So are i5 still generally considered all you need for gaming, and Intel i7 really for high-end encoding, rendering, workstation-type activities? I'm looking at an unlocked Intel i5 Quad Core Haswell 3.4 ghz--"unlocked" only being $10 more, so even if I can't overclock worth a damn that seems fine.
My current 6-year-old bottleneck is being stuck on an Intel Core 2 Duo 8400--which was fine back when few games even used multi-core CPUs to begin with. But we're getting a lot of CPU-dependent games now, and I'd like to be prepared at least for a while. Also, I don't really understand "Caches" for CPUs, given my unlikelihood to overclock am I better getting something that's cheaper with a higher clockspeed, like this?
So are i5 still generally considered all you need for gaming, and Intel i7 really for high-end encoding, rendering, workstation-type activities? I'm looking at an unlocked Intel i5 Quad Core Haswell 3.4 ghz--"unlocked" only being $10 more, so even if I can't overclock worth a damn that seems fine.
My current 6-year-old bottleneck is being stuck on an Intel Core 2 Duo 8400--which was fine back when few games even used multi-core CPUs to begin with. But we're getting a lot of CPU-dependent games now, and I'd like to be prepared at least for a while. Also, I don't really understand "Caches" for CPUs, given my unlikelihood to overclock am I better getting something that's cheaper with a higher clockspeed, like this?
I think generally speaking the i5 is still the best bang-for-buck proposition when it comes to gaming. A "K" series i5 will still outperform most things, and only get beaten out by an i7 in very rare and unique situations. Not worth the price increase, IMO.
BouwsT on
Between you and me, Peggy, I smoked this Juul and it did UNTHINKABLE things to my mind and body...
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
edited November 2014
edit: nevermind
TL DR on
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
edited November 2014
Hey, so I'm looking to build a gaming computer in the $500 to $700 range. I've already got a mouse and keyboard. This is my first time building a computer so I don't know if the fans come with the parts or not. Can anyone set me up?
edit- I'm also looking for the cheapest, bare-bones monitor I can find, since mine is VGA and doesn't work with the newer graphics cards.
I wanted to buy a new HD and Video card. The video card had shipping but I've never bought from Newegg before and it said there was a free trial of Premiere which means free delivery. So I signed up for Premiere and the next thing I know, I'm being charged $60 for it. I haven't ordered the parts yet though so I do the online chat support thing to try to clear this up. She tells me I already used my free trial but can't tell when or if I have ever ordered anything. However, she says that she can cancel the subscription and I will be refunded in 3-5 days. That's fine. Shipping was only going to be like $10.
So then I go to complete my order and it tells me I still have an active Premiere membership and that I'm going to get free shipping. She says that if I complete the order and use the free shipping option, I won't get my refund. So I should pick another Shipping option. The only other option is express which I do not need.
So I create a new account and try to do the order but the card is now sold out. No worries, there is an even better card for slightly more money so I'm okay with that. This card comes with $150 free credit for a bunch of F2P games which I have no interest in. I also know there is a voucher code that gets you $25 off orders over $150 if you use Visa Checkout. I jump through the necessary hoops. Turns out that the code doesn't include items that include a free gift so that excludes the videocard which puts me under the $150 threshold. So basically their "Free gift" would cost me $25. Fuck that.
Hey, so I'm looking to build a gaming computer in the $500 to $700 range. I've already got a mouse and keyboard. This is my first time building a computer so I don't know if the fans come with the parts or not. Can anyone set me up?
edit- I'm also looking for the cheapest, bare-bones monitor I can find, since mine is VGA and doesn't work with the newer graphics cards.
what resolution is the monitor? because you can always get cheap adapters that will go from dvi -> vga to make it work. and saving that $100 will go a long way towards the computer build.
Apparently one of my RAM sticks became dislodged, and I've been running on 4GB of RAM instead of 8GB for at least a few weeks now. Reseated both sticks and they seem to be fine now.
But I can't think of anything that would have caused the sticks to become unseated.
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BouwsTWanna come to a super soft birthday party?Registered Userregular
Apparently one of my RAM sticks became dislodged, and I've been running on 4GB of RAM instead of 8GB for at least a few weeks now. Reseated both sticks and they seem to be fine now.
But I can't think of anything that would have caused the sticks to become unseated.
Can happen if you're gaming during high speed chases, and/or vehicle based arena death matches. YMMV, but try to avoid any ramps, or jarring motions and you should be fine in the future. Also, (if the arena rings true for you), try using melee instead of ranged. A solid Louisville Slugger has surprisingly little vibration when compared to small arms / missile calliopes.
EDIT: Only use handheld melee if riding a motorcycle. Ineffective in the cab of a vehicle.
BouwsT on
Between you and me, Peggy, I smoked this Juul and it did UNTHINKABLE things to my mind and body...
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Captain Marcusnow arrives the hour of actionRegistered Userregular
what resolution is the monitor? because you can always get cheap adapters that will go from dvi -> vga to make it work. and saving that $100 will go a long way towards the computer build.
1280 by 1024. I also have a new Radeon HD 7750 lying around, if that helps (I picked it up last year and the power supply was too small for it).
So we're cleaning up for Thanksgiving before family comes over. Of course, I do the reasonable thing and start with cleaning my PC. You know, it's a little dusty and it should look good.
Half an hour later I'm in the middle of rewiring the entire system because I thought I had a good idea for a new pattern of cable management.
Conclusions:
- I need a new case. The Antec 1200 is a nice case, but it lets in too much dust and has way too little cable management space.
- I need a fully modular PSU. The biggest pain in the butt is stuffing cables you don't even need.
- My family wasn't too thankful for my cleaning "assistance".
ShinyRedKnight on
PSN: ShinyRedKnight Xbox Live: ShinyRedKnight
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BouwsTWanna come to a super soft birthday party?Registered Userregular
So we're cleaning up for Thanksgiving before family comes over. Of course, I do the reasonable thing and start with cleaning my PC. You know, it's a little dusty and it should look good.
Half an hour later I'm in the middle of rewiring the entire system because I thought I had a good idea for a new pattern of cable management.
Conclusions:
- I need a new case. The Antec 1200 is a nice case, but it lets in too much dust and has way too little cable management space.
- I need a fully modular PSU. The biggest pain in the butt is stuffing cables you don't even need.
- My family wasn't too thankful for my cleaning "assistance".
-Could the addition of some intake fans help keep the dust out? Or is the dust getting in, in spite of a positive air pressure set-up?
-Me too.
-At least you can be thankful for a nice, clean rig for the holidays.
BouwsT on
Between you and me, Peggy, I smoked this Juul and it did UNTHINKABLE things to my mind and body...
So I'm a bit out of the loop PC building wise and wanted to start planning a new rig out here soon. I do a lot of video editing/ TF2 map compiling, so I was sort of thinking of going for an i7 rig this time.
I was thinking about buying a few pieces here soon with all the deals popping up this weekend. I figured memory would be a good place to start, any speeds or types I should be looking for to put into a decently high end rig? Leaning towards 24-32Gb for the sheer overkill of it.
I wanted to buy a new HD and Video card. The video card had shipping but I've never bought from Newegg before and it said there was a free trial of Premiere which means free delivery. So I signed up for Premiere and the next thing I know, I'm being charged $60 for it. I haven't ordered the parts yet though so I do the online chat support thing to try to clear this up. She tells me I already used my free trial but can't tell when or if I have ever ordered anything. However, she says that she can cancel the subscription and I will be refunded in 3-5 days. That's fine. Shipping was only going to be like $10.
So then I go to complete my order and it tells me I still have an active Premiere membership and that I'm going to get free shipping. She says that if I complete the order and use the free shipping option, I won't get my refund. So I should pick another Shipping option. The only other option is express which I do not need.
So I create a new account and try to do the order but the card is now sold out. No worries, there is an even better card for slightly more money so I'm okay with that. This card comes with $150 free credit for a bunch of F2P games which I have no interest in. I also know there is a voucher code that gets you $25 off orders over $150 if you use Visa Checkout. I jump through the necessary hoops. Turns out that the code doesn't include items that include a free gift so that excludes the videocard which puts me under the $150 threshold. So basically their "Free gift" would cost me $25. Fuck that.
Well, even the last time I tried to build a PC, NewEgg was extremely "frugal" with any sort of gift or bonus or promotion or anything, so this isn't that surprising.
So are i5 still generally considered all you need for gaming, and Intel i7 really for high-end encoding, rendering, workstation-type activities? I'm looking at an unlocked Intel i5 Quad Core Haswell 3.4 ghz--"unlocked" only being $10 more, so even if I can't overclock worth a damn that seems fine.
My current 6-year-old bottleneck is being stuck on an Intel Core 2 Duo 8400--which was fine back when few games even used multi-core CPUs to begin with. But we're getting a lot of CPU-dependent games now, and I'd like to be prepared at least for a while. Also, I don't really understand "Caches" for CPUs, given my unlikelihood to overclock am I better getting something that's cheaper with a higher clockspeed, like this?
I think generally speaking the i5 is still the best bang-for-buck proposition when it comes to gaming. A "K" series i5 will still outperform most things, and only get beaten out by an i7 in very rare and unique situations. Not worth the price increase, IMO.
That's good to know, Wonder if the "unlocked" status makes it more worthwhile over a locked 3.5ghz, considering my totally inability to overclock CPUs.
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BouwsTWanna come to a super soft birthday party?Registered Userregular
I wanted to buy a new HD and Video card. The video card had shipping but I've never bought from Newegg before and it said there was a free trial of Premiere which means free delivery. So I signed up for Premiere and the next thing I know, I'm being charged $60 for it. I haven't ordered the parts yet though so I do the online chat support thing to try to clear this up. She tells me I already used my free trial but can't tell when or if I have ever ordered anything. However, she says that she can cancel the subscription and I will be refunded in 3-5 days. That's fine. Shipping was only going to be like $10.
So then I go to complete my order and it tells me I still have an active Premiere membership and that I'm going to get free shipping. She says that if I complete the order and use the free shipping option, I won't get my refund. So I should pick another Shipping option. The only other option is express which I do not need.
So I create a new account and try to do the order but the card is now sold out. No worries, there is an even better card for slightly more money so I'm okay with that. This card comes with $150 free credit for a bunch of F2P games which I have no interest in. I also know there is a voucher code that gets you $25 off orders over $150 if you use Visa Checkout. I jump through the necessary hoops. Turns out that the code doesn't include items that include a free gift so that excludes the videocard which puts me under the $150 threshold. So basically their "Free gift" would cost me $25. Fuck that.
Well, even the last time I tried to build a PC, NewEgg was extremely "frugal" with any sort of gift or bonus or promotion or anything, so this isn't that surprising.
So are i5 still generally considered all you need for gaming, and Intel i7 really for high-end encoding, rendering, workstation-type activities? I'm looking at an unlocked Intel i5 Quad Core Haswell 3.4 ghz--"unlocked" only being $10 more, so even if I can't overclock worth a damn that seems fine.
My current 6-year-old bottleneck is being stuck on an Intel Core 2 Duo 8400--which was fine back when few games even used multi-core CPUs to begin with. But we're getting a lot of CPU-dependent games now, and I'd like to be prepared at least for a while. Also, I don't really understand "Caches" for CPUs, given my unlikelihood to overclock am I better getting something that's cheaper with a higher clockspeed, like this?
I think generally speaking the i5 is still the best bang-for-buck proposition when it comes to gaming. A "K" series i5 will still outperform most things, and only get beaten out by an i7 in very rare and unique situations. Not worth the price increase, IMO.
That's good to know, Wonder if the "unlocked" status makes it more worthwhile over a locked 3.5ghz, considering my totally inability to overclock CPUs.
Oh man, as far as unlocking goes, it just gets easier and easier. Most higher end gaming MOBO's have an auto-tune setting that does great as a rough overclock, and can be fine tuned from there (if you feel inclined). Plus, there are so many detailed overclocking guides on YouTube and teh Googlez...
There is always a little more performance to squeeze out of an unlocked processor.
EDIT: I reread your statement, and thought I should add that if you are DEFINITELY not overclocking, then you will see no benefit from an unlocked processor.
BouwsT on
Between you and me, Peggy, I smoked this Juul and it did UNTHINKABLE things to my mind and body...
So, I'm creating a build for my parents and I'd like it to last them for quite some time. They want it to be quick, be able to deal with streaming video from online and browse the internet. They'd also like it to be quieter and have some protection against dust. I've come up with the following
I'd also like to get them a nice monitor and take advantage of the good deals on Black Friday. I'm located in Canada, so it is generally cheaper and faster to use Canadian online stores rather than the American versions.
I'd appreciate critiques of this build and some suggestions for good monitors.
They already have a mouse/keyboard, but might be interested in a decent wireless mouse that can be easily switched from right to left-handed mode with a simple software toggle.
Edit: Note that on the partlist, if a price has been typed in manually, the store is NCIX and pcpartspicker just hasn't updated their prices yet.
So we're cleaning up for Thanksgiving before family comes over. Of course, I do the reasonable thing and start with cleaning my PC. You know, it's a little dusty and it should look good.
Half an hour later I'm in the middle of rewiring the entire system because I thought I had a good idea for a new pattern of cable management.
Conclusions:
- I need a new case. The Antec 1200 is a nice case, but it lets in too much dust and has way too little cable management space.
- I need a fully modular PSU. The biggest pain in the butt is stuffing cables you don't even need.
- My family wasn't too thankful for my cleaning "assistance".
-Could the addition of some intake fans help keep the dust out? Or is the dust getting in, in spite of a positive air pressure set-up?
-Me too.
-At least you can be thankful for a nice, clean rig for the holidays.
I think I have fans installed in all the openings. It may be that I'm a little too picky about dust, but I think its just the combination of an old carpet and the case having too many areas with screens or grills. While the filters are easy to clean, they are not easy to take out, requiring you to unscrew the front cages.
That's why I'm looking at the 750D. The openings on the case are much smaller except for the top, but the filter is one big piece on the outside of the case held down by magnets, so you can just lift it off and clean it in a couple of minutes. the Antec 1200 is really nice, but every side of the case, except the motherboard side, has large grill openings that just fill up with dust over time. As well, the back panel cable management system leaves a lot to be desired. The majority of the area is too tight to fit in SATA cables, and the bigger section at the front has no place to tie down the cables.
Although, you are right, there is something about a clean rig that just feels right.
PSN: ShinyRedKnight Xbox Live: ShinyRedKnight
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Donovan PuppyfuckerA dagger in the dark isworth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered Userregular
Hey, so I'm looking to build a gaming computer in the $500 to $700 range. I've already got a mouse and keyboard. This is my first time building a computer so I don't know if the fans come with the parts or not. Can anyone set me up?
edit- I'm also looking for the cheapest, bare-bones monitor I can find, since mine is VGA and doesn't work with the newer graphics cards.
You have a 7750 GPU ready to go? Well, anything we put together for you is going to be bottlenecked by that card, so you might want to upgrade that as well as soon as you can. I looked at maybe using the Dual Graphics option with an AMD CPU with an integrated graphics chip (basically CrossFiring the IGU with your GPU), but apparently even the best integrated graphics options don't do so well with the 7750 and cause stuttering.
So, this will top out your budget ($690), but with the addition of a new graphics card later, should be a great gaming platform for the next few years: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sfvfkL
You have an Intel quadcore, good motherboard, good RAM (and plenty of it for gaming), a great SSD that's big enough to fit almost all your programs on and a good platter drive (the Spinpoint F3 was a thread favourite for a long while because it is fast, quiet, and reliable) to keep all your media on, a great PSU, a good case, a copy of Windows and a DVD burner as well.
Slot your 7750 into that and you will be able to push games to your current monitor with everything maxxed out and still get good framerates.
Save up for a while and get yourself a nice 1080p monitor and a GTX970, and you'll be able to run the latest, most beautiful games flawlessly.
hey guys, does anyone know if there's a general consensus on buying stuff today/tomorrow or waiting until Monday? My list of stuff is going to come from amazon and newegg mostly
I would say if the exact thing you want goes on sale tomorrow then just pull the trigger. If you aren't sure about an exact product like you are just looking for a SSD in general, then maybe wait til Monday or longer if you can.
So, I'm creating a build for my parents and I'd like it to last them for quite some time. They want it to be quick, be able to deal with streaming video from online and browse the internet. They'd also like it to be quieter and have some protection against dust. I've come up with the following
I'd also like to get them a nice monitor and take advantage of the good deals on Black Friday. I'm located in Canada, so it is generally cheaper and faster to use Canadian online stores rather than the American versions.
I'd appreciate critiques of this build and some suggestions for good monitors.
They already have a mouse/keyboard, but might be interested in a decent wireless mouse that can be easily switched from right to left-handed mode with a simple software toggle.
Edit: Note that on the partlist, if a price has been typed in manually, the store is NCIX and pcpartspicker just hasn't updated their prices yet.
Only thing I may change on the list depending on deals atm for Canuck Land is a Samsung 840 Evo over the MX100. Should be a beast for them. Monitors I have no clue on, though (CRT 4 LYFE!). Edit: I lied. Looking at the prices I'd get the Z97 Anniversary just make overclocking it stupid easy where even your parents could do it. Double edit: Unless you're taking the rebates into account! Edit the IV'ish: You don't need that thermal compound, either. Unless you forgot the aftermarket cooler. Which you don't need either probably for that chip.
Xeddicus on
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143999Tellin' yanot askin' ya, not pleadin' with yaRegistered Userregular
So, who has any experience repurposing old server hardware for makeshift gaming purposes?
Since around 2010, I've been using an G72GX exclusively, since for reasons that don't really matter here and aren't really relevant anymore I needed something portable/didn't have room for a dedicated desktop area.
I recently managed to somehow luck into an old Dell Poweredge 2900 which I don't really have any server-specific uses for (or at least none that would require every bit of it). It's just kind of sitting there off to the side of my new desk in my relatively new home office in my relatively new home...um, home, just waiting to be put into action doing something.
In the meantime, the aforementioned gaming laptop isn't DX11-compatible, a fact which I only realized after I bought Shadow of Mordor on some semi-recent Steam sale. So I'd like to do something about that, but I'm all grad student cheap right now, so now I'm thinking, why not just repurpose this other thing into a loud gaming machine that takes up too much space but also heats the room pretty well in the winter?
Of course, the Dell doesn't have anything like a decent graphics card. Annoyingly, it only has a PCIe x8 slot, but apparently I can either get something like this 8-to-16 adapter cable (or saw off the back of the x8 slot, but I'm thinking maybe not) and run a modern x16 card at an x8 rate and just suck up the performance loss.
Just wondering, has anyone here actually done something like this? Are there other hurdles that I'm not thinking of? (And yeah, I am thinking of the simple stuff like CPU, RAM, storage, etc.) And jeez, if this is a feasible idea, what the hell do I even buy anymore? It's been, well, almost five years since I've had any reason to hunt for a desktop graphics card.
So, I'm creating a build for my parents and I'd like it to last them for quite some time. They want it to be quick, be able to deal with streaming video from online and browse the internet. They'd also like it to be quieter and have some protection against dust. I've come up with the following
I'd also like to get them a nice monitor and take advantage of the good deals on Black Friday. I'm located in Canada, so it is generally cheaper and faster to use Canadian online stores rather than the American versions.
I'd appreciate critiques of this build and some suggestions for good monitors.
They already have a mouse/keyboard, but might be interested in a decent wireless mouse that can be easily switched from right to left-handed mode with a simple software toggle.
Edit: Note that on the partlist, if a price has been typed in manually, the store is NCIX and pcpartspicker just hasn't updated their prices yet.
Only thing I may change on the list depending on deals atm for Canuck Land is a Samsung 840 Evo over the MX100. Should be a beast for them. Monitors I have no clue on, though (CRT 4 LYFE!). Edit: I lied. Looking at the prices I'd get the Z97 Anniversary just make overclocking it stupid easy where even your parents could do it. Double edit: Unless you're taking the rebates into account! Edit the IV'ish: You don't need that thermal compound, either. Unless you forgot the aftermarket cooler. Which you don't need either probably for that chip.
I've not built a computer for a long time, so I have no idea on whether or not I need the thermal paste. I have a feeling that what I'm building is complete overkill, but the annoying thing is that I can't really drop the price of the HDD or ram down that much.
Edit: Did some more fiddling after realizing that the 240 GB SSD was overkill for windows 7 and their expected usage.
All CPU's you buy in a box new come with a heatsink with pre-applied thermal compound on them. This heatsink is normally junk for overclocking, but it's good enough on the G3258 unless you're trying to push it to the limit. But with that setup, you hit P on boot, select 3.6-4.2GHZ and done. Theoretically you may need a better ($35) CPU cooler if you get a real lemon of a chip or live in the Sahara Dessert or something, but not likely.
If you want to save a little more money a 3TB HDD is overkill for them too most likely, unless they store videos on the PC or something.
And do they plan on watching Blurays on the PC? Don't need the player if not, cheaper DVD burner would be fine.
Not that it REALLY matters, but with only 1 stick of RAM you won't be in dual channel mode. But when they throw a graphics card in there you'll be ready to upgrade to 16GB then for Elder Scrolls 6!
No matter what you do it should be great, though.
Oh and @143999: You won't even notice a drop in performance. What to get? Probably something off here.
I'm just wondering if I should pick up a new modular PSU now they're on sale; I have the previous build's motherboard/gpu/ram sitting around, and a case and hard drives from even longer ago, so I could theoretically put together a pretty workable second PC, except that the old case has a junky PSU so I'd need to get a new one of those, and at that point I may as well put the new PSU in the main PC while I'm at it.
I'm just wondering if I should pick up a new modular PSU now they're on sale; I have the previous build's motherboard/gpu/ram sitting around, and a case and hard drives from even longer ago, so I could theoretically put together a pretty workable second PC, except that the old case has a junky PSU so I'd need to get a new one of those, and at that point I may as well put the new PSU in the main PC while I'm at it.
Man that's super-tempting. I don't know if I can pull the trigger without getting in trouble though
We just found out that our 14-year-old Civic has a cracked exhaust manifold or something like that so that means a new car is coming in the near future. Gonna have to have a discussion tonight. For some reason my wife doesn't like buying me computer parts or computer games for Christmas, even if I point her to exactly what to buy.
I'm just wondering if I should pick up a new modular PSU now they're on sale; I have the previous build's motherboard/gpu/ram sitting around, and a case and hard drives from even longer ago, so I could theoretically put together a pretty workable second PC, except that the old case has a junky PSU so I'd need to get a new one of those, and at that point I may as well put the new PSU in the main PC while I'm at it.
Man that's super-tempting. I don't know if I can pull the trigger without getting in trouble though
We just found out that our 14-year-old Civic has a cracked exhaust manifold or something like that so that means a new car is coming in the near future. Gonna have to have a discussion tonight. For some reason my wife doesn't like buying me computer parts or computer games for Christmas, even if I point her to exactly what to buy.
That sounds like something a welder can fix, if you can find someone to do the work pro bono (since I'm assuming repair cost > car value). If you're in the Philly/NYC area let me know, I'd be happy to take a look.
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BouwsTWanna come to a super soft birthday party?Registered Userregular
Man that's super-tempting. I don't know if I can pull the trigger without getting in trouble though
We just found out that our 14-year-old Civic has a cracked exhaust manifold or something like that so that means a new car is coming in the near future. Gonna have to have a discussion tonight. For some reason my wife doesn't like buying me computer parts or computer games for Christmas, even if I point her to exactly what to buy.
That sounds like something a welder can fix, if you can find someone to do the work pro bono (since I'm assuming repair cost > car value). If you're in the Philly/NYC area let me know, I'd be happy to take a look.
Not to derail the thread, but exhaust manifolds typically crack on the mating surface between the manifold and cylinder head. Let's move this discussion to PM's if there are any more questions or discussion regarding the viability of repairs.
This heatsink is normally junk for overclocking, but it's good enough on the G3258 unless you're trying to push it to the limit. But with that setup, you hit P on boot, select 3.6-4.2GHZ and done. Theoretically you may need a better ($35) CPU cooler if you get a real lemon of a chip or live in the Sahara Dessert or something, but not likely.
Reports are coming in that Far Cry 4 won't run on anything with fewer than 4 cores... I hope this isn't a trend for all games, but if that's the way the world is going then the G3258 (as bitchin' an overclocker as it is) probably isn't going to be a good, long term CPU solution... Which is sad because it was an AWESOME chip for the price... Perfect for decent gaming performance (with some overclocking) on a budget.
Between you and me, Peggy, I smoked this Juul and it did UNTHINKABLE things to my mind and body...
ASUS Z97-A LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
564$
RAM and GPU I'm holding off on for now. I've got some of those coming in to swap into my wife's computer to see if that's what's causing the problems it'd been having (already replaced mobo with RMA one). If they fix it, then I'll buy something for myself. If not, then they'll just go into mine and it's back to the drawing board.
Anything else I should throw into there before I pull the trigger? The R4 doesn't need any SSD brackets right?
I didn't get any extra fans, cause I'm not necessarily intending to overclock. Unless someone knows of a good quiet one that's easy to put on. The CoolerMaster hyper 212, was kind of a pain with with having to put the giant heatsink on and then slide the bracket under it while trying not to detach it from the chip and line up the thing with the holes.
I did seem to be a really good cooler though/
I'm helping a friend pick components for an economy build. I found this which seems like a good deal, but I'm not sure what the tradeoff between chipsets is at the moment and I don't particularly feel like doing the research.
Can anyone make a motherboard recommendation? LGA1150, and other than that no real requirements (as long it supports the basics like 16GB of RAM and a 16x PCI-E slot). Basically the cheapest reliable motherboard.
I'm helping a friend pick components for an economy build. I found this which seems like a good deal, but I'm not sure what the tradeoff between chipsets is at the moment and I don't particularly feel like doing the research.
Can anyone make a motherboard recommendation? LGA1150, and other than that no real requirements (as long it supports the basics like 16GB of RAM and a 16x PCI-E slot). Basically the cheapest reliable motherboard.
Random internet comment that seems to cooincide with what I think is general consensus (if that means anything) suggests that Asus and Gigabyte are the most reliable brands. From there, it's just a matter of making sure it meets any additional requirements you might have (i.e. max ram, # of ram slots, #r of PCIe slots, # of sata ports, etc.)
Man that's super-tempting. I don't know if I can pull the trigger without getting in trouble though
We just found out that our 14-year-old Civic has a cracked exhaust manifold or something like that so that means a new car is coming in the near future. Gonna have to have a discussion tonight. For some reason my wife doesn't like buying me computer parts or computer games for Christmas, even if I point her to exactly what to buy.
That sounds like something a welder can fix, if you can find someone to do the work pro bono (since I'm assuming repair cost > car value). If you're in the Philly/NYC area let me know, I'd be happy to take a look.
Not to derail the thread, but exhaust manifolds typically crack on the mating surface between the manifold and cylinder head. Let's move this discussion to PM's if there are any more questions or discussion regarding the viability of repairs.
This heatsink is normally junk for overclocking, but it's good enough on the G3258 unless you're trying to push it to the limit. But with that setup, you hit P on boot, select 3.6-4.2GHZ and done. Theoretically you may need a better ($35) CPU cooler if you get a real lemon of a chip or live in the Sahara Dessert or something, but not likely.
Reports are coming in that Far Cry 4 won't run on anything with fewer than 4 cores... I hope this isn't a trend for all games, but if that's the way the world is going then the G3258 (as bitchin' an overclocker as it is) probably isn't going to be a good, long term CPU solution... Which is sad because it was an AWESOME chip for the price... Perfect for decent gaming performance (with some overclocking) on a budget.
Farcry 4, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare all required a quadcore, yeah. In Farcy 4's case an injector can get around that and it works fine. In CoD's case they patched it out. In DA:I the injector for Farcry 4 works to start the game, but the performance is crap. So yeah, if companies don't want to optimize their ports of games it's going to be an issue so if you can swing it get a quadcore. But in this case this is for his parents anyway, who won't be playing any games at all, so it's more than enough regardless.
The G3258 needs to last until I take mine out of the box, too :P
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BouwsTWanna come to a super soft birthday party?Registered Userregular
Yeah, thanks for the advice. The request from my parents was for something that would last them for 5-10 years, so the final build I went with is below.
The parent-folk are happy. I ended up cheating and getting NCIX to assemble and test it for me for an extra $50. It means that I don't get stuck with a dud part in case that happens and adds some extra peace-of-mind for a very nominal charge.
Yeah, thanks for the advice. The request from my parents was for something that would last them for 5-10 years, so the final build I went with is below.
The parent-folk are happy. I ended up cheating and getting NCIX to assemble and test it for me for an extra $50. It means that I don't get stuck with a dud part in case that happens and adds some extra peace-of-mind for a very nominal charge.
It might be too late in which case I'm sorry I didn't speak up sooner but the Seagate drive might not be the most reliable. I'm sure some people had great experiences but there were a few that were definitely less than stellar. If it's not too late, you might consider changing to a more reliable HD like a Hitachi for a little more money.
There is an interesting article on this kind of stuff here.
Otherwise, everything else looks like it should be good. And actually, if you setup some sort of cloud storage backup or alternate backup system (which you should do no matter how reliable the drive is because of one of a kind photos and stuff), then the reliability of the drive is much less of an issue.
I've already got an external backup system running on their existing system and I plan on porting it over to their new system. I'll also be throwing their old hard drive in the new machine along with their old DVD burner, so I should be fairly safe on the HD side of things.
I wish I'd found that article earlier as it does show a failure rate which seems to be way too high to be acceptable. Oh well, I hope the backup system prevents anything from being too catastrophic.
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My current 6-year-old bottleneck is being stuck on an Intel Core 2 Duo 8400--which was fine back when few games even used multi-core CPUs to begin with. But we're getting a lot of CPU-dependent games now, and I'd like to be prepared at least for a while. Also, I don't really understand "Caches" for CPUs, given my unlikelihood to overclock am I better getting something that's cheaper with a higher clockspeed, like this?
SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
I think generally speaking the i5 is still the best bang-for-buck proposition when it comes to gaming. A "K" series i5 will still outperform most things, and only get beaten out by an i7 in very rare and unique situations. Not worth the price increase, IMO.
edit- I'm also looking for the cheapest, bare-bones monitor I can find, since mine is VGA and doesn't work with the newer graphics cards.
Long Newegg rant
So then I go to complete my order and it tells me I still have an active Premiere membership and that I'm going to get free shipping. She says that if I complete the order and use the free shipping option, I won't get my refund. So I should pick another Shipping option. The only other option is express which I do not need.
So I create a new account and try to do the order but the card is now sold out. No worries, there is an even better card for slightly more money so I'm okay with that. This card comes with $150 free credit for a bunch of F2P games which I have no interest in. I also know there is a voucher code that gets you $25 off orders over $150 if you use Visa Checkout. I jump through the necessary hoops. Turns out that the code doesn't include items that include a free gift so that excludes the videocard which puts me under the $150 threshold. So basically their "Free gift" would cost me $25. Fuck that.
SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
what resolution is the monitor? because you can always get cheap adapters that will go from dvi -> vga to make it work. and saving that $100 will go a long way towards the computer build.
Apparently one of my RAM sticks became dislodged, and I've been running on 4GB of RAM instead of 8GB for at least a few weeks now. Reseated both sticks and they seem to be fine now.
But I can't think of anything that would have caused the sticks to become unseated.
Can happen if you're gaming during high speed chases, and/or vehicle based arena death matches. YMMV, but try to avoid any ramps, or jarring motions and you should be fine in the future. Also, (if the arena rings true for you), try using melee instead of ranged. A solid Louisville Slugger has surprisingly little vibration when compared to small arms / missile calliopes.
EDIT: Only use handheld melee if riding a motorcycle. Ineffective in the cab of a vehicle.
1280 by 1024. I also have a new Radeon HD 7750 lying around, if that helps (I picked it up last year and the power supply was too small for it).
Half an hour later I'm in the middle of rewiring the entire system because I thought I had a good idea for a new pattern of cable management.
Conclusions:
- I need a new case. The Antec 1200 is a nice case, but it lets in too much dust and has way too little cable management space.
- I need a fully modular PSU. The biggest pain in the butt is stuffing cables you don't even need.
- My family wasn't too thankful for my cleaning "assistance".
PSN: ShinyRedKnight Xbox Live: ShinyRedKnight
-Could the addition of some intake fans help keep the dust out? Or is the dust getting in, in spite of a positive air pressure set-up?
-Me too.
-At least you can be thankful for a nice, clean rig for the holidays.
I was thinking about buying a few pieces here soon with all the deals popping up this weekend. I figured memory would be a good place to start, any speeds or types I should be looking for to put into a decently high end rig? Leaning towards 24-32Gb for the sheer overkill of it.
Well, even the last time I tried to build a PC, NewEgg was extremely "frugal" with any sort of gift or bonus or promotion or anything, so this isn't that surprising.
That's good to know, Wonder if the "unlocked" status makes it more worthwhile over a locked 3.5ghz, considering my totally inability to overclock CPUs.
Oh man, as far as unlocking goes, it just gets easier and easier. Most higher end gaming MOBO's have an auto-tune setting that does great as a rough overclock, and can be fine tuned from there (if you feel inclined). Plus, there are so many detailed overclocking guides on YouTube and teh Googlez...
There is always a little more performance to squeeze out of an unlocked processor.
EDIT: I reread your statement, and thought I should add that if you are DEFINITELY not overclocking, then you will see no benefit from an unlocked processor.
Basically all of the 840 EVO series is on sale. 500 GB for $189.99
:tell_me_more:
EDIT: This is probably a limited time deal, it's nearly $100 cheaper than it was a couple of days ago.
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/C2VcmG
I'd also like to get them a nice monitor and take advantage of the good deals on Black Friday. I'm located in Canada, so it is generally cheaper and faster to use Canadian online stores rather than the American versions.
I'd appreciate critiques of this build and some suggestions for good monitors.
They already have a mouse/keyboard, but might be interested in a decent wireless mouse that can be easily switched from right to left-handed mode with a simple software toggle.
Edit: Note that on the partlist, if a price has been typed in manually, the store is NCIX and pcpartspicker just hasn't updated their prices yet.
I think I have fans installed in all the openings. It may be that I'm a little too picky about dust, but I think its just the combination of an old carpet and the case having too many areas with screens or grills. While the filters are easy to clean, they are not easy to take out, requiring you to unscrew the front cages.
That's why I'm looking at the 750D. The openings on the case are much smaller except for the top, but the filter is one big piece on the outside of the case held down by magnets, so you can just lift it off and clean it in a couple of minutes. the Antec 1200 is really nice, but every side of the case, except the motherboard side, has large grill openings that just fill up with dust over time. As well, the back panel cable management system leaves a lot to be desired. The majority of the area is too tight to fit in SATA cables, and the bigger section at the front has no place to tie down the cables.
Although, you are right, there is something about a clean rig that just feels right.
PSN: ShinyRedKnight Xbox Live: ShinyRedKnight
You have a 7750 GPU ready to go? Well, anything we put together for you is going to be bottlenecked by that card, so you might want to upgrade that as well as soon as you can. I looked at maybe using the Dual Graphics option with an AMD CPU with an integrated graphics chip (basically CrossFiring the IGU with your GPU), but apparently even the best integrated graphics options don't do so well with the 7750 and cause stuttering.
So, this will top out your budget ($690), but with the addition of a new graphics card later, should be a great gaming platform for the next few years: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sfvfkL
You have an Intel quadcore, good motherboard, good RAM (and plenty of it for gaming), a great SSD that's big enough to fit almost all your programs on and a good platter drive (the Spinpoint F3 was a thread favourite for a long while because it is fast, quiet, and reliable) to keep all your media on, a great PSU, a good case, a copy of Windows and a DVD burner as well.
Slot your 7750 into that and you will be able to push games to your current monitor with everything maxxed out and still get good framerates.
Save up for a while and get yourself a nice 1080p monitor and a GTX970, and you'll be able to run the latest, most beautiful games flawlessly.
http://www.ncix.com/detail/samsung-s24d590pl-23-6in-widescreen-pls-c9-95680-1344.htm
Maybe.
Only thing I may change on the list depending on deals atm for Canuck Land is a Samsung 840 Evo over the MX100. Should be a beast for them. Monitors I have no clue on, though (CRT 4 LYFE!). Edit: I lied. Looking at the prices I'd get the Z97 Anniversary just make overclocking it stupid easy where even your parents could do it. Double edit: Unless you're taking the rebates into account! Edit the IV'ish: You don't need that thermal compound, either. Unless you forgot the aftermarket cooler. Which you don't need either probably for that chip.
Since around 2010, I've been using an G72GX exclusively, since for reasons that don't really matter here and aren't really relevant anymore I needed something portable/didn't have room for a dedicated desktop area.
I recently managed to somehow luck into an old Dell Poweredge 2900 which I don't really have any server-specific uses for (or at least none that would require every bit of it). It's just kind of sitting there off to the side of my new desk in my relatively new home office in my relatively new home...um, home, just waiting to be put into action doing something.
In the meantime, the aforementioned gaming laptop isn't DX11-compatible, a fact which I only realized after I bought Shadow of Mordor on some semi-recent Steam sale. So I'd like to do something about that, but I'm all grad student cheap right now, so now I'm thinking, why not just repurpose this other thing into a loud gaming machine that takes up too much space but also heats the room pretty well in the winter?
Of course, the Dell doesn't have anything like a decent graphics card. Annoyingly, it only has a PCIe x8 slot, but apparently I can either get something like this 8-to-16 adapter cable (or saw off the back of the x8 slot, but I'm thinking maybe not) and run a modern x16 card at an x8 rate and just suck up the performance loss.
Just wondering, has anyone here actually done something like this? Are there other hurdles that I'm not thinking of? (And yeah, I am thinking of the simple stuff like CPU, RAM, storage, etc.) And jeez, if this is a feasible idea, what the hell do I even buy anymore? It's been, well, almost five years since I've had any reason to hunt for a desktop graphics card.
I've not built a computer for a long time, so I have no idea on whether or not I need the thermal paste. I have a feeling that what I'm building is complete overkill, but the annoying thing is that I can't really drop the price of the HDD or ram down that much.
Edit: Did some more fiddling after realizing that the 240 GB SSD was overkill for windows 7 and their expected usage.
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/tFQDMp
If you want to save a little more money a 3TB HDD is overkill for them too most likely, unless they store videos on the PC or something.
And do they plan on watching Blurays on the PC? Don't need the player if not, cheaper DVD burner would be fine.
Not that it REALLY matters, but with only 1 stick of RAM you won't be in dual channel mode. But when they throw a graphics card in there you'll be ready to upgrade to 16GB then for Elder Scrolls 6!
No matter what you do it should be great, though.
Oh and @143999: You won't even notice a drop in performance. What to get? Probably something off here.
You were looking for a 750ti, right? Memory Express has this one for $99.99 after rebate or $119 if you don't trust rebates, and a bunch of 3tb drives on sale.
I'm just wondering if I should pick up a new modular PSU now they're on sale; I have the previous build's motherboard/gpu/ram sitting around, and a case and hard drives from even longer ago, so I could theoretically put together a pretty workable second PC, except that the old case has a junky PSU so I'd need to get a new one of those, and at that point I may as well put the new PSU in the main PC while I'm at it.
Man that's super-tempting. I don't know if I can pull the trigger without getting in trouble though
We just found out that our 14-year-old Civic has a cracked exhaust manifold or something like that so that means a new car is coming in the near future. Gonna have to have a discussion tonight. For some reason my wife doesn't like buying me computer parts or computer games for Christmas, even if I point her to exactly what to buy.
SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
That sounds like something a welder can fix, if you can find someone to do the work pro bono (since I'm assuming repair cost > car value). If you're in the Philly/NYC area let me know, I'd be happy to take a look.
Not to derail the thread, but exhaust manifolds typically crack on the mating surface between the manifold and cylinder head. Let's move this discussion to PM's if there are any more questions or discussion regarding the viability of repairs.
Back to PC's!
Reports are coming in that Far Cry 4 won't run on anything with fewer than 4 cores... I hope this isn't a trend for all games, but if that's the way the world is going then the G3258 (as bitchin' an overclocker as it is) probably isn't going to be a good, long term CPU solution... Which is sad because it was an AWESOME chip for the price... Perfect for decent gaming performance (with some overclocking) on a budget.
- Fractal Design Define R4 Black Pearl w/ USB 3.0 ATX Mid Tower Silent PC Computer Case
- SeaSonic SSP-550RT 550W ATX12V v2.31,EPS12V v2.92 80Plus Gold Certified Active PFC Power Supply -- OEM
- SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA 6Gb/s 1x nm Samsung Toggle DDR 2.0 3-Bit MLC NAND Flash Memory (400Mbps) Internal ...
- Intel Core i5-4690K Devil's Canyon Quad-Core 3.5GHz LGA 1150 Desktop Processor BX80646I54690K
- ASUS Z97-A LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
564$RAM and GPU I'm holding off on for now. I've got some of those coming in to swap into my wife's computer to see if that's what's causing the problems it'd been having (already replaced mobo with RMA one). If they fix it, then I'll buy something for myself. If not, then they'll just go into mine and it's back to the drawing board.
Anything else I should throw into there before I pull the trigger? The R4 doesn't need any SSD brackets right?
I didn't get any extra fans, cause I'm not necessarily intending to overclock. Unless someone knows of a good quiet one that's easy to put on. The CoolerMaster hyper 212, was kind of a pain with with having to put the giant heatsink on and then slide the bracket under it while trying not to detach it from the chip and line up the thing with the holes.
I did seem to be a really good cooler though/
Can anyone make a motherboard recommendation? LGA1150, and other than that no real requirements (as long it supports the basics like 16GB of RAM and a 16x PCI-E slot). Basically the cheapest reliable motherboard.
Random internet comment that seems to cooincide with what I think is general consensus (if that means anything) suggests that Asus and Gigabyte are the most reliable brands. From there, it's just a matter of making sure it meets any additional requirements you might have (i.e. max ram, # of ram slots, #r of PCIe slots, # of sata ports, etc.)
SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
Farcry 4, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare all required a quadcore, yeah. In Farcy 4's case an injector can get around that and it works fine. In CoD's case they patched it out. In DA:I the injector for Farcry 4 works to start the game, but the performance is crap. So yeah, if companies don't want to optimize their ports of games it's going to be an issue so if you can swing it get a quadcore. But in this case this is for his parents anyway, who won't be playing any games at all, so it's more than enough regardless.
The G3258 needs to last until I take mine out of the box, too :P
Oooohhhhhhhhh, right. Ya definitely a good, low cost option for Ma and Pa I would think...
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/user/Caedwyr/saved/#savedbuild_1706168
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($69.95)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($74.99)
Memory: Kingston Fury Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($79.98 @ NCIX)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($84.99 @ NCIX)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($99.99)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ NCIX)
Power Supply: Antec Basiq 350W ATX Power Supply ($34.99 @ NCIX)
Optical Drive: Asus BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer ($59.99 @ NCIX)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($107.99 @ NCIX)
Monitor: Samsung S24D590PL 60Hz 23.6" Monitor ($149.99)
Other: Test/Built ($50.00)
Other: Tax ($113.56)
Other: Shipping Insurance ($13.99)
Other: Electronics Recycling Fee ($14.50)
Total: $1034.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-28 13:57 EST-0500
The parent-folk are happy. I ended up cheating and getting NCIX to assemble and test it for me for an extra $50. It means that I don't get stuck with a dud part in case that happens and adds some extra peace-of-mind for a very nominal charge.
It might be too late in which case I'm sorry I didn't speak up sooner but the Seagate drive might not be the most reliable. I'm sure some people had great experiences but there were a few that were definitely less than stellar. If it's not too late, you might consider changing to a more reliable HD like a Hitachi for a little more money.
There is an interesting article on this kind of stuff here.
Otherwise, everything else looks like it should be good. And actually, if you setup some sort of cloud storage backup or alternate backup system (which you should do no matter how reliable the drive is because of one of a kind photos and stuff), then the reliability of the drive is much less of an issue.
SteamID: edgruberman GOG Galaxy: EdGruberman
I wish I'd found that article earlier as it does show a failure rate which seems to be way too high to be acceptable. Oh well, I hope the backup system prevents anything from being too catastrophic.