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[squinters]

What's the estimated price and power recommendation for the new DX11 cards?

I currently have a 475 PSU with a Radeon 4670, but want to upgrade for StarCraft 2 and Half Life 2:Episode 3

 

[UT66]

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?

dust magnets.

this > Antec P183 @ P182

 

[evil solrac v3.0]

dust magnets.

this > Antec P183 @ P182

are these full towers?

 

[UT66]

are these full towers?

my bad... i guess, buy dust filters ? this are nice

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119186

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163015

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119187

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112182

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112064

 

[Minsc]

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.

I don't think a LCD monitor exists that can scale razor sharp text and details as well as it can display it at it's native resolution. It's a pretty big deal if you care about image quality. If it's an option you should do everything you can to run games at your native resolution, that is if you enjoy TBS/RTS, where you're typically zoomed out and looking at sharp textures drawn really tiny, to the point where individual pixels on your screen are uniquely mapped to the texture. It's really apparent in games like HoMM V.

Besides the fact that it's impossible to scale certain images while maintaining the same amount of detail. For instance, scale a black pixel and a white pixel side by side to occupy 1 pixel (or 3 pixels). Good luck.

LCD monitors are super-sharp too, which doesn't help the issue. On my Kuro, I'm hard pressed to tell the difference between 480p and 1080p in a movie, sitting a eight feet away. But it's day and night on my LCD monitor about 1-2 feet away.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

Hi solrac, I found your thread finally.

I'll be upgrading mobo, CPU, storage, and RAM soon. I'll be running Windows 7 64bit and tend to have shit tons of stuff open at the same time, so I imagine I'll need a lot of RAM. What's "a lot of RAM" these days? 8 gigs?

 

[x3sphere]

Hi solrac, I found your thread finally.

I'll be upgrading mobo, CPU, storage, and RAM soon. I'll be running Windows 7 64bit and tend to have shit tons of stuff open at the same time, so I imagine I'll need a lot of RAM. What's "a lot of RAM" these days? 8 gigs?

As a power user, I'd say more than 4GB is a lot. If you go i7 you'll want to setup the RAM in a triple channel configuration so 6GB is the best option there, otherwise the next step up would be 12GB (overkill though IMO).

edit: ah you could do 9GB as well in an i7 (3x3GB). But again I'd say 6GB is enough.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

As a power user, I'd say more than 4GB is a lot. If you go i7 you'll want to setup the RAM in a triple channel configuration so 6GB is the best option there, otherwise the next step up would be 12GB (overkill though IMO).

edit: ah you could do 9GB as well in an i7 (3x3GB). But again I'd say 6GB is enough.

Good to know. RAM's so cheap now that I figure, may as well get a lot. Is i7 the thing to get these days? I'm so out of the loop.

 

[Zaptruder]

I don't think a LCD monitor exists that can scale razor sharp text and details as well as it can display it at it's native resolution. It's a pretty big deal if you care about image quality. If it's an option you should do everything you can to run games at your native resolution, that is if you enjoy TBS/RTS, where you're typically zoomed out and looking at sharp textures drawn really tiny, to the point where individual pixels on your screen are uniquely mapped to the texture. It's really apparent in games like HoMM V.

Besides the fact that it's impossible to scale certain images while maintaining the same amount of detail. For instance, scale a black pixel and a white pixel side by side to occupy 1 pixel (or 3 pixels). Good luck.

LCD monitors are super-sharp too, which doesn't help the issue. On my Kuro, I'm hard pressed to tell the difference between 480p and 1080p in a movie, sitting a eight feet away. But it's day and night on my LCD monitor about 1-2 feet away.

Means you're sitting way too far from the screen.

 

[TofuEater]

Good to know. RAM's so cheap now that I figure, may as well get a lot. Is i7 the thing to get these days? I'm so out of the loop.

i7 is the latest and greatest from intel. i7 920 + a good cooler can be overclocked past the more expensive i7 950 and 975EE's which are like double and triple in price.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

i7 is the latest and greatest from intel. i7 920 + a good cooler can be overclocked past the more expensive i7 950 and 975EE's which are like double and triple in price.

I told myself I'd never OC again.

Hard to argue with getting double-triple value though.

Oh, what constitutes a "good" cooler? I've never done anything more than good fan placement + a big copper heatsink.

 

[sol_bad]

Pretty sure the 9800GTX is just a refreshed 8800GTX with slight modifications. I'd stick with the card you have. The difference will be next to nil, maybe worse if you play at high resolutions since the 9800 has less VRAM.

Thanks for the quick response, I had a feeling the 8800GTX would be the better option. Just wanted to make sure.

 

[MWS Natural]

LCD monitors are super-sharp too, which doesn't help the issue. On my Kuro, I'm hard pressed to tell the difference between 480p and 1080p in a movie, sitting a eight feet away. But it's day and night on my LCD monitor about 1-2 feet away.

Well...hopefully sitting so far away you own a 60 inch Kuro...and get those eyes checked out =P. Seriously though it's hard for me to tell 720 from 1080p but 480 vs. 1080p is like night and day.

 

[brain_stew]

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.

Not if you're using HDMI, Nvidia ridiculously disable GPU scaling oer an HDMI connection for no good reason, its also no good for other devices as well (obviously).

Personally I'd rather use my full screen real estate when playing games, never had an issue working with "just" 2 million pixels.

 

[Minsc]

Well...hopefully sitting so far away you own a 60 inch Kuro...and get those eyes checked out =P. Seriously though it's hard for me to tell 720 from 1080p but 480 vs. 1080p is like night and day.

It's the 52(?)" one, I really don't think ~8' is very far away, normal setup, with TV against the wall, and a little room for walking, then a table, and a couch.

I'm talking only about movies though, I download the 480p, 720p, and 1080p planet earth trailers from Apple's site, and the 1080p and 480p one's were unnervingly similar, aside from some compression artifacts which were more visible in the 480p version. Before I played them, I was sure I'd have a convincing argument that 1080p was so much better than 480p, and end up wanting to get a blu-ray player, but all they did was convince me the opposite :lol As it stands, I'm 100% satisfied watching my DVDs ripped on the TV, and have no desire to need to buy anything better.

I do hate to watch SDTV though, that comes in awful, HDTV is day and night better than SDTV.

Not if you're using HDMI, Nvidia ridiculously disable GPU scaling oer an HDMI connection for no good reason, its also no good for other devices as well (obviously).

Personally I'd rather use my full screen real estate when playing games, never had an issue working with "just" 2 million pixels.

I was thinking the other advantage 1920x1200 has, is if you play a bunch of older games, particularly ones like Starcraft, Diablo II, or Inifinty Engine games, etc, where often the resolution is limited to 800x600, then you can scale the image to 1600:1200 perfectly, with no loss (exact 2:1 mapping).

 

[brain_stew]

It's the 52(?)" one, I really don't think ~8' is very far away, normal setup, with TV against the wall, and a little room for walking, then a table, and a couch.

I'm talking only about movies though, I download the 480p, 720p, and 1080p planet earth trailers from Apple's site, and the 1080p and 480p one's were unnervingly similar, aside from some compression artifacts which were more visible in the 480p version. Before I played them, I was sure I'd have a convincing argument that 1080p was so much better than 480p, and end up wanting to get a blu-ray player, but all they did was convince me the opposite :lol As it stands, I'm 100% satisfied watching my DVDs ripped on the TV, and have no desire to need to buy anything better.

I do hate to watch SDTV though, that comes in awful, HDTV is day and night better than SDTV.



I was thinking the other advantage 1920x1200 has, is if you play a bunch of older games, particularly ones like Starcraft, Diablo II, or Inifinty Engine games, etc, where often the resolution is limited to 800x600, then you can scale the image to 1600:1200 perfectly, with no loss (exact 2:1 mapping).

Wait, you're using interne trailer clips as your basis of comparison? well, no wonder you were disapointed, the clips will have a lower bitrate than a DVD ffs. A properly mastered BD is a whole different ball game, Planet Earth isn't the best choice of comparison either as the footage goes from stunning HD quality to sub SDTV quite often.

That pixel doubling idea is nice in theory though in practice, I wouldn't be so sure, it all depends on the scaler, and many are not intelligent enough to adapt their algorithm when there's a chance to fall back on simple pixel doubling method.

 

[Minsc]

Wait, you're using interne trailer clips as your basis of comparison? well, no wonder you were disapointed, the clips will have a lower bitrate than a DVD ffs. A properly mastered BD is a whole different ball game, Planet Earth isn't the best choice of comparison either as the footage goes from stunning HD quality to sub SDTV quite often.

Actually the footage off apple's website is pretty high quality. The 1080p trailer was about 200 megs for a two and half minute movie.

I'm surprised to hear that Planet Earth set isn't the best comparison footage, it was a best-seller for HD-DVD and blu-ray for a long time after it was released, and I remember reading a lot of posts about how stunning it looks, so I used that.

 

[brain_stew]

Actually the footage off apple's website is pretty high quality. The 1080p trailer was about 200 megs for a two and half minute movie.

I'm surprised to hear that Planet Earth set isn't the best comparison footage, it was a best-seller for HD-DVD and blu-ray for a long time after it was released, and I remember reading a lot of posts about how stunning it looks, so I used that.

Oh don't get me wrong it can look utterly stunning at times, but because of obvious constraints on filming in such adverse conditions a lot of the footage isn't upto snuff. I'd still withhold judgement until you've fired up an actual BD. It depends on your vision ofcourse, but there should be a literal world of difference, even between 720p and 1080p on a display like that,

 

[Interfectum]

Put together my comp, a few questions:

With the AMD Phenom II X4 955, what idle temp should i be looking at? Right now it idles in the lower to mid 40s. During the SF4 test it went to about 53C.

When installing the MB, I attached two of the case fans directly to the PSU and the one on the door is connected to the MB. Does that sound about right? I wasn't sure which I should choose since it seems to give you the option of both.

What are some good, free benchmark apps I can download to test (and stress test) this sucker and make sure it's up to speed. The SF4 one checked out great (59.6 fps, everything on full, ranked A) but I'd like to test it on other things as well.

 

[brain_stew]

Put together my comp, a few questions:

With the AMD Phenom II X4 955, what idle temp should i be looking at? Right now it idles in the lower to mid 40s. During the SF4 test it went to about 53C.

When installing the MB, I attached two of the case fans directly to the PSU and the one on the door is connected to the MB. Does that sound about right? I wasn't sure which I should choose since it seems to give you the option of both.

What are some good, free benchmark apps I can download to test (and stress test) this sucker and make sure it's up to speed. The SF4 one checked out great (59.6 fps, everything on full, ranked A) but I'd like to test it on other things as well.

Idle temperatures mean basically nothing. 9 times out of 10 the reading won't be accurate at lower temperatures and you'll get huge variation due to local conditions. As long as you stay within manufacturer specifications under load (62C apparently) then you've nothing to worry about.

RE5, DMC4, Lost Planet, 3DMark06, Vantage, Far Cry 2 are decent choices for benchmarks.

Since you seem to like Vsync in your games (judging by your SFIV framerate) I'd recommend downloading RivaTuner and setting up the included D3DOverrider to force triple buffering in all your D3D games (you can always create specific profiles for the odd game that isn't compatible) , performance versus standard vsync will improve by as much as 50% and input lag should be reduced.

Transparency multisampling is always a nice thing to force in games through your drivers globally as well, you'll get a very, very small performance hit but a real nice IQ boost.

If you've got an Nvidia card get nHancer to manage your profiles.

 

[zbarron]

I have a problem with my PC. Everything was going fine until I got some virus. I wasn't able to fix it so I tried installing windows again. Now every time I try to install windows the computer shuts down in the middle of it since it says my CPU is too hot. I haven't touched the CPU physically in a while so it should be just as hot as it was before I got the virus. I do not know if the problem is with the CPU itself or with the motherboards sensor that shuts off the PC when it sees it is too hot. I am willing to get some thermal paste and maybe even a new heatsink and remount it but I do not know why I am having this problem out of the blue and if this would even solve it.

My specs if they are important is
i7 920 at stock speeds
Corsair 6GB 1600 RAM
Asus P6T motherboard
GTX 260

 

[TheExodu5]

Oh, what constitutes a "good" cooler? I've never done anything more than good fan placement + a big copper heatsink.

Big coper heatsink (with lots of heatpipes) + 120mm fan is the best you can do on air. I don't know the specific models for Socket whatever i7 is. The Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme was the best you could get for Socket 775 stuff.

It's the 52(?)" one, I really don't think ~8' is very far away, normal setup, with TV against the wall, and a little room for walking, then a table, and a couch.

I'm talking only about movies though, I download the 480p, 720p, and 1080p planet earth trailers from Apple's site, and the 1080p and 480p one's were unnervingly similar, aside from some compression artifacts which were more visible in the 480p version. Before I played them, I was sure I'd have a convincing argument that 1080p was so much better than 480p, and end up wanting to get a blu-ray player, but all they did was convince me the opposite :lol As it stands, I'm 100% satisfied watching my DVDs ripped on the TV, and have no desire to need to buy anything better.

Planet Earth should be night and day at those resolutions (especially far out shots with a lot of detail). Though, as a previous poster has said, it really does depend on the scene (the arctic stuff, in particular, is pretty low quality). It has to do with a lot of noise in low light conditions, introduced by digital cameras.

One thing to note as well, is that 1080p allows you to sit very close to the TV while perceiving more and more detail. We sit about 12 feet away from a 100" screen.

If you want to see the absolute best Blu-Ray has to offer, be sure to check out Baraka. If you want an animated demo, then Ratatouille is great. If you want a great live action movie, then Kill Bill is my choice film. If you want a fantastic looking TV series, then look no further then Lost (though Season 2 and onward look better than Season 1).

If ever you get a Blu-Ray player, I'd still highly recommend the PS3. Not only will it allow you to play games and use it as a media extender, but it's head and shoulders above every standalone Blu-Ray players out there in terms of speed. Booting up Blu-Rays, navigating menus, fast-forwarding or reversing...the PS3 is so incredibly responsive. Same even goes to DVD...you'll be surprised how responsive it is when fast forwarding or reversing.

You're currently streaming off an HTPC, yes? Are you outputting at 1080p to a 1080p TV? Also, are you making sure your TV is set to 1:1 mode? Many TVs will either produce overscan, or compensate for overscan and cease to output in 1:1.

 

[Minsc]

Planet Earth should be night and day at those resolutions (especially far out shots with a lot of detail). Though, as a previous poster has said, it really does depend on the scene (the arctic stuff, in particular, is pretty low quality). It has to do with a lot of noise in low light conditions, introduced by digital cameras.

One thing to note as well, is that 1080p allows you to sit very close to the TV while perceiving more and more detail. We sit about 12 feet away from a 100" screen.

If you want to see the absolute best Blu-Ray has to offer, be sure to check out Baraka. If you want an animated demo, then Ratatouille is great. If you want a great live action movie, then Kill Bill is my choice film. If you want a fantastic looking TV series, then look no further then Lost (though Season 2 and onward look better than Season 1).

If ever you get a Blu-Ray player, I'd still highly recommend the PS3. Not only will it allow you to play games and use it as a media extender, but it's head and shoulders above every standalone Blu-Ray players out there in terms of speed. Booting up Blu-Rays, navigating menus, fast-forwarding or reversing...the PS3 is so incredibly responsive. Same even goes to DVD...you'll be surprised how responsive it is when fast forwarding or reversing.

You're currently streaming off an HTPC, yes? Are you outputting at 1080p to a 1080p TV? Also, are you making sure your TV is set to 1:1 mode? Many TVs will either produce overscan, or compensate for overscan and cease to output in 1:1.

Yea, I agree on most counts, the distance is the key factor. As long as I don't go closer, 480p doesn't look too much different than 1080p to me. If you get close to the TV, then you can see the difference, but I'm not ever really going to be sitting that close. The 1080p trailer for Planet Earth is good quality, shows a large variation of scenes, it starts with the flocks of (hundreds and hundreds) birds flying over the lakes, and even that didn't look terribly better to me in 1080p. I'm sure it's more obvious if you pause it, and compare it by taking pictures, or zooming in, but in motion, it's very hard to pick apart, I'd be willing to be most people looking at it under the same conditions couldn't.

My setup is I am just playing the media files off a WD TV device through an HDMI cable, it upscales everything to 1080p, which is the resolution it plays back everything at. The TV flashes 1080p briefly when I switch to that input, so everything should be ok in that regard. I think the thing does an amazing job at 480p upscaling, which does help a lot. I'm planning on running a HDMI cable from my new PC to the TV down the road, which will hopefully be more successful than my current attempts, which don't work right with my old/current PC.

With Netflix, and streaming, I think I'm done done with physical media for movies, so blu-ray also has little appeal to me in that sense. And I rarely ever re-watch a movie, giving it even less value. My DVD buying lately has been solely TV series, but Netflix is replacing that as well.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

Big coper heatsink (with lots of heatpipes) + 120mm fan is the best you can do on air. I don't know the specific models for Socket whatever i7 is. The Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme was the best you could get for Socket 775 stuff.

I have an Antec Sonata case. I think it's got one or two 120mm's in it. No heatpipes in there currently. I'm actually running the stock heatsink from this X2 3800+ right now. It's at stock speed so the stock cooler is fine.

i7 920 + a good cooler can be overclocked past the more expensive i7 950 and 975EE's which are like double and triple in price.

With the right heatsink/heatpipes and the 120mm fans, could I achieve that kind of overclock in this Sonata case?

 

[K.Jack]

The SF4 one checked out great (59.6 fps, everything on full, ranked A)

Turn off V-sync.

 

[Interfectum]

Idle temperatures mean basically nothing. 9 times out of 10 the reading won't be accurate at lower temperatures and you'll get huge variation due to local conditions. As long as you stay within manufacturer specifications under load (62C apparently) then you've nothing to worry about.

RE5, DMC4, Lost Planet, 3DMark06, Vantage, Far Cry 2 are decent choices for benchmarks.

Since you seem to like Vsync in your games (judging by your SFIV framerate) I'd recommend downloading RivaTuner and setting up the included D3DOverrider to force triple buffering in all your D3D games (you can always create specific profiles for the odd game that isn't compatible) , performance versus standard vsync will improve by as much as 50% and input lag should be reduced.

Transparency multisampling is always a nice thing to force in games through your drivers globally as well, you'll get a very, very small performance hit but a real nice IQ boost.

If you've got an Nvidia card get nHancer to manage your profiles.

I have an ATI card (4890)... does RivaTuner work well with that card? From their website they seem much more nvidia based.

 

[Firestorm]

Turn off V-sync.

Why? SFIV's opening teared so much I turned on V-Sync right away.

 

[Interfectum]

Turn off V-sync.

I'd like to leave v-sync on... it looks like a mess without it imo.

 

[K.Jack]

Turning it off in the benchmark is just to see the absolute max fps your system can put out.

 

[evil solrac v3.0]

Hi solrac, I found your thread finally.

I'll be upgrading mobo, CPU, storage, and RAM soon. I'll be running Windows 7 64bit and tend to have shit tons of stuff open at the same time, so I imagine I'll need a lot of RAM. What's "a lot of RAM" these days? 8 gigs?

took long enough.
so what's your budget again? and are you going the hackintosh route?

 

[Ysiadmihi]

Could I get some recommendations on an internal TB HDD please?

 

[lachesis]

Thanks to rohlfinator, mavs and brain_stew.. for answering my W7 question, and putting my mind at ease.

Yes, I'll be using 64bit OS, of course. Only issue is that I might have to run some 32bit software... I hope I can run 32bit software on 64bit architecture. (I think 3DS Max would be the one, as my wife has bunch of 32bit max files that she'd need to keep using till her project is over.)

 

[MoFuzz]

Could I get some recommendations on an internal TB HDD please?

I like the Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB. They've dropped in price lately, and can be had for about $100 CAD or a little bit less in the U.S.

I use one myself, and have built a couple of friends rigs using the same. It's about as fast as any internal drive gets before getting into SSD or Raptor drivers. Fairly standard noise levels for a hard drive, doesn't seem any louder than anything else I've ever used over the years. Also, WD's warranty is quite good if you ever have to RMA anything.

 

[Ysiadmihi]

I like the Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB. They've dropped in price lately, and can be had for about $100 CAD or a little bit less in the U.S.

I use one myself, and have built a couple of friends rigs using the same. Also, WD's warranty is quote good if you ever have to RMA anything.

I'll look into it, thanks!

Edit: Found it on Newegg and it looks like you can get 10% off for a bit:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

 

[dionysus]

Anyone got any recommendations on a good i7 cooler? Socket 1366 or whatever it is called. Someone asked earlier and I don't think anyone replied.

4890 is currently in for RMA. I really hope the problem was with the graphics card and not the mobo. Had white or green snow randomly at startup, but not 100% of the time. This would lead to a BSoD.

 

[yanhero]

Anyone got any recommendations on a good i7 cooler? Socket 1366 or whatever it is called. Someone asked earlier and I don't think anyone replied.

4890 is currently in for RMA. I really hope the problem was with the graphics card and not the mobo. Had white or green snow randomly at startup, but not 100% of the time. This would lead to a BSoD.

Noctua NH-U12P
Theralright Ultra-120 Extreme

or maybe the Corsair Hydro H50

 

[DMczaf]

Ok all of my parts arrived today. This is my first time building a PC, so it's pretty scary. I'm heading out to get an anti-static wrist strap at Frys before I start. I've watched a couple of youtube how-tos and read some guides. Are there any other tips I should know before I start?

 

[Parallax Scroll]

took long enough.
so what's your budget again? and are you going the hackintosh route?

500 ish. Or more. Whatever it takes to hit the price/performance sweet spot. I'm getting a hand me down intel iMac, so I only need to be able to run windows now. But I'd prefer not to cut off the possibility of putting osx on it in the future, so I'd rather lean towards macos compatible parts.

I was originally thinking I'd make something ultra quiet, but eh. I'll just reuse this antec sonata case if I can.

All I need is mobo, CPU, ram, and hard drive. I'll have to check the psu, I think it's an antec truepower 430.

This is for gaming, productivity, and having a shit ton of programs open.

Edit: Oh, and I've already got a Radeon 4890 and a 1920x1200 display. So what would it take to get 60 FPS at that resolution on current games?

 

[zbarron]

Anyone got any recommendations on a good i7 cooler? Socket 1366 or whatever it is called. Someone asked earlier and I don't think anyone replied.

4890 is currently in for RMA. I really hope the problem was with the graphics card and not the mobo. Had white or green snow randomly at startup, but not 100% of the time. This would lead to a BSoD.

Since no one responded I just went out and treated myself to an Ultra-120 eXtreme 1336RT Rev. B. I finished installing it and will give impressions tonight or tomorrow if you would like. Just know that it is huge. My case is on the larger side of the spectrem and I will not be able to put the side door on.

 

[Firestorm]

500 ish. Or more. Whatever it takes to hit the price/performance sweet spot. I'm getting a hand me down intel iMac, so I only need to be able to run windows now. But I'd prefer not to cut off the possibility of putting osx on it in the future, so I'd rather lean towards macos compatible parts.

I was originally thinking I'd make something ultra quiet, but eh. I'll just reuse this antec sonata case if I can.

All I need is mobo, CPU, ram, and hard drive. I'll have to check the psu, I think it's an antec truepower 430.

This is for gaming, productivity, and having a shit ton of programs open.

Edit: Oh, and I've already got a Radeon 4890 and a 1920x1200 display. So what would it take to get 60 FPS at that resolution on current games?

Just go with a GA EP45-UD3P for $130 or so, Q9550 for $220, Corsair / OCZ / G.Skill RAM for $50 or less, and a 640GB or 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black. You'll need a second HDD if you decide to run OSX.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

Just go with a GA EP45-UD3P for $130 or so, Q9550 for $220, Corsair / OCZ / G.Skill RAM for $50 or less, and a 640GB or 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black. You'll need a second HDD if you decide to run OSX.

Bitchin. How much RAM is that?

 

[Firestorm]

Bitchin. How much RAM is that?

4GB. Should be between $40 and $50.

Only downsides of this setup are that the motherboard won't support i7 or i5 CPUs. Same with DDR3 RAM. If you upgrade in a few years, you'll need a new mobo. But i7 compatible boards + RAM + the actual i7 would cost you another good $150 - 200. Not really worth it imo.

 

[Wag]

Just go with a GA EP45-UD3P for $130 or so, Q9550 for $220, Corsair / OCZ / G.Skill RAM for $50 or less, and a 640GB or 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black. You'll need a second HDD if you decide to run OSX.

I've got almost the exact same setup w/8GB (maxed) of PC2-8500 ram and a GTX295. It's an easy OC to the CPU to 3.4GHz, almost everyone can do it with a decent heatsync/fan - I highly suggest you do it, it's well worth the effort.

 

[Shambles]

Just get a 1920x1200 display with 1:1 pixel mapping. Best of both worlds. You can work @ 1920x1200, and game @ 1920x1080 (or the full 1920x1200 if it's a Source engine or console port), with no loss of quality due to non-native resolutions.

If you are planning on putting your video through a HT receiver they generally handle 1080P better. I haven't seen many setups like this but my Onkyo screws with my resolution when I try to pass resolutions through it that aren't TV standards (ie. 1680x1050)

 

[Parallax Scroll]

4GB. Should be between $40 and $50.

Only downsides of this setup are that the motherboard won't support i7 or i5 CPUs. Same with DDR3 RAM. If you upgrade in a few years, you'll need a new mobo. But i7 compatible boards + RAM + the actual i7 would cost you another good $150 - 200. Not really worth it imo.

Sounds good to me. Is a TruePower 430 good enough for all that?

 

[MWS Natural]

Yea, I agree on most counts, the distance is the key factor. As long as I don't go closer, 480p doesn't look too much different than 1080p to me. If you get close to the TV, then you can see the difference, but I'm not ever really going to be sitting that close. The 1080p trailer for Planet Earth is good quality, shows a large variation of scenes, it starts with the flocks of (hundreds and hundreds) birds flying over the lakes, and even that didn't look terribly better to me in 1080p. I'm sure it's more obvious if you pause it, and compare it by taking pictures, or zooming in, but in motion, it's very hard to pick apart, I'd be willing to be most people looking at it under the same conditions couldn't.

My setup is I am just playing the media files off a WD TV device through an HDMI cable, it upscales everything to 1080p, which is the resolution it plays back everything at. The TV flashes 1080p briefly when I switch to that input, so everything should be ok in that regard. I think the thing does an amazing job at 480p upscaling, which does help a lot. I'm planning on running a HDMI cable from my new PC to the TV down the road, which will hopefully be more successful than my current attempts, which don't work right with my old/current PC.

With Netflix, and streaming, I think I'm done done with physical media for movies, so blu-ray also has little appeal to me in that sense. And I rarely ever re-watch a movie, giving it even less value. My DVD buying lately has been solely TV series, but Netflix is replacing that as well.

So you sit outside of the recommended distance for resolving 1080p on your set and don't watch bluray movies? Well your comments make much more sense now, sorry I said anything. The Pioneer Kuro does a fantastic job of up-scaling and deinterlacing but it's not going to make 480p magically look as good as 1080p. No offense but you really aren't doing your set much justice.

 

[Minsc]

So you sit outside of the recommended distance for resolving 1080p on your set and don't watch bluray movies? Well your comments make much more sense now, sorry I said anything. The Pioneer Kuro does a fantastic job of up-scaling and deinterlacing but it's not going to make 480p magically look as good as 1080p. No offense but you really aren't doing your set much justice.

I sit no further than I have from any other TV I've owned in my life, in fact, this one is bigger than the ones I had growing up in my parents house. I didn't want anything larger, it'd just be ridiculous. This is exactly the right size for the room. I measured, and it's actually 12' from the 50" screen. From my experience with relatives and friends, my TV is probably on the larger side, most other people tend to have 40" or smaller TVs in their entertainment centers and sit just as far, so they probably can't even resolve 480p :lol

I don't see what watching bluray movies has to do with anything, a 1080p apple trailer is more than adequate quality to judge what can and can't be resolved.

Edit: So I guess it all makes much more sense now, I never really thought about it, but sitting ~2' from a 1200p 24" display one is able to see things a lot clearer than sitting 12' from a 1080p 50" display. And that's exactly my case. I just think now that the average person would likely never be sitting close enough to their TV to actually resolve 1080p, especially if they don't own a very large one, oh well.

 

[Clipjoint]

Ok all of my parts arrived today. This is my first time building a PC, so it's pretty scary. I'm heading out to get an anti-static wrist strap at Frys before I start. I've watched a couple of youtube how-tos and read some guides. Are there any other tips I should know before I start?

Don't be nervous. It's way easier than you think it is. Just make sure you double check everything you're doing before you do it. Don't rush and you'll be ok.

 

[Wag]

Don't be nervous. It's way easier than you think it is. Just make sure you double check everything you're doing before you do it. Don't rush and you'll be ok.

I will say I got tired of putting together my own builds, there's a nice little mom and pop shop by me that will put together whatever I want for $60. I figure it's worth the grief for me to just let them handle it. Yes, I know it's money I could have saved, but I don't have the resources they do if something goes wrong to test something (it's happened a few times).

 

[MWS Natural]

I sit no further than I have from any other TV I've owned in my life, in fact, this one is bigger than the ones I had growing up in my parents house. I didn't want anything larger, it'd just be ridiculous. This is exactly the right size for the room. I measured, and it's actually 12' from the 50" screen. From my experience with relatives and friends, my TV is probably on the larger side, most other people tend to have 40" or smaller TVs in their entertainment centers and sit just as far, so they probably can't even resolve 480p :lol

I don't see what watching bluray movies has to do with anything, a 1080p apple trailer is more than adequate quality to judge what can and can't be resolved.

Edit: So I guess it all makes much more sense now, I never really thought about it, but sitting ~2' from a 1200p 24" display one is able to see things a lot clearer than sitting 12' from a 1080p 50" display. And that's exactly my case. I just think now that the average person would likely never be sitting close enough to their TV to actually resolve 1080p, especially if they don't own a very large one, oh well.

The Apple trailers are 1080p but lower (2-3 Mbit) bitrate h.264 than a bluray movie which can get as high as 40Mbps. Well they used to be I haven't really been on their site in a while.

I understand everyone's living conditions are different, whatever works for you I am not trying to judge. I personally sit at the THX recommended distance of 6.5 feet from my 5020FD, feed it 80% bluray movies with the proper biased lighting. I mean why spend all that money on a TV and not get the most out of it right?