Halanna

I've had the same computer guy for 10 years. Every time I want a new computer it's the same thing, I tell him I want a gaming computer and he starts slinging 100 questions at me. I can't process the information fast enough to make decisions and don't understand half of what he's saying anyway.

So, I'm in a position again to want a new computer. I'd like to nail down things I really really want and things that don't matter. I want to be able to tell him, "This is what I want" to make this whole process easier.

Things I know I want:

Tons of RAM, memory or whatever so there's no lag, hitching or anything
Best graphics card available under $800
Very best cooling system because the tower is in an enclosed area of the desk, yes I know it shouldn't be, but it is and that's not going to change

Does everything start with the motherboard and go from there? Is the Intel Dual Socket Extreme Desktop Platform a motherboard? (ok don't laugh)

How important is the power supply? I've read conflicting articles.

I also would like this computer to last a while and not need upgrades or anything for a few years.

What I'm wondering is, what would you put in your ultimate gaming computer? Motherboards, processors, video cards, and everything else.

What would be things I would get thinking I needed them but really didn't?

LordEden

I think the first question I would ask would be, how much are you willing to spend on this PC?

Give us a price range of what you want and I'll make you up a quote for a system I would recommend.

Are you saying that you have $800 set aside just for the video card alone or is that for the whole system?
A good case will have good air flow and as long air can be brought into the pc and out, you should be ok. If you do go with a larger video card SLI combo, heat could be a problem, those things put out ALOT of heat.

Quad Core would be good or if you have the money, go with the i-7 chipset.

Important if you are running two video cards and a host of other items. Gaming video cards need alot power in order to run at optimal rates.

That last statement is a hard one. If this was anything other than a gaming PC I would say you would be ok. Games keep getting better and better, top of the line now will be great for a 1-2 years and then you will start having to turn down the graphics on newer video games as they come out. Older it gets, the more you will have to turn down the graphics settings in brand new games. You will get to a point where you can't run the newest games without clipping and low-quality graphics. That's the way of Technology now-a-days.

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Halanna

For the whole thing with no monitor up to 6k would be about my limit. I said $800 for the video card because I was looking at them on newegg.com and this one seemed good for the price Newegg.com - BFG Tech BFGEGTX2951792H2OCWBE GeForce GTX 295 H2OC 1792MB 896 (448 x 2)-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards.


This is one of the biggest problems. The tower goes into the bottom of the desk in a cubby designed for it that has a door, the door is always open, but the desk is against a wall and the way the computer room is set up, the desk can't be moved and it has extreme sentimental value so can't be replaced.

Is that made by Intel?

Yeah this is a problem. So something else I would need is the pieces of system to be individually upgradable then. Right now I do know I have PCI Express. Not sure exactly what that means but maybe how the parts relate to each other?

Sent my computer guy an email, I'm sure he'll have a barrage of questions that I'll post for help!

Martian

For video cards, you get diminishing returns as you go up the price scale. Unless you just absolutely have to have the very best, there's no reason to spend so much on one.

SLI doesn't provide as much of a performance advantage as you might expect, either.

Honestly, I think $6000 is way too much to spend on a gaming computer. For half that you can build a system that will perform just as well.

Power supplies are important, but the brand is more important than the wattage. It has to do with build quality, really. Very few systems will ever draw more than 500w, so anything in that range should be just fine for you.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Radio Monk33

Yes, very much diminishing returns...6k is far more than I would spend on an efficiency point of view. I would rather drop 3k twice (half the upgrade cycle/lifetime of the computer). Or build a top of the line 3k machine for you..and 1 for me!

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kutulu

The i7 is the newest Intel processor. It is pretty much the top of the line retail processor at the moment and blows everything else away. There is the 920, 950, and the 975. The 920 is the best buy of the three and costs about $270 (that is what I have). The 950 is basically a waste. The 975 is amazing but it costs $1000.

Whatever you do, if you are going to build an over the top computer, be sure to get a solid state hard drive for your OS and traditional hard drives for your data. It makes a difference. For about $3k you can build a pimped out system.

I wouldn't worry too much about heat. For less the $100 you can get a great cooler.

Halanna

Ok, so I've saved half the money and haven't even done anything yet, awesome!

Any brand names you would recommend?

---------- Post added at 07:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:52 AM ----------

I wasn't aware video cards had diminishing returns. Martian said the exact same thing.
And he said SLI wasn't all that great.

So what am I looking for in a good video card? Where is the threshold for diminishing returns? What video card would you use?

---------- Post added at 08:01 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:54 AM ----------

Ok, so I have the processor, Intel i7 920. I'm assuming the 975 is just more than I need and overkill.

So, these are apparently two different types of hard drives? How is solid state different from traditional? Any brand recommendations?

Any brand recommendations? Are liquid cooling systems a waste or useful?

kutulu

Solid state drives (SSD) are basically flash memory. Traditional hard drives are platters. I'd get the Intel X-25M. It is about $230 at newegg.

For coolers you don't need liquid unless you will be doing serious overclocking. I'd recommend the Coolermaster V8 or the Noctua NH-U12P SE1366. Both will be about $70.

I'

SecretMethod70

Good lord, up to 6k? How often do you upgrade your system? Are you a professional gamer?

Wow.

Anyway...

I recently purchased the #1 rated case on Newegg and have been very happy with it. Lots of vents and fans for cooling, and spacious so it's easier to build (your "computer guy" will appreciate that). With all the fans (it came with 4, and I've installed 2 more, plus the CPU fan), it's also the loudest computer I've ever had, but the cool running temp is worth it to me. It's also on sale at Newegg for $35 off right now!

I'd recommend the same route for your power supply. Newegg's #1 rated supply is 750W which should be enough for you, and it's also on sale for $60 off (plus another $10 off via mail-in rebate).

For CPU cooling, I've been very happy with my Zalman fan. I've found Zalman fans to be both affordable and effective. I did a quick search and it looks like the i7 is socket 1366. This is the fan I've got, and while it's not made for socket 1366 it looks like they're giving away a free compatibility kit with purchase. I've been very happy with it, and you'll notice it is also one of the highest rated fans on Newegg. I'm sure there are probably newer Zalman fans made specifically for socket 1366 which might be better, so you might be better off having your computer guy look into it briefly. I can't recommend Zalman enough though.

As for the rest of the details, it's been too long since I've looked into building a computer, so I don't know what the latest and greatest technology is. Wish I could offer more advice.

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"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Glory's Sun

buy/build this


pause it at 4:06 to see the list of components

SecretMethod70

wow... now i want an SSD

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Frosstbyte

The ONLY downside of SSD is that it has a much faster burn out rate. The speed is delicious, but they have much less space per dollar and they're not as durable. If you can afford it, though, it's sick. That's an amazing demo of their power, though.

Halanna

After looking at some of the gaming computers online, some were 10k! I thought that would be the price I'd have to pay. Obviously I was wrong and 3k seems to be the consensus.

No, not at all but I do have a lot going on at one time. I can have 2 separate games of World of Warcraft running, Vent, a single player game paused, a movie paused, Youtube, Yahoo Messenger, 3-4 internet windows open, email open, and I want to be able to get immediate response from the computer when I click on something to change what I'm doing.

Thank you for all the suggestions. The case is perfect. I hadn't even considered the case before.

---------- Post added at 08:53 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:47 AM ----------

Perfect, ty for the suggestions!

Flinx

If your going to stick your case in a cubby hole and leave it there then liquid cooling is not for you IMHO. Besides unless your Overclocking you really don't need it.

Your power supply is important! I can't really stress that enough, buy a good one.
PC Power and Cooling, OCZ, Corsair and Antec would be my choices in that order.
500 watts is the minimum I would consider, 750 is better and the price differances between them I'd go for a 750watt.
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750-Watt is a good choice I'd say.

Next up is what CPU, well you already stated a Intel i7 920, the 975 is crazy expensive and again not worth it unless your into overclocking.

This brings us to your video card(s). ATI or NVidia. My personal choice is ATI, I like their drivers and their customer service. The very few times I've had problems with a ATI card they have bent over backwards to help me up to and including RMA'ing one card that was out of warranty for just under 2 months, now thats customer satisfaction in my book.
If I had the money I'd get 2 XFX Radeon HD 4890 XT, but remember this is a personal preference others are going to say CrossFire/SLI is a waste, not when your gaming it isn't IF the game your playing can take advantage of it.

Now you need a motherboard, just about any Intel X58 chipset mobo will fit the bill.
Asus, MSI and Gigabyte make good ones. I like the Asus Rampage series myself but I'm thinking cost is a bit high and a bit too much bling so I'd recommend the MSI Eclipse.

Now onto Memory. OH wait what Operating system? Windows 32 bit or 64 bit? XP Vista and Win7 all have 32 an 64bit versions. If your staying in 32bit land 4gig of RAM is your max because thats the MOST you can address and you don't get all of it even so. So 64 bit? Well it has other problems as well, drivers seems to be the biggest problem I run into myself. Since you've stated that this is gaming system I'd say either XP Pro or Win7 (go Win 7), here is where you and your builder need to sit down an talk 32 bit or 64 is the big issue, IF you can get all the drivers and make them play nicely with each other 64bit and 6gig (in a matched set, 3 sticks). OCZ, Kingston and Crucial are my choices in that order. OCZ Platinum Tri Channel.

The case you selected before is a good choice.

Your stated your desk is a problem
Any chances of cutting a hole at the back of the desk and putting a small fan there to keep air moving? Even against the wall there is usually a small enough space to allow air movement with a little help. Just a thought and this method has worked before for me.

Martian

I'm partial to Antec power supplies myself, I've had good results with them. The one ratbastid linked will work fine though. They key is not to get a cheap no-name power supply.

You'd be hard pressed to build a system that draws 750w, even under peak load. The key isn't so much how high the wattage is, but how that wattage is delivered and divided across the rails. That's why brand name is important -- well, that and overall build qualities. The big names are big names for a reason.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

shakran

Is there any way you can cut a hole in the back of the computer's cubby? You're just not going to get enough airflow in that thing. Those desks were designed for pentium 2's at best, and they were dicey even back then. Most desk designers are thinking about looks and whether or not a tower will physically fit. They aren't thinking about cooling the computers, and they probably have no idea how a computer is actually put together or how it works. Heat is going to be the last thing on their minds.

A modern computer will suffer greatly in such a small enclosure. If it's not physically damaged by it, you will have random reboots and freezes as heat overwhelms the machine. You're going to have to figure out how to get more air in there, or you will have to put the computer on the desk or something. If we were specing a shuttle PC for web browsing and email checking that'd be one thing, but you want a monster gaming machine, and that's going to generate a metric crapton of heat.

allaboutmusic

Does your computer HAVE to go in that space? Perhaps it could be placed elsewhere in the room, and run your cords to it. I used to do this with my old computer - it was in a walk-in cupboard, and had the monitor, keyboard and mouse leads under the door.

Rekna

You are going to have a problem with heat and adding bigger fans won't help. You need some way to move the hot air out of the desk area. This could be done with liquid cooling if you had a hole in the desk to move water to and from a reservoir.

Also as others have said, don't just go buy expensive stuff because it is the best... You are going to pay a ton more for a very small increase in performance.

biznatch

As an aside, I built a rig for roughly 650 with Newegg(no OS, no monitor), and it runs pretty much everything (including Crysis) flawlessly. I'm not saying I wouldn't have spent more if I could afford it, but nowadays gaming computers can really be done fairly cheaply.
But hey, it is fun to have an awesome rig.

I also agree about the hole in the desk solution. If you have 2 inches of space between the desk and the wall it should be enough.

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Flinx

Just a quick aside here, it's the radiator not the reservoir that would need to be outside of the desk for liquid cooling.
IMHO it would still be a bad idea, long tube runs are NOT a good idea. The pressure drop alone plus trying to route the tubing for maintenance checks (at least once a week bare minimum) would leave me thinking it's not worth it.

There was an excellent thread on HardOCP about something like this but I can't seem to find it, the water experts seemed to think it was doable but not worth the trouble and aggravation involved. Also something about pump size to overcome pressure drop do the the length of tubing to reach outside of the desk while leaving enough slack to be able move the case to do checks. Possible tube kinking in the slack drew some comments also.
If I come across it again I'll edit an post a link.

Bigger fans were not really suggested that I could see, just better placement to get air movement in the cubby. Doesn't have to be a BIG fan, 80 or 90mm fan would make a huge difference in air movement meaning better temps.

Halanna

Yes, there is a good portion of desk removed from behind the tower, about half the area I would guess.

Yes, it's about 3 inches from the wall.

No, moving the tower out to somewhere else isn't an option. That is the only place for it.

I am still learning, so don't laugh, but are you referring to fans in the case or on the computer itself or fans unrelated to the computer?

Would a small fan maybe on the floor blowing behind the desk help?

So I talked to my computer guy today and he was sort of impressed! All of your suggestions (yes I gave due credit to TFP, maybe he'll join!) and advice were well received and I understand my soon-to-be computer a little more than I would have.

I'm using the suggestions for case, processor, power supply, am going with a solid state hard drive for the OS (WinXP Pro) and a traditional hard drive for the data and the suggestion for the CPU cooler! Thank you to all who suggested.

I'll let you know what the final cost was. I can't believe I was so far off base with what this would cost but I'm pleased.

Martian

As long as the enclosure is ventilated you should be fine. If the back is open sufficiently to allow air to flow, the fans inside your PC will take care of the rest.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Redjake

$3k is not consensus!

I'm going to echo what some of the others have said in here and say that $6000 is way too much to spend on a gaming PC - heck, ANY PC. But I'm going to take it one step further and say that even $3000 is too much to spend. I wouldn't go above $1500 or $2000.

You hit a point of extreme diminishing return once you hit the $1000 area. I built my PC last year in April of 2008 for $700 (monitor not included) and it will run ANY game you throw at it, including Crysis. For $1500 of today's hardware you could build a gaming PC that will run Crysis at 60 FPS on max detail. There's no need to go above that level of performance - no game would need it. It's just not worth going much past $1500. Pieces of hardware are so cheap and efficient these days that you can get an incredible bargain for not much money.

Lasereth is on vacation, else I would ask him to chime in here.

Here is a chart I've made just for this thread!

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SecretMethod70

I concur with Redjake. Sure, you can get a more powerful computer for $3000, but the best value is around $1500.

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Flinx

I was thinking apart from the computer, but since you've stated that the desk is 3inches from the wall AND that there is a good portion of open space at the back of the cubby where the tower is to be located then you probably don't need a separate fan. but I would keep an eye on temps for a few weeks anyways. A small floor fan pointed at the front of the computer would work better then pointed at the rear of the desk, the idea is to get air movement in the cubby hole to allow the fans inside the case to have fresh (cool) air to blow into the case. The open area at the back of the cubby should allow that by itself but I won't guarantee it without seeing the desk in question in person.

But there is a simple test you can perform beforehand to check by yourself.
Do you smoke? If yes the light a smoke and hold it near the front of the cubby, then again hold it at the back of the desk BELOW the open area, watch the smoke. If it just streams straight up at both front and back then there is no air movement and you will need a separate fan at the back of the cubby to draw fresh air into the space. The keyword is draw not push so the fan show blow the air from the cubby and blow it towards the wall (yes it DOES make a difference and I could explain why but I really doubt you want me too).

I have to agree with Rejake and SecretMethod70 $1500 is a good price depending on your location. My present computer, which runs everything I've thrown at it quite well, could be built for less then that easily where I live.

kutulu

I don't think he'll be close to $3k. He said he's going with the recommendations in the thread so they would be something like this:

I'm not sure what GPU he's getting but I doubt it will be more than $500. Therefore the cost is about $1,800 before software and whatever the guy is charging for assembly. If his guy ends up charging that much he's screwing him on the assembly fee.

Flinx

Why buy a heatsink? The retail box comes with a stock heatsink that works quite well unless you plan to overclock. With that said I will add that you really should clean the included TIM off and use a quality paste like arctic silver 5 or and equivalent one. The stock TIM does work but not good enough, I shaved about 3 Degrees C at idle when I changed from stock to Arctic Silver 3 with my Q6600.

Another tip I'd like to add is, buy all your parts at the same place at the same time. Personal experience tells me you could get a deal by buying this way, I saved about $180 on my last build this way , mind you I do tend to buy from this dealer a fair bit as I do custom builds for friends and family as a hobby.

Another tip, see the system in operation BEFORE you pack it up to go home. Both idle and running full bore for at least 15 minutes. That way if something "works loose" in transit you know your system worked before it left the builder. I always do at least a 12 hour burn in before I let a system leave.
To be honest I get a kick of showing off the new system to it's owner and putting it through it's paces.

Now for a threadjack, does anyone here have a SSD in their personal computer? I'm curious as to it's actual performance in normal non raided use. Boot time, in game (say a map change in TF2 or another game) etc. Lets hear some real user opinions, is it worth $416 (where I live) for a 80gig HD?

kutulu

The stock heatsink that came with my i7 wasn't working very well for me. It was fine for normal operation but when I went to encode video (especially HD video) almost immedately after going to 100% on all cores the temps would shoot up to 80 degrees C almost instantly and start to creep towards 90. I wasn't overclocking at all. The MB came with software that could be used to run it in an underclocked setting for power management so I used that until I could get a heat sink. It made a huge difference.

I have an SSD and I think it works great. I did a lot of research on which specific model to choose, with some models there were issues with the controller causing stuttering that would freeze your system. The only device that wasn't affected by this back in Feb 2009 the Intel X25-M so I got that. There were some firmware issues with the drive still but Intel released new firmware that fixed those problems.

I'm very happy with mine. I use it as a system drive and all programs are on it. Everything loads very quickly. Then again, I have never used anything else on this system so it is really hard to judge how much of it is from the SSD vs the rest of the system.

tcp

if you really have that much money to spend, would some kind of cluster computing be an option? Maybe something simple like Nvidia Cuda?

skier

Halanna do you want to get a sound card/speakers as well?

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Rekna

can you install an intake and exhaust fan in holes cut into the desk?

] is an exhaust fan
[ is an intake fan

Jinn

I would bet $1500 a $1500 computer could perform identically to a $3000 computer in 95% of real-time gaming benchmarks. Naturally 3D Mark scores, etc., would be higher, but could you (as a human) really notice a difference? I built my last one for $1000 on newegg and it's run every game I've played on Max with max AA, etc.

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Lasereth

Yeah the max you ever want to spend on a gaming PC is $1,500. If you go higher, you are paying an extra $1,000 for a 5% increase in performance. Not worth it at all.

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biznatch

I agree, get a few monitors, or something else if you really wanna spend the rest of the money. You'd have to do some special effort to really put 3000 in a rig.

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Martian

This is a bad idea. If you're going to add fans to the desk, they should be facing the same direction or else on opposite sides of the enclosure. By having an intake and exhaust next to each other like that you will disrupt airflow and may actually increase the temperature by holding it there for longer.

__________________
I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Talo

I just went through this process myself a few months ago.

The i7 920 is the processor to go for - but heat is absolutely a concern, even without overclocking.

I moved my Zalman cooler from an older core2duo rig to this set-up, but it doesn't keep it nearly as cool as I would like.

Take a few extra bucks and get a nice heatsink & fan. At the time I was purchasing, the Thermalright (maybe thermaltake) heatsink was all the rage - but by now there must be better / more cost efficient ones on the market.

Rekna

The fans would not be right next to each other. The idea would be to line them up with the intake and exhaust fans on the computer. If your computer's intake fans were on the front then you would put the intake fan on the front of desk. You need to move hot air out and cold air into the enclosure. The best way to do this would be to line up the fans to take advantage of the already prescribed air flow. If that isn't an option then i'd suggest doing a simple cold air at the bottom hot air at the top air flow exchange. the big thing is you want your exhaust fans to line up.

Kasey

ohhhhhh,