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"I need a new PC!" 2010 Edition

SuperEnemyCrab said:
Speaking of RAM when the hell did it get so expensive again? I bought 8gb of DDR2 800 for $80 about a year ago. I wanted to pick up 2gb for my bedroom PC to bump it up to 4gb and paid $47 for a single 2gb stick. Oy vey!
Click to expand...

Older ram is more expensive because companies aren't making them any more, and they figure if people really want it, they will pay for the bump in price. Rumor has it that DDR3 is going up in price, so the time to buy is now.

Anyway, just got my Thermalright CoGage True Spirit in the mail. It's so massive it's not even funny. I know the hardest part about my build is going to be able to mount this thing properly.
 
Firestorm said:
Ok, I'll just replace the RAM in the first post to kill any chance of that happening again. Sorry they didn't work x.x
Click to expand...

Honestly, I'm kind of glad it happened. I learned so much because of it. All the reading and troubleshooting I did makes for some good knowledge.
 
Himajin said:
Got to agree with you on this. I went through pretty much every major case manufacturer until I ended up with my current Lian Li PC-A70, and now I wouldn't want to use anything else. They may not be the sexiest cases around, but the build quality is amazing.
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I just wanted to add to the Lian-Li love. I've got the Lancool PC-K62 and the PC-7B Plus the lancool has so many features with a ridiculous attention to detail with everything possible done to make sure the machine is as quiet and cool as possible, whereas the PC-7B is an awesome sleek and elegant design with the highest quality metals i've seen in a computer case.
 
Yes, Lian Li is the shit. The bad thing about their cases in the past were the price tag. Now, they have affordable cases. I picked up the PC-K7B for my new build. The only thing that beats Lian Li imo is the Corsair Obsidian, but that case is expensive as hell.
 
My head exploded from too many small choices and i think i'm just going to delay a new desktop and make due with small games on my puny ATI Mobility 1400X :(

the case i was looking at, upon further investigation, while the rebate on newegg said it was for the 13th and 14th, when you go to the website to register it says it was only for the 13th AND $10 less than stated on the website. Silly humans.

Then i was reading customer reviews for the many different makes of the ATI 5770 card and the one that got pretty good reviews didn't have a bundle for the cpu like the HIS one did and yarrrrrrgh /explodesfromminutedetails.
 
K.Jack said:
Well, you can order them, but they won't even have the parts to build until the 27th (earliest), which means you won't get it until sometime in February, depending on demand.
Click to expand...

Hmm so I guess I won't be able to get the HP then... pity. However, people actually have the Sony machines in their hands, they've been posting pictures on Notebookreview and everything. Or I guess I could go for the older Envy configuration with the i7 and 4830?
 
putting a new rig together, quick question on RAM-

any noticeable difference between 6g vs 9g or 12g?
(pc is used for gaming/internet/itunes only)

worth the money or is anything over 6gigs overkill?
 
Can anyone tell me much about the Intel X25-V drives? They seem to be a new value based drive, currently only 40GB (all I need for an OS drive though), but no reviews on them that I was able to find.
 
Fuck... Antec 300 is giving me some trouble. I used the wrong screws (thanks for clearly telling me which of the screws coming with the case to use manual...) to mount the motherboard. Now I can't get them all out. :(
 
mr stroke said:
putting a new rig together, quick question on RAM-

any noticeable difference between 6g vs 9g or 12g?
(pc is used for gaming/internet/itunes only)

worth the money or is anything over 6gigs overkill?
Click to expand...

I'd say 6 gigs should be plenty sufficient for quite a while, and 12 gig would probably be overkill (got 8 gig myself, and it's probably far more than I really need :lol )
 
corsair-obsidian-800d-2.jpg
Click to expand...


Saw this and thought, "Oh my, that case is sexy"...and then I looked at the price. Just can't justify spending $300 on a case...plus I have no need/desire for a full tower. Guess I'll have to keep my ears open to see if they ever come out with a cheaper mid-tower model...
 
Misterinenja said:
Fuck... Antec 300 is giving me some trouble. I used the wrong screws (thanks for clearly telling me which of the screws coming with the case to use manual...) to mount the motherboard. Now I can't get them all out. :(
Click to expand...

The screws to create some space between the motherboard and the case, of the screws fastening the mobo on top of the spacecreatingscrews?
 
Baker said:
Can you explain the difference between the i7 860 and 920? My buddy at work got pretty snippy when I mentioned the 860, hehe. He's really sold on the 920's.
Click to expand...
My take:

i7 920:
+supports triple-channel RAM (though this doesn't seem to affect gaming performance very much)
+better PCIe bandwidth (though this won't make much difference unless you're running tri-SLI or more)
+likely upgradeable to six-core processors in the future (though they will likely cost ~$1000)
-pricier motherboards

i7 860:
+better performance if you're not overclocking (performance will probably be about the same if you OC)
+lower power consumption
+cheaper motherboards
-only dual-channel RAM
-doesn't have as much of an upgrade path (so you'd have to replace your motherboard when you get a new CPU)

Personally I'd go for the 860 if prices are comparable. It's a newer, more effecient generation of hardware that's better optimized for home usage and gaming. i7 920's advantages look nicer on paper, but they all have some pretty big strings attached, IMO.

Ettenra said:
Price may be too steep for some, but this thing is going to fix my hitching in LOTRO, and it took a major price drop today.

OCZ Vertex SSD 60GB
Click to expand...
Nice! Still a bit beyond my price range at the moment, but that price is starting to look like a much more realistic option.
 
Anyone have experience running a 5850 on an Earthwatts 500 (two 12V rails at 17A each)? It'd be paired with an E6600@3Ghz. One HDD, one ODD, couple sticks of memory. It feels like I'd be pushing it close to the limit...
 
Baker said:
Moving this lame question over at the request of mr brain_stew. :D

---

My laptop is dying and I have decided to go back to a desktop.

I found this DIY kit at newegg that is pretty tempting except the graphics cards are last gen.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.311768



Is that a pretty safe bet to go with, or should I piece the system together with individual parts? I'd like to keep it under $1000 if possible ($1200 max). The main things to change in my opinion would be replacing the crossfired 4860's with a 5870 (or two lower end ones) and bumping up the power supply wattage.

Also, has onboard audio become semi-passable now or something? I noticed that none of these DIY kits come with a sound card (even the $4600 ones).
Click to expand...

I think you can do much better piecing it together individually and probably "dropping down" to an i5-750. Crossfiring two slower cards is rarely worth the bother.


Doytch said:
Anyone have experience running a 5850 on an Earthwatts 500 (two 12V rails at 17A each)? It'd be paired with an E6600@3Ghz. One HDD, one ODD, couple sticks of memory. It feels like I'd be pushing it close to the limit...
Click to expand...

You'll be fine.
 
carpediemdp said:
A friend who imports PC parts is offering the following things for me to build a PC, mostly for playing games. I'm really really new at this so i don't know which ones to choose.

I have the following processors to choose from:

AMD Athlon II X3 425

AMD Athlon II X4 620

AMD Phenom II X2 550

And these are the video cards to choose from:

Radeon HD 5770

Radeon HD 4870


Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

If you're willing to OC then take the X4 otherwise go for the X3.

Take the 5770 over the 4870.
 
Speaking about cases, I finally finished mounting my pc inside the HAF 932, the airflow this case moves is insane, (3x23cm fans and 1x14cm) combined with the noctua in my E6600 I have the cpu temp under 30º in idle, and with the fans at 700rpm, plus the cable management is great, and all the HDD and 5.25" drives are screw-free.
 
brain_stew said:
If you're willing to OC then take the X4 otherwise go for the X3.

Take the 5770 over the 4870.
Click to expand...


Questions:

If you overclock the X4, do you have to buy an extra cooling system for the cpu?


And if you don't plan on overclocking you say go for the X3, is there no benefit to quad core cpus unless you overclock? Is a quad core, without overclocking, going to be important for the future gaming?

for reference i'd probably be getting an ATI 5770 and some DDR3 RAM, not sure if that matters.
 
Alright, sorry for making these posts over and over, but I want to order this thing today. Do you guys have any suggestions and/or cost saving ideas?

-i7 860
-ASUS P7P55D PRO LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.315602
Combo discount $23.00
Price: $426.98

-CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V
-Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.319411
Combo discount $10.00 + $20.00 rebate
Price: $134.98

-CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145260
Price: $104.99

-SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 22X DVD-R 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151188
Price: $31.99

-Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129058
Price: $99.99 (on sale from $139.99)

-Windows 7 64
-SAPPHIRE 100281SR Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready
or
-SAPPHIRE 100282SR Radeon HD 5850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready
Combo discount: $20.00
Price: $494.98 (5870) / $384.98 (5850)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.298042
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.298043

Final Price: $1183.91 or $1293.91
 
sillymonkey321 said:
Questions:

If you overclock the X4, do you have to buy an extra cooling system for the cpu?
Click to expand...

If you want to go all out then sure, but for a small OC on stock volts then no, not at all. Just bump it upto 3-3.2ghz and it'll make a huge difference to games/applications that aren't optimised for more than 2 cores.

sillymonkey321 said:
And if you don't plan on overclocking you say go for the X3, is there no benefit to quad core cpus unless you overclock? Is a quad core, without overclocking, going to be important for the future gaming?
Click to expand...

No, the reason I suggest only going with the 620 if you plan to OC is because its base clock speed is pretty low for an Athlon ii, it borderline whether or not its "enough" for high end games that don't make use of three or more threads. Clock it upto 3.2ghz though (any chip will manage that just fine) and it'll handle them just fine and you get an extra core "for free". Basically,you're sacrificing too much in the way of dual/single threaded performancce in order to bag that extra core, but OCing will soon put an end to that.
for reference i'd probably be getting an ATI 5770 and some DDR3 RAM, not sure if that matters.

As for what to buy, well dual core CPUs are pretty much dead, the only two that are worth even considering are the new Intel i3 chips, all the rest are horrible value.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...03724&cm_re=amd_athlon-_-19-103-724-_-Product

I was looking at something like that, trying to cut costs from the $140 Phenom X4 quad core 2.8GHz. Is that too big of a performance difference to go with the cheaper Athlon X3 and mainly just an Athlon over a PHenom to begin with? Is an Athlon x3 going to run into any problems with future compatibilities with games and can does the cpu have anything to do with running two graphics cards with the Crossfire thingy? ( future thinking).
 
Baker said:
Alright, sorry for making these posts over and over, but I want to order this thing today. Do you guys have any suggestions and/or cost saving ideas?
Click to expand...

You have nearly the exact build that I do (same CPU, mobo, 5850, RAM, and case). The only difference I see is that I got a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus for cooling since I plan to OC.

Haven't OC'd yet, but I love it ;) Was running Crysis last night on high settings at ~60 fps.
 
Baker said:
Alright, sorry for making these posts over and over, but I want to order this thing today. Do you guys have any suggestions and/or cost saving ideas?
Click to expand...
You can get 2% Bing cashback for Newegg purchases. Might not be worth the hassle of setting up an account, but it'd be an extra 20 bucks.
 
Struct09 said:
You have nearly the exact build that I do (same CPU, mobo, gfx card, RAM, and case). The only difference I see is that I got a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus for cooling since I plan to OC.

Haven't OC'd yet, but I love it ;) Was running Crysis last night on high settings at ~60 fps.
Click to expand...
Awesome. That's all I really care about is running Crysis on high. I don't even know if I'll like the game but that has been the arbitrary goal I've set for the build. :lol

I'm not going to OC much at the start, but I'll add a cooler later if I get hooked on that aspect too.
 
Struct09 said:
5850

I saw your "or", and edited my post :P
Click to expand...
Oh lol. I just edited my post because I saw you had it listed.

Edit:

I think I'll go with the 5850. It seems to run fine as long as you don't venture into the 2600rez territory. I'm 100% fine with sticking around 1900 with some AA. Doesn't hurt saving 110 bucks either...
 
I need some help guys. My little brother is having some computer issues and it sounds like maybe a graphics card failure, but we don't know too much about this stuff and are hoping it might be something easier to take care of.

A couple days ago he loaded up one of his games and had like blue dots in two columns going vertically down the screen. Also, sometimes when he restarts there will be vertical green squares/rectangles going down the windows boot up screen. When the desktop loads up it will say something about the display driver failing or something like that. It will also randomly crash with video intensive stuff. Though he can surf the net and stuff fine. Couple of other things that might help diagnose the problem: The graphics card is an nvidia card and ever since this problem started the nvidia control panel option has disappeared from the drop down box when you right click on your desktop. Also, when you go to the display options and the area that lets you set resolution etc... one of those screens at one point showed two boxes with a number 1 and number 2 in them but now it either shows one box only or just highlighted boxes, I can't remember. Might try to download an older driver. Not sure if drivers can get corrupted. My brother downloads tons of mods and stuff.

We also opened the case to make sure nothing had accidentally got disconnected. Everything turned out to be plugged in properly. However, it was pretty dusty in there. Any chance that could be the cause and cleaning could help? Also gonna try a factory restore if nothing else works, before he just settles on buying a new card.

Thanks for any help!
 
^ Yeah the video card is fried/in the process of frying.

Edit: You could try removing all the previous nvidia drivers, rebooting, then installing the new one. It probably won't help much, but it'd be a decent last ditch effort before you go card shopping.
 
mr stroke said:
putting a new rig together, quick question on RAM-

any noticeable difference between 6g vs 9g or 12g?
(pc is used for gaming/internet/itunes only)

worth the money or is anything over 6gigs overkill?
Click to expand...

6GB is the sweet spot. Anything over that,unless you are using an application that will actually use all of it, like photoshop, is a waste. There was a report / summary on this using 6GB/9GB/12GB on Windows 7 and there really wasn't any difference between the 3.
 
AZ Greg said:
Any chance that could be the cause and cleaning could help?
Click to expand...

Clean the dust. It sounds like there is more going on than just overheating but a can of air is dirt cheap and it only takes a minute. Dust is a killer and you should really get into a routine of cleaning the computer on a regular basis.

I'd also just try removing all of the drivers and nvidia software and starting from scratch.
 
AZ Greg said:
I need some help guys. My little brother is having some computer issues and it sounds like maybe a graphics card failure
Click to expand...

Yep, it's most likely a fried video card. I had almost identical symptoms a few years back with my old 8800GTS. I let the heat sink get so clogged with dust that it was cooking itself whenever I tried to game on it. I tried cleaning it out, but no dice. I think once you're getting artifacts like this it's pretty much a lost cause.

Now I'm a bit more careful with keeping my case clean and monitoring temperatures...
 
Thanks for the replies everyone!

One more thing, he is currently using an 8800GT and is completely happy with the performance so he would want to replace it with the same thing since it's probably cheap now as well. But if I remember right the 8800GT is now the 9800GT correct? The reason I ask is because his computer isn't necessarily built for gaming in terms of casing (relatively small case) and power supply (not sure of the numbers but I know it's enough for the 8800GT). So he wouldn't want to get a replacement card that is too big or requires a bigger power supply. Also, if there are any other cards for slightly more $ with slightly more power but fit the same efficient characteristics of the 8800GT I'm sure he'd be interested in paying a little more for it.

Thanks again!
 
I did it guys! Thanks so much for the help, I'm in your debt. I've been staring at the checkout screen for over an hour, but I finally got through it. I'll take pics when I put it together next week.

dr81av.jpg
 
Last week, I dicked around in the registry, and was forced to reinstall my XP partition. The next day, my monitor randomly started to shut off. I could still hear any music or videos that I was playing. Restarting my computer made things worse, as the screen shut off just as XP was booting. The problem ended up being video card related. I tried uninstalling the drivers and using the default Windows ones. Lo and behold, it worked. The default drivers are, of course useless. Even scrolling down a webpage chugs.

While waiting for my new video card to arrive, I decided to overclock my CPU. When I built my computer in late 2007, I threw on a chunky heatsink. The thing's enormous, and is barely lukewarm to the touch, so why not, right? I upped the bus to 400, bringing my E6320 from 1.8GHz to 2.8GHz. I didn't expect to see a noticeable difference, but now I can actually play videos fullscreen while I wait for the card to arrive.

I don't want to get greedy, but I was shooting for over 3GHz. Any opinions on keeping a 1:1 RAM to FSB ratio? After reading up a bit, it seems you get a negligible performance increase by keeping a nice ratio. The computer is long in the tooth anyway, and once the modern video card arrives, any clockspeed increases will probably seem negligible.

But if I can get Photoshop to run more smoothly while dealing with large documents...
 
sillymonkey321 said:
Should i stay away from a power supply that isn't 80 plus thingy? Does it make the system quieter at all ( as i hate noise)?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152028
Click to expand...


80 plus is about the efficiency of the PS, not the noise level. If you want a quieter power supply a larger single fan is what you want to look for, something like a single 120 or 140mm fan. (not referring to that PS you linked to specifically, just in general)
 
So does anyone here have any idea as to why the 5970 is so hard to find in stock? Other then eBay it seems like only Amazon has one model (Diamond brand) in stock but read somewhere that there were problems with the Diamond branded version of card.
 
Baker said:
I did it guys! Thanks so much for the help, I'm in your debt. I've been staring at the checkout screen for over an hour, but I finally got through it. I'll take pics when I put it together next week.
Click to expand...

Congrats, you should enjoy that!
 
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition
Asus HD 5850 1GB
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P
Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ, 1TB
Cooler Master Silent Pro M500
Kingston ValueRAM KVR1333D3N9K2/4G
Antec 300

So I assembled this system today and it didn't boot with the 5850 in it. It gave a long continuous beep and the fans started running at full speed. Took it out out and the system booted up, and ideas?
 
Fixed1979 said:
Just a quick shot of my current Obsidian build as of last weekend. In desperate need of some black Sata cables :(

http://i624.photobucket.com/albums/tt326/Fixed1979/101_0296.jpg[IMG][/QUOTE]

awesome awesome case...

:)
Click to expand...
 
Fixed1979 said:
Just a quick shot of my current Obsidian build as of last weekend. In desperate need of some black Sata cables :(

101_0296.jpg
Click to expand...

Oh my god. The wire management is so nice. My Antec 900 is a bit of a mess. Beautiful case, definitely on my list when the upgrade time comes.
 
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