PC Peripherals Convince me to buy a pc. Or Not.

S

stalker

Skilled
As things stand, I have a bit of money that I could spend. (between $1000-1250)

If I were to spend this money, it would be on just the CPU minus HDDs, monitor, mouse+kb & speakers (I already have all these.)

I currently game @ 1680*1050 with the laptop in my sig connected to a 22" Dell ultrasharp monitor.

I mostly play RTS, RPGs and a bit of TF2 on and off.
As things stand, there ARE a bunch of games that absolutely CANNOT touch with my laptop (Metro 2033, BFBC2, etc.,).

There's also been the absolute lack of RTS releases in the recent past that has been holding me back. As of right now, there is just the one RTS (R.U.S.E), that I haven't played (simply because I'm waiting on a Steam cheapass deal for it.) It works fine on my sad 9800M GS (Have tried the demo.). I'm not much of a StarCraft/CnC fan either, so out went those franchises.
Even when I look at the near future, all I can see is the DoW expansion, which should again run just fine on my laptop, since I did finish DoW2 on it.

So.. There you have it. A budget of approximately 1250/- for a motherboard, memory, GPU/GPUs, processor, power supply & cabinet.

Things to note, I will most definitely be going the nvidia way for the gpus since I work with CUDA.
How is AMD faring on the upper mainstream end these days? Are they comparable to the SandyBridge chips at a decent price point?
 
1000-1250$ is overkill for a machine that needs to run games at 1680x1050. You can make do with a 500-600$ system.

Something like this. (Taken off the PC thread on NeoGAF)

http://i.imgur.com/syHcJ.png

Are there a lot of PC games you want to play right now? Do you want to wait and get a reasonable system after Crysis 2, Diablo 3 etc come out? I don't see too many AAA titles with huge graphics requirements coming out in the near future.
 
ok..
Now that you got me thinking along that front, how about this?

y08on.jpg
 
stalker said:
ok..

Now that you got me thinking along that front, how about this?

[IG]http://i.imgur.com/y08on.jpg[/IG]
Click to expand...

Looks good. You could shave off another 100$ or so if you so wished.

(Do you plan to add another card later? You could save 30$ on the Motherboard, 40$ or so on the case and 50$ on the power supply)

Also, the GTX460 runs a bit cooler and uses less power than the 465 (I think they are on different architectures). You might want to look into that.

Also, I would suggest pricing individual components on various websites. Don't get them all from newegg (unless they are the least expensive there of course).

Look at Amazon, Tigerdirect, ewiz, ncixus. Individual components are usually cheaper on different sites.

Try to get components with no rebates. (They are a hassle, and you will most likely be lazy and not go through with them.)
 
whatsinaname said:
Looks good. You could shave off another 100$ or so if you so wished.
(Do you plan to add another card later? You could save 30$ on the Motherboard, 40$ or so on the case and 50$ on the power supply)
Click to expand...
Yes SLI is on the cards for later. Hence the beefier psu..
How much of a difference does having 2 * 16x lanes make? Assuming I would SLI with a gtx460 somewhere like a year down the line.

Would I need a board with an nvidia chipset to do sli?
whatsinaname said:
Also, the GTX460 runs a bit cooler and uses less power than the 465 (I think they are on different architectures). You might want to look into that.
Click to expand...
While it does, from the reviews I have seen, the 465 at stock is mostly equal to 5 % slower than the 460. This particular card overclocks on an average around 20-25% (from what I saw in a bunch of reviews).
More importantly, there is no 1g gtx460 that comes this cheap.

whatsinaname said:
Also, I would suggest pricing individual components on various websites. Don't get them all from newegg (unless they are the least expensive there of course).

Look at Amazon, Tigerdirect, ewiz, ncixus. Individual components are usually cheaper on different sites.
Click to expand...
Yup.. Will do that, just trying to freeze components into a rough budget for now.

whatsinaname said:
Try to get components with no rebates. (They are a hassle, and you will most likely be lazy and not go through with them.)
Click to expand...
Rebates aren't much of an issue for me. I'm not all that laze :)

--- Updated Post - Automerged ---

OK.. so no SLI for me if I go the AMD route.

The only decent chipset is the 900 series and even that doesn't have SATA 6gbps :|
 
Planning for an SLI/CrossFire down the line is a very weird issue. By the time you will require an SLI, there is always a single card that will give you the same performance at about the same expense but without the hassle.

I recently moved to a 2560x1600 resolution setup. My PC is setup to take another 4870 (good PSU, Crossfire motherboard). But people over at [H]ardforum convinced me that a 6950 is a better buy at this time. I would have gone with that but am getting a Crossfire card just because the 6950 won't fit in my case.

(You can follow the thread here http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1576998)

Also, have you tried the OnLive service if you have a decent internet connection? If there are only a few games you need to play on the PC right now, try OnLive and see if it works for you. They have a 2 week free trial right now, which includes R.U.S.E. If that works OK for you, you can put off buying a PC for a few months.

comp@ddict said:
If you dont want to buy PC, don't buy. period.
Click to expand...

Don't say that, we've all been in a situation when we are thinking aloud if we need something or not. ;)
 
Given that I can't do SLI on AMD with a decent board with hackery, I'm gonna stop considering that at all.
The only reason I picked a slightly more expensive mobo was because of 6gbps sata + usb3.0

I took a look at onlive, they don't have R.U.S.E listed :(

Did a bit more of chopping around and reached
DOLW7.jpg
 
Wait For GTX560... some benchmarks which got leaked shows that GTX560 comes close to HD6950 performance level and in some benchmarks it is on par... :)
 
i'd say wait for the bulldozers to release, im sure it will be worth the buck, even if it dissapoints at release, the competitors will drop prices, so either way you have an advantage and by then even 560 will be out
 
Since you're not sure if you want to get a PC at the moment, I would recommend not getting one until you need to. As hardware keeps getting outdated pretty fast now.
 
ALPHA17 said:
The GTX 465 is seriously not worth it, the GTX 460 can out-perform it as well takes lesser power --->
Bench - GPU - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 1GB & GTX 460 768MB Review

Either go for the ATi HD 6870 or 6950 if you want to purchase card right now or wait a bit and get the GTX 560.
Click to expand...

Hades. said:
Wait For GTX560... some benchmarks which got leaked shows that GTX560 comes close to HD6950 performance level and in some benchmarks it is on par... :)
Click to expand...

I know the 465 is slower. It is also significantly cheaper for me.
If you had bothered to read my opening post you would have noticed that I will not be buying an ATI card.
Also, the 560 is going to be around $250+ at launch. Based on what I've seen, I really don't need that powerful a GPU.

DarkAngel said:
Newegg.com - Galaxy 60XGH6HS3HML GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) GC Version 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

$162 after $30 rebate
Click to expand...

10-15 bucks on rebate is something I don't mind gambling on, 30 is a little too much :p
ryanrulez4ever said:
i'd say wait for the bulldozers to release, im sure it will be worth the buck, even if it dissapoints at release, the competitors will drop prices, so either way you have an advantage and by then even 560 will be out
Click to expand...
Boot_Comp said:
Since you're not sure if you want to get a PC at the moment, I would recommend not getting one until you need to. As hardware keeps getting outdated pretty fast now.
Click to expand...
How soon does Bulldozer release? I don't really care about stuff getting outdated, since I've never been the one to go and buy the latest and greatest as soon as it releases. I don't mind gaming with settings turned down and stuff and I don't really see anything like Crysis of yesteryear coming to change that.
 
stalker said:
Also, the 560 is going to be around $250+ at launch. Based on what I've seen, I really don't need that powerful a GPU.
Click to expand...

I think he means that the 460 will drop in price after the 560 comes out. (Which is rumoured to be on the 25th).
 
So I read around a bit. I don't see Bulldozer coming around atleast till summer (June end, late July).

I'm not going to wait that long.

Have also made a small change to plans. Will be going mATX with a Lian Li PC-V351/PC-V352.
The LianLi is mostly fixed, unless I can find another enclosure that is as nice and costs less than this ($100-110).

For those wondering why,
351
kRVWT.jpg

& 352
EEPNJ.jpg

7DUM1.jpg

I have absolutely no idea about AM3 boards, especially now that I've narrowed it down to mATX. There is but 1 mATX 890FX on newegg, so thats mostly not going to be an option.

To restate things with a list of stuff I've finalized on:

Processor - Propus 3.0-3.2GHz ($100)
Enclosure - LianLi PC-V351/PC-V352 ($100)
RAM - 8 Gigs of something cheap ($80)
GPU - GTX460 ($150), will buy once it reaches that price point.
PSU - Not sure. Would like to get a Seasonic. ($100)
Motherboard - No idea whatsoever (Want - USB3.0, SATA6Gbps & a clean roomy layout. Probably asking for too much at mATX, I guess :) )

Any suggestions?
 
Vaidy, how about a cheaper Sandy Bridge based system? What is the total budget again? If I missed it amidst the posts. This system might be an overkill ATM but will serve you for sometime to come.

I saw that the Asus mainboards are priced a lot cheaper abroad compared to the Indian pricing. You can bank on the cheaper P67 boards such as the P8P67-m Pro, an unlocked 'K' processor (2500K?) and a pair of 4GB 1600MHz CL9 sticks such as the G.Skill Ripjaws/ripjaws X and a Seasonic X650 Gold.

Something like these -

Newegg.com - Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K

Newegg.com - ASUS P8P67-M PRO LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Newegg.com - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL

Newegg.com - SeaSonic X650 Gold 650W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

The components above add upto roughly 620USD. Add an enclosure and a GPU and you are set. :D

Overkill? :ashamed:
 
yup :D

I've seen the light, in that I don't need to spend 800+ (which is what your list will easily reach :p)
I'll be getting an AMD based rig for sure
 
Bugger you said you have a budget of 1200USD. :mad:

It doesn't make sense to get the locked Sandy Bridge chips either. Oh well, good luck assembling an AMD system then. Out of the AMD scene for sometime so cannot comment.
 
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