recommend me components for a gaming rig?

[Fat Tone]

Hi

I need to upgrade Luke's PC. He needs a new motherboard, cpu and graphics card so he can play MineCraft and probably some other stuff.

I have the case, PSU, 4*1GB DDR3, monitor, keyboard, mouse, a 40GB SATA SSD, various 500GB PATA HDDs that it would be good to be able to make use of.

I don't know what the current state of integrated graphics is? I know minecraft isn't too demanding, it's a pretty low-res game. I guess as long as I can add a gfx card later if needed then a decent integrated chipset would be ok?

I feel so out of this these days! I haven't built a system in the best part of a year, and not a gaming system for many years more!

Thanks,

T.

[Evildead666]

If you can get hold of a Llano system by AMD it would give some pretty good integrated graphics, with a pretty OK cpu. It should have a PCIe slot spare for a future GPU if needed later on.
The only problem would be finding one, they seem to be in short supply from what I've read on the web.

Other than that there is the usual Intel integrated, their CPU's are good, but the integrated graphics are a bit (lot) crap.

[Elie]

Here are a few suggestions...

1-Six core i7 processor. Or preferably a dual XEON six core i7 workstation class system
2-Tyan S7025 motherboard
3-20GB ram ECC registered DDR 3
4-Nvidia GTX 590 with 2GB ram
5-2x3D capable 27 inch 16:10 monitors
6-ROCCAT ISKU keyboard
7-ROCCAT Kova+ mouse
8-three 2TB hard drives for the ultimate MP3 and video storage!
9-Pioneer Blu-Ray Burner
10-SD Card reader
11-Firewire port
12-USB3 capable
13-Blue Tooth capable
14-Matrox MXO-2 Mini for all editing needs
15-Adobe CS5.5 Masters edition
16-Windows 7 Professional 64bit
17-Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty professional series sound card
18-Mid sized tower case with 7 fans


there

[Evildead666]

Might be a bit overkill for the kids needs

Dad wouldn't let him near it "I haven't finished setting it up yet, go do your homework or something" lol

[VJ]

I am currently waiting for the Z77 mainboards to appear, which should be Q1 2012. I need to upgrade (still to replace the PC that UPS dropped in a shipment), but it is not an urgent upgrade. There would not be that much difference between the Ivy Bridge and the current Sandy Bridge though.

[Evildead666]

Real PCIe3 support is now confirmed for the 7x series chipsets, except the top of the line X79.
Its a bonus at least

[VJ]

Yes, but is PCIe3 really that necessary? Benchmarks show that there is virtually no difference in the current videocards between them running on x16 or x8. So the current crop barely maxes out x8.

[TransformX]

Here are a few suggestions...

1-Six core i7 processor. Or preferably a dual XEON six core i7 workstation class system
2-Tyan S7025 motherboard
3-20GB ram ECC registered DDR 3
4-Nvidia GTX 590 with 2GB ram
5-2x3D capable 27 inch 16:10 monitors
6-ROCCAT ISKU keyboard
7-ROCCAT Kova+ mouse
8-three 2TB hard drives for the ultimate MP3 and video storage!
9-Pioneer Blu-Ray Burner
10-SD Card reader
11-Firewire port
12-USB3 capable
13-Blue Tooth capable
14-Matrox MXO-2 Mini for all editing needs
15-Adobe CS5.5 Masters edition
16-Windows 7 Professional 64bit
17-Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty professional series sound card
18-Mid sized tower case with 7 fans


there

I can't believe it, you took something beautiful and then you went on and ruined it.
Windows doesn't deserve such a machine.

[Evildead666]

Yes, but is PCIe3 really that necessary? Benchmarks show that there is virtually no difference in the current videocards between them running on x16 or x8. So the current crop barely maxes out x8.

Exactly, but they don't have enough bandwidth for 7x PCIex16 slots.
So if current crop of cards runs fine on 8x, that means you can have them running on x4 PCIe3 slots, which should be sufficient.
It probably won't though.

Won't be long before we have motherboards with only PCIex16 slots, at 8x Physical when all are populated. That makes for quite a render farm, folding machine etc.

[VJ]

True, but how many people in a normal rig manage to max out all the PCIe lanes? Let's say you need 8 for the videocard, maybe 4 for some SATA and another 4 for Gbps lan... In most mainstream systems, that will be enough...

[Fat Tone]

Thanks for the (more economic) suggestions. I like the sound of the llano's for this application.

So how does this sound?:

AMD A6 3500, S FM1, Lynx Core, Triple Core 2.4GHz, GPU AMD Radeon HD 6530D 443MHz, 65W, Retail

Asus F1A75, AMD A75, S FM1, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, RAID SATA, PCIe 2.0 (x16), ATX

£140.

[Umfriend]

Yes, but is PCIe3 really that necessary? Benchmarks show that there is virtually no difference in the current videocards between them running on x16 or x8. So the current crop barely maxes out x8.

I seem to remember Tom ('s Hardware) asking the same thing. Was about AGP though.

[Evildead666]

Thanks for the (more economic) suggestions. I like the sound of the llano's for this application.

So how does this sound?:

AMD A6 3500, S FM1, Lynx Core, Triple Core 2.4GHz, GPU AMD Radeon HD 6530D 443MHz, 65W, Retail

Asus F1A75, AMD A75, S FM1, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, RAID SATA, PCIe 2.0 (x16), ATX

£140.

Sounds good.

What speed DDR3 have you got ? Since the integrated GPU uses that for memory, the faster the better. DDR3-1333 -> DDR3-1866 have been tested online in most reviews, and I think techreport has an article on it.
Basically, if its a bit slow for your needs, up the memory speed.

[Fat Tone]

Sounds good.

What speed DDR3 have you got ? Since the integrated GPU uses that for memory, the faster the better. DDR3-1333 -> DDR3-1866 have been tested online in most reviews, and I think techreport has an article on it.
Basically, if its a bit slow for your needs, up the memory speed.

Just the cheap 1055 atm, but good to know we can get a serious boost by upgrading it.

The ASUS QVL for that mobo lists sticks up to 2500!

Thanks,

T.

[VJ]

This is the article on PCIe x16 vs PCIe x8: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...Scaling/1.html