Getting a PC built. Advice on parts suggested?

Leave it as it is.

And do you really need 250Gb SSD and a DVD drive!?

although you state what it is for you are not giving us full details im pretty good with computers and hardware and the only question i have to ask is how many tables do you want to run at 1 time

with the setup you got above i would say that depending on site it would be able to run about 12-16 tables at the same time if you want more tables then my advice to keep the price down is look at maybe an AMD processor instead of Intel as they are usually a bit cheaper

and the person above is right you really do not need a SSD (Solid State Drive) these are the most expensive type of hard drive on the market atm all you will need is a basic 160gb normal harddrive

just a few ideas hope they help

Originally posted by Vitols666
Leave it as it is.

And do you really need 250Gb SSD and a DVD drive!?

I have no idea ♦ would you suggest 128gb SSD?

I just told him when i inquired about the quote that I needed a decent SSD for HM2.

As for the dvd drive, he just threw that in i suppose. Is it not standard?

16 Gig Ram will improve your DB performance more significantly than the SSD drive. You want Postgres to work from Cache as much as possible.

I would say these days you absolutely need an SSD, I'd get rid of the normal hard drive before getting rid of an SSD

Install your OS and your tracking software to the SSD and you'll get snap performance, in fact one of the best ways to upgrade an old PC these days would be to wipe it, put an SSD in it and install the OS to the SSD and it'd be an immediate performance increase

It really depends what you want out of a PC but I bought a PC back in February which will play almost anything maxed out and got it for about £800 which is $1300 so 6 months on I don't see why you couldn't do the same.

Here's my build:

AMD FX-8350 8-Core 4GHz CPU
16 GB Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 1600Mhz CL10 RAM
Asus NVidia GTX770 2GB GPU
Asus M5A97 R2.0 Motherboard
Kingston Technology HyperX 3K 2.5-inch 120GB SSD
WD 1TB 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive - Caviar Blue
Corsair Builder Series CXM 600W Modular 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX/EPS PSU
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (120mm) (Extra Cooling)
LiteOn IHAS124-04 24x SATA Half Height Internal DVDRW Drive - Black
Corsair Carbide Series 300R CC-9011014-WW Mid-Tower Gaming Case

This thing runs really quickly and thanks to the extra cooling it runs very quiet and cool as well (Under 40C when not under load and not much higher when even under load)

You can get some really good advice on PC's at various places.

I plugged your requirements into choosemypc.net and they came up with this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($174.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($75.66 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($69.30 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($104.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($84.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card ($349.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 350D Window MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($84.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($64.00 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) ($92.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1111.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-25 05:48 EDT-0400

You can also go to places like Logical increments or http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ in order to try things for yourself

Hope that helps

Originally posted by Haemophile
although you state what it is for you are not giving us full details im pretty good with computers and hardware and the only question i have to ask is how many tables do you want to run at 1 time

with the setup you got above i would say that depending on site it would be able to run about 12-16 tables at the same time if you want more tables then my advice to keep the price down is look at maybe an AMD processor instead of Intel as they are usually a bit cheaper

and the person above is right you really do not need a SSD (Solid State Drive) these are the most expensive type of hard drive on the market atm all you will need is a basic 160gb normal harddrive

just a few ideas hope they help

Thanks for the ideas
I will usually play only 4 fast fold tables, or i guess 12 regular tables.
Also using hm2, skype, browsers etc.

So you would avoid the ssd alltogether? I've read in a few threads that they're really usefull when running tracking software.
Atm i am using a toshiba laptop with i7 core 8gb RAM & hm2/the poker client lags from time to time. Think i read somewhere that using hm2 on an ssd would rectify this.
Maybe i'm wrong though?

Seriously...don't skip on an SSD

They're not that expensive ($100 for a 256GB one is super cheap compared to the UK ) and the performance increase is incredible.

There is a measurable difference between running off the HDD and running off an SSD.

Wow thanks for all the quick responses! Every time i reply there's another ♦

@boomer, thank's for the info! Gives me something to look into

Oh one more question, how important is the video card for what I am using the PC for?

In the info Boomer posted from choosemypc.net, they suggest this:
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card ($349.99 @ NCIX US)
maybe i could go something a bit more basic? Like 2gb? $350 seems pretty steep ♦

Since you'll be using 2 monitors on full HD with lots of tables, You need a 2GB video card, but not necessarily that one. AMD Radeon HD 6670 should be just fine and it's a lot cheaper. It's the one I'm using and it does a great job.

You can run the latest games on it with no problems and it's less than $100. You will honestly have NO problems playing poker on it.

Oh one more question, how important is the video card for what I am using the PC for?

It really depends if you play games or not. If you dont play at all, a card like this is enough to run 2 monitors and support high definition video playback (on youtube).
If you do play games but don't bother turning all the eyecandy on I would choose something like: this

Yeah, you don't need to go that nuts

I'm pretty sure that site really just gives you "what you can get away with" for most of the PC then sticks the biggest GPU in the system it possibly can.

Which does makes sense since the GPU tends to be the biggest limiting factor these days in performance so the beefier one you buy now the less likely you'll be upgrading quicker

I had that choice when building this rig and went with a GTX770 over a couple of cheaper cards because it probably adds another year onto the time of upgrade over a 760 or less so the extra £50 was probably well spent.

Basically building a PC is all about "Get the absolute best you can afford but not too much better" because if you skimp now, you'll only end up upgrading sooner and it becomes a false economy. If you can build your PC so it'll last 5-6 years without you really touching it, or just putting in a beefier GPU, then you've done a decent job, if you have to replace it every 3 years then that's an issue. That said, once you reach a certain point (around the $1500 level, the increase in performance doesn't match the amount you're spending on the system...example being GTX Titans costing something like 3x what a GTX770 costs....too much money for the increase)

Don't forget I pretty much also had to load out on stuff because I do a lot of video editing which means I need an SSD, 16GB+ of RAM and a high end GPU. If you're not intending to do this then you can cut back a bit

Thanks everyone for the awesome advice It doesn't all seem so daunting now ♦

Totally agree, but I would suggest that you keep the conventional drive, and keep non-volatile data in it, leaving only crucial data on the SSD.

Crucial data would include your tracker dbs, OS data, etc.
Things like "My Pictures" etc don't need to be access often or quickly.

If you want to stream video from your machine, store the videos on the conventional, but stream them from the SSD

You will REALLY enjoy booting in under 20 seconds!

Peace,
--VS