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"I need a new PC!" 2010 Edition
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Fragamemnon
Member
Dragon Age runs pretty darn well-very high graphics/16xAF/4xAA on my setup, get 60 frames indoors in the isometric perspective and usually only drops to 40 or so outdoors, which is fine for an RPG.
I think I'll definitely look into the suggestion of a used Q6600-I'm about 10 frames short of a rock solid 60 on NFS: Shift w/ 2xAA and I'd shaking in my boots at what Silent Hunter V might do to me. Then again, my other most played games recently are AI War and Starcraft, which will run on my home office X2 w/ an 8400gs. :lol
Thanks for the advice. I'll stick with what I have for now and check in again in early March if the SupCom2 buzz is good-my macro skills in the original go to beastly proportions there for a while before I ran out of free time to ladder.
I think I'll definitely look into the suggestion of a used Q6600-I'm about 10 frames short of a rock solid 60 on NFS: Shift w/ 2xAA and I'd shaking in my boots at what Silent Hunter V might do to me. Then again, my other most played games recently are AI War and Starcraft, which will run on my home office X2 w/ an 8400gs. :lol
Thanks for the advice. I'll stick with what I have for now and check in again in early March if the SupCom2 buzz is good-my macro skills in the original go to beastly proportions there for a while before I ran out of free time to ladder.
Minsc
Gold Member
teacupcopter said:
Just get in to a habit of scrolling through bluesnews.com hardware review sections every day or so (they're posted 1-2 times a day with usually 10-25 items), and checking out the articles that interest you. They're pretty good at linking to a bunch of different sources, and you'll see most of the important breaking information covered there. There's probably better sites, but that's a great one because it's only text and brief.
Fragamemnon said:Thanks for the advice. I'll stick with what I have for now and check in again in early March if the SupCom2 buzz is good-my macro skills in the original go to beastly proportions there for a while before I ran out of free time to ladder.
Yeah definitely wait it off a bit if you can. The way I see it, graphics card prices haven't changed in nearly a year. That's a really long time, and makes today's cards seem like a ripoff in comparison. 8 months ago you could get an HD 4890 for less than $200.
BladedExpert
Member
Looking for some quick input here guys. My current PC is getting super old and tired, gaming on it is a chore. So its upgrade time. Now money is tight, so I'm not going for a supercomputer, but something that will run current games on med/high. I've never built a computer from scratch either, so I was looking at barbones deals and found this: http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?BB-8304G.
Now I already have an 8800GT (which I can't use on my current PC, cos it sucks balls) and I have a HDD I can use too (as well as an external one for storage). Would you guys recommend I go for this? And is there anything else I need to consider (My current optical drive is naffed anyway so I'm getting one of those this week regardless)?
Now I already have an 8800GT (which I can't use on my current PC, cos it sucks balls) and I have a HDD I can use too (as well as an external one for storage). Would you guys recommend I go for this? And is there anything else I need to consider (My current optical drive is naffed anyway so I'm getting one of those this week regardless)?
I've never put together a pc before so I'm assuming that buying parts for one would require more than just assembly? I wouldn't have a clue about BIOS or anything like that, unless it's far less complicated that I'm imagining, or if I'm inventing problems.
I have a budget of about £700 for a gaming pc and I don't require a monitor. Can anyone recommend me parts, suggest I save more for something REALLY good, or is it worth buying a pre-made one or a barebones unit? Thank you gaf!
I have a budget of about £700 for a gaming pc and I don't require a monitor. Can anyone recommend me parts, suggest I save more for something REALLY good, or is it worth buying a pre-made one or a barebones unit? Thank you gaf!
Zeouterlimits
Member
Okay, I picked it up.Zeouterlimits said:
Lined up at 7:45 in the freezing cold. They got 2 in. The twelve people behind me (and the person in second) were pissssed. But anyway.
I'm ordering a HD 4770 and I swapped in my Corsair 450w PSU with no problems.
Yo GAF, I have a old computer sitting around and I'd like to salvage parts of it for a media center.
Just wondering if someone could help me pick out a Micro ATX motherboard and processor for under £100 that would be able to play decode HD files, be it blu-ray disk or MKV files and such. Is this even possible? I would have thought so.
This comp isn't meant to run games or anything mind.
The cheaper the better
Also I live in the UK if this helps.
Just wondering if someone could help me pick out a Micro ATX motherboard and processor for under £100 that would be able to play decode HD files, be it blu-ray disk or MKV files and such. Is this even possible? I would have thought so.
This comp isn't meant to run games or anything mind.
The cheaper the better
Also I live in the UK if this helps.Hi, all. I've read up a bit more on D3DOverrider and RivaTuner. I get now that I don't technically need RivaTuner to use D3DOverrider. The two are just bundled together.
So, since I'm only interested in trying out triple buffering for now, should I be concerned about the message I got from RivaTuner about my card version (GeForce GTX 260M - Asus G51Vx laptop) not having been tested? It sounds as though D3DOverrider will work with RivaTuner uninstalled, so the two don't seem to share any code. Is enabling Triple Buffering realtively innocuous and standardized, or do I have to worry about it trying to do something to my card that it won't understand?
Sorry for the basic questions. I'd like to learn about some of this but prefer to tread lightly until I am comfortable with what may or may not mess up my system.
Oh, Dr. Zoidberg - after your post I went to Asus' site, and you were right. While my driver version isn't NVIDIA's latest, it is the latest one that Asus provides. It looks like I'll have to check there for updates. Good to know.
So, since I'm only interested in trying out triple buffering for now, should I be concerned about the message I got from RivaTuner about my card version (GeForce GTX 260M - Asus G51Vx laptop) not having been tested? It sounds as though D3DOverrider will work with RivaTuner uninstalled, so the two don't seem to share any code. Is enabling Triple Buffering realtively innocuous and standardized, or do I have to worry about it trying to do something to my card that it won't understand?
Sorry for the basic questions. I'd like to learn about some of this but prefer to tread lightly until I am comfortable with what may or may not mess up my system.
Oh, Dr. Zoidberg - after your post I went to Asus' site, and you were right. While my driver version isn't NVIDIA's latest, it is the latest one that Asus provides. It looks like I'll have to check there for updates. Good to know.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
Moobabe said:
It's not that difficult, and it's easy for someone who knows what they're doing to say it's easy..... but it sounds like it might be best for you to go premade, or at the very least have someone experienced help you. And that doesn't mean internet forums.
I don't normally deal in your heathen money, but $700 can typically buy you a decent gaming rig these days.
ok, quick question gaf. Like I said i started with a prebuilt hp vista 64 pc. Got a new tower, mobo, ram, processor, 3d card the works.
However, I'm keeping the same hdd that has my vista on it. Now, im just confused as to what i have to do next. Most notably, the new windows portion. Do i just create a backup of vista using system backup, then use that after I get my new pc up and running, I'm just so confused. Or would it be easier to buy an oem for windows 7 and start totally fresh from the bios.
However, I'm keeping the same hdd that has my vista on it. Now, im just confused as to what i have to do next. Most notably, the new windows portion. Do i just create a backup of vista using system backup, then use that after I get my new pc up and running, I'm just so confused. Or would it be easier to buy an oem for windows 7 and start totally fresh from the bios.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
Struct09 said:
Agreed. I would definitely do a fresh install in that scenario. Didn't your HP come with an OS disc?
BravoSuperStar
Member
PoweredBySoy said:
You don't get OS disc's anymore with the big names like HP, Dell, its all on a utility/backup partition that just restores the factory image.
BravoSuperStar
Member
zoku88 said:
As far as I know that series is based on the x-25E intel drives. Much faster and much more expensive. I think a 32gb drive is around $400.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
SuperEnemyCrab said:
lol, what a crock.
big black woman
Member
I haven't upgraded my computer since hl2, do we have a new 500 dollar gaming computer? (just computer) no monitor/keyboard etc. needed
:-(
:-(
big black woman said:I haven't upgraded my computer since hl2, do we have a new 500 dollar gaming computer? (just computer) no monitor/keyboard etc. needed
:-(
I'm thinking of trying to build a $500 is computer too but am not quite sure yet. I'd especially want to get pieces that are easily upgraded incase i continue upgrading.
big black woman
Member
dionysus said:
I'm actually trying to help a friend, and i've gotten out of the scene for a while... all he wants is a computer that can handle wow with ease. whats the 500 dollar setup if no disc drives are needed? thanks.
big black woman said:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/how_build_awesome_pc_647
Right on the OP of this thread.
Now if you can eliminate some of those parts like the case, power supply, and dvd drive you are close to the $500. If not, can probably build a similar computer for $500 by searching for great deals. You could also get a lesser video card because wow is not very demanding. Though the 5770 is great bang for your buck, you could do a 5750 or 4850 for example.
big black woman
Member
dionysus said:
damn, im sorry i saw the tech report and thought the red picture was for that, so i clicked on tech report that just shows how to put a computer together... thanks...
big black woman
Member
dionysus said:
and should the windows be 64-bit?
Should be getting the final piece of my rig (the PSU) today so anyone got an answer?DaveKap said:
Also while I was installing my CPU heatsink last night, it wasn't exactly the easiest installation I'd done, so the contact slid around a bit, possibly causing a little unevenness with the coolant spread. Should I be worried at all and just clean it up and give it another shot, or is it not really much of an issue since it's clamped down so hard there's not much that would keep it from being even?
brain_stew
Member
gsarjeant said:
No, you shouldn't worry about that but take Dr. Zoidberg's advice and use laptopvideo2go.com to upgrade your drivers anyway. They're official Nvidia drivers, just the .inf file is changed, so they're perfectly fine. Don't use the outdated drivers on the Asus site.
blackMamba1187
Member
I have had my system for about 18 months and figure I should finally update my motherboard bios (asus pq5-deluxe). Should I update the BIOS before or after reformatting the entire system (which I'm doing anyways b/c of graphics and hdd upgrades)?
Minsc
Gold Member
blackMamba1187 said:
Unless you have a specific problem, or need to upgrade for a new CPU or RAM, I'd advise against upgrading a BIOS. You'd be taking something that's working fine and risk bringing in problems. Maybe I'm just paranoid. I didn't need to upgrade my last machine's BIOS once in over 5 years.
Are you having problems with your current BIOS? Is there a feature added in a new BIOS that you must have? Is your current BIOS limiting your overclocking potential? If you answered no to all these questions, do not bother to update your BIOS. You're only taking chances with system stability.blackMamba1187 said:
blackMamba1187
Member
I guess not, lol. Thanks.
BravoSuperStar
Member
I just ordered a Freezer 64 pro for my Athlon 620 X4 system. On stock cooling/settings it's idling around 40c currently. I've used arctic cooling in the past with good results and the price was right. I'll see what I can get as far as overclocking when it arrives and post the results. It's impressed me so far for a $99 quad core CPU and I've read it's got insane OC'ing potential. I know brain_stew was interested as far as a budget AMD build recommendation.
I don't really see the point of downloading those drivers when Nvidia puts out laptop drivers themselves, now.brain_stew said:
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us
Notebook stuff is in the dropdown.
omg need help. So me an my buddy installed my rig. these were the parts.
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel
CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
nice 650 watt thx corsair an nvidia 275gtx
We start it up, get to install brand new windows 7, format my hdd,then begin a fresh install, whole thing goes good, starting windows screen, then bam, hangs on black screen.
After 4 times this keeps happening and cant figure it out. So i remove the ram sticks except 1, now, the pc wont even send an image to the monitor. Help gaf!
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel
CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
nice 650 watt thx corsair an nvidia 275gtx
We start it up, get to install brand new windows 7, format my hdd,then begin a fresh install, whole thing goes good, starting windows screen, then bam, hangs on black screen.
After 4 times this keeps happening and cant figure it out. So i remove the ram sticks except 1, now, the pc wont even send an image to the monitor. Help gaf!
brain_stew
Member
zoku88 said:
Fair enough, I had no idea they changed that.
Minsc
Gold Member
Phloxy said:omg need help. So me an my buddy installed my rig. these were the parts.
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel
CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
nice 650 watt thx corsair an nvidia 275gtx
We start it up, get to install brand new windows 7, format my hdd,then begin a fresh install, whole thing goes good, starting windows screen, then bam, hangs on black screen.
After 4 times this keeps happening and cant figure it out. So i remove the ram sticks except 1, now, the pc wont even send an image to the monitor. Help gaf!
Try a different stick, and before you turn it back on, find the battery remove it for a short bit then put it back and hold the reset on the cmos for a good 30 seconds. Whenever you change your RAM sometimes you need to clear everything for the timings to be picked up I believe. You may also just need to turn it off and on a few times. Removing the battery / holding the CMOS reset will reset all the settings in your BIOS so if you needed to set anything manually, you will need to go back and set it again.
If you aren't getting any beeps or anything at all, it is probably your RAM not being properly seated or bad, that's a similar problem I had (RAM is really tough to seat on those motherboards).
Make sure when you put the RAM in you are putting it in at an angle, and hooking the far end, then pushing it down and getting it to click in properly, if your motherboards only has the RAM clips on one side like mine did, then I had a problem where I was SURE the ram was in good, but resetting it a few times I realized it wasn't.
Fragamemnon
Member
Phloxy said:After 4 times this keeps happening and cant figure it out. So i remove the ram sticks except 1, now, the pc wont even send an image to the monitor. Help gaf!
Minsc's advice is good, do that.
Might also want to let the PC power down for a bit, then boot it up and go straight into the BIOS and check the CPU temps. You might have a bad seating between the heatsink and CPU. Honestly, this is standard procedure whenever you muck with the heatsink/fan.
edit: might be RAM voltage issues too.
fatty
Member
I'm looking at building a new PC, but doing it very slowly, with the goal to have a PC built with the best value per buck by the time Starcraft 2 comes out. It doesn't have to be really nice as I don't care about FPS gaming since I get nauseous when playing them (though I will eventually give STALKER a shot since I got it on the Steam sale for $2) but I still want a pretty nice system.
So far I have an Antec 300 case ($30 from newegg on BF), Saitek Red Eclipse Keyboard ($15), Windows 7 Premium Upgrade for $50 and a Logitech G9 that I got for $25 AR. Basically I'm trying to get things pretty cheap as I find them and was wondering if there is anything from Newegg's 72 Hour sale that I should be considering. I'm at the point now where I need to get up to date on what to now look at for as far as motherboards, memory, etc. since it's been so long since I've done any kind of upgrading. That and I've never built a complete PC from the ground up though I've pretty much replaced everything except a CPU and motherboard.
Anything that I should be looking out for or anything at a very good price right now? Remember, I still have till SC2 comes out to finish so I still have some time to wait so let me know if I should hold off still.
Thanks!
So far I have an Antec 300 case ($30 from newegg on BF), Saitek Red Eclipse Keyboard ($15), Windows 7 Premium Upgrade for $50 and a Logitech G9 that I got for $25 AR. Basically I'm trying to get things pretty cheap as I find them and was wondering if there is anything from Newegg's 72 Hour sale that I should be considering. I'm at the point now where I need to get up to date on what to now look at for as far as motherboards, memory, etc. since it's been so long since I've done any kind of upgrading. That and I've never built a complete PC from the ground up though I've pretty much replaced everything except a CPU and motherboard.
Anything that I should be looking out for or anything at a very good price right now? Remember, I still have till SC2 comes out to finish so I still have some time to wait so let me know if I should hold off still.
Thanks!
Minsc
Gold Member
fatty said:
Oh, certain things don't change a whole lot, DVD burners like you said, speakers, mouse + keyboard, you could pick up some stuff, but don't leave anything in a box for 6 months either, or you won't be able to return it if it doesn't work. Keep the motherboard, CPU, RAM, GPU, and HDDs off your list until the end. GPUs should hopefully see a big drop with Fermi coming out, and CPUs should see more competition too as well, new motherboards seem to come out every week, and RAMs not going to get too much lower, but you don't want to be stuck with broken RAM and have to go through hoops trying to return it. HDDs are constantly being updated as well.
Unless Blizzard skips the expected 2-3 month beta period, it seems the absolute earliest SC2 would release is around May-June, but likely later. There was just some news the other day they are now working on incorporating a mini-protoss campaign in to the original terran release.
SapientWolf
Trucker Sexologist
ATIvocab said:
>=$200 5850
~$100 5750
< $100 4770, 3850
Haven't been keeping up with the green team lately. But I know the 8800GTS is a great deal when it gets around the $100 mark.
Dagless M.D.
Member
Hey, was thinking about upgrading my graphics card on my computer, its a few years old, but i was wondering if it would be worth it? Just looking to be able to play new releases at a stable framerate, not bothered if the settings are low.
Core 2 Duo 2.13
2gb ram
x1300pro
Core 2 Duo 2.13
2gb ram
x1300pro
drkOne
Member
So, I never got to understand much about how all those filters work.
I recently build my new rig with a 5850, and so I've started maxing everything in the settings for most games.
But there's one thing I'm always clueless when I tweak with it, and I just think of it as "the higher the better".
I read brain_stew's thread about Triple Buffering and understood that, have the D3DOverrider running and set V-sync both on my GPU Drivers and in-game always to off.
Now there are all those Anti-Aliasing, the AA modes and all, Anisotropic, Mipmap. I thought about reading it on Wikipedia, but it seemed too technical for what I wanted to understand.
So what I really wanted to know would be how to tweak with all those settings. I started by setting everything to best quality on Catalyst.
AA: 24X with Edge-detect filter
Mode: Super-sample
AF: 16X
Catalyst AI: Advanced
Mipmap: High Quality
I noticed that the gameplay on L4D2 started to have somewhat of an input lag. Checked with FRAPS and I was playing at around 25-30FPS
So I decided to tweak with the settings. AA was Bilinear and AF was off.
I set it to MSAA 8X and AF 16X. That solved it. Got it to 60 stable.
Did it override the settings on the Catalyst and thus lowering the settings a bit?
Should I just set the Catalyst to not force anything and always tweak the filters in-game?
Or any other software I should be using to control the filters?
I'm aiming for best graphics, but keeping most games at a stable 60FPS (except the ones that are acceptable to run at 30 average).
And I hope this was the right thread to ask, thought the members that come around here would be able to help.
I recently build my new rig with a 5850, and so I've started maxing everything in the settings for most games.
But there's one thing I'm always clueless when I tweak with it, and I just think of it as "the higher the better".
I read brain_stew's thread about Triple Buffering and understood that, have the D3DOverrider running and set V-sync both on my GPU Drivers and in-game always to off.
Now there are all those Anti-Aliasing, the AA modes and all, Anisotropic, Mipmap. I thought about reading it on Wikipedia, but it seemed too technical for what I wanted to understand.
So what I really wanted to know would be how to tweak with all those settings. I started by setting everything to best quality on Catalyst.
AA: 24X with Edge-detect filter
Mode: Super-sample
AF: 16X
Catalyst AI: Advanced
Mipmap: High Quality
I noticed that the gameplay on L4D2 started to have somewhat of an input lag. Checked with FRAPS and I was playing at around 25-30FPS
So I decided to tweak with the settings. AA was Bilinear and AF was off.
I set it to MSAA 8X and AF 16X. That solved it. Got it to 60 stable.
Did it override the settings on the Catalyst and thus lowering the settings a bit?
Should I just set the Catalyst to not force anything and always tweak the filters in-game?
Or any other software I should be using to control the filters?
I'm aiming for best graphics, but keeping most games at a stable 60FPS (except the ones that are acceptable to run at 30 average).
And I hope this was the right thread to ask, thought the members that come around here would be able to help.
brain_stew said:
zoku88 said:
Thank you both. PC GAF is a helpful place.
I have the latest drivers installed now and have D3DOverrider going. I get the happy chime and everything when I start a game. Looks like all is well.
One last question (for now): Should I also force triple-buffering in the NVIDIA control panel, or just use D3DOverrider for that? The NVIDIA control panel is for OpenGL games and D3DOverrider is for DirectX games, correct? Are there any conflicts that would be caused by enabling both?