PC Hardware Thread: Now With 100% More Folding!

[Horticulture]

I'm going to be getting a better processor, RAM and motherboard to go with the new card.

If you're replacing most of the components, you might as well get a new case, even if it's relatively cheap. The case your pavilion is in now is not only small, but has very little cooling or room to add fans, so you could run into heat issues with a powerful graphics card and processor. Either the Antec 300 in the OP or a Cooler Master Centurion [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119047] offer more room to work and cooling, and are ~$50.

 

[Horticulture]

Here's my piece on Cooling;

In addition to buying quality components, cooling is also essential in keeping your machine running smoothly. The hotter a component gets, the more electricity it will use, the more inefficient it will do its job. Additionally, properly cooling components will expand their lifetime considerably. I?ve built quite a few systems for people, including gaming systems, and my personal view is that if it isn?t acting like an air-conditioning unit, it?s not properly cooled. Although that?s perhaps a tad extreme, especially for the budget systems, you can always decide not to (over)cool certain components.

Case fans
Case fans come in many shapes and sizes. The rule of thumb here is that bigger is better. Most quality cases already have and support additional 120mm fans. Buying silent fans should only be considered a priority when you don?t want your computer sounding like a car passing by. It?s nice to have, but not essential.

When looking to improve airflow in a case, consider buying a fan which speed can be set using a switch or other device, like the Antec Tricool fan series. A low, medium and high setting will allow you to adjust airflow in the case. Case fans mounted in the front of the case also cool your HDD. This will expand its lifetime considerably. When mounting a few extra fans in your system though, be sure to buy a case which has removable dust filters, like the Antec three hundred. They will help keep the inside clean.

CPU Fans
A CPU fan should always be considered. Although a boxed cooler will do its job, they are often noisy, and will sometimes allow CPU temperatures up to 70 or 80 degrees Celsius on high end CPU models. Needless to say, this will have an impact on their performance and effective lifespan. Temperatures like these may even cause MoBo?s to deform or downright crack over time.

When looking for a CPU fan, you will come across many, many different types. Some cheap, others expensive, the choice might seem obvious. However, many cheaper but quality coolers will give you excellent cooling performance. In general, look for coolers with fans, a big total surface area and a smooth copper base, with as little grooves in it as possible.

Below are my personal recommendations which I have had experience with, and which are excellent CPU coolers. You may follow them or not, these are just there because I didn?t see them included in the original OP;

For dual core CPU?s, the Arctic Freezer 7 or 64 Pro is an excellent choice. It?s cheap, reliable, silent and can even be used to cool overclocked 3Ghz dual cores . The 7 version is for the 775 socket motherboards (intel), whilst the 64 version cools the AM2/AM2+ CPU?s (amd).

For quad core CPU?s, the Scythe Mugen 2 is an excellent choice. Cheap, silent, a truly quality build and excellent cooling properties, this cooler fits on both intel and amd boards. It however has the drawback that it needs a backplate installed. If you don?t feel like going through the hassle of doing this, the Arctic Cooling Freezer Extreme is also a excellent and affordable choice. Be warned though that it is truly enormous and may physically interfere with large MoBo northbridge chipset heat sinks, as well as some passively cooled memory types.

Horticulture also recommends Xigmatek's SDT-1283 (enormous) and Sunbeam's CCF (also enormous) which I reckon are equally good coolers, but have no personal experience with.

Memory
Memory is essential in your system. Being a critical component having it cooled, even passively, will greatly improve performance and stability of your system. Look for memory with a simple heat sink on it, excellent examples of this being Kingston HyperX or Corsair XMS2 memory for most uses. Often these types are just a bit more expensive than its ?naked? counterpart, but it?s well worth the money.

Simple heatsinks like this will most likely not interfere with most CPU coolers, and if you would have the CPU cooler have its intake facing the memory, the memory would be cooled even more because of the airflow generated by the fan on the CPU cooler. As a bonus, the heat sinks won?t allow massive dust buildup on the chips.

You could also go for more extreme cooled memory like the Corsair Dominator or OCZ Reaper series, but shouldn?t really do this unless you are seriously considering overclocking.

Graphics Card
Graphics cards sometimes come with terrific coolers, sometimes with truly horrific ones. The Sapphire 4870 512mb is a good example of this. The 1st version of the cooler (the red version) was noisy and didn?t do its job properly. The second version (blue version, fan replaced & moved) was a great improvement. Always extensively search for reviews online for which cards and which versions do and do not cool properly. Also be sure to order the version you want!

You could also go and buy a custom cooler for your graphics card if it?s performance is lacking. Zalman is the leading brand in this, and for good reason. They provide excellent, albeit expensive, cooling solutions for graphics cards. You could also consider buying heat sinks and placing them on the memory chips of the card, which will increase performance.

Airflow
A computer with excellent (cooling)components should perform well. But what if the airflow keeps getting interrupted, or you get positive or negative pressure in the case? This can slow down fans and make your computer less efficient. Determining airflow can really only be determined based on someone?s case type, and configuration. In other words, on a case by case basis.

You could also just try it yourself. Just experiment with different speed configurations until you get a good and stable ambient temperature inside the computer case (50 degrees Celsius is considered normal) with as little fan noise as possible.
You could also buy a fan controller, which in most cases will do this for you. I cannot give you any recommendations as I have never used one, so try to find some reviews on one if you need to.

Antec Three Hundred advice
The threehundred already has two excellent fans, a 120mm in the back and a 140mm in the top. Although they will keep your case nice and cool by pulling out hot air, I found they also tend to draw air primarily from the hole in the left side of the case, denying the HDD proper cooling which will cut its lifespan. Purchase atleast a single, but preferably two (silent) 120mm fans for the front of the case.

Thanks for writing such a good piece on cooling. It's taken its rightful place in the Valhalla of hardware advice (i.e. OP)

 

[valczir]

Just wanted to point out: The value of a Phenom or Phenom II CPU depends heavily on the operating system you're using. I use linux, and I've noticed that the Phenom series of CPUs run MUCH better in linux than in Windows, and I'm not the only one who's noticed this.

I know that the vast majority of people use Windows of some kind, but if you plan to use an operating system that fully supports multiple CPUs (or CPU cores), the Phenom series seems to perform roughly equal to intel's extreme high end processors. I've been running some relatively recent games in Wine and can run quite a few of 'em at once with no noticeable FPS drop (e.g. Oblivion, The Witcher, WoW, Dungeons and Dragons Online, plus compiling Xorg (a very, very large open source application) all at once dropped roughly 5 FPS from my games, compared to playing only one game with nothing else running). I've got a Phenom II x4 940, 4 gigs of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 260, and I'm using Sabayon Linux 4.1 KDE, using KWin compositing desktop effects (which I didn't mention 'cause compositing crap doesn't put a huge load on the CPU, just the graphics card).

[edit]
Keep in mind that running those games in Wine adds a slight performance hit, to begin with. The Wine devs haven't implemented every single Windows library, so there are a bunch of calls (most often in Direct3D games) that need to be emulated. Performance varies from game to game, using Wine, but most of those games take a performance hit, rather than a performance boost. The sole exception is DDO, but that's probably because I had to turn some of the graphics settings off 'cause they would cause the game to crash (or, in really weird situations, the monitor would flip upside down for three seconds at a time).
[/edit]

 

[Oopsie]

Just wanted to point out: The value of a Phenom or Phenom II CPU depends heavily on the operating system you're using. I use linux, and I've noticed that the Phenom series of CPUs run MUCH better in linux than in Windows, and I'm not the only one who's noticed this.

I know that the vast majority of people use Windows of some kind, but if you plan to use an operating system that fully supports multiple CPUs (or CPU cores), the Phenom series seems to perform roughly equal to intel's extreme high end processors. I've been running some relatively recent games in Wine and can run quite a few of 'em at once with no noticeable FPS drop (e.g. Oblivion, The Witcher, WoW, Dungeons and Dragons Online, plus compiling Xorg (a very, very large open source application) all at once dropped roughly 5 FPS from my games, compared to playing only one game with nothing else running). I've got a Phenom II x4 940, 4 gigs of RAM, and a GeForce GTX 260, and I'm using Sabayon Linux 4.1 KDE, using KWin compositing desktop effects (which I didn't mention 'cause compositing crap doesn't put a huge load on the CPU, just the graphics card).

Did you use Vista or XP for your test? Vista tends to be more of a resource eater than XP.

 

[vampirekid.13]

your budgets are completely off.


700 is low end

1200 is mid range

2000 is high end.

 

[Anarchemitis]

I'm going to be getting a better processor, RAM and motherboard to go with the new card.

If you're replacing most of the components, you might as well get a new case, even if it's relatively cheap. The case your pavilion is in now is not only small, but has very little cooling or room to add fans, so you could run into heat issues with a powerful graphics card and processor. Either the Antec 300 in the OP or a Cooler Master Centurion [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119047] offer more room to work and cooling, and are ~$50.

Oh yeah, and I'm getting a heat sink too.

 

[azadiscool]

That is what I was thinking. But for the computer I'm building (based on the mid-range budget build) if I buy Vista then I will have to buy 7 eventually. But if I buy 7 when I build the computer, I save 100 or so dollars. Then again... Vista will be more compatible with stuff for a long time, so it might be plain better. We'll see, I guess...

If you were really cheap, you could install the Win7 RC [http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx] now and replace it with the full version before it expires.

That doesn't look bad actually. It expires in a year, so i could get a feel for Windows 7.... Maybe that's what I'll do.

your budgets are completely off.


700 is low end

1200 is mid range

2000 is high end.

Not quite. You obviously depart with your money more easily than the majority of us.

Only place I could see that being true is if you aren't building yourself, but are instead customizing on a retail site or something.

 

[Oopsie]

Oh yeah, and I'm getting a heat sink too.

Just sell the computer you have now and buy/build a new one then.

 

[valczir]

Did you use Vista or XP for your test? Vista tends to be more of a resource eater than XP.

Windows XP Pro. Wouldn't touch Vista with a full bio suit (I don't actually use XP, either, but I did install and tweak it just to compare performance on the Phenom). And I want to reiterate that I've talked to other people who've tried the same tests, and the results were similar - the Phenom performs multiple times better in unix-based operating systems than in Windows, while the high end intel processors only perform marginally better in unix-based systems (there's going to be a performance improvement from switching to linux, no matter what, because linux takes fewer resources than Windows).

The whole idea came from AMD's hype that the Phenoms were "true quad core" - I (and, apparently, many other linux users) decided that I (we) wanted to see if they really do perform better in multi-core environments (linux has fully supported multiple processors since the mid 90's, I believe). The results surprised me. I figured that AMD's hype was just hype, and that the performance difference between a Phenom and an intel processor (I believe I tested the difference with a Core2 Quad or something - it was a friend's computer, so I don't remember exactly, but I know it was a quad core intel processor) using a true multi-processor OS would be comparable to the difference in Windows. I was quite wrong - the Phenom's performance skyrocketed after booting into linux, while the Core2's only got bumped up a little. It was impressive.

 

[Oopsie]

Windows XP Pro. Wouldn't touch Vista with a full bio suit (I don't actually use XP, either, but I did install and tweak it just to compare performance on the Phenom). And I want to reiterate that I've talked to other people who've tried the same tests, and the results were similar - the Phenom performs multiple times better in unix-based operating systems than in Windows, while the high end intel processors only perform marginally better in unix-based systems (there's going to be a performance improvement from switching to linux, no matter what, because linux takes fewer resources than Windows).

The whole idea came from AMD's hype that the Phenoms were "true quad core" - I (and, apparently, many other linux users) decided that I (we) wanted to see if they really do perform better in multi-core environments (linux has fully supported multiple processors since the mid 90's, I believe). The results surprised me. I figured that AMD's hype was just hype, and that the performance difference between a Phenom and an intel processor (I believe I tested the difference with a Core2 Quad or something - it was a friend's computer, so I don't remember exactly, but I know it was a quad core intel processor) using a true multi-processor OS would be comparable to the difference in Windows. I was quite wrong - the Phenom's performance skyrocketed after booting into linux, while the Core2's only got bumped up a little. It was impressive.

Interesting to say the least. I'll give it a shot somewhere in the future to see if it affects dual cores as well.

 

[vampirekid.13]

Not quite. You obviously depart with your money more easily than the majority of us.

Only place I could see that being true is if you aren't building yourself, but are instead customizing on a retail site or something.

hmm, well i build my computers myself, but maybe we can agree on a range then?

low range would be 500-900, mid range 900-1200 and high range would be somewhere around 1300-2000ish?

i dont see how 700 is mid range O_O thats pretty low.

 

[azadiscool]

Not quite. You obviously depart with your money more easily than the majority of us.

Only place I could see that being true is if you aren't building yourself, but are instead customizing on a retail site or something.

hmm, well i build my computers myself, but maybe we can agree on a range then?

low range would be 500-900, mid range 900-1200 and high range would be somewhere around 1300-2000ish?

i dont see how 700 is mid range O_O thats pretty low.

I have to concede that 700 bucks is kind of low for a gaming PC. But in the context (three different builds) it is the midrange build.

Yeah, I guess the rule of thumb would be 900-1200 is mid-range though. Although I prefer being able to call my PC build a mid-range build .

 

[valczir]

your budgets are completely off.


700 is low end

1200 is mid range

2000 is high end.

Not quite. You obviously depart with your money more easily than the majority of us.

Only place I could see that being true is if you aren't building yourself, but are instead customizing on a retail site or something.

Actually, a friend of mine was paying me $5,000 per computer to build her some ultimate gaming rigs, and I did manage to get up to about $3,000 per computer in raw parts cost. I had to get her a 100% copper custom liquid cooling system, three video cards (tri-sli ftw?), and about three terabytes of space, though. Per computer. It was insane. I was like, "Uh ... why do you need this again?" "To play guild wars." "... Um, you REALLY don't need to spend this much for a computer that plays guild wars." "Sam, shut up and build the damn computers." "... Okay."

What was I supposed to say? I was excited to put in that custom liquid cooling system (I'd only used liquid cooling kits, prior to that), and she didn't wanna budge. She wanted the ultimate computer. Two of 'em.

 

[azadiscool]

your budgets are completely off.


700 is low end

1200 is mid range

2000 is high end.

Not quite. You obviously depart with your money more easily than the majority of us.

Only place I could see that being true is if you aren't building yourself, but are instead customizing on a retail site or something.

Actually, a friend of mine was paying me $5,000 per computer to build her some ultimate gaming rigs, and I did manage to get up to about $3,000 per computer in raw parts cost. I had to get her a 100% copper custom liquid cooling system, three video cards (tri-sli ftw?), and about three terabytes of space, though. Per computer. It was insane. I was like, "Uh ... why do you need this again?" "To play guild wars." "... Um, you REALLY don't need to spend this much for a computer that plays guild wars." "Sam, shut up and build the damn computers." "... Okay."

What was I supposed to say? I was excited to put in that custom liquid cooling system (I'd only used liquid cooling kits, prior to that), and she didn't wanna budge. She wanted the ultimate computer. Two of 'em.

$5,000 bucks? I can't see a practical use for 3 terabytes of hard drive space. Unless you are storing a RedTube Porn archive on it or something...

Sounds like Crysis has met it's match though.

Specs?

 

[oliveira8]

Not quite. You obviously depart with your money more easily than the majority of us.

Only place I could see that being true is if you aren't building yourself, but are instead customizing on a retail site or something.

hmm, well i build my computers myself, but maybe we can agree on a range then?

low range would be 500-900, mid range 900-1200 and high range would be somewhere around 1300-2000ish?

i dont see how 700 is mid range O_O thats pretty low.

I have to concede that 700 bucks is kind of low for a gaming PC. But in the context (three different builds) it is the midrange build.

Yeah, I guess the rule of thumb would be 900-1200 is mid-range though. Although I prefer being able to call my PC build a mid-range build .

The builds presented in the OP depend from game to game.

Of course the lowest build is built for gamers that dont really play games often and the games they play are either MMO's or more old games. Therefor the low costs.

The midbuild can range from 700-1000 dollars. Its already a powerfull gaming rig to deal with todays games and be a solid work computer.

The $2000 rig is really the top high. You can play pretty much everything that will probably released in the following 10 years...

The mid range build was made to be able to strecth to the 1000 by replacing some parts.

 

[Lord Krunk]

your budgets are completely off.


700 is low end

1200 is mid range

2000 is high end.

It's all about performance, not price.

 

[Horticulture]

Oh yeah, and I'm getting a heat sink too.

The heatsink is definitely a good idea, but in a small case with one fan, it'll be trying to cool your CPU with very hot air. It's probably better to spend the $ on a case first and get a new heatsink later.

your budgets are completely off.


700 is low end

1200 is mid range

2000 is high end.

Certainly a matter of opinion. For all of the builds (yes, even the high-end), I've tried to select parts that give the most gaming performance per dollar while using quality parts throughout. The performance spread is pretty well-balanced: a low-end CPU matched with a fast GPU on the low end, a quick quad-core with the same GPU and nicer components throughout at the mid-range, and a top-range CPU with dual cards and copious cooling at the high end.

I prefer to err on the side of frugality in giving advice...especially because an additional $2-500 will probably buy quite a nice upgrade in a year or two, while it wouldn't drastically increase performance (relative to the cost) on any of the builds now.

 

[valczir]

$5,000 bucks? I can't see a practical use for 3 terabytes of hard drive space. Unless you are storing a RedTube Porn archive on it or something...

Sounds like Crysis has met it's match though.

Specs?

Practical use? I couldn't see any, either. Far as I could tell, the situation was that she had money to spend and wanted a new computer.

Keep in mind, I'm a big AMD fan (I just can't bring myself to buy intel CPUs), but I -did- mention to her that an intel processor would be better because she's using Windows. She told me to just go with the Phenom, and I just went along with it 'cause ... well, 'cause she's scary.

Anyway, specs:

PSU: 1200W
CPU: Phenom 9950 BE (this was a while ago, prior to the Phenom II release), 100% copper water block (the multi-core one sold at DangerDen)
GPU: 2x GeForce GTX 280 SLI or 3x GeForce GTX 260 tri-SLI (I believe she got one computer with two 280's and one with three 260's) with 100% copper water blocks (the ones sold at DangerDen for the GeForce 200 series)
RAM: 8GB DDR2 1066 (I did also point out the slower RAM due to going with an AMD processor (this was before AM3 mobos with DDR3 RAM support were out), but she still wanted to go with a Phenom - I don't remember exactly why, but I'm sure that I didn't convince her to go that route)
HDD: 3x WD RE3 1TB in RAID 5 (the RE3's have RAID-optimizing features, so we went with those over the traditional Caviar, and she wanted a minimum of 1TB storage space per computer, which is why we didn't get Raptors)
Optical drives: 1x Bluray burner, 1x standard DVD burner
Cooling: Custom liquid cooling kit from dangerden.com, using a 100% copper radiator and one of their better pumps. I believe the tubing was 3/4" inner diameter.

Oh, I forgot, I included monitors, keyboards, and mice with the computer, which helped bring it the rest of the way up to that $3000 cost mark.
Monitor: Acer G24 24" 50,000:1 2ms LCD monitor, WUXGA
Keyboard: Saitek PZ30AU
Mouse: Razer Lachesis


So I dunno how well it would really run Crysis. The main price hike comes from the video cards and cooling system. If Crysis isn't too CPU-intensive (and I'm pretty sure it isn't, as it's an FPS, not an RTS), then the dual 280's or tri 260's would probably make an impact in its performance, especially when overclocked (I think they're stock overclocked by a ton - they came with the water blocks attached to them, so it was assumed they would be liquid cooled).

Many of the other price hikes come from non-performance-related things, like the bluray burner, or the keyboard and mouse (which came to about $150, for one mouse and one keyboard). We built her a computer oriented around the things she likes to do. I normally wouldn't throw in such graphics power, since I know she won't really use it, but I really didn't have anything else to throw on it, and she flatly refused to pay me less than $5,000 per computer. Don't ask me why. I do not know. I just tried to get the cost to be above 50% of what she was paying - I didn't want to be marking the computers up by 100%. I try to charge around 20% of the cost of parts to build computers - charging 100% was something I was flatly against.

 

[Undo]

I always used to build my own PCs but kinda grew tired of it. Checked prices with something comparable but in the end I got me a MacPro recently. Adding an extra sound card, especially if you want to use voice chat, and I just love it.

Not the very best for gaming but need it for render jobs as well. Gotta love those 8 cores.

 

[azadiscool]

$5,000 bucks? I can't see a practical use for 3 terabytes of hard drive space. Unless you are storing a RedTube Porn archive on it or something...

Sounds like Crysis has met it's match though.

Specs?

Practical use? I couldn't see any, either. Far as I could tell, the situation was that she had money to spend and wanted a new computer.

Keep in mind, I'm a big AMD fan (I just can't bring myself to buy intel CPUs), but I -did- mention to her that an intel processor would be better because she's using Windows. She told me to just go with the Phenom, and I just went along with it 'cause ... well, 'cause she's scary.

Anyway, specs:

PSU: 1200W
CPU: Phenom 9950 BE (this was a while ago, prior to the Phenom II release), 100% copper water block (the multi-core one sold at DangerDen)
GPU: 2x GeForce GTX 280 SLI or 3x GeForce GTX 260 tri-SLI (I believe she got one computer with two 280's and one with three 260's) with 100% copper water blocks (the ones sold at DangerDen for the GeForce 200 series)
RAM: 8GB DDR2 1066 (I did also point out the slower RAM due to going with an AMD processor (this was before AM3 mobos with DDR3 RAM support were out), but she still wanted to go with a Phenom - I don't remember exactly why, but I'm sure that I didn't convince her to go that route)
HDD: 3x WD RE3 1TB in RAID 5 (the RE3's have RAID-optimizing features, so we went with those over the traditional Caviar, and she wanted a minimum of 1TB storage space per computer, which is why we didn't get Raptors)
Optical drives: 1x Bluray burner, 1x standard DVD burner
Cooling: Custom liquid cooling kit from dangerden.com, using a 100% copper radiator and one of their better pumps. I believe the tubing was 3/4" inner diameter.

Oh, I forgot, I included monitors, keyboards, and mice with the computer, which helped bring it the rest of the way up to that $3000 cost mark.
Monitor: Acer G24 24" 50,000:1 2ms LCD monitor, WUXGA
Keyboard: Saitek PZ30AU
Mouse: Razer Lachesis


So I dunno how well it would really run Crysis. The main price hike comes from the video cards and cooling system. If Crysis isn't too CPU-intensive (and I'm pretty sure it isn't, as it's an FPS, not an RTS), then the dual 280's or tri 260's would probably make an impact in its performance, especially when overclocked (I think they're stock overclocked by a ton - they came with the water blocks attached to them, so it was assumed they would be liquid cooled).

Many of the other price hikes come from non-performance-related things, like the bluray burner, or the keyboard and mouse (which came to about $150, for one mouse and one keyboard). We built her a computer oriented around the things she likes to do. I normally wouldn't throw in such graphics power, since I know she won't really use it, but I really didn't have anything else to throw on it, and she flatly refused to pay me less than $5,000 per computer. Don't ask me why. I do not know. I just tried to get the cost to be above 50% of what she was paying - I didn't want to be marking the computers up by 100%. I try to charge around 20% of the cost of parts to build computers - charging 100% was something I was flatly against.

Actually, despite it being a DX10 game, Crysis needs lots of processing power for some reason. Anyways, I think this thread has a new high end build .