The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Highest I ever use is about 8. It's nice to have more than 8 in case you do ever go over that much.

 

i doubt i would ever use more than 8gb? but ya never know? i just cant wait till i can start buying stuff.
ill make a list of things that i know im going with. then i will post other stuff for debate.

 

heres the mobo im going with, would like to have dual lan's but i can deal with 1.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128506

CPU, not sure if i should go with the 2700K or stick with the 2600K?

PSU, ihave one of these in the big red machine right now. plenty of power, no need for more.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139010

and i think im gonna go with the HAF922 again. id like to get the 932 but nor enough room for it..lol i got a good friend with a CM RC690 that i might go with and mod it some/paint it black inside...lol or red like i did my haf922

and everything else is wide open still. i need more homework on the other stuff.

 

I love my HX750. PLENTY of power Looks like it's sli ready. Though I don't know if I'll ever use it. If the GTX 570 comes down to 150 - 200USD, I might strongly consider it. Quite the warranty too!

 

That looks like something I said once upon a time. To the letter!

 

Rob,

My bad! I thought you said 16GB. Try these. 1866MHz Cas 9.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231460

Good price too!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

lol i think those are the ones i had picked out in my original post. ill look back at that list and see.. hey i might have picked something right for once..

edit to add:
well kind. i choose the 1333 version. think ill go with the 1866 you pointed out. when it goes to time to install them and get them running right ill have to get with you and walk me through the correct steps to get them running at top performance settings.

 

Have never even gotten close. I do run VMs from time to time but I can't really see the point as they don't enable you to do anything Windows 7 isn't already capable of. Outside of the required college class, I've never needed a VM for anything. And everything I'm supposed to need a VM for, my Win 7 machine does better... So as far as RAM usage is concerned, I don't use mine lol.

 

Rob,

These aren't the same memory. Those were Cas 10 w/ timings of 10-10-10-30. My link is for Cas 9 w/timings of 9-10-9-28. Should work right fine!

Just don't forget the setting in the setup, "Advanced Memory Settings", called "Performance Enhance'" that is set to Turbo by default. Setting this to Basic will allow you to use your 1866 memory! With your unlocked CPU, you probably won't need to touch the Host Frequency, just the memory multiplier. It should be one fast computer!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

That's you, but for some of us VM's are important and do require RAM! That's why Kevin stated it the way he did.

There are some people that only surf the web and they could get by easily with 4GB's of RAM, actually 2GB would probably be fine. Now would that mean everyone would be fine on 2GB's of RAM?

 

I built a 2Gb system for my brother once upon a time. For XP, it was more than adequate. But Windows 7 and firefox tends to eat it up fairly quickly. Though Firefox has evolved a little. I ended up doubling his ram, because it just wasn't enough. I would consider 3Gb to be minimum for windows 7. 4Gb being recommended. Depending on how much gaming, I'd recommend 6 - 8Gb. At present, I can't see myself using 16Gb. But I imagine that will change one day. There are probably CGI applications(which I plan on playing with), that can benefit from 16Gb of Ram.

 

Just one of the reasons among many I don't use Firefox anymore. Chrome, IE8, or even others and 2GB is still enough for a web machine. Really sad since Firefox has so many nice features.

For me 16GB would be perfect and I will be setting up my main with that much RAM. Not only will it allow me to use more virtual machines but will come in big for Solid Works, AutoCAD, ProE, Video Authoring tools, and even my array of PhotoShop tools.

But like you stated in your original post that 8GB is more than enough for most people still holds and does for even some of my other PC's.

It was a very good guideline you laid out, at least I thought so.

Best regards Kevin,
Stevo

 

I VM XP, as there's a fair few things it can do that Windows 7 can't, and running it all from the same machine is handy sometimes, such as when you want to make use of your main PC's capabilities to record the screen and render it, for example.

 

Stevo,

The big problem with Win7 is MicroCrap can waste memory faster than you can install it. Not only that, it's a totally incomplete and sometimes inadequate OS! Just turning on the computer is like playing Russian Roulette with 5 bullets in the cylinder, because you never know from day to day, what's going to work and what isn't! The Windows Picture Viewer is total crap, with no support for animated GIFs, and no, I don't want to use another program. It should either work like XP's Picture and Fax viewer, to begin with, or not be a part of the OS! Why force a step backwards, with a new OS? The Menu system in "My Computer" is total rubbish. They imply that there is a preview window, but that's a far stretch because you can't scroll through the icons in preview and see a thumbnail on the lower left panel. You can't hover over the icon to see the individual pic, because all you see is M$'s icons for .JPG, .bmp, Etc! You have to open and close the preview manually for each picture, rendering the arrow keys useless, wasting a ton of time. There's no way to change the size of the folder icon size in "My Computer" that I've found yet that works, and it will not comply when I tell Windows to ask me before downloading updates. It just goes ahead and downloads and installs them. If I click on Turn Off Automatic Updates, it puts the red icon in the task bar, and still downloads and installs all updates, without notification or asking my permission! You mark my words, the day that XP-Pro is totally unsupported by M$ (04/20/14), there will be an annual fee for Windows! I don't want to think about the Cluster F*** that Win8 is going to be. I'm going back to XP-Pro, pretty soon. I'm tired of things that used to be so simple to do becoming so unnecessarily complex. What's the point of having a fast computer if windows makes everything that was simple, a chore to do with Win7? You wind up going through a ton of mouse clicks and menus, just to find what took you two or three intuative clicks to do with XP. All they are doing is wasting your time with their BS/OS. There's a reason KISS means "Keep it Simple, Stupid!" :>)

Sorry for the rant!
Russ

 

I agree Russ, I was also very dissapointed, my nieghbors kid got a new Asus labby, nice computer, realy liked it, he wanted me to set some things up for him, never messes with 7 before, was I dissapointed, things that should have been made easier were harder, I know it's a new thing for me, I know I need to get use to many things, but right off the bat just plain old commin sense tells me they already screwed up on things.

I was anxious to mess with this 7, I know in another year and a half I will have to do this 7 thing and wanted to get a head start sort off, it's a shame they dummied down on some things and thats only some of the things I tackled so far, you have messed with it for what a year now and your still finding things that turn out to be a pain in the butt, again, so far I'm dissapointed, and I did not want to be.

 

Every OS when you first use it is a learning process, therefore pulling some of your hair out in the process. I can't think of one OS were that wasn't true. Had you gone from Wista to 7 you would have found it a glorious treat. There is no doubt that 7 has it's BS and yes they shouldn't have changed to Program Features for installed programs and they definitely shouldn't have changed to auto folder sort on all folders except the Desktop. And many things are buried now where they were much easier to find before.

As far as memory is concerned they do a pretty good job of managing that in 7, unlike Vista.

I don't agree with the Russian Roulette either. Windows 7 can be fragile yes but as to what works it is pretty steady with drivers for the most part. In fact it will let you use hardware that Wista would not and that would run on XP, again unlike Wista.

The picture viewer works fine but you are correct GIF's will be displayed in IE not the Picture Viewer. I have Photo Shop handle them by default and change BMP's back to be handled by Picture Viewer. Actually I have no problems scrolling through pictures so I really don't understand where your problem is there? For pictures they just show a thumbnail of the picture in your folders so again I don't see why you would hover over to see it so I'm not following you there either? And yes you'll have to use another program, sorry!

My Computer is just fine but I turn on Menu Bar so that it is just like older versions which I told you to do way back when. You can fine that under "Organize/Layout/Menu bar". I have no problem with My Computer.

Change Your View will change icon sizes in My Computer and actual layouts too.

You're definitely not setting things up right if it is installing updates without your permission Russ, if you tell it to Check updates but ask me to install them, loosely stated, it will do that. It will check and then tell you there are these many updates ready for you to install. That works I've used it however I tell it to never update and just do it manually. I know that every month around the 12th there will be more updates and if I feel like updating I do so when I WANT.

Windows 7 a pretty decent overall and I personally wouldn't go back to XP for the few things I liked better with XP, there are too many advantages to Windows 7 and I can turn off most of the nasties.

I won't be going to a tablet OS, Windows 8, unless I can turn off all of that nonsense so that might be like Wista were I skip it for the most part. I'll still have to have it just to support people I know and help.

Sorry Russ but I can't support you on the rant although some of it is true,
Stevo

 

Sounds like you've somehow got thumbnails disabled. This functionality has always worked for me...

I'll agree on the lack of GIF animation support for windows picture preview being madness, but what's wrong with just opening said GIFs in a browser?

Ctrl+Mousewheel?

I know many People and PCs that use windows 7, at least 50. Not one of them has ever reported that as an issue.


The interface of win7 allows me to do so many things so much easier than XP, I can't ever go back really. It pains me to use an XP machine after having got used to 7.

It's not going to be perfect, it's Microsoft, but it's better than any previous version of windows, IMO.

The only people that struggle with the change to 7 are those that can't deal with change. The change is in the vast majority of cases for the better, but lots of people just can't deal with anything that's not familiar to them.

I'm pretty sure lots of people were in the same boat when XP came out versus 98.

For what it's worth, as much as I embrace 7, I still use a traditional XP-style start menu. I turn off the icon-based system, as I don't actually like it.

 

I keep Windows 7 very stripped down as well. I use it very similarly to how I used XP, completely dropping things like the horrid sidebar and customizing everything for minimalism and function. Instead of relying on the clickpath for control panel items and other common tasks, I type it in search, and for 99% of stuff, it's dead useful. Indexing is wonderful on mechanical drives btw.

I find it nearly identical to XP when configured right. Maybe a slightly re-arranged file structure, but basically XP with all the nice bits of Vista slapped on. Most of my need for it stems from Direct X and memory functionality though.

 

Ahh, you don't like gadgets estuansis? I like my weather gadget, as well as the CPU/Ram tachometer.

I find it highly similar to XP as well. A little different sure. Anything I'm unsure of, a google will suffice. Like recently I discovered a handy way of copying multiple paths. Select a bunch of files, and hold shift, then right click, and you'll see the option to copy as path. VERY useful for copying file names into notepad or any text editor. I used it so I know exactly what's on my external drives without having to plug it in I was about to download a software for doing it, but came across a forum explaining windows 7's ability to do it. Granted I only want the file names, but an intelligent word program should be able to deal with the rest of the job. Although I've gotten use to seeing the full paths

I definitely like how the "Run" bar is right in the start bar. One keyboard click, and I'm there! If you're good memorizing module/program names, that's very handy! e.g. notepad, cmd, device manager, etc. It's really quite dandy.

Of course I'm probably considered beyond novice at typing ^_^ Put a little caffeine in me, and I'll blow even my mind LOL!

 

Stevo,

I have a lot of older programs that I use all the time. Some will work for a while and one day you boot up and get the add on menu, telling you they are shutting down the program until a solution is available to correct what ever the problem was. most take a day or two but I've had a couple that didn't make it past the first week. I think there's little chance that I'll get a solution from M$ (Giggles Madly). I can only conclude that since it's expensive programs, M$ is trying to force you to pony up big bucks for some new software, CCE costs about the same as a luxury car, but is capable of using up to 12 cores. CCE cost a couple of grand back when I got mine. I'm not throwing it away!

The Picture viewer doesn't work fine! If you use the Slideshow you are supposed to be able to set it so that small pictures don't blow up, but it still blows them up about 70%. If you chose the other setting, it blows them up to full screen. Either way, it makes the picture almost un-viewable! Windows and Fax Viewer in XP doesn't blow up pictures under a certain size, so it was never a problem.

Maybe I didn't explain myself too well with the hover. There's a couple of viewer programs where if you use the large icons, the icon shows a picture of the file, in place of the large icon when you hover over an icon. There's also no in window preview, as there was with XP, so you have to open and close the preview program for every picture, making an easy job difficult.

The Menu Bar has been turned on since you first told me to do it. Stability has never been a problem, unlike my previous version of Win7 Basic. I've blue screened it once. My fault! I had unplugged a 120mm fan while it was running. When I plugged it in, the Motherboard and the Power Supply shook hands and said, "Hell No", and it Blue Screened! :>)

64 bit compatibility for 32 bit programs has improved greatly, so all but a couple of them work. I had to make some "work a rounds" for Win.rar and my Disc Stakka, DVD Storage unit. Before you tell me , I know I can use 7zip, but it doesn't open every type of .rar file. Nor does Win.rar open up every type of 7Zip file. I had a lot of problems with some videos I downloaded from Japan, when Jackie performed there. They would give you a "Corrupt File or The File is Too Short" warning. 7Zip opened it right up. I've yet to find any files that neither of them couldn't open, so I guess that's covered pretty well. You get a lot of strange ones from the Philippines and Indonesia.

Ah, yes Vista was a head game. The only OS in history to be incompatible with itself! We should come up with some sort of recognition for the person who wrote the software that insured that Vista would crash itself.

BTW! My Micro$oft Brand Intelimouse 3000 Wireless Mouse that I bought to assure compatibility with Win7, didn't work. It said that it wasn't compatible with Win7 LOL!! I waited a week and looked on the net. The patch was on the Official M$. site, so I downloaded it and installed it. Works fine now.

Russ