Building New Computer, Any Recommendations?

[Rukioish]

http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/AMD-F...-APU/E/5740725


Got this computer set-up, budget is between 800-1000$. What do I need, or what should I change?

Appreciate the Help!

[tielknight]

Do you like Lego's?

And that build is a complete rip-off.

[May90]

Since you posted on a gaming forums, I suppose you are building this PC for gaming, right? If so, then the GPU is really poor for that. Depends on the games you play, of course, but if you are going to play any more or less recent games at more or less decent settings, then you definitely need, at least, 750 Ti or, better, 760. But you said that your upper budget is $1000 while the config you listed is only $669. So, if I was you, without even looking at other components you chose, I would change GT 730 to GTX 770 (+$254, $923 total). You also need a better CPU then, and here I am of no help since I don't really know AMD CPUs. PSU of 350W is way too low, I'd recommend the Corsair one 600W for just $45 more. Case seems to be fine. Cooler is even over fine, I don't think you need liquid cooling at this level of rig. Memory is good, doesn't really affect in-game performance as long as it is >8Gb.

That said, such websites as ibuypower charge a lot more than if you were buying the parts yourself. Can you assemble a PC from components or have anyone do that? If so, go to pcpartpicker and make up a rig from the components there, it will be cheaper and better. Here is, for example, what I would probably buy:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($299.98 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12P SE2 54.4 CFM CPU Cooler ($57.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus H97-PLUS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($101.24 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($82.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($48.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($349.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Thermaltake Core V51 ATX Mid Tower Case ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: CoolMax 600W Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($39.99 @ Mwave)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($13.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $1104.64
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-25 01:03 EST-0500

This is just $100 above your budget, but it would perform approximately 50 times better than what you picked and you probably won't need an upgrade for 2-3 years, at least. Later, if you want, you could add another 970 GTX and you would basically get one of the fastest gaming PCs in the world.

[chazus]

Here is, for example, what I would probably buy:

Would not recommend at all.

No need for an i7, motherboard doesn't support overclocking (yet has an overclocking cpu?), meh HDD for the price, bad PSU. This setup needs almost a complete rebuild.

[tielknight]

This would work alot better IMO

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($209.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Enermax ETS-T40-TB 86.7 CFM CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($88.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: A-Data XPG V1.0 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: PNY Optima 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($48.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card ($329.90 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master HAF XM (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Micro Center)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($13.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $976.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-25 02:15 EST-0500

[Deleted]

If that budget needs to include o/s then you have to cut down on a few things:
(for a 120/128gb ssd the intel is a very good deal)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($209.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Shadow Rock 2 87.0 CFM Rifle Bearing CPU Cooler ($34.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($108.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Intel 530 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus Radeon R9 290 4GB DirectCU II Video Card ($269.69 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) ($90.26 @ OutletPC)
Total: $997.37
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-25 03:35 EST-0500

[May90]

Would not recommend at all.

No need for an i7, motherboard doesn't support overclocking (yet has an overclocking cpu?), meh HDD for the price, bad PSU. This setup needs almost a complete rebuild.

- I personally disagree with all those people who keep repeating that there is no sense buying i7 for gaming - the tests clearly show the advantage of i7-s in most games. But 4690k would work very well also.
- Overclocking is a personal preference; if the OP is building rig for $1000, then, as I understand, overclocking is, pretty much, out of question. 4790k and 4790 have almost identical price, so I see no reason to buy a non-overclocking CPU here. But I agree, if overclocking is considered, then MB needs to be changed.
- I don't see anything meh about HDD, but, well, I don't know that much about them.
- As for PSU, again, people overestimate their importance. I've had, probably, over two dozens crappy $20 PSUs over 23 years, and only once did a PSU die, and it didn't damage other components.

Anyway, the builds people suggested just above this comment are awesome and cheaper than what I got. Whatever works for the OP.

[tielknight]

snip

The i7 has a higher stock clock speed so of course it is going to run games a bit better when both are tested at stock. Is that worth the price-increase when you can easily overclock the i5 to match it? Not even close.

Overclocking should be your goal for a 1k build, not "out of the question", in order to maximize your performance to cost ratio, which the i7 is a terrible choice for unless you need it specifically for things other than gaming.

Barracuda's are a step below the Caviar Blue's and since they are pretty much the same price, no reason to pick it over the WD.

And never EVER skimp out on the one part that is providing power to your entire computer, period. Your computer lives and dies by it's power supply and you do no want it dying and taking out half your system with it.

[Deleted]

- I personally disagree with all those people who keep repeating that there is no sense buying i7 for gaming - the tests clearly show the advantage of i7-s in most games. But 4690k would work very well also.

%5 increase in FPS from i7 - i5 for an extra $120+... No game in the next 10 years will use the hyperthreading the i7 offers. it's simply not worth the $$ for just gaming

[May90]

The i7 has a higher stock clock speed so of course it is going to run games a bit better when both are tested at stock. Is that worth the price-increase when you can easily overclock the i5 to match it? Not even close.

Overclocking should be your goal for a 1k build, not "out of the question", in order to maximize your performance to cost ratio, which the i7 is a terrible choice for unless you need it specifically for things other than gaming.

Barracuda's are a step below the Caviar Blue's and since they are pretty much the same price, no reason to pick it over the WD.

And never EVER skimp out on the one part that is providing power to your entire computer, period. Your computer lives and dies by it's power supply and you do no want it dying and taking out half your system with it.

If you go overclocking way, then yes, it might be relevant. Like I said, if the OP is going to overclock, then the system should be adjusted accordingly.

Performance difference between different HDDs in games is negligible, it doesn't really affect anything except for loading times and texture loading, and for these two you probably won't notice a difference, unless you compare HDD to SSD.

Power supply is an interesting topic in that it is one of those funny things about which people, for no real factual reason, decided that "more expensive = better" and then tried to find logical explanation to it. In reality, people who followed the PSU evolution since as early as early 90-s know that since, maybe, early 2000s reliability of PSUs almost hasn't changed. The difference between expensive and cheap PSUs comes solely from the difference between expensive and cheap parts and materials, but if the cheapest used parts and materials already provide incredible reliability, then it makes little sense to pay for even better materials.
Everyone keeps screaming, "Cheap PSUs will fry your components", - and yet the actual evidence is next to nothing. You probably won't be able to find anyone who's cheap PSU destroyed his other components, I don't even think it is possible since even the cheapest PSUs and components have a lot of safety mechanisms. I haven't heard of a single case when dying PSU took anything else with it, and I've been using the cheapest PSUs available since, pretty much, 1995 and haven't had any problems with them whatsoever.

Let's just leave it at that and agree to disagree. This discussion doesn't belong to this thread and neither of us has enough technical knowledge to make a professional level argument. If the OP thinks that more expensive PSU is worth it, then he will buy it, if not, then not.

%5 increase in FPS from i7 - i5 for an extra $120+... No game in the next 10 years will use the hyperthreading the i7 offers. it's simply not worth the $$ for just gaming

Maybe, solely for gaming it is not worth it (the difference is bigger than 5% in CPU-heavy games, but not everyone plays these games). But I assume that the OP is building a computer for everything. He hasn't given too much information about his needs, unfortunately.

[Remilia]

Power supply is an interesting topic in that it is one of those funny things about which people, for no real factual reason, decided that "more expensive = better" and then tried to find logical explanation to it. In reality, people who followed the PSU evolution since as early as early 90-s know that since, maybe, early 2000s reliability of PSUs almost hasn't changed. The difference between expensive and cheap PSUs comes solely from the difference between expensive and cheap parts and materials, but if the cheapest used parts and materials already provide incredible reliability, then it makes little sense to pay for even better materials.
Everyone keeps screaming, "Cheap PSUs will fry your components", - and yet the actual evidence is next to nothing. You probably won't be able to find anyone who's cheap PSU destroyed his other components, I don't even think it is possible since even the cheapest PSUs and components have a lot of safety mechanisms. I haven't heard of a single case when dying PSU took anything else with it, and I've been using the cheapest PSUs available since, pretty much, 1995 and haven't had any problems with them whatsoever.

It's cause the cheap PSUs have bad parts for one. Seriously, sites like Jonnyguru and other PSU reviewers will say much about it. There's difference between capacitors like Nippon Chemi-con vs CapXon capacitors. Former being good and reliable and the latter being cheap and shit.
Bad soldering, no protection and so on are present in cheap PSUs, this is why you don't get them. Bad soldering can cause shorts as an example. No protection is exactly that, none. Bad ripple and voltage control causes an unstable system which is bad.

Let's just leave it at that and agree to disagree. This discussion doesn't belong to this thread and neither of us has enough technical knowledge to make a professional level argument. If the OP thinks that more expensive PSU is worth it, then he will buy it, if not, then not.

No, there are plenty of information about PSUs taking out a system, or in a case almost their house.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11...vs_reg_reader/

THIS is the company you linked.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php...Story&reid=379

[tielknight]

snip

Sorry, but i'm not going to "leave it at that" when your recommending to someone else that they should buy a piece of junk for their power supply. Heck I use a crappy one one myself and have had 0 problems with it, but I still recognize that it is sub-par and would never suggest that anyone else purchase one because that would be irresponsible of me.

And do you really think the "600W" power supply you had picked only outputting 450W on it's 12V rails is acceptable for a recommendation to someone else? Even the EVGA 500B(it's the same price or cheaper than the coolmax you had picked) can output 480W on it's 12V rail.

[May90]

It's cause the cheap PSUs have bad parts for one. Seriously, sites like Jonnyguru and other PSU reviewers will say much about it. There's difference between capacitors like Nippon Chemi-con vs CapXon capacitors. Former being good and reliable and the latter being cheap and shit.
Bad soldering, no protection and so on are present in cheap PSUs, this is why you don't get them. Bad soldering can cause shorts as an example. No protection is exactly that, none. Bad ripple and voltage control causes an unstable system which is bad.

I think you are overdramatizing things. While I agree that the components on more expensive PSUs are of higher quality, the cheapest PSUs have gone a long way over the years as well. I think the difference between an expensive and a cheap PSU is like a difference between a bicycle with usual metal frame and a bicycle with some special high quality metal frame: yes, the latter one is better, and yes, it is much more reliable, but chances are in practice you won't encounter any situations dramatic enough for the frame to break in any case.

The links you provided describe some cases, true. Cheap PSUs very rarely really cause any damage, but it is true that, if they do, they will do it more often. However, there are two concerns I have with it. First, often people don't understand the true cause of an accident and start blaming things that have nothing to do with it - like in the first link you provided, a guy was using a 10 y/o computer, so I am 99% sure that it was not the PSU that made it all explode but a severely outdated and used up computer.
Second, everything happens. I've seen a lot throughout the years, I've even seen an exploded CRT monitor in a lab because a guy messed up two power sources and applied a few dozen times more power than allowed... The question is, how often. If 1 out of 10,000 high quality PSUs destroy other components and 1 out of 1,000 low quality PSUs do that, even though the difference is ten times, it is still not very reasonable to spend 10% more on your config just so you can decrease the chance of a malfunction from 0.1% to 0.01%.

Don't get me wrong, I myself bought a very good PSU for my last config. But, first, I had money to spend, I wasn't limited to $1,000 as the OP, and second, even though it itself wasn't very cheap, with relation to the rest of the config, it made it, maybe, 3% more expensive than if I had taken a less expensive one. I think, for a limited budget, one needs to focus on performance, stability is good anyway, adequate for most people. First - GPU and CPU, then HDD/SDD and RAM, and everything else on what you have left to spend. That's how I always built my config (again, except for the last one), and, like I said, I had a PSU die off only once, it was a very cheap 25% or something 500W PSU back in 2004 or so, and it didn't take anything else with it, even though my PC was really old and cheap, with 16Mb GeForce 2, Pentium 3 600 Mhz, 256 Mb RAM, 4GB HDD and other funky stuff. So, I leave it to the OP, to decide how important reliability to him and how much he is willing to sacrifice in terms of performance for that.

Sorry, but i'm not going to "leave it at that" when your recommending to someone else that they should buy a piece of junk for their power supply. Heck I use a crappy one one myself and have had 0 problems with it, but I still recognize that it is sub-par and would never suggest that anyone else purchase one because that would be irresponsible of me.

And do you really think the "600W" power supply you had picked only outputting 450W on it's 12V rails is acceptable for a recommendation to someone else? Even the EVGA 500B(it's the same price or cheaper than the coolmax you had picked) can output 480W on it's 12V rail.

The OP asked for our opinions and I posted my opinion. Honestly, now that I look at it, I like your config you linked above much better, so I can only recommend that. Also, I'm sorry I made a wrong impression: I didn't mean to say that it was a config that I exactly would buy, it was more of a sketch, of a skeleton of what I would consider getting, but if I was actually purchasing something, I would probably refine it a lot.

I totally agree that higher quality stuff is always better. However, for a limited budget, you have to make compromises. Personally, if I was building a config for $1000, I would want to get as much performance out of it as possible. I would take a low quality PSU, a low quality motherboard, an average case (since cooling directly influences how much you can push your components and, as such, indirectly affects performance), an HDD with just enough space for me (500GB is my personal golden standard), and I would spend as much as possible on powerful CPU and GPU. Now, say, $1500 is a different matter, there I wouldn't be as economical about non-performance influencing parts. But $1000.... It is a lot, it is actually quite a high end, if you think about it - but, to my taste, not enough to start improving stability at the cost of performance.

So, let's just come to the compromise: my recommendation to the OP - take tielknight's build. It is much more refined and cost effective that what I linked.

[tielknight]

but, to my taste, not enough to start improving stability at the cost of performance.

Thats the problem though, we don't recommend things based on our tastes, we recommend them based on their performance, quality, and OP's needs. Saving $20 on the PSU is hardly going to tank the performance of a build.

[Remilia]

In terms of the news article.
1. Look at the scorch marks and where it is at. It's at the PSU. Nothing else in any computer system has the ability to cause that other than the PSU.
2. This isn't about chance. Parts have failure points, that is part of the design.
Old Antec TP models were made from CWT with low end parts which as predictable, unreliable and died eventually not on a small scale, but very very common. This was apparently a long while ago, but you get the idea.
3. I'm not going to recommend a build where the PSU can fry the components, period. Increased chance is an increase chance. At least better units have protection systems in place that will shut itself off to prevent any issues occurring than one that has no protection at all.
This isn't a matter of opinion or not. Unlike some things that can fall into aesthetic preference, this isn't one of em.

My priority in terms of builds aside from price goes about like:
PSU > CPU / GPU / MoBo (situation case) > RAM > SSD/HDD > Case > Cooler.

[Arbiter]

May, I think what you need to understand that cheap does not necessarily mean low quality. Your right, spending $200 on a PSU doesn't mean it's more reliable. It's about the manufacturers that make them. Seasonic, for example, makes amazing PSUs and have non modular 520W bronze cert PSUs for about $50 that are without a doubt grade A PSUs. Meanwhile, there are manufacturers that have expensive PSUs that I would never recommend because price isn't quality. You can get amazing PSUs for low prices when you put aside features such as gold rated power efficiency or modular cables as they do not contribute to the quality...only convenience and power saving.

Yes, PSUs burning up in flames is not common. Yes, it is still common for those PSUs to still die early compared to higher quality PSUs. Yes, a high quality PSU can still crap out, but statistics have shown that the higher quality are much less likely to run your system for longer and less likely to burn up in flames. Picking the right PSU even at a $50 price range makes a world of difference.

And the biggest problem with the prebuilts is it's not like they result to PSUs such as those seasonic $50 PSUs. It's some no name shit stain of a brand that put the cheapest parts they possible could inside of the thing that is only really guaranteed to work long enough to get out to the customer and hopefully long enough to outlive the warranty. After your warranty is up they could care less as they got away with spending next to nothing on the most important part of the system. They get away with this because when people go buy these prebuilts, the last thing on their mind is needing the specs for the PSU. Makes the companies think..."well why should we invest money into something that won't sell our product more? Let's add more 16GB more RAM instead and hike the price up $300 because that's what people think they need!"

In the end if I've got a grand or more (or even $600) put into my system, I'm not going to risk those parts with buying a crappy PSU.

[Deleted]

i'd say for gaming ram performance goes last in that list If you got enough of it you don't need faster, 1600-2133/cl9-cl11 makes 0 difference, gaming only. Same goes for mobo, you only need a quality up to a certain point, then you pay for ...

[May90]

Thats the problem though, we don't recommend things based on our tastes, we recommend them based on their performance, quality, and OP's needs. Saving $20 on the PSU is hardly going to tank the performance of a build.

I don't know, I thought OP asked for our opinions, and our opinions depend on our taste.

In terms of the news article.
1. Look at the scorch marks and where it is at. It's at the PSU. Nothing else in any computer system has the ability to cause that other than the PSU.
2. This isn't about chance. Parts have failure points, that is part of the design.
Old Antec TP models were made from CWT with low end parts which as predictable, unreliable and died eventually not on a small scale, but very very common. This was apparently a long while ago, but you get the idea.
3. I'm not going to recommend a build where the PSU can fry the components, period. Increased chance is an increase chance. At least better units have protection systems in place that will shut itself off to prevent any issues occurring than one that has no protection at all.
This isn't a matter of opinion or not. Unlike some things that can fall into aesthetic preference, this isn't one of em.

1. Yes, it was the PSU, but the reason the PSU died was most likely outdated and faulty computer parts. If you use even the best PSU in the world terribly wrong, consequences will be dire.
2. All I know is modern PSU killing modern components is an extremely rare case. Not that one would feel better if it happens to him, but I wouldn't really account for that possibility, unless I was building a rig for, at least, $1500.
3. It is, actually. Different people have different stability requirements. I, for one, would readily spend a lot of money on something that would fail with 5% probability since, in my picture, 5% is nothing. Some people feel uncomfortable even on flights that have something like 1 out of 1,000,000 rate of crashes (it's just a guess, don't quote me on this). I don't know which one better describes the OP.

snip

Well, when I talk about expensive parts, I imply "good expensive parts" - it makes little sense to spend $200 on something that is worse than something else for $50. I totally agree with you about better reliability, but I think the difference in reliability won't make a world of difference for most people. Since it is extremely rare for a PSU to kill anything anyway, I wouldn't worry about it that much.

As for pre-built PCs, I wouldn't recommend getting them at all, unless one really doesn't know how to assemble purchased parts and can't have anyone do it (unlikely situation since there are PC repair centers everywhere and they usually offer assembling parts for a decent price). I haven't seen a single pre-built that couldn't be vastly improved for a lower price. My guess is they are intended for people who don't know computers and their parts very well, so such a person will see some Alienware with shiny ads ("Great PC for gaming!", "4GB in GeForce 730 GT ensures that your textures will always load quickly!", "Liquid cooling in this $600 PC provides good overclocking capability!") and decide, "Wow, it looks great for the price". I was blown away once by my friend's horrendous PC. He spent about $1500 for a new "gaming" PC and complained that he couldn't play any modern games at settings above low. I asked what config he had, he didn't know where to look for it, so I came to his house... and found that he didn't have a dedicated GPU.

[Arbiter]

No one here ever said the OP needed to spend $200 on a PSU. The PSU you selected is a terrible quality PSU. No reason to buy it when there are much more reliable PSUs for the same price. The other PSUs selected from others were known to be high quality with low fail rate and similar prices. I agree, it's stupid to spend $200 on a crap quality PSU when there are good $50 PSUs...but regardless of what you "implied" you suggested a terrible PSU to the OP.

You can try and justify getting a crap PSU with "it's uncommon for PC parts to be ruined because of it" but it's a pointless chance to take when money isn't really the argument considering they are about the same price. Most PSU manufacturers don't really care about the customers. They build what will sell and skimp out where they can to save money. Many businesses with different products/services do the same thing. Companies like Seasonic care about the customers using their product. Why buy a PSU and save $10 just to have to turn around and buy a new one a year later...or possibly a whole new system (or house when it burns down).

Electricity is in my line of work. I've learned that you don't fuck with electricity, and you are essentially doing that when you buy these pieces of shit. CoolMax is known to sell shit products regardless.

And as for the i7 debate...I agree, it's not useless....if within your budget without giving up too much of more important hardware. Problem is it isn't in his budget. You showed that by going over it by $100. You also gave him a motherboard that can't overclock so screwed him there as well. The only benefit of the i7 is the higher clock speed out of the box, which can be countered by overclocking the 4690k to 4.4Ghz+.

[May90]

Well, OK, I agree that if you can buy a SeaSonic PSU with a decent quality standard for the same price, then this is the way to go.

Anyway, like I said, I much prefer tielknight's part list to mine, so let's just close this conversation belonging to other threads.