"With Intel anti-theft technology built into Sandy Bridge, Allen said users can set it up so that if their laptop gets lost or stolen, it can be shut down remotely. The microprocessor also comes with enhanced recovery and patching capabilities."
I was going to say I think this "security feature" sounds a little scary, a little orwellian, but the first commenter on the article beat me. But seriously it's not a good feature, with so much of our lives revolving around the computer, laptop and mobile phone this sort of thing is most definitely a double edged sword. Plus when was the last time you lost a desktop?
Hey guys, I have this RAM but my mobo clocks it at 1333 MHz on Auto and if I keep it at 1.5V and up it to 1666 MHz, it crashes. I have it at 1666MHz/1.64V right now and Prime95's still going strong after almost an hour whereas before it would crash within seconds. Can I keep the voltage at 1.64 and be alright long term?
Also, is the mid-60° range during Prime95 alright for a Phenom II to top out at?
I was going to say I think this "security feature" sounds a little scary, a little orwellian, but the first commenter on the article beat me. But seriously it's not a good feature, with so much of our lives revolving around the computer, laptop and mobile phone this sort of thing is most definitely a double edged sword. Plus when was the last time you lost a desktop?
I'm looking to get a new PC. I have an old HP xw8400 workstation with an 8800GTX that, while good with most of the games that I played (Torchlight, Portal, Titan Quest), I'm looking to play more graphically intense titles (Crysis, STALKER, Witcher 2). I'd like to be able to play games on full detail in 1080p.
Crunched,
I agree with stepping down to a 955 to save money, or consider looking into a Phenom X6. Remember, games are already starting to scale for 6- and 8-core CPUs. The 125W X6 1055T is fairly priced right now, and the faster, 95W 1065T is already on shelves.
I'm looking to get a new PC. I have an old HP xw8400 workstation with an 8800GTX that, while good with most of the games that I played (Torchlight, Portal, Titan Quest), I'm looking to play more graphically intense titles (Crysis, STALKER, Witcher 2). I'd like to be able to play games on full detail in 1080p.
There are games like Anno 1404, Dead Rising 2, and Civilization 5 that have seen benefits from the additional cores/threads. While some of these may be attributed to allocation more so than specific coding, upcoming titles like Bioshock Infinite, and Crysis 2 have an eye toward multi-core scaling.
There are games like Anno 1404, Dead Rising 2, and Civilization 5 that have seen benefits from the additional cores/threads. While some of these may be attributed to allocation more so than specific coding, upcoming titles like Bioshock Infinite, and Crysis 2 have an eye toward multi-core scaling.
If you did a cost benefit analyses on a core by core cycle by cycle comparison of Intel and AMD Dual, Quad and Hex core chips the Intel would come out on top nearly time. One reason, they are barely being used as it is. If you own a 1366 chip there will be very little reason if any to upgrade that chip for at least one more year. Which means they have been top dog for three years, which is crazy. 1156.... well... R.I.P.
As for games needing extra cores, there is marginal benefit, since they have been geared towards GPU's for more than a few years now. Even then, it's only the major PC exclusive titles that have taken advantage of the hardware from the last 2 years! the rest are developed for frigging consoles.
Here's one recommendation: Stay away from the 480's. You get slightly better performance from a 570 with less power and noise, and can buy it new for only $60 more.
As for the 580 and 6970, I would say that the 580 is going to push the most pixels for you, but the 6970 presents a better price/performance scenario for you.
Here's one recommendation: Stay away from the 480's. You get slightly better performance from a 570 with less power and noise, and can buy it new for only $60 more.
As for the 580 and 6970, I would say that the 580 is going to push the most pixels for you, but the 6970 presents a better price/performance scenario for you.
I'm looking to get a new PC. I have an old HP xw8400 workstation with an 8800GTX that, while good with most of the games that I played (Torchlight, Portal, Titan Quest), I'm looking to play more graphically intense titles (Crysis, STALKER, Witcher 2). I'd like to be able to play games on full detail in 1080p.
I was going to say I think this "security feature" sounds a little scary, a little orwellian, but the first commenter on the article beat me. But seriously it's not a good feature, with so much of our lives revolving around the computer, laptop and mobile phone this sort of thing is most definitely a double edged sword. Plus when was the last time you lost a desktop?
I'm hoping it's an opt-in feature or something you can disable in thie BIOS. Might be something i'd use for my laptop but the risks definitely outweigh the reward on my main desktop or other home-only machines.
It's a little less than 2 1/2 yo and just recently started making noise. I'm thinking it might be easier to simply replace it with the same part, so I wouldn't have to remove the back plate.
It's a little less than 2 1/2 yo and just recently started making noise. I'm thinking it might be easier to simply replace it with the same part, so I wouldn't have to remove the back plate.
If your CPU is the only thing really hampering you right now, and you'd like to remain using that PC for a while still, either overclock the current chip or try this if you can:
Some retailers in Malaysia breaking Sandy Bridge street date.
Prices are 585 MYR ($186) for the i5 2300, 609 MYR ($194) for the i5 2400, 939 MYR ($299) for the i7 2600; so it looks like the leaked slide was close to street price.
I'm gonna build my next pc, and I want it to be ready for Crysis 2. I don't have much experience building a pc from scratch.. the most I did was buy a pre-made pc and slapped an 8800 in there. I game on an hdtv and for some reason the only one resolution that looks good is 1920x1080. Is there a card out now or one that will be released by Crysis 2's release date(or is out already) that will run the game at that resolution and at or above 30fps?(I want 60fps but I don't wanna push my luck) I don't need to get it now, I can wait a couple months. Any help would be appreciated.
edit- My gpu price limit is around the 200ish range.
are these 2 monitors good and which one is better, and is gygabyte a good brand for monitors.
reason i was still undecided about these two is the brand ( i own their graphics card and i used to have a gygabyte motherboard ) and because one is LED.
is led actually good for pc use.
I've got to say with sandy bridge just around the corner (stores have chips) I can't really recommend a build that uses a current CPU so I won't list the CPU and the Motherboard. Therefore I'll leave 400 dollars headroom for those pieces of hardware.
4gb of 1600 RAM, GTX-460 1GB, As much storage as you can afford, a 600 watt corsair PSU, Any Zalman CPU cooler (personal favourite), use your current case to save a little cash and bang there you go.
edit: i5-2400 and the P8-P67 will no doubt be a decent combo and that will probably go for around $US400.
I became ultimately dissapointed with AMD/ATI (again) and I picked up an EVGA GTX 580 SC superclocked. I want to sell my GTX295, how much do you guys think is a fair price? I would be willing to go very low if there is little hassle in the transaction.
Sidenote, I beat Newegg's auto notifcation to the punch, by the time they sent out the notifications, my order had already been charged, I must have been the first buyer of this batch.
So I have a 512mb Asus 4870 right now. I feel like I'm being limited by it but it is enough for the only game I care about, SC2, on high settings (although I get some lag during big battles). I was waiting for the 6000 series to upgrade, but now I'm wondering if its necessary? Should I wait it out for the next gen cards if I'm decently satisfied with my card?
If you did a cost benefit analyses on a core by core cycle by cycle comparison of Intel and AMD Dual, Quad and Hex core chips the Intel would come out on top nearly time. One reason, they are barely being used as it is. If you own a 1366 chip there will be very little reason if any to upgrade that chip for at least one more year. Which means they have been top dog for three years, which is crazy. 1156.... well... R.I.P.
As for games needing extra cores, there is marginal benefit, since they have been geared towards GPU's for more than a few years now. Even then, it's only the major PC exclusive titles that have taken advantage of the hardware from the last 2 years! the rest are developed for frigging consoles.
I don't dispute that a moderately-priced quad is more than enough for the majority of users. I was just pointing out that, presently, some applications do benefit from the additional CPU power and that's only going to continue. That isn't to say that anyone absolutely needs to run out and buy a six core or higher part to take advantage of those gains right now.
If you look at my original comment you'll see that I recommended that the poster step down at least one notch from a 965BE in order to save money, since 955s clock about the same. Quite frankly, I don't know that I'd say the higher end Phenom II X4s are worth it. Only mentioned the X6s as options if he was intent on spending that much for an X4 BE.
I think most of us agree that apart from a select number of instances, software is far behind tech (no surprise there). Still, it's pretty clear that certain games and applications already benefit from the increase in cores/threads. What you see with six cores is the same thing that we see with Sandy Bridge parts: most CPU-bound software benefit from the increased processing capability.
keeping 6 gigs of ram with a quad core oc'd to 3.73ghz, or getting a stable overclock of 4.0+ghz with only 4 gigs of ram?
Some background:
I have a qx6850 with a NH-D14 Cooler, and I am having no problems with keeping temps in check...but, I have 2 PC6400 ram modules, and 2 PC8500 ram modules. I'm thinking the ram is the issue here, as I have to clock all the ram at 830mhz ddr to reach the current 3.73ghz core clock (415x9).
So, mainly for gaming, is it better to have the extra cpu speed, or the extra ram?
The prices listed are what I ended up paying after shipping, sales, tax, and MIRs at the time of purchase. The links are just for reference. Bolded items are the new items.
Dammit I hate looking at prices just a few months after I ordered everything...
Cost of new items = $1150
Total cost of everything = $2087
This isn't as fun without pics, so here.
This was after the entire fiasco of my mobo not reading all of my ram (which is supposedly a somewhat common problem with 1366 boards, and can be caused by a pretty extensive list of different problems). Some applications (CPU-Z and Memtest86+) would detect all 6gb, but only use 4gb. Pretty much everything else would only read and use 4gb. I would randomly get BSODs when trying to boot up the rig too, and would only stop after fiddling around with ram OC settings in the bios (I could never pin it down to what settings would actually stop the problem). After about 18+ hours putting everything together, wiring it all, and troubleshooting, I narrowed down the problem to the motherboard itself or the pins that touch the CPU (on the mobo too), so I RMA'd it. Slapped the thing back together a week and a half later when it arrived, flipped on ACHI and the OC ram settings in the bios, and it worked automatically. First time I've ever gotten a bad component... Needless to say, I was pissed.
I plan on getting a SSD when the next-gen Intel's and Sandforce's roll around. I figured it would be worth it to wait for faster tech and double the space for the same price as they go for these days. Yeah, it probably means that I'll have to reformat so that all the bios settings and such are correctly set prior to installing an image, but it's not too big a deal for me. I didn't wait for Sandy Bridge and the new mobos/coolers for reasons I reasoned out not too long ago in this thread. As for the GPU, I didn't really want to spend much more than what I did on the 6870, so waiting for the 69xx didn't mean anything to me.
At idle, the CPU gets ~28ºC, and the GPU (20%) gets ~32ºC. The only thing overclocked is the ram, as I don't plan on doing overclocks on the CPU or GPU at the moment.
I still need advice on what to do in terms of games... Should I use RadeonPro for everything (3xbuffering, MLAA, VSync, etc)? Or should I be letting CCC 10.12 apply the stuff to everything? Or should I be using D3D? I didn't remember this stuff being so complicated just a few years ago
And yes, I do use the monitor and speakers for PS3 gaming.
keeping 6 gigs of ram with a quad core oc'd to 3.73ghz, or getting a stable overclock of 4.0+ghz with only 4 gigs of ram?
Some background:
I have a qx6850 with a NH-D14 Cooler, and I am having no problems with keeping temps in check...but, I have 2 PC6400 ram modules, and 2 PC8500 ram modules. I'm thinking the ram is the issue here, as I have to clock all the ram at 830mhz ddr to reach the current 3.73ghz core clock (415x9).
So, mainly for gaming, is it better to have the extra cpu speed, or the extra ram?
A higher clock would generally benefit you more than the additional memory. In most cases you'd be better off with 2x2GB, or 2x4GB if you needed the additional bump. If populating all the slots was the best choice you had to get above 4GB, opting for properly matched 4x2GB sticks would be better than going with 2x2+1x2.
Unless you lucked out with your particular chip, I'd be more concerned with the amount of volts that you'd need to hit 4GHz or higher for 24/7 use.
Unrelated:
The GTX 560 is supposedly going to be shown in some form (proper debut?) at CES.
This was after the entire fiasco of my mobo not reading all of my ram (which is supposedly a somewhat common problem with 1366 boards, and can be caused by a pretty extensive list of different problems). Some applications (CPU-Z and Memtest86+) would detect all 6gb, but only use 4gb. Pretty much everything else would only read and use 4gb. I would randomly get BSODs when trying to boot up the rig too, and would only stop after fiddling around with ram OC settings in the bios (I could never pin it down to what settings would actually stop the problem). After about 18+ hours putting everything together, wiring it all, and troubleshooting, I narrowed down the problem to the motherboard itself or the pins that touch the CPU (on the mobo too), so I RMA'd it. Slapped the thing back together a week and a half later when it arrived, flipped on ACHI and the OC ram settings in the bios, and it worked automatically. First time I've ever gotten a bad component... Needless to say, I was pissed.
I plan on getting a SSD when the next-gen Intel's and Sandforce's roll around. I figured it would be worth it to wait for faster tech and double the space for the same price as they go for these days. Yeah, it probably means that I'll have to reformat so that all the bios settings and such are correctly set prior to installing an image, but it's not too big a deal for me. I didn't wait for Sandy Bridge and the new mobos/coolers for reasons I reasoned out not too long ago in this thread. As for the GPU, I didn't really want to spend much more than what I did on the 6870, so waiting for the 69xx didn't mean anything to me.
Overclock the CPU. Ive got the same mobo, same processor, same cooler, same GPU same timings and speed ram, same HD yadda yadda.
It will go to 3.6 without any bump in voltage at all, and will stay cool. Shit Im at 3.8 and I bumped the voltage only because I thought I would need to. I probably should try the 1.8 at normal voltage. In any case. Its literally free speed. At the very least take 3.6 or 3.7. You probably wont have to even bump the voltage for that.
But I havent ran into anything I cant max though, so there is the issue of needing it vs just doing it just because. This was my first build and I was just itching to mess with stuff so I eventually caved.
Shit man we even have the same monitor but my version is 2ms response. And it was cheaper...did you already own that monitor?
So I'm looking for some recommendations on potential upgrades. Here's the important parts of my rig right now:
C2D E4300 OC'd to 3.15ghz
6GB DDR2 ram
Radeon HD 4870, 512MB ram
500W PSU
An ASUS LGA 775 mobo (can't remember the model off hand but not like it really matters).
I'm gaming in 1920x1200 and more and more I'm seeing games run at below 30fps if I turn on high/max detail and 4x MSAA. Would I benefit from just upgrading my gfx card to something like a 6870? (or waiting for the gtx 560?) Or is my cpu too old to really see the benefit from this? In which case I would need to buy a new CPU/mobo/DDR3 ram...pretty much the nuclear option. Another temporary option would be to add another 4870 in xfire for like $60ish, but that'd mean having to buy a bigger PSU.
Thoughts??
Budget wise, I'm most concerned with getting the most bang for my buck, but my absolute limit is around $500.
I've been doing a lot of research trying to play catch-up in the world of PC making (I'm pretty new at it, which is sorta obvious given the questions I've asked in this thread), and I have to say it's been pretty addicting. I'm trying to put together a budget PC to run games comfortably at 1680x1050 and wanted some opinions.
$16.99 - LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM
$59.95 - Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
$49.99 - Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
$54.99 - MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
$136.99 - SAPPHIRE 100283-3L Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5
$59.99 - CORSAIR Builder Series CMPSU-500CX 500W ATX12V v2.3 Active PFC Power Supply
$49.99 - CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3
$99.99 - AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz
$2.29 - OKGEAR 10" SATA 6Gbps Cable (From my understanding, the motherboard I chose only comes with one cable)
Subtotal - $531.17
Add in Windows 7 64-bit Upgrade with student discount for around $65 and I'm at about $600 total, not counting shipping and tax. Is this an acceptable cost? Any improvements I could make? I did spend some time trying to make the budget PC posted in this thread, but the radeon 4870s seem to be discontinued on newegg and amazon. I'm not in a rush to pull the trigger, although I'm getting really tired of my POS system (1gb ram, geforce 5500fx video card, 2.4ghz dual core...).
K will do. I thought the 6000 would make me upgrade. I think I built my computer in April of 09. That 512mb card is lasting me quite a long time. When will the next gen cards that are worthy of an upgrade coming out?
Hi Guys,
This is just an quick initial attempt at configuring a new box. Just looking for any suggestions for the system overall. I'll be playing at 1680x1050. Is an i5 a better route to go? Also i'm not sure how the new AMD releases stack up at that resolution in terms of value? For reference, at the store I will be buying everything from, the 6970 is $AU498 and the 6950 is $AU389. (These seem to be incredibly inflated?) All prices are in Australian dollars.
I've been doing a lot of research trying to play catch-up in the world of PC making (I'm pretty new at it, which is sorta obvious given the questions I've asked in this thread), and I have to say it's been pretty addicting. I'm trying to put together a budget PC to run games comfortably at 1680x1050 and wanted some opinions.
$16.99 - LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM
$59.95 - Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
$49.99 - Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
$54.99 - MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
$136.99 - SAPPHIRE 100283-3L Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5
$59.99 - CORSAIR Builder Series CMPSU-500CX 500W ATX12V v2.3 Active PFC Power Supply
$49.99 - CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3
$99.99 - AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz
$2.29 - OKGEAR 10" SATA 6Gbps Cable (From my understanding, the motherboard I chose only comes with one cable)
Subtotal - $531.17
Add in Windows 7 64-bit Upgrade with student discount for around $65 and I'm at about $600 total, not counting shipping and tax. Is this an acceptable cost? Any improvements I could make? I did spend some time trying to make the budget PC posted in this thread, but the radeon 4870s seem to be discontinued on newegg and amazon. I'm not in a rush to pull the trigger, although I'm getting really tired of my POS system (1gb ram, geforce 5500fx video card, 2.4ghz dual core...).
This is practically my computer. Its pretty great. The only issue I had was the hypertransport flood sync error that I'm beginning to suspect is the motherboard. But other than that, games run great in 1080p and it'll be a lot faster.
Edit: If you ever want to put another 5770 in, I would get a crossfire ready power supply. Don't worry that your other PCI Express slot is only a 4x, the 5770 can use that with no problem.
Overclock the CPU. Ive got the same mobo, same processor, same cooler, same GPU same timings and speed ram, same HD yadda yadda.
It will go to 3.6 without any bump in voltage at all, and will stay cool. Shit Im at 3.8 and I bumped the voltage only because I thought I would need to. I probably should try the 1.8 at normal voltage. In any case. Its literally free speed. At the very least take 3.6 or 3.7. You probably wont have to even bump the voltage for that.
But I havent ran into anything I cant max though, so there is the issue of needing it vs just doing it just because. This was my first build and I was just itching to mess with stuff so I eventually caved.
Shit man we even have the same monitor but my version is 2ms response. And it was cheaper...did you already own that monitor?
Well if you managed to get that much more of a freq boost on the CPU without increasing voltage, I guess I'll consider putting an OC on it. I'll need to look into it though, haven't really overclocked CPUs much before.
You having mostly the same internals of the rig kinda creeps me out though lol... As for the monitor, I got it Christmas day 2 years ago. You sure you don't own the T240HD version? The regular one isn't as popular, but there's significantly less input lag than the HD version (which is why I got it, for FPS games). Although the HD did have a 1:1 scaler and a built-in tuner which would have been better for PS3 gaming...
This is a bit of a tangent, but should i get a netbook, ipad, or wait till sandy bridge laptops come out? Are there going to be sandy bridge netbooks too? I want something with great battery life and is lightweight. Something i can easily manage while sitting on the couch and reading digital comics/surfing the web that doesn't get too hot so it can actually sit on my lap comfortably. Will my gog games play on a netbook ( baldur's gate, icewind dale, etc)?
I am hoping to add a second Radeon 5850 to my build so I can do a 3-monitor Eyefinity setup. I have the original reference 5850, so would there be any problems mixing reference with non-reference in a crossfire setup? Same with Eyefinity, would I be able to plug in the monitors and go or are there any restrictions like which outputs I can use?
Just checking to see if anyone can help to my original inquiry. I am getting "Windows detected a hard disk problem" on my 'new' PC, so I created a system image and bought a new hard drive (which is identical to my old one). But now I'm reading that you can't restore the system image to a different hard drive, is this right? What use is it if you can only restore to the original faulty hard drive?!
fatty said:
After a long time agoof using thread to build my PC, I'm back with some more questions.
I'm currently getting some warnings (happened to me 3 times in the last couple of months) on Windows 7 that it wants to initiate a back-up since it is detecting errors on my hard drive (Samsung F3 1TB). Called Samsung and the guy was nice and recommended sending it in so I'm going to register and do it this weekend.
Bought a new Samsung F3 from Microcenter (need to get my SC2 fix while I wait) and I'm going to reinstall Windows 7 on the new drive and when I receive the replacement later, use that as a secondary drive. Now to the questions:
-Has anyone else encountered this problem where Windows 7 wants to start the backup process due to problems with the HDD?
-Do I need to deactivate Windows 7 on the old drive and reactivate it on the new drive or can I just install it on the new drive since it uses the same motherboard, etc.?
I've been doing a lot of research trying to play catch-up in the world of PC making (I'm pretty new at it, which is sorta obvious given the questions I've asked in this thread), and I have to say it's been pretty addicting. I'm trying to put together a budget PC to run games comfortably at 1680x1050 and wanted some opinions.
$16.99 - LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM
$59.95 - Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
$49.99 - Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
$54.99 - MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard
$136.99 - SAPPHIRE 100283-3L Radeon HD 5770 1GB 128-bit GDDR5
$59.99 - CORSAIR Builder Series CMPSU-500CX 500W ATX12V v2.3 Active PFC Power Supply
$49.99 - CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3
$99.99 - AMD Athlon II X4 640 Propus 3.0GHz
$2.29 - OKGEAR 10" SATA 6Gbps Cable (From my understanding, the motherboard I chose only comes with one cable)
Subtotal - $531.17
Add in Windows 7 64-bit Upgrade with student discount for around $65 and I'm at about $600 total, not counting shipping and tax. Is this an acceptable cost? Any improvements I could make? I did spend some time trying to make the budget PC posted in this thread, but the radeon 4870s seem to be discontinued on newegg and amazon. I'm not in a rush to pull the trigger, although I'm getting really tired of my POS system (1gb ram, geforce 5500fx video card, 2.4ghz dual core...).
Not sure if we do peripherals/etc questions here, but I'm in monitor hell.
I ended up buying an Asus VE248H LED LCD, and it's absolute shit. I spent a week trying to adjust it/myself, to no avail. Not sure if it's a dud, but it has terrible ghosting, and I can't match colors to save my life. No hue adjustment on the monitor, just awful. Some people on Newegg complain of the same issues leading me to believe it's the series.
So PC GAF, I need recommendations for a ~24" monitor with HDMI and really good configuration options in a price range preferably $200-250. I looked at some monitors at BestBuy today, but I could use a few more recommendations.
