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Erkki

Damn it, but computers have become really complicated

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ok gentlemen thanks for the advice, will prob order my TWIN FROZRS tomorrow, along with maybe a 500gb samsung ssd heard some very good things about it in terms of ease of installation (great disc cloning software bundled apparently)

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I pulled the trigger. Twin Frozrs will be mine on Friday. That SSD looks awesome. I was given explicit instructions from the internet to avoid the Samsung 840s, but the 850 is supposed to be amazing.

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I pulled the trigger. Twin Frozrs will be mine on Friday. That SSD looks awesome. I was given explicit instructions from the internet to avoid the Samsung 840s, but the 850 is supposed to be amazing.

I have just finished installing both and are keeping myself occupied while the drivers finish doing their thing and updating, before I actually get to starting doing the fun stuff.

Oh god there's a glowing LED dragon on the side of the card, I really know where my cash has been well spent now!

Edit: damn, I dint realise that despite the disk copy doing a otherwise good job of cloning my OS from my old HDD to the new Samsung it would keep the same huge chunk of system reserved space it had on the much larger original. Humbugs

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I have been shopping again for PC upgrades.  My hesitations relate to the cost...and that most of what I play is 2D indie games and Dota that don't need anything special to run

 

My current rig is mostly from Jan 2009 but still works great.  The main storage, optical, case, and PSU are still good and will remain until they burn up

 

Current parts on the chopping block -

Asus P6T

Intel i7-920 (phenomenal chip, but not going to get another LGA 1366 mobo)

12 GB Tricannel ddr3 1600

Slow old SSD

 

Intended Replacements -

i7-4790K

Z97-A (the Z97-AR would also be great if it comes back to sale)

16GB DDR3 2400 (want 2x8 to keep room open to double later)

Samsung 850 Evo

 

Current video cards - hope to not have to replace

x2 Radeon HD 6870 1gb each

 

 

I feel so out of touch on new processors since I last went shopping for one in 2008.  I think the processor is still doing ok - i could overclock it with some case modifications but the motherboard looks to be my bottleneck now.  I'd like this to be a build that lasts another 4-6 yrs (minus video card), of course no one can predict what future is bringing, but does this seem solid and somewhat future proof?

 

Anyone who has gone shopping recently or keeps up with this a little more - input would be much appreciated.  

 

I think even just the mobo/processor/ram will greatly increase my performance such that I can run anything new at moderately high settings for a while with my xfire cards.  If some ace card drops in price significantly next year I'd be looking to upgrade then

 

So please tech enthusiasts, am I under buying or over doing it for a long term solution.  It is ~$650 for all my wish list if I bought now, probably could get under 600 if i watch the deals for a month or two.

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Is there a super secret way I could get my hands on a cheap 128 GB SSD  for about $30? I so far have found $45 before tax, but I think maybe I can snag a better price. It can be pretty bad quality as long as it just works for some period of time.

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Crucial sometimes runs refurbished 128GB SSDs for $30 on their website. However, it's such a hotly contested deal price that it generally sells out within an hour.

 

Source -

 

http://slickdeals.net/f/7859939-128gb-crucial-m4-2-5-sata-iii-mlc-solid-state-drive-recertified-29-free-shipping?v=1

 

http://slickdeals.net/f/7670564-crucial-m4-2-5-mlc-ssd-recertified-256gb-50-128gb-30-free-shipping?src=SiteSearch

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I bought everything but the ssd today, micro center had the processor $60 cheaper than new egg and then a $40 off mobo combo deal...so that was unexpected but no brained

Then the ram I wanted went on new egg sale...so end of this week I will be playing computer mechanic, very excited

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So...my computer is officially fucked, to the point it'll cost me around £300 to fix fully. Which means I'm set on getting a new PC.

 

I'd like to save as much money as possible, and for now, I would like it to essentially run word/excel and indie games, with a view to upgrade later (when I have the money). The problem is, I have literally no idea where to start. Can anyone give me an idea of where to go to look for stuff to build a PC, and if you're used to this thing, an estimate of the cost for what I'm looking for.

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I got my PC from hardwareverstand.de. You spec out all your components and then add €20 and they will assemble it for you. Also, since they are german you might make a killing on the exchange rate.

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Useful site. I still feel like a monkey looking at a textbook though. Loads of words and things that mean nothing to me. 

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I didn't actually tell the whole story soz! The whole story is that i went to this irish forum where they will spec you out a computer based on budget and what you do with the comp, those guys will then spec you out some options and fight amongst themselves as to the best. At the time (not sure if still is) harwarverstand was their go to shop for getting stuff. Worked out pretty well for me!

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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£48.53 @ Amazon UK) 

Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£30.20 @ Ebuyer) 

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£36.56 @ Amazon UK) 

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£40.78 @ Amazon UK) 

Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case  (£49.19 @ Aria PC) 

Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£57.98 @ Amazon UK) 

Total: £263.24

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-25 14:10 BST+0100

 

This is basically just back of the napkin-type stuff, but this would do what you're looking for. The idea here is that you buy the cheapest overclockable, gaming-friendly processor in the newest generation of processors. It has on-chip graphics, so it'll get you started. Down the road, you buy a video card to make it more possible to game. Along the way, you can get another 8gb of memory, maybe an SSD, etc. The final thing you get is another processor, a Core i5 or i7 that would match the power of your GPU.

 

You could probably go cheaper on the case, power supply, and storage but since you'll be keeping those along the way that's what you're going to want to put some decent money into.

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Hmm, time to start doing the video card dance again. I want to get something Occulus Rift capable at the minimum. Has anyone seen any reliable benchmarks on the newest AMD cards? I found a lot of articles but most of them were referencing the AMD's own benchmarks, rather than doing testing themselves.

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http://www.pcgamer.com/amd-radeon-r9-fury-x-tested-not-quite-a-980-ti-killer/

 

These video card companies basically don't let anyone touch their non-flagship cards until they're out in the wild, but that R9 Fury vs 980Ti comparison is not particularly reassuring. I feel like the mantra of AMD in recent years has been "almost basically just as good as Nvidia, particularly when retailers put our cards on sale really aggressively because Nvidia is outselling our stuff".

 

After going AMD for several years, I'm really happy to be on the Nvidia train. Drivers just seem generally better and more frequent, but maybe that's just confirmation bias.

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I'll admit that half the reason I want AMD is just because that's what I have now and I wouldn't have to fight with driver reinstalls to switch it out. I was thinking getting an AMD 390x or a 390 plain, which appear to be roughly equivelent to an Nvidia 980 plain, so that's good at least.

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AMD's drivers have always been really bad in comparison, and also AMD(/ATi) cards are the only ones that have ever physically died before I actually wanted to do an upgrade.

 

Fuck AMD.

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I'm starting to wonder if some of the crashing problems I have are related to that, so that's a good point.

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Even when I had an ATI card that somehow managed to be in the overlap of when they had really competitive cards and also a driver update system that wasn't a nightmare, that whole process was never as smooth as Nvidia on ATI's best day. Nvidia's currently ahead on cards and is just a much smoother ecosystem, so I haven't even thought about switching.

 

The transition from an ATI card to an Nvidia was much easier for me than the other way around. The drivers are honestly no sweat at all.

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Hey you folks who have an SSD as your primary drive, where do you install your games? It looks like with steam all the games have to go to the same drive, which is kind of unfortunate.

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Hey you folks who have an SSD as your primary drive, where do you install your games? It looks like with steam all the games have to go to the same drive, which is kind of unfortunate.

No  they don't. I have Dota 2 and TF2 installed on my main drive (which is SSD - need those quick load times!) and everything else on my secondary drive. I don't think you have to do anything special to make it happen. I just picked a different folder on installing a game and then it was available in the drop-down from that point on.

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You used to have to use a separate tool to move Steam games to another drive, but now you can create a new directory for Steam games wherever you like. When you go to install a game it should let you create a new location.

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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£48.53 @ Amazon UK) 

Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£30.20 @ Ebuyer) 

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£36.56 @ Amazon UK) 

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£40.78 @ Amazon UK) 

Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case  (£49.19 @ Aria PC) 

Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£57.98 @ Amazon UK) 

Total: £263.24

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-25 14:10 BST+0100

 

This is basically just back of the napkin-type stuff, but this would do what you're looking for. The idea here is that you buy the cheapest overclockable, gaming-friendly processor in the newest generation of processors. It has on-chip graphics, so it'll get you started. Down the road, you buy a video card to make it more possible to game. Along the way, you can get another 8gb of memory, maybe an SSD, etc. The final thing you get is another processor, a Core i5 or i7 that would match the power of your GPU.

 

You could probably go cheaper on the case, power supply, and storage but since you'll be keeping those along the way that's what you're going to want to put some decent money into.

 

Wow, thanks. That's comprehensive. I assume youtube has plenty of guides on how to actually assemble all this stuff.

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