I'm building a new PC

[ImprobableJoe]

Plus I'm taking online classes and the software doesn't always play nice with Linux.

 

[DepricatedZero]

One thing it can't do as well as microsoft OS is play mainstream video games (which is why I don't use it).

Which is only because people keep writing games for Windows rather than making them Platform Independent, which I find no logical reason for.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

One thing it can't do as well as microsoft OS is play mainstream video games (which is why I don't use it).

Which is only because people keep writing games for Windows rather than making them Platform Independent, which I find no logical reason for.

Hey! Get your weird hippie commune stuff out of my hardware thread!!! :lol:

 

[DepricatedZero]

Hey! Get your weird hippie commune stuff out of my hardware thread!!! :lol:

:lol: good luck with the new computer, hope everything runs smooth for ya!

 

[borrofburi]

This the hard drive I use, I really like it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218
It's a dual platter design: essentially it is two 320 gig hard drives stacked on top of each other, allowing for a very high transfer rate (91 MB/s), faster than a raptor. Though of course the great thing about raptors is not the transfer rate, but the access time, and of course this one does not have the faster access time (because it only spins at 7200 RPM, which is the primary thing affecting access times).

SSDs in general, last I heard (over a year ago) are bad. IIRC, there is one or two really good SSDs (the ones generating the hype), and they're really expensive; while the rest are all a bit flaky and generally are subpar products.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

This the hard drive I use, I really like it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218
It's a dual platter design: essentially it is two 320 gig hard drives stacked on top of each other, allowing for a very high transfer rate (91 MB/s), faster than a raptor. Though of course the great thing about raptors is not the transfer rate, but the access time, and of course this one does not have the faster access time (because it only spins at 7200 RPM, which is the primary thing affecting access times).

SSDs in general, last I heard (over a year ago) are bad. IIRC, there is one or two really good SSDs (the ones generating the hype), and they're really expensive; while the rest are all a bit flaky and generally are subpar products.

That is what I've read about SSD, that they are almost a hoax/gimmick more than a real product, except for the very expensive ones. It seems to me that for as sort of sub-par as those SSDs are, you could just make a bootable USB stick for $40 and get similar performance at a lower price.

As far as the Raptors, good drives but do I really want to spend $150-200 on a hard drive? Maybe eventually, I guess. Your suggestion looks fine to me.

I also need an aftermarket CPU cooler, 140mm or shorter. I'm avoiding the water cooling unless it is absolutely necessary.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Just an update:

I just bought the 500GB version of the Western Digital hard drive we were talking about earlier, a Cooler Master Hyper CPU cooler, the OEM version of Windows 7, and...



...wait for it...



a pair of XFX Radeon HD5770 XXX GPUs.

Let's just hope all this stuff actually works.

 

[borrofburi]

That's a pretty fancy set up. Hmm, wonder if I can afford an upgrade to my GPU...

 

[ImprobableJoe]

That's a pretty fancy set up. Hmm, wonder if I can afford an upgrade to my GPU...

I'll let you know how this works out for me. I'm installing windows now... so far so good.

 

[scalyblue]

make sure you have clean power going to the GPUs

( btw ubuntu with cedega is faster than windows for 90% of the big games out there)

The reason your old windows installation isn't working with your new hardware is less "this product isn't activated" and more "I don't have the right device drivers loaded to switch your hard drive controller into protected mode and continue booting" which would result in a STOP 0x0000007b Inaccessible Boot Device.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

make sure you have clean power going to the GPUs

( btw ubuntu with cedega is faster than windows for 90% of the big games out there)

The reason your old windows installation isn't working with your new hardware is less "this product isn't activated" and more "I don't have the right device drivers loaded to switch your hard drive controller into protected mode and continue booting" which would result in a STOP 0x0000007b Inaccessible Boot Device.

Well, too late now... :lol:

And what do you mean "clean power"?

 

[scalyblue]

make sure you have clean power going to the GPUs

( btw ubuntu with cedega is faster than windows for 90% of the big games out there)

The reason your old windows installation isn't working with your new hardware is less "this product isn't activated" and more "I don't have the right device drivers loaded to switch your hard drive controller into protected mode and continue booting" which would result in a STOP 0x0000007b Inaccessible Boot Device.

Well, too late now... :lol:

And what do you mean "clean power"?

basically a good, solid power supply and not a piece of garbage el-cheapo off brand. You'd be shocked to know how many random video card issues are caused by like a +5 or a +3.3 undervolt that only shows up under heavy load at operating temps.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

basically a good, solid power supply and not a piece of garbage el-cheapo off brand. You'd be shocked to know how many random video card issues are caused by like a +5 or a +3.3 undervolt that only shows up under heavy load at operating temps.

RIght on. I bought a good, solid power supply.

I'm actually not shocked to know how many video card issues come down to cheap or underpowered PSUs. That's the one component that no one seems to really pay any attention to. So they need a minimum of 500W to run their fancy new video card, and their overclocked CPU, four hard drives, two optical drives, and three dozen fans with flashing LEDs and 8GB of crazy RAM, and they buy a cheap 500W PSU and run it at 95% all day and night. It gets hot and the voltages get wonky and then stuff stops working and they blame the $400 video card for being a piece of junk. They don't even look at their $40 PSU as a possible cause for their trouble.

 

[scalyblue]

basically a good, solid power supply and not a piece of garbage el-cheapo off brand. You'd be shocked to know how many random video card issues are caused by like a +5 or a +3.3 undervolt that only shows up under heavy load at operating temps.

RIght on. I bought a good, solid power supply.

I'm actually not shocked to know how many video card issues come down to cheap or underpowered PSUs. That's the one component that no one seems to really pay any attention to. So they need a minimum of 500W to run their fancy new video card, and their overclocked CPU, four hard drives, two optical drives, and three dozen fans with flashing LEDs and 8GB of crazy RAM, and they buy a cheap 500W PSU and run it at 95% all day and night. It gets hot and the voltages get wonky and then stuff stops working and they blame the $400 video card for being a piece of junk. They don't even look at their $40 PSU as a possible cause for their trouble.

the problem is that the cheap 500w power supply is only supplying 500 watts when it's at like 5-8c, not at a normal operating temp. Some power supplies supply the full wattage at operating temp, but they don't put enough amps on the +12 or +5 to run a card stable.