Some random computer build musings

[ajdroidx]

Well, I am thinking about doing a rebuild of my PC. Right now I am using an i7 (quad core) LGA-860. I have only 4gigs of ram, a geforce 8800 GTS card. Not a bad machine, still works, but its big and bulky, now that software is starting to make use of those cores and the 64 bit system.

There are some things I would like to do, put in a new video card (perhaps) up the ram, shove in a BD burner, up my ram and so on, but the motherboard is outdated, the new standard for graphics card is PCI express 2.1. I would like to take advantage of the USB 3 (but can probably buy an expansion card for that) Would love to play blu ray (can on the machine I got now) but thought about trying out 3D gaming and blu ray.

The tower I have is a huge full sized beast. I am getting tired of it, needing to craw under the desk to plug things in, its a pain to move things around, getting inside of it (though its a Lian Li case, totally modular) its just big and bulky.

So now I am thinking about springing for one of the top of the line intel chips, the intel ivy bridge i7-3770k and building a system based of that. But I am wondering if that is totally overkill. My current i7 rig is pretty much overkill.

I mostly play dvds blu ray, a few games (like the sims, though I have not played in a while) and photography (photoshop CS3, but I may upgrade to CS6 eventually) and some timelapse and HD video, though I have not really cut HD video.

The price of the new chip is 340 bucks. The motherboard, an Asus p8z77-i deluxe another 2, the new tower another 120 (I am opting for a blood red Lian Li case again, Mini ITX case.

The new intel chip carries the intel HD graphics 4000 on board and can be disabled and new card can be used.

But is this overkill? It most likely is. Perhaps an i5 would work. Looks like the top of the line i5 cost 100 bucks less then the i7. At least both chips are 1155 so I could start with the i5 and then upgrade to the i7 later. My set up right now means I pretty much can't upgrade anything unless I replace everything.

 

[MrPeter1985]

Depends on your budget. I upgraded for around $500.

Custom Built Beast!

 

[Davdi]

Max out the Ram, unless you're a hard core gamer beware of overkill on the GPU.
BD burner is a good call.

 

[ajdroidx]

I looked at some LGA 1156 boards to keep my existing CPU, but there are only 3. Looks like 1155s are the way to go. Guess by the time I upgrade, it will be 1154s guess I could wait on the next gen CPUs, but that could take a while since the Ivy bridge just came out.

 

[350X]

Its a never ending battle, best to just buy smart and wait for a deal. To many times I spent bank for the latest n greatest for the price to drop half or more in 3 weeks.

 

[ajdroidx]

Yeah. My Desktop is still pretty good. But pretty much maxed as far as what else I can do. Guess I will just suck it up for now.

 

[IOWA]

I will say that the Ivy Bridge i5 3570k is a beast of a chip. Don't even bother with i7 unless you're going to be using software that can actually take advantage of the HT.

This is what I just built for just under $1200

http://androidforums.com/computers/607608-so-i-finally-built-my-new-rig.html

 

[MrPeter1985]

Same here, love my new i5-3570K CPU. I'm OC'd @ 4ghz on stock fan, still stays cool.

I got a free upgrade to the IVY i5 after a friends build went haywire. He wanted an upgrade.

Long story short we choose the Intel Core i5-3570K, ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3, G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB and SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6850

1) No Post, mobo needed a bios update to run IVY LOL WTF. Lucky I had the 2500k, so loaded mine and updated the bios. NOGO still.
2) Ram not fast enough for IVY chip, did not know that, IVY min is 1333mhz. So took his out and put 1 stick of mine to test. Sure enough loaded. Was going to split ram til new ram came. Glad we didn't. For fun we tried both my ram sticks no go. WTF LOL
So instead of waiting more and spending my money. For returns and what not, decided to just switch CPUs since my chip worked in his mobo with his ram. LOL

Updated my bios and I'm using a IVY CPU hehe.

 

[Ballymoss]

A couple of the major PC magazines such as Custom PC do Component Guides to build a range of PC's from Basic to Elite. I would suggest getting one of those magazines and finding components which match your budget, then shopping around to find the best price. I buy most of my stuff on Ebay and RAM for example is extremely cheap.
For a CPU I use an I7 2600K and it is superb, very fast and reliable.

 

[Rolo42]

You may want to prioritise the following:

- Sandy Bridge generally overclocks better than Ivy due to Ivy's 77W TDP and cheap thermal paste between the chip and the slug; SB OC to 4.2GHz bone stock voltages+energy savers on
-- Get a decent aftermarket CPU cooler (anything is better than the stock one if you run anything that keeps a load on it for more than a few minutes)
-- SB is also cheaper with no trade-off (IB is SB with a new fabrication process but it didn't yield more OC headroom like we'd expected)
-- Decide if Hyperthreading is worth the extra $100 that could be spent elsewhere (it isn't exactly like having 8 cores and are you running anything that would use it?)

- You do want the HD4000 (or even the 3000) for video transcoding; it knocks the tar out of any discrete graphics configuration

- I don't like ATI; nVidia is faster, better (not cheaper, 2 out of 3 ain't bad); the 560Ti and 660Tis are great values. If you game and FPS/appearance matters, spend all you can on your video card. PCIe 3.0 is the new tech, BTW

- I don't recommend ASRock as that's Asus' bargain brand and I stopped buying Asus in 2005 when they nosedived. I swear by Gigabyte Ultra Durable motherboards

- Since you use graphic editors, the more RAM the better and RAM is cheap these days and there's no reason to get anything less than DDR3-2133. I like Mushkin (solid for years); I don't like Corsair or Crucial (what happened to Micron, I don't know)--had too many RMAs with those guys

- SSD. Use a PC with one and you'll loathe using a PC without one (I, wife, clients all do). 120+GB SSD with Intel SRT caching and Windows installed on it is great. SSD's came down in price also (Mushkin Chronos, $85 on Amazon)

- PSU. Never ever skimp or buy a brand X power supply--they are not all created equal and capacity. Buy a reputable one with 20% more power than you will need (750W is fine). I like Enermax but you'll pay for'em.

- I'd recommend keeping the full tower for cooling purposes (a good mid-tower even) but anything small risks an unfavourable thermal profile. When you install your PC into your furniture (mine are), ensure all of your cables are long enough and Velcro'd with enough slack so you can slide the case completely out of the desk (without anything unplugging), turn it, and comfortably disconnect/reconnect all your cables. I have fan filters that I have to clean every 6 weeks, so this is necessary for me

Don't ever buy with the intention of upgrading later; this just ensures you always have a system you aren't completely happy with and you'll wind up paying more for it over doing it right the first time. Build your system for longevity so that by the time you start to get unhappy with it, technology has changed so much that everything is new (3+ years).

Now, having said all of that, it's necessary to answer your question, "Is this overkill?" Well:
- What do you not like about your PC now?
- What applications does it not run well?

If you're only interest is increased FPS, you can get a current video card (600-series) now that will go in a new system later or you can get a 200-series card (maybe a 400) that will be a significant upgrade over your 8800. Caveat Emptor: your current platform can't feed a current video card data fast enough to fully utilise it, so a 680 won't give you any advantage over a 280 (maybe a 480; I can't say for certain since I've never run 1G i7).

If your CPU isn't getting pegged and a new(er) video card will make you happy, you can then wait for Intel's next 22nm architecture and build anew then.

 

[imnotmikal]

Drop the 3770K, pick up a 3570K and overclock it.
I have mine running at 4.8GHz stable.

 

[Digital Controller]

Why not just keep the i7 you have now and spend the extra money to overhaul your GPU?

 

[imnotmikal]

Why not just keep the i7 you have now and spend the extra money to overhaul your GPU?

Being an 860 socket, I'd say his proc is almost 3 years old.
Depending on which particular LGA 860 i7 he has, he's looking at 3GHz MAX speeds. I 100% recommend upgrading to a current spec board/proc for two reasons:

1) Keep with the speeds. Current i7s come stock at over 3.4GHz and are stable OCd to 5.0+
2) LGA 860 is way past EOL, which means there is little to no support or replacement parts.

 

[Mehta23]

Don't ever buy with the intention of upgrading later; this just ensures you always have a system you aren't completely happy with and you'll wind up paying more for it over doing it right the first time. Build your system for longevity so that by the time you start to get unhappy with it, technology has changed so much that everything is new (3+ years).

:ditto:

Although , with my motherboard, I decided to save

 

[MrPeter1985]

Nice board, I now work for ASUS Tech Support (Oh what fun!)

If you want a nice board to hold over, I would recommend Sabertooth's due to the thermal armor and 5 year warranty they have with them.

As for the 670 FTW go for it LOL

I'm considering the cheap priced GTX 650 Ti 2g version.

 

[Mehta23]

5 year?

Well the sabertooth are a lot more ( I paid £90 for mine ) and there's not much I'm missing apart from the possibility for SLi and the extra goodies you get with the Ai Suite II.

As for the graphics card , I have around £300 to get the GPU ,monitor ,keyboard/mouse and a CPU cooler if I decide to oc.

In other words : I need a job !

 

[Rolo42]

I would recommend either the 660Ti for cost (but great performance) or the 680; the 670 just doesn't seem worth it.

Edit: The 670 seems closer to the 680 than I'd realised; I wouldn't say it isn't worth it. Then again, if you want and can buy the 670, why not buy the 680? goes my reasoning...

 

[ajdroidx]

Still mulling this topic over. I was at mac mini (2012 base model with dual core i5) to dual boot windows 8 in, but now I am thinking perhaps dual boot my 15" MPB (quad core i7, 256gb SSD and 8gigs of ram) with windows 8 and boot camp. It would be a heck of a lot cheaper to do this, the laptop should blow the doors off the mini and is about on par spec wise as my desktop, aside from the GPU, which is not a huge issue as I don't game much. Mostly play the sims 3. It should run, may have to dial down the resolution some though.

140 bucks for windows 64bit pro builder. Beats 600 bucks for the mini + upgrades I was going to do to it.

 

[Rolo42]

Running at other-than-native LCD/LED resolution will either reduce the size of the display or scale it and look hideous.

 

[Mehta23]

I would recommend either the 660Ti for cost (but great performance) or the 680; the 670 just doesn't seem worth it.

Edit: The 670 seems closer to the 680 than I'd realised; I wouldn't say it isn't worth it. Then again, if you want and can buy the 670, why not buy the 680? goes my reasoning...

Because a 680 is £100 more....

 

[ajdroidx]

Back to thinking about a mini to dual boot. Thinking of putting my main tower in a spare room and use it for Linux tinkering. The question now is i5 dual core or spring an extra 200 on the i7 quad core then later on add a second larger hard drive and replace the stock drive with an ssd.

A ram upgrade would follow suit.

I am pretty sure this would not be a fusion drive set up which is okay.

 

[Davdi]

My old box (Asrock 775 board, Celeron E330 @2.5GHz (Stock speed) + 4 Gb ddr2 800 now dual booting Win8 and PCLOS Linux XFCE Desktop (ever since Gnome 3, before that I swear by Gnome 2.x)
Much to my surprise, Win 8 Pro is actually perfectly useable with a wide screen monitor, and feels snappier than Win7 Pro.

Old box as Linux testbed/toy - Go for it.

 

[Speed Daemon]

The question now is i5 dual core or spring an extra 200 on the i7 quad core then later on add a second larger hard drive and replace the stock drive with an ssd.

A ram upgrade would follow suit.

The first questions that you need to find an answer for are:

1. Do you have a real need for lots o' cores?
2. Are you running out of RAM, or are planning on adding a RAM-hungry app?

Thanks to GKrellM I can see that the only times that I'm really using all four or six (depending on the machine) cores is when I'm doing compute-intensive video transcoding and related activities. You might find that the extra cores might be spending most of their time doing nothing.

Having more than enough RAM is great, but having a LOT more RAM than you'll ever use is money down the drain. Keep an eye on your RAM usage for applications (and especially not for system cache, where unused RAM is allocated) and see if you will really be using extra RAM. Most operating systems, including Linux will use unused RAM, even if it's to be there just in case a large FIFO pops up. As a general rule of thumb, if the paging file or partition isn't active at all, you have more than enough RAM.

 

[Rolo42]

The question now is i5 dual core or spring an extra 200 on the i7 quad core then later on add a second larger hard drive and replace the stock drive with an ssd.

The i3 is dual core (some with HT); the i5 is quad-core; the i7 is quad-core with HT. Additionally, the i7 has a larger cache.

Four real cores (i5) is smoother than dual core. re: i7; do you run anything that will use more than four cores?

If you have a Z68 or newer chipset, Intel SRT (SSD caching) is the bees knees.

 

[ajdroidx]

The Mac mini is either dual i5 or quad i7