I am looking to build a pc that will enable me to first and foremost watch HD/BD movies on my sony bravia xbr tv as well as play games. One of the things that I am most adamant about is choppiness/framerate. I don't want to be watching a movie and having it skip and what not. My budget is $1000, give or take $100 and I have a good understanding of the components I need, I just have a question about their order of importance. I know that the mobo, cpu and vc are my 3 most important parts I'm just not sure how important each one will be to my setup. What I mean is, should I spend more for a high-end graphics card and only get a decent mobo and cpu? Should I try and keep all things even? As an example, I do not plan to go this extreme but would it be better to get a Radeon HD 5870 or an Intel i7 920?
i'd suggest the 920 and a mid-range graphics card also make sure to shell out the extra 50 bucks for a good cpu cooler- the 920 overclocks like crazy
Ok and what about the mobo vs the graphics card? My basic question is which of the three should I spend the most on and which of the three can I get away with getting a mid-range part? Would the difference in performance be that noticeable for this graphics card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102848 vs this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125272 I'm just trying to make sure I get the most bang for my buck. Thanks for the help.
You can get good HD video with the radeon hd4670 (cost 80.00) and it's a decent game player. The more powerful videocard you get the louder and more power hungry it gets. My radeon 4670 was loud from the getgo but I removed the fan and just cool it using an 80mm case fan. Spend the money on a good motherboard (by good I mean with plenty of expansion slots in case you want to add tuner cards or souncards later on) and get a cool running low wattage dualcore cpu. You don't need a I7 to play games or watch videos. It's overkill for that task. An I7 or any quad core is mainly for video encoding, that's where they earn there keep. I have a phenom 9750 quad and I wouldn't use it on a game or HTPC computer. On my mediapc, I consider the motherboard the primary component. I got one with 5 pci slots. Next was my power supply since my computer runs 24/7(I lost several, so I consider this a priority and got a "works" 400 watt supply has a huge 120mm cooling fan on it). For cpu I got a intel 2140 dual it runs cool and is perfect for a mediapc. I can play games on my mediapc but rarely do.
A corsair 400W will be a great power supply as well. I haven't heard anything about "works" though however, corsair is by far one of the most reliable.
I also have an old Dell Dimension from like 10 years ago. It looks like a regular size ATX case and I was wondering if it would be big enough?
How will I know if it can cool well? I can't ever remember it running hot in the past. It's a Dimension 4550.
An old Dell Dimension is miles apart from a high end custom PC. I generally recommend people with old Dell PCs making major upgrades get new cases - stock Dell cases typically only have one small fan which isn't enough for high end hardware.
What type of case should I look at? I always found this the most confusing with options like ATX-full tower, ATX-desktop, ATX-mid-tower,etc...
ATX mid towers are usually the standard. Something like an NZXT Beta, Antec Three Hundred or Coolermaster Centurion RC532 will suffice, but fill the extra fan slots with case fans - cheaper cases tend not to have many fans pre-installed.
