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Old 2012-09-27, 20:41   Link #1
Urzu 7
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: New England
Age: 40
Getting a new PC soon (some questions on components)

I'll be getting a new PC soon. I'm doing some homework on what components to get for the PC. I have some questions and I know there are some very knowledgeable people here, so I'll ask some of my questions here.

First is the CPU. I'm going with Intel. It will be socket type LGA 1155. I was thinking of going with an i5 3570K which is quad core and with 4 threads. I'm trying to future proof this machine pretty well. For about $65 more, I can go with a quad core i7 with 8 threads instead of 4, and with 8 MB L3 cache instead of 6 MB. Would that be worth going for? I know both are overpowered for gaming right now. Either one would probably last me 4 years and I figure I'd just get a new motherboard and CPU in 4 years or so. Would I be fine with the i5? Should I even bother with the i7? The only intensive things I'll do with this computer is high end gaming and HD streaming (no HD media editing). I'm just wondering if developers will commonly utilize thread processing for next gen games on PC.

The GPU I'd like is a Radeon HD 7950. Someone suggested I go with nVidia because their drivers are better. What is the nVidia equivalent to that Radeon? I'd like some feedback. Should I listen to the advice concerning nVidia and drivers? Two things I like about Radeons are that they are quieter and cooler. They have less power draw, too (but I'll have a PSU that will cover that if I go nVidia).

8 GB of RAM is all I need right now, but should I just go for 16 GB instead? I'd probably never have to upgrade RAM for this computer if I did. What do you guys think?

Should I get a cheap 7.1 sound card? I can get one for under $30. I could just use integrated audio, but the sound card will free up a bit of processing power when gaming. I'm not using high end audio equipment, just either speakers from a monitor or headphones.

Last question. My current PC came with Windows 7 Home Edition. I can't use that Windows 7 disc on my new computer, huh? If I have to buy Windows 7 again, should I stick with Windows 7 Home Edition, or would it be worth going to Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate? Which is the best Windows 7? I'll go with a 64-bit version of Windows 7.
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Old 2012-09-27, 21:45   Link #2
spikexp
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The i5 is plenty.

The 7950 nvidia equivalent would be the 660ti.
At this point, the nvidia card are: cooler, quieter, consumer less electricity.
AMD vs nvidia is old talk, AMD driver are pretty good these day. nvidia just get more optimization from game developer.

8gb of ram is plenty, worst case scenario you can still put more in the future. Just make sure to at least get 2x4gb (not 4x2gb).

No need for sound card, integrated are correct for your need. And the CPU utilization for sound is negligible with current gen cpu power.

Windows : If it came with your computer, you can't reuse it (it's probably OEM).
I would suggest getting windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM (under 100$ most of the time), it have all the good feature without going over the top.
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Old 2012-09-27, 22:10   Link #3
Irenicus
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Disclaimer: I'm definitely not the most knowledgeable guy around here. If someone contradicts my opinion, they are probably right.

Quote:
I'm just wondering if developers will commonly utilize thread processing for next gen games on PC.
We have no idea at this point. Depends on how the big engines like the Unreal engine develops.

IMO it is not worth it unless you have money to throw around for the lulz. Going by newegg prices (i5, i7), you're paying a $80 premium for cache and a few extra functions, cache which we're not even sure future cutting edge games will make use of.

Later Intel CPU generations will quickly surpass both within 2 years, anyway. Haswell, the next generation Intel, is after all a "tock," another architecture change. Save your money and if you start to feel like wanting more, you'll get much better value.

Quote:
The GPU I'd like is a Radeon HD 7950. Someone suggested I go with nVidia because their drivers are better. What is the nVidia equivalent to that Radeon? I'd like some feedback. Should I listen to the advice concerning nVidia and drivers? Two things I like about Radeons are that they are quieter and cooler. They have less power draw, too (but I'll have a PSU that will cover that if I go nVidia).
According to Toms' graphics card hierarchy (a rough estimate of equivalents), the current gen Nvidia equivalent is the GTX 660ti. Some game series are indeed better optimized for Nvidia cards, but AMD/ATI has come a long, long way. You won't see much of a difference in modern games. Unless you're really attached to a current game and want the very best out of it now, don't worry too much about that.

Older "obsolete" games are a bit hit and miss on both sides, but IMO (and it's very much an IMO thing) AMD is more problem-prone here.

I like the Radeons better too because of their lower "profile" and their higher compute. Not that any game really makes use of it now, but, say, if in the future Civilization incorporates GPU compute...right now Nvidia price for price is more powerful for games though -- the latest generation cuts out a sizable portion of Fermi's compute capability and use the headroom to optimize for video gaming, making them quiet, cool, and fast.

Quote:
8 GB of RAM is all I need right now, but should I just go for 16 GB instead? I'd probably never have to upgrade RAM for this computer if I did. What do you guys think?
If you're going to splash money on an i7 over i5, might as well get extra RAM instead. Games won't necessarily use it, 8GB is indeed plenty, but Windows is designed to take advantage of your extra headroom however much you have as it likes to put up all the stuff you regularly use on RAM for quicker access. They should be low priority however, RAM is easy to add and 8GB is currently plenty.

Quote:
Should I get a cheap 7.1 sound card? I can get one for under $30. I could just use integrated audio, but the sound card will free up a bit of processing power when gaming. I'm not using high end audio equipment, just either speakers from a monitor or headphones.
For sound cards, buy quality or buy none, and use them with high end speaker/headphones, otherwise they won't do very much. No point pairing a sound card with cheap headphones, waste of electricity. Modern day onboard are perfectly decent in every way and much better than the cheap stuff.

Note: quality doesn't mean expensive. The ASUS Xonar series have a very wide price range, but they generally function "similarly" under the hood. This one is a good compromise between too cheap and too expensive, a little on the cheap side. Cheaper Xonars than this cut corners somewhere and you might as well just use onboard, and much more expensive ones are for audiophiles. But if you end up buying, don't use the official driver, use the Xonar unified driver instead.

Oh, and avoid Creative like a plague. Their support is terribad and they're overpriced compared to the Xonars.

Mind, personally I find sound cards to be another piece of potential driver incompatibility to worry about in games, not worth all the hassle.

Quote:
Last question. My current PC came with Windows 7 Home Edition. I can't use that Windows 7 disc on my new computer, huh? If I have to buy Windows 7 again, should I stick with Windows 7 Home Edition, or would it be worth going to Windows 7 Professional or Windows 7 Ultimate? Which is the best Windows 7? I'll go with a 64-bit version of Windows 7.
Home is much, much cheaper, and that can be a big consideration. I got my Professional on a student price though, gotta love $30 Win7. See if you can ask a student friend for the "privilege" (though I had to dig around a bit to get the $30 promotional price since Microsoft apparently didn't want to sell Win7 at that price anymore, and "standard" student discounts were 60$ by the time I upgraded, I was actually surprised it still worked then).


P.S. Remember synaesthetic's wisdom: the SSD is the single biggest upgrade for your modern computing experience. And frankly, SSD's are getting deliciously cheaper while HDD prices are still stubbornly high in comparison. If you have money to splash anywhere (even the GPU), try splashing it here instead.
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Old 2012-09-27, 22:13   Link #4
Urzu 7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spikexp View Post
The i5 is plenty.

The 7950 nvidia equivalent would be the 660ti.
At this point, the nvidia card are: cooler, quieter, consumer less electricity.
AMD vs nvidia is old talk, AMD driver are pretty good these day. nvidia just get more optimization from game developer.

8gb of ram is plenty, worst case scenario you can still put more in the future. Just make sure to at least get 2x4gb (not 4x2gb).

No need for sound card, integrated are correct for your need. And the CPU utilization for sound is negligible with current gen cpu power.

Windows : If it came with your computer, you can't reuse it (it's probably OEM).
I would suggest getting windows 7 Home Premium 64bit OEM (under 100$ most of the time), it have all the good feature without going over the top.
Thanks for the feedback. I plan to buy from AVADirect.com. If I choose Windows 7 in the system configuration, do you think they'd put it on an SSD (I'm getting a 128 GB one)? I think they might put it on a HDD instead. I might just buy Windows 7 Home Premium separately. No need for Windows 7 Professional, huh? I just won't need it if I'm just going to do basic computer use (Internet, HD streaming/watching videos, MS Office) and gaming, right?

The person who told me to go nVidia said AMD drivers are still bad. AMD drivers have gotten much better and I can just ignore his claims? I should just go with AMD? I'd like to, I have an affinity for Radeons; I am drawn to them more than Geforce cards.

@Irenicus: Thanks for the feedback.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Irenicus View Post
Disclaimer: I'm definitely not the most knowledgeable guy around here. If someone contradicts my opinion, they are probably right.
Well, everything you said is what Spikexp said, so so far, you are on the right track.

Question: Do they plan to develop more LGA 1155 i5s and i7s? Do you think in 12 months or even 18 months from now they might release new i5s and i7s of that socket type?
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Last edited by Urzu 7; 2012-09-27 at 23:13.
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Old 2012-09-27, 22:36   Link #5
Irenicus
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Urzu 7
The person who told me to go nVidia said AMD drivers are still bad. AMD drivers have gotten much better and I can just ignore his claims? I should just go with AMD? I'd like to, I have an affinity for Radeons; I am drawn to them more than Geforce cards.
I can only use my opinion in return, but my current AMD card/Catalyst driver is doing perfectly fine with almost all games I play, and most certainly all new games I play. The ones I have to google up solutions for are retro games and stuff.

If you're drawn to the Radeons, buy the Radeons. There isn't such a fundamental difference between the two major designers any more than you can't just choose from your heart. You'll be happy either way...lucky bastard

Quote:
Originally Posted by Urzu 7 View Post
Question: Do they plan to develop more LGA 1155 i5s and i7s? Do you think in 12 months or even 18 months from now they might release new i5s and i7s of that socket type?
The Haswells are going to run on a new socket type, LGA 1150, so, no. Your motherboard and CPU are going to be married till death to they part.
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Old 2012-09-27, 23:20   Link #6
Urzu 7
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When I configure a system on that site, it allows me to pick a hard drive and then storage drives. The first hard drive I pick will be the C:/ drive, I figure. I should make the first one I pick be the SSD, right? I'll want the SSD to be the C:/ drive because I'll want to put Windows on the SSD, correct? That is the main reason to get a SSD, I take it. It'll be 128 GB, so I won't be able to put much on it. Maybe some video games.
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Old 2012-09-28, 00:39   Link #7
0utf0xZer0
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you on a Phenom II X4 955/4GB RAM/1GB HD5750 box?

You should get a second opinion on this, but my guess is your CPU is still good for a while yet. You might benefit from another 4GB, a fast GPU(some of the Skyrim visual mods out there are designed with a fast 2GB GPU in mind) and an SSD for the OS, but that doesn’t necessitate the cost of a new build. And as Irenicus’s posts hints, the CPUs will have improved again by the time an X4 955 isn’t enough.

Potential caveats:
-The HD5750 doesn’t run as hot or burn as much power as high end GPUs. I can’t remember if your case and power supply were speced with a future “big GPU” in mind.
-Migrating an existing install to an SSD isn’t easy, and you might be better off just reinstalling Windows.

BTW, how much GPU you need is driven in part by your monitor resolution… I suspect inexpensive grey market Korean 2560X1440 monitor (most 2560X1440 displays sold in North American are pricy) have driven a few GPU upgrades in recent months.
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Old 2012-09-28, 07:40   Link #8
spikexp
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A phenom II x4 955 is still good. If it's a c3 revision and you have a good motherboard, you could buy a small cooler and overclock it near 4ghz, that would give it a good gain.

a stock i5 3570k would still be a lot stronger.
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Old 2012-09-28, 08:21   Link #9
Random32
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Unless you happen to want to play a CPU intensive game NOW, I would suggest putting off the CPU for later when it is more necessary since for 1GPU setups, an OC'd Ph2X4 is still enough for 90% of the time, and just OC'ing your current Ph2X4, a nice cooler should be able to get it well past 4GHz.

Though, if you want to buy the CPU/mobo now, the i5 is plenty.

The 660Ti is nV's equivalent. AMD drivers are about as good as nV drivers nowadays for most things. Performance wise, AnandTech has a decent list of benchmarks, pick and choose what games you want.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/550?vs=647
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Old 2012-09-28, 14:14   Link #10
Urzu 7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0 View Post
And as Irenicus’s posts hints, the CPUs will have improved again by the time an X4 955 isn’t enough.
He said that they won't be making new LGA 1155 CPUs from now on. What about LGA 2011 and LGA 1366 processors, though? Will they still roll out new processors for one or both types of processors?

Quote:
Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0 View Post
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you on a Phenom II X4 955/4GB RAM/1GB HD5750 box?

You should get a second opinion on this, but my guess is your CPU is still good for a while yet. You might benefit from another 4GB, a fast GPU(some of the Skyrim visual mods out there are designed with a fast 2GB GPU in mind) and an SSD for the OS, but that doesn’t necessitate the cost of a new build. And as Irenicus’s posts hints, the CPUs will have improved again by the time an X4 955 isn’t enough.

Potential caveats:
-The HD5750 doesn’t run as hot or burn as much power as high end GPUs. I can’t remember if your case and power supply were speced with a future “big GPU” in mind.
-Migrating an existing install to an SSD isn’t easy, and you might be better off just reinstalling Windows.

BTW, how much GPU you need is driven in part by your monitor resolution… I suspect inexpensive grey market Korean 2560X1440 monitor (most 2560X1440 displays sold in North American are pricy) have driven a few GPU upgrades in recent months.

I don't need an upgrade yet, but I acquired some money recently (enough to buy a computer), and I have a relative who could use a new computer (so maybe I could give them my current one), so I'm thinking maybe I should treat myself and buy a new computer. Usually I'm frugal with spending, and I thought maybe it is just fine to treat myself and to get a new computer that is close to top of the line.

This computer I'm thinking of buying would carry me into the next gen, and then sometime during the next gen, I could upgrade the motherboard, CPU, and GPU, but that wouldn't be for about 4 years or so from now.

I have an external HDD. I'm just gonna back up things and start with a fresh Windows 7 install on a new computer.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Random32 View Post
The 660Ti is nV's equivalent. AMD drivers are about as good as nV drivers nowadays for most things. Performance wise, AnandTech has a decent list of benchmarks, pick and choose what games you want.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/550?vs=647
The Radeon HD 7950 is better overall. Is that Radeon pretty loud? That is the only thing that makes me consider getting the Geforce over that Radeon. I notice when playing games, the Radeon is louder by about 4-7 dB.
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Last edited by Urzu 7; 2012-09-28 at 14:33.
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Old 2012-09-28, 15:15   Link #11
Random32
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There isn't really much difference between ~50 and ~55db unless you are in a very quiet room. If you care a lot about noise, you should consider cards with custom coolers.
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Old 2012-09-30, 14:25   Link #12
DonQuigleone
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The i5 3570 is probably the best value around at the moment.

I'm building a new PC myself at the moment, and I'm thinking of getting a Solid State Drive. They've come down a lot in price, you can get maybe 128GB for ~$100, which is more then enough to story your OS and frequently used programs. If you keep a standard HDD for media storage and less used programs, then the solid state should really improve your loading speeds.

What Motherboard are you going for? I've had difficulty choosing.
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Old 2012-09-30, 19:23   Link #13
Urzu 7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DonQuigleone View Post
The i5 3570 is probably the best value around at the moment.

I'm building a new PC myself at the moment, and I'm thinking of getting a Solid State Drive. They've come down a lot in price, you can get maybe 128GB for ~$100, which is more then enough to story your OS and frequently used programs. If you keep a standard HDD for media storage and less used programs, then the solid state should really improve your loading speeds.

What Motherboard are you going for? I've had difficulty choosing.
The motherboard I intend to get is the Asus P8Z77-V (LGA 1155 type socket): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131820

I decided to go with that motherboard after looking at reviews for other Asus motherboards. For starters, I have been using this neogaf thread as a groundwork for what system to get: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=455869 Check in the chart that shows components for different builds. I went with components from an enthusiast build, which still uses things that are the best bang for the buck (like an i5 3570K over some much more expensive i7 processor).

I first was gonna go with the Asus board that thread recommends, but I find that reviews are better for the Asus board I linked to. 85% of the reviews are for either 5 out of 5 stars or 4 out of 5 stars (68% for 5 out of 5). 10% are 1 out of 5 stars, 2% for 2 out of 2, and 2% for 3 out of 5 (I don't know where the last 1% is). This is out of 87 reviews. I also read reasons people gave for 1 out of 5 reviews and some were things that just won't apply to me (such as overclocking a certain processor, using a certain computer component which I'm not going to buy).

You shouldn't totally go by reviews on this site, but I like to look at reviews for hardware from that site and seek out products that have a high amount of reviews that are 5 out of 5 and 4 out of 5 vs. the lower reviews, and I like to read reasons why people give low reviews and sometimes reading why people give high reviews is helpful, too. It is something to go by. It better informs me the reliability of a certain product. For example, I was going to go with a certain card reader/writer (for SD cards and other cards), and I found it had a 3 out of 5 overall review score there, and I was reading from many people that gave it a 1 out of 5 that the reader would cause photos to be deleted from their SD cards or that it would do things like interfere with how system restore points are saved. So I looked around for a card reader/writer that is much more reliable and not prone to corrupting and erasing data.

Ask me if you need recommendations for any components. I'll recommend some I've looked up and bookmarked.
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Old 2012-09-30, 19:47   Link #14
sa547
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For larger regular hard drive storage, either Seagate or WD are fine, even though there's a slight drop in prices almost a year after the Thailand floods.

For memory, there's regular memory (for most people)and then some high-performance memory that's designed for intensive gaming, some of which require some careful selection and purchasing. Either Corsair, Ripjaws or Kingston are all right.

The PSU is very important to maintain your rig's durability; I'm using FSP Hexa 500w (which is stable), but Seasonic's line of PSUs are the most popular in my country. Selection of PSU depends on the rig's configuration, but the most common are 500-600w with at least 80% efficiency or more; 700-1000w are for the hardcore.

Keyboards and mice? Headsets? Gaming choices include either Razer, Logitech or Steelseries.

For cooling, I'm happy with Deepcool's affordable products (except for the Gamma CPU coolers), but if you wish for reputation and reliability, I'd say Coolermaster.
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Old 2012-09-30, 20:08   Link #15
Urzu 7
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I'm looking for a hard drive that is either 1.5 TB or 2 TB, but I can't find any that are as reliable as this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822152185

It is only 1 TB. I had originally wanted a 2 TB drive. Do you think it is a good idea if I get two of those Samsung 1 TB drives? I am thinking of getting a 128 GB SSD for the OS and frequently used programs, and then getting two 1 TB drives. Should I hook them up with RAID? What do I have to know about RAID? I've never had more than one hard drive at once.
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Old 2012-10-01, 01:12   Link #16
sa547
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I haven't used RAID due to the costs of buying a couple of drives (unless I'm running a mission-critical business server that's up 24/7) and I felt it's a bit much of an overkill when instead I could regularly hook up an external drive to back up data on a periodic basis.

I'm not sure about recent Samsung drives (I have an older 80gb drive from 2005 and still in working condition) but as always keep checking the reviews; it might be good as the established Seagate and WD brands.
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Old 2012-10-01, 01:30   Link #17
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Huh, Well I'm a little late. Let me state that ATI/AMD's driver issues are in the past. I haven't heard anything about driver issues in the present. Not like it was many years ago at least.

Uhh... yes. Putting your OS on a SSD will provide a substantial tangible increase in performance. Much faster boot times for the OS and programs. Reduced loading time for games or whatever is loading a significant amount of data. Using cheaper (and higher capacity) magnetic hard drives for storage of time-insensitive data is a good idea.

The manufacturer warranty on that Samsung Spinpoint is one year. Is that what you mean by reliability? I know little of this topic. I use a Seagate HDD. Seagate and Western Digital make up most of the market now. Actually I think Samsung's HDD business was absorbed by Seagate.

RAID I know only theory (I don't even know how to set it up). Err... if you're really concerned about data safety then I doubt you'd be using RAID 0. If you're using RAID 1 you'd only end up with 1 TB of storage space but with (theoretically) twice the mechanical reliability. Using RAID 0 nets you 2 TB but with double the chance of catastrophic failure.

Last edited by Stealthtank; 2012-10-01 at 01:31. Reason: Left out a verb.
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Old 2012-10-04, 23:31   Link #18
Simonsy
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Well from my experience building, the thing you need to think about the most in "future proofing" is your motherboard.

Make sure you get a motherboard that has the connections that will stay relevent in the future. Thus if you ever feel the need to upgrade anything its simple. You just swap out the old with the new.

If you need to buy a new motherboard that means you will need to re-install your operating system. Cause they are connected to the motherboard.

Don't worry about future proofing anything else really besides obviously your case and power supply.

Make sure you have a powerful enough power supply to handle a lot. I think like 700+ should do it. Then obviously make sure the case fits your motherboard. I use a case that fits the largest motherboard so no matter what I can use it in future. Plus it came with lots of fans.

Then you have your case, motherboard and powersupply. Those 3 are the essentials in futureproofing your system. And when i say futureproof i mean for 20+ years, not 4 years. Next time you upgrade you won't have to worry about those 3 things, thus saving you money. You can easily swap in and out hard-drives, graphics cards, ram and processors. What i typically do is buy the 1-year old stuff. Its plenty powerful yet at a discount price. Sure you may want to upgrade say graphics card in 3 years instead of 4, but your only paying $100 instead of $300. So just buy what your willing to spend on in terms of ram/processor/gfx


That's my take at least.

now as to the extra's like extra hard-drives, fancy sound cards, awesome speakers, monitors, and so on. Dont' worry about them right now. Just buy one of them ever month or two and slowly acquire them. No need to spend an extra few hundred dollars at once. Those extra costs they will add will make you see the bill and possibly cheap out on the essentials and you may regret that.

So focus on the essentials first and order the extra's, the wants lets say for later.


So in summary, Future proof your motherboard, case and powersupply.

Then buy your essentials, processor, gfx, and ram. Obviously a keyboard/mouse and display of some sort if you don't have any.

Then in future date slowly purchase neat things like speakers, gaming mouse/keyboard, sound cards, big monitor, ect. Again ignore these till after you have built your computer already. No need to up the initial cost so much, and thus possibly skimp on the essentials in order to afford some fancy monitor.
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Old 2012-10-05, 00:08   Link #19
Irenicus
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Join Date: Dec 2007
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Simonsy View Post
Well from my experience building, the thing you need to think about the most in "future proofing" is your motherboard.

Make sure you get a motherboard that has the connections that will stay relevent in the future. Thus if you ever feel the need to upgrade anything its simple. You just swap out the old with the new.
Yeah but, Intel doesn't want you to future-proof your motherboard. Nehalem didn't work on boards for Core 2, Sandy Bridge didn't work on boards for Nehalem. Ivy Bridge does work on Sandy Bridge boards because it's just a "tick" manufacturing process update, but Haswell will reset the socket again. Basically, no present Intel boards will be "future proof" by this time next year. What you buy is what you get.

You can only "future-proof" things like USB3 capability and SATA 6GB/s and Thunderbolt and stuff.

Also, the OS is on the drive (HD or SSD), not the mobo, but changing your motherboard can indeed be a bit of a pain if the OS is confused by your hardware changes, which the mb being the most likely culprit.

As for power supply, buy quality first is what the experts say. All the wattage numbers mean virtually nothing for them, they look at the power on the 12v rails and all that (though for us laymen the watts' the easiest number to grasp on). Things get even more complicated because companies like to rebrand power supplies and you get confused who actually makes them. I go by the rule, if Seasonic made it (and often some other company rebrands it, sigh), it has at least an 80+ efficiency rating or better, and nobody complains it exploded in their face, it's good.
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Old 2012-10-05, 00:45   Link #20
Urzu 7
Juanita/Kiteless
 
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: New England
Age: 40
To the two of you who replied today, thanks for additional input.

I've been doing homework on parts for this system. For a power supply, I'm getting a Seasonic X-Series PSU, which is a top tier brand and model according to a reliable source. It is 80 Plus Gold. It is 850W. I used a PSU calculator and factored in many things for it (wasn't conservative with it), and the recommended wattage was 688. A 850W PSU should be all I need.

As for case, I'm still trying to decide on one. One recommended to me is about $140. I'm not sure about that one, but I did find one that seems pretty good that retails for $100. It is the Corsair Carbide Series 400R. I might end up with that one.

Still gotta do some research on the motherboard. I'm probably going to get an Asus Intel motherboard. A Z77 motherboard.

I'm only going to get 8 GB of RAM. That is all I'll need for a while. I was thinking of going with 12 GB of RAM, but the RAM I want only comes in a 2 stick package. I can't buy a single 4 GB stick of the RAM I want. It is either 8 GB of RAM or 16 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of RAM just isn't needed for a gaming desktop right now. By time I'm ready for 16 GB of RAM will probably be around the time I get a new motherboard and by then there will probably be DDR4 RAM to choose from. I'm getting 1600 DDR3 RAM. I was gonna get 1866 RAM, but it turns out that the memory controller for the processor I'm getting doesn't really take advantage of 1866 RAM. 1% increase in performance for apps over 1600 RAM with the processor I want.
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