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"I need a new PC!" 2010 Edition

Hey,

I'm looking to build/buy a custom built PC for college for a couple weeks (my move in date is Sept 4th), and I'm wondering if you guys have any insight on what sites are good. I checked out the websites in the OP, and I think I like AVA Direct the best. (I'd rather build it through one of those sites vs buying off of Newegg and whatnot). Would anyone be kind enough to recommend me different parts for a rig? I used to play games a lot back in middle school/early high school, and I'd be looking to get into that again for college... also I would want a rig that could handle video editing no problem (Premiere, etc) since my current PC shits out every time I try to export videos. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 
Ok, so I got a 4500 on the FF XIV benchmark test and am hoping to raise that with an overclock.

Can anyone point me to a guide to overclock the i5 750 and the Gigabyte GTX 460? I should have plenty of cooling (averaging 22 degrees idle). ANy advice would be great.
 
Tain said:
AYO NEOGAF

Roommate of mine is planning on dropping roughly 1600 on a PC.

Make it magic. Wants a hex core.

He already ordered the HDD.

It's a lot of cash, so I'm not really sure where to start.
Click to expand...
Seeing as how Intel's hexa-cores would eat up a sizable chunk of that budget, AMD's Phenom II X6s would be your/his best option.

Either way, you'll need to be more specific before anyone here can give you a hand. Particularly since you may be able to build him a PC that meets his needs, well short of that $1600 budget.

Start below:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=22751630&postcount=11655

Hazaro said:
*Reposting*
1)Basic Desktop Questions
Budget: Price Range + Country
Main Use: Gaming, Video editing, or just general usage
Monitor Resolution: What resolution will you be playing your games at? Are you going to upgrade later?
List SPECIFIC games that you MUST be able to play: Self Explanatory

2)General Guide on what to buy (Summer)
Hazaro's buying guide (July, 2010)
De facto internet standard. Accept no substitutes :D
Tech Report Builders Guide!
A very good basic guide that has been updated for Summer. Has alternative options and many price points.

3) 15 minute video how-to
http://vimeo.com/5685229
40 minute how-to
http://www.tested.com/news/video-how-to-build-the-best-1500-gaming-pc-step-by-step/152/

4) Prospective laptop buyers please fill this out and ask their forum as well.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...ould-i-buy-form-must-read-before-posting.html

http://i36.tinypic.com/33ubz2q.jpg
http://i34.tinypic.com/20fdsno.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/A55hA.jpg
Click to expand...
 
apocalidiot said:
Hey,

I'm looking to build/buy a custom built PC for college for a couple weeks (my move in date is Sept 4th), and I'm wondering if you guys have any insight on what sites are good. I checked out the websites in the OP, and I think I like AVA Direct the best. (I'd rather build it through one of those sites vs buying off of Newegg and whatnot). Would anyone be kind enough to recommend me different parts for a rig? I used to play games a lot back in middle school/early high school, and I'd be looking to get into that again for college... also I would want a rig that could handle video editing no problem (Premiere, etc) since my current PC shits out every time I try to export videos. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Take a look at the post two notches above this one.


Also:
Newegg, Ewiz, Amazon, Microcenter, etc. Depends on your needs.
 
I'm looking for recommendations on GPU and PSU testing programs.

I built a basic web surfing/media viewing/word doc type of system for someone, and its lowly Intel iGP doesn't support Shader Model 3.0 so OCCT is out. I'll be looking into using FurMark for the first time, but I don't know how well suited that would be.

Stability wise, it's passed hours of Prime, Memtest and OCCT stress-testing with very low temps and no error issues, but I'm trying to trouble shoot a few quirks that I believe may be stemming from the PSU and iGP.
 
Question: looking to buy new ram for my old computer (an old P4 I think), do you guys have any suggestions or programs on how I could determine what type of ram it would be? Or would I be better off building a new computer depending on how much buying new old ram if my budget was say $500, more or less?
 
Geneijin said:
Question: looking to buy new ram for my old computer (an old P4 I think), do you guys have any suggestions or programs I could use to determine what type of ram it would be? Or would I be better off building a new computer?
Click to expand...

Depends on what you want to use it for. P4 wont get you anywhere nowadays with gaming atleast.

Edit: You can get pretty far with a $500 budget computer.
 
Geneijin said:
Question: looking to buy new ram for my old computer (an old P4 I think), do you guys have any suggestions or programs on how I could determine what type of ram it would be? Or would I be better off building a new computer depending on how much buying new old ram if my budget was say $500, more or less?
Click to expand...
CPUz will give you specs to find your RAM. If you have less than 2GB, a RAM upgrade will do wonders to speedup your PC for really cheap. If that isn't enough, then yes, build another.
 
Lonely1 said:
Even if you aren't going to sli, you might want the extra PCiE 2.0 x8-16 slot for physics or other stuff in the future. I tried to go the cheap route and got a an only 1xPCiE board and have been regretting it ever since.
Click to expand...
im making a pretty mid-range gaming rig, i dont think id get another card to devote to physics
 
I'm building a computer right now. Just have one quick question. Is it alright if I use the same power cable to power the HDD and DVD RW or should I power them with separate cables.
 
ok, quick question. So I installed everything in the haf x, and it's pimpin. HOWEVER, the gpu shroud, installed a 150cm fan their, but god oh mighty is sooo friggin loud. Haven't been able to reduce the speed of it even a tiny bit, any help?
 
·feist· said:
Either way, you'll need to be more specific before anyone here can give you a hand. Particularly since you may be able to build him a PC that meets his needs, well short of that $1600 budget.
Click to expand...

Sorry, should have read up more! Definitely gaming. I'm pretty sure he just wants the highest framerates he can get for $1600, even though he'll just be playing Starcraft II and TF2. He'd prefer to avoid any multi GPU setup, and he was leaning toward a Phenom II X6. I'm guessing he'd want 8 gigs of ram, too. His monitor is only 1680x1050, but I'd imagine he'd be interested in a better one down the line. I can't get much more specific than that.

Honestly, 1600 sounded hard to spend to me, too.
 
Tain said:
Sorry, should have read up more! Definitely gaming. I'm pretty sure he just wants the highest framerates he can get for $1600, even though he'll just be playing Starcraft II and TF2. He'd prefer to avoid any multi GPU setup, and he was leaning toward a Phenom II X6. I'm guessing he'd want 8 gigs of ram, too. I can't get much more specific than that.

Honestly, 1600 sounded hard to spend to me, too.

His monitor is only 1680x1050, but I'd imagine he'd be interested in a better one down the line.
Click to expand...

1600 is pretty easy to spend
 
Tain said:
Sorry, should have read up more! Definitely gaming. I'm pretty sure he just wants the highest framerates he can get for $1600, even though he'll just be playing Starcraft II and TF2. He'd prefer to avoid any multi GPU setup, and he was leaning toward a Phenom II X6. I'm guessing he'd want 8 gigs of ram, too. His monitor is only 1680x1050, but I'd imagine he'd be interested in a better one down the line. I can't get much more specific than that.

Honestly, 1600 sounded hard to spend to me, too.
Click to expand...

here is a setup based off of my amd x6 newegg config:

mobo: Gigabyte ga -890fxa ud5 am3 179
cpu: amd phenom ii x6 1055t 200
ram: g.skill ripjaws 8gb 205
case: cooler master haf 922 89
graphics: evga gtx 470 320 (300 after mail in rebate)
physx card: geforce gt 240 79
power supply:corsair 650w modular power supply 119
solid state drive:intel x-25 80gb 200
hard drive: samsung f3 1tb 75
dvd drive: sony dvd drive 19
os: windows 7 home premium 100

total: $1585 before any rebates and not including tax
 
hey guys, Im having some audio stutter on my realtek audio driver on my gigabyte i7 board, any ideas? ( should I just get a sound card? )
 
Hey GAF. My Brother is offering to sell me his Gateway desktop for $175.

It has a:

AMD Phenom 9500 QuadCore Processor 2.20GHZ
ATI Radeon HD 3200 IntegratedGraphics
4GB of RAM

What I'm wondering are three things:

#1 How is the AMD Phenom 9500 compared to the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600?

#2 Is the AMD Phenom 9500 easily overclockable?

#3 How will the integrated graphics run Source games? Mainly Team Fortress 2.
 
Smokey said:
NO

if he's gonna step up above the 260, then it should be to the gtx 460
Click to expand...

Giving a reason why would help out. He can't go 460 as it's not compatible for a Hackintosh. He's on a tight budget, so he can't go 470 either.
 
Metalic Sand said:
P4 wont get you anywhere nowadays with gaming atleast.
Click to expand...
Lonely1 said:
CPUz will give you specs to find your RAM. If you have less than 2GB, a RAM upgrade will do wonders to speedup your PC for really cheap. If that isn't enough, then yes, build another.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I can't run League of Legends at all... I pretty sure I can't play SC2 either. I'll definitely look into building then. Thanks.
 
So I've been running prime95 for about 3 hours, my max temp for cpu is 63c, is that o.k? Or too hot.
Overclocked from 2.6 to 3.6 btw.
 
Corky said:
hey hawk, since you went 460 sli what PSU w did you get? I'm thinking about getting a 2nd 460 in the future ( first I need to get the 1st one ._. ) but I'm not sure wether or not my 650w corsair psu is up for it.
Click to expand...

Corky, I went with a Corsair HX850. I think others that are more in-tune to this stuff than I am would say that it is too much, but I also was thinking of future upgrades possible, so decided that I would get the HX850.
 
As many of you know, I had a friend build me a rig about a week ago. I am happy with it, but at the same time, I invested alot of money as well and frankly, maybe I am just being paranoid or maybe something may be off, but running some benchmarks, I expected to get better scores.

What I am asking for those that know alot more than I do, what is the bottle neck of my system? In the Final Fantasy Bench, I scored a 3800 or so..looking at how that stacks up, it says I can run the game very well, but there are 3 other ranges above mine. My goal in getting a new rig was to be able to play almost all modern games and those coming out soon at a very high level (1080p since I am gaming on my big screen). I still have about 20 or so days from Newegg to send back parts if I need to swap something out, but wanted to get some input from the group here on what may be hoilding my system back.

Specs:
AMD Phenom II x4 965 @3.4
2 SLI Evga 460's 1 Gig each Mfr. Super Clocked
8 Gigs of Ripjaws gaming ram DDR3 1600
Corsair 850W HX Power Supply
ASUS M4275TD Nvidia nforce SLI 750a AMD Motherboard

Should I swap out something in this rig? IS someting causing less performance?

Thanks for any and all input.
 
Hawk269 said:
As many of you know, I had a friend build me a rig about a week ago. I am happy with it, but at the same time, I invested alot of money as well and frankly, maybe I am just being paranoid or maybe something may be off, but running some benchmarks, I expected to get better scores.

What I am asking for those that know alot more than I do, what is the bottle neck of my system? In the Final Fantasy Bench, I scored a 3800 or so..looking at how that stacks up, it says I can run the game very well, but there are 3 other ranges above mine. My goal in getting a new rig was to be able to play almost all modern games and those coming out soon at a very high level (1080p since I am gaming on my big screen). I still have about 20 or so days from Newegg to send back parts if I need to swap something out, but wanted to get some input from the group here on what may be hoilding my system back.

Specs:
AMD Phenom II x4 965 @3.4
2 SLI Evga 460's 1 Gig each Mfr. Super Clocked
8 Gigs of Ripjaws gaming ram DDR3 1600
Corsair 850W HX Power Supply
ASUS M4275TD Nvidia nforce SLI 750a AMD Motherboard

Should I swap out something in this rig? IS someting causing less performance?

Thanks for any and all input.
Click to expand...
Games not optimized for multi GPU setups. Which is a snarky answer I know, but that's my honest opinion.
 
Hawk269 said:
As many of you know, I had a friend build me a rig about a week ago. I am happy with it, but at the same time, I invested alot of money as well and frankly, maybe I am just being paranoid or maybe something may be off, but running some benchmarks, I expected to get better scores.

What I am asking for those that know alot more than I do, what is the bottle neck of my system? In the Final Fantasy Bench, I scored a 3800 or so..looking at how that stacks up, it says I can run the game very well, but there are 3 other ranges above mine. My goal in getting a new rig was to be able to play almost all modern games and those coming out soon at a very high level (1080p since I am gaming on my big screen). I still have about 20 or so days from Newegg to send back parts if I need to swap something out, but wanted to get some input from the group here on what may be hoilding my system back.

Specs:
AMD Phenom II x4 965 @3.4
2 SLI Evga 460's 1 Gig each Mfr. Super Clocked
8 Gigs of Ripjaws gaming ram DDR3 1600
Corsair 850W HX Power Supply
ASUS M4275TD Nvidia nforce SLI 750a AMD Motherboard

Should I swap out something in this rig? IS someting causing less performance?

Thanks for any and all input.
Click to expand...


-edit-

There is a hack to run it SLI/Xfire, don't know if you tried it yet or not.
http://www.mpog.com/discussion2.cfm/post/3686417#3686417

SapientWolf is right, especially for the FF bench as it tends to be really finicky. It either likes you or it doesn't.

FinalFantasy.png
 
MidgarBlowedUp said:
SapientWolf is right, especially for the FF bench as it tends to be really finicky. It either likes you or it doesn't.

FinalFantasy.png
Click to expand...

Well my numbers look right on then because that dual 460 with OC cards is right about where I am on my rig.

Are there any other charts like those that show what the 480 does? That is the debate I had with myself..dual 460's or 1 480....still unsure if I made the right choice. But coming from stricty being a console game, I am blown away right now. But at the end of the day, I want to maximize my rig and basically want 1080p flawless at 60fps or higher, all things set to max even vsync.

I am just not sure if what I have can do it..
 
Hawk269 said:
Well my numbers look right on then because that dual 460 with OC cards is right about where I am on my rig.

Are there any other charts like those that show what the 480 does? That is the debate I had with myself..dual 460's or 1 480....still unsure if I made the right choice. But coming from stricty being a console game, I am blown away right now. But at the end of the day, I want to maximize my rig and basically want 1080p flawless at 60fps or higher, all things set to max even vsync.

I am just not sure if what I have can do it..
Click to expand...


Not sure about the 480, but here is the thread I got that pic from.
http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/793143-msi-gtx460-1gb-sli-review.html
 
Hawk269 said:
Well my numbers look right on then because that dual 460 with OC cards is right about where I am on my rig.

Are there any other charts like those that show what the 480 does? That is the debate I had with myself..dual 460's or 1 480....still unsure if I made the right choice. But coming from stricty being a console game, I am blown away right now. But at the end of the day, I want to maximize my rig and basically want 1080p flawless at 60fps or higher, all things set to max even vsync.

I am just not sure if what I have can do it..
Click to expand...

To be honest , that benchmark is one of the few benchmarks I've seen the performance discrepancy between single vs sli being soo low. Usually, they seem to indicate a boost of anything inbetween 70-95ish %.

Some article


But just as brainstew taught me not everything is comparable in fps vs fps, I'f that wasn't the case I would just simply stick with a 250gts setup and not buy a 460.
 
Hi guys, I don't know if I should ask this here or where. If this is not the correct thread feel free to mock me and redirect me to the good one.

1) I installed nhacer as the profiles are awesome for noobs like me, but as my nvidia drivers are too new is not supported.
Should I downgrade my nvidia drivers so I can get nhacer running?

2) I bougth Metro 2033 as I heard food things about it. It has some directx options like changing between 9, 10 and 11. I have a gtx 460 1Gb but I don't know what I gain for choosing one option above the other.
What directX should I choose? BTW the game is a graphical beast, OMG the textures and lightning.

Thanks!

EDIT: oh yeah, another one this is more curiosity than anything. What is the point of going with more than 4Gb of ram when all the executables out there are 32 bit? They can't access past the 3.6 mark but I don't think anything today eats more than 1.5Gb of Ram. Talking about gaming rigs of course, workstation platforms would benefit from that having several programs running at the same time.
 
Corky said:
External Sound-cards, what are these things? Yay or nay?
Click to expand...
Like regular sound-cards, only external? And nay.
They should provide better sound quality then internal cards (something about a switching PSU,) but if you want better quality you might as well just go for a proper DAC.
Other than that, the only reason for going for an external card is due to a lack of space inside your case...
 
Knch said:
Like regular sound-cards, only external? And nay.
They should provide better sound quality then internal cards (something about a switching PSU,) but if you want better quality you might as well just go for a proper DAC.
Other than that, the only reason for going for an external card is due to a lack of space inside your case...
Click to expand...

informative and appreciated :)

thanks buddy
 
Flying_Phoenix said:
Hey GAF. My Brother is offering to sell me his Gateway desktop for $175.

It has a:

AMD Phenom 9500 QuadCore Processor 2.20GHZ
ATI Radeon HD 3200 IntegratedGraphics
4GB of RAM

What I'm wondering are three things:

#1 How is the AMD Phenom 9500 compared to the Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600?

#2 Is the AMD Phenom 9500 easily overclockable?

#3 How will the integrated graphics run Source games? Mainly Team Fortress 2.
Click to expand...

Anybody at all
please
?
 
Hey, my brother got all the parts to the build linked in the thread, he was wondering if anyone has any wireless card recommendations? He can't really get a wired connection to his room.
 
How are the new AMD 6x core CPU fairing vs Intel these days?

The one thing that I love about AMD over Intel is that they always have really good old socket support. Intel is always making up buy a $1000 CPU with a new mobo all the time. Thanks AMD for thinking about us before your own pockets.
 
well fuck me in the eye for thinking anything would work for me.


Just got my new gtx 460, did all the fresh driver installs and whatnot.
Ran the mafia 2 demo benchmark. The first fucking thing I see is just a buuuuuuunch of stuttering, what gives? Then after a couple of seconds that goes away. But it always stutters from time to time during the benchmark and gameplay.

The endresult

an underclocked gts 250 gave me an avg fps of 39
a gigabyte OC 460 gtx gave me a whopping 46...


Fuck me....

Now what?
 
Corky said:
well fuck me in the eye for thinking anything would work for me.


Just got my new gtx 460, did all the fresh driver installs and whatnot.
Ran the mafia 2 demo benchmark. The first fucking thing I see is just a buuuuuuunch of stuttering, what gives? Then after a couple of seconds that goes away. But it always stutters from time to time during the benchmark and gameplay.

The endresult

an underclocked gts 250 gave me an avg fps of 39
a gigabyte OC 460 gtx gave me a whopping 46...


Fuck me....

Now what?
Click to expand...

Look at this, your framerate is sorta correct if you're using physX w/o a dedicated card. I'm guessing you're not though, because the GTS 250 most certainly doesn't get 39 w/ physX.
 
Minsc said:
Look at this, your framerate is sorta correct if you're using physX w/o a dedicated card. I'm guessing you're not though, because the GTS 250 most certainly doesn't get 39 w/ physX.
Click to expand...

bingo...

physX = off
aa = off
af = 8

the rest on..

/fml
 
Corky said:
well fuck me in the eye for thinking anything would work for me.


Just got my new gtx 460, did all the fresh driver installs and whatnot.
Ran the mafia 2 demo benchmark. The first fucking thing I see is just a buuuuuuunch of stuttering, what gives? Then after a couple of seconds that goes away. But it always stutters from time to time during the benchmark and gameplay.

The endresult

an underclocked gts 250 gave me an avg fps of 39
a gigabyte OC 460 gtx gave me a whopping 46...


Fuck me....

Now what?
Click to expand...

Triple buffering? You may be just on the freshold between 60fps and 30fps which with doule buffer vsync can cut result in as much as a halving of performance and jarring stuttering.
 
brain_stew said:
Triple buffering? You may be just on the freshold between 60fps and 30fps which with doule buffer vsync can cut result in as much as a halving of performance and jarring stuttering.
Click to expand...

What's the remedy for this?
 
Corky said:
What's the remedy for this?
Click to expand...

Either live with tearing, or download Rivatuner and use the included D3DOverrider to force triple buffering in all your games at launch. If you normally enable vsync it really can be as dramatic as a 2x increase in framerate under ideal circumstances. Even when its not, the boost in performance is usually pretty damn significant, atm you may be thrwoing away most of the extra frames your GTX 460 is producing (you could also be a little CPU bound as well, Mafia doesn't seem to like Phenoms all that much).


http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=366413
 
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