Getting sick of having a bottom-of-the-barrel system, so I'm looking at building a mild-to-moderate gaming rig on the cheap.
Oddly enough, I've never run a cross-form-factor build. Have any of you had any experience with getting a uATX mobo into an ATX case? In theory, it should be backwards-compatible, but do and of you know if I should expect needing a mobo riser?
Quote from: DontSayBanana on February 26, 2012, 10:36:45 AM
Getting sick of having a bottom-of-the-barrel system, so I'm looking at building a mild-to-moderate gaming rig on the cheap.
Oddly enough, I've never run a cross-form-factor build. Have any of you had any experience with getting a uATX mobo into an ATX case? In theory, it should be backwards-compatible, but do and of you know if I should expect needing a mobo riser?
I've moved a uATX mobo to an ATX case, without problems. No reason to buy the uATX board unless space is a constraint, or for some reason price is lower, because the uATX boards can be hotter (with the closer spacing of components) and are generally harder to work with (due to the same factor).
You probably will need risers (standoffs) but probably won't need a riser (riser board) because the uATX boards seem to have several PCI and PCI express slots.
Modified the title for appropriateness. I love that Newegg has a distribution center in NJ. I ordered the motherboard yesterday and already have it in my hand right now.
Here's the current spec I've got set up:
| Case | | | APEX SK-393-C |
| Mobo | | | Biostar N68S3+ |
| CPU | | | AMD Athlon II X3 460 Rana |
| RAM | | | 8GB Kingston HyperX blu DDR3 1333 |
| HDD | | | Undecided |
| CD-ROM | | | Undecided |
| PSU | | | Logisys PS-480D (480W) |
Since I'm working with a budget board, I'm aware that there are going to have to be tweaks, such as disabling PowerNow to make sure my CPU isn't underclocked.
I've got another question: I know a PCIE 2x16 card will run throttled in a PCIE 1.1x16. Will it run in a PCIE x16 slot? I'd like to put a nice heavy duty graphics card in it, and I'd be okay with a little bit of bandwidth throttling.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on February 28, 2012, 01:35:27 PM
Modified the title for appropriateness. I love that Newegg has a distribution center in NJ. I ordered the motherboard yesterday and already have it in my hand right now.
Here's the current spec I've got set up:
| Case | | | APEX SK-393-C |
| Mobo | | | Biostar N68S3+ |
| CPU | | | AMD Athlon II X3 460 Rana |
| RAM | | | 8GB Kingston HyperX blu DDR3 1333 |
| HDD | | | Undecided |
| CD-ROM | | | Undecided |
| PSU | | | Logisys PS-480D (480W) |
Since I'm working with a budget board, I'm aware that there are going to have to be tweaks, such as disabling PowerNow to make sure my CPU isn't underclocked.
I would try this kind of hardware:
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=66666 (AMD A6-3670)
It's AMD's new CPU&GPU integrated on one chip.
With a board like this one:
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=62378&vpn=GA-A75M-S2V&manufacture=Gigabyte
So you got half the computer for 219$. You'd actually have decent gaming on this rig, compared to the Athlon II wich will be your bottleneck.
This hard drive for 130$:
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=62047&vpn=WD20EARX&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1078
But you could save 30$ by going with SATA 2 640gb.
Try the OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W for Power Supply, it's only 40$ on NCIX. I have more faith in that than the one you chose.
Forget the CD-ROM, go for DVD burner, it's 20-25$.
So, 384$ without RAM. Ram is about 50$ for 8gb. Try Mushkin basic line. Decent ram, decent price.
Well below 500$.
Check NCIXUSA.com if Newegg limits you on your choices :)
Quote from: viper37 on February 29, 2012, 05:51:46 PM
I would try this kind of hardware:
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=66666 (AMD A6-3670)
It's AMD's new CPU&GPU integrated on one chip.
With a board like this one:
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=62378&vpn=GA-A75M-S2V&manufacture=Gigabyte
So you got half the computer for 219$. You'd actually have decent gaming on this rig, compared to the Athlon II wich will be your bottleneck.
This hard drive for 130$:
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=62047&vpn=WD20EARX&manufacture=Western%20Digital%20WD&promoid=1078
But you could save 30$ by going with SATA 2 640gb.
Try the OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W for Power Supply, it's only 40$ on NCIX. I have more faith in that than the one you chose.
Forget the CD-ROM, go for DVD burner, it's 20-25$.
So, 384$ without RAM. Ram is about 50$ for 8gb. Try Mushkin basic line. Decent ram, decent price.
Well below 500$.
Check NCIXUSA.com if Newegg limits you on your choices :)
Damn. As mentioned, I've already got the AM3 motherboard. I guess I should just rationalize this as loving a challenge. :blush:
oups, I didn't noticed you had the MB already :)
Sell your board on Ebay and buy the stuff I posted :P
S'alright. I'll take what I can get- it's still going to have to be better than the AMD P360-based laptop I've been using. ;)
If you can afford it, try a Phenom II X4. It's about 60$ more than your Athlon and much more powerful.
Quote from: viper37 on March 02, 2012, 01:47:57 PM
If you can afford it, try a Phenom II X4. It's about 60$ more than your Athlon and much more powerful.
I was originally considering a PII X4 945T, but I've been hearing about compatibility problems with Biostar boards.
Make sure the CPU is on the supported list here:
http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=506&tab=1 (http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=506&tab=1)
And it will work for sure. If ain't listed, you may have problems, or it may not work to its full capacity.
Yup. Sure enough, 945; second on the list. :D
Holy Thread Necro! Anyway, here's an update on the little bugger, as it stands.
| Case | | | Rosewill Challenger |
| Mobo | | | Biostar N68S3+ |
| CPU | | | AMD Athlon II X4 945 |
| RAM | | | 8GB Team Elite DDR3 1333 |
| HDD | | | Undecided |
| CD-ROM | | | Undecided |
| PSU | | | Orion HP585D (585W) |
Currently, everything's purchased and assembled except for drives.
The nicest thing about the setup is that it's insanely well-cooled. The Challenger's a budget case that's designed like a midlevel. As an added nicety, it came with 3 120mm case fans installed (front, back, and top). Surprisingly, even with all those fans running, it's pretty quiet. The main negative is the combination of the motherboard and the top case fan- the CPU fan is pretty much at the end of it's reach, putting it dangerously close to the blades of the top fan. I'll have to see if I can work some magic with the ol' twist ties.
Played with MacPup 529 a bit, since I was too impatient to wait on the hard drive I ordered.
Speaking of which, I'm proud of myself. Managed to score a 7200RPM 300GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10 for $19.50.
Since I'm definitely too impatient to wait on shipping out a BluRay/DVD drive, I'll probably start prepping a Win7 ISO on my thumb drive tonight for when the hard drive gets here tomorrow.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on December 03, 2012, 05:04:29 PM
I'm guessing you went for the phenom after all? I can't find an athlon 945 when I try to google it. Are you using the stock cooler?
Quote from: Vricklund on December 06, 2012, 08:24:46 AM
Quote from: DontSayBanana on December 03, 2012, 05:04:29 PM
I'm guessing you went for the phenom after all? I can't find an athlon 945 when I try to google it. Are you using the stock cooler?
Duh. Phenom, yeah. Stock cooler, but the core temp seems to only run around 30-35C under normal usage- keep in mind that this is a 95W CPU, not a 125.
Actually, thinking of the stock cooler, that's the one gripe I have with the combo of motherboard and case- the CPU fan socket is literally mounted right under the corner of the top case fan. I ended up having to pull the cooler off and reverse it so that the wires for the CPU fan sit over the RAM sockets instead of getting chewed up by the fan blades.
Actually I was more concerned about noise than temperature when using the stock cooler. I've always thought the corsair hydro series looks interesting. But it wouldn't be a true budget build if you got one of those. :) Also don't bother with a cd/dvd-rom, I don't think I've used a disc more than a handful of times in the last five years or so. How much have you spent so far?
I had to estimate because I couldn't find the invoices for the mobo or the CPU, but so far, I've only spent about $255 before shipping, and most of the pieces shipped for free. That's including the hard drive, which seems to be stuck in postal limbo at the moment. <_<
As for noise, it's definitely not silent, but it's also not a jet engine, either. With all the fans that are mounted on that beast, they can afford fairly low RPMs.
Speaking of which, the absolutely awesome thing about that Challenger case is that it comes pre-drilled for water-cooling (openings for the plumbing loop in the rear, and lots of mounting spaces for hose brackets on the sides and top of the case). Definitely one of the nicest budget cases I've ever come across.
So, I'm counting down the days until I can grab a video card. I loaded Ubuntu 12.10 on the rig, and in the process, I discovered that it DOESN'T like the GeForce 7025. Add to that the difference in quality between the GeForce 7025 and the Mobility Radeon HD 4250, according to PassMark, and I'm going to say it's going to take another $100 before I can really do any kind of gaming. At least (I'm still not sure whether to plop down for a Win7 OEM disc or be satisfied with the stuff I'll be able to run under Wine).
ubuntu is wonderful in theory though with drivers and all that its often more trouble than its worth.
Try tinyxp if you want something quick and light.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on December 11, 2012, 09:48:27 PM
So, I'm counting down the days until I can grab a video card. I loaded Ubuntu 12.10 on the rig, and in the process, I discovered that it DOESN'T like the GeForce 7025. Add to that the difference in quality between the GeForce 7025 and the Mobility Radeon HD 4250, according to PassMark, and I'm going to say it's going to take another $100 before I can really do any kind of gaming. At least (I'm still not sure whether to plop down for a Win7 OEM disc or be satisfied with the stuff I'll be able to run under Wine).
The geforce 7025 shouldn't be a problem, as far as I can see it's supported by the nvida open source drivers. If there's some sort of bug then maybe you could use the nouveau drivers?
Quote from: DontSayBanana on December 11, 2012, 09:48:27 PM
So, I'm counting down the days until I can grab a video card. I loaded Ubuntu 12.10 on the rig, and in the process, I discovered that it DOESN'T like the GeForce 7025. Add to that the difference in quality between the GeForce 7025 and the Mobility Radeon HD 4250, according to PassMark, and I'm going to say it's going to take another $100 before I can really do any kind of gaming. At least (I'm still not sure whether to plop down for a Win7 OEM disc or be satisfied with the stuff I'll be able to run under Wine).
I have one to sell. Radeon HD 5850. Contact me if interested.
Quote from: Vricklund on December 13, 2012, 04:36:36 AM
The geforce 7025 shouldn't be a problem, as far as I can see it's supported by the nvida open source drivers. If there's some sort of bug then maybe you could use the nouveau drivers?
Both the proprietary and the nouveau drivers are massively buggy. I suspect the issue is less the drivers themselves and more Unity 3D (especially the decision to remove access to Unity 2D). It looks nice, but Unity and Compiz both throw utter bitch-fits if, say, I try "unity --reset." In theory, the 7025's fully compatible with the OpenGL 2.0/Pixel Shader 4.0 spec, but I suspect there are some compatibility hacks, rather than native implementation.
From the fresh install, it took me probably about 4-5 hours of fighting with different combinations of the drivers and reloading the linux 3.5.0-17 headers and source to get Unity to load fully (the first couple times, the display was completely bugged out to the point of unusability- the rest of the times, it loaded without a window manager and occasionally glitched back to unusability after a couple minutes).
Long story short, there are known bugs with Ubuntu 12.10 and nVidia embedded chipsets that I should have researched before the install; I got it working, but it's HIGHLY unstable.
So, what are you looking at pricewise for this?
Quote from: Faeelin on December 25, 2012, 01:15:03 PM
So, what are you looking at pricewise for this?
Quote from: DontSayBanana on December 07, 2012, 03:14:07 PM
I had to estimate because I couldn't find the invoices for the mobo or the CPU, but so far, I've only spent about $255 before shipping, and most of the pieces shipped for free. That's including the hard drive, which seems to be stuck in postal limbo at the moment. <_<
That's a 3GHz quad core with 8GB of RAM for $255 - what would that kind of performance cost in an apple store? It blows my mind when thinking about how inexpensive computing power is these days.
Quote from: Vricklund on December 31, 2012, 09:51:48 AM
That's a 3GHz quad core with 8GB of RAM for $255 - what would that kind of performance cost in an apple store? It blows my mind when thinking about how inexpensive computing power is these days.
Yeah, it's pretty nuts. There's a kid out there who made a Beowulf HPC cluster with his dad by networking a bunch of Raspberry Pis in scratch-built LEGO racks...
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/09/university-builds-cheap-supercomputer-with-raspberry-pi-and-legos/
On the minus side, I just brought this monster to $350. On the plus side, I was able to snag a Radeon HD 6850 for about $100 from Newegg. Goodbye, hacky recompiled drivers for U12.10, hello being able to play my sandbox games on Wine. :P
Quote from: DontSayBanana on January 01, 2013, 10:02:13 AM
Quote from: Vricklund on December 31, 2012, 09:51:48 AM
That's a 3GHz quad core with 8GB of RAM for $255 - what would that kind of performance cost in an apple store? It blows my mind when thinking about how inexpensive computing power is these days.
Yeah, it's pretty nuts. There's a kid out there who made a Beowulf HPC cluster with his dad by networking a bunch of Raspberry Pis in scratch-built LEGO racks...
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/09/university-builds-cheap-supercomputer-with-raspberry-pi-and-legos/
Too bad LEGO is still expensive as hell. ;)
Note to self: never, ever go with Egg Saver shipment again.
Going from Edison, NJ to Millville, NJ, DHL decided to hand it off to the post office... in Elkridge, MD. :bleeding:
Quote from: DontSayBanana on January 02, 2013, 11:18:43 PM
On the minus side, I just brought this monster to $350. On the plus side, I was able to snag a Radeon HD 6850 for about $100 from Newegg. Goodbye, hacky recompiled drivers for U12.10, hello being able to play my sandbox games on Wine. :P
Would that also be a good graphics card for Windows, in terms of bang for the buck? I'm having some minor annoyances with my 4650 on Windows 8 and think it's time to move up.
Quote from: derspiess on January 07, 2013, 05:52:10 PM
Would that also be a good graphics card for Windows, in terms of bang for the buck? I'm having some minor annoyances with my 4650 on Windows 8 and think it's time to move up.
It'll hold its own for a little while longer, but it really depends on whether you're planning on sticking with a budget card or looking for a little more horsepower for gaming. If you're looking more for a budget card, you can pick up a 6450 for about $50, which is about half what I'm paying for the 6850.
I usually start brainstorming by looking at Passmark's current index of video cards: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/
One of the nice things about the site is that if the card's commonly available, they'll list the average price you can expect to pay for the card, as well as posting the ratio of performance to price.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on January 07, 2013, 10:40:39 PM
Quote from: derspiess on January 07, 2013, 05:52:10 PM
Would that also be a good graphics card for Windows, in terms of bang for the buck? I'm having some minor annoyances with my 4650 on Windows 8 and think it's time to move up.
It'll hold its own for a little while longer, but it really depends on whether you're planning on sticking with a budget card or looking for a little more horsepower for gaming. If you're looking more for a budget card, you can pick up a 6450 for about $50, which is about half what I'm paying for the 6850.
I usually start brainstorming by looking at Passmark's current index of video cards: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/
One of the nice things about the site is that if the card's commonly available, they'll list the average price you can expect to pay for the card, as well as posting the ratio of performance to price.
Really looking for a budget card, so I'll check out the 6450-- thanks!
So, turns out after much bug-chasing that the Biostar board was a dud. Lesson learned: once in a while, a bad rep on the Internet is actually deserved. Picked up an ASUS M5 A97 R2.0 on sale from Newegg for $95- I figure I'm off the "getting the damn thing working" stage and starting to put in good parts. What I'm gaining:
Support for an FX processor down the line
Going from 8GB to 32GB max supported memory
USB 3.0
An actual PCIe 2.0 x 16, so my 6850 won't be quite so throttled.
And my second worst fear was realized. Stabilized the computer today by replacing the refurb Sapphire 6850 with a new VisionTek 6850. At least it wasn't the CPU. <_<
Welp, starting to consider upgrading some parts in Frankenstein's monster here. At present, I've got a Phenom 945 in here, and knowing the board compatibility, wondering if it would be worth it for me to bump it up to an FX-8350. On paper, going from 4C @ 3.1GHz to 8C @ 4GHz is a no-brainer, but I'm wondering if the board would just bottleneck that processor to where I'd be better off swapping both the motherboard and the CPU.
For gaming I think your 6850 is more of a bottleneck than your 945.
Quote from: Vricklund on November 03, 2013, 03:41:48 AM
For gaming I think your 6850 is more of a bottleneck than your 945.
:blink: No. That card's only just dropped out of the top 50 because of the latest 7-series cards; it's
still within the top 100. For some reason, AMD gave the 6850 far more horsepower than other cards in the line: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+6850&id=45
The CPU, on the other hand, is ranked 350. And now that I'm looking at it, notice what CPU's sitting pretty right at the top of the list for the lowest dollars-to-hertz ratio? And is sitting almost 300 spots above my current CPU? http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8350+Eight-Core&id=1780
I've got the most ground to gain on the CPU, but again, while my ASUS M5A97 R2.0 supports FX processors, I have to wonder whether it can fully take advantage of an ultra-high-end CPU like that- after that, the video card will be the bottleneck: my PCIE bus is 2.0, so I'm going to hit diminishing returns at the top end of the video cards.
Depends what kind of games you're playing I guess. :huh:
I still think you could use a 7-series without your CPU being a significant bottleneck. For the same price as the 8350 I would get a 7850. To get the last drop out of the 945 I would possibly OC it slightly.
But then again, as you say, all upgrades are a case of diminishing returns, so it all comes down to how much you're willing to spend.
*sighs* I'm back on the stick again. My Steam and Origin libraries are getting so huge that I'm putting an additional 2TB drive into my PC today. :blush:
Quote from: DontSayBanana on November 03, 2013, 08:58:35 AM
Quote from: Vricklund on November 03, 2013, 03:41:48 AM
For gaming I think your 6850 is more of a bottleneck than your 945.
:blink: No. That card's only just dropped out of the top 50 because of the latest 7-series cards; it's still within the top 100. For some reason, AMD gave the 6850 far more horsepower than other cards in the line: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+HD+6850&id=45
The CPU, on the other hand, is ranked 350. And now that I'm looking at it, notice what CPU's sitting pretty right at the top of the list for the lowest dollars-to-hertz ratio? And is sitting almost 300 spots above my current CPU? http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+FX-8350+Eight-Core&id=1780
I've got the most ground to gain on the CPU, but again, while my ASUS M5A97 R2.0 supports FX processors, I have to wonder whether it can fully take advantage of an ultra-high-end CPU like that- after that, the video card will be the bottleneck: my PCIE bus is 2.0, so I'm going to hit diminishing returns at the top end of the video cards.
IIRC, the 6850 has lower performances than the 5850. You would be much better off with a 7850, if you can still find one, AMD has replaced their cards with the newest R-prefix&numbers, it's a little confusing for now, and they're essentially the same, albeit overclocked, as that 7xxx series.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on June 05, 2014, 10:24:40 AM
*sighs* I'm back on the stick again. My Steam and Origin libraries are getting so huge that I'm putting an additional 2TB drive into my PC today. :blush:
Why not install 2-3 games at a time only?
Quote from: viper37 on June 08, 2014, 12:45:23 AM
Quote from: DontSayBanana on June 05, 2014, 10:24:40 AM
*sighs* I'm back on the stick again. My Steam and Origin libraries are getting so huge that I'm putting an additional 2TB drive into my PC today. :blush:
Why not install 2-3 games at a time only?
Because a significant chunk of that is Sims expansion packs (around 50GB). The kicker is I have uninstalled some of the bigger space hogs (my EU3/CK installs, etc). Even with the 2TB drive, if I kept all of it installed at a time, it'd be damn near full.
Quote from: DontSayBanana on June 08, 2014, 07:51:40 AM
Quote from: viper37 on June 08, 2014, 12:45:23 AM
Quote from: DontSayBanana on June 05, 2014, 10:24:40 AM
*sighs* I'm back on the stick again. My Steam and Origin libraries are getting so huge that I'm putting an additional 2TB drive into my PC today. :blush:
Why not install 2-3 games at a time only?
Because a significant chunk of that is Sims expansion packs (around 50GB). The kicker is I have uninstalled some of the bigger space hogs (my EU3/CK installs, etc). Even with the 2TB drive, if I kept all of it installed at a time, it'd be damn near full.
WTF, dude? I have 124 Steam games installed, including Sims 3 with expansions, and stuff like the latest Wolfenstein that's like 40+GB, and I'm only at 750 GB. Plus other non-Steam games I still have 450 GB free on my 1.5TB drive.
It's a combination of my Steam library, my Origin library, and a metric fuckton of non-Steam, non-Origin games that I've gotten through Humble Bundle, GoG, etc. I've had to chill with obtaining games because I was getting them faster than I could get to them. I've got the digital version of Money's boardgame collection. :blush:
I said I have 124 games installed - in total I have 310 on Steam. Plus another 100 or so from Gamersgate, GOG and various other outlets. I have nothing on Origin, though (except Mass Effect 3, which I will play at some point, promised!).