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$1000: Complete system upgrade


Bikerdude

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Evening

 

Thought I would share this recommend build spec I did for Grayman -

 

Pentium 4, 3.4GHz, 4Gb Ram, Radeon HD 2400 PCI

Grayman, you seriously, and I mean seriously need to replace that gfx card. I'm surprised the mission is even running on that.. Where are you located and what budget do you have if any for a replacement card..?

  • Gfx 189.99 EVGA 01G-P3-1373-AR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi)
  • mobo 149.99 ASUS P7P55D-E LX LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
  • mem 159.98 OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000
  • Case 99.99 Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
  • Psu 74.99 Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power
  • DVD 18.99 ASUS Black 24X DVD+R ... SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
  • CPU 204.99 Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor
  • Hdd 64.99 Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s
  • Snd 99.99 Creative 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express 1x
  • OS 179.99 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Full

 

Bikerdude recommends:

 

  • Gfx $179.00 Gigabyte GTX465 "352core" 607/1215/3200 1GB 256bit 3yr warranty NewEgg Link
  • Cpu $140.00 Amd Phenom II X4 955 Black edition NewEgg Link
  • Mobo $140.00 Gigabyte GA-890GPA, 6xSata 6, 2xUSB 3.0 NewEgg Link
  • Ram $99.00 Kingston HyperX DDR3-1333 8Gb kit, 4GBx2, Cas7, KHX1333C7D3K4/8GX (v.low timings w/stock voltage) NewEgg Link
  • HDD $86.00 Samsung F4 HD322GJ 320GB, put the these in raid-0 and get over 300MB/s read and write NewEgg Link
  • DVD $18.99 ASUS Black 24X DVD+R ... SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM NewEgg Link
  • Snd $99.00 Soundvlaster X-fi Titainium PCI_E NewEgg Link
  • OS $99.00 Windows 7 X64 Home premium OEM NewEgg Link
  • PSU $85.00 Silverstone 700W, single 12v rail. (single big 12V rail is the way for good stability) NewEgg Link
  • Case $89.00 Cooler master Storm Scout Black (better than the Antec 900 in every way, $10 cheaper) NewEgg Link

 

$1043.99inc tax. (I haven't calculated the shipping, as you should get combined shipping etc from NewEgg). So I have improved his overall system: performance, reliability, desirability and saved him around $200!

 

Ok reason for my choices -

 

  • The Galaxy is almost as fast as the evga card he specced just cheaper and has the neat feature that allows the use to clean the dust bunnies out of the fins on the gpu cooler.
  • The Phenom II X4 955 is just as fast in most situation to the i5-750 that GM originally speced, but the AMD chip is much cheaper. Also this chip is unlocked and good for over-clocking.
  • The motherboard was a simple and basic choice, it has the latest AMD mobo chipset (890) it has big number of SATA6 and USB3, and is cheaper than the Asus.
  • The ram choice was educated, most situation and game WILL NOT benefit from insanely fast ram, so why waste money?! So the best bang for buck is to get mainstream speed in this case DDR3133 with really low timings, in this case "Cas 7". And its $60 cheaper than the shit arse ocz ram.
  • I actually use 4x of these Samsung F4 320 drives in Raid-0 and get 640/600MB read/write speeds. But more importantly these drives are better than any other mechanical drive on the market on small file(4k etc) read and writes - its 4x faster than the nearest competitor (the WD black drives)
  • The Silverstone PSU was another easy choice, good reliable make of PSU, Single 12v rail provides seriously stable voltages, and the 700W should be fairly future proof.
  • And lastly there is ABSOLUTELY no point buying retail versions of windows for ANY reason, when the only thing you need is the CD and the key!

Edited by Bikerdude
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I haven't looked at the benchmarks but the Galaxy card has a 192bit memory controller verses the 256bit on Grayman's option.

 

(With a 128bit GDDR2 memory interface, I would kill for either :laugh: )

Please visit TDM's IndieDB site and help promote the mod:

 

http://www.indiedb.com/mods/the-dark-mod

 

(Yeah, shameless promotion... but traffic is traffic folks...)

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Its because the card only has 768Mb ram instead of 1024MB, but I will amend the post as there is no point going for less ram on a comtemporary gfx card. And in this instance for $40more I found a better card, 1Gb 256bit ram but more importantly more cores - 352 from 336.

Edited by Bikerdude
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WRT Windows, I assumed "for System Builders" meant companies building systems. An individual can get it at this price?

You sure can! its a common misconception that we the end user cant. All that the OEM guidlines stipulate is that when buying an OEM copy of a OS the purchaser buy a peice of hardware, and this can be anything from a single case screw (lol) to a new mobo. The end result is a big saving, in your case $80...!!!

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and they also claim that you can't move an OEM copy of Windows from one machine to another. I don't know if this has been tested in court, especially if it is from a machine you own to another machine you own. They don't tell you that on the packaging of the software either.

 

Also, Microsoft doesn't provide tech support for OEM copies... but when was the last time you called them about a problem? Solutions to problems are available faster and more thoroughly explained online anyway.

Edited by lost_soul

--- War does not decide who is right, war decides who is left.

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Ms have tried that old bollox many times in the past when i have rebuilt an oem pc for someone, when i had to call them up to activate. the simple answer is I had to replce the motherboard as the old one was dead, so MS have no choice but to acquiesce to my request.

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  • a white box - if you're not a person who cares about pretty, it's hard to beat them for thermals and "lemme just cut a huge hole in that".
  • cheaper memory since you're most likely not gonna OC and memory faults dont care about how much you paid, they're also covered by pretty solid warranties. Just match the frequency/voltage to that of your motherboard/cpu. Granted I have no idea how much hyperx costs these days, but since latency is very subjective... almost certainly not worth it.
  • a single decent OS/App drive, some silly big and cheap samsung green drive for storage then disable all of windows spin down/power save on your drives (this increases life, pretty dramatically at a really minor cost).
  • Mobos are 90% crap, make sure you read owners reviews on newegg etc. Stability and support are all that matters, gimmicks like the current gen of usb3 is hardly worth it if there's something similar but cheaper.
  • Consider if you actually ever use your optical drive - I own a single dvd drive shared between 3 boxes + a craptop. Win7 is extremely simple to install from USB. (I last used mine about 7 months ago, I have no idea what people use them for)
     

Take the savings and throw it into more memory/cpu/good headphones and you'll be far better off in the long run :)

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Ms have tried that old bollox many times in the past when i have rebuilt an oem pc for someone, when i had to call them up to activate. the simple answer is I had to replce the motherboard as the old one was dead, so MS have no choice but to acquiesce to my request.

 

That stuff doesn't even apply these days(came in at Vista, left at Win7 :)), Win7 allows the license to float so long as its not an OEM VLK (i.e you cant move it from a laptop). A single pro license also covers 2 PC's now iirc, but I don't think that applies to OEM copies.

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