New Desktop PC?

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3mutts

New Desktop PC?

Post by 3mutts »

Alright we just returned a new laptop due to the constant BSODs it gave us, and instead of buying a new PC we are going to build one, just wonder what you guys think are good parts and where we could save some money. I do have a basic outline listed below:

Processor: Intel either Haswel or Ivy Bridge i5-i7

Graphics Card: IDK, it depends on who is better at writing drivers today (AMD or Nvidia) but I do want it to be pretty good.

RAM: at least 16GB IDK what manufacturer to go with

Motherboard: IDK depends on compatibility with the other parts and what manufacturer is known to be good I also want some room to expand the RAM later on

Wireless: Im thinking Intel, I definetly dont want a Killer Wifi card

PSU: I know to go over the amount of power the other parts draw but IDK what manufacturer to go with.

HDD: at least a 128GB SSD (IDK what manufacturer) and a 1TB HDD

Cooling: I dont know if I want to with water cooling (risky considering if the pipe breaks) but if it ends up cooling the parts better than a large fan than I may consider it

Case: Any case that can hold the parts and has some room for expansion.

OS: Windows 7 Professional (we are buying it) and I would like to dual boot it with Linux
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 07, 2022 4:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 30 days after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Lingula

Post by Lingula »

I'm very biased against Intel wireless. Their wired ethernet cards are excellent, but their wireless stuff is erratic. TBH, for a desktop I would recommend taking any steps you can to run ethernet cable rather than depend on wireless, but that's another bias...

Both AMD and nvidia make good graphics cards, but AMD support is often better in Linux.
The-Wizard

Re: New Desktop PC?

Post by The-Wizard »

AMD support is often better in Linux.
the very latest cards appear to be giving some problems looking at recent questions, may be the drivers are not sufficiently up to date, likewise on the wireless front i have mainly railtec and broadcom both work well but you need to be connected by ethernet to down load some of the drivers using the driver manager, i question if you need 16 meg of ram, unless you are rendering vast quantities of images or high def gaming,
skywolfblue
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Posts: 100
Joined: Sun Feb 03, 2013 6:59 am

Re: New Desktop PC?

Post by skywolfblue »

3mutts wrote:Alright we just returned a new laptop due to the constant BSODs it gave us, and instead of buying a new PC we are going to build one, just wonder what you guys think are good parts and where we could save some money. I do have a basic outline listed below:

Processor: Intel either Haswel or Ivy Bridge i5-i7

Graphics Card: IDK, it depends on who is better at writing drivers today (AMD or Nvidia) but I do want it to be pretty good.

RAM: at least 16GB IDK what manufacturer to go with

Motherboard: IDK depends on compatibility with the other parts and what manufacturer is known to be good I also want some room to expand the RAM later on

Wireless: Im thinking Intel, I definetly dont want a Killer Wifi card

PSU: I know to go over the amount of power the other parts draw but IDK what manufacturer to go with.

HDD: at least a 128GB SSD (IDK what manufacturer) and a 1TB HDD

Cooling: I dont know if I want to with water cooling (risky considering if the pipe breaks) but if it ends up cooling the parts better than a large fan than I may consider it

Case: Any case that can hold the parts and has some room for expansion.

OS: Windows 7 Professional (we are buying it) and I would like to dual boot it with Linux
What is your new PC for?

An i7 is a bit much for an average system, i5 is good enough for most people. Most programs don't even make use of all 4 cores of an i5, they're just not threaded properly.

For Graphics cards, either works. AMD is cheaper, Nvidia seems to be slightly better supported by default. Po-tay-to, Po-tah-to.

8GB of RAM is plenty for most things. Unless you're doing intense gaming or Video Editing or Graphics Design, you're never going to see above 6GB of usage. But since RAM is really cheap that won't save all that much. 16GB is the max you should get.

Motherboard: I can say that I like my Gigabyte board so far, I've heard a lot of people saying good things about Intel boards lately.

For the PSU, look at http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/323050.aspx. It's a list put together by guys who put together a lot of computers for a living.

Don't bother with water cooling unless you're doing overclocking.

Why Windows 7 Professional? Are there features from Pro that you need?
3mutts

Re: New Desktop PC?

Post by 3mutts »

Thanks guys, btw, I will be doing gaming on this PCand I need Windows 7 professional since its the only version that will read 16GB of RAM.
skywolfblue
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Posts: 100
Joined: Sun Feb 03, 2013 6:59 am

Re: New Desktop PC?

Post by skywolfblue »

3mutts wrote:Thanks guys, btw, I will be doing gaming on this PCand I need Windows 7 professional since its the only version that will read 16GB of RAM.
Home Premium will use 16 GB fine, it's only if you've want more then 16 GB that you need Pro.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from Pro if that's what you want, just trying to offer ways to save money. :)
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