Desktop PC - how hard to upgrade motherboard?

[scott91575]

I initially had some rendering issues under Vista... you have the same?



Is it a G0?? 3200mhz was quite easy on air for me w/ TT Typhoon VX




Engine efficiency is pretty shitty with the Crytek fellas... not to mention the ongoing shadow issues I've heard about. (Queue Farcry)




Its going to bring your machine to a crawl, trust me on this one... volumetric lighting for the environment and units; yep - it sucks

I've never had any issues in Vista. Are you running 64bit?

My Q6600 is G0, and it's not a thermal issue. I run cool (I have a Zalman 9700). I'm trying to figure it out.

 

[Buckeneye]

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NEVER/unless? Seems pretty simple: Don't buy junk cases. Problem solved. I won't disagree.

I'd say PSU selection goes a little beyond what's offered with cases.

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and 19 times out of 20 a specialty brand $75+ PSU is overkill for the run of the mill desktop computer.

It depends on what you consider "run of the mill" - its really just a matter of opinion and yours and myself may conflict.

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Unless you're running two video boards, two CD/DVD drives, and two or more hard drives, you're throwing your money away by buying these 600W and higher PSUs.

As an enthusiast and child of the industry I call Shinanigans. I have 3 rigs for my own use; I keep one rig dissassembled (and reconfiged when new components come in) simply for the purpose of testing, overclocking, benching, experimenting etc etc. It only has one HDD, one optical drive, a floppy and then whatever is thrown in. Sometime it can be a single GPU setup (along with the mobo and cpu) I remember getting my first 8800GTX and X2000XT - having to use a 700watt supply in order to feed the two lines to the X2900.

My 9800GX2 isnt (technically) a multi GPU setup, but there's no way in hell you'll find my using a 600W unit in colation with that type of equipment.

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Really, on the high end you're not even paying the extra money for the PSU ... you're really paying for the convenience of some extra detachable cables and a few neon lights.

...and I hope to god you don't believe in this statement; I spend considerable money on quality power supply's that dont have modular cables and have no LED's on them whatsoever. On the high end, you HAVE to pay for a better unit otherwise you're just cheating death.

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the likes of Toms Hardware and boot Magazine (later Maximum PC) in the late 90s and up through/to today.

I havent read the latter, but Tomshardware isnt a site I'm huge on. I've read some of their older material and their hardware bias (back then) was quite prevelent. It isnt so bad recently and their articles are a fair bit better. Still, I like to purchase and use for my own experience.

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The bottom line is that maybe less than 1% of gamers, or workstation users at the extreme end need an extreme PSU, and we're only talking about scenarios where you need to power four+ hard drive RAID arrays and multiple video displays.

Again, your definition of "extreme" and mine are probably at completely different ends. My idea of extreme are these new 1600 watt units.
However 1000w have become near the standard amoungst myself and my peers.


and as for scott...

I've never had any issues in Vista. Are you running 64bit?

Have too if I want to properly use 4GB of RAM. I'm not currently experience them, but much earlier on I was, especially with draw distance.

My Q6600 is G0, and it's not a thermal issue. I run cool (I have a Zalman 9700). I'm trying to figure it out.

Some chips just won't do it. What are your voltages like? mobo too. dont rule out flux on the board or PSU.

 

[CleveBucks]

I've seen many computers fried by static electricity, but never from working in the inside of one. Always through a USB device.