DiabloFans

This is hella disappointing, couldn't they have thought of something cooler?

Wireless situations are tricky. Make sure the antenna on the wireless card is pointing to the router and is on tight. You also want to make sure there is low frequency interference, is your computer loud? That will affect the signal. If your computer is facing the wall I suggest to rotate it so the antenna faces the router. Belkin is a mediocre brand so it could be that everything is in fact fine, just the hardware is junk. Wireless cards are actually the worst, USB Adapters provide the best interference protection and can be plugged into the front of your PC if of course it has USB ports. Unless you're using an N-Card with 3 antennas, USB is the way to go. Also, make sure the routers antennas are pointing to your machine, it helps. 2.4 GHz phones effect the signal, as do microwaves, make sure your computer is far away.

Quote from "Krow" »

I think he was sarcastic.

I'd like to hope so :P, there's still a lot of people who think AMD's destroy Intel's like the good old days and the 8800GTX is still the ATI slayer.

Quote from name="Corn Flakes" »

Why Radeon? Why Intel? Why so soon?

Sorry, was that sarcasm? If not, I take it you've been living under a rock for the past 2 years. Intel dominates the market in terms of price/performance/power/overclockability - AMD's are budget processors. 4870 $269 performs 15-40% faster than a 260GTX which is at $290-$350 and only -5-15% slower than a 280GTX, which is roughly around $460-500, I take it you can subtract? If -5%-15% MAX FPS is worth an extra $200 then sure, go Nvidia(Notice the -5%, the 4870 out performs the 280GTX in certain games). Soon for D3? Yes, soon for all the other games out now, no. His computer was 8 years old.

Quote from "Doppelganger" »

Could you edit in the price of each component? Looks great btw.

Done.

I also added a high performance thermaltake sidefan, it seemed to reduce temps by 2-4C and stabilize them.

Quote from "InvincibleEMP" »

what a clusterfuck of cables...

There you go sir!

Quote from "in0luck" »

Damn that Samsung monitor is BRIGHT, reminds me why I almost threw mine out of the window. ;P

I noticed that most Samsung's are bright as hell, 50% of max is ideal.

Quote from "InvincibleEMP" »

100 bucks for all that work, you really did that guy a huge favor. I usually use zalman9500's in my air-cooled builds, whats the idle cpu temp with that OCZ heatsink?
-just a suggestion, you may want to install fan screens in your case with all that airflow. It makes cleaning your case a breeze. besides, they only cost 2 bucks.

It's a good deal, I usually offer that to all my friends/customers unless they want me to come over, then it's beer, lots of it, lol.

I love Zalman's because they're very quiet compared to most heatsinks, though lately in the performance/price ratio they haven't been in my favor. The Q9550 @ stock with speedstep disabled runs at a very cool 23/24/26/25 IDLE, on max load of 39/40/43/38. Amazing heatsink for $29. It performs very good against the crown which is the TRUE (Thermalright Ultra Extreme) which costs around $69 here. I've been running dual-Prime 95 for 4 hours so far, temps read 57/64/57/63 - overall VERY impressed and I love this Quad-core. I'm jealous, though my E8400 @ 4.2 competes very well against it - in a HEAVY multi-threaded enviroment I can see it coming out ontop pretty easily.

Quote from "avanent" »

I dont much see the need for a custom build.... since when were blizz titles demanding?

There's always a need for a custom build, why would you pay an extra premium to purchase it from a large corporation that's buying the components for dirt cheap. You won't be maxing out this game on a high resolution if your computer is 3 years old or more.

Quote from "InvincibleEMP" »

what a clusterfuck of cables... very nice rig tho, what are you charging the man?

$100 for build, software installation, drivers, partitions, overclock profile, software and ghost backup of entire c: drive that he can restore to a fresh final image instead of formatting.

Yeah those cables were a little rough, I loved working with the Antec 900 though I'd wish I had a little more leg room running cables under the certain parts. I did clean it up by 50% of so, will post another pic later.

Here's a pic of mine, overall pretty clean, I ran most of the cables I needed under the right plates.

A user on Diablofans contacted me about building him a gaming computer for D3, I insisted it was a bit early but here it is.

$320 // Q9550 2.833 @ 3.8 GHz 1.29 vcore 39/41/42/42 IDLE, 60C MAX load Processor
$80 // TX650 600w Powersupply
$139 // ASUS P5Q Pro Motherboard (Combo /w proc, reg $165)
$35 // OCZ Vendetta 2 Heatsink ($35 cheaper than a TRUE and performs just as good if not better)
$269 // Diamond 4870 Video Card
$65 // 500 GB 7200.11 Seagate 32 MB Cache HDD
$88 // X-fi Gamer Sound Card
$233 // 22inch Samsung 2253BW Monitor
$81 // 2x2 GB G.Skill 1066 MHz Ram
$95 // Antec 900 Case
$19 // LG 18x DVD/CD Burner
$110 // G5/G11 Mouse/Keyboard
$101 // Z-2300 2.1 Speakers (not included in final)

$1507 Final Price, $3000 + if he went Dell.















Re-sized images, cleaned up cables.

Quote from "goodguy8705" »

I've read most of this thread and I've seen a TON of inaccurate information. It's ridiculous.

I recommend that anyone with questions regarding computers direct them towards me. Do not ask the forum.

What exactly is inaccurate about it? I'd like to know, thanks.

Quote from "s0ur" »

Might still be not enough for the Canadian prices, but.. ahahahah!
I still can't believe that you were using Canadian prices to prove your point.
Yes, you are right, considering those prices, I'm not saying you are not, but you used prices in YOUR country: Not stating you were talking for yourself when these prices are vastly different from the norm, to prove a point to people NOT living in your country. You can see that this isn't proper, no?

I'm not trying to argue that the 280GTX is a better card for the price or a better card overall, but in it's price category, design and league it shouldn't be paired up against the monster that is the 4870 X2. I wouldn't even touch the 280, unless it was around $40-60 more expensive then the 4870. Varth or whatever his name is proclaimed it as such a piece of trash in comparison to the 4870 X2, which obviously it stands it's ground quite well for a card that has a single GPU. Anyways, I'm done on the whole comparison dealie, compare whatever you want I lost interest.

Lemme ask you something, how would you know my 19" was "lowgrade", I bought it 8 years ago. And it's a CRT, it still performs better than your average LCD, at 1600x1200x85Hz. Or are you just flaming for the sake of flaming?

Whew, good thing I don't have an "average LCD" :P. Widescreen, size, quality/performance and weight are large factors in my monitor evaluation, though it's obviously personal opinion - I wouldn't take your monitor for free because it lacks many traits that I'm looking for.

EDIT: You have some good points, from time to time, but overall you are whining and you're flaming people, then take it bad when they answer you in the same tone. Fix it.

I'm just having a GREAT time, you?

Quote from "Varth" »

First off, I don't work at a computer store. I'm a graphic artist and cartoonist and I have a computer business on the side.

What do ya know? I guess you don't "do this shit for a living". Ha.

As for the cheap shot against my 9800 GTX, I "technically" bought it at full price because I used the EVGA step-up program to get it from an 8800 GTS 320 version that I had purchased for 200 dollars at the time for a budget build (which was marked down from the original 300 at newegg). When the 9800 GTX came out for a then unbelievable price of approximately 300 dollars, it was a no brainer to go for it considering the 8800 GTX was STILL selling for over 400 dollars and the 9800GX2 was going to retail for over 600 dollars. You think that was a bad buy now since you actually know the backstory behind it?

No, it wasn't a bad move under those circumstances. Though, it wasn't a super good move either considering the drastic market change that was obvious - either way it doesn't matter anymore.

HERE WE GO AGAIN! The common complaint of "You can't compare a dual-gpu card to a single gpu card." Here's the deal: You've got two different designs. You have the massive Monolithic GPU design and you have the Dual GPU design. One uses brute force, the other uses two GPUs in tandom to perform Alternate Frame Rendering to in theory double performance (which isn't truely the case thanks to drivers). This is the same BS excuse that people made when Intel was stuck with Single Core P4's and AMD had the Athlon X2. "You can't compare performance because it's got an extra processor." Well I'm sorry, but you can. The GTX280 is registured as the "High End Nvidia Product" and the 4870 X2 is registured as the "High End ATI Product" so OF COURSE they are going to be compared because they are supposed to be in the same "high end" price bracket. They both are dual slot cards designed to utilize ONE PCI-Express slot to interface with a computer motherboard. One uses one design and the other uses another design so you can't complain that one design works better than the other, you can only ligitimately complain about the price (which everyone, myself included, does)

Ok... Wow most of that was a bunch of rubbish, your right two different designs that use one PCI-E slot, which are in the same high-end category but are in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LEAGUE from one another. Is it possible to compare them? Duh, yes, is it a fair comparison? Not even close, that's all I'm saying friend.

People made the same BS remarks about the prototype dual 6800, the flawed 7950GX2, the underperforming 1950X2 and 2600X2, and the 3870X2 and the 9800GX2. Now comes the 4870X2. Only thing is, there's more complaints and moaning because for the FIRST time, the dual gpu design is actually paying off whereas before, performance over a single GPU wasn't as spectacular as promised.

Really, the 9800GX2 didn't perform well? I thought it did, right now for $300 I think it's quite the attractive buy.

ATi processors are vastly different from nVidia processors. The most basic way I can explain this is 120 ATi shaders are roughly less than half as powerful as the same amount of nVidia shader processors. Why is that? Because they are achetectually different from the other. If you want to know the details, go google it but there is a reason why the 800 shaders of the 4870 do not outperform the 240 shaders of the GTX280 at resolutions that eliminate the extra ram advantage of the GTX280.

I'm aware how they're different, thanks for the history lesson captain boring. Does everyone that reads a few articles online think they're an engineer now? Christ.

As for "AA being useless at those resolutions" I dont know what monitor you're using, but I'm working with the good stuff here. I'm not talking about your standard NT 6-bit monitors, I'm talking about 8-bit S-IPS monitors. Again, go google it and research it because I'm not going to waste my time going into depth. I'll just say this: It displays a vastly superior picture

What's that have to do with AA being useless at high resolutions while gaming? Stop dodging the statement, no one cares how good your monitor is, when it comes to gaming a TN panel is just as good as your fancy overpriced S panel. I had a few S-panels myself, images are defiantly more vibrant and calibrated but they aren't worth the extra cash if you game. I actually got lucky with my 2253BW, I had to RMA it 3 times because of dead pixel insurance with my provider, I have a dealer license too so everything is free. Anyways, the 4th monitor they sent me, was one of the few monitors that reviewers got, an S-IPS.

Saying a 350 dollar board doesn't perform any better than a 150 dollar board is bullshit. Wait, I'll amend that, saying a 350 dollar board performs better than a 250 dollar board is valid, but comparing either of those to a "budget" 150 dollar board has no barring. You've probably never even researched this because there is a decent difference between the two. Granted I'll never buy a 350 dollar motherboard but the high end boards perform about 10% or more better than a cheaper board in MORE than just framerates. They provide more stable overclocks, they have better RAID performance, they have better communication with RAM and graphics/PCI slots. In about all areas, the more expensive boards tend to deliver about 10% better performance along a large range of parts. Hell, just look at Skulltrail. For 650 dollars, you can have a beast of a board that LITERALLY leaves every other high-end board in the dust.

What's wrong with you? I stated that a $300 motherboard compared to a $150 will give you TRIVIAL gaming performance. I'm quite aware of the perks and useless extras provided on those overpriced premium boards. Haha, now-a-days just about any decent $150 board will provide you with very adequate overclocking performance, all those features that you mentioned are rampant on $150 boards. Someone that "does this shit for a living" should have known that. You're right, that $650 board is just flawless, heck look at these AMAZING benchmarks comparing Skulltrial in the RED to a $200 motherboard. Are you done yet?



Is $650 worth 2 seconds?

Myself, I'm a budget buyer. I don't need the highest frames on the block. I laugh at the people who spend 8 grand on a PC and my computer can still perform to high expectations in the same games and applications. But to ignorantly say that extra money doesn't bring any performance benifits well you sir, you're just not doing your homework.

A budget buyer that has a cadre of S-IPS monitors? Right... Extra money doesn't bring extra performance when that money is spent in the WRONG places. When you have the same components, but different motherboards, the performance gains will be TRIVIAL - I use that word a lot, do you know the meaning of it yet? I don't think you've been doing your homework at all, every poorly written paragraph by you is riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, and can you at least use a spellchecker so it's pleasant to read? Thanks pal, I appreciate it. Please note that I didn't quote anything else because it was garbage that you just keep rehashing.

Quote from "s0ur" »

I think YOU are the one on crack, no offense, but the 8800GT is ~10% slower than the 4850, best case scenario, how could two of them outperform the 4870x2, especially when SLI scaling is slightly worse on average than XF scaling? Or are we takling nv-optimised games, old drivers where x2's XF doesn't scale at all, 1280x1024, no AA, no AF?

I said similar, NOT better. The difference is within 10-40% well justified by the price. Is the 4870 X2 a better card? OF COURSE but as it's obvious a lot of people don't have $600+ to dishout on one card.

About AA not needed at high resolutions:
I will get a 1920x1200 screen, and I will use 16xAF and at least 4xAA. 1920x1200 screens start at 24 inches, which means that you WILL see rough edges. Heck, I was annoyed by rough edges on my 19" CRT(=18" effective) @ 1600x1200.
Scroll up, check the overclockersclub link I gave, click the Crysis benchmark, check it out. There are screenshots. Depending on the size of your screen, you might get a almost 1:1 ratio with a 24" @1920x1200, like I do with my 15" at 1280x800. And believe me, the edges are very noticeable.

I have a 24/22 inch screen and let me tell you, anything past 4xAA is POINTLESS, feel free to bog down your frames to satisfy your ego, I really don't care how you waste your time. 1600x1200 will need A LOT more AA at least 8x to remove the majority of jagged edges. If you think you're doing good, it's all in your head. Why are you telling me all this garbage about how annoyed you were with your lowgrade monitors? I don't care. Turn up your AA and quit crying, low resolutions like that need VERY high amounts of AA.

Comparing a dual card to a single core card, is pretty normal. It's fine. Both cores are on one board. It's ONE card. When you buy it, both cores come, on one PCB, inside the package.

No, comparing a dual card to a single card is a waste of time because they aren't in the same category, I'm aware how the X2 is designed, thanks for the useless post. Though I can see how it's relevant because you're from Europe and the prices are so screwed up there, not to mention overpriced.

You don't need to buy two things. ONE card. It's like saying a 9800GTX can't be compared directly to the 9800GT because the GT has 16 shader processors less.

Are you INSANE? You're comparing something insignificant to a major component that makes the X2 what it is. A far comparison would be the 280GTX's version of an SLI card.

And it's at $550, not $600, and the GTX280 at $430 (newegg prices) => $120 difference, ~30% up to 80% better performance. It's worth the extra money, since the price/perf ratio is even slightly better on the 4870x2. Worst case scenario, one core doesn't scale(lol not going to happen), you still have a 4870 with 1GB on the go (~6-7% less perf than GTX280). If you are interested in a review with one of the 4870x2's cores disabled, I can find one later.
My country, the GTX280 is just 30 euros less. Not worth it, period.

You assume I'm from the States, in Canada the 280GTX is about $410, while the X2 is sitting at around $620 - prices are still inflated on the X2. While I can buy 2 8800 GT's for $180, or 3 even for $250. Obviously not the performance on an X2, but close and a hell of a lot cheaper. I'm sure we can all agree that the 280GTX is a ripoff, but there's no point comparing it to something that is in another league.