Motherboard Advice

[Honest]

There is a certain alloy they use in manufacturing DDR2 that makes it more expensive than DDR3. DDR3 is the better ram, also happens to be the cheaper. As far as overclocking, it's not too difficult once you understand the concept. Do keep in mind that the larger the MB and the more powerful the processor your gonna need a larger PSU. You can probably build a decent machine for 600 bucks.

[Gwence]

Overclocking is all one touch nowadays with UEFI or the manufacture suites that come with pretty much every newer motherboard, a retarded monkey could do it with no trouble, it's very easy and companies like Intel and AMD are starting to underclock their processors just so people feel all warm and fuzzy when they one touch their speed up past 4 GHz

I wouldn't bother OC'ing your memory, it doesn't do much for you just check the specs on the modules and the latency times and make sure you're getting those times when they get installed it might need some tweaking to get the specs that the modules are rated for but that also isn't very difficult with how easy the UEFI's are right now. Example of this is when a person buys a dual channel kit with the modules rated for 1600Mhz alot of the time the motherboard will default the modules to 1333Mhz so you just have to change that in the bios. The motherboards also tell you what speeds they support without overclocking.

I would however OC your video card whichever you choose to buy and in most cases you can save money on video cards by buying a Non-OC'd card and then doing it yourself with windows software (MSI afterburner is free software and will OC Nvidia GPU's as well as AMD GPU's) ASUS also has one they just came out with too, can't remember the name. This is very easy as well as you're pretty much just moving a slider bar in the program and then restarting. You may have to tweak voltage depending on how high of an OC you want but they're minor tweaks. I'm making it sound easy but it really is just dont go overboard and 99.9% of the time you'll be just fine.

I will say your buying method is a bit risky imo, motherboards are something I usually buy last in my builds because of the DOA risk I want to be able to RMA or return if needed. It's not something that happens often but better safe than sorry. What I normally do is decide on the board and then buy everything else other than solid state drive before the MB. Buying a processor first is fine those things are solid as steel.

I would suggest deciding on your CPU before anything else, once that is done, decide on a video card and get the dimensions of it, after that pick out a case making sure it will be big enough to house your video card and any aftermarket cooling solutions if you plan on doing that. Then pick out your power supply and make sure it can handle whatever video card you picked. Now pick out your motherboard because at this point you know which socket you need, you know how big it can be, and you know which expansion slot(s) you will need for your video card, and you also know which power supply connectors you have and double check to make sure the board calls for them and the video card connectors as well (from the psu). It sounds like a lot of information but it's not too bad. After that figure what you want for your storage and boot or if it's going to be the same drive (wouldn't reccommend that) and pick out some memory and an optical drive and that's about it.

Give me a few min I'll link to some good processors in your price range.

[bonehand]

I owned a PC and Server shop till 2002 when the whole 9/11 and dot com crash killed me. I used to be able to make $50 to $100 on a PC build and $500 to $10,000 on a server build profit. Nobody in the area could match my price because I could buy in bulk, mind you it was limited, but the credit account I had with my supplier was good enough to qualify. If I wanted to build the same now, I wouldn't make that....why? Because HP, Dell and Gateway are selling below cost. They make money off of the installed applications...they make kickbacks on the quantity of AMD or Intel they sell.

There is no way you can build a home machine for less than the cost of a prebuilt box.

Now, I do build my own, but the Core i7, 12GB ram, 3TB in OS drives (not the storage drives for games, music and vids), ATI 6970 and everything else I demand for my personal machine is quite exceptional compared to a HP box, but look at this:

CyberpowerPC Gamer Xtreme GX6105 Gaming PC - Intel Core i7-960 3.2GHz, 12GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, DVDRW, AMD Radeon HD 6870, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Core i7 $290
12GB $100
HD $60
DVD $30
Vid $200
keyboard $20
Mouse $10
Case $70
Motherboard (x58 with sata iii, usb 3.0) $230
800W PSU $60
Win7 Home Premium $100 (with hardware purchase)

Comes to $1170, so is your time worth $29 to build? Well, don't forget the $60 to $100 for shipping all of those parts...and you are paying way more than the cost of that PC from CyberPower, which is more costly than even a similar HP/Compaq that is $900 + $230 for the video card, or Lenovo which is $1100 at CDW....and the shipping is lower and much faster on one PC than a bunch of parts.

Those come with excellent warranties also, where if something in your home built rig breaks you have to diagnose and fix it...wait for Asus or XFX or Crucial or Seagate or who knows to get you an RMA number and deal with 2-3 weeks of shipping back and fourth.

Honestly, unless you plan on builing something in the $1500+ price range for parts you absolutely will not save money in the long run. It is only then that CyberPower, Alienware and other boutique computers are more expensive than building your own.

So, do what you want, I tend to build mine because shelling out $3-4K for a light up case from Alienware isn't my thing, but when it comes to the PC I buy my mom or family, I just tell them to go to Best Buy or Walmart and pick one out that features everything they want, read the reviews on your phone or a web browser on the PC itself, and save us both some time and money.

[Gwence]

well I just mocked up a build in cyberpower and came out to a near $300 difference using fairly mid to high mid components. I'll post the specs later.

I didn't do your build because I think you're the only person on the planet who drops a shitty quad core lynnfield into the x58 chipset, 1366 is go big or go home my man.

He said he wanted a gaming pc not a dell and if u looking up alienware the cost is astronomical compared to self build, cyberpower does a decent job at keeping cost down and their selection is great but you're still saving money on a gaming machine by building it yourself, always.

[Saiene]

I just built a comp myself, and I know for a fact I saved at least $300ish over buying a pre-built one. I checked out the prices from cyberpower too. The only way the price would of been comparable, was if I had bought an open box pc, which would of maybe saved me $100 or so. Use the shell shocker deals form newegg, or look for coupons on http://www.techbargains.com/newegg_coupons.cfm. I'm 100 percent positive you can save some $ building, and as the other guy said, its also fun to build it yourself.

[pickled_heretic]

Originally Posted by Honest [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

There is a certain alloy they use in manufacturing DDR2 that makes it more expensive than DDR3. DDR3 is the better ram, also happens to be the cheaper. As far as overclocking, it's not too difficult once you understand the concept. Do keep in mind that the larger the MB and the more powerful the processor your gonna need a larger PSU. You can probably build a decent machine for 600 bucks.

this is actually bullshit. DDR3 has a much higher latency than DDR2. DDR2 will outperform DDR3 until you reach higher clockspeeds. If you are looking for performance at a low price point you should stick with DDR2. You get what you pay for... cheaper DDR3 will not perform as well as equivalent DDR2. At identical price points the DDR2 will outperform DDR3 until you reach the higher performance RAM.

[Honest]

Originally Posted by pickled_heretic [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

this is actually bullshit. DDR3 has a much higher latency than DDR2. DDR2 will outperform DDR3 until you reach higher clockspeeds. If you are looking for performance at a low price point you should stick with DDR2. You get what you pay for... cheaper DDR3 will not perform as well as equivalent DDR2. At identical price points the DDR2 will outperform DDR3 until you reach the higher performance RAM.

I agree that quality DDR2 will outperform cheap DDR3 but thats not what i was saying. DDR3 is only going to get better, where they have reached the ceiling with DDR2, and can no longer increase the frequency. There are advantages to DDR3, less power consumption. It has twice as many internal banks on it that DDR2. It can provide higher speeds at a lower voltage. But more importantly there will be better DDR3 out there. Most of the newer chipsets use DDR3. You shouldnt dump your current system, if its decent, just to get DDR3 for a 1-2% increase. Fact of the matter is DDR2 is more expensive. If you want to get a mobo that is going to support DDR2 as well SATA III and all the other new ports its gonna end up costing more money., then getting the same mother board that supports DDR3. Would you rather have a DX10 video card or one that supports DX11. There may not be many games that run in DX11 right now, doesnt mean there wont be in the future. Same difference here. No system will be "future proof" but you have more, cheaper, options than running a DDR2 system (which i do). But for me it was cheaper and more logical to stay with what i had. He is making a new system.

[Humerox]

Gwence is pretty much spot on with advice here.

If you OC go AMD or go home. Just watch the heat.

Their "Bulldozer" looks mean as hell.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/24176...uch_42ghz.html

That's a hell of a wallop for $245.00.

They put all other processors to shame with OCing too. Can you say 8.429GHz? 'Course the helium would be a little costly.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/23985..._the_dust.html

[Gwence]

well I'd say you would probably get better performance from the 2nd gen sandy bridge cpu's over AMD right now in terms of OC'ing. But I hadn't read that article on bulldozer that is a really hot price for an 8 core cpu lol. Although I'm always a bit weary of buying brand new tech for fear of potential recalls and bugs that pop up.

Intel really does piss me off with their pricing though.

[Feachie]

intel pricing sucks, but you get what you pay for. i wait about 2 weeks after launch, that's enough time to see what steppings are total crap and which ones are overperforming.

ivy > sandy > bulldozer. imho wait a couple months. no current boards will support ivy bridge core.