General PC Help Thread - OP updated with useful links - READ

[Drunken_Master]

I've been generally quite impressed with the amount of grunt you get for the price with the Pentiums, but I've never put it to any kind of gaming.

Bearing in mind you can build an entire pentium machine for the cost of a decent i5 cpu, i would have quite low expectations.

Also, last I checked, it is generally recommended to turn hyperthreading off for gaming purposes. It's actually more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to gaming.

On games which only use one or two threads. Which is becoming less of an issue nowadays. Mosr games are now heavily mutithreaded, so the i3 would be better for gaming.

[HSH28]

I've been generally quite impressed with the amount of grunt you get for the price with the Pentiums, but I've never put it to any kind of gaming.

Bearing in mind you can build an entire pentium machine for the cost of a decent i5 cpu, i would have quite low expectations.

Also, last I checked, it is generally recommended to turn hyperthreading off for gaming purposes. It's actually more of a hindrance than a help when it comes to gaming.

On games which only use one or two threads. Which is becoming less of an issue nowadays. Mosr games are now heavily mutithreaded, so the i3 would be better for gaming.

I don't think anyone is saying the i3 wouldn't be better for gaming going forward, but as of right now if you aren't that interested in playing the most modern games at high settings and you are on a tight budget then that Pentium branded CPU is a decent way to save a fair chunk of money without giving up a whole load of performance under a lot of circumstances.

[Floex]

Haven't been near the PC market in years and have no idea what's good in the PC laptop market.

It basically just needs to run Office, word processing stuff and be relatively quick. Can any kind soul help?

Oh, it needs to be 13" and no more than £500

Nearly anything would suffice for those purposes. I've bought a few Dell laptops over the years and they've served me well so I'd recommend something like this:
http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-13-73 ... 2896xb&z=1

Awesome, thanks DD.

[Super Dragon 64]

It looks like you can save £50 if you use coupon code J4H16JMGTBTGWH. There's a purple banner at the top of the web page but I thought that I'd post here as well in case you miss it.

[HSH28]

I'm seriously considering selling my Nvidia 770 and buying a 970.

Anyone done that, or got any thoughts about the 970?

[zXe]

Yea do it it's a bloody great card.

[HSH28]

What card did you get?

Looking at the Gigabyte G1 version, supposed to be able to overclock it till it basically performs as fast as a 980.

[smurphy]

My brother is going to be purchasing a new PC soon, this is something his mate came up with: Linky.

I'm pretty out of the loop when it comes to hardware, so I'm not really sure what to think. I suggested an SSD, as well as perhaps a GTX 770. I always remember GPUs being more expensive than their equivalent CPUs. If any of you could give it a once over it would be mighty appreciated. I wish I could afford a new PC.

[zXe]

What card did you get?

Looking at the Gigabyte G1 version, supposed to be able to overclock it till it basically performs as fast as a 980.

I have the MSI one, both very good overclockers, though I've read more people mention the MSI one in that regard. I think the main thing of note is the Gigabyte one is a bit longer than the other 970's out there, so you may want to check it will be fine okay in your case. I don't think you can go wrong with either that one or the MSI. My MSI hits 1400Mhz core GPU clock in OC mode via the MSI Gaming App.

[HSH28]

What card did you get?

Looking at the Gigabyte G1 version, supposed to be able to overclock it till it basically performs as fast as a 980.

I have the MSI one, both very good overclockers, though I've read more people mention the MSI one in that regard. I think the main thing of note is the Gigabyte one is a bit longer than the other 970's out there, so you may want to check it will be fine okay in your case. I don't think you can go wrong with either that one or the MSI. My MSI hits 1400Mhz core GPU clock in OC mode via the MSI Gaming App.

Just been reading the review in the latest PC Format, apparently they got theirs to overclock to 1.5GHz and run fine.

[zXe]

My brother is going to be purchasing a new PC soon, this is something his mate came up with: Linky.

I'm pretty out of the loop when it comes to hardware, so I'm not really sure what to think. I suggested an SSD, as well as perhaps a GTX 770. I always remember GPUs being more expensive than their equivalent CPUs. If any of you could give it a once over it would be mighty appreciated. I wish I could afford a new PC.

What's the top they want to spend? but yea an SSD is a must these days imo. The only thing I personally could suggest which is pretty minor is going for low profile version of the Corsair Vengence 8GB (2x4GB) set- http://tinyurl.com/cj8hf2x

I have the normal non low profile set and the casing for the memory just gets in the way. It's really pointless and performance is no different. Such a fail on my part.

What card did you get?

Looking at the Gigabyte G1 version, supposed to be able to overclock it till it basically performs as fast as a 980.

I have the MSI one, both very good overclockers, though I've read more people mention the MSI one in that regard. I think the main thing of note is the Gigabyte one is a bit longer than the other 970's out there, so you may want to check it will be fine okay in your case. I don't think you can go wrong with either that one or the MSI. My MSI hits 1400Mhz core GPU clock in OC mode via the MSI Gaming App.

Just been reading the review in the latest PC Format, apparently they got theirs to overclock to 1.5GHz and run fine.

I've not tried to manually overclock mine yet, I just use the boost MSI app thing. I play on a 1080p monitor so haven't had the need to push it.

[HSH28]

Ordered the G1 last night, should be coming on Monday.

[Dig Dug]

I think my PC is buggered, so last night it started marking clunking noises and then it started beeping. I think the power supply is strawberry floated but I'm not 100% sure. The power supply is one I had to rip out of my old PC when I got my current one so it is a good 6-7 years old at this point.

I'm thinking of taking it to a shop to see if they can test and confirm this. I'm not plugging it back in until I can get the problem confirmed.

[Green Gecko]

Actually sounds like just a fan getting stuck and an alarm sounding because of that.

It could be hard disk failure but that doesn't explain the beeping unless the motherboard has built in SMART monitoring and alarm.

Power supplies have not been unknown to make strange noises but I don't think that's it.

[Dig Dug]

I'll have to check the fans. I only have 1 fan not including the power supply, motherboard or graphics card. I just assumed it was power supply as it is the loudest.

EDIT: The power supply isn't the loudest, the side fan is. Does the power supply fan blow out a lot of air because my one doesn't seem to blow out that much, at least not compared to the fan I put in.

[systematic]

Try the paperclip test on your PSU:



http://www.wikihow.com/Check-a-Power-Supply

[HSH28]

Ordered the G1 last night, should be coming on Monday.

Or maybe not, seems to be an issue with supply at the moment.

[KomandaHeck]

Ordered the G1 last night, should be coming on Monday.

Or maybe not, seems to be an issue with supply at the moment.

I was about to ask where you had ordered it from to get it that fast. I've ordered the same one from Amazon. Hopefully it arrives before my week off in mid-November.

I've bought all of my parts aside from the CPU and OS now, I went pretty overkill but sod it, I'm treating myself after saving for like a year. What's the cheapest way to get Windows 8.1? I've seen people mention that software swap subreddit a lot, what's that all about?

[zXe]

Ordered the G1 last night, should be coming on Monday.

Or maybe not, seems to be an issue with supply at the moment.

I was about to ask where you had ordered it from to get it that fast. I've ordered the same one from Amazon. Hopefully it arrives before my week off in mid-November.

I've bought all of my parts aside from the CPU and OS now, I went pretty overkill but sod it, I'm treating myself after saving for like a year. What's the cheapest way to get Windows 8.1? I've seen people mention that software swap subreddit a lot, what's that all about?

http://www.reddit.com/r/microsoftsoftwareswap/

[systematic]

What card did you get?

Looking at the Gigabyte G1 version, supposed to be able to overclock it till it basically performs as fast as a 980.

There's a good comparison of the ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte cards here: GTX 970 Comparison: STRIX vs MSI Gaming vs Gigabyte G1

The Gigabyte card is the best at overclocking for a number of reasons, but it's not like the other cards are far behind. The MSI card has the advantage of running quieter, the fans don't even spin when it's idle.

I was about to ask where you had ordered it from to get it that fast. I've ordered the same one from Amazon. Hopefully it arrives before my week off in mid-November.

Overclockers has the card (9 in stock right now) for immediate delivery, though they are selling it for £20 more than their competitors.

http://www.reddit.com/r/microsoftsoftwareswap/

Just be warned that 99% of the keys sold there are from Bizspark, Dreamspark and MSDN accounts so there's a chance Microsoft can catch on and invalidate those serial keys in a couple of months.