Hardware What Hardware Should I Buy? - August 2009

Agreed, we have just lost that shine. I remember the bit reviews being amazing, now their passable.

And Tim, Where are you??

 

To misquote Lincoln: you can please some of the people all the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.

For everyone who said they like the clean look, someone else said they dislike it. Personally, I think it looks more proffessional the old way, but I understand it must have taken a fair while to write up, time that could have been spent on something else. As long as it continues to link to places where I can find more information, then I'm happy.

 

Nice article. Thanks for including the folding rig.

But I have question on that. The Seasonic MD12 750 was selected because it had 4 PCI-E connectors. What I haven't heard here or any other site is why this is necessary. Since the Load is probably not going to exceed 500W, could a smaller PSU like the Corsair HX620 work.

My real question is then, is it bad to use molex adapters to power PCI-E video cards?

 

This post cleared up so many of my questions. I look forward to this article every month. I think it is an excellent feature.

I am sometimes concerned that you rotate parts from month to month substituting a slightly inferior product simply to create diversity from one month to the next (not something I would endorse). I do like how you included water cooling parts in this months issue however.

 

Thanks for the support! ^_^

We are frugal and change our minds hahaha

 

Excellent guide - got accosted by a family member wanting me to build them a pc, just got everything reccommended in your affordable all rounder and left it at that. Thanks for saving me the effort of thinking!

 

Hi folks -- I have a newb question. I'm new to this site, and the world of building PCs. I'm looking to put something together as cheaply as I can. It'll mostly be used for World of Warcraft, but being able to play some of the newer DX10 stuff would be good too.

Would this month's Affordable All Rounder be able to cope extremely well with World of Warcraft (running at 1920, 60+FPS, and maybe even a little AA?)

Thanks for any responses.

 

I find it odd that the Akasa Omega case keeps getting a mention by Bit-Tech (alternative choice listed the Gaming Workhorse). When this was reviewed by Alex et al at Custom PC it only got 17% and I thought this was the mags sister site.

 

http://www.custompc.co.uk/labs/238041/akasa-omega.html is the review link if needed.

 

Yes it will be. The WoW requirements aren't that much, the only issue I wonder is that you'll run out of graphics memory at 1920 with AA on with a 512MB card. You might want to up it to a 4870 1GB perhaps.

 

Thanks very much!

 

Curious about a couple of things on the enthusiast overclocker:

Is DDR3 1600Mhz ram really required? Or can slower stuff be used in place for little performance loss? Also, does 4GB really beat out 2GB or 3GB on XP systems? I'd also say the idea of buying what appears to be an mATX HTPC board seems a little weird, but I shall trust the experts on this one.

Lastly, while I don't really mind the different layout or lack of pictures in the articles (it does look a little less professional, but I honestly don't care too much - info is info). I do wish there was a greater explanation about the individual products selected though. I've been out of the hardware game for a fair old while now, and I don't really feel like I get quite as much info as I'd like to get, even from the buyers guide + linked reviews, as the linked reviews were often written just as the product was released, and don't necessarily help me understand why it's a good idea to buy X product instead of Y product, even if it does tell me X is a good unit.

 

not sure for AMD.

for i5 and i7 (both sockets) 1333Mhz is bare minimal for targeting 200Mhz Bclk overclocking. 1600Mhz will give you some more tweaking head room.

 

You can use 1333, that's fine, but 1600 gives you a little overhead for cranking the HT.

4GB is an absolutely minimum we recommend these days. As for XP? We haven't written for XP in a few years

The 785G works just the same, read the review of it - you can unlock cores with it and it has all the features of bigger boards at less cost. If you want ATX, there are ATX options from both Gigabyte and Asus.

Point duly noted!

 

Cheers for the information Bindi. Obviously you'd have reoriented your writings with the release of vista 2 years ago, but I'm surprised if you completely ignore XP, it's still the majority OS, and there are still plenty of geeks like myself who just prefer it to any other windows incarnation.

edit: When's the next WHSIB out roughly Bindi? Pwease?

 

We don't even have an XP disc in the lab any more. Nearly everyone is on 7 RC1 already and with "6GB" the norm for X58s, we have to use an x64 OS in everything.

Next one is after Lynnfield launch next week. We're waiting on some £100-£120 boards to arrive to assess the overclocking performance in order to get our suggestions correct.

 

Damnit. My system would fail right now and pretty much mean I need to buy this weekend, instead of next xD

 

Just wait.. one .. more.. week..

 

Hmmm... Bindi seems to say that i5 + a £100 board is the new hot ****.

Now that got me excited! I hate you, Richard Swinburne!

 

in the mean time:
http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=2084474

go there for i5 750 benchmarks