The Desktop PC Building Thread

Most would say 64 for the extra room but I think the 32 is enough, assuming of course that you're not loading all the Adobe, Microsoft, and Apple programs available on there.

If you're going with a 28" I'd go with a higher specced card. Probably a more power CPU unless you want to overclock the SOB. At least 8GB of ram to future proof it.

I could go with a 5850 but the alternative would be to get a 5770 and if I'm finding fps lagging, get a second one, and crossfire them.

I am avoiding the extra expense / case clutter involved in water cooling, want to just stick with the 3 230mm fans plus the 120mm at the back of the case if I can so if I can avoid the hotter GPUs I would rather do that. I dunno, should I be avoiding water cooling?

Probably won't need water cooling unless you overclock, just make sure your case isn't shoved into an insulated closet without any ventilation and you should be okay.

Still would push the quad-core video cards though, but I build PCs primarily with gaming in mind (though it's also nice for video/image editing)

Not sure if I'd go the SSD route, 10/15k RPM HDDs are fast enough for 96% of people, imo and have about twice as much capacity for the same price

Well what card would you recommend? 5850? Dual 5770s?

Hdd wise I'm looking at one big sata which will be 7200rpm, the ssd idea was just to make certain things quicker.

I am running a Corsair 850TX power supply as well. If you don't mind the fact that your PSU will not be modular, I think you're good to go.

Originally Posted by JD_May

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Well what card would you recommend? 5850? Dual 5770s?

I am running a single Sapphire Radeon HD5850 in my Core i7 rig. Currently I endorse the HD5770 (at $150/card) as the best "bang for the buck" SINGLE card because the Radeon HD5850 is currently overpriced.

When the Radeon HD5850 was released in late 2009 the price was $260. Nowadays you can hardly find one for under $300, and supply is limited to boot. Yes, the HD5850 is a very good card and will be "future proof" for quite some time, but fact remains that it is about $50 too high at current pricing.

[Edit: it appears you can now get a standard (non-OC'd) Sapphire Radeon 5850 for $285 shipped from Amazon. This is obviously a better deal than $300/card but IMO still a bit high. I'd be miffed if I was paying $285 for a card that I could have bought for $260 in October 2009. Component prices are supposed to go DOWN over time, not up! ]

If you have money enough for two HD5770s I recommend going to a single, more powerful, card. IMO one should use Crossfire to (1) keep an older system current or (2) maximize performance with the very top-end card available. Using two cards has several disadvantages. They take up massive amounts of space (the HD5970 is over a foot long), they produce more heat, they take up two (or more) of your 6-pin power plugs on your PSU ... the list goes on and on.

No need to saddle yourself with all these downsides from the get-go; wait until you need to prop up your system to take them on. Go with a single card (the best you can afford) for now.

Get some kind of aftermarket CPU cooler too (especially if you're going to overclock, which the AMD's can do pretty well). I recommend the Cooler Master Hyper 212+ as it's relatively inexpensive (can be found for <$30 USD) easy to install, and the performance is quite good for the price.

AMD X4 965 is fine and the mobo you got is quite good.

2x2gb ram should be fine for now. I never get close to maxing out my 4gb but then again, I don't use my machine as a server of any kind or do extensive Photoshoping. Can always slap 4gb more.

There is also the GTX 460 option from Nvidia (the 465 is worthless). Much less expensive than the HD 5850 and the performance is not far behind; actually neck and neck when OC'd. Only con is you can't take advantage of Nvidia SLI with your board, so using one 5770 for now and perhaps adding a second if you find you're lacking the performance would be a good option (they're not too hot, power hungry, or loud so I think xfire would be fine with those cards).

Get whatever case makes you happy; I'm partial to Lian Li and Silverstone cases myself (check out the FT02!!!!)

I'd take a 64gb SSD (~$120 USD after rebates) over a 10k rpm raptor. Silence, speed advantage, and minimal power usage wins the day for me, storage goes on a separate drive. 64gb might not be enough if you play a MASSIVE game like WoW.

32GB would probably be large enough for the OS and a few applications, but it really depends on what you're going to stuff on there.
If you're getting a small SSD, make sure to move some of the system files. For example, if you put your computer to deep sleep, it will write everything from the memory to the main disk, which, in your case, would make the OS reserve 8GB on the SSD.
I'm sure there's a few guides out there on how to move those files, and I'd look in to that.

If you're in the price range <$100 you won't find anything larger than 32GB, and that should be more than enough for the OS.

Originally Posted by JD_May

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Well what card would you recommend? 5850? Dual 5770s?

A single 5800 series card trumps the CF 5700 configuration, aside from the obvious it is also better in terms of heat generation, heat dissipation, power consumption, noise generation. Cards in crossfire don't scale either, so don't think of it as +100% performance.

Originally Posted by KenN

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A single 5800 series card trumps the CF 5700 configuration, aside from the obvious it is also better in terms of heat generation, heat dissipation, power consumption, noise generation. Cards in crossfire don't scale either, so don't think of it as +100% performance.

Every single review I have seen puts the CF 5770's ahead of the single 5850 and sometimes 5870 for most games and benchmarks and has been shown to scale pretty darn well for a multi GPU setup. Other than the space consideration (5770's are pretty darn small) and perhaps a slight increase in heat generation I don't see too much of a con with using one 5770 and then upgrading to 2 if needed. Otherwise, he's better off saving money getting a non-dual lane 16x PCIE 2.0 mobo (FX series) and spending more on a single HD 5850.

Originally Posted by whiteslashasian

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Every single review I have seen puts the CF 5770's ahead of the single 5850 and sometimes 5870 for most games and benchmarks and has been shown to scale pretty darn well for a multi GPU setup. Other than the space consideration (5770's are pretty darn small) and perhaps a slight increase in heat generation I don't see too much of a con with using one 5770 and then upgrading to 2 if needed. Otherwise, he's better off saving money getting a non-dual lane 16x PCIE 2.0 mobo (FX series) and spending more on a single HD 5850.

I was just responding based on the two options that were presented in the original question. If I was building a new computer now, I'd probably rest my case with just a single 5770 on a single lane PCI-E mobo. But there is no argument between a single 5800 vs a single 5700 though.

Originally Posted by KenN

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I was just responding based on the two options that were presented in the original question. If I was building a new computer now, I'd probably rest my case with just a single 5770 on a single lane PCI-E mobo. But there is no argument between a single 5800 vs a single 5700 though.

True enough. I built a 5770 and a 550 x2 Phenom unlocked to a X4 at 3.6ghz as a budget build for my brother and it runs all the latest games without any issues or slow down; BFBC2, latest STALKER game, SC2 betaetc. He's playing on a 20.1in monitor at 1680x1050 though...

This is very useful. I appreciate the discussion, keep it coming. I'm also going to throw this out there: what about getting an old stock 4800 series? Benchmarks seem to suggest it performs comparably (though obviously not as good, being the previous gen) to the 5800 series. http://calgary.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-s...AdIdZ219874223 Probably a terrible idea, but just a thought.

Current status:

Originally Posted by JD_May

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This is very useful. I appreciate the discussion, keep it coming. I'm also going to throw this out there: what about getting an old stock 4800 series? Benchmarks seem to suggest it performs comparably (though obviously not as good, being the previous gen) to the 5800 series. http://calgary.kijiji.ca/c-buy-and-s...AdIdZ219874223 Probably a terrible idea, but just a thought. Current status: http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/8...1007251519.jpg
4800 series is more than adequate for most people with normal sized monitors, however, you should be prepared for the heat and noise generated by the 4800 cards. They run very hot and loudly, but they are the best bang for the buck.

Originally Posted by KenN

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4800 series is more than adequate for most people with normal sized monitors, however, you should be prepared for the heat and noise generated by the 4800 cards. They run very hot and loudly, but they are the best bang for the buck.

+1

Great if you plan on playing mostly playing previous gen titles (games generally 1-2 years old). If you plan on playing some upcoming games such as Diablo 3 or whatever Modern Warfare (or CoD) then I suggest getting 5xxx series.