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Looking for help
So I'm looking to build a new comp and have a 900 dollar budget (+/- ~50 dollars). I have a case, keyboard/mouse/headset, monitor and harddrive, but nothing else. I've always used AMD cards, but I've heard this gen of NVIdia have been pretty solid.
Any suggestions/builds?
Comments
it's a nice budget. you might be able to squeeze a SSD in there too. gonna leave the linkes for quizzy since he's the king of "stuff on sale" and can save you like $150 on sales/rebates etc:)
What case do you have, and what hard drive? Keeping a hard drive from one computer to the next isn't necessarily the best idea, as they don't last forever, and it can be catastrophic if your hard drive fails unless you're much better about backing it up than most of the general population.
If you prefer AMD video cards to Nvidia, then there isn't much reason to switch this generation. AMD handily beat Nvidia in performance per watt and performance per mm^2 (that is, performance per dollar of cost to build the cards), and arguably has a better feature set, too, at least at the high end. At a given performance level, an AMD card will thus tend to be a little nicer than the Nvidia equivalent, and also a little cheaper. Prices fluctuate daily, of course, so sometimes at a given price point, Nvidia happens to offer a better deal that day, but it's usually not by a huge margin.
To clarify my hard drive comments, if you've got a SATA 3 (i.e., recent model) WD Caviar Black that you bought 6 months ago, then sure, keep it and reuse it. If you've got a four year old hard drive that you think still seems to work fine, then no, you should replace it when you get a new computer.
Whether you can reuse the case depends on what case you have. Some people have a full tower case that they paid $150 for five years ago with the intention of reusing it, and it's still a pretty nice case today, so they should reuse it. If your case was a piece of junk when you got it, then you should replace it.
Yah, I have a 7 month old hard drive, so I figured it'd be fine to keep using it since it's still fairly new. The case is a decent full tower that's 3 years old, it has a few dinks in it, but no major damage - it should be alright?
And thanks for the AMD/Nvidia, I haven't been keeping too up to date on preformance tests - good to hear they're still top of the pile
I'd like to know the exact model of your case and hard drive, if you can find them. I've had people insist that they have a really great video card, only to later find out after pressing that they're running some ancient Intel integrated graphics.
You can find the exact model of your hard drive in your DxDiag file, so you don't have to open the case for that. It will be a long string of random looking numbers and letters, but it's something I could do a Google search to find what it is.
For the case, I'm mainly interested in airflow. How many case fans do you have, how big are they (80 mm and 120 mm are the most common sizes), how are they positioned (front, top, back, side), and how are they oriented (blowing air in or out)? There could also be issues with how much space there is for a video card, as some cards won't physically fit in some cases.
Heya, just wanted to pop in and throw my build out there for you, i had the same amount of cash on hand as you, and was interested in my first build. i know a little about pc's, but not enough to patch together my own build, but i found this one on Tom's Hardware, ordered everything, stayed in budget, and it RAWKS. I am currently playing The Witcher 2 and Dues Ex HR, on Maxed settings, no issues, skipping, lag, etc. beautiful!
link
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/build-a-pc,2969.html
((Yes ive been snooping the site for years, this be the first post though! yay me))
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218 Is my harddrive
And I can't find the link to my case. It has 2 120 mm fans (one on the side, one on the back), and it's dimensions are like, 18" long, 24" high, and 8" deep.
Hrm, that 1000 dollar build looks really solid. A bit over my budget but easily fixed because I don't need to run a crossfire situation.
It's a modified version of what Toxia linked (same mobo, CPU, PSU and CPU fan) with a Sapphire 6850 1gb and GSkill Sniper RAM 8 gigs (2x4).
However, being the what-iffer I am, I just realized that maybe my monitor has died (long story semi-short: I've wanted to upgrade for a while, comp died so I figured I'd upgrade now!). My comp has had issues with it's mobo for a while, then it started having what I assumed were GPU issues - it'd stop displaying image about ~15 minutes into logging it. I preformed a few tests (to my amateur capacity) figured it wasn't overheating (often it would go blank idling) and just tried to ignore the flashes of Black. However, about 2 months ago it wouldn't return to displaying picture after the screen went black. Now all I can do is boot up, login, see my desktop for ~15 seconds then it goes black and nothing can bring the picture back.
It this my monitor or is it hardware? I'm suddenly really afraid to order parts to build a new comp then be slapped in the face at the realization that it didn't fix anything because my monitor is kaputz
Help!
Hard to tell based on that alone. Could be as simple as a loose monitor cable... could be both the video card ~and~ the monitor.
Best bet is to drag the monitor out and find another computer to test it with (laptop or anything will do).
Taking an off the shelf build that is a few months old is usually a bad idea. Even if the parts are good, that isn't able to adjust for price changes. For example, if you wanted to buy parts on October 17 and I had to pick parts today, I could pick something that would be a nice computer then. When October 17 rolled around and I could see the exact prices on various parts, I could probably adjust it to get something equivalent for $100 cheaper than the parts I'd pick today.
For example, that build on Tom's Hardware recommends an Xclio Nighthawk case for $55. If you actually go to New Egg today, that case costs $100 including shipping. A good value at $55 isn't necessarily still a good value at $100.
Builds on sites like that often have some pretty flagrant flaws. In some cases, it's due to having a strong bias toward picking parts that that particular site has reviewed. In the case of Tom's Hardware, I'd object to their recommending CrossFire and SLI way, way, way too often.
Even if a build is perfectly good in itself, there is also the issue that they can't customize it to your needs. Sometimes they'll leave out parts you need (e.g., an OS license) or include things you don't. It can't adjust to personal preferences. It's simply a one-size-fits-all build that doesn't actually fit very many people.
Go ahead and post the build you have in mind, and let's see what you've got. We might be able to tweak it up or down from there. I've held off on picking parts for you so far as I'm a little worried about the case. A full tower case with only two fans, and only 120 mm, and one of them as a side fan, would be rather strange.
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The problem doesn't sound like a monitor one to me. It could be a system failing to boot for some reason, and then it stops sending a signal to the monitor to display. If it were a monitor problem, then I'd expect that at least sometimes, the monitor wouldn't do anything at all when you try to turn it on.
I once had a problem with a computer some years back where the screen would lock up and then the monitor would seem to turn off. It turned out that it was caused by the video card coming loose in its slot. I'd try unplugging everything that seems relevant and plugging it back in, and seeing if that fixes it.
Motherboard: MSI P67A (B3) LGA1155 Intel @129.99
Processor: i5 2500 3.3gHz Quad Core @209.99
PSU: OCZ modXstream 700W @ 89.99
RAM: GSkill Sniper 8 gb (2x4) @69.99
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1 gb @164.99
Case: Apevia Telstar JR Type-X Mid ATX @69.99
+a cheap optical drive @27.99
+my newish HDD
Comes to just under 800$ including S&H.
I think I did pretty well.
My 2 cents is dont go with RAM overkill. I got 12 gigs of ram and it doesnt really speed things up compared to my rig when it had 4 gigs. Yes, I have Win7 to utilize the extra ram, still only a small boost to speed in games so far
that depends on HOW you use the RAM:D but generally speaking you are correct:) call me oldschool, but i still remember ram drives and how to use them to the max:D