Video Card Recommendations

[Keld Denar]

So, I have pronounced my video card dead. Need to replace it. Not looking for anything too new and fancy, all I play is DotA 2, which has no requirements really. I'm pretty sure I need something with PCI Express connection to the mobo.

Something like last year's top model to such would be good, as long as the price has come down.

Thanks in advance!

[Erloas]

With the understanding that everyone's definition of "budget" is different, the 7750/7770 are generally considered some of the best value cards available. They also require a pretty modest amount of power so can be used without having to worry much about your PSU, especially if you are replacing another card.

[Keld Denar]

Eh, bout $100 to $150 max. I don't need a top of the line $500 card, just something that works nice. I'll probably order it if Tiger Direct or Newegg, I just need model suggestions. I'll check out the 7750 and 7770.

[Don Julio Anejo]

You might be able to find an XFX 7850 1 GB version for $150. If you can, go for that, it's significantly better than a 7770 and can also be overclocked ~20% more. Although be warned that this particular card has only so-so cooling so it's better to run it close to stock.

Otherwise, AMD 7770 or GTX 650 Ti.

[Dispozition]

I'd go for the 7770. I have one and it will last you years. I only just replaced my 4770 so the *770's last ages. It will run basically anything you want as well.

[Morph Bark]

What do those numbers mean again? I'm also looking for a new (or, rather, additional) video card, so that'd be handy to know. IIRC, the first number (marking the thousands, so the first 7 in 7770) simply meant the production series, where higher = newer, and the second and third numbers denote how well it runs or how high its performance is or something. What exactly is it?

[Dispozition]

I can't speak for the Nvidea cards because I don't like them much (so I don't keep track of them), but the ATI cards the first number denotes series, second denotes general range, third denotes the more specific rage (generally budget/regular), and then the last one is always 0.

So the 7750 is the lowest one currently available for desktop graphics, with the 7770 being better in every way, both being 1gb G RAM cards. Then is the 7850 which is p.good, but still on the budgety side while being better than the 7770. Then the 7870 which is the mid range general workhorse card, the 78** series being 2gb G RAM cards. Then you get the 7950 which is once again, better than the last while not as good at the 7970, both are 3gb G RAM cards. Then there's the 7990...Which is basically two 7970s on the same card and has 6gb G Ram.

Go look at graphs and shizz to see performance as I don't pay attention to them. I love the *770's because they last forever and cost next to nothing.

[Karoht]

Since everyone is on about the 7770's...

I bought a pair of these to go into a pair of towers, just before Xmas, got a smoking good deal on them.

One went into my fiance's tower, one went into mine. Identical towers, everything in them is the same as the other.
Yet for some reason, she's getting noticabely higher frame rates on her tower than I am on mine. She was running the on board overclocking system (self adjusting, part of the standard software that came with the card) which we only ran for a while as her frame rates were lower until we updated drivers, and then her machine ran amazingly well. I updated to the same driver at the same time... and mine didn't change, if anything it feels like it's going down.

I turned off the overclocking just in case, I tried with it running as well. I ran a temperture check, both machines are running fine regardless of the overclocking, but they are still both running with it off just in case.

Any idea what might be different between our two machines? I've set pretty much all the games we play to have the same settings, her machine is still running noticeably better. So I think it's either a windows setting (both running win7 64 bit, running all applications in 64 bit modes) or a card setting difference.

Any suggestions?

[Dispozition]

Since everyone is on about the 7770's...

I bought a pair of these to go into a pair of towers, just before Xmas, got a smoking good deal on them.

One went into my fiance's tower, one went into mine. Identical towers, everything in them is the same as the other.
Yet for some reason, she's getting noticabely higher frame rates on her tower than I am on mine. She was running the on board overclocking system (self adjusting, part of the standard software that came with the card) which we only ran for a while as her frame rates were lower until we updated drivers, and then her machine ran amazingly well. I updated to the same driver at the same time... and mine didn't change, if anything it feels like it's going down.

I turned off the overclocking just in case, I tried with it running as well. I ran a temperture check, both machines are running fine regardless of the overclocking, but they are still both running with it off just in case.

Any idea what might be different between our two machines? I've set pretty much all the games we play to have the same settings, her machine is still running noticeably better. So I think it's either a windows setting (both running win7 64 bit, running all applications in 64 bit modes) or a card setting difference.

Any suggestions?

Making chips isn't an exact science, so all CPUs and GPUs tend to be different from each other. They actually just make massive batches, and test them to put them into the right category for whatever clock they came out to (for CPUs at least, not 100% sure for GPUs). So she may just have a slightly higher clocked one, same goes for the CPU helping towards that.

The same can be said of most things in a computer...So you may find it's just a lot of little things adding up to make a 5fps difference.

[Hiro Protagonest]

So, uh, how good are nvidia graphics cards? There's a Dell Inspiron I'm looking at on Amazon that looks like a great deal. 8 gigs DDR3 RAM, 3 GHz i5 core processor, two TB 7200 RPM hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce GT 620 graphics coprocessor. Windows 8 OS, but eh, there's an app that fixes the UI. About six hundred bucks.

Also, Planetside 2 uses nvidia graphics.

[Erloas]

The 620 is a very low end card. I wouldn't expect much of anything from it in terms of gaming.
Overall Nvidia cards are just fine though. Although I tend to have more driver issues with Nvidia and probably won't be using another one for some time. That is more of a personal thing though, as there isn't really any problems with using one brand over another.

As for Planetside 2, it doesn't "use" Nvidia graphics. Although there is a lot of marketing efforts between Nvidia and AMD/ATI with the various game publishers to stick their name with a game, but in the end it makes little to no difference.

[Hiro Protagonest]

The 620 is a very low end card. I wouldn't expect much of anything from it in terms of gaming.

As long as it can run 1080p rather well (or whatever the # x # equivalent is, I don't know much about different resolutions), I'm probably going to be fine.

[Erloas]

As long as it can run 1080p rather well (or whatever the # x # equivalent is, I don't know much about different resolutions), I'm probably going to be fine.

Is that what your monitor's (or TV) resolution is? 1080p is 1920x1080, FYI. If you have an older monitor it is possible that it is a fair amount lower resolution, which is why I ask.

Being a very low end card I couldn't find much for reviews and benchmarks for the card. The only numbers I could find where for 3DMark benchmarking software which just gives a number without any real context to it. Which shows it to be about 1/4 as powerful as the 7750 mentioned above, and the 7750 is pretty much the low end of acceptable for 1080p currently. But that is dependent on the game and settings. So the 620 might be acceptable for older games or games pretty low in requirements at 1080p resolutions but it isn't going to give you a lot of longevity out of the system.

And checking on Planetside 2's system requirements, the minimum specs are an Nvidia 8600 or AMD 4850 (Nvidia has changed their numbering system a lot a few generations ago) and the 4850 scores about 50% higher on the 3dMark benchmark then the 620.

[CigarPete]

Tom's Hardware does run-downs of the best cards for a given budget pretty much every month. Worth checking out if you are thinking of upgrading. Here (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html)is January's.

Also, assuming you are using a PCIe interface, you need to know what type of PCIe slot you have. They are not all compatible, so do some checking before you shell out cash.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Is that what your monitor's (or TV) resolution is? 1080p is 1920x1080, FYI. If you have an older monitor it is possible that it is a fair amount lower resolution, which is why I ask.

Being a very low end card I couldn't find much for reviews and benchmarks for the card. The only numbers I could find where for 3DMark benchmarking software which just gives a number without any real context to it. Which shows it to be about 1/4 as powerful as the 7750 mentioned above, and the 7750 is pretty much the low end of acceptable for 1080p currently. But that is dependent on the game and settings. So the 620 might be acceptable for older games or games pretty low in requirements at 1080p resolutions but it isn't going to give you a lot of longevity out of the system.

And checking on Planetside 2's system requirements, the minimum specs are an Nvidia 8600 or AMD 4850 (Nvidia has changed their numbering system a lot a few generations ago) and the 4850 scores about 50% higher on the 3dMark benchmark then the 620.

Alright then, guess I'll replace the video card with a 7770 if I get that computer (my other option is that there's a local computer store. They have some desktops, and can also just build one. Assuming they have the right parts).

[Don Julio Anejo]

Generally you're better off building your own computer. You get either a cheaper system that can do the same as a pre-built one, or you get to have the parts you want. Also, pre-built brand-name ones like Dell or HP typically have very, very poorly designed internals: they house the stuff it comes with just fine, but are very difficult to work around in/fit in new parts (if not impossible.. I've seen an HP case with a riveted hard drive case and unremovable hard drive). This is done on purpose to both save space, and make you buy a new system.

Honestly, just go to a store and put together a combo.

Something like:

- Intel i5-3570k (you can overclock to 4.2 GHz easy, 4.5 with a better cooler) ($230)
- 8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz RAM (2x4GB) ($45)
- AMD 7850, significantly better than 7770 if you can find it, also overclocks well ($180)
- Asus P8Z77-V Lk motherboard (or really, any other Z77 motherboard) ($140)
- CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ or any other version of 212 cooler. $30 and easily competes with any other cooler double the price.
- Any decent 650W PSU ($80).. 650W will give you decent room to upgrade in the future, although that seems unlikely, recent trend has been to make stuff run on less power instead of more, otherwise 550W will suffice.
- 128 GB SSD (ex: Crucial M4, Samsung 830) to put your Windows and games you play most often on. Makes a huge difference in performance. ($100). Don't buy OCZ no matter what, that stuff dies on you like no tomorrow.
- 1 TB hard drive, any kind (ex: WD Caviar Black is really good, but really any will do). ($80)
- any DVD-RW drive ($30) or Blu-Ray writer ($60) if you even need one.
- ATX case (whatever floats your boat). ($80).

Total: 230+45+180+140+80+100+80+30+80 = $965. This is a pretty damn high end build that will let you play anything for years down the line. It also assumes you will start from scratch and have no parts whatsoever. You don't have to buy everything right away, ex: you can use the stock cooler until you feel the need for overclocking. If you have a hard drive from something else, use that for storage and only buy an SSD. If you have a case or a PSU, use them.

You can also get a significantly cheaper CPU, i3-2130 for $130.

In summary, don't buy the Dell:
- The CPU is probably a budget i5-3330 which isn't bad per se, but has worse single-core performance (the main thing for games) than even the cheaper i3, and i3 still has 4 virtual cores for higher end games like Battlefield 3. i3 is worse overall, but sufficient + cheaper for games.
- The PSU is probably barely sufficient for the parts it comes with and you may have to buy a new one
- It may not have the space or physical arrangement that will allow you to put in a nicer video card, even if it does, the airflow may get really bad and it will quickly get really, really hot (bad for your parts)

PS: if you go with the cheaper option (i3 vs. i5, no cooler, 7770, no SSD), you're now sitting at $670. While avoiding any and all pitfalls of the Dell. Also, I was checking prices on Newegg, and many of the components I listed have other offers, usually in the form of rebates. If you don't get an SSD, get a better regular hard drive (like the above-mentioned WD Caviar Black), not slower or crappy green ones.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Question. How does RAM work? If I download something, does it take RAM, or do I have to start it up, and then it takes the RAM until the program closes down again (like, all the way, not just exiting it).

Because games like Crusader Kings II take a decent chunk of RAM out of a good gaming computer, and Planetside 2 takes a ton.

[Erloas]

RAM is active memory, it is whatever is actively being used on your computer at any given time. Which includes a lot of background programs that you may not realize is running, as well as minimized programs. That RAM is used until the program is closed (shut down, not uninstalled or minimized).

If you are willing to build your own computer you have a lot more options. It is almost always the better way to go if you feel comfortable doing it. If you want to go that route we can help.
Although I don't really care for Don Julio Anejo's recommendations, not so much for the parts choices but because he made it without finding anything at all about your needs other then you wanted to play some games. Generally price is almost always the top or second most important criteria and neither option is close to the "about $600" mentioned earlier. He also didn't include the price of Windows, which is common when comparing builds because it is a given, but a bit disingenuous in this context as it adds a decent amount to the budget ($100).

[Hiro Protagonest]

If you are willing to build your own computer you have a lot more options. It is almost always the better way to go if you feel comfortable doing it. If you want to go that route we can help.
Although I don't really care for Don Julio Anejo's recommendations, not so much for the parts choices but because he made it without finding anything at all about your needs other then you wanted to play some games. Generally price is almost always the top or second most important criteria and neither option is close to the "about $600" mentioned earlier. He also didn't include the price of Windows, which is common when comparing builds because it is a given, but a bit disingenuous in this context as it adds a decent amount to the budget ($100).

This computer is going to be for gaming. We have two other computers in the house (one of which is the result of me wasting $300 on a netbook because I figured I could just play WoW on there. It's not even considered my computer anymore). This is going to be my gaming platform for the next... five, ten, fifteen years. Depends on how long I can upgrade it before it just becomes better to build a new one.

Well, I've saved up to about seven hundred (Amazon actually lowered the price of the computer a hundred dollars from their previous one), so I could afford the cheaper version (i3, 7770, maybe a cooler), and I know a couple computer technicians if I can't figure out how to make it myself (so... maybe another hundred dollars if I get one of them or the local shop to put it together?).

It's a small family-owned business though, so I'd be surprised if they have all this stuff in-shop, and getting special order is probably going to cost more. Are there any sites I can get parts from?

[Grinner]

If you're feeling especially creative, you can buy a few extra gigabytes of RAM, turn them into a ramdisk (AMD has a very good tool for this), and run your games directly out of active memory.


RAM is active memory, it is whatever is actively being used on your computer at any given time. Which includes a lot of background programs that you may not realize is running, as well as minimized programs. That RAM is used until the program is closed (shut down, not uninstalled or minimized).

And to complicate the issue, there's also a technique employed by operating systems called paging, where the data in active memory is temporarily moved to the storage memory to make room for more programs.

Edit:
It's a small family-owned business though, so I'd be surprised if they have all this stuff in-shop, and getting special order is probably going to cost more. Are there any sites I can get parts from?

If you live in the U.S., Newegg is highly recommended. Outside of the U.S. you might try TigerDirect. eBay can be good if you're looking for rare or cheap components (got my current graphics card for $30), but do be thorough in examining the seller.

[Erloas]

Having a local company build you one would work but I don't know how much that would increase the price. You can get everything you need from Newegg, it is by far the best place to search for parts. Though from what I've seen lately when I checked Amazon has some pretty good prices too, its just a PITA to do a good search there for computer parts. What I generally do now is use Newegg to pick my basic build and then check Amazon and compare prices for each specific part and see what you gain, it usually isn't more then a couple bucks each part but Amazon is a lot better about free shipping then Newegg is.

I actually wouldn't be too surprised if your local shop gets their parts form Newegg. I just don't think the distribution network is set up for small companies to actually get wholesale prices on computer parts. If they would be willing to put together parts for you or not is another question, there could potentially be some liability there that they won't want to mess with as well as just making them mad that you are spending most of your money somewhere else and expecting them to support it after that.

As for getting a friend to put it together, no idea what would be considered a reasonable cost for that. I've put together a lot of computers for other people and I do it for free, but it is mostly pretty close friends and family. Once you know what you are doing it doesn't really take more then 30 minutes to put a computer together from the ground up, although installing the OS generally takes another 1-2 hours after that (by the time you get it installed and updated and do a few of the other basic setup stuff). So if you can install the OS yourself then it doesn't take a lot of their time.

[Hiro Protagonest]

*looks up 7770 on Newegg*

...Is 128-bit actually a thing now?

Oh, and I found this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227457). Hard drive's small for a gaming computer (still, enough to get games until I save up for a better one), but otherwise it looks really good. Don't know anything about the motherboard though.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Although I don't really care for Don Julio Anejo's recommendations, not so much for the parts choices but because he made it without finding anything at all about your needs other then you wanted to play some games. Generally price is almost always the top or second most important criteria and neither option is close to the "about $600" mentioned earlier.
Sorry, my bad. My point though was that if you wanted a high-end gaming machine with similar specs, you'd be looking at around $1700 or so for a Dell, since they tend to cheap out on specific parts to upsell you a better model (i.e. a $1200 machine would only have a 7770 and no SSD while if you were building one, you could easily put in an HD 7950/GTX 660 Ti and 256 GB SSD drive for the same money if you were building one).

He also didn't include the price of Windows, which is common when comparing builds because it is a given, but a bit disingenuous in this context as it adds a decent amount to the budget ($100).
Yarr, me hearties? But seriously though, most people have one or more copies of Windows lying around the house. I have a couple (unlimited use) enterprise license keys from friend's work, for example.

That said, if you've ever played with Lego, building a computer will be about the same level of difficulty. All you need is a smallish Phillips head screwdriver.

I personally looked up prices on the US Newegg website. Amazon will have about the same ones (might be cheaper for some, more expensive for others, will even out in general). Newegg, however, will give you bonuses like $10-15 rebate cards you can use later that Amazon might not, and I'm pretty sure both offer free shipping in the US.

If your budget is $700, I'd go for i5-3570k (overclock will give you an extra 1-1.5 years of life out of your CPU because it'll be fast enough for games for longer). Now, if you're willing to spend a little bit extra (say, 800), a 7850 will be a better option, especially if you get a dual-fan design (ex: Gigabyte Windforce or MSI Twin Frozr). Again, overclock = longer lifespan, and when prices come down significantly (say, the card is only $50 or so), you can just stick in a second one for an instant 1.5-1.8x boost in video performance. If not, cheapest video card you can find that will run games and upgrade later.

No SSD, just get a fast normal hard drive. While SSD is very useful for normal use, it's only moderately useful for actually playing games since it only affects loading times. Buy one when prices come down enough and you have more money. Don't need a cooler till you're ready/need to do serious overclock. The one that comes with the CPU is plenty enough for normal speeds.

PS: chances are the mom-n-pop store will actually have these or similar parts as they tend to be the go-to gaming rig at the moment. But they might not be able to have deals on the level of Amazon or Newegg. I'd buy the case and maybe little things (cooler, extra fans, thermal paste, etc) from them, but shop online.

[Keld Denar]

Well, I got an XFX AMD 7770 HD graphics card. After installing it, everything is working fine. I'm really happy with it, so far. All I've really played is a bit of Morrowind, but I'll try some DotA2 tonight. Thank you all. I have nothing but love!

[Karoht]

I found my problem!
It was a V-Sync setting. I'm not entirely sure how it got toggled on in the first place, but with it off everything is running infinitely better.
120FPS in WoW with fairly high settings, D3, 50-80 FPS in SC2, 45 FPS in L4D/2.
I did some stream testing afterwards, my stream is looking much better as well.

Yay, problem solving FTW.

[Erloas]

That would have been easier to see if you had said (noticed) that your FPS capped out at right around 60FPS. I have always ran with V-sync since I switched to an LCD (I used a 23" CRT for long after LCDs were common), I can't stand using an LCD otherwise, the tearing is just too noticeable to me.
And in that case it isn't worth worrying about your FPS, anything above that is lost on the monitor anyway and any extra demanding scenes won't drop in FPS unless it would have dropped below without it on too.

[Synovia]

*looks up 7770 on Newegg*

...Is 128-bit actually a thing now?

Oh, and I found this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227457). Hard drive's small for a gaming computer (still, enough to get games until I save up for a better one), but otherwise it looks really good. Don't know anything about the motherboard though.

You don't need a lot of HDD space for a gaming computer. My gaming PC has a pair of 160GB drives on it, and they're not even full. And it has a 60GB SSD for the OS drive. Yeah, it means I can only have 25 or so games installed at once, but do you really need more than that?


Also, there are almost no games that are optimized for anything beyond 2 cores, so an i5 isn't getting you much past an i3. Its money that would be better spent on a bigger graphics card, or more ram. Or a bigger monitor.. things that actually affect your gaming experience.


Put one together yourself. Its REALLY EASY, and you'll end up with a better machine cheaper. Its seriously like putting legos together.

[Synovia]

No SSD, just get a fast normal hard drive. While SSD is very useful for normal use, it's only moderately useful for actually playing games since it only affects loading times.

Gonna disagree with this. Very few games are optimized to the point where they don't do any loading on the fly. For these sorts of game, every time the game goes to disk looking for a resource, you're going to get framerate hits.

An SSD is going to get you a whole lot bigger performance boost in most things than going from an i3 to an i5 is, or going from 4->8->16gb of RAM is.

A PC is only as fast as its slowest component, and right now, HDDs are the major bottleneck. In almost every situation other than canned Graphics Benchmark Tests, SSD machines perform better than spinning disks.



Also, the idea of building for longevity is terrible. Don't buy things because you can overclock them in a couple years. You spend more now, when you could just buy a better component for cheaper than the difference in a couple years. You spend an extra $50 to go from a 7770 to a 7870, when in 4 years, you'll be able to get cards that are faster than the 7870 for $50. You spend an extra $100 on a CPU when in 4 years, you'll be able to buy $100 CPUs that are orders of magnitude faster.

[Karoht]

Also, the idea of building for longevity is terrible. Don't buy things because you can overclock them in a couple years. You spend more now, when you could just buy a better component for cheaper than the difference in a couple years. You spend an extra $50 to go from a 7770 to a 7870, when in 4 years, you'll be able to get cards that are faster than the 7870 for $50. You spend an extra $100 on a CPU when in 4 years, you'll be able to buy $100 CPUs that are orders of magnitude faster.
Yeah, I'm going to second this. My attempt at building for longevity was really not worth it. I still got a good computer out of the deal, which I could dial up a notch or two (run dual vid cards, start overclocking), but at the end of the day, I could have got a more powerful machine by not attempting to build this way.


@CPU's
I keep hearing about all kinds of advancements, Moore's law is awesome and all that, but CPU's (on the personal computing front) appear to be hovering around the 2.8 to 3.6 GHz marks, and have been for some time now. Or am I missing something?
Just curious.

[Synovia]

@CPU's
I keep hearing about all kinds of advancements, Moore's law is awesome and all that, but CPU's (on the personal computing front) appear to be hovering around the 2.8 to 3.6 GHz marks, and have been for some time now. Or am I missing something?
Just curious.

We've hit a bottleneck essentially where faster than that causes some weird things to happen. We'll figure it out eventually (although, it may not be on silicon).

That being said, GHZ speed is only a very small part of what a processor does. Its essentially how many times per second the CPU runs through its logic. What it does in that single cycle of logic is constantly improving.

For instance, a 3.4 GHz i3 has a PassMark score of 4352 (Passmark is a general CPU math benchmark). A 3.4Ghz Pentium4 has a PassMark score of 400.

That means the i3 and the P4 do the same number of cycles per second, but the i3 is getting 10 times as much done as the P4 per average cycle.

[Karoht]

We've hit a bottleneck essentially where faster than that causes some weird things to happen. We'll figure it out eventually (although, it may not be on silicon).

That being said, GHZ speed is only a very small part of what a processor does. Its essentially how many times per second the CPU runs through its logic. What it does in that single cycle of logic is constantly improving.

For instance, a 3.4 GHz i3 has a PassMark score of 4352 (Passmark is a general CPU math benchmark). A 3.4Ghz Pentium4 has a PassMark score of 400.

That means the i3 and the P4 do the same number of cycles per second, but the i3 is getting 10 times as much done as the P4 per average cycle.
Well, that makes perfect sense.
Cool.

So we aren't doing it faster, we're just doing more of it in the same amount of time, which isn't really the same as going faster, but gets things done faster.


Which brings me to a bit of a side question.
Power supplies.
Is it bad to overdo it?
For example, I have a crossfire board, and was planning on running 2 vid cards, it worked out to something like 650w-700w. So to be 100% certain I had enough power, I bought an 850w power supply.
Well, I'm only running 1 card now.
Is this dangerous?

[Erloas]

Also, there are almost no games that are optimized for anything beyond 2 cores, so an i5 isn't getting you much past an i3. Its money that would be better spent on a bigger graphics card, or more ram. Or a bigger monitor.. things that actually affect your gaming experience.That hasn't really been true for a couple years now. There are a pretty large number of games that see benefits from moving from 2 to 3 or 4 cores. It isn't all of them, but it is a pretty good amount of them, at least of the games that are demanding enough that people bother to benchmark them.


Gonna disagree with this. Very few games are optimized to the point where they don't do any loading on the fly. For these sorts of game, every time the game goes to disk looking for a resource, you're going to get framerate hits.

An SSD is going to get you a whole lot bigger performance boost in most things than going from an i3 to an i5 is, or going from 4->8->16gb of RAM is.

The difference is the upgrade cost for a bit better processor or more RAM are probably both cheaper combined then an SSD is still at this point. You're also looking at (generally) trading more average FPS for shorter minimum FPS times, that might not always be worth it. It does also depend a lot on the game, as a lot of developers are aware of the problem and do a lot to mask loading issues, especially since so many are designed with Consoles in mind and even a slow HDD is significantly faster then the optical drives consoles are using.
Not that a SSD isn't a good option if you can afford it, but they still aren't ready for the budget conscious PC yet.



Also, the idea of building for longevity is terrible. Don't buy things because you can overclock them in a couple years. You spend more now, when you could just buy a better component for cheaper than the difference in a couple years. You spend an extra $50 to go from a 7770 to a 7870, when in 4 years, you'll be able to get cards that are faster than the 7870 for $50. You spend an extra $100 on a CPU when in 4 years, you'll be able to buy $100 CPUs that are orders of magnitude faster.
That isn't really true either. The practical increases in CPUs and GPUs isn't nearly as fast as it used to be so it is very possible to buy a CPU/GPU now that will last quite a while. And you aren't just buying time in the future, you're also buying game experience/quality now. Having that extra eye candy for the next 3-5 years is worth something compared to just barely seeing it then.
And as for the CPU, there is a very good chance that to upgrade to that better cheap processor you'll have to change your motherboard in the process, potentially the RAM as well, and that new "faster $100 CPU" effectively costs you $250.


I keep hearing about all kinds of advancements, Moore's law is awesome and all that, but CPU's (on the personal computing front) appear to be hovering around the 2.8 to 3.6 GHz marks, and have been for some time now. Or am I missing something?
Just curious.
Moore's law is that transistor count will double every 18 months, not that CPU speeds will increase. What has changed in the last 5 or so years is the move away from faster clock speeds and instead making the CPU do more per clock cycle as well as doing a lot more tasks in parallel instead of in series. What they have found with clock speeds is that the power loss and heat generated as well as potential issues increases greatly with frequency and less so with transistor count, which goes back to the first part.

Power supplies.
Is it bad to overdo it?
For example, I have a crossfire board, and was planning on running 2 vid cards, it worked out to something like 650w-700w. So to be 100% certain I had enough power, I bought an 850w power supply.
Well, I'm only running 1 card now.
Is this dangerous? Dangerous? No. Inefficient, probably. Power supplies are most efficient running something along the lines of the 60-80% of their maximum rating and the efficiency drops off (in some cases drastically) outside of those ranges. And of course if you run on the higher end of things then everything runs hotter and you loose lifespan on the PSU.
And in most cases your power usage is probably lower then you expect because most parts recommend high. Not that is matters now but you can get a device that plugs into the wall that you can plug your computer (or anything) into and it will tell you how much power you are actually using. With that and an estimation of the PSU efficiency you can figure out about how much the parts are actually using. And pre-purchase research, most benchmarks now show power draw with various parts running at full load, so you can see more closely what GPU X or CPU Y actually pulls for power when put under maximum load (which rarely happens anyway but that is what you want to base it off of)

[Don Julio Anejo]

Erloas pretty much addressed everything I've wanted to say so far, so I'll just reinforce his points.

1. Socket 1155 (most 2xxx or 3xxx core i3/i5/i7 CPU's) likely has at most one more generation before it's replaced by something else. A difference of one generation is an increase of 10-20% AT MOST, and that's for the same price. Yes, you'll be able to get a $70 CPU that does 2x what yours does in a few years. Then you'll need a $130 motherboard and $50 RAM.

2. Actually several games already use 4 cores. Battlefield 4 uses all 4, Skyrim uses 2, I'm pretty sure Rome: Total War is being built with at least 4 cores in mind as well.. At some point I won't be surprised if games become generally multithreaded so they can use whatever core number you have + hyperthreading. Kind of like Photoshop already does.

3. You won't buy a video card for $50 that's twice as good as yours. Case in point: I bought a 4870 for $200-220 in Fall '09 (something like that, can't remember). Right now it's virtually identical in performance to 7750. Which still costs $80-100. A 7770 beats it by maybe 15-20% and costs $150 or so.

4. Oh, I absolutely adore SSD's. But having one still means you need a storage drive, while having a storage drive means you DON'T need an SSD. Also, for most games I see no difference beyond loading levels. SSD is much more useful for speeding you your windows in general.

5. You don't need to build for longevity. The idea is that getting parts that can be overclocked = you get a free 10-20% performance boost. Remember my 4870 vs. 7770 example two points up? If I could OC my 4870 by 15% (I got a card where for some reason I couldn't push it up a single MHz before it glitched and crashed), I would have an equivalent to a 7770; the only thing I'd mix was DX11 and I stlll see no difference in-game between that and DX10.

You spend an extra $50 to go from a 7770 to a 7870, when in 4 years, you'll be able to get cards that are faster than the 7870 for $50
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/536?vs=548
From this you can see that 7870 has double the frame rates of 7770. If you could buy one for $50 more (usually it's more like $80 more; a 7870 is 230-250), I say money well-spent sir!. And yes, the 7870 will probably last you twice as long as the 7770 if you build for longevity. What it means is that when your card's performance becomes unacceptably low for newer games at your desired settings, more time has passed.