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[Smiler]

Honestly we're at a point where the average requirements are going to fluctuate wildly, what with new consoles coming out. The minimum required ram is going to start being 6-8 gigs of ram, and who knows where we'll be for CPU requirements. If you want to upgrade, I'd probably wait for about a year to see where we end up.

[Classic]

This is true, but I'm guessing he wants to be able to Terraria and/or emulate PS1+2 before the year is up.

[R^2]

According to what I can find or scan, I put in all the RAM the system could handle when I bought the machine in the first place -- that's only two gigs. So if I want to upgrade, it'll be a whole new computer.

[François]

Two gigs is what I have right now, and I can still play everything that I want to play as long as it'll run on Windows XP. Heck, according to that logicalincrements list, everything I have except my CPU and PSU are below Destitute; it's a machine I built myself four years ago with parts worth 700$.

[Thad]

It's not worth upgrading any machine whose motherboard has a P4 slot on it.

I'd say that, generally speaking, it's worth learning to build a computer.  It's easy (and getting easier all the time) and it's cheap.  The downside is that it's time-consuming and there are a million little details you can miss that may result in less-than-optimal system performance.  (The last machine I built, I had constant crashes until I found out that the overclocking-friendly motherboard I'd bought had defaulted to running my RAM at a nonstandard spec.)

If you want to buy a machine that's already built, there's a reason HP and Dell are still considered the best brands (despite the latter's recent financial difficulties).  I've had good luck with Samsung and Asus on portable devices, but I honestly don't even know if they make desktops.

Which is another point: if you're not worried about upgradability, a laptop's not a bad way to go.  It sounds like you've got pretty modest spec requirements and could get a laptop for not much more than a desktop.

But you should wait a month.  All the best sales happen in November.

[R^2]

Oh, buying a new computer is going to be a year-long endeavor, whether I build it myself or buy a stock model. Upgrading this old machine was intended to be a cheaper alternative. Perhaps you've forgotten how not-rich I am!

[Büge]

But you're so rich in spirit.

[Defenestration]

And girth.

[Thad]

Think I'm finally in the market for a new desktop.

Insurance is covering my stolen Mac Mini for the price of a new one, $600.  I liked my Mini as a backup fileserver and for recording audio (since it's so quiet), but it's really not worth buying a new one at full price.

So my thinking -- after spending yet another day of my life yesterday trying to beat my 2006 Mac Pro into shape when my graphics card decided to crash it yet again -- is that I'm going to use my Pro as the audio/backup machine (because it'll be pretty flippin' quiet too if I revert it to the 7300GT video card it came with and an SSD, with maybe a couple platter drives to use as a software RAID for backup that I can temporarily disable when I'm recording) and build a new desktop as my primary machine.

I don't need a new video card; my GTX570 can run Arkham City at 2560x1440 with all the shit cranked up to max (except vsync), and that's with the card underclocked so it won't crash my computer.  I also don't need a new keyboard, monitor, mouse, or speakers.

But I haven't built a new desktop in 4 years, and that one was a budget Pentium that I built for watching videos.  (Actually, I probably AM going to buy a new video card for that one, as it's running an old Radeon HD 2600XT; it's good for video, and games like Arkham City and Brutal Legend will run playably at 1080p but tend to sputter a bit.  If anyone can recommend a good sub-$100 video card that'll play recent games at 1080p without too much fuss, I'd like to get one of those.  GT 630 doesn't seem like it'd be too bad a deal for that machine, though an AMD card would be more convenient since it's already got AMD drivers installed.)  I could use some advice on what parts would be good for a solid mid-to-high-range PC (keeping in mind that, with the occasional graphics card, RAM, and drive upgrade, my current machine has lasted me 6 years and would probably still be a perfectly cromulent computer if not for all the weird little compatibility issues you get when you buy Apple).

I'm thinking maybe something in the i5 range but if I can get a good deal on i7 I might go that route.  (And if anyone can give me a good reason to go AMD, I'm willing to listen, but my last AMD card had pretty serious cooling issues and from what I understand the gulf in quality between Intel and AMD has only gotten worse in the years since.)  8GB RAM seems about right.  I'd like a case that's decently cool, not too complicated to put together, and not fucking hideous.  (Something black or silver and boxy would be just fine.  Glowing lights and too many angles are things to avoid.  USB3 slots would probably be good for future-proofing, though at present I have zero USB3 devices.)  Still want an optical drive that can burn dual-layer DVD's, but don't need Blu-Ray; fuck Blu-Ray.  Don't need a wireless card either, as it's going to be sitting right next to my router and I prefer wired speeds on my desktops anyway.

I think I'll probably get at least one new SSD for the new machine (and leave my current SSD in the Mac Pro), maybe also have a 500GB platter drive for Linux storage and a 1TB for Windows/gaming.  I've probably got some of those around the house.  I'm keeping an eye on SSD sales (of which there always seems to be at least one going on) and I usually go WD for hard drives.  An internal card reader wouldn't be bad, but that's one of those things I can always buy later.

Sound needs to be 5.1, because I've got 5.1 speakers.  I don't really have any exceptional requirements beyond that, and indeed I suppose that's not entirely necessary as I've already got an external 7.1 Diamond sound adapter, but I'd rather have it be handled internally.

Power supplies -- I'm open to suggestions.  Something not too loud that's not going to die on me, doesn't produce cable hell, and has the juice to support my GTX570 (which is the main issue I've got with my MP).

I expect I'll buy this stuff around the time Cyber Monday sales hit.  $600 is a ballpark figure since that's the use-it-or-lose-it value my insurance will cover; I can go a little higher but I don't want to stretch my budget too far.  (I'll be looking at the usual holiday crunch, too, and I've got other stuff I want to replace -- I'm thinking get a new phone to replace my stolen iPod.  And the tricky part is that the insurance only gives you a depreciated value for an item upfront and reimburses you for the new purchase value only after you buy an item -- so, for example, they've given me the not-very-much-money that a G4 Mac Mini and an iPod Photo were worth and, if and only if I buy a $600 computer and a $250 music player to replace them, they'll pay the difference.  Which is a good deal, but I need to space out my purchases so I can afford the upfront cost.)

[Brentai]

By "sound handled internally" do you mean the audio processing or the actual amplification/DAC?  If you're using any sort of digital output (optical, HDMI, etc) your onboard audio or graphics card will perform exactly as well as an expensive PCI card.  You'll only ever see a difference if you're plugging your sound system directly into the PC, and even then it's kind of hard to appreciate.

Price-performance sweet spot for CPUs these days seems to be in the low end of the Ivy Bridge i7 family.  I'm running an i7-3770K myself (which was bleeding edge for non-hobbyists at the time) and, with the exact same graphics card you have, I go max settings on pretty much everything but Metro 2033particlesperfuckingframe.

My computer is loud as fuck though so I'll just shut my damned mouth when it comes to noise.

[Thad]

By "sound handled internally" do you mean the audio processing or the actual amplification/DAC?

I just meant an internal sound card, but good point.

If you're using any sort of digital output (optical, HDMI, etc) your onboard audio or graphics card will perform exactly as well as an expensive PCI card.  You'll only ever see a difference if you're plugging your sound system directly into the PC, and even then it's kind of hard to appreciate.

Video card's got HDMI audio but I'd need a box to plug my speakers into.  And I've already got a USB adapter for that.

Price-performance sweet spot for CPUs these days seems to be in the low end of the Ivy Bridge i7 family.  I'm running an i7-3770K myself (which was bleeding edge for non-hobbyists at the time)

Thanks, that's extremely helpful; like I said, I haven't been keeping up with architectures and didn't really know the difference between Ivy Bridge and Haswell.  Looks like Ivy Bridge is sticking around for awhile and is probably the better deal (seeing as this is a desktop and I'm not worried about battery life).

Don't know that I'll be doing much of anything that requires hyperthreading, though; what are the advantages of going i7 over i5?

My computer is loud as fuck though so I'll just shut my damned mouth when it comes to noise.

Well, volume isn't a deal-breaker; the point of having a separate quiet computer for audio recording is that I can just turn the louder computer off when I'm doing it.

[Thad]

Looked at some benchmarks and it definitely looks like the 3770K is the sweet spot, whether I need hyperthreading or not.  Thanks for the tip.

Apparently modern computer case design falls into two categories:

1. Featureless black rectangle;
2. Black rectangle with a bunch of stupid shit on it.

I'm quite enamored of the Thermaltake New Soprano (<-- affiliate link), because it (1) is a featureless black rectangle and (2) has a slot for a SATA drive built right into the top of it, a feature I am 100% likely to use and which would make my USB drive mount completely redundant.

Still not quite in a buying mode just yet, but a picture's definitely starting to form.


Another question: am I likely to need to buy a separate CPU cooler?  I've never had a problem with a stock fan on an Intel processor; is that something I should worry about if I keep it at stock speeds, or only if I decide to overclock it?



MEANWHILE, on the Cheap Graphics Card for my HTPC front, I'm thinking Radeon 6670.  I saw a pretty great deal on the GTX650 on Dealzmodo yesterday ($75 after rebate?  Something like that), but that's a PCIE 3.0 card and my HTPC's only got 2.0.

[Mazian]

Another question: am I likely to need to buy a separate CPU cooler?  I've never had a problem with a stock fan on an Intel processor; is that something I should worry about if I keep it at stock speeds, or only if I decide to overclock it?

Stock fans are remarkably good these days.  Even with some modest overclocking, they can be fine; I've got one of the early, absurdly overclockable Sandy Bridge i5-2500K chips that I'm running at 4.0 GHz (rated speed 3.3) on the Intel fan alone, and the temperature stays sensible under any load.

One thing I discovered with that build was that my reused old case (Antec Solo) wasn't quite long enough for current graphics cards or some motherboards.  I have one unusable HDD bay because the end of my GTX560Ti protrudes into its space, and it wasn't the longest card on the market even when I bought it.  Shouldn't be a problem with a modern case, I hope, but worth eyeballing if you can find the dimensions easily.

[Thad]

Yeah, my card's pretty long but Maximum PC says the New Soprano has 12.2" worth of room for one.

I think I really love this case.  I mean, I'm gonna keep an eye out for other options and better deals, but...man, that HD dock is the greatest idea I've seen since they started putting USB ports on the front.  And everything else about it is pretty great too.  'Cept maybe the blue glow around the power button and out the bottom, but that's positively restrained by some cases' standards.

[Thad]

Hm -- I'm seeing the 4770k starting to sell for prices pretty comparable to (and even slightly below) the 3770k.  It must be November or something.

[Thad]

Addendum to my earlier comment about PCIe3.0 cards in a PCIe2.0 mobo: I've now seen it from multiple sources that they work just fine, and most likely won't even bottleneck; the difference is in top speed, and cards in the range I'm looking for are unlikely to run any worse on 2.0 hardware than 3.0.

Still glad I didn't grab the 650, as I'm now seeing 6870's for not much more and they benchmark better.

[Thad]

...so why the fuck is it so hard to find an enthusiast board without onboard video?

I am picturing a Venn diagram of people who buy Z87 motherboards and people who use onboard video, and the only point of overlap I can think of is labeled "people whose graphics card just died".

I wish they'd just take out the video ports and, I dunno, give me a few extra USB ports or SATA slots or something.

[Classic]

I'm not sure? Maybe they want to sell boards to people who are buying their machines piecemeal?

Maybe "people whose graphics card just died" is a statement that represent a large percentage of enthusiasts at some point in their "careers" and it makes some small troubleshooting difference?

[sei]

Classic.

People buying an enthusiast board are buying their systems piecemeal, but they are not buying them without a fucking discrete graphics card.

And that's Thad's point.

[Classic]

I'm talking about a scenario where someone would need/want a computer but wouldn't have the $100-1000 to get their target card for some number of months and don't want to spend $50 for a placeholder.

I'm actually living a similar situation right now (though not because of a graphics card).