TUTORIAL: Buying a Computer for StarCraft 2 for under $650

There is one setting which you can set to extreme. I believe it's something with shaders, but I'd have to check that.

Edit: I was correct. Apparently you get SSAO when you set shaders to extreme... whatever that means.

 

Just to let you know, the PSU is unavailable.

 

Tromps? Hmm, seeing how I actually have a few posts to my name, I'd hardly say I tromped in here. Secondly, you're not a professional, are you? No. So, your opinions are the opinions of a gifted amateur; forgive me if I take your ''years of experience'' with a grain of salt. While your analysis may be correct given your experiences, your opinions regarding AMD and Radeon do not accurately reflect reality, as others have already pointed out. And lastly, your blurb about Nvidia makes it almost sound like you work for them --where's that journalistic impartiality gone to?

As I mentionned before, sir, I also own a Nvidia card and an Intel CPU, but I would never deny that AMD & Radeon deliver bloody good products --anyone who does has an agenda, or failed to do their research. You grudgingly give AMD CPU options, and you dismiss Radeon in a few sentences. Make your bias plain, if you must, but please don't denigrate products that you know nothing about.

By the by, I have had terrible experiences with Western Digital. What does that say about your peremptory claim that ''they always do better''? It's just opinion.

 

So painful being a canadian...the i5 combo + graphics card which would be less then 730 if I were in the US would now be 940 dollars. /facepalm

 

Well of course it's just opinion. Never said it wasn't. But pointing to another tech guru's article (opinion) doesn't help your case. By the way, I would call myself a pro since I've put together countless systems for clients.

AMD has yet to prove its track record with me. If you haven't noticed my opinion of them has shifted. I even purchased a laptop with an AMD card because I think they're mobile cards are very good and cost effective, as well as performing well without overheating. But I still wouldn't recommend purchasing them in a desktop. Why? Nvidia is usually either the same price or within $10-20 with the same or better specs and you're purchasing a product that isn't going to fail because higher end card manufacturers use Nvidia chips. You do realize that in desktops Nvidia or AMD don't actually build the cards, right?

You can argue 'til you're blue in the face, but it's like telling me that Wal-Mart's Great Value cheese tastes "almost" the same as Kraft for 10 cents less.

Never had a problem with Western Digital and their tech support is just amazing. And to Crucial's credit despite the fact that their components tend to fail (a lot) they have great customer service and will replace components even if they fail out of warranty.

But that doesn't mean that you can tell me a Hitachi hard drive (comes standard in most pre-fab PCs) is anywhere near the quality of a Western Digital drive. Again, I've used them for years, I probably have 15-20 WDs of different sizes. None has ever failed. I can still go grab my 80GB and put it in (it's from 2001) and it would still work. It's stuffed with MP3s at the moment.

I also have two WD externals 500GB apiece. I've dropped them repeatedly, even ran it over with my bike once, and they work just fine. Never had a failure or corruption.

 

Care to drive over some Hitachi drives just to be sure?

 

Countless? Hmmm, right. I've made 6 systems myself, and I'm decent with a computer, but I wouldn't ever call myself a pro. A pro has paperwork. Neither of us has that. Tom's Hardware, however, does.

Why is it when you feel attacked you begin to lecture? I try not to lecture: it's rude, and it's always best to assume that you're conversing with an intelligent human being.

I study literature, but I don't really understand the false analogy between cheese and computers, and I've never shopped at WalMart's, but I'll take your word for it if it makes you happy.

I know WD has a great reputation. I had really bad experiences with some of their HDDs a while back, but I don't denigrate them. Have you actually tested any of the new generation Radeon cards? What's the last Radeon card you owned? A 9600? Since you're a pro you know that Radeon is almost par on price, and their cards pay themselves back in your electricity bills. All I'm saying is that you shouldn't slate them just because you had some bad experiences with them a few years ago. It's unprofessional.

And frankly, you promote a double standard: you back Crucial, yet maintain that their products fail --but that it's okay because of their customer service. Radeon's products, or so you say, are rubbish, but they don't deserve anyone's attention. Please, explain that one.

 

@Joneagle...Any chance you could update the canadian links? If you're busy I apologize. I'm having a lot of trouble deciding what is and is not a good deal. I know keeping the price down for us foreigners is a bigger challenge. If you could find a good build for under 850, i'd be very happy.

Appreciate all your help.

 

I would never buy a Crucial component. Ever. I said that in the OP. I was saying that despite bad components they have good customer service. So you have to weigh that in your decision. You're citing a bad experience with WD but they have amazing customer service, so I don't see how it could stay a "bad" experience unless you didn't bother calling them.

And the last card I owned is a current laptop card that I have which is an HD 4850. Great card but it has terrible drivers, as usual with ATI cards. It's better to get third party drivers for ATI cards but unfortunately because the card is new (and mobile) there aren't any yet.

However, I said in the OP that I still feel ATI cards are a good buy in a laptop because of the price gap.

I also have two clients who insisted on ATI cards, one of which had me buy a 5870 that worked fine until the air conditioning in his apartment went out. The card fried the next day (probably because of humidity). He was able to return the card because it was only 4 months old, but he promptly bought a GTX 470. The other guy wanted to dual-wield cards but against my suggestion bought an Nvidia GTS 250 and an ATI card (don't know what it is, I didn't pick it for him). I don't know if they didn't play nice or what, but he had one slaved for a second monitor. I ended up coming back out to troubleshoot when both his monitors went down. He returned the ATI secondary card and runs 'em both off the Nvidia.

@ SCV I'll try to get to it tonight. I'll post or edit if I get it done.

EDIT: SCV, updated the Canadian links but I came to $1,000. I don't know if that's Canadian or USD?

 

you're kidding me... you're saying his system overheated, but he then bought a GTX470 over a 5870? that thing runs even hotter and draws even more power. I've already heard of the GPUs overheating because the default driver setting runs the fan speed as low as possible to reduce noise.

as for the multi-monitor support, mixing cards is never a good idea, especially given the possible driver conflicts. somehow you seem to jump to the idea that it was all because of the ATI card. if he had gone dual-ATI or dual-nvidia, it would have been fine either way.

the way you're railing against ATI cards sounds like fanboyism. nvidia's actually got rather poor driver support compared to ATI, this was a huge issue for me when vista came out and nvidia was a month late, and when they finally came out they were rather buggy. on most other occasions they've been equal. it really just boils down to performance, price, and power draw/temperatures when i pick a card these days.

 

I'm not railing. I'm pointing out that I would buy an Nvidia card (from a card manufacturer like PNY or Gigabyte) in a desktop before I would buy an ATI card. It's that simple.

And as far as the GTX replacement, I don't know that heat is what caused the card to fail. I'd pin it more on the increased humidity because his A/C was out. I don't think heat is really an issue with the newer cards.

 

it is, actually. The GTX4xx series is pretty much the hottest and most power-hungry video cards made to date. there could be a few new revisions down the line for a cut-down version, but it's one of the biggest issues with those cards.

and simply choosing one brand over another without regard to specs is just silly. you could make an argument on the drivers, saying things like "i prefer nvidia drivers" is anecdotal more than anything, and "ATI drivers are just buggy" needs to be backed up with evidence. the only evidence i could find (kind of out of date, though) was nvidia drivers caused 3x the crashes while having about 2x the marketshare.

making a general statement about the hardware isn't good, either. neither ATI or nVidia actually manufacture the cards, as you said. most manufacturers, like Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, and XFX manufacture for both companies. XFX has a great warranty policy, one of the only reasons i'd recommend one manufacturer over another. as far as performance goes, they generally trade blows each generation, but the companies will generally adjust the prices as necessary against the competition. it's the details you need to know about that really tip your favour to any particular card: power draw, heat/noise output, DX10/11 compatibility, etc.

 

Why would I worry about power draw when it's my job to provide the best performance for the price? I always recommend a more-than-required wattage for the PSU, and anything beyond that (like the electric bill) isn't my concern. My suggestions are based on out-of-the-box settings, factory drivers, and performance for the novice user. Anyone reading this tutorial is going to be a novice user.

I really don't see why I'm taking so much flak. All I did was recommend a $110 Nvidia chipset video card (GTS 250 PNY 1 GB cache) over a similar ATI card that was $20 more expensive. Where's the foul?

And I even posted 4 options for a processor, 2 of which were ATI options. Again, where's the foul?

I'm not favoring any one brand, I've simply stated my experienced opinion that in a desktop setup I would go for an Nvidia chipset card from a brand card manufacturer because of reliability and performance for a similar cost.

 

power draw is directly related to heat and noise issues. unless none of your customers ever care about long-term reliability or noise, yeah, don't bother taking a look at power draw. it has a pretty bad snowball effect down the line, especially for novice users, because more heat requires more fans, which causes more dust buildup in the case (most novices won't be opening up for regular cleaning), causing heat to build up even faster with high-power components... etc.

and i'm not calling you out for the OP recommendations, it's the opinion in the later posts that "nvidia is just better" when there's little evidence to support the fact. it seems more like personal bias when i can't find any data to support that opinion... and one statistic with the biggest sample size point to the opposite.

 

Wow. I am like... super conflicted on whether or not to buy a new PC, and those CAD prices are killing me!!! I desperately hope prices drop by July .

Anyone know how an 8800GTS 640MB might do with this game?

 

@ Judicator,

Like I said in the CA post, you can drop the prices but IMO that was the best buy for the prices. The less powerful stuff was IMO overpriced. So you're talking $800 for a build that should cost $600.

 

First off, thank you joneagle for putting this thread together. I know you've been receiving some flak for liking one brand over another, but anyone who complains about that is stupid; it's the same reason that some people like Coke over Pepsi. Sure, they both taste good to some people, but those same people will prefer Coke over Pepsi, or vice versa.

Secondly, if at all possible, could you go over some of the links you made (I'm thinking the Power Supply and the Video Card specifically) and offer up an alternative to those that are no longer in stock/unavailable? It'd be awesome for you to do so, and I'd be very appreciative of the work that you put in towards this end.

In summation, just wanted to say thanks again for putting this together. As a College student this guide definitely helps build a budget machine that still has the chops to run Starcraft at the specs that we now know it requires, and has been extremely helpful.

A final question though; what are your thoughts on this case and it's feasibility with building with the parts you've listed; NZXT Vulcan Micro? I only ask because I just seem to be drawn to the look of this case (I <3 handles for whatever reason (something to do with my childhood I presume)), and would be really okay with the price difference in using it over the one you've offered in your initial post.

Thanks again (3rd time now).

 

@ King,

I'll try to update the links that have gone bad but it's tough to keep on top of as they only last about a week. I'll probably get to it later tonight or tomorrow but you can always click "Shop Similar Items" and make an educated guess.

Also, the case you linked is fine although it seems a little cheap. I'd recommend spending $80-120 on your case as it's important to keep your system cool!

EDIT: I updated the PSU link and I couldn't find a better video card than the GTS 250 I linked so just go with that!

 

Awesome, thanks man! I intend to build this bad boy sometime this summer if not early this coming fall. Thanks a lot for the help!

 

I need a computer for 650 dollars MAX! NO BUUILDING! tell me where tofind it you pesky prottos