HI! I'd like to preface this build by informing that I am a Marine and for those of you whose knowledge of Marines comes from Call of Duty, those of us young single guys live in a barracks. It's basically a motel room that you share with 2 other dudes, not necessarily of your choosing. We have somewhat stringent rules as to what you can and can't have. What I'm getting at is this system is being housed in a locked, government "quality" cabinet (I guess it's a cabinet? Furniture aint my thing). I've measured it out and almost all cases these days require me to mount them transversely (left to right, not front to back, hence my case choice way down below). It's been roughly 3 years since I built my last computer (specs below) and it's starting to show its age. It never really played Crysis quite right (then again nothing did in 08...) and I've grown quite fond of FRAPSing my gaming exploits (but the "crease" in my screen coupled with the mouse feeling like it's in a puddle of Jello isn't doing it for me right now).
Anyways, I like my toys (it's a guy thing?). I like my computers like I like my cars...
Pictured: Mine
Pic of current setup to get an idea for how little space I have available. I can't have my own furniture or just put the case on the ground (something they don't tell you about the Marines.. you lose your GAMC [Grown Ass Man Card])
Old build:
OS: Windows XP Professional SP3 32bit (in 08, there was no Windows 7... leaving options that I couldn't tolerate)
Case: Who knows? I'd had it for years as a hand-me-down from my parents when I built the old rig. It has an Alienware logo but only has 2 80mm fans. I'm real fond of AC so my old builds never really needed much forced airflow.
PSU: Antec? 650W ????
Motherboard: EVGA 780i ???? (never could get the internal LAN to work.. ended up getting a PCI card instead of RMAing)
CPU: Q9550 @ 2.83GHZ. No overclock.
Cooler: Can't recall. It was highly recommended at the time and takes up about 1/3 of the motherboard lol.
RAM: 2x2GB (actually 2.75gb final thx to 32bit XP) Corsair (something)? DDR2 400MHZ 5:5:5:18:22 (this is a big bottleneck for FRAPSing, but not the whole story)
GPU: EVGA GTX260 216 Shaders (surprisingly, to me and anyone who's been doing this for many years, a midline GPU held on strong for 3 years before it started to show its age)
HDD: 500gb Seagate 7200rpm
ODD: HP DVD R/RW (generic)
Monitor: 22? 23? inch Westinghouse 1680x1050 (I've had it so long the name is worn off and I forgot if it's 22 or 23 inches. Additionally, I am too lazy to check)
Keyboard: HAHAHHAAHAHHAHAHA .... sorry.... it's a Dynex ???? that seems uncleanable these days
Mouse: Cyborg RAT7 (went through a lot of mouses before I found one I liked for FPSes online)
Sound: Logitech ???? 5.1 "surround"
I'd appreciate any kind of advice as to saving a little bit of money here and there or a better performing piece of hardware. I've seen all the "usual" arguments, and have heavily defended certain choices. If anything, someone must know of something better within a similar price point.
Approximate Purchase Date: Next week (Aug 9-11th... I'm shooting on the range all week next week or I'd have bought this stuff already honestly. Don't trust the supply r-tards to not destroy my hard-earned expenditures)
Budget Range: $2500 After shipping (right now shipping comes out to about $130.. I'm in Hawaii) BEFORE rebates.
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming (Crysis 2, Black Ops, Starcraft II, Combat Arms, Metro 2033... pretty much everything worthwhile), Starcraft II Map Editing (if you've used it, you KNOW how long it takes to do anything. Really inefficient. Check out the beast whore map project I am working on for multiplayer!Video/Image editing (Amateur. I've ... ermm... "acquired" some high-end video editing software and right now it takes forever +1 day to render anything), movies, surfing the interwebs.
Parts Not Required: Mouse, speakers, monitor (separate budget for a ~27" to play in better resolutions), possibly OS (though I no longer see the need to pirate)
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg.com (looked around... nerdiest guy I know recommended tigerdirect but they list all their parts priced AFTER rebates and it's not apparent til it's in the cart. Saving ~$30 at the end of the day wasn't worth it to me moving to a new site. Newegg's always been reliable for me and we're talking ~$2500 total cost so $30 aint ***. I can spend that on 2 drinks at a midgrade club here)
Country of Origin: USA (Hawaii, so .... well let's just say a lot of the people here would prefer to secede from the Union)
Parts Preferences: Intel. My laptop is AMD and I bought it for the same reason everyone buys AMD/ATI stuff. It's cheap performance. The laptop is just for when I'm on the go (say... in Afghanistan.......) anyway. I will never do an AMD/ATI GPU again though. Aside from having trouble finding drivers, I had to tweak the Catalyst settings just to stop certain games (looking at you, Borderlands!) from artifacting and BSOD. Basically, on my desktop, a little money saved aint worth a dime to me vs not having to hack the matrix just to play an OLD game with a current system.
Overclocking: Definitely. Sandybridge seems friendly enough to nice clock speeds.
SLI or Crossfire: Yep. Reasoning in GPU section.
Monitor Resolution: 1680x1050 (current), 1920x1080/1920x1200 on a ~27" (separate budget; need to see how much space I've got to work with when I get my new case). Monster resolutions are a no go for me. 30" are still hovering around $1k and multiple displays just looks retarded to me. If they made a really thin border display, then HELL YES, but the lip on the edge would confuse the crap out of me in an FPS.
Additional Comments: Reserved
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OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit - OEM
Case: Antec Lanboy air Red Black / Red ATX Mid Tower Computer Modular Case (Customizable, I like the looks, I can mount it transversely with the drive bays shooting out the left of center, it's modular, it looks ballin, and reviews show that "open air cooling" does in fact compete with sealed 9 fan cases)
PSU: Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-900 900W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE ...
Motherboard: ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (good reviews, cheap, features include a USB 3.0 bay... my case lacks this)
CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K (Please, no "go with the 2500k". I've read a lot of comparisons and yes, the 2500k is only marginally slower for gaming... right now, but I'm trying to extend this rig out to 4-5 years and beyond)
Cooler: Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid Cooling System (Good reviews. Similar performance to gigantic air coolers. Similar price)
Additional case fan for cooler: Antec 761345-75026-4 120mm Red LED Case Fan (not terribly $ smart... but I'm going to do a push/pull on the radiator, and this is as close to matching the "stock" fans as I can get)
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9R (I've seen comparisons on RAM and... well... it's all pretty close. On the plus side, this one is RED. Kinda got a theme goin here)
GPU: 2x in SLI: EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1572-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card (Overkill? Certainly! But if one midline card got me ~3 years, 2 should get me 4-5. Just theorycrafting here)
SSD: Intel 510 Series (Elm Crest) SSDSC2MH120A2K5 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (I have somewhat of a short temper, comes with the military, and waiting for the hard drive to access triggers it. I just figured it was standard until I found out about these. Based on average reviews, Intel's seems to be the most reliable unit)
HDD: 2x Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 2TB 5900 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive (These are for storage. Why 2 you ask? Raise your hand if you've had 3 drives fail in less than 3 years. Just me? Lessons learned: Western Digital? Never again. Granted they were all externals, but I just can't stand another 1TB+ loss of music/games/movies. Hence the "backup of the backup" philosophy. Things used to fail a LOT less often. Hardware RAID1 would be good, but even a cheapo card seems like a waste to me. I've seen software RAID accomplish the same thing. All else fails, I can just manually mirror the drives. Bottom line, a single backup doesn't cut it nowadays)
ODD: ASUS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS - OEM (Wow 5 eggs average with 2000+ reviews! I guess DVD drives are the only thing with any reasonable quality control these days?)
Keyboard: AI-ROCKS KR-6820E-BK Black 104 Key USB Wired Backlit Gaming Keyboard (Orange LED) (Lighting to match the rest of the package while also being cheap. Also, the glowing keys are entirely necessary as it's sometimes necessary to game while others are sleeping. I REALLY want a reasonably cheap, RED/orange backlight one with VOLUME CONTROLS! I love this about my dying sticky keyboard. My "actual" volume control is blocked physically by my monitor)
Subtotal: $2,196.85 (??? something must have dropped in price today... I swear it was more yesterday)
Shipping (Hawaii): $133.55
Total: $2,330.40
Anyways, I like my toys (it's a guy thing?). I like my computers like I like my cars...
Pictured: Mine
Pic of current setup to get an idea for how little space I have available. I can't have my own furniture or just put the case on the ground (something they don't tell you about the Marines.. you lose your GAMC [Grown Ass Man Card])
Old build:
OS: Windows XP Professional SP3 32bit (in 08, there was no Windows 7... leaving options that I couldn't tolerate)
Case: Who knows? I'd had it for years as a hand-me-down from my parents when I built the old rig. It has an Alienware logo but only has 2 80mm fans. I'm real fond of AC so my old builds never really needed much forced airflow.
PSU: Antec? 650W ????
Motherboard: EVGA 780i ???? (never could get the internal LAN to work.. ended up getting a PCI card instead of RMAing)
CPU: Q9550 @ 2.83GHZ. No overclock.
Cooler: Can't recall. It was highly recommended at the time and takes up about 1/3 of the motherboard lol.
RAM: 2x2GB (actually 2.75gb final thx to 32bit XP) Corsair (something)? DDR2 400MHZ 5:5:5:18:22 (this is a big bottleneck for FRAPSing, but not the whole story)
GPU: EVGA GTX260 216 Shaders (surprisingly, to me and anyone who's been doing this for many years, a midline GPU held on strong for 3 years before it started to show its age)
HDD: 500gb Seagate 7200rpm
ODD: HP DVD R/RW (generic)
Monitor: 22? 23? inch Westinghouse 1680x1050 (I've had it so long the name is worn off and I forgot if it's 22 or 23 inches. Additionally, I am too lazy to check)
Keyboard: HAHAHHAAHAHHAHAHA .... sorry.... it's a Dynex ???? that seems uncleanable these days
Mouse: Cyborg RAT7 (went through a lot of mouses before I found one I liked for FPSes online)
Sound: Logitech ???? 5.1 "surround"
I'd appreciate any kind of advice as to saving a little bit of money here and there or a better performing piece of hardware. I've seen all the "usual" arguments, and have heavily defended certain choices. If anything, someone must know of something better within a similar price point.
Approximate Purchase Date: Next week (Aug 9-11th... I'm shooting on the range all week next week or I'd have bought this stuff already honestly. Don't trust the supply r-tards to not destroy my hard-earned expenditures)
Budget Range: $2500 After shipping (right now shipping comes out to about $130.. I'm in Hawaii) BEFORE rebates.
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming (Crysis 2, Black Ops, Starcraft II, Combat Arms, Metro 2033... pretty much everything worthwhile), Starcraft II Map Editing (if you've used it, you KNOW how long it takes to do anything. Really inefficient. Check out the beast whore map project I am working on for multiplayer!Video/Image editing (Amateur. I've ... ermm... "acquired" some high-end video editing software and right now it takes forever +1 day to render anything), movies, surfing the interwebs.
Parts Not Required: Mouse, speakers, monitor (separate budget for a ~27" to play in better resolutions), possibly OS (though I no longer see the need to pirate)
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg.com (looked around... nerdiest guy I know recommended tigerdirect but they list all their parts priced AFTER rebates and it's not apparent til it's in the cart. Saving ~$30 at the end of the day wasn't worth it to me moving to a new site. Newegg's always been reliable for me and we're talking ~$2500 total cost so $30 aint ***. I can spend that on 2 drinks at a midgrade club here)
Country of Origin: USA (Hawaii, so .... well let's just say a lot of the people here would prefer to secede from the Union)
Parts Preferences: Intel. My laptop is AMD and I bought it for the same reason everyone buys AMD/ATI stuff. It's cheap performance. The laptop is just for when I'm on the go (say... in Afghanistan.......) anyway. I will never do an AMD/ATI GPU again though. Aside from having trouble finding drivers, I had to tweak the Catalyst settings just to stop certain games (looking at you, Borderlands!) from artifacting and BSOD. Basically, on my desktop, a little money saved aint worth a dime to me vs not having to hack the matrix just to play an OLD game with a current system.
Overclocking: Definitely. Sandybridge seems friendly enough to nice clock speeds.
SLI or Crossfire: Yep. Reasoning in GPU section.
Monitor Resolution: 1680x1050 (current), 1920x1080/1920x1200 on a ~27" (separate budget; need to see how much space I've got to work with when I get my new case). Monster resolutions are a no go for me. 30" are still hovering around $1k and multiple displays just looks retarded to me. If they made a really thin border display, then HELL YES, but the lip on the edge would confuse the crap out of me in an FPS.
Additional Comments: Reserved
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit - OEM
Case: Antec Lanboy air Red Black / Red ATX Mid Tower Computer Modular Case (Customizable, I like the looks, I can mount it transversely with the drive bays shooting out the left of center, it's modular, it looks ballin, and reviews show that "open air cooling" does in fact compete with sealed 9 fan cases)
PSU: Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-900 900W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE ...
Motherboard: ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (good reviews, cheap, features include a USB 3.0 bay... my case lacks this)
CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K (Please, no "go with the 2500k". I've read a lot of comparisons and yes, the 2500k is only marginally slower for gaming... right now, but I'm trying to extend this rig out to 4-5 years and beyond)
Cooler: Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid Cooling System (Good reviews. Similar performance to gigantic air coolers. Similar price)
Additional case fan for cooler: Antec 761345-75026-4 120mm Red LED Case Fan (not terribly $ smart... but I'm going to do a push/pull on the radiator, and this is as close to matching the "stock" fans as I can get)
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9R (I've seen comparisons on RAM and... well... it's all pretty close. On the plus side, this one is RED. Kinda got a theme goin here)
GPU: 2x in SLI: EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1572-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card (Overkill? Certainly! But if one midline card got me ~3 years, 2 should get me 4-5. Just theorycrafting here)
SSD: Intel 510 Series (Elm Crest) SSDSC2MH120A2K5 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (I have somewhat of a short temper, comes with the military, and waiting for the hard drive to access triggers it. I just figured it was standard until I found out about these. Based on average reviews, Intel's seems to be the most reliable unit)
HDD: 2x Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 2TB 5900 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive (These are for storage. Why 2 you ask? Raise your hand if you've had 3 drives fail in less than 3 years. Just me? Lessons learned: Western Digital? Never again. Granted they were all externals, but I just can't stand another 1TB+ loss of music/games/movies. Hence the "backup of the backup" philosophy. Things used to fail a LOT less often. Hardware RAID1 would be good, but even a cheapo card seems like a waste to me. I've seen software RAID accomplish the same thing. All else fails, I can just manually mirror the drives. Bottom line, a single backup doesn't cut it nowadays)
ODD: ASUS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS - OEM (Wow 5 eggs average with 2000+ reviews! I guess DVD drives are the only thing with any reasonable quality control these days?)
Keyboard: AI-ROCKS KR-6820E-BK Black 104 Key USB Wired Backlit Gaming Keyboard (Orange LED) (Lighting to match the rest of the package while also being cheap. Also, the glowing keys are entirely necessary as it's sometimes necessary to game while others are sleeping. I REALLY want a reasonably cheap, RED/orange backlight one with VOLUME CONTROLS! I love this about my dying sticky keyboard. My "actual" volume control is blocked physically by my monitor)
Subtotal: $2,196.85 (??? something must have dropped in price today... I swear it was more yesterday)
Shipping (Hawaii): $133.55
Total: $2,330.40
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