PC build thread

[dsheinem]

CPU-wise, I would go with something way more affordable like a FX-4350 if you're just looking for current-gen console equivalency. That will save you a lot of cash that can be spent on a better PSU, cooling, or even in the GPU area if you want more beef than a PS4.

EDIT: And yeah, there's no way you're gonna build a PS4/XB1-equivalent PC from scratch for $400. You'll be doing real good to keep it under $600 just for parts.

Ok, gonna try:

CPU - $85: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

MOBO - $55 (AR) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131942

GPU - $100: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150663

HDD - $50: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

RAM - $73 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820211861

PSU - $25 (AR) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817153165

Drive - $15 (promo) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827135305

Case - $30 (AR) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811147184

--------------
$433

This was just snooping around on newegg a little bit. If you can find a good CPU and Mobo combo, you can probably get it closer to $400...microcenter has some cheap combos like these and I've read some places arguing that the new console CPUs are more akin to something like an A6600. If you save $40 there with something like the bundle with the Gigabyte GA-F2A55M-HD2 (free after rebate) you could spend another $30 or so on a Raedon 7850 instead and have a better GPU. In any case, Under $500 is very doable and under $400 is plausible.

[TSTR]

Pretty impressive, Dave. I was trying to do that last night myself, but couldn't quite figure it out. Reckon I was tired. Although if I had only one small nitpick, it'd be that you'd need a Blu-Ray drive to match.

[dsheinem]

Pretty impressive, Dave. I was trying to do that last night myself, but couldn't quite figure it out. Reckon I was tired. Although if I had only one small nitpick, it'd be that you'd need a Blu-Ray drive to match.

Do PC games come on Blu-Ray yet? I suppose that would add another $35, but I am not sure you need it unless you watch Blu-Rays on your desktop or need to read a lot of Blu-Ray discs for some reason. You can still do it easily for under $500, though.

[TSTR]

Pretty impressive, Dave. I was trying to do that last night myself, but couldn't quite figure it out. Reckon I was tired. Although if I had only one small nitpick, it'd be that you'd need a Blu-Ray drive to match.

Do PC games come on Blu-Ray yet? I suppose that would add another $35, but I am not sure you need it unless you watch Blu-Rays on your desktop or need to read a lot of Blu-Ray discs for some reason. You can still do it easily for under $500, though.

Nah, you don't need it. I was just referring to the "equivalent to PS4/XB1" thing.

[MrPopo]

Pretty impressive, Dave. I was trying to do that last night myself, but couldn't quite figure it out. Reckon I was tired. Although if I had only one small nitpick, it'd be that you'd need a Blu-Ray drive to match.

Do PC games come on Blu-Ray yet? I suppose that would add another $35, but I am not sure you need it unless you watch Blu-Rays on your desktop or need to read a lot of Blu-Ray discs for some reason. You can still do it easily for under $500, though.

I've never seen a PC game on blu ray. With PCs they don't stream from disc anymore anyways, so they can do some crazy compression and fit something that would require a blu ray on the consoles onto a standard DVD, which fits well with the modern digital distribution model PCs are using (where the disc is a concession to those with data caps).

[marlowe221]

Ok, gonna try:

CPU - $85: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

MOBO - $55 (AR) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131942

GPU - $100: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150663

HDD - $50: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

RAM - $73 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820211861

PSU - $25 (AR) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817153165

Drive - $15 (promo) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827135305

Case - $30 (AR) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811147184

--------------
$433

This was just snooping around on newegg a little bit. If you can find a good CPU and Mobo combo, you can probably get it closer to $400...microcenter has some cheap combos like these and I've read some places arguing that the new console CPUs are more akin to something like an A6600. If you save $40 there with something like the bundle with the Gigabyte GA-F2A55M-HD2 (free after rebate) you could spend another $30 or so on a Raedon 7850 instead and have a better GPU. In any case, Under $500 is very doable and under $400 is plausible.

Sorry I haven't responded, I had to go out of town this weekend.

Thanks for doing that, I will be sure to check out all of those parts. I also looked at the Athlon x4 760K in the same price range but didn't know if it would have enough muscle to last a good 2-3 years as a console-replacement CPU.

[Frag Mortuus]

Totally just installed my X5650 Xeon CPU and it is awesome. $78 for a 6 core CPU. Now I'm going to begin the push to 4.0+ Ghz. Wish me luck

[Frag Mortuus]

I went ahead and started overclocking this CPU and got it up to 4.2Ghz (up from it's 2.66Ghz stock clock speed). This is super stable with really low temps.

My idle temps are in the mid 30's and after running Prime 95 for over an hour the temps were in the mid 60's. So that is pretty impressive.

While I will say that I don't see a HUGE improvement in gaming, I do see a huge improvement in other tasks. I unpacked a 40gb .rar file that took around 15 minutes. But at stock speed took over half an hour. Also, multitasking is great. I was able to run a game and Prime 95 at the same time with no performance hit.

[MrPopo]

While I will say that I don't see a HUGE improvement in gaming, I do see a huge improvement in other tasks. I unpacked a 40gb .rar file that took around 15 minutes. But at stock speed took over half an hour. Also, multitasking is great. I was able to run a game and Prime 95 at the same time with no performance hit.

That doesn't surprise me. Modern games are written to offload most of the work onto the GPU; the main thing that's left for the CPU is the AI routines, and those tend to not be terribly complicated. I imagine a game like Dwarf Fortress would scale better with a better CPU (so you could have a bigger world before things start to chug).

The unpacking, on the other hand, is a mixture of CPU and disk I/O bound, so it's not surprising that you got a big boost. I assume you're also working off of an SSD? Similarly, the most naïve implementation of the multitasking would essentially give half the time to each process, so now that you've nearly doubled the instruction throughput of your CPU so it's like you were running each one singly before (obviously this is an oversimplification, but just as obviously neither needs every single CPU cycle to operate at optimum performance).

[fastbilly1]

I unpacked a 40gb .rar file that took around 15 minutes. But at stock speed took over half an hour. Also, multitasking is great. I was able to run a game and Prime 95 at the same time with no performance hit.

Ugh, that makes me want to upgrade. My q6600 is still running well, but a 40gb rar takes over an hours to completely unpack. But if I can hold off for three years I will have been gaming on the same PC of a decade.