Building A Custom Desktop

[PS3-Playb3yond]

Originally Posted by Offender_Mullet

It's an Ivy Bridge. I think they came out earlier this past Spring, so they're still recent. However, there's no real logical reason to upgrade from a Sandy Bridge to an Ivy. Main reason is - they don't overclock as well as Sandy Bridge does due to some heat issues (Intel used thermal paste inside the cpu instead of fluxless solder from what I've read). Even though they draw less power than Sandy Bridge cpu's Intel's little cost-cuting move has made a lot of overclockers upset. Mine is running fine at 4.2GHz but I haven't run any stress tests on it yet.

I see. Guess some will be switching back then. Intel should switch back the fluxless solder in future manufactures and come up with some kind of deal to current owners.

I love the motherboard. The bios layout is wonderful and a lot more user-friendly than my old Z68 Gigabyte was. My only gripe about it is: It has a 4-pin pwm fan connector for the cpu fan. However, in the bios there isn't an option to have it set to pwm mode. Wtf?

Is the BIOS UEFI? Mine is and it's pretty cool! But, what's PWM mode?

[BLindsay]

Originally Posted by PS3-Playb3yond

I see. Guess some will be switching back then. Intel should switch back the fluxless solder in future manufactures and come up with some kind of deal to current owners.



Is the BIOS UEFI? Mine is and it's pretty cool! But, what's PWM mode?

Meh its not a huge deal, IVY doesnt overclock as high but its faster clock for clock so it more or less evens out, if you are already on sandy there is no point in upgrading. lower power draw will be nice in the laptops though.

[Offender_Mullet]

Originally Posted by PS3-Playb3yond

I see. Guess some will be switching back then. Intel should switch back the fluxless solder in future manufactures and come up with some kind of deal to current owners.

What BLindsay said. It really isn't a big deal. I've seen a video where this kid removes the heatsink and replaces it with higher-quality thermal paste. Doesn't seem that hard to do, but still.....not going to try it.

Is the BIOS UEFI? Mine is and it's pretty cool! But, what's PWM mode?

Yes, my ASRock is UEFI. My old Gigabyte Z68 chipset board had a UEFI, but my more recent AMD Llano Gigabyte board had the oldschool bios. This is more user-friendly than my Z68 board was. Better layout.

PWM = pulse width modulation. Basically a fancy way of saying your fan will speed up and slow down automatically. If your motherboard supports it, there should be at least one 4-pin cpu fan connector. Fans which have 4-pins hook up to that and setting what usually says "pwm mode" in the bios saves you from having to tweak the fan's settings manually. It'll speed up or slow down as the cpu's temps rise and lower.

[Offender_Mullet]

A brand pimp slappy new Samsung 830 Series 256GB ssd for under $200? Yes please!




I guess I was the only person in the U.S. who noticed Micro Center's pricing error in their latest circular.

[PS3-Playb3yond]

Congrats! I have a 64GB SSD that I bought from a while back and it was expensive considering it's space. Wish they would lower the costs for SSDs, they should phase out mechanical drives and stick with SSDs. SSD is the future.....or present lol!

[Offender_Mullet]

Needless to say they were NOT happy with me there. lol It took a while, about 20 min. going back-and-forth talking to their 'manager' before they gave into me, but in this particular case.....the customer was legitimately right.



It may take a few months for the following to hit consumers, but your wish is granted.

On the eve of Intel Developers Forum San Francisco, we received word from a SSD manufacture that Toshiba just slashed the price of Toggle Mode NAND Flash by 20 to 25%.

With the massive price drop, we can only assume that Toshiba is backing off their reduced output strategy. This is good news for consumers looking for even lower priced SSDs.

Link:http://www.tweaktown.com/news/25738/...day/index.html

[Stridulent]

For those looking to get a SSD, the Intel 330 is amazing and at an amazing price.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820167121

[BLindsay]

SSD might be the only upgrade i do in the near future, i have 2x 128GB Crucial C300s currently. been keeping an eye out on a deal for a 512GB SSD, almost nabbed the crucial m4 for $340 recently but never got around to it in time