just another noob in need of help

  • Thread starter tizzle11
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United States
michigan
Im looking to buy/build a computer for sim racing but am unsure on which route to take. I have been doing some research but I figured this would be the best way to get the correct info. I would like to keep the price under a $1000 I don't need anything fancy or top of the line.

any help would be much appreciated
 
Do you have steering wheel, shifter, & pedals already?

Do you want triple screens?

Do you have anything currently that can be used?
 
Just throwing in my suggestion for a $1000 gaming rig, no CPU overclocking obviously but I guess it may not necessary:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/WVk5

Alternative parts for that list:
Some other B75 or H77 chipset motherboard with necessary features.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670.
Some other mid-tower case also with cable routing, 120mm fans etc.
Windows 8 64-bit.

Could you show me what you had in mind for a gaming rig, tizzle11? :)

EDIT; Setup with a 21.5" IPS monitor:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XpaO
 
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Yours is still more expensive than the one I linked when you take the thermal paste, SSD, fans and optical drive out of the equation. Your suggestion also uses... strange parts, you have an inferior processor (3570K performance CPU vs what is a bottom-end 33xx IB) and motherboard (people seem to be infatuated with micro-ATX boards for some bizarre reason) and a weaker power supply.

Additionally your build is only $120 less than my personal rig, yet mine has a lot more than $120 more performance in it... :)

But hey, if you think a build created by some very knowledgeable guys that run a dedicated PC gaming website is wrong, that's your call ;)
 
Do you have steering wheel, shifter, & pedals already?

Do you want triple screens?

Do you have anything currently that can be used?

I don't have anything as of yet but ive been looking at the Logitech g25 setup and also interested in single screen for now
 
Damn!!! Now I get why my prices are that off! It's because of all those strange combo and whatever discounts! I hate that site already! The irony is, sharky's build just lost al discounts now (at date I posted this). At least it no longer shows them.


Calmed down :lol:, here are the results:

1000$ Build
Here you go: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XoXf


Notes
Used alternative parts due to your big budget. Z77 mainboard for optional overclocking is chosen and the GPU is a stronger 660Ti (thanks to sharky).​

Price without random discounts
828 bucks if I only count the parts sharky listed, that's 45 bucks less than his build then.
969 dollar with all parts I suggest (more parts for full build). It's mainly the SSD which raises the price.
(Prices were correct at date, but they're fluctuating like crazy on pcpartpicker)​

Case
The more expensive parts are the case, but the Bitfenix has simply a higher quality, slightly better equipment and looks and feels much more high-grade than for its price. Definitely worth 20 bucks surchase in my eyes (oh and in case you need USB 3, the bitfenix does have it, whereas the 430 doesn't).​

Power Supply
The power supply (still suggest the be quiet for about the same price, cougar is more a placeholder) is more efficient and in case of the be quiet modular, which I think is a super nice feature and worth 15 bucks more. But that's up to you. (Just to be clear, the wattage is enough.) Only problem is that I don't know if the be quiet power supply is avaible in oversea.
But if you really want to save money as hard as you can, take sharky's power supply, it's very cheap (please no discount or I get mad again :lol: )​

CPU and Mainboard
3350P and ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP (13 dollar less) is your choice if you don't plan to overclock. Saves just about 94 dollar compared to 3570K with the Asus board sharky suggested.

Or you take the 3350P and use it with the AsRock Z77 Pro3 (as in the pcpartpicker list) or MSI Z77A-G43 board (still saves about 81 bucks). By increasing the core muliplicator to 37 (the maximum for the 3350P, the 3570 would go higher, but is for the normal user not needed) you already land at a clockspeed of 3.7ghz. That's already very fast! You can also increase baseclock (bclk) from 100 to about 105mhz (still stable), this would result in 3.9ghz clock speed! Now call the 3350P inferior...


Money saver aka better bang for the buck
If you don't want to spend that much money, you should go with my original suggestion with the saphire 7870 ghz. Better bang for the buck, but less powerful of course, it's up to you.


Budget Build
If you need money left for monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc, this may be interesting:​

With SSD: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Xp07

Without SSD: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XoZ9

Note:
ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP doesn't support overclocking, for oc look at the end of this post -> "alternatively"

In case of the GPU take the cheapest one.

Add a decent cpu cooler if you want: The Thermaltake Contac 30 is damn good for its price (25-30$)​



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Alternatively: (for more money)

CPU
Intel Core i5-3570K Boxed (only if you want to overclock like mad (over 4ghz))
Mainboard
AsRock Z77 Pro4 or MSI Z77A-G43 (if you want to overclock the 3350P, goes easily up to 3.8ghz)​
GPU
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950 or (if you prefer to have Nvidia) Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 Ti Windforce 2X or Asus GTX660 TI-DC2O-2GD5 (cheaper on pcpartspicker, thanks to sharky for showing - in general you should take the cheapest one)
Note: Prices in my regions are about the same, but it seems as if the 660Ti is cheaper in your region, therefore take the GTX 660Ti as alternative.

Power supply
be quiet! Pure Power L8-CM 430W (modular, about as expensive as the cougar - I'd replace the cougar with this one if you can get it in oversea aka NA)​
BlueRay
LG BH16NS40 (costs 4 times as much)​

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All inclusive set (with monitor, os, speakers, keyboard, mouse, etc)

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XoS6

100 bucks over the limit, but then you really do have everything (except if you want a SSD, then add the Samsung SSD I listed in the other sets, wich costs about 92$).

An interesting alternative for the keyboard is the "Kensington Keyboard for Life" (K64370A), spill proof, basically undestroyable and it comes with a lifetime warranty. Costs about 20$.

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Addition: You can mix the budget build with the 1000$ build if you want to save a little, but still have good performance.
 
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Your suggestion also uses... strange parts, you have an inferior processor (3570K performance CPU vs what is a bottom-end 33xx IB) and motherboard (people seem to be infatuated with micro-ATX boards for some bizarre reason) and a weaker power supply.
I really wonder where you see a micro ATX board. Only looking at the case should already tell you that it's not. EDIT: Talked to him, he admited the mistake.


CPU and Board
You simply ignore the fact that a Z77 is nonsense if you don't plan to overclock. And calling a 3570K performance CPU while degrading the 3350P to an "inferior" and "bottom end" CPU, is ludicrous. Same architecture, same number of cores, just 0.3ghz higher clock and unlimited multiplicator, uhh.
What if he doesn't want to overclock? Then he's in a much better bang for the buck situation with a H77 board and 3350P. CPU and board is 94 bucks less then.
And another thing: The 3350P actually is overclockable. It's simply more limited, but it's not a big deal to hit about 3.7-3.9ghz with it. Muliplicator limit is 37, 37 for core and 37 for turbo, both results in 3.7ghz.
Bottom-end CPU, seriously?

Power supply
Weaker power supply... wow, since when does the Watt number alone make a good power suppy? The cougar is as I wrote a placeholder for the be quiet pure power L8-CM 430W power supply. It's 80+bronze and modular, which is an extremely nice feature in my opinion. I don't know why it doesn't list be quiet power supplies. Perhaps you can't buy it in oversea? You also seem to forget that the Watt number doesn't stand for the absolute maximum, it's the total continuous output. I guarantee you that the system doesn't need that much power, not even at 100% load.

Yours is still more expensive than the one I linked when you take the thermal paste, SSD, fans and optical drive out of the equation.
The case costs 20 dollar more, but the Bitfenix is worth it in my eyes, reasons are at the beginning of this post. Fantastic quality for a decent price.

Memory, CPU cooler, HDD is about the same.

The 660ti is cheap, very cheap, I've never seen it at such a low price in the region I live. I agree that you should take the 660ti for that price, but I simply didn't know of those differences. I normally don't check dollar prices in other regions of the world. The 660ti is the better choice in this case.

The 660TI is 5 bucks more than the 7950 without discount, so I wasn't really wrong with my list.
EDIT: Now it's again cheaper... ok you probably better stick with the 660Ti in this case. :indiff:


And yeah you see right, I replaced the 7950 with the 660TI. The term "combo discount" is emetic for me now... :rolleyes:
But hey, if you think a build created by some very knowledgeable guys that run a dedicated PC gaming website is wrong, that's your call
Must be very knowledgeable guys who call 3350P bottom end. If a 3.1ghz 4 core is bottom end, what is a i5-3470T, which is a 2.9ghz dual core then? Possibly ideal for tamagotchi or similar. ;) Why do we even have Celeron, Pentium and i3 then?



Sharky don't understand me wrong, but calling the parts I listed as weird and letting them look as nonsense isn't right. The prices on pcpartpicker are capricious and shouldn't be seen as indicator for a good set or bad set. If you let all random discounts out of play, then the set I listed is less expensive than yours if we only count the parts you listed.



thank you all this helps a ton! Im also wondering if I should get a monitor or a tv for jut a singe screen setup
If you only want to use it for your PC then a monitor is enough.



EDIT: Yeah doublepost... I know, didn't want to. :banghead:
 
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dr_slump, try adding an operating system, an IPS monitor and peripherals to your plan and see how expensive it gets. ;)
 
dr_slump, try adding an operating system, an IPS monitor and peripherals to your plan and see how expensive it gets. ;)

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XoS6

Without time limited promo code discounts your build costs 1059 bucks and the one in the link 1092 bucks. That's 33 dollar difference, although the monitor I listed alone costs 59 dollar more.

The asus you listed is not good for gaming and your mouse I pretty cheap. What for a keyboard is that anyway?


It's 90 bucks over the 1000 limit, but I wouldn't go lower than a 7870.
And I still recommend the Samsung SSD for about 95 dollar more.


The op didn't tell us if we have to include monitor, peripherals, etc. Most of the time suggestions like this do not include that, just saying.


An interesting alternative for the keyboard is the "Kensington Keyboard for Life" (K64370A), spill proof, basically undestroyable and it comes with a lifetime warranty. Costs about 20$.
 
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The asus you listed is not good for gaming and your mouse I pretty cheap. What for a keyboard is that anyway?

Could you be more specific about how it is not good for gaming? I know it's "only" 21.5 inches but it has Full HD and 5ms GtG which are essential.

And since he's going to do sim racing, he shouldn't need an expensive gaming mouse as he's mostly using his wheel, same goes with the keyboard.

Also a Xeon E3-1230V2 and a 7870 XT are both superior to an i5-3350P and a 7870 GHz Edition.

The op didn't tell us if we have to include monitor, peripherals, etc. Most of the time suggestions like this do not include that, just saying.

Well, he said on post #8 he doesn't anything yet, so I thought it would be logical to make a complete plan with a screen and peripherals.
 
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Could you be more specific about how it is not good for gaming? I know it's "only" 21.5 inches but it has Full HD and 5ms GtG which are essential.
I based it on this:
reaktion.jpg



And since he's going to do sim racing, he shouldn't need an expensive gaming mouse as he's mostly using his wheel, same goes with the keyboard.
If he really only wants to play racing sims, then yes.

Also a Xeon E3-1230V2 and a 7870 XT are both superior to an i5-3350P and a 7870 GHz Edition.
But you know that a 7870 XT needs about the same power than a 7970 ghz edition? That's over 100 watt more than a normal 7870. Even a 7950 needs 80 watt less.
 

Read Shivoa's reply here: http://www.tested.com/forums/pc-and-mac/11401-gaming-on-a-14ms-display/

"That's a 60Hz input standard LCD and so we only have to do 60 transitions per second. So it only needs to show a new image every 17ms."

But you know that a 7870 XT needs about the same power than a 7970 ghz edition? That's over 100 watt more than a normal 7870. Even a 7950 needs 80 watt less.

Sure it uses roughly the same amount of power as a regular 7970 but not as much as a 7970 GHz Edition, where did you find that information?

Here we can see 7870 XT uses 27 watts more than a regular non-OC 7870, 7970 GHz Edition using 64 watts more than a 7870 XT.
 
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Read Shivoa's reply here: http://www.tested.com/forums/pc-and-mac/11401-gaming-on-a-14ms-display/

"That's a 60Hz input standard LCD and so we only have to do 60 transitions per second. So it only needs to show a new image every 17ms."

If it just comes at the end of a new frame it'll need up to 51ms in worst case.

But if you say you own one and have never seen any issues, then I appologize.


Sure it uses roughly the same amount of power as a regular 7970 but not as much as a 7970 GHz Edition, where did you find that information?

Here we can see it uses 27 watts more than a regular non-OC 7870, 7970 GHz Edition using 64 watts more than a 7870 XT.
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2012/test-vtx3d-hd-7870-black-tahiti-le/11/
 

Here you can see how much the card itself uses (those other reviews with highly overclocked CPUs obviously show higher readings): http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Club_3D/HD_7870_jokerCard_Tahiti_LE/26.html

The 7870 XT alone uses 175 watts at peak (realistic maximum gaming power usage) while the 7970 GHz Edition uses 238 watts. Power consumption is not a serious problem with a single monitor as you can see. Not to mention 7870 XT isn't far away from both HD 7950 and GTX 670 in many games seen in that TechPowerUp review, sometimes even better in terms of sheer performance. With the latest drivers, it may very well be faster than that. Now that's a bang-for-the-buck GPU for you.
 
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Here you can see how much the card itself uses (those other reviews with highly overclocked CPUs obviously show higher readings): http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Club_3D/HD_7870_jokerCard_Tahiti_LE/26.html

The 7870 XT alone uses 175 watts at peak (realistic maximum gaming power usage) while the 7970 GHz Edition uses 238 watts. Power consumption is not a serious problem with a single monitor as you can see. Not to mention 7870 XT isn't far away from both HD 7950 and GTX 670 in many games seen in that TechPowerUp review, sometimes even better in terms of sheer performance. With the latest drivers, it may very well be faster than that. Now that's a bang-for-the-buck GPU for you.
Fair enough.

Why would you prefer the xeon over a 3570K though? Price is about the same.
 
A Xeon E3-1230 V2 is essentially a Core i7-3770 with a disabled IGP. If not overclocking, that is a no-brainer. A Core i7 for the price of a Core i5. :)

Still I dont see the reason for getting it over a i5-3570k. Even if you're not interested in overclocking now, maybe in 2 years when the processor gonna start to be obsolet you'll want to and you can't. Better get a 3570k and have option for the same price. Beside unless you got a monster card like a 7990 or stuff like that you wont have problems with a 3570k.
 
A Xeon E3-1230 V2 is essentially a Core i7-3770 with a disabled IGP. If not overclocking, that is a no-brainer. A Core i7 for the price of a Core i5. :)
But hyperthreading isn't that relevant for games, and just because it's a 7 instead of a 5... I don't know.

I'd prefer the 3570K which has some potential left (oc). Although some ASRock boards have a non-K OC feature now, which allows you to overclock locked CPU's. So maybe you should use it in combination with one of those ASRock boards just in case you change your opinion and want to overclock it. Your B75 board is most likely not one of those.
 
nvidia is bringing out a 770 and 780 next week, not sure how it will affect your choice or general prices in the short term.
 
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