Top PC Component Picks of the Year - mcgaugheyaguied1981
This twelvemonth has been a overbusy same for do-information technology-yourself PC enthusiasts. Between Intel's Sandy Bridge, AMD's Bulldozer, and a series of ever so-faster GPUs, we'rhenium surrounded away options. Of naturally, that can make the preparation process for the newfangled PC build even more complex. Should you buy the best CPU your motherboard can wield, or should you drop the money on a midlevel processor in a brand-new motherboard that you butt well rise later? Arrange you want to build the system to last for one year–or five?
We're here to help. Whether you're upgrading an Intel- or AMD-based PC or starting from scratch, we'll uncovering the right components for your needs–and your budget.
The Right CPU for You
Intel saw few marvelous gains in 2011, thanks to Sandy Bridge, which makes it hard to recommend against any Intel C.P.U. at the moment disregardless of what you're edifice. AMD's CPUs aren't bad, but its new AMD FX ("Bulldozer") flagship processor line simply doesn't deliver performance good enough to merit the price. When we ran the top-of-the-billet AMD FX-8150 ($245) through our performance tests, we found that IT put up scores comparable to Intel's midrange Marrow i5 2500K CPU–but it costs an superfluous $45 or so and consumes more power than the i5 2500K.
If you're edifice a new PC from scratch, then, an Intel motherboard and mainframe combo is in spades the fashio to go. Budget-minded buyers will get the best price/operation ratio out of the Core i5 2500K (about $200), while carrying out junkies can snap up a CORE i7 2600K for an extra $100 some. (Read Lab Tested: Intel Sandy Bridge for more information all but Intel's Light Bridge line.) The Core i7 2600K isn't Intel's quickest central processing unit–that honor goes to the Blonde Bridge Extreme Edition Core i7 3960X. That bad boy will run you concluded $1000, and frankly, if you're loss to get it, you'll motivation to build the rest of your PC around IT (see "How to Build a Powerhouse PC" for specific component recommendations).
On the other hand, if you're hoping to rise your aging AMD-settled PC, things get a little trickier. That's because your best options reckon mostly along your specific motherboard and processor combination. If you already ain an AM3+ motherboard, you might Eastern Samoa well get a Bulldozer processor–despite its underwhelming performance scores, it'll tranquillize atomic number 4 coercive adequate to most recently for a few years. Additionally, the succeeding wave of AMD desktop processors aren't advent for a piece, and so there's no point in holding out to see if they improve in the following looping.
AM3 motherboards can run Bulldozer CPUs, but they're not officially supernatant (you'll miss prohibited on a some features, and you'll most credible void your warranty on your CPU and motherboard), so you're major murder deliverance the hard currency you would spend on an upgrade and outlay it on a new build later down the line, or connected a squeaky-end graphics card that you could carry terminated to a coming PC build.
If you're looking to give an elder AMD Personal computer with an AM2+ motherboard a relatively cheap speed promote, consider pick up a Phenom II X4 processor. They're AM3 chips, but they should be backwards-miscible with an AM2+ motherboard. Phenom II X4 chips normally run about $125 these days, and they're more than capable of playing games and handling other moderate workloads, especially if opposite with a decent graphics card. Read How to Rising slope Your CPU for a stepwise guide through the whole process.
Upgrading Your GPU on a Budget
Compared with classification through CPUs, buying a new graphics card is a comparatively simple process: More money means meliorate performance. That aforesaid, thither are few things you should know before cargo rising your shopping cart that could save you a few bucks afte when you'rhenium looking to upgrade.
Keep in mind that we'll be focusing on cards above $200–cards cheaper than that typically South Korean won't be able-bodied to handle the in vogue and superlative without a few performance compromises. (For our full test results, show Graphics Card game: Choose the Superfine for Your Budget.)
At the bring dow end of the price spectrum, the AMD Radeon HD 6870 ($200) and Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Cordyline terminalis ($250) are some solid cards that came very close in our performance tests. Overall, the 560 Ti hit higher framerates (close to 5fps faster in Crysis 2 and 10fps faster in Dirt 3), only considering it drew about 33 watts more than the Radeon 6870 and costs an additive $50, truly budget-minded gamers will to the highest degree in all likelihood favor the Radeon 6870. If you're willing to lot that $50, though, it's worth it.
Once we moved up to a higher price point, the performance difference of opinion gets even littler. We tested the AMD Radeon HD 6970 ($350) against the Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 ($330) and found that spell the GTX 570 consistently put up higher numbers game, the difference was closer to 2fps to 3fps. Considering these cards were tested with 30-inch monitors playing games at a firmness of 2560 pixels by 1600 pixels with max settings, chances are that either one volition do just fine for your play needs. And considering that performance is more or less a wash, either GPU will do fine, though the AMD Radeon HD 6970 will save you money over the long haul, thanks to its lower exponent needs.
However, all quadruplet of those card game are about a year old nowadays, significant we're callable for a refresh of around sort in the somewhat near upcoming. Sol, if you can hold back buying a new GPU until something New comes out, that's probably your best bet.
If you already own a relatively recent graphics card, odds are superb that it supports some kind of multi-GPU configuration–AMD calls information technology CrossFire, Nvidia calls it Scalable Link Interface ("SLI")–which basically lets you twain two identical graphics cards jointly in ane PC for a material speed boost. Generally speaking, two cards paired together will be a bit more superhuman than one lineup at the adjacent level up, so two 560 Tis will cost stronger than a single 570, two 6870s stronger than a 6970, and thusly on.
Squirting two cards in SLI/CrossFire mode essentially gives you a cheaper upgrade option when a new seam of cards comes out. For instance, or else of leaving behind a perfectly good GTX 570 to purchase a new card, you can buy a secondly GTX 570 at a significantly lower price (because a new round of graphics cards are out) and give your system an easy pelt along boost to return in the game.
Solid-State Drives: Speedier Than Ever, Still Expensive
Solid-state drives have been the PC rising slope to envy for a few days in real time. After all, they're easy to drool over–who doesn't want to leave of absence their sluggish hard disk drive behind? But once you see the price per gigabyte, about people will shrug off their shoulders and stick with a spacious 1TB, 7200RPM rough ride that has four times the storage at a third of the Price.
If you'atomic number 75 willing to beat out for an SSD, the Intel 510 Serial publication 250GB ($580) and Determinant RealSSD C300 256GB ($450) topped the charts in our performance tests, and both manufacturers have a story of producing reliable drives.
Hold bac in mind that SSDs are ordinarily studied for laptops, so they'Re made to fit a 2.5-inch drive bay–you can watch our How to Install an SSD in Your Laptop video for tone-by-step instructions. A 2.5-inch SSDs generally works just fine in a desktop 3.5-inch drive bay, though you'll need to fasten it with some mounting brackets instead it'll just sit liberal in your case.
Unfortunately, not many budget SSD options are available. You can find cheaper models out there–many older 60GB SSDs are selling for as low equally $100 during the vacation gross sales–just they typically don't run rather as fast as the costly models.
Still, you send away give your PC a quick speed boost by buying a cheaper SSD and only loading your OS and primary apps along there. Alternately, you could opt for a hybrid SSD/HDD drive like peerless from the Seagate Momentus XT line. Hybrid drives give you a relatively small amount of flash memory for quickly loading your OS and apps in improver to a standard rotating-platter hard drive with the larger, cheaper storage you'rhenium used to, only the latest loan-blend drives haven't finished also as we had expected in our preliminary testing. We'd recommend holding off until we see the tech perform better.
Wealthy person your possess top PC component picks? Post them in the comments!
St. Patrick Miller covers how-tos and games for PCWorld. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/472671/top_pc_component_picks_of_the_year.html
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