General PC Discussion - special cameo appearance by Asthenia

[narcolepsy 581]

AMD Radeon HD 6850

Good card. Look up a few benchmarks and compare it with other models such as the 6990 before buying to make sure you get exactly what you want. I run a late 2009/Early 2010 card (5770) and because I did my research (bought it March 2011) I got a great card that still performs well, other people bought cards without doing research and it turned out to be a big pile of trash.

[Indy 350]

Just a few questions:

Is the 6850 compatible with my motherboard? (I'm assuming so because it's x16 PCI-Express, right?)

How do I find out about my power supply?

Could my computer overheat with the new graphics card?

[Edgecrusher 91]

Looks good, the power supply could be a problem though; ideally you want 500w at the bare minimum.

Could my computer overheat with the new graphics card?

Depends on a number of factors; how much physical room is there inside your case for air to circulate? How much ventilation (ie; vents) is there in the case? And I'm guessing that being a Dell, it doesn't have any extra case fans included?

[narcolepsy 581]

Just a few questions:

Is the 6850 compatible with my motherboard? (I'm assuming so because it's x16 PCI-Express, right?)

How do I find out about my power supply?

Could my computer overheat with the new graphics card?

Post your model/specs and I'll check the mobo.

You're going to have to drop in a new power supply because it'll be 300W max. I recommend a 600W minimum incase you take it to maximum load, I've overloaded a fair few times and my gear is lower end.

About the case, We could have a situation,

A. It'll likely be very small and your temps will be quite poor, probably two fans in the case but they'll be tiny and very loud.

B. Dell for a long time used the BTX standard, as such you cant just drop BTX mobo's and such into new cases, however im unsure if they use it anymore, If you are looking at the computer from the front (where the power button is) which way does it open to get at the components? If left, you have an ATX mobo and everything should be kosher, if right side it's BTX and you're probably shit out of luck.

[Asthenia 138]

So I'm guessing your friend either got a 680 or is getting the new 690?

Moved to ATI, he's been running Nvidia for the past few years. 7950, Ivy i7, GB Z77 and an Alienware M14x are his last few purchases in no order.. dudes got too much money.

A quick google tells me that AMD Radeon HD 6850 would be a good purchase.

http://shop.amd.com/...eon%20HD%206850

What do you guys think?

If you decided you want the 6850 I've got the Asus EAH6850 you can have for £90, unless you find one cheaper elsewhere, in which case I'll give it to you for that. I need £££ for an SSD. Lovely card, I used it for about a week before I got the 580 and it handled everything I threw at it. I have got someone else wanting it but he wants it for £60, which ain't happening. So unless he budges up to £90 I'll save it until you check what Cy's said above.

Also, PSU wise, I've got an OCZ 550W that is handling a 25/7 OC'd system.. Sandy i5 at 4.6GHz and the 580 at 950mhz. So, there's a review for that PSU. Not too expensive either.

Google says the board is for the Dell 545/545S, that what you've got Indy?

[Indy 350]

I have a Dell Inspiron 545 with 6 GB RAM and Intel Core 2 Quad @2.5Ghz.

The motherboard is Dell 0N826N.

Powersupply is 300W.

My current AMD Radeon HD 4350 card is about 5" x 6.5" in size, i'm not sure if a 6850 will fit?

The panel opens up from the left. I've taken a few pictures below:

[narcolepsy 581]

Yeah you're going to need a new case and power supply.

The fans in there are probably 92mm fans, they are louder and do the job but there just aren't enough for a high power and high temp card like the 6850, the 6850 may fit in that case but it'll be a hell of a squeeze with the cables and it'll have poor temps, I recommend a Mid tower case. I don't know if its BTX yet, which would make the transition quite difficult (and a new ATX PSU probably wouldn't work with the mobo at all.)

I'll try find out if its BTX.

[Edgecrusher 91]

Can't find much on the net, but it appears to be an Intel g33 express chipset, which I think is ATX.

[narcolepsy 581]

Can't find much on the net, but it appears to be an Intel g33 express chipset, which I think is ATX.

Yeah, I can confirm its the G33 E chipset. I've never heard of a chipset not working with a certain formfactor.

I took a look at the screw holes and they look like they'd match normal Micro ATX screw mounting points., Do you have a spare case laying around you could have a practice run on? Oh and the card looks like it'd drop right in just fine, no incompatabilities.

[Asthenia 138]

Just to temporarily re-rail, I installed an SSD, up'd the GPU core to 950, mem clock a little lower (still fiddling) and the CPU is at 4.5 atm, rather than 4.6. I just bumped it up to 4.5 quickly when I fresh installed Win7. It'll run 4.5 without any tweaking.

http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3400741;jsessionid=p5ed0u043qveuc4kgvcerpxw

Previous best.

http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3215380;jsessionid=jai6yx7x9qmn1o5nkmy47ct9j

Side by side:

http://3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/3400741/3dm11/3215380

[Massacre 7646]

This topic is no longer exclusively about Ast's PC.

*Edits title for teh lulz*

[Asthenia 138]

Dick!

[Massacre 7646]

Not like you can't just change it back.

[Asthenia 138]

I would if it wasn't for "cameo appearance". Makes me feel special... Although you did kill the thread, so.. thanks.. thanks Mass. I thought we were friends. Now I'm just typing on my incredibly expensive and awesome PC, rather than typing AND bragging.

[Massacre 7646]

It's your fault for not talking about PC things. Sadly masturbating isn't going to liven up a topic. A lonely Friday night, yeah, but not a forum topic.

[Indy 350]

What SSD did you get?

Btw, I was reading this article yesterday, what do you guys think of his build?

http://www.videogamer.com/pc/diablo_3/features/article/build_a_diablo_iii_gaming_pc_for_under_500.html

[Edgecrusher 91]

Not bad at all for the money, but I would spend a bit more on the mobo for the sake of upgradability. I'm going for this one in my next build, It seems a good compromise between affordability and features, the only real downside is there's no support for SLI, but I'm not interested in running multiple displays, so I don't mind.

*Edit* Just realised it's the same as Ast's.

[narcolepsy 581]

Use the falcon guide. It's an image a guy from /g/ updates reguarly which is actually very useful.

http://tinyurl.com/falconguide

He updates the image and the URL auto updates to so it's pretty timeless.

[Edgecrusher 91]

Ok, should be getting a bit of money soon plus with very frugal budgeting think I can spare between £80 - £90 per week, so I have decided I am going to make a start on my build tomorrow. Here's what I'm thinking about so far. Most of it is subject to change except the CPU, GPU and case.

Cooler Master Storm Enforcer Mid ATX Case: For a Mid ATX case, this has some nice features and oodles of room for aftermarket cooling as well as excellent cable management, all at a very reasonable price.

Asrock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 Mobo: This board is packed full of features, and will allow me to OC if I feel the need to as well as go SLi in the future. A bit more expensive than the board I was originally looking at, but given the upgradeability, should save money in the long run.

Intel i5 2500k: Best performance/price ratio, simple as that.

MSI Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr II: Not the newest card on the market, but I have seen a fair few videos of this running Crysis 2, Skyrim and even Battlefield 3 in High/Ultra settings with very respectable framerates. Excellent reviews across the net.

8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz RAM

Corsair TX750: 80+ certified, Mid Range PSU at a competitive pricepoint. As an added bonus, should leave a bit of headroom for a mild OC, if I decide to.

Along with a monitor, keyboard and mouse, new desk and chair and a few other extras, it will probably come in at about £1150 - £1300 at a very rough estimate. Not the cheapest build ever, but I'm quite happy with the components I have looked at and it should see me right for at least a couple of years.

[narcolepsy 581]

Nice choices. I don't see much wrong aside from it seemed you were buying it piece by piece? I'd suggest not to do that as prices can drop, it not work and be unrma-able by the time you use it, or something in your life change and you're lumbered with junk.

Only issue I'd have is vengeance at a guess is ricer ram (looks cool but isn't all that in performance). Any clear improvements over something like XMS3?

Other than that It's a good build. some people might give you "huur durr asrock" but the Extreme3 Gen3 is a great mobo and you actually picked out a nice PSU

[Edgecrusher 91]

Yeah, I should be getting about £800 off my Nan in a few weeks time, so I thought I'd start with things like the case and the desk and chair up until then as I can make use of them in the meantime. Really I just chose the Corsair RAM because I'm familiar with it, but will look into XMS3.

[narcolepsy 581]

XMS3 is corsair too, it just isn't as ricey.

[Edgecrusher 91]

Well, having looked these up; the XMS3 set has slightly higher voltage, but is about a fiver cheaper and also leaves more room for CPU cooling. Think I will probably go with these because as mentioned, I only really picked the Vengeance kit as I was familiar with it.

[narcolepsy 581]

Yeah, if you're getting a Coolermaster Hyper 212+ (one of the best HSF combo's I know) Vengeance cuts it very fine because the heat dissapators on them are massive.

[Edgecrusher 91]

I was thinking more along the lines of a V8. "Ricey," I know lol, but It has good enough performance for what I want to do with it, and as an added bonus it will match my case nicely.