VeeshanVault

Funkmasterr wrote:I was like 72 or 73 I think. Leveling was really slow for me then cause I was kinda gimp against the Kunark shit. Really liked that expansion though!

Troubs are just gimp solo...
My troub is level 80 near max AA, full Tier 3/4 fabled with mythical and is still fucking pitiful when not in a group or raid.

Hmmmmm. I might start over then, especially because a friend of mine might start too and he hasn't played EQ2 at all. We'll see.

The recruit-a-friend program has some pretty nice XP bonuses.
If you're gonna start over, you might want to consider a whole new account.
Always happy to provide powerleveling/mentoring. I
think all of my character slots on both accounts are full now anyway, so I can't make any more lowbies to 2box.

It shipped today, will be here Friday

SOOOOO. Now I need suggestions for a video card... I was thinking I needed one with HDMI but I guess I'm not so firm on that, I just want something that is more than what I need now but I don't need to go overboard either. I'm guessing the one in my build isn't horrible?

If you go SLI, you may want to stick with DVI. I had crazy noise issues via HDMI, even though there is a seting to block sound via HDMI.

I think what happened was some confusion at the driver level that still piped sound even though I had it disabled. It was REALLY annoying. Crackling/popping noise directly through my monitor despite the absence of speakers!

You should not have that possible issue with only one video card. That said, I am fairly sure you will not upgrade your video signal much with HDMI over DVI. I am no expert though.

Funkmasterr wrote: I'm guessing the one in my build isn't horrible?

It's pretty much the lowest of the low for current gen Nvidia cards.
It's a rebranded 210 which can be had for under $40 these days.
It will run WOW no problem but it will probably choke on any game that requires a modicum of GPU power.


The $150 - $200 range puts you in the sweet spot for performance/value.
The Radeon 5770 is a smokin' card for around $150. You're getting similar performance to the nVidia GTX 260 for $50 less.
The only real problem is that I don't think there's a true single-slot 5770. Depending on how much room you have in the box, this might pose a problem.

If you prefer nVidia, I'd recommend the GTX 260 which will put you back around 2 bills.
I don't think they make a single slot of that one either.

miir wrote:

Funkmasterr wrote: I'm guessing the one in my build isn't horrible?

It's pretty much the lowest of the low for current gen Nvidia cards.
It's a rebranded 210 which can be had for under $40 these days.
It will run WOW no problem but it will probably choke on any game that requires a modicum of GPU power.


The $150 - $200 range puts you in the sweet spot for performance/value.
The Radeon 5770 is a smokin' card for around $150. You're getting similar performance to the nVidia GTX 260 for $50 less.
The only real problem is that I don't think there's a true single-slot 5770. Depending on how much room you have in the box, this might pose a problem.

If you prefer nVidia, I'd recommend the GTX 260 which will put you back around 2 bills.
I don't think they make a single slot of that one either.

Ok, a couple of questions. I could probably figure this out tomorrow when I can actually look at the computer but just trying to plan some shit out.

1) Will I need a bigger psu using the nVidia card? It doesn't seem that way but I want to be sure.

2) How can I figure out if the motherboard in my computer supports SLI?

3) How exactly does PIC-E work - by this I mean does it literally just take up two PCI slots or are there different slots that are closer together? I would imagine I'll have a couple empty slots and the case doesn't seem like it's too small so worst case I might have to move stuff around a bit.

Funkmasterr wrote: 1) Will I need a bigger psu using the nVidia card? It doesn't seem that way but I want to be sure.

If it's a 475W power supply that I see on Dell's site then yeah. I have a GTX 260 and it says minimum is 550W. It's an EVGA card though so not sure if other manufacturers requirements would be any different. I'd have to imagine they were fairly similar across the board. No clue on ATI specs.

Looks like it has a 475W so you will probably want to upgrade it if you opt for the nVidia card.
You can get a decent 500-600W PSU for like $50.

The 5770 only requires a 450W (with a 6pin connector).
You won't need to upgrade the PSU unless you want to do some overclocking.



The XPS 9000 only has 1 PCIE X16 slot so even if you wanted to, you couldn't do SLI or Crossfire... and quite frankly, it's a total waste of $$ unless you're a bleeding edge PC gamer.

Here's a good thread at tomshardware regarding that specific dell model and PSU.
It looks like it could even run a 5870 without too much problem.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/27627 ... wer-supply

Cool, thanks for all the advice guys. I think you're right miir, I don't know why I would really need to go SLI. I think I am going to grab a 600 - 700W psu just so I can sleep sound even with the new vid card and overclocking and all that.

I operate my i7 4 hard drive, nVidia 285 system on a 480W PSU but it's a high quality PSU.

Buy a quality Power Supply. PSU is as important as everything else in your system and a higher Wattage doesn't mean it's better.

I had my eyes on this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139005

Thoughts?

A couple of years ago I purchased a velvet bag from Corsair that came with a very nice 750W PSU inside.

It was to replace a OCZ POS PSU that was nothing but trouble from the start and died after 8 months. The RMA took over three fucking months!

Get a Tagan PSU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... &Tpk=tagan

not necessarily that one, it's expensive. I have a 480W Tagan and it's hella, and I man hella, high quality. It's lasted me for four years +, with computer on 24/7.

Winnow wrote:I operate my i7 4 hard drive, nVidia 285 system on a 480W PSU but it's a high quality PSU.

Buy a quality Power Supply. PSU is as important as everything else in your system and a higher Wattage doesn't mean it's better.

Just because it's running now doesn't mean it's the safest bet. You're risking component damage with an underpowered PSU!

Aslanna wrote:

Winnow wrote:I operate my i7 4 hard drive, nVidia 285 system on a 480W PSU but it's a high quality PSU.

Buy a quality Power Supply. PSU is as important as everything else in your system and a higher Wattage doesn't mean it's better.

Just because it's running now doesn't mean it's the safest bet. You're risking component damage with an underpowered PSU!

OK, it's been 4+ years and counting with no failed parts! Let me know when I should start to worry!

If I had built from scratch, I would have bought a 550 or 600W. I'm not suggesting using a 480 if buying new. Just suggesting quality as cheap PSUs die quick.

Just sayin.. You're free to worry or not. It's not my money!

Here is the PSU I use:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817121026

Almost 2 years now...plus, it is modular so cable organization, switching is easier.

miir wrote:A couple of years ago I purchased a velvet bag from Corsair that came with a very nice 750W PSU inside.

Those velvet bags are what sold me on Corsair. It was better than the bags you get from Sephora. I bought a 1000W PSU from them a few months ago, and it didn't come with the bag. Very disappointing.

I've had bad luck with Thermaltake lately. I've lost about 4 in the past 2 years. 1 was a 700W from my home machine, and 3 were 450W from work machines. The high failure rate on the 450W TR2 series could be a bad batch, but we've had one of the replaced PSUs fail as well.

Aslanna wrote: If it's a 475W power supply that I see on Dell's site then yeah. I have a GTX 260 and it says minimum is 550W. It's an EVGA card though so not sure if other manufacturers requirements would be any different. I'd have to imagine they were fairly similar across the board. No clue on ATI specs.

Oh and the GTX 260 minimum power requirements are 500W (36A on 12v). I was looking at the 280 since it's in the same documentation.

So was that a yes on the psu choice?

Getting the computer all set up now, holy shit this thing is fast! The only suck part is gonna be getting a external HD and transferring everything over from my old one since there aren't and IDE connections in this computer. This case is fuckin huge!

Yea man, Corsair make pretty kickass PSUs.