Official "Upgrade Help" Thread

[pArkEr]

We got this at Chaos Computers near Tygerberg shopping center.
Do you know of any place in Cape Town with some good deals, preferably under R6000?

[wir]

I'm in the market for a new monitor. I'm looking for 22" widescreen or larger at under R3000. Two I've been looking at;
Samsung 2232GW
Samsung 2253GW

I haven't bought a monitor in a long time, let alone an LCD. So any pointers would be appreciated.

[Chevron]

We got this at Chaos Computers near Tygerberg shopping center.
Do you know of any place in Cape Town with some good deals, preferably under R6000?

Id you build it yourself the money will go a lot further.

I'm in the market for a new monitor. I'm looking for 22" widescreen or larger at under R3000. Two I've been looking at;
Samsung 2232GW
Samsung 2253GW

I haven't bought a monitor in a long time, let alone an LCD. So any pointers would be appreciated.

Get the 53.

[tree tagaat]

Just a quick question,I'm quite the n00b when it somes down to hardware and i was recently hearing that a power supply can greatly effect the performance of your graphics card.

At the moment I;m running an 8600GT with a 300W power supply unit,when i bought my pc i bought the card along with it so i wasnt exactly sure about the power supply requirements and the guys at the shop said that the card would definitely work,and so far it has worked without any problems,but i read the requirements on my box and it said 350W minimum.

Do you think there would be a significant increase, if any, towards the performance of my GPU if I upgrade my PSU to 400W?

[ChameleonMan]

Usually Yes a larger PSU is required and i would get larger than 400W and go for a 750W 1000W PSU but might i ask what else you are running along with the card?

Just a quick question,I'm quite the n00b when it somes down to hardware and i was recently hearing that a power supply can greatly effect the performance of your graphics card.

At the moment I;m running an 8600GT with a 300W power supply unit,when i bought my pc i bought the card along with it so i wasnt exactly sure about the power supply requirements and the guys at the shop said that the card would definitely work,and so far it has worked without any problems,but i read the requirements on my box and it said 350W minimum.

Do you think there would be a significant increase, if any, towards the performance of my GPU if I upgrade my PSU to 400W?

[Chevron]

Usually Yes a larger PSU is required and i would get larger than 400W and go for a 750W 1000W PSU

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

LOL.

There is no pc you could build that would need a 1000W psu. A quad core with sli would be fine with a 600Watt or maybe 650Watt to be safe.

Sigh.

He could get a coolermaster 390Watt and be more than fine. I would recommend the 460 Watt so that you still have upgrade room.

Actually the 460Watt is fine for most people. Of course I'm talking decent psus not those that put their peak rating on the sticker when their continuous output is 20% less.

Eg. the 470Watt Gigabyte superb is actually only rated for 400Watt continuous.

[KFC]

I think those 1KW PSU's are used for stuff like: Liquid cooling systems, 5 neo-lights under the hood, 4 Massive Fans (not even that), insane power absorbent Hardware parts (That only mod-freaks buy from America).


*EDIT
Gigabyte 460Watt ATX Power supply, SATA R420
CoolerMaster Extreme 460Watt Power supply R575
CoolerMaster Extreme 550Watt Power supply, 6-pin PCI-E R850

[biffman]

Just a quick question,I'm quite the n00b when it somes down to hardware and i was recently hearing that a power supply can greatly effect the performance of your graphics card.

At the moment I;m running an 8600GT with a 300W power supply unit,when i bought my pc i bought the card along with it so i wasnt exactly sure about the power supply requirements and the guys at the shop said that the card would definitely work,and so far it has worked without any problems,but i read the requirements on my box and it said 350W minimum.

Do you think there would be a significant increase, if any, towards the performance of my GPU if I upgrade my PSU to 400W?

Try get yourself a Gigabyte Superb 460w PSU they are quality and very well priced.
You want need more than 460w.

[Chevron]

Try get yourself a Gigabyte Superb 460w PSU they are quality and very well priced.
You want need more than 460w.

He could get a coolermaster 390Watt and be more than fine. I would recommend the 460 Watt so that you still have upgrade room.

Actually the 460Watt is fine for most people. Of course I'm talking decent psus not those that put their peak rating on the sticker when their continuous output is 20% less.

Eg. the 470Watt Gigabyte superb is actually only rated for 400Watt continuous.

Rather this or this.

@biffman have you ever wondered why the gigabyte 585Watt superb is half the price of the gigabyte 550Watt Odin?

One is rated at continuous while the other is rated at peak.

[pArkEr]

My friend's not in a position to build a PC at the moment, he just needs a midrange gaming PC for under R6000. Please, anybody know of a place in Cape Town, else he's going to take the Chaos Computers deal.

[Chevron]

Prophecy build the pcs for you...

[tree tagaat]

Usually Yes a larger PSU is required and i would get larger than 400W and go for a 750W 1000W PSU but might i ask what else you are running along with the card?

Nothing Much else except for the bare minimum eh:

Dual Core 2.0GHZ
945GCT -M2 Motherboard
2GB DDR667 ram
200GB SATA HDD
LG Super Multi DVD writer(Well thats what it says on it)
XFX Geforce 8600GT 512MB@540MHZ

WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

LOL.

There is no pc you could build that would need a 1000W psu. A quad core with sli would be fine with a 600Watt or maybe 650Watt to be safe.

Sigh.

He could get a coolermaster 390Watt and be more than fine. I would recommend the 460 Watt so that you still have upgrade room.

Actually the 460Watt is fine for most people. Of course I'm talking decent psus not those that put their peak rating on the sticker when their continuous output is 20% less.

Eg. the 470Watt Gigabyte superb is actually only rated for 400Watt continuous.

Thanks Guys,i was just wondering because of all this power supply nonsense I have been hearing about recently.
I thought before that you couldnt even run a graphics card that you didnt meet power supply requirements at all,so i was shocked when i actually looked at that box of mine!
And if i at least upgrade to that 470Watt gigabyte i can replace my card later on.

[Chevron]

That 470 gigabyte is only a proper 400watt. That's why i recommended the coolermaster 460watt.

[wir]

Id you build it yourself the money will go a lot further.


Get the 53.

Cool, thanks.

I'm open to other (better?)suggestions though, if possible. The two I mentioned were just found through random browsing and a nudge in the right direction by FEN1X.

[Chevron]

The 53 is practically famous now for being a great monitor. You can't go wrong there.

[Bazo]

In light of all this psu hype, I have a coolermaster extreme power 650w psu with only 6 pin connectors.

how future proof is that seeing that most graphics cards comes out with 8pin connectors these days?

[Wesley]

In light of all this psu hype, I have a coolermaster extreme power 650w psu with only 6 pin connectors.

how future proof is that seeing that most graphics cards comes out with 8pin connectors these days?

The 6-pin PCI connectors are still used a lot in graphics cards that require power, but not so much as the higher-end components. You dont actually have to worry about your pin arrangement: so long as you have a half-decent psu that powers up your machine properly you can buy a molex-to-pci adapter and run your card off the psu with that. They do come in different sizes (ask chev) and are decently priced too.

[Chevron]

In light of all this psu hype, I have a coolermaster extreme power 650w psu with only 6 pin connectors.

how future proof is that seeing that most graphics cards comes out with 8pin connectors these days?

Your psu is perfectly fine. It's only the very high end that use the eight pin. Even the gtx 260 uses two 6pins.

The eight pin isn't a new connector that's gonna take over from the 6pin. It's only used when 2 6pins can't supply enough juice.

[Wesley]

By the way, is anyone upgrading anytime towards the middle of next year? I'm looking to buy some second-hand parts if I cant afford some stuff brand new. I'm most likely going to have most of my money in February, so I'll start a thread then and see what happens. Until then, if anyone in the Western Cape, Eastern cape, or KZN is selling any of the following next year, please keep this in mind and let me know. I'm looking for:

Dual-core CPU (preferably any newish AMD Athlon x2, but I'll also give tri-cores some consideration)
4GB DDR2 800 RAM
Nvidia 8800GT 512MB (will also consider 9600GT, 9800GT, as well as HD3870 and HD4850)
Antec Lanboy casing
19inch LCD screen (wide if possible)
Thanks a bunch.

[Chevron]

By the way, is anyone upgrading anytime towards the middle of next year? I'm looking to buy some second-hand parts if I cant afford some stuff brand new. I'm most likely going to have most of my money in February, so I'll start a thread then and see what happens. Until then, if anyone in the Western Cape, Eastern cape, or KZN is selling any of the following next year, please keep this in mind and let me know. I'm looking for:

Dual-core CPU (preferably any newish AMD Athlon x2, but I'll also give tri-cores some consideration)
4GB DDR2 800 RAM
Nvidia 8800GT 512MB (will also consider 9600GT, 9800GT, as well as HD3870 and HD4850)
Antec Lanboy casing
19inch LCD screen (wide if possible)
Thanks a bunch.

By the time you wanna upgrade the new PhenomII quads and tris will be out.

Look here if you really want a dual core:
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...10921&Itemid=1