Posts by Sean Garcia3

Larry Ortiz5 said:Sean Garcia34, he definitely already has an EVGA 750W power supply under his belt. You also recommended him a GTX 970 and a 4690, but he actually went out and grabbed a 280X and a CPU. Maybe try reading more carefully next time.

My bad, I didn't realize he'd already pulled the trigger on everything. He just posted a thread recently saying he was planning to build a rig, so I figured he was still in the "shopping around" phase this week since he was asking about power supplies.

Honestly, when you're dropping that kind of cash on a high-end rig, you might as well go big on the power supply and do it right. This would be the perfect pick for you:

Kevin Richardson5 said:I already picked up all the GPUs; grabbed them from a buddy for a crazy price of $2300, and I'm planning to grab an i7 in about five months. But I keep hearing people say that 750W won't be enough...

Getting two R9 280Xs for $767 is a decent deal, provided you actually have a warranty on them. Otherwise, honestly, you could just grab a brand new GTX 970 for $833 with a full 2-year warranty. Plus, that thing only pulls 145W, whereas your two R9 280Xs are going to suck up around 500W.
Upgrading to an i7 isn't really worth it—you won't gain anything meaningful and you'll basically just be throwing money away. Unless you're looking at the K-series, but even then, it’s way too expensive for an upgrade that won't give you any significant performance boost.

Kevin Richardson5 said:Hey, can an EVGA 750W handle two R9 280X cards in CF?
The rest of the build:
1 x MSI Z97-G45 Gaming, LGA 1150, Intel Z97, 4xDDR3 1066-3000
1 x Intel Core i5-4460 Processor (3.20GHz, 1MB, 6MB, 84W, 1150) Box
1 x DDR3 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston, 1866MHz, CL10, Kingston Fury
1 x TOSHIBA 1TB, 7200rpm, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB, DT01ACA100
1 x Kingston SSD 120GB Kingston Fury, 2.5", SATA 3 6G
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo, 2011/1366/1156/775/AM3, 13-32dB

Yeah, you could do it, but honestly? I’d rather go with an i5 4690k paired with an MSI GTX 970—in that case, this power supply would be more than enough http://www.bestbuy.com/example-link than trying to run dual R9 280X cards.

Just give them a call tomorrow morning around 9:00. Tell them you're stuck working until 3:00 and won't be able to swing by for the pickup before then, and just see what kind of workaround they can offer. Here are the contact details from ADM:

Kenneth Jackson3 said:Exactly.
I'll just save up until then and $667 grab something actually decent. I've got my heart set on The Witcher and I'm not looking to mess around 😬

Look, if you're going to go all out, just save up $833 and pick up a high end card from the new AMD lineup once they drop, or maybe a GTX 970, so you can actually run things on max settings since you're clearly hyped for it.

Honestly, I’d just hold out until AMD drops their next lineup and Nvidia finally releases the Nvidia GTX 960. That kind of competition would definitely tank the prices on what's out right now, making it worth the wait. Better to be patient than to bite yourself with regret in two months because you rushed into a purchase too early.

Man, I seriously can't wait for that GPU to arrive so you can finally see everything's working fine and stop being such a nitpicker.

graniteharbor85 said:Look, don't try to play the expert again with a fresh profile, because you clearly haven't spent any real time messing with these cases or SSDs—if you had, you’d be saying something totally different. The Arcadio Black Midi Tower has weaker build quality, less room to breathe, worse airflow, and a lower overall build standard, plus it's missing a fan right out of the box. Adding two fans on top later won't change much, unless you were planning on using an upward-facing cooler like a Raijintek. That might drop temps by maybe 2-3°C, and honestly, the only way to get better results is switching to high-efficiency fans that start at around $23 bucks, which is pointless since you should just buy a better cooler from the jump.

An Intel SSD is miles ahead of a Patriot one, and having a better warranty is just icing on the cake; even without it, the performance gap compared to a Samsung evo 840. would still be obvious. The stock cooler gets the job done and won't be loud; temps will probably peak around 60°C, and the fan hits about 3000 rpm (it only starts getting annoying once you pass 3400).

Here's a quick comparison for you: Arcadio Black Midi Tower vs Zalman Z1.

Personally, my stock Intel cooler is noisy enough, let alone an AMD one, but hey, everyone's sensitivity is different. The OP specifically mentioned wanting a quiet build. In my book, you should always pick a case with more room for coolers; everything else is just minor stuff that doesn't really move the needle.
It just hit me regarding your comment about the new profile—I've got this one, I don't need two.

graniteharbor85 said:It would actually be smarter to toss in a Zalman Z1, ditch the LC since the stock cooler should be plenty, and then grab a better SSD like the Intel 520.

Honestly, you're just moving money from one empty pocket to another. Besides, the Arcadio case is actually better than the Z1 because it has two more vents, plus it's cheaper. The price gap $33 doesn't really justify picking the Intel just because it's slightly faster—even if it does have a longer warranty—just to save a few bucks on an aftermarket cooler. Using the stock AMD cooler isn't a great move either; it'll be loud as hell and the temps won't exactly be anything to write home about.

coastaltiger2 said:So, would you actually get anything smart or worthwhile for an extra $167?

$167 isn't exactly pocket change, and obviously, you can always score something better if you bump up the budget a bit!
Here’s what you have $1200—meaning if you spent an extra $167, that would bring your total to $1367, or am I tripping?
If you're looking for something in the $1333 range, my advice would be to swap your current CPU and GPU for an AMD FX-Series X6 6300 and a Gigabyte 970 A-DS3P. That’d be the best way to go.

1 x MSI R7 260 OC, 1GB GDDR5, VGA, DVI, HDMI
1 x AMD Athlon ii x4 740, 3.2GHz (3.7 Ghz) Box
1 x GIGABYTE Main Board Desktop AMD A78 (SFM2+,DDR3,DVI/VGA,USB3.0/USB2.0,SATA III,RAID,LAN) mATX Retail
1 x LC Power Office Series, socket 775/1155/1156/AMD 1 x Crucial 4GB DDR3 1600 Mhz (PC3-12800) CL11
1 x Fortron Hexa+ 400W, 80+, active, 12 cm
1 x Patriot Blaze R545/W430, 120GB, 7mm, 2.5"
1 x Toshiba DT01ACA050 500 (3.5", 1TB, 32MB, SATA III)
1 x Raijintek Arcadia, USB3.0, black

Total:$1211 Free assembly and shipping from the shop!

Brian Campbell36 said:So I'm doing a deep dive into this EVGA Z77 Extreme 4

People are having some serious issues with this thing, just what I needed;

"I booted up Windows 7 x64 just fine, but after installing Service Pack 1, neither the BIOS nor the motherboard would recognize the HDD.
I tried unplugging and replugging all the cables, and while it recognized it again, it wouldn't boot and kept throwing a REGISTRY_CORRUPT error."

"EVGA boards have USB issues, stuttering, random reboots, and sometimes they just refuse to post... I don't even know exactly what the common thread is anymore."

"The Z77 Extreme 4 has worse power delivery than the competition—it's actually more like 4+1 instead of 8+2, and uses analog regulation rather than digital. It also uses older D-PAK Mosfet components that run hotter compared to the newer stuff."

"Bought this board brand new at a local shop. Ran it for about 6 months on the stock cooler with zero issues. Decided to swap in a Cooler Master Grand Kamma Cross, and suddenly everything went south.
Just constant BS; I couldn't get anything done on the PC. I tested the cooler, took it back for a warranty claim, dealt with a bunch of headaches, searched forums, asked Google, but nothing helped. I suspected the cooler, but it turns out this junk board was the culprit all along.
No contact underneath the board or anything like that. The folks over at Cooler Master even sent me a Cooler Master Universal Retention kit at their own expense, but it didn't fix a thing.
Took off the cooler and the CPU, and what do I see? A bent pin in the socket."

That last part really caught me off guard—finding a missing pin in the socket. 🙂

I should've just gone with that budget-friendly ASUS P8Z77-V LK instead of dealing with a dead socket now. 🍿

I can already see where this is going... total fireworks.

You won't find a single component online that doesn't have someone complaining about it, but that doesn't mean they're all garbage. You keep bringing up how those ASUS boards have gold-plated PCBs, but you've used one of their high-end models before—the kind you least expect issues from given the price tag—and even yours crapped out on you. $567
Every batch has its share of duds, so don't sweat it too much; there's plenty of good stuff written about these boards too. Just a bit of advice: "Don't judge a book by its cover"—wait, wrong saying—basically, don't knock something until you've actually used it. Form an opinion after you've had hands-on experience instead of jumping to conclusions.

coastaltiger2 said:I’m big into Call of Duty... sniping missions... Battlefield... and then there's my kid, who just plays Minecraft and GTA 4 non-stop. 👍👍👍

Man, I really want a massive case this time. With my last build, the case was way too small, so I ended up having to go out and buy a bigger one anyway, just to toss the old one in the trash for free. Not doing that again.
At least a big case actually has some decent airflow. 😵 Right? And make sure it stays quiet, too.

So, what do you think about my current setup? It actually handles quite a bit pretty smoothly right now... except when it comes to those latest releases of the games I mentioned above.

And one more thing... you don't need to stress yourself out over it. $17Look, that limit is just a rough estimate... if it hits around 200—$100 It shouldn't be an issue anymore... I just care about this part. Quality and peace and quiet.

I put that build together for you above, including an SSD. Plus, if you go with a high-quality, well-ventilated case, you’ll get two 120mm fans—one in the front and one in the back—and you can always throw two more on the top if you feel like it.

Timothy Kim60 said:Man, by then there will probably be plenty of new Nvidia and AMD graphics cards out anyway.

So, roughly when are those new AMD graphics cards dropping? Also, I was just sitting here wondering—why doesn't Sapphire Technology make Nvidia cards?

Paul Miller64 said:I probably won't pull the trigger on a GPU until mid-year,
just doing some digging right now.

CPU is an i5 4460
PSU is a 600w Fortron

That's solid. You can pretty much throw whatever GPU you want in there!

1 x MSI R7 260 OC, 1GB GDDR5, VGA, DVI, HDMI
1 x AMD Athlon II X4 740, 3.2GHz (3.7 Ghz) Box
1 x GIGABYTE Main Board Desktop AMD A78 (SFM2+,DDR3,DVI/VGA,USB3.0/USB2.0,SATA III,RAID,LAN) mATX Retail
1 x LC Power Office Series, socket 775/1155/1156/AMD 1 x Crucial 4GB DDR3 1600 Mhz (PC3-12800) CL11
1 x Fortron Hexa+ 400W, 80+, active, 12 cm
1 x SSD Patriot Blaze R545/W430, 120GB, 7mm, 2.5"
1 x HDD TOSHIBA DT01ACA100 (3.5", 1TB, 32MB, SATA III)
1 x Raijintek Arcadia, USB3.0, black

Total:$1211 It's all from Futur, including free assembly and shipping!
You'll be able to play stuff on medium settings like a boss!

Paul Miller64 said:What do you guys think makes for a good future-proof GPU?
My goal is to keep everything running at a steady 40 FPS at 1080p on high settings for the next few years. My theory is that graphics won't actually see massive leaps this generation, so an AMD Radeon R9 280X should be plenty.
Thoughts?

Hitting a locked 40 FPS for the next couple of years isn't actually a small ask, even for today's high-end cards. But if you go with one of these two, you should be pretty much set for the next 2 years playing on max settings at 1080p.
R9 290
GTX 970

fadedorca66 said:Here's the deal:

View on imgur

- decent power supply if he wants to upgrade later
- 1tb hard drive
- 2x2 GB RAM at 1600MHz. This part is actually crucial because the graphics performance depends heavily on the memory. Since the graphics are integrated into the processor, faster memory running in dual channel makes a huge difference.
- Quad Core APU, which has integrated graphics capable of handling newer games on medium settings
- CPU cooler
- a solid motherboard

So basically, he's got a really good foundation here plus some pretty solid gaming performance. Once his games start lagging or he gets tired of the graphics, he can just slap in a better dedicated GPU and stay in the game for a few more years.

4GB of RAM is cutting it a bit thin for an APU. The processor is going to hog a chunk of that for its graphics, leaving him with barely enough left over to run modern games.

If any parts aren't in stock at your local branch, they'll have to ship them in from another warehouse. You'll end up waiting a few days while they get everything organized and assemble the rig, but hey, that's just how things go with Links.

AMD A10 x4 7700 k box, Black edition, s. FM2+, 3.8GHz, 4MB cache, GPU R7, quad Core

BIOSTAR A78MD Motherboard, AMD A78, DDR3, audio, S-ATA, RAID, G-LAN, PCI-E 3.0, USB 3.0, D-SUB, DVI, HDMI, mATX, s. FM2+

LC Power Office Series Cooler, socket 775/1155/1156/1150/AM2/AM3

PC-12800 Memory, 8 GB, MUSHKIN RadioActive FrostByte, 997005, DDR3 1600MHz, kit 2x4GB

500W Power Supply, LC Power Office Series, ATX v2.2, 120mm vent., PFC

500.0 GB SEAGATE ST500DM002 Hard Drive, SATA3, 16MB c., 7200 rpm, desktop

LC POWER Pro-925B Case, MIDI, black, no PSU

Total:$1100 Links.
There's really no point in looking at this if you want to play anything modern. Links is way overpriced. If you're paying cash, you can get much better deals ordering from a shop in Washington, D.C. Shipping is free, it shows up at your door within 24 hours, and you just pay cash on delivery.

Brian Campbell36 said:Fine, I'll take your word for it—assuming you don't tell me on Monday that the MSI board is out of stock.
How long does shipping actually take? I'm paying cash on delivery, so does the courier come straight to my house or am I stuck driving to the post office?

Honestly, skip that MSI board; it's garbage if you're trying to run Crossfire. Shipping is pretty quick though, usually shows up by the next day. Not 100% sure if they hit your doorstep or if you have to pick it up at the local FedEx, but I'm betting it's door-to-door.