Good Setup?

[Treewyrm]

No need to be professionally involved in sound/music to notice a difference between onboard sound and even a mid-range dedicated sound card. Granted you do need to have decent headphones and/or speaker system, not to mention high bit-rate source material, most preferably in lossless quality. For sound cards it's either Creative or (surprisingly) ASUS these days. For a long time Creative had issues releasing poorly done driver software, but they seem finally picked up with recent models. Either way, if you'll consider adding sound card - be sure to check if it has all the outputs you need, particularly if you're going with anything more than 2.1 speaker setup.

[Balaerus]

No need to be professionally involved in sound/music to notice a difference between onboard sound and even a mid-range dedicated sound card. Granted you do need to have decent headphones and/or speaker system, not to mention high bit-rate source material, most preferably in lossless quality. For sound cards it's either Creative or (surprisingly) ASUS these days. For a long time Creative had issues releasing poorly done driver software, but they seem finally picked up with recent models. Either way, if you'll consider adding sound card - be sure to check if it has all the outputs you need, particularly if you're going with anything more than 2.1 speaker setup.

I guess he was concerned of having no sound without a soundcard onboard. I suggest you buy one later so we have more money available for more important components in your system.

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[bombstrap]

Hi everyone, thanks for the reply's, especially govedo13. in regards to your outstandingly helpful post, I have a few feedback points and questions. Firstly.... I am going to get 32 gigs of DDR3 and I will invest in the 780. Purely because I have scraped up an extra 250 dollars from selling a bass guitar I had salvaged from my bass-ment , and you can never have enough ram! So! For the 780, do I need to get a new mobo? Correct me if I'm wrong but the mobo that I have now only has two slots for ram? I would enquire myself but I have just gone on holiday to a hotel who shake you down for the Internet prices at 50 bucks an hour, and frankly I'm not paying their outrageous fee. So I'm writing this in a cafe with free Internet . Anywho, do I need a better mobo? Let me know. Also, for the psu I will get a much better 650 bronze certified modular. Have any options? Will my tower be fine? I don't know much about what tower to get as this is my first build. Now an SSD could eat into my budget but I might be able to manage it. Is a combination of a mechanical hardrive and an SSD good? I've had it referanced it to me by a friend but I'm not sure how it works..... If its possible could you elaborate on this? (Sorry for asking so much but I'm away for about a week and as you know, I could get mugged by my hotel)
As for he games I play ATM: star conflict, civ 5, all of the total war series (shogun 2 is my fav) and am looking forward to the release of Rome 2. Arma 2 and 3, also dayZ. I am also starting to play stardrive and halo 4 (bit late ;p) I know it's not relevant but also a lot of KSP.
Is there anything I've missed or need to change?if so, Pm me or leave a reply on his thread. Every reply helps!

[bombstrap]

*NEW BUILD* UPDATE
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K Quad-Core Processor Socket LGA1150, 3.4Ghz, 6MB L3 Cache, 22nm (Retail Boxed) Gen4 (BX80646I54670K)

Motherboard: Asrock Z87 Extreme4 Socket 1150 Intel Z87 Chipset

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

RAM: 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 (I will see whats on sale - other than DDR3 are there any other specifications?)

HDD: Seagate Barracuda SATA3 6.0Gb/s 1TB 64MB Cache

Power Supply: Thermaltake TR2 700W Cable Management Optimized Power Supply (TR-700)

Case: Cooler Master HAF 912

Case Fan: Cooler Master 200mm Red LED Silent MegaFlow Case Fan

DVD Drive: ASUS Internal 24x DVD Writer (Can be any DVD drive for under $20)

GPU: NVIDIA GTX 760 or AMD Radeon HD 7950 - which should i go for? (if so for the GTX 770 or 760 - be mindful of the budget, which is better value for money.)

Thats it! gonna buy in about a week or so, please leave comments and suggestions.

[Ajmar]

CPU, Motherboard and RAM looks good, the PSU is good enough for your build, and the 80+ Bronze is good aswell.

I would look into getting an SSD if you somehow can afford it, otherwise stick with the HDD.

As for graphics, this is probably what will be the limiting factor when it comes to getting FPS. So, if you can get a GTX770 instead of a GTX760 that would be great. I would stick with Nvidia, as they are known to have better drivers. And I like them, personally.

Also, performance wise, there isn't much difference between the Intel 3570k and the 4670k, so if you can get a Z77 mobo and a 3570k much cheaper than your current setup, I'd go with that. Otherwise, leave it.

[Treewyrm]

Seems somewhat unbalanced.

First of all: 32 GB of RAM is really a waste. Unless you're going to spawn a dozen virtual machines all running simultaneously, work with insane resolution images in photoshop, processing lengthy full HD videos and such. Games rarely able to utilize anything close to 8 GB of RAM. Instead look for smaller but faster memory modules that support overclocking around 2133, your motherboard supports that. So you get yourself expected DDR4 stock speeds already. Just be certain modules are compatible with your board, check vendor website, they usually publish lists of tested modules.

Traditional hard drives can't saturate even SATA2 capacity (3 GB/s) so don't expect any difference in speed just because its controller has been updated to support SATA3. To push speed to SATA3 limits you need SSD, something like Samsung 840 series or Intel 520, though you can always go for Crucial M4 - they're cheaper. Traditional HDD will be a performance bottleneck in your system, SSD alleviates that dramatically.

As suggested above getting GTX770 is more preferable. Excellent for price/performance ratio. If you're planning to use Windows 8 I would suggest getting nvidia card from EVGA brand - they provide firmware update for their cards to enable UEFI GOP which is necessary for so-called 'ultra fast boot' option in W8 (it is extremely fast, really).

[bombstrap]

Well i kinda realized that i had made a few mistakes (this is my first build), so Balaerus and i had a chat and came up with a new build.
Here it is.

BUILD UPDATE

CPU: AMD FX-8350 Black Edition - $200
Mobo: Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 - $180
Fractal Design Define R4 Pearl Black - $110
Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9 2x 4GB - $85
Cooler: Zalman CNPS12X - $100
PSU: XFX PRO650W - $90
HDD: Western Digital Black WD1002FAEX, 1Tb - $90
GPU: XFX 7970 black edition - $400
TOTAL: $1255

Now this looks like an awesome build, because it caters to my needs; small amounts of design work and some minor film making, however the primary focus is games. All done with a small budget and a lot of help from Balaerus. I will invest in a SSD later, along with a 2Tb hard drive. Oh, and im gonna go with Windows 7.

I think this is the build im gonna go with. If anyone wants to challenge the build, go ahead, im all ears. All input is greatly appreciated.

[Ajmar]

Well i kinda realized that i had made a few mistakes (this is my first build), so Balaerus and i had a chat and came up with a new build.
Here it is.

BUILD UPDATE

CPU: AMD FX-8350 Black Edition - $200
Mobo: Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 - $180
Fractal Design Define R4 Pearl Black - $110
Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9 2x 4GB - $85
Cooler: Zalman CNPS12X - $100
PSU: XFX PRO650W - $90
HDD: Western Digital Black WD1002FAEX, 1Tb - $90
GPU: XFX 7970 black edition - $400
TOTAL: $1255

Now this looks like an awesome build, because it caters to my needs; small amounts of design work and some minor film making, however the primary focus is games. All done with a small budget and a lot of help from Balaerus. I will invest in a SSD later, along with a 2Tb hard drive. Oh, and im gonna go with Windows 7.

I think this is the build im gonna go with. If anyone wants to challenge the build, go ahead, im all ears. All input is greatly appreciated.

Go back to the Intel 3570K/4670K. AMD CPU's are 'way' behind the intel ones.

[Balaerus]

Well i kinda realized that i had made a few mistakes (this is my first build), so Balaerus and i had a chat and came up with a new build.
Here it is.

BUILD UPDATE

CPU: AMD FX-8350 Black Edition - $200
Mobo: Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 - $180
Fractal Design Define R4 Pearl Black - $110
Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1866C9 2x 4GB - $85
Cooler: Zalman CNPS12X - $100
PSU: XFX PRO650W - $90
HDD: Western Digital Black WD1002FAEX, 1Tb - $90
GPU: XFX 7970 black edition - $400
TOTAL: $1255

Now this looks like an awesome build, because it caters to my needs; small amounts of design work and some minor film making, however the primary focus is games. All done with a small budget and a lot of help from Balaerus. I will invest in a SSD later, along with a 2Tb hard drive. Oh, and im gonna go with Windows 7.

I think this is the build im gonna go with. If anyone wants to challenge the build, go ahead, im all ears. All input is greatly appreciated.

Go back to the Intel 3570K/4670K. AMD CPU's are 'way' behind the intel ones.

They are behind, but if his main focus is gaming you won't benefit of the 4670k with a GTX760 at most. AMD gets the job done just fine if you're gaming.

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[Govedo13]

If you gonna update later this setup is not future proof- for games the main bottleneck is the GPU. So get a bit worse GPU now and update it later while having proper CPU and Mobo, just because one good CPU/Mobo is more future proof and can be used with 2 GPUs, it means that mobo/cpu is not so fast outperformed by next series like the GPUs. Buy Intel 3570k+Asrock Z77 Extreme4
and AMD 7870 XT (read 7950 but cheaper). 7870XT would run every game on max in the next year. Then you change it with the middle class of next gen best buy, you can even go with smaller HDD and buy 120 GB SSD with this combo. AMD won the console war so their next gen GPUs would be really good I bet. This is what I would do.

If you go with your build:
8GB ram is too little, 16 GB is normal 32 GB is a bit too much but good for future.
Sabretooth Mobo is a bit overpriced for single card usage, all 990FX mobos are good- just take something cheaper.
100$ for Zalmman Cooler is insane, buy Thermalright True spirit 140 instead, cheaper and better then the 2009 Zalmann model.

If you want to go AMD add 8 more GB ram on the cooler price difference.
If you go with cheaper board you can also fund half of the 120 GB SSD.

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Official faction players that are often accused of elitism, never deploy them and have those weird, immersion killing "fair fight/dueling" suicidal hobbies. (yes, i've seen enough of those lolduels, where house military with overwhelming force on the field willingly loses a pilot in a duel. ffs.)