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

M

MWS Natural

Member
Akuun said:
Just got a new rig the other day and I'm very happy with it.

AMD Phenom II X3 720 Black Edition
Sapphire Radeon 4870 1 gig
Asus M4A79 Deluxe motherboard
640 gig hard drive
4 gigs of ram
Antec P182 case
Cooler Master Hyper Z600 (CPU heatsink/fan)
750W power supply
Click to expand...

I have a similar build I was looking at pulling the trigger on (waiting on work bonus :D ). Any suggestions?

9kxj4m.jpg
 
mr stroke

mr stroke

Member
Darklord said:
Well all my original parts had to be changed so now I'm at:

CPU: Intel Core i7 920
GPU: HIS HD4870 1GB
PSU: Corsair Micro CMPSU-620HX
Case: Cooler Master RC-690-KKN1
OS Vista 64bit

Not sure about the rest though. I still need ram and a mobo.
Click to expand...

have you considered the Saphire 4850x2 2gig? its about the same price as the 48701g and the benches are very impressive-
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3517&p=9

looks like 4870x2 performance for half the price. I am holding my self back(hoping for an early 58xx release) from upgrading to one of these now as the price/performance is amazing.
 
M

MWS Natural

Member
Hazaro said:
Cheaper and better PSU...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005

I'd also upgrade the HDD to a 640GB, the speed upgrade is nice.

Also if you can, try to get some ICD7 as your thermal paste. Incredible stuff.

Beats AS5 by about 3C, non-conductive, non-capacitive, 99% diamond, and you can polish stuff with it. :D
Click to expand...

I need a modular PSU for my case (makes things much easier) and that was one of the better value ones I found. I'm trying to keep costs low as possible why I went with that HDD. I will checkout the thermal paste you recommended, thanks.
 
C

Crazymoogle

Member
mr stroke said:
have you considered the Saphire 4850x2 2gig? its about the same price as the 48701g and the benches are very impressive-
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3517&p=9

looks like 4870x2 performance for half the price. I am holding my self back(hoping for an early 58xx release) from upgrading to one of these now as the price/performance is amazing.
Click to expand...

The 4850x2 is definitely an impressive value part. But it's worth noting that power draw and noise are significant issues - I think even Anandtech has raised concerns over how loud this particular model is. And that's ignoring driver issues or non-multi-gpu titles.

Still, if you're gaming at 1080p or higher it's worth a look. For 22" panels it's probably overkill - the very same article deals almost exclusively in 1600p resolutions.
 
P

pseudocaesar

Member
Im a complete novice with computer building, so im following the OP to try and suss what i need to build. I want a good gaming PC, nothing that can max crysis, hell medium/high is plenty. I just want to be able to run games like RTW on max and MIITW on near-max without breaking a sweat (Im a RTW modder with a disgrace for a PC).

That said, I have picked out the Antec 300 case so far, and im looking at getting;

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H Motherboard
AMD ATHLON 5200+ CPU

I looked at a Phenom but its twice the price of the Athlon there, is it worth it? Is the Athlon 5200+ even good? Any helps appreciated.

Here are the two parts for reference.
http://www.principalcomputers.com.au/index.php?q=item&cat=1617&id=6669
http://www.principalcomputers.com.au/index.php?q=item&cat=1680&id=4081
 
I

itxaka

Defeatist
Ashhong said:
^^

what are your expectations for that laptop?
Click to expand...

Some gaming. In fact, a lot of gaming, so that's why I think it will be better to leave vista 32 so the graphics card can suck up 1 gb and the system keep the other 3 and doesn't touch them a lot.

Shit, having stalker since last year, now I'm playing it on high and it runs at 40 fps stable. Fucking awesome. And lef4dead runs pretty well on medium-high, getting between 30~35 fps stable!
 
C

cmmart

Member
So I just built my first computer........

Here are the specs
17 920
6 gigs of DDR3
CoolerMaster V8
EVGA GeForce 280
Gigabyte EX58-UD4P motherboard

The motherboard has an "EasyTune 6" utility for novice
friendly overclocking. Has anybody used this? I set mine to
overclock at 3 GHz. Ran the Prime95 stress utility for an hour.
The CPU cores hit around 60 degrees Celsius under full load.
Is this safe, or am I going to blow up my new toy?

Thanks for any feedback.
 
A

Ashhong

Member
itxaka said:
Some gaming. In fact, a lot of gaming, so that's why I think it will be better to leave vista 32 so the graphics card can suck up 1 gb and the system keep the other 3 and doesn't touch them a lot.

Shit, having stalker since last year, now I'm playing it on high and it runs at 40 fps stable. Fucking awesome. And lef4dead runs pretty well on medium-high, getting between 30~35 fps stable!
Click to expand...

i dont think thats how it works. im no expert, but when it says 3gb i think it means 3gb. its not 3gb and 1gb of shared for the gpu. ill let someone who knows what theyre talking about comment though.
 
godhandiscen

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
cmmart said:
So I just built my first computer........

Here are the specs
17 920
6 gigs of DDR3
CoolerMaster V8
EVGA GeForce 280
Gigabyte EX58-UD4P motherboard

The motherboard has an "EasyTune 6" utility for novice
friendly overclocking. Has anybody used this? I set mine to
overclock at 3 GHz. Ran the Prime95 stress utility for an hour.
The CPU cores hit around 60 degrees Celsius under full load.
Is this safe, or am I going to blow up my new toy?

Thanks for any feedback.
Click to expand...
Try to read an overclocking guide and do it manually. Auto Overclocking features tend to increase the voltage by a lot just to be safe. This isn't good. I learned this from my ASUS Rampage II auto overclocking features. Hit the EVGA forums, they have the best info on all their products.
 
E

evil solrac v3.0

Member
here is a question, if these net-books (and small form factor desktops)become more and more popular will that mean that big, powerful desktop will become an endangered species? (god i hope not)
 
S

SRG01

Member
evil solrac v3.0 said:
here is a question, if these net-books (and small form factor desktops)become more and more popular will that mean that big, powerful desktop will become an endangered species? (god i hope not)
Click to expand...

Laptops outsold desktops for the first time this past year. This coming year may be different with the recession though.
 
C

Crazymoogle

Member
Ashhong said:
i dont think thats how it works. im no expert, but when it says 3gb i think it means 3gb. its not 3gb and 1gb of shared for the gpu. ill let someone who knows what theyre talking about comment though.
Click to expand...

I think he means that on a 4GB setup, 1GB is being swallowed because the videocard (presumably a 1GB card) is using the address space, leaving him with 3 or so to be recognized by Windows.

solrac said:
here is a question, if these net-books (and small form factor desktops)become more and more popular will that mean that big, powerful desktop will become an endangered species? (god i hope not)
Click to expand...

Nah, that's not an issue. Netbooks are hitting the market at a need spot - basically, internet appliances - but they have pretty significant issues that will prevent them from becoming market dominant, such as battery life and performance. SFF desktops are growing in popularity a bit because of the need for low power dumb boxes, HT boxes, or general consumer needs, but they are also pretty hamstrung at performance and supporting a variety of features, which is what the standard desktop is all about.

I think desktops are on the slow convergence road - you're already seeing that we've gone quite far from the old days of multiple socket CPU rigs with 5+ PCI - but the other markets are dependant on how far the desktop goes first.
 
T

Tideas

Banned
SRG01 said:
Laptops outsold desktops for the first time this past year. This coming year may be different with the recession though.
Click to expand...

no...if it's a recession, $300 netbooks will outsell $1000 PCs.
 
R

rohlfinator

Member
pseudocaesar said:
Im a complete novice with computer building, so im following the OP to try and suss what i need to build. I want a good gaming PC, nothing that can max crysis, hell medium/high is plenty. I just want to be able to run games like RTW on max and MIITW on near-max without breaking a sweat (Im a RTW modder with a disgrace for a PC).

That said, I have picked out the Antec 300 case so far, and im looking at getting;

Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H Motherboard
AMD ATHLON 5200+ CPU
Click to expand...
That motherboard is a MicroATX board with integrated graphics. Since you'll be adding your own graphics card, you can probably save a few bucks by getting one without the integrated GPU. You'll also have better selection among full-size ATX boards.

brain_stew said:
Looks like we have a new budget buy king on our hands. How does 4850 level performance for less than $100 with the power and heat specifications of something resembling a4670 sound? Well that's what ATI look to be close to delivering with this new 40nm part. I can see this thing flying off shelves:
Click to expand...
I'm interested in seeing the power consumption of that card -- seems like it could make a good candidate for a cheap but powerful Crossfire setup. And since it's on a smaller process, is it possible that it won't need extra PCIe power?

evil solrac v3.0 said:
here is a question, if these net-books (and small form factor desktops)become more and more popular will that mean that big, powerful desktop will become an endangered species? (god i hope not)
Click to expand...
I think the desktop market is very much on the decline, but the majority of desktop sales were budget or midrange Dell/HP/Gateway machines rather than high-performance gaming PCs. The enthusiast market that buys high-end machines isn't going to switch to netbooks any time soon (though they might buy a netbook in addition to their desktop).
 
A

Ashhong

Member
hey guys, so im in the middle of setting up my new PC and got a few questions. This is the first time ive installed a new mobo, so forgive me.

before i install Vista, do i need to go to bios and change anything? i guess only go in to set all the harddrives and stuff?

i am going from xp32bit to vista home premium 64. is there anything i need to know? do i need to be installing programs specifically for vista 64? for example, i use an old version of AIM. can i just use the same file i used it to install on xp?

i really dont know what to expect here. thanks
 
H

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
godhandiscen

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
A

Ashhong

Member
question since noone answered first one =(

does the vista install disk take forever? its like freakin 5-10 wait between screens
 
S

Slavik81

Member
Ashhong said:
question since noone answered first one =(

does the vista install disk take forever? its like freakin 5-10 wait between screens
Click to expand...
Generally, I set these sorts of things up then go to sleep as they run. I've never seen how long an OS takes to install. My assumption is a long time.
 
A

Ashhong

Member
Slavik81 said:
Generally, I set these sorts of things up then go to sleep as they run. I've never seen how long an OS takes to install. My assumption is a long time.
Click to expand...

definitely took longer than xp, just finished.

quick guys, whats a top brand for dvd burners? i want to buy one while cashback on ebay is still going
 
R

rc213

Member
Samsung let me down the last time, The LG's are supposedly top notch now. But who knows, I just got the cheapest with free shipping which was a LG.
 
C

Captain Knutsman

Member
brain_stew said:
Looks like we have a new budget buy king on our hands. How does 4850 level performance for less than $100 with the power and heat specifications of something resembling a4670 sound? Well that's what ATI look to be close to delivering with this new 40nm part. I can see this thing flying off shelves:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-4750-rv740-review-preview-test/1
Click to expand...


Hell yeah - it's released just about as i get the money for my new build :D

I've been going a lot from 4850 to 4870 in my build not being able to decide, until i realized that i don't want to spend too much money and staying with the 4850 (Im tired of "future proofing" my computer...) so this card might be just what i need :D
 
A

Ashhong

Member
guys...how the hell do i fix my wireless on vista? son of a bitch SUCKS. its some asus wireless adapter which vista automatically installed with "Broadcom" drivers. i could have sworn it was working at first, but now its not. it sucks so bad.

half the time it says i can only access Local, 1/4 of the time it says Limited to no Connectivity, and the other 1/4 its connected but downloads files at under 1kb. wat the fuck????? ive been googling for hours and cant find a solution that works.
 
A

Ashhong

Member
its weird though because this came off of my brothers computer that was running vista just fine, and he never had any problems. i guess its because i have 64bit? sucksss

i installed the drivers asus provides for it and it still wont work. windows at least recognizes it as an Asus adapter, but stl all i get it Local Only. man...
 
C

Cheeto

Member
Ashhong said:
guys...how the hell do i fix my wireless on vista? son of a bitch SUCKS. its some asus wireless adapter which vista automatically installed with "Broadcom" drivers. i could have sworn it was working at first, but now its not. it sucks so bad.

half the time it says i can only access Local, 1/4 of the time it says Limited to no Connectivity, and the other 1/4 its connected but downloads files at under 1kb. wat the fuck????? ive been googling for hours and cant find a solution that works.
Click to expand...
Are you using the wireless? If you're just using a wired connection anyway, the easiest solution may be to just disable the wireless in Bios.
 
A

Ashhong

Member
Cheeto said:
Are you using the wireless? If you're just using a wired connection anyway, the easiest solution may be to just disable the wireless in Bios.
Click to expand...

huh? yes im trying to use the wireless, thats y im trying to make it work lol. router is in the other room, i have no other choice.
 
C

Cheeto

Member
Ashhong said:
huh? yes im trying to use the wireless, thats y im trying to make it work lol. router is in the other room, i have no other choice.
Click to expand...
Well, okay...is this a desktop? If this is a laptop, it could very well be a broadcom wireless card. If it's a desktop with an ASUS motherboard with wireless connectivity, (wtf are you using the wireless for anyway, it's a piece of shit standard that offers you no benefit on a stationary machine), you probably need to clean out the previous drivers completely using safe-mode or a driver cleaner utility and try again with 64-bit drivers.
 
B

brain_stew

Member
A

Ashhong

Member
Cheeto said:
Well, okay...is this a desktop? If this is a laptop, it could very well be a broadcom wireless card. If it's a desktop with an ASUS motherboard with wireless connectivity, (wtf are you using the wireless for anyway, it's a piece of shit standard that offers you no benefit on a stationary machine), you probably need to clean out the previous drivers completely using safe-mode or a driver cleaner utility and try again with 64-bit drivers.
Click to expand...

its a desktop. i have an asus motherboard but dont have wireless connectivity. i also have an asus pci wireless card that i was using on my xp machine. ive been reading about it and apparently its pretty hit or miss with wireless cards and vista, which sucks. i cant connect to the internet any other way. i might have to go back to xp...

edit: fuck it, going to xp. thanks for the help
 
F

Fredescu

Member
I was going to hold off upgrading for a little while, but I've had an offer from a friend that might prove too hard to refuse. Just looking for comments on the upgrade.

My system at the moment is:
Athlon 64 3000+
2 x 7900GT in SLI
some ram, ionno, at least 2GB
Lovely 21 inch CRT monitor, so I tend to only play at 1280x1080 or occasionally 1600x1200

A friend is offering me a Q6600 CPU and and Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard for a pretty good price. The only problem is that the motherboard doesn't support SLI, so I will have to ditch one of the 7900GT's and I can't really afford to get even a cheapo video card upgrade since I'm on a limited budget and will have to buy some new RAM for this mdb too.

My own benchmarking suggests that in games like L4D, SLI isn't giving me much benefit. I'm guessing that's because of my shitty shitty CPU though. If I go through with this upgrade I'll have a nice CPU, but a relatively poor video card. Is the 7900GT just too poor to pair up with the the Q6600, or am I likely to see decent performance increase in games? I know I can look this up in charts, but how does the Q6600 compare to the newer cheaper dual cores like the E5200?
 
P

Pachael

Member
brain_stew said:
This x1000. Some excellent recommendations there, especially at the budget end of the spectrum.
Click to expand...

http://techreport.com/articles.x/16438/2

Agreed. The budget system there is almost like-for-like with the system I just got for an upgrade (to replace my earlier budget E2160 build built back in Oct 07). This time it cost about AUD900 due to a beefier HDD and GPU (4850 <3) and the stonkingly crap exchange rate.
 
C

Crazymoogle

Member
Fredescu said:
I was going to hold off upgrading for a little while, but I've had an offer from a friend that might prove too hard to refuse. Just looking for comments on the upgrade.

My system at the moment is:
Athlon 64 3000+
2 x 7900GT in SLI
some ram, ionno, at least 2GB
Lovely 21 inch CRT monitor, so I tend to only play at 1280x1080 or occasionally 1600x1200

A friend is offering me a Q6600 CPU and and Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard for a pretty good price. The only problem is that the motherboard doesn't support SLI, so I will have to ditch one of the 7900GT's and I can't really afford to get even a cheapo video card upgrade since I'm on a limited budget and will have to buy some new RAM for this mdb too.

My own benchmarking suggests that in games like L4D, SLI isn't giving me much benefit. I'm guessing that's because of my shitty shitty CPU though. If I go through with this upgrade I'll have a nice CPU, but a relatively poor video card. Is the 7900GT just too poor to pair up with the the Q6600, or am I likely to see decent performance increase in games? I know I can look this up in charts, but how does the Q6600 compare to the newer cheaper dual cores like the E5200?
Click to expand...

Just my own two cents - never owned a 7900GT so I can't speak much about that. But I think you'd notice a lot of general PC use improvement by going from A64 3000 to Q6600 - I mean, the difference between my XP 4200X2 rig and my W7 Q6700 rig was night and day before I even had the GTX285 to slot in.

I'd feel pretty comfortable going with the Q6600; the 7900GT is pretty damn slow but I'm not sure that SLi is helping you below highres anyway. Add some dirt cheap sticks of DDR2 and consider grabbing a 4830 or 47xx when you have a little bit of cash.
 
M

MWS Natural

Member
Hmm...I am thinking of going with a Qmicra v2 case instead of the thermal take lanbox. It's much more expensive but from what I have read it's the best SFF case out there and I can keep it for a long time.
 
A

Ashhong

Member
alright guys, i have isolated my wireless internet problem. after going back to xp, i had the same fucking problem. the wireless pci card stopped working correctly. so i figured it was a software issue and not a vista specific issue, and went back to vista. (a brand new computer doesnt really feel new with xp...)

i installed everything one by one and discovered it works great until i install the drivers for my graphics card. i have an asus 512mb eah4870. its specifically the drivers for that, because i even installed catalyst control center perfectly. anybody have any tips? im going to call asus later today, but maybe someone has an idea?
 
H

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
Ashhong said:
alright guys, i have isolated my wireless internet problem. after going back to xp, i had the same fucking problem. the wireless pci card stopped working correctly. so i figured it was a software issue and not a vista specific issue, and went back to vista. (a brand new computer doesnt really feel new with xp...)

i installed everything one by one and discovered it works great until i install the drivers for my graphics card. i have an asus 512mb eah4870. its specifically the drivers for that, because i even installed catalyst control center perfectly. anybody have any tips? im going to call asus later today, but maybe someone has an idea?
Click to expand...
Download Cat 8.10 or 8.11 or whatever they are on now from ATi's website.
 
A

Ashhong

Member
Hazaro said:
Download Cat 8.10 or 8.11 or whatever they are on now from ATi's website.
Click to expand...

tried it. i installed newest cat then drivers separately. same issue. as soon as drivers go in it all goes to shit
 
H

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
Ashhong said:
tried it. i installed newest cat then drivers separately. same issue. as soon as drivers go in it all goes to shit
Click to expand...
How so?

Are you getting more than a 1 Hz refresh rate? (e.g. windows move smoothly, etc)
 
A

Ashhong

Member
Hazaro said:
How so?

Are you getting more than a 1 Hz refresh rate? (e.g. windows move smoothly, etc)
Click to expand...

duno the exact number, but yea everything works good. i get the full resolution of my monitor, colors/fonts look better. what i meant was the wireless goes to shit. as soon as it boots up after adding the drivers the wireless doesnt even connect automatically.

i try to connect to my network and it refuses like 3 times, then it finally connects under limited or no connectivity. even if i finally get it work, usually by setting "have windows automatically change ip" or something, it downloads at about 2kb/s.

oh and my cat is 9.2. does it matter if i install the drivers from ati for the "4800 series" vs the one that came with my gpu? if i install the one that it came with it at least says the exact model..
 
Kite

Kite

Member
A buddy of mine is looking to build his first computer in years and would like neogaf's help, he wants a mid-range gaming rig.

rsz_11untitled.jpg
 
Minsc

Minsc

Gold Member
Kite said:
A buddy of mine is looking to build his first computer in years and would like neogaf's help, he wants a mid-range gaming rig.

rsz_11untitled.jpg
Click to expand...

The link posted earlier from Tech Report has a similar build that's much better.

You're at least getting a i7 and GTX 260, for that price you shouldn't go for less.

Just buy the OS and monitor now and wait a few weeks for another paycheck to order everything else if a few hundred breaks the budget, you'll be much better off with a i7 & 260 than 9600 and Quad.
 
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