Building a new computer

[Shodokan]

3.5 years later now with my own monies!

Anyway...

I'm looking to build a computer for under 1800 that has the capabilities to stream without stressing the computer out while 5 boxing so theres no performance issues. Currently everything just sorta gets choppy in game while streaming and the quality can't really be all that good due to most of my ram being used by WoW.

I'd like a computer i won't really need to upgrade for at least 4 years to run everything optimally. Maybe eventually 10 box or something silly with decent FPS.

Thinking something along the lines of...

I7 ivy bridge
32 gigs of ram
3 gig graphics card (maybe keep my current 1 gig as well in sli/cross-fire?)
700 watt power supply
Lots of fans since I don't really have the capital to do real liquid cooling
250 gig SSD for wow + windows + some video recording

Any other suggestions would be wonderful.

[Unded]

You probably need larger ps-700 watt seems kind of small. Are you re-using a cd/dvd drive? Make sure your vid card of choice has a large enough power supply to feed it-most cards have a minimum required depending on other things in your system of course.

[Shodokan]

You probably need larger ps-700 watt seems kind of small. Are you re-using a cd/dvd drive? Make sure your vid card of choice has a large enough power supply to feed it-most cards have a minimum required depending on other things in your system of course.

It said 500 for the card i was looking at, and i will be re-using my CD drive.

[remanz]

If no monitor upgrade, 1800 is more than enough. Above is right, 700 PSU is too low. Need at least 850 nowadays, IMO. And clean, stable power is very much worth it. So get those 850 Gold PSU. Cheap ones tend to have problems later on and it is not very obvious for you to diagnose (it leads me to think my MOBO or Graphic cards are dying when it constantly tries to reboot).

If you don't buy crazy input devices (200 dollar keyboard, 150 mouse, etc). $1200 is enough to build it.

I do think not need to upgrade in 4 years is a bit of stretch though. You gotta at least upgrade graphic cards in 4 years to keep up.

[Meathead]

Most of your power consumption is all up to your GPU and how many HDDS you got, You can run a decent card and all that on 700 And for your SSD I would not place games on it, maybe get another black hdd drive for games or get 2 and raid them :) I use my ssd for my OS and thats it,

[Meathead]

Good choice in memory is also a plus dont go buy the slow stuff just so you can have 32gig of ram pay more for less but alot faster for instance if you get the 1600mhz ram vs the 2200mhz, they are a massive drop. :) CD Drive wtf is a cd drive :P Everything is digital or USB install :P And with streaming it is also up to how fast your HDD or SSD is and CPU of course you should overclock your cpu abit more or go buy a stream box uses jack crap of your cpu and direct input from your gcard too it :)

[Shodokan]

I have my expensive keyboard and mouse and such.

Stream box?

[Meathead]

The Avermedia Live Gamer HD captures 1080P HD gameplay with extremely low CPU consumption and comes with a multitude of features

Its dam awsum thing :) well worth the money

[Shodokan]

The Avermedia Live Gamer HD captures 1080P HD gameplay with extremely low CPU consumption and comes with a multitude of features

Its dam awsum thing :) well worth the money

I'm just going to be streaming with like x-split. How would having a capture card help?

Also the card you listed doesn't work with x-split as far as lessening the burden on your CPU due to encoding. (hardware encoder not yet supported)

Unless you are telling me to use a secondary PC which honestly I don't know if thats a feasible option for me right now... and if it was I'm not sure how i'd go about using my stream to capture specific areas of the screen on another computer (unless x-split would work the exact same way and i could just use it like normal as if the capture device area would be my actual desktop)

If i left my current PC as is and basically got a second one completely (not sharing any parts) I'm not sure how i'd maintain my room temp with two pcs going or the cost of electricity.

[Meathead]

for the card here is in detail post about and how to use it with xsplit I have seen alot of streamers have it working with xsplit but I say it takes abit more then most streaming

http://www.xsplit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14488

[Shodokan]

for the card here is in detail post about and how to use it with xsplit I have seen alot of streamers have it working with xsplit but I say it takes abit more then most streaming

http://www.xsplit.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14488

I just want zero performance change for playing... if it takes another PC to do it then sure... but I don't really want to use HDMI to get sound out to another machine... which seems it is the only way to do it (i like my DVI)

It also says that I cannot use my USB headset as an input device as it won't pick up my mic or anything like that... so a 2nd PC might be out of the question.

This is what i have an idea to get...

http://i.imgur.com/NM0Fe.png

Any cons to the 6 core over the 4 core ivy bridge minus heatsinks/fan not included and the less cores?

[Unded]

You should like that Hitachi HD- I put one in my son's upgrade-it's pretty fast and seems reliable so far

[Meathead]

What I dont get is that, You are trying too say recording/streaming uses all the CPU but really there are software out there that utilize it so it uses nothing of your cpu. Dxtory go google it I use right now with 10 WoW's and it runs great no drop in performance

And about the Hitachi hdd they drop quite fast in performance and qulity in under a year, Lets just say they die really fast when you have alot of stuff on them

[Unded]

My son's Hitachi is going well after year or more.I'll have to check his model number again vs/what you have intended to buy.ymmv

[MiRai]

You probably need larger ps-700 watt seems kind of small. Are you re-using a cd/dvd drive? Make sure your vid card of choice has a large enough power supply to feed it-most cards have a minimum required depending on other things in your system of course.
Pretty sure you can run any and every single card GPU on a 700W PSU. The GTX 690 only requires a 650W PSU and that's a dual-GPU card, and two 7970's in Crossfire use up less than 650W. The only reason a 700W PSU wouldn't be adequate is if it's a super-generic model that doesn't have enough amperage on the 12v rail(s).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5805/nvidia-geforce-gtx-690-review-ultra-expensive-ultra-rare-ultra-fast/16

Those are watts measured "at the wall" meaning overall system-wide numbers.


Any cons to the 6 core over the 4 core ivy bridge minus heatsinks/fan not included and the less cores?
I think that statement is backwards, but if you expect more FPS by having more cores then you'll need a GPU to back that up. As for the SSD, I would choose something else besides an OCZ Agility -- Maybe something like a Crucial M4 or a Samsung 830 or an Intel 510/520. The Samsung 840 is about to come out as well and it's a beast of an SSD, but if you're running close on the budget then you might need to wait for one extra paycheck to afford the 840.

[Shodokan]

What I dont get is that, You are trying too say recording/streaming uses all the CPU but really there are software out there that utilize it so it uses nothing of your cpu. Dxtory go google it I use right now with 10 WoW's and it runs great no drop in performance

And about the Hitachi hdd they drop quite fast in performance and qulity in under a year, Lets just say they die really fast when you have alot of stuff on them

Dxtory costs what? Their website doesn't say.

[MiRai]

Dxtory costs what? Their website doesn't say.
¥3,600 (http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert/?Amount=3600&From=JPY&To=USD)

[Shodokan]

It also seems that Dxtory doesn't capture from a specific screen region nor a game source.

[Meathead]

Yes it does. Try it You have to open the game and dxtory will then link itself to your game

[Shodokan]

Yes it does. Try it You have to open the game and dxtory will then link itself to your game

I am not home to try it, so basically it is fraps.

[Ualaa]

I went with a similar system to your proposed system.
Being in Canada, I paid a bit more...

I went with a Corsair 1050 PSU; I like how it is modular, allowing you to only use the cables you require.
I probably don't need 1050 watts, but that future proofs the system to a degree.

The processor and motherboard are the same.
Rather than liquid cooled, I went with a Noctua NH-D14; that forced me to use low profile ram... but I don't need to mess around with liquid, and it is a cheaper option.

I also opted for 32GB of ram, but went with Corsair Vengeance (Low Profile) 1600Mhz CL8 (8-8-8-24).
As long as your ram is Quad-Channel, 1866CL10 is comparable to 1600CL8 in all the benchmarks I could find.
I went with 1600 because that's the highest frequency supported by the processor, without overclocking the ram.
I looked at G.Skill ram, but Corsair has treated me well in the past.

I went with an eVGA GTX670, 4GB Superclocked.
On the Tom's Hardware Graphical Hierarchy chart, they're the same relative power; my card seems a bit more expensive, but has 4GB as opposed to 3GB.

I had an OCZ Vertex 3, 120GB already.
So added a second, and did Raid 0 with them.
240GB SSD, but two drives instead of one for my OS/Gaming drive.
Access should be faster with two 120's striped, but I lose the TRIM command.

I opted for a Blu-Ray burner instead of a DVD burner, mainly to be able to watch Blu-Ray's on the system.
I didn't know you need a program to view Blu-Rays, which essentially doubled the cost of the drive.

I went with 6TB's of storage, but a 1 TB storage drive is plenty, and hard drives are cheap if you need more.
Plus you can always use an external USB 3.0 drive.





So far haven't really played with it much, beyond configuring the UI on a few teams.

Hyper-threading made a significant difference, going from an i5-2500K to an i7-2600K.
Cores mean quite a bit boxing; having six physical cores for ten accounts will be nice.