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pabosher

Buying a New PC

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With x86 you will only get a total of just below 4Gb of ram, which includes your GPU, you'd be pretty stupid to run a brand new x86 machine.

I guess it would be silly to run a brand new x86 machine... but there's still the potential for annoying compatibility issues. (Even something as small as your Photoshop filters stopping working.) And, as previously pointed out, the vast majority of applications will not be able to take advantage of more RAM than 2GB... so it mainly comes in handy for multitasking.

As more people run x64 OS's, though, the more apps will take advantage of it.

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So I got most of my pieces now, and tomorrow will get case and psu. What I got:

Intel Core i7 2600 (non-clockable)

Gigabyte P67A-UD4 mobo

Cooler Master HAF 932 case

Corsair 750W PSU

Kingston DDR3 2 x 4GB = 8GB RAM

WD Caviar Black 1TB HDD

Samsung DVD Writer

A 8GB Mem stick

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

totalling about 940 EUR (ok I should exclude the memstick but whatever)

Now it looks like I'll be exactly under budget if I go with the NVIDIA 560 Ti video card, or about 90 € over budget if I go with 570...

Hmm... but if I've spent this much already, another 90 € doesn't sound that much.

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I was able to build a pretty beefy PC two years ago by doing two simple things, you don't even need expertise or a lot of money. For about 600 US dollars I bought,

-22 LCD Monitor

-Dual Core 2-8 gig AMD processor(I know it doesn't sound very fast but this was in 2008.

-500 gig HDD

-Nvidia GT9800, a 512 mb graphics card

-6 gigs of ram

The trick is to buy the case with the mobo installed for you, because that's the tricky part, then just buy all the other components seperarately on clearance, save a bunch of money, and they all basicly just click right in, so simple and cheap.

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So I got most of my pieces now, and tomorrow will get case and psu. What I got:

Intel Core i7 2600 (non-clockable)

Gigabyte P67A-UD4 mobo

Cooler Master HAF 932 case

Corsair 750W PSU

Kingston DDR3 2 x 4GB = 8GB RAM

WD Caviar Black 1TB HDD

Samsung DVD Writer

A 8GB Mem stick

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

totalling about 940 EUR (ok I should exclude the memstick but whatever)

Now it looks like I'll be exactly under budget if I go with the NVIDIA 560 Ti video card, or about 90 € over budget if I go with 570...

Hmm... but if I've spent this much already, another 90 € doesn't sound that much.

Stop for a second, go for the K series of processors, from what I've heard they are the ones you want, especially if you ever have the intention of oveclocking it.

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Stop for a second, go for the K series of processors, from what I've heard they are the ones you want, especially if you ever have the intention of oveclocking it.

I don't really have that intention, and as I understand there is no other difference between the K and not-K CPUs. By the time I'm lacking CPU power there will probably be newer CPUs available for the same chipset, no?

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I don't really have that intention, and as I understand there is no other difference between the K and not-K CPUs. By the time I'm lacking CPU power there will probably be newer CPUs available for the same chipset, no?

I wouldn't count on it, Intel have no intention of bringing new chipsets to the 1156 board, which was used for previous i3 and i5 processors, introduced in late 2009.

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(No idea why you wouldn't just close Photoshop if you were running Mass Effect, though...)

Because if you can fit them both into memory, the time it takes to save/unload and then later reload a huge photoshop document could make it not worth playing Mass Effect. It's easier to just leave PS open. More dangerous, sure, but easier.

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Because if you can fit them both into memory, the time it takes to save/unload and then later reload a huge Photoshop document could make it not worth playing Mass Effect. It's easier to just leave PS open. More dangerous, sure, but easier.

If I was planning to play Mass Effect for five minutes, maybe, but even when I was designing Quad posters on a G4 I could still find 10 minutes to save and close the document... And really nobody should be designing 30" x 40" posters on a G4.

Or maybe you were joking? Or maybe there's some other situation I can't fathom.

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It's super useful – and not a crazy thing – to be able to have 3dsmax, Photoshop and Sonar running, and still be able to launch any game without having to close down everything else, effectively trying to disable multitasking in order to turn your computer into a dedicated gaming console.

Now, the fact that you find it acceptable to have to spend 10 minutes preparing to play a game, that's crazy!

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I don't really have that intention, and as I understand there is no other difference between the K and not-K CPUs. By the time I'm lacking CPU power there will probably be newer CPUs available for the same chipset, no?

Intel is infamous for killing socket formats... I bought an i7 920 couple of years ago and I have no obvious option for upgrade without a new motherboard.

At least most games nowadays are more GPU-intensive than CPU.

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Now, the fact that you find it acceptable to have to spend 10 minutes preparing to play a game, that's crazy!

Really? I grew up playing 8-bit computer games... a 15 wait for a game to load was standard! :mock: Hell, I'm the type of guy who sits through the credits at the end of movies.

Of course, I don't need to sit and watch Photoshop close for 10 mins... I can happily go do something else, so when I come back, I can play a game uninterrupted for several hours.

I can't imagine I'd ever leave apps running like that in the background for other, more idiosyncratic reasons, though:

1. I like my work to be over when "fun time" begins.

2. If it was a demanding game (like Mass Effect) I couldn't help but think that the game could be 2% smoother if I didn't have 3D Studio Max and Photoshop in the background :)

3. I always shut my computer down at the end of night, so those programs would be shutting at some point anyway.

Either way, I think the 8GB recommendation is for very unusual circumstances.

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Posting this from my new PC! Ended up getting GTX 570 for the video.

This must be some kind of personal record - took me less than 48 hours from the decision to finally upgrade to a running system.

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Posting this from my new PC! Ended up getting GTX 570 for the video.

This must be some kind of personal record - took me less than 48 hours from the decision to finally upgrade to a running system.

Wow, congrats! That's super-fast. Did you build it all yourself, or did it come pre-built?

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Either way, I think the 8GB recommendation is for very unusual circumstances.

Well, if you are for example a (Java) programmer like me, and work on things like server side software, Eclipse plug-ins etc. you might have multiple servers running, multiple Eclipses running. Each one probably likes to have up to 1GB of memory (sometimes less, sometimes more). And since the graphics card also wants some memory from the system RAM, and firefox wants some too, 4GB doesn't leave for much else.

I know I asked before if more than 4 was necessary but I wasn't thinking properly - in my case it is. It's just that I'm so used to having only 2.

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I know I asked before if more than 4 was necessary but I wasn't thinking properly - in my case it is. It's just that I'm so used to having only 2.

Fair enough, my comment was more a remark that most people don't need that much... Obviously good to know if you do :tup:

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Wow, congrats! That's super-fast. Did you build it all yourself, or did it come pre-built?

I built it myself, and I must say the Cooler Master HAF 932 case is really good for building. It's big, but there's plenty of room for everything and good places for wires and stuff. And hard drives, DVD-writers and such are easy to install. Most things can be installed without screws.

I noticed too late that it doesn't have USB3.0 in the front, but I don't care that much, I guess.

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I must say the Cooler Master HAF 932 case is really good for building.

It's also got an amazing airflow apparently. The CPU temperature has dropped to 17 degrees celsius. Yesterday I thought I was imagining it, but now I'm almost sure that it's making my room colder. Which would be nice in the summer, but it's -20 outside for god's sake.

[edit] As this thing seems so easy to keep cool, I kind of already regret not getting the overclockable i7 2600K. On the other hand, I never overclocked my old system.

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Yay! I got a hard disk failure after I moved my Hard disk from the old machine to the new one. And since I have the chipset with the SATA problems, I even made sure to put it into the working SATA 3 port.

Windows started to hang after installing drivers for it and restarting.

Now when I put it back to the old system, it fails to boot and somewhy shows SMART Capabilities: None (although I know it had them before :(). I guess my best chance is to boot from some Linux CD to see if I can still read it somehow?

Luckily I had moved the most crucial data (e-mail archive starting from 1997 and save games hehe :)) before on a memory stick, but there's still a lot of source code on there for which I have no backups naturally :)

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Hmm... booting from an ubuntu CD now, but it's really slow, everything seems to hang whenever that disk is plugged in. I have some identical drives that are currently unused, I wonder if I could swap the electronics...

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Do you have a SATA 1.5 port free? Some old HDs don't play nice on SATA 3 ports.

Hmm.. maybe you're right. I tried another disk that is the same model, but I didn't put that into SATA 3, I think. I put it into the SATA 2 port (but those can fail on my motherboard).

Anyway, the disk is probably not software recoverable any more (that's what my friend told me, when I told hime I can't turn on the SMART any more) and I'll have to see if I can recover some data for large amounts of money.

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I decided that I have excess money I have to spend somehow. I'm willing to spend a bit more on a PC that runs everything I throw at it well (within reason) and that I don't have to upgrade the following year. Say, 1200 euros or a bit more. Or less, in case it doesn't make sense to pay more.

Haven't had the time to investigate this shit at all yet, and frankly, I'm a bit scared to do so. I'm guessing SandyBridge is the way to go? How about the graphics card? It would be almost solely for gaming (as I already have Macbook Pro for casual surfing and working) so I'm guessing I should invest in one of those powerful beasts that will heat my room close to the flash point within ours. What is the sweet spot in those? I'm not going to hook up multiple screens but it would be nice if the current (and upcoming) games ran well on native resolution (1920x1200).

Would it make sense to have Windows and some of the programs on SSD or is it just a waste of money at the moment?

Do I still have to worry about things processor coolers or are fans included with the processor?

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Out of interest, I have a socket 775 mobo, with a core 2 duo 2.66 chip. Would I notice a massive difference upgrading to, say a 3.33Ghz Core 2 Duo or a 2.8Ghz Core 2 Quad?

It's a 2.66 E6700 (Conroe)

Edited by Scrobbs

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Out of interest, I have a socket 775 mobo, with a core 2 duo 2.66 chip. Would I notice a massive difference upgrading to, say a 3.33Ghz Core 2 Duo or a 2.8Ghz Core 2 Quad?

Well, the price to performance ratio would be terrible, as most 775 processors still haven't really dropped at all in price/retailers are adamant to sell them at initial value. That being said, you could see some noticeable improvements from upgrading your processor, though not to the E8600 (which I think is the dual core you're talking about). The Yorkfield Core 2 Quads would probably almost double the 3DMark Vantage score of whatever you have now.

What I'm actually considering and probably very soon doing is a kinda budget generational jump by switching to AMD. The main motivation is because my girlfriend's computer is on budget 775 (something like a Pentium Dual Core) and by upgrading I can give her my E8600 and RAM. I'd then get something like the AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black (easily overclockable to nearly 4GHz), AM3+ mobo, and DDR3 RAM.

So, I upgrade to something that competes easily with budget Core i5's but has a cultivated space to the effect of fairly cheap components. For about $300, I'll be able to get the processor, mobo, and RAM and use my old components to upgrade my girlfriend's PC at the same time. No need to upgrade the case, power supply, hard drive, and video card as they're all about one/two years old.

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