Haswell Powered CPU Build Guide for Hi-End Gaming and CAD; for October 2013 (Pakistan Market Prices and Parts Availability)

 

This build is recommended for those who use CAD software daily and render their models as well at a high resolution. And do PC gaming as well.

CPU

Intel® Core™ i7-4770 Processor (8M Cache, up to 3.90 GHz) ~34,000 PKR, exceptional value for money, excellent render performance, it will stay for 5 years easy! Comes with 8 cores! Do I need say more? :)

Motherboard

Intel® Desktop Board DH87MC ~12,000 PKR, using 3rd party mother boards is not recommended in Pakistan because of no-warranty issues. Most of the importers buy from Intel and they come with warranty, others simply don't. This board supports 6 6 GB/s SATA, USB and PCI-e 3.0.

GPU

MSI® NVidia™ GeForce GTX 650 GDDR5 2 GB ~15,000 PKR, great value for money too, will easily run all existing games (50+ fps), and all to be released games at maximum settings at a minimum of ~30 fps for at least 2 more years. And lets face it, AMD is crap! ;)

PSU + Case + Extra Fan

Corsair® VS 500 500 Watt PSU + Casing ~6,000 PKR (after the price for built-in PSU is subtracted). In Rendering, the CPU goes to full power and beyond (Intel® Turbo Boost) so power consumption increases, same applies to GPU when gaming, you will probably use 400 Watt maximum, but as PSU gets older (after 3-4 years minimum) the output wattage decrease, so to make up for that, initially buy a slightly larger wattage PSU. Also due to large time spent gaming and/or rendering, the system heats up pretty bad, so be SURE to buy and add an extra 120 mm fan.

RAM

Kingston® KVR16N11/8 8 GB DDR 3 1600 MHz, ~8,000PKR  x1, as RAM is expensive these days, was at around half the price last year, so go for 1 DIMM 8 GB memory. I don't recommend buying 2x DIMM of 4GB capacity, because if you want to upgrade to full capacity later (and most of you will, that's why one buys a Desktop and not a Craptop), (capacity of the recommended motherboard is 8GBx4 = 32 GB maximum) it will not use up extra DIMM slot.

HD

Seagate® Barracuda™ 7200 rpm 32 MB Cache 500 GB ~6,500 PKR. I don't recommend buying a hard disk anymore because it will slow your system down, buy a 180 GB SSD instead. Believe me, 180 GB is enough space, most of us pre own Portable HD anyway, so use that for back up. If you want a HD buy the smallest/cheapest capacity/price available.

SSD

Kingston® SV300S37A/60G 60 GB ~6,500PKR. This 6GB/s SSD boots Microsoft's® Windows™ 8.1 RTM in 10 seconds ONLY! Get the point I was making earlier? Go for Kingston because warranty issues, again importers do not buy from Intel in case of SSD, but from Corsair and Kingston.

Optical Drive

Yeah, it was something too, something dinosaurs used! NOT recommended. Just wastage of money! We use USB ports to install any of the current OS, obviously.

WIFI

TP Link® WN722N ~1,000 PKR, it is a must as most of us have WIFI routers these days, so to get internet to your desktop, you will have to use this or a ~2,500 PKR 50+ meter LAN cable. The choice is yours! This isn't even a hard one!

This all adds up to 89,000 PKR without Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers and a Monitor which most of us pre own and do not change for ~8-10 years. And with 60 GB SSD and 500 GB HD.

If you are buying everything from start, add ~2,500 PKR for keyboard and mouse, and ~12,000 for 900p monitor (Dell® or HP® only because of warranty issues).

 

For suggestions, send an email to fadoobaba@live.com , tweet @fadoobaba, PM at https://www.facebook.com/ThreeDimensionalDesign or https://grabcad.com/fahad.rafi.butt or comment with your contact details and I will contact you!. Thank you for reading!

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