POST YOUR SPECS

[kirottu]

Why laptop for gaming?

[Gorgon]

Alienware is awesome, and for the most part horribly ugly. It's like they asked those idiots from American Chopper to design the outside of everything they do.

[Fionavar]

I do a lot of travelling and, to be honest, I do not play FPS games that require the highest end video any more. I do most of my gaming on the PS3 and a gaming notebook allows me to run the few PC cRPGs that do not play nice on consoles w/o difficulty. Finally, even gaming notebooks carry enough resources that - for me - I do not notice any game degradation and the freedom is also a big bonus.

 

Why laptop for gaming?

[Pidesco]

ASUS P5QL PRO

Intel Core Duo 2 E7400

6 GB Kingston DDRII667 RAM

PNY GeForce GTX460 OC 1Gb GDDR5

ASUS Xonar D2X

Canton Movie 60CX Speakers

OCZ SSD Vertex Plus 120Gb

Samsung 320GB SATA2

Seagate 1Tb 7200 RPM S-ATA2 32Mb

Samsung 19" 923NW

Gamepad XFX XGear Dual Reflex

Cyborg V.5 Rumble Pad

 

 

My first SSD means WOOSH!!!

 

And the new gamepad means improved family gaming. Also, it's a 360 gamepad, for those pesky games that don't support other gamepads.

[Gorth]

Retired parts:

Intel I7 960 stock cooler

Microsoft Multimedia keyboard

Vista Ultimate 64bit

 

Dead parts:

Zalman Reserator 2 Fanless Water Cooling System

Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 Channel Speaker System - THX Certified

XFX Radeon HD 5970 Black Edition

 

Current parts:

Antec Performance One P182

Antec TruePower Quatro 1200 PSU

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Motherboard (water cooled)

12Gb (6x2GB) Corsair XMP DDR3 (running at 1600Mhz)

Intel I7 960 (3.2GHz) with EK Waterblock

Creative PCI EXPRESS X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series

Samsung 30" SyncMaster 305T+ (same model as the 'dead' one)

Koolance RP-1005 (Reservoir and pump)

EVGA GeForce GTX 590 Classified Hydro Copper

DAS Keyboard ('S' as in "silent")

EK external Radiator

 

Windows 7 Ultimate

 

Various peripherals: Wacom tablet, Microsoft LiveCam, Microsoft 5 button mouse (very old), Saitek X52 Pro flight stick, various external HDD and USB sticks

 

To-do:

Get external 7.1 amplifier plus subwoofer

[Malcador]

Got all this kit 6 months ago, Probably should have spent more on RAM, but ah well.

 

4GB G.SKILL F3-10666CL7D-4GBRH

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA3

Thermaltake Armor A90

Intel Core i5 2500K

EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti Fermi

MSI P67A-G43 (B3) P67

Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

[Enoch]

New build success! (Well, success so far-- I haven't gotten the chance to really put it under stress yet.)

 

ASUS P8Z68-V mobo

i5-2500K w/ stock cooler

2x4GB G.Skill PC3 12800 RAM

SeaSonic X650 Gold PSU

EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti

128GB Crucial M4 SSD

1TB Samsung HD

ASUS DVD drive of some kind

Cooler Master 690 II Advanced Case

Acer 23" 1920x1080 monitor

 

Had some stress in getting the BIOS set right. The mobo has a graphical BIOS interface, and for some reason it wasn't listing all of my drives as selectable in the boot priority. When I first flipped it on, the SSD was the only hard drive in there, and it found that just fine. I installed Windows without a hitch. But, after I put the storage drive in there, it displaced the SSD in the boot priority menu for some reason (as in, it wasn't just in there in front of the SSD-- it was in there and the SSD wasn't). So to boot into Windows, I had to bring up the BIOS every time, go into the advanced settings (where I'm mostly out of my depth) and force a boot from the SSD. It took me many tries to figure out that a particular item in the Advanced BIOS menu was clickable, and could be used to alter which HD shows up in the boot priority list.

[Fighter]

AeroCool VX-E case

ASRock P67 Pro B3

Intel Core I7 2600 3.4Ghz

Radeon HD 6970 2GB

Kingston RAM (2x4GB)

1 tb HD

[Janmanden]

Souping up the old Storm Scout. Retiring the Shadow Warrior and recruiting the Sabertooth. Hardware upgrades is an exotic business. (From ABIT AW9D + Core 2 Duo E6600 + 4GB DDR2 to ASUS Sabertooth X58 + Core i7-960 + 12 GB DDR3)

 

- ASUS Sabertooth X58, check.

- Core i7-960, check.

- Corsair something ram, Humm.. Erm.. INTEL Pentium E6700?.. ??.. Aaaargh!!!

 

Bloody hell, the stock worker checked out a Pentium E6700 instead of my ram.. And of course they close at 5 P.M.. And tomorrow saturday it's from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.. TOO EARLY. I NEED TO GET DRESSED TOO FOR CHRISSAKES.. Unfairyness.

 

Living in the countryside is.. actually surprisingly good considering the need for air for fuming over messed up deliveries, to feel that clean fresh air mixed into the blood, but.. gah. What a waste of breath. Tomorrow. Life is pain.

[Bos_hybrid]

AMD FX-4100 (Wanted the 980BE or 970 but they were out of stock at all my local stores)

Gigabyte 970A-DE

8gb(2x4) Corsair

1TB Samsung HD

Sapphire Radeon 6970

Thermaltake V6

[Rosbjerg]

Bought and traded myself to a new rig at a discount

 

Fx6100 3.3ghz 6 core CPU with Corsair H100 watercooling (planning on overclooking later)

16 GB DDR3 1600mhz Ram

2 gb 6870 Radeon

60 Gb Solid State HHD

1 TB Samsung Sata HHD

 

All for under 700$ (about 1000$ initially, but I sold and traded some items so the overall cost went down).. I'm satisfied.

[CymTyr]

AMD Phenom II 3.4 ghz Quadcore

8 GB DDR3 1600 Corsair

1 GB ATI 6670

1 TB Sata Hard drive

500 Watt PSU

 

Not sure which brands the hard drive and PSU are. Bought the system prebuilt from newegg (was on a time crunch and needed new system ASAP) for $600 USD, it's on an ASUS mobo.

[Gorth]

I was considering my backup options and came to the conclusion that dual layered Blu-Ray disks are just too unreasonably expensive. Ended up buying a 4TB Hitachi external HDD (USB3). I'm just so lazy sometimes

[Bokishi]

Currently rebuilding my comp. Here's my projected specs by the end of the month. System is 85% complete atm

 

Intel Sandybridge (Core i5) @ 3.4ghz

EVGA Z68 Socket 1155 Mobo

G.Skill 16 GB DDR3

EVGA Geforce GTX 680 2GB Kepler

EVGA Geforce GTX 280 1GB (Physx only)

SB X-Fi Titanium HD

Intel 40GB SSD (OS and certain games)

4TB Hitachi Desktars (Additional Storage)

1.2kw Thermaltake PSU

LG Blu-ray burner

Edited April 3, 2012 by Bokishi

[LadyCrimson]

I wish I had a clue how much "faster" the new gen of i5's and i7's are vs my old one. Not that it matters that much since this rig still runs everything top notch. And we're at 680 GTX's now? Heh. Still lovin' my 590 and still hoping I won't have to upgrade anything else for a couple years at least.

[Bokishi]

Yeah I probably wouldn't upgrade from a 590 to a 680, I just got one cuz my triple 280s in SLI had finally run their course, plus I am so sick of most games and their SLI issues, just give me one freakin badass card from now on plz.

 

Anyway the gtx 680 is just sitting on my desk while I wait to receive my replacement Z68 mobo from EVGA, as the first one I got died after 4 days test usage

[Nepenthe]

[Bokishi]

Haha those glasses are swag.

 

System is done! Turns out the mobo was actually fine and that I had a bad processor, so I exchanged it for a new one

 

Sandybridge (i5 2500k) @ 4.4ghz

EVGA Z68 Socket 1155 SLI

G.Skill 16 GB DDR3

EVGA Geforce GTX 680 2GB Kepler

SB X-Fi Titanium HD

Intel 40GB SSD (OS and certain games)

4TB Hitachi Desktars (Additional Storage)

1.2kw Thermaltake PSU

LG Blu-ray burner

[Humanoid]

No significant changes to my core system two years on, just added a 256GB second SSD as my games drive. Really should put the OS on it since it's the faster drive compared to my first-gen Indilinx one, but it's fast enough to not be worth the bother.

 

Intel i5-750 @ 3.33GHz

Prolimatech Megahalems + 2x Nexus Real Silent 120mm fans

Gigabyte P55A-UD4P

8GB PC10666 G.Skill Eco DDR3 1.35V 7-7-7-21

808.8GB WD Green

128GB G.Skill Falcon II SSD

Gigabyte HD5850

Asus Xonar Essence ST Sound card

Pioneer DVR-216 DVD-RW

Sony 3.5" FDD

Win7 Pro 64-bit OEM

Seasonic X-650

Antec P182

Scythe Slipstream 800-1200rpm case fans

2x Dell U2711 27" IPS monitors

Audioengine A5 2.0 powered speakers

Logitech MX1100 mouse + G15 (2nd gen) Keyboard

 

In:

Crucial m4 256GB SSD

CH Products F-16 Fighterstick USB

Alessandro MS-1 headphones

 

Out:

Audio Technica ATH-AD700 headphones

 

 

It really is time to upgrade the graphics card because the 1GB on the 5850 would choke on any modern graphically intensive game. The issue though is that the only modern graphically intensive game I own is The Witcher 2, which I have already completed once and would therefore feel silly blowing $400 on a worthwhile upgrade (GTX670 or HD7950) on half a game. *sigh*

 

Actually my biggest upgrade recently is not one that gets listed on system specs but is pretty notable in terms of overall usability. A new desk. Out goes my 15 year old IKEA chipboard desk that flexed alarmingly under the weight of my screens, and in is a fancy new L shaped workstation with hutch (and, get this, actual drawers ) - only MDF but at least it's solid. Also got a new chair, IKEA high-back Markus.

 

---

 

Also built a HTPC a year ago:

 

Intel i5 2300 (stock cooler)

Intel onboard HD2000 graphics

Asus P8H67-M microATX motherboard (first gen, complete with the potentially faulty SATA ports, too lazy to RMA)

4GB Kingston Value RAM

128GB Crucial m4 SSD

1x 2TB WD Green HDD

1x 2TB Seagate Barracuda LP HDD

LG BD-RW

2x 2TB 5900rpm Seagate external HDDs

2x 3TB 7200rpm Seagate external HDDs

Win7 Home Premium

Corsair CX-400 PSU

Antec Fusion Black case

Logitech Harmony 650 remote control

Onkyo SR-578 HT Receiver

Monitor Audio Bronze BR-2 bookshelf speakers

 

TV is still my old Samsung 46" B650 LCD which is really holding me back. Waiting around for the end of this year to see if I can get a good deal on the current get 65" plasmas.

Edited May 5, 2012 by Humanoid

[Gorth]

Actually my biggest upgrade recently is not one that gets listed on system specs but is pretty notable in terms of overall usability. A new desk. Out goes my 15 year old IKEA chipboard desk that flexed alarmingly under the weight of my screens, and in is a fancy new L shaped workstation with hutch (and, get this, actual drawers )

I had small wobbly table for my screen and keyboard when I lived in New Zealand. When I moved to Australia and got the room to spare, a real desk was high on the priority list. When I could afford it I went out to one of those specialist stores normally catering for corporate customers and bought desks (and drawers), chairs (and protective mats for the carpet) and wall units. Worth more than many a hardware upgrade in sheer improvement of the "pc experience"

[Pidesco]

ASUS P5QL PRO

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600

6 GB Kingston DDRII667 RAM

EVGA GeForce GTX 580 1.5Gb

ASUS Xonar D2X

Canton Movie 60CX Speakers

OCZ SSD Vertex Plus 120Gb

Samsung 320GB SATA2

Seagate 1Tb 7200 RPM S-ATA2 32Mb

Samsung 19" 923NW

Gamepad XFX XGear Dual Reflex

Cyborg V.5 Rumble Pad

 

 

I snagged the new graphics card through a very snazzy deal on eBay. However, now that the GTX 670 came out, I'm trying to tentatively sell it for a tidy profit. With the 670 I should be able to max out Arkham City with tessellation and Physx included.

 

Still, even if I don't manage to sell it, it's giving me great performance in everything, of course. I'm playing the Witcher 2 at 2560x1440 downsampled to 1080p. It is purdy.

 

On my wishlist is also a new monitor. One of these, to be exact. A brilliant deal.

[Bokishi]

Ok made some final adjustments, and replcaced some damaged parts from the last meltdown. Been stable for a month so far

 

i5 2500K @ 4.2ghz (3rd one!)

EVGA Z68 SLI (3rd one!)

Patriot 16 GB DDR3 1600MHz (2nd set!)

EVGA Kepler GTX 680 2GB

SB X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty

Intel 40GB SSD (SRT Cache)

4x 1TB Hitachi Desktars 7200rpm

Coolermaster GX 750w (replaced my bad bad psu)

[Humodour]

Just installed a Kingston Hyper X SSD. Size is 120 gigs. First thing I did was install Ubuntu 12.04. Yay, no more Windows!

 

The system is a whole lot faster. I think part of it is the fact that I've moved to Linux, and part of it the HD to SSD upgrade. Booting especially is incredibly quick. It's beautiful.

 

Installing games now.

[Humanoid]

Took a risk buying a HD7950 from Amazon US - if I need to return it I'll be out of pocket, but for a ~$100 saving ($330USD vs $400AUD+ locally, and shipping essentially the same) I figured it was worth it. Just installed it and all seems well. It's an MSI Twin Frozr model, with stock clocks of 880/5000MHz. I'll probably try to see if it can reach 1000/6000MHz on stock voltages, though generally these cards are capable of another 10-20% more over that with sufficient voltage. I definitely want to keep noise under control, especially given in the last 6 or so months, my slowly dying 5850 fan has damaged my ears.

 

Now I know I've said that the GTX670 is the clear winner this generation a couple months ago - but the landscape has shifted a bit given that AMD have lopped off over a hundred dollars off the launch price, and nVidia have not moved a single dollar. So the revised advice currently is this: go AMD unless you're absolutely set against ever overclocking the GPU, in which case it's a wash. This is based on street prices of $320-330 for the 7950; $400 for the GTX670; $420-430 for the HD7970; and $500 for the GTX680.

 

Additionally, I would say given current premiums for custom designed cards as opposed to reference, to always go for the custom unless you'll be going the waterblock route. This advice applies particularly strongly to the GTX670, which has a spectacularly cheap plasticky reference cooler and questionably contructed reference PCB.

[WDeranged]

I'm not one for siding with any particular manufacturer but my recent experience with AMD cards has been nothing but clunky, games seem to be made with Nvidia in mind and it shows, I was constantly waiting for patches and drivers with my 5970.

 

Still, they're brilliant bang for buck right now and I'm sure that single GPUs are way less trouble