Parts Guide, Building a new pc? take a look Options

[Dasa]

tempted to remove seagate hdd from this thread now that i have one i have realized they park there head frequently which creates a ~1sec stutter in games like diablo3
its also a rather loud and annoying noise
add to this the 1 year warranty and the only things they have going for them is the low price and fast read\write speeds
we really need wd black drives to move beyond 500g platters and catch up to current tech now that we have lost samsung to seagate

there may be a fix for this in time
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracuda-XT-...p/153389/page/3

This post has been edited by Dasa: Jun 1 2012, 12:15 PM

[unco_tomato]

Personally I've had a vendetta against Seagate since I purchased three 1TB drives all from the same batch, and all died in the same week on me, making my backups useless.

I obviously don't hold anything against them in reviews, but that bad batch ensured I won't buy from them again, or I won't use them in family / friend builds. It's WB Black all the way for me.

[iamthemaxx]

Is the Asus P8Z77-M-PRO an mATX board? From what I can see it is, just wanted to confirm.
Would the ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M be a decent alternate for the ASRock Z77 Extreme4?

[Dasa]

with matx you have
Gigabyte GA-Z77M-D3H $106
ASRock Z77 PRO4-M $106
Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H $127
ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M $136
ASUS P8Z77-M PRO $135
MSI Z77MA-G45 $145
Gigabyte G1 Sniper M3 $199
ASUS Maximus V GENE $275 overkill maybe but i rather like mine even if it does look a touch out of place in a full tower case
fairly sure the asus p8z77-m pro reviewed well
asrock has been making some nice value gear
gb mb seem fairly good value for money but twitchy bios when overclocking seems to be a common complaint
beyond that i dont know much about the individual mb

[iamthemaxx]

The Asus P8Z77-M-PRO mentioned in the value build is an mATX. And the Z77 Extreme4 only comes in the price mentioned in the same build if it's the mATX version.

So I am just wondering if mATX is ok? I've not used one for a gaming build before so don't want to be building a new PC on a crappy board.

[Dasa]

Asrock Z77-EXTREME4 Z77/4 x DDR3/2 x PCI-E3.0/4 x SATA3/6 x USB3.0/HDMI/D $149 http://www.umart.com.au/newindex28.phtml?i...7&sid=89526
it has all the pci-e slots but aparently its not full atx due to it being a bit slimmer down one side and doesnt really match with any standard atx spec http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX
a full atx mb would be 305x244 but this asrock is only305x218 so the pcb is smaller but it doubt this is a problem just cost saving

Asrock Z77-EXTREME4-M Z77/4 x DDR3/2 x PCI-E3.0/4 x SATA3/4 x USB3.0/HDMI/D-Sub/DVI-D/7.1CH/GBLAN/RA $137
http://www.umart.com.au/newindex28.phtml?i...6&sid=89540
matx just means you only have 4 pci-e slots max so cf\sli can be a little tight just depends how much stuff you want to cram in

[iamthemaxx]

Not worried about slots, so I might get it then.

[Dasa]

if your happy go go with matx take a peak at this beastly little case Silverstone TJ08-E

[Dasa]

With the remaining sandy stock getting more expensive its time to move the low budget builds to ivy

Low Budget Gamer 1 (not overclockable)
CPU/MB Option1 i3 2120 3.3GHz Dual Core 3MB $121 With Asrock H61M- $48
CPU/MB Option2 i5 3450 3.1GHz (3.5GHz Turbo) Quad Core 6MB $195 With Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3V $69
RAM 1x4g ddr3 $19 - OR - 2x4g $38
GPU 6670 1g $67 - OR - 7750 1G $105 7770 1g $135 - OR - 7850 2G $249
HDD 500GB 7200rpm was $37 now $75
DVD sata dvd $18
PSU Antec VP450P 450W $52 - OR - Antec HCG-520 Bronze 3y $79 - OR - Antec EA-450 Platinum $103
CASE BitFenix Merc Alpha $49
TOTAL $382-IGP (ok for a start but for gaming get a gpu quick) $449-796

Low Budget Gamer 2
CPU Intel i5 3570K 3.4GHz/6M/22nm $232
MB Asrock Z77-PRO4-M $106
RAM 2x4g 1333 $38
GPU 6670 1g $67 - OR - 7750 1G $105 7770 1g $135 - OR - 7850 2G $249 - OR - 7870 2G $335
HDD 500GB 7200rpm was $37 now $75
DVD sata dvd $18
PSU Antec HCG-520 Bronze 3y $79 - OR - Antec EA-450 Platinum 3y $103
CASE BitFenix Merc Alpha $49
HSF CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO $39 (optional)
TOTAL $597-IGP $664-995

[amckern]

Cheap
HDD OCZ Agility 3 60G $63

My question is, would a SSD be stable in this sort of build? Your only looking at a 2.23 dual core celeron?

This post has been edited by amckern: Jul 19 2012, 10:02 PM

[xyzzy frobozz]

Cheap
HDD OCZ Agility 3 60G $63

My question is, would a SSD be stable in this sort of build? Your only looking at a 2.23 dual core celeron?

Yes.

[Dasa]

Cheap
HDD OCZ Agility 3 60G $63

My question is, would a SSD be stable in this sort of build? Your only looking at a 2.23 dual core celeron?

how can a slow cpu make it less stable?
im using a 30g ssd similar to a vertex 2 in a atom itx build for our office pc
the atom slows the ssd load speeds a fair bit but even that celeron is much much quicker than the atom and should cope fairly well with most basic tasks
the ssd should make it feel significantly faster than any other upgrade while being cheaper and lowering power consumption slightly the only down side is loss of storage space

some people might like to spend a bit more for a different ssd that has a better rep for reliability
Samsung 830 Series 64GB SSD Retail Box $79
Intel 330 Series 60GB SSD $78

This post has been edited by Dasa: Jul 19 2012, 10:29 PM

[amckern]

I was just going off details my TAFE teacher told me on Monday, the SSD's tend to bottle neck based on the CPU speed, and you would experience load jitters - i'll have to inform them BULL SHIT!

[Dasa]

I was just going off details my TAFE teacher told me on Monday, the SSD's tend to bottle neck based on the CPU speed, and you would experience load jitters - i'll have to inform them BULL SHIT!

if it was a single core cpu its possible it would make things feel slow while something else was loading at the same time but with it being dual core it should run fairly well still
and even if it did feel slow while it loaded something big it would load it much quicker than it would otherwise and go back to running well

edit
a while back i tested how changing cpu speed affected my system and with it set to two cores 1.6ghz vs overclocked to 4.3ghz there was about 6 seconds difference in how quick it loaded windows
http://forums.atomicmpc.com.au/index.php?showtopic=47847
but this was with a ssd cache it would be interesting to try with someing like this even though there is no way you would pair somthing so expensive with such a cheap cpu
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_p...oducts_id=18099

This post has been edited by Dasa: Jul 20 2012, 10:25 AM

[wajubalo]

I'm no expert on SSDs and I'm sure they're not all born equal, but there are a bunch of them going for $185 in the 256gb iterations.

See: http://staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi...6+gb&spos=3

If these cheaper ones are comparable in performance to the ones listed in this guide then the SSDS section should be updated. Otherwise, please educate me on SSDs on how ones of the same size can be justifiably (in terms of performance) more expensive.

Cheers

[Dasa]

hard to know without seeing a review or knowing anything bout what controller or nand flash it uses but the price is good and the little i can see its performance isnt terrible

[ilyria109]

We just recieved the new i5 - 3470's at work to replace the 3450s... Any news on how well they perform yet? i'm not allowed to fiddle untill i fit them in the first build :(
May need to update the i5 systems with those..

people should be able to pick em up for ~$215-$230.

[wajubalo]

Hey,

I just bought this SSD from Greenbox IT for $185:

Lite On LZT 256M3S Lite On SSD LZT 256M3S 256GB SATA3 9.5mm 2.5 OEM PACK (LZT-256M3S) = $184.00

Get's an 8.1 rating on Windows 8 index and my PC startup clocked at 6 seconds.

The SSD gets my thumbs up. I'd recommend it to be up on the parts list given it's value. Very good price/performance from the experience so far

[atosniper]

Hi

I'm looking at putting together a new gaming rig. My current one is getting a bit long in the tooth. I'd like to spend as little as possible (coz I'm a cheap bastard) while getting a decent machine. It doesnt have to play everything on the max possible settings all the time.

I was thinking the budget gamer #2 specs you've made, Dasa, look quite good for what I'm after. If say I went with the 7770 for the gpu, then that would allow me to play anything on the market currently, and probably anything likely to come for some time, right? I see the higher end gpus can go up to 3G, but do you really need any more than 1G for gaming?

Also, the case you've suggested - bitfenix merc alpha - looks okay. I'd really like something with very nice cooling and something that is very quiet. Extra room would be nice too, but not essential. What can you recommend here, assuming the merc alpha doesnt already fit the bill?

Cheers

P.S. I want to build this machine myself. I havent really built a machine from scratch before, just parts here and there. Not too difficult is it?

[discoInferno]

You'll probably get more traffic for your question if you post a new topic in the Building and Troubleshooting forum. Everyone likes a build thread. :)