should I build my own gaming rig or buy one pre built?

randomgibberish said:

pparks1 said:

xarden said:

But the user wants an i9, which suggests he doesnt want to go low-end.

I read this differently. I thought he was trying to keep this gaming box price under $600 as he was trying to pinch pennies to keep money for an eventual Core i9. Besides, what's a core i9? Perhaps he meant, Core i7-990X....which in and of itself is $1,000.

yes that's my fault for kinda being stupid saying I want a 600 dollar computer with an i9 but yes intel does make the i9 processor let me explain: It's a lot like the Core i7, except built with a 32nm fabrication process and two extra cores for a total of six meaning it's a hexacore.

There are no i9s as far as Im aware.
Unless Im mistaken, these were renamed to the i7-990X.
The next HexaCore will be the SandyBridge Extreme, scheduled at the end of the year.
In either case, the Intel Hexacores are not Budget CPUs by any means. Your looking at around $1,000USD, and thats just for the CPU.

If you really have need for that many cores, AMD would be a better choice for a Hexacore, to fit into a budget.

However, you must also keep 2 things in mind.
1) Current Quad Core SB CPUs can still outperform it, even though they are 2 cores short, and are about the same price.
2) That many cores will not really help much with gaming currently.
Hexacores really only have a benefit with apps that are specifically designed to use that many threads, or you do alot of heavy multi-tasking.
And even at that, the SB Quads can still hold thier own, and even outperform them.

Unless things change, ATM a Quad core Intel SB is your best bet for most everything, including gaming.
But, it may also be worth seeing what AMD does with Bulldozer. Bulldozer very well may change all of this.

[QUOTE=Coke Robot;1467482]

Coke Robot said:

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks. Basically, for people that work with servers, it's uber great because it actively backs up new data on the fly.

RAID IS NOT A BACKUP, NOT A BACKUP, NOT A BACKUP. It doesn't replace a BACKUP.

It provides fault tolerance (except for RAID0). It gives you the ability to suffer a hard drive failure and keep the machine running. It should NEVER be confused with a backup. For example, if you have a RAID1 mirror and you select a folder and shift delete it, it's gone from both drives instantly. Where's the backup????

Coke Robot said:

RAID 0 is generally most used for gaming and hard core machines, but has the risk of losing a MUCHO amount of data if one of the drives fails.

RAID 0 is the only version that offers no redundancy. RAID0 is a stripe. 2 drives act as one. A little gets written to the first disk and a little gets written to the second disk. If either fails, you lose absolutely everything. So, you actually have a greater risk of failure with RAID0 as you have 2 drives which could potentially fail.

Gamers believe it offers great performance because it increases benchmark scores. But for game play and such, this doesn't help your gaming performance. If you were doing video editing and huge file copies all day long, this is where a RAID0 stripe could really help you out.

If you truly want performance as a gamer, get an SSD drive. They too offer high sequential read speeds like RAID, but offer extremely low random access times and this is where the biggest bang for the buck is. Or get a drive like a Western Digital Velociraptor with higher spindle speeds (10,000RPM), but I would NOT ever suggest a RAID0 configuration to any gamer.

Coke Robot said:

I honestly built my system with 366 dollars, that's without the monitor or case, I rebuilt that. My suggestion is to start low and go high. I'm planning to do a system upgrade here soon, and this is a year after I built it.

Well, going with Intel I can tell you right off the bat will take a BIG chunk of money, for obvious reasons. I use AMD and haven't had any regrets!

But on a side note, go with a 750 watt PSU to start off with, 500 isn't enough to support the latest NVIDIA graphics cards well...

What's the deal with over-buying the PSU?? I see so many people recommend much larger than required PSU's, which can be a large chunk of the budget, and they need just a tad more than half of what they recommend.

500watts is more than enough for his setup.
My machine at full load only pulls 380watts, and I got a bunch of stuff in my machine.

Also, the parts the OP chose above are pretty decent, almost mirrors my dads machine that he uses to game with (he just has a Phenom II Quad with 4GB DDR3 and an ASUS board).
you just can't put all the fancy graphic settings to max @ 1920x1080 on the newer games like Witcher 2, FEAR 3, Crysis 2.

Zepher said:

What's the deal with over-buying the PSU?? I see so many people recommend much larger than required PSU's, which can be a large chunk of the budget, and they need just a tad more than half of what they recommend.

It's an epidemic. It's not like you couldn't buy another one down the road if you really did expand. But having a properly sized PSU is a key to keeping the machine stable end energy efficient.

I just have a 650W Corasair running my machine.

And thats with everything OCd, and even a Superclocked GTX570.
Its more than enough power, and even has room to spare still.


Anything larger, IMHO, only makes sense if you are running multiple GPUs.
Or, if its a offbrand, cheap PSU then you may need a 1000W one to match a quality 500W. But thats not a route I would suggest taking.

I would agree that a 500-650W Quality PSU is more than enough power for most systems, and certainly for any single GPU system.

It's a CYA thing.....Suppose I and mouse started a video card company...Ivan's resolution internal picture ocular frame forces....the iRIPOFF....now as the owner manager, and only reliable employee, I know that the iRIPOFF's 6000 tiny monkey artists needs 250 Watts of power max...so on most normal systems a good quality 500 watt power supply will do the job....So with a big red crayon I write "use a good quality 500 watt power supply" on the box....sucker/customer buys a iRIPOFF reads the use a good quality BLAH BLAH BLAH 500 watt....so he goes out and buys a FIRESTARTER 500 that on a good day couldn't pull 300 watts.......burns down house