Taking the dive into PC building

[Aeni]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

He doesn't want it for gaming. Just streaming movies and facebook.

Chromebook ... $200. Problem solved. Don't need to thank me.

[Etra]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Your proposed build was $500 and apparently too pricey for him. Refurbished office machines clock in around $300, so you are clearly not saving him any money.

"Total crap" would be roughly double what he needs out of his PC.

Seriously, it's a Facebook machine and he's on a tight budget. Buy him this and be done with it.
Newegg.com - Refurbished: DELL OptiPlex 755 Desktop PC Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz 4GB 160GB HDD Capacity Windows 7 Home Premium

y so angries.

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Chromebook ... $200. Problem solved. Don't need to thank me.

That's a good idea. :0

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Although my PC is currently pretty boss for a home-built job... I am always interested in making it better. This past weekend as I was playing FFXIV Beta, all i could think about was "Gee I wish I had more Ram than 8gigs" and "I wonder how many cores XIV uses"... not to mention... "Talking to Fire about SSD makes me really want to take the dive into switching over to SSD... should I do that after this paycheck?"

This is a slippery slope I'm on... a very slippery slope.

I'm already on TigerDirect looking at top of the line Graphics Cards. Someone stop me.

[DakAttack]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Just grab that new fangled GTX Titan and set your chair to recline for the next four years.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

16 GB of RAM is pretty nice, I gotta say. So is the SSD boot time of less than sixty seconds.

What kind of graphics card are you kicking around right now? You can probably hold out a little longer for price drops on everything that's out right now.

[Armando]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

"Gee I wish I had more Ram than 8gigs" and "I wonder how many cores XIV uses"... not to mention... "Talking to Fire about SSD makes me really want to take the dive into switching over to SSD... should I do that after this paycheck?"

I would be pessimistic about the number of cores anything uses. Writing multi-threaded code is HARD. Different threads can execute in arbitrary order each time, making testing a nightmare. Multi-threading is something you only do if there's a very compelling reason for it, and the weakest link in high end games is usually the GPU, not the CPU.

I also doubt the game uses 6+ GB of RAM (though of course you could check and prove me wrong.) Unless you want to run a virtual machine or something, I doubt you'd need more than 8 GB.

Now an SSD, that's something you could invest in. Watch Newegg and bide your time until you catch a good deal.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Depends on the game really.

GW2's performance seemed to be bottlenecked pretty heavily on the CPU rather than the GPU in my experience. But then my CPU was old as dirt.

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

For a graphics cards I run 2x XFX Radeon HD 5770.

I could stand to upgrade them... but they suit my needs well for what I need them to do.

Intel Quad Core i7 (exact specs I can't recall off the top of my head)

8gigs of Corsair (If you're the type like me who is brand loyal and cares) ram.

As for my Monitors. I know I got new ones like... last year... but I really want something bigger. I might even settle for going down to 2 screens and just getting bigger screens. I'm looking my options over and the only thing I know for certain is that I want 22' or bigger. Anyone have any suggestions?

Ultimately, what I really need is a new Motherboard... and to scrap the Processor and start fresh. The Mother's I'm eyeballing aren't compatable with my current Processor (sad face) which doesn't surprise me in the least.

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GTX Titan.

Oh... you mean the GTX 690 that's selling for something retarded like $3,000? God... if only. That thing is a monster.

Why am I not rich?

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If nothing else... I'd happily settle for a 120gb SSD and move forward from there.

[Armando]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

I'm looking my options over and the only thing I know for certain is that I want 22' or bigger. Anyone have any suggestions?

Whatever you pick, make it an IPS monitor. If you're looking for something big, there's some 27" Korean IPS monitors that've gotten popular lately. They're kind of barebones in terms of features, but they're large, have crazy resolutions of 2560x1440, and they're cheaper than most IPS monitors sold in the states.

[Etra]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

If you're looking for an SSD specifically for XIV, it's not going to do much for you. From the beta, you'll get about half a second load time from zone to zone difference. Also, crossfire and SLI were not enabled for beta. Since you have 2 cards running, wait until those options are available before you go and decide to upgrade.

Why the balls you need 16 gigs of RAM?

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

My current 3 monitors are 22" LED Monitors (1440x900).

I'd settle for 2 of these instead: ASUS VS229H-P 22 Class Widescreen IPS Panel LED Monitor - 1920 x 1080, 16:9, 50000000:1 Dynamic, 5ms, HDMI, DVI, VGA, Energy Star at TigerDirect.com

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Whatever you pick, make it an IPS monitor. If you're looking for something big, there's some 27" Korean IPS monitors that've gotten popular lately. They're kind of barebones in terms of features, but they're large, have crazy resolutions of 2560x1440, and they're cheaper than most IPS monitors sold in the states.

I've looked into those Korean ones. A friend of mine shot me a "Could this be true?!" email about them a while back. The only thing I'm not trilled with is their ultra-simplicity. Although I'm all for user friendly hardware, their lack of HDMI ports turned me off. If you can find one that has a port for HDMI, let me know. I looked for a while and came up empty handed.

[Armando]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

I have a very similar monitor and I love it.

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

If you're looking for an SSD specifically for XIV, it's not going to do much for you. From the beta, you'll get about half a second load time from zone to zone difference. Also, crossfire and SLI were not enabled for beta. Since you have 2 cards running, wait until those options are available before you go and decide to upgrade.

Why the balls you need 16 gigs of RAM?

I'm not looking for a SSD for gaming. The difference in performance there is minimal, I know. I simply want one to decrease boot up time and over-all performance.

I saw that Crossfire wasn't enabled and it gave me a sad. I'll check out how my rig performs after they do enable it and we'll go from there.

As for the RAM: Who doesn't want more RAM? Imagine you've purchased an 80gig PS3 and you're giddy as a schoolgirl about it. You're telling me that when they released the 120gig... you didn't think to yourself for even a second: "That's more space than I could possibly need... and yet... I still want it".

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I have a very similar monitor and I love it.

That was supremely helpful. A link to a DISCONTINUED monitor that you love. Now I want it... and it's DISCONTINUED. Thanks Armando...

[Armando]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

As for the RAM: Who doesn't want more RAM? Imagine you've purchased an 80gig PS3 and you're giddy as a schoolgirl about it. You're telling me that when they released the 120gig... you didn't think to yourself for even a second: "That's more space than I could possibly need... and yet... I still want it".

The difference there is that disk space does fill up and it's quite easy to fill too. To fill up 16 gigs you'd need to do something stupid like run Photoshop with a bunch of images and layers open or run a virtual machine while you play a game. It's just...why?

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Why the balls you need 16 gigs of RAM?

why?

Because I can... therefore I must. (get my back on this, Cid)

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I have a very similar monitor and I love it.

Here's the closest thing I could find to what you linked... and I'm digging it