Burglary

[Vroshnak]

Yeah, I got wiped out on Monday. All three monitors, computer, TV, Wii, digital camera, wife's netbook, and wife's banjo. I got insurance, but man it messes with your mind to have #$%@!*s invade your house like that.

I could have kept that to myself but I know most everyone here will feel my pain. :)

So anyway, it's time for a new computer. I don't even know if I'm going to bother with three monitors again yet.

Could someone look over this draft build I came up with? I'm not sure I'm thinking clearly about the issue, I'd like some recommendations. I mean, I wasn't planning on upgrading what I had for another 1-3 years.

Draft build posted here:
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=10854592

The higlights are i7 processor, GTX 285 graphics card.

[DaFox]

I could have kept that to myself but I know most everyone here will feel my pain. :)

A number of bikes and a house fire. I feel your pain :(

[Frag Maniac]

As far as that build list goes, here are my nit picks. The monitor is a mere TN panel and it's native res is not supported by many games. Of course you can always try and tweak the game's config file for a custom res, which often works, but sometimes doesn't. There's a pretty good Dell e-IPS 22" now that can be had for less. It's only 1680x1050, but many say the best 22" made now. There's a 23" e-IPS made by LG coming out that's 1920x1080 though, which might be ideal. Apple was the first to pick up on that one, and according to the Apple stores, we may find out about it this month.
http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?sku=320-7825&cs=04&c=us&l=en&dgc=SS&cid=27722&lid=628335

Also, I prefer Gigabyte MBs over EVGA, which can be had in dual SLI X58 with 2000MHz memory standard for $210.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128386

The CM Cosmos case is a bit pricey, cheesy in some ways, and lacks HDD cooling, I like the Seagate Barracuda over the Caviar (though the VeloRaptors are awesome), the Thermalright TRUE is a better CPU cooler, and lastly, that's a lot to spend for 3x2GB DDR3 RAM with timings that high. There are tons of 3x2GB kits well under that with the same timings and some even lower with a CAS latency of 6 or 7 vs 8.

3x2GB DDR3 Kits

My fave RAM kits in the above comparison are the Mushkin for $170 with CAS 6 or if you really want bang for the buck, the best deal by far is the OCZ Platinum for $80 with CAS 7. Note if you go Mushkin, make sure it works with your MB. You should be fine compatibility wise with OCZ though. $170 saved on RAM alone would buy you a very nice sound card, which is my other main nit pick, any high end system should have one. Of course it takes good speakers to really notice the difference. If you add up what you could save on all the parts I mentioned though, it would actually be enough to buy a pretty decent sound card and a pretty good speaker set.

It's easy to get caught up in thinking "It's OK, the insurance money will cover it", but the better you make use of that money the less you'll have to add or change later on.

[Paradigm Shifter]

Yeah, I got wiped out on Monday. All three monitors, computer, TV, Wii, digital camera, wife's netbook, and wife's banjo. I got insurance, but man it messes with your mind to have #$%@!*s invade your house like that.

Totally agree. Don't really have the energy to have a lot at your build right now, but felt the need to agree with this completely.

[Abram]

We had the basment flodo a whiel ago and it killed some electronics. (but not my PC, yay for keepign it off the floor)

It was a pain, but in the end, we wound up with MUCH better replacements. My lame infra-red wireless headphones were "somehow" dropped into the water, and i replaced them with nice RF sets worth about 10x as much. It was a similar case for everything else. Including carpeting.


BUt having some diupshit coem in and invade you domecile must feel quite a bit worse. We had outr car stolen from our frakkign driveway a couple years ago and even that felt liek a personal attack.

On the bright side, it was a stupid god damned junkie (but aren't they all?) that stole it, then broke into other cars and kept all those goods in OUR car, and then parked it only a few blocks away.. so the fucker w2as caught and charged with theft over 5 grand.

And i got a name, too. So when i come across him in the future, i can take a finger or three.

Erin Izzard. THat worthless junkie mother fucker.

Oh and ya, i'm sorry to hear about your losses. Still better than a fire, right?

[Frag Maniac]

LOL, if you guys were truly sorry you'd at least take a few minutes to read his spec sheet and give your opinion on it as per his request. I'm sure I'm not the only one here that can offer some component advice. :wink:

[MobsterOO7]

Sorry Frag, I guess they were distracted by actually feeling sorry for him. Also there isn't much to recommend on this setup as far as i know. Only thing I would say to Vroshnak about the setup is that I would recommend using a different HDD. I've had bad luck with the TB WD Caviar Greens.

But about the break-in, Vroshak; a couple of years ago somebody snuck into the garage thats attached to my house and stole my bike. It was the only thing taken which only adds to the violated feeling I got the next morning when I tried to bike to work.

[Abram]

Only thing i would suggest is a monitor that can do 1600x1200 if he plays 4:3 games, which a 16:10 display of that size would do...

But if insurance is apoying, then sap all you can out of them. If you din;t need to PROVE it, then go big.

[scavvenjahh]

Yup, I feel your pain/anger mate. Although I never experienced being burglared. Come to think of it, my precious gaming stuff's not even insured :shock:

Hopefully your wife likes her new banjo, too.

[Vroshnak]

I'll look into changing up the hard drive, case, memory, and monitor (still debating whether to get three again or just go with one). Thanks for the suggestions.

I went ahead and bought my wife a replacement netbook, and somehow a 300gb Velociraptor hard drive also ended up in my cart. Funny how these things happen.

My advice about being prepared for a burglarly:

Have homeowner's (or renter's) insurance. Pick a deductible you can afford. My deductible is $1000 so I have to pay that much, but insurance covers the rest. You could get a lower deductible, but you'd pay more for the insurance. Personally, $1000 doesn't put me in the poor house and I don't want to overpay on my insurance.

Have receipts and/or pictures. You do have to prove ownership of everything you claim, but a manual or a picture is enough for them (or at least for my insurance company). One of the nice things about buying so much online is that the receipts are on the internet and I can easily print them out. (If you want to be really responsible, get the serial numbers of your equipment so the cops could identify your stuff if they find some bad guys.)

Hide your sensitive information. I'm glad I use web email exclusively, so there are no emails on my hard drive for them to go through. I did have some tax return information on the computer, so I froze my credit (which means I can still use my existing cards, but I cannot apply for new credit without identity verification).

I found some kits at the hardware store that covers some parts of my wooden door frame with metal. It makes the door harder to kick in. I think installing them just makes me feel like I'm doing something. I'm also getting a quote on a security system. I'm considering just putting up a bogus alarm sign.

Thanks again for the comments.

[Paradigm Shifter]

I've got a few comments on the build...

I wouldn't bother with the Blu-ray burner/HD-DVD reader, but that's just me. I'd buy Samsung F1 HDDs as after seven of them and no failures, I'm happy with their performance, price and quietness. The Corsair Dominators are a waste of money - get the normal Corsair stuff if you want to stick with them, or OCZ C8 RAM if not. The difference between C8 and C9 is negligible, however. I can't stand the Coolermaster Cosmos. The Aplus Black Pearl is currently cheaper on the 'egg (or it was when I looked yesterday) and Lian-Li quality and style without the price.

But there we are. ;)

[Vroshnak]

After looking at the combo discounts available, this is what I came up with. The 300gb VelociRaptor I already purchased isn't shown here. I am going to research the case and then pull then trigger, I think.

LIAN LI PC-A17B Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
CORSAIR CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply - Retail
-$45.50 Instant
-$40.00 Combo
-$20.00 Mail-in Rebate
$254.48

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64-bit for System Builders - OEM
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM
-$20.00 Combo
$169.98

EVGA 02G-P3-1185-AR GeForce GTX 285 2GB 512-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail
EVGA E758-A1 3-Way SLI (x16/x16/x8) LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Nvidia Gift Call of duty - World at war - OEM
-$7.00 Instant
-$35.00 Combo
-$49.99 Saving
$617.99

Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail
OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model OCZ3P1600LV6GK - Retail
OCZ Diesel 4GB Single Channel Flash Drive (USB2.0 Portable) Model OCZUSBDSL4G - Retail
-$40.00 Instant
-$12.00 Combo
-$12.99 Saving
-$20.00 Mail-in Rebate
$343.99

HP 22X DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model 1170i - Retail
$31.99

COOLER MASTER V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - Retail
$62.60


Shipping
$31.11

Total
$1,555.12

[Vroshnak]

One more question, I'm thinking of just getting only one monitor, 1920x1200, at least 24", any suggestions?

How's this?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236033
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001275&Tpk=t240

[Paradigm Shifter]

Dell 2408? I dunno how good that is. You could look at getting the 3008, instead... that's about the only monitor that would really use the 2GB of RAM on that GTX285...

And 2560x1600 - that's twice 1280x800, so you could buy three, and run games in 1280x800 triplehead! 8) :D

I've not really kept up on monitors, so I'll let others chip in with recommendations.

That updated build looks quite sweet.

[Frag Maniac]

One more question, I'm thinking of just getting only one monitor, 1920x1200, at least 24", any suggestions?

Too bad you missed the price drop Newegg had on the DoubleSight DS-265W 26" IPS for $370. You can still get it for under $500 if you look though.

Only reason I'm mentioning IPS (or "e"-IPS regarding the Dell & Apple) is it's a lot better tech than TN. Those whom look for larger and larger displays eventually if not frequently use them for movie watching, video editing and/or photo work too, which they excel at. If you can handle a 22" size, the Dell 2209WA is one of the best mid size displays and the new Apple 23" e-IPS may be available this month. High gamuts on TNs don't make a lot of sense IMO. It just ends up making things look over saturated, esp when you consider they're only 6 bit and have to do a lot of dithering to synthesize many of the colors.

[maherie]

Dell 2408? I dunno how good that is. You could look at getting the 3008, instead... that's about the only monitor that would really use the 2GB of RAM on that GTX285...

And 2560x1600 - that's twice 1280x800, so you could buy three, and run games in 1280x800 triplehead! 8) :D

I've not really kept up on monitors, so I'll let others chip in with recommendations.

That updated build looks quite sweet.

3008 FTW

[Vroshnak]

I went for the Dell 3008. Dell has $300 off on it right now, plus if you go to the site through ebates.com you get 4% back.

So now everything is ordered! Hooray!

[Frag Maniac]

I still don't like the frame rates I'm seeing on bench tests of some games at 2560x1600 using a single top shelf GPU. It would be nice if the top single GPU card in the GTX 300 series falls right in between the power of a GTX 285 and 295, but I doubt it will. I'm worried the GTX 385 (if it's called that) will be no more than a DX11 version of a GTX 285. If so, that will be sad.

[maherie]

I went for the Dell 3008. Dell has $300 off on it right now, plus if you go to the site through ebates.com you get 4% back.

So now everything is ordered! Hooray!

OMG 3008 is going to make you Jiizz in your pants!!!!

[dopefish]

Yeah, I got wiped out on Monday. All three monitors, computer, TV, Wii, digital camera, wife's netbook, and wife's banjo. I got insurance, but man it messes with your mind to have #$%@!*s invade your house like that.

Perhaps you could provide a detailed list of specific models, components, parts, serial numbers, etc. That way if anyone is looking for used hardware online and comes across something similar, they might be able to report it and help you out.