To Build or To Buy or To Buy & Upgrade?

[Frag Mortuus]

Well if you dont want to skimp on PSU I have a OCZ ZX Series 850W for sale/trade. But that is a $250 PSU so a bit out of your pricepoint for your build.

As for the rest of the topic, everyone has hit your points fairly througholy. But after a couple AMD builds blow out on me back in the Athlon XP days I went nothing but Intel and havent looked back. You will find alot of builders are very bias towards companies that havent had a component die on them yet.

I agree. I'm an Intel guy as well. But that is only because I feel they make parts that last longer as far as relevance and capabilities are concerned. I mentioned in the PC Build Thread that I bought my current CPU (i7-920) in 2009 and it still keeps up with the 4770k and 4820K. Sure, the newer ones are faster than mine, but it's not like they are blowing mine out of the water. However, see how a 5 year old AMD stacks up to the newer releases. They don't and they won't run newer games at an acceptable level.

[Hazerd]

Well if you dont want to skimp on PSU I have a OCZ ZX Series 850W for sale/trade. But that is a $250 PSU so a bit out of your pricepoint for your build.

As for the rest of the topic, everyone has hit your points fairly througholy. But after a couple AMD builds blow out on me back in the Athlon XP days I went nothing but Intel and havent looked back. You will find alot of builders are very bias towards companies that havent had a component die on them yet.

I agree. I'm an Intel guy as well. But that is only because I feel they make parts that last longer as far as relevance and capabilities are concerned. I mentioned in the PC Build Thread that I bought my current CPU (i7-920) in 2009 and it still keeps up with the 4770k and 4820K. Sure, the newer ones are faster than mine, but it's not like they are blowing mine out of the water. However, see how a 5 year old AMD stacks up to the newer releases. They don't and they won't run newer games at an acceptable level.

Pffff, Sandy Bridge i5's are putting your 1st gen i7 a run!

i5 2400 vs i7 920
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/363?vs=47

i7 920 vs i7 4770k
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/836?vs=47

dont hate me! <3

[marlowe221]

Thanks for all the replies, links, and advice! I am definitely feeling more confident about the prospect of building my own system than I was before.

A couple of other things I'm wondering about...

What makes one motherboard more expensive than the next? I see that some of them have a lot more outputs than others - is that the main difference? I want to get a good one, but of course I don't want to pay for features I won't use either. For example, I won't be using more than one monitor; I don't have room for more than one (damn CRT, hogging all the space...).

I will need this thing to have wireless capability (hardwiring is just not going to happen the way my house is set up). Should I get a card of some kind or will a USB dongle do the job just fine?

Any other tips? Pitfalls that will might be an unpleasant surprise for a building-rookie like me?

Thanks again

[Cronozilla]

Motherboards will cost less or more, usually, because of the chipset. Also manufacturers like to include various features, and they'll charge for that as well.

But if you want a chipset that costs more to produce, the resulting motherboard will cost more too.

If you want wireless in the machine, definitely get a card. And maybe even an antenna extension. The wireless cards for PCI-E 1x slots are what you're looking for, usually. As long as there's enough room on the board and in the case (dual slot GPUs might make it questionable) it'll fit.

[Frag Mortuus]

Well if you dont want to skimp on PSU I have a OCZ ZX Series 850W for sale/trade. But that is a $250 PSU so a bit out of your pricepoint for your build.

As for the rest of the topic, everyone has hit your points fairly througholy. But after a couple AMD builds blow out on me back in the Athlon XP days I went nothing but Intel and havent looked back. You will find alot of builders are very bias towards companies that havent had a component die on them yet.

I agree. I'm an Intel guy as well. But that is only because I feel they make parts that last longer as far as relevance and capabilities are concerned. I mentioned in the PC Build Thread that I bought my current CPU (i7-920) in 2009 and it still keeps up with the 4770k and 4820K. Sure, the newer ones are faster than mine, but it's not like they are blowing mine out of the water. However, see how a 5 year old AMD stacks up to the newer releases. They don't and they won't run newer games at an acceptable level.

Pffff, Sandy Bridge i5's are putting your 1st gen i7 a run!

i5 2400 vs i7 920
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/363?vs=47

i7 920 vs i7 4770k
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/836?vs=47

dont hate me! <3

No, I agree. Benchmarks show how much Intel has improved their chips over the past 5 years. What I mean by not seeing a need to upgrade is that I have yet to come across any speed issues, or any game that I can't run maxed out. Again, this being on a 5 year old CPU and 4 year old graphics cards. However, Watch Dogs makes my PC struggle, but that is because it is poorly optimized. Had Ubisoft coded it better, it really wouldn't be much of a problem.

[marlowe221]

Does anyone have any thoughts on the i3-4150 (and up)? Not enough horsepower?

[Hazerd]

Does anyone have any thoughts on the i3-4150 (and up)? Not enough horsepower?

i3's have been proven to be just as good on games as a i5 or i7, unless the game utilizes more than 2 cores.

[isiolia]

i3s are solid CPUs, but the main thing is they're dual core (with Hyperthreading, meaning they can stack instructions to act like four cores). Jumping to an i5 is a decent price hike, but does get you a quad core for desktop CPUs, except the odd low power model (the 4570T in the current lineup).

Personally, I'm inclined to stretch a budget to fit an i5, for future-proofing and general computing.

If you have a Microcenter near you, they usually have very good in-store-only prices on select CPUs. Possibly enough to put an i5 into your price range (or save you ~$30 over Newegg on that i3).

[marlowe221]

i3s are solid CPUs, but the main thing is they're dual core (with Hyperthreading, meaning they can stack instructions to act like four cores). Jumping to an i5 is a decent price hike, but does get you a quad core for desktop CPUs, except the odd low power model (the 4570T in the current lineup).

Personally, I'm inclined to stretch a budget to fit an i5, for future-proofing and general computing.

If you have a Microcenter near you, they usually have very good in-store-only prices on select CPUs. Possibly enough to put an i5 into your price range (or save you ~$30 over Newegg on that i3).

Sadly, there is NOTHING near me.
I live in BFE.

That said, I am looking hard at an i5 of some kind. I am really attracted by the FX-6300 but it's not quite as clear what to do when it's time to upgrade in X number of years. Intel seems to make upgrading a bit easier.

Another question - form factor. Any reason to NOT go with a micro-ATX set up? I'm only going to use 1 GPU and no overclocking (that's above my pay-grade at this point). I do need to cram in a wireless card and optical drive but that's pretty much it.

[isiolia]

That said, I am looking hard at an i5 of some kind. I am really attracted by the FX-6300 but it's not quite as clear what to do when it's time to upgrade in X number of years. Intel seems to make upgrading a bit easier.

If you plan to keep the setup for a while, I wouldn't worry about the upgrade path. If you're buying a new CPU every time a new series comes out, or are swapping things out all the time to overclock or something, that's one thing.
For most people, buying every few years or more, chances are a new CPU will also mean a new motherboard, and probably new RAM too.

Another question - form factor. Any reason to NOT go with a micro-ATX set up? I'm only going to use 1 GPU and no overclocking (that's above my pay-grade at this point). I do need to cram in a wireless card and optical drive but that's pretty much it.

No major reason not to. You may be able to find a board that has an optional wireless module available instead of using a card slot.