• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

"I need a new PC!" 2010 Edition

From the previous page:

Slo said:
Okay guys, it's time to upgrade from WinXP to Win7. What I want to do is hopefully just upgrade my processor to a quad core and my ram to at least 4GB, keep my motherboard if possible, and wait to upgrade my video card until this fall.

Here's my current rig:

Intel Pentium E2180 Allendale 2.0GHz (OC to 3.0Ghz)
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX
Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
MSI NX8800GT 512M OC GeForce 8800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Antec earthwatts EA500 500W Continuous Power ATX12V
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s

So what would you recommend in a Quad core that would work in my motherboard? Do I need all new ram?
Click to expand...

So if I go with a Q9550 and 4 GB of RAM now, with plans to upgrade to a 5850 or better this fall, will I need a new power supply?
 
Hello PC Gaf, please welcome me as your newest member :lol

Like I said, this is my first build.
That was truly a good feeling when I hit the power button for the first time and the bios came up. Win 7 gave me a little scare at first but after running 16 updates its flying along :D
 
Minsc said:
A 9600GT SLI seems pretty darn underwhelming paired up to a i7 920. Unless you're not really using it for gaming, I'd think a newer, single card would be a much better investment, and you'd also need less power and cooling, unless the 9600GT is one of those ultra-cool and efficient cards.
Click to expand...

Well the 9600GT was a impulse buy because they were going for so cheap a last year. I do plan on doing a decent amount of gaming on this machine. What card would you suggest? Also would it be best if I just went gung ho on one kickass card or two above average cards for SLI?
 
Smash88 said:
Don't try this at home kids. :lol

jrsjma.png


I think I went over a bit.
Click to expand...


I'm always surprised to see that there are still ISPs where you have a traffic limit ^^

And gratz to 700GB+, that's quite a bit :D
 
f3niks said:
Well the 9600GT was a impulse buy because they were going for so cheap a last year. I do plan on doing a decent amount of gaming on this machine. What card would you suggest? Also would it be best if I just went gung ho on one kickass card or two above average cards for SLI?
Click to expand...

Just go Gung-ho and get a 5850, it'll last you a few years and give you the performance you really want. Sli doesn't scale as well as you'd hope

Slo said:
From the previous page:



So if I go with a Q9550 and 4 GB of RAM now, with plans to upgrade to a 5850 or better this fall, will I need a new power supply?
Click to expand...

No, 500W should be fine if you're using a single GPU. If you're planning on crossfire you will need a new PSU
 
Hey PC folks. I had a quick question about using a wired 360 controller with my PC and I figured that this might be the right spot to ask. I was just about to fire up Outrun 2006 (from the steam holiday sale) on my PC so I grabbed out an wired 360 controller that I had sitting around and plugged it in (Windows 7 64-bit). But when it went to download the drivers it gave me some type of vague "driver install failed" message and the controller is not working properly. It shows up in device manager as a 360 controller, but it has a yellow exclamation icon by it saying that the driver is not installed correctly.

I tried to uninstall the driver and download and install the one from here: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/download/download.aspx?category=Gaming. But I ended up in the same situation with that one. Anyone seen this before / have any advice?
 
TheFightingFish said:
Hey PC folks. I had a quick question about using a wired 360 controller with my PC and I figured that this might be the right spot to ask. I was just about to fire up Outrun 2006 (from the steam holiday sale) on my PC so I grabbed out an wired 360 controller that I had sitting around and plugged it in (Windows 7 64-bit). But when it went to download the drivers it gave me some type of vague "driver install failed" message and the controller is not working properly. It shows up in device manager as a 360 controller, but it has a yellow exclamation icon by it saying that the driver is not installed correctly.

I tried to uninstall the driver and download and install the one from here: http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/download/download.aspx?category=Gaming. But I ended up in the same situation with that one. Anyone seen this before / have any advice?
Click to expand...

this might help :

http://support.xbox.com/support/en/us/xbox360/kb.aspx?ID=908888&lcid=1033&category=hardware
 
f3niks said:
Well the 9600GT was a impulse buy because they were going for so cheap a last year. I do plan on doing a decent amount of gaming on this machine. What card would you suggest? Also would it be best if I just went gung ho on one kickass card or two above average cards for SLI?
Click to expand...

I'd suggest looking at a variety of these benchmarks, as you can see a huge range of GPUs compared.

Your would-be 9600GT SLI setup would fall about 10-25% above the 9800GTX scores I think.

For example, comparing Crysis at 1200p, is 32fps for the 5870 vs 12 fps for the 9800GTX (figure slightly more for a 9600GT SLI).

Someone else would be better suited for answering the question, but those benchmarks should show you a nice range of games & performance.
 
GHG said:
Ok, think I've settled on a motherboard. Think I'm gonna go with this one:

Gigabyte GA-770TA-UD3 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/191059

Has USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 plus its cheaper than the ASUS I was previously looking at albeit without support for Crossfire.

Am I doing the right thing? I mean crossfire is good and all but is it even worth it over the additional features this board offers? To add an extra card it'd mean more heat, more compatability issues, more things to go wrong...?
Click to expand...

I am going for that board too. I just don't feel like doing crossfire anytime soon. And if my system becomes obsolete, there is always the option to buy a new motherboard.
 
Violater said:
I wish someone had talked me out of the 5770 :/
Click to expand...
Welp. Is it too late to return? What exactly are your beefs with it? I'm stuck in a limbo of getting a 5770 and waiting for the announcement of 5830. 5850's price is reachable, but not for a long time.

And I hate having to down-res to 1280x720 from 1980x1080. Everything looks so much worse. :/
 
Odious Tea said:
Welp. Is it too late to return? What exactly are your beefs with it? I'm stuck in a limbo of getting a 5770 and waiting for the announcement of 5830. 5850's price is reachable, but not for a long time.

And I hate having to down-res to 1280x720 from 1980x1080. Everything looks so much worse. :/
Click to expand...

Depends on what you want I guess, to be honest I will not be sure until I have tested it some more.
But for the features and price I will stick with it till I see what Nvidia comes up with.

Just feels like I should have gone with the 5870 and be done with it.
 
Violater said:
Depends on what you want I guess, to be honest I will not be sure until I have tested it some more.
But for the features and price I will stick with it till I see what Nvidia comes up with.

Just feels like I should have gone with the 5870 and be done with it.
Click to expand...
Please update on further testing, if you wouldn't mind. Have you considered overclocking it?
 
Violater said:
Just feels like I should have gone with the 5870 and be done with it.
Click to expand...

There's a huge difference between a $400 card, and a $160-$180 card. In the end it's how much money you were willing to spend. There's nothing wrong with a 5770, and you can buy a second one to get more performance than a single 5850.
 
Odious Tea said:
Please update on further testing, if you wouldn't mind. Have you considered overclocking it?
Click to expand...

I will me mainly using it for some 3d work until I can afford a quaddro card, so I am not sure our needs align.
But from time to time I will play some Warhead or Witcher.

vocab said:
There's a huge difference between a $400 card, and a $160-$180 card. In the end it's how much money you were willing to spend. There's nothing wrong with a 5770, and you can buy a second one to get more performance than a single 5850.
Click to expand...

Very true
 
Violater said:
I will me mainly using it for some 3d work until I can afford a quaddro card, so I am not sure our needs align.
But from time to time I will play some Warhead or Witcher.
Click to expand...
Ah, yeah. But you're on GAF, so we have something in common! :D
 
f3niks said:
Well the 9600GT was a impulse buy because they were going for so cheap a last year. I do plan on doing a decent amount of gaming on this machine. What card would you suggest? Also would it be best if I just went gung ho on one kickass card or two above average cards for SLI?
Click to expand...


In nearly all cases a single card is better than SLI/Crossfire, from a bang for buck perspective. Add to that the point that SLI and Crossfire both have technical issues (with the latter being worse) that basically result in the point that you need more fps than in a single card setup and there imo is no doubt that you should upgrade to a new single GPU, especially because the 9600GT is pretty dated, so even a SLI setup of two cards won't give you a good performance.

Imo good cards for your CPU would be 5830/5850/5870, depending on how much you wanna spend. A 5770 isn't bad either, but it's quite a jump from 5770 to 5830/5850 (5830 and 50 apparently are pretty close to each other) and I'd say a CPU that powerful should be accompanied by a great GPU.
Just btw. forget about Nvidia atm. Nothing against them, but their current offerings just plain out suck. So if for example you really wanna stick with Nvidia than you would have to wait until Fermi release (probably another 6-10 weeks until you can actually get a card).

If you need a new PSU (is the currrent 500W one just a no name brand?) you might wanna check out the usual suspects, for example BeQuiet, Enermax or Seasonic. 500W range is fine imo unless you are in for some major overclocking and/or plan to go crossfire/sli sooner or later (full load, VERY rough estimate depending on the GPU also: ~100w CPU, ~200w GPU, ~50w rest ---> ~350w = ~70% of the 500w PSU, which is a fine ratio imo).
 
Frankfurter said:
In nearly all cases a single card is better than SLI/Crossfire, from a bang for buck perspective. Add to that the point that SLI and Crossfire both have technical issues (with the latter being worse) that basically result in the point that you need more fps than in a single card setup and there imo is no doubt that you should upgrade to a new single GPU, especially because the 9600GT is pretty dated, so even a SLI setup of two cards won't give you a good performance.

Imo good cards for your CPU would be 5830/5850/5870, depending on how much you wanna spend. A 5770 isn't bad either, but it's quite a jump from 5770 to 5830/5850 (5830 and 50 apparently are pretty close to each other) and I'd say a CPU that powerful should be accompanied by a great GPU.
Just btw. forget about Nvidia atm. Nothing against them, but their current offerings just plain out suck. So if for example you really wanna stick with Nvidia than you would have to wait until Fermi release (probably another 6-10 weeks until you can actually get a card).

If you need a new PSU (is the currrent 500W one just a no name brand?) you might wanna check out the usual suspects, for example BeQuiet, Enermax or Seasonic. 500W range is fine imo unless you are in for some major overclocking and/or plan to go crossfire/sli sooner or later (full load, VERY rough estimate depending on the GPU also: ~100w CPU, ~200w GPU, ~50w rest ---> ~350w = ~70% of the 500w PSU, which is a fine ratio imo).
Click to expand...

Your numbers are slightly off, should be : CPU : 125/140W, GPU 150, rest approx 70W. Totals are more or less the same though.
 
kilongs said:
Hello, I'm looking for some advice on hard drive selection. I'm looking at either of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136344

I'll be basically dumping my media files into it and access the files with other computers in the house and ps3/xbox360. No application installations, just media storage.

Not adverse to other drive recomendations. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Definitely go with the green. This is only $10 more though (and sports similar green drives), it's nicer to have a media drive that can move around easily sometimes.
 
brain_stew said:
CPU support for your board is less than ideal, I'd say stay on the cheap or overhaul the whole rig (probably going to require a bigger budget). These three components should give it a new lease of life, though it won't be a high end machine or anything it'll still play most games pretty nicely:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128510

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190138

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/106133

That CPU doesn't come with a cooler, so you'll need a new one, something like this:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176157

Its a little pricey but it'll last you a good while as it supports all the new sockets so you can keep it for when you upgrade again.
Click to expand...

Right Stew I'm going for it, want to spend my weekend toying with it and havn't ordered yet. These are one of the best Computer bits shops near me.

http://www.falconcomputers.co.uk/generic/website.asp
Any decently priced equivalents or do I be patient and so online?
 
I need some help starting up this computer I just build. The hard drive I'm using hasn't been wiped of my old win 7 32 bit computer stuff (maybe a mistake) and I'm not sure how to go about getting Windows 7 64 on it fresh. The other problem is that my Logitech G15 keyboard isn't recognized at times when going around in the setup, at least sometimes it doesn't work. I don't think I have a normal keyboard around here (on a laptop right now).

also, the P183 wasn't that bad to build in. The only bad part was how they trick you into thinking there is great wire management behind the motherboard area and even include cable ties...then you try to close the case up and it won't let you. The damn psu power cable is thick like a dime, and even when trying to flatten it out that shit wouldn't close. Even when I moved it to go in the front (which ruined a fairly nice looking setup) regular sized cables gave it trouble. In the end I just slammed it a bit and got it to close, and it is a bit uneven, but whatever! fuck that thing.
 
Linkzg said:
I need some help starting up this computer I just build. The hard drive I'm using hasn't been wiped of my old win 7 32 bit computer stuff (maybe a mistake) and I'm not sure how to go about getting Windows 7 64 on it fresh. The other problem is that my Logitech G15 keyboard isn't recognized at times when going around in the setup, at least sometimes it doesn't work. I don't think I have a normal keyboard around here (on a laptop right now).
Click to expand...

Are you booting from the DVD? You can just delete and re-create the partition through the windows 7 installer. (of course this wipes out all data).
 
BravoSuperStar said:
Are you booting from the DVD? You can just delete and re-create the partition through the windows 7 installer. (of course this wipes out all data).
Click to expand...

I was thinking that was what I needed to do, but the boot menu is where my keyboard doesn't work...so, boot from flobby is highlighted and I can't move down to hard disk or cd rom
 
I've been doing some digging, for the money, would you recommend this build?
The O/S and other accessories are taken care of and the sound card is for Ableton Live etc.
2nj9i8k.jpg
 
Linkzg said:
I was thinking that was what I needed to do, but the boot menu is where my keyboard doesn't work...so, boot from flobby is highlighted and I can't move down to hard disk or cd rom
Click to expand...

try hitting plus or minus on the numpad to move the boot devices up and down....
 
If anyone is thinking about picking up a Antec P193 case, Make sure your CPU cooler isn't tall as all hell or else the side panel with the 200mm fan won't fit. I just found that out :lol

It might be possible to tweak it somehow but my xigmatek cooler seems to be a little too big. Such a shame since i am in love with the case.
 
BravoSuperStar said:
There might be a USB keyboard switch or option in the BIOS....
Click to expand...

that was it. thanks. I feel dumb now.

and someone earlier was mentioning a guide posted in the last pc thread about overclocking a q9550. anyone have a link to that?
 
Alrighty here we go folks:

Budget: $2,000
Main Use(s): Gaming and Web Browsing
Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080
List SPECIFIC games that you MUST be able to play: FFXIV, Solitaire....<___<, Battlefield 3, Crysis, 2033

Hope that helps?
 
So a friend gave me his old system.

It has an:
AMD athlonx2 5200 CPU
MSI K9N Diamond motherboard
4gb DDR2 pc2 6400 ram
430watt power supply with case

I have a:
Sata 320GB hdd from an old machine

I need a graphics card.

will any PCI-e card work in this machine?
Whats a good recommendation?
 
Damn.

Still stuck with my dad's I3 buld that refuses to post. I'm really starting to think the RAM is incompatible with the motherboard, causing the computer to start up without posting, then resetting when it doesn't find the RAM. Can anyone confirm this as a possibility before I go out and spend cash on more RAM ?

As for the mobo supposedly beeping when there is no available RAM, according to the manual my motherboard has no error-beeps.
 
Scalemail Ted said:
So a friend gave me his old system.

It has an:
AMD athlonx2 5200 CPU
MSI K9N Diamond motherboard
4gb DDR2 pc2 6400 ram
430watt power supply with case

I have a:
Sata 320GB hdd from an old machine

I need a graphics card.

will any PCI-e card work in this machine?
Whats a good recommendation?
Click to expand...

Depends on what type of performance you want out of it. You won't be able to use a high-end GPU with that power supply, even a mid-ranger like the 5770 is pushing it.
 
p183 case consensus, pass on this one if airflow and ease of installation and cabling is your goal. Make sure you install some intake case fans up front.
I would take pictures but dear god im not pulling that back panel off if I don't have to.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

PC games that are ONLY in a borderless window need to stop.
2
53
933
RoboFu replied
Do we even need a new consoles so soon?
Opinion  2
80
469
Three replied
Fallout New Vegas 15th Anniversary Edition Announced - $155
News  2 3
100
1K
KungFucius replied
FusionFix 4.0 Turns GTA IV on PC Into the Definitive Edition
2 3
100
7K
Windom Earle replied
PC Master Race, I need your help!
37
2K
lachesis replied
Top Bottom