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Forums - PC Discussion - May be building a PC - Suggestions for budget under $1,000 USD?

Newegg is great, but check out microcenter.com for insane CPU prices. To reap the savings though, you do need to pick one up in-store, so having one within a reasonable driving distance is necessary. Allowed me to happily purchase an i7-860 for $200 in a recent build of my own.



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Squilliam said:

Just some quickie questions, if you answer these we'll be able to tailor the PC for you.

1. Are you noise sensitive, do you have any specific desires for the computer case?

2. What are you plans for backing up your data in case of failure?

3. What size monitor are you looking at, how many monitors and what configuration? Are you looking at say 1 in potrait mode? 3 in landscape?

4. How big are your spreadsheets etc?

5. Whats your biggest typical complaint when using a PC system?

6. Why not a laptop? Any particular reason?

  1. No. I really have no preference on a computer case. I'd prefer to save money on one, because AFAIK, its the one thing that doesn't radically change the performance of the computer (except for ensuring you have good CPU fans in the case)
  2. External drives like USB flash and the like. I won't have a ton of memory requirements for backups, so I should be able to handle it that way
  3. Probably 1, 20" to start.
  4. Spreadsheets are at 20-30MB and growing. The biggest issue is that I am doing a ton of match/indexes on tens of thousands of rows, dozens of times. My current laptop takes 1-2 minutes to process each iteration of the spreadsheet, which takes a long time.
  5. I really don't have a ton of complaints. I need a new computer because the computer I have now is a company laptop, and I want something else, in case they ever need this one back.
  6. I would be okay with another laptop. However, I need a home PC, so my thought was that I could get a better-specced desktop for the same price.


Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

epinefridis said:
The only thing I can say mrstickball, is that I recently built a 800 euros PC (with a 22" LG monitor at 1080) and it currently plays all the games at Highest settings.
Good luck dude!

Could you tell me the specs of your PC? I'm planning on building a PC soon, but it will be my first one. Oddly enough, the monitor I'm planning on buying is also a 22" 1080p LG :P



mrstickball said:


Spreadsheets are at 20-30MB and growing. The biggest issue is that I am doing a ton of match/indexes on tens of thousands of rows, dozens of times. My current laptop takes 1-2 minutes to process each iteration of the spreadsheet, which takes a long time.

When they get to that size, you're generally better off getting the data into a proper database like SQL Server Express or MySQL.  If you're doing a lot of aggregates, it might be worthwhile paying for the SQL Server Developer edition as that comes with the Business Intelligence suite allowing you to use Analysis and Integration services.



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mrstickball said:
  1. No. I really have no preference on a computer case. I'd prefer to save money on one, because AFAIK, its the one thing that doesn't radically change the performance of the computer (except for ensuring you have good CPU fans in the case)
  2. External drives like USB flash and the like. I won't have a ton of memory requirements for backups, so I should be able to handle it that way
  3. Probably 1, 20" to start.
  4. Spreadsheets are at 20-30MB and growing. The biggest issue is that I am doing a ton of match/indexes on tens of thousands of rows, dozens of times. My current laptop takes 1-2 minutes to process each iteration of the spreadsheet, which takes a long time.
  5. I really don't have a ton of complaints. I need a new computer because the computer I have now is a company laptop, and I want something else, in case they ever need this one back.
  6. I would be okay with another laptop. However, I need a home PC, so my thought was that I could get a better-specced desktop for the same price.

Ok heres my first draft:

Total W/O shipping/MIR/Tax = $1053 (-MIR $30)

Now the explanation.

The Phenom X4 and that motherboard have some of the best features/performance you can get for the price. It comes with USB3.0 and fast SATA ports as well and because you don't need an integrated GPU you don't pay for it in this model.

The HD 5770 is as requested and it represents the best value in that range.

The G-Skill memory is quality memory but you're not paying a premium for it here.

The Antec Sonata is a moderately quiet case which has been made to a high standard and comes with a pretty good, reliable PSU and as far as I can see is some of the best value.

The OCZ Vertex SSD is fast unlike mechanical drives and makes the system much more responsive especially when you're multitasking, also its extremely reliable and makes the system a good performer in all areas.

The Western Digital HDD is good price/quality/volume. I cannot recommend Seagate as I've had 3 drives fail on me in the past 6 months out of 5 Seagate drives I had.

Windows 7 Professional comes with better backup utilities as the main draw card. However you can save $40 if you're happy with Home edition.

 



Tease.

Squilliam said:

Ok heres my first draft:

Total W/O shipping/MIR/Tax = $1053 (-MIR $30)

Now the explanation.

The Phenom X4 and that motherboard have some of the best features/performance you can get for the price. It comes with USB3.0 and fast SATA ports as well and because you don't need an integrated GPU you don't pay for it in this model.

The HD 5770 is as requested and it represents the best value in that range.

The G-Skill memory is quality memory but you're not paying a premium for it here.

The Antec Sonata is a moderately quiet case which has been made to a high standard and comes with a pretty good, reliable PSU and as far as I can see is some of the best value.

The OCZ Vertex SSD is fast unlike mechanical drives and makes the system much more responsive especially when you're multitasking, also its extremely reliable and makes the system a good performer in all areas.

The Western Digital HDD is good price/quality/volume. I cannot recommend Seagate as I've had 3 drives fail on me in the past 6 months out of 5 Seagate drives I had.

Windows 7 Professional comes with better backup utilities as the main draw card. However you can save $40 if you're happy with Home edition.

 

That's a decent build, but it could be "optimized" better in certain areas.

1) If you're going to spend $160 on a quad-core Phenom, then you might as well plunk down the extra $40 to get an i5-750. It's a much faster CPU thanks to the turbo mode that does an on-the-fly low-level overclock when less than four cores are being used, and it's a stellar overclocker as well. That said, you won't see much drop in performance if you decide to go with a much cheaper Athlon II X3 435 or X4 630 instead.

2) Not a knock against your build, obviously, but you definitely don't need more than 4 GB RAM unless you're running some sort of really RAM-intensive apps on a regular basis. If you have to ask whether you need more than 4, then you probably don't.

3) The Sonata 3 is a decent case with an equally decent bundled PSU, but if your budget permits it I'd advise going with a 550W Corsair or SeaSonic, an Antec P180 Mini (the best price:performance case on the market right now), and a Micro-ATX mobo.

4) The SSD is a nice idea that will give you faster boot/load times on games and productivity apps, but I'd recommend going with an 80 GB Intel X25-M instead. There's nothing wrong with the OCZ, but the X25-M is slightly faster, can hold 20 GB more stuff, and is only slightly more expensive. But again, only fit this in if you can afford it.

5) The biggest factor in HDD speed is something that isn't usually advertised on Newegg or elsewhere: The number of platters. One or two high-density platters means faster seek and write times, and the 750 GB Caviar Black has three 250GB platters - not exactly ideal. Look for a Caviar Blue or Black (or Spinpoint F3, if you can find them) that's either 500 GB or 1 TB, whatever your budget and needs permit, and Google a couple of reviews to check how many platters it has before buying.

6) Unless you think you'll be using XP Mode a lot, then feel free to drop down to Home Premium.

 

EDIT: And to answer mrstickball's question about productivity apps, the biggest factors will be having enough RAM (you won't see any benefits above 4 GB, but don't go lower than that; type really doesn't matter and you should be fine with DDR3-1333, or hell, even DDR2) and hard drive speed (again, either get one of the recommended models with 1 or 2 high-density platters or get an SSD - preferably both). Having a good CPU helps too, but you'll see vastly diminishing returns for anything more than a speedy dual-core (for productivity alone, something like an Athlon II X2 240 will work fine). However, for gaming, you'll want a decent triple- or quad-core anyway, so you don't even need to worry about your CPU bottlenecking your productivity.



"'Casual games' are something the 'Game Industry' invented to explain away the Wii success instead of actually listening or looking at what Nintendo did. There is no 'casual strategy' from Nintendo. 'Accessible strategy', yes, but ‘casual gamers’ is just the 'Game Industry''s polite way of saying what they feel: 'retarded gamers'."

 -Sean Malstrom

 

 

Can anyone care to explain why the i5-750 is better than a Phenom II X4 965 when Passmark.com rates the Phenom higher on its user benchmarks? Curious to understand why...



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

Garcian Smith knows what he is talking about :)
I'm a computer tech and always find his posts to be very thorough and better written than I can manage.
I personally would save on the SSDs for now since they are still very expensive however if you have the money to spend then its worth it. As for the Phenom vs i5, I'll leave that to others since they are both great processors however I agree with Garcian that a speedy dual core is fine for most apps and can save you tons of money. Unfortunately the graphics card market is kinda rough right now and prices have been going up but there are still plenty of good deals to find out there. That's a pretty decent build Squilliam although I am a big fan of Corsair and Seasonic PSUs like Garcian mentioned and I personally would wait on the SSD :)

Just remember that 'in general' prices will keep going down so the longer you can wait, the better. Sometimes this doesn't hold true like the current graphic card market but for the most part if you can wait another month or so you can get even better parts for the same price bracket. Good luck and post your final build here before you make the purchases.



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mrstickball said:
Can anyone care to explain why the i5-750 is better than a Phenom II X4 965 when Passmark.com rates the Phenom higher on its user benchmarks? Curious to understand why...

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/18448

Games: X4 965 < i5 750
Productivity/Office: X4 965 < i5 750
Compression: i5 750 < X4 965
Image processing: i5 750 = X4 965
Media encoding: i5 750 < X4 965
3D modelling: i5 750 = X4 965

They are almost at parity, on average, but depending on the specific application one can beat the other. So look at which of those areas you use the most.

Other factors: i5 750 costs $20 more, its motherboard costs a bit more, but it consumes less power and overclocks a little better.