Quote:
Originally Posted by Seitsuki
Haha, my screen is a titchy 19 inch SD thing. It works fine for now though, so I'm looking to upgrade my performance components first before moving on.
Haven't tried it out yet- still looking for a new PSU cos my old 320W one is apparently not enough lol. Been considering a GS600, any other budget ideas?
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I assume your 19 inch (48 cm) monitor is an LCD of which it's native resolution is 1280x1024 which technically isn't standard definition as far as TV's go at least. That's what I have using for the past few years myself.
So the Fermi architecture is notorious for being a electicity-hog with it's resulting heat and noise problems. Fortunately Nvidia has moved on from that. With the price differences you are describing in New Zealand however, having the latest and greatest hardware seems prohibitively expensive. Well anyways it most certainly helps to define a usage scenario for the PC you are building and a budget. I assume since you bought a Nvidia GTX 480 you are looking to game on the PC. Ahem, I glean a great deal of my computer wizardry from
http://www.tomshardware.com since I got nothing better to do most of the time.
Okay, need a quality but affordable PSU? I suggest Corsair's CX Builder Series V2 if they are available. It is 80 Plus certified which is something I
never compromise on, no matter what the budget of the PC is. I used this in the PC I built for my friend. Made a funny buzzing sound when the PC was turned off which was due to me turning on ErP in the BIOS. Turned ErP back off and now works flawlessly.
So about the CPU, I assume you're referring to Intel's modern Core family. That is those of the Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge microarchitecture. I strongly suggest if you're getting an Intel CPU that you buy one of them (2000-3000 series). The improvement from last generation is
huge. Anyways the difference between i3/i5/i7 is that i3 is dual-core with hyperthreading (SMT), i5 is quad-core without SMT, and i7 is quad-core with SMT. The best gaming value is in the i5 series. A more expensive i7 does nothing for gaming. As for the i3, modern games can and will continue utilise more than two cores. You could go for an AMD processor if you wish. I had to keep my friends PC as cheap as possible so I got a FX-4100 which is AMD's best gaming value Bulldozer-based CPU. I don't wanna go into more detail but Intel's Sandy/Ivy Bridge family outclasses AMD's lineup at this time. AMD is still a legitimate option though.
GPU's are more difficult to nail down. It depends entirely on how well you expect your games to run or whatever it is you use the GPU for. Looking at a graphics hierarchy chart at Tom's Hardware I can see that the GTX 480 is still up there. Cards of comparable performance from Nvidia include: GTX 295, and GTX 570. From AMD: HD 4870 X2, HD 6970, and HD 7850. I would say the HD 7850 would be a good replacement if you can find it at a good price.
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