Making a computer

[Tomis]

I am making an intel computer for gaming and for crunching. Well so far I have a 1tb hard drive, apevia x-cruiser 2 for the case, and corsair h50 as the cooler. I am planning to get an i7-2600 or a i7-2600k if I can find a good deal for this. Also the gpu so far might be one that is less than 100-150$ or using one from a friend. I need help with choosing a gpu , motherboard, and with any improvement that will keep it under my 700-800$ budget. Thanks for the help. This is my first time building a computer so any help will be appreciated.

[Fire$torm]

Great, more than willing to lend a hand.

Questions:
*How much of your $700~$800 budget have you already spent?

*Which GPU projects are you interested in crunching? This will determine the GPU brand to get.

BTW: I like that case.

[Tomis]

Great, more than willing to lend a hand.

Questions:
*How much of your $700~$800 budget have you already spent?

*Which GPU projects are you interested in crunching? This will determine the GPU brand to get.

BTW: I like that case.

I am thinking of either Seti@home or prime grid. 210$ is what I have used up so far but that is only the cooler, case, and hard drive. Can't use the deal at micro center because the store near me is sold out. Yeah it is a nice case

[Fire$torm]

Ok this is ended up being a fairly large list..... sorry

First, for my searches, the i7-2600K was priced within 5 dollars of the i7-2600 so why bother with the Locked non K CPU?
Second, For each item listed the price link represents the lowest price I could find. I would advise that you double check available prices before ordering.

CPU:
Intel Sandy Bridge i7-2600K - $297.99 w/Free Shipping (This leaves $312.00 for everything else)

Motherboard:
[w/ 2x PCI-E x16 slots]
GIGABYTE GA-P67A-D3-B3 - $109.99 w/Free Shipping

MSI P67A-G45 (B3) - $119.99 w/ Free Shipping (Before $20.00 MIR)

BIOSTAR TH67A+ - $99.99 + $4.99 Shipping (Before $10.00 MIR)

BIOSTAR TZ68A+ - $99.99 w/Free Shipping

[w/ 3x PCI-E x16 slots]
GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 - $124.99 w/Free Shipping

ASRock P67 EXTREME4 B3 - $154.99 W/Free Shipping


PSU: (Note - I am an unabashed Antec fanboy here)

(For use with a single GPU setup)

Antec HCG-520 (520W) - $58.99 w/ Free Shipping

Cooler Master RS550-PCARE3-US (550W) - $45.49 + $9.00 Shipping

Corsair Builder Series CX600 (600W) - $66.15 w/ Free Shipping

(Needed if you wish to add 2nd GPU in the future)

Antec EarthWatts EA750 (750W) - $89.99 + $2.99 Shipping

Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-750 (750W) - $94.99 w/ Free Shipping (Before $30.00 MIR)

OCZ Fatal1ty Series OCZ750FTY (750W) - $89.99 + $6.19 Shipping (Before $20.00 MIR)

Thermaltake Toughpower XT TPX-775M (775W) - $99.99 + $7.10 Shipping (Before $30.00 MIR)


Memory: (Note - I am an unabashed Corsair fanboy here) (CAS Latency - Smaller # = Better Performance "usually")

(CAS 9)
CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 - $36.99 w/ Free Shipping

CORSAIR Vengeance 4GB (2 x 2GB) Model CMZ4GX3M2A1600C9 - $39.99 w/ Free Shipping

Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 4GB (2 x 2GB) Model 996659B - $36.99 w/ Free Shipping

(CAS 8)
CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) Model CMX4GX3M2A1600C8 - $47.99 w/ Free Shipping

CORSAIR Vengeance 4GB (2 x 2GB) Model CMZ4GX3M2A1600C8 - $49.99 w/ Free Shipping

(CAS 7)
Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 4GB (2 x 2GB) Model 996782 - $39.99 w/ Free Shipping


GPU: (nVidia needed for SETI@Home & PrimeGrid)

MSI N430GT-MD1GD3-OC/TF GeForce GT 430 - $75.24 w/ Free Shipping

ASUS ENGT440/DI/1GD5 GeForce GT 440 (Fermi) - $99.99 w/ Free Shipping (Before $20.00 MIR)

EVGA GeForce GTS450 FPB - $119.99 w/ Free Shipping

Obviously if you select the most expensive item in each category you'll end up way over budget but I wanted to make sure I offered you a decent selection.

[YoDude9999]

I would pose the question also, do you ever plan to expand on this box, as in maybe adding 2 GPUs to it some day?
If not, then an inexpensive MB can be found dirt cheap with 1 PCIEx16 slot that will accommodate most any current GPU.
EVGA has GTX460 GPUs for right around $200. These work very well with PrimeGrid, Collatz and GPUGrid. Most other projects are AMD orientated.
Personally, from what I've read lately on some of the forums and here even also, SETI@home is not worth your effort. The credits are very low and I've read that they are actually not even doing anything with the data they've collected from all the crunchers efforts. You would be much better off with PG or basically, ANY other project.

Dnet and Moo are offering the highest credit, I believe at the moment, but for those projects you would want an AMD card to run those with. Likewise if you wish to run MilkyWay, which is also very good credit, so long as their server are online.

No matter what type of MB you get, you'll want to have AT LEAST 4gig of ram, and preferably as much as you can afford to dump into the system that the MB will support.

Look for a power supply that has a lifetime warranty on it, as you should with any MB or GPU you buy. That is, if you plan to buy "new".

Good deals can very often be had on ebay as far as computer hardware is involved. Look for listing that state, comes with MFG warranty and then do the research on the MFG to see what the warranty really is BEFORE you place a bid if you go that route. Additionally, PayPal is your best friend when buying items from ebay. It's saved my butt twice so far.

Hope this helps, good luck!

[Tomis]

I would pose the question also, do you ever plan to expand on this box, as in maybe adding 2 GPUs to it some day?
If not, then an inexpensive MB can be found dirt cheap with 1 PCIEx16 slot that will accommodate most any current GPU.
EVGA has GTX460 GPUs for right around $200. These work very well with PrimeGrid, Collatz and GPUGrid. Most other projects are AMD orientated.
Personally, from what I've read lately on some of the forums and here even also, SETI@home is not worth your effort. The credits are very low and I've read that they are actually not even doing anything with the data they've collected from all the crunchers efforts. You would be much better off with PG or basically, ANY other project.

Dnet and Moo are offering the highest credit, I believe at the moment, but for those projects you would want an AMD card to run those with. Likewise if you wish to run MilkyWay, which is also very good credit, so long as their server are online.

No matter what type of MB you get, you'll want to have AT LEAST 4gig of ram, and preferably as much as you can afford to dump into the system that the MB will support.

Look for a power supply that has a lifetime warranty on it, as you should with any MB or GPU you buy. That is, if you plan to buy "new".

Good deals can very often be had on ebay as far as computer hardware is involved. Look for listing that state, comes with MFG warranty and then do the research on the MFG to see what the warranty really is BEFORE you place a bid if you go that route. Additionally, PayPal is your best friend when buying items from ebay. It's saved my butt twice so far.

Hope this helps, good luck!

I am still deciding if I should expand it or not. I will see what I can do with the information you two provided.

[Slicker]

A gaming computer really needs a decent GPU. If you play games that are a couple years old, the $100-$150 GPU will work OK. If you want the latest and greatest with good frame rates, then you'll need to spend more on the GPU and cut costs elsewhere. If, by "gaming" you mean solitaire and minefield, then that's another story.

Many apps use around 300MB per app. Some more, some less. and I7 with 4 cores hyperthreaded = 8 apps at once times 300MB each = 2.4GB just for BOINC. Add another 1.5GB for Windows, 1-2 GB for disk cache, and you are up to 6GB already. My personal rule of thumb is 1GB per core and 2GB if enabling hyperthreading (e.g. 2GB per core or 1GB per thread). You can get by with less, but you won't be able to run all BOINC projects. Some projects use over 2GB ram per instance of the application. If you can only afford 4GB now, then I would disable hyperthreading in the BIOS.

As far as the "I'll get some now and upgrade the RAM later" theory goes.... I can't count the number of machines where I've done that and later then when I want it, I dont' want to spend the money because of a) the sytem being a couple years old and b) the cost of the memory having gone up due to the older memory being in less demand and also a smaller supply of it available.

FYI, if you have a USB thumb drive, Windows 7 (and maybe Vista?) allows you you can use that for the pagefile instead of the hard drive which should improve performance unless you have one of the early USB 1.0 versions which I think were slower than floppy drives.

[Tomis]

A gaming computer really needs a decent GPU. If you play games that are a couple years old, the $100-$150 GPU will work OK. If you want the latest and greatest with good frame rates, then you'll need to spend more on the GPU and cut costs elsewhere. If, by "gaming" you mean solitaire and minefield, then that's another story.

Many apps use around 300MB per app. Some more, some less. and I7 with 4 cores hyperthreaded = 8 apps at once times 300MB each = 2.4GB just for BOINC. Add another 1.5GB for Windows, 1-2 GB for disk cache, and you are up to 6GB already. My personal rule of thumb is 1GB per core and 2GB if enabling hyperthreading (e.g. 2GB per core or 1GB per thread). You can get by with less, but you won't be able to run all BOINC projects. Some projects use over 2GB ram per instance of the application. If you can only afford 4GB now, then I would disable hyperthreading in the BIOS.

As far as the "I'll get some now and upgrade the RAM later" theory goes.... I can't count the number of machines where I've done that and later then when I want it, I dont' want to spend the money because of a) the sytem being a couple years old and b) the cost of the memory having gone up due to the older memory being in less demand and also a smaller supply of it available.

FYI, if you have a USB thumb drive, Windows 7 (and maybe Vista?) allows you you can use that for the pagefile instead of the hard drive which should improve performance unless you have one of the early USB 1.0 versions which I think were slower than floppy drives.

I am getting a 8gb anyway I think that is enough for what I need. I am not considering the ram as part of my budget since ram deals are pretty common so I will probably be able to snatch a 8gb for a good price. Also the games I am playing is not solitaire but I sometimes do play those. I am planning on playing games that requires a bit more than that. Also I am slowly buying the parts I need when their are discount. I usually check on slickdeals for those so most of the cost will be cut without downgrading the quality.

[YoDude9999]

I am still deciding if I should expand it or not. I will see what I can do with the information you two provided.

Compare cost for one PCIE slot vs. two. You may find a good deal somewhere with that. Also check that both slots offer x16 speed.

I'm not a big CPU cruncher so that's why I didn't offer much in that area. I prefer GPU crunching and my CPU cores I shift around to different projects depending on where the Team needs them. I run Nvidia and AMD boards with different boxes, so I'm pretty diversified with that aspect.

With the things changing with PG, the best paying sub project (PPS Sieve) will give about 150k/day credit with a single GTX460. CPU credits are all over the place but nothing close to GPU projects, at least not yet. Dave Anderson (A$$-Hole!) may try to make all projects basically the same, so there's no telling exactly what the future brings to us. I fear we can expect severe credit reductions in the future if that guy doesn't quit screwing with things.

All in all however, we do appreciate your efforts and there's a lot of people here that will help you. Just keep up the good work and happy crunching!

[Tomis]

Compare cost for one PCIE slot vs. two. You may find a good deal somewhere with that. Also check that both slots offer x16 speed.

I'm not a big CPU cruncher so that's why I didn't offer much in that area. I prefer GPU crunching and my CPU cores I shift around to different projects depending on where the Team needs them. I run Nvidia and AMD boards with different boxes, so I'm pretty diversified with that aspect.

With the things changing with PG, the best paying sub project (PPS Sieve) will give about 150k/day credit with a single GTX460. CPU credits are all over the place but nothing close to GPU projects, at least not yet. Dave Anderson (A$$-Hole!) may try to make all projects basically the same, so there's no telling exactly what the future brings to us. I fear we can expect severe credit reductions in the future if that guy doesn't quit screwing with things.

All in all however, we do appreciate your efforts and there's a lot of people here that will help you. Just keep up the good work and happy crunching!

My friend gave me this ati 4550 so it will be that not a gtx 460 or anything. Also does the latency on a ram really matter or is an 8gb ram with a latency of 9 pretty much the same as an 8gb ram with a latency of 8?