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"I need a new PC!" 2010 Edition

Minsc said:
Keep in mind as well, a X4 GHz is inferior to a i7 GHz, as a 2.6GHz i7 comfortably beats a 3.5GHz X4 in Tom's benches.
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I went ahead and checked out some articles over at Toms Hardware.

They did a couple of "Balanced Game System" articles . It was a pretty good match up.

AMD CPU Based Article

Intel CPU Based Article

I wanted to see, really, how much advantage the i7 has over the 955BE ,at the highest settings, paired with the fastest GPU they tested with. TheGTX 295.

Intel system used an ASUS Rampage II Extreme motherboard and 6GB DDR3 1600 (8-8-8-24)

AMD system used an ASUS Crosshair III Formula and 4GB DDR3 1600 (8-8-8-24)

Benchmark results for highest resolution and settings (average frame rates):

Crysis: 955 = 26 / i7 = 27

Farcry 2: 955= 54 / i7= 48

Stalker CS: 955= 40 / i7= 42

GTA IV: 955= 56 / i7=57

Fallout 3: 955= 74 / i7= 77

Race Drived Grid: 955 =70 / i7= 65

World in Conflict: 955= 42 / i7= 42


I was surprised to see the benchmarks so close. And for the price difference, how could one justify going with the Intel system, if running at stock,when they are so evenly matched?
 
Deus Ex Machina said:
I was surprised to see the benchmarks so close. And for the price difference, how could one justify going with the Intel system, if running at stock,when they are so evenly matched?
Click to expand...

The majority of people buying high end CPUs from either manufacturer end up overclocking their systems so that isn't really a valid comparison for the majority of the audience of these CPUs.

As well as this, Intel's i series are not only better in games but are a lot better in other tasks such as video encoding and rendering as well as having benefits like hyperthreading, turbo core and triple channel memory.
 
Deus Ex Machina said:
I was surprised to see the benchmarks so close. And for the price difference, how could one justify going with the Intel system, if running at stock,when they are so evenly matched?
Click to expand...

You need a faster GPU to illustrate the differences. I prefer these benches with a XFire 5870, which smokes a 295, you'll see they clearly show the i7s outperforming the X4s, like in almost any of the compiled pages such as this one.

Anyway, my comment was specifically in regards to Starcraft 2 :p
 
Why don't sites ever put 3v3 Dawn Of War 2 into the benchmarking mix?

That shit is no joke. People underestimate how demanding this game can be.

My notebook can barely keep up, with a 2.4Ghz Core 2 Quad + 9800GT. :lol
 
pros of spending more on i7 will last you a longer upgrade cycle. as above, 955 = 3.2ghz, 920 = 2.66ghz, i7 has more room to overclock, a faster gpu comes out every 6-8mths, and to think i7 first came out in 2008 November! do the maths! Intel next enthu platform waimea bay or something is coming late next year, 6-12 cores!
 
beast786 said:
I have them in SLI. With water cooling. During games the max I got was low 50's. Both the sound complain and heat were extremely over-rated. They run pretty damn quite relatively speaking.
Click to expand...

How hard is it to implement water cooling? This'll be the first PC I've built so obviously I've never really messed with water cooling.
 
Smokey said:
How hard is it to implement water cooling? This'll be the first PC I've built so obviously I've never really messed with water cooling.
Click to expand...


I had mine done. I didnt want to take a chance with it. Mine is 3 X SLi. Hence an investment.

The water cooling works perfectly. My GPU temp never exceed more than low 50's.
 
Smokey said:
How hard is it to implement water cooling? This'll be the first PC I've built so obviously I've never really messed with water cooling.
Click to expand...


its not that hard, you only need some patience. make sure there are no leaks and everything keeps dry.

but READ a lot in hardware / OC / watercooling boards before buying any random shit. you have to buy single components, DONT buy any of those shitty sets!


and forget about the idea of a watercooling system beeing less noisier then a air cooled system. that is not going to happen unless you are buying on of those BIG passive radiators.
 
Thinking of changing my X2 240 to a X4 630, for things like Bad Company 2 and GTA IV (both of which i love and play alot of on my PC), and various video encoding things i mess around with. Would this be a good idea, big difference or not etc ? Where does the 630 weight up against the Q6600 (which my brother has, so i have an idea of roughly how good it is) ?
 
MDSLKTR said:
So is the ATI 6XXX series this year or next? I would really like to build my pc this year...
Click to expand...

Expected Q4 2010, but extremely likely to be pushed back to Q1 2011.

beast786 said:
I had mine done. I didnt want to take a chance with it. Mine is 3 X SLi. Hence an investment.

The water cooling works perfectly. My GPU temp never exceed more than low 50's.
Click to expand...

Those are amazing GPU temps, considering stock cooling puts them in the upper 90s. They've got to be the opposite of your framerates, see anything sub 60s yet? ;) Will be even nicer when those 256 or whatever they're called drivers are released!
 
Ogs said:
Thinking of changing my X2 240 to a X4 630, for things like Bad Company 2 and GTA IV (both of which i love and play alot of on my PC), and various video encoding things i mess around with. Would this be a good idea, big difference or not etc ? Where does the 630 weight up against the Q6600 (which my brother has, so i have an idea of roughly how good it is) ?
Click to expand...

Here's some good benches with a wide gamut of CPUs, including the Q6600, new X6s, i7s and the X4 630 so you can see exactly where everything falls (they've even got an X2 255, which I'm guessing is close to your X2 240)!
 
Minsc said:
Expected Q4 2010, but extremely likely to be pushed back to Q1 2011.



Those are amazing GPU temps, considering stock cooling puts them in the upper 90s. They've got to be the opposite of your framerates, see anything sub 60s yet? ;) Will be even nicer when those 256 or whatever they're called drivers are released!
Click to expand...


I have around 30's. I am messing around with nhancer and Metro 2033. Using supersampling and TRAA.

That game is beast on your GPU O_o
 
Battersea Power Station said:
Does anyone know where I can get a cheap, slot-loading, slim-line (i.e. laptop) BD-ROM drive? Thanks.
Click to expand...
The Panasonic UJ-225 can be found online for $150 to $190.
 
beast786 said:
I had mine done. I didnt want to take a chance with it. Mine is 3 X SLi. Hence an investment.

The water cooling works perfectly. My GPU temp never exceed more than low 50's.
Click to expand...


Yeah..I think I'll go with having it done someplace if i do go with SLI 480s. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I fucked up and destroyed $1,000 worth of video cards.
 
The Lamonster said:
So I just upgraded my RAM and now I have some spare sticks. What should I do with them? Can I sell them somewhere?
Click to expand...
Sure, why not. Toss them up on Craigslist, the GAF buy/sell thread or eBay.
 
Right. Have now OC'd my e5200 and the results so far are good.(Thanks Hazaro!)

Realtemp is showing 60-62c while posting this. (prime95 been running for 25mins and ambient temp=26c)

Hazaro: Some of the settings you posted don't seem to be in my bios!

Cas Latency Time 5
Ras to Cas Delay 5
Ras Precharge 5
Precharge Delat (tras) 15
Advanced Timing Control on all Auto

And

CPU GTLREF Voltage Ratio 0.67
CPU Voltage Control 1.28000v (left set to 128.750v)

Hope these are not too important............
 
What do you suggest for connecting three systems to the internet? Currently my PC, 360 and PS3 are all in the same area, so I just have everything wired together.

However, I'm moving shortly and my PS3 and 360 will be in the living room and my PC in the den. I stream from my PC to the PS3 an awful lot, so I need that functionality. Do I get a wireless router and adapter for the two consoles? Or possibly a wired/wireless router and connect the consoles via wires and have the PC go wireless?

Suggestions?
 
THE:MILKMAN said:
Right. Have now OC'd my e5200 and the results so far are good.(Thanks Hazaro!)

Realtemp is showing 60-62c while posting this. (prime95 been running for 25mins and ambient temp=26c)

Hazaro: Some of the settings you posted don't seem to be in my bios!

Cas Latency Time 5
Ras to Cas Delay 5
Ras Precharge 5
Precharge Delat (tras) 15
Advanced Timing Control on all Auto

And

CPU GTLREF Voltage Ratio 0.67
CPU Voltage Control 1.28000v (left set to 128.750v)

Hope these are not too important............
Click to expand...
the 5-5-5-15 are just RAM timings. Not that important. they should be on 5-5-5-15 or 6-6-6-18 by default anyway.

CPU voltage IS important but it seems your temps are fine which is good. (You might need to poke around a bit more to find it in your BIOS)
You do however want to manually set the CPU voltage. To see what you are at right now use CPU-Z and get a voltage number for when your computer is IDLE and LOADED.
Just set the CPU voltage manually to 0.00250V higher than your IDLE voltage and it should stay around the same. (Set BIOS voltage and actually usually differ)

The other CPU voltage should be fine.
 
Battersea Power Station said:
Thanks. I found the Sony Sony BC-5600S for around the same money. I'm looking for something sub-$100 (with a bezel). Is that just a pipe dream?
Click to expand...
Yes, you are definitely hoping for too much. Slot loading laptop drives just are't cheap, because they're basically OEM only and hard to find. Less than $150 is impossible, unless you get a refurb or used drive. They also rarely come with the bezel.

The Sony bezel can be found for sale on eBay. I'm not sure if this will universally fit other slot loading BR drives.

If you find a drive which comes with the bezel, let me know. I'm currently deciding between the Panasonic and the Sony for my notebook.
 
Just started overclocking my CPU. (intel i5 750). Got to 3.8 GHZ with 1.25 vcore. However, i am curious on how much vcore is required for 4.0 ghz?

Also, what is the best program to stress-test my CPU, is the intel burn test any good?
 
Lafiel said:
Just started overclocking my CPU. (intel i5 750). Got to 3.8 GHZ with 1.25 vcore. However, i am curious on how much vcore is required for 4.0 ghz?

Also, what is the best program to stress-test my CPU, is the intel burn test any good?
Click to expand...
Prime 95, OCCT, Orthos (blend for RAM, cpu stress for CPU)

That is a pretty nice OC. My E7200 needs a moderate boost in voltage to go from 3.8 to 4Ghz so I just leave it at 3.8 since I don't need the extra speed.
 
So I got all the parts for my new PC yesterday (except for a 2nd HDD) and my project was to put them all together last night. It was kinda tough for me since it's been really long since I've done anything like that. After plugging in everything (except for the LEDs, can't find that on the mobo) I realize the power button on my case does not work, but I don't think there is a cable to plug that into the mobo.

The mobo has a power button, so I turned it on for a minute just to see if it was working. It seemed to power up fine, all the fans were on and everything. The only thing was nothing was outputting to the monitor. Though, the monitor didn't say that there was no input signal.

Does it sound like I'm at least on the right track? I worked on it until 1am last night and won't be able to continue until after work tonight.
 
Newb question, likely, but what is this port on my laptop that looks like it's HDMI but it's not and the symbol above it looks like a tiny p in a D
 
cool. thanks. I've never seen a device that supported it, what's it good for?
The laptop only has a VGA port besides
 
Basically it's the next generation display connector for computers meant to replace DVI and supports higher resolutions and so on. It has been the standard connector for Macs for a while but it hasn't really taken off in the PC world yet. If you want a HDMI or DVI output you should be able to pick up a DP->HDMI/DVI dongle for cheap.
 
I'm still having an issue with stuttering in games. I narrowed down the issue to it being a problem that only occurs when vsync is on. What happens it that when ever the fps moves from 60 to 59 (should this happen?) I get a stutter for a split second.

Obviously I could just play without vsync but I can't handle the tearing. If anyone can shed any light on the problem that would be great as its been ruining my gaming experience for the last couple of months.
 
Façade said:
I'm still having an issue with stuttering in games. I narrowed down the issue to it being a problem that only occurs when vsync is on. What happens it that when ever the fps moves from 60 to 59 (should this happen?) I get a stutter for a split second.

Obviously I could just play without vsync but I can't handle the tearing. If anyone can shed any light on the problem that would be great as its been ruining my gaming experience for the last couple of months.
Click to expand...
Are you using the game's vsync, or D3DOverrider?
 
Its been recently discussed in the thread and i'd like to get some more feed back on the subject. Whats the best or quietest fanned 5850/5870? I know some people push the replacement of the stock cooler ( which is also sweet! ) but by default whats the least noisy card? Just wondering, thanks!
 
K.Jack said:
Are you using the game's vsync, or D3DOverrider?
Click to expand...

I've used both and they both give the same problem, even with triple buffering.

I have noticed that if I record a game with fraps I don't get any drops to 59fps and therefore no stuttering, which seems really strange to me.
 
Façade said:
I'm still having an issue with stuttering in games. I narrowed down the issue to it being a problem that only occurs when vsync is on. What happens it that when ever the fps moves from 60 to 59 (should this happen?) I get a stutter for a split second.

Obviously I could just play without vsync but I can't handle the tearing. If anyone can shed any light on the problem that would be great as its been ruining my gaming experience for the last couple of months.
Click to expand...
Had this same problem myself. You should check your power management settings and make sure the power-saving profile is not selected.
 
Vic said:
Had this same problem myself. You should check your power management settings and make sure they're aren't at the power-saving profile.
Click to expand...

I was on balanced so I changed to high performance. Just out of interest, why could power settings be causing the problem?

EDIT: Thanks for the help but I changed to high performance in the control panel but no luck.

Anyone have any other ideas? The fact that I can record the game and get a solid 60fps but if I'm not I get drops to 59fps doesn't make any sense to me, so if anyone could suggest why this could be happening that could be the key.
 
Scythesurge said:
So I got all the parts for my new PC yesterday (except for a 2nd HDD) and my project was to put them all together last night. It was kinda tough for me since it's been really long since I've done anything like that. After plugging in everything (except for the LEDs, can't find that on the mobo) I realize the power button on my case does not work, but I don't think there is a cable to plug that into the mobo.

The mobo has a power button, so I turned it on for a minute just to see if it was working. It seemed to power up fine, all the fans were on and everything. The only thing was nothing was outputting to the monitor. Though, the monitor didn't say that there was no input signal.

Does it sound like I'm at least on the right track? I worked on it until 1am last night and won't be able to continue until after work tonight.
Click to expand...
Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm about to head home and start fixing whatever isn't working, and I'd really appreciate if someone could maybe point me in the right direction. :D
 
Scythesurge said:
Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm about to head home and start fixing whatever isn't working, and I'd really appreciate if someone could maybe point me in the right direction. :D
Click to expand...

Make sure your RAM is seated correctly. If one of them is half in your comp won't load through BIOS.

And make sure you have a cable plugged into your video card (assuming it needs one). Can't remember how many times I've absent-mindedly forgotten to do that.
 
Orellio said:
Make sure your RAM is seated correctly. If one of them is half in your comp won't load through BIOS.

And make sure you have a cable plugged into your video card (assuming it needs one). Can't remember how many times I've absent-mindedly forgotten to do that.
Click to expand...
Do you mean power cable? I have 2 PCI power things connected to it right now.
 
Scythesurge said:
So I got all the parts for my new PC yesterday (except for a 2nd HDD) and my project was to put them all together last night. It was kinda tough for me since it's been really long since I've done anything like that. After plugging in everything (except for the LEDs, can't find that on the mobo) I realize the power button on my case does not work, but I don't think there is a cable to plug that into the mobo.

The mobo has a power button, so I turned it on for a minute just to see if it was working. It seemed to power up fine, all the fans were on and everything. The only thing was nothing was outputting to the monitor. Though, the monitor didn't say that there was no input signal.

Does it sound like I'm at least on the right track? I worked on it until 1am last night and won't be able to continue until after work tonight.
Click to expand...
Did you make sure the RAM was inserted correctly? If you have two RAM modules, they have to be in the correct slots (typically slots 1 and 3). Also, are you saying that your case didn't come with a connector for the power switch?
 
esc said:
Did you make sure the RAM was inserted correctly? If you have two RAM modules, they have to be in the correct slots (typically slots 1 and 3). Also, are you saying that your case didn't come with a connector for the power switch?
Click to expand...
The RAM seems to be inserted correctly...the motherboard told me to place them in the white slots (I have triple channel memory). As far as the power switch goes...I may have overlooked it but I don't remember seeing a connector for it.

Felix Lighter said:
Does it make any sounds when you try to boot? My motherboard makes different sounds depending on the issue.
Click to expand...
I'll have to check when I get home but I don't recall any noises.
 
Façade said:
I was on balanced so I changed to high performance. Just out of interest, why could power settings be causing the problem?

EDIT: Thanks for the help but I changed to high performance in the control panel but no luck.

Anyone have any other ideas? The fact that I can record the game and get a solid 60fps but if I'm not I get drops to 59fps doesn't make any sense to me, so if anyone could suggest why this could be happening that could be the key.
Click to expand...

What games are you seeing this, and what card do you have?
 
John Harker said:
Newb question, likely, but what is this port on my laptop that looks like it's HDMI but it's not and the symbol above it looks like a tiny p in a D
Click to expand...
John Harker said:
cool. thanks. I've never seen a device that supported it, what's it good for?
The laptop only has a VGA port besides
Click to expand...
???
 
Felix Lighter said:
I did some research and decided to pick up this heatsink for my i7 930:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835109021

Now I'm nervously waiting to find out if it's going to fit my case.
Click to expand...
IIRC, you purchased a CM690 II, right? The case can clear it, but you probably won't be able to use a fan in the upper slot of the side door. That is, if you even plan to have side fans.


AkIRA_22 said:
I got an extension cable (cheers ·feist·) and rerouted the EPS cable around the back. I can't get the 24 pin to do the same as the HDD caddy gets in the way.

Regardless, I think the whole thing looks much better.

before;

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l145/steggs69/DSC00299.jpg

After;

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l145/steggs69/DSC00324.jpg
Click to expand...
Congrats. I was recently considering an H50, but I think I'll just stick with air cooling and switch my current hsf to a Prolimatech Megahalems.
 
So my new 5770 is stuck running at x1 instead of x16. This is going to be a pain in the ass to trouble shoot--so much uninstalling and scrubbing and reinstalling drivers for different cards and different slots (by the way, is it normal that I need to reinstall drivers when I switch pcie slots). D:
Ugh, and I also changed the bios on the video card, so I'll have to check that as well. Hopefully I can check out my graphics card on a spare computer I have; that could narrow things down well.
 
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