For $350 I picked up this rig from a builder who was strapped for cash. CPU - I3 530 MOBO - Gigabyte P55-USB3 MEMORY - 2 x 2g DDR3 OZC Fatility VIDEO CARD - Palit GTS 250 Therm 500w psu & case. HDD - WD 640 gig with Vista installed. First, let me ask, that was worth $350, right? After I got it I wiped the WD 640 and now it's just storage. I added HDD - Kingston 128 gig SSD (bought new for this rig) SOUND CARD - Asus Xonar D2X (pulled from old rig) SOUND - Logitech Z5500 surround & Sennheiser HD 595 headphones (pulled from old rig) OS - Win 7 Pro (legit copy - bought new for this rig) DISPLAY - Samsung P2570 & Benq E2400 HD My main purpose for this rig is to get back in to pc gaming. The last game I played on a pc was Max Payne when it was first released. That's how long ago it was. Graphis are important to me. I haven't been following hardware, so I'm not even sure what to look for when choosing a video card. My first game on this new rig is Battlefield Bad Company 2. I can play it on my Samsung P2570 via HDMI @ 1080p smoothly on Medium video settings. If I bump the settings up to High is gets a bit choppy. I alreay realized that HDMI (atleast on the Sam) sucks when compared to DVI. I'm assuming the GTS 250 is my bottleneck and I would like is advice on a new video card. I do want to run the best possible video settings. Cash isn't a problem, but I don't want a massive overkill, either. I'd also like to bump up to a better monitor for gaming. Maybe up to the 27" range. So please, throw your comments and recommendations at me. I do appreciate it.
1.) Your mainboard supports i5 and i7 processors. You did not mention video editing in your list of "to do" things, so the i7 would probably be a waist...but for $200 you can get a quad-core i5. 2.) A GTS 250 isn't a terrible card, but a 470 has almost three times more power. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125320 3.) HDMI and DVI should look identical; if they do not, there may be something off in the settings. 4.) If you get a new screen, make sure it has a 120hz or better refresh rate. If you buy online, I would recommend trying to find the screen at a local store so that you can see how it looks before you buy. (I highly recommend amazon for screens; DO NOT use newegg for screens, EVER!) 5.) I'm not a big fan of thermo power supplies...I would at least consider going to a nice corsair; but then I live in the lightning capital of the US...I need good power.
Ha, I learned my lesson with Newegg and monitors. No, not doing much in the way of vid editing. If I were to upgrade to a 470 would my I3 then become a problem? With the 470 link you provided, was that a specific card you were recommending or were you just refering to that in general? That Gigabyte looks to get pretty good reviews. Looking at the specs for that 470, I didn't see anything in the way for minimum power requirements. Of course I don't want to just upgrade my ps to just the minimum needed, but I wouldn't want an overkill either. What would you suggest in the way of a comfortable power rating for a power supply? Another question, can you recommend any software to monitor my pc proformance in real time? I'm running a dual monitor setup, so I thought it would be nice to game and watch the readings at the same time.
I like Gigabyte stuff a lot...but there are lots of 470's available that are similar. If I was going to drop $350 on a video card, it would be that one from the link...unless they had a really good deal on a 480. For power, I would recommend a 750w corsair...this will be slight overkill, but will give you room to add a few parts later, and it should be big enough to move to your next system in a few years. Also, I don't know the exact wattage spec of the card, but I do know it uses well over 200W just by itself. I am not sure if your i3 is holding your video back, or vice-versa...but I know that a 250 would hold back a i5, and a i3 will hold back a 470. As for monitoring software, I have yet to find one that does not hurt performance. If you don't mind a small performance hit, there are a ton of them. I'm not sure what good such a monitoring program would do anyway...the system should be maxed out, and the most important reading would be the FPS. The only thing I would monitor would be temperatures...and only until I know that it won't overheat.
I had forgotten that my G13 has the option to monitor the cpu and ram. So I enabled it and while running BF: BC2 on mid settings I was averaging ~35% for the cpu and ~44% for the ram. I picked up Crysis Warhead and those numbers really jumped. Just on the second lowest settings, the numbers were ~42% cpu and ~68% ram. So yes, there seems to be no doubt that the I3 would hold me back. I've also opted to up my memory from 4 gigs to 8 gigs. This is what I have in my cart. These seem like a good choice? video - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125320 power supply - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139006 memory - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227541 cpu - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115219
Video - Good Power - good Memory - if you want to go to 8gb, you only need 4gb more; the kit you listed would put you at 12GB. If you want to upgrade to 8GB without waisting the 4gb you already have, I need to know the specific model number of the sticks you have. CPU - Get this one instead; it is a quad core: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115215
Oh dang, how did I miss that with the cpu. I was looking at the quad core but somehow added the dual to my cart. This is the memory I have; exact model. I can't seem to locate it on Newegg. http://www.amazon.com/OCZ-OCZ3F1333...4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1275449480&sr=1-4 I was just going to sell off the gts250, memory, and i3. I figured it'd sell quicker with the memory. But if I were to just pick up another 2 x 2 gig to add to my current 2 x 2 gig, what should I look for? My current memory has 9-9-9 @1.7v on the label. I would want to keep that the same if adding new memory with the old, right? Also figured I'd mention that the Win7 I'm running is 32 bit. I had a hard time deciding between the 32 and 64. I just keep reading about people having problems/bugs with 64. Would it be worth it throwing a 64 bit version in my cart also? Like I said, this pc's major function is gaming. Other than that it's just surfing and streaming movies to my Popcorn Hour.
I love win7 x64...they should not have made a x86 version of it; there is no reason and it causes a lot of confusion. About the only thing I would use the x86 version for is a netbook with no x64 support. You are going to have over 9GB of ram (including vram)...you NEED x64. In fact, if you already have over 4GB ram (including vram), then Win x86 is already holding you back. I'm not sure I would put in in my cart; if you are running win7 ultimate, you already own a license for the x64 version. Otherwise, I would not consider it piracy to replace x86 with x64; even if you have to use a crack to do it...you would not need to if it were not for the fact that Microsoft is scamming people by selling the x86 version. I would go with this ram...the specs are very close, and the voltage spec is only 0.05v different (it won't hurt anything to run this memory at 1.7): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145260 If you do sell off the ram you have, I would just get two pair of the corsair stuff; it will cost less than a single 8GB kit, and will give you better performance too (nearly double the memory speed under certain conditions)...those 8GB kits are designed for people that need 12GB or more...and I have yet to see any game that needs even 6GB, let alone 12.
Everything's ordered and on it's way. I did go with 2 pair of the Corsair. I just want to say I really do appreciate your help Killer. I didn't have the Ultimate, just 7 Professional 32 bit. When I ordered the os, I searched for info for a couple hours and it appeared that the only difference between Pro and Ult was, I believe, some language packs and some other minor odds-n-ends that I didn't think (at the time) would be important for my needs. And then I spent a bunch more time trying to decide between 32 and 64. I knew 64 would be better, but I just kept reading comments about problem after problem so I sided with the 32 bit. So 64 bit it is this time. Again, thank you.
This is what I ended up with in the end. I5 750 Gigabyte P55-USB3 8 gig Corsair XMS3 XFX 587x HD Kingston 128 gig SSD W.D. 640 gig Asus Xonar D2X Corsair TX 750 p.s. Win 7 Pro 64bit 3 Samsung P2450's I ended up ordering the 5870 HD and Samsung monitors before the GTX 470 even arrived. I think it was a day after the GTX shipped that I came across Eyefinity. Seeing how this is mainly a gaming pc, it was hard to pass up.
