$400 to upgrade (for real this time)

Prav said:
OP . You should go for the i3 build like Danny posted earlier here. You just cannot afford the i5 builds with a viable GPU since you shrunk your budget back to $400 after raising it to $500.
Click to expand...

Really? So the 460 GTX won't cut it?

What about this config if I push it back to $500

i5 3570K+Gigabyte GA-H61M-DS2 combo - $211
HD6950 - $200 (newegg deal)
NZXT Source 210 Elite Black - $50
Crucial 4 GB DDR3-1333 - $20

$481
 
Unfortunately the Newegg 6950 deal is dead:( Maybe someone else could offer an idea as to the best video card for $200 or less now. I would suggest 6870, 560 or 560 Ti (if you can find one). 460 may work but you can probably better balance your system with a different GPU. Maybe ask in the video card forum for a recommendation for BF3.
 
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blunt_eastwood said:
TigerDirect Sale

MSI GeForce GTX 460 Overclocked 1GB DDR5 Video Card for $100 (free shipping and tax)
Click to expand...
In this subforum, we don't factor in MIR until you actually recieve them. We base recommendations on the price you are going to pay, not what you might get back. So in this case, that GTX 460 isn't a good buy at $140 considering that the faster HD 7770 costs $135.
blunt_eastwood said:
Really? So the 460 GTX won't cut it?
Click to expand...
As long as you're fine with low to medium settings with no AA, it might work. However, as noted above, the GTX 460 isn't worth it at $140.

blunt_eastwood said:
What about this config if I push it back to $500
Click to expand...
Ok stop flip-flopping. You're just making it harder for people to help you. So whats your budget? $400 or $500? Whatever number you give us, thats it. Change the budget again and I'm locking this thread.
blunt_eastwood said:
i5 3570K+Gigabyte GA-H61M-DS2 combo - $211
Click to expand...
How are you getting this price? The $50 deal for the i5 3570K only applies to Z68 or Z77 motherboards.
blunt_eastwood said:
HD6950 - $200 (newegg deal)
Click to expand...
You missed it. Should bought the card when we told you to.
blunt_eastwood said:
NZXT Source 210 Elite Black - $50
Crucial 4 GB DDR3-1333 - $20
Click to expand...
Consider these parts locked in. Don't change them.
 
Danny Bui said:
Ok stop flip-flopping. You're just making it harder for people to help you. So whats your budget? $400 or $500? Whatever number you give us, thats it. Change the budget again and I'm locking this thread.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm not sure if the extra $100 will give me a big enough boost to make it worth the additional cost, that's why I'm asking about both.

Instead of going back and forth here I think I will do some independent research first. Are there any other sites with benchmarks that you guys would recommend?

I figured Toms was credible, but it seems like Prav says otherwise.

Danny Bui said:
How are you getting this price? The $50 deal for the i5 3570K only applies to Z68 or Z77 motherboards.
Click to expand...

When I add those two items to the cart I get the $50 off.

microcentercombo.jpg
 
blunt_eastwood said:
I figured Toms was credible, but it seems like Prav says otherwise
Click to expand...
I am not saying Tom's is not credible, I said I dislike using their site and I did not find that GPU comparison helpful since it did not show Minimum FPS.

As for the CPU/MB bundle you are trying to achieve, I think that it MAY work. It is not guaranteed though since as Danny pointed out only the Z68 and Z77 motherboards technically qualify for the bundle. Microcenter website has been known give deals that are denied when you go to the store to pick them up. This is a YMMV thing where you may be denied in your store or they may not care. If the rest of your purchases are tied to getting that combo deal you should attempt to buy it first to make sure you can actually get those items for that price.

edit: You also need to understand that GTX 460 as originally released was a 256 bit memory bus GPU. Later this was revised to 192 bit which may also be called SE when using less cores. It is sometimes unclear if the GTX 460 listed in a table is the 256 bit or 192 bit version. My best guess is that the 460 shown as competitive with the 5870 in those comparisons is actually the 256 bit original release which is no longer available. Based on this I would not recommend purchasing a 460 today.
 
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Prav said:
edit: You also need to understand that GTX 460 as originally released was a 256 bit GPU. Later this was revised to 192 bit which may also be called SE when using less cores. It is sometimes unclear if the GTX 460 listed in a table is the 256 bit or 192 bit version. My best guess is that the 460 shown as competitive with the 5870 in those comparisons is actually the 256 bit original release which is no longer available. Based on this I would not recommend purchasing a 460 today.
Click to expand...

Actually, the GTX 460 was offered in both the 256-bit and 192-bit memory configurations at introduction - where the 256-bit version was offered with 1GB of VRAM while the 192-bit version was offered with 768MB of VRAM. Later, a GTX 460 SE was offered with the same 256-bit memory bus but only 288 CUDA cores instead of the 336 CUDA cores in the original GTX 460.
 
More versions than I was aware existed. Well the card he is considering purchasing is new revision 192-bit with 1GB VRAM. I was just trying to make it clear that this may not the card which is seen in many GTX 460 performance reviews and it will perform worse than the 256-bit 1GB.
edit: after more reviewing, the new 460 V2 may actually perform as well or better than the original due to the higher clocks. It is still unclear as to which model is being used in BF3 comparisons.
 
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blunt_eastwood said:
Sorry, I'm not sure if the extra $100 will give me a big enough boost to make it worth the additional cost, that's why I'm asking about both.
Click to expand...
It's quite clear that extra $100 will give you a big enough boost to make it worth the cost. You have a big monitor and you're planning on playing one of the highest-end games out there. That's what's causing the increased costs.

I mean no one here has said the extra $100 isn't worth it. So I'm not sure where your reluctance is coming from.
blunt_eastwood said:
Instead of going back and forth here I think I will do some independent research first. Are there any other sites with benchmarks that you guys would recommend?
Click to expand...
The main sites I use for GPU reviews
HardOCP.com (obviously)
Bit-tech.net
Anandtech.com
Xbitlabs.com

Additional sites for when I really want to do more research:
Guru3D.com
LegionHardware.com
Techreport.com
Techpowerup.com

Note that a lot of review sites only benchmarks BF3's single player campaign which uses considerably less resources than the multiplayer. As such, unless specified, assume that the BF3 benchmark is of the single player and knock off 25% of the performance to get the multiplayer performance.

blunt_eastwood said:
I figured Toms was credible, but it seems like Prav says otherwise.
Click to expand...
They're really not credible IMO.

blunt_eastwood said:
When I add those two items to the cart I get the $50 off.
Click to expand...

Huh, odd. Welp, decent enough deal at that point. Lock that one in. So thats $281 total for the CPU, mobo, RAM, and case. Good. It's extremely clear that you will need to spend the extra $100 as no $120 video card will be enough to play BF3 at 1920x1080 at medium settings.
 
If you did not like the 6870 option above you might consider the following cards. I would prefer to see you spend 200+ as I think you would be much happier with a 560 Ti , 6950 or 7850 for BF3

$170 ($140 after rebate) EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Superclocked 1GB
$155 ($140 after rebate) Galaxy GTX 560 1GB
 
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Prav said:
I am not saying Tom's is not credible, I said I dislike using their site and I did not find that GPU comparison helpful since it did not show Minimum FPS.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I didn't mean to misquote you.

Danny Bui said:
The main sites I use for GPU reviews
HardOCP.com (obviously)
Bit-tech.net
Anandtech.com
Xbitlabs.com

Additional sites for when I really want to do more research:
Guru3D.com
LegionHardware.com
Techreport.com
Techpowerup.com
Click to expand...

Thanks

I bought the case and ram as recommended, and I bought the XFX 6950 that newegg had on sale a few days ago, and I got the 3570K/GA-H61M-S2H mobo combo from Microcenter. My order went through okay, so we'll see if I have problems at pickup time.

Thanks for all of the help you guys gave me.
 
So I got all the parts but I'm having trouble getting everything to work.

I assembled everything and booted it up but got nothing. The fans run and everything seems to be powered, but then it shuts down and restarts a few seconds later. It continually does this until I turn it off again, and nothing shows up on my screen.

I read and tried all the troubleshooting tips I could find, except for resetting the BIOS, because I'd like to rule out everything else before attempting that and potentially breaking something.

Below are pictures of how I have the CPU, mobo, and PSU setup in case I did something wrong and I also a video of it booting up to show what happens.

psu2v.jpg


psu1w.jpg


fpanelx.jpg


Here is the link to the video.
 
You forgot to install the RAM. Thats your problem right there.
 
Danny Bui said:
You forgot to install the RAM. Thats your problem right there.
Click to expand...

I got the same result with the RAM installed in both slots. By this point I had taken out everything I could in order to isolate the problem, but even with the RAM installed nothing changed.
 
Well you need the RAM no matter what so leave it in there. Reset CMOS and see what happens. Also try a different PSU. And unhook the front-panel connectors and start up the PC with a screwdriver.
 
Danny Bui said:
Well you need the RAM no matter what so leave it in there. Reset CMOS and see what happens. Also try a different PSU. And unhook the front-panel connectors and start up the PC with a screwdriver.
Click to expand...

I tried a different PSU and got the same result. I then tried resetting the CMOS the way the mobo manual said, but I'm not totally sure I did it right.

I think I will end up just taking it to a shop.
 
Danny Bui said:
Probably the motherboard.
Click to expand...

Looks like Micro center has a repair service. I'm going to see how much it is and try that. It's a big hassle to find replacement parts to try and then return so this is probably the quickest and easiest way to get the problem resolved.
 
It appears to be the mobo after all. I went to a Micro Center asking for help and they told me I could buy a different mobo to test my machine with. I did that and everything worked fine. Since I'm over 15 days since purchasing it though I was told that I can't get a replacement for it.

I guess I'll have to try Gigabyte's RMA process, but before I do that is there anything else I can do similar to resetting CMOS that might be wrong and potentially fixable?
 
Hey guys,

I solved my motherboard issue which turned out to be that the mobo I had selected was not a third generation mobo and would not work with the 3570K, so I ended up buying a Gigabyte Z77-DS3H and that worked.

However I noticed that when surfing the web the performance is really slow. Then one day BF3 started running extremely choppy, like to the point where it was unplayable. The fan that came with the CPU did not lock in place correctly and one of the plastic screws got bent. I fixed it as best I could and locked it in place and that seemed to fix the slowness in BF3, but things still lag in Windows.

I know that's not a lot of information but could someone give me some advice on how to troubleshoot this problem? Do I not have enough RAM? I bought a stick of 4GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-10600 or is it because my HDD is too old? It's a Seagate-320GB Internal Serial ATA Hard Drive
 
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Neither of those things scream poor performance in windows, I mean sure you can replace the HDD but my guess is you have malware or a virus slowing things up. When was the last time you ran a virus scan?
 
Climber said:
Neither of those things scream poor performance in windows, I mean sure you can replace the HDD but my guess is you have malware or a virus slowing things up. When was the last time you ran a virus scan?
Click to expand...

I forgot to mention that I installed Windows 8 from scratch when the problem started and then reformatted and installed Windows 7 with no luck. So that should have averted any malware problems.

Doesn't it seem to be how my CPU is installed since re-seating it had such an obvious impact on the problem?

Should I perhaps try a new CPU fan and or check how my thermal paste is applied? Is there a fool-proof thermal paste applicator I can use?
 
That is an old hard drive. But did the slow performance happen suddenly or ever since the PC was built?

Did you monitor the CPU temperatures?
 
blunt_eastwood said:
I forgot to mention that I installed Windows 8 from scratch when the problem started and then reformatted and installed Windows 7 with no luck. So that should have averted any malware problems.

Doesn't it seem to be how my CPU is installed since re-seating it had such an obvious impact on the problem?

Should I perhaps try a new CPU fan and or check how my thermal paste is applied? Is there a fool-proof thermal paste applicator I can use?
Click to expand...

No fool proof way but just dab a pea size drop of TIM in the middle of the cpu and squish it with the cooler.
 
Danny Bui said:
That is an old hard drive. But did the slow performance happen suddenly or ever since the PC was built?

Did you monitor the CPU temperatures?
Click to expand...

It started since the PC was built. I did not monitor the CPU temperatures. I've never actually done that before so I'm not sure how to do that.

Climber said:
No fool proof way but just dab a pea size drop of TIM in the middle of the cpu and squish it with the cooler.
Click to expand...

So you think it might be related to my CPU setup too then?
 
Wait, so the stock heatsink is broken and you jerry rigged a solution to fix it? Immediately sounds like a CPU throttling issue.

Replace the stocker with a working unit; either another stock cooler or an aftermarket. Since good aftermarket coolers are so cheap (CM 212+ $30) I would recommend that if it will fit in your case.
 
Skillz said:
Wait, so the stock heatsink is broken and you jerry rigged a solution to fix it? Immediately sounds like a CPU throttling issue.

Replace the stocker with a working unit; either another stock cooler or an aftermarket. Since good aftermarket coolers are so cheap (CM 212+ $30) I would recommend that if it will fit in your case.
Click to expand...

^^werd. OP, install CoreTemp or HWMonitor. It should give you a pretty good idea of your CPU temp. If it's exceeding 100C (very dangerous), your heatsink its not doing its job because its probably broken and it will damage your processor.
 
Skillz said:
Wait, so the stock heatsink is broken and you jerry rigged a solution to fix it? Immediately sounds like a CPU throttling issue.

Replace the stocker with a working unit; either another stock cooler or an aftermarket. Since good aftermarket coolers are so cheap (CM 212+ $30) I would recommend that if it will fit in your case.
Click to expand...

Not exactly jerry rigged, I just forced the heatsink screw in until it stayed. I know that sounds terrible but I really wanted to play BF3 and didn't want to have to wait to get another one.

I will look for another fan/heatsink, but I imagine I can send the current back for a replacement from Intel, so I will look into that as well.

endlesszeal said:
^^werd. OP, install CoreTemp or HWMonitor. It should give you a pretty good idea of your CPU temp. If it's exceeding 100C (very dangerous), your heatsink its not doing its job because its probably broken and it will damage your processor.
Click to expand...

Okay I will install one of those apps and see what happens.

Thanks to everyone for the help!
 
Skillz said:
Wait, so the stock heatsink is broken and you jerry rigged a solution to fix it? Immediately sounds like a CPU throttling issue.

Replace the stocker with a working unit; either another stock cooler or an aftermarket. Since good aftermarket coolers are so cheap (CM 212+ $30) I would recommend that if it will fit in your case.
Click to expand...

Do I really need a $30 one? I see a bunch at newegg for around $10.
 
blunt_eastwood said:
Do I really need a $30 one? I see a bunch at newegg for around $10.
Click to expand...
Yes you do:
1) Those cheap HSF uses the same mounting method as the stock Intel HSF. Considering your experience with stock Intel HSF's mounting method, I'd imagine you'd want to go with a far sturdier solution. The Coolermaster Hyper 212+ uses bolt-through method of mounting that's pretty sturdy and very very hard to break.

2) Those cheap HSF cool the same as the stock HSF. The Coolermaster Hyper 212+ would noticeably decrease your temperatures

3) Lower noise as well.

So yes, there are three very good reasons to go with the $28 Coolermaster Hyper 212+ over many cheap HSF:
$27 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF for LGA 1366 and LGA 1156
 
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Danny Bui said:
Yes you do:
1) Those cheap HSF uses the same mounting method as the stock Intel HSF. Considering your experience with stock Intel HSF's mounting method, I'd imagine you'd want to go with a far sturdier solution. The Coolermaster Hyper 212+ uses bolt-through method of mounting that's pretty sturdy and very very hard to break.

2) Those cheap HSF cool the same as the stock HSF. The Coolermaster Hyper 212+ would noticeably decrease your temperatures

3) Lower noise as well.

So yes, there are three very good reasons to go with the $28 Coolermaster Hyper 212+ over many cheap HSF:
$27 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF for LGA 1366 and LGA 1156
Click to expand...

This
 
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