evil solrac v3.0
Member
TheExodu5 said:
let us know how it works and if it's worth it.
-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
"I need a new PC!" 2010 Edition
- Thread starter Spy
- Start date
let us know how it works and if it's worth it.
evil solrac v3.0 said:
Will do.
Sadly I haven't played CS in a while so I won't know how much it helps there.
Star Trek Online will probably be my best candidate for testing right now. In their supposed comparison videos, it seems to reduce latency and especially remove jitter. I can see it doing a great deal to remove jitter, as all network traffic is processed by the NIC instead of scheduled by your OS, so maybe...
My biggest fear is bugs and compatibility issues. Hopefully there are none. Windows 7 64-bit here so I'll be the ultimate test bed.
Anyone know if there's a list of DX11-capable laptops around yet?
It's looking as if even a 5650 will be better than most of the older-generation GPUs in the laptop price bracket I'm looking at, but it's tricky finding machines that have a 5-series GPU in.
So far I've only discovered the HP Envy 15-1110ea, the Acer 5942G and the MESH Edge DX, and out of those three only the MESH one looks like it might be in stock anywhere.
It's looking as if even a 5650 will be better than most of the older-generation GPUs in the laptop price bracket I'm looking at, but it's tricky finding machines that have a 5-series GPU in.
So far I've only discovered the HP Envy 15-1110ea, the Acer 5942G and the MESH Edge DX, and out of those three only the MESH one looks like it might be in stock anywhere.
Azure Dream
Member
This is a little more ambitious than my prior video card request. My sister's PC has grown long in the tooth and has started giving her major problems, troublesome even to boot up now. Rather than try to track down the faulty hardware and find something compatible, she's ready to move on to a brand new PC. As I mentioned before, my knowledge is pretty dated, and while I've skimmed this thread and seen a few suggested builds that might work, I'm wondering if there would be something really specific you might have in mind based on her requests.
The original plan was to build a box in the $800-$1000 range. Well, her husband surprised her with a $2500 budget instead, considering money's tight that was a nice move of him, but that obviously starts plans over from scratch. Now that's a hard limit, but we'd like to 1. Not hit the top end of that budget, and 2. Squeeze a netbook in there, thinking around $400-500. This is one she was looking at initially, for example. So I'm guessing it's about an $1800 budget on the desktop, with some room to move up if it's going to make a serious difference, but we don't "have to" spend $1800 either, if there's no point to going that high.
The idea is for a Windows 7 build that'll last her a few years. Upgradeability would be good, but I figure major changes will happen 1 to 2 times in the build's life at most. The focus is to house an extensive music and video collection, and be highly adept at video editing, and to a lesser degree game playing. That probably means a lot of storage, but with caveats that she's been burned by Western Digital, and I've been burned by Maxtor.
The other things mentioned to me were that two DVD burners were a necessity, one being a Blu-Ray drive and possibly burner would be nice, but not if they're not reliable combined like that. She'd also like video capture functionality. There's plenty of options for composite, but are there any that handle component and/or HDMI input without breaking the bank?
Monitor is not included in this budget, so no need to factor that in. Mouse and Keyboard don't need to be worried about either, those can easily be changed out at a later date if need be. She talked about salvaging her old 3.5" floppy drive from the PC, but I figured she could probably just get a combined floppy/memory card reader like this, purely for example. That way it's not taking up another bay.
She's already been doing some looking on her own. For example, she linked me this Corsair 8GB DDR3 1600 CL9 i5/i7 memory kit, noting to me that she read about how DD3 is only compatible wih i7 processors, and that she saw an i7-870 at Micro Center for $549 (which I can't find to link to, this is the closest I saw, but that's a major price difference). We live near a Micro Center, so there's the benefit of instant pick-up and no shipping costs for both purchases and returns, although I'll shop mail order for the US too, I've had really good experiences with NewEgg.
She also pointed out this case, which I figured would probably be overkill and even get annoying with the glowing lights. This case was also asked about because of the positive reviews and large number of expansion bays. Neither one of those are set in stone, though.
Recommendations on the desktop, and while we're at it, any thoughts on the netbook?
The original plan was to build a box in the $800-$1000 range. Well, her husband surprised her with a $2500 budget instead, considering money's tight that was a nice move of him, but that obviously starts plans over from scratch. Now that's a hard limit, but we'd like to 1. Not hit the top end of that budget, and 2. Squeeze a netbook in there, thinking around $400-500. This is one she was looking at initially, for example. So I'm guessing it's about an $1800 budget on the desktop, with some room to move up if it's going to make a serious difference, but we don't "have to" spend $1800 either, if there's no point to going that high.
The idea is for a Windows 7 build that'll last her a few years. Upgradeability would be good, but I figure major changes will happen 1 to 2 times in the build's life at most. The focus is to house an extensive music and video collection, and be highly adept at video editing, and to a lesser degree game playing. That probably means a lot of storage, but with caveats that she's been burned by Western Digital, and I've been burned by Maxtor.
The other things mentioned to me were that two DVD burners were a necessity, one being a Blu-Ray drive and possibly burner would be nice, but not if they're not reliable combined like that. She'd also like video capture functionality. There's plenty of options for composite, but are there any that handle component and/or HDMI input without breaking the bank?
Monitor is not included in this budget, so no need to factor that in. Mouse and Keyboard don't need to be worried about either, those can easily be changed out at a later date if need be. She talked about salvaging her old 3.5" floppy drive from the PC, but I figured she could probably just get a combined floppy/memory card reader like this, purely for example. That way it's not taking up another bay.
She's already been doing some looking on her own. For example, she linked me this Corsair 8GB DDR3 1600 CL9 i5/i7 memory kit, noting to me that she read about how DD3 is only compatible wih i7 processors, and that she saw an i7-870 at Micro Center for $549 (which I can't find to link to, this is the closest I saw, but that's a major price difference). We live near a Micro Center, so there's the benefit of instant pick-up and no shipping costs for both purchases and returns, although I'll shop mail order for the US too, I've had really good experiences with NewEgg.
She also pointed out this case, which I figured would probably be overkill and even get annoying with the glowing lights. This case was also asked about because of the positive reviews and large number of expansion bays. Neither one of those are set in stone, though.
Recommendations on the desktop, and while we're at it, any thoughts on the netbook?
lowlylowlycook
Member
Kulock said:
If money is any kind of issue, I don't see why you'd spend more than $1000 on a gaming PC. For sure you don't need a $550 CPU. A $200 i5 750 is overkill, if anything.
Anyway, you left out important info like the resolution of the monitor you're using.
PoweredBySoy
Banned
lowlylowlycook said:
Agreed - and that's assuming she even is a gamer, other than solitaire and Peggle. $2500 is just overkill these days. I love PC gaming and all, but it's not the healthiest market right now.
Azure Dream
Member
lowlylowlycook said:
I think hers is 1024 x 768. I have a feeling it's something she should be looking at replacing eventually, but it can wait versus not compromising the build.
I don't want to needlessly waste money, but she's looking for a big upgrade, something that will preferably last a while. It seems like $1000 is hitting the mark a little low, especially with some of the things I mentioned like an HD capture card, if one of those is feasible.
PoweredBySoy said:
Well, like I said, it's closer to $1800 since we're also going to cram a netbook into that $2500 budget. I think she'd like the option to play current and future games comfortably, she really hasn't had the option to the last few years. She had me buy her a copy of TF2 during a Steam sale a while back; she definitely knows there's more out there than colorful flash puzzle games.
Kulock said:
If TF2 is the hardest she'll be pressing the system I wouldn't spend more than about 600$, like this budget build. AMD is been fairly good about keeping their CPU sockets backwards compatable lately and Intel has been unclear about what their intentions are although it looks like the socket 1366 that is on some of the i7 chips will be most likely to be used for more powerful chips in the future. I'd use the extra money to get her a decent monitor, spend a little more on the PSU so you don't have to worry about upgrading to a power hungry setup, take a 5770 instead of a 5750 and add a couple more gigs of memory.
That page also has a 1000$ build if you're interested in that, but the i7 860 is a socket 1156 chip that is less likely to be supported down the road.
Edit: What is her old machine?
Azure Dream
Member
Shambles said:
No, I was mentioning TF2 to say "She's not just a Peggle player," and the PC should last her for future games. I can always upgrade the video card as time goes on, but I don't want to hit major CPU constraints because I went cheap on it somewhere.
And of course, the video editing is key. I'm not sure if that's more of a CPU, video card, or memory bottleneck. I presume memory and CPU.
Shambles said:
I'd be more interested in that than the $600 build, but "less likely to be supported down the road" raises a few red flags for me. But I also know there are no guarantees for support when it comes to most PC hardware anyway.
Edit: How's that $1897 build there, the High End one? I'd change out the hard drive, obviously.
Shambles said:
I figure it'll get mocked, so suffice it to say it's old, she's been making due with it far too long because she felt she had to. That's one of the reasons why I'm pushing for something that won't be really outdated in 18 months. It doesn't have to be top of the line then, but it shouldn't be barely scraping by.
Ok GAF, here i am again, with some final questions about my (future)rig. 
So my final config based on your advices would be:
Ati Radeon 5850
Intel i5 750 2.66ghz
770 AM3 DDR3 MoBo
2x 2GB ddr3 1333 RAM
HDD samsung F3 500GB 7200rpm
PSU 500w
a cheap dvd burner (found one at 20)
a BluRay player(open to suggestions, i've seen one from LG for 90)
--
Given that, i would like some help about these things:
1) Case department, i've looked a bit around, and i found two particulare case that i like:
Aerocool syclone 120 140mm & Aplus Twin-Engine Tower, both are around 80/100.
Wich one is better?Are they ok, performance-wise?I know they're incredibly cheesy etc etc, but i like them exactly fro that reason.. so bad, they're good. :lol
2) Monitor: i found two interesting choises here:
ASUS VW246H 24" Wide 19x10FullHD Multimed HDCP 2ms for 216
&
ASUS VH242H 24" Wide 19x10FullHD Multim.HDCP 5ms for 198
Are there noticeble difference between the two?Both 1080p with HDMI port, both 24" etc etc..
3) Blu Ray player: a decent one?Suggestions?
Thanks to whoever will help
So my final config based on your advices would be:
Ati Radeon 5850
Intel i5 750 2.66ghz
770 AM3 DDR3 MoBo
2x 2GB ddr3 1333 RAM
HDD samsung F3 500GB 7200rpm
PSU 500w
a cheap dvd burner (found one at 20)
a BluRay player(open to suggestions, i've seen one from LG for 90)
--
Given that, i would like some help about these things:
1) Case department, i've looked a bit around, and i found two particulare case that i like:
Aerocool syclone 120 140mm & Aplus Twin-Engine Tower, both are around 80/100.
Wich one is better?Are they ok, performance-wise?I know they're incredibly cheesy etc etc, but i like them exactly fro that reason.. so bad, they're good. :lol
2) Monitor: i found two interesting choises here:
ASUS VW246H 24" Wide 19x10FullHD Multimed HDCP 2ms for 216
&
ASUS VH242H 24" Wide 19x10FullHD Multim.HDCP 5ms for 198
Are there noticeble difference between the two?Both 1080p with HDMI port, both 24" etc etc..
3) Blu Ray player: a decent one?Suggestions?
Thanks to whoever will help
The i7 920 is the way to go for performance and upgrade path, I'm just not sure if it's worth the price premium that the CPU and the motherboard will carry. It's amazing how much power you can get now for such little money. Even a budget system can give you tremendous performance. But since you've said you still want to spend some big bucks I'd say go with the 920, can't name a good motherboard off the top of my head, don't bother getting a sound card, buy a 5850 instead of a 5770. Get a less expensive PSU for a single card system and spend a lot less if you can wait for a quality maker such as Corsair to have them on sale. 750W is overkill for one GPU, consider it though if you want to add a 2nd GPU down the road though.
As for video editing I don't have much experience but I assume that it is still mostly CPU limited meanwhile great strides towards utilizing the GPU are being made. An i7 920 + 5850 would perform excellently along with around 3x2GB of memory.
As for video editing I don't have much experience but I assume that it is still mostly CPU limited meanwhile great strides towards utilizing the GPU are being made. An i7 920 + 5850 would perform excellently along with around 3x2GB of memory.
brain_stew
Member
Kulock said:
I don't see why she couldn't get both a monitor and an overkill PC for $1000 really. Get a 5770 for the videocard, it'll be more than enough for her needs, and a nice new 23" 1080p monitor, should run you less than $200.
Is video editting her number one priority and how serious is she into it? Like is this for professional or home use?
A 500w PSU will be more than fine, I'd say go with one of the Antec cases that come with a 500w Earthwatt's PSU for like ~$100, they're pretty classy looking cases to boot.
Don't spend the full $1800.
Shambles said:
There's really no viable upgrade path for mainstream consumers on socket 1366, not unless you class $1000 CPUs as viable, I most assuredly don't.
The i7-860 is cheaper and faster, get that.
If you really want upgrade options then I guess you've got to go with AMD, but I probably wouldn't recommend sacrificing performance in the here and now for that option. However, a Phenom ii chip will probably suffice for most, and should come in pretty cheap, so its a decent option.
brain_stew
Member
Kulock said:
No, tell us, it'll give us a good idea of expectations. If she's sufficed with a single core machine for her video editing, then any quad core rig will be a gift from God for her. Spending mega bucks rarely makes sense, keep within the pricing "sweet spot" and perform small upgrades over the years. $1000 now and an extra $1000 spread over 5 years will get you a lot further than spending $2000 now, i can't stress this enough.
Since you're stressing future upgrades, you want to leave some money in the kitty so she can afford them down the road. A decent socket AM3 board should support AMD's next geneation Bulldozer architecture so that may be a good option, you're sacrificing performance in the here ad now, but it'll also be quite a bit cheaper and still eb a quantum leap from what she already has.
Edit: Try this, not much more than $1000, should more than fulfill her needs, has the best possible upgrade options, a 23" 1080p monitor, 2TB of super fast storage, 8GB DRR3 RAM, DX11 graphics, BD reader and a very nice case and efficient PSU to power it all:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185 x2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.312206
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106289
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129024
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009201
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131603
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277 x2
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106325
Azure Dream
Member
Shambles said:
She's a big audiophile, so I'm probably going to have to think about a sound card, the rest of that I'll need to do some research on, thanks for the recommendations.
brain_stew said:
It's more for hobby use, but it's not uncommon for her to need to trim or convert large video files.
brain_stew said:
That seems to be the recurring warning.
brain_stew said:
I know you're right, but when you make do with a PC for as long as I have or she did, you default to long-term thinking.
This is going to get laughed at, but hers was a custom-built Alienware, from before Dell bought them. I think she got it in early 2004. Hence the tendency to think about a big upgrade that lasts for a while. So yes, any upgrade will be a big difference.
brain_stew said:
The "kitty" is more like goodwill at the moment than a promise it'll be there later, but there's no sense in wasting cash on the absolute bleeding edge, true.
brain_stew said:
Looking good at first glance. Would you recommend a dedicated audio card for her? As I mentioned above, she is a big audiophile. And do you think there's a feasible Component (and/or HDMI) capture device option available to her, or are those still at professional-level pricing?
Thank you very much for the help, by the way.
TouchMyBox
Member
So I'm thinking about giving anti-virus software another try since I haven't used any since 2002. What's the bees-knees paid or free when it comes to anti-virus software these days?
brain_stew said:
By upgradability I don't mean the current over-priced i7 extreme chips or the i9's coming out but down the road when mainstream chips are at i7 920 performance those chips are more likely to be running on the 1366 socket not the 1156. And naturally by 'more' that can mean a 10% chance rather than a 1% chance so it's still not necessarily the right choice.
Depending on how much encoding work she does a 5850 could be a viable choice depending on her choice of software and if it supports GPU acceleration. I still think that keeping it on a budget build with an AM3 chip would be the most wise choice as the poster does above, but it's your money and your choice. If you would actually tell us what she was running we could give you an idea of the increase in power and would make it easier to make suggestions. Going from a P4, X1500 to a new system is a lot different than going from a good C2D with an 8800GT to a new system.
Edit: Onboard audio has come a long ways since you last bought your machine. I bought a dedicated sound card about a year ago and for my system it wasn't very noticeable. I doubt she'd notice any difference either unless you own some high end speakers. Also chances are that a new ATI GPU will also bit stream audio through its DVI/HDMI ports anyways if you're looking to hook it up directly to a home theatre receiver.
TouchMyBox said:
I've used AVG Free for years and have been perfectly happy with it.
brain_stew
Member
Kulock said:
She's already got a dedicated audio card, its just on her GPU is all. The 5770 supports full uncompressed 7.1 audio over HDMI and DTS-MA/DD-TrueHD bitsreaming as well, there's only like a single dedicated sound card that offers that featureset, and it costs more than $200.
As for the capture device, I'd suggest asking in another thread, there's stuff out there but I've got not experience in that field, BlimBlim will probably be a good person to ask.
brain_stew
Member
Shambles said:
GPU encoding is still not viable. The only program that I know of that is someway fully featured is Badaboom, but that's Nvidia only and the quality is really shitty. If it really takes off in the future, sure that's a possible upgrade, but its a waste of cash (and space/heat/energy) right now.
If this is a single core system she's coming from then even the more "sensible" option I specified should increase her encode speeds by about 800%. Since this isn't for proffesional use i'd just go with the AMD system, she'll be taken aback by the increase in speed, and improvement above and beyond that is not something she'd probably notice. The saved cash and better upgrade options are something tangible that she'd benefit from though. I know it may feel like you're cheaping out, getting so much for the money but PC components are just so damn cheap these days and even low end parts are overkill for the vast majority of consumers. Even a ~$50 Athlon ii X2 would feel like using a supercomputer when encoding for someone that's been used to a single core system, PC hardware has just moved on so much in that short space of time its crazy.
Shambles said:
Its pretty shitty these days tbh and quite bloated. Avast or Microsoft Security Essentials are your best options these days. I used to use AVG myself but since switch to Avast I've not looked back.
BravoSuperStar
Member
TheExodu5 said:
I'll be interested to hear about your results as well. A couple questions though, who is your ISP/connection speed? What is your modem/router? Are you running cat5 or 6? Would you be aware of the amount of hops it takes to get to your ISP's gateway? Also what did you pay? I've paid $50 for a decent NIC back in the day before onboard cards so $100~ isn't THAT crazy considering the features. I've been wanting to replace my onboard NIC, and the complete network stack offloading of the xenos sounds cool along with all the custom apps.
Baker said:
I almost forgot about all the other stuff that comes with AVG. I disable everything but the basic virus scan so i've never had to deal with the email scanner, automatic scans, link scanner or any other bloat they've thrown on there lately. My 4 year old laptop runs the basic stuff without even noticing it but I'll definitely have to give MSE a look over.
And it is also a terrible memory hog.Baker said:
Anyway I will give that MS essentials a go.
Sigh then I just saw this http://security.comcast.net/
big black woman
Member
So I was at fry's electronics looking at their monitors and while I looked at the asus monitors that I see recommended, the only ones that looked really good to me were the iMac screens.. Is there a comparable PC version?
Baker said:
I'm from Spain, I bought it in a local website a few months ago, the smallest modular Corsair PSU they have now is the 450W one.
big black woman said:
You can buy the Cinema Displays by Apple itself, or (better option imo) a Dell one.
Hazaro said:
Yeah this is a different issue than that. It's an issue with the motherboard. I can't shut it down unless I power it down manually, as it keeps the entire PC awake on it's own.
SuperEnemyCrab said:
Modem: Motorolla SB5100 (DOCSIS 2.0)
Router: D-Link DGL-4300
ISP: Rogers
Speed: 10mbps/1mbps
Cable: cat5
Hops: my gateway should be hooked up directly to my modem, should it not? In that case, PC -> router -> modem -> ISP
Paid: $105 (Canadian)
Speeds shouldn't be a big issue. I don't see this helping my throughput at all (nor do I need any help...10mbps is more than enough). I'm just looking for a reduction of jitter, mostly.
Fragamemnon
Member
The apple screens are IPS panels (if I remember right) , which have better viewing angels and colors (IMO) at the slight expense of response times.
NEC has a nice IPS 23" that's not too expensive (I bought one for my wife and she loves it for playing her MMOs), Dell and HP also have good 24" options for that type of panel. Still are a good 2.5x more expensive than the TN panels that Asus and what not are making.
NEC has a nice IPS 23" that's not too expensive (I bought one for my wife and she loves it for playing her MMOs), Dell and HP also have good 24" options for that type of panel. Still are a good 2.5x more expensive than the TN panels that Asus and what not are making.
big black woman
Member
Leonsito said:
900 DOLLARS!!!!!? wow, ok so about the dell, is there a way I can see that in person? And you're saying it's actually better?
BravoSuperStar
Member
TheExodu5 said:
Thanks for the info. Regarding the hops question, I was asking about from your modem to your ISP, but seeing as it's cable it's probably just 1, DSL can be different though. Would be interesting though to run a trace on the Star Trek server you play on. With WoW you can get the server IP and it's the same server, same location every time. My old roomate actually got us switched to another DSL circuit after he bitched about the connection and proved it was on their end. I don't think Star Trek online is set up in the same way, so even if you had the IP of the server you connected to it could change? Or send you to a different server next time you connect, if I understand their method correctly?
Anyway, looking forward to your results.
big black woman said:
Yeah I'm just as surprised as you are to see Apple overcharging for their products....
Does anyone know what ATi testing / stress utility i can use under W7 64bit? I'm thinking my 4850 is starting to get a little flakey, random shutdowns, some sort of graphic glitches in mass effect last night then followed by a system lockup etc.
I know of ATiTrayTools but from memory it doesn't work under 64bit. Is there anything else i can use?
I know of ATiTrayTools but from memory it doesn't work under 64bit. Is there anything else i can use?
Great King Bowser
Property of Kaz Harai
Anything wrong with this?
big black woman
Member
I guess I'm referring to viewing angles vibrant, accurate colors and black levels. I guess ips panels are what i need? Basically need to replace my trinitron CRT.Baker said:
SundaySounds
Banned
Great King Bowser said:Anything wrong with this?
You may want to consider upgrading the PSU, idk. 460 will probably get you by, I'm not sure how much wattage a 5770 needs.
Krauser Kat
Member
Where is the next logical step i can take this set up.
Windows 7 HP
q6600 at 2.9ghz
4890 1gig (no oc)
4gigs of ram
is it worth upgrading to any of the other 775 cpus
Windows 7 HP
q6600 at 2.9ghz
4890 1gig (no oc)
4gigs of ram
is it worth upgrading to any of the other 775 cpus
Hellsing321
Member
Ok I have a major problem with my video card I think. At points the screen goes blank and after a few seconds a few icons will start to appear but things don't respond quickly. My mouse seems to stop for 5 seconds and then it will jump to where I moved it. It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does I need to reboot the computer to get it back to normal. Is this a problem with the video card drivers or is the card just fucked up? The card is a HIS HD5850, btw.