Improve my PC thread!

[quote=Searz][quote=Thalia Kael]Sapphire Radeon 7950[/quote]Hmm, wasn't that the card that could be "unlocked" to an HD7970 by flashing a new BIOS? I'm pretty sure it was. Have you done it? I have a few friends who did it a while back. That card was just an amazing value proposition. [quote]As for HDD I'd take either a Western Digital Caviar Blue or a Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm.[/quote]I'd go for WD over Seagate. Better track record with reliability. It obviously varies greatly from product to product, but generally that's how it is. [quote]I only have a Sabertooth because I received it as a gift, I would not have bought it myself as I can't justify spending around 275 CAD on a motherboard considering the price of the rest of my build even though it's a superb product.[/quote]I can't speak for the motherboard itself, but I avoid "Thermal Armor" (AKA, expensive dust-catcher) like the plague. That shit is so pointless. [quote]If anyone has questions about mechanical keyboards I like to think I know a lot about them so just ask =P[/quote]If anyone has questions about mechanical keyboard you should just send them [url=http://www.overclock.net/t/491752/official-mechanical-keyboard-guide]here[/url] :P Pretty much everything there is to know in a very well-written guide. [quote=Lugignaf]Being specific, I'm using Maya 2015/16, and I'd be using Photoshop CC6[/quote]I believe Maya has OpenCL acceleration. AMD crushes Nvidia in OpenCL performance. There might be some kind of "CUDA" acceleration for Nvidia, but I don't know about it personally. So a 280X would probably be a safe bet. But it might be a good idea to wait for the "new" generation of AMD cards soon to come (summer). If nothing else prices might at least drop. And if you've got like 1000$ to spend on a GPU then you might wanna look at the monstrosity that will be Fiji.[/quote]

[quote=OTGBionicArm]Oh, one more question. I have a strange fondness for Linux. I know there's a program to run games on Linux, but is it worth doing and using linux as my primary operating system?[/quote]

[quote=BigBoxGamer]To be honest, you're probably better off with Windows. I personally have Windows 7 Ultimate.[/quote]

[quote=Lugignaf][quote=BigBoxGamer]To be honest, you're probably better off with Windows. I personally have Windows 7 Ultimate.[/quote] I feel like Windows is easier to do everything on, but Linux is also "better" in some ways. Of course, you could always totally fuck it up, lol.[/quote]

[quote=Thalia Kael][quote=Searz][quote=Thalia Kael]Sapphire Radeon 7950[/quote]Hmm, wasn't that the card that could be "unlocked" to an HD7970 by flashing a new BIOS? I'm pretty sure it was. Have you done it? I have a few friends who did it a while back. That card was just an amazing value proposition. [quote]As for HDD I'd take either a Western Digital Caviar Blue or a Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm.[/quote]I'd go for WD over Seagate. Better track record with reliability. It obviously varies greatly from product to product, but generally that's how it is. [quote]I only have a Sabertooth because I received it as a gift, I would not have bought it myself as I can't justify spending around 275 CAD on a motherboard considering the price of the rest of my build even though it's a superb product.[/quote]I can't speak for the motherboard itself, but I avoid "Thermal Armor" (AKA, expensive dust-catcher) like the plague. That shit is so pointless. [quote]If anyone has questions about mechanical keyboards I like to think I know a lot about them so just ask =P[/quote]If anyone has questions about mechanical keyboard you should just send them [url=http://www.overclock.net/t/491752/official-mechanical-keyboard-guide]here[/url] :P Pretty much everything there is to know in a very well-written guide. [quote=Lugignaf]Being specific, I'm using Maya 2015/16, and I'd be using Photoshop CC6[/quote]I believe Maya has OpenCL acceleration. AMD crushes Nvidia in OpenCL performance. There might be some kind of "CUDA" acceleration for Nvidia, but I don't know about it personally. So a 280X would probably be a safe bet. But it might be a good idea to wait for the "new" generation of AMD cards soon to come (summer). If nothing else prices might at least drop. And if you've got like 1000$ to spend on a GPU then you might wanna look at the monstrosity that will be Fiji.[/quote] I read about it but never tried it unfortunately. I haven't gone through enough hard drives to really give my opinion on whether WD is better than Seagate. Yeah the thermal armour is pretty much just a gimmick and marketing scheme. The metal backplate is nice, however. I wouldn't really recommend buying a Sabertooth to anyone as there are better options at lower price points imo[/quote]

[quote=Searz][quote=OTGBionicArm]Oh, one more question. I have a strange fondness for Linux. I know there's a program to run games on Linux, but is it worth doing and using linux as my primary operating system?[/quote] You mean Wine. Some games work perfectly, some work poorly and some don't work at all. Here's a database with games and how well they work with the program: https://appdb.winehq.org/ If you're okay with that then go for it. Linux is much better than Windows in many ways, but it does require a bit more tinkering to get some things done/working. Get acquainted with the terminal and you'll get most things done pretty quick. Here's an interesting video on virtualization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MA8wwIGgCGs It doesn't work too well with games unless you pass through a graphics card (meaning you'll need two graphics cards or have to use the GPU integrated in the CPU for Linux and that has terrible performance). On the plus side, Linux is quickly gaining popularity as a gaming platform. I attribute a lot of that to SteamOS. I knew it was gonna cause ripples. There are currently about 1200 native Linux games on Steam, and it's steadily growing. Even bigger titles are starting to get ports/releases. CDProjektRed has promised a Witcher 3 port. Not sure when it will come though. Here's a list sorted by popularity: http://store.steampowered.com/search/?term=&sort_by=_ASC&os=linux&page=1#sort_by=Reviews_DESC&category1=998&os=linux&page=1 There's like 10 games I'd recommend in the first page alone.[/quote]

[quote=Searz][quote=Thalia Kael]I read about it but never tried it unfortunately.[/quote] You might wanna consider it. It's a fairly safe procedure and if anything goes wrong I believe that card has a double BIOS, meaning that it's as easy as flipping a switch and you're back to normal with the backup BIOS. Not like back in the day when I did it. I had literally the first card on the market with GDDR5 memory (HD4870) and the BIOS had to be larger to contain the required data to handle GDDR5 initialization. The problem is that the program I used to extract the BIOS with didn't support this new larger format of BIOS files, so I semi-bricked the damn card. Luckly I was able to borrow an old card from a friend and was able to get it back up and running after a week or two.[/quote]

[quote=Thalia Kael]I'll read up about it and try it out.[/quote]

[quote=BigBoxGamer]If you're looking to spend in the $700-$80(with case) price range on your tower, you can't go wrong with this build. This is the build I would upgrade my current PC with if I could. If you wanna dish out more bucks, the GPU can be upgraded to something stronger though. [u][b]CPU:[/b][/u] Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor [u][b]Mohterboard:[/b][/u] Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard [u][b]Memory:[/b][/u] Kingston Fury Black Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory [u][b]Storage:[/b][/u] Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive [u][b]GPU:[/b][/u] EVGA GeForce GTX 750 2GB SuperClocked Video Card [u][b]Power Supply:[/b][/u] Antec EarthWatts Platinum 550W 80+ Platinum Certified ATX Power Supply My current build btw... [u][b]CPU:[/b][/u] Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 [u][b]Motherboard:[/b][/u] ASUS P5N-D [u][b]Memory:[/b][/u] CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) [u][b]Storage:[/b][/u] 465GB Western Digital WDC [u][b]GPU:[/b][/u] NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 [u][b]Power Supply:[/b][/u] corsair tx750w The huge power supply was because it was suppose to be an SLI build, but it never happened.[/quote]

[quote=Thalia Kael]That GPU is way too weak for a 700-800$ build...[/quote]