"I need a New PC!" 2011 Thread of reading the OP. Seriously. [Part 2]

Status
Not open for further replies.
Would the Phenom II x4 840 at 3.2GHz be a decent upgrade from my Phenom x4 9850 that's 2.5GHz?

I can't find ANY comparisons between the two and most topics are about 9850 users jumping to the 940 but I can get the 840 for $50 with a motherboard.

Would it be worth it for 50 bucks? I'm more confused about 840 after reading about it...lol. I know it doesn't have an L3 cache which I don't even know what it is, but the clock speed is a lot higher.

Specifically, would that be good for BF3 or worse? People have said BF3 likes quad cores with more threads so is the 840 better for that game specifically or worse?
 
Hey guys, So I asked around and I got this set up. I'm hoping to get some feedback.

Case:COOLER MASTER HAF 922
GPU: EVGA 012-P3-1571-AR GeForce GTX 570 HD
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost)
M/B: ASUS P7P55D-E LX LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
PSU: Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-750 750W ATX12V v2.3
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3
Burner: ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner

How is it looking?
 
catabarez said:
Hey guys, So I asked around and I got this set up. I'm hoping to get some feedback.

Case:COOLER MASTER HAF 922
GPU: EVGA 012-P3-1571-AR GeForce GTX 570 HD
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost)
M/B: ASUS P7P55D-E LX LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
PSU: Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-750 750W ATX12V v2.3
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3
Burner: ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner

How is it looking?
Click to expand...

lol u need different mobo. you need LGA 1155 mobo not 1156. :)

Search through this list for the mobo you want: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=100007627 600093976&IsNodeId=1&name=LGA 1155

also, i'd switch to a higher quality PSU. Antec is meh with their PSU's.

HDD should be a Samsung Spinpoint F3.
 
demolitio said:
Would the Phenom II x4 840 at 3.2GHz be a decent upgrade from my Phenom x4 9850 that's 2.5GHz?

I can't find ANY comparisons between the two and most topics are about 9850 users jumping to the 940 but I can get the 840 for $50 with a motherboard.

Would it be worth it for 50 bucks? I'm more confused about 840 after reading about it...lol. I know it doesn't have an L3 cache which I don't even know what it is, but the clock speed is a lot higher.

Specifically, would that be good for BF3 or worse? People have said BF3 likes quad cores with more threads so is the 840 better for that game specifically or worse?
Click to expand...
It would be an improvement, but I don't think it's worth investing in. Granted, you're not going to find anything better for the price. It's just that you're going from a dated, older CPU to a slightly less dated, older midrange CPU. And you're going to have minimal options for upgrading. 9xx series won't be a big step up from the 8xx series, and the socket is dead so anything better and you'll need another new motherboard.

8xx series CPUs are binned 9xx parts that didn't make the cut, so in the case of the 840 they disabled some bad L3 cache and are selling it as a different, cheaper product.
 
LabouredSubterfuge said:
Need a little help!!

Okay, so at 1080p resolution the display is way over the edges of the screen. So I'm missing a whole lot of the picture round the edges. I'm using a 1080p Sharp LCD TV (Sharp Aquos LC 42XD1E). I can't find any options for overscan on my TV at all and I've never had this problem with anything else before.

At the moment I'm having to use the resize function to make it a weird custom resolution just to fit everything on the screen and it's not very satisfactory at all. My GPU is the GTX 580.
Click to expand...

Re-posting for a new page. I'd be so grateful if someone could help out.
 
LabouredSubterfuge said:
Re-posting for a new page. I'd be so grateful if someone could help out.
Click to expand...
Found via google, may help.
http://www.avforums.com/forums/6066504-post5.html
You want to turn off overscan to get pixel-for-pixel display. On the Sharp remote, under the flap, between sleep and OPC, hit that button. You want the 'underscan' setting, not the 'full' setting. Bizarrely, Sharp call overscan-on 'full' and overscan-off 'underscan'.
Click to expand...
 
My Intel 320 SSD just arrived from the RMA process. Hopefully this one will not have the 8mb bug -_-.

I looked on the internet, and the explanations have been pretty complicated. So i would greatly appreciate it if someone could give me easy to follow instructions.

When i sent my SSD to intel, i installed W7 on my HDD. Now that my SSD is here, i would like to install W7 on it. How do i go about doing this without erasing things from my HDD? Do i have to delete W7 from my HDD? If so, how?

EDIT: Got it working!
 
What's the deal with sound cards compared to onboard sound? Is a $30 sound card going to improve the sound quality much on a ~$200 mobo? What about a ~$75 card? Would I need a certain quality of headphones/speakers to take advantage of one? The benefits seem much more intangible to gauge compared to other components. It definitely seems like the kind of thing you could add on later though with relative ease as a relatively cheap upgrade.
 
So, I've had this logitech 5.1 surround system for my PC. It was ok, but felt a bit "empty" sounding. I was only using 4 of the surround speakers, as there was just no where to put the center channel speaker. I have little room under my monitor, and putting it between my monitor and my keyboard was just too close.

I was shopping around for a new speaker set for BF3, and I noticed this image on amazon for my current speakers:

logitechx-540-clip.jpg


Mind completely blown. The center speaker is designed to clip onto the top of a flatscreen monitor! I would have never guessed. Now I've got bumping 5.1 blasting out of my PC set up.
 
LabouredSubterfuge said:
Jesus fuck this is amazing.

<3 PC gaming.
Click to expand...
I am keeping that link as well. I have a Sharp TV so I'll keep it in mind if I want to stream from my computer.

As a side note/question, is an SSD recommended nowadays? I'm looking at reformatting my computer pretty shortly here before school starts up again and I'm thinking it might be time to make the SSD jump.
 
nemss said:
I'm in the market for a new set of gaming headphones.

What would be a great recommendation? Looking to spend $100-150.
Click to expand...
Audio Technica AD700's from amazon. Only $90 and sounds amazing.
 
Ok, judging by the reaction in that other thread this hasn't been posted here yet.

EVGA GTX460 on sale tomorow for $89. Two-day sale to celebrate EVGA's 12th anniversary. No word yet on whether it's the 1gb or 768mb, but the website currently only stocks the 1gb so here's hoping.

http://www.evga.com/deals

This came from CAG and hasn't been officially confirmed or anything, so take that as you will.
 
Want to build my first PC, not entirely sure about compatibility between parts. This is the build I'm thinking of (highly influenced by the computer Tested built a few months back):

Case: Fractal Design R3 Black ATX Mid Tower Silent PC Case
GPU: EVGA 01G-P3-1371-TR GeForce GTX 460 or GeForce GTX 560 Ti (460 is supposedly dirt cheap tomorrow)
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor
M/B: ASUS P8P67 PRO (REV 3.1) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V
HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM SATA Internal Drive
RAM: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2x4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM

Some cheapish dvd drive, a wireless adapter, keyboard, windows 7 64 bit oem. already have a monitor and mouse.

Not going for top of the line, but a good pc that can handle most games fairly well. Any issues/changes that should be made? Do I need a cpu fan/heatsink? Am I missing a crucial component that will render the build utterly useless?

Thanks PCGAf
 
Baller said:
Ok, judging by the reaction in that other thread this hasn't been posted here yet.

EVGA GTX460 on sale tomorow for $89. Two-day sale to celebrate EVGA's 12th anniversary. No word yet on whether it's the 1gb or 768mb, but the website currently only stocks the 1gb so here's hoping.

http://www.evga.com/deals

This came from CAG and hasn't been officially confirmed or anything, so take that as you will.
Click to expand...

Saw that. Definitely tempting since 2 GTX460s in SLI are supposed to beat out a GTX 570. Think I'll have to pass though since I don't think I want to go through the troubles of figuring out SLI in my first build and I'll be able to SLI the 570 in the future when I want to upgrade, perhaps saving a bit of money in the long run.
 
Baller said:
Ok, judging by the reaction in that other thread this hasn't been posted here yet.

EVGA GTX460 on sale tomorow for $89. Two-day sale to celebrate EVGA's 12th anniversary. No word yet on whether it's the 1gb or 768mb, but the website currently only stocks the 1gb so here's hoping.

http://www.evga.com/deals

This came from CAG and hasn't been officially confirmed or anything, so take that as you will.
Click to expand...
Worth it to upgrade from a 5770 1GB?
 
Baller said:
Ok, judging by the reaction in that other thread this hasn't been posted here yet.

EVGA GTX460 on sale tomorow for $89. Two-day sale to celebrate EVGA's 12th anniversary. No word yet on whether it's the 1gb or 768mb, but the website currently only stocks the 1gb so here's hoping.

http://www.evga.com/deals

This came from CAG and hasn't been officially confirmed or anything, so take that as you will.
Click to expand...

Wow, great deal. I'd be on that. I've heard good things about the 460. Is the EVGA version a good overclocker?
 
So this may be a silly question but it's my first SSD and I'm not sure if this is normal. I've noticed that the size of free space on the drive is getting lower for some unknown reason. I've not installed anything new to the drive (it's my OS drive) but for some reason I went from having 57.6GB free yesterday to only 41.2GB today and then shot up to 41.3GB a bit ago. The only thing I have installed is a new version of iTunes but I don't see any reason why that would lop off nearly 17GB of data.

I have system restore turned off, the drive is not being compressed, trim is enabled and I don't hibernate the PC, etc. and I've cleaned up any dump error files and temporary files I could find. What am I missing here?
 
Baller said:
Ok, judging by the reaction in that other thread this hasn't been posted here yet.

EVGA GTX460 on sale tomorow for $89. Two-day sale to celebrate EVGA's 12th anniversary. No word yet on whether it's the 1gb or 768mb, but the website currently only stocks the 1gb so here's hoping.

http://www.evga.com/deals

This came from CAG and hasn't been officially confirmed or anything, so take that as you will.
Click to expand...
Probably the SE 1GB which is slower than the regular 460 by a decent amount.
Hope I'm wrong and there a lot of cards!

Been busy again this week.
EVO and MLG going to eat my time over the weekend.
 
Baller said:
Ok, judging by the reaction in that other thread this hasn't been posted here yet.

EVGA GTX460 on sale tomorow for $89. Two-day sale to celebrate EVGA's 12th anniversary. No word yet on whether it's the 1gb or 768mb, but the website currently only stocks the 1gb so here's hoping.

http://www.evga.com/deals

This came from CAG and hasn't been officially confirmed or anything, so take that as you will.
Click to expand...
That would be awesome if they don't charge a ridiculous shipping cost seeing as even $89 would be pushing it for me currently. Hopefully it's not a gimped 460 version.
 
Futurevoid said:
So this may be a silly question but it's my first SSD and I'm not sure if this is normal. I've noticed that the size of free space on the drive is getting lower for some unknown reason. I've not installed anything new to the drive (it's my OS drive) but for some reason I went from having 57.6GB free yesterday to only 41.2GB today and then shot up to 41.3GB a bit ago. The only thing I have installed is a new version of iTunes but I don't see any reason why that would lop off nearly 17GB of data.

I have system restore turned off, the drive is not being compressed, trim is enabled and I don't hibernate the PC, etc. and I've cleaned up any dump error files and temporary files I could find. What am I missing here?
Click to expand...
Page File is set to 1.5x of your current ram and since you're "missing" 17GB of space. Sounds like you have 12GB of ram so you could manually set your page file or remove it in general.
 
For anyone wanting to manage their space, I suggest downloading the free version of TreeSize. It lists your folders by size, so you can narrow down what's taking up room on your SSD.
 
Page File is set to 1.5x of your current ram and since you're "missing" 17GB of space. Sounds like you have 12GB of ram so you could manually set your page file or remove it in general.
Click to expand...
I actually have 8GB of ram and page file is currently set to 8174 according to Windows. Is the page file necessary with that much RAM?
 
I posted this in the laptop thread but I'll post here in case someone here who doesn't look in the other thread knows:

Not sure if I should ask this here or make a new thread but I'll try asking anyways.

I was trying to install FF XIV off the disc but when I click the DVD Drive in My Computer it gives me the "Insert Disc" pop-up and ejects the disc tray. I tried uninstalling the drive in Device Manager and restarting my laptop, but it still gives me the same error.

Any advice?
Click to expand...
 
Futurevoid said:
I actually have 8GB of ram and page file is currently set to 8174 according to Windows. Is the page file necessary with that much RAM?
Click to expand...
Not if you're using SSD, I only changed my pagefile to 2gb cause some programs asked for pagefiles. This website may help you out a bit.
 
So I plugged in my 4gb usb key for the first time earlier today and Windows said something about being able to use it to make my computer faster? Does it just use it like more RAM or what? Sounds cool, if so, but I already have 6gb ram and don't really need it. Neat feature though, I guess.
 
And done....it's been about 6 years since I built a PC. Freaked out when I only plugged in the 24 pin power and didn't plug in the 8 pin...but I'm up and running. Now which game to play?

1r3m9j.jpg
 
Definity said:
And done....it's been about 6 years since I built a PC. Freaked out when I only plugged in the 24 pin power and didn't plug in the 8 pin...but I'm up and running. Now which game to play?
Click to expand...
Just Cause 2!
 
I was going to start a build in a few months, very close to the $1000 build in the OP. Even if I don't have a computer for them for a few months, do you think two 460s in SLI at $179 would be a good alternative to the 570? Would I need to make any other changes to the build for SLI?
 
Bungieware said:
Need help on my build. Main focus is to play BF3 and Skyrim on medium to high, but not to spend half my budget on a GTX 580. The prices I'm quoting are from ebuyer.com (UK). I'm a bit uneducated when it comes to this sort of thing, but I scanned the thread and other forums to look at what parts were considered the best in their price range. If you see anything that looks unnecessary, poor value for money, better price elsewhere or poor quality, please please please let me know:

HD: Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache £40.98
CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor £163.29
Fan: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus Socket 775, 1156,1155 AM2, 1366, AM3 Processor Cooler £26.36
Case: Fractal Design Define R3 Black Pearl Case £75.98
GPU: MSI GTX 560Ti TWIN FROZR II 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Out PCI-E Graphics Card £193.47 (was told MSI or ASUS DirectCU II were considered the best out of these, but MSI runs coolest)
RAM: ? (At least 2x 2GB)
Motherboard: ? (Something good that goes best with the above)
PSU: ? (according to you guys I need 500W)
DVD: (something good that goes best with the above)

I'm going to do the building myself, but my brother who has built a few PC's will be on hand if I need him.
Click to expand...

Can anyone help me out with this?
 
sweet i got everything installed and its working great. now i have the geforce gtx 560 and installed the drivers with the cd that came in the package.... should i do anything else to it to have it running at optimal performance?
 
Alright.



So, for my 21st birthday, my parents say they want to get me a PC. This will be the first PC I ever make (currently posting from a laptop), and frankly, I don't understand a lot of this stuff, so I'm going to need a lot of help and recommendations from my friends and from you guys.


The first order of business is whether or not I should take advantage of the sale tomorrow and get that 460 for ninety bucks. I was thinking of making a high-mid-range machine, since I want to be able to play the quite large quantity of games I've been amassing during Steam sales well, while not blowing huge sums of cash on tech that's on the bleeding edge right now, but will be easily outperformed and plummet in price within the next year or so. Is the 460 a good option for the time being? Will it be able to play Crysis? Will it be able to play Skyrim well when it comes out? What about Battlefield 3?

I've also heard that this card is hotter and uses more power than its successor cards. This is actually kind of an issue, since a month from now I'll be living in a small room in a very old house that I'll be sharing with a bunch of other people, and overheating and fire are concerns (I don't know how well-ventilated my room will be, and that house could probably burn up like a box of matches). Should I be concerned? Do other cards have a clear-cut advantage in the heat/power-consumption environment?


Thanks for looking over all my stupid questions.
 
Does anyone know whether the MSI 580GTX Twin Frozr II/OC is based off a custom or reference PCB design? I might get the Accelero XTREME Plus II just to further reduce noise and heat.
 
Bit off topic for this thread, but does anyone have any recommendations for a password manager or something of the sort? Just reinstalled my OS and I realized I don't remember half the passwords I used for things :/
 
Definity said:
And done....it's been about 6 years since I built a PC. Freaked out when I only plugged in the 24 pin power and didn't plug in the 8 pin...but I'm up and running. Now which game to play?

1r3m9j.jpg
Click to expand...

lookin good!

i'm always bummed when i see how peoples newly built PC's look, with the cables nice and put away.... then i look at mine and there are a gajillion cables by default :/
 
What's a great touchscreen based fan controller? Looking for one for my R3 and want a touchscreen so it can fit. Needs PWM support so i can controll my cpu fan
 
CarbonatedFalcon said:
What's the deal with sound cards compared to onboard sound? Is a $30 sound card going to improve the sound quality much on a ~$200 mobo? What about a ~$75 card? Would I need a certain quality of headphones/speakers to take advantage of one? The benefits seem much more intangible to gauge compared to other components. It definitely seems like the kind of thing you could add on later though with relative ease as a relatively cheap upgrade.
Click to expand...
I would also be interested in this.
 
Sethos said:
Does anyone know whether the MSI 580GTX Twin Frozr II/OC is based off a custom or reference PCB design? I might get the Accelero XTREME Plus II just to further reduce noise and heat.
Click to expand...

according to the EK site they are

afaik only the MSI Lightning cards have custom PCBs
 
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series, 1gb ram
CPU: Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E5300 @ 2.60GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.6GHz
M/B: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EP41-UD3L
RAM: 4gb

This is my current build, I'm looking to upgrade my GPU and CPU (and HDD but I think I've got that covered).

Looking at this for the GPU, let me know what you think of the card (I'm in Australia): http://www.pclan.com.au/sapphire-ati...88-01-40g.html

As for the CPU, I'm wanting to make the move to quad core, a friend recommended a core 2 quad 9550, but I'm having trouble finding any cheapish/second-hand ones (I'm hoping to get something for less than $150). If anyone knows of somewhere that sells them second-hand or is looking to sell one of their own, let me know (In Australia obviously).

Alternatively, if you guys would recommend another CPU (of similar power) that's around the $150 mark, that'd also be welcome.

Cheers.
 
okey fellow gaffers,

can one of you give me a straight answer on this question:

will I be able to run a rig with:

- Intel i5 2500
- GTX 560 Ti
- Asus P8P67 mobo
- 1 tb F3 Samsung HD

on a XFX Core Edition 450 Watt or is this selling myself short?
In the OP it says that a 450W/550W would be sufficient but I'm not sure which one they meant for the 560 Ti.

I don't wanna budget on a PSU but if it's possible I don't wanna overdo it either :)
 
Ryan_ said:
okey fellow gaffers,

can one of you give me a straight answer on this question:

will I be able to run a rig with:

- Intel i5 2500
- GTX 560 Ti
- Asus P8P67 mobo
- 1 tb F3 Samsung HD

on a XFX Core Edition 450 Watt or is this selling myself short?
In the OP it says that a 450W/550W would be sufficient but I'm not sure which one they meant for the 560 Ti.

I don't wanna budget on a PSU but if it's possible I don't wanna overdo it either :)
Click to expand...
You want 500w minimum.
 
Is there any difference between a Z68 and P67 motherboard in terms of overclocking? I'm not bothered about the ssd cache feature nor the use of the integrated gpu but was wondering if there are any other differences in terms of overclocking or other benefits?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

NeoGAF Digital Key Giveaway Thread - Read Instructions in OP
Staff  4 5 6 7 8
359
6K
GrayChild replied
The Last of Us Part II - PC Version | Review Thread
Community Platform 
25
2K
viveks86 replied
Alien: Rogue Incursion - Part One: Evolved Edition - Reviews Thread (The Non-VR version of the game)
7
215
IbizaPocholo replied
Naughty Dog And Nixxes On The PC Port Of The Last Of Us Part II: “We Take The Steam Deck Very, Very Seriously”
12
912
MiguelItUp replied
Digital Foundry: The Last of Us Part 2 PC Review - We're Disappointed - Analysis + Optimised Settings
7 8 9 10 11
540
31K
yamaci17 replied
Top Bottom