Thinking of building a PC

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Joe
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Thinking of building a PC

Post by Joe »

Anyone have any suggestions?

Need some help picking out Mobo/CPU/GPU/SSD/RAM.

Also, does anyone know anything about KVM Switches? I'm thinking I could use one to switch between controlling the Mac and PC, but I've never used one.
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by Newman »

What is the purpose of the PC, gaming?
Did you have a price in mind?

We have a couple of KVM switches at work, I'll try to remember to take a look at them tomorrow and see what kind they are.
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by Joe »

Gaming, going to keep my Mac for work/browsing/porn...

Probably under $1500 if possible.
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by Joe »

My iMac is over 3 years old now and isn't really a gaming machine in the first place, so it struggles a bit with some newer games unless I turn down the graphics/resolution. I tend to play at 2550x1440 though, which is probably doesn't help.

Edit: Sanvich had a post above this one... He deleted it while I was typing...
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by madmattd »

I've got a couple of basic USB+VGA KVMs that I've used for various reasons. You'll want a pretty decent one if you are going to be using it to feed your gaming monitor (plus VGA won't do 1440p anyway). Also, if you have non-standard keys on your keyboard (i.e. macro keys, shortcut keys and the like) or a non-standard mouse, many of the lower-end KVMs won't be able to do anything with those keys (better ones can emulate that stuff apparently).

My new desktop (sig) ran me under your budget, if you ignore the WD hard drives and the old Vertex 2 I carried over. Games at 1440p like a dream (my monitor uses the Apple Home Cinema display iirc). You could drop some of the stuff down a notch or two and still have a killer gaming machine (like use the i5-3570K, cheaper CPU cooler, different RAM, case, mobo, etc). That said, I hit some good deals on most of that stuff. I know Canada doesn't have it, but Microcenter has sick deals on both the i7-3770K ($230) and the i5-3570K ($190 + $40 extra combo savings with compatible mobo), and has had those same prices since early November.

I should note that I have a GTX 670 which is a beast on 1440p, but the 660TI is apparently a bit disappointing according to other people (unlike 2 years ago where the 560TI was really close to a 570 but way cheaper). Not sure where AMD sits these days, but their top-end cards I imagine perform similarly to the top Nvidias as has been the case for a while (I do a lot of CAD on the side, so Intel+Nvidia is still the best combo there without question).


SSD-wise, I had horrible experiences with OCZ (especially their customer DIS-service) and even though they finally ditched the garbage that is Sandforce controllers, I no longer will use their stuff. Perhaps the Indilinx controllers are good, I don't know. But I do know that the Crucial M4, while older, is still a rock-solid drive, as is the Samsung 830. I've also heard good things about the Samsung 840 Pro after they got past a slightly rocky launch.
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by Joe »

The 2560 x 1440 is the iMac, which as far as I know I couldn't drive from a PC anyways. My second monitor is only 1680x1050.

Also, idk if I'll need a new PSU I have a Thermaltake Purepower W0100RU 500W ATX 12V 2.0 Power Supply in my old PC, not sure if 500W would be enough power for new stuff.
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by Newman »

Here are the two different KVM switches we are running

This is run between our 4 servers.
Avocent switch view
http://imgur.com/MjUYu12

This is running a pair of mac minis.
IOGear Extreme
http://imgur.com/DGRjXO2
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by madmattd »

Joe wrote:The 2560 x 1440 is the iMac, which as far as I know I couldn't drive from a PC anyways. My second monitor is only 1680x1050.

Also, idk if I'll need a new PSU I have a Thermaltake Purepower W0100RU 500W ATX 12V 2.0 Power Supply in my old PC, not sure if 500W would be enough power for new stuff.
Ah, if you are only driving 1050p, no worries with a higher-mid-range or better GPU. My 560TI was perfectly happy at that resolution with high/ultra settings, just didn't have the VRAM or horsepower for 1440p. I was thinking yours was a monitor being driven by a separate box, forgot Macs are pretty much all-in-ones now (sad because I should know that, my boss has one).

500W is likely plenty unless you get real power-hungry GPU and CPU. I could run my system off 500W, it only draws a touch over 300W off the wall at full CPU+GPU load. 92% PSU efficiency, and thus I'm drawing less than 300.
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by Stephen »

the wattage of a psu is just a basic guideline your more worried about the 12v rail amp's.

get a new psu because i guarentee you that psu does not have nice 12v rail

intel's new haswell is coming out soon if you want to wait till then

will you be using your old case?

single or multi gpu? if single now will you run multi in future?

what do you want to do for storage, do you plan on keeping movies and junk or just gaming?
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by Joe »

I need a new case, I was thinking of getting http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6811129021

Don't really want to wait a few months for the new CPUs

Single GPU for now, possibly multiple in the future.

I'm not planning on putting movies and stuff on it, so I just need an SSD, I have an old 320GB HDD I can throw in it for storing backups/installers/etc
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by madmattd »

Haswell isn't going to be that big a deal on the desktop front if you want to game heavily, just a slight uptick in CPU performance. Haswell's GPU will be roughly 2x as powerful as Ivy's (which was surprisingly decent, but still no replacement for a real gaming card). Haswell will be a low-power chip too, which is a minimal issue off-battery. I was going to wait for Haswell, then determined it wasn't going to be worth the wait. Last I looked, mid-June was the target release time.

That case is a proven solid choice.

Stephen does raise a valid point in needing a solid 12V rail. Looking at the Newegg pics for it, the +12V is a little wimpy on the amperage department, and pretty heavy on the 3.3V and 5V (it has more power on those than my 750W!). It also only has one PCI-E power cable, which tells you a lot right there. While the wattage is fine, I have to agree that a new PSU would be recommended after looking at that, though what you have might be OK, hard to say for sure.
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by PRETENDICA »

I think you can get a Full tower for that price, maybe yuo don't have the room. I got my son a Cooler Master m ATX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119263 plus it's got a 20% off coupon. Really nice cable management. As far as PSU, I agree with Stephan, you want some thing with lots of amps on the 12 volt rail.
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by Stephen »

no new generation is a bit deal, as its only 10-15% increase at best, its the improvements they make with each die. the previews on hasewell are already looking good and thats on a stock motherboard.
with a 8-13% increase of preformace on a 3770k putting it up near the sand bridge e chips running at a tdp of around 84w, and native 6 sata 3 ports and 6 usb3 ports much better then the current 2 sata 3.
id say hell yes and wait if your not in a big hurry.
hasewell release timeframe May 27 and June 7, 2013

the case is ok, theres much better options today in my opinion but cases are pretty well just whatever you like http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6811119265
this one is just awesome i think, though the corsair 900d is bad ass your choice totally up to you though lol

always do your research when selecting your psu, your psu is the center of your system it feeds all the power to your components. you want the cleanest accurate power you can, to many people shrug off the psu as a this should be good enough. if your gonna splurge anywhere do so on a psu then the gpu

buy this your system will thank you
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6817139041
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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by Joe »

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Re: Thinking of building a PC

Post by Stephen »

Yeah looks decent although should grab the 3770k then u can oc it down the road for abit more juice.

And the sdd is ok considered tier 3 but id recommend samsung 840 faster and slightly cheaper
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