Custom PC.

HippieMagic

HippieMagic

New Member
I believe NCIX now ships in America as well. They are a pretty good company to deal with from what I have heard. If you can find it on amazon and get it shipped by them you can get awesome shipping prices for Next Day if you have Prime. I love Amazon Prime. I was able to get an entire PC shipped to me, pay for a year of Prime, and get free movie streaming for less than shipping alone anywhere else lol.

I ordered a 2600k from Tiger Direct and it was packed and ready to go that night... unfortunately it just missed the shipment so it shipped the next day and got here the day after. That isn't all that bad at all for shipping.
 
HippieMagic

HippieMagic

New Member
CyberPowerPC is sketchy at best. I have worked on a ton of them due to poor quality workmanship, poor customer service, and poor shipping.

The most recent issue was with a friend's PC:

She ordered the PC and it was messing up repeatedly. She was told to send it in, she sent it, they received it, immediately sent it back in the same box and said there was nothing wrong with it. She turned it on and it continued to black out every few minutes like a video driver issue. I cleaned the drivers for her to see if that was the issue. It wasn't... I told her it seemed like a hardware issue to me and she contacted them again and after the 2nd or 3rd time sending it back they FINALLY fixed it because, go figure, it was a Motherboard failure.

She had to pay for shipping while this was THEIR error and under THEIR warranty.

The issue with ordering a PC that is complete is that you have NO control over how it is packed, shipped, and handled. There is no guarantee that the FedEx/UPS guy will know what it is to actually take care and even then there is no guarantee he will be careful with it as it isn't really his responsibility to treat it like a baby... it should be packed good enough to not be damaged. If it gets bumped around a lot you are risking breaking some internal parts loose due to the weight... video cards are heavy now and can snap that PCIe port... You are really risking some damage by buying pre-built. It is FAR better to buy the parts separately because they will be packaged separately and have very little stress on the parts. It is just a much safer alternative even though it may seem "scary" to do it on your own. If all else fails... find a friend who knows how to do it.
 
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PS3andCOD

Contributor
What would you guys recomend, dual GTX 560's or a single GTX 580? Or what other graphics solution for under $500?
 
HippieMagic

HippieMagic

New Member
I recommend a single 580 personally for a few reasons...

1. Performance is going to be about the same. The single 580 is going to cause you less grief due to it being a single card.

2. A single 580 is going to use less space.

3. A single card runs at 16x on a lot of boards while some would designate 2 to 8x or 16x and 8x. It takes a more expensive board to run multiple cards at 16x but they are pretty common.

4. Better upgrade path. If you want you can save up and put another 580 in there later for even more performance and eventually even get 4 in there for even better.

5. Better airflow... multiple cards may or may not cause issues depending on your case but multiple cards take a good deal of room and wiring. I have a full tower (Cooler Master HAF X) and 2 GTX 580s in it and the wiring is a mess because of the cards requiring 2 cables each.
 
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PS3andCOD

Contributor
That's pretty much what I was thinking too, but I wasn't sure if 2 GTX 560's would have better performance. My board can run 2 slots at 16x, but then if you have 4 they all go to 8x... Are there even boards that run all 4 at 16x? It seems that when adding cards reduces the speed it kind of defeats the purpose... Lets say both cards produce 16 gb of info per second. Then if you have 2 cards at 8x, they produce 32gb/s, but only 16 gb is able to get past the card, and you have exactly the same as a single card.
 
HippieMagic

HippieMagic

New Member
The difference between 16x and 8x is minimal at best. You are looking at like 5 fps at the most with the current hardware. I just don't think cards push enough information for it to use all of the bandwith 16x can provide yet but you still should try to use it.

The reason I say a single card will cause you less grief is because the 2 560s/1 580 are still going to only hit 45fps or lower in some games. Games like The Witcher 2, Battlefield 3, and Metro 2033 are going to push the cards to the point you may even see 30fps and when you get into that low of a framerate SLI can cause micro stutter so that single 580 is going to appear smoother as it is only using one GPU.

SLI scales as well... The second card will see about a 100% increase in performance, the third will see maybe a 50% increase or a little more, and the fourth will see an additional 30 or 40%. These aren't exact numbers but they should give you a rough estimate.

A lot of games are processor heavy as well because that helps the lower end crowd. Make sure you have a good, high end processor before you start getting into SLIing high end cards. I recommend about a 1000w power supply from a good company as well to give you some headroom.
 
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PS3andCOD

Contributor
Yeah, I know how to buy a processor, just the graphics cards are a bit confusing somehimes... My current processor is a AMD 6 core black edition, but I won't be getting new gfx until I buy a new PC with bulldozer or the latest from intel in 6-8 months...
 
HippieMagic

HippieMagic

New Member
NVIDIA should have their 600 line out in 6-8 months which should mean either the 580 is cheaper or the 680 is a little faster for the same price. I expect to see a 20% performance boost and likely more RAM.
 
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PS3andCOD

Contributor
Sounds boss. I don't absolutely need anything until school starts next year, I'll probably try and wait, or even buy a really cheap (sub $30 lol) card to use for web browsing etc until the 600 line is out.
 
HippieMagic

HippieMagic

New Member
Don't waste your money... intel chips have integrated video you just need a motherboard that will let you use it. It isn't the BEST but it will run some games decently and will handle all the light work easily.
 
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PS3andCOD

Contributor
I'll keep that in mind... My current mobo has no integrated video at all, it's a AM3 though... Bulldozer is out now aparently, but it doesn't sound like it's all that amazing, just barely beating the high end intel's.
 
HippieMagic

HippieMagic

New Member
It is actually going against the 2500k and generally losing out when overclocked and in real world tests from what I can see. It is close enough to perform about the same but honestly we are talking about a consumer level quad core beating the AMD 8-core offering. That isn't very impressive on AMD's part. The new hexacore gaming chips Intel is about to release is going to literally slaughter the bulldozer lol. Granted they should for $1100 I guess haha.
 
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jojoenglish85

New Member
I have no more use for my PS3 or Nintendo Wii, I have a brand new unopened AMD 965 black edition and Thermaltake CLP0554 80mm Sleeve CPU Cooler. I need to get a bulldozer lol
 
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