Building a new PC, advice wanted

[jdenm8]

Hi guys,
I've got sick of my current desktop PC situation and decided to build my own PC. My budget is AUD$600 at the most and I've already picked out most of the different parts, but the CPU has me a little concerned. I'm looking to play SC4 on this and I want it to at least be a little better than my LAptop for playing SC4.

I've decided to go with the Sandy Bridge Intel 1155 i5 processors (They seem to benchmark around the i7 950, are a lot cheaper and whoop the butt off the AMD Phenom X6) and I've decided on the i5 2400 (3.1 Ghz).

The other specs so far are:
AMD/ATI Radeon HD 6850 - GC
ASRock Z68 Pro3 M - Motherboard
2x2GB Kingston DDR3 (1333Mhz) - RAM
1TB Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS
700W PSU

I'm going to be running Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit.

(I've gone with ATI specifically because of the SC4 Z-Fighting issues on new nVidia cards.)

Any advice?

EDIT: Revised the top post to remove the 2500K option, I can't afford it now, I've blown my $600 budget by about $50.

[callagrafx]

Only thing I'd add to that is a 750W PSU and the addition of case fans.

[jdenm8]

Well, all the PSU calculators I used said I wouldn't need any more than a 400W, so I went with a 500W to be safe.

The case I'm going to use already has a case fan in its only rear vent and cowling over the vent directly above the CPU (no fan though). I can't really argue the point of a new case for at least twelve months, my father is being incredibly insistent that I use my brother's old computer's case (A 2002 Tsunomi one designed for nothing much more than a P4).

[joshua43214]

$40.00 for a faster proccessor is always a good deal as long as it is reliable.

I have had bad luck with the last two Barracuda's I've used. I am back to using WD black instead. The Seagate hardware is still the best, but the control boards seem to suck. WD black hardware is almost as good (its not like it has to be milspec) and the control boards don't crap out. If I am reading the model number right, that's a 1T HDD. Do you really need that much? Bigger HDD's run slower, use a 500gig unless you need the extra space.

See if you can double the RAM, 4 is "enough," but 6 or 8 is really what you should have if you are running a 1T HDD. Make sure you go to your RAM manufacturures website and verify it works in your mobo. The RAM checker at NewEgg is good, but not perfect - I learned this lesson the hard way.

[jdenm8]

I went with the Barracuda because the last Barracuda I had (160GB) lasted ages and saw almost constant usage, as well as the 5 year warranty compared with WD's 1 year warranty. I went with 1TB because I thought why not, and it was only another $10.

Extra RAM is hard because the motherboard I selected only has two RAM slots. If I want 4, I need to move upto the Z68 chipset boards (which do allow overclocking of the 2500K) and they're about $50 dearer, 3GB sticks aren't commonly available here and 4GB sticks are not cheap. That also blows my $600 budget.

EDIT: I probably could get a single 4GB stick which is more expensive and upgrade to 8GB later.

EDIT2: I don't think RAM compatibility will be an issue as I'll be building this myself from scratch, not from a mass-produced donor PC.

[riiga]

Looks fine, but if you can afford it, get a SSD to use as OS disk. I'll make the startup much faster. 

[jdenm8]

Nah, can't afford it.
I changed my mind about the motherboard tonight and went with a four-RAM Slot one. I've updated the main post again.

[joshua43214]

EDIT2: I don't think RAM compatibility will be an issue as I'll be building this myself from scratch, not from a mass-produced donor PC.

This is when compatibility is most important. Unless the RAM manufacturer says it works with your mobo, it may not. You can have issues from not being able to clock it correctly, not being auto-detected, to simply not working at all. Like I said, I learned this the hard way when I wasted a bunch of time on RAM that NewEgg said worked with my mobo, but had not been approved by the manufacturer.

[jdenm8]

Yeah, I regret saying that now
I looked on the Asus website for the compatibility list and I found it alarmingly short, thus why I changed the motherboard which has a far, far longer list of compatible memory. (here if you're interested)
Problem is, I don't know exactly what memory I'll be getting until I pick it up as the vendor who I'll be getting it through has a vague description.

[Shark7]

Shop around for your memory.  You might be able to find a bit more RAM for the same price as the 4 you are planning.  If you are going with a 64 bit system, the more RAM the better.

And definately stay away from Nvidia cards if you are planning to play SC4 in hardware mode.  I have an Nvidia card and if you try hardware you get tons of grahical errors, so I'm stuck in software mode. 

[DAB_City]

I'd personally go with 4GB memory or so, SimCity 4, as far as I know, is a 32 bit program, which means it can only take up around 4GB of RAM on it's own. Remember also that SimCity 4 can only use one processor core, so sacrificing speed for cores isn't going to help with that. Aside from that, the machine looks like good value, when/if I upgrade one of my PCs, I would build it to similar specs! 

[z0rgY]

yeah you did a good job changing for this mobo, now you have a balanced and ready for upgrade config

[WC_EEND]

And definately stay away from Nvidia cards if you are planning to play SC4 in hardware mode.  I have an Nvidia card and if you try hardware you get tons of grahical errors, so I'm stuck in software mode. 

That might be an issue specific to your card though, I have always used Nvidia cards and never had any issues with running it in hardware mode

[jdenm8]

Shop around for your memory.  You might be able to find a bit more RAM for the same price as the 4 you are planning.  If you are going with a 64 bit system, the more RAM the better.

Well, I'm getting 2x2GB sticks for $28, I don't think I can get any more for less money without possibly moving off the confirmed compatibility list.

And definately stay away from Nvidia cards if you are planning to play SC4 in hardware mode.  I have an Nvidia card and if you try hardware you get tons of grahical errors, so I'm stuck in software mode. 

Thus why I went with ATI from the get-go for the GC.

I'd personally go with 4GB memory or so, SimCity 4, as far as I know, is a 32 bit program, which means it can only take up around 4GB of RAM on it's own. Remember also that SimCity 4 can only use one processor core, so sacrificing speed for cores isn't going to help with that. Aside from that, the machine looks like good value, when/if I upgrade one of my PCs, I would build it to similar specs! 

As above, I don't think I can get more RAM for my money without moving off the compatibility list. Although, I can always buy more thanks to the new motherboard.

yeah you did a good job changing for this mobo, now you have a balanced and ready for upgrade config

Thanks 

And definately stay away from Nvidia cards if you are planning to play SC4 in hardware mode.  I have an Nvidia card and if you try hardware you get tons of grahical errors, so I'm stuck in software mode. 

That might be an issue specific to your card though, I have always used Nvidia cards and never had any issues with running it in hardware mode

Apparently it's an issue with certain versions of the drivers on the newer nVidia cards especially. Newer versions fixed some of the corruption on some models according to the Steam SimCity 4 forums, but there must still be cards that do it.

[Andreas]

I don't have much experience with Intel CPUs, but the Sandy Bridge i5 series seems to be a nice pick indeed. Hexacore CPUs are only useful if you really make use of all cores, but even my triple core Phenom II (overclocked to 3.6 GHz) is amazingly fast when converting video and such. SimCity 4 runs pretty fine with my on-board ATI Radeon HD 3200, so there's really no need for a powerful and expensive graphics card if you just want to play SC4. However, I am not sure how the Intel HD 3000 graphics performs in comparison (probably worse).

Also, I'd say 4 GB is enough for most applications as well, so your latest mainboard selection (which allows you to upgrade to 8 GB, just in case) is a good selection as well. The only disadvantage that I see is the lacking S-ATA 3 support. In case you really want to buy a fast SSD later, you're a bit out of luck, since they are not as fast when using a S-ATA 2 controller. But if you don't have the money for it anyway, it might be something so sacrifice.

Try to find a proper PSU, the cheap "no name" ones tend to be noisy, and are not as effective as the better brands. A good 500 W one will do better (and most likely last longer, while conserving more energy) than one of those cheap "high wattage" ones. RAM compatibility can be an issue alright, that's why I usually rely on ASUS mainboards, pretty much all of them ran "out of the box" with no problems.

[jdenm8]

Actually, the Motherboard supports upto 32GB of RAM, which is four 8GB sticks, or double the old card (which makes sense as it has double the slots )

As for SATA3, this board does actually have it. It's a requirement for Z68 Chipset classification, it must have at least two SATA3 and four or more SATA2 ports.

As for the PSU, I'm buying a ThermalTake (I understand they're name-brand) one, but I've already blown my budget and can't spare much more. Also, this is the same line of PSUs as the one I had originally selected.

[Andreas]

Actually, the Motherboard supports upto 32GB of RAM, which is four 8GB sticks, or double the old card (which makes sense as it has double the slots )

Well, what I meant is that with only two RAM slots, you'd need to throw out the old ones, which is a tad annoying. With four of them, you can simply add the amount of RAM that you want (i. e. another 2x2 GB RAM modules, so you'd hae 8 GB in total).

As for SATA3, this board does actually have it. It's a requirement for Z68 Chipset classification, it must have at least two SATA3 and four or more SATA2 ports.

For some reason, the ASRock website only mentioned S-ATA 2 in the feature list. The specs list is a bit more detailed, apparently.

[Shark7]

Actually, the Motherboard supports upto 32GB of RAM, which is four 8GB sticks, or double the old card (which makes sense as it has double the slots )

Well, what I meant is that with only two RAM slots, you'd need to throw out the old ones, which is a tad annoying. With four of them, you can simply add the amount of RAM that you want (i. e. another 2x2 GB RAM modules, so you'd hae 8 GB in total).

As for SATA3, this board does actually have it. It's a requirement for Z68 Chipset classification, it must have at least two SATA3 and four or more SATA2 ports.

For some reason, the ASRock website only mentioned S-ATA 2 in the feature list. The specs list is a bit more detailed, apparently.

Andreas I think most newer MB now have 6 or 8 RAM slots that can handle 4 GB each.  I know mine has 6, so I can increase the 12 GB I already have (3 x 4 GB) to 24 GB (6 x 4 GB).  Granted I've not yet found a need to increase it, but one game I play, Distant Worlds, does use all my processor cores (i-7 Core) and all the memory.  Granted that game is a real time space 4X game that has an AI economic model that tracks each ship and cargo for all the AI players as well as the human player.  Needless to say it does a lot of number crunching.

I'd have to dig up the specs on my machine to tell you exactly what it has, but I do know I can handle doubling my RAM.  What I really need though is a better video card....guess I could use some advice in that department, my tech skills are still 20th Century. 

[Andreas]

Again, I am not talking about the max. amount of RAM that a system can handle (some mainstream chipsets even support 64 GB now), but the need to throw out your old RAM modules if you just have two (or three) RAM slots. Modern chipsets always make use of dual or triple channel RAM access, so you need pairs or triplets by default. But as I said before, it's not that much of an issue if you buy a mainboard that has more slots.

[Exla357]

I just built a new computer, and I got some serious deals offa Newegg.
I purchased and 880G+ Mobo (AMD only) with 2 RAM slots, and somehow managed to get two 4GB Ram Sticks (Ripjaws GSkill) for 20 USD.

Good Luck!

-Alex