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[Zoned]

Lights added to a case with no window?

This one. Both are v9 so got confused.

 

[Bleepey]

Just keep the Patriot RAM.

That mobo is not great for overclocking and is the lowest end ATX Z87 mobo you can get. Go for something better or ditch the 4670K and save money on both CPU and motherboard, grab a better GPU or add an SSD with the money you'd save. I was given similar advice, don't skimp on a motherboard if you want solid overclocks.

What mobo/CPU combo would you suggest. I probably won't be overclocking since I don't know how to do it. I think the gtx 660 is the most bang for my buck. What would you suggest?

 

[Stubo]

I can't claim to know much about the AMD cards, but I'd put this Gigabyte 270 forward as an alternative to the 660 you're looking at.

 

[mkenyon]

This one. Both are v9 so got confused.

Are you sure you want to do that? Why not save up for a nicer case if you want bling?

 

[Objectively Bad Opinion]

I can't claim to know much about the AMD cards, but I'd put this Gigabyte 270 forward as an alternative to the 660 you're looking at.

660 has an advantage in any game with more than the basic on/off tesselation and also Unreal Engine games. The 270 is more or less the same elsewhere, sometimes winning in a few games but not as often as the 660 wins.

Overall the 660 is the faster card. At that price I would get the 660. EDIT: I'm wrong

 

[Stubo]

660 has an advantage in any game with more than the basic on/off tesselation and also Unreal Engine games. The 270 is more or less the same elsewhere, sometimes winning in a few games but not as often as the 660 wins.

Overall the 660 is the faster card. At that price I would get the 660.

You're definitely not thinking of the 660Ti? The review I looked at suggested otherwise.

 

[Objectively Bad Opinion]

You're definitely not thinking of the 660Ti? The review I looked at suggested otherwise.

you are right

my fundamentals apologize

 

[Arksy]

In other news, I made my first attempt at overclocking last night.

Got up to 4.6 GHZ according to CPU-Z with a max temp of 63 C across all four cores.

I'm pretty happy. I only wanted a conservative overclock and I have noticed the difference.

 

[McBryBry]

Out of the ASUS VS239H-P and VS248H-P which would be the better monitor?

 

[kiyomi]

What mobo/CPU combo would you suggest. I probably won't be overclocking since I don't know how to do it. I think the gtx 660 is the most bang for my buck. What would you suggest?

Grab an i5 4440 or 4570 instead then. Just make sure you get a decent but affordable mobo with any features you need and you should be good to go. You could probably save £40-70 doing this, and use that money on a 120GB SSD or step up to a GTX 760.

 

[Blak_Status]

Finally sucked it up and splurged on the GTX 780. Should be here Monday. Can't wait.

 

[Arksy]

Finally sucked it up and splurged on the GTX 780. Should be here Monday. Can't wait.

Did the same with a Radeon 290X...

Now that it's in my PC and I'm playing Planetside at like insane settings all I can say is, you bloody won't regret it.

 

[User 73706]

Just caught up on the thread and I'm updating my hardware picks accordingly. Included links to where I found all the parts online, the only thing I didn't know about was RAM. Where and what kind should I specifically get?

Build Excellent - Best Overall
CPU Intel Xeon E3-1230V3 $249.99
Motherboard ASUS H87M-PRO $112.99
RAM 2x8GB (16GB)
Graphics Gigabyte GTX 760 GDDR5-2GB $259.99
SSD Samsung 840 EVO 250GB $149.99
Storage 1TB WD Blue WD10EZEX $59.99
Power Supply CORSAIR RM Series RM650 $119.99
Case Define R4 $99.99
Heatsink CM Hyper T4 $29.99
Sound Card Xonar DGX $34.99

Total: $1267.90

I feel like I keep going down in price and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or if I just suck at math. I used 149.99 as a benchmark for RAM based on the OP template.

Keyboard Logitech K750 $48.99
Monitor ASUS VS247H-P $169.99

Grand Total: $1486.88

Can someone confirm and make sure all of this is lining up?

 

[Ellite25]

Thoughts on MSI for GPUs? Was thinking about picking this one up, seems like a good price:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CZ58WUI/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Took the plunge and bought this. Will be here tomorrow. So fucking excited to upgrade my 560ti.

 

[kiyomi]

Just caught up on the thread and I'm updating my hardware picks accordingly. Included links to where I found all the parts online, the only thing I didn't know about was RAM. Where and what kind should I specifically get?

Build Excellent - Best Overall
CPU Intel Xeon E3-1230V3 $249.99
Motherboard ASUS H87M-PRO $112.99
RAM 2x8GB (16GB)
Graphics Gigabyte GTX 760 GDDR5-2GB $259.99
SSD Samsung 840 EVO 250GB $149.99
Storage 1TB WD Blue WD10EZEX $59.99
Power Supply CORSAIR RM Series RM650 $119.99
Case Define R4 $99.99
Heatsink CM Hyper T4 $29.99
Sound Card Xonar DGX $34.99

Total: $1197.90

I feel like I keep going down in price and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or if I just suck at math. I used 79.99 as a benchmark for RAM based on the OP template.

Keyboard Logitech K750 $48.99
Monitor ASUS VS247H-P $169.99

Grand Total: $1416.88

Can someone confirm and make sure all of this is lining up?

Maths were never my strong point but I *think* you've only accounted for 8GB of RAM. $79.99 per, i.e $159.98 for 16GB.

Although it is 00:16AM here, so I could be mistaken.

 

[Zoned]

Are you sure you want to do that? Why not save up for a nicer case if you want bling?

Those lights cost only 8 bucks. A nicer case will cost about 70-80 bucks at least which I can spend on a better GPU I guess. What do you think?

 

[User 73706]

Maths were never my strong point but I *think* you've only accounted for 8GB of RAM. $79.99 per, i.e $159.98 for 16GB.

Although it is 00:16AM here, so I could be mistaken.

oop, you're right. Edited accordingly.

 

[Granadier]

Those lights cost only 8 bucks. A nicer case will cost about 70-80 bucks at least which I can spend on a better GPU I guess. What do you think?

I don't think he was referring to neon lights as "bling"

 

[Acti]

Pretty cheap.

 

[VisceralBowl]

Quick question. On the phone with a friend who is working on an old PC.
He is using 4 of of these and he has this motherboard and for some reason they won't fit onto the black DIMM slots on the mobo. He can get them in on the blues but not the other two.
We're both stumped. Ideas?

Apparently not enough force was his issue!

 

[kennah]

Those lights cost only 8 bucks. A nicer case will cost about 70-80 bucks at least which I can spend on a better GPU I guess. What do you think?

It's your case man. Do what looks nice to you.

Quick question. On the phone with a friend who is working on an old PC.
He is using 4 of of these and he has this motherboard and for some reason they won't fit onto the black DIMM slots on the mobo. He can get them in on the blues but not the other two.
We're both stumped. Ideas?

Virgin slots. Push harder

 

[Bleepey]

Grab an i5 4440 or 4570 instead then. Just make sure you get a decent but affordable mobo with any features you need and you should be good to go. You could probably save £40-70 doing this, and use that money on a 120GB SSD or step up to a GTX 760.

what mobo would you recommend and how big is the gap in performance between these CPUs.

 

[User 73706]

Virgin slots. Push harder

 

[VisceralBowl]

Virgin slots. Push harder

I didn't even think about it, but yeah that was the issue! Thanks

 

[Infinite Justice]

Virgin slots. Push harder

lol

 

[ombz]

It was much more frustrating than I was expecting but its nice to fit all my components in a much smaller case that's easy to carry.

 

[User 73706]

Can anyone recommend some good 8GB RAM on newegg or amazon?

 

[Lizardus]

Question:

The RAM I bought was 1600 mhz but when I look at CPU-Z and Speccy, it shows that RAM at 900 mhz. Is this just because the speed fluctuates based on the usage and amount needed?

 

[mug]

Can anyone recommend some good 8GB RAM on newegg or amazon?

GSkill, Crucial, Corsair, Kingston from my experience have been solid. RAM isn't too different as they usually have the same chips on them. Just go for the speed rating and your budget. All tend to have a lifetime warranty (well at least they used to).

 

[User 73706]

GSkill, Crucial, Corsair, Kingston from my experience have been solid. RAM isn't too different as they usually have the same chips on them. Just go for the speed rating and your budget. All tend to have a lifetime warranty (well at least they used to).

I just found this Kingston and a Crucial. I'm leaning more towards the Crucial due to the limited lifetime warranty. What do you guys think?

EDIT: This is probably a stupid question, but with all of these different parts being ordered separately, what governs the computer's actual software working? Like, how will I know what OS it'll be booting to and all of that?

 

[Objectively Bad Opinion]

EDIT: This is probably a stupid question, but with all of these different parts being ordered separately, what governs the computer's actual software working? Like, how will I know what OS it'll be booting to and all of that?

You install the OS to drive, and choose that drive as the first in the boot sequence.

 

[Geneijin]

To anyone building a PC with an i3 4130, TigerDirect is selling it for $99.99 after coupon with free shipping. I don't think it's reflected right now on pcpartpicker.com. Kicking myself for not waiting (already built a PC for someone).

 

[User 73706]

You install the OS to drive, and choose that drive as the first in the boot sequence.

And I'm going to have to buy that separately, too?

 

[Zombie James]

What's everyone's thoughts on the 330R? Think I'll just get a new case instead of new case + new motherboard (mATX Z77 boards are hard to come by these days, it seems).

 

[kennah]

So it turns out my FreeNAS needs to be rebooted every three weeks or 'weird' things happen. I can live with that. So nice to have.

And I'm going to have to buy that separately, too?

Unless you go with Linux or SteamOS or an existing copy of Windows yep.

 

[plasmawave]

Hey guys, what sata cables should I get for my HDD and SSD?

SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

Does the power connector come with the PSU?

 

[scogoth]

So it turns out my FreeNAS needs to be rebooted every three weeks or 'weird' things happen. I can live with that. So nice to have.

You're doing it wrong. Been running freenas uptime now is 216 days no problems.

 

[User 73706]

What's the easiest way to use wireless internet with a desktop computer? Is that just something desktop computers come with built-in nowadays?

 

[McBryBry]

Here's yet another question...So I have this Sony system in my room that I'd like to convert into a speaker system for my PC when I build it. Does anyone know how to do so, if its even possible? Here's a few images I just snapped of it.

 

[Pachimari]

How can I tell if a hard drive is silent before buying?

I'm looking to get rid of my 3TB hard drive as it's quite noisy and I'm looking at WD in the size of 2TB - 4TB.

Would this WD Red 4TB be fine internally in my PC?

 

[Tablo]

How can I tell if a hard drive is silent before buying?

I'm looking to get rid of my 3TB hard drive as it's quite noisy and I'm looking at WD in the size of 2TB - 4TB.

Would this WD Red 4TB be fine internally in my PC?

I don't think noise would be an issue, but the REDs aren't designed to be silent if I remember correctly, the SE is reported to be more silent from what I can remember.
It is more expensive though.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236520

 

[Pachimari]

I don't think noise would be an issue, but the REDs aren't designed to be silent if I remember correctly, the SE is reported to be more silent from what I can remember.
It is more expensive though.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236520

Oh, it's the same as this one. Thanks.

I'm amazed at how I only have 120GB left of my 250GB SSD already. How large can the SSD be nowadays? 1TB?

 

[Tablo]

Oh, it's the same as this one. Thanks.

I'm amazed at how I only have 120GB left of my 250GB SSD already. How large can the SSD be nowadays? 1TB?

NP man, that's one great HDD line from WD.
Consumer SSDs top out at 1 TB for now. Crucial M550 for 530$, the older M500 for 430$, and the Samsung EVO for 430~$ I think.

 

[systematic]

There's a good review comparison of the 4TB RED and SE drives here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1364-page1.html

The recordings start with 5 to 10 seconds of ambient noise, then 10 second segments of the drive in the following states: idle, seek with AAM enabled (if applicable), and seek with AAM disabled.

Western Digital Red 4TB WD40EFRX — Idle: 15 / Seek: 15~16 dBA@1m
Western Digital Se 4TB WD4000F9YZ — Idle: 16 / Seek: 18~19 dBA@1m

...

The Red 4TB wasn't as quiet as the smaller versions, though the type and character of noise was similar. Sitting idle, it produced a soft, innocuous whooshing which measured 15 dBA@1m. Seeks were produced in a slightly scratchy pitter-patter pattern that was so muted that the SPL increased to only 15~16 dBA@1m. Altogether the sound is pleasant — only the most sensitive listeners will find fault with it.

The Se 4TB measured only 1 dB higher at idle as it had a similar sound but with hint of buzzing. Its seeks seemed to be lower in frequency, sounding less distinct to the ear, but they had a heavier, thumpy character. It's definitely a louder model overall but the noise lacks any truly negative characteristics.

Though the SE is louder, it is a 7200RPM drive, so it will be faster than the 5900RPM RED.

 

[Tablo]

There's a good review comparison of the 4TB RED and SE drives here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1364-page1.html



Though the SE is louder, it is a 7200RPM drive, so it will be faster than the 5900RPM RED.

Thanks for the link!
I would recommend the SE over a red for use in a normal PC. I suppose the new Blacks also work, but the SE is an enterprise drive so I would feel way better using that!

 

[tsunami643]

This is probably a dangerous question to ask around these parts... but is this a good deal for $690?

http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-8700/p...CJ&cid=24471&lid=566643&acd=10550055-1768450-

I'm finally upgrading from a Q6600 and have been building configs around i7-4770s, and then this deal comes along. The primary reason I was considering building a computer was because I figured it was cheaper than buying a pre-made one. But this seems like an exceptionally good price.

I plan on tossing the included card and swapping it in with a GTX 760, so I'm worried if:

a. The card will fit in this case.
b. The included power supply can support a card like that.

The only things I feel I'll be missing are an SSD (which I can throw in later), an overclockable mobo (I'm assuming), and a cool case. But I can live with that. Especially if I'm getting a wifi capable board, card reader, and Windows 7.

 

[plasmawave]

For the new page.

Hey guys, what sata cables should I get for my HDD and SSD?

SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

Does the power connector come with the PSU?

 

[Objectively Bad Opinion]

Sold my old 6950. 2 years of gaming and it only cost me nothing, and actually made me a profit

god bless video games and

Spoiler

dogecoin

Buying a new PSU and some fans to replace the horrible abominations that are the stock H100i fans

 

[MoonGred]

I've got my eye on one of MK's small builds, but can't decide whether to go for a modular psu or not. This would be my first build after a 10yr absence. I've read some old posts about the downsides of modular, and am doubting whether they're still that much of an issue. Cable management is a pet peeve of mine.

 

[HeelPower]

how much should I invest to get a solid gaming laptop ? One that can outlast, say, the PS4's lifecyle.

That can atleast play multi-platform titles on medium~high for a while ?