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[TheExodu5]

Apologies for my first post being a question, but... I currently have a C2D E6750 and an 8800GT, which has performed admirably for the last three and a half years, but is starting to creak a bit now. If I were to upgrade to a 460GTX, would I get much benefit, or would the processor bottleneck the system and not make it worthwhile?

Other info- 4Gb of RAM, Win 7 64 bit, 22" monitor @ 1680x1050. I also use the PC for development work, so would rather not overclock it, just in case.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Depends on the game.

A GTX 460 would certainly be a big upgrade anyways. I wouldn't go with any better than that though...a GTX 560 would be mostly waste in a dual core rig. The GTX 460 is still around 120% faster than your 8800GT, so it's already a massive upgrade.

 

[mkenyon]

Ok after buying my wife an Ipad, and paying for a trip to Disneyland for her and my daughter she is feeling guilty on how much money I have spent on her and has greenlighted me on computer re-builds, upgrades etc.

Listed below is my current system...would it be smarter just getting kickass upgrades? Or building a new system and migrating this one to some other function (Media box?)

This system still works great, and has been a workhorse for me...but the temptation of more power for new games coming down the pipe is too great. I will use this for gaming as well as Photo/Video editing.

Budget : $1500 at least, willing to go more if it is worth it.

Yep, you'll want to go 2500k+1155 mobo + 6950/GTX560.

 

[Stuggernaut]

Ok I'll start poking around on Newegg to get some ideas.

Also should I consider getting Win7 64bit as well?

 

[Kadey]

What's the best CPU I could get for my 780i? I have an E8400 at 3.6ghz. Not doing a full upgrade until next year. I just need something to compliment my 560 Ti and my main objective is streaming live gaming. Apparently FME is very CPU dependent and the E8400 isn't optimal.

 

[Sportbilly]

Depends on the game.

A GTX 460 would certainly be a big upgrade anyways. I wouldn't go with any better than that though...a GTX 560 would be mostly waste in a dual core rig. The GTX 460 is still around 120% faster than your 8800GT, so it's already a massive upgrade.

OK cheers. I wasn't really considering anything else as cards above the 460 seemed like overkill considering my 1680x1050 monitor. As long as it wouldn't be pretty much negated by the processor, then £140 or so would be a nice price to get me set for The Witcher 2 and might also spur me on to tackle my backlog.

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Are the need for more wattage in power supplies increasing or decreasing? In other words are CPUs and GPUs starting to use more watts or less watts as time is going by?

The P67 board allows overclocking.

P67 it is!

 

[black_vegeta]

Ok I'll start poking around on Newegg to get some ideas.

Also should I consider getting Win7 64bit as well?

Yes, you can use more memory. 32 bit you're only allowed to go a max of 4GB of RAM. Where in 64 bit, you can go up to whatever. 4GB, 8, 32, etc...

 

[Wrekt]

Beaten

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

How much does the cheapest ASUS P67 board cost?

 

[DrBaalzamon]

Having a slight problem. System background: I have a Phenom x2 560 on a MSI 785gm-p45 mobo. Everything had been working fine up till this morning when attempting to boot gave me fan spinning and system lights but nothing.

I thought it was strange but powered down and rebooted up. It booted to the desktop proper but after what seemed like a random amount of time the system hardlocked with no mouse movement or keyboard inputs registering. I also noticed the power light on my mouse had gone out. My suspicion is a faulty failing motherboard. I had to go to class and then work but also wonder if faulty ram could be the cause as well?

After the initial crash I tried to reboot a few times, took the graphics card out, used onboard and it similarly crashed after a random time in windows. A few times it just booted to a black screen. One time while I was checking the bios, everything turned blue and stopped responding. This only happened once but furthers my believe that it might be the mobo.

I do have to mention: I swapped the whole system into a new case yesterday. I cant fathom how this could cause the mobo to fail suddenly though. I think I'll try re-seating the memory and power points. I'll pick up another stick of memory to test as well. Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

[Jinaar]

Well the places I wanted to get the Asus P8P67 Pro and i5-2500K Processor are all out of stock or have sent back to the manufacturer(here in Edmonton, AB). NCIX.com doesn't have the P8P67 PRO in stock unfortunately. The PC upgrade goes on a semi-hiatus at the moment. Have to be patient now.

 

[mkenyon]

Having a slight problem. System background: I have a Phenom x2 560 on a MSI 785gm-p45 mobo. Everything had been working fine up till this morning when attempting to boot gave me fan spinning and system lights but nothing.

I thought it was strange but powered down and rebooted up. It booted to the desktop proper but after what seemed like a random amount of time the system hardlocked with no mouse movement or keyboard inputs registering. I also noticed the power light on my mouse had gone out. My suspicion is a faulty failing motherboard. I had to go to class and then work but also wonder if faulty ram could be the cause as well?

After the initial crash I tried to reboot a few times, took the graphics card out, used onboard and it similarly crashed after a random time in windows. A few times it just booted to a black screen. One time while I was checking the bios, everything turned blue and stopped responding. This only happened once but furthers my believe that it might be the mobo.

I do have to mention: I swapped the whole system into a new case yesterday. I cant fathom how this could cause the mobo to fail suddenly though. I think I'll try re-seating the memory and power points. I'll pick up another stick of memory to test as well. Any thoughts? Thanks!

Yep, I'd suggest the things you mentioned in your last paragraph. You may have fried something during the build. Sounds like RAM or mobo. If you can, do a memtest on your RAM in another rig.

 

[vermadas]

That's a tricky one. See if you have some sort of "render frames ahead" option in your GPU control panel. If it's 0-1, try raising it to 3. If it's 3 already, maybe try the opposite and lower it. I've experienced some judder issues with this setting.

CCC didn't have this setting so I installed ATI tray tools. It had a setting called "Flip Queue Size" which I determined to be the equivalent to what you had suggested. It was set to "Undefined". I changed it to 0. I fired up WoW and it actually may have helped some.

I tried VVVVVV though, and I'm still getting some weird hitching with my character sometimes. The rendering setting is for 3D though so I'm not surprised. This may be an issue with the game itself.

I'll try a couple more 3D games and see what happens. Thanks for the advice!

 

[knitoe]

Looks like my replacement Asus P8P67 Deluxe is coming Fedex overnight tomorrow from Asus. It's full retail package. And, supposedly, people are also getting a free headset for the trouble.

 

[MikeE21286]

Looks like my replacement Asus P8P67 Deluxe is coming Fedex overnight tomorrow from Asus. It's full retail package. And, supposedly, people are also getting a free headset for the trouble.

when did you place in your RMA?

I waited (I didn't quite understand what they were gonna do) and put mine in over the weekend

 

[Laekon]

Finally ready to buy a GPU today but I have 1 more question. At 1920x1080 with a C2D EE6600 and 2gb ram will a 560GTX TI be worth the extra $70-80(rebate and tax/shipping)? I know the 560 is a faster card but is the increase anything you can really see on the screen.

The extra cashed saved by buying a 460 will go towards a new i5 2500, mbo, and RAM in the summer or fall.

 

[knitoe]

when did you place in your RMA?

I waited (I didn't quite understand what they were gonna do) and put mine in over the weekend

Email my Advanced RMA info last Thursday night.

 

[TouchMyBox]

Finally ready to buy a GPU today but I have 1 more question. At 1920x1080 with a C2D EE6600 and 2gb ram will a 560GTX TI be worth the extra $70-80(rebate and tax/shipping)? I know the 560 is a faster card but is the increase anything you can really see on the screen.

The extra cashed saved by buying a 460 will go towards a new i5 2500, mbo, and RAM in the summer or fall.

This summer, a GTX 460 will still be a completely competent video card. The E6600 won't be a completely competent CPU though (for gaming).

 

[·feist·]

Was away for most of the last few days, came back today to find out that Micro Center not only had the Corsair 650D in stock, but they were selling it for $160, and I missed the sale.

Great.

Finally ready to buy a GPU today but I have 1 more question. At 1920x1080 with a C2D EE6600 and 2gb ram will a 560GTX TI be worth the extra $70-80(rebate and tax/shipping)? I know the 560 is a faster card but is the increase anything you can really see on the screen.

The extra cashed saved by buying a 460 will go towards a new i5 2500, mbo, and RAM in the summer or fall.

GTX 460, like TouchMyBox said.
Get the cheapest priced GTX 460 that you can (in your case, you'll likely want to pass on the 768MB and SE versions), or possibly the $190 5870 mentioned in this post.
From there, the 2500K will be fast enough to handle your next GPU upgrade.

 

[BlueScrote]

Is there any word on when a reputable place like amazon or newegg will get the ASUS P8P67 back in stock? What is a comparable mobo to that? All I found on newegg was the MSI P67A-GD65 (B3) LGA 1155

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130574

 

[scoobs]

So i set up my second monitor today, having a weird issue w/ windows 7. My 2nd monitor is detected as a "non-PnP monitor" and i can't set the resolution to its native @ 1080p. Its restricted for some reason. Anyone ever heard of this? Fyi I'm running 2xgtx 470s

 

[Branson]

Are the i7 2600k SB worth the extra money? Ill be mostly gaming and Im starting to slowly piece together my new computer.

 

[MikeE21286]

Email my Advanced RMA info last Thursday night.

gotcha. I'm on Advanced RMA too. I just checked and they've put the temporary hold ($210) on my CC.

Should be coming soonish I'm thinking then

 

[ExMachina]

Are the i7 2600k SB worth the extra money? Ill be mostly gaming and Im starting to slowly piece together my new computer.

The biggest difference between the 2600k and 2500k is that the latter lacks Hyper-threading, which is useless for games. Save yourself the money and just get a 2500k if your focus is solely gaming.

 

[Branson]

The biggest difference between the 2600k and 2500k is that the latter lacks Hyper-threading, which is useless for games. Save yourself the money and just get a 2500k if your focus is solely gaming.

Are the 2500k only i5s? Are those still alright for games? Also what would hyper threading help with?

 

[BigBlackGamer]

6990 unboxing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Eb6bRRNdUk&feature=feedu

 

[teh_pwn]

Are the 2500k only i5s? Are those still alright for games? Also what would hyper threading help with?

2500k performs virtually the same as the 2600k with gaming. With applications the 2600k is quite a bit faster (30-40%).

 

[shinobi602]

Stupid question but...

Do Radeons work better with AMD CPUs? I thought maybe because AMD took over ATI and makes the GPUs now, they're the same company so they work together more efficiently perhaps?

Or does it just not matter one bit lol?

 

[Flying_Phoenix]

Are the need for more wattage in power supplies increasing or decreasing? In other words are CPUs and GPUs starting to use more watts or less watts as time is going by?

.

 

[Branson]

Ok, I think im going with a 2500k i5 for my rig so far. So are six cores needed right now?

 

[black_vegeta]

6990 unboxing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Eb6bRRNdUk&feature=feedu

Video set to private. -_-

 

[shinobi602]

6990 unboxing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Eb6bRRNdUk&feature=feedu

4 GB WTF!???!?

 

[Mr Nightman]

Stupid question but...

Do Radeons work better with AMD CPUs? I thought maybe because AMD took over ATI and makes the GPUs now, they're the same company so they work together more efficiently perhaps?

Or does it just not matter one bit lol?

AMD still owned ati before the card brand name change, but no I don't think it really matters

 

[Commanche Raisin Toast]

well, the Accelero cooler wasn't enough for my dual-slot HD4870. it's crapped out, and i had to order a new card. went ahead and used some billmelater credit on an MSI 6850 Cyclone.

i want to upgrade at the end of the year, or the beginning of next year, but i want to be able to Crossfire my 6850 with another one. (looked up a bunch of benchmarks and reviews on 6850's, and they nearly double performance in Crossfire mode, while a lot of other cards don't show that drastic of a change when in Crossfire mode)

does running Crossfire in 16x/16x mode really matter? or is 8x/8x mode adequate enough?

recommend me a solid AMD chipset based mobo that has dual 16x lanes that run in 16x/16x mode? the Crosshair Formula is pretty expensive, as well as constantly out of stock...

EDIT: all of my research is giving me mixed results. tom's hardware says to get 16x/16x mode supported motherboards if at all possible, while other sites/forums are saying it doesn't really matter because the cards don't use all of the PCIe bandwidth yet.

 

[Misanthropy]

Ivy bridge with next Geforce series- Fall 2011. Can I believe?!

 

[Data West]

I was thinking about upgrading my video card from crossfire 4850s to a GTX 560 but my friend said that, unless I upgrade, my cpu(dual core 3.16) will just bottleneck it, and that I should get a 460 instead.

Any truth to that?

 

[The_Inquisitor]

I was thinking about upgrading my video card from crossfire 4850s to a GTX 560 but my friend said that, unless I upgrade, my cpu(dual core 3.16) will just bottleneck it, and that I should get a 460 instead.

Any truth to that?

I think you're friend is correct.

 

[DrBaalzamon]

Update to my earlier problem. Took my computer opened it up, got a fresh stick to test with and reconnected everything. Reseated the memory and its now working fine and has been for a while. I'll keep my eye on it but would hate to RMA. Probably just got jostled as I moved everything to the new case.

 

[·feist·]

Ivy bridge with next Geforce series- Fall 2011. Can I believe?!

Long shot. Ivy Bridge is most likely set for Q1 2012, with Q4 of this year being the debut of LGA 2011.

I was thinking about upgrading my video card from crossfire 4850s to a GTX 560 but my friend said that, unless I upgrade, my cpu(dual core 3.16) will just bottleneck it, and that I should get a 460 instead.

Any truth to that?

He's correct about the 560. Whether or not the 460 is a better buy depends on your upgrade plans - eventual CPU, ram, board. A 460 would still be held back, just less so than the 560. BTW, you might want to try and get that CPU up to ~3.8-4GHz, either way. Buy yourself some time.

well, the Accelero cooler wasn't enough for my dual-slot HD4870. it's crapped out, and i had to order a new card. went ahead and used some billmelater credit on an MSI 6850 Cyclone.

i want to upgrade at the end of the year, or the beginning of next year, but i want to be able to Crossfire my 6850 with another one. (looked up a bunch of benchmarks and reviews on 6850's, and they nearly double performance in Crossfire mode, while a lot of other cards don't show that drastic of a change when in Crossfire mode)

does running Crossfire in 16x/16x mode really matter? or is 8x/8x mode adequate enough?

recommend me a solid AMD chipset based mobo that has dual 16x lanes that run in 16x/16x mode? the Crosshair Formula is pretty expensive, as well as constantly out of stock...

EDIT: all of my research is giving me mixed results. tom's hardware says to get 16x/16x mode supported motherboards if at all possible, while other sites/forums are saying it doesn't really matter because the cards don't use all of the PCIe bandwidth yet.

16x/16x would be preferable for its added flexibility, though a good number of users are running 8x/8x, which is fine. Just stay away from 4x.




Since BitFenix's new Shinobi case is finally nearing release, and BitFenix is also working on their North America distribution, I thought I'd post this here. It's like the properly updated Antec 300 that Antec refuses to build. Should do very well priced at $60 US (non-windowed version).

A look at the BitFenix Shinobi Window and Shinobi cases
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxLfWk81lLE

BitFenix Shinobi Official Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIqJhOuFQK4

Preview BitFenix Shinobi - CasekingTV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCEIChm7wHY

 

[IchigoSharingan]

Ok, I think im going with a 2500k i5 for my rig so far. So are six cores needed right now?

well right now the 2500k is on sale at Microcenter so might as well future proof your new PC while you can.

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=2732629

[Microcenter] Intel Core i5 2500K ($180 + Tax) & i7 2600K ($280 + Tax) Unlocked Sandy Bridge Processors (In Store Only)


edit:
this would also be a good deal for Mr. Pockets

 

[Negator]

Damn, I just took a side by side comparison of all video cards I've ever bought.

Top to bottom: 2011 - 2008 - 2004

Getting slightly ridiculous...just saw that monster footlong dual GPU card.

 

[Zzoram]

Stupid question but...

Do Radeons work better with AMD CPUs? I thought maybe because AMD took over ATI and makes the GPUs now, they're the same company so they work together more efficiently perhaps?

Or does it just not matter one bit lol?

Doesn't matter

 

[shinobi602]

Doesn't matter

Ok great, thanks!

 

[Zzoram]

Ok great, thanks!

Buying a GPU is always just a price/performance game. No one company wins at every price point every generation, so what you buy depends on your budget. In the $150 space, the GTX460 768MB is probably king. In the ~$270 space, the HD6950 1GB is probably the best bet for 1920x1200 or lower, the 2GB version for 2560x1600.

 

[panda21]

so I built my PC about a year ago thanks to this thread (or its 2010 counterpart), and after about 9 months my GPU started getting super hot and noisy (5770)

I took it apart and reapplied thermal paste to the heat sink and tested it with furmark and played through medal of honour and it was fine.

After that I literally didn't use the computer at all for the last 3 months or so, but this weekend decided to fire it up again to play some dirt 2, and noticed the CPU (i5 750) had maxed at 90 degrees just from sitting in the menus.

So I took the fan off the motherboard (I'm using the stock one but it seems pretty good) and re-thermal pasted the cpu to the heatsink, and now that is back to normal as well, its getting up to like 50 degrees but I think that is ok.

But I'm wondering is this normal? Having to do this after a year seems way too soon. Is it just because the stock heatsinks weren't pasted very well in the first place and now it will be ok?

I've already added as many fans as I can fit in my case and I don't exactly live in a hot part of the world, its about 5 degrees outside at the moment.

Its cool being able to play games with amazing graphics and all but worrying about the cpu or gpu frying themselves spoil it a bit.

 

[Ashhong]

Hey guys, this question is more tech support ish, but that thread is dead and I need immediate help.

My computer is having trouble turning on. I turn it on, it works fine. I turn it off and on again, it wont boot. The fans turn on full blast and dont go down like normal. Also the lights on my keyboard go on and then off. If I wait like 30 minutes it will turn on again.

I have replaced my PSU and it has the same problem. Any ideas??

 

[reptilescorpio]

Alright looking to go i5 2500k with 8gig of Ripjaws and my current GTX460. I really want it to run quiet after dealing with my Q6600 and a 5 year old case that sounds like a 747 when I play games. Will buying a high wattage power supply keep it quieter?

 

[pseudocaesar]

I have a case already, just want to get some advice on this build. Where to save money and not lose too much power etc.
Phenom II X6 1090T Black edition
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=14169

Radeon 6970 2GB
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=16697

Corsair 2x4gb 1600mhz ddr3 dual channel ram
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=15938

Coolermast 750w psu
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=14857

Mobo
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=14750

 

[Knch]

Will buying a high wattage power supply keep it quieter?

No. Power supplies don't make much noise, so that won't help much. CPU cooler and case would be your best bets.

 

[NinjaTehFish]

Ok ,
Panda21 and ashhong,

Are you two in cahoots or is it just by chance that your avatars are two halves of a whole???

Ive smoked a few bongs tonight and its really freaking me out