Edit: Facepalm at subtitle, it should be be, I was typing too fast.
So after all the looking around I've done, all the review I've read, and from my personal experience, I decided to make a wishlist of my perfect build. I didn't go for the $5000 super computer either, just a pc with a micro atx case(yes micro atx), single graphics card, and one hdd and one ssd. I wouldn't want or need more. I'll post a list of the parts and why I chose them, and I would also like to see what your dream setups are.
CPU - i7 2600k
Why: Because I know it provides no extra performance in gaming, it is still just satisfying to know you really can't get a much better processor and you don't have an itch to upgrade at all.
GPU - Single evga reference gtx 580 1.5gb
Why: One powerful gpu that can max out any game, and does not have micro stuttering problems or high power consumption like sli would. I know the 7970 is out, but the performance increase is fairly disappointing considering the gtx 580 came out well over a year ago. Also I am a bit of an nvidia fanboi, and although amd has fixed most of their driver issues, I still think that nvidia has the edge with compatibility and stability there. Also the blue evga 580 just looks ****ing sick.
Motherboard - Asus Maximux IV Gene-Z
Why: This is a feature packed micro atx motherboard. I would never use more than 2 expansion cards anyways, so why waste space? You can even run sli/crossfire on it if you want. It supports all the new features, like pcie 3.0, usb 3.0, z68, sata III, you get the point, lots of third gen tech. What isn't to like about this board?
RAM - G.Skill ripjaws X 16gb (4x4)
Why: Before everyone screams at me that I don't need more than 4, I know. I'm just picking this really just because it uses up all the slots on the motherboard, so nothing would be empty. That bugs me on my current build right now. That is really the only reason. So I might as well just get 16gb. Also these look ****ing sick too.
PSU - Corsair AX850
Why: It has completely black sleeved cables and is modular. That is all.
SSD - OCZ agility 3 120g
Why: A fast drive for windows and games/programs.
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 1.5tb
Why: It was cheaper than the 1tb, and is a reliable fast drive.
ODD - LG blu-ray burner
Why: I can watch blu-ray movies.
CPU cooler - Corsair H80
Why: Instead of having a huge hunk of metal hanging on my mobo, I can have a sleek elegant and compact cooler that does almost as well. I looks nice, performs well, and you can see the whole system easily.
Case - Fractal Design Define Mini
Why: The ultimate micro atx case. Cable management, looks nice, has great airflow, plenty of room, and I just like it.
Total cost of build on Newegg: $1,872(under 2k I know!)
I would take this build over just about any other anyday, it is just so perfect.
Post your dream builds if you want now, I want to see what other people like.
Dream machine as of now? Anything better than what I have, lol. I'll just list my dream hardware as of writing this post:
Ivy Bridge i5 'k' overclocked to 5.5-6.0GHz with a minimal change in voltages, liquid cooled
16GB DDR3 possibly OC'd
single GTX 760Ti 2896 core version overclocked by 60% with 4GB VRAM, liquid cooled
One 2TB 10,000RPM HDD with a single platter
one 500GB SSD with no write limit
Capture card powerful enough to capture raw HD (1080i/p) footage
Only requiring a 600w PSU on max load overclocked, possibly with an UPS
A case that PROPERLY gives heat the path of least resistance while also creating a strong vacuum
30-35" UHD resolution OLED or a similar tech monitor, horizontal. I want whites as bright as 10,000 suns and blacks 1,000 times darker than the inside of a black hole.
19" 1080p monitor, vertical (for coding/web browsing) 24x HVD drive
Custom flashed router (or PC acting as a router) with all the security/logging bells and whistles
Custom flashed modem to get passed bandwidth caps/bandwidth shaping/throttling
4x 2TB NAS for backup (half redundant RAID half non-raid) with an UPS
3x 3TB NAS for media (non-raid)
Low profile passively-cooled HTPC
Small web/email/game server, pref. a midrange next-gen xeon or similar, 24GB RAM, four 500GB HDDs in RAID with an UPS.
A 1Gbps U/D line for at most $50 per month with no cap, no throttling, no bandwidth shaping, no absurd packet priorities
40" UHD resolution LED TV
Flashed PS3/360/WiiU/PSVita loaded with homebrew apps and emulators
Satellite subscription where I can get any channel from anywhere in the world, and only pay for the channels I want at $5-10 per channel per month
ENTIRELY passively cooled netbook for taking notes/coding on the go (meaning no fan at all)
Raspberry Pi as a portable media player/portable plug-n-play computer/fun toy
At least I would be able to actually get mine without banking on rumors and paper releases.
:tongue.gif: I made most of that up, since it is technically a "dream" machine that will never happen until the hardware I wish for is outdated.
I would honestly just settle for the perfect desk + netbook.
Alas, they have yet to exist. (The netbook almost does, but they keep shoving laptop hardware in a netbook. THAT IS DEFEATING THE PURPOSE OF A NETBOOK. FFS KEEP PUTTING ATOMS IN THERE, LEAVE THE i3s OUT!!)
:tongue.gif: I made most of that up, since it is technically a "dream" machine that will never happen until the hardware I wish for is outdated.
I would honestly just settle for the perfect desk + netbook.
Alas, they have yet to exist. (The netbook almost does, but they keep shoving laptop hardware in a netbook. THAT IS DEFEATING THE PURPOSE OF A NETBOOK. FFS KEEP PUTTING ATOMS IN THERE, LEAVE THE i3s OUT!!)
I kinda meant dream that you could still actually buy, but sure, its ok if you want to dream that much too. And why a netbook? Maybe I just don't like them because I can't stand laptops of any kind.
I kinda meant dream that you could still actually buy, but sure, its ok if you want to dream that much too. And why a netbook? Maybe I just don't like them because I can't stand laptops of any kind.
Portable word processor/coding machine, really.
Tablets are more bulky, bigger, break easier, have flimsy keyboards (or worst case, no physical keyboard at all) and just overall aren't meant for it.
As for "actually by" just warp my dream stuff into hardware that is/will be available. :tongue.gif: I'm not terribly far off from modern hardware after all.
Tablets are more bulky, bigger, break easier, have flimsy keyboards (or worst case, no physical keyboard at all) and just overall aren't meant for it.
As for "actually by" just warp my dream stuff into hardware that is/will be available. :tongue.gif: I'm not terribly far off from modern hardware after all.
A 2tb 10,000rpm drive and a processor that will overclock to 6.0ghz, a 2000 core 760ti(nividia doesn't use that many cores), and it all only uses 600w? That is a little more than the tech that is just over the horizon, I think. But I see your point about netbooks.
I like the idea of a vertical monitor, but will it go well with that monster 30-35" monitor next to it?
Also I don't think a 760Ti will perform too well at 4k, even a 7970 may struggle quite a bit.
Overclocked by 60% with 4GB of dedicated VRAM it should be fine. :tongue.gif: But honestly I don't know the performance statistics of new Nvidia cards. I know the 7970 has a max resolution of 4k already, though:
I would like to know your budget and what you plan to put in it and what kind of specs you want.
Budget; well having a job that pays me only $2200 after tax a week; leaves me with $800 a week to play with after bills.
And ill wait till June for my next build (when this one becomes 8months old)
But ill give an update closer to june; just for you :smile.gif:
Budget; well having a job that pays me only $2200 after tax a week; leaves me with $800 a week to play with after bills.
And ill wait till June for my next build (when this one becomes 8months old)
But ill give an update closer to june; just for you :smile.gif:
Why build a new pc every 8 months? What a waste, just save the money and build a $2000 pc every 2 years?
3930k CPU, OCed as far as it can go.
No reason to pay the extra $600 for a bit of extra L2 and L3 cache. I'd go with the 2600k or the IB equivalent, but no 1155 board supports 4 way SLI/Crossfire (or am I wrong?)
Custom liquid cooling loop (though I have no idea how to make one) with liquid nitrogen (okay, maybe just water)
Epic cooling
ECS X79R-AX or GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD3
Wow, ECS?!? Surprisingly, this is a very capable board that supports 4 way Crossfire and SLI. The Gigabyte motherboard is also great, supporting 4 way Crossfire and SLI.
16 gigs of RAM (2 2x4 kits, because 4x4 and 2x8 are way too expensive)
Why not?
Whatever 2TB 7200RPM HDD
General storage. If I could share this between the Mini-ITX system and the game system, that would be awesome. Unfortunately, I doubt I could do that.
Whatever 200-300 gig SSD (probably Corsair Force 3)
For almost all my stuff. Currently I'm only using ~160GB, so...
4 7970s, whichever has the best cooling without jet engine level noise. Preferably a custom liquid cooled loop, but again, I don't know how to. I'd also OC them to the absolute limit.
Epic bragging rights and futureproofing.
SILVERSTONE ST1500
Unfortunately non-modular, but I don't know what else could power this system. There are some Thermaltake ones, but I wouldn't risk that.
Whatever CD/DVD/BD Burner
Why not?
This badass monitor combo
2x3 1080p displays with no bezel mounted together? Fapfapfap.
Windows 7 Ultimate and Ubuntu (why does everyone hate Unity?), possibly with Hackintosh too
Dual/tri-boot with the major OSes? Works for me.
HTPC:
A8 3870k
The best APU on the market.
Stock cooler
Silence doesn't really matter if I'm running this together with the gaming PC. No point in paying extra for a higher-performance cooler either, because I don't need to OC too much.
AsRock A75M-ITX
Since it's Llano, I only need the one expansion slot for the TV tuner
4GB of RAM
Don't need any more
Hooked up to the Gaming 2TB drive, if possible. If not, downgrade the gaming one to 1TB and get a separate 1TB drive for this
Storage of movies and ****, yo.
Integrated GPU
It's a Llano, so it's okay
Seasonic SS-460FL PSU
80+ Gold and modular? Yes please.
Disk drive shared with the Gaming PC, if possible. If not, another of the drives used in that.
Could be useful...
Either hooked up to one of the displays on the 6 monitor setup or hooked up to a stand-alone 55+ inch display, or switching between the two (there might even be a way to do that without moving cables).
Yeah.
UbuntuTV
For the HTPC win!
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250
From what I can tell, this is the best TV tuner. I'm actually thinking of getting an HTPC, so can I get feedback on that?
That's it! I might tally up the prices tomorrow... :wink.gif:
So after all the looking around I've done, all the review I've read, and from my personal experience, I decided to make a wishlist of my perfect build. I didn't go for the $5000 super computer either, just a pc with a micro atx case(yes micro atx), single graphics card, and one hdd and one ssd. I wouldn't want or need more. I'll post a list of the parts and why I chose them, and I would also like to see what your dream setups are.
CPU - i7 2600k
Why: Because I know it provides no extra performance in gaming, it is still just satisfying to know you really can't get a much better processor and you don't have an itch to upgrade at all.
GPU - Single evga reference gtx 580 1.5gb
Why: One powerful gpu that can max out any game, and does not have micro stuttering problems or high power consumption like sli would. I know the 7970 is out, but the performance increase is fairly disappointing considering the gtx 580 came out well over a year ago. Also I am a bit of an nvidia fanboi, and although amd has fixed most of their driver issues, I still think that nvidia has the edge with compatibility and stability there. Also the blue evga 580 just looks ****ing sick.
Motherboard - Asus Maximux IV Gene-Z
Why: This is a feature packed micro atx motherboard. I would never use more than 2 expansion cards anyways, so why waste space? You can even run sli/crossfire on it if you want. It supports all the new features, like pcie 3.0, usb 3.0, z68, sata III, you get the point, lots of third gen tech. What isn't to like about this board?
RAM - G.Skill ripjaws X 16gb (4x4)
Why: Before everyone screams at me that I don't need more than 4, I know. I'm just picking this really just because it uses up all the slots on the motherboard, so nothing would be empty. That bugs me on my current build right now. That is really the only reason. So I might as well just get 16gb. Also these look ****ing sick too.
PSU - Corsair AX850
Why: It has completely black sleeved cables and is modular. That is all.
SSD - OCZ agility 3 120g
Why: A fast drive for windows and games/programs.
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 1.5tb
Why: It was cheaper than the 1tb, and is a reliable fast drive.
ODD - LG blu-ray burner
Why: I can watch blu-ray movies.
CPU cooler - Corsair H80
Why: Instead of having a huge hunk of metal hanging on my mobo, I can have a sleek elegant and compact cooler that does almost as well. I looks nice, performs well, and you can see the whole system easily.
Case - Fractal Design Define Mini
Why: The ultimate micro atx case. Cable management, looks nice, has great airflow, plenty of room, and I just like it.
Total cost of build on Newegg: $1,872(under 2k I know!)
I would take this build over just about any other anyday, it is just so perfect.
Post your dream builds if you want now, I want to see what other people like.
i5 6600k 4.6ghz / MSI 280X / 8Gb 2666 DDR4 / Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 / TX550M / 500Gb 850 EVO / NZXT S340 / Corsair K65 / Corsair M60
CPU: Piledriver
Some of the info about trinity the mobile version of piledriver look promising.
GPU: 7970
Good upgrade for my 6970 and kicks the 580 in the balls.
Motherboard some asrock one.
Storage.
Another 1TB western digital drive for raid 0
A green drive for backup
and a 64gig SSD for Skyrim and Windows.
Ram
Would buy some faster ram because bulldozer unlike sandybridge sees improvements from high speed ram.
This is more if i won the lottery after piledrivers release.
thats about it for now; till July 2012, I wont be looking into any parts mobo to cpu wise
Why would you buy that case?
i5 6600k 4.6ghz / MSI 280X / 8Gb 2666 DDR4 / Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 / TX550M / 500Gb 850 EVO / NZXT S340 / Corsair K65 / Corsair M60
I would like to know your budget and what you plan to put in it and what kind of specs you want.
i5 6600k 4.6ghz / MSI 280X / 8Gb 2666 DDR4 / Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 / TX550M / 500Gb 850 EVO / NZXT S340 / Corsair K65 / Corsair M60
Ivy Bridge i5 'k' overclocked to 5.5-6.0GHz with a minimal change in voltages, liquid cooled
16GB DDR3 possibly OC'd
single GTX 760Ti 2896 core version overclocked by 60% with 4GB VRAM, liquid cooled
One 2TB 10,000RPM HDD with a single platter
one 500GB SSD with no write limit
Capture card powerful enough to capture raw HD (1080i/p) footage
Only requiring a 600w PSU on max load overclocked, possibly with an UPS
A case that PROPERLY gives heat the path of least resistance while also creating a strong vacuum
30-35" UHD resolution OLED or a similar tech monitor, horizontal. I want whites as bright as 10,000 suns and blacks 1,000 times darker than the inside of a black hole.
19" 1080p monitor, vertical (for coding/web browsing)
24x HVD drive
Custom flashed router (or PC acting as a router) with all the security/logging bells and whistles
Custom flashed modem to get passed bandwidth caps/bandwidth shaping/throttling
4x 2TB NAS for backup (half redundant RAID half non-raid) with an UPS
3x 3TB NAS for media (non-raid)
Low profile passively-cooled HTPC
Small web/email/game server, pref. a midrange next-gen xeon or similar, 24GB RAM, four 500GB HDDs in RAID with an UPS.
A 1Gbps U/D line for at most $50 per month with no cap, no throttling, no bandwidth shaping, no absurd packet priorities
40" UHD resolution LED TV
Flashed PS3/360/WiiU/PSVita loaded with homebrew apps and emulators
Satellite subscription where I can get any channel from anywhere in the world, and only pay for the channels I want at $5-10 per channel per month
ENTIRELY passively cooled netbook for taking notes/coding on the go (meaning no fan at all)
Raspberry Pi as a portable media player/portable plug-n-play computer/fun toy
A perfect desk to tie it all together
At least I would be able to actually get mine without banking on rumors and paper releases.
i5 6600k 4.6ghz / MSI 280X / 8Gb 2666 DDR4 / Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 / TX550M / 500Gb 850 EVO / NZXT S340 / Corsair K65 / Corsair M60
:tongue.gif: I made most of that up, since it is technically a "dream" machine that will never happen until the hardware I wish for is outdated.
I would honestly just settle for the perfect desk + netbook.
Alas, they have yet to exist. (The netbook almost does, but they keep shoving laptop hardware in a netbook. THAT IS DEFEATING THE PURPOSE OF A NETBOOK. FFS KEEP PUTTING ATOMS IN THERE, LEAVE THE i3s OUT!!)
I kinda meant dream that you could still actually buy, but sure, its ok if you want to dream that much too. And why a netbook? Maybe I just don't like them because I can't stand laptops of any kind.
i5 6600k 4.6ghz / MSI 280X / 8Gb 2666 DDR4 / Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 / TX550M / 500Gb 850 EVO / NZXT S340 / Corsair K65 / Corsair M60
Portable word processor/coding machine, really.
Tablets are more bulky, bigger, break easier, have flimsy keyboards (or worst case, no physical keyboard at all) and just overall aren't meant for it.
As for "actually by" just warp my dream stuff into hardware that is/will be available. :tongue.gif: I'm not terribly far off from modern hardware after all.
A 2tb 10,000rpm drive and a processor that will overclock to 6.0ghz, a 2000 core 760ti(nividia doesn't use that many cores), and it all only uses 600w? That is a little more than the tech that is just over the horizon, I think. But I see your point about netbooks.
i5 6600k 4.6ghz / MSI 280X / 8Gb 2666 DDR4 / Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 / TX550M / 500Gb 850 EVO / NZXT S340 / Corsair K65 / Corsair M60
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990X SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
CPU: AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core
CPU Cooler: CORSAIR H70 Core High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
Memory: CORSAIR Vengeance 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
Memory Cooler: CORSAIR CMXAF1 Fans
Vid-Cards: (x2) GIGABYTE GV-R797D5-3GD-B Radeon HD 7970 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX
Hard Drives: (x2) Crucial M4 CT512M4SSD2 2.5" 512GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive
Hard Drive Cooler: (x2) XIGMATEK HDC-D802 Aluminum Hard Drive Cooler for HDD Bay
NIC: VisionTek Bigfoot Killer 2100 Gaming Network Card
PSU: Rosewill LIGHTNING Series LIGHTNING-1000 1000W
Computer Case: Antec Lanboy air Red Black
Current PC's specs:
I wish I had known more about computers when we got this... *sigh*
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5349/asus-va278q-27inch-2560-x-1440-display-due-out-this-year
Overclocked by 60% with 4GB of dedicated VRAM it should be fine. :tongue.gif: But honestly I don't know the performance statistics of new Nvidia cards. I know the 7970 has a max resolution of 4k already, though:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103201
As for the 1080p being compatible, smaller screens with better pixels per inch between 15" and 19" are easier on the eyes for reading text.
Budget; well having a job that pays me only $2200 after tax a week; leaves me with $800 a week to play with after bills.
And ill wait till June for my next build (when this one becomes 8months old)
But ill give an update closer to june; just for you :smile.gif:
Why build a new pc every 8 months? What a waste, just save the money and build a $2000 pc every 2 years?
i5 6600k 4.6ghz / MSI 280X / 8Gb 2666 DDR4 / Gigabyte Z170X-UD5 / TX550M / 500Gb 850 EVO / NZXT S340 / Corsair K65 / Corsair M60
Gaming/all purpose:
3930k CPU, OCed as far as it can go.
No reason to pay the extra $600 for a bit of extra L2 and L3 cache. I'd go with the 2600k or the IB equivalent, but no 1155 board supports 4 way SLI/Crossfire (or am I wrong?)
Custom liquid cooling loop (though I have no idea how to make one) with liquid nitrogen (okay, maybe just water)
Epic cooling
ECS X79R-AX or GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD3
Wow, ECS?!? Surprisingly, this is a very capable board that supports 4 way Crossfire and SLI. The Gigabyte motherboard is also great, supporting 4 way Crossfire and SLI.
16 gigs of RAM (2 2x4 kits, because 4x4 and 2x8 are way too expensive)
Why not?
Whatever 2TB 7200RPM HDD
General storage. If I could share this between the Mini-ITX system and the game system, that would be awesome. Unfortunately, I doubt I could do that.
Whatever 200-300 gig SSD (probably Corsair Force 3)
For almost all my stuff. Currently I'm only using ~160GB, so...
4 7970s, whichever has the best cooling without jet engine level noise. Preferably a custom liquid cooled loop, but again, I don't know how to. I'd also OC them to the absolute limit.
Epic bragging rights and futureproofing.
SILVERSTONE ST1500
Unfortunately non-modular, but I don't know what else could power this system. There are some Thermaltake ones, but I wouldn't risk that.
Whatever CD/DVD/BD Burner
Why not?
This badass monitor combo
2x3 1080p displays with no bezel mounted together? Fapfapfap.
Windows 7 Ultimate and Ubuntu (why does everyone hate Unity?), possibly with Hackintosh too
Dual/tri-boot with the major OSes? Works for me.
HTPC:
A8 3870k
The best APU on the market.
Stock cooler
Silence doesn't really matter if I'm running this together with the gaming PC. No point in paying extra for a higher-performance cooler either, because I don't need to OC too much.
AsRock A75M-ITX
Since it's Llano, I only need the one expansion slot for the TV tuner
4GB of RAM
Don't need any more
Hooked up to the Gaming 2TB drive, if possible. If not, downgrade the gaming one to 1TB and get a separate 1TB drive for this
Storage of movies and ****, yo.
Integrated GPU
It's a Llano, so it's okay
Seasonic SS-460FL PSU
80+ Gold and modular? Yes please.
Disk drive shared with the Gaming PC, if possible. If not, another of the drives used in that.
Could be useful...
Either hooked up to one of the displays on the 6 monitor setup or hooked up to a stand-alone 55+ inch display, or switching between the two (there might even be a way to do that without moving cables).
Yeah.
UbuntuTV
For the HTPC win!
Hauppauge WinTV-HVR-2250
From what I can tell, this is the best TV tuner. I'm actually thinking of getting an HTPC, so can I get feedback on that?
That's it! I might tally up the prices tomorrow... :wink.gif: