Computer Build Resource Thread - Page 399

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When using this resource, please read FragKrag's opening post. The Tech Support forum regulars have helped create countless of desktop systems without any compensation. The least you can do is provide all of the information required for them to help you properly.

Womwomwom

5930 Posts

July 06 2011 11:13 GMT

#7961

Can't see why not. The wireless card should fit straight into the bottom PCIe slot, which shouldn't be blocked by anything.

You might want to swap out the Green hard drive for a Caviar Blue or Samsung F3 Spinpoint. I'm assuming this is going to be her boot drive so you probably want something a little faster.

$120 for such a case is really expensive. You can basically get something like this for close to the same price.

nihlon

Sweden5581 Posts

July 06 2011 11:58 GMT

#7962

It doesn't seem this thread is specifically for laptops but I'll try anyway and see what response I get. Dell for instance have some choices on their different modells that I'm not really sure about.

My budget is around max 900-1000 $, but I can go over that if I get a good reason to. (It differs quite a lot for swedish retailers and american in price but take that as a rough ballpark figure)

I'm looking for a fairly all-round computer that can run the average (current) games on decent settings. I don't need to run it on max or anything. A bonus would be if I could run autocad (3D) on it (nothing too heavy). Otherwise I'm mostly using it to watch videos/movies so a decent screen and sound is neccesary. I'm hoping to have the computer for few years so I don't want to need to buy a new one after just one year. The need to be able to play games in 2-3 years isn't my highest priority though.

One computer I've been looking at is the XPS 15.

One setting I've been looking at is the following:

Intel® Core™ i5-2410M, 2,3 GHZ
15.6 HD WLED TL (1366x768) 720p
4 096 MB 1 333 MHz DDR3
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 525M

There are about 6 choices for processor, 2 for the screen and 1 for the graphics card and these are the ones that I feel might be an option.

Intel® Core™ i5-2520M, 2,5 GHZ.
Intel® Core™ i5-2540M, 2,6 GHZ
Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM, 2, GHZ
Intel® Core™ i7-2720QM, 2,2 GHZ. (a bit expensive for me)

15.6 FHD B+RGLED TL (1920x1080) 1080p

2GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 540M

There is also an option to go to 6 or 8 GB DDR3 but here i'm kind of sceptical if it's needed. Maybe for 3D work?

How large of a difference is there between the two graphic card modells? Is it worth to get one of the better processors? Is it worth going to FHD screen or is it an uneccesary cost?

If you could answer this I would be thankful and and also feel free to give recommendations of other laptops with equal or better value. Thanks for any help.

Nate.F

918 Posts

July 06 2011 12:29 GMT

#7963

Huggybear, is there any reason you're choosing a $100 case? Any specific reasons for that choice?

Regarding overclocking on sandy-bridge, I guess you could say its easier than Bloomfield/Lynnfield where you basically change the base clock to overclock. On the other hand, to overclock a Sandy-Bridge chip is basically changing the CPU multiplier. Summarising it up, it's just merely changing a number. Nothing really more than that.

Womwomwom

5930 Posts

July 06 2011 12:43 GMT

#7964

For someone who just wants to build a strong computer and forget about it, you probably don't want to overclock. Sandy Bridge is extremely powerful so there isn't much reason to overclock just yet, heck overclocking soon might even be more or less obsolete thanks to insanely high turbo boosts. Its already at a stage where it only really increases its end life span instead of a true money saving feature back in the Celeron era.

I wish Australian retailers stocked more Intel motherboards because they make the best "leave and forget" motherboards out there.

HuggyBear

Australia377 Posts

July 06 2011 13:08 GMT

#7965

Well, the case is his preference so I can't really change that ><

I managed to convince him to get the 2500k, but now he's picking motherboards with SLI/Crossfire.

What's your take on upgradability? Go for singles or go for doubles?
I'm trying to convince him to get a cheaper ASRock Z68 board without the Xfire/SLI since I've heard its not that good and it needs a lot of tinkering

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

July 06 2011 14:55 GMT

#7966

On July 06 2011 22:08 HuggyBear wrote:
Well, the case is his preference so I can't really change that ><

I managed to convince him to get the 2500k, but now he's picking motherboards with SLI/Crossfire.

What's your take on upgradability? Go for singles or go for doubles?
I'm trying to convince him to get a cheaper ASRock Z68 board without the Xfire/SLI since I've heard its not that good and it needs a lot of tinkering

Multi-GPU takes a ton of tinkering. It's getting better, and it's not as bad as it was, but it's still not 200% of the single card except in the rarest of cases, more work, more heat, and more power.

Nate.F

918 Posts

July 06 2011 15:03 GMT

#7967

It wouldn't be wise to go for multi-gpu setups as stated above by Jingle. TL;DR, it simply isn't worth the time and money. Getting single cards are much more preferable, and you also save on those seeing as you would not need a motherboard that has SLI/Xfire compatibility.

Also, does he really need Z68 or will he be fine with P67?

SonSon

United States106 Posts

July 06 2011 16:36 GMT

#7968

I'm concerned about my CPU temperature. When I'm at my BIOS I get about 45C and just sitting at windows I get 60C. I should be worried right?

My parts include

MB:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131705

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

CPU Cooler:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233082

I removed the thermal paste and reapplied it again and made sure the heatsink was locked on, but upon going to bios again, I see 45C. Should I reapply the paste for the 3rd time? I probably have enough paste for one more time.

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

July 06 2011 16:39 GMT

#7969

How much paste did you put on, christ, a little tube is enough for quite a few applications... yes, 60C core is high idle, but 45C core idle isn't. If you're idling at 45C cores, run Prime95 blend with HWmonitor open and see what your temps hit. If they get past ~75C, stop the test. If your CPU temp gets above 60C, stop the test. Run for about a half hour to be sure the temps stabilize, and let us know what they hit.

Make sure your CPU fan is set to the right number of pins in PC health in BIOS.

If you put on too much thermal paste, it can hurt thermal conductivity.

DriftAway

United States17 Posts

July 06 2011 17:42 GMT

#7970

Hello there I'm working on my first build what do you guys think so far? This thread has been very usefully in picking parts.

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

July 06 2011 17:44 GMT

#7971

On July 07 2011 02:42 DriftAway wrote:
Hello there I'm working on my first build what do you guys think so far? This thread has been very usefully in picking parts.

You don't need a P67 board with a 2400. Get H61 or H67 depending on the features you need.

SonSon

United States106 Posts

July 06 2011 18:03 GMT

#7972

On July 07 2011 01:39 JingleHell wrote:
How much paste did you put on, christ, a little tube is enough for quite a few applications... yes, 60C core is high idle, but 45C core idle isn't. If you're idling at 45C cores, run Prime95 blend with HWmonitor open and see what your temps hit. If they get past ~75C, stop the test. If your CPU temp gets above 60C, stop the test. Run for about a half hour to be sure the temps stabilize, and let us know what they hit.

Make sure your CPU fan is set to the right number of pins in PC health in BIOS.

If you put on too much thermal paste, it can hurt thermal conductivity.

I don't think I put too much paste. Always grain to pea size. The only thing I'm worried about are air bubbles, but hopefully I don't have any since the temperatures were the same first and second after the paste.

Anyway, before I ran the Prime95, I updated my BIOS and it actually lowered my CPU temperature to 35C.

Here are my results for the Prime95 test for about half an hour:

Before: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/15/beforetest.jpg/
After: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/27/afterhalfhour.jpg/

For some reason the CPU temperature read stays at a constant 140F and never changes. I think something is wrong with the CPU monitor on the HWmonitor program?

Anyway, I'll stress test later tonight since no temperatures were too disastrous.

skyR

Canada13817 Posts

July 06 2011 18:05 GMT

#7973

Core temperatures are fine. CPU temperature is not important.

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

July 06 2011 18:05 GMT

#7974

Your sensors or the software are fucked up. Your temps are fine.

Myrmidon

United States9452 Posts

July 06 2011 18:21 GMT

#7975

On July 06 2011 20:58 nihlon wrote:
It doesn't seem this thread is specifically for laptops but I'll try anyway and see what response I get. Dell for instance have some choices on their different modells that I'm not really sure about.
+ Show Spoiler +

My budget is around max 900-1000 $, but I can go over that if I get a good reason to. (It differs quite a lot for swedish retailers and american in price but take that as a rough ballpark figure)

I'm looking for a fairly all-round computer that can run the average (current) games on decent settings. I don't need to run it on max or anything. A bonus would be if I could run autocad (3D) on it (nothing too heavy). Otherwise I'm mostly using it to watch videos/movies so a decent screen and sound is neccesary. I'm hoping to have the computer for few years so I don't want to need to buy a new one after just one year. The need to be able to play games in 2-3 years isn't my highest priority though.

One computer I've been looking at is the XPS 15.

One setting I've been looking at is the following:

Intel® Core™ i5-2410M, 2,3 GHZ
15.6 HD WLED TL (1366x768) 720p
4 096 MB 1 333 MHz DDR3
1GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 525M

There are about 6 choices for processor, 2 for the screen and 1 for the graphics card and these are the ones that I feel might be an option.

Intel® Core™ i5-2520M, 2,5 GHZ.
Intel® Core™ i5-2540M, 2,6 GHZ
Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM, 2, GHZ
Intel® Core™ i7-2720QM, 2,2 GHZ. (a bit expensive for me)

15.6 FHD B+RGLED TL (1920x1080) 1080p

2GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 540M

There is also an option to go to 6 or 8 GB DDR3 but here i'm kind of sceptical if it's needed. Maybe for 3D work?

How large of a difference is there between the two graphic card modells? Is it worth to get one of the better processors? Is it worth going to FHD screen or is it an uneccesary cost?

If you could answer this I would be thankful and and also feel free to give recommendations of other laptops with equal or better value. Thanks for any help.

i5-2410M is fine. I wouldn't upgrade that, based on your intended usage.

1GB GT 525M isn't much worse than a 2GB GT 540M. The extra VRAM is inconsequential and actually both the 525M and 540M use the same chip. The only difference is the clock speeds, nominally 600 MHz vs. 672 MHz so not a huge deal.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-525M.43889.0.html

Apparently the 1920x1080 screen option is a significant upgrade, as in the panel you get is actually decent.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4274/dell-xps-15-l502x-now-with-sandy-bridge

However, it would be hard for the GT 525M to play future games on 1920x1080, except in low settings. 1920x1080 is also a very large resolution for a 15" screen and maybe overkill.

nihlon

Sweden5581 Posts

July 06 2011 18:59 GMT

#7976

On July 07 2011 03:21 Myrmidon wrote:

Show nested quote +

Thanks! The only games I've got plans to play in the near future on it is D3, SC2 and possible expansions, so if it can run them smoothly on decent settings I'm good. You might be right about 1920x1080 being a little overkill with the 15'' but I've also looked at the 17'' XPS model and in that case maybe it would be more worth it.

I got a month and a half until I get my next pay-check so I have some time to ponder about it.

Nammflow

United States35 Posts

July 06 2011 20:28 GMT

#7977

Hi there! I just have a quick question in regards to my hard drive and whether an upgrade is necessary.

I have a Maxtor 120GB Hard drive, which is now almost 8 years old, I'm not quite sure how it lasted this long... But anyways, its 7200 RPM, and I've never had a problem with it, but I am upgraded the rest of my MB and CPU to these:

Motherboard - + Show Spoiler +

MSI 870-G45 AM3 AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard

CPU - + Show Spoiler +

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor

I'm not in dire need of more disk space, so that isn't a concern, I just want to know if upgrading my hard drive make my computer run any faster. Will buying a new hard drive improve the speed of my rig at all?

Thanks for the help.

skyR

Canada13817 Posts

July 06 2011 20:30 GMT

#7978

Buying a new harddrive will improve system responsiveness and loading times. Being eight years old, it's probably pretty dam slow in comparison to a $40 500gb 7200rpm HDD.

JingleHell

United States11308 Posts

July 06 2011 20:34 GMT

#7979

Also, being 8 years old, there's no guarantee of it's continued function. They do eventually die, and when they do, byebye data.

RabidSeagull

United States220 Posts

July 06 2011 21:21 GMT

#7980

ty for the responses guys! we will definitely fix stuff and maybe i can edit this post soon with a more updated list of parts