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Forums - PC - Another crying for help building a PC thread. Enter please :)

eggs2see on 08 May 2010
Squilliam said:
eggs2see said:
Squilliam said:
Thanks Slimebeast @ Eggs 2 see I listed it as 2GB *2 which is 4GB lol.

Oooo my bad i missed that, apologies squilliam.  I think everyone here is in agreeance on most things though, and thats go with AMD phenom quad.  Oh and don't skimp on a power supply and case because as hsrob said, it's essentially the core.  I would still strongly suggest a good motherboard like the one i listed and a 5770 with the option to crossfire another 5770 later... no dx11 though with a 5770 so you may just want to get a whole new card down the track.

Unfortunately anything substantially better than a 5770 at the moment and you pay SUBSTANTIALLY more too.


I suspect that a motherboard like that may very well be overkill. What extra capabilities does one get for spending an extra 130% over top of getting 4 ram slots, a PCI-E slot and a decent quantity of USB and SATA ports?

In any case with lower resolution comes a reduced need to spend money on the graphics card. Whilst CPUs scale to the software, GPUs scale to both software and the number of pixels they have to render the graphics for.

Mostly for the sli, but a good motherboard will generally come with better quality parts meaning it will run cooler, more efficient and last longer.  That being said unless you are going to sli yeah that motherboard is really overkill.  All the same, the motherboard is really important and shouldn't be over looked.



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Squilliam on 08 May 2010
eggs2see said:
Squilliam said:


I suspect that a motherboard like that may very well be overkill. What extra capabilities does one get for spending an extra 130% over top of getting 4 ram slots, a PCI-E slot and a decent quantity of USB and SATA ports?

In any case with lower resolution comes a reduced need to spend money on the graphics card. Whilst CPUs scale to the software, GPUs scale to both software and the number of pixels they have to render the graphics for.

Mostly for the sli, but a good motherboard will generally come with better quality parts meaning it will run cooler, more efficient and last longer.  That being said unless you are going to sli yeah that motherboard is really overkill.  All the same, the motherboard is really important and shouldn't be over looked.


I would say that $100 AUD is a quality product. You can get much cheaper boards for $50-60 AUD so that represents an almost 100% increase over the bare minimum. I suspect the high end motherboards have very large margins for both the retailer and manufacturs/chipset makers which really only pads the pockets of the companies which make them. The board I listed had 100% solid state japanese capacitors etc so I don't see any obvious areas for quality improvement.



Tease.

eggs2see on 08 May 2010
Squilliam said:
eggs2see said:
Squilliam said:


I suspect that a motherboard like that may very well be overkill. What extra capabilities does one get for spending an extra 130% over top of getting 4 ram slots, a PCI-E slot and a decent quantity of USB and SATA ports?

In any case with lower resolution comes a reduced need to spend money on the graphics card. Whilst CPUs scale to the software, GPUs scale to both software and the number of pixels they have to render the graphics for.

Mostly for the sli, but a good motherboard will generally come with better quality parts meaning it will run cooler, more efficient and last longer.  That being said unless you are going to sli yeah that motherboard is really overkill.  All the same, the motherboard is really important and shouldn't be over looked.


I would say that $100 AUD is a quality product. You can get much cheaper boards for $50-60 AUD so that represents an almost 100% increase over the bare minimum. I suspect the high end motherboards have very large margins for both the retailer and manufacturs/chipset makers which really only pads the pockets of the companies which make them. The board I listed had 100% solid state japanese capacitors etc so I don't see any obvious areas for quality improvement.

Yeah $100 will buy you a good quality mb aslong as you are not looking for sli/crossfire.  My current mb is an asus non sli and it cost me $95, and it's fantastic.



starcraft on 11 May 2010
Squilliam said:
starcraft said:

Hmmm, couple of questions.

Firstly, somewhere in there I probably have to fit a legit copy of Office Home and Student (I should have mentioned that in the OP).  I can probably chip in for that myself, but I would of course rather not.

Secondly, the screen.  It looks awesome.  But I really don't know that I will be able to sell buying a second screen to my Dad.  Our current one is a Dell 22inch which isnt bad.  I would love a better one, but I dont know if I could pass him on one that is nearing $500.

Actually a third question about the specs you put up.  If I took the screen out and upgraded the CPU to an i5 750 would it be a complete waste of extra power with the screen I currently have?

1. You can get office from Gocomp as well. http://www.gocomp.com.au/index.php?cpath=productinfo&pid=II00872&catpath=0_28_135

$113

Just bear in mind that they are going to release Office 2010 this year so you may want to wait or make sure that you can upgrade for free.

2. Oh I thought it was terrible given the resolution you were running. In any case its optional, delete away if you don't want it. I figured I would pad out the budget to the full $1800. Also if the resolution you gave is the maximum then drop the graphics card in favour of the 5770 because that would make the GPU overkill http://www.gocomp.com.au/index.php?cpath=productinfo&pid=II06571

3. Complete waste... Its hard enough to get a Phenom II to stretch its legs with console ports + the rise of low power laptop computers. This part represents a good balance for longevity, power consumption and overall platform cost.

New question and updat Squill my man.

I still will not be purchasing a screen through my Dad, but I have decided to get one myself.  If I spent $300 AU (really not too much more) what screens should I be looking at getting and what resolution?  If I get a higher resolution screen, compared to your original specs, should I then be looking at either more RAM, another CPU or a better GPU?



starcraft - Playing Games = FUN, Talking about Games = SERIOUS

Squilliam on 11 May 2010
starcraft said:
Squilliam said:

1. You can get office from Gocomp as well. http://www.gocomp.com.au/index.php?cpath=productinfo&pid=II00872&catpath=0_28_135

$113

Just bear in mind that they are going to release Office 2010 this year so you may want to wait or make sure that you can upgrade for free.

2. Oh I thought it was terrible given the resolution you were running. In any case its optional, delete away if you don't want it. I figured I would pad out the budget to the full $1800. Also if the resolution you gave is the maximum then drop the graphics card in favour of the 5770 because that would make the GPU overkill http://www.gocomp.com.au/index.php?cpath=productinfo&pid=II06571

3. Complete waste... Its hard enough to get a Phenom II to stretch its legs with console ports + the rise of low power laptop computers. This part represents a good balance for longevity, power consumption and overall platform cost.

New question and updat Squill my man.

I still will not be purchasing a screen through my Dad, but I have decided to get one myself.  If I spent $300 AU (really not too much more) what screens should I be looking at getting and what resolution?  If I get a higher resolution screen, compared to your original specs, should I then be looking at either more RAM, another CPU or a better GPU?

You'd need a better GPU to use it effectively. Programs scale in terms of CPU useage linearly with program intensity. However they scale with both resolution and intensity with GPUs. This means that the performance of the GPU is dictated by both the resolution of the monitor and the intensity of the program. So if you double your resolution you should double your GPU performance to get the same effect. So going from your current one to a 1920/1080 resolution monitor means you need to move from an HD 5770 to an HD 5850 to have roughly the same performance at the native resolution.

As for a monitor, have a look at this one first. http://www.gocomp.com.au/index.php?cpath=productinfo&pid=II06747&catpath=0_19_103

The big drawback is the different stand but its the best bang for buck panel I can see there.



Tease.