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New Computer

Discussion in 'PC Discussion' started by Republic, Aug 15, 2014.

  1. Republic

    Republic The Snow Queen –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    I require a computer for my new place. I can give a maximum of 1200 euro, though I wouldn't mind keeping some of that money.

    My main aim is that the computer be able to run the heaviest games on high settings with no problem. I'm tired of freezes, crashes and lag. I don't want that to happen ever again. Besides that, all I'm probably going to be doing are videos, streams, maybe some programming, but mostly games.


    My problem is that I don't have the faintest clue about computer parts. Any advice?
     
  2. coleam

    coleam Death Eater

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    I'd suggest starting by reading some of the other 10 million computer threads on the forum. Most of it is still relevant.
     
  3. Republic

    Republic The Snow Queen –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    I've had a look at several. Would still like some specific advice.
     
  4. coleam

    coleam Death Eater

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    What, specifically, would you like specific advice on?
     
  5. Ched

    Ched Da Trek Moderator DLP Supporter ⭐⭐

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    My advice in these threads is usually to go ask here.

    However it makes sense that you'd want to hear from people you somewhat know (on DLP) rather than people you don't know at all.

    ...and also, that website I linked assumes you'll be building it yourself. If you aren't building it and just want to purchase, then that's another story.

    You can look at benchmarks here for your computer parts in computers you look at to purchase. There's a few other sites that are good too if you are looking at a pre-built computer and want to see if it would run your games.

    For gaming you're mostly going to want a decent video card. The other parts are important too, like the CPU, etc. But for gaming I'm pretty sure your GPU is going to be primary.

    What are some websites you might be buying from so we can look into it?
     
  6. KGB

    KGB Headmaster

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    I threw together a basic gaming pc. http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/kMcmNG

    These are the sort of parts you should be looking for.

    The CPU is pretty much The standard gaming cpu, as in spend more on one only if you know what you will need it for.

    That GPU is going to eat up everything you can throw at it if you plan on staying with 1080p, but your budget allows for more. So you might want to look into a 780, but than get yourself a beefier power supply. that 550w will do for this build but a bigger gpu will be pushing it.

    Also I picked a rather basic mobo, you can afford better, but you would have to be more specific with your needs. Lots of storage? Expansion cards? etc.

    I personally would recommend going for a even bigger ssd. I have 256 and while it's kinda enough for the os and a bunch of games I'm always wary of it filling up as you need to leave them around 20% empty, although some people say that never firmwares have fixed all the issues.
     
  7. Republic

    Republic The Snow Queen –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    Well Ched, I don't have a preference for the website I'll buy it from. I assume it'd be best if all the parts came from the same one, however. So whichever would work best, I will use.

    KGB, I can go another 200 euro, easily. So what would you add/replace with that amount, keeping in mind that I want the PC to be able to run the heaviest games on at least relatively high settings?

    A friend of mine suggested this build:
    ups: Tecnoware ECO 0.7
    monitor: Samsung T22C300EW
    keyboard: Sharkoon Skiller
    mouse: Razer DeathAdder 2013
    speakers: Logitech Speaker System Z313
    box: CoolerMaster K380
    cpu: Intel Core i5-4690K Box
    motherboard: MSI Z87-G45 Gaming
    gpu: Asus GeForce GTX760
    memory: Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB DDR3-1600MHz Dual Kit

    How would you rate it?

    Edit: KGB, a guy that saw your build mentioned that the power supply is not enough for the videocard, and that it would take at least 770W, or something like that.
     
    Last edited: Aug 17, 2014
  8. KGB

    KGB Headmaster

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    No idea on the ups, it's not something I use. The keyboard and mouse is usually a personal preference thing, unless it's some kind of horrible design problem. And the deathadder is a solid mouse and that keyboard looks almost like a rebrand of one of the more solid basic designs.

    Have you taken a look at that case? I personally think it's rather ugly, but to each his own I suppose. The only objective criticism of it is: mobo has a header for 2 frontal usb 3.0, but the case has single usb3 and a usb2.

    The Cpu is unlocked, as in for overclocking. If your not going to do that than your just wasting your money. As I said above the 4570 is more than enough for games.

    The gpu is good, asus always has the best coolers. The MSI ones are usually a close second.

    The monitor you have picked has an in built tv tuner. Is that something you need or is that by accident? Because if you don't it's just an unnecessary expense. In any case I think a tv tuner card might come in cheaper even with a better screen. But this also is not a subject I have any real familiarity with as I haven't watched television in several years(and am proud of that fact ;p).

    I think you should do as Chedder suggested and find a site you will be ordering from. There are tons of them around, where I live even the mainstream shopping sites now offer a free service to put together your pc. Than you can finalise the pc as for a lot of parts it's the bang for buck that makes something the right choice instead of it being actually "better".

    Here is another site that you might want to look into http://www.logicalincrements.com/index.html. It has decent suggestions on how to best allocate your budget. But make a note that they assume you don't need a screen, they used to have that feature but they have changed since the last time I built a pc.
     
  9. Republic

    Republic The Snow Queen –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    Most of this went over my head. USB3 and USB2? What?

    No clue what the second paragraph is about.

    The TV Tuner is something I wanted, yes. Not sure if there are cheaper alternatives.
     
  10. KGB

    KGB Headmaster

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    USB3.0 is the new usb standard. The blue sockets. It's faster and generally better, also you can stick older usb devices in it with no problem. So, besides that it's still considered 'luxury' and costs more, there is no reason no to go for them. The motherboard your friend listed has a connection for 2 usb3 sockets in the front, while the case only has the one.

    The cpu. The one your friend listed is meant for overclocking. But you said you won't be doing that so it's just paying extra for no additional performance.

    And as for the psu thing your mate said. The thing with them is reliability and efficiancy. Most PSU's can't actually supply the wattage that is written on the box. That's why it's safer to go for one rated higher. But going with larger ones will usually kill energy efficiency. So they will pull more power from the socket thus costing you more money in the long term. I trust seasonic and that I will get performance out of their psu's. But if your going with a different brand than perhaps a larger one would be safer. 770w is still overkill though go with a 650w or so.

    The tv tuner thing I really don't know about perhaps someone here uses them and can pipe up about it.
     
  11. Republic

    Republic The Snow Queen –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    What is overclocking?
     
  12. Skykes

    Skykes Minister of Magic DLP Supporter

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    Overclocking is changing how fast your CPU works at. e.g. If you have an i5 that runs at 3.4GHZ you could slightly 'overclock' it to 3.6GHZ. Meaning it processes faster.

    The downside is that it runs hotter.


    I overclocked my cpu a bit and it caused a lot of overheating issues, often reaching 80+ Celsius. I solved this by buying a better heatsink and fan. Now it runs at 30 or less when idle and max low 50s when stressed.
     
  13. Sacro

    Sacro Groundskeeper

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    Don't buy the ups. Not only does it just offer 420W, I also doubt that you'll need it. Being able to have your PC running while power is out is certainly nice, but this one only offers 10 minutes battery power at "typical load" (whatever that means), so gaming while the power is out wouldn't really work anyway.

    KGB's build looks pretty good, but if you don't plan to overclock or use SLI/Crossfire (meaning more than one GPU), you can easily go for the H87 chipset and save some money there. Only difference between those two chipsets is the overclocking capability. Here are two examples: the Gigabyte GA-H87-HD3 and the Asrock H87 Pro4. The Gigabyte one still has two PCIe slots for GPU's, so that's where the price difference there comes from.

    As already mentioned the 550W PSU is more than enough if you don't plan on using SLI and don't overclock (as a side note, Seasonic is one of the best PSU manufacturers). 770W is way overkill, unless you plan to use a low-quality no name brand. An alternative for the Samsung SSD would be the Crucial M550. Both the Crucial and the Samsung are pretty even, so grab the one that's cheaper.

    Apart from that, can you give us some examples of games that you want to play on high settings? "Heaviest games" isn't really a category, but if you want to play everything on the highest setting, a 780ti would probably be your best bet (even for that the 550W PSU is enough btw). Of course if you can wait a little longer, than you can either grab an 880 or the 780 for a cheaper price, since the GTX 880 (and possibly the 870) will revealed to the press in september and is rumored to hit stores about 3 weeks later.

    If you do go for the 760, then grab the one from MSI (it isn't available at the german pcpartpicker for some reason, so I linked MSI's website instead). It runs at about the same temperatures as the one from Asus (about 2-3°C more), but stays quieter (38 instead of the 47.5 dBA of the Asus).

    As for TV-tuners, there's basically two options besides one in the monitor. You can either get an internal one or an external one that's connected via USB. I don't have any experience with external ones, so I can't say anything about those, but internal ones work pretty good.

    Also, listen to Cheddar and go to hardforum and make a thread there, too. After all, more opinions never hurt. Oh and do you know german? If yes I can give you an excellent test/benchmark webiste. If not, the one Cheddar posted looks pretty good, though I can't find the information about the test system that was used (and since the results are also dependent on the rest of the hardware that's kind of important, and also why you should never trust benchmarks 100%, unless you've got the same hardware as the testers).
     
    Last edited: Aug 18, 2014
  14. coleam

    coleam Death Eater

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    If you don't know what it means, you shouldn't worry about it. And if you're not worrying about it, there's no reason to get the K-series processor.

    As Skykes said, overclocking is changing settings so that your processor runs at a higher clock rate - speed - than it came at (hence "overclock"). This can increase gaming performance (and performance for anything that uses the CPU) by up to a few percent. However, as Skykes also said, it generally increases heat output and power usage. You can solve this to some extent with aftermarket cooling solutions (generally larger, more efficient heatsinks), but the power usage never goes away and you always run the risk of damaging your hardware by trying to push it too far, especially if you don't really know what you're doing.

    Unless you're willing to spend long hours reading guides and even longer hours testing BIOS settings and confirming stability, I really wouldn't recommend trying it. A stock i5 - any i5 - is more than powerful enough that it won't be a significant bottleneck for any GPU except maybe something ToTL (780Ti, Titan, R9 290x). Sure, you'll squeeze out a few extra frames, but once you're past the refresh rate of your monitor (most run at 60Hz, so 60 fps - 120 or 144 if you buy a nice gaming monitor), it really doesn't make a difference.
     
  15. Republic

    Republic The Snow Queen –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    Okay, so the UPS is out.

    Okay, but I'm kinda sorta confused on which part the PSU is.

    Tell me what you'd replace on the build I showed earlier, if you would.
     
  16. Callagan

    Callagan Fourth Year

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    PSU stands for Power Supply Unit. It's what changes power from the socket into power your computer can run on. You need one to start up your computer. Your friend's suggested build doesn't include one, although he might have thought the UPS could act as one.
     
  17. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    The point of an ups is not that you can game while not having power, it's to avoid a crash-shutdown of the computer. My ups gives me 15 or 30 minutes of time after power goes out in which I can save important documents I'm working on, close stuff, and switch the computer off as it's meant to. It should also be connected to the computer via USB or whatever, so that it can automatically send the computer into stand-by, even when you're not around. It's a very handy thing that has save me lots of trouble over the years.

    The question of whether you need it directly corresponds to the question of how good the grid is where you live. If you have power outtages every month, I'd certainly want an ups. Here, we get outages a few times a year, and I'm happy I have the backup. It also is supposed to protect your from over-voltage, like after a lightning strike, though I haven't needed to test that yet.

    So, TL;DR, an ups ranges from "nice-to-have" to "must-have" depending on where you're at. And personally, I'd only buy APC ups (I have this one), but that's just me.
     
  18. Sacro

    Sacro Groundskeeper

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    Yes, the intended use for an ups is to be able to save your work when the power goes out, but considering that many programs that an everyday user would work with have a autosave funtion, it comes down to if it's really worth it. Like you said, in areas that experience blackouts quite often it could come in handy, but generally the average person doesn't need one.
     
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