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"I need a new PC!" 2010 Edition

brain_stew said:
Crossfire =/= SLI

You were planning to run SLI 460s but are worrying about your PSU supporting a single GTX 480? Why, a single GTX 480 draws much less power than SLI 460s do.

I don't know quite what you're asking at the end there, but regardless you're not running any sort of SLI rig on that motherboard and GTX 480 > SLI 1GB GTX 460s every time.
Click to expand...

Got it. Might as well just opt for the 480 then, thanks. I guess my main worry was really that my PSU would support it, but since you've said my PSU should have no problem running it, I'm just going to go for the 480 now. Thanks a lot for the input.
 
Castor Krieg said:
Ok, my turn for asking mighty GAF for upgrade. Here are my current specs (will try to be as precise as possible):

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4Ghz

Motherboard: GIGABYTE S-Series GA-EP31-DS3L

RAM: 4GB

GPU: Gainward GeForce GTX 260 896MB DDR3

OS: Vista


The others (Sound, HDD, etc.) are not important. All the components are running at their nominal values, nothing is overclocked.

I'm looking at not-so-expensive upgrade. I was thinking of simply adding 2x2GB RAM, and maybe overclocking the GPU a bit. What do you think GAF?
Click to expand...

Very similar to my setup. Get that Q6600 and GTX 260 OCed pronto.

Don't spend any money on DDR2 RAM.
 
I have found that overclocking my 260 has only given minor changes in games, biggest difference being in dirt 2 where I can gain just a few frames more, the biggest thing to speed up my pc was a cpu overclock (I am on a E7400) which jumping from 2.8 up to 3.2ish gave me a good 20% better rate in games.

but do what brain_stew says, it all helps :P
 
Diablohead said:
I have found that overclocking my 260 has only given minor changes in games, biggest difference being in dirt 2 where I can gain just a few frames more, the biggest thing to speed up my pc was a cpu overclock (I am on a E7400) which jumping from 2.8 up to 3.2ish gave me a good 20% better rate in games.

but do what brain_stew says, it all helps :P
Click to expand...

You're probably CPU bottlenecked. He won't be with a 3ghz quad so his frames should scale pretty linearly.
 
hey GAF - i know this thread is flooded, just wanted to try again (i swear im learning as we go :lol )..

brain_stew said:
These are some of your options for notebooks with a more capable GPU in the same price range:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115796

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115792

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157298
Click to expand...

thanks again man - was comparing those 3 with this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=4#scrollFullInfo

the graphics card is superior, i believe...only doubts for me are a) processor's not bad, but for purposes of PS2/GC emulation, im told the others might fare better, b) 6GB of DDR2 < 4 GB DDR3 no? and most importantly: c) recertified...ASUS says a 1 year extended warranty can be purchased through the vendor, not seeing that.

again, for purposes of steam games/option of later stuff like diablo 3, fallout vegas etc, is the one im looking at ideal, or how do the others spec up? the quad core looks good for the $ but im trading off quite a bit on the vid card end...am i making too big a deal out of recertified? i read newegg's great for customer service, but after that, i fear id be ass out.
 
When I purchased my AMD Phenom II 965 Black Edition I was not thinking of doing an overclock because I (am/was/still) a noob, but now I am thinking about it. My CPU runs stock at 3.4 and I have the stock heatsink and fan. If I go to 4.0 on it, will the stock heatsink/fan be ok for that? I am just using it for gaming, and I did pump it up to 3.6 and saw some improvement and was wondering if going 4.0 would be:

A) Safe with the stock fan/heatsink
B) What is a good overclock speed for my CPU?

Thanks again Gaf!
 
Hawk269 said:
When I purchased my AMD Phenom II 965 Black Edition I was not thinking of doing an overclock because I (am/was/still) a noob, but now I am thinking about it. My CPU runs stock at 3.4 and I have the stock heatsink and fan. If I go to 4.0 on it, will the stock heatsink/fan be ok for that? I am just using it for gaming, and I did pump it up to 3.6 and saw some improvement and was wondering if going 4.0 would be:

A) Safe with the stock fan/heatsink
B) What is a good overclock speed for my CPU?

Thanks again Gaf!
Click to expand...

I think the max temp for a phenom II lies somewhere around 65 degrees C, although I'm not completely sure but you can look this up on AMD's website. Overclocking with the stock fan is possible, but it generally won't get you good results, especially if you have to increase the vcore. Ofcourse you can always try if you want to, as long as you use orthos to test if it's stable and keep a close eye on the CPU temp. But I would still suggest buying a decent 3rd party cooler if you want to go for a serious OC.

And to answer your second question: A good OC for your CPU is 4+ghz.
 
Ok Google has been absolutely useless on this. I have a home network that has outgrown the first router which is causing me to use an old router as a switch. On the old router I disabled the DHCP and made sure it's IP address didn't conflict with the DHCP pool of the main router.

My NAS is attached to the main router while some PCs are hooked up through the old router acting as the switch. Anything hooked up to the switch does not see the other network drives and I'm fairly sure if I tried to print to the network printer behind the switch it would fail as well. How to I setup my old DI-524 to act as it is part of the main network?
 
I bought a new cpu. I7 980x.

I overclocked it to 4.1ghz but I'm go crazy here and maybe some one can help me out.

cpu-z shows the correct clock but in windows 7 x64,cinebench and the ff14 benchmark it only shows 3.59.

motherboard is Rampage 3.

I'm pretty sure I have disabled everything that would slow down the cpu in the bios.

Thanks for any help.
 
Krujo said:
I bought a new cpu. I7 980x.

I overclocked it to 4.1ghz but I'm go crazy here and maybe some one can help me out.

cpu-z shows the correct clock but in windows 7 x64,cinebench and the ff14 benchmark it only shows 3.59.

motherboard is Rampage 3.

I'm pretty sure I have disabled everything that would slow down the cpu in the bios.

Thanks for any help.
Click to expand...

I believe windows 7 and ff14 benchmark just display the CPU device id/name that your bios is reporting. It seems like some motherboards update the device id value after overclocking and some do not. My CPU is overclocked to 3.9 Ghz but the windows property window still displays 2.80 Ghz. I believe the ff14 benchmark did the same. I'd trust CPUz.
 
Mad Max said:
I think the max temp for a phenom II lies somewhere around 65 degrees C, although I'm not completely sure but you can look this up on AMD's website. Overclocking with the stock fan is possible, but it generally won't get you good results, especially if you have to increase the vcore. Ofcourse you can always try if you want to, as long as you use orthos to test if it's stable and keep a close eye on the CPU temp. But I would still suggest buying a decent 3rd party cooler if you want to go for a serious OC.

And to answer your second question: A good OC for your CPU is 4+ghz.
Click to expand...


Depends on his game settings. If he's playing at 1080p with AA and max settings, chances are he'll see only minimal increases in performance over 3.6ghz (as he'll be GPU limited). The increase in heat output and voltages for an extra 2 fps, wont be worth it. Though like I said, depends.

I personally have a 940 at 3.6ghz coupled with a 5970. I play all my games at 1080p with 8xAA (if possible) and 16xAF. Sometimes I opt for supersampling if there's enough overhead. Jumping to 4ghz (in my case, it was 3.99ghz), only net me an avg. of 2 fps in my games with those settings. Overclocking my GPU at that point however, would get me an extra 15-20%


Omiee said:
im getting a i5 760 what is the safest/best speed to overclock it to.
its stock 2.8
Click to expand...


That depends on your particular situation. There really isn't a universal safe/best OC speed for a CPU.

I guess regardless what you do, don't increase the voltage past 1.4v.
 
Felix Lighter said:
I believe windows 7 and ff14 benchmark just display the CPU device id/name that your bios is reporting. It seems like some motherboards update the device id value after overclocking and some do not. My CPU is overclocked to 3.9 Ghz but the windows property window still displays 2.80 Ghz. I believe the ff14 benchmark did the same. I'd trust CPUz.
Click to expand...


Yeah I figured CPUz was right but still I was going crazy. Thanks for quick response.
 
kinggroin said:
Depends on his game settings. If he's playing at 1080p with AA and max settings, chances are he'll see only minimal increases in performance over 3.6ghz (as he'll be GPU limited). The increase in heat output and voltages for an extra 2 fps, wont be worth it. Though like I said, depends.

I personally have a 940 at 3.6ghz coupled with a 5970. I play all my games at 1080p with 8xAA (if possible) and 16xAF. Sometimes I opt for supersampling if there's enough overhead. Jumping to 4ghz (in my case, it was 3.99ghz), only net me an avg. of 2 fps in my games with those settings. Overclocking my GPU at that point however, would get me an extra 15-20%





That depends on your particular situation. There really isn't a universal safe/best OC speed for a CPU.

I guess regardless what you do, don't increase the voltage past 1.4v.
Click to expand...

im gonna play on 1080p with everything max and aa one and stuff, with 470 running on sli with a 260 running as a dedicated graphics card.
i was thinking of oc' ing it from stock 2.8 speed to 3.6 first, and was wondering what the difference in gaming would be if i went and overclocked it even more to 4.0
 
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
I'm not sure the term for it but can this be turned sideways so it's in a portrait type mode?
Click to expand...

IIRC this is called "portrait mode". From this post it looks as though this can do that. This poster even mentions playing arcade games in MAME (which would be my first thought of why you would want to do this).

link
 
Omiee said:
im gonna play on 1080p with everything max and aa one and stuff, with 470 running on sli with a 260 running as a dedicated graphics card.
i was thinking of oc' ing it from stock 2.8 speed to 3.6 first, and was wondering what the difference in gaming would be if i went and overclocked it even more to 4.0
Click to expand...


Read this:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/cpu_scaling_with_the_radeon_hd_5970,1.html

To get an idea where the point of diminishing returns is for your CPU. I know it's a 5970 in the article, but the idea works the same. With the settings you're running at, you'll more than likely be GPU limited and will see your CPU OCs become less effective after a certain point.
 
MikeE21286 said:
IIRC this is called "portrait mode". From this post it looks as though this can do that. This poster even mentions playing arcade games in MAME (which would be my first thought of why you would want to do this).

link
Click to expand...

Ya, I want to play shmups that way mostly.
 
Question for your knowledgeable's!

Sometimes, maybe 4-5 times a day, I hear my CPU Cooler suddenly spin up, and then straight away down again. You could compare it to a car revving it's engines. It's sudden, goes up and goes back down to normal within 3 seconds. It'll do this while under stress or while just surfing the web.

It's a Cooler Master Hyper 212. Does something sound off here? It didn't do this during the first few weeks I had this computer, or at least I didn't notice it, but it has been doing it in the past week.

Should I invest in a new cooler possibly?
 
filipe said:
Question for your knowledgeable's!

Sometimes, maybe 4-5 times a day, I hear my CPU Cooler suddenly spin up, and then straight away down again. You could compare it to a car revving it's engines. It's sudden, goes up and goes back down to normal within 3 seconds. It'll do this while under stress or while just surfing the web.

It's a Cooler Master Hyper 212. Does something sound off here? It didn't do this during the first few weeks I had this computer, or at least I didn't notice it, but it has been doing it in the past week.

Should I invest in a new cooler possibly?
Click to expand...


Any background monitoring software installed in those first few weeks? Could be something running in the background that's causing a brief spike in CPU usage (which leads to more heat, which leads to high fan RPM).

Just my guess.
 
Nope, and I just reinstalled W7 yesterday (for other reasons). I've kept a good eye on my temps with SpeedFan. My CPU rarely hits 50C while under stress, and when it does, it's for a split second. It averages in the 45-47C area. On idle, it rarely goes over 35-36C.

I'm not really that worried as the computer still runs like it did day 1, but I want to make sure this doesn't lead to any damage in the near future.
 
filipe said:
Question for your knowledgeable's!

Sometimes, maybe 4-5 times a day, I hear my CPU Cooler suddenly spin up, and then straight away down again. You could compare it to a car revving it's engines. It's sudden, goes up and goes back down to normal within 3 seconds. It'll do this while under stress or while just surfing the web.

It's a Cooler Master Hyper 212. Does something sound off here? It didn't do this during the first few weeks I had this computer, or at least I didn't notice it, but it has been doing it in the past week.

Should I invest in a new cooler possibly?
Click to expand...
Should be fine, something is probably telling it to speed up.

If it bothers you plug it into a port that is not monitored (there may be an option in (BIOS as well).
 
kinggroin said:
Depends on his game settings. If he's playing at 1080p with AA and max settings, chances are he'll see only minimal increases in performance over 3.6ghz (as he'll be GPU limited). The increase in heat output and voltages for an extra 2 fps, wont be worth it. Though like I said, depends.

I personally have a 940 at 3.6ghz coupled with a 5970. I play all my games at 1080p with 8xAA (if possible) and 16xAF. Sometimes I opt for supersampling if there's enough overhead. Jumping to 4ghz (in my case, it was 3.99ghz), only net me an avg. of 2 fps in my games with those settings. Overclocking my GPU at that point however, would get me an extra 15-20%
Click to expand...

I know, but you could say the same to people buying a i7. Because if you play at that resolution your CPU is not that likely to bottleneck if you have a decent one.
 
Latest Bulldozer news.

Bulldozer's details have been released. Biggest news is that it will not be backwards compatible and will use a new AM3+ socket. The AM3+ socket will be backwards compatible with existing AM3 CPUs however new AM3+ CPUs such as Bulldozer will not work in exisiting AM3 motherboards.

Those looking to future proof themselves can't do so as both Intel and AMD are switching to new sockets for their upcoming architectures.

This is a big blow to all those people who bought AM3 motherboards with 8 series chipsets and were hoping to use Bulldozer CPUs without upgrading.
 
Tensai said:
Latest Bulldozer news.

Bulldozer's details have been released. Biggest news is that it will not be backwards compatible and will use a new AM3+ socket. The AM3+ socket will be backwards compatible with existing AM3 CPUs however new AM3+ CPUs such as Bulldozer will not work in exisiting AM3 motherboards.

Those looking to future proof themselves can't do so as both Intel and AMD are switching to new sockets for their upcoming architectures.

This is a big blow to all those people who bought AM3 motherboards with 8 series chipsets and were hoping to use Bulldozer CPUs without upgrading.
Click to expand...


oh wow, thanks for the info

1055T here I come!
 
kinggroin said:
Read this:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/cpu_scaling_with_the_radeon_hd_5970,1.html

To get an idea where the point of diminishing returns is for your CPU. I know it's a 5970 in the article, but the idea works the same. With the settings you're running at, you'll more than likely be GPU limited and will see your CPU OCs become less effective after a certain point.
Click to expand...
Wasn't that article running at 2560? I thought 1080p is relatively trivial in comparison, so you wouldn't be GPU bound so quickly?
 
Tensai said:
Latest Bulldozer news.

Bulldozer's details have been released. Biggest news is that it will not be backwards compatible and will use a new AM3+ socket. The AM3+ socket will be backwards compatible with existing AM3 CPUs however new AM3+ CPUs such as Bulldozer will not work in exisiting AM3 motherboards.

Those looking to future proof themselves can't do so as both Intel and AMD are switching to new sockets for their upcoming architectures.

This is a big blow to all those people who bought AM3 motherboards with 8 series chipsets and were hoping to use Bulldozer CPUs without upgrading.
Click to expand...
Where did you see this?

I checked a few websites and all I got was analysis of the slides presented, when you can see here:

http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTI4MjMyNzEzOHV3YTdlWk81TTNfMV8xX2wuanBn
 
What is out there in PC land for smaller than full tower, while still having good power? I don't necessarily need a SFF, I can definitely go to full AV width, and maybe as tall/deep as an AV receiver, which should be roughly an old school desktop size? Needs to be quiet when idle as i'd run it as a media centre and also sabnzbd/torrent client when not playing (replacing my mac mini). Doesn't need to be super quiet when flexing it's muscles though. Would connected to a 1080p TV, ideally through my receiver, so 5.1 over HDMI would be a bonus. TV is 3D ready, but won't support 120Hz in - will Nvidia be updating their 3D stuff to support outputting to consumer 3dtvs?
 
Well this is bullshit man...

My pc STILL hardlocks from time to time.
Just now it happened when I tried tf2 for the first time. I installed and ran the game for 5 or so minutes before it randomly locked up and the audio looped/chugged and the only thing that worked was a manual reboot.

What can it possibly be? I have a brand new gpu and ram that passed memtest I think. Should I do a reformat? Would that even matter? :(

edit : might it be my ram? I mean I've heard that they're instable / crappy, maybe I should underclock the freq. Is it enough to just decrease the dram freq or do I have to touch timings/voltage/something else?
 
Another inquiry haha

I've got my Q6600 clocked at 3GHz at the moment with my new 5850. After some fiddling around on the weekend I managed to get my CPU up to 3.2GHz but that required 1.3875V minimum. Is it safe to keep it at a voltage that high?

I've been listening to all this business about bottlenecking and I'd hate to have my new video card not performing as well as it can. For reference my 3GHz clock requires 1.3125V.

In other overclocking news I managed to get my 5850 to 900/1250 on stock voltage but after a few hours games started locking up and that was followed by the dreaded driver crash. I have it sitting on 850/1225 at the moment although I'm pretty sure it was safe running at 875/1250.
 
hypothetically speaking ;

can a bad motherboard fry/destroy perfectly good components? Cus I dont know what the fuck is going on....
 
Right now I have an 8800 Ultra and Q6600 and am looking to give the computer to my brother and build a new one with a budget of about £900, should I wait for the Radeon 6xxx series or just go for a 480/5850?
 
Tensai said:
Latest Bulldozer news.

Bulldozer's details have been released. Biggest news is that it will not be backwards compatible and will use a new AM3+ socket. The AM3+ socket will be backwards compatible with existing AM3 CPUs however new AM3+ CPUs such as Bulldozer will not work in exisiting AM3 motherboards.

Those looking to future proof themselves can't do so as both Intel and AMD are switching to new sockets for their upcoming architectures.

This is a big blow to all those people who bought AM3 motherboards with 8 series chipsets and were hoping to use Bulldozer CPUs without upgrading.
Click to expand...

Where are you getting this from?

We've known about socket AM3+ for ages, doesn't mean that Bulldozer chips won't work in AM3 boards just as the release of AM3 chips and socket AM3 didn't break compatability with AM2+ chips.

The slides released today say nothing about socket compatibility.
 
mrklaw said:
What is out there in PC land for smaller than full tower, while still having good power? I don't necessarily need a SFF, I can definitely go to full AV width, and maybe as tall/deep as an AV receiver, which should be roughly an old school desktop size? Needs to be quiet when idle as i'd run it as a media centre and also sabnzbd/torrent client when not playing (replacing my mac mini). Doesn't need to be super quiet when flexing it's muscles though. Would connected to a 1080p TV, ideally through my receiver, so 5.1 over HDMI would be a bonus. TV is 3D ready, but won't support 120Hz in - will Nvidia be updating their 3D stuff to support outputting to consumer 3dtvs?
Click to expand...

H55 or AM3 M-ITX board + Silverstone Sugo.
 
My pc just crashed in bios, was trying to give my usb-memtest-loader prio 1 but never got that far.
 
Corky said:
everything stock

points to bad ram again right?
Click to expand...

More than likely. Just thoroughly test it and see.

You can try running with a single module and it that clears things up, you've probably nailed down the problem.
 
brain_stew said:
More than likely. Just thoroughly test it and see.

You can try running with a single module and it that clears things up, you've probably nailed down the problem.
Click to expand...

cheers hopefully I'll find some backup ram around here somewhere but as of yet I cant post with these sticks.

I'm cautios to keep trying I dont really want to break something else....
 
So I went with the i5. Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD3, Gigabyte GTX460 OC, Corsair 4gb, 1TB Samsung F3, Fractal Design R2 and a Fractal Design 550W 80+.

I also got a Hyper 212+ as I've seen you guys recommend it a lot of times, but how many fans should I get? 2 120mm should be enough? I won't overclock right away but would like to have a quiet and cool case anyway.
 
Corky said:
cheers hopefully I'll find some backup ram around here somewhere but as of yet I cant post with these sticks.

I'm cautios to keep trying I dont really want to break something else....
Click to expand...

Use one stick at a time. Try booting if that doesn't work switch to the other.


You don't need two DIMMs to boot.
 
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