Buying a new Computer - Q&A

[Hail]

You can run AMD chips on a >150W supply. I'd recommend a 300W 80% gold (or whatever cert it is) to be safe.

actually 150w is more than enough.
one hdd is roughly 10w. so 150w is the apu (65w) plus more hdds than there will be sata connectors

80 plus thingy
either gold or, preferably, platinum. I recommend buying from oems. seasonic, rosewill, superflower are oems. while thermaltake, corsair, coolermaster, etc. are not.
for reference, this is my psu (the 460w version). in retrospect, should have bought the 400w one. and even one with less watts, if any existed.

[Ruff_Hi]

The most valuable lessons I've learned from building PCs for myself and others for six years:

1) Mist is right, a SSD makes all the difference. Nothing comes close for bang-for-the-buck every day performance.

An SSD will do wonders.

Speaking of the real-world, I'll reiterate that upgrading to even an 80gig SSD and using that for Windows and games will be the best bang for the buck upgrade you ever did.

Ruff, the jury is in on SSD's bro

After being nagged (and nagged) about getting an SSD during the original purchase / build phase of my new PC 2.5 yrs ago ... I finally got one the other day (Samsung 850 Pro-Series 128GB). Installing and setting it up was dead easy with the Samsung migration software. It is now up and running. I need to cycle back and (re)add the boot menu so that I can boot from my HDD (as a backup).

The boot time went down from about 5mins to about 1min.

There are some flow on impacts that I am still ironing out ... apparently, after letting the samsung software changing some settings because of the SSD, I have lost the ability to search for TV programs in Media Center (windows search is turned off).

Should've built it yourself...

I will be building a HTPC from scratch later this year.

[Ruff_Hi]

I was reading up on some answered questions on Amazon and one of the people there pointed to a really nice site for when you are buying parts ... www.pcpartpicker.com.

It has a breakdown of the various prices you can expect to pay ... but the part that I liked was the 'compatibility' checker.

[Ruff_Hi]

I started a new thread to discuss some home entertainment solutions where I would value RB's input.

[Ruff_Hi]

Is this any good for a lap top? $1250ish ...

Processor - Intel Core i7-6700HQ Processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.50GHz)
Operating System - Windows 10 Home 64
Total Memory - 16GB (8GBx2) PC3-17000 DDR4-2133 (2 SODIMM)
Graphic Card - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 2GB
Display15.6" FHD (1920x1080) LED Backlit, IPS, Anti-Glare display (Slim)
Hard Drive 2256GB Solid State Drive M.2
Hard Drive 256GB Solid State Drive M.2

Anything you would suggest re changes?

[Krill]

Do you actually need a laptop? Are you going to take it to places and use it, or would a desktop suffice.

[Ruff_Hi]

Do you actually need a laptop? Are you going to take it to places and use it, or would a desktop suffice.

I have a 2012 desktop that is still going strong ... well ... fine ... ok. I am planning my new desk top some time in 2017. The downside of only having a desk top is not being able to play civ when travelling. Maybe I should look at a less powerful laptop?

[spacetyrantxenu]

You certainly don't need that much machine to run Civ. Even integrated graphics would be mostly good enough for Civ now (as long as you don't end up with whatever Slowcheetah was using a while back with his epic blurry screenshots). Looks like a nice machine if you don't mind the price, though.

I just ordered a craptastic refurbished several years old model laptop (Dell E6420) for work for about $200. I know that machine will run Civ well enough to play while on the road, I've done it before on that model. Whatever model i5, I think a 2.5GHz, even only having 4GB RAM it would get the job done. I'm sure you'll get a much more enjoyable experience with the nicer laptop though.

[DaveV]

As far as Civ goes, more RAM is probably more important than anything else. I play on three machines, two with integrated i3/i5 graphics, and they run Civ just fine. My 4 GB of RAM runs pretty tight when I have Civ running alongside multiple browser tabs, email, screenshot editor, and other incidental programs. I've also read comments about late-game crashes that can be avoided by having more RAM.

[Ruff_Hi]

Here are the two options. Option 1 for about $1200 and option 2 for $700. They come in different chassis so that will be a consideration.

Its difficult to customize your laptop ... well, much more difficult than a desktop.

	Option 1	Option 2
Processor	Intel Core i5-6300HQ Processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.20GHz)	Intel Core i5-5200U Processor (2.20GHz 1600MHz 3MB)
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro 64	Windows 10 Pro 64
Total Memory	16GB (8GBx2) PC3-17000 DDR4-2133 (2 SODIMM)	8.0GB PC3L-12800 DDR3L 1600 MHz
Graphic Card	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 2GB	NVIDIA GeForce 840M 2GB
Display	15.6" FHD (1920x1080) LED Backlit, IPS, Anti-Glare display (Slim)	15.6" FHD IPS LED 1920x1080
Hard Drive	256GB Solid State Drive M.2	180GB SSD SATA III
Battery	4 Cell Li-Cyllinder Battery 60Wh	4 Cell Li-Polymer
WiFi Wireless LAN Adapters	Intel 8260 AC/A/B/G/N(2x2) Dual Band Wireless + Bluetooth Version 4.0	Intel Wireless 7265 (2x2) AC, Bluetooth Version 4.0