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

[InnerGoat]

Deal with it.


http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...50-review.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...radeon-hd-6950

[Warsaw]

Already read it. Very interesting how they've changed since the last generation. For those of you who don't want to read, the short version is that AMD has squeezed extra power out of its Shader Processors and improved tesellation at the expense of performance some slightly older games. Good news is that for the newest games and the most presently demanding games, it is as fast as or faster than the GTX570, but for older games it can get trumped by the 5870 in some instances.

[PlasbianX]

Question time! No GF for plas = lots of spare money. HOWEVER, im in the process of getting a new car.. so I only have a little bit of a budget here to work with. So here's my question. How will 'Tier 3' work with current games out now? Am I gonna be able to run current games at medium to high settings? If i go with Tier 3, i can basically get it within the next week:

http://www.hardware-revolution.com/b...ng-pc-q4-2010/

Now, if it wont get me medium to high settings, im willing to wait a while till i get the extra money for tier 6:
http://www.hardware-revolution.com/m...eam-gaming-pc/

How will that do me? Will I be able to get max settings with that on current games? I dun know shit about PCs by simply looking at the parts like that ><

[Warsaw]

Tier 3 is actually pretty damn good, and should do fine (it's essentially what I have) though I'd slap a 6870, 5870, or 6970 in there as opposed to that GTX 460 they recommend. If you want nVidia, get a GTX 470, 480, or GTX 570.

[Timo]

How up to date are you guys with PSUs? My current Corsair VX550 is only able to power my setup running my motherboard with 20 pins, apposed to 24. Everything still runs fine even under load and at high ambient temps. I'm wanting to upgrade because the fan is becoming damn noisy, and I don't like the idea of running a power supply at its max output.

My current setup:
AMD X4 955
4GB DDR2
HD4850 512MB
3 HDDs
1 CD Drive
2 Case Fans

I'm thinking about upgrading to a 5000 or 6000 series card and eventually DDR3 ram this year, does anyone have any recommendation for a silent power supply?

I was thinking about the Corsair HX650: http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/comp...p?partid=11077
It provides an extra 10A on the +5 and +12V rails, which in my extremely uneducated opinion seems like a decent upgrade.

[InnerGoat]

Your current PSU is fine for any card you upgrade to, excluding the dual-gpu cards of course.

[Warsaw]

He wants a quieter PSU, not just a more powerful one. I would give advice but I'm not really qualified since I have never built a PC for quiet operation. I always have all of my fans running at 100% except for the GPU.

[InnerGoat]

The one he has now is quiet. If he's still using the stock AMD heat sink thats making all the noise ~

[Timo]

Nope. I'm using a Noctua heatsink and fan for my CPU, i've unplugged my case fans and turned my GPU fan down to 20% (and turned it up to 100, but it makes a different kind of hum) to see if that stops the noise, but the sound still persists :\

[Warsaw]

The one he has now is quiet. If he's still using the stock AMD heat sink thats making all the noise ~

Used to be quiet. Isn't any more.

From what I can tell, the high end PSUs are all within the "quiet" realm...comes with the price tag. Hell, even my HEC 580W is quiet and it's running full blast.