Build Thread

[Bartimaeus]

I'll be reusing my old RAM for my Intel build, as I really don't need anymore/better for my low key Intel build, (sans the i7 CPU that I got for $100 - which arrived earlier this week). Will pickup either 4GB or 8GB for the old build, depending on how prices are affected by DDR4's release - I've been told that prices will probably drop either a little to some for a short while, then probably spike up to even higher. Does anyone have any experience with the switch from DDR2 to DDR3 that would suggest that something else might happen and I should probably grab something now?

 

Settled on Corsair 300R (non-windowed) for the build. Settled also on the ASRock Z87 Extreme4 for my motherboard - as it's the only board that I can find, after looking at literally every single one I can on newegg and PCPartPicker, that matches all of my criteria. Now I play the waiting game for them to drop to better prices. Hoping for about $120-$125 for the motherboard *without* MIR - if there's a further discount via MIR, that's fine, too, but I won't be burned with another MIR to unmake a deal. $50, $55 is my target range for the 300R.

 

Might also end up getting an R7 260X - not sure yet.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (Purchased For $100.00)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (Purchased For $50.00)
Storage: PNY XLR8 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $40.00)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (Purchased For $50.00)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R7 260X 2GB Double Dissipation Video Card ($134.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Silverstone 500W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $25.00)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer (Purchased For $15.00)
Total: $606.97
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-06 01:28 EDT-0400)

 

My build is definitely much lower key than your guys, anyways.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

I gotta say, I lucked out on the no name Korean monitor.  No dead pixels whatsoever and a surprisingly small amount of backlight bleeding.  A little bit in the lower right hand corner, but fairly minor, less than I expected.

[Humanoid]

That is a particularly expensive example of a 260X, could probably get a 265 which is a fair bit (20-25%) faster for less. Or a quick look, other 260X cards for $110.

 

EDIT: 265 for $120 after MIR? With no 2GB 260X examples for under $110, I'd say that's a no-brainer. Though there is a bargain basement 1GB example for $70 after MIR that could be an option for lower-res, no anti-aliasing gaming.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Humanoid

[Sensuki]

I gotta say, I lucked out on the no name Korean monitor.  No dead pixels whatsoever and a surprisingly small amount of backlight bleeding.  A little bit in the lower right hand corner, but fairly minor, less than I expected.

Good for you. I tried twice and was unlucky both times. That's the way she goes.

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, it's a bit amusing that their 265 is somehow cheaper than their 260X. That was just a placeholder...for now. Ideally, I would get the Double Dissipation version for the double lifetime warranty, as XFX's warranty service is generally great, but you're right, it is quite pricey.

 

I daren't get that PowerColor crap, (the $70 260X). Their fans are awful, their rebates unusable (they never fulfill them), and their service if anything ever goes wrong unreachable. Newegg shouldn't even be allowed to sell their products with that "2 year warranty" in its specifications, as they won't provide it.

 

(edit): Wait, their 265 is given a lifetime warranty, too. That's unusual. Only their Double Dissipation products are supposed to have it. Now I'm *REALLY* tempted to buy it...

 

(double edit): And the number of stream processors listed in the specs seem to be incorrect, too. 1280 vs all other 265s' 1024. Double weird. All black, though, which is nice...

Edited June 6, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Humanoid]

I don't know about lower-end Powercolors, but apparently their 280/290 custom coolers were among the best, possibly the quietest, custom factory coolers around. I do remember disliking them about a decade ago for creating several neutered variants of their various cards and deceptively marketing them, but that seems in the past now. That said, with the greater customer protections in Australia (and the EU), maybe their in-house customer service gets less of a bad rep - here the customer keeps dealing with the retailer instead of being shoved off to deal with the manufacturer direct.

 

Hopefully XFX are over their problems - last gen they had a problem where they somehow managed to make their custom coolers *worse* than AMD's crappy stock cooler.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Humanoid

[Bartimaeus]

I don't know about lower-end Powercolors, but apparently their 280/290 custom coolers were among the best, possibly the quietest, custom factory coolers around. I do remember disliking them about a decade ago for creating several neutered variants of their various cards and deceptively marketing them, but that seems in the past now. That said, with the greater customer protections in Australia (and the EU), maybe their in-house customer service gets less of a bad rep - here the customer keeps dealing with the retailer instead of being shoved off to deal with the manufacturer direct.

 

Fair enough. I've tried dealing with them recently for this cheapo 6450 I have from them as an emergency replacement, and...it hasn't been great. They ate my mail in rebate, and refuse to answer the multiple email inquiries I've sent in. For the last few months, up until about two weeks ago, their website was literally unusable - if you tried using their "contact us" thing, or their warranty service, it would just give you a SQL error or some such, (tried multiple times, with different browsers - Googled and found out others were having the same problem). The fan on this thing is awful - tiny and loud, and it runs warmer than my old XFX 5770 (e: single fan cooler) at both idle and at peak usage. Ridiculous. Overall, my experience with them has not been great. 

Edited June 6, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Humanoid]

It's a shame XFX were nVidia-exclusive back in the R500 days, denying us from seeing the glory that would have been the XFX X1800XTX XXX-edition, or indeed the XFX X1800XTX XXX Fatal1ty DD Extreme Black Alpha Dog Pro edition.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Humanoid

[Bartimaeus]

What exactly are you insinuating, buster?

 

I think I might actually get that 265. I'll have to sleep on it, though. I have the time, apparently. Funny thing is, I actually saw it posted on reddit earlier today, and passed over it. I am pretty sure it's not supposed to have a lifetime warranty, but if I got it, I'd immediately contact XFX and confirm it with them, or something.

[mkreku]

While lifetime warranty sounds like something that would be useful, take a second and think about how long your previous GPU's needed to last.

 

...

 

Yeah.

[Keyrock]

 

I gotta say, I lucked out on the no name Korean monitor.  No dead pixels whatsoever and a surprisingly small amount of backlight bleeding.  A little bit in the lower right hand corner, but fairly minor, less than I expected.

Good for you. I tried twice and was unlucky both times. That's the way she goes.

 

Yep, it's a roll of the dice with cheap Korean no name monitors.  You get lucky and you essentially get a monitor every bit as good as a brand name monitor that costs almost twice as much, you roll snake eyes and you get something with cringeworthy backlight bleeding that looks like it was assembled by a 6 year old with a learning disability.  Lady luck, she was on my side this time.

 

What exactly are you insinuating, buster?

 

I think I might actually get that 265. I'll have to sleep on it, though. I have the time, apparently. Funny thing is, I actually saw it posted on reddit earlier today, and passed over it. I am pretty sure it's not supposed to have a lifetime warranty, but if I got it, I'd immediately contact XFX and confirm it with them, or something.

Why not contact XFX before getting the card to find out about the warranty from the horse's mouth?  I, personally, would get the 265.  I'd be mother****ing myself every time I had to turn a setting down in a game if I got a weaker card for essentially the same price.

[Bartimaeus]

 

 

I gotta say, I lucked out on the no name Korean monitor.  No dead pixels whatsoever and a surprisingly small amount of backlight bleeding.  A little bit in the lower right hand corner, but fairly minor, less than I expected.

Good for you. I tried twice and was unlucky both times. That's the way she goes.

 

Yep, it's a roll of the dice with cheap Korean no name monitors.  You get lucky and you essentially get a monitor every bit as good as a brand name monitor that costs almost twice as much, you roll snake eyes and you get something with cringeworthy backlight bleeding that looks like it was assembled by a 6 year old with a learning disability.  Lady luck, she was on my side this time.

 

What exactly are you insinuating, buster?

 

I think I might actually get that 265. I'll have to sleep on it, though. I have the time, apparently. Funny thing is, I actually saw it posted on reddit earlier today, and passed over it. I am pretty sure it's not supposed to have a lifetime warranty, but if I got it, I'd immediately contact XFX and confirm it with them, or something.

Why not contact XFX before getting the card to find out about the warranty from the horse's mouth?  I, personally, would get the 265.  I'd be mother****ing myself every time I had to turn a setting down in a game if I got a weaker card for essentially the same price.

 

 

Because I could hedge my bets and possibly force them to extend the lifetime warranty to my purchase if I claimed to not know ahead of time - and how could I, unless I already knew the random trivial fact that they normally only offer lifetime warranties on their Double D cards?

 

...now that I put it into actual words, it does sound a bit immoral.

 

While lifetime warranty sounds like something that would be useful, take a second and think about how long your previous GPU's needed to last.

 

...

 

Yeah.

 

Some of us, actually, are quite content to live off of our relatively cheap, midrange cards (and other components - indeed, this entire "build" only comes about as a result of having a great opportunity, getting a $350 CPU for $100) for years and years - e.g. my 5 year old 5770. In fact, I'm still pretty content with my 5770, hence why it's only a "possibly" at this point.    Five years is basically the ideal time, though, for me - and that's something only XFX offers, (as far as I know).

Edited June 6, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Keyrock]

I wound up taking some of the money I saved by buying the Xeon instead of the i7-4790K + aftermarket cooler and plunked down for a Logitech Z506 5.1 surround speaker system.  Not the greatest system in the world, but I'm not an audiophile and I'm sure it will be plenty good enough for me.  Definitely an upgrade over the ****ty speakers in the 27" monitor, that's for sure, though I'll still often use my pretty good JVC circumaural headphones, especially at night when I don't want to piss off the neighbors. 

Edited June 6, 2014 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

I got my 360 controller yesterday, which means I'm full speed ahead for gaming on the Monster Rig.  

 

Warning:  Long-winded alert!   tl;dr version:  SteanmOS is currently great as a console OS, not so much as a full-fledged desktop OS.

 

Full version:

In related news, I put the SteamOS experiment on hiatus.  It's simply not ready for what I want to do with it.  Sure, as a Linux veteran I could mold and shape it and work through all the conflicts that arise to turn SteamOS into a full-fledged Linux disto, but why bother when I can just install a full-fledged Linux distro and have essentially what I want out of the box?  It's akin to taking the round peg and putting it through the round hole, rather than taking a square peg and trying to hammer it through the round hole.  In fairness to SteamOS, it's still very much in beta.  Also, for what it's trying to be, it actually succeeds quite well, even right now, far from finished.  As a console-like OS built around gaming, it works fabulously.  It's essentially Steam Big Picture Mode with some minor tweaks.  Desktop mode is hidden by default, but it's easily enough enabled with just a couple of button presses/clicks.  The default desktop is rather basic, but it will likely be plenty good enough for many users as it's more robust than what you get with Sony, Nintendo, or Microsoft's consoles.  Still, for a power user, like myself, it's not enough (plus, as a long time Linux user, I'm used to the freedom of being able to change, rip out, substitute, and tweak absolutely everything, right down to the very core of the system).  The problem with SteamOS, when trying to turn it into a more robust all-purpose desktop, is that the official repos (named "alchemist") just don't cover much beyond what comes pre-installed with the system.  You wind up adding the Debian repos to the database (easy enough) to fill in the gaps (as SteamOS is based off Debian).  Problem is that SteamOS has its own version of many packages, custom tweaked for whatever reason.  You can set a filter easily enough so that official SteamOS packages will always be preffered over Debian packages of the same type if said package is available from both sets of repos, which does alleviate a good number of conflicts, however, conflicts will still arise and cause problems as you mix and match packages from different sources.  I could surely work through the problems and make the exact desktop I want, I've gone through much worse.  As stuff got updated, minor conflict problems would likely arise once more, but nothing I couldn't fix again.  Still, why go through all that to mold a square peg into a round peg when I can just get a round peg to begin with?

 

With that in mind, I downloaded and installed Xubuntu 14.04 (Based off Ubuntu, but with the snappy, clean, classic simplicity of the XFCE desktop pre-installed rather than the crime against humanity that is the Unity Desktop that Ubuntu ships with) and now I have the lovely (in a clean, simplistic sort of way), full-featured, robust desktop, along with Steam, that I would have had to take several days to achieve molding SteamOS into, in a matter of minutes.  

 

I'll give SteamOS another look several months from now to see how it's progressed.  Hopefully they expand their official repos to the point where you generally don't need to add Debian repos to fill in the gaps if you want to make a full-fledged desktop and alter things to your heart's content.  Then again, they might not, as that's not really the purpose of SteamOS, it's meant to be like a console, and as such, it works quite well already.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Keyrock

[Bartimaeus]

Keyrock, since you seem to be knowledgeable in this area: I have crappy, really old PC, (think single-core Althon64), that will, basically, in this day and age, never be able to do more than stream video. If I wanted to stream games from my Windows PC to it via Steam, for like use with a TV, as well as video from another (Windows) computer on the same home network, what OS would you consider to be best fit for the job? Right now, I have it on Windows, and that's...fine, at least for regular HD video, but I'm wondering if some form of Linux wouldn't serve the old thing better. Right now, it's using a weak AMD card, but I have an old Nvidia card I could put in it, too, if need be.

[Keyrock]

Keyrock, since you seem to be knowledgeable in this area: I have crappy, really old PC, (think single-core Althon64), that will, basically, in this day and age, never be able to do more than stream video. If I wanted to stream games from my Windows PC to it via Steam, for like use with a TV, as well as video from another (Windows) computer on the same home network, what OS would you consider to be best fit for the job? Right now, I have it on Windows, and that's...fine, at least for regular HD video, but I'm wondering if some form of Linux wouldn't serve the old thing better. Right now, it's using a weak AMD card, but I have an old Nvidia card I could put in it, too, if need be.

Well, if all you're using it for is streaming games and videos and you say it already does that well enough, I don't think I could give you a compelling reason to change anything.  The biggest benefits of using Linux, rather than Windows, for a HTPC type build are two-fold:

 

1) Linux is a free OS that will get the job done just fine, so you save the $100 or $200 or whatever you would have otherwise spent to install Windows on the machine.  Since you already have Windows on there that's a moot point.

 

2) Linux has a WIDE variety of different window managers and Desktop Environments, rather than the single one you get with Windows, ranging from big, bloated, full featured desktop environments with all the bells and whistles, to extremely light-weight window managers, to everything in between.  The CPU and memory the Windows desktop, or one of the big bloated Linux desktop environments like KDE or Gnome 3 or Unity chew up is a drop in a bucket for a modern i5 or i7, but for an older and/or cheaper, much weaker chip and system with much less memory, having the desktop chew up considerably less resources could be a big deal, but mostly for running different applications and multi-tasking.  If the system you have with Windows already runs HD videos well enough, I can't really see any reason to switch if that's mostly what you will do with it.  I've never tried to stream video from a Windows machine to a Linux machine, but I'm sure it's possible.  Still, since it already works well enough with Windows, I can see no real reason to switch.  As for streaming games, Steam will handle that just as well whether you are running Windows or Linux (or OSX).  The amount of resources you do or don;t save on the HTPC is rather inconsequential since whatever game you play will be running off a different, presumably much more powerful, PC.

 

Bottom line:  If you were building this HTPC currently and didn't already have Windows on it, I would absolutely recommend using Linux as it would serve your needs and save you the price of a Windows license.  Since you already have Windows on the machine, I can see no compelling reason to switch.

[Keyrock]

Here's a (poorly taken by a terrible photographer) picture of the rig:

 

 

I need to get me that gel pad thingie to put in front of the keyboard for comfort.  Also, I'll eventually clean up and bundle up the cables behind the desk.

Edited June 7, 2014 by Keyrock

[Bartimaeus]

Alrighty, thank you. I did not know that about the Desktop Environments - that's probably the bit that actually runs the worst on it, as Windows often is doing random things in the background and taxes the poor single-core CPU to its capacity for a few moments, so it can often stutter a bit. Not to mention its mere 2GB of DDR2. It's really quite old, haha.

 

P.S. That image doesn't seem to work - not for me, anyways.

[Sarex]

Here's a (poorly taken by a terrible photographer) picture of the rig:

-snip-

I need to get me that gel pad thingie to put in front of the keyboard for comfort.  Also, I'll eventually clean up and bundle up the cables behind the desk.

 

Wait what, you use a trackball mouse? XD

 

Sweet rig btw!

Edited June 7, 2014 by Sarex

[Keyrock]

Wait what, you use a trackball mouse? XD

 

Yes, I stopped using regular mice many many years ago.  I shall never ever go back.

[samm]

Alrighty, thank you. I did not know that about the Desktop Environments - that's probably the bit that actually runs the worst on it, as Windows often is doing random things in the background and taxes the poor single-core CPU to its capacity for a few moments, so it can often stutter a bit. Not to mention its mere 2GB of DDR2. It's really quite old, haha.

 

P.S. That image doesn't seem to work - not for me, anyways.

Maybe you can get an Opteron 175 or something like that for cheap, it would be a significant upgrade to have that second core and certainly make it a better machine for streaming as well

[Keyrock]

That reminds me of my old Opteron 160.  That was the best freakin' processor.  I overclocked it by 800 MHz on stock cooling and ran it that way for some 4 or 5 years.  Socket 939 was freakin' glorious.

[samm]

Short lived (as a socket - my 939 system lasted about 5 years as well) but really good for its time, yes  800 MHz is one hell of an overclock, never tried such adventures oO

Edited June 7, 2014 by samm

[ManifestedISO]

keyboard sans numpad win

[Keyrock]

keyboard sans numpad win

Yeah, I never use the numpad anyway so buying a 10-keyless keyboard was a no-brainer.  Also, it's so nice to be using a mechanical keyboard again.  I had been stuck with a membrane keyboard for too long.  I'll reiterate how impressed I am with the sturdiness of the Cooler Master Rapid Quickfire.  The housing is plastic, but it's thick, strong, and rigid plastic.  The keyboard has a surprising amount of weight to it for one so small and not made of metal, and between the weight and the rubber feet on the underside, there is no chance of the keyboard sliding around as you use it.  Time will, of course, be the ultimate judge of the quality, but it feels extremely solid and well put together.