Official "System Builders" Thread

[Wesley]

System Builders Guide: October R4000 to R6500

And we're back boys and girls with another month focusing on desktops and their components. Following a hectic weekend at rAge spending some intimate time with AMD's Trinity APU, I can confirm for the first time that they will be getting a spot somewhere in my guide in future. Playing Borderlands 2 in 720p with high settings on the A10-5600K together with the HD6670, it was really pushing enough performance for you to forget what kind of hardware is powering the game. For gamers on a budget, Trinity and FM2 will be a real treat. This month also marks the first time Intel's Ivy Bridge will fill in the blanks in just about every single category, from the bottom-line Pentiums all the way up to the Core i7 family. So if you've got some money to burn this month, follow me to see how you can do!

Linky

To answer your earlier question, Bluesrock, the R6500 rig will last about two years or more playing games at 1080p on high, but may struggle in a few titles that heavily rely on the CPU in the multi-player segment. If your friend plays a lot of Battlefield 3 Multiplayer, he might be better served by chopping out the hard drive in my build and moving to the Core i5-3330 instead, keeping everything else the same. You mentioned earlier that you would only purchase from Wootware; you can find mostly the same components there, but it will end up being more expensive because their mark-up is higher.

[Legion]

Question:
running 3X HD7750 cards in crossfire for R950 a piece?
or
using X3 R950 for one good card?

[spjt07]

Question:
running 3X HD7750 cards in crossfire for R950 a piece?
or
using X3 R950 for one good card?

One good card, definitely, lower power draw, better performance with an option to crossfire/sli it later should that be what you wanting.

Now my turn, what is the tdp of the asus 5770, I can't find it on the net and am wanting to get a new gpu on similar power draw

[Cranky]

my 5770 maxed out at about 150W on max use and about 70degrees on load.

If that is any help to you

[Wesley]

Question:
running 3X HD7750 cards in crossfire for R950 a piece?
or
using X3 R950 for one good card?

One good card, preferably. Besides the fact that you'll be using very weak cards (in comparison to a single GPU for ~R2800), you'll also have one teeny tiny issue:



Reference designs for the HD7750 don't include a Crossfire connector, so you'll likely be limited to software X-fire only. The HD7770 can do Crossfire with the proper connector, but only with two cards. I'd much rather get one of these puppies:

Sapphire HD7850 OC 2GB DDR5 @ R2752 or
MSI GTX660 OC, 2GB DDR5 @ R2779

Now my turn, what is the tdp of the asus 5770, I can't find it on the net and am wanting to get a new gpu on similar power draw

One PCI-Express 6-pin connector resulted in a max TDP of 150W, although in my experience it was more like 130W in most games and apps. Similar cards in terms of power draw will be the Radeon HD7750 GHz edition (~80W), HD7770 (~90W), HD7850 (~120W), HD7870 (~150W) and Geforce GTX650 (~90W), GTX650 Ti (~110W), GTX660 (~130W), GTX660 Ti (~150W). All of these cards fall under the maximum TDP of 150W.

Your likely replacements in terms of better performance and less power draw would be either the HD7850 or the GTX660. Either one of those will be fine.

[Legion]

ok sounds fine.
Thanks for the help guys.

[spjt07]

One PCI-Express 6-pin connector resulted in a max TDP of 150W, although in my experience it was more like 130W in most games and apps. Similar cards in terms of power draw will be the Radeon HD7750 GHz edition (~80W), HD7770 (~90W), HD7850 (~120W), HD7870 (~150W) and Geforce GTX650 (~90W), GTX650 Ti (~110W), GTX660 (~130W), GTX660 Ti (~150W). All of these cards fall under the maximum TDP of 150W.

Your likely replacements in terms of better performance and less power draw would be either the HD7850 or the GTX660. Either one of those will be fine.

Thanks man, I work at a certain leader in computer supplier stores so I can get things at cost price so will be looking at the 7850 probably, just gotta make sure it will fit in to the case ok, cM Elite 335

[Wesley]

Thanks man, I work at a certain leader in computer supplier stores so I can get things at cost price so will be looking at the 7850 probably, just gotta make sure it will fit in to the case ok, cM Elite 335

The HD6990 measured about 305mm depending on the board used, where as most HD7850 2GB models top out at around 260mm.

[Bluesrock]

Hi Wesley
My friend ended up ordering from wootware. The parts came out R500 more expensive however that included getting a 550w psu and the GTX660 (2GB) instead of the 7850(2GB). Everything else was left as is.

Thanks a lot for your help

[spjt07]

The HD6990 measured about 305mm depending on the board used, where as most HD7850 2GB models top out at around 260mm.

Thanks man, u been a great help :)

[Wesley]

For those of you who were wondering, Chevron is still alive! And well, by the looks of things because he can probably still type his account details to log into Gtalk. Maybe he still has both hands, or only one. Or has lost both and uses voice recognition. Anyway, the man's alive. Just in case anyone's missing him.

[Toxxyc]

Ahh good to hear about Chevron. I was just wondering about him in Friday, wanting to know if the good sir is still alive! O.o

[Legion]

For those of you who were wondering, Chevron is still alive! And well, by the looks of things because he can probably still type his account details to log into Gtalk. Maybe he still has both hands, or only one. Or has lost both and uses voice recognition. Anyway, the man's alive. Just in case anyone's missing him.

Oh.. good he was always a nice person.
Hope all is well.

[Wesley]

System Builders Guide: October R9000 to R11,000

In most of the System Buyer’s guides I’ve seen online since I started writing my own ones, I’ve come to realise that some of the ways in which people approach writing these guides varies according to how they view the requirements of modern-day software. Tom’s Hardware concentrates on gaming and productivity, Techspot tries to balance builds out with AMD rigs and for myself, it varies according to the budget at hand. Got R5000 to spend? Concentrate more on graphics horsepower because you won’t likely be playing at high resolutions but you will enable higher quality settings. Sitting all the way at the top? Go all-out with both the CPU and GPU and make no compromises. What about when you’re sitting in the middle? That’s what we’ll find out today.

Linky

[Wesley]

ASUS brings out one of the first Windows 8 Gaming rigs

Boutique PCs like those assembled by Evetech have a certain charm to them - all the hard work and cable management has been done for you, sometimes everything's been overclocked to its limits and stability tested and it comes with a labour warranty, something that users without technical know-how will appreciate. While HP finished up its lineupe of gaming rigs, its third generation since the company started to offer them, ASUS has leapfrogged them with a stunning alternative to Dell's Alienware range.

Linky

[Wesley]

ASUS launches a super-cheap Ultrabook, the Q200E

With Intel's Ultrabook program funding and spurring the industry onto another market and forever changing the ways disc drives are approached, it was only a matter of time before they started appearing in the lower price brackets. Because of the thermal constraints places upon their designs there aren't many versions with powerful hardware inside, with most relying on some Intel Core processor with on-die graphics. But most of these solutions are above the $700 barrier, stifling entry into lower-priced markets somewhat. But that's all about to change with the launch of Windows 8.

Linky

[Turok_sa]

Hi
I want to know i have a couple of pc parts witch will be best for my gaming rig and my media center

List of parts
1)gigabyte z68ap-d3
2)ARock z77 pro 3 all in onelga1155
3)i5 2400
4)i3 3220
5)asus 450 oc edition
6)club 3d hd7770
7)500 watt cooler master psu
8)750 watt cooler master psu
9)g.skill 8 gig 1600 ram sniper ddr3
10)trandcend 4gig 1600 ram ddr3

What wil be the best combination for a gaming rig and a media center

Thanks

[Wesley]

Media center gets: Core i3, Z68 board with an updated BIOS to support it, GTS450 overclocked with all games playable at 720p with high settings, 500W PSU and 4GB RAM. Also consider putting Ubuntu or Linux Mint on it with XMBC as your media server if you're not going to be playing games. If that's the case, then use the stock CPU cooler and undervolt the Core i3 as low as stably possible to get rid of heat issues and lower your power usage. If you need a chassis, consider the Cooler Master Elite 341 for quiet cooling and a small footprint.

Gaming rig gets everything else, with the Core i5 overclocked to 3.4GHz on all cores using the BIOS on the Z77 board and a slight voltage increase. Also overclock the HD7770 to provide playable performance at 1080p with all settings on high and 2x AA. I can highly recommend Windows 8 for the better hardware support and lower system requirements.

[Turok_sa]

Thanks for the reply. I have the lian li htpc chassis with 3 140mm fans plus cooler master 120mm cpu fan for the media center so do i need to underclock it still? It also have 4 2T hard disks.

And for the gaming rig u say overclock the cpu just a little but and the hd7770 i have a massive cooler master v6 gt cooler for the gaming rig is it a good cooler 4 the cpu?

[Wesley]

Thanks for the reply. I have the lian li htpc chassis with 3 140mm fans plus cooler master 120mm cpu fan for the media center so do i need to underclock it still? It also have 4 2T hard disks.

Undervolt, not underclock. Well, not everyone is energy-conscious and personally I'll be using as many passive solutions as possible when getting my media center together one day for media viewing. I'm aware of the energy I use and with less heat and power consumption, you can get away with a smaller chassis and less fans, quietening the experience overall. But that's just me.

And I have to mention the hard drives as well - try to get them secured with rubber washers and have them vibrate as little as possible. Are you going to be accessing them separately, or RAID them into a single drive for a larger single volume? RAID 0 will give you a single 8TB partition with no redundancy, while RAID 5 would give you around 7TB of useable space with some redundancy. I'd also recommend booting off a separate, smaller drive, as trying to boot off a 8TB volume is going to take a little work. A SSD would do well there, in fact.

And for the gaming rig u say overclock the cpu just a little but and the hd7770 i have a massive cooler master v6 gt cooler for the gaming rig is it a good cooler 4 the cpu?

The V6 is one of the best budget coolers you can buy today, second in terms of value to Cooler Master's own Hyper 212+/Evo. You shouldn't have any heat issues with that one.