General PC Help Thread - OP updated with useful links - READ

[Ironhide]

I couldn't get the 120Gb Samsung SSD I bought to work on my old PC, haven't tried it in my new machine as I can't be arsed with reinstalling Windows.

Still haven't bothered switching the supplied DVD drive with my old PCs Bluray drive.

[Andrew Mills]

Just a quick tip from something I learned today when my SSD stopped running windows (for God knows what reason):

If you try and restore a system image in Windows 7 from a USB 3.0 external drive, make sure you've got the USB 3.0 driver files on CD and in the CD drive to locate manually. Turns out the restore program can't see anything past USB2.0 without manually relocating the drivers Took a lot of googling to find it so hopefully it'll help someone else out in case they need it themselves (and restoring GB of data from USB 3.0 is much more desirable than from USB 2.0).

[HM]

Are Phanteks cases available in the uk? Can't find on either ebuyer or sold via amazon. This case looks absolute quality.

[systematic]

Overclockers will probably have it in stock first, when it launches later this month, followed by Scan. They both currently stock the £200 premium version.

[False]

That looks like strawberry floating phenomenal quality.

Makes me want to buy one and finally have a first try at real watercooling.

[systematic]

ETA for the Phanteks Pro is now in the middle of July.

[HM]

well strawberry float.

think i'll just buy the corsair h110 i wana get now and get that case in july.

[Jam-Master Jay]

So, instead of upgrading my current PC I'm thinking of just building one again. How does this selection of parts look to you guys, and any changes I should make? I'm still a bit (a lot) of a noob with this.

Corsair Carbide 500R
Seasonic S12II-620 620W ATX12V Standard PSU
Gigabyte Z87X-D3H Motherboard
Intel Core i5 4670 Quad Core
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Palit Nvidia GeForce GTX 770 OC 2GB GDDR5
HyperX Black Series 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Seagate ST1000DM003 Barracuda 1TB]
SanDisk SDSSDHP-128G-G25 128 GB SSD

Cheers.

[GM]

I don't have too many complaints, for a first go it's not bad. This is for gaming, correct?

1. You've got an overclocking motherboard (Z87 as opposed to B85 or H87 - AFAIK it'll still function but motherboards are ostensibly the same for non-OC purposes and you may as well save the cash), a processor that can't be overclocked (4670 as opposed to 4670K) and a CPU fan that you don't really need unless you're overclocking. Either flip the processor if you want to overclock, or change the mobo and dump the Hyper 212. Stock cooler should be fine unless you're going for something really really quiet.

2. I'd argue that you don't really need more than an i5 4570. It's about 5% worse, won't be a bottleneck in games and it's another £15 or so off the bill. If money isn't really a problem then absolutely fire on the 4670.

3. No idea what Palit are like for GFX cards, though with nvidia it's hard to go wrong these days as every card has to meet their minimum spec regarding reliability and performance. The 770 ASUS DCUII and MSI Twin Frozr are basically the same price on Amazon, and they tend to be on the good side of things.

4. SSD: the go-to recommendation is a Samsung 840 Evo and the 120GB is only a quid more than the one you picked. Again, not even sure if it's a bad choice, I'm just changing stuff where there's basically no price difference to something tried and tested. This is where I'd use the cash you saved above and stretch for a 250gb - performance and lifespan increase with capacity, to the point where a 250 should never break before the computer is completely obsolete. Note that SSDs perform significantly better when they have at least 20% capacity free.

5. HDD is fine but you may as well save £4 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0088PUEPK/

RAM/Case/PSU are all good. No giant issues other than the motherboard thing either as far as I can tell, but I'll let the others tell you if I've ballsed anything up.

[Jam-Master Jay]

Cheers man. I'm going to look into the suggestions you've made and hopefully get the parts ordered over the weekend and build it next week.

I might drop the SSD for now and wait for further price reductions too. Hopefully I don't balls anything up.

[systematic]

No point buying a processor now because Intel are going to releasing an updated line over the next month.

[GM]

I might drop the SSD for now and wait for further price reductions too. Hopefully I don't balls anything up.

That's not something I'd drop personally. It's the one part that can significantly speed up your computer, you'll never want to go back to booting off a HDD. Up to you though, it's not a necessity as such.

And like systematic said, the Haswell processor refresh is coming in like 3 days or so. The motherboard socket is the same afaik so it's just a case of finding the one that's the best price:performance when benchmarks are out. It's unlikely but it may end up that the 4570 is still the sweet spot.

[Jam-Master Jay]

Yeah. I've gone for the larger SSD and dropped the CPU cooler.

Cheers for the heads-up on the changes to the processors coming up, and thanks for the advice.

[GM]

Possible mobo: http://www.ebuyer.com/509385

Good value, that, but basically anything by ASRock/MSI/ASUS will be fine. Last thing: usually better to have 2 sticks of ram at half the capacity than one big one unless you're upgrading soon (you're not, nobody needs 16GB just for gaming yet). It's not going to make a massive difference, but it's something like a 5% gain and it's cheaper than the one you listed. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00A77202C

EDIT: Seems the Haswell refresh is spotty with older motherboards, some work with a BIOS update, some don't. I can't find anything about new non-overclocking processors either. Might be worth waiting til things shake out a bit.

[JimKT]

My system at work needs a graphics card update. The current Mobo is http://www.gigabyte.com/products/produc ... id=4664#sp and the graphics card we are thinking of getting is the EVGA 210 ( http://www.dabs.com/products/evga-gefor ... 20Graphics )

I can't find anywhere where it says that this would work, so maybe someone here might know. Thank you

[False]

You know they are like 5 years old?

[zXe]

Been looking at GTX 770's (had to lower my initial expectations for a 780 - just too much that I can't justify it). It seems like EVGA are the go to brand for GPU's but the GIGABYTE ones seem superior, nicer cooler and higher clocks. So why do people seem to swear by EVGA? obviously they're good, but are they THAT good?

[Super Dragon 64]

I think that it's due to the warranties offered by the manufacturers. I actually thought that MSI, Asus and Gigabyte were the best manufacturers to consider and so I've never given much thought to EVGA. Ultimately you should be fine with any of these brands.

If you do have problems with the GPU, don't forget that the Sale of Goods Act 1979 gives you recourse against the seller. I wouldn't be surprised if it's easier to deal with the retailer than it is to deal with the manufacturer, especially if you buy the card from Amazon.

[systematic]

EVGA's customer service and support is really good. Warranties are transferable (helps with resale value) and you have the option to extend your warranty to either five or ten years. They have the 90 day step-up program as well. The only downside is that their EU RMA center is located in Germany, so sending off your faulty GPU can cost quite a bit in postage and time. Of the top GPU manufacturers, only Gigabyte has a UK RMA center.

In the US EVGA's support is miles better than the rest of the competition, which is why it's so popular there. EVGA cards may not have the highest factory overclocks, but that's hardly an issue because the difference can be less than 1 FPS in most cases. It actually ends up being a better manual overclocker, but again the difference is only around 1-2 FPS.

[Frank]

So, I think my motherboard has died. I was pretty disappointed with it anyway, so I'm going to try and get a bit of a better one this time around. Does anyone know of a motherboard (LGA 1155/ATX, etc) that does dolby digital properly (one with an optical out would be perfect)? From a brief google around it seems that getting surround sound out of your computer is a lot trickier than it should be, and I'm somewhat stumped