Computer Problems/Upgrades/Info

[TAZTG]

Lurk, you need to visit Review Sites, forums and do some basic research.
Example:
GA-MA790X-UD4P
When NewEgg states: Memory Standard DDR2 1333 OC
Thats the Max Standard, with some research I found the Approved Memory List for that board from the Gigabyte Website.
http://www.gigabyte-usa.com/FileList/MemorySupport/mb_memory_ga-ma790x-ud4p.pdf

I use Tom's Hardware and 3DGuru for Graphic Card reviews plus some other sites.

 

[«BuA»Lurker_71]

Ok, based on the input I got from you guys, the reviews I read on Tom's hardware, and the amount of money I had to spend, I came up with this compromise:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387
I chose this mother board because of the future upgrade possibilities for both CPU and RAM, and it's a PCIe 2 board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103773
I chose this CPU because it's 3Ghz, relatively cheap, and once I go Quad Core, it'll fit in my 590 Nvidia board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130339
Based on the reviews I saw on Tom's, this was the best card I could get for the money I had to spend... the only Nvidia chipset above it was an EVGA 250 GTX which was $189.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042
And with the money I had left over, I picked out this case (which I also need) which is steel and Antec, not to mention nice.

However... there is still one question I don't have answered;
Will my 600Watt PSU run this? How do I find out?
Certainly you fellas can give me an idea on where I can get this info...

 

[TAZTG]

Ok, based on the input I got from you guys, the reviews I read on Tom's hardware, and the amount of money I had to spend, I came up with this compromise:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128387
I chose this mother board because of the future upgrade possibilities for both CPU and RAM, and it's a PCIe 2 board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103773
I chose this CPU because it's 3Ghz, relatively cheap, and once I go Quad Core, it'll fit in my 590 Nvidia board.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130339
Based on the reviews I saw on Tom's, this was the best card I could get for the money I had to spend... the only Nvidia chipset above it was an EVGA 250 GTX which was $189.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042
And with the money I had left over, I picked out this case (which I also need) which is steel and Antec, not to mention nice.

However... there is still one question I don't have answered;
Will my 600Watt PSU run this? How do I find out?
Certainly you fellas can give me an idea on where I can get this info...

I see you made some good choices. Its normally the Graphic Card that determines if you have enough power to run your system. When I clicked on your link the specifcations for the 9800GTX states
System Requirements Minimum of a 450 Watt power supply.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 24 Amp Amps.)
Minimum 550 Watt for SLI mode system.
(Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 30 Amp Amps.)

 

[«BuA»Lurker_71]

Well I guess that's what I get for not reading it thoroughly.
Once I get home tonight I'll put the order in, and hopefully by saturday I'll be putting it together.

EDIT: Ordered

 

[Bonecrusher]

So... a couple months ago my parents computer (my old AMD rig) croaked and they've been using the Vaio for a while. But tonight my mom mentioned she was sick of it SO... I'm going to upgrade and give them the old stuff again. Nothing wrong with this rig other than the age (hopefully there isn't anything on its last leg lol).

Just some quick shopping tonight looks like I'll be spending about $1200. I'm not really prepared to spend all that... but thats why I'm going to ask how much they're willing to pay me for my old rig

I went with i7 860 Lynnfield, EVGA P55 SLI E665, 4 gigs of corsair dominator, Geforce GTX 295 and a 750W Antec PS to juice it. As far as I know I don't need anything else.

 

[TAZTG]

Looks like a nice setup. What about CD/DVD Drive/Hard drives you keeping your current ones? I see some formatting in your future.

On another note, I just received my Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade - Retail 199.99 (Paid-99.00) saved a little money there.

I plan on installing it on my 2nd Hard Drive (E and keep XP Pro on C: for the time being. HAve a question about Dual Booting. While installing 7 will it know which HD to restart/boot to. After we get it all installed it should stop and ask me which OS to boot to correct? Anyway no hurry for the install going to start gathering Drivers.. Will also pick up more Ram since it can utilize it.

 

[Morty]

With the upgrade you might not be able to boot from it. It may require XP to upgrade. If you do have a full version it should see that XP is installed and will ask if you want to run the dual boot which will update the INI file for the new OS.

 

[Bonecrusher]

Yeah... you'll have to install XP on the 2nd HD first to use an "upgrade".

Whats the word on Windows 7 Morty. Safe to get it or still a lot of problems?

 

[«BuA»Lurker_71]

From what I've read it's the "best of both worlds" between Vista and XP Pro... the 64 bit version will be capable of running on 4ghz of Ram (the 32 bit only 3), and won't have the issues XP 64 did, plus the stability of XP Pro & security of Vista minus the headaches.
PC Gamer thought it was an excellent choice for gaming.

 

[TAZTG]

Yeah... you'll have to install XP on the 2nd HD first to use an "upgrade".

Whats the word on Windows 7 Morty. Safe to get it or still a lot of problems?

OK, from past experience for a Upgrade OS. Its stops the install and ask you for an Older OS. You put in the CD it checked and then told you to put back the new OS to finish the install. It didn't require the old OS be installed. I am doing a new install to E:. Not quite sure I understand your statement Boney. You saying I will have to swap the HD letters? According to what I read about this version I should have the option to install 32Bit or 64Bit. What are the benefits to installing the 64Bit Version? I have no 64bit software that would be able to utilize it. Any games out there running in 64?

Off to do some more researching.

Here's some info:

Now, you’re probably wondering why 64-bit operating systems are being phased in and what benefits they deliver over their 32-bit predecessors – both legitimate questions. One of the most commonly cited differences is that the 32-bit architecture has a memory access limit of 4GB (2^32 bytes). This permits you to use about 2.75-3.5GB of RAM after IO reservations are factored in.

On paper, the 64-bit architecture can address 16 exabytes of memory (2^64), or more than 4 billion times that of its precursor. Consumer editions of Windows Vista permit from 8GB to 128GB of physical memory to be accessed, depending on the version. Windows 7 bumps that up to 192GB with the Professional version and above.

Other benefits of running a 64-bit OS include enhanced security with hardware-backed DEP, Kernel Patch Protection and mandatory driver signing.

 

[Morty]

Yeah... you'll have to install XP on the 2nd HD first to use an "upgrade".

Whats the word on Windows 7 Morty. Safe to get it or still a lot of problems?

So far I have installed 7 on my laptop and gaming PC. So far it's been pretty stable. Drivers are an issue since Dell and MSI hasn't made drivers for my PCs. I used Vista drivers and it seems to be holding up pretty well. I'll begin building an image at work for Windows 7 Pro on model PCs that have drivers for 7. My early results are that Windows does start a lot faster than Vista. IE 8 has one issue that clicking on a shortcut may not work but it's limited only to IE8. The campatability issues with older software are solved by using an option that debugs the installer and sets the parameters for Vista or XP (not campatability mode). This gets you around the "this software has known issues with 7" quote. However, very old software probably will need compatability mode. All the games I have installed so far have worked (UT, Guild Wars, NFSMW and LFD).

I think it might be something to get ahead on since MS might drop Vista support earlier if 7 truely takes off.

Of course this is my opinon but so far most of my people I know that have the RTM load (The same software you are buying) are skipping Vista and going to 7. Looks as if we are doing the same since I was asked to get started on a syspreped load.

 

[Bonecrusher]

Ok... I'll probably get a copy unless I can get in touch with one of my "sources" and get it for cheap.

I mentioned the upgrade/swap to my mom tonight and she said something about cipping in plus considering it part of my christmas gift. So she would probably go just about halfies on it which is oki doki with me

I'll do some more careful shopping when this gets more serious and see what I come up with.

 

[TAZTG]

Looks like applications is the main issue. Work around is like Morty stated XP Mode is there are problems.

 

[Bonecrusher]

Looking at price vs performance comparison... I'm thinking an SLI setup might not be a bad idea. I always heard bad things about SLI/Crossfire and I don't know if they worked out all the kinks. A pair of GTX 260's is still over 100 bucks cheaper than 1 295. Although the 295's are 2 GPUs on a single card... I don't know what has more problems lol

I'm so out of the loop with this stuff. I was reading tom's hardware and I'm seeing things like 6 gb/s SATA drives, DirectX 11, etc etc. How long til the next gen of Nvidia cards come out? I want to see the price cuts.

 

[TAZTG]

Nex Gen is coming soon. ATI just launched their awesome 5870/5850's series of cards. They also mentioned that NVidia will be introducing their NexGen Soon to stay ahead. Guru3D has some nice reviews check them out..

Guru3D Review

Veni, vidi, vici (I came, I saw, I conquered) -- That all classic Latin phrase applied to ATI last week when they released the Radeon HD 5870 graphics card; the first ever DX11 class graphics card with a lot of features and raw brute horsepower to ensure you can play your games not only in the best quality, but also with a lot of performance headroom.

There is however one slight disadvantage with the Radeon HD 5870, its price tag. Surely everybody agrees that 399 USD might be a fair price for this all new 40nm GPU based graphics card, however... it's also a sum of money that most of us can't afford to spend, especially in these harsh economic times.

Well, ATI of course will address that issue with a truckload of graphics cards that will be cheaper. But in-between now and Christmas 2009 in the high-end segment two products will make an appearance. The dual-GPU based Radeon HD 5870 X2, which will be even more expensive, but there was another product launched last week that did not get enough attention as... well the cards had not been distributed just yet. That's right, it is of course the Radeon HD 5850.

As such today we'll look into the Radeon HD 5850, we'll check both the single GPU performance but also will check it out in CrossfireX multi-GPU mode. This card promises to go neck-to-neck with the 349 USD GeForce GTX 285 in terms of performance. The Radeon HD 5850 however comes with full DirectX 11 compatibility, Eyefinity and some sheer brutal rendering performance in both gaming and compute features. It's everything the Radeon HD 5870 really is, just a slight step slower but more affordable.

Meet that mean little sister of the Radeon HD 5870... The 259 USD Radeon HD 5850 1024MB.

 

[Bonecrusher]

The order has been placed

EVGA E655 P55 Motherboard
Intel Core i7 860 Lynnfield 2.8 GHz
Corsair Dominator GT DDR3-2000 (2 x 2GB)
EVGA Geforce GTX 295 Co-op
Corsair 850W Modular Power Supply
and Windows 7 Professional 64 bit

Its money I hadn't planned on spending... but hot damn this is gonna be fun

 

[TAZTG]

Installed Windows 7 Pro... It does let me Dual Boot, however it appears to have relettered the Drives. XP was Drive C: now it appears 7 is C: Makes me wonder when I boot into XP if it switches back... Guess I will find out shortly.
Installed NVidia Drivers, NForce Drivers & SB Drivers. Now time to start on other Applications.

BTW: I like the ease of use, bit tricky finding things at first but thats because I like the Classic Veiw..

 

[Bonecrusher]

Boooo my order is coming out of Sacramento... ETA is Thursday

 

[TAZTG]

Patience young man...

 

[TAZTG]

Boney, any news?? Did it come a day early?
Remember to take your time and enjoy building the new system..