The perfect PC gaming build

[Evnissyen]

Thanks loads for the links.

How about the NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT?

Or the NVIDIA GeForce 210?
Or the NVIDIA GeForce GT 220?
Or the NVIDIA GeForce GT 240
...all 1g.

Or, a little more expensive:
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250
NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT?
...all 1g, but these two are harder to afford.

Especially the first four mentioned are notably less expensive than the Radeon 5770. How do these NVIDIA cards compare with Radeon?

[CrazyBernie]

None of them are DirectX 11 compliant. You'll only get that from the 5000 series radeons and the new 400 series nvidia cards.

Overall the 5770 is a faster card than the GTS 250, as a matter of fact, the 5750 is basically a direct competitor to the 250 in a performance comparison.

If you're looking strictly from a performance level, the 4850 is the best card for $100. If you're looking at it from a longevity standpoint, you might as well spend the extra several dollars and get the DirectX 11 support. You can always skimp a little elsewhere... with a lower clocked processor, for instance.

[King_ov_Death]

Thanks loads for the links.

How about the NVIDIA GeForce 9500GT?

Or the NVIDIA GeForce 210?
Or the NVIDIA GeForce GT 220?
Or the NVIDIA GeForce GT 240
...all 1g.

Or, a little more expensive:
NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250
NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT?
...all 1g, but these two are harder to afford.

Especially the first four mentioned are notably less expensive than the Radeon 5770. How do these NVIDIA cards compare with Radeon?

What I can tell you about the 9500 GT is that, although it's a very good card for 1024x768 monitors, the Radeon HD 4670 beats it in almost every benchmark. Too bad I found out about this a little too late...

[Evnissyen]

Update:

I think I might order from CyberPowerPC sometime this week, since I've managed to find a build that is nearly inexpensive enough for me and also (I think) seems to satisfy my requirements.

Here's the build, in case either of you guys wants to comment:

CPU/Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 245 Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
HDD: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
MOTHERBOARD: Asus M4A78L-M AMD 760G Chipset DDR2/1066 mATX w/ Integrated ATI Radeon HD3000 Video, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB2.0, SATA RAID, 1 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI
MEMORY: 4GB (2GBx2) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
VIDEO: ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card [DirectX 11 Support]
POWERSUPPLY: 600 Watts Power Supplies (XtremeGear SLI/CrossFireX Ready Power Supply)

Additional:

CD: Sony 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive
FAN: Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan (Enhanced Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA)
FA_HDD: None -- (don't recall what this refers to)
FLOPPY: 1.44 MB FLOPPY DRIVE
HDD: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
IEEE_CARD: None
MONITOR: None -- (I'll buy this separately, with internal speakers, for less money)
MULTIVIEW: Non-SLI/Non-CrossFireX Mode Supports Multiple Monitors
NETWORK: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
OS: None - FORMAT HARD DRIVE ONLY --(Vista or even XP should be fine, right? Yes? I don't have to borrow a copy of Windows 7?)
STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
VC_PHYSX: None

Questions:

What's an "extra thermal display"?
Is a hard drive cooling fan really important? I did not choose to buy one.

On Motherboards: Any noteworthy difference between:

* Asus M4A78L-M AMD 760G Chipset DDR2/1066 mATX w/ Integrated ATI Radeon HD3000 Video, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB2.0, SATA RAID, 1 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI [+0]
* GigaByte GA-MA785G-UD3H AM3 785 Chipset DDR2/1066 with PCIe slot SATA RAID MB w/GbLAN,USB2.0,IEEE1394,&7.1Audio

Memory: What's the difference between:

4GB (2GBx2) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
4GB (2GBx2) PC8500 DDR2/1066 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Dominator)
?

Finally: anybody have a strong idea about the real difference between these processors? (I didn't change it from the default, which is not only the second-least expensive but is also noted at the top, as the CPU "name" (also in bold, below)):

AMD Phenom™II X4 925 Quad-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$86]
AMD Phenom™II X2 550 Black Edition Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$40]
AMD Athlon™II X4 635 Quad-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$66]
AMD Athlon™II X4 630 Quad-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$40]
AMD Athlon™II X2 250 Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$6]
AMD Athlon™II X2 245 Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
AMD Athlon™II X2 240 Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [-$4]

EDIT: The Intel Core i3-530 config is notably more expensive(+$60); the 540 is $20 more than that but I'm not interested in going higher in cost.

EDIT#2: I still plan on calling Dell on Tuesday and specifying what I want, just to see if they can come up with something custom-built (without giving them any model titles) which happens to be inexpensive enough . . . their high-end builds which have the Radeon video cards are not only expensive but they're also stuffed with extras that I don't need.

EDIT#3: Monday, 5:15p: Removed a couple of [+##]'s, which referred to additional expense, figuring it might be confusing. Also removed a question about "heat spreaders" since I just found out exactly what a heat spreader is. After minimum research: still not sure of the exact definition of HyperTransport technology or what it's good for, but something tells me it's not very important.

[King_ov_Death]

CPU/Processor: AMD Athlon II X2 245 Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
HDD: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
MOTHERBOARD: Asus M4A78L-M AMD 760G Chipset DDR2/1066 mATX w/ Integrated ATI Radeon HD3000 Video, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB2.0, SATA RAID, 1 Gen2 PCIe, 1 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI
MEMORY: 4GB (2GBx2) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory [+54] (Corsair or Major Brand)
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
VIDEO: ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card [DirectX 11 Support]
POWERSUPPLY: 600 Watts Power Supplies (XtremeGear SLI/CrossFireX Ready Power Supply)

Additional:

CD: Sony 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive [+2]
FAN: Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System 120MM Radiator & Fan (Enhanced Cooling Performance + Extreme Silent at 20dBA)
FA_HDD: None -- (don't recall what this refers to)
FLOPPY: 1.44 MB FLOPPY DRIVE
HDD: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
IEEE_CARD: None
MONITOR: None -- (I'll buy this separately, with internal speakers, for less money)
MULTIVIEW: Non-SLI/Non-CrossFireX Mode Supports Multiple Monitors
NETWORK: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
OS: None - FORMAT HARD DRIVE ONLY --(Vista or even XP should be fine, right? Yes? I don't have to borrow a copy of Windows 7?)
STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
VC_PHYSX: None

Nice!

Memory: What's the difference between:

4GB (2GBx2) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
4GB (2GBx2) PC8500 DDR2/1066 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Dominator)
?

The second one is faster.

Finally: anybody have a strong idea about the real difference between these processors? (I didn't change it from the default, which is not only the second-least expensive but is also noted at the top, as the CPU "name" (also in bold, below)):

AMD Phenom™II X4 925 Quad-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$86]
AMD Phenom™II X2 550 Black Edition Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$40]
AMD Athlon™II X4 635 Quad-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$66]
AMD Athlon™II X4 630 Quad-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$40]
AMD Athlon™II X2 250 Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$6]
AMD Athlon™II X2 245 Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
AMD Athlon™II X2 240 Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [-$4]

What I can tell you is:
¤ Quad-Core means 4 cores, Dual-Core means 2 cores (I guess you already knew that).
¤ AMD's Black Edition processors are specially optimized for overclocking.
¤ Look for every processor's cache. Bigger and higher level mean better, i.e.: 6 MB of cache are better than 2 MB of cache, and L3 cache is better than L2 cache.
Also, search for every processor's GHz.

[Evnissyen]

¤ Quad-Core means 4 cores, Dual-Core means 2 cores (I guess you already knew that).

¤ AMD's Black Edition processors are specially optimized for overclocking.

After reading a little about overclocking, my impression is that anyone (such as myself) who doesn't know exactly what he/she is doing should refrain from utilizing such tactics, so... I won't bother with it, then.

¤ Look for every processor's cache. Bigger and higher level mean better, i.e.: 6 MB of cache are better than 2 MB of cache, and L3 cache is better than L2 cache.
Also, search for every processor's GHz.

Noted, and thanks for pointing that out. Does the extra cache make a notable difference? My guess is yes, so... I think I'll definitely start paying more attention to that.

Really, I should be looking for some reliable websites that will give me all this info so that I won't have to bug anyone, any longer, about all this stuff, thus narrowing my questions to the really tricky or bothersome ones, which I'm sure will get you both excited. I'll begin thuswise forthwith. I always aim to be a more exciting questioner.

(And in case anyone's noticed: Yes . . . Evnissyen is spending all his time on the web, today, including The Drunken Lizard Pub, because he's sitting around his parents house with little else to do. Please don't think poorly of me.)

[CrazyBernie]

Commentus Maximus:

Evnissyen wrote:
Memory: What's the difference between:

4GB (2GBx2) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
4GB (2GBx2) PC8500 DDR2/1066 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Dominator)
?

The second one is faster.

But the 1-2% real world performance difference will go unnoticed.

Evnissyen wrote:
Finally: anybody have a strong idea about the real difference between these processors? (I didn't change it from the default, which is not only the second-least expensive but is also noted at the top, as the CPU "name" (also in bold, below)):

AMD Phenom™II X4 925 Quad-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$86]
AMD Phenom™II X2 550 Black Edition Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$40]
AMD Athlon™II X4 635 Quad-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$66]
AMD Athlon™II X4 630 Quad-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$40]
AMD Athlon™II X2 250 Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [+$6]
AMD Athlon™II X2 245 Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
AMD Athlon™II X2 240 Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology [-$4]

What I can tell you is:
¤ Quad-Core means 4 cores, Dual-Core means 2 cores (I guess you already knew that).
¤ AMD's Black Edition processors are specially optimized for overclocking.
¤ Look for every processor's cache. Bigger and higher level mean better, i.e.: 6 MB of cache are better than 2 MB of cache, and L3 cache is better than L2 cache.
Also, search for every processor's GHz.

A quick AMD Processor Primer:
- Athlon chips have an L1 and L2 Cache.
- Phenom Processors have an L1, L2, and L3 Cache.
- The L1 cache is closest to the processor, and therefore the fastest memory.
- The L3 cache is furthest, slowest, and shared with all of the cores. In general it is beneficial, but a lot of applications don't really take advantage of it. Sometimes, having more cores is better than having an L3 cache. i.e. An Athlon II X4 running @ 3GHz could perform better (and cost less) than a Phenom II X3 running @ 3.2GHz, even though the phenom is faster and has an L3 cache. That being said, I won't put anything less than a Phenom II in my PC.
- Overclocking is risky business... only do it if you're prepared for the possibility of an unstable system, or potentially frying a component. Sometimes the cheaper processor + adequate cooling solution is more costly than just buying a faster chip.
- Hypertransport is the communication link between the processor and other components on a motherboard. While it is very important technology, it's not really something to be concerned about. AMD uses it mostly as marketing, and it's important to overclockers looking to squeeze out every last ounce of performance.

In general if I was giving processor advice, I'd say to go with a quad core if you're looking @ the Athlon II. With the Phenom you could go with a tri-core, but CyberPower doesn't seem to offer it. *shrug*

I would also seriously consider a DDR3 config. Should be the same if not cheaper cost-wise.

The thermal display is just a little lcd that sits in a drive bay and shows you the internal temperatures of your system. You don't need it.

You seriously need a floppy drive?

My only (and a major one at that) concern with opting out of a Pre-installed Windows config is drivers. The cost of Win7 pre-installed is a lot cheaper than you even get it OEM (it's about $140 through newegg, and $83 pre-installed). Manufacturers are becoming more notorious for not releasing drivers for previous OSes when Microsoft releases a new one. Vista should be the minimum if you're going for a single installed OS... there's already games being released that do not support XP. If you're going to dual boot, I'd seriously recommend a larger hard drive, partitioned in half. Install XP first, then Vista/W7... if you want it to work without hiccups.

http://www.tomshardware.com
http://www.anandtech.com
http://www.firingsquad.com
http://www.hardocp.com

These are sites that I visit on an almost daily basis to keep current. Firingsquad is more of a gaming review site, but they do look at hardware. Hardocp is a "Hardcore" hardware review site, but I prefer their video card testing methodology.

[Evnissyen]

Thanks for the links, man, I'll check those out. There really is a lot of info I need to get current on, among other things.

The floppy drive is only an extra $10. I have an old PC which will not recognize my flash drive, which means I need to use floppy disks. With a floppy drive: I can communicate between the new PC and that old PC. Without one, I can't. That's the reason. It nothing critical, but for $10 it's worth getting.

As for drivers & OS's: a few hours ago I decided it'd be best for me to spend the extra $100 to get Windows 7 preinstalled. I was planning on using somebody else's disk, but I decided I'd rather have my own disks on hand, so I don't have to bug anyone in the middle of the night if something bad should happen.

A 500g drive isn't much more pricey than the 320g, but I don't see I'm ever going to need 500g anytime in the near future.

Problem with upgrading to the Phenom is that once I add in the Windows 7: I'm already at the edge of what I can afford. An additional $86 is just $86 too much. All this stuff adds up and then I've got problems with my bank account . . . payment plan notwithstanding. I figure: if an Athlon II dual core does the job and I won't encounter any incompatibilities with it: why sweat over it? If it's $86 less then that's better for me, financially. If a quad core is considerably faster than the duo, and if game developers will be exploiting the chip beyond the duo core's capacity (tell me if this is the case) then I can see spending the extra $40... but why a Phenom II quad over an Athlon II quad?

Looked at iBuyPower as well, by the way, but at least as far as I explored: they came out to be more expensive.

Incidentally: I also went to NewEgg to test out building my own system from scratch, yesterday . . . it ended up costing me more. Hah! (Besides, I just know I'd make a mess of things, anyhow, if I'd decided to take that route.)

(Appreciations for the help, too, by the way, both of you.)

[CrazyBernie]

Actually, if you read this article, you'll see that the Phenom II X2 555BE is actually considered AMD's "best gaming cpu" because it offers performance equivalent to their fastest quadcores for less money. Keep in mind however, the only "RPG" they tested was Fallout 3. The closest thing Cyberpower offers is the 550BE, but it's only $40 more than the dual core you had selected. That and the speed between the 2 is only 100MHz, so there shouldn't be any noticable difference in performance.

Without knowing your exact budget, it's difficult to make recommendations... but here's some suggestions:

- Go with the cheapest case they offer. It's actually not a horrible looking case, and looks to have plenty of cooling.
- Change your CPU Fan/Heatsink to something less expensive... even if it's only saving $11, you don't need their "liquid cooling" solution.
- Unless you're going with their basic keyboard/mouse, don't bother with 'em. Get 'em from Newegg or some other such vendor.

I've built several configurations on the cyberpower site that all come to around $700, give or take $50. I can match them @ newegg, but getting it prebuilt with a warranty has its advantages...

I liked the fact that iBuypower has the Phenom X3, but they're definitely priced higher.

[Evnissyen]

okay, I'm down to $810 with free shipping (thankfully: $65 is way too much of a wound) . . . with the inclusion of Windows 7 ($104) and extra packaging to ensure nothing gets damaged ($35). I brought the cooling system down to the least expensive ("Intel LGA1156 Certified CPU Fan & Heatsink": -$20). And I took out the floppy, since I want to get rid of that old PC anyway, I have little use for it. So... with that, I have now the following specs:

CPU: Intel® Core™ i3-530 2.93 GHz 4M L3 Cache LGA1156
HDD: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
MOTHERBOARD: [CrossFireX/SLI] EVGA P55 TR Intel P55V Chipset DDR3 Socket 1156 mATX Mainboard w/ 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, USB2.0, SATA-II RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, & 2 PCIe X1
MEMORY: 4GB (2GBx2) DDR3/1333MHz Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
VIDEO: ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card [DirectX 11 Support] (Major Brand Powered by ATI)

Wish I could reduce it more, but I want a reliable processor and a reliable vid card. Oh well... .

[CrazyBernie]

I had it @ less than that with an amd phenom and a radeon 5770 iirc...

[Evnissyen]

What's the secret? Assuming you're including Windows 7 . . . which you wouldn't need if you have just one copy of Windows 7.

The 5770 is $60 more than the 5670, after all... and the Intel system ends up being notably less expensive than the Phenom II system.

I used the "special builds", which qualify for free shipping, to get around the $65 surcharge for shipping. Otherwise, a $736 system turns into an $801 system.

I went with the "Mega Special II" since it qualified for free shipping, and reduced the price from there.

[CrazyBernie]

Well when I configured it last night, there was a free upgrade to the 1GB 5770 from the 1GB 5670... looks like that deal is gone.

But for instance... take the Mega Special I, change it to the Phenom II X2 550BE, 320GB HDD, AMD Cooling, Asus M4A78LT-M LE mobo, Radeon 1GB 5770, drop the crappy mouse, keyboard and speakers, add W7, and voila! $804 w/ free shipping... 6 bucks less and a faster processor and videocard to boot. THEN... if you put MYSPACE in the coupon code... it comes down to $774.... booya.

**EDIT** Even if you went with the Phenom system to get the faster gaming CPU, and still went with the 5670, that would put you @ $746 (no coupon though... has to be over $799).

[CrazyBernie]

Actually, using a similar tactic on the Gamer Ultra 7500, I got the price down to $753 with shipping. Go figure... I had to double and triple check it to make sure I wasn't missing something.

[Evnissyen]

Ahh... so it was the motherboard. Thanks again.

I think I'll pass on the protection-packaging, considering Dell seems to be able to ship computers without any shifting or damaging.

Why do you push the 5770 so hard against the 5670? What's the effective difference? ...Considering that the 5670 would save me some $80.

EDIT: Interesting. I'll try that with the Gamer Ultra, then.