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"I need a New PC!" 2012 Thread. 22nm+28nm, Tri-Gate, and reading the OP. [Part 1]

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1-D_FTW

Member
So I'm pretty much stuck with an AM3+ mobo.

Do you guys recommend eventually getting a whole new Intel mobo, or will AMD pull their shit together?

AMD has openly declared that the future is mobile and that's where they're putting their eggs. I wouldn't expect any great surprises in the desktop space from them.
 
Damn it :(

I have a Phenom II X4 965.

I was hoping I didn't have to take everything apart and buy a whole new mobo, CPU, another copy of Windows, etc T___T
 
B

bomb

Unconfirmed Member
Best way to move Windows 7 onto a new PC? What if I need to get back on the old computer?

Thank you.
 

NeOak

Member
Damn it :(

I have a Phenom II X4 965.

I was hoping I didn't have to take everything apart and buy a whole new mobo, CPU, another copy of Windows, etc T___T

Buy a watercooler and OC it. You can reuse the watercooler when you change systems.

Is a 550W PS sufficient for this build? http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8eEM

Also any recommendations for a 23 inch monitor? I dont really care for 3D.

That one is 550W continuous, so its good.

Best way to move Windows 7 onto a new PC? What if I need to get back on the old computer?

Thank you.

Windows Easy Transfer
 

Doc Holliday

SPOILER: Columbus finds America
Best way to move Windows 7 onto a new PC? What if I need to get back on the old computer?

Thank you.

If you're keeping your hard drives use Sysprep. I used it to swap out my Motherboard and CPU. It basically it gets rid of most of the drivers except the only ones need to run windows initially. After you get your system going, it will go through the setup process but Windows will keep all your files.
 

Karmum

Banned
No, of course I haven't bought a brand with a previous bad track record - I'm not an idiot. You are judging it by buying it and it just works, like you'd expect it to do? Like being amazed at buying a car and it actually runs.

This is about long term reliability, about reputation, it's about taking a gamble.

Rosewill have had some dodgy ass models and they haven't got the best reputation. They did clean up their act a bit but they still make average stuff, so why buy a top-of-the-line PC and shuve' that crap in there to save a few dollars. Get something that is actually top shelf that is known for reliability, known for their quality and known for really good voltage numbers and stability.
What's the consensus on XIGMATEK PSUs? They never sent me a check after I filled out a MIR, which I'm 110% sure I filled it correctly. Just out of curiosity anyway.

700w PSU was $74.95 at the time anyway.
 
B

bomb

Unconfirmed Member
If you're keeping your hard drives use Sysprep. I used it to swap out my Motherboard and CPU. It basically it gets rid of most of the drivers except the only ones need to run windows initially. After you get your system going, it will go through the setup process but Windows will keep all your files.

I am moving from a HDD to SSD and would like windows on the SSD.
 

Shambles

Member
What's the consensus on XIGMATEK PSUs? They never sent me a check after I filled out a MIR, which I'm 110% sure I filled it correctly. Just out of curiosity anyway.

700w PSU was $74.95 at the time anyway.

They don't have any XIGMATIEKs on their site but Hardware Secrets is one of the best sites for PSU reviews. They obviously won't review every tier of every model but you get a good idea if the 650W version of a PSU is decent if the 750W version they did review turns out great.
 
I just noticed that my Motherboard memory channel support is dual channel, but the RAM I bought is 16gb(4x4gb) quad channel.

Will I run into any problems with that or will I be able to get my full memory without any hassle ?
 

Doc Holliday

SPOILER: Columbus finds America
I am moving from a HDD to SSD and would like windows on the SSD.

Yea, I would do fresh install and add your old HD after you're done. Can you backup the HDD? I have my os on the SSD and my User Profile in my HDD. You might have to fresh install to do that.
 

Chris R

Member
Speaking of HDD and SSD, is there a best way to setup partitions? I mean should I partition my SSD to have space for a windows install and then the rest of the SSD and leave the HDD as a single partition?
 
Damn it :(

I have a Phenom II X4 965.

I was hoping I didn't have to take everything apart and buy a whole new mobo, CPU, another copy of Windows, etc T___T

Get used to it. Even Intel isn't immune. Socket 1155 is going away with Haswell, so even if you got a Z67/Z77 board now you'd still need to swap it out later.

If you have a retail copy of Windows (not the OEM version) you can move the license without any problems.
 

mkenyon

Banned
Speaking of HDD and SSD, is there a best way to setup partitions? I mean should I partition my SSD to have space for a windows install and then the rest of the SSD and leave the HDD as a single partition?
It's all preference. If you like partitions, partition away.
 

MrBig

Member
Damn it :(

I have a Phenom II X4 965.

I was hoping I didn't have to take everything apart and buy a whole new mobo, CPU, another copy of Windows, etc T___T

The only time you need to buy another copy of Windows is when you're selling off an old computer including windows with it. If Windows says anything about your serial call MS and tell them you change your components around.

I am moving from a HDD to SSD and would like windows on the SSD.

You want to do a clean install, don't transfer an old install to an SSD unless you are incapable of backing up your data.
 

DeVeAn

Member
So for a new SSD to replace an HDD lets see if I got this right:
Make a backup of HDD
Clean install windows to SSD
Restore
Done?

Looking to get an SSD so wanna make sure I have the right idea.
 

mkenyon

Banned
Hey, SSD guys. I'm trying to find hard data reports on samsung SSD reliability. Did some google-fu, but everything I find seems to be anecdotal. Anyone have a link on hand or know where I could gather it?
 

1-D_FTW

Member
So my Amazon Warehouse model arrived. No dead pixels. Love the glossy screen. At first I didn't have it enabled at 120hz and I was WTF. Then I switched to 120hz and did the cursor circle. So smooth. That smoothness and glossy screen most definitely give it a CRT vibe:)

First game I loaded up was Beat Hazard. Because when that screen gets busy, my old VW246 would have some negative ghosting (even though it was a class leader in that department). With this, didn't notice any. Maybe it's there, but with my brief time, didn't notice it.

Then I went for the 3D. Had some real issues setting it up. And I'm not so sure this isn't the reason it got returned. Gonna have to give it a real test spin to make sure it's not defective. Anyways, the impressions:

LOVE IT! Only other time I've tried 3D gaming was with the Sony HMZ-T1. And it just disappointed me big time. Sent it back. But with 1080P/60fps/glossy screen, wow!

A game I really liked from my HMZ-T1 days was Sega and Sonic racing. So it was the first game I fired up. Compared to the HMZ-T1, yeah, I could notice some 3D ghosting in spots, but nothing that distracted me. And the 3D was fantastic. Coupled with the 1080P, I greatly preferred it to the HMZ-T1.

Next up was the demo of Trine 2. Holy FUCK!. People are right. Nvidia should bundle the game with 3D vision. Absolutely incredible.

Played in 3D for about 1.5 hours. No headache. The glasses aren't the most comfortable when wearing headphones over them, but coming from the HMZ-T1 experience, they were were incredibly comfortable. I've been trained in the art of pain tolerance. This is absolutely nothing.

I know Nvision 1 is dimmer in 3D, but doesn't bother me one bit. I play with my LCD monitor's brightness turned way down, so it's not off-putting in the least. I'm used to the picture not searing my eyeballs.

What's the word on all those Virtu MVP benefits (that motherboard software), bullshit or no bullshit?

Bullshit. There's no real performance benefit. Only benefit is higher response when virtual v-sync is enabled. But people have reported micro stutter with this. So unless you feel D3D introduces too much lag with triple buffered v-sync, don't bother.
 

sk3

Banned
iirc Sparkle had some good OEM units before quality really became a selling point.

Rosewill PSU's are just ok, and for barely any more you can get an Antec. They have had a bad stigma for a while because their first units were not very good and still seem to have more QC issues than other brands. They had a good 500W model for a while, but also had two other not so great 500W models at the time.

**The Seasonic 620M is on sale for $90, 100% buy this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151095
If you are only running 1 GPU
That's a sale? I bought it last month for $70. From newegg no less.
 
Can anyone point me to any good "How to" guides for swapping video cards? I just want to make sure I do it right (especially going from AMD to NVidia).

I can find them pretty easily, but I don't know if the people who wrote them know what they're talking about.

Also, how essential is it to have an anti-static wrist guard? Can I simply ground myself before I get started on the work?
 

MisterNoisy

Member
New build picture! My buddy at work put this together with a little advice and hardware from me (I bought the case and fans for him as a Xmas present and he's the guy that bought my 570 to help finance my 670):

vXFzn.jpg


Core i5 2500K under a CoolerMaster Hyper 212+
ASUS P8Z77-V-LK
8GB Corsair Vengeance
ASUS ENGTX570 DirectCu2
Crucial M4 128GB
(Data/storage drive TBA)
Corsair TX750-V2
NZXT Tempest 410
Xigmatek XLF 120/140mm fans

For being his first time at cable management, I think he did pretty well. Apologies for the shitty phone picture.
 

what_rhythm

Neo Member
Building my first rig. I've been offered an EVGA GTX 580 1.5GB for $300. Should I go for it? Or is there something else better for that money?

Me:
3570k
ASRock Z77 Extreme 4
Samsung 30nm 8GB DRAM
Samsung 830 1280GB SSD
Seasonic X-750
Corsair 650D
 

Ultrabum

Member
Can anyone point me to any good "How to" guides for swapping video cards? I just want to make sure I do it right (especially going from AMD to NVidia).

I can find them pretty easily, but I don't know if the people who wrote them know what they're talking about.

Also, how essential is it to have an anti-static wrist guard? Can I simply ground myself before I get started on the work?

I just switched from a 6850 to a gtx 680 last week. This is what I did:

Uninstalled all items that said AMD or catalyst in the control panel in windows.

Then I restarted in safe mode and ran Driver sweeper (just google it)

Then I powered off the computer, waited 2 min, unplugged from the wall. I then touched the power supply with both hands to ground myself, unplugged and pulled out the old card, pushed in the new card, hooked up the power/cables. Powered on with shitty plug and play drivers. Then download the latest drivers from nvidia.com

It's been working great.
 

MisterNoisy

Member
Building my first rig. I've been offered an EVGA GTX 580 1.5GB for $300. Should I go for it? Or is there something else better for that money?

Me:
3570k
ASRock Z77 Extreme 4
Samsung 30nm 8GB DRAM
Samsung 830 1280GB SSD
Seasonic X-750
Corsair 650D

For $300, it's a decent deal - You need to drop another $100 to exceed that performance.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
I wouldn't bother with a GTX 580 for $300, tbh. I'd rather dump an extra $100 and get the GTX 680, which is significantly faster, quieter, and consumes less power.

When the GTX 680 was the only better NVidia card at $500 I would have said go for it, but with the GTX 670 at $400, it's hard to recommend.
 

Isocr4cy

Member
Built my new PC, here's the specs:

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe
CPU: i7 3770K
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 670 Factory OC
RAM: 16 GB
PSU: Corsair AX850
SSD's: 128GB (Windows) / 256GB (Games)
HDD: 2TB

Just ran Metro 2033 on DX11, very high graphics with 16xAF & advanced PhysX. I was playing the beginning of the game so I'm not sure how much PhysX-ish stuff was running (new to Nvidia!). Was averaging about 30-45 FPS. with 45 being pretty rare. Kind of disappointing thus far, guess I'll try BF3 next.
 

MrBig

Member
Built my new PC, here's the specs:

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe
CPU: i7 3770K
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 670 Factory OC
RAM: 16 GB
PSU: Corsair AX850
SSD's: 128GB (Windows) / 256GB (Games)
HDD: 2TB

Just ran Metro 2033 on DX11, very high graphics with 16xAF & advanced PhysX. I was playing the beginning of the game so I'm not sure how much PhysX-ish stuff was running (new to Nvidia!). Was averaging about 30-45 FPS. with 45 being pretty rare. Kind of disappointing thus far, guess I'll try BF3 next.

Metro is a terrible way to judge performance, definitely try other games.
 

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
I've got a 6950 and am looking to go crossfire. There are a lot of cards for sale on ebay for $180

I've had that for a year. Plays everything max, except for a few settings in some games. Mostly can reduce MSAA to x2 or not use AA and get fluid fps.

GTX 670 is an attractive card, but adding a second card for a 69x0 is a much more cost effective way to basically get the same performance.
 
Built my new PC, here's the specs:

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe
CPU: i7 3770K
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 670 Factory OC
RAM: 16 GB
PSU: Corsair AX850
SSD's: 128GB (Windows) / 256GB (Games)
HDD: 2TB

Just ran Metro 2033 on DX11, very high graphics with 16xAF & advanced PhysX. I was playing the beginning of the game so I'm not sure how much PhysX-ish stuff was running (new to Nvidia!). Was averaging about 30-45 FPS. with 45 being pretty rare. Kind of disappointing thus far, guess I'll try BF3 next.

In the benchmarks I've seen, the 670 seems to fare unusually poorly with Metro. I would try some other games.
 
I just switched from a 6850 to a gtx 680 last week. This is what I did:

Uninstalled all items that said AMD or catalyst in the control panel in windows.

Then I restarted in safe mode and ran Driver sweeper (just google it)

Then I powered off the computer, waited 2 min, unplugged from the wall. I then touched the power supply with both hands to ground myself, unplugged and pulled out the old card, pushed in the new card, hooked up the power/cables. Powered on with shitty plug and play drivers. Then download the latest drivers from nvidia.com

It's been working great.

Thanks. Sounds pretty straightforward.
 

MrBig

Member
Is there a way to disable a single display without disabling everything but the primary in W7/W8?
With my laptop I'm always physically switching between output to my secondary and my tv along with he laptop screen, but that part won't be an issue anymore. I'd like to not have my desktop extended when I'm not using the TV though
 

what_rhythm

Neo Member
I wouldn't bother with a GTX 580 for $300, tbh. I'd rather dump an extra $100 and get the GTX 680, which is significantly faster, quieter, and consumes less power.

When the GTX 680 was the only better NVidia card at $500 I would have said go for it, but with the GTX 670 at $400, it's hard to recommend.

My original budget was $250, but I'm willing to stretch to $300 for something if it's a good deal.

The 670 at $400 is too far out of reach, and I hear a 580 performs at least 90% as well as a 670.

So $300 is kind of my hard limit. Is there any other card I should consider? I'll be gaming and looking into CUDA development.
 

mkenyon

Banned
My original budget was $250, but I'm willing to stretch to $300 for something if it's a good deal.

The 670 at $400 is too far out of reach, and I hear a 580 performs at least 90% as well as a 670.

So $300 is kind of my hard limit. Is there any other card I should consider? I'll be gaming and looking into CUDA development.
It's a good card. I think you could probably find something a bit less expensive through something like the overclock.net marketplace. I've seen 580s go for $300 NIB during some NCIX/Newegg sales.
 
Awesome, I got half my PC in the mail today. Already received the Mobo, harddrive, CPU+heat sync, RAM, Power supply and Win 7 home edition premium. Still waiting for my case to arrive, it should be here in any day now.

I still need to purchase a video card. Can anyone recommend a decent sub $200 video card for an Intel 2500k/ 8gb of ram combo?
 

Lulubop

Member
I'm thinking about upgrading my CPU/Mobo, though kind of outta necessity. Although I have an 750 my Mobo has always been crap, add in some other issues and now I'm having some major problems. I would like to hold off till Haswell, but I'm not sure I want to deal with the headaches.

I'll probably go with the 3570k.

Extreme 4 seems like the go to bang for your buck.
 

Karmum

Banned
Awesome, I got half my PC in the mail today. Already received the Mobo, harddrive, CPU+heat sync, RAM, Power supply and Win 7 home edition premium. Still waiting for my case to arrive, it should be here in any day now.

I still need to purchase a video card. Can anyone recommend a decent sub $200 video card for an Intel 2500k/ 8gb of ram combo?
560 Ti is a bit above $200, $229.99 at Amazon and $225 at Newegg after MIR.
 
560 Ti is a bit above $200, $229.99 at Amazon and $225 at Newegg after MIR.


I suppose I can be a bit flexible on my budget, so that seems doable. Also, Nvidia is prefered for me, since I run Linux as my main OS. I have no idea what the current state of the AMD radeon drivers are for Linux... from what I hear both the open source drivers and the proprietary ones are making some improvements, but still don't compare to the Nvidia drivers.
 

Moppet13

Member
3570k
Crossfired 6870
16gb of Corsair vengeance
1TB Caviar Black
Asus Z77-Vlk
Corsair 60gb SSD
and a Konata figurine on top for extra ghz and maximum overclocking.

It benches about 3401 on furmark, I guess that's okay.
 

element

Member
Building computer for my brother. Light gaming. Thinking A8-3870k, which has a 6550D built in. Anything Intel, I'd have to buy a graphics card.

Suggestions.
 
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