Assembling a modest gaming computer, any tips?

[Stormwatch]

So my computer went kaboom, and not much is salvageable. And I think, might as well try to make it a decent gaming machine this time. On the other hand, I can't go all high-end, know what I mean? Since I'm no hardware expert, I had to ask around a lot. Now your opinions, guys: am I doing this right?

Mobo: Gigabyte H55m-s2hp
CPU: Intel I5 650 3,2ghz
RAM: 4gb Kingston Ddr3
Power unit: 3R System 500w Iceage Ia500hp80
Video card: GeForce GTS 250
Hard drive: Barracuda Seagate SATA2 1TB

This is pretty much as far as my budget can be stretched. Also, please don't suggest AMD/ATI, it's too much trouble to use that for a Hackintosh.

[gct]

You'll be fine with that spec IMO.

Personal preference, I would substitute that hard drive for a Western Digital Black. I can't really say why, since I have used Seagate as a main system drive without any problem, but I have been on WD for a while and it's pretty reliable.

[StarCreator]

I've been hearing bad things about Seagate lately, though I haven't had anything bad happen to mine yet (*knocks vigorously on wooden desk*). I think WD has better warranty terms now anyway.

Can you be more specific on the memory? Always look at the CAS timings - that's the real measure of performance.

I've never heard of that power supply manufacturer. I typically go with either Seasonic or Corsair - Antec Earthwatts are good too in a pinch, but I wouldn't get anything else from Antec. But if those are too pricy, go with anything 80Plus or better.

No experience with the GTS 250, but if it's what you need to do to run your Hackintosh...

[KBZ]

I had huge issues with the GTS 250 + realtek audio. You'll probably be fine, but if something comes up, you'll have to reformat, and disable onboard sound in bios.

[gray117]

I would really recommend a nvida GTX 460 card... prices seem well down now on these following the release of new series [at least in uk]

its a very small amount more but you'll get so much better performance - especially for gaming.

People compare one gtx 460 vs 2* 250 SLI ...

... For gaming I'd skimp on processor before graphics card: Although I wouldn't recommend against your i5 choice unless budget was an issue in which case I would favour the graphics card...

[moozooh]

First-off, I'd advise against building your system on an obsolete platform that is LGA1156. Intel won't release anything new for it, so at best you're locking yourself out of a possible upgrade. See if there are any models on LGA1155 that suit your price range.

Asus and Gigabyte mobos are generally excellent (although their cheaper models aren't as feature-rich as MSI). You can sink as much into them as your budget allows: these things hold everything together after all, but what you should look out for specifically nowadays is extra durability of the components that power the CPU, a spare PCI slot, and at least one USB 3.0, because that thing is going to be pretty big within 1.5-2 years.

CPU: Intel I5 650 3,2ghz

Ok, this one is a huge no-no. It's got two cores as opposed to four in most other i5s, and you pay extra for the integrated graphics core that you won't even use. It's not a bad CPU per se, but it costs a lot more than it does. If you can wait a week or two, get the new i5-2400 for roughly the same price and a ~30% better performance, or i5-2300 for ~$10 less if you're desperate.

RAM: 4gb Kingston Ddr3

4 GB is good, but get it in two sticks to take advantage of double speed. I suppose there's no particular need in having it faster than 1066 MHz unless 1333 MHz is at the same price where you live, simply because it isn't going to be your performance bottleneck. Graphics card and HDD will be.

Video card: GeForce GTS 250

250 is an obsolete model. It is more than likely you'll be able to find 450 for roughly the same price. 460 with 1GB of vRAM would give you best bang for the buck, but since it's about $80 more, that's probably out of your budget.

Hard drive: Barracuda Seagate SATA2 1TB

Ok, this one needs attention. A gaming PC should always have a minimum of two HDDs, because your system and resident programs do a lot of read/write operations that interferes with gaming performance if all the game data is located on the same drive. Since at core it is a mechanical device that is subject to inertia, speed limits, and whatnot, two consecutive read/write operations on the same drive slows it down to less than a half of the regular speed. Three or more usually make it emit scary noises and slow down to a crawl. Fragmentation reduces this even further.

Have one small HDD (80–160 GB, it's unlikely you'll find anything less released within the last couple years) for OS and program files, and that terabyte one for the rest. Defragment the first one once a week, and the second at least once a month.

Will comment on the PSU later.

Oh, and get yourself a decent case: thick (0.8+ mm steel or 1.0+ mm aluminum) and spacious, ideally with no-screwdriver mounts and at least one fan blowing at the HDD basket. Vibrations and poor air flow are a bad thing for gaming PCs.

[Stormwatch]

Very nice in-depth analysis there, moorzoh. Now I'll have to redo the whole plan and, the hardest part: convince my folks.

[Zapf]

I use sh/sc's system building megathread whenever I need to build a system: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showth ... id=3371605

I don't think two hard drives is an absolute must for gaming pc's though, unless you are going to put the money in for an ssd as your OS hard drive. If there are some (recent) charts out there showing significant performance increases outside of map loading when using two regular hard drives, I'd love to see them =)


edit: Tech reports guide isn't bad either. About a month old though: http://techreport.com/articles.x/20138

[speedlolita]

Get a Corsair PSU.

[Zapf]

corsair and antec earthwatts are good, as well as seasonic and pc power and cooling

[speedlolita]

Yeah, anything but what the OP has specced. PSU is the most important part!

[Zapf]

Wait why does the op say hes making a gaming computer, then go on to say hes gonna use it for a hackintosh. Dont do that. OS X is nice but not enough to come into conflict with building a gaming computer.

[moozooh]

If there are some (recent) charts out there showing significant performance increases outside of map loading when using two regular hard drives, I'd love to see them =)

No chart is going to account for specific situations. Swapping + reading current game data + a background upload/download + some other application (antivirus, oh yeah!) reading or scanning or just writing some log may not all happen at the same time all of the time, but when stars align in a multiplayer game or just a very hot fight, and your game suddenly receives a lag spike that makes you die or whatever (or even worse; Diablo 2 Hardcore, anyone?), you'd probably wish you'd thought this through ahead. I'm not even talking about loading times here. Another option is to close most applications (especially stuff such as a BitTorrent client) before playing a hardware-demanding game to ensure stability.

If either sits well with you after spending $650+ on a gaming PC, by all means, go on. HDDs are by far the slowest piece of hardware anything in your computer goes through, and unfortunately most of the stuff does so, so making it any slower to save ~$30 (an average price for the cheapest unused retail HDDs here) is about as economically efficient as removing doorknobs from a door.

[Zapf]

I wasn't aware there were people who ever thought it was a good idea to run other applications, especially ones that do a lot of reading/writing to the hard drive or congest your internet connection, at the same time as playing a game. I personally turn off bittorrent when doing anything significant, and steam pauses any of its downloads anyway.

Its not a big deal.

[njiska]

I've been hearing bad things about Seagate lately, though I haven't had anything bad happen to mine yet (*knocks vigorously on wooden desk*). I think WD has better warranty terms now anyway.

I have two dead Seagates and two dead WD Black's on my desk. Let's just say the build quality isn't what it used to be.

[Stormwatch]

Since I do have a spare 250GB hard drive, that part is not a problem. Paying for everything else is.

Here's a machine set up according to moozooh's suggestions, how about that:

Mobo: Asus P8h67-m Pro Lga1155
CPU: Intel Core I5 2400
RAM: Ddr3 4gb 1333 Mhz Markvision
Video card: Galaxy Geforce GTX 460

My brain is melting and my wallet has exploded.

[Zapf]

Where do you get computer parts online in brazil, and how do they compare price-wise with us online retailers (ie newegg/amazon)

[Stormwatch]

Where do you get computer parts online in brazil, and how do they compare price-wise with us online retailers (ie newegg/amazon)

I'm using Mercado Livre (equivalent to eBay). Everything is noticeably more expensive around here than in the USA, it's such a pain... that last setup I just posted? $867 plus shipping, and I didn't even add a hard disk or PSU yet!

[moozooh]

Wow, that's pretty tough. :\

A year ago I got an i5-750 with a midrange ATX MSI mobo for $375 in total, a high class Corsair PSU for ~$100, and three 1 TB drives for ~$110 each. An up-to-date set of the same pieces of hardware that would trump my current config in every possible respect (including the CPU I recommended to you earlier here) would cost me 20% less today. For you it seems to be the opposite. :\

[Zapf]

Is it possible you know someone in the US that would ship the items to you.

[Stormwatch]

Well, then there's shipping costs... and THEN there's a whooping 60% import tariff. And I mean 60% on the product + shipping. This country is insane, I tell you!

[gray117]

THEN there's a whooping 60% import tariff.

Holy shit... I thought 20% was cheeky...

... You can see how smuggling could become popular ...

That must be some nationalistic-self-interested import prevention method ...? Whats the rational otherwise? - surprised they don't exempt technology though; you're digging your country into a technological black hole if you look at the wider economy - want to setup an office? - use a master system or pay 60% on top of everything ...

[Stormwatch]

It used to be worse: from 84 to 92, it was simply illegal to import a computer here!

[Stormwatch]

Just as I had decided to buy, comes a FFFUUUUU moment: Intel finds flaw in 6-series chipsets, halts shipments

The problem that's caused Intel to initiate a billion-dollar chipset recall affects the SATA ports on all 6-series chipsets, including the H67 and P67 chipsets most prominently used in consumer products. All of these chipsets are collectively referred to as "Cougar Point" inside of Intel. Because there are no third-party chipsets compatible with Sandy Bridge processors, all Sandy Bridge-based systems are potentially affected, including desktops, laptops, and BYOPC motherboards.

Fuck this shit, I'm going to take the cheapskate route and just get a new 775 mobo, the PSU, a 9800GT... and maybe upgrade from my shit PDC to a C2Q eventually.

[moozooh]

Wow, good going, Intel. :o

[Stormwatch]

So, since I'm trying to get a decent game machine while being obsessively thrifty, as paradoxal as it may sound... I was thinking of getting a Core 2 Duo E8400. It's quite cheap, and packs some punch. I've checked some benchmarks -- in all tests, it consistently performs about twice as good as the PDC I have now. But this surprised me: according to the same tests, moving from that C2D to an i7 would give a rather modest improvement.

[moozooh]

That very much depends on the application (check the x264 benchmark for these two to see it). Games don't put much pressure on CPUs nowadays; you're much more likely to be held back by the graphics card. Then again, I have no idea how they benched the games' performance: if the total length is one minute, and there is one second-long segment of CPU-heavy effects with noticeable slowdown on the weaker system, it's not going to be meaningfully reflected in the results. All good sites have learned it by this point to list both average and minimum fps for every game test.

E8400 is by no means a bad CPU, though, of course, it's just old and is made obsolete by cheaper chips on newer platforms.

[gray117]

Games don't put much pressure on CPUs nowadays; you're much more likely to be held back by the graphics card.

^^ agree. You may bottleneck some of your game potential performance with a processor - but such effects are typically minimal compared to the benefits the graphics card brings to the table.

Only games like civ 5 may disagree in my experience - but which remain playable after the calculation phase.

I've certainly seen nvidia 9800gt on a athlon dual core run badly at high detail in mw2. Same machine swapped card for ati hd4890 and it ran fine at ultra detail.

[Stormwatch]

But I also have to get the mobo, and 775-based ones are quite cheaper around here.

Processor + mobo, the new set would cost me 50% more than the older set.

[StarCreator]

I have an E8400 myself, and I can tell you that the CPU is pretty much the bottleneck on everything I play now (video card: Radeon HD6870).

It's by no means bad, but it's certainly obsolete, even more so than the LGA1156 build you originally proposed. It's really unfortunate that your country has pretty much forced you to buy stuff that's three years old just to get a decent price.