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Belial's Awesome Starcraft 2 Budget PC Building Guide (for under $400!)
The key to building a PC is buying smart, and here I will teach you how to evaluate every component so you can do that. Too often I see advice saying "SPEND MONEY" but not understanding why; just as a caveman thinks, 'it works'. This guide is focused on Starcraft 2 performance, but will work well for any game out today. You don't need to be a PC guru to build a PC, the hard part is that the information does not exist all in one place and that hardware is constantly outdated.
However, don't turn away rich kids - I will tell you how to build a great system for cheap, not because we are skimping, but because we know what we need. By knowing that your system doesn't need as much power, or that SLI is stupid, or that despite having 2400mhz RAM, or that SC2 only needs a dualcore, we can save a lot of money.
There are 7 parts to this guide, for each component. I will tell you what you need for an amazing Starcraft2 Computer, what you get by spending less or more, and what you need to look for when you buy each component, in terms of quality, performance, and reliability. This system should be able to play all games out today pretty comfortably, but is intended for the budget builder to play SC2. I also assume basic accessories like monitor, keyboard, and mouse are already had, as this guide is aimed towards those who are unable to play SC2 at the moment, looking to upgrade, or do not have a PC but want to play SC2 - not to mention there are much better and in-depth guides on such parts elsewhere. Also, the technical information in this guide can be applied to a PC build of any kind, and knowing what you need versus what may be a good value or be just getting the best when you don't know what you need, can save you a lot of money. Note this guide is written with many components bought in America, so the specific recommended parts and brands may not be compatible for those outside the US, but the information contained herein will be useful to anyone so they know how to buy what they need.
The CPU + Show Spoiler +Starcraft 2 is a CPU intensive video game, compared to the majority of games which are GPU intensive (think Halo, Crysis, Bioshock). As such, this is where you want to spend your money, if anywhere - although the way the market is right now, there is really only 2 or 3 choices. This may be in contrast to most gaming computers, where you generally want to spend a little more on the GPU instead of the CPU. At the moment, Intel chips are a little too expensive to be worth it if you are just playing Starcraft 2 - so although there is no argument they are the best, the Athlon II series is the best value today for the budget minded and the SC2 gamer. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/starcraft-ii-radeon-geforce,2728.htmlThis article will explain a lot, but the summation is that SC2 is optimized for dualcore @ 3ghz. See, when a game is made, it is made with the specs in mind of when they began designing the game - usually this is 2 to 5 years. So, when a game is released, you could say it is already 'outdated' from a hardware perspective. This is good news for the budget builder, as many good options exist today. The minimum CPU you want to play SC2 with no problems is a Dualcore 3.0ghz, or an Athlon II X2 Regor. SC2 gains a huge boost from single to dual core, an insignificant boost from dual to tri, and an even more insignificant boost from tri to quad. SC2 likes cache space, but an L3 cache will only yield about 0.3ghz performance boost, so you can usually find an Athlon II with no Level 3 cache memory that's much faster, for cheaper. In short, there is no reason to buy a CPU with level 3 cache memory (also note, not all Phenom's have L3 cache, which is kind of a sketchy marketing trick by AMD as that is the only difference between the 'flagship' Phenom II and the Athlon II). I recommend, however, that if you want to spend money anywhere, spend an extra ~$15 to get the Athlon II X3 450 (or 440, 445). With the Athlon II X3 450, you will be able to play everything on Max settings, with no problem ever (I will discuss overclocking at the end). Basically, you can justify an extra core to be about 0.5ghz in speed added, although this isn't exact considering SC2 is optimized for only dualcore and that speed vs core count affects performance differently, so just take it as a rough estimation. The Athlon II X2 Regor is about $60, and the Athlon II X3 Rana is about $79 or less depending on the speed. The next best AMD chip, a Phenom X4 is about $125, meaning about $40 for just an L3 cache, or roughly 300mhz increase in speed, which is a pretty bad speed to price ratio, and the Intel I3-2100 is just a better buy at the same price. Considering that the Athlon II series will play Starcraft 2 at max settings, there isn't a Starcraft 2 reason to pay the price premium. In short, an Athlon II is the best. There are many articles out today saying the Athlon II X3 450 is the best deal CPU for the money today as well. The Motherboard + Show Spoiler +crappy taiwanese Orkos electrolytic capacitors, no wonder they blew out. Many of today's motherboards have these, even 'high end' ones, on where it counts, the VRM, so be careful when you buy! Even the motherboard I have, has them, although not on the VRM where it counts.What many people fail to understand is that as the PSU is important for supplying power to the system, the motherboard is just as important as supplying power to the CPU. This is so important, and we will save this for last in this section. Least importantly, make sure everything fits. There really isn't much to this. First, make sure the Motherboard has at least one PCI-Ex16 (key word x16) slot for a GPU video card. SLI/Crossfire, NVidia and Radeon's take on using multiple graphics cards, are stupid. Plain and simple, there is no reason to do it for the budget, or rational, PC builder. You do not get a 200% performance, you generally get somewhere between 110% to 160%, the average around 140% (according to most review sites). The extra heat can cause your system to slow down as increased heat over a certain point, generally regarded to be around 60*C, causes system parts to slow down, and the extra power you will need to invest in a heavier PSU will make the price not worth it compared to single card solutions. You may think you may one day use it, when you can get a 2nd outdated, old card to go with your outdated single card - this is stupid, just sell your card and get a single, better card. In 2 years, when you think of doing Crossfire/SLI, cards 2x the performance will drop in price to be more affordable and a better solution. Second, the Northbridge. This isn't important anymore considering that CPU's today now have the Memory Controller built into them, talking directly to the RAM as opposed to before. The only reason to pick one Northbridge over another is if you're interested in overclocking. The difference between most northbridges is if they can support a GPU (revealed by a PCI-Ex16 slot) and if they can overclock (usually made obvious by details on the motherboard page). Generally, motherboard companies understand that people buying just the motherboard for building a PC like to overclock, so you probably won't have a situation where the motherboard that can overclock is cheaper than one with a northbridge that can't. Third, the form factor. Make sure it fits your case - if the Motherboard is ATX, make sure the case is ATX or bigger. You can search this, but it's pretty straightforward. The only difference in Micro-ATX motherboards is they are smaller, generally, this means less RAM slots and less PCI-E slots. As long as it has a single PCI-Ex16 slot, and 2 RAM slots, that is all you need. There is only so much RAM you need these days, and 2 slots is more than enough. I already talked about PCI-Ex16 slots. In short, there is no reason to avoid Micro-ATX, if you so happen to find a good deal on it. Unfortunately, many motherboard reviews online are extremely unreliable. This is because they review a board based on silly things like how many SATA or USB ports it has (which you can expand yourself), the design (a smart builder can hide any cable), how it looks even, or the chipsets (which don't matter if your getting a GPU anyways). What they fail to take note of, is how quality and reliable the motherboard is, as anyone can make a motherboard with holes that connect to things and advertised as having so many functions, but would blow out immediately due to bad quality (something that happens all too commonly). So if you are reading a review for a motherboard, make sure they talk about the VRM in-depth. So back to what's important on a motherboard: The Voltage Regulator Module (VRM, or sometimes addressed as the MOSFETs, a type of chip used on it). Sound complicated? It's because it is! This is what supplies a delicate amount of Power Width Modulation to your CPU in bursts of 12v based on binary demands of the CPU, which is controlled independently on each channel by a mosfet driver transistor, which is then linked to a set of capacitors. Huh? So you need to make sure that your motherboard can support your CPU. Do not just look at the details page, as it can be misleading. When people say their motherboard 'fried', they generally mean their VRM fried out. This link is great for seeing what a motherboard is rated to support: http://www.overclock.net/amd-motherboards/946407-amd-motherboard-power-phase-list.htmlGenerally, dual or tri core CPU's have a THERMAL DESIGN POWER (TDP) of 95w, and quadcores have a TDP of 125w. When you overclock or unlock, this power need goes up. If you plan to go quadcore or overclock, or both, you need to have a quality board. First, most importantly, you need multiple channels. This can be indicated by the number of square blocks with a few letters on them. The channels are usually referred to as "X+1" which means CPU Power + CPU-Northbridge Power. 3+1 you should avoid completely, 4+1 is okay, and 8+2 is great. Secondly, you need "Ferrite" Chokes - which are square blocks - don't consider anything else. If you don't see square blocks, you don't see a motherboard. Third, you want 'Solid Capacitors" - make sure the cylinders by the VRM are, well, smooth and 'solid', and not 'wrapped' (understandable when you look at a motherboard). Third and a half, by the way, IF you have electrolytic capacitors, the kind that are 'wrapped' and not 'solid', you want to make sure they are Japanese - again, beyond the scope of the thread, but just search the words on the the capacitor to see the brand; for some reason Japanese capacitors are very high quality but Taiwanese and Chinese are crap. Fourth, you want those little chipsets, or MOSFETS, to have 4 'legs' instead of 3 'legs' with the center one cut (a feature of efficiency known as RDS on). Fifth, a board that uses an 8 pin power supply port is better than one that uses 4 pins. Sixth, you want your motherboard to have only two mosfet 3 or 4 legged chips instead of 3 identical mosfet chips per channel - this is because cheap motherboards will use a 3rd mosfet chip instead of a 3rd, different chip called a "mosfet driver" to handle the voltage flow on the mosfet chips. You can usually identify Mosfet driver chips as the 8 legged chipsets, and even the cheapest boards have a single driver at the 'bottom' of the VRM. Finally, a heatsink on the VRM is important. You can add a few of these up to make an acceptable motherboard, but if your motherboard of choice is "no' to most of these, avoid it. The difference is that certain VRM's run hotter or cooler, and some handle heat better or worse. All the quality in VRM comes down to how hot they run and how they deal with the heat. http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Everything-You-Need-to-Know-About-The-Motherboard-Voltage-Regulator-Circuit/616/1The squares are called chokes, and in this case are 'ferrite' - good. The cylinders are capacitors, and in this case 'solid' - good. There is only 5 chokes, so it's probably 4+1 channels as opposed to 8+1 - not good. The mosfet chipsets, or those flat computer chips, have 3 legs with the center cut instead of 4 - not good. To be depth and technical and beyond the scope of this thread, the mosfets are Nikos, which are horrible and no wonder no one likes MSI motherboards and they blow out all the time - not good. No heatsink - not good. 4 Pin white power supply port instead of 8 pin - not good.Also, avoid MSI motherboards. They have horrible quality VRMs. You can actually just look at pictures of them and, using the information described here, realize they are overpriced and dangerous. If you do not plan to overclock/unlock, do not worry, just get what you can afford (provided people aren't saying they blow out at the time when you look up the board online with the word "fried"). If you are pro like me, you can attach heatsinks to your motherboard or even replace your mosfet chipsets with soldering, along with spot cooling. But generally, try to at least get 4+1 with solid capacitors, and if you are a genuine overclocker, get a board with 8+2 or heatsinks. You can also just buy copper 'chipset' heatsinks for $8 along with thermal tape, and attach them to the heatsinks, and getting a 'Spot Cooling' fan, or jerryrigging one, will do wonders to cool a VRM. This following forum page talks a little about VRMs, what they mean to you, and also lists a great number of testimonials - so while this section may be a bit over your head, simply search and see if your motherboard is on the list. If it isn't, that's a good thing. If you had your eyes set on an MSI 870A-G54, then maybe all these people saying it blew out on them at stock settings may make you realize it's a crappy board, and hopefully you'll take the time to understand this section of my guide and realize how important it is. http://www.overclock.net/amd-cpus/943109-why-vrms-big-issue-why-choose.htmlIn my case, I bought an Athlon II X3 + Biostar A770E3 combo. My mobo has 3+1(bad), Ferrite chokes(good), solid capacitors(good), 3 legged mosfets with no RDS on(bad), 4 pin PSU port (bad), and no 8 legged mosfet chip driver but a 3rd 3 legged mosfet chip (bad), with no heatsink, suffice to say, even though it's 'rated' to be okay for 125w/quadcores, it's probably not advisable to do so. I sawed up an old heatsink and taped it on to help, but if my motherboard blew out I wouldn't be surprised. The price was good and I didn't know better at the time. my custom VRM heatsink The GPU + Show Spoiler +Now, SC2 is CPU limited - but if your PC can play at minimum settings but struggles at higher settings, that is because of the GPU. This may sound obvious, but when you go for higher graphics settings, that is all on your GPU. Now if you struggle at low settings, that is a CPU issue. It is recommended to have at least 30FPS in Starcraft2, since it isn't as intense as first person shooters. However, we want at least 45FPS, and 60 average FPS is indicative of a system that may have a lot of headroom. GPU's tend to show their strength in their minimum FPS in SC2 though, and at key moments it's important this doesn't dip too low. Since this is a budget build, we are assuming a resolution of around 1600 pixel width or lower, but if you have a high resolution (think 1080 or 1900 pixel width) than you should assume a graphics setting lower for each card described below with the exception of the 460 except in the most extreme custom games. The best card out for the money today is the GTX 460 768mb, no argument about it. Having 1GB or more of VRAM is unnecessary, as Starcraft2 Ultra only uses 512mb and Extreme, which only applies in single player and is insignificant, will still look good on 768mb. Note that VRAM is simply a matter of having enough, just like RAM, and the only reason some higher VRAM models perform better is because they usually have a higher, or 'wider' bus bit - in effect, buying a GPU with a higher bus bit vs an identical model with a lower bus bit means better performance, irregardless of the VRAM (unless the game actually requires more VRAM - in the case of SC2, 512mb is all you need). I've seen this at $95 (that same card is back to $150 now) but you can get an MSI 460 for $126 right now. This is a relatively powerhungry card. However, it is complete overkill for SC2, and is so strong it will get slightly bottlenecked by the Athlon II series. Get this if you can afford it, no doubt, otherwise we have 3 other players: GT430 - a pretty bad card, relatively, but if you can find this in a combo with a decent PSU, Motherboard, or anything, and have the relative price of this card at under $30, it's a great contender. It will play Medium at around 1600 pixel width resolution. Radeon 4830 - this card will play on High settings at around 1600 pixel width resolution, and at around $60, probably the best deal if your budget is extremely tight. Radeon 4850 - at around $80, this is probably the best card to get not just for a budget build, but for any computer made just for Starcraft 2. This card can arguably play on all settings maxed, with a sacrifice in a few settings only if you play at higher resolutions. If you are playing at around 1600 pixel width resolution or lower, this card will be the best choice if your budget isn't dire. Here, a great article benchmarking all of today's GPUs in relative performance. The above tomshardware article is useful too. http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.htmlNote, that while the Radeon 5670 and 9800 GT comes highly 'recommended' as budget cards, the 4850 is a much better card at a lower price, and the 460 is a much better card for slightly more. While the 5670 is 'newer' the 4850 is just more poweful and SC2 is an 'old' game. Generally Radeon cards run much cooler, quieter, and less power-hungry than their Nvidia counterparts, and are generally 'better' budget cards, NVidia is generally 'better', and the 460 is such a beast at such a low price today. Also note that resolutions impact framerate more than settings do. If you are playing at 1080, you may need the GTX 460 for max or only high on the 4850. If you are reading this guide, you probably aren't playing on 1900x1080 resolution (on the other hand, theres no reason this article isn't for rich people - going anything above this guide's maximum recommendations is overkill for SC2). Also note that you need to play on your monitor/TV's native resolution. Screens/resolutions/monitors are beyond the scope of this thread, as you probably have one anyways, but besides the fact resolution is about the 3rd or 4th most important thing (read: not most important) on a screen, playing above the number of pixels your monitor actually has may look nice by making things look small, but is really just reducing picture quality. While Starcraft 2 does not have in-game anti-aliasing, you can get 'forced' anti-aliasing (AA) from Nvidia cards, which apply AA to anything shown on the screen. It's a nice effect that you probably won't notice, and eats up a huge amount of resources. Just something you may want to take note of. Finally, I want to stress this: the difference between medium and Ultra, is it really worth a price premium to you? Note that it's pretty much impossible to try to figure out how well a GPU performs by comparing specifications like stream processors, as a multitude of specifications work together to provide better or worse performance. As such, this section will be horribly outdated pretty soon, as not only new GPUs come out but price changes in the market. You can use the GPUs listed here and compare their performance via the Passmark GPU benchmark link bolded above to GPUs that may become attractive in the future, and see what the expected performance will be. The RAM + Show Spoiler +Memory is simply a matter of do you have enough, or not. Benchmarks have shown that the difference between the fastest, $250, overclocked RAM and simple 1066 RAM is less than 10% (money better spent on the CPU or anything else, really). 2GB will be able to play SC2, but you will need to close out everything, and 4GB will be enough to play SC2, stream, have multiple browsers, download, play music, and run a movie at the same time. There's no reason to get more. When shopping, look at the price of 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB models. Sometimes getting a single, bigger RAM is cheaper than less, multiple RAM, which seems counterintuitive. Of course, DDR3 is the only choice today. Also, AMD system prefer 'tighter', or lower timings, as opposed to speed in mhz, so do not get caught up in 1600mhz vs 1333mhz. Some Phenom CPUs also can't do 1600 mhz settings, so check on that when buying RAM and your CPU. I've found that Kingston is not only the cheapest, but the best in terms of quality, overclocking, and warranty. Also, heatspreaders are really unnecessary, and do very little to cool RAM. Case setup is more important. If you are going to spend more money on RAM, don't, but if you do, you want to aim for tighter timings as opposed to speed. Also, you can underclock the RAM and go for better timings to get a bigger performance boost. I'll go over overclocking later. The Hard Drive + Show Spoiler +
Hard drive is simply a matter of space - higher or slower performing hard drives only affect boot times and loading times, read: not performance. The difference between, say, 1000RPM Raptor hard drives and 7200RPM Caviar Blue is only a few seconds. Solid State Drives are absolutely amazing, about 5 times faster, but the price premium is just absolutely ridiculous.
Note how much space you use on your current system (also note that you can simply use the old drives in your old system). Do you need 1000GB? Do you even need 200? If you delete all the porn and movies you download, you'll realize you don't even need 100GB - I have downloaded many games, torrents, movies, and operating systems, and none of the PCs I have ever owned have gone over 100GB. Just delete the movies after a month after watching, if you don't delete them right away. But whatever you need in space, get.
You need to get SATA connection, you need to get 7200RPM, and that's really it. You'll want to avoid Caviar Green, or '5400-7200RPM' HDDs as they are simply slower than 7200 RPM HDD, despite claims that they will scale up to 7200RPM when needed (unless you really want to be Green). You can find great deals on used/open-box/recertified hard drives, and Caviar Blue, WD's newest HDD line, can be had for as little as $20. WD, Seagate, or Samsung for common quality brands.
Hard drives also suck in about 24w in power each, give or take, so if you plan on having multiple HDDs (like porting over multiple from an old system), than you may need a bit more power. The PSU section and the linked power calculator will clear the issue up for you.
The Case + Show Spoiler +You can go caseless! In all seriousness, you can buy the case laterThere's no comparison to getting the NZXT Gamma. Tomshardware and other review sites have shown only one or two other cases that come close in value, which reviewed when the Gamma was much more expensive. Due to price drops, there is no discussion on this one. As an owner, it's an extremely solid case with great airflow, space for tower cooling and up to 7 fans (and that's just the open slots, not extra places you could cram them or fit them, I have 7 fans and not even using 3 slots). The fan the case comes with is also surprisingly high quality (as reviewed by silentpc). The look is unique though, some people love it and some people hate it, so always google up a case so you know what it looks like, before buying. But to understand them... When buying a case, you need to check to make sure it fits your motherboard. This is a simple making sure your motherboard is the same "ATX" form factor or smaller than the case. Also, good things to have in a case is a bottom mounted power supply (better air ventilation), fans slots (although you can drill holes easily), space behind the motherboard and slots for cable management, a solid build (something you just need to read up on the case for), and most importantly, well, the look! Don't worry about drive bays, as things like CD drives and floppy drives are a thing of the past, and your case will more than likely be able to fit extra HDD's in unconventional places if 5 HDDs is not enough for you. you do not want to see my PC from the other side, my side panel barely fits with my wires from 7 fans and system! The Power Supply Unit + Show Spoiler +Chernobyl is what happens when the 12v rails are weakWhen people talk about the PSU, the saying is "Spend cheap, spend twice". However, this is usually said by people who don't understand them, as the motto should really be "Spend smart, spend once". While a PSU may say something like "Over 9000 watts!" the 'true' power may be much less. This is because modern, reliable PSU's by reliable companies will have most of their power on the 12v rail, whereas crappy, unreliable, or old PSU's have the power on the 3.3v or 5v rails - essentially it is misleading. Your system's power needs are overwhelmingly on the 12v rails - the two most power hungry components, the CPU and GPU, all rely on the 12v rail, and accessories such as fans, lights, the motherboard, sound cards, et cetera, all use the 12v rail as well. What is a 12v rail? Well, that's beyond the scope of this thread, but just understand it is where the most powerful power comes from and it's what is important. Now, how to calculate your 'true' wattage? Given that sometimes PSU's may have more than one 12v rail, the calculation is: 12v1xAmperage + 12v2xAmperage= PSU Wattage If you do this calculation on older PSU's or crappy, cheap ones (under $20) you will see that only around half of the power is on the 12v rail, meaning that despite the PSU being 500w for your system that only needs 350, your stuck with a smoldering burning mess. This is not being cautionary, this is being straight up - no, that $20 PSU with 500W will not work, and you didn't find some great deal. Sorry. Modular Power Supplies are power supplies where you can hook up the power lines as needed, which is amazing and very cool looking, but doesn't affect performance and the price premium is not worth it. If you are smart, you can hide the wires without a modular supply. This is where a good case with space behind the motherboard comes in. Most power supply calculators out there, such as Neweggs, exaggerate things, in order to get you to spend more money. The only trustworthy power calculator is this one: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jspYou generally want your PC's power needs to be 80% of the PSU's capability, or on today's gaming PC's, this means that your PC's power needs should be about 80% of the PSU's 12v rail wattage. This is not an issue about headroom, but about performance, as PSU's will inevitably lose their power output over time and even the best PSU's will have slight inconsistency in their power output. Even with this in mind though, 350w should cover most builds, and 430w will be enough if you plan to get fans, accessories, and you are overclocking. 500w is unnecessary unless you plan to overclock, have a Fermi GPU, you have quadcore (either by unlocking or by stock), and have multiple accessories, drive bays, cooling, and hard drives. If you plan to work your PSU hard and to the limit 24/7 and plan to keep it for many years, you may want to step it up a step to take care of wear and tear (ie electrolytic aging). Also, you want to check for how efficient a power supply is. When a power supply says 500w, that just means it can feed 500w to a computer (which we also know can vary depending on which rails the PSU supplies the power). It does not say how much it sucks out of the wall, and crappy PSU's can draw around 800w just to supply 500w, meaning they are jacking up your electric bill and raising heat in your PC. You generally want 80% efficiency, and 80 Bronze or 80 Plus means they have a certain guarantee of efficiency. Right now, the only PSU to get on Newegg/the USA is the Antec Earthwatts. There is no other PSU that compares in terms of quality and price, as they are the only 80+ Bronze PSU's at their power levels as well as having high proportions of power on the 12v rail. I haven't seen any cheaper PSU that was quality enough to compare, and usually they aren't even cheaper than these VERY cheap PSUs that are VERY quality at $38+. Note that I've never seen a PSU under $25 that wouldn't straight up blow up your system, guaranteed, despite being '500w', so it's not something you can just say 'oh it's a PSU with the wattage I need for cheap!'. I guarantee you those $20 PSU's will fry out your system! So please do this PSU calculation before buying. Also, Cases with PSUs should generally be avoided - I haven't seen a budget system ever with a reliable PSU, and those that do have good PSUs are usually too expensive for a budget build (however if you just like that case and setup, using the knowledge in this guide you can figure out if it's quality and will work though). Again, just look at the output specifications for the 12v rail on the case PSU to judge it's reliability, but otherwise you can't really just say "oh I found a case with a PSU for $50, time to save money!" The Accessories + Show Spoiler +
DVD/CD drives are being outdated. If you bought SC2 on CD, you can download it for free, as SC2 is actually free - what costs money is the account (check for yourself at starcraft2.com). But if you insist on getting one, just get the cheapest, these can be had for under $20, or off your old PC for free. Note you can install OS's via USB.
Fan controllers are a great way to control fan speed/noise, and the NZXT Sentry 2 also has temperature monitors. Unquestionably the best controller, and one of the cheapest at $25. Looks great, touch screen.
HSF: Right now the best value is the Cooler Master Hyper 212+, and if you search you will find it unanimously recommended at $30. However, note that it is tower cooling, and your stock HSF is radial cooling (ie it blows 'through' the case whereas your stock 'radial' cooling blows 'down' onto your motherboard, cooling everything by the CPU) so while your CPU temperature will drop at least 10*C, your northbridge and VRM (remember what that was?) will rise, even dangerously high, making it well not worth it. You should overclock your CPU and see if temperatures are a concern, before buying an aftermarket HSF, as you may find your CPU is limited by voltage or stability well before temps are an issue, and your VRM may not have the quality to withstand the added heat or your northbridge too. I myself had to saw an old heatsink to glue onto my VRM and attach with wire a fan to my northbridge heatsink to compensate, when I probably should've stuck to stock cooling since my CPU did not have temp problems at all. Note that the majority of instances where people's motherboard blew out, or that their VRM blew out, was when they stopped using a stock cooler and went to an extremely fancy tower cooler that neglected their VRM.
Mouse: The Steelseries Kinzu is the best deal at $30. Other mice are too expensive, and the acceleration can be removed. There are more indepth articles about mice, elsewhere. idra uses it though (baller!).
Fans: The Yate Loons are the best value, no question. Petras Tech shop has the best 'batch' and you should not buy them anywhere else (you can google why this is true). Mediums provide adequate cooling, and Lows are the only option if sound is an issue to you. $5.
Operating System: Budget builders usually know ahead of time where they are going to get their operating system (yarrr matey) but, that aside, all operating systems these days are good - including freeware. Apple's Snow Leopard and various incarnations of the MacOS on PC make buying a Mac pointless, Windows 7 is actually good, and while Linux may seem scary because, despite of how awesome it can be, it is complicated, Ubuntu is very newb-friendly. With programs like Wine, you usually never have to worry about compatibility issues. If you are on a budget, you can just use Linux/Ubuntu for the time being, and then get Windows or MacOS when a little bit of cash goes your way. Given the huge range of free OS's available these days, the quality of all Operating Systems (even old ones), and that your OS doesn't matter when playing Starcraft 2, I am not including it in the price. It's not hard to make the cost $0 here, and no I am not referring to pirating. People argue all day about OS's but when you get down to it, your marine micro will be the same regardless and they are all good. However, Windows 7 is around $100, as is MacOS, but if you buy it with a student discount you can get it anywhere from free to $70 - just check with your campus computer center.
Monitor: Check what output your GPU of choice has, and match it up with the monitor. However since this is a budget build, and the technical aspect of monitors can be very complex (and beyond the scope of this thread), we aren't really discussing them here. I assume you are running at 1600 pixel width or lower as a budget builder, but if you are running at 1900 pixel width, you may want to get the GTX 460 or understand you may have slightly degraded performance than expected for the power, since resolution can impact FPS more than your graphics settings. As this is a budget build, I assume you have a monitor from your old PC build, but a quality monitor can be had for under $100. Sanyo has some great budget monitors, and most 'broad' review groups like ConsumerReports has great information on the subject, as this is a subject not just covered by nerds, but all men. Note that you can run off a TV, or even projector, and you don't need to get just a dedicated PC monitor.
*Note that when discussing costs, I am excluding mouse and keyboard since you can use your old ones or get temporary ones from friends for free or cheap. Monitors and Operating Systems also are something you can use from either an old build, or use for free. While some may say this is misleading, this guide is an assumption that your current PC either cannot play Starcraft 2 or suddenly broke and you need to play SC2 as fast as possible, so in that sense this guide is much more practical. The general prices for such components are discussed so it's not hard to figure them out, and since this is a PC building guide the specifics for components such as an OS or monitor can be found discussed in much greater depth, elsewhere.
The Overclocking + Show Spoiler +Although my temps never get past 40*C, I can only get an extra 200mhz when overclocking my CPU, although I did get an extra coreNow, I'm not writing a guide to overclocking. What I will write, is how overclocking affects buying decisions. First off, the Athlon II series can be quite interesting when it comes to overclocking. Many people have seen better results overclocking 'slower' (at stock speed) CPU's than the faster ones, so bear that in mind (which is funny, because your 'awesome overclock' may just get you barely past stock speed on a faster Athlon II which only overclocks a tiny bit). Also, the Athlon II X3 450 is generally guaranteed to overclock to over 3.8ghz, or unlock, but not both. You may want to buy a 430/440/445 instead if you are an overclocker enthusiast and okay with the risk. An Athlon II can give you great reward from great risk when overclocking. Just search the exact model to see what results people generally get, and make sure they are recent results (as newer manufactured CPUs may act differently, not to mention the general warning that all CPUs act differently). Note that when increasing voltage with CPUs, you need a better motherboard. See the VRM section on this, as well as the link on overclock.net and googling "vrm guide overclock.net" You can overclock on some CPUs on stock cooling just fine, sometimes stock cooling is actually better because tower cooling neglects your VRM, RAM, and mobo due to the lack of radial cooling blowing onto the board - leading to a situation where if your CPU is stability limited instead of temp limited, your temps and system are better off overclocked on stock cooling. So just note that sometimes you may cause temperatures of critical components to go too high when switching to aftermarket cooling, and if you are using a cheap motherboard with 4+1, this may cause a component to get too hot and fail. So before you go crazy buying 7 case fans and an aftermarket heatsink, check your temperatures and see if you really need it, as well as making sure that your VRM, RAM, and NB can withstand added temperature (or get a solution to cool them independently if your new solution neglects them). Remember, that in the majority of VRM motherboard failures, it was because people moved away from stock cooling to tower or liquid cooling, and those parts are rated for usage when cooled by a stock radial cooler. RAM overclocking comes all down to 'tightening' the timings when it comes to AMD systems (whereas Intel prefers faster speed). 1600 mhz is much easier to work with, because you have more 'headroom' than 1333mhz, but all in all increasing speed on RAM is neglible except in benchmarks. CPU-NB overclocking will yield tangible results in overclocking, probably the 2nd most important thing to overclock on a system. You will see more from a Phenom II with an increased CPU-NB than an Athlon II, just fyi, but Athlon II still appreciates it greatly.
In summation, this guide shows you that you can build a budget PC to play SC2 at max settings for under $350, and you can play comfortably with $250. Spending anything more won't see noticeable improvement in SC2, but may help with any overclocking if you enjoy doing that, give you more HDD space, or have a cooler looking case. While newegg has the best US prices, check pricegrabber.com also to compare each item. Look up the items on newegg, then when you find the item priced right, compare it on pricegrabber. For example, my case was cheaper by $1 shipping from walmart and my HSF was cheaper by $5 on amazon.
Good luck! Many people have a lot of fun in the process of building a PC, and the love you feel for your awesome new PC will only be made more awesome when you realize how little you had to spend for a truly quality PC.
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this looks identical to your other thread?
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Edited since I'm not his editor.
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Why did you post a second thread...?
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Because his first thread got closed.
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Jinglehell if you can post a review site talking about SLI/Crossfire who say the average increase in SLI/Crossfire is a different number, or a review site that actually recommends SLI over single card solutions for budget builders, I'd be more than happy to revise the guide on that. I've read more than a few guides that say the average increase is about 140%, and I'd be willing to post my sources on that - for some games and instances it's higher, sometimes it's lower. I know some games like it a lot, like you posted in your example, but most games it's not really worthwhile. Otherwise, I made it pretty clear I was generalizing about SLI/Crossfire, and the ultimate point is that a budget builder would not do SLI/Crossfire.
This thread is posted with mod approval and guidance so this time it is going to be kept clean, and on topic. It was also cleaned and finalized.
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This review shows 1 card up to 2 cards scaling a good bit higher. Those are newer cards, and the game data is limited though.
I don't disagree that SLI/Xfire are practically junk with SC2, nor do I disagree they're horrid for budget builds. Much easier to just step up a card for $10-$20 and pick up a few frames that way, regardless of the scaling, you should never go multi-GPU for just SC2.
Here is the page where they show the percentages.
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^ I think those links are the same I would've quoted - they show up to 160% increase, max. Now as for 3-way SLI/Crossfire, it's actually worse - while they may have up to 185% increase over a single card, you are getting less than a 60% increase per extra card. I do see the 6950 - card horribly out of budget mind you - gets good gains in particular instances, but that's about 175%, 15% more than what I said you 'generally' get. My point still stands, that SLI generally gets about 110-160% gains, with an average of 140%, but sometimes you get more, sometimes less.
If anyone has recommendations with the guide, please PM them to me and I assure you I'll be more receptive. Otherwise I must ignore posts that aren't really relevant to a budget builder. I'll be happy to take feedback but this thread has to stay more focused. I'm hearing about 460 SLI performance via PM that sounds like it is relevant - like I said in the GPU section, it's always changing and perhaps the one part of this guide that is the weakest, considering how GPU's always change, and that you can't simply compare stream processors or other specifications to one card from another because of how they all interact to perform - to understand GPU's, you literally have to read up on every single one and compare them, whereas the information I posted about motherboards and PSUs will always be relevant.
I may also consider discussing Intel soon, but the i3-2100, as amazing as it is, is only dualcore - but I imagine Sandy Bridge, especially the budget ones, will drop in price soon to make them very worthwhile. The i3-2100 is really on the edge of being acceptable - although the Athlon X3 and Athlon X4 even, is a great chip, it is bottlenecked by the 460 and it really is on the edge of a chip that can handle SC2 perfectly, meaning it may slow down on rare instances, very rare, but considering the sheer power of the i3-2100, I feel I may have to include them. But prices aren't down yet, and this is very specifically a budget guide versus a PC building guide, although I discuss how to build any sort of PC with the technical information included. I may expand the CPU section just for this very reason.
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I dont know if I could recommend the i3 since it's dualcore, despite being more powerful. Given how close the x4 is and how well the x3 unlocks in most cases, which is almost the same power, and then with the price premium of the i3 vs athlon ii. that is a good deal though on the i3, I think I'm going to add a bit more info to stay relevant when the i3s and i5s drop in price later on.
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Belial:
Could you give some insight on the appropriate hardware if one intends to stream?
I'm looking to buy a new computer solely for SC2 -- the one I have is a several years old laptop and runs everything fine except for SC2 which it chokes a bit at low settings. I don't have a specific budget but I don't want to spend money I don't need to spend since I have no demands other than SC2. The only caveat I'm not so sure about is I want to be able to stream, which means it needs to maintain a good FPS at high enough graphics settings to look pretty, and my current monitor is 1900x1200 (i have another one with some wacky super-wide resolution, like 2050x1000 or something, hardly an improvement). If supporting a bigger resolution vs. smaller is solely up to the graphics card it's probably easier/cheaper to get a nicer card than pick up a new monitor. As far as streaming, you mention it in the RAM section but nowhere else so I'm curious if it puts additional strain on other components (cpu, graphics, etc)
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To stream SC2 at decent quality, you'll want a decent quad core, and a minimum of 4GB RAM. For 1920x1200, a 1GB 460 is enough graphics card, especially if you OC it a bit.
There are already a few threads running around this board specifically relating to cost-efficient streaming PCs though. They've probably got more specific info.
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Does Newegg ship to Europe (I can't find anything about this on their site)? I looked up a lot of the stuff (this is what I call whatever is inside my computer) you recommended on some Danish sites but it's a lot more expensive than on newegg.
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On March 26 2011 01:11 EquilasH wrote: Does Newegg ship to Europe (I can't find anything about this on their site)? I looked up a lot of the stuff (this is what I call whatever is inside my computer) you recommended on some Danish sites but it's a lot more expensive than on newegg.
I don't think so, but they DO ship to APO, so if you knew someone in the US military, you might be able to pay them a small chunk of the difference to let you ship to them, and have them trans-ship.
Not entirely sure if that's technically legal.
Edit: The regions you can shop by are US, Canada, China, so I doubt they have European shipping.
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I'm not looking to build my own, but buy a one ready made. I was just wondering what you think of this combination for SC2 (costing 629 000 won/566$):
CPU- AMD Phenom II-X4 955
Motherboard- ASUS M4N75TD Digital Green Tech
Memory- Samsung DDR3 2G PC3-10600
Graphics card- XFX Radeon HD 5670 D5 512MB Rextech
Hard drive- WD 1TB Caviar Blue WD10EALS (SATA2/7200/32M)
Case- Espresso 3Rsystem R460
Power supply- Micronics New Classic 450W Active PFC
ODD- Samsung Super-WriteMaster SH-S223L
+ 2G USB memory + 1 year warranty + other accessories
(I already have a good LCD monitor)
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On March 26 2011 01:53 tomatriedes wrote: I'm not looking to build my own, but buy a one ready made. I was just wondering what you think of this combination for SC2 (costing 629 000 won/566$):
CPU- AMD Phenom II-X4 955
Motherboard- ASUS M4N75TD Digital Green Tech
Memory- Samsung DDR3 2G PC3-10600
Graphics card- XFX Radeon HD 5670 D5 512MB Rextech
Hard drive- WD 1TB Caviar Blue WD10EALS (SATA2/7200/32M)
Case- Espresso 3Rsystem R460
Power supply- Micronics New Classic 450W Active PFC
ODD- Samsung Super-WriteMaster SH-S223L
+ 2G USB memory + 1 year warranty + other accessories
(I already have a good LCD monitor)
Should run it fine, I have a similar set up but with a HD4830 instead. The only possible issue would be lack of ram, but 2gb should be enough. Can probably run high smoothly and ultra with some choppiness.
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Glad I finally found this thread. I've been thinking about buying a new computer for some time now and these recommendations really helped to cut out a lot of "fat" in my original prospective build.
I was originally pegged to spend over $700 but with the information found here I cut that down to $550 and I don't think I'll be cutting down any on performance.
I don't think the old Latitude D830 with the Quadro 140M wants to run Starcraft 2 anymore, lol.
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Just say i build a budget P.C with the items you listed above as my core supplies
Will i be able to stream even with my connection being
down: 1.32 Up: .33
?
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On March 26 2011 06:19 zSoloo wrote: Just say i build a budget P.C with the items you listed above as my core supplies
Will i be able to stream even with my connection being
down: 1.32 Up: .33
? No, you need way more upload bandwidth (at least 0.7mbps if you want the stream to be watchable). I don't know about the computer's capability since you didn't actually say which CPU you would be using.
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Thanks i was prolly going to use the "Athlon II X3 450"
but, my current comp runs SC2 fine, was just going to build anther just to have in hopes i could stream
but my connection is so bad ill prolly just keep my current comp
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5930 Posts
On March 25 2011 22:38 Belial88 wrote: I dont know if I could recommend the i3 since it's dualcore, despite being more powerful. Given how close the x4 is and how well the x3 unlocks in most cases, which is almost the same power, and then with the price premium of the i3 vs athlon ii. that is a good deal though on the i3, I think I'm going to add a bit more info to stay relevant when the i3s and i5s drop in price later on.
It doesn't matter really, the i3 can use hyperthreading to get 4 threads going to get close enough to the 4 core Athlon, enough that its not a clear win. And even then they core difference is only really evident in productivity applications like video converting.
The kicker here is that if you turn everything down to minimum graphical settings, the i3 is so much better than the low end AMD options, you can get around 15 more FPS in SC2 apparently. Its even better than the low end Phenom IIs to be honest.
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Just thought I would report on the system I just built using the advice from this thread. Up until this week I had a 6 year old P4 computer that choked on SC2 during large battles. In 2v2s it would go to 1 fps during confrontations, no exaggeration. In the past I had upgraded everything I could without replacing the CPU.
Determined to find a new computer I had spec'd and priced out a real monster six-core computer with all new parts. The whole rig was going to cost me $1200 after shipping and tax. Then I read this thread and came to my senses. For SC2, you don't need to spend a whole lot, especially if you're upgrading and reusing some parts you already own. I realized it was ridiculous to spend $1200 just to play video games, so I set out to get a system that would play SC2 decently well and also be upgradeable into the future.
I bought from newegg.com: AMD Athlon II X4 640 $99 ASUS M4A88T-V motherboard $99 4 gigs Kingston RAM $50
Its a 3GHz quad-core system, and its a generation or two old. But now, SC2 runs great on high settings and without lag (haven't tested yet on Ultra). This is on Win 7 32-bit. I reused my power supply (550W Antec), disk drives and an old case. I also already had a Radeon 4670 HD, but even if you don't, they are maybe $50-$70. So all told, I spent less than $275 on this upgrade, its purring happily and its done everything I've asked it to do. And I haven't even tried to overclock it.
My theory is that in 3 or 4 years I might need a new computer to play some game. I'll just spend another $275 and get an appropriate system at that time. No need for 6-core power now, most of it would be wasted.
Many thanks to Belial gg Mossen
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Belial:
Could you give some insight on the appropriate hardware if one intends to stream?
I'm looking to buy a new computer solely for SC2 -- the one I have is a several years old laptop and runs everything fine except for SC2 which it chokes a bit at low settings. I don't have a specific budget but I don't want to spend money I don't need to spend since I have no demands other than SC2. The only caveat I'm not so sure about is I want to be able to stream, which means it needs to maintain a good FPS at high enough graphics settings to look pretty, and my current monitor is 1900x1200 (i have another one with some wacky super-wide resolution, like 2050x1000 or something, hardly an improvement). If supporting a bigger resolution vs. smaller is solely up to the graphics card it's probably easier/cheaper to get a nicer card than pick up a new monitor. As far as streaming, you mention it in the RAM section but nowhere else so I'm curious if it puts additional strain on other components (cpu, graphics, etc)
Running at 1900x1200, I'm going to tell you right away that the GTX 460 is the minimum you need. I really don't think it's necessary to get anything more than that, but if, IF you are really caviar about spending a bit more money, I wouldn't say it would be a bad idea to get a 470 or some card that is slightly better. A 465 would be a good buy ONLY IF you know how to overclock GPUs (which is extremely easy) as from what I've read, the 460 is a better card at stock, or something along those lines, but the 465 is much better when OC'd. Don't quote me on that, I'm a bit rigid on that, but the concept is something along the lines of buy the 465 only if you know how to take advantage of overclocking, otherwise go 460 or 470. However, since this is a budget build, and since the 460 will be bottlenecked by any CPU under $120, I don't think you should go more than the 460. So this brings me to another point: if you want to get a better GPU than what I recommended, you really have to get a much, much better CPU that's way beyond the price range this guide covers and talks about, to appreciate it.
I know what I said about GPUs and performance, but note that an Athlon II will hold back a 460 just a tiny bit, so I can't recommend anything more than the 460 for an Athlon II series build.
But yea, you may need more RAM for streaming. Honestly, I don't know too much about it, and even if I did, there are others who can explain it better. I know that 4GB of RAM is more than enough for just starcraft and web browsing and general multi tasking like playing music and downloading torrents, much more than enough, and that 2GB can barely play Starcraft 2 perfectly but only when everything is closed out - but I don't know if 4GB can support streaming too. Maybe it can, maybe not - I don't have the answer to that. I wish I could say "just get 6GB of RAM instead of 4" but I can't say with any authority on the matter, as I don't know how 4GB handles streaming and don't know how much RAM is really needed for streaming at all. I imagine, and I say this as a total shot int he dark, that 4GB should handle it decently and 6GB will have you completely covered. Again, PLEASE dont take my word on this, many others actually have experience with this and cover this more indepth.
If you really want to go budget with it, i would say get the same build I suggested at top end budget (athlon II x3, 460) with 6GB. Now the catch is that the i3-2100 is a great CPU, it's actually the best CPU for the price - but it's only dual core (which is worse for multi-tasking than tri/quad/hexa - read: you need more cores for streaming than dual). The quad core sandy bridge series starts at about $180 I want to say, which is a huge price leap. Now it's funny, but a Phenom II quadcore could be great, but it's only on par with the i3 series, so it's kinda not worth the price, but on the other hand it's kinda hard to recommend just a dual core for a new build. There's also the upcoming AM3+ systems by AMD called Bulldozer, so if you want to get a 'temporary' CPU for now, and then upgrade later, you should get an AM3+ motherboard (which supports AM3 but unlike current AM3 boards, the AM3+ will support the new line of CPUs by AMD coming out. Although the release of Bulldozer may just make you get a Phenom II AM3 because the Bulldozer will probably result in a huge drop in price in current 'higher end' CPUs by AMD).
It really just depends on how much you are willing to spend, but I surmise you need to look at streaming guides, and that maybe this guide isn't for you. You could probably stream just fine on my build, with 460 and 6GB, but if you really want to do it perfectly, guaranteed, you may need more. Of course, maybe you can stream perfectly on 4GB and the 460 and AMD 450, but I don't know.
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tomatriedes: can you post the output specs of that PSU? When I searched for it, it was all in korean.
Also, you may want 4GB of RAM. I know this is a budget build, but I would say if you are building a budget system, going from 2GB to 4GB is one place you can see a noticeable difference (one of the best places to spend an extra $20, although I would say you shouldn't sacrifice your GPU or CPU for it).
I can't really say how good your choice in the 5670 is, given that I don't know what the price it's offered at, and what the price of a 460, a 4850, or 4830, or even a whole multitude of other competitive cards are. GPU choice is really dominated by price. In the US, today, the 5670 is a horrible buy. But it may be a great buy if it's priced competitively to those other cards I mentioned. I will tell you that it's odd you are getting such a relatively weak card while a relatively stronger system in total. Now, if anything, you should spend money on a CPU vs a GPU, so I think there's nothing wrong with that. But I'm just pointing out that the 5670 won't play on Ultra on higher resolutions, if not medium resolutions, as it doesn't really seem you have that tight of a budget.
The motherboard you chose is of great quality, but again, I don't know if it's a great buy since you don't list prices. You may be able to find boards just as good, for cheaper. And also, you only need such a board if you plan to do a lot of overclocking. If you aren't overclocking, you really reduce a lot of potential problems.
As for your CPU choice, on newegg the 965 is faster at stock but the same price. I don't know how prices work for you though. Also note, that while the 965 may be faster at stock, the 955 might overclock better. I'm not exactly sure since this involves in-depth research and forum lurking to see what others have gotten on these chips and others you may be considering getting to overclock, but my point is that certain chips overclock better than others, so if you are buying the 955 because you've read that it overclocks better than the 965, that would make sense - since you are getting that motherboard, I assume you like to overclock and you are okay with such a risk. of course, maybe the 965 is just more expensive to you. Of course, there's also the 925 chip, you should look and see how well they generally overclock if you are willing to get a slower stock chip for something that is known to overclock well. Phenoms seem to overclock much better in general than Athlons though, but they run much hotter because of the extra L3 cache (but it seems with your choice of PSU and Motherboard you have that covered).
In fact, I wouldn't have gotten the 450 if I knew more. The 450 is relatively new, and is only recently a lot of people buying it due to price drops. However, it unlocks great but doesn't overclock well, so if I knew that I probably wouldve gone for a 440 or 445, which overclock much better in general. It is risky, but given they are also cheaper, it isn't that bad a risk. However, there wasn't really any way to know this as people just now are starting to post their (somewhat dissapointing) overclock results on the 450 (although, again, it unlocks almost guaranteed, although I have read a few reports of people unable to unlock, who actually almost always hit 4ghz). I understand they don't unlock as 'guaranteed' as the 450 though, but I think I would prefer higher clock speed to extra core due to SC2 not really appreciating the leap from tri to quad as much as it appreciates dual to tri.
And do you really need an enitre terabyte of data? Obviously you aren't that constrained by budget and this may not be the best guide for you, but I would recommend you get a faster HDD vs a slower one with more space, but only if you dont need that much space. If you really need 1TB, then go for it. 32m cache means that that HDD is particularly fast, actually. You clearly picked out a good HDD, I'm just a bit worried about the size and if that's really necessary. You could also even just buy a super fast 64mb cache HDD to hold your OS and a few games and programs that's like under 200GB, and then use an old HDD or a really slow but big one to hold documents and pictures that don't benefit as much from faster read/write speeds.
Coriolis, if you don't mind me asking, how well does your 4830 do? If I could make the guide a little more accurate, that would be great.
Thanks i was prolly going to use the "Athlon II X3 450"
but, my current comp runs SC2 fine, was just going to build anther just to have in hopes i could stream
but my connection is so bad ill prolly just keep my current comp
I believe you can actually buy some sort of card to help those speeds on your PC. This isn't something I know much of, Destiny was just talking about it on his stream is all. Maybe something you want to look in to.
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It doesn't matter really, the i3 can use hyperthreading to get 4 threads going to get close enough to the 4 core Athlon, enough that its not a clear win. And even then they core difference is only really evident in productivity applications like video converting.
The kicker here is that if you turn everything down to minimum graphical settings, the i3 is so much better than the low end AMD options, you can get around 15 more FPS in SC2 apparently. Its even better than the low end Phenom IIs to be honest.
There's no doubt the i3-2100 is better than the Athlon and lower end Phenom series. It's very arguable, I'm really considering expanding the CPU section to be more technical (explain things like core speed, core count, threading, architecture, etc, so people know how to identify how good a CPU is both in general and in SC2 performance). Also with it's inevitable price drop, I can't imagine the Athlon II being the best buy for an SC2 computer forever. I guess since SC2 is optimized for dualcore and for Intel chips, it is definately relevant, and so it may simply be true that the i3-2100 is the best CPU for a purely starcraft 2 PC, and the athlon just a better buy for a general build that also plays SC2. I feel the athlon II is more future proof, but we already know that is a dumb concept, especially for a budget builder.
The kicker here is that if you turn everything down to minimum graphical settings, the i3 is so much better than the low end AMD options, you can get around 15 more FPS in SC2 apparently. Its even better than the low end Phenom IIs to be honest.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but as long as you get 60FPS, anything more is unnecessary - not as in "oh you can't really tell if ambient occlusion is off or on unless studying a side by side picture" but as in your monitor and even the human eye can notice the difference between 58fps and 60fps, if maybe imperceptible, but cannot differentiate 60fps and 9000fps.
I realized it was ridiculous to spend $1200 just to play video games, so I set out to get a system that would play SC2 decently well and also be upgradeable into the future.
it's funny you say that, because I was kicking myself when I realized that Starcraft 2 was worth, straight up, $350, because I already have a Droid 2 phone that is faster than many netbooks and I pretty much use exactly as a laptop, not to mention I have a netbook too, both of which can surf and write documents and everything BUT game, perfectly fast and fine. This is coming from someone who got a droid 2/smartphone because I never upgraded in over 10 years and had so much credit on my account I got it for free (I'm sure it wouldn't surprise anyone I'm a big proponent of just use the cheapest phone possible, but with the new smartphones aka droids they are literally replacements for laptops, I sent my laptop back to america when I was overseas because my droid just did everything just fine), and literally, for 2 weeks until my paycheck came, had $424 on my credit card and the PC cost was 420 with shipping and no rebates yet and so I couldn't eat or buy gas with the more I spent lol.
That is probably why I was so intent on researching everything and learning so much and making sure I bought the perfect setup (looking back on it, I probably would've gone with the 4850 but I can't complain about having a stronger, better 460). Especially since I have lots of money now
Determined to find a new computer I had spec'd and priced out a real monster six-core computer with all new parts. The whole rig was going to cost me $1200 after shipping and tax. Then I read this thread and came to my senses. For SC2, you don't need to spend a whole lot, especially if you're upgrading and reusing some parts you already own. I realized it was ridiculous to spend $1200 just to play video games, so I set out to get a system that would play SC2 decently well and also be upgradeable into the future.
I bought from newegg.com: AMD Athlon II X4 640 $99 ASUS M4A88T-V motherboard $99 4 gigs Kingston RAM $50
Its a 3GHz quad-core system, and its a generation or two old. But now, SC2 runs great on high settings and without lag (haven't tested yet on Ultra). This is on Win 7 32-bit. I reused my power supply (550W Antec), disk drives and an old case. I also already had a Radeon 4670 HD, but even if you don't, they are maybe $50-$70. So all told, I spent less than $275 on this upgrade, its purring happily and its done everything I've asked it to do. And I haven't even tried to overclock it.
My theory is that in 3 or 4 years I might need a new computer to play some game. I'll just spend another $275 and get an appropriate system at that time. No need for 6-core power now, most of it would be wasted.
Many thanks to Belial gg Mossen
I'm really glad this guide has been more than theorycraft and just brought a bunch of people to yell at me lol. I just figured I should give back, because I really felt bad being one of the many people who make a new thread saying "help me with my build". Awesome, your motherboard is great you should have no problem overclocking like woah. I'm very happy for you!
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On March 26 2011 18:01 Belial88 wrote: tomatriedes: can you post the output specs of that PSU? When I searched for it, it was all in korean. Also, you may want 4GB of RAM. I know this is a budget build, but I would say if you are building a budget system, going from 2GB to 4GB is one place you can see a noticeable difference (one of the best places to spend an extra $20, although I would say you shouldn't sacrifice your GPU or CPU for it). I can't really say how good your choice in the 5670 is, given that I don't know what the price it's offered at, and what the price of a 460, a 4850, or 4830, or even a whole multitude of other competitive cards are. GPU choice is really dominated by price. In the US, today, the 5670 is a horrible buy. But it may be a great buy if it's priced competitively to those other cards I mentioned. I will tell you that it's odd you are getting such a relatively weak card while a relatively stronger system in total. Now, if anything, you should spend money on a CPU vs a GPU, so I think there's nothing wrong with that. But I'm just pointing out that the 5670 won't play on Ultra on higher resolutions, if not medium resolutions, as it doesn't really seem you have that tight of a budget. The motherboard you chose is of great quality, but again, I don't know if it's a great buy since you don't list prices. You may be able to find boards just as good, for cheaper. And also, you only need such a board if you plan to do a lot of overclocking. If you aren't overclocking, you really reduce a lot of potential problems. As for your CPU choice, on newegg the 965 is faster at stock but the same price. I don't know how prices work for you though. Also note, that while the 965 may be faster at stock, the 955 might overclock better. I really have no clue, but my point is that certain chips overclock better than others, so if you are buying the 955 because you've read that it overclocks better than the 965, that would make sense - since you are getting that motherboard, I assume you like to overclock and you are okay with such a risk. of course, maybe the 965 is just more expensive to you. Of course, there's also the 925 chip, you should look and see how well they generally overclock if you are willing to get a slower stock chip for something that is known to overclock well. Phenoms seem to overclock much better in general than Athlons though, but they run much hotter because of the extra L3 cache (but it seems with your choice of PSU and Motherboard you have that covered). And do you really need an enitre terabyte of data? Obviously you aren't that constrained by budget and this may not be the best guide for you, but I would recommend you get a faster HDD vs a slower one with more space, but only if you dont need that much space. If you really need 1TB, then go for it. 32m cache means that that HDD is particularly fast, actually. You clearly picked out a good HDD, I'm just a bit worried about the size and if that's really necessary. You could also even just buy a super fast 64mb cache HDD to hold your OS and a few games and programs that's like under 200GB, and then use an old HDD or a really slow but big one to hold documents and pictures that don't benefit as much from faster read/write speeds. Coriolis, if you don't mind me asking, how well does your 4830 do? If I could make the guide a little more accurate, that would be great. Show nested quote +Thanks i was prolly going to use the "Athlon II X3 450"
but, my current comp runs SC2 fine, was just going to build anther just to have in hopes i could stream
but my connection is so bad ill prolly just keep my current comp I believe you can actually buy some sort of card to help those speeds on your PC. This isn't something I know much of, Destiny was just talking about it on his stream is all. Maybe something you want to look in to.
I didn't choose the parts myself, so I don't know the individual prices. It's a 'gaming computer' package on this website:
http://pcshop.danawa.com/DanawaPCBlog/main/representProductSeq/2440
Apparently it's meant to be one of the best sites for buying a computer over here. I also think a terabyte HD would be way too much for what I need. Maybe I'll ask if they can change out the GPU for one you mentioned, put a smaller HD in and an extra 2GBs of ram. Anyway I'm probably in the wrong thread here as I'm not planning to build myself, but thanks for the advice.
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5930 Posts
Phenom II 965 is just pretty much a better binned Phenom II 955. That means the 965 might reach a theoretically better overclock than the 955 but who gives a shit its not worth the extra cost for a small frequency bump and for the possibly better overclock.
Also, hard drive cache isn't really something to worry about so long the drive was designed within the last year. What cache means to the consumer is that it can make up for less efficient controllers and worse platter density - which is why with storage prices as low as they are, you should buy high space drives from specific companies because they tend to pack denser platters. Its why Samsung Spinpoints F3s are suggested all the time everywhere because its high platter density and price easily makes up for the fact it only has 32mb cache.
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I should mention in my guide that Caviar Green isn't good.
Anyways this is a guide to build a PC, not really for buying a pre-built. Building a PC is 100% about the price of [i]this]/i] item vs the price of that item. All you can really take from this guide is: A) How good are the parts selected B) How much of a price premium you are paying
It seems you are okay with the price premium, and I'm sure enough people have said to you, and you've read enough of, comments about how buying a pre-built is retarded because building a PC is extremely easy (99% of the difficulty, and my difficulty, was just the agonizing of the value of getting one part over another, even though both parts were perfectly good and okay) and way cheaper. But yea, go for 4GB on that buld. Also, you could simply just buy that build, sell the 5670, and buy a GTX 460 graphics card for cheap for yourself. I can't read the prices, but for example I know Dell, Alienware, and Mac charge like $200 for a GPU upgrade, when the GPU is only worth like $20 more or something - such a rip off, that in fact you are better off buying the crap GPU, selling it, and then replacing it on your own.
Also, I don't know if that's the best put together prebuilt. If you really must go with such a prebuilt, you should just buy it with the lower 2GB and 5670, and then buy 2GB more of the identical RAM yourself and stick it in (its as easy as just sticking it into the obvious slots, its literally 'plug and play') and get the 5670 and then buy a 460 on your own.
But just because its the best site for building a computer doesn't mean its good. You could save a lot of money just building it youself, it's extremely easy. I doubt you can ask for a smaller HDD. But assuming you can't build it, yea just get the 2gb and 5670, then add in more ram and a better GPU (although 5670 isn't horrible, its actually a pretty good budget card, its just not THE best value at that price range and not THE best performance at the price range either, its just a very solid card that's 2nd best performance at 2nd best price).
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the hardest part of building a pc is getting the thermal grease off your elbow
:C
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AMAZING guide, Belial!! Absolutely love it... Thanks so much for your hard work...
I built a PC about 8 months ago, still loving it... Great experience too
Your guide makes me want to build another one, lol!!!
>Oh, actually, the only problem I have had is that about once every 10 days or so, the PC would blue-screen (fatal error, memory dump, etc.) in the middle of a random application... Do you think this is a RAM issue, HD issue, or power issue?
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^ no idea. Get a program called "BlueScreenView" and then look up the error code. If you overclocked at all, that would be a start of the problem. Your problem could be so many things, you really aren't providing enough details and this isn't the thread for it tbh :O
Also, hard drive cache isn't really something to worry about so long the drive was designed within the last year. What cache means to the consumer is that it can make up for less efficient controllers and worse platter density - which is why with storage prices as low as they are, you should buy high space drives from specific companies because they tend to pack denser platters. Its why Samsung Spinpoints F3s are suggested all the time everywhere because its high platter density and price easily makes up for the fact it only has 32mb cache.
Ah yea forgot about platter count and density. I'll add that to the guide sometime.
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On March 26 2011 20:43 Belial88 wrote:^ no idea. Get a program called "BlueScreenView" and then look up the error code. If you overclocked at all, that would be a start of the problem. Your problem could be so many things, you really aren't providing enough details and this isn't the thread for it tbh :O Show nested quote +Also, hard drive cache isn't really something to worry about so long the drive was designed within the last year. What cache means to the consumer is that it can make up for less efficient controllers and worse platter density - which is why with storage prices as low as they are, you should buy high space drives from specific companies because they tend to pack denser platters. Its why Samsung Spinpoints F3s are suggested all the time everywhere because its high platter density and price easily makes up for the fact it only has 32mb cache. Ah yea forgot about platter count and density. I'll add that to the guide sometime. Thanks for quick reply... Will try out the program! I know what I posted was vague but I don't have many details myself lol
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On March 26 2011 17:47 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +Belial:
Could you give some insight on the appropriate hardware if one intends to stream?
I'm looking to buy a new computer solely for SC2 -- the one I have is a several years old laptop and runs everything fine except for SC2 which it chokes a bit at low settings. I don't have a specific budget but I don't want to spend money I don't need to spend since I have no demands other than SC2. The only caveat I'm not so sure about is I want to be able to stream, which means it needs to maintain a good FPS at high enough graphics settings to look pretty, and my current monitor is 1900x1200 (i have another one with some wacky super-wide resolution, like 2050x1000 or something, hardly an improvement). If supporting a bigger resolution vs. smaller is solely up to the graphics card it's probably easier/cheaper to get a nicer card than pick up a new monitor. As far as streaming, you mention it in the RAM section but nowhere else so I'm curious if it puts additional strain on other components (cpu, graphics, etc) Running at 1900x1200, I'm going to tell you right away that the GTX 460 is the minimum you need. I really don't think it's necessary to get anything more than that, but if, IF you are really caviar about spending a bit more money, I wouldn't say it would be a bad idea to get a 470 or some card that is slightly better. A 465 would be a good buy ONLY IF you know how to overclock GPUs (which is extremely easy) as from what I've read, the 460 is a better card at stock, or something along those lines, but the 465 is much better when OC'd. Don't quote me on that, I'm a bit rigid on that, but the concept is something along the lines of buy the 465 only if you know how to take advantage of overclocking, otherwise go 460 or 470. However, since this is a budget build, and since the 460 will be bottlenecked by any CPU under $120, I don't think you should go more than the 460. So this brings me to another point: if you want to get a better GPU than what I recommended, you really have to get a much, much better CPU that's way beyond the price range this guide covers and talks about, to appreciate it. I know what I said about GPUs and performance, but note that an Athlon II will hold back a 460 just a tiny bit, so I can't recommend anything more than the 460 for an Athlon II series build. But yea, you may need more RAM for streaming. Honestly, I don't know too much about it, and even if I did, there are others who can explain it better. I know that 4GB of RAM is more than enough for just starcraft and web browsing and general multi tasking like playing music and downloading torrents, much more than enough, and that 2GB can barely play Starcraft 2 perfectly but only when everything is closed out - but I don't know if 4GB can support streaming too. Maybe it can, maybe not - I don't have the answer to that. I wish I could say "just get 6GB of RAM instead of 4" but I can't say with any authority on the matter, as I don't know how 4GB handles streaming and don't know how much RAM is really needed for streaming at all. I imagine, and I say this as a total shot int he dark, that 4GB should handle it decently and 6GB will have you completely covered. Again, PLEASE dont take my word on this, many others actually have experience with this and cover this more indepth. If you really want to go budget with it, i would say get the same build I suggested at top end budget (athlon II x3, 460) with 6GB. Now the catch is that the i3-2100 is a great CPU, it's actually the best CPU for the price - but it's only dual core (which is worse for multi-tasking than tri/quad/hexa - read: you need more cores for streaming than dual). The quad core sandy bridge series starts at about $180 I want to say, which is a huge price leap. Now it's funny, but a Phenom II quadcore could be great, but it's only on par with the i3 series, so it's kinda not worth the price, but on the other hand it's kinda hard to recommend just a dual core for a new build. There's also the upcoming AM3+ systems by AMD called Bulldozer, so if you want to get a 'temporary' CPU for now, and then upgrade later, you should get an AM3+ motherboard (which supports AM3 but unlike current AM3 boards, the AM3+ will support the new line of CPUs by AMD coming out. Although the release of Bulldozer may just make you get a Phenom II AM3 because the Bulldozer will probably result in a huge drop in price in current 'higher end' CPUs by AMD). It really just depends on how much you are willing to spend, but I surmise you need to look at streaming guides, and that maybe this guide isn't for you. You could probably stream just fine on my build, with 460 and 6GB, but if you really want to do it perfectly, guaranteed, you may need more. Of course, maybe you can stream perfectly on 4GB and the 460 and AMD 450, but I don't know.
Will check out the streaming guides. I am willing to get a new monitor to play SC if it's more prudent, but the fact is I have a 1920x1200 monitor and I'm assuming the step up in gfx card is probably a better idea than another monitor.
I don't care about being super frugal since I have kind of steep demands, I just don't have any high tech demands other than wanting to stream SC2 so I don't want to buy anything I don't need. I'm also buying pretty much as soon as I sort out what it is I have to get. If I have to go with like an i3 or i5 so be it...
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Hey, I've got two specific questions for you. The first is about the motherboard I've got here:
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=23088808
I tried to follow the information you wrote here but I'd like some confirmation that I did a good job picking it out.
The second is about the video card. Do you think 60 dollars is worth the longevity difference between a GTX 560 and a GTX 460?
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The second is about the video card. Do you think 60 dollars is worth the longevity difference between a GTX 560 and a GTX 460?
Depends on a few things. First, what is the GPU for? I know longevity is kinda vague, but are you referring to maybe SC2 expansions and D3, or just whatever comes out in the future? Secondly, what kind of CPU do you have? If you're CPU isn't strong enough, then no reason to.
Third, no, not really. The GTX 460 is so cheap at ~$120 now (can you really find a 560 for only $180?), then when it gets outdated you can upgrade very easily since you didn't spend much in the first place. The 460 is such a strong card, and by the time you start to notice it isn't strong enough, there will be much better cards or better current cards will be really cheap. Also, no point in getting better than the 460 if you CPU can't appreciate it. So it really depends on what you need the GPU for and what your CPU is. I'll look at the mobo later.
edit: this is just my opinion, others may argue different but im sure theyd agree that you shouldnt buy a GPU just because its stronger, you should buy what you need. If its just SC2, you dont need a 560 (unless you want absolute perfect performance at max resolution in insane custom games and have a high end CPU to go with it?).
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Yeah, I'm thinking about Skyrim and other games in the future. Even though SC2 will probably get more time than anything else, I'd still like to not have to worry about upgrading in the future.
Oh, I just realized I was looking at only 1gb versions of the 460 and it is about 140. Newegg has a 560 for about 200 after a mail-in rebate. I am going for an i5 2400 for the processor; so, I think it should be strong enough. What I was thinking is that 60 dollars now would be less than whatever I would pay to upgrade later, I just didn't know if the 560 would age considerably better or not. Plus, the one I have picked out looks wicked sweet, haha, as little as that matters. Sounds like switching down to the 460 might just be the best idea, though.
Do you have any thoughts on this motherboard?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135279
99 dollars. There are only 5 chokes but then I think it has solid capacitors, the mosfets look like they have 4 legs, there's an 8-pin power connector and a heatsink. I can't seem to find much information through Google about the board; so, I thought I would ask about it.
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^ you always have to 'worry' about upgrading in the future, since everything gets outdated. If you really want to be future proof, you just shouldnt ever buy a PC because your waiting for the next thing to come out which will either be awesome itself or drop the prices of everything else. Buying PC parts is not about the part itself, its about how the value compares.
So know what you need, and buy off that. The athlon II x2 series regor is only $60, and the X3 is only $70-80. That really isn't that much money, and given it'll last at least a year for your current game obsession, just buy that 'chump change' CPU and then upgrade when you need to.
Not sure what skyrim is though. Sounds like a sexual act.
Oh, I just realized I was looking at only 1gb versions of the 460 and it is about 140. Newegg has a 560 for about 200 after a mail-in rebate. I am going for an i5 2400 for the processor; so, I think it should be strong enough. What I was thinking is that 60 dollars now would be less than whatever I would pay to upgrade later, I just didn't know if the 560 would age considerably better or not. Plus, the one I have picked out looks wicked sweet, haha, as little as that matters. Sounds like switching down to the 460 might just be the best idea, though.
Don't get the 1GB version. Starcraft 2 only appreciates the 716mb except in single player. VRAM is usually about textures, and its a matter of having enough or not, just like RAM. Just see what the game quality of games your playing needs in VRAM, and buy accordingly. I mean if you need 1GB, go for it, but you see how you can just go "oh its only $20 to go for the 1GB version" and then "oh its only $20 more to go for the high quality premium name-brand EVGA version" then "oh its only $20 from that to go for the 560" then "oh its only $20 to go for SLI capable 560". It'll drive you crazy, and when you get down to it, buying the best 'value' of PC parts actually is extremely expensive, that's how they make their money. Buy what you need, not what is a good value, and you'll save a shitton of money when you realize that software is about 2 years behind hardware. In 2 years, you can buy a $80 GPU that'll play everything perfectly, if your current one can't.
And a 560 @ $200 is almost twice the price of the 460 which you can find for $126, and I've seen it under $100 in promotions that occur every once in a while, you just have to look for them (the same newegg Galaxy 460 @ $145 used to be $85!!! fucking I waited a day too late thats why i didnt get it T_T ). Then, also bear in mind that A) Your CPU will be limit your GPU unless your buying a very expensive, over $150 CPU, in which case this guide isn't for you and you should be looking at intel sandy bridge, which is something I don't mention in this guide because of the price and how unnecessary it is and B) a 460 will play SC2 just as good as a 560 except in extremely rare instances of custom games at max resolution PROVIDED your CPU isn't bottlenecking - that is, it'll play it at over 50 FPS at max settings. You really need to get at least an i5 or i7 even to appreciate a 560, which is just really ridiculous in price and performance.
If you are playing starcraft 2 ladder single player, or even 2v2, at max resolution and graphics, the Athlon II X3 and 4850 will play everything at the best performance, just as good as an i7 and 560 because they play it perfectly well (well, any minor imperceptible boost in SC2 performance can be compensated with going athlon X4 and gtx 460).
The motherboard looks good but i can't say how well the price compares to other motherboards. If that's the cheapest quality board you can find though, go for it. It looks good. Although I haven't heard of that brand too much, you should do some research in that brand and how others fared with that model.
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A gtx 560 is like a 470with better cooling. and for gaming it would be better to get an i3 2100 over similarly priced amd models.
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Skyrim's cross-platform, which means even the PC version should run on 4-5 year old hardware. Anything from this thread will cover you for at least minimum on it.
That said, the 768MB 460 is actually slower than the 1GB too, not just less VRAM. It actually loses memory bandwidth to the 1GB. For SC2, not really relevant, or for anything cross-platform, but if you're looking at any PC exclusives, the 1GB will definitely get a bit more staying power.
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oh taking a look at skyrims specs, recommending a 9800GTX, yea, a 4850 will be more than powerful to accomplish that game. You should probably just buy the 4850 more than anything, I'm sitting here saying that I shouldn't have bought the 460, I shouldve went with the 4850 and been able to eat for a week lol.
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On March 27 2011 09:24 Belial88 wrote: oh taking a look at skyrims specs, recommending a 9800GTX, yea, a 4850 will be more than powerful to accomplish that game. You should probably just buy the 4850 more than anything, I'm sitting here saying that I shouldn't have bought the 460, I shouldve went with the 4850 and been able to eat for a week lol.
whoa where did you find the specs for skyrim?
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On March 27 2011 09:33 gimmeateeshitkent wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2011 09:24 Belial88 wrote: oh taking a look at skyrims specs, recommending a 9800GTX, yea, a 4850 will be more than powerful to accomplish that game. You should probably just buy the 4850 more than anything, I'm sitting here saying that I shouldn't have bought the 460, I shouldve went with the 4850 and been able to eat for a week lol. whoa where did you find the specs for skyrim?
It's a console port. Minimum spec is on par with an xbox 360, and that hardware is so old anything and everything in this thread should be above suggested spec. DA2 is kind of an exception, but with how bad they screwed the pooch on DX11, might as well play it lower specs. (Well, AvP 2010 too, but that game was such a flop it doesn't matter, and no amount of DX11 could save it.)
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On March 27 2011 09:43 JingleHell wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2011 09:33 gimmeateeshitkent wrote:On March 27 2011 09:24 Belial88 wrote: oh taking a look at skyrims specs, recommending a 9800GTX, yea, a 4850 will be more than powerful to accomplish that game. You should probably just buy the 4850 more than anything, I'm sitting here saying that I shouldn't have bought the 460, I shouldve went with the 4850 and been able to eat for a week lol. whoa where did you find the specs for skyrim? It's a console port. Minimum spec is on par with an xbox 360, and that hardware is so old anything and everything in this thread should be above suggested spec. DA2 is kind of an exception, but with how bad they screwed the pooch on DX11, might as well play it lower specs. (Well, AvP 2010 too, but that game was such a flop it doesn't matter, and no amount of DX11 could save it.)
do you know if morrowind/oblivion were console ports too?
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On March 27 2011 09:47 gimmeateeshitkent wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2011 09:43 JingleHell wrote:On March 27 2011 09:33 gimmeateeshitkent wrote:On March 27 2011 09:24 Belial88 wrote: oh taking a look at skyrims specs, recommending a 9800GTX, yea, a 4850 will be more than powerful to accomplish that game. You should probably just buy the 4850 more than anything, I'm sitting here saying that I shouldn't have bought the 460, I shouldve went with the 4850 and been able to eat for a week lol. whoa where did you find the specs for skyrim? It's a console port. Minimum spec is on par with an xbox 360, and that hardware is so old anything and everything in this thread should be above suggested spec. DA2 is kind of an exception, but with how bad they screwed the pooch on DX11, might as well play it lower specs. (Well, AvP 2010 too, but that game was such a flop it doesn't matter, and no amount of DX11 could save it.) do you know if morrowind/oblivion were console ports too?
Well, back then, more games were developed side by side. They were developed together, but they made the PC versions better. Oblivion, not much so, since when it came out, the 360 was still relatively new, so the hardware was reasonably up to date, and I don't think the differences are as pronounced as Morrowind was. Skyrim, however, is being made to run on 5 year old tech, and the odds of them polishing the PC version significantly further are just kind of slim, the way the industry has been shitting on PCs lately. However, we're kind of dragging this way off topic, so if you want to discuss that sort of nuance further, PM me.
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Hi first of all thanks OP for your educational build. I've decided to build a comp according to it. Please check if this is OK.. Prices in Canadian Dollars
Athlon II X3 460 $72 Asus GTX460 Fermi 768mb $115 NZXT Gamma Case $50 Antec Earthwatts 500W 80+ Bronze $35 BenQ Monitor 23' $120 Patriot Extreme Gaming Ram 2x4GB 1600 mhz DDR3 $69.99 WD Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 7200RPM 16mb Cache $39.32
Subtotal (No Mobo and other small things) $501 I need a motherboard, but don't know any good ones, any suggestions? Is 8gb of ram too much? I can get 4gb for 35$ I also want to play Diablo 3 and Dota 2 when they come out, so I don't know whether it's a good idea to prepare for OC/Unlock or no?
Thanks
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On March 27 2011 09:47 gimmeateeshitkent wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2011 09:43 JingleHell wrote:On March 27 2011 09:33 gimmeateeshitkent wrote:On March 27 2011 09:24 Belial88 wrote: oh taking a look at skyrims specs, recommending a 9800GTX, yea, a 4850 will be more than powerful to accomplish that game. You should probably just buy the 4850 more than anything, I'm sitting here saying that I shouldn't have bought the 460, I shouldve went with the 4850 and been able to eat for a week lol. whoa where did you find the specs for skyrim? It's a console port. Minimum spec is on par with an xbox 360, and that hardware is so old anything and everything in this thread should be above suggested spec. DA2 is kind of an exception, but with how bad they screwed the pooch on DX11, might as well play it lower specs. (Well, AvP 2010 too, but that game was such a flop it doesn't matter, and no amount of DX11 could save it.) do you know if morrowind/oblivion were console ports too?
Morrowind was a PC port, oblivion was a console port.
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Hi first of all thanks OP for your educational build. I've decided to build a comp according to it. Please check if this is OK.. Prices in Canadian Dollars
Athlon II X3 460 $72 Asus GTX460 Fermi 768mb $115 NZXT Gamma Case $50 Antec Earthwatts 500W 80+ Bronze $35 BenQ Monitor 23' $120 Patriot Extreme Gaming Ram 2x4GB 1600 mhz DDR3 $69.99 WD Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 7200RPM 16mb Cache $39.32
Subtotal (No Mobo and other small things) $501 I need a motherboard, but don't know any good ones, any suggestions? Is 8gb of ram too much? I can get 4gb for 35$ I also want to play Diablo 3 and Dota 2 when they come out, so I don't know whether it's a good idea to prepare for OC/Unlock or no?
Thanks
What kind of motherboard are you getting?
I discuss RAM in my thread - for SC2, you only need 2GB (this will play it perfectly smoothly, but it *will* require you shutting down absolutely every program - imo if you have an extra $20, get more RAM, but if you are strapped, just buy 2GB more when you get the money, I would say its the best thing to spend extra money on, you'll notice the difference, but don't sacrifice your choice of CPU or GPU because you wanted to get 4GB instead of 2). With 4GB you will be able to play SC2 and browse with multiple windows, run background applications, videos, downloads, et cetera, with more RAM only needed for streaming or running other intensive programs at the same time. If you really need 8 GB, the price sounds right on what you picked (70/2=35 for 4GB, not bad) but I'm not sure what the specs are on that RAM and how it compares to other RAM at the same specs at their prices.
If you don't really know about overclocking or unlocking, then I don't think you really should buy stuff for it. It takes a lot of time, patience, and research, that you clearly haven't done yet. With the basic gear you buy now, you should be able to do any overclocking you may want to do in the future anyways. Unlocking doesn't generally require anything extra (unless youre buying the absolute minimum in mobo or PSU, as in like a 300w psu and a 3+1 bad VRM motherboard? If your mobo supports quadcore it'll support tri core unlocked, same with PSU). As for overclocking, the 450 doesn't overclock too far from what I've seen (and when it does, it doesn't require too much voltage to do so, which is actually pretty awesome in the rare cases people hit 4GHZ on it, usually at only +.1v). Get what you need, learn to overclock, and see how stability and temperatures are affected. If temps are an issue, you can just slap on an aftermarket heatsink. Generally things like motherboard or PSU will only need to be changed if you are going for an extreme overclock that you don't plan to use for more than 20 minutes (like an overclocking competition), so in the future you can just buy what you need and be fine. For example, I bought the basic, best priced gear. I have overclocked everything in my system to its limits, and due to stability issues, I never hit high temperatures or voltages that would warrant 'overclock gear'. I did buy fans and a heatsink but this is was to increase the longevity of a system I both wanted to last and be a bit harsh on at the same time. In retrospect, I should've tested first, and seen what I needed, and realized I didn't need to buy what I ended up buying.
But the build should be able to play dota and d3 just fine.
Also your choice in monitor, I can't say if its good or bad. I would recommend you ask someone or somewhere who/what knows about monitors to inform you on the quality of that choice.
The PSU is fine. I think the 430 is all you need, but with a 500w you should be fine for anything you need to do. I actually added 7 fans, a fan controller, and 2x cold cathode lights to my setup, and overclocked my CPU, CPUNB, HT, and RAM with extra voltage and I'm riding the limits of my PSU (meaning I may have to replace it in 3 or so years when it starts to age and lose it's power output but by then I can simply either remove fans, scale back OC's, or simply upgrade). So unless you plan to stack 7 fans (mind you, it's absolutely silly to have 7 fans but that's just me) and know how to overvolt properly, get the 430.
As for suggestions on motherboards, just go with a combo motherboard on newegg with the athlon 450 (i believe they offer the biostar a770e3 still, just like I got). But if you plan to overclock and unlock, then you will need a better motherboard - read my VRM section about that. Since my motherboard was 60USD (40 with the combo deal) you should just start at the 60USD price point and review motherboards and seeing which ones have good VRMs up and up in price until you find the cheap one that is good quality on it.
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Thanks Belial, I did some research for mobo, and i currently set my mind on the MSI 870A-G54, which can be bought at 82$ here. according to this comparison (http://www.techspot.com/review/295-amd-socket-am3-motherboard-comparison/page6.html ), this mobo seems ok in terms of performance vs the Gigabyte board that was also in the article, but that one is 106$ here.
What do you think of this MSI mobo? should i go lower or is this ok?
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^ Come on man, my article talks about motherboards, as does that great link I posted in it (the one at overclock.net that talks about motherboards, as well as the All-You-Need-to-Know-About-VRMs guide).
I already said MSI boards are generally avoided, although I didn't get into specifics. They are generally avoided because they use really cheap VRM parts - they buy cheap mosfet chipsets, they use cheap capacitors sometimes, and they use cheap capacitors. The setup may be good, but for some reason they buy really cheap parts to put on the VRM - generally.
So doing an in-depth analysis of you motherboard, that i teach you how to do in my motherboard section, we'll see how good the motherboard is.
1. Square blocks, that's ferrite chokes. Good 2. 5 square blocks in total, or "4+1". Bad 3. Solid Capacitors that are 'solid' instead of 'wrapped' looking like electrolytic capacitors. Good. 4. 3 identical mosfet chipsets per channel instead of 2 with a 3rd 8 legged 'driver' chip - bad. 5. 3 legs with the middle cut instead of 4 legs on each chipset, meaning there is no Low RDS on - bad. 6. This wasn't specificed in the guide, but the mosfet chipsets are Nikos brand (you can't really tell in the picture because the gold lettering isn't really readable, but if you look them up online, or seen them before, you can tell those are Nikos because its gold lettering and the circular indention on the middle of thie chipset) this is REALLY bad. 7. No heatsink. Really bad.
The motherboard seems to be 'bad' instead of good most of the time, the only redeeming features are 8pin PSU port and solid capacitors, which are offset by how horrible the mosfet is set up and the low number of channels. The fact this board is $80 and is worse than my $40 Biostar motherboard means it's a total waste of money. My opinion on this motherboard is that it's a total piece of crap, with a jacked up price, using completely cheap taiwanese and chinese parts to save money in a dangerous way since you can use cheap parts where it doesnt matter and you can use smart design with cheap parts to make it work, but in this instance they did neither, and that MSi is doing something a lot of PC companies do - using their brand name to take advantage of consumers who don't know better
It seems the majority of the PC market does this, ie Mac especially and all prebuilt PC companies like HP and Dell do this, they take the ignorance that people don't realize how cheap it is to build a PC or have someone else do it, jack up the price by a huge premium, then make all the parts proprietary so you have to buy a new one to upgrade). What a lot of enthusiasts don't realize is that motherboards are the same way - theoretically, you could build your own motherboard by taking a blank printed circuit board and soldering on chipsets, capacitors, chokes, etc from Japan and Taiwan and then processors from AMD/Intel/ATi etc. It's okay though, MSi is generally a quality brand, I love their company, but in the case of motherboards they are not good.
This isn't an expert opinion or anything, just a little reading at overclock.net and that article I found that I posted in the link. You could've done this analysis by yourself if you took the time to read my article thoroughly, i would think you would if you are spending money to build a PC that you want to last and work
As for that article you posted, it's a retarded article. I've read through it, and they compare how 'quality' one board is to another based on retarded things. They pick these 3 boards to compare because they have 800 series chipsets, but like I already said, the only difference between northbridges is how many GPUs they support and overclocking, ie they mean very little given you can overclock via software anyways, that many series overclock anyways, and that SLI/Crossfire is a bad option anyways. You can see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_chipsets#Comparison_of_Northbridges That they really don't mean much.
They also knock or priase a board on stupid things like how many SATA ports it has - which you can just add expansions to a board anyways for, and again, you only need just a few. They also praise boards with integrated graphics, which doesn't matter since we are buying a graphics card. We already know no matter how good the integrated graphics, it won't work for SC2, as it isn't for gaming but just to maybe be able to play DVDs or blu-ray. It's just a really bad article, some of the things they say maybe for nice or not for a motherboard but almost nothing they say is worth paying extra money for. In all, the article doesn't say what's important - how well does it handle voltage, how is the vdroop and vdrop, how hot does the VRM or northbridge get, et cetera. The motherboard is just a power supply, and it's quality is based on how well it powers things and how reliably it does so. 'Things' also plug into it, so just make sure it can plug in and your good, you don't need fancy 800 series chipsets to understand that it can support 2 GPUs when you see 2 GPU slots on it.
So I can say it again, its a horribly overpriced board with horrible quality. Don't ever buy it, it will blow out even at stock settings.
Here's what they said at OC.net:
870A-G(D)54/870S-G54 4+1 No 125W 95W max, OC w/cooling No Nikos P060BD MOSFETs 8 pin ATX http://www.overclock.net/amd-motherboards/946407-amd-motherboard-power-phase-list.html Essentially its a weak board.
The following is a few testimonials:
http://www.overclock.net/amd-cpus/794250-help-msi-870-g45-unlocking-720be-3.html#post11272679 - MSI 870A-G54/Phenom II x4 955 [4+1] - blew up upon turning the PC on for the first time - 25/2/2011
http://www.overclock.net/amd-motherboards/770915-i-toasted-my-msi-890fx-gd70-12.html#post12246100 MSI 870A-G54/1055T very slight OC, mosfet blew the first day [4+1] - 3/2/2011
http://www.overclock.net/amd-motherboards/914345-msi-870a-g54-cant-change-voltages.html#post12008181 MSI 870A-G54/1075T - sparks coming from mosfets [4+1] - 18/1/2011
http://www.overclock.net/amd-motherboards/839162-msi-870a-g54-lacks-mosfets.html MSI 870A-G54/x4 955 4Ghz + H50, 10 minutes [4+1] - 5/10/2010 - PIC
Apparently that motherboard is so bad it will actually blow up on stock settings sometimes.
Do you plan to overclock? If you do, you'll need a good motherboard, maybe an extra $20 or so. If you don't then you can get a cheap one. It's about buying smart with motherboards - see, my $40 motherboard is better than that $80 motherboard, and at least mine won't blow up as easily. Although my motherboard isn't good quality for overclocking, it's half the price and better quality.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128469
The cheapest motherboard I could recommend. I wouldn't advise a huge overvolt on this, but any working 24/7 overvolt should be fine. If you plan to overclock, get chipset heatsinks. Miles ahead of the MSI G54 in terms of reliability and not-blowing-up-ness.
Read this article too: http://www.overclock.net/amd-cpus/943109-why-vrms-big-issue-why-choose.html
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Ok I think im going to get that mobo. thanks
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^ its actually $10 cheaper than my motherboard, but imo better. I can see what its cheaper though - no southbridge and less slots. But no point in PCI slots besides single x16 and 2 RAM. You should look up the chipset, its an Nvidia chipset insttead of an AMD chipset, meaning its a bit different. I'm not saying it's bad, the difference is like Nvidia vs Radeon, it's just a different setup. Apparently some Nvidia setups combine the NB and SB together.
But doing a bit of quick research using the 2 links I posted from overclock.net - it has no testimonials of people blowing them up and apparently its recommended to use for 125w OC when cooled. It's definately better than my board, in my opinion. Clearly a better buy than my board which was $10 more expensive (although it was actualyl $10 cheaper due to combo deal). I didn't really do much research on that, I simply looked at newegg and looked at the VRM of the cheapest boards, and that was the first one I saw that was acceptable and wasn't a POS. So there may be better boards out there, although that's the cheapest one that's acceptable so I guess that's all you really need to do in choosing a motherboard (of course, make sure your CPU fits, it has a PCIx16 slot, but that's about all motherboards come down to).
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It also only has a single 12v rail, and its not rated even 80 bronze. It says UP TO 80% efficiency.
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EDIT: made some changes, check out the new system! + Show Spoiler +First, I decided to upgrade to the radeon 4850 graphics card, along with a different motherboard ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138197I would LOVE some input on the motherboard, a better suggestion for a cheap/solid AMD board. Also, what is the difference between CAS latency of 7 and 9. I'm assuming that 7 is better, based solely on "less latency = good" can anyone explain CAS latency a bit?
Thanks so much for the guide! I literally was wondering, "how can I build a computer that will play starcraft 2 for $400 to $500?" when I stumbled upon this. Never found more pertinent advice. Anyway, here's the build Im considering, I'd love some opinions/advice on it:
CPU- AMD Athlon II X3 450 Rana 3.2GHz http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103886&cm_re=x3-_-19-103-886-_-Product $80
Motherboard: BIOSTAR TA880GB+ AM3 AMD 880G HDMI Micro ATX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138197 $75
Memory- Kingston 4gb DDR3 (1) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134927&cm_re=kingston_4gb_ram-_-20-134-927-_-Product $42
Graphics card XFX HD-485X-ZNFC Radeon HD 4850 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150482&Tpk=4850 raddeon $120 ($90 after rebate)
Hard drive- HITACHI 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache Hard Drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145299&cm_re=HITACHI_500g-_-22-145-299-_-Product $40
Case- SIGMA ORCA ORCA-B ATX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811226019&Tpk=SIGMA ORCA $30
Power supply- Antec EarthWatts Green 430W 80 PLUS BRONZE http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371034&Tpk=430 antec earthwatts $50
(I already have a good LCD monitor)
total: $437
Edit: bought and built this computer, and it's running things absolutely beautifully! Thank you very much Belial for the thread, without it I woudn't have built this.
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@Lobotomist: I'd check a1's guide to building a sandybridge PC if you're willing to hit the $500 price point.
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This is Australian Dollar The gaming machine i am looking to build for $1500. Please critique, in particular the mobo, ram and PSU are the main choices that im still not 100% on, perhaps the coolers as well for those more versed.
The mobo will not need to be able to dual gpu as its something i will upgrade later and use this one in a different non gaming system, but would there be other mobos you would recommend in terms of stability/features.
The RAM has me wondering if i should go with the 4gb ones running at CL6, with an upgrade to 8gbs later or would it make not much difference in getting the CL8 version.
Will 750w psu, this one in particular handle dual GTX 560s as that is what i will be aiming to get, along with an i7 on the upcoming 2011 socket, which we can only estimate general levels of power.
CPU – i5 2500k – $250 MOBO Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3R – $200 RAM – 8GB DDR3 G.Skill F3 1600MHz CL8-8-8-24-2N(2x4GB) – $145 Or 4GB DDR3 G.Skill F3 1600MHz 6-8-6-24-2N (2x2GB) = $90 GPU – Gigabyte GTX560Ti Super Overclock – $310 HDD – 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black SATA III 6 Gb/s 7200RPM 64MB Cache – $105 Cooler – Zalman CNPS9900A(Copper fan-orb design) – $70 Optical – Samsung 12x Blu-ray Reader Combo Drive – $90 Case – Antec Dark Fleet-30 – $120 PSU – 750W Corsair TX-750 – $155 Sound card – Asus Xonar – $60
Total $1475-1525(depends on market)
Thanks for your help.
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you probably should post this in the computer resource thread as this one is for budget PC building. also, belial is kinda banned =/
4gig ram
im not 100%sure but why do you want the super overclocked card. is it because of the brand's warranty, or because its overclocked? you can overclock it yourself easily later. the msi twin frozr one is 279 at pc case gear, you might be able to find it cheaper elsewhere too
zalman coolers are okay, but for 70 bucks (also including the money you saved on your gpu) you could get a thermalright silver arrow or a noctua nh-d14 or the like, which are better coolers.
why a blu-ray drive?
antec truepower 750w is cheaper and better than the tx750, id go to with that and yeah 750 is enough
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The warrenty plays a good factor into it as well as being only $10 more than the base one from gigabyte, tho ill admit is $30 more then the msi it was actually between these two brands.
Def going to look into those coolers, wasnt really feeling great with the zalman
Blu ray as it will be the only device i would own for playback if i moved out of the place i am renting we got a ps3 in the house but its roommate, figure for $40-$50(it was actually $75 not $95 recently too) is worth it incase there is ever a time ill need it, but i am still not sure either really, since $50 less could then be spent elsewhere
Antec, will have a quick look into it Thanks
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Generally I've seen Superclocked Editions, or "SE" cards perform worse than non-SE cards. Ie, the gtx 460 SE is worse than the older, normal 460. Not sure why that's the case, just is.
Most of the motherboards in the above links don't seem worth the price. If you are just getting 4+1 with no heatsink on the VRM, 4 pin CPU port, and 3 legged mosfets with no Low RDS on, I wouldn't pay more than $45 for it and I would only recommend it if budget is more important than overclocking. You really get into trouble when you start messing with the 125w processors like hexacores, or just Phenoms in general, so since this is a thread about the much cooler running Athlon, VRM isn't as big an issue, but still, if you were to unlock + overclock, you'd want something a little better. In short, I don't like the motherboards chosen because their VRM didn't justify the price. Either find a better VRM for the same price, or get a cheaper board and live with the risk with some money saved over (or just don't overclock).
And skyR that isn't really a good PSU, the 12v rail is weaker than an Antec 380D and it's less efficient.
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SE does not stand for superclocked, it stands for Slow Edition. Notice how they're cheaper than their non-SE counterparts?
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^ I'm pretty sure it means Superclocked Edition?
edit: quick search, maybe means second edition. Doesn't seem like many know the answer.
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I think my confusion came from seeing them priced higher and never really addressed specifically, as well as seeing many other reviews/people say don't get them. Thanks for clearing that up. On Newegg there are so many 460/460SEs that they never stuck out as cheaper.
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On April 08 2011 00:14 Belial88 wrote: And skyR that isn't really a good PSU, the 12v rail is weaker than an Antec 380D and it's less efficient.
The CX430 has 28a on its 12v rail and is 80+ Certified. The 380D also has 28a on its 12v rail and is 80+ Bronze. 80+ difference is not a big deal since its only going to be a ~1% difference.
You do not add 12v1 and 12v2 together to get the total amperage. You look at the total wattage of the 12v rail(s) and then divide it by 12 to get the amperage.
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+12V1@17A, +12V2@15A
17+16=33x12= 396
+12V@28A
12 x 28 = 336
Correct?
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I just said you don't add multiple rails together.
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My computer is still running great, my gf got me a ducky 1087 tenkeyless cherry brown, and I'm using a steelseries kinzu optical (it doesnt glide, it has the worst mouse feet, but meh, i like it, and it was a good bday present from a friend for $20).
Anyways. Now that time has passed, I wonder if this guide has been used by anyone.
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siiiiick i was thinking of getting a mechanical keyboard but theres too many fucking switch colours :C i dont know which one to get
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Hmmm this guide, I don't get it. Max settings with that CPU? No way. 4850 enough for max settings? Maybe if you don't mind 5 FPS. I have a 4850 and a slightly better CPU and Medium is the highest I can comfortably play
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^ Depends on your resolution, which I addressed in the accessories section. If you are on a simple 1200, you can be okay. I also said arguably. Could've been clearer on that. Benchmark testing has shown that the 4850 is just fine on lower resolutions to play on maxed with SC2 (no AA), so you may be having computer issues if you can only play on medium, as it's a fairly strong (budget) card.
I describe the PC I have and I get maxed settings easily, with about average 120 fps or so (my gpu is also HEAVILY underclocked due to some hardware problems, too lazy to return yet and dont want no gpu for a month during swap process).
edit: actually if you are on medium at most I'm quite sure something else is going on if you are on a resolution around 1200.
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CPU has nothing to do with the resolution though, and I thought 1080p was the standard that's used as a baseline. Of course you only need a 5570 for 1024x768 but either way that CPU still can't play on ultra
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1080p isn't exactly resolution, it deals with the monitor. I'm talking about your resolution settings, although if you are using a 1080p monitor, you are probably using a really high resolution. Try lowering your resolution, it'll help your fps a ton. If you are on a 4850, you should'nt be using 1080p - or rather, you shouldn't be using 1080p at it's limits.
You say CPU over and over, but you don't say what CPU you are talking about. A CPU can be anything, as in any model. Saying 'car' doesn't specify a mustang over a geo, in the same sense.
I'm running an athlon II x3 and 460 that's severely underclocked (so probably more similar to a 4850? not sure) and I do ultra with over 100 average fps.
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On January 02 2012 00:29 Belial88 wrote: 1080p isn't exactly resolution, it deals with the monitor. I'm talking about your resolution settings, although if you are using a 1080p monitor, you are probably using a really high resolution. Try lowering your resolution, it'll help your fps a ton. If you are on a 4850, you should'nt be using 1080p - or rather, you shouldn't be using 1080p at it's limits.
Running a monitor at a resolution lower than its native resolution will either give you a very small viewport with black borders or (more commonly) blurry graphics from upscaling of the low resolution content to the native resolution. Either way, it's not a good idea.
1080p or 1920x1080 is the standard resolution for pretty much every budget / mainstream monitor these days and builds ought to be aimed at outputting graphics at that resolution.
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Running a monitor at a resolution lower than its native resolution will either give you a very small viewport with black borders or (more commonly) blurry graphics from upscaling of the low resolution content to the native resolution. Either way, it's not a good idea.
Native resolution is completely different from display resolution. I think you guys are confused on that. For example, my monitor is 720p, but the native resolution is said to be 1366 x 768, but that is for TV, and so the PC resolution is 1260x768.
1080p or 1920x1080 is the standard resolution for pretty much every budget / mainstream monitor these days and builds ought to be aimed at outputting graphics at that resolution.
That's pretty high resolution, and I discuss in the guide lower than 1600 is what I'm basing it off of. I don't know what you consider budget, and I took the premise that you were using a monitor you had laying around.
There are plenty of budget monitors much lower than 1920 as their native resolution, that are still current and being sold. By budget I really mean "what's the lowest you can get away with". All of the 'benchmarks' with the recommendations are also sort of 'minimum's, meaning you can barely get away with ultra with this card, barely get away with medium with this card, et cetera.
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What about 32 bit vs 64 bit?
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Belial, thank you for your great guide.i find that quite helpful and i it answers a lot of this community's questions regarding hardware.Just great job!
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this thread hasn't been updated in a long time so a lot of this is no longer relevant.
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