PC Build - Recommended Systems Thread - February 2012

[camy205]

Yeah i'll do that then, it seems to handle the beta just fine suprisingly. Might by a new video card, case and mobo for my birthday once I get the money

[philo-sofa]

Monpepe chucked up a brief performance link, it basically said >4GB made no difference at all with BF3, so you should be schweeet camy

[Nostargate]

I almost have a good build.

i5 2500k
some average mobo
8 gig ram
1tb sata3 hdd
but only had enough left to get a 5830...it was either that or a nv 550TI...so i'm guessing low as fuck to get any fps.

[Cowwie]

What is a good cheap case that has good ventulation and is able to house a 6950 with out a fuss?.

How it looks from the outside is a non issue.

[Benji77]

Coolermaster CM690II
or
Fractal R3

[Speakman]

CM690 is the way to go mate. plenty of room inside, great cable management, and plenty of room for fans


can fit a 6970 with plenty of room to spare

[Mayhem_Lee]

What is a good cheap case that has good ventulation and is able to house a 6950 with out a fuss?.

How it looks from the outside is a non issue.

Tbh you cant beat this case http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=15777

[Kayne]

Is it a bad idea to buy each part separately (not installing them. My motherboard is on all the old technology, I think my graphics card is AGP or something, aswell as cpu being on old technology aswell, Possibly even ram too?)

Will parts get outdated badly within 6 months, or have a significant price drop, and on top of that, would their most likely be a part at the same price 6 months after?

see sig for current pc, el oh el.

[Mayhem_Lee]

Is it a bad idea to buy each part separately (not installing them. My motherboard is on all the old technology, I think my graphics card is AGP or something, aswell as cpu being on old technology aswell, Possibly even ram too?)

Will parts get outdated badly within 6 months, or have a significant price drop, and on top of that, would their most likely be a part at the same price 6 months after?

see sig for current pc, el oh el.

What are you wanting to upgrade for? BF3 or just general use and some older games?

Be best to just save up as much as possible and then buy something. prices will drop a bit in that time and you dont have hardware sitting there you cant use haha

[Kayne]

My first computer was one with dos, where I had to get my brother to help me launch police quest.
My second computer was worse than this one, It was able to run windows xp, but I think it barely survived on wow's lowest settings.
Now My 3rd computer, my current one, is this shit.

My aim is to buy a pc that will last, that will blow bf3 out of the water and back, and just be a nice high end pc for a good while.

Reason I was asking is because i'm on a first year apprentice's wages... Its lower than minimum wage, lets keep it at that lol. I can't stop spending the money I save because it's the first time i've ever had easy access to money (never had pocket money, etc). I was hoping that mentally, Saving for a 300$ part at a time (or so) will make me want to spend less, than trying to save for the "impossible" 5k ;p

[Cowwie]

Thanks for the suggestions, managed to cram it into my ancient antec case but regardless i still need to get a better case for summer, this one tends to cause problems during the warmer periods of the year

[kongkiwi]

My first computer was one with dos, where I had to get my brother to help me launch police quest.
My second computer was worse than this one, It was able to run windows xp, but I think it barely survived on wow's lowest settings.
Now My 3rd computer, my current one, is this shit.

My aim is to buy a pc that will last, that will blow bf3 out of the water and back, and just be a nice high end pc for a good while.

Reason I was asking is because i'm on a first year apprentice's wages... Its lower than minimum wage, lets keep it at that lol. I can't stop spending the money I save because it's the first time i've ever had easy access to money (never had pocket money, etc). I was hoping that mentally, Saving for a 300$ part at a time (or so) will make me want to spend less, than trying to save for the "impossible" 5k ;p

Lots of poeple on this forum have their old stuff for sale.  Hit them up, make a thread, whatever you think is best.  If you said to me "hey Kong, how about I give you $200 bucks for that GTX260 and GB Mobo" I would probably say "sure, glad to let it go."  If $$$ is an issue, this is what I would do....

[Aquila Rossa]

have people noticed that HDD prices have doubled in the last few weeks? A WD 1TB Black was just over 100 bucks a few weeks ago but now they are well over $200 with a 2 per customer limit. It is the same at PB tech etc. Is it a new model or is there a HDD stock shortage or something?

[Benji77]

stock shortage. theres flooding.

http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/24706-hdd-shortage-to-get-worse

[Emrico1]

yeah, I won't be buying a HDD for a while...

[Aquila Rossa]

Cheers. I missed that one. I knew about the flood but only thought it affected people heading there for sex change operations (apart from the millions of civs there). Been busy as with study. Even the old stock of Spinpoint F3s have been doubled in price. Just as well I grabbed my external when i did.

For the average consumer this translates into higher prices and IDC expects hard drive prices to go up by about 10 percent in Q4. However, as we reported yesterday, prices have shot up well beyond 10 percent.

I wonder if the impact was underestimated or it is a case of price gouging?

Btw, see how much that extra 0.1Mhz on the 2700k will cost you? CL have a pre order price up now.

[O-L-W-A-G]

0.1Ghz not mhz.............
Would still pay for higher-binned chip

[Kayne]

Okay, The beast (see sig) just died. I'm not going to try to fix it. Instead I've decided that the only way I'm going to be able to save for a PC is if I buy each part separately.

http://www.getsome.co.nz/showthread.php?51303-PC-Build-Recommended-Systems-Thread-September-2011&p=1050626&viewfull=1#post1050626

The "Srs gaming" pc,

Is that still a decent build? Is there anything thats ~10-100$ more and makes a big difference?

I'll be honest, I'm not very computer savy.

[pop]

the hdd would cost more now.

[philo-sofa]

I do need to update these, however not much has changed no. I'd grab the ~$500 HD 6970 given that most modern 6950s aren't unlockable, but that's about it TBH.

[O-L-W-A-G]

I'd wait for Ivy-bridge and the 7 seris of GPUs and in the mean while grab the RAM, PSU, Case, HDD and anything else not getting an upgrade for the next few years

[philo-sofa]

I'd wait for Ivy-bridge and the 7 seris of GPUs and in the mean while grab the RAM, PSU, Case, HDD and anything else not getting an upgrade for the next few years

TBH given the compatibility between existing boards and Ivy, as well as how cheap a 2500K is, it's not like he can't upgrade now if he needs.

[O-L-W-A-G]

Il give you that but defiantly wait for 7xx

[philo-sofa]

Updated 07/02/2012 (except for HTPC builds to come soon).

AMD's awesome 'CPU-with-a-decent-onboard-GPU' chips continue to impress, with the newly released, fully overclocking-unlocked 3870K proving an almost free upgrade.  Unfortunately AMD's utterly crap FX series processors count them out of everything above the entry level. Primarily because they're sp slow (don't believe any fanboy ranting, or polite reviews - they're utterly shit) but also because AMD seem to live in a fantasy land and have takinen the interesting step of essentially stopping production of the faster Phenom II X4 (yes Phenom II was faster and it's the FX series' predecessor!) and pricing the FX's as if they were actually half-decent: AMD I am disappoint, put down the bong and design some good chups again FFS. Other than that the odd cpu tweak (and price increase due to zero competition) has occurred, with the only significant change being the 'never gonna buy it' $10K rig's new LGA-2011 3960X Sandy Bridge-E processor.

Hard drive prices have of course shot up (tho TBH I don't believe they're doing much more than gouging now) and I've tried to find the best value drives there are.  We also see some Z68 'G3' boards with true PCI-E 3.0 compatibility around, which have been swapped in, in place of older LGA-1155 boards in the mid to high range. SSD prices are down and in the high end the AMD HD7970 and HD 7950 makes an appearance, pleasing OLWAG immensely (they're included in anticipation of some severe price drops). We're still waiting on Nvidia's new GPUs to drive down prices and likely drive up performance which will be very interesting, along with the new Intel Ivy-Bridge processors - both are due in April.

This is the first time where I can say it's actually a worse time to buy a computer than it was previously; prices are up and performance has plateaued (and this is compared with 4-5 months ago). Caused can largely be tracked down to Thailand being flooded and AMD being a failboat. Our best wishes are with Thailand our utter scorn is to be heaped upon AMD (except for the excellent Llano A8, A6 & A4 series!).

Happy Building!

[Speakman]

essentially stopping production of the faster Phenom II X4

So THAT'S why I couldn't find one for the life of me for a mates budget build :/ Bastards