Computer upgrade blues

[late]

I don't buy computers, I buy parts.

I have a Lian Li case that's nice and lite. I had previously had a monstrosity of a tower case that I could barely carry.

I've gotten a new video card and power supply. I got lucky, and bought just before the crypto craziness doubled the prices of good video cards.

But I still have Windows 7, which is showing it's age, and a cpu that struggles with the newer games. My video card can do double HD, eventually I want to get a monitor that can do double HD, and that requires a much faster CPU than what I have.

I play video games. Aside from annoying people with facts, it's what my computer is for. Oh, that and shopping, I have become a total Prime junkie. I also want to (eventually) get VR. That will also demand a muscular CPU. I'm just waiting for VR to be ready from prime time. It's just not there yet.

Anyway, I have been sitting on the fence for what seems like forever. RAM prices are absurd (ram companies are notorious for gaming the market). It's good there is competition in the CPU market. But that means the mobos may have version one bugs. I like Gigabyte mobos, but their new one using latest standard is having heat problems. I hate heat problems. There are also a lot of compatibility issues with ram these days, not to mention a proliferation of standards that are easy to get wrong.

Intel has decided to offer a killer gaming cpu for $300. Before Ryzen, that level cost a lot more. But Intel keeps throwing new models out in their panic, which invariably sets off a round of bugs and compatibility issues.

Be careful what you wish for, eh?

 

[donkpow]

Graphics cards are picking up a lot of the load now days. 

[Razors Edge ★]

Get an Xbox or a Playstation. That's what real gamers use.

Tom

[Square Wheels]

I just hauled a beast of a PC up the stairs for my wife.  We built it last week.  I stayed home today waiting for the delivery, it's sitting behind me.  She's been away for a week, she'll have a fun new toy when she gets home tomorrow.

[MickinMD ★]

I don't buy parts, I buy HP refurbished laptops. These are returns that go back through HP's assembly line and are often half-price but look like new. Sometimes the laptop must be a return that the spouse said had to go back and works great, sometimes people change the setup from its default settings and sometimes add apps and the back-through-the-line doesn't catch and change it.

So last month I got a great $1199 laptop for $519 through Walmart online: 17.3" touch-screen, Win 10, Bluetooth, WiFi, 3.2 GHz quad-cord processor, 12 GB RAM, 2 TB HD, full keyboard, SD Card reader, DVD drive/burner, and all the bells & whistles (front camera, HDMI, 3 USB, etc.).

But it took me a few weeks to get it stop doing weird things. For example:

At first it took a half hour to reboot.  Between the HP check-and-fix-it stuff and Glary's Utilities, that was ok within a week.

It cut of all access to video: the last user apparently downloaded the Win 10 upgrades including the video driver update which was incompatible with the original Win 10: I had to go back one version and everything worked fine.

The computer would reboot spontaneously a couple times a day.  A Google search showed I just needed to set a settings switch to a different setting to stop that.

The audio driver, which includes "DTS Studio" with a Graphic Equalizer enhanced by three settings: base, treble, and voice clarity, wouldn't work for the three last three.  It does now, apparently due to the upgrades.

So now it's running very nicely and the $580 price break was worth the headaches.  But it's frustrating that after 30+ years of home computers, they don't fix themselves automatically.

 

[Tizeye]

I was faced with two (or 1 1/2) builds last year. First was a barebones i7 machine which built for about $550. No graphics card as was intended for security cameras and the software, Blue Iris, is optimized for Intel graphics. The half build was breaking down and finally adding Parallels to my MacBook Pro. While will probably catch some flack for suggesting this, but got Windows off Ebay for cheap. No problem with the install as Microsoft recognized both times. Actually, only problem I had was creating the ICO disk to install from Microsoft's site as it kept hanging up and frying the flash drive. Finally used one that came in the box when I upgraded (clean install) fro Win 7 to Win 10 Home. In fact, after the install when putting in the registration/activation (not during the install - chose later) it automatically downloaded the additional files when it recognized was a Win Pro activation. 

[late]

21 hours ago, donkpow said:

Graphics cards are picking up a lot of the load now days. 

Mostly it's about having enough for what you want to do.

I want to go double HD, 2560x1440 (I think).

That needs a fairly beefy CPU even with a good video card. (I've got a 1070)

[late]

21 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

Get an Xbox or a Playstation. That's what real gamers use.

Tom

Yucch, hate the controllers.

[Johnny Come Lately Name]

I used to do this. 

I no longer do this. Now it’s just another appliance.  I want to turn the damned thing on and have it work with no drama. I don’t overclock my fridge, reboot my toaster or upgrade my food processor.

[late]

8 minutes ago, F_in Ray Of Sunshine said:

I used to do this. 

I no longer do this. Now it’s just another appliance.  I want to turn the damned thing on and have it work with no drama. I don’t overclock my fridge, reboot my toaster or upgrade my food processor.

Get thee back, demon from an overly warm climate!

I want drama, I want gunz and spaceships and monsters!!!

I stopped overclocking after a couple processors met an untimely demise. My video came overclocked, and when I get Windows 10, I plan on dialing it back a bit. For some reason Windows 7 won't let me near it.

While I do want to do double HD, the real reason is that I eventually want to get VR. I am just hoping my 1070 will be strong enough to push it when I finally get. HTC has a new set out, and it has higher definition in it's panels. Pretty sure my card could push that, but they pushed the new unit out the door prematurely. It's about a grand, and they haven't worked all the kinks out. So what the final version will be like is anybody's guess.

I think it will be fantastic, if it ever gets to the point where it does what I want.

 

[onbike1939]

In the last two years, I have had two Dell XPS15 laptops give up on me with the motherboard needing replaced. No point at over £300 so I bought a gaming laptop on the advice of my nephew who is a bit of a computer genius. He added the RAM from my kaput Dell to the new Erazer so it is much more of a machine that I will ever have a use for, given that I use it only for forums and for browsing the net searching for trousers with elastic waistbands. 

I just thought that you should know this.

[late]

After sitting on the fence for over a year, the deed is done, the parts should get here in a couple days.


i7 8700
Aorus Gaming 7
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB 3200
Seagate 2TB
WD Blue 1 TB SSD
Noctua U series 14cm single
Noctua NF-F12 case fans

 

[Razors Edge ★]

5 minutes ago, late said:

i7 8700

I expected an i9

Tom

[late]

55 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

I expected an i9

Tom

I usually spend about 200 bucks on the cpu. This time I went to 300. The reason is that the 8700 is an absolute beast. I usually wait until I can get a 90% improvement in Passmark scores for my couple hundred bucks. This takes me  from 6677 to 16,000.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?id=3098

The i9 chips are ferociously expensive, Amazon has a cheap one for 900 bucks. The motherboards are also expensive. That only makes sense if you need some serious processing power, and have the budget to pay for it.

They would be perfect for 4K gaming with a 50 inch monitor.

I am going to stretch the budget and get a 2K monitor that's roughly half that size, sometime over the next year.

You were prob joking. I know that, but spending 300 on the cpu and 400 for the video card has me outside my comfort zone. But it will take me from 1080 (HD) to 2560x1440, and eventually to VR.

 

 

[onbike1939]

I have to say that I'm very impressed with the knowledge of computers I see in this thread and especially from Late who must be edging towards a hundred and twenty. I confess it makes me feel a wee bit lacking. 

[Dottleshead ★]

On 4/12/2018 at 12:30 PM, Razors Edge said:

Get an Xbox or a Playstation. That's what real gamers use.

Tom

I get tired sitting in front of a terminal all day. Love me a remote controlled game console on my 4k TV.

[late]

1 minute ago, onbike1939 said:

I have to say that I'm very impressed with the knowledge of computers I see in this thread and especially from Late who must be edging towards a hundred and twenty. I confess it makes me feel a wee bit lacking. 

 

[Johnny Come Lately Name]

On 4/13/2018 at 1:10 PM, late said:

demon from an overly warm climate!

Demon, maybe but you’re not too familiar with Central NY weather, are you?

Last computer I built was when HalfLife2 was coming out. I built a balls-to-the-wall game box, just for that.

I couldn't play it. Gave me a headache and made me want to hurl, after about five minutes. Now I web surf and do email on a tablet and if I want to game, that’s what the PlayStation is for.

I don’t have time to do half the shit I need to do, let alone tinker with an appliance.

[Dottleshead ★]

22 minutes ago, F_in Ray Of Sunshine said:

 I want to game, that’s what the PlayStation is for.

I don’t have time to do half the shit I need to do, let alone tinker with an appliance.

To each their own but I feel the same way

[bikeman564™]

On 4/12/2018 at 1:41 PM, late said:

I play video games. Aside from annoying people with facts, it's what my computer is for. Oh, that and shopping,

and pron, and foruming  

I game too, I like AMD processors. I'm still using a their Phenom II X6 1045T 2.7GHz. No gaming issues.

[Dottleshead ★]

On 5/30/2018 at 10:27 AM, late said:

I usually spend about 200 bucks on the cpu. This time I went to 300. The reason is that the 8700 is an absolute beast. I usually wait until I can get a 90% improvement in Passmark scores for my couple hundred bucks. This takes me  from 6677 to 16,000.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?id=3098

The i9 chips are ferociously expensive, Amazon has a cheap one for 900 bucks. The motherboards are also expensive. That only makes sense if you need some serious processing power, and have the budget to pay for it.

They would be perfect for 4K gaming with a 50 inch monitor.

I am going to stretch the budget and get a 2K monitor that's roughly half that size, sometime over the next year.

You were prob joking. I know that, but spending 300 on the cpu and 400 for the video card has me outside my comfort zone. But it will take me from 1080 (HD) to 2560x1440, and eventually to VR.

 

 

 

4 hours ago, bikeman564™ said:

and pron, and foruming  

I game too, I like AMD processors. I'm still using a their Phenom II X6 1045T 2.7GHz. No gaming issues.

Yeah, I know a lot of gamers that prefer the PC thing.  It's more old school but folks claim the game play and graphics are so much better.  I prefer to downgrade a bit in those areas -- for more comfort.  

[late]

14 minutes ago, Dottie said:

 

Yeah, I know a lot of gamers that prefer the PC thing.  It's more old school but folks claim the game play and graphics are so much better.  I prefer to downgrade a bit in those areas -- for more comfort.  

I tried consoles more than once, I even got a PS4. Hated the controllers.

Sony had a game place for a while. They may still have it, for all I know. The keyboard guys were slaughtering the kids, so they made it Sony consoles only.

Games are also more expensive.

Selection is a lot better on a PC.

Which is significant. There's thousands of games, and there is usually one of two that would suit any sort of taste. I like Portal, no guns, just fiendishly clever puzzles. They make games aimed at girls and women now. There's also a grandmother who had her 15 minutes of fame, a few years back, for making videos about Skyrim.

Skyrim is the only sword and sorcery game I've ever played. Frankly, it's amazing, in a number of ways. You can configure it in a ridiculous number of ways. There's a modding community that's made thousands and thousands of mods. I used to be a hiker, and I love going through woods and mountains. No, it's not the same, but unless Docs get a lot smarter, this is as good as it gets for me.

You need a mod like Even More Dragons to do this, but the first time I had to fight two dragons at the same time was... interesting.

 

[Dottleshead ★]

i too am a hiker and i too have played some Sky Rim.  Get yourself Witcher 3 and thank me later.

[late]

Just now, Dottie said:

i too am a hiker and i too have played some Sky Rim.  Get yourself Witcher 3 and thank me later.

I have  a confession to make. I did get Witcher 3. I didn't like it, I think it was the way the controls were configured.

I never know when or why I will like a game. I keep buying strategy games, hoping I will find one I liked as much as Total Annihilation. Never happens. I ought to like Fallout, but the post-apocalyptic atmosphere and scrounging I found depressing.

Sorry.

[Dottleshead ★]

Fallout 76 is coming out soon.  You're rebuilding in this one.

[The_Karen_Cooper_Incident]

On 4/13/2018 at 1:39 PM, onbike1939 said:

In the last two years, I have had two Dell XPS15 laptops give up on me with the motherboard needing replaced. No point at over £300 so I bought a gaming laptop on the advice of my nephew who is a bit of a computer genius. He added the RAM from my kaput Dell to the new Erazer so it is much more of a machine that I will ever have a use for, given that I use it only for forums and for browsing the net searching for trousers with elastic waistbands. 

I just thought that you should know this.

?

I like your sense of humour.

Couch

[bikeman564™]

1 hour ago, Dottie said:

 

Yeah, I know a lot of gamers that prefer the PC thing.  It's more old school but folks claim the game play and graphics are so much better.  I prefer to downgrade a bit in those areas -- for more comfort.  

I had consoles, Atari, Nintendo, Super Nintendo.  My issue w/ consoles is there is no upgrade. You get forced into buying the next generation so you can play the new games, and they're not backward compatible because they change the game cartridge configuration. I loved The Legend of Zelda, but was not going to buy N64 just to play that game. With PC gaming I can upgrade easily.  For instance, a few years ago I bought a Wolfenstein game and it would not load turned out my video card was not compatible. I spec'd one out and ordered it from Newegg, received it 2 days later, installed it and gamed all night long. Easy.

[Dottleshead ★]

15 minutes ago, Couch_Incident said:

?

I like your sense of humour.

Couch

onbike is a treat.  he's not sexy mind you... we've got kazabooboo for that... but he is indeed a good read.

[Dottleshead ★]

1 minute ago, bikeman564™ said:

You get forced into buying the next generation so you can play the new games, and they're not backward compatible because they change the game cartridge configuration.

There is definitely some of that.  But apart from some really latest and greatest games I've got my eye on -- most of the games I purchase for my console are 6 months old... so I get some great deals.  I just bought the follow up Rise of the Tomb Raiders for $20 and I've spent hours on that and am not done.  When I factor in the cost per hour of entertainment, it's very cheap this way.  Again, I'm not dissing PC gaming at all.  That was my origins.  I just find as I get older and continue to work for tech companies and come home and type drivel into this website and others on my laptop, I'm tired of a screen 12 inches from my nose and I'm tired of dumb keyboards.  I need something different to give my hands and forearms a break.

[Page Turner]

...I can see I've missed a lot by all the time spent riding and gardening. 

Are there any first person shooter gardening games, where you blast gophers and tomato hornworms with automatic weapons fire ?

[Dottleshead ★]

12 minutes ago, Page Turner said:

...I can see I've missed a lot by all the time spent riding and gardening. 

 

An advantage to living in Sacratomato -- even with the infusion of hipsters.

[MickinMD ★]

I'm also waiting for full-fledged VR though I haven't been much of a gamer since within a decade of writing Castles of Darkness, the first animated home-computer adventure game, in 1981.  I do enjoy Anaglyph 3D movies - where you where, typically glasses with one red and one blue lens, and find a 3.2 or more GHz quad-core processor in a typical HP laptop with 8 or more GB Ram is fast enough to run 1080p versions without hesitating.  My favorites, in terms of the 3D looking great, are Avatar 3D and Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D.

[goldendesign]

For years I would pour over specs and read performance comparisons and build my ultimate rig every few years. Lately life has gotten in the way of that and I've bought top-tier configured gaming laptops. I could work, school, and play anywhere I wanted. 

Laptop gaming is doable, fun, and frustrating all at the same time. I've actually been spending more time on my Surface Pro 4 I7 using emulators or slightly older games, surprisingly plays GTA V with middle of the road specs and still maintains around 50fps. 

I've been wanting a tower again as I have this killer 30" monitor just hanging above my treadmill for Roku streams when I'm running. Your quest got me thinking again and of course IGN Deals popped this prebuilt rig into my vision: i5-8400 6-Core, 16GB, 2400MHz, DDR4 ($90 upgrade from 8Gb), single 1Tb HDD (I have a 500Gb SSD that's just asking to be put into this), and of course GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X with a code 50OFF699 it works out to under 1200 delivered. 

Seems I may have to see where this months profit sharing is going....

[onbike1939]

3 hours ago, Couch_Incident said:

?

I like your sense of humour.

Couch

I'm an absolute delight..........if truth be told.

[onbike1939]

2 hours ago, Dottie said:

onbike is a treat.  he's not sexy mind you... we've got kazabooboo for that... but he is indeed a good read.

2

This is so true............ and it's only now when I'm past all that grubby business that I realise just how much a disappointment I must have been to my partners.

If I had more gumption I'd seek them all out and apologise.

[late]

All the parts except Windows are here. Always something going on with Windows.

Some good news, and some bad news. Double HD (2560x1440) monitor prices are slowly coming down.

The bad news is that I think that by the time I get VR, they will have dual 2560x1440 panels. My   video card can't do that. But that's something I can worry about later, at this point, it's just a guess (but a good one, VR needs to be improved a lot).

 

[late]

19 hours ago, onbike1939 said:

 

If I had more gumption I'd seek them all out and apologise.

Jack Nicholson did that in a movie. Life gets a lot weirder than fiction, but I simply can't imagine anything doing that.

Most of the time it would be pointless, they'd have moved on, it was just casual sex, so you share a cup of coffee (or in your case, tea) and that would be the end of that. If he had accidentally caused real harm, what would be the point in bringing up old wounds? You couldn't help, you'd be simply assuaging your conscience at her expense.

Sorry. Some things I just have to work out in my head or it drives me crazy.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a putt, not a drive.

 

[jsharr ★]

19 hours ago, onbike1939 said:

This is so true............ and it's only now when I'm past all that grubby business that I realise just how much a disappointment I must have been to my partners.

If I had more gumption I'd seek them all out and apologise.

both of them?

[onbike1939]

15 hours ago, jsharr said:

both of them?

Thinking about it.......it was the same chap both times.

[maddmaxx ★]

All I have to add to this thread is that there is nothing wrong with trousers that have elastic waistbands.

[LoneWolf]

I no longer use Lian Li cases.

They are made nicely, but the aluminum is too fragile.  I'm not saying all aluminum is too fragile either, but I bought one for WoHB's system, and this past time I redid hers, I replaced it; they bend easy, scratch easier than other cases (maybe the anodizing isn't heavy enough?) and just aren't sturdy.  I went with Fractal Design ARC Mini 2 for hers (I have a Corsair 650D, which is lovely, but I'll probably go smaller next time and closer to the FD).

RAM is one of the two worst things for upgrades right now.  Pricing is horrible for it.  I've stayed with my system (Intel i7-4790K) just because I have 32GB of DDR3 memory in it that cost me $130; 32 gigs of DDR4 memory would cost me double that or more.

Graphics cards are coming down, but still nuts due to currency miners; the graphics card I bought two years ago for 380 is currently "best priced" at $450. Go figure.

I would totally be tempted to go Ryzen 2 at this point if I was in the market. It's a great buy, and competition finally made Intel nervous again; it won't keep them nervous unless someone buys AMD's gear, and the Ryzen and Ryzen 2 have proved to be very competent.  Competition breeds innovation, and this was a textbook example.

 

That said, I use my ThinkPad T460p much more these days than I use my desktop.  Portable, quad-core, dedicated graphics, and 32GB of RAM.  I got the RAM by trading two systems I rebuilt for it, that's the only reason I have that much, but it runs everything short of graphics heavy games.

[onbike1939]

5 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

All I have to add to this thread is that there is nothing wrong with trousers that have elastic waistbands.

Absolutely......these bring a whole host of benefits in terms of comfort and believe me when I wear them, people cross the street to compliment me on my svelte figure.....oh yes.

[Page Turner]

6 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

All I have to add to this thread is that there is nothing wrong with trousers that have elastic waistbands.

 

1 hour ago, onbike1939 said:

Absolutely......these bring a whole host of benefits in terms of comfort and believe me when I wear them, people cross the street to compliment me on my svelte figure.....oh yes.

...I'd just like to point out that it significantly increases the ease with which you might get "pantsed".  Perhaps not a concern for you two, but I'm a worrier.

[onbike1939]

17 hours ago, Page Turner said:

 

...I'd just like to point out that it significantly increases the ease with which you might get "pantsed".  Perhaps not a concern for you two, but I'm a worrier.

That could happen only if you wore them without belt and braces......and I would never do that as I am by nature a very timid person.