Wanted to Buy Ideas

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05 Jul 2011 07:22 #16450 by Wingcmdr77
Okay so I've got 200.00 to spend on the computer. What should i get? I've got 2 275 GTX Vid Cards they are Direct X10. Should i upgrade to a Direct X11? I've got 6gb of mem. Max is 8 for the board i've got. I think i've enough hard drive space. Dont have an SSD, as mentioned earlier. I've maxed out the CPU pretty much. If someone sees one that is about 200 gb for 200.00 let me know.

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05 Jul 2011 07:54 #16451 by garfi3ld
Replied by garfi3ld on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
what CPU/motherboard do you have?

Wes

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05 Jul 2011 08:02 #16452 by Wingless92
Replied by Wingless92 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
That's what I was going to ask, nice Wes.

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05 Jul 2011 15:15 #16453 by Wingcmdr77
Replied by Wingcmdr77 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
Asus Crosshair Formula II cpu- amd 1090t could only put an 1100 in for a paltry increase of 100 megahertz. not really worth it.

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05 Jul 2011 16:37 #16455 by garfi3ld
Replied by garfi3ld on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
I'm seeing a few things you could do to see improments with your build.

-The 6 gigs of ram means your not running two sets of dual channel ram(atleast not two matching sets) the switch to 8 may be a little more efficient, but the performance increase would be very small and not worth it.

-I don't remember what kind of cooling you have but upgrading your cooling to something that performs really well and then overclocking your CPU would give you a nice boost.

-The two video cards should perform well for you, but they are getting to be very dated. An upgrade here would give you a really big boost in performance. The problem is with you already running SLI beating the performance is going to cost more than your $200 budget. You could pick up a GTX560 for under $200 now and then look at getting a second card in the future.
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121466

-You could put the money into other parts of your PC like your monitor, mouse, keyboard, or even a set of speakers. If your not running a nice 24 inch monitor this could be a nice improvement.

-The SSD upgrade.. for $200 you could get a $128Gb SSD. This upgrade is going to give you the most noticeable improvement for the money, by far. Its going to be a little longer before we see SSD's sell 200Gb's for $200, but 128 is the size I use in all of my main PC's. Its a nice usable size. I run my 300 gigs of steam games on my second hard drive and keep everything else on the SSD.

-You could spend it on new games to play. With the steam sales going on you could easily spend the money on a LOT of games to keep you busy for the next 50 years.

Wes

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05 Jul 2011 18:31 #16459 by Kelf
Replied by Kelf on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
psst go for the last one! ;)

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05 Jul 2011 19:32 #16461 by Wingless92
Replied by Wingless92 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
I would also say the SSD but here's why. You have $200 to spend. A nice Mobo will cost that, well maybe close to that. Then that leaves you with an old CPU. I have always been the type to spend the most money on the Mobo. That gives you the most options down the road. But if you want something right now, I would say the SSD.

If you can wait, I would go Mobo and new CPU. Sure the cards are old but they don't suck. They are still throwing out really good performance. Its funny to see how good my 560Ti handles games. I really don't think you need more than that. Unless you do Eyefinity or Surround gaming. The newest cards give really good performance for not that much money. Sure, $250 isn't cheap but it gets you a great card that will last a good long while.

Again, if you want something now, SSD, want to wait? Mobo and CPU. Those are my votes.

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05 Jul 2011 19:40 #16463 by Nacelle
Replied by Nacelle on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
How about a nice blow-up doll?

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05 Jul 2011 19:49 #16465 by Wingless92
Replied by Wingless92 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
Those are cheap, trust me.

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06 Jul 2011 00:24 #16471 by Wingcmdr77
Replied by Wingcmdr77 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
Appreciate everyone's ideas. What are your thoughts however on the Hybrid SSD Drives? I thought they claim about the level of performance of the SSD with good storage. What are the Downfalls/Pitfalls?

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06 Jul 2011 00:55 #16472 by Nacelle
Replied by Nacelle on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
Don't!!!! There's a reason there's only one on the market. I think there's a review of it on LanOC.

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06 Jul 2011 03:41 - 06 Jul 2011 03:45 #16476 by Wingcmdr77
Replied by Wingcmdr77 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
if its that bad, fogetaboutit. lol. actually wait. I just read the Review I believe Garfield did last June on it, it got good reviews I think?
Last edit: 06 Jul 2011 03:45 by Wingcmdr77.

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06 Jul 2011 06:01 #16481 by garfi3ld
Replied by garfi3ld on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
The hybrid drives CAN be nice, but the implementation is a little weird. An SSD is a much much faster way to go.

Wes

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08 Jul 2011 04:13 - 08 Jul 2011 04:21 #16524 by Wingcmdr77
Replied by Wingcmdr77 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
One of you suggested going straight for the Mobo Update. If this goes in stock, I was considering this if it comes back in stock. Going alittle over budget, but wife dont need to know. hahaha.

What do you think of this? Its weird, it has an AMD chipset for ATI cards, but it seems a lot of people are using Nvidia cards in it? I always use Nvidia, would I be silly to buy it and expect the best out of it with using an Nvidia Card?

www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item...3-131-667R-_-Product

This one seems better:

www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131735
Last edit: 08 Jul 2011 04:21 by Wingcmdr77.

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08 Jul 2011 04:52 #16526 by garfi3ld
Replied by garfi3ld on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
why a motherboard upgrade though? Your already running a current gen AMD CPU right? The motherboard itself may give you more features but won't do much if anything for performance.

Wes

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08 Jul 2011 05:03 - 08 Jul 2011 05:03 #16527 by Wingcmdr77
Replied by Wingcmdr77 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
mobo i've got cant make use of the amd turbo feature, I guess. maybe something else on it. even with the latest bios, which im pretty sure after 2 years, their not going to update the bios anymore for it.
Last edit: 08 Jul 2011 05:03 by Wingcmdr77.

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08 Jul 2011 05:29 #16528 by garfi3ld
Replied by garfi3ld on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
I still think thats a lot of money to invest in a small improvment

Wes

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08 Jul 2011 05:31 #16529 by Nacelle
Replied by Nacelle on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
If you must go with the mobo get the one that AM3+. It will do the new CPUs when they come out. You should have no problem with Nvidia cards as long as you verify that it's SLI capable.

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08 Jul 2011 06:23 #16533 by Wingless92
Replied by Wingless92 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
What is this company called AMDed? I'm kidding.

I agree, I would buy something that gives you an improvement now, not later.

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08 Jul 2011 17:00 #16539 by Reaper
Replied by Reaper on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
A cheap alternative to an SSD's is a RAID-0 array of platter based drives. I can't believe this isn't more recommended - you can end up with faster than SSD speeds and nearly 1GB of space with 3x Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s . Just need a mobo with RAID-0 support and 3 open SATA ports. I do this on my gamer PC and the performance is phenomenal.

That said take your $200 and save it for parts for a new build or games. Or a blow up doll like Nacelle suggested.

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08 Jul 2011 18:20 #16540 by Nacelle
Replied by Nacelle on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
Sequential speed may be good on RAID 0, but you'll still get nowhere near the seek time and IOPS that an SSD gets. When platter drives are bouncing their heads around trying to find data, the SSD would be done. Which is fine with games. There isn't much random reads. When the OS is looking for a desktop full of icons, that's when you'll really notice it.

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08 Jul 2011 21:33 #16544 by Reaper
Replied by Reaper on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
Damn... my prior post made it sounds like I was someone from marketing, thanks for keeping me in check Nacelle :D . Absolutely SSD's will outperform mechanical drives any day with seek times. In my opinion, if you only get $200 infrequently to spend on your PC budget that most likely you're going to benefit more from RAID-0. I say that because instead of seeing an extremely phenomenal increase in every I/O operation possible for a relatively tiny amount of space, I get to see an extremely phenomenal increase in nearly every I/O operation possible but in a capacity that still allows me to install the majority of my programs to the main OS drive. There are certain downsides to RAID-0 as well, though... failed mobo = all data most likely lost, failed drive = all data lost. Also some motherboards have very shoddy RAID-0 controller/support - research is always necessary.

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08 Jul 2011 21:59 #16545 by Nacelle
Replied by Nacelle on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
Intel SATA controllers are the best as far as onboard RAID goes.

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09 Jul 2011 04:38 #16557 by Wingcmdr77
Replied by Wingcmdr77 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
So it would seem that I should probably buy the Video Card for now, for the biggest boost? Hence the one Garfield mentioned? It looked pretty nice! I'm sure you buys have a link for a website where I can do a comparison on new to old cards! I wanted to see what a difference 2 cards in SLI the 275 GTX vs that one he mentioned will run at?

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09 Jul 2011 04:40 #16558 by Wingcmdr77
Replied by Wingcmdr77 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
Marketing! ha! 200 infrequently, lol how much am I suppose to get and how often? lol. I try to do almost a complete build every 2 years and in between then the rig gets at least 1 major update aka cardy, or a drive.

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09 Jul 2011 05:10 #16559 by garfi3ld
Replied by garfi3ld on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
Like i said in my post you most likely will only see a slight boost if any going from your SLI to a newer better card. But you will have the chance to get a second card in the future, thats were you will see an improvement.

I stand behind an SSD being the only improvement that is really going to be noticeable at the amount you posted with your current setup.

Wes

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09 Jul 2011 05:14 #16560 by Wingless92
Replied by Wingless92 on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
I agree SLi'ed 275's are that bad at all. A nice SSD and a fresh install of Win7 64bit will be a huge increase.

Also update all your Mobo drives etc.

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09 Jul 2011 06:14 #16561 by Reaper
Replied by Reaper on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas

Wingcmdr77 wrote: So it would seem that I should probably buy the Video Card for now, for the biggest boost? Hence the one Garfield mentioned? It looked pretty nice! I'm sure you buys have a link for a website where I can do a comparison on new to old cards! I wanted to see what a difference 2 cards in SLI the 275 GTX vs that one he mentioned will run at?

So, this isn't always updated the best and you always need to take what you see here with a grain of salt, but if you're interested in comparing technical specs:
www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php . Actually their whole site in general is pretty decent for GPU info.

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09 Jul 2011 06:50 #16562 by Nacelle
Replied by Nacelle on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
I think you'd see a decrease in speed going to a single GTX560.

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09 Jul 2011 07:05 #16563 by garfi3ld
Replied by garfi3ld on topic Re: Wanted to Buy Ideas
two 275's is close in performance to one AMD HD 6950 (in 3dmark vantage), of course you don't have DX11 support ether.

Wes

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