• Budget gaming build for Kaby Lake Pentium G4560?

    From Jamie Kahn Genet@21:1/5 to All on Mon Sep 11 22:10:59 2017
    XPost: alt.games.diablo2

    So, I'm looking around at parts to build a budget (hopefully no more
    than $600 for everything but Windows 10 and the graphics card - which
    promises to be the most costly part! :-\ ) gaming PC that will replace
    my old and rather slow 2 core and only 2 thread setup that is mainly
    limited by its absurdly low RAM limit of 4GB.

    I don't need the very best performance, money is tight, and I usually
    only play older games anyway. Thus I'd really like to spend as little as possible, while still getting good performance with the older bargain bin/discounted older games I pickup, and the older MMOs I prefer. But I
    do want to future proof a bit. I don't want to find I can't play last
    year's title at all, a couple years from now, ya know? And I'd like the
    option to upgrade and add a few more parts (e.g. a CPU upgrade, more
    storage, a sata card to build a RAID from cheap drives, whatever the
    next generation of connector is down the road), later on as money
    becomes available.

    Plus I'm the kind of user who has four windows of dozens of tabs open in
    his web browser. That kind of behaviour has become super slow on my old computer.

    I notice that the Kaby Lake Pentium G4560 has what seems to balance surprisingly good performance for the Pentium brand (with 2 cores for 4
    threads in total) with a low price, e.g. [url]https://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/pentium-g4560-3-5ghz-3mb-cpu/26608288[/url]
    (assuming it comes back into stock in a timely manner). So assuming
    that's a good bet, I thought I'd try to build around that. Which I
    especially like, as I fear I might have to wait another month or two for
    enough cash to purchase a decent graphics card like the GTX 1060, so at
    least I'll have integrated graphics in the meantime to play around with
    and try everything else out.

    Thus I come to you fine folk, as it has been a very long time since I
    last built a PC, and I wonder what are good choices for the rest of the
    parts - case, motherboard, storage, RAM, PSU, fans - preferably aiming
    for a reasonably quiet setup, etc.

    Your advice would be much appreciated. I don't care about fancy designs
    and lighting. I prefer an inoffensive look that won't be out of place in
    a home office.

    Cheers in advance! :-)

    --
    If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From ~misfit~@21:1/5 to Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Ka on Wed Sep 13 14:34:46 2017
    XPost: alt.games.diablo2

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    So, I'm looking around at parts to build a budget (hopefully no more
    than $600 for everything but Windows 10 and the graphics card - which promises to be the most costly part! :-\ ) gaming PC that will replace
    my old and rather slow 2 core and only 2 thread setup that is mainly
    limited by its absurdly low RAM limit of 4GB.

    I don't need the very best performance, money is tight, and I usually
    only play older games anyway. Thus I'd really like to spend as little
    as possible, while still getting good performance with the older
    bargain bin/discounted older games I pickup, and the older MMOs I
    prefer. But I do want to future proof a bit. I don't want to find I
    can't play last year's title at all, a couple years from now, ya
    know? And I'd like the option to upgrade and add a few more parts
    (e.g. a CPU upgrade, more storage, a sata card to build a RAID from
    cheap drives, whatever the next generation of connector is down the
    road), later on as money becomes available.

    Plus I'm the kind of user who has four windows of dozens of tabs open
    in his web browser. That kind of behaviour has become super slow on
    my old computer.

    I notice that the Kaby Lake Pentium G4560 has what seems to balance surprisingly good performance for the Pentium brand (with 2 cores for
    4 threads in total) with a low price, e.g. [url]https://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/pentium-g4560-3-5ghz-3mb-cpu/26608288[/url]
    (assuming it comes back into stock in a timely manner). So assuming
    that's a good bet, I thought I'd try to build around that. Which I
    especially like, as I fear I might have to wait another month or two
    for enough cash to purchase a decent graphics card like the GTX 1060,
    so at least I'll have integrated graphics in the meantime to play
    around with and try everything else out.

    Thus I come to you fine folk, as it has been a very long time since I
    last built a PC, and I wonder what are good choices for the rest of
    the parts - case, motherboard, storage, RAM, PSU, fans - preferably
    aiming for a reasonably quiet setup, etc.

    Your advice would be much appreciated. I don't care about fancy
    designs and lighting. I prefer an inoffensive look that won't be out
    of place in a home office.

    Cheers in advance! :-)

    Unfortunately my last gaming build is the machine I've just went AFK on
    now - built in 2007 and updated as I could afford it.

    (ASUS P5K-E/WiFi-AP, QX950, 8GB RAM [max unfortunately], Samsung 120GB SSD. HD7770 graphics [due for an upgrade soon when I can find a second-hand card that's cheap, better and doesn't pull megawatts] with a couple mechanical
    HDDs, a 2TB and a 3TB.)

    I replied to say that I wouldn't consider a new build with only two cores (multithreading be dammned!). I consider four physical cores a bare minimum
    for a midrange gaming machine that's intended to last a few years. That said
    I didn't get my QX9650 for the first couple of years, I waited until I could get a then-obsolete NOS CPU for ~$250 and made do with an E4700 until then - which I've just this morning thrown in the rubbish as it's got zero resale value now..

    Others may say different but that my opinion fwiw. And yeah, I *really* know what it's like to be on a budget but I don't regret going without other
    things like food and a life for a few months 10 years ago to build a machine that's lasted me this long (and should go longer with a GPU upgrade).

    You say "build around that" w/r/t the CPU but I would say spend your money
    to get the latest mobo with the latest interfaces / busses that you can.
    *That* is what you build around. My machines Achilles heel is it's RAM limit and its SATA 2 (and only PCIe 1.1 so not worth putting in a SATA 3 card). Ancillary parts can be incrementally upgraded but only as far as the mobos
    IO speeds allow.

    Good luck!
    --
    Shaun.

    "Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM*."
    David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
    (*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jamie Kahn Genet@21:1/5 to shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com on Fri Sep 15 03:28:40 2017
    XPost: alt.games.diablo2

    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    So, I'm looking around at parts to build a budget (hopefully no more
    than $600 for everything but Windows 10 and the graphics card - which promises to be the most costly part! :-\ ) gaming PC that will replace
    my old and rather slow 2 core and only 2 thread setup that is mainly limited by its absurdly low RAM limit of 4GB.

    I don't need the very best performance, money is tight, and I usually
    only play older games anyway. Thus I'd really like to spend as little
    as possible, while still getting good performance with the older
    bargain bin/discounted older games I pickup, and the older MMOs I
    prefer. But I do want to future proof a bit. I don't want to find I
    can't play last year's title at all, a couple years from now, ya
    know? And I'd like the option to upgrade and add a few more parts
    (e.g. a CPU upgrade, more storage, a sata card to build a RAID from
    cheap drives, whatever the next generation of connector is down the
    road), later on as money becomes available.

    Plus I'm the kind of user who has four windows of dozens of tabs open
    in his web browser. That kind of behaviour has become super slow on
    my old computer.

    I notice that the Kaby Lake Pentium G4560 has what seems to balance surprisingly good performance for the Pentium brand (with 2 cores for 4 threads in total) with a low price, e.g. [url]https://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/pentium-g4560-3-5ghz-3mb-cpu/26 608288[/url] (assuming it comes back into stock in a timely manner). So assuming that's a good bet, I thought I'd try to build around that.
    Which I especially like, as I fear I might have to wait another month or two for enough cash to purchase a decent graphics card like the GTX
    1060, so at least I'll have integrated graphics in the meantime to play around with and try everything else out.

    Thus I come to you fine folk, as it has been a very long time since I
    last built a PC, and I wonder what are good choices for the rest of
    the parts - case, motherboard, storage, RAM, PSU, fans - preferably
    aiming for a reasonably quiet setup, etc.

    Your advice would be much appreciated. I don't care about fancy
    designs and lighting. I prefer an inoffensive look that won't be out
    of place in a home office.

    Cheers in advance! :-)

    Unfortunately my last gaming build is the machine I've just went AFK on
    now - built in 2007 and updated as I could afford it.

    (ASUS P5K-E/WiFi-AP, QX950, 8GB RAM [max unfortunately], Samsung 120GB SSD. HD7770 graphics [due for an upgrade soon when I can find a second-hand card that's cheap, better and doesn't pull megawatts] with a couple mechanical HDDs, a 2TB and a 3TB.)

    I replied to say that I wouldn't consider a new build with only two cores (multithreading be dammned!). I consider four physical cores a bare minimum for a midrange gaming machine that's intended to last a few years. That said I didn't get my QX9650 for the first couple of years, I waited until I could get a then-obsolete NOS CPU for ~$250 and made do with an E4700 until then - which I've just this morning thrown in the rubbish as it's got zero resale value now..

    Others may say different but that my opinion fwiw. And yeah, I *really* know what it's like to be on a budget but I don't regret going without other things like food and a life for a few months 10 years ago to build a machine that's lasted me this long (and should go longer with a GPU upgrade).

    You say "build around that" w/r/t the CPU but I would say spend your money
    to get the latest mobo with the latest interfaces / busses that you can. *That* is what you build around. My machines Achilles heel is it's RAM limit and its SATA 2 (and only PCIe 1.1 so not worth putting in a SATA 3 card). Ancillary parts can be incrementally upgraded but only as far as the mobos
    IO speeds allow.

    Good luck!

    Yeah, I'm definitely not getting one of the cheap motherboards with only
    two RAM slots, even if I can save a fair bit. At least 6 SATA
    connections and a couple spare PCIe slots after the graphics card is
    installed, is a must. Plus I'll be getting the latest lowend chipset,
    not one of the overclockable ones, nor the cheaper last gen models with
    BIOS updates to support the latest line of CPUs. I plan to keep this PC
    cheap and low end, so that basically means locked chips and GPU anyway,
    even if I upgrade later. I'm really not very keen on fussing with
    overclocking, regardless. <http://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/B250M%20Pro4/index.asp#Specification> is
    what I'm looking at right now.

    So long as I've modest options down the road to upgrade the processor, graphics, add storage, and a PCIe card or two, and the motherboard can
    handle the upgrades, I feel I'll be happy enough.

    My feeling is I start with the Pentium G4560 and no discrete graphics
    card. For storage I'll begin with a cheap regular HD with plenty of
    storage. A month or two down the road, if I'm happy with everything
    else, I'll pay the now too hefty price for a GTX 1060 or if I can't
    afford that and am done waiting - the GTX 1050 Ti. Then I'll upgrade the
    CPU next year if I feel it's holding me back. Later - whenever money
    allows - I'd like to buy an M.2 NVME SSD as a superfast boot disk. Then
    add more SSDs via SATA for faster game storage, with the original HD
    just used to hold my iTunes library and the like - anything I don't need
    SSD access speed for.

    Right now I'm struggling to meet my $600 budget for a decent beginning
    set of parts. At least if I want a decent setup that'll go the distance.
    I hate to go rock bottom and hit upgrade walls later on - you're dead
    right about that :-) I might wait another couple weeks, and try to
    gather another $50 or so, which should see me right. Better to wait a
    wee while longer, than make compromises I'll regret later, eh?

    Still, at least I have _some_ budget for a new gaming machine. Every
    time I thought I'd have some spare cash to do this in the past five
    years I've been keen on a new gaming capable computer, I ended up having
    to spend it elsewhere on a higher priority.

    I know it's a total first world problem, but the last time I was able to actually play and enjoy the latest releases (if only on low to medium
    graphical settings), was 10 freaking years ago. Even WoW basically
    became unplayable a couple years after that :-\

    Well, not counting my 3DS, though one could hardly call that bleeding
    edge, heh. But at least it allows me to play some online games with
    others in games whose age isn't in double figures.

    I really have begun to miss being able to share in some of latest or
    even semi-old the PC desktop gaming experiences others are having. I
    mean I love Diablo 2, heh, but I'm told there have been a few new action
    RPGs worth playing, released since then, eh? LOL.

    --
    If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From ~misfit~@21:1/5 to Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Ka on Sun Oct 1 13:14:10 2017
    XPost: alt.games.diablo2

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    So, I'm looking around at parts to build a budget (hopefully no more
    than $600 for everything but Windows 10 and the graphics card -
    which promises to be the most costly part! :-\ ) gaming PC that
    will replace my old and rather slow 2 core and only 2 thread setup
    that is mainly limited by its absurdly low RAM limit of 4GB.

    I don't need the very best performance, money is tight, and I
    usually only play older games anyway. Thus I'd really like to spend
    as little as possible, while still getting good performance with
    the older bargain bin/discounted older games I pickup, and the
    older MMOs I prefer. But I do want to future proof a bit. I don't
    want to find I can't play last year's title at all, a couple years
    from now, ya
    know? And I'd like the option to upgrade and add a few more parts
    (e.g. a CPU upgrade, more storage, a sata card to build a RAID from
    cheap drives, whatever the next generation of connector is down the
    road), later on as money becomes available.

    Plus I'm the kind of user who has four windows of dozens of tabs
    open in his web browser. That kind of behaviour has become super
    slow on
    my old computer.

    I notice that the Kaby Lake Pentium G4560 has what seems to balance
    surprisingly good performance for the Pentium brand (with 2 cores
    for 4 threads in total) with a low price, e.g.
    [url]https://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/pentium-g4560-3-5ghz-3mb-cpu/26 >>> 608288[/url] (assuming it comes back into stock in a timely
    manner). So assuming that's a good bet, I thought I'd try to build
    around that. Which I especially like, as I fear I might have to
    wait another month or two for enough cash to purchase a decent
    graphics card like the GTX 1060, so at least I'll have integrated
    graphics in the meantime to play around with and try everything
    else out.

    Thus I come to you fine folk, as it has been a very long time since
    I last built a PC, and I wonder what are good choices for the rest
    of
    the parts - case, motherboard, storage, RAM, PSU, fans - preferably
    aiming for a reasonably quiet setup, etc.

    Your advice would be much appreciated. I don't care about fancy
    designs and lighting. I prefer an inoffensive look that won't be out
    of place in a home office.

    Cheers in advance! :-)

    Unfortunately my last gaming build is the machine I've just went AFK
    on
    now - built in 2007 and updated as I could afford it.

    (ASUS P5K-E/WiFi-AP, QX950, 8GB RAM [max unfortunately], Samsung
    120GB SSD. HD7770 graphics [due for an upgrade soon when I can find
    a second-hand card that's cheap, better and doesn't pull megawatts]
    with a couple mechanical HDDs, a 2TB and a 3TB.)

    I replied to say that I wouldn't consider a new build with only two
    cores (multithreading be dammned!). I consider four physical cores a
    bare minimum for a midrange gaming machine that's intended to last a
    few years. That said I didn't get my QX9650 for the first couple of
    years, I waited until I could get a then-obsolete NOS CPU for ~$250
    and made do with an E4700 until then - which I've just this morning
    thrown in the rubbish as it's got zero resale value now..

    Others may say different but that my opinion fwiw. And yeah, I
    *really* know what it's like to be on a budget but I don't regret
    going without other things like food and a life for a few months 10
    years ago to build a machine that's lasted me this long (and should
    go longer with a GPU upgrade).

    You say "build around that" w/r/t the CPU but I would say spend your
    money to get the latest mobo with the latest interfaces / busses
    that you can. *That* is what you build around. My machines Achilles
    heel is it's RAM limit and its SATA 2 (and only PCIe 1.1 so not
    worth putting in a SATA 3 card). Ancillary parts can be
    incrementally upgraded but only as far as the mobos IO speeds allow.

    Good luck!

    Yeah, I'm definitely not getting one of the cheap motherboards with
    only two RAM slots, even if I can save a fair bit. At least 6 SATA connections and a couple spare PCIe slots after the graphics card is installed, is a must. Plus I'll be getting the latest lowend chipset,
    not one of the overclockable ones, nor the cheaper last gen models
    with BIOS updates to support the latest line of CPUs. I plan to keep
    this PC cheap and low end, so that basically means locked chips and
    GPU anyway, even if I upgrade later. I'm really not very keen on
    fussing with overclocking, regardless. <http://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/B250M%20Pro4/index.asp#Specification>
    is what I'm looking at right now.

    So long as I've modest options down the road to upgrade the processor, graphics, add storage, and a PCIe card or two, and the motherboard can
    handle the upgrades, I feel I'll be happy enough.

    My feeling is I start with the Pentium G4560 and no discrete graphics
    card. For storage I'll begin with a cheap regular HD with plenty of
    storage. A month or two down the road, if I'm happy with everything
    else, I'll pay the now too hefty price for a GTX 1060 or if I can't
    afford that and am done waiting - the GTX 1050 Ti. Then I'll upgrade
    the CPU next year if I feel it's holding me back. Later - whenever
    money allows - I'd like to buy an M.2 NVME SSD as a superfast boot
    disk. Then add more SSDs via SATA for faster game storage, with the
    original HD just used to hold my iTunes library and the like -
    anything I don't need SSD access speed for.

    Right now I'm struggling to meet my $600 budget for a decent beginning
    set of parts. At least if I want a decent setup that'll go the
    distance. I hate to go rock bottom and hit upgrade walls later on -
    you're dead right about that :-) I might wait another couple weeks,
    and try to gather another $50 or so, which should see me right.
    Better to wait a wee while longer, than make compromises I'll regret
    later, eh?

    Still, at least I have _some_ budget for a new gaming machine. Every
    time I thought I'd have some spare cash to do this in the past five
    years I've been keen on a new gaming capable computer, I ended up
    having to spend it elsewhere on a higher priority.

    I know it's a total first world problem, but the last time I was able
    to actually play and enjoy the latest releases (if only on low to
    medium graphical settings), was 10 freaking years ago. Even WoW
    basically became unplayable a couple years after that :-\

    Well, not counting my 3DS, though one could hardly call that bleeding
    edge, heh. But at least it allows me to play some online games with
    others in games whose age isn't in double figures.

    I really have begun to miss being able to share in some of latest or
    even semi-old the PC desktop gaming experiences others are having. I
    mean I love Diablo 2, heh, but I'm told there have been a few new
    action RPGs worth playing, released since then, eh? LOL.

    Heh! Sorry for the late reply.

    Sounds like a plan. My method was always to get the best motherboard I could and them go from there, often getting 'place-holder' parts along the way.
    Even if you can't build a machine all at once often it's best to make a
    start at getting components before life throws up something else that
    demands the money be spent elsewhere...

    I would suggest a cheapish SSD as mandatory for OS / games from the start though (I've been using 120GB Samsung Evo SSDs). It's amazing how much more playable most games become when I/O lag is minimalised. The benefit can be
    more than having a faster GPU in some cases.

    Good luck.
    --
    Shaun.

    "Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM*."
    David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
    (*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jamie Kahn Genet@21:1/5 to shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com on Sun Oct 1 14:37:58 2017
    XPost: alt.games.diablo2

    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    So, I'm looking around at parts to build a budget (hopefully no more
    than $600 for everything but Windows 10 and the graphics card -
    which promises to be the most costly part! :-\ ) gaming PC that
    will replace my old and rather slow 2 core and only 2 thread setup
    that is mainly limited by its absurdly low RAM limit of 4GB.

    I don't need the very best performance, money is tight, and I
    usually only play older games anyway. Thus I'd really like to spend
    as little as possible, while still getting good performance with
    the older bargain bin/discounted older games I pickup, and the
    older MMOs I prefer. But I do want to future proof a bit. I don't
    want to find I can't play last year's title at all, a couple years
    from now, ya
    know? And I'd like the option to upgrade and add a few more parts
    (e.g. a CPU upgrade, more storage, a sata card to build a RAID from
    cheap drives, whatever the next generation of connector is down the
    road), later on as money becomes available.

    Plus I'm the kind of user who has four windows of dozens of tabs
    open in his web browser. That kind of behaviour has become super
    slow on
    my old computer.

    I notice that the Kaby Lake Pentium G4560 has what seems to balance
    surprisingly good performance for the Pentium brand (with 2 cores
    for 4 threads in total) with a low price, e.g.
    [url]https://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/pentium-g4560-3-5ghz-3mb-cpu/26 >>> 608288[/url] (assuming it comes back into stock in a timely
    manner). So assuming that's a good bet, I thought I'd try to build
    around that. Which I especially like, as I fear I might have to
    wait another month or two for enough cash to purchase a decent
    graphics card like the GTX 1060, so at least I'll have integrated
    graphics in the meantime to play around with and try everything
    else out.

    Thus I come to you fine folk, as it has been a very long time since
    I last built a PC, and I wonder what are good choices for the rest
    of
    the parts - case, motherboard, storage, RAM, PSU, fans - preferably
    aiming for a reasonably quiet setup, etc.

    Your advice would be much appreciated. I don't care about fancy
    designs and lighting. I prefer an inoffensive look that won't be out
    of place in a home office.

    Cheers in advance! :-)

    Unfortunately my last gaming build is the machine I've just went AFK
    on
    now - built in 2007 and updated as I could afford it.

    (ASUS P5K-E/WiFi-AP, QX950, 8GB RAM [max unfortunately], Samsung
    120GB SSD. HD7770 graphics [due for an upgrade soon when I can find
    a second-hand card that's cheap, better and doesn't pull megawatts]
    with a couple mechanical HDDs, a 2TB and a 3TB.)

    I replied to say that I wouldn't consider a new build with only two
    cores (multithreading be dammned!). I consider four physical cores a
    bare minimum for a midrange gaming machine that's intended to last a
    few years. That said I didn't get my QX9650 for the first couple of
    years, I waited until I could get a then-obsolete NOS CPU for ~$250
    and made do with an E4700 until then - which I've just this morning
    thrown in the rubbish as it's got zero resale value now..

    Others may say different but that my opinion fwiw. And yeah, I
    *really* know what it's like to be on a budget but I don't regret
    going without other things like food and a life for a few months 10
    years ago to build a machine that's lasted me this long (and should
    go longer with a GPU upgrade).

    You say "build around that" w/r/t the CPU but I would say spend your
    money to get the latest mobo with the latest interfaces / busses
    that you can. *That* is what you build around. My machines Achilles
    heel is it's RAM limit and its SATA 2 (and only PCIe 1.1 so not
    worth putting in a SATA 3 card). Ancillary parts can be
    incrementally upgraded but only as far as the mobos IO speeds allow.

    Good luck!

    Yeah, I'm definitely not getting one of the cheap motherboards with
    only two RAM slots, even if I can save a fair bit. At least 6 SATA connections and a couple spare PCIe slots after the graphics card is installed, is a must. Plus I'll be getting the latest lowend chipset,
    not one of the overclockable ones, nor the cheaper last gen models
    with BIOS updates to support the latest line of CPUs. I plan to keep
    this PC cheap and low end, so that basically means locked chips and
    GPU anyway, even if I upgrade later. I'm really not very keen on
    fussing with overclocking, regardless. <http://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/B250M%20Pro4/index.asp#Specification>
    is what I'm looking at right now.

    So long as I've modest options down the road to upgrade the processor, graphics, add storage, and a PCIe card or two, and the motherboard can handle the upgrades, I feel I'll be happy enough.

    My feeling is I start with the Pentium G4560 and no discrete graphics
    card. For storage I'll begin with a cheap regular HD with plenty of storage. A month or two down the road, if I'm happy with everything
    else, I'll pay the now too hefty price for a GTX 1060 or if I can't
    afford that and am done waiting - the GTX 1050 Ti. Then I'll upgrade
    the CPU next year if I feel it's holding me back. Later - whenever
    money allows - I'd like to buy an M.2 NVME SSD as a superfast boot
    disk. Then add more SSDs via SATA for faster game storage, with the original HD just used to hold my iTunes library and the like -
    anything I don't need SSD access speed for.

    Right now I'm struggling to meet my $600 budget for a decent beginning
    set of parts. At least if I want a decent setup that'll go the
    distance. I hate to go rock bottom and hit upgrade walls later on -
    you're dead right about that :-) I might wait another couple weeks,
    and try to gather another $50 or so, which should see me right.
    Better to wait a wee while longer, than make compromises I'll regret
    later, eh?

    Still, at least I have _some_ budget for a new gaming machine. Every
    time I thought I'd have some spare cash to do this in the past five
    years I've been keen on a new gaming capable computer, I ended up
    having to spend it elsewhere on a higher priority.

    I know it's a total first world problem, but the last time I was able
    to actually play and enjoy the latest releases (if only on low to
    medium graphical settings), was 10 freaking years ago. Even WoW
    basically became unplayable a couple years after that :-\

    Well, not counting my 3DS, though one could hardly call that bleeding
    edge, heh. But at least it allows me to play some online games with
    others in games whose age isn't in double figures.

    I really have begun to miss being able to share in some of latest or
    even semi-old the PC desktop gaming experiences others are having. I
    mean I love Diablo 2, heh, but I'm told there have been a few new
    action RPGs worth playing, released since then, eh? LOL.

    Heh! Sorry for the late reply.

    Sounds like a plan. My method was always to get the best motherboard I could and them go from there, often getting 'place-holder' parts along the way. Even if you can't build a machine all at once often it's best to make a
    start at getting components before life throws up something else that
    demands the money be spent elsewhere...

    I would suggest a cheapish SSD as mandatory for OS / games from the start though (I've been using 120GB Samsung Evo SSDs). It's amazing how much more playable most games become when I/O lag is minimalised. The benefit can be more than having a faster GPU in some cases.

    Good luck.

    No worries, mate :-) I'm taking ages to save a bit more, anyway. So I've
    only bought the CPU (Pentium G4560), power supply (FSP HYDRO-600W PSU),
    case (Silverstone Precision Series PS09B Mini Tower Case), and a dirt
    cheap $24 Asus Internal Optical Drive. Then my money ran out, heh. I had
    an extra bill to pay the other week, or I'd have at least one other
    major component by now. But that's life, eh? Heh.

    No sense waiting since I had found good prices on all the above, and
    didn't want to miss out. The Pentium has already climbed another $10.

    I only need the motherboard, RAM, and an SSD (Yeah, I changed my mind
    there and am going for an SSD first - you're right that it's a sweet performance boost and I'd be hobbling myself with a boot HD. Though I
    could clone a boot HD to SSD later, the cost difference is only a little
    bit to save) to begin the build. I want to wait till I can afford a
    decent sized SSD, as right now only a bottom rung 120GB model is within
    my price range, and for best price per GB and reasonable storage space,
    I'm better off getting at least a around a 500GB model.

    Later I'll add a regular HD or two (depending on price - I figure can
    always combine them using RAID) for my iTunes library, documents,
    BitTorrent files, videos, images, etc. And then another larger HD for
    backup. Since everything is already on my current computer and backed up
    from there, I feel I can safely be a bit lapse with backup on the new
    PC, till I fully transition to it being my main computer, anyway.

    The Graphics card will have to wait till next year. Maybe it can be my
    April birthday present to myself. I cannot find any that are decent performance/value at anything close to actual MSRP :-( Damn you Bitcoin
    mining! And it seems pointless wasting money on a very low end card that
    would only be a slight improvement over the Pentium's integrated
    graphics (which actually still blow my current computer's graphics
    system out of the water, heh, so it's not like the Pentium's integrated graphics won't still feel like a big upgrade to me! :-) ).

    Anyway - that's the new slightly modified plan that is taking shape. I'm
    happy - I tell myself - if I can at least buy one part per week, heh.
    Even if last week it was only a $24 optical drive. This week it'll be
    the ASRock B250M Pro4 motherboard (yeah - not the greatest, but I don't
    plan on ever overclocking, as I said, and it is only lacking in SATA
    ports for my modest needs, and a SATA PCIe card will sort that for the
    future), providing my week pans out financially. It's price hasn't
    changed at all since I started looking, so I might as well. Or RAM if
    there's a nice special.

    I'm not sure whether I'll begin with 1 x 8GB or 2 x 4GB RAM. I know I
    can get a wee performance boost from matched pairs, but then again I'd
    be happier, I think, to fill out all four slots with 8GB sticks over
    time, as I have never ever had enough RAM on any of my computers. And
    8GB sticks are affordable. But 16GB sticks are out of my price range value-wise.

    What d'ya reckon?
    --
    If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From ~misfit~@21:1/5 to Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Ka on Tue Oct 3 15:10:15 2017
    XPost: alt.games.diablo2

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    So, I'm looking around at parts to build a budget (hopefully no
    more than $600 for everything but Windows 10 and the graphics
    card - which promises to be the most costly part! :-\ ) gaming PC
    that will replace my old and rather slow 2 core and only 2 thread
    setup that is mainly limited by its absurdly low RAM limit of 4GB.

    I don't need the very best performance, money is tight, and I
    usually only play older games anyway. Thus I'd really like to
    spend as little as possible, while still getting good performance
    with the older bargain bin/discounted older games I pickup, and
    the older MMOs I prefer. But I do want to future proof a bit. I
    don't want to find I can't play last year's title at all, a
    couple years from now, ya
    know? And I'd like the option to upgrade and add a few more parts
    (e.g. a CPU upgrade, more storage, a sata card to build a RAID
    from cheap drives, whatever the next generation of connector is
    down the road), later on as money becomes available.

    Plus I'm the kind of user who has four windows of dozens of tabs
    open in his web browser. That kind of behaviour has become super
    slow on
    my old computer.

    I notice that the Kaby Lake Pentium G4560 has what seems to
    balance surprisingly good performance for the Pentium brand (with
    2 cores for 4 threads in total) with a low price, e.g.
    [url]https://www.mightyape.co.nz/product/pentium-g4560-3-5ghz-3mb-cpu/26 >>>>> 608288[/url] (assuming it comes back into stock in a timely
    manner). So assuming that's a good bet, I thought I'd try to build
    around that. Which I especially like, as I fear I might have to
    wait another month or two for enough cash to purchase a decent
    graphics card like the GTX 1060, so at least I'll have integrated
    graphics in the meantime to play around with and try everything
    else out.

    Thus I come to you fine folk, as it has been a very long time
    since I last built a PC, and I wonder what are good choices for
    the rest of
    the parts - case, motherboard, storage, RAM, PSU, fans -
    preferably aiming for a reasonably quiet setup, etc.

    Your advice would be much appreciated. I don't care about fancy
    designs and lighting. I prefer an inoffensive look that won't be
    out of place in a home office.

    Cheers in advance! :-)

    Unfortunately my last gaming build is the machine I've just went
    AFK on
    now - built in 2007 and updated as I could afford it.

    (ASUS P5K-E/WiFi-AP, QX950, 8GB RAM [max unfortunately], Samsung
    120GB SSD. HD7770 graphics [due for an upgrade soon when I can find
    a second-hand card that's cheap, better and doesn't pull megawatts]
    with a couple mechanical HDDs, a 2TB and a 3TB.)

    I replied to say that I wouldn't consider a new build with only two
    cores (multithreading be dammned!). I consider four physical cores
    a bare minimum for a midrange gaming machine that's intended to
    last a few years. That said I didn't get my QX9650 for the first
    couple of years, I waited until I could get a then-obsolete NOS
    CPU for ~$250 and made do with an E4700 until then - which I've
    just this morning thrown in the rubbish as it's got zero resale
    value now..

    Others may say different but that my opinion fwiw. And yeah, I
    *really* know what it's like to be on a budget but I don't regret
    going without other things like food and a life for a few months 10
    years ago to build a machine that's lasted me this long (and should
    go longer with a GPU upgrade).

    You say "build around that" w/r/t the CPU but I would say spend
    your money to get the latest mobo with the latest interfaces /
    busses that you can. *That* is what you build around. My machines
    Achilles heel is it's RAM limit and its SATA 2 (and only PCIe 1.1
    so not worth putting in a SATA 3 card). Ancillary parts can be
    incrementally upgraded but only as far as the mobos IO speeds
    allow.

    Good luck!

    Yeah, I'm definitely not getting one of the cheap motherboards with
    only two RAM slots, even if I can save a fair bit. At least 6 SATA
    connections and a couple spare PCIe slots after the graphics card is
    installed, is a must. Plus I'll be getting the latest lowend
    chipset, not one of the overclockable ones, nor the cheaper last
    gen models with BIOS updates to support the latest line of CPUs. I
    plan to keep this PC cheap and low end, so that basically means
    locked chips and GPU anyway, even if I upgrade later. I'm really
    not very keen on fussing with overclocking, regardless.
    <http://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/B250M%20Pro4/index.asp#Specification>
    is what I'm looking at right now.

    So long as I've modest options down the road to upgrade the
    processor, graphics, add storage, and a PCIe card or two, and the
    motherboard can handle the upgrades, I feel I'll be happy enough.

    My feeling is I start with the Pentium G4560 and no discrete
    graphics card. For storage I'll begin with a cheap regular HD with
    plenty of storage. A month or two down the road, if I'm happy with
    everything else, I'll pay the now too hefty price for a GTX 1060 or
    if I can't afford that and am done waiting - the GTX 1050 Ti. Then
    I'll upgrade the CPU next year if I feel it's holding me back.
    Later - whenever money allows - I'd like to buy an M.2 NVME SSD as
    a superfast boot disk. Then add more SSDs via SATA for faster game
    storage, with the original HD just used to hold my iTunes library
    and the like - anything I don't need SSD access speed for.

    Right now I'm struggling to meet my $600 budget for a decent
    beginning set of parts. At least if I want a decent setup that'll
    go the distance. I hate to go rock bottom and hit upgrade walls
    later on - you're dead right about that :-) I might wait another
    couple weeks, and try to gather another $50 or so, which should see
    me right. Better to wait a wee while longer, than make compromises
    I'll regret later, eh?

    Still, at least I have _some_ budget for a new gaming machine. Every
    time I thought I'd have some spare cash to do this in the past five
    years I've been keen on a new gaming capable computer, I ended up
    having to spend it elsewhere on a higher priority.

    I know it's a total first world problem, but the last time I was
    able to actually play and enjoy the latest releases (if only on low
    to medium graphical settings), was 10 freaking years ago. Even WoW
    basically became unplayable a couple years after that :-\

    Well, not counting my 3DS, though one could hardly call that
    bleeding edge, heh. But at least it allows me to play some online
    games with others in games whose age isn't in double figures.

    I really have begun to miss being able to share in some of latest or
    even semi-old the PC desktop gaming experiences others are having. I
    mean I love Diablo 2, heh, but I'm told there have been a few new
    action RPGs worth playing, released since then, eh? LOL.

    Heh! Sorry for the late reply.

    Sounds like a plan. My method was always to get the best motherboard
    I could and them go from there, often getting 'place-holder' parts
    along the way. Even if you can't build a machine all at once often
    it's best to make a start at getting components before life throws
    up something else that demands the money be spent elsewhere...

    I would suggest a cheapish SSD as mandatory for OS / games from the
    start though (I've been using 120GB Samsung Evo SSDs). It's amazing
    how much more playable most games become when I/O lag is
    minimalised. The benefit can be more than having a faster GPU in
    some cases.

    Good luck.

    No worries, mate :-) I'm taking ages to save a bit more, anyway. So
    I've only bought the CPU (Pentium G4560), power supply (FSP
    HYDRO-600W PSU), case (Silverstone Precision Series PS09B Mini Tower
    Case), and a dirt cheap $24 Asus Internal Optical Drive. Then my
    money ran out, heh. I had an extra bill to pay the other week, or I'd
    have at least one other major component by now. But that's life, eh?
    Heh.

    No sense waiting since I had found good prices on all the above, and
    didn't want to miss out. The Pentium has already climbed another $10.

    I only need the motherboard, RAM, and an SSD (Yeah, I changed my mind
    there and am going for an SSD first - you're right that it's a sweet performance boost and I'd be hobbling myself with a boot HD. Though I
    could clone a boot HD to SSD later, the cost difference is only a
    little bit to save) to begin the build. I want to wait till I can
    afford a decent sized SSD, as right now only a bottom rung 120GB
    model is within my price range, and for best price per GB and
    reasonable storage space,

    Storage space? I only keep OS and game files on my SSD, all other files (including office type programm files) go to a mechanical HDD - I have a
    second 'Program Files' folder on my mech HDD for non-critical programmes. I make changes to Windows so that its default save paths and user files
    folders go to the main data drive. I find a 120GB SSD to be enough but then again I only really play PoE (though I still have D3 and a few others installed).

    I'm better off getting at least a around a
    500GB model.

    Later I'll add a regular HD or two (depending on price - I figure can
    always combine them using RAID) for my iTunes library, documents,
    BitTorrent files, videos, images, etc. And then another larger HD for
    backup. Since everything is already on my current computer and backed
    up from there, I feel I can safely be a bit lapse with backup on the
    new PC, till I fully transition to it being my main computer, anyway.

    The Graphics card will have to wait till next year. Maybe it can be my
    April birthday present to myself. I cannot find any that are decent performance/value at anything close to actual MSRP :-( Damn you
    Bitcoin mining! And it seems pointless wasting money on a very low
    end card that would only be a slight improvement over the Pentium's integrated graphics (which actually still blow my current computer's
    graphics system out of the water, heh, so it's not like the Pentium's integrated graphics won't still feel like a big upgrade to me! :-) ).

    Anyway - that's the new slightly modified plan that is taking shape.
    I'm happy - I tell myself - if I can at least buy one part per week,
    heh. Even if last week it was only a $24 optical drive. This week
    it'll be the ASRock B250M Pro4 motherboard (yeah - not the greatest,
    but I don't plan on ever overclocking, as I said, and it is only
    lacking in SATA ports for my modest needs, and a SATA PCIe card will
    sort that for the future), providing my week pans out financially.
    It's price hasn't changed at all since I started looking, so I might
    as well. Or RAM if there's a nice special.

    I'm not sure whether I'll begin with 1 x 8GB or 2 x 4GB RAM. I know I
    can get a wee performance boost from matched pairs, but then again I'd
    be happier, I think, to fill out all four slots with 8GB sticks over
    time, as I have never ever had enough RAM on any of my computers. And
    8GB sticks are affordable. But 16GB sticks are out of my price range value-wise.

    What d'ya reckon?

    I wouldn't get 2 x 4GB. That sort of purchase usually ends up costing money
    in the long run as you increase RAM and need to use larger DIMMs. The small short-term advantage gained from running dual channel isn't worth the
    long-term $$ loss IMO.

    8 GB sticks would be the best bet, start with one of you need to. I'd say
    that ultimately 4 x 8 GB should be enough for the forseeable future - though
    if it isn't (years down the track) then 16 GB DIMMs are likely to be cheap
    as chips. ;)

    Cheers,
    --
    Shaun.

    "Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM*."
    David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
    (*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jamie Kahn Genet@21:1/5 to shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com on Wed Oct 4 21:00:27 2017
    XPost: alt.games.diablo2

    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    [snip]
    I only need the motherboard, RAM, and an SSD (Yeah, I changed my mind
    there and am going for an SSD first - you're right that it's a sweet performance boost and I'd be hobbling myself with a boot HD. Though I
    could clone a boot HD to SSD later, the cost difference is only a
    little bit to save) to begin the build. I want to wait till I can
    afford a decent sized SSD, as right now only a bottom rung 120GB
    model is within my price range, and for best price per GB and
    reasonable storage space,

    Storage space? I only keep OS and game files on my SSD, all other files (including office type programm files) go to a mechanical HDD - I have a second 'Program Files' folder on my mech HDD for non-critical programmes. I make changes to Windows so that its default save paths and user files
    folders go to the main data drive. I find a 120GB SSD to be enough but then again I only really play PoE (though I still have D3 and a few others installed).

    Room to grow without the hassle of managing where I install apps, was my thinking. Though I had another thought last night - maybe go a smaller
    cheaper boot SSD, and add SSHDs (those HDs with a small SSD cache in one
    unit, that I see are a bit pricier than HDs, but can have performance
    closer to SSDs once the cache learns what the user access most
    frequently) for additional game and file storage. Hmmm...

    You could be right, regardless. I took a look at my other older Windows installs, and none of them exceed 80GB for just the OS and installed
    non-game apps. I might compromise on a 240-256GB boot SSD. That way I
    won't feel unduly constrained. I might not have exceeded 80GB in the
    past, but I still like to leave adequate free space for VM and large
    file copying, etc. And I admit I get nervy going up against storage
    limits, as it used to cause a lot more issues back in the day.

    [snip]
    I'm not sure whether I'll begin with 1 x 8GB or 2 x 4GB RAM. I know I
    can get a wee performance boost from matched pairs, but then again I'd
    be happier, I think, to fill out all four slots with 8GB sticks over
    time, as I have never ever had enough RAM on any of my computers. And
    8GB sticks are affordable. But 16GB sticks are out of my price range value-wise.

    What d'ya reckon?

    I wouldn't get 2 x 4GB. That sort of purchase usually ends up costing money in the long run as you increase RAM and need to use larger DIMMs. The small short-term advantage gained from running dual channel isn't worth the long-term $$ loss IMO.

    8 GB sticks would be the best bet, start with one of you need to. I'd say that ultimately 4 x 8 GB should be enough for the forseeable future - though if it isn't (years down the track) then 16 GB DIMMs are likely to be cheap
    as chips. ;)

    Cheers,

    If I go 8GB for each stick, I'll have to start with one stick to begin
    with, I reckon. Cause I even forgot I'd paid for Win 10 on USB the other
    week. It was on special for only $138 at Mighty Ape, and I figured I
    might as well, cause I'd not be happy with the demo version.

    I honestly don't know how these other Kiwis who claim they've built a
    new gaming PC for $500 ever managed. $500 USD maybe! Not NZD! Heh.

    I'm thinking I'll be spending about $1000 once I'm finished with all the
    RAM, drives, and eventual graphics card. Budget severely blown, but at
    least I've time to save for everything I'll want, and can get going
    before I've completed the build.
    --
    If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From ~misfit~@21:1/5 to Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Ka on Sat Oct 7 22:05:00 2017
    XPost: alt.games.diablo2

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    [snip]
    I only need the motherboard, RAM, and an SSD (Yeah, I changed my
    mind there and am going for an SSD first - you're right that it's a
    sweet performance boost and I'd be hobbling myself with a boot HD.
    Though I could clone a boot HD to SSD later, the cost difference is
    only a little bit to save) to begin the build. I want to wait till
    I can afford a decent sized SSD, as right now only a bottom rung
    120GB model is within my price range, and for best price per GB and
    reasonable storage space,

    Storage space? I only keep OS and game files on my SSD, all other
    files (including office type programm files) go to a mechanical HDD
    - I have a second 'Program Files' folder on my mech HDD for
    non-critical programmes. I make changes to Windows so that its
    default save paths and user files folders go to the main data drive.
    I find a 120GB SSD to be enough but then again I only really play
    PoE (though I still have D3 and a few others installed).

    Room to grow without the hassle of managing where I install apps, was
    my thinking. Though I had another thought last night - maybe go a
    smaller cheaper boot SSD, and add SSHDs (those HDs with a small SSD
    cache in one unit, that I see are a bit pricier than HDs, but can
    have performance closer to SSDs once the cache learns what the user
    access most frequently) for additional game and file storage. Hmmm...

    I've been using Seagates Momentus XT 'SSHD' drives in laptops for a while
    now and they're certainly not even close to an SSD. Then again they only use
    4 or 8 GB SSD cache - I see desktop versions use up to 32GB.

    You could be right, regardless. I took a look at my other older
    Windows installs, and none of them exceed 80GB for just the OS and
    installed non-game apps. I might compromise on a 240-256GB boot SSD.
    That way I won't feel unduly constrained. I might not have exceeded
    80GB in the past, but I still like to leave adequate free space for
    VM and large file copying, etc. And I admit I get nervy going up
    against storage limits, as it used to cause a lot more issues back in
    the day.

    Yep, understand that.

    [snip]
    I'm not sure whether I'll begin with 1 x 8GB or 2 x 4GB RAM. I know
    I can get a wee performance boost from matched pairs, but then
    again I'd be happier, I think, to fill out all four slots with 8GB
    sticks over time, as I have never ever had enough RAM on any of my
    computers. And 8GB sticks are affordable. But 16GB sticks are out
    of my price range value-wise.

    What d'ya reckon?

    I wouldn't get 2 x 4GB. That sort of purchase usually ends up
    costing money in the long run as you increase RAM and need to use
    larger DIMMs. The small short-term advantage gained from running
    dual channel isn't worth the long-term $$ loss IMO.

    8 GB sticks would be the best bet, start with one of you need to.
    I'd say that ultimately 4 x 8 GB should be enough for the forseeable
    future - though if it isn't (years down the track) then 16 GB DIMMs
    are likely to be cheap as chips. ;)

    Cheers,

    If I go 8GB for each stick, I'll have to start with one stick to begin
    with, I reckon. Cause I even forgot I'd paid for Win 10 on USB the
    other week. It was on special for only $138 at Mighty Ape, and I
    figured I might as well, cause I'd not be happy with the demo version.

    One stick's a good start IMO.

    I honestly don't know how these other Kiwis who claim they've built a
    new gaming PC for $500 ever managed. $500 USD maybe! Not NZD! Heh.

    Yeah - unless by 'gaming' they mean Solitaire. ;)

    I'm thinking I'll be spending about $1000 once I'm finished with all
    the RAM, drives, and eventual graphics card. Budget severely blown,
    but at least I've time to save for everything I'll want, and can get
    going before I've completed the build.

    My 2007 build ended up costing me over $1,500 by the time I got the QX9650
    and the maximum 8 GB RAM in 2009. Oh more than that - it's on it's second
    PSU as the first struggled when I got the quad and a halfway-decent GPU.

    There's another tip - don't skimp on the PSU. Get a good brand and ~30%
    bigger than you think you'll need. Even if you never need the capacity headroom's always good and under-stressing makes for better longevity.
    --
    Shaun.

    "Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM*."
    David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
    (*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jamie Kahn Genet@21:1/5 to shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com on Sun Oct 8 14:58:07 2017
    XPost: alt.games.diablo2

    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    [snip]
    I only need the motherboard, RAM, and an SSD (Yeah, I changed my
    mind there and am going for an SSD first - you're right that it's a
    sweet performance boost and I'd be hobbling myself with a boot HD.
    Though I could clone a boot HD to SSD later, the cost difference is
    only a little bit to save) to begin the build. I want to wait till
    I can afford a decent sized SSD, as right now only a bottom rung
    120GB model is within my price range, and for best price per GB and
    reasonable storage space,

    Storage space? I only keep OS and game files on my SSD, all other
    files (including office type programm files) go to a mechanical HDD
    - I have a second 'Program Files' folder on my mech HDD for
    non-critical programmes. I make changes to Windows so that its
    default save paths and user files folders go to the main data drive.
    I find a 120GB SSD to be enough but then again I only really play
    PoE (though I still have D3 and a few others installed).

    Room to grow without the hassle of managing where I install apps, was
    my thinking. Though I had another thought last night - maybe go a
    smaller cheaper boot SSD, and add SSHDs (those HDs with a small SSD
    cache in one unit, that I see are a bit pricier than HDs, but can
    have performance closer to SSDs once the cache learns what the user
    access most frequently) for additional game and file storage. Hmmm...

    I've been using Seagates Momentus XT 'SSHD' drives in laptops for a while
    now and they're certainly not even close to an SSD. Then again they only use 4 or 8 GB SSD cache - I see desktop versions use up to 32GB.

    The WD SSHDs I'm looking at only have 8GB SSD cache. Well, it can't hurt
    to try at least one. My case has two external 5.25" bays, four internal
    3.5", and one internal 2.5". Optical drive will take up one 5.25 of
    course, and I'll use the single 2.5" bay for the boot SSD. I'll buy a
    5.25" to 4 x 2.5" bay adaptor, and I guess basically ignore the 3.5"
    bays for now, as the SSHDs I'm looking at are actually cheaper in 2.5"
    than 3.5". But to begin with, just to test, I'll simply rest my first
    SSHD loose in one of the bays.

    I'm hoping I get some nice performance with WD SSHDs. Cause if they can
    live up to their claims of 'near SSD performance', and still be a lot
    cheaper than SSDs, but not much more than HDs, I can avoid plain old HDs
    and that crappy speed I'm currently used to putting up with, for my
    games and other stuff I spend time watching loading bars.

    Alternate plan: maybe build a RAID out of cheap low capacity SSDs and
    make that my game storage?

    I'm actually getting quite excited now I'm close to getting my new PC
    finished. I've lived in the past with what was medium to high end in
    2007, for a long time now, heh. This should be quite the performance
    jump. Fun :-)

    You could be right, regardless. I took a look at my other older
    Windows installs, and none of them exceed 80GB for just the OS and installed non-game apps. I might compromise on a 240-256GB boot SSD.
    That way I won't feel unduly constrained. I might not have exceeded
    80GB in the past, but I still like to leave adequate free space for
    VM and large file copying, etc. And I admit I get nervy going up
    against storage limits, as it used to cause a lot more issues back in
    the day.

    Yep, understand that.

    [snip]
    I'm not sure whether I'll begin with 1 x 8GB or 2 x 4GB RAM. I know
    I can get a wee performance boost from matched pairs, but then
    again I'd be happier, I think, to fill out all four slots with 8GB
    sticks over time, as I have never ever had enough RAM on any of my
    computers. And 8GB sticks are affordable. But 16GB sticks are out
    of my price range value-wise.

    What d'ya reckon?

    I wouldn't get 2 x 4GB. That sort of purchase usually ends up
    costing money in the long run as you increase RAM and need to use
    larger DIMMs. The small short-term advantage gained from running
    dual channel isn't worth the long-term $$ loss IMO.

    8 GB sticks would be the best bet, start with one of you need to.
    I'd say that ultimately 4 x 8 GB should be enough for the forseeable
    future - though if it isn't (years down the track) then 16 GB DIMMs
    are likely to be cheap as chips. ;)

    Cheers,

    If I go 8GB for each stick, I'll have to start with one stick to begin with, I reckon. Cause I even forgot I'd paid for Win 10 on USB the
    other week. It was on special for only $138 at Mighty Ape, and I
    figured I might as well, cause I'd not be happy with the demo version.

    One stick's a good start IMO.

    Heh, well it'll have to be. And you're right, the more I think about it,
    the more 32GB of RAM sounds a hell of a lot better to handle my usual
    dozens of browsers tabs open while I play EverQuest, run Skype (as my
    home phone), Vent, etc, than 16GB does. Not that I'll reach 32GB before
    I'm well into 2018.

    I honestly don't know how these other Kiwis who claim they've built a
    new gaming PC for $500 ever managed. $500 USD maybe! Not NZD! Heh.

    Yeah - unless by 'gaming' they mean Solitaire. ;)

    I reckon. Yet I had more than one person tell me I could get a decent
    low end gaming PC for $500. I fear the definition of 'gaming PC' is
    somewhat looser in their minds than mine. For me I suppose it means
    being able to play today's AAA games with a nice moderately high and
    stable framerate.

    I'm thinking I'll be spending about $1000 once I'm finished with all
    the RAM, drives, and eventual graphics card. Budget severely blown,
    but at least I've time to save for everything I'll want, and can get
    going before I've completed the build.

    My 2007 build ended up costing me over $1,500 by the time I got the QX9650 and the maximum 8 GB RAM in 2009. Oh more than that - it's on it's second
    PSU as the first struggled when I got the quad and a halfway-decent GPU.

    Heh, I spend $5000 in 2007 (back when I had more work, and medical bills
    were fewer and smaller). Bit silly, really. But it still works, and it's
    mainly the slowness due to limited RAM and ancient graphics that hold it
    back. I don't think I'll try to make another desktop last ten years!

    There's another tip - don't skimp on the PSU. Get a good brand and ~30% bigger than you think you'll need. Even if you never need the capacity headroom's always good and under-stressing makes for better longevity.

    Yup, I calculated I'd get by with maybe 450W. I bought the FSP
    HYDRO-600W PSU, to give me plenty of room to grow. Cause (based on how I expanded storage last time around) I know I'll most likely add a SATA
    card, and maybe another card for whatever new IO standard comes out in
    the next few years. And I always add USB gadgets to my workspace - I've actually got six USB hubs attached to my old desktop :-D

    --
    If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From allistar@21:1/5 to All on Thu Nov 2 22:16:23 2017
    On 07/10/17 22:05, ~misfit~ wrote:
    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    [snip]
    I only need the motherboard, RAM, and an SSD (Yeah, I changed my
    mind there and am going for an SSD first - you're right that it's a
    sweet performance boost and I'd be hobbling myself with a boot HD.
    Though I could clone a boot HD to SSD later, the cost difference is
    only a little bit to save) to begin the build. I want to wait till
    I can afford a decent sized SSD, as right now only a bottom rung
    120GB model is within my price range, and for best price per GB and
    reasonable storage space,

    Storage space? I only keep OS and game files on my SSD, all other
    files (including office type programm files) go to a mechanical HDD
    - I have a second 'Program Files' folder on my mech HDD for
    non-critical programmes. I make changes to Windows so that its
    default save paths and user files folders go to the main data drive.
    I find a 120GB SSD to be enough but then again I only really play
    PoE (though I still have D3 and a few others installed).

    Room to grow without the hassle of managing where I install apps, was
    my thinking. Though I had another thought last night - maybe go a
    smaller cheaper boot SSD, and add SSHDs (those HDs with a small SSD
    cache in one unit, that I see are a bit pricier than HDs, but can
    have performance closer to SSDs once the cache learns what the user
    access most frequently) for additional game and file storage. Hmmm...

    I've been using Seagates Momentus XT 'SSHD' drives in laptops for a while
    now and they're certainly not even close to an SSD. Then again they only use 4 or 8 GB SSD cache - I see desktop versions use up to 32GB.

    You could be right, regardless. I took a look at my other older
    Windows installs, and none of them exceed 80GB for just the OS and
    installed non-game apps. I might compromise on a 240-256GB boot SSD.
    That way I won't feel unduly constrained. I might not have exceeded
    80GB in the past, but I still like to leave adequate free space for
    VM and large file copying, etc. And I admit I get nervy going up
    against storage limits, as it used to cause a lot more issues back in
    the day.

    Yep, understand that.

    [snip]
    I'm not sure whether I'll begin with 1 x 8GB or 2 x 4GB RAM. I know
    I can get a wee performance boost from matched pairs, but then
    again I'd be happier, I think, to fill out all four slots with 8GB
    sticks over time, as I have never ever had enough RAM on any of my
    computers. And 8GB sticks are affordable. But 16GB sticks are out
    of my price range value-wise.

    What d'ya reckon?

    I wouldn't get 2 x 4GB. That sort of purchase usually ends up
    costing money in the long run as you increase RAM and need to use
    larger DIMMs. The small short-term advantage gained from running
    dual channel isn't worth the long-term $$ loss IMO.

    8 GB sticks would be the best bet, start with one of you need to.
    I'd say that ultimately 4 x 8 GB should be enough for the forseeable
    future - though if it isn't (years down the track) then 16 GB DIMMs
    are likely to be cheap as chips. ;)

    Cheers,

    If I go 8GB for each stick, I'll have to start with one stick to begin
    with, I reckon. Cause I even forgot I'd paid for Win 10 on USB the
    other week. It was on special for only $138 at Mighty Ape, and I
    figured I might as well, cause I'd not be happy with the demo version.

    One stick's a good start IMO.

    I honestly don't know how these other Kiwis who claim they've built a
    new gaming PC for $500 ever managed. $500 USD maybe! Not NZD! Heh.

    Yeah - unless by 'gaming' they mean Solitaire. ;)

    I'm thinking I'll be spending about $1000 once I'm finished with all
    the RAM, drives, and eventual graphics card. Budget severely blown,
    but at least I've time to save for everything I'll want, and can get
    going before I've completed the build.

    My 2007 build ended up costing me over $1,500 by the time I got the QX9650 and the maximum 8 GB RAM in 2009. Oh more than that - it's on it's second
    PSU as the first struggled when I got the quad and a halfway-decent GPU.

    Sounds familiar. The main rig I currently use for both home and work was
    bought in 2007 and has the QX6700. It's had a few upgrades (8Gb, SSD,
    RAID10, two GeForce 750Ti GPUs). I have no intention of "upgrading" it
    as it does the job nicely. It is fairly power hungry (400W constant draw
    from the mains with all 6 monitors turned on).

    There's another tip - don't skimp on the PSU. Get a good brand and ~30% bigger than you think you'll need. Even if you never need the capacity headroom's always good and under-stressing makes for better longevity.

    Yes. I'm on my third PSU. I also tend to like things to be quiet, so
    have a cooling tower so the large fans can run slowly (the stock cooler
    sounded like a 747).

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From ~misfit~@21:1/5 to Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Ka on Fri Nov 10 13:29:00 2017
    XPost: alt.games.diablo2

    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:
    [snipped heaps]
    My 2007 build ended up costing me over $1,500 by the time I got the
    QX9650 and the maximum 8 GB RAM in 2009. Oh more than that - it's on
    it's second PSU as the first struggled when I got the quad and a
    halfway-decent GPU.

    Heh, I spend $5000 in 2007 (back when I had more work, and medical
    bills were fewer and smaller). Bit silly, really. But it still works,
    and it's mainly the slowness due to limited RAM and ancient graphics
    that hold it back. I don't think I'll try to make another desktop
    last ten years!

    Sorry, meant to reply weeks ago but haven't checked the relevant groups
    lately due to low posts.

    I dare say that if you'd spent that $5K on a PC rather than a Mac you'd have done a lot better w/r/t upgrade options. My 2007 PC desktop is still going strong with power to spare and I can upgrade the GPU (currently HD7770)
    quite a way yet if I feel the need. I'm hoping to get at least another 5
    years out of it <fingers crossed due to generally bad luck> as nothing I do with it now comes close to being hardware-limited.

    I think that if I was to buy again now careful buying could see me through another decade easilly.

    There's another tip - don't skimp on the PSU. Get a good brand and
    ~30% bigger than you think you'll need. Even if you never need the
    capacity headroom's always good and under-stressing makes for better
    longevity.

    Yup, I calculated I'd get by with maybe 450W. I bought the FSP
    HYDRO-600W PSU, to give me plenty of room to grow. Cause (based on
    how I expanded storage last time around) I know I'll most likely add
    a SATA card, and maybe another card for whatever new IO standard
    comes out in the next few years. And I always add USB gadgets to my
    workspace - I've actually got six USB hubs attached to my old desktop
    :-D

    I'm running a 750w PSU that cost me around $220 or so. I bought it after a
    few hours research about two years ago and figured it'd likely see this computer through to obsolescence.

    Cheers,
    --
    Shaun.

    "Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM*."
    David Melville (in r.a.s.f1)
    (*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jamie Kahn Genet@21:1/5 to shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com on Wed Nov 22 13:38:19 2017
    XPost: alt.games.diablo2

    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:
    Once upon a time on usenet Jamie Kahn Genet wrote:
    ~misfit~ <shaun.at.pukekohe@gmail.com> wrote:
    [snipped heaps]
    My 2007 build ended up costing me over $1,500 by the time I got the
    QX9650 and the maximum 8 GB RAM in 2009. Oh more than that - it's on
    it's second PSU as the first struggled when I got the quad and a
    halfway-decent GPU.

    Heh, I spend $5000 in 2007 (back when I had more work, and medical
    bills were fewer and smaller). Bit silly, really. But it still works,
    and it's mainly the slowness due to limited RAM and ancient graphics
    that hold it back. I don't think I'll try to make another desktop
    last ten years!

    Sorry, meant to reply weeks ago but haven't checked the relevant groups lately due to low posts.

    I dare say that if you'd spent that $5K on a PC rather than a Mac you'd have done a lot better w/r/t upgrade options. My 2007 PC desktop is still going strong with power to spare and I can upgrade the GPU (currently HD7770)
    quite a way yet if I feel the need. I'm hoping to get at least another 5 years out of it <fingers crossed due to generally bad luck> as nothing I do with it now comes close to being hardware-limited.

    I think that if I was to buy again now careful buying could see me through another decade easilly.

    There's another tip - don't skimp on the PSU. Get a good brand and
    ~30% bigger than you think you'll need. Even if you never need the
    capacity headroom's always good and under-stressing makes for better
    longevity.

    Yup, I calculated I'd get by with maybe 450W. I bought the FSP
    HYDRO-600W PSU, to give me plenty of room to grow. Cause (based on
    how I expanded storage last time around) I know I'll most likely add
    a SATA card, and maybe another card for whatever new IO standard
    comes out in the next few years. And I always add USB gadgets to my
    workspace - I've actually got six USB hubs attached to my old desktop
    :-D

    I'm running a 750w PSU that cost me around $220 or so. I bought it after a few hours research about two years ago and figured it'd likely see this computer through to obsolescence.

    Cheers,

    No worries, heh. I frequent groups where the old regulars can literally
    take months to pop back and check in due to low activity. Weeks is nothin'! *grins*

    --
    "The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is
    that it has never tried to contact us." - Calvin and Hobbes (Bill
    Watterson)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)