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The buying of desktop computers - dumb?
Posts
Yeah, I know the general gist of what to do...but the problem is, while rising my FSB, I inevitably get errors. I've heard multiple opinions about whether or not I need to raise my voltage--some say yes, some say no. Pretty much the only clear answer I've gotten is that my temperatures are fine, and what the safe ceiling is.
I basically need a walkthrough--of course, finding one for my precise bios (AwardPHOENIX) and my precise CPU isn't too easy. I'm still searching--my past experiences result not in crashes, but errors--basically, programs run detect incorrect RAM speed settings.
Basically, yeah, it is free performance, but damn if it isn't impossible unless you get everything just perfect--and I mean perfect, FSB, voltage, and RAM speed. Any of those wrong, and at least in my experience, you're fucked. It's a shame, because I've heard cases of E8400s being overclocked safely to the 3.5 gHz (I think)....a nice boost on both cores.
Oh well, back to the textbooks...
10-15% is pretty conservative depending on what you're running. AMD's Phenom 2's are great overclockers, as are Intels core 2 duos, quads, and i7's (and of course celerons... holy hell can you push the celerons these days.) But the trick isn't to aim for some number, really the trick to overclocking is to aim for the fastest stable speed you can attain, regagardless of how much faster than stock that is. If you set any goal other than that, it should be 'fastest stable speed under X temperature.'
But as said it all comes down to a quality motherboard.
Fixed.
Far as my thoughts on overclocking, I'll OC the crap out of cheap parts to make them equal to high-test stuff, but I won't bother with the liquid nitrogen ultimate deluxe ePeen Edition coolers to squeak 2% more out of stuff that's already top-end.
Can trade TF2 items or whatever else you're interested in. PM me.
It's a EVGA 780i. And from what I've gathered, it's actually actually pretty good for overclocking, just not very user friendly. I think my RAM speed is the problem, actually.
And if you know what you are doing and have all your parts it takes no time. The hardest part is normally getting the heatsink/fan on the processor. You'll push down and think you're going to punch through your board, but you wont.
My current mother board:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3839553&CatId=13
Motherboard I plan on getting this May:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4316659&CatId=13
This neo-feudalism would be more tolerable if our betters had fancy titles.
Even using the NCIX "build my pc" feature is tough because of this problem. I'm essentially picking parts with no rhyme or reason and, as such, I'm almost positive I'm going to make some sort of stupid choice along the way and regret it.
Don't go SLI. It's a lot more headache than its worth.
This neo-feudalism would be more tolerable if our betters had fancy titles.
edit: Basically what I'm saying here is I'm having difficulty separating "fact" from "oppinion".
The only thing the SLI uses from the 2nd card is the GPU, all the extra VRAM on the secondary card is wasted.
Its a less pain in the ass to just have one really good card than the price for two mediocre cards, thinking they will equal one badass card.
And, like all computer threads, you're going to have people throwing out ideas that don't mesh well with a budget.
This neo-feudalism would be more tolerable if our betters had fancy titles.
Like constructing a new Lightsaber.
This neo-feudalism would be more tolerable if our betters had fancy titles.
Well, we can help narrow that down for you (in page 1 I posted parts which will all work pretty well for you, but if you don't want a phenom 2 then obviously the mobo/cpu choice aren't appropriate) and the PC build thread is good for parts too.
NCIX's pc builder is irritating because it's designed to make you shell out money (whereas memoryexpress will, for example, let you pick a CPU... and then only show you motherboards that work for it.)
Just looking at parts from NCIX, I threw this together fast on the Intel side:
CPU: e7200 core 2 duo $158
motherboard: Asus P5Q-Pro $164 (great board for the price.)
memory: 4gb (two 2gb modules) corsair DDR2-800 $65 (not counting a 30$ mail in rebate)
case: Antec Sonata with 550W PSU $224 (same case I recommended page 1)
video card: ATI 4870HD with 1gb $270
hard drive: Samsung spinpoint f1 1TB $135
optical drive: Samsung dvd-r/cd-r combo $32
This comes out to $1048 before tax and shipping. If your $1200 budget is meant to include a display etc, then here's where you can save money:
Drop the optical drive if you have one lying around the house. Saves you $32
Drop the memory from 4gb to 2gb. 2gb is 'good enough' and memory is easy to add later when you have a few spare bucks.
Drop from the 1tb samsung spinpoint to a 500gb seagate barracuda (saves you $58)
Drop the 550W case to a 500W case (using an Antec III 500W case, this saves you $70)
Drop the 1gb 4870 to a 4850 (saves you $75)
I listed those in preferential order (ie, better to save money by going with less ram and adding it later than by going with 'less' video card,) but doing all of them brings your (pre-tax/shipping) price down to about $850, which should leave you enough for a display/mouse/keyboard.
I must say I would choose the tri-core phenom over the above configuration any day of the week (exception: GPU, as the 250 I listed in the phenom 2 config is not as good as a 4870 --it's like a 4850) but the above configuration is still great, particularly if you want to try your hand at overclocking. If you're scared of overclocking, spend $10 more to get an e7300 instead of e7200 or even consider spending $67 on the e8400 (also a stellar overclocker) to bump your default clock speed a little bit.
And yes, the people telling you to get SLI are mistaken. For the price, a single more expensive video card will always be a better deal than two cheaper video cards paired in SLI or crossfire. SLI is only something to consider when you're looking at video cards and saying 'hmmm, the highest end video card I can buy that's on the market today is not enough for me. Where did I set my diamond encrusted hat?' Even then, SLI has a tendency to hurt performance. You only want it if you have a specific game in mind that you know kicks ass with SLI (few do) and you're not satisfied with what the highest end video card on the market does on it's own.
Even then (multiple monitors), you probably don't want SLI
I have now taken it totally apart by now and re-assembled, but having someone you know do it for you is a great re-assurance for that first time nerves, and you'll learn some stuff.
Course the issue is that you have no one to take it back to if stuff does go wrong, and I surely pestered him a couple of times, but in general I love my self build. I'd sure as shit not touch dell.
This neo-feudalism would be more tolerable if our betters had fancy titles.
This isn't a valid comparison. Brewing your own beer takes days, growing your own food takes weeks, and building your car impossible without a lot of expertise and tools.
Building your own computer takes maybe 2-4 hours, a phillip's head screwdriver, and reading the 2-page manual that comes with the motherboard. And its fun.
GT: Tanky the Tank
Black: 1377 6749 7425
So, all things considered, this would be a good gaming desktop? If so, I'm going to run with your suggestions here.
But if you really don't want to OC the cpu, then it'll still game just fine. But spend the extra 10$ on the e7300 in that case
Until you run into some weird issues. And then you get to spend a bunch of time trying to diagnose the arcane inner working of PC-dom.
I just buy now. Building PCs was fine when I was in college and the opportunity cost of researching all the parts, trying to stay cutting edge, and diagnosing any problems was effectively 0. Now, not so much. All that time is time I could have spent doing something that isn't both A) frustrating and B) almost worthless in a longer term sense.
Not that I bedgruge people who actually do enjoy the process, just saying it isn't anything mystical for everyone.
It is fun to varying degrees. Of course, actually using a gaming desktop should be fun consistently (otherwise, what was the point?).
Furthermore, potentially independent but frequently directly proportional to fun is how good you are at it. No one enjoys jamming tiny pins to get USB connected or the power switch working--and anyone who claims they do is lying, I suspect. But If you screw up on this, or any number of things--or heck, if your skills are limited, you're going to end up with an desktop with some inferior quality. It might not be a big deal--for me, my biggest problem was that the inside of the finished product looked like the forests around Dien Bien Phu. This in turn led to other problems (electrical in nature, primarily) later on.
The desktop I bought is not only aesthetically pleasing on the outside to me, it has a "tooless" setup and stores all connections in the wall of the actual case, making it very convenient. I am very happy with that, and it is something that is well beyond my level of expertise.
As for SLI....it's a maybe/maybe not. My primarily problems with SLI have come with games with older engines like IL-2 Sturmovik, or weird cases like Hitman: Blood Money (where it causes glitches, though is not supposed to). SLI bridges also tend to be finicky. Crossfire, from what I've gathered, does not have a lot of these issues, but is also more demanding about what hardware is used. I'm lucky in that, as aforementioned, I can use either depending on my BIOS. But ultimately, it may be more practical to simply get one powerful card that will give you compressible performance. It's the same reason I think buying a Quad-Core is ridiculous--I could get a dual-core that would give me better performance in 95% of games I play for the same price, or less.
AVADirect
Ibuypower
Cyberpower
A few that seem to have good repuations:
Puget Systems
Maingear
Maxforce PC
I just use them for parts, though. I do the building myself, obviously.