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[iNvid02]

i came up with this for $2245 (make it to $2500?)
enough for 60fps @ 1920x1200 for a few years i hope

COOLER MASTER COSMOS S RC-1100
GIGABYTE Radeon HD 6950 2GB - crossfirex (thanks ryoma)
CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (2 x 4GB)
ASUS P6X58D Premium LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz - will be SB
Intel X25-M 160GB
Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb
ASUS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner

 

[Mr_Brit]

i came up with this for $2245 (make it to $2500?)

COOLER MASTER COSMOS S RC-1100
GIGABYTE Radeon HD 6950 2GB - crossfirex (thanks ryoma)
CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (2 x 4GB)
ASUS P6X58D Premium LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz
Intel X25-M 160GB
Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb
ASUS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner

Why not wait for Sandy Bridge coming out next week?

 

[Wallach]

Why not wait for Sandy Bridge coming out next week?

Definitely wait man, it's so close and you'll get your money's worth from the sounds of things. So close.

 

[iNvid02]

Why not wait for Sandy Bridge coming out next week?

of course, this is a preliminary build

 

[TheExodu5]

i came up with this for $2245 (make it to $2500?)
enough for 60fps @ 1920x1200 for a few years i hope

COOLER MASTER COSMOS S RC-1100
GIGABYTE Radeon HD 6950 2GB - crossfirex (thanks ryoma)
CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (2 x 4GB)
ASUS P6X58D Premium LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX
Intel Core i7-950 Bloomfield 3.06GHz - will be SB
Intel X25-M 160GB
Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb
ASUS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner

Swap in Sandy Bridge, and you've got yourself a bitchingly fast PC.

 

[longdi]

as easy as overclocking i7. :lol
golden age of pc gaming.

 

[Weenerz]

5ghz Sandy Bridge OC is looking fucking sexy.

 

[ZoddGutts]

Question about SB motherboard, heard the lower end mother boards won't support Over Clocking? If I buy a i5 2500k but it won't Over Clock on a H67 mother board only on a P67 more expensive motherboard?

 

[Mr_Brit]

Question about SB motherboard, heard the lower end mother boards won't support Over Clocking? If I buy a i5 2500k but it won't Over Clock on a H67 mother board only on a P67 more expensive motherboard?

That's false. To OC a SB CPU you'll need to buy a K edition chip as they have an unlocked multiplier.

 

[ZoddGutts]

So I'll be fine with over clocking a 2500k i5 Cpu on a lower end (H67) mother board. If so I'll be saving alot of money. The higher end (P67) mother boards are a bit too expensive.

 

[Barf_the_Mog]

Sorry to post this again, but I would appreciate it if someone could double check that there is nothing wrong with my build that I have planned. (If RAM is compatible, Processor/MoBo is correct, etc) I'm not up to date with this sort of thing so any help would be awesome.

Case & PSU: Rosewill R379-M + 300W Power Supply - $45 (after code)
Optical Drive: HP Black 24X DVD Burner - $22
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Green 500 GB - $50
Motherboard: ASUS M4A78LT-M Micro-ATX - $55 (after rebate)
Processor: AMD Sempron 140 Sargas 2.7GHz - $37
Memory: Kingston ValueRAM 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR 3 1066 - $26
Card Reader: Rosewill RSD-CR106 - $8

There is absolutely no shipping charges and everything there totals $243 after rebates. Please let me know if there are incompatibilities that you see, or if there is something I can change for a small increase in $$$. This computer is for my mom so it doesn't need to be powerful. I will try to unlock the second core on the CPU and at the very least attempt to overclock it a bit.

On a different subject, can I purchase Windows 7 upgrade from MS with the student discount and put it on a blank harddrive? Or would I have to buy the $100 version for 1-pack OEM?

Thanks.

Edit: Oh, I have an old Nvidia 9400GT already so no need for a GPU.

 

[Carm]

So, I picked up Super Meat Boy for the PC during the Steam sale going on and tried to play with my 360 wired controller. This won't do, won't do at all, any recommendations for a solid plug'n'play controller with good a d-pad and comfortable buttons that aren't hard as a rock and round?

 

[Nabs]

kekekeke 6950 has been flashed to 6970! so easy in less than 10mins to get a fully working 6970. that should put me within 90% of GTX580 at 60% of the cost.

gosh

 

[M.Bluth]

So, I'm putting a PC together for my cousin. He'll manly use it for editing videos (Says he's buying Adobe Premiere CS5).. The budget is around $2200, max is $2650.

At first, I was thinking "Hey, six-cores should do it"... But I'm looking at some benchmarks and it doesn't seem like spending $600 more on an i7-970 when it looks like a slightly overclocked 950 might deliver similar performance.

Especially since I was looking at the supported video cards for GPU Acceleration and the GTX470 is fully supported. So is coupling that with a Quad-Core (perhaps the 950) instead is a better choice?

Also, I'm thinking 12GB or RAM is about right...
I'd love some suggestions for parts based on the budget, I haven't been keeping up lately.

 

[Danj]

On a different subject, can I purchase Windows 7 upgrade from MS with the student discount and put it on a blank harddrive? Or would I have to buy the $100 version for 1-pack OEM?

Yes you can. In all cases except for Vista with the same bitness, Windows 7 will do a clean install anyway. With Vista with matching bitness, you can do an in-place upgrade but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're lazy and can't be bothered to back up all your crap

 

[AkIRA_22]

$1500 now and $1500 when it stops being able to max shit out is a hell of a lot longer period of time compared to how long a $3000 machine will be able to max shit out.

100% agree. A firm upgrade path is more important than a full blown current rig. example, you buy a very fast but not top of the line CPU say a 2500k, a decent mobo, 8GB RAM, and a 5970 that will play modern games even at 1600. but that will not play the games at 1600 in 3 years, but a simple GPU upgrade and you have fixed your problem. buy what you NEED to do what you want today, don't go overboard, you'll just waist money.

 

[sam27368]

How about this set up?

CPU: Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz @ 4.00GHz
Motherboard: Asus Rampage II Extreme (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard
RAM: Corsair XMS3 (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel
Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems Performance CPU Cooler with Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000RPM 120mm Fan
Artic Cooling MX-3 Thermal Compound
2 x EVGA GeForce GTX 570 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card for SLI
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - for boot
Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - content

 

[Mr_Brit]

How about this set up?

CPU: Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz @ 4.00GHz
Motherboard: Asus Rampage II Extreme (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard
RAM: Corsair XMS3 (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Triple Channel
Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems Performance CPU Cooler with Sharkoon Silent Eagle 2000RPM 120mm Fan
Artic Cooling MX-3 Thermal Compound
2 x EVGA GeForce GTX 570 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card for SLI
Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - for boot
Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - content

Use a 7200rpm drive and swap that CPU/mobo/RAM for a Sandy bridge combo next week.

 

[sam27368]

Use a 7200rpm drive and swap that CPU/mobo/RAM for a Sandy bridge combo next week.

I want to get a sandy drive set up, but what is it going to be like price wise?

 

[AkIRA_22]

I want to get a sandy drive set up, but what is it going to be like price wise?

Comparable to current i5 PCs. 2500k to be around $220 and the mobo to be around $200, so it should actually be CHEAPER than a 1366 build!

Then there is this;

Shit just got real!

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/12/31/msi-big-bang-marshal-preview/1

 

[Wallach]

Holy fuck that board is sexy.

 

[godhandiscen]

...must wait for Ivy Bridge....arghh so hard.

 

[AkIRA_22]

Holy fuck that board is sexy.

Yeah man, it's awesome, the all PCI-E is great, there are loads of fan headers and USB3. But the best part? the front panel connectors are... on the FRONT! I can't believe it has taken this long, now that IDE has finally been left to the annals of forgotten tech.

 

[sam27368]

I'm finding the wait hard as well as I'm close to ordering the above setup, can someone tell me about sandy bridge? (In layman's terms as I'm retarded when it comes to this stuff)

 

[The Bookerman]

I was checking out Lower end motherboards for Sandy Bridge( H67 Gigabyte), There doesn't seem to be any Usb 3.0 ports on them.... If I want usb 3.0 ports, do I have to stick to P67 boards?

 

[darkpaladinmfc]

I'm finding the wait hard as well as I'm close to ordering the above setup, can someone tell me about sandy bridge? (In layman's terms as I'm retarded when it comes to this stuff)

Just wait a week to make your system better and more future-proof for pretty much the same price :lol.

 

[toastyToast]

Oh shit, I bought a PCI soundcard recently because a PCI-E card would have blocked off my video cards intake.

Is PCI on the way out?

 

[Anno]

Can GAF recommend a pre-built system for a decent price? I mostly play MMOs and turn-based strategy games so I really don't need anything too high powered. Just something that I can throw a new graphics card in a couple years from now that hopefully supports a larger monitor.

 

[undu]

I want to build a PC, so far I've come up with this:

215 CPU  Intel core i5-2500K
141 Mobo Asus P8P67
 77 RAM  Exceleram VX 2x2GB DDR3-1600 6-8-6-24	
173 GPU  GIGABYTE GTX460 1GB OC
 75 PSU  Seasonic M12II-520
123 Case Lian Li PC-9F
 21 DVD  Samsung SH-S223C
 87 HDD  Western Digital WD1002FAEX
 26 Shipping costs
938 Total (€)

This looks great to me, but I'm thinking about getting the i5-2500 and a m-ATX H67 motherboard with USB3 (and get this beauty) because I have doubts about if I'll ever need overclocking or a second gpu.

I intend to do gaming at 1080p, and use the computer for +3 years and I'd like to know if going for the H67/2500 combo would limit the rig much in this aspect.

 

[artist]

I was checking out Lower end motherboards for Sandy Bridge( H67 Gigabyte), There doesn't seem to be any Usb 3.0 ports on them.... If I want usb 3.0 ports, do I have to stick to P67 boards?

I think the vendors will add 3rd party chipsets to include USB3 support ..

 

[Darkatomz]

Oh shit, I bought a PCI soundcard recently because a PCI-E card would have blocked off my video cards intake.

Is PCI on the way out?

You got the Asus Xonar Essence ST I'm assuming?

I wouldn't worry about it. PCI isn't going anywhere, as strange as that may be.

 

[artist]

Can GAF recommend a pre-built system for a decent price? I mostly play MMOs and turn-based strategy games so I really don't need anything too high powered. Just something that I can throw a new graphics card in a couple years from now that hopefully supports a larger monitor.

I think anything like a 5770 or a GTS450 should be fine.

 

[BoboBrazil]

when are the next socket 1366 processors coming out? should i got 1366 or 1166 for motherboard?

 

[natethegreat409]

I need some help computer gaming GAF.

I have been completely out of the loop on PC gaming for years. So I decided to build a new machine and get back into it. I built my machine, but I'm having completely random freezes. I have froze during the following: Installing video drivers, downloading World of Warcraft, bringing the computer out of sleep mode, playing World of Warcraft, and about 3-4 freezes when the computer is just idle. I will leave it on, come back a few hours later and it will be froze.

Build:
AMD Phenom 6 Core 2.8
8GB g.Skill Ripjaw RAM
Geforce GTX 465 1GB
Corsair 750w PSU
Western Digital 2TB HDD

Any help would be greatly appreciated. My friend put a copy of Windows Ultimate 7 64 Bit on it that he had.

 

[Rolf NB]

I have froze during the following: Installing video drivers, downloading World of Warcraft, bringing the computer out of sleep mode, playing World of Warcraft, and about 3-4 freezes when the computer is just idle.

Try and relax your RAM settings in the BIOS. Lower memory clock. Higher latency values. If that helps, it might be a lesson about bling RAM.

edit: you can also try running with a single stick of memory for a day and see if that cures it.

You didn't specify your motherboard, what model is it?

 

[Smokey]

The 1.5GB memory is not going to be limiting you at 2560 (except in GTA IV, lol). AMD generally becomes the better choice if you plan on going 3 monitors, due to both Eyefinity and the resolution. Otherwise, NVidia scales better in SLI.

Either way, he shouldn't be going SLI with his first PC gaming rig. I shouldn't have recommended it in the first place. Was just splurging a bit. :lol

I've noticed that you and I sort of want to build the same machine (SLI 570 or 580s, sandy bridge etc). I want to do the 3 monitor setup, but with nvidia this becomes much more expensive due to the need of a second card for SLI. With AMD I could get one 6970, and use that to power the 3 monitors.

However I'm always apprehensive about going with AMD because of the inferior drivers compared to nvidia. Ever since I started following this thread I always see people talk about issues with AMD drivers. Is much of this overblown? I also want to do 3D, which is an area AMD seems to be lagging in.

SLI 580 - $1000
SLI 570 - $750
6970 -$370

 

[alr1ght]

Is there any place that will be heavily discounting the i5/7 processors once the new sandy bridge ones debut?

 

[Mr_Brit]

I've noticed that you and I sort of want to build the same machine (SLI 570 or 580s, sandy bridge etc). I want to do the 3 monitor setup, but with nvidia this becomes much more expensive due to the need of a second card for SLI. With AMD I could get one 6970, and use that to power the 3 monitors.

However I'm always apprehensive about going with AMD because of the inferior drivers compared to nvidia. Ever since I started following this thread I always see people talk about issues with AMD drivers. Is much of this overblown? I also want to do 3D, which is an area AMD seems to be lagging in.

SLI 580 - $1000
SLI 570 - $750
6970 -$370

If 3D is at all important to you then nvidia is your only choice.

 

[Alucrid]

Comparable to current i5 PCs. 2500k to be around $220 and the mobo to be around $200, so it should actually be CHEAPER than a 1366 build!

Then there is this;

http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2010/12/msi-big-bang-marshal-preview/msi-big-bang-marshal-12.jpg[IMG]

Shit just got real!

[URL="http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/12/31/msi-big-bang-marshal-preview/1"]http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2010/12/31/msi-big-bang-marshal-preview/1
[/URL][/QUOTE]

I want that. I need to upgrade my mobo and probably CPU at the same time. Still using some stupid Foxconn mobo.

 

[Zaraki_Kenpachi]

Is there any place that will be heavily discounting the i5/7 processors once the new sandy bridge ones debut?

How could we know that before it comes out? Most likely place is microcenter but they're always in store only. But they just may discount sandy bridge instead. Also depends on your idea of heavily discounting, many don't drop in price all that much.

 

[artist]

If 3D is at all important to you then nvidia is your only choice.

Just like his option of multi-monitor setup where AMD is his only choice.

I've noticed that you and I sort of want to build the same machine (SLI 570 or 580s, sandy bridge etc). I want to do the 3 monitor setup, but with nvidia this becomes much more expensive due to the need of a second card for SLI. With AMD I could get one 6970, and use that to power the 3 monitors.

However I'm always apprehensive about going with AMD because of the inferior drivers compared to nvidia. Ever since I started following this thread I always see people talk about issues with AMD drivers. Is much of this overblown? I also want to do 3D, which is an area AMD seems to be lagging in.

SLI 580 - $1000
SLI 570 - $750
6970 -$370

Drivers issue is subjective. People from both camps claim the other is worse ..

 

[Mr_Brit]

Just like his option of multi-monitor setup where AMD is his only choice.

If you don't want to go SLI then AMD is your only choice for multimonitor gaming.

 

[artist]

If you don't want to go SLI then AMD is your only choice for multimonitor gaming.

If you dont want 3rd party 3D support then Nvidia is your only choice for 3D.

 

[Mr_Brit]

If you dont want 3rd party 3D support then Nvidia is your only choice for 3D.

nvidia is the only 3D solution which has tailor built 3D games e.g. Metro 2033, RES 5, BA:AA etc.

 

[artist]

nvidia is the only 3D solution which has tailor built 3D games e.g. Metro 2033, RES 5, BA:AA etc.

AMD has the only multi-monitor support to 7680x3200 ..

Spoiler

we can keep this going.

3D Platform wars

 

[Mr_Brit]

AMD has the only multi-monitor support to 7680x3200 ..

Spoiler

we can keep this going.

3D Platform wars

You recommending people go with AMD if they want to play in 3D is only going to cause headaches and confusion for new PC gamers. Recommending AMD for 3D is like recommending an original Xbox for HD gaming just because a few of its games support it.

 

[Smokey]

I wanted to do and the multi monitor setup and/or 3D because I want my gaming PC to be a unique experience from my consoles (besides more AA, 1080p+ etc).

So basically:

3D + multi monitor setup = Nvidia
no 3D + multi monitor setup = AMD

?

 

[Mr_Brit]

I wanted to do and the multi monitor setup and/or 3D because I want my gaming PC to be a unique experience from my consoles (besides more AA, 1080p+ etc).

So basically:

3D + multi monitor setup = Nvidia
no 3D + multi monitor setup = AMD

?

Just so you know, nvidia supports 3D vision surround where all three of your monitors/TVs are all in 3D, impressions I've read have said that it's the most immersive gaming experience you can have.

 

[Cipherr]

when are the next socket 1366 processors coming out? should i got 1366 or 1166 for motherboard?

1366 is a dead socket, the 990x is the last chip for the socket. 1155 is the newest socket on the way.

 

[M.Bluth]

So, I'm putting a PC together for my cousin. He'll manly use it for editing videos (Says he's buying Adobe Premiere CS5).. The budget is around $2200, max is $2650.

At first, I was thinking "Hey, six-cores should do it"... But I'm looking at some benchmarks and it doesn't seem like spending $600 more on an i7-970 when it looks like a slightly overclocked 950 might deliver similar performance.

Especially since I was looking at the supported video cards for GPU Acceleration and the GTX470 is fully supported. So is coupling that with a Quad-Core (perhaps the 950) instead is a better choice?

Also, I'm thinking 12GB or RAM is about right...
I'd love some suggestions for parts based on the budget, I haven't been keeping up lately.

Anyone?