Hey is this a good gaming PC?

[justanotherfan]

An aftermarket cooler shouldn't void a warranty, and if it does they'll have no way of knowing. The advantage is better cooling with less noise. Also, I believe Intel's coolers still use pushpins, which can break or fall out during use (I had an old Scythe Ninja tower (pushpins) fall onto my videocard once)

Zalman coolers are fine. The historical disadvantage with them is that the fan is usually integrated, so when the bearing inside stops working, the whole unit is useless. Thermalright and Prolimatech usually come out on top of benchmarks, Scythe usually does well, and don't trust anyone that says Thermaltake. Since the heatsink dictates the noise, temperature, and sometimes speed and reliability for the lifetime of the processor, I suggest overkill. The Scythe Mugen does well in benchmarks, and is the cheapest of the good large heatsinks on that site.

The PSU change looks fine. I also recommend a motherboard with UEFI instead of BIOS. I prefer ASUS, but Gigabyte and MSI are good brand names.

Judging by synthetic benchmarks, the 2600K is roughly twice as fast as the old Core i5, but the new one looks fine. Hyperthreading is an interesting technology, and I leave it enabled, but it has mixed results.

That videocard is double the price I'd pay for a videocard. They obsolete so quickly, and the quieter cheaper ones in a year will be faster.

[gamer0004]

An aftermarket cooler shouldn't void a warranty, and if it does they'll have no way of knowing.

I was talking about an aftermarket GPU cooler (like you were), which does void warranty.

[Amakir]

How about this pack then?

http://www.inet.se/kundvagn/visa/136707 ... d-all-that

[gamer0004]

Looks good, but I'd wait for the 560 to be released.

[Amakir]

I am not in a hurry to buy this PC anyway so i might as well wait for the 560.

[justanotherfan]

An aftermarket cooler shouldn't void a warranty, and if it does they'll have no way of knowing.

I was talking about an aftermarket GPU cooler (like you were), which does void warranty.

Ah. Still applies though, as long as you keep the original. Videocards come with hairdryers, and it's easy to make a midrange videocard passively cooled.

Might want to check benchmarks on that cpu cooler. There's little point of paying for an upgrade if it doesn't do much better than the original.

[Amakir]

Well now the 560 is out and i have made two different computers. Which one is best?

http://www.inet.se/kundvagn/visa/148274/hmmm

http://www.inet.se/kundvagn/visa/151292/hummmm

[gamer0004]

It appears the 560 and 6950 perform very similar, so you should base your choice on your own preference (drivers, 3d vision and physx versus eyefinity &c.).

[Amakir]

Well i have never tried i AMD (or ATI) card before so i don't know what to expect. PhysX can be powered by the CPU so i see no need to have a Nvidia card for that reason alone. Eyefinity sounds nice though i plan to only use one screen anyway so...

any personal preferences from you guys?

[justanotherfan]

ATI if you'll ever use/try Linux. NVIDIA's Windows drivers have been historically better, but I'm told AMD has caught up.

[Amakir]

Now when Intel have recalled their Sandy Bridge motherboards i will probably buy a AMD PC and buy a Bulldozer CPU and motherboard once it gets released and give the AMD processor and motherboard to my brother once i bought the Bulldozer.

So is this any good: http://www.inet.se/kundvagn/visa/174918/2011-02-03

[justanotherfan]

I mentioned earlier that the Intel chipsets seemed buggy, and though everyone was saying how robust and tested they were, they still seemed rushed and incomplete. Still, AMD is so far behind at this point, they're only a consideration in the low-end value market. Their videocard is great, but a poor match to their processors at the moment. We'll see about bulldozer, which should be decent, but I'm not expecting an AMD revolution. If you go AMD, consider a cheaper videocard. A 22in monitor could be upgraded to 26in or something.

[Amakir]

the AMD CPU is only a temporary solution until the sandy bridge motherboards are released. I really hope that AMD manages to make a comback of sorts into the CPU market since i actually prefer them as a company (and yet i have almost always used a Intel CPU). anyway my brother will be happy to have something beter than an old Pentium 4. A 22" monitor works just fine for me.

Anyway i have made a bunch of difirent computers, it's only the GPU that difers betwen them.

This one have the Radeon 6950: http://www.inet.se/kundvagn/visa/176368/2011-02-04

This one is a 6870 with a cooler that looks really good: http://www.inet.se/kundvagn/visa/176362/2011-02-04

This one got a 560 with a windforce cooler: http://www.inet.se/kundvagn/visa/176382/2011-02-04

This one costs a litle bit more but it got a 570 card: http://www.inet.se/kundvagn/visa/176383/2011-02-04

[justanotherfan]

I think I mentioned earlier, I started in PCs with AMD, and Intel was the evil empire. Intel CPUs were always several times the price, while AMD was only behind in a few benchmarks, and usually ahead in the ones important to me. After Intel dumped their idiotic P4 strategy, it left AMD behind in short order. If I needed a new PC, I'd actually buy a sandy bridge one with a PCI-E SATA card. The performance difference is that big. Still, bulldozer will probably be good enough.

The monitor can make a large physical improvement. Faster hardware often isn't noticeable. It's an option.

[shanemorgan]

I am agree that core i7 is the best processor in the world.But you don't need core i7 processor.You can just buy core i5 which is the best for price and your all gaming requirements.All the parts are the best on site.