I have no idea if I should ask here or make a thread, but I always err on the side of caution in terms of starting new threads. Anyway, I built this PC a couple years ago (right when Sandy Bridge was coming out) and it was pretty much top-of-the-line at the time, and it still holds up. But it occurred to me when I bought Civ 5 on Steam Sale and started it up that I'm still running DirectX 9. I don't have 10 or 11 installed, it seems. I figured that, if my system could run one of those, the games that wanted it would detect that and download it automatically. So, is that the case? Should I download 10 or 11? I don't want to screw up my PC.
Specs:
Intel i7 2600K 3.4GHz
ASUS P8P67 Pro mobo
8gigs of RAM This video card (I don't know what to call it, the name just seems like random alphanumerics)
Oh, and if there's somewhere else here that would be better suited to this question, I'll happily move my query.
What OS are you using? With that setup I don't get how you can't have 10 or 11.
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AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
With a fully modular PSU + Silverstone's short power-cable kit, it could end up being an extremely tidy SFF build. The box I'm thinking of putting together (once I get an idea of what Black Friday deals look like this year) would be a 4670k (on an H55) + GTX 760 build.
I just really wanna go SFF due to space limitations in my room + portability + (frankly) novelty.
Since my opinion is the only one that counts (suck it, other people!), this thread feels like the SG10 is fucking awesome.
However...if you use a Seasonic/Corsair PSU (and also lots of others) you will have issues mounting the 120mm fan on the side panel. The way the 90 degree plug adapter is oriented, combined with the way the power plug on most PSUs is oriented, a larger than desired amount of difficult to bend cable will impinge on the area where you'd rather have a 120mm fan. I've heard tell one can replace it with a 90 degree plug of the opposite orientation, but I wouldn't know where to pick one up that would work as a substitute.
It's like the only flaw about the case I particularly care about. Its non-standard airflow design doesn't matter to me. Some folks want 5 expansion card slots, but that's motherboard dependent and you should plan for that (short solution: Buy ASUS). You'll also pay more if you want a built-in optical drive, thanks to the fact that it only takes slim, slot-loading drives. Aside from those small irritants, it's by far the most ambitiously and best designed M-ATX enclosure around, in my opinion. The new Prodigy-M is very similar internally (apart from inverting the layout), excepting that it orients the PSU with the plug down, which removes the 90 degree plug issue, but makes it a cabling nightmare.
I don't know what they are called so I've been calling them gayrollers.
Silicone Grommets.
I see. I am not a fan. I prefer mounting a HDD with screws. I guess I also need to take the leap and get a SSD to run windows off of, since that's now officially my bottleneck on the new computer. But it runs really nicely, nevertheless.
I have no idea if I should ask here or make a thread, but I always err on the side of caution in terms of starting new threads. Anyway, I built this PC a couple years ago (right when Sandy Bridge was coming out) and it was pretty much top-of-the-line at the time, and it still holds up. But it occurred to me when I bought Civ 5 on Steam Sale and started it up that I'm still running DirectX 9. I don't have 10 or 11 installed, it seems. I figured that, if my system could run one of those, the games that wanted it would detect that and download it automatically. So, is that the case? Should I download 10 or 11? I don't want to screw up my PC.
Specs:
Intel i7 2600K 3.4GHz
ASUS P8P67 Pro mobo
8gigs of RAM This video card (I don't know what to call it, the name just seems like random alphanumerics)
Oh, and if there's somewhere else here that would be better suited to this question, I'll happily move my query.
What OS are you using? With that setup I don't get how you can't have 10 or 11.
For instance, just plugging that card in and switching your system on should have told Windows to install DirectX 11 without you even having to do anything. Unless you're running 12 year old Windows XP on what amounts to new hardware?
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
I don't know what they are called so I've been calling them gayrollers.
Silicone Grommets.
I see. I am not a fan. I prefer mounting a HDD with screws. I guess I also need to take the leap and get a SSD to run windows off of, since that's now officially my bottleneck on the new computer. But it runs really nicely, nevertheless.
Hard rives are the third noisiest thing in a computer, behind optical drives and fans.
The grommets are to prevent the vibrations the drive unavoidably makes travelling into the case from the HDD housing and causing a lot of noise.
Well this is painful. A deal just popped up for an MSI GTX 670 2GB card for £189 with two games. Problem I'm having is whether it's going to be worth it since I have a Sapphire 2gb 6950 that @minor incident sent me and my cpu is only an i3 (2120 I think). Would the new card be a huge update and would the CPU not bottleneck it like mad?
Edit:Oh lordy. Now there is a 3gb 7950 for a fiver less. They're killing me!
Well this is painful. A deal just popped up for an MSI GTX 670 2GB card for £189 with two games. Problem I'm having is whether it's going to be worth it since I have a Sapphire 2gb 6950 that @minor incident sent me and my cpu is only an i3 (2120 I think). Would the new card be a huge update and would the CPU not bottleneck it like mad?
Edit:Oh lordy. Now there is a 3gb 7950 for a fiver less. They're killing me!
Well this is painful. A deal just popped up for an MSI GTX 670 2GB card for £189 with two games. Problem I'm having is whether it's going to be worth it since I have a Sapphire 2gb 6950 that @minor incident sent me and my cpu is only an i3 (2120 I think). Would the new card be a huge update and would the CPU not bottleneck it like mad?
Edit:Oh lordy. Now there is a 3gb 7950 for a fiver less. They're killing me!
Depending on game the CPU will bottleneck it, if you are struggling with games I'd suggest watching for a cheap i5 (1155) to pop up on sale and dropping that in. That being said the 7950 is a excellent deal if you get a decent overclocker but it will continue to drop in price as the 9000 series is due out to be revealed and released before the end of this year (End of October seems to be the date that's being tossed around)
I can definitely wait, currently the 6950 has been able to run almost everything on high settings with slight chugging in some games so its not like there's a rush. I just saw the price and my willpower (hah!) went out the window. Hoping the cpus drop in price too, that seems like the more important upgrade. Thanks guys!
Well this is painful. A deal just popped up for an MSI GTX 670 2GB card for £189 with two games. Problem I'm having is whether it's going to be worth it since I have a Sapphire 2gb 6950 that @minor incident sent me and my cpu is only an i3 (2120 I think). Would the new card be a huge update and would the CPU not bottleneck it like mad?
Edit:Oh lordy. Now there is a 3gb 7950 for a fiver less. They're killing me!
I saw the same card, on hotukdeals. :-)
Really tempted by the 7950, making it the basis for a new PC.
I'd be buying everything except monitor, mouse and keyboard. My current system is about 3 years old, and was mid-range then...
Aye that 3GB is making it sooooooooooooo tempting.
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FaranguI am a beardy manWith a beardy planRegistered Userregular
Alright, fully revised my list for my sister-in-law's new desktop. Should be all good to go soon.
COOLER MASTER Elite 430 RC-430-KWN1 case
Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Antec Basiq BP500U 500W Continuous Power ATX12V power supply
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
GIGABYTE GA-H87M-D3H LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX mobo
Intel Core i3-4130 Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 54W Dual-Core Desktop Processor
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6670 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 video card
The Haswell was only a couple of bucks more expensive than the original CPU I was looking at, and she approved the extra money when I told her that, for what she intends to do with the machine, she won't need to upgrade for quite a while.
AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
For a system like that, I'd go Antec 380D for the PSU. Less wattage, sure, but I'd trust the performance and build quality far more than I would one of their Basiq units. You may save some cash going with lower specced RAM, maybe something from Crucial or G.SKILL, or one of the "value" lines from Kingston or Corsair. The difference between 1600mhz and 1333mhz for a PC like that is negligible. You can probably also save some cash on the motherboard, Gigabyte's H81 line should be out soon. I'd also spend the $10 to bump up to a 1TB 7200RPM Seagate drive. A much more efficient use of cash than the 500GB drive.
Finally, buy this Rosewill case It's a little cheaper, more space efficient, and while it isn't any better to work with than the Cooler Master you were originally looking at, it's also not any worse.
So first time in this subforum so I hope I am posting in the right space;
This is what I currently have;
Gigabyte Socket AM3/AMD 870/SATA3&USB3.0/A&GbE/ATX Motherboard GA-870A-UD3
AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz
MSI N460GTX Cyclone 1GD5/OC 1GB Overclocked Graphics Card
Antec Sonata III 500 Quiet Super Mid Tower ATX Case (Black)
i was thinking of upgrading my machine and passing off the old video card as a hand me down as it still does well. I checked the post in the OP but all those cards seems to be discontinued. I was looking at this card (SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100352VXSR Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit) and curious if it would be that much of an upgrade or if my machine could even use it.
mightyjongyoSour CrrmEast Bay, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
Only semi-related, and I think most of you probably don't use computers from a couch, so I may not get much of a response... but any recommendations for a good quality lapdesk-type thing for using keyboard+mouse from a couch?
I found these which look like they would do a decent enough job besides the fact that I don't find their aesthetic very appealing. Not a big fan of the rolling laptop desk things either because I don't think they'd extend far enough into the couch, so I wouldn't be able to recline.
So first time in this subforum so I hope I am posting in the right space;
This is what I currently have;
Gigabyte Socket AM3/AMD 870/SATA3&USB3.0/A&GbE/ATX Motherboard GA-870A-UD3
AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz
MSI N460GTX Cyclone 1GD5/OC 1GB Overclocked Graphics Card
Antec Sonata III 500 Quiet Super Mid Tower ATX Case (Black)
i was thinking of upgrading my machine and passing off the old video card as a hand me down as it still does well. I checked the post in the OP but all those cards seems to be discontinued. I was looking at this card (SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100352VXSR Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit) and curious if it would be that much of an upgrade or if my machine could even use it.
That card will definitely be a huge upgrade and pretty much all graphics cards will work in any modern mobo. Also, so far no single card can fully saturate PCIe 2.0 so no worries there.
For some cpu intensive games your older cpu will be holding you back, but I think you should see a big improvement for most games.
"The world is a mess, and I just need to rule it" - Dr Horrible
Well this is painful. A deal just popped up for an MSI GTX 670 2GB card for £189 with two games. Problem I'm having is whether it's going to be worth it since I have a Sapphire 2gb 6950 that @minor incident sent me and my cpu is only an i3 (2120 I think). Would the new card be a huge update and would the CPU not bottleneck it like mad?
Edit:Oh lordy. Now there is a 3gb 7950 for a fiver less. They're killing me!
I ended up ordering the 670, from Scan !
I was going to get the 7950, but it's not actually in stock at the moment.
The 670 has a 3D Futuremark score nearly 3 times higher than my current card, so games should be looking pretty sweet. I also got a motherboard that supports crossfire, so I've finally got a futureproofed PC. I also got a 64GB SSD, for speeds ! I think I'll stick The Sims 3 on it, maybe theyt'll finally stop chugging.
You know what ?
I just realised I forgot to get a CPU.
FFFFUUUUUUUU...
Back to scan.co.uk !
Edit - got a 3.4Ghz 6 core AMD.
Should all arrive on Fri, and I've booked the day off, so Friday should a nice relaxing day building and installing.
That reminds me - I need to go create a bootable Win 7 installer on a USB stick, as I'm going DVD-free.
New and improved PSU arrived yesterday afternoon. Got it installed and everything seems to be running smooth without nary a restart. It's also quieter than my last one, so bonus!
I'd like to thank the thread, for without you, I would have just built a new computer to fix the old one.....wait, that sounds kinda fun, must resist.
Well this is painful. A deal just popped up for an MSI GTX 670 2GB card for £189 with two games. Problem I'm having is whether it's going to be worth it since I have a Sapphire 2gb 6950 that @minor incident sent me and my cpu is only an i3 (2120 I think). Would the new card be a huge update and would the CPU not bottleneck it like mad?
Edit:Oh lordy. Now there is a 3gb 7950 for a fiver less. They're killing me!
I ended up ordering the 670, from Scan !
I was going to get the 7950, but it's not actually in stock at the moment.
The 670 has a 3D Futuremark score nearly 3 times higher than my current card, so games should be looking pretty sweet. I also got a motherboard that supports crossfire, so I've finally got a futureproofed PC. I also got a 64GB SSD, for speeds ! I think I'll stick The Sims 3 on it, maybe theyt'll finally stop chugging.
You know what ?
I just realised I forgot to get a CPU.
FFFFUUUUUUUU...
Back to scan.co.uk !
Edit - got a 3.4Ghz 6 core AMD.
Should all arrive on Fri, and I've booked the day off, so Friday should a nice relaxing day building and installing.
That reminds me - I need to go create a bootable Win 7 installer on a USB stick, as I'm going DVD-free.
It's on the way !!!
I am genuinely excited - all my PCs in th past were strictly budget ones, this th first time I'll have one that even close to high end.
I read some reviews of my card - Skyrim at 90fps in 1980x1080. I literally can't imagine what that even looks like.
I'm really looking forward to Civ 5 and Sims 3 running smoothly, too.
So first time in this subforum so I hope I am posting in the right space;
This is what I currently have;
Gigabyte Socket AM3/AMD 870/SATA3&USB3.0/A&GbE/ATX Motherboard GA-870A-UD3
AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz
MSI N460GTX Cyclone 1GD5/OC 1GB Overclocked Graphics Card
Antec Sonata III 500 Quiet Super Mid Tower ATX Case (Black)
i was thinking of upgrading my machine and passing off the old video card as a hand me down as it still does well. I checked the post in the OP but all those cards seems to be discontinued. I was looking at this card (SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100352VXSR Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit) and curious if it would be that much of an upgrade or if my machine could even use it.
Well this is painful. A deal just popped up for an MSI GTX 670 2GB card for £189 with two games. Problem I'm having is whether it's going to be worth it since I have a Sapphire 2gb 6950 that @minor incident sent me and my cpu is only an i3 (2120 I think). Would the new card be a huge update and would the CPU not bottleneck it like mad?
Edit:Oh lordy. Now there is a 3gb 7950 for a fiver less. They're killing me!
I ended up ordering the 670, from Scan !
I was going to get the 7950, but it's not actually in stock at the moment.
The 670 has a 3D Futuremark score nearly 3 times higher than my current card, so games should be looking pretty sweet. I also got a motherboard that supports crossfire, so I've finally got a futureproofed PC. I also got a 64GB SSD, for speeds ! I think I'll stick The Sims 3 on it, maybe theyt'll finally stop chugging.
You know what ?
I just realised I forgot to get a CPU.
FFFFUUUUUUUU...
Back to scan.co.uk !
Edit - got a 3.4Ghz 6 core AMD.
Should all arrive on Fri, and I've booked the day off, so Friday should a nice relaxing day building and installing.
That reminds me - I need to go create a bootable Win 7 installer on a USB stick, as I'm going DVD-free.
It's on the way !!!
I am genuinely excited - all my PCs in th past were strictly budget ones, this th first time I'll have one that even close to high end.
I read some reviews of my card - Skyrim at 90fps in 1980x1080. I literally can't imagine what that even looks like.
I'm really looking forward to Civ 5 and Sims 3 running smoothly, too.
it looks incredible
remember to get a nicer HD Texture pack than the Bethesda one, and also get an ENB!
Well this is painful. A deal just popped up for an MSI GTX 670 2GB card for £189 with two games. Problem I'm having is whether it's going to be worth it since I have a Sapphire 2gb 6950 that @minor incident sent me and my cpu is only an i3 (2120 I think). Would the new card be a huge update and would the CPU not bottleneck it like mad?
Edit:Oh lordy. Now there is a 3gb 7950 for a fiver less. They're killing me!
I ended up ordering the 670, from Scan !
I was going to get the 7950, but it's not actually in stock at the moment.
The 670 has a 3D Futuremark score nearly 3 times higher than my current card, so games should be looking pretty sweet. I also got a motherboard that supports crossfire, so I've finally got a futureproofed PC. I also got a 64GB SSD, for speeds ! I think I'll stick The Sims 3 on it, maybe theyt'll finally stop chugging.
You know what ?
I just realised I forgot to get a CPU.
FFFFUUUUUUUU...
Back to scan.co.uk !
Edit - got a 3.4Ghz 6 core AMD.
Should all arrive on Fri, and I've booked the day off, so Friday should a nice relaxing day building and installing.
That reminds me - I need to go create a bootable Win 7 installer on a USB stick, as I'm going DVD-free.
It's on the way !!!
I am genuinely excited - all my PCs in th past were strictly budget ones, this th first time I'll have one that even close to high end.
I read some reviews of my card - Skyrim at 90fps in 1980x1080. I literally can't imagine what that even looks like.
I'm really looking forward to Civ 5 and Sims 3 running smoothly, too.
Out of curiosity, why go AMD? Did you already have an AM3+ board?
So I attempted to build a new computer last week but had to RMA the motherboard because it wouldn't POST. This time I want to be extra 100% safe and try powering it up each step of the way so I can be certain of what went wrong if a particular component is messing things up. What are the minimum components I should install first before first powering it up? I.e. should it be able to POST without a CPU, RAM, a hard drive, video card, etc?
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mightyjongyoSour CrrmEast Bay, CaliforniaRegistered Userregular
i think you need a CPU at a minimum to POST. Possibly the RAM too.
fffff, this time it seems to start working except that the CPU fan is still wonky, which I saw last time too. When I turn the power on, the fan seems to get "nudged" twice, then spins up, and then after a second tapers off and stops(while everything else keeps running). Could a heatsink fan be defective like that?
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Or could the mobo be POSTing the CPU fan to make sure it works, and then switching it off because it's not needed?
Or could the mobo be POSTing the CPU fan to make sure it works, and then switching it off because it's not needed?
Is that really possible? I figured a mobo would never turn off the CPU fan completely. I'm too afraid to let it get hotter to see if the fan turns back on.
I haven't built a new PC in something like four or five years, and it's time. Here's a build I just put together on Newegg:
Intel BOXDH87RL LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-3330 Ivy Bridge 3.0GHz (3.2GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2500 BX80637i53330
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model BLS8G3D1609DS1S00
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC 7mm Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
ASUS GTX660 TI-DC2O-2GD5 GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
I'll be using my same old perfectly fine Antec Sonata III case and a 500W PSU (I hope? unless I'll need a more powerful one?) and the 1.5 TB optical HDD that's been my system/storage drive. I'm excited to have a SSD for my OS install and whatever games I'm hooked on at the moment.
Does anything here leap out as incorrect? Am I over/underspending on any one component, or creating a glaringly obvious bottleneck somehow?
-snip-
I'll be using my same old perfectly fine Antec Sonata III case and a 500W PSU (I hope? unless I'll need a more powerful one?) and the 1.5 TB optical HDD that's been my system/storage drive. I'm excited to have a SSD for my OS install and whatever games I'm hooked on at the moment.
Does anything here leap out as incorrect? Am I over/underspending on any one component, or creating a glaringly obvious bottleneck somehow?
That's the only thing that immediately leaps out to me. :P Edit: I fail at reading, see below.
Xeddicus on
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
I haven't built a new PC in something like four or five years, and it's time. Here's a build I just put together on Newegg:
Intel BOXDH87RL LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-3330 Ivy Bridge 3.0GHz (3.2GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2500 BX80637i53330
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model BLS8G3D1609DS1S00
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC 7mm Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
ASUS GTX660 TI-DC2O-2GD5 GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
I'll be using my same old perfectly fine Antec Sonata III case and a 500W PSU (I hope? unless I'll need a more powerful one?) and the 1.5 TB optical HDD that's been my system/storage drive. I'm excited to have a SSD for my OS install and whatever games I'm hooked on at the moment.
Does anything here leap out as incorrect? Am I over/underspending on any one component, or creating a glaringly obvious bottleneck somehow?
You've got a Haswell socket 1150 motherboard and an Ivy Bridge socket 1155 processor listed. They're not compatible. Also, you should be able to get a GTX760 for about the same price as the GTX660, and the 760 is a newer more powerful card.
Whew, thanks! And thank goodness I posted here to make sure I wasn't gonna make an expensive mistake.
So, how about this motherboard:
ASUS P8H77-V LE LGA 1155 Intel H77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
As far as a GTX760, how about this guy:
EVGA SuperClocked 02G-P4-2765-KR GeForce GTX 760 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support w/ EVGA ACX Cooler Video Card
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Noooo, don't go backwards with the motherboard, go forwards with the processor!
How about this socket 1150 mobo and CPU combo? A beastly chip and a nice ASUS motherboard with plenty of features. There are of course also cheaper options if you're on a limited budget.
As for the video card, EVGA are an upper-tier Nvidia card seller, and the non-reference cooler should keep the card cooler and quieter. I say very much yes.
If that chip and mobo combo you linked is really gonna add significant life to this system, then I'll consider it for sure. I'd like to have the option of just dropping in another $250 video card in 2-3 years and really seeing some performance increase. But how much better is that combo than the 1150 parts I had already selected? Is it really gonna be $55 better? :P
Posts
What OS are you using? With that setup I don't get how you can't have 10 or 11.
Since my opinion is the only one that counts (suck it, other people!), this thread feels like the SG10 is fucking awesome.
However...if you use a Seasonic/Corsair PSU (and also lots of others) you will have issues mounting the 120mm fan on the side panel. The way the 90 degree plug adapter is oriented, combined with the way the power plug on most PSUs is oriented, a larger than desired amount of difficult to bend cable will impinge on the area where you'd rather have a 120mm fan. I've heard tell one can replace it with a 90 degree plug of the opposite orientation, but I wouldn't know where to pick one up that would work as a substitute.
It's like the only flaw about the case I particularly care about. Its non-standard airflow design doesn't matter to me. Some folks want 5 expansion card slots, but that's motherboard dependent and you should plan for that (short solution: Buy ASUS). You'll also pay more if you want a built-in optical drive, thanks to the fact that it only takes slim, slot-loading drives. Aside from those small irritants, it's by far the most ambitiously and best designed M-ATX enclosure around, in my opinion. The new Prodigy-M is very similar internally (apart from inverting the layout), excepting that it orients the PSU with the plug down, which removes the 90 degree plug issue, but makes it a cabling nightmare.
Battle.net
I see. I am not a fan. I prefer mounting a HDD with screws. I guess I also need to take the leap and get a SSD to run windows off of, since that's now officially my bottleneck on the new computer. But it runs really nicely, nevertheless.
For instance, just plugging that card in and switching your system on should have told Windows to install DirectX 11 without you even having to do anything. Unless you're running 12 year old Windows XP on what amounts to new hardware?
Hard rives are the third noisiest thing in a computer, behind optical drives and fans.
The grommets are to prevent the vibrations the drive unavoidably makes travelling into the case from the HDD housing and causing a lot of noise.
Edit:Oh lordy. Now there is a 3gb 7950 for a fiver less. They're killing me!
Wait a year (or two).
Be strong.
Path of Exile: snowcrash7
MTG Arena: Snow_Crash#34179
Battle.net: Snowcrash#1873
Depending on game the CPU will bottleneck it, if you are struggling with games I'd suggest watching for a cheap i5 (1155) to pop up on sale and dropping that in. That being said the 7950 is a excellent deal if you get a decent overclocker but it will continue to drop in price as the 9000 series is due out to be revealed and released before the end of this year (End of October seems to be the date that's being tossed around)
I saw the same card, on hotukdeals. :-)
Really tempted by the 7950, making it the basis for a new PC.
I'd be buying everything except monitor, mouse and keyboard. My current system is about 3 years old, and was mid-range then...
COOLER MASTER Elite 430 RC-430-KWN1 case
Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Antec Basiq BP500U 500W Continuous Power ATX12V power supply
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
GIGABYTE GA-H87M-D3H LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX mobo
Intel Core i3-4130 Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 54W Dual-Core Desktop Processor
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6670 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 video card
The Haswell was only a couple of bucks more expensive than the original CPU I was looking at, and she approved the extra money when I told her that, for what she intends to do with the machine, she won't need to upgrade for quite a while.
Chicago Megagame group
Watch me struggle to learn streaming! Point and laugh!
Finally, buy this Rosewill case It's a little cheaper, more space efficient, and while it isn't any better to work with than the Cooler Master you were originally looking at, it's also not any worse.
Battle.net
This is what I currently have;
Gigabyte Socket AM3/AMD 870/SATA3&USB3.0/A&GbE/ATX Motherboard GA-870A-UD3
AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz
MSI N460GTX Cyclone 1GD5/OC 1GB Overclocked Graphics Card
Antec Sonata III 500 Quiet Super Mid Tower ATX Case (Black)
i was thinking of upgrading my machine and passing off the old video card as a hand me down as it still does well. I checked the post in the OP but all those cards seems to be discontinued. I was looking at this card (SAPPHIRE Vapor-X 100352VXSR Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit) and curious if it would be that much of an upgrade or if my machine could even use it.
I found these which look like they would do a decent enough job besides the fact that I don't find their aesthetic very appealing. Not a big fan of the rolling laptop desk things either because I don't think they'd extend far enough into the couch, so I wouldn't be able to recline.
That card will definitely be a huge upgrade and pretty much all graphics cards will work in any modern mobo. Also, so far no single card can fully saturate PCIe 2.0 so no worries there.
For some cpu intensive games your older cpu will be holding you back, but I think you should see a big improvement for most games.
I ended up ordering the 670, from Scan !
I was going to get the 7950, but it's not actually in stock at the moment.
The 670 has a 3D Futuremark score nearly 3 times higher than my current card, so games should be looking pretty sweet. I also got a motherboard that supports crossfire, so I've finally got a futureproofed PC. I also got a 64GB SSD, for speeds ! I think I'll stick The Sims 3 on it, maybe theyt'll finally stop chugging.
You know what ?
I just realised I forgot to get a CPU.
FFFFUUUUUUUU...
Back to scan.co.uk !
Edit - got a 3.4Ghz 6 core AMD.
Should all arrive on Fri, and I've booked the day off, so Friday should a nice relaxing day building and installing.
That reminds me - I need to go create a bootable Win 7 installer on a USB stick, as I'm going DVD-free.
I'm all spent now with the new keyboard and GTA V coming soon. So card will have to wait till next year.
I'd like to thank the thread, for without you, I would have just built a new computer to fix the old one.....wait, that sounds kinda fun, must resist.
It's on the way !!!
I am genuinely excited - all my PCs in th past were strictly budget ones, this th first time I'll have one that even close to high end.
I read some reviews of my card - Skyrim at 90fps in 1980x1080. I literally can't imagine what that even looks like.
I'm really looking forward to Civ 5 and Sims 3 running smoothly, too.
Yes and yes.
Path of Exile: snowcrash7
MTG Arena: Snow_Crash#34179
Battle.net: Snowcrash#1873
it looks incredible
remember to get a nicer HD Texture pack than the Bethesda one, and also get an ENB!
Out of curiosity, why go AMD? Did you already have an AM3+ board?
Battle.net
i5+ssd, an i7 gives almost no benefit to gaming besides slightly higher clock speeds on some of them.
Battle.net
Is that really possible? I figured a mobo would never turn off the CPU fan completely. I'm too afraid to let it get hotter to see if the fan turns back on.
Intel BOXDH87RL LGA 1150 Intel H87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-3330 Ivy Bridge 3.0GHz (3.2GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 2500 BX80637i53330
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model BLS8G3D1609DS1S00
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC 7mm Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
ASUS GTX660 TI-DC2O-2GD5 GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
I'll be using my same old perfectly fine Antec Sonata III case and a 500W PSU (I hope? unless I'll need a more powerful one?) and the 1.5 TB optical HDD that's been my system/storage drive. I'm excited to have a SSD for my OS install and whatever games I'm hooked on at the moment.
Does anything here leap out as incorrect? Am I over/underspending on any one component, or creating a glaringly obvious bottleneck somehow?
That's the only thing that immediately leaps out to me. :P Edit: I fail at reading, see below.
You've got a Haswell socket 1150 motherboard and an Ivy Bridge socket 1155 processor listed. They're not compatible. Also, you should be able to get a GTX760 for about the same price as the GTX660, and the 760 is a newer more powerful card.
So, how about this motherboard:
ASUS P8H77-V LE LGA 1155 Intel H77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
As far as a GTX760, how about this guy:
EVGA SuperClocked 02G-P4-2765-KR GeForce GTX 760 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support w/ EVGA ACX Cooler Video Card
How about this socket 1150 mobo and CPU combo? A beastly chip and a nice ASUS motherboard with plenty of features. There are of course also cheaper options if you're on a limited budget.
As for the video card, EVGA are an upper-tier Nvidia card seller, and the non-reference cooler should keep the card cooler and quieter. I say very much yes.
If that chip and mobo combo you linked is really gonna add significant life to this system, then I'll consider it for sure. I'd like to have the option of just dropping in another $250 video card in 2-3 years and really seeing some performance increase. But how much better is that combo than the 1150 parts I had already selected? Is it really gonna be $55 better? :P
Hey, whose budget isn't limited? :P