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OK so like many other people right now I am in the throes of buying a new computer. Right now I'm looking at about $2400 worth of awesome, but I haven't bought a new computer in... well over 6 years so its about time. Right now I'm on a laptop I inherited off my dad, which, as kind of a benchmark, can't even play replays in sc2 without serious, serious fps lag. While I was still playing WoW, I could not go to Dalaran. It took me about 10 minutes to navigate from the flight point to the portals at the inn.
So I'm getting a new computer. And having finally gotten out of College and gotten a job, I am not holding back.
I've decided on most of the parts.
AXP PowerSupply (PSU) 630W V. 2.20 SLI Ready
Asus - Socket 1156 - ATX Intel P55 (P7P55D EVO)
Asus ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB (EAH5870/G/2DIS/1GD5/A) - PCI-E / 2xDVI / HDMI
Corsair XMS3 4096MB DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz (2X2048MB) (CL9)
Intel 80GB X25-M Mainstream Internal SATA 2.5" 9.5mm (SSD)
Intel Core i7 860 2,80GHz / 8MB / Socket 1156 (Boxed)
Samsung 24" TFT P2450H - Rose Black (DVI / HDMI)
Seagate Barracuda LP 1TB (5900RPM / 32MB Cache / SATA )
So first of all if you have time and know your way around hardware, how does this look? Second of all, I was wondering about split screen. I've never owned a computer with which I split the screen to anything other than a television. But I was wondering if, with a split screen monitor next to the primary on my desk, I could finally fulfill my lifelong struggle of finding a good way to play games and watch family guy at the same time.
The best solution I've found so far is to play in windowed mode with family guy shrunk into a small window at the bottom right corner. But with a split screen, maybe I would be able to play games AND watch family guy fullscreen at the same time! Think of the ramifications if you like, I honestly don't think they're very significant, but it would be sort of neat.
So anyway, is it possible? I mean, I know I can probably do this if I choose to play in window mode, but not all games got this feature. If one screen is taken up by a non-window mode game, can I still play movies on the other one?
 
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Absolutely possible, but it gets ichy with broodwar... I have my old screen set up to play broodwar. But for newer games it works perfectly. Switching to 2 screens have been a revelation of sorts, and I won't ever go back to 1 screen.
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Dual monitors are awesome and increase your productivity by a lot. However, I wouldn't call watching Family Guy while gaming "productivity"  . What you are planning is easily doable with two screens, in fact, that's kinda the point of the whole thing.
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tbh you' re better of holding back (not on the screens but the parts) and upgrade to a new gfx/ssd 2 years later
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i honestly cant live without duel monitors, its like a requirement for me, i dont know how i lasted so long without it
u can totally watch vids and game (except with SC1 cuz the color/resolution is oldschool)
With wow what i did is play in window mode but with the maximized option enabled for it so it looks full screen but your able to easily move your mouse to your second monitor for msn videos youtube ect
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On March 07 2010 21:09 Pakje wrote:
tbh you' re better of holding back (not on the screens but the parts) and upgrade to a new gfx/ssd 2 years later
You want me to wait 2 more years just to save a few hundred bucks? S'wrong with you!?
On the split screen topic, great! I'm also sondering about the SSD. Does it require a special slot in the chassi? All the ones I've looked at are 3.5" at the smallest, and apparently the SSD is 2.5".
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On March 07 2010 21:20 Osmoses wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2010 21:09 Pakje wrote:
tbh you' re better of holding back (not on the screens but the parts) and upgrade to a new gfx/ssd 2 years later You want me to wait 2 more years just to save a few hundred bucks? S'wrong with you!? On the split screen topic, great! I'm also sondering about the SSD. Does it require a special slot in the chassi? All the ones I've looked at are 3.5" at the smallest, and apparently the SSD is 2.5".
i mean with holding off, not blasting all your money on 1 pc. No matter what you do it 'll be outdated in 2-3 years. You are better of say spending 1200$ on a pc and upgrade in 2 year.
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Don't get a shit power supply. Suspect build quality, horrid ripple suppression, shit efficiency is what you get from cheap power supplies. AXP should be using Xion as an OEM so you might run into trouble whether it be that the cables are really short (problem with cases that have bottom mounted power supplies) or capacitors that blow under really heavy stress, which was an issue with some of the old Antecs.
The power supplies you can trust every single time are made by Seasonic or PC Power and Cooling. Most PSU manufacturers actually buy their PSUs off someone else and simply package it differently. For instance, a lot of the new Antec and Corsair power supplies are actually Seasonics in disguise, which is why they're so damn good. A Corsair 600W power supply is pretty much the same as a Seasonic 600W power supply except it might be modular and the ATX cables are really, really long which is sweet if your case needs the PSU to be bottom mounted.
A HD5870 is pointless - the most you should ever go is the HD5850 unless you really, really, really, really need the grunt which 99% of people don't need. Its in serious overkill territory and the theory of futureproofing is stupid. Let me put it this way, years ago if you wanted a machine that was too good for us mere mortals, you'd buy something like a 7950 GX2 and your whole computer would cost around $4000 - three years later, you can buy something that has more power than it for something like $1000.
All current SSDs are 2.5". You generally need a special bracket to stick onto your 3.5" hard disk drives so that you can actually mount it correctly.
If you're not going to overclock or do anything crazy this is all you need:
- 1156 socket motherboard (Gigabyte get the P55A model not P55 if you don't want a possibility of your processor burning out)
- Intel i5 750 processor
- HD5850 Graphics Card (brand doesn't matter since they're all the same shit save for some of the XFX and Sapphire models but if you want warranty, get a XFX card)
- 4GB of RAM (check if your mobo accepts the model of RAM you've chosen, don't buy cheap RAM)
- Corsair/Seasonic 550W PSU
- Samsung F3 Spinpoint 1TB hard disk or Western Digital Caviar Black
- Get a new case? Don't get a cheap case when you've got such awesome hardware.
This shit will absolutely rape any game you play right now if you don't screw anything up.
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On March 07 2010 21:23 Pakje wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2010 21:20 Osmoses wrote:On March 07 2010 21:09 Pakje wrote:
tbh you' re better of holding back (not on the screens but the parts) and upgrade to a new gfx/ssd 2 years later You want me to wait 2 more years just to save a few hundred bucks? S'wrong with you!? On the split screen topic, great! I'm also sondering about the SSD. Does it require a special slot in the chassi? All the ones I've looked at are 3.5" at the smallest, and apparently the SSD is 2.5". i mean with holding off, not blasting all your money on 1 pc. No matter what you do it 'll be outdated in 2-3 years. You are better of say spending 1200$ on a pc and upgrade in 2 year.
OK, one 4-paragraph length rant and a delete later, you know what the bottom line is?
You think I'm gonna give a shit about having spent an extra $700 on a computer THREE YEARS from now? 
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On March 07 2010 21:36 Osmoses wrote:Show nested quote +On March 07 2010 21:23 Pakje wrote:On March 07 2010 21:20 Osmoses wrote:On March 07 2010 21:09 Pakje wrote:
tbh you' re better of holding back (not on the screens but the parts) and upgrade to a new gfx/ssd 2 years later You want me to wait 2 more years just to save a few hundred bucks? S'wrong with you!? On the split screen topic, great! I'm also sondering about the SSD. Does it require a special slot in the chassi? All the ones I've looked at are 3.5" at the smallest, and apparently the SSD is 2.5". i mean with holding off, not blasting all your money on 1 pc. No matter what you do it 'll be outdated in 2-3 years. You are better of say spending 1200$ on a pc and upgrade in 2 year. OK, one 4-paragraph length rant and a delete later, you know what the bottom line is? You think I'm gonna give a shit about having spent an extra $700 on a computer THREE YEARS from now?
the fact is you won't notice the difference between a 5850 and a 5870 (excluding crysis) and most likely you won't notice the difference between a i7 860 and a phenom II 955 unless your video editing all the time. But you will notice the difference between a 5850 and a 6850/ and a PH 955 with a next generation cpu. And let's not forget your taking overclock memory but not a cpu cooler
ps how am i supposed to know that you have an unlimited cash flow going on? Most people asking for computeradvice have limited budgets.
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I don't have unlimited cash flow, I'm gonna pay it off over a year. $2400 over a year is just $200 per month.
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The thing is, your current build is pretty much shit for your purpose. The only i7s worth going are on the 1366 sockets so you can actually use triple channel RAM.
i7s are only ever useful if you're actually using any programs that need the grunt and hyperthreading. The current line of games only really use 2 cores max and hyperthreading is only good for certain applications (Winrar for example is good). For gaming, the i5 750 will do the same shit a i7 860 can do. People get a i5 750 not because its quad core but because it has a turbo function when its not using all of its cores and it overclocks insanely well.
Heck if all you are going to do is play games and watch videos, one of those 3x AMD processors is still probably more than enough. A HD5870 is utterly useless in my eyes: both can use DirectX11, both use cypress architecture, both can do Eyefinity...5870 gets like 10-20 more FPS than the 5850 in most games these days but you're not going to notice the difference as the 5850 runs games like Left 4 Dead over 100 FPS. You're like paying up to 30% more just for a ~10% performance increase that you won't even notice.
Save the cash, go buy yourself a good case and CPU cooler. If you want more power, overclock and your case/CPU cooler will make sure your parts don't fry. When you upgrade a few years down the line, you might be able to reuse the CPU cooler and case.
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Well obviously I won't just be watching movies and playing games. I've been stuck with a shitty computer for so long that I just want something that will be great at everything. I don't know much about hardware so I just go with the shreds of information and advice I find with google and then buy whatever looks best, because the one thing I don't want is to end up with a computer that disappoints me.
I wanna be able to have 5 firefox windows up while playing sc2 and watching movies. I wanna be able to compile large solutions in visual studio while surfing the web without having the compilation take an hour.
I want to be able to do anything without having to worry about performance lag. Time is muneh!
Thing is, I don't know much about hardware. I get advice from all angles, some of it conflicting, and one person who ought to know suggested my current graphics card and processor. Do you know better? Where did you learn what you're telling me?
And why?
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I too am looking for a decent, cheap 2nd monitor but have yet to acquire the funds or information to do so. Slightly off-topic, but any help would be awesome 
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The only thing you mentioned that will benefit from a i7 core is visual studio and that's only due to hyperthreading. That's why the person told you to get a i7; you didn't tell us that so that's why you're getting different answers here than there.
I don't see the point of an i7 unless you're doing these tasks really, really often. The i5 is fast enough with the turbo function and its ability to overclock to obscene levels on stock voltage. The i7 will perform pretty much the same as the i5 when it comes to games, web browsing, watching movies. Its stuff like 3D modeling, compressing files, and video converting that makes the i7 series shine.
As for the video card issue, anyone getting the 5870 is silly. Its overkill, not in a good way. Yeah OK, it will run Crysis at 1900x1200 on absolute max settings a little bit better than the 5850 but everything else you will barely notice the difference.
How do I know? I have a stock 5850 and I run basically everything, except Crysis and Call of Pripyat because they're inefficent pieces of shit, over 60 FPS average on high to max settings. If all you're going to do is play WoW and Starcraft 2, you probably don't even need a 5850 considering Blizzard has a good history with making sure that their games work extremely efficently. There is no point in paying way, way more for such a little gain.
You can compare the two yourself and ask whether or not that 1-15 FPS difference in a bunch of games that generally run well past 60 FPS is worth that extra cost.
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-cards-charts-2009-high-quality-update-3/compare,1686.html?prod[3247]=on&prod[3249]=on
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Hmmmwell you might've swayed me. I don't care about the cost, like I said I'm paying for it over a year, but I do care about shit working well together and not having useless functionality. And if a more synchronized machine runs for less dollars then I might as well buy one more monitor ^^
Edit: Thanks by the way =)
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On March 08 2010 00:22 Osmoses wrote:
I don't care about the cost, like I said I'm paying for it over a year
Why not buy a car, a house and a yacht too if you can just pay them back over time?
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80GB seems a tad small, doesn't it? You might want to sink an extra $40 for a regular HDD in addition to the SSD. I mean, when I bought my current computer a year ago I figured I'd never use a significant portion of the 500GB I have, but somehow I've filled over 200GB, and I have very few videos, music, and pictures. ... I'm actually not sure what 80% of it is...
Eh, didn't see you're already sticking in a 1TB drive. nm. But hory shit 5900 RPM? That's gonna be slow as hell...
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I might be wrong here but ill post in the off chance that I'm right.
For this - Seagate Barracuda LP 1TB (5900RPM / 32MB Cache / SATA ) - isn't it better to get 7200 RPM on a Hard Drive?
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Higher RPM means higher IOPS, but also means higher power consumption and (the real problem) much much higher noise. Considering he's getting a sizable SSD, presumably putting most of his apps on it, it should be fine.
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EPT
