New Member/New computer

L

Lightningjack

New Member
Hello,

First off, I just want to let everyone know I am probably less technologically inclined than all of you, and kind of new, or should I say getting back into gaming...also getting married soon, so idk how much I will be "getting back" into it lol. I have a customer of mine who is having a computer built for me, as exchange for payment to me. I don't know a ton, but have done a little homework and let him know kinda what I was looking for. He works for a decent sized IT/product company. I know this probably wont sound like the Ferrari of setups compared to what some of you have, but feel free to let me know how it looks. My main goal was to get something that runs on the updated system used by all of Intels' new processors, since I don't buy a new computer often.

400w+ Power Supply
Midrange-Large case with plenty of room for extra fan/heatsink
Intel i7 (not sure which one, guessing 860)
Seagate 1.5 TB HD
DVD-RW, BlueRay player drive
8GB Ram
NVIDEA GTS250 1GB Vid Card
PCI Wireless N card
21-23" LCD (he mentioned Sony)
Wireless N router
Wireless Keyboard, Mouse

He's also throwing in a bunch of free cables, including HDMI cable, since I will be using it to push video to my tv.

Let me know what you think
 
The only thing that jumps out at me is the power supply. I would make sure you get one in the 650-750W range. There are quite a few quality ones that would run $70-80 or so that would work well with your setup. No need to get a monster, but you certainly will want one higher than 400W.

The gist of everything else looks okay. I don't see a motherboard in the list, though.
 
I'm not sure what kind of motherboard is going in it. I had all the info and parts, but originally he had set up a system with the older Core 2 quad processors, etc. I told him that I would prefer something that runs on the newer system, socket. I dont buy new computers often or upgrade a lot and I want to future proof myself as best as possible. Also, the exchange was for $500 of work and about $100 in product. I figured it was a decent deal?
 
$500 in work and $100 in product? Don't really understand that, even if it was $100 in work and $500 in product, the rough specs you laid out would exceed the $500 by a considerable amount.

As for a motherboard, i'd hit up newegg and do an advanced/power search for what you want. You said you want it future-proof as much as possible? Maybe look into Sata 6, USB 3.0. Think about HDMI, in terms of what you're using the system for. Think about what you'll be using the system for in general. Will one PCIE 2.0 slot do it (in other words, 1 video card only), did you want to SLI/Xfire maybe eventually? That sort of stuff.

By searching for the specs or even rough specs you're looking for (using the above paragraph as an example) and also basing it off newegg reviews and the actual prices, you should be able to narrow your board choice for what you want down to a handful, if not further. Then you can post back with what you have narrowed yourself down to and post that, to get people's opinions.

You can actually do your entire system like that, each component at a time, and post your system component list to make sure everything is compatible, everything will work great for what you will be using the system for, seeing if anyone has any suggestions or ideas, that sort of deal. You already basically did that, but it seems fairly general. Hell, if you gave a price-point for the system (rough to specific), gave us exactly what components you needed to buy, and what you want to do with it - ppl could actually make you the best system for your money minus things like a case or possibly other things that are more user-specific in terms of opinion, looks, etc.
 
What brand of powersupply and ram? Also, the i7 will be an 8xx one because of dual channel ram (8gb) where and the 9xx i7's use tripple channel (3gb, 6gb, 12gb etc)

GTS 250 is an okay card but DirectX11 is out. get a GTX 460 or 5770 or somethign with DX11.

Also what OS are you using? You need at least Vista for DX11, Windows 7 preferred because it's better than vista IMHO
 
Thanks guys. I didn't mean to sound confusing. I gave him $500 worth of work plus $100-$150 worth of products. So, instead of paying me, he is having a computer built for me. the setup ended up being a little more optioned out than I expected, which I am ok with. Just from my price points, I am coming out with a pretty good setup, so I didn't want to get overly picky about everything. My friend mentioned the difference between dual and triple RAM with the setup. I'm assuming it's dual channel since he mentioned 8GB RAM, which would mean i7 8**?
He also mentioned being able to have my TV setup with HDMI (using the BluRay player, etc), as well as my monitor, so I would guess there may be 2 HDMI outs? I don't do much work on my stuff, I have a friend who runs a computer repair business, but if I needed to upgrade something later, I could. I read that the GTS250 1GB is sufficient for gaming. I checked dell, cyberpower and HP and for the similar specs, it's $1200+ and that doesnt include the N router, HDMI cable, and sometimes doesnt include speakers either. One of the HP rigs I saw was almost identical and it was sold as a gaming setup. Will I not be able to play new games with high settings?
 
The 8xx and 9xx i7's actually use a different socket. The 8xx ones are on the same socket as the i3 and i5(LGA 1156), which use dual-channel RAM. These are more mainstream-oriented. The i7 9xx models are on the same socket as most of Intel's server/workstation models (LGA 1366), and are capable of triple channel. They CAN do dual-channel though, and all of them can do single-channel as well. So really, you could read it as "up to" dual/triple channel.

Yes, the GTS250 is capable of gaming, but so is a core 2 Duo. It will significantly bottleneck your i7, which is a monster compared to most CPU's. At minimum you should have gone with a Radeon HD5770, which is roughly 1 1/2 times as powerful and supports DirctX 11. Ideally, a 58xx card(ati) or GTX 4xx card(nvidia) would have been your best choice.
 
I kinda understand where you're coming from. It seems the ATI vs NVIDIA fight and debate will be endless and confusing. And then as soon as there seems to be a card that fits the budget/needs, the whole sli/crossfire option comes up and i am trying to figure out if two 5550's are better than a single card that cost as much as two of them...ugh. I'm sure some of you really "techie" types (saving the word 'nerdy' so no one takes offense :-)) are sitting there thinking "what a dumb question...everyone knows that yadayadayada GTX295 in SLI blah blah 5770". Sorry, but after a while, it almost starts to sound like that lol. I don't know what I should do. I hear a lot of newer games need dx11 support, which the gts250 doesnt offer, but I also hear that running two gts250's (which I dont know a thing about) will offer great performance. Nvidia's newer line, for example the gtx460 is supposed to be really great, and support newer games, but then what do I do with my gts250? I imagine I'll be shellin out the $$ for the 460, and not able to get much for my gts250?
I apologize for the "noob-ness" but I'm a person who tries to do their homework...sometimes to a fault. For newer games at high settings do I need a 256 over a 128bit setup? For $200-230 is there really a flat out better card than the 192-256bit GTX460? Thanks
 
And btw, I have seen some gameplay of crysis 2 and I would like to be setup to play that if I were to buy it. What would I need to play it above 30fps on a large monitor, or even my 50" tv if I wanted to? Thanks
 
btw, i would like to be setup to play crysis 2 at decent settings above 30fps. What kind of setup would I need for that? (I know the combinations are endless). Thanks
 
an OC'ed E3300 with a GTS250 can run crysis on a 24" monitor without a hitch@30fps, your system should have no trouble - the i7 is very powerful, as long as you get a decent GPU (5770/GTX460/better) you should be able to play it [crysis 2] in HD fine. I'm not sure about a 50" TV though; That might put a strain on the GPU if settings were high :P

Someone Confirm/Deny? :)
 
fastdude101 said:
an OC'ed E3300 with a GTS250 can run crysis on a 24" monitor without a hitch@30fps, your system should have no trouble - the i7 is very powerful, as long as you get a decent GPU (5770/GTX460/better) you should be able to play it [crysis 2] in HD fine. I'm not sure about a 50" TV though; That might put a strain on the GPU if settings were high :P

Someone Confirm/Deny? :)
Click to expand...

Depends on the resolution. I'm assuming 1080p...sounds right for both a 24" monitor and a 50" TV. The monitor might even be 1600 x 900.


Two 5550's would not perform better than a 5770, which could be had for the same price. 5550 = 320 stream processors each, while 5770 = 800, clocked higher, with more and faster onboard RAM. Couple that with the fact that crossfire does not give a 100% increase in performance, and the 5550's don't even come close.
 
I heard that crysis 2 is supposed to run better with less power/memory needs than crysis. I know that the gts250 is kinda like the great card of yesterday because I've read a lot about it's faults being simply it's older design. Yes, the tv is 1080p. I thought that maybe its size may be an issue with high resolution, but I've been planning on having it setup as an option. Is the 5770 a better deal than the gtx460? How significant is it that the 5770 is 128bit vs 256 for the 460? I'm a complete virgin to overclocking and don't know if I'll need to do it, but I've read a few places that the 5770 doesn't do this very well? Pricewise it seems like the direct competition with the 460 would be the 5830.
 
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