it has been a loooooooooooooong time since i've seen or heard of a processor going bad...i'd bet on the mobo, too

4/8/2010 7:54:23 AM

Thats what Im hoping as well. I sent the motherboard in to be looked at. Its on its way back today.

The thing is this the CPUs from what ive heard is if they shift pins they can get shorted. While none of the pins looked bent, the box was dropped causing this, and I know the heatsink was knocked loose.

4/8/2010 2:11:38 PM

CPUs are locked in there, though...even the old pin CPUs are held in the same way...your heat sink attaches to the board, not the CPU...so even if you threw the thing down the stairs, the CPU is probably still fine, physically

4/8/2010 2:17:40 PM

friend didn't want a 17" dell monitor so i've added that to the desk. Now i've got 19"-24"-24"-17".

Only problem is. What should i have on the 17"? I'm thinking all 14 seasons of Southpark on loop.

4/8/2010 6:01:42 PM

^ If you do that, send me how you did it plz thx!

4/8/2010 7:52:07 PM

^showing videos on loop? can't you just make a playlist in windows media player and have it loop?

4/8/2010 8:03:23 PM

Just ordered:

i7-920
asrock x58 extreme
6gb ddr3-2000 g.skill
antec 900
tt 750w 80+ psu
his hd4870

Have: 4 1TB hdd for raid10

Upgrading for the first time in ~9yrs from:

xp2500+
abit nf7-s
1gb ddr400
160? GB hdd
ati 9800xt
antec case
tt 450w psu

Should be interesting, I couldn't afford to go with a top of the line gpu but figure down the road if I feel the need then I can upgrade.

4/9/2010 11:58:20 AM

haha wow yeah you're going to notice a little difference in speed compared to that old amd system.

4/9/2010 12:00:34 PM

Ill have to see if you can import the southpark stream into WMP. Normally when I watch it its off of their website.

4/9/2010 12:26:10 PM

oooh i have all 14 seasons in files. so i just loop them that way.

4/9/2010 12:31:53 PM

durr

4/9/2010 12:58:25 PM

^^^^Just got a very similar system upgraded from a similarly outdated computer.....it is awesome.

I love that i7 920 so far...very fast.

4/9/2010 4:44:40 PM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883113127

Thoughts on the computer? Seems like a pretty good bargain... I couldn't seem to build one any better for the same money. The graphics card seems weak-sauce, but otherwise appears to be a solid computer for light gaming and daily internet use...

4/13/2010 10:47:58 AM

A couple things stand out:
a) only a 300W PSU, probably means upgrading the GPU will be a challenge
b) the hard drive is a green HDD, variable speed, will probably be around 5400rpm, so not ideal for your OS drive

4/13/2010 2:42:03 PM

^^Practically the same computer except refurb'd:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=CG5275-AR003-PB-R&AID=10440852&CJPID=227502

Asus Essentio CG5275-AR003
Core i5-650 3.2GHz
8GB DDR3 SDRAM
1TB
DVD±RW DL
CPU-integrated graphics
Windows 7 Home Premium
400W PSU
$599 (free shipping code: FREECORE)

Put the $130 saved towards a decent video card.

[Edited on April 13, 2010 at 6:00 PM. Reason : ,]

4/13/2010 5:58:22 PM

Good find... thanks.

4/13/2010 8:43:10 PM

little brother is currently running a c2d e6400 (i think) on a board that doesn't support win7 (it's 3-4 years old and a via chipset), so he wants to upgrade (did you know that western carolina gives their students win7 ultimate for $15????)

budget is $250 or less (but $250 is max, so even if you have the best damn combination in the world for $251, it doesn't matter)...he's got a geforce gt 240 which suits his video needs just fine, and his psu/case/optical drive are all fine, so he needs/wants:

- motherboard
- new processor
- 4gb ddr3
- 500gb+ hard drive

i realize $250 is kind of pushing it, but even though i'm a fan of intel cpus, i don't think there's any good reason to pay for the i-series chips since his current proc is fast enough for what he does...i'm thinking, then, that an AMD solution might be in order, considering they're a much better cost/performance value (especially in a desktop setting...i wouldn't have a mobile AMD chip for anything)

i might have a hard drive he can have, and i'm not concerned about the DDR3 because i'll just wait for whatever value memory shows up on slickdeals for ~$75...so, suggestions for proc/mobo around $175?

4/22/2010 8:54:31 AM

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $54.99
MSI 785GTM-E45 AM3/AM2+/AM2 AMD 785G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - $67.99
AMD Athlon II X3 425 Rana 2.7GHz Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Processor Model ADX425WFGIBOX - $70.00

Total = $175.97 after $20 MIR

4/22/2010 11:40:16 AM

^ aren't those triple cores actually quad cores that failed QC? or was that only a single batch? or am i making stuff up?

4/23/2010 7:55:13 AM

sorta, they are quad cores that had one core fail qc so they deactivated it (like with the ps3 8->7)

4/23/2010 11:49:36 AM

^^that was correct for when the triple-cores first came out, not sure about now., but they are much better performers than dual-cores, and cheaper than quad-cores.

[Edited on April 23, 2010 at 12:58 PM. Reason : .]

4/23/2010 12:57:22 PM

well, in any case, that motherboard is ddr2...i think he was looking to move up to ddr3

4/23/2010 2:22:36 PM

Should I get a mac mini and buy a display/keyboard/mouse/speakers separately or just get an iMac? I want a system that does the basics well but has enough juce for occasional gaming, full screen HD video, etc.

4/28/2010 11:24:03 AM

^I'd just get an iMac. I had an iMac for a while and I was between the same two choices you have. I was much happier with the iMac.

You will not be disappointed with the iMac display...

____________________________


ok...so I have been out of the gaming PC scene for a long time. After playing SC2 I've decided I want to get myself either a Mac Pro or a gaming PC of sorts. My only reasoning behind the Mac Pro is because I'd like to use it for more than just gaming, granted its way more expensive, but the money would be put to good use. If I go gaming PC route, the money will have been spent to literally just play a few games because I won't be using it for anything else.

Who's on top with graphics cards these days? ATI or Nvidia and what models should I be looking at? I was pricing stuff out on newegg last night and dell...seems like going the dell route would cost about $1700 after a 400 savings.

[Edited on May 11, 2010 at 1:46 PM. Reason : .]

5/11/2010 1:42:31 PM

no point in buying a PC if it's so limited. might as well buy a mac and use bootcamp. or wait until Steam releases their app for the Mac tomorrow in hopes some of those games come to the OSX platform.

which it looks like SC2 is coming to mac

[Edited on May 11, 2010 at 1:59 PM. Reason : .]

5/11/2010 1:57:00 PM

^The games I play with the exception of very few are on Mac.

Starcraft 2 being the most important at the moment. So bootcamp wouldn't be necessary. I guess I'm more concerned about the graphics card. You can configure a Mac Pro with "ATI Radeon HD 4870 512MB" but is that a good card for gaming? I'm seeing cards on newegg with 1gb+

5/11/2010 2:00:15 PM

I'd still go with building a PC. You're not going to find any good video card on the Mac Pros for gaming. You'll get a lot more performance for your money by building one.

^The 4870 is kind of old. I'd get something better and newer.

5/11/2010 2:01:16 PM

Ok, so if I go build route... i'm assuming the way to go is an i7 proc...are the 920's and 930's good enough? They're on the more affordable side vs. the 950 and up.

Also, what graphics card is the best buy right now?

5/11/2010 2:04:59 PM

The i7 920 is probably your best bet. Overclocking them is really easy to get the performance of the more expensive ones.

Good resource for video cards:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card-radeon-hd-5870-geforce-gtx-480,2621.html

5/11/2010 2:08:19 PM

Thanks! I'll check that out later today when I get home.

5/11/2010 2:28:21 PM

Quote :

"The i7 920 is probably your best bet. Overclocking them is really easy to get the performance of the more expensive ones."

just out of curiosity, what is the purpose in buying one in the first place? what do any of you do that actually warrants an i7?

this is a serious question, not one aimed at trolling (RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!)

if your goal is gaming, the video card is the bottleneck, not the processor...even for most power users, i'm trying to think of what you'd be doing anything where anything past a i5 7-series (quad core) would make any significant difference, especially for the price

*shrug*

[Edited on May 11, 2010 at 3:40 PM. Reason : i suppose the $80 premium gets you hyper-threading, but name me one app that would utilize 8 "cores"]

5/11/2010 3:37:01 PM

"converting 1080p MKV's to a format playable on other devices"

For me (which is why I want a Mac Pro in addition to my laptop) is photoshop, development, etc. I work with large PSD's that are a bitch to work with.

but when I throw gaming into the mix, then I would require a better graphics card then what comes in a Mac Pro...which is why I also want to go the PC build route.

[Edited on May 11, 2010 at 3:41 PM. Reason : .]

5/11/2010 3:40:48 PM

^ i'm not convinced the i7 proc will make any noticeable difference...4 cores is 4 cores, 8mb cache is 8mb cache, and the i5-750 has turboboost up to 3.2ghz against the i7-920's 2.93ghz (if that means anything)

other than hyper-threading, i suppose the only other difference is that the i7-920 supports triple channel, but are you actually going to spend the money to run it? if not, then that $80 really is a waste because you're relying on the program/OS to actually DO something with the 8 "cores"...and if you are, then you're spending even more than $80 for the performance, which i'm not convinced is even significant

again, this is just my uneducated, personal opinion...i'd like to see some actual evidence that demonstrates the value (cost/performance) of an i7-920 versus an i5-750

[Edited on May 11, 2010 at 3:53 PM. Reason : .]

5/11/2010 3:44:43 PM

This is why I'm seeking advice I haven't been in the 'build a PC' game for a few years and a lot has changed. The last PC I built was an AMD Athlon x64 (or whatever) while P4's were still big.

5/11/2010 4:03:48 PM

FYI, amd just released their 6 core processors.

I just built a i7 920 with a 5870 card. runs all my games perfectly. I would also recommend going with a solid state hard drive. windows 7 boots up in seconds now. all apps and games start immediately.

5/11/2010 6:39:45 PM

^yeah i was also looking at SSD. What size did you get and how much $texas did you fork up?

5/11/2010 7:39:44 PM

^^ nice, I too just built a new PC this week. Finally updated from my 4 yr old e6600, 8800GTS machine.

Intel i7 930 quad core - $199.99
G.Skill PI Series 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600. CAS 7 - $189.99
ASUS P6X58D-E X58 USB 3.0 ATX - $209.99
LIAN LI Lancool PC-K62 Black Case - $99.99
OCZ ModXSteam Pro 700w SLI Cert 80+ Modular PSU - $89.99
Hitachi Deskstar 7200rpm 1TB HDD - $69.99
Windows 7 Pro 64 bit OEM - $139.99
XFX HD-587X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5870 - $409.99

Total Price $1,363.78 after promo's and instant rebates

Plus I'm waiting for my 2nd 5870 that I got from Dell small business for $348 but its on backorder atm.

I wished I had bought a beefier PSU, but the 700 works fine since the 5870 aren't power hogs like the new 470/480's. I'd also like to get an SSD but until the 128GB or larger drives come down in price to around the 200 or less mark, I won't be getting one. personally I'd like a 256GB sataIII drive, but I'm not going to lay down 700 bones for it.

[Edited on May 11, 2010 at 11:31 PM. Reason : ]

5/11/2010 11:28:04 PM

Where the hell did you get the i7 930 for $199!!!!!!!!! Cheapest I found was $287.95.

5/12/2010 7:22:24 AM

i purchased the 80 gig intel SSD. I have win 7 on it and all my programs. I have a 1TB drive for storage.

5/12/2010 9:40:20 PM

i'm still not sure i see the purpose in putting an SSD in a desktop...to me, the biggest advantages of an SSD are the combination of speed, power management, and negligible heat generation...only one of which is really relevant in a desktop environment

unless you're counting the pennies your regular platter drive costs you each month, or you're using some old-ass system that generates boatloads of heat (or an nvidia card, hah), the only thing that really matters is the speed

given the premium for a QUALITY SSD (if you're gonna buy one, cheaping out is stupid as those drives suck donkey balls), i just can't see the faster boot-up times being worth it...the spinpoint f1 or hitachi 5-platter drives (i forget the model) are pretty damn fast (read speeds near 100mb/s and sustained write around 85mb/s) and they cost a helluva lot less (~$80) for a helluva lot more space (1tb models, IIRC)

if you're not concerned about space, the 640gb black drives are pretty fast, though i think the f1's are still faster (though the blacks have lower seek times, IIRC)

this argument is moot if you're talking about a laptop, but SSDs need to come WAY down in price to be worth anything in a desktop...i don't turn my desktop on and off enough, and when i do, i'm not about to wet my pants waiting for it come on...i'm not sure what you could do on a desktop where the significantly faster access times would really shine (because the only marginally faster read/write speeds will likely not manifest except in rare situations)

[Edited on May 13, 2010 at 8:22 AM. Reason : to each their own...if 3x the price is worth 1/4 the lifespan and 1/10 the space, go for it]

5/13/2010 8:17:37 AM

we're talking 50+% increase in speed though, HDD's just can't obtain the same level of performance, so SSD's are always going to cost more even though they are cheaper to make, and it's not just boot times. it's all the time speed, the biggest bang for buck is in a gaming rig. outside of gaming or running your desktop as some sort of server, i don't see the value in it either. but the performance is worth the price for some.

in terms of life span, SSD's are rated for the same 1,2M-1,5M MTBF as hard drives are now.

they're also not meant to replace your entire hard drive, just your OS drive w/ your applications, so i don't see a real need for getting an SSD over 60-120GB

[Edited on May 13, 2010 at 11:30 AM. Reason : .]

5/13/2010 11:26:22 AM

Since I just built the machine I figure my inquiry has not breached the statute of limitations. I have x-fired 5770s hooked up to a 24" monitor. The stock drivers looked fine but they occasionally crashed so last night I updated them from XFX's website. Now, the background doesn't fill the screen and things are slightly blurry. Yes, it is on max resolution (1920x1080) and both cards have the same driver. And my monitor (Hanns-G) isn't letting me manually adjust the vertical and horizontal. The options are simply grayed out. Thoughts?

5/13/2010 1:54:27 PM

Quote :

"we're talking 50+% increase in speed though, HDD's just can't obtain the same level of performance"

that's only true of read times because their access times are so low, so they're insanely fast for reading...but their sustained writes are WORSE than HDDs

look at the intel X25-M (not the 34nm version, unless you're planning on spending $400+), but the much more prevalent version at a paltry $200+ for 80gb)...you get a sustained write of about 78 Mb/s:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-flash-ssd-charts/Write-Throughput-h2benchw-3.12,909.html

now look at any number of hard drives under $100, most specifically the 1tb samsung F3 (only $90 at the egg), which manages a whopping 115 MB/s AVERAGE write:

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2009-3.5-desktop-hard-drive-charts/h2benchw-3.12-Avg-Write-Throughput,1013.html

don't get me wrong, i'm aware of the fact that you qualified this statement later on by mentioning that the bang-for-buck in the gaming sector, and i don't disagree with you...but really, aside from boot, when was the last time you noticed your computer being "too slow" for gaming in a way you know for a fact was related to a hard drive read bottleneck?

maybe i'm just not playing the right games or using the right software (which i admit is very very likely, since i don't feel the need to be on the bleeding edge of tech, nor am i willing to pay the ridiculous premium that comes with the e-peen status)

*shrug*

5/13/2010 4:02:49 PM

but speed where it counts for gaming is in READ times, this matters in online gaming big time, first person to load the level means first person to spawn, it matters.

i have a VR, no SSD, i too can't justify the cost, but i'm close on making the plunge.

[Edited on May 13, 2010 at 4:26 PM. Reason : .]

5/13/2010 4:25:30 PM

This is why I don't miss building a gaming rig

5/13/2010 4:42:07 PM

Quote :

"but speed where it counts for gaming is in READ times, this matters in online gaming big time"

i would think that the bottleneck in online gaming is the network, not the hard drive

5/13/2010 5:20:44 PM

yea, but not that hard to find servers these days close to your location, my ping never gets over 50ms on most servers these days.

5/13/2010 5:36:14 PM

Let me clarify that I came from a AMD single core 4000+ processor, 1 gig, ram, 80 gig WD hard drive, and a 7800GT video card. So my new rig with the I7 930, 5870 Card, 6 gigs ram, 80 gig SSD, 1TB HD is a HUGE bump in speed. I probably would have been just as happy with a fast WD black drive. I purchased the SSD due to reviews when gaming and the talk about the fast boot times for win 7. Was it necessary? probably not. But neither is 6 gigs of ram, I7 930, and a 5870 card. Whats another $100 when I have already spent close to $2000 on my rig.


Another awesome thing that doesn't justify buying a SSD is when installing drivers and it asks you to reboot the system, its not a pain anymore. Takes less time to reboot than it use to take me to open and excel document

5/13/2010 9:15:21 PM

Quote :

"Where the hell did you get the i7 930 for $199!!!!!!!!! Cheapest I found was $287.95."

Microcenter, they had a sell at the beginning of the month. i7 920 were $170, but they were sold out. It was an in store only sale so I had a friend from NJ buy it for me and ship to me in Miami.

As for SSD's, they make a ton of difference when editing large files in photoshop in terms of loading massive 4GB+ files. Plus working on an SSD for solid works, 3ds max 2010, or any video editor working with 1080p and 24bit/96Khz audio files is a huge improvement. Since I'm just dicking around with those programs, it doesn't kill me to wait a few more seconds for loading times. Shit my $70 1TB drive is pretty damn fast.

If I was doing it as a pro, I'd probably invest in a good dual cpu server class setup with 64-128GB of ram on 6 or 8 core xeon cpu's. The only down side with those server class mobo's is that you can't really OC them very much. I'd probably build the rig as a dual watercooling setup or maybe triple cooling setup in a nice custom mountain mods full size case. That's only if I can make 100k+ a year on retouching and editing.

5/13/2010 10:40:27 PM

JBaz I think you owe your friend some beers. Good find.

Also, for your pro build you could use the new dual socket evga SR-2 mobo that allows overclocking. I cant imagine having 12 logical cores and 12 hyperthreaded cores. Oh the folding goodness.

http://www.evga.com/products/prodlist.asp?switch=5

5/14/2010 7:55:14 AM