Building a computer? Need advice/suggestions? Come here!

[Cortexian]

Yes.

Okay good, now I just need a tutorial for flashing a graphics card bios through Windows, instead of using a floppy disk (I don't have a floppy drive available). According to overclock.net it's possible with any nVIDIA cards newer than the G80 series, but they don't have a tutorial yet.

[Xetsuei]

Okay good, now I just need a tutorial for flashing a graphics card bios through Windows, instead of using a floppy disk (I don't have a floppy drive available). According to overclock.net it's possible with any nVIDIA cards newer than the G80 series, but they don't have a tutorial yet.

I don't personally have any experience but Syuusuke flashed his 7900GTO(a 7900GTX with slower memory) to a 7900GTX, you could ask him.

[Cortexian]

I don't personally have any experience but Syuusuke flashed his 7900GTO(a 7900GTX with slower memory) to a 7900GTX, you could ask him.

Bah, apparently I happened to pick the card that won't flash properly without a modification to the card itself...

Freelancer;

The evga 285 GTX SSC/FTW come with added pin bridging and higher vGpu/vMem. Stock cards run at 1.18v, the SSC/FTW cards run at 1.24-1.26v so flashing a vanilla card to SSC/FTW will only change clock freq and not voltages, the voltage change is done on the card itself.
See the 285 volt modding page here

[Varmint260]

I have a question for t3h experts... or several... I'm a little undecided on exactly what to do to upgrade my computer at the moment... I can't really afford to upgrade it right now but I could probably do so in the next two or three months. I've been looking around on the internet, and I need a few statements cleared up.

One: My computer has two RAM slots for DDR2. Currently, one is filled with 1gb PC2-6400. I was thinking that 3gb would be optimum for a 32bit OS. True or false? Maybe filling up the second slot with 2gb of PC2-6400 would be the way to go. However, I have been told on another forum that with DDR RAM, you only get the double data rate if both sticks of RAM are the same size. True or false? In a local computer store, a guy told me that the double-data rate is still possible with different sized ram sticks if the first slot has the bigger one. True or false?

TWO: Would it simply be easier to order a pair of 2gb sticks off of Newegg.ca, and would my computer simply use as much of the 4gb as possible and just ignore the rest? Or would it do a crazy BSOD for having too much RAM? Again, I've heard multiple statements on this subject and I'm not sure what's correct.

THREE: Since I have only a single-core 2.4GHz Athlon... would it even be worth my money to get a graphics card as good as a 4850, for example? What's the best graphics card I could buy that wouldn't be incredibly limited by the CPU? Or, should I go for a really nice GPU like a 4850 or 4870 and then just upgrade the CPU when I have the time?

Thanks for reading all that. I'm quite the noob when it comes to upgrades

[Warsaw]

ONE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_channel

TWO: I'd just go with the dual 2GB sticks, that way if you upgrade to 64-bit on that same machine, there's nothing you need to change.

THREE: You have an AM2, so I don't think spending money on an HD4850 would be too bad, especially considering that your CPU is also quite upgradeable at this point (don't wait too long, or it will cost you a pretty penny to upgrade that, kinda like trying to upgrade 939s now).

[Varmint260]

Thanks for the info! "You must spread some rep around before giving to Warsaw again." I'll get to it at some point

ONE: So, for the odd motherboard different dimms can be used, but for the vast majority, I should just get identical ones. Though that 5% increase isn't much, what the heck! 2x2gb it is.

THREE: So, you mean that right now, it is cheap to replace CPUs for the motherboard my computer happens to have, but in awhile it'll become rather outdated so it's good to upgrade now while it's mainstream?

[Warsaw]

ONE: Yes. Good choice. Better safe than sorry.

TWO: That's exactly what I'm saying. If I were you, I'd get both now. I don't think X2s are going to get much cheaper than they are now.

[343guiltymc]

What happens if you try to use RAM with different speed together like say, PC2 5300 with PC2 4200.

[Cortexian]

What happens if you try to use RAM with different speed together like say, PC2 5300 with PC2 4200.

Both modules will run at the lower speed iirc.

[Warsaw]

^ True statement.

On a similar note, if you use two different capacity sticks in dual channel, the capacity of the lesser stick will run in dual channel on both sticks, with the remainder on the larger one being run in single channel.