Well being a tech section and all, would be a shame not to get some computer chat on the go!
Just finished doing a mini upgrade on my computer. Was really looking forward to Battlefield 3 and a few other titles due out the back end of this year. However started to realise that the old machine wasn't quite cutting the mustard any more. Don't get me wrong it was still a fast computer, Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocked to 3.6Ghz with 4GB Ram and a GTX 260 graphics card. It just wasn't fast enough for what I wanted to do with it, and I refuse to play computer games with crappy low graphics.
£270 I've ended up with:
AMD Phenom X4 955 B/E 3.2Ghz
Asus M4A88T-M motherboard
8GB Corsair Vengeance RAM
GTX 460 768MB
Already had:
64MB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD drive
Corsair H50 watercooler
Some random gigage of hard drive space, lots and lots
X-Fi sound card
Speed difference in Windows is negligible, however in games it's a whole new ball park. Can now play Bad Company 2 with every setting maxed out, and Battlefield 3 I can play with everything on high. My 22" Samsung monitor only goes up to 1680*1050 which helps, I think at higher resolutions the GTX 460 might start to get tired, especially with it only having 768MB.
I wanted to start overclocking it, however had a bit of a cock up with the cooling. My H50 watercooler has different brackets depending on whether it's going onto an AMD or Intel motherboard. When I moved I misplaced the bracket for AMD boards as I'd never used it. This meant I had to use the stock cooler whilst looking for a solution. The stock cooler by the way is AWFUL! Very loud and the temperatures were way too high. Thermal compound on there was shocking as well.
I mentioned it on the Overclockers UK forum and a very nice person said he had an AMD bracket he didn't need as his block is on an Intel board, so he was kind enough to post the bracket to me! There are still decent people in this world after all. Got it this morning so just took everything out and re-assembled with the watercooler block on. Temperatures have gone down mid 40's to low 30's.
Very happy
What rigs are we running boys?
