StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Ok, I'm planing on building a new system and here are the specs so far:

Intel Core i5-750 -$199.99
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3 - $134.99
2*2GB DDR3 1333 RAM - $104.99
GIGABYTE GV-R567OC-1GI Radeon HD 5670 - $82.99
Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB - $79.99
Antec Sonata III 500 - $109.99
SAMSUNG SH-S223L DVD Burner - $26.99
Total: $739.93
Other Hardware (already in use or Storage):
21.5" 1080p Acer Monitor
17" SXGA Dell Monitor
Netgear WG311 802.11G PCI adapter
Windows 7 Pro Upgrade (I have a Copy of XP not in use)

I've just built this system, and am decently happy with it, except for 4 gigs suddenly being not enough due to my habit of week to month long uptimes without reboot, and some programs getting indignant about it. It's a jump from XP for years and years straight to 7, and there's a bit of a learning curve.

Anyway, aside from the ram, I'm starting to become mildly dissatisfied with the video card, and I'm on the fence as to where to go. The board's got an ATI chipset, and the Dual GPU cards from ATI aren't looking bad. But I've been a long time nVidia user, and I'm not sure if there's much point in upgrading yet.

AMD Phenom II 965 Black Edition @ 3.4 (see link in sig for full specs)
Gigabyte GA-77T-UD3
4GB of G-skill DDR3 1600 at rated clock
nVidia GeForce 9800GTX+ 512mb
Creative X-Fi Titanium
WD Caviar 2500KS-00MJB0 250GB SATA HDD
Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB SATA HDD
ASUS DRW-24B1ST SATA DVD burner
nMediaPC HTPC-8000 (honestly, the coolest case I've ever seen)
Samsung Syncmaster T240HD 22" LCD and a random 19" Dell LCD.
Win 7 Ultimate x64
Largest and most unusual stereo speaker setup you've ever seen hooked to a computer.

Whats your monitor? Theres little to no reason to upgrade that graphics card unless you're feeling the pain.

Current ATi cards (the 5xxx series) are by far better than their equivalent nVidias and they cost less to boot.

My primary monitor is a Samsung T240HD at 1920x1200. Most games are fine, but I'm a little concerned about future-proofing, you know? waiting till I've bought a game, finding out it won't run smooth visually, and having to go get a card and tear the system down.

Slysdexia wrote:My primary monitor is a Samsung T240HD at 1920x1200. Most games are fine, but I'm a little concerned about future-proofing, you know? waiting till I've bought a game, finding out it won't run smooth visually, and having to go get a card and tear the system down.

IIRC at that resolution the 512MB of memory on that card will really be hurting you with regard to texture loading, etc... Also the 9800 cards are getting a bit long in the tooth. I'd recommend getting an ATi 5850 or 5870 card.

So my longsuffering GeForce 8800GT seems to finally be giving up the ghost. I once again am far behind the times on graphic cards, so I'd like to know what I can get that is at least comparable now. I'm not married to Nvidia, and I'd like to keep it under $100, but I can go up to probably $200 if it will buy me something far better than the sub-$100.

DesertFly wrote:So my longsuffering GeForce 8800GT seems to finally be giving up the ghost. I once again am far behind the times on graphic cards, so I'd like to know what I can get that is at least comparable now. I'm not married to Nvidia, and I'd like to keep it under $100, but I can go up to probably $200 if it will buy me something far better than the sub-$100.

You would have to be willing to spend >200USD to get something decent... failing that, it's something like a 5670 or something.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:You would have to be willing to spend >200USD to get something decent... failing that, it's something like a 5670 or something.

I must not have made myself clear enough: my current card is a GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16. Considering I got that when it was brand new, I'd assume that prices have come down in the more than two years since then. All I need is something that is comparable to that; all of my current games run fine with it. I'm willing to pay a little extra, though, if, for example, paying 150 is going to get me something way better than that, while 135 is going to be something about the same. I'd go for the same card, but of course that particular version is no longer widely available, and I might as well upgrade since I'm swapping out anyway.

A Radeon 5750 or higher will outperform your 8800GT; the 5750 and 5770 are both under $200. See pretty benchmark charts.

My old system was acting up, which I suspect was the motherboard, involving the system not booting up.

So I decided to upgrade, so here are my new specs:

Antec Twelve Hundred Case
eVGA X58 SLI Core i7 Motherboard
Intel Core i7 930 2.8GHz
Zalman 10X EXTREME CPU Cooler
Corsair 6GB DDR3 1600MHz

Also bought two extra SATA harddrives, one at 500G and one at 1TB. Using the smaller one for OS and system operations and the other one will be for games, media storage, etc.

Hooked up my other three harddrives as well, two at 750G and the oldest one at 320G, for a total of five drives. I won't be running out of space anytime soon.

Kept my DVD/CD Rom and my GTX 260 Core 216 video card. Still installing and setting shit up; looking forward to trying out Crysis on it.

Xon wrote:Areca ARC-1260 PCI-E 16 ports RAID controller w/ 1gb ddr1 onboard ram.

As of this week, I've upgraded my raid controller to a ARC-1680LP sas raid controller w/ 512mb cache with 1 internal mini-sas port and 1 external mini-sas port. It then connects to a HP SAS Expander(does SAS2, and with a firmware update will do Sata3) which has 36 ports on it (in addition to the 4 ports on the internal minisas from the raid controller). This was cheaper than the equivalent 16 port sas card, or even another 16 port sata card but I now have ~40 ports to play with if needed.

Plus the expander came with 4 mini-sas to mini-sas cables and had free shipping.

This will now give me significant room to expand, as I can daisy chain sas expanders upto 128 drives. Best part is the 1680 will simply pickup an array created by the 1260 and Just Work(tm).

Currently I have a 40mm fan bolted to the passive heatsink on the hp sas expander, but this blocks a PCIe slot so I need to mount a found to blow onto the heatsink from the side. A simple metal plane with some holes cut in it for a fan mount and some screw holes should let me mount it via the PCI/PCIe retaining brackets on the case.

Xon wrote:

Xon wrote:Areca ARC-1260 PCI-E 16 ports RAID controller w/ 1gb ddr1 onboard ram.

As of this week, I've upgraded my raid controller to a ARC-1680LP sas raid controller w/ 512mb cache with 1 internal mini-sas port and 1 external mini-sas port.

So does that mean you don't need the old one anymore? I'll give you $50 bucks for it.

Dominus Atheos wrote:So does that mean you don't need the old one anymore? I'll give you $50 bucks for it.

It's still +$755 new, and postage would cost more than that.

Xon wrote:

Dominus Atheos wrote:So does that mean you don't need the old one anymore? I'll give you $50 bucks for it.

It's still +$755 new, and postage would cost more than that.

Yes, I know that.

Simple question which someone might be able to answer - is there any operational difference between using a tower and using an old desktop style unit? I was thinking about going from the tower back to the multimedia / home theatre style case as it's a bit easier to find somewhere to keep it, but I don't know if there's a reason that the old desktop style computers seemed to disappear from useage.

El Moose Monstero wrote:Simple question which someone might be able to answer - is there any operational difference between using a tower and using an old desktop style unit? I was thinking about going from the tower back to the multimedia / home theatre style case as it's a bit easier to find somewhere to keep it, but I don't know if there's a reason that the old desktop style computers seemed to disappear from useage.

No real practical difference. However some desktop/htpc cases will only take half size expansion cards (tv-tuners, graphics cards, etc) which is something to keep in mind if building yourself or wanting to add to it later.

I want a laptop for university and dorm life (I.E Discreete graphics/Gaming). Weight and size are a premium (I'm strong, but I'll be taking buses in between campuses on a daily basis, and I may want to carry it around to back up photos onto).
I've tried 9" netbooks and they're too small for me. Ideal for me would be around 12-13 inches and light. Battery life is also important, as most of the lecture halls here lack power outlets.

I'm interested in the new wave of Optimus capable laptops, though all the existing and upcoming models from other companies are 13 or 15.6 inchers. The Best thing I've seen so far (albeit expensive. My budget is nominally sub 1,000$) is the updated Alienware m11x.

11.6 inch screen. (1366x768)
Optimus capable 1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 335M
Intel® Core™ i5 520UM (3M Cache, 1.066 GHZ with 1.866 GHz Max Turbo Frequency) - Overclockable (There's an i7 available)
3GB DDR3 at 800MHz (4Gigs?)
500GB SATAII 7,200RPM (320 gigs and an external HD?)
Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2010 (I'm tired of openoffice fucking up my projects).

$1,253. (Ouch..)

Any advice on the CPU, RAM, HD? How bad is the Alienware "premium"? It seems reasonable, but i've no clue how much the new i5 or i7 processors should cost, let alone in such a minute form factor. (13 inches is as large as i'm willing to go).

You want..a portable gaming laptop?

Ace Pace wrote:You want..a portable gaming laptop?

Pretty much, yeah.

I don't plan to use it as a full time gaming machine, weight is much more important to me, but I do want it to be capable of running games and having a discreet GPU.

Well, after 2 years I've decided it's time for a major upgrade once more. Over the course of the next month or so, depending on how much my paychecks are, I'll be purchasing the following:

Core i7-930 2.8 GHz quad-core CPU

EVGA X58 FTW3 motherboard with SATA 6GB/s and USB 3.0

Corsair Dominator 6GB Triple-Channel Kit

Antec Earthwatts 750W PSU

and a clip to use my current CPU cooler with an LGA 1366 socket. This will, of course, be combined with the remaining hardware I currently have, namely:

- an Antec Nine Hundred case
- an EVGA GeForce GTX 275 with 1792MB VRAM
- a Sound Blaster X-Fi
- 2 1TB Seagate HDs
- a Lite-On DVD±RW that also reads Blu-Ray
- a multiformat card reader/floppy drive
- a Hauppauge MCE-ready TV tuner
- a 802.11g USB stick for sharing my connection with my Wii
- a BenQ 24" 1080p and a Viewsonic 19" 1280x1024 monitor
- a Logitech G19 keyboard
- a Razer Mamba mouse

Oh, and the fan that came with my current set of Dominator RAM.

Any critical errors I've made with my choices, or should I be set for a while with that?

My desktop is acting funny and I suspect the motherboard is dying, owing to a spate of long drawn problems that finally came to a head. So the replacement parts for the motherboard and CPU are the following:

Intel i7-875 2.93GHz Quad Core
2 x 2GB DDR3-1600 memory (brand and type to be perogative of what's available and relatively cheap.)
Asus P7P55D-Deluxe
Cooler Master Hyper 212+

I'll be buying a 1.5-2TB hard drive just to install Windows 7 as well.

Intel Core Duo, mit Motherboard

nVidia GeForce 9800

2 gb of RAM, that's all I remember.

It's good, though. Pulls FarCry 2 at high detail and Dawn of War 2 at just under maximum detail.

Not the best but here's mine;

Motherboard - ASUS M3A79-T
Processor - AMD 955BE
RAM - 4Gb Corsairs
Storage;
- Corsair X128 SSD (I think this model's been replaced by a somewhat faster one at this point)
- WD 500Gb performance HDD
GPU - ATI HD4870 (I'd have gotten a 5870 but they're too expensive for me right now. That and this works just fine for the moment.)
OS - Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit

I really should get Windows 7, if nothing else. I hear it's far more efficient and uses SSDs more effectively. I could be wrong, but hey.

Some people seem confused by this thread, so let me clarify: this thread is to check if the computer you are planning on getting is worth the money. It is not for people to compare their current computer.

Im looking to upgrade from basically

amd xp3800+ cpu
2gb ram
ati 3850 512mb vga

to this:

VGA - HIS HD 5770 1GB GDDR5 £134
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/191864

PSU - Corsair 550W VX Series PSU £70.61
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132563

CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 955 £128.48
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190673

Mobo - ASUS M4A77 £55.84
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190979

RAM - Part #: BL2KIT25664AA106A • DDR2 4GB £106.91
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listpar ... odel=M4A77


Budget is £800, and including new mouse / kb and headset this comes to just over £600, I can either go for a more powerful vga card, or have enough left over to buy my g/f a nintendo wii and wii fit....

Any glaring errors in the above? (note anything missing is stuff I already have, mainly case / monitor / HDD).

Cheers