time for a new rig!

[bruisedknee]

my puter still runs OK, but...i think it's time to upgrade finally

so here's what i'm thinkin:

CPU: i5 Haswell
mobo: tentatively, Gigabyte GA Sniper B5... i usually buy Asus, but wth, let's change it up
RAM: whatever's cheap atm, 8GB...would 16 be overkill?
case: Antec 1100 Illusion, mid tower
PS: Antec HCG-620W
GPU: low priority, no need to upgrade yet, i don't play FPS's
monitor: also no need to upgrade yet, it works fine
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB

the SSD will only be for my OS and games that i'm currently playing...ever ything else, legal and illegal, will be on my old 750, 1TB, and 1.5TB

anything in particular i need to know about the CPU, mobo, SSD? it's been 4 yrs since i built my previous rig, and i don't catch up with technology until i build the next rig

workin' off a budget of about $500...give or take a few hundred

or if you have any recommendation s for any of those parts, that'd be much preciated

[minorcharacter]

There's no need to go more than 8gig of ram.  At 16gig you're just adding a little extra heat to your computer, and since you're not looking to upgrade your gpu I hardly doubt you're doing any video editing to utilize all that extra ram.  My only guess is that you're a super-villain and this is your attempt at heating the world and melting the polar ice caps.

If you've got the extra $50 to throw around then eh why not.  I would; bigger cannons, amirite?  Either way if you're going to be running enough programs to eat up all that ram then the i5 will bottleneck you anyhow.

Anyways, I'm just assuming you'll not need all that ram is all.  I could be wrong.

I like Asus and Gigabyte mobos as well.  About the CPU I'm not sure if you want to wait for Broadwell instead of buying the Haswell.  Hopefully someone else here is more knowledgeable on release dates and can give you a better opinion.  It may be worth looking into as it seems you probably don't plan on building another computer for a few years based on the last one you built.

Also, if you're in the twin cities area check with Microcenter.  They usually give good mobo+cpu deals.  I bought my last i5+gigabyte mobo at a huge discount there.

[JimmyNeutron]

CPU: i5 Haswell
mobo: tentatively, Gigabyte GA Sniper B5... i usually buy Asus, but wth, let's change it up
RAM: whatever's cheap atm, 8GB...would 16 be overkill?
case: Antec 1100 Illusion, mid tower
PS: Antec HCG-620W
GPU: low priority, no need to upgrade yet, i don't play FPS's
monitor: also no need to upgrade yet, it works fine
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB

This specs almost matches my new toy spec.  See my other postings under Computer also.  Only diff is my is an i7 4770R, which uses a BGA packaging.  But then, I never once upgraded my CPU, I just get a new system.

I went w/ 16GB so I don't have to worry about memory issues in the future and besides, I dedicated 8GB just to the vm itself.  The first SSD is the Samsung 840 EVO 250GB used primary for the OS.  The second SSD, Samsung mSATA 500GB or 1TB will be used for data storage because I format and re-install the OS on average once a month.  I just have shell script that uses rsync to do nightly backup at 3am backup and restore all my data after a fresh install.

It's even have mounting VESA brackets to attached it directly to a monitor.

[Toua]

personally, i think spending $$$ on SSD's just to have the OS and games on that drive load several seconds faster is a waste..

it takes my rig about a minute or min and a half to load windows and all start ups the moment the windows logo appears. SSD isn't gonna improve your FPS in games..

[bruisedknee]

There's no need to go more than 8gig of ram.  At 16gig you're just adding a little extra heat to your computer, and since you're not looking to upgrade your gpu I hardly doubt you're doing any video editing to utilize all that extra ram.  My only guess is that you're a super-villain and this is your attempt at heating the world and melting the polar ice caps.

If you've got the extra $50 to throw around then eh why not.  I would; bigger cannons, amirite?  Either way if you're going to be running enough programs to eat up all that ram then the i5 will bottleneck you anyhow.

Anyways, I'm just assuming you'll not need all that ram is all.  I could be wrong.

I like Asus and Gigabyte mobos as well.  About the CPU I'm not sure if you want to wait for Broadwell instead of buying the Haswell.  Hopefully someone else here is more knowledgeable on release dates and can give you a better opinion.  It may be worth looking into as it seems you probably don't plan on building another computer for a few years based on the last one you built.

Also, if you're in the twin cities area check with Microcenter.  They usually give good mobo+cpu deals.  I bought my last i5+gigabyte mobo at a huge discount there.

no point in waiting for new tech, since the particular sector moves so fast...just build the best rig you can with the current tech level

good call on microcenter though, i'm finding their prices better than Newegg

[bruisedknee]

If that is your spec you don't need a new computer bro.  I have an old E8400 with 8gigs of RAM and I upgraded with new 240gig SSD.  My brother's computer blew the gaming video card...and my father wanted me to replace so I gave them my old GTX260 and bought the GTX 650 TI.  Total upgrade for me is about $500 and I can assure you my system will spank that system all around.  So if I had $500 in cash, I would buy a SSD for $250 and a video card for $200 and upgrade.  The reason why tablet now the fastest selling computer in the market right now is that in the past 10 years, intel has done absolutely nothing to improve the core on die in performance due to material science limits (speed=voltage=heat).  What they have done is change from telling you at MHZ/GHZ because they can't squeeze more computational so they start talking about manufacturing process such as 65nm, 55nm, 32nm, 22nm, and etc...  All this means is that because the silicon is smaller it produces less heat, so you can squeeze more core in, and squeeze more L1, L2 and L3.  This results in significantly more power at MAX computational but at daily use, my e8400 is a pure joy...as most users are limited by hard drive tripping up push and pull of the system in terms of read/write, and if not that then the GPU in terms of geometric computation of shaders, etc...  Then the least is the RAM...and MOBO as most users never hit the 4gb/s ceiling.

it's starting to show its age, i can feel it workin' harder to keep up...plus who doesn't like new things!

[bruisedknee]

This specs almost matches my new toy spec.  See my other postings under Computer also.  Only diff is my is an i7 4770R, which uses a BGA packaging.  But then, I never once upgraded my CPU, I just get a new system.

I went w/ 16GB so I don't have to worry about memory issues in the future and besides, I dedicated 8GB just to the vm itself.  The first SSD is the Samsung 840 EVO 250GB used primary for the OS.  The second SSD, Samsung mSATA 500GB or 1TB will be used for data storage because I format and re-install the OS on average once a month.  I just have shell script that uses rsync to do nightly backup at 3am backup and restore all my data after a fresh install.

It's even have mounting VESA brackets to attached it directly to a monitor.

awesome, looks like we had the same idea...how's you likin your system?

[bruisedknee]

personally, i think spending $$$ on SSD's just to have the OS and games on that drive load several seconds faster is a waste..

it takes my rig about a minute or min and a half to load windows and all start ups the moment the windows logo appears. SSD isn't gonna improve your FPS in games..

i don't play games that require high FPS...mostly RPG and strategy

and i'm just darned curious to see what diff an SSD makes in performance

[bruisedknee]

A LOT in load time and latency from application to application.  Youtube it.  If you have low RAM, it greatly improves the performance as the cache to disk is almost as fast...there's a trick to make greater improvement... some of the better SSD already do this but some don't so you may have to partition the drive to make it improve...like the old days with virtual memory partitioning to improve seek/load time.

sounds good, can't wait to get the parts in, installed, and get it up and running

[Toua]

i don't play games that require high FPS...mostly RPG and strategy

and i'm just darned curious to see what diff an SSD makes in performance

for games esp MMO's, your CPU is priority and GPU second. For all others, your GPU is priority and CPU second.

only performance you will see with an SSD is a decrease in load time. As far as with the actual in game performance, you will see very little gain ,if nothing at all. if your system got like 1-4G or ram, the SSD will provide a significant boost since the read/write to the page file/temperory ram will be faster.

16G isn't overkill. i have 3 monitors hooked up. i run game on one monitor, photoshop/multimedia software on one, and other stuff on the 3rd monitor.  couldn't have done that efficiently with 8G. my mobo supports up to 64G. Now that's overkill...

SSD is definitely good if you do a lot of back ups/transfers/read/write.

[bruisedknee]

update:

picked up mobo, cpu, PSU, RAM at Micro center this weekend

fan/heatsink and SSD are supposed to be comin' today, we'll see

made a few component changes after more research:

mobo: ASRock Extreme6...cou lda gone MSI (cheaper), Gigabyte (bit more), or ASUS (very much more)...my first time buying ASRock, decent review on the board, hope it doesn't disappoint

RAM: they were all roughly similar in price and quality, so i just grabbed 8GB of Crucial's Ballistix Sport XT

case: switched from Antec to Corsair, wanted to see if anyone else makes good cases...Corsai r Carbide Series 300R

PSU: switched from Antec to Cosair, again, also for same reason as above...Corsai r TX 750

*the PSU was supposed to be the HX series, one step above the TX...the website showed it as HX, the salesman gave me a TX, saying that it had been "mislabeled" on the website...i thought about disputing it, but said screw it in the end and just bought the TX...would i have had a case, since it was their fault in "mislabeling?"...actual HX 750 is about $200, i paid $80 for the TX model

SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB...way better reviews that the Crucial version, which was bout $40 cheaper

Heatsink/fan:  good god, i spent 2 friekin days researching a good one...ended up choosing the Cooler Master 212 EVO, which has been bought by quite a few ppl, and had positive reviews (well, more positive than negative)

grand total: $760.17

i'm a budget builder who likes to get the most bang for his buck, i think i did allright...wel l find out when i get this sucker up and running