Posts by fadedorca66

Go with the HD6770 or the HD7750 (it's newer, pulls less power, and stays cooler).

Maybe you could try cleaning yours out yourself—like, actually taking the whole heatsink apart to get the dust out.

I guess a 420W liquid cooler would do the trick, but if you're looking to save some cash, maybe stick with the Regus series using a 12cm fan. If you actually want something decent, though, I'd probably look at a Corsair or a Cooler Master...

400W, but there’s a huge difference between 400W for an $50 and 400W for an $120, so I guess you should probably watch what you're buying.

Exactly, I’d go with the AMD one if I were you. That EVGA CX series isn't exactly anything to write home about...

I’d probably just bump up the voltage a bit, just to keep things stable everywhere. You never know when you're gonna hit some random BSOD or whatever.

That’s just not how you do it. You’re swapping out the CPU and basically everything else, yet you're leaving that trash power supply in place?

Get yourself a decent power supply first, then worry about upgrading the rest. This whole plan doesn't make much sense to me.

None of that really matters; for that kind of cash, you should be looking at monitors with a slightly better IPS panel:

5. Dell

I think he phrased that wrong. It won't be obsolete, but there will probably be some better components out there by then, and who knows what prices will look like...

More than just polite, I guess.

The 4850 is better, though I guess it is a bit older...

I wouldn't go that far.

I mean, that's on you to figure out, right? How am I supposed to know? Just run some benchmarking software to check your FPS...

Timothy Kim60 said:So what's the actual deal with these two—they're basically the same model, right? Does it even matter if one has 512MB and the other has 1GB? Also, what does "low profile" actually mean?

And what's the point of all those different brands—like if it's the same 6670 model from ASUS, XFX, or Sapphire? I don't get why the exact same chip and GDDR would cost anywhere from $167 to $260 depending on the manufacturer. WTF?

Also, what do terms like "silent" or "passive" imply?

Low profile usually just means it comes with that little metal bracket so it can fit into those tiny slim cases, like an HTPC setup.
The memory difference isn't a huge deal, but speed matters more. So, I guess picking a 512MB GDDR5 card is probably better than a 1GB DDR3 one.
The difference is... well, maybe they have different cooling setups or different memory, but at the end of the day, it's the same product.
Passive means there's no fan on the card so it's silent, and "silent" should pretty much mean the same thing.

Alex Wood53 said:Hey!

What’s the difference between, say, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 470 from Nvidia versus one from ASUS?

Or like an AMD Radeon HD 6870 PowerColor versus a Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 6870.

The thing is, the Nvidia or PowerColor versions are actually affordable, while the ASUS or Sapphire ones are way more expensive. It's essentially the same card, so do the Sapphire and ASUS models just have better cooling? What else makes them better than the Nvidia or PowerColor options?

Is there a thread somewhere about these manufacturers so I know which ones to stay away from?

Thanks!

There's barely any difference, really; it mostly comes down to the cooling. ASUS is usually pricier because they market themselves as some "premium" brand, but honestly, it's just the same stuff as everything else.

It's probably best to just find a specific review for each card to see what kind of heatsink it uses or how loud it gets.

It's probably just because it's part of that Unknown low-end series, plus they only give you a 12-month warranty.

Yeah, probably, it should run without any issues.

If I were you, I'd probably just reinstall Windows.

It comes down to the speeds, plus you can't exactly jam DDR2 RAM into a DDR3 slot or vice versa.

The speed gaps are pretty minor, so I guess it's not worth stressing over.

You're capped at 4GB max. Just grab two 2GB sticks; honestly, I guess speed doesn't really matter here, so maybe just go with whatever's cheapest.

What motherboard are you running, specifically which brand and model? You can probably grab that info using something like Speccy or HWMonitor

I'd probably grab the 6770 if you have the option. As for the PSU, it really depends on where you shop, but maybe look at Silverstone Strider, Corsair Redwing, ASUS, or the LC Power GP3 series. I wouldn't bother getting one way more powerful than necessary, though; I guess too many people aim for Crossfire and then realize they can't handle the noise, heat, and power draw when it actually happens.

Nah, I guess the difference is just design, the fan, the warranty, and stuff like that, but performance-wise there's basically no difference or maybe just a tiny one.