PC Build - Recommended Systems Thread - February 2012

[Alroys]

Was just looking at the SRS gaming pc and was wondering if a mobo with x8/x8 crossfire support would be a better opton than a x16/x4.
Was thinking of something like the Asus P7P55D-E PRO (http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?p=517759), just i know if i was spending 3K ish on a pc i would like the option to use crossfire in the future, especially if it is only an extra $30 or so.

[philo-sofa]

The difference is $50 (does that change your perception of the value?). I still agonized over it, but at the end of the day I figured the number of people who'll actually be well placed to go beyond the top single card is so small it's better to keep the extra cash. That having been said, I want to check the model I've chosen has the PCIe switching chip for it's SATA and USB 3 devices, if not I'll have to change it to the pro anyway.

[philo-sofa]

Updated 12/04/10

[philo-sofa]

Updated 09/05/2010 and added mini-ITX HTPC build.

[philo-sofa]

Updated 03/07/2010

[ArtanisNZ]

Soundcards like XONAR or something? onboard sound blows

[philo-sofa]

Hmm good point. Wouldn't fit into the OMGWTFHAX rig, but the $3000+ systems could do with the option. Suggestions for a good gaming/general duties card?

[Speakman]

i still laugh at the pic for SRS GAMING


i know people like that

[ArtanisNZ]

I'm saving my pennies atm for Xonar D1 $149 from the like of CL

http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=11928

[philo-sofa]

i still laugh at the pic for SRS GAMING


i know people like that

Dude... that's a self-photo. I 4m t3h 0ff3nd3d

I'm saving my pennies atm for Xonar D1 $149 from the like of CL

http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=11928

K will add that in for now. Any other suggestions sound-card wise (Azuntech X-Fi?) please make em here!

[Speakman]

i still laugh at the pic for SRS GAMING


i know people like that

Dude... that's a self-photo. I 4m t3h 0ff3nd3d

OHNOES :/

[philo-sofa]

Updated 28/07/10 - overall it's been an interesting month for GPUs, with Nvidia actually making significant inroads (!)

Starting with the entry level systems, the 'Budget Gamer' now has a GTX 460 768MB; due to the stellar performance of this 'OMG Nvidia made a good card again' model and an actual rise in the price of the HD 5770, it was an easy swapto make - I anticipate by next month you'll be able to get a 1GB model for the same price as todays 768MB. In fact given the frankly astounding ~90% average scaling SLI'd GTX 460s give (in both average and minimum FPS) the 1GB 460 in SLI very nearly replaced the HD 5870 in the 'SRS Gamer' segment, only losing out due to the associated costs/complexity of multi-card setups and immature drivers.

Perhaps even more suprisingly however the GTX 470 also moves in to replace the HD 5850 in the 'Gamer' PC; steadily improving production methods for the 470 have lowered voltages which in turn reduce temps/noise, whilst improved drivers have opened up a decent gap between the GTX 470 and the slower HD 5850. This, combined with price rises for ATI and drops for Nvidia means that I'm quite comfortable recommending the GTX 470 at $500 over the $460 HD 5850. In spite of the same improvements in the GTX 480 (slightly lower temps/noise and better drivers), the card just remains too hot (it can deform cables FFS) and loud to recommend.

ATI however fires back at least one salvo courtesy of Sapphire; interestingly takeing the ultra-high end segment that Nvidia tends to dominate. Whilst the 'OMFGWTFHAX' rig is supposed to be a system so extreme no ones likely to build it, even theoretically cooling four GTX 480 cards is ridiculously difficult and complicated, whilst powering them is right on the limit of what is possible. As such two of the new Sapphire 5970 4GB cards, with core/memory speeds and overclocking potential identical to that of a stock 5870, combined with lower temps and noise than 5870, presents a better option. Doing this also allows this system to ditch the outlandish PC80 case and Gigabyte X58A-UD9 motherboard for arguably better options, as well as providing space for a discrete soundcard. Win.

Other hardware has seen a slight but noticable general decrease in price, largely due to an appreciating NZ dollar..... however this not being an economics lecture so I'll STFU and just say now's a good time to buy hardware IMO

[Equity]

ty-very helpful

[philo-sofa]

Updated 16/10/2010 (fuck yea fri nite wooo-hoo!)

Nvidia loses ground again to ATI - with the 5870 now being so cheap it's actually taken the place of everything above the GTX 460. In fact it's such good value it's the only game in town for gaming systems above $2k. However these are cheap as the new AMD (yes AMD not ATI) HD6000 series is right around the corner - I'd recommend holding off for these for all new builds given their purported amazing mid-level performance (around 5870 levels for around $300), and impending take-over of the high-end.

In other news, SSDs are getting cheaper, HDDs are getting cheaper, and memory is.. getting cheaper (their price-fixing schemes must have run slightly aground again). The first next gen CPUs and mobos - Intel's midrange P67 and 'Sandy Bridge' LGA 1155 will be out before the end of the year, with AMD's Next Gen AM3+ and long awaited 'Bulldozer' CPU (sadly not AM3 compatible) expected mid-2011, and Intels X58 replacement (LGA-2011 and 4-8 Core 'Sandy Bridge') expected in about 12 months.

Overall, if I were buying anything other than a budget system, I'd hold off, as we're about to see a round of processor and graphics refreshes within the next few months. Fuck me those 5870s are cheap tho.....


EDIT: ok the 5870s just jumped up in price by $60 to annoy me. Still not all that dear tho.

[ticallista]

Hmm..In the process of replacing my P35 so I should wait huh....

Then again, I could wait forever .

[philo-sofa]

Updated 19/12/2010 - just in time for Christmas


Much changing of the guard for GPUs as both Nvidia and ATI are now competitive; their releases and price changes causing some swapping of parts along with a large number of outright changes. The GTX 460 (1GB of course) and HD 6950 are where the value is for 99% of gamers at present, however we should see the price of the HD 6970 and the GTX 570 dropping by around $100 in the near future as supply shores up, making them truly competitive offerings. For now the GTX 580 remains king of the hill, albeit at an exorbitant price, whilst the dual-GPU HD 6990 remains a part to be found sometime in Q1 2011.

CPU and motherboard wise, most things are still waiting on the first iteration of Intel's Sandy Bridge (LGA 1155) in Jan '11, so not much change there - I'd still recommend anyone doing more than a budget build wait a month for the new hardware. This will be followed by AMD's all new mega-super Bulldozer core a bit after mid-year with its attendant AM3+ boards (which look like having a longer platform lifespan than LGA-1155). Next up are Intel's 6+ core Sandy Bridges with dual PCIe (possibly 3.0) x16 slots in late 2011. One new CPU core very nearly in retail is AMD's Atom competitor. Codenamed Brazos, this looks to up the grunt available to low-power netbook/HTPC builds, whilst substantially increasing the graphics power - rumours abound that Intel is about to allow Nvidia to build Atom chipsets with onboard GPUs as a result.  


Happy building!

[krasher]

Nice review on the new intel stuffs.  http://www.guru3d.com/article/core-i5-2500k-and-core-i7-2600k-review/3

Do want!

Nice thread Philo. Very useful.

Moar review. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sandy-bridge-core-i7-2600k-core-i5-2500k,2833-19.html

[camy205]

Ugh it's so hard too keep up! Thx 4 update philo.

[philo-sofa]

Updated 17/01/2010 - Now is a great time to be building a system

The second generation Intel Core i5 & i7 are now part of all mid to high-end systems, with a refresh to the 2500K and 2600K (all non 'K' chips are un-overclockable) and their P67 motherboards sweeping the mid range to the very high end - only the insane 'OMFGWTFHAX' system keeps an older CPU due to the need for X58s many PCIe slots.  It's also thus the only system that really went down in price lol - Sandy Bridge brings quite the performance gain, but there's an attendant cost increase.  Lower end systems remain AMD due to their value (and TBH these pack a hell of a punch in any case).  

Graphics wise, no major releases are expected for the future till the dual-GPU HD 6990 monster is unleashed sometime in Q1 (if ATI can work out how to power and cool the thing). Price drops for AMD (nee ATI) and Nvidia's refreshed lines have seen the pair take pretty much even honours. Expect another round of price cuts from AMD for the HD 6870 and possibly HD 6970.

Memory wise, prices continue to drop (OMFG the price fixing schemes aren't working!), resulting in decreased cost for most systems, and a bump to 8GB+ memory amounts, which are starting to become useful, in the high-end.  

Finally, to those wondering why HTPCs havent moved to Sandy Bridge yet: dual core Sandy-Bridge processors (i3 2100 & 2120) aren't yet available in NZ, ETA is currently end of Jan afaik.  



Happy building all!

[Mayhem_Lee]

So im not crazy in noticing sandybridge doesnt have full speed PCie slots aka 16x 16x or 16x 8x 8x??

well there's one board but it only does 8x 8x. Any idea why this is philo?

[philo-sofa]

^^ Yep Sandy Bridge processors, like the LGA 1156 processors before 'em, have the equpiment for generating PCIe lanes on the CPU itself, and simply put, the CPU only puts out 16 full speed PCIe 2.0 lanes, so that's all it has to work with - there are only 16 graphics lanes there.

For dual card setups more expensive boards use a switchable 'PLX' chip that divides those 16 lanes up into either a single x16 or x8, x8 - the really high end boards will use an Nvidia NF200 chip which in addition to dynamicly switching the number of lanes each card gets, uses some high-speed signalling hax to increase bandwidth.  Nvidia claim it's effectively x16, x16 but it's probably more like 24 lanes dynamically allocated.

The are some other PCIe lanes on a motherboard - they're provided by the southbridge chip on the motherboard and drive all the x1 and x4 slots as well as connect in extra components like USB 3.0 controllers.  Interestingly as they're full-speed 2.0 lanes an enterprising motherboard make could probably combine them, and make a x8, x8, x8 board albeit that the third slot would have high latency and USB 3.0 would 'cut out'.

But yeah, for the most part there are only 16 PCIe 2.0 graphics lanes on Sandy Bridge; that's all it has to play with.

[philo-sofa]

Updated 27/01/2011 - trying to keep this updated more often

Sandy-Bridge (SNB) has actually gone up in price lol, however due to a bit of mobo tweaking, some new releases from AMD and Nvidia (the 1GB 6950 and the currently 'not in stock' GTX 560 it was designed to beat) along with some trimming we've cut a few hundred dollars from the midrange PCs, making SNB more attractive - note that unless you run a 2560x1440 or greater res monitor you won't need more than 1GB of video memory for now.

Other than that, there are a few housekeeping changes changes - the budget Corsair CX-400 is out of stock and a Silverstone unit takes it's place, while the ASUS DRW-24B3ST takes over DVD duties from our previous hard-to-find Samsung model. Similarly whilst the LanCool PC-K62 remains a great case, the lack of stockists (still only CL sadly) see it replaced with the excellent new CM 690 II Advanced. Also for the midrange, the Microsoft Sidewinder X6 debuts, replacing Logitechs frankly overpriced gaming keyboard, whilst finally making an appearance in the high end is the Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD7 board, with an NF200 chip for x16, x16 goodness on SNB. Next update will be in a few weeks to bring HTPCs up to date once dual-core SNB (or maybe AMDs fusion?) chips arrive.


Build well (and use an anti-static wristband)!


EDIT: swapped HD 6950 1GB for Gigabyte GTX 560 Ti, performance of each card @ stock is dependant on the game however it averages out to be identical. However, the factory overclocked Gigabye card comes with a 10% O/C out of the box, and should manage another 10% (that's a whopping 21% improvement if the user wants to max it out), making it a much better choice than the HD 6950 (which tops out at ~6%).

In fact a GTX 560 Ti fully overclocked should come in very close to a fully overclocked HD 6970. I forgot how awesome things get when both GPU companies are competitive

[Death Dealer NZL]

I need some expert hardware advice as I'm upgrading my MoBo to a MSI P55 GD85 (1156)
The CPU I'm looking at is a Intel i5 661 3.33 GHz for around $330 but Should I splash out and buy a Intel i7 875k 2.93 Ghz fpr $540.

My main concern is the extra $210 spent on the i7 worth it for playing games as this what the upgrade is all about, or should I go i5 and use the $210 for better Ram memory.

[kongkiwi]

Great thread, good work.

I'm surprised more people don't build in this country???

In regard to the Auzentech Xfi, I had one and it never went right, cracks, pops, etc, RMA'd, new card same thing, conflict with rig i guess somewhere, switched to other rig, same issues, now just run G35, which is better imo.

[philo-sofa]

Sandy-Bridge Builds are no longer 'on-hold'

Great thread, good work.

I'm surprised more people don't build in this country???

In regard to the Auzentech Xfi, I had one and it never went right, cracks, pops, etc, RMA'd, new card same thing, conflict with rig i guess somewhere, switched to other rig, same issues, now just run G35, which is better imo.

Glad you like it  Have generally read good reviews but will have a look into the reliability of the Azuntech X-Fi.