9 posts shown.
crimsonstag84 said:You're dead wrong about that. 😛
Honestly, even a decent 300 to 350W power supply would get the job done for you—it’s plenty of headroom—but that shop just doesn't carry anything in that range. If you're looking at what they actually have on the shelves, that Corsair unit is really the only halfway respectable option available.
If you go with an Intel build, you're getting a cooler right in the box—it’s quiet enough that you probably won't feel the need to shell out extra cash for a standalone unit. But if you're leaning toward one of those beefier AMD setups, I'd definitely suggest picking up a dedicated aftermarket cooler; those stock ones can be a bit of a noisy nuisance.
Timothy Kim60 said:That one’s just 16MB—honestly, it doesn't even matter for you since you won't feel any difference on an HDD (just like there's no real difference between SATA 2 and SATA 3).
Timothy Kim60 said:http://www.msi.com/product/mb/B75MA-...ml#/?div=Basic
Don't sweat the lack of a VGA port—there’s always a DVI to VGA adapter out there (and honestly, most dedicated graphics cards come with one included anyway)
In any case, you should probably grab one with a DVI output just in case you need it down the road
http://www.newegg.com/p/example1
http://www.newegg.com/p/example2
http://www.newegg.com/p/example3
By the way, if you aren't planning on picking up a separate graphics card, AMD actually has much stronger integrated graphics on the FM2 platform—it'll handle some casual gaming just fine (plus, in about two weeks, a new series for the FM2+ socket is dropping with even beefier integrated chips—the strongest they've ever made)
Timothy Kim60 said:Does gaming actually matter to you, or is it just a side thought? If you aren't planning on playing anything serious, honestly—just ditch the dedicated graphics card. You've already got integrated graphics on the processor, so you could put that money toward a better motherboard with an HDMI output (something like a B75 chipset). As I recall, that specific board might not even support that Ivy Bridge CPU right out of the box—you'd likely need to flash the BIOS first. It only starts supporting it from BIOS version F7, according to this cpu support list. On an H61 board, though, you'd get native support for that Ivy Bridge (3xxx series) stuff, along with those ASROCK or MSI video outputs.
The power supply should handle whatever you swap in—both that CPU and the GPU pull about as much juice as a lighter. Speaking of which, Spire power supplies are pretty bottom-of-the-barrel, but they'd probably hold up.
Also, that graphics card is a total waste of money. It’s terrible for gaming, and since you have integrated graphics for your display anyway, it's basically redundant. You could play some basic indie titles or older classics on the integrated chip just fine.
Look, just let me know if gaming is a priority and give me a rough budget to work with. For what you described—streaming, music, movies, and browsing—even a basic Celeron G1620 from $100
Timothy Kim60 said:I'm assuming this is some pre-built setup—those usually aren't worth the headache if you're looking for value.
So, what kind of budget are we talking about here, and what’s the actual goal for the machine? Is this for pure cash flow or more of a card-based thing?