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[innervision961]

Alright gaf, I need your help with this... I'm in the market for a new comp, I'm mostly a console gamer but would like to play diablo 3 portal 2 and half life ep 3... I want an iMac 24 or 27? But should I just get a pc? Maybe alienware or something? I guess I could build my own but I've been out of the hardware loop for years. I mostly need it for school and work, a little graphics work (Photoshop and some 3d) what do ya think?

 

[Fireflu]

^^
Ha! its amazing how much you sound like me at the moment! im in the exact same situation.
Last time i did anything with my comp was like 6-7 years ago so im waaaaaaay out of the loop!
Im currently trying to wrap my head around the current state of hardware... It kind of feels like ive been frozen for a decade and now im waking up to discover what has changed S:!

 

[Minsc]

Alright gaf, I need your help with this... I'm in the market for a new comp, I'm mostly a console gamer but would like to play diablo 3 portal 2 and half life ep 3... I want an iMac 24 or 27? But should I just get a pc? Maybe alienware or something? I guess I could build my own but I've been out of the hardware loop for years. I mostly need it for school and work, a little graphics work (Photoshop and some 3d) what do ya think?

If you get an iMac, wait until they replace that 4850 with a better GPU.

If you get a PC, it sounds like you'd be buying a pre-built one? I'd advise against alienware, and just find something for much cheaper , and pocket the leftover money for buying another machine when all three of those games actually come out :lol

(for the $2000 you need to spend to get a 4850 on the iMac w/ warranty, you could buy a $1000 PC now, and another $1000 PC in a few years)

 

[ChoklitReign]

I'd agree with this but really, its quad core or bust for gaming as far as I'm concerned these days. When a fast quad can be had for ~$100 (X4 630) there's no real reason to stick with a dual core chip.

I doubt you can build a gaming PC with a quad-core for under $600. It's either a good GPU or a good CPU for that price. I'd rather go with the GPU.

 

[brain_stew]

I doubt you can build a gaming PC with a quad-core for under $600. It's either a good GPU or a good CPU for that price. I'd rather go with the GPU.

Of course you can. You can easily get a X4 630 and 5770 with that sort of budget. That's your two primary components covered for only $250. Quad's no longer demand a premium. They're the bare minimum you should be considering for a modern gaming rig these days.

 

[ChoklitReign]

Of course you can. You can easily get a X4 630 and 5770 with that sort of budget. That's your two primary components covered for only $250. Quad's no longer demand a premium. They're the bare minimum you should be considering for a modern gaming rig these days.

The only way I can do it is if I cut the RAM to 2 GB. I doubt that's enough for Crysis or Metro 2033. Everyone must recommend 4 GB of RAM for a reason.

 

[brain_stew]

The only way I can do it is if I cut the RAM to 2 GB. I doubt that's enough for Crysis or Metro 2033. Everyone must recommend 4 GB of RAM for a reason.

Seems easy enough for me, and this is with high quality components throughout:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118030
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145299
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128431
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131330
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103704

$630 + $30 of rebates, that's close enough, and all of those are excellent components making no real compromises apart from going with a 500GB rather than a 1TB drive but its still a 500GB platter drive so its really fast and a perfect boot drive. You could cheap out on the case, PSU, RAM and motherboard if you had a stricter budget but with $600 there's really no need to at all, you can make a zero compromises build just fine.

 

[brain_stew]

my friend want medium - high pc
so i thought i5 + 5870 is a very good choice right now

if he wanted a high end then +700$ 5970 +i7 would be the choice

anyway thanks for the site

Don't buy a 5970 whatever you do, its horrible value and that 1GB framebuffer is a massive potential bottleneck. Don't even consider it until they start shipping them with 4GB of GDDR5. That goes for everyone. Horrible card.

 

[x3sphere]

Don't buy a 5970 whatever you do, its horrible value and that 1GB framebuffer is a massive potential bottleneck. Don't even consider it until they start shipping them with 4GB of GDDR5. That goes for everyone. Horrible card.

True, I don't regret buying mine though, it's the only card that can acceptably run Crysis maxed at 2560x1600. But now with the 2GB variants on the horizon you are simply better off waiting. For a card that was made to run at Eyefinity and beyond HD resolutions I don't know what ATI/AMD were thinking..

 

[NorrenRadd]

True, I don't regret buying mine though, it's the only card that can acceptably run Crysis maxed at 2560x1600. But now with the 2GB variants on the horizon you are simply better off waiting. For a card that was made to run at Eyefinity and beyond HD resolutions I don't know what ATI/AMD were thinking..

I bet they were thinking about lots of this: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

from people who NEED to have the best stuff

Spoiler

and I would have bought one if I had the money to blow

 

[Decado]

The place I want to upgrade my PC doesn't have the motherboard I was looking at in stock.

Anyone know if the Asus M4N72-e motherboard is any good? It'll be used in a config with a Sapphire 5770 and Phenom II 955.

thanks

 

[BuddhaRockstar]

So ummm... I'm not sure what to make of this-

I just purchased 2 Asus 5970s for $127. (aka $55 a pop before shipping)

This is either my greatest purchase ever, or my stupidest purchase ever. Probably just a pricing error and my order will get canceled, but who knows. I will let you guys know what happens. *gulp*

(I meant to order 1, but there were 3 left and they were going quick, I added it to my cart and when I saw $127 I assumed it was a pricing error on Amazon's part, but even at $127 it's a no brainer, imagine my surprise when I found out I accidentally ordered two)

 

[Labombadog]

So ummm... I'm not sure what to make of this-

I just purchased 2 Asus 5970s for $127. (aka $55 a pop before shipping)

This is either my greatest purchase ever, or my stupidest purchase ever. Probably just a pricing error and my order will get canceled, but who knows. I will let you guys know what happens. *gulp*

goodluck with that XD

 

[BuddhaRockstar]

goodluck with that XD

Thanks lol, it won't even fit in my current case and I'd need a new PSU for it anyways. :lol

 

[PatzCU]

PC-GAF, I call upon your help. Last weekend my 5 year old desktop PC started acting funny; straight freezing in exponentially lower lengths of time after turning on. Anyway, I have decided the desktop is not worth salvaging as it is a single core processor, 6800GT, and 2GB of RAM (OLD).

Like many GAFers who wander into this thread, I was once way into PC hardware, building my own PC, and staying current on the cutting edge of PC gaming. Then I managed to graduate college, get a job, and proceed to lose all spare time I had to give my PC the attention it deserved.

For those who fit in the above category, I recommend reading this entire PC building guide from Tech Report http://techreport.com/articles.x/18510/1. Just from sifting through this guide, I feel fairly caught up with today's relevant PC hardware.

With that said, I was planning on building something around their Econobox with some slight upgrades. What brain_stew posted below seems perfect given my budget and desire for a great video card, 4GB RAM, and good desktop casing.

Seems easy enough for me, and this is with high quality components throughout:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118030
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145299
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128431
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131330
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103704

$630 + $30 of rebates, that's close enough, and all of those are excellent components making no real compromises apart from going with a 500GB rather than a 1TB drive but its still a 500GB platter drive so its really fast and a perfect boot drive. You could cheap out on the case, PSU, RAM and motherboard if you had a stricter budget but with $600 there's really no need to at all, you can make a zero compromises build just fine.

My question is this: the Econobox CPU recommendation is for an AMD Athlon II X4 630. Given that processor's performance and associated motherboard socket type, will it stifle my ability to upgrade two years down the line? Would I be better suited spending another $75-$100 to get an Intel i3 or i5 and their associated motherboard socket type? The goal is that hopefully in 2 years I could just spend $150 and drop in a new video card that will blow away the Radeon HD 5770.

I want to keep the build at $600-$700 roughly as I will have to buy Windows 7. Please forgive any ignorance in this post, it's been awhile for me!

 

[brain_stew]

PC-GAF, I call upon your help. Last weekend my 5 year old desktop PC started acting funny; straight freezing in exponentially lower lengths of time after turning on. Anyway, I have decided the desktop is not worth salvaging as it is a single core processor, 6800GT, and 2GB of RAM (OLD).

Like many GAFers who wander into this thread, I was once way into PC hardware, building my own PC, and staying current on the cutting edge of PC gaming. Then I managed to graduate college, get a job, and proceed to lose all spare time I had to give my PC the attention it deserved.

For those who fit in the above category, I recommend reading this entire PC building guide from Tech Report http://techreport.com/articles.x/18510/1. Just from sifting through this guide, I feel fairly caught up with today's relevant PC hardware.

With that said, I was planning on building something around their Econobox with some slight upgrades. What brain_stew posted below seems perfect given my budget and desire for a great video card, 4GB RAM, and good desktop casing.



My question is this: the Econobox CPU recommendation is for an AMD Athlon II X4 630. Given that processor's performance and associated motherboard socket type, will it stifle my ability to upgrade two years down the line? Would I be better suited spending another $75-$100 to get an Intel i3 or i5 and their associated motherboard socket type? The goal is that hopefully in 2 years I could just spend $150 and drop in a new video card that will blow away the Radeon HD 5770.

I want to keep the build at $600-$700 roughly as I will have to buy Windows 7. Please forgive any ignorance in this post, it's been awhile for me!

Nope, its the other way round. Socket AM3 has a definite upgrade path, socket 1156 does not, oh and i3s are dual core processors, so you don't want one of them. If you want the absolute best performance for your dollar and the best upgrade path, you really can't beat that config. I'd reccommend getting the 1TB version of that drive though, make sure you get the newer 500GB platter version, this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...5304&cm_re=1tb_hitachi-_-22-145-304-_-Product

 

[Hazaro]

AMD offers you a much much better upgrade path.

 

[Decado]

Is a Quad Core even all that useful? I can't say I hear about many games supporting them, and when they don't it doesn't appear that they are much faster.

 

[cws]

how much fast is a AMD Phenom II X4 955 compared to an athlon x2 630 ? and does it make sense to go for the phenom if im using it a gaming machine on an 24" TFT + 5770 GPU ? i would guess the gpu will be more limiting than the cpu....

so yeah phenom 2 955 or athlon x2 630 ?

 

[Fitz]

Is a Quad Core even all that useful? I can't say I hear about many games supporting them, and when they don't it doesn't appear that they are much faster.

More and more games are supporting quad cores, it won't be all that long before games come out supporting even more, especially as both Intel and AMD are working on 6+ (physical) core processors at the moment. If you're not interested in playing current and new releases though then no, Quad Cores aren't really worth it for gaming alone.

how much fast is a AMD Phenom II X4 955 compared to an athlon x2 630 ? and does it make sense to go for the phenom if im using it a gaming machine on an 24" TFT + 5770 GPU ? i would guess the gpu will be more limiting than the cpu....

so yeah phenom 2 955 or athlon x2 630 ?

Athlon x4 630 you mean?

Other than the obvious difference, the clock speeds, the 955 has L3 cache for a start, Black Edition AMDs also have unlocked multipliers, meaning they are very easy to overclock.
As far as your upgrade situation goes, it depends what you're currently using if you need to upgrade or not, also what games you're playing.

 

[Minsc]

Is a Quad Core even all that useful? I can't say I hear about many games supporting them, and when they don't it doesn't appear that they are much faster.

It's starting to make a huge difference in games. Dragon Age it helps a bit, and Metro it's crucial to higher framerate at higher graphic settings, a couple other games make use of over 2 cores, but as brain_stew pointed out, there's not a huge premium to pay for a quad (you can build one into a $600 PC), so it's dumb to skip it unless you're on a super tight budget, or not planning on doing any heavy gaming.

 

[BuddhaRockstar]

*Update*

So... this might actually happen-

I checked my online credit card account and $127 has been charged to my account. Unless the company is straight up scamming me, (which seems odd for such a large website with overwhelmingly positive user reviews) I might just set a world record for greatest deal ever in PC gaming.

 

[Façade]

I've got a strange problem with games that's been occurring for a couple of weeks. Basically, in every game I'm getting texture pop-in and re-rendering of objects when I get close to them. I originally thought it was only happening in Bad Company 2 but when I've tried other games it's occurring too, even though my framerates are perfectly fine and everything else appears to be okay.

I'm not sure this is the right place to ask but I would appreciate some help. Also, all my drivers are up to date.

 

[Inkwell]

I'm having a few issues with my new pc. It's freezing randomly and I don't have a clue how to pin-point the problem. There's no blue screen error. I've checked the event logs but there's nothing there. One time it froze while I was watching a video, and the video continued to play in the background.

It could be my hard drive because it's a bit old now. It's this one right here. It could be a video card/driver issue. I have an 8800GT. I've looked, but haven't found anyone with the same issues.

I plan to re-install windows 7 at some point. It only did an upgrade and I didn't realize it before I loaded a bunch of games and stuff. I figure I might as well get a new hard drive for when I do that. Considering I only have a 250GB drive right now, I don't need anything with a lot of space. That's not saying I won't go for a 1TB drive if the price is right.

In short, I'm looking for the fastest hard drive I can get with a reasonable price. SSDs are too expensive, and I don't think I want to go for a raid setup at the moment. I'm also looking for suggestions on an external hard drive. I've been wanting one for a long time, and it would make things so much easier backing up all of my documents, steam games, etc.

 

[Money]

What do you guys think of this setup? Ignore the case, because I'm switching to a full tower, and I also need to add on Windows 7 PC builder edition which is an extra $100.

 

[Minsc]

I'm having a few issues with my new pc. It's freezing randomly and I don't have a clue how to pin-point the problem. There's no blue screen error. I've checked the event logs but there's nothing there. One time it froze while I was watching a video, and the video continued to play in the background.

It could be my hard drive because it's a bit old now. It's this one right here. It could be a video card/driver issue. I have an 8800GT. I've looked, but haven't found anyone with the same issues.

I plan to re-install windows 7 at some point. It only did an upgrade and I didn't realize it before I loaded a bunch of games and stuff. I figure I might as well get a new hard drive for when I do that. Considering I only have a 250GB drive right now, I don't need anything with a lot of space. That's not saying I won't go for a 1TB drive if the price is right.

In short, I'm looking for the fastest hard drive I can get with a reasonable price. SSDs are too expensive, and I don't think I want to go for a raid setup at the moment. I'm also looking for suggestions on an external hard drive. I've been wanting one for a long time, and it would make things so much easier backing up all of my documents, steam games, etc.

Fast, Internal SATA HDDs (SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3)

2TB External Drive (Western Digital My Book Mirror), can also automatically be setup to run as RAID1 as a 1TB that mirrors everything, so if one of the drive's go bad, you don't lose any data. Not sure why you'd want to back up your steam stuff, unless you're just sensitive about bandwidth.

 

[pix]

Has anyone ever had an HDMI port go bad on a monitor or TV? Last night my HDMI port on my monitor died. I get a black screen when I use my PS3 on it. But the PS3 works fine on my TV through HDMI. Is it a common problem with monitors or do I just have bad luck?

 

[brain_stew]

Is a Quad Core even all that useful? I can't say I hear about many games supporting them, and when they don't it doesn't appear that they are much faster.

Games that don't support 3/4+ cores are now the exception, not the rule. Most big releases from 2009 and 2010 make good use of more than two cores and that trend is only set to continue. Two recent examples of games that see a huge benefit from quad core (literally linear scaling); Metro 2033 and Battlefield Bad Company 2. Chances are if you're buying a new PC rig you're going to want to play one/both of those.

 

[brain_stew]

*Update*

So... this might actually happen-

I checked my online credit card account and $127 has been charged to my account. Unless the company is straight up scamming me, (which seems odd for such a large website with overwhelmingly positive user reviews) I might just set a world record for greatest deal ever in PC gaming.

Dibs on the second one!

Go on I'm sure anyone I've helped out in this thread will be happy for me to have it! I'll pay shipping to the UK and $55 you paid as well of course! Pleeeeeeeeeeease! :lol

Spoiler

They're never going to ship you a 5970 for $55. Never

 

[brain_stew]

I'm having a few issues with my new pc. It's freezing randomly and I don't have a clue how to pin-point the problem. There's no blue screen error. I've checked the event logs but there's nothing there. One time it froze while I was watching a video, and the video continued to play in the background.

It could be my hard drive because it's a bit old now. It's this one right here. It could be a video card/driver issue. I have an 8800GT. I've looked, but haven't found anyone with the same issues.

I plan to re-install windows 7 at some point. It only did an upgrade and I didn't realize it before I loaded a bunch of games and stuff. I figure I might as well get a new hard drive for when I do that. Considering I only have a 250GB drive right now, I don't need anything with a lot of space. That's not saying I won't go for a 1TB drive if the price is right.

In short, I'm looking for the fastest hard drive I can get with a reasonable price. SSDs are too expensive, and I don't think I want to go for a raid setup at the moment. I'm also looking for suggestions on an external hard drive. I've been wanting one for a long time, and it would make things so much easier backing up all of my documents, steam games, etc.

Memory would be my first guess. Run Memtest to check for errors:

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/

 

[Inkwell]

Fast, Internal SATA HDDs (SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3)

2TB External Drive (Western Digital My Book Mirror), can also automatically be setup to run as RAID1 as a 1TB that mirrors everything, so if one of the drive's go bad, you don't lose any data. Not sure why you'd want to back up your steam stuff, unless you're just sensitive about bandwidth.

It has a little to do with bandwidth. I have comcast, and last I heard they had a 250GB cap. Yeah, even downloading games off of steam I probably won't hit the cap. I just figured it might be a little faster than re-downloading everything. That external drive seems like a bit much for what I need. The samsung looks perfect though.

Memory would be my first guess. Run Memtest to check for errors:

http://hcidesign.com/memtest/

I'll do this asap. I don't know why I didn't think to check the memory.

 

[BuddhaRockstar]

Spoiler

They're never going to ship you a 5970 for $55. Never

Trust me, I have no delusions of grandeur and thoroughly expect this to be canceled, but a man can dream.

Edit- it was incorrectly listed product. Oh well, it was worth a shot.

 

[Vic]

I doubt you can build a gaming PC with a quad-core for under $600. It's either a good GPU or a good CPU for that price. I'd rather go with the GPU.

It's possible with a X4 630 and a 5770 as mentioned by someone else.

 

[Mr_Brit]

Guys I need a new CPU, can be Intel or AMD and needs to be quadcore and highly overclockable preferably to at least 3.5GHZ.

Thanks.

 

[brain_stew]

Guys I need a new CPU, can be Intel or AMD and needs to be quadcore and highly overclockable preferably to at least 3.5GHZ.

Thanks.

Budget? Current components?

Pretty much any quad core you buy these days will clock to 3.5ghz fwiw.

 

[Mr_Brit]

Budget? Current components?

Pretty much any quad core you buy these days will clock to 3.5ghz fwiw.

I'm building a new PC and I know what all my other components are going to be just need a new CPU and motherboard. Up to £150 but I'd like to spend less than that. Ideally want the biggest bang for the buck quad core.

 

[Façade]

I've got a strange problem with games that's been occurring for a couple of weeks. Basically, in every game I'm getting texture pop-in and re-rendering of objects when I get close to them. I originally thought it was only happening in Bad Company 2 but when I've tried other games it's occurring too, even though my framerates are perfectly fine and everything else appears to be okay.

I'm not sure this is the right place to ask but I would appreciate some help. Also, all my drivers are up to date.

To add to this, I have a starcraft 2 beta key up for grabs if someone can find a solution

 

[Frostburn]

To add to this, I have a starcraft 2 beta key up for grabs if someone can find a solution

Are you running ATi or Nvidia? You know about the fan issue with the Nvidia drivers right? Check to make sure you aren't using the 197.75 (I think) and download the latest beta drivers instead. That goes for everyone running Nvidia cards. Do that first to rule out overheating, you can also use software to make sure the temp isn't running to high on your CPU as well as your GPU.

 

[Façade]

Are you running ATi or Nvidia? You know about the fan issue with the Nvidia drivers right? Check to make sure you aren't using the 197.75 (I think) and download the latest beta drivers instead. That goes for everyone running Nvidia cards. Do that first to rule out overheating, you can also use software to make sure the temp isn't running to high on your CPU as well as your GPU.

Sorry, should have mentioned specs:

ATI 5850
i5 750
4gb ddr3 ram

Temps look fine to me as well. However, I've just gone onto BC2 and seen that my gpu is constantly maxed out, is this how it should be?

 

[Poetic]

Hopefully this is alright posting here. I don't need a new PC, but I do need a new monitor. My ViewSonic is slowly dying.

Looking to get a 22" monitor for under $200. Plan to purchase on Newegg. Any suggestions? thanks in advance for any responses I get.

 

[Foliorum Viridum]

Just wanted to say thanks to the guys who advised I went with a 5850 over a 5770 and then crossfiring it in the future. I decided I'm going to wait 3/4 more weeks until I have the cash to get a 5850, to get instant better performance and also future proof my machine a bit.

 

[Arkaerial]

Just got my 5850 in last night, going to install it in my system when I get home from work today.

 

[Minsc]

Hopefully this is alright posting here. I don't need a new PC, but I do need a new monitor. My ViewSonic is slowly dying.

Looking to get a 22" monitor for under $200. Plan to purchase on Newegg. Any suggestions? thanks in advance for any responses I get.

Now's your chance to get a 120hz monitor? If mine died, I know I'd be looking in to those, or are you not interested? I have no recommendations, but if you decide you want a 120hz display, it limits your choices to like 10 or so panels, so things are very manageable! You'd probably have to bump the price a tad, perhaps, but people with 120hz say there's no going back!

 

[jehanzeb_khan]

I need a little help, i am not a computer expert.
My friend helped me build a pc, 12 GB Ram, i7 920 oc @ 3.5, 2 x gtx 295 quad sli. I am running Windows 7 64 bit. My computer when it works, it works pretty well, like i get very good performance out of most games, but for some reason it crashes a lot. It gives blue screen randomly sometimes it gives irql_not_less_or_equal and sometimes it says system_service_exception. But sometimes it just hangs while watching a movie and it gets stuck with loud looping noise. Please if any one could help me out

 

[Inkwell]

I need a little help, i am not a computer expert.
My friend helped me build a pc, 12 GB Ram, i7 920 oc @ 3.5, 2 x gtx 295 quad sli. I am running Windows 7 64 bit. My computer when it works, it works pretty well, like i get very good performance out of most games, but for some reason it crashes a lot. It gives blue screen randomly sometimes it gives irql_not_less_or_equal and sometimes it says system_service_exception. But sometimes it just hangs while watching a movie and it gets stuck with loud looping noise. Please if any one could help me out

First of all, I would suggest testing your memory. You can try Memtest 86+, or MemTest. I'm not quite sure which is the best to use though.

If those don't turn anything up you can test your memory by physically removing most of it. After this, use your computer to see if you still have problems. If there are no issues, swap out that ram for some you had previously removed. Do this systematically to find any bad memory.

 

[Decado]

Can a video card be incompatible with a monitor (it works with my HDTV)? I just had some components installed at a computer shop, brought my PC home and it boots to a black screen. Only the mouse icon shows when you move it. Note that I get video up until the point where you should be typing in your password.

I have a Sapphire HD 5770 and a Viewsonic VX922 monitor. I figure the techs must have tested the damned thing after they installed the drivers (they're closed now).

So_fucking_frustrating. Nothing has worked properly since I got this video card. I'm betting that, like before, if I uninstall the drivers and let Windows 7 use the generic ones I'll get picture.

 

[discopantsman]

If you overclock an i5-750, does that have any effect on the turbo feature? Does it only affect the standard clock speed, also boost the turbo feature or replace the turbo thingee altogether?

 

[Shaneus]

Well, ponied up for a 5830 and new heatsink for my CPU (few pages back, 70C at idle). Figure that whilst I'm not a hardcore PC gamer (360 is my bitch) and don't have an i7 (still rocking the Q9550) it'll suit me fine, regardless of the performance-per-dollar of it compared to the 5850.

Excited!

 

[Kuga]

I need a little help, i am not a computer expert.
My friend helped me build a pc, 12 GB Ram, i7 920 oc @ 3.5, 2 x gtx 295 quad sli. I am running Windows 7 64 bit. My computer when it works, it works pretty well, like i get very good performance out of most games, but for some reason it crashes a lot. It gives blue screen randomly sometimes it gives irql_not_less_or_equal and sometimes it says system_service_exception. But sometimes it just hangs while watching a movie and it gets stuck with loud looping noise. Please if any one could help me out

Like Inkwell mentioned: test your memory. The problem could also be a CPU issue. It may be overheating or even that the CPU needs more voltage and isn't stable at higher loads. Download RealTemp and take a look at the CPU temps when running games or watching movies. With a medium overclock like that the temperatures shouldn't be getting far above ~75C-ish ever. Lower if the cooling setup is halfway decent.

Also, download CPU-Z and check the voltage of the CPU. (It's labeled "Core Voltage") Note that when the computer is idle, depending on the BIOS power saving settings, the voltage and CPU speed may be lower than normal. Just start up a movie or game and check for the highest voltage.

If the temperatures look high and/or the CPU voltage is something absurd like >1.4V or <1.15ish, let us know.

If you overclock an i5-750, does that have any effect on the turbo feature? Does it only affect the standard clock speed, also boost the turbo feature or replace the turbo thingee altogether?

To my knowledge, the Turbo Tech Feature will function regardless of clock speed. However, it will only increase if it has the spare overhead (heat and power) to remain stable and under the i5 Intel specified thermal limit, which is 72C. Personally, I disabled it on the i5 rig I had at 3.4GHz. I can't imagine it being really significant in most cases, and your overclock may already be faster than the clock speed "boost" from stock speeds.

 

[Mr_Brit]

Guys is it true that you can unlock the fourth core on a Phenom X2 550 bloack edition and turn it into a quad core?

If so this would be the ideal solution for me.