Gaming pc builds and buys

[polkfarmboy]

My heads just about to explode when I get into reading all this stuff. I am looking into my options of pc gaming in 3d and dont have a clue where to start

I think that I have to have nvidia cards in a pc to do this? I am a laptop guy so I am looking into pc gaming and building my own seems like it has potential to back fire on me

I have saw many places that seem to offer good prices but do not know if its good value. Here is a place on ebay. I kinda want something that will be good for gaming at a high frame rate in 1080 and in 3d but must have something that allows me to expand and upgrade for next years gaming

I have read that the nvidia gtx 660 is a good card to have as its cheap and by the time it is no good something else will be on the market for a more reasonable price with the performance the ulra high end cards are costing now
http://stores.ebay.com/Adamant-Custo...&_sid=26422362

[KellyMic]

nvidia does much better with 3D in my experience. The GTX660Ti is a great card, I run one myself. A great base would be a Gigabyte motherboard with an Intel i7 (930 quad coreis a very good price point) with PCIe 3.0 at x16. The Ivy Bridge systems are very fast (22nm). I would also highly recommend a SSD drive as it great increases booting and running games, which is very drive intensive. Minimum 6Gb DDR5 RAM but I now only build with 12gb as RAM is cheap. Get atlease a 600watt power supply, I run 800watt to 1200watt but have multiple cards in most of my PCs.

Also be aware that you must get a monitor that supports 3D natively. Newegg is a great place to review and buy parts.

[ZLTFUL]

nvidia does much better with 3D in my experience. The GTX660Ti is a great card, I run one myself. A great base would be a Gigabyte motherboard with an Intel i7 (930 quad coreis a very good price point) with PCIe 3.0 at x16. The Ivy Bridge systems are very fast (22nm). I would also highly recommend a SSD drive as it great increases booting and running games, which is very drive intensive. Minimum 6Gb DDR5 RAM but I now only build with 12gb as RAM is cheap. Get atlease a 600watt power supply, I run 800watt to 1200watt but have multiple cards in most of my PCs.

Also be aware that you must get a monitor that supports 3D natively. Newegg is a great place to review and buy parts.

Except that 930 is now 2 generations old. 3770K would be the most recent "king" in the consumer market. Enthusiast market takes you into a realm of price that isn't cost effective for someone just starting out.
2500Ks have come down and will run circles around the 930 with no problem. Not to mention, if you ever get the bug to overclock, you will easily get 4.5ghz on air with some even hitting 5.2 on air before the voltage bumps get to be too dangerous without water or phase change.
SSDs are fantastic but there are some brands to avoid. Intel, Samsung and Crucial have skyrocketed to the top of the heap and for good reason with Crucial M4s taking the price/performance crown. OCZ has fallen a LONG way.

I think you mean DDR3, Kelly. GPUs are using DDR5 now but system RAM is still DDR3 as the standard. The original i7s were the triple channel memory controllers. They have reverted back to dual channel with the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors as triple channel didn't gain any performance advantage and in synchronous computing functions actually hurt performance. 2x4GB kits are sub $40 shipped these days and you will rarely if ever use more than 50% of that unless you are running heavy multi-threaded apps such as VMs.

The GTX6XX cards are fantastic performers. The 660Ti is fantastic for single monitor gaming in both 2D and 3D. If you decide to go to dual, then a 670 or 680 will be a better choice and with 3 display gaming, you will *need* a pair of 680s or a 690 to maintain decent FPS.
Bear in mind that with the release of Titan, Nvidia wasn't looking to drive its own pricing down but to hammer a nail in the coffin of the top end GPU market for now. Titan is a whole other animal in the GPU world but is just advances on existing technology and not a new technology itself. So it won't change pricing on Nvidia's side of the fence.

Feel free to PM me and I can get you my number. I have a business building ultra high end gaming PCs but would rather walk you through building your own entry/mid level rig and help you put it together than having you turn to Dell or HP or anyone of those other mainstream manufacturers for lesser performance.

[polkfarmboy]

I hardly understood a word or what any of that meant lol. My needs are just 1080p on my lil benq pj and in 3d that only puts out 1080p at 24fps but by the sounds of it your like an audiophile only with computers, a computer gamingphile? lol

What kind of price am I looking at for a modest gaming rig build around a gtx 660 or is there another card that is better value to higher performance ratio ?

[Syndil]

Running an i5 3570K w/ a GTX660 myself. Works great for games and stays very cool and quiet.

Regarding SSDs... SSDs are a compromise. You get speed for whatever you put on the SSD, but that comes at a steep price, and you can't have everything on your computer running at SSD speed unless you want to throw a ton of money into multiple SSDs, due to their relatively small capacity. And if your needs change, you may need to change what apps your run off the SSD, which can be a huge hassle to change.

Hybrid drives have addressed this issue by providing the capacity of a platter based drive combined with an onboard SSD cache to serve up frequently used files, and the smart caching system can change the contents of the SSD cache to fit your needs as they change. Of course the SSD is part of the hybrid drive and only caches the contents of that one single drive, and hybrid drives are also not cheap.

If you take this trend to its inevitable conclusion, what you end up with is using a standalone SSD drive as a cache for your entire system--which is something you can actually do now. I am using the Sandisk Readycache SSD, which is only 32GB, but for a cache, that's pretty damned big. There are also alternative offerings from Intel, Crucial, and most other SSD makers. Just FYI.

[KellyMic]

I did mean DDR3, not DDR5, just a type had GPU on my mind. Yes, the i7 930 is older but is a good entry level chip if you are on a budget (and can find them). The i7 3770 Ivy is a good chip for around $275-$300.

I run only i7 as my systems do a lot of 3D rendering and the performance is better. I have never ran an i5 myself.

SSD's prices are really coming down, 256GB for $200-$300 is way below what it use to be. I have Intel, OC-Z, And Crucial SSD drives and have been happy with them.

To simplify all this techno jargon: A good Ivy bridge motherboard and i7 CPU, 8GB+ memory, GTX 660Ti, SSD drive, 600+ watt power supply would be a very good gaming system.

[Syndil]

An i5 3570K will outperform an i7 970 on most applications, costs less, and uses 77W TDP vs. 130W TDP for the i7. Unless you run CPU-heavy applications that take advantage of multi-threading, the extra processors of the i7 will go underutilized, while costing more and using more power while creating more heat, requiring more cooling.

For apps that cannot multi-thread (games), compare a single i5 3570K core to a single i7 970 core and it will absolutely thrash it. Plus you get the added benefit of a built-in GPU, which can be used in Virtu MVP. Much more beneficial to gaming than having extra cores. Plus less power, heat, cost, etc.

[polkfarmboy]

Ok so I was looking at all these parts here mentioned and it still kind of baffled. I have read some place that not all parts are compatible with each other. Could any of you guys give me a list of gear to buy with links and allI would have to do is order it from links posted?

I like amazon as they have the best return policy but its just a preference

[Drenis]

Folks... PFB doesn't need a i5, i7 or anything expensive here. He can rock a mini HTPC for his needs for well under 5 bills all new. Maybe even under 4 bills if buying all parts in the states.

Seriously a new i5 is way overkill...

PFB, why didn't you bring this up a month ago? I would have built you one and brought it down to Minneapolis when I was there last month.

[cowtrimmer]

Life in home electronics is always overkill. http://assassinhtpc.com/gaming.php

[polkfarmboy]

Folks... PFB doesn't need a i5, i7 or anything expensive here. He can rock a mini HTPC for his needs for well under 5 bills all new. Maybe even under 4 bills if buying all parts in the states.

Seriously a new i5 is way overkill...

PFB, why didn't you bring this up a month ago? I would have built you one and brought it down to Minneapolis when I was there last month.

Well ever since I saw the ps4 announcement I though why wait around for that crap. I saw some video's on you tube comparing battlefield 3 to the xbox version and thought I gota build a gaming rig. Now I am looking at all these cool games and thinking I need to and must build a gaming pc

[Syndil]

Folks... PFB doesn't need a i5, i7 or anything expensive here. He can rock a mini HTPC for his needs for well under 5 bills all new.

He's wanting a gaming rig, not an HTPC. I would stick with an i5 for that. Not going to be able to build a decent gaming rig for under 5 bills--the GPU would eat up half of that budget alone.

[polkfarmboy]

He's wanting a gaming rig, not an HTPC. I would stick with an i5 for that. Not going to be able to build a decent gaming rig for under 5 bills--the GPU would eat up half of that budget alone.

I figure the graphics card and cpu should be a budget of around $450 to $500 so anything after that is what I am in the dark about

[Drenis]

He's wanting a gaming rig, not an HTPC. I would stick with an i5 for that. Not going to be able to build a decent gaming rig for under 5 bills--the GPU would eat up half of that budget alone.

I guess I really misread the OP last night. My bad, carry on...

[ZLTFUL]

PFB...your inbox is full. lol

[polkfarmboy]

Empty now

[Syndil]

Reported.

[OOsemka]

What's you budget for the entire computer? without Monitor, mouse and keyboard.
I have been building PCs for over 15 years .. I can create a list of parts that you want to get if you give me your budget.
It's important to have all the parts of equal performance and not create a bottlenecks in any direction.

[chiptouz]

nvidia does much better with 3D in my experience. The GTX660Ti is a great card, I run one myself. A great base would be a Gigabyte motherboard with an Intel i7 (930 quad coreis a very good price point) with PCIe 3.0 at x16. The Ivy Bridge systems are very fast (22nm). I would also highly recommend a SSD drive as it great increases booting and running games, which is very drive intensive. Minimum 6Gb DDR5 RAM but I now only build with 12gb as RAM is cheap. Get atlease a 600watt power supply, I run 800watt to 1200watt but have multiple cards in most of my PCs.

Also be aware that you must get a monitor that supports 3D natively. Newegg is a great place to review and buy parts.

+1. I would spend the extra cash and get am EVGA 4gb 670 sc. Not that PC gaming hardware is ever future proof a 4 gb card will help the investment go longer.

[chiptouz]

Running an i5 3570K w/ a GTX660 myself. Works great for games and stays very cool and quiet.

Regarding SSDs... SSDs are a compromise. You get speed for whatever you put on the SSD, but that comes at a steep price, and you can't have everything on your computer running at SSD speed unless you want to throw a ton of money into multiple SSDs, due to their relatively small capacity. And if your needs change, you may need to change what apps your run off the SSD, which can be a huge hassle to change.

Hybrid drives have addressed this issue by providing the capacity of a platter based drive combined with an onboard SSD cache to serve up frequently used files, and the smart caching system can change the contents of the SSD cache to fit your needs as they change. Of course the SSD is part of the hybrid drive and only caches the contents of that one single drive, and hybrid drives are also not cheap.

If you take this trend to its inevitable conclusion, what you end up with is using a standalone SSD drive as a cache for your entire system--which is something you can actually do now. I am using the Sandisk Readycache SSD, which is only 32GB, but for a cache, that's pretty damned big. There are also alternative offerings from Intel, Crucial, and most other SSD makers. Just FYI.

I still run raid0, but make sure that I backup my drives frequently incase if a drive failure. For me unless you need immediate pc ontime SSD is still a high end option. Using raid0 I am still usually one of the first into online FPS games upon load. Raid is great but there are drawbacks and you need to know what you are doing.

[chiptouz]

Here are a couple of links to Toms Hardware for best video cards and cpu's for gaming for the best buck.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...lock,3106.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...view,3107.html

If you look at both of these you can then see where your best use of $500 would be.

Probably I5-3350p $200 and an ATI card for around $300. I am an NVidia guys so that would put you in a 660 series card. You might be able to find a used 580 for that price on EVGA's forums. That is still a great card and would handle 1080p in its sleep.

[Syndil]

I still run raid0, but make sure that I backup my drives frequently incase if a drive failure. For me unless you need immediate pc ontime SSD is still a high end option. Using raid0 I am still usually one of the first into online FPS games upon load. Raid is great but there are drawbacks and you need to know what you are doing.

I have 2 drives in RAID0 for my system drive, 2 notebook drives (for noise/heat) in RAID1 for %system%/users, and of course the SSD cache. The SSD cache IMO is the way to go, and is very inexpensive to add to a machine. I got my ReadyCache on sale for $50 from Newegg. And I'm also usually the first to load in online games. Not that I was slow with just the RAID0, but as I play a game more and more often, the caching software starts to cache some of its files so they load even faster.

I really think SSD caching is the way of the future, at least until large capacity SSD drives come down in price to platter levels. Takes out the expense, gives all the speed, and no having to manually juggle stuff around trying to get your most-used stuff on the SSD--the caching software does it for you.

Oh and of course I make regular backups--have been for years. Have a ReadyNAS for that. Anyone with any sense makes backups.