[PC] Ask The Experts Thread

[ALPHA17]

@Alpha17

 

Why not i7 2600k? Also are dose the latest n most powerful graphic cards?

 

^^ Because the Core i7 2600k is an unlocked chip that is capable of over-clocking but you are not using that feature. The newer Ivy-Bridge Core i5 I have suggested has similar performance with lower power consumption.

 

Get a simple spike-buster then, Belkin OR some reliable brand to be on the safer side of things (from brown-outs / power spikes).

 

If possible try to hold out for the graphics card (till the HD8*** series), if it is still urgent to get that, then stick to the MSi GTX660Ti OR Sapphire HD7870 2GB OR MSi / Sapphire HD7950 3GB ~24500/- (local street-price is approaching to this).

 

The GTX660Ti will age the worst because of its asymmetric RAM-bandwidth distribution.

 

Hope this helps, Cheerio!

Edited November 28, 2012 by ALPHA17

[AK77]

^^ Over-clocking used to be, get a cheap hot-rod and MOD it to run like an extreme sports car but now it has turned into a niche field with only enthusiasts able to afford the expensive stuff. So now until you are really gung ho (and experienced) about the entire thing I suggest that you give it a pass. If you want more details, I had given a wiki hot-link in the earlier post, here again --> Wiki over-clocking.

 

If you only want the dabba, then this is what I suggest --

Intel Core i5 3550 ~13500/-

GIGABYTE-B75M-D3H ~4500/-

Corsair Vengeance 4GB x4 1600MHz ~6400/-

MSi / GIGABYTE-GTX660Ti 2GB ~21000/- OR Sapphire HD7870 2GB ~18000/- (OR wait till Q2 2013 to get a HD8*** cards from AMD)

Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 1TB ~4000/-

HP (boxed) optical drive ~1000/-

Seasonic S12II 520W ~4400/-

Corsair Carbide 400R ~5500/-

LOGITECH G400 / G300 ~1500/- (gaming mouse)

LOGITECH K200 multimedia keyboard ~500/-

 

 

Hope this helps, Cheerio!

i would like to add some configuration here based on my experience-

-Go for 8 GB RAM instead of 16 GB as it is of no use...no game requires more than 4GB max,,,a 16GB would be overkill-corsair vengeance will be best

-Instead of seasonic PSU go for corsair GS or cooler master GX 650 watt

-go for either corsair carbide or thermaltake v9 black edition(2 230mm fan) great cooling i am myself using it...

-Instead of HP drive go for Asus B3 or B5ST

-Intel core i5 2500k will be better considering the price as it is good for overclocking too otherwise go for 3570k but a bit costly (some heating problems for ivy processors,don't depend on stock coolers)

-don't buy nvidia 600 series cards..either go for AMD or wait for price drop...

-go for asus mobo only..they offer best features.gigabyte don't have cs support in every city(atleast in my city)

though alpha bro will help you much better than me....but still my experience.

Happy gaming...

[ALPHA17]

i would like to add some configuration here based on my experience-

-Go for 8 GB RAM instead of 16 GB as it is of no use...no game requires more than 4GB max,,,a 16GB would be overkill-corsair vengeance will be best

-Instead of seasonic PSU go for corsair GS or cooler master GX 650 watt

-go for either corsair carbide or thermaltake v9 black edition(2 230mm fan) great cooling i am myself using it...

-Instead of HP drive go for Asus B3 or B5ST

-Intel core i5 2500k will be better considering the price as it is good for overclocking too otherwise go for 3570k but a bit costly (some heating problems for ivy processors,don't depend on stock coolers)

-don't buy nvidia 600 series cards..either go for AMD or wait for price drop...

-go for asus mobo only..they offer best features.gigabyte don't have cs support in every city(atleast in my city)

though alpha bro will help you much better than me....but still my experience.

 

Counter-points --

• Any form of editing, begs for a ton of RAM, 4GB would not cut it. He is doing video-editing unless this is a Mac I can confidently say that at any given time ~8GB of RAM will be taken for rendering, post-processing and sundry filters which he will be playing around with.
  
• I have recommended a Corsair Carbide 400R, Thermaltake has no after sales in India (to my knowledge) and that is a serious handicap to me.
  
• He is not keen on over-clocking and the Core i5 3550 is equivalent OR superior to the Core i5 2500k and consumes lesser power.
  
• Any reason for the hate towards nVidia cards? Because the GTX660Ti is an exceptional performer but I do have doubts of it performing in the long run due to asymmetric V-RAM <--> bandwidth distribution.
  
• As far as I know the GIGABYTE motherboard that I have listed is perfect for OP's requirement unless he wants to go for a dual GPU setup / OR wants a bulky CPU cooler, which he will not require. He can a add a sound-card if he pleases, to improve the audio quality for editing purposes.

Here are a few benches of the GTX660Ti in action against AMD HD7870 2GB and HD7950 3GB --

GTX660Ti 2GB vs. AMD HD7870 2GB

GTX660Ti vs. AMD HD7950 3GB

 

Another reason, I am biased against nVidia in the long run is that their 1080p and above performance is atrocious.

 

Don't exalt me to be a a superior person, I can be very wrong in a lot of cases.

 

Hope this helps, Cheerio!

Edited November 28, 2012 by ALPHA17

[AK77]

no thermaltake has after sales support in india infact they have indian site too as compared to corsair....

you can't be dependent on an stock cooler for ivy processors that is a fact....

also for gigabyte mobo mentioned here- PCI expansion slot is weakly built(this is the slot which holds a heavy card, so we're expecting it to grap the cards firmly) statement from an owner of this mobo

also no sli support whatsoever

instead go for z68 or z77 chipsets(costly but future proof)

don't know about RAM requirement much for editing purposes

Edited November 28, 2012 by akshay77

[ALPHA17]

no thermaltake has after sales support in india infact they have indian site too as compared to corsair....

you can't be dependent on an stock cooler for ivy processors that is a fact....

also for gigabyte mobo mentioned here- PCI expansion slot is weakly built(this is the slot which holds a heavy card, so we're expecting it to grap the cards firmly) statement from an owner of this mobo

also no sli support whatsoever

instead go for z67 or z77 chipsets(costly but future proof)

don't know about RAM requirement much for editing purposes

 

^^

• Who does Thermaltake after sales in India? I have personal experience with Kaizen Infotech (Corsair's CC arm) and they are the best in India. SMPS replacement, flat 5 days delivered to your doorstep. No issues. Anyway the Corsair Carbide 400R is a superior cabinet than the Tt v9. Just because a company has an India site does not mean its after sales is good.
  
• Unless you intend to over-clock the stock-cooler is fine for AMD and Intel. AMD is better but Intel is also workable, it is only if you want to seriously have an ultra-silent setup that people go for a decent after-market cooler.
  
• PCI slot OR PCI express slot? Either way, he is not going to SLi so that is knocked out?
  
• There is nothing like the Z67 it is the P67, which is an not worth it, again he is not over-clocking why do you want him to spend over ~12000/- on a motherboard with features that add no value. You want a decent expensive motherboard go for the ASUS P8 H77-V ~9500/-.
  
• The B75 based GIGABYTE motherboard shares most features from its elder Z77 and H77 siblings, is cheaper, supports all the same processors. And you still want a more expensive motherboard for 'future-proof'? :ack:/>/> All these motherboards will be redundant next year onwards when Intel outs Haswell chips.

 

Also forgot to mention but the Seasonic S12II 520W is a better SMPS than the Corsair GS series and Cooler Master GX series, on note the GX650 is an archaic design -- GX series is teh PHAIL .

The Cooler Master GX 650W is the first Cooler Master power supply we have seen in a long time, and unfortunately it did not exactly leave me wanting more. Really it left me wanting some mouthwash to get this bad taste out of my mouth.

The Cooler Master GX 650W is a mediocre power supply for couple of years ago, and an outright failure today. The Build Quality of the unit is nothing to write home about (unless it is a warning), the topology is old and outdated, and the exterior is flash over substance. Coupled with this we have mediocre voltage, poor by today's standards efficiency, and out of specification DC Output Quality. One upping this poor showing is that fact that the unit was completely unable to complete our load tests at 100v AC input. That makes the GX 650W not just a failure by our standards, but rather a double failure and an ugly one at that.

 

A 750W unit tested on Johnny Guru could not provide more than 650W of power. Google it.

Edited November 28, 2012 by ALPHA17

[AK77]

clearly who will buy a b75 for a high end ivy processor

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/311613-30-comparison-chipsets

The B75 chipset designed for business orientated chipset. So there will be no overclocking feature but there maybe some remote access features like the Q67 and its soon to be follow on chipset.

 

The Z77 chipset is our performance orientated chipset and does allow overclocking.

 

Christian Wood

Intel Enthusiast Team

 

it all boils down to overclocking and sli future setup (he will waste money by getting a gtx 660ti if no possibility of sli)

[Ph3N0M]

He is not looking for an overclockable rig. Also, SLI is not really needed, as he can change the whole GPU once he feels the current one is obsolete for his needs, and that will be more efficient than a SLI of two STC 660 Ti.

[AK77]

He is not looking for an overclockable rig. Also, SLI is not really needed, as he can change the whole GPU once he feels the current one is obsolete for his needs, and that will be more efficient than a SLI of two STC 660 Ti.

21k will sell for not more than 5k when its price will be 10k...in sli he will able to max out anything

[ALPHA17]

clearly who will buy a b75 for a high end ivy processor

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/311613-30-comparison-chipsets

The B75 chipset designed for business orientated chipset. So there will be no overclocking feature but there maybe some remote access features like the Q67 and its soon to be follow on chipset.

 

The Z77 chipset is our performance orientated chipset and does allow overclocking.

 

Christian Wood

Intel Enthusiast Team

 

it all boils down to overclocking and sli future setup (he will waste money by getting a gtx 660ti if no possibility of sli)

 

^^ I most probably will and a lot of other users on tech forums, here is another forum I am active on and this board is pretty decent --> Techenclave.

 

He has a budget and I intend to stick to it. He has limitations and is definitely not going to over-clock, at-least he has not stated so. Hence, why burn cash on a feature / tool you do not intend to use. It is not as if, the price difference is less than ~2000/- quid. Just for a over-clockable setup with a dual-GPU supporting motherboard he will have to shell out an extra -->7000/- quid.

 

If you think you cannot game on a single card setup for 3 years, you must have very liberal parents OR access to a personal bank. I am living with a HD5770 since Jan 2010 and *touchwood* it is pelting a decent frame-rate till now (High --> medium on 1600 x900). Maybe when Oland outs I will get one of them, if budget permits.

 

Also, if you do not SLi / CrossFire now, no point doing it a year OR two later, till then new cards with more efficient architecture and same performance (as dual-GPU's) will be out. It will be an expensive gesture and in the long run is no good.

[piper]

If you only want the dabba, then this is what I suggest --

Intel Core i5 3550 ~13500/-

GIGABYTE-B75M-D3H ~4500/-

Corsair Vengeance 4GB x4 1600MHz ~6400/-

MSi / GIGABYTE-GTX660Ti 2GB ~21000/- OR Sapphire HD7870 2GB ~18000/- (OR wait till Q2 2013 to get a HD8*** cards from AMD)

 

I vote for an overclockable Sandy bridge (even 2500k will be good enough). Ivy bridge is better at stock, but overclocking generates a fair amount of heat. And Sandy bridge processors are not inferior in any way.

Bump up motherboard to a Z77 chipset, to keep overclocking option open. So that will cost in the 10k region

Take only 4x2GB RAM for now and utilise the saved money (3000+) for motherboard

GPU : wait a while until AMD's newest offerings are available.

 

I am hopeful regarding Piledriver CPUs as well, they will be great for the video decoding that Aman wants, but for gaming will have to wait and see how they turn out to be.

[ALPHA17]

I am hopeful regarding Piledriver CPUs as well, they will be great for the video decoding that Aman wants, but for gaming will have to wait and see how they turn out to be.

 

^^ Piledriver OR Vishera as they are now commonly referred to as, are not a great step-up compared to Intel offerings at the same price-point. In fact AMD should have released a delayed Vishera instead of Bulldozer.

AMD Piledriver review / Anandtech's Vishera review.

AMD does manage to pull away with some very specific wins when compared to similarly priced Intel parts. Performance in the latest x264 benchmark as well as heavily threaded POV-Ray and Cinebench tests show AMD with the clear multithreaded performance advantage. Other heavily threaded integer workloads also do quite well on Vishera. The only part that didn't readily beat its Intel alternative was AMD's six-core FX-6300, the rest did extremely well in our heavily threaded tests. Look beyond those specific applications however and Intel can pull away with a significant lead. Lightly threaded applications or those whose performance depends on a mixture of single and multithreaded workloads are typically wins for Intel. The story hasn't really changed in that regard. For AMD to become competitive across the board it needs significant changes to the underlying architecture, some of which I don't know that we'll see until the 2013 - 2014 timeframe. Even then, Intel's progress isn't showing any signs of slowing.

 

However the areas in which we'd recommend it are limited to those heavily threaded applications that show very little serialization. As our compiler benchmark shows, a good balance of single and multithreaded workloads within a single application can dramatically change the standings between AMD and Intel. You have to understand your workload very well to know whether or not Vishera is the right platform for it. Even if the fit is right, you have to be ok with the increased power consumption over Intel as well.

 

Pricing is also not great, since Bulldozer launch.

 

Again I reiterate that if OP is not keen on over-clocking there is no point spending on it. If he wants to over-clock, it changes a lot of equations though.

 

Also video-editing being what it is, I would suggest not to skimp on RAM, with what little knowledge I have on subject (thanks to Animation course I pursued) lack of RAM = LAG (consistent) and that is enough to make you not do the damn thing.

Edited November 28, 2012 by ALPHA17

[AK77]

^^ I most probably will and a lot of other users on tech forums, here is another forum I am active on and this board is pretty decent --> Techenclave.

 

He has a budget and I intend to stick to it. He has limitations and is definitely not going to over-clock, at-least he has not stated so. Hence, why burn cash on a feature / tool you do not intend to use. It is not as if, the price difference is less than ~2000/- quid. Just for a over-clockable setup with a dual-GPU supporting motherboard he will have to shell out an extra -->7000/- quid.

 

If you think you cannot game on a single card setup for 3 years, you must have very liberal parents OR access to a personal bank. I am living with a HD5770 since Jan 2010 and *touchwood* it is pelting a decent frame-rate till now (High --> medium on 1600 x900). Maybe when Oland outs I will get one of them, if budget permits.

 

Also, if you do not SLi / CrossFire now, no point doing it a year OR two later, till then new cards with more efficient architecture and same performance (as dual-GPU's) will be out. It will be an expensive gesture and in the long run is no good.

first of all i used all my life a pentium 4 PC with CRT monitor and bought a new PC this year only.......as far as new series series of gpu's are considered they will come every year....when 700 nvidia series will come then people will think of 800 and so on.....me and my parents thinking-buy it the best which will be future proof and no looking here and there after that....i have gtx 560ti released in 2011` i think ...i am able to play at high/ultra without any problems till maybe 2014 atleast....now i buy another one for 8k i can continue to play 2016 atleast with high settings....instead of buying another one for 20k....

Ultimately you have to start somewhere and buy things which keeps on evolving...i too could have waited for 660ti but i didn't and i am pretty happy with my decision

[ALPHA17]

^^ As my views are no longer solicited here. I will shut up and go to sleep, when Aman comes back and puts forth his views, I'll be back.

[Ph3N0M]

^ But then, you'll have to get a more expensive PSU, case, and cooling solution to make it run fine. Even a new UPS may be needed as dual GPUs consume LOTS of power. And even then, it will not be as efficient as the comparable single card solution of that time. So, as Alpha mentioned, if you are not going to go multi-GPU any time soon, don't consider it.

Edited November 28, 2012 by Ph3N0M

[AK77]

if it only adds to performance then why not! although i wont mind the possibility of upgrading if i desire............

 

clearly need is to get a z77 mobo

[AK77]

^ But then, you'll have to get a more expensive PSU, case, and cooling solution to make it run fine. Even a new UPS may be needed as dual GPUs consume LOTS of power. And even then, it will not be as efficient as the comparable single card solution of that time. So, as Alpha mentioned, if you are not going to go multi-GPU any time soon, don't consider it.

you get sli gtx 560 ti (for 20k) far better than a gtx 660ti (future selling for 5k again buying a 770ti for 20k)....still will play high setting atleast 2016

so aman go for gtx 660ti with z77 mobo

[ALPHA17]

you get sli gtx 560 ti (for 20k) far better than a gtx 660ti (future selling for 5k again buying a 770ti for 20k)....still will play high setting atleast 2016

so aman go for gtx 660ti with z77 mobo

 

^^ How will Aman profit, to power 2 x560Ti's you need a Corsair TX v2750W that costs us ~6800/- (add 2800/- over the Seasonic SMPS for a 660Ti / HD7870 / 7950).

 

Street pricing of a GTX560Ti is ~12000/- here in India, performance scaling is not going to improve over-time because it is not a top-end card and most chances SLi profiles will not be inclusive. Might as well get a HD7950 3GB in that price and live happily.

 

He needs a SLi capable motherboard, so here again we sink in ~16000/- for a motherboard that allows him that luxury (7500/- quid more than an ASUS P8 H77-V).

 

You say long term his advantage, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Who will buy a GTX560Ti for ~5000/- a-piece when ~8000/- priced cards will do the same job (in 2014) with warranty.

 

And for now I am not even including a -k marked processor.

Edited November 28, 2012 by ALPHA17

[AK77]

^^ How will Aman profit, to power 2 x560Ti's you need a Corsair TX v2750W that costs us ~6800/- (add 2800/- over the Seasonic SMPS for a 660Ti / HD7870 / 7950).

 

He needs a SLi capable motherboard, so here again we sink in ~16000/- for a motherboard that allows him that luxury (7500/- quid more than an ASUS P8 H77-V).

 

And you say long term his advantage, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Who will buy a GTX560Ti for ~5000/- a-piece when ~8000/- priced cards will do the same job (in 2014) with warranty.

 

And now I am not even including a -k marked processor.

you can get asus p8z77v for 12000 easily,i myself got one....i never said about gtx560ti for 5000 i said about gtx 660ti for 5k when new 700 will come.....

[AK77]

i will end this discussion here...lets the buyer decide what he wants....he has enough material here to read and decide....

[ALPHA17]

you can get asus p8z77v for 12000 easily,i myself got one....i never said about gtx560ti for 5000 i said about gtx 660ti for 5k when new 700 will come.....

 

^^ Okay, which city do you live in. The GTX660Ti will not drop to those prices, until you are selling it second-hand that too without warranty and then also do not care about recouping losses.

 

Seems like you missed the memo. The GTX560Ti is still retailing for ~12500/- (online prices are ~15000/-) when you can get a card for ~13500/- that sips lesser power and performs better (GTX650Ti). Do you think the card will sell at such low rates. Even second-hand pieces are going for ~7000/- + (thanks to warranty).

 

You need to wake up, my card the HD5770 is being re-packaged as HD6770 and still sells for ~4000/- (second hand) -->6000/- (3 years after launch).

 

A shameless company like nVidia that peddled the 8800GT successfully for 3 generations under 3 names (8800GT -->9800GT / 9800GTX --> GT250), do you think it is going to drop prices.

 

Source for motherboard price, does not change the fact that SMPS will eat into any of your so called 'profits'.

Edited November 28, 2012 by ALPHA17