I'm finally getting around to building my first PC. I don't need the most amazing thing in the world, so I kept the budget kinda low. That being said, what do you guys think, anything I should downgrade/upgrade on? I left out a Keyboard/Mouse, Hard Drive, Monitor, Disc Drive as I don't need them.
I think it looks pretty good (but I will admit that I am not too current on my graphics cards). The only change I would suggest is going with 8 GB of RAM (newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104231) for only $10 more. Edit: Also, if you were looking to save some money (and power), you could go with the FX-4100 (newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103996)
I have the exact same graphics card, you will love it Battlefield 3 played amazingly well in high detail @ 1920x1200. I would agree with Simon in regards to the ram, 8GB is pretty much standard these days however you will manage with 4GB for now. If possible though I would go with 8GB, newer games are becoming more demanding and you would definitely be future proofed with 8GB. For motherboards Asrock are not really known for making them, however i cant personally say anything bad about Asrock either. I have an ASrock Nettop and its been great, got a friend with an Asrock motherboard and its been fine for years too. I tend to go with Asus / Gigabyte, however that's personal preference. Both brands are known for high quality motherboards, maybe have a look at the GIGABYTE GA-970A-D3. Over all though it looks like solid build at a great price.
Just 10 more dollars for twice the RAM is definitely worth it indeed, I honestly can't even imagine what it would be like with that much RAM as what I'm using now is just 1GB RAM. This PC can barely play 3D games and can't even handle Minecraft so it's definitely time to upgrade. Thanks for the input. If there is anything else you'd like to add, i'll definitely take it into consideration. Also I picked a higher GHz for each core because some programs can't utilize more than 2 cores so I figured it'd be best incase I can't use more than 2 cores on programs or emulators such as Dolphin, i'll still get amazing results.
You say you already have a hard drive? is it old? Reason i ask is one of the most noticeable upgrades i have ever done to my PC is purchasing a SSD, Windows 7 will boot to the desktop in less than 10 seconds. Photoshop CS5 loads up in around 3 seconds. Its worth while just getting one and using it as a boot drive for Windows and installing all your most used apps on it. I have done that, then just have a hard drive which has all my documents and games on. The Corsair Force Series 3 60GB SATA III SSD has 550 MB/s read speeds and 490MB/s write speeds... your pc is honestly going to fly with that.
I've got quite a few hard drive I can use. They're all between 200GB to 250GB. The 250GB i'm using now is only about 3 years old so it's still in pretty good condition. Though with the build i'm making a hard drive like that i'm sure would have impressive results and compliment the USB 3.0 nicely. I might have to add that to the list of things to buy.
Seeing as the motherboard only has 4 memory slots it would be a better idea to go with the ram that Simon linked to so that in the future you can upgrade more easily. From what I've heard the 6870 is a really good card and SAPPHIRE is an amazing company, make sure to sign up for their website after you're done with the installs they do some really cool giveaways. But other than that, I'm not sure if your motherboard has enough fan connectors to run all your case fans so I would look into getting the NZXT Sentry-2 (Newegg.com - NZXT Sentry-2 5.25" Touch Screen Fan Controller) to control all the fans. I personally have on and it works amazingly, if you just leave it on auto it does a great job but you can always fine tune the fans to your liking.
heres one I put together. it gives you great reliabke components and a updated better performing graphics card. please pm me as I would like to add you to one of my im services. thanks Welcome to Digiex Image Upload, a free image upload solution for Digiex members!
The 6870 still destroys the 7770, however the 7770 is cheaper and uses less power. See: AnandTech - Bench - GPU12 I agree with the motherboard, for the SSD Dark Scyth could go for the 60gb and save a bit of money. Really depends on how many apps you want to install, then for the rest its personal preference, like you have found slower ram, slower processor and the build ends up more expensive. However you do gain a 90gb SSD which would be a great boost to any machine and overall it would still be a great PC.
thing with my build however is you get quality and long warranty, but itd be like 50 bux more for 1866 ram and the faster cpu, however with a ssd, everything runs fast, so the way ingot kt made up, I believe would be nice
When it comes to the CPU and the GPU. I'm wanting to get the best I can without spending a fortune and don't have to worry about upgrading for some time and 4.1GHz sounds really nice and will do good for some time if treated right. I'm willing to change things like RAM, which will be 8GB instead. I'll probaby end up getting a 60 - 90GB SSD later on as for now I know the 250GB will work nicely until I can get a little more cash to get something like that. As far as Z3d's suggestion, it looks pretty nice but there are quite a few complaints about it not running properly which would not be good at all with a set up like this. The Gigabyte has a 3 year warranty rather than the ASrock 1 year warranty so that will probably be something else I change as well.
One last question. I was thinking about upping the PSU. Do you guys think that a 520 would be enough for this rig or should I up it a bit?
Maybe go for a 600 or 700 psu to future proof it, i dont think there will be a vast difference in price. Off the top of the head i think i have a 600w PSU in mine and its been great.
Yeah, newegg just happened to have a sale yesterday selling a Corsair 650w PSU for 30 dollars off and another 10% off so I got it for 80 instead of 120. I've ordered the CPU and the PSU now just the Graphics card, mobo, computer case and RAM is all I need.
Finally finished building my PC. I still need to buy a better Graphics card and I need a better hard drive but i'm already really impressed with the results so far.
Looking nice! get that SSD and it will feel like a new PC yet again. I'm sure it's a very usable computer now What graphics card did you go for in the end?
I just went with a Sapphire Radeon HD 5450. It was really cheap and for what it can do it's impressive for the price. I'll be getting a way better card when I can afford it though. I was testing the capabilities of the PC earlier today and ran both Dolphin and PCSX2 at the same time. Both actually maintained 60FPS and didn't drop at all from what I could tell. Now the only problem I have now is when I switch from this HDMI source (The PC) to another HDMI source and then back to the PC I have no sound until I turn the TV off and back on or if I restart the PC. Other than that, this PC is perfect.
Glad your loving the PC, enjoy them Wii games in HD! Better than the real thing I think i know how to fix your HDMI audio problem. When you switch to a different HDMI source Windows thinks the TV no longer exists, so defaults to a different sound output. Basically you want to disable all other playback devices under sound options in control panel. That way Windows will have no choice but to use HDMI when you switch back. I believe that's what i did on my HTPC. Right click, set HDMI as default. Then right click and disable any other devices you have listed.