Thanks for your reply -- really helpful. After doing the paper clip test, it seems that the PSU is ok as the fans keep spinning at low speed. Moreover, I've discovered the PSU fans stay on whilst connected to the motherboard, but that the CPU cooler and case fan both start-up and then stop every few seconds. Perhaps this indicates a motherboard problem because both fans are drawing power from the motherboard? Is there anyway to check the motherboard without replacing it completely?
Well, there's not really a way to check if the motherboard is defective. It's just something you assume to be the case if everything else checks out fine. You should contact the place you bought the motherboard from and arrange for a replacement RMA.
Edit: just like the other poster suggested, you should try each RAM stick in each RAM slot to see if that makes a difference. sometimes one stick in a RAM kit can be faulty.
Is posting a link to a pcpartpicker list for critique acceptable etiquette? I'll just assume so. Any comments, rebukes, etc. would be appreciated.
I'm not used to really picking out the details beyond the videocard and RAM, mainly for upgrades (which has almost half a decade at this point), so I'm not sure I've done everything correctly (or intelligently).
The goal I laid out was, more or less, to be able to make use of the monitor (Acer XB280HK) while leaving the possibility of SLI for VR in the future (although an upgrade to a stronger card at the time may be more reasonable). Speaking of the monitor, is there a meaningful difference between the "Acer XB280HK" and the "Acer XB280HK bprz", besides about a hundred dollars in price and different vendors?
Besides picking something that allowed everything to fit (and being very conservative at that), I had no idea what I was doing with the case. I would love a smaller one, assuming it doesn't come at the expense of noise and air flow.
The mouse, keyboard, and headphones are filler that I probably won't be picking up in the end, although I'm still interested in hearing opinions on the subject.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/YzQZCJ
Hoping to use Memorial Day sales to save some cash (only reason I bothered to pick out the headphones, it's like 150 off).
The Corsair Vengeance RAM is large enough that it may interfere with the cooler and is overpriced for the speed. I'd get this
2x4GB kit of G.Skill Ripjaws X 2133MHz RAM for $53 instead, it represents better performance for lower cost, and should fit next to the cooler more easily. For low profile RAM that definitely won't interfere with the cooler, look at Kingston Fury, Corsair LP, or G.Skill Ares RAM. There are a number of cheaper and faster kits than that Vengeance Pro 1866MHz kit for $68.
Personally I wouldn't go with Seagate hard drives these days, they have a poor reputation. I can't speak for that particular model's failure rate because most of Seagate's high failure rates I think come from other hard drive models. For just a few dollars more, I personally prefer
WD Blue ($49 for 1TB) or
Toshiba drives ($48 for 1TB).
Right now the
EVGA GTX 980 FTW for $521 is a better deal than the MSI GTX 980 Gaming 4G. It's faster or equal in most areas. If you don't mind spending a bit more, then the flagship
EVGA GTX 980 Classified is going for $575 right now. Seems expensive, but it used to cost $650~700.
It's just me, but I'd look for a power supply other than the Corsair RM line. They're geared for low noise which is nice, but
they aren't exactly high quality for the price. If you prefer very low noise then it's totally fine to go with an Corsair RM series power supply. My usual recommendation is the
EVGA Supernova B2 750 watt ($50), a fairly great bronze rated semi-modular PSU that is good quality, well-built, and is very competitive price-wise. Otherwise if you care for low noise, you could get the
EVGA Supernova G2 750 watt model for $95 which is just a bit more than the Corsair RM750's $90 price tag. It might not be as quiet as the Corsair RM, but it still offers a low noise eco mode and higher quality internal components as well as also being gold rated and fully modular.
so , not having really payed attention to most of the GPU talk :
Why should i be excited for the upcoming Pascal cards ?
Also as a 780 ti classified owner i skipped over the 900 series .
would i see a enormously improved performance with Pascal cards over this one ?
Hard to say. Pascal is still very far away so there are no definite ideas about how much of an improvement it will be. Theoretically speaking it should be interesting to see, it will feature NVLink which is a high speed CPU-GPU connection up to 12 times faster than current PCI-E, and 3D memory similar to HBM which AMD will be including on their R9 390/390X flagship.
So I have this AMD R7 250X 2GB that started artifacting. Just got it for Christmas. It's been a pain in the ass, it's loud, and it underperforms in comparison to my old AMD Radeon HD 5670 1GB that it should theoretically be a bit faster than. I think it needs to be sent in, but the thing is there's no brand on it. It was purchased from Newegg, but Newegg doesn't list a brand and it's a reference design. I tried contacting AMD support a couple months ago and they were absolute shit in help and even marked the ticket as solved. I just wanna know who I should be trying to contact to get this fixed. I can't afford to buy anything new right now so I kinda need this card. any ideas? Thanks!
No brand? Can you give us the newegg link or show us a photo of the front and back?
Hey GAF!
I'm looking into upgrading my GFs PC. For gaming only (light browsing, Adobe stuff on the side).
Here are the current specs:
ASUS P5B Deluxe
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (OC @ 3.2GHz)
Ninja SCNJ-1000 cooler + 120mm fan
4x2GB RAM
XFX Radeon 7850 2GB
Corsair HX520
Crucial MX100 256GB SSD
BDROM
NZXT Source 210 case
Dell U2412M, 24” LED 1920x1200
MS Keyboard 200
Steelseries Rival
Windows 7 Professional SP1 x64
Italics need to be changed, so I'm looking at a brand new:
MBO
CPU
cooler
RAM
GPU
She'll be gaming on that 1920x1200p monitor. I'm thinking 970 will be more than enough for the long term.
This is just an exploration for now, to see what's out there and what to look for.
The actual purchase will probably be in 2-3 months.
Do you have a budget in mind? It'll probably be best to come back in a few months to see what the processor and graphics card situation is like, we'll be seeing new releases of both over the next month or three.
