Buying a new Computer - Q&A

[NobleHelium]

Ivy Bridge is cooler + lower power, and very slightly quicker. For those that care about these things (not Ruff), it seems like a much worse overclocker.

Really? I would think cooler would go well with overclocking, lol.

[antisocialmunky]

Its cooler at stock but after you hit a certain point, heat goes off the chart. Its a pretty common issue if you are already pushing the silicon to the limit.

[sunrise089]

re: 16gigs - Memory is cheap, but for people using their PCs for web, office, and gaming 8gigs is really quite sufficient. But sure, I have no objection to spending another <$50 on memory, just realize it's an infinitesimal seat-of-the-pants upgrade compared to a SSD.

re: overclocking Ivy: ASM is right. For whatever reason the new process has brutal temp scaling when you have to start adding voltages. It won't matter to a non-overclocker, a very casual (stock cooling) overclocker, and may not even matter to people with really high end sub-zero cooling rigs, but for high end air or water overclocking Ivy Bridge seems to be a step back.

[dazedroyalty]

This is a stupid question, but can someone explain overclocking to me. I mean, I understand what it is in general but not necessarily all the specific benefits and costs.

[Ruff_Hi]

I priced out IBP's price for memory against Amazon. I could give IBP an extra $165 or Amazon $96 for the same thing.

Edit: Dang it - Amazon price went up $5 and I was 'this close' to pulling the trigger last night.
Edit2: Newegg price still $96 and didn't charge me $8 tax.

BTW - a maintenance question for you - does you case collect dust? If so, how often to you clean it out? And how do you clean it out?

[Mardoc]

BTW - a maintenance question for you - does you case collect dust? If so, how often to you clean it out? And how do you clean it out?

Yes, computers are notorious for collecting dust, which ends up interfering with the heat control. You have to be careful about cleaning, though, a lot of general methods (feather dusters, vacuum cleaners, etc) generate static electricity, quite often enough to fry components. If you have access to a air compressor, that's even worse. Those tend to have water in the lines, and enough power to physically break components.

This is what canned air is good for. Blow the dust off the heat sinks and anywhere that looks bad, clean the room afterwards.

As for frequency - it really depends on the environment you're running the computer in. Running in a house, look inside every month or two, if it looks bad, clean it. It's near impossible to make a computer perfectly clean; you just want to keep it to a point where the dust can't cause short circuits, or interfere with the heat sinks.

[pling]

BTW - a maintenance question for you - does you case collect dust?

Hell yeah. Dust, cat hair, my hair ... the combination can generate some impressive dust-bunnies.

If so, how often to you clean it out? And how do you clean it out?

Not as often as I should? But when I do I open the case & pick out the bits that solid enough to do that (fluff carpets over fan grills, for instance), then blow the rest out with compressed air (using something like this: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/icidu-air...l-hfc-free ).

[Ruff_Hi]

New computer ordered. Also getting 16Gb of memory via Newegg - saved $65 by going this route - which I put back into something else in the rig.

Future questions will now move on to how to I get the most out of Windows 7 ... is there anything in general that I should know about this OS?

Details if you are interested ...

Final cost was $1130, shipping was $75.

Code:

1 x  Optical Drive (24X Sony Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black))
1 x  Sound Card (3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard))
1 x  Warranty (3 Year Standard Warranty Service))
1 x  Rush Service (Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days))
1 x  Network Card (Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)))
1 x  Video Card Brand (Major Brand Powered by AMD or NVIDIA))
1 x  Power Supply (600 Watt - Standard))
1 x  Memory (4 GB [2 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand))
1 x  Keyboard (iBUYPOWER USB Keyboard))
1 x  Mouse (iBUYPOWER Internet Mouse))
1 x  iBUYPOWER Labs - Noise Reduction (Advanced - iBUYPOWER Harmony SRS Sound Reduction System))
1 x  Operating System (Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit))
1 x  Processor (Intel® Core™ i5-2500 Processor (4x 3.30GHz/6MB L3 Cache)))
1 x  Video Card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti - 1GB - EVGA Superclocked - Core: 981MHz - Single Card))
1 x  Primary Hard Drive (1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive))
1 x  Case (Corsair Obsidian Series 550D Gaming Case - Black))
1 x  Processor Cooling (Corsair Hydro Series H60 Liquid CPU Cooling System - ARC Dual Silent High Performance Fan Upgrade (Push-Pull Airflow)))
1 x  Motherboard ([SLI] ASUS P8Z77-V LK -- 2x PCI-E 3.0 x16, 4x USB 3.0))

[Ruff_Hi]

oh - and thanks for the cleaning tips. I have 2 large dogs, hardwood floors and lots of dust bunnies. I use this to clean the case out ...

[antisocialmunky]

New computer ordered. Also getting 16Gb of memory via Newegg - saved $65 by going this route - which I put back into something else in the rig.

Future questions will now move on to how to I get the most out of Windows 7 ... is there anything in general that I should know about this OS?

Details if you are interested ...

Final cost was $1130, shipping was $75.

Code:

1 x  Optical Drive (24X Sony Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black))
1 x  Sound Card (3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard))
1 x  Warranty (3 Year Standard Warranty Service))
1 x  Rush Service (Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days))
1 x  Network Card (Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)))
1 x  Video Card Brand (Major Brand Powered by AMD or NVIDIA))
1 x  Power Supply (600 Watt - Standard))
1 x  Memory (4 GB [2 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand))
1 x  Keyboard (iBUYPOWER USB Keyboard))
1 x  Mouse (iBUYPOWER Internet Mouse))
1 x  iBUYPOWER Labs - Noise Reduction (Advanced - iBUYPOWER Harmony SRS Sound Reduction System))
1 x  Operating System (Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit))
1 x  Processor (Intel® Core™ i5-2500 Processor (4x 3.30GHz/6MB L3 Cache)))
1 x  Video Card (NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti - 1GB - EVGA Superclocked - Core: 981MHz - Single Card))
1 x  Primary Hard Drive (1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive))
1 x  Case (Corsair Obsidian Series 550D Gaming Case - Black))
1 x  Processor Cooling (Corsair Hydro Series H60 Liquid CPU Cooling System - ARC Dual Silent High Performance Fan Upgrade (Push-Pull Airflow)))
1 x  Motherboard ([SLI] ASUS P8Z77-V LK -- 2x PCI-E 3.0 x16, 4x USB 3.0))

Win7 is alright, might want to turn the UAC to the 2nd level and don't forget to turn auto update install to a less obnoxious thing. Not much else you can do unless you want to find a manually stripped down version.