Yeah, bulldozer not great at moment - for gaming anyway

For lazy people. They don't seem to bad. For less lazy people, they list all their specs so you can search for the parts yourself.

Parts have started to arrive.  I have:

- mobo
- hard drive
- cpu
- cpu cooler
- psu

Don't have:
- RAM
- cd drive
- case
- Win 7
- GPU

PSU caught me out as I thought it was purely modular.  It's not.  It has the normal cables hard wired plus the option to add modular cables.  Still, I'll need all cables anyway apart from the molex

If I don't get the 7850 from SCAN (out of stock, muppets), I'll probably look at the 660ti or more likely the 670 as that seem better value (although both are poor value compared to the 7850).

Got all the stuff yet mrsmr2?


You know we were talking about quiet PCs, well I didn't realise the (quality/design of the) case had such an influence on volume. So I looked around at some cases that claim to be quiet but without getting one it's hard to know if they're better then the one I have.

So anyway, instead I took the sides off mine and stuck some of those Sellotape Sticky Fixer pads along the edges where the side panels attach. It might be my imagination but I'm sure it's taken the thrum down a notch.


--
Also, mine has a space for a fan on the side, now I noticed a fair amount of air was blowing out if it, I'm assuming it was the flow from the front two fans. Now although that's probably picking up the flow from over the grfx card, I didn't really want it venting half way up the case, I wanted it to pull right through to the two exhaust fans on the top/back. So I gaffer taped the hole over. Stupid idea? The idle core temps for cpu/gpu seem exactly as they were before. Not tired loading yet.

GPU-Z and CoreTemp

Just had a couple hours on Borderlands and the highest GPUz recorded was 57c CPU was about the same.

I didn't know this, but if you're feeling super brave you can rip the fan off your GPU and replace it with a water cooled heat sink. There's no version for my card but there might be for yours. If you're feeling brave/rich.

Looks good Nina.

On better news, for me, I'm typing this from my PC.  Found 6 stand-offs, albeit taller, and used those in conjunction with the 3 supplied with the case.

Just installed Win 7 and Firefox.  Currently downloading AVAST then ZoneAlarm.  Finally graphics drivers and Steam so I can get my free copy of Sleeping Dogs.

PC has been picked up and is assembled, gonna turn it on in a few minutes. CPU cooler thing is crazy.

To get to the shop was probably the hardest thing, had to go to Rotterdam, traffic was stuck in several places, ended up on a road where you were allowed 60km/h, wide enough for 1 car, water on both sides (1 meter lower) and a lot of oncoming cars. Great.

Sell it to me!

I meant send it back, not for a refund.  However, getting a refund would be funny as they'd end up having paid me for the case I have.

Who knows about graphics cards then?

What are the different connection types?  Which is best?  Can I just buy any graphics card and they'll all work, or how do I find out if my PC has the relevant gubbinses inside it to work with it?

Internally, unless your computer is a million years old your motherboard should be PCI-E x16 so you shouldn't have to worry about that (but check anyway to be sure). Most graphics cards connect via DVI these days, you can get vga/hdmi converter if necessary depending on your monitor. Most of the newer graphics cards will also have a HDMI connection too, which is best because it can carry sound as well.

Something like this is pretty good but if you prefer Nvidia (or you want a better card) i'd say look up benchmarks for this card and then pick another with similar power/price depending on what you can afford.

edit: oh, another thing is to make sure that the card you choose will physically fit inside your PC.

edit: can't believe I wrote 2 instead of too, wtf is wrong with me today.

I have the Power Edition 7850 and it's very nice.  It's overclocked a fair bit but it never gets too hot (max 59 degrees) and therefore the fans aren't very loud.

The 7950 is a bargain for £50 more but is probably louder (which might not be an issue for you at all).

Cheers guys. Still not sure what to get... I have nVidia 3d vision so prob one of there's again. Main issue has been crashing, but my current card is beating up fine with FC3 so less urgent to upgrade...

Had realised how expensive cards could get though. GTX690 sounds the dogs - but £800?!? Yoiks!

If my PSU is too low, can I just buy a more powerful one, or is there more to it than that? Actually fitting in is less easy to resolve, I imagine!

acemuzzy wrote:

Who knows about graphics cards then? What are the different connection types?  Which is best?  Can I just buy any graphics card and they'll all work, or how do I find out if my PC has the relevant gubbinses inside it to work with it?

What CPU is your PC? Not that much point in dropping 200 quid on a graphics card if the CPU is going to bottleneck things.