Posts by wiredotter14

Richard Murphy45,

Honestly, if you're dropping that kind of cash on a gaming rig, you should at least be looking at a 1440p monitor.
For about $1,000, you’re basically just hitting the ceiling of 1080p.

And if you actually jump to 1440p, that build isn't much to look at with a GTX 980. Once the next generation hit, that card became mid-range. In this budget, you should be aiming for a GTX 1070, or even a GTX 1080.
The GTX 1080 is $2167, and once the non-reference models drop, they'll be even cheaper. So, within that budget, you could put together a build with a GTX 1080—which is significantly more powerful than the 980 and can actually handle 1440p (it's realistically the first card to really tackle 4K).
Having only 4GB of GDDR5 on an Nvidia card like that isn't exactly a dream for modern titles, especially for a PC at this price point.

If you're sticking to a single 1080p screen, you've wasted a ton of money on something that's considered mid-range today.

Sure, you can upgrade later, but let's talk reality. If you try to sell that GTX 980—which I assume you paid around $600 for—you might get $300 if you're lucky to find a buyer. In my book, that's a $300 loss on the card alone, not to mention the mediocre gaming experience you already paid for.

I figured it’d take maybe 3 or 4 weeks before we actually see what the 480 x is going to cost.
If its performance ends up being anything like the 390, those older cards are gonna need at least a 20% haircut—dropping them below the 480 x price point—assuming there’s even any decent stock left out there.
Of course, there will always be a few suckers sitting on shelves at insane prices, just waiting for some idiot to fall for them.

sold out 😳

but there'll be more coming...

they probably have way more of those 390s in stock, those will go for about $200

Maybe we'll see something like this pop up eventually 😁

http://www.mymemory.co.uk/SSD-Drives...INCH-SSD-Drive

p.s.

Look into how demanding your tasks actually are. You might not even need a high-end beast; an I-80 could probably handle it, or maybe just a standard consumer card.

Jacob Rogers4 said:That’s basically what I was thinking—just blow out the dust. Someone told me I should probably do it once a year or so. Which monitoring software do you recommend? I have two different programs on my PC right now, but they're showing different temps. They suggested I just build my own setup so I don't waste money on useless tools. Thanks for the help. 😁

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html should work. Post a screenshot.
Run a stress test, something like AIDA64.

Grab a can of compressed air and blow out the laptop.

Then run the test again.

crimsonstag84 said:Are you talking about your own rig or what?

I've got a Skylake Xeon (i7) in mine.

I meant yours. Got mixed up because I was looking at your motherboard and figured it was an 1150 socket.😵😵

Skylake Xeons and their boards are hard to find right now, so I didn't even consider it.

This setup should handle whatever heavy lifting you throw at it.
You could trim some parts to squeeze in a better quality HDD if you care about that—and obviously, there are plenty of other monitor options out there.

The savings aren't worth much by going with an older generation Xeon; it's just a few bucks difference, and this is a newer platform anyway. Given your budget, I don't see any reason to stick with outdated hardware.

P.S.
Grab that cooler mentioned above my post. If you do, that processor will stay dead silent no matter what you're running.

Is Windows included or what?
Do you actually need a 1440p monitor?
Those two things are the main $500 differences

Does that price include sales tax?

1) You don't have a warranty on Windows anyway, and you aren't risking your hardware here.

2) "Cleaning" means actually opening the laptop, pulling the heatsink, swapping out the thermal paste, and clearing out the dust. You only do this if the temps are actually tanking; otherwise, good paste can last years or even forever. Occasionally, temperatures spike because of a manufacturing defect, but that's rare. Dust buildup happens every three months for some people and never for others. Don't just open up your machine for no reason—watch your temps first.
If you do decide to go through with cleaning or repasting, I highly recommend this shop; I've brought plenty of my gear to them. They charge $50 and usually have it back to you in a day or two.http://www.servislaptopa.com/
Again, if it isn't overheating after 12 months, don't bother.

If someone tries to tell you they'll charge you just to blow out some dust: go to Best Buy, grab a can of compressed air, and do it yourself.

4/5) The retailer is legally liable for 2 years. If your laptop dies within that window, take it back to where you bought it (not to a repair shop!).
The cleaning thing has nothing to do with that. You're allowed to maintain your own laptop; the retailer or manufacturer doesn't get to dictate those terms of liability.
(They set the warranty, which is not the same thing as legal liability.)

1) What exactly do you mean by "junk stuff"?
2) Why bother with a repair shop if the laptop isn't actually acting up?
3) When you say "just the basics at the shop," what does that look like to you?
4) How old is the laptop, and how much warranty is left on it?

Look at what I wrote. I agree that the Pentium is right up there with the Athlone; in certain games, the x4 and better chips actually hold their own.

Look, if someone's just buying a PC for browsing the web, they don't need an A6-ice

A Pentium is plenty, honestly, even a Celeron would get the job done fine.

crimsonstag84 said:The A6-7400K is basically just a dual-core m8.

Look, I meant it'll crush those weak 4-core chips—I can't remember the exact names of those FM1 quad-core losers off the top of my head.
The A6-7400K is dual core, sure, but it still beats out the Sempron and that A4 series.
My bad, phrased that poorly. What I meant was it'll outperform much pricier AMD APUs, even the cheap quad-core ones.

😉

It crushes even weaker 4-core chips, putting it right in the same league as beefier APUs like the A6-7400K.

swiftfalcon89 said:One with an LGA 1151 socket and DDR4 RAM.

I've got one ASROCK H110M-DGS on hand—standard LGA 1151 socket, supports DDR4. Simple, reliable little board.
I've got one Intel Pentium G4400 on hand—3.30 GHz with a 3MB cache, running on the LGA 1151 socket.
I've got a single 8GB stick of DDR4 RAM on hand—specifically that PC3-17000 2133MHz CL15 kit from Crucial. Just one module if anyone's looking to patch up an old rig.
Just one 1TB WD Blue HDD. It’s a standard 3.5" drive running at 7200RPM with a 64MB cache via SATA3. Nothing fancy, just a reliable workhorse for extra storage.
Just picked up a single Fortron Hexa 400W 80+ unit.
I've got one MS Voyager MIDI tower up for grabs.

Total: $667
Free assembly and delivery included.
AMD

this one, but swap the HDD for an SSD if they aren't hoarding tons of movies or whatever
I'd grab a new Pentium instead of the old Celeron since the integrated graphics actually have some teeth, and there isn't much of a price jump for the whole rig anyway.

https://www.google.com.uk/webhp?sourc...n+manager+free

The tool is pretty straightforward. You just pick an action and run it. That's it.

Looks solid, especially with that FHD screen. Only catch is the processor—it's a bit weak if you actually need some real horsepower under the hood.

It’s a joke that they only offer a 12-month warranty. Doesn't mean the gear is junk, though—it just means they're cutting corners on the cost of handling returns.

Look, by law you get a full 24-month warranty anyway. These 12 months are just for the easy stuff—handling claims directly through the service center without the headache.

That Dell looks decent enough. It’s got an FHD screen. You can probably hunt down an i7HQ in that price range too, but this one's alright.

As far as the SATA III (6gb/s) ports go, they're plenty for any consumer SSD, and honestly, pretty much every motherboard has them anyway.

Regarding those other specs—just figure out what you actually need. I doubt most of that extra stuff is even necessary.

4 RAM slots... plenty of boards come with that, though you could totally get away with just 2 slots. Grab 8GB now, add another 8GB later. You probably won't need more than 16GB anyway. Still, plenty of boards offer 4 slots.

Like the guy above said, better to just grab a cheaper motherboard. Go with the cheapest i5 and 8GB of RAM to start.
You can always add more RAM down the line, and as for the graphics card, like I said, any motherboard will work just fine.

What crimsonstag84 wrote is spot on.