# Let's talk computer techies



## Osiris

Since my onboard graphics card went loco last week on one of my main media server, been looking over new graphic cards and just wow drooling, been awhile since i looked at graphic cards. Even has me thinking of building my own, which always wanted to try just never did. 

What you guys using?

My ideal would be a 1gb ati radeon HD DDR5 crossfire capable, liquid cooled, with new motherboard with that same feature(crossfire)
Along with DDR3 memory Ram, and USB 3.0 along with AMD's new 6 core processor, some sleek black with blue accents box, blu-ray drive, 6TB of data ugghhh. 

I know about computers, but never really got into building my own as i dont really do any PC gaming, just as long as it streams my HD content and plays it. I recently began looking into it more just cuz of WAW Zombies, PC has custom maps for the game, and seen some really cool ones. Figure id' like to try Halo too. 

This thread just talkin about computers and your thoughts, just a techie thread, share your thoughts!


----------



## emc7

Well I am a total cheapskate. And a software rather than a hardware person. But i put a new power supply ($30) motherboard (G32TM-P21) and chip Intel Celeron E3330 ($30 for both) in an old computer added a sound card (SIIG soundwave 7.1, 0$), a geforce 9600 GSO ($20), a fan ($5), a dvd burner ($17), 1TB HD ($60), 3 gb of ram ($30) and it is now my game machine. I was thinking about building a $1k machine and decided to rebuild a POS with a dead motherboard for practice before I played with a $200 processor. It came out good enough for me to put off the dream machine for a while longer.

It runs Sacred 2 on lowest quality graphics. Torchlight on medium. 

My observations:

Even the 'cheap crap' of today is so much better then state-of-the-art a decade ago. But the DOA and failure rates are way up. Expect to do a return or two.

Ram: Size does matter
I added ram after getting lag on Torchlight even though it was only using 20% of the GPU. Made an immediate, wonderful difference.

Graphics cards: the numbers mean nothing and cards get hot!
Search for "graphics card ranking" and look up the card you are looking at on a list. Games now give systems requirements like "GT9800 or better". Whats better? find the benchmark card on a list. I added a fan and still have the side of my computer open to cool it. Buy a good, multi-speed fan (I may yet). "whisper quiet" is not a spec. Get a card with a fan on it. And a box with good ventilation. Also consider 2 cards. If your motherboard supports it, 2 mediocre cards can sometimes be as good as 1 expensive one. 

Motherboards: read the fine print. My motherboard had a header for a parallel port, but I needed to mail-order the cable/port($20) itself to be able to plug in my printer.

Processors: more cores are better. a dual core celeron beats my much faster single core Pentium. I can only imagine what i would get from 2 good chips or a quad-core 

Sound: separate cards help. According to the stats, I don't think the free-after-rebate card I put in is much better than the onboard chip, but sharing the load helped performance. 

Power Supply: I'm told 80+ is the way to go. A smarter power supply uses less juice and produces less heat.

Yes, build your own computer. Its a great education in this day of "we'll swap out dead components for 3 years, but can't make anything that will work for 3 month" warranties.
Every time I open it up, I get faster and more confident. If you put it in, you can yank it out and replace it when it fails or you get a better component.

I'm not sure its always cheaper to build your own. The problem is the OS, the manufacturers get it far cheaper than you can buy it. As I was pricing components for my dream machine, I'd be $300 less than the pre-built, but then I'd remember to add Windows 7. Still if you build your own you can get 64-bit Pro instead of 32-bit Home and have exactly what you want. I saw a blue-ray burner for $100 on newegg, so tempted.


----------



## Osiris

I Hear Ya, I was looking into Ubuntu OS, i've used YellowDog in the past, but i like Windows 7, my cousin has the Microsoft membership for $200 a year where get basically any program by microsoft you want, it includes like 50 licsenses for windows 7 alone, comes in handy. 

The DOA rate is beyond belief seen it for my own eyes several times, that fact alone has me not purchasing products from ebay as for the return policy is harder, but newegg is easy to get along with. 

This was the Box I was looking at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021

I have dual core on all my systems, and i've been on a quad core of my buddies, the difference is HUGE, i can barely get the processors over 20%, yet my dual core regularly hits 85% LOL.


----------



## emc7

I like that case, it may even be the one my sister put on my "wish list". I'm drooling over the i7s, but the DDR3 is so expensive yet. I keep putting off spending the money. 

I read recently that you should get a big LLC cache on the processor. If you have that, you can buy slower DDR3 with very little drop in performance.

The other tip I picked up from techie friends is not to use the thermal compound that comes with the chip, but go spend $10-20 for a fresh tube of "the good stuff". Sticking in the chip and the heat sink on, IMO, the trickiest part and the most likely to cause you expensive grief if you do it wrong. I cheated and let my sister's EE boyfriend do it.


----------



## Albino_101

Well I am more of an intense gamer/case modder. So here is my thermal-take case, and yes that is a working cup holder and cigarette lighter. Specs Are: 2 hard drives, a 500gb 7200 rpm (data storage drive) and a corsair force solid state drive(the main drive with the OS) with 60gb of space. my OS is Win 7 64 bit Ultimate with 4 gigs of DDR2 ram, the motherboard is from a high end Dell Vostro(their business line of desktops) and the graphics card is an ati radeon 5670 with 1gb of DDR5 video ram, the sound card is built into the motherboard and works fine so far.


----------



## Osiris

drool:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103849

I agree on the DDR3's. Im surprised they aren't more common in systems to lower the price on them, been around for a few years now, and we still use DDR2's in nearly everything. Along with USB 2.0, I havent had the chance to try 3.0 yet but can only imagine the transfer rate, I regularly move around large files 1GB+. 

My Current Chip on the desktop the Heatsink and fan clip ontop of the chip, putting the Chip on the motherboard is the difficult part?


----------



## Albino_101

oh and my power supply is a 1000 watt 80+ sli/crossfire by alienware!


----------



## Osiris

I really like this one, as it's all black inside which would be nice with the LED show on the side, and has places for hiding the cables as well. 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119225

But i just hate the red LED's! 

Nice Cup Holder and lighter! LMAO 

Here's question, if your running a graphic card with HDMI, sound goes through HDMI too, would there be any beneficial of getting a upgraded sound card then?


----------



## Albino_101

maybe, maybe not, depends on your personal taste, and the human ear isn't that good anyways(thanks to technology), so at some point the improvements are not noticeable. EDIT** I like that case too, but my thermal take was a gift so I used it.


----------



## emc7

clipping in processor isn't bad, the pins go in the holes and and the clip snaps it down, but I'm afraid of bending pins on this little square that is the most valuable part of the system. Glueing on the heatsink with thermal compound isn't bad either, you spread it like peanut butter and squish the heatsink on. But if its not right, your chip can overheat and ruin your investment. 

Everything else is a just a puzzle, put the right cable in the right place, pull it out, run the other cable under it, run to store for a y-cable and a longer floppy drive cable, line up holes, find screws that fit. Basically mechanical. You do it wrong, you just do it again. Tedious, but low risk. 

I turned the sound quality back down on my games because I couldn't hear a difference. I'm using 3 old speakers with a card capable of running 7 speakers or sending a digital out to a real audio component. But the card got the sound of the Sacred 2 intro back in sync, even at high quality. I suspect that the wimpier your main processor, the more it helps to use a separate device.

Upgraded audio would be last on my list.

I agree blue LEDs over red, but blue is brighter. I'd like a "night mode" so I could turn off all lights when I sleep. (without opening the case and yanking the cables)


----------



## emc7

Six cores, drool. What do you even call it. Hexcore?


----------



## lohachata

uuummmmmm.....how do i turn this thing on ?????


----------



## Osiris

Think of it as a woman! LOL


Six Cores is indeed just icing on the cake. Once they mass produce and incorporate Memristor technology into Chips and memory, rumors have it memristor tech can boot the computer as soon as your done pushing the button to exactly the state you left it in. 

I am thinking of trying out Ubuntu for netbook i have a spare 160gb i am thinking of installing it on to try out


----------



## Cam

I would add an i9. Do they even sell the i9 on newegg? Even the i7 is freaking fast, I am in love with my i7 turbo and 8GB DDR3.


----------



## Albino_101

I'm so jealous of you cam...


----------



## Cam

I love that : THINK OF IT AS A WOMAN!


----------



## toddnbecka

My recently built system has an Asus mobo, AMD 3 core processor, 4GB DDR2 and open slots for 2 more sticks, 2 640GB hdd's, and 2 DVD/RW drives. Video card is a GEForce 250 with 512MB RAM, and a 500W OCZ power supply. Thermaltake case, cheap Logitech speakers (surround sound coming for Christmas) and just picked up a microsoft wireless laser keyboard/mouse on e-bay for $23 shipped. I figure in a few more years the PC games will be based on 4 core systems, so then I'll upgrade the cpu. SInce they're currently based on 2 cores now the 3 I have works well for much less $$, and by the time I buy a 6 core the price will be lower.


----------



## emc7

Tiger advertised the 3 core kit for $199. There really is a big spread between high and low end right now.


----------



## Osiris

Heck between $200 for the 3 core, and i think i saw the AMD 6 core for $280, but huge price between Intel's Processor's and AMD's on their 6 core processors chips.


----------



## emc7

$200 for a kit


> Biostar MCP6PB M2+ Triple-Core Barebones Kit - Biostar MCP6PB M2+ Motherboard, AMD Phenom X3 8250e, Ultra 2GB DDR2 667MHz RAM, Seagate 1TB LP HDD, PowerUp Black ATX-Mid Tower Case


 not bad,but esp. if you had an old win xp pc you could use the os from. Less than just the new processor. Currently entering all the sweepstakes.


----------



## Guest

Personally, I wouldn't go overboard Osiris. tigerdirect is more expensive but I like it more. Like you said you need nothing more than to be able to stream your HD content. Why do you need a 6-core processor? And if you need that much processing power you might as well go for a 241 core cuda gpu

Please keep in mind that I'm rather lazy and didn't read most of the posts...


----------



## toddnbecka

Limes said:


> Please keep in mind that I'm rather lazy and didn't read most of the posts...


Obviously... :chair:
Might browse this thread to catch up a little: http://www.fishforums.com/forum/water-hole/30458-my-computer-build-w-nzxt-guardian-case.html


----------

