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HW upgrades!

K

Kerkain

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 3, 2011
Messages
143
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming. I want to better improve my gameplay best as possible, performance wise.
Will also be using to record gameplay as well as light video editing.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Up to and around $400 for any upgrades to my current system. This is pretty flexible.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
USA, Northern Indiana near Fort Wayne.

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
Looking at an OS dedicated SSD that I "may" put DCS-A10C on.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Pretty much everything will be reused. I'll replace an old hard drive thats not listed. Its just a 100GB storage drive anyway.

6) Will you be overclocking?
Simply, no.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
1920x1080, its 23.6".

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Once I get some answers I'll be buying hardware.

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
I don't plan on changing out my motherboard if I can help it. It should be capable of some upgrades for a while I'd like to think.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Its OEM Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit. Shouldn't need to reinstall my OS so this won't be an issue.
I will be upgrading to 64bit.

Okay here are my current specs:
Monitor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236052
ASUS 23.6"

HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136298
WD Caviar Green 640GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s
(Note: I have a second 100GB storage drive that is extremely old that I will be replacing)

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231274
G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB (2x2GB)
(Note: I may want to upgrade this to 8GB (2x4GB Sticks)

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103674
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition

CPU Cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118046

MB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131402
ASUS M4A79XTD ATX AMD

GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150530
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI-E

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371021
Antec TP-650W

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129066
Antec Three Hundred Illusion ATX mid tower.

====

Okay I hope that is all that should be needed for some good recommendations. Basically all that I do on my computer is play video games and watch some movies. Oblivion, FSX, ArmA2, Silent Hunter 4 and 5 to name a few that I think are the most intensive games on my PC right now. I have plans in the near future to pick up Skyrim and RAGE and would like them to play nice and smooth when I do. Performance increases on the games I play now would just be icing on the cake.

Also can anyone see any potential bottlenecks in the system as it is now?

Thanks for the suggestions when they start coming!
 
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Yeah a lot of the parts in your wishlist are either outdated, overpriced, and/or out of stock. So with the exception of the G.Skill RAM, HDD rack, Arma 2 game, and possibly the AS remover, just remove everything else for your list.

In any case, you have one major bottleneck as of this moment: That video card. With your high resolution, I recommend taking a look at the $220 GTX 560 Ti, $250 HD 6950 2GB or $280 HD 6950 2GB if you can't find the 1GB version for around $250. All of those GPUs will work fine with your current PSU.
 
enginurd said:
Will you be using that green drive as your main drive?
Click to expand...

Yea, the one I have now will be. I have been looking at some 1TB drives just for storage but I don't trust them enough.

Danny Bui said:
Yeah a lot of the parts in your wishlist are either outdated, overpriced, and/or out of stock. So with the exception of the G.Skill RAM, HDD rack, Arma 2 game, and possibly the AS remover, just remove everything else for your list.

In any case, you have one major bottleneck as of this moment: That video card. With your high resolution, I recommend taking a look at the $220 GTX 560 Ti, $250 HD 6950 2GB or $280 HD 6950 2GB if you can't find the 1GB version for around $250. All of those GPUs will work fine with your current PSU.
Click to expand...

The collection of stuff I have in my wishlist have been placed in there over a stretch of time. Now that I think about it, its been over a few months of sitting in there rather than a few weeks. So I'm not surprised a lot of it is outdated already. I will look into the video cards. Why are there two cards that are the same card but different prices? Do you have links? I'm googling right after this reply while I wait too.
 
I agree with Danny on the video card being the easiest, most cost effective upgrade.
 
Well my mind is set. I'll look into buying that card probably towards the end of the week or end of next week.

Flashing the BIOS of that card to unlock the 6970 seems to be very worth while as well. Have you any experience doing something like that and is it a dangerous/risky change to do? Or is it basically the equivalent of flashing a PC BIOS?
 
Kerkain said:
Flashing the BIOS of that card to unlock the 6970 seems to be very worth while as well. Have you any experience doing something like that and is it a dangerous/risky change to do? Or is it basically the equivalent of flashing a PC BIOS?
Click to expand...

No experience doing a GPU unlock. However, from what I can tell, the sucess rate for unlocking a HD 6950 to a HD 6970 is about 50%. And that's using the right cards. The above XFX cards are not the right cards and will not unlock.
 
Danny Bui said:
No experience doing a GPU unlock. However, from what I can tell, the sucess rate for unlocking a HD 6950 to a HD 6970 is about 50%. And that's using the right cards. The above XFX cards are not the right cards and will not unlock.
Click to expand...

Eh. Probably better that I leave it alone anyway cause with my luck I'm likely to break it.

Either way, the 6950 2Gb is probably about 50% (random number) or something better than the 5770 right? Kinda blows it out of the water from what I can tell.

I am a little concerned about the extra power consumption though too. I thought that with my current build I was close to peaking my PSU already. By putting in this card will I end up lighting my PSU on fire (/sarcasm) or should it be within its capabilities?
 
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Kerkain said:
Either way, the 6950 2Gb is probably about 50% (random number) or something better than the 5770 right? Kinda blows it out of the water from what I can tell.
Click to expand...
It's roughly 40% to 50% faster than the HD 5770 depending on the game.

Kerkain said:
I am a little concerned about the extra power consumption though too. I thought that with my current build I was close to peaking my PSU already. By putting in this card will I end up lighting my PSU on fire (/sarcasm) or should it be within its capabilities?
Click to expand...
No, you won't be pushing that PSU to its limits at all. That HD 6950 is well within that PSU's capability.
 
My last question that I have is brand.

Between XFX, ASUS, and HIS, what do you think, in your opinion, is probably the most reliable brand.

Between this HIS card and this ASUS card there is $30 difference.

This XFX card and the ASUS card is $20.

I know its not major differences but it could mean a lot in the long run. My 5770 is a Sapphire card but I've read that a lot of people find them unreliable which in my experience wasn't the case with the 5770. It seems newegg has a Sapphire card but is currently out of stock.

Do you mind stating a little input and if you were in my shoes what you would recommend between the four brands?

Also, with my current case should the card fit properly inside of it correctly without being too terribly cramped up?
 
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If you had an extremely low budget, thats when I'd recommend a HIS or Sapphire card. However considering that we're talking about $270+ video cards here, that's definitely doesn't fall under "low budget". Personally it's a toss-up between the XFX and Asus card for me. Both have longer warranties than Sapphire or HIS and generally better customer support. At that point, it's down to which company you generally trust more: XFX or Asus.
 
Alright. I'll compare the two cards I have picked out tomorrow while I'm at work. I'm going to order tomorrow too. I've gotten very eager since my first post.

Thanks a lot Danny for the help! It is extremely appreciated.
 
Apologies for the double post but I wanted to update you guys before I forget.

The 6950 was shipped last Friday to my door at lunch while I was home thankfully. I opened up the box and I have to tell you, this card is big.

The rest of my day dragged some butt as I was waiting for the time to tick down to the weekend. Soon as I got home I had my PC on my table and was taking everything out of it. The 6950 is about maybe an inch or so longer than the 5770. It, barely, fit.

I had to remove one of my CD-Roms in order to move my hard drives further down in the bays. The SATA cables are pretty close to the back of the card. I LOVED that the power connectors were on the side of the 6950. If they were in the back I think there would have been a boatload more problems getting this card powered up.

An hour later, as much cable management as I could muster and a now missing CD rom I was able to get up and running.

I also had Arma2 shipped but came from different location, had a Monday delivery date, but arrived with the card. I had everything up to the highest settings. Worked beautifully getting over 30FPS which is enough for me.

Oblivion, maxed all the settings even with the mods I had installed, running beautifully.

FSX, I maxed all the settings to the default Ultra high settings and got about 24-27FPS, not great, but I know this game is CPU intensive anyway.

I think that buying Battlefield 3 is in store for the very near future so I have a brand new game to test the card with instead of these relatively older ones. May even get Assassins Creed Revalations next month for the PC instead of 360.

I'm excited.

Thanks again, guys, for the help in picking out this video card!!
 
I'm bumping my own thread instead of making a new. I've updated my original post though not much has changed.

Games wise I'm playing SH4 and DCS A10C (medium settings mostly which kinda stinks) but I've found myself recording my gameplay more and more frequently. So here I am, asking for a little help from you guys.

What I would like to do:
Update my OS from 32-bit to 64-bit with the Windows 7 Home Premium OEM. I want to install that and DCS A10C onto this SSD drive. Recommendations on this SSD?

Now, the next thing I want to do is get a new hard drive for storage of the FRAPS videos. I would like a 1TB or 2TB HDD. Problem is looking through Newegg at the reviews its almost 50-50 on good and bad reviews. Granted those with no problems probably don't make a review at all. But I'd rather have a nice reliable drive and I trust your opinions here.

The last thing is a RAM upgrade. I currently have 2x2GB sticks in my motherboard and am considering going up to 8GB total RAM. Likely overkill for any game and most won't get used at all but at this point its cheap enough why not. This G.SKILL RAM is close to the same as my current RAM, just more. So I'm all for getting some Yes or No's or alternatives to this.

I'm all for getting an opinion and changing things up if I'm a little outdated with my selections.

Soon as I get some solid selections I'll be buying the hardware.

Thanks for any assistance you guys can help me out with!
 
Kerkain said:
I'm bumping my own thread instead of making a new. I've updated my original post though not much has changed.

Games wise I'm playing SH4 and DCS A10C (medium settings mostly which kinda stinks) but I've found myself recording my gameplay more and more frequently. So here I am, asking for a little help from you guys.

What I would like to do:
Update my OS from 32-bit to 64-bit with the Windows 7 Home Premium OEM. I want to install that and DCS A10C onto this SSD drive. Recommendations on this SSD?
Click to expand...

I cannot recommend that particular SSD at all since it's one of the slower Sandforce-based SSDs (due to its use of asynchronous NAND flash chips) and because of OCZ's less-than-stellar customer service. Plus, it is not all that much cheaper than SSDs that perform significantly faster.

Kerkain said:
The last thing is a RAM upgrade. I currently have 2x2GB sticks in my motherboard and am considering going up to 8GB total RAM. Likely overkill for any game and most won't get used at all but at this point its cheap enough why not. This G.SKILL RAM is close to the same as my current RAM, just more. So I'm all for getting some Yes or No's or alternatives to this.

I'm all for getting an opinion and changing things up if I'm a little outdated with my selections.
Click to expand...

That 2 x 4GB kit is a fine choice. But keep in mind that if you do keep your existing 2 x 2GB kit in that PC, you'd end up with 12GB of RAM total.
 
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E4g1e said:
I cannot recommend that particular SSD at all since it's one of the slower Sandforce-based SSDs (due to its use of asynchronous NAND flash chips) and because of OCZ's less-than-stellar customer service. Plus, it is not all that much cheaper than SSDs that perform significantly faster.
Click to expand...

I'll start checking some of the threads here and dig a little more for some SSD that are commonly recommended to replace that with then.



E4g1e said:
That 2 x 4GB kit is a fine choice. But keep in mind that if you do keep your existing 2 x 2GB kit in that PC, you'd end up with 12GB of RAM total.
Click to expand...

We'll ignore the fact that for whatever reason I thought my MB only had 2 memory slots. /facepalm
lol
 
Kerkain said:
I'll start checking some of the threads here and dig a little more for some SSD that are commonly recommended to replace that with then.
Click to expand...

Cost effective stable and fast the winner would be the Crucial M4. Other faster recommendations in order of reliability would be the Samsung 820/830, Plextor M3(p), or the Intel 520 (this is pretty much the fastest SSD available, but its expensive, uses a SF controller but has been having better luck with it).
 
@Topweasel - Thanks for the suggestions I'm googling them up now.
Actually, just for my own peace of mind is this the M4 you have in mind?

Besides the capacity, price, and write speed difference, there something else hugely different between these three?
 
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Forgive my ignorance here but why is the ssd with the transfer kit cheaper then the other? They're completely identical otherwise. Not that a transfer kit would do me much good since I plan on doing a fresh install of 64bit windows anyway.

As far as a hard drive goes. I can pick out every single TB hard drive there is and have extreme doubts on every one. (IE This one)So, reliable, a great write speed that can keep up or surpass fraps recordings, please throw me a few suggestions to choose from. With a cherry on top. And a beer.
 
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Kerkain said:
Forgive my ignorance here but why is the ssd with the transfer kit cheaper then the other? They're completely identical otherwise. Not that a transfer kit would do me much good since I plan on doing a fresh install of 64bit windows anyway.
Click to expand...
Probably because the non-transfer kit version has been selling really well and Newegg's website automatiaclly raises the price on high-selling items.
Kerkain said:
So, reliable, a great write speed that can keep up or surpass fraps recordings, please throw me a few suggestions to choose from. With a cherry on top. And a beer.
Click to expand...

I recommend this drive:
$110 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
 
Current shopping list is as follows:
Hard Drive
RAM
SSD
And I'm waiting on a friend of mine to get back to me about getting a version of Windows 7 64 from his college.
Total: $294.97 (+99 if I have to get OEM Win7)

The PSU that I have currently shouldn't have too much of a hit with these extra parts should it?
 
There was a deal yesterday where they offered free shipping on that drive. Bummer to see that deal no longer there.
 
I seen that difference as well this morning. Though in all reality, spending $300 anyway, a $7 shipping fee is really a moot concern.

Hopefully, the instant savings on the HDD and the SSD don't go anywhere right away until my buddy gets back to me. I want to order everything at once if I can, even though it doesn't always ship that way...

Maybe something better will pop up while I wait.

Edit: Speaking of something better I have an email with a promo code for Windows 7 Professional for $109.99. That is kind've tempting.
 
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I just wanted to put out a thank you to everyone that threw out their suggestions.

I ran into some financial problems last month but I was finally able to get the parts ordered and today I took a half day from work so I could work on my PC.


Thanks again guys, you rock!
 
Alright guys I need a little help. I've been trying to figure out what has been going on with this computer since I put in the new parts and quite frankly I'm about at the end of my patience trying to troubleshoot it.

This is quite frankly the most annoying thing ever.
reliabilityfail.png



  1. At first it seemed like the SSD was disconnecting itself from the motherboard and was getting moved to the last spot in the BIOS boot order. I moved it from SATA4 to SATA1.
  2. Then when that didn't fix it, thought I did an install wrong with the SSD. A website suggested changing a registry to anable AHCI which didn't help just caused more problems. Currently SATA1-4 set to IDE, dunno if thats good or bad.
  3. System restore back.
  4. BSOD almost every time the computer would come out of sleep/hibernate. Disabling fixed that problem.
  5. BSOD would just randomly happen no way to reproduce.
  6. Common BSOD error I'd see was SERVICE_EXCEPTION_ERROR
  7. Ran Verifier.exe a few different ways and could not replicate any BSODs.
  8. Redownloaded and reinstalled AMD video driver anyway.
  9. Updated MB BIOS to latest version available. BSOD still occured.
  10. BSOD and then can't turn PC on. Removing stick of RAM to get it to work.
  11. Found I can only use two sticks of RAM or BSOD occurs.
  12. Had original RAM in PC for about two years with no BSOD.
  13. Currently have JUST the two NEW sticks of ram installed and so far no BSOD. (Note: If anything BSODs here I will download and run MemTest86+ tonight before I goto bed)
  14. I'm assuming that there is a problem with the second set of DIMM slots on my MB. Or there is a compatibility issue with the RAM that I have and the MB I have and running more than two sticks.

Motherboard
Newest G.SKILL RAM
Original G.SKILL RAM
Other parts are listed in this thread.

My minidumps as well as the event viewer logs for the critical and errors for System are zipped and uploaded to Mediafire.

Seeing as my wireless internet is connected at a measly 1Mbs with two bars and downloading/uploading at about 10kb/s this was no easy feat to accomplish. No I am not kidding. No, there is nothing I can do to fix the service. Yes, I am drinking. Its just downright pitiful that my phone is better equipped for internet then my ISP ever could be.

I would greatly appreciate anyones help and insight on to some more in depth testing if needed. I will do what I can granted it doesn't require extensive use of the internet. I'll answer what I can.
 
Recommend me a new motherboard, please.

This motherboard apparently doesn't or can't support having more than a stick of RAM in it at any given time.

I was lucky to get away with a week of no BSODs or problems but now I'm down to using one stick or the computer won't even start up.

So, unless there is another way to specifically test the motherboard itself and its memory slots, recommend me a new motherboard that is reliable, and capable of supporting the hardware that I have.

Please and thanks!
 
Yes you can use an AM3+ mobo with your current CPU. I'd would go with the ASUS M5A97 myself.
 
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