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Penguin Bacon posted:Yah, I know I'm being gourged. It is not the best that I'm being forced into this route but I don't have the choice. I'm still sitting on a built computer from 2008. It is still good but its getting long in the tooth. If the prices get really bad, I'll just have to take a vacation day or two to get things up to snuff.  Building a PC is 3 hours, tops, unless you're  about overclocking.Mount mother board, click in ram, plug in video card, plug in/mount hard drive and optical (if you even need one), install power cables to peripherals and mobo, drop in CPU and stock cooler. Install windows. You're done. To me that's not worth the price difference for a prebuilt solution from a possibly sketchy off brand OEM.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 21:18 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 09:52 |
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Clearly he doesn't care if it's a bad idea he just wanted the thread to sign off on it for him so the burden of responsibility for his poor choice is reduced.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 21:24 |
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LmaoTheKid posted:Building a PC is 3 hours, tops, unless you're As someone who tried building their own PC for the first time only a few years ago, I can confirm this. It is brainlessly simple these days. I think the task that took the most time was applying thermal paste to the processor, and that's only because I was flipping my poo poo about getting it just perfect. Unless of course you care how organized the cables and poo poo look, in which case you could spend hours with zip ties.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 21:27 |
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Reggie Died posted:Cheers, If you have 000F and it's still having problems, I'd probably call Crucial support and RMA that sumgun. Sorry 
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 21:29 |
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It's much more complicated to get all the latest drivers you need together than the physical act of assembling a computer.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 21:36 |
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Feels like a silly question, but I just want to make absolutely certain before I risk doing anything stupid, but replacing my old laptop hard drive with a new 1tb WD model, the following steps will cover it, right? 1: Remove old hard drive. 2: Remove caddy from old hard drive, attach to new one. 3: Insert new drive, close up. 4: install windows. 5: restore backup. 6: Party. I ask because the WD blue drive I grabbed today says it recommends professional installation, but WD has a video that shows how to install an identical looking drive that looks completely simple.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 21:49 |
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DamnGlitch posted:It's much more complicated to get all the latest drivers you need together than the physical act of assembling a computer. It's really not that big a deal anymore, most hardware you buy includes an installation CD and even if it doesn't windows update can usually find the right driver for you. In my experience it's either old or very specific hardware that requires you to search for their drivers.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 21:50 |
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Crackbone posted:Your TV is 1080p unless it's exceedingly old. Excellent, thanks! Now I just need to figure out what's loving up and replace that. Maybe it'll be the graphics card and thus be win-win.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 21:50 |
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Fano posted:It's really not that big a deal anymore, most hardware you buy includes an installation CD and even if it doesn't windows update can usually find the right driver for you. In my experience it's either old or very specific hardware that requires you to search for their drivers. Neither are particularly daunting, to be honest. The included CD drivers are usually poo poo old tho, so you tend to have to visit the manufacturer's site for the latest various mobo / graphics drivers.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 21:58 |
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A few quick questions about thermal compound: I picked up a tube of Arctic Silver 5 when I ordered all my parts, but my Hyper 212 Evo showed up and it came with a tube of Cooler Master branded compound. This stuff is referred to as 'thermal grease' in the Evo instructions, so I don't know if it's a different sort of product to the arctic silver or what. Which should I use? And any tips for actually applying it? The instructions on the arctic silver website seem pretty daunting, making it sound as though even touching my CPU will ruin the application process and cause my CPU to die within 10 seconds due to inadequate cooling etc... Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 22:24 |
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Would I be able to build my own machine in the $500-$600 price range which is capable of streaming a game such as League of Legends at an average quality, while not feeling the effect of the stream on the actual game play? With my current setup once I enable the the streaming software, xsplit, I have to deal with an in-game lag/delay which really hinders the experience. The main purpose of this new setup would be to stream without this happening. I would also be using it for other games, basic image editing, software developemt/qa and other productivity oriented tasks. In terms of video settings/stream quality I am at the point where I will be happy with what I can get for the budget.
T0ne fucked around with this message at Jan 2, 2013 around 23:05 |
| # ? Jan 2, 2013 22:29 |
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GuardianOfAsgaard posted:A few quick questions about thermal compound: I picked up a tube of Arctic Silver 5 when I ordered all my parts, but my Hyper 212 Evo showed up and it came with a tube of Cooler Master branded compound. This stuff is referred to as 'thermal grease' in the Evo instructions, so I don't know if it's a different sort of product to the arctic silver or what. Which should I use? And any tips for actually applying it? The instructions on the arctic silver website seem pretty daunting, making it sound as though even touching my CPU will ruin the application process and cause my CPU to die within 10 seconds due to inadequate cooling etc... Doesn't matter which you use, there's very little difference between their effectiveness. Don't sweat the paste application - put a grain of rice/pea sized piece on middle of the heatsink, and install on CPU. The pressure will spread it.
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 22:37 |
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Amazon has an EVGA 660 ~superclocked 2gb~ for 199.99 USD with mail-in rebate going right now. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...aw_bottom_links
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| # ? Jan 2, 2013 23:15 |
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DamnGlitch posted:Clearly he doesn't care if it's a bad idea he just wanted the thread to sign off on it for him so the burden of responsibility for his poor choice is reduced. Buying a high-end prebuilt isn't the best choice in value-for-money terms, but it's not the sort of poor choice where you have to worry about shoving the "burden of responsibility" onto those drat parts-picking goons when it comes time to regret the purchase. If you've got the disposable income to buy something from Alienware, Origin, or Falcon Northwest, it's not going to be a bad computer, and odds are you won't regret it. The only problem is the fact that the convenience of "take computer of box, plug in, play games" comes at a fairly steep premium. T0ne posted:Would I be able to build my own machine in the $500-$600 price range which is capable of streaming a game such as League of Legends at an average quality, while not feeling the effect of the stream on the actual game play? With my current setup once I enable the the streaming software, xsplit, I have to deal with an in-game lag/delay which really hinders the experience. The main purpose of this new setup would be to stream without this happening. I would also be using it for other games, basic image editing, software developemt/qa and other productivity oriented tasks. In terms of video settings/stream quality I am at the point where I will be happy with what I can get for the budget. Probably not. Encoding video in real time takes a lot of CPU power, and powerful CPUs cost quite a bit of money. If you've got some parts that work OK already, you might be able to just upgrade your CPU (probably alongside several other components) but keep the video card, hard drive, power supply, OS license, and so forth. But, starting from scratch, you're not likely to get very far on a $500-600 budget. The traditional route for that kind of money is to get a cheap Dell Outlet system for $400-450 and upgrade the video card with a low-midrange $100ish model. But, the i3 you'll probably get in that system isn't enough to handle real-time video encoding while you're playing a game (at least, as long as streaming software doesn't support the built-in "Quick Sync" hardware video encoder). What do you have right now?
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 03:28 |
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Right now I have the following: ATI Radeon HD 3600 Series AMD Phenom(tm) 8450 Triple-Core Processor (3 CPUs), ~2.1GHz Memory: 4096MB RAM
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 03:40 |
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I'm about to start putting my system together and was looking over a few guides for it and some recommend removing the thermal paste that comes on the cooler and putting on your own, they don't say it is necessary or anything just that some people do it. Is it generally recommended to do this? Or is this old advice that doesn't apply anymore, as the guides were all kind of older.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 04:18 |
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Last summer my computer crashed, and since my usage was on par with someone's grandparents (email, internet, itunes, torrents and PS3media server), I replaced it on the extreme cheap. Basically only bought CPU, SSD HD and Ram (everything else was gifted to me or re-used from the old computer). Hearing that I built a new computer, my buddy gifted me some steam titles, so I'm wanting to at the very least add a dedicate GPU, or possibly upgrade the CPU as well. Current build: Mobo: Asus P8Z77-V CPU: Intel G620 Ram: 8Gig Corsair something something PSU: Seasonic S12II 520W HD: Crucial M4 SSD, 128GB (plus lots of additional storage) Looking at the OP, I was wondering if the 620 would be too much of a bottleneck to get much use of an added GPU, such as the Radeon 7770. Or if it would be more prudent to upgrade the CPU to the i3-3220 at the same time. Or go deep down the upgrade path rabbit hole, get a higher end GPU and upgrade the CPU down the line when I'm bored with Left4Dead and want to start playing Diablo or Civ.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 04:25 |
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I hope this is the right thread. Just tell me and I'll move this somewhere. Availability and price is a huge issue with everything electronic in my country, so maybe you guys can help me out with this. If I'm only planning on playing stuff like Dawn of War 2, Wargame: European Escalation and Shogun 2 Total War, would an Onboard HD6550D have me covered? It's on a AMD Quad-Core 3.0ghz processor. It's either that (for $600) or an onboard HD7760D on a AMD Quad-Core 3.8ghz (for $700). The later got a heatsink on it's 8GB ram.  The prices displayed are for the whole thing, not including OS/monitor. Any of those two would be a huge step for my current computer, which is running an Intel Dual Core 2.93ghz, 2gb RAM and a GT9500.  Yeah, I know next to nothing about this stuff.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 04:53 |
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Uuuuuuuuugh. So, after waiting 2 weeks for the RMA to finish, and then waiting 10 more days to get back to my dorm(where my PC is), I've discovered that the replacement video card is also not working, it would freeze/short circuit or something during post. It works fine with no GPU in, and although I wasn't able to hook it up to the monitor due to not having the right cables, it was able to post and get power to everything correctly when using a friend's GTX 470 (which requires way more power, so I'm sure it's not an underpowered psu). Is there some extra step specific to my GPU I'm missing due to being an idiot? I checked all the manuals and stuff it came with, and there didn't seem to be anything I was missing. For full disclosure, this is everything in my setup: -Asrock z77 extreme 3 mobo -Intel i5 3570k cpu -msi raptor II case -Antec Earthwatts Green 650w 80 plus bronze certified pcu -8gb ddr3 1600 G-skill ripjaw ram -WD blue(I think) 500g hdd -Some asus dvd drive -And the douchebag GPU in question, the MSI Radeon hd 7770 ghz edition (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16814127687) I got it for a steal on Black Friday($100, or $70 after a rebate I never actually got to send in), but with all the frustration I just want to return it and pick up something else from microcenter/best buy, possibly use some xmas money to upgrade to a 650ti. Edit: Ok so Microcenter and Best Buy are out, no good deals on what I want. However, Tiger Direct has this EVGA 650 ti, seems to be a pretty good deal at $150, or $140 after rebate as long as I order it this month. http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...9&sku=E145-0658 Ruin Completely fucked around with this message at Jan 3, 2013 around 07:05 |
| # ? Jan 3, 2013 05:48 |
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Hey new thread. Quick question I've been meaning to ask for a few months: I gave my girlfriend my gaming PC from 5 years ago, the power supply died, and I replaced it with this to hopefully use in a future build when the old machine is decommissioned. It seems to work fine, but every night when she shuts the computer down it makes a short, loud chirp noise right as it turns off completely. Should I RMA it, or is this nothing to worry about?
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 06:13 |
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It's come time for me to add some more storage space to my year old computer. I currently have a 500gb Caviar Blue, which performance and noise wise has been fantastic. I'm looking to add either 1TB or 2TB, but since I'm in the UK finding the currently tech website/magazine favoured Samsung Spinpoint F3 over here is a little difficult. It's out of stock or unlisted on most places (unless I'm missing something and it's branded under a different name). Can anyone give me an anecdotal on going with a WD green over black, for noise and performance? The green drives are vastly cheaper (3TB for the price of a 1TB black), but I hear about slow spin up times and so on - are they considered unsuitable for things like game installations? I could spend slightly more and get a 2TB Black but I worry about them being a lot louder than the Blue drives. Sites I have been using are the standard Scan, Aria and Amazon. Any help vastly appreciated  edit: I should say also that the Seagate drives are just as cheap as the green drives, but I have had bad experiences with them in the distant past and that tends to colour my judgement (I don't know if any current manufacturers are considered 'best avoided', or if they're all pretty homogeneous these days). Harmonica fucked around with this message at Jan 3, 2013 around 08:05 |
| # ? Jan 3, 2013 07:54 |
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Would it be worth the price of upgrading from 6GB RAM to 8GB? Can I just buy a 2GB stick depending on the motherboard or should I go buying a whole new set that adds up to 8GB? Secondly, looking at RAM without poo poo on them gives me brands that I honestly have no clue about, does it matter that much? Geil, Pareema and Silicon Power are some of the lower priced RAM on Newegg's 2x 4GB list.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 08:51 |
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Falli Wagga posted:I'm about to start putting my system together and was looking over a few guides for it and some recommend removing the thermal paste that comes on the cooler and putting on your own, they don't say it is necessary or anything just that some people do it. Is it generally recommended to do this? Or is this old advice that doesn't apply anymore, as the guides were all kind of older. Pre-applied thermal paste is perfectly fine. The difference between the "cheap" stuff they put on coolers vs. the most expensive Artic Silver is maybe a few degrees.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 13:51 |
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Reggie Died posted:Last summer my computer crashed, and since my usage was on par with someone's grandparents (email, internet, itunes, torrents and PS3media server), I replaced it on the extreme cheap. Basically only bought CPU, SSD HD and Ram (everything else was gifted to me or re-used from the old computer). For a lot of games the G620 isn't actually going to perform any differently from a i3 2120. In games that really care about clock speed and/or having 4 cores you'll see a pretty big performance penalty though. I'd say throw in a resolution-appropriate GPU in there, and enjoy source games. When you want to move on you can think about a new CPU.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 14:03 |
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Azran posted:I hope this is the right thread. Just tell me and I'll move this somewhere. This is all very rough numbers, but in general the 6550D should be around twice as fast as the 9500. To be clear, it's still not very powerful compared to a discrete card - you'd be much better off buying a Radeon 7750 and putting it into whatever you buy. Generally we'd never recommend those AMD chips either. Feel free to post more information and we can try to help.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 14:11 |
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Hey guys, a friend of mine is asking around for another friend on whether a certain card is compatible with a certain motherboard. Thought I'd try asking here: Is this graphics card: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showp...rodid=GX-100-GI Compatible with this motherboard: http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Int...#specifications Thanks.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 14:12 |
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Xachariah posted:Hey guys, a friend of mine is asking around for another friend on whether a certain card is compatible with a certain motherboard. Thought I'd try asking here: Yes, they are compatible. I'd warn the friend of a friend of your cousin that just because they're physically compatible doesn't mean it will work or work well. Your PSU has to have enough wattage/amperage to support the card, and depending on what cpu they have in their machine it could seriously bottleneck the performance of the video card.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 14:15 |
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Crackbone posted:This is all very rough numbers, but in general the 6550D should be around twice as fast as the 9500. To be clear, it's still not very powerful compared to a discrete card - you'd be much better off buying a Radeon 7750 and putting it into whatever you buy. Well, to begin with, thanks for the answer.  As of the matter at hand, I think I'll end up buying the more expensive option, since it offers a bit more for a not so big price increase (8gb, 7660HD). While I would be more comfortable using Intel stuff/other processors, availability is huge issue here. Also, customs taxes tend to be over 150% of the original value. The stuff I'd prefer is out of stock, it seems. Possibly going to install Windows 7 64-bits. I think it's the right choice, considering the 8gb. Right? Mostly, I wanted to know if I was shooting myself in the foot with this purchase. Any issues I should be aware of?
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 14:31 |
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Little general question: if I buy an all-in-one, will it be fully upgradeable? I'm at a point in my life where I want a new PC, but I don't have time to build, but I probably will have time to build at some point in the future (a year or so).
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 15:32 |
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Inverse square posted:Little general question: if I buy an all-in-one, will it be fully upgradeable? I'm at a point in my life where I want a new PC, but I don't have time to build, but I probably will have time to build at some point in the future (a year or so). No, it will not, and upgrading systems is almost always a bad idea anyway. You literally don't have 3-4 hours available to build a computer? If not, when will you have time to use it?
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 15:39 |
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Am I silly to consider this 560 Ti at 100$ used over the 7770 gigabyte edition?
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 17:44 |
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LmaoTheKid posted:Am I silly to consider this 560 Ti at 100$ used over the 7770 gigabyte edition? Other than being a Gigabyte card, which we don't recommend, that's a fantabulous deal.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 17:45 |
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Factory Factory posted:Other than being a Gigabyte card, which we don't recommend, that's a fantabulous deal. All the newegg reviews seem ok, a few lemons here and there but for 100 bucks I think I might bite.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 17:47 |
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Crackbone posted:1. You don't really need 16G given what you've told us. If you really want 16G you can get it for cheaper than that ($60 on Newegg). Since they are currently out-of-stock of the bitfenix prodigy (and it looks like they are being discontinued) unless I want the red color one, and given the few mITX choices available and the possibility of that form factor being abandoned I worked up this alternate ATX build: PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.99 @ Microcenter) Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($187.98 @ SuperBiiz) Memory: Crucial Ballistix sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($35.99 @ Newegg) Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($89.99 @ Microcenter) Storage: Intel 520 Series Cherryville 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($119.95 @ B&H) Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB Video Card ($279.99 @ Newegg) Case: Corsair C70 Military Green (Green) ATX Mid Tower Case ($122.98 @ Amazon) Power Supply: Antec Neo Eco 520W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg) Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224BB DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Newegg) Monitor: Dell U2312HM 23.0" Monitor ($245.41 @ Mac Connection) Keyboard: Das Keyboard Model S Professional Wired Standard Keyboard ($124.99 @ Newegg) Total: $1448.25 I knocked $200+/- off the cost by lowering the SSD to 120GB. Is this a mistake or should I invest in more space? My install will basically be the OS, Visual Studio, Office, Maybe SQL Server. I was going to put Steam + Steam Games on the 1TB WD Black Drive. I *might* put 2 or 3 games on the SSD if they benefit from it. Maybe Starcraft 2, Battlefield 3, etc. Am I correct in assuming that I should avoid the miniITX considering the lack of options and the fact that cases are being discontinued? I've got around $4000 in my bank account, so it wouldn't kill me if I did up to $2000 for this build. But I'm trying to keep it around $1500.00 unless there is something I absolutely should upgrade given the budget.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 17:56 |
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Crackbone posted:No, it will not, and upgrading systems is almost always a bad idea anyway. 3-4 hours? It took me 30 minutes to build my first ever self made PC. Everything fits together like Lego and it seriously doesn't take more than 5 minutes to double check you're doing the right thing before doing it. Honestly it was anti-climax after my preparation. I had multiple building guides open cause I thought it was gonna be tricky, but nope.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 17:57 |
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LLJKSiLk posted:I knocked $200+/- off the cost by lowering the SSD to 120GB. Is this a mistake or should I invest in more space? My install will basically be the OS, Visual Studio, Office, Maybe SQL Server. I was going to put Steam + Steam Games on the 1TB WD Black Drive. I *might* put 2 or 3 games on the SSD if they benefit from it. Maybe Starcraft 2, Battlefield 3, etc. 120G is fine, it's just the lowest we generally recommend. You should be saving at most $100 moving from 240 to 120 though. There's no reason to avoid mITX if you want it. I'm not sure where you're getting the impression the Bitfeenix Prodigy is going to be discontinued. Further, the ITX form factor isn't going anywhere either.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 18:03 |
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Xachariah posted:3-4 hours? It took me 30 minutes to build my first ever self made PC. Everything fits together like Lego and it seriously doesn't take more than 5 minutes to double check you're doing the right thing before doing it. 30 minutes isn't realistic for most people. Even if you have a perfect build, unpacking the parts could take 30 minutes. Figure in some head-scratching for CPU mounting and front panel headers, and windows install, I think it's fair to ballpark that long.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 18:05 |
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Crackbone posted:120G is fine, it's just the lowest we generally recommend. You should be saving at most $100 moving from 240 to 120 though. Well, the white version of the prodigy has been listed as discontinued and the only place I can find it is via 3rd party sellers. The black version is out of stock everywhere. The other two (red/orange), red would work for me but they are making it more expensive (Like $20 extra) than what they were selling the black for. As far as mITX motherboards, there are like two that are worth a poo poo for gaming/overclocking purposes. I'd just hate to lock into a case, and then have the form factor boards in the future only support HTPC uses and not be suitable for upgrading for gaming later on. That's just a feeling, and not based on any announcements I've seen.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 18:08 |
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LLJKSiLk posted:Well, the white version of the prodigy has been listed as discontinued Here is an in-stock white version, if interested: http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=71144
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 18:13 |
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| # ? May 21, 2013 09:52 |
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Just for the record, I waited like 3 or 4 weeks for the Prodigy to come back in stock on NewEgg before getting a notification e-mail saying that it had been discontinued. It then came back in stock like a week later. I snatched one up the minute I got the e-mail that they were back in stock. If you really want it, you may have to play the waiting game.
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| # ? Jan 3, 2013 19:08 |
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