Out of Pod Experience

Hey I own a laptop and i stepped on screen, so now i need a new computer. I want a desktop and i heard that its less money for more performance if you build it your self. so my question is can some one recommend a good desktop to buy from a Canadian store, or let me know is some one with little experience can build a computer and were to buy the parts.

Basically i want a computer then can handle eve very well, including large fleet fights. And i want the ability to have 3 monitors set up. I have a 1500ish budget but that's flexible.


thanks for any help

Well, seeing as that you have very little previous experience building your own systems be prepared to read a few guides on how to actually build it. The build part itself is not incredibly hard. Most stuff can only fit in one place and in one way.

I'd suggest you ask a friends of yours that know a lot about computers to assemble a system and order it.

The hard part usually comes when you turn the thing on for the first time, problems might occur with the software and/or hardware combination if you are unlucky. Most of the time these problems can be solved, but some can be very tricky.

But if you are willing to invest some time and effort in building a system for yourself then I say go for it. But as I said you have to invest time and effort. But on the upside, you'll get a well performing system for less cash and will have learnt something new throughout the process. Also if you can get a friend to you build and set the system up that might be a good idea.

Best case scenario: You turn the system on, configure BIOS and install your OS of choosing with no problems at all.
Worst case scenario: You'll run into problems with hard drives, video cards and everything else.

OP Just go to a LOCAL computer shop, where they don't hire snarly 30yr old business guys trying to sell you a HP GATEWAY IBM E-MACHINES pieces of junk. Do not go to Futureshop, BestBuy, ComputerTrends they're all failures.


Local computer shops will assemble you a custom rig, easily for $1500. Tell them you may need x2 gfxcards for 3-monitor setups (Most cards already let you dual-setup), the tertiary monitor can go on a HDMI slot if you're using a single card.

Before you tell them to assemble it be sure you review the list of items they're putting inside the rig.

Or is wandering around eating a bowl of noodles and playing EvE on the test rigs.

NCIX
that's pretty much the best computer parts company in Canada. they have an option to put together a list of parts, then you pay $50 and they will build and install anything you bought (including setting up a watercooling system, OS, antivirus, and I think they offer overclocking at request).
they have pretty good prices, and anywhere you find a better price (in Canada, in Canadian dollars, and not on sale) they will match it meaning you can get it all from the same place (cheaper shipping FTW).
now, you can get it assembled for you, but building it yourself and having it boot properly for the first time is awesome.

as to the computer, remember all the parts that you will need.
CPU
motherboard
RAM
videocard (you want a video card, onboard graphics will choke to death on EVE)
storage (high speed HDD, or SSD and an economic high capacity HDD)
case
power supply (some cases some with a power supply, but avoid using those unless they get good reviews)
operating system
and if you don't have an external CD drive, or are unfamiliar with booting from a USB drive, get a DVD/bluray drive.

if I were to build a computer right now. this would be about what I would go with. things that you can use to cut costs is to use a single GPU instead of dual GPU. downgrade the CPU. or get rid of the SSD and just use the HDD.
Example Build

Dear PC Building Noob,

Welcome to the gratifying world of DYI Computing. Building your own rig is usually (99.9%?) more cost effective than any pre-built system in the market. Brand name computers will always include stuff you don't want, while lacking of the stuff you actually need.

Don't worry about the actual building process. Putting the parts together is as easy an snapping some Lego blocks. Almost all components are built in such a way that you you can't plug them in wrong even you try. What you do need is advice as per which hardware parts to buy and that comes in 2 flavors:

Theoretical Recommendations

This are lists of hardware that people could recommend based solely on online/magazine reviews and rumors of what's good and what's not. It doesn't guarantee that the end rig will perform to your liking/needs. For example, I was told that my latest rig will never run on anything less than a 1000 watts power supply. But after building it, it turns out that it never goes above 550 watts (measured with a save-a-watt) even under the heaviest loads.

Practical Recommendations

These are lists of hardware that others have already put together and tested with satisfying results. Ideally, somebody who built the exact same thing you want.

Now, it just happens that I finished building a very similar rig just a few days ago. My triple monitor gaming rig was not EvE specific tho. I build it for first person shooter games that are by far more graphic intensive that EvE. But it runs EvE on 5760x1080 at over 100 frames per second and is well under your budget.

Now, the first thing you want to decide before anything else is what monitors you want to get. Mine are 3 Acer S231HL. These are 23 inch monitors with a resolution of 1920x1080 and cost about $150 USD each. What I really wanted was 1920 x 1200. But that resolution usually comes on bigger monitors above the 27 inches size and the price goes up to $289 per display so I went with the 1920x1200. Thinking EvE, a monitor that's 120 pixels taller means your overview could hold more little over 10% more targets without having to scroll down (probably goos since you mention big fleet engagements). However, having 3 displays also means that your overview will never go over your guns so it will probably be sufficient at 1080.

So, 3 monitors, $150 each, $450 of the budget gone... $1050 lest to go.

Now you need to decide on the video card(s). I'm an AMD fanboy so I went with Radeon HD 6870. Mine are the 1gb version, I have 2 of them in crossfire. However, the 2gb version *might* be a better choice since it could *theoretically* handle big resolutions better. Besides, if you shop around the 2gb ones could be found for like $20 bucks more than the 1gb ones. However, mine are 1gb and that's what I can say I've tested.

The Radeon HD 6870 is currently not the best & greatest. But in performance vs price, going higher would just cost too much and don't provide more juice. Maybe, if you plan to use just one card, a 6970 could be a good choice. But looking at the specs, my 6870s give me 4.48 Gflops for $189 USD each, while the 6970 give 5.5 Gflops for $349 each. That's a +75% increase in price for ~33% increase give or take... But again, I haven't tested anything else except the 6870s.

Now, about how many cards to get... I didn't tested the 3 monitors at full resolution on EvE with just one card. By the time I fired up EvE, I already have the 3 monitors *and* the 2 5870s in crossfire. However, given that I'm getting well over 100 frames per second on EvE, I could say that just one card *might* probably be OK. Just get the 2gb version to be sure.

Keep in mind that if you ever wanna play something else, or if CCP decides the revamp the graphics engine, you might need a little more power to move the 3 monitors at an acceptable frame rate. So even if you built your rig with just one card, please do get a motherboard capable of accepting a 2nd card. And that goes for either the AMD or the Nvidia religions.

Now, if you go with the 2 Radeon HD 5870s in a crossfire setup, at $189 each that's $380, leaving you with a remaining budget of $670.

Next you need to decide on what processor. Again, religions play a part as you can either go AMD or Intel. As I already stated, I'm an AMD fanboi so I'll recommend an AMD Phenom II X6 1090T which is almost the fastest AMD processor at this time, it has six cores running at 3.2Ghz and costs $169 USD. Honestly, that's the CPU I have and it really *eats* everything I trow at it. I've yet to see the processor utilization hit 100%... ever. Even when encoding multiple hidef movies at the same time. And for the price? hell yeah!

So, that leaves the remaining budget at $500 bucks. you still need the following:

* A PC Case ($25 ~ $150)
* A Motherboard ($70 ~ 150)
* Either 8gb or 16gb of RAM ($60 - $120)
* A PSU... at least 750 watts (that's what I have and works fine) ~$100
* A Hard Drive... ~$60 for a cheap 2 terabyte drive.
* A DVD ... ~$20 bucks

On those last items you can really play depending on your preferences. For example, I don't give a darn if my PC doesn't look like much. Ergo I have the cheapest possible case at $23.99. But others go with an expensive fancy case with lots of shiny flashy lights. Is up to you.

My last 2 cents... get a UPS and a comfortable chair.

You can order a new screen for your laptop from the company directly. You can then take it and have installed at a place locally or if you have a micro screw driver set and a sense of adventure do it yourself.

oh ya, forgot about that too. Hardware Canucks this is a very nice forum about computers based in Canada. this means that pricing wise, everything will be in CAD, and most likely you will get sourced to companies in Canada. the link I gave was the forums, they also have reviews, and a price checker that you can use to find the best prices in Canada so you can use them at NCIX to save as much money as possible.
they are a generally friendly bunch, and as long as you don't make too many dumb comments/questions (asking questions in itself is not dumb, it's pointless or very easily answered questions) they should be fine with helping you out as much as possible.

1) only 2 monitors per card. sorry. but you can have the 560TI being the workhorse and put a 550 in for the last slot. or as I put up you can use dual 560Ti in sync to get a little better power and still have the extra needed slots.
2) you don't have to. you can get a direct adaptor (if you can find one of the right type) or you can get an HDMI to dvi and use the mini to HDMI with it. as long as you use decent connectors they will transmit a clean signal or at least clean enough to do just fine unless you are doing photo editing.
3) refer to 1.
4) yes it does support bezel correction

there is an archived eve forums thread about PC building linked in my signature.

The only real difference is basically the prices of stuff.

Right now here is what I am looking at as a build

ASUS Maximus IV Gene-z Motherboard
Intel i5-2500k CPU
Western Digital 1tb caviar black Hard Drive
Cordair Vengence (2x4gb) 1600Mhz RAM
Win 7 Pro
AMD 6950 Video card (3 monitor support on one card)
Corsair 650W power supply
Any mid-tower case around 60-80$
Antec Kuhler 620 closed loop water cooler

and overclock the processor to about 4 ghz, the board and cooling should be fine and you can kick the ass of most any system out there