The Official Unofficial Frau Kaleun Destroys The World* Thread - Page 3

Herr-Berbunch · 06-09-11, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Are you mad, sir? An undertaking this massive and earthshaking can hardly be contained in one measly thread.

Totally fuming, how dare you start yet another thread for something which you've remotely aspired to in a previous thread, just where do you think you are?

Oh, hang about, it's SUBSIM. Phew, for a moment there I thought I was in any other forum on the web run by snotty nosed geeky kids who think just because they know something off the top of their heads that nobody dare to ask a question!

As for annoying Jan, I'd recommend this one perhaps...

Taken from this site, http://www.psdeluxe.com/articles/ins...-case-designs/ with some amazing looking cases - not all as good as that one though.

Sailor Steve · 06-09-11, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

Phew, for a moment there I thought I was in any other forum on the web run by snotty nosed geeky kids who think just because they know something off the top of their heads that nobody dare to ask a question!

Talking about me behind my back again, eh? Well, I'll figure out something nasty for you! Just you wait and see if I don't!

frau kaleun · 06-09-11, 02:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Talking about me behind my back again, eh? Well, I'll figure out something nasty for you! Just you wait and see if I don't!

...and your little dog, too! *cackle*

Sailor Steve · 06-09-11, 03:05 PM

Oh, so now I'm not only a snot-nosed geeky kid who thinks that just because I know something off the top of my head that nobody dares to ask a question, I'm also green with envy? Well, I AM. SO THERE! I HATE YOU ALL! I'll take my ball and go home! I will! That'll teach you!

frau kaleun · 06-09-11, 08:03 PM

frau kaleun · 08-04-11, 06:53 PM

Finally starting to get back in the mood for this build...

plus my $10 prepaid AmEx card rebate thingy that I got from one of the purchases upthread just showed up...

plus I was just doing my bills and balancing my checking account in Quicken and found $125 that I'd entered in the register as "set aside" for some expense, which I then proceeded to pay later without deleting the "set aside" entries. Why, hello there, money I didn't know I had!

So I'm wondering what nice addition I can make to the stockpile without going over (at least by too much) the cashola I just came into. A Blu-ray drive? Some RAM?

Or should I just go stark raving bonkers and get a Radeon HD5870 so Arclight never ever has to mention it again?

In sadder news, the two big fat hard drives I ordered over TWO MONTHS ago have never arrived, nor has any information about why they never arrived. At least they never charged my credit card... but I still want to make sure the order is officially cancelled just in case.

Herr-Berbunch · 08-04-11, 07:01 PM

Get the graphics card. You know you want it otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned it...

frau kaleun · 08-04-11, 07:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

Get the graphics card. You know you want it otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned it...

I will have to look at prices again. I haven't checked in a while. Plus I still have the initial expenses on the new (to me) Sonata, it's going in to have one last little problem taken care of next week and I don't know how much that will cost.

OTOH, I also expect to have some extra bits of cash coming in from here and there over the rest of the month - a tiny bit of mom's estate is ready to be doled out, I'll be selling my old car to whoever can give me the most $ the quickest, plus it's one of my biannual three-paycheck months and I budget all my monthly expenses for just two paychecks. That's one full paycheck that no rent or other bill is gonna take a bite out of. Depending on how expenses pan out on the car I could either have lots of extra cash or just break even.

Edit: been looking around for the 5870 and, wow, they do not seem to be readily available at all at any of the places I remember looking last time (i.e. merchants I already know and trust). At any rate I will probably wait on a gfx card decision until last, because I already have one on hand and there are too many other things I must buy like memory and a PSU otherwise the rig doesn't get built at all.

frau kaleun · 08-05-11, 10:29 PM

Just checked my email and got a response back on my missing hard drives - they shipped them right after I sent my inquiry, so I'm not sure what happened with the original order.

I'm really glad it worked out, I was in the process of looking around online for something else in case the order got cancelled and was not happy with the selection and prices I was seeing.

FedEx shows an expected delivery date of Monday and my card's been charged so I guess that can count as this pay period's purchase until I see how other expenses work out next week. Just saw that the RAM I had picked out dropped in price overnight so that may be next on the list if the new price holds for a bit.

Also found a little local computer shop that buys and sells components. They're right next door to a Chinese takeout place I stopped at. Already closed when I was over there but I might have to pop in some time and see if I can get a deal on something I need. Might also be an opportunity to make some cash on whatever halfway decent stuff I have left over after the new build.

Castout · 08-06-11, 06:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Talking about me behind my back again, eh? Well, I'll figure out something nasty for you! Just you wait and see if I don't!

Did your ear feel hot?

frau kaleun · 08-06-11, 10:34 PM

Okeydoke, techie gurus - I need some recommendations for a Blu-ray burner.

Been looking around and don't really know what to choose. Most of the ones with decent reviews (at least on Amazon, Newegg, and TD) don't seem to come with the software necessary to play/burn BR discs, so I guess I will need to look for that as well. So I need good recommendations for a combo of drive and software. And I will also want the software to work with my current LG DVD/CD RW drive.

Realized just today that I will be off work the week of Sept 5th so that is my target date for the build. Well, it was always the target date, but I kinda forgot that with so much other stuff going on the past few weeks. So I need to figure out what I absolutely need to pick out and order so it arrives on time. Some little stuff I can pick up locally at a reasonable price, but all the major purchases I know I'll probably get cheaper online, plus Subsim will get a cut of any Amazon orders.

So far, the following things should be covered (I have them, or should have them next week):

Motherboard
CPU
Case
Hard drive(s)
RAM
Gfx card
Sound card
DVD/CD drive

The one major thing I still gotta get is the PSU. Leaning towards a Corsair for that purchase.

Also the Blu-ray drive as noted above. I know I could always get it later and add it then, but for things I know I want I'd rather have them and get them in there at the start.

I will probably also get a new keyboard and mouse and take the current combo to work, where my old hand-me-down from home is getting really worn out. Plus I miss my Microsoft Ergonomic mouse!

I've had great luck with Logitech but nothing was ever as comfortable as that MS "natural" mouse I had. My biggest question is whether to buy the wireless mouse & kb combo or just get the wireless mouse and buy the wired version of the kb separately. I had the wireless combo before but had issues with both the kb and mouse "dropping out" in terms of response. So when I was ready for new ones, I got a wired kb instead. Still got a wireless mouse, because I just can't go back to having that thing wired, what a pain.

But I discovered the new mouse would still drop out, so I ended up buying a little extension thing for the USB connection, so now the receiver thingy for the mouse is out closer to the mouse instead of sticking out of the back panel of the computer, and since then the mouse works fine. So I'm wondering if the same trick will work just as well for a wireless keyboard, which I'd really like to have again.

Still undecided about the gfx card issue - whether to stick with one 5770, add a second one to the mix, or upgrade. Since the 5870 seems difficult to find at anything like a reasonable price, I doubt I'll go that route. Another 5770 is still readily available at a great price, but apparently there's also a 6770 that is basically the same card but with Blu-ray support? I dunno if that's gonna make any difference in playing Blu-rays on the rig.

One thing I found out today, I stopped in the little computer shop I found and they buy abd sell a wide variety of used tech stuff, including some stuff that I didn't think there was even a market for any more. Judging by what they had on the shelves I may be able to make a quick bit of cash with anything I have left over that I don't need. In fact I've got stuff around here now that I know I'll never use that I could probably unload there. I should probably start gathering that up and see if I can use it to defray the cost of new purchases.

Oh and I definitely need some new headphones, I don't use them often but the cheap little ones I've had for years are falling apart.

Arclight · 08-07-11, 12:09 AM

Can't recommend specific model, but the Sony Optiarc drives have never let me down. Solid units.

As for the graphics card, since it's a gaming rig (it is, right? Mainly?) the best thing you can do is plug in the most powerfull card you can afford. At this point I'd just make sure it has DX11, then get whatever is the best bang-for-buck.

SLI/Crossfire, that's up to you entirely. Just be aware that it doesn't work as well or at all depending on the game (should work fine in most cases), so it wouldn't hurt to do a little research on the games you play. It used to be that a multi-gpu setup scaled much better at very high resolutions, but I'm not sure that still holds true.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/...crossfire-faqs

I can heartily recommend Sennheiser for headphones.

frau kaleun · 08-07-11, 12:57 AM

Well, I don't do a ton of gaming but when I do it I want it to be as awesome and frustration-free as possible. But TBH the games I play tend to be older and require less in the way of hardware.

OTOH I tend to buy older games because I never have the hardware to run the newer ones.

I am looking right now at the Radeon HD 6850, which is still reasonably priced for me. A lot will depend on how other expenses work out over the next couple of weeks. But I will also have to decide something soon, because choice of PSU will depend a lot on what (if anything) I decide to do about gfx cards. I've run three different online PSU calculators, and I get recommendations from 750W to 1000W depending on which card (and how many of them) I specify.

It's funny because the one at Corsair returns the lowest wattage requirements, and they'd be the only place of the three that would be trying to sell me a PSU.

Arclight · 08-07-11, 01:36 AM

To the best of my knowledge no gaming PC with anything short of a top-end or multi-gpu setup will ever even use 500W. But you want more than that to keep the PSU from running full tilt under load. Not only does it diminish it's lifetime, efficiency drops as well along with higher running temps.

I ran a 520W (Corsair built by Seasonic, HX520W) with an Q9550 @ 3.4GHz, 4GB DDR2, 8800GTS 512, 3-4 HDs, 5 fans, an add-in soundcard and over half a dozen USB devices. Used it like that 2-3 years without issue.

I have swapped it out for an Antec 650W now, but only so I could cobble together all the older components I had around into what now functions as a server 24/7. That old PSU is still going strong.

I've always used the Antec calculator: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine
(please ignore the advertising, it wasn't there in the past

)

Just ran my setup through and it recommends 468W, 418W minimum (and that's assuming 90% of maximum theoretical use, which is not that likely to occur). Realistically, that would be enough, but it would still have the PSU at almost 90% capacity during peak load, so not ideal. That recommendation is really only the bare minimum you should look at.

The old 520W did warm up a little under load, but this 650W... it just doesn't bloody care. Could toss another GTX460 in there and maybe then it would start to heat up a little (ok, definetly would heat up a little, but still

).

Think a 6850 would serve you well, about the same as my 460 (little faster actually), no complaints in terms of performance. It's no monster, but if I have to hold back it's never by much (1680x1050).

frau kaleun · 08-07-11, 02:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arclight

The old 520W did warm up a little under load, but this 650W... it just doesn't bloody care. Could toss another GTX460 in there and maybe then it would start to heat up a little (ok, definetly would heat up a little, but still

).

Think a 6850 would serve you well, about the same as my 460 (little faster actually), no complaints in terms of performance. It's no monster, but if I have to hold back it's never by much (1680x1050).

I run the same resolution. My only concern with the 6850 is the size, the Sapphire is 10" long which would only leave about 1" of clearance between the end of the card and the hard drive cage. The shortest 6850 I've found so far is the PowerCooler version which looks to be about 1" shorter and the MSI is about the same. Not really familiar with those two brands and the PowerCooler seems to get a lot of low marks for noise and poor customer service.

The HDD cage is sideways though so it's not like all the drive cables would be poking out towards the card, so I might be okay with a 10" card unless having less clearance there might affect airflow and cooling? The Sapphire seems to have some detractors for flimsy design but I certainly don't feel that way about the 5770.

My Asus mobo manual recommends a minimum of 1000W for dual GPUs, it doesn't even distinguish between low and high-end cards. For two 6850s the calc at their website recommends 950W.

That calc you linked to is one I found before, I'll check it again...

ah, I see I missed something the first time, I counted all USB devices, even the ones that don't draw power from the system. And I think I counted my external storage drive as a hard drive and it doesn't draw power from the PSU either.

Well even with two 6850s, and all case fans including the max # of optional ones (WITH LEDS!!!!

), and opting for 30% capacitor aging plus 100% CPU Utilization and System Load, it never tops out at anything over 750W. Which is in line with what Corsair recommended. I was looking at the 850W units because I'm not sure anything lower is available in the line I wanted anyway but I'll keep shopping around. At least I won't worry about shelling out big bucks for a 1000+W monster.

06-09-11, 03:05 PM	#34
Sailor Steve Eternal Patrol Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: High in the mountains of Utah Posts: 50,369 Downloads: 745 Uploads: 249	Oh, so now I'm not only a snot-nosed geeky kid who thinks that just because I know something off the top of my head that nobody dares to ask a question, I'm also green with envy? Well, I AM. SO THERE! I HATE YOU ALL! I'll take my ball and go home! I will! That'll teach you! __________________ “Never do anything you can't take back.” —Rocky Russo

08-04-11, 07:01 PM	#37
Herr-Berbunch Kaiser Bill's batman Join Date: May 2010 Location: AN72 Posts: 13,203 Downloads: 76 Uploads: 0	Get the graphics card. You know you want it otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned it... __________________

08-07-11, 12:09 AM	#42
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	Can't recommend specific model, but the Sony Optiarc drives have never let me down. Solid units. As for the graphics card, since it's a gaming rig (it is, right? Mainly?) the best thing you can do is plug in the most powerfull card you can afford. At this point I'd just make sure it has DX11, then get whatever is the best bang-for-buck. SLI/Crossfire, that's up to you entirely. Just be aware that it doesn't work as well or at all depending on the game (should work fine in most cases), so it wouldn't hurt to do a little research on the games you play. It used to be that a multi-gpu setup scaled much better at very high resolutions, but I'm not sure that still holds true. http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/...crossfire-faqs I can heartily recommend Sennheiser for headphones. __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

08-07-11, 01:36 AM	#44
Arclight Navy Seal Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese. Posts: 8,467 Downloads: 53 Uploads: 10	To the best of my knowledge no gaming PC with anything short of a top-end or multi-gpu setup will ever even use 500W. But you want more than that to keep the PSU from running full tilt under load. Not only does it diminish it's lifetime, efficiency drops as well along with higher running temps. I ran a 520W (Corsair built by Seasonic, HX520W) with an Q9550 @ 3.4GHz, 4GB DDR2, 8800GTS 512, 3-4 HDs, 5 fans, an add-in soundcard and over half a dozen USB devices. Used it like that 2-3 years without issue. I have swapped it out for an Antec 650W now, but only so I could cobble together all the older components I had around into what now functions as a server 24/7. That old PSU is still going strong. I've always used the Antec calculator: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/PSUEngine (please ignore the advertising, it wasn't there in the past ) Just ran my setup through and it recommends 468W, 418W minimum (and that's assuming 90% of maximum theoretical use, which is not that likely to occur). Realistically, that would be enough, but it would still have the PSU at almost 90% capacity during peak load, so not ideal. That recommendation is really only the bare minimum you should look at. The old 520W did warm up a little under load, but this 650W... it just doesn't bloody care. Could toss another GTX460 in there and maybe then it would start to heat up a little (ok, definetly would heat up a little, but still ). Think a 6850 would serve you well, about the same as my 460 (little faster actually), no complaints in terms of performance. It's no monster, but if I have to hold back it's never by much (1680x1050). __________________ Contritium praecedit superbia.

06-09-11, 08:03 PM	#35
frau kaleun Rear Admiral Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Skyri--oh who are we kidding, I'm probably at Lowe's. Again. Posts: 12,706 Downloads: 168 Uploads: 0

08-04-11, 06:53 PM	#36
frau kaleun Rear Admiral Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Skyri--oh who are we kidding, I'm probably at Lowe's. Again. Posts: 12,706 Downloads: 168 Uploads: 0	Finally starting to get back in the mood for this build... plus my $10 prepaid AmEx card rebate thingy that I got from one of the purchases upthread just showed up... plus I was just doing my bills and balancing my checking account in Quicken and found $125 that I'd entered in the register as "set aside" for some expense, which I then proceeded to pay later without deleting the "set aside" entries. Why, hello there, money I didn't know I had! So I'm wondering what nice addition I can make to the stockpile without going over (at least by too much) the cashola I just came into. A Blu-ray drive? Some RAM? Or should I just go stark raving bonkers and get a Radeon HD5870 so Arclight never ever has to mention it again? In sadder news, the two big fat hard drives I ordered over TWO MONTHS ago have never arrived, nor has any information about why they never arrived. At least they never charged my credit card... but I still want to make sure the order is officially cancelled just in case.

08-05-11, 10:29 PM	#39
frau kaleun Rear Admiral Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Skyri--oh who are we kidding, I'm probably at Lowe's. Again. Posts: 12,706 Downloads: 168 Uploads: 0	Just checked my email and got a response back on my missing hard drives - they shipped them right after I sent my inquiry, so I'm not sure what happened with the original order. I'm really glad it worked out, I was in the process of looking around online for something else in case the order got cancelled and was not happy with the selection and prices I was seeing. FedEx shows an expected delivery date of Monday and my card's been charged so I guess that can count as this pay period's purchase until I see how other expenses work out next week. Just saw that the RAM I had picked out dropped in price overnight so that may be next on the list if the new price holds for a bit. Also found a little local computer shop that buys and sells components. They're right next door to a Chinese takeout place I stopped at. Already closed when I was over there but I might have to pop in some time and see if I can get a deal on something I need. Might also be an opportunity to make some cash on whatever halfway decent stuff I have left over after the new build.

08-06-11, 10:34 PM	#41
frau kaleun Rear Admiral Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Skyri--oh who are we kidding, I'm probably at Lowe's. Again. Posts: 12,706 Downloads: 168 Uploads: 0	Okeydoke, techie gurus - I need some recommendations for a Blu-ray burner. Been looking around and don't really know what to choose. Most of the ones with decent reviews (at least on Amazon, Newegg, and TD) don't seem to come with the software necessary to play/burn BR discs, so I guess I will need to look for that as well. So I need good recommendations for a combo of drive and software. And I will also want the software to work with my current LG DVD/CD RW drive. Realized just today that I will be off work the week of Sept 5th so that is my target date for the build. Well, it was always the target date, but I kinda forgot that with so much other stuff going on the past few weeks. So I need to figure out what I absolutely need to pick out and order so it arrives on time. Some little stuff I can pick up locally at a reasonable price, but all the major purchases I know I'll probably get cheaper online, plus Subsim will get a cut of any Amazon orders. So far, the following things should be covered (I have them, or should have them next week): Motherboard CPU Case Hard drive(s) RAM Gfx card Sound card DVD/CD drive The one major thing I still gotta get is the PSU. Leaning towards a Corsair for that purchase. Also the Blu-ray drive as noted above. I know I could always get it later and add it then, but for things I know I want I'd rather have them and get them in there at the start. I will probably also get a new keyboard and mouse and take the current combo to work, where my old hand-me-down from home is getting really worn out. Plus I miss my Microsoft Ergonomic mouse! I've had great luck with Logitech but nothing was ever as comfortable as that MS "natural" mouse I had. My biggest question is whether to buy the wireless mouse & kb combo or just get the wireless mouse and buy the wired version of the kb separately. I had the wireless combo before but had issues with both the kb and mouse "dropping out" in terms of response. So when I was ready for new ones, I got a wired kb instead. Still got a wireless mouse, because I just can't go back to having that thing wired, what a pain. But I discovered the new mouse would still drop out, so I ended up buying a little extension thing for the USB connection, so now the receiver thingy for the mouse is out closer to the mouse instead of sticking out of the back panel of the computer, and since then the mouse works fine. So I'm wondering if the same trick will work just as well for a wireless keyboard, which I'd really like to have again. Still undecided about the gfx card issue - whether to stick with one 5770, add a second one to the mix, or upgrade. Since the 5870 seems difficult to find at anything like a reasonable price, I doubt I'll go that route. Another 5770 is still readily available at a great price, but apparently there's also a 6770 that is basically the same card but with Blu-ray support? I dunno if that's gonna make any difference in playing Blu-rays on the rig. One thing I found out today, I stopped in the little computer shop I found and they buy abd sell a wide variety of used tech stuff, including some stuff that I didn't think there was even a market for any more. Judging by what they had on the shelves I may be able to make a quick bit of cash with anything I have left over that I don't need. In fact I've got stuff around here now that I know I'll never use that I could probably unload there. I should probably start gathering that up and see if I can use it to defray the cost of new purchases. Oh and I definitely need some new headphones, I don't use them often but the cheap little ones I've had for years are falling apart.

08-07-11, 12:57 AM	#43
frau kaleun Rear Admiral Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Skyri--oh who are we kidding, I'm probably at Lowe's. Again. Posts: 12,706 Downloads: 168 Uploads: 0	Well, I don't do a ton of gaming but when I do it I want it to be as awesome and frustration-free as possible. But TBH the games I play tend to be older and require less in the way of hardware. OTOH I tend to buy older games because I never have the hardware to run the newer ones. I am looking right now at the Radeon HD 6850, which is still reasonably priced for me. A lot will depend on how other expenses work out over the next couple of weeks. But I will also have to decide something soon, because choice of PSU will depend a lot on what (if anything) I decide to do about gfx cards. I've run three different online PSU calculators, and I get recommendations from 750W to 1000W depending on which card (and how many of them) I specify. It's funny because the one at Corsair returns the lowest wattage requirements, and they'd be the only place of the three that would be trying to sell me a PSU.