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Official "I need a new PC!!" 2009 Edition
- Thread starter VictimOfGrief
- Start date
grap3fruitman
Banned
Anyone know anything about laptops that could give me some insight?grap3fruitman said:
BravoSuperStar
Member
Salaadin said:
Get an LCD readout display.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999198
brain_stew
Member
Binabik15 said:
Fit a 120mm exhaust and intake. If you want the best, go with Noctua's if you want silence and performance without breaking the bank, go with Yate Loons.
The case will probably have one 120mm fan installed already but it won't be the best, I'd recommend replacing it.
Looks like it.demolitio said:
SuperEnemyCrab said:
I was looking at some of those but Im not sure if my case fans will work since they use molex connectors and have their own controls hard wired right onto them. I really have no idea, though.
I was looking at this one:
http://www.xoxide.com/aerocool-infinite-panel.html
No fan controllers or readouts or anything but built in memory card readers, more USB ports, and a spot for a 2.5 in laptop drive. I dont really know how much Id use that other stuff. The main draw is the memory card reader but I can get just a reader without the extra fluff for half the price.
What about a case speaker? My case has no speakers built into it but my mobo has the connections for one. Ive read that hearing those beeps on startup can be helpful if you run into problems so Id like to have one. Im assuming these are internal but that doesnt matter.
I cant find any to buy on newegg.
EDIT: Aha! I guess something like this is all I would need? http://www.pcpartscollection.com/mosp.html
brain_stew said:
Meh, the store only lists Noctuas of those two (it seems the others are sold at Chieftecs in Germany, but still none). I assume 18 euro for one won´t kill me (but it hurts, so much for "budget" :lol).
The intake and exhaust would be the same thing, just installed in opposite directions, right?
PS: My dad really needs to order the parts soon, the 5850 is never in stock but gets more expensive every day :lol but hey, at least I get 19% off everything.
TrAcEr_x90
Member
brain_stew said:
oh ok, that all makes sense. thanks for the feedback guys.
would i have a hard time fitting in any recent video cards into my HP case. i kind of want to wait for the new ATI cards to either buy one, or get one of the older ones that im sure will drop in price. Im sure there are power supply worries though.
DeadTrees said:
Thanks. Also, I have 2 4850s in CF right now. But when I'm playing OFP2 the cards run at over 101 degrees C and my fans start going crazy. This is one of the few games that does that and it scares me since my computer shut off once because of it. Would it help if I removed one of the 4850s giving it a little more airflow? I have a Xion Onyx 3 case.
I'm software literate but hardware illiterate, so any suggestions on what I can do? Cheap suggestions help since medical bills have killed me. My only hope is Christmas for expensive solutions. :lol
That's me
It's an X58 Sli-Ready board... it's Acer-branded and unfortunately I'm not sure how to find out more specifically than that. You know how OEMs are...
But really any midrange one from a decent name brand that meets those specs will do for the hardware.
It's an X58 Sli-Ready board... it's Acer-branded and unfortunately I'm not sure how to find out more specifically than that. You know how OEMs are...
But really any midrange one from a decent name brand that meets those specs will do for the hardware.
btw here is a video of how the case door and optical drive bays work if you're curious :-x http://www.yugatech.com/blog/pc-gaming/acer-predator-aspire-g7710-gaming-machine
Hawkian said:That's me
It's an X58 Sli-Ready board... it's Acer-branded and unfortunately I'm not sure how to find out more specifically than that. You know how OEMs are...
I can get one of these now for 999 and I really want to make sure I'm making the right choice here.
Have you done any overclocking?
How stable is it
Violater said:
Wait is the deal back? I need to alert some people if so!
If you are looking for an opinion from someone who just bought one... GET NOW. It absolutely screams on a fresh Windows 7 install (comes loaded with a bunch of Acer crap, but a fresh install is always a good idea). I haven't even TOUCHED the OCing potential of the i7 yet.
In terms of stability, even with two more cores it beats my previous PC in temps by almost 10 degrees C on all sensors. I have only had one crash on 7, but it was a known incompatible software issue (DO NOT USE MAGICDISC DO NOT USE MAGICDISC) and have had solid uptime for 72 hours (writing this message logged into it from work).
Minsc
Gold Member
K.Jack said:
What's your take on the new i7 chips showing up in laptops all over now? I saw a few benchmarks of the typical software they run and they obliterated your average laptop CPUs, are they worth the premium? It seems so, things are much more responsive with 4 cores, than with 2, and they run more efficiently too right?
Aww thanks man, I'm here wondering what to do.
Decided against it,
For anyone interested http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4531728&CatId=4138
Decided against it,
For anyone interested http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4531728&CatId=4138
My next question: If I take one of my 4850s out, it leaves a gap in the back of my case where the slot was since this was built by someone else and I didn't get the covers back. Do they sell something to cover that slot up or would it be all right to have a hole there? (If any of that makes sense since I'm pretty drugged up right now) :lol
brain_stew
Member
TrAcEr_x90 said:
The PSU and case is going to severely restrict your choice of GPU, yes. Something like the new 5770 might be a good fit, though, at $160.
Hawkian said:
And I doubt you ever will either, its very unlikely that the mobo of a prebuilt PC will give you any OCing options, unless it uses an off the shelf motherboard, which its ACER branding suggests it does not. Oh, and OCing in Windows is never an option. Never.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
would a 5770 or 5750 fit in my girlfriends dell XPS 410? she has a 8800 GTX in there right now and i believe a 400 watt PSU.
Parallax Scroll
Banned
I'm putting this rig together, and I wanted to test the HSF to see if I'd installed the fan pointing in the right direction. So I plugged the PSU and power switch to the mobo, plugged the HSF into the 4-pin CPU_FAN connector on the mobo, and flip the switch. The LEDs on the mobo light up but the CPU fan does not rotate. I switched it off, plugged the fan into the 3-pin SYS_FAN1 port, and it worked. Should I just use SYS_FAN1?
HSF: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233003
Case: Antec Sonata
PSU: Antec Truepower II 380
GPU: Radeon HD 4890
Other parts:
Also, I'm only connecting the PSU to the mobo using the 24 pin ATX connector. Do I need to plug in anything else too?
And is that 380 gonna be enough to support all that?
HSF: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233003
Case: Antec Sonata
PSU: Antec Truepower II 380
GPU: Radeon HD 4890
Other parts:
Also, I'm only connecting the PSU to the mobo using the 24 pin ATX connector. Do I need to plug in anything else too?
And is that 380 gonna be enough to support all that?
DietRob
i've been begging for over 5 years.
On the left side of the board next to the 'ultra durable' there is a 8 pin CPU power connector.
You need to connect the 8pin or the 2 4 pin cables from the PSU there also. That should take care of your CPU fan problem also. Unless the fan is dead (doubtful).
What kind of video card are you using sometimes those can be quite power hungry?
Edit nvm. I see it in your post. Try this out to calculate usage :
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/
Parallax Scroll
Banned
It says I only need 275 watts. Crazy! And thanks for the power connector info.
Parallax Scroll
Banned
It looks like I've got the heatsink fan blowing backwards, so I'll have to reinstall that. Before I do, I'd like to confirm that I'm facing it the right way. In that photo, I've got a 120mm exit fan on the left. The heatsink is directly behind that, and then there's a 2nd 120mm fan on the heatsink, also blowing left. This should create nice airflow across the cpu and out the case, yes?
BravoSuperStar
Member
Parallax Scroll said:
yeah thats the right direction
brain_stew
Member
evil solrac v3.0 said:
They both should be smaller and consume less power than an 8800GTX, so yes.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
brain_stew said:
cool! she mostly plays adventure games with the occasional stalker and cryostasis.
So I'm having a problem with my monitor, I tried plugging my computer into my HDTV last night to watch some Anime and play some Fallout 3 ( 1080 YEAH ), this morning when I went to plug my computer back into my monitor it seemed like the pixels were shaking ( I don't know how else to describe it ). It was like they were moving back and forth in areas that had high color intensity.
I tried plugging my old computer into my monitor and had the same problem, so it's definitely the monitor. So I fiddled around with the settings on the monitor a bit to try and see if I could fix it (Lower color intensity etc) it didn't seem to be having an effect so I reset the settings back to factory, this made the colors become really Intense, I couldn't tell different shades from each other. So I decided to use the auto color adjuster, now I have a combination of both the shaking pixels and bland looking colors.
Anyone know what I can do to fix? Or is it just time for me to get another monitor, it's a Westinghouse L1916HW model btw, and my display settings are
Brightness 60 Clock 50
Contrast 50 Phase 3
Sharpness 3 (5 is maximum) Color Temp 6500k
I have DDC/CI On and DCR off ( I have no idea what each of these are so I didn't mess with them much, although switching them on / off seemed to have no effect on the picture quality )
I tried plugging my old computer into my monitor and had the same problem, so it's definitely the monitor. So I fiddled around with the settings on the monitor a bit to try and see if I could fix it (Lower color intensity etc) it didn't seem to be having an effect so I reset the settings back to factory, this made the colors become really Intense, I couldn't tell different shades from each other. So I decided to use the auto color adjuster, now I have a combination of both the shaking pixels and bland looking colors.
Anyone know what I can do to fix? Or is it just time for me to get another monitor, it's a Westinghouse L1916HW model btw, and my display settings are
Brightness 60 Clock 50
Contrast 50 Phase 3
Sharpness 3 (5 is maximum) Color Temp 6500k
I have DDC/CI On and DCR off ( I have no idea what each of these are so I didn't mess with them much, although switching them on / off seemed to have no effect on the picture quality )
beje said:
I had it set to 60, reduced it to 59 in my ATI Control Center and it didn't solve any of the issues
Edit : To help put it in perspective prior to having issues, my IM window would blink bright orange to notify me, but now it blinks a mix between dull orange and bright pink combined :[
evil solrac v3.0
Member
Hawkian said:
yeah, it's pretty cool.
MWS Natural
Member
Have some extra money and was thinking of building a media server. Any good cases/combo for this?
Animal
Banned
So it's finally my turn to start looking into getting a new gaming pc.
I will go for either a Phenom II x4 965 or an i7 920. The price of my build increases by ~150$ at most if I go for the i7 from what I can see.
My question is, given that I value bus speed immensely and that I would want the highest rated bus speed on the motherboard between CPU and RAM without overclocking, what would be the best full featured motherboards available to me?
I will be buying a single 5870 gpu but I want to have Crossfire for the future. I will also have a high end sound card and networking card. So all these cards must fit on the board without any drawback.
I don't really have a budget but I want to stay within reason.
I will go for either a Phenom II x4 965 or an i7 920. The price of my build increases by ~150$ at most if I go for the i7 from what I can see.
My question is, given that I value bus speed immensely and that I would want the highest rated bus speed on the motherboard between CPU and RAM without overclocking, what would be the best full featured motherboards available to me?
I will be buying a single 5870 gpu but I want to have Crossfire for the future. I will also have a high end sound card and networking card. So all these cards must fit on the board without any drawback.
I don't really have a budget but I want to stay within reason.
lowlylowlycook
Member
Animal said:
Joke post?
Animal
Banned
Minsc said:
yeah the phenoms really get outclassed in some of these benchmarking applications but the difference in fps between them in most popular games today seem to be insignificant. The only exception I've seen is Crysis where the i7 really outclassed the phenoms.
But I haven't really decided yet between them which is why I am asking for options on what motherboards would best suit my needs in either case.
I just ordered a new pc last week from NCIX and I am eagerly awaiting the delivery (which might be another week or two depending on how long it takes to get the radeon 5850 in stock again).
Here is a list of the parts:
Antec CP-850
Intel Core i7 860
Crucial Ballistix 4GB 2X2GB PC3-10600 DDR3-1333 CL6-6-6-20
Intel X25-M 80GB 2.5IN SSD
Gigabyte P55-UD4P ATX LGA1156 P55 Motherboard
XFX Radeon HD 5850
LG 22X SATA DVD Writer
Noctua NH-U12P
Noctua NF-P12-1300 120MM Fan (x5)
Antec P183
PC Assembly and Testing
Total (before tax in CDN) ~$1663
I could have cut some costs on the fans and heatsink, but my last computer sounded like a jet engine and I was eager to avoid that this time while still providing adequate cooling. I was actually really impressed with NCIX and their price matching policy. When I first ordered the best price i could find for the intel ssd was $303 on newegg, but the very next day I found it for $255 thanks to the redflagdeals forums from some website based out of Ontario. I sent in a ticket requesting to price match it and they did so with out question.
Also, as a note for anyone else ordering an SSD for their system, I completely forgot that they are 2.5" drives and you will need a mounting bracket if you want to mount them in your 3.5" or 5.25" drive bays in your case.
I also have an obutto gaming chair on the way, so once I get everything setup I will post some pictures and impressions of everything.
Here is a list of the parts:
Antec CP-850
Intel Core i7 860
Crucial Ballistix 4GB 2X2GB PC3-10600 DDR3-1333 CL6-6-6-20
Intel X25-M 80GB 2.5IN SSD
Gigabyte P55-UD4P ATX LGA1156 P55 Motherboard
XFX Radeon HD 5850
LG 22X SATA DVD Writer
Noctua NH-U12P
Noctua NF-P12-1300 120MM Fan (x5)
Antec P183
PC Assembly and Testing
Total (before tax in CDN) ~$1663
I could have cut some costs on the fans and heatsink, but my last computer sounded like a jet engine and I was eager to avoid that this time while still providing adequate cooling. I was actually really impressed with NCIX and their price matching policy. When I first ordered the best price i could find for the intel ssd was $303 on newegg, but the very next day I found it for $255 thanks to the redflagdeals forums from some website based out of Ontario. I sent in a ticket requesting to price match it and they did so with out question.
Also, as a note for anyone else ordering an SSD for their system, I completely forgot that they are 2.5" drives and you will need a mounting bracket if you want to mount them in your 3.5" or 5.25" drive bays in your case.
I also have an obutto gaming chair on the way, so once I get everything setup I will post some pictures and impressions of everything.
lowlylowlycook
Member
Animal said:
I don't know but I imagined that you were planning on getting one of these:
Maybe I should have given you the benefit of the doubt.
brain_stew
Member
Does any of the helpful PC GAF regulars want free DD copies of Mirror's Edge, Dead Space and Mercenaries 2? One guy has to get the whole bunch (they're tied to the same account, but haven't been downloaded onto any computer yet, I already own them and got them for free, so any takers? Since UK GAFer's can currently buy them for like £3.75 each, I'd prefer it to be someone from outside the UK, as if you're not willing to pay £3.75 for something as awesome as Mirror's Edge you don't deserve my generosity!! :lol :lol
Only real condition being you've helped out posters in this thread in the past.
Only real condition being you've helped out posters in this thread in the past.