I think it's the 6950 that can be flashed, not the 68. Also, newegg has the 1GB model for $212 after s/h and rebates, and the 2GB for $235. I hear my 4850 begging for retirement...

Yeah, I picked up a B3. They're tough to find right now - most of the major sites like newegg still don't have any good post recall 1155 boards in stock. I was able to find one at directcanada.com.

Correct. You can easily flash the 6950 and convert it into a 6970 which is a very significant upgrade.


Maybe a mod could rename this thread and turn it into a general PC gaming hardware thread. I know we have a computer tech forum but it would be great to have a thread here relating specifically to this topic.

title changed to be a catch-all for PC gaming hardware discussion, as one might guess from the title change

Awesome. That was quick. Thanks, man.

"The TDP is the absolute maximum those components use" <-lol
please explain what TDP is.

references for my previous post:
cpu:
http://www.techspot.com/review/193-i...50/page10.html

video:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/201...6950-review/10

neither of those setups break 300 watts

285 GTX used as the vid card in the first link and i7 965 w/ 6950 in the second link....those aren't individual component readings it's for the whole rig

All of my parts came in on Friday so I've been working on my build (as posted above) over the weekend. Basically done with the exception of the tweaking - overclocking and flashing the gpu. Hopefully should be done tonight.

In the meantime a friend offered me his old PC so I took it as a little project. I need to reinstall an OS and the 8600 GTS graphics card is dead. I can either scrap it or maybe dust it off, add a new graphics card and pass it on to someone else.

Using games as a benchmark what are the most recent titles this system could handle? I'd probably just install another 8600 GTS (if I can find one) unless someone can recommend something different.

---------------------------------------------

Processor
Intel ® Viiv™ Processor Technology with an Intel ® Core™2 Duo Processor E4400
• 2.00GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800MHz Front Side Bus
Chipset
Intel ® 945G Express Chipset
Standard memory
2048MB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM memory (2x1024MB for ultimate performance) (expandable to 4GB)
Memory type
DDR2-SDRAM
Memory slots
4 DIMM (240-pin, DDR2) (two available)
Internal hard disk drive
320GB
Hard disk controller
Serial ATA hard drive
Hard disk drive speed
(7200 rpm)
Expansion slots
2 PCI slots, 1 PCI-E x1 slot, 1 PCI-E x16 slot

BOOM BOOM BOOM

My MSI R6870 Hawk just arrived and holy ****, I came. Best thing of all? I found it this beauty for 170€, while my local stores sells the reference R6870 for 220





I lolled when I saw that the R6870 is longer than my mobo.

lol. Damn. Nice.

time to build a new PC, my current setup isn't cutting it anymore...going to be used primarily for gaming. anyone have any opinions, am i missing something critical, wasting money on a certain component etc

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-2600K 3.40 GHz 8M Intel Smart Cache LGA1155

MOBO: Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z/GEN3 Intel Z68 mATX Mainboard w/ ROG Connect, Lucid Virtu and Intel SRT & 7.1 SupremeFX Audio, Intel GbLAN, HDMI, USB 3.0, SATA-III RAID, 2x Gen3 PCIe X16 & 1 PCIe X4

RAM: Corsair 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 1.2GB 16X PCIe

PSU: 850 Watts - Corsair CMPSU-850TXV2 80 Plus Power Supply

HDD: 32 GB Kingston SSDNOW V100 SATA-II 3.0Gb/s SSD - 160MB/s Read & 70MB/s Write...plus a 1TB 7200RPM (WD black iirc) that is in my current PC

a couple thoughts...i could probably get better performance out of SLI 2xGeforce 560 Ti but i think the 570 should handle just about anything out right now and i can always toss another one in there down the road. i'll be overclocking the CPU, that power supply should be enough?

570 will run whatever you want just fine. why overclocking for a gaming build? could save money by stepping down to the i5-2400 or -2500 (and they are still very capable stable cpus). 850W would be plenty. also 32gb SSD is pretty tiny, you're pretty much just going to be able to fit the OS on it and that's it but even then with funky MS updates or something i wouldn't like one that small. again if you want to keep costs lower you can just scrap the SSD -- mechanical drive's are still a-ok for gaming builds

2600k is likely overkill and certainly not worth the money compared to a 2500k, could probably save a few $s on the psu as well, you're never going to use 800w unless you want to go dual cards in the future

Agree with the SSD advice. It's nice to have the extra space in case you need it. I've got an Intel 80GB SSD for just my OS (Win 7 x64 Ult) and common apps (virus scanner, MS Office, etc). I have about 35GB of free space.

If you have a microcenter nearby (or near a relative/friend), they have insane deals on processors and mobos.

was just planning to throw the OS on the SSD and put all my games, music, videos etc on the WD drive...if i moved up to a 60GB that should be sufficient right?

reading up on the K series it appears to be very OC friendly, you can crank it up, achieve good stability and see pretty significant performance gains so why not do it

not real concerned with saving the ~$100 or so that stepping down to the i5-2500 would lead to, i'll be using this system for a while and i'm not on a tight budget so i'm fine spending a little extra

your plan of attack is fine i just wouldn't buy lower than 64gb ssd, and probably would go with a 120gb one just for peace of mind -- heard horror stories about drive capacities going wonky after updates or whatever.

the -k series is very good, sandy bridge chips are the nuts. very stable. so if you are set on OCing then it's a good way to go (if your heart is set on the i7 then you'll have a heck of a lot of power -- i just recommend the i5-2500k because it's cheaper, very strong and hardly anybody will really make use of the extra power you get out of the i7, especially gaming)

Yeah get a 2500k and spend the extra money on a bigger SSD. I have a 2500k and have it overclocked to 4.4 ghz and its great. I have a 64gb SSD I use as an OS drive and it is sitting at 24gb free so a 32gb drive isn't really big enough.

I built my first comp last year and it's very similar to yours. Everyone told me the same thing in regards to the i5-2500k. I went with it and bought an extra GTX 570 so I could SLI them with some of the extra money. I also picked up a Corsair 850w PSU and it's been perfect.

I've installed pretty much every High Def texture for Skyrim and play on Ultra settings with no lag. I also do some video rendering and conversion and it goes OMG fast. I can convert a 50 minute WMV video to h.264 MP4 in 5 minutes. My biggest error was only purchasing 4GB of RAM, but your 8GB should be good.

I wouldn't go less than 80gigs. Games are getting bigger and bigger and so are the mods and expansions. My StarCraft2 folder alone is 9.91gigs (10.6 in marketing GBs)

If you want even a little bit of future proofing, I strongly recommend 120+.

Just had a build made up for me, when I get home I shall get the precise specs.

alight 2500k it is, upgrading to 120GB SSD and dropped the PSU to 700W...case recs? thinking a cooler master full tower (maybe the HAF 932)

i5-2500K
GTX 570
Asus P8Z68-V/Gen3
OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD
Cooler Master Silent Pro M700
Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600MHz
case

toss in one or two generic optical drives, maybe a flash reader and the total should come to ~$1250

My current case:

NZXT Phantom

Great case, built-in fan controller, tons of room and very nice to work in.

i'm a fan of simple understated cases. my rigs in a antec 300 and i love the thing but if you want more air flow then full atx is okay, just not my preference

can not go wrong with 2500k,asus mobo+vengeance and gtx.

my runs like a dream.