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  1. V

    So, Skyforge... As an official thread as it gets.

    Open beta starts 7/16/15. It's by the Allods online guys, so I expect a visually satisfying grinder p2w experience. But in spite of my decision to swear off of F2P titles (because of whale up or GTFO business plans) I'm planning giving it a shot because it has some interesting features. No...
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    Sony ends welcome back program early

    Go Sony! Turns out the Welcome Back program ended at *9 AM* on the 3rd. So anyone waiting to the last minute to take advantage of it - HA HA. Seriously, this is why I like Xbox Live. How hard would it have been not to cause ill will by people going "WTF?" by having it expire at 12:01 on the...
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    Need board rec for most PCIex16 slots for the $

    Subject says it all. I'm interested in the number of 16x form factor PCIe slots I get for the $. Actually running at 1x, 4x or 16x doesn't matter. Bonus points for having them spaced well enough to accomodate double width video cards. Yes, I know I can modify a 1x pcie slot to allow a 16x...
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    Fun with uninsured motorists

    So my wife was rear ended pretty hard by a guy arrested on the spot for driving under the influence. And by hard I mean highway off-ramp, the guy didn't even try to slow down from ~45. Joy of joys, turns out he also didn't have insurance. I wouldn't be surprised if his BMW is severely...
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    Fermi's lead over Cypress shrinks w/ new drivers

    According to: http://www.techspot.com/review/283-geforce-gtx-400-vs-radeon-hd-5800/ Tested with the 257 vs 10.5 drivers. Fairly small selection of new and one or two year old titles. Using FRAPS to measure frames during "real" gameplay vs. results reported by timedemos. The takeaway...
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    GTX480m announced

    Check this out: http://gizmodo.com/5547204/nvidias-geforce-gtx-480m-just-turned-your-notebooks-graphics-card-into-a-sad-little-chip 850mhz? That would be quite the ball broiler if true. Techreport quotes are more sane clock in the 400 mhz range, placing this at roughly 40% of a true 480...
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    Got a 65nm G200? Getting SC2? Might want to upgrade.

    Looks like SC2 code isn't playing well with 65nm G200 cards at all. In particular, a rash of suddenly "checkerboarding" (dead) GTX280s and a few 192 shader 260s from beta players. Apparently EVGA is claiming board microfractures from the cards operating at much higher temperatures than normal...
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    Steam: 4800 series most popular card for Feb

    According to http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/ Not absolutely correct, though. This is where NV's restickering bites it in the ass: if you add the 9800GTs to the 8800GTs nv still has the GPU lead among Steam survey takers. I saw no GTS250s there either (being recognized as a...
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    DEAD in < 30 minutes: ATI 5850, $248 and $250 AB, two models

    Title says it all. Hit bing.com, shopping, "ATI 5850". Sort by price (wish you could save that as a default), and you'll get a link to the VisionTek for 248 and gigabyte for $250 at antarespro.com I even looked up resellerratings for you. Lifetime 7.66/10. Recent 5.66. Not great, but for...
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    GT240 - nvidia's flagship for this holiday season

    No review on the main site yet, with good reason. An intensely ho-hum performer, with overclocked versions performing close to but not quite up to 8800GT standards. This bad boy will probably wind up replacing the half dozen nearly indistinguishable 9600 and 9800 SKUs. You can find a...
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    Need a recommendation for budget ($400 or less) AVR with HD radio

    Hi sports fans. Was wondering if any reasonably respected manufacturers have an HD radio tuner in a mainstream AVR yet. My room acoustics are going to suck no matter what I do, so I'm looking for a low end unit with the most features. 7.1 would be an awesome bonus as well. This will be...
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    42C idle at .93 vcore and 1.6 ghz -- i7 920 is a furnace!

    Not really asking for help, more griping about the thermal characteristics of the stock solution. Running mprime (linux port of prime95, small fft) the CPU hits *80C* in approximately 9 or 10 seconds. My 3.2 ghz E2180 never went over 73 in the same case with the same peripherals running...
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    How low can I go?

    Those of you with weak stomachs, please look away. I accidentally bought a D0 i7 920, 6 gigs of low latency Patriot RAM and the Gigabyte X58 UD3R board. The deals were so good I just couldn't help myself. Problem is, I don't need another quad right now. But I *DO* need a DVR replacement in...
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    Cheap $3 store pickup 120mm fans at microcenter

    Needed some 120mm fan goodness as one of my cats insists on getting sucked into the PC intake. Ran across these babies at my local Microcenter. It's no Yate Loon, but works well enough for the price. Cheapie sleeve bearing fan which probably won't last long enough to reach the year...
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    Stealth AMD price cut?

    Proof: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819103273 That pricing makes it highly competitive with the Q6600 at a stock clock, raw performance level. The question in my mind: is this a one-time deal to the egg to blow out inventory, or will we be seeing some dirt cheap Phenoms...
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    Any news on Deneb lately?

    As the summary says, I may need to build another quad soon-ish (within a month or so). Have there been any news out of AMD re: possible releases of their 45nm quads? I may be able to stall the build into the middle of October or so... This box won't need to OC much past 3 ghz -- but will...
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    cray discovers the joys of overclocking

    Text In a nutshell, Cray's making supercomputers with Intel chips rather than AMD like they used to. Tiny impact on the bottom line, to be sure. But may be a hint re: where server market is headed next.
  18. V

    experimental WC setup

    So I've been mulling the idea of building a high performance WC setup using a car radiator. The idea right now is: 1. replace side panel of case with a car radiator (probably a 90s jeep model, but I'll linger around a junkyard and see if I can find something with a nicer form factor in...
  19. V

    You think the desktop price/perf of Phenom is bad?

    Long story short, http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...tem=opteron_2356&num=8 Who on earth does AMD expect to buy this stuff? I mean, on the desktop you have people going 'meh, close enough, I don't mind throwing AMD a few more bucks for a bit less performance.' But people buying enterprise...
  20. V

    So who's selling high end CRTs these days?

    So this weekend my monitor started to show signs of age. Picture width changing and some other weirdness. I'm thinking my beloved Nokia is not long for this world -- it was made right around the time fake electrolytic formula capacitors were the rage. I'm hoping one (or more) of you have...
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    Q9450 for $306 online @ microcenter

    Seen on the front page of microcenter site -- http://microcenter.com/add_pro...49071=TRUE&488940=TRUE Q9450 for $349, with $50 off total order. Didn't seem to need any additional products. Key is $50 off total purchase: SKU 488940, manufacturer part number WEBCOUPON. And no, you can't...
  22. V

    If at first you don't succeed...

    So I've had this X3210 for about a month and a half. It's been chugging along in the house server. Ripping DVDs, shaping traffic, serving VMs, doing work stuff, playing music, driving the 65" tv. Usual home PC duty. My wife and kids are out of town for the weekend, so I decided to shut the...
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    phenom tri-core spotted in the wild?

    Here, check this out. Looks like OEM pricing on Phenom tri-cores is pretty competitive with E4xxx and 5000x2s, at least down in the 2.1 ghz range.
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    nvidia usability program

    I've seen a bunch of bellyachin' about the nv driver software getting worse (read: control panel losing functionality, bloating, etc). This looks like a way to provide feedback to the software designers without going through our esteemed focus group representatives. Not sure how or when I...
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    E8400s back in stock at microcenter @ $200 + ship

    the impossible to find CPU So you may be in luck even if you don't live next to a Microcenter.
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    How noisy is your EA500?

    So I've got a 2 week old EA500 in my case and I noticed quite a bit of capacitor-sounding whine coming from it under load. It's completely quiet when the PC is idle, but when stressed with 3d work from the GPU the PSU emits a whine the loudness and pitch of which matching how hard the GPU is...
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    ECS 8800GT @ the egg -- my experience

    Since the topic of 'Which 8800GT is right for me?' comes up a lot I'm going to document my experience with my 'passively cooled' 8800GT from ECS. I bought the card for $206 shipped AR. First, the packaging. It's nothing special and the gorillas at UPS have a non-zero chance to destroy your...
  28. V

    How much variability is there in mboard manufacture?

    So I have two Gigabyte DS3L boards, manufactured roughly at the same time. And one CPU that ... isn't overclocking very well. I got to thinking -- maybe this isn't the CPU, maybe there's enough variability in the north bridge chipset manufacture/power circuitry to cause problems. The CPU in...
  29. V

    256 meg HD3850 for $149 AR (wow! msrp!)

    linky I'm sad on two levels. One, it's a tiger direct rebate. Two, I'm excited to see a product at MSRP. Last time it was at $145 @ bestbuy it sold out in hours, so knock yourselves out. I'm still holding out for a 512 meg 8800GT at msrp :(
  30. V

    extreme budget PC -- with a twist

    So piecing together a low end box for HTPC duties (mostly transcoding, HD playback) I ran across this little 'gem in the rough' as Taltamir might say. http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16819105016 Yup, an AM2 dual Opty for 85 bucks shipped. So that got me thinking. Slap it on a...
  31. V

    800 dpi novelty mouse $2 + ship

    There you go. I've used similar ergo-mice, they take a lot of getting used to. Can't go wrong at that price. amazon mouse link
  32. V

    Biostar TForce TP35D2-A7

    Hoping to get some first hand experience from fellow anandtechers. Since the P35E is not to be found for love or money I'm rooting around looking for another $100 or cheaper board to pick up for my next build. The goal is at least a 2.6ghz overclock on a 2140. Newegg link for the curious...
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    Which current / upcoming mainstream tech has longest roadmap?

    Hey kids, A strange question on an enthusiast forum -- but which current or upcoming standards are likely to still be viable 1-2 years from now? I keep buying mainstream hardware with the intent to upgrade a year or two down the road and it just seems to never happen. P3/500 --> trash...
  34. V

    NVidia's midrange offerings

    Was just browsing newegg's inventory, and found a few interesting things: 1. 8500GTs are now a sub-$100 part, after rebates - $90 8500GT 2. 8600GTs are now $150, with bonus: $150 passive 8600GT + bonus So that didn't take much time at all. The biggest concerns with this cycle's low end...
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    Any experience with Leadtek?

    I know they used to be very, very good and overengineered the cooling on their cards in the past. I noticed the 'egg has a Leadtek 8800 GTS 640M for $335 AR. That's a great deal if Leadtek is still on top of their game. Opinions, anyone?
  36. V

    $250 credit or X1950XT -- your choice?

    Hi all, Turns out my trusty 1 year old X1800XT will not be repaired after all. The absolutely fantastic fabulous amazing and generaly awesome guys at newegg offered to either credit me $250 for it (very generous), or give me a X1950XT as a replacement. Which would you choose? And if...
  37. V

    sapphire or ATI's warranty support?

    Hi kids, Got me an X1800XT last summer. It's been great, but lately it's been starting to artifact at about 84C or so after an hour or two of gametime. I figure it's worth a shot to RMA it before the year is up. Has anyone delt with ATI or Sapphire RMAs? Which one do you think I should...
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    Mini-ITX (or other tiny form factor) case recommendation?

    Hi all, Was wondering if any of you have run across any truly small and light cases+motherboards fitting the following bill: 1. must house a dual core ia64 CPU. I'm leaning towards Intel at the moment, but won't immediately discount an AMD solution 2. have an external eSATA connection...
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    $533 gaming rig pulls 7675 3dmark05s

    http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=1995022 Budget machine now running 2 gigs of the blinged out OCZ ram, X1800XT. Was it worth upgrading to this over the $275 version to get 1300 3dmark05s? I'm not sure. There is definitely texture crawling, evident even in 3dmark05 which the...
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    ATI fans -- need info on board partner warranty policy

    Yes, I'm feeling a bit lazy. Rather than research all the ATI partners and cross-reference with hot deals, I was wondering if anyone's done this research. Are there any ATI partners with > 1 year warranty periods, that are true warranties? E.g., if the shelf life of the card expires, I...