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Official "I need a new PC!!" 2009 Edition

Sucks no one replied to my question, but after spending allll day trying to figure it out, I got it. If you have a hp that is at least a year old and has a nividia mobo, for some reason they didnt detect 1tb hds without a update. Theeeen, vista is different with formatting new hard drives. So i had to go through that too.
 
TrAcEr_x90 said:
Sucks no one replied to my question, but after spending allll day trying to figure it out, I got it. If you have a hp that is at least a year old and has a nividia mobo, for some reason they didnt detect 1tb hds without a update. Theeeen, vista is different with formatting new hard drives. So i had to go through that too.

How is vista different in formatting?
 
Darkman M said:
Cool ill just see how the 8800Gt holds up for the time being then thanks.
Actually yeah you should definitely hold off on buying a new video card. Because right now some games will be CPU limited, in certain games you wont see a performance increase until you replace the E6600 as well.
 

Hawkian

The Cryptarch's Bane
D4Danger said:
I'm going to chalk it up to Windows 7 growing pains and wait for a new driver.

I'm doing this as well. Even in games my PC obliterates, I still get a driver crash every once in a while (1/20 launches). Same thing happened to me with my first set of drivers on Vista. They are never ready.

Though I did just update to the .35 new ones and haven't had a crash yet, but jynxing myself thus I'm sure my next launch will bluescreen out on me. :p

EDIT:
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
How is vista different in formatting?

Not sure what he means by this either. Sorry I missed your original problem dude.
 

Fio

Member
That's my current rig:

Athlon X2 +5000
2GB DDR2
8800GT

I can't afford a major upgrade right now, so I plan on upgrading one component at time. I'm thinking about buying a HD5770, will the CPU create a big bottleneck? Or I'll see major gains of performance on most games?
Thanks.
 
Fio said:
That's my current rig:

Athlon X2 +5000
2GB DDR2
8800GT

I can't afford a major upgrade right now, so I plan on upgrading one component at time. I'm thinking about buying a HD5770, will the CPU create a big bottleneck? Or I'll see major gains of performance on most games?
Thanks.

Ya, the low clock will CPU bottleneck you. You can overclock it though to help alleviate it.

Edit: I agree with shambles. Save you're money and build a new one if you want to upgrade.
 

Shambles

Member
Fio said:
That's my current rig:

Athlon X2 +5000
2GB DDR2
8800GT

I can't afford a major upgrade right now, so I plan on upgrading one component at time. I'm thinking about buying a HD5770, will the CPU create a big bottleneck? Or I'll see major gains of performance on most games?
Thanks.

Well considering you can't update your CPU without updating your MB as well and likely your memory too the only single component upgrade you can do is the GPU. I'd also guess you'd only see a slight to moderate gain going from a 8800GTG to a 5770 using that CPU. You already have a build that leans towards the GPU. If I was in your situation i'd keep saving to replace the CPU/MB.
 

Firestorm

Member
Animal said:
Gentlemen, I present to you my build:

CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory


Antec Three Hundred Black Computer Case

Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

EVGA 141-BL-E757-TR ATX X58 SLI LE Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-920 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor

My video card will most likely be a 5870 card once one of my local shops gets its hands on one. I don't have the patience to deal with online stores with unpredictable stock.

All this for a grand total of about 1200$ canadian dollars plus 30$ of ground UPS shipping.

Am I overkill or lacking in any area? I don't overclock my machines so please keep that in consideration.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that this will be a gaming box and nothing more.
I really think you should be looking at going with an i5 and going with NCIX instead of Newegg. NCIX = 1 tax if outside BC and they have a $3 shipping promo right now. They also have an 5870 in stock.
Edit: Also a Seasonic S12 650 W or Corsair 750WTX would be cheaper and a 640GB WD Black is a better deal for $6 more due to speed and capacity.
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
Fio said:
That's my current rig:

Athlon X2 +5000
2GB DDR2
8800GT

I can't afford a major upgrade right now, so I plan on upgrading one component at time. I'm thinking about buying a HD5770, will the CPU create a big bottleneck? Or I'll see major gains of performance on most games?
Thanks.
Looking at the benches, you're going to bottlenecked at everything below 1080p/8xAA.
 

Firestorm

Member
Edit: Crap sorry disregard this post. While I was banned all the items went out of stock at sale prices :( new sale starts on wednesday.

Animal, I'd look at this instead:

Antec Three Hundred Mini Tower ATX Case - $53.99
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=29812

Seasonic S12 Energy Plus 650W Power Supply - $99.99 - $25 MIR = $74.99
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=30143&promoid=1215

NCIX P55 Bundle Deal Core i5 750 2.66GHZ Kingston 4GB DDR3-1800 C8 Gigabyte P55-UD4P SLI Motherboard - $469.99 - $20 MIR = $449.99
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=46012&promoid=1215

Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB - $65.99
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=34286&promoid=1192

Liteon IHAS124 24X DVD Writer SATA Black OEM - after Price Match it's $25.65
http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=45244&vpn=IHAS124-04
http://www.bedirect.ca/english/index.php?NoCategory=112413&SProdNb=0146-0041

XFX Radeon 5870 - $429.99
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=44138

Optional:
PC Assembly and Testing with 1 Year Limited NCIX System Warranty - $50.00
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=7842

Total: $1195.55 - $45 MIR = $1150.55 + GST + shipping
$1245.55 - $45 MIR = $1200.55 + GST + shipping

So you're saving about $430 from your build for the same performance for games.

Also, sorry but it seems the 5870 is out of stock again. If you order now you'd get it in about 2 weeks it says. Order today for $3 shipping which saves you money again. And shipped from BC instead of California via UPS (ew).
 
Hawkian said:
I'm doing this as well. Even in games my PC obliterates, I still get a driver crash every once in a while (1/20 launches). Same thing happened to me with my first set of drivers on Vista. They are never ready.

Though I did just update to the .35 new ones and haven't had a crash yet, but jynxing myself thus I'm sure my next launch will bluescreen out on me. :p

EDIT:

Not sure what he means by this either. Sorry I missed your original problem dude.

Oh its ok guys, its just been a long time since ive built a computer and everything is different. no more IDE cables etc... Vista didnt recognize my new hard drive till i went into computer managment, where the hd showed up, then i needed to do "simple volume" which is the equivelent of formatting I guess. Now it shows up.
 

Fio

Member
Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
Ya, the low clock will CPU bottleneck you. You can overclock it though to help alleviate it.

Edit: I agree with shambles. Save you're money and build a new one if you want to upgrade.

Shambles said:
Well considering you can't update your CPU without updating your MB as well and likely your memory too the only single component upgrade you can do is the GPU. I'd also guess you'd only see a slight to moderate gain going from a 8800GTG to a 5770 using that CPU. You already have a build that leans towards the GPU. If I was in your situation i'd keep saving to replace the CPU/MB.

Actually I can upgrade my CPU without updating my MB, it supports a Phenom II X4 925, which is the CPU I'm planning to buy. But I'll upgrade my MB, because the current one sucks, but performance wise, it's not the most important component to upgrade right now.

My problem is that right now I can either afford a CPU upgrade or a GPU upgrade. Only in January I'll have enough money to upgrade both. Since I want to play Dragon Age and ArmA at high framerates, I'm thinking on buying a HD5770 right now, just to remedy the situation a bit, while I wait until January, when I can afford a CPU upgrade (Phenom II X4 925), so I can use the full potential of the GPU. That's why I'm asking if it's worth to upgrade the GPU right now, because even a average gain in performance would be useful to me. I don't want to play DA at 30FPS. =/

And my current CPU runs at 2600Ghz, and my current MB is a Gigabyte GA-MA69VM-S2, since it doesn't allow the user to change the voltage, it is impossible to make a decent overclock.

Edit.: I misspelled the CPU name.
 
My current rig is:

cpu i7 920
motherboard Asus P6td deluxe
vga xfx hd5870
case antec nine hundred
psu corsair tx 650w
memory corsair xms3 c7 3x2gb
heatsink Noctua NH-U12P SE
 

JRW

Member
Fio said:
That's my current rig:

Athlon X2 +5000
2GB DDR2
8800GT

I can't afford a major upgrade right now, so I plan on upgrading one component at time. I'm thinking about buying a HD5770, will the CPU create a big bottleneck? Or I'll see major gains of performance on most games?
Thanks.

It was worth it for me to upgrade my videocard despite having an older CPU/Mobo..

I'm running an AMD X2 4800+ / 2GB DDR1 PC3200 / EVGA GTX 260 (Superclocked 216 core model) and yes the CPU is a bottleneck but upgrading from a 7800 GTX 512mb to my current GTX 260 still gave me a noticeable boost in performance.

Bottleneck wise, for example, Ive been playing Left 4 Dead 2 demo lately and although most of the time it runs 60fps (and a lot higher when not much is going on) with all in game graphic settings maxed there are times when the CPU's bottleneck sticks out like a sore thumb, such as when a pipebomb explodes and body parts go flying everywhere the framerate drops to 30fps during this time, which is not a huge deal.

Some pics I took with FPS counter active:

Pipebomb explosion (hello bottleneck)

Carnage

Idle

It also made Crysis playable with High graphic settings (but not quite maxed settings), It ran horrendous on the 7800 GTX.
 

Pachimari

Member
Alright guys, I have decided to build my own gaming PC, something I have never done before. I'm by no means a tech guy so I need a lot of help here, hope you don't mind.

The whole computer is going to show the games on a:
- 22" 2233RZ (120hz) with support for Nvidia 3D Vision.

As I am not going to use it for work at all, it'll focus only on getting the best out of the games. Some things are set in stone though; I want a HDD (SDD is no good?) with at least 1TB of space. And the graphics (video?) card need to be from Nvidia, the best out there (which is?).

The most important information is, that I am located in Europe (Scandinavia) and if I am going to import from other countries, it got to be someone who sends to Europe and best if the store is located within the EU.

Can you give me any recommendation? Everything from the harddrive, to the graphics card to the tower everything is going to be put in. And I have read you can have both a ATi and a Nvidia card in the same machine? So that I can use a ATi 5850 when I feel like getting the best out of my games, and the GeForce when I feel like playing with 3D-glasses.

Some things I want out of this is:
- 3D Gaming with 3D Vision on a 22" monitor.
- Running Crysis on the best possible settings, if its possible on a 1080p display.
- Be able to run DirectX11 (if its out, if not, then x10).
 
TouchMyBox said:
So brain stew, since you said that my e8400 is poop in the l4d2 thread, and it's kinda looking like it is, would you recommend me waiting for a price drop on the core i5s, or upgrade to a better lga 775 chip? Would a Q9550 get rid of my cpu bottleneck for long enough to make it a worthwhile purchase?

I never said that, its still a great CPU, its just that its where your bottlenck seems to lie in L4D2 is all.

One piece of advice though, always OC before you lay down cash for an upgrade, why pay for extra performance when you may be able to get some for free or for the price of a $20 cooler? Most E8400s are good upto 4ghz+, and if you're not satisfied with performance at stock that's where you should be aiming.

I'm only running a cheap ass E5200 myself but its OCed to 3.6ghz which makes all the difference, and actually means it'll quite easily outperform your E8400 even though it probably cost as much as 3 times as much.
 
Anastacio said:
Alright guys, I have decided to build my own gaming PC, something I have never done before. I'm by no means a tech guy so I need a lot of help here, hope you don't mind.

The whole computer is going to show the games on a:
- 22" 2233RZ (120hz) with support for Nvidia 3D Vision.

As I am not going to use it for work at all, it'll focus only on getting the best out of the games. Some things are set in stone though; I want a HDD (SDD is no good?) with at least 1TB of space. And the graphics (video?) card need to be from Nvidia, the best out there (which is?).

The most important information is, that I am located in Europe (Scandinavia) and if I am going to import from other countries, it got to be someone who sends to Europe and best if the store is located within the EU.

Can you give me any recommendation? Everything from the harddrive, to the graphics card to the tower everything is going to be put in. And I have read you can have both a ATi and a Nvidia card in the same machine?

Some things I want out of this is:
- 3D Gaming with 3D Vision on a 22" monitor.
- Running Crysis on the best possible settings, if its possible on a 1080p display.
- Be able to run DirectX11 (if its out, if not, then x10).


Wait for Fermi, Nvidia just aren't competitve at the high end these days, and splashing out a huge amount of cash on their best GPUs just makes no sense. Its actually impossible to meet all your requirements with today's technology no matter what you spend, you're just going to have to hold steady for a few months.
 

Pachimari

Member
brain_stew said:
Wait for Fermi, Nvidia just aren't competitve at the high end these days, and splashing out a huge amount of cash on their best GPUs just makes no sense. Its actually impossible to meet all your requirements with today's technology no matter what you spend, you're just going to have to hold steady for a few months.
Can't I just build a PC based around the ATi 5850 and then add a Nvidia graphics card later on? Or is it not possible to have two different graphics cards installed and choose in the games?
 

Pachimari

Member
brain_stew said:
Wait for Fermi, Nvidia just aren't competitve at the high end these days, and splashing out a huge amount of cash on their best GPUs just makes no sense. Its actually impossible to meet all your requirements with today's technology no matter what you spend, you're just going to have to hold steady for a few months.
Which of it is impossible? I just want the best possible gaming PC for a 3D Vision experience as well. =)

If we forget the Crysis on a 1080p display and limit it to the 22" monitor, would that make the whole thing more possible?
 

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
brain_stew:
I'm looking at an AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition CPU to replace my Athlon X2 7450, and the webshop I usually order from says it supports both AM2+ and AM3 sockets. Do you know if this is correct, so that I can use it with my AM2+ mobo?
 

szaromir

Banned
Here's the question. When can we expect the next wave of AMD GPUs price drops? I would like to buy 5750 or 5770, but would be willing to pay only the current price of 4850. I am patient, so there's no rush.
 

Fatalah

Member
Fatalah said:
I'm building my own PC for the first time ever. I've assembled the parts, what do you guys think? Any tips?

* MSI P55-GD65 LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX
* Intel Core i7 860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz
* Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB
* OCZ Vertex Series OCZSSD2-1VTX60G 2.5" 60GB
* G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
* SAPPHIRE 100281SR Radeon HD 5870
* CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W
* COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-UW



I'm building for PC gaming and professional photo editing.

Helmholtz said:
I'm no expert, but that looks like a very good PC build. Good luck :)

Thanks! Crossing my fingers for really high Bing Cashback rates!
 

Animal

Banned
Firestorm said:
I really think you should be looking at going with an i5 and going with NCIX instead of Newegg. NCIX = 1 tax if outside BC and they have a $3 shipping promo right now. They also have an 5870 in stock.
Edit: Also a Seasonic S12 650 W or Corsair 750WTX would be cheaper and a 640GB WD Black is a better deal for $6 more due to speed and capacity.

I've done allot of research regarding processors and I'm convinced that the 1156 platform is no good for me. I want triple channel, I will be running a mild overclock and I want hyperthreading.

OK so my new build is the following:

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

Mushkin Enhanced Redline 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model 998691

Antec P183 Black Aluminum / Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

I'm also contemplating buying a 5770 as a video card until Nvidia launches its Fermi line of video cards. Am I crazy for doing this?
It will most likely be:
SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail


Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

EVGA 141-BL-E757-TR ATX X58 SLI LE Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-920 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor

Also I don't understand what you mean by "one tax" Firestorm. I live in the Province of Quebec. And I'm pretty confident in getting free shipping on my Newegg order. Apparently the promotion codes are all over the internet.

I also changed my mind about over clocking. I spent all week reading about it and I'm going to try to run my memory at 1600Mhz and possibly a mild overclock of the i7 920. Nothing crazy.

I will be putting this heatsink/fan on the CPU:
ZALMAN 9500A 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler - Retail
But I might go for the 110mm version or even the 120mm version. I picked a very large case because I don't want any spacing headaches.

Total Price of build stands at 1400$ canadian.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Anastacio said:
When is Nvidia Fermi coming out?

No one knows for sure, could be Q1 2010, could be sooner, could be later.

I believe they're having problems getting satisfactory yields from their factories.
 

Animal

Banned
Lots of shady websites are saying paper launch in the next 6 weeks with very low shipments and true launch in early february.
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
szaromir said:
Here's the question. When can we expect the next wave of AMD GPUs price drops? I would like to buy 5750 or 5770, but would be willing to pay only the current price of 4850. I am patient, so there's no rush.
Hard to say, because prices are going up right now, about $15 since launch on average. The 5850 went up $30 and they still can't keep it in stock. I wouldn't expect a drop until spring 2010.
 

Firestorm

Member
Animal said:
I've done allot of research regarding processors and I'm convinced that the 1156 platform is no good for me. I want triple channel, I will be running a mild overclock and I want hyperthreading.

OK so my new build is the following:

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

Mushkin Enhanced Redline 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model 998691

Antec Three Hundred Black Computer Case

I'm also contemplating buying a 5770 as a video card until Nvidia launches its Fermi line of video cards. Am I crazy for doing this?
It will most likely be:
SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770 (Juniper XT) 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail


Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

EVGA 141-BL-E757-TR ATX X58 SLI LE Intel Motherboard

Intel Core i7-920 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor

Also I don't understand what you mean by "one tax" Firestorm. I live in the Province of Quebec. And I'm pretty confident in getting free shipping on my Newegg order. Apparently the promotion codes are all over the internet.

I also changed my mind about over clocking. I spent all week reading about it and I'm going to try to run my memory at 1600Mhz and possibly a mild overclock of the i7 920. Nothing crazy.

I will be putting this heatsink/fan on the CPU:
ZALMAN 9500A 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler - Retail
But I might go for the 110mm version or even the 120mm version. I picked a very large case because I don't want any spacing headaches.
NCIX only charges PST if you order from outside BC. NewEgg is horrible for Canada. I haven't seen any NewEgg Canada free shipping codes, where did you find them?

If you're using a cheap card until a fermi card comes along, I'd go with a 9800GT or something which will be cheaper and something you can use as a dedicated PhysX card once you get your GTX 3xx.

If you still want to go Newegg for whatever reason and are adamant about sticking with an LGA1366 i7, get cheaper RAM. $200+ is ridiculous.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231223
or
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145220
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Animal said:
Lots of shady websites are saying paper launch in the next 6 weeks with very low shipments and true launch in early february.

If that's the case, you'd never get one until next year. It's hard enough to get a 58XX card (both the 5850 and 70), if it launches in low shipments it will be impossible to get.
 
Animal said:
Lots of shady websites are saying paper launch in the next 6 weeks with very low shipments and true launch in early february.

Paper launches are irrelevant to someone actually wanting to buy something though. They're a PR stunt, nothing more, nothing less. I'd be stunned if there's anything approaching somewhat decent supply this year.
 
SapientWolf said:
Hard to say, because prices are going up right now, about $15 since launch on average. The 5850 went up $30 and they still can't keep it in stock. I wouldn't expect a drop until spring 2010.

Well, you know, I hate to say I told you so, but many times I mentioned that people shouldn't be expecting price collapses with the launch of ATI's new GPUs, GPUs have just dropped in price far too much in the last 18 months to ever have made that feasible. People really shouldn't be surprised at what's happening.
 

Animal

Banned
Firestorm said:
NCIX only charges PST if you order from outside BC. NewEgg is horrible for Canada. I haven't seen any NewEgg Canada free shipping codes, where did you find them?

If you're using a cheap card until a fermi card comes along, I'd go with a 9800GT or something which will be cheaper and something you can use as a dedicated PhysX card once you get your GTX 3xx.

If you still want to go Newegg for whatever reason and are adamant about sticking with an LGA1366 i7, get cheaper RAM. $200+ is ridiculous.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231223
or
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145220

Thanks for your help Firestorm! It's really appreciated :)

Well I figured those ram sticks have very low timings and If I could get them to run at 1600Mhz I'd be gold.

I'm gonna go over to ncix right now and see what the total bill is with them. Newegg Canada, as far as I know is only charging me 30$ shipping and everyone I've talked to is happy in dealing with them. Nonetheless, I will check out NCIX right now.
 
JRW said:
It was worth it for me to upgrade my videocard despite having an older CPU/Mobo..

I'm running an AMD X2 4800+ / 2GB DDR1 PC3200 / EVGA GTX 260 (Superclocked 216 core model) and yes the CPU is a bottleneck but upgrading from a 7800 GTX 512mb to my current GTX 260 still gave me a noticeable boost in performance.

Bottleneck wise, for example, Ive been playing Left 4 Dead 2 demo lately and although most of the time it runs 60fps (and a lot higher when not much is going on) with all in game graphic settings maxed there are times when the CPU's bottleneck sticks out like a sore thumb, such as when a pipebomb explodes and body parts go flying everywhere the framerate drops to 30fps during this time, which is not a huge deal.

Some pics I took with FPS counter active:

Pipebomb explosion (hello bottleneck)

Carnage

Idle

It also made Crysis playable with High graphic settings (but not quite maxed settings), It ran horrendous on the 7800 GTX.

No one is saying that he wouldn't get an improvement it's that it's bottlenecked enough that it's not worth the money he would be spending on it. If he wants to replace the MB, cpu, gpu, etc. why not get something worthwhile then spending money on little upgrades that will show it's age a lot quicker? Saving money he could have a good build instead of an ok build.
 

Pachimari

Member
So this is what is set in stone (if fermi turns out good) so far:

- 22" Samsung Monitor + 3D Vision
- Nvidia Fermi
- That I am in no hurry and will build the PC when Fermi releases.

What about Quad Core, Dual Core and all that stuff? I got no insight in those specifications.
And I can hook up the PC to my reciever so that I can use the same 5.1 surround sound as I use for all the consoles right?
 
Anastacio said:
Alright guys, I have decided to build my own gaming PC, something I have never done before. I'm by no means a tech guy so I need a lot of help here, hope you don't mind.

The whole computer is going to show the games on a:
- 22" 2233RZ (120hz) with support for Nvidia 3D Vision.

As I am not going to use it for work at all, it'll focus only on getting the best out of the games. Some things are set in stone though; I want a HDD (SDD is no good?) with at least 1TB of space. And the graphics (video?) card need to be from Nvidia, the best out there (which is?).

The most important information is, that I am located in Europe (Scandinavia) and if I am going to import from other countries, it got to be someone who sends to Europe and best if the store is located within the EU.

Can you give me any recommendation? Everything from the harddrive, to the graphics card to the tower everything is going to be put in. And I have read you can have both a ATi and a Nvidia card in the same machine? So that I can use a ATi 5850 when I feel like getting the best out of my games, and the GeForce when I feel like playing with 3D-glasses.

Some things I want out of this is:
- 3D Gaming with 3D Vision on a 22" monitor.
- Running Crysis on the best possible settings, if its possible on a 1080p display.
- Be able to run DirectX11 (if its out, if not, then x10).

Why do you think SSD are bad? As far as using two gpus like that you can't. The only way you could do it is if the 3D vision works like physx and you use a the nvidia card as a dedicated 3d vision card and the ati card as your actual video card but I don't think 3d vision is like that but you'd have to google it. Are you using two different monitors? Because you'll have to keep switching if you want to use your 3D vision vs. having it in 1080p. The only DX11 cards are the ati right now and the nvidia are kind of crappy for the money right now.

Anastacio said:
So this is what is set in stone (if fermi turns out good) so far:

- 22" Samsung Monitor + 3D Vision
- Nvidia Fermi
- That I am in no hurry and will build the PC when Fermi releases.

What about Quad Core, Dual Core and all that stuff? I got no insight in those specifications.
And I can hook up the PC to my reciever so that I can use the same 5.1 surround sound as I use for all the consoles right?

Ya, all the decent soundcards I know of have 5.1 output so you just have to check for that. If you're going top shelf then you want a core i5, it doesn't seem worth the money in your case for an i7, and if you're using it for gaming higher clocks on the cpu are better.
 

Firestorm

Member
Animal said:
Thanks for your help Firestorm! It's really appreciated :)

Well I figured those ram sticks have very low timings and If I could get them to run at 1600Mhz I'd be gold.

I'm gonna go over to ncix right now and see what the total bill is with them. Newegg Canada, as far as I know is only charging me 30$ shipping and everyone I've talked to is happy in dealing with them. Nonetheless, I will check out NCIX right now.
With NCIX remember these things:

1. Sales start on Wednesday and you can usually get one or two items cheaper than usual with the sale
2. Use www.pricecanada.com, www.shopbot.ca, and www.pricebat.ca to compare prices on your parts. If it's cheaper somewhere else, click "Start Price Match" on the checkout screen and put in the value + url to the cheaper price.
3. $3 shipping coupon is over tonight and it's 103009HSC

$3 shipping seems to be around every other week or so. They sometimes have $10 gift card for free shipping. Last week they had thermal paste for $8.99 that gave free shipping for the entire order.
 

Pachimari

Member
Forget the 1080p display, I'm just using that one 22" Samsung Monitor (120hz).

I don't know what SSD is? Flash memory instead of HDD?
 
Anastacio said:
Forget the 1080p display, I'm just using that one 22" Samsung Monitor (120hz).

I don't know what SSD is? Flash memory instead of HDD?

It's like a flash drive in that they both are solid state so they don't have moving parts but SSD drives are a lot faster than your standard hard drive even compared to a velciraptor it's a lot faster. If you look at benchmarks you can see the difference. If you're willing to spend the money you can get a 60GB for your OS and some games and see an improvement and then get a 1tb or whatever for your media. Intel and OCZ have the best ssd drives.
 
Anastacio said:
So this is what is set in stone (if fermi turns out good) so far:

- 22" Samsung Monitor + 3D Vision
- Nvidia Fermi
- That I am in no hurry and will build the PC when Fermi releases.

What about Quad Core, Dual Core and all that stuff? I got no insight in those specifications.
And I can hook up the PC to my reciever so that I can use the same 5.1 surround sound as I use for all the consoles right?

Probably an i7 860 would be my recommendation for CPU and if it lives up to its billing, MSI's "big bang" motherboard.
 
brain_stew said:
I never said that, its still a great CPU, its just that its where your bottlenck seems to lie in L4D2 is all.

One piece of advice though, always OC before you lay down cash for an upgrade, why pay for extra performance when you may be able to get some for free or for the price of a $20 cooler? Most E8400s are good upto 4ghz+, and if you're not satisfied with performance at stock that's where you should be aiming.

I'm only running a cheap ass E5200 myself but its OCed to 3.6ghz which makes all the difference, and actually means it'll quite easily outperform your E8400 even though it probably cost as much as 3 times as much.

Yeah, I wasn't being serious, I just call everything "poop" :lol I tried using ASUS' AI overclock on my motherboard with very poor results, I'm guessing if I manually do it I might yield better results, problem is that I've somehow avoided learning how to overclock a cpu properly for all of these years.
 
TouchMyBox said:
Yeah, I wasn't being serious, I just call everything "poop" :lol I tried using ASUS' AI overclock on my motherboard with very poor results, I'm guessing if I manually do it I might yield better results, problem is that I've somehow avoided learning how to overclock a cpu properly for all of these years.

That's your problem right there. They suck balls. You can look online for tutorials and any questions you can just ask.
 
TouchMyBox said:
Yeah, I wasn't being serious, I just call everything "poop" :lol I tried using ASUS' AI overclock on my motherboard with very poor results, I'm guessing if I manually do it I might yield better results, problem is that I've somehow avoided learning how to overclock a cpu properly for all of these years.

Its a piece of piss to OC a Core 2, probably the easiest OCing platform out there. There's thousands of excellent guides out there, and I'd recommend www.overclock.net for specific advice if and when you need it.

Always OC manually through the BIOS. "Auto" settings and software OCing solutions are pretty much universally terrible. One, last thing, many will say to use Prime95 to stress test, ignore this advice, use OCCT instead.
 
brain_stew said:
Its a piece of piss to OC a Core 2, probably the easiest OCing platform out there. There's thousands of excellent guides out there, and I'd recommend www.overclock.net for specific advice if and when you need it.

Always OC manually through the BIOS. "Auto" settings and software OCing solutions are pretty much universally terrible. One, last thing, many will say to use Prime95 to stress test, ignore this advice, use OCCT instead.

Gracious Monsieur.
 

Minsc

Gold Member
Anastacio said:
Forget the 1080p display, I'm just using that one 22" Samsung Monitor (120hz).

I don't know what SSD is? Flash memory instead of HDD?

19853.png


That is what an SSD is all about.

Absolutely wrecks even the fastest HDDs by an insane amount (400%+ in the above test).
 
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