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  • Subject: Want to build a PC? PC Building Guide and FAQ of The Flood
Subject: Want to build a PC? PC Building Guide and FAQ of The Flood

DET 1, 1215th Engineering Company. United States Army National Guard. 12B- Combat Engineer E-3 PFC


Posted by: darthrevan96

Posted by: darthrevan96
I am on a budget and desperately need a new PC like, yesterday.

My budget is about 400, which at max can go to 500 (Without OS, Disc Drive, Monitor, K&M).

I tried to make one but considering I couldn't add a CPU, I failed. I am really fixated on that Motherboard and while I wanted that 550ti, it will have to wait.


Why are you so fixated on the GTX 550 TI?

The HD 7770 is a better card for basically the same price.

[Edited on 08.16.2012 11:16 PM PDT]

  • 08.16.2012 11:15 PM PDT

Ah, someone leaked. Now to find the leak and.... plug it.
With justice.

I use coup 5
Never Played halo 1 = Invalid opinion
Bloom isn't whats broken, its your idea of what good is and your opinion
Thats like saying uber nerf armor lock because like 20 percent of the community hates it. Oh wait..................


Posted by: THE SALTY CHIP

Posted by: neyo245
Thinking about getting the 670 over the 560 ti. I feel like the 670 is more future proof. Thoughts?
There is no way to future proof your PC

But if you have the money then you should get the 670. Amazing card. Probably the best you can get for gaming.


I don't see Us advancing beyond USB 3.0, PCIe 3.0, Sata6, Thunderbolt, Or the Iv bridge any time soon. This is simply because of the gap in software and hardware. Software is losing ATM. Also we have begun to enter the Heat threshold with the IV bridge.

So at this point I would say your can actually future proof... I dare say even out to 2~3 years.

[Edited on 08.16.2012 11:32 PM PDT]

  • 08.16.2012 11:31 PM PDT


Posted by: Chris Gotham

Posted by: darthrevan96

Posted by: darthrevan96
I am on a budget and desperately need a new PC like, yesterday.

My budget is about 400, which at max can go to 500 (Without OS, Disc Drive, Monitor, K&M).

I tried to make one but considering I couldn't add a CPU, I failed. I am really fixated on that Motherboard and while I wanted that 550ti, it will have to wait.


Why are you so fixated on the GTX 550 TI?

The HD 7770 is a better card for basically the same price.


Fixated on the Motherboard, the GPU is flexible although I don't think I'll be getting far, with a 500 dollar Maximum Limit.

  • 08.17.2012 2:51 AM PDT
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I like Cheese

I'm posting this from custom PC that I've built.
Thank you OP and anyone in this thread.

  • 08.17.2012 2:54 AM PDT

Who the hell do you think I am?


Posted by: shadow 2648

Posted by: THE SALTY CHIP

Posted by: neyo245
Thinking about getting the 670 over the 560 ti. I feel like the 670 is more future proof. Thoughts?
There is no way to future proof your PC

But if you have the money then you should get the 670. Amazing card. Probably the best you can get for gaming.


I don't see Us advancing beyond USB 3.0, PCIe 3.0, Sata6, Thunderbolt, Or the Iv bridge any time soon. This is simply because of the gap in software and hardware. Software is losing ATM. Also we have begun to enter the Heat threshold with the IV bridge.

So at this point I would say your can actually future proof... I dare say even out to 2~3 years.
Maybe in like 60 years when technology can't advance any further.

  • 08.17.2012 5:31 AM PDT

FLOOD QUOTES!
Posted by: G3N3RAL R3VAN
The Flood....... if it doesn't go anywhere else, stick it her pooper
Posted by: xflox231
Idiots. I'm surrounded by idiots
Posted by: ferrrari
the flood, there a bunch of jerks, but there my jerks.

You can future proof certain components. i.e. the PSU, case, HDDs/SSDs, maybe even the MOBO.

  • 08.17.2012 7:31 AM PDT

FLOOD QUOTES!
Posted by: G3N3RAL R3VAN
The Flood....... if it doesn't go anywhere else, stick it her pooper
Posted by: xflox231
Idiots. I'm surrounded by idiots
Posted by: ferrrari
the flood, there a bunch of jerks, but there my jerks.


Posted by: thebig100
I'm posting this from custom PC that I've built.
Thank you OP and anyone in this thread.

Needs moar pictures.

  • 08.17.2012 7:32 AM PDT

"I hope nothing, I fear nothing, I am free"
"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free." - Nikos Kazantzakis
"The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" - Hasan al-Basri
Black Chapter, for all religious and political debate that doesn't fit in the Flood.

Posted by: Ferrari DuDe856
You can future proof certain components. i.e. the PSU, case, HDDs/SSDs, maybe even the MOBO.
Motherboards for the most part aren't future proof. While Ivy Bridge and Sandy Bridge both used the LGA 1155 socket, Haswell and Broadwell with use the 1150. Before that, things were even more confusing. You had LGA 775 for the low end, LGA 1156 for the mid-range i5s, and LGA 1366 for the stupidly high end parts. There's even LGA 2011, but most people will see good as no use from that unless they need lots of cores.

So, any motherboard bought now is irrelevant as soon as you upgrade, and that cost should be factored in.

The PSU should never be cheaped on, though people buying 600W+ PSUs are really being daft unless they're planning to throw 3 GPUs in their system.

HDDs, DVD/CD/BD-ROM drives will carry over to future boards, as will cables and adapters for the most part. Buying a good case is always a smart idea.

Edit: Future proofing out to 3 years is child's play. It just requires buying a decent GPU, and having more sense than to buy a low end one. The 550Ti will be the minimum requirements in about two years, if that. The CPU is less of a concern, all told, but mainly because a decent CPU will last for years. Quad core C2D are still perfectly serviceable today.

[Edited on 08.17.2012 8:17 AM PDT]

  • 08.17.2012 7:55 AM PDT

"I hope nothing, I fear nothing, I am free"
"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free." - Nikos Kazantzakis
"The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" - Hasan al-Basri
Black Chapter, for all religious and political debate that doesn't fit in the Flood.

Posted by: shadow 2648
Also we have begun to enter the Heat threshold with the IV bridge.
This, right here, is absolute nonsense.

IVB gets hot when it overclocks, yes. A little bit of voltage makes IVB get rather hot very fast. However, IVB has a TDP (thermal design power) of 77W for the highest end chips. In contrast, Sandy Bridge's TDP is 95W. SB-E chips have a TDP of 130W. So, to say that we're hitting a heat threshold is total nonsense - the chips are cooler than ever. However, the smaller a chip is, the less surface area it has to radiate heat. So, while the total amount of heat the chip puts out has dropped by 18W (despite a vastly more powerful GPU), the heat is spread over a smaller area, so it's not dissipated as well as it could be.

With Haswell, the TDP again returns to 95W because it integrates the voltage regulators (the heat sink above the CPU socket on a motherboard) into the CPU itself.

  • 08.17.2012 8:06 AM PDT

"I hope nothing, I fear nothing, I am free"
"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free." - Nikos Kazantzakis
"The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" - Hasan al-Basri
Black Chapter, for all religious and political debate that doesn't fit in the Flood.

Posted by: YahwehFreak4evr
Quick question to whomever, I'm going to cross-fire two 7950s (or 7970s, not sure which quite yet), but would a i5-3570K be bottlenecking my system, or would it still be the GPU?
Unless you're playing a game like Skyrim, most games nowadays aren't CPU limited. Games don't benefit from hyperthreading for the most part, so going to the 3770K isn't really going to do much for you except cost a fortune.

If you're going to have bottle necks, the usual suspects are the SSD and memory. Sandy Bridge was an odd case, because memory speeds meant absolutely sod all, but IVB definitely benefits from faster memory.

  • 08.17.2012 8:24 AM PDT

Who the hell do you think I am?


Posted by: Ferrari DuDe856
You can future proof certain components. i.e. the PSU, case, HDDs/SSDs, maybe even the MOBO.
Well obviously the case wont need an upgrade, but in a long time the HDDs will become outdated and depending on whether or not you add more components means you might need a better PSU too.

  • 08.17.2012 10:09 AM PDT

"I hope nothing, I fear nothing, I am free"
"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free." - Nikos Kazantzakis
"The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" - Hasan al-Basri
Black Chapter, for all religious and political debate that doesn't fit in the Flood.

If you buy a good PSU (650W is more than enough), you easily future proof a build. It's very, very rare to need more power than that. Last time I ran the numbers, that would power an i7 3770K and 2 GTX 680s without trouble, and have headroom for capacitor ageing as well.

It's only when you start to talk triple SLI, a heavily overclocked processor and so forth where you start looking at really high wattage PSUs.

HDDs don't really become outdated - they become too small. Unless the interface changes (like the change from IDE to SATA), HDDs generally don't change. SSDs are more at risk of becoming slow, but that's due to changing standards - the move from SATA 3Gbps to 6Gbps allowed for higher speed SSDs, whereas a HDD would struggle to saturate SATA-II. SATA 4 will be out eventually, no doubt, but the massive gains in performance in SSDs are down to firmware nowadays rather than anything else.

  • 08.17.2012 10:56 AM PDT

Who the hell do you think I am?

Here's a good calculator for PSUs.

  • 08.17.2012 11:04 AM PDT

"I hope nothing, I fear nothing, I am free"
"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free." - Nikos Kazantzakis
"The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" - Hasan al-Basri
Black Chapter, for all religious and political debate that doesn't fit in the Flood.

I use that one myself. :) It's pretty handy, all told.

  • 08.17.2012 11:25 AM PDT

Posted by: THE SALTY CHIP
Here's a good calculator for PSUs.

I don't know if I could honestly trust that. I put my PC specs into it and got 508 Watts as the result. Nvidia lists my GPU to need a system with at least 500 Watts, and that doesn't factor in the fact I'm using two of them. Newegg's PSU calculator gave a more reasonable estimate at 791 Watts (which depending on opinion is probably too high). Nonetheless, I'd trust that more than the other given Nvidia's listing.

  • 08.17.2012 11:29 AM PDT

Who the hell do you think I am?

Oh, you have two 670s? That sounds nice. Could you post your build, please?

  • 08.17.2012 11:40 AM PDT

Who the hell do you think I am?

Also, I'm thinking about getting this and this.

What do you guys think?

  • 08.17.2012 11:43 AM PDT

Going to the PC store now, got 500.

What is a decent build for the price? Prefer Intel Board and something with room for good upgrades.

  • 08.17.2012 11:44 AM PDT

Who the hell do you think I am?


Posted by: darthrevan96
Going to the PC store now, got 500.

What is a decent build for the price? Prefer Intel Board and something with room for good upgrades.
You should probably buy it from online instead.

  • 08.17.2012 11:47 AM PDT

Posted by: THE SALTY CHIP
Oh, you have two 670s? That sounds nice. Could you post your build, please?

My build was posted here.

  • 08.17.2012 11:48 AM PDT


Posted by: THE SALTY CHIP

Posted by: darthrevan96
Going to the PC store now, got 500.

What is a decent build for the price? Prefer Intel Board and something with room for good upgrades.
You should probably buy it from online instead.


I suppose I could do that as well.

I have this PC. What can I take from it and move to the new one?

I'm basically upgrading that. I have a ZOTAC 440 and 2GB RAM (DDR2).

That's it. Can I use the CPU?

  • 08.17.2012 12:02 PM PDT

"I hope nothing, I fear nothing, I am free"
"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free." - Nikos Kazantzakis
"The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" - Hasan al-Basri
Black Chapter, for all religious and political debate that doesn't fit in the Flood.

Posted by: CostlyAxis
I don't know if I could honestly trust that. I put my PC specs into it and got 508 Watts as the result. Nvidia lists my GPU to need a system with at least 500 Watts, and that doesn't factor in the fact I'm using two of them. Newegg's PSU calculator gave a more reasonable estimate at 791 Watts (which depending on opinion is probably too high). Nonetheless, I'd trust that more than the other given Nvidia's listing.
508W for the recommended wattage, or minimum wattage? Also, did you include capacitor ageing in that calculation?

Edit: I ran it through with the details of your build (and threw in 4x140mm fans for good measure) 20% capacity ageing (basically a year or so of heavy use) and got 592W. With 30% you're looking at 637W.

Newegg's PSU calculator is useless, but you do need to factor in the capacitor ageing to use the eXtreme calculator properly.

[Edited on 08.17.2012 12:10 PM PDT]

  • 08.17.2012 12:04 PM PDT

Who the hell do you think I am?


Posted by: darthrevan96

Posted by: THE SALTY CHIP

Posted by: darthrevan96
Going to the PC store now, got 500.

What is a decent build for the price? Prefer Intel Board and something with room for good upgrades.
You should probably buy it from online instead.


I suppose I could do that as well.

I have this PC. What can I take from it and move to the new one?

I'm basically upgrading that. I have a ZOTAC 440 and 2GB RAM (DDR2).

That's it. Can I use the CPU?
I would just buy all new parts entirely. Even a new HDD, then you can just move your old one onto the new one along with it, meaning you wont have to get an OS either.

  • 08.17.2012 12:07 PM PDT

"I hope nothing, I fear nothing, I am free"
"A person needs a little madness, or else they never dare cut the rope and be free." - Nikos Kazantzakis
"The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of martyrs" - Hasan al-Basri
Black Chapter, for all religious and political debate that doesn't fit in the Flood.

The OS will need reinstalling, but you can probably just copy the serial number off your old computer.

  • 08.17.2012 12:11 PM PDT

Who the hell do you think I am?


Posted by: Primum Agmen
The OS will need reinstalling, but you can probably just copy the serial number off your old computer.
Right, I forgot about that. Some of the data from the OS is stored on your motherboard so you will need to reinstall it. But you shouldn't have to buy it again.

  • 08.17.2012 12:13 PM PDT