Wow, I have been out of the game for too long. In the past I built my own pcs from an assortment of parts. I got lazy on my last one and just purchased it. While it works fine, I think I would be better serve by returning to the build arena. Anyway, I started looking the other day and realized I am completely out of date on my hardware knowledge. I have started my lessons on www.tomshardware.com but does anyone else have good hardware review/information sites?

I plan to spend a bit of coin on this one (i'm usually a minimalist) and I want to get it right...
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Genre focus: MWO/DCS

First step: budget!
No sli/crossfire. Probably best to go nvidia on the card, tom's and your budget will help pick which one.
SSD for your OS drive. Mine was about $100, but I couldn't wait for a good sale. It's a well rated samsung, 120GB. Then something huge for your game installs and backups.
Beyond that really depends on budget.

Budget: I have a number in my head. Im willing to break it a little because I want to go big this time.

As far as the SS drives. I figure the windows OS and game install would go on it, but what about user data information. It seems windows 7 likes to put all of that in the user folder. Is there a way to relocate that to a normal drive or do I leave it on the SS? Never owned one before but they tend to be kind of small and it sounds like the write data in chunks (potential wasted space)...

My plan was to avoid crossfire for now and focus on 1 high end graphics card

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Also, does hyperthreading do anything for game platforms? My current I5 doesn't have it and it looks like that remains the trend.

Point 18 in the SSD Optimization Guide:

http://thessdreview.com/ssd-guides/optim...ws-8-edition/7/

You should read through it and use the tips after installing Windows.


You have an i5? Then you shouldn't need to upgrade the motherboard. Is it an i5 2500k or 3570k, then you wouldn't see much (if any) gain in games when upgrading your CPU. And no, HyperThreading doesn't do anything for games, with the one or two exceptions to the rule.

Dunno what memory you have, but you might increase the amount?

Soooo, one budget mainly for the GPU and maybe a bit for memory?

Its an I5 750. Off the top of my head I can't remember what socket it uses.

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Yes, you can very easily relocate the user doc/pics/video file to the big drive. Just right click on it, add alternate path and then delete the original. That's how I do mine.
I have mwo on my ssd since it doesn't take much space,but steam and other games, fraps/dxtory on the big drive. Helps the read/write for game caps too.

Agreed, might keep that cpu, it sounds fine unless you just want to push on. Could at least be put off until later.
Mwo hates crossfire. I picked up about 15 fps running it off of my 6970 solo.

Do your homework on cases. Mine was good for the money, but I wish it had more space on the cable management side of the case. I'll probably swap out before too long.

Yeah tell us what kind of motherboard you have Feetwet... if it supports a i5/2500k and overclocking you could be in business pretty easily.

My i5/2500k with a good cooler (see sig) has been overclocked at 4.8ghz for almost 2 years now, it still ranks up there with the newer CPUs for gaming, and you can then spend more of the upgrade money on a video card (don't go crossfire or SLI)...

I saw AMD make some big deal about releasing a 4.7Ghz and 5Ghz CPUs the other week and I was like "big whoop" I've been running on a $220 overclocked 4.8GHZ CPU for 2 years...

Appears a Socket 1156 and chipsets could be Intel 3420PCH, Q57, P55 or H55. My money is on a P55 motherboard.

READ THE REVIEWS!! If you decide on any piece of hardware, google the make and model and look at the reviews from several sources to be sure you're not getting a 'lemon'. Review sites like Tom's and HardOCP, etc. are nice to get a general idea, but user feedback is probably the best info.

I bought a PSU that had great reviews, but then it died maybe after a year of use. I started reading customer reviews and found it was a common issue, but yet none of the actual review sites mentioned that because they test it for their reviews, and then probably shelve it/donate it and don't follow up.

Obviously take any feedback with a grain of salt...there's a lot of "expert" PC enthusiasts that really don't know what they're talking about, and when they f-up they tend to blame the hardware/manufacturer.