Building a desktop

[Matthew_Thepc]

Hello! Building my first desktop, and was wondering if you guys had any input. I've got about $500 (absolute max $800, though $500-600 is target) to spend on it, but I get about 50% off of Intel products (the two that I specifically checked were the i7 4770k @ ~ $180, and the Desktop Board DH87RL @ ~ $80), so that should help out a bit on the price. I'm not looking for a gaming machine (mostly using it for development and just generic messing around :P), but obviously I'd love to have as much power as possible. Overclocking isn't something I'm planning on doing soon, but maybe in a few months I'll warm up to the idea (so a K processor would be best, AFAIK). The only 'requirement'/request that I have is the CPU be Intel. Do you guys have any recommendations? Any first-timer mistakes I should avoid? I'll put up a pcpartpicker.com list tomorrow.

 

Thanks,

Matthew

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

Yea, K versions are great for overclocking, go ahead with that. Also will help with development. But you would also need a lot of RAM, say 16GB. G.Skill Ripjaws X series are the best, IMO.

[Phouchg]

Any first-timer mistakes I should avoid?

 

Follow the yellow fellow.

 

Ah, and don't get kilowatt PSU you might be tempted to get, cheap or otherwise.

[Matthew_Thepc]

Here's what I have so far: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1ky9l

Still quite a bit over budget, though :\

Yea, K versions are great for overclocking, go ahead with that. Also will help with development. But you would also need a lot of RAM, say 16GB. G.Skill Ripjaws X series are the best, IMO.

How much does the specific brand of memory matter? And, in terms of the speed, is it pretty much like processor speeds (higher = better)?

 

Follow the yellow fellow.

 

Ah, and don't get kilowatt PSU you might be tempted to get, cheap or otherwise.

Is it just wasteful/unefficient, or is there another reason not to get a killowatt PSU? Also, is the "Estimated Wattage" of 270W on that link at the top of this post safe to go by, or how much 'wiggle room' should I look for? Finally, do the volts matter or just the wattage?

 

Thanks :)

[tsupersonic]

Do you need the 4770k? I would think the i5 4670k is more than enough for your needs.

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

How much does the specific brand of memory matter? And, in terms of the speed, is it pretty much like processor speeds (higher = better)?

 

Stay with the big brands. G.Skill, Corsair, Mushkin, Kingston, etc. In reality, all RAM is the same thing. The only thing that make the difference is its heat spreaders. If you have a big CPU heatsink, you might want to look at a lower-bearing spreader.

 

The speeds of DDR3, by that board is 1333 or 1600. The speeds, in Windows, does not really matter. But as to get higher overclocks, it is recemended to get the highest speed. I have 8GB of 1333, and I've been doing that on my i5 3570K.

[Matthew_Thepc]

Do you need the 4770k? I would think the i5 4670k is more than enough for your needs.

It probably would be, but chances are I won't be purchasing another processor for a long time, so it's really more a matter of future-proofing it (maybe I get real interested in overclocking or gaming or something and I regret not spending the $50 more).

 

Stay with the big brands. G.Skill, Corsair, Mushkin, Kingston, etc. In reality, all RAM is the same thing. The only thing that make the difference is its heat spreaders. If you have a big CPU heatsink, you might want to look at a lower-bearing spreader.

 

The speeds of DDR3, by that board is 1333 or 1600. The speeds, in Windows, does not really matter. But as to get higher overclocks, it is recemended to get the highest speed. I have 8GB of 1333, and I've been doing that on my i5 3570K.

Just to confirm, 1333 would (technically, if I were to overclock it) be slower than 1600?

[Phouchg]

Is it just wasteful/unefficient, or is there another reason not to get a killowatt PSU? Also, is the "Estimated Wattage" of 270W on that link at the top of this post safe to go by, or how much 'wiggle room' should I look for? Finally, do the volts matter or just the wattage?

 

Wasteful/inefficient indeed. If not gaming or creating/editing stuff, most of the time your computer will spend idling around. Power supplies are designed so that their efficiency is at its peak at medium loads and can vary by up to 5% at idle/max points. If you leave your PC running 24/7 and it has inefficient PSU, imagine forgetting to turn off the desk lamp besides it.

 

PC Part Picker's maximum value is amazingly on spot - it uses TDP ratings of components. Mind you, TDP isn't peak consumption, but continous maximum for safe operation (without aftermarket parts). To maintain wiggle room and OC, this value should be 60%. Which does give us 430W, not coincidentially.

 

Volts never matter - volts don't change. Watts do, basically. With CX430 (very good unit for its price, but with gimped +12V) amps come into play. Limit of 28A prohibits any notable upgrades (for example, swapping that GT640 for something with more punch down the road).

 

Do note you do need an aftermarket cooling solution for any meaningful OC. Haswell tends to run a bit hot even idling around. Pity it'll dent your budget even more, though - 4670K would've prevented that, but what's done is done.

 

 

It probably would be, but chances are I won't be purchasing another processor for a long time, so it's really more a matter of future-proofing it (maybe I get real interested in overclocking or gaming or something and I regret not spending the $50 more).

 

Just to confirm, 1333 would (technically, if I were to overclock it) be slower than 1600?

 

There's another parameter (four, in fact) which is often not mentioned - CAS latency (CL), which, contrary to clock speed, lower is better.

But your selected Patriots are dead cheap, so no use shaving nanoseconds for leet points. You'll enable XMP profile and forget about it. RAM is the fastest storage already.

[Matthew_Thepc]

Wasteful/inefficient indeed. If not gaming or creating/editing stuff, most of the time your computer will spend idling around. Power supplies are designed so that their efficiency is at its peak at medium loads and can vary by up to 5% at idle/max points. If you leave your PC running 24/7 and it has inefficient PSU, imagine forgetting to turn off the desk lamp besides it.

 

PC Part Picker's maximum value is amazingly on spot - it uses TDP ratings of components. Mind you, TDP isn't peak consumption, but continous maximum for safe operation (without aftermarket parts). To maintain wiggle room and OC, this value should be 60%. Which does give us 430W, not coincidentially.

 

Volts never matter - volts don't change. Watts do, basically. With CX430 (very good unit for its price, but with gimped +12V) amps come into play. Limit of 28A prohibits any notable upgrades (for example, swapping that GT640 for something with more punch down the road).

Thanks for the explanation, for the time being I think I'll stick to basically the stuff already there. For future reference (if I were to upgrade something), though, how should I go about figuring out how many amps I need?

Do note you do need an aftermarket cooling solution for any meaningful OC. Haswell tends to run a bit hot even idling around. Pity it'll dent your budget even more, though - 4670K would've prevented that, but what's done is done.

Yeah, overclocking's probably not going to be an option for me until I upgrade the cooling, but for now I'm 99% sure I'll be able to get by with the base speed on it :)

There's another parameter (four, in fact) which is often not mentioned - CAS latency (CL), which, contrary to clock speed, lower is better.

But your selected Patriots are dead cheap, so no use shaving nanoseconds for leet points. You'll enable XMP profile and forget about it. RAM is the fastest storage already.

I had seen RAM from Corsair that had all the same specs, except 1 CAS lower and no heat spreader, but decided to go with the Patriots because of the heat spreader.

I think that's what I'll go with for now, and maybe next year I'll think about upgrading the PSU and stuff I cheaped out on a little because of the CPU.

Thanks everybody :)

[Phouchg]

Thanks for the explanation, for the time being I think I'll stick to basically the stuff already there. For future reference (if I were to upgrade something), though, how should I go about figuring out how many amps I need?

 

Divide power by voltage to get the current, then go for a unit whose +12V rails can supply at least 95% of that unit's rated power (and in case of multi-rail - sum of all rails is close to or, better yet, exceeds the rated power), then proceed as usual. For example, CX430 can only do 28A * 12V = 336W, about 80% from total. Not a showstopper for low power units - cram a ton of USB devices, PCI cards, disk drives and you may get there. But for high power units it is usually a hint of a shoddy design and, similarly to this, may disallow OC-ing and power-hungry GPUs.

 

Which is why just cramming in a kilowatt is the safest route - all these empirical bits of theory get unnecessarily hairy pretty quick :)

[Astra.Xtreme]

My suggestion is to go with 4x4GB of something like the Ripjaws.  It will be a bit cheaper that way, and you really won't have to worry about upgrading past 16GB perhaps ever.

 

Also get a modular PSU.  It will make your life a lot easier when doing wire management.  Otherwise you'll have a huge bundle of spare wires dangling that you'll have to stuff somewhere, and it looks sloppy.  Also maybe boost up to 500W or 600W, just to give yourself a little bit of headroom and futureproofing.

 

Perhaps invest a little more into a better GPU.  The 640 you chose is pretty weak.

 

Lastly, in the future you should consider a SSD as your OS drive.  You can get a Crucial M4 128GB pretty cheap.  Or you can go with a Samsung 840 Pro (only go with the Pro), OCZ Vertex 4, or OCZ Vector. Any of those 4 are rock solid and very fast.  It will make a huge huge difference in the speed of your PC.

 

Also, how did you manage to get that i7 for $180?  That would be a killer deal.