PC Build Advice/Review Thread

[Qeomash]

This is the chair I've had for a year or two now: http://www.amazon.com/Office-Star-55.../dp/B000PWINLQ

[Boyiee]

I have an aeron but that might be slightly out if your price range. Worth bumping up to though, have had it for like 5+ years.

[chullo]

Look how many insist on that i7/212/cheap psu combo even though they will get zero performance benefit if they aren't rendering/compiling/encoding.

Sli 970s outperform a single 980 by quite a bit, and a single 980 isn't very much of a upgrade over a 970. Very marginal.

this and this ^^

as for a chair at my desk, I use this and i like it but you have to get used to it for sure:
http://www.amazon.com/Variable-Furni.../dp/B008VL978Q

[Kalmado]

what's peoples opinions on reference cooler vs custom? I'm looking at possibly purchasing a second hand Gigabyte R9 290 that's reference. Gigabyte's warranty transfers. I'd love to hear some feedback!

[Boyiee]

Every cooler will have a different idle and max temp, different noise level, different fan style.

Most people will prefer the custom coolers because you can be specific as to which pro and con you want. The quieter one or the better cooling one. My reference cooler has a blower style fan and in my rotated positive pressure case is the best option for me.

It all comes down to what you want.

[Adajer]

this and this ^^

as for a chair at my desk, I use this and i like it but you have to get used to it for sure:
http://www.amazon.com/Variable-Furni.../dp/B008VL978Q

rofl at kneeling chair with choking hazard warning

[Kalmado]

Every cooler will have a different idle and max temp, different noise level, different fan style.

Most people will prefer the custom coolers because you can be specific as to which pro and con you want. The quieter one or the better cooling one. My reference cooler has a blower style fan and in my rotated positive pressure case is the best option for me.

It all comes down to what you want.

After using the 7990 I realize I do not like a loud card! The 7990 hovers around 85c while gaming and the fans let you know it. I was going to take it apart and apply new thermal compound, but figured if I can sell it and get something that runs quieter and cooler I'd rather go that route. Looks like a complete water cooling solution would run around $115 so I won't be going that route. If that was the case I'd attempt to water cool the 7990. The R9 290 I'm looking at, guy is asking $180 shipped but I'd try to buy it for $160. If I could get it for that price it seems like a great bargain.

[Senji]

Stock gpu compound is generally atrocious. I haven't read any cooler reviews in some time, but they used to compare factory cooler and paste to aftermarket cooler and proper paste job, or factory paste to new paste, and not doing the three step.

[Kalmado]

Stock gpu compound is generally atrocious. I haven't read any cooler reviews in some time, but they used to compare factory cooler and paste to aftermarket cooler and proper paste job, or factory paste to new paste, and not doing the three step.

I watched a few reviews about replacing paste and how it does. For the 7990 it appears to drop it around 5-8c when applying some decent paste. I have Artic Silver 5 and have been recommended that will do the job.

[Boyiee]

After using the 7990 I realize I do not like a loud card! The 7990 hovers around 85c while gaming and the fans let you know it. I was going to take it apart and apply new thermal compound, but figured if I can sell it and get something that runs quieter and cooler I'd rather go that route. Looks like a complete water cooling solution would run around $115 so I won't be going that route. If that was the case I'd attempt to water cool the 7990. The R9 290 I'm looking at, guy is asking $180 shipped but I'd try to buy it for $160. If I could get it for that price it seems like a great bargain.

Just remember that water cooling isn't necessarily quieter. It still uses fans. Typically smaller, louder fans.

[Mabubeezareel]

All the GPUs that I've needed to replace the thermal compound on have been due to improper application of the existing compound from the factory, generally waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much of it. Seen load temps drop anywhere from 5-15° depending on the card, with my 7950 seeing the most dramatic decrease (almost 20°!).

[Adajer]

all gpu manufacturers put way too much TIM on their cards, which is a shame.

go through all that R&D to make a good cooelr and then just slap a huge chunk of TIM on it instead of a uniform sized dot in the center.

most use cheapest TIM they can find too. for shame

[Kalmado]

Not sure if this should have it's own thread, but Nvidia got hit with the class action lawsuit. http://www.scribd.com/doc/256406451/...t-over-GTX-970

[enzan]

Wow, that seems a little extreme. People asking for them to refund every 970? What does it take to get the card to crash like that anyway? I haven't had that problem yet.

[Kalmado]

I haven't read very far into it, and I'm not well educated on the fine details, but regarding the vram issue once the gpu goes over 3.5gb quality drops immensely. It's as if the gpu wants to either access the 3.5gb or the other .5gb, but not both at the same time. Here is a quote from a poster on [H]ardforum.com. The article is from AnandTech. http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/g...y-allocation/2

This in turn is why the 224GB/sec memory bandwidth number for the GTX 970 is technically correct and yet still not entirely useful as we move past the memory controllers, as it is not possible to actually get that much bandwidth at once when doing a pure read or a pure write. In the case of pure reads for example, GTX 970 can read the 3.5GB segment at 196GB/sec (7GHz * 7 ports * 32-bits), or it can read the 512MB segment at 28GB/sec, but it cannot read from both at once; it is a true XOR situation. The same is also true for writes, as only one segment can be written to at a time.

Unfortunately what this means is that accessing the weaker 512MB segment blocks access to the stronger 3.5GB segment if both memory operations are identical; or put another way, using the 512MB segment can harm the performance of the 3.5GB segment. For example, if we want to issue reads to both segments at once, reading the 512MB segment blocks any other reads to the 3.5GB segment for that cycle. If the 3.5GB segment is blocked in this fashion and doesn't have a non-blocking write to work on instead, it would have to go idle for that cycle, which would reduce the effective memory bandwidth of the 3.5GB segment. This means that taken over time in our example, the larger the percentage of the time the crossbar is reading the 512MB segment, the lower the effective read memory bandwidth would be from the 3.5GB segment.

[Halion]

I am a casual that mostly just wants to upgrade to decrease my loading screen time in FF14 and be able to play new games acceptably. I don't want to spend a lot of money for performance increases that I won't realistically notice. My computer is over 5 years old and the newest game I own is Borderlands TPS, and I honestly find the playability acceptable at what probably rarely if ever exceeds 30 FPS (educated guess, I dont play with FPS counter on).
I'm mostly nervous about compatibility issues or accidentally cheaping out on something worthwhile. IE when I bought the monitor I have now I didn't know to check the max resolution which is only a piddly 1440x900 so it would have been extremely worthwhile in that case to spend 20-50 more dollars for a better monitor.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kVjTnQ The upgrades
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XMvLHx The upgrades with my psw and gpu, I also have a small SSD

The actual price is about 270$ and I would ideally want to add no more than 80$

Concerns:
* I don't know the importance of USB 3.0.

* AMD has a "bad" reputation compared to Intel.

* My GPU will replace my CPU as the bottleneck but a new one really bumps the price higher than I want

* I have 1 case fan, if the case comes with another fan is that enough cooling

* I understand that I will need some thermal paste, but unsure of any other cables or whatnots

[Mabubeezareel]

I think that a better way of approaching this would be for you to list exactly what you have now so we can determine a best approach for you. Also, a budget cap would be help as well.

[Kalmado]

I think that a better way of approaching this would be for you to list exactly what you have now so we can determine a best approach for you. Also, a budget cap would be help as well.

Also, do you live by a Microcenter?

[Halion]

I don't really see what I left out, so maybe I was unclear?

I am looking at case, mobo, cpu, ram as upgrades http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kVjTnQ like, these upgrades will be meaningful because the parts they are replacing are over 5 years old.

And I want to use from my current set up ssd, gpu, psw, fan with psw and gpu added here for compatibility sake http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XMvLHx I am pretty sure the gpu will go in the mobo and I am pretty sure the psw is powerful enough that they don't need to be upgraded RIGHTMEOW

No more than 350 is my ideal budget because I do not want to buy a new gpu unless it is strongly recommended for a reason.

If there's something I'm not getting, you might have to treat me like I'm retarded, sorry :/ This is why I asked before buying anything lol... I'm dumb

I do not appear to live by a MicroCenter.

[Pharaun]

People are asking because computers these days are more often GPU bound than CPU bound, so depending on what CPU you already have it might be more efficient to upgrade your GPU instead. A Radeon 5850 is getting pretty underpowered these days and instead of spending ~$180 on a new cpu/mobo you could upgrade to something like a R9 280/280X/285 depending on the deal you find.

Edit: If you're willing to try overclocking the CPU here's a build with the unlocked 20th Anniversary Pentium and a R9 270X for ~$350. People have had a lot of luck OCing that Pentium with just the stock cooler and getting it to perform very well.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zHfsxr