? The "quad vs. dual" debate is over. I also want to say a few things about SSDs. I know a long time ago we thought of these things as gimmicks. They're not gimmicks anymore. The hard disk drive is a technology that predates anything else you put in your PC by decades. The giant spinning magnetic platter is stone-age technology compared to 45nm quad-core processors and teraflop graphics cards. A good SSD can improve your desktop performance by miles, and I urge people very strongly to consider at least picking up at least 60GB solid-state drive with a good controller for their OS and core programs. If you're worried about capacities of around ~60-80GB being enough, I have a 80GB HDD that stores my OS and most of my games and has about 35GB to spare right now - don't fret about capacity. Back it up with a 640GB or 1TB Green, Blue, or Black for less-accessed programs and media and you won’t regret it. Overview Some things to keep in mind for this guide. As with the last one, 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 really like that case. It's simply assumed that if you have enough for one that you have enough for the other. 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 /"beige-box" OEM Alternative) clearly marked. CPU It looks like the long spiel about buying a quad is finally over, for reasons previously discussed. Before I start though, disclaimer about CPU recommendations in a gaming guide. Remember that the CPU is not a "bottleneck" in most situations: it largely just does physics and AI. The former is going to be usurped by the GPU eventually as well. So a low-end CPU system with a good midrange graphics card is going to beat out a high-end system with a $50 graphics card. So spend most of your money on the GPU, not the CPU! If you plan on spending a little more later, it’s perfectly fine to buy a i5 system now and then a nice graphics card later, but it’s best to just do it all in one go. Okay, where were we? For budget systems, the “Kuma” series (you may know it better as the 7750+ and 7850+) was the best pick a little while ago. This chip was based on the original Phenom processor and therefore ran a little hot. AMD recently introduced the Athlon and Phenom X2 series processors based off the new Phenom II series. In fact, their full names are “Athlon II X2” and “Phenom II X2”, and their engineering names are “Regor” and “Callisto” but we’ll just call them by their model numbers: the 2xx series and the 5xx series. The 2xx series like the Athlon II X2 240 are probably the best value in budget processors in quite some time. They are clocked fast (2.8 GHz and above), offer a decent amount of cache, and the 240 hovers around $60. That means one can find a gaming-quality CPU/motherboard/RAM combo for under $200, something that the builds at the end of this guide will take advantage of. I don’t recommend the higher end 2xx series processors like the 245 and 250 because all you get is a slight clock speed improvement that could be made up for in a few minutes in the BIOS. The 5xx series are in a bit of an odd position. They are in between the X2 240, an excellent budget chip, and the X3 720, the former midrange king. They offer very little above the X2 2xx series besides a little more cache, and this means that the 5xx series CPUs only give about a 10% increase in overall performance for up to $40 more. They are clocked high but the X2 240 can also be clocked high. The 550 has an unlocked multiplier but the X3 720 can overclock nearly as well. So I don’t recommend these processors unless the 2xx series magically disappears overnight or they get a big cut in price. The X3 720 is the former midrange champion and it’s still a hell of a CPU for $120. It’s not the best price/performance processor right now but it comes pretty close and if you can’t afford i5 it’s definitely the way to go. The extra core on the X3 720 and capability for overclocking (2.8 GHz stock can be extended to 3.4-3.6GHz) means that it handles both gaming and single-threaded applications as well as the occasional multi-threaded app exceptionally well. The X4 620 is the last AMD processor to talk about. If you’re doing a workstation and really need a cheap CPU, this is it. While it’s not nearly as good for a gaming PC or general purpose setup as the X3 720, it merits inclusion here because if you can’t afford an i5 and you work with heavily threaded applications, it is your best bet at $100. And of course we have the i5s. If you’re a gamer and just want the best performance for a reasonable price, get the i5 750, you won’t regret it. If you do a lot of threaded work (rendering, video encoding, CAD, etc), buy the i7 860 for its hyper threading capability. Both CPUs overclock well with an aftermarket cooler, both clock very high with their Turbo mode, they’re both quads, they’re both under $300. The X4 965 also does rather well against the i5 750 but it is around $50 more expensive and the i5 has other advantages such as lower power consumption. So to recap, our winners here are the X2 240 for best budget chip, the X3 720 for best midrange chip, the X4 620 for best budget workstation chip, the i5 750 for best gaming value overall, and the i7 860 for not-so-budget workstation-type tasks. RAM This one’s a little difficult. When we last checked in, DDR2-800 was ridiculously cheap. It was the standard for most systems, it was more than fast enough, and 4GB of it often came to around $30 with rebates. DDR3, by contrast, was ridiculously expensive, often being over $100 even for a 4GB set. Here’s what hasn’t changed: DDR3 still gives you pretty much zero performance differences. Therefore, don’t buy DDR3 because you think you’ll get better performance. RAM is boring that way – you can get more of it to speed up caching in Windows Vista and 7 and increase multitasking ability, you can tighten its timings (the latency of the sticks, or in simpler terms how long it takes to read data out of memory) to very slightly increase performance in some applications, but overall memory bandwidth (the MHz number) doesn’t matter at all. The other side of the coin, as usual, is price. And this is where DDR3 is making a bit of a comeback. 4GB of DDR3-1333 can be found around $70-$80, whereas 4GB of DDR2-800 can be found around $60 now at best. This means that while it’s not a great idea to dump some DDR3 in most budget builds, it’s okay to do so in, say, an X3 720 build. The caveat, though, is that instead of spending $20-$30 more on RAM for really no gains, you could spend that money on another component. So it’s a bit of a missed boat, really. I would still recommend anybody not buying an i5 buy 4GB DDR2-800, but it’s not a horrific choice to go pick up 4GB of DDR3-1333 and a DDR3 MA770T instead of a MA770. Okay, i5 users, here’s your turn. To be quite honest, I have a hard time with i5 in this subject because I’m not sure how memory bandwidth matters when overclocking on Nehalem (someone reading this could always send me a Newegg gift certificate and I could find out though…) So I’m just going to say the following: buy 4GB of DDR3-1333, or DDR3-1600 if you can get it for the same price (such as with a combo deal). As of now, DDR3-1600 ranges from a dollar to at most $15 more than DDR3-1333, so the choice is kind of obvious. Also, make sure the voltage for any sticks you pick out is at or below 1.65V: most of the i5/i7 compatible RAM is rated for 1.5V, and the >1.65V RAM is for older Core 2 systems and could damage your processor. Seriously. Do you want your $300 processor to die because you picked the wrong $80 RAM? 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 millennium. 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 640GB WD Black/Blue and the 1TB WD Black. The 1TB is about the same performance wise but a little cheaper per GB. Other decent options include the 500GB 7200.12 Seagate Barracuda and the Spinpoint F3 1TB. The F3 is probably the fastest traditional 7200RPM HDD you can get, and it’s only about $80 for 1TB of storage. However, it hasn’t been out long. If you want to give it a shot instead of equivalent WD drives, go for it. Alright, now let’s move on to the hot topic of SSDs. Generally, I put SSDs right below modular cabling in the “luxuries” hierarchy. They are an excellent improvement in day to day desktop usage as well as applications. They make a huge difference in snappiness: most of the time when you get slowdowns on startup, it’s not your CPU holding you back, it’s the hard drive. In short, if you can afford a SSD without shortchanging anything else, go for it. Some earlier SSDs used a very poor controller made by JMicron. These SSDs are total trash and not worth the money – while recent JMicron controllers are okay, I’d rather save up the extra $30-$50 for an Agility. Not every SSD lists what controller it uses, so here’s a (not guaranteed to be complete, check Google if it’s not here) list of good and bad drive series. For more info, check out the SSD Decoder Ring at PC Perspective. BAD: These SSDs use the JMicron or variant controllers and are not recommended. They can be slower than traditional HDDs in some cases. Corsair M seriesOKAY: These SSDs use the Samsung controllers, and while some can outmatch lower capacity or slower-flash Indilinx, for the price they are generally not recommended Corsair P seriesGOOD: These SSDs use the Indilinx Barefoot controller, and are usually the best price/performance for most. G. Skill FalconEXCELLENT: While these SSDs use the generation 1 Intel controller, they are not much cheaper than the generation 2 Intel controller SSDs. The Extreme is the only one in the pack which beats the generation 2 SSDs, and it is cost-prohibitive. All Intel SSDs with “G1” in the name (e.g. SSDSA2SH032G1)BEST: These SSDs use the Intel controller (generation 2) and are the fastest SSDs on the market. All Intel SSDs with “G2” in the name (e.g. SSDSA2MH080G2C1) (recommended)You should not use RAID in any home environment. If you want to back up drives, back them up onto separate drives or DVDs and throw them in the closet, or subscribe to a backup web service. RAID 1-5 are horrible “backup” solutions and RAID 0 is even worse in that it provides imperceptible speed gains and doubles the risk of hard drive failure. If any piece of data is important enough that losing it would be a Bad Thing, you don’t mirror it so that when you accidentally delete it your controller says “haha okay guess you didn’t want that data!” and wipes it on all the other drives too. You back it up. RAID 0 is okay for SSDs, though, as they do not fail in the way HDDs do. Motherboard For AMD processors, the 770, 785G, and 790X are all good chipsets. The Gigabyte MA770-UD3 is the best choice for an AMD system right now. Look at the 740G and 760G chipsets for cheap HTPC builds, but the 785G chipset is also great if you don’t mind spending a little more, especially because its more widespread adoption means it’s easier to choose a board based on reviews. There are also quite a few mATX 785G boards like the GIGABYTE GA-MA785G-UD3H, currently $90, that make excellent picks for micro-ATX gaming systems. Gigabyte’s boards have been historically excellent, I have yet to find a 700-series chipset Gigabyte board that had widespread issues. For the i5s, Gigabyte still has the best boards. The P55M-UD2 ($100) is a neat little mATX board – since P55 is largely just a massive southbridge and all real northbridge stuff like the PCI-E lanes are all on the CPU, micro-ATX is a decent form factor for regular systems now. However, one PCI-E lane may be blocked and cable management may be a little wonky, so you may want to look at the GA-P55-UD3L ($130). MSI also has some decent boards but their BIOSes don’t tend to be that great right now. Use common sense, read reviews. Don’t pay for features you don’t need – more PCI-E x16 slots you won’t use, etc. Also, the P55M-UD2 has some issues with memory compatibility, make sure whatever you choose as far as RAM is on the list on Gigabyte’s website. The recommended RAM in the builds below should work fine. A 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 best bet is the 512MB Radeon HD4850 – the 4770 is also just as good, but likely out of stock. If you can get one for the same price, go for it, but otherwise don’t bother. The prices of the 512MB 4870s are also okay, but keep in mind most games will run maxed out under a 4850 just fine. If rebates keep them close to the 4850s, go ahead and grab one, otherwise again don’t worry about it and try a 4850. The 5750 is a similar-performing alternative with lower power, and certainly a good buy if you can get it as cheap as the 4850. At 1920x1080 or 1920x1200, things get a little hairier. At the $150 price point, the 1GB Radeon 4870 and 896MB 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 to make sure it’s not the 192SP version!) are the contenders here, and you should essentially buy whatever's cheaper. Right now that's the 4870. The highest price/performance for this res is the 1GB Radeon 4890. It competes against the GTX 275, but is a better buy for a variety of reasons, and is also often cheaper with rebates. Gains over the 1GB 4870 are about 30%, so the 4870 is an okay pick too, but the 4890 is often as little as $20-$30 more with rebates than the 4870 and gives decent, although not stellar, returns. Then we have the new 1GB Radeon 5850 and 5870. Both of these cards essentially annihilate nVidia’s remaining lineup. The GTX 285 is done in by the 5850, and the 5870 is a little slower than the GTX 295 but single cards always scale better than SLI-on-a-card. The 5850 is about 88% of the performance of the $100 more 5870, though, and if you're comparing these two cards, get it. I would only recommend this tier to someone who is either gaming at an obscene resolution like 2560x1600/2048x1152, or someone who plays very graphics intensive titles at maximum AA settings. Essentially, this is pretty enthusiast, and a 4890 will probably do you fine for $75 less, although you do get what you pay for with the 5850 as well as DX11 features. Look for smaller versions of the 5850 to eventually phase out the 4000 series later this month or next and maybe change the landscape a little. 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 license other companies to design their cards and those vendors will frequently compete with each other. However, if you see a factory overclocked card or one with a better cooler for the same price or a little more, go for it! All 4850s and some other cards like the 4870 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. 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 are 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/ X1950/8600GT/4550/4570: 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. Integrated video, like the ATI Radeon HD 4200 on 785G chipsets, or the Intel X4500HD, are usually better picks for HTPC. (all 0/10) 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) MID-HIGHEND: GTX 260/5770/4870/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. Both of the next cards are great, but the 4870 is pretty much always cheaper right now. The 5770 is just okay and doesn’t perform well enough to merit its price – go with a 4870. NOTE: If considering the GTX 260 make sure the one you look at has 216 shader processors! (3/10, 5/10, 8/10, 7/10 respectively)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 1GB 4870. Power Supply I love this section, because it allows me to discuss one of the weirdest 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 criticize 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. Usually if a PSU goes bad it won’t damage anything but itself, but overall it's not a risk you want to take. A great build can be ruined by a generic PSU. Modular cabling is great. 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. Seasonic has some great cheap modular power supplies like the Seasonic M12II, though. 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 4870. 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 various voltages. There are three voltages that a PSU outputs: +3.3V, +5V, and +12V. Back in the day, every component in a system 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, but it's why you see ATI and co saying "hey, you need a 500W+ PSU to run a 4870!" 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. All of this aside, you should probably just make it easy for yourself and 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. One special exception is the CP-850, an Antec unit. Frankly speaking this thing is built like a tankand eats every other PSU on the market for lunch. It’s modular, rated for 768W of peak 12V (probably way under what it can really push), and $120. You read that right - for ten dollars more than the 520HX, you can get an 850W modular PSU with vastly higher quality internals, and Corsair’s stuff is already excellent. What’s the catch? This PSU only works with a select few Antec cases: the 1200 (terrible), and the P183 and P193. These two latter cases are good choices anyway, though. There is usually (not right now, but usually) a combo deal with these three cases to knock even more money off the total on Newegg, and so if you are remotely interested in the P183 (and you should be), you should buy this power supply. In summary, some good units are the PC P&C 370W Silencer, Corsair 400CX, PC P&C 420W Silencer, Seasonic M12II SS-430GM, Corsair 450VX, Corsair 520HX, PC P&C 610W Silencer, Corsair 650TX, Corsair 750HX, Corsair 850HX, Antec CP-850 and Corsair 1000HX in order of price. Generally the best picks are the 400CX for budget builds, the SS-430GM for midrange, and CP-850 for P183 builds, not because there’s a massive variation in how they perform but because those are usually the cheapest in their ranges. The 520HX is recommended over the higher-wattage standard cabling PSUs like the 610W Silencer or 650TX because modular is going to be more useful than amps you're never going to use, but the Seasonic has a great efficiency curve and is more efficient than the 520HX at the loads a 4870 or 4890 push. Buy something higher if you really need it (chances are you don’t). The 750HX is a good higher-end choice as it is 80PLUS Silver certified. Corsair also has a 450HX in Europe, essentially a cheaper modular than anything they have elsewhere, which is great. The Seasonic 430W unit is pretty much the same thing, though, for the Americans. Keep in mind that the only thing you should be considering on a power supply is its internals. The PSU is the most “bare-metal” component in your system: what it is built with is all you should concern yourself with because everything else (wattage, amperage, reliability, efficiency, ripple, etc) is dependent on those guts. So while brand loyalty is stupid in general because most brands change parts, designs, and quality like clockwork, PSU brands are a key clue to knowing what’s in the unit. Some other units are just as good but overpriced (Earthwatts), but most are mediocre (OCZ, Thermaltake), and some are just bad (Cooler Master, Rosewill). If you stick with the aforementioned good brands, you'll be OK. P.S.: If it has LEDs, run. LEDs are like a (literal?) flashing warning light that says “this component has a gimmick to compensate for the fact that it is junk”. This applies to nearly everything, but it applies to power supplies the most. 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 24”. 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 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" 16:9 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 as little as $50 more than regular 1680x1050 22" monitors. I don't recommend buying the smaller resolution anymore because of this. These are the sweet spot for monitors - you get a higher resolution 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 at 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 standards, get the highest you can afford. The GPU and monitor are the best bang for your buck for gaming. Last note: if you’re buying a monitor, you don’t want to buy it off Newegg. Their return policy is dismal, and requires 8 dead pixels before you can send it back for exchange. Buy off Dell.com – they often have great sales and also sell excellent Samsung monitors for cheap. 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 cards. If you need one consider the Xonar and HT Omega Striker. 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. Most EAX effects are emulated okay by the other cards as well. Scale how much you spend on a sound card to how much you paid for your sound equipment: if you have $100 headphones, you may want to buy a Xonar, but don’t bother otherwise. 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: Cooler Master 690 is a good midrange case, probably the best. The Antec P183 is the best case out there as far as price/features and also works with the excellent CP-850 PSU, of course. I’ve also heard good things about the Cooler Master Storm Scout, but I’d much rather have a P183. Expensive ones: Cooler Master Cosmos 1000/1010 is good, as are Lian-Li cases. The best selection here, though, is Corsair’s amazing Corsair Obsidian 800D. This case has about everything you would ever want as far as features and is probably the best case on the market right now. Micro-ATX ones: The P180 Mini is big for mATX but an excellent case if you can afford it. Stay away from any numbered (300, 900, 1200) Antec cases. Speakers/Headphones 2.1? Z-2300 (I have them, they're okay). Room for 5.1? Z-5500. Sadly, good speakers are expensive, and these speakers have very mediocre quality for anything other than gaming. Headphones depend on how much you want to spend. "Gaming headphones" tend to be pretty terrible, if you have $85-$100 to spend grab Sennheiser HD-555s 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 typically gimmicks for idiots; they have poor sound reproduction, typically lack anything to do with 5.1, and are in general an easy way to make people spend $80 on crappy headphones. Heatsinks/Fans For AMD systems: Xigmatek HDT-S1283. It’s less than $50 and 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 apply your thermal paste (included) to the gaps between the heatpipes (not all over) for maximum effectiveness. For Intel 1156 systems: it’s pretty early, so the only real native choice right now is the Cooler Master Hyper 212, labeled often as the RR-B10-212P-GP. It’s a pretty boring HDT cooler, but it works and works a lot better than the pretty bad stock heatsink.
__________________
__________________
"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
|
|
#2
19th Oct 2009, 05:10
|
|||
|
|||
|
PACKAGES All prices are estimated as of 10/19/2009 and do NOT include rebates or combo deals. A. CPU/RAM/Motherboard A1: X2 240 + 4GB DDR2-800 + GA-MA770-UD3: Budget gaming ($192) B. Video Card B1: HD4850/4770/5850: Budget and midrange gaming ($95)C. Storage C1: Western Digital 640GB/SpinPoint F3 500GB: Cheap starting point for budget builds. Any build with the former can be substituted for the latter, though I’d probably rather get the 1TB in that case. (~$0.11/GB) ($75/$50)+ C3: OCZ Agility 60GB: Agility drives are all sold out, except for the 30GB, which isn’t very comfortable for a Vista or 7 install + programs. I expect this to change soon and you can always buy somewhere else, so I’m going to recommend the Agility 60GB anyway – it’s very cheap, and has a $30 rebate right now. ($3.31/GB) ($215) C4: Intel X25-M 80GB (SSDSA2MH080G2C1): You could spend $600 on a 160GB one of these drives if you wanted, but the second-gen X25-M are surprisingly affordable. Pretty much the fastest SSDs on the market, the 34nm Intel controller massacres the Indilinx. ($3.61/GB) ($289)D. Case + PSU D1: Cooler Master Centurion 5 + 400CX: Budget and midrange builds ($100)E. Optical drives E1: Sony Optiarc Black 24X SATA: All-around if you don't need Blu-Ray, just DVD/CD burning and reading. ($30)F. Heatsinks F1: Xigmatek HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle: A good but optional upgrade for all systems, especially those that are going to be heavily overclocked. Definitely a "luxury" part: don't buy if this cuts into budget for core components. Only buy if you have an AMD processor, otherwise look below. ($34) RECOMMENDED BUILDS Here’s how this works. You can just pick one of these that fit your budget and go if you want, but there’s a few builds here that are the standouts. For 1440x900/1680x1050, the Midrange 1440x900/1680x1050 build is probably the best, and for 1920x1080+, the Mid-High End 1920x1080+ build is probably your best bet. If you have unlimited cash to spend, there’s a ridiculously expensive but also surprisingly excellent price/performance Overkill build at the end. 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. Add optional stuff like Blu-Ray players if you have need for them. "FS" denotes free shipping, "PC" denotes Promo Code (often recurring, check the product page), “C” denotes combo deal, and “R" denotes an additional rebate to be deducted off the price listed. ================== = LOW-RES GAMING = ================== Here’s where you start for the above resolutions. The RAM is chosen because it’s cheaper with rebate than the other Corsair sticks or any other 4GB DDR2 RAM. I would not buy it at its original price. The Blue 640GB is $5 cheaper than the Black – I think the extra 2 years of warranty is worth it. You may not. Motherboard: GIGABYTE MA770-UD3 CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 240 GPU: ASUS EAH4770 FORMULA/DI/512MD5 Radeon HD 4770 RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2-800 PSU: Corsair 400CX Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X HDD: Western Digital Black 640GB Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 TOTAL: $532 before $55 in rebates = $477 ==== Midrange 1440×900/1680×1050 Not too much here but the addition of the X3 720, a small change that may help those doing occasional multithreaded tasks and a slightly nicer case. The X3’s 4th core can also occasionally be unlocked and may be stable. If the 400CX does not have any deals going on, it may be worth it to move up to a higher wattage power supply, like the M12II 430W or 550VX, for the purposes of efficiency. You can also throw in a 512MB 4870 for a little bit more oomph, but the 4770 should be more than enough at these resolutions. Feel free to drop the heatsink if you don’t plan on overclocking. This is the recommended build for most people at these resolutions. Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 CPU: AMD Athlon II X3 720 2.8GHz HSF: XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler GPU: ASUS EAH4770 FORMULA/DI/512MD5 Radeon HD 4770 RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2-800 PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W Optical: Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB Case: COOLER MASTER RC-690 TOTAL: $647 before $75 in rebates = $572 Click here to view this build as a wishlist or add to NewEgg cart==== High-end 1440×900/1680×1050 While it’s always good to move up to a higher-resolution monitor, if you have to stick with what you have, this is the build for you. While the extra VRAM (1GB vs. 512MB) won’t make too much difference at these resolutions, it’s pretty cheap. I would, though, highly suggest getting a better monitor – and since this system is pretty top of the line elsewhere and it includes a 4870 1GB, you’ll be good when (not if!!!) you order one. The PSU is overkill, but hey, it’s a CP-850, and a 520HX or other nice high-end PSU is about $20 less. Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2 CPU: Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz HSF: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus GPU: XFX HD-487A-ZWFC Radeon HD 4870 1GB RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 PSU: Antec CP-850 850W Optical: Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB Case: Antec P183 TOTAL: $958 before $25 in rebates = $933 ================== = HIGH-RES GAMING = ================== Budget 1920x1080+ Not too much to say here – the budget system above with a 4870 for higher resolutions. A 4850 in this situation is not optimal, but the 4870 1GB is a decent entry point. It’s also not optimal to use the 400CX in this situation – it can be done, but efficiency is lower and you have to use molex connectors to hook up both inputs. So we’ll be using the excellent Seasonic M12II 430W – it’s cheap, it’s modular, and it’s efficient. “1080p tax” here is pretty low – less than $100 to run at this resolution vs. the Budget 1440x900/1680x1050 system. Standard F3 caveat – if it’s in stock, 1TB drive for $5 more is appealing. Motherboard: GIGABYTE MA770-UD3 CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 240 RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2-800 GPU: XFX HD-487A-ZWFC Radeon HD 4870 1GB PSU: Seasonic M12II SS-430GM 430W Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X HDD: Western Digital Black 640GB Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 TOTAL: $586 before $35 in rebates = $551 ==== Midrange 1920x1080+ Similar selections to the other midrange build, but this time a 4890 is added with the appropriate PSU. This isn’t as good price/performance as the Mid-High End 1920x1080 build below, but it’s certainly adequate on a lower budget. Feel free to go DDR3 too with a MA770T-UD3. Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA770-UD3 CPU: AMD Athlon II X3 720 2.8GHz HSF: XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2-800 GPU: SAPPHIRE 100269HDMI Radeon HD 4890 1GB PSU: Seasonic M12II SS-430GM 430W Optical: Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB Case: COOLER MASTER RC-690 TOTAL: $747 before $65 in rebates = $682 ==== Mid-high end 1920x1080+ This is what I’d say is the most recommended system for people at this resolution and probably the most recommended system. The i5 is great in general, the 4890 complements it well, and you pay just the right amount for what you get. The case and PSU are a little pricey and you could change them but they are both excellent buys – another modular PSU would likely save you only around $30, and the CP-850 exceeds anything else in quality and has nearly double the amps. As with the high-end lower res build, you can tailor around the P55M and use a P180 Mini, or alternatively use a full size ATX P55-UD3L, but this configuration is the better one in my opinion. Add a SSD if you want like the Agility 60GB. Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2 CPU: Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz HSF: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RAM: G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 GPU: SAPPHIRE 100269HDMI Radeon HD 4890 1GB PSU: Antec CP-850 850W Optical: Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB Case: Antec P183 TOTAL: $1003 before $45 in rebates = $958 Click here to view this build as a wishlist or add to NewEgg cart ==== High end 1920x1080+ Now we start getting into the realm of diminishing returns, but not too much farther. 8GB of RAM does increase application caching time, and a SSD obviously speeds up loads too. The 5850 is overkill for most people at this resolution, but if you have to have Eyefinity or lots of AA, you definitely get a performance increase that’s linear with what you pay. We’re going with something other than the P55M-UD2 here for one reason – cable management. The mIcroATX P55M is excellent, but with a lot of hard drives, SATA cables could get messy quickly. The board selected here is pricey, but after rebate it’s worth it, because not only does it have better memory compatibility, Gigabyte boards seem to also have issues with 4 DIMMs, and obviously we’ll be using 4x2GB here. It’s also got some neat features and MOSFET heatsinks unlike the Gigabyte boards. Obviously you can go with a faster SSD than the Agility 60GB here – one of the Intel ones would work fine. It’s just that the Agility is very nice price/performance. Motherboard: EVGA P55 SLI 132-LF-E655-KR CPU: Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz HSF: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RAM: 2x G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 GPU: SAPPHIRE 100282SR Radeon HD 5850 1GB PSU: Antec CP-850 850W HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB Optical: Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW Case: Antec P183 TOTAL: $1558 before $55 in rebates = $1503 ==== Overkill I would recommend this to people that just want the best. It is the highest-end you can go without hitting the Lot of Money for Near Zero Performance Increase barrier. It is what I’d build if I had an unlimited budget. The i7 860 is there because I myself do some threaded work. The motherboard is there because it’s a great motherboard for relatively cheap. The GPU is still a 5850 because the 5870 is $100 more for 10% performance. The case is there because the case is amazing. The PSU is there because it is 80PLUS Silver rated and modular. I am buying 2TB of storage here, but if it were up to me, I’d throw all mechanical storage in a file server and roll with a 160GB SSD. I don’t bother with Blu-Ray so I didn’t put one of them in here. Motherboard: EVGA P55 SLI 132-LF-E655-KR CPU: Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz HSF: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RAM: 2x G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 GPU: SAPPHIRE 100282SR Radeon HD 5850 1GB PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-750HX SSD: Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2MH080G2C1 80GB HDD: 2x Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB Optical: Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW Case: Corsair Obsidian Series 800D CC800DW TOTAL: $1,847 before $50 in rebates = $1797 ================= = WORKSTATIONS = ================= Budget video rendering/workstation Not useful/intended for gaming, very useful for rendering and other workstation uses. Depending on what this is for, you may or may not want higher-end video, but for most this should be enough. Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 620 RAM: CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2-800 PSU: Corsair 400CX Optical: Sony Optiarc 24X HDD: Western Digital Black 640GB Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5 TOTAL: $465 before $45 in rebates = $410 ==== High-end video rendering/workstation Not useful for gaming, very useful for rendering and other workstation uses. Depending on what this is for, you may or may not want higher-end video, but for most this should be enough. This is more of a home professional sort of build than a hobbyist – it’s very difficult to get use out of all of these parts unless you’re doing this 24/7. Sub in a Corsair Obsidian if you can afford it, since drive stuff is even easier on it. Motherboard: EVGA P55 SLI 132-LF-E655-KR CPU: Intel Core i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz RAM: 2x G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 GPU: ASUS EAH4770 FORMULA/DI/512MD5 Radeon HD 4770 PSU: Seasonic M12II SS-430GM 430W Optical: Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW HDD: 2x Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB Case: COOLER MASTER Cosmos 1000 TOTAL: $1,264 before $30 in rebates = $1,234 ========== = UTILITY = ========== HTPC If your goal is getting the maximum home theater PC performance for your money, this is your build. Integrated Radeon 4200 graphics are enough to push high-def content without a discrete graphics card. The Regor CPU is amazingly powerful for its price (presently $60). This system has 1TB of storage and Blu-Ray reading capability for under $400 with rebates. Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-MA785GM-US2H CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz RAM: WINTEC AMPX 2GB DDR2 PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green WD10EADS 1TB Optical: LITE-ON Black 4X Blu-ray Reader SATA Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 541 TOTAL: $410 before $40 in rebates = $370 ==== OEM Alternative Sometimes it’s cheaper to build a “beigebox” web-surfing, IM, e-mail, and other low-performance task system yourself, especially if you have a Windows license lying around. The 500GB Green was selected because of its low RPM to improve heat and power consumption – you can also pick up a lower capacity, faster 320GB Blue for $5 less. Sometimes you can snag a midrange Dell with a low-end quad for around $399, but the dual-core Regor is usually faster, you’ll get a better case, more reliable PSU, and lifetime warranties on pretty much everything, not to mention higher efficiency (meaning a lower power bill), upgradeability (just throw a video card in there and you have a gaming system!) and less heat. And, hell, look at the price. Under $300 with rebates. That is crazy. Motherboard: ECS GeForce 6100PM-M2 (V3.0) CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 240 Regor 2.8GHz RAM: WINTEC AMPX 2GB DDR2 PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-400CX 400W HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000AADS 500GB Optical: Sony Optiarc Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW Case: COOLER MASTER Centurion 541 TOTAL: $321 before $34 in rebates = $287 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! Thanks to PC Perspective for the SSD guide, Anandtech for being awesome, and ClipboardFusion for scrubbing away all the annoying LARGE BOLD TEXT that is preserved when copypasting out of Newegg titles. If you liked this, feel free to check out my hardware blog at tech.tetravalency.org where I’ll be making updates that don’t call for a whole new thread.
__________________
"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."
|
|
#3
19th Oct 2009, 06:50
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
Epic. Thanks.
__________________
My System: Hybr!d
|
|
#4
21st Oct 2009, 10:45
|
|||
|
|||
|
"Frankly speaking this thing is built like a tankand eats every other PSU"
Just a little typo in the PSU section, 8th paragraph, first line. Other than that, awesome guide =) |
|
#5
31st Oct 2009, 16:34
|
|||
|
|||
|
Another issue of an excellent guide, well done :)
One thing I'm missing, though: what about USB headsets? Any pros and cons? I have had some really bad experience with the standard audio jack headsets, for example, some headsets tend to turn into mono sound through one earphone, and get back to stereo only when readjusted (have to spin it in the jack...) - obviously very irritating and downright unusable. Also, are you sure that AD700s are Audiodynamics? Google suggests only Audio Technica. |
|
#6
31st Oct 2009, 17:52
|
|||
|
|||
|
Sorry, they're Audio Technica, I get mixed up on those two quite a bit.
I'd be more suspicious of your jack being corroded or damaged than the actual headset, but certainly USB headsets work fine as long as you're okay with possibly installing drivers. Myself, I'd rather use one of those Logitech USB standalone microphones with a nice set of headphones. :)
__________________
"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."
|
|
#7
1st Nov 2009, 03:36
|
|||
|
|||
|
At first I thought it was PC's fault as well, but it turns out that it wasn't - after replacing that headset with a new one, all problems were gone, while the earlier one didn't work on both the front and the back jacks...
By the way, what's your opinion on Razer gear overall? I hear they get excellent or near-excellent reviews on almost everything they make, including headsets, while their prices are medium to high. |
|
#8
1st Nov 2009, 04:46
|
|||
|
|||
|
To be brutally honest about Razer, you find reviews that are excellent because they market to enthusiasts. They're just like OCZ in that respect. And to be blunt, enthusiasts tend to be idiots. This isn't to say their products are bad, nor that OCZ or any other enthusiast-marketing company are either, just that they're passable enough with enough gimmicks to garner praise.
Their mice, I've found, aren't nearly as comfortable or ergonomic as Logitech's offerings (although I think this is probably the most controversial and some people's hands just fit better to their mice, in which case go for it). I'm sure their keyboards are fine, it's hard to get opinionated about keyboards. Their headsets and the rest of their audio equipment are considerably worse. No headset marketed as a gaming product you are going to buy is going to have significantly better sound quality than a $20 pair of Logitechs. And keep in mind NewEgg can drop the price of those high-end $80 Razer headphones to that same twenty bucks - they do it about every month. Razer's headphones are marketed as "gaming headphones" because they don't have much going for them other than ridiculously lopsided bass. In short, if you're going to pay a lot of money for a "gaming headset", pay a tiny bit more for real high quality audio headphones, because not only will games sound just as good, they'll be useful for more than just that. I know that sounds elitist as hell but it's the truth. I don't like "audiophiles" and I don't like people recommending ridiculous $400 headphones, but for the price range of these "gaming headsets" you can get a universally-reviewed as excellent set of headphones. I don't know why nobody has entered the headset market with a nice pair of headphones and a boom mic on the side but so far it just hasn't been done to my knowledge. So I'm not going to say "don't buy Razer headsets" because it's not as if the thing is going to fall apart on you or the sound is going to be like you're gaming underwater or anything crazy. I just say from a price/performance perspective, you're not getting what you could be getting, and I know if I was out shopping for something I certainly wouldn't choose them. And as an aside, I've had my AD700s for a pretty long time. The AD700s have a very long cord. I also have my computer on the right side of my desk, on the desk, and when I get up from the computer, I do so on the right side. This, as you might expect, typically leads to disaster - while I made a pledge to myself to try to keep these things in good condition, I can't control gravity, and so they've hit my hardwood floor a lot. They're still just as good as when I got them. So quality-wise, I don't think you're going to have an issue if you decide to get regular 3.5mm jack headphones. But if you really want a USB pair, I'd look at some cheaper ones.
__________________
"I loved the P182 so much that, when my wife's system was all noisy and needed all sorts of cleaning, I bought her one. Then, when I wanted a cat, I bought a P182. The P182 is not a cat per se, but it's still an excellent buy."
|
|
#9
1st Nov 2009, 07:57
|
|||
|
|||
|
Hmm, very interesting. I've browsed through some of the headset options I have, and it seems that my price range is probably around 85$. The closest matches are Sennheiser 131, Razer Piranha and maybe Logitech G330. The thing is, since I'm in north-eastern Europe, the shop selection is pretty low, so I can't use special offers from sites like NewEgg or Amazon... What do you think would work the best, considering that I have a Creative XtremeGamer card?
|
|
#10
1st Nov 2009, 08:01
|
|||
|
|||
|
Razer gear, as a whole hasn't been bad at all to me. Probably because I only bought a mousemat. They are overpriced, comfortable to a selection of people and are generally not as good as Logitech products. The look nice and have nice names and some extra features but hardly worth the premium..
I have some unlabelled Logitech headset and while they hurt your ears after 6 or so hours of constant use, they are brilliant. They went through a phase where the volume control went off on one but that seems to have gone now. Clear mic, comfy, good sound even from my onboard sound. Recommend Logitech in a heartbeat. |
