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The Computer Question Thread


aznriptide859

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Have a look at Tom's Hardware guide for GPUs.  It's obviously in $ so we'll pay a bit more, but the recommendations will most likely still be valid.  Choose a price and then get the best one in that range. 

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html

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I finally got round to building myself a PC this summer. I'd never done it before, and it took me an evening. I took it slow because I didn't want to break anything, and it's turned out really well. Scariest bit is putting the CPU in, it's the most delicate part (all those tiny pins) but thankfully it's a 'zero insertion force' socket so you just place it on top then press the lever.

 

As an exercise it's highly recommended, you learn a fair bit and save money over pre-builds.

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  • 1 month later...

I think it's time... my old rig is still running almost everything new on High, but after 5 years and much saving it's time to start the process of something new I reckon.  Probably take a couple of months from start to finish as well so I thought I'd begin now.

 

I need everything; tower, monitor, keyboard, mouse and probably speakers.  I'm moving the whole old rig back home except the speakers, but continuing to use a 5.1 setup with literally no possible way of putting the rear speakers anywhere but directly in front of me seems fairly pointless so they might as well get sold.

 

Only thing I thought about waiting for is windows 10 but that's a fair way away yet and I want something that'll really make GTA/MGS 5 look sweet.  Budget on the tower itself is 2k, I'll worry about the peripherals down the line because after just a little bit of reading on monitors yesterday, even that one part is looking to require an awful lot of days of review research before pulling the trigger.  Not self-building, apart from the fact I just want something to turn up g2g I've literally zero space for any such delicate activities in the barrack block.  Cyberpower built my last rig and current laptop and were still offering the best prices overall last time I looked around, so they're probably who I'll go with unless anyone amazingly better has popped up lately.

 

So yeah, if anyone's got any general wisdom as to Intel vs AMD, Nvidia vs Ati etc please do lay it on me.

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Intel are king when it comes to CPUs at the moment. AMD keep releasing disappointment after disappointment, and are suffering as a company for it. Intel comparatively have been consistently delivering. 

 

Nvidia is the stronger of the two between AMD (Purchased ATI) as well. Their latest 7XX and 9XX lines have great cost:value ratios throughout. 

 

I would strongly recommend an SSD. At the very least, one that'll hold your Operating System, but really they're so cheap nowadays in comparison to 2 years ago that you could get 1TB of flash memory for a pretty good deal - More than enough to hold OS, games, porn. An SSD will net you huge performance gains, as certainly for desktop activities, the hard disk is actually the bottleneck and not the CPU/GPU. Even for gaming it'll ensure textures load in instantly, load times are far faster etc. 

 

With regard to building/not building the PC, if you're not keen on building (which is fair enough) I would suggest buying from a retailler like scan.co.uk for example, and then picking the option to have their staff build it for you. It's not that bad price-wise at all, and it'll most probably be cheaper to someone like Cyberpower, who release models being sold for far more than they're worth.

 

If you'd like, I could have a look on [insert retailer here] and suggest a build? I'd probably use logicalincrements.com as a good benchmark and tailor it to what you want, adjusting for stuff like monitors etc.

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Alexander, choose your PSU power wisely. I recommend the lowest rated corsair AX line, specially when using only SSD and one or 2 mechanical drives. The reason is that it will run more efficient when its on 80-90% load. Higher rated psu are for SLI AND multiple HDDs. Nowadays everything is pretyy power efficient. Try the corsair psu calculator. Example: i have 1TB western digital black, a E3930k CPU, an ssd and a GTX780 GPU. I currently use a ax860i psu, WAY too much. Fan doesnt even spin up...

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If you'd like, I could have a look on [insert retailer here] and suggest a build? I'd probably use logicalincrements.com as a good benchmark and tailor it to what you want, adjusting for stuff like monitors etc.

 

Well, I ran through the configurations on CP and the 3xs site from Scan, setup two exact same systems.  £1935 from CP, £2038 from 3xs, literally only difference is the warranty, Scan's being far better and it'd cost way more overall to up the CP warranty to the same standard.

 

Is there some other option where you add parts on the normal Scan website then put some extra 'Build' item in to the basket and they assemble what you've bought?  Couldn't see it tbh.

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Well, I ran through the configurations on CP and the 3xs site from Scan, setup two exact same systems.  £1935 from CP, £2038 from 3xs, literally only difference is the warranty, Scan's being far better and it'd cost way more overall to up the CP warranty to the same standard.

 

Is there some other option where you add parts on the normal Scan website then put some extra 'Build' item in to the basket and they assemble what you've bought?  Couldn't see it tbh.

My apologies - I think I was getting Scan mixed up with another retailer :(

 

I'm not sure what to suggest WRT other retailers building one for you - but Stunt's suggestion is always a good one.

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Power tends to be massively overrated. I've got a rather clunky old setup running nvidia 480gtx, 1 ssd, 1 HDD, optical disk drive, water cooling and some lights and I have a 520w Corsair PSU in it. The PC, monitor, speakers and a NAS, are on a UPS and currently pulling 97w combined as I type... Yes, this goes up when everything spins up, but not that much. I don't think I've seen above about 250w on it. 

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Power tends to be massively overrated. I've got a rather clunky old setup running nvidia 480gtx, 1 ssd, 1 HDD, optical disk drive, water cooling and some lights and I have a 520w Corsair PSU in it. The PC, monitor, speakers and a NAS, are on a UPS and currently pulling 97w combined as I type... Yes, this goes up when everything spins up, but not that much. I don't think I've seen above about 250w on it. 

 

That's fair enough, but on 'ultra', ED browns out. not crash to desktop, but full on, computer no worky no more, hum of fans stopping spinning, black screen of 'off' crash.

On 'high' it doesn't do that. 

It's an old PSU, too, so probably high time I replaced it.

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That's fair enough, but on 'ultra', ED browns out. not crash to desktop, but full on, computer no worky no more, hum of fans stopping spinning, black screen of 'off' crash.

On 'high' it doesn't do that. 

It's an old PSU, too, so probably high time I replaced it.

 

That does sounds like a PSU that's not man enough. Have a go with the calculator that Alexander linked, or tell us what your PC spec is so we can get an idea of how much power you need.

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I'm serious, obviously it really depends on where you live whether there's any point.

 

Cool, well I bounce between Suffolk and London so if your profile's correct then it wouldn't be too far out of the way.  A case of pricing up components now I suppose, where do you usually use?

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That's fair enough, but on 'ultra', ED browns out. not crash to desktop, but full on, computer no worky no more, hum of fans stopping spinning, black screen of 'off' crash.

On 'high' it doesn't do that. 

It's an old PSU, too, so probably high time I replaced it.

 

Definitely sounds like it. By "overrated" I meant a decent power supply is certainly required, but there was the usual trend of "You must have at least 1000w" going on last time I was looking. The power calculator linked seems to generate a bit more sensible numbers though.

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Indeed, as with most things it is the quality of the item that matters, not the output rating. Much like audio, really. Have you tried a power meter plug thingy? I think kill-a-watt was recommended. Always handy to have around the house. Anyway, have you made a choice of computer components? Im curious :).

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