PC Build Advice/Review Thread

[Jojimbo]

I use H50, I like it due to it's compact size but it/they aren't as good as the big air coolers.


When I first got it my CPU (i7 920 @ 3.8GHz) cores were 27 to 34ish C at idle and 70 under prime95, although I think that was partially due to the room being cold as fuck (student house, and roommates thought it's be a good idea not to use heating during winter/keep turning it off when I turned it on) as they went up when I moved.

Currently I'm sitting at 45-50 C idle even with C-State, however I'm not sure if that's because needs replacing/refitting as my room is quite cool atm.

[Cephius]

I use H50, I like it due to it's compact size but it/they aren't as good as the big air coolers.


When I first got it my CPU (i7 920 @ 3.8GHz) cores were 27 to 34ish C at idle and 70 under prime95, although I think that was partially due to the room being cold as fuck (student house, and roommates thought it's be a good idea not to use heating during winter/keep turning it off when I turned it on) as they went up when I moved.

Currently I'm sitting at 45-50 C idle even with C-State, however I'm not sure if that's because needs replacing/refitting as my room is quite cool atm.

For the i7 45-50c idle is too hot if you're not overclocking, in my opinion. I'd definitely try reseating it, maybe moving jarred the plate lose a bit.

[Jojimbo]

I will try reseating next time I need to clean filters (I can clean filters and GPUs etc at same time then).

For thermal paste what's the best out there atm? I have some arctic silver 5 that I used to build the PC almost about 18 months ago but I remember someone saying there is better now.

[Cephius]

AS5 should be just fine, if there is anything better I can't see it making much of a difference.

[Amastacia]

There is better, but it will only change CPU temps by a couple degrees C, and using what you already have is a better idea.

AS5 does take a while to cure, so if you want best results, you'll need to operate your PC across various temperatures (off, idle, gaming, stress testing) for a while. It can take as little as 20 hours to cure, and as much as 250 hours to cure.

In short, expect temps to trickle down a little over the first couple weeks after reapplying thermal paste.

[Crizto]

Motherboard got fried. Going to be replacing it with this:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...067&CatId=4720

My GPU is http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...156&CatId=3669

I should be okay to put that card into this board right?

[CoronA1979]

Motherboard got fried. Going to be replacing it with this:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...067&CatId=4720

My GPU is http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...156&CatId=3669

I should be okay to put that card into this board right?

Yes

[Seanr]

why the fuck is ram so damn expensive in stores >.<

I got a HP Pavilion Media Center m8530f Desktop from my cousin, his memory went bad, he ended up buying another computer. Now I need to ram to get this shit working

Dual channel memory architecture
Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM sockets
Supported DIMM types:
PC2-5300 (667 MHz)
PC2-6400 (800 MHz)
PC2-8500 (1066 MHz)*
NOTE: HP does not recommend using PC2-8500. This motherboard can support only one PC2-8500 DIMM per channel (2 DIMMS total), which limits the maximum memory.
Non-ECC memory only, unbuffered
Supports 2GB DDR2 DIMMs
Supports up to 8 GB on 64 bit PCs
Supports up to 4 GB* on 32 bit PCs

got that from the specs page, anything I should look for in particular? I might just buy a single 2GB stick to start out with then eventually upgrade to 8GB, 2 or 4GB to start out with would be nice. I looked in fuckin staples on friday and i think I saw 2GBs for almost 70 to 100, of course I know there are cheaper online, I see 2GB Kingston compatible sticks for around $30... but is there cheaper/better?

[Karinastar]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-235-_-Product

This is about the cheapest I can find from a good brand. It's value ram, but Crucial makes good memory and it has a lifetime warranty. And since it's on a store bought PC, you probably can't really overclock it anyway (locked BIOS), so you don't really need anything more expensive that would overclock well. DDR2 is pretty much completely phased out of new systems, so it's going to be a bit more expensive than DDR3. ><

[liamsom]

First time poster here.

I'm thinking of upgrading my rig mainly due to my brother wanting to build a machine, I was hoping to sell him a few things and upgrade mine in the process.
I'm currently running:

- i7 920 @ 2.6GHz - stock (I plan to overclock this to 3.6+)
- GTX 295 - I was hoping to replace this with either a GTX 570 or GTX 580 with the potential to go SLI at some point in the future.
- EVGA X58 SLI Mobo
- Enermax Galaxy 1000W PSU (Overkill?)
- 6GB Corsair Dominator 3 x 2GB

Anyway my question is what is your recommendation for the GPU, is the extra £100+ worth the extra "umph" the 580 gives over the 570?

At the moment I'm only really running FFXIV and a bit of Crysis which the 295 runs happily with most settings on High without AA and if I were to SLI in the future would a PSU upgrade be required?


Would appreciate any advice you can give.
Cheers.

[Seanr]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-235-_-Product

This is about the cheapest I can find from a good brand. It's value ram, but Crucial makes good memory and it has a lifetime warranty. And since it's on a store bought PC, you probably can't really overclock it anyway (locked BIOS), so you don't really need anything more expensive that would overclock well. DDR2 is pretty much completely phased out of new systems, so it's going to be a bit more expensive than DDR3. ><

fuckin excellent, thats around the price point i was hoping to buy them at.

[Kohan]

A few months ago, I put together an Amazon Wish List for a friend. I'd offered to build him a PC, and he wanted it to be fairly top of the line -- he was willing to spend a pretty penny, but not go absolutely bonkers. I think I put together a pretty sweet machine for him.

Unfortunately, he didn't pull the trigger, so the parts haven't been bought and, needless to say, I haven't put the PC together. Now, he's finally ready to, but I want to make sure my bargain hunting isn't outdated.

http://amzn.com/w/2KMSUBK8XKQ7B

I replaced the old graphics card (it was a Radeon) because Amazon wasn't carrying it anymore, but that aside, I haven't made any modifications since this list was originally put together in April. Free shipping from Amazon is crucial (since I have a Prime account, and want to avoid taxes/fees); I don't want to use any other retailers, not even NewEgg (who has been replaced by Amazon, in my eyes).

Are there any better deals (e.g., a graphics card with comparable performance that's cheaper, or a similarly reliable SSD falling into the same category), or would you say this setup is as relevant today as it was a few months back, and he should just pay for it already?

Don't mind the missing things, by the by (like the HDD) -- we already have those.

[sephir]

I currently am thinking of building with a i5 2500k 1155 sandy bridge cpu. Would it be worth the extra cash to upgrade to an i-7? or would money be better spent going from 4gb of ram to 8gb?

[Jojimbo]

A few months ago, I put together an Amazon Wish List for a friend. I'd offered to build him a PC, and he wanted it to be fairly top of the line -- he was willing to spend a pretty penny, but not go absolutely bonkers. I think I put together a pretty sweet machine for him.

Unfortunately, he didn't pull the trigger, so the parts haven't been bought and, needless to say, I haven't put the PC together. Now, he's finally ready to, but I want to make sure my bargain hunting isn't outdated.

http://amzn.com/w/2KMSUBK8XKQ7B

I replaced the old graphics card (it was a Radeon) because Amazon wasn't carrying it anymore, but that aside, I haven't made any modifications since this list was originally put together in April. Free shipping from Amazon is crucial (since I have a Prime account, and want to avoid taxes/fees); I don't want to use any other retailers, not even NewEgg (who has been replaced by Amazon, in my eyes).

Are there any better deals (e.g., a graphics card with comparable performance that's cheaper, or a similarly reliable SSD falling into the same category), or would you say this setup is as relevant today as it was a few months back, and he should just pay for it already?

Don't mind the missing things, by the by (like the HDD) -- we already have those.

Looks good, can't say much about SSD (I havn't been keeping up with lastest ones) but you may want to get a 570 with custom cooler (MSI/Gigabyte) and a better CPU cooler (Thermalright Silver Arrow or Noctua NH-D14)

I currently am thinking of building with a i5 2500k 1155 sandy bridge cpu. Would it be worth the extra cash to upgrade to an i-7? or would money be better spent going from 4gb of ram to 8gb?

If it's a gaming rig don't bother with the i7 2600k, just stick with i5 and get the 8GB RAM if you want it.

[Kohan]

Looks good, can't say much about SSD (I havn't been keeping up with lastest ones) but you may want to get a 570 with custom cooler (MSI/Gigabyte) and a better CPU cooler (Thermalright Silver Arrow or Noctua NH-D14)

Thanks for the suggestion. Would this card be one of the sorts you'd suggest?

[Ramor]

Old Mobo fried and I need a new one, was a P7P55-M from Asus. Looking for suggestions, anything in the 75~125$ price range would be best (hopefully on the lower end), rest of my gear that should hopefully be ok:
GTX 260
2x G-Skill Ripjaws (2g each) ram
i5-750 (WHICH I JUST OC'D FINALLY WHEN MY STUPID COMPUTER BRICKED)
Some seagate 7200 1.5tb HDD, I feel like that's mostly irrelevant though as I'm hoping to pick up a 120g SSD sometime soon and load all of my shit on that so my computer is STUPID FAST YEAH, or maybe another HDD and run them so that one is the write and one is the read as I'm sure that'd be cheaper than a SSD at this point (though not as fast I realize, not to mention I can't remember what doing this is called, striping or braiding or something, I know there's a couple of options for multiple HDDs to split up the work in various fashions)

Also, I'm like 95% positive it's my mobo that bricked (the EPU looks all burnt up on the traces) but is there any easy way to tell if anything else in my clackputer went with the mobo? It all went to shit when we started getting weird power flickers last week, my PSU is fine I tested that under load with a DMM but other than that I don't know of any tricks to test my GPU/Ram etc...

[Jojimbo]

Thanks for the suggestion. Would this card be one of the sorts you'd suggest?

Yeah, that's one of them.

edit: Actually, looking at that RAM a bigger CPU cooler might be an issue depending on the layout of the mobo.

Also, I'm like 95% positive it's my mobo that bricked (the EPU looks all burnt up on the traces) but is there any easy way to tell if anything else in my clackputer went with the mobo? It all went to shit when we started getting weird power flickers last week, my PSU is fine I tested that under load with a DMM but other than that I don't know of any tricks to test my GPU/Ram etc...

Don't think there is a way to test gpu/cpu/ram unless you have another PC to put them in unfortunately.

[Andalusian girls]

I currently am thinking of building with a i5 2500k 1155 sandy bridge cpu. Would it be worth the extra cash to upgrade to an i-7? or would money be better spent going from 4gb of ram to 8gb?

yeh for gaming the i-5 2500K is easily the best CPU for its price point and crushes anything on the market and will for the foreseeable future. 4.3+ gHz OC per core is the norm and some golden chips get to an even 5, the extra money is better spent on RAM or a GPU.

the i-7 is really only noticeably superior for multithreading tasks which is cool if you're doing the CGI for the next Michael Bay film but otherwise ehhhhh

[Overburn]

Was wondering if somebody could advise me on my first gaming computer build.

I've basically done nothing before in assembling computers, so I've basically got a mold of the computer from the guide here (the excellent one) and was hoping I could get advice on anything that wasn't covered there. The computer currently is about $900 which what my goal was, but I see a bunch of people advising to try and get combos/deals to lower the price. Only problem with that is I really have no idea what to look for and was wondering if anybody had any advice. For those that don't want to read the link, this is the computer (not shown would be a 1TB HDD, which I assume this will work for):



Edit: I guess I should mention that I'm not really interested currently in too many games on a high performance. Really what I'm looking for is a computer that could maybe run Portal 2 on medium settings and maybe Skyrim when it comes out on low-med settings. Nothing like Battlefield 3 on high for now.

[GSDragoon]

Was wondering if somebody could advise me on my first gaming computer build.

I've basically done nothing before in assembling computers, so I've basically got a mold of the computer from the guide here (the excellent one) and was hoping I could get advice on anything that wasn't covered there. The computer currently is about $900 which what my goal was, but I see a bunch of people advising to try and get combos/deals to lower the price. Only problem with that is I really have no idea what to look for and was wondering if anybody had any advice. For those that don't want to read the link, this is the computer (not shown would be a 1TB HDD, which I assume this will work for):

http://bucket.bluegartr.com/5b46dfe1...513e174a38.png

Edit: I guess I should mention that I'm not really interested currently in too many games on a high performance. Really what I'm looking for is a computer that could maybe run Portal 2 on medium settings and maybe Skyrim when it comes out on low-med settings. Nothing like Battlefield 3 on high for now.

Laptop memory?