PC Buying Guide - July 2011

[Extreme Gamer]

@venram87700, asus 560 ti direct cu is overpriced for its clock speed.



Depends on the speakers u use...



Who mentioned we hav to see the software features??



Which ext. soundcard has better SNR??

HD 380 Pro. Almost no change in quality. Thats a good quality set.

As for software I was not saying anybody mentioned it. it was just a pointer.

External cards may not have better SNR but total SNR vs an internal card is usually less vs. internal card in the same range.

If you use headphones it is better to get an external amp than a soundcard.

For speakers, I use Logitech X-540, which is 2.5 years old now btw and are pretty good at sub 10k range (got it for 7k when I bought it), albeit discontinued now.

 

[MegaMind]

HD 380 Pro. Almost no change in quality. Thats a good quality set.

I havnt used any high-end headsets with Xonar DX, But was able to hear damn gr8 change wen i connected my ipod earphones(vs onboard)...

As for software I was not saying anybody mentioned it. it was just a pointer.

Thanks for pointin...

External cards may not have better SNR but total SNR vs an internal card is usually less vs. internal card in the same range.

I totally disagree with this one.

If you use headphones it is better to get an external amp than a soundcard.

Havnt used any external amp, so cant comment on tat...

For speakers, I use Logitech X-540, which is 2.5 years old now btw and are pretty good at sub 10k range (got it for 7k when I bought it), albeit discontinued now.

My VS4121 turned into a beast wen connected to Xonar DX..

 

[aby geek]

erm jasji just came to know digital imagery require a lot of ram so could you add a professional config for digital imagery and art(2d creation phtoshop and painterstuff)

artist feng zhu suggested to have atleast 8gb for working in photoshop.his sizes were large

so could u make a ram buffed rig adhering to this piece of info.

and please include a ram upgradation time table to make it clear how to add ram sticks gradually and go over 8 gb.

 

[Sarath]

@topgear
nice. i will put it. but which heading you want?

@all
now to put a sound card or not in 130k?

Looks like we are back to square one. You have given a person the best of choices upto 130k. Now if he has more to spare a sound card would be a worthy inverstment/upgrade. So putting it in an optional list would be better.

More like: Integrated will do good.
Optional: If you want still better sound quality to go with a good speaker system and get Xonar/ Xi Fi etc

I think adding a small note and putting it as optional will be a good idea. Since 130k is a fixed budget for us but others might not be so transfixed on their budget.

You might not want to confuse the buyer by putting it in the actual list and making it appear as a core ingredient without which his PC would be incomplete.

Since I noticed when you removed the sound card from the list and out a 96GB SSD, I wouldnt want this to affect the SSD by scaling down its capacity.

 

[Extreme Gamer]

I totally disagree with this one.

Why is that?

An internal card gets more interference than an external USB DAC solution.

An internal card, from my experience, is not a worthwhile upgrade.

You probably wont believe it, but a PCI (not sure of PCIE/USB) soundcard adds to audio latency.

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

erm jasji just came to know digital imagery require a lot of ram so could you add a professional config for digital imagery and art(2d creation phtoshop and painterstuff)

artist feng zhu suggested to have atleast 8gb for working in photoshop.his sizes were large

so could u make a ram buffed rig adhering to this piece of info.

and please include a ram upgradation time table to make it clear how to add ram sticks gradually and go over 8 gb.

didnt get this buddy.

 

[MegaMind]

An internal card gets more interference than an external USB DAC solution.
An internal card, from my experience, is not a worthwhile upgrade.
You probably wont believe it, but a PCI (not sure of PCIE/USB) soundcard adds to audio latency.

If u r referring to ext. sound cards like Xonar U3, SQ s very poor, even compared to onboard sound like ALC1200.

There are many great soundcards and many great external units. The answer would depend on what you need for features, output options and your budget.

If you're using a computer and want to use an external DAC, you still need some way to transport the digital signal to the DAC for it to work. This is accomplished by a soundcard's digital output (many integrated motherboard soundcards have these as well, albeit of lower quality). In this case, the soundcard is acting as a transport and relegating all the D/A conversion to the external DAC by providing it the digital signal.

Some external DACs also run off USB, which eliminates the need for a soundcard to act as a transport. Basically, this would simply require you to connect a USB cable from your computer to the DAC. This is the simplest option but also, usually, the lowest quality one.
plain USB DACs are very prone to jitter

The bottomline is a DAC only converts digital signal but without a good sound card, the digital input will be bad and therefore cannot produce a significant increase in SQ...

I hope this gives a clear picture...

 

[aby geek]

@jasji

i just want convey to you please include rigs wth 8 gb and over ram for designers who work wth 300dpi resolution and above and work on file dimensions way upto 12000x9000

so all you have to do is tweak ur best configs to accomodate huge amounts of ram.

what i meant is that no one will buy 12gb ram at once so could you add in a mini schedule table suggesting at what intervals more sticks of ram can be added(read gradually/one by one)

which motherboards allow 32gb and above memory room and wch among those are recommended by you.

and how much will a single 4gb module cost.

or if u wanna save the hassle just make along post about ram kits and modules u suggest for such high memory needs.

you can always pm me if ur confused what iam blabbering about.

 

[Jaskanwar Singh]

@aby

buddy 85k and above have 8GB ram kits.

this is mentioned - G-Skill[ Ripjaws-X]DDR3 1600 Mhz 8GB(4GB x2)F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM

its a 2x4GB kit. so only two memory slots are occupied leaving future upgrade possible if someone wants.

the mobos mentioned support 32GB of memory -
GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1155 - GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 (rev. 1.0)
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Motherboards- ASUS P8Z68-V PRO

and adding even more ram is upto the person and his usages.

 

[topgear]

@topgear
nice. i will put it. but which heading you want?

@all
now to put a sound card or not in 130k?

cheapest/basic SB rig and if there's any better in your mind feel free to decide

 

[aby geek]

for topg's rig name it the pocket assassinator. (nator for an added zing)

@ jasji oh k thats great news thanks. btw have the number of dimms incresed from 4 or r do mobos for desktop still offer 4 slots?

@all i wanted ur thoughts on including MFD for a home office setup what say?

 

[Skud]

That SoHo thing would need a separate category altogether IMO.

 

[aby geek]

u guys know better if we are to follow complete soho norms or what the ongoing trend is then lets make a new category.

whats the minimum budget required though any idea skud?

and we could start listing MFD's then any other peripherals required?

 

[Skud]

Not much idea. But our normal thinking of gaming, multimedia oriented PCs won't do. For example, we might have to start from the printer/MFD instead of the other way around. Let someone with some knowhow give inputs on this.

 

[boddunan]

Guys please suggest me the good gamepad out of the following three.

1. Razer onza tournament edition
2. Microsoft Xbox 360 Controller for Windows
3. Logitech Cordless Rumblepad 2/ Wireless game pad F710

All of them have force feedback, Razer one is NOT cordless though.

My first impressions:

Razor - From my experience with their keyboard I believe this could be very comfortable. And looks wise - damn this is so cool

Microsoft - Not good looks wise, however very good build quality

Logitech - They are known for their quality.

 

[vickybat]

cheapest/basic SB rig and if there's any better in your mind feel free to decide

Better to simply put its as a 25k rig. No need for a special name imo. I think we should let do with all phenom 2 and athlon 2 chips and replace them with i3 2100 chips.

They are faster than a 955be even in multithreaded apps, run much cooler and consume less power. Besides , users can always upgrade to ivybridge based quads , hex and octacores in future.

Lets not suggest amd rigs until llano and bulldozers arrive. They will make amd worthwhile again. What say guys?

 

[d3p]

^ 1+ Agree with Vicky on the topic name suggestion.

AFAIK bulldozer is supposed to be launched by Mid of july, till then let existing config details be available.

 

[Cilus]

The cheapest Sandybridge is i3 2100, priced at 5.6K and at this price you will get a Phenom II 955.
Check the Anandtech and Tomshardware review and you will find out that apart from gaming and AVS and SSE4 specific instruction set supported applications, i3 2100 is just on the par with Athlon II 645, shipping @ 4.5K and now @ 4.8K you will get a Phenom II 840. So at this price point AMD is recommended here as price of AMD motherboards with more feature set is far cheaper that Intel H61 and H67 mobos. The upgrade to Bulldozer is also a viable option for the AMD AM3 users with just BIOS update.

 

[vickybat]

The following is a comparison benchmark between core i3 2100 and phenom 2 955be. Phenom 2 is getting beaten in all benchmarks except video encoding. But a user can use quicksync here which will blow 955be out of the water in encoding tasks.

Check THIS.

Check THIS (shows comparison between athlon 635 and i3 2100). Game performance is solid with core i3 2100. Just check crysis warhead benchmark.

So my suggestion is to stick with i3 2100 until desktop parts of llano and bulldozer arrive. If bulldozer delivers more performance than sandybridge, then we can happily recommend in our guide.

But currently we should give the best cpu at a price point and considering intel's formidable upgrade path with the upcoming 22nm ivybridge, recommending the core i3 2100 instead of current athlons and phenoms isn't a bad idea considering it beats them in almost all benchmarks.

I understand the point of upgrading to bulldozer in the current 8 series chipsets but why recommend a lower performing processor for sake of upgradability when people can also upgrade with intel? And these people won't upgrade instantly when bulldozer arrives. So we should recommend that's performing best in the present scenario keeping upgradability in mind and we will be doing exactly the same by recommending the core i3 2100 in the 20-30k budget.

 

[Cilus]

Hey Vicky, on this review Phenom II 955 is performing on the par or slightly better than 2100 in lot of applications apart from Video Encoding, especially in 3D rendering, SMP test, some of the Microsoft Exel benchmarks, Povray multicore benchmarks, some of the 3D MAx based tests etc.