Downloadable version available here: http://static.deucescracked.com.s3.amazonaws.com/articles/DIY Build a Poker PC Part I.pdf

Thanks MrMillions for the article!

Rob

no need for graphic cards?? or are they onboard

Onboard will do the job just fine for poker.

Hi nice articel. Came in a perfect time. I am considering to buy a new comp. But I have a few questions.
Let's say that I want a graphic card, what kind of would you recomend? Thinking if I would buy some and that later shows that it doesn't fit or something like that.
Because I am playing at PKR at the moment and I don't know if the integrated graphic card would be enough.

I'm actually looking to upgrade my system. As a complete computer knob I would never try and build one. Any suggestions on prebuilt? I was looking around the Dell outlet but had no idea how much machine I need or what was most important. I usually play 3-6 tables with HEM.

Hi nice articel. Came in a perfect time. I am considering to buy a new comp. But I have a few questions.
Let's say that I want a graphic card, what kind of would you recomend? Thinking if I would buy some and that later shows that it doesn't fit or something like that.
Because I am playing at PKR at the moment and I don't know if the integrated graphic card would be enough.

What case and VGA output (e.g. HDMI, DVI) do you plan to use? What is your budget for a graphics card?

I personally haven't run PKR so it's probably best to hear from someone who runs it.

Despite quoting a use of an "intense 3D engine", their list of supported graphics cards is actually pretty wide, all the way down to the GeForce 3 series. All the onboard graphics recommended in this article fit in the supported list, but just because it is supported doesn't mean that you will get the performance that you actually want.

Keep in mind that you will likely need a higher spec power supply, make sure you check out what the graphics card recommends.

You might need to use a low profile graphics card for some uATX cases, but there are plenty of these around.

I'm actually looking to upgrade my system. As a complete computer knob I would never try and build one. Any suggestions on prebuilt? I was looking around the Dell outlet but had no idea how much machine I need or what was most important. I usually play 3-6 tables with HEM.

Don't know anything about your budget or whether you want a slim or standard desktop case, but the basic specs below would be a good place to start:
Dell Desktop
Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor E7200(2.53GHz, 1066FSB, 3MB)
4GB (2X2GB) Dual Channel DDR2 800MHz SDRAM Memory
750GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
Video Card: whatever it comes with
Upgrade the Dell support/warranty if you can afford it. Dell support is quite good.

I would say that using a MATRIX raid configuration with the ICH9 intel chipset is the way to go for data storage. Matrix raid allows you to put 4 (maybe 6 now a days) individual harddrives in your system, and make multiple raid sets across the SAME DRIVES. I run 4 250gb HDs, and made a 50gb mirror set for the OS, and used the rest of the space to make a fast raid5 array that comes out to be like 600gb. What this enables is to read or write from 4 drives simultaneously, rather than writing everything to one drive.

This helps out greatly when a.) loading a week's worth of hand histories b.) 8 tabling.

I was actually thinking about building custom poker pcs with everything set up, including all software needed (HEM, PT3, whatever), big raid 5 array, and eitherr a large high res monitor, or multiple smaller ones - but I am not sure what the market would be like...

Awesomely timed article as I'm looking to build a grindbox soon. Will the onboard video on the recommended motherboard be able to run a 30" monitor at max res? How about dual? If not can you recommend a config change to support that?

Also aren't Athlons old? Is there a better processor we can get for $100 more or so?

Awesomely timed article as I'm looking to build a grindbox soon. Will the onboard video on the recommended motherboard be able to run a 30" monitor at max res? How about dual? If not can you recommend a config change to support that?

Onboard probably won't be able to run a 30" monitor. Look for any card that supports Dual-Link DVI there -- you can get one for $90 or less now pretty easily.

Rob

For all of you hate PC noise and plan on building your own rig; http://www.silentpcreview.com/ is an excellent resource to find out about low noise/high quality components.
I'm not affiliated with them, but have used them extensively when I built my own PCs.

For all of you hate PC noise and plan on building your own rig; http://www.silentpcreview.com/ is an excellent resource to find out about low noise/high quality components.
I'm not affiliated with them, but have used them extensively when I built my own PCs.

+1

In my opinion you do not need an above average PC to play poker online. You don't even need an average PC to play poker. Not even a couple of months ago I could reliably play poker on a 6+ yr old PIII processor.

All you really need is some RAM to handle the DB needs, a good sized monitor(s) and a halfway decent video card to handle a high resolution or multiple monitors.

I would say for the case, buy a case that will have room to add components or in the future you will be able to expand,

Great article.

Mr millions, or anyone else for that matter, I have a Dell that was damaged from a lightning strike and the repair shop I sent it to told me the motherboard was fried. Is it worth it to rebuild this machine. Also to add I know jack squat about building a PC.......

I am looking to buy a new PC, do you think that this would be a great Poker Machine? http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149957

Yeah thats more than great imo

This seems fun and a lot more inexpensive that I had anticipated.

Rob - get ready for some "oh shit" phone calls around early December.

MrMillions how much $ can be saved by building what you recommend (shipping too) vs the dell machine you recommend? What kind of person should be buying each?

MrMillions how much $ can be saved by building what you recommend (shipping too) vs the dell machine you recommend? What kind of person should be buying each?

I've built my own computers for the past 10years. Built computers for companies, friends, girlfriends, etc...When I built my rig (that's now upstairs in the closet because I just love my 3yr old laptop) it ran me around $1600 + a monitor. I built it with the top of the line gaming specs (at that time). Top of the line video card, audio, I have a Full Tower with 13 fans in it, 10000spin HDD, etc you get the picture. I priced it out on Dell's website for almost $3500!!

Building your own computer is a very good way to go because it'll run you around 1/2 to 2/3 of the price of a pre-built with the same specs and if anything breaks or goes out on it, you built it...you can replace it! Nothing is soldered to the board! If your on-board video goes out, just disable it in your BIOS and get an aftermarket video card. Things like this make it very nice to build your own. Not to mention, after a year or so, you decide you want a new video card...go out and buy a new one. Replace your old one and put the old one in a static-resistant bag in the closet. If your new video card was to ever go out, you can re-use the old one and never miss a beat.

Building a computer is not as hard as everyone thinks it is. They have competitions at the Tech Shows in Vegas every year for who can build the computer fastest WHILE BLINDFOLDED! So you get these lil 15yr old punks up there and literally build a computer in 3mins. Screws and all...

For anyone who doesnt want to DIY, but DOES want a custom built poker PC, I will do it for you:

I am thinking of a system that is completely built, installed, tested and burned in - ready to rock right out of the box, with all of the essential tools pre-installed - like HEM, the poker clients, installed licensed.

Here is one example I came up with:

- Quad core Q6600 based system running at 2.4ghz-3.0ghz on a DFI Mobo
- 8GB of ram
- Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit
- 2TB of storage, 4 500gb hard drives in a raid5 for data storage (hhs, etc)
- Dual HD4650 Vid cards
- Dual layer DVD Burner
- Holdem Manager, pre-installed and licensed. This includes setting up postgre on the raid set for high-performance read/write.

ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?

4 22 inch 1920x1080 (1080p) monitors. Thats right QUAD COREs, QUAD MONITORS

AND ARE YOU READY FOR MORE?

Super slick case with side window ETCHED with the DC logo, or your beloved clown avatar or whatever you can think of.

I could do a system like this for $2700. All you have to do is turn it on, register your sn in ps,ftp, etc and start playing. I would also offer 1 year warranty on all parts/labor, and do my best to help you out if you are having technical problems with it down the road. I guess the other thing would be find room FOR 4 FREAKING 24 INCH MONITORS!!!! lol

Note - I could probably do a slightly less balla system, with everything listed above, except 2 24 inch monitors and 1 vid card for $2000.

Imagine the glory of 4 monitors - Spadeeye/tscope/poker lobby on 1, poker tables on 2 and 3, and your favorite DC vid running full-screen on the 4th.

Of course, I can build you anything you want. Hit me up with your custom needs.
Mods - if you don't approve, feel free to delete, pls.

when you mentioned using 2 HDD's 1 for OS and Programs and 1 for HH's which HDD do you but the OS and Programs 750GB SATA II 7200rpm or the VelociRaptor. Do I put HEM and HH's database on the same one or the HEM in the one with the OS ans software and te HH's on the other? Hope this makes sense its pretty late.

Also if you didn't want to go budget all the way but need to cut back in areas for cost what are the more important recommendations to keep?

Cheers

I have a new PC. I use Holdem Indicator and something is giving it fits. It hangs for ~180sec on start-up then is fine. I have a quadcore Q6600 on a BadAxe2 mobo and 2 HDDs in RAID1. I run the following 24/7:
1. SpywareBlaster
2. Malwarebytes'
3. eset NOD32
4. Prevx Edge

Thoughts? I'm worried about the poker database on a RAID1 and its big ol' read/write cycle being analyzed by Prevx' HIPS each time I start her up. Logical or no?

Thanks.

I'm a nitwit: I figured out my own problem. With Windows Task Manager open and Processes sorted by CPU I opened Holdem Indicator. My antivirus' (Eset NOD32) core process, ekrn.exe jumped straight to the top, monopolizing most of my clock (~40%) not to mention 60MB of RAM. I just added Holdem Indicator's *.exe path to NOD32's exclusions file and the problem is solved.

Well, that only took a month to dawn on me.

Great article MrMillions. Is there a part 2 re assembly tips on its way?

keep up the good work

ps

I was just waiting to see if people wanted the part II.

There's heaps of cool info on assembly on the web, so I'll put something together with a bunch of references.

I was just waiting to see if people wanted the part II.

There's heaps of cool info on assembly on the web, so I'll put something together with a bunch of references.

I would love to see part II of this great thread. How crucial is it to buy a nice case? I have an old dell I was thinking of stripping and using the case but after reading this realized I might need to buy a new case.

I was just waiting to see if people wanted the part II.

There's heaps of cool info on assembly on the web, so I'll put something together with a bunch of references.

Well I went ahead and did it using most of your recommendations above. The result is one bad ass poker machine!!! I particularly love the dedicated HEM Velociraptor HDD - makes HEM a dream to use.

To anyone out there thinking of building a pc, I highly recommend it. As well as getting a great machine out of it at a good price, you really learn a bucketload about how these damn things actually work (and believe me, before doing this my knowledge was pretty much limited to locating the on switch....).

As for assembly, Millions is correct that there is heaps of stuff out there on the web. I was fortunate enough to have my old laptop on hand to refer back to as I went through the process and recommend that all novices do the same. Youtube definitely came in handy when trying to work out what I was supposed to do with that thermal compound stuff!!


good stuff Millions - thanks again. Now just have to get this new machine to pay for itself....

ps

Great Article !

I am about to buy a pre-assembled PC that are a lot like yours

You say that you want the Velociraptor for the HEM database, how do you do that when you install HEM ?'

Do you simply install all of HEM (incl PostgresQL) on the Velociraptor HD, or is it just the PostGresQL database (and HEM going together with OS and software ) ??


Another question about OS. I have heard many bad things about Vista; but you need it for running over 4GB RAM. I am playing on multiple sites at the same time, and would like to have 8GB RAM (because it is so cheap), and i am afraid that 4GB will be too little, since big grafic-card (Dual screens), HUGE databases etc.

Do i go with XP 4GB RAM, or settle for the future with 64-bit Vista and 8GB RAM


And CPU: Dual or Quad ? I have heard that dual actually are better / quicker to read from databases ??



The PC i am about to buy is as follows:

CPU: Athlon64 5050E Dual 2 x 2.60GHz
(Could be upgraded to Phenom II 920 Quad 4 x 2,80GHz 8MB)

should i upgrade ?


Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-MA770-DS3 AM2+ motherboard (PCI-E, AMD 770 chipset, PCI-e 2.0)

CPU Cooling: Artic Cooling Alpine 7 Xtreme Silent køler

Noise-Reduction (extended): Corsair, 80+ Certified

Ram: Kingston 8 GB DDR2-800 PC6400 RAM DualChannel

HardDrive: Samsung 500GB harddisk S-ATAII 3Gb/s Fluid + WD Raptor 150GB 10000rpm

Grafic: Nvidia GeForce 9800GT 1GB PCI-E GraficCard

Cabinet: Aplus Miditower Deluxe LowNoise

Power: 650W 17dB ATX Power Supply Super Silent

Sound: 8 kanals HD Audio RealTek (SoundBlaster komp.)

Drive: Sony S-ata 20x DVD-burner +/- Dual layer

NetCard: 100/1000 Mb/s Realtek

If you just want to play poker on this system, then it's an OVERKILL.......

Unless of course you are rolled for it. And then again I would rather spend the extra money for coaching preparing to move up levels.

Whats up guys I am looking for a new PC desktop. I don't do computer gaming or much multimedia shit, just need a straight up grinding machine that can handle 16 tables + HEM + HUD etc with ease and is quiet. I am looking for stability and processing power, and a good boot time is optimal as well (had a power surge today and my computer took like 3 minutes to reboot and get FTP back open grrr)

If anyone can recommend a build, or some model of Dell to buy please lemme know.