AZuser

Intel i5 3570K for $190 or i7 2700K for $220?

For day to day stuff, games, and light photoshop/lightroom use (and possibly light Adobe Premiere use), I probably won't gain anything from hyperthreading on i7, right?

AZuser

Or just wait for Haswell.

C4YtK.jpg

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

ez12a

picked up a h100i over christmas.

Other than the buggy software they supply with it, the cooler works pretty well. 73C was the highest temp with my i7 2700k OC-ed to 4.6 Ghz w/ 1.372V after a 20 hour prime95 torture test.

stogie1020

FYI, i did 2 builds recently with NVidia GT640s and I am not impressed. Software is bad. Drivers crash often, even after updating, etc...

I would say maybe it's a bad card, but the same model card in both machines and the same thing happens on both.

ez12a

really? The 670 I recently obtained has been fairly trouble free, and this is even after uninstalling drivers after my old ATI 5850. Only driver crashes I've had so far were from an unstable GPU overclock.

Anyways, pic of both h100i and 670 installed:

Mizouse

As much as I want to build another desktop, I'm going to get a laptop for the portability.

ez12a

lol so yeah dont buy the h100i, the software for it is so bad. LEDs burnt out and I got a fan whine after flashing to a firmware they pulled earlier this week from their site (finally after several reports of problems for over a week).

Thanks to amazon I've already got my refund.

now i'm waiting for this beauty to hit the shelves in february:

Ken1997TL

I'd like to throw in another two cents on this. I recently built a gaming computer for a family friend. He bought that exact card.

It literally lasted a day. No overclocking of any sort. Swapped in an ATI card I had laying around, no issues.

BSOD each time with that Nvidia card.

My current card is an ATI HD 6990

stogie1020

This is not encouraging... But thanks.

Mizouse

I've got a ATI card in my PC too. An X1950XT

Ken1997TL

The x1950 was my backup laying around on a shelf.

Good card despite its age

Mizouse

Hmmm since I don't game as much I could use it on a new i7 build right?

Ken1997TL

Yes you could.

Mizouse

Well that saves me $300 right there.

HairyMonkey019

iTrader: (7)

So I've eyed this thread quite a few times, and though I should share my build.
I made this computer back in my freshman year in high school(5 years ago), then upgraded pretty much everything early 2012 and upgraded my cooling this year.





CPU: AMD FX-8150 running at 3.9GHz
RAM: 8GB G-skill
GFX: 560TI OC to 900MHZgpu and 2100MHZmemory
MOBO: ASRock 970 exteme 3

1 blu ray drive
1TB HDD
850w thermaltake psu
Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811144151 (Really old haha)

All in all, I'm happy with my build, except for my mobo. I got the 8150 for overclocking, but wasn't gonna do so at the time I got the mobo. Now, I'm fucked for OC capabilities because this mobo won't allow me to OC past 4GHZ. Right now my max temps on full load would be 38*C and mid-high 20*C at idle. On my stock cooler I would have about 38* at idle and about 50*+ on full load, and that fan got LOUD. Now I have an antec 920 Kuhler, which is SUPER QUIET. I originally tried the corsair crap, but that was a bust. After installing and having it fail, I read so many bad reviews online. During the summer, I know these temps will change, my room is greatly affected by weather; really cold in the winter, and fucking hot in the summer. Lastly, I know corsair liquid coolers are shit because they had a lot of open boxed/returned h50's-h100's at Fry, I don't know why i tried it

My case as you can see is a really old one and needs upgrading, that's why my shit isn't wire tucked. though the wires look messy on the right, their is still a great amount of air movement in the case itself. I even drilled a bunch of holes, to make a big hole for my 120 mm fan lol, it works great. The antec cooler is very friendly with it's tubing and fan connections, as well as being able to control fan speeds through the software, rather than the hardware, unlike the corsair h100.

Eventually I will upgrade my Case and my mobo. I really wish I didn't have to upgrade my case but it is pretty much due for retirement.
My monitor is also due for retirement, Hanns G. HW191 had this baby for a while. Reso is at 1440*900

I usually play BF3, Dota 2, Left 4 Dead 2. Here and there I play some really demanding games, but These 3 are my usual.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Just picked up a pair of 3TB WD Green 6GB SATA drives to do a mirrored raid on my file server

ez12a

Main desktop is down to complete this:


Waiting on 2 more fittings that should be coming in later this week and then it's on to leak testing.

Germ

i just started workin on my desktop again due to the fact that my car has been in the shop gettin sprayed and suspension redone.

specs of my hackintosh

cpu: i7 bloomfield 930 @2.80 not overclocked
motherboard: asus p6x58d premium
memory: 18gb corsair ddr pc3-10700
video: Dual ati radeon hd5850
display: quad monitor setup
-21" acer a221hqv (x3)
-50" visio HD flat screen (gotta love costco tvs)
hard drives:
-corsair force gt 60gb ssd
-western dig 150gb raptor (x2)
-western dig 640gb (i dont remember the model)
-western dig 320gb (i dont remember the model)
-western digital my book 1tb external (x2)
-western digital (dont remember the model) 2tb external
sound: creative sound blaster external usb sb0270 (i know..its old)
dvd rom: some random one i had laying around

operating systems:
triple boot setup (soon to be quad boot by tonight)
-mountain lion osx (main OS)
-windows 8 pro (light gaming)
-windows 8 pro (on my ssd for audio/graphic/video production)
-windows 7 ultimate (just to have i guess)

case:
cooler master cm690 with 10 fan setup
-140mm (x5)
-120mm (x4)
-80mm (x1)

external devices:
akai mpd24
sound card connects to turntable setup
-macbook pro 17inch
-apple oem 240gb ssd
-wd 1tb 7200 secondary hd mod
-8gb ram
-rane ttm57sl with video
-vestax pdx2000s limited edition w/shure mm47 needles



i recently did the fan setup for my computer. its in my man cave and it gets hella hot in here so i figured i need the cooling...currently researching water cooling but didnt wanna have to take the whole thing apart again and rebuild..haha...some of you guys got some cool setups...lots of good ideas.



this picture was taken during xmas. with my old 13inch macbook (now my gf's) and my old rane ttm56 with serato sl1...excuse the xmas lights



when i first completed my hackintosh (i started with this install then moved from there to do the other os's)..it took 6-7 months of research

The Dougler

iTrader: (1)

just did the same, which brings my server box up to 7TB in mirror array.

HairyMonkey019

iTrader: (7)

Amazing

Germ

chris how you like those drives. i was at fry's yesterday and was thinking about picking up a couple cause the price is awesome for that much space. but i read reviews and they werent good. so i just picked up an ssd.

ez12a

been tweaking little things here and there, but the basic build has been done for some time.



Anyone looking into getting their feet wet in custom watercooling should look at getting a h220. It comes assembled and ready to use like any Corsair or NZXT cooler, but should you ever find the inkling to do something more, you can. My overclocked 670 and i7 2700k dont get hotter than 52C and 69C respectively (both under max load at the same time).

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Very nice man, I just picked up 2 more, and I'm doing a 6TB Mirrored array for my data storage

They're great drives, I haven't done much with them yet though, held off until I could buy 2 more and do a RAID 10

Also just picked up this case to finish my home theater pc build. I wasn't happy with the case that I got, and the screw hole for the vid card was stripped by the person I got it from. This should be much better

Ken1997TL

Nice..

I'm going to build a Haswell i7 desktop this summer.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Got my case last night, got most of the components swapped over, the modular configuration of this case is simply awesome. I'm very impressed with how it breaks down

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Finished building my buddy's boss's computer, it's an AMD FX-6100 6 core 3.3 GHz, with 8 GB DDR3, and dual 1 TB blue WD 6 GB/Sec SATA drives in a mirrored RAID 1 array for redundancy and data retention. Windows 7 Pro, Office 2013, SAV. 23" Acer LED Monitor, Logitech spill proof keyboard and mouse. Quite a nice box, and he is very happy with it.





He wanted more of a power indicator than just the little red LED, figured this would do him well

Whiskers

Looks like a Transformer.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Since I had a nice workshop set up in my dining room, figured I would go ahead and finish building out my home theater PC. This box will be going in my basement and hooking up to my Viewsonic 1080P DLP HD projector, projecting on my 80" motorized drop down screen. It's a dual core AMD-64 2.2 GHz with 4 GB DDR2 RAM, and a 1 GB Geforce video card. Box doesn't need to be a screamer, just good enough to play movies, stream music, etc. Put it in this sweet ass thermal take case.



As mentioned, I loved how modular this case is, here's the motherboard tray all setup and mounted with the motherboard.


Little side by side with her big brother


All put together before I added the rest of the drives and power supply


Been out of building PC's for a good 10-12 years since I lost all interest in it, and I build servers for a living, but it's been fun playing with hardware again on this scale. I'm already looking at a new case for my home server

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

I love this style of cases for some reason

Ken1997TL

Parts are coming in tomorrow..

Ken1997TL

Ignore the mess of wires, I made it a bit nice later on.



Specs:

Rosewill Blackhawk Case
MSI Z87-G45
32 GB Gskill DDR3 RAM
Intel (Haswell) 3.5 ghz i7
Enermax 750w NAXN 82+ (one over-engineered power supply!)
AMD ATI Radeon 6950
And a bunch of hard drives, including a 240 GB Samsung SSD.

Mizouse

whats the cost of that build?

Ken1997TL

Roughly over $1100 for the case and everything in it. The hard drives I've had for a while, same with the graphics card.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

Looks Ken

I just ordered myself a new case for my Asus quad core build

Costco

I'm getting an itch to build a desktop, but I don't know too much about building them.

I've decided to get a GTX 670, unless someone has a better suggestion. Goal is to run ultra on any game at 1920x1080 at 60 fps. Any CPUs you guys recommend? From what I've skimmed over, I'm thinking about an i7 Sandy Bridge, since I have no clue what real advantage the Haswell architecture may have.

My question is where do you guys find your cards and components? I want a good deal, and tried looking on newegg and amazon but a lot of cards go out of stock. I could check out Fry's, but I don't really like shopping there nor do I completely trust them.

I have a guy who can possibly hook me up with Corsair parts. Figured 670s would be cheaper by now, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

stogie1020

Suggestions for a video card for business use only (no gaming)?

MUST have dual DVI (or I guess dual hdmi, two monitor support though).

I am getting so tired of fighting with this Gt640 and its constant crashes...

svtmike

I've been extremely happy with the stability of my Radeon video cards and their drivers, both at home and work. Pick something in the value sweet spot and it should certainly support dual monitors and high enough resolutions for a modern business computer.

Here's one that's $90:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125453

TeknoKing

ATI 7750 is cheap, support two monitors and does not require PSU upgrade, for business it's pretty good.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...FUii4AodiVYA8g

stogie1020

I bought two GT640s for two different machines and had the same trouble with both. One seems to have mostly settled down, but the other one is killing me...


ATI here I come.