Post your setup!

[alphabetagamma]

If everything about my PC wasn't so terrible and outdated I would post my specs here. But I've decided to save my money and wait for LGA 2011 and Ivy Bridge.

I held on to my outdated 2003 computer since last year.

2003? Thats nothing! I still had a beige dinosaur with Windows 98 until about a year ago

[Alyxx Thorne]

That's old skool.

[alphabetagamma]

I know right?

[Average Internet Guy]

Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX Notebook

 

Best notebook for the price, picked it up for $350, it can run most games on mid-high settings.

 

Windows 7 64 bit

AMD V140 2.3 GHz

2 gb ddr3 sdram

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 + AMD m880g

250 GB SATA-150 5400 rpm

[J.C.]

OK people. Here's the final product.

 

Intel CPU Core i5-2400 3.10 GHz

EVGA Video PCIE GTX460 SE 1024mb DDR5

Asus M/B Intel P8P67-M B3 A/L (1155)

DDR3 4GB 1333MHZ KINGSTON

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD10EALX 1TB 7200 32MB SATA3

Spektra 750w / 14cm c/ power supply

SENTEY BX1-4243 V2.1 ATX tower case

LG 21.5" E2241V SUPER LED MONITOR

Windows 7 Home Premum 64 Bit

 

 

I picked up the last parts on Thursday afternoon, and then went to a movie on Friday with my gf (X-Men First class, will post review later) so assembly was delayed until Saturday afternoon. I started at about 5:00 pm. The hardware portion was completed by 10:00 pm. Operating system and some drivers had been installed by midnight. I installed the rest of the software Sunday morning, fired up the old Steam account and purchased Portal 2 right away (you can see it downloading in the picture). By 9:00 pm I was playing

[BTGBullseye]

Looks good JC.

[Luis]

Damn that's a nice PC J.C... Congratulations!

[Jusmar]

ASUS 21 Inch Montior

Evga GTX460 SE 1024 GB DDR5

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition @3.65 GHZ OC'd

8 Gigs 2x4 Corsair RAM

700 W Corsair PSU

Gigibyte Mobo...

Cooler Master 450 case.

Windows 7 64 bit.

Its rockin!

[JournaL]

CPU: Intel i7 920 (OCed to 3.4 Ghz)

CPU Cooler: Coolermaster V8

Mobo: Asus P6T Deluxe V2 (With U3S6 add-on card)

Memory: 6GB Corsair Dominators DDR3-1600

Graphic Card:Evga Nvidia Geforce GTX 285

Primary Hard Drive: 1TB WD Caviar Black

Secondary Hard Drive: 1.5 TB WD Caviar Green

PSU: Seasonic X750 Gold

Sound Card: Auzentech X-Fi Forte (Currently in RMA after two years)

Case: Coolermaster HaF 932 (I miss the Stackers)

Speakers: Creative Gigaworks T40 SII

Mouse: Logitech G500

Monitor: NEC Multisync 20WMGX2 (currently looking for a viable replacement)

Windows 7 64-Bit

 

Two years and going strong, except for the audio card :-/

Had my monitor for about 5 years, starting to display weird colors when stressed (overheating)

 

My last great pc before this?

 

It was an AMD Athlon XP 3400+, which had a Geforce FX 5700 Ultra (later an X1950 pro, then that died and with AGP down on the dumps, I managed to get my hands on a 7600GT)

 

Before that? AMD K6-2 with a Matrox G400.

 

Before that? I can't go back that far..

[Obsidian]

Huh, seems like Antec cases are all the rage in this thread. Glad to see it

 

CPU: Intel Quad Core i7 2.93gHz Lynnfield

Audio: Intel High Definition Audio

GPU: ATI Radeon HD 5750 1GB

RAM: 2x2gb DDR3 1333MHz

HDD: Western Digital 7200rpm 2TB internal

Connections: Wifi, Bluetooth, USB 2.0, FW800, Digital Optical Out/In, HDMI HDCP out/in, Displayport Out, Ethernet

External Devices: PS3, WD My Book 3TB, wireless mouse and keyboard, SD card reader.

Cost: about $1500, including the PS3 and external HDD.

 

I'm on a Macbook pro.

 

I'm just a tiny bit ashamed of that...

 

Why's that? I personally think Apple laptops are awesome, even if they are pricy. Don't let Apple haters bully you into feeling bad about your laptop.

[Obsidian]

Resurrecting a thread/double posting to show off my rig. I handed my older rig down to my dad when his old one gave out last year, so here are the pics:

 

 

 

 

Specs:

Intel Core i7 3770k, overclocked to 4.2 ghz, cooled with a closed-loop cooler.

Gigabyte Z77x UD5H

Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7950

8gb Crucial Ballistix Sport RAM

Fractal Define R4 case, with 3x Noctua NFa14 FLX fans, 1x Fractal fan, all in intake positions

Rosewill Fortress 750w PSU

4x Seagate 3TB 7200rpm drives (from old rig)

Asus Blu-Ray drive (from old rig)

TP-Link Wireless N PCIe card (from old rig)

[BTGBullseye]

Newest laptop... http://valid.canardpc.com/2834982

 

A Lenovo G780, (17 inch screen at 1600x900 rez) after-market RAM is a low-voltage 1600MHz, and the HDD is the one from my previous laptop... (the HDD that came with the G780 works better in a Linux system, and the HDD from my Dell works better in Windows due to the random read/write speeds)

[sheridanm962]

I had to get a second hand computer because it was all I could afford at the time.

 

In Total (adding the Monitor and Motherboard): $246 NZD = $194 USD

 

CPU: AMD Athlon64 X2 6000+ 3GHz (I want a Phenom II, planning on saving up for one)

RAM: 2GB Corsair Dominator RAM (Need at least 4GB I know)

GPU: Leadtek Winfast 9600GT (512MB DX 10 card) (This needs to be replaced, this isn't 2008 anymore)

HDD(s):

7200RPM 320GB WD Hard drive (Primary) (Got it back, Praise the sun!)

WD 80GB SATA Hard-drive (Secondary, I use this for recording)

Seagate SRD00F2 2TB External Hard Drive (A lot of stuff goes into this)

OS: Windows 7 Pro x64 (Don't like Windows 8, gah!)

Monitor: 1280x1024 17" Philips DVI monitor (As suggested, I need a replacement)

Motherboard: ASRock N68C-GS FX (With DDR2 and DDR3 RAM slots)

PSU: 430 Watts - Need 500Watts for just about any upgrade (except RAM)

 

EDIT: I got the 320GB Hard Drive back, it's actually 7200RPM lol

Edited September 1, 2013 by Guest (see edit history)

[BTGBullseye]

Not too bad, but I'd recommend getting a better monitor, (4:3 and 5:4 ratio screens can cause damage to your eyes over time) at least twice that amount of RAM, (need to know what your motherboard can handle for me to make recommendations though) and possibly a GPU upgrade.

 

GPU recommendations:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127739 | MSI GeForce GT 630 1GB [$55 USD] (for cheap decent performance)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500308 | ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 1GB [$85 USD] (for about 4x the performance of the 630)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500309 | ZOTAC GeForce GT 640 2GB [$100 USD] (2GB version of the last card)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127720 | MSI GeForce GTX 650 2GB [$120 USD] (best I would recommend for your system)

 

Monitor replacement recommendations:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001792 | Samsung 21.5" monitor [$120 USD] (highly recommended if you can't afford more)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236307 | ASUS 24" gaming monitor [$180 USD] (recommended for your system)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236313 | ASUS 24" 144Hz gaming monitor [$280 USD] (the best there is right now for gaming)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2RY0XD8691 | Yamakasi 27" IPS monitor [$350 USD] (least expensive monitor for doing art)

[sheridanm962]

Edited, also I'd personally get a Radeon HD card seeing as I can get good performance for less money (as far as I read at the time), the Price to performance ratio is higher etc and I don't really need PhysX (It's a wreck, trust me), I don't plan on Stereoscopic 3D gaming as well...

 

The Sapphire Radeon HD 1GB 7770 GHz Edition is the best I can get, it's $180 NZD.

 

Now for the monitor being 17" it is actually a pain to use because it's so small I know.

[BTGBullseye]

I don't recommend AMD GPUs or other hardware because their QC has issues, (having the newer chips slowly burn themselves out is amazingly common) and because their drivers are crap. (usually OpenCL isn't even functional with AMD drivers) Pay a little less now if you want, but an extra couple dollars will get you a much better product. Also, bear in mind that for a performance comparison, take the number of CUDA cores on a GeForce and multiply them by 4 and compare the Radeons that have that (or close to that) number of stream processors. Also, PhysX isn't the only difference in capabilities between the brands, AMD just wants people to think it is... (makes it easier to get people to buy their stuff) GeForce cards have an interesting way of doing the processing, and as a result it makes is far easier to do anti-aliasing on Nvidia, about 3/4 the strain that you'd get on a Radeon.

 

Sorry I can't find a decent NZ site that lists local prices to people in the USA...

 

Ram upgrade recommendations:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104387 | Kingston HyperX Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) [$57 USD]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313345 | Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) [$57 USD]

 

PSU recommendations: (take your minimum wattage need and add 25% or you're going to burn out your PSU very fast, unless it's a "continuous")

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148046 | APEVIA ATX-CB700W 700W [$40 USD]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148048 | APEVIA ATX-AP800W 800W [$60 USD]

 

GPU recommendations for Radeon: (if you're dead-set against GeForce for some reason)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102994 | SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6570 1GB [$50 USD] (about 3/4 the performance of the GT 630 I mentioned)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161427 | HIS iCooler Radeon HD 7750 2GB [$80 USD] (next step up from the 6570, and still only about 3/4 the performance of the GT 640, only benefit is extra RAM, but that's almost useless if you're not running extremely high-rez textures)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202011 | SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB [$105 USD] (Again, 3/4 the performance of the GTX 650, except with less RAM, again RAM size is almost pointless above 1GB if you're not running very high-rez textures)

 

*example of RAM above 1GB*

I have a 2GB GT 630m in my laptop... I run a heavily modified, and much higher resolution textured version of Fallout New Vegas, and the GPU RAM usage is around 40% in unmodified at highest game-capable graphics settings, but after modding it to be much higher it maxes at 65%. (40% of 2GB is 819MB, 65% is 1331MB)

*end of example*

 

I hope this helps...

[Collective Foal]

I don't think I ever told everybody about the rig I've had for a year now.

 

I currently have a motherboard that I can't remember the name of,

An intel i5 3570k that clocks 3.4 - 3.8 Ghz on 4 cores

 

16 GB 1600Mhz RAM

 

4TB of data on 2 hard drives. My 1TB drive is mechanically fucked, so I'm gonna back it up on the spare I bought some time ago. some point this holiday season (if anybody knows an easy way to do so without going to Best Buy and paying them to do it, please let me know!)

 

An Nvidia GTX 560Ti which runs my game graphics for my 23" LED monitor.

An AMD Radeon HD7750, which was my primary card, but now runs the graphics on my 16" tube monitor.

 

I am, however, running Wireless connection, as my room is across the hall from the modem, but I still get 3-4 MB/s download speeds. Not TOO bad.

 

I also have a Logitech G35 headset that has digital Dolby 7.1 Surround. It's very nice for the games I play, and I absolutely recommend buying a refurbished set from NewEgg. $55 when I got 'em and they work perfectly.

 

Soon, I plan to get a Razer Deathadder mouse, Razer Blackwidow Keyboard, and a nice mousepad. For the time being, I have a surprisingly dependable and well-serving AZZA mouse and keyboard that certainly won't be getting sold off or scrapped once I get the new stuff.

 

That's pretty much everything.

[Ross Scott]

I don't recommend AMD GPUs or other hardware because their QC has issues,

You say "other hardware", do you have any evidence that AMD CPUs are less stable than Intel's (their 5ghz monster non withstanding, that strikes even me as nuts)? And I don't mean anecdotal evidence, but some statistical report where many samples were tested? Assuming fans are running properly and there's no overclocking, CPUs are usually the last thing to go on a system. I worked on a lot of systems when I had a job as a technician and cases where the CPU was actually at fault (from either manufacturer) were incredibly rare. As for GPUs, I had read the Origin report that AMD GPUs failed about 3% more than Nvidia ones and they had driver issues. I haven't used their drivers in a long time however, so my information on that may be outdated.

 

and as a result it makes is far easier to do anti-aliasing on Nvidia

Could you clarify / provide some benchmarks to this? Like an example where no AA in a game between competing cards is comparable, but then the same game Nvidia pulls ahead with AA on? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I hadn't heard this before. Also, what kind of AA, MSAA, SGSSAA, or shader-based? If you're saying MLAA v. FXAA, that's kind of moot point since AMD can run FXAA as well via injector.

[BTGBullseye]

I don't recommend AMD GPUs or other hardware because their QC has issues,

You say "other hardware", do you have any evidence that AMD CPUs are less stable than Intel's (their 5ghz monster non withstanding, that strikes even me as nuts)? And I don't mean anecdotal evidence, but some statistical report where many samples were tested? Assuming fans are running properly and there's no overclocking, CPUs are usually the last thing to go on a system. I worked on a lot of systems when I had a job as a technician and cases where the CPU was actually at fault (from either manufacturer) were incredibly rare. As for GPUs, I had read the Origin report that AMD GPUs failed about 3% more than Nvidia ones and they had driver issues. I haven't used their drivers in a long time however, so my information on that may be outdated.

I don't have any statistics based records for normal operations, only a few small-sample observations of improper or failed cooling systems. AMD has issues with their temperature sensors, and I have yet to see any evidence that this has changed.

 

and as a result it makes is far easier to do anti-aliasing on Nvidia

Could you clarify / provide some benchmarks to this? Like an example where no AA in a game between competing cards is comparable, but then the same game Nvidia pulls ahead with AA on? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I hadn't heard this before. Also, what kind of AA, MSAA, SGSSAA, or shader-based? If you're saying MLAA v. FXAA, that's kind of moot point since AMD can run FXAA as well via injector.

I don't have any benchmarks right now, and because of my current situation (saving money for getting an apartment, borrowing internet access, etc.) I don't have the time to search for them... I did see one a while back, but never bookmarked it. The type of AA is MSAA and SSAA, nothing shader based. Shader based AA is easy for almost any video card nowadays... (I prefer SMAA over the rest, but I know of nobody that has updated it in over a year)

[sheridanm962]

Okay, I'm back.

 

Here's the setup, not too much improved but I'm getting there... Slowly.

 

AMD Athlon64 X2 6000+ 3.2GHz OC (I'd like an FX 6300, over here it's like $150)

4GB of DDR2 RAM ($40, luckily I didn't have to fork out $200 for this, yes it's that price normally)

430 Watt PSU

ASRock N68C-GS FX Motherboard

Sapphire Radeon R7 250 1GB GDDR5 GPU with Boost (Core 1150MHz, Mem 1300MHz, also has a TDP of 75Watts)

Windows 8.1 Pro 64bit

BenQ V2400W LCD Monitor - 1920x1200 @60Hz (cost me $150, I love this resolution)

1280x1024 17" Philips DVI monitor (Secondary Monitor)

7200RPM 320GB WD Hard drive (Primary)

My Seagate SRD00F2 2TB is now Internal as a secondary drive

 

I ran Far Cry 3 on this rig, smooth as hell on mid-high settings (textures High, water Very High, everything else medium)

It can even run Crysis 2 smoothly on high settings (the lowest is actually High, funny that)

 

Aside from that it's a huge improvement, I even changed my case because the original one this rig came with wasn't that good on airflow at all.