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I need help with building a computer.


Abc1230

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700W is OTT for that, 500 or so should do.

I don't know what OTT means, but I'm assuming it's bad. You're talking about the power supply, right? Would something like this be better?

 

OTT = Over the top.

 

A 700W PSU will only pull the amount of watts it needs. SLI 560Ti is a future upgrade option and the motherboard supports it so it's a plus. Get a 500W if you feel you're never going to go SLI.

 

On the HDD thing, yep that's exactly what it does.

2d26mw.gif

Why can't the Big Bang be done by the hand of God?

It could have, but it is next to impossible because it also could have been caused by the flying spaghetti monster, or one of the other infinite number of deity possibilities.

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700W is OTT for that, 500 or so should do.

I don't know what OTT means, but I'm assuming it's bad. You're talking about the power supply, right? Would something like this be better?

 

OTT = Over the top.

 

A 700W PSU will only pull the amount of watts it needs. SLI 560Ti is a future upgrade option and the motherboard supports it so it's a plus. Get a 500W if you feel you're never going to go SLI.

 

On the HDD thing, yep that's exactly what it does.

Oh, okay. I'll probably be upgrading it in the future, so I'll stick with the SLI.

 

When are HDD prices supposed to go down?

 

262ruqw.png

 

This is what I have now. With my limited knowledge, this looks pretty good. I'm still willing to change out any parts with other things if they are better. At this point I think I'll start looking to save money. This is what I heard you guys are good at. If there is a cheaper part with the same specifications (Is that the right term?), I'll definitely get that instead. Or even a slightly more expensive part if it's better than the other one.

 

Are all of the pieces compatible with each other?

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Looks good, you sure about water cooling tho?

J'adore aussi le sexe et les snuff movies

Je trouve que ce sont des purs moments de vie

Je ne me reconnais plus dans les gens

Je suis juste un cas désespérant

Et comme personne ne viendra me réclamer

Je terminerai comme un objet retrouvé

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Looks good, you sure about water cooling tho?

Someone else suggested it. I don't know anything about it. Is it dangerous? If there's a more reliable or cheaper alternative, I'll take it.

 

8oebj3d.png

 

I made a couple changes to save some money. From what I can tell, it won't affect performance (Please correct me if I'm wrong). I'd love to get this under $1,000, if that's possible. Are any of you experienced with combos? I've heard that's a good way to save some money, but I don't even know where to begin with them. My goal right now is to get this under $1,000 while sacrificing performance as little as possible. If any of you can help with that, I'd be really grateful.

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one quick note, if your in college or know someone attending they can more than likely obtain a legal copy of windows ultimate for like $18.

 

and really, unless your an environut get a 700-1000W power supply, it's annoying to upgrade later and really, it's HOW MUCH extra?

 

*3rd edit* - lol

liquid cooling is *$%^&* awesome, but a tad annoying to do, just make sure you read the instructions carefully

(i mean, i did it, can't be THAT hard)

 

if your going for under $1k ditch the SSD and get a smaller hard drive but get a 10000 RMP instead of a 7200

 

anywhere around ~250-500gb is seriously ok unless your hardcore into video editing.

i don't play psykick anymore... i play 2ed: "pure fett"

 

26081 to get 99 herblore

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one quick note, if your in college or know someone attending they can more than likely obtain a legal copy of windows ultimate for like $18.

 

and really, unless your an environut get a 700-1000W power supply, it's annoying to upgrade later and really, it's HOW MUCH extra?

 

*3rd edit* - lol

liquid cooling is *$%^&* awesome, but a tad annoying to do, just make sure you read the instructions carefully

(i mean, i did it, can't be THAT hard)

Sadly, I'm not in school at the moment. I don't really have any problems with being a pirate anyway.

 

I'll keep the 730W power supply I have for now.

 

Super. I'll keep it then.

 

 

 

Again, if anyone is good at searching for combos on newegg, I'd greatly appreciate your help.

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Swap the cooler out to this.

That means changing the RAM to something without fins like this.

If you're looking to save you can do a couple of things:


  •  
  • Swap the HDD to a 500GB one until prices stabalise
  • Leave the 1TB drive and drop the SSD
  • Drop to 500GB and drop the SSD

Actually, looking at it now if you change what I've said, incluiding the PSU it brings it to Subtotal: $954.91. No need to ditch the SSD. :)

 

But please please please don't skimp out on the PSU!

Things go downhill a bit when we open the unit however, and we see that while stocked with a Matsushita capacitor on the primary side and Teapo capacitors (standard and solid) on the secondary side, the integration looks sloppy. In fact, the usual poor soldering we see from Andyson once more rears its ugly head in this unit

That's from a review on a Raidmax PSU.

 

Buy a decent brand name, you don't want it going pop and taking your system with it.

Get this instead. $89.99 with a $25 mail in rebait and "$10 off w/ promo code EMCJJKB29, ends 11/14"

2d26mw.gif

Why can't the Big Bang be done by the hand of God?

It could have, but it is next to impossible because it also could have been caused by the flying spaghetti monster, or one of the other infinite number of deity possibilities.

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I switched everything you said and the total is now $1,083.67. I'm guessing I just missed some deadline or something on one of the items that brought the price back up.

 

I'm willing to drop down to a 500 GB HDD if the prices will go down significantly in the future. What do you recommend? The guide I initially used said you could get a 1TB HDD for $60. No idea how reliable that information is. Will SSD prices go down too? If so, I'd be willing to drop that too for now.

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I switched everything you said and the total is now $1,083.67. I'm guessing I just missed some deadline or something on one of the items that brought the price back up.

 

I'm willing to drop down to a 500 GB HDD if the prices will go down significantly in the future. What do you recommend? The guide I initially used said you could get a 1TB HDD for $60. No idea how reliable that information is. Will SSD prices go down too? If so, I'd be willing to drop that too for now.

Your guide was the info post from /g/ wasnt it? It's outdated on prices. Due to flooding of factories recently HDD prices have soared and aren't expected to be back to what they were untill late 2012. Depends if you're going to need the 1TB or not, your choice. Isn't it black friday sometime soon? Might be worth waiting till then to see what bargains you can grab if you aren't desperatly in need of a new computer.

2d26mw.gif

Why can't the Big Bang be done by the hand of God?

It could have, but it is next to impossible because it also could have been caused by the flying spaghetti monster, or one of the other infinite number of deity possibilities.

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I switched everything you said and the total is now $1,083.67. I'm guessing I just missed some deadline or something on one of the items that brought the price back up.

 

I'm willing to drop down to a 500 GB HDD if the prices will go down significantly in the future. What do you recommend? The guide I initially used said you could get a 1TB HDD for $60. No idea how reliable that information is. Will SSD prices go down too? If so, I'd be willing to drop that too for now.

Your guide was the info post from /g/ wasnt it? It's outdated on prices. Due to flooding of factories recently HDD prices have soared and aren't expected to be back to what they were untill late 2012. Depends if you're going to need the 1TB or not, your choice. Isn't it black friday sometime soon? Might be worth waiting till then to see what bargains you can grab if you aren't desperatly in need of a new computer.

Oh, that sucks. I can live without the 1TB for a while. I'll need it eventually. I'll wait until black Friday until I buy anything. I totally forgot about that.

 

How do I determine which 500GB HDD is "good"? I'm starting to look at combos, but I don't know if certain parts are any good. For example, I found this, but I have no idea if the motherboard is as good as the one I currently have. I don't really care what the case looks like, as long as it holds everything well.

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When are HDD prices supposed to go down?

Current guesses are anywhere from Q2-Q4 2012. Basically, don't bother waiting.

 

Are all of the pieces compatible with each other?

Yep, looks good. Why the 2.5 SATA to USB though? SSD should be internal.

 

Someone else suggested it. I don't know anything about it. Is it dangerous? If there's a more reliable or cheaper alternative, I'll take it.

There's no problem with those sealed liquid cooling systems. They're solidly build, and the warranty is very good and from what I've heard Antec is very happy to honour warranty if it leaks, so long as you haven't modded it or anything. As for that build, looks fine, but personally I would swap the Raidmax psu for a Corsair or Antec one.

 

and really, unless your an environut get a 700-1000W power supply, it's annoying to upgrade later and really, it's HOW MUCH extra?

True, but $$/watt prices should go down soon enough. Also, if you only use like 300W of a 1000W PSU the efficiency drops.

 

liquid cooling is *$%^&* awesome, but a tad annoying to do, just make sure you read the instructions carefully

They can be a little more fiddly than air coolers, but they aren't so bad.

 

if your going for under $1k ditch the SSD and get a smaller hard drive but get a 10000 RMP instead of a 7200

In my opinion, no. 'Speed' and 'mechanical hard drive' don't go together. Either get an SSD and a 7200RPM drive, or a 7200RPM drive. Plus, the 10000RPM ones are still quite expensive.

RIP TET

 

original.png

 

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." - Friedrich Nietzsche

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Current guesses are anywhere from Q2-Q4 2012. Basically, don't bother waiting.

I just remembered we have an old computer that has a 250GB HDD. Is there any way I can combine it with a 500GB HDD? That'd probably last me until prices go down.

 

Yep, looks good. Why the 2.5 SATA to USB though? SSD should be internal.

That's to transfer the contents of my laptop to the desktop. It's cheap and it couldn't hurt to have for the future.

 

They can be a little more fiddly than air coolers, but they aren't so bad.

I'll keep the air one Askthedude suggested for now for cost reasons. It will still work well, right?

 

In my opinion, no. 'Speed' and 'mechanical hard drive' don't go together. Either get an SSD and a 7200RPM drive, or a 7200RPM drive. Plus, the 10000RPM ones are still quite expensive.

Can you recommend a 500GB 7200RPM HDD for me?

 

 

 

What are things I should keep in mind when looking for certain products? This thread has actually taught me a lot so far, but I don't know enough to really search for things on my own. For example, I now know that when looking for a HDD I need to consider the RPM as well as how much it can actually hold. What else do I need to know about different parts? If there's a guide any of you know of and you could link me to it, that'd be great.

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For HDDs, I'd stay with Western Digital or Seagate.

 

They have different lines of hard drives that go from low to high performance. If going WD I'd say a Caviar Black or Blue (green doesn't have much performance). For seagate I only had the Momentus I have in my laptop which isn't the right kind of hard drive here, so I can't say much about seagate.

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For HDDs, I'd stay with Western Digital or Seagate.

 

They have different lines of hard drives that go from low to high performance. If going WD I'd say a Caviar Black or Blue (green doesn't have much performance). For seagate I only had the Momentus I have in my laptop which isn't the right kind of hard drive here, so I can't say much about seagate.

I checked those out and the cheapest decent (I think) 500 GB HDDs were only about $40 less than the 1TB HDD I currently have on my list. I'm no expert, but I think $40 for another 500GB is a pretty good deal. It is Hitachi, however. Is there anything wrong with those?

 

Again, if anybody knows anything about choosing essential parts (Motherboard, Memory, SSD, Cases, CPU, etc.) please let me know. Even if it's something like a mouse, I'd appreciate it. I'm very new to all of this and so far you guys have been a wealth of information. I really appreciate all you're doing.

 

I just realized that my PSU isn't modular. How will that affect the assembly?

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I just remembered we have an old computer that has a 250GB HDD. Is there any way I can combine it with a 500GB HDD? That'd probably last me until prices go down.

You can plug both in at the same time, and have 2 drives show up (instead of just C: , you have C: AND D: for example)

 

I'll keep the air one Askthedude suggested for now for cost reasons. It will still work well, right?

Of course. I've got one right now and it's working nicely.

 

Can you recommend a 500GB 7200RPM HDD for me?

What Sbrideau said, basically.

 

 

What are things I should keep in mind when looking for certain products? This thread has actually taught me a lot so far, but I don't know enough to really search for things on my own. For example, I now know that when looking for a HDD I need to consider the RPM as well as how much it can actually hold. What else do I need to know about different parts? If there's a guide any of you know of and you could link me to it, that'd be great.

http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/The_FalconO6/CurrentLogicalPCBuyingGuide/Guide.png this is not bad, I presume it's the guide you were using initially.

 

For HDDs, I'd stay with Western Digital or Seagate.

Seagate? I've heard about problems with high failure rate with them. Maybe they've rectified that?

 

 

I just realized that my PSU isn't modular. How will that affect the assembly?

Most aren't. Should be fine.

RIP TET

 

original.png

 

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." - Friedrich Nietzsche

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You can plug both in at the same time, and have 2 drives show up (instead of just C: , you have C: AND D: for example)

Magnificent

 

http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/The_FalconO6/CurrentLogicalPCBuyingGuide/Guide.png this is not bad, I presume it's the guide you were using initially.

That's actually a more recent version. Thanks.

 

 

 

I'm most worried about saving money at this point. I'll wait until black Friday before I buy anything. If anybody knows of cheaper alternatives to what I posted, please let me know.

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Guydabest, for seagate, I've heard the failures were for hard drives upwards of 1TB. Although I've heard of WD Caviar Green failures as well, so because it's mechanical it's bound to have failures.

 

Hitachi I'm not sure but I think it's one of the good brands, but I can't tell since I never used one from them.

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  •  
  • For anything CPU related (MB, heatsink, etc): Make sure you're buying the right socket. For the i5 2500k you want the LGA 1155 socket. Z68 is the latest chipset for this but make sure the board you're buying has all the standard features offered by this. Some Info.
  • PSU: Don't skimp! Buy a well known brand, prefferably with an 80+ rating for efficiency.
  • Case: Make sure it fits all your components, especially the GPU and heatsink.
  • RAM: Low proffile is best as it doesn't interfere with aftermarket heatsinks.
     

 

That's all that pops to mind for now.

2d26mw.gif

Why can't the Big Bang be done by the hand of God?

It could have, but it is next to impossible because it also could have been caused by the flying spaghetti monster, or one of the other infinite number of deity possibilities.

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My motherboard says it has a LGA 1155 socket and the fan says it's compatible with 775 / 1366 / 1156. Is the 1156 a typo, or do I need a new fan (or is it called a heatshink?)?

 

It's a heatsink, or an aftermarket cooler. Not going to get very far just strapping a fan directly onto your CPU :lol:

The 1155 is an omision on Newegg's part. Manufacturers page shows it supports 1155 sockets. I was confused when you mentioned it. Stupid Newegg.

2d26mw.gif

Why can't the Big Bang be done by the hand of God?

It could have, but it is next to impossible because it also could have been caused by the flying spaghetti monster, or one of the other infinite number of deity possibilities.

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Guydabest, for seagate, I've heard the failures were for hard drives upwards of 1TB. Although I've heard of WD Caviar Green failures as well, so because it's mechanical it's bound to have failures.

 

Hitachi I'm not sure but I think it's one of the good brands, but I can't tell since I never used one from them.

Two examples aren't obviously enough to prove anything, but i've got an Hitachi hd on this computer, and in one i built for my mom, both works fine. Never read any horror stories on tech sites either, not what i can remember anyways.

 

--

And are you still staying with that Raidmax psu???

J'adore aussi le sexe et les snuff movies

Je trouve que ce sont des purs moments de vie

Je ne me reconnais plus dans les gens

Je suis juste un cas désespérant

Et comme personne ne viendra me réclamer

Je terminerai comme un objet retrouvé

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Guydabest, for seagate, I've heard the failures were for hard drives upwards of 1TB. Although I've heard of WD Caviar Green failures as well, so because it's mechanical it's bound to have failures.

 

Hitachi I'm not sure but I think it's one of the good brands, but I can't tell since I never used one from them.

Two examples aren't obviously enough to prove anything, but i've got an Hitachi hd on this computer, and in one i built for my mom, both works fine. Never read any horror stories on tech sites either, not what i can remember anyways.

 

--

And are you still staying with that Raidmax psu???

No, I'm using this now. Is it okay?

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The SSD I had got sold out or something, so I can't get it any more. Can someone recommend another one? I'll probably only have my OS and CAD on there, maybe a few other things. I don't know how that'll affect the size. I'm not sure what else people typically put on 'em.

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Guydabest, for seagate, I've heard the failures were for hard drives upwards of 1TB. Although I've heard of WD Caviar Green failures as well, so because it's mechanical it's bound to have failures.

 

Hitachi I'm not sure but I think it's one of the good brands, but I can't tell since I never used one from them.

Two examples aren't obviously enough to prove anything, but i've got an Hitachi hd on this computer, and in one i built for my mom, both works fine. Never read any horror stories on tech sites either, not what i can remember anyways.

 

--

And are you still staying with that Raidmax psu???

No, I'm using this now. Is it okay?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371051

 

Antec, Seasonic and Corsair are the most reliable PSU brands. Other brands have some decent lines, but it's best to just stick with those 3.

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Guydabest, for seagate, I've heard the failures were for hard drives upwards of 1TB. Although I've heard of WD Caviar Green failures as well, so because it's mechanical it's bound to have failures.

 

Hitachi I'm not sure but I think it's one of the good brands, but I can't tell since I never used one from them.

Two examples aren't obviously enough to prove anything, but i've got an Hitachi hd on this computer, and in one i built for my mom, both works fine. Never read any horror stories on tech sites either, not what i can remember anyways.

 

--

And are you still staying with that Raidmax psu???

No, I'm using this now. Is it okay?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371051

 

Antec, Seasonic and Corsair are the most reliable PSU brands. Other brands have some decent lines, but it's best to just stick with those 3.

Oof. I know I shouldn't skimp on the PSU, but is there a cheaper decent alternative? The previous one was 90 bucks with a $25 rebate. What do I need to keep in mind when looking for a psu?

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