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"I Need a New PC!" 2015 Part 1. Read the OP and RISE ABOVE FORGED PRECISION SCIENCE

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Maniac

Banned
I'll research yeah. I think I would notice the difference in image quality but not so much in input lag, but then again, I would like to start Counter-Strike and play other competitive games online.

Right now, I'm on the lookout for a keyboard, because I never got around to buying a new one. I just don't know what kind, if it should be mechanical. I'll probably play a lot of MMO (Final Fantasy XIV) and FPS (Call of Duty, Counter-Strike) and such.

I'd personally recommend Corsairs RGB-series mechanical keyboards, they're pretty damn amazing, and they look outright beautiful. Some of the models are pretty expensive though, but shouldn't be too bad. If you want membrane keyboards I'd personally recommend either Razer or Logitech, both have some great-feeling membranes on rather sturdy keyboards with some good lil' features like media control and the likes.

Edit: And re: monitors... Higher refresh rate definitely does give you both an advantage and a much better feel to just about any and all games, but it's not easy finding a high refresh panel with good colours, other than Acers recent efforts (like their G-Sync monitor) and the Eizo Foris.
 

harz-marz

Member
Hi all

I am stuck with a non k i5 2500. It still performs well but I would like to upgrade as I am worried it will bottleneck my 980ti which I've just ordered.

What are my upgrade options? I have a P8Z68-V motherboard and want to know what cpu would be compatible and a nice upgrade?

Ideally don't want to upgrade the motherboard too!

Any suggestions?
 

kennah

Member
Hi all

I am stuck with a non k i5 2500. It still performs well but I would like to upgrade as I am worried it will bottleneck my 980ti which I've just ordered.

What are my upgrade options? I have a P8Z68-V motherboard and want to know what cpu would be compatible and a nice upgrade?

Ideally don't want to upgrade the motherboard too!

Any suggestions?
2600k or 3770k are the best bet, but a 2500k or 3570k would work too.
 
Thanks! I am assuming it would be pointless upgrading my motherboard?

If I stay with the i5 2500 will my system suffer?

Its likely it will hold back the 980ti a bit, but why not just try it first and then decide? You'll have a better idea about how much more performance you want at that point.

Upgrading the MB without moving to a newer socket would probably not be a wise use of your money.
 

RGM79

Member
Sorry. I'm very familiar with this thread. I just thought that perhaps there was someone here that may have had more experience shipping such things. I'll keep my posts strictly on topic in this thread from now on.

Sorry, I didn't mean to accuse you of saying something off-topic, that wasn't my intention. It's just that your question was a bit vague? Shipping costs are usually calculated when you have a destination, origin and shipping method, but you didn't say where you were shipping to and from, you just said "in the US".

Feel free to ask any questions you may want, if we can give you an answer we will.

My parts just arrived (14 hours after ordering them and on a saturday and from a neighbouring country, I am impressed)

I have some questions as every time I've built a pc in the past it has been with a new hard drive and a fresh windows installation.

-Do I have to reformat my hard drive (reinstall windows), or will windows 7 automatically sort things out for me?
I remember I didn't even have to install my motherboard drivers or sound drivers or anything when I installed windows 7 a few months ago on this new hard drive.
Please tell me my current hard drive and windows install is just plug and play for the new motherboard and cpu and ram, I'm a lazy lazy man and do not want to reformat unless I have to.

-I guess the SHITTY windows DRM is going to moan about the hardware changes and expect me to activate it again?
Do I have to call microsoft for this?

If I do I'm assuming that unlike the PC store I used they do not provide customer service on weekends.
Can I use my windows unactivated (or deactivated since i'm not reformatting if I don't have to) for a few days till I can call MS?

-If I need to call MS what do they want from me to fix the DRM for me to accept the new PC?

-IF I do need to reformat and reactivate windows I'm half tempted to just buy a 250GB SSD and cheap windows 8 key on reddit or something for now (do those still exist?) They had 10 euro windows keys before right?

fake edit : proofreading my post I see i'm already having upgrade fever,
NO stephan BAD,NO wasting money

edit :
I'm an idiot I just remembered I have a C partition for windows and D partition for everything else anyway , I'll just format the windows partition and reinstall windows.

  1. Ideally you'd reinstall Windows, but it would be possible to "generalize" Windows so you can keep your installation and move it over to different hardware. There's a Windows tool called Sysprep, all you need to do is select the "generalize" option and that will remove all the specialized drivers for your motherboard hardware. Then you can change motherboards and Windows will boot up without a fuss, allowing you to install the new motherboard's drivers. See here for a guide (it says it's for Windows 7 but works identically for Windows 8/8.1 as well).
  2. Chances are that you might have to call Microsoft to reactivate. Just say you're upgrading your PC and came from a different/dead motherboard and all should be fine.
  3. Yes, Windows usually has a grace period of 30 days before you absolutely need to activate.
  4. It's not that difficult, just call up Microsoft and they will tell you what to do. You will be doing a phone-based activation and that just involves selecting a different option when you go click on "activate Windows".
  5. Yep, still exists. Here's my usual disclaimer on reddit license keys:
    Windows 7/8.1 licenses can be bought from reddit's microsoftsoftwareswap for $20 USD or less. These are most likely legitimate keys that are resold from educational programs like Technet or Dreamspark. However, you are dealing with a person instead of a retailer, and informal Windows keys sales are not approved by Microsoft and probably breaking some licensing agreement, but it's not illegal. The risks involved are that the person could be selling you a fake or used key, or that Microsoft may refuse to give you support and/or deactivate your license and refuse to reactivate it. That's not very likely, usually it only happens if the seller and their list of sold keys was caught. We've had people here using those keys without issues for a long time and others who say Microsoft deactivated their key after several months.
  6. Yeah, if you have separate partitions set up, you can totally just reformat and reinstall easily.

Hi guys; I have two questions about RAM. I have 8GB (2x4) right now and I want to upgrade to 16GB. Is it worth it to get 2x8 or am I okay just putting in another 2x4? Is there a big performance difference between 2x8 and 4x4?

It's fine to put in another 2x4GB of RAM, it'll be cheaper and functionally identical. Unless you can sell your existing 2x4GB of RAM, it'd be more expensive to replace it all with 2x8GB.

Hi all

I am stuck with a non k i5 2500. It still performs well but I would like to upgrade as I am worried it will bottleneck my 980ti which I've just ordered.

What are my upgrade options? I have a P8Z68-V motherboard and want to know what cpu would be compatible and a nice upgrade?

Ideally don't want to upgrade the motherboard too!

Any suggestions?

It's either the i5 3570K or i7 3770K. As I said before, make sure you upgrade the BIOS on your motherboard before installing the new processors.
 

harz-marz

Member
Its likely it will hold back the 980ti a bit, but why not just try it first and then decide? You'll have a better idea about how much more performance you want at that point.

Upgrading the MB without moving to a newer socket would probably not be a wise use of your money.

Thanks. I meant upgrading the motherboard and cpu, not just the board.
 
So I am looking into a 3 monitor + TV setup.

So 1080p monitors of-course. What size is recommended by gaf? 24 or 27 inches? Any specific thin-bezel recommendations?

The monitors in the first post have pretty thick bezels. I am not sure how they would feel in a triple monitor setup.
 

Skii

Member
I'm looking to get into PC gaming because I'm not really satisfied with the lack of optimisation certain games are getting on my PS4 + I have a little extra money lying around.

The main problem for me is that I want to build something that will significantly more powerful than my PS4 as there's no point in me spending £500 only to just slightly outperform it. However, I've heard that PC parts in the UK are quite expensive and generally end up with a £1=$1 conversion making a £1000 PC the same specs as a $1000 PC when it should be closer to $1500 PC. Maybe someone who's from the UK can give me some better insight?

So yeah, here's my requirements:


Budget: £1000-£1200 (including monitor)

Main Use: Gaming

Monitor Resolution: 1440p?

List SPECIFIC games or applications that you MUST be able to run well: Playing the Witcher 3 at 1440p/60fps is the dream at ultra settings but I don't know if what I'm looking to spend is even remotely close to what the specs of a machine that could handle that would cost.

When will you build?: No real time limit at all. Could happily wait 6 months+ to be happy with a build.

Will you be overclocking?: Are there negatives to overclocking if you have a good cooling system?

So yeah... I know there aren't many UK Gaffers so I don't mind anyone else just suggesting me what I should ideally be looking to get for a price range of $1200 and if it can do what I want.

I may have missed vital information that you might need but I'm a PC novice, so bear with me :p
 

harz-marz

Member
It's either the i5 3570K or i7 3770K. As I said before, make sure you upgrade the BIOS on your motherboard before installing the new processors.

Thanks also. I think I will go for the i7 3770K.

Would I see a huge upgrade versus my i5 2500 non-k?
 

Arkanius

Member
Guys I need help:

I just bought an Acer Predator XB270HU and connected the monitor through a MiniDisplay Port to DisplayPort cable

Im limited to 120hz, is this normal? The cable is DisplayPort 1.1 I think
Does it need to be 1.2/a?
 

BeEatNU

WORLDSTAAAAAAR
Guys I need help:

I just bought an Acer Predator XB270HU and connected the monitor through a MiniDisplay Port to DisplayPort cable

Im limited to 120hz, is this normal? The cable is DisplayPort 1.1 I think
Does it need to be 1.2/a?

yes iirc.

I ran into a similar issue at work
 
Well depending on your board and how many PWM controlled fan headers it has, you can
control those from motherboard software.
Most will want a silent PC so around 6-700rpm is sufficient without sacrificing too much airflow. But if you don't have enough PWM headers and are instead voltage controlled, the higher rpm spec fans might not run at low speeds reliably. And I'll just say that your going to gain hardly anything with these fans.
Gotcha ;_; i'll just try and manage
 

RGM79

Member
Thanks also. I think I will go for the i7 3770K.

Would I see a huge upgrade versus my i5 2500 non-k?

If overclocked then yes, you can see a decent boost in performance. It will also depend on what games you play, though.

I'm in agreement with Skii, you might find that your i5 2500 might still be able to perform well. Give the GTX 980 Ti a try first and if it doesn't feel like it's enough, then upgrade. If you don't need to upgrade yet, then that's money saved that could go towards newer parts in the future and not on discontinued processors for your old motherboard.
 

Arrage

Banned
I got a friend in Germany who is about to get a new PC, mostly for gaming. He said his budget is about 1k Euros (With monitor). Looked at best value spreadsheet build and I think that is something that would be the best for him. He would prefer paying 50 Euros more for pre-built than building himself. So no OC for sure and as little trouble shooting as possible.

I looked at amazon.de for prices and here is my idea of what is a <800 Euros PC in germany. Clearly it is just a glance, I am sure you can help me/him find better parts/prices.

w6k5F2j.jpg


Information is appreciated, thank you.
 

longdi

Banned
Hi all

I am stuck with a non k i5 2500. It still performs well but I would like to upgrade as I am worried it will bottleneck my 980ti which I've just ordered.

What are my upgrade options? I have a P8Z68-V motherboard and want to know what cpu would be compatible and a nice upgrade?

Ideally don't want to upgrade the motherboard too!

Any suggestions?

Lucky for you, i5 2500 can still overclock a bit, and with Asus multicore enhancement, you should be able to run 4 cores at 4.2Ghz.

Refer to this http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/3

To use limited overclock, i guess the SOP is to leave bclk at 100, turbo to 42x for all cores and turn on multicore enhancement.
 

harz-marz

Member
Lucky for you, i5 2500 can still overclock a bit, and with Asus multicore enhancement, you should be able to run 4 cores at 4.2Ghz.

Refer to this http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/3

To use limited overclock, i guess the SOP is to leave bclk at 100, turbo to 42x for all cores and turn on multicore enhancement.

Appreciate the response on this. I have never overclocked before and wouldn't even know where to start! Any tips for a n00b?

I can see the bclk and turbo options but can't see multicore enhancement?

I changed these values but when I restart my PC and go back in they seem to default back? Is there something I have to press to save/activate these settings?
 

longdi

Banned
Appreciate the response on this. I have never overclocked before and wouldn't even know where to start! Any tips for a n00b?

I can see the bclk and turbo options but can't see multicore enhancement?

I changed these values but when I restart my PC and go back in they seem to default back? Is there something I have to press to save/activate these settings?

Did you save before you exit bios?
Best to consult your manual where the multicore enhancement is located. without it, you only get 1 core at 4.1ghz instead of all 4 cores.
do make sure you monitor your temps and voltage back in windows. dont want the bios auto voltage settings to overvolt things, especially if you are using the standard boxed heatsink. i use hwinfo monitoring program. you should want to see cpu vcore at around 1.25~1.3v when you done the overclock.

overclock is a learned process. it is generally safe and easy, but you need to read up on all the tweaks and troubleshooting.
 

LordAlu

Member
I'm looking to get into PC gaming because I'm not really satisfied with the lack of optimisation certain games are getting on my PS4 + I have a little extra money lying around.

The main problem for me is that I want to build something that will significantly more powerful than my PS4 as there's no point in me spending £500 only to just slightly outperform it. However, I've heard that PC parts in the UK are quite expensive and generally end up with a £1=$1 conversion making a £1000 PC the same specs as a $1000 PC when it should be closer to $1500 PC. Maybe someone who's from the UK can give me some better insight?

So yeah, here's my requirements:


Budget: £1000-£1200 (including monitor)

Main Use: Gaming

Monitor Resolution: 1440p?

List SPECIFIC games or applications that you MUST be able to run well: Playing the Witcher 3 at 1440p/60fps is the dream at ultra settings but I don't know if what I'm looking to spend is even remotely close to what the specs of a machine that could handle that would cost.

When will you build?: No real time limit at all. Could happily wait 6 months+ to be happy with a build.

Will you be overclocking?: Are there negatives to overclocking if you have a good cooling system?

So yeah... I know there aren't many UK Gaffers so I don't mind anyone else just suggesting me what I should ideally be looking to get for a price range of $1200 and if it can do what I want.

I may have missed vital information that you might need but I'm a PC novice, so bear with me :p
New Intel stuff is due out very soon, so it's best to come back then when it's out. That way if it's worth it we can spec up a build based on the new stuff, otherwise we can do one on the current tech. :)
 

Pachimari

Member
I'd personally recommend Corsairs RGB-series mechanical keyboards, they're pretty damn amazing, and they look outright beautiful. Some of the models are pretty expensive though, but shouldn't be too bad. If you want membrane keyboards I'd personally recommend either Razer or Logitech, both have some great-feeling membranes on rather sturdy keyboards with some good lil' features like media control and the likes.

Edit: And re: monitors... Higher refresh rate definitely does give you both an advantage and a much better feel to just about any and all games, but it's not easy finding a high refresh panel with good colours, other than Acers recent efforts (like their G-Sync monitor) and the Eizo Foris.

I don't need media control and such, I would rather some extra buttons for games like Final Fantasy XIV. So something like the Corsair CGK95 RGB MX?

I also want to upgrade my WiFi router as I have had just about enough problems with my cheap solution. I'm currently looking at a Netgear Nighthawk X4 R7500. It's only for a one-room apartment but one with lots of devices connected through ethernet and WiFi, and I am streaming as well. Isn't that a great one?
 
  1. Ideally you'd reinstall Windows, but it would be possible to "generalize" Windows so you can keep your installation and move it over to different hardware. There's a Windows tool called Sysprep, all you need to do is select the "generalize" option and that will remove all the specialized drivers for your motherboard hardware. Then you can change motherboards and Windows will boot up without a fuss, allowing you to install the new motherboard's drivers. See here for a guide (it says it's for Windows 7 but works identically for Windows 8/8.1 as well).
  2. Chances are that you might have to call Microsoft to reactivate. Just say you're upgrading your PC and came from a different/dead motherboard and all should be fine.
  3. Yes, Windows usually has a grace period of 30 days before you absolutely need to activate.
  4. It's not that difficult, just call up Microsoft and they will tell you what to do. You will be doing a phone-based activation and that just involves selecting a different option when you go click on "activate Windows".
  5. Yep, still exists. Here's my usual disclaimer on reddit license keys:
    Windows 7/8.1 licenses can be bought from reddit's microsoftsoftwareswap for $20 USD or less. These are most likely legitimate keys that are resold from educational programs like Technet or Dreamspark. However, you are dealing with a person instead of a retailer, and informal Windows keys sales are not approved by Microsoft and probably breaking some licensing agreement, but it's not illegal. The risks involved are that the person could be selling you a fake or used key, or that Microsoft may refuse to give you support and/or deactivate your license and refuse to reactivate it. That's not very likely, usually it only happens if the seller and their list of sold keys was caught. We've had people here using those keys without issues for a long time and others who say Microsoft deactivated their key after several months.
  6. Yeah, if you have separate partitions set up, you can totally just reformat and reinstall easily.


.

Ty for the detailed reply.

I put the stuff together and reinstalled windows 7
I ended up having to nuke my install and even my D partition because apparently any partition made on a BIOS is not compatible with a UEFI motherboard (fml)

Here's some more questions now that i'm done and everything seems to work:

-I've never had an integrated gpu before (never a mobo that had one, nor a cpu that had one)
I connected my monitor to my amd gpu and installed amd drivers but the intel one is still active in the bios too.
Do I turn it off? Will it save me power or make the cpu run cooler if I turn off the possy IGPU.

-Installing that enormous be quiet cooler was not easy,I tried to position the cooler perfectly centered on the cpu before screwing it on but the surface is super slippery so it slid around a bit before I managed to grab and secure the screws properly.
I hope that wouldn't have botched the thermal paste application (it was pre applied to the heatsink surface)

My temps with afterburner seem cool (33-40 degrees) under load but I haven't overlocked yet nor have I tried stresstesting yet.

I guess it wouldn't suck toooooooo much to have to remove the cooler (2 screws on a crossbar that holds it in place) but I'd rather leave it alone.
There was absolutely no way to tell if any of the thermal paste got pushed out from between the cpu and cooler surface or if any got badly spread as it wasn't possible to see inside the latch for the cpu anymore (the cooler completely covers it and then some).

Also what's a good prog to check my cpu fanspeed? Afterburner doesn't seem to do it.
I'd like to set a low fan profile once I am sure everything works right and runs cool.

I'm also getting zero noise benifits from this new cooler as my gpu fan turned into a noisy little shit a few months ago (a little piece of plastic even broke off of the fan<.<)
It's really hard to tell how quiet or loud the cpu cooler is with the gpu right next to it.

Any specific benchmarks/stresstest I can do to test if the cpu is performing as it should?



What a difference it's making in games so far though, hooooooooooooly cow.

I'm mighty tempted to get a high quality fan for my case and a new quiet gpu now.
 

Skii

Member
New Intel stuff is due out very soon, so it's best to come back then when it's out. That way if it's worth it we can spec up a build based on the new stuff, otherwise we can do one on the current tech. :)

How soon? I'd love it if you could do one now with current spec so I know what to keep my eyes peeled for. If it's too much trouble, no worries, I can wait :)
 

mhayze

Member
Consumer desktop quad core skylake (the next chip from intel) will be very similar to current desktop processors in performance but a little faster. In the $240 and $340 price points (the two most popular CPU SKUs for enthusiasts) it should be between 15-25% faster in common scenarios than what you could buy today. Overclocking potential remains to be seen but I expect it will scale similar to today's CPUs.

The 100 series chipset is probably more of an improvement than the CPU (IMHO) - more PCIe lanes means that motherboards will probably come with more USB 3.1 ports, there will be better support for high speed storage - new SSDs that finally break through the 550MB/s barrier that SSDs have been stuck at for years need more PCIe lanes and a feature called NVMe which this chipset will have, and you can have muti-GPU setups without running out of lanes (or being as squeezed, at least).

I won't even talk about the GPU or power savings because for enthusiast desktops, these two points are moot, but for mobile platforms, these are probably the biggest improvements.

Finally, there will be broad support for DDR4 RAM - at this point, DDR3 production is in decline, the price will start to rise, and essentially, if you're buying a PC for the next 3-5 years, its probably the longest lived component in your PC. If you are buying a new PC with skylake, pick DDR4 (IMHO).

Overall, it's not night and day different, but a lot of little things.

Intel has repeatedly missed dates over the last few years, but I believe desktop skylake is expected early this fall. I'd say it's 50-50 as to whether they hit that date.
 

RGM79

Member
Ty for the detailed reply.

I put the stuff together and reinstalled windows 7
I ended up having to nuke my install and even my D partition because apparently any partition made on a BIOS is not compatible with a UEFI motherboard (fml)

Here's some more questions now that i'm done and everything seems to work:

-I've never had an integrated gpu before (never a mobo that had one, nor a cpu that had one)
I connected my monitor to my amd gpu and installed amd drivers but the intel one is still active in the bios too.
Do I turn it off? Will it save me power or make the cpu run cooler if I turn off the possy IGPU.

-Installing that enormous be quiet cooler was not easy,I tried to position the cooler perfectly centered on the cpu before screwing it on but the surface is super slippery so it slid around a bit before I managed to grab and secure the screws properly.
I hope that wouldn't have botched the thermal paste application (it was pre applied to the heatsink surface)

My temps with afterburner seem cool (33-40 degrees) under load but I haven't overlocked yet nor have I tried stresstesting yet.

I guess it wouldn't suck toooooooo much to have to remove the cooler (2 screws on a crossbar that holds it in place) but I'd rather leave it alone.
There was absolutely no way to tell if any of the thermal paste got pushed out from between the cpu and cooler surface or if any got badly spread as it wasn't possible to see inside the latch for the cpu anymore (the cooler completely covers it and then some).

Also what's a good prog to check my cpu fanspeed? Afterburner doesn't seem to do it.
I'd like to set a low fan profile once I am sure everything works right and runs cool.

I'm also getting zero noise benifits from this new cooler as my gpu fan turned into a noisy little shit a few months ago (a little piece of plastic even broke off of the fan<.<)
It's really hard to tell how quiet or loud the cpu cooler is with the gpu right next to it.

Any specific benchmarks/stresstest I can do to test if the cpu is performing as it should?

What a difference it's making in games so far though, hooooooooooooly cow.

I'm mighty tempted to get a high quality fan for my case and a new quiet gpu now.

  1. The default motherboard settings should keep the iGPU disabled. No need to worry about it.
  2. Yeah, I would worry more about load temperatures, but those idle temperatures are fine.
  3. I use HWMonitor to keep track of fan speeds, but if you want to set a fan profile, I think you'll need to use Gigabyte's System Information Viewer utility to do it. Links for your motherboard's utilities are here.
  4. If you look a few pages back, you'll see a couple of posts about CPU stressing and what programs they used. I don't do a lot of CPU stressing these days, but I think programs like Intel XTU and maybe Prime95 are recommended.
How soon? I'd love it if you could do one now with current spec so I know what to keep my eyes peeled for. If it's too much trouble, no worries, I can wait :)

About two weeks.
 
That 40 degrees was with 94 percent load on cpu 1 and 30 percent on cpu 2-3-4

I'll try prime95 and check out those utilities , thanks.
All I want from a fan profile is that it keeps the fan speed consistent, on my amd mobo the cool n quiet garbage made the fan spin up and down to hold a specific temp and it was driving me insaaaaaane so I just turned it off and set a fan profile for 500 rpm load and 300 rpm idle to be done with it (it was enough with an arctic freezer to keep the cpu below 50 degrees)

edit:
prime test torture test for max power on the cpu:
fan speed seems to go between 970-1000 rpm
temps go between 45-51 degrees celcius
absolutely zero sound comes from the cooler fan (so I guess I don't need a profile)

I guess I'll keep it running for half an hour to see if it stays this stable (10 mins so far)

No idea if these are the temps I should expect or not.
 

RGM79

Member
Do I want 16gigs of 2133 mhz cas 15 ddr4, or 8gigs of 2400 cas 14?

Gaming and production video/cad work.

The 2400MHz CAS 14 has slightly lower delay, but I'd guess for video editing and CAD you'd want 16GB.. unless you can work with 8GB now and add another 8GB of 2400MHz CAS 14 in the future.
 

kennah

Member
The 2400MHz CAS 14 has slightly lower delay, but I'd guess for video editing and CAD you'd want 16GB.. unless you can work with 8GB now and add another 8GB of 2400MHz CAS 14 in the future.
Yeah that's unfortunately what I'm thinking. Board only has two slots, so I was going to run single channel for a while, would be nice to go up to 32 later.

But maybe something better will come out in the next month before I buy.
 
I've got two questions.

1) I'm building a new computer, reusing the same hardrives buy adding an ssd.

So when I 'reinstall' windows once my new computer I'll leave the old HDDs unplugged at first and instal it onto the ssd?

What do I do with the old windows files on the old HDD then? I may have enough space just to move everything I care about off it onto the other HDD and external and then wipe it, do that? Or is there a way to remove just the windows files?

2) my family is using some 8 year old dell, I'll be giving them my old computer will the windows 7 key on the sticker on top of the dell be good for reinstalling it? Or will I have to call MS?

They're buying a new HDD for it. I guess I could take that and give them my old one with just the windows files on it already in the PC, but I think a fresh install would be best.

3) Edit: said computer has a windows 7 pro 32bit installed/key, would I be able to use the same key on a 64 bit version of windows 7 pro?

Cheers.
 
Aaand windows is giving me shit.

I activated windows with my win7 retail key and it says it's activated.

obviously it isn't because windows update doesn't work (says the service is not running and it very much is...)
(and I can guess why, their shitty DRM is probably kicking in because I changed my motherboard and cpu)

So wtf do I do now? Here I am with my useless legitimate copy of windows that I paid too much money for while every single person I know has pirated it.

I know there's some 'windows validation tool' or whatever but I'm going to assume that's going to brick my install? (And I have no way to contact MS right now as it's sunday early morning)

So what am I supposed to do now?
 

ricki42

Member
Aaand windows is giving me shit.

I activated windows with my win7 retail key and it says it's activated.

obviously it isn't because windows update doesn't work (says the service is not running and it very much is...)
(and I can guess why, their shitty DRM is probably kicking in because I changed my motherboard and cpu)

So wtf do I do now? Here I am with my useless legitimate copy of windows that I paid too much money for while every single person I know has pirated it.

I know there's some 'windows validation tool' or whatever but I'm going to assume that's going to brick my install? (And I have no way to contact MS right now as it's sunday early morning)

So what am I supposed to do now?

That's easy: get Linux! :D
You'll probably have to call Microsoft and tell them you upgraded.
 
The snappyness is unreal. I'm starting to think I got a shit board the last time. Stock clocks are faster then the overclock I had last time. The smoothness is unreal......
 
Wow, I am tired.

Put together my PC, chair and desk and had to rearrange and cleaned my living room.

The downside is I can't even use my graphics card yet. The monitor I borrowed from my brother is VGA only and my GPU doesn't support VGA.

With that said, what's a good monitor in the $120 range?
 

MoonGred

Member
I just upgraded my memory from 8gb to 16, same brand, same speed just a higher amount. Everything works fine except for resuming from sleep, it always hard crashes my pc. I put my old Ram back in and the issue stops.
Anyone have an idea what could be causing this? A cold boot isn't an issue btw.
 

VanWinkle

Member
I'm trying to decide whether to go for the A10 7870k or save ~$25 and go with the 7850k. The 7870k is clocked a little higher in the CPU and GPU (3.9GHz vs 3.7GHz and 866MHz vs 720MHz respectively), but from the Anandtech review, the difference is surprisingly minimal and sometimes even a little worse depending on the benchmark.

I know $25 is a small amount, but my budget is also very small. At the same time, if there is a worthwhile upgrade there, I wouldn't mind spending the extra. I just don't want to spend it only because 7870 is a higher number than 7850.
 

eosos

Banned
So I'm finally ready to start ordering the first parts for my new build! This is all that I've picked out so far. Anyone want to take a quick look at it to see if I did something dumb? Little worried that the PSU won't be powerful enough. I'll also be abstaining from ordering a CPU and motherboard until skylake and the compatible mobos come out in a few weeks. So the motherboard and cpu in there now are just placeholders. Anyway, here it is....

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/x4njMp

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/x4njMp
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/x4njMp/by_merchant/

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor ($378.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC14PE_BL 78.1 CFM CPU Cooler ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard ($184.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($337.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Superclocked ACX 2.0+ Video Card ($649.99 @ B&H)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($99.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($46.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1923.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-26 00:31 EDT-0400
 

longdi

Banned
I'm trying to decide whether to go for the A10 7870k or save ~$25 and go with the 7850k. The 7870k is clocked a little higher in the CPU and GPU (3.9GHz vs 3.7GHz and 866MHz vs 720MHz respectively), but from the Anandtech review, the difference is surprisingly minimal and sometimes even a little worse depending on the benchmark.

I know $25 is a small amount, but my budget is also very small. At the same time, if there is a worthwhile upgrade there, I wouldn't mind spending the extra. I just don't want to spend it only because 7870 is a higher number than 7850.

I will take the 7850k as both looks like the same chip, just one lower clocked for product differentiation. You can re-clock it back to 7870k speeds easy peasy.
 
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