# BUILDING FASTEST COMPUTER! (help needed)



## techtic (Mar 9, 2010)

what's up everyone i'm new to computer building and i want to purchase the right parts for the fastest computer for the cheapest price possible. i want to get a computer that i wont have to wait for booting, transferring files, surfing the web, etc... i'm starting in my head to pay up to 500$ U.S. but if things speed up much or even a little more with the shelling out of more cash i'd for sure consider it because time is money.

i know this is a very general question but i'm willing to read up a lot on the different aspects of computers if you give me the links.

so where do we start... is there any downside to building a comp yourself besides having to put in the work? from what i know the parts purchased separately are much cheaper than buying them together, let alone put together in a laptop and that's why my plan is to put the computer together myself.

anyways, i appreciate anything you can do to help. thanks a lot in advance.


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## hhnq04 (Mar 19, 2008)

Welcome to TSF :wave:

Take a look at this thread regarding some general builds that may suit your needs.

I don't know that there is such a thing as the "fastest computer" in terms of the home user's computer. First things first, you'll want to save up a little longer and boost your budget a little bit.

There isn't really _that_ much work involved in building a computer. The most work is picking out your desired components, making sure that they are all compatible, and getting them to your house safely while hoping that none are defective out of the box. There are lots of tutorials for building a computer, find one you can follow and understand, and read it thorougly.

You said something about a laptop, I'm assuming your plan is for a desktop though? Laptop building is considerably more complicated, and is best left to the manufacturer's at this time.

Feel free to ask more questions as they arise.


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## squigglethecow (Dec 26, 2008)

I defiantly prefer building a computer as opposed to buying one from somewhere. 

When building your computer make sure you dont skimp on the mobo or PSU. The processor, ram and hard drives are important, but the mobo and PSU can really screw you over if you go for the cheap model. 

If a fast boot time is what you want make sure you look at faster hard drives like the WD black series, the WD raptors or solid state drives. Dont underestimate how much of a bottleneck your HD can be, especially during a cold boot.


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

Price is dependent on your wants/needs. $500 is doable for an ever day use PC not including an OS or peripherals.
Building your own is nothing but advantageous. There is no downside.
Boot time is mostly dependent on what has to load.
You will see no speed advantage using a Raptor compared to a 32MBCache Hdd. SSD's "may" improve boot time but there is little , if any, speed advantage while running and they are WAY overpriced at this time.
The thread hhnq04 linked to has builds using proven quality hardware.


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## techtic (Mar 9, 2010)

hhnq:i dont mind spending even up to 2k i'd just like to get an idea first of how much it'd speed up my pc for my different computing needs before i spend that kind of money

squiggle:where's the best place to go to find the different speeds of the wd black series, raptors, or ssd's? 

tyree:what do you mean by an OS? don't all computers have an operating system? and what do you mean by peripherals? newb in residence-excuse my ignorance (do you mean the price of 500$ doesnt include the cost of the OS and peripherals such as mouse,keyboard,etc...?)

about the laptop/desktop situation, i simply want to get the best bang for my buck-i'm correct in saying that the cheapest deal is putting together a desktop by myself, right?


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## guitarzann (Jun 18, 2009)

For the best speeds, SSD is the way to go - but you're gonna need to shell out moolah for it. A good SSD starts at $150 and goes up from there (keep in mind that SSDs have a maximum of about 200gb of storage, and ones with that much space cost upwards of a grand alone). I'd rather go with the SSD then the Raptor personally. The SSDs will almost never fail on you simply because there are no moving parts in there at all.

Here's a possible build for you:
Antec VSK-2000 Case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129069
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO Motherboard - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131633
AMD Phenom II X2 555 Processor - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103846
OCZ Agility 60gb SSD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227461 (Bracket - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994072)
4gb G-Skill RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231193
Corsair 450VX Power Supply - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139003
Western Ditgital 500gb Hard Drive(for storage) - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136524
Dvd Burner: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151192
Windows - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116754

Total: $826.41


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## Tyree (May 10, 2009)

techtic said:


> hhnq:i dont mind spending even up to 2k i'd just like to get an idea first of how much it'd speed up my pc for my different computing needs before i spend that kind of money
> 
> squiggle:where's the best place to go to find the different speeds of the wd black series, raptors, or ssd's?
> 
> ...


OS=Operating System. Has to be installed by the user.
Peripherals= monitor-keyboard-mouse-etc.

guitarzann has offered a good build but I don't nderstand including a $189 60GB Hdd in a budget system? You can get a 1TB 32MB Cache WD (5 yr, warranty) for $100.


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## squigglethecow (Dec 26, 2008)

I suggest newegg for researching products. Find the 'best rated' product in a catagory and read through the comments, it usually gives you alot of info about how good/bad they are in a real world situation


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## hhnq04 (Mar 19, 2008)

guitarzann said:


> For the best speeds, SSD is the way to go - but you're gonna need to shell out moolah for it. A good SSD starts at $150 and goes up from there (keep in mind that SSDs have a maximum of about 200gb of storage, and ones with that much space cost upwards of a grand alone). I'd rather go with the SSD then the Raptor personally. The SSDs will almost never fail on you simply because there are no moving parts in there at all.
> 
> Here's a possible build for you:
> Antec VSK-2000 Case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129069
> ...


Video Card?

I'd suggest Sapphire Radeon 5770 $180


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## gcavan (Aug 13, 2009)

A couple things of note in Guitarzann's build:
Low capacity (60GB) SSD 
Depending on motherboard's integrated video (radeon 4290)
Corsair 450VX psu, though a high quality unit, leaves no room for future upgrades


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

the $1000.00 / $1200.00 build in the New System Sticky offers excellent performance and value.

you arent going to get a good gaming experience on a $500.00 computer

the $800.00 AMD is about as tight as you can cut the cheese and still be a viable GAMER


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## techtic (Mar 9, 2010)

tyree:yeah i dont understand the overpriced sdd-maybe because the sdd is faster than a wd like guitarz talked about before he showed his build?

squiggle-ive looked at both newegg and tigerdirect for buying products and both looked good, but i noticed tigerdirect had higher ratings for some seemingly better and cheaper products? did you ever use that site?

gcavan-newer upgrades as in an additional psu or what? and to solve the small-capacity ssd problem, can't i just have an additional 1tb internal/external hd just for storage or would that slow the pc down?

linder:what's a bad gaming experience? because right now i've got a five-yr. old 500$ laptop and it plays old games (starcraft & diablo expansions) perfectly fine. and what's the difference between the 800$ computer and the 1000$ one? 

is there a way for me to get an idea of how much faster the computer gets once i shell out a few hundred bucks more than 500$? because i'd want to know what i'm getting better before dropping the big bucks


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

if you only desire running old gaming titles; which is perfectly fine, then a $500.00 system may well get you buy

bad gaming experience = lagging and low FPS

for example, in the game star wars when ships hyper transport thru space, a high end system will "get there" before a low end system, essentially the faster system will be sitting there with the guns up waiting for you to arrive .......thats not fun



in some of the other shooting games like COD, a higher end video card will see much better thru the frag grenades and phosphorus explosions enabling you to make the next move faster


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## techtic (Mar 9, 2010)

linder:
so if i get a gaming system, should i drop the extra cash for the 1200$ one or does the 800$ one work just as well?

edit:bad wording


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## guitarzann (Jun 18, 2009)

For people wondering about the diference between a WD Black 1tb and a SSD
YouTube - SSD vs Hard Drive Performance (NCIX Tech Tips #62)


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## ebackhus (Apr 21, 2005)

I'd rather lose a minute or so and have massive storage capacity.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

I cant justify spending that much money to for a somewhat faster drive at opening programs and booting for $900.00 ??????? I am not in that much of a hurry

once the game is open and running the SSD gains you nothing


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

techtic said:


> linder:
> so if i get a gaming system, should i drop the extra cash for the 1200$ one or does the 800$ one work just as well?
> 
> edit:bad wording



I would say the $1000.oo build makes the most sense to me

however the $800.00 computer aint shabby either


my point was .......$500.00 is cutting the cheese too thin


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## guitarzann (Jun 18, 2009)

I would like to clarify a few things about my posts; I feel like my personal opinions have been interpreted wrongly.
I posted my build the way I did mostly because I did not know that he wanted to game at all and I was under the impression that all he wanted was a very fast computer, and with all the talk about SSDs and Velociraptors I was under the assumption that he couldn't go without one or something. I agree - SSDs are a waste of perfectly good money that could go elsewhere, but the impression I got from you was that they had no merit in the world of computing whatsoever. I posted the video just to show the speed difference between the two because people were getting confused. SSDs do have their positives though - as you see in the video. The main problem with SSDs right now is they are just too new and with any new technology, comes extremely steep prices at first. I'm sure we all remember when DVD came out, it was a fortune. Sure, it was a major leap, but for the price - none of us though about it at the time. Same thing is happening now with Blu-Ray. SSDs are no different - they will inevitably take the crown from HDDs in the future - it just needs time. 

Sorry bout the rant.


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## linderman (May 20, 2005)

guitarzann said:


> I would like to clarify a few things about my posts; I feel like my personal opinions have been interpreted wrongly.
> I posted my build the way I did mostly because I did not know that he wanted to game at all and I was under the impression that all he wanted was a very fast computer, and with all the talk about SSDs and Velociraptors I was under the assumption that he couldn't go without one or something. I agree - SSDs are a waste of perfectly good money that could go elsewhere, but the impression I got from you was that they had no merit in the world of computing whatsoever. I posted the video just to show the speed difference between the two because people were getting confused. SSDs do have their positives though - as you see in the video. The main problem with SSDs right now is they are just too new and with any new technology, comes extremely steep prices at first. I'm sure we all remember when DVD came out, it was a fortune. Sure, it was a major leap, but for the price - none of us though about it at the time. Same thing is happening now with Blu-Ray. SSDs are no different - they will inevitably take the crown from HDDs in the future - it just needs time.
> 
> Sorry bout the rant.




I think you have done a fine job of presenting "options" for the OP (original poster)

I too will be one of the first ones to buy a SSD drive once they become affordable

our job is to provide information and discussion the OP will then evaluate the info and hopefully build a better system than he would have without our help
:wink:


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## techtic (Mar 9, 2010)

i appreciate the help but i wish i could watch that same video with that linus guy just with a 500$ computer a 800$ a 1000$ one and a 1200$ one so i actually get to see what i'm spending my hundreds of bucks on.


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