That’s kind of the beauty of this system: this year’s crap pc was a good pc a long time ago. In my example, my current laptop is half as good as my wife’s new laptop, but my wife’s new laptop only cost 50% more. However, compared to my wife’s old laptop (single core, 40 gig hd, 256meg ram) which originally cost 1k+ in 2004 but my wife bought used for $500, my new laptop (2.2 mhz, dual core, 120 gig hd, 2 meg ram) is godly for a fraction of the cost.
But if you talk about durability, in this system, you only need it to last for one year. My co-worker also said if you refurbish it, you can always find some college kid who needs it for $100.
The old-style sound cards had serial ports for joysticks. Serial joysticks have a much faster reaction time than USB joysticks.
Also, in my experience, integrated sound is one of the first things to break or stop working. It sounds good and has nice features, but it just doesn’t seem to last.
Based on some advice from here and some reading I modified a build like so:
1 x Intel S1156 Core i5 650 3.2GHz Dual Core CPU
1 x Gigabyte S1156 GA-H57M-USB3 Motherboard
3 x DDR3 2GB Generic 1333MHz RAM
1 x 1TB Western Digital EARS 7200rpm 64M SATA HDD
1 x NVIDIA GTX470 1280MB Gigabyte PCIe Video Card
1 x * No Backup Device
1 x * Add a Monitor from this List
1 x Antec Two Hundred Mid ATX Case (No PS)
1 x FSP (Bronet) True 350W Power Supply
1 x Microsoft Wired Desktop 600 Keyboard and Mouse
1 x * No Power Protection Device
1 x LiteOn 24x DVD Writer SATA Black
1 x Integrated Sound Card
1 x Gigabyte GP-S4600 Speakers
1 x * No Modem
1 x Integrated Gigabit Network Connection
1 x MS Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit OEM
1 x MS Office 2010 Starter
1 x Internal All-in-1 Memory Card Reader Black
With an 1156 socket you want to install RAM in pairs (dual channel). You don’t have to but you will lose performance with three sticks. If you want triple channel (install RAM in threes) you want a socket 1366 (cpu and mobo).
You are getting 32-bit Windows in this build and have specced 6GB of RAM. A 32-bit OS can only handle a total of 4GB of RAM (part of the nature of being a 32-bit OS…any 32-bit OS). Any more will not be used. More, that 4GB is for all the RAM in the system so that 1.28GB video card means you will only be able to address 2.7(ish) GB of system RAM. A 64-bit OS does not have that limitation.
350W power supply waaaay too weak for that system. The GTX470 alone can suck 430 watts all by itself when under load. Please do not skimp on the power supply! Seems bland and unimportant but trust me it is critical and a good one is worth the money. There are several good manufacturers out there. I’d recommend Corsair or Silverstone or Enermax PSUs off the top of my head (I have had Corsairs for the last several years and they are great). I’d go for 750W at least. If you ever want a dual GPU setup then 1000W.
Unless you need MS-Office consider getting Open Office. Does pretty much the same thing (more even than that starter thing) and is free. Put your money elsewhere.
Not seeing a heat sink or case fans with all that. Pay attention to air flow and heat (and if you buy a heat sink then you need to buy thermal paste [Arctic Silver 5 is very good]).
Make sure the video card can fit the case and is compatible on that mobo. Same with the heat sink. Pretty sure that card will work in that Antec case but double check. Some of the newer cards are pretty big.
You’re misinterpreting the data from your link. The wattage numbers were the total draw from the wall for the entire system with certain configurations, not the amount of wattage the card itself was taking up. You could figure that out by comparing it to the total draw of a generic system with a low power card.
But otherwise your advice is good. People building a system generally overestimate their power needs (lots of people think they need a 800+ watt psu). A quality 500 will be great for 99% of people. But 350 is cutting it close even with a quality supply - and I’m guessing this is a bottom of the barrel PSU that may not even make its rated numbers.
See if you can upgrade to an antec 300 case (I don’t know the 200, but the 300 is a good value and a good case). As Whackamole said, go for a 64 bit OS (you can still keep the 6gb of memory and have it be useful, it won’t be triple channel but it’ll still be useful to have more memory. Unless the 1156 socket design prevents a 3 chip setup, does it?
Otherwise it looks fine. You could save some money by downgrading from a 470 to a 460 if you have to, and put that into a better PSU and case.
Still, the page mentions later on that Nvidia recommends a 550w PSU if you have a GTX470. Personally I would not want to be running near the red line on a PSU (although good PSUs seems to live there pretty well but why push it…bad ones as you noted often to not achieve what is printed on the box) plus having some headroom for additional stuff you might add later is nice. If he ever thinks to add a second card for SLI as an upgrade in the future a little extra now will save having to buy a new PSU in the future making the upgrade more expensive.
I was going to start a new thread but hesitated just to ask a pretty basic question that is related to this thread:
I have a 2+ year-old nVidia 8800 GTS 320Mb card. Today’s Frys ad (chain electronics store) presents the opportunity to get the GTS 250 for about $60 net. According to the Tom’s heirarchy chart GPU Benchmarks Hierarchy 2023 - Graphics Card Rankings | Tom's Hardware this card is about 5 tiers higher than my existing card, although actual game benchmarks don’t always show quite that dramatic a difference.
Would this (8800 GTS to GTS 250) be a substantial upgrade for me? Is it a no-brainer? Any reason (other than $60) not to do it?
Civ5 would probably be the most taxing thing I run on this machine; others, like WoW, are graphically less-stressful.
This was essentially my strategy. I picked out a motherboard and power supply that could accommodate another card, but only grabbed one card. For now, I’m running most games on the max settings at my monitor’s maximum resolution. When I see that start to drop, it’s time to pick up another graphics card long after the price drops. Similarly, I only picked up 4GB memory for my initial build with the intention of doubling it later. I figured these little expansions would be easy enough down the road while keeping the initial build costs down.
The GTS 250 is sort of a beefed up 9800+, which itself a similar design to the original 8800, with some tweaks and a smaller process. If you play at higher resolutions, the memory difference will be significant. It’s a borderline “substantial” upgrade for you - I’d guess it’d be somewhere around 25% faster than your current card. For $60 it’s a good deal, but I might invest more and become more future proof along with a much more substantial upgrade with a DX11 card.