Help Me Build a New PC

[Jub]

It's been a long while since I last built my own PC and I've fallen woefully out of touch with what the best bang for my buck is going to be; so I figured I'd see what opinions around here are like. A few friends have suggested going with an APU, so opinions on an APU with graphics card versus a CPU with graphics card would be greatly appreciated.

Here are my basic constraints when it comes to building a new PC:

1) It has to cost less than $1,000 Canadian
2) I'd like it to be able to play current gen games at high settings
3) I'd like to get something that will last 3-5 years without needing major upgrades
4) I'd like to grab an SSD to load my OS and other start-up programs

Thanks in advance for the help.

EDIT: A good capture card would also be cool too as I'm thinking of trying some lets plays and I'd like to be able to capture console games.

[Jub]

Here's a build that a buddy of mine suggested. Any thoughts?

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/KElO

[fordlltwm]

I'd be tempted to go for an Asus motherboard, probably the M5A-99X-EVO, but aside from that it looks allright.

I suggest asus boards due to length of time you wish your system to last for, between a friend and I we've just taken the last 10+ year old ASUS board we were keeping an eye on out of use due to the person it was leant to being booted out of his house, it's still working nicely, as are another two boards bought at the same time. So for longevity I'd go with ASUS every time.

[The Infidel]

I assume you're going to use the SSD for system? I think 64Gb might be a bit to little. If you can get an affordable 128Gb drive, I would go with that. I'm not sure how prices are in Canada, but in Norway, 2TB drives have almost the same price as 1TB. I think that would give most bang for the moeny.

[Jub]

Thanks for the advice.

So far I've started off my build by putting in a bid for an Asus Sabertooth motherboard and a Radeon 7950 graphics card. I've also looked at drive prices and as suggested upgrading to 128GB and 2TB drives respectively isn't overly expensive.

I'm thinking that I might go with liquid cooling for my CPU, does anybody have any recommendations for a good cooling unit?

[Flagg]

I'm thinking that I might go with liquid cooling for my CPU, does anybody have any recommendations for a good cooling unit?

Overpriced and unneccesary as long as you have enough fans and the proper placement.

[Sea Skimmer]

If you want your computer to last, liquid cooling is the last thing you should be considering.

[Jub]

Alright, I was figuring it'd be best to steer clear, but I thought that it would be worth putting out there.

[Flagg]

Yeah, you'd end up having to replace the damned liquid cooler after a couple years due to the chemicals used as cooling liquid start to erode the seals.

[Jub]

That sounds like it could be bad, especially if you didn't notice how bad the erosion was.

[Mr Bean]

That sounds like it could be bad, especially if you didn't notice how bad the erosion was.

Sealed loop liquid coolers are just fine thank you. Something like the Corsair Hydro series (H50 to H120) work just fine if your idea is putting a Intel Core processor at 4ghtz-5 ghtz and keeping it there for four or five years. I have two of the H50's being used on old client computers which have been operating for over four years now without stop and without issue. Most of the closed loop liquid coolers work fine since the chemicals in question are just distilled water with a dash of antifreeze to prevent bacteria growth.

As far as big full on liquid cooling, feel free to run that as well but be aware your stepping into a project not a cooling solution.

[Jub]

If I was going to go with liquid cooling I was thinking of going with an H100. I like that they'll replace your system if their product leaks and damages it.

[Sea Skimmer]

Will they replace it it if the pump breaks down and the chip overheats in seconds though? Because that's the other big problem. You also just don't get the advantage of a good CPU air cooler also helping blow air over all the rest of the heat sinks on the motherboard, which get mighty hot on recent boards, unless you get a very elaborate liquid cooling system which specifically does this with more water blocks. The fan on a big passive heat sink might fail, but it won't rapidly kill the chip when if it happens, and if it does its a usually simple replacement.

[Mr Bean]

Sea Skimmer you are aware that modern CPU's have lots of nice thermal protections built in? If the fan fails modern (In the last four years cpus) don't melt down like old Athlons did. In fact one of the current stress tests for cpus in factory for Intel is turning them on and running them without any cooling what so ever. Take a sandy bridge and run it without cooling and it will declock itself down into the safe range then shut down rather than melt down.

[TheFeniX]

My old Koolance kit (fully integrated case) had (has actually, I can't be bothered to recycle it and the parts are to old to strip) two pumps and would throw beeps if one failed and also if the CPU temp jumped to high. Further, you still want a few fans to, at the least, keep your case pressurized and cool other components. In the event of a failure, temperature isn't going to build up fast enough to damage a CPU before you notice, even if they didn't have fail-safes Bean mentioned. The days of the flaming Athlon are over.

I really don't see the need for watercooling these days, especially on the CPU. I don't know of many games that are CPU limited that wasn't caused by shit programming and overclocking was always more about cool factor than anything. Even when my GTX560 fans go crazy, my CPU is still running fine. That and my GPU was always the part getting roasted because I buy Nvidia and overclocked like a madman "just because." Do they even make GPU coolers anymore? I'm so fucking out of the loop because shit doesn't catch on fire like it used to and I am no longer OCing everything as much as possible in order to keep my AGP slot way past it's expiration date.

[Jub]

Assuming that my ebay bids go through as planned this is my final build.

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/KVKy

[XaLEv]

Why an FX-8350 over an FX-4300 or A10-5800k? Applications that use more than two cores are still relatively rare, let alone four.
That RAM has stupid tall heat spreaders that don't do any good, and is more expensive than the tiny performance improvement you'll get from 1866 over 1600.
Why a Sabertooth motherboard over something like an M5A97 or M5A99?
That SSD isn't one that comes well recommended. Look for Mushkin Enhanced Chronos, Crucial M4, Samsung 830 and 840 Pro and Intel 520 and 330.
Gigabyte's had some voltage shenanigans lately that make their products questionable. Sapphire and ASUS are the most well-regarded AMD video card manufacturers right now.

Coolers like Corsair's Hydro series are most useful when building in cases that can't take coolers more than a few centimeters tall, which isn't a concern here. Otherwise their performance doesn't justify their cost when you can get a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo for half the price of the cheapest Hydro.

[Jub]

The FX-8350 looked like it had pretty good benchmarks and a few people I know recommended it.
The ram was again recommend, so I figured why not.
The motherboard hasn't been ordered yet. What advantages would I gain by going with what you've recommended?
The SSD was out of stock, so I'll look into a better brand.
I lost the bid for that video card I was looking at. Is that an Asus or Sapphire card that you'd recommend within the 7870 to 7950 range?

I was thinking of going with Corsair for a cooler because I hear they have a good replacement policy if things go sideways. Would a cooler master have a comparable policy, or is it just cheaper?

[phongn]

That SSD isn't one that comes well recommended. Look for Mushkin Enhanced Chronos, Crucial M4, Samsung 830 and 840 Pro and Intel 520 and 330.
Gigabyte's had some voltage shenanigans lately that make their products questionable. Sapphire and ASUS are the most well-regarded AMD video card manufacturers right now.

The Crucial M4 has severe firmware issues of late.

[XaLEv]

The FX-8350 looked like it had pretty good benchmarks and a few people I know recommended it.
The ram was again recommend, so I figured why not.
The motherboard hasn't been ordered yet. What advantages would I gain by going with what you've recommended?
The SSD was out of stock, so I'll look into a better brand.
I lost the bid for that video card I was looking at. Is that an Asus or Sapphire card that you'd recommend within the 7870 to 7950 range?

I was thinking of going with Corsair for a cooler because I hear they have a good replacement policy if things go sideways. Would a cooler master have a comparable policy, or is it just cheaper?

Benchmarks can be deceiving. The FX-8000s perform best in highly threaded loads that can take advantage of all 8 cores. In anything with four threads or less, which includes just about every game, its performance will be equal to any quad core of the same frequency and architecture. Then there's all the extra heat and power consumption of those four extra cores worth of transistors.

The problem with tall heat spreaders on RAM is that they can interfere with aftermarket CPU coolers.

The main issue with that motherboard is price. It's a high end board meant for large overclocks, quad Crossfire/SLI and epeen, and its price tag matches, though if you're getting it on ebay that might not be as much of a concern. Retail, an M5A97 is half the price of that Sabertooth and provides all the features most people will ever need.

If I were looking for a card in that range I would probably get this one.

For warranties, I can't speak for the quality of service, but here's the lengths given in their policies:

http://www.corsair.com/us/support/warranty/

Cooling Products

Hydro Series™ (Models H50v2, H55, H60v2, H60, H70 CORE, H80, H100, H80i, H100i, H90, and H110) have a 5 year warranty
Hydro Series (Models H40, H50 and H70) have a 2 year warranty
Air Series™ products (Models A50 and A70) have a 2 year warranty

http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/contact.php?page_id=9

CPU Coolers:
Air Coolers:
2 year from purchase date
Liquid Coolers:
2 years from purchase date

Aside from warranty, also consider the mechanics of the coolers. It seems to me that a water cooler is simply more likely to have a failure requiring replacement, whether it be a leak in a hose, joint or the radiator, or the water pump dying. A heat pipe tower like the Hyper 212 has no joints, the coolant is sealed inside each pipe and there are no moving parts inside because the coolant will flow on its own when exposed to a heat source. Aside from that they both can use any 120 mm case fan (well, I guess. I don't know of any water coolers that use smaller fans but I guess there could be some), which can be removed and replaced on its own.

[Jub]

Benchmarks can be deceiving. The FX-8000s perform best in highly threaded loads that can take advantage of all 8 cores. In anything with four threads or less, which includes just about every game, its performance will be equal to any quad core of the same frequency and architecture. Then there's all the extra heat and power consumption of those four extra cores worth of transistors.

It's too bad that it's already been ordered then. Still, it's not like it's a terrible chip; I'm just paying a bit extra over a chip that could get me the same performance.

The problem with tall heat spreaders on RAM is that they can interfere with aftermarket CPU coolers.

I'll get the board put together and see what sort of room I have for a cooler before I order one then.

The main issue with that motherboard is price. It's a high end board meant for large overclocks, quad Crossfire/SLI and epeen, and its price tag matches, though if you're getting it on ebay that might not be as much of a concern. Retail, an M5A97 is half the price of that Sabertooth and provides all the features most people will ever need.

Is it worth it for future proofing my system, or is is something where I'd be better off buying a lesser board and upgrading down the road?

If I were looking for a card in that range I would probably get this one.

It's right in the price range was looking for, I'll put in an order once I see how much I have left on my credit card.

Aside from warranty, also consider the mechanics of the coolers. It seems to me that a water cooler is simply more likely to have a failure requiring replacement, whether it be a leak in a hose, joint or the radiator, or the water pump dying. A heat pipe tower like the Hyper 212 has no joints, the coolant is sealed inside each pipe and there are no moving parts inside because the coolant will flow on its own when exposed to a heat source. Aside from that they both can use any 120 mm case fan (well, I guess. I don't know of any water coolers that use smaller fans but I guess there could be some), which can be removed and replaced on its own.

Makes sense, and if I'm not overclocking I don't need more than a basic heat pipe setup anyway.

[XaLEv]

Is it worth it for future proofing my system, or is is something where I'd be better off buying a lesser board and upgrading down the road?

The latter. You can't future proof computers.

With the motherboards we're talking about, aside from things like the components in the voltage regulation module and positioning of connectors, the differences are mainly in the chipset, 990FX on the Sabertooth and 970 on the M5A97. The differences between those chipsets are in the RAID and PCI-E configurations they support. These differences don't matter if you're not using RAID or multiple video cards, and if you were to decide that your GPU performance isn't as high as you would like in a couple of years, you would almost certainly be better off getting a single card from the then-current generation rather than a second of whatever you already have.

[fordlltwm]

I'd go for the M5A99, it's got built in USB3 support, the capability of Crossfire or SLi if you fancy and the vengeance memory looks really sweet on it, (the blue stuff looks like it was made for the board). And having just checked on mine, there's about 15-20mm between the stock cooler and the memory on mine, using the nearer memory slot. And the M5A97 is getting a tad long in the tooth these days.

For reference this is my current system,

Item: Asus M5A99X EVO 990X Socket AM3+ 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard
Item: AMD FX-4 4170 Black Edition 4 Core 4.2GHz Socket AM3+ 8MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Item: Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz Vengeance Memory Kit CL9 1.5V
Item: Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache - OEM
Item: PowerColor HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card

The only thing I'd change would be the HDD because it's a tad slow, this system runs Skyrim at a steady 61fps.
IIRC the memory was about 50p more for the corsair than the super value stuff.

[Jub]

Here's what I have now that all the parts I ordered have come in.

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/Norade/saved/1uNz

I'll be adding an SSD, Bluray Drive, and likely another stick of ram as I have the cash, but beyond that she's built and just needs to get her drivers installed.

[Starglider]

What is this random FUD against liquid cooling? I have multiple liquid cooled systems that have run maintenance-free for many years. The passive radiator ones are in fact more reliable than forced air cooled systems, because there are fewer fans to fail and less clogging with dust. A good quality pump is at least as reliable as a fan. Cooling fluid is just distilled water and possibly a little biocide, it does not affect seals. Electrolytic corrosion can be an issue but only if you use cheap unplated parts. Failure of a pump is no worse than failure of a CPU fan; in both cases the CPU will just shut down on overtemp.

The real drawback of liquid cooling is that it's more expensive. You only need it if;
a) you are doing serious overclocking
b) you are trying to stuff four or more graphics cards into one system
c) you want a high-powered but near-silent system