Help Me Build My PC Catch-All

This is a long shot, but are all extra hard drives, SSDs, USB devices, and whatnot unplugged? I doubt that is the issue. How is the HDD set up in your BIOS? There are settings in there that you can play around with, but I can't recall without checking what the proper BIOS settings are. Obviously, it should default to the proper settings.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:

This is a long shot, but are all extra hard drives, SSDs, USB devices, and whatnot unplugged? I doubt that is the issue. How is the HDD set up in your BIOS? There are settings in there that you can play around with, but I can't recall without checking what the proper BIOS settings are. Obviously, it should default to the proper settings.

Don't know about the second part at the moment but the extra stuff is unplugged.

This just popped up on reddit: PSU database, giving details (rails, what it supplies, OEM) and reviews

TheGameguru wrote:

omg.. so cheap!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...

I'm going to guess those overclock extremely well?

Also...

Thin_J wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

omg.. so cheap!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...

I'm going to guess those overclock extremely well?

Also... :lol:

Limit 1 per customer.. darn! there goes my plan.

Just watched the NewEgg unboxing video. HFS.

The box is so small and tiny!

McIrishJihad wrote:

Just watched the NewEgg unboxing video. HFS.

What does Apple's Hierarchical File System have to do with this?

Having just got my new graphics card and immediately set everything to high, I think I might now be of the opinion that occasionally, everyone should be forced to live with a crap video card for around a week so they can appreciate how awesome it is when they get it back. For anyone who's interested, 3DMark says an intel HD4000 (ivy bridge i5 integrated) is about a third of the performance of an AMD 7850.

Rykin wrote:
McIrishJihad wrote:

Just watched the NewEgg unboxing video. HFS.

What does Apple's Hierarchical File System have to do with this?

It is also completely overpriced/not worth it?

Watching the Newegg video now, out of curiosity, but was wondering-- is that really how "Asus" is pronounced? I always thought it was "Ace-Us" but the Newegg guy keeps saying "Ay-seuss" pretty confidently.

I have heard it both ways so much that I don't bat an eye at either anymore. I go more for the second one myself.

WipEout wrote:
Rykin wrote:
McIrishJihad wrote:

Just watched the NewEgg unboxing video. HFS.

What does Apple's Hierarchical File System have to do with this?

It is also completely overpriced/not worth it?

Watching the Newegg video now, out of curiosity, but was wondering-- is that really how "Asus" is pronounced? I always thought it was "Ace-Us" but the Newegg guy keeps saying "Ay-seuss" pretty confidently.

HFS == HOLY f*ckING sh*t

The combination lockbox within a box within a box was just...inception worthy.

I totally agree that it's not worth it.

And I've always seen it as "Ay-seuss".

It'll always be Ay-suss in my heart. But apparently my heart is wrong.

I've heard it pronounced most often ay-zeus.

Dakuna wrote:

I've heard it pronounced most often ay-zeus.

DOES IT LOOK PUERTO RICAN TO YOU?!

Remember that the correct emphasis is on the ay-SOOS. I agree with Wipeout though, even though I say ay-SOOS now because that's the "correct" way, I still want to say AY-suss. Just sounds more correct to me.

On the other hand, the correct way to say Ubuntu is oo-BOON-too, and people who say oo-BUN-too really grind my gears

So my plan coming into this year was to build a hackintosh, as I prefer OS X for daily use but still want to play games occasionally. I currently have a bootcamp partition on my 2009 iMac that works fine, and I had planned to continue that setup on a hackintosh. However, it's recently become clear that a laptop would be pretty useful for me. Given that, and my desire to stick with OS X for my daily use, it seems like my best course of action is a Mac laptop and a separate gaming PC.

The most demanding game I currently run is Skyrim, but that's a rarity for me. I generally play stuff in the strategy genre and get sucked into the occasional open world game. Assume I will be playing games at 1080p or at most 1920x1200 and I'd like to be able to run some of the HD mods for Skyrim. What sort of system should I be looking at and would it be more cost effective to build my own (it's been a few years, but I've built 5 or so PCs in the past), or just go with something from Dell or HP or whatever, where I can get a 16% employer discount? Any thoughts?

I'm confused, are you building a hackintosh desktop or buying a Macbook and building a gaming PC (with Windows)?

I think you want a Macbook, but all that intro threw me off.

Anyways... if Skyrim is the most demanding thing, you'll only need a mid to high end single video card. Although I don't know... have the Skyrim mods gotten as heavy as Oblivion mods? Once you got into the super high-res textures, Open Cities, Better Cities... that brought a lot of pretty decent computers down. I haven't modded Skyrim that much yet, as I still have to actually complete the game.

Citizen86 wrote:

I'm confused, are you building a hackintosh desktop or buying a Macbook and building a gaming PC (with Windows)?

I think you want a Macbook, but all that intro threw me off.

Anyways... if Skyrim is the most demanding thing, you'll only need a mid to high end single video card. Although I don't know... have the Skyrim mods gotten as heavy as Oblivion mods? Once you got into the super high-res textures, Open Cities, Better Cities... that brought a lot of pretty decent computers down. I haven't modded Skyrim that much yet, as I still have to actually complete the game.

Ah - sorry. Yeah, you got it. I'm going to purchase a Macbook and build or buy a separate gaming PC.

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Dakuna wrote:

I've heard it pronounced most often ay-zeus.

DOES IT LOOK PUERTO RICAN TO YOU?!

Nobody said hey-zeus.

With a lot of help from you guys, I built this file/media server several months ago. It was my first foray into full on system building, and I believe it went fairly well. So now I'm thinking it may be time to upgrade or replace my desktop as well.

I'm currently running a five or so year old DogHouse Systems machine. Basic specs are:

Intel Core2 Duo CPE E8400 @ 3.00 GHz
ASUS P5Q(E?)
Ram - 8gb
ATI Radeon HD 4850 (x2)
Western Digital 500gb hard drive

It runs fairly well, with two exceptions.

First, it's loud, really loud. After upgrading to Win 7 awhile ago the fan speed utility for the ASUS motherboard stopped working, and now the fans pump at full speed all the time. Various aftermarket fan solutions haven't worked out for me.

Second, most everything file wise lives on the server above. When I'm listening to iTunes (iTunes local, files remote) and working on a spreadsheet or word document there's no problem. But if I open Lightroom (also local exe, remote file) and work on images, or open Quickbooks, or anything else that is more active than working on an open document, iTunes starts stuttering something fierce. I'm not sure if that's a limitation of the speed of the desktop, the network itself, or the server. I'm hoping it's a limitation on the desktop and upgrading will fix it.

I'm primarily going to use this machine to work on documents and Quickbooks, edit photos in Lightroom, and do some occasional gaming. Think World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2 level of gaming - not super high end but not bottom of the line either. I'd also like to be able to run three monitors at once, which I can do in my current setup.

So, thoughts? Should I focus on upgrading one or more components of my existing system, build from scratch, or just buy a decent prebuilt?

hello all,
iI am considering updating my 3 yr old MB and CPU.
currently have the Phenom ii 955 black on this mobo
http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/l...

the thought of getting a cpu that would work on that board is likely not possible so iI am thinking of the other route.
first I'd want to avoid having to reinstall. so iI guess sticking with amd.
second is price. preferably under 400.
I thoughts?

Teneman wrote:

iTunes starts stuttering something fierce.

Is your desktop connecting by ethernet or wireless? I could easily see wireless having some bandwidth issues, but normally having everything wired should be pretty stable.

It could be iTunes though... or perhaps a setting, because the only thing I could think of is that although there should be enough bandwidth within the network, when you go to grab a large picture, loading that sucks all of the bandwidth up and leaves nothing for iTunes. I would think that iTunes has some type of buffer to avoid that.

You have probably done so already, but my suggestion would be to Google "iTunes stutter on local network" before creating a new build and hoping it's solved. Could be cheaper and possibly resolved for the new computer when it comes.

Teneman wrote:

With a lot of help from you guys, I built this file/media server several months ago. It was my first foray into full on system building, and I believe it went fairly well. So now I'm thinking it may be time to upgrade or replace my desktop as well.

I'm currently running a five or so year old DogHouse Systems machine. Basic specs are:

Intel Core2 Duo CPE E8400 @ 3.00 GHz
ASUS P5Q(E?)
Ram - 8gb
ATI Radeon HD 4850 (x2)
Western Digital 500gb hard drive

It runs fairly well, with two exceptions.

First, it's loud, really loud. After upgrading to Win 7 awhile ago the fan speed utility for the ASUS motherboard stopped working, and now the fans pump at full speed all the time. Various aftermarket fan solutions haven't worked out for me.

Second, most everything file wise lives on the server above. When I'm listening to iTunes (iTunes local, files remote) and working on a spreadsheet or word document there's no problem. But if I open Lightroom (also local exe, remote file) and work on images, or open Quickbooks, or anything else that is more active than working on an open document, iTunes starts stuttering something fierce. I'm not sure if that's a limitation of the speed of the desktop, the network itself, or the server. I'm hoping it's a limitation on the desktop and upgrading will fix it.

I'm primarily going to use this machine to work on documents and Quickbooks, edit photos in Lightroom, and do some occasional gaming. Think World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2 level of gaming - not super high end but not bottom of the line either. I'd also like to be able to run three monitors at once, which I can do in my current setup.

So, thoughts? Should I focus on upgrading one or more components of my existing system, build from scratch, or just buy a decent prebuilt?

You probably already considered this, but are the photos you're editing in Lightroom local as well, or on the server? This may seem obvious, but I know a ton of professionals that edit massive working files over the network, bogging file transfers and internet connections down for the rest of the company. All because they either didn't realize the files are streaming over the network into CPU- and memory-intensive software like Photoshop, or they simply couldn't be bothered to copy the files to a local HDD. If you're not doing this already, try it and see if that helps with iTunes stuttering.

Also if possible, consider a different media player, like WinAmp, that is a little less resource-intensive than iTunes. Though I prefer iTune's streamlined UI and Genius playlist system, it's definitely a trade-off. I'm sort of biased against Apple, though, so take that as you will

My network is wired, so that shouldn't be the issue. I am working on everything remote though, including the massive Lightroom files

But even there, I can work on my Lightroom files while my kids are streaming HD Netflix, and not have a problem on either end. It's only when both activities are on my machine that I end up with the stuttering, which is what leads me to believe the fault lies with my local machine.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not upgrading/rebuilding just to fix the stutter. It's just that time

Wipeout might be going the right direction then, try out a different streaming program and see if it's iTunes that's trying to hog resources and making a fuss when it doesn't get it's way

OK. My computer is up and running finally. Everything works fine and runs fast, but when I loaded up FTL my mouse started jumping around and it the game itself was moving very slowly. I'm almost certain that I need a new video card as the one in my system was a hand me down after my 8800 croaked. Here are the specs I'm working with, am I correct? I honestly don't know the difference between a good card, cpu, etc.

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
Memory (RAM) 3.00 GB
Gaming graphics 256 MB Total available graphics memory
ATI ATOMBIOS RV530

Yeah, your graphics card has the bare minimum required onboard ram, so although you should be fine with that, it wouldn't hurt to upgrade it.