Need info about a gaming computer

[Dave - WebGuy]

When I was looking at building my own PC about a year ago, it was actually cheaper to choose the parts and have NCIX put it together, plus it came with a 1 year warranty.

Dave - Web Guy : SSDs are not coming, they're here and I highly recommend digging a little deeper into your pockets and getting one for your OS and and a 1 TB Western Digital hdd for everything else. As for RAM, there is a limit to how much RAM Window7 32 bit can use (I think it's a little under 4 GB), it is higher with the 64 bit version.



ps I've been waiting for Diablo 3 for around 10 years, it's about time that game came out!! Release day is now May 15.

I saw the SSD's at Canada Computers, show how long I've been putting it off lol. Pretty much my thoughts were picking up one large enough for the OS and a 1T 7200 rpm drive for storage. I'm having CC assemble it and will do the OS myself and then there's no issues with warranty labour.

64bit is what I'm going with, 8GB to start and run it up to 16GB in a little while once I see how greedy some of this stuff runs. I'm opting to use more of the budget in Video and add more RAM later on a 4 RAM slot board.

Incidentally, I was told that the MoP beta comes out then ... lol Coincidence? I may try D3 if I get too frustrated with SWTOR or bored. I already have 6 85's in WoW and nothing to do until their expansion.

 

[escortphotoshoots]

My personal recommendation with an ssd, is to try to have one around 120gb if you can afford it, and leave a good 10-15gb free, I'm not sure how it is with the absolutely newest ssds, but with ones from a year or so ago, if you filled up the ssd max (leaving like a gb or so), you could see major drops in performance. I hope newer ssds also support things like TRIM / "garbage collection" in a mirrored / striped raid environment -- something I always use as losing my work data is simply not an option.

 

[The Options Menu]

My personal recommendation with an ssd, is to try to have one around 120gb if you can afford it, and leave a good 10-15gb free, I'm not sure how it is with the absolutely newest ssds, but with ones from a year or so ago, if you filled up the ssd max (leaving like a gb or so), you could see major drops in performance. I hope newer ssds also support things like TRIM / "garbage collection" in a mirrored / striped raid environment -- something I always use as losing my work data is simply not an option.

My latest home rig, that's more of a server that happens to be a desktop, than a gaming rig, uses a mirrored software RAID. I have two SSDs (mirrored) for the root filesystem, and two big, fat, fast disks (mirrored) for bulk storage. (With a daily external backup, and an off-site backup in the form a disk I swap into my parents' closed whenever I'm home.) Mind you I'm a data nut, so that may be a bridge or two too far for sane folks.

For those with lots of data, a smaller SSD for the OS / Software / Games, and a fast hard drive for bulk data is a good bet. Just make sure your data also gets synced to a USB drive (and not an online service with a shitty licence and no real guarantees for average consumers). At a minimum, all home computer users should make sure they have 100% data redundancy that is no older than a week.

 

[Nicky Sarkozy]

SSD FTW. It is the truth, the light, and the way. IMO, next to RAM, it provides the biggest bang/buck in terms of performance overall, not sure it would really come into play much with gaming/3d rendering specifically though...shorter load times maybe?

 

[The Options Menu]

SSD FTW. It is the truth, the light, and the way. IMO, next to RAM, it provides the biggest bang/buck in terms of performance overall, not sure it would really come into play much with gaming/3d rendering specifically though...shorter load times maybe?

Most PC games load a huge number of models, textures, audio, and video onto your drive. It may get (partially) cached into memory, but it still has to be loaded that first time.

 

[escortphotoshoots]

In my experience, for anything that relies primarily on cpu processing (I can say with 100% certainty video encoding), using an ssd made no difference over using a speedy 7200 rpm drive (like the wd black drives), the overwhelming factor was the cpu (and i did several real world benches ~ the faster the cpu, the faster the encode). I'm not sure about 3d rendering, but my assumption is wouldn't that type of process be affected by your cpu / gpu? (i would think 3d modeling apps would now incorporate the utilization of the gpu to boost render times).

 

[Dave - WebGuy]

Today is mostly buy day and maybe build day. Here's the list of stuff I'm sure of or have already picked up.

ASUS P78z68VLA Motherboard. Supports up to 32GB Ram - Supports up to 32GB Ram and is Quad GPU Crossfire compatible
(Could have gone pro on this board, but not using the Sli option of this board ... it is PCIe 3.0 ready and can use i7 22nm chips)

16GB DDR3 1600 Dual Channel RAM w/ Heatsinks

Intel i5-P2500 4-core @ 3.3 Ghz
Sapphire 1GB Radeon 7700 Video @ 5000Mhz (Dual display HDMI card)
1TB Western Digital HDD (No ssd, since I think the pricing will get better and all of the above is a big enough upgrade for the moment)
Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit

I'll try and get some photos as I build, as some of this stuff looks pretty cool. I'll be doing some videos to show the difference between what I've been gaming with and the new beast over the weekend.

 

[escortphotoshoots]

Can i make one suggestion to you, if spaciousness and silence is important to you (in terms of your case's internals), I'm not sure what cpu cooling choice you opted for, but seriously, seriously look into the corsair H series. I have the h50, i know there are newer models, but it is *brilliant*. it is great at cooling an overclock, very easy to setup, looks very nice, and really makes the internals of your case much more spacious (which is great from an airflow perspective ~ since you are not dealing with a giant obstructing fan). Also, the modular psus from corsair are wonderful too (i hope the psu you've chosen is modular, it's another great thing in terms of case spaciousness since you only have the power cables you need attached to the "block" portion of the psu).

Aside from that, good luck, and I hope it is a successful build!

 

[Dave - WebGuy]

Can i make one suggestion to you, if spaciousness and silence is important to you (in terms of your case's internals), I'm not sure what cpu cooling choice you opted for, but seriously, seriously look into the corsair H series. I have the h50, i know there are newer models, but it is *brilliant*. it is great at cooling an overclock, very easy to setup, looks very nice, and really makes the internals of your case much more spacious (which is great from an airflow perspective ~ since you are not dealing with a giant obstructing fan). Also, the modular psus from corsair are wonderful too (i hope the psu you've chosen is modular, it's another great thing in terms of case spaciousness since you only have the power cables you need attached to the "block" portion of the psu).

Aside from that, good luck, and I hope it is a successful build!

Build seemed to go pretty good. I'm on the system I built today, so it's a good sign lol I missed on the HDD Led light, but other than that ... "Updates are ready to be installed", reboot and finally installing some software after de-registering it from the previous computer.

I'll do some addon stuff later, since I went above budget so far as it is. I did get a good size thermalmaster case and added an extra fan for cooling.

Besdies that ... I'll work on some old vs new videos over the weekend to show the difference for fun.

 

[MattRoxx]

Sounds good and powerful..maybe we'll meet up for some Diablo 3 action in a couple of months.

 

[The Options Menu]

In my experience, for anything that relies primarily on cpu processing (I can say with 100% certainty video encoding), using an ssd made no difference over using a speedy 7200 rpm drive (like the wd black drives), the overwhelming factor was the cpu (and i did several real world benches ~ the faster the cpu, the faster the encode). I'm not sure about 3d rendering, but my assumption is wouldn't that type of process be affected by your cpu / gpu? (i would think 3d modeling apps would now incorporate the utilization of the gpu to boost render times).

A SSD shouldn't affect anything CPU or GPU (which is just another CPU) bound, just the physical speed of getting a stored resource into system / video card memory. In the case of games that is your meshes, models, and textures from disk into system and / or video card memory. If a game is good at streaming the loading (or similar) you may not notice, but if see long loading screens... Get that data onto something faster. Heck, I know a few people that have built very large battery backed ramdisks for that reason. Ultimately any persistent data has to get from some form of storage to some form of memory (ignoring virtual memory).

Anything encoded, decoded, transcoded, rendered, or (procedurally) generated will likely be CPU / GPU bound after any requisite data gets from persistent storage into memory. That's why the fastest single core speed is still really important in many applications in this multi-core era.

@Dave - Webguy: Have fun!

 

[Matt Roxx]

blah blah blah...I find the SSD allows my computer to boot up in about 20 seconds. Pretty cool. Anyway, Dave-Webguy: the Diablo 3 beta is open to everyone this weekend!
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/04/20/diablo-3-beta-open-to-all-this-weekend/

 

[Dave - WebGuy]

blah blah blah...I find the SSD allows my computer to boot up in about 20 seconds. Pretty cool. Anyway, Dave-Webguy: the Diablo 3 beta is open to everyone this weekend!
http://www.joystiq.com/2012/04/20/diablo-3-beta-open-to-all-this-weekend/

Sweet ... now if only I had time for gaming this weekend lol

It's running now at least ... maybe a few hours away from having 2 towers parked beside each other no more, while I get essentials off of the old system, and clean up cabling.

 

[Butler1000]

So I'm not a big tech guy but love Diablo. Wanted to play the beta but needed a new unit. Went to future shop and my geek(all guys like me need one!) Researched an Acer for like 549.00. 2 terabytes memory 8 gig expanbable to 16. Played the beta at max resolution and worked like a charm! Should still be on the website. And the unit is tiny!

P s. The witchdoctor rocks and have the best comedy to it too. Can't wait for the release date now!