DiabloFans

Quote from arandan

no, diablo 3 is all about farming items in the most efficient way possible, turning melee classes into ranged ones is just ... retarded and a complete waste of time.

a moment enjoyed is never a moment wasted

Anyone have good sign ideas for the D3 team or blizzcon in general?

were occupying blizzcon, everyone is welcome to join our comical and violent occupation

here is my sign, linked through twitter.

http://yfrog.com/obw42apj

Thought I'd show you all the next Diablo III creature sculpt I did:

I'll take some better pics soon, this pic looks more squished than it actually is.

The begining of Down with the Sickness, by Disturbed. Every time I'm bored and start tapping something on a desk, it's always that song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tsobsr8nF7w

EDIT: Use the [media ] tags

So, as I was attempting to discover the whereabouts of The Viper Tomb in act 2 with my level 51 Druid I was roaming through The Lost City. It got me thinking about the diversity within the act itself. When you hear the name "Lost City" don't you expect something a bit grand? Almost like your going to discover Atlantis or something? Yet, The Lost City, looks pretty much, exactly like everything else in Act 2. Now, of course there is the general theme of the act but there could be some diversity within the act. It's pretty bad when, the area of the last waypoint looks exactly like the area where you first leave town. This pattern is present throughout the entire game really. Save for maybe the occasional dungeon within the act. Act 2 is what really hit it home for me, the entire thing is just a big dessert, yes it's the theme but also, seeing the exact same thing the entire time does get a bit stale wouldn't you agree?

So, hopefully, in Diablo 3, within each act we can expect to see a bit more diversity. Of course each act will retain it's overall theme but hopefully there will be things that sets different areas within the act, apart from say, the first thing you see in the act.

Do you agree? I'm curious as to what others think about this. Some may be fine with the general layout of Diablo 2 and think it find for D3 but personally I would like a bit more diversity within the acts (It's a bit ironic that I keep asking for diversity, yet I use the same word through the entire post lol).

I've noticed an increasing amount of people looking into purchasing new parts for either building a new PC, or for upgrading their current PC. So, like the title says, this is where I'd like as much of the future discussion as possible to happen in regards to computers and builds (maybe eventually we can get our own subforum:cool:).

I think condensing some information will really help with some of the new builders. So I'll start by giving a "quick" rundown on how to pick out the parts to build a gaming pc. Mind you, this guide is mostly for beginners, and some things are generalized or completely skipped over. I will follow this up at a later time with an Overclocking guide.

The first thing to building your own pc is to have the right tools ready.

1. Screwdrivers, phillips and flathead. Preferably with magnetic heads. One long, one stubby, and one pencil screwdriver of each would be advised.
2. Flashlight.
3. Tweezers/Needle nose pliers
4. Anti-static mat/Anti-static wrist strap - I'm a hypocrit, since I have never used one, but it is still advised whenever touching any PC equipment to avoid shorting out parts with static electricity. If you refuse to get one like myself, I would suggest working on a tile surface, washing your hands before working on the system, touching a piece of bare metal on the case, and not moving around a whole lot while working on the PC. For my work surface, I simply turn a motherboard bag inside out and lay it on my desk. The inside is the only part of the bag that is actually anti-static.
5. Ambition and a little bit of a mechanical mind:thumbsup:

These are the individual parts that you will need in order to actually run your PC. I will be discussing each in detail.

1. PC Case
2. CD/DVD Drive(I don't think anyone is using Floppy drives anymore)
3. Hard Drive (HDD)
4. Motherboard (MB)
5. Central Processing Unit (CPU)
6. CPU Heatsink/Fan/water cooling solution and additional case fans/WC solutions
7. RAM modules
8. Power Supply
9. Video Card
10. Monitor
11. Keyboard & Mouse
12. Speakers

1. PC Case

This is the part of the computer that houses all of your pc components. Things you'll want to look for:

A. Case Size - This depends on the space in which you will be keeping your case, and what size of components you will be using. Such as your video card, your CPU heatsink/fan, MB, your PSU, and how many HDD's and disc drives you are planning to run. Make sure your case supports the size of MB your are looking to run (ATX, MicroATX, ITX, etc)

B. Case Cooling - This is important because there are a slew of cases out there that have inadequate cooling. Lots of small fans (80mm or less) in a case isn't really that efficient. The smaller the fan the faster it needs to spin in order to push the same volume of air as a larger fan. You should look for a case with the smallest size fans being 120mm. Although I prefer 140 mm fans and larger for a quieter case. More recently there have become a lot of cases offering fan slots of up to 250mm.

C. Front Panel I/O ports - Every case comes standard with 2 USB ports and a headphone and mic jack. Some PC cases have additional ports which could be necessary to you if you need an eSATA port or Firewire. But with USB 3.0 out now, most people will ignore eSATA and Firewire.

D. Miscellaneous Features - This includes things like case color, case design, cable management features, water cooling capability, upgradeable design (aka future proof), no tool drive bays, removeable motherboard tray, outwards facing hard drive enclosure, etc. These features shouldn't be worried about when you are first choosing the above features of the case. These should be considered bonuses to the case, so they should mainly be used as a tiebreaker when you can't choose between 2 or 3 cases.

2. CD/DVD Drive

Choosing one of these is pretty standard. The options for these are few. CD, DVD, DVD writer, BlueRay, BlueRay writer, DVD/BlueRay, and finally Lightscribe. Most people will need at the very least a DVD drive. You might want a BlueRay/DVD combo, or even a BlueRay burner. But mainly this choice is dependent upon what media you have or plan on using.

3. Hard Drive (HDD)

The HDD is where you will be storing all of your files and documents. Size is the biggest factor, with speed being the second factor in buying one of these. Companies are now making HDD's up to 2 TB in size, which is more than any average person will ever need. Speeds of HDD's currently range from 3,200rpm, to 15,000rpm. The faster the rpm, the faster the transfer rate of files, and also faster loading times/boot times.

Now there is also another kind of HDD, which is the Solid State Drive (SSD). These actually don't have a spool or RPM. They are closer in design to your RAM modules, in the way that they store information. Since these SSD's don't require the read head to move to different places, there is virtually no delay when opening several high demand programs. Also, the boot times are significantly dropped. The drawback to these is that they are still a fairly new technology, so the prices are much higher, and the storage capacity is much lower.

4. Motherboard (MB)

This is the part of the computer that everything runs off of. Power flows into this board, and is distributed to everything else from here. MB's have several options.

These are the main ones to look at:

A. Size - ATX, Micro ATX, ITX, etc. ATX and MicroATX are the standard sizes right now, and most people will be looking for the ATX size, simply because they usually have better features and are more cost efficient. Make sure your case supports the type of board you plan on using.

B. Chip support - There will come a point when you need to decide whether you want an AMD platform or an Intel platform. Both Intel and AMD have their strong points, and both will get the job done equally well. This is dependent upon which CPU you plan to use.

C. PCI Express - These are what you use to plug in your Video Card. Basically every modern MB has at least 1 PCIe x16 slot. x16 stands for the actual slot, but what gets confusing is that not all slots run at that x16 width. Most MB's only have the 1st PCIe slot wired for x16, and any subsequent slots are wired at either x8 or x4. The difference in these is amount of the bandwidth that the information travels on. Now the only reason you would really need to worry about the additional slots being x8 or x4 wired, is if you are running multiple cards in SLI or Crossfire. But even then, the difference is negligible. The reason is that the only cards that fully max out the x8 bandwith consistantly are the super high end cards such as the ATI 57xx series and the Nvidia 285 and 295. But the 295 barely maxes out the x16 bandwidth at full load. l your different add on cards, such as a video card, a sound card, fan controllers, internet connectors, etc. Video cards are only made with the PCI Express connector now, so how many PCIe slots are on your board will determine if you only want to run a single card, dual SLI/Crossfire, Triple SLI/Xfire, or even Quad SLI/Xfire for ultra gaming capabilities.

D. Features & PCI slots - SATA ports, IDE ports, RAM slots, 3pin fan connectors, I/O back panel, all of these will influence your decision. SATA ports and IDE ports are the slots used to connect your hard drives and CD drives to the MB. SATA 2.0 is standard currently, but SATA 3.0 is just starting to be added to boards, and it is significantly faster data transportation. Getting a board with 2+ of these will be necessary in the near future, but at the moment will cause the price of the board to be slightly higher than a similarly equipped board. Same goes for the new USB 3.0 ports.

IDE is what was once used in place of SATA. It is pretty obsolete now, and should only be looked for if you have an old HDD with that connection.

RAM slots come in DDR2 and DDR3 currently. DDR5 is not far off, since it is currently used in Video Cards. DDR2 and DDR3 are not interchangeable, so it would be wise to figure out which one you need and stick with it. DDR2 is on its way out the door, so most of you will be looking at DDR3, which generally have higher speeds and greater capacity. 4 ram slots is standard on a board, but some high end boards have 6 or even 8 slots. 3 pin fan connectors are a nice addition and most board companies are adding at least 3, which leaves some room open on your Power Supply connectors.

Finally the back panel has all of your ports that you connect your onboard sound, USB, eSATA, SATA, Keyboard & Mouse, ethernet cable, etc. Which of these is on your board is entirely up to what your devices use.

5. Central Processing Unit (CPU)

This is the part of the PC which does all the operations. Again you must choose between AMD or Intel, and match that with your Motherboard slot. AM2+ and AM3 are the newest slot for AMD, and the 1366 socket (with the i7) is the newest for Intel. It would be wise to look into purchasing within those sockets, as the older AM2, 939, 775, and 1156 are all the older sockets which will soon be outdated, especially with the new 6+ core CPU's on their way to market as this is written. Once your brand and socket type are decide upon, core quantity and core speed are the two main factors to look at.

A. Cores - CPU's are available in single, dual, and quad cores currently. Dual cores are the standard right now, with Quad core CPU's starting to replace them. As stated earlier, Hexa core will be available by late 2010 to early 2011. And in the year 2012, 12 and 16 core processors will be available.

B. Speed - Faster is better. You can find CPU's sold with speeds up to 3.4Ghz. Although it should be noted that with overclocking, speeds of up 4.0+Ghz can be achieved, given the right skill and components.

Note: I will be covering how to overclock CPU's in a future article.

6. CPU Heat sink/Fan/water cooling solution

If you are reading this, most likely you are not a PC building veteran. So in that case, put water cooling out of mind right now. Sure water cooling has an awesome potential for working great, and cooling your system to new low temps so that you can overclock the system to new highs. But it also has just as much potential for having a difficult install, and more importantly, causing catastrophic failure of every single expensive part in your PC. If your water cooling solution develops even the slightest leak, you can kiss all your money goodbye. So I highly recommend waiting until you have completely finished your first PC build, then when you start an entirely new build, you can consider starting with CPU water cooling and working into full water cooling from there.

CPU heat sinks should be entirely avoided. Make sure you are purchasing a CPU heat sink andfan combo. Be wary of the "Rifle" style coolers because they are usually MASSIVE, and if you don't have a case greater than 9", you most likely won't be able to utilize a side fan on the case, or you might have other clearance issues. You will also need to check to make sure it clears any RAM you plan to use, and also the North-bridge cooler on your Motherboard (the largest heat sink built into the motherboard).

Things to look for when choosing a heat sink/fan combo:

A. Fan size - Plan on getting a heat sink with a minimum of a 92mm fan. Any smaller, and it will do nearly an identical job of cooling as the stock CPU cooler, and ends up being a waste of money. Also, if you go larger, you will be able to overclock your cpu more, while being able to bleed off more heat.

B. Heatsink Material - Gold, Silver, and Copper are some of the best conductors, but since this is a pc and not a Rolls Royce, you will only see Copper, Nickel, and Aluminum. Copper is ideal, with Nickel being virtually tied with Aluminum, and it depends on construction for their conductivity.

C. Heat Pipes - These are hollow metal rods that work their way through the heatsink fins in order to bleed off the heat into a greater surface area, fascilitating cooling. They are usually made of copper, but can be coated in nickel, made from nickel, or made from aluminum. Copper is ideal.

Additional Notes: Ideally, get a CPU Direct Contact cooler. This is where the heat pipes directly touch the top of the CPU when mounted. This maximizes the ability for heat to transfer into the heat pipes, and away from the CPU.

Also, look into getting a brand of high quality thermal paste. I use Tuniq TX-2 paste, which works incredibly for my application. But Arctic Silver is outstanding followed closely by Antec, Cooler Master, and Zalman pastes.

7. RAM Modules

Random Access Memory is what RAM stands for. These are used to temporarily store massive amounts of data, and can be accessed in any order. When looking at RAM, you will need to look at a few things:
RAM Type - DDR, DDR2, DDR3, and in the near future, DDR4 (2011-2012). Each of these has a different key slot on the RAM, so they are not interchangeable. (DDR4 hasn't been revealed yet, so compatability is questionable) Make sure your MB supports the correct RAM before purchasing.

Speed - 1066Mhz, 1200Mhz, 1333Mhz, 1600Mhz, etc. These are the rated speed that the RAM can operate at, but it is not limited to these particular speeds. All RAM can be slowed down to a certain extent, and most RAM can be overclocked to faster speeds. But you will need to match this speed up with your motherboard.

Example: The MSI 770-G45 MB is compatible with DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600(OC). This means that have to use a RAM with a minimum speed of 800, but anything greater will work. The MB will automatically detect the standard settings. In the case of Corsair DHX XMS3 1600, the MB detected it as a 1066 RAM at timings of 9-9-9-28-37. I had to adjust the RAM multiplier in the BIOS, RAM voltage settings, and also the timings to reach an optimal speed of 1333 with timings of 7-7-7-22-29. I will cover how I reached these settings in a future Overclocking Article.

8. Power Supply Unit (PSU)

This could be the most import part of your PC. The PSU is what delivers the power directly to your components. It is imperitive that you purchase a quality brand, high performance PSU. Many of the high quality brands will offer low end PSU's, so be wary.

Things to look for:

A. Wattage - This will NOT be the standard advertised maximum wattage. 500w, 600w, 700w, 1200w, etc. What you are looking for is the actual continuous maximum wattage which will almost always be lower, and an odd number (Example: 750w rated PSU, cont rated 744) Once again, the higher is better (aside from Amperage). Ideally you should look for a PSU with a maximum continuous wattage of double what you are planning to draw from the PSU. This will increase the life of the PSU, the stability and quality of power delivered, and the PSU will be significantly quieter.

B. Amperage - On the 12v rail to be specific. The best power supplies still use a single 12v rail. This is so that all the amperage is combined, and you don't have to worry about how much power is going to each component. Use the equation Wattage = Voltage x Amperage to determine if the power supply will work for your application. If the PSU does have multiple 12v rails, add those up. So these are approximations to what you will need for a PSU in a given system:

Mild -Average Performance system - 35A (400-500W) SIngle Nvidia 8800/9800 or ATI 4870 will do fine with this.

Average -High Performance system - 40A (600-650W) Nvidia 275, ATI 5870. Or low end SLI/Xfire.

High - Ultra High Performance system - 60A (850W+) High end 5890 Xfire/295 SLI

Note: These can vary a bit depending on how many HDD's, optical drives, CPU, and if you have components overclocked.

C. Modular vs Non-Modular - Cables disconnectable (modular) vs cables permanently attached (non-modular). Modular used to be less stable than non-modular, but advances in technology have brought modular up to par. This choice is mostly preference. Modular does offer the advantages of removing cables that you don't need, making the PC case cleaner, and less cluttered. The side effect of this is that removing excess cables allows air to flow better in the case, effectively cooling components more efficiently.

D. Connectors - Basically every main brand PSU (Antec, XFX, Silverstone, Rosewill, Thermaltake, Corsair, Apevia, Coolermaster, etc) above 450w has every cable you will ever need.

Cables to double check:

1. 24 pin power cable
2. 4+4 pin power cable
3. 6+2 pin cables for Video cards
4. 4 pin power periferals
5. SATA power connectors

E. 80 Plus Ratings - I would highly recommend a PSU with a minimum of an 80+ rating. This rating system is just a measurement of how efficient and stable the power is coming from the PSU to the MB. 80+ is will run at approximately 80% efficiency. Meaning that only 20% of the energy moving through the PSU is being disappated through heat. The levels of the ratings are 80+, 80+ Bronze, 80+ Silver, 80+ Gold, with each step up being approximately 5% more efficient.

9. Video Card

This is probably what most people are concerned about when playing video games, and rightfully so. The first thing you should choose between is if you want an ATI card or an Nvidia card. Both have their pluses and minuses, and they are always in a power struggle for who has the best, fastest, most powerful video card. As a generalization, Nvidia cards will be more expensive than an equal performance ATI card. At the time of this writing, Nvidia will be nearing their release of the new 300 series cards. This release will drop the prices significantly of all the current Mid-high to super-high end cards.

Things to look for when purchasing:

A. Connectors - Make sure that you have the correct power connection from your PSU. This is essential, as it won't turn on if you don't have the correct power. This could be a 6 pin connector, a 6+2 pin connector, or even a 6+2 pin with an additional 6 pin connector.

B. Size - This is very important as well, because if you can't fit the card in your case, you can't use it. Check clearances inside your case and match it with the length of the card. Also check how far your HDD's will stick out, and which direction the power supply cable will extend from the video card.

C. Performance - This pretty much comes down to what you can afford. The faster (Mhz), and higher the number (ATI 5890, Nvidia 295), the better.

D. Cooling - Most name brand video cards (XFX, HIS, ASUS, EVGA, Sapphire, MSI) come with quality cooling, but some off brands (Powercolor, Biostar, Sparkle, Zotac, BFG Tech) will come with cheap cooling that will inevitably fail.

10. Monitor

Pretty simple, the thing you look at.

Things to look for:

A. Connections - Does your video card have the HDMI, DVI, and/or VGA inputs? You'll need to match these up with your video card in order to, well, to see what's on the screen, obviously.

B. Screen Resolution - How big do you really want to go? How much detail do you want or need?

C. Type of screen - Do you want to go with the old Cathode Ray Tube monitor? Probably not. You will most likely be looking for either an LCD or an LED screen. The differences are minute, although LED is supposed to be more accurate, brighter color. Although LED screens are brand new technology, so they are quite a bit more expensive still.

11. Keyboard & Mouse

There are a lot of impressive gaming keyboards and mice out there. This is something nobody can really tell you what to pick. It all depends on what feels good to you, and how many buttons you need, and how many macros you want to set.

12. Speakers

What sounds good to you? It is kind of difficult to pick out a good sound system these days with so many cheap systems being produced. Generally the cheap ones are cheap for a reason.

Speakers will come in a whole slew of combinations from 2.0 to 4.1, to 6.0 to the ultimate in surround sound, the 8.1. For most gamers, a solid 2.1 setup will be sufficient. The first number stands for how many speakers are in the system, and the .1 is for the sub woofer.

Conclusion

There you go! A quick (or not so quick) rundown of everything you need to get started with building a gaming PC. Make sure you buy some compressed air to clean all the dust off your awesome new system!!! Good luck!!:thumbsup:

Feel free to post any questions, comments, concerns, or builds in this thread. That is what this is for.

It is all quite simple..

How does a company like Blizzard make the most money out of their games?

Lans and Openbnet is nothing more then a CO-OP mode for people that didnt buy the game.

It seems like they want to remove that option, everyone that wants to play with another person has to buy the game.

.... Its all about the money folks. And to be honest, i don't mind at all. It'll take precious development time into parts of the game I'll never touch.