building a new computer - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: sony mavica
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 01:35:17 am
content: my current pci72600k8gb ram2x 1tb hddnvidia gts 450 1gband a nice lg 1366x768 screen i do have a nice AOC 1080p screen but its scratched in two spotsall games at default settings give me around 60fps @ 768pi want to build pc for around $1000nzd what should i get i have $220 to this site mightyape.co.nz and have $105nzd saved from selling old laptops i got free good for parts and 2 free tablet pc i got i cant test as they take weird chargers and still have other laptops i got free yet to list online for sale alsoi get giftcards to mightyape all the time for doing surveys and money to paypal from other sites from doing surveys and other tasks onlinei do have enough money in the bank to get a computer now but since i don't want to spend my own money i would rather save and use money i get from selling the laptops and money from surveybut i have no idea what parts to get or should i just stick with my i7 pc

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 01:46:39 am
content: Quote from: sony mavica on February 10, 2018, 01:35:17 amThat's a decision you need to make yourself. No one can make it for you. It depends what you use your computer for and is it meeting your needs? Or is it just the case youwanta new machine?In either case there are literally thousands and thousands of combinations for building a PC. Some combinations of hardware work reliably together, some don't.As the old saying goes:What are you hoping to achieve? Speed, stability or cost effectiveness -- Pick two.

author: sony mavica
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 01:56:01 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on February 10, 2018, 01:46:39 ammostly just want a new computer because i get a lot of giftcards to mightyape and i don't really need a new pc but would be nice also there is nothing they sell on there site that i need or even want or is interesting and the only think i can think of that would interest me to spend the giftcards and money i get for the laptops on would be parts to build a computer otherwise these giftcards will never get spent

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 02:03:59 am
content: Perhaps you can look at upgrading your current machine, more memory, larger SSD drive, better video card etc...Everyone has their own opinion on what makes a good PC. In my experience, you really need to know what you're doing to get the right mix of hardware otherwise you just end up with a mediocre machine.Personally, I spend a little bit more on workstation/enterprise level components, even if it means sacrificing some performance. They last forever and a day. In a general sense, this is what I use and recommend:Motherboard:Supermicro or IntelRAM:Refer to the motherboard manufacturer to what works well with a particular boardCPU:Intel (Preferably Xeon)Video Card:NVIDIA-basedHard disks:Intel, Samsung or Kingston for SSDs or Hitachi Ultrastar for traditional spinning disks.Power supply:Supermicro or Seasonic

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 04:38:39 am
content: I would sink literally all of it into a better GPU, and an SSD.The 2600k is still a powerful chip, as sign of how Intel basically did nothing after Sandy Bridge basically made AMD pointless in terms of performance computing up until Ryzen. The effective performance you would gain for general purpose workloads (if you are looking for lotsa CPU, I'd suggest picking up an old decommissioned server with lotsa cpu cores) would be nothing compared to the money spent to get to it.730 USD will get you a 1080 and a 500GB SATA SSD. If you want to change stuff around, you might want to do something like grab a 1070, 500GB SSD, and a bit more RAM if your board supports it (if it doesn't don't bother, 8GB is enough for the present).Upgrading an old system on a budget NEVER happens all at once. I started with a dual core A4 llano based APU with a "6510D" which was a joke in performance (Farming Simulator 2013 was a demanding title for me).Part by part, I think starting with the motherboard/CPU, up to the RAM, then a graphics card, and then again to my i7, with an SSD somewhere along the way, I got to a decent machine that will be running alright for a while (or at least until I win the lottery).Don't bother with Ryzens if you have a 2600k. They may be faster, but unless you can get a good buyer for your old hardware, the money you will put in to the additional performance you will get out will be useless. 2600ks are still capable chips to this day.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 04:44:58 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on February 10, 2018, 04:30:32 amThis is the kind of thinking that I see way too often then people wonder why their machine runs like crap or needs a reboot every few days. I'm not having a personal dig at you blueskull, but what's the point of spending money on a "good" CPU then plopping that on top of a cheap, crappy motherboard? You start with good foundations and build up. You're basically pissing away any performance gain with a cheap and nasty board.You don't go and put $50 Chinese tyres on a luxury European car, do you?TwoOfFive has provided some good advice above.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 05:01:18 am
content: I run a 4790k, and I ran the numbers of what CPU I would have to upgrade to, in order to see any significant performance increase.I came to the conclusion that in order to even make it close to being worth my while, I would have to drop money on something like a Threadripper, or the fastest Ryzen 7, not because there aren't Ryzen 7s or even 5s that beat my cpu, but because the performance gained would be so insignificant, the money spent might as well have been wasted (It's like spending 60 grand on a car that has 40 more horsepower than your car that has 260, and cost 50 grand)The one thing that has pissed me right the hell off, though, is meltdown. People have been talking about different workloads and how they will all be affected, but what I found is, since the cache is flushed whenever ANY system call is made, it slows down EVERYTHING, to the point where I might as well not have any cache. I've noticed heavy hits with VMs and Disk I/O, but even things like video rendering, and just generic everydaying has taken some measurable hit because whenever a kernel call is made, it flushes the cache.This is right quick turning me into a never Intel person. The flaw is incredibly stupid, and the fix is a joke. Even overclocking, which my 4790k is a darling for, hasn't helped close the gap enough. I feel like I have been downgraded to a slower CPU and am pissed off at Intel. The reason I went with them is because they had the performance option, and AMD was making 240 watt space heaters that required water cooling and a board with power delivery akin to a mains substation. Now that AMD is back in the game, my next CPU, whenever I get one, will be AMD. It's maddening that Intel, a company who has enough money to attempt multiple moonshots in the exact same historical manner as the Apollo program, decided to cheap out on security research and leave this shit in.Anyways, after this rant, I have to say this. Intel has CPUs that perform well to this day, despite meltdown. Upgrade your weakest hardware, and keep your strongest.I do actually have to agree with blueskull a bit here. Not on what to buy, but on the fact that workstation gear is reliable, but it's also expensive, and restrictive.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 05:38:50 am
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on February 10, 2018, 05:01:18 amI remember reading that kernel 4.14 has PCID support that substantially reduces the performance impact of the Meltdown fix, and likewise the "repotline" fix for Spectre has little performance impact.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 05:48:30 am
content: The fact that the fixes are getting better consoles me little. It's the fact that Intel has screwed over every single customer that has bought one of their products in the last 10 years all at once that has me riled. I don't want less performance hit, I want the issue to have not been there at all in the first place.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 06:49:47 am
content: Quote from: sony mavica on February 10, 2018, 01:35:17 amThe 2600K is still a great processor for general purpose work.If the CPU and motherboard are working fine, I would keep it for the next two years. Perhaps increase the RAM to 16G or 20G and get a SSD C: drive to make the computer feel twice as fast.Whatever Microsoft do in 2020 to replace Windows 10, there will probably be some hardware changes optimised for the new O/S. Wait till then if you can.Unless you have a need for better graphics or you use programs that use GPU processing, that nVidia card will probably fine. Definitely get a nice display, perhaps a good keyboard and mouse.With what you have left, I would get a good Linux-based NAS box with snapshot capability like Netgear ReadyNAS boxes along with a pair of NAS drives such as the WD Reds. Set up some kind of automated file sync from your PC to the NAS box. You will not regret it.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 07:50:56 am
content: Quote from: sony mavica on February 10, 2018, 01:35:17 amKeep the i7-2600K. Sandy Bridge is still a good performer, especially since you can overclock this chip as needed. Maybe upgrade the cooler to something bigger than stock cooler to accommodate overclocking.Quote from: sony mavica on February 10, 2018, 01:35:17 amShould be enough. Bump to 16 using second hand modules if you really feel the memory pressure.Quote from: sony mavica on February 10, 2018, 01:35:17 amThrow in a new SSD, That will be the best upgrade you can ever get for this machine. With your budget you might be able to get a good 480GB SSD.Quote from: sony mavica on February 10, 2018, 01:35:17 amIf you are okay with just keeping OS and programs on a 240GB SSD, go with an GTX 1080 Ti. Don't bother looking into the mid range cards as those are hugely inflated in price amid the cryptocurrency craze.Quote from: sony mavica on February 10, 2018, 01:35:17 amKeep them. If you did get the GTX 1080 Ti you can dual display them.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 08:14:35 am
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on February 10, 2018, 05:01:18 amYou are absolutely correct. As I said from the beginning, everyone has an opinion, including me. I've dealt with shitty consumer hardware for many years (and granted, not all consumer-grade hardware is shit), but about 10 years ago, I vowed never again and I haven't looked back.Yes, decent gear costs more. No question about that. But I think spending more on individual components as you suggested is far better than throwing a good CPU at a horrible board.As I said in my first post: "Speed, stability or cost effectiveness -- Pick two".EDIT: As I type this, I'm using an old HP 6710b laptop which came with a 2.20 GHz Intel Centrino Duo CPU. It has 2GB RAM and runs Windows XP. The only thing I've changed is the old hard disk to an SSD and it runs brilliantly. Right now I have Opera running with 35 browser tabs open and VLC media player running with a DVD. It actually runs pretty damn well and does most things I need it to. It's reasonably responsive and it's usually left running on a table somewhere in my house so I can quickly move it to where I need it and do what I want. I use it almost every day when I don't want to sit in my office on my desktop machine or have something on the stove or in the oven.

author: ANTALIFE
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 11:56:38 am
content: Logical Increments&PriceSpyonce you have the parts figures out ;^)

author: rdl
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 06:42:11 pm
content: I use an i5-3570 and last year I switched the original video card (GT something 550) for a new GTX-1050 Ti and it was like having a new machine when playing games. It has always used an SSD for boot and games. I just put a bigger one in over Christmas but it's still not enough with games coming in at >40GB these days.

author: Avacee
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 06:58:59 pm
content: I'm still using an i5-2500K (the nicely overclockable one) from ~2011 and looking at CPU comparison charts I'd have to spend a LOT of money to get any noticeable improvement for my usage yet when I went from mechanical hard drive to SSD it was literally comparable to getting a new PC.So, IMHO, try an SSD first and see if you still want to upgrade or examine where you need to upgrade once the HHD bottle neck is massively reduced.You may then choose to wait until the newer CPU's are released that have solved the recently highlighted bugs, or when the newer CPU's are released the current "buggy" ones may be sold off cheap

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 07:03:03 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on February 10, 2018, 06:54:13 pmI am skeptical about the price of those. Vega is an overpriced mess that doesn't outperform nVidia price to performance.Also, yes, while i7 doesn't always mean fast, the 2600k is fast enough for most tasks still. 2600k's passmark around 8460, while my 4790k, one of the fastest four core i7s on the market, passmarks at around 11,000. While passmark isn't always a great measure of speed, it's enough to ballpark into seeing that the 2600k has some life left in it. Upgrading that on such a restrictive budget when there are so many more gaping and obvious ways to improve it is, I think, a waste of money.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 07:14:42 pm
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on February 10, 2018, 04:38:39 amThe GPU not so much because these can get noisy. When I ordered my Dell workstation I downgraded the GPU for a fanless model. An SSD is about the best performance upgrade you can get these days. Be sure to disable the swap though when using an SSD. Having swap is useless anyway because after several tens of megabytes in swap the computer slows down to a crawl and the gain in memory size is insignificant compared to the several GB installed in computers nowadays. Extra memory never hurts.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 07:24:22 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 10, 2018, 07:14:42 pmYour use case might be different than the OP's. Knowing the OP a bit from previous encounters with him on the forum, I find it safe to say he's looking for something semi-capable of gaming. I can tell you, nothing that comes out of the factory passively cooled will be able to hit that mark. I'm pretty sure the OP understands that if he buys a new machine with faster parts, it's likely going to make noise.For the rest, I can agree with you, but he is not the kind of person who doesn't care about GPU performance, I am fairly sure of that. There are genuine cases when silence over GPU performance might be better, but this is not one of them.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 07:41:42 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on February 10, 2018, 06:54:13 pmBut not by much, if the benchmarks say anything, especially for home users.Quote from: blueskull on February 10, 2018, 06:54:13 pmHowever all of those chips require DDR4 memory, whose prices are off the roof now.Quote from: blueskull on February 10, 2018, 06:54:13 pmThat chip will NOT be released to the general public at all, only to OEM manufacturers, likely for laptops and all-in-ones.Quote from: TwoOfFive on February 10, 2018, 07:03:03 pmDo keep in mind that 2600K is an overclockable processor, so there is always the option of getting a better cooling solution and punch in a higher core clock.

author: KhronX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2018, 01:05:27 am
content: Just as a reference point, the cheapest 1080 Ti on newegg.com, as of now, is US$899.Quote from: technix on February 10, 2018, 07:50:56 amQuote from: sony mavica on February 10, 2018, 01:35:17 amQuote from: blueskull on February 10, 2018, 04:30:32 amAt least on the local used market over here, a couple weeks ago i saw Radeon RX460 / RX560 boards for under 100eu (or even under the equivalent of US$100). Way beyond the OP's GT450, however you look at it.

author: JustMeHere
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2018, 02:46:37 am
content: Max out your RAM. Get some SSDs. Take a look at the new NVME drives. (https://www.kingston.com/us/ssd/consumer/SKC1000) Consider upgrading your GPU. Make sure your MOBO can support the new hardware (or get the best stuff you can for your MOBO.)16 GB RAM is really the lowest you want to go with Win 10.The NVME SSDs have unbelievable performance. Well over 1 Gigabyte (yes BYTE) per second performance.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2018, 05:32:13 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on February 10, 2018, 07:14:42 pmFanless idle has been a common feature of recent GPUs.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2018, 07:22:28 am
content: Quote from: JustMeHere on February 11, 2018, 02:46:37 amDon’t get NVMe though as you won’t be able to boot from it unless you splice your machine’s UEFI BIOS and create an unofficial one with a NVMe driver from a donor board’s UEFI BIOS added. This runs the risk of bricking your machine.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2018, 07:33:33 am
content: Quote from: technix on February 11, 2018, 07:22:28 amCreate a small (128MB should be plenty) /boot partition on a SATA device and also install the bootloader to that device. It should work as long as the kernel supports NVMe.

author: technix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 11, 2018, 11:06:47 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on February 11, 2018, 07:33:33 amIf you want to use any other OS you will have to splice the UEFI BIOS though. IMO for such old devices it is better to go with PCIe AHCI SSD's since it still uses AHCI as SATA does for the sake of the compatibility, but you do get some benefit of a PCIe SSD since such drives are still much faster than a SATA 6Gb/s SSD.

author: shteii01
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 11:58:22 pm
content: For the princely sum of 100-200 USD:https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Electronics-Mini-Computers/zgbs/electronics/13896591011I really don't want to see anymore of S. Mavica posts. Is there some way on these forums for me to Ignore/Block his posts?

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2018, 01:26:18 am
content: Quote from: shteii01 on February 12, 2018, 11:58:22 pmWhat he already has is likely better than many/most of those cheap mini desktops.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2018, 01:44:03 am
content: Quote from: shteii01 on February 12, 2018, 11:58:22 pmThe best way to ignore someone you don't like is to just not acknowledge them. It's also a bit harsh to straight up say you don't like someone straight to their face.If you don't want to see his posts, don't click on them. The two words sony mavica aren't going to rend your flesh just by looking at them.

author: shteii01
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2018, 10:40:37 am
content: Quote from: TwoOfFive on February 13, 2018, 01:44:03 amI am too used to EVE Online, where you just right click on a name and choose Block. And never see them again.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2018, 04:54:33 pm
content: There is no block function in the real world. The internet is only a choice of how much you wish to abstract from the real world.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2018, 05:13:21 pm
content: I think buying something new that's better than what you have now is out of the question. So upgrading it it. You will need to establish what you current computer won't do that you would like it to do. Play games? Render animations? Basic browsing?

author: CNe7532294
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 13, 2018, 06:45:33 pm
content: As Halcyon said, depends on your intent.My computer building experience is this. When I was younger my intent was making the best gaming system that can run Crysis. I sunk alot into GPUs. Nowadays my intent is to run programs like J Model test which really need a system to be good at crunching numbers. So nowadays I sink my money into the CPU and RAM. For quick boots and start ups I like SSDs. You only need the OS and some programs installed on the SSD. Everything else like files pertaining to results, text, documents, movies, pictures etc can be on HDDs. As for PSU you need to calculate how much power you need from the specs of each part. Lastly I know we're moving to an age of downloadable content but I suggest planning for some form of CD/DVD drive and even a floppy. You may want to image/save a disk's content one day. Water cooling and overclocking is for pros and I wouldn't recommend unless you do know what you're doing (what to and how to set clock speeds and voltage levels in the bios for example). Regular air fans will suffice. You can even get the quiet performance water cooling offers if you pick the right fan (# of fan blades, rotational speed, rubber mounts, etc.)