Yet Another "Upgrading My Comp." Thread

[Vioxsis]

that was your wifi antenna

[Nonsense667]

that was your wifi antenna

 

 

*insert insane laughter*

 

(I don't actually use wireless, so thanks for letting me know what to check. It's working.)

[shane4244]

Looks nice sitting in there.

 

that's myfault on the power supply I should have went to evga or nvidia website and look at the full requirements. I thought 18amps would cover an entry level gaming card.

 

That being said and someone can correct me if I'm wrong but I'm about 90% sure that the video card makers do there recommended amperage like they do there wattage recommendations which is a (usually high) estimate of total system requirements. I would have felt more comfortable had I seen that and looked at ones with 24 amps but you have dual 12v rails at 18amps so as long as you dont have a bunch of extra things using the 12v rails I think youll be ok.

 

those springy things just look like they are holding the slot covers in place.

 

your zip ties are good enough nothing looks blocked, but it looks like a mess lol most people don't care and as long as it doesnt block airflow it doesn't matter but that mess of cables drives me nuts lol:D

 

/edit and just so we are clear "I think you'll be ok" I can't guarantee it I did a google search on the subject and I'm getting mixed opinions.

[gregathit]

There is a slight chance it may buckle under heavy, extended usage. Doubtful that it will happen. But I don't pretend to know enough to tell you one way or other. Hopefully one of the tech guru's might pop in and set us straight.

[shane4244]

Your killing me are you happy with your card,anything wierd happening with long gaming sessions that might make you think the power supply isn't strong enough? I'm just curious I fell like crap for not looking at the amps for that card.

[Nonsense667]

It is doing great. Nothing like booting up the Starcraft demo and having the recommended settings be ultra. And don't worry, I completely understand where you are coming from, it is just as much my fault, in fact more so, and in the end the responsibility weighs on me. I don't really have any other modern game other than the SCII demo to test it with. But it is appearing to be performing exactly as I had hoped, if not more so. About the only complaint I would give, and this is reaching for a complaint, is that my computer is a bit louder now. The PS is very quiet, but the cards fan, though not "loud" in any sense, is audible. Still, not as loud as a 360 though. (Note: it's only that loud when running a game, it is perfectly quiet when just browsing the net or whatever.) And of course, I've never had a high quality card like this before, so I don't really know what the "Standard" noise level for a graphics card is.

 

Edit: Actually, the recommended was Extreme. I must admit I thought that I might need to turn it down. But nope! And this is going from only being able to run it at low, at a lower resolution as well.

[shane4244]

Thanks for the replay glad it does what you need it too.The extra noise is normal for those types of cards mine sounds like my computer is ready for take off when I put the fan at 100%, luckly it never gets that high during gaming.

[nanogenesis]

Assuming the OP is still looking for a 100-200$ card, someone not long ago told me, that for 210$ newegg(or some other site) its giving off its GTX480s.

 

Though those things give heat, and will need a quality 500W PSU

You can get a normal GTX-560 in that price, but a 7850 (I think its around 230$) will be the best, but you need a new PSU

[Jay1646]

Ok guys I didn't want to make a new thread for my question

 

I'm looking to upgrade my PC for skyrim (Finally goin to get it)

 

A few questions

 

1.I have two 1gb sticks of DDR2 Ram, I'm looking to replace them with this DDR3 ram

 

How would i know if this can fit my motherboard? I'm not good with this sort of thing (My mobo is an Asus M3A78 btw)

 

2. My Graphics card is a GT 240, I've ran skyrim on my pc before, it ran pretty smoothly. But It did have hiccups, I don't know whether that has to do with me only having 2gigs of ram or my card. Opinions?

 

3. I have windows Xp (yes I live in the past) Should I go ahead and upgrade to windows 7?

[shane4244]

well you won't be able to fit ddr3 in a ddr2 motherboard, this ram is supported by your board ddr2 ram if you have 32 bit xp that will bring up to 4 gb and windows will only recognize 3 gb so you will be capped with your current OS, if you have a 64 bit xp then you could go with this ram get 2 and you will be at 8gb.I strongly recommend upgrading to windows 7 unless your planing on building/buying a new PC soon. Grats on getting skyrim im still laid off and too broke too afford it yet:D

 

Im not sure if the ram will help your hiccups ,it wont hurt.I hear skyrim is processor intensive also that card is a little dated. With your system being an amd2 i dont know if I would put too much money in it I would say its about time to build or buy a new one.

[prideslayer]

 

2. My Graphics card is a GT 240' date=' I've ran skyrim on my pc before, it ran pretty smoothly. But It did have hiccups, I don't know whether that has to do with me only having 2gigs of ram or my card. Opinions?

[/quote']

 

I ran skyrim on a GT240 for a short time, it ran ok. Stuttering is probably due more to your CPU speed. Being a DDR2 board, it's probably not that fast either.

 

3. I have windows Xp (yes I live in the past) Should I go ahead and upgrade to windows 7?

 

Windows7 x64 is pure awesome. I'd get it while the gettings cheap' date=' I think Win8 is going to be another leapfrog OS like Vista (and the whole 9x series, TBH) unless you have touchscreens.

 

if you have 32 bit xp that will bring up to 4 gb and windows will only recognize 3 gb so you will be capped with your current OS

 

Windows XP can and will use the full 4GB, and does so automatically since SP2. Hardware must be athlon64 or newer with NX bit support on the AMD side, which his is.

 

Geek rant

 

 

What actually happens is other devices also map into the 4GB and down space, and 32bit XP does not allow access to memory mapped *above* the 4GB space, as is done when the total memory + memory mapped I/O is > 4GB. You can shrink down the amount of disabled physical memory by not using devices that need huge MMIO areas, and reducing the window size of those that do.

 

Lowering the video graphics window size is one way to accomplish this; having a 2GB video card does not mean you need the window setting in the bios at 2GB or larger; Set it lower, down around 256MB. This will free up more physical address space for real memory. The full memory on the video card is always available, but it's paged through the window, so loading textures will get a little bit slower.

 

This will give you available physical memory of 4GB - 256M, then less other MMIO areas like the frame buffer, sound card DMA, etc.

 

As an aside, every 32bit x86 CPU since the pentium pro (late 90s) can physically address up to 64GB of memory. Limits below this are imposed either by the motherboard itself or the OS.

 

I'm not suggesting that people shouldn't upgrade, Win7 x64 is the tits, but this nonsense about XP not supporting 4GB of memory has to stop. It supports up to 4GB, period. Just don't waste the address space.