The Official PC building thread - 4th Edition

Toshibas are pretty consistently decent quality. For that kind of deal I would seriously consider the purchase.

 

I've got a Toshiba Sat. It's dependable. Flash content (E.g. facebook gaming) is a bit hit miss, but it'll play blu-ray (hardware acceleration only), it browses the web smoothly. I believe an SSD would help it greatly. Best part is I only spent $100 on it A client asked me to replace the LCD screen. I did it for $100, and he said he couldn't afford that, so he let me keep it It's a dual core, and generally runs pretty smooth. I've been meaning to install linux for the longest time. Just haven't gotten around to it :S

I would definitely get another Toshiba Sat The software is a bit overkill though. As is usually the case(Bloatware).

 

Been borrowing a friend's Samsung Series 3 for a while. 1.9GHz Quad Core AMD Trinity with 8GB of RAM and the built-in 7640G graphics. Really fast and smooth for daily computing. Breezes through HD content and the like. Also handles the wide majority of games at decent settings.

I think he only paid some $500 for it 6 months ago. Really nice and solidly built. He carries it everywhere with him and not a hint of poor build quality.

 

Toshiba is good so if it is not too old it would probably be a good buy.

 

This is the one guys, I played with it some more today, it won't break any records but ran clean and smooth, 200 bucks what do you guys think?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114941

 

Smokes my laptop I'd say it's worth it!

 

Looks OK Fred.

 

Thanks guys, think I'm gonna snatch it up.

 

Looks good to me.

 

Just an interesting turn of events. I've been sent an XFX 6970 Black Edition by a friend for temporary usage until I get the second 6850 sold. I will be doing some testing to see what I can get out of it. I have a sneaking hunch that a lot of my performance issues aren't due to the relative processing power of my video cards, but due to simply not enough memory. Am very interested to see how my performance changes from title to title. A LOT of games will lose performance, but a great many stand to gain quite a lot. Skyrim will be my first testing subject

 

So I am absolutely awestruck. Apparently my video memory was a much larger bottleneck than I ever thought possible. Double, triple, and quadruple framerates in every game I had a problem with. The 6850s are officially replaced.

Skyrim is absolutely TRANSFORMED. FPS is locked at 60 most of the time with slight dips versus previously hovering between 50-60 with lots of dips and horrible, game-breaking stuttering in towns. Absolutely maxed with 4xAA, which would flog the 6850s into single digits. I previously had to use a mix of High/Ultra with no AA.

Undeniable performance advantage here. Skyrim just went from a major thorn in my side to silky smooth as high as the settings go. Super impressed with the performance here. I had no clue Gamebryo could run so smoothly! The previous issue of massive, unplayable stutter in dense or wide-open areas has completely disappeared. Video memory maybe the single most important component in running Skyrim. I am not kidding, I have never seen a game so transformed by simple video memory. None of the others are affected in quite the same way as this.

Skyrim is a supreme example to me that numbers do not tell all about performance. In benchmarking, my 6850s seemed to do quite well, but in practice, the video memory limit was destroying fluidity while still maintaining a "playable" average framerate.

The only relatively modern game that hasn't changed much is Far Cry 3. I would imagine that's simply a case of pure hardware performance. My 6850s are theoretically a bit faster than a single 6970, and Far Cry 3 shows that perfectly. It has good scaling so that makes a lot of sense. Some ~10% slower than the Crossfire cards.

So yeah. I should have upgraded a LONG time ago. Simply having a 2GB 6850 would have transformed everything.

I have one issue with the 6970. Its fan profile does not kick in automatically. The card was RMA'd with this problem previously, and sent back with the same issue. Not a major issue as simply loading up Trixx with the card's default profiles makes it kick in. Otherwise it idles at about 25% speed and loads at 35% speed while hitting 100*C at times. Went from nearly 100*C in any game to the low 80s. A small speedbump for someone who has a clue, but the average Joe would have had a dead card by now.

I will mention that this card is LOUD! The 6850s both at 100% pale in comparison. It may be due to it having a blower vs the HD6850s which had fans. Sam, how the hell do you stand two of them? They're insanely loud. The only thing that even comes close is the dust buster blower on my old X850XT. I have had to make some adjustments to the fan profile to control the noise.

This is certainly not going to be my decided upgrade, but it serves as a relief from my memory limit, and a major performance boost in many games. A few games do run worse, which bothers me. The GTX760 is definitely in the works, probably going to be a 4GB model.

 

In spite of the little writing on top of the page I've been advised to ask for help here, so, hoping I might figure out what would fit my situation, I'll copy-paste the thing here:

From what I've seen we are no longer at the 6xx series but 7xx right now for the geforce cards.
But the budget-friendly ones haven't come out yet, do you think it would be worth waiting or would it be just as good to pick the current ones, or the ATI equivalents?

Thanks!

 

I like my HD6970s - still not planning to upgrade at the moment

A couple of points:

1GB video memory stopped being effective at 1080p+ roughly a year ago - games are now finally starting to use video memory properly, which means 1GB doesn't really cut the mustard

My cards are not insanely loud, far from it. Yes, at 100% they're deafening, but fortunately the auto fan speed works fairly well on my cards - they get warmer than perhaps is ideal, but not dangerously so, and only in games that max out the GPU usage due to there not being a CPU limit (e.g. Source engine with VSync off) do they ever reach around the 45% fan speed mark, and even then it's only for short bursts, they're normally below 40% and run fine like this.



skydreamer: 550 euros is doable, 450 and I'd avoid going for a gaming PC, building one with a monitor included won't leave enough to buy any respectable gaming-oriented components.

 

Why not purchase a desktop already put together, and save the grieve. Here's an I5 for $549.99 US, http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7850603&CatId=4925

You would need to add a Blu-Ray writer, and a better graphics card, but it is ready to go. It even comes with Win7 and Win8, but I would go with Win 7, personally.

If you shop around you could probably find a better deal.

Best of luck.

 

Quite satisfied with the performance Sam. I've never had an upgrade provide so many performance benefits since I went from the 8800GTS to 2 4870s

As a bonus, my performance woes in Crysis 2 have cleared up considerably. I still have to limit tessellation, but that's a given on my HD6 card.

I will mention the heat issue was manifesting itself with artifacting and screen corruption. I know the cards are able to run hot but routinely passing 100 degrees is not right.

 

sytyguy I decided to opt for building the PC myself because I've been told it's cheaper and, from what I've seen in electronics stores, pre-build computers usually lay very little value on graphic-cards.
Often in a store you can't even find the information on what card it is, just a sticker with AMD or nvidia on it, and even the top-range PCs (1000€+) have cards like the GT640...
Dunno, maybe it's just an Italy thing and here in Norway and on the internet it's different.

About the link you posted, it's barely inside my budget but would still need a graphic update, though I could live with that, and a monitor, which, unless I can find one for 1$, I would not be able to afford. :/
Thanks anyway, I'll look around and see if I can find something.

EDIT: I always forget something haha.
Sammoris I feared that. I'll have to see if I'll be able to get to that number. I've looked a bit around and it seems that 550€ really is the minimum for something decent...

 

Ok, let's assume I'd be able to miraculously stretch the budget to 550€, do you think I'd be able to fit in a 7750? I found it for 100-110 on amazon, and it would have more than enough performance to make me happy.
Which means I'd still have around 440€ to spend on everything else.
Count in the monitor and that's 340€.
You think I could fit in a motherboard, a case, some ram, an HDD, mouse & keyboard, and a CPU that won't bottleneck too much in that 340?
I'm willing to give up on DVD drive and speakers, I have an external one and some headphones.

 

Which country are you buying from? I'll see what deals I can find.

 

Norway, just moved here!

 

Forgive my ignorance, doesn't Norway still use the Krone, in which case we're looking at about 4500NOK?

This lot below comes to about 5000NOK, so it's a bit above your 550EUR, but that's as cheap as it gets without making some serious sacrifices. I already think the monitor choice is a bit on the low-end side.

HD7770: https://www.amentio.no/amentio/default.asp?page=vare&ProdusentID=GV-R777OC-1GD
i3 2120: https://www.amentio.no/amentio/default.asp?page=vare&ProdusentID=BX80623I32120
8GB XMS 1.5V: https://www.amentio.no/amentio/default.asp?page=vare&ProdusentID=CMX8GX3M2B1600C9
Z68A-D3H-B3: https://www.amentio.no/amentio/default.asp?page=vare&ProdusentID=GA-Z68A-D3H-B3
CX430W V2: https://www.amentio.no/amentio/default.asp?page=vare&ProdusentID=CP%2D9020058%2DEU
CM Elite 310 Case: https://www.amentio.no/amentio/default.asp?page=vare&ProdusentID=RC-310-SKN1-GP
Seagate 1TB: https://www.amentio.no/amentio/default.asp?page=vare&ProdusentID=ST1000DM003
LG GH24NS: https://www.amentio.no/amentio/default.asp?page=vare&ProdusentID=GH24NS%2EAUAR
AOC 18.5": https://www.amentio.no/amentio/default.asp?page=vare&ProdusentID=E950SWDAK