Quote from wildstyle :

other cables that might come in handy.

SCSI ribbon cables.

Yup, over here, people who work for tips earn much, much less than minimum wage before tips.

Quote from Shotglass :

dell UP2414Q

I feel it's still a bit early to purchase a 3840x2160 monitor. AFAIK, lots of apps are just starting to catch up on the variable DPI necessary for readable text at that resolution without looking fuzzy.

I'd also probably prefer 1920x1200 @ 120+ Hz rather than 3840x2160 @ 60Hz. IPS is a given of course, though preferably not eIPS. I didn't do the proper research on eIPS and didn't realize most of them are 6-bit+FRC panels before buying one (ASUS PA248Q). PA249Q may have been a better option, having the same panel as the NEC PA242W at half the price, but there are numerous reports of subpar PSU's in the 249Q (inductor whine).

Last edited by Forbin, Wed, 1 Jan 2014 19:59.

Normally I would point you towards Anandtech because their monitor testing methodology is very thorough. However, they don't really test monitors at that price point.

Based upon user reviews (grain of salt, all that jazz), people seem to like the ASUS VS239H-P.

If you can spare a bit more dosh, I can vouch for the ASUS PA248Q as a pretty good monitor.

Some others to consider here.

I found one Anandtech review: http://anandtech.com/show/5469 ... ips-for-a-nice-low-price/

Last edited by Forbin, Tue, 31 Dec 2013 15:34.

Come visit sunny Pittsburgh instead.

Quote from Bmxtwins :

Why don't you go to Florida or Arizona? Or southern California...

San Francisco, personally I wouldn't go there for a vacation. That being said rumor has it you are gay. And San Fran is the gay capital of the world. So you will find lots of gay bars. (this is not meant as a slur). Most cars don't cost too much to rent here. I think zip car is possible, not sure about foreigners. Look into Enterprise, or such companies. I'm from the opposite side of the country. But hell

http://www.sanfrancisco.travel/todo/

This list ranks San Fran as the 17th gayest US city.

http://www.advocate.com/print- ... ayest-cities-america-2013

Besides, Arizona is filled with hateful, xenophobic people and Florida with old people and northerners, most of whom are old. /massive generalizations

Last edited by Forbin, Sun, 29 Dec 2013 05:21.

Quote from Racer Y :

Oh well... could be worse. It could be.....
Justin Timberlake

JT's actually pretty awesome. Have you seen the stuff he's done with The Lonely Island (e.g. Dick in a Box)? I might actually go see the film if he's in it.

Interesting. I'll have to see if that works when I'm logged in as admin.

Since my last post, I found a workaround that basically entailed creating a user account and logging in as a user rather than admin. Then it worked.

EDIT: That fixed it. Thanks!

Last edited by Forbin, Thu, 12 Dec 2013 22:48.

It won't even run for me. I click on it in my Steam list and it hits the hard disk like it's doing something but then nothing happens. No error message, no program running in the task manager, nothing.

Nope, you're just on the wrong side of the pond. Get your permit at 15/16 (depending on your state). Hop in mom/dad's Gallardo with one of them in the passenger seat. Get full license at 16/17. Go solo in the Gallardo.

Insurance cost is probably comparable to a Fiesta in the UK.

Last edited by Forbin, Mon, 9 Dec 2013 22:28.

While the Caviar Black is a very nice HDD, it's not really something you buy if you're on such a limited budget. Blue and Green are much cheaper for the same capacity, and buying one of those will allow you to spend that much more money on something else that directly affects game performance, such as a GPU or CPU.

You may also want to look into something more along the lines of the FM2+ or LGA1150 platforms. The X6 is an ancient CPU at this point, and terribly inefficient.

CPU
http://anandtech.com/show/7541 ... desktop-cpus-holiday-2013

GPU
http://anandtech.com/show/7557 ... -video-cards-holiday-2013

Try this site for selecting components:
http://pcpartpicker.com/

Last edited by Forbin, Thu, 5 Dec 2013 03:13.

Are you sure he's allowed to use a computer? He's awfully close to Lancaster.

Step 1: Plant foot on ground.

That's it, you're drifting the LX6. Congrats.

My first car was a 1994 Pontiac Bonneville, like this but green:

Ferrari 458 is best car for 17 year old.

Even better idea, get 1000cc i4 superbike.

As did mine.

Quote from Shotglass :

what do you mean? youre not gaming on 4k yet?

I thought you were still on an FW900? 1920x1200@100Hz, no ghosting, no extra processing lag, minimal image tearing. Oh, and of course colors shifted well towards green.

You can what-if yourself to the tune of $600 USD if that's what you want to do.

For me, a motherboard is little more than something to plug other things into, things that perform their task better than whatever integrated stuff is included on more expensive motherboards. And considering my use case does not include many many things to plug in, I don't need many connectors, just enough to fit everything I need/want and nothing more.

Last edited by Forbin, Tue, 5 Nov 2013 03:00.

My previous board was a GA-Z68-UD4-B3. I gave it to a friend along with an ATX mid-tower when I switched to the P8B75-M LE and a uATX mini-tower. Besides the smaller and quieter case, I haven't noticed a thing different about this board, despite the smaller feature set on paper.

• 2 fewer RAM slots: I never use more than 2 modules on single and dual-channel boards
  
• No SLI/Crossfire support: I don't see the point. Single GPU solutions generally produce better framerate consistency/stability. I also don't see myself needing an incremental boost in GPU performance after a certain amount of time. If I'm lacking in GPU performance, I'm after something like a 2x boost at a minimum.
  
• No overclocking support: Again, I don't see the point for incremental performance gains.
  
• Fewer power phases: This goes hand in hand with overclocking stability. I have no use for it.
  
• Cheaper, electrolytic capacitors: Some might consider this a cause for concern given the aforementioned capacitor plague. It remains to be seen whether this concern is still warranted, IMO.
  
• 1 fewer PCIe x1 slot: I don't have anything to put in it, nor will I ever
  
• 1 fewer PCI slot: I don't have anything to put in it, nor will I ever
  
• 3 fewer SATA 6Gbps ports: I use the LSI RAID card instead
  
• same number of rear panel USB3 ports
  
• same number of internal USB3 headers
  
• 3 fewer rear panel USB2 ports: I don't have more than 6 USB devices
  
• No RAID support: I use the LSI RAID card instead
  
• No rear panel SPDIF Out: I use the HT Omega sound card instead
  
• No rear panel eSATA: I don't have any external hard drives
  
• $85 USD cheaper: None of the above features my motherboard is lacking compared to the old board are worth $85 to me, especially when some are already being done better by discrete cards. I could buy another P8B75-M LE for that price.
  

Last edited by Forbin, Mon, 4 Nov 2013 21:46.

Quote from Matrixi :

I currently use four out of eight slots on my personal mobo, so using quad channel layout.

Wait... you're on X79? No wonder you're defending super expensive motherboards.

To get a NAS the equivalent of what I have now (4-bay with LSI controller rather than Marvell), I'd have to pay significantly more than I have on my current disk setup, and also be limited to 1Gbps rather than the 6Gbps that you seemed to think was oh so important. Probably more latency than internal too.

Quote from Matrixi :

And how much did that card cost you? Rather having put in extra 30 euros for a decent Z77 motherboard, you'd have that support as native on board.

Firmware RAID via Intel chipset is not the same as true hardware RAID. For one, I never have to rebuild my array due to an unexpected shutdown.

Last edited by Forbin, Mon, 4 Nov 2013 16:42.

Quote from Matrixi :

Two RAM slots and a single 6Gb/s SATA port? Well okay, if that's enough for you, then it is.

You missed the additional parts at the bottom in the Custom section. Note the LSI RAID card. It has 1 min-SAS port. The cable has 1 mini-SAS connector on one end, and branches out into 4 SATA cables, each of them 6Gb/s.

As for the RAM slots, meh. Do you really populate all 4 on a board with 4 slots? Having 4 modules puts a fair bit of extra strain on the memory controller, too.

Quote from Matrixi :

6+ USB3's

Why do I need USB3 for a keyboard, mouse, wheel, or joystick?

Quote from Matrixi :

all PWM fan headers so you can run all your fans at dead silent 500 RPM on idle

I took the CPU fan off the heatsink (it wouldn't fit with the hard drives installed) and just run the 180mm case fan on the low setting @ 800 RPM. The hard drives are significantly louder. Despite that, max CPU temp under load is around 52C.

Quote from Matrixi :

high quality built in sound cards are also finally starting to be included. You won't find those features on a cheap mobo.

You only get decent high quality audio with an attempt at isolation on mobo's costing $350+ USD. Why buy a mobo just for that when I can have a properly isolated discrete sound card in the HT Omega Claro Halo (PCI) or ASUS Xonar Essence STX (PCIe)? Especially when you're driving high-end headphones like the Grado RS1i.

Last edited by Forbin, Mon, 4 Nov 2013 16:08.

Quote from Matrixi :

You should never go cheap on a mobo anyway. Proper high quality caps and expansion features pay off in the long run.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1zSrq

The P8B75-M LE was about $75 USD. Why would I need more expansion features than this mobo has? I have no need for overclocking, and it has plenty of room for all my cards. SLI is more trouble than it's worth, IMO.

Also, the capacitor plague is over.