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

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Lol I hate when I buy a new piece of hardware and go into that paranoid state of checking tons of stuff to make sure it's an improvement and whatnot. Rage and Crysis seem to be running well but I guess I have to wait til BF3 to make sure it's smooth!
 
bought all of my parts, they arrived today, and put together my build. Fans spinning, screen showing bios. SUCCESS.

then faaaaaaaaaaailure.

My one (and only) hard drive begins massive clicking sounds as soon as windows begins to prepare it for the install. 3 hours later, massive clicking and 2 percent installed progress.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Newegg RMA process sucks too. I have to pay shipping? bah
 
Do you guys think its worth it getting a 6950 when ive got a 4 core athlon? Or should i just grab a 6870? I was going to grab an h60 for it and oc it to 3.8ghz. ive had it at that speed befor but got too hot on the stock cooler :P.

I game at the res of 1680x1050. And im just going to end up playing Rift SC2 and Swtor bassically. i know ive asked stuff like this befor, but im unsure if a 6950 with that cpu is going to be a bottleneck or not.
 
So I know nothing about computers, but I was wondering what type of games the $900 build could run on max settings. I'm not expecting it to run modern games particularly well, but I just want something that can run maybe GTA IV nicely.
 
MedIC86 said:
I give you my new CPU block,

cant wait to test it :D

WC-070-XS_39144_400.jpg
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I'm normally against internal lights but that's dope.
 
The Mana Legend said:
So I know nothing about computers, but I was wondering what type of games the $900 build could run on max settings. I'm not expecting it to run modern games particularly well, but I just want something that can run maybe GTA IV nicely.
Click to expand...

The $900 build could run just about anything on max settings at 1080p, honestly. GTA IV is actually a very demanding game at max settings, though; the settings for various draw distances go beyond like five times the console settings. It would still be very easy to play GTA IV at 1080p with very high settings.

Edit - Note I'm not really talking about AA settings when I say "max settings", or PhysX settings for that matter.
 
Wallach said:
The $900 build could run just about anything on max settings at 1080p, honestly. GTA IV is actually a very demanding game at max settings, though; the settings for various draw distances go beyond like five times the console settings. It would still be very easy to play GTA IV at 1080p with very high settings.

Edit - Note I'm not really talking about AA settings when I say "max settings", or PhysX settings for that matter.
Click to expand...

Nice. I usually do not care at all about modern games (I usually pick them up a couple of years later when they are much cheaper), but my laptop is getting too old now to play games from 3 years ago on minimum settings (heck, it can't even play fairly undemanding modern games like Dungeon Siege 3 on minimum settings), so I'm thinking about upgrading, but I don't have enough to fully invest in a $2000 behemoth (and I won't for another two years or so).

So looks like this $900 build will be the one for me! Thanks!
 
The Mana Legend said:
Nice. I usually do not care at all about modern games (I usually pick them up a couple of years later when they are much cheaper), but my laptop is getting too old now to play games from 3 years ago on minimum settings (heck, it can't even play fairly undemanding modern games like Dungeon Siege 3 on minimum settings), so I'm thinking about upgrading, but I don't have enough to fully invest in a $2000 behemoth (and I won't for another two years or so).

So looks like this $900 build will be the one for me! Thanks!
Click to expand...

You're fine then. I mean that build is capable of playing anything at 1080p and will be for some time, so if you're going to use it to play stuff from 1-2 years ago it will chew through it easily.
 
Wallach said:
You're fine then. I mean that build is capable of playing anything at 1080p and will be for some time, so if you're going to use it to play stuff from 1-2 years ago it will chew through it easily.
Click to expand...

Is there a big enough difference between that one and the $1000 one that is worth the $100 price difference?
 
The Mana Legend said:
Is there a big enough difference between that one and the $1000 one that is worth the $100 price difference?
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Well, it has an 80 GB Intel SSD with the default build, which is where the price difference lies.

The build I'm currently on will probably be the last time I ever build a computer with mechanical hard drives. When you're dealing with an 80GB SSD/HDD setup though, you're not really going to be able to install games to the SSD regularly (since you'll need a significant chunk of it simply for the OS), so the SSD would be more about general OS performance boost. When you're installing games to your HDD still, the SSD isn't going to offer much of a boost for gaming specifically. You'd have to decide whether the faster boot times and stuff like that is worth the cash. Personally I'm of the opinion that you should either be running full SSD or no SSD; the value proposition of the compromise isn't very good in my eyes.
 
Ok, I might get lucky at a sale tomorrow
580 GTX DS for $200
6970 for $200
570 GTX Twin Frozr for $120

I already have the 6950, so I'm not sure what I should do.

I'm aware I could buy the 580 and 570 but I'm sure I'll get stabbed by people if I have both in hand.
 
RS4- said:
Ok, I might get lucky at a sale tomorrow
580 GTX DS for $200
6970 for $200
570 GTX Twin Frozr for $120

I already have the 6950, so I'm not sure what I should do.

I'm aware I could buy the 580 and 570 but I'm sure I'll get stabbed by people if I have both in hand.
Click to expand...

Mother of god, where is this sale?
 
Okay guys, i scrapped the last potential build and i'm prepared to go the extra mile.

Your Current Specs: Amd Athlon 64 x2 / 3gb ram / nvidia 430 / old ass usb 1.0 mobo..
Budget: £800, United Kingdom
Main Use: Heavy Gaming, Ableton & Reason audio production & rendering.
Monitor Resolution: 22" 1080p
Games : BF3, SKYRIM, WARHEAD, GTA4 for the sake of it..
Are reusing any parts?: N/A
When will you build?: As soon as the money arrives.. waiting on a transfer.. by the end of the month.
Will you be overclocking?: I doubt it. Not for a long time anyway.

Edit.. I'm stupid. I quite like the look of the sabertooth p67 1155 socket mobo. Has anyone got any remarks on it? Should i ignore it because its not in op?

oh oh, and.. could i get the general consensus for the - PowerColor HD 6850 PCS+ 1GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card

3rd edit..

Is their any reason why the 6850 is very very high in benchmarks but so cheap??
 
I already have a decent buid (2500k, 2GB 6950, ASUS p8p67) but i'm toying with the idea of 3D. I have a 3D TV in the lounge, which I could reach with a long HDMI cable, but ATI doesn't seem great for 3D support. Would I be better off switching to nvidia and if so, what card would be recommended? Need SLI for 3D or single card ok? Want something better than the compromises PS3 forces in 3D mode.
 
StaffordZ said:
Okay guys, i scrapped the last potential build and i'm prepared to go the extra mile.

Your Current Specs: Amd Athlon 64 x2 / 3gb ram / nvidia 430 / old ass usb 1.0 mobo..
Budget: £800, United Kingdom
Main Use: Heavy Gaming, Ableton & Reason audio production & rendering.
Monitor Resolution: 22" 1080p
Games : BF3, SKYRIM, WARHEAD, GTA4 for the sake of it..
Are reusing any parts?: N/A
When will you build?: As soon as the money arrives.. waiting on a transfer.. by the end of the month.
Will you be overclocking?: I doubt it. Not for a long time anyway.

Edit.. I'm stupid. I quite like the look of the sabertooth p67 1155 socket mobo. Has anyone got any remarks on it? Should i ignore it because its not in op?

oh oh, and.. could i get the general consensus for the - PowerColor HD 6850 PCS+ 1GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card

3rd edit..

Is their any reason why the 6850 is very very high in benchmarks but so cheap??
Click to expand...
Do you need to buy the monitor in that budget? Because if not you'll easily get a decent system for less than that, maybe enough spare to consider an SSD.

I5 2500k, 6950 2GB, 4/8GB ram and new case, PSu etc should be around £600

2GB 6950 - £200
8GB ram - £38
i5 2500k - £166
1TB samsung spinpoint - £57 (seems really high, sure mine was more like £35 6 months ago..)
motherboard Asus P6P87 - £80
heatsink - 212+ - £25
Case - £50 (or reuse what you have, or buy a really expensive one)
PSU - XFX 550W - £50

total - £650
 
mrklaw said:
I already have a decent buid (2500k, 2GB 6950, ASUS p8p67) but i'm toying with the idea of 3D. I have a 3D TV in the lounge, which I could reach with a long HDMI cable, but ATI doesn't seem great for 3D support. Would I be better off switching to nvidia and if so, what card would be recommended? Need SLI for 3D or single card ok? Want something better than the compromises PS3 forces in 3D mode.
Click to expand...

Nvidia has better 3D support in general yes. Or at least it's much better integrated in the drivers.

However do keep in mind there is a distinction between the Nvidia 3D Vision you read about, and what you can use on a 3D TV. 3D Vision needs a 120 hz LCD screen that accepts a 120 hz (DVI) input, which you'll only find on the 3D Vision certified PC monitors (and some select projectors I guess)

for a 3D TV, Nvidia has 3DTV Play which is a seperate driver software expansion you have to purchase($40). It then functions like your TV would with a PS3 , meaning you use your TVs own glasses and so on. This means you'll also be limited to the usual TV limitations, namely 60 fps 720p 3D or 24 fps 1080p 3D. You'll be choosing 720p because of the fps obviously.

Furthermore I have read about people not being very enthusiastic about their TV's performance in 3D games (crosstalk and stuff like that), even with Nvidia cards. But if you are satisfied with the PS3 but want more graphical options and better Anti-Aliasing I guess it could be an option. Well the only option really :p Still I'd try to check it out first, if you know someone with an Nvidia card have them come over because you can get a 14 day trial for the 3DTV Play software

As for the card, I suppose 720p 3D is about as heavy as 1080p 2D is going by the amount of pixels and rendering them twice for 3D ... which means you'll want at least a 560ti I guess, maybe something beefier for future games. (SLI in the future isn't possible with the regular p8p67 I believe)
 
I'm having some problems getting a hybrid PhysX set up running. Reposting this from the Batman Arkham City PC footage thread:

Crunched said:
plagiarize said:
Try plugging it into a monitor and see if it shows up then. At some point you used to have to do that but with the right driver version it isn't necessary. I'll check which drivers I have when I get a chance.
Click to expand...
I've done that. When a DVI cable is attached to the 240 or 250 and they are in my 2nd or 3rd PCIe slot, the PC will not boot. It stays in a blank screen at POST. If I start it up using my 5870 as the primary adapter, then switch to the 240 or 250, I simply get a black screen until I use my 5870 again.

The 240 and 250 both work when they are in the primary slot. But as soon as I move them to slot 2 or 3, they are undetected by everything. Nvidia drivers can't find them, and they're not listed under hardware manager or gpu-z.

I can't test slots 2 or 3 with my 5870 because it's too big. There's not enough room to sit it right because it would have to crush my SATA connectors.

They both work fine under the primary slot. I've done this before too, with my 250 in the second slot. No issues at all back then (about a year ago I guess?).
Click to expand...

I'm starting to think that something is going on with my motherboard, and maybe slots 2 and 3 have died. Has anyone here run into issues like this?
 
Just spent 4 hours assembling my new PC, gawd.

Fuck you Seasonic for your short ass cables. (520w M12)
Fuck you NZXT for the tiny space you provide behind the motherboard. (Lexa S)

Oh yeah, another fuck you to to the two of you for having IDE plugs that simply will not stick together. I had to tape them, otherwise they'll break loose at the slightest touch.

By the way, fuck you PC store that sold me a UPS with sockets that do not belong anywhere near the continent.
 
TheExodu5 said:
Heh, I always recommend Corsair now just because of cable length.
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Yeah, and that's the main reason I recommend against the OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w (which I got on a very large discount so that almost made it worth it). The cables are ultra short.
 
I was actually gonna buy a Corsair but they ran out of CX600 and GS600. :/ I thought I'd be getting something a bit better since the Seasonic is modular but dem cable lengths.

Overall performance is still sweet though. I installed Win7 in like 5 minutes (USB->SSD) including settings and restarts. I have an HD 5850 Xtreme, but going from X2 5000+ to i3-2100 bumped my average framerate from about 60 to 180 on max.

Sleeplessnights said:
Just reading through the OP, went to the newegg page. Why would you need a sound card when the motherboard already got sounds ports?
Click to expand...
Yeah, and it's also out of stock right now. : /
 
chaosblade said:
Because onboard audio is pretty poor.
Click to expand...

I could have guessed that, I suppose.

Edit: After fully reading the OP I realised building a PC is going to push my patience to the limits. (Not being able to use it right away, having to wait weeks/months to get to buy everything etc.) I find that as a really great challenge, I'm up for it!
 
I would be thankful, if someone can help me with this. I don't want to spend much money, I'm looking for the best upgrade vs. money spend. My current spec is:

CPU: Core2Quad Q9400
Motherboard: Gigabyte EP35-DS4
RAM: 4GB DDR2
GPU: GeForce GTX 260
OS: Windows Vista 64-bit

What is the best upgrade? Will this motherboard be able to handle i5? Or maybe I should change GPU first?
 
Guess I just upgraded from 4GB 1600 to 8 GB 16....what programs will I see improvement on? Just multitasking in general?

I work in Graphics so Im expecting a huge difference in compression/decompression of Adobe Illustrator files and etc..
 
Totobeni said:
So what is best and cheapest nvidia card to use as a dedicated PhysX processor?
Click to expand...
Depends on what your main video card is because you don't want a weak Physx that would limit your framerate or vice versa. For example, if you got a GTX 580, you wouldn't want to use a GT 240 for Physx.
 
so i order my stuff and get it (2500k, 570, 8 gigs ddr3) and i remember i threw the damn box away eons ago of my modular psu so im short 1 6 pin pcix cable (my old 280 used 1 8 and 1 6...) so now I have to wait a week for thermaltake to send my cable (with 11 dollars fucking shipping on top of it).


fml

ive got battlefield 3 coming launch date from amazon also


double fml...
 
Castor Krieg said:
I would be thankful, if someone can help me with this. I don't want to spend much money, I'm looking for the best upgrade vs. money spend. My current spec is:

CPU: Core2Quad Q9400
Motherboard: Gigabyte EP35-DS4
RAM: 4GB DDR2
GPU: GeForce GTX 260
OS: Windows Vista 64-bit

What is the best upgrade? Will this motherboard be able to handle i5? Or maybe I should change GPU first?
Click to expand...
your motherbard is socket 775 and will not be able to accept and i5 processor.

if you dont want to have to upgrade your entire system, I would say go for a new graphics card. what card to get depends on your budget
 
MikeE21286 said:
if you dont want to have to upgrade your entire system, I would say go for a new graphics card. what card to get depends on your budget
Click to expand...

Can I get any GPU I want, or will it be somehow limited by my CPU and OS? What's the best choice in sub-200$ range?
 
Castor Krieg said:
Can I get any GPU I want, or will it be somehow limited by my CPU and OS? What's the best choice in sub-200$ range?
Click to expand...

Either a 560 ti or an HD6950 would be a good bump up in that price range. On sale, you should be able to find either around the $200 mark.

Make sure they fit in your case/your PSU has the proper connections, etc.

Shameless plug:

Anyone buying BF3 for the PC: The PC community will have a 64 player conquest server up on launch day. Details are located in the community thread if you're interested. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=442227
 
RS4- said:
Ok, I might get lucky at a sale tomorrow
580 GTX DS for $200
6970 for $200
570 GTX Twin Frozr for $120

I already have the 6950, so I'm not sure what I should do.

I'm aware I could buy the 580 and 570 but I'm sure I'll get stabbed by people if I have both in hand.
Click to expand...

Sweet baby jesus Im defly gonna pick that up!
 
Castor Krieg said:
Can I get any GPU I want, or will it be somehow limited by my CPU and OS? What's the best choice in sub-200$ range?
Click to expand...

OS won't limit you at all.

The CPU will probably turn into your main bottleneck after you upgrade your graphics card, but upgrading the GPU first will give you the most bang for your buck out of ~$200.

That way you can wait until next year until Ivy Bridge releases and update your mobo/cpu/ram then.


Like Lordcanti said, you're probably gonna want to look at either the 560Ti or the 6950 1GB (you most likely won't need above the 1GB version, and it also wouldn't fit into your price range). These cards might run a bit above $200, so I would deal hunt and try to find some that get rebates.


XFX 6950 1GB (w/ Free Dirt 3) - $239.99 - $30 mail-in-rebate = $209.99 at newegg

The Nvidia cards are coming with Batman now (I think it's any card that is a 560 Ti or better)

There's a couple that you can get for about $200 at newegg right now after mail-in-rebate

560 Ti at newegg
 
This is probably a dumb question, but what's the difference between a GPU's memory size and effective memory clock? I thought my 560ti had 1gb of vram but when I was doing the BF3 canyourunit test thing it says I have 4 gigs? Because my card has 4104 Mhz of memory on da clock...I'm confused!
 
So how much does overclocking really help? Like I said before, I know nothing about computers (so numbers won't help me understand), and am looking into the ~$900 (obviously I'd have someone else overclock it for me). Like, how much would it help game performance, for example?
 
The Mana Legend said:
So how much does overclocking really help? Like I said before, I know nothing about computers (so numbers won't help me understand), and am looking into the ~$900 (obviously I'd have someone else overclock it for me). Like, how much would it help game performance, for example?
Click to expand...

Depends on the overclock, but for CPU's, especially the Sandy Bridge, you can easily get an easy 30% increase in performance with a simple overclock.
 
I have an annoying problem. My chrome always seems to freeze up for about a minute or so. "Waiting for cache" I did a fresh install of windows 7 too.
 
luka said:
I'm currently deciding between a GTX 560 ti and a 570 to replace my 4870x2 (awful microstutter). The 560ti is less painful on the wallet, but would it at least be moderately better than what I have now? I play everything at 1080p with 4xAA.
I've been a bit out of the hardware loop lately.

edit: looking at these two atm:
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=58303&vpn=N560GTX-TI%20Twin%20Frozr%20II%2FOC&manufacture=MSI%2FMicroStar

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=61199&vpn=02G-P3-1469-KR&manufacture=eVGA
Click to expand...
i read somewhere that 2x is all you need at 1080p.
 
vaelic said:
nice. I have stock cooling so do you know any good/safe guides out there for the 5850?
Click to expand...

Stock cooling limits your options a bit, unless you don't mind noise/temps. As for a guide, I don't know of one off the top of my head. There should be a few out there though for stock.
 
LordCanti said:
Stock cooling limits your options a bit, unless you don't mind noise/temps. As for a guide, I don't know of one off the top of my head. There should be a few out there though for stock.
Click to expand...
have any suggestions for a non stock fan, to purchase?
 
luka said:
I'm currently deciding between a GTX 560 ti and a 570 to replace my 4870x2 (awful microstutter). The 560ti is less painful on the wallet, but would it at least be moderately better than what I have now? I play everything at 1080p with 4xAA.
I've been a bit out of the hardware loop lately.

edit: looking at these two atm:
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=58303&vpn=N560GTX-TI%20Twin%20Frozr%20II%2FOC&manufacture=MSI%2FMicroStar

http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=61199&vpn=02G-P3-1469-KR&manufacture=eVGA
Click to expand...

You'll be looking at a downgrade in performance with the 560 Ti and on par performance with the 570.
 
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