So I am upgrading. Got around $1400 AUD to spend on a PC, upgrading over my shitty old laptop that overheats playing any games other than LoL (and sometimes even then).

So far, its looking a lot like this. In total comes to around $1100, not including the below.

I havent selected a case, a PSU or a sound card. I already have keyboard/mouse.

So I have a couple questions. First of all, how is it? Any big rip offs or stupid picks etc.

Second, should I get this case, which comes with a 500W PSU and is pretty cost effective, or a different case with more powerful PSU? I like that the CoolerMaster comes with it's own PSU, but I dont know if 500W is enough for the PC.

Third, is a sound card worth it? As I understand it most mobos come with inbuilt sound cards that are fine for most needs and sound cards are more specialty devices for recording or mixing etc. Do I need one?

Also this PC Part Picker thing suggests I get a CPU cooler. Also unnecessary?

 

Here's my suggestion: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/4SPL

It's a pretty powerful system, and you shouldn't have problems with new games for quite a while.

 

Your processor will come with a decent cooler for your CPU. Only get a third party one if you're planning on overclocking.

Consider a modular PSU. Really helps with cable management. As Xiph0 said, 700W is a good idea. In the long term it will be worth it.

As your system is now, the bottleneck is going to be your videocard, but it's still good enough to play all the games on the market on decent settings.

 

Don't cheap out on a PSU. Remember, if something terrible happens to any other shitty cheap component you only have to replace that shitty cheap component. If something terrible happens to your PSU, you might brick every component you've got :3

 

Definitely going for a quality PSU.

I have some extra dosh, should I upgrade? I'm planning to use these parts for a while, so if the card is going to be useless in a year its worth spending some more.

And Sacro, thanks for the suggestion. I've got a couple weeks till I buy so I'll go through the suggestions with a fine tooth comb, see what are best parts/deals etc. Having a good comparison and possible alternative is useful. But right now my build is some $100 cheaper, so we'll see.

Thanks for the help guys, was somewhat dreading dealing with self-important staff.

 

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15_972&products_id=13567

Buy this PSU.

Seasonic is fucking fantastic, and 620w is more than enough unless you're planning on SLI with $500 graphics cards.

Other things are bleh and just buy the cheapest intel core i5 quadcore as they're the best price/performance you can get, the asrock extreme3 gen3 motherboard, ram/hd/cast/etc as desired and put the rest into a video card.

Soundcard is unnecessary.

Buying a cpu cooler like the coolermaster hyper 212 evo is a good idea too, although it isn't strictly necessary.

 

Thanks Cheddar, and I sort of am in a rush. I'll definitely check out that site though, cheers.

 

cpu - http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=187_346_1184&products_id=18947 185
cpu cooler - http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=207_23_845&products_id=18670 39
mobo - http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=138_711_1183&products_id=18137 129
ram - http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=186_538_913&products_id=16791 55
psu - http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15_972&products_id=13567 129
ssd - http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1221&products_id=17744 149
gfx - http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1177&products_id=16865 355
monitor - http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=558_1212&products_id=18846 179

COST: 1220 before extras

case, extra storage, optical drive, etc as desired.

Other commentary is that you don't need a soundcard.
You should buy an IPS monitor if you have the budget (and you do).
If you're not overclocking the i5 i picked is perfectly fine.
For power supplies, you could easily get away with this psu if you needed to cut the costs a little - things are getting more power efficient rather than less so going with the biggest size psu you can afford is unnecessary.
Don't buy an SSD from brands other than Intel and Crucial - you're far more likely to have problems you don't want to have.

Also, manually select things from shops you're actually going to buy from (like I did) rather than using pcpartspicker since the US prices are typically cheaper than the same thing in aus.

 

I've actually only been choosing parts with pccasegear and using pcpartpicker as a way to show it easily. Once I'm set on a build I'll go about finding best prices or deals etc.

Is 80GB ssd enough? I'd want my OS, a couple programs and games on there. If I could cycle the games out and in as I play them 80 would be fine, but if not 120 is kind of necessary.

 

Well, tbh ssd for games isn't strictly necessary - you get a far more notable difference by having your OS and commonly used programs like word/media players/photoshop/whatevers and for that 80gb is enough.

Not to say that there isn't a difference of course, but with your budget buying a bigger ssd specifically so you can fit games on it is something I'd advise against.

You'll still have a bit of room to put your most ~2 or so most common played games on a 80gb, but you won't be able to just dump your steam folder on it.

For price finding, use staticice.com.au if you aren't already, but generally pccasegear (for online) and MSY (for meatspace) have competitive prices.

edit: you can definitely go down to the 520w seasonic if you need the extra budget - I doubt that future graphics cards (the thing you're most likely to be upgrading in the medium term) will use more power than a 570gtx.

 

Yeah, good point about the SSD. Really the only game I play atm is LoL, and maybe Battlefield on the new PC. Not looking to run tonnes of games. And as nmb said, I dont think I want to cheap out on a PSU. With my budget I dont really need to cheap out, but cost efficiency is always appreciated.

Thanks for the static ice link pretty dang useful.

Edit: Okay, it seems like the Intel SSD costs only $20 less than the OCZ, except the OCZ has about 40gb more space. I have it on good authority that OCZ makes solid, long lasting drives. Why buy Intel again?

 

Be aware of a few things when you buy an SSD.

1. Check for write and read speeds. You may buy an SSD and think it's going to be screaming fast, only to find out you have moderate to good speed.

2. Settle on the board before you settle on the SSD. If the board you want is only a Sata II, then you will not be able to utilize some of the top speeds of a number of (recently new) SSDs.

3. If your buying a board that has Sata III, be aware that a number of SATA III drivers/hardware still limit the speed because they're not yet ready for full the full 6Gps. You can overcome this by using a card instead, but now you're getting into some money.

So, SSD's are great. Just make sure if you are buying a board that only has SATAII, you don't waste money on a SSD with anything over 260-280 MB/s read or write speeds. If your buying a board with SATAIII, make sure the driver (Marvel, etc) that is used for it will fully support all 6Gbs. My board will top out at about 5.

Oh, and if you really want to have fun, buy two SSD's and put them in a Raid 0 as your C drive. Just make sure you back up OFTEN.

 

The OCZ Agility 3 uses a Sandforce sf-2000 series controller which are plagued with firmware issues (yes, even after the 'fix' was released). Also uses asynchronous flash chips and performance drops when it's 50% or more full. Most SSD's on the market currently use the shitty Sandforce firmware, and out of those that don't I recommend Intel and Crucial drives.

That isn't to say that if you buy it you will have problems, just that you're far far far more likely to have them, and for such a trivial price difference you're better off buying something that comes with less risk.

Also wrt the PSU: If you buy the 520 seasonic you aren't 'cheaping out'. It's exactly what you need now, and it's exactly what you'll be needing in the future. A better way to phrase 'cheaping out' would be 'buying shit' which you won't be.

Buying a (mildly - like 100w) bigger PSU just because is silly since keeping in mind the rest of your system - any upgrade that would require a PSU bigger than 520w would also require a PSU bigger than 620w. And really - the ONLY upgrade that would require more power is going for a dual/multi card setup (SLi/Xfire).

 

I wonder if that's true if he wants to add an extra hard drive or blu-ray player later on? I ran into that problem when I started upgrading my original build. I had a OCZ ModXstream 700W PSU that was fine, even with my slight OC (I7 940 chip at 3.6 - 3.75) for two years. A couple months after I put in an extra hard drive, my PSU had a complete failure, taking my board along with it. So, if he's thinking about adding a few things later on, but nothing that would take too much power, wouldn't he be better off moving up a little in the PSU? Especially if he's misjudged the power consumption or has to replace something later on? I've never been as comfortable with this part of building as I'd like to be, so I want to know what you think.

 

Well Kai, this is why I made the thread. I dont exactly know anything about computers, so your advice is good. SSD advice is noted. About the PSU I was mostly going off

which I guess was more a reference to brand rather than voltage. And Scrubb, considering I have an SSD and 1TB in the build now, along with external hard drives it really isn't likely I'll have to upgrade. As long as it fits my current build it should be fine.

 

If you buy an SSD, don't buy one from OCZ. I've bought six of them, and not one has lasted longer than five months, and the reviews I've read don't make them out to be any better.

 

It should be fine even with extra optical drives or extra hard drives.