-= Gametoast.com =-

Well recently new games are becoming more and more demanding,better graphics cards,more cpu power,more RAM etc etc.....You can have the latest components and 2 months on there out of date

The price of these things can be high BUT you will be surprised on how easy it is to install and upgrade yourself.

So if you want post here issues and problems

I'm in the UK and these are some links to were you can get new Components:
I'm a stickler for value for money

Ebuyer http://www.ebuyer.com/

Novatech http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/home.html

There are others in the uk but these 2 i use as there the cheapest and offer free delivery

The United States

Tiger direct http://www.tigerdirect.com/

The hardest part in the build/upgrade is what components to choose.
USEFUL sites:

http://guru3d.com/

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/

http://www.tomshardware.com/us/

I always use http://www.pricewatch.com for US-based purchases. All of the major competitors post their prices there, so you only have to search one website.

When I build/upgrade a PC I usually use Newegg.com, TigerDirect and Ebay.

I myself use newegg.com because they're cheap and we have a preferred account on there

I use guru3d....

Thought this would be a useful thread not somewhere that people would say I use.......

If you want to discuse a upgrade or components feel free.Don't just post I use Guru3d,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Grev wrote:I use guru3d....

I found tiger direct has prices that are high, but at the same time, I RMA'd a vid card to newegg and it got "lost". $165 down the tube. So I don't trust them when that was my first purchase and a. was defective from the box and b. lost on return. the post office and the company are blaming each other and not taking the blame. Just thought I give y'all a heads up. If you RMA a product, get the insurance no matter what. CYA.

online shopping is too expensive at times and a waste of time to me... if you want to build a really cheap computer with amazing specs go to fry's

Here are specs for my new rig im putting together. but i will replace the motherboard with a better one here soon tho.

linksith wrote:Here are specs for my new rig im putting together. but i will replace the motherboard with a better one here soon tho.

Hidden/Spoiler:

AMD FX-8150 8-Core Black Edition Socket AM3+ (http://www.amazon.com/AMD-FX-8150-8-Cor ... B005UBNLFK)


..

..

EVGA GeForce GT 520 1GB 64-bit DDR3 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130633)
]

Oh no, please get an Intel processor; they are so much (maybe not so much, but substantially) better than AMD's. As for the graphics card, even though its memory type is DDR3 and it has a gigabyte of dedicated memory, its interface is 64-bit, which is really, really low-end this day and age. You want something that's at least 128-bit, if even; more like 256-bit or higher, especially for a card with that much dedicated memory.

Intels are also substantially more expensive than AMD's of the same specs.

Same specs, better tech.

IF he can $afford$ an Intel, it would be good to use it, but if $money$ is an issue, AMD is perfectly acceptable.

Lol, those asterisks are too much. Fair enough...

Marth8880 wrote:Same specs, better tech.

i dissagree. the AMD FX 8150 is easily overclockable to about 4.2 GHz but one group had successfully overclocked it to 8 GHZ making it the fastest single CPU in the world for the general consumer. additionally intel uses hyper threading on its i7 which means it is only a quad core physically but is a virtual 8 core; it acts like an 8 core but in reality is a 4 core. I think that if AMD used hyper threading on any of their CPU's then they could easily beat intel at anything. additionally i cant wait to see the results of their next generation of FX processors.

I found it ironic in computer history that Intel and AMD actually worked together to beat the other CPU companies but in fact later became their own worst enemies.

Marth8880 wrote:

linksith wrote:Here are specs for my new rig im putting together. but i will replace the motherboard with a better one here soon tho.

Hidden/Spoiler:

AMD FX-8150 8-Core Black Edition Socket AM3+ (http://www.amazon.com/AMD-FX-8150-8-Cor ... B005UBNLFK)


..

..

EVGA GeForce GT 520 1GB 64-bit DDR3 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130633)
]

Oh no, please get an Intel processor; they are so much (maybe not so much, but substantially) better than AMD's. As for the graphics card, even though its memory type is DDR3 and it has a gigabyte of dedicated memory, its interface is 64-bit, which is really, really low-end this day and age. You want something that's at least 128-bit, if even; more like 256-bit or higher, especially for a card with that much dedicated memory.

The graphics card works absolutely perfectly with star wars force unleashed 1 and 2 at their highest graphics and it plays battlefield 3 very nicely too. so dont say my card isnt fast enough

I forget what it's called, but AMD's do something very similar to Intel's hyperthreading. Is it hypertransport? Same idea, different name.

linksith wrote:the AMD FX 8150 is easily overclockable to about 4.2 GHz but one group had successfully overclocked it to 8 GHZ making it the fastest single CPU in the world for the general consumer.

[citation needed]

mh what's funny is any processor can be overclocked to any frequency (that the mainboard supports anyway) as long as the power supply can power it and the cooling system can cool it sufficiently enough. (Whoo! Liquid nitrogen!)

Having a processor with that high of a frequency clock is pretty redundant considering the fact that most consumer-level north/south bridges, memory, hard drives, and graphics cards (maybe) are not even close to being able to meet that power level (9001) and will thus bottleneck the processor. Either way, it's typically better to have more cores than more per-core processing power, unless, well, you have a lot of cores and a lot of per-core processing power.

linksith wrote:additionally intel uses hyper threading on its i7 which means it is only a quad core physically but is a virtual 8 core; it acts like an 8 core but in reality is a 4 core. I think that if AMD used hyper threading on any of their CPU's then they could easily beat intel at anything. additionally i cant wait to see the results of their next generation of FX processors.

So what you're basically saying, or rather confirming here is that Intel's tech does indeed surpass that of AMD?

linksith wrote:I found it ironic in computer history that Intel and AMD actually worked together to beat the other CPU companies but in fact later became their own worst enemies.

Heh, just like Microsoft and Apple! @8o()

Marth8880 wrote:The graphics card works absolutely perfectly with star wars force unleashed 1 and 2 at their highest graphics and it plays battlefield 3 very nicely too. so dont say my card isnt fast enough

Your card isn't fast enough. In terms of benchmarks, your graphics card is the lesser of almost every other one of its kind. (Every one of its kind being every one in its "family" of GT 520s.)


Heh, by the way, don't ever attempt arguing that AMD is better than Intel with someone from a place such as Tom's Hardware (for example); you'll be vacuumed away, if that's a good enough way to put it.

Just a thought: When my uncle tried upgrading his PC he bought a new GPU, then it didnt fit in the case. So he bought a new case then the PSU didnt fit.... In the end he ended up replacing everything. Thats why I would recommend TIGER DIRECTS BAREBONES KITS so compatibility of all the parts wont be a problem. Although if you did your research then you will be fine.