so, my laptop isn't exactly great for gaming, but i've been doing fine with it. until tf2 went down to 15 fps in firefights. soo, i'm thinking of getting a new rig.
with a help of a friend, i've come down to these parts, and i'd like some people who knows what they're talking about to give me some advice.

motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131595
processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103644
graphics card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150447
ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227419
power supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341003&Tpk=OZC%20gamexstream
case
TBD, trying to find something cheap yet does the job.


...
let the bashing begin *ahem*excalibur*ahem*

Ex will probably hate the motherboard... and why the hell do you need an 850W PSU?

well, i am trying to within a budget, and that motherboard is enough to work for the processor and such.
and the PSU, well, the 1000 watts ones costs like 200 bucks, so i supposed 850 for ~60 was decent

Ummm... Darksnow, I'm pretty sure he means that an 850 Watt PSU is too much... not too little...

You would need a 650watt at most, unless you're getting an uber hexacore, dual GFX card, 5 HDs build.

Yeah you made a bunch of stupid choices. Give me your budget, and tell me if you're looking for a whole new setup or if you're saving parts from your current one or whats up. I of course recommend all-new but we'll see.

Board
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131618
PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139004

*edit get same model PSU from amazon because of free shipping
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-CMPSU-550VX-550-Watt-Certified-compatible/dp/B000WU2FGK/
Its 70 if you count rebate ex though he has to order in like the next few hours

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 1 2010, 4:03 am by MasterJohnny.

No reason to pay 80$ fora 550w Johnny. Not even a Corsair. I got an EA650 for 70$ on sale a couple weeks ago.

Edit: EX HATE MAIL IN REBATE! EX SMASH!

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 1 2010, 4:19 am by Excalibur.

PSU:
Before you put off that 850W power supply:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/OCZ-Z-Series-850-W-Power-Supply-Review/946/10
If it's a good buy at $170, it's a fucking steal at $60. It's overkill. It's beastly. It doesn't overclock superbly (930W max). It's quality. Get that before it runs out. Also, it's not just 80% efficient: It's 87+% efficient at all levels.

CPU:
Processor is meh. If you plan on overclocking, get a:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808
Note that this one is much better than the one you shouldn't get:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103674
The reason is because of stepping.
If you don't plan on overclocking, then stick with the $117 OEM version, but know you'll have to get an OEM heat sink.

Otherwise, it's better to get an i5 750 with ddr3.

Motherboard:
I've become convinced that there is no reason to get an ATX motherboard unless you want a lot of expansion slots or a lot of peripherals. The north/southbridge are the same on an ATX as a µATX, which typically means overclocking is identical. The effect motherboards have on overclocking seems to be minimal as well. The only problem I have with that motherboard is the ddr2. Unless you have a good reason to get ddr2, you should be getting an am3.
This looks straight up awesome for the price: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130275
There's quite a few more, like any of these. I've been extremely happy with my gigabyte boards, and less than happy with my DFI board (lack of support--I can't run an am2+ or am3 processor on my am2 board even though Asus am2 boards can).

RAM:
Poor, poor choice. If you have to get ddr2, get ddr2-800 @ CL 4. Otherwise get any DDR3.

GFX:
meh. The 5770 is a 5770. I don't think there's enough differences in graphics cards to justify buying by brands. If you can, get a 5850. Lord knows you can power it (or a 480) with an 850W PSU.

HDD:
spinpoint f3 or caviar black.

Case:
Up to you really. I've given my rant on cases too many times. Suffice it to say, the end result doesn't matter. If you go cheap, you get a cheap case. If you go expensive, you'll never need/want a new case through all your builds.

oh, this will be completely new, i'm looking to stay somewhere around 600 ish
well, special on the PSU ended, so time to look for a new one....

oh, this will primarily be used for gaming, but i'd like it to be able to do everything else on a decent level

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 1 2010, 11:51 am by darksnow.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118030
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811133094
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136320
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131603
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814141116
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371030
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211364
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846

I didn't want to cut any corners on this one, and as such the price is $641.93 before taxes. All the shipping is free so as long as you're not in NJ, or some obscure state like Alaska or Hawaii, you'll be paying about $650, which is as close to $600 as I could hit with this one.

$70 is the going price for a TB, not 500 GB.
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=HD-HD103SJ&c=CJ
That's a terrible price for that drive. Wait a little while before you buy the drive unless you can't wait.

While powercolor isn't exactly superb quality, I've been impressed by their support. They helped out my dad in very little time after he had terrible problems with an nVidia card. Not to mention the personal touch from some of the poor reviews and the manufacturer response.

At $130, it's pretty much unbeatable, though it is only 512 MB. My 256 MB card was severely overflowed playing sc2, so games are starting to use a lot more VRAM.Still though, a pretty solid 4.5 egg average.

A word of caution if you want to save that $40 though:
http://www.yougamers.com/articles/13801_video_ram_-_how_much_do_you_really_need/
512 is sort of low, even 3 years ago. Expect vram requirements to get much larger quickly, and I presume that's why most cards are coming with a minimum of 1 GB nowadays.

Also, it's a combo deal which gets both that processor and this video card for a total of $43 cheaper, bringing the total back down to $600, but incurs a $7 ship fee. With that shipping fee, you might consider upgrading to a gigabyte motherboard:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128431
IMO Gigabyte is the best motherboard manufacturer, has USB 3, has more useful ports in the back, and will be $2.50 shipping on top of the $7 shipping.

This Samsung Spinpoint F3 is
is $54.
Without the hard drive, and with my recommended motherboard and vga, the price is $554.59 - $20 MIR. Ex's without hard drive is $571.94.

512mb is unacceptable.

I still like the WD CBs over the F3s, but to each their own.

You've got me on value rockz but that 512mb just does not fly.

my current video card is 512

will look through both rockz and ex's suggestions
your processor is a dual core?

what about this power supply with this processor?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341019&cm_re=stealthxstream-_-17-341-019-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103471&cm_re=amd_phenom_ii_940-_-19-103-471-_-Product

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 1 2010, 9:23 pm by darksnow.

That's the only caveat to the combo deal . 256 MB runs oblivion just fine, but 512 MB would run it better. SC2 is giving me problems on 256 MB (but I haven't tweaked it at all). It's $40 for 512 MB of RAM.

Also, the Caviar black's 2 year warranty is not worth $15 and 10% performance. Were they equal, I'd go for the caviar black. However, I've seen some sick deals on caviar blacks and spinpoint f3s in the past few weeks. $65 for either of them 1 TB.

Remember you're trying to keep the price down, so adding on $40 kind of defeats the purpose. The dual core both Ex and I posted is actually a quad core with two cores disabled. In the motherboard you can unlock those with varying success to get a triple or quad core. I presume the stealthxtreme is pretty similar to the 600W model, which is a good buy. The 500W model is terrible, but the 400W is excellent.

Go ahead and look up any power supply you might think about buying on:
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/
The newer reviews have IMO the best reviews out there for power supplies, since they test it out, figure out the wattage, inspect the parts, and find similar details (for example a corsair 450W is an antec 500W and a seasonic 500W, just renamed).

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 2 2010, 2:48 am by rockz.

well, i'm looking at the two HD's, and they both run at 7200 rpm, except ones a TB and ones 500 gb.

any other differences?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136320
500 GB, $70. 5 year warranty. Passmark score of 598
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181
500 GB, $55. 3 year warranty. Passmark score of 888
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185
1 TB, $80. 3 year warranty. Passmark score of 871. This was recently on sale for $65.

The spinpoints are faster. The caviar blacks are "better quality". That's not to say that the spinpoints are bad quality, just that it's similar quality to the caviar blues. The blacks have two motors, and some extra stuff thrown in to make it typically sturdier and last longer, as well as be faster. However, they are old tech, and the spinpoints are much newer. They beat the caviar blacks in everything except where the dual motors really helps (spinup and random access stuff). IMO Sequential read/write is the best thing for a hard drive, since it means less waiting around.

ahhhhh.
guess ill go with the spinpoint 1 tb then.

as for the power supply and processor i posted up, good/bad/terrible?

There's no reason to get a 940 over a 955 and the 940 you selected does not come with a cooler so you'd have to buy one. If you're buying ANY Phenom II, make sure its a C3 stepping.

The PSU is an old outdated platform and there are many better choices for the price. Max wattage isn't everything. Amperage, adherence to up to date specifications, efficiency, these are things that are just as important.

I can't actually find a *good* review on that psu. I even made a custom google search for it.

Antec NEO ECO -$64 (it's actually a seasonic, so I'm linking that review)
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/954
OCZ ModXStreamPRO
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/936

Major differences: the seasonic has quality--Japanese capacitors rather than taiwanese--a few things here and there, but the ocz has some advantages too. The seasonic also has a ripple of ~20mV, whereas the ocz has ~80mV (lower is better). The ocz can't go any higher than 600 W either, but the seasonic can get up to 580 W, and has one rail vs 2 (1 rail > 2 rails > 3 rails, etc...).

Based on this particular ocz, I think the 700W one you linked is very similar build quality. Now consider this: You won't be running your computer at 700 W. You won't even be running it at 400 W. It will be at ~350. The seasonic will perform better at 350 than the ocz. You won't have the same room for improvement, but you don't need it. If you want modular though, the one I linked here is still excellent for the price. The ripple is bad, but that's about it. It's still got 80% efficiency. It's really too bad you missed the 850W buy, because that one was a hell of a steal.