Posts by fadedorca66

That battery's got 3V, so you might have mixed something up there.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1080?vs=1332

It really just depends on how much those extra 10-15 fps actually matter to you. If you're trying to squeeze every last bit of life out of your current card, maybe it's worth it. But if you’re planning to upgrade again in a year or two, then IMO, probably not.

crimsonstag84 said:You're making it sound like an old single-core Celeron on a prehistoric motherboard 😬

The CPU is basically on par with a Phenom ii x4 955... if you overclock it a bit, it could probably handle an R9 270. That card is more than twice as fast, and it’ll give him enough breathing room until he decides to swap out his whole setup, which probably won't be for at least another year.

Signature 👍

So, just grab a new PSU, a better GPU, and watch it fly—it might even run GTA V. Honestly, I’ve got almost the exact same CPU paired with a similar card and 8GB of RAM, and I can pull off medium settings at 1080p. Even without any overclocking, it should hold its own.

Later on, when he actually needs the boost (which won't happen anytime soon, don't worry), he can upgrade the CPU and motherboard. By then, he'll be looking at 8GB of DDR3, assuming DDR4 isn't already ancient history 😁.

That PSU is solid and doesn't have a reputation for dying, so unless it's ancient, I guess it’s probably not your culprit.

What kind of beeps were you getting? You usually get a pattern of long and short beeps, which is basically the motherboard trying to tell you what's actually broken.

Those software tools are pretty much useless for voltage readings, so I wouldn't trust them at all. Looking at your screenshots, that 5V rail seems way too low, though maybe the software is just glitching out on you.

Did you hear any BIOS beeps when it failed to boot? What kind of setup are we looking at, and what PSU are you running?

I guess you applied the thermal paste?

If you just swapped in a beefier GPU—maybe toss $333600 extra towards it--
then this build would actually be decent.

Adam Moore3 said:True, but the Pentium still holds the edge here. He’s looking to squeeze out every bit of performance possible for his budget right now. The Pentium actually packs a higher clock speed and a larger L3 cache. Honestly, I was pretty surprised by that offer from Newegg—usually, I don't agree with their pricing, but this 750Ti is such an incredible steal that you just can't pass it up. You won't find anything even close to that value for the money, not even that noisy XFX 260X unit. Just throw in the cheapest case available... $87 And you're losing the case for that much money? 🕺

Sure, on paper maybe, but how much better is it actually? Is it even noticeable? I couldn't find a direct comparison between an LGA 1150 Celeron and a Pentium, but it's basically the same deal as comparing a Sandy Bridge i3 to a Pentium:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu..._10.html#sect0

There’s zero difference, and you're just $100$50 poorer for it. Plus, if they keep gaming on newer titles, they'll probably be forced to upgrade to an i3 or i5 in a year anyway...

EDIT:

Here's a test—they're equal in some spots and one's maybe 5 fps higher in others. I guess it'd be interesting to see if that gap holds up with a weaker GPU:

http://www.techspot.com/article/1039...red/page5.html

If they plan on getting into serious gaming later, they'll swap the CPU anyway, so I guess it makes more sense to just stick with an Intel Celeron G1840 for now. There isn't a massive performance gap between that and a Pentium, and you definitely feel the savings in your wallet.

Then you could toss in some extra cash $13 for a slightly faster Barracuda, maybe grab a better power supply or whatever. Newegg's case selection is pretty weak, and honestly, I wouldn't want to blow $93 on that LC Power unit. Maybe think about picking up a decent case for $33 in Chicago instead and build it in there. That way, you might even have enough left over for an extra 4GB of RAM or a bigger HDD.

If you're actually trying to run a gigabit network, you probably need better cables and decent hardware too, I guess...

The point isn't just about throwing whatever's most expensive into your cart. 😬

Your CPU is running pretty hot. Sometimes those side fans can actually cause some weird air turbulence, so maybe try running it without them and see if your temps drop at all.

I guess we'll just blame Windows 10 this time!

Redwing is a decent enough PSU, so I doubt it's actually causing the Blue Screen of Death.

And what power supply are you running right now?

What's that board made out of? What does it say next to that component?

They might sort that out soon; I think they actually started working on something similar, but everyone just lost interest in updating.

How’d you pull that off? Just so the next generation knows what they're getting into, I guess.

You could try playing around with this tool:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/qres/

I guess I’d just write a quick .bat script to call this thing to force the resolution back to 800x600 at 60Hz, then toss it into the Microsoft Sysinternals folder. You’d install the drivers, reboot, and even if you can't see anything, maybe just let it sit for five minutes before restarting again. If you have Windows set to auto-login, this should probably trigger and fix the resolution for you.

slysurfer14 said:so I was just digging around online and it looks like it's a 250 series card

Maybe check with TechPowerUp

Looks alright, just maybe throw in a cooler if you can—honestly, even an LC-CC-95 priced at $33 or maybe an NVIDIA Kepler would probably do a much better job than the stock setup and run way quieter.