Need help/comments on parts list

I'm pretty sure that your V1900 is not 3-D compatible - no passthrough of HDMI 1.4. Also, your projector is 2-D? I only mention it because you want 3-D Blu-ray.

Good to know. 3770K + 7970 is a beast, no doubt about it. If you want to save a little money, then I have a couple comments:

1. For gaming, the 3770K and 3570K are rather similar, you could save money by taking a step down.
2. You'll be gaming @ 1080p, so you won't need Eyefinity or NVIDIA Surround power. You might consider the GTX 670, it's a bit cheaper than the 7970 and performs better in some games. A GTX 660 or equivalent AMD GPU would save even more money.
3. Buy 1x8GB RAM and decide if you need more later. The benefits to more than that are minimal.
4. If you really need more, then buy 2x8GB RAM instead of 4x4GB. Keep two memory slots open in case you someday need 32GB. Ivy Bridge is dual-channel anyway, so there's no benefit to filling all four slots other than capacity.
5. Be careful with tall RAM with heat fins - they can sometimes make installing large CPU coolers difficult.

6. SSD!


Just some opinions. Good luck!
Edited by nathanddrews - 1/3/13 at 9:26am

I currently use a 256GB SSD and 2TB HDD on my gaming machine. My OS and applications are all loaded on the SSD and my Steam directory and other games are on the HDD. Some games are loaded on the SSD if want faster load times, but most games are fine on the HDD. It's the best of both worlds, in my opinion. I am saving up for when 1TB SSDs drop under $500.

Will you be overclocking very much? If not, don't bother with the extra large cooler. The stock heat sink and fan work great.

"Buy 1x8GB RAM and decide if you need more later. The benefits to more than that are minimal."

GAAAH! NO!

16GB is the minimum for a new build. Why does everyone around here insist on telling people to buy a $230 CPU, $300 video card, and then starve the hell out of the fancy new machine by skimping with $40 worth of ram? Christ, people!

tolaanto - Put in 16GB as a minimum, though 24GB is the ideal. For the 16GB though, do it as 8GBx2 instead of 4x4. This leaves the other two slots open to drop in a second 16GB later without having to throw ram away.

I even did a bit of a write-up here recently on why 8GB starves your machine, while 16GB is the best value. Go read it: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1424162/is-this-desktop-computer-pretty-powerful-graphically/0_60#post_22771347

At the end of the day a 3570K with 32GB of ram is a much more pleasant experience than a 3770K with 8GB of ram, at the same cost.

Put in 16GB as a maximum for what you plan on doing with it.

If money is no object, then of course he should just get 32GB now, I don't think anyone will debate that unless are trying to build an ultra-low power computer. (more RAM = more power)

However, if he doesn't need it then why spend the money? It doesn't sound like he'll be alt+tabbing between a ton of applications. Windows Superfetch doesn't cache everything to RAM, only certain files and executables. So you still have to wait for some things to load into RAM.

I read your write up a few days ago, but you posted nothing but anecdotal evidence. I have yet to see hard data that load/boot times are increased with any significance beyond just having an SSD. Speaking of anecdotal evidence: from my experience a good SSD will provide a more consistant IO experience across the board for ALL programs and files than more RAM will. Besides, Windows 7 will turn Superfetch off by default if it detects an SSD as a boot drive.

A) I don't recall ever arguing against an SSD. He should get an SSD for his boot drive along with 16GB of ram.

B) Yes, Windows 7 is dumb with caching when an SSD is in place. Microsoft seems to have realized that they were dumb though, as prefetch works correctly again in Windows 8 with an SSD. That before linked image of 21GB of prefetch is on a system with an SSD.

Topic starter - Why Win7? Grab Windows 8. It is very simply a better OS.

Yeah, there's really no reason to go overboard with RAM. Admittedly, 16GB is cheap, so no harm no foul, but 32GB is just plain pointless.
Edited by confidenceman - 1/3/13 at 7:03pm

"Why is it a better OS?"

Boots faster, shuts down faster, works with SSDs better, system programs are nicer to work with.

It is exactly Windows 7, with performance improvements and a new Start Menu. It's nothing groundbreaking, but it is the better OS.

"Admittedly, 16GB is cheap, so no harm no foul,"

Again, not knowing how badly you are starving your system on 8GB is not the same as not starving your system.

Agreed. People focus way to much on the new start screen. Even then once you actually understand what it is and how you use it there's virtually no difference between it and WIn7. I'll take all the system improvements any day with Win8 over some silly preconceived issues with the lack of a start button. Besides, by this point people should be learning hot keys anyway so I really don't see what the big deal is.

It's clear we disagree, but your use of hyperbole doesn't help anyone. You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. 32GB RAM does nothing for games and the cost difference between 8GB and 32GB is ~$100. $100 can buy a lot more speed in the form of a significantly faster CPU, GPU, or SSD. Even the difference between 16 and 32 is $60 and will still be better spent on a GPU. While having 32GB makes Adobe AE a smoother experience, it does nothing for my games. I've made my case and it's his money, not mine or yours.

I agree. My system is only 8GB and I can load up every program I use on my PC and I still have plenty of RAM left to run any game I own.

I can load up any programs while having firefox with a million tabs open and playing far cry 3 without any slow down on 8gbs of ram

REEDING COMPREEHENSHUN, U GUISE CAN HAZ? God, where to start with this mess...


"I can load up any programs while having firefox with a million tabs open and playing far cry 3 without any slow down on 8gbs of ram"

Because Windows already spent a bunch of time dumping as much out to your pagefile as possible. Stuff that you'll have to wait for it to shuffle around again later. As a bonus, not much is preloaded, therefore your program loads take a whole lot longer. Yes, once you are in a game things physically work. Your moment to moment OS use though is riddled with wasted time waiting on stuff to dump from or load in to ram.


"I agree. My system is only 8GB and I can load up every program I use on my PC and I still have plenty of RAM left to run any game I own."

Your system has been up for 11 minutes. Within the hour your Free will read as <100MB. Unless you are running an SSD on that Windows 7 install, in which case you are still using an old OS that has busted SSD support in regards to precache.

See above for the rest of the failures in your logic.


"32GB RAM does nothing for games and the cost difference between 8GB and 32GB is ~$100. $100 can buy a lot more speed in the form of a significantly faster CPU, GPU, or SSD. Even the difference between 16 and 32 is $60 and will still be better spent on a GPU. While having 32GB makes Adobe AE a smoother experience"

At no point have I advocated 32GB of ram in this thread. I personally run 32GB, yes. And as stated a lot of that choice was in the name of experimentation. From moment one my recommendation has been "16GB is the correct amount in today's system. Less is starving the crap out of it. More is a touch overkill." The only one here stuck on the number "32GB" is you.

Let's pretend for just a moment that I have said "Get 32gigamabites!!1". Wasting $75 and having too much ram still leads to a better user experience than saving $40 to the detriment of the user experience, as you are advocating.

Seems pretty obvious that you're the one with the comprehension issue. You can't even back down for a second to admit you're wrong.

Wow, such a well-reasoned rebuttal, nathan!

Damn, I must be using my computer wrong than as I experience none of this in my day to day use, maybe benchmarking I'd notice. I can tell no difference between my 8gb and 16gb system.

we all have our own opinions and mine is this, if you are not doing any professional design type or calculation work, anything above 8gigs is pointless. as cheap at ram is getting, it would be practical to buy 16gigs and call it a day. though i do see how 8gigs could starve a system a little do to other technical things the pc is doing, even for a casual simple user. in the end i would choose the 16 over 8. but thats just me.

I personally have 32gigs in my system since i do a ton of adobe work ranging from video to web and graphic along with some 3d work here and there. for the kind of adobe images i do, i easily use up close to 28gigs of ram on many of my files with about 30gbs to any give hhd in my system. im looking to get a board that can take 64gigs of ram.

A 3770k seems kind of ridiculous for a htpc even if you are trying to "change" the picture from what was intended.

Running a high-end(or any) video card can prove to be a noisy experience. I would suggest putting it in a closet or rack to avoid this negative experience. Along these lines I would get a different case(sorry no suggestions since I don't know what your closet/rack situation is) and spend the money on a good power supply instead.

As far as hard drives go I would suggest getting a 128 or 256 ssd for the media center(j.river?) and installing your games on a 1 or 2tb hdd. I know uninstalling games to install a new one would drive me crazy. Just FYI on SSD's if you fill them up beyond a certain point they take a huge performance hit(50-80% depending on ssd)

Also, along the same lines I would suggest trying Steam Big Picture mode. You can add non-steam games by the way.

As far as rescaling hd and sd content:

1080p: Why would you rescale this? You have a 1080p native projector..

480/720: I would be surprised if your projector doesn't do a better job of rescaling this content than ffdshow can.

1080i: Your projector can probably do a better job of de-interlacing also.



And last but not least:

8GB vs 16GB memory... don't care



I hope you found this helpful.

When my PC starts to slow down because of its inability to cache 20 GB, you will be the first to know.

Likewise.

LOL Indeed.


Enjoy your new computer, tolaanto!