Nuke Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 (edited) listen to the power supply while its under load, if you hear any hissing at all, its probibly dying caps. im not beyond replacing dead capacitors in a psu. ive done it several times. be sure to cross every large cap and inductor with a large resistor. dont use your fingers, you might die. granddaddy used to just use a screw driver.If you had a few hundred left over I don't understand why you stuck with a 750 ti.because i am old and dont play many games. mostly old games and indie titles. its still probibly better than the gtx 560 im currently using which ran everything fine and dandy. there always next year. one of the benefits of being alaskan is that you get free money every fall. this year netted me a new comp, a big screen tv, and a full pantry. Edited October 2, 2014 by Nuke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Camacha Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 i can use oc ram. ddr3 2400 seems to be in the range of affordability and this ram appears to be on the qvl:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231666Try to get memory without those crazy coolers. They do nothing, except cost you money and, more importantly, get in the way when selecting a proper cooler. It is a shame to put a stock cooler on a overclockable i7, if you let that thing breathe amazing things are possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuke Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 this case design is pretty cool, the intakes for practically everything face large grills in the case. so the video card, and power supply have their own isolated airflows, while the mobo and psu gets a massive flow from a 140mm fan. i only want to overclock to the bare minimum to make use of the memory. i want this to be a 3 year build. im going to be monitoring the heat while i do some serious benchmarks. im not to thrilled with intel's stock sinks, they always seem like they are about to fall off. they are not like the beasts that used to be fitted to the early p4 chips, that thing looked solid. or perhaps the large spring steel strap on some older amd rigs. you knew the thing was secure. they also seem to clog up with dust bunnies more rapidly than i would like. im going to have to shop around for one, and like i said, im not too sure about how much clearance i have for a sink. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainKipard Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Hi HoCould someone please tell me how important it is to upgrade motherboards? I have one that's several years old. It's an Asus R.O.G. Maximus Formula. This one I think.I'm thinking of rebuilding my old tower and I will for sure need a new GPU, CPU, PSU and RAM. Can I keep this mobo?Advantages? Disadvantages? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joppiesaus Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Hi HoCould someone please tell me how important it is to upgrade motherboards? I have one that's several years old. It's an Asus R.O.G. Maximus Formula. This one I think.I'm thinking of rebuilding my old tower and I will for sure need a new GPU, CPU, PSU and RAM. Can I keep this mobo?Advantages? Disadvantages?Well if you buy a new CPU, it probably won't fit into your motherboard anyways, so you have to buy a new one.Well now I see how old it is... it's still DDR2. That's *very* old. New CPUs won't get into it and DDR3/4 won't get into it either. So it's outdated, there's no way to keep it if you want to go with new parts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Camacha Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 (edited) Could someone please tell me how important it is to upgrade motherboards? I have one that's several years old. It's an Asus R.O.G. Maximus Formula. This one I think.If you are sure this is the board I would advise against keeping it unless you want to upgrade the old system rather than replace everything. The socket is of an older type, the RAM slots are too and several protocols have been surpassed. It is a decent board if you build a system based on older parts, but there are limits to what it can do. Edited October 5, 2014 by Camacha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainKipard Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Hmm.Do you think it's worth it getting all the best components that fit that board?What kind of stuff should I be looking for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elthy Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 There is no point in keeping that mainboard. CPUs that would fit on it are outdated for years, they are slow, not efficent, and a new decent Mainboard costs less than 80€... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cantab Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Intel change their CPU sockets seemingly every year these days, and even AMD aren't far off. So it's not that you want a motherboard upgrade for its own sake, but you want a CPU upgrade and that requires a motherboard upgrade (and in your case a full RAM upgrade). Upgrading just the CPU only really makes sense for relatively recent motherboards with low-end CPUs.When you're at the point of needing to upgrade CPU, motherboard, RAM, GPU, power supply, probably drives as well since an old mechanical hard drive will hold performance back, you're practically needing a whole new PC anyway. Unless you're particularly attached to your old case or really want to economise it might be worth doing a new build, and sell the old PC or put it to other use.If you want a "stop-gap" update, bring RAM to 8 GB (for DDR2 the affordable maximum is 2 GB per slot) and add a decent budget GPU. And if the CPU is really low-end, like a Celeron D or Pentium D, then it might be worth looking for a better second-hand CPU cheaply. Bear in mind though that these upgrades aren't going to get you anywhere near the performance of even a budget modern gaming PC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Support Posted October 5, 2014 Share Posted October 5, 2014 Gentlemen, I need help;I plan on upgrading my computer. I will mostly use it for gaming and the occasional photoshop. My budget is $300. I do not plan on replacing my peripherals and I don't have to buy any software. Please note that I live in India and may not have access to some products.Parts available and not planning to replace :Hard Disk : Western Digital 1TBPSU : Corsair CX 500What I have and plan on replacing: Motherboard - Gigabyte G31M-ES2LCPU- Core 2 duo E7500RAM- 2GB DDR2Graphics Card- 512mb Nvidia Geforce 8400 GSDVD-R unit - an generic Samsung I would be grateful if you could recommend a good cabinet as well. Thanks in advance ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 (edited) I could use some input from some more in-touch people than me on picking out a new system. Not looking for a build it vs buy it debate, building just not an option ATM. Someone pointed me to Cyberpower and they've got some good deals right now. This one caught my attention because EIGHT CORES(!), but I kinda like the smaller form factor seen here. Either way I was thinking of a RAM upgrade to 16gb & 500gb SSD (to pair up with a cannabalized one I already have). I have no idea what the "standard" is on video cards anymore, everyone's got a dozen & a half offerings in a mishmosh of numbers. KSP is a good 90% of what I use a pc for (I don't even web surf on it anymore) plus my home security camera software that's always running in the background, but I will be throwing GTAV at it whenever it comes out.ETA: oh yeah, budget is up to $1200 total. Edited October 6, 2014 by CatastrophicFailure Brain tired Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cantab Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 AMD may market* more cores, but Intel's are faster. A modern highly-clocked Intel CPU will run KSP just about as well as anything. For budget an overclocked Pentium G3258 will handle pretty much all modern games very well, or at the higher end go for a Core i5. There should be PC builders who will pre-overclock your system for you, saving you the work. A Core i7 probably isn't worth it unless you want to splash out for the sake of it or really don't want an overclocked CPU; the money would be better spent elsewhere.* AMD's current architecture has a pair of cores sharing a single floating-point unit, making them more like 1 1/2 cores than two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 Good to know. So you think it'd be better to save $50 and go with a slightly overclocked i5 vs an extra $50 on an i7? WhEre would budget better be spent? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elthy Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 There is no reason to choose an i7 as a gamer, even if a game takes full use of hypertheading its about 10% increase for 50% more money. @CatastrophicFaliure: You posted a link to a prebuild PC. Those are (almost) allways a bad idea, badly balanced low quality components for way to much money. Its way better to build your own PC (as easy as IKEA) but for the components i recommend you visit a special hardware forum (for germany i would recommend PCGHX.de or Hardwareluxx, no idea about other countries). @Tech Support: 300$ are not enough for a big improvement. Try to save more money since hardware for 300$ would still be quite bad and would need replacement soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cantab Posted October 6, 2014 Share Posted October 6, 2014 @Tech Support, agreed $300 is a tight budget for what you need. I suggest a system based on an AMD APU, a decent one will play most games OK without needing a separate graphics card which is the only way you're going to get in-budget. Even then, you'll have to make some major compromises. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talavar Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 (edited) www.pricewatch.com I use this for barebones, usually really good prices... then buy an aftermarket video card elsewhere. Also, I can't express this enough.. do NOT go cheap on a powersource.. for the love of god, don't buy a cheifmax. They should be named $hit-max. ordered 2 computers decided to go with Cheif-max in both to save a buck. they were the Cheifmax 650 watt PSU's..After installing my graphics cards in both, they both continually shut down during game-play. After running some output tests, found they were both maxing out at around 357 watts. Rip-off artists at their best. Edited October 7, 2014 by Talavar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Support Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 www.pricewatch.com I use this for barebones, usually really good prices... then buy an aftermarket video card elsewhere. Also, I can't express this enough.. do NOT go cheap on a powersource.. for the love of god, don't buy a cheifmax. They should be named $hit-max. ordered 2 computers decided to go with Cheif-max in both to save a buck. they were the Cheifmax 650 watt PSU's..After installing my graphics cards in both, they both continually shut down during game-play. After running some output tests, found they were both maxing out at around 357 watts. Rip-off artists at their best.I completely agree ! I once had a ....ty Zebronic PSU; almost ruined my pc ! I now have a Corsair CX 500, shouldn't that be enough for i3 or i5 processor, 4Gb of RAM and 1Gb graphics ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Camacha Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 1Gb graphics ?1 GB graphics says as much about performance as the colour of a car. So, how fast is a red car? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Talavar Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 (edited) I completely agree ! I once had a ....ty Zebronic PSU; almost ruined my pc ! I now have a Corsair CX 500, shouldn't that be enough for i3 or i5 processor, 4Gb of RAM and 1Gb graphics ? 500 Watt's should be plenty for that setup (no matter what the 1 gig vid-card is). Im running an AMD FX, a Nvidia 660 gtx and 3 fans. I cap out at around 400 Watts without CPB (overclocking) turned on. Edited October 7, 2014 by Talavar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Support Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 1 GB graphics says as much about performance as the colour of a car. So, how fast is a red car?sorry about that ! would I be able to play games like Rome II with an i3 processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM and an 1Gb DDR3 Nvidia GeForce GT 620. ( at least on low to medium settings ) ? I am sorry if I sound Stingy, but its all I can afford right now. besides, computer parts a bit cheaper in India, so I could get some good deals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Camacha Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 (edited) I would really try to upgrade that videocard a little bit. The GT 620 is not great, spending just a bit more should get you a lot more. When I check out the minimum specifications of Rome II the GT 620 seems not to be on the list.I would really advise to save up just a little more, because this is just spending money on something that is too slow right away. An i3 is a pretty decent start, but to play most games you will need a half decent video card. Edited October 7, 2014 by Camacha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tech Support Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Thanks for the advice everyone, I guess i'll just wait for a little while longer. @Camacha could you recommend a bare minimum configuration ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briansun1 Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 1 GB graphics says as much about performance as the colour of a car. So, how fast is a red car?Faster then a green one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impwarhamer Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 1 GB graphics says as much about performance as the colour of a car. So, how fast is a red car?Red ones go fasta! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
briansun1 Posted October 7, 2014 Share Posted October 7, 2014 Red ones go fasta!Now throw in some blue for extra luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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