Widescreen Gaming Forum

Yeah, I got wiped out on Monday. All three monitors, computer, TV, Wii, digital camera, wife's netbook, and wife's banjo. I got insurance, but man it messes with your mind to have #$%@!*s invade your house like that.

I could have kept that to myself but I know most everyone here will feel my pain. :)

So anyway, it's time for a new computer. I don't even know if I'm going to bother with three monitors again yet.

Could someone look over this draft build I came up with? I'm not sure I'm thinking clearly about the issue, I'd like some recommendations. I mean, I wasn't planning on upgrading what I had for another 1-3 years.

Draft build posted here:
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=10854592

The higlights are i7 processor, GTX 285 graphics card.

I could have kept that to myself but I know most everyone here will feel my pain. :)

A number of bikes and a house fire. I feel your pain :(

As far as that build list goes, here are my nit picks. The monitor is a mere TN panel and it's native res is not supported by many games. Of course you can always try and tweak the game's config file for a custom res, which often works, but sometimes doesn't. There's a pretty good Dell e-IPS 22" now that can be had for less. It's only 1680x1050, but many say the best 22" made now. There's a 23" e-IPS made by LG coming out that's 1920x1080 though, which might be ideal. Apple was the first to pick up on that one, and according to the Apple stores, we may find out about it this month.
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=320-7825&cs=04&c=us&l=en&dgc=SS&cid=27722&lid=628335

Also, I prefer Gigabyte MBs over EVGA, which can be had in dual SLI X58 with 2000MHz memory standard for $210.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128386

The CM Cosmos case is a bit pricey, cheesy in some ways, and lacks HDD cooling, I like the Seagate Barracuda over the Caviar (though the VeloRaptors are awesome), the Thermalright TRUE is a better CPU cooler, and lastly, that's a lot to spend for 3x2GB DDR3 RAM with timings that high. There are tons of 3x2GB kits well under that with the same timings and some even lower with a CAS latency of 6 or 7 vs 8.

3x2GB DDR3 Kits

My fave RAM kits in the above comparison are the Mushkin for $170 with CAS 6 or if you really want bang for the buck, the best deal by far is the OCZ Platinum for $80 with CAS 7. Note if you go Mushkin, make sure it works with your MB. You should be fine compatibility wise with OCZ though. $170 saved on RAM alone would buy you a very nice sound card, which is my other main nit pick, any high end system should have one. Of course it takes good speakers to really notice the difference. If you add up what you could save on all the parts I mentioned though, it would actually be enough to buy a pretty decent sound card and a pretty good speaker set.

It's easy to get caught up in thinking "It's OK, the insurance money will cover it", but the better you make use of that money the less you'll have to add or change later on.

Yeah, I got wiped out on Monday. All three monitors, computer, TV, Wii, digital camera, wife's netbook, and wife's banjo. I got insurance, but man it messes with your mind to have #$%@!*s invade your house like that.

Totally agree. Don't really have the energy to have a lot at your build right now, but felt the need to agree with this completely.

We had the basment flodo a whiel ago and it killed some electronics. (but not my PC, yay for keepign it off the floor)

It was a pain, but in the end, we wound up with MUCH better replacements. My lame infra-red wireless headphones were "somehow" dropped into the water, and i replaced them with nice RF sets worth about 10x as much. It was a similar case for everything else. Including carpeting.


BUt having some diupshit coem in and invade you domecile must feel quite a bit worse. We had outr car stolen from our frakkign driveway a couple years ago and even that felt liek a personal attack.

On the bright side, it was a stupid god damned junkie (but aren't they all?) that stole it, then broke into other cars and kept all those goods in OUR car, and then parked it only a few blocks away.. so the fucker w2as caught and charged with theft over 5 grand.

And i got a name, too. So when i come across him in the future, i can take a finger or three.

Erin Izzard. THat worthless junkie mother fucker.

Oh and ya, i'm sorry to hear about your losses. Still better than a fire, right?

LOL, if you guys were truly sorry you'd at least take a few minutes to read his spec sheet and give your opinion on it as per his request. I'm sure I'm not the only one here that can offer some component advice. :wink:

Sorry Frag, I guess they were distracted by actually feeling sorry for him. Also there isn't much to recommend on this setup as far as i know. Only thing I would say to Vroshnak about the setup is that I would recommend using a different HDD. I've had bad luck with the TB WD Caviar Greens.

But about the break-in, Vroshak; a couple of years ago somebody snuck into the garage thats attached to my house and stole my bike. It was the only thing taken which only adds to the violated feeling I got the next morning when I tried to bike to work.

_________________
EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0 3.5GB | 3 X LG Flatron 24EA53VQ in Nvidia Surround | Optoma HD20

Only thing i would suggest is a monitor that can do 1600x1200 if he plays 4:3 games, which a 16:10 display of that size would do...

But if insurance is apoying, then sap all you can out of them. If you din;t need to PROVE it, then go big.

Yup, I feel your pain/anger mate. Although I never experienced being burglared. Come to think of it, my precious gaming stuff's not even insured :shock:

Hopefully your wife likes her new banjo, too.

I'll look into changing up the hard drive, case, memory, and monitor (still debating whether to get three again or just go with one). Thanks for the suggestions.

I went ahead and bought my wife a replacement netbook, and somehow a 300gb Velociraptor hard drive also ended up in my cart. Funny how these things happen.

My advice about being prepared for a burglarly:

Have homeowner's (or renter's) insurance. Pick a deductible you can afford. My deductible is $1000 so I have to pay that much, but insurance covers the rest. You could get a lower deductible, but you'd pay more for the insurance. Personally, $1000 doesn't put me in the poor house and I don't want to overpay on my insurance.

Have receipts and/or pictures. You do have to prove ownership of everything you claim, but a manual or a picture is enough for them (or at least for my insurance company). One of the nice things about buying so much online is that the receipts are on the internet and I can easily print them out. (If you want to be really responsible, get the serial numbers of your equipment so the cops could identify your stuff if they find some bad guys.)

Hide your sensitive information. I'm glad I use web email exclusively, so there are no emails on my hard drive for them to go through. I did have some tax return information on the computer, so I froze my credit (which means I can still use my existing cards, but I cannot apply for new credit without identity verification).

I found some kits at the hardware store that covers some parts of my wooden door frame with metal. It makes the door harder to kick in. I think installing them just makes me feel like I'm doing something. I'm also getting a quote on a security system. I'm considering just putting up a bogus alarm sign.

Thanks again for the comments.