The Computer Building Rave!

Discussion in 'Make It So' started by NevermorePoe, Jun 9, 2016.

  1. PrinzVyper

    PrinzVyper "Cum cetera fallunt, ludere mortuus."

    All right, I did a bit of research, and I will try to be as objective as possible:

    Pros: At about $625 in the U.S. the machine you linked is inexpensive. The nVidia 1050TI is a good GPU for video. It comes with Windows 10 Home. You get a 3 year warranty and tech support.


    * As a note I gonna mention games quite a bit from here on. You may not be a gamer, but what games require to run today, will be what other programs will require tomorrow...


    Cons:

    Pre-built PC's tend to use the cheapest parts possible in order to hit a price point and maximize profits.

    The CPU is woefully under-powered. AMD CPU's don't give the same performance as Intel CPU's on a per/clock, per/core basis. The CPU in this machine is barely equivalent to a low-end Intel Core-i3. The current crop of AAA games use this level of CPU as the bare minimum required.

    The listing does not show the make/model of the motherboard. So the upgrade path of the CPU is not known. Though it probably has a AM3+ CPU socket, it might not support a faster, more power-hungry CPU.

    It comes with 8GB of DDR3 1600Mhz ram. 8GB is also becoming the bare minimum for the current crop of high-end games. DDR3 as a standard is also on it's way out as DDR4 becomes more popular.

    Though the 105oti GPU is made by nVidia, they do not list the manufacturer of the card itself. nVidia, like Intel and AMD only make the processors, not the support hardware. If the card in this machine is made by a reputable company, like EVGA or ASUS or MSI, then you will be fine. But pre-builts tend to use whatever is cheapest.

    This machine does not come with a Solid State Drive, known as an SSD. SSDs are fast, very fast. SSDs makes your whole computing experience a lot better. Even if you get a very small SSD and just put Windows on it.

    The listed machine comes with a 500watt power supply, which is just about the minimum that a machine of this spec needs to operate, and the rating of the power supply is not listed. Power supplies are rated one a platinum, gold, silver, bronze, system.



    Other Thoughts: I don't know about your budget, or what you plan to do with this PC. If you have any gaming or art in mind then if you purchase the listed machine you may have to think about upgrading to a new machine in about a year, if not sooner. At the end of the day "You get what you pay for." In my opinion it is almost always better to build you own PC if possible. If you can put together a desk or bookshelf you bought a Walmart or Ikea, you can most likely put a PC together. It just requires attention to detail, and patience. Then you will know what and how to upgrade when the time comes, and you will know absolutely what parts you have when it comes to things like driver updates. Even installing Windows 10 is relatively painless.

    I hope I was able to help,
    -Prinz
     
  2. EulersBidentity

    EulersBidentity e^i*[bi] + 1

    Thanks for your help! My budget is around £600 for computer, monitor, keyboard & mouse. I've never been able to afford a gaming computer before, but I've had a stroke of luck recently. (NB tho that my budget is a question of spending priorities, not disposable income: I should be saving every penny for postgrad study, so this is a totally hedonistic purchase just for the funsies. I can't justify spending more, because if I manage to save additional cash then I should save it for my studies. /tangent)

    I want it for entry level gaming, but it's a lot more important to me that a game runs at all than that I get an amazing visual experience. I've been playing on a 3 year old, £200 laptop until now, and the main reason I'm so keen to upgrade is because Mass Effect Andromeda is about to come out :B

    I don't doubt that I've got the dexterity to put together a PC, I'm just frustrated by the cost, jargon, and time consumption. I also don't want to spend a lot of time troubleshooting stuff like hardware/software conflicts, as everyone writing Amazon reviews for pc components seems to...
    And Windows is expensive. Though I guess I could run 7.
     
  3. NevermorePoe

    NevermorePoe Nevermore

    It only took me about five hours to build my computer, its mostly pretty self explanatory, and most of the parts are labeled as to where they go. @PrinzVyper I specifically recommended cyberpower pc to eulersbidentity, as I bought my first pc from them, and then did all the upgrading/swapping myself, and that one lasted nearly nine years. Of course, you used to be able to specifically choose components from them. Also, there are custom configurations that you can use, I made a fairly cheap one Here (it came out to 658 pounds, if I did that correctly.) And you can change things around/swap out the case etc. I went for the cheapest items that I felt were immediately neccesary. You can poke around other custom configurations Here, under custom configurators.
     
  4. PrinzVyper

    PrinzVyper "Cum cetera fallunt, ludere mortuus."

    Hmmm. A GTX 1050ti 4GB card will give you excellent graphics, if you use a 1920x1080 monitor, or less resolution. The problem is that an AMD 4000 series ( 4 core ) CPU will bottleneck the whole system, it's kinda like putting fancy chrome rims on your Honda Civic. If you are going to purchase an AMD based PC, they are very good on price/performance BTW, then you would be better served looking at a 6000 series ( 6 core), or an 8000 series ( 8 core) CPU. A good example of a 6000 series is linked Here, and the same system with a 8000 series is linked Here. I found an equivalent machine by Cyberpower PC Here .With any of these you will have to increase the RAM from 8 to 16 relatively soon, but all of them come with SSDs, you wouldn't believe the difference one of these makes until you have used one, and Windows 10 Home, and are in the £500-£600 range, if google's currency converter is accurate.

    @QuotableRaven I am unable to look at the sites you linked.
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2016
  5. NevermorePoe

    NevermorePoe Nevermore

  6. EulersBidentity

    EulersBidentity e^i*[bi] + 1

    Thanks both! That's some useful info.

    An unfortunate consequence of living in the UK is that electronics are more expensive. Maybe a VAT thing? In any case, the price equivalence is probably more like UK price = US price + 30%. E.g. this model - there's no equivalent on the UK site (and the US site doesn't ship to England), but I customised one to be as similar as possible and it came to £766. $700 = ~£561, so there's a pretty significant markup.

    ...I'm just whining now. Sorry! I'll spend some time on pcpartpicker and see if I can budget this better.
     
  7. Elanor Pam

    Elanor Pam ohshit waddup

    I'm also in need of a PC refurbishing! I built mine in 2011/12 and it's... starting to show. Motherboard is going wonky, memory slots randomly don't work, memory cards don't either, I've only got firefox open and the cooler is running like crazy; also one of my HDs went poof and took all my digital art along for the ride. Back then I did some massive research to find decent parts that would last me, but right now I really can't gather the spoons for that kind of brainwork on my own...

    Anyway, what I want:
    • to play FFXIV in the prettiest setting
    • FFXV would be nice to if there's a way to play xbone games on the PC, idk if that's possible
    • To tab in and out of games without any spazzing
    • to be able to use manga studio and photoshop together smoothly
    • and dreamweaver too if i need to
    • not necessarily along with FFXIV or anything, I'm not that crazy
    • but i'd like my billion firefox tabs open along with FFXIV, that'd be nice, and chrome with my fics so I can write while i wait on duty finder
    • I'm thinking a SSD for fast windows loading?
    What I need:
    • definitely a robust and stable machine
    What I've got:
    • an Nvidia Geforce GTX 750 Ti 1GB that I bought nearly a year ago and which I'm sure could play FFXIV in max settings just fine if it weren't for the rest of the computer, so I'm not in a hurry to replace it just yet
    What I could give or take:
    • My thermaltake box is pretty good, but the front audio jack gives nothing but awful noise and has been for years and idk how to fix that so I might buy a new box just for that because I hate it and connecting headphones into a working jack gets very inconvenient-- otherwise tho it's still good? Otoh if I ever decide to stream or something a mic that does nothing but screech is like... no
    • I've a perfectly good dvd drive but it doesn't play my urbance blu-ray, so I'm thinking about a blu-ray player, otoh that urbance kickstarter prize is literally the only blu-ray disk i've got and idk if i'll ever get any others anytime soon
    Suggestions are welcome, with the caveat that I live in Brazil and thus any price estimates must be multiplied by roughly 3.5 + about 60% for import fees, I think
     
  8. NevermorePoe

    NevermorePoe Nevermore

    what kind of budget are you looking at? And could you post your computer specs?
     
  9. Elanor Pam

    Elanor Pam ohshit waddup

    • intel i7-3820 3.60 GHz
    • 8GB ram (used to be 16 but one of them isn't working)
    • an asus p9x79-LE motherboard
    • thermaltake 450W power source.
    • did I forget anything?
    I've got 4k reais saved up, and it's also my birthday month so I'm somewhat confident I could get at least 500 from my parents as a gift, maybe more. That's roughly 1200 dollars, I think. If I add this month's paycheck, assuming it's not delayed or partitioned or that I have no emergencies to deal with, that could be another 2 to 3k.

    Quick edit: half the ram sockets appear to not be working on my mobo, so I think it's feeling its age.
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2016
  10. NevermorePoe

    NevermorePoe Nevermore

    Honestly, it sounds like you might just wanna look at getting a new motherboard/computer, if the motherboard itself is having problems it might not be worth swapping components.
     
  11. Elanor Pam

    Elanor Pam ohshit waddup

    yeah, that was my intention to begin with. I guess my post wasn't very clear....? Really the only thing I think is worth keeping around is the GPU. I'm looking for build tips.
     
  12. NevermorePoe

    NevermorePoe Nevermore

    Oh, i interpretted refurbishing as replacing just a couple components. Are you willing to build your own computer, or would you rather order it assembled already? Also, I really like the motherboard I have right now, though it can be a pain to access my ram card slots, as a gigantic pc cooler is blocking them :/

    CPU:Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (Purchased For $0.00)
    CPU Cooler:Noctua NH-C14S 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($78.89 @ OutletPC)
    Motherboard:ASRock X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (Purchased For $0.00)
    Memory:Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory ($72.99 @ Newegg)
    Storage:Sandisk X400 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($74.98 @ NCIX US)
    Storage:Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $0.00)
    Case:Thermaltake Versa H22 ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $0.00)
    Power Supply:EVGA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply($54.99 @ NCIX US)
    Graphics Card: GTX 1070 ($450.00)
     
  13. Elanor Pam

    Elanor Pam ohshit waddup

    Yup! I built the one I'm currently using now, in fact. (I wrote this on my original post as well, although it's easy to miss)

    Unfortunately it seems your mobo isn't sold in my country :< i'm guessing it's gonna have to be one of the big names, like asus or gigabyte.
     
  14. NevermorePoe

    NevermorePoe Nevermore

    Ah, try going for one with the same sockets as you have now if you can, for the processor, or go one newer and get the 2011 v3 socket, and ddr4 ram slots. Since those are the ones coming up for the future. Otherwise, if you have a new motherboard you might be able to salvage the majority of your components. Also, I like https://pcpartpicker.com/ for looking at components and estimating build cost.

    [Edit:] Looks like they don't have a brazillian store, so not sure how much help that would be.
     
    • Like x 1
  15. Elanor Pam

    Elanor Pam ohshit waddup

    for a 2011 v3 CPU, what kind of cooler should I get? My current build still uses a fan, but it's been stuttering even after thorough cleaning, and I'm completely out of touch with the newer kinds.
     
  16. PrinzVyper

    PrinzVyper "Cum cetera fallunt, ludere mortuus."


    What is your time-frame for this project?

    Also your nVidia 750 Ti 1Gb is rapidly becoming obsolete, I have an nVidia 960 2Gb myself and I will have to replace it as soon as possible because I can't use it for rendering in my favorite 3d art program. 2Gb just isn't enough for that, then there is the fact that most current AAA games have at least 2Gb of video card memory as their "recommended" configuration. 2Gb is already required for "Planet Coaster" and quite a few current games. Right now an nVidia 1050 Ti 4Gb will cost around $150. As long as the monitor you are using has a 1920x1080 resolution or less, a 1050 Ti will be a great card. I use 2 monitors, mainly because I have a bazillion tabs open in my browser all the time, or watch Netflix. I put all that stuff on my left monitor, and play games on my right monitor. The 1050 Ti will support 3 monitors, but Windows 10 will only support 2. I think this is a great solution when you like to keep a lot of stuff open at the same time.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2016
    • Like x 1
  17. Elanor Pam

    Elanor Pam ohshit waddup

    Hm, a quick search says an nVidia 1050 Ti 4Gb costs 899,00 here, which is.... not too bad, mine cost around 650 when I bought it. I'll consider it if I don't go overbudget with the new mobo/CPU/cooler/SSD; otherwise I'll keep using my current one for a few more months. Like I said, it is capable of running FFXIV's current max config, the rest of my computer just can't handle that yet. And FFXIV is the only game I actually play frequently. All other games are still hypothetical ones.

    Edit: OTOH only one store seems to sell it, and it's super far away and isolated. Most trustworthy stores seem to be stuck at 2GB still, so... I guess we're still behind on GPU. I'll have to wait regardless.
     
    Last edited: Dec 5, 2016
  18. Elanor Pam

    Elanor Pam ohshit waddup

    by the way, is there a practical difference between CPUs with a different number of socket pins? I'm asking because a 1150 CPU is half the price of a 2011 one. What are the pros and cons of having one over the other? Google isn't being very helpful here and is mostly spouting jargon and math at me.
     
    Last edited: Dec 12, 2016
  19. NevermorePoe

    NevermorePoe Nevermore

    that's what kind of socket it can fit in. the 1150's are the old model, and there won't be many motherboards capable of socketing them soon. Also, they probably won't be manufactured for too much longer, looking at computers recently suggests that more and more manufacturers are using the newer 2011-v3 sockets. For a future proofed computer, you should probably go with the 2011's.
     
  20. Elanor Pam

    Elanor Pam ohshit waddup

    no, i know that. i wanted to know if they were more powerful or something. 2011 socket cpus are around 1400 reais here, that's a lot of dosh. Hard to justify when a 1150 one is 600.
     
    • Like x 1
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