Snake@War Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 Well it's been more than a year since I've had a computer worthy of being considered a gaming pc... I've been getting by with a PS3 and a Acer Aspire One netbook but that is changing now. I'm building a gaming rig. For the case I'm using a cheap Logisys Area 51 mid tower. It comes with a 480 watt psu (I'm afraid to use a cheap PSU) but I'm going to use the XCLIO Goodpower 500 Watt PSU for my PSU. For the MOBO I'm going with the Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P. It will allow me to unlock the extra 2 locked cores in my... AMD Phenom II x2 550 Black Edition Callisto. It is rated at 3.1 GHZ as a dual core. But my mother board should allow me to unlock the 2 extra cores, essentially giving me a quad core @3.1ghz for $102 (But I'm not holding my breath for the 2 extra cores. If all else fails, I'll just overclock it to 3.6-3.8 ghz as others do with the stock heatsink). That's pretty incredible IMO. For my GPU I'll be rocking a HIS Radeon 4850. For my RAM I'll be using 2x2gb G.SKILL DDR2 @ 1066 mhz. Oh and I went with the WD Caviar Green 640GB for my HDD. So what do you think? And for a rough idea about performance see this review of the Radeon 4850, but bear in mind that the rig used in the benchmarks had a 2.8 Core 2 Extreme and 2 GB of RAM. I'm pretty excited, needless to say! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake@War Posted July 2, 2009 Author Share Posted July 2, 2009 Well I ordered DDR2 instead of DDR3 so I guess I'll be selling the DDR2 on Ebay. I hope I don't lose too much money... I didn't realize they weren't backwards compatible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocky Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 Sounds good mate, here's hoping you don't have any more, uhm, hiccups though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake@War Posted July 2, 2009 Author Share Posted July 2, 2009 Sounds good mate, here's hoping you don't have any more, uhm, hiccups though... Yeah, no kidding man... Needless to say I was quite frustrated when I discovered my... hiccup. lol But this computer should be a beast, IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteKnight77 Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 If you can, I recommend the 300GB VelociRaptor HDs. The are really speedy and Windows seems to boot up in no time. Grab 2 if possble. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake@War Posted July 2, 2009 Author Share Posted July 2, 2009 Yeah, I looked at those, but I couldn't justify the performance and storage for the price. I might convert later but I'm fine with the 7200 RPM as is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fletch Posted July 2, 2009 Share Posted July 2, 2009 http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_...duct_id=0302727 Core i7 920 on sale for the low price of $200 (in-store pickup only). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake@War Posted July 7, 2009 Author Share Posted July 7, 2009 Well I got everything put together yesterday minus the RAM... Remind me next time NOT to save the $4 and go with UPS 3 day as opposed to Egg Saver... I bought the frikkin stuff WEDNESDAY and it's STILL at the DHL processing site! At this rate it will be here around the end of AUGUST! [/rant] lol I'm sorry but I just can't wait a moment longer... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoQuarter Posted July 7, 2009 Share Posted July 7, 2009 (edited) Keep an eye on your DHL order tracker...3 years ago I ordered RAM from NewEgg and they delivered the properly addressed package to the wrong location -resulting in a bunch of angry back and forth phone calls before finally being found (at least they got the city right)- and then last year a BIOS PROM from ASUS' Indiana/Kentucky office ended up traveling 200 miles south from that location...before eventually turning around and heading (north) in the right direction. Hourly employees. Edited July 7, 2009 by NoQuarter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake@War Posted July 7, 2009 Author Share Posted July 7, 2009 Yeah... DHL really sucks. I'm just sitting here, waiting... waiting... waiting... wait.... zzzzZZZ zzzzzZZZZ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteKnight77 Posted July 7, 2009 Share Posted July 7, 2009 I always go for the 3 day shipping. Even the free shipping is 3 days, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake@War Posted July 8, 2009 Author Share Posted July 8, 2009 I ALMOST always go with 3 day.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake@War Posted July 10, 2009 Author Share Posted July 10, 2009 Well my RAM came in yesterday so I was very excited. I installed it and booted the computer up. Installed Vista 64 bit !3! times and then XP 64 bit.... but it was just horrifically screwed... Nothing would work. So I decided to run a stress test. RAM was good, Hard Drives too... Motherboard is sound. CPU in tact... Stress test begins: Core 1 = Passed... Core 2 = Failed (immediately might i add) So now I'm stuck RMA'ing my processor... fun stuff huh... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteKnight77 Posted July 10, 2009 Share Posted July 10, 2009 Install XP first then install Vista. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake@War Posted July 10, 2009 Author Share Posted July 10, 2009 Install XP first then install Vista. Well I installed Vista 3 times and when they didn't work, I reformatted and installed XP. Prime95 wouldn't even START, and nothing would run, random Explorer crashes and all... That happened each time in Vista, as well as XP. I had to boot up a systems diagnostics cd to get a program to even run. That's when it said that my second core failed immediately. I wish it was a simple fix... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davros Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 Ouch...sorry to hear your tale of woe..hope it plays out ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake@War Posted July 12, 2009 Author Share Posted July 12, 2009 Well all is well. I forgot to scale back to x2 to see if that helped... haha. One of the locked cores was buggy so I don't feel right with an RMA... But everything is working fine now. this thing is beastly! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snake@War Posted July 15, 2009 Author Share Posted July 15, 2009 Speaking of beastly, I've got it overclocked to 3.7 ghz now... dang. This thing's fast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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