Another PC Build Thread

[Vilante]

Sitting in a hotel room in Jakarta and reading the Norbs PC thread I've become sufficiently jealous. With Christmas coming up I think it's good timing to get a good enough PC together to start doing some gaming again.

So, if I were to spend $700 or $800 on a system what would the people in the know recommend?

I have a couple of hard drives for data but would like a flash drive for the system. Not really on a side as far as processors or GPU's are concerned.

Cheers guys :-)

[wobblysauce]

So your saying that you don't want something like this?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2013-Best-Gamin ... 460f645354" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Vilante]

Sold!

[Gizmo]

Apart from your hard drives do you have any other parts you can carry over from your current rig Vil? Mainly the PSU or Case?

[Sarsippius]

Ok this is what I came up with in about 15 minutes
Prices from PCCG

$179 - Intel Core i3-4330 CPU
$129 - Gigabyte GA-H87-D3H Motherboard
$99 - G.Skill Ripjaws X F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL (2x4GB) DDR3
$105 - Sandisk Ultra Plus 128GB SSD
$179 - XFX Radeon HD7850 GPU
$99 - Antec High Current Gamer 520W Modular PSU

$790

I know from the other thread you have a case so have ignored that.
The CPU, this is the one Anandtech recommends for single GPU systems. Multi-GPU systems is when you need the extra CPU grunt.
Motherboard is basically the cheapest ATX size from a decent brand. Don't need anything fancy here.
Memory, cheapest 8GB kit at the top speed the CPU supports
SSD, cheapest 128GB they have. On the cheap this size is all you need as you have a couple HDDs already. I'm not real familiar with the model so it's worth checking if there's any reliability problems but spending another say $40 on one of the top models won't get you much extra performance. There's a samsung & crucial model at virtually the same price.
GPU, I know more about AMD because I bought a HD7870 recently but there might be a better NVIDIA choice at this price point.
PSU, this is all you need for this system despite what anyone might tell you. I have this exact model in a similar system with an i5 4670 and HD7870. Save $10 by getting the non-modular version but I much prefer modular.

If you can stretch the budget a bit more then think about a HD7870 for about $40 extra, price/performance it's better value but depends if you can afford it or not

[wobblysauce]

Sars, depends on Screen resolution, but the HD is fine.

[Vilante]

Yeah just the case Giz.

Thanks for the info gents.

What's a decent 22 or 24" monitor for a single set up at the moment? Not wanting to spend a bomb though if course :-)

[wobblysauce]

From memory atm there are really no bad ones in that range, just depends on what features you are after.

[Vilante]

Thanks Wobs. Last time I was in the market for one there was a big difference between the Dell 24" ones and any a bit cheaper so thought I should check.

[w00dsy]

There are 27" from about $250 at the moment.

[wobblysauce]

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... 8680360115" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The world’s thinnest border for magnificent viewing.

Dell Price $349.99

[Woodee]

I have been looking at this spec for a while, waiting for price drops.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Woodee/saved/1DDc" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Bare in mind it would mostly be used for video editing, desktop publishing and photoshopping. No video card as I would use my current ATI one to save money.

[wobblysauce]

current rate, 637.82 GBP = 1,141.54 AUD

[ysu]

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... 8680360115

The world’s thinnest border for magnificent viewing.

Dell Price $349.99

are you saying it's not a good deal or not the word's thinnest border, or what?

[Vilante]

I just ordered most of the parts, exciting times!

I have yet to order the SSD, the RAM or the Power Supply as I'm leaving them for people to get me for Christmas. Hurry up Christmas!!

Thanks for your help Sars, can't wait to build it!

[wobblysauce]

ysu, Well they would be good for triple screens..

[ysu]

ysu, Well they would be good for triple screens..

ah ok you confused me with the negative smiley at the end ( this one, shaking its head, saying no : )

[Vilante]

This guy!

IMAG0267.jpg

[Sarsippius]

Glad to help mate, I'm sure it will serve you well. I just realised I forgot about a HSF, the standard one will do the job but will probably be a bit noisy.

[Vilante]

Glad to help mate, I'm sure it will serve you well. I just realised I forgot about a HSF, the standard one will do the job but will probably be a bit noisy.

It is quite noisy, will upgrade it at some stage

[DarrenM]

Brief hijack since someone here may know. Upgraded my pc to an i7 4770, new mobo, 780Ti and it reboots 5-10 mins in to some games and under Linux. Most games like iRacing and Assetto run no problems. Prime95 runs for less than 1 second before it reboots. No overclocking.

Turning intel turbo boost off helped but made prime95 worse. With it on prime95 runs for a couple mins before reboot. Googling returned some people suggesting the vcore is too low so I set it to 1.1 (cpu-z shows default at 1.05) and it was even less stable.

Is there any way to figure out if it's a cpu or motherboard issue? I don't think it's a PSU (have 850W) issue since my previous cpu was supposed to have higher power requirements and the video card is the same.

[ysu]

That's a bummer for sure.
You can try to severely underclock the cpu - and maybe the gpu too. Altho if it was a gpu issue you'd probably get bsod's, and not just prime95 problems.
Other than that...hard to tell. I'd still try another psu if there's one around. It could be that the voltages aren't stable enough for the new config or something similar.
(but then again, in that case every program would behave the same)
Do you monitor your temperatures?
Have you tried re-seating the power connectors?

Have you tried some other stress tester? What if prime95 is the culprit?
Edit: ah, wait, you say it resets in some games naturally after a few mins.

CPU seldom used to do stuff like this in my experience, mind you. I'd suggest mobo/psu issues. But it can be anything at this point...eliminate them one-by-one if you can. "Luckily" the problem is easy to replicate.

[Sarsippius]

It sounds like it's possibly a heat issue, you could try to remove the hsf and re-seat it again.

[Righteous]

I recall a mate having an issue like this because of a CPU fan. The temps where all fine but because it was running much slower than the stock fan it was rebooting to "save" the CPU from overheating. I think we decided it was because it had a much lower RPM. In the end we went into the bios and made it ignore the fan or stopped it from auto shutting down if no CPU fan was detected. Something along those lines. Might be similar?

Are you using a stock CPU cooler? He was using one of the big noctua ones.

[DarrenM]

Stock cooler. I'll see if there's anything in the bios for the fan though.

Temps are fine. It shuts down even with temps in the 60's.