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I'm building a PC

OP: Fry's has a deal today for an Intel Core i5-4690K and Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H motherboard for $277. That's not too much more than you're paying now for a substantially better setup. Also, it's hackintosh-compatible so you can run both OS X and Windows if you'd like (that's what I do, as I prefer OS X for work but also want to game on occasion).
 
I appreciate it, although it's an ATX motherboard, and it causes the case to be too large for my taste. I'd rather go mATX.

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Also, since you're saying the PSU may be incompatible, do you have any recommendations for my current setup?
 
garirry said:
Also, since you're saying the PSU may be incompatible, do you have any recommendations for my current setup?
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From what I gather the PSU should be fine. Here is a complete description of the issue:

http://www.techsupportforum.com/forums/f210/corsair-cx600-haswell-compatible-705449.html

Note that some folks have unfavorable things to say about it but I think it is what it is: a budget PSU from a pretty solid company. In general reviews of the CX600 are pretty good on Newegg although some have bad luck; I like to think that people are more likely to post a review if they have a bad experience so all in all it should be fine.

I picked up a CS650M for about $70 last year after MIR and have been happy with it although the computer is only turned on when it is rendering a project, in which case GPU (GTX 970) will be pegged at 99% for about two weeks or more!

I went with a low end i3 and spent more on the GPU than originally planned. Note that GTX 750Ti is a pretty sweet GPU on sale but I wouldn't spend more than $150 or so.

Cheers
 
Alright, good to know that it should work. Last question (probably): Do you think 16GB is necessary for my build or 8GB should be fine? It costs less and for my build, I'm not sure if 16GB would even be necessary. My friend will also come today to check all that so I don't have long before I order it.
 
garirry said:
Alright, good to know that it should work. Last question (probably): Do you think 16GB is necessary for my build or 8GB should be fine? It costs less and for my build, I'm not sure if 16GB would even be necessary. My friend will also come today to check all that so I don't have long before I order it.
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Since your primary concern is gaming and light/medium productivity (or so I assume), go with 8GB. If it ends up feeling a little anemic, you can always pop more in later.
 
Renzatic said:
I looked that up right after posting my reply to you above.

Honestly, I feel like I lucked out, because I had no idea this was even an issue. I hate to think of all the hell I would've ended up dragging myself through if I ended up with a flaky PC due to incompatible PSU.
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It wouldnt have been an issue. The main thing about haswell compatibility and PSU's is the deepest sleep state introduced in haswell. Some PSU's werent designed to deliver such a low current draw (sounds ironic doesnt it, as everyone fixates on the maximums and not the minimums), so will react in wonderful ways like turning off entirely. If you happened to have bought such a PSU, most bios's let you turn off C7 (or is it C9? cant remember) and all runs well, except you dont get the benefits of the new deepest sleep state.
 
Alright then, in that case, I'll turn off deep sleep if there are any issues (but I never put my computer to sleep to be honest).

So, my friend said that he couldn't come (I know him, so I should have expected that), but since he's very busy, I'm afraid I wouldn't want to wait so long for him to become available. So, I may order soon, but obviously not before I know that my setup will work fine.

Here's the latest config:
-MSI H81M-P33 motherboard
-Intel Core i5-4460 Haswell Quad-Core 3.2GHz processor
-G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 memory
-CORSAIR CXM series CX600M 600W power supply
-SAPPHIRE 100366-2L Radeon R7 260X 2GB graphics
-Cooler Master N200 - Micro ATX Mini Tower case
-SAMSUNG 850 EVO MZ-75E120B/AM 2.5" 120GB SSD

I have searched in both Newegg Canada and NCIX. Only the case is worth buying in NCIX, since with the shipping and all that it costs 20$ less than on Newegg (plus 10 dollar rebate, which is probably useless). That makes my build cost 793.36$. Less than 800$, which is a great price. What do you think? Should I order?
 
alvindarkness said:
It wouldnt have been an issue. The main thing about haswell compatibility and PSU's is the deepest sleep state introduced in haswell.
Click to expand...

According to this, it's the C6/C7 power states.

It probably would've been a bit of an issue for me, since I set my computer to go to sleep after an hour of inactivity. I would've been scrambling about, wondering why my computer keeps shutting itself down instead of going to sleep without immediately knowing where to look.

In the long run, even if I did have an incompatible PSU, I wouldn't have been losing out on much by disabling it. A sleep state that deep really only benefits mobile hardware.

And Garrity, after a quick glance, I'd say your machine checks out. I did a cursory check of the mobo, CPU, and ram, and it all looks pretty solid. I'd say you're ready to go.
 
Renzatic said:
And Garirry, after a quick glance, I'd say your machine checks out. I did a cursory check of the mobo, CPU, and ram, and it all looks pretty solid. I'd say you're ready to go.
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Alright then, in that case, I'm ordering in three hours, so if someone has a last-minute comment, please post it now.

Thanks for your tips, Renzatic! :)
 
garirry said:
Alright then, in that case, I'm ordering in three hours, so if someone has a last-minute comment, please post it now.

Thanks for your tips, Renzatic! :)
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Not to put a damper on your plan, but I just ran across this...

And googled up this...

Your chipset is an Intel 8 series mobo (specifically H81), and I believe your processor is one of the newer Haswell refreshes. Long story short, you might have to do a BIOS update before your computer will work.

I'd want a second opinion on this, but you might want to hold off on ordering for another day.
 
So, if the processor turns out to be incompatible, how do I update the BIOS then? Also, what motherboard chipset/processor type I need in order for them to work?
 
garirry said:
So, if the processor turns out to be incompatible, how do I update the BIOS then? Also, what motherboard chipset/processor type I need in order for them to work?
Click to expand...

That's a good question, especially considering I haven't updated a bios since the days when floppies were still a thing, let alone an EFI equipped motherboard. Apparently, some motherboards allow you to access and update even without a CPU installed. On a guess, I'd say you put your update files on a thumb drive, and go from there.

...but some don't. It all depends on the manufacturer. You can blame Intel for all of this, making things more difficult than they should be.

What you'll need is any 9 series motherboard, which are, in order from low end to high end, H97, Z97, and X99. On a quick look up, I found this one, which seems pretty decent, if you want a less expensive, but still capable motherboard. More than what you're currently paying, but not by much.

Though like I said, wait for a second opinion before you start recommitting to anything. This could be much ado over nothing.
 
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Actually, I just read information of my motherboard on MSI's website. They say that the processor I chose will be compatible if the BIOS is at least v1.4, which came out in February 2014. This pretty much guarantees that the model I received was manufactured after this date, and thus is most likely updated. So, I assume it should be fine (I'll wait for your opinion first though).
 
garirry said:
Actually, I just read information of my motherboard on MSI's website. They say that the processor I chose will be compatible if the BIOS is at least v1.4, which came out in February 2014. This pretty much guarantees that the model I received was manufactured after this date, and thus is most likely updated. So, I assume it should be fine (I'll wait for your opinion first though).
Click to expand...

I'd say you'll probably be alright, but it's something I'd want you to ask someone else about, considering I've been out of the PC upgrading loop for the last 5 years or so. I'm having to play catch-up, and learn about these latest batches of little curveballs Intel likes to throw peoples way.
 
I just noted that my MB has a M-Flash thing, which lets it easily update BIOS, probably without CPU needed. This means that there's 99.999999% of chance that everything will work in the end, however I'll take your advice and post on Tom's Hardware or something like that prior to ordering.
 
Sounds expensive.

I'm thinking I could buy for close to $50 for 8gb ram, $50 for a motherboard, $150 for similar cpu, $80 for case and power supply, and $60 for a 128gb SSD,

That's $390 for everything but the gpu.
 
garirry said:
I just noted that my MB has a M-Flash thing, which lets it easily update BIOS, probably without CPU needed. This means that there's 99.999999% of chance that everything will work in the end, however I'll take your advice and post on Tom's Hardware or something like that prior to ordering.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm probably being a little too uptight about this, but hey, better safe than sorry. I've probably built about 60 odd computers in my day, and nothing sucks worse than having to troubleshoot a brand new, shiny PC because your parts aren't playing well together.

On the flipside of that, a well built computer is worth its weight in gold.

So when in doubt, do what I do, and annoy the crap out people who might know what you don't. :p
 
trip1ex said:
Sounds expensive.

I'm thinking I could buy for close to $50 for 8gb ram, $50 for a motherboard, $150 for similar cpu, $80 for case and power supply, and $60 for a 128gb SSD,

That's $390 for everything but the gpu.
Click to expand...
For a simple consumer build, that is an accurate price, but I'm building a medium gaming/heavy productivity computer. Keep in mind I pay 800 CAD, that's around 650 USD today.

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Renzatic said:
Yeah, I'm probably being a little too uptight about this, but hey, better safe than sorry. I've probably built about 60 odd computers in my day, and nothing sucks worse than having to troubleshoot a brand new, shiny PC because your parts aren't playing well together.

On the flipside of that, a well built computer is worth its weight in gold.

So when in doubt, do what I do, and annoy the crap out people who might know what you don't. :p
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Yes, one replied 10 minutes after I posted saying that if I live in a country like US, Canada, Europe, etc., then it will most likely be a newer card with a newer BIOS. So I'm more and more ready to purchase the parts, probably tomorrow morning.
 
Well, I just read a review from Newegg about this board that was written a week ago, says it shipped with the latest BIOS firmware (also he has the same processor as me, oddly enough). I think this means I can bite the paper bullet and purchase the whole thing. I'm purchasing tomorrow morning.
 
Alright, so apparently NCIX nor Newegg have completed the payment successfully for some reason, and Newegg's link to updating the info doesn't work. I don't know why, it worked before on Newegg. Weird.
 
garirry said:
Alright, so apparently NCIX nor Newegg have completed the payment successfully for some reason, and Newegg's link to updating the info doesn't work. I don't know why, it worked before on Newegg. Weird.
Click to expand...

The same thing happened to me. I placed the order, got an email saying it'd been confirmed, then got another one a couple hours later saying it was denied. The reason being was because my little too anal retentive bank flagged it as a potentially fraudulent order. You'll have to call them up and say "NO! IT'S ME! I'M DOING THIS".

...preferably in all caps.
 
Well, NCIX did eventually accept the payment, although I had to cancel the order at Newegg and re-order, this time without using Visa Checkout. That failed, but luckily it let me change the payment info and try again. I tried my mom's credit card (I don't have one, I only have a debit card) and it worked (I'll transfer the money to her account later). On that note, I just got an email saying that the case from NCIX has been shipped. Can't wait to build it! :D

On that note, do you have any tips regarding the building process itself? Like, is there something I need to be cautious about or install something first or last?
 
garirry said:
On that note, do you have any tips regarding the building process itself? Like, is there something I need to be cautious about or install something first or last?
Click to expand...

Nothing other than the standard stuff. Put the power supply in first, always doublecheck your stuff, don't force anything, try to keep your wires neat. The usual.

Since you're building a Micro ATX system, expect things to be a little cramped. I went as small as I possibly could without going to Mini-ITX, and it was...yeah. It was fun. Took me about a couple of hours to get it all together.

This is what it looked like when I was done, save for wire organizing.
 
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