Build me a computer, geeks!

[Xican]

All joking aside, I'm once again building a new computer, because my current one isn't impressive anymore. This is what I'm looking at in terms of build right now. For a comfy price of $1,400 + Peripherals I don't mind it.

The reason I'm posting this is to get your guys' opinions on if there's something that could be improved. Areas where I could save a few bucks here and there, without losing any functionality. I basically just grabbed all the high end shit I could see on Newegg in 5 minutes. So, if anyone could make sure it all looks compatible, that would also be awesome. My apologies in advance for using Canadian newegg to show it all. Ideally I want a mid-high end gaming rig, that's my ultimate goal. If you see somewhere I've overspent or underspent, please speak up and recommend a solid change. Thanks all.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6819113284
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6811129021
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6814130939
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6813128514
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6817139010
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6820231568
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6822236244

[Turaylon Soulshadow]

16 gigs of ram is excessive for just about everything. I've only ever seen 1 game that actually required anything more than 1gig minimum (can't remember the name right now), and it was a game specifically made to test the boundaries of hardware and graphics. I'd say 4 is 'high end' enough for most things, with 8 being the absolute max I could reasonably see myself getting.

[Minute]

Not a terrible build, but take my advice & spend the money to get a good SSD. In all of my years of building boxes I've never seen a single component make that big of a difference. If you want to save some money you can just buy a 128/256 GB one & put your OS on it, then use a cheap 7200RPM drive to store everything on. The raptors are good, I have one myself, but the juice, heat, and speeds just don't touch the good SSD's

Also, the video card is overkill especially for that price & says it's out of stock currently.

[Xican]

The RAM is more or less just because I can. I don't care about spending a little more to go overboard on something like that, because it's all so dirt cheap.

[Minute]

16 gigs of ram is excessive for just about everything. I've only ever seen 1 game that actually required anything more than 1gig minimum (can't remember the name right now), and it was a game specifically made to test the boundaries of hardware and graphics. I'd say 4 is 'high end' enough for most things, with 8 being the absolute max I could reasonably see myself getting.

My Media Box uses a shit ton of memory, has 12 in it, & even it hasn't breached 6. I agree that 8 or 12 would be better, but memory is cheap as shit. There is a downside though. The more memory you have the higher your seek time will be. Too much is actually a bad thing. Imo I would buy 8 & considering the # of slots you have free, you could always grab another stick later IF you ever needed it. Though I doubt you will.

[Xican]

The video card is one of the things I had figured might draw some fire. I'm actually normally a Radeon guy, but Tom's Hardware gave this one the best review for high end stuff.

I was just looking at a SSD too, Minute. My big concern is, right now I think my desktop uses about 200 gigs + Windows. So, SSD becomes pricey. Since I haven't actually used SSD either, I wasn't sure how drastic a change it was. Really worth the jump in price for the bigger ones? Also, what's the lifespan of them like? I'm told they have a shorter lifespan than the HDD, which I find surprising because of how the two work.

[Taxious]

Your build is pretty similar to my most recent gaming box. I have 16 gigs of ram and, although unnecessary, I like it that way. RAM is cheap, so you may as well do it up.

... spend the money to get a good SSD.

** GET A SSD DRIVE! **

Just do it, you can thank Minute and I later.

I did exactly what Minute was suggesting (get a SSD you can afford, only put your OS and games on the drive) and couldn't be happier. Restart in 7 seconds, yep. Load high-end games before you can alt+tab to check your email, yep. Even if you have to downgrade your other hardware, popping a SSD in there is much more important.

[Xican]

Would this:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6820227758

Be worth dropping the Hard drive and doubling the price? I have no problem spending the extra $200. Is it going to give me a very noticeable performance jump? I really feel like I need that 400 gigs minimum, unfortunately.

[Xican]

Would I still get very similar performance from this, if I went to it instead of the other graphics card?

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6814130932

[Taxious]

I need that 400 gigs minimum

Why??

I got this SSD for $80 and have quite a bit of room left on it still. I also got a 1TB spin drive for $70 that I'm working on filling up with media files, programs, and stuff I don't need to load quickly.

[Xican]

I've got a lot of baggage? There's just a lot of shit on my computer. Which might be an issue all on it's own, really. I wouldn't want to get one with less than 250 on it. Besides, it's not like I'm hurting for money, I can shell out a little bit more if it's going to jack up my performance.

If there's any that are to be found in the 250-300gig range and they're a significant amount less, I would be happy to buy them. The one I found though was $340 after rebates (I think?) and it had 480gigs. The next step down was 250gigs for $270. I feel like I'm winning out in the long run with the 480 one.

[Xican]

What're thoughts on the video card? I want to be able to stand with the next gen console stuff that we'll see in a year. Is that secondary video card going to be enough?

[Minute]

The Agility drives had a horrible reputation for failure. They might have improved this, but I'd look at some comparison charts before buying.

You don't need SSD speeds for your baggage though. As long as your OS (especially the swap file) is on the SSD you'll get the performance hike. All of your videos, pictures, music, ect can be stored on a 7200RPM drive & those are ultra cheap. I don't even recommend installing most of your applications onto the SSD. MOST programs get read into memory & work from there, so unless it's something that does a lot of read/writing having it on the SSD won't help anyway.

Games, yeah. That helps. Especially big games that it has to load like zone files & such.

SSD's aren't cheap, so buying a giant one really is a waste of money.

[Minute]

Looking at the most recent benchmarks from Anandtech here's your best picks:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820171752
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820248016

[Xican]

I was thinking later that I might just get a small SSD (120-250gb) and then a secondary HDD for my 'baggage'. I figure if I have any games I'm playing currently (I usually don't have more than 2 installed at once) plus my OS (Vista64... Ugh) I should be able to manage with a light SSD. Does that make sense? Basically only read-intensive stuff would be effected anyway, right?

What's the ideal graphics card right now? I mentioned already I don't want to have to worry about playing top-end stuff at their highest settings now and hopefully for several years to come. But someone already mentioned that my original one was over-doing it. I don't want to get anything that's going to be too ridiculous. Is the second option I posted a solid one? I really don't keep up on this stuff the way I should.

Anything else really jump out at anyone? The motherboard I grabbed was highly recommended on Tom's Hardware or Anandtech or some such site. The case I was planning to go with is the Antec 900. It's what I'm using now in my current rig. It's a bit of a mess inside, power source being set in the bottom and having all those damned PCI-E cables (which are thick as fuck) running to the fore/top of the tower is a bit annoying.

[Minute]

I was thinking later that I might just get a small SSD (120-250gb) and then a secondary HDD for my 'baggage'. I figure if I have any games I'm playing currently (I usually don't have more than 2 installed at once) plus my OS (Vista64... Ugh) I should be able to manage with a light SSD. Does that make sense? Basically only read-intensive stuff would be effected anyway, right?

Right. The 256GB ones I listed is plenty to install Win 7 (18GB After updates) and leave you plenty of space to install your apps & a few games. Then you grab just about any 7200RPM drive. I personally like using USB3 externals for storage because they don't use my power supply & they are cheaper, but with your 750w that shouldn't be an issue. Up to you.

Here's a 3TB Internal on Amazon for $129 & can use Prime: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004RORMF6
Or if you want to go external & stick with NewEgg. 4TB for about the same price: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822145596
Or if you don't need anywhere near that much space you can get really cheap.

[Xican]

I'm gonna go with one of the 256GB SSD's for sure and a 1TB HDD to drop the rest of my crap on. Thanks for the advice there, Minute and Tax.

Any further thoughts on Video Cards? I ended up jumping back up to the $400 GTX770. It seems to have gotten a lot of very positive reviews and looking at the comparisons to other cards, it seems like a very good option. Anyone else have any input?

Dropped down to 8GB RAM as well... Will just buy more if needed.

[Kulaf]

Why not go with 2 GTX 760's in SLI for $500?

[Minute]

I won't deny the performance numbers of the GTX 770, but the price per is steep. Video cards, unlike motherboards, can be swapped easily if you ever found it lacking with a cheaper card. Especially since that mobo has PCIE 3. Though this never happens. Long before games hit requirements of the mid-grade video cards you build another system. Either because it's old or it's fried. Thus buying top end always ends up as a waste. I have 2 boxes sitting in my closet right now with video cards capable of handling today's gaming, but my new box leaves them in the dust so it was a waste.

Considering there isn't really a place I'd move the money too, because the rest is solid, it would literally just be about saving money. Not redistribution of power.

[Kulaf]

I'm not really sure why you are going with that AMD proc when an i5 3570k is a better proc for only like 30 bucks more. Unless you are planning to overclock the crap out of the AMD, the i5 gives much better single core performance.