Building a custom PC

[SteveRiley]

I went AMD / ATI on my build over Christmas. Asus MB. Almost double the $ for a nominal gain in performance is not worth it IMHO in choosing Intel.

Just about any high end hardware is now getting to the stage of being able to outpace the interaction of the player with pixels in the game. Then it comes down to whether the game itself is particularly designed to excel with a certain type of hardware.

My decision (which is still, at this point, amenable to change) to go with Intel over AMD was informed largely by the March 2012 gaming CPU article on Tom's Hardware. Most games apparently don't take advantage of more than two (possibly three) cores, so AMD's focus on moremoremore cores and Intel's HyperThreading (like on the Core i3) actually put them at a disadvantage. That article, and its comments, are remarkably consistent with other items I read last night. Intel's Core i5-2500K, with TurboBoost but without HyperThreading, appears to be the price/performance sweet spot for gaming rigs.

[GreyGeek]

..... go with Intel over AMD ....

This Acer 7739, which I bought last January, has an Intel HD3000 graphic chip. Quite frankly, even though I paid only $350 for it, I bought it because it had a 17" monitor, an i3 core, 4GB of RAM (which I have upgraded to 8GB for $29), and 600GB of HD. I wasn't aware of or concerned about the video chip even though I read it was an HD3000. My Sony VAIO had an HD4500 and it barely ran Enemy Territory and Stellarium maxed out at, IIRC, 17-25fps. Even Glxgears gave the HD4500 poor marks.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the HD3000 has wings! Stellarium gives over 50 FPS, sometimes peaking near the Vsync. Minecraft's 3D image is responsive to my hand tremors. I did some research and found out why: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-...n.43710.0.html

Benchmarks


The Intel HD Graphics 3000 in the Asus N53SV (Optimus) is responsible for the results of the following benchmarks tests. As its clock rate ranges from 650 MHz to 1300 MHz the results should show the upper performance limit of this graphics solution.


First we run the Cinebench R10 Shading Test (64bit). Here our test system with HD Graphics 3000 achieves 5960 points. This is only marginally less than with active Nvidia Geforce GT 540M graphics card (6132 points). The top value of the GMA HD in our database stems from the Sony Vaio B11 with Intel i5-520M CPU: 2169 points. Its predecessor, the GMA 4500M HD achieved a maximum of 1122 points (Fujitsu Lifebook A1130,
...
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3083[/ATTACH]
...

Not bad for a "mid-range" graphic card. They explain the technology on that page but a lot of it is due to the 32nm scale and the integration with the L3 cache of the CPU.

I've taken up games again!

[SteveRiley]

My decision (which is still, at this point, amenable to change) to go with Intel over AMD

So after several more hours of research, I'm close to amending my decision. Intel+nVidia seem too, well, safe. If my son and I are undertaking this exercise partly as a learning opportunity, I'm this close to going all-AMD. Granted, their Bulldozer CPUs pretty much suck. I figure if I get an AM3+ motherboard, a 79xx graphics card, and then one of the few remaining Phenom II X4 960T chips, we can build a pretty smoking system now and the swap out the CPU later this year when the Piledrivers hit the shelves.

Any opinions on PCIe 3.0 vs 2.0/2.1 for graphics? The few reports I've read so far seem to agree that there's little measurable difference in performance.

[SteveRiley]

OK, so after spending waaaaaaaaay too much time thinking about this (but it was fun), I went back to Intel. Too many interesting things to do with Z68 mobos. Here's the rig I spec'ed:

• Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000 BX80623I52500K
• ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
• ASUS ENGTX560 TI DCII TOP/2DI/1GD5 GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
• G.SKILL Sniper Low Voltage Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR2
• G.SKILL Phoenix Pro Series FM-25S2S-60GBP2 2.5" 60GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive
• Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
• LG Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 12X DVD-RAM 10X BD-ROM 4MB Cache SATA 12X Super Multi Blue with 3D Playback & M-DISC Support WH12LS39
• LG IPS231B-BN Black 23" 5ms Height,Swivel & Title Adjustable Full HD IPS Panel LED BackLight LCD Monitor w/Speakers 250 cd/m2 DFC 5,000,000:1
• Rosewill RANGER-M Dual Fans MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case
• Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W ATX12V v2.01 SLI Ready Power Supply
• Logitech G110 Black USB Wired LED Backlighting Gaming Keyboard
• Logitech G300 Black/Gray 9 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB Wired Optical 2500 dpi Gaming Mouse
• Logitech G330 3.5mm/ USB Connector Circumaural Gaming Headset $43.99
• Logitech C525 USB 2.0 HD WebCam
• Logitech F510 Rumble Gamepad with broad game support and dual vibration motors

I suspect everything will arrive on Wednesday, a day which I happen to be traveling down to California. So he'll have to watch the shipment arrive and just sit there, oh the torture!

[rms]

[*]Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive[*]LG IPS231B-BN Black 23" 5ms Height,Swivel & Title Adjustable Full HD IPS Panel LED BackLight LCD Monitor w/Speakers 250 cd/m2 DFC 5,000,000:1

* Seagate recalls bad mamories.
* 250 cd/m2 may not be enough in sunlit conditions.

Otherwise, +1.

[SteveRiley]

* Seagate recalls bad mamories.

When I first started this project, I figured hard drive selection would be the easiest: grab a pair of the biggest Western Digital Velociraptors I can find and be done with it. But oh no, hard drive prices are still outrageous, especially WD. And it appears that hard drive quality has universally declined, if one can judge by the negative comments on NewEgg. As a class, these products -- regardless of manufacturer -- draw an in ordinately high amount of criticism. I chose that particular Seagate because its one of the newer one-terabyte-per-platter drives. Higher bit density per unit area supposedly means quicker reads and writes. And I'm pairing that up with the 60 GB SSD using the Smart Response Technology feature in the Z68 chipset.

* 250 cd/m2 may not be enough in sunlit conditions.

Not much sunlight makes it into my son's room, so I don't expect this to be a problem.

[whatthefunk]

And I'm pairing that up with the 60 GB SSD using the Smart Response Technology feature in the Z68 chipset.

Wonder if that will work with Linux...

[SteveRiley]

Well, it's all software, so all it would take is for someone to write a driver. A little bit of Googling revealed:

http://tobestool.net/using-intels-rst-with-linux/
http://bcache.evilpiepirate.org/

[Snowhog]

If your recipe for a Linux 'screamer' results in outstanding success, I fully expect you to publish said recipe for the rest of us.

[whatthefunk]

Well, it's all software, so all it would take is for someone to write a driver. A little bit of Googling revealed:

http://tobestool.net/using-intels-rst-with-linux/
http://bcache.evilpiepirate.org/

Let us know if you have success with this. As I mentioned, Ive got a z68 board as well and am planning on getting an SSD and doing a fresh install of 12.04 on it.

[SteveRiley]

If your recipe for a Linux 'screamer' results in outstanding success, I fully expect you to publish said recipe for the rest of us.

I expect it might take some time for me to appease you, my good friend ...I'm sure once we're finished building the system, my son won't let me do any actual experimentation until, oh, at least a month after he's shredded his way through every game he owns!

[SteveRiley]

Alrighty...so we spent a delightful evening assembling the machine the other day. We first did a "test" build: install the CPU, RAM, and graphics card on the motherboard, then connect a monitor, and boot: if POST beep plus "no OS" error, all's good with the hardware. Instead, the small "CPU trouble" LED came on. Uh oh...dead gear? Then I realized we forgot to plug in the accessory power connector for the CPU! Duh. After that, it worked.

Then we placed everything into the case. He did most of the work -- smaller hands make for an easier fit into a mini-tower case for a microATX board. The only thing I wish were different was the connectors on the case fans. Old style Molex means direct-to-PSU; can't control them from the motherboard fan headers. I've looked and can't seem to find a cable that converts to four-pin plugs, which the Asus mobo needs (three-pin plugs are everywhere, though).

Then we installed the software. Yes, Windows 7 for now. Followed by approximately a zillion drivers (and reboots, blah). We noticed that Intel's Smart Response Technology really does work: after the third time, Windows booted twice as fast as the first: the SSD cache is starting to fill up. Very nice. He spent most of today installing games; Skyrim looks positively stunning, and all the graphics options are set to 11. Moving water looks real!

[whatthefunk]

Glad you got it to work! I did the same thing with the CPU power connector on my build....scary moment!

[ardvark71]

Alrighty...so we spent a delightful evening assembling the machine the other day.

Hi Steve...

Cool! If I may ask, what were the components you and your son finally settled on?

EDIT: Never mind, I was directed to post #19.

Also, concerning the molex adapters, do you mean these guys?

Regards...

[ScottyK]

Probably preaching to the choir here, but I assume in the gear that you ordered, you selected a quality power supply? I've seen numerous friends computers die early due to cheap PSU's. Woodsmoke could probably give more insight into quality PSU's than I could.