Recurring issue
I have this hardware problem. I know someday my machine(s) will die or disappear or something and I'll need a new one(s). The problem is that Wikipedia et al. don't really give advice on good HW (EG. This brand is good, this specific model is terrible, this amount of RAM, etc, etc.). Is there a reliable reference for this sort of stuff?
-Q
PS. Other than a forum; I'll always ask here if I can.
-Q
PS. Other than a forum; I'll always ask here if I can.
Comments
that'll work out.
Thump
-Q
Speaking of which, after I move into my new apartment, I'm building a new machine. Laptop only is fun and all, but I want a machine running 24/7 again so I can download more stuff.
This would be fine if they didn't cost $180. I looked all into this and its WAY more expensive because of the LGA 1156/LGA 1366 platform split that intel conjured up. The Phenom II X2 550 also supports DDR2 as well as DDR3 and there are sub-$100 boards that support AM3/AM2+/AM2 on DDR2. DDR3 prices haven't come down at all, so its not really worth the extra cost per performance gain. If you want even more cost cutting and don't intend to do a whole lot of gaming, there's sub-$100 boards that support all of the above plus ATI Radeon HD 4200 integrated graphics.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128395
GIGABYTE GA-MA785G-UD3H - $90
AMD Phenom II X2 - $87
A-DATA 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2 - $81 (I've had this brand in my C2D for 2 years)
= $258
Core i5 650 = $184 alone
If you need/want Quad-Core there's the Athlon II X4 620 for $96
That's my argument.
Intel is totally overpriced and it's likely that it doesn't deliver all the power that it's product promise :S
Also, on price-performance ratio, AMD Phenom II and Athlon II really kicks ass (you get good performance with low costs)
Intel is on top, so they are in a position to charge a premium. Price aside, the i5/i7 mop the floor with AMD's offerings, last I checked anyway.
Not if they intend to actually sell any of this LGA 1156 bullshit. If they would quit trying to split the market where it just doesn't need to be, there wouldn't be such an issue. You buy a cost effective CPU and you get raped by lack of any features and total lack of upgrade path that the more expensive CPUs have. Its just money laundering on Intel's part (see: Atom).
-Q
I suggest digging through newegg, sorting products by what you want (Intel or AMD), sorting by best reviews, reading some of the reviews, if its up to your standards, go for it. Gigabyte boards have been nice to me, I own 3 of them. AMD is the best bang for buck, ATI has been on top lately due to NVIDIA's complete lack of any new product (I own a Radeon HD 4770). A-DATA RAM is both good and cheap. For PSUs I suggest Thermaltake or Corsair. For cases, dig around in Antec's lineup and see if there's anything you like, they're generally solid cases. If you go with an ATI card I suggest getting a card with a non-reference cooler (I can give you pointers on this) because the reference design coolers are VERY loud. Brands include PowerColor, Sapphire, and HIS. For NVIDIA, I suggest EVGA, XFX, MSI, or PNY. HDDs are difficult these days with so many defects on both ends of the spectrum. I have 4 Seagates in use and all have been fine. I have a Western Digital scorpio blue in my laptop that's 2 months old. Newegg reviews will be greatly helpful with this. Some other board brands you can look at are ASUS and ASrock (though you have to be careful what board you get with ASrock). For PSU wattage it can't hurt to go with something 650W or higher because bigger PSUs run more efficiently when not at 100% load. This in mind, you could probably get away with a 500W. I personally run an overclocked C2D and overclocked Radeon HD 4770, 2 HDDs, and my DVD Burner from a Thermaltake TR2 430W (soon to be replaced by a Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750W) and it still has enough juice to power an 8800GT, though I wouldn't suggest to anyone to actually do this if it can be avoided.
That's pretty much all I've learned from past experience.
On a side note, that's probably the longest post i've written in years
Anyway, I would agree with most of that, except one thing to watch for with a lot of Corsair PSU's is that they use a fan controller circuit to control the fan speed (obviously... :roll:) and sometimes that circuit dies so the fan won't run and eventually your PSU will burn up. I don't know which, if any, models have fixed this issue. No guarantee that will happen to you though.
Anyways, if you don't want to risk it, you can always bypass the fan controller and run the PSU fan at full speed.
Also, be prepared to laugh at the fact that the PSU comes in a cloth bag with the corsair logo on it.
My Corsair HX650 has been fine for 2 years. The reference design cooler refers to the cooler that ATI drew out during its design phase. It's mainly press that get these models as they aren't available with the official ATI branding on sites such as Newegg. A non-reference cooler is a cooler that is in any way different from the design ATI designed the card with. One example is my ATI Radeon HD 4770, which has an Arctic Cooling heatsink and fan.
Reference ATI Radeon 5770: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814102858
Non-reference ATI Radeon 5770: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150462
Good rule of thumb is the warranty means the manufacturer backs up their products well. So the double lifetime transferable warranty on XFX video cards says a lot... things like that.
Yes because the caps always go bad :P