Computer purchasing advice

[Herr-Berbunch]

Percussive maintenance - brilliant

[antikristuseke]

I am a bit too lazy to look into prices myself at the moment, but you can get a good rough idea here
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...uter,3364.html

[Spike88]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

I am a bit too lazy to look into prices myself at the moment, but you can get a good rough idea here
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...uter,3364.html

Thanks for the article.


I made a hypothetical Intel wishlist to get a general idea on price.
It has:
LG 24X DVD Burner - Bare Drive Black SATA Model GH24NS95

Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Acer G205HVbd Black 20" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor

EVGA 01G-P4-2650-KR GeForce GTX 650 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

COOLER MASTER eXtreme Power Plus RS500-PCARD3-US 500W ATX12V v2.3 Power Supply

Kingston HyperX XMP Blu Red Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600

ASUS P8B75-V LGA 1155 Intel B75 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i5-3350P Ivy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.3GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 69W Quad-Core

For a total of $682.92.

Any thoughts or comments?

Also, Is it better to get 4x2GB or 2x4GB's for ram? The Mobo I selected has 4 ram slots.

[Arclight]

I prefer only using 2 RAM modules, less strain on the memory controller but nowadays it's a pointless thing. No practical difference. As long as the modules match it's all good.


Bump the card to a x60. Twice the price for more then twice the performance.

[Spike88]

Originally Posted by Arclight

Bump the card to a x60. Twice the price for more then twice the performance.

It's already $82 over the budget I set, If I bump to a x60 it'll push it farther. Plus I still need to buy a table to put it on and a chair.

[Arclight]

Well, no offense, but you're skimping on the 1 thing that makes it a gaming system.

All the RAM and CPU cores in the world won't change the fact a 650 is a low-budget card. You can halve the RAM and get a fast dual-core without sacrificing gaming performance in most cases; it's that card that defines performance.

[Spike88]

Originally Posted by Arclight

Well, no offense, but you're skimping on the 1 thing that makes it a gaming system.

All the RAM and CPU cores in the world won't change the fact a 650 is a low-budget card. You can halve the RAM and get a fast dual-core without sacrificing gaming performance in most cases; it's that card that defines performance.

I don't see how that is offensive.


I've put together a hypothetical AMD machine too, but have come into a road block, apparently AMD mobo's only support PCIe 2.

I could put a Geforce 560 in there, which according this site:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
Is in between the 650 and 660.

The CPU I have chosen now is 3,000 "marks" stronger than the i5, and $50 cheaper. If I could find something closer to the i5 I selected for a lot cheaper, I could get a better card. But I have to ask if getting an AMD is worth it. The fact it only supports PCIe 2 seems like a major draw back.

In reality, I only want something to play a couple indie games(that aren't too demanding) CoH2, RTW2 and maybe Skyrim. I'll also probably upgrade the system in a year to two years. Upgrading is a lot easier once you have some of the components.