I just built a new PC for my birthday, its currently being shipped.

Case: ThermaTake Armor Plus VH6000BWS

Motherboard: MSI DKA790GX Platinum

CPU: Phenom II X4 940 3.0ghz Quad Core

GPU: X2 ATI Radeon HD4870

Powersupply: 1000watts

HD: X2 1TB Western Digital Internal

Price: $3,569. i got a major discount from Newegg through my father being a supervisor there.

Racerxgt

You got majorly ripped off by looks of that, I could build that rig and make it much better in the UK for less, you could of gotten an I7 extreme rig for that price, really dont understand why its $3569

Have you checked to see if there is something on the internet that would allow you to unlock the motherboard? I have heard of people doing that before and it would save you changing out your mobo.

If you cant do that then a normal motherboard should allow overclocking but wouldnt expect massive results.

[QUOTE="X360PS3AMD05"]Of course it's enough, people exaggerate how much power you really need. mattpunkgd

Im pretty sure 700W would handle GTX260's in sli, esp if 750W can handle GTX280's in sli.

[QUOTE="KurganUK23"][QUOTE="beefdog"]

Yea that how coolers get mounted on amd system with the retention bracket.

beefdog

Sweet as, time to start saving for a Phenom 2 then hehe, I want the black edition though as im not an experienced Overclocker, although my 9950BE has been done without multi so makes no difference really (everytime i altered multi it wouldnt stabilise, probs why im havin probs getting more than 3ghz)

Yeah AMD mouting of Coolers is crap IMO, I have same cooler and it bangs into my Corsair Dominator so its had to be mounted slightly out of position, lucky the base is big enough to still do its job but was a git to get it right and fasten down as bracket dont fit in slots

3.4 ghz is atainable with stock voltage on the 940. Thats what im running and it usually stays around 33c and maybe 43 on full load.

Thats cool, I had to alter Volts etc to OC this one so im not too fussed about doing that and full load im running 55c roughly due to crap cooling in this case, as long as its not any harder than 9950BE ill be fine getting it up, I would like to achieve 4ghz if at all possible but with my skills I may be laughing in the wind for that.

Thanks for the heads up anyway Beefdog

Ok

So i load up my system and it comes up with a message saying autocheck.exe cannot be found but unlike other cases ive read about, my computer actually loads and does not BSOD loop.

How can i fix this? I've heard you can use your windows cd to repair it but i dont have one, as this computer started as a prebuilt. I've also read that diskeeper may have played a part in it? I started a defrag and then quit it half way through, did this create the problem?

I also got some automatic windows updates last night, that my computer insisted on installing, before these i had no problems. However i do not know what was installed as it basically just kept asking me to restart my computer!

Any ideas/solutions guys??

Thanks

Nedus1

If its a prebuilt and you have no windows disk then you should have a recovery partition built into the machine, usually accessible from start up when u get BIOS options.

[QUOTE="Lyron-Baktos"]what resolutions are you playing at?hofuldig

I run at 1280x800 and even on crysis I cant max my cpu either and im only clocked at 3ghz so wouldnt worry about it, you could say your gpu is a slight bottleneck but its not worth the cash to buy something better in all honesty, as long as u have decent fps dont worry, if you had bad fps then id say buy new GPU.

Wish I had a 4870 lol thats what I plan to change to in the future.

1. If your not bothered about the latest and greatest hardware ur best buying old generation parts when new ones come out as price usually goes down but as there always something due and everything gets stepped your only gonna save a little anyway, unless say u buy cpu now (I7 came out a few month ago and Phenom 2 came out last week) so now is probs the time for cpu, GTX295 due out soon so gpus will drop in the near future.

Really though in all honesty the best time to buy new hardware is when u have the money and u need it.

2. XP is still good if u want a 32bit OS (XP64 isnt that good) if u want 64bit OS get Vista or try and get Windows 7 BETA 64.

3. Plenty of research sites, Tomshardware and Legion Hardware to name a couple.

Personally id go, quad core (not fully utilised now but in 12-18month it defo will be so unless u wanna upgrade that quick quad is most sensible choice at mo), 4gb ram (2gb min), GTX260 or HD4870 and rest to suit cpu and your needs.

ok i have an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocked to 3.7GHz and an ATI HD4870. now no matter what game i play my CPU never hits 100% allways around 80% usage even in games like Crysis the CPU sits at around 80%. Dose that mean that my Video card is bottlenecking my cpu or dose it mean that my CPU is bottlenecking my GPU?hofuldig

Could be your GPU is holding u back a little but you will most probably find that its because games wont really use anything above 3ghz, IMO overclocking past that can sometimes be a waste as u will only see a very minor increase, although the extra just allows games to take a full 3ghz if needed and apps some headroom to work as well.

So whats better

Pentium Dual Core e5200 2mb L2 2.5ghz 800fbs

or

a intel core 2 duo e4600 2mb L2 2.4 Ghz 800 fbs

Rdiz

Not that up on Intel but id say the E5200 as ive heard the only major difference between dual core and core 2 duo is cache size and as cache is the same the dual core would be better due to higher clock but could be wrong, I know more into AMD and higher end Intels, I dont really deal with lower end as not many people really buy them

[QUOTE="swehunt"][QUOTE="Captain__Tripps"]

The PC can be a LOT more expensive than a console, or not much more expensive. Its up to you how often you upgrade... and not a choice you have with a console. You can build a $450 PC now that will blow any any console, and will certainly last until the next generation of consoles.

Captain__Tripps

Don't get me wrong, PC's are great and usefull for many more things than a console is but $450 for a system "blowing any console away" (still talking about gaming!) is a strait LIE.

If you can build the PC for $450 that will blow "any colsole" away i'll go numb, but both you and me knowing this is a strait lie make this a silly argument.

(blow means they don't even play in the same leauge!)

Hec. i would even say you'll end up paying for a 9800gt (OR BETTER!) and a E5200 then a decent chassi and a PSU, but hay... where are the rest of your money? (Motherboar and Ram, HDD and DVD player, keyboard and mouse?)

Admit... deep wather...

No, you can build a $450 complete PC. Sure it won't be the best quality , but hey. Neither is the 360. lol A "cheap" case isn't going to cause a RRoD as long as you've got a couple of fans in there...

Come off it a $450 pc beating an xbox360 id love to see that and id eat my hat when it does.

Yeah xbox has the RRoD problem but if that happens u get it replaced plain and simple, and not everyone gets that anyway, my dad bought a 360 at launch and it lasted a good 18month before a problem and the one he got now had been faultless all the way.

If you dont sufficiently cool your pc and it goes pop you have lost your money plain and simple.

Console gaming is the cheapest option, its not the best quality option but u can walk into a shop, look for the section for your console and buy any game u like without worrying are my specs up to scratch, pc are constantly pushing new hardware.

I have now built 2 pc's for myself 1 in 2005 & 1 in 2008, the total I have spent on both machines would add up to around £1500-£2000 not including games and there not the best machines around, the current machine is in my sig.

And like SWEHUNT said not many pc users dont sit there and think I could do with upgrading this soon when a game dont work as planned, ive already changed mobo and psu in mine since building in oct and have other upgrades planned like more ram, extra cooling when get case sorted, new graphics card/s and even down to new cpu now the Phenom 2's have arrived.

With the money I have spent on this rig so far I could of bought, Xbox360, Playstation 3 & Nintendo Wii and got some games and extra controllers etc.

PC gaming is a hobby and a damned expensive one at that, even if you built the best possible machine with I7 extreme, 12gb's 2000mhz ddr3, 2/3/4 gtx295's upon release and all the rest like best case, raptor drives and such basically nothing else could be better at the time, id give it a few month at most before you think I could make this better, why would you think that because there would be some newly released hardware and games and your rig that cost thousands would now be old hat and not up to scratch, its a viscous circle if you let it become that as they constantly push new hardware at us.

If i had the money id be running I7 extreme with loads of ram, multiple cpus, raptor drives and all the best stuff and now Phenom 2 is out id prob build another rig so i could compare them myself just to see which is better for what I like to do as benchmarks dont cover personal experience and all benchies show different things to get you to buy different stuff.