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Official "I need a new PC!!" 2009 Edition
- Thread starter VictimOfGrief
- Start date
TheHeretic
Banned
Sleeker said:
The Q9400 runs on Intels old motherboards. It was one of the later quads before the jump to i7. AMD offerings are better and cheaper.
TheHeretic
Banned
Sleeker said:
AMD Phenom II 940 is a better chip and cheaper to boot. At this point for buying Intel CPU's its i7 or bust. The Phenom II 550, 720 and 940 have all the bases covered apart from the enthusiast level.
AMDs only answer to the i7 range are the 945 and 955 CPU's, which use DDR3, but the i7's outperform them.
I look at these two products and I cant see why i would choose i7 920 over the 955
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=27_29&products_id=38256
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=27_28&products_id=36104
its cheaper and has a higher clock speed
is it also true that "black edition" also means its for OCing?
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=27_29&products_id=38256
http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=27_28&products_id=36104
its cheaper and has a higher clock speed
is it also true that "black edition" also means its for OCing?
lowlylowlycook
Member
Sleeker said:
The i7s get more done per clock tick. Otherwise we might still be using Pentium 4s.
Minsc
Gold Member
Sleeker said:
http://service.futuremark.com/hardware
955 scores 16.8K
i7 scores 29.4K
Almost double the performance, damn. 955 isn't even in the same league as the i7.
Edit: Didn't see you were singling out the 920, even that scores 24.1K which is almost 50% faster. Still a huge step up.
lowlylowlycook
Member
Minsc
Gold Member
lowlylowlycook said:Techreport has some very nice graphs of performance vs. price here.
This graph in particular takes into account the price of motherboards for the various platforms.
The value/price of the i7s drops very rapidly after the 920.
Actually the 940 is not too far out of line from the X3 720.
X3 720 = 125% @ <$600
i 940 = 210% @ ~$1,100
So you're getting almost double the performance for almost double the price. Factor in the 950s are probably going to take the 940's spot, and it should help even more. It's only the 965 that's really far off line.
I was mildly tempted to get a 965 yesterday, but then I came to the same conclusion that graph did, in my brain, and got a 950 instead.
picked up this monitor as well. no 3d glasses tho: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001311
picked up this monitor as well. no 3d glasses tho: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001311
lowlylowlycook
Member
Minsc said:
Well the x axis is a bit arbitrary in a graph like that since it depends on what is included in the system price. If you look at the "best bang for the buck" trend line from 6400+ to the X4 940 or eve to the i7 920 there is a pretty big kink out to the other i7s.
Also that graph there is a combination of Anandtech's benchmarks and may not represent what any particular person needs.
Of course, for gaming purposes, it's hard to imagine needing more power than a i7 920 any time soon. If you do 3D rendering for a living then perhaps even the 965 is worth the money.
brain_stew
Member
Minsc said:
Good luck finding many (if any?) real world applications that actually deliver twice the performance of an X3 720 with an i7 940. People don't tend to use synthetic benchmarks in real world scenarios all that much.
I could sort of see the argument if it wasn't for the OCing capacity of the i7 920, which pretty much makes all higher priced i7s a simple waste of cash in my eyes.
Minsc
Gold Member
brain_stew said:
That is true, those benchmarks probably exaggerate the return by a ton more than a set of gaming benchmarks would show.
They should make a set of charts like that, but instead of using all those graphics suite & office benchmarks, do gaming ones, maybe even use two dots, one for the typical overclock of the cpu and one for a factory level clock.
brain_stew
Member
Minsc said:
And then some! :lol :lol
With a single GPU rig, you're going to see very, very small gains once you get into X2 550 territory, and that's a $105 CPU, so yeah, as far as gamers are concerned that chart's pretty much worthless. If you main task is 3D modelling, then yeah, it may have its uses, but even then you rarely get real world implementations with as perfect SMT as you get in the sythetics.
brain_stew
Member
TheExodu5 said:
I have to stress this. Things never play out how you expect them to, and you'll probably just get inpatient and upgrade that i7 to the new hotness before it fulfills that "potential" anyway.
Buying a low cost quad like a 940 is about the most "future proofness" I'd go as far as flat out recommending (for gamers at least anyway) because at least quads are starting to finally show tangible benefits now, even if they're still rather small.
I don't want to downplay how good a CPU the i7 920 is, its really an awesome bit of kit, but it really just doesn't match up to the needs of all that many people.
i buy for longevity, but this is because i am lazy/apathetic when it comes to upgrading. i like to set it up and leave it be for a few years. i acknowledge that this runs counter to all that is holy in i-need-a-new-pc gaf. even i'm not crazy enough to get a 965 though, so i do have my limits.
ps what are good speakers? doesn't seem like any have been recommended for a while here. premium on small footprint.
ps what are good speakers? doesn't seem like any have been recommended for a while here. premium on small footprint.
Yeah, that's just too much. I really don't want to clutter things up and my sound needs for my PC setup are pretty low since I don't listen to music or watch movies on PC. Think these might fit my needs: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16836116044zbarron said:
BravoSuperStar
Member
AstroLad said:
I've had these for about a year:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16836121122
Really great 2.1 system, and it has a headphone jack on the dongle. (i'm sure there is a joke in there somewhere, but it's to early on a monday)
Can we get the link to TR's system guide in the OP updated? It links to February, but the Summer guide is out now.
http://techreport.com/articles.x/17102
http://techreport.com/articles.x/17102
evil solrac v3.0
Member
would my stock Q6600 bottleneck my 2 GTX 260s? I dont really know how to read 3dmark scores but when i tested it once with the 2 9600 gts, the cpu score was higher and now its switched
AstroLad said:
Those Creatives are god awful. Stay far, far away. Not even worth $50.
I'm a big BOSE hater in the audio world, but they absolutely smoke those Creatives.
I'd say stay away from the Logitechs as well.
The only half decent set of cheap PC speakers I've heard recently was a pair of Altec Lansings...forget the model though.
evil solrac v3.0 said:
Depends on the game. Most games are not CPU limited. CPU intensive games it will probably be a bottleneck. Empire: TW is a good example of a cpu intensive game.
If you have to 260s I'd definitely make my next upgrade the CPU. Also, it is very easy to overclock a q6600 to at least 3GHz.
First a few questions to thin the field:zbarron said:
- Does he have a max screen size? - Will he be carrying this to class, and is weight/size important?
- Does he have a required battery life?
- How important are aesthetics?
- What kind of gaming does he do?
Mr. Spinnington
Banned
DON'T!!!!AstroLad said:
For $60 less you can get the best desktop speakers to ever hit the market, if you can hunt down a set of Kipsch 2.0 ProMedias
that's actually a pretty suitable solution you found yourself :]
i kno where you can get him a $900 macbook pro ;pzbarron said:
TheHeretic
Banned
evil solrac v3.0 said:
Not if you overclock it.
MWS Natural
Member
AstroLad said:
I recently purchased these and I love them but I'm a big bass head so they may not fit your tastes. Style-wise they look amazing I have had a couple people comment on them and I have only had them for a little for a week. If you love bass and want a sexy ass speaker set these can't be beat.
Mr. Spinnington said:
How long have you been using these? The reason I ask is because I had a pair and really liked them, but they just stopped working after about a year. After a while everything that I would send to them would play at like 1/10 volume and adjusting the volume before them only made them sound worse. Finally they just stopped playing anything back at all. I miss those little guys. =(
evil solrac v3.0
Member
so what is the best, easiest way to overclock? never having done this before?
Gully State
Member
I know I'm going to get flack for this but can anyone direct us to some good resources for overclocking? (preferably with videos). I know I'm not the only one that is hesitant to OC my CPU.
evil solrac v3.0 said:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/oc-guide.html
Or: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclocking-guide,15.htmlGully State said:
or http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,2188777,00.asp
There are lots of guides out there, but at the end of the day, when it comes to overclocking, it just takes a bit of time and effort. Remember though, not all CPUs are built alike, some will overclock well, some will not, it's all trial and error at the end of the day, and unlike yesteryear where failed overclocking = certain PC death a failed overclock usually requires a CMOS clear at worst.
Good hunting both of you.
Edit: Just for reference, my current CPU (A Q9400), overclocks from 2.66Ghz to 3.6Ghz with little tweaking to the voltage and PCI-E frequency and Ram timings using my current motherboard (A Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3P). However it wasn't always so easy, my old motherboard (The Gigabyte GA-G31-SF2) wouldn't push the thing past 3.0Ghz no matter what I done (Trying to boot past it would end up in boot refuses at worst, or BSOD city at best), so it shows that overclocking depends on more than just the CPU.
AZ Greg
Member
Quick general question:
I have an 8800GT that has a DVI port and a monitor that does as well (Though I have them connected via a VGA cable at the moment). What I want to do is connect my PC to my TV so I can play games/emulators on it. My TV has an HDMI port so I know I'll need an DVI -> HDMI converter, but what I'm wondering is this: Should I plug the DVI cable into my stack and then connect the cable to the DVI -> HDMI converter and finally into the TV or should I leave my stack plugged into my computer monitor via VGA and then connect the DVI cable into my monitor and then plug that into the converter and finally into my TV? Will both of these methods work? Which one is better if so?
Thanks!
I have an 8800GT that has a DVI port and a monitor that does as well (Though I have them connected via a VGA cable at the moment). What I want to do is connect my PC to my TV so I can play games/emulators on it. My TV has an HDMI port so I know I'll need an DVI -> HDMI converter, but what I'm wondering is this: Should I plug the DVI cable into my stack and then connect the cable to the DVI -> HDMI converter and finally into the TV or should I leave my stack plugged into my computer monitor via VGA and then connect the DVI cable into my monitor and then plug that into the converter and finally into my TV? Will both of these methods work? Which one is better if so?
Thanks!
Minsc
Gold Member
MoFuzz said:
That sucks. I'd say unlikely, I think you'd be much better off served calling on the phone and requesting to speak to a case manager. Don't even bother with the minimum wage idiots that don't speak english, you're best chances of accomplishing that are with a case manager over the phone.
You really need to have a backup plan in motion day one, with any mechanical drive. Nothing is guaranteed to work the next day, so your best bet is to setup up an automated backup at least a few times a week, to an online server, or another drive, whatever. It usually takes a drive containing months or years of a person's life to fail before someone will invest the few hours in setting up a backup routine, unfortunately.
Actually if the drive is within 30 days of purchase you qualify for free tech support, and the tech support people are extremely competent at WD. I'd dealt with them trying to get around drivers on a NT server before, and had no problems when I called.
TheHeretic
Banned
evil solrac v3.0 said:
You'll need to buy a custom CPU heat sink and fan before you begin overclocking. Its easy to do and seeing as you have the same CPU as me I can give you some specs right now. All you'll need to change (assuming you have DDR2 800) is:
Multiplier: 8
Front Side Bus: 400
Vcore: 1.4v
North Bridge: 1.4v
Boom, you are done. With these settings you'll be running at 3.2ghz. Every CPU is different but thats an easy starting point.
I'd say it's probably unlikely. Making backups is your responsibility. The warrenty means they'll replace the drive, if it breaks, not that they guaranty that it won't break.MoFuzz said:
It's not really backed up unless you have three copies. Your personal, usable copy, one on-site backup and one off-site. That's the only way you'll still have a copy if your house burns down. Also, RAID is not a real backup.
Speaking of which, I should actually create a backup for my own computer. I haven't gotten a new backup since my external drive died.
godhandiscen
There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Just remember, once you overclock the processor, that performance/price difference is even minimal.AstroLad said:
A good 24/7 OC is really hard to achieve. It took me a while to reach 4.0GHz 24/7Ikuu said:
godhandiscen
There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
lol I quoted the wrong post. I still got the i7 940 to guarantee a good OC.AstroLad said: