Wanting some help on building a computer.

[beaker]

OCZ Vertex series had some issues with firmware, but I think they've been corrected. So if you're studdering, I'd do a firmware update on the drive. (Remember to backup first!!!)

Anyway, back on topic

You dont need the latest to be fast, and watch craigslist.

[Sheena]

not hardware studdering. just some areas it drops down. like a coding issue.

it jacks the GPU usage up to 100% then hits mid 20s in some special areas.

im starting to think its an nvidia thing.

on my 470 computer theres this spot in WoW where i can microstutter my video card down to 22 fps, then move a half a degree and jump to over 100

same on my 560ti 448 cores.

i always update to latest beta drivers since 2009. and its happened.. since 2009 lol. so

and so far this vertex 3 is fine.

i think the trick is, in the bios, DONT set it to AHCI mode like they tell you. i still get about 450mb read and write. but its not the max performance.. guess theres a trade off.. stability for loss of some performance.

so far its worked on 3/3 computers that ive put the drive in.. each time im a little scared it will fail, but so far so good.

[BJD3]

You dont need the latest to be fast

Completely true.

I never buy the newest graphics card. I always go a gen lower. There is no reason to get the newest, because most of the time it wont run at full speed unless you have the fastest CPU.

Not /entirely/ true. Most games are going to be heavily GPU bound. It would take a dog of a CPU to bottleneck even a 680. Are there going to be cases where at a particular point the load on the GPU will drop and the CPU is going to be the bottleneck? Definitely. But most of the time, the GPU is what is going to hold you back, even in this day of crappy console ports.

That and no one knows what rez he's running at. A 480 will be close to a 680 @ 1280x1024, so why spend 300+ more for it?

IIRC, he's buying a monitor. Which is why I said if he isn't playing at 27/30 inch resolution or 120hz, dropping down a couple levels would be worth it. At 1440p or 120hz, you really do need the extra horsepower the 600 series give syou.

EDIT:

Nah, just looking to spend that amount on the tower itself.

then once its built up ill look at monitors, keyboards and a mouse.

2011 is like 1366, its cool to have, and looks neat on paper, but real world most wont see much difference.

I like the Crucial M4's better than the Intels. Hardware garbage collection and TRIM are better on the Crucial models.

I run Gskill in my machine, Corsair generally has lower latencey.

Agreed. I'm not entirely convinced 1155 cares much about RAM though. I think as far as it's concerned, capacity > all.

Get a 64gb ssd if thats all you can afford, then set you documents and stuff to go to a cheaper platter drive, problem solved.

Difference of opinion. I'd rather have a slightly larger SSD, and use it instead of having Windows boot quickly (something I rarely do) and everything else loads at a snail's pace. I can respect your opinion, though you still haven't changed my mind.

just to piggy back, the samsung isnt a sata III drive. thats the only issue i could see with it. i own 4 of them on my P45 comp so they're great drives.

The 830 is a SATA 3/6gb drive.

the SSD is much larger than necessary, a 120 will do IMO.

since his budget is 1900, might as well do a 680 instead of a 670.

Being that the difference in performance between the 680 and the 670 is so close, I'd rather put the money into SSDs or into my pocket. IMO, unless you're doing multi-display gaming, the 680 is not worth the extra $100.

silver certified PSU isnt needed since the load will be around the butterzone of 30-50% anyways, bronze will do if certs are a must.

TBH, I couldn't care less about certs. After reading a handful of reviews on JonnyGuru and seeing how many of them hit rated in real world conditions, I only look at how well they do at supplying the power I need, and if they will allow me a clean build. Wrong way to look at it? Maybe.

8gb is plenty of ram, pagefile will do the rest on a SSD. so this will do. put the extra money to the 680.

Truthiness. I'll grant that. I just can't get over how cheap RAM is right now!

[Sheena]

The linked HDD is a f3 mechanical HDD 1TB.

He didn't link the Samsung SSD.

[BJD3]

The linked HDD is a f3 mechanical HDD 1TB.

He didn't link the Samsung SSD.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that spinning disks will saturate SATA II, even on sequential reads. It definitely won't with writes.

[Maxim]

I never buy the newest graphics card. I always go a gen lower. There is no reason to get the newest, because most of the time it wont run at full speed unless you have the fastest CPU.

That and no one knows what rez he's running at. A 480 will be close to a 680 @ 1280x1024, so why spend 300+ more for it?

Get a 64gb ssd if thats all you can afford, then set you documents and stuff to go to a cheaper platter drive, problem solved.

Although I'll agree that a 480 will pull similar FPS to a 680 in BF3 at 1280x1024 I have to ask why that's even relevant. He's building a brand new top-of-the-line machine to play all the latest and greatest titles. If he's playing it on an old VGA 4:3 monitor at 1280x1024 it's all completely overkill anyway. Let's all assume whatever monitor he chooses will be at least 1920x1080.

Documents, music, and other data can easily go on a platter-based HDD but there's no reason not to get at least a 120GB SSD on a $1900 budget. Games take up much more space than people expect and if your machine is primarily for gaming and you're loading those games off a platter-based HDD instead of an SSD you're just wasting the SSD. The "SSD for boot" is completely unnecessary on a desktop platform and an SSD in a desktop is pointless unless you're actually using it for the files you want the speed benefit from. Nobody cares how fast your machine boots or how quick you can open iTunes when you're the last guy to load the map when logging into a BF3 server because you loaded the game on your HDD.

[Sheena]

The linked HDD is a f3 mechanical HDD 1TB.

He didn't link the Samsung SSD.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that spinning disks will saturate SATA II, even on sequential reads. It definitely won't with writes.

sata II mechanical drives are no where near the 285 mb/s cap lol.

like 120ish off a brand new drive.

[beaker]

I'm pretty sure I never said to put all your program files on a platter drive. Even at 1920x1080 a 480 and 680 are close. Its when you get above HD resolutions that it matters.

The F3 will do 120 meg/sec, Raptors will do around 180ish. In RAID it MIGHT saturate the controller.

[BJD3]

Even at 1920x1080 a 480 and 680 are close. Its when you get above HD resolutions that it matters.

You are close, but that is a really broad statement. There is a reasonable difference between the 670/680 and the 480. You also have to keep in mind, many sites test games with single-player game play or a built-in benchmark. MP is more demanding by a notable margin. It took my laptop from being able to play BF3 SP at 1080 at high setting with ~35 FPS to having to drop down to 1366 x 768 to get 40 fps.

The 480 would give you a good, playable experience, no doubt. The 670 would put you near or over 60 fps WITH 4x AA and HBAO. The 480 does not have the VRAM it takes to enable that much AA.

If you decide the 670 is too expensive, I would spring for either a 660 (when they come out), 448, or a 570 (of the 448 and 570, buy what's cheapest). It is actually the reason I do not want to buy the GPU for my brother's computer right now.

The 7850 is fairly close in price to the 448, does not outperform it by a large amount (not enough to make an unplayable game into a playable one), and you would be left with AMD's driver team.

Considering the 670 goes toe-to-toe with the 7970, I have no doubt the 660 is going to perform on par with or better than the 7870 at around the $300 price mark.

The only way I would consider getting the heat monster that is the 480 is if it drops below the $200 price point for a new card. And even then I'd have to seriously think about it.

[Sheena]

I'd never buy a 480 right now.

Amd has been so irrelevant since the 5 series launch.

680. Call it a day.