General Discussions

Hey Linesma, w'sup bro. Yeah, matter of fact it is a SilverStone® 1000 watt and I'm ordering the PC from Falcon-Northwest. They said I was fine with the 750 but like I said, I'm trying to go the xtra mile with each component in this one.

I'm also a member at Stardock, they have some very cool products. I, too, went from Win 3.11 to Win 95, the first really useful and versatile Windows version imo. Dude I still have a copy of Windows 1.0 on 5¼" floppies in the closet somewhere.

Thanks again guys.

I would still say stay away from win 8. Win 7 will do perfectly fine. Plus you will be able to play your older games with trainers that work. Win 8 is an OS I say you should skip for now.

With how cheap ram is, there's no reason NOT to get more of it. Just remember that the best benefit you'll get is from more physical sticks, not just more Gigabytes. 4 8GB ram sticks will run much faster than 2 16GB for example. Also, some boards come with 8 slots for ram, or 6. Max out as many as you can, of the same color, before moving onto the next color. Ram is split into 2 groups, called "Channels", usually Blue and Black colored slots. The closest slot to the CPU is usually Channel 1, (always marked, usually like this: DIMM_0/DIMM_1 or DIMM_A1/DIMM_A2). Also, remember to ALWAYS use "Unganged" mode in your BIOS if that option exists. If you're gaming, Ganged mode requires one memory controller to enter an "idle" state while the second controller finishes what it's doing. Unganged means the chips, while not benefiting from the increased bandwidth (128 Ganged vs 64 Unganged), have 2 memory controllers separately processing memory requests at the same time vs just 1 at a time. This applies to AMD processors, of course, as Intel CPU's have only one memory controller on them.

The 1000 Watt SilverStone PSU is absolutely bullet proof. Especially coming from Falcon-Northwest, you should not have any problems.

Toki does have a point about Windows 8. Some of the older games do not seem to run properly on it. This is because Windows 8 will run these older games in a quasi "virtual machine" One example I can give is No One Lives Forever. For some reason when you play it full screen, the frame rate is only at 30fps, but if you run it in windowed mode, the frame rates are fine, but no video cut scenes. Out of the many older games that I have played on my machine, about 10% do not work from the original disk. Most of my "archival" games are available on GOG and Steam. They tend to run just fine under Windows 8. The key is having the EXE run in "Administrator" mode. Long paragraph short, if you are big into retro gaming, you might want to go to Windows 7 or at least have a install copy if you decide on Windows 8. This way you can either dual boot into 7 or make a real virtual install with Windows 7 to play your older games.

I am so jealous that you have a copy of Windows 1.0! At that time I was into the Commodore 64 and Apple II. I did not start my journey with Windows until 3.11. You will have to let me know what OS you decide to go with. Good luck and enjoy your new machine!!!

I decided to go with Win 7 Pro, almost entirely due to its better compatibility with more trainers & games. I'd really rather not find some trainer not working and see PWiz telling me to uninstall Win 8.

And something new came up. Falcon told me they just got in a new processor, an Intel® Core™ i7 4790 3.6GHz - Max Turbo 4.0GHz. The one I ordered is Core™ i7 4770K 3.5GHz - Max Turbo 3.9GHz. I could have either one.

Processors with a 'K' are unlocked and can be overclocked. The i7 4790 is locked and can't be overclocked.

So I declined the 4790 and the xtra .1 in favor of the unlocked processor so 3-4 years down the road, if I need a little xtra giddyup, I can OC the 4770K. I'm not usually one to overclock but I'd rather have the option than not if needed one day.

Staying with Windows 7 Pro sounds like a good plan to me. I can just see PWiz rolling his eyes and shaking his head as he types "Uninstall Windows 8 and go to Windows 7!" Now where did I put my Windows 7 disc?!?