Hm. I know a bit about that 260 generation. Though, if I recall correctly, one specific model was a total disaster while another one was actually pretty decent. I can't quite remember the exact model names off the top of my head, so you guys probably know better than I do. And I could swear that one time I was browsing for deals online, the PowerColor card was somehow the cheapest option among all the 560s out there.
I've got an ASUS Radeon, and honestly, it’s dead silent even when my Zalman case fan is idling at 800 rpm. So, I guess those single-fan coolers should be totally fine. Mine works like a charm. It might not be absolute top-tier performance, but it should definitely get the job done.
Throw 8 GB of RAM into this build and you’ve got a seriously solid setup. Honestly, 4 GB just doesn't really make any sense with a GPU and CPU like this... I mean, unless you're just playing Tetris, I guess.
I’ve been meaning to start this thread for ages, and then today I finally laid eyes on an MSI card... man, honestly, the hardware design is just unreal. 😁
Yeah, back when I was picking up an Intel 520, the Samsung EVO was pretty much the big thing everyone was talking about. But man, those things only came with a 3-year warranty at the time. I kept hearing from everyone that Intel drives just lasted longer, and honestly, I think their maintenance software is top-tier. Now that Apple is offering a 5-year warranty, and since Intel seems to be moving away from traditional SSDs toward those M.2 sticks for motherboards... I mean, I’ll always be a fan of the classic SSD format. But honestly, whatever you grab is probably going to be great. I even saw that Apple released a model with a 10-year warranty, which sounds absolutely killer. Still though, that Intel 520? Best SSD ever, hands down. 🙂 Sure, it might be like 2 seconds slower during bootup, but does it really matter if we're talking about 11 seconds versus 14 seconds? That's just stuff people obsess over when they're hardcore benchmarking. In any normal, everyday use, you wouldn't even notice. 😉
I’m just pulling 720p at 30 fps on max settings, which is honestly plenty for me since I don't touch any AAA titles anyway. My current setup handles maybe 95% of what I actually do, but I feel like I'm totally screwed if my motherboard or GPU decides to kick the bucket. There's really no point sticking around this platform, especially since I have the kind of luck where something always breaks. xD It feels pointless to try and revive this old rig when motherboards for this socket are basically extinct now. 😉I went through the exact same thing back when I was running an old LGA 775 build, so I just sold everything—no regrets there. I'll probably do the same this time around. We'll see how things look... in six months or a year, everything changes. But I'll likely end up grabbing some Core i7 chips with IBM tech and maybe a GTX 1060 tier card, so I'll just aim for stuff like that.
But yeah, that Core i7 is basically a steal right now for like $500-$183. That RX 560 looks pretty decent, plus it's too weak for crypto miners to care about. 😁So, I don't think I'll run into any issues there. 😁
I’m honestly just aiming for a G4560 and an RX 560 setup, I guess. It’s about 20% weaker than an R9 280, which is basically on par with that i3-3350P I was supposed to pick up ages ago, so maybe this could actually turn into a pretty killer budget gaming rig if I play my cards right. 🙂
I mean, honestly, I doubt we'll see anything meaningful from AMD before the Nvidia 11 XX series hits the scene. It probably won't even be a rebrand this time; they'll likely just drop another RX series instead, so... yeah, it's looking pretty unlikely before then.
The Q9 series probably comes with its own cooler included, and honestly, you can't find a Q9500 for less than $100. So that's basically $400 gone right there. As for the E7500 vs E8500 debate, I guess it might be hard to actually notice a difference with just those few hundred MHz.
Pairing an E7500 with 4GB of RAM and a new GPU—like a GT 1030—would probably make for a pretty decent combo, I suppose. Though, I'm not entirely sure if the E7500 can really handle everything at full tilt. But hey, it should be enough to get things moving for now.
So, I’ve got a few "halfway" software situations going on where things either work or they don't depending on which version of Windows I'm running. Like, my microphone won't boot properly on Windows 7, but then on Windows 10, it works just fine. Or I'll be missing certain codecs on Windows 10, even though everything runs perfectly on Windows 7—specifically when I'm messing around with Bandicam and Audacity. So, I guess I might give dual booting a shot.
Honestly, having a 1050ti won't even matter if the motherboard is bottlenecking everything with just 2 or 4 GB of RAM, which, let's be real, is probably what's happening here.
Also, regarding those Q8200-Q8400 chips, I think there are a few available for $60, so you could definitely probably shave another 50 bucks off the price. 😉
If you grab an NVIDIA GT 1030 and maybe find some cheap used quad core, you’ll probably be chilling for quite a while. I’ve got an Intel Pentium G1840 that basically performs right in line with a Q8300, and honestly, it gets the job done. 😉 Plus, I'm pretty sure those old 775 quad cores are selling for peanuts these days since the platform is just ancient.
The only catch is if your motherboard only has two RAM slots. If that's the case, you're stuck at a 4GB max. I actually rocked 4GB for a really long time myself, and the biggest hurdle for me was finally moving on—I really needed at least 8GB, which is surprisingly tough to hunt down for a 775 setup. But hey, assuming you can manage 4GB, it’s plenty for some light gaming. 2GB is just way too low.
EDIT:
Just one important thing though... I'm not entirely sure how much compatibility issues the 1030 might have with these older boards. I really hope it doesn't cause any headaches if they decide to pick one up.
So, I was rocking an Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 paired with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 once. I honestly feel like that’s pretty much the ceiling for that specific CPU, you know? But hey, it gets the job done at 720p... and actually does a decent enough job, I guess.
So, I started this thread about some glitches I've been dealing with across various Windows versions. I even tried emailing the tech support teams for the software I use, but honestly, even they seemed pretty stumped on where things were actually breaking... so I figured, maybe there's a better way. A buddy of mine used to run a dual boot setup back in the day with Windows XP and Vista, which got me thinking: would there be any real point if I set up a dual boot with Windows 7 and Windows 10? Like, does that even make sense for anyone?
So, here's the deal. In Windows 7, it just won't let me crank up my mic boost to 10, 20, or even 30 dB, which is super annoying. But then, like you can see in the screenshot, on Windows 10 it works perfectly fine right out of the gate.
Another headache I'm dealing with—specifically on Windows 10—is that Bandicam isn't picking up any of my recording codecs at all. My GPU definitely supports H.264, but it’s just totally missing from the codec list in Bandicam on Windows 10; all I see is MPEG-1. It's weird because back on Windows 7, everything showed up just fine, including Xvid, H.264, MPEG-1, and the whole nine yards.
Everything's just acting up. 😁
EDIT:
I checked the ASUS website for this motherboard, and they've only got the Realtek audio driver listed, nothing else really worth mentioning. So I went ahead and installed that, but yeah, I'm still stuck with the exact same issue.
I can't find any driver for my Logitech G230 headset on Windows 10 at all. 😁 It's just your standard stereo headset anyway, not some fancy 7.1 virtual surround thing. I mean, I really doubt the headset driver would even be the issue here.
EDIT:
So, I checked the Logitech site and yeah, they don't even have a driver for this headset. Just like I thought. It looks like they only provide drivers for people using their specific USB sound cards.
The motherboard might be acting up or something. I'll probably just shoot an email over to ASUS and see what they have to say about it. ^^