At 10/5/09 07:35 PM, ChrisPNipple wrote: Is this a good computer? I've checked out it's specs, and the only thing I'm not sure on is the video cards.
I'm thinking of referring this to a friend who needs computer help. Good or bad?
He want's cheap but good.

That computer is fine. The graphics card is pretty good; should run most games.

At 10/4/09 10:43 PM, Reaper93 wrote: If you have a specific question about any concept I went over I can do my best to answer it if you don't understand.

It's ok, thanks. :)

Ok guys, more recommendations time. My cpu is a quad core AMD Phenon II running at 3.0 ghz. Now, I'm looking for a new fan because I want to overlock it to I think 3.2-3.4. (useless, I know, but still :3). Can anyone recommend me an extra fan that I could put into my case/replace my old one with? Also, if you can, please explain the specs (what is the significance of each with the performance of the fan).
For example:
RPM 1300 - 2000 RPM (I think that's the speed, right?)
Air Flow 86.5 CFM
Noise Level 16 - 24 dBA
Power Connector 3 Pin
Heatsink Material Copper Base & Copper Fin
Heatsink Dimensions 147 x 92 x 143mm

Thanks a lot guys. :)

This post is by taco, he pm'd me. Thanks for the help, man! :)
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I can't reply because I'm banned but here are a few things

First of all DON'T CALL IT A FAN. It's a heatsink/CPU cooler, not a fan. A fan just blows air.

Secondly, I don't know your temperatures but the stock cooler can do at least 3.2 GHz as long as your case air flow isn't bad.

Third, I suggest getting a Scythe Mugen 2, costs $35 but will get you to 3.6-3.8 GHz

You could also get some heatsinks for $25-$30 but it's better to add the $5-$10 to have something good. Just make sure it's not too big for your case.

please paste this PM into the CCC

I'm tearing my hair out at the minute trying to work out what I want.
This is what I know:
I want approx 750GB-1TB of internal data storage.
I have a 320GB IDE drive at the mo.
My motherboard is an ASUS M2V, which apparently has S-ATA compatability.
My budget is under £75, preferably under £60.

This is what I do not know:
SATA or IDE? If I get a SATA drive will this cause issues with my current IDE? Do I want SATA? What the fuck's the difference?
RAID 0 or to not RAID 0? I save ~£15-20 on a single 1TB over two 500GB discs, is the performance increase in reads and writes actually notable? More importantly, is it worth two nights out?

halp plox

At 10/6/09 07:44 PM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote:

This is what I do not know:
SATA or IDE? If I get a SATA drive will this cause issues with my current IDE? Do I want SATA? What the fuck's the difference?

It's just a different interface, and you can run both without issues.

RAID 0 or to not RAID 0? I save ~£15-20 on a single 1TB over two 500GB discs, is the performance increase in reads and writes actually notable?

I'd say so. My Raid 0 is on an nvidia chipset, which is infamous for being terrible in RAID, I still load maps and games up much faster than friends and teammates. Your motherboard sounds like an older one, so make sure it supports RAID. An interesting alternative could be buying a 1.5 TB hard drive and short stroking it. This makes the hard disk use only the outer part of the disk, giving faster access times and slightly improved read/writes. Doing so is a lot simpler than you might think. All that's involved is leaving a volume unpartitioned, say 750GB, when you format the drive. I'm thinking this would be more expensive and less fruitful than the RAID though.

More importantly, is it worth two nights out?

What is a socialize?

At 10/6/09 07:44 PM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote: I'm tearing my hair out at the minute trying to work out what I want.
This is what I know:
I want approx 750GB-1TB of internal data storage.
I have a 320GB IDE drive at the mo.
My motherboard is an ASUS M2V, which apparently has S-ATA compatability.
My budget is under £75, preferably under £60.

This is what I do not know:
SATA or IDE? If I get a SATA drive will this cause issues with my current IDE? Do I want SATA? What the fuck's the difference?
RAID 0 or to not RAID 0? I save ~£15-20 on a single 1TB over two 500GB discs, is the performance increase in reads and writes actually notable? More importantly, is it worth two nights out?

halp plox

If you have SATA capability, use SATA. IDE is pretty much considered legacy hardware now. It will not cause trouble with your IDE drive, you may just have to specify which drive to boot up from in the BIOS. SATA is cheaper, faster, has smaller cables, doesn't have to specify masters and slaves and overall is just better. It is not worth two nights out to RAID 0 it.

I actually I think I have an ASUS M2V in an old computer too.

okay

At 10/8/09 09:49 AM, TacoFreak wrote: okay

nice heatsink

At 10/8/09 12:37 PM, BananaBreadMuffin wrote:

At 10/8/09 09:49 AM, TacoFreak wrote: okay

nice heatsink

it's huge

that's what she said durr hurr

At 10/8/09 01:20 PM, deckheadtottie wrote:

At 10/8/09 09:49 AM, TacoFreak wrote: okay

That thing is beastly, my little Freezer Pro 7 looks pathetic compared to that monstrosity. Does it even fit in your chassis?

Yes but barely

I was thinking about doing a scratch case for my next build.

I get 5 gallons of mineral oil and build an acrylic tank for it, and submerge my components in it. The oil is cooled by 2 240 radiators and a pump to circulate it through the cooling loop. The entire assembly is put inside a 17'' CRT monitor.

The whole project would cost around $500, and it limits me to an mATX motherboard, but it would be just about the coolest thing I've ever done.

At 10/8/09 03:40 PM, ThoseSneakyFrench wrote: The whole project would cost around $500, and it limits me to an mATX motherboard, but it would be just about the coolest thing I've ever done.

have fun draining the oil when you need to reset CMOS or something similar

Hey guys, came to ask, on newegg it says for some hard drives "Bare drive" so does that mean I would need something else? Building a new computer from scratch by the way.

At 10/8/09 06:25 PM, Homosecksual wrote: Hey guys, came to ask, on newegg it says for some hard drives "Bare drive" so does that mean I would need something else? Building a new computer from scratch by the way.

I think that means that all you get is a HDD in a antistatic bag, nothing more.

Would I need anything else if I wanted to just buy a "bare drive"? Cables, connectors, etc?

At 10/8/09 08:45 PM, Homosecksual wrote: Would I need anything else if I wanted to just buy a "bare drive"? Cables, connectors, etc?

The motherboard will usually come with all the cables you need, so as long as you buy that retail, you'll be fine.

If you just buy the bare drive you will need one cable (often comes with motherboards) of SATA or IDE variety. If you have an HDD now, you will have one of those. Make sure to buy the drive (SATA > IDE) that you have cables for if buying a bare drive.

Make sure your PSU has enough HDD cables. Mine has only 2 which is no problem for me because I use 1 HDD but it may be different for you.

Hey guys! Just seen this crew and i'm super ecstatic about it!

I just built my first computer over the summer. Here's the spec's:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955 BE AM3 Socket
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake V1 AX
Motherboard: ASUS M4A78-E 790GX Chipset AM2+ DDR2 ATX
GPU: XFX Radeon HD 4890 Xtreme
Memory: Corsair XMS 4GB 800MHz DDR2 PC6400
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 750GB SATA HDD
Chassis: Coolermaster HAF 932 Full Tower
PSU: Ultra LSP750 750 Watt ATX PSU

Pretty good first build i think. Ill get a Pic up soon (i got some, but i've been cleaning up cables since)

Tell me what you think :)

At 10/5/09 07:35 PM, ChrisPNipple wrote: Is this a good computer? I've checked out it's specs, and the only thing I'm not sure on is the video cards.
I'm thinking of referring this to a friend who needs computer help. Good or bad?
He want's cheap but good.

This IS a good computer not gonna lie. I was considering getting one myself, but after doing some research i was quickly turned away from it. The reason being is that THERE IS NO ABILITY TO DO ANY MAJOR UPGRADING.

The GPU's in it are laptop grade, and finding an upgrade for it is not even possible. None the less, it is a cool system. a couple of years down the road however, ad you will be looking for another computer.

At 10/9/09 08:08 AM, 3dgE wrote: Pretty good first build i think. Ill get a Pic up soon (i got some, but i've been cleaning up cables since)

Looks good except for the heatsink. Thermaltake sucks

Tacofreak, I've never seen a PSU with less than four molex cables... and all HDDs that I've ever seen take molex. What PSU do you have??

Hey guys, if you could help I'd love you all.

Ok, here goes, I need to get a desktop that is able to run relatively new games on a budget of $400.

Any help is appreciated.

At 10/9/09 05:33 PM, Reaper93 wrote: Tacofreak, I've never seen a PSU with less than four molex cables... and all HDDs that I've ever seen take molex. What PSU do you have??

Older HDD's with the ATA interface used molex for power. SATA HDDs however use a different type of connector.

hey guys. maybe you want to help me with my little problem. i guess im a bit wrong but im desperate: linky

At 10/10/09 02:34 PM, deckheadtottie wrote: Sooo...

What do you guys use for cable management? It kinda looks like someone's shit spaghetti in my case right now.

Cable ties, duct tape...

The best thing to do is to try and route your cables behind your motherboard tray.

I'd appreciate it if you guys read this post and gave your opinion.

After counting how much money I have and how much I will have I've calculated that I currently have 1200 PLN (approx. 400 USD).

I realized that because of the low power usage of the 5770's, a 520W PSU will be more than enough for what I need. A corsair 520 W modular PSU will cost me about 350 PLN (~ 115 USD).

Add a 5770 which should cost maybe 500-600 PLN and together with the PSU it will cost 900 PLN. After selling my 9600 gt and old PSU I should get maybe 350-400 PLN back.

Which leaves Christmas and my Birthday (January 7th) where I should get money for a 24" and 5770.

Sounds like a lot of money that I will be spending on computers but hopefully I won't have to upgrade again.

Also, I'm wondering what to do with my motherboard/ram. I am thinking of getting 4GB of RAM, but I've got a DDR2 board. I'm not sure if I should get the DDR3... Or possibly just stay with what I have until the new AMD boards come out.

At 10/10/09 04:15 PM, TacoFreak wrote: 5770

I'd wait for GT300. If it's any kind of success at all, it would probably push the 5870 and 50 down a few bucks.

Also, I'm wondering what to do with my motherboard/ram. I am thinking of getting 4GB of RAM, but I've got a DDR2 board.

More DDR2 is a bad buy right now. It just shot up in price, and will probably get more expensive. At this point, DDR2 and DDR3 are the same price. I'd stay with the 2 gigs until DDR3 gets a little cheaper.

I'm not sure if I should get the DDR3... Or possibly just stay with what I have until the new AMD boards come out.

The new boards that are planned don't offer any big new features, but if you plan on going DDR3 for 4 gigs, you might as well.

_______

While on this topic, I have $840 in pocket right now, and hope to have around 2k by Christmas.

First, is my motherboard and CPU. The options are Phenom II or 1366. I don't care much for i7 at this point because it would seem any preferable configuration is profusely expensive. If I go i7, I would want to have crossfire support. This becomes a problem because I'm still considering getting that RAID controller, which uses a PCI-e x8 slot. There aren't any boards besides the Evga Classified which do more than PCI-e 16/8/8, and I'm not going to put a 5850 on 8x bandwidth. Crossfire isn't a must, but it would be nice to keep available if I go with an already expensive platform. This is the motherboard I've been looking at, but there's a lot to choose from.

Second is my graphics card. I know I'm not buying anything until the prices drop a little bit, but here are my options: 5870, 5850, 5850CF. If the 5850 hits $200, I'd love to crossfire that, but I doubt with that pesky RAID controller I'd be able to.

Next decision is that pesky RAID controller. I was wondering if an all out RAID-0 would be worth it, and was leaning towards no, and then this came out. It's $80 on newegg, so I would definitely get 4 or 5 of them. After short stroking the entire array to 1TB, and hooking it into a $100 Perc 5/i controller, I would be happy. The whole setup would be $500, and because hard drives don't seem to depreciate in price too much, it would be a sound investment.

Last decision I can't make for myself is the case. Was thinking about a custom, of which I have a few ideas in line, but it would be much easier to just buy a case and mod it. If I got a case, it would have to be close to $200, aluminum, and able to support at least 5 hard drives. Possibly a Lian-li.

Suggestions?

At 10/10/09 05:42 PM, ThoseSneakyFrench wrote: Next decision is that pesky RAID controller. I was wondering if an all out RAID-0 would be worth it, and was leaning towards no, and then this came out. It's $80 on newegg, so I would definitely get 4 or 5 of them. After short stroking the entire array to 1TB, and hooking it into a $100 Perc 5/i controller, I would be happy. The whole setup would be $500, and because hard drives don't seem to depreciate in price too much, it would be a sound investment.

Suggestions?

I cant understand why you'd want to short stoke the entire array to only 1TB. The performance gain from doing that would be marginal at best and you'd benefit more from the increased capacities. Also, those drive are cabaple of around 100mb/s sustained read/write speed. With 5 of them you'd be getting a good 300/400 mb/s speed so you shouldnt need to short stroke them.

At 10/11/09 05:59 AM, steveo1259 wrote: I cant understand why you'd want to short stoke the entire array to only 1TB.

Short stroking is reversible. All you have to do is go back and format the space you left unformatted. So as long as I'm not using the space, I should try to get some performance out of it.

With 5 of them you'd be getting a good 300/400 mb/s speed so you shouldnt need to short stroke them.

I'm now starting to think more along the lines of 3 or 4.