ANOTHER build?!?!? Your thoughts???

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Ethereal_Dragon

Ethereal_Dragon

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So, my brother texted me a link to a computer on Amazon the other day, and asked for my thoughts on it. I told him that in my opinion it sucks, and that he can do MUCH better for the same price if we build it ourselves. So he gave me a $1000 budget, and I put ANOTHER build together (See Need help with a PC build for my old man...).


Here is initially what he sent me:
Microtel AMTI9041 on Amazon. (I have never heard of them). I am not going to bother listing ALL the specs, but I noticed that has an AMD Phenom II 965 in with, with 12 Gigs of ram.... But AMD doesn't use Tri channel, so they must just be a 12 gig tri channel kit, or 3 random sticks of 4 Gig. Whatev.


Here is the list of components that I have picked out to get him to about where I think he should be given his budget.


Upfront cost: $989.88
After MIR: $944.88 + $15 New Egg gift card

I think that it is a pretty decent setup. I am NOT 100% sure if the fan controller will work with the case fans, as they are the same ones I have in my Antec 900. Blue LED case fans with their own speed controller on them. I figure if I switch them all to High on their dedicated fan switches, the controller should work no problem. I told him if it doesn't work I will buy it from him for the $15.

I don't really think there is anywhere else that we can cut costs for him, other than saving $40 by going from the 6 core to the 4 core CPU, but I am waiting on him for that one to see what his thoughts are.

This setup should offer some good upgradability to go with the 8 core (or 6 core if he chooses the 4 core) in the future, 2 open RAM slots, an open PCIex16 slot for CROSSFIRE should he feel the need, and plenty of space for extra drives. I told him I will give him a 500 Gig drive of mine to save him money, and because drives are SOOO expensive lately since the flooding in Thailand.
 
Does he really want a BLU RAY RW drive?
do you need a fan controller? all of those fans are 120mm... nice and quite anyway. I think you'll get more noise out of the GPU fan than all the case fans combined.
the mobo already comes with 2 Sata cables, do you need 3 more?
personally I like Kingston ram. Newegg's got them for 35.00 with rebate
I also have one of newegg's rosewill cases... (Linked) very similar to the Antec 900, but cheaper.
Newegg.com - Rosewill Smart One ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, Black interior, comes with three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Rear 120mm Fan, 1x Top 120mm Fan, Option Fans-2x Side 120mm Fan
If you didn't need the extra stuff and can down grade the RW drive, I would get an aftermarket cooler. Coolermaster Hyper 212, maybe?
 
Nukem said:
the mobo already comes with 2 Sata cables, do you need 3 more?
personally I like Kingston ram. Newegg's got them for 35.00 with rebate
Click to expand...
Actually looks like the MB comes with 4 SATA cables.
+1 on changing the RAM, G.Skill is inexpensive and quality.

If he is mainly gaming/general use I'd push him toward a 4-Core.
I'd actually get the PII X4 960T over the FX line, its a locked 6-Core so if you need to (and have a MB that can) you may have 2 extra cores to use.
 
Heres a build.
Note: There is no blu-ray drive, and if you plan to crossfire later, it will be limited to 4x. Also, no fan controller.

Case - Cooler Master HAF 912 - $60 ($50 after MIR)
Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER HAF 912 RC-912-KKN1 Black SECC/ ABS Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Power Supply - SeaSonic S12II 620 - $70
Newegg.com - SeaSonic S12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply

CPU - AMD FX-6100 - $150
Newegg.com - AMD FX-6100 Zambezi 3.3GHz Socket AM3+ 95W Six-Core Desktop Processor FD6100WMGUSBX

Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 - $100
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Memory - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) - $40
Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Desktop Memory Model F3-8500CL7D-8GBRL

GPU - XFX 6850 - $160 ($130 after MIR)
Newegg.com - XFX HD-685X-ZCFC Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

Optical (DVD and CD only, no blu-ray) - LITE-ON DVD Burner - $18
Newegg.com - LITE-ON DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - CD / DVD Burners

Monitor - ViewSonic VX2450wm-LED - $180
Newegg.com - ViewSonic VX2450wm-LED Black 24" (23.6" Vis) LED Backlight LCD monitor

OS - Win 7 64bit Home Premium - $100
Newegg.com - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - Operating Systems

Total of the above items: $880

You get a better case in terms of cable management and cooling, more graphical processing power, a better power supply, and better RAM.

More things you can do to lower cost:

If you don't ever plan on crossfire, then you could drop down to a cheaper motherboard.
If you do not need such a large screen, you could drop the size to a 19-21 inch.
You could drop the 6 core for the 4 core.
You could drop the blu-ray drive (as I did in the build above).
 
Ok, REDO!! Before I go ANY further, thank you SO much guys for the help with this. It used to be SOOO easy to build a PC back in the day, there weren't NEARLY as many options....





We are looking at a total of $521.44 for everything so far NOT including the monitor. This leaves $478.56 for the CPU and Mobo, but since the old monitor was $180, I took that much out too, figuring about $300 left to pick out a CPU and a motherboard. I am trying to confirm this with my brother now, so I will let you know.

Case - Found this one, and I am not big on white cases, but my brother just told me this morning it would be cool to have a white case with green lights. So I found this one, price isn't TOO bad, and I think it looks pretty nice, plus the built in fan controller, and HDD dock on top is cool.

Case Fans - Ok, to go with the white/green theme he wants, here are the 120mm Green LED fans. I am leaning towards the SilenX IXP-74-14G because it flows 72 CFM at only 14 dBA, spinning at 1400 rpm. I figure also that the clear would look better than the Coolermaster fan with the black housing and white fan blade, plus that is a little more noisey.

PSU - Going to keep this one, as it is modular, comes with the free DVD burner, $15 New egg promo gift card, and a $25 mail in rebate, really gives it the best value.

Memory - Looking at several different CAS latency and frequency, CAS 9 @ 1600 Mhz is pretty good for the price, assuming that this thread at another forum is correct... How memory frequency affects latency - Tighter timings vs. Higher speeds?.

GPU - Figured for just a couple bucks more, might as well bump the GPU up to a 6870 since we are still well within the budget so far. If doing this negatively impacts the options for the CPU and Mobo, might scale back to a 6850, but we will see.

Optical - Going to keep the Blu Ray, as he is going to use this rig for watching movies as well. Keeping the DVD-RW in there too. It's free, so why NOT?

OS - I am getting bulk Win 7 licenses, and going to give my brother one for $50, possibly 2.

Motherboard - Not too concerned, it's going to depend on what CPU is picked, but I would like to get something with USB 3.0, and POSSIBLY something that will allow Crossfire if budget allows, but it isn't a must. At least I THINK not. Would a single 6870 be more than enough to drive that Dell 24"? I know my 4870 can drive my 27" Dell, but the most modern computer game I have is either Battlefield 2, or Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, so I am not sure how well it would fare with Crysis or whatever you kids (haha, I'm getting old) play these days.

CPU - Ok, so now I am really confused. I am trying to find some good comparisons between the available CPU's, and I can't really find much. I'm guessing that the earlier recommendation on the 4 core is because software still isn't really utilizing the cores fully. So..... What to get? AMD Phenom II/FX - 4/6/8 core? Intel 3/5/7? I really haven't been keeping up for a few years to know what stacks up to what.
[EDIT] Forgot to mention, there will NOT be any Overclocking on this rig, at least not by me. If my brother wants to try, that's on him, but I REALLY doubt he will want to. I live in Chicago, he lives in Ohio, so I am not going to be able to help too much, I just want this to be rock solid for him. So, unless the stock cooler is too loud, we are gonna use stock cooling. My last OC attempt fried the CPU and blew the BIOS on the Mobo.[/EDIT]

Why do my posts always turn into Novels?
 
Ethereal_Dragon said:
Ok, REDO!! Before I go ANY further, thank you SO much guys for the help with this. It used to be SOOO easy to build a PC back in the day, there weren't NEARLY as many options....



We are looking at a total of $521.44 for everything so far NOT including the monitor. This leaves $478.56 for the CPU and Mobo, but since the old monitor was $180, I took that much out too, figuring about $300 left to pick out a CPU and a motherboard. I am trying to confirm this with my brother now, so I will let you know.

Case - Found this one, and I am not big on white cases, but my brother just told me this morning it would be cool to have a white case with green lights. So I found this one, price isn't TOO bad, and I think it looks pretty nice, plus the built in fan controller, and HDD dock on top is cool.

Case Fans - Ok, to go with the white/green theme he wants, here are the 120mm Green LED fans. I am leaning towards the SilenX IXP-74-14G because it flows 72 CFM at only 14 dBA, spinning at 1400 rpm. I figure also that the clear would look better than the Coolermaster fan with the black housing and white fan blade, plus that is a little more noisey.

PSU - Going to keep this one, as it is modular, comes with the free DVD burner, $15 New egg promo gift card, and a $25 mail in rebate, really gives it the best value.

Memory - Looking at several different CAS latency and frequency, CAS 9 @ 1600 Mhz is pretty good for the price, assuming that this thread at another forum is correct... How memory frequency affects latency - Tighter timings vs. Higher speeds?.

GPU - Figured for just a couple bucks more, might as well bump the GPU up to a 6870 since we are still well within the budget so far. If doing this negatively impacts the options for the CPU and Mobo, might scale back to a 6850, but we will see.

Optical - Going to keep the Blu Ray, as he is going to use this rig for watching movies as well. Keeping the DVD-RW in there too. It's free, so why NOT?

OS - I am getting bulk Win 7 licenses, and going to give my brother one for $50, possibly 2.

Motherboard - Not too concerned, it's going to depend on what CPU is picked, but I would like to get something with USB 3.0, and POSSIBLY something that will allow Crossfire if budget allows, but it isn't a must. At least I THINK not. Would a single 6870 be more than enough to drive that Dell 24"? I know my 4870 can drive my 27" Dell, but the most modern computer game I have is either Battlefield 2, or Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, so I am not sure how well it would fare with Crysis or whatever you kids (haha, I'm getting old) play these days.

CPU - Ok, so now I am really confused. I am trying to find some good comparisons between the available CPU's, and I can't really find much. I'm guessing that the earlier recommendation on the 4 core is because software still isn't really utilizing the cores fully. So..... What to get? AMD Phenom II/FX - 4/6/8 core? Intel 3/5/7? I really haven't been keeping up for a few years to know what stacks up to what.
[EDIT] Forgot to mention, there will NOT be any Overclocking on this rig, at least not by me. If my brother wants to try, that's on him, but I REALLY doubt he will want to. I live in Chicago, he lives in Ohio, so I am not going to be able to help too much, I just want this to be rock solid for him. So, unless the stock cooler is too loud, we are gonna use stock cooling. My last OC attempt fried the CPU and blew the BIOS on the Mobo.[/EDIT]

Why do my posts always turn into Novels?
Click to expand...

Everything looks good, and as for the CPU/Mobo, for this budget, you'll want to go in the AMD direction.


Something like this combo? It's all I could find that's decent, a quad core, and cheap. Others will likely have more suggestions.
Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, LED LCD TV, Digital Cameras and more!
 
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