Cure my ignorance

[BetterDeadThanRed]

I'm building myself a brand new rig in a few months, but unfortunately I'm a bit clueless. My budget is somewhere between 1-2k, but I'm not sure what kind of return on my investment I should expect.

So here's a bunch of questions I have for anyone willing to cure me of my abyssal void of ignorance.


1) Hex core processors: Are they worth it? Do they help when playing games? Why are AMD's hex cores so suspiciously cheap?

2) SSD drives - Are all the cool kids booting their OS from them now? Does it really make a difference? Is it worth the price?

3) Sound cards - Is the quality that noticeable over on board? What about when using high quality headphones? Does it take a load off of the CPU?

4) Memory - more MHz is good I'm assuming, but is it that much of a difference to warrant less GB for more MHz? (cost wise) Do extra GBs stop mattering after a certain point?

5) Price - Is a $800 processor really worth the price difference of a $250 processor?

6) Price 2.0 - If I invest 2k into a computer, will it be twice as kickass as putting 1k into a computer, or will the difference be almost negligible? (Going by my economics knowledge, I'm assuming there is a place where putting more money into a computer won't give you a great return on investment, but at what point do things stop being practical?)

7) Operating systems - What the hell is the difference between Windows 7 home/ultimate/pro/galactic-overlord edition? Does it matter and is it worth the price?

Bluray? Is there any conceivable use for these things in the near future?

[Zrix]

2) Yes it provides a noticeable increase in performance, primarily load and start times.
3) I notice a big difference between low and high quality soundcards. Good headphones makes it easier to notice it, since everything sounds like **** with bad headphones.
6) Once you reach the really pricy parts, the performance is usually not directly proportional to the price any more. But on the other hand, the better comp you get now, the longer you can wait to upgrade again.
7) Windows 7 Pricing Buy Install Choose Edition Features Upgrades Offers
Unless you buy or plan to buy Bluray movies, no.


In my opinion it's important to check reviews and benchmark tests on each part, and weigh price vs performance individually in each case. Then if the total cost is too high, go back and see performance wise which part is best to cut back on. Or if it turns out cheap, maybe see if you can throw in something fancy.

[General_J0k3r]

1) Hex core processors: Are they worth it? Do they help when playing games?

yes. a) you can do more things at the same time better (as in running multiple applications). They also help a single application if it is written to use more than one core. should be standard soon. They help with games when this prerequisite is met (coded for use of multiple cores).

2) SSD drives - Are all the cool kids booting their OS from them now? Does it really make a difference? Is it worth the price?

You have to decide urself if it's worth the price but they make a hell of a difference regarding overall system performance. anything that involves reading from a HDD will be significantly faster especially when many smaller and or fragmented files are used. Especially during things like startup, starting applications or loading in games. Also: No defragging anymore . For Arma 2 for example a SSD makes a significant difference since the game constantly reads from the HDD.

3) Sound cards - Is the quality that noticeable over on board? What about when using high quality headphones? Does it take a load off of the CPU?

1) yes
2) good soundcard and crappy headphones give crappy sound. crappy soundcard and good headphones give crappy sound also.

nowadays onboard chips aren't all that bad in my opinion.
3) depends on the game

4) Memory - more MHz is good I'm assuming, but is it that much of a difference to warrant less GB for more MHz? (cost wise) Do extra GBs stop mattering after a certain point?

1) Faster is always better
2) More is not always better, if you already have >= 4GB or so go for the quicker RAM.
3) More or less. Depends on what you do. For gaming you should be set with 8GB under almost all circumstances.

5) Price - Is a $800 processor really worth the price difference of a $250 processor?

Usually not

6) Price 2.0 - If I invest 2k into a computer, will it be twice as kickass as putting 1k into a computer, or will the difference be almost negligible? (Going by my economics knowledge, I'm assuming there is a place where putting more money into a computer won't give you a great return on investment, but at what point do things stop being practical?)

It will not be twice as kickass. the "production function" is not linear in price but with decreasing returns to scale. A PC that costs 2k will be less than twice as kickass probably.

7) Operating systems - What the hell is the difference between Windows 7 home/ultimate/pro/galactic-overlord edition? Does it matter and is it worth the price?

I really dunno. I'd go for professional if it's anything like XP

Bluray? Is there any conceivable use for these things in the near future?

there are already uses. I personally wouldn't buy a BluRay writer (I think that's where ur heading with this question) yet.

[BloodBane611]

You can buy a computer that will max out most games for a little more than 1K, depending on what you spend on new monitor/peripherals.

I'm just going to touch on a few of your questions:

As far as SSDs, it's up to you to decide whether it's worth it to you, but it will greatly speed up the loading of things you put on that SSD. Booting windows in ~20 seconds is slow for an SSD from what I hear.

CPUs: The $800 one will be nowhere near 3x as good as a $250 one. If you're looking for a top of the line processor, I wouldn't go much over $300. Otherwise, you're just paying a shedload of money to be an early adopter, without a lot of actual performance increase. If you look at AMD processors, the Phenom II X6 2.8 ghz is ~$200. The 3.0 ghz is $240, and the 3.2 ghz is $295, so ~20% more and almost 50% more respectively. For that price, the only thing that is changing is your processor speed - there is literally no other tech that changes on those chips. I don't know as much about intel, perhaps someone else can butt in here, however I have routinely been told that picking up an i7 for gaming is foolish. If you really want to spend the money, feel free, but the i5s are much better performance/$ right now. (that's just my general anti-i7 spiel )


Windows 7: Buy a 64 bit edition, otherwise it doesn't really matter as far as I can tell. If it does change anything, it's not something meaningful enough for me to notice

[JohnnyTheIED]

A AMD PHenomx6 1090T can be overclocked to 4.1 ghz stable and will have almost the same performance as a 1000$ i7.

1000$ CPU is a BIG nono. lol

As Bane said, a little over 1k should give you a very good machine. If you can spare more money, Get a huge 1080i HD DEL TV That will give you ALOT more bang for your money then adding another k on the computer.