I was wondering if someone could help me woth customizing a desktop conputer.
My requested specs for $1000cad or less:
Quad-core i5 or i7 or other processor?
1Gb graphics card. Gtx 560? No integrated plz eg intel 4000 also ability to upgrade in 1-2 years to a gtx670/680
8-16gb ram most likely 8
Windows 7 64bit
It would mainly be used to run X-Plane 10, a modern powerful flight simulator.
From X-Plane recommended specs:
a 3 GHz, multi-core CPU (or, even better, multiple processors),
4 GB of RAM,
a DVD-ROM, and
a DirectX 10-capable (DX11 preferred) video card with 1 GB of on-board, dedicated VRAM.
X-Plane will take advantage of as many cores or distinct processors as you can afford. Having 16 cores split among 4 CPUs is not required by any means, but Version 10 would be able to use every one. No more than 4 GB of RAM is necessary, but the more VRAM you have, the better–X-Plane 10 can easily use 1.5 GB of VRAM at the maximum
settings.
Newegg.ca. Both are canadian/ us works also if another site is better
Ncix.ca
Ka I got this. Give me a bit. BTW the GTX7xx series is coming soon, the GTX780 is supposed to surpass the GTX680 by 50%, so a 150% gain in performance. A stopgap GPU like the GTX660 or lower is fine. A 660 could later be used as a PhysX GPU technically but that doesn’t make too much sense.
Are you fine with building a computer? And fine with Windows 7 and not 8? I’ll be using Newegg.can for sure, will cross check prices with NCIX though.
VRAM doesn’t matter all that much unless you are driving multiple high resolution displays, while playing the newest games. Even 2GB is fine for most everything, maybe less.
Building isn’t really that hard, the motherboard manuals usually go over everything fairly well. I can help a bit too.
Nope. I wouldn’t get that CPU if you won’t overclock it. It would be a waste of money. I can easily bump that down to one that’s still quad core and no integrated, but either way integrated shouldn’t matter if you plug into the GPU.
First time I built a computer, I went off with no tutorials/instructions, just a few diagrams in the manual. And I did fine, the only thing i screwed up on was the motherboard risers, but hey, it worked
With the motherboard you could probably look at the Asus p8h77-m. It is probably the cheapest H77 motherboard out there, and is good if you don’t plan to overclock your CPU. This is a microATX board so it is small, so the Gigabyte one sip mentioned is good too. Its $85 over here but Newegg seems to have it for $116.
I would stay away from anything OCZ for SSDs. They had a lot of problems with their sandforce controllers, which caused lots of blue screens of death. I know they have fixed it in their newer models, but their reliability is still not as good as the other brands. I would get a 120gb SSD as a minimum, as you’ll quickly use up your SSD space faster than you think. A Samsung 120gb SSD is about $100 and is well worth the money. Intel SSDs are probably the best out there, if you can pay the extra $10-$20.
With your 3.5’ hard drive, I would bump it up to 1TB, and consider a good performance drive like a Segate 1TB SATA3.
If you want to save some money on the OS, I would buy the Windows 8 upgrade, and install a spare copy of Windows 7 first. I know people don’t seem to like it, but it isn’t that bad once you get used to it.
For the DVD drive there is a cheap Samsung one for about $20 which is pretty good.
With the CPU I wouldn’t buy the K version of the core i5 unless you do plan to overclock it.
I have no idea about graphics cards at the moment as I haven’t looked into them for a while.
I put that specific board in for SLI, and was looking at other board without SLI, but with dual PCIE slots, and that’s probably what I would do.
The Vertex 4 is not Sandforce based and is supposed to be more reliable. Maybe change that to a Samsung 830 from NCIX, but that’s a bit more expensive.
You can always buy and upgrade copy of Windows 8 (for $40 mind you), and do a double install… I’ll leave the OEM in for now. Anything with a star next to it I changed
This has brought it down to $967.90 without Shipping & Handling. There are also $20 of rebates not accounted for in that final price, so it’s more like $947.90 if you choose to mail those in.
I think then there are two upgrades to consider. A bigger different SSD, or more RAM. I think going with the bigger SSD makes more sense, because upgrading RAM is easy and cheap. I put in a Plextor M5S 128GB for the upgrade SSD. I have a Plextor M3 and it is fantastically reliable. You could change out the RAM, but read the reviews on the one I picked, they are incredible.
heh heh sorry K. I started on the customizing, but have a science project due in 3 days and i haven’t started. Really sorry. But looks like sip got it. Again, sorry.
Wrong RAM. It should be more like $40 not $70. Maybe go with a case with USB3.0 on the front, like the Fractal Arc Midi. I believe its also cheaper.
Now minor suggestions.
That power supply will probably last you forever. SeaSonic makes the best around as far as I know. You could go with a slightly lower model, but that will work great for a long time.
Motherboard is great. Maybe a bit expensive as well, but if you probably won’t do SLI then it may not be worth spending that much. But for $20 less is it worth it? I don’t know up to you really.
Similar with the CPU. You will get a tad bit extra performance because it is higher clocked but do you need that extra clock speed? Depends on who you are.
As for a cooler, with the newer Ivy CPUs they tend to get a bit warmer.Coolermaster Hyper212+ is good and like $20.
When I built my new rig, I discovered I NEEDED a different cooling system. I would put it as a requirement!
I am pretty happy with my 64 gig SSD. It may be small, but most of what I put on there is just the essentials. I usually have about 30 gigs to use for games I want to make really fast. Everything else can install on a different Hard Drive.
and if it goes slightly over thats alright. Thanks for doing this btw.