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[Manp]

Ugh. I think I'm going to be sick.

Got the splitter finally, installed the video card. I power up the PC, everything seems okay(PC and card haven't fried). Unfortunately the driver disc sez there isn't any XFX hardware installed. What the fuck

I probably plugged the card into the power supply wrong or something. Maybe I shouldn't have went with the splitter and just got a new PSU.
Fuck this fucking fuck of fucker fuck.

EDIT: Now I'm reading reviews at Newegg. Why the fuck am I doing this to myself?!
Also I'm connected via HDMI because apparently VGA cables have changed a lot since I've been living in my cave.

you deserve this and possibly worse for even trying to install video card drivers from the included disc.

that's to be used as a coaster...

Hahahaha holy shit

I would high-five this dude if I could.

he registered (providing the card s/n no less) to download a graphic drivers? i would punch him in the face!

Go to xfxforce.com to register the card and now I've gotta put up with their shitballs connection(an hour to download 145 megs?!) which is taking forever just to download the latest driver.

both of you!

game.amd.com

j/k

 

[hypernima]

I bought every part sans the HDD and Keyboard + Mouse (that part gratis via mkenyon) now. Kind of unsure if the Mechanical is worth it or not. And all the HDD options suck :\

Though the 15% sale would make an 80 dollar keyboard like 65 right?

 

[PepsimanVsJoe]

Okay I'm relaxed.
Everything is fine.

60 FPS Sonic Generations is godlike.

 

[mkenyon]

Okay I'm relaxed.
Everything is fine.

60 FPS Sonic Generations is godlike.

Time for 120hz then!

 

[statham]

Yes, you can do a fresh install.

http://msft.digitalrivercontent.net/win/X17-59465.iso

use with this tool:

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msstore/html/pbPage.Help_Win7_usbdvd_dwnTool

You may have to call microsoft when you do the fresh install to okay it, but since your motherboard and other parts are all the same, it'll be gravy.

Skyrim is fairly CPU dependent, so the more oomph you can get in that department, the better.

Here's a good comparison showing you the kind of bottleneck that can exist in Skyrim because of it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-fx-pentium-apu-benchmark,3120-3.html

Thanks, this worked, but now all my old passwords are saved to my other drive. when I try to load up my old firefox from the old drive it acts as if its a new drive and I can't access my bookmarks or passwords. oh well, but thanks for the help. Windows load fine on the SSD.

 

[mkenyon]

Yeah, applications like that are tied into the OS install. You generally have to reinstall all of that stuff. Data/media files are the only ones that transfer fine guaranteed.

Good time to switch to Chrome anyway

 

[statham]

Yeah, applications like that are tied into the OS install. You generally have to reinstall all of that stuff. Data/media files are the only ones that transfer fine guaranteed.

Good time to switch to Chrome anyway

Again thanks, If I can just figure out my security questions which I think I have(but already locked my account until 6pm tomorrow) I'll be good to go.

 

[LightofRohan]

I recently just upgraded my computer and finally I am trying out BF3. I'm actually quite surprised how not amazing it looks. I have everything on ULTRA and it does look nice, but it is not mind blowing or insanely good looking. Am I missing something? Is there a DirectX11 option somewhere? Also the online isn't working for me... so this game is just a big miss so far.

I was far more impressed by Max Payne 3 visually then this and I thought BF3 was suppose to be the Ultimate PC game for visuals.

 

[scogoth]

I recently just upgraded my computer and finally I am trying out BF3. I'm actually quite surprised how not amazing it looks. I have everything on ULTRA and it does look nice, but it is not mind blowing or insanely good looking. Am I missing something? Is there a DirectX11 option somewhere? Also the online isn't working for me... so this game is just a big miss so far.

I was far more impressed by Max Payne 3 visually then this and I thought BF3 was suppose to be the Ultimate PC game for visuals.

Turn on 3D on three monitors, hop in a jet.

 

[Rufus]

And start liking the art (big part of 'nice graphics' for many people).

 

[DTKT]

I recently just upgraded my computer and finally I am trying out BF3. I'm actually quite surprised how not amazing it looks. I have everything on ULTRA and it does look nice, but it is not mind blowing or insanely good looking. Am I missing something? Is there a DirectX11 option somewhere? Also the online isn't working for me... so this game is just a big miss so far.

I was far more impressed by Max Payne 3 visually then this and I thought BF3 was suppose to be the Ultimate PC game for visuals.

Actually, BF3 never was a benchmark or anything really amazing for visuals. Try Crysis 2 with HD mods.

 

[mkenyon]

GTA IV with Icenhancer
Crysis 2
Metro 2033
Witcher 2 with ubersampling

 

[LightofRohan]

Actually, BF3 never was a benchmark or anything really amazing for visuals. Try Crysis 2 with HD mods.

Really? Huh. But I have Crysis 2 as well, so I'll be trying that out.

And does anyone know any fixes to the constant BF Online "Disconnected, cannot connot to server". That's all I get. I haven't been able to play...

GTA IV with Icenhancer
Crysis 2
Metro 2033
Witcher 2 with ubersampling

Bought Witcher 2, keep forgetting to start it! I will soon. Thanks!

 

[jwhit28]

Actually, BF3 never was a benchmark or anything really amazing for visuals. Try Crysis 2 with HD mods.

BF3 is almost completely GPU driven. An Athlon II x4 and an overclocked Intel core i5 2500k would give you the same fps in single player if they are paired with the same GPU.

 

[PillowKnight]

I recently installed a gtx460 and i've had the craziest graphics glitches, wondering if anyone here has seen this before or could help.

Basically, whenever I start a game that uses dx9 everything gets pixelated as if it were being rendered at a lower resolution and stretched out, alt tabbing out then spreads the effect to my desktop(while the game is on). How do I know it's only happening to games that use dx9? Well, Civ 5 running dx10&11 mode looks perfect, while the dx9 mode looks like an awful mess. Open gl games also work great. The strangest part though, is any screenshots I take end up looking just fine once I turn the game off.

Anyone encounter this before? I'm inclined to think it's not the card considering these bugs are strangely isolated to dx9 games.

Things i've tried so far:
-Reinstalling windows from scratch
-Reinstalling direct x/drivers.
-Changing 3-d settings in the ndivida control pannel.

 

[Celcius]

Finally picked up some 2.0 speakers over the weekend: Creative T40. They sound great to my ears

 

[mhayze]

Seagate's main 1 and 2TB have 1 year warranties now. It's a fucking joke.

True, if it's a 2012 drive. Drives purchased before then had 5 year warranties, I believe. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[mkenyon]

I recently installed a gtx460 and i've had the craziest graphics glitches, wondering if anyone here has seen this before or could help.

*snip*

1) Before we move on to trying my suggestion, what are your 460 temps at? Use HWMonitor to see. Ideally, should be in the 30s-40s at idle, and max in the 70s-80s.

1a) If its lower than those numbers on either end, sweet. Proceed to 2.

1b) If its in the mid-high 80s at load, or higher, has it been recently cleaned? If so, you might want to reseat the heatsink. You will need isopropyl alcohol and/or TIM remover, as well as some additional TIM to do this.

2) For my suggestion, try bumping the voltage up a bit. It's really important that you first determine your temps are in normal operating levels before you do this, as it could damage the card if it's not being cooled properly. Use MSI Afterburner to do this. Do it in the smallest increments possible.

 

[TheD]

What mATX X79 motherboard did you end up going with?

660 not really worth it IMO. 660Ti isn't either. AMD has a pretty srtong grip on the <$325 market. To answer your question directly, the $70 difference gets you quite a bit of performance. Whether or not it is worth it is entirely up to you. I'm a strong believer in the 'buy the best videocard you can within your budget'. There's very few times that going up in price isn't really worth it. The only case of that right now is the 670/7970->680. Pretty much everything $400 or under is priced appropriately.

As the OP points out, HDD market is pretty shit right now. WD Reds + flash for storage, WD Blacks for reliability and speediness (but they are loud), and SSDs for just about everything else.

No idea on question 1, but TRIM is a OS level process that basically does garbage collection on an SSD to increase the life of it. It's less necessary with current gen SSDs as they all have firmware level garbage collection. Unless you want this SSD to last you a really long time (7+ years), it's not something I would really worry about.

TRIM and GC are not the same, http://thessdreview.com/daily-news/latest-buzz/garbage-collection-and-trim-in-ssds-explained-an-ssd-primer/
TRIM should always be kept on.

 

[PillowKnight]

1) Before we move on to trying my suggestion, what are your 460 temps at? Use HWMonitor to see. Ideally, should be in the 30s-40s at idle, and max in the 70s-80s.

1a) If its lower than those numbers on either end, sweet. Proceed to 2.

1b) If its in the mid-high 80s at load, or higher, has it been recently cleaned? If so, you might want to reseat the heatsink. You will need isopropyl alcohol and/or TIM remover, as well as some additional TIM to do this.

2) For my suggestion, try bumping the voltage up a bit. It's really important that you first determine your temps are in normal operating levels before you do this, as it could damage the card if it's not being cooled properly. Use MSI Afterburner to do this. Do it in the smallest increments possible.

Thanks for the help. Changed it up to 1.0v and I don't notice any difference. I'm not sure if it's the voltage considering dx10 games work just fine.

 

[Hazaro]

i read it but i thought it was outdated.
thanks man.

OP is in AMERICA time

That's October 1st, not January 10th. Come on Devil it's even in orange and shit.

 

[ntropy]

seasonic x650 dead. replaced with tr2 rx "750"w - there is no god.

 

[toastyToast]

Is there a recommended SSD to go with at the moment?

I'm deciding between the Intel 520, Crucial M4 and Samsung 830 with around 256GB storage if that makes any difference

The price between them is about $50 and it goes Samsung -> Crucial -> Intel (the most expensive)

 

[Hazaro]

830
830
830
830
830

 

[mkenyon]

seasonic x650 dead. replaced with tr2 rx "750"w - there is no god.

*hug*

Still in warranty? Their customer service is amazing.

 

[toastyToast]

830
830
830
830
830

Well that makes things clear

Not the 830 it is

Spoiler

I'll get the 830

 

[ghibli99]

I have a 240GB Corsair Force GS Sata 3, and it rocks.

 

[Wolf Akela]

Does Seasonic sell replacement cables? I think I might need to replace my PCI-e cables. Turns out my GPU works fine on other computers. It's down to either faulty PCIe cables or faulty PCIe slot. I'm leaning more on the former since my cable management is... tight.

 

[Saargabath]

Hello PC GAF!

I'm quite a noob at this. My previous rig was made by a friend about 6 or 7 years ago and I believe the motherboard is now kaput. As I really need a desktop comp to work at home ( PhD thesis ), I have to build a new rig fast.
The intention is that it should last quite long, and to be able to use both windows 7 and ubuntu 12.04 in dual boot. I want to be able to work ( computer vision ) and to play smoothly. I will transfer my old HDD contents to my external disk at work before I buy most parts in Paris this weekend.

• Current Specs:
  Core 2 duo 6400, gigabyte 965P-DS4, geForce GT 7600, 1GB ram(lol)...
  Really old and outdated! The only parts I might want to keep are :
  the seasonic 500W PSU (will it be enough?), the 250GB samsung HDD.
  I'll keep my 1920*1200 Hyundai monitor, keyboard and mouse.
  
• Budget: about 1000&#8364;, country: France
• Main Use: Gaming(4), Emulation (PS2/Wii)(4), HD Streaming(3), computer vision work(5), General Usage (5).
• Monitor Resolution: 1920*1200. I'll upgrade in a couple of years.
• specific games: Dark Souls PTD edition + DSfix @ 60Hz? Next SimCity... I've been waiting to play Skyward Sword in HD since release on a capable PC! I guess I'll play more games once I have this new rig and... when I am done with the PhD, hah!
• potential re-use of parts : seasonic 500W PSU ( I don't remember the model, I'll edit when I'm back at home), 250GB SATA samsung HDD.
• I'll build it this weekend I hope. I already ordered my BitFenix Shinobi 3.0 white case.
• I might want to overclock but later. I just really want to be able to work smoothly starting saturday, just with ubuntu at the beginning, windows can wait.

Right now, my selection looks like that, mostly the enthousiast build(looks expensive but tax is included and fucking France):

• processor : i7 3770K 240&#8364;
• motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LK : 108&#8364;
• RAM : corsair vengeance 8GB : 44&#8364;, I'll upgrade to 16GB later, not enough cash!
• GPU : Asus GeForce GTX 670 DCII TOP 2GD5 364&#8364;
• SSD : Samsung 830 128GB 90&#8364; (I guess it should be enough for the dual boot...)
• case : BitFenix Shinobi White LDLC 60&#8364; (ordered)
• HDD : WD 1To S-ATA III 64Mo (Caviar Blue - WD10EZEX) 72 euros&#8364;
• heatsink : cooler master 212+ evo 27.5&#8364;
• PSU : Seasonic 550W S12 Energy + 78&#8364; only if you tell me I need to upgrade!
• 1083.5&#8364;

What do you think GAF? Should I keep my 500W PSU? Do the RAM heatsinks fit with the CM 212+ in the case? I'd be OK to downgrade a little bit to save some cash. Am I overkilling it?

 

[Hazaro]

Hello PC GAF!
Right now, my selection looks like that, mostly the enthousiast build(looks expensive but tax is included and fucking France):

• processor : i7 3770K 240&#8364;
• motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LK : 108&#8364;
• RAM : corsair vengeance 8GB : 44&#8364;, I'll upgrade to 16GB later, not enough cash!
• GPU : Asus GeForce GTX 670 DCII TOP 2GD5 364&#8364;
• SSD : Samsung 830 128GB 90&#8364; (I guess it should be enough for the dual boot...)
• case : BitFenix Shinobi White LDLC 60&#8364; (ordered)
• HDD : WD 1To S-ATA III 64Mo (Caviar Blue - WD10EZEX) 72 euros&#8364;
• heatsink : cooler master 212+ evo 27.5&#8364;
• PSU : Seasonic 550W S12 Energy + 78&#8364; only if you tell me I need to upgrade!
• 1083.5&#8364;

What do you think GAF? Should I keep my 500W PSU? Do the RAM heatsinks fit with the CM 212+ in the case? I'd be OK to downgrade a little bit to save some cash. Am I overkilling it?

You can get a 3570K for extremely similar gaming performance in current titles if you aren't doing anything CPU heavy otherwise with your PC.
Just make sure you get the Low Profile RAM.
See if you can get the Gigabyte 670. It's cheaper and doesn't have the issues the first(?) batch of ASUS 670's had.
Seasonic PSU is more than enough.

 

[Saargabath]

Thanks Hazaro! I guess I'll save some monies... The wife will appreciate.

 

[Prozel]

Will a Phenom X4 965 BE bottleneck a GTX 670?

 

[Castcoder]

I've been playing around on PCpartpicker for a while and wanted to go with somethiing with a lot of power. This is the first PC I would build and would like some advice on it. I want to make this last a long time, which explains the 16GBs of RAM. I also plan on buying Amazon's Borderlands 2 NVIDIA GeForce 680 graphics card bundle instead of the listed graphics card. Amazon's bundle is roughly $20-40 cheaper than the listed one (though I'm basing this off of memory at the moment). I would like advice on cooling and any other components that should be mentioned to a newbie like me.

Give me your opinions after reading my first paragraph, please. And please keep in mind I plan to record game footage with this computer, and have consideration to stream games while playing them on this PC, as well as playing around in Dolphin with max settings.

 

[t-ramp]

Will a Phenom X4 965 BE bottleneck a GTX 670?

This is not a good way to look at it. A video card upgrade will improve your performance, but it won't be as quick as the same card paired with a 3570K or something. That doesn't mean the video card upgrade is a bad idea.

The better question is what upgrade will give you the most bang for your buck. What card do you have now?

 

[Wolf Akela]

Remember a few days ago where I wondered why my card wasn't giving signal?

Got my card back after a friend tested and proved it worked. I did a very stupid mistake. So I thought I might've broken the cables because my cable management was really tight. I was trying to remove the cables but couldn't get one end through the cable hole. I tried getting the other end through the cable hole and noticed it wasn't even plugged into the PSU. Only one of them was plugged in, THAT's why the fans were still spinning.

Maximum facepalm. I always worry a lot about forgetting to plug fans that I forget the power.

 

[Prozel]

This is not a good way to look at it. A video card upgrade will improve your performance, but it won't be as quick as the same card paired with a 3570K or something. That doesn't mean the video card upgrade is a bad idea.

The better question is what upgrade will give you the most bang for your buck. What card do you have now?

I'm looking at parts for a ITX build. A freind of mine has a X4 965BE for a decent price, which is why I'm considering it and use the money on a GTX670.

 

[gutterboy44]

My Dell UM2312HM came yesterday for secondary monitor in portrait mode use. For an off center portrait monitor, I definitely recommend IPS and this Dell is a good size to price ratio. Huge difference over the previous TN screen I tried in this configurations on the viewing angles alone.

As for IPS v. 120hz TN. I'm not really seeing all the cream in your jeans IPS color glory. Yeah the color reproduction is nice as well as the viewing angles but playing Borderlands 2 back to back on each screen, the smoothness on 120hz seems like a significantly bigger impact on gaming than the color difference. I know this Dell model isn't the creme de la creme of IPS panels but I just don't see the same chasm I now see between 60hz v. 120hz as I do for TN v. IPS aside from the viewing angles, those are amazing and the sole reason I got the IPS. My TN Benq is dead center so I really haven't had issues with viewing angles. I am sure with Eyefinity setups this could cause a lot of problems.

I still need to test with a few more games, maybe ones that don't rely on a first person view and have more static imagery, but for now, if you are buying a new screen for gaming, I am still firmly in the 120hz camp. Ideally 120hz IPS panels will soon become the standard because I like what both techs have to offer.

 

[beje]

I've been playing around on PCpartpicker for a while and wanted to go with somethiing with a lot of power. This is the first PC I would build and would like some advice on it. I want to make this last a long time, which explains the 16GBs of RAM. I also plan on buying Amazon's Borderlands 2 NVIDIA GeForce 680 graphics card bundle instead of the listed graphics card. Amazon's bundle is roughly $20-40 cheaper than the listed one (though I'm basing this off of memory at the moment). I would like advice on cooling and any other components that should be mentioned to a newbie like me.

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u13/crashpro/83a45a2da65887cbe1e7127cb792fc5c.jpg[IMG]

Give me your opinions after reading my first paragraph, please. And please keep in mind I plan to record game footage with this computer, and have consideration to stream games while playing them on this PC, as well as playing around in Dolphin with max settings.[/QUOTE]

I'd switch the mobo to some with a Z77 chipset to get advantage of overclocking features, as there's barely no point on getting a "K" CPU and an aftermarket cooler if you're going to leave it at stock speeds (for which you could get a non-K processor with stock cooler for much less). If you don't want to stretch the budget that much, an Asrock Z77 Pro3, Pro4-M (small form factor, no legacy PCI) or Pro4 are the best and cheapest options there.

 

[kakashi08]

I'm building a PC for a friend. He wants a good GAMING PC, where he can use this PC for the next 3-4 years or maybe more.
What do you think of these specs?

motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s
videocard: EVGA 02G-P4-2680-KR GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI
psu: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro RSA00-AMBAJ3-US 1000W ATX12V v2.3
cpu: Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W
ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600


For the videocard, what do you recommend, that or this:
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16

 

[Relix]

I want an all new setup for a new PC. My budget is between 1000-1200... I definitely want an i7 3770k (Ivy). I am also looking for a decent GPU that can run most games at 1080p (more is not needed honestly) at 60FPS with some AA as I'll be using this PC as a "comfy couch" PC. I also want to keep it plugged to a separate monitor.

Now, I have a question... do these GPUs output audio through HDMI? Especially 5.1? I will be connecting this to a receiver and from there to the TV, but I've always had this question. I know ATI GPUs do this, no idea for NVidia.

Anyway, if someone can recommend me something good with a 3770k bare minimum, up to $1200... it will be greatly appreciated. Thanks a million in advance . Will definitely be buying tonight.

 

[mkenyon]

Will a Phenom X4 965 BE bottleneck a GTX 670?

Yes, but it also depends on the game. PIIX4's suffer from frame latency as well.

I've been playing around on PCpartpicker for a while and wanted to go with somethiing with a lot of power. This is the first PC I would build and would like some advice on it. I want to make this last a long time, which explains the 16GBs of RAM. I also plan on buying Amazon's Borderlands 2 NVIDIA GeForce 680 graphics card bundle instead of the listed graphics card. Amazon's bundle is roughly $20-40 cheaper than the listed one (though I'm basing this off of memory at the moment). I would like advice on cooling and any other components that should be mentioned to a newbie like me.

Give me your opinions after reading my first paragraph, please. And please keep in mind I plan to record game footage with this computer, and have consideration to stream games while playing them on this PC, as well as playing around in Dolphin with max settings.

You are spending money in a lot of wrong places.

1) Get a Z77 motherboard from the OP.
2) Swap cooler for CM Hyper 212
3) Swap 680 for 7970 or 670.
4) Get a different, less expensive, case. Fractal Arc Midi, Define R4, Coolermaster 690II, Lian Li PC-7HX. They're all better than the thermaltake for qutie a bit less.
5) If you are going to be recording, get a capture device like the Black Magic Intensity Pro. You will also want two HDDs in RAID0 to ensure write speeds fast enough to not cause major performance loss. Adding an SSD to use as your OS drive to keep your games/OS and recording drive separate helps a ton in performance.

I'm looking at parts for a ITX build. A freind of mine has a X4 965BE for a decent price, which is why I'm considering it and use the money on a GTX670.

There aren't any good AM3/AM3+ ITX boards. I don't even think there are any that can handle a 125W TDP processor.

I'm building a PC for a friend. He wants a good GAMING PC, where he can use this PC for the next 3-4 years or maybe more.
What do you think of these specs?

motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s
videocard: EVGA 02G-P4-2680-KR GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI
psu: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro RSA00-AMBAJ3-US 1000W ATX12V v2.3
cpu: Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W
ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600


For the videocard, what do you recommend, that or this:
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16

1) 1000W PSU is silly. Get something from the OP in the 500-600W range.
2) 680 isn't worth it over the 670/7970, and EVGA cards run loud and hot. Get a Gigabyte, ASUS, or MSI, (or Sapphire/Powercolor if you go for the 7970) non-reference card.
3) Get a Z77 board if you are getting IvyBridge.
4) 3770K is generally only recommended in instances where multimedia is going to be a primary function of the PC. 3570K is the same performance in all current games out there.

I want an all new setup for a new PC. My budget is between 1000-1200... I definitely want an i7 3770k (Ivy). I am also looking for a decent GPU that can run most games at 1080p (more is not needed honestly) at 60FPS with some AA as I'll be using this PC as a "comfy couch" PC. I also want to keep it plugged to a separate monitor.

Now, I have a question... do these GPUs output audio through HDMI? Especially 5.1? I will be connecting this to a receiver and from there to the TV, but I've always had this question. I know ATI GPUs do this, no idea for NVidia.

Anyway, if someone can recommend me something good with a 3770k bare minimum, up to $1200... it will be greatly appreciated. Thanks a million in advance . Will definitely be buying tonight.

Did you read the OP? Since this is a comfy couch build, I'd point you towards the SFF builds. Click the bit.ly link that has SFF written in it.



*edit*

People, the parts in the OP aren't picked on a whim or based off of some brand loyalty where there are other parts that are *almost* as good. They are all clear winners, and even I myself wouldn't build my own PC's with different parts suggested. Each one is weighed against other options even weekly/monthly, not just quarterly. The idea behind it is that all of your homework of finding the most reliable/best performing for the $ parts is completely done for you. That might take some of the excitement of looking over new parts for builds, but there is still some wiggle room in terms of picking one video card over the other, or different motherboards even.

Haz is brand agnostic and always picks the best part for the category no matter who made it.

 

[scogoth]

3) Swap 680 for 7970 or 670.

1) 1000W PSU is silly. Get something from the OP in the 500-600W range.
2) 680 isn't worth it over the 670/7970

One mans opinion.

 

[mkenyon]

In terms of $erformance, it most certainly isn't.

I'm man enough to say that my purchase of a 690, 7970, and three 670s is not based on a carefully calculated costerformance analysis. I'm fucking crazy, and that's okay.

For people aiming to get 60fps @ 1080p, 670/7970 now and upgrade when it gets long in the tooth is the best way to go.

I feel like the person who *needs* the 680 is the type of person who isn't posting for advice on a build, but maybe just notifying of their recent purchase of two 680s and waterblocks.

 

[t-ramp]

There aren't any good AM3/AM3+ ITX boards. I don't even think there are any that can handle a 125W TDP processor.

This is what I was thinking. I had an ITX LGA 1155 setup with an Asus H61 board and a i5 2400 that worked great. Using an 125W+ CPU seems like a bad idea on such a small board, if it's even possible. As far as I know, i3 2100s and whatever their newer sibling is are similar in performance to the Phenom II X4s, so I'd prefer going that route. Wouldn't be too expensive, either...

Also, my computer has done a shutdown-restart when resuming from sleep a couple of times. And the front USB ports have quit working. Hopefully this isn't a serious issue and I can fix it. Could is just be because of an overclock?

 

[ghibli99]

I feel like the person who *needs* the 680 is the type of person who isn't posting for advice on a build, but maybe just notifying of their recent purchase of two 680s and waterblocks.

Isn't something like the GB 670 OC pretty close to 680 performance anyway? I've read a lot of reports saying overclocked 670s across the board are faster, and both cards being overclocked are about on-par with each other. 25% more cost for not that much in performance just doesn't make sense, but maybe I'm not seeing the entire picture.

 

[ntropy]

*hug*

Still in warranty? Their customer service is amazing.

lol. yea, but i'm getting a replacement from Newegg.

 

[mkenyon]

Isn't something like the GB 670 OC pretty close to 680 performance anyway? I've read a lot of reports saying overclocked 670s across the board are faster, and both cards being overclocked are about on-par with each other. 25% more cost for not that much in performance just doesn't make sense, but maybe I'm not seeing the entire picture.

Overclocked 670s can surpass 680 performance. But they can't surpass overclocked 680 performance.

But yeah, its $100 for like a 7-10% increase in performance. If you absolutely must have the best of the best, then by all means. I'm a much bigger fan of two used 670s which will run you just over $600 though.

This is what I was thinking. I had an ITX LGA 1155 setup with an Asus H61 board and a i5 2400 that worked great. Using an 125W+ CPU seems like a bad idea on such a small board, if it's even possible. As far as I know, i3 2100s and whatever their newer sibling is are similar in performance to the Phenom II X4s, so I'd prefer going that route. Wouldn't be too expensive, either...

Also, my computer has done a shutdown-restart when resuming from sleep a couple of times. And the front USB ports have quit working. Hopefully this isn't a serious issue and I can fix it. Could is just be because of an overclock?

Not that ITX boards are unsuited for high power draw, they just need to be designed with it in mind. The new Z77 itx boards are a good case in point. I had a 2500K running at 4.8GHz on the ASUS P8Z77-I.

As far as hibernation issues, I have never once in my life been able to get sleep to work with an OC'd machine. But really, I never use sleep in the first place. No good if you have an SSD too.

 

[PillowKnight]

I recently installed a gtx460 and i've had the craziest graphics glitches, wondering if anyone here has seen this before or could help.

Basically, whenever I start a game that uses dx9 everything gets pixelated as if it were being rendered at a lower resolution and stretched out, alt tabbing out then spreads the effect to my desktop(while the game is on). How do I know it's only happening to games that use dx9? Well, Civ 5 running dx10&11 mode looks perfect, while the dx9 mode looks like an awful mess. Open gl games also work great. The strangest part though, is any screenshots I take end up looking just fine once I turn the game off.

Anyone encounter this before? I'm inclined to think it's not the card considering these bugs are strangely isolated to dx9 games.

Things i've tried so far:
-Reinstalling windows from scratch
-Reinstalling direct x/drivers.
-Changing 3-d settings in the ndivida control pannel.

Managed to fix this, the problem had something to do with the scaling. The Nvidia driver was using my TV to scale the image, changing it to GPU scaling(Nvidia control panel under 'adjust desktop size and position' fixed my problem completely.

Posting this just in case someone else encounters this problem.

 

[t-ramp]

Not that ITX boards are unsuited for high power draw, they just need to be designed with it in mind. The new Z77 itx boards are a good case in point. I had a 2500K running at 4.8GHz on the ASUS P8Z77-I.

Yeah, I know, but I was kind of looking for an AM3 one a while back and there weren't any that looked like they would work well with my 945. And it just seems like with a 125W processor you'd need a good deal of cooling, especially if you wanted to overclock. At that point it would make more sense to just go microATX, it seems.

Also, sleep mode usually has worked well for me. I don't know what's causing my issues, but I'll do some tinkering tonight and see what I can figure out.

 

[Celcius]

edit: nevermind again