Recent content by illram

Well after some experience, none of which was intentional, I can answer my own question: it makes no difference. :beercheers:

What's more important to boot speeds: the drive windows is on, or the drive the windows boot manager is on? (EFI installs.) E.g., if the boot manager is on a slower m.2 drive, but windows is on the faster pci-e drive, would moving the boot partition to the pci-e drive increase boot speeds, or...

I was told there would be hot girls...?

I did not notice the "put it in a laptop bag" desire. If you want something that small you are going to probably need to go the route of using an external power brick. The Brix you found earlier with the alleged "760" in it would work for this, or the alienware alpha, which is apparently an...

Mini-ITX cases come in a variety of styles. Off the top of my head, there are shoebox style cases (SG05, CM130, Fractal Node 304... there are lots of these), stereo-looking or "steam box" type console cases (ML07, Raven RVZ01) and mini-towers of varying sizes (Lian Li PCQ08, Q11, BitFenix...

That i7 should be perfectly fine for a few more years. I doubt your RAM is the problem either. I think building a brand new rig would be a waste, honestly, although I understand the temptation. Instead, do two things: buy an SSD, and buy a new GPU. A 970/290x or above. You will see a big...

I have an old C2D E6600, I think that was from 2007 or 2006 (?). It was still in daily use as late as 2014 and I had zero problems with it. In fact a little bit after Win 7 came out I threw a new SSD in it and the thing felt faster than my brand new (at the time) i5-2400 with a spindle drive...

Basically I get rid of stuff once it is really legitimately obsolete. Which takes a while, sadly. I have an old C2D system in my closet (the first computer I built, actually, about 10 years ago) and two ancient laptops. They all still work perfectly fine for web surfing--heck the C2D system...

Use both! I use Joy2Key and map WASD to the left analog stick of the Xbox 360 controller (which you can use on the PC) and aim with the mouse. I map jump to the left trigger, change stance/crouch/prone to the left bumper button, run to click the analog stick, and other random stuff to the d-pad...

I have had to deal with this problem several times and I am by no means an electrical expert. I have a sneaking suspicion that this problem was what led to the PSU on my computer, stereo, AND flat screen TV all dying at various times throughout the three years I lived in one apartment. All were...

Yeah I hear ya. It is nice to have it all right when you want it. :)

Well reusing your PSU, video card, HDD and ODD will tend to make an upgrade cheap. If I were you I would have used MC for the CPU+Mobo but gone online for the RAM and the case, since MC rarely beats online prices in those areas.

You could do something like a G530, cheap mini H61 mobo, plus an SSD (for silence) in something like an Antec ISK 300-65, which includes the option for a low profile card if the G530 doesn't cut it. Plus, reviews of this case indicate that the PSU is actually capable of 135w, so you can buy a...

Do you live near a Microcenter? They offer CPUs for substantially less than Newegg, in store only. They often also have cheap mobo+CPU combo deals, also instore only. Check out their online catalogs, they change monthly. This month it's an Asus P8Z68 LGA 1155 mobo, $59.99 when paired with an...

Well onboard is not the only competitor. If you use HDMI your video card is handling the sound, and most video cards these days output 5.1 to 7.1 surround, which for 99% of folks is more than enough. This makes soundcards even more irrelevant IMHO, as using them increases cable clutter for...