My fellow geeks, I need PC building advice

Started by Farabomb, December 27, 2016, 10:18:24 AM

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Joe

Quote from: Farabomb on December 30, 2016, 10:34:31 AMI keep looking at a core 2 Quad but in LGA775, they're not cheap. Maybe a haswell chip on the best board from 3 years ago chock full of RAM might work. It's got to be cheaper than what I'm looking at.

The other downside to doing this is that future games won't run on it. Damned if you do...damned if you don't.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Joe

Damn you fb....you've got me looking at upgrading my pc(s)! :git off mah lawn:
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Farabomb

Heh, heh.

I know, it sucks. Then I look at the prices of my sky high dreams and it brings me back to earth a little.
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

Joe

Yeah. Want a new CPU? Plan on getting a new motherboard too. And memory. And video card. And a new PSU. And what the hell get a new bigger SSD. And a new case to house it all. But you still have your old keyboard and mouse so it is still technically an upgrade. :rotf:
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

DigiCorn

I've had the same PC for going on 6+ years now. I built it on a Gigabyte board with an AMD 4-core and currently at 12GB RAM with room to add more. I started with 4, but I've added over the years. I originally built it on Vista, but went to 8 and then to 10. Shortly after building, I changed out one of the DVD ROMS for a blu-ray burner that I have used exactly 6 times to burn blu-rays. At one point, I did swap out the 500 GB HD for a 1TB, and stuck the 500 GB in as a backup. I do have 2 NAS attached; one is 4TB and the other is 8TB and is more of a true NAS than the other. It has it's own OS and can run Plex as a server. I'm pretty sure the whole system is close to dying; I leave it on 24/7 and reboot it every few weeks. My 1 TB Seagate went belly up about 5 months ago. I got a cheap AMD Radeon $75 1.5 GB video card that can run 1 DVI (my 24" LG monitor), 1 HDMI (connected to a 42" TV) and 1 VGA (not it use currently). The whole setup probably cost me a grand total of $800 (not including the cost of the TV). I bought all the parts new from Fry's Electronics except for the blu-ray burner and the video card. The TV I got used on FB from a neighbor for $40.

I did have CS5 on the machine in Vista and then on 8, but when I upgraded to 10, the install process wiped out all non-M$ software on my system. All of it was stuff I owned legally (except CS5), and had emails containing all the download links and serial numbers, so I spent several days re-downloading and reinstalling all my shit. It was a major PITA and inconvenience, and I am not looking forward to doing it again, but I may be doing it sooner than later.

I did take my Father In-Law's old XP box and upgraded it to 10 and it's my bar computer. It runs MAME, and feeds a 22" Acer monitor and a 32" VGA Samsung monitor. I have it hardwired to the internet because it's like 100 feet from the router. Since I work late, sometimes when I get home I just hang in the bar and stream hulu or netflix. Again, I got like a cheap 1.5GB video card on Amazon Prime Day for $30 and the processor is an AMD Turion 3 core. It's a little slow with noticeable lag when I run Duke Nuke'm and Killer Instinct. I have T-Pat's old XArcade connected for MAME and I use an XBox 360 controller for Dolphin and my other emulators/games. Most stuff runs fine. I found some RAM that fits, so it has 6GB RAM currently but I think all the slots are filled (2 x 2 and 2 x 1). I'm not a serious gamer, so it works fine for goofing around on Steam.
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

Farabomb

If you or anyone needs RAM I'm pretty sure I have a bag of old stuff lying around. Nothing newer than DDR2, I know that. I pretty much only buy corsair and their lifetime warranty is a great thing. I've had a few sticks die and the RMA is 0 hassle. Last time they emailed saying we're sorry we don't make that 2g kit anymore; the closest would be the same sticks but 4g. I'm not going to say no to free RAM.

I did realize I only have a 650w and a 750w PSU. They are quality units (corsair and OCZ) but I wonder if a newer system would be more power hungry. I loved AMD chips and I have no issue with them in laptops but for some reason I need intel inside my builds. I loved them back in the day and smoked one or two pushing it a bit too far.
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

Farabomb

Having an upgrade pork other software isn't surprising. What I worry about is it deleting files. It just removed the installs but didn't delete any files, correct? I remember you talking about something like that and that's what worries me.
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

Joe

Quote from: Farabomb on January 04, 2017, 08:11:14 AMHaving an upgrade pork other software isn't surprising. What I worry about is it deleting files. It just removed the installs but didn't delete any files, correct? I remember you talking about something like that and that's what worries me.

Yeah I posted a link about it upthread just moving the programs elsewhere and disabling them.

As far as the PSU...650w to 750w should be plenty however if they are older they may not be putting out the power they used to. Lots of hard drives will draw a lot pf power though. Especially the old IDE drives.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Farabomb

One hasn't been turned on in close to 7 years. The other has been running 24/7 for years pushing 2 video cards, 5 HDD's and some opticals. I may just give it a shot but the second I get any funky errors, I'll be getting a new one. Flaky PSUs do the weirdest shit.
Speed doesn't kill, rapidly becoming stationary is the problem

I'd rather have stories told than be telling stories of what I could have done.

Quote from: Ear on April 06, 2016, 11:54:16 AM
Quote from: Farabomb on April 06, 2016, 11:39:41 AMIt's more like grip, grip, grip, noise, then spin and 2 feet in and feel shame.
I once knew a plus-sized girl and this pretty much describes teh secks. :rotf:
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         —Benjamin Franklin

My other job

Joe

They sure do. It is much better when they just quit completely. You can chase problems around for a long time never suspecting a faulty PSU when as a last resort you replace and everything is all fixed. You can't even trust the PSU diagnostic tester at a computer shop. Those only show if it is dead or has power. At least the ones at my local PC shop anyway.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

DigiCorn

Oddly, it kept M$ Office intact.  :sarcasm:  (<-- was that even needed?)
"There's been a lot of research recently on how hard it is to dislodge an impression once it's been implanted in someone's mind. (This is why political attack ads don't have to be true to be effective. The other side can point out their inaccuracies, but the voter's mind privileges the memory of the original accusation, which was juicier than any counterargument ever could be.)"
― Johnny Carson

"Selling my soul would be a lot easier if I could just find it."
– Nikki Sixx

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."
― Ernest Hemingway

Joe

Quote from: DigiCorn on January 04, 2017, 05:46:25 PMOddly, it kept M$ Office intact.  :sarcasm:  (<-- was that even needed?)

We have several PC stills running Office 97 (as in 1997) here at work and it kept them too.. It disabled a couple of programs that were less than a year old though. Of course those were NOT Microsoft products. ;D
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Slappy

Check out the Intel NUC systems. Saw one at a LAN a few months back & I'd never heard of them before. Blow your friggin' mind how much fits into a PC that can fit in your pocket, in some cases.
A little diddie 'bout black 'n cyan...two reflective colors doin' the best they can.

Joe

Those fanless systems worry me. I have a little Zotac Media Center PC I bought a few years ago and you can cook supper on that thing. And yes it has been as unstable as a New Orleans prostitute on meth since day one.
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.

Joe

Now here is the CPU for you Farabomb.

Intel Core i7-4960X Ivy Bridge-E 6-Core 3.6GHz (Turbo 4GHz) LGA 2011 130W BX80633i74960X Desktop Processor

Now don't let that price tag of $2,809.99 scare you. Shipping is only $3.99 so that makes it a win!
Mac OS Sonoma 14.2.1 (c) | (retired)

The seven ages of man: spills, drills, thrills, bills, ills, pills and wills.