PC Parts - Overwhelming!
I recently bought one of these for my big machine:
http://www.htomega.com/clarohalo_xt.html
and it truly makes a difference in SQ. I am also a bit of an audiophile (having spent the better part of 18 years in retail stereo systems) so this was an important upgrade. I found it on sale at Newegg.com for $200. Something to consider if you intend to plug some nice headphones into your computer. The onboard audio is generally pretty poor on most mobos, if you ask me.
ASUS are great boards; look pretty seriously at EVGA, also. Both make excellent graphics cards, as well. My IT friend swears by MSI boards, although I have never been of fan of the BIOS setup. Good quality parts though.
Yes, Crossfire and SLI are methods to “strap” 2 or more graphics cards together for high end gaming or video processing.
Also remember that, unless you intend to spend time in the BIOS setting up overclocking on your RAM and CPU, the 2400mhz clock speed will not occur. It will run at 1600mhz out of the box.
Lastly, the case. Make sure the mini tower cases you are looking at specifically state they will fit an ATX board. Often they will only support a microATX or miniATX. You can still find H77 or Z77 chipsets in these size boards, and from the same manufacturers you are already looking at. You’ll need a full tower or mid tower case to fit a standard ATX board. My favorite case is the Antec 300 (available now with front panel USB 3.0) and usually on sale for about $60. You can get the 300 Illusion case which comes with fans but they have blue lights in them—so you have to like the whiz-bang features of Tokyo-at-night style lighting. Only a few bucks more for that case, usually. It’s a standard ATX case, so it can fit almost anything. It’s still reasonably small for what it fits, though.
Risk
Posted by Risk
03/19/2013 at 09:45 AM
Here’s that case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042
Posted by Risk
03/19/2013 at 09:47 AM
Thanks Risk. Will that sound board drive a pair of Sennheisers? My pair of HD600s have their own dedicated OTL tube amp on my big stereo and give me liquid bliss. The standard headphone jack on most receivers or pre-amps will power ear buds or cheap ‘phones, but not even get the big Senns up and running.
Thanks for the RAM info ... since I wasn’t thinking of overclocking, you just saved me some cash. Although it is tempting.
Yes, it will. It includes a potent headphone amplifier, and is adjustable for different impedances of headphones (up to 600 ohms):
quote]TPA6120A2 - Built in 120dB Headphone AMP IC from TI supports up to 600ohm headphone
it also has a standard Toslink output if you want to use your OTL amp instead of the onboard opamp. I also use Sennheiser (and Sony, and Yamaha) and I haven’t been let down at all with this card. But the options for output abound.
I bought DDR3 1800mhz RAM when it was the best available (thinking I’d overclock, also) but I’ve been more than pleased with the performance and simply never did it. I could have saved some money with DDR3 1600. Oh well, live and learn, I guess. I do wish I had an SSD for my big machine though. the boot time alone is worth the money. My little ITX machine boots from cold to go in about 10-12 seconds on Win7 Pro. Awesome.
Posted by Risk
03/19/2013 at 11:11 AM
oops. sorry I screwed up the quoted section there. hopefully it makes sense. Should have looked like this:
TPA6120A2 - Built in 120dB Headphone AMP IC from TI supports up to 600ohm headphone
Posted by Risk
03/19/2013 at 11:13 AM
Your so screwed. And yes, Xfire ans SLI mean 2 cards,not one and No, they wont do squat for anyone but a gamer. Stick with quality parts, ( Tom’s Hardware ) is a great site to get the skinny on good and great parts and the Value/Quality conflict. One big note though, Intel is a 40% premium on any machine over the AMD route. But if you need bragging rights go that way but the quad core procs by AMD can send men to mars just as fast as Intel for a third or less money.
For your video needs Nvidia gtx 550ti or similar is more than enough GPU ( handles DX 11 video codecs from Win Vista,7,and 8) and is in the C note range right now.
Most onboard sound is very good ( I use an X-Fi card from Creative Labs) and can be wired into to your stereo if your into that gag.
Ram is only really needed for the OS these days as Video card ram handles graphic loading issues. It takes 2 gigs to max XP,4 gigs for Win Vista and Win 7 and 8 gigs for Win 8. Any more ram is wasting money and causes lag actually on the OS.
Do NOT GO CHEAP on a Power Supply. Expect to pay around $80 to $100 for a quality 600 to 700 watt unit. A simple Antec Case or even your old ATX case will work fine in most new builds.
Fun fun fun.
Oh, and just for the hell of it,if you want to see what the beautiful people buy when they want a cutting edge PC, Go Here:
http://www.falcon-nw.com/They were the first Boutique builder out there and still the best.They even have a sort of budget box available called Talon.
Just simplify your life Drew. Buy an iMac. You can get one better than mine for $1199. Even cheaper at times if you check out sales at Best Buy. I doubt you’d have to replace your printer either. Just download the Mac driver for your printer from the manufacturer’s website. (though Mac’s do come preloaded with drivers for many printers…)
I just have to show off the case I recently bought for my desktop. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119265&Tpk=HAF%20XB&IsVirtualParent=1 I do a lot of swapping HDs and this is just perfect, plus this runs really cool!
I have to agree with the confusion on what is “top of the line” now, sadly I have no real interest in switching to Intel CPUs - everything in my house (3 servers, 1 media center, three users) runs on AMD.
As an addendum, when you do decide to order - make sure you look at and understand the companies return policy. That is one of the reason I recommend Newegg - I have never had a problem returning parts, defective or just don’t do what I want.
