Computer help- Buying

[Midlife]

Hi Fluffy chicken,

Not sure about your last post as it went above my head lol. My eldest is at uni and is going to Frankfurt for a DOTA tournament so I am on my own . On pain of death I am banned from touching his Chillblast and other kit here at home so I'm looking for a desktop that my youngest can use so he feels like his elder brother.

Hence looking at the Zoostorm

Shaun



The

 

[dyna-ti]

I really dont want to be giving this a go myself. Too many things can go wrong :? ,which could prove expensive and and issues building,ive nothing to go with to find out having no computer to google and answer with(this in mums so ive about a couple of times a week access. I'd be at this for weeks

Latest build idea is
AMD Athlon 5350 quad @2.05Ghz
ASUS M/board AMIM-A
16gb Kingston hyper X-Fury dual 1600mhz
2gb Radeon R9 270X
500gb samsung 850 evo SSD
Corsair VS450 450w


I dont normally look to radeon as they run hot and ive had amd heat issues before so wasnt including them but thought the heat issues must have been resolved by now and amd always was more bang/buck ratio.
A bit like XTR versus XT :?

 

[highlandsflyer]

Re:

It really is too simple to make a mess of.

All you really need to be aware of is handling sensitive parts.

Ooh er missus.

 

[FluffyChicken]

Re: Re:

It really is too simple to make a mess of.

All you really need to be aware of is handling sensitive parts.

Ooh er missus.

Not even that really, most, like ram, is shielded now anyway.

Why AMD CPU. The intels, unless budget and using the iGPU, are just cooler and faster normally. If you want no heat problems and low power , use nvidia Maxwell base GPUs and newer.
The Pentium 3220 or 3258 are 40/50 quid and hands down quicker in all, including iGPU. Motherboards can be had cheap to if you drop from the Z97s though £60 isn't bad for board. Doubt you need 16gig either. Since I have that much, I see no difference over using it at 8GB but it 55 quid difference. You can always stick more in later.

AMD GPU still need large coolers.

 

[dyna-ti]

Back thanks to an ipad ive just got

Still needing a desktop and still much humming and hawing

 

[dyna-ti]

Re: Re:

It really is too simple to make a mess of.

All you really need to be aware of is handling sensitive parts.

Ooh er missus.

Not even that really, most, like ram, is shielded now anyway.

Why AMD CPU. The intels, unless budget and using the iGPU, are just cooler and faster normally. If you want no heat problems and low power , use nvidia Maxwell base GPUs and newer.
The Pentium 3220 or 3258 are 40/50 quid and hands down quicker in all, including iGPU. Motherboards can be had cheap to if you drop from the Z97s though £60 isn't bad for board. Doubt you need 16gig either. Since I have that much, I see no difference over using it at 8GB but it 55 quid difference. You can always stick more in later.

AMD GPU still need large coolers.

I promised myself i wouldnt go through this hassle again. so many questions :facepalm:

Aye, im dropping to 8gb. Money saved can go elsewhere and as you say, can up it at a later stage.
And dropping off from AMD for thee components, going to stick to intel for its low heat and thats always good for longevity and being able to hear the TV over multiple fans roarin away

I had got a good price,about that of the base alienware on a system based around an AMD FX 8320e and a palit GTX 960 2gb bt the motherboard is a bit poor and the psu just too much at 850w. Corsair xms3 ram is ok but been standard for too long, the change to 2400mhz is enroute so ive decided to use that. I'll use Mushkin redline 2400mhz

Opting for i5 4460 Haswell as its a medium price,not too expensive , and it blows away the amd in that im not fighting it for fps. BF4 may be tuned for 8 core bt the majority will not(i hope ) but anyway the 4460 performed similar to the 8320 but less heat and power is better.
Asus Z97-P Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX motherboard is not too expensive ,supports pci-e3/usb3/ddr3 3200.

Im sure the colour of the gpu had nothing to do with it

 

[dyna-ti]

Re:

Final choice was the Alienware Andromeda r2
Main important bits are
Intel i5 4460 processor
8gb ddr@1600mhz
nvidia 960gtx 2gb ddr5
Reasons-
The i5 is as good as i need really.
My previous systems processor ran 0.05 ghz slower than an i3 which is nothing especially as its over 6 years theres no big jump. therefore i think the i5 will do the job now and in the future. I dont see a huge jump in performance :? Not enough to justify buying it

Ram at 8gb is all you need. Maybe in a couple of years doubling it may help, but at present 8gb is recommended so theres no big increase other than total outlay. Id rather save the money now and add later.

960GTX
The system below used the GTX750Ti which is a good card. however when it comes down to the bench test scores at 3d/futureMark put the 960 at nearly double the performance score of the 750ti
By sticking to the i5 you get the top 9 series card for a very small increase in price.

Other points
The main one for me is size :? The x51 system is 13.5"x12.5" and 3 3/4" thick, which is pretty much the size of a games console and unlike a standard desktop case is meant to sit on its side under the TV.
Its not filled to the gunwales with pish softwear, all doing their own thin g, all looking for their updates and all robbing the cpu/ram of a bit of my power. You should see the crap they bundle into basic laptops similar to the one im on now.
Must be 30 unneeded processes going on in the background :facepalm:

So its ordered and i look forward very much to it arriving which will be around about the 12th.

I decided to take another look at it on the sight. feeling excited wanted to go look again
Somewhere around about 2 days after i put in the prder and paid Dell add a 10% off code
GHAAAAAHHHHHH YOU BASTARDS :shock:
Had i ordered on Sunday and not Friday i'd have got a further 10% which i would have used to up norton to 3 years or the protection to the same. Or even doubled the ram.

Possible option would be to order another of the same taking account oof the code, then send back the first one under the 14 days return policy. Be returned unopened.
But that would be a bit of a pain so i asked if there was anything they could do and off the bat the very nice young lady offered a refund of 5% on my total cost
I accepted at that. Everything considered i though it fair to accept at that :?

Really looking forward to this. been 10 years since ive had as powerful a system as this

 

[FluffyChicken]

Re:

960gtx is a good card, hotter and louder than the 750Ti. But a higher spec card of course. My brother just upgraded from one of them, I could have it if I want, just have no need over my 75OTi (anything else was above my budget of ~100quid at the time)

Yep 8G extra is an easy update.

What storage is in it?

Oh and removing bloat is easy, but I build myself no matter what for desktop style. Remove McAfee will help too, never had a problem with the built in win8.1 or Win10 previews.

I just spend a few days researching, last build spec of my own before my last was older than you old computer ;-)

 

[dyna-ti]

Bog standard 7200rpm no ssd ,not unless you really spend the money. Which i know i would have fitted on a self build but the prob i have there is ive never done it before and its that point only thats stopping me.
Like when you first strip a fork or brake. Theres always a wee bit :? Hmmm unsure here :?
And the horror stories of things going wrong or you personally have fried something by not fully understanding the process.
I really should do a wee computer course on it. I've 3/4 of a system based around the last card,could use that.


Distinct lack of replies here. Given everyone here uses the blooming thing

 

[FluffyChicken]

Re:

Shame as SSD would give you the biggest noticeable performance as a day to day machine, maybe even a better feel when in a game, certainly at any time the disc is touched for any reason.

500Gs are only 130quid is, nowt for the level of computer you are buying.
Probably get away with a 256 for a while if you store stuff on the normal drive.