Considering a new build, please advise

C

Chowder Head

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 20, 2005
Messages
244
Hey guys, I've had the current rig I have in my sig for roughly 5 years now (socket 939 represent!) and it's been great until recently, as I've been dealing with the 0x00000009C BSOD error. Heard it's anywhere from bad hardware, voltage too low, cpu too hot, etc. When it happened earlier I used system restore for about a week ago and it was fine for about three weeks. Problem came up again last night and even with a system restore it doesn't do anything. Most of the time it won't even post. Tried cleaning out all the dust present, reseating some components, etc. Granted, there's probably some more I can do but I was also thinking about saying screw it and go for a new build as my rig looks pretty outdated.

As the rig indicates, I'm kinda out of the loop when it comes to cpu's and what not; last thing I remember was that Intel just started pulling away from AMD by introducing dual cores and what not. Is that still the case?

What I'm looking for from a comp is the following: can be able to handle some moderate gaming, internet activities, FTP, and be able to reproduce videos from movies, shows, etc, that look good without running into hiccups or slow downs. Budget around $1,000. While the budget is important to note, I'm really looking for the "bang for your buck" approach, as opposed to just spending $1,000 on a computer, when perhaps an $850 rig might accomplish the same thing.

Your guys thoughts? I know I have to do some indepth research for myself but it'd be good to get a baseline list of components I can build some research off of. Lastly, is there anything I can use from my previous build on the new build? I know I can most likely use my tower and hard drives, but what about my psu, ram, and video card? Or would a 7800GT hold me back, even if I got a second one from SLI?

Any replies would be seriously appreciated, thanks guys.
 
Please answer the questions listed in the sticky titled "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST!" so that we can help you better.

But to answer some questions: if the PSU is as old as the rest of your system, it won't be suitable for a modern PC. Intel is still ahead of AMD in sheer performance terms but AMD is holding its own in terms of best value for the money. Yes, a 7800GT is simply too old, even in SLI to play games at decent settings. If your tower still uses 80mm fans, you're looking at a new case as well. And if your hard drives are rather old (i.e more than 3 years) and not in a RAID 0 config, you're better off getting a newer and significantly faster drive.
 
Sorry about that, didn't look at the sticky to be honest. If I think a new build is in order, here's my answers.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Some gaming, web browsing, video playing (tv, videos, etc) other basic tasks

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

Budget max around $1000 but if I can get a similar one built a little cheaper I'd like to do think as I'm looking for bang for the buck.

3) Where do you live?

Tampa, FL

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.

Not too sure, I guess whatever I can't use from my old rig I would have to end up buying.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

Similar to the above answer.

6) Will you be overclocking?

I'd like to, but I don't see myself going too crazy with it.

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?

Soyo 24"

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?

Planning out parts this week maybe, purchasing it in two or three?

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.

I'd like to option for SLI but if that limits my choices from otherwise better boards then I might be fine without it. If USB 3.0 would be worth it then I'd like that.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?

Yes, XP. But I'm still wondering if I can still get a student copy of Windows 7. This might sound stupid but I'm not 100% sure what kind it is. I think it's 32 bit. I'll find out for sure later though.


Questions for you if you don't mind Danny. What would be the problem with using 80mm fans? Regarding the hard drives, well I have two for storage and the main one I have, the Raptor one, still seems pretty fast. Is it paramount I replace this as well? Unless prices for a faster primary drive are fairly cheap I was really hoping to reuse this. Another q I forgot to mention, my heatsink, can I reuse it?

Thanks again guys!
 
Well the 80mm fans can't provide decent amount of cooling for current PC parts without being extremely loud. A quiet 80mm fans isn't providing enough airflow to adequately cool PC parts either. Any way, you have the P180 case which uses 120mm fans so ignore my 80mm fan comment.

So far, you can reuse your case, HSF, HDDs (that Raptor should be fine for now even if it's slower than many consumer 7200RPM drives now), the DVD drive, and possibly the PSU if it's under 3-4 years old. So how old is that Seasonic? Besides that, you're looking at a new CPU+mobo+ RAM+ GPU at the very least.

Unforunately you kind of chose a bad time to ask for parts recommendations because a lot of our parts recommendations involves a combo deal from Newegg of some sort. I.e getting a certain mobo + CPU via that combo deal will get you a discount of $60 or so. Those combo deals expire at the end of the month they were introduced in. It usually takes a week into the new month for that month's combo deals to full flesh out.

So if you want the fastest parts possible for the lowest price possible, please come back in a week or so and bump this thread up. By then, there should be decent combo deals available which will save you cash and get you more performance for the money.
 
So any sweet combo deals going on right now? :D

To answer your question, I just found my receipt for the Seasonic and it was purchased in June of 2006. It's still been pretty much great for me but a part of me thinks I should upgrade, just in case it craps out on me after I hide all the wires and such from the new build. How much are the reliable PSU's these days? I spent like $130 on that PSU so I'm hoping a reliable unit these days is a little cheaper.

BTW, I'm also considering getting a faster hard drive to use as my primary. I'm going to keep using the storage ones I have for storage since I have about a billion gigs of media on them (I rounded up a tad) but if there's a fast drive out that that's relatively inexpensive, I would consider purchasing one.

Question about the mobo's these days, are there any features that are strongly recommended to have or does it simply depend on what you want to do with it?

Concerning my price, I'd like to lower the max down to $900 since I do have a case, storage drives, and a heatsink that I'm reusing. If I can get a pretty beefy rig for around $800 though and not have to max my limit then that'd be great too. Like I mentioned, I'm trying to maximize the bang for the buck approach.

So what kind of setup would you guys recommend? Thanks in advance for any replies, it really means a lot!
 
Motherboard features are mainly dependent on what the user is using it for and what the user wants. PSU wise, you should be fine with that Seasonic for now.

Prelim build:
$300 - AMD Phenom II X6 1055T CPU + Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AMD 890GX ATX Motherboard
$158 - G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-12800CL9S-4GBRL 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$55 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$250 - Gigabyte GV-R687D5-1GD-B Radeon HD 6870 1GB PCI-E Video Card
---
Total: $763 plus tax and shipping.
 
I'm liking that proposed build. Few q's though.

That hard drive you listed, did you put that down for my primary? I was actually thinking about a <100GB drive that's main focus is speed rather than storage. I've been looking at drives like the OCZ Vertex 2 and was wondering if there was a drive similar to this that wasn't that expensive.Like a lesser one for around $100 or so that is still pretty quick.

Regarding the video card, could you briefly mention why you think I should get this card? Only reason I ask is because I really couldn't find anything on the net about it; maybe I was searching for it wrong or something. From what I gather from the newegg reviews is although it's a tad pricey, you really get your moneys worth from it. Does that sound about right? And was there anything special you liked about that cpu? I did some research on that cpu and mobo and both look pretty good to me. Just curious if there's any other pros that would further convince me to go with that combo deal you listed.

Lastly, two non build questions. Do you think I should hold off ordering right now and wait until black friday comes to see if there's any crazy deals on cpu's or what not? Was newegg's deals last black friday any good? And finally, I keep hearing about this Sandy Bridge thing from Intel. Supposedly it's supposed to be out in Feb. and is supposed to be the next big thing or something like that. If, for some reason, I hold off doing this build and wait until the Sandy Bridge stuff comes out, how much do you think that proposed build will run? Or is it still too early to know what the prices will be?
 
Chowder Head said:
That hard drive you listed, did you put that down for my primary? I was actually thinking about a <100GB drive that's main focus is speed rather than storage. I've been looking at drives like the OCZ Vertex 2 and was wondering if there was a drive similar to this that wasn't that expensive.Like a lesser one for around $100 or so that is still pretty quick.
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Yup that was suppose to be your primary. The cheapest SSD I can recommend is this:
$135 - OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SSD

Chowder Head said:
Regarding the video card, could you briefly mention why you think I should get this card? Only reason I ask is because I really couldn't find anything on the net about it; maybe I was searching for it wrong or something. From what I gather from the newegg reviews is although it's a tad pricey, you really get your moneys worth from it. Does that sound about right?
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Well the HD 6870 in general is one of the better bang for the buck video cards out there. Not to mention that it draws less power and outputs less heat than its Nvidia counterpart, the GTX 470. That what makes the HD 6870 a better buy for me over the GTX 470. In addition, that Gigabyte card was the cheapest card I could find from a good manufacturer.

Chowder Head said:
And was there anything special you liked about that cpu? I did some research on that cpu and mobo and both look pretty good to me. Just curious if there's any other pros that would further convince me to go with that combo deal you listed.
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It's six-cores so it should help with any multi-tasking. That combo deal knocks the price of a high-end and highly reviewed AMD motherboard down to the pricing of a cheap AMD motherboard. More than likely you won't need all those features. But when those features comes at the same price as a cheaper AMD motherboard, I say why not?
Chowder Head said:
Lastly, two non build questions. Do you think I should hold off ordering right now and wait until black friday comes to see if there's any crazy deals on cpu's or what not? Was newegg's deals last black friday any good? And finally, I keep hearing about this Sandy Bridge thing from Intel. Supposedly it's supposed to be out in Feb. and is supposed to be the next big thing or something like that. If, for some reason, I hold off doing this build and wait until the Sandy Bridge stuff comes out, how much do you think that proposed build will run? Or is it still too early to know what the prices will be?
Click to expand...
Thos Sandy Bridge CPUs, judging from the current prices of Intel CPUs, probably won't be cheap. I'm thinking $200 minimum for one of those CPUs. That's just a guess though. It's really too early to know what the prices will be.
 
Thank you!

You know I'm still going back and froth whether or not I should get a new PSU. Part of the reason because it's getting somewhat old, part of the reason because it's a non-modular piece and as much as I tried during my last build, I really couldn't hide the psu wires very well in my P180. If I were to go with a PSU, which one would you recommend? Would that unit perform similarly to my Seasonic?

Lastly, would you know how the onboard audio is for that ASUS mobo? I pretty much listen to music all the freakin' time and was thinking about getting a separate sound card if the onboard audio was soso. Would you have any recommendations on that? I believe Fatal1ty was all the rage in the past but I'm not sure if that's still the case.

Thanks again for all your assistance man, I really do appreciate it.
 
Chowder Head said:
You know I'm still going back and froth whether or not I should get a new PSU. Part of the reason because it's getting somewhat old, part of the reason because it's a non-modular piece and as much as I tried during my last build, I really couldn't hide the psu wires very well in my P180. If I were to go with a PSU, which one would you recommend? Would that unit perform similarly to my Seasonic?
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I recommend this PSU:
$100 - XFX P1-650X-CAG9 650W Modular PSU

It's also Seasonic made but it's significantly better than your current Seasonic.

Chowder Head said:
Lastly, would you know how the onboard audio is for that ASUS mobo? I pretty much listen to music all the freakin' time and was thinking about getting a separate sound card if the onboard audio was soso. Would you have any recommendations on that? I believe Fatal1ty was all the rage in the past but I'm not sure if that's still the case.
Click to expand...

Try out the onboard audio FIRST and then buy a sound card if the onboard isn't good enough for you. Onbaord audio has improved a lot in the past few years so the need for a sound card is getting smaller and smaller. Creative sound cards haven't been well recommended in the past few years ever due to their lackluster driver support or capability and recent actions against the community. I would recommend this sound card:
$80 - Asus Xonar DX 7.1 Channels PCI-E x1 Sound Card
 
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