Okay, for the last time, tech advice. ;)

[Fel]

So, I have the money saved up for my computer, and turns out I have more money to spend. So, this is what I've decided to go with, give me your opinions:

Intel I7 3.0 or 3.2 GHZ CPU
Non-SLI Asus motherboard (I don't need 3 monitors...I don't have ROOM for 3 monitors.)
16GB RAM
2TB 7200 RPM HD
Geforce 660 GTX Ti video card with 2GB of onboard memory
combo Blu-Ray burner
DVD burner (I like having 2 CD drives in my computer)
minimum 800 watt power supply

And for the OS, I've decided to go with Windows 7 Professional with SP1

I figure this setup will run me around $1200 or so. Anyone see any holes in there?

[Mizriath]

Hey Fel,

For that price, sounds good to me. I hope it is not Seagate harddrives, I do not have good experience with it.

[gnume]

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-760 ... GTX-660-Ti
you need to review this.
as currently an good 760 card costs $239.99
and an 660 Ti card costs $259.99 or $266.98 with 3GB

[Hearly]

same as Gnume, I'd suggest going to a 760 instead of a 660..

[gnume]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($249.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-PRO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($179.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair XMS 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($114.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($83.94 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB Video Card ($259.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: CoolMax 1000W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Microcenter)
Optical Drive: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($59.99 @ TigerDirect)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Microcenter)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($132.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1167.84
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-01 11:26 EST-0500)

spec without an case with 660 Ti card


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($249.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-PRO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($179.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair XMS 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($114.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($83.94 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card ($239.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: CoolMax 1000W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Microcenter)
Optical Drive: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($59.99 @ TigerDirect)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Microcenter)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($132.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1147.84
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-01 11:29 EST-0500)

with 670 card

[keysersoze]

I'd suggest a better brand of PSU, around 650+ Watt range since you aren't doing any SLI/Crossfire madness. Also, as said, a newer GPU even if just re-branded and slightly better/cheaper. I'll try to update this post with specifics if I get a chance.

[knw257]

One thing I'd suggest here is an SSD. Yes, it might cost you a bit more, but the speed increase is definitely worth it. Additionally, putting your OS on the SSD, and any other data on the 2TB HDD will give you some redundancy/separation.

[bdrosen]

One thing I'd suggest here is an SSD. Yes, it might cost you a bit more, but the speed increase is definitely worth it. Additionally, putting your OS on the SSD, and any other data on the 2TB HDD will give you some redundancy/separation.

I second the SSD recommendation, but be careful which brand of SSD you pick as some are much better than others. I'd also recommend a minimum of 128 MB, but if you don't mind the extra money, I'd go with double that. If you don't want to have SSD, I'd consider a second 2 TB hard drive either for mirroring (reliability) or striping (performance). That being said, most of the RAID support built into the motherboards is the fake RAID stuff from Intel that is not so reliable, so I think the SSD would be preferable.

As for the motherboard and computer case choice, I'd make sure that it supports both eSATA and USB 3.0, as well as SATA 6 Gb/s , particularly if you plan on using some sort of external hard drive for back up purposes as the eSATA and USB 3.0 drives are considerably faster than USB 2.0. eSATA seems to be more commonly supported by cases and motherboards today (I think all motherboards that support SATA support eSATA using one of the on board ports), but I would expect USB 3.0 to be more commonly supported by external hard drives in the future making it more important to have than eSATA.

As for the OS, I'd also recommend the 64 bit version vs the 32 bit version of Windows 7 .

[Hearly]

One thing I'd suggest here is an SSD. Yes, it might cost you a bit more, but the speed increase is definitely worth it. Additionally, putting your OS on the SSD, and any other data on the 2TB HDD will give you some redundancy/separation.

I second the SSD recommendation, but be careful which brand of SSD you pick as some are much better than others. I'd also recommend a minimum of 128 MB, but if you don't mind the extra money, I'd go with double that. If you don't want to have SSD, I'd consider a second 2 TB hard drive either for mirroring (reliability) or striping (performance). That being said, most of the RAID support built into the motherboards is the fake RAID stuff from Intel that is not so reliable, so I think the SSD would be preferable.

As for the motherboard and computer case choice, I'd make sure that it supports both eSATA and USB 3.0, as well as SATA 6 Gb/s , particularly if you plan on using some sort of external hard drive for back up purposes as the eSATA and USB 3.0 drives are considerably faster than USB 2.0. eSATA seems to be more commonly supported by cases and motherboards today (I think all motherboards that support SATA support eSATA using one of the on board ports), but I would expect USB 3.0 to be more commonly supported by external hard drives in the future making it more important to have than eSATA.

As for the OS, I'd also recommend the 64 bit version vs the 32 bit version of Windows 7 .

Um, with 16 gig ram he'd already have to be running 64 bit or it wouldn't use more than 4gig..

[Mizriath]

I would second the SSD except it will cost some money.

[bdrosen]

Um, with 16 gig ram he'd already have to be running 64 bit or it wouldn't use more than 4gig..

I was not 100% sure if that was correct for windows or not. I know for some OSes like Linux you can have a 64 bit kernel with a 32 bit userspace so that the larger amount of memory is available to the OS, but only 4 GB is available to any given processes address space. Also, with PAE supported since Pentium Pro and Athlon, I would expect the same behavior to be available for both x86 and x64 hardware. See:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library ... s.85).aspx

[Mark_Reed]

I agree that a SSD will seriously speed up your boot time, and any program you run from the drive. We use SSD's in my work environment and it takes about 2-3 minutes for a computer to boot up and log in, and that's with the extra hoops these machines go through for security. It's seriously nice.

With that said, if you're looking for long term reliability I'd stay away from SSD. We see a lot more dead SSD's than we do traditional hard drives, and they tend to die with very little warning. Your computer will behave slightly funky for a little bit, then just completely die with unrecoverable data. So long as you keep a good division in your files (programs and OS on the SSD, data on the traditional hard drive) it would be less of an issue, though your computer would still be down.

I agree with the others that you have to be careful of the manufacturer. If you get one from a reliable business then you should be okay. The SSD will likely have a shorter lifespan than the platter drive, but so long as you can chip in for another one in a few years that shouldn't be much of an issue. Overall, it's a choice between speed and longer lifespan.

[flash]

Intel I7 3.0 or 3.2 GHZ CPU

The only available i7 with a nominal core speed of 3.0 to 3.2 GHz is the i7-4770S for about $310. The i7-4770 costs about the same, but has slightly different speed and turbo settings. The i7-4771 is more expensive at $320, at least on NewEgg.

You may find many users' favorite alternative in the Intel Xeon E3-1230V3 though. The differences in clock speeds are negligible anyway, but this Xeon lacks the integrated graphics unit. It is in turn the cheapest Intel processor with hyper-threading at only $265 on NewEgg. Compatibility isn't a concern either, since both i7 and the Xeon fit on the same socket and usually run fine on all consumer motherboards.

Non-SLI Asus motherboard (I don't need 3 monitors...I don't have ROOM for 3 monitors.)

The Asus Maximus Formula Z87 and Sabertooth Z87 are both good boards. Be aware though that they're premium products with a cost of $250 to $300, so they're likely wasted on you, if you don't plan to create a high-end rig with over-clocking and/or multiple graphics cards.

If you don't plan to spend a premium for the motherboard, you won't find much of a difference in quality between the entry- and mid-level offerings. Whether you choose a Z87-K for $110, a Z87-A for $140 or a Z87-PRO for $200, they're all essentially the same board with different feature-sets. You should only spend more if you need the additional features, the additional cost is wasted otherwise.

Because I've heard some negative comments about the cheaper Asus boards (comparatively high return and defect rates), I wouldn't be averse to choosing their own budget brand ASRock. The ASRock Z87 Pro3 is a bit cheaper than the Asus entry-level at only $95, yet it is still a good product that comes without any extra features but those included in the Z87 chipset itself.

2TB 7200 RPM HD

Several people have suggested a SSD and I can generally agree with that. Provided you know how to avoid the pitfalls of some products, this 'new' kind of storage medium for your computer can certainly speed up some of the most crucial tasks. What's more, everything feels so much faster if your operating system and the most important applications are installed on an SSD. The Toshiba Q 128GB for $95 or the Crucial M500 240GB for $182 are good products I've worked with myself and can recommend.

Nevertheless, there is an alternative that can merge the best of both worlds: hybrid drives. Currently there's only the Seagate SSHD series to choose from, its regular hard-disk comes equipped with an 8GB MLC NAND cache. While it's not designed to be as fast as your regular SSD, this hybrid drive can get you some of those blazing fast access times and transfer rates typically known from an SSD drive without compromising on the available disk space. The 2TB model costs $140 on NewEgg. That's certainly a steep price, considering a regular 2TB HDD is available at $90, but it has the potential to really speed up your working experience. See the HardwareCanucks review for some benchmarks of its intelligent caching mechanism.

minimum 800 watt power supply

I fear the power supply madness in this thread is getting out of hand Even the "minimum 800 watt" suggestion is already miles beyond what's recommended or what could ever be required for this system in the future - but to counter that with a 1,000 watt PSU is mind-boggling.

There are three big reasons why buying and using such over-sized power supply units is a bad idea:

1.) If two PSUs cost the same, always take the one with less nominal power output. Instead of buying "cheap and big", such as the CoolMax 1000 suggested earlier, I'd rather take something like the SeaSonic S12G-450 for the same $70. While there are exceptions to every rule, this generally holds true for well known brand names with largely respectable products.

In this instance, the SeaSonic is 80 Plus Gold certified and has received several positive reviews. See a model of the Seasonic S12G series (750W) tested by PC Perspective and KitGuru.

Also note that smaller models of the CoolMax ZU series have really bad user-ratings, at least on NewEgg. That I couldn't find a professional review of the product anywhere on the net isn't encouraging either, but I could have missed something in my cursory search.

2.) The efficiency rating of a PSU can be deceptive and may not apply to your own system configuration. Today's standard of testing is the already mentioned 80 Plus certification, which comes in several levels of efficiency: 80 Plus, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum. For a product to be certified at a certain level, it must meet or exceed the required efficiency ratings at fixed power levels of 20, 50 and 100 percent of the rated output. The certification doesn't care what the product does outside these three test parameters and it is not an indicator of the product's quality either.

To put a power supply unit of 1000W in your system, you should reasonably have an idle consumption of around 200 watt. Most modern systems are very much below that, which means that the PSU is required to work at a load of sometimes only 5 to 10 percent. Some PSUs are simply dreadful at that and their efficiency may slip to 70 percent or even lower.

3.) There's nothing all this power could be used for anyway. If you consider that the idle consumption of a regular computer with a modern Intel CPU (Sandy Bridge onwards) and a modern graphics card (AMD 6000/7000 series, nVidia 600/700 series) is between 55 and 70 watt, you know how over-sized a proposed PSU of 800-1000W truly is. Even under a full load you won't get an overclocked system with a single graphics card beyond 450 or 500 watt, while using components with the highest power consumption (like the AMD Radeon R9 290X for example). Using more realistic alternatives like the proposed nVidia GeForce 660 Ti or 760 GTX will reduce that to 250 or 300 watt at most.

Since you can't upgrade to a 6/8 core CPU (these are only available on the Intel socket 2011) and don't plan to use more than one graphics card in SLI/Crossfire mode, you'll never need the huge reserves of these large power supply units. Most internal devices (hard drives, PCI/PCIe cards, disc drives) are happy with about 10 watt each, while external ports like USB take from 2.5 to 10 watt (2.0 and 3.0). Those are peanuts compared to the CPU/GPU consumption.

[phantom512]

Hi Fel, I've been building rigs for myself and all my friends for donkeys years now. 99% of the general public will see no appreciable benefit of going for an i7 over and i5. Similarly, unless you plan on overclocking and or adding a lot of peripheral cards/crossfire/SLI, there is no point in spending almost as much money on the motherboard as you do on the processor. I would much rather put that additional money on an SSD and a better video card. An example of a rig I would suggest that should fit your requirements and brand choices is as follows:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2wzMc
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2wzMc/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2wzMc/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus Z87-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($134.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($99.92 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($82.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card ($339.99 @ B&H)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12G 650W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($103.79 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($14.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($138.97 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1275.60
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-06 09:23 EST-0500)

As you can see, I have decided to go for the AMD R9 280x instead of the nVidia 760, as that card in my opinion is a much better option for future gaming. I'd recommend you seriously consider this option unless the game you play is one of those heavily tuned to run better on nVidia hardware.

You can probably save a little money by going for a 550w power supply and getting rid of the 2nd optical drive if you absolutely *must* keep things very close to $1200.

Do let me know if you have any questions regarding this and I'd also like to take this chance to thank you for the countless hours of entertainment you have provided me via your writing.

[bdrosen]

Hi Fel, I've been building rigs for myself and all my friends for donkeys years now. 99% of the general public will see no appreciable benefit of going for an i7 over and i5. ...

So you don't think that having the extra threads (4 vs 8 ) is worth an extra ~ $50 - $100 ? I guess it would depend on whether the programs used on the computer can take advantage of multithreading. I think that some games do take advantage of this, and in the future I would expect more games to do so, so I would think for serious gamers, the i7-4770 would be a better choice for a computer that will be used for a while but does not cost a ridiculous amount. Also, I think that anyone doing video encoding or video converting would benefit as well.

So I think that the choice for i7 vs i5 really comes down to what somebody does on the computer. For email, word processing and web browsing the i7 will likely be overkill, although even there with browsers like chrome using multiple processes, having extra threads may be helpful. (when my computer is mostly idle, I see activity on 4 "cpus" just from having a number of browser windows open)