Building a desktop, would appreciate advice and help.

[D.J]

I've come into the means of getting a desktop. I have a laptop already that can play most games but I'd rather finally build a desktop. I would like to keep it around $800 but could easily get to $1000.

It's foremost gaming PC but I'd like to use it as a media center to watch movies as well.

I know that many of you have gaming desktops and have some kind of expertise in this manner, any help would be appreciated.

 

[Mako321]

Put this together for a friend with the same budget, but it's for newegg.ca and the prices are probably better on newegg.com.
http://i.imgur.com/cP7bm.png
As far as a monitor goes, I'd recommend just getting something locally/from craigslist, it's a Sega to RMA a monitor because it broke during shipping or due to bad pixels, easier just to go to a tiger direct and get it replaced. It's also cheaper to get them used, a lot cheaper.

 

[samjc3]

I'll toss some stuff together perhaps. Do you have any parts on hand? Need monitor, mouse, keyboard?

 

[D.J]

I need everything but a mouse. I'd like to find a super-nice monitor with more than one HDMI port because I'm going to use it for watching movies(Blu-rays via PS3).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... S%20VG23AH

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824236052

Both are good.

 

[D.J]

What's better about AMD than Nvidia? I have a i7 and 460m in my laptop. Nvidia hasn't let me down yet, same with the i7.

 

[samjc3]

What's better about AMD than Nvidia?

Not a godDang thing. Per performance its more expensive, their drivers are flax, and their colour scheme isn't as cool.

 

[Mako321]

What's better about AMD than Nvidia?

Not a godDang thing. Per performance its more expensive, their drivers are flax, and their colour scheme isn't as cool.

Since when is price/performance better with Nvidia?

 

[samjc3]

What's better about AMD than Nvidia?

Not a godDang thing. Per performance its more expensive, their drivers are flax, and their colour scheme isn't as cool.

Since when is price/performance better with Nvidia?

Since 500/600 series. The midrange 6xx cards are going to devastate ati, and the top of the line 6xx are a much better price point. Though, I will say, my main reason for not ever using ati, if I can help it, is because of their drivers. I mean, dear God, talk about horrid software.

 

[Mako321]

What's better about AMD than Nvidia?

Not a godDang thing. Per performance its more expensive, their drivers are flax, and their colour scheme isn't as cool.

Since when is price/performance better with Nvidia?

Since 500/600 series. The midrange 6xx cards are going to devastate ati, and the top of the line 6xx are a much better price point. Though, I will say, my main reason for not ever using ati, if I can help it, is because of their drivers. I mean, dear God, talk about horrid software.

500 series was blown out of the water by the HD6000 series in price/performance, while the 600 series is hugely expensive compared to the 7000 series.(See: 7970s at ~$450 and 680s at ~$550 for the same performance, with the 7970 having a larger overhead for OCing) Driver wise, for daily use I've found Nvidia's drivers giving me a lot more hassle than AMD's, although you need third party programs to do application-specific video configs.

 

[samjc3]

500 series was blown out of the water by the HD6000 series in price/performance, while the 600 series is hugely expensive compared to the 7000 series.(See: 7970s at ~$450 and 680s at ~$550 for the same performance, with the 7970 having a larger overhead for OCing) Driver wise, for daily use I've found Nvidia's drivers giving me a lot more hassle than AMD's, although you need third party programs to do application-specific video configs.

So far as I recall, only through the hit or miss unlocking of 6850's into 6870's did ATI beat nvidia in price/performance. And with the advent of the quite affordable factory overclocked 560ti's, that advantage has been gone for awhile. And quite frankly, I have several Nvidia based rigs (8600gt, 9500gt, ion, 335m, 460m, 560m, 560ti, quadro 6000), and I've never, ever had driver issues, even with beta drivers. The ati systems I have dealt with (e-350 apu, 4610, 5870m and some old x1600) have been fraught with issues. The e-350's were pretty painless, but I never could get the 4610 to take a driver update without fritzing out and crashing. And the 5870 in the g73, well, 11 restarts, 2 BSODs and more than a few non fatal crashes was all it took to update drivers successfully. Which actually decreased render performance in solidworks, all said and done. Never did get the 4610 working; just replaced with an old 8600gt, which dropped in and worked fine.


For overclocking, I can honestly say I've never tried overclocking an ati chip, since its enough of a pain in the ass to get the things run normally. My 560ti has been nothing but a pleasure to overclock. Sitting happy at 975mhz since november with no trouble. And a 4xsli gtx 680 rig just took the performance crown in the 3dmark 11 hall of fame.

For current pricing, yeah, nvidia is more expensive, because they cant keep up with production. The 7970 has a $50 higher msrp, so when nvidia gets production ramped up, the ati is gonna cost more.

All said and done, I firmly believe nvidia to be better. I suppose when 80% of your experience with a company has been a complete pain in your ass, you tend to dislike their product. Stack on that all of nvidia's goodies, like physx, cuda, and better 3d support, and it pretty much follows that Nvidia is better.

 

[Mako321]

So far as I recall, only through the hit or miss unlocking of 6850's into 6870's did ATI beat nvidia in price/performance. And with the advent of the quite affordable factory overclocked 560ti's, that advantage has been gone for awhile. And quite frankly, I have several Nvidia based rigs (8600gt, 9500gt, ion, 335m, 460m, 560m, 560ti, quadro 6000), and I've never, ever had driver issues, even with beta drivers. The ati systems I have dealt with (e-350 apu, 4610, 5870m and some old x1600) have been fraught with issues. The e-350's were pretty painless, but I never could get the 4610 to take a driver update without fritzing out and crashing. And the 5870 in the g73, well, 11 restarts, 2 BSODs and more than a few non fatal crashes was all it took to update drivers successfully. Which actually decreased render performance in solidworks, all said and done. Never did get the 4610 working; just replaced with an old 8600gt, which dropped in and worked fine.


For overclocking, I can honestly say I've never tried overclocking an ati chip, since its enough of a pain in the ass to get the things run normally. My 560ti has been nothing but a pleasure to overclock. Sitting happy at 975mhz since november with no trouble. And a 4xsli gtx 680 rig just took the performance crown in the 3dmark 11 hall of fame.

For current pricing, yeah, nvidia is more expensive, because they cant keep up with production. The 7970 has a $50 higher msrp, so when nvidia gets production ramped up, the ati is gonna cost more.

All said and done, I firmly believe nvidia to be better. I suppose when 80% of your experience with a company has been a complete pain in your ass, you tend to dislike their product. Stack on that all of nvidia's goodies, like physx, cuda, and better 3d support, and it pretty much follows that Nvidia is better.

I've been getting a lot of issues lately relating to drivers, having to restart my PC a few times sometimes to not get 5fps out of CS:S playing on minimum for some reason from my 560Ti.
In terms of OCing, the 7970 is hugely underclocked from what it's rated to do from the factory, meaning you can OC way beyond stock where it's at the same performance as a 680. Not sure how that 680 beat a quad 7970 setup either, AMD is on top for multi card scaling right now also. As well, 3D drivers if anything should be easier to deal with on AMD cards, since third party drivers mean that you don't need to mess around with special Nvidia monitors and flax. Physx is also still useless.
I also don't want a card that's like having 3 lightbulbs in a shoe.

 

[samjc3]

In terms of OCing, the 7970 is hugely underclocked from what it's rated to do from the factory, meaning you can OC way beyond stock where it's at the same performance as a 680. Not sure how that 680 beat a quad 7970 setup either, AMD is on top for multi card scaling right now also. As well, 3D drivers if anything should be easier to deal with on AMD cards, since third party drivers mean that you don't need to mess around with special Nvidia monitors and flax. Physx is also still useless.
I also don't want a card that's like having 3 lightbulbs in a shoe.

Most users never OC anyway, so really, the fact that it apparently scales well doesnt matter too much. But the high score is owned by nvidia 4x sli 680's. And actually, since I looked this afternoon, the second and third place slots, which were 4x crossfire 7970s, have been overtaken by two other overclockers on quad 680s.

For 3d, the only way to go is to have the shutter glasses and all that fancy flax, because its the only way the 3d isn't just a headache inducing pile of sadness and gimmick. So nvidia is the clear choice for anybody who is actually interested in 3d.

And, say what you will about phys-x, its cool as flax. It may not be particularly usefull in terms of overall gameplay, but, for making games looks gorgeous, and immersion factor in some games, you cant get better. Its amazing how far glass breaking realistically goes in, say, Mirrors Edge. I love it. Plus its being more and more supported in more and more games, which means all the more reason to have nvidia.

Not to mention those light up sneakers are the coolest flax ever.

 

[Mako321]

For 3d, the only way to go is to have the shutter glasses and all that fancy flax, because its the only way the 3d isn't just a headache inducing pile of sadness and gimmick. So nvidia is the clear choice for anybody who is actually interested in 3d.

And, say what you will about phys-x, its cool as flax. It may not be particularly usefull in terms of overall gameplay, but, for making games looks gorgeous, and immersion factor in some games, you cant get better. Its amazing how far glass breaking realistically goes in, say, Mirrors Edge. I love it. Plus its being more and more supported in more and more games, which means all the more reason to have nvidia.

Not to mention those light up sneakers are the coolest flax ever.

Shutter glasses suck in my opinion, passive are the way to go. They're not heavy, they aren't expensive, they aren't made in only a few varieties and they don't need to be charged.
Glass breaking isn't very immersive either if your fps drops to under 4 when the glass is breaking thanks to only having one mid-high range video card. And still, supporting something which doesn't change anything still means it doesn't change anything. And in reality, only 2 games have/are coming out in 2012 that support it. That's a WHOLE *Can'tSayThisOnTV*ING LOT.
Also, I don't want shoes that are on fire.

 

[samjc3]

Shutter glasses suck in my opinion, passive are the way to go. They're not heavy, they aren't expensive, they aren't made in only a few varieties and they don't need to be charged.
Glass breaking isn't very immersive either if your fps drops to under 4 when the glass is breaking thanks to only having one mid-high range video card. And still, supporting something which doesn't change anything still means it doesn't change anything. And in reality, only 2 games have/are coming out in 2012 that support it. That's a WHOLE *Can'tSayThisOnTV*ING LOT.
Also, I don't want shoes that are on fire.

Passive gives me an awful headache. Shutter glasses don't. And seriously, physx is not very intensive at all. My old 9500gt 1gb ran the effects in mirrors edge just fine at high detail with only a coupla fps hit (~40fps down from ~44). My 560ti, I haven't noticed any hit in anything with physx stuff enabled, except metro 2033. And that was only a few fps, and because metro is already pushing the card pretty hard, since its the new crysis. And borderlands 2 supports it, which is enough for me.

I've lit my shoes on fire before. On purpose. It was hardcore.

I suppose that's the real difference here, between us. I would light my shoes up gladly. You, on the other hand, would not.

 

[ttsgeb]

Don't listen to them. Intel integrated is the way to go. You'll get the best performance from it, hands down.

 

[Mako321]

Passive gives me an awful headache. Shutter glasses don't. And seriously, physx is not very intensive at all. My old 9500gt 1gb ran the effects in mirrors edge just fine at high detail with only a coupla fps hit (~40fps down from ~44). My 560ti, I haven't noticed any hit in anything with physx stuff enabled, except metro 2033. And that was only a few fps, and because metro is already pushing the card pretty hard, since its the new crysis. And borderlands 2 supports it, which is enough for me.

I've lit my shoes on fire before. On purpose. It was hardcore.

I suppose that's the real difference here, between us. I would light my shoes up gladly. You, on the other hand, would not.

I'm pretty sure anyone in existence would disagree about passive glasses, and you don't need to worry about desync and stupid flax. Not sure what's going on with Physx though, I used it on my current 560Ti and my old one, and if any windows broke in Mirror's Edge, my fps would go down to 1-3.
I wouldn't light my shoes on fire because I'm not Jen-Hsun Huang.

 

[samjc3]

I'm pretty sure anyone in existence would disagree about passive glasses, and you don't need to worry about desync and stupid flax. Not sure what's going on with Physx though, I used it on my current 560Ti and my old one, and if any windows broke in Mirror's Edge, my fps would go down to 1-3.
I wouldn't light my shoes on fire because I'm not Jen-Hsun Huang.

I can only speak from personal experience as far as 3d goes, and passive bugs my brain something awful. For your physx woes, thats just wrong. Even at ultimate, my old 9500gt would stay above that (~10fps).

And I wasnt aware lighting shoes on fire had anything to do with being a rich asian.

 

[Mako321]

At the last Nvidia keynote, they announced that the GTX 690 was THE POWER OF 3 LIGHTBULBS IN A SHOE out of nowhere, flax was so cash.

 

[D.J]

Back.


I like Nvidia and I am going with them. I'm going to comprise a solid list of components and post it here. Getting some feedback on that would be great.

Thanks, guys.

 

[D.J]

flax man, there's a computer section? Could a Mod/Admin move this for me?

I feel like an idiot now.