Building a desktop - component questions

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wallyuwl

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So when I go back home over Christmas my parents want me to build them a new desktop. The one I built them seven or eight years ago is just too slow now to run modern software. I have built one since (for myself), but it was several years ago.

So I'm really out of the loop as far as components go. I will source my parts from Newegg because they are reasonably priced, have good customer service, and are a one stop shop.

I and have several questions:

1) I plan on getting a Sandy Bridge i7 probably (I might do an i5, depending on price), and run Windows 7 Ultimate x64. What is the maximum amount of RAM I can use? 16? 32?

2) How big of a power supply should I be looking for? 500w? 600w? Other?

3) Will most any modern motherboard fit into a modern tower (regarding form factor)?

4) What type of RAM should I get? I know they are up to DDR3 now. But what is the most modern type regarding speed, pin number, etc.?

5) Is Arctic Silver still a good paste to use?

6) Should I look at a heat sink other than what is supplied with the processor?

7) Are there motherboards that have built in graphics while having the ability to hook up a monitor via DVI? What about hooking up one monitor DVI, and one VGA, in order to use an extended monitor setup?

8) Do they make hybrid drives, that have the boot sector SSD and the programs on a 7200 RPM? I've seen laptops advertised with these, but haven't seen any for desktops when I've looked. Would this be worth the price?


I think that is about it for specific questions. If there is anything else you guys think I should know considering I haven't done this in a while let me know.
 
You are thinking too hard about this IMHO.

Buy a good case: Corsair or Antec
Buy a good PSU of a decent size: Corsair 650W for example
Buy a good motherboard: ASUS is an excellent choice
Buy a retail box CPU/heatsink solution: i5 or i7
Buy some reputable RAM in the DDR3 1600 variety: Corsair, Kingston....etc
Buy a decent video card if you don't intend on using on-board graphics. If you DO intend on using on-board, when you are board shopping you will see if they have DVI or not. Many of them DO.
Buy a big hard drive, or if you are obsessed about speed, a big drive for storage, SSD for boot. FWIW, I'm still not using an SSD in my own rig, just a big RAID10.
 
What Overk1ll said is pretty much right on the head for what the right mindset is when looking to build your a tower from scratch. Except for right now the hard drive prices are broken thanks to the 3ft of water that is inside all of the hard drive manufacturers in Thailand, so you may want to use your old one for a while.
 
i5 is better bang for the buck than i7, and there's really not that much of a difference in performance.
My i5 2500k was running at 83C at stock speeds with stock cooler under load. What a waste of materials for such a useless POS; get something better with a 120mm fan.
You need DDR3 1.5v; 1333 is enough for Sandy Bridge.
If you don't get a dedicated VGA and don't plan on overclocking you could do with a quality 430W PSU.
If you want to use the onboard GPU make sure the motherboard has a chipset that supports it, like Z68.
 
Originally Posted By: zorobabel
i5 is better bang for the buck than i7, and there's really not that much of a difference in performance.
My i5 2500k was running at 83C at stock speeds with stock cooler under load. What a waste of materials for such a useless POS; get something better with a 120mm fan.
You need DDR3 1.5v; 1333 is enough for Sandy Bridge.
If you don't get a dedicated VGA and don't plan on overclocking you could do with a quality 430W PSU.
If you want to use the onboard GPU make sure the motherboard has a chipset that supports it, like Z68.


Perhaps you didn't seat the heatsink correctly.... I've never seen temps that high with the stock cooler, heck my i5 750 with the stock cooler OC'd to 3.2Ghz never got that hot even when running prime or the Intel burn-in test.
 
First, you're building for your parents. How do they use their computer? If it's mostly email, web surfing, word processing or even some light gaming, then a Core I7 is probably, (almost certainly) overkill. In fact, I'd suggest you take a good look at the Core I3/2100. The onboard graphics are considered to be top notch. In any case, the Core I5 2500 or Core I5 2500K is the chip of choice for most.

While I also buy a LOT of stuff from Newegg you shouldn't rule out Microcenter as they have some sweet deals on Core I5 and Core I7 cpus if you buy one with a Gigabyte or Asus mobo, see page 27 here. Also, Fry's will price match!

Some considerations for mobo are whether or not you need/want usb 3 connections, sata 6Gbs connections or more than one PCIe slot.

Max memory will be determined by mobo. In any case, to utilize more than 4GB, (max 32 bit Windows can address), you'll need to install 64 bit Windows. That said, 8GB is becoming pretty standard because DDR3 is SO cheap these days!

There's a lot of good ram out there but the ram for your motherboard is determined by the motherboard. Once you've decided on the mobo, go to their site, look that board up and they'll give you a list of compatible ram. I recommend G. Skill as I've used a lot of it and I've never had a problem with it. Fast/faster/fastest ram isn't always necessary or even a good thing. The fastest ram available for your board might not even work on your board and remember, ram is ALWAYS faster than the rest of your system, well, with the possible exception of an SSD.

For motherboard, look at Asus, Gigabyte or Asrock, (owned by Asus). Asrock is getting some VERY good reviews. Intel also makes some very solid boards.

Don't cheap out too much on case as that's what they'll see every day AND because front panel connectors, (among other things), especially the power button, can be dreadful on cheap cases. As was said, look at Antec, Corsair and even Lian Li. If you have a computer store nearby try to go there and look some of the cases over in person.

PSU, look at either Corsair, Antec, PC Power & Cooling, (now owned by OCZ), or Seasonic. I've used both Antec and Corsair with great success and recommend Corsair. Unless you're building a very high power gaming rig you'll find that a 450 to 650 watt is usually more than enough, depending on the PSU! Thing is, watch your 12 Volt rails! There are a lot of cheap 450 to 600 watt PSUs out there with very wimpy 12 volt rails and they'll overload and fail. The 12 volt rails run your hard drives, optical drives and graphics card, and I've probably forgotten something. It also needs to have all the connectors you'll need and then decide if you're willing to pay extra for modular cables. I like shielded cables over non shielded.

I've got a feeling I've rambled on too long here so will leave you with a couple of links for more info;

Newegg's EggXpert Forums is an excellent source.

Tom's Hardware Forums , also an excellent forum as well as an all around bottomless pit of info!

Hope this helps more than it confuses!

Larry
 
Originally Posted By: david_ES2
my stock 2007 HP laptop gets to 80C -85C occasionally, then again its a laptop. i dunno lol


Yes, laptop cooling solutions are often quite hideous.
 
If your parents are anything like mine, their needs are pretty simple. My parents use some programs, but nothing that demands more than an old Pentium 3, and never enough at once to require more than a few gigs of RAM. The biggest thing they needed was a large HDD to store all of their photos and such.

If I were buying for them, I'd be surfing dealnews.com every day and take advantage of one of the many deals on i3, core2duo, and etc. PC's with specs adequate for pretty much anything most normal, non-gamers/hardcore multi-taskers cam throw at it. Something simple that will last for another half decade or more can be found for as little as a few hundred dollars.
 
Originally Posted By: gathermewool
If your parents are anything like mine, their needs are pretty simple. My parents use some programs, but nothing that demands more than an old Pentium 3, and never enough at once to require more than a few gigs of RAM. The biggest thing they needed was a large HDD to store all of their photos and such.

If I were buying for them, I'd be surfing dealnews.com every day and take advantage of one of the many deals on i3, core2duo, and etc. PC's with specs adequate for pretty much anything most normal, non-gamers/hardcore multi-taskers cam throw at it. Something simple that will last for another half decade or more can be found for as little as a few hundred dollars.


Oddly, I've tried using an old Athlon XP 2.13Ghz computer with 1GB of RAM, running windows XP. It can't even handle youtube well, let alone anything like netflix. It's just not powerful enough to handle even most web-browsing, with all the flash, HTML, silverlight content they use.
 
My Mom has an Athlon XP 1600 with 3 GB of Ram, XP Pro. No hiccups with Youtube or Netflix. I don't think she needs Ultimate for e-mail, she prefers to dual boot into Ubuntu for that. She is 75.
 
Originally Posted By: Nick R
Oddly, I've tried using an old Athlon XP 2.13Ghz computer with 1GB of RAM, running windows XP. It can't even handle youtube well, let alone anything like netflix. It's just not powerful enough to handle even most web-browsing, with all the flash, HTML, silverlight content they use.


Odd you say that, I currently run (and posting this with) an Athlon 3200+, Using Windows XP, with 1GB RAM. Works Youtube videos just fine. browses perfectly and I use Internet Exploder even. And my internet connection slows netflix items up much more than the computer ever will.
 
My kid's PC is an i3, runs fine with the built-in Intel graphics for all their needs until graphics-demanding games were used.

I put a real video card in there when my son started playing those games, namely Spore.

Since this is for your parents, an i3 or i5 with a decent 120GB SATA-3 SSD will block their socks off. i5 would be better as it's backplane speed is nearly double that of an i3.

And if using the onboard Intel graphics, what Overkill said, make sure it has a DVI connector.

Enjoy!
 
Very informative Bornconfuzd.

I figured I'd have to pick out the RAM after the motherboard. I think I will go with an i5 2500. Don't have a Frys or Micro Center here, but will certainly keep Micro Center in mind for ordering from them online. Their prices look great.

A couple questions:

1) What should I be looking for regarding the 12V ratings for power supplies?

2) What is the max RAM Win 7 Ultimate x64 can handle? I'm thinking of going with 16, but with it being so cheap now days I might go 32 if it can handle it.

My parents don't do anything extravagant, but I know they'd want this to last more than a few years.
 
I would recommend getting a laptop and be done with it. A second generation i3 processor will run cool and the battery will last quite long.

The cooling solutions in laptops nowadays are very impressive.
 
Originally Posted By: CivicFan
I would recommend getting a laptop and be done with it. A second generation i3 processor will run cool and the battery will last quite long.

The cooling solutions in laptops nowadays are very impressive.


Depends on the laptop
wink.gif
 
What's your budget for this build?

Since you didn't specify exactly what your parents need in a new PC I'm going to assume that this project is just as much for you as it is for them. My guess is that you like tinkering and would rather build them something that will be impressively overkill rather than boringly adequate.
13.gif


Please don't take that as a criticism; I'm just poking fun.

My parents are starting to slow down with their overkill PC buying, but they used to fall into the same gotta-have-the-latest-and-greatest trap that we all do. My parents first PC was a Pentium 3 with low, but adequate specs and ran Windows '98. The complained of slow performance, that even everyday tasks such as checking email and playing Chicktionary were becoming incredibly slow. Before I could come and see what they were talking about, they'd already bought a new , >$1,000 Mac, because it was pretty and had all of these impressive specs. When the Mac started slowing down a few years later they bought a new >$1,000 all-in-one PC. They have spyware protection, but I think they're the type to click on pretty much every popup known to man, which would explain the slow-downs. A refresh is usually all that would be needed, but they like to have new things every so often. I just wish that new thing didn't cost them so much, when they'll never need the extra power.

Well, I took that old Gateway, loaded XP and gave it to my gramma back in 2004. She still uses it today with out any issues. My gramma was THRILLED to have upgraded from Net TV (or what ever it was called.) I had to spend hours explaining to her something as simple as how the mouse worked. She didn't understand the concept of moving a cursor and clicking on something.

My point is that, if your parents don't do anything that would require an i5 and tons of RAM, then why buy it? Most people would be just as fine with a dual-core Atom processor or the new AMD APU (CPU/GPU on the same die.) The laptop I'm typing on now, an HP Pavilion dm1 has the E350 APU and it handles everything I throw at it. I defer to my desktop for gaming and other multimedia, but 90% of the time, this little laptop does everything I need it to. It also has an HDMI out, so, when I feel like tree-hugging, I hook this bad boy up to my monitor, attached my keyboard and mouse and consume 1/10th of the power for everyday surfing as my desktop.
 
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