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"I need a new PC!" 2010 Edition

See if you don't like the looks of 0xAA better (plants look nicer).

Also give a custom config a try, maybe something like HP 1.3.1 or VERY HIGH, or there's like 5 main ones...

Running at low a resolution I wonder if you could enable supersampling :lol
 
I'm thinking about slapping together a combo machine for the bedroom HTPC/Media Server/Dolphin emulator. I'd hook it into my 720p LCD so I shouldn't need to much horsepower. Could I get away with spending around $400? I figure something like:

i3 540 from Microcetner
H55 microATX mobo
ATI 5670 (will this be enough to run dolphin with SSAA?)
4GB DDR3
500GB-1TB Spinpoint F3
Wireless/Bluetooth dongles
Rosewill R379-M Slim MicroATX Computer Case with ATX12V Flex 300W Power Supply
Already have a copy of Win7

I'd also like something with an IR port for my harmony remote but I that may be asking a bit much. Was also considering Shuttle but their 1156 offerings start at $200+. Worth it?
 
msv said:
The Sata connections are handy because I will be using almost all at the start. Perhaps 3/4 HD's, DVD drive and probably an SSD drive in the near future. It would be good to know it's a bit future proof in that regard. Always hate having to throw out HD's. USB connections - mouse, keyboard, mic, external HD(uses 2), phone and USB sticks. I'd be at the limit without any USB sticks connected, although I could just use the extra mobo connectors. That might not be a big issue yeah. Also I've found that the 870 has about 20W more idle consumption. 870 has no PCIe x4 slots (can be used for PCIe SSDs).

Nothing is a real deal breaker, except Sata I guess. Low TDP is very much preferred too. Which 870 mobo has the same specs and more Sata connections?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't know tbh. I generally invest time in researching components when it's time to buy a PC. Your post struck me as it shares a lot of parts I know something about.;)


You could try asking on the tweakers forum in the best buy guide topic of this month. http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/1415753/last
 
I'm thinking to build a PC... I live in Italy, so dont look so much at the prices but look more about the performance

-My monitor is Asus VH222H 22" 1920x1080 full HD
-Use is World of Warcraft and other RPGs (DA:O/Fallout and some FPS like CoD)
-Video Editing with Sony Vegas
-Photoshop
-Internet

The target is being able to play WoW at maximum settings at full HD res in raids (25 players on screen). Also my target would be an High end system (support for USB3/Sata3 would be great). Also I already have an external Western Digital 1TB external hard drive... so 500gb for storage is enough.

Also, for space reasons, I need to get mATX. The best looking case for Micro Atx IMHO is the lanbox lite, which offers space, cooling and its design is lovely. Also supports 8800gs sli!

Budget is 600€ (770$, the converter said).

Here is a build I tought...

-Corsair 450W 60€
-Thermaltake Lanbox Lite 70€
-AMD Phenom II x4 955 3.2Ghz Black Box Edition 121€
-OCZ Gold CL9 1333 2x2GB DDR3 67€
-HIS 5830 1GB iCooler 174€
-WD Caviar Green 500GB 7200RPM 32MB 35€
-AsRock 880GHM/USB3 M-ATX 66€

Questions...
-Is worth buying a mobo that supports Phenom II x6?
-This mobo is the cheapest micro ATX that has Sata3/Usb3. Infact, it has only one Sata3 and only one USB3. Should be enough for the next years, I think.
-Caviar Green? Never heard of it. Is the performance good?
-Graphic card... is the 5830 1gb going to handle WoW on ultra in Full HD?
-And in the end... the PSU. Is 450W going to fit this build??

Really gaf help me!
 
I had this interesting question pop-up in my mind since I am planning to buy a full HD monitor. What looks better on a full HD monitor?
720p with 4x transparency Supersampling or 1080p with 0/4xAA?

I have a GTX 470 and I love Supersampling on my current monitor but I fear that at full HD the card might not be able to handle supersampling, even though I only apply transparency supersampling.

So what will look better?
 
kittoo said:
I had this interesting question pop-up in my mind since I am planning to buy a full HD monitor. What looks better on a full HD monitor?
720p with 4x transparency Supersampling or 1080p with 0/4xAA?

I have a GTX 470 and I love Supersampling on my current monitor but I fear that at full HD the card might not be able to handle supersampling, even though I only apply transparency supersampling.

So what will look better?
Click to expand...

A GTX 470 is a heck of a card. I would be surprised if you had trouble maxxing out games on it at 19x10 unless you're talking something like metro 2033. Either way have it render at the natural resolution of the display. Stretching an image, especially stretching it by a non-whole number causes the image quality to decrease dramatically. I'll run a game at natural resolution and all settings at low before i'll modift the resolution.
 
Shambles said:
A GTX 470 is a heck of a card. I would be surprised if you had trouble maxxing out games on it at 19x10 unless you're talking something like metro 2033. Either way have it render at the natural resolution of the display. Stretching an image, especially stretching it by a non-whole number causes the image quality to decrease dramatically. I'll run a game at natural resolution and all settings at low before i'll modift the resolution.
Click to expand...

True but I absolutely cant stand aliasing. And transparency supersampling is completely awesome. Though of course I can experiment all I want after I get the monitor.
 
Did I do well, gaf?

Just finished buying all my parts for the build:

CPU/MOBO:
Intel i7-930: $217 (Microcenter)
ASUS Sabertooth X58 LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $203 (Newegg)

PSU:
Antec CP-850 850W $126 (Newegg)

GPU:
MSI GTX 460 1gb: $205 AR (Newegg)

STORAGE:
60GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD: $124 AR (Newegg)
1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 7200rpm: $58 (eWiz)
2TB 5400rpm WD Green & LG DVDRW combo deal: $110 (Newegg)

RAM:
Corsair DDR3 6GB 1600MHz XMS: $132 AR (incl tax, Fry's)

CASE:
Antec P183 $75 (craigslist)
Scythe S-FLEX 120mm Fan 1200rpm $13 (newegg)

Software:
Win7 Ultimate: $55 (Msft store)
Office Home: $33 (Msft store)

Total, after tax + shipping: $1351
Click to expand...
 
rise888 said:
Did I do well, gaf?

Just finished buying all my parts for the build:
Click to expand...

Huge overkill on the PSU. You could cut that wattage in half. 650W if you're looking to SLI GTX 460's down the road. Also not sure what the purpose of the F3 is on there. With your primary being an SSD the performance of your secondary drives won't matter that much. I'd drop the F3 and wait until your 2TB drive fills up before adding another.
 
kittoo said:
I had this interesting question pop-up in my mind since I am planning to buy a full HD monitor. What looks better on a full HD monitor?
720p with 4x transparency Supersampling or 1080p with 0/4xAA?

I have a GTX 470 and I love Supersampling on my current monitor but I fear that at full HD the card might not be able to handle supersampling, even though I only apply transparency supersampling.

So what will look better?
Click to expand...

Completely dependant upon your personal preference, the quality of the scaling algorithm and the game in question. Either way be sure to enable hardware scaling in your drivers so that you at least sort the scaling algorithm side of things out.

My HDTV has one of the best consumer scalers around and yes, I do occasionally prefer 720P + lots of AA over 1080p without AA, its totally dependant on the game.

One thing you might be pleased to learn though is that the "transparency multisampling" quality is much improved on the GTX 470, as its affected by coverage samples as well. So you can use 16xCSAA or more ideally 32xCSAA with transparency multisampling and you should get a very comparable quality to 4xmsaa w/ transparency supersampling on alpha aliasing with better quality polygon edges for a much lower cost.

Definitely worth experimenting with and even 32xCSAA @ 1080p really isn't all that demanding for a GTX 470 in the vast majority of games.
 
Shambles said:
Huge overkill on the PSU. You could cut that wattage in half.
Click to expand...

Yeah, he could have save ~$60 on the PSU and used it to upgrade to a GTX 470 which would give a significant boost and net him a couple free games for his trouble. All told, its not a bad configuration at all, but for games at least, it is rather unbalanced.
 
Hey Gaf,

I couldn't get ahold of that hand me down that needed a new card so I'm just going to have to go from scratch. This is largely the Fall 2010 recommended "middle grade" build suggested by Techreport. Any recommended changes? Primarily starcraft 2 with some portal 2 down the road. [apologizes for the primitive copy/paste - can't get a nice image to post :( ]


Shopping Cart

Qty. Product Description Savings Total Price
1

SAMSUNG DVD Burner Black SATA Model SH-S223L LightScribe Support


$24.99

1

Antec Sonata III 500 Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply

-$40.00 Instant
$149.99
$109.99

1

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

$74.99
1


ASUS M4A87TD EVO AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

$109.99

1

Mushkin Enhanced Silverline 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model 996585
$79.99

1

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T Thuban 2.8GHz Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDT55TFBGRBOX
-$10.00 Instant
$207.99
$197.99

1

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders

$99.99

1
GIGABYTE GV-N460OC-768I GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 768MB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty PC Game BLIZZARD

*
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty PC Game BLIZZARD
Item #: N82E16832127003
Return Policy: Limited Replacement Only Return Policy

-$20.00 Combo
$229.98
$209.98

Subtotal: $907.91

EDIT: Cleaned it up a bit.
 
Hazaro said:
You should try to keep it below that, but the CPU will slow down and even shut off to prevent damage so no worries. Those are great temps. Make sure you have the lastest version of RealTemp and CoreTemp to check.
Click to expand...
Great to hear.


I don't see anything in the OP about overclocking.

Is there a particularly noob friendly guide to overclocking? Specifically i15-750 on a P55 board.

Edit: When I first built and the stock cooler wasn't on properly (One of the legs of the cooler wasn't in) my cpu got up to 90 and didn't shut off. Which is odd.

01J4z.png
 
brain_stew said:
Completely dependant upon your personal preference, the quality of the scaling algorithm and the game in question. Either way be sure to enable hardware scaling in your drivers so that you at least sort the scaling algorithm side of things out.

My HDTV has one of the best consumer scalers around and yes, I do occasionally prefer 720P + lots of AA over 1080p without AA, its totally dependant on the game.

One thing you might be pleased to learn though is that the "transparency multisampling" quality is much improved on the GTX 470, as its affected by coverage samples as well. So you can use 16xCSAA or more ideally 32xCSAA with transparency multisampling and you should get a very comparable quality to 4xmsaa w/ transparency supersampling on alpha aliasing with better quality polygon edges for a much lower cost.

Definitely worth experimenting with and even 32xCSAA @ 1080p really isn't all that demanding for a GTX 470 in the vast majority of games.
Click to expand...

Thanks brain_stew. Last queries-

How much cost is for transparency Supersampling. I am pretty sure its not as much as full screen supresampling, but any ballpark figure? Is 4xMSAA+SS transparency AA all that more costing than 32xCSAA? I always thought that it did not cost all that much as the SS was working only on transparent objects. Maybe I was wrong

And finally, since it will be a monitor and not a HDTV, hence I doubt it will have a proper scaler in it, will that affect quality much?

Thanks.
 
Shambles said:
Huge overkill on the PSU. You could cut that wattage in half. 650W if you're looking to SLI GTX 460's down the road. Also not sure what the purpose of the F3 is on there. With your primary being an SSD the performance of your secondary drives won't matter that much. I'd drop the F3 and wait until your 2TB drive fills up before adding another.
Click to expand...


I guess I was duped by newegg's PSU calculator then.
I wanted to give myself room for SLI down the road and newegg recommended around 900w.

I plan to use the 60gb SSD for the OS and install games to the 1TB. the 2TB was purely for storage.
 
One more Question:

With the build I posted above, would you purchase a copy of Windows 7 to run on it or use a Free copy of Vista Ultimate? Got a free copy in a raffle a couple years ago. Never run 7 before. Is it worth a hundred to run 7 over a free vista?
 
HooCares said:
One more Question:

With the build I posted above, would you purchase a copy of Windows 7 to run on it or use a Free copy of Vista Ultimate? Got a free copy in a raffle a couple years ago. Never run 7 before. Is it worth a hundred to run 7 over a free vista?
Click to expand...
Sell the copy of Vista to buy Win7.

windows 7 is awesome with all the little UI things. Don't know how I lived with out them.
 
rise888 said:
I guess I was duped by newegg's PSU calculator then.
I wanted to give myself room for SLI down the road and newegg recommended around 900w.

I plan to use the 60gb SSD for the OS and install games to the 1TB. the 2TB was purely for storage.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't worry too much about it especially if your planning on going SLI down the road. It's over kill (even if you do go dual gtx 460s) but I think you found some good deals on other components to make up for it.
 
kittoo said:
Thanks brain_stew. Last queries-

How much cost is for transparency Supersampling. I am pretty sure its not as much as full screen supresampling, but any ballpark figure? Is 4xMSAA+SS transparency AA all that more costing than 32xCSAA? I always thought that it did not cost all that much as the SS was working only on transparent objects. Maybe I was wrong

And finally, since it will be a monitor and not a HDTV, hence I doubt it will have a proper scaler in it, will that affect quality much?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Totally dependant on the game and the situation within the game. The more alpha effects used, the higher the cost.

Yes, absolutely, the problem with transpaency supersampling is that it can often lead to your framerate suddenly tanking as you'll be effectively supersampling damn near the whole image in some scenarios, which kills performance.

It is only working on transparent textures but there's lots of games with scenes where transparent texture can fill enarly the whole screen, at which point the cost will be nearly the same as normal supersapling.

It will if you use the monitor's scaler, absolutely but that's not what you should be doing. You need to enable hardware scaling in your drivers so that your GPU does the scaling as it can do a very good job of it.
 
cartoon_soldier said:
Is there any advantage to getting a small SSD drive for MMO gaming like WoW?
Click to expand...

I looked into this for FFXIV and wasn't at all convinced in my research that it would be worth it. If there are any conclusive tests that prove (IN-GAME) MMORPG performance is noticeably enhanced by an SSD over a 7200 or 10,000rpm drive I would be very interested to read them. I found nothing that would lead me to believe that.
 
HooCares said:
One more Question:

With the build I posted above, would you purchase a copy of Windows 7 to run on it or use a Free copy of Vista Ultimate? Got a free copy in a raffle a couple years ago. Never run 7 before. Is it worth a hundred to run 7 over a free vista?
Click to expand...

If you have to pay the full $100 for Windows 7? Probably not, depends on how tight cash is for you. Vista is still a full x64 OS with DX11 support and plenty of modern features, its mostly the UI that's not as good and the fact it runs slow on low end hardware (which isn't an issue for you). If I didn't get my copy of Windows 7 with a student upgrade I probably wouldn't have made the switch as Vista x64 was already transforming into a very capable OS post SP1.
 
rise888 said:
I guess I was duped by newegg's PSU calculator then.
I wanted to give myself room for SLI down the road and newegg recommended around 900w.

I plan to use the 60gb SSD for the OS and install games to the 1TB. the 2TB was purely for storage.
Click to expand...

Wtf!? :lol
 
brain_stew said:
If you have to pay the full $100 for Windows 7? Probably not, depends on how tight cash is for you. Vista is still a full x64 OS with DX11 support and plenty of modern features, its mostly the UI that's not as good and the fact it runs slow on low end hardware (which isn't an issue for you). If I didn't get my copy of Windows 7 with a student upgrade I probably wouldn't have made the switch as Vista x64 was already transforming into a very capable OS post SP1.
Click to expand...

Thanks. It's a tough call for me. I'm not really tight on cash but I am practical and don't give a shit about fluff. If 7 has performance enhancements that I'd really notice I think it's worth it. If it's aesthetics and minor gains I don't really care. I'll research more about 7 and see if it's worth it.

Is that GPU ok for my purposes?
 
Ok, it's a done deal.

I pulled the trigger on the above build. Thanks to everyone especially threadmaster Brain_Stew for the guidance. I'm going to forgo Windows 7 and use my free copy of Vista. If I hate it for some reason I can always just buy 7 and do a clean install.

Wish me luck on the assembly. It's been over 10 years since I've done one.

After I put this machine together I'm gonna be all like
phillipsqf08.gif
 
MomoPufflet said:
I looked into this for FFXIV and wasn't at all convinced in my research that it would be worth it. If there are any conclusive tests that prove (IN-GAME) MMORPG performance is noticeably enhanced by an SSD over a 7200 or 10,000rpm drive I would be very interested to read them. I found nothing that would lead me to believe that.
Click to expand...

I put WoW on my SSD at first and noticed a difference in how quickly other characters loaded in the game around me, but that was it. Really didn't affect my FPS at all.

So I put the install back on a normal HD.
 
Macattk15 said:
I put WoW on my SSD at first and noticed a difference in how quickly other characters loaded in the game around me, but that was it. Really didn't affect my FPS at all.

So I put the install back on a normal HD.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the SSD wouldn't affect fps, just load times.
 
rise888 said:
I guess I was duped by newegg's PSU calculator then.
I wanted to give myself room for SLI down the road and newegg recommended around 900w.

I plan to use the 60gb SSD for the OS and install games to the 1TB. the 2TB was purely for storage.
Click to expand...

Yeah, don't trust the people who are trying to sell you PSUs. Look for the actual measured power consumption from reviews of the cards. An i7 with a 460 under max load will peak around 350W. The CX430 is a perfect partner for this setup. Dual GTX 460's will peak around 530-550 if I can remember correctly from what I saw earlier. As long as buy a quality brand PSU you will get the actual rated wattage from it.
 
L0st Id3ntity said:
What's the single best cpu air cooler right now?
Click to expand...

I've heard that the cooler master hyper 212 plus, is a very good purchase for its price. Obviously you can get better but from what I understand a 212+ is quite good for its price.
 
Shambles said:
A GTX 470 is a heck of a card. I would be surprised if you had trouble maxxing out games on it at 19x10 unless you're talking something like metro 2033. Either way have it render at the natural resolution of the display. Stretching an image, especially stretching it by a non-whole number causes the image quality to decrease dramatically. I'll run a game at natural resolution and all settings at low before i'll modift the resolution.
Click to expand...

Playing on a higher resolution decreases the need for AA, and most monitors have terrible upscaling, so I'd just play at 1080p without AA if you have to.
 
Mad Max said:
Playing on a higher resolution decreases the need for AA, and most monitors have terrible upscaling, so I'd just play at 1080p without AA if you have to.
Click to expand...

So if one was playing at 2560x1200 there would be no need for AA or AF?
 
I need to replace a blown CPU/Mobo in my current PC. That means I'll also need new RAM since I currently have an LGA775 setup. What can I get around $400? The store I will be bringing my prices to deals primarily with ASUS motherboards, so if you can reference some prices off of NCIX.com or newegg.ca (I'm Canadian) it would be a big help with any advice/recommendations. I will be gaming at 1440x900.

He's also offering a complete system (core i5 650, 6gb RAM 1333, 750gb HD, DVD ram drive, +WIN7 HP) for $689 Canadian.
 
might need a new router?:

So... I get 30/30 wired in my room on my my computer and me dad's 2 year old notebook computer. When I turn wireless on with my 7ish year old wrt54gs linksys router(tomato firmware), it drops to 22Mbps standing right in front of it. It drops down to 15mbps with the door closed and a few rooms away upstairs. The PC downstairs only gets 5Mbps with a Asus wl-330ge repeater/bridge plugged into the network card.
 
Haeleos said:
I need to replace a blown CPU/Mobo in my current PC. That means I'll also need new RAM since I currently have an LGA775 setup. What can I get around $400? The store I will be bringing my prices to deals primarily with ASUS motherboards, so if you can reference some prices off of NCIX.com or newegg.ca (I'm Canadian) it would be a big help with any advice/recommendations. I will be gaming at 1440x900.

He's also offering a complete system (core i5 650, 6gb RAM 1333, 750gb HD, DVD ram drive, +WIN7 HP) for $689 Canadian.
Click to expand...
I can't help much but

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=23296952&postcount=14620
 
It's been about a month since I built my rig. It is an Athlon II X4 with a GTX 460. Currently I am using an old monitor (1280 X 1024). I'm getting the upgrade bug for the monitor now :D .

Should I go 1680x1050 or 1920x1024? Isn't the 460 better suited to 1680x1050?
 
I'm playing around with the possiblity of upgrading my PC. This would be the final configuration that I'm thinking of using.

Any feedback would be great.

PC Build

I already have the Video card + case running on a asus P5N-e SLI mobo with a E7500 Processor so I'm not sure If the ram + CPU + mobo + SSD upgrades would be a huge improvement over the current setup.
 
Vigilant Walrus said:
So if one was playing at 2560x1200 there would be no need for AA or AF?
Click to expand...


not that there is no need for it, it just produces a different type of image.

high res with no AA will be a sharp, crisp looking image

lower res with AA will be a less sharp, more "blurred" looking smooth image.

There is a tradeoff between the two, and you could get similar FPS from either scenario depending on your preference. It's about what you prefer the game to look like.
 
please help me with this.

I have a Geforce 9800GT and a Geforce GT 220, can i and should i SLI them? can i use one as a physx card??

Thanks.
 
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