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"I need a New PC!" 2012 Thread. Ivy, SSDs, and reading the OP. [Part 2]

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I am looking to buy a new HDD in the next day to replace my current #insert obscenities here# HDD.

I have been looking at WD drives. Is there a big difference between WD caviar blue and green?

I am looking for at least 1TB and I have read in the past people talking about these two drives as though there are big differences.

Are these good drives or is there better within a reasonable price (UK).

Thanks!
 

Ty4on

Member
Do you think it's a better idea to jump to the 7850 rather than consider a jump to an i5 processor?

Don't know of many games where i5+7770 beats i3/pentium+7850. In pure GPU performance the 7850 is twice as powerful (twice the fps in most games) as the 7770.
 

kharma45

Member
Do you think it's a better idea to jump to the 7850 rather than consider a jump to an i5 processor?

For gaming you'd see better gains with the 7850 and a Pentium vs a 7770 and an i5. Obviously if you were doing CPU intensive work it'd be better the other way round.

I am looking to buy a new HDD in the next day to replace my current #insert obscenities here# HDD.

I have been looking at WD drives. Is there a big difference between WD caviar blue and green?

I am looking for at least 1TB and I have read in the past people talking about these two drives as though there are big differences.

Are these good drives or is there better within a reasonable price (UK).

Thanks!

How do you define reasonable?
 
I am looking to buy a new HDD in the next day to replace my current #insert obscenities here# HDD.

Greens are slower and more prone to wear and tear mainly due to its power-saving features. They're storage drives, not OS drives. They're good for dumping your multimedia stuff like movies.

Personally, I'd rather go for blue. If you need performance, skip black and go straight for an SSD.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
I've found 660TI for £212 from Aria here

In regards to PSU. Just whatever I need to just get the card up and running really, as I suspected the 275w stock one just wasn't enough. So any mid-range PSU that would run the card, 2x hdd's and a dvd drive would honestly do the trick for me.

For some time I've been contemplating the £899 Alienware X-51 machine, but this machine falling into my lap seems like a reasonable machine to bring up to a similar spec for under £300 total.

Is there a 7950 or 7970 variant for around that price? If you game a higher res, those cards should start narrowing your performance gap but both those cards should outperform the 660ti and have a very nice OC overhead.

Regardless of which card you get, make sure they have nice custom dual or triple fan cooling. I basically mean to do your research and take all the advice at hand because with any new PC part, there are some gems out there.

I'm in a similar spot which I have a 7970 and 680 I'm debating over right now.
 

Amneisac

Member
I'm looking to upgrade my GTX460. I've got a budget of under $300. Is the 660ti going to be my best bet? I've been really happy with my Gigabyte GTX460, love the driver support and all that, so I'd really prefer sticking with Nvidia unless their is an AMD that would be much more powerful for the same or a little less money.

My CPU is an i5-750, 8gb ram.

Would there be any reason to buy the more expensive GTX660ti from Gigabyte which just appears to have a factory OC?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125441 Is $279

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125440&Tpk=GV-N66TOC-2GD is $299
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Am I going too high by targeting the ASUS Maximus Formula MB? I want the best OC'ing potential and general performance out of my CPU and GPU. Initially I had an ASUS V-PRO as my choice but want long term stability and future upgrade-ability to 2 GPU's with high bus speeds.
 

SoulClap

Member
2013 thread?

Posted earlier

Unfortunately I'm going to be busy for a bit (School, Insurance x2, Work project, and Firefall Tournament Casting/Streaming/Hosting) so I won't be able to even start a lot of the reworking until a week from now. I didn't have a car for the past 3 weeks either, but finally have one now (That process took a while).

I've got a lot of wants to be done with the 2013 thread and would rather use this one until all of those changes are ready :). Luckily there are lot of dedicated helpful people around here! (And anyone's feedback is more than welcome for the 2013 Thread.)
 

Soodanim

Member
I'm still so very undecided on my build. I tried to do some cost-cutting, and I may or may not have picked some bad parts.

PCPartPicker part list
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£161.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.45 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£74.90 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Samsung 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.53 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£67.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£77.90 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card (£171.34 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.29 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.98 @ Novatech)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£59.94 @ Aria PC)
Total: £827.29

Same build but with a 7950, £891.93: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/p/vn18

The big draw of this is the XFX Double Dissipation version 7870, which is on sale at Scan for £171 (single fan for £161). Not the Black (overclocked) version, but at this price it's £80 cheaper than the Gigabyte 7950. At £171, it's even cheaper than some 7850s.

•The reason I still have the R4 case in there is the easily removable dust filters (do they need to be removed? Could I not just stick a hoover on them every week?), and the removable HDD cage for better air flow. It is a big ol' case though.
•F3 over WD or Seagate because Samsung drives seem to be reliable, and with storage drives reliability takes priority for me. I could swap the 128GB SSD for a 64GB, but it feels like I'd be gimping myself for what's probably about a £20 saving.
•I need to do my own research on it, but the motherboard is me trying to cut costs. Saves about £25 over something like the popular Extreme4 board. I don't actually know why I'm told to go for Z77 boards, but I guess Google could help.
•Power supply isn't modular, but same as above.

I think my reluctance to head straight for a 7950 is that this is new territory for me, and I have no idea how long I can expect this build to last. If I'm going to be throwing £200 at a new GPU every couple of years, I'll go for the 7870. Even with old tech, a entire PS3 for under £200 is amazing value, and I can't help but compare any purchase to it. The rest of the stuff is standard fare in comparison - storage, PSUs, optical drives, coolers and memory don't seem to change much and outside of failures I can't see me needing to replace much of it.

If someone could tell me exactly what the future holds, that'd be much appreciated. xoxo
 

garath

Member
I'm still so very undecided on my build. I tried to do some cost-cutting, and I may or may not have picked some bad parts.

PCPartPicker part list
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£161.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.45 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£74.90 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Samsung 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.53 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£67.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£77.90 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card (£171.34 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.29 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.98 @ Novatech)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£59.94 @ Aria PC)
Total: £827.29

Same build but with a 7950, £891.93: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/p/vn18

The big draw of this is the XFX Double Dissipation version 7870, which is on sale at Scan for £171 (single fan for £161). Not the Black (overclocked) version, but at this price it's £80 cheaper than the Gigabyte 7950. At £171, it's even cheaper than some 7850s.

•The reason I still have the R4 case in there is the easily removable dust filters (do they need to be removed? Could I not just stick a hoover on them every week?), and the removable HDD cage for better air flow. It is a big ol' case though.
•F3 over WD or Seagate because Samsung drives seem to be reliable, and with storage drives reliability takes priority for me. I could swap the 128GB SSD for a 64GB, but it feels like I'd be gimping myself for what's probably about a £20 saving.
•I need to do my own research on it, but the motherboard is me trying to cut costs. Saves about £25 over something like the popular Extreme4 board. I don't actually know why I'm told to go for Z77 boards, but I guess Google could help.
•Power supply isn't modular, but same as above.

I think my reluctance to head straight for a 7950 is that this is new territory for me, and I have no idea how long I can expect this build to last. If I'm going to be throwing £200 at a new GPU every couple of years, I'll go for the 7870. Even with old tech, a entire PS3 for under £200 is amazing value, and I can't help but compare any purchase to it. The rest of the stuff is standard fare in comparison - storage, PSUs, optical drives, coolers and memory don't seem to change much and outside of failures I can't see me needing to replace much of it.

If someone could tell me exactly what the future holds, that'd be much appreciated. xoxo

The 7950 is the type of card you'll only need to upgrade in 2-3 generations. I skip 1-2 generations picking up a ~$250 card. This whole build is a solid 4 year build with games high-med without even sweating it (with a 7950).

With the 7870 you might want to upgrade sooner than that.

Take it all at a grain of salt though. This is all based on personal historical data.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
The 7950 is the type of card you'll only need to upgrade in 2-3 generations. I skip 1-2 generations picking up a ~$250 card. This whole build is a solid 4 year build with games high-med without even sweating it (with a 7950).

With the 7870 you might want to upgrade sooner than that.

Take it all at a grain of salt though. This is all based on personal historical data.

No, you're making good sense. Without doing some fancy charting or benching, I feel the same about my current 6970 build. It's going strong and maxing games out to this day with only a few preferential things being toned down.

A 7970 is worth investing into as it will hold you through all of next gen with (what I'm guessing) at least mid settings.
 

kharma45

Member
7950 is a really good buy atm with the three free games (FC3, Sleeping Dawgs and Hitman) and should easily see you through 3 years, but it depends on what sort of graphical fidelity you want with it. The Gigabyte WF is £230 atm through OCUK.

7870 XT could be another option, it's a 7950 basically minus a few shaders, like the 560Ti 448 was to the 570.

you want Z77 btw to be able to overclock.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
I think I just got lucky and found someone to buy my case, MB, CPU, PSU, RAM, and GPU for around 450-500 shipped.

That means I will be able to get a 680 (likely) or a 7970 (debating).

I'm trying to think ahead of time but in shipping PC parts, should I get anti static bags? I don't have everything I had when I first got this PC but I have all the PC parts. I will be aiming to ship everything in one box, case and all.
 

kharma45

Member
I think I just got lucky and found someone to buy my case, MB, CPU, PSU, RAM, and GPU for around 450-500 shipped.

That means I will be able to get a 680 (likely) or a 7970 (debating).

I'm trying to think ahead of time but in shipping PC parts, should I get anti static bags? I don't have everything I had when I first got this PC but I have all the PC parts. I will be aiming to ship everything in one box, case and all.

get a 670 not a 680.
 

DJ_Lae

Member
Done. Just waiting for payday, so I hope some of the pricing holds.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/vu5Y

Already own the case, power supply, and SSD, so the total price is less than that (I just put it in there for completeness). Though I may jump on the video card earlier if possible, from Tiger Direct it seems to be one of the few left that still has the Never Settle bundle included. NCIX seems to have no codes left at all and any forum thread or question about it goes unanswered.

Memory may still change as there are always a ton of deals on it.
 

MKAllDay

Member
I saw that steam mover tool in the OP and immediately thought it would be neat to just install the majority of my steam library on an external hard drive that way I can access it from my desktop or laptop with ease as well as save space. Is this a viable option and is usb 3.0 (and 2.0 in the case of my laptop) a sufficient means to stream game data? How does it compare to SATA 3.0? Thanks in advance.
 

jonremedy

Member
Which one is the quieter Gigabyte variant? Quietness is definitely something I'm going for with this build.

edit: I think I found it, build updated: http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/vtR5

For anyone going for quietness, please consider a fanless PSU. I have the Seasonic 460 fanless, and I consider it one of the best PC purchases I have ever made. I have 5 Noiseblocker 120mm case fans running at lowest RPM and a MSI Twin Frozr 7850. At idle my PC is basically inaudible (the god damn HDD holding all my games is annoying the shit out of me now).
 

mkenyon

Banned
I saw that steam mover tool in the OP and immediately thought it would be neat to just install the majority of my steam library on an external hard drive that way I can access it from my desktop or laptop with ease as well as save space. Is this a viable option and is usb 3.0 (and 2.0 in the case of my laptop) a sufficient means to stream game data? How does it compare to SATA 3.0? Thanks in advance.
Nope. It's really bad.
 

mkenyon

Banned
Loading data via USB? It goes through the processor rather than through the Bus, so not only will it be slow, it will actually hurt performance.

At the very least, just get a new enclosure that can do esata. Pull out the hard drive, put it in the new enclosure.
 

MKAllDay

Member
Nope. It's really bad.

Ok thank you. So I guess I will just get a new internal hard drive for my desktop solely for Steam (and other games too I suppose). I do really like that idea of being able to permanently keep all my steam games installed which is an option I don't have right now with my SSD and small HDD.
 
Hrmph... It looks like my local retailer has gone out of stock on the 212's and replaced them with 412's. Looking at some performance graphs that isn't necessarily a bad thing, if the 412 wasn't €13 more expensive. I could wait it out a little in the hope they'll restock, build my pc in the meantime with the stock CPU cooler or look for some sort of replacement. In the same graph I noticed two coolers which had great cooling performance, at the cost of being very noisy. It's regarding the Scythe Mine 2 which is dirt cheap in comparison with other coolers but much bigger and incredibly noisy and the Spire TherMax II which on it's own is more expensive and noisier, but cheaper than the 412 Slim and has a better cooling performance.

So I guess what I'm looking at now is the Mine 2 being the cheapest, loudest and biggest and generally the best cooling performance.
TherMax II cheaper than the 412 Slim, better performance but much louder.
212 EVO looks like the perfect middle ground with the Mine 2 being barely cheaper, yet it also has the worst cooling performance.
412 Slim the most expensive out of the four, only beats the 212's performance and is the most silent out of the four.

What do you say PC-GAF? The graphs tell me one thing, but in the end I have no experience whatsoever.
 

mkenyon

Banned
hmm might have to get a mod to add something to the thread title.

like "2013 thread coming soon" or something
Good idea, I'll contact Haz as well.
I do not make it a habit of rereading the op numerous times. (Last edited by Hazaro; Yesterday at 11:42 PM)

sorry?
My response was meant to be tongue in cheek, because the same question was asked a bunch of times already, while Haz saying it'd be a little bit has been in the OP for a few weeks. Sorry you got the brunt there.

Though, really, it should be habit to read the OP. All sorts of good data and news articles are linked in there and updated often, even if the spreadsheets aren't.
Looking for a mobo to go with a 3570k

I am down to these

GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128544

MSI Z77A-GD65(liking this one more)
$135 on microcenter with the cpu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130643

Any suggestions?
Gigabyte. MSI had a swing and a miss on Z77.

*edit*

Same price as MSI, and on sale. Grab this. Unless you need more expansion slots for various reasons.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
"I need a new PC!" 2012 Thread of 2013 Thread

My vote for new thread title




I see 5-10% faster for 680. Cost efficient? No. Worth it? If you have the money why not.

The way I'm leaning, I have the money and the GIGABYTE 2GB version with triple fans is 450 right now. Think that will be my top choice to get me by this year until I make the big upgrade next year.
 

kharma45

Member
I see 5-10% faster for 680. Cost efficient? No. Worth it? If you have the money why not.

Because it's essentially $100 wasted, only reason I can see people going for a 680 is essentially vanity to say they have Nvidia's top single GPU. I cannot see why anyone with an ounce of common sense would pay that for such minimal gains.

Maybe I'm just a bit of a miser lol.
 

Jburton

Banned
I'm still so very undecided on my build. I tried to do some cost-cutting, and I may or may not have picked some bad parts.

PCPartPicker part list
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£161.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.45 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£74.90 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Samsung 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.53 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£67.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£77.90 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card (£171.34 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.29 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.98 @ Novatech)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£12.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£59.94 @ Aria PC)
Total: £827.29

Same build but with a 7950, £891.93: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/p/vn18

The big draw of this is the XFX Double Dissipation version 7870, which is on sale at Scan for £171 (single fan for £161). Not the Black (overclocked) version, but at this price it's £80 cheaper than the Gigabyte 7950. At £171, it's even cheaper than some 7850s.

•The reason I still have the R4 case in there is the easily removable dust filters (do they need to be removed? Could I not just stick a hoover on them every week?), and the removable HDD cage for better air flow. It is a big ol' case though.
•F3 over WD or Seagate because Samsung drives seem to be reliable, and with storage drives reliability takes priority for me. I could swap the 128GB SSD for a 64GB, but it feels like I'd be gimping myself for what's probably about a £20 saving.
•I need to do my own research on it, but the motherboard is me trying to cut costs. Saves about £25 over something like the popular Extreme4 board. I don't actually know why I'm told to go for Z77 boards, but I guess Google could help.
•Power supply isn't modular, but same as above.

I think my reluctance to head straight for a 7950 is that this is new territory for me, and I have no idea how long I can expect this build to last. If I'm going to be throwing £200 at a new GPU every couple of years, I'll go for the 7870. Even with old tech, a entire PS3 for under £200 is amazing value, and I can't help but compare any purchase to it. The rest of the stuff is standard fare in comparison - storage, PSUs, optical drives, coolers and memory don't seem to change much and outside of failures I can't see me needing to replace much of it.

If someone could tell me exactly what the future holds, that'd be much appreciated. xoxo

I can sell you a Windows 8 Pro 64-bit key for £25 (full version, not upgrade).

Might save you a few quid.
 

mkenyon

Banned
Because it's essentially $100 wasted, only reason I can see people going for a 680 is essentially vanity to say they have Nvidia's top single GPU. I cannot see why anyone with an ounce of common sense would pay that for such minimal gains.

Maybe I'm just a bit of a miser lol.
You're right in a lot of ways, but sometimes it's not about min/maxing price:performance.
 

scogoth

Member
Because it's essentially $100 wasted, only reason I can see people going for a 680 is essentially vanity to say they have Nvidia's top single GPU. I cannot see why anyone with an ounce of common sense would pay that for such minimal gains.

Maybe I'm just a bit of a miser lol.

Cause I have triple 120hz screens and need every extra frame I can get to run that. Spending an extra $200 on two 680s instead of two 670s is worth it when I spent $1000+ on screens and stand. It's a hobby and I like pushing to limit so that's why they make the 680s so god damn expensive, people like me buy them.

You're right in a lot of ways, but sometimes it's not about min/maxing price:performance.

Lol min price:performance! I want the worst possible cost efficiency! I'll buy bulldozer then =P
 

Redx508

Member
Gigabyte. MSI had a swing and a miss on Z77.

*edit*

Same price as MSI, and on sale. Grab this. Unless you need more expansion slots for various reasons.

I can get the msi one for 135.
And the MSI has Realtek ALC898 GB has VIA VT2021
also the NIC on the msi one Intel 82579V GB one is Atheros
and msi has more sata ports

so i am not sure
 

mkenyon

Banned
I can get the msi one for 135.
And the MSI has Realtek ALC898 GB has VIA VT2021
also the NIC on the msi one Intel 82579V GB one is Atheros
and msi has more sata ports

so i am not sure
Then get the Gigabyte version with those things you want. There's a reason why the MSI is cheaper than Gigabyte/ASUS/ASrock boards with similar features. They have poor VRM and phase design.
 

mkenyon

Banned

Heysoos

Member
So I just got i7 3770k for 105 dollars, and was wondering what I needed to upgrade now. I was thinking of just getting a 660Ti but if I need anything else let me know. This is my current specs:

-Intel i5 2500k
-BIOSTAR TZ68A+ LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
-EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1567-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi)
-XFX Core Edition PRO550W (P1-550S-XXB9) 550W ATX12V 2.2 & ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
-COOLER MASTER Hyper 212
-G.SKILL Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
-Spinpoint F3 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
-COOLER MASTER HAF 912
 
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