Buying a new Computer - Q&A

[Ruff_Hi]

I'm buying a new computer (current one is 6 yrs old) and I have some questions ...

1. Windows 7 Prof or Windows 7 Ultimate
   
2. Video card - AMD Radeon HD 6770 or 6870
   
3. Are soundblaster cards worth it?
   

My PC usage is not that intense, web, forum, Civ 4, streaming vid (netflix & MLB baseball highlights) but I am buying it for the future [2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2600 processor (3.4GHz with 8MB Cache), 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs, 2TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 64MB Cache]

[antisocialmunky]

Um, you can get an AMD Llano A8 processor based computer. Its a mid-end quadcore with a on chip mid-end graphics processor so its pretty awesome for everyday use. Can probably score one for $400.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...8%3A165553

You don't need to buy for the future these days since software stopped getting all that demanding except in the odd game.

[Sareln]

WRT soundcards. I know people who will swear up and down by the difference that a good soundcard makes, but I've never noticed it.

[Ruff_Hi]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLis...8%3A165553

Thanks for the link - just spent an hour clicking through a pc configurer[sp] ... I have no idea what I need in some situations (eg power system 450 Watt ... 600 Watt ... 1200 Watt ... how do you know how much power you need?).

That said - there are some super cool looking PC cases around now - nice, straight forward, no silly lights but the inside looks soooo efficient.

[Mist]

Thanks for the link - just spent an hour clicking through a pc configurer[sp] ... I have no idea what I need in some situations (eg power system 450 Watt ... 600 Watt ... 1200 Watt ... how do you know how much power you need?).

There are some calculators online, like those

http://www.schrockinnovations.com/comput...alculator/
http://www.vbutils.com/power.php
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

that can help with this question. You probably want something 600 to 900 watt that's very power efficient and quiet.

As for other stuff,

*) don't buy a cutting edge CPU, buy a cutting edge motherboard that will take up to date CPUs over next five years.
*) unless you invest in a very good set of speakers there's no point in having a soundblaster card, the better quality will get lost. There's also no point in getting a soundblaster if you want to listen to compressed music files ( mp3, apple iTunes format etc. ) or internet radio streams.
*) don't necessarily go around buying 67xx or 68xx Radeons, a high end 59xx is probably better than any of those, hell high end 49xx is comparable to 67xx and better value given prices. Also remember that if you want to use SLI ( two cards at the same time connected to work together ) both cards need to be of the same model.
*) make sure to get a solid-state drive, that's probably one thing that will improve your user experience the most and one expense you'll certainly notice effects of.

[waterbat]

I used tp build a ton of machines from parts back in the 90s - but recently had the chance to build something new - I used http://www.techreport.com's system guide and built one of their "sweet spot" builds. Their econobox build though - still seems plenty powerful enough for standard activities.

Their most recent system guide is from March:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/22513

[pindicator]

This forum has wonderful timing. Looking at that tax return I was thinking it was time to upgrade my 3 yr old laptop with the broken screen into something that can play Diablo 3. Been looking at gamespot's hardware forums and everybody there swears by Intel's i5 2500k. Is that really what I should go for or try a i3?

Btw, thanks for the post waterbat! That is going to be a good read.

[Ruff_Hi]

Btw, thanks for the post waterbat! That is going to be a good read.

Yes it is. Lots of budget ranges and even swap options once you decide on a budget.

[antisocialmunky]

I dunno, depends what you're getting. A lot of times its PSU quality rather than wattage and unless you're gaming something less than 400W like 350W is fine. Usually good ones have a gold rated sticker. PSUs are ranked by efficiency and other features like exploding from a power surge in a way that doesn't explode everything else.

So 3 things for the buyer today:
-Something cheap like an i3 will do you fine for 95% of all your needs, only get more if you have to do content creation or some sort of scientific computing.
-You can get an i3 + GPU or Llano A6/A8 and that takes care of 95% of your non bleeding edge gaming/streaming/BlueRay play back.
-If you have a good motherboard, then it should come with 8 speaker surround sound.

So really, you can get a computer that will last 5 years on $500 these days. You can get a i5-2500k if you want to play with it but its not worth it. An i3 will do fine, even a G620 Pentium is fine. I'd recommend a A8 since that makes it so you don't have to worry about an additional graphics card. Also AMD should be enabling asymmetric crossfire so you can use certain add-in cards to boost performance. Just make sure you have some fast ram like 1866mhz for those.

[DaveV]

On graphics: my laptop uses the onboard graphics from the i5 chip, and it works great for Civ 4. If you're not planning to do anything graphically intensive (like Civ 5 ), you may be able to save some money by skipping the graphics card entirely.