[prasadnair]

phenom x6 1055t

asus m4a88-tm-evo

2x4 gb ddr3

Gts 250

wd 1tb

wd 500gb

lg dvd rw

cooler master elite 370

cooler master 650w psu

Dell 22in lcd


sempron 145

M5A78LM

2x2gb ddr3

lg dvd rw

wd500 gb

cooler master elite 310

cooler master 350w psu

Dell 18.5 in lcd


the first one is mainly used for video editing and gaming and the second one for browsing light gaming torrentz etc. i am planing to upgrade to i7 for editing

[mjumrani]

Originally Posted by r_devakumar

Thank you. Since i was never into games (though i was with computers for the past 20+ years), the GPU part never came into my mind. Please let me know if you have any specific suggestions on the change.

I have one related question now. From a quick search i found GPUs consumes more power (say 250W). In that case do i need to increase the capacity of the PSU and UPS?

Thanks for the detail. I am planning to do this by this month end or early next month, so will go with i5-3xxx + GPU

Thanks, but as of now i am planning to stick with Intel (though i don't have any specific reason for not going to AMD.

I would advise you to go for something in the AMD 77xx series to the least. The series below them are quite basic.
But be advised when and if running games at Full HD even that will not suffice until you reduce the graphics settings in the game.

The UPS will be more than adequate, be the APC 1KVA or 1.1KVA.

Only under load will the PC consume more power. 7 series GPU have an excellent low power state when idle.
So your PSU of 550W will be more than enough.

The only reason I would think to use AMD is when I want a processor upgrade friendly PC, else I wouldn't even bother. But this is a personal opinion.

My PC, which is running 24x7, has a pretty powerful combination with 9 HDD totalling 13TB, a very powerful GPU and i7 CPU (it's gem), 6 ram sticks etc has an idle power consumption of 230W, so yours will be much lower.

Also if you can go for WD Red drives instead of green or blue they are the best drives ATM besides Black which is significantly more expensive.

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by mjumrani

Also if you can go for WD Red drives instead of green or blue they are the best drives ATM besides Black which is significantly more expensive.

I think the original poster is doing the right thing by preferring Seagate Barracuda 1TB over comparable WD Green/Red/Blue. I do not think the WD Red drives are any better than WD Green drives which are anyway worse than the Seagate Barracuda. Both WD Red and WD Green are advertised as Intellipower but most people know that they are 5400 rpm. Seagate Barracuda (till 3TB) is 7200 rpm. Amongst the WD line, I would put only Velociraptor and Blacks as ahead of Seagate Barracuda. Velociraptor is hugely expensive and at that price there is little sense in using it as a boot drive especially as SSDs are cheaper.

In my opinion, the performance mechanical drives (excl. Raptor and 10-15,000 rpm drives) would be in descending order be WD Black, Seagate Barracuda, WD Blue, WD Green/Red. I do not see any sense in recommending a Green/Red drive as the first drive (to be used as boot device). Boot drive should be the fastest.

I have used and been using WD Greens from 1 to 3TB and they are at best storage/second drives. Access is mediocre and reads/writes are so so and worse than Seagate Barracudas. I also have used/been using Seagate Barracuda from 500GB to 4TB and also WD Blacks (1-2TB). WD Greens come off the worst in performance, followed by low capacity (500GB) older Barracudas, 5900 rpm Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB (now perhaps discontinued), present Seagate Barracuda line from 1-2TB, Seagate 4TB, WD Black 1TB. For the fastest performance drive I have used, it would be a tie between Seagate Barracuda 3TB and WD Black 2TB. By no stretch of imagination would most tech reviewers call WD Green/Reds as performance drives, or recommend them as boot disks. They can be used as an add-on but not as a primary disk. As per my understanding, WD Red is not significantly different/better than WD Green.

I have not used Raptor because I have a Intel SSD which serves as a boot device. After having used all of Seagate and WDs in the range of 5400-7200 rpm, I prefer a combination of WD Black (2TB) and >2TB Seagate Barracuda. There is also a 4TB WD Black competing with Seagate 4TB but it is more expensive (also has a longer warranty) and not suited for my needs. I have gradually disposed off lower capacity drives, and also WD Greens except for 3TB.

[r_devakumar]

Originally Posted by vasudeva

http://www.extreme.outervision.com/p...ulatorlite.jsp

550W seems adequate but go for >600W if you can afford the extra minor change.

Your UPS: I have a APC 1100VA UPS (same as yours) which barely gives me enough backup (1-2 mins). Yet I cannot buy a bigger UPS because of space constraints (need to spend >25K on a new study rack with more space to accomodate the bigger UPS). I use 1000W on a core i7-3930K, a GTX 560, 4 conventional hard disks, 1 SSD, 4 RAM sticks, one Corsair H80 cooler, and other smaller stuff. 800W would have been more than adequate but having underinvested earlier, I have somewhat compensated for that now.

Thanks. That link was helpful. Now more or less i am clear about what configuration i need to go for. Cabinet is the only one i am thinking i will look them in flesh at shops and decide as i am not able to make the exact decision by seeing the picture. Front USB 3.0 port is one requirement which may limits the options available.

I am planning to go to Delta peripherals in Ritchi street this week or next week to buy the components

There is no specific reason for choosing 1 TB as i have couple of external HDDs at home now.

[r_devakumar]

Originally Posted by r_devakumar

Thanks. That link was helpful. Now more or less i am clear about what configuration i need to go for. Cabinet is the only one i am thinking i will look them in flesh at shops and decide as i am not able to make the exact decision by seeing the picture. Front USB 3.0 port is one requirement which may limits the options available.

I am planning to go to Delta peripherals in Ritchi street this week or next week to buy the components

There is no specific reason for choosing 1 TB as i have couple of external HDDs at home now.

Got the work done last Saturday in Delta peripherals in Ritchie street. Total cost is 52,950/-.

Intel i5 - 3470, ASUS P8Z77-M PRO, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, Dell ST2240L 21.5 (HDMI, IPS), MS Wireless KB & Mouse, CM 311 Plus Cabinet, GUP ASUS NVideo GT610, Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo (CPU Cooler), Corsair VS Series VS650 650W PSU, ASUS DVD writer

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by r_devakumar

Got the work done last Saturday in Delta peripherals in Ritchie street. Total cost is 52,950/-.

Intel i5 - 3470, ASUS P8Z77-M PRO, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, Dell ST2240L 21.5 (HDMI, IPS), MS Wireless KB & Mouse, CM 311 Plus Cabinet, GUP ASUS NVideo GT610, Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo (CPU Cooler), Corsair VS Series VS650 650W PSU, ASUS DVD writer

I think you have built yourself a good system. When in cash, I would strongly suggest a SSD which should cost you 5-10K based on capacity but will make a huge impact on your system. After that if you run out of storage, consider buying higher capacity (+2TB) hard disks.

[AltoLXI]

I am planning to build the desktop system myself with budget of around 50k. The system will be primarily used for software development. I will be installing Visual Studio 2010, SQL Server 2008, Java development environment, MS Office immediately and later upgrade to newer versions as they become available. The OS will be Windows XP to start with and later to Windows 7. The system will also be used to play high end games, view films and videos.

I have planned the following configuration:

1. CPU - Intel Core i5 - 3570K
2. MOBO - ASUS P8H 77M
3. PSU - Corsair 500W (CMPSU500)
4. RAM - Corsair DDR3 8GB 1333Mhz
5. HD - Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3'5" 7200 RPM
6. Monitor - 20 DELL IN2030
7. Case - Mid Tower CM Elite 430
8. GPU - Sapphire 2GB 7870 DDR5 Flex Edition
9. CPU Cooler - Cooler Master Hyper TX3

The GPU can be, optionally, installed at a later date also.

Does the configuration look good and within budget? I am planning to buy components in Computer warehouse in Bangalore, reason being - I will get bills and warranty. Alternatively, are there any good shops in SJP Road where I can buy components?

As this is the first time I will be building the system, what are the precautions that I need to take care? I have read quite a few posts in tomshardware but could not find the nitty gritty's of building process. Not comfortable, for instance, with stuff like applying thermal insulation to CPU, proper cabling, proper setting of BIOS etc. My experience with hardware is limited to replacing CMOS batteries, changing n/w and memory cards, installing CD writers etc on my assembled Pentium PC.

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by AltoLXI

I am planning to build the desktop system myself with budget of around 50k.

My experience with hardware is limited to replacing CMOS batteries, changing n/w and memory cards, installing CD writers etc on my assembled Pentium PC.

If you are cool with the PSU then fine, otherwise go for a higher wattage. Rest of the system looks fine to me.

[agambhandari]

Hi guys, I am looking to build a budget HTPC shortly. This will not be my primary computer.
The only real needs are to be able to play and/or stream 1080p video, be snappy enough to handle regular tasks like Web browsing on Windows or view some books/magazines/photos on the big screen.

I only want to know the best CPU/GPU for the task right now.

I was looking at the AMD APU, because I mainly require graphics more than heavy processing. the A10 is really good, but the cost is a bit too much.
on the other hand, A4-5300 is the only cheaper alternative, but I am afraid it may lack the required CPU prowess. The GPU is great and more than adequate. A6 would have been the best options, but not in India right now.

Any experience with APU? Thanks!

P.S. -I love the branding that AMD has done, A4, A6, A8 good option for an Audi fanboy!

[r_devakumar]

Originally Posted by vasudeva

I think you have built yourself a good system. When in cash, I would strongly suggest a SSD which should cost you 5-10K based on capacity but will make a huge impact on your system. After that if you run out of storage, consider buying higher capacity (+2TB) hard disks.

Thanks for the suggestion. Checked the SSD details and price. I found one in Flipkart with 7K for 120 GB. Having the entire storage as SSD is out of question. Do you suggest to keep the OS and Application in SSD and other media files in normal HDD?

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by r_devakumar

keep the OS and Application in SSD and other media files in normal HDD?

One way is to let computer take that decision. I.e. let it put files that are used most often on SSD. Example of such files would be system files that are accessed during boot and programs (+media) that you use most often.

In other words, SSD would act as a cache for the HDD.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/24882...echnology.html

[vasudeva]

The best way is to keep OS and all programs on SSD and go for a 60-64 GB SSD if you do not install too many games. Keep all docs, photos, media, music, videos on a second disk which can be a conventional mechanical hard disk. Anyway you cannot keep all files on a single SSD because it will be very expensive. The biggest cap SSDs go to 480-512GB though close to 1TB are now appearing (Crucial). For laptops, higher cap SSDs make sense but not for desktop where one can have multiple disks connected, of which SSD becomes the active disk where windows +software is installed.

Keep in mind that usually higher capacity SSDs (>100GB) are faster than lower cap SSD but even a lower capacity SSD beats the lights out of a hard disk.

In windows environment, programs and OS are by default installed on SSD. So your entire SSD can be C: drive.

I usually create partitions on a secondary hard disk for each of the following: docs, photos, music, videos, etc/

One way to ensure that by default windows does not save non-OS files (docs, photos, videos, music) to C: drive is to modify the location of libraries. Immediately on installing win 7 or 8, go to C:\users\deva (say your user name). There you will see docs, music, etc. Right click on properties and enter the partition where you want that file to be saves. You will also see windows default as in C: drive. Just remove that.

Eg for music if I have created a F partition and named it Music, I will right click on music and have F:\Music.

[r_devakumar]

@NetfreakBombay, @vasudeva Thanks for the details. I am adding SSD to my wishlist and hope i will try this out sometime soon...

[vasudeva]

Originally Posted by vasudeva

In windows environment, programs and OS are by default installed on SSD. So your entire SSD can be C: drive.

Typing mistake, actual statement


In windows environment, programs and OS are by default installed on C: So install your OS on SSD. That becomes C: and subsequently the default location for all programs.

[safari_lover]

Guys, I don't know if I can post this here.

Mods, please delete this post if it breaks the forum rules in anyway.

I have a ~8 months old Dell XPS8500 desktop with the following configuration for sale.

Intel i7 3.4GHz, RAM 8GB, NVidia GT640 1GB, 24" LED Monitor, Blueray combo drive, wireless keyboard/mouse, 2TB HDD, et al. It has 1 year on site warranty from DELL that can be extended to three more years.

The system came with Windows 7 home premium installed and I bought and installed Windows 8 Pro through the Microsoft upgrade offer. So effectively there are two Windows (7 and 8) licenses available.

Please PM me if interested or for any further information.

PS - The system is in Bengaluru.