Need Help Building PC
- Thread starter allunderheaven
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Genocidicbunny
Bug squasher
I'm feeling the beginning of a nerd flame wardo proceed
Sorry, you made popcorn for nothing.
Im not gonna try to change the mind of someone who already made theirs up.
Is Newegg.ca no good? most of your parts are cheaper there, especially if you buy Combo's.
For example this combo is with faster RAM and the same PSU is 20% ($37) cheaper than your RAM and the same PSU.
Combo said:
I couldnt find this card on NICX, the POWERCOLOR Radeon HD 5750 with 512MB goes for $120 after $20 MIR on NCIX. The same card on Newegg.ca goes for $115, the better POWERCOLOR Radeon HD 5750 1GB goes for $117.49. The same card costs $145 on NCIX
The cheapest HD5770 cost $134.50 (after MIR) for the 512MB version and $147 for the 1GB version, a 1GB HD5770 is roughly 15% to 20% faster than a 1GB 5750 and about 25% more expensive so its also a very good option.
Bus like i said, i dont know if Newegg.ca is bad or something since i live in Europe and we don't have Newegg here. I base my suggestion purely on their prices and an assumption of a standard quality of service.
The Thermaltake V3 Black Edition Case is a pretty nice, ultra light case.
I got one for my Portable/LanParty pc, mine had a 120mm fan with blue leds in it (i replaced it and added better fans). i would suggest you get at least 1 or 2 additional fans to make sure you get optimal airflow and also some black (thumb) screws if you want to make it completely black since the case comes with regular screws.
Benchmarks show that under ideal conditions (game settings that make sure the CPU is the only bottleneck on performance) the i3 beats most Athlons, in fact running Crysis the i3 530 ties the Phenom II x4 955 and the i3 540 ties the Phenom II x4 965.
However in the real world people do not play games at those settings, they use higher settings in which other hardware (GPU) will end up being the bottleneck, thus taking away the advantage the i3 has in (most) games. As for its overclockability, OC is a hobby of a minuscule fringe of the PC using community, normal users don't do it.
Most importantly allunderheaven said he wants to do "photo editing" and "Play Civ V" on his machine. Its hard to say exactly how much Civ V will make use of multiple cores and thus whether the i3's or the x4's (or x6's) will be better (personally i think it will be heavily optimized but that may be wishful thinking), however for "photo editing" the x4's (or x6's) will simply rape the i3's, even more so if there is heavy rendering or transcoding involved.
Here what imho are the best CPU depending on goal and $:
$ Game: Athlon II x3 435 ($70)
$$ Game: Phenom II x4 955 ($160)
$$$ Game: Core i7-860 ($280)
$ Multi: Athlon II x4 635 ($100)
$$ Multi: Phenom II x6 1055T ($200)
$$$ Multi: Phenom II x6 1090T ($300)
$ OC: Core i3-530 ($115)
$$ OC: Core i5-750 ($200)
$$$ OC: Core i7-930 ($290)
Genocidicbunny
Bug squasher
Fëanor;9328021 said:
Which really means that as long as you dont introduce any other factors (which you really shouldnt do for a fair comparison) the intels are superior cpu's. I do realize that this isnt exactly a real world scenario, but once you introduce other factors, your comparison between cpus becomes invalid.
Id also like to point out that overclocking has become so easy that anyone who builds their own system owes to themselves to try to overclock it. There's no need to change the voltage or any of that other fancy complicated stuff. A simple boost of the BCLK will give you a respectable overclock.
It depends on what kind of photo editing. If you use Photoshop, which is well optimized for 2 or more cores, then of course more cores will beat less cores, unless there is a significant speed discrepancy.
On the other hand, for gaming and the vast majority of tasks the faster dual cores will be a better choice.
It all comes down to what the majority of your tasks will be and whether or not the tradeoffs to specialize for those tasks are worthwhile. If you spend half of your time doing graphical work, then a quad core will serve you better. But if you occasionally dabble in photoshop and spend the rest of your time on other, less threaded tasks then a faster dual core is at the moment the way to go.
well even for just gaming a triple or quad core will come out ahead. There are sevral reasons for this actully. One in a perfect world no background tasks are happening but we dont live in that world. Secondly if you go crossfire or SLI down the road the overhead of mutli gpu can take advantage of the extra core. As for Crysis it shows improvement going to at least 3 cores vs 2, SoC, GTAIV, L4D, L4D2, Metro2033, and N:TW to name a few show a vast improvement going from 2 to 3 cores. Also why you cant ever be future proof when you build a computer you can try to get one that will hold up a year or 2, and with the way the market is going buying a dual core today is foolish when you can get a tri or quad core for under 100 bucks, Intel knows this but they are relying on there Core I7 and the market generally accepts that for over 200 Intel is the better buy while in the sub 200 bracket AMD is the victor. In mutli threading dont forget the new PHenom X6 can beat out a Core i7 965 and tie a 975 that costs close to $1000 and the new dies used for the X6 are about to be on the X4 and these have showed to hit 4-4.5 on air with all 6 cores, so imagine what it will do with 2 or 3 of those cores disabled.
Also why i dont normally post tomshardware here is an idea just for you of game scaling per cores
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/multi-core-cpu,2280-10.html
showing that triple core is better than dual core and that is from 2009 lol. Intel is not the better buy. Also Overclocking should never be recomended to a novice, it is dangrous even today, you can still set the frequencies high enough to blow a cap ect, remember just because voltages didnt rise didnt mean TDP didnt rise. a 95W CPU with a 30% OC isnt a 95W CPU anymore its about 120W now.
Also why i dont normally post tomshardware here is an idea just for you of game scaling per cores
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/multi-core-cpu,2280-10.html
showing that triple core is better than dual core and that is from 2009 lol. Intel is not the better buy. Also Overclocking should never be recomended to a novice, it is dangrous even today, you can still set the frequencies high enough to blow a cap ect, remember just because voltages didnt rise didnt mean TDP didnt rise. a 95W CPU with a 30% OC isnt a 95W CPU anymore its about 120W now.
There is no doubt that Intel cpu's are far superior clock for clock and core for core. But you really cant simply compare them based on that, controlled conditions are fine for benchmarking but real world factors cant be brushed aside. The the average user needs a PC for multiple purposes and wont overclock, almost all current and future software will use more than 2 cores and most importantly pricing of the CPU and limited budgets most people are bound to.
Its not like the $115 Core i3-530 (2 cores @ 2.93GHz) is competing with the $58 Athlon II X2 (2 cores @ 2.9GHz) or even the $89 Phenom II x2 550 (2 core @ 3.1Ghz), The Phenom II x3 720 and the AMD Athlon II X4 635 are its direct competitor and on recent (and future) software both with defeat the i3-530, for OC and with older software the i3-530 performs better but (for games like Crysis where the i3-530 really excels) only if supported by high-end hardware which imho pretty much defeats the purpose of a budget part for most users.
allunderheaven
Settler
Hey guys, I went out and bought the components I wanted, I basically bought what I posted previously, except I decided on the Athlon II x3 440, and Asus M4A77TD. (To cut back on costs)
I ended up choosing AMD simply because it made sense with my budget build.
The reason why I chose NCIX, is because I live near one of their retail store. I won't have to pay shipping and can return items easily.
I'm really excited to start assembling the components tonight! Wish me luck! If things don't work out as planned, at least I'll get all day tomorrow since it's Canada Day.
I ended up choosing AMD simply because it made sense with my budget build.
The reason why I chose NCIX, is because I live near one of their retail store. I won't have to pay shipping and can return items easily.
I'm really excited to start assembling the components tonight! Wish me luck! If things don't work out as planned, at least I'll get all day tomorrow since it's Canada Day.
allunderheaven
Settler
I started assembling the parts after dinner and finally finished installing Windows at midnight.
Most of the process was pretty self-explanatory, since many of the cables only plug in one way. SATA cables are so easy to plug in unlike IDE. However, after I finished installing everything and tried to turn on the machine, it wouldn't work!?
I ended up digging through every cable and found an unused four pin power connector. Eventually, I figured out that it was the CPU power supply. Haha
All in all, it was a pretty good experience, although I have to admit that I had those, "I wish I just bought a Dell," moments.
There is one thing that I still can't figure out. This may sound stupid, but...How in the world do you install the back panel? (I/O panel) I used the one that came with my mobo, but it wouldn't pop in. I tried inserting it before putting in the mobo and afterwards as well. But the small metal tabs just keep on getting in the way?
Most of the process was pretty self-explanatory, since many of the cables only plug in one way. SATA cables are so easy to plug in unlike IDE. However, after I finished installing everything and tried to turn on the machine, it wouldn't work!?
I ended up digging through every cable and found an unused four pin power connector. Eventually, I figured out that it was the CPU power supply. Haha
All in all, it was a pretty good experience, although I have to admit that I had those, "I wish I just bought a Dell," moments.
There is one thing that I still can't figure out. This may sound stupid, but...How in the world do you install the back panel? (I/O panel) I used the one that came with my mobo, but it wouldn't pop in. I tried inserting it before putting in the mobo and afterwards as well. But the small metal tabs just keep on getting in the way?
Genocidicbunny
Bug squasher
The metal tabs in the actual slots should be bent out of the way. You can also clip them but I suggest not doing that in case you need to RMA the motherboard.
allunderheaven
Settler
I just did a Windows Experience Index Test. My new computer scores 5.9. The lowest score is Hard Disk transfer rate, with graphics scoring the highest at 7.3.
BTW, Windows tells me that I have a "Phenom II X4 B40", when I in fact have a Athlon II X3 440....I don't get it. Is there any way to fix that?
BTW, Windows tells me that I have a "Phenom II X4 B40", when I in fact have a Athlon II X3 440....I don't get it. Is there any way to fix that?
Genocidicbunny
Bug squasher
I suggest running Prime95 on your computer for a couple hours to make sure its stable. If it is, and you really did unlock a core, you just ended up with a quad core!
For a little background. AMD makes for the most part quad-core dies. When one of the cores doesnt work, or they have a higher demand for triple cores, they turn off a core and ship it as a triple-core part. This means that some motherboards with a feature called ACC can unlock the core, allowing you to use your X3 as an X4 part. Some of the time, the core is stable, but not always. There are legitimate reasons it could have been turned off and unlocking it may make things unstable.
For a little background. AMD makes for the most part quad-core dies. When one of the cores doesnt work, or they have a higher demand for triple cores, they turn off a core and ship it as a triple-core part. This means that some motherboards with a feature called ACC can unlock the core, allowing you to use your X3 as an X4 part. Some of the time, the core is stable, but not always. There are legitimate reasons it could have been turned off and unlocking it may make things unstable.
Well an X4 B40 is a bussiness class Phenom, get CPU-z and please get a screenshot of that and post it. Also Genocidicbunny AMD only makes Quad and Dual Core Dies, triple cores dies are always quad core dies that didnt make the cut. So with ACC an X3 will usually unlock into an X4, and with Phenom X2's they usally can go 3 or 4 cores stable.
But a CPU-z screenshot will help alot in telling us if you have ACC turned on.
But a CPU-z screenshot will help alot in telling us if you have ACC turned on.
Genocidicbunny
Bug squasher
Thank you for reiterating exactly what I said. I would like to correct you though. Triple cores are not always failed quads. When demand is high enough for triple cores, AMD can take fully working quad dies and turn off a core to sell it as a triple core.
This process, or something similar to it is used by most semiconductor manufacturers. The majority only do it for speeds, but some like AMD and nVidia also make extensive use of turning off cores.
no not usually, AMD also likes to make a bigger profit and they can do so by selling quads. Triple cores turned into quads fail an internal test somewhere, be it TDP, or fautly errata that isn't supposed to be there. Remember a triple core is also 95W while so is a quad core. If a quad core die is 100w TDP they will turn it into a triple core to get it under the threshold, and triples turned into quads will always use over the TDP there quad core siblings use. Its not always a bad core, but likly a die that uses a little to much power. This is why Phenom X3 is drying up quick, in the OEM market this happens by demand but at the consumer level not likly lol.
