hi5! I've heard memoryexpress are pretty ok to deal with, their prices just always seem high and I live in Vancouver where NCIX is based so I can just walk into one of their showrooms and pick up the stuff I want so Ive never felt the need to use anybody else. I hope all the purchasing stuff works out ok!
(also can i work at bioware? i can just get you coffee and stuff. i'm sick of working at a university)
If at any point a job opens up that you think you'd be suitable for, sure! Though I can only help so much.
Off-topic, but I met one of your infrastructure guys at VMWorld last year. Cool guy, and Bioware seems like a pretty nice place to work.
My machine is built YAY, no major problems apart from my cpu cooler wire tripping the fan at first and my being a dork and setting my HDD to active so it kept cancelling my boot up.
I will post pics at some point and a suitable terrible name. Many will hate me for saying this but I am going for the quick option of copying over my SWTOR beta folder while I wait for my steam/applications folder to copy over so I can see how she runs.
So, is it worth going with a board with 3 PCI-E slots, if I wanted to SLI 570s and then get like a 460 or something cheap and use it solely for PhsyX.
Im leaning towards totally not worth it since most things dont even support PhysX, but I figured Id ask since I saw it and it intrigued me.
That is sooooo not worth it. You'd have to have more money than God for that to even be something to think about. There are like 8 things you could buy for your computer that I would label as "completely not worth the price unless you're rich" that would make more sense than that.
ghost_master2000: The Sandy Bridge processors only support 16 PCI-E lanes. Your board has 2 x16 PCI slots that run at x8/x8 when both slots are populated. If this is what you're seeing, don't worry about it, everything is working as intended and you won't see any reduced performance.
And I just bought everything! Ended up swapping a few components (got the higher-end Z68 board because it was cheaper due to being in a bundle with my processor), but otherwise, mostly the same as mentioned. Now I get to sit here and try to focus on working today, when I know I just want to go home and build my PC :P
So, is it worth going with a board with 3 PCI-E slots, if I wanted to SLI 570s and then get like a 460 or something cheap and use it solely for PhysX.
Im leaning towards totally not worth it since most things dont even support PhysX, but I figured Id ask since I saw it and it intrigued me.
That is sooooo not worth it. You'd have to have more money than God for that to even be something to think about. There are like 8 things you could buy for your computer that I would label as "completely not worth the price unless you're rich" that would make more sense than that.
Yeah, thats kinda what I figured. Makes me wonder why people do it though. I guess I can see doing it if you have a leftover nVidia card, but I dont really see the point since there really arent very many games with PhysX.
Here's a little conundrum: I have 2 OC'd 6850s in my PC (750W PSU). If I were to upgrade those cards to anything with notably higher performance, what the hell are my options? I can't fit a third card in, and buying a single 580 gtx or 6970 would essentially do nothing. On the other hand, getting two 580s would cost me about 900 dollars, plus I'd need a new power supply. Is there anything I can do except wait?
So my parents got me a gaming laptop when I went off to school, and it took its last breath today. I have my work Macbook, but I don't want to install all my games on a company laptop. I figured it would be cheaper to just build a desktop rather than get a new gaming laptop, especially since I don't need the mobility. I already have a monitor/mouse/keyboard/OS.
The problem is that I don't want to spend a ton on this (weird, I know :-p). I know enough about computers, being a CS student/nerd, but I've never actually built my own machine before. My dad recommended to me looking at the barebones kits they sell on Tiger Direct/Newegg and just upgrading the graphics/PSU, I was hoping I could get some feedback from people that know much more than me.
VicWhiten on
0
AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
By "RAM is not working" what do you mean? Can you get to your BIOS? Can you boot at all? Does Windows not recognize all 8 gigs?
oh whoops.
The computer powers up, but I just get a blank screen. My monitor gets no input.
So the computer still boots with just the original RAM, correct? And when you add the additional sticks, or use them alone, no boot? When you add the new sticks alone, are you putting them in the slots your original RAM was in? Some motherboards prefer a certain pair of slots, and might not boot correctly if they aren't filled.
If the new sticks don't work at all, regardless of the slots you use, I'd RMA them. The simplest explanation is that the sticks are bad, assuming your PC works just fine with its original configuration.
So my parents got me a gaming laptop when I went off to school, and it took its last breath today. I have my work Macbook, but I don't want to install all my games on a company laptop. I figured it would be cheaper to just build a desktop rather than get a new gaming laptop, especially since I don't need the mobility. I already have a monitor/mouse/keyboard/OS.
The problem is that I don't want to spend a ton on this (weird, I know :-p). I know enough about computers, being a CS student/nerd, but I've never actually built my own machine before. My dad recommended to me looking at the barebones kits they sell on Tiger Direct/Newegg and just upgrading the graphics/PSU, I was hoping I could get some feedback from people that know much more than me.
What's your budget for this? Depending on the barebones kits available, it could be a good or bad idea. Some of the kits save you enough that having to buy additional parts to supplement or replace stuff in the combo is cost-effective. On the other hand, some exist mostly to get rid of cruddy stuff that would be sold unless it was attached to a few good things, and replacing the junky stuff is more expensive than it's worth.
Here's a little conundrum: I have 2 OC'd 6850s in my PC (750W PSU). If I were to upgrade those cards to anything with notably higher performance, what the hell are my options? I can't fit a third card in, and buying a single 580 gtx or 6970 would essentially do nothing. On the other hand, getting two 580s would cost me about 900 dollars, plus I'd need a new power supply. Is there anything I can do except wait?
Have you discovered a need for more performance than you already have? I mean, unless you have 3 monitors, 2x6850 should be more than enough to enable all kinds of eye candy. If you're talking about future upgrade paths, your best bet is probably to wait. I sincerely doubt there's anything that's going to so seriously strain a pair of 6850s that you'll need to upgrade your GPU before the next generation of AMD/Nvidia cards comes out.
Aside from waiting, the other paths are to upgrade to multiple sub-580 cards. So on the AMD side 2x 6870/6950/6970, and on Nvidia 2x 560/560 Ti/570. Expensive, yes, but I reiterate that I don't think you'll need to upgrade until your cards are truly obsolete, and by then there will be superior options at roughly the same expense of the 2x 6850s.
So my parents got me a gaming laptop when I went off to school, and it took its last breath today. I have my work Macbook, but I don't want to install all my games on a company laptop. I figured it would be cheaper to just build a desktop rather than get a new gaming laptop, especially since I don't need the mobility. I already have a monitor/mouse/keyboard/OS.
The problem is that I don't want to spend a ton on this (weird, I know :-p). I know enough about computers, being a CS student/nerd, but I've never actually built my own machine before. My dad recommended to me looking at the barebones kits they sell on Tiger Direct/Newegg and just upgrading the graphics/PSU, I was hoping I could get some feedback from people that know much more than me.
What's your budget for this? Depending on the barebones kits available, it could be a good or bad idea. Some of the kits save you enough that having to buy additional parts to supplement or replace stuff in the combo is cost-effective. On the other hand, some exist mostly to get rid of cruddy stuff that would be sold unless it was attached to a few good things, and replacing the junky stuff is more expensive than it's worth.
I'd -like- to say $600-$700, but I'm guessing thats a little unreasonable. More realistically, $900-$1000.
Here's a little conundrum: I have 2 OC'd 6850s in my PC (750W PSU). If I were to upgrade those cards to anything with notably higher performance, what the hell are my options? I can't fit a third card in, and buying a single 580 gtx or 6970 would essentially do nothing. On the other hand, getting two 580s would cost me about 900 dollars, plus I'd need a new power supply. Is there anything I can do except wait?
I'm going to echo Alecthar and ask what the heck you are doing to your poor computer that is making two overlocked 6850s do anything other than cover your needs entirely.
By "RAM is not working" what do you mean? Can you get to your BIOS? Can you boot at all? Does Windows not recognize all 8 gigs?
oh whoops.
The computer powers up, but I just get a blank screen. My monitor gets no input.
So the computer still boots with just the original RAM, correct? And when you add the additional sticks, or use them alone, no boot? When you add the new sticks alone, are you putting them in the slots your original RAM was in? Some motherboards prefer a certain pair of slots, and might not boot correctly if they aren't filled.
If the new sticks don't work at all, regardless of the slots you use, I'd RMA them. The simplest explanation is that the sticks are bad, assuming your PC works just fine with its original configuration.
Yup, old sticks work perfectly fine, I've tried new+old, old in the new slots, and 1 stick of each new stick by itself. There is no booting whichever new stick I use.
Strange that they would both be bad, but I guess that's the most likely possibility.
Well, a bit of a problem. I set everything up, hit the power switch - and nothing. Computer will simply not turn on. I know the motherboard's getting power, because the green Reset and red Power lights are on, but when I hit the power switch absolutely nothing is happening. The guy at the store seated my CPU and RAM - could this be the culprit? (he did it wrong, for example). Tearing my hair out trying to figure this out.
So my parents got me a gaming laptop when I went off to school, and it took its last breath today. I have my work Macbook, but I don't want to install all my games on a company laptop. I figured it would be cheaper to just build a desktop rather than get a new gaming laptop, especially since I don't need the mobility. I already have a monitor/mouse/keyboard/OS.
The problem is that I don't want to spend a ton on this (weird, I know :-p). I know enough about computers, being a CS student/nerd, but I've never actually built my own machine before. My dad recommended to me looking at the barebones kits they sell on Tiger Direct/Newegg and just upgrading the graphics/PSU, I was hoping I could get some feedback from people that know much more than me.
What's your budget for this? Depending on the barebones kits available, it could be a good or bad idea. Some of the kits save you enough that having to buy additional parts to supplement or replace stuff in the combo is cost-effective. On the other hand, some exist mostly to get rid of cruddy stuff that would be sold unless it was attached to a few good things, and replacing the junky stuff is more expensive than it's worth.
I'd -like- to say $600-$700, but I'm guessing thats a little unreasonable. More realistically, $900-$1000.
Is this the right place for laptop questions? If not, feel free to ignore me.
I'm after a small laptop, maybe netbook, for the most simple internet and word processing tasks, but even though it's not going to be doing anything very intensive, it needs to be quick. I have an Asus EEEPC, and I generally like it except that it chugs every 5-10 seconds even while just in word, and opening more than two or three internet tabs kills it. I'm happy to get something a little bigger and heavier than that if it comes with a better processor, but I don't really know what I'm looking at with mobile processors, all my knowledge is in desktops.
Well, I swapped the PSU from my old PC (turns out it was a 750W, so apparently I was thinking ahead even then :P) and everything suddenly works. So it looks like the PSU was DOA. Going to go get a new one tomorrow.
I'm doing an Adobe Creative Suite build for my sis on a resonable budget (shooting for $600-$800 for parts only). No gaming needed, and the only purchases needed are the case and everything in it. Here are my thoughts right now - would love to get a general opinion.
- Primary considerations are mobo, CPU, memory. As helpful as multiple disks or an SSD would be, those can easily be done as upgrades later. Right now I just want to get something good up and running with parts that won't be outdated in a week.
- Sandy Bridge seems to make the most sense - new but it looks like we're past the "astronomical price" phase. I was thinking an i5 quad-core, LGA 1155, not sure exactly which one yet.
- I left out GPU from the above list for a reason: Intel HD Graphics seems like a good option considering the budget and no gaming, and the H67B3 motherboards are priced right. What's the opinion on Intel HD Graphics for visual work?
I'm still picking through specifics on NewEgg, but does this look to be a reasonable strategy?
Did you throw another stick of ram in it? Ive heard those things need an extra stick of ram.
Haven't done that, no. I guess I could, but I'd rather an entirely new one really. The eeePC served me well for around 2 years, but now it's kinda past it.
Did you throw another stick of ram in it? Ive heard those things need an extra stick of ram.
Haven't done that, no. I guess I could, but I'd rather an entirely new one really. The eeePC served me well for around 2 years, but now it's kinda past it.
Well you said you only do light browsing and word processing so I figured $40 for RAM is way cheaper than $300+ for a new netbook.
But if you want an all out laptop, Im super partial to Apple's stuff, even though theyre (prohibitively?) expensive.
Another quick check -- thinking about doing my upgrade, wondering if anything changed since I made this list that might make changes or waiting for the short term wise:
So my parents got me a gaming laptop when I went off to school, and it took its last breath today. I have my work Macbook, but I don't want to install all my games on a company laptop. I figured it would be cheaper to just build a desktop rather than get a new gaming laptop, especially since I don't need the mobility. I already have a monitor/mouse/keyboard/OS.
The problem is that I don't want to spend a ton on this (weird, I know :-p). I know enough about computers, being a CS student/nerd, but I've never actually built my own machine before. My dad recommended to me looking at the barebones kits they sell on Tiger Direct/Newegg and just upgrading the graphics/PSU, I was hoping I could get some feedback from people that know much more than me.
What's your budget for this? Depending on the barebones kits available, it could be a good or bad idea. Some of the kits save you enough that having to buy additional parts to supplement or replace stuff in the combo is cost-effective. On the other hand, some exist mostly to get rid of cruddy stuff that would be sold unless it was attached to a few good things, and replacing the junky stuff is more expensive than it's worth.
I'd -like- to say $600-$700, but I'm guessing thats a little unreasonable. More realistically, $900-$1000.
This RAM over what you have there. Also, Cooler Master PSUs in general are crappy, and the GX 650 is no exception. I'd go with one of the XFX 650W units and the HAF 912. There's some room in the budget for additional fans for the case if desired. Good otherwise, though.
nlawalker: Go with a good Z68 board. It'll give you access to the integrated GPU, overclocking, and you can drop in another card later. The 2500K is your best option for CPU, in my opinion. It might not be a gaming PC, but additional CPU horsepower is always helpful, especially with how CPU intensive professional apps can be. Also, it's the only i5 with the 3000 IGPU, so that's nice to have. As memory goes, just buy a solid brand, I would say at least 8GB, 2x4GB sticks if you please, to leave room for expansion.
Well, a bit of a problem. I set everything up, hit the power switch - and nothing. Computer will simply not turn on. I know the motherboard's getting power, because the green Reset and red Power lights are on, but when I hit the power switch absolutely nothing is happening. The guy at the store seated my CPU and RAM - could this be the culprit? (he did it wrong, for example). Tearing my hair out trying to figure this out.
Is everything plugged in? You could reseat the RAM (and all the PCI cards) real fast. If that doesn't do it then I suppose I'd check to see if something's up with the CPU/HSF.
Everytime I think I have finished my build, there is one other $5 cable/converter/misc thing I need from NewEgg. Oh well, at least their shipping rocks. I don't mind giving them my money.
Well, a bit of a problem. I set everything up, hit the power switch - and nothing. Computer will simply not turn on. I know the motherboard's getting power, because the green Reset and red Power lights are on, but when I hit the power switch absolutely nothing is happening. The guy at the store seated my CPU and RAM - could this be the culprit? (he did it wrong, for example). Tearing my hair out trying to figure this out.
Hm, did you attach the second 12v power connector? Sometimes I forget to do that:
Well, I thought I'd fixed my problem, but now it looks like something else is going wrong. When I hit the power switch, it turns on for a few moments, turns off, then turns on again and stays on. Except, I'm not getting any BIOS noises, nor am I getting any video whatsoever. All the indicator lights on the motherboard are on, but I can't do anything with the computer. I'm -assuming- this means the motherboard or processor are probably toast, but I'm not 100% sure.
Yep. I took the whole thing apart, then put it all back together. And, suddenly, it all works 100%.
Again. Not gonna question it :P
PSU's still not working, though. Which, as I said, might be a blessing in disguise - looks like I went all-out with my last PSU and it's a 750W Corsair.
Another quick check -- thinking about doing my upgrade, wondering if anything changed since I made this list that might make changes or waiting for the short term wise:
Don't go with AMD. The only reasons to do that right now are either a super low budget (which you done) or you're hoping and praying that Bulldozer will be AMD's savior (but that's not an AM3+ board, so I don't think that's you, either).
Right around the same $300 price-point, you can get better performance from an i3-2120 & ASRock P67 Extreme4. ($310)
Another quick check -- thinking about doing my upgrade, wondering if anything changed since I made this list that might make changes or waiting for the short term wise:
Don't go with AMD. The only reasons to do that right now are either a super low budget (which you done) or you're hoping and praying that Bulldozer will be AMD's savior (but that's not an AM3+ board, so I don't think that's you, either).
Right around the same $300 price-point, you can get better performance from an i3-2120 & ASRock P67 Extreme4. ($310)
What he said. I also wouldn't hope for bulldozer to be competitive with Ivy Bridge and Socket 2011 (which is what it has to compete with since it's coming to market so late now). I would be really surprised if it can even come close to Sandy Bridge. More than likely it will line up with the i5/i7 of last generation.
This is, of course, not much more than speculation from me. Those who have been given chips to test aren't saying much. I caught one report about a month ago on tomshardware in the comments of an article that was swiftly deleted, but it claimed to be from an engineering tester who said AMD was having trouble ramping the processors up to release speeds.
In any case, the delays almost certainly don't mean anything good, and that's really bad for us. If AMD cannot continue to compete with Intel and force some sanity on pricing, things are going to get much more expensive for us going forward.
Darkwyndre on
Playstation Network ID : EasySleeze
0
Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
Socket 2011 is going to be so damn good...
Really I should wait even longer and get me some vertical transistor 22nm octocore goodness, but fuck it, I don't have another 18-24 months...
nlawalker: Go with a good Z68 board. It'll give you access to the integrated GPU, overclocking, and you can drop in another card later. The 2500K is your best option for CPU, in my opinion. It might not be a gaming PC, but additional CPU horsepower is always helpful, especially with how CPU intensive professional apps can be. Also, it's the only i5 with the 3000 IGPU, so that's nice to have. As memory goes, just buy a solid brand, I would say at least 8GB, 2x4GB sticks if you please, to leave room for expansion.
Thanks for the advice on the Z68 chipset. Everything else sounds right in line with what I was thinking.
nlawalker on
0
HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
edited July 2011
man that sucks vsove, what a shitty situation. I'm really glad you managed to fix it, something was obviously not seated properly
Posts
Off-topic, but I met one of your infrastructure guys at VMWorld last year. Cool guy, and Bioware seems like a pretty nice place to work.
This is a clickable link to my Steam Profile.
I will post pics at some point and a suitable terrible name. Many will hate me for saying this but I am going for the quick option of copying over my SWTOR beta folder while I wait for my steam/applications folder to copy over so I can see how she runs.
I want to know more PA people on Twitter.
That is sooooo not worth it. You'd have to have more money than God for that to even be something to think about. There are like 8 things you could buy for your computer that I would label as "completely not worth the price unless you're rich" that would make more sense than that.
Good to know. Thanks Alecthar.
Yeah, thats kinda what I figured. Makes me wonder why people do it though. I guess I can see doing it if you have a leftover nVidia card, but I dont really see the point since there really arent very many games with PhysX.
oh whoops.
The computer powers up, but I just get a blank screen. My monitor gets no input.
Hilarious, now.
The problem is that I don't want to spend a ton on this (weird, I know :-p). I know enough about computers, being a CS student/nerd, but I've never actually built my own machine before. My dad recommended to me looking at the barebones kits they sell on Tiger Direct/Newegg and just upgrading the graphics/PSU, I was hoping I could get some feedback from people that know much more than me.
So the computer still boots with just the original RAM, correct? And when you add the additional sticks, or use them alone, no boot? When you add the new sticks alone, are you putting them in the slots your original RAM was in? Some motherboards prefer a certain pair of slots, and might not boot correctly if they aren't filled.
If the new sticks don't work at all, regardless of the slots you use, I'd RMA them. The simplest explanation is that the sticks are bad, assuming your PC works just fine with its original configuration.
What's your budget for this? Depending on the barebones kits available, it could be a good or bad idea. Some of the kits save you enough that having to buy additional parts to supplement or replace stuff in the combo is cost-effective. On the other hand, some exist mostly to get rid of cruddy stuff that would be sold unless it was attached to a few good things, and replacing the junky stuff is more expensive than it's worth.
Have you discovered a need for more performance than you already have? I mean, unless you have 3 monitors, 2x6850 should be more than enough to enable all kinds of eye candy. If you're talking about future upgrade paths, your best bet is probably to wait. I sincerely doubt there's anything that's going to so seriously strain a pair of 6850s that you'll need to upgrade your GPU before the next generation of AMD/Nvidia cards comes out.
Aside from waiting, the other paths are to upgrade to multiple sub-580 cards. So on the AMD side 2x 6870/6950/6970, and on Nvidia 2x 560/560 Ti/570. Expensive, yes, but I reiterate that I don't think you'll need to upgrade until your cards are truly obsolete, and by then there will be superior options at roughly the same expense of the 2x 6850s.
Battle.net
I'd -like- to say $600-$700, but I'm guessing thats a little unreasonable. More realistically, $900-$1000.
ughhhh so much monies. Damn my expensive hobbies!
I'm going to echo Alecthar and ask what the heck you are doing to your poor computer that is making two overlocked 6850s do anything other than cover your needs entirely.
Yup, old sticks work perfectly fine, I've tried new+old, old in the new slots, and 1 stick of each new stick by itself. There is no booting whichever new stick I use.
Strange that they would both be bad, but I guess that's the most likely possibility.
This is something I put together really quick so Im sure there are ways to reduce the price:
Intel i5 2500k + Asus P8P67 Pro Combo - $379.98
Cooler Master Haf 922 + Cooler Master GX 650w Power Supply combo - $119.97 after MIR
8GB G.Skills DDR3 1066 - $59.99
MSI GTX 560Ti - $229 after MIR
Samsung Spinpoint 1TB HDD - $54.99
Cooler Master 212+ - $36.40 although its normally a little lower.
Total after MIRs - $881.32
I'm after a small laptop, maybe netbook, for the most simple internet and word processing tasks, but even though it's not going to be doing anything very intensive, it needs to be quick. I have an Asus EEEPC, and I generally like it except that it chugs every 5-10 seconds even while just in word, and opening more than two or three internet tabs kills it. I'm happy to get something a little bigger and heavier than that if it comes with a better processor, but I don't really know what I'm looking at with mobile processors, all my knowledge is in desktops.
- Primary considerations are mobo, CPU, memory. As helpful as multiple disks or an SSD would be, those can easily be done as upgrades later. Right now I just want to get something good up and running with parts that won't be outdated in a week.
- Sandy Bridge seems to make the most sense - new but it looks like we're past the "astronomical price" phase. I was thinking an i5 quad-core, LGA 1155, not sure exactly which one yet.
- I left out GPU from the above list for a reason: Intel HD Graphics seems like a good option considering the budget and no gaming, and the H67B3 motherboards are priced right. What's the opinion on Intel HD Graphics for visual work?
I'm still picking through specifics on NewEgg, but does this look to be a reasonable strategy?
Haven't done that, no. I guess I could, but I'd rather an entirely new one really. The eeePC served me well for around 2 years, but now it's kinda past it.
Well you said you only do light browsing and word processing so I figured $40 for RAM is way cheaper than $300+ for a new netbook.
But if you want an all out laptop, Im super partial to Apple's stuff, even though theyre (prohibitively?) expensive.
Apple is not an option. I finally replaced my stupid crappy iphone and never intend to touch an apple product again.
NZXT BETA EVO Classic Series CS-NT-BETA-EVO Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ($45)
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890GX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard ($140)
HIS H685F1GD Radeon HD 6850 1GB ($160)
AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz ($180)
Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3K2/8G ($75)
This RAM over what you have there. Also, Cooler Master PSUs in general are crappy, and the GX 650 is no exception. I'd go with one of the XFX 650W units and the HAF 912. There's some room in the budget for additional fans for the case if desired. Good otherwise, though.
nlawalker: Go with a good Z68 board. It'll give you access to the integrated GPU, overclocking, and you can drop in another card later. The 2500K is your best option for CPU, in my opinion. It might not be a gaming PC, but additional CPU horsepower is always helpful, especially with how CPU intensive professional apps can be. Also, it's the only i5 with the 3000 IGPU, so that's nice to have. As memory goes, just buy a solid brand, I would say at least 8GB, 2x4GB sticks if you please, to leave room for expansion.
Battle.net
Is everything plugged in? You could reseat the RAM (and all the PCI cards) real fast. If that doesn't do it then I suppose I'd check to see if something's up with the CPU/HSF.
Yep. I took the whole thing apart, then put it all back together. And, suddenly, it all works 100%.
Again. Not gonna question it :P
PSU's still not working, though. Which, as I said, might be a blessing in disguise - looks like I went all-out with my last PSU and it's a 750W Corsair.
Don't go with AMD. The only reasons to do that right now are either a super low budget (which you done) or you're hoping and praying that Bulldozer will be AMD's savior (but that's not an AM3+ board, so I don't think that's you, either).
Right around the same $300 price-point, you can get better performance from an i3-2120 & ASRock P67 Extreme4. ($310)
Or you can forgo SLI/Crossfire ability, and get an ASRock P67 PRO3 and i5-2500k. ($330)
What he said. I also wouldn't hope for bulldozer to be competitive with Ivy Bridge and Socket 2011 (which is what it has to compete with since it's coming to market so late now). I would be really surprised if it can even come close to Sandy Bridge. More than likely it will line up with the i5/i7 of last generation.
This is, of course, not much more than speculation from me. Those who have been given chips to test aren't saying much. I caught one report about a month ago on tomshardware in the comments of an article that was swiftly deleted, but it claimed to be from an engineering tester who said AMD was having trouble ramping the processors up to release speeds.
In any case, the delays almost certainly don't mean anything good, and that's really bad for us. If AMD cannot continue to compete with Intel and force some sanity on pricing, things are going to get much more expensive for us going forward.
Really I should wait even longer and get me some vertical transistor 22nm octocore goodness, but fuck it, I don't have another 18-24 months...
Thanks for the advice on the Z68 chipset. Everything else sounds right in line with what I was thinking.
I don't see anywhere else I could put the fan that came with the cooler