also 40"@1080p thats nonsense. rather get a higher res but lower diagonal ... 1080p only works up to 23"
Concerning Case, I always wanted to buid a setup that goes way from Tower desktop look and is more like an A3 cardboard carton concerning dimensions. Then I found this: Coolermaster HAF XB You can use standard ATX mainboards, the design is quite cool, huge coolers fit in and the price is right (you have to check american prices for yourself though) You should decide on a processor first (concerning socket), then go from there and what boards are available, how much ram you want to be able to fit in, and how reviews are about the standard "boxed" cpu cooler. Hard drive: Get an SSD as system disk and do a clean install of windows 7, the performance is shocking compared to old systems with single HDDs. Samsung makes some of the best SSDs I know: 250GB Samsung SSD 840 Concerning your "falling out of the game when click on second monitor": Are you running empires with this launch options? -console -windowed -noborder If not you should.
A retail CPU comes with all the things you need to properly cool your CPU: a heatsink (with attached fan) and thermal paste. If you aren't overclocking or dealing with a cramped case (think custom cases or super portable stuff), then water is a waste. If you really want to pursue water, read this review. I like to save money, so I would advise against spending money on a water cooler since you get a free stock cooler with the CPU. This is a complicated one. Without telling you to go read a dozen GPU reviews, I'll just show you these awesome charts from Anandtech: In the middle are Nvidia's 660 Ti for $280-290 and AMD's 7870 for $230-240. That's roughly what you want for whatever price range. You can use Anandtech's Bench to see specific benches for specific games. If I would be gaming on a single 1080p display, something between a 7850 and a 660 Ti. I have no bias between Nvidia or AMD, but I think it's important to be aware of bundled games that come with certain GPUs. The 660 Ti comes with Metro: Last Light. That's about it for Nvidia. AMD cards are a little crazier: I'm a Bioshock fanboy, so I would probably get an AMD card just so I could get Bioshock. It's much much simpler now. Intel no longer licenses the rights to make a chipset for their CPUs, so you won't see any motherboards with Nvidia chipsets. What used to be the "video processor" on the motherboard is now built into the CPU, so that's also less of a worry. For expansion cards, AGP is dead. PCI is still available on large ATX motherboards, but it's just for legacy support. All GPUs that you will want will use PCIe slots. Hard drives, peripherals and disk drives are still pretty boring. No tough decisions to make in those areas. The SSD. You definitely need one. I would suggest a 250GB drive. Samsung's 840 series (non-Pro) are an excellent value. Crucial's m4 are also fine if you get a good deal. Anything by Intel is fine, but they typically cost more. Don't worry about SSD speeds. A mediocre SSD is already orders of magnitude faster than a hard drive. Seriously, just don't even look at the advertised speeds. As long as you plug it into a 6Gb/s SATA port (as opposed to a different colored 3Gb/s one), you won't notice a difference. Honestly, even if you used the older port, you probably still wouldn't notice. You're going to want to install your OS (and maybe some games) on the SSD and put files on your hard drives. This is always the first step to building a PC. Typically the CPU, motherboard and RAM are chosen together (that's why you see them bundled together often). But in this case, the LGA 1155 socket seems like an obvious choice. That's Intel's latest consumer socket (for code name "Ivy Bridge" CPUs). Wookie and I suggested different CPUs, but both utilize that socket.
Well, after investigating a little into it, LGA 2011 CPUs are meant to support "performance and high-end desktop and server platforms". While LGA 1155 is more for the normal consumer market (which means nothing about general performance, just wanted to share) As long as you are just into gaming and high FPS, you definitely don't need motherboards with X79 chipsets or a weird load of PCIe slots. Look out for Mainboards with Z77 Chipsets. GFX Cards: I was made an Nvidia fanboy, by the simple fact that AMD drivers do suck. You can buy AMD cards and yes, they are cheaper and the card itself may have a better price/performance/watts ratio but their driver support is horrible. But that is just my personal opinion. @Spartacus: You can't compare data-bus-width between AMD and Nvidia cards. That's like comparing cars and boats. Let's fuck someone in the ass, I'm tired. (I still don't understand British locutions)
Oh no, you opened the box of pandora, now we will see endless nerd discussions about if you should get a 7950 or a 670. Anyways, if i were in your position i would get atm: - Radeon 7950 graphics card (from Sapphire or MSI) - Dell UltraSharp U2713HM monitor (27", 2560x1440) - Intel Core i5-3570K CPU with the stock cooler - Gigabyte GA-H77-D3H motherboard - Samsung SSD 840 Series 250GB (for the OS, your browser, MS office, games) - Logitech G400 mouse (nothing fancy here, but still sufficient for most needs)
He already seems to like larger screens. I'm not sure if it's a good idea to waste more on a smaller screen that has more pixels to push. If he's happy with a cheap 1080p tv, then that saves him a lot of money on the GPU. With that extra cash, he can afford to keep his system in a properly upgraded state much longer. You have to think long term.
Sure if he likes it, but you can get really nice 27 inch monitors for like 300 dollars. I got a Philips 273E LED screen. It uses very little power and in my opinion if you use a normal desk and sitting distance 27 inches is right at the edge of how big it can be before you have to turn your head to see the it all.
Sure, many users would prefer the pixels and the smaller size, but we aren't talking about many users, we're talking about one user. Increasing the pixel count is expensive. Displays cost a lot, the GPUs cost a lot and the newly required power costs a lot. So if he already prefers larger displays, then I see little reason to convince him to spend a lot more on a smaller display.
pfft, pc scrubs. Mac Master Race reporting in. When my pc crashed on me I realised all pcs are shit and Mac are the only machines worth getting. Best design and performance for the money. Also no viruses. No need to upgrade either, all Mac outlast pcs by many years. Go big or go home.
So all my stuff arrived and I am currently using it. lol cpu and memory improved by .2 in both categories. Thats ok... now I can put in a better video card. Other MB was pci Express 1.0. I could put in some newer cheap memory and pump up the memory speed from 1333 to 1800 or 2100 cuz mac's don't crash right?
The opposite. You overclock an outdated and/or lower-specced processor so you can get it at par with current technology for less. To be honest, you shouldn't be overclocking any of the latest CPUs as you will lower lifespan for an insignificant boost compare to the standard Intel turboboost. I definitely would NOT overclock an Ivy bridge CPU as it will have heating issues above 4.2GHz. 1.7k sounds so overpriced, and the specs are that different from my tower.. This is the reason why I don't like overrated, pre-made "gaming pc". I built my tower a few months ago for <$1000 (excluding accessories and software) and play the latest games at max settings (e.g. Planetside 2 with 50-60fps). Go to newegg.com and look for some nice combos. Also, don't spend too much money getting overpriced, top-line parts. A medium-range gaming PC will get your great performance for a couple of years for half the price. Here are the specs for my tower. Rosewill CHALLENGER-U3 Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ASUS P8Z77-V LE PLUS LGA 1155 Intel Z77 Intel Core i7-3770 Ivy Bridge quad 3.4GHz (3.9GHz TurboBoost) SILVERSTONE ST55F-G 550W ATX 12V EVGA 02G-P4-2663-KR GeForce GTX 660 FTW Signature 2 SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM (Didn't need 16GB. Can get another cheaper stick in the future if needed)
Here's to hoping that AMD can pull a few miracles out of their ass. Intel needs some better competition.
Its funny that AMD used to say that higher speed is dumb compared to more computes per cycle... now they have taken that a bit too much to heart with 16 core cpu's. We have had more then one core cpu's for a while now and software is still fucking brain dead when it comes to recognizing it and using it. To be fair not all tasks are suited for multicore work but, the ones that could make significant use of it, many games for example... don't.
The 12-16 core parts are for servers and workstations that can make use of the many cores. They even have multiple processors per machine after all.
Not going to happen, atleast in the desktop market. AMD is focusing most of their R&D budget to the mobile/ultrabook market.
First off, you can't overclock a cheap modern Intel CPU because the multiplier is locked and the bclck won't go up very much (since it drives more than just CPU and ram). Secondly, the hit to lifespan is negligible. You have to be very aggressive with your overclocking to kill a CPU before upgrade time. I almost believe that you're trolling. Who gets a 3770? You could overclock a 3570K on it's stock cooler and get >95% of the 3770's performance. And the extra money could've been spent on your GPU, because you know, it's a gaming machine.
