I already have a seperate budget for the Oculus Rift and other peripherals, and it will be a bit hard to find a good reason to get another monitor after buying my current one earlier this year. the 20k budget is only for internal components, and prefferably should be quite high on the performance scale seeing as my next "Hardware" upgrade will most likely be 5 or so years from now. But ty in any case for your recommended, but would it be able to last for that long before needing a serious upgrade again?
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The PC Build Thread
- Thread starter Duff-Man
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If you want to spend more, add another GTX770 for insane graphics performance. Get something like this Corsair CPU water cooler and overclock your CPU to 4.5GHz. Those two items cost R6838 together, bringing the grand total to R19972.
So that's exactly on your budget, and will last a very long time and be awesome whilst doing so.
Edit: forgot to upgrade the PSU. You'll need more juice to feed the 770 SLI (900W should suffice), but it won't add much to the cost.
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Well it is a 'tock' update and not a 'tick' like Ivy Bridge, so yeah, it's probably worth it.
Building a computer for the wife. She mostly does work applications on it. Will have several windows open at once, Excel, word, Firefox, and a media player. She is also a fan of the Call of Duty series and plays GW2. She already has Win7 64 bit.
Budget is R6000 but have went over by about R200 and that is the best we can do at the moment.
How does this build look?
Zalman T1, Mini-Tower, Black with Black interior, no PSU (bottom placed design),
AMD FX-6300, 3.5GHz, AM3+, Hex (6) Core, 32nm, 6x 48KB L1 + 6x 1MB L2 + 1x 8MB s
Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002, 500GB, SATA6G, 7200rpm, 16mb cache
Kingston Hyper-X Blu KHX16C10B1B/8, with Black heatsink, 8Gb, DDR3-1600, CL10, 1
ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 - all-in-one AM3 / AM3+ motherboard , on-board core unlocker
LG GH24NS90, 24x SATA, black, support SecurDisc technology
Thermaltake LitePower, 450w, ATX 12V V2.3, active PFC, dual +12v rails, 1x 6 pin
PowerColor AX7790 1GBD5-DH/OC Radeon HD7790 1GB 128bit GDDR5 PCI Express
Checked the power supply calculator online and it says recommended supply is 340w so the 450w should be fine.
Thanks.
Budget is R6000 but have went over by about R200 and that is the best we can do at the moment.
How does this build look?
Zalman T1, Mini-Tower, Black with Black interior, no PSU (bottom placed design),
AMD FX-6300, 3.5GHz, AM3+, Hex (6) Core, 32nm, 6x 48KB L1 + 6x 1MB L2 + 1x 8MB s
Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002, 500GB, SATA6G, 7200rpm, 16mb cache
Kingston Hyper-X Blu KHX16C10B1B/8, with Black heatsink, 8Gb, DDR3-1600, CL10, 1
ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3 - all-in-one AM3 / AM3+ motherboard , on-board core unlocker
LG GH24NS90, 24x SATA, black, support SecurDisc technology
Thermaltake LitePower, 450w, ATX 12V V2.3, active PFC, dual +12v rails, 1x 6 pin
PowerColor AX7790 1GBD5-DH/OC Radeon HD7790 1GB 128bit GDDR5 PCI Express
Checked the power supply calculator online and it says recommended supply is 340w so the 450w should be fine.
Thanks.
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Buying a PC doesn't have to be terribly expensive. Rather spend that money on a few good components and keep what you can from the outgoing PC until you have some more disposable income to spare. If I was starting a new PC with that budget I'd buy this:
AMD FX8320 - R2200
Asus AM3+ M/B - R800
Transcend 2x 4GB AxeRAM DDR3-2400 - R700
MSI GeForce GTX660 Twin Frozr 2GB - R2550
Total - R6250
You must surely have a case, HDD, DVD Writer and PSU that you can use?
The computer she is using now is about 5 years old. The PSU is a 350w, the 80 gig hd isn't really giving her the space she needs and the case is from my old computer which I bought almost 9 years ago. She has never really had her own decent computer, always had my hand me downs so I wanted to get her something nice for her birthday.
From rebeltech.co.za:
- Coolermaster Elite 344 with 400W PSU - R656
- Asus HD 7770 1GB - R1618
From Esquire (MyBB members can take out accounts with them):
- 1TB Seagate Barracuda - R659
- Asus P8B75-M LX LGA1155 M/B - R799
- Intel Core i5-3570 - R1879
- 2x 4GB Adata Premier 1600MHz - R538 (R269 a stick)
- LG DVD Writer - R139
Total: R6288
That's a very nice PC. I recommend it way above the one you quoted above. Esquire is a bit of a schlep to work with, but well worth the savings.
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Thanks Bryn.
I've got an account with Esquire but when you include the vat then it really does not come out cheaper. I can also get the 7790 from Wootware for R1599 which will be a better card than the 7770.
Forgot about VAT. It's still exceptional pricing though. I haven't seen an i5-3570 for close to R2.1k anywhere.
How about this:
Wootware:
7790 - R1599
Coolermaster CMP5-350 with 400W PSU - R664
MSI LGA1155 M/B - R654
Esquire:
500GB Seagate Barracuda - R568.86
Core i5-3570 - R2142.06
2x 4GB Adata 1600MHz - R613.32
LG DVD - R158.46
Total price: R6399.70
That's insane value, and a very competent PC. Well worth the little extra.
Maverick Jester
The Special One
This is insane value! My friend has just had his mobo die on him, I'll recommend this build to him...
Hey I was wondering if I could get some help from you guys with a build. I've been researching all the tech mumbo jumbo for weeks and still stuck with too many choices. But, to simplify it, I was considering the following:
-i5 2500k + Asus z87-V Pro (many sites still list these, most don't have stock but might find if lucky)
-i5 2500k + z77 board (might be silly because SB doesn't support native USB 3/PCI-e 3, but newer tech)
-i5 3570k + z77 board (takes advantage of new tech but suffers when OCing)
-i5 4670k + z87 board (more expensive for not much performance gain, plus more heat when OCing)
More info:
Current specs: Core2Duo E6750 2.66GHz / 2 Gig DDR2 / Some Foxconn LGA775 Mobo / Inno3d Geforce GTX 550 Ti / 300GB HDD
Budget: R7500 - R12000 (obviously lower = better, but want best bang for buck / long-term solution)
Main use: Typical gaming, regular work/programming (studying BSC Computing)
Screen resolution: My current screen is 1680 x 1050, will likely upgrade later. Would like to play games on very high settings.
Re-use parts: Was thinking of sticking my 550 Ti in till I really NEED to upgrade. Will be using old screen, mouse/keyboard, speakers...
Build needed by: A month or so, next term only starts in a month, but sooner = better, current pc is failing.
Overclock: I would like to overclock to get maximum performance for value, hopefully to about 4.5GHz.
A few more considerations: I was thinking of going with the i5 2500k if I can get it, mainly because it's cheap (CPU R2150 + MB R1910) and I read about the TIM vs soldering debacle. Also, I don't think I'll get a GFX card that will overload the PCIe 2.1 bandwidth. The other concern is SSD's. I thought they might come down some more in price, so it might be worth it to wait on that. But if not, wasn't sure if I should go with the SSD caching option or a separate SSD for OS + HDD for data. Also not sure what size is best value/performance/quality, 60GB or 120GB, and which brand/product.
Sorry for the essay style request, but I'm quite pedantic. I just want the best value, and something that will last, but there are so many changes in the tech since I last even looked up pc build, and this is the first time I'm planning on building it myself. Thanks for your consideration. Regards.
-i5 2500k + Asus z87-V Pro (many sites still list these, most don't have stock but might find if lucky)
-i5 2500k + z77 board (might be silly because SB doesn't support native USB 3/PCI-e 3, but newer tech)
-i5 3570k + z77 board (takes advantage of new tech but suffers when OCing)
-i5 4670k + z87 board (more expensive for not much performance gain, plus more heat when OCing)
More info:
Current specs: Core2Duo E6750 2.66GHz / 2 Gig DDR2 / Some Foxconn LGA775 Mobo / Inno3d Geforce GTX 550 Ti / 300GB HDD
Budget: R7500 - R12000 (obviously lower = better, but want best bang for buck / long-term solution)
Main use: Typical gaming, regular work/programming (studying BSC Computing)
Screen resolution: My current screen is 1680 x 1050, will likely upgrade later. Would like to play games on very high settings.
Re-use parts: Was thinking of sticking my 550 Ti in till I really NEED to upgrade. Will be using old screen, mouse/keyboard, speakers...
Build needed by: A month or so, next term only starts in a month, but sooner = better, current pc is failing.
Overclock: I would like to overclock to get maximum performance for value, hopefully to about 4.5GHz.
A few more considerations: I was thinking of going with the i5 2500k if I can get it, mainly because it's cheap (CPU R2150 + MB R1910) and I read about the TIM vs soldering debacle. Also, I don't think I'll get a GFX card that will overload the PCIe 2.1 bandwidth. The other concern is SSD's. I thought they might come down some more in price, so it might be worth it to wait on that. But if not, wasn't sure if I should go with the SSD caching option or a separate SSD for OS + HDD for data. Also not sure what size is best value/performance/quality, 60GB or 120GB, and which brand/product.
Sorry for the essay style request, but I'm quite pedantic. I just want the best value, and something that will last, but there are so many changes in the tech since I last even looked up pc build, and this is the first time I'm planning on building it myself. Thanks for your consideration. Regards.
If your budget extends to R12k I'd forget about your 550 Ti and get a decent card. R2150 is not cheap for a CPU considering that a bit more gets you much better performance. R1910 is excessive for a motherboard, and it's absolutely not necessary to overclock to achieve a high value system.
i5-4670 - R2550
Asus LGA1150 M/B - R1691
Coolermaster K380 case with 500W PSU - R924
2x 4GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz - R869
Gigabyte GeForce GTX770 OC 2GB - R5316
WD 500GB HDD - R631
Total is R11981, and that's a beastly system. It's all from Rebel Tech, so shipping shouldn't be an issue. Upgrade your other stuff later when you can.
Well, technically my budget extends beyond that, but I would like the system to last. I would prefer an overclockable CPU so that I could run it stock for a while and then OC it to squeeze extra performance for the value. I want something that is powerful at stock and has OC potential. The problem I have with Haswell and even IB is that both only offer about 5-10% performance increase, but both have severely reduced OC potential (I don't care much about the reduced TDP). It seems the SB was the last viable OC cpu for a while.
I was thinking, either go with SB now if I can get it, or else put some cash into my current rig and OC it up and wait until Intel releases a CPU that has significant performance increase while keeping the OC peeps in mind (maybe broadwell skylake, maybe never).
Your post did help me realise that it's probably best to focus on the GFX card, as it's probably the first component to get outdated. I was thinking of going with beast GPU, maybe the one you mentioned. Just wondering when the best time to buy components like GPU/SSD/RAM because I heard the RAM price is upset now (something about windows 8 expectations, might settle lower next year?), and I heard the price of RAM is related to GPU/SSD. What are y'all thoughts on this?
I was thinking, either go with SB now if I can get it, or else put some cash into my current rig and OC it up and wait until Intel releases a CPU that has significant performance increase while keeping the OC peeps in mind (maybe broadwell skylake, maybe never).
Your post did help me realise that it's probably best to focus on the GFX card, as it's probably the first component to get outdated. I was thinking of going with beast GPU, maybe the one you mentioned. Just wondering when the best time to buy components like GPU/SSD/RAM because I heard the RAM price is upset now (something about windows 8 expectations, might settle lower next year?), and I heard the price of RAM is related to GPU/SSD. What are y'all thoughts on this?
You're going to be waiting a while for new gen hardware if you do wait, as Haswell and the 770 are brand new. Prices are bad across the board thanks to the exchange rate - it's up to you to if you want to wait it out. Bear in mind that prices won't drop until the old stock is sold. If you're so desperate to OC just go with Ivy Bridge instead of Haswell and add a grand or so for a Corsair CPU water cooler. I have a 128GB SSD, and although the fast boot times are nice it is a major schlep having to juggle my Steam games around due to space constraints. Rather wait for a 256GB to be affordable.
Skywalker786
Expert Member
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Hi please help, any comments on whether this is reasonably priced or any suggestions on other options. will be using for movie downloads and occasional photography hobby so occasional photoshop or corel: All prices are VAT inclusive
Intel Core i5 3470 -3.2GHz R2222.00
MSI H61M-P31 (G3) LGA1155 Intel H61 R514
Transcend JM1600KLN-4G Jetram 4GB x4 R1560
Seagate Barraccuda 7200 - 2TB R1127
MSA n630GT MD2GD3 GT630 2GB R792
Thermal Take Litepower 650W R574
thanks
Intel Core i5 3470 -3.2GHz R2222.00
MSI H61M-P31 (G3) LGA1155 Intel H61 R514
Transcend JM1600KLN-4G Jetram 4GB x4 R1560
Seagate Barraccuda 7200 - 2TB R1127
MSA n630GT MD2GD3 GT630 2GB R792
Thermal Take Litepower 650W R574
thanks
Those prices are fine, although spending R500 on a motherboard seems like asking for trouble.
Skywalker786
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There are so many decent Ivy Bridge motherboards that it doesn't really matter which one you get. Avoid ones with built in wifi, as they usually make up for the cost in other aspects of the board. I personally prefer Gigabyte as they have really nice BIOS/UEFI interfaces - just make sure the 3D interface is clearly advertised if you get one. I'd say you should be spending between R900 and R1.7k for an acceptable quality motherboard.
Not built up but I picked up a brand new pc the other day:
HP Elite 8300 Convertible MicroTower
i7 3770 3.4Ghz
16 GB RAM
2 * 500GB Hard Drives
1 GB Asus Radeon 6450
3 year on site warranty
for 5K. seems like a good price?
HP Elite 8300 Convertible MicroTower
i7 3770 3.4Ghz
16 GB RAM
2 * 500GB Hard Drives
1 GB Asus Radeon 6450
3 year on site warranty
for 5K. seems like a good price?
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