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Official "I need a new PC!!" 2009 Edition
- Thread starter VictimOfGrief
- Start date
My resolution is 1680x1050 and with everything on "Very High" AA 2x and V-Sync on, I'm getting around 30-45 FPS average, which is great. It looks a hell of a lot better than the 360 and it runs a little better. But, from the benchmarks I've read, they're getting double that at the same resolution. But, their i7 920s are OC'd. So I'm thinking, that's the only thing holding me back at this point.Hazaro said:FC2 weighs a bit more on the CPU iirc, but a i7 should be doing fine already.
Did you check their settings and resolution vs. yours? What fps are you getting?
And you should be overclocked anyway
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I think I always get 60 with the 920 at stock in FC2.JdFoX187 said:
TheHeretic
Banned
Ikopi said:
I prefer it because I like the height - width ratio more. Matter of opinion as to whether they are worth the price.
I'd like some advice. I need more storrage space and I'd also like to upgrade my PC sometime in the next six months. I've had a experience with internal HDs. That said, I don't want to install a new internal HD in this computer if it isn't a good platform to upgrade on. Here are my specs:
Core2 Duo E6300 Dual Core Processor LGA775 Conroe 1.86GHZ 1066FSB 2MB Retail
Sapphire Radeon X1950 XT 625MHZ PCI-E 256MB GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out VIVO OEM Video Card
Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 ATX LGA775 Conroe P965 DDR2 PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 GBLAN Audio Motherboard
OCZ Gold XTC PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL5-5-5-12 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit
Coolermaster CAC-T05 Centurion 5 Aluminum ATX Tower Case 5X5.25 1X3.5 4X3.5INT SILVER-BLACK No PS
OCZ GameXStream 700W ATX12V 24PIN SLI Ready Active PFC ATX Power Supply 120MM Fan Black
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive
Pioneer DVR-111D Black DVD-RW 16X6X16 DVD+RW 16X8X16 DL 8X IDE OEM DVD Burner
Sony Black 1.44MB 3.5IN Floppy Drive
Logitec X-530 speakers
Your thoughts
thanks
Core2 Duo E6300 Dual Core Processor LGA775 Conroe 1.86GHZ 1066FSB 2MB Retail
Sapphire Radeon X1950 XT 625MHZ PCI-E 256MB GDDR3 Dual DVI-I HDCP HDTV Out VIVO OEM Video Card
Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 ATX LGA775 Conroe P965 DDR2 PCI-E16 3PCI-E1 3PCI SATA2 GBLAN Audio Motherboard
OCZ Gold XTC PC2-6400 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-800 CL5-5-5-12 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit
Coolermaster CAC-T05 Centurion 5 Aluminum ATX Tower Case 5X5.25 1X3.5 4X3.5INT SILVER-BLACK No PS
OCZ GameXStream 700W ATX12V 24PIN SLI Ready Active PFC ATX Power Supply 120MM Fan Black
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro
Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA2 3GB/S 7200RPM 16MB Cache NCQ Hard Drive
Pioneer DVR-111D Black DVD-RW 16X6X16 DVD+RW 16X8X16 DL 8X IDE OEM DVD Burner
Sony Black 1.44MB 3.5IN Floppy Drive
Logitec X-530 speakers
Your thoughts
thanks
brain_stew
Member
Ikopi said:
Go 1080p. Less strain on the GPU, consoles will look much better and its great for games and movies. Even at the same cost I'd take the 16:9 display, when it can be had cheaper its a no brainer imo.
Stoney Mason
Banned
Sort of related to this post.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=17258706&postcount=41
Long story short my nephew asked me to recommend him a gaming laptop so he could play WoW.
But I want to give him all his option so I want to ask for a desktop recommendation also.
So I have two levels I'm asking at. The first is one at a level where it can just play World of Warcraft well. And the second level is one that plays most of the games currently out there on the PC.
The only caveat is that it must be a pre-built system. He is not computer saavy and I don't live near him to put it together so it must be a computer that you can point me to online or via a store online.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=17258706&postcount=41
Long story short my nephew asked me to recommend him a gaming laptop so he could play WoW.
But I want to give him all his option so I want to ask for a desktop recommendation also.
So I have two levels I'm asking at. The first is one at a level where it can just play World of Warcraft well. And the second level is one that plays most of the games currently out there on the PC.
The only caveat is that it must be a pre-built system. He is not computer saavy and I don't live near him to put it together so it must be a computer that you can point me to online or via a store online.
brain_stew
Member
Decado said:
Just OC that processor and its primed and ready to play any game out there. A $20 cooler should make 3ghz attainable, I'd suggest buying these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835200035
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150329
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152102
You might want to get some more RAM as well. 2GB is on the rather low side these days.
There's a lifetime warranty and free copy of Batman: AA with that GPU btw, great deal.
brain_stew said:
It's a 720p native TV and I'm using a 1080p signal (1080 still looks significantly better even though it's a 720 TV). I think all I may have to do is find an alternative stretcher, which I'm sure there has to be one...right?
Also semi-related, I bought a VH236H widescreen monitor, but my eyes are having a very tough time adjusting from my 19" 4:3. I can play games fine, but when browsing the internet, my eyes tend to get blurry very quickly, especially when reading text. I have tried different cables and settings and still can't find a solution. I thought I'd get used to it, but I've had the thing for over a week now and still have issues. Any ideas?
brain_stew
Member
Stoney Mason said:
Shame you couldn't build it for him as $400 can actually get something that'll play any game out there on high/max settings at reasonable resolution these days. You're looking at around the $1000 to be able to do that with a laptop and pgaming erformance would still be only ~50-80% of a $400 desktop then anyway, so recommending the desktop route makes sense.
That said, have a look at the Phenom ii configurator at CyberPowerPC, here:
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/AMD_Phenom_II_Configurator/detail
You should be able to get a netbook + a very reasonable gaming desktop this way for under the $1000 of the laptop, and both will be much, much better at their individual jobs. Plus, future upgrades will be hassle free, which is a huge bonus if you ask me.
This is the sort of configuration I'd put together, it comes out at $899 (+$29 rebate) but includes a free copy of Street Fighter IV, Flight Simulator X Deluxe and Vista x64 w/ free Windows 7 upgrade, so that's $200 worth of software right there and this this will basically max out anything at 1080p just fine:
Cyber said:
brain_stew
Member
Ysiadmihi said:
Well that's your problem, they don't make 720p native TVs. You want to output 1360x768 (I'm 99% sure this is your TV's native resolution) and 1:1 map, (likely enable that "just" mode will do the trick).
If you want to supersample your games then fine, but do it the proper way through nHancer and don't use your TV's scaler to do the job poorly.
MWS Natural
Member
Ex wants me to recommend a general/media PC for her mom. They live pretty far away so me building them one isn't an option. What do you guys think of this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883107989
Their budget is around $1,000 give a or take a few hundred. They want to be able to watch movies from it and stream content to the other devices in the house. I figured I would go a bit high end so it will be good for the next 6-8 years, which is as long as they have had their current clunker.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883107989
Their budget is around $1,000 give a or take a few hundred. They want to be able to watch movies from it and stream content to the other devices in the house. I figured I would go a bit high end so it will be good for the next 6-8 years, which is as long as they have had their current clunker.
brain_stew
Member
MWS Natural said:
No need to spend anything like that much tbh. Just seems like a waste to me.
Any dual core + 4GB RAM rig will basically get the job done and I doubt they'd notice any difference above that. Just make sure the case has plenty space for extra HDDs and spend the budget on 1TB HDDs not on a Core i7 which is just not needed. Oh, and make sure it has gigabit ethernet if its going to be streaming video. Those areas plus lower power usage are the things they'll notice more, not having a 100% under utilised high end GPU.
Something like this should more than suffice (its overkill if anything) at half the price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883113102
or this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103218
If they need a BD drive its a very simple upgrade (heck there's always externals), if not its an unnecessary expense.
If they want a BD drive then I'd pick up this thing:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883107992
$840 but its super small and has both a HDTV tuner and BD drive, wireless kb/m and remote and dedicated graphics. Its a perfect HTPC, actually a much better solution than the $1200 HP rig imo and you save nearly $400 whilst you're at it.
Stoney Mason
Banned
brain_stew said:
Thx for the info.
I finally figured it out. Had speed step turned on in the BIOS. When I turned that off, I was getting at least 60 FPS on Far Cry 2 and well over 90 on World at War. Still not getting quite what the benchmarks on sites were, but they're OC'd. When my cooler comes in, I think I'll go ahead and OC it and see where that goes. But right now, things are good. Thanks for the help everyone.
brain_stew
Member
JdFoX187 said:
Honestly in most circumstances SpeedStep causes more harm than good. Reducing the operating frequency barely has an appreciable affect on power usage either, its the voltage setting (which speedstep doesn't touch) which makes the difference.
Make sure both C1E and EIST are disabled in your BIOS.
brain_stew
Member
Ysiadmihi said:Tried this, doesn't work.
Trying to find a program that can resize exactly like the older nVidia control panel used to do but I'm coming up empty
Try downloading NVTray, it "should" let you use the older control panel with your new drivers.
Decado said:
You've got a Freezer 7 Pro, so you should be able to overclock that thing plenty. Hopefully you can get 3.0GHz out of it.
The videocard could use an upgrade, and it would be a massive upgrade. Check out the GTX 275 or HD 4890 if you're willing to spend around $200.
An extra 2GB of RAM couldn't hurt either, as 2GB is probably cutting it close atm.
Heh. It is over clocked and I think the cores combined are close to 3ghz? I don't really remember what I did now.TheExodu5 said:
I definitely want a new video card and RAM sounds like a good idea. I'm planning on playing Crysis, heavily modded Oblivion and Fallout 3 and Dragon Age. I've got time, though.
My immediate concern is HD space. Should I add another HD to the system or take the risk and buy an external one? Any significant pros to doing the former (besides the fact that they don't seem to die as easily)? Thanks.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
Ikopi said:
i'd say it is. for PC games at least.
rohlfinator
Member
No reason not to get an internal if you have the space for it, IMO. They're cheaper, come with longer warranties, and will perform better than a USB or Firewire drive. You'll be able to reuse it with no problems when you buy a new computer, or if you decide you'd rather use it as an external you can buy a cheap enclosure.Decado said:
Decado said:
Cores don't "combine" for speed. The GHz speed is the frequency at which the cores operate.
If it's running at 1.86GHz, then it's not overclocked. You say you do have it overclocked though...a right click -> properties on My Computer should tell you what speed it's running at.
VibratingDonkey
Member
Something within my PC is dying. Has been something wrong with it forever, crashes frequently when games or flash content happen. Pretty much guaranteed to crash within 20 minutes of playing any game, except for Far Cry 2 for some reason. The Sims 3 only crashed in build and buy mode 90% of the times. Odd.
But recently the thing has started to crash and then not work for long periods of time. No image is sent to the screen, a fan whirs up to high speed, think it's the rear case fan. So far it eventually boots up again, but who knows how long that's gonna last.
I don't know. It's either the CPU, motherboard or GPU, or everything. Starting with the first two, see if that helps. Gonna try to save up for a Phenom II X4 940 and a Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P. Unless anyone's got a better idea?
But recently the thing has started to crash and then not work for long periods of time. No image is sent to the screen, a fan whirs up to high speed, think it's the rear case fan. So far it eventually boots up again, but who knows how long that's gonna last.
I don't know. It's either the CPU, motherboard or GPU, or everything. Starting with the first two, see if that helps. Gonna try to save up for a Phenom II X4 940 and a Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P. Unless anyone's got a better idea?
MWS Natural
Member
Thanks as always Brainstew, I will take a look a those. Do you think it would be better for them to wait till Win 7 releases this fall? So they get the OS for free.
A Twisty Fluken
Member
I heard rumblings about a fanless 4770 months ago, but I see none, in fact, I see no passive high end video cards period. Is this something I'm going to need to do aftermarket?
brain_stew
Member
Decado said:
Your CPU is fine.
Internal, always internal. eSATA is the only decent solution for external drives, or maybe a NAS over gigabit ethernet but that's be best left for media usage. Just grab a Samsung F1 1TB, super fast and well under $100.
I'd go with a GTX 260 GPU wise, they're a great deal now whilst shipping with a free copy of Batman: AA.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143140
MWS Natural said:
Most PCs are shipping with a free W7 upgrade now, just be sure to check that the rig you buy does and you're set.
DMczaf said:
My free complimentary copy of Mirror's Edge from Nvidia was a voucher that could be redeemed on EA's store, worked fine. Dunno how the Batman downloads work but can't see you having a problem.
MoFuzz
Member
Decado said:
If you are using the first generation Conroe-based Core 2 Duo E6300, I believe that is factory clocked at 1.8 GHz. So you could probably hit 2.5 comfortably, and maybe even somewhere around 2.8 after heavy oc'ing. I don't know how realistic your chances are that you'd hit 3 GHz with that chip, even with uber cooling.
The new Pentium Dual Core E6300 comes stock at 2.8 GHz. These are based on the much more efficient Wolfdale architechture, and you should easily hit well 3.33 to 3.5 GHz on an overclock.
I don't know why they gave two completely different products the same model name. It just serves to confuse things, which looks to have happened here.
lachesis
Member
Well not exactly getting a new PC, but I'm contemplating to get that Windows 7 Home Premium Family pack, which is supposedly at $149 for 3 license upgrades for my 3 XP computers at home... It's just too good to pass by.... but I have a rather dumb question. If someone could help me out on this end, I'd greatly appreciate it.
I understand I have to format and do a clean install. (I actually prefer that way.) As far as I understand, the HDD must have working XP license. (Which I do) But my questions is when I decide to do a re-format the drive down the road.
Assuming that I've not changed my HDD nor anything and when I feel like the computer is sluggish and is in need of fresh re-install of windows 7... would I have to format and install XP first, in order to install Windows 7 again.. or will Windows 7 recognize itself before format/re-installing itself?
Well, it'd be a waste of time to install the old xp, just to re-install the windows 7.
I understand I have to format and do a clean install. (I actually prefer that way.) As far as I understand, the HDD must have working XP license. (Which I do) But my questions is when I decide to do a re-format the drive down the road.
Assuming that I've not changed my HDD nor anything and when I feel like the computer is sluggish and is in need of fresh re-install of windows 7... would I have to format and install XP first, in order to install Windows 7 again.. or will Windows 7 recognize itself before format/re-installing itself?
Well, it'd be a waste of time to install the old xp, just to re-install the windows 7.
rohlfinator
Member
With Vista, the upgrade versions just required a recognizable Windows installation of pretty much any kind (including Vista) on the HDD.lachesis said:
As far as I know, Windows 7 will work the same way, so what you're wanting to do should work. I don't think Microsoft has officially confirmed it one way or another, but at this point I would be surprised if they changed it.
brain_stew
Member
evil solrac v3.0 said:
I dunno, the pixel pitch of a 23" 1080p monitor is already pretty damn high and supremely crisp, dunno if you'd notice the 20% increase all that much but you'd sure as hell notice the 20% drop in framerate. Plus, 16:9 is just nicer for games anyway.
lachesis said:
That's the theory, in practice I'd expect workarounds like there's been with every previous version of Windows and there even has been between W7 builds. There's no guarantee of course, but its not something that would make me pass on a deal like that personally, XP is pretty damn painful to use these days imo.
Oh, and be sure to install the x64 version if you can, don't hold the PC platform back!
evil solrac v3.0
Member
brain_stew said:
*shrug* maybe i'm just used to it anyways. so what's the word on WIN7 so far as far as game performance?
I've been on Vista and now 7 since 2007. I can't imagine going back to XP mostly due to Search.
Also, fuck Future Shop. Made me wait a month for some stupid ass sale on my monitor where they jacked up the price $50 instead of lowering it. Then said they could give me 10% off... the new price. Still $20 more than the old price. God I hate this company so much.
Also, fuck Future Shop. Made me wait a month for some stupid ass sale on my monitor where they jacked up the price $50 instead of lowering it. Then said they could give me 10% off... the new price. Still $20 more than the old price. God I hate this company so much.
TouchMyBox
Member
Minsc said:
Is it even necessary for him to look for that? Nvidia's drivers should will scale the picture according to user preference. I would presume ATI does the same.
Otheradam said:
Just throwing this out there, you can get an i7 setup for a good price now seeing as Bing is offering double cashback at all stores. I bought most my parts at eWiz with 20 % CB and the rest at Newegg with 10% CB. I got $176 in cashback total. This lasts until the end of August.
Going with i5 you'd probably save around the same amount of money, maybe less since mobo prices won't be cheap when it first hits the market.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
8800 has more VRAM, GTX 8800 can still bring it....
so for my next build what case should i go with?
Thermaltake ArmorPlus(Armor+)
OR
ANTEC 1200?
so for my next build what case should i go with?
Thermaltake ArmorPlus(Armor+)
OR
ANTEC 1200?