Should be fine. That mobo has PCI-E.

8/9/2013 2:41:53 PM

I haven't looked at parts in a long time. I just wasn't sure if the PCI express 1.0 vs 2.0 and 3.0 made a compatibility difference or if it's like USB and only a data cap difference...

8/9/2013 2:51:59 PM

PCI Express cards are backward compatible with older slot versions. It's just that your motherboard won't necessary will be benefiting from the faster data transfer rate with the 3.0 standard, instead it will run at 1.0a speeds. So with a 7850, expect your biggest bottle neck, besides an older CPU, to also include a very very saturated PCIe bus.

[Edited on August 9, 2013 at 3:54 PM. Reason : ]

8/9/2013 3:53:08 PM

I'm lazy and I have money... so more of a new computer order rather than a "build" per se...

New computer (http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/BTS_Revolt_i7_Special):
1 x Case ( iBUYPOWER Revolt Mini Tower Gaming Case )
1 x Case Lighting ( Revolt Advanced Lighting )
1 x Processor ( Intel® Core™ i7-4770K Processor (4x 3.50GHz/8MB L3 Cache) - Intel® Core™ i7-4770K )
1 x Processor Cooling ( Asetek 550LC Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1155] - Standard 120mm Fan )
1 x Memory ( 16 GB [8 GB x2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand )
1 x Video Card ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 - 4GB - Single Card )
1 x Free Stuff ( [FREE Game Download] - GRID2 - FREE with Intel 4th Gen Processor )
1 x Free Stuff ( [FREE Game Voucher] - Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist - Free with NVIDIA GeForce GTX660 or above Video Cards )
1 x Motherboard ( ASRock B85M-ITX )
1 x Power Supply ( 500 Watt - FSP 1U 80 Plus Gold Certificated Power Supply )
1 x Primary Hard Drive ( 120 GB Corsair Neutron GTX SSD - Single Drive )
1 x Optical Drive ( 6x BLU-RAY Reader + DVD±R/±RW Slot Load Combo Drive )
1 x Internal Wireless Network Adapter ( FREE Internal Bluetooth and Wireless Adaptor [Revolt-B85] )
1 x Operating System ( Windows 8 + Office 2010 Trial [Free 60-Day !!!] - 64-bit )

8/17/2013 5:54:05 PM

^That's a neat looking case.

My home desktop started acting up a couple of weeks ago. Then last night it started BSOD'ing every 30-40 minutes, with completely random reasons. Worse, it wasn't capturing any memory dumps, so I can't do shit to directly investigate.

So today so far I've upgraded the firmware in my SSD (which I'm betting is the culprit) and now running memtest. If anything fails, it'll be a good excuse to go buy a new computer today . This one is cobbled together from about 4 years of parts.

AMD Phenom II X4 945 I've had for years, on one of the last AM3+ boards I could find when the original board shit the bed a year or so ago. Currently 8gb of Corsair XMS3, hand-me-downs from the htpc when I moved it to an itx case and the memory wouldn't clear the dvdrom drive. And a Radeon 5830 I got on super sale two years ago for my work desktop at the time, so I could use a 30" monitor. Got a new laptop at work, so I brought it back home. PSU is a 650w OCZ I got about 9 months ago after the previous PSU destroyed when someone tripped over the power cable. All in an antec 900 case with mismatched intake fans because one failed last year and two optical drives, but one is disconnected because I have too many hdd's

Did I mention I really hope this thing doesn't pass memtest?

8/17/2013 6:09:35 PM

Quote :

"My home desktop started acting up a couple of weeks ago. Then last night it started BSOD'ing every 30-40 minutes, with completely random reasons. Worse, it wasn't capturing any memory dumps, so I can't do shit to directly investigate."

Same here. My old build is probably somewhere in this thread. It has been randomly BSODing, no memory dumps and nothing in the event log. Mine only does it about once a day though. I'm going to restore the initial backup and try to sell it on craigslist and let someone else figure it out.

8/17/2013 6:12:10 PM

Anyone have mouse recommendations?

My favorite mouse of all time was the Logitech MX Revolution. I'm considering buying one used off of ebay, I loved it so much (it was stolen). Right now I'm using the VX Revolution I've had for probably 6 years, but the forward/back buttons are starting to wear out, and the Li-Ion battery I've used for years is losing its charge (and its slightly oversize, so now regular AA's don't touch the contacts).

Would like something wireless, substantial, and right handed (I *hate* symmetrical mice). My favorite thing on the Logitech Revolutions has been the scroll wheel switch between infinite coast and microgear, followed closely by the zoom and forward/back buttons.

8/17/2013 6:25:07 PM

Quote :

"New computer (http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/BTS_Revolt_i7_Special): 1 x Case ( iBUYPOWER Revolt Mini Tower Gaming Case ) 1 x Case Lighting ( Revolt Advanced Lighting ) 1 x Processor ( Intel® Core™ i7-4770K Processor (4x 3.50GHz/8MB L3 Cache) - Intel® Core™ i7-4770K ) 1 x Processor Cooling ( Asetek 550LC Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1155] - Standard 120mm Fan ) 1 x Memory ( 16 GB [8 GB x2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand ) 1 x Video Card ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 - 4GB - Single Card ) 1 x Free Stuff ( [FREE Game Download] - GRID2 - FREE with Intel 4th Gen Processor ) 1 x Free Stuff ( [FREE Game Voucher] - Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Blacklist - Free with NVIDIA GeForce GTX660 or above Video Cards ) 1 x Motherboard ( ASRock B85M-ITX ) 1 x Power Supply ( 500 Watt - FSP 1U 80 Plus Gold Certificated Power Supply ) 1 x Primary Hard Drive ( 120 GB Corsair Neutron GTX SSD - Single Drive ) 1 x Optical Drive ( 6x BLU-RAY Reader + DVD±R/±RW Slot Load Combo Drive ) 1 x Internal Wireless Network Adapter ( FREE Internal Bluetooth and Wireless Adaptor [Revolt-B85] ) 1 x Operating System ( Windows 8 + Office 2010 Trial [Free 60-Day !!!] - 64-bit )"

I gotta say, you'd be hard pressed to build an ITX system like that yourself for the same price. Plus iBuypower are pretty good, even though they have the worst name for a boutique pc builder. I'm assuming you will be adding a storage hard drive in there after the fact? 120GB SSD is very very tiny and would have probably advised you to double that since $/GB are cheaper these days.

8/18/2013 9:01:17 PM

Just bought these two AIO liquid cpu coolers. I plan on hacking them and using them to cool super bright LED's.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103179
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103181

8/19/2013 5:19:28 PM

^^ I've got about 12TB in hard drives around the house. I will put something in there. But really, all my data goes on my NAS.

8/20/2013 1:00:46 PM

data storage for media on a NAS is great and all... but after Windows and essential apps, you'd be lucky to have enough space for one modern game on a 120GB ssd. I've got about 9TB on my gaming computer alone and have my entire steam library on a dedicated mechanical hard drive, plus the two main games I play on my boot SSD.

I'm planning on designing and building a 50-100TB file server for my own companies and already got about two other companies interested in me building it for them too.

8/20/2013 10:11:24 PM

^ you should probably avoid doing that. if it's for backup the cloud is the way to go, if it's for performance, you want SAN, not NAS. if you just need really fast scratch space, it's really hard to beat ixsystems

8/21/2013 1:46:39 AM

Why the hell would one use a cloud service when we are talking about 50-100TB of storage that needs to be accessed locally in a home environment on a daily basis? I don't have fios high speed net and still doesn't negate the fact that I would still need a large temp storage on site to work with large files...

And yes... it will be a SAN... I didn't say anything about it not being a SAN... I only mentioned NAS with regards to LimpyNuts' post. And I really don't need performance, just reliable storage space with lots of data security. It's just going to be housing all the HD material that I shoot.

I plan on building two, one for myself and second for my business partner; mirrored data.

8/21/2013 2:17:48 AM

Quote :

"you'd be lucky to have enough space for one modern game on a 120GB ssd."

Bullshit. I have a 120gb ssd on my laptop and a 256gb on my desktop. Both have managed just fine for productivity software (Create Suite), visual studio, office, and a bunch of steam games.

I just keep skydrive etc all stored on my file server, and it works out very well.

8/21/2013 7:41:08 AM

^^you said "file server" which implies NAS, as NAS is file level access, not block level like a SAN. obviously real nice units can do both and you could make your own with freebsd and zfs, but that's why i mentioned ixsystems.

8/21/2013 9:08:16 AM

I have quite a few loose drives. I will install one of them for scratch space, but 120GB is plenty for essential applications.

8/22/2013 10:34:17 AM

Current PC
i5-2500K at stock w/ stock cooler
8GB CORSAIR XM3 DDR3 1600
ASRock P67 Extreme4 motherboard
Radeon 6870
Intel 320 SSD 120GB
Other hard drives for storage
In a Rosewill Challenger Case
---------------------------------------------
I think I'm going to plan on doing incremental upgrades, keeping the mobo and processor and just air overclocking it with an aftermarket cooler. I want to be able to play StarCitizen on good settings when it finally comes out and Skyrim on max with a bunch of mods to improve the graphics. And essentially any other game that comes out in the next couple years on decent settings at 1080 instead of getting a next gen console.

My plan now is to first buy a new graphics card, probably this ASUS gtx 760:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121775

and replace my existing card for an immediate boost.

Then later buy this NZXT Phantom 630 case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146099

and Rosewill 750W power supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182073

and move the parts over to make room for this aftermarket cooler at a later date
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835709001

because no decent cooler will fit in my current case.

At which point I'll overclock the processor to probably 4.5k.

And get another gtx 760 to run in SLI.

At that point I wonder how beneficial it would be to get faster and more RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231503

Anyway, any input is appreciated.

8/29/2013 11:16:55 AM

Quote :

"Bullshit. I have a 120gb ssd on my laptop and a 256gb on my desktop. Both have managed just fine for productivity software (Create Suite), visual studio, office, and a bunch of steam games."

"My Little Pony: Diamond Quest" doesn't count as a 'modern' game...

Modern games are hitting 30-40GB on the high side. With OS and productivity apps a 120GB SSD, that realistically leaves some 40-50GB left for me to install a game or two and still have enough space to make sure it doesn't get bogged down. SSD's hate it when you get even 20% close to filling up.

Quote :

"you said "file server" which implies NAS, as NAS is file level access, not block level like a SAN. obviously real nice units can do both and you could make your own with freebsd and zfs, but that's why i mentioned ixsystems."

I currently have a freebsd/zfs local server, but its only running about 2.5 TB spread over 6x 500GB hard drives. It was da shit 10 years ago, but easily outpaced by my cheapo 4TB external drive that I got for $130. I incorrectly used the term "file server" wrong, because I was just trying to reference the idea that its a server that holds files... lol

I would love an ixsystems, but with anything, I'd rather build myself since I'm pretty familiar with the systems already. It's really hard to gauge what my data storage needs will be over the next few years to accurately figure out what hardware I should get or invest now. I'm hoping to build at least one system around black Friday.

These video projects tend to get expansive with my shooting habits. Would get orders of magnitude worse if I shoot 4k in the next year or two... As cool as the idea of shooting 4k sounds, I'm not looking forward to all the equipment and supplemental hardware to support such a standard when there's practically no medium to display it besides high end monitors and movie theaters.



Oh, anyone interested in buying my last GTX 570? I'm upgrading my new i7 4770k again with a modern gpu to match it. Damn these expensive hobbies. Atleast now I can write it off for business.

8/31/2013 5:57:32 AM

What modern game uses 40gb of storage space?

8/31/2013 11:43:52 AM

I think BF3(the complete game) and RAGE use like 20GB+ maybe.

8/31/2013 4:40:45 PM

every mmo ever

8/31/2013 7:28:38 PM

woot, installing asus gtx760 now. Display works, now downloading drivers. Better looking Skyrim/SC hangar here I come!

9/4/2013 8:45:08 PM

Where can I buy locally a 2.5mm to 3.5mm headphone jack adaptor?

11/17/2013 2:33:54 PM

I need to add a little bit of HD space to my rig. I don't need a whole lot of space, just something to throw maybe 75GB worth of games on.

I saw a Samsung 840 EVO 120GB on sale for $80 shipped good through Saturday. Should I gamble and see if there are better deals on Black Friday? I've been out of the SSD market for a while...

I've got a 90GB Corsair Force GT from last year. It's running Windows 7, about 2GB of music, some cad software, and World of Tanks (~18-20GB). It's pretty much a full drive with maybe 5GB remaining. For just an operating system and a few other productivity software, 90GB-120GB is fine. As JBaz mentioned, it's gonna be tight putting an OS, some side programs, and a modern game on a 120GB HD. Impossible? No... but if you want to play more than 1 game you're going to have to have a second HD/SSD. Unlike car engines, there's no replacement for displacement here. You either have the space or you don't. Games aren't 5-8GB like they used to be in mid 2000's. They are getting up there in the 20-40GB range and quickly consume the space available on most SSD's. these days and I suspect by the '20s, we'll be looking at games hitting 100GB per install.


[Edited on November 20, 2013 at 3:54 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on November 20, 2013 at 3:57 AM. Reason : .]

11/20/2013 3:39:52 AM

I wouldn't bother with a fast hdd for games unless you're playing an mmo. most games keep as much as possible in memory. slow hdd is only going to be an issue in single player stuff like between level changes and in mmos where there isn't really a concept of letting people load before the map starts.

11/20/2013 11:22:57 AM

I only have Planetside 2 on my SSD, all other Games are on my 1TB 7200 drive that's only sole purpose is for my gaming library. I agree with smoothcrim, most games will run equally as good on a slow HHD vs SSD unless you need the faster load times or playing an MMO.


Ok guys, fess up, what you all looking to get next week? Find a deal, post it up! I'm looking for 2, 3 or 4TB Internal harddrives, but nothing spectacular except for the $85 Toshiba 3TB external sale.

11/20/2013 7:19:23 PM

Well, can't beat $40 for a new 1TB HD.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=744346&sku=TSD-1000AS7

11/21/2013 7:37:07 PM

Except for the 3tb Seagate drive on sale at dell.com today

11/22/2013 1:23:09 AM

you mean the $100 for 3TB external?

11/22/2013 1:25:57 AM

I think I've officially grown up. Have a girlfriend and outdoor activities now. Sadly I won't be buying any new hardware this holiday season. All said money went into ski equipment.

11/22/2013 10:57:18 AM

^Sure that's what you say now... until you're looking at buying a computer for your girlfriend.

Trying to decide between that $40 post-rebate Seagate 1TB that was posted and... anything else. Need a ~1TB 7200rpm internal HDD. Would like to get another SSD but can't really afford right now at the size I need.

11/22/2013 11:41:12 AM

She has a Mac Book Pro and doesn't game at all. I don't see myself spending any money on anything computer for me. I do have an interest in building a better raid setup shortly.

11/22/2013 12:14:49 PM

We are nerds, we never grow up. We still want our toys, whether its computer gear, ski equipment, motorcycles, cars, tools and what not. Going to go bonkers next week in buying some nice new tools along side building the new home server, maybe some audio capture equipment and a 2nd DSLR full frame body for video capture.

11/24/2013 8:36:59 PM

Don't think I'm ever going to buy a full DSLR again. I'm totally sold on the mirrorless full frame cameras. The Sony 7 is really temping.

11/24/2013 9:34:53 PM

I want a Canon C300/C500 film body, but if I get a more permanent teaching position at the Arts Institute, I'd have access to one next semester when they get them. That would be cool as shit.

11/24/2013 10:20:02 PM

My five-year old computer won't boot into Windows, and my guess is that the RAM died (it failed a RAM diagnostic some months ago when things were still working). BIOS detects my HDDs, but when I put in the Vista (yes, Vista) disc, it doesn't detect an existing OS. My first thought is to just replace the RAM before trying to extract the HDD with the OS and sticking it into my other computer. That said, I want to make sure this RAM is compatible with my Mobo.

RAM: G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL8D-2GBHK http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231134

My MoBo: ASUS P5E3 Deluxe/WiFi-AP LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131218

12/2/2013 10:33:58 AM

Check if your memory has lifetime warranty

12/2/2013 8:00:33 PM

Indeed it appears to.
CORSAIR 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN3X2048-1333C9DHX http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145182

But since it's discontinued, how might that work to get a replacement?

Nevermind. I scrolled down and found the RMA information. Thank you!

[Edited on December 2, 2013 at 9:22 PM. Reason : .]

12/2/2013 8:56:06 PM

the new asus x79 deluxe has onboard wifi. isn't that gonna cause interderence and stuff?

12/10/2013 10:54:09 AM

It shouldn't, most boards with onboard wifi have an external antenna that you connect and mount away from the computer anyways.

12/10/2013 1:16:40 PM

I have an older gaming laptop that has been sitting in my closet for years because I could never figure out what was wrong with it, or rather how to fix it. Been thinking about trying to fix it, since my girlfriend wants something for light gaming. It's an XPS m1530, and a couple years back the screen just stopped displaying. The laptop powers up and seems to go into the motions of booting to login (you can hear processor, the webcam flashes once, which is usually does before it goes to sign in screen), but if I try and enter password and press enter nothing seems to happen (no Windows login noise). The screen's backlighting works, because the screen lights up when you turn it on, but nothing actually displays.

A friend took a look at it a long time ago, and theorized that the integrated video card was fried. However, friend isn't exactly a computer expert, and neither am I. I've tried plugging the laptop to an external display via HDMI with no luck.

12/11/2013 12:20:05 PM

Thinking of upgrading my video card to a GeForce GTX 780 Ti

Any recommendations on which flavor/brand to get, OC, superclocked, etc?

12/27/2013 11:45:01 AM

Santa came through on the case, power supply, RAM, and memory. Also, an x52 HOTAS.

Another GTX 760 and I'm ready for Star Citizen. Installing X-Plane now.

Oh, and if anyone in Raleigh wants 8GB (2 2x2GB dual channel kits) of Corsair XMS3 (8-8-8-24), lemme know.

[Edited on December 27, 2013 at 11:34 PM. Reason : x]

12/27/2013 11:28:25 PM

didn't want to start a new thread for this, but I need 4 screws for my hard drive. Dell XPS M1530. Where's the best place to get these? I've looked online, but have seen different retailers advertising different sizes for this notebook.

12/31/2013 11:09:28 AM

I've been getting the hankering to upgrade my current machine. I used to have dual 20" widescreens and got to where I hated having the "middle" of my screen real estate be bezels. I have a single 24" at the moment. For this next setup I think I am going to go three monitor and mount them to the wall of my office. I don't really need this setup but I'm starting to rather enjoy having nice(r) things for the hell of it. Having said that, the funds aren't a bottomless pit and I do like to do things with a value focus.

At this point I can't decide what size monitors to do. I can see a single 24" in the middle flanked by 20" 4:3 ratio screens on the wings. Three 20" 16:9s or even just 3 24" models.

Again, I don't really need these. I don't game. I often have multiple spreadsheets up. I dabble in programming.

For the new computer components I'm again thinking value. I'm looking for quiet and reasonably fast. I'd go i3 or i5 if they are really worth it over whatever crap AMD has out there today. I'm thinking about a slim case and slim video card. SSD will be a given on box.

All advice appreciated. My only budget criteria is generally "best value" that will get me three nice monitors and a reasonably fast and quiet machine.

[Edited on January 18, 2014 at 12:19 PM. Reason : grammar]

1/18/2014 12:18:40 PM

For productivity, hands down the best arrangement is a 27" or 30" center monitor, with 1 or 2 24" monitors in portrait on either side.

After fiddling with probably 2 dozen monitor configurations over the past 5 years, this is the one that has stuck. Currently a 30" center, 24" right, and 22" multitouch left (that is rarely used, but necessary for what I do at work). If it werent for the occasional need, I'd have a 2nd 24" to the left instead (with both 24's in Portrait).

You can get a 27/30 Yamakasi panel for ~300/~400 from Greensum on ebay. IPS panels with great color accuracy. For the 24's, you just need a monitor that have rotation stands, or buy a VESA mount for wall/desk mounting.

This recommendation is 3x if you spend any amount of time in excel/word/onenote.

1/18/2014 7:54:49 PM

for $400 get the senkei 4k 39" on amazon. excellent productivity monitor. only thing is if you do game, it'll be below native res without a serious card

1/19/2014 5:14:28 PM

^Sorry, but I just can't agree.

First, its Seiki, not Senkei.

Second, they are only 30hz displays at 4k.
Third, the brightness, color and contrast are fucking awful.

Third, they are $600, not $400 http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-Digital-SE39UY04-39-Inch-Ultra/dp/B00DOPGO2G/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1390173071&sr=1-1&keywords=seikei+39

It's definitely a great price, but even for a productivity monitor (aka Office/Software Development) it's still a shitttty display.

The biggest problem with a 4k display today is the lack of inputs. All are HDMI only, only 1.4, which means 30hz max.

[Edited on January 19, 2014 at 6:11 PM. Reason : .]

1/19/2014 6:10:38 PM

Yeah I wouldn't get one of those for desktop use. I've got 2 24's at work and a 27" and 2 24's at home. I really like the three monitor set up the best.

1/19/2014 8:11:19 PM

I have 3 good ips displays at home but at work, we have a script that watches the price of that monitor (it's gone down to 400 over the last few months) and we order them for our desks. 2x 24" TN panels+ the 15" panel in my laptop or a single 39" 4k for coding is a no brainer for me.

it was $404 4 days ago
http://slickdeals.net/f/6632736-seiki-digital-39-and-50-4k-uhd-tvs-404-607-amazon-fs-w-prime-dead

1/20/2014 10:09:50 AM