Your Guide to a Magic PC - Guide in First Post [2012/03/05]

[Stmfuller]

Originally Posted by PathMaster

EVGA has a new Warranty Policy:

wow...that's pretty incredible.

[J Arcane]

Wow. My next card might be an EVGA I think . . .

[Reverant]

This will be my third EVGA card. I can't imagine going with another manufacturer.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by Reverant

This will be my third EVGA card. I can't imagine going with another manufacturer.

Ya I have owned and installed a bunch of their cards. But this new data gave me a bit of a hardware boner. That's insane.

[Handmade.Mercury]

eVGA4LYFE!

[Wackman3000]

I've been an EVGA fan since my first build, and have not switched once. They are a great company to deal with, and I've had excellent customer support from them as well. Not to mention they build quality cards.

[Reverant]

Ugh. Next time you switch power supplies and find that your display isn't turning on, before swapping out multiple cards, trying all the PCI-e cables, and trying a different monitor, see if you FORGOT TO PLUGIN THE 12V CPU CABLE LIKE DUMBASS REVERANT.

[PathMaster]

Originally Posted by Reverant

Ugh. Next time you switch power supplies and find that your display isn't turning on, before swapping out multiple cards, trying all the PCI-e cables, and trying a different monitor, see if you FORGOT TO PLUGIN THE 12V CPU CABLE LIKE DUMBASS REVERANT.

HAHA, that is classic. I am the same way. I never have any issues with the big stuff. It is always some small glaring detail that I miss.

[Karak]

Originally Posted by Reverant

Ugh. Next time you switch power supplies and find that your display isn't turning on, before swapping out multiple cards, trying all the PCI-e cables, and trying a different monitor, see if you FORGOT TO PLUGIN THE 12V CPU CABLE LIKE DUMBASS REVERANT.

Man computer "putting together" 101 is a bitch and frankly gets everyone once in awhile.

[bryan]

I usually forget to plug in the power to the card, luckily it makes a very loud beep to remind me.

[Wraith]

Question on memory:

What's the consensus on 4 x 2GB vs. 2 x 4GB. I'm at 2 x 2GB, and the price difference isn't that much between buying 2 more sticks of the exact same RAM, vs. 2 sticks of 4GB at the same speed/voltage.

My understanding was that 2 sticks is generally more stable than 4 sticks. Don't know how much of an issue it actually is. It's an 1156 board w/ an i7, so dual channel.

I honestly don't pay that much attention to RAM utilization, but the stuff is so cheap, I figure it couldn't hurt.

[Slack3r78]

While it's cool that EVGA is taking the lead and all, this is less about how awesome EVGA is and more about how shitty the warranty policies of most video cards manufacturers have traditionally been to me.

X years from manufacture date is exactly how warranties have been handled for other components -- CPUs, motherboards, hard drives, etc -- for years.

It's always infuriated me that I've had to jump through bullshit hoops like registering cards to get full warranty support when the manufacturer knows damn well when the thing was built.

[LiquidRain]

Originally Posted by Wraith

Question on memory:

What's the consensus on 4 x 2GB vs. 2 x 4GB. I'm at 2 x 2GB, and the price difference isn't that much between buying 2 more sticks of the exact same RAM, vs. 2 sticks of 4GB at the same speed/voltage.

My understanding was that 2 sticks is generally more stable than 4 sticks. Don't know how much of an issue it actually is. It's an 1156 board w/ an i7, so dual channel.

I honestly don't pay that much attention to RAM utilization, but the stuff is so cheap, I figure it couldn't hurt.

On Intel, there's no real practical difference as far as I know. Stability is only affected if you're pushing something other than your clock speed/multiplier for overclocking, or if one of your sticks is bad, or the sticks are heavily mismatched in some way.

[Reverant]

Speaking of memory, is there any reason not to grab some DDR3 1600 instead of whatever faster RAM becomes available when IB launches? 1600 prices are pretty sweet.

[LiquidRain]

I'd advocate not buying anything unless you intend to use it right away, but that's just me.

[diablopath]

My friend, who is more hardware illiterate than me, asked me to help him put together a computer. This is what I've got... Keep in mind, he has a HDD he plans on carrying over, so I just put in a SSD for his OS + office software.

Part list permalink / Part price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid CPU Cooler ($61.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Performance ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($41.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Crucial m4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($154.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB Video Card ($199.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Antec Nine Hundred ATX Mid Tower Case ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Antec 620W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS70 OEM DVD/CD Writer ($23.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $962.90
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated 2012-04-05 14:46 EDT-0400)

[Slack3r78]

Skip the liquid cooling. Otherwise looks good so long as he's cool with the 900 being a fairly big case.

[diablopath]

Would an Antec 300 be a decent case? Would it fit everything?

Also, why skip the liquid cooling? From what I've heard, that seems to be a good cooler and won't cause any issues.

[Grifter]

Yeah, good air coolers cost around the same so I see no problem going with a self contained liquid cooling setup. They also take up less room in the case which I like. For me personally I prefer larger towers as long as room isn't an issue. They are easier to work in, easier to manage cables in and generally have better airflow.

I just installed a 620 in a build I did last month and they are nice, though I'd recommend grabbing another 120mm fan (if the case doesn't come with one) for a push pull set up. One fan pushes air into the radiator while the other pulls the air out. I also installed that same Crucial SSD and so far it's the fastest SSD I have used to date. If he's going to be doing any overclocking at all (even a minor OC down the road ) you may want to look into grabbing DDR3 1600. You can get the G-Skill 1600 for about $8 more.

[Shadowstorm]

Originally Posted by diablopath

My friend, who is more hardware illiterate than me, asked me to help him put together a computer. This is what I've got... Keep in mind, he has a HDD he plans on carrying over, so I just put in a SSD for his OS + office software.

Part list permalink / Part price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid CPU Cooler ($61.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Performance ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($41.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Crucial m4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($154.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB Video Card ($199.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Antec Nine Hundred ATX Mid Tower Case ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Antec 620W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NS70 OEM DVD/CD Writer ($23.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $962.90
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated 2012-04-05 14:46 EDT-0400)

Don't have a lot of time but:

• M4's great, but also consider Samsung's 830 series SSDs
• The case is fine; the 900 is a great mid tower;
• Look into the Hyper 212+ as a potential CPU cooling alternative. Yeah they (generally) consume less room in a case but air cooling is often times superior to a lot of the popular liquid cooling systems available today (see Noctua D14, Silver Arrow, etc).
• I would look into another motherboard. Generally you'll be paying more for Fatal1ty series products.