Hi RGM, thanks for the reply. Yeah, I looked at HDBaseT for DisplayPort and they were all pretty expensive. The computer is technically about 10 feet away, but in another room, and the cable needs to go up and over the 12ft wall and then back down to about 5ft above the floor (plus the straightline distance between the monitor and the computer).
I feel good about the bus-powered USB extender. Thanks for that.
I was really hoping to get the 60hz out of the DisplayPort, but if having a DP cable that long isn't an option, is 30hz from HDMI going to look bad on it? I plan on removing all the UI from the Google Earth interface, so won't have a ton of text on screen, but there will still be some.
Framerate and refresh rate is more important for motion on screen than (static?) text. You can see examples here:
www.testufo.com/framerates
http://www.blurbusters.com/motion-tests/tools/
Honestly, I don't know how bad it'll look. It'll be somewhat choppier than a 60Hz display, but whether that's acceptable or not for Google Earth I wouldn't really know.
You can go with cheaper parts, but I don't know if that lowers the cost enough for you to include one of those displayport active extenders into your budget, but maybe it'd help.
How much do these displayport extenders cost? That example I looked at wouldn't tell me unless I registered and logged in. To be frank, you don't really need an i5 processor and a GTX 960.
Google Earth has extremely light requirements and running a
static 4K display isn't much of a problem even for say, an Pentium processor and onboard graphics. Running google Earth and its 3D effects is harder to say, though. The effects aren't that fancy, but the challenge of 4K is something that I honestly don't know much about.
Would you have a h100i over an h80i for any particular reason like OCing/multi GPUs etc?
The H100i is a bit more capable than the H80i at cooling, which is good for overclocking. I'm not sure what they would have to do with multiple GPUs, though. Unless you were thinking of using it with a bracket to cool the graphics card?
word. thanks. I think I'll go this route. I've never built a pc, or even used one in a bunch of years, but this sounds like the way to go.
is it worth it to drop a few more bucks get a low-storage SSD instead of a 1TB 7200internal, and get an external?
A SSD will make things load very quickly and Windows will feel very snappy, but it won't have much of an affect on gaming performance like framerate and graphics quality. It's strictly just for faster storage. If you can get one, it would be very nice to have, but it's optional as a better quality of life thing.
You can have an SSD and internal hard drive in the PC alongside each other. They'll just show up separately in Windows. A good SSD would be the
Crucial BX100 250GB model for $79.
Fantastic, thank you very much!
One thing though, aren't 3000 MHz memories worth it?
EDIT: Also, is that 970 overclockable?
The 2666MHz RAM is a bit of a cost-saving move,
tests with DDR4 RAM have not really shown it to be a bottleneck for gaming but there are a few benefits elsewhere. Games don't rely too much on system RAM speed anyway, as graphics RAM matters more. Yes, the GTX 970 is overclockable.
Finally ordered the last of my parts. Should be here tomorrow and I'll build my rig by this weekend. Super excited!!!
I want to thank all those who helped pick parts along the way and answered my many questions. This thread is a godsend. Went from never opening up a computer to now 3 separate builds in the pipeline.
So here's the situation. Have to put my htpc on hold for now. My sister needs a pc for school and using my new enthusiasm, I've convinced to let me build it instead of buying one of those all in one computers.
Trying to keep the budget as low possible. She only needs the basics for now. Surfing the web, Microsoft word etc. but I want to leave room to upgrade in the future when more cash frees up.
Also, I'd be ordering from Amazon as we have prime and need it before the weekend.
I have access to an I7 920 used from a local parts store for $60 and a G3258 new for $50. Worth it?? Also a 400w evga non modular power supply for $25.
If anyone can provide a parts list I can follow that'd be great. I can figure out the monitor/ accessories. And as per her request, "a really nice case. Not those dell looking ones." Lol
Does the i7 920 come with a motherboard? While the i7 920 is a more capable than the Pentium G3258, it's also older and won't take any newer upgrades. Any motherboard it'd come with now would probably be used as well, and given how old those are, there's bound to be some wear and an increasing chance of failure as time goes on.
If you don't mind mail in rebates, there are higher wattage and better power supplies for just a few dollars more that will better support future upgrades since 400 watts isn't a lot. For example, there's this
XFX 550 watt PSU for $27 after rebate which
received a very high score from Jonny Guru's PSU review website. There's also this
EVGA 500 watt PSU for $30 after rebate. Here's my recommendation:
PCPartPicker part list /
Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($63.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus H81M-D PLUS Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($44.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Team Dark 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Toshiba 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($44.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: BitFenix Prodigy M Midnight MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($63.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($26.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $279.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-30 16:39 EDT-0400
In the future you will be able to drop a decent processor like an i5 or i7 and it'll work just swimmingly. I don't know about what sort of case she might want, so I just picked the Bitfenix Prodigy M. Of course if a different case is preferred, we can work with that.
Need some advice.
I know the 750ti is super old now, but Fry's has it for $90 today. I think this card used to be considered fairly ok right?
What are some examples of what this would let me play? I have 32gb ram and a i7-4790k right now.
Or am I better off just saving up and buying one of the newer cards?
It's still good. I don't know what sort of games you want to play and at what resolution and setting, but with a 750 Ti, you might just want to lower settings if you want to hit 60FPS. Otherwise if you're fine with 30FPS, keep the graphics settings a little higher.
Eurogamer has some handy benchmarks for the
Witcher 3 and
GTAV that include the GTX 750 Ti and i7 4790K. The results are actually very good. Eurogamer doesn't specifically target medium or high or ultra preset graphics quality settings when they do these tests, they aim for "console quality" and show how well PC hardware can do at roughly equivalent quality settings.
Optionally, look for some used graphics cards if your budget is low. Or just save up and wait if you want higher quality settings and/or better framerate.
