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<h2><a href="http://support.hp.com/us-en/product/HP-LaserJet-P1100-Printer-series/4110394/model/4110306/product-info" rel="noreferrer">HP LaserJet Pro P1102w</a></h2> <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/jCTbb.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p>Features:</p> <ul> <li>Drivers compatible with Windows 7, 8, &amp; 10 (<a href="http://support.hp.com/us-en/product/HP-LaserJet-P1100-Printer-series/4110394/model/4110306/document/c04658195" rel="noreferrer">reference</a>)</li> <li>First party and cheap 3rd party compatible toners (<a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B003XOXPY8" rel="noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">example</a>)</li> <li>Monthly duty cycle: up to 5000, but recommended volume is 250-1000</li> <li>Print speed: up to 19ppm (letter) and 18ppm (A4)</li> <li>Only black print</li> <li>600dpi</li> <li>Available models with and without wifi (the <code>w</code> in the name stands for wifi support)</li> <li>Only manual duplex (i.e. no duplex printing)</li> <li>Cheaper than 150USD. <a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B0036TGGVO" rel="noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">It is currently listed on Amazon USA for 94.90USD</a></li> </ul> <p><a href="http://support.hp.com/us-en/product/HP-LaserJet-P1100-Printer-series/4110394/model/4110306/document/c01999607/" rel="noreferrer">Link to full product details page</a></p>

610

2015-10-10T20:19:41.273

|printer|

<p>I've been using HP LaserJet 1200 for a very long time but now the original drivers are not available and I wanted to find something more suitable for Windows 7/8 &amp; 10. </p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/3Y2HLm.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/3Y2HLm.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>My expectations are partially similar to the original printer specs:</p> <ul> <li>available drivers for Windows 7/8 &amp; 10</li> <li>widely available and cheap toners</li> <li>monthly page volume: 1500-2000</li> <li>print speed: 10+ ppm</li> <li>only black print</li> <li>at least 600 dpi</li> <li>graphics quality printing and network features are not important</li> <li>duplex printing is not "must have"</li> <li>cheaper than $150 (second-hand items are acceptable)</li> </ul>

Cheap laser printer with widely available toners

<p>I've recommended it before but I'll recommend it again (and no, I swear I'm not an Acer employee): the <a href="http://uk.pcmag.com/acer-e1-572-6870/4205/review/acer-aspire-e1-572-6870" rel="nofollow">Acer Aspire E1-572</a>. It's a little over your specs in some ways, but it's a good laptop, especially for the price.</p> <ul> <li>i3/i5 (in newer versions) quad core 1.7 GHz</li> <li>8 GB DDR3L RAM</li> <li>1 TB internal HDD</li> <li>Removable/replaceable battery (handy for being away from power sockets)</li> </ul> <p>Mine came with Windows 8 installed. Newer versions may come with Windows 10. Installing Linux is about as easy as it is on any > Win 8 machine - they don't like it, but it can be done.</p> <p>On programming capability: I use mine for some heavy programming (small games in Java and C#, plus utility Python 2.7 and 3.4), so you're sorted there.</p> <p>On gaming: again, I use mine for playing games that are more modern that what you'd be playing on it. I usually end up on mid-low graphics settings because of the lack of dedicated graphics card (it has integrated Intel graphics), but again, older games should be better for that.</p> <p>I don't have an exact figure for price, but it's under $600 - I got it for around £300, which was about $470 last time I checked.</p>

615

2015-10-11T01:18:01.043

|laptop|linux|development|windows|

<p>First of all, I hope I came to the right StackExchange; I've seen some posts about laptop recommendations, so I think this is the right place to ask those questions.</p> <p>I'm thinking of buying a new laptop. My current one is a Samsung Sens X170 with a dual core at 1.30GHz, 3GB RAM, and integrated graphics (OpenGL 2.xx support). My requirements are:</p> <ol> <li>$500 budget limit &ndash; I don't have a Windows serial, so about $600 including the serial</li> <li>Samsung &ndash; not because it's the best, but all the other AS systems are rather disappointing except Samsung in my country, and I'm a rather clumsy person...</li> </ol> <hr> <p>I'm thinking of going to France next year, so I'm considering a laptop that is quite widely used in France (so that I can take AS easily?). In other words, I'll not limit my options to Samsung. ASUS seems to be doing OK here.</p> <ol start="3"> <li>11-13 inch screen(I'll allow 15 inch but it shouldn't be too heavy), durable, low electricity consumption is preferable</li> <li>I play games a lot, yes, but I usually play old games. My old Sens X170 even had a hard time playing Diablo 2 and DOOM with user mod. I'd just be happy if I can play games pleasantly that came in around 2005-2006.</li> <li>I don't do much work related to graphics, but I often do some simple programming (R/LaTeX/Python) and I'm willing to learn more about it.</li> <li>I do have a 2TB HDD so much space is not strictly needed.</li> </ol> <p>I haven't installed Windows by myself, but I think I can do it and it would be nice to learn how to do so. Actually, if installing Linux is not much of a hassle, I'm thinking of using that this time and pushing up the budget to $600. When old games refuse to be played on Linux, I can still use my old laptop instead, I'm thinking.</p> <p>Any recommendations are welcomed.</p>

Need laptop for programming/some gaming

<p>A few years ago I took the cheapest machine I could find (300 Euros with no OS), put Ubuntu on it and am quite content. Use it as a development web server and when I´m abroad.</p> <p>15" Asus K53U: 2 GB RAM, AMD C-50 dual core CPU at 1 GHz, DVD writer, VGA and HDMI, camera, 3xUSB, card reader, Ethernet, WLAN and a Kensingtom Lock. Swapped the hard drive with an SSD some day.</p> <p>Doesn´t really fly, but it´s sufficient for Open Office, DVDs and video streaming, a good deal of browser windows (I´m avoiding Firefox though) and a LLMP.</p> <hr> <p>There are better machines nowadays for the same price. I would probably get a Lenovo B50 today, if I needed a new machine ... or do the same I did three years ago: </p> <p>Look around my current location for the cheapeast machine I can find, and see if it meets the needs.</p>

616

2015-10-11T01:46:25.887

|laptop|

<p>I have a fairly known and consistent use-case. My laptop does almost no computational work. I do a ton of heavy computational work, but it all happens on big multicore servers which I access/control via <a href="https://jupyter.org" rel="noreferrer">Jupyter</a>, SSH, remote desktop etc.</p> <p>Even doing word-processing will not normally be on my laptop. I have access to several desktops. Doing things locally is generally a case of reading something while in a cafe, taking notes in a meeting, or watching a movie in bed.</p> <p>Software to run locally:</p> <ul> <li>Web-browser (with Flash)</li> <li><a href="http://www.lyx.org" rel="noreferrer">LyX</a></li> <li>PDF Viewer</li> <li>Video <a href="http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html" rel="noreferrer">VLC</a></li> <li>OpenOffice</li> </ul> <p>As you can see there are no requirements regarding Linux or Windows.</p> <p>I have been very satisfied in the past with <a href="http://www.pcworld.com/product/32155/dell-inspiron-mini-9.html" rel="noreferrer">Dell Inspiron Mini 9</a> and with <a href="http://www.mytoshiba.com.au/products/computers/netbook/nb550d/pll5fa-00k01s/specifications" rel="noreferrer">Toshiba NB550D</a>, each of which lasted 3 years before some part failed. For the Dell Mini it was something in the keyboard, and for the NB550D it was something in the screen (I suspect a wire broke and am going to investigate). Both withstood serious amounts of trauma without incident. If I could find a mint condition NB550D still for sale I would buy it without hesitation. </p> <p>We are talking about low spec'ed laptops here:</p> <ul> <li>~1GHz processor </li> <li>&lt; 10-inch screen</li> <li>No optical drive</li> <li>&lt; $500</li> <li>2-4GB of RAM (I have a 4GB stick to swap in from my NB550)</li> <li><strong>Cheap</strong></li> </ul> <p>These kinds of requirements are what the netbook brandings were all about, but they seem to be going away. I see a few Chromebooks still for sale, but I have no experience with them.</p>

Laptop for simple tasks and remote work

<p>As of 2021 (five years after I asked this original question), the best product for this is the <a href="https://www.elgato.com/en/gaming/cam-link-4k" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Elgato Cam Link 4K</a>. If you find it on sale, it can be had for around $100.</p>

631

2015-10-12T06:17:51.043

|usb|hdmi|video-adapters|

<p>I have a digital camera with HDMI output and I want to use it as a high quality “webcam.” I am looking for a device which takes a 1080p/60fps HDMI video signal as input and outputs that signal over USB for usage on a computer as if it were a webcam. It will need to be compatible with USB 3.0 or greater to accommodate the necessary bandwidth.</p>

1080p HDMI to USB converter for computer video input

<p>Adding more RAM might possibly help with your VM's. You should check task manager when running them to see if you are using most of it.</p> <p>When gaming, more RAM won't help. You'd need to be running two games, skype and a couple browser tabs to get close to using all that RAM while you're gaming. Your GPU, on the other hand, is a different story. Upgrading to an R9 390 ($330), or a GTX 980 Ti ($650), would massively boost your performance. Depending on your price range, the GPUs I listed would be a massive upgrade to your current GPU, for blender (when GPU accelerated), and games.</p> <p>I'd also recommend using your old 760 as a PhysX card, especially if you actually play a game that supports PhysX. You could also just use it as a booster for Blender, as Blender supports rendering across heterogeneous GPUS.</p>

643

2015-10-12T23:38:01.623

|graphics-cards|memory|

<p>Currently I have a desktop running Windows 10 with the following parts <a href="http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Ldvcpg" rel="nofollow">seen here</a>:</p> <ul> <li>CPU Intel Core i7-3820 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor;</li> <li>Motherboard ASRock X79 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011 Motherboard;</li> <li>Memory Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory, Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory;</li> <li>Video Card EVGA GeForce GTX 760 4GB Dual FTW ACX Video Card</li> </ul> <p>What I'd like to do is make some improvements for 'future-proofing', and make some other minor upgrades.</p> <p>Currently this is used for software development (running VMs, VS2015, eclipse), some rendering (Blender whenever I have the time to work on it), as well as some games (mostly MMORPGs, occasionally Skyrim, Kerbal Space Program, Civ V, with potentially Fallout 4 being added in). A future use case will be more photo and video processing, as my wife wants to be able to use Photoshop and other editing tools.</p> <p>What I'd like to is change the video card and put in a 9XX series graphics card in there (I'm sticking to NVIDIA for CUDA work), and maxxing out the RAM to be 32GB (which is the maximum that motherboard can support). Given my use cases, would I gain more value simply upgrading the video card, and leaving the memory the same, or should I upgrade both? (Note: already have an SSD, just concerned about the components I've mentioned in the scope of the question)</p>

Potential upgrade suggestions

<p>First off, I doubt any active noise reduction (ANR) is going to beat out good passive noise reduction (PNR) in-ear plugs ("stoppers"). ANR headphones will be more comfortable than PNR and may provide better overall noise reduction for part of the audio spectrum, but not for all of it. If you really need a replacement for a good set of in-ear plugs, you might end up disappointed. </p> <p>My recommendation are Bose headphones. I've owned a few of their ANR products* and have used a few competitor products, though not at the consumer level.</p> <p>I can recommend the <a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B0054JJ0QW" rel="nofollow">Bose QC15 headphones</a> but they are discontinued (but still available) and the current model is the <a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00M1NEUKK" rel="nofollow">QC25 headphone</a>. They have</p> <ul> <li>great ANR qualities </li> <li>comfortable to wear all day</li> <li>no microphone</li> <li>are the around-the-ear variant of the headphones that completely cover the ear</li> <li>headphone audio is great</li> <li>$299</li> <li>ear pads rotate up-down and side-to-side (to the point they can lay flat)</li> <li>the headphone cord is detachable so they can be <em>just</em> noise cancelling with no audio</li> </ul> <p>They are not rechargeable, but (the QC15) takes a single AAA battery and you can use rechargeable in it.</p> <p>* I have extensive experience with the Bose QC2, Bose QC15, Bose X, Lightspeed Sierra, and Lightspeed Zulu. The first two are the same headsets in subsequent produce cycles and the QC25 is the next iteration of those headphones. I don't have direct experience with the QC25, but I don't have any reason to doubt it. I can attest to the QC15 being a great product. The last 3 headsets listed are aviation ANR headsets which I have used in high-noise environments (slow twin propeller and fast twin turbojet airplanes). I'd be happy wearing the QC15 in those environments and they perform well against those $500-$1000 aviation headsets. </p>

649

2015-10-13T15:43:04.137

|headphones|

<p>Note: I've seen <a href="https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/286/headphones-for-filtering-out-noise-in-an-open-space-office">this</a> thread but my expectations are a little bit more specific. </p> <p>I'd like to ask you about headphones which may filter the noise a way better than stoppers (ear plugs):</p> <ul> <li>highly effective noise-canceling</li> <li>comfy earpads (very important)</li> <li>no integrated microphone</li> <li>full-size (fully cover the ear)</li> <li>audio quality is not that important</li> <li>cheaper than $350</li> </ul> <p>Considered as a plus:</p> <ul> <li>a possibility to swivel the earpads vertically and laterally </li> <li>detachable headphone cord (being able to cancel the noise without the audio)</li> <li>rechargeable </li> </ul>

Noise-canceling headphones

<p>The HP Stream 14 uses the A4 Micro-6400T APU, which is passively cooled. It is already discontinued, but it can still be found on some sites. It is quite limited in performance and storage, but it is the only one passive AMD laptop I have found (and I have been looking for quite a while).</p>

655

2015-10-14T09:59:28.137

|laptop|fanless|

<p>I'm looking to buy a new laptop where performance isn't of a large consideration provided the internals are of the current or last gen (as of 2015). As such, I'd like to go for fanless laptops that are trickling in here and there. I've heard of Intel systems, but would prefer AMD.</p>

Fanless laptop, preferably AMD APU-powered

<p>Apple's <a href="http://www.apple.com/de/magic-accessories/" rel="nofollow">Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad</a> are awesome, super silent.</p> <p>It's connected via wireless. In my experience, it has worked for two years without failing.</p>

659

2015-10-14T18:29:16.493

|mice|silent|

<p>I bought a lot of silent mice, but all of them kept failing after 6 months max. The best one I had so far was a "Hama Mirano".</p> <p>Any better one out there?</p>

A mouse with near silent clicking noise with good build quality

<p>Sandisk Extreme is a good mix of budget and speed. smaller size is better performance on these devices <a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00DZPUOU8" rel="nofollow">Sandisk Extreme</a></p> <p><a href="http://usb.userbenchmark.com/" rel="nofollow">USB Benchmark Links Like This</a> are fairly reliable sources for your consumer research purposes</p>

665

2015-10-15T05:07:32.700

|usb|linux|

<p>I'm looking for a cheap USB drive for my installation by <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/BootUsb">BootUSB</a>. I want use it <strong>only</strong> for this job, and I usually install Linux distros.</p> <p>I have an old 2GB drive but seems slow when it installs. What drive do you suggest? I don't want pay a lot, maximum of &euro;15, and the storage should be 8/16GB (if I use it as virtual CD).</p>

USB for Linux BootUSB drive

<p>From my experience these NIC's support HW timestamping (yes... all Intel):</p> <p>Intel X722<br /> Intel I350<br /> Intel I210<br /> Intel I217-V<br /> Intel I217-LM<br /> Intel I218-V<br /> Intel I218-LM<br /> Intel I219-V<br /> Intel I219-LM<br /> Intel 82574L</p> <p>Note: I suspect the series of I217/I218/I219 suffers from PTP issues under traffic.</p>

666

2015-10-15T09:06:41.707

|network-adapter|

<p>We are looking for network cards that support hardware timestamps (hardstamps). We need this for capturing packets with high precision and also do synchronisation using PTP / IEEE 1588.</p> <p>On the web, there are plenty of resources where people say that they are using Intel cards or others, but none of them lists actual product names. </p> <p>Where can I find detailed information on this or can you recommend any network card that can do these things? How can I ensure that the card also takes hardstamps for non-PTP packets?</p> <h2>Update</h2> <p>In the meantime I got an answer from Intel confirming that the adapters I340 and I350 support hardstamps for PTP. Unfortunately, the data sheets do not state whether there is also support for hardstamping non-PTP packets.</p>

Which network interface cards support hardware timestamps (hardstamps)

<p>I'd say you go with the 960.</p> <p>The reason is that the 960 is a newer architecture, and is still going to be available if you decide you're going to add another 960 in SLI.</p> <p>Bus memory is a consideration, but the way you're seeing it is not correct; there's more to it than that. For example, if you have a bus width that is more, but the memory tech is older (DDR3 instead of GDDR5), it automatically cuts the total memory bandwidth you gain in half. Depending on the memory <strong>clock</strong>, you may actually get worse performance with the DDR3 card, even though it has more bus width.</p> <p>Now, I agree the bus width of the 960 is lower, and both cards are GDDR5. But the newer Maxwell architecture of the 960 utilizes a color-compression technology that increases its effective bandwidth by around 28%, bringing it closer to the 760's. It also uses a newer anti-aliasing algorithm(MFAA) that is far less resource-intensive than MSAA that you'll have to use on the 760, again requiring lesser memory bandwidth.</p> <p>That said, I ask you this: what is the resolution you're using on your monitor? If it's 1920x1080(i.e. 1080p), the 960 will handle it irrespective of all these theoretical specifications. It's been designed to run modern games with that resolution in mind, and it's also more power efficient(176 W of power for the 760 vs 120 W for the 960), so the 760 runs 82C at full load and is loud, whereas the 960 never breaches 60 and is very quiet(both are very good things).</p>

669

2015-10-15T21:22:36.467

|gaming|graphics-cards|

<p>Which of these two graphic cards would be more suitable for gaming, what are the main differences between the two, which would you recommend from the two:</p> <p><strong>1. The older model, Gainward GeForce GTX 760 Phantom 4GB DDR5 256-bit</strong></p> <p>or</p> <p><strong>2. The newer model Gainward GeForce GTX 960 Phantom 4GB DDR5 128-bit</strong></p> <p>The notable differences are the BUS memory on the two cards, and the chipset version. <strong>Basically, my question would be, that how important are 128 bits when taking into account graphic cards. Is it worth sacrificing 128 bit of bus memory, for a newer chipset?</strong> The price range is the same from where I would buy it, but the older version(1) is slowly taken out of production, I can only find two webshops which still has one on stock.</p> <p>I am planning on buying a new PC for gaming, and I am interested what would be the difference between the two, which one should I choose. Or, if you could recommend another card in the same price range as this one. I am from Romania, and these cards cost 250-280$ in my country, this is the maximum I would spend on a graphic card. </p>

Is the Gainward GeForce GTX 760 or 960 more suitable for gaming?

<p>Yes, I agree that you should be in doubt about updating to a GTX 980. The card is not much different than the 970, and it is a lot more expensive.</p> <p>GTX 970 vs. GTX 980:</p> <p>Cores: 1664 vs. 2048<BR> Base Clock: 1050Mhz vs. 1126Mhz<BR> Texture Fill Rate: 109GT/s vs. 144GT/s<BR> VRAM: 3.5GB vs. 4GB</p> <p>EDIT:<BR> And to answer your questions:<BR></p> <p>Q: Will the 980 behave just like the 970 (only that the 980 will have issues at 4GB instead of at 3.5GB)?</p> <p>A: Yes. However, it does have a few more CUDA cores. This will result in a greater overall performance.</p> <hr> <p>Q: Will the game just crash if it tries to use more than 4GB of VRAM?</p> <p>A: I suppose so. Most games will try to regulate the amount of VRAM they use in accordance to how much you have. The reason the 3.5GB is an issue on the 970 is the fact that games think they can use all 4GB, and when they dip into that 'defective' 0.5GB, everything slows down.</p> <hr> <p>Q: Will performance degrade in a more progressive way (slowing progressively, or just losing details from the textures)?</p> <p>A: I don't really understand the question. If you play at 4k and use high res textures, the game will start lagging and your fps will go down, because they game does not have enough VRAM to hold all the information.</p>

670

2015-10-15T22:10:21.400

|gaming|graphics-cards|

<p>I am about to buy a new gaming PC and, checking for specs, I initially I was going towards the GTX 970 when I learned of the 3.5 GB issue.</p> <p>As far as I understand it, as long as my game does not use more than 3.5 GB, it will run smoothly but once that limit is passed, it will slow radically as it begins to use the slower 0.5GB chunk (the numbers I have seen suggest that it would go from extremely fluid play to unplayable almost instantaneously).</p> <p>Most comments seems to agree that unless I play it at 4K or use mods to load high-res textures, usually I will have no issues with that.</p> <p>Still, I am in doubt about upgrading towards a GTX 980; the price increase is considerable (~ 200€), the improved processing power would be welcomed but does not look like essential and, for the VRAM, the only difference is that those .5 GB are not slower.</p> <p>So my question is: if I decide later to use lots of high-res textures/increase the resolution, how will the VRAM difference affect it? </p> <ul> <li><p>Will performance degrade in a more progressive way (slowing progressively, or just losing details from the textures)?</p></li> <li><p>Will the 980 behave just like the 970 (only that the 980 will have issues at 4GB instead of at 3.5GB)? </p></li> <li><p>Will the game just crash if it tries to use more than 4GB of VRAM?</p></li> <li><p>Other?</p></li> </ul> <p>For me, 0.5 extra usable GB do not seem to be a lot for 200€(NVIDIA cards with 6GB are out of budget), but I may consider it if this means that the performance will degrade in a more progressive way when full.</p> <p>I really do not have a favorite model for each GPU, but <a href="http://www.pccomponentes.com/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_970_gaming_g1_windforce_oc_4gb_gddr5.html" rel="nofollow">I have eyed this 970 (Gigabyte Gaming G1 Windforce OC)</a> and this seems to be <a href="http://www.pccomponentes.com/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_980_windforce_3x_oc_4gb_gddr5.html" rel="nofollow">the equivalent 980</a>.</p> <p>Of course, if there is something wrong/not so good about those specific models I would be willing to change, I only chose the first one because it comes with the GTX 970 "preconfigured" PCs, and the second one because it was easier to compare differences with the first one.</p>

Different behavior of GTX 970 and GTX 980 due to 3.5 GB issue?

<p>There are probably CHEAPER ways to do this, but here's A solution:</p> <ol> <li>Intel RS3DC050 PCI-Express 3.0 x4 Low Profile Ready SATA / SAS Controller Card <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117427" rel="nofollow">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816117427</a></li> <li>Intel Upgrade RAID SSD Cache-with Fastpath for RS25 <a href="http://www.provantage.com/intel-rs3sc008~7ITE90QU.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.provantage.com/intel-rs3sc008~7ITE90QU.htm</a></li> <li>Intel AXXRMFBU4 RAID Maintenance Free Backup Unit with Super Capacitor Brown Box White Box <a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B01DIT7ZO8" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Intel-AXXRMFBU4-Maintenance-Backup-Capacitor/dp/B01DIT7ZO8</a></li> </ol> <p>Notes: <a href="http://www.intel.in/content/www/in/en/support/server-products/raid-products/000008342.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.intel.in/content/www/in/en/support/server-products/raid-products/000008342.html</a></p> <p>Basically you get this RAID card installed, you attach the key to it, you fire it up, you configure SSD Cache and possibly also Fastpath as needed, you make your SSDs into a cache array and get it assigned to your RAID10 array, and off you go.</p> <p>You've now dropped a something near a grand into something that could be performed at a fraction of the cost if you'd just let it hit the CPU a teensy bit, but there you go, SSD caching on hardware RAID with a ridiculous number of SSDs and HDDs simultaneously in play. </p> <p>Finally, just for the record - "This is for a gaming workstation, not a dedicated server."</p> <p>You emphatically do not need this and will not notice performance differences between this and a standard software-cached SSD+HDD RAID solution using something like PrimoCache. It is one of the most overkill solutions I have ever come up with at the behest of someone else, and I did it only to see if it could be done. You personally have no viable use case for this hardware.</p> <p>EDIT: I forgot to add in the cost of the SAS to SATA cables themselves; that's another couple dozen bucks at a minimum.</p>

684

2015-10-16T17:33:49.750

|raid-controller|raid|

<p>I currently have four identically sized HDDs in RAID-10 on an Adaptec 8805. Unfortunately this controller can't do read/write caching of the array's blocks on SSDs attached to the RAID controller. </p> <p>I now have several SSDs (two right now, possibly expanding to four later) and would like to utilize them in this fashion without incurring the CPU overhead of doing it in software. I would use ZFS ZIL/L2ARC if my operating system were Linux/BSD/Solaris, but I'm running Windows, so that's out of the running.</p> <p>This is for a gaming workstation, not a dedicated server.</p> <p>I am looking for a RAID card that meets the following criteria:</p> <ul> <li>Can do RAID-10.</li> <li>Can do read/write cache on multiple SSDs. The caching stuff should be handled on the RAID processor so that the CPU is not impacted by the calculations required for managing the cache.</li> <li>Supports at least eight attached devices without needing a daughter board (can be "external" via breakout cables or individual ports attached to the card itself). If the ports are SAS, I can get the SAS to SATA cables, no worries.</li> <li>Supports booting via UEFI firmware with the BIOS Compatibility Support Module disabled.</li> <li>Drives that use "Advanced Format" 4K native sectors are supported in 4K native mode (NOT 512e).</li> <li>Supports a non-volatile cache or battery backup module.</li> <li>Desirable, but not essential: Boots up in an above-average time for a RAID card. Faster is better.</li> <li>Connects to the system by PCI Express. The slot width and revision are not important for me, since I am planning to put it into a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot (with all 16 lanes enabled), so I have more than enough lanes to throw at it.</li> </ul> <p>Given all these requirements, I'd like to go for minimum cost, while buying the card "new".</p> <p>What options are available to me?</p>

RAID card that can do SSD caching, 4kn, UEFI

<p>I've had excellent luck with the razer goliathus, assuming you want a 'soft' mousepad.</p> <p>I've had a few others but this has a few features that make it a decent choice.</p> <p>The edges are stitched, so it won't split. This is a <em>critical</em> feature in terms of long term use. I've had lesser gaming mousepads have their top surface peel off. </p> <p>You have two options for surfaces - If you're a <em>twitch</em> gamer, go for the slick surface of the <a href="http://www.razerzone.com/sg-en/gaming-mouse-mats/razer-goliathus-speed-edition" rel="noreferrer">speed varient</a>, if you want more control (and I'm guessing from the relatively low DPI, you're a <em>precision</em> player) there's the <a href="http://www.razerzone.com/sg-en/gaming-mouse-mats/razer-goliathus-control-edition" rel="noreferrer">control version</a>. I've got both (on different systems) and I'm relatively happy with both.</p> <p>There's multiple sizes (I went with large on the speed pad, small on the control version) to suit your playing style as well.</p>

685

2015-10-16T19:28:50.953

|mouse-pad|

<p>What's the best mouse pad for me? </p> <p>Especially for Counter Strike: GO </p> <p>My settings are:</p> <ul> <li>Mouse: MadCatz M.M.O. 7</li> <li>Mouse driver dpi: 800</li> <li>Windows dpi: standard</li> <li>Acceleration: off</li> <li>Mouse grip: palm</li> <li>Finger set: 1+2+2</li> </ul> <p>I know that for some mouses coloured pads might not be the best option.<br> Any size will work.</p>

Mouse Pad For MadCatz M.M.O. 7

<p>Yup. Its standard as long as its the same from factor. For that matter 7mm and 9mm 2.5 inch drives, and 3.5 inch drives like that all share the same connector. </p> <p>Just make sure its the right form factor to fit in the bay, but you should be fine otherwise. </p> <p>If its a desktop, 2.5 inch (most SSDs are that!) would work with standard cables, though you may need an adaptor to fit it in a bay, or 3.5 inch drives would work.</p> <p>For a laptop, thickness matters. A 7mm drive can replace a 9 mm drive with an optional shim, but not vice versa.</p> <p>The connectors are identical. </p>

697

2015-10-17T14:43:30.743

|hard-disk|sata|

<p>My serial ATA hard disk broke, so I want to replace it. The SATA drives I've seen online are very diverse in appearance, which makes me skeptical that they work identically. For example, The ports on <a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00X95ROOS" rel="nofollow">this one</a> and <a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00B4LIC04" rel="nofollow">this one</a> look very different.</p> <p>Should I be looking for a specific type of SATA hard drive?</p>

Will any replacement SATA hard drive work to replace any SATA port?

<p>Skroutz is your friend :-P </p> <ul> <li>Intel i5 5200U 2.2GHz CPU</li> <li>15.6" LED LCD screen</li> <li>4GB DDR3 RAM</li> <li>HD Graphics 5500</li> <li>1TB HDD</li> </ul> <p><a href="http://www.skroutz.gr/s/6738402/Lenovo-G50-80-i5-5200U-4GB-1TB-W8.html">http://www.skroutz.gr/s/6738402/Lenovo-G50-80-i5-5200U-4GB-1TB-W8.html</a></p>

711

2015-10-19T08:32:21.963

|laptop|

<p>I need to buy a new laptop for my programming job. The problem is that I just don’t like laptops! I have to get this because I need to travel and meet with colleagues and have to do some work on site. This implies that there is a good chance that this is not going to be my main computer in the future. </p> <p>On the other hand, I don't want to waste money (even the smallest amount) on a laptop that will be garbage in a year or so. If I have it I will use it, for as long as it lasts. </p> <p>My main jobs are performed in Eclipse, Netbeans and Android Studio. From what I have read around, these do not support multi-threading. So Intel would work better than AMD since (again from what I understood on the web) AMD has more cores, but single core speed of AMD is lower than that of Intel's. If I am using programs that can only use one core at a time then Intel should work better, right?</p> <p>The main problem is that I am in Greece, and I have to buy it from a store here, since it will have to go to my expenses. So I am guessing that not all models might be available here.</p> <p>Requirements: </p> <ul> <li>CPU: a decent one that will last for some years (thinking i5 5200U) </li> <li>RAM: I am guessing 4GB for budget reasons, but would be nice to have extra slots for future upgrades if needed</li> <li>Monitor: Would love a 17inch for ease of work, but (at least in the Greek market) 17' come with a lot of power that skyrocket the price. plus most I have seen come with HD, not FullHD, resulting a more or less the same effect (do you agree with that?) </li> <li>Storage: not important since I will use my desktop for any file storage/backup</li> <li>Cost: It will be hard to help me on this one since prices are much different in every country, but I am guessing something in the 500-600 Euro range (US$560-640)</li> <li>Must be available in Greece</li> </ul> <p>Bonus question: Is an i3 with SSD as good as an i5 with HDD? some guy (that I trust) told me that, but I am not so sure I believe it.</p> <p><strong>Edit:</strong><br> What about this: HP 15-ac011nv - 15.6" (i7-5500U/4GB/500GB/HD 5500)</p> <ul> <li>CPU Intel Core i7-5500U 2.40 GHz</li> <li>cache 4 MB</li> <li>RAM 4 GB - DDR3 SDRAM - 1600 MHz</li> <li>HDD 500 GB</li> <li>monitor 15.6" BrightView WLED - 1366x768</li> <li>Graphics Intel HD Graphics 5500 - Shared Memory</li> <li>2 x USB 2.0, 1 x USB 3.0 </li> </ul> <p>The ram might need some boosting. Will call them soon to ask the max ram that i can install, and how much an extra 4 costs.</p> <p>The price for some reason (ok i know 2, will see it in a sec) the price is really low for an I7 550 Euro The only drawback it seems that it is the low resolution screen and the GPU. I am not going to play any games on this anyway, nor i will watch any 4K movies. how about this then?</p> <p><strong>update</strong> I did got the HP after all. It seems like a good one, i was disappointed that it's not easy to get the hdd out easily, since i have an extra ssd that i want to install instead. </p>

Programming laptop available in Greece?

<p>The <a href="http://www.mi.com/en/headphones/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">xiaomi piston 2.0/2.1</a> (there's a 3.0 model out at the moment) out but I've never used it before. I know folks have ordered a pair into australia, and ordered it off <a href="https://www.ibuygou.com/p-original-xiaomi-piston-earphone-updated-version-brown-5708.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ibuygou</a>. OP's mentioned <a href="http://www.geekbuying.com/item/New-Original-Xiaomi-Piston-III-Youth-Edition-3-5mm-In-ear-Stereo-Earbud-Headphone-For-Xiaomi-Android-iPhone---Black-345070.html?utm_source=EMS&amp;utm_medium=EMSPD_Product_Link&amp;utm_campaign=EMSPD_Feed_345070" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this model</a> which seems to be a plastic varient of the 3.0 (the 2.0/2.1 had these too), but I'll talk about the ones I do have. Xiaomi's headphones do typically punch above their weight pricewise so, its worth considering. Outside the "its metal" and possibily how it sounds like, many of these features are common across the product line. </p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/oJ2Xc.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/oJ2Xc.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>The cliff's notes version</p> <ul> <li><p>Price: 20-30 usd depending. Got mine for 20 singapore dollars.</p></li> <li><p>Good sound quality - Good enough. I've tried it on my <em>good</em> gear on a lark and it sounds fine. My phone/whatever google play transcodes it to seems to be the limitation</p></li> <li><p>Reliability - I've had mine ~6 months I think. Its built solidly </p></li> <li>Durability - Kevlar reinforced cables, sleeving on half of it. Place where the cable splits is protected by the remote. Earbuds and most of the fittings are milled aluminum. Jack looks solid too. </li> <li>Comfort - Has different eartips to suit your needs.</li> <li>Isolation - Its decent, though the level of isolation would depend on the tips. I can wear them all day (but I don't!). In some ways good passive isolation (which works at any range) is better than ANR (which</li> </ul> <p>That's the model I have anyway. Reviews are <a href="http://www.head-fi.org/products/xiaomi-pistons-2-0-mk301" rel="nofollow noreferrer">decent</a> and people tend to like it. And yes, they come with a case, rubber winding widget, and other shiny stuff.</p> <p>The headphones are machined aluminium. Cable has a remote control and the length between the plug and controller's covered in a protective sheath, and are supposed to be kevlar reinforced. The headphones have great strain relief, and I've had mine for quite a while, daily use with no issues. Its built <em>seriously</em> solidly. </p> <p>You'll get 3 pairs of smooth earbud covers in different sizes and one flanged one, which is supposed to fit tighter. </p> <p>Sound quality's decent, my phone's more of a limiting factor (I'm an audio snob). They're about as good as you'd get for the price range. It comes with that lovely rubber headphone holder and 'jewel case', and street price is ~30usd.</p> <p>Remote control is below where the headphone splits. Its got 3 buttons, tho the volume buttons only work on some phones. </p> <p>That said, there's a lot of fakes of these so caveat emptor. I got mine from xiaomi directly. </p> <p>Considering I was going with super cheapie headphones since I killed quite a few, and this has surviced me, I'd say these are a hardy pair.</p>

721

2015-10-20T06:05:37.290

|headphones|music|

<p>Well, my <a href="http://www.klipsch.com.au/image-s4-black-in-ear-headphones" rel="nofollow">Klipsch Image S4</a> earphones broke yesterday. Had them for at least 4 years I think, and I put them through their paces, so it's understandable. They were amazing for their price though, and will be sorely missed.</p> <p>I'm saving quite heavily at the moment, and don't have another $90+ AUD to spare on another set of headphones for a while to come, hence me coming here. I'd like a recommendation for a good, but super-cheap pair of headphones, to get me through until I have some more disposable income next year or later.</p> <h3>Comfort</h3> <p>Preferably as comfortable as possible, especially for long periods. Over-the-head bands need to be padded, or else I really feel it on the top of my head after hours of having them on.</p> <p>Over-the-ears clips also bug me after long periods, but if you happen to have a recommendation for over-the-ears headphones which don't feel like they're cutting into where your ear connects to your head after hours of use, please feel free to share.</p> <h3>Noise-cancelling (preferred)</h3> <p>I know that for the price I'm looking at right now, this may be pushing it more than a little. But the main time I used my S4's was when I really needed to concentrate on a big project at work.</p> <p>This isn't a huge requirement, as having music to listen to at all can help me concentrate at times, even if it has to be played barely-audibly to make sure I'm not annoying co-workers. But if by some miracle there are cheap headphones out there which have <em>any</em> kind of noise-cancelling, I'd love to hear about it - both so I'm not annoying anyone, and so I can play my music at more than whisper-volume.</p> <h3>Stereo</h3> <p>Stereo sound, not mono. Probably accounts for almost all headphones/earphones nowadays, but again, considering my price range, it's worth saying this explicitly. I have many songs I love listening to partly because of just how well they utilise each individual speaker.</p> <h3>Price</h3> <p>The big one. I'd love something less than $10 AUD. To get the above features I could <em>probably</em> go up to $25 AUD. But less is definitely better for me right now.</p> <hr> <p>I'm a huge fan of good sound quality, but just for now (until I'm able to splurge on something else) I'm willing to put sound quality on the back-burner. Of course, all the above preferences being equal, I'd love to hear in any answer what kind of sound quality the headphones do have. :)</p> <p>Edited to add: I'm sure everyone can pick up on my locality from the fact that I keep saying "AUD". But just to be clear: These should be able to be bought/ordered from within Australia. If I have to order them internationally, that may be okay. But please note in your answer if you think I'll need to order them from another country.</p>

Cheap yet good quality headphones

<p>There is an Australian company called <a href="https://sonderdesign.com/" rel="nofollow">Sonder</a> that is putting in the marked a keyboard based on e-ink keys (the same display technolgy used on e-readers), it is in pre-order for 199$ and you can find it here: <a href="https://sonderdesign.com/product/sonder-keyboard/" rel="nofollow">https://sonderdesign.com/product/sonder-keyboard/</a></p> <p>Seems also that Apple is interested in this type of technology. <em>Apple reportedly plans to ship the keyboards in its computers beginning in 2018.</em></p> <p>More info here: <a href="http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/10/report-apple-is-working-on-e-ink-keyboard-for-future-macbooks/" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/10/report-apple-is-working-on-e-ink-keyboard-for-future-macbooks/</a></p>

725

2015-10-20T19:48:51.620

|keyboards|

<p>This might sound a little bit science-fiction or futuristic:</p> <p>I am looking for a keyboard of which keys are not physically labeled, but labeled with small LEDs inside them.</p> <p>Here's my problem: The country that I live in uses a different layout than EN-US Q keyboard. It includes some special characters, like any other country that does not speak English. However, I write scientific papers in English and I am very comfortable when coding with an EN-US layout. In addition, I will soon move to a completely different country for my education. </p> <p>All these being said, I would like to buy a keyboard whose keys are not physically determined.</p> <p>Is there any keyboard that fits the following?</p> <ul> <li>When I change the layout, the keys automatically adapt and change accordingly.</li> <li>With wide enter key.</li> <li>With numpad.</li> <li>Preferably with extra function keys.</li> </ul> <p>If there is none and you are working in a firm that produces keyboards, I can assure you that I will happily be a tester if you produce that kind of keyboard. Moreover, I will probably buy a dozen of them to use for my life.</p> <p>To make myself more clear, the keyboard I am looking for is just like a smartphone keyboard. But not like a screen. An actual keyboard whose keys are small screens. </p> <p><strong>Update:</strong></p> <p>There is a keyboard just as I described. It is called <a href="http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/181d/">optimus popularis</a> and costs freaking 1425$!</p> <p>I of course want something more affordable.</p>

Keyboard with dynamic keys

<p>The awarded answer says </p> <blockquote> <p>Most microcontroller boards less than $20 do not have Bluetooth/Wifi/Eth, or LCD ports</p> </blockquote> <p>I would respectfully beg to differ.</p> <p>The <a href="http://esp32.net" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ESP32</a> has sold <a href="https://www.espressif.com/en/media_overview/news/espressif-achieves-100-million-target-iot-chip-shipments" rel="nofollow noreferrer">over 100 million boards</a> and costs from <a href="https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33057018346.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.640bb30bfx1rae&amp;algo_pvid=b785f540-136a-494e-b774-40dd031cbee9&amp;algo_expid=b785f540-136a-494e-b774-40dd031cbee9-0&amp;btsid=6bba9c8b-98ed-4f4b-acc4-8ab3b02fc46f&amp;ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_8,searchweb201603_55" rel="nofollow noreferrer">about $4</a>. You can get them with display (not requested by OP) for about $12. By default, they have both <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP32" rel="nofollow noreferrer">WiFi and BluteTooth</a>. You can get BLE 5, you can get LoRa, which will broadcast 15km with clear line of sight, you can get Zigbee; for $11, you can get <a href="https://makeradvisor.com/ttgo-t-call-esp32-with-sim800l-gsm-gprs/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">one which accepts a SIM card</a>. They come with cameras too, and passive infrared, to detect body heat.</p> <p>You would like to code Node.Js? Just search for <code>ESP32 nodejs</code> and you will be happily surprised.</p> <p>I have bought dozens from AliExpress. I recommend that you use <a href="https://platformio.org" rel="nofollow noreferrer">PlatformIO</a> as your IDE, and look at the docs for <a href="https://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/boards/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">board</a> and find one with on-board debugger. Otherwise, it's a choice between buying a JTAG probe and debug by <code>printf()</code> over serial port.</p> <p>Being such a popular board, there is extensive documentation &amp; tutorials, but lots of support on forums (visit us at <a href="https://iot.stackexchange.com/search?q=esp32">S.E Internet of Things</a>.</p> <p>Neil Kolban has written <a href="https://leanpub.com/kolban-ESP32" rel="nofollow noreferrer">a great eBook</a> for which you can pay from zero to however much you like (personally, I paid zer0. Then, after reading paid what I thought it would cost if sold commercially). There are <a href="https://www.amazon.com/s?k=esp32&amp;i=stripbooks-intl-ship&amp;ref=nb_sb_noss" rel="nofollow noreferrer">more ESP32 books</a>.</p> <p>I also recommend the <a href="https://randomnerdtutorials.com" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Random Nerd tutorials</a>, which go form beginner to let's sell this puppy as a commerical product.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/KnOtv.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/KnOtv.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

732

2015-10-21T08:50:27.697

|wifi|bluetooth|raspberry-pi|

<p><strong>Problem</strong></p> <p>I am looking for a portable device which should fullfill my following requirement:</p> <ol> <li>Device should be able to connect and communicate with bluetooth devices.</li> <li>Device should be able to connect to internet. First preference is wifi connection, but as a fallback mechanism, ethernet will also work.</li> <li>I should be able to run Node.js server on it. This server will be very light weight, wont need much RAM and computing resources.</li> <li>Less than $30.</li> </ol> <p>Now, after reading few resources i found, Raspberry pi gives me all such features, but only issue with Raspberry pi is that it has many other feature also (camera port, HDMI, etc) which add significant amount to its cost. Since i need device for commercial purpose, so i need to make it cost effective as well.</p> <p>Can somebody suggest me some available readymade options ?</p> <p><strong>Note</strong> I am looking for device to control some lighting stuff. These device should be used as a gateway and needs to be installed in customer premises. So, thats why these devices should be either a chip/small size board.</p>

What are some handheld-device/board with Wifi+Bluetooth+processor?

<p>I've been using an <a href="http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MJ2R2LL/A/magic-trackpad-2" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Apple Magic Trackpad 2</a> for the past week or so:</p> <p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magic_Trackpad_2.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/5TVZ7.jpg" alt=""></a></p> <ul> <li>It looks great on a desk, the poorly-lit Wikipedia picture doesn't do it justice. On a light wood desk, in warm light, it looks right at home. It also lines up well with a Magic Keyboard.</li> <li><p>As as programmer, I click things a lot. Being able to adjust the click sensitivity is <em>wonderful</em> - I have it turned all the way down, which puts ever so much less stress on my hands:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/62LODm.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/62LODm.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>Note that 'silent clicking' option there - this thing somehow can make noise when you click it beyond the noise generated by the Haptic Feedback thing - I don't know how they managed to hide a speaker in it (I've looked for it), but it's very realistic, rivaling the sound made by my MacBook's physical trackpad.</p> <p>I have it off because I don't like noise, but it's a neat thing to have.</p></li> <li><p>The rechargeable battery is great, I haven't had to recharge it in the week or so I've had it. It also comes with its own Lightning cable, which you can steal and use to charge other iOS devices. </p></li> <li><p>I don't know what they finished this with, but it feels <em>better</em> than my MacBook trackpad. It seems even less sticky - it might just be that I've worn some of the finish off my older trackpad, but this one definitely feels better.</p></li> <li><p>Doesn't require, <strong>or support</strong>, a stylus that isn't designed to work with capacitive surfaces, just like an iPhone.</p></li> </ul> <p>$130 is a little steep, but for using it all day, it's completely worth it. Also comes with a standard 1 year warranty, and, in my experience, Apple means warranty when they say warranty. I've never had trouble getting them to honor one. That said, there's nothing in this to <em>break</em> - something electrical would have to go wrong, as there are no real moving parts. That in itself is a huge plus for me.</p>

734

2015-10-21T18:53:27.903

|mice|

<p>I've recently purchased a trackpad (which I'll probably put in an answer), but I'm curious about what else is available. The requirements:</p> <ul> <li>Must work with my 2012 MacBook Pro (running OS X 10.11)</li> <li>Must not have a 'sticky' surface - I hate it when my finger gets 'stuck' (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stick-slip_phenomenon">stick-slip phenomenon</a>) on a trackpad when I'm trying to move it around. </li> <li>Must work to move the mouse, not just in 'art' programs like Photoshop, GIMP, etc. Working in those apps would be a plus, though.</li> <li>Be within a budget of ~$150. I'm flexible on that</li> <li>Not require use of a stylus - but the option to use a stylus would be welcome.</li> </ul> <p>Ideally:</p> <ul> <li>Work over Bluetooth, but I'm not completely opposed to burning a USB port for this</li> <li>Support OS X's Multitouch gestures</li> <li>If it takes batteries, it shouldn't eat them at a rate of more than one set per month with fairly heavy usage.</li> </ul>

External trackpad for a Macbook Pro?

<p>LGA 2011 processors typically don't have built in graphics like lesser models. That said nearly <em>any</em> modern card will quite handle video at up to 60hz at common resolutions. 4K might be tricky, but at worst you need a mid range card. </p> <p>That said, I disagree on the suggestion of a <em>super</em> cheap, old card.</p> <p>There's a few reasons. The <em>specific</em> nvidia line that mark mentioned on his answer's a bit problematic, and has a high failure rate. Its also roughly 7-8 years old, and its a little like putting a bike tyre on a bugatti veyron.</p> <p>Depending on your needs a gforce 700 or 900 series, preferably midrange (a 960 upwards, but I paired my 'regular' core i7 3rd generation with a top of the line card, and its really good). If you have <em>really</em> have basic needs (and what you do does!) go with a lower end card, but preferably within the current or previous generations. The <em>oldest</em> I'd go is the 600 series.</p> <p>What should you be looking for? HDMI's what you'd connect a TV with, and is standard. DP is the standard for computer monitors. Make sure your card has <em>both</em>.</p> <p>Why get a better card over an old one? </p> <p>They often have better gpgpu capabilities and video playback acceleration. You can often use your GPU to play back video. You also are more likely to have warranty coverage. </p>

735

2015-10-22T01:43:29.113

|graphics-cards|video|motherboard|

<p>I have a Asus X99-E WS motherboard (LGA 2011 v3 slot) and it doesn't come with any video ports. Is it still possible to use the video capabilities of the Intel CPU or will I need to purchase a video card? If a video card is required, what is recommended for good video quality with an HDMI port (24p movies, etc.)?</p>

Using Intel graphics but no video port on motherboard

<p>If you really want an android app you should look at certain brands. <strong>But</strong> if you don't need an app from the router manufacturer, basically any router with a USB and FTP-support should work. To answer your last question: There are routers that come with their own app, but usually you don't have to use that app (especially if FTP is supported).</p> <p>I personally have pretty much the setup you're looking for. I have a <strong><a href="http://en.avm.de/products/fritzbox/" rel="noreferrer">FRITZ!Box</a></strong> with a <strong>5TB USB 3.0 HDD</strong> attached to it. So I can recommend a FRITZ!Box for this purpose but I'm sure there are other manufacturers providing routers with a similar service.</p> <p>All I had to do, was to set it up as a FTP server. Now I can access it locally in the network or from outside with my email and password.</p> <p>Now, to back up the data of my phone, I use <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.tacit.android.foldersync.lite" rel="noreferrer">FolderSync</a>. _{Again, this is just what I use and can recommend, because I tested it. You can use any backup/sync tool that supports FTP.} I just had to add my server and login to it and set up which folders I want to sync and where to sync them.</p> <p>The difficulty to set something up like this is depending on the manufacturer and what they provide. For me it was fairly easy.</p> <p>Summarized, I wouldn't look for just a USB port. Look at the functions it has and if it supports something like a "home cloud". I also strongly recommend googling the product name and read some reviews before buying. You may also find instructions to set it up as a FTP for your specific model.</p>

752

2015-10-23T11:38:58.330

|hard-disk|router|

<p>My old router died, and I want to buy a new one.</p> <p>Also, if I have to change the router, I want to try to see if I can do a setup like: Router + External Hard Drive + an android application maybe.</p> <p>I basically want to have a one-way sync of our pictures (my wife and I) to a HDD that is connected to the router.</p> <p>Sync would be through wi-fi, something like google is doing right now for me, but this time I would like to be in control of the storage.</p> <p>My question is: what to look for in a router? I wouldn't want to spend too much, but I don't even know what to look for. Is it enough if the router has USB port on it?</p> <p>I was wondering if there are routers that come with a special android app, or I can just try to look into some "universal" software like <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bv.wifisync" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this one</a>.</p> <p>Note: NAS device seems like a good idea, but it seems too expensive.</p> <p>Thanks for the help.</p> <p>UPDATE I bought a RT-N18U router, and it has <a href="http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.asustek.aicloud" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this application</a> specifically made for it, we'll see how it works, I'll let you guys know.</p> <p>UPDATE 2: <a href="https://android.stackexchange.com/questions/128352/syncme-failed-to-connect-to-computer-isconnected-failed-econnrefused-connecti">I had some errors</a>, but it works fine</p>

Router + External Hard Drive (a.k.a. Home Cloud)

<p>In 2005, the most powerful single-core CPUs on the market (and the wet dream of every gamer) was AMD FX-55 and later FX-57. For such a machine, 2 GB of RAM would not be unheard of, even in 2005.</p> <p>If you want something with more bang per buck that an ordinary gamer would be likely to have, an Opteron 144 mentioned in the other post would be a good choice (although it was introduced rather late in 2005). During that time, DFI LanParty motherboards with an nVidia nForce 4 chipset were quite popular for AMD rigs.</p> <p>As for the GPU, the nVidia GeForce 6600 GT was generally a popular choice during that time. Alternatively, you could go with an ATI Radeon X800 XL which was rougly on par with a GeForce 6800 GT (the "Ultra" version someone mentioned was made mostly for the press and availability was very scarce).</p> <p>As for the operating system - you definitely would not run any kind of Linux if you wanted to play games on your PC. But if your story is such that the guy re-purposes the PC for other stuff than games, then I guess it's OK. In addition to Debian, Ubuntu existed (from 2004) and some popular distributions were Mandriva (from Red Hat), Fedora and openSUSE.</p> <p>Hope it helps!</p>

755

2015-10-24T21:21:03.717

|gaming|pc|legacy|

<p>I'm currently writing a story where in 2005 a guy built a time machine out of a old Ford Mustang, a Casio ClassPad 300 calculator, some scrap, and a gaming PC, but the problem I'm facing is that I only started to follow the PC hardware market in 2010, and know nothing about older stuff. Hoping someone here could enlighten me.</p> <p>I have done some groundwork about this PC, but don't know how off I am.</p> <p>The PC can only run on a single core CPU, due to something about how the machine works, and it makes error when a dual core CPU is used, so I thought about using an Intel Pentium 4, but what about the AMD side, is there something better there?</p> <p>Other things I have thought about is 1GB of RAM, a 160GB HDD, Antec P180 Case, leaving out GPU and PSU, what was good back then?</p> <p>Another thing I thought about was using a custom Linux(Debian-based) as the OS, but how would that run on a '05 gaming tower?</p> <p>The PC's duty is via the Casio calculator, is taking the date and using some highly advanced calculation to reprogram the circuit that drives the part that makes the car going through time, and outputs a speed + RPM the engine has to go before it can go through time.</p>

Parts for a gaming PC from 2005

<p>In almost any case, with a proper, modern compiler, compilation speed will increase near linearly with the number of hardware threads on your system. In the case of Microsoft compilers, even running with 8GB will be plenty fine, as they are fairly stingy with memory allocation. However, on *nix, I have capped out even 16GB with parallel make and GCC.</p> <p>Modern CPU architectures are approaching peak performance, so even three year old top-of-their-class CPUs will still perform quite adequately compared to top-of-their-class modern CPUs. On the other hand, more RAM will always have an obvious and linear benefit.</p> <p>To address your specific issues, however:</p> <p>Of the two CPUs you specified, the difference in benchmarks is fairly marginal, with the only real big difference being the power consumption, as the i7 is rated to use about 2/3 the power. RAM, on the other hand, can be very useful, especially in the case of Java where the JVM just loves to gobble the stuff up.</p> <p>To give you an idea (<a href="http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/501/Intel_Core_i5_i5-6600K_vs_Intel_Core_i7_i7-6700.html">Source</a>):</p> <ul> <li>The i7-6700 is the same speed as the i5-6600k in single-threaded applications (or at least within statistical error). </li> <li>The i7-6700 is 10-15% faster in full multithreaded workloads than the i5-6600k. </li> <li>The i7-6700 has slightly better memory access times than the i5-6600k.</li> </ul> <p>Personally, I would just go i5 and 16GB, but if you must upgrade one or the other, go for the RAM.</p>

843

2015-10-27T10:10:24.083

|pc|memory|processor|desktop|

<p>I am building a PC specifically for programming. I mainly use Android Studio and Eclipse which are both quite heavy programs. This is why I would like to get a better CPU / more RAM. Which of the following would make a bigger difference in performance and which do you think is more worth it? Currently, to fit my budget I can upgrade either the CPU or RAM which is why I need some help on deciding which one would benefit me more.</p> <p>Intel Core i5 Quad Core i5 - 6600K (3.5 GHz) 6MB Cache <strong>-- ></strong> Intel Core i7 Quad Core i7 - 6700 (3.4 GHz) 8MB Cache.</p> <p><strong><em>OR</em></strong></p> <p>16GB HyperX Fury DDR4 2666 MHz (2 x 8) --> 32GB HyperX Fury DDR4 2666 MHz (4 x 8)</p> <p>Which one would you recommend upgrading?</p> <p>Also, I want to add that I am going to be using a Samsung 850 EVO SSD.</p>

Which would make a greater difference? Extra CPU or RAM?

<p>GPU is usually faster, but I cannot find GPU benchmarks for Handbrake, so I'll recommend a CPU. Keep in mind that using the CPU I recommend, you need a new motherboard.</p> <p>I'd recommend an AMD FX-8320E. The 8320 because it's practically AMD's top of the line, and the 'E' because that basically means it's better binned, and they are both the same price at the moment.</p> <p>Other popular AMD CPUs such as the 8350, 8370, 9370, and 9590 are basically overclocked versions of this, but I can't bother to provide a link, so you'll have to search it up or not believe me.</p> <p>I recommend AMD, also, because of better price/performance ratio. As you can see in this <a href="http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1198?vs=1403" rel="nofollow">anandtech benchmark</a>, the overclocked FX-8320E ($125) is on par with the non-overclocked i5 4690 ($200). Overclocking Intel CPUs would probably surpass performance, but not by anything worth $200, which is already at your budget, so you wouldn't be able to buy a new motherboard.</p> <p>I know that some people are going to point out that it is hard to upgrade an FX-8320E to anything, due to an outdated chipset, but I don't think that 'dark fang' is going to be upgrading any time in the near future.</p> <p>Unfortunately, when using an AMD CPU, you are going to have the disadvantage of not having a built it GPU. You can either get a motherboard with on-board video, or a cheap dedicated GPU.</p> <p>I'd recommend a motherboard with a built-in GPU, which I know everyone thinks is terrible, but looked at his current iGPU. A nice, overclocking motherboard such as <a href="http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-ga990fxaud3r5" rel="nofollow">this</a>, would be ideal for getting the most performance out of your CPU as well as getting an integrated GPU, but a more budget-friendly option could be <a href="http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-ga78lmtusb3" rel="nofollow">this</a> instead. I know option #2 isn't the greatest, but it is cheap. If anyone else has a motherboard suggestion, comment and I'll edit into my answer.</p>

844

2015-10-27T10:34:22.990

|graphics-cards|processor|rendering|

<p>I have a <em>"Intel Pentium CPU G2030 @ 3.0GHz"</em> processor, and a <em>"Intel HD Graphics"</em> graphics card. <br></p> <blockquote> <p><strong>General CPU info</strong></p> <blockquote> <p>Cores = 2<br> Threads = 2<br> Bus speed = 99.76MHz<br> Max TDP = 55.0W<br> Core Speed = ~3GHz</p> </blockquote> </blockquote> <p><br></p> <blockquote> <p><strong>General GPU info</strong><br></p> <blockquote> <p>GPU = GT1<br> GPU clock = 650 MHz<br> Transistors = 1.4 B<br> Bandwidth = 21.3GB/s<br> Multi-GPU = Disabled</p> </blockquote> </blockquote> <p><br></p> <blockquote> <p><strong>Time taken for a 30 mins video to encode (h.264) with handbrake</strong><br> <strong>(Using all CPU cores)</strong><br></p> <blockquote> <p>2-pass, profile=main, preset=slow : 1hr 30mins<br> 2-pass, profile=main, preset=medium : 1hr<br> 2-pass, profile=main, preset=fast : 45mins<br> 2-pass, profile=main, preset=very fast(handbrake "normal" default) : 25mins</p> </blockquote> </blockquote> <p><br> I don't know much about processors or graphics card, and I don't know which is better at rendering + encoding. Could you recommend some of it for me? Prices below $200, and TDP below 80 would be great. Thanks.</p>

Recommendation for processors specialized for rendering and encoding

<p>You'll find that you are more limited by RAM than CPU - especially with 16 cores. A 100 Mbit line will not be a limiting factor either.</p> <p>So, going by your RAM, you'll have roughly 16-17GB that you can dedicate to Minecraft after the OS takes the portion it needs. </p> <p>Experience has shown that you can get roughly 10 players per GB of RAM. In this case, you should be able to handle 160 players.</p> <hr> <p>A few things to consider with the above estimate:</p> <ul> <li>World edit is a very RAM intensive plugin. You mentioned you were going to remove it. This is a good idea.</li> <li>Setting a maximum map size may help as well. If players can't continuously expand the map, the server has less that it needs to generate as players explore. </li> <li>Your hard drive is very likely a spinning disk, if you are generating a lot of chunks at a time (ie. players running out in a circle in all directions), this will be an area that causes some lag as the new chunks are written to disk.</li> <li>If you allow automated, AFK farms, those can eat into CPU and RAM. Be aware of those and consider plugins that limit entities and mobs per chunk to prevent someone from sitting at a farm for hours or days.</li> <li>Some plugins require a database (grief prevent ones, for example). Adding a database will take up some of your memory. However, this could very easily fall into the 2GB I allocated to your OS.</li> </ul>

853

2015-10-27T16:02:05.880

|gaming|server|

<p>I started renting a VPS (<a href="http://www.server4you.net/vps" rel="nofollow">"Platinum X8" VPS from Server4You</a>), it has the following specifications:</p> <ul> <li>CPU: 16 Cores (Intel Xeon E5550);</li> <li>RAM: 18GB (30GB Burst);</li> <li>HDD: 800GB;</li> <li>Bandwidth: 100Mbits/s (<em>though I did get 430MB/s with <code>speedtest-cli</code>, so might actually be a Gigabit connection</em>);</li> <li>OS: Ubuntu 14.04</li> </ul> <p>I am using this VPS for a single Minecraft server (i.e. not a network of servers), along with a Teamspeak 3 server &amp; webserver (with MySQL server). The website runs a forum and will eventually only get moderate traffic (&lt;100 connections at a time), &amp; I plan for the Teamspeak server to have double the amount of slots of the Minecraft server (<em>I plan to apply for a non-profit license when traffic picks up)</em>.</p> <p>As the VPS is on a monthly contract, I am able to cancel it and go elsewhere at any time; if the Minecraft server starts to outgrow the VPS, I can upgrade to a different VPS package (<em>elsewhere, since this is the top VPS package at the provider</em>) or even a dedicated server</p> <p>At the moment, the Minecraft server has <em>125 slots</em>; can it go higher with the current hardware specifications? </p> <p>The Minecraft server is running some plugins, for example:</p> <ul> <li>Craftbukkit (<em>mod</em>);</li> <li>WorldEdit (though this will be removed when the server is opened to the public);</li> <li>Factions</li> </ul> <p>The Minecraft server is controlled via Multicraft ('Owned' licence for a maximum of 2 servers), with additional startup parameters to enable usage of all 16 CPU cores &amp; 64 bit Java:</p> <pre><code>java -jar -d64 -XX:+UseConcMarkSweepGC -XX:+UseParNewGC -XX:+CMSIncrementalPacing -XX:ParallelGCThreads=16 -XX:+AggressiveOpts -Xms8G -Xmx27G minecraft-server.jar </code></pre> <p>What is the maximum amount of player slots the Minecraft server should be able to handle with the current hardware specifications of the VPS?</p>

How many players would this VPS be able to take?

<p>The i3-2120 is likely to be a bottleneck to the system if you were to only upgrade your graphics card to a GTX 970. <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/53426/Intel-Core-i3-2120-Processor-3M-Cache-3_30-GHz" rel="nofollow">The i3-2120</a> is only a <em>dual-core CPU (with 4 threads)</em>, while the <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/68316/Intel-Core-i5-3470-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz" rel="nofollow">i5-3470 is quad-core</a>; many modern games benefit from multiple CPU cores (<em>and some even require a four-core CPU, such as <a href="http://www.pcgamer.com/fallout-4-system-requirements-released/" rel="nofollow">Fallout 4</a></em>).</p> <p>The i5-3470 is <strong>much more efficient</strong> and newer than the i3-2120 (with a newer manufacturing process).</p> <p>It really depends on what games you plan on playing with your upgrade, for example Grand Theft Auto V will benefit from the i5-3470's performance, far more than a game focusing on graphical elements will.</p> <hr> <p>For Star Citizen I, <a href="http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=5490&amp;game=Star%20Citizen" rel="nofollow">its system requirements</a> seem to focus on the CPU rather than the GPU, therefore you'd definitely be better-off with the i5-3470 &amp; the 960.</p> <p><a href="http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H77%20Pro4-M/" rel="nofollow">Your motherboard</a> has three PCI-E slots, so you might benefit in using both the 960 &amp; 550Ti, with the 550Ti dedicated to PhysX. The amount of RAM you have is fine for gaming.</p> <hr> <p>If you do not mind purchasing used parts, I'd recommend you get a 290X (<em>eBay has tons of them</em>) as you get more graphical power for less (in the UK, used 290X GPUs sell for around £160 while new 970s sell for around £200, making a used 290X £40 cheaper).</p> <p><em>Ensure your power-supply is able to power a 290X</em>- you should have at least a <a href="http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/290x-with-650w-psu.197003/" rel="nofollow">550W PSU</a>, with the recommended wattage being 600W. Bear in mind that if you do go down this route you won't be able to support the 290X with your current 550Ti.</p> <p>You might also be able to get the i5-3470 (or an even better CPU) used as well, along with the 290X. It really depends how much you're willing to spend on upgrading.</p>

890

2015-10-28T10:48:57.667

|gaming|graphics-cards|processor|

<p>I am planning to update my PC by December, but I have some doubts. This is what I have now:</p> <ul> <li>Motherboard: Asus H77-Pro4-M (Socket 1155)</li> <li>CPU: Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz</li> <li>Graphics Card: Nvidia GTX 550 Ti</li> <li>RAM: 8GB (don't know speed at this moment)</li> <li>PSU: 500W</li> </ul> <p>I am planning to upgrade the CPU and graphics card, but I might only change the graphics card to be able to get a real monster. If I change the CPU and graphics card, I have thought about upgrading to:</p> <ul> <li>Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz</li> <li>Gygabyte GeForce GTX 960 Gaming G1 Windforce 4GB GDDR5</li> </ul> <p>If I change only graphics card, I wold upgrade to:</p> <ul> <li>Gygabyte GeForce GTX 970 Gaming G1 Windforce OC 4GB GDDR5</li> </ul> <p>Am I doing this right? Will there be bottlenecks if I don't upgrade the CPU? Are there any similar components that I should look into?</p>

Help updating PC for gaming

<p>I am not 100% sure about this particular model but this is very close:</p> <p><a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00937115E" rel="nofollow">Planar Helium PCT2785 27" Widescreen Multi-Touch Monitor</a></p> <p>Take a look here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMuxpMk3gow&amp;t=0m38s" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMuxpMk3gow&amp;t=0m38s</a></p> <p>Other examples:</p> <ol> <li><p><a href="http://www.ipmart.com.my/main/product/Dell_21_5_inches_Multi_Touch_Monitor_with_IPS_S2240T_Dell_Warranty_421253.php?prod=421253" rel="nofollow">Dell 21.5-inches Multi-Touch Monitor with IPS S2240T</a></p></li> <li><p><a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00GOBD2WW" rel="nofollow">Acer FT200HQL bmjj 19.5-Inch HD+ 1600 x 900 Touchscreen Monitor</a></p></li> <li><p><a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B00CTODKIO" rel="nofollow">Dell S2240T 21.5-Inch Touch Screen LED-lit Monitor</a></p></li> <li><p><a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B0053YJZ4U" rel="nofollow">Planar PXL2430MW 24" Widescreen Multi-Touch LED Monitor</a></p></li> </ol>

893

2015-10-28T12:42:55.567

|monitors|

<p>I have a colleague who needs an additional monitor during presentations in the meeting room (the main beamer screen is too far/hard to see).</p> <p>In a video from Microsoft I saw they used monitors that were somewhat 'laying' on the table. Does anyone know what type of monitor this is?</p> <p>video: <a href="https://youtu.be/Z2Fw6-2fCWU?t=89" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/Z2Fw6-2fCWU?t=89</a> Watch @ 1:30 <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/SUWhr.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/SUWhr.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

I am looking for a pc monitor for someone with visual impairment

<p>The <em>perfect</em> system here's impossible (and I'd be glad to be proven wrong). </p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/pGQ5o.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/pGQ5o.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>The <a href="http://www8.hp.com/sg/en/products/proliant-servers/product-detail.html?oid=5379860" rel="nofollow noreferrer">HP microserver gen 8</a> however would be a fairly <em>decent</em> simple replacement that'll meet <em>many</em> of your needs, though not all. </p> <p>Size: 23.24x 23 x 24.5 cm Taller than your space, but this is about as small as it gets.</p> <p>4-16gb of ram (I'd get the base model, and add ram myself) </p> <p>4 3.5 inch drive bays (this is the tricky thing here) </p> <p>Supposedly fairly quiet (I've not owned one myself).</p> <p>You might be able to replace the slimline optical drive on top with an <a href="http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1377-page3.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ssd or a 2.5 inch drive</a>. </p> <p>Standard flexATX for power.</p> <p>iLO for <em>full</em> access to the system offline.</p> <p>You also have an SD card slot/internal USB port if you arn't running windows and want to boot off either. You could probably use that for a recovery environment. </p> <p>Processor options are low power, and I'd go with a pentium based model here.</p> <p>If I needed more bays I'd pair this up with a comparable sized NAS. </p>

894

2015-10-28T12:54:50.037

|server|data-storage|

<p>I currently have a small home-server, that runs a domain network &amp; is the center of all file storage in our household. The drawback is that we need <strong>as much storage as possible</strong>, but the server's case only supports a maximum of four drives.</p> <p>Hardware of the server:</p> <ul> <li>CPU: Intel Core2Duo E7500;</li> <li>RAM: 8GB DDR2 @ 800MHz;</li> <li>HDDs: (all SATA3) 320GB OS drive, 3TB ("Common Files"), 1TB (split into two partitions; 500GB backup for the OS drive, and 500GB for "Common Files");</li> <li>OS: Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter</li> </ul> <p>Drives/partitions for "Common Files" are dedicated to file storage for non-critical files and are not backed up. All critical files are held on the OS drive, the entire drive is backed up to the 500GB backup partition of the 1TB drive. <strong>All critical files stored on the OS drive are automatically backed up to cloud services (namely Mega)</strong>.</p> <p>I run a domain (ADDC) on the server so that any user-account/file can be accessed from any computer in the home. In addition to this, this configuration means that no data-loss occurs if a computer breaks.</p> <p>The server doesn't do much else than ensuring that everything can be accessed from anywhere within the house. It does run an SQL server (MSSQL) for local software development purposes, but it isn't used often. <strong>At night (from ~11pm - 6am) the server is shut-down, with it automatically turning itself on at 6am via a timer set in the BIOS</strong>.</p> <hr> <p>I'm looking to build a new server that:</p> <ul> <li>Has very low power usage;</li> <li>Is quiet;</li> <li>Can hold at least 6 hard drives;</li> <li>Is reasonably quick;</li> <li>Should be able to turn itself on automatically;</li> <li>Be as cheap as possible</li> </ul> <p>It should also fit in the same space that the current server occupies, under my desk. <em>The piece of wood on-top of the server can be removed (space between the floor &amp; wood is ~12cm), if required</em>:</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/TXxvA.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/TXxvAm.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p> <p>I was considering replacing it with a NAS, but however I need the domain functionality and so this option isn't available to me. I also don't want to purchase a NAS in conjunction to the server as I need it to use as little space as possible.</p> <p>I was thinking of the current hardware:</p> <ul> <li>CPU: Pentium G3258</li> <li>RAM: 8GB DDR3;</li> <li>HDDs: All current drives (besides the 320GB OS drive), with three additional 3TB drives. Critical files moved to one of the HDDs, and automatically backed up to cloud services as before.</li> </ul> <p>I'm stumped on the motherboard &amp; case though, as they need to be small. Any recommendations or changes for the prospective hardware? I am also going to be replacing the router in the above photo with a network switch, as I already have another router elsewhere in the house that does most of the work (and handles DHCP of the router in the photo).</p>

System upgrade for a small home-server?

<p>I've a fair amount of experience with homeplug - I'm not going to recommend specific models since I have <em>no</em> clue if the sinoji plugs I use are available elsewhere or are the best option outside my current market. Wirecutter seems to like <a href="http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-powerline-networking-kit/" rel="nofollow">zyxel</a> at the moment and are a good place for up to date reviews.</p> <p>I'd suggest getting homeplug 500 or better gear if you want 100mbps. <em>Typically</em> the advertised speed is for the <em>whole</em> network, and you never ever get line speed over homeplug. I have homeplug 1800 gear at the moment. Its got better noise rejection and reliability, even if realworld speeds are ~300mbps. They do work fantastically for me though. </p> <p>Stuff to look for? homeplug units <em>must</em> be plugged directly into a socket, no powerstrips. Get passthrough models, and plug a powerstrip to that instead. Passthrough models also filter noise. Wallwarts and other SMPS devices produce <em>some</em> noise that may affect signal quality, so plug them into a passthrough or a powerstrip on an extension cord. </p> <p>If you get cutouts - it might be due to a powerful motor like a washing machine. Move the homeplug unit.</p> <p>As for wifi, I currently have a 2 AP setup. If I was doing it again, I'd pick up "professional" grade APs - we used to have ubiquity APs in my last workplace and they were <em>fantastic</em>, with easy management. Ars technica has an in depth review of the current models <a href="http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/10/review-ubiquiti-unifi-made-me-realize-how-terrible-consumer-wi-fi-gear-is/" rel="nofollow">here</a>. They are 'pure' APs so you can hook them into your current router. I'd probably end up with a 3pack, hooked into more homeplug units or directly into a (better) router. </p> <p>Features like heatmaps and the way they handle clients are far ahead of most consumer routers. At a certain level of complexity, these give you more options and <em>information</em> to optimise your network. </p>

896

2015-10-28T13:24:38.677

|wifi|networking|router|

<p>I've got an issue with my home Wifi network. I get 300mbps on my ISP modem:</p> <p>4 Gigabyte ports and Wifi N </p> <p>There is an Xbox One (Wifi N) on the ground floor</p> <p>I've got 1 desktop with Wifi AC and 2 other computers with Wifi N on the 1st floor.</p> <p>And the issue is that I cannot benefit from my fiber optic connection to it's full potential.</p> <p>On my PC with wifi ac card i get about 25mbps, on the other computers/laptop it's about 18-20mbps. On the Xbox which is the nearest device to the modem (~20m apart) I get a 40-45mbps. </p> <p>I want to invest about 100euros and setup a network though Wifi (preferably but not limited to) that can let my xbox and PC get atleast a 100mbps (seperately in the best case). </p> <p>Is there a Wifi router or a pair of PLC adapters that can manage that? </p> <p>I've looked into Cat6 ethernet cable (pretty cheap) but it's a real pain to setup and ruins the looks.</p> <hr> <p>So I'm looking into home plugs but the ones that give acceptable speed are pretty costly (as expected), and for the wifi part I've come across some Xiaomi routers that are WifiAC capable that costs about 30bucks but unfortunalety there are no reviews on them to see their actual speed.</p>

Domestic wifi Network Management

<p>The second VPS server has the most resources available to it, therefore it would be the better option. <em>However none of the servers you listed will be able to run all three servers properly.</em></p> <hr> <p><strong>Insufficient CPU</strong></p> <p>It should be noted that you might run into problems with only two CPU cores. Try to go for one CPU core per server (<em>so at least three CPU cores</em>).</p> <p>VPSes are virtual servers, and thus you share resources. You will share resources with other virtual servers running on the physical machine, some providers guarantee a full CPU core (<em>such as in one of the VPSes you listed</em>), but not all do.</p> <hr> <p><strong>Server Slots</strong></p> <p>You'd be okay with 16 slots to each server on the second VPS, but any higher than that and you'd need more RAM; 4GB would be the limit for the servers you want to host. Although the VPS will look like you have 6GB RAM (in the hardware specifications within the operating system), the extra 2GB RAM will only be available to you if the physical machine hosting the VPS has the resources to do so.</p> <hr> <p><strong>Operating System</strong></p> <p>You almost certainly want Linux, and most providers of VPSes will only support the use of Linux and not Windows, due to the <em>virtualizer</em> not supporting it. It is best to pick a popular Linux flavour, I personally use Ubuntu 14.04 on my own VPS.</p> <hr> <p>I host a Minecraft server on a Platinum X8 server from Server4You; it is cheap but the service is very good.</p> <p>The server has:</p> <ul> <li>16 CPU cores;</li> <li>18GB RAM (30GB Burst);</li> <li>800GB HDD;</li> <li>100Mbit connection</li> </ul> <p>They also offer good deals on lower-specification VPSes.</p>

901

2015-10-28T17:52:12.407

|gaming|vps|

<p>Been thinking of launching some dedicated servers for a while now, using VPS:es. However I got some techinical questions about their specs and how much they would be able to handle.</p> <p>Now let's say I want to host multiple Team Fortress 2 servers. Mostly I'm looking for to run custom gamemodes, that are, in my opinion, not so advanced. It could be one Saxton Hale server, One deathrun server and the last one would just be a normal CP server (like dustbowl for example). Now my question is, which of the specs below would run these 3 servers best? And would I even be able to run 4 servers (the 4th would also be a ctf server)?</p> <p>1st VPS: 2 full cores (not given very much details about this), 2gb of ram and 8tb bandwidth.</p> <p>2nd server: 2x3.2Ghz+ cores, 4GB RAM (6GB burstable) and 5tb bandwidth.</p> <p>The bandwidth question is not really that important, i would use another host to handle all fastDL. But would it be any big difference in performance running these gamemodes on those specs?</p>

VPS specs and gaming dedicated servers

<p>I ended up going with the VPS with 512MB RAM, single CPU core, 1TB bandwidth, and 30GB SSD.</p> <p>This is because:</p> <ul> <li>It was the cheapest option (even cheaper than purchasing a paid VPN service!);</li> <li>It has a Gigabit connection, whereas the dedicated server does not;</li> <li>VPN does not use much in the way of resources, besides Internet (it wouldn't have made sense to go for the dedicated server). This meant that some resources were left to run a small website on the VPS.</li> </ul> <p>I couldn't find a provider that would co-locate a Raspberry Pi unfortunately, and co-locating it wouldn't have made financial sense as co-location costs ~£60/month (for a 1U server) and for that money I could've rented the dedicated server for over a year.</p> <p>There was also the option of switching ISP to one that told me (when I queried about the problem) their Internet connections are recognised as coming from the United Kingdom (incorrectly). However this would've meant I would spend a total of £70 simply moving ISP (plus another £40/month for rental).</p> <hr> <p><strong>Raspberry Pi</strong></p> <p>Small, but efficient. Would easily be able to run a VPN service with room to spare for running a (very) small website. High co-location cost.</p> <hr> <p><strong>VPS</strong></p> <p>Cheap, but good reviews of the company behind it. Would run a VPN service &amp; a small website, but would have trouble running anything else. Would be solid &amp; dependable. </p> <hr> <p><strong>Dedicated Server</strong></p> <p>Looks cheap, but is actually the average price for such a server when setup &amp; other costs are added. Would run a VPN service like a knife going through butter, and any other programs I would've liked to have run (even a small gameserver). However if only used for VPN, its specifications could be too much on the beefy side. Company itself also has mixed reviews.</p>

906

2015-10-28T22:35:25.370

|server|vps|

<p>I live in a location which many websites don't recognise, and when multiplayer gaming I find that I am constantly matched with players from the United States instead of with players nearer to me (geographically). I found that when using free VPN services, I no longer have this problem and are matched with players much nearer to me.</p> <hr> <p>Due to free VPNs being unreliable (bandwidth monitoring, constantly changing passwords, etc.), I have decided to purchase hardware or rent a VPS.</p> <p>This is a list of possible hardware/VPSes I have found:</p> <ul> <li>Raspberry Pi- Small, uses hardly any power;</li> <li><a href="http://zare.co.uk/cloud" rel="nofollow">VPS</a> (512MB RAM, single CPU core, 1TB bandwidth, 30GB SSD);</li> <li><a href="https://www.kimsufi.com/uk/" rel="nofollow">Dedicated server</a> (2GB RAM, 500GB HDD, 2 CPU cores (4 threads))</li> </ul> <p>The Raspberry Pi is a decent option, but I doubt any provider would be willing to co-locate such a small device. The VPS is again a good option, but doesn't have much in the way of resources but is the cheapest option. The dedicated server I think is too much for what I need it for (an application to route my Internet connection through), but it could be a viable option if I wanted to host something else on it too.</p> <p>I'd like the option of hosting a small website on the server (along with the VPN application), so simply going for a paid VPN service isn't an option here.</p> <p>What amount of resources would a VPN application use; I already know about Internet, but what about RAM usage?</p> <p>What is the best option here, or perhaps I should choose something else?</p>

What should I use to run a VPN server?

<p>I'm going to recommend the <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005ORAGLW/?tag=pcp0f-21" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Be Quiet Shadow Rock Top Flow SR1</a> (£43). Be Quiet, like Noctua, specialises in making very, <em>very</em> quiet CPU coolers. The advantage of this particular cooler is that it also helps keep the motherboard components cool. Pulling air down greatly improves airflow around the motherboard. It's also more compact than the D14.</p> <p>All three air coolers should be more quiet than the water coolers: The need for a pump in addition to fans negates the advantage of slower spinning fans. The amount of sound insulation in your case probably makes the difference negligible though.</p> <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/6z0XV.jpg" alt=""></p>

934

2015-10-29T14:08:00.620

|desktop|heat-sink|

<p>I am at the end stages of choosing parts for my PC but am finding it quite difficult to choose a CPU cooler since there is so much to take in. Should I go for a standard CPU cooler (with fans), a fanless one or water cooling? </p> <p>I am considering either water cooling / fanless because they are both quieter than normal coolers. Would you recommend going for a water cooling system or a fanless cooler? My only concern with the water cooling is that if in some way it malfunctions, it might damage my other parts. Out of the three options I know they all have their positive and negatives but which one would you say is best? </p> <ul> <li><strong><em>CPU</em></strong> - Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor</li> <li><strong><em>Motherboard</em></strong> - Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard</li> <li><strong><em>Memory</em></strong> - Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory</li> <li><strong><em>Storage</em></strong> - Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive</li> <li><strong><em>Case</em></strong> - NZXT H440 (Blue/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case</li> <li><strong><em>Power Supply</em></strong> - SeaSonic X Series 400W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular Fanless ATX Power Supply</li> </ul> <p><strong><em>Budget:</em></strong> Around £720 pounds (the parts listed above total £670 so the cooler is in budget as long as it is under £60 or there about).</p> <h3>Edit: listening to all of the feedback, I have decided to go with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO as it seems to be the best option for me.</h3>

CPU cooling system recommendation?

<p>I will answer my own question.</p> <p>I ended up buying a SanDisk extreme plus micro SDHC 16 GB (20€). OSMC runs more than smoothly on it.</p> <p>16 GB seems to be a good size. OSMC takes less than 300 MB but the metadata, thumbnails, artworks and add-ons are also stored on the SD card. I'm able to play my heaviest movies (20 GB) through NFS without issue.</p> <p>Any card with the same R/W speed should do the trick.</p>

935

2015-10-29T15:18:59.190

|raspberry-pi|microsd|

<p>I'm going to buy a Raspberry PI 2 B and install osmc on it. I'm wondering which type (r/w speed) of Micro SD I should buy and which size (8, 16 ,32 go). My movies, pictures, etc are stored on an Nas and the Raspberry will be wired on the same LAN.</p> <p>I will try to be more precise : I will only stream to the raspberry from my NAS. Some movie than well be stream can be 20go in size. The purpose of the Mirco SD will be to allow OSMC to run as smoothly as possible on the Raspberry 2B.</p>

Micro SD for Raspberry PI 2 B

<p>Some hardware RAID devices <a href="https://www.adaptec.com/en-us/support/raid/sas_raid/sas-7805q/" rel="nofollow">like this</a> have internal RAM cache of about 1 Gb in size (faster than any SSD and no care about wear), use supercapacitor to flush this cache to the non volatile memory in case of power loss and also can use connected SSD as additional cache. </p> <p>Such cards may be a good solution if your database has grown to multiple terrabytes in size so it is too expensive to place it completely on SSD with the required RAID redundancy.</p>

938

2015-10-29T16:15:31.283

|server|data-storage|

<p>I'm putting together a new server for my current database which has 500GB of data and over 13million rows in 90 tables. My read speed is very slow at the moment using SATA drives.</p> <p>I prefer to use a Dell server, but my biggest concern is selecting the correct drives and raid setup.</p> <p>Can anyone recommend me super any fast drives(SAS, SSD, PICe), or extras? </p>

Fast Drives for MySQL Database Server

<p>I went to my Guitar Center and talked with one of the drum techs and decided on the <a href="https://www.alesis.com/crimson-mesh-kit" rel="nofollow">Alesis Crimson Mesh Kit</a> based on the level of customization provided at the price given. This kit gives me the feel of an acoustic drum set with the added ability to make my own sounds while having room to expand. I noticed that it also has both USB and MIDI outputs so this will help out with either editing my live drum sessions on the computer or plug this setup into an adapter for Rock Band.</p>

939

2015-10-29T17:15:37.237

|gaming|music|midi|

<p>I am looking into getting a electronic drum kit that I can use for both recreational use (like an acoustic drum set) and for Rock Band 4, preferably with pro-cymbal support.</p> <p>I was thinking about getting an ION drum kit, but I have found <a href="http://forums.harmonixmusic.com/discussion/comment/5154130#Comment_5154130" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this comment</a> amongst others in this thread.</p> <blockquote> <p>Q: I play Rock Band with my ION Drum Kit. Will the ION Drum Kit, as well as other MIDI drum kits, be compatible with Rock Band 4?</p> <p>A: The short answer is “no, not at launch.” Our first priority is to make sure that the core Rock Band legacy instruments be compatible on day one when Rock Band 4 launches – and they will be! If you want to see ION support in Rock Band 4, you can let ION Audio know by contacting them here: <a href="http://www.ionaudio.com/support/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://www.ionaudio.com/support/</a>. We know that many of you play Rock Band using these peripherals, and we are actively working on finding a solution to this compatibility issue.</p> </blockquote> <p>Is there an alternative to playing an e-kit with Rock Band 4 on Xbox One?</p>

Electronic drum kit compatible with Rock Band 4 on Xbox One

<p><strong>Industrial:</strong></p> <p>Cisco offers products with this capability: <a href="https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/enterprise-networks/4g-lte-solutions/index.html#~tab-selectproduct" rel="nofollow noreferrer">4G Routers</a>. I have used their products to build similar configurations. There are many industrial products like this from Cisco and others. They can meet all of your requirements but they are quite pricey. </p> <p><strong>Consumer:</strong></p> <p><a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B01MQRHQYT" rel="nofollow noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Here</a> is a product that is built to act as a backup to a <a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B0046TRVR6" rel="nofollow noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">DSL modem</a> and stand between it and your <a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B079JD7F7G" rel="nofollow noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">router</a>. <em>Personally, I would recommend this setup with the three devices I linked inline and build them into an enclosure for portability.</em> </p> <p>There are also plenty of 4G modem, router, access point combos but these will need a seperate DSL modem. <a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07X497NZB" rel="nofollow noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This one</a> also has a WAN port that could be paired with a regular modem. </p> <p><strong>DIY:</strong></p> <p>You could pair a Raspberry Pi with a <a href="https://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/com/B07PSGKWT5" rel="nofollow noreferrer" rel="nofollow noreferrer">4G module</a> and then cofigure it however you like and change as needed. </p>

950

2015-10-30T10:50:09.990

|wifi|networking|router|wlan|

<p>Is there any hardware which can consume connection from 3G/4G SIM, LAN Ethernet cable, existing low range WiFi and can provide it as wifi access point and LAN, both.</p> <p>New WiFi from this hardware should have consistent access, regardless which underlying connectivity it uses. It would be better if it is portable. <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/zExxQ.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/zExxQ.png" alt="Diagram"></a></p> <p>I am currently using SoftAP mode of WN722N wifi USB adapter. It delivers internet(via WiFi) obtained from any source(3G/4G adapter/LAN/another WiFi). It creates bridged network.</p> <p>If its not possible in single device, recommend me combination of devices, with minimum cost. I expect it to serve 5 to 10 devices.</p>

WiFi range extender + router + bult-in data card

<p>I'm gonna go with the following recommendation list, including the mobo, to show you how I imagine it fitting into a situation like the one you're seeing:</p> <p>PCPartPicker part list: <a href="http://pcpartpicker.com/list/8nn4Cy" rel="nofollow">http://pcpartpicker.com/list/8nn4Cy</a> Price breakdown by merchant: <a href="http://pcpartpicker.com/list/8nn4Cy/by_merchant/" rel="nofollow">http://pcpartpicker.com/list/8nn4Cy/by_merchant/</a></p> <ul> <li>CPU: AMD A10-7890K 4.1GHz Quad-Core Processor ($148.99 @ Amazon) </li> <li>Motherboard: ASRock FM2A88X Extreme6+ ATX FM2+ Motherboard ($99.99 @ SuperBiiz) </li> <li>Memory: PNY Anarchy 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($34.99 @ Amazon) </li> <li>Case: Silverstone GD09B HTPC Case ($72.99 @ SuperBiiz) </li> <li>Wireless Network Adapter: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I PCI-Express x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter ($29.99 @ SuperBiiz)</li> </ul> <p>Total: $386.95 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-01 16:22 EDT-0400</p> <p>Basically the takeaways here are: </p> <ul> <li>APU comes with decent GPU w/ VCE decoder for streaming, no need to spend on separate dGPU.</li> <li>mobo features DisplayPort</li> <li>addon BT+AC capability</li> <li>7.1ch sound</li> <li>APU comes with quiet cooler stock</li> <li>Case is quiet and livingroom-oriented</li> <li>16gb RAM is a possibility with upgrades</li> <li>fullsize dGPU can later be added</li> <li>USB requirements met</li> <li>Storage requirements met</li> <li>Cost requirements met</li> <li>UEFI support requirements met</li> </ul> <p>Basically the only downside as I see it is unfortunate AMD driver support in linux (SteamOS), but as a dGPU can be added later this is not a showstopper the way I see it.</p>

953

2015-10-30T16:41:48.303

|gaming|linux|motherboard|quiet-computing|

<blockquote> <p>I am looking to build a Steam OS box, I would like to run 'light' native Steam OS games and stream the rest from my powerful windows box.</p> <p>What are my options for a motherboard that fits the requirements listed and (with a case/CPU/RAM) is <em>close to</em> 400 USD?</p> </blockquote> <hr /> <p><strong>Valve Min Requirements</strong> (<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/steamos/buildyourown" rel="noreferrer">ref</a>)</p> <ul> <li><strong>Processor</strong> <ul> <li>Intel or AMD 64-bit capable processor</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Hard Drive</strong> <ul> <li>{Support for} 500GB or larger disk</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Video Card</strong> <ul> <li>Intel, NVIDIA, or AMD (RADEON 8500 and later if AMD)</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Additional</strong> <ul> <li>UEFI boot support, USB port for installation</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <hr /> <p><strong>My Requirements</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>Quiet</strong> <ul> <li>Above everything else this box must be whisper quiet. The Box is better if smaller but does not need to be tiny. For the Mobo it's CPU should be able to support a custom cooler that is quiet.</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Built in Wifi AC and Gigabit NIC</strong> <ul> <li>I would like to use my existing wi-fi ac for now (even though it works poorly) and later cabled ethernet when I get the time to do reno's. I plan to stream 4k if possible from my windows box.</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Built in HDMI 2.0</strong> <ul> <li>As mentioned before I would like to have a 4k TV and even if the steam can not handle fast refresh rate I would like my box to be able to provide the capability. (Display port would also be nice.)</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Built in USB 3+</strong> <ul> <li>Having 5+ USB ports (/w 1+ as USB 3) would be helpful</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Built in Blue Tooth</strong> <ul> <li>Helpful as I can see a lot of input devices using BT in the future.</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Built in Surround Sound</strong> <ul> <li>Surround sound capability, 7.1 with 3.5mm jacks on the mobo preferred.</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Ability to upgrade</strong> <ul> <li>SSD M.2 upgradability would be nice</li> <li>The ability to swap in a decent sized PCIe video card.</li> <li>The ability to have 16 gigs of RAM</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <hr /> <p><strong>Additional Information</strong></p> <p>From what I could find Valve does not have a compatible hardware list but because Steam OS is built on Debian I would rather use hardware that has a good track record of working on Debian if possible. On the flip side I would like to use newer lower power (14nm) hardware if possible as I intend to leave the box running. If all fails I may opt for the <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/353380" rel="noreferrer">Steam Link</a> and later go for a Steam OS box.</p> <p>UPDATE: I prefer to build the system and install Steam OS myself. I have modified this question to refer to only the motherboard, once that is chosen I will add a question for what case/CPU/RAM works best with it because they are quite dependent on the motherboard selection.</p>

Cheap, Quiet and up-gradable Steam OS compatible Motherboard

<p>Thank you all for the answers. In the end, I ended up going with the Audio-Technica ATH-M40x's. I was torn between that and the Sony 7506's, which were recommended to me by a sound engineer friend, and I had also had good experiences with in the past. They both meet all of my requirements without a noticeable difference in sound (or price), but the M40's have a replaceable cable, as well as being a little beefier.</p>

971

2015-10-31T18:31:52.103

|headphones|music|

<p>I'm looking for some headphones. They will be primarily used for making music at home, as well as occasionally being used for live music. They will also be used quite a bit for just general home use. (listening to music, playing games, watching movies, etc.) I have been using a friend's Bose qc-15's for a while, and I only have two major complaints with them.</p> <ol> <li><p>They don't feel super durable. I wouldn't call them flimsy, but the don't seem super rugged either. I have broken plenty of cheap earbuds in the past, and I want to make sure my next purchase lasts me a long time. There are small children in my house that don't have the same respect for expensive electronics as I do, so the more rugged the better.</p> </li> <li><p>Mandatory noise-cancelling. I can't use them without using the noise-cancelling, so the require batteries. I'm on my computer listening to music a lot, so I feel like I'm constantly shoving new batteries into this pair of headphones.</p> </li> </ol> <p>So now I'm looking to get my own pair.</p> <h1>Requirements</h1> <ul> <li><p>Over-ear, not earbuds.</p> </li> <li><p>Durable. I don't really even care if they look nice, I just want to know that they will last several years or longer.</p> </li> <li><p><strong>No</strong> batteries required. Optional use of batteries would also be OK, (For example, optional noise-cancelling) but I don't really care if they're noise cancelling or not.</p> </li> <li><p>Noise reducing, not cancelling.</p> </li> <li><p>This should go without saying, but must support stereo, and have 1/8 in. audio plugin.</p> </li> <li><p>In the 80-120 USD range.</p> </li> </ul> <h1>Preferences</h1> <ul> <li><p>High-quality sound. I realize that I'm not going to get studio-quality for only $100, but I'd like the highest quality possible while still staying on budget.</p> </li> <li><p>Comfortable.</p> </li> </ul> <h1>Not necessary, but would be nice</h1> <ul> <li><p>A case.</p> </li> <li><p>Replaceable parts. This goes back to the whole durability thing, because it would be nice to just replace the part that breaks if something were to happen to them. I'm sure that I wouldn't be able to replace all of it, so if it was just the auxiliary cable that was replaceable, that would still be awesome.</p> </li> </ul>

Durable headphones that don't need a battery

<p><a href="http://www.bjorn3d.com/2015/08/intel-core-i7-6700k-review-skylake-falling/3/" rel="nofollow">This</a> could help you find your answer.</p> <p>As you can see for photo editing the 6700k is pretty good but not the best</p> <p>As you can see <a href="http://techreport.com/review/28751/intel-core-i7-6700k-skylake-processor-reviewed/10" rel="nofollow">here</a>, the 5960x does beat it quite often then not but it's also 3 times the price</p> <p>So between the 6700k and 5820k multicore: 5820k is about 25% faster. singlecore the 6700k is 23% faster. these are from benchmark scores</p> <p>You cannot go wrong with either, noticeable advantages the 5820k has over 6700k is the memory bandwith which seriously quite high (Double actually) and the 2 cores (4threads) So after reconsideration on my behalf, the 5820k might actually be the better choice since photo editing softwares are all 64bit and multicore nowdays. You can even overclock the 5820k more easily than the 6700k. But then in gaming the 6700k takes the large, not by much but still noticable since it's single core performamce are pretty high. the 6700k is also power efficient and suports usb 3.1 natively (future proof)</p> <p>5820k would be my choice, with a setup than doesn't bottleneck it's performances. Atleast for the next 4-5years you're good to go.</p>

982

2015-11-02T05:21:36.777

|processor|processor-architecture|

<p>I'm currently choosing parts for my new computer. I'm doing a lot of image processing and some of my algorithms are parallelized. In my free-time, I'm additionally up for some gaming.</p> <p>My current system, although already built in 2011, runs an <a href="http://ark.intel.com/de/products/61275/Intel-Core-i7-2700K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Intel Core i7-2700K</a> with 4 real cores (8 HT) and 3.50GHz base frequency. This guy still rocks and looking through today's CPU's kind of give me the feeling that physical limitations for faster machines are clearly visible.</p> <p>After reading and looking through the prizes, I thought I found my favorite CPU for the next system, which is a <a href="http://ark.intel.com/de/products/88195/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_20-GHz?_ga=1.233340126.1977817799.1443741286" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Intel Core i7-6700K 4GHz</a>, but then I saw <a href="http://wccftech.com/intel-skylake-s-core-i7-6700-k-benchmarks/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this comparison</a>:</p> <p><img src="https://cdn.wccftech.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Intel-Core-i7-6700-Skylake_Cinebench-R15-635x355.png" alt="compare"></p> <p>Apparently, the <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/82932/Intel-Core-i7-5820K-Processor-15M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Intel Core i7-5820K with 6 cores</a> (which is the 5th and not the 6th generation) is in many tests faster. Important for me is of course, that the CPU supports DDR4 memory, which it does.</p> <p><strong>Question:</strong> Taking into account that the prize is the same for both processors, I would be glad if someone had a recommendation. I'm keen to hear whether the difference in architecture (Skylake-S vs. Haswell-E) is somehow important for me. Probably there are other things I haven't considered.</p>

Which Intel CPU? 3.3GHz x 6 or 4GHz x 4

<p>I agree with most of what Alpha3031 told you, but I think there are better options for your use case than the 860K. To explain, I'm going to go a little into the nuances of CPU lid design and hyperthreading.</p> <p>I recommend you look for a slightly more expensive 870K or 880K (also on the FM2+ socket) - and failing that, you should strongly consider a Haswell or Skylake i3 (sockets 1150 or 1151) clocked at or above 3.5ghz.</p> <p>The reason one such as yourself would care about the differences between the 860K and the 870K/880K are small, but worth the price difference in your case. First of all, whereas the 860K has paste TIM between its die and the CPU lid, the 870K and 880K, both Godavari refreshes of the Kaveri Steamroller design of the 860K, sport the superior metal flux between their dies and lids - this transfers heat between the die and lid much better than paste. This matters to you because you will want to make your CPU last longer than it probably otherwise would at stock speeds, so you will be overclocking, the success of which partly depends on how well you can dissipate waste heat from the CPU. With a good air or water cooler and the proper amount of overvolting, I would expect the average 870K/880K to reach somewhere around 4.6-4.8ghz, whereas it seems the 860K reaches lower top speeds on average; say 4.3-4.5ghz. Normally I'd say quibbling over a few hundred megahertz is not worth it, but you'll want everything you can get, I think. A potential alternative would be the weird Athlon X4 845 (FM2+), because it sports a superior IPC to the bigger chips as it is designed from the newer Carrizo Excavator architecture, but it is not unlocked and the newer arch only gives you 10-15% better performance at best. If for some reason you were unable to overclock and needed to stay with AMD (say to keep prices down), I'd recommend that CPU.</p> <p>The other option is, somewhat surprisingly, to spring for a low-end Intel i3 CPU. Many people disparage i3 CPUs due to their dual core architectures, but since i3s use hyperthreading, they actually operate 4 threads, which makes them quad cores as far as games are concerned - software only sees threads, not physical cores. The great advantage to choosing these more expensive Intel parts is twofold - you will get to put it on a motherboard socket with significantly more upgrade potential than FM2+ (FM2+ doesn't really have any CPUs with superior performance to the 880K while the 1150 and 1151 sockets support the vastly more powerful i7 and Xeon series), and as Alpha3031 indicated, Intel CPUs have <em>much</em> higher IPC, meaning they perform much faster on each core than AMD's offerings. While their overall performance tends to bring them neck and neck with AMD's Steamroller quad cores, they can't be beat for single thread performance at this price point, and you will see markedly better performance from an i3 over even an overclocked Athlon in games which utilize only 1 or 2 threads. </p>

983

2015-11-02T10:26:58.937

|gaming|pc|processor|

<p>Long story short, the motherboard of my 7 year old PC died and I'll need a new one. I plan to use it mainly for gaming (Elder Scrolls series, Fallout series, League of Legends, Crusader Kings, ...) with potentially getting into a bit of programming or video editing down the line.</p> <p>I'll be reusing the case, mouse, keyboard, monitor, and probably also the GPU of my old computer. The plan being that upgrading the GPU becomes my first major upgrade in the coming months.</p> <p>I'm happy to run my games at 30 fps, but I'd like that to also be true for the games I'll be playing 3 years from now.</p> <p>The main issue is that I'd like a computer that will last at least 4 years (preferably longer), but my budget is only around €500-600 ($550-660) and I'm concerned that won't be enough for what I want. So price is a very serious concern for me.</p> <p>The first order of business is choosing the CPU. I decided I want a quad core because supposedly that will be needed to run Fallout 4, but all I know about processors is that quad core is better than dual core and that unlike 15 years ago the processing speed is no longer the sole thing that determines how good a CPU is.</p> <p>I should probably also mention that I don't plan to play Fallout 4 on release, but instead pick it up during a Steam sale in a year or two. However, since I plan my PC to last longer than 2 years and it can't run without a CPU, I still want the CPU I get now to be good enough for it.</p> <p><strong>Questions</strong>:</p> <ol> <li><p>AMD or Intel? I'm more interested in cost efficiency than peak performance.</p></li> <li><p>I want to get something better than the bare minimum required to run FO4 in order for my PC to be somewhat future proof, but I'm not sure how far over the bare minimum I should go, considering my budget restrictions. The minimum requirements I found online are Intel Core i5-2300 2.8GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 945. Recommended processors for FO4 are Intel Core i7 4790 3.6 GHz or AMD FX-9590 4.7 GHz.</p></li> <li><p>Beyond the number of cores and frequency, what other properties are <em>really</em> important in a processor? In the sense of what should someone who knows virtually nothing about processors be careful about when chosing one.</p></li> <li><p>I just found out about the new Skylake processors that Intel released a couple of months ago. If I decide to go for Intel, would you recommend me to get one of these? My gut feeling is to go for the new thing because it will last longer, but is it really worth the price?</p></li> </ol> <p><strong>Links</strong>:</p> <p>I live in Slovenia and have been looking at this website for components and prices: </p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.sestavi.si/index.php/items/display/169/171/procesorji" rel="noreferrer">Original</a> </li> <li><a href="https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sl&amp;tl=en&amp;js=y&amp;prev=_t&amp;hl=en&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sestavi.si%2Findex.php%2Fitems%2Fdisplay%2F169%2F171%2Fprocesorji&amp;edit-text=" rel="noreferrer">Google translated</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=5013&amp;game=Fallout%204" rel="noreferrer">Fallout 4 requirements</a>: </li> </ul>

Need help buying new budget gaming PC: the processor

<blockquote> <p>Wi-Fi/LAN capabilities, able play music, Netflix, all that stuff. I don't really want any of that.</p> </blockquote> <p>The bluray specification requires that the player firmware is easily updated over time (mostly for copy protection features) and that bluray players include minimum functionality for internet coupled movie features. This is a simplification, you may be able to find older first generation players without networking, but I expect you'll also find they have a hard time playing some of today's newer movies and you may not be able to get updates for them.</p> <p>As such you won't find cheap bluray players that don't include networking features.</p> <p>Your best bet is to search ebay and craiglist for older used bluray players in your price range. Try to find something only a few years old, again, the much older players will probably have problems playing newer discs without some effort on your part.</p> <blockquote> <p>If I decide to bite the bullet and buy a $70+ Blu-ray player with all the bells and whistles, how easy is it to stream a Blu-ray movie over a network?</p> </blockquote> <p>The bluray specification does not permit streaming over the network. You will not be able to find a bluray player that does this for you. If you need something like this, you will need to set up a computer and use it to read the discs, handle the decryption, and stream the movie.</p>

988

2015-11-02T18:35:27.880

|usb|networking|blu-ray|

<p>I've been searching for a simple Blu-Ray player. I've notice a lot of Blu-ray players are in the $60+ range, but also come with Wi-Fi/LAN capabilities, able play music, Netflix, all that stuff. I don't really want any of that. I just want to watch a Blu-ray movie and that's it for a reasonable price. </p> <p>Some things that would be ideal for me,</p> <ul> <li><p>Cheap</p></li> <li><p>USB (So I can connect to my laptop) (External Blu-Ray player)</p></li> <li><p>I don't need it to write blu-rays, only read to watch movies (Hopefully drop the price)</p></li> </ul> <p>If a USB one for a lower price is not an option, a standard one the connects to a TV through HDMI will be fine.</p> <p>I was hoping for the $20-30 range if those even exist. </p> <p>I was thinking a USB one would be cheaper, but the only ones I could find were ones that also wrote to Blu-Rays. Which I'm guessing made them significantly more expensive. (I also don't know much about Blu-ray players and if they can even be decoded through USB)</p> <p>In a nutshell, I just want to watch Blu-Ray movies for $20-30.</p> <p><strong>UPDATE</strong></p> <p>So I've been searching a little more and giving this a little more thought. </p> <p>If I decide to bite the bullet and buy a $70+ Blu-ray player with all the bells and whistles, how easy is it to stream a Blu-ray movie over a network?</p> <p>I was thinking this would actually be a convenient solution for me. I would be able to connect the Blu-ray player to a TV and also be able to access it elsewhere in the house through the network. </p> <p>So, to make what I want a little more clear,</p> <pre><code>-Blu-Ray player (Preferably less than $120 after looking at many prices) -Blu-Ray player able to be hard wired and have Wifi capabilities -Capable of streaming over a network to a PC running Windows 10 -Software for PC (Free?)(If needed) </code></pre> <p>To add a little more detail, both the PC and the Blu-Ray player will be wired into the same router, as I'm assuming streaming a Blu-ray over wifi could be pretty rough.</p> <p>If someone already has a set-up similar to mine, I would be grateful to know what you have/are using to do this already. I didn't want to get jumpy and buy a Blu-ray player and find some software just to find out nothing is compatible and I wasted my money!</p>

Simple cheap blu-ray player

<p>Here's my experiment with Intel NUC:</p> <p>I managed to add a second nic by cutting a hole in NUC.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/GrBeN.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/GrBeN.jpg" alt="Intel NUC pfSense build"></a> (i3, 8GB, flash drive as boot device)</p> <p>More details here: <a href="https://serialize.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/intel-nuc-pfsense-build/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://serialize.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/intel-nuc-pfsense-build/</a></p>

1019

2015-11-02T23:40:42.980

|mini-pc|nuc|

<p>At some point in the future, I'd like to replace my home router with a x86 box running pfsense. I'm rather fond of the NUC form factor for things like this but finding a suitable one has been tricky. My requirements?</p> <ul> <li>No soldered in ram. Might happen, who knows. I'm happy with a single slot tho</li> <li>I'm not picky about the processor. Atom x3 or better. Passively cooled would be awesome.</li> <li>Msata, M2 or regular sata is fine. I'll possibly boot off USB anyway</li> <li>dual gigabit network ports built in. <strong>Essential</strong>. Would be awesome if one or both are intel. (To make it doubly clear - ethernet ports, gigabit ethernet capable, copper, RJ45 compatible, quantity 2).</li> <li>NUC form factor, though I'm fine with any varient.</li> <li>Optionally built in wifi adaptor that supports hostapd. </li> <li>Available in/will ship to singapore or the US </li> <li>Reasonably priced - dosen't make sense for me to pay 2x what a regular nuc class machine costs just for a spare ethernet port. I accept there will be a <em>small</em> price premium.</li> <li>No I will not use a dongle. I considered it. I may do it. Its unacceptable for the scope of this question</li> </ul>

NUC class system with dual ethernet ports

<p>When it comes to gaming CPU recommendations, take a look at <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-cpus,3986.html" rel="nofollow">Tom's Hardware's Best CPUs for the Money</a> which provides well-founded recommendations for all price ranges. In your case, the Core i5-6500 is a good bet if you aren't interested in overclocking, or the Core i5-6600K if you are. They're both based on Skylake, the latest architecture from Intel, and drops into the LGA 1151-socket, so is it as modern as it gets today. Core i5-4690K is based on Haswell, it has similar specs but uses the older LGA-1150 platform which is being phased out in favor of LGA-1151 and Skylake.</p>

1035

2015-11-03T14:24:43.927

|gaming|processor|

<p>Current setup, kind of outdated - was built in 2009, except graphics card and a chassis:</p> <ul> <li>chassis: Corsair 650D</li> <li>mobo: Asus P5Q Deluxe</li> <li>CPU: Intel Core2Quad 3GHz @4GHz</li> <li>gfx: Radeon R9 290</li> <li>psu: Corsair 750W</li> <li>mem: 16GB</li> </ul> <p>I want to keep chassis and gfx card for a new setup. </p> <p>Looking for a CPU recommendation (no AMD please) which will be better from current one and will allow future upgrade. Computer mainly used for work (web dev, Photoshop, some android coding with unity), casual gaming (Battlefield 4, Battlefront Star Wars (new one), Evolve, etc), music (mp3, Spotify - mostly when doing my work) and movies watching from streaming services (HBO Go, STARZ Go, Plex, Netflix, etc)</p> <p>Price range something around $250</p>

CPU recommendation for new casual gaming setup

<blockquote> <p>Have I missed something? Is there anything more basic than this around? Like a low power1 $20 card you can attach a single HD monitor to?</p> </blockquote> <p>Yes. As Dan has pointed out in his answer, a USB video adaptor fits all of your needs exactly.</p> <p>For instance, let's compare the Flashmen USB 3.0 to HDMI 1080P Video Adaptor to your requirements:</p> <blockquote> <p>I recently needed to start using a third screen on my desktop</p> </blockquote> <p>Adapters like this will run a third monitor.</p> <blockquote> <p>I barely ever used this card because it was very noisy</p> </blockquote> <p>They have no fans or moving parts, should not produce any detectable noise.</p> <blockquote> <p>I don't need this screen for much -- no 3D, no video playback, mostly just generic GUI content such as viewing documentation.</p> </blockquote> <p>They don't usually have much hardware acceleration, but the drivers do typically support video playback at 30 frames per second full screen. Some of the better USB adapters support minimal 3D using the computer's processor for the hard work.</p> <p>This is important because you might be surprised how many programs, such as CAD or even web browsers and document viewers use 3D.</p> <blockquote> <p>I have an HD monitor attached, so I do want 1920x1080 resolution</p> </blockquote> <p>These HDMI adapters will almost always support 1080p.</p> <blockquote> <p>One of my concerns about these cards is power consumption. ... Less than 5 watts would be great; less than 15 is okay.</p> </blockquote> <p>These are under 5W.</p> <blockquote> <p>it can't be a purely integrated chipset</p> </blockquote> <p>They don't use computer memory as video memory, and are not "integrated".</p> <blockquote> <p>a low power1 $20 card you can attach a single HD monitor to?</p> </blockquote> <p>The one I listed at the top is often for sale right around $20. It's not a great piece of hardware, but if you have a price limit of $20 and are ok with the requirements (windows 7, 8, or 10) and fiddling around a little with the drivers, then it exactly fits your requirements.</p> <p>If you need something more specialized, then of course you're going to have to compromise some of your requirements, but at the moment it appears to meet your needs.</p>

1036

2015-11-03T15:26:09.940

|graphics-cards|

<p>I recently needed to start using a third screen on my desktop, and the built-in Intel video will only handle two.</p> <p>For that purpose, I pulled an old ATI 4350 out of the closet. I barely ever used this card because it was very noisy, so I took the fan off and attached the north bridge heatsink from an old motherboard. It now runs at ~55°C with a little air flowing over it from a case fan. I'm curious as to how long it will last that way, but since it supposedly can tolerate 120°C (and in fact reached that when I first put the card in, with no fan and no heatsink) hopefully long enough. But I'm curious what I could have done without this not-very-ideal option.</p> <p>I don't need this screen for much -- no 3D, no video playback, mostly just generic GUI content such as viewing documentation. I have an HD monitor attached, so I do want 1920x1080 resolution, which I think requires ~16 MiB of video memory, since 1920 * 1080 * 3 (bytes/pixel) * 2 (double buffer) / 1048576 ~= 12 MiB, and I'm aware of embedded platforms that will display HD with 16 MiB of video RAM.</p> <p>I was surprised looking around that there doesn't seem to be anything out there to meet this kind of need; the lowest end cards I could find are still on a par with the 4350 (thankfully, there are more fanless options now) with 1/2 GB of video memory and 3D acceleration, and a $40-50 CND price tag.</p> <p>One of my concerns about these cards is <strong>power consumption</strong>. I don't have a watt meter, but the fact that the 4350 idles at 55°C whilst keeping 20g of aluminum very warm too implies it uses an excess of energy for my purposes. My PSU is fine, I just don't like pointless waste.</p> <p>Have I missed something? Is there anything more basic than this around? Like a <strong>low power</strong>¹ $20 card you can attach a single HD monitor to?</p> <h1>To clarify further</h1> <p>Andy <a href="https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/a/1039/813">has already mentioned</a> a bottom end 3D card. I'm aware of these, they are cheap and plentiful and there's nothing wrong with them, but I don't need to see a list of more of them here. I'm looking for something more specialized in the sense that it can't be a purely integrated chipset, since it's for adding a third screen to a mobo that already has this, but totally basic. I am sure it is possible to make, e.g., a 64 MB PCI card with a GPU that doesn't require any cooling or heatsink at all, and consumes &lt;= 5 watts. But I suspect no one has bothered to do so.</p> <hr /> <p>^{1. Less than 5 watts would be great; less than 15 is okay.}</p>

Low-power-draw HD resolution video card

<p>The difference between 16gig (i'm assuming that's what you're going for in gaming) of DDR3 and DDR4 is of about 40bucks (in france) so I think you could go with the 6700k, since you're not into overcloking that much. The 5820k would have been the better choice if you're gonna buy more memory (for editing stuff) than that (it has double the bandwidth). But for gaming that's waaaay more than you need. And the 6700k has native USB 3.1 support so a little more future proof.</p> <p>And you can probably find good deals on the 6700k in those upgrade kits. And lastly the 4790k actually does better than the 5820k in gaming in a few tests so if the price difference matters go for that one.</p>

1037

2015-11-03T15:27:07.923

|gaming|pc|processor|

<p>I am confused about which one of these processors to buy. I will pair it with two NVidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti (SLI). Also, I don't plan on too many upgrades and also I won't be overclocking 'too much'. The processors:</p> <ul> <li><p><a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/80807/Intel-Core-i7-4790K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_40-GHz" rel="nofollow"><strong>Intel Core i7-4790K</strong></a></p> <ul> <li><strong>Devil's Canyon Haswell Refresh</strong></li> <li><strong>4 Cores / 8 Threads</strong></li> <li><strong>4.00 GHz</strong></li> </ul></li> <li><p><a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/82932/Intel-Core-i7-5820K-Processor-15M-Cache-up-to-3_60-GHz" rel="nofollow"><strong>Intel Core i7-5820K</strong></a></p> <ul> <li><strong>Haswell-E</strong></li> <li><strong>6 Cores / 12 Threads</strong></li> <li><strong>3.60 GHz</strong></li> </ul></li> <li><p><a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/88195/Intel-Core-i7-6700K-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_20-GHz" rel="nofollow"><strong>Intel Core i7-6700K</strong></a></p> <ul> <li><strong>Skylake-S</strong></li> <li><strong>4 Cores / 8 Threads</strong></li> <li><strong>4.00 GHz</strong></li> </ul></li> </ul> <p>The 5820K and 6700K are the same price and also require DDR4 RAM and 99/170 series chipset motherboards, all of which are expensive. The 4700K and its supporting platform are comparatively cheaper. I am not willing to spend a lot of money. I will be mainly gaming and apart from that just surfing on the internet.</p> <p><strong>Uses:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Playing games like GTA V, Assassin's Creed Unity, WWE 2K16 etc. with > 60fps at 1440p</li> <li>Using Blender Cycles. If you don't know, Cycles uses pretty much <strong>100%</strong> of all your resources. It takes hours to render a complex image with my current GTX 260.</li> <li>Not much except the above. Additional (not required but still) - Good Handbrake performance.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Budget</strong>: Total Build &lt; $3000 (including a 1440p display but excluding other peripherals like mouse, keyboards, speakers, etc.). My build:</p> <ul> <li>CPU - (That's the question)</li> <li>Motherboard - (Cheapest with good features and SLI Support, depending on CPU)</li> <li>GPU - ASUS GTX 980 Ti STRIX 6GB GDDR5</li> <li>Memory - 16 GB DDR3 or 8 GB DDR4 (This might also be a deciding factor.)</li> <li>Display - ASUS PG278Q 1440p 27" Monitor</li> <li>Case - Corsair SPEC-02 Red</li> <li>PSU - Corsair RM-850</li> <li>Storage - 1x128 GB SSD + 1x3TB HDD. (Again, cheapest with the most gigs)</li> </ul>

Which Intel CPU should I buy - Core i7-5820K or i7-6700K or i7-4790K?

<p>I will make the case that the ASRock Z97 Extreme6 motherboard is the best choice because of its feature set and price.</p> <p>The first thing to note about all boards under consideration is that they are absolutely top-notch. These boards represented the best each respective company could put together when socket 1150 was the leading socket for Intel. In terms of durability, reliability, and manufacturer support, these rank ahead of any other OEM motherboard for this socket in the desktop space. This leaves only price and feature set to differentiate them. </p> <p>Another poster has recommended the Asus Maximus Ranger vii motherboard. This was a very popular choice in its heyday because it had a good marketing campaign, Asus enjoys good brand rep, and because it was priced intelligently <em>above</em> many of its competitors, giving it the aura of an elite product SKU (which it certainly is). However, I think that for precisely these reasons, it is now certainly not the right choice for you. This board is not in much supply right now, so unless you want to buy used, it will be difficult to procure at a reasonable cost. My recommendation, the ASRock Z97 Extreme6, is still <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132514" rel="nofollow noreferrer">available on Newegg at a very competitive price</a>. </p> <p>Though price seems to favor AsRock's board, this means nothing if AsRock doesn't bring compelling features to the table. Fortunately, AsRock does. Let's compare (please excuse the crappy pic):</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vszq0.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Vszq0.jpg" alt="Comparison of the Extreme6 vs. the Maximus Ranger"></a></p> <p>In almost all of the most important ways, these two boards are identical. They enjoy the same chipset, the same RAM slots, the same cooling schema, and a similar audio chipset. The important advantages of the Extreme6 are as follows:</p> <ul> <li>Dual gigabit ethernet. This allows quite a bit of flexibility and creativity when it comes to how you configure your network - you can even team these connections together to get a better connection to your router, though that's probably not going to help much if you don't also have a teamed connection all the way out to a fiber line - the real joy of having this feature is that the board will remain useful to you as a server after it has ceased being your gaming rig. It also allows you to do neat things like daisy chain an ethernet connection to another PC, or access some kind of network resource like a server, separate LAN, or whatever while not giving up your primary hardline connection to do so.</li> <li>6x USB 3.0 without headers. This is great because it means two more USB 3.0 connections and more longevity in terms of your ability to support modern peripherals.</li> <li>Displayport output on motherboard. This is the most modern video out format available, and it is not available on the Maximus.</li> <li>mPCI-E port. This gives you access to cheap laptop parts like wifi cards, 4G modems, and GPS units. It represents added versatility over the Maximus.</li> <li>Maximum shared memory is more permissive (1700mb vs 500mb); you can attach many screens to your motherboard video outs (especially using DP splitters) without worrying about running out of framebuffer.</li> <li>SATA Express connector available, offering compatibility with one of the fastest available connections to external drives.</li> <li>More SATA connectors available on a separate controller helps to alleviate potential I/O bottlenecks at the controller level if you install your HDDs intelligently. </li> <li>More and faster m.2 connectors - has 2, one of which is the newer, faster Ultra type</li> <li>More and more intelligently-placed fan headers. It is worth noting, though, that the AsRock's fan headers are mostly 3-pin, while the Maximus enjoys mostly 4-pin fan controllers, which usually gives the computer access to better speed control for fans that support 4 pin connections.</li> </ul> <p>All in all, I think the features you get with the AsRock board outweigh the Maximus' brand name even at the same price, given that both these boards are well made. The added versatility is something that will make this board a workhorse for you or whoever else owns it long past the days when it can serve as a gaming rig's basis.</p>

1091

2015-11-04T19:33:03.123

|gaming|motherboard|

<p>Current setup, kind of outdated - was built in 2009, except graphics card and a chassis:</p> <ul> <li>Corsair 650D chassis</li> <li>Asus P5Q Deluxe motherboard</li> <li>Intel Core2Quad 3GHz @4GHz</li> <li>Radeon R9 290 GPU</li> <li>Corsair 750W PSU</li> <li>16GB RAM</li> </ul> <p>I want to keep chassis and gfx card for a new setup.</p> <p>Looking for a motherboard recommendation which will handle Intel i5 4690K CPU and will allows me to keep that new setup for another next 4-5 years at least (upgrade CPU, upgrade gfx card, etc), ability to OC.</p> <p>I have read that anything on Z97 will be fine but there are too many options to go for and I have no clue which one will have longer life span (BIOS updates, better support etc)</p> <p>Price something below $250</p> <hr> <p>After some research I have found those motherboards interesting:</p> <ul> <li>ASRock Z97 Extreme6</li> <li>MSI Z97 Gaming 5</li> <li>GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD5H</li> <li>ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer </li> <li>Gigabyte G1 Gaming GA-Z97X Gaming 5</li> </ul> <p>Now I will review each of them in a depth and will pick that one which will fits the most. </p>

Motherboard recommendation for new casual gaming setup

<p>I recommend the <a href="http://www.funtech.si/si/vsi-oddelki/komp/maticne-plosce/amd-fm2/30933" rel="nofollow">Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H</a>, which is an A88X motherboard, which should offer most of the modern features, with 4 RAM slots, which means an upgrade path to 32 GB of DDR3, and 4+2 phases which makes for decent overclocking headroom. The more expensive Gigabyte G1.SNIPER or Asrock Extreme6 bring only limited benefit, except more bells and whistles.</p> <p>I must admit the budget isn't nearly as restrictive as I initially thought, since you intend to reuse your GPU, which is the most expensive part of a gaming system, and you would likely have money to spare for extras like a Windows licence or a SSD. You don't quite have enough for an i5 though, which is the next step up on the intel side, and I hesitate to recommend the AM3+ platform, so if you have any leftover budget, I suggest you save it up for your GPU, or get a better cooler.</p> <p><a href="http://www.gigabyte.com.au/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=4716" rel="nofollow">The motherboard supports the Athlon 860K</a>, though if it ships with a old revision of the BIOS , you may have to send it back to get it flashed with a F6 or later. Be sure to communicate with the store to see if they'll do it for you.</p> <p>Motherboards these days don't generally come with integrated graphics. If you want one, you'll have to spend <a href="http://www.funtech.si/si/vsi-oddelki/komp/procesorji-cpu/amd-fm2/36224" rel="nofollow">€20-40 pounds extra for an APU</a>. Those will perform worse because of the shared TDP, but with DX12, they may be able to help out a bit.</p>

1105

2015-11-05T17:05:35.187

|gaming|pc|motherboard|

<p>The title pretty much says it all. I'm assembling a budget gaming PC and decided for an AMD Athlon X4 860K processor and now I need to chose a motherboard for it.</p> <p>My total budget for the PC is €500-600 ($550-660).<br></p> <p>I'll be using my PC to play games such as the Fallout series, the Elder scrolls series, League of Legends, Crusader Kings 2 and such. I'm using <a href="http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=5013&amp;game=Fallout%204" rel="noreferrer">Fallout 4</a> as a benchmark for performance. Ideally I'd like the computer to also be able to eventually run Elder Scrolls 6, but it'll probably take some 3-6 years before they make that one, which makes system requirements difficult to predict.</p> <p>In case it's somehow relevant, I'm thinking about using the opportunity to switch to Linux and Wine instead of spending money on another edition of Windows.<br></p> <p>I'd like to start out with 8 or 16GB RAM and have the option to upgrade to 32GB in the future.</p> <p>Integrated graphics card would be nice to have as backup if my GPU fails. This is mainly a concern because I might reuse the 7 year old GeForce 9600 GT from my previous computer to save costs now and get a new graphics card as the first major upgrade.</p> <p>I'm aware the old GPU will be unable to run Fallout 4, but I'm not planning to play the game at release. I intend to get it during a Steam sale by which time I'll have also upgraded to a modern GPU.</p> <p>I'll probably get all the components from <a href="http://www.funtech.si/si/konfigurator/" rel="noreferrer">here</a>. It's a Slovenian website so there might be a bit of a language barrier for most of you. I tried running it through Google translate, but that broke the configurator tool. Essentially the tool works by selecting components from the dropdown menu, starting with a processor, then motherboard, then everything else. "Matična plošča" is motherboard. The components themselves have standard international names.</p> <p>The website lists the following motherboards as available (from least to most expensive):</p> <ol> <li>ASRock FM2A88X Extreme4+, AMD A88 Mainboard - FM2+<br></li> <li>ASRock FM2A78M-HD+, DDR3, SATA3, HDMI, USB3, FM2/FM2+ mATX<br></li> <li>GIGABYTE GA-F2A78M-D3H S-FM2+ mATX <br></li> <li>Gigabyte F2A88XM-D3H, AMD A88X Mainboard - FM2+<br></li> <li>GIGABYTE GA-F2A88XM-D3H, DDR3, SATA3, USB3, HDMI FM2+ mATX<br></li> <li>GIGABYTE GA-F2A88XM-D3H 3.0 FM2+ mATX<br></li> <li>Gigabyte F2A88X-D3H, AMD A88X Mainboard - FM2+<br></li> <li>ASRock FM2A88X Extreme4+, AMD A88 Mainboard - FM2+<br></li> <li>ASRock FM2A78M-ITX+, AMD A78 Mainboard - FM2+<br></li> <li>GIGABYTE G1.SNIPER A88X, DDR3, SATA3, USB3, HDMI FM2+ ATX<br></li> </ol> <p>The description of numbers 1 and 6 says that the motherboard is intended for AMD processors that have an integrated GPU, which the Athlon X4 860K has not. I'm guessing that means I should probably pick one of the other eight, but I'm pretty clueless when it comes to hardware and have no idea which one.</p> <p>So finally, my question is which of the listed motherboards would be best for my needs? Or would you suggest a model not on the list?</p>

Choosing motherboard for a budget gaming PC using AMD Athlon X4 860K processor

<p>Your usage should be around 380-390W actually. Technically speaking the 400W PSU should be enough but you'd better have more headroom a PSU of 450W at the least and 550W to be futur proof.</p>

1110

2015-11-06T04:38:55.980

|graphics-cards|smps|

<p>I bought this PC from Best Buy a few months ago, found it works pretty well on older games like Assassin's Creed II but starts to lack only in Brotherhood. <a href="http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ibuypower-desktop-amd-fx-series-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/5574049.p?id=1219143550897&amp;skuId=5574049" rel="nofollow">Here is the the PC</a> and here is my <a href="http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TpxwBm" rel="nofollow">PC Part Picker List</a>.</p> <p>(please not that some of the items on the list are just place holders because they did not have the actual part that is in the computer...)</p> <p>I am looking to upgrade to the NVIDIA GTX 970 ASUS STRIX edition and my power supply is 400 Watt ATX. I put all the specs into PC Part Picker and it says that the estimated wattage is 349 Watts for my PC after the upgrade. So, is 50W enough headroom for my upgrade? If not, how many watts would a decent amount of headroom be?</p>

Graphics card upgrade possible?

<p>Apparently the solution is one of two possible options. There is a DisplayPort standard called Multi-Stream Transport (MST) that was introduced with DisplayPort 1.2 (Wikipedia, n.d.). The other option is a display with a VGA in/out configuration. LG makes a series of monitors that provides this function, the N225WU-BN Cloud monitor, which is designed for use with Microsoft Multipoint Server 2011, but serves the purpose for this application (N225WU-BN, n.d.). </p> <p>I wanted to thank SSumner for the DisplayPort research direction.</p> <p>References </p> <p><em>DisplayPort</em>. (n.d.). Retrieved November 6, 2015, from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Multiple_displays_on_single_DisplayPort_connector">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Multiple_displays_on_single_DisplayPort_connector</a></p> <p><em>N225WU-BN</em>. (n.d.). Retrieved November 6, 2015, from <a href="http://www.lg.com/us/commercial/desktop-virtualization/lg-N225WU-BN">http://www.lg.com/us/commercial/desktop-virtualization/lg-N225WU-BN</a></p>

1118

2015-11-06T15:53:34.577

|monitors|video|kvm|

<p>I have a customer who is looking to extend the output of a weather station into a second aircraft hangar at an airport. The vendor has approved doing this, but says that any solution we implement must be done "after the monitor." The output is a single VGA port.</p> <p>They have explained that this means the signal must go from the station to the primary display without any interruption in signal. I am looking for a way to use an ethernet based or even IP based extender in this configuration.</p> <p>Does a monitor with a video-out passthrough exist? The requirement for uninterrupted signal to the main display leaves out the use of a splitter device, but I am wondering if they will allow a passive Y-Cable. We are checking on that, but I am looking for alternatives if that falls through.</p> <p>EDIT: The vendor confirmed that a splitter cable is NOT acceptable, so a pass-through monitor would be the only option.</p>

Video extension "After the monitor" solution?

<p>No, I wouldn't buy either of those laptops, because the displays are too low-resolution for me to be able to work productively.</p> <p>My minimum recommended specs for software development would be as follows:</p> <ul> <li>Minimum $800 price point, preferably $1200 or more--I've bought a lot of laptops, and if you go any cheaper the manufacturers seriously have to start cutting corners and it really shows.</li> <li>Full HD or better resolution (1920x1080)</li> <li>256 GB or larger SSD</li> <li>16 Gb RAM (or 8 GB upgradeable to 16 GB)</li> <li>good keyboard, preferably with a numpad</li> <li>good battery life</li> <li>excellent touchpad (Macbook one is the best, maybe some PC touchpads have gotten better)</li> </ul> <p>If you don't get an SSD right off the bat, budget to upgrade within a few months. The performance difference is unbelievable and you'll be able to be much more productive with an SSD. I'd even suggest upgrading to an SSD before upgrading your RAM to 16 GB.</p> <p>I cannot recommend a specific model, but I can make a few general recommendations...</p> <p>DO NOT BUY:</p> <ul> <li>Toshiba</li> <li>Anything less than $800 on sale</li> </ul> <p>DO CONSIDER:</p> <ul> <li>Macbook/Macbook Pro</li> <li>Samsung</li> <li>Dell</li> <li>Asus</li> <li>Lenovo Thinkpad</li> <li>Preferably something $1200 or up</li> </ul> <p>For software development, pretty much any modern graphics chip will be more than adequate.</p> <p>Your resistance to buying a Macbook is understandable, but as a die-hard Windows power user since 1995, I have to grudgingly admit that the Mac touchpad is best-in-class, and the gestures and swiping left and right between full-screen apps is a huge productivity booster.</p>

1121

2015-11-06T18:39:22.410

|laptop|

<p>I am a developer, I develop web and android applications. So for that I use tools like netbeans android studio Photoshop , git, Chrome with lots of tabs opened. Most of the time I need to keep them open all the time. I am planning to buy a new laptop. I know many people will suggest I must have a SSD, but after some research I have found that I can't afford a laptop with both SSD and the configuration I want, and I do not want to buy a macbook. After some research, I have sorted out some laptops. </p> <pre><code>ASUS K555LN-5500U 5th Gen Core i7 Processor: Intel Core i7 5th Gen 5500U 2.40 GHz (3.00 GHz by Turbo Frequency) 4MB Cache RAM: 8 GB DDR3, HDD: 1 TB SATA NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 840M with 2GB DDR3 VRAM Display: 15.6" 16:9 HD (1366 X 768) LED Dell Inspiron N5548 Intel Core i7 5th Gen Processor: 5th Gen. Intel Core i7 5500U 2.40 GHz (3.00 GHz by Turbo Frequency) 4MB Cache RAM: 8 GB DDR3, HDD: 1 TB SATA Display: 15.6" 16:9 HD (1366 X 768) LED </code></pre> <p>My question is will the above laptop serve my purpose? If they which one should I buy? Or are there any other laptop can serve my purpose?</p>

Which laptop should I buy?

<p>I will first focus on compatability. On the Newegg Page for the MOBO:</p> <blockquote> <p>1 x ATX 24-pin power connector</p> <p>1 x ATX 4-pin 12V CPU power connector</p> </blockquote> <p>These are standard ATX PSU Connectors that can be found on every ATX-Compatible Power Supply. However, the power supply that you chose is considered not that good in the PC Building Community. At that same price-point ($45), I would recommend the <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151093" rel="nofollow noreferrer">SeaSonic M12II 520</a> as it is made by a manufacturer with a good reputation and even though it is more expensive, it will be able to put out a full 500W which the Corsair unit would not be able to.</p>

1142

2015-11-08T04:15:42.967

|compatibility|smps|

<p>Alright, I purchased <a href="http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ibuypower-desktop-amd-fx-series-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/5574049.p?id=1219143550897&amp;skuId=5574049" rel="nofollow">this</a> PC a few months ago and I am now looking to upgrade the graphics card to the ASUS STRIX GTX 970 and my power supply to the <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139050" rel="nofollow">Corsair CX500M</a> because of its good reviews, and I like the idea of having a modular power supply. I cleared out space in my case for these new components, only now I am left wondering if they are truly compatible. I know for a fact that I need ~400 Watts for this to work so I went with a 500 Watt Power supply. The problem is, this PC has a Mother Board that is not too popular.</p> <p>Mother Board: MSI ms-7641 </p> <p>Will the power supply come with the correct cables for everything to work properly? I am sorry, this may seem like a stupid question to most of you, but as you can probably tell, seeing that I bought a PRE-BUILT PC, that I am new to this. Please, any insight will help my understanding. Thank you for your time.</p> <p>Here is a link to the <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121899&amp;cm_re=gtx_970_strix-_-14-121-899-_-Product" rel="nofollow">Asus GPU</a>, and the <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130657" rel="nofollow">Motherboard</a>.</p>

Possible MoBo compatibility issues

<p>FWIW I run the following config in my living room:</p> <ul> <li>Case: <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156313" rel="nofollow">RAIDMAX Element ATX-101BG</a></li> <li>Mobo: some mini-itx board, AsRock maybe?</li> <li>CPU: i5-4690</li> <li>GPU: <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814132038" rel="nofollow">GTX 970 Reference</a></li> <li>SSD: 240GB Corsair GS</li> <li>HDD: Western Digital Black 2TB</li> <li>Fans: stock CPU fan, large fan at top of case</li> <li>Memory: 16GB @ 1866</li> <li>PSU: CORSAIR CX series CX500M</li> </ul> <p>Using Kill-A-Watt meter, if my memory serves me right then I peaked around 350 watts when I tortured it with Prime95 and FurMark at the same time.</p> <p>CPU: 90°C, GPU 80°C</p> <p>I play Witcher 3 on max settings with hairworks set to 2xAA for hours on end.</p> <p>CPU: 70°C, GPU 80°C</p> <p>If I have a larger case then there would definitely be room for better cooling but I never intend to OC and Prime95 is a highly edge-case temperature scenario.</p> <p>Idle temps, cool as a cucumber:</p> <p>CPU: 35°C, GPU: 35°C</p>

1158

2015-11-09T17:04:30.383

|gaming|power-supply|

<p>I'm looking for a PSU recommendation for a setup below:</p> <ul> <li>Corsair 650D chassis</li> <li>Intel i5 4690K CPU</li> <li>ASRock Extreme6 mobo</li> <li>Radeon R9 290 GPU</li> <li>16GB RAM (2x 8GB)</li> <li>1x SSD 256GB</li> <li>1x 2TB SATA HDD</li> <li>2x 1TB SATA HDD as RAID1 </li> </ul> <p>and to have some wiggle room to OC.</p> <p>Price range below $200</p>

PSU recommendation for new casual gaming setup

<p>The minimum requrment for Fallout 4 is a i5-2300 and the recommended is a i7-4970k. The current recomendation on PC Building Communities is to go with either the i5-4690k or the i5-6600k. These two are almost equal in gaming performance, but the 6600K is newer and runs on a new socket and technology. </p> <p>The best recommendation is a 6600K on the Z170 platform for overclocking. Just be sure to get a CPU Cooler as the 6600K doesn't include one. Also be sure to get DDR4 Ram. </p> <p>If you are upgrading and already have a LGA1150 Processor, just go with the i5-4690K on the Z97 Platform, which uses DDR3.</p>

1165

2015-11-09T20:47:37.873

|gaming|graphics-cards|processor|

<p>Alright, I am looking for a fairly priced CPU that will not hold back the ASUS STRIX GTX 970 very little or not at all. Preferably Intel, as their processor lineup shows to last longer for generations in gaming. Also hoping to use this for Fallout 4. Thank you!</p>

Bottlenecking: GTX 970 & AMD FX-6300

<p>The answer is "it depends". The <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html" rel="nofollow">Tomshardware graphics hierarchy</a> places your 9600 GT seven steps above a HD 4600, where three steps is the minimum worthwhile upgrade. However, the hierarchy is strictly about pixel-pushing ability. Your 9600 GT only supports DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1, and doesn't support OpenCL at all. In contrast, the integrated GPU supports DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.3, and OpenCL 1.2.</p> <p>If you're doing things that require the new functionality (say, playing newly-released games), it doesn't matter that the 9600 is much faster than the 4600: the 9600 is simply unable to do what's needed of it.</p>

1185

2015-11-11T11:53:40.983

|gaming|graphics-cards|pc|

<p>I'm buying a new PC on a relatively tight budget so I decided to reuse my old GPU and get a new one later. I'm now considering getting an i5-4460 as my CPU and I noticed it comes with an integrated graphics card, the Intel HD Graphics 4600.</p> <p>What I would like to know is how does that compare to my old Geforce 9600 GT? More specifically, is the integrated GPU so good that it makes keeping my old GPU unnecessary?</p> <p>I'll be using my PC for gaming (Skyrim, League of Legends, Crusader Kings 2, etc.) as well as more serious work. Possibly a bit of video editing if I ever get into that. And as mentioned, I'm planing to get a decent modern GPU as soon as I can afford it.</p> <p>Links: <br>1. <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/80817/Intel-Core-i5-4460-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_40-GHz" rel="noreferrer">i5-4460 and Intel HD 4600 specifications</a> <br>2. <a href="http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-9600-gt/specifications" rel="noreferrer">Geforce 9600 GT specifications</a></p>

How good is the Intel HD Graphics 4600 compared to my 7 year old GeForce 9600 GT?

<p>You will get more performance from the 4th gen i7 over the 5th gen i5. But that performance comes at a price. Assuming you have the same other hardware, the 4th gen i7 will produce more heat and have shorter battery life then 5th gen i5. </p> <p>5th gen i5 should have enough performance for you. </p>

1193

2015-11-12T18:09:04.527

|laptop|

<p>I wanted to buy a laptop for programming. I am a developer, I develop web and android applications. So for that I use tools like Visual Studio 2015, SQL Server, Netbeans, Android Studio, Photoshop, git, Chrome with lots of tabs opened. Most of the time I need to keep them open all the time. I am planning to buy a new laptop. I know many people will suggest I must have a SSD, but after some research I have found that I can't afford a laptop with both SSD and the configuration .</p> <p>I searched and found <code>HP ProBook 450 G2</code>according to my budget but I am confused about generations. Let suppose I have these two choices..</p> <blockquote> <p>HP ProBook 450 G2 Core i5 5th Generation</p> </blockquote> <ul> <li>Hard Drive: 1TB</li> <li>RAM: 8 GB</li> <li>Graphics: 2GB dedicated</li> </ul> <blockquote> <p>HP ProBook 450 G2 Core i7 4th Generation</p> </blockquote> <ul> <li>Hard Drive: 1TB</li> <li>RAM: 8 GB</li> <li><p>Graphics: 2GB dedicated</p> <p><strong>Question:</strong> Which one do you think is better and why? Is i7 4th generation better than i5 5th generation? </p></li> </ul> <p><strong>Edit:</strong> HERE is the link <a href="http://www8.hp.com/pk/en/products/laptops/product-detail.html?oid=6943826#!tab=specs" rel="nofollow">http://www8.hp.com/pk/en/products/laptops/product-detail.html?oid=6943826#!tab=specs</a></p> <blockquote> <p>Processor:</p> </blockquote> <p>Intel® Core™ i7-5500U with Intel HD Graphics 5500 (2.4 GHz, up to 3 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 4 MB cache, 2 cores)</p> <p>Intel® Core™ i7-4510U with Intel HD Graphics 4400 (2 GHz, up to 3.1 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 4 MB cache, 2 cores)</p> <p>Intel® Core™ i5-5200U with Intel HD Graphics 5500 (2.2 GHz, up to 2.7 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 3 MB cache, 2 cores)</p> <p>Intel® Core™ i5-4210U with Intel HD Graphics 4400 (1.7 GHz, up to 2.7 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, 3 MB cache, 2 cores)</p> <p>Intel® Core™ i3-4030U with Intel HD Graphics 4400 (1.9 GHz, 3 MB cache, 2 cores)</p> <p>Intel® Core™ i3-4005U with Intel HD Graphics 4400 (1.7 GHz, 3 MB cache, 2 cores)</p> <p>Intel® Celeron® 3205U with Intel HD Graphics (1.5 GHz, 2 MB cache, 2 cores)</p> <p>Intel® Celeron® 2957U with Intel HD Graphics (1.4 GHz, 2 MB cache, 2 cores)</p> <p>Intel® Pentium® 3805U with Intel HD Graphics (1.9 GHz, 2 MB cache, 2 cores)</p> <p>Intel® Pentium® 3558U with Intel HD Graphics (1.7 GHz, 2 MB cache, 2 cores)</p>

Hp ProBook 450 G2 core i5 5th Gen vs core i7 4th Gen?

<p>I recommend the <a href="http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15-5555-laptop/pd?oc=dncwvamd6218h&amp;model_id=inspiron-15-5555-laptop" rel="nofollow">Dell Inspiron 15 5000</a></p> <h2>Specs</h2> <ul> <li>Quad-core AMD A8-7410 CPU</li> <li>Windows 10 Home 64 bit</li> <li>6GB RAM</li> <li>128GB SSD</li> <li>No dGPU, uses an APU</li> <li>768p screen</li> </ul>

1194

2015-11-12T21:32:18.133

|laptop|

<p>I'm searching a laptop, principally for programming and web (YouTube, Twitter...)</p> <p>Requirements:</p> <ul> <li>My budget is 550 €</li> <li>A minimum of 6GB of ram</li> <li>Quad core processor</li> <li>No GPU needed</li> <li>No OS preference</li> </ul>

Laptop for programming

<p>Having a Xeon processor allows the use of ECC memory which is sometimes critical for some workloads. You would loose performance for some general purpose but gain a lot more for specialized purposes such as virtualization compared to an i7.</p> <p>For programming, I would recommend the i7. But because you are doing Premiere and 3D, I would go for the Xeon.</p>

1199

2015-11-13T09:20:12.007

|laptop|

<p>Ok, so I want to by a new computer, a mobile workstation. I want some advice on what to choose between these two:</p> <p><strong>Dell Precision M6800</strong></p> <ul> <li>Intel® Core™ i7-4710MQ (Quad Core 2.50GHz, 3.50GHz Turbo, 6MB 47W, w/HD Graphics 4600)</li> <li>Nvidia® Quadro® K3100M w/4GB GDDR5</li> <li>17.3" UltraSharp™ FHD(1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit with Premium Panel Guarantee</li> <li>16GB (4x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3L</li> <li>256GB 2.5inch Serial ATA Solid State Drive</li> <li><strong>$2339</strong></li> </ul> <p><strong>Dell Precision 7510</strong></p> <ul> <li>Intel Xeon E3-1535M v5 (Quad Core 2.90GHz, 3.80GHz Turbo, 8MB 45W, w/Intel HD Graphics P530)</li> <li>Nvidia Quadro M2000M w/4GB GDDR5</li> <li>15.6" UltraSharp™ FHD IPS (1920x1080) Wide View Anti-Glare LED-backlit</li> <li>16GB, DDR4-2133MHz SDRAM, 2 DIMMS, ECC</li> <li>256GB 2.5 inch SATA Solid State Drive</li> <li><strong>$2311</strong></li> </ul> <p>I am buying this laptop for both programming (heavy builds) and intensive graphics operations (video editing in After Effects/Premiere, photography and 3D Graphics). So, what do you think? I tend to choose the second one, but I am not sure about the graphics card...</p>

Dell Precision 15 7000 vs Dell Precision M6800

<p><strong>Recommendations</strong></p> <p>There are many different mesh networks I have seen being set up with the Arduino. Here I name just a few of the common ones.</p> <ol> <li><a href="https://pinocc.io" rel="nofollow">Pinoccio</a></li> </ol> <p>According to the website, </p> <blockquote> <p>Field Scouts talk to each other using a mesh network (called a Troop), using an extremely low-power radio. This makes them 14 times more efficient than standard WiFi devices. Slap a WiFi backpack on a Scout to make it the Lead Scout, and connect your entire Troop to the web!</p> </blockquote> <p>This allows the data to be shared onto the Internet.</p> <p>The Radio of the Field Scout is over 2.4GHz using 802.15.4. I am pretty sure it will work in an open room. However the problem is you might have to redo all of the Arduino setup on the Pinoccio, but it is Arduino-compatible.</p> <ol start="2"> <li><a href="http://tmrh20.github.io/RF24Mesh/index.html" rel="nofollow">RF24Mesh</a></li> </ol> <p>It seems to be an easy to use library for Arduino, which you use when you attach a nRF24L01 to each of the Arduinos. However, there isn't much documentation.</p>

1200

2015-11-13T09:43:08.360

|wifi|networking|bluetooth|wireless|arduino|

<p>I am in the search for some recommendation on a good hardware component for building a mesh network with Arduino</p> <p>I am not experienced in building a mesh network. So all recommendations and guidance would be appreciated.</p> <p>My case is: I have 10 small robots that I'd like to connect, so they can share data like position and so on. UPDATE! The robots are build with Arduino Nano, so it would be preferable with a solution that compatible with the Arduino environment. </p> <p>Also I'd like to log the data from the robots to a laptop. The ideal would be through some sort of USB unit, that can connect to the mesh network and log the data from the robots. </p> <p>I don't need to send commands over the network, but only statistical data like position etc.</p> <p>The range of the network would be in an open room, with a maximum of 100m2</p> <p>I would like an easy setup component, which have to be small, low-energy consumption and not expensive. I know these requirements might be general for all, but I stated them anyway.</p>

Hardware components for MESH network with Arduino

<p>I would suggest Dell XPS 13 family, ex. <a href="http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-13-9350-laptop/pd" rel="nofollow">XPS 13 Non-Touch</a>, or with touch, if needed. It has great screen with ultra thick borders, and for the applications you specify, the screen is important, not the internals - what I mean, that every new laptop nowedays is designed to run flawlessly in common scenarions (which is what you specified). Do not go for internals (i5/i7, 1333/1600Mhz RAM etc. dillemas), go for design you like, touch-non-touch, screen size and quality, and usablity - keybord may come in handy if you use MS office much.</p>

1204

2015-11-13T16:19:43.223

|laptop|performance|tablet|

<p>Consider an user that mainly uses his notebook for: </p> <ul> <li>surf the web </li> <li>open 4~6 browsers tabs (ex: google + youtube + amazon + static pages) </li> <li>run msoffice apps (ex: excel + powerpoint + email) </li> <li>watch videos </li> </ul> <p>For such users, is there already in the market a tablet with the same performance of standard notebooks? </p> <p>ps: Budget is not a constraint (say &lt; US$5000). Of course the cheapest would be better.</p>

Tablet vs Laptop

<p>If you are making a true workstation with fast speeds(so not for gaming) but for working with unreal 4 and DirectX 12, I would go with a Titan X because of the RAM benefit and the double float point RAM so you can be sure your not going to get RAM corruption while you are building your game world. I would not pick a socked 1151 but an 2011-3 because the capability for more RAM and RAM disks because I would think speed is your game. </p> <p>If you are going to game on it hardcore, I would pick the SLI GTX 980ti setup because its just faster at pushing the pixels for gaming. For the ones who think 6GB + 6GB = 12GB so more RAM that is not how it works. Then I would go with the socked 1151 because it's cheaper and you don't need 64GB of DDR4 for gaming. </p> <p>Unreal 4 and Unity 4.X do NOT support Sli </p>

1212

2015-11-14T11:21:57.957

|gaming|graphics-cards|game-development|

<p>I need some help choosing a graphics card. I searched a lot about this but still haven't found a good answer. I want to be able to play AAA titles and work with game development, graphics design, programming, and video editing. I'm really new to computer components.</p> <p>I was thinking a GTX Titan X and GTX 980 Ti (maybe SLI/).</p> <p>Some people say to stay away from SLI (compatibility and driver issues with games), others say it's only worth it for video editing, others say it's necessary for game development. I'm really confused.</p> <p>I'm building a new PC &mdash; 3,000$ is my budget. The only item that I wrote on my list to buy is an Intel i7-6700K (which I don't mind changing if need be).</p> <p>I don't plan to overclock anything unless it will provide a lot of benefit without too much risk.</p>

Graphics card for heavy gaming, game development, graphics design and video editing

<p>This would work fine for Eclipse and Android Studio. The only minor issue would be if you tried to run the Android emulator in Android Studio it might be slow since the computer only have 4GB of RAM. I would recommend at lease 6GB of RAM for better performance.</p>

1215

2015-11-14T14:39:30.230

|laptop|android|

<p>Hi I want to purchase a two in one laptop for college to bring around programming. I took a screenshot of the specs that it has. I googled and researched the specs needed for the IDEs Eclipse and Android Studio but I'm still a bit uneducated on the full extent of what I need. With the specs in the screen shot, would I be able to run the IDEs with moderate programming?!</p> <p><strong>Relevant Specs:</strong></p> <ul> <li>OS: Windows 10</li> <li>CPU: Intel Core M 5Y10C (800MHz, 2 cores)</li> <li>GPU: Intel HD Graphics 5300</li> <li>RAM: 4GB</li> <li>Screen: 11.6" 1920x1080 IPS</li> </ul>

Spec's for Eclipse and Android Studio

<p>I would actually not recommend either of the platforms that you had in mind, and go with the LGA 1151 Skylake Processors. These require DDR4 RAM and are the newest CPUs that Intel has released. For what you are doing, I would recommend the <a href="http://www.microcenter.com/product/451883/Core_i7-6700K_40GHz_LGA_1151_Boxed_Processor">i7-6700K</a>, that costs $350. Also with 1x8GB of DDR4 RAM would be expandable and enough for now. The Motherboard that I would recommend is the <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132567R&amp;nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&amp;cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-Intel%20Motherboards-_-N82E16813132567R&amp;gclid=CjwKEAiA1JuyBRCogJLz4J71kj0SJADsd6QR28lfz5F225uM1c6g4WpQAlIV6DHWDHl5a1izL3KW5xoCQczw_wcB&amp;gclsrc=aw.ds">Z170 PRO GAMING</a>, as it would allow for major overclocking when paired with a CPU Cooler, such as the EVO 212. If you do not want to overclock, I would recomend the i5-6500 or the i7-6700 with a H170 Mobo.</p>

1217

2015-11-14T18:33:34.573

|processor|desktop|motherboard|

<p>I'm completing the hardware list for desktop unit, which will be used for programming (60%), data analysis &amp; AI (15%) and gaming (15%), the rest beeing internet browsing.</p> <p>Budget: 1200$.</p> <p>I want to go with a setup that could be extended in the future and last for years, and it's my primary objective. </p> <p>The absolute must-have: </p> <ul> <li>PCI-E v.3.0 </li> <li>USB 3.0</li> <li>couple of SATA III interfaces</li> </ul> <p>Nice to have:</p> <ul> <li>SLI </li> <li>DDR4 support</li> </ul> <p>I'm pretty convinced, that I'll go with GeForce GTX 960, 1x8GB RAM, 256GB Adata SSD, and then, when upgrading I will:</p> <ul> <li>add more drives (SSDs are fast, but having 2+ SSDs in RAID 0 is faster)</li> <li>add more RAM</li> <li>if SLI is present, add second 960 GTX</li> <li>buy better processor</li> </ul> <p>Now the question is: <strong>is the above logic sound (1) and about the main board and processor (2):</strong></p> <p>Should I go with a more cost effective, and 100% satysfying my current needs AMD FX-8320 (I'ts actually top 50 best value on <a href="https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_value_available.html">CPU-benchmark</a>) sacrificing extensibility, or some cheapest, but still extremly not-cheap, LGA2011-v3 processor, like i7-5820K (or maybe some Xenon?) to have the shiny LGA2011 platform, DDR4 support &amp; and all the goodies of <a href="http://www.msi.com/product/motherboard/X99S-SLI-PLUS.html#hero-overview">MSI X99 SLI plus</a>? </p> <p>The disk, memory and graphic card would be same for both AMD and Intel, and cost for all 340$, which leaves about just enough for used i7-xxx and new msi-X99 sli plus, or AMD 8 core (8320/ 8350/ 9590?) + motherboard and 3xx $ in pocket.</p> <p>What do you think, what would you choose? Am I missing something?</p> <p><strong>EDIT</strong>: this question is about chipset, so it may be treated as a question about motherboard. The difference between ex. AMD 9590 and i7-5820K are not of interest, as long as they do not impact ex. DDR memory, SLI etc.</p>

LGA 2011 vs. AM3+

<p>The LGA 2011 platform and the LGA 1151 platform is designed for two different markets. The LGA 1151 is a mainstream consumer socket, designed for CPU's ranging from $100 - $350. The LGA 2011 socket is for the extreme enthusiast and prosumer purposes. CPU's for the LGA 2011 socket is around $400 - $1200 (please note that the $400 5820K only has 28 PCI-E lanes).</p> <p>Which one to choose depends on what your purpose is. If you're going to do normal day to day tasks, the LGA 1151 platform is enough. If you are doing to do prosumer things like video editing and 3D modeling, a LGA 2011 socket would be better.</p> <p>In terms of "future extensibility", none of them are good at it. Intel tends to release a new socket for each generation so to upgrade you would need to get a new board.</p>

1220

2015-11-15T00:12:09.793

|motherboard|desktop|

<p>I'm interested in desktop setup that will last. I've narrowed (thanks to <a href="https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/a/1219/951">this answer</a>) my motherboard choices to MSI z170 gaming pro and MSI X99 SLI plus. As both cards are quite similar (multiple SATA III, USB 3.0, more than 32GB of RAM), the choice boils down to the chipset: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_2011" rel="nofollow noreferrer">LGA2011-v3</a> (in MSI X99 SLI plus) or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1151" rel="nofollow noreferrer">LGA1151</a> (in MSI z170 gaming pro).</p> <p>Arguments for LGA2011-v3:</p> <ul> <li>Finally, the 8 cores treshold overcomed, and processors can have ex. <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/81060/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5-2698-v3-40M-Cache-2_30-GHz" rel="nofollow noreferrer">32 threads</a>. </li> <li>40 PCIe lanes</li> </ul> <p>Arguments for LGA1151:</p> <ul> <li>released in 2015 (vs 2011-v3 being released in 2014)</li> <li>14 nm litography</li> <li>cheaper</li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_chipsets#LGA_1151" rel="nofollow noreferrer">twice the link speed</a></li> </ul> <p>In my understanding, in the 1151 there is still the limit to the number of cores a single processor can have, which is <a href="http://vr-zone.com/articles/socket-2011-futures-a-difficult-road-to-perfection/13147.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">not present in LGA2011</a>. I'm confused which one will be more supported (ex. better processors will be developped) in the future and what to choose.</p> <p>[EDIT] more specific questions:</p> <ol> <li><strong>Which one would choose &amp; why?</strong></li> <li><strong>How important is link speed &amp; what is this measure?</strong> </li> <li><strong>Will the LGA1151 overcome the 8 core treshold in next generations like 2011?</strong></li> </ol>

Motherboard for future extensibility

<p>The only available option that I could find was <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/ownfone-phone-without-texting-camera-or-internet-pitches-to-parents-20140410-zqt2n.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">OwnFone</a></p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nuz2Z.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/Nuz2Z.jpg" alt="OwnFone" /></a></p> <p>It's a customized phone that is made specially for the customer based on their order. They company intention is to provide our elders with an emergency easy to use phone however, it can be used a for children as well</p> <ul> <li>Buttons can be images (or names) in case you child is too young to read</li> <li>999/emergency button is available</li> <li>No text, no screen</li> <li>Choices of 2, 4, 8 or 12 pre-programmed numbers depending on how much you willing to pay</li> <li>Designed and works only in the UK</li> </ul> <p>Biggest downside is that the phone is not SIM-free and it seems you cant even replace the SIM or the battery so you are stuck with the plans offered to you by the company.</p> <p>The cell phone can be bought from <a href="https://ownfone.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this website</a></p> <p><strong>Edit:</strong> It's available for children now from <a href="http://www.ownfone.com/children" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Mobile phones for children</a></p>

1226

2015-11-15T11:33:13.240

|mobile-phone|

<p>Are there any cell phones that has only programmed speed dial numbers, no texting keypad and works in the UK?</p> <p><a href="http://roogirl.com/35-cell-phones-for-kids/" rel="noreferrer">This article</a> suggests some of them but I don't believe any of them would work in the UK.</p> <p>Unsurprisingly none of is being sold in the UK either </p> <p>Edit: Sadly <a href="http://www.gomonews.com/uk-mnos-missing-out-on-emergency-phones-for-kids/" rel="noreferrer">this article</a> supports my question</p>

Cell phone for an 8-year old, pre-programmed numbers only and works in the UK

<h2>Ultra graphics performance for a penny</h2> <p>As this is your requirement I don't think that the graphics card which are recommended until now will statisfy your future self. </p> <blockquote> <p>I'd like to <strong>future proof</strong>, also I'd like to buy in the future new monitor, thouh I'm not sure when.</p> </blockquote> <p>A new monitor sure is a good idea in the near future. My following config aims to provide as much power as possible in my eyes for a reasonable price. </p> <ul> <li><strong>Intel Core i5-6500</strong></li> </ul> <p>A new Skylake processor to make your build future proof - </p> <ul> <li><p><strong>MSI Z170-A Pro</strong></p></li> <li><p><strong>Corsair Vengeance LPX DIMM Kit 16GB, DDR4-3000</strong></p></li> </ul> <p>Super fast RAM - 16GB because why not? We want to be future proof right?</p> <ul> <li><strong>Sapphire Radeon R9 390 Nitro + Backplate</strong></li> </ul> <p>Great graphics card in my opinion - really good performance - performance lies between the GTX970 and the GTX980 for around 350 bucks. I know that you wanted to buy a GTX 970 because you wanted to program for CUDA but when you really want the best performance for the best price your choice should be the R9 390. Alternatively you can use the GTX 970 if CUDA is absolutely necessary.</p> <ul> <li><strong>be quiet! Shadow Wings SW1 Mid-Speed 140mm</strong></li> </ul> <p>Case fan for a good airflow.</p> <ul> <li><strong>EKL Alpenföhn Ben Nevis</strong></li> </ul> <p>Solid CPU FAN - should keep your cpu cool enough from day to day.</p> <ul> <li><strong>Phanteks Enthoo Pro M</strong></li> <li><strong>be quiet! Straight Power 10-CM 500W</strong></li> <li><strong>Seagate Desktop HDD 1TB</strong></li> </ul> <p>That makes <strong>1022-€</strong> where I am from so it should be <strong>~1100$</strong>. </p> <hr> <p>An i5 4460 would still be enough in most cases but if you want to be futureproof then a Skylake build won't hurt. Positive thing is that you can still enjoy your games in 1920x1080 resolution as modern cards support VSR/DSR. </p> <blockquote> <p>This technology allows a user to improve visual quality in games and other content by rendering at a very high resolution (up to 4K) and then displaying that content at a lower resolution supported by the available monitor. </p> </blockquote> <p><a href="http://support.amd.com/en-us/kb-articles/Pages/VSR.aspx" rel="nofollow">What Is Virtual Super Resolution and How Does It Work?</a>.</p>

1233

2015-11-15T21:23:34.633

|gaming|graphics-cards|desktop|

<p>So the thing is, I want to play Fallout 4. I currently consider GTX950, GTX960 and GTX970. I did the research on <a href="http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=5013&amp;game=Fallout%204" rel="nofollow">game-debate</a> but only found what I already knew. The GTX950, GTX960 seem to have great performance and are relatively cheap, however the 970 peaks, probably because of 256 bit interface. </p> <p>Budget: I'd like to keep it under $250, but can be stretched if it's really really worth it.</p> <p>What card (not necessarily from ones mentioned) would you recommend, for the rest of setup being:</p> <ul> <li>Kingston 8GB 3000MHz HyperX Savage Black CL15</li> <li>MSI Z170A GAMING PRO (Z170 3xPCI-E DDR4)</li> <li>Intel i5-6500 3.20GHz 6MB BOX</li> <li>A-DATA 240GB 2,5'' SATA SSD Premier SP550</li> <li>Monitor: Eizo FlexScan S1901 (1280 x 1024)</li> </ul> <p>Also, any suggestions regarding above setup are welcomed.</p> <p>EDIT: Also, I plan learning to <a href="https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-gpus" rel="nofollow">program for CUDA</a>, so I guess only GeForce is on the table.</p>

Ultra graphics performance for a penny

<p>Like qmd said, these aren't meant for gaming. If you really want a Surface Pro 4, I would go with the i5 8GB model, because at this day and age, you need at least 1.5GB for Chrome to run smoothly and a i7 is not needed for the day to day jobs unless you are doing virtualization of any kind or photo/video editing. </p> <p>I would get a Surface Book which CAN handle modern games. Also it has a keyboard which I prefer to the one that you can get on the Surface Pro 4. The Surface Book starts at $1500 (<a href="http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/productID.325716000?icid=en_US_SurfaceBk_cat_modG_100615" rel="nofollow">$1899</a> for the model with the dedicated GPU) and is a 2 in 1 laptop kind of machine with a video card. There is also a model without the video card, but I would not get that one.</p> <p>For both models, I would get the <a href="http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Microsoft-Surface-Dock/productID.325725200" rel="nofollow">Surface Dock ($199.99)</a> for more ports for at home or in a hotel.</p> <p>It is up to you, but I would get the i5 Surface Book. Here are links for your clicking pleasure to both the <a href="http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/productID.325716000?icid=en_US_SurfaceBk_cat_modG_100615" rel="nofollow">Surface Pro 4</a> and the <a href="http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/productID.325721500" rel="nofollow">Surface Book</a>.</p>

1242

2015-11-16T12:50:03.433

|laptop|gaming|

<p>The new Surface Pro 4 seems a pretty solid machine and I'm looking to get one as my new mobile workstation since I travel a lot for work (compared to the back-breaking Dell workstation I currently have to drag everywhere). But I also want it to be <em>reasonably</em> good at running modern games, though they don't have to be at their highest settings or pulling 90FPS. Thankfully there are several options, but I'd like advice on which (if any) will make the most difference versus their cost.</p> <p>Here are the configurations I'm considering:</p> <ul> <li>i5 / 4GB / 128GB ($999)</li> <li>i5 / 8GB / 256GB ($1299)</li> <li>i7 / 8GB / 256GB ($1599)</li> </ul> <p>There's also the i7 with 16GB but it's a bit more expensive than I'd like to pay.</p> <p>I'd like to get the most bang for my buck out of it in terms of performance. Primarily it will be a work computer but if I occasionally want to fire up a newer game, what's the lowest model on the list that will comfortably handle it?</p> <p>Note that I listed the SSD sizes simply for comparison of the benefits. Their size is not critical to the question, but could make the difference if I'm on the fence between the two i5s.</p> <p><strong>Edit:</strong> Based on the answers so far it seems the Surface Book with the dedicated GPU may be the better way to go for gaming. Is the GPU itself the limiting factor? As far as I can tell the other hardware (aside from the screen) is the same. In the price range of the i5 Book with GPU ($1900 USD) is there anything else that offers better gaming performance while still being highly mobile and functional?</p>

Surface Pro 4 configurations for light-moderate gaming

<p>The GTX 950 is definitely a better performance-per-dollar card than the GTX 960. The 950 costs slightly more than half the the 960 but delivers much more than half of a 960. But this doesn't mean you shouldn't buy the 960. Since you wanted to game at 1080p at 60 fps, the 950 would not be able to do that consistently on a slightly demanding title, but the 960 would be able to do that. </p> <p>If you only want to play casual games at low to medium settings and want to save money, the 950 is what you should get. But if you want to play some more demanding titles and higher settings with a higher budget, go for the 960.</p>

1244

2015-11-16T13:06:35.453

|graphics-cards|desktop|

<p>I am looking to buy a new GPU for a half gaming half graphics design system. </p> <p>Current specs are:</p> <ul> <li>i7-4790 CPU</li> <li>GTX 750 GPU</li> <li>500 Watt PSU</li> <li>2x 1TB HDD</li> </ul> <p>Design Software in Use:</p> <ul> <li>Adobe Illustrator</li> <li>Sony Vegas Home Edition</li> <li>AutoDesk Inventor 2016</li> </ul> <p><strong>Budget: $250</strong></p> <p>I am looking for a slightly more powerful GPU (one for both rendering and gaming at 1080p 60fps), however I would like something relatively cheap (it would be even better if I do not have to upgrade the PSU). I was looking at the GTX 950 and GTX 960, however I am not sure which one is superior for the price to performance ratio. I would like to stay away from AMD GPUs because they would require me to purchase a new PSU. The main question is, am I overlooking a better video card for my needs? Or would one suggest the GTX 950 or the GTX 960?</p>

Best GPU for Price to Performance

<p>Here are 2 cases that you may be able to use for a double power supply. The Thermaltake Core X9 is a solid metal case meant for pc's with EATX support. it modulair and you can probably fit a dual ATX PSU in. <br> The IPC 4U-4310L is a server rack with support for a redundant power supply. this also has hot swap ports and is a 4u form factor.</p> <p>Both are not the cheapest cases that there are in the marked. But I think that in these you can fit your pc.</p> <p>So if you want a case with no hassle then you can get the Thermaltake Core X9. also this one looks the best and has good ventilation.<br> if you want a rack server you could go with the IPC one but it doesn't support 2 full atx power supplies but a redundant power supply (this means one set of cables etc.)</p> <p>And if you want to go on the cheap you can mod any cube form factor case to fit your needs.</p> <p>Overall i would pick the Thermaltake Core x9 because it can have an extra PSU install in at and if you get 2 it can get 4 of the badboys in there. also it's small so you can fit it anywhere with ease wich means hassle free installation.</p>

1254

2015-11-17T12:59:08.113

|server|case|

<p>I am looking for a case to support my server build that will consist of an ASUS Z10PE-D8 motherboard and would like to incorporate two ATX/EPS PSU's along the lines of Corsair RM850i. </p> <p>It needs at least eight 3.5" HDD mounts for SAS and two 2.5" SSD mounts for system drives.<br> It also needs ample cooling for a dual Xeon E5-2620V3's and 64GB of RAM, as it will run hot.</p> <p>A 5.25" front housing would be beneficial but not absolutely necessary.</p> <p>I am looking below £300. A tower is preferable. With rack mounted, I'd have to reduce the budget to £200 to factor in some of the cost of rails and a cabinet.</p>

Case to support EEB motherboard and dual ATX power-supplies

<p>Other than hardware issues (whether the CPU is soldered, and whether the socket is the same), software/bios/driver issues should not be a problem if the two CPUs are from the same generation (sometimes it even works with different generations of CPUs).</p> <p>I've done it on a Thinkpad T61 a few years ago, as well as on a(n old) Mac Mini recently (in both cases upgrading to a Core 2 Duo). If the CPU is cheap enough (as is the case when the CPU is an old model), I find it's definitely worth the trouble.</p>

1263

2015-11-18T11:12:07.193

|processor|

<p>So, I've got an Asus k53sv laptop with an i7 2630qm processor and want to upgrade to an i7 3820qm. Their sockets and power consumption are the same, as listen on Intel's website, so I don't see why it wouldn't work. Only concern is whether a driver mismatch might occur. Do you think this would work?</p>

Upgrade Laptop CPU

<p>The ASUS Sabertooth Z170 Mark I is what you are looking for. It is around $250 but what you are getting is worth the money. First of all, there is a plastic shield on the front for protection against the chips of the motherboard and there is a metal shield on the back to protect against ESD and board flex. The power delivery components are all tested with a military standard and a report sheet with the tests your motherboard passed is included. There are 2 small, but powerful, fans to cool the power delivery components to prevent them from overheating and extending their life span. It also comes with a 5 year warranty (2 more years than the standard boards).</p>

1275

2015-11-18T21:58:12.553

|motherboard|

<p>This is for a desktop, do not plan any overclocking. Usage is primarily media consumption, photo/video editing, casual gaming. Operating system Windows 10 x64 Professional. Price range looking up to $200 USD. (Consider more for reliability benefit)</p> <p>Planned components include:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/88196/Intel-Core-i7-6700-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_00-GHz" rel="noreferrer">Intel i7-6700</a> </li> <li>M.2 512GB SSD</li> <li>4 SATA HDDs </li> <li><a href="http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-950/specifications" rel="noreferrer">nVidia GeForce GTX 950</a></li> <li>2x8GB DDR4 RAM</li> </ul> <p>Motherboard should include at least one USB3.1 Type A + Type C</p> <p>Onboard Bluetooth &amp; Wi-Fi is a plus but not a requirement.</p> <p>I've been looking primarily at Gigabyte/ASUS boards (because that's what I'm familiar with) but the selection is overwhelming, and unfortunately spec sheets don't cover stability/reliability.</p>

ATX LGA1151 Motherboard /w Stability Primary Concern

<p>Your requirements don't appear to be very specific:</p> <ul> <li>What OS (Windows, OS X, Linux, or other);</li> <li>Which platform (PC, Pi, Mobile device, mini PC, MCU);</li> <li>Which processor (Intel, ARM, Atmel);</li> <li>Which size (0.94&quot; up to 14&quot;);</li> <li>What resolution;</li> <li>Which input connectors (VGA, HDMI, DVI, USB)</li> <li>Most importantly - cost</li> </ul> <p>So, I will assume that you are fishing for possible solutions.</p> <p>There seem to be three simple options, depending on what, and how, you wish to want to achieve your objective:</p> <h3>Use a mobile device</h3> <p>As you say</p> <blockquote> <p>I thought to create an app</p> </blockquote> <p>assuming that you mean a mobile device (iOS or Andriod) app, then, depending on the actual size of display that you require, you could use a second hand, iPad, which are cheap and readily available on eBay. If an iPad is too big then an old version of an iPod (an iPhone would be over kill, unless you need a 3G connection to your server, which I doubt) would suffice. If the app is for Android, then a facsimile of an iPod/iPad would satisfy your needs, a second hand Galaxy Note or Tab, for example.</p> <h3>Use a small monitor</h3> <p>If you mean an <em>application</em>, rather than an <em>app</em>, for a PC based OS (OS X, Windows, or Linux) then taking your question at face value, the best (i.e., cheapest, smallest monitor), would be one of the monitors supplied by <a href="http://www.lilliputuk.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Lilliput</a>, such as the 10&quot; <a href="http://www.lilliputuk.com/monitors/vga/859gl/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">859GL-80NP/C</a>.</p> <p>For cheapness, you could use an old, vintage, CRT based <a href="http://lowendmac.com/displays/mac-12-inch-rgb-display.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Apple Color 12&quot; Monitor</a>, which has a resolution of 512 x 384. You would require an adapter, from Apple's monitor connector to VGA, but these are easy enough to find. You may, nowadays, have trouble finding a video card that supports it though.</p> <h3>Use a Lapdock</h3> <p>A Motorola LapDock 100 has a small screen, and accepts HDMI, which is fine so long as your PC has a DVI or HDMI output. Granted it also comes with a keyboard, but it would be useful for testing purposes, and could be used in conjunction with a Raspberry Pi - known as a PiDock. A prefect testing ground for your project, assuming that you are using a Pi. If you are indeed planning on using a Pi, then I would suggest the Motorola Atrix LapDock is a better solution than the Lapdock 100 as it has more and better features. Avoid the Lapdock 500, even though it appears on paper to be more fully featured, as it has some odd quirks that make it difficult to use.</p> <p>To my mind, this is your best option to prove your project, as it would only require a simple set of Python scripts to get it up and running, and should you, thereafter, want to cancel/scrap the project, you can use the Raspberry Pi and Lapdock for some other purpose, and hence save money.</p> <h3>Build a custom solution</h3> <p>If you only need to display five numeric characters then a monitor seems to be overkill, for both a cost and energy efficiency aspect. Much less power hungry, and arguably more of an interesting project would be to create a custom solution, using an Arduino and a Wireless or Ethernet shield (with the appropriate sketch to query the server) and an LED display, be that a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuSkmG-n8fA" rel="nofollow noreferrer">0.94&quot; OLED</a>, or a set of five <a href="https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8530" rel="nofollow noreferrer">6.5&quot; seven segment displays</a>, or anything in between (again depending upon your size requirements).</p> <hr /> <p>If you can hammer down your requirements to be more specific, I can edit my answer accordingly.</p>

1276

2015-11-18T22:42:35.737

|monitors|

<p>I need a small monitor that can display only 5 digits. The monitor needs to show number of visits to my site in real-time - every time someone visits, it needs to increase by one.</p> <p>I thought to create an app, that queries the server every 10 seconds, and checks the new number of visitors.</p> <p>The question: Do you know about a monitor that can be programmed from the command line?</p> <p>All of what I found in Ebay &amp; DealExtreme you need to program the LED monitor by software - you cannot add it to your program.</p>

LED Monitor for 5 digits (connected to USB)

<p>Gargoyle provides exactly what you are looking for.</p> <p>You did not indicate what requirements you had for speed but I would guess that lack of AC Compatibility would not be a deal breaker being how much the overages cost.</p> <p>Gargoyle offers a router that is pre-loaded with their firmware. <a href="https://shop.gargoyle-router.com/products/gargoyle-gigabit-router" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Link to Product</a> The cost is currently $85.00</p> <p>Specifications:</p> <ul> <li>802.11 B/G/N, up to 300Mbps</li> <li>5x 1Gbps Port</li> <li>WPA2, WPA and WEP supported</li> </ul> <p>Here is the area where you can set a quota by IP<a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/AAZFz.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/AAZFz.jpg" alt="Bandwith Quota Interface"></a></p> <p><a href="https://www.gargoyle-router.com/wiki/lib/exe/detail.php?id=screenshots&amp;media=screenshots:14_quotas.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Additional Images of Interface</a></p> <p>I believe that this will meet all your requirements.</p>

1289

2015-11-20T05:37:12.633

|wifi|networking|router|

<p><strong>What routers support per-device Internet bandwidth usage monitoring out of the box?</strong> (I'd prefer not to go down the route of hacking in an aftermarket firmware if I don't have to; <a href="https://superuser.com/questions/243978/can-dd-wrt-or-tomato-keep-track-of-gb-usage-per-billing-period-per-device">[1]</a>,<a href="https://superuser.com/questions/781636/how-do-i-check-the-internet-usage-of-a-particular-device-in-my-room">[2]</a>)</p> <ul> <li>We have a monthly quota that we're constantly in danger of exceeding, and it's very expensive when to go over quota. </li> <li>There are 4 people in the house and three times as many devices, plus guests and their devices. We need to know which people and which devices are causing the most consumption, so we can then determine what to do about it. (Exile offending devices or the offending behaviour-on-device, and/or more equitably split the cost.)</li> <li>Router should be both LAN (4 ports sufficient) and WiFi. The monitoring feature needs to distinguish local traffic from external (internet) traffic. (I'm curious about local traffic stats, but don't need to monitor it. It's the external traffic that costs.)</li> <li>The existing router this will replace typically has 3 wired clients and up to 9 wifi clients. The devices run everything from Windows to Linux to iOS to Android to I-don't-know (DS,wii).</li> </ul> <p><strong>A router feature I would like</strong></p> <p>The Asus AC3200 appears to have a very nice <a href="http://ec2-54-202-251-7.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com/TrafficAnalyzer_Statistic.asp" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Traffic Analyzer Statistics</a> page that shows exactly how many mega/gigabytes each device has used. However, in my experience the RT-N56U <a href="https://superuser.com/questions/1000971/asus-router-reports-different-bandwidth-usage-from-isp">reported stats don't match ISP stats</a>. This makes me leary, and the $300 USD MSRP is not attractive for our small household.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/17VjG.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/17VjG.png" alt="Asus AC3200 per device usage screenshot"></a></p>

Home router that logs per-device internet usage

<p>My opinion is to buy the Intel if you don't care too much about the money.</p> <p>I had an FX-8150, and I can tell you that the 4 additional cores are not worth it. I did a lot of programming and gaming, and the 8 core were indeed useless, 4 would have sufficed.</p> <p>In addition, the AMD 8 cores are REALLY hot. The stock fan was noisy as hell, and I frequently hit 80°C (175°F), with only 1 core at full load (~15% overall). You will need an above average fan.</p> <hr> <p>Now, if you want to buy something cheaper that the Intel, I think it would be better to buy an FX-4350, and not an FX-8350.</p> <ul> <li>Much cheaper</li> <li>Less useless cores</li> <li>A tiny bit higher stock frequency => Very slightly better single core performance.</li> <li>Cooler => easier to overclock</li> </ul> <p>It has the same per-core cache, and the same 8MB L3 cache than the FX-8350. All the other features are the same.</p> <p>I think it will perform better than the FX-8350 in a real situation, unless you really need 8 cores. The fact that it doesn't have an integrated GPU and use an older technology make it much cheaper than the Intel.</p> <p>You can also compromise with an FX-6350. With an FX-4350 or 6350, you can spend the extra money on a water-cooling, this will enable higher overclocking and certainly better performance than a 8350.</p>

1292

2015-11-20T11:38:22.633

|processor|

<p>I'm building a new PC but I'm stuck at one thing. </p> <p><strong>What CPU should I choose if what I do mostly is programming &amp; gaming?</strong></p> <p>I saw opinions here and there saying Intel's CPUs would be good, others saying AMDs, but none seemed to give me a clear answer.</p> <p>The 2 options I would have are <a href="https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel%20Core%20i5-6400%20%40%202.70GHz&amp;id=2578">Intel Skylake, Core i5 6400 2.70GHz</a> &amp; <a href="https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD%20FX-8350%20Eight-Core&amp;id=1780">AMD Vishera, FX-8350 4.0GHz</a>.</p> <p>I'm open to any other recommendations, preferably good price/value ratio.</p>

CPU recommendation: Programming + Gaming

<p>There are very few memory bound tasks for modern CPUs. The key factors to look for are capacity, cost, latency, voltages and speed, usually in that order. It doesn't <em>really</em> matter if a CPU doesn't support a RAM speed. You just need motherboard support and go into BIOS to activate the XMP setting, so that it'll run at the rated speed rather than the SPD speed.</p> <p>Without any further details about your specific workload (which is very important), my general recommendation, besides not to get a Z170 board unless you <strong>really</strong> need the extra IO, Smart Sound, or want to get a K CPU (overclocking), is to get 16 GB RAM straight away. It is very easy to use up 8 GB of RAM if you do more than one thing at a time, or if you're using anything that uses a lot of RAM. The price of DDR4 has dropped as well, so it is reasonably affordable to get 2 x 8 GB kits, in fact, cheaper than 2 x 4 GB kits of DDR3 last year: The G.Skill Ripjaws 4 series has a 2400 MT/s 15-15-15-35 kit for <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231826">$74.99 at newegg.com</a>. G.Skill is one of the largest manufacturers of RAM, and has a reputation for good quality. Their Sniper series generally has slightly more headroom, but it's just going to shave a few seconds off a 10 minute compression or video rendering, to name some memory bound tasks.</p> <p>Basically, "overclocking friendly" just means that the factory clocks are slightly less aggressive, and that you can increase them a bit more while still being stable. The PC* ***** naming is just a different way of naming DDR* ****. The number directly after the PC and DDRs is the version number, and the second number is the bandwidth in MB/s for the PC scheme, and the clock rate in MT/s (twice the real clock rate) for the DDR scheme. Since DDR RAM has a 64 bit wide bus and there are 8 bits in a byte, the PC number is just 8 times the DDR number.</p> <p>It doesn't really matter how you upgrade, just keep in mind that using memory from different kits <em>may</em> be unstable. The chance is low if they are the same model, but it's still there. Since you only have 4 RAM slots though, I'd just get a 2 x 8 GB kit and another when you decide it's not enough. Good luck.</p> <hr> <p><strong>Addendum: On memory timings</strong></p> <p>Memory timings tell the CPU how long to wait before expecting an action to be completed on the memory chip, and in SDRAM (clocked + refreshed RAM), is measured in RAM clock cycles (which is half the DDR number). Memory is arranged in rows, which are divided in to columns.</p> <p>CAS Latency determines the amount of time the CPU to wait after issuing a read command before actually reading the data from the output pin. If this is shorter than the time it takes for the RAM to respond fully, what is read is a voltage that is transitioning between the previous voltage on the output pin and the desired one. This is bad and sometimes causes the computer to crash.</p> <p>But CAS Latency is the full latency only if the right row is already open! If there is no row open, the CPU has to issue an Activation command first, and wait. This is the next number, tRCD, the RAS to CAS delay.</p> <p>The third number is tRP. The Row Precharge time is the time you need to wait between a Precharge command and an Activate command; the time it takes to close a row, if you have the wrong one open.</p> <p>Finally, the last number is basically CAS + tRCD, and then a bit more. It's the minimum amount of time a row can be active. There's a bit more again to let the memory finish passing on the voltage.</p>

1307

2015-11-21T22:48:42.930

|desktop|memory|

<p><strong>For the build</strong> </p> <ul> <li>MSI Z170A GAMING PRO (Z170 3xPCI-E DDR4)</li> <li>Intel i5-6500 3.20GHz 6MB BOX</li> <li>A-DATA 240GB 2,5'' SATA SSD Premier SP550</li> <li>Monitor: Eizo FlexScan S1901 (1280 x 1024)</li> <li>GeForce GTX960 4096MB 128bit OC (Armor 2X)</li> </ul> <p><strong>What memory would you buy, and why?</strong> </p> <p><strong>Specific problems I consider:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Currently sold processors support up to 2133 MT/s (or did I miss some model?), but (I guess) the faster dices work as well (with reduced speed), so maybe ex. 2400 if it has better CAS latency and not much of a price difference?</li> <li>If I choose Kingston, should I go with furry or savage? I read, that savage is more overclocking friendly, but do not know what it means specifically.</li> <li>I see the "PC4-17000" or "PC3-17000" often on dices sold, but on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIMM#Speeds" rel="noreferrer">wikipedia</a>, the PC3-17000 is under DDR3 section? </li> <li>What should be the upgrade scheme? Incremental (one 8GB dice per year, for most dice 'recycling') or batch (2*4GB, than 4*4GB, than 4*8 GB to gain maximum of dual channel)?</li> </ul> <p><strong>[EDIT]</strong></p> <p>My use scenarios are: programming in couple of IDE opened simultanously (60% time), 100+ Mb data analysis (10%) and games like Fallout 4 (30%).</p>

DDR4 memory - which one to choose

<p>I finally went for a WD MyPassport Ultra 3Tb for a reasonable price (~160$) and I can say it works very nicely and fast enough for the OSX Time Machine.</p> <p>I would definitely recommend that external hard disk for doing backups of your machine (OSX TimeMachine but surely will be good for Windows machines as well).</p>

1308

2015-11-22T00:40:38.653

|hard-disk|thunderbolt|backup|

<p>I am looking for an external harddisk for backup my MacBook Pro (with Time Machine) and I saw there are already "packed" configurations (combos) like theses:</p> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.lacie.com/ch/de/products/mobile-storage/rugged-thunderbolt/" rel="nofollow"><strong>LaCie Rugged</strong> Thunderbolt</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.transcend-info.com/Products/No-678" rel="nofollow"><strong>Transcend</strong> StoreJet 300 portable storage for Mac</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.buffalotech.com/products/portable-hard-drives/portable-hard-drives/ministation-thunderbolt" rel="nofollow"><strong>Buffalo</strong> MiniStation™ Thunderbolt</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1240#Tab3" rel="nofollow"><strong>WD</strong> PassPort Pro</a></li> </ul> <p>They all seems to be in Thunderbolt Version 1, and I found nothing that was Thunderbolt Version 2.</p> <p>Because with these combos I cannot really choose the hard drive inside (I tend to prefer the 7200 rpm) and all the above seems to be in 5400 (or unspecified) I am also interested for a hard drive case which has the same features (SATA 3Gb) and Thunderbolt V2.</p> <p>Where I live (Switzerland) I found only this reference <a href="https://thunderbolttechnology.net/product/delock-42490-25-thunderbolt%E2%84%A2-sata-drive" rel="nofollow"><strong>Delock</strong> 42490</a> but it seems to be in Thunderbolt V1 only.</p> <p>The question I am asking : is there any hard drive case (or combos) with Thunderbolt V2 interface?</p> <p>Optionally can you recommends some alternatives by answering these questions:</p> <ul> <li>Is USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt V1 performance enough for backing up 500GB with Time Machine?</li> <li>Is a 5400 rpm hard drive fast enough (if I do not want to let my computer making the backup for the whole night)</li> </ul>

Harddisk with Thunderbolt V2 - Backup with Time Machine (OS X)

<p>I've had good success with the following card on Mac:</p> <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBlBR9s82JU" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Diamond VC500</a></p> <p>It has Linux support as well according to the link, but I have not tested it. Here are the specifications:</p> <ul> <li>USB 2.0</li> <li>Supports NTSC and PAL</li> <li>Captures Composite RCA or S-Video input</li> <li>640 x 480 @30FPS NTSC video capture</li> <li>720 x 576 @25FPS PAL video capture</li> <li>Included Software: Videoglide for Mac OS, EZGrabber for Windows</li> </ul> <p><strong>References</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.diamondmm.com/vc500mac-faqs.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VC500 MAC FAQs</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.diamondmm.com/vc500-quick-installation-guide.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VC500 Quick Installation Guide</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.driverguide.com/driver/detail.php?driverid=1803090" rel="nofollow noreferrer">EZGrabber Video Capture Driver</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.echofx.com/videoglide.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">VideoGlide for Mac OSX</a></li> </ul>

1315

2015-11-22T20:49:01.177

|linux|video|video-capture|

<p>We are putting together an e-sports team at college and among the games we play. There's Project M on the Wii and Melee on the GameCube, so we need a CVBS/RCA video capture card to record and upload our gameplay.</p> <p>So far we have tried with an Encore and a GreenLeaf video capture card without any success. We were unable to find any decent USB/PCI/PCIe capture cards that support this kind of input. What is a good hardware choice for this? It must be compatible with Linux.</p>

What's a good RCA capture card for streaming media?

<h2><a href="http://www.dell.com/au/p/inspiron-15-5558-laptop/pd?oc=y510451au&amp;model_id=inspiron-15-5558-laptop" rel="nofollow">Dell Inspiron 15 5000</a></h2> <h2>Price: 1200 AUD w/o discounts (-)</h2> <h2>Score: 85.7% (B+)¹</h2> <ul> <li>8GB RAM <strong>+</strong></li> <li>1TB 5400RPM HDD <strong>+</strong></li> <li>i7 5500U <strong>++</strong></li> <li>Geforce 920M 4GB DDR3 <strong>+</strong></li> <li>Screen is 15.6" <strong>+</strong></li> <li>Screen is 768p <strong>-</strong></li> <li>802.11ac WiFi <strong>++</strong></li> <li>100 Mbps RJ45 Ethernet Port <strong>+</strong></li> <li>"7 hours of battery life" -<em>Dell</em> <strong>+</strong></li> <li>0.94 inches thick (IMO, that's portable) <strong>+</strong></li> <li>Disk Drive <strong>+</strong></li> </ul> <p>¹ Score is calculated based on (number of pluses ÷ number of pluses &amp; minuses combined)</p>

1320

2015-11-23T08:40:48.693

|laptop|

<p>I'm looking for a laptop for light school work (light web browsing up to 20 tabs, word processing, rare photoshop, etc)</p> <p>It should have</p> <ul> <li>At least 8 GB of RAM, upgradable if possible</li> <li>At least 1 TB of storage, 64 GB if SSD (<strong>edit:</strong> 128 GB SSD is preferable to either)</li> <li>At least 6 hours of battery life while web browsing (<strong>edit:</strong> brightness should be visible outside without direct sunlight), with 8 hours being preferable</li> <li>802.11n WiFi, either 2.4 GHz or both 2.4 and 5 GHz</li> </ul> <p>Nice to haves are</p> <ul> <li>Dual storage (SSD + HDD)</li> <li>Preinstalled OS (Windows or Linux) with no Secure Boot</li> <li>An ODD</li> <li>Ethernet port</li> <li>GT3 graphics (Intel Iris/Intel Iris Pro)</li> <li>Screen >15" and full HD (1080p) resolution</li> <li>Should be portable</li> </ul> <p>The newer the CPU is, the better. If it is not possible to find such a laptop within the budget I am willing to extend it up to 1400 AUD.</p>

Laptop for school under 1200 AUD (incl. shipping and tax)

<p>I recommend a HP micro server. You can see a similar question <a href="https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/1745/low-cost-nas-with-easy-os-installation/1755#1755">here</a>.</p> <p>As a micro server, it supports 24/7 work though it consumes more power than those NASs.</p> <p>If you just need some private online storage, router with a high speed usb port + usb HDD/Flashdisk can meet your requirements.</p> <p>One recommended router is ASUS <a href="https://www.asus.com/us/Networking/RTAC56U/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">AC56U</a>,adding a usb HDD, it can be easily used as a private online storage.</p>

1324

2015-11-23T17:33:04.013

|nas|

<p>Background: I am looking to upgrade our home's laptop and would like the next one to have an SSD. Due to the prices of SSDs, I don't expect to store all of our pictures and movies on the internal drive, so ...</p> <h2>Main mission:</h2> <p>I am looking for network-accessible storage to be used as the primary home for our family's electronic pictures and music. I am also going to be getting an external (USB) drive to create backup copies of these files, so this NAS device does not <em>need</em> redundancy (either locally with RAID or via the Cloud). Our current combined file usage is ~245 Gb, but I would like to plan on a few years of growth. I don't need the cheapest solution, but I'm not looking to spend more than I need to (see: new laptop and external drive). Current WiFi is 802.11n but expect to move to 802.11ac.</p> <h2>Requirements:</h2> <ul> <li>visible on the network (it can plug in to the WiFi router to become present on the network; it does not need to provide its own WiFi) -- provides a mappable share for Windows</li> <li>at least 500 Gb capacity (provided by the supporting hard drives, obviously)</li> </ul> <h2>Nice-to-haves:</h2> <ul> <li>supports (or comes with) SSDs -- to help with power consumption and wear</li> <li>low-power (as I envision this thing being on 24x7)</li> <li>simple to manage (I work with computers enough already during the day)</li> <li>reliable (who doesn't want it to be?)</li> <li>expandable capacity (e.g. two bays, with only one populated initially) - to allow for easy online growth</li> <li>not be a bottleneck (given that we're transferring over WiFi, I don't expect this to be an issue)</li> </ul> <h2>No-need-fors:</h2> <ul> <li>printer sharing</li> <li>streaming</li> <li>3rd-party copying/backup software (I have my own solution based on rsync)</li> <li>virtualization support</li> </ul> <h2>Solutions that I am aware of:</h2> <ul> <li>RPi + FreeNAS: I'm more <em>capable</em> than <em>willing</em> to DIY this project; the cost savings aren't enough for me at this point. This idea wins "points" on being naturally lower in power consumption, though.</li> <li><a href="https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/" rel="noreferrer">Synology</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.drobo.com/" rel="noreferrer">Drobo</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.netgear.com/home/products/connected-storage/readynas.aspx#tab-overview" rel="noreferrer">Netgear</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/nuc/overview.html" rel="noreferrer">Intel NUC</a></li> </ul> <p>I found a related question -- <a href="https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/20/what-options-are-available-for-cheap-nas-devices-that-allows-to-put-two-hard-dri">What options are available for cheap NAS devices that allows to put two hard drives in RAID 1?</a> -- and have slightly different requirements:</p> <ul> <li>I don't need encryption (storing pictures and music)</li> <li>I don't need RAID-1 (though not opposed to the feature)</li> <li>it doesn't need to be the cheapest option</li> <li>I have no need for cloud-based installation</li> </ul> <p>The common elements to the previous question are only: reliability and energy-efficiency. JohnB's excellent answer to that question is a <a href="https://www.qnap.com/i/useng/product/model.php?II=155" rel="noreferrer">QNAP TS-231</a>. From what I see, it would meet my main requirements, but I'm curious if there are any other good solutions for my set of requirements.</p>

Looking for a desktop NAS to be the primary storage for pictures and music

<p>Using eXtreme Outer Vision's eXtreme Power Supply calculator, the power consumption of your build comes to about 390 W. With some overclocking, this becomes 470 W. Any decent 500 - 550 W PSU should handle the load fine for several years with no problems, even if you do overclock a bit later.</p> <p>I personally won't recommend the Corsair VS series, as it uses poor quality capacitors. Here are my recommendations from the site you posted.</p> <p><strong><a href="http://www.x-kom.pl/p/222686-zasilacz-komputerowy-antec-550w-vpf550-ec.html" rel="nofollow">Antec 550W VPF550 EC</a></strong></p> <p>The Antec VPF line is a relatively new series manufactured by Delta Electronics. It has Japanese capacitors and a 24 month warranty. Currently it is priced at 249 zł. Non modular, but that isn't much of a problem for lower capacity PSUs, it also has 80 + Bronze certification.</p> <p><strong><a href="http://www.x-kom.pl/p/250429-zasilacz-komputerowy-xfx-core-ts-550w.html" rel="nofollow">XFX Core TS 550W</a></strong></p> <p>The XFX TS series is a budget series manufactured by Seasonic (one of the best manufacturers of PSUs out there). It also has Japanese capacitors and a 60 month warranty (that's right, 5 years). It's one of my favorite recommendations: High quality at a relatively low price. Again, has 80+ Bronze certification and is non modular.</p> <p>I took some time to shop around on some other Polish sites (which was a breeze as soon as I figured out what the word for Power Supply was), and I found the TS selling slightly cheaper at <a href="http://www.komputronik.pl/product/120162/Sprzet_komputerowy_/Podzespoly/XFX_Core_550W_120mm_80_SLI_PSU.html" rel="nofollow">komputronik.pl</a>. Overall, I think both PSUs will fit your needs, and it is up to you to choose the one you like better. Good luck.</p>

1339

2015-11-24T19:03:05.507

|power-supply|

<p>I'm planning to build PC from following parts:</p> <blockquote> <p>Processor: Intel i5-6500 </p> <p>Cooling: Corsair Hydro Series H55 </p> <p>Graphics: Gigabyte GeForce GTX970 Gaming G1 </p> <p>HDD: WD 1TB 64MB BLUE </p> <p>RAM: Crucial 8192MB 1600MHz CL11 </p> <p>Motherboard: ASUS H170-PLUS D3</p> <p>Case: Fractal Design Define R5 Black Pearl</p> </blockquote> <p>Now this almost exhausted by budget. I am looking for a durable power supply for this PC, that wouldn't make me go bankrupt. Bonus points if you can find it <a href="http://www.x-kom.pl/">on this site(in polish)</a></p>

What power supply for this PC?

<p>The AMD R9 390 is slightly cheaper than the GTX 970 (£185), and offers similar or better performance in comparison to the Nvidia card you were showing. As a owner of this card myself, I am very pleased with it. Just keep in mind that if your Power Supply is not over 600 watts, you should choose an Nvidia GTX 970, as they use less power. Figuring the wattage of your PSU is easy, just take a look at the side of the unit.</p> <p>A link to a relatively cheap R9 390 is <a href="http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125792&amp;cm_re=r9_390-_-14-125-792-_-Product" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here - this</a> card has a slightly different cooler than the one I got for mine, but has the same overall design. It costs £185.</p> <p>A link to a cheaper GTX 970 is <a href="http://www.newegg.com/global/uk/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487088&amp;cm_re=gtx_970-_-14-487-088-_-Product" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here -</a> again, this card is slightly less powerful but uses less power. After putting it in your cart, it should cost £192.</p>

1344

2015-11-25T08:58:14.283

|graphics-cards|

<p>I bought Assassin's Creed: Syndicate last night and found that my graphics card was <em>really</em> struggling with it. The card itself is at least 2 years old (I bought it with my first paycheck in 2013) and was second hand/refurbished even then. It's had a good life, but I'm ready to give it a viking funeral.</p> <p>My current hardware specs are as follows:</p> <ul> <li>Intel i5-i3570 3.4ghz (can be overclocked to 4ghz)</li> <li>24GB DDR3 RAM @ 1333mhz (don't ask)</li> <li>2TB Seagate Internal HDD (Not sure if that is entirely relevant - disk speeds aren't as fast as my SSD but I don't want to put something as beefy as AC on an SSD)</li> <li>Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H motherboard (<a href="http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4140#ov" rel="noreferrer">http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4140#ov</a>)</li> <li>Can't remember exact model of the PSU but I believe it is 700W.. it is, at lowest, 500W.</li> </ul> <p>And, of course, the nvidia 650 Ti with 2GB graphics memory.</p> <p>I'd ideally like to play at a steady 40+fps @ 1920x1080 on at least medium settings - right now the game is pretty choppy in terms of FPS especially in some scenes.</p> <p>I understand, of course, that the AC games are known for their.. lack of optimisation :(</p> <p>I'd be willing to stretch to about £250, which is <em>just under</em> the cost of <a href="http://www.ebuyer.com/663848-msi-gtx-970-gaming-twin-frozr-v-4gb-gddr5-dual-dvi-hdmi-gtx-970-gaming-4g" rel="noreferrer">this card</a> but anything more would be pushing it.</p> <p>Ebuyer links would be preferred as they do next day delivery ;-)</p>

Upgrading from a nVidia 650 TI to something more beefy

<p>A friend bought an <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/VX239H-W-Widescreen-Multimedia-Monitor-1920x1080/dp/B00GGQFOVW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1448551402&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=ASUS%20VX239W" rel="nofollow">Asus VX239W</a> for a similar use case, and after seeing it a couple of times, I'm considering it too. Great image quality and overall screen for the price.</p> <p>But buy it in <a href="http://www.amazon.es/ASUS-VX239W-Monitor-1920-blanco/dp/B00GGQFOVW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1448551547&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=ASUS%20VX239W" rel="nofollow">Spain</a> for example, much better price considering the exchange rate.</p>

1345

2015-11-25T09:06:12.983

|monitors|

<p>I currently have a 24" BenQ XL2430T 144hz monitor. I am looking for a secondary 1080p monitor that will be used primarily for watching videos and other non-gaming related tasks. I will be doing all my gaming on my main monitor so a fast response rate is not neccessary.</p> <p>I would however, like something bright and colourful with an IPS panel with preferably a black bezel and stand. 16:9 ratio is a must for me and the mointor must have a DVI or HDMI connection (preferably both!). I always use my headphones so built-in speakers is not needed.</p> <p>So far I have been looking at <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/LG-24MP57VQ-Monitor-1920x1080-HDMI/dp/B00UNBALBY/ref=pd_cp_147_1?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=1JEE8QWBBKTEE9KGY6NK" rel="noreferrer">LG 24MB35PH</a> and the <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-G246HLBBID-24-inch-Monitor-EcoDisplay/dp/B008I39WXC/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1448442078&amp;sr=8-6&amp;keywords=24%22%20computer%20monitor%20ips" rel="noreferrer">Acer G246-LBBID</a>. If the recommendation was good enough I would not mind going slightly over the £150 budget. Thanks</p>

Secondary monitor for under £150

<p>Your computer's RAM cannot be significantly upgraded. <a href="http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/compatible-upgrade-for/HP-Compaq/presario-sr5710f" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Crucial's memory finder reports</a>, and <a href="http://support.hp.com/us-en/product/Compaq-Presario-SR5000-Desktop-PC-series/3823953/model/3867466/document/c01616202/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">HP's support page agrees</a> that your computer is limited to 4 GB of RAM. Further, you appear to be running a 32-bit version of Windows, which for technical reasons is limited to about 3.25 GB of RAM.</p> <p>If you really want to do this, I recommend figuring out which of the two sticks of memory in your computer is the 1 GB one, and replacing it with a <a href="http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/presario-sr5710f/CT927931" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Crucial 2 GB PC2-6400</a> stick for $27. I don't have experience with this particular product, but I've had good luck with Crucial memory upgrades for older computers, and importantly, they guarantee compatibility.</p> <p>If you upgrade, you'll also want to switch to a 64-bit operating system to get access to all your RAM. Instructions on doing so are beyond the scope of this site, but you may be able to get useful information on <a href="https://superuser.com/">SuperUser</a>. </p>

1361

2015-11-26T05:07:43.267

|gaming|pc|desktop|memory|

<p>I have a Windows Vista Home Premium PC. It needs 2 new RAM chips, but I do not know what I should get. Does anyone know what is under $100 and is really good?</p> <p>More PC info</p> <p>Windows Vista Home Premium, Compaq Presario SR5710F, Service Pack 2, 3 GB memory, 250 GB Hard Drive, AMD Anthlon X2 4450e Dual-Core processor,</p> <p>I do a lot of gaming on this PC, but I really want less expensive, good card(s). I do know it wasn't originally built for gaming, but I can't even use it until the RAM/memory cards are replaced</p>

What should I buy? (RAM Chips)

<p>It appears that the Be Quiet 500W Straight Power 10 is a reasonably priced very quiet PSU - it is 10.7 dB loud on 50% load and 15.6 db at 100%, due to enormous, for PSU standards, 135 mm fan and very low max speed which is 1200 rpm^{<a href="http://www.bequiet.com/en/powersupply/527" rel="nofollow">1</a>}. It's currently <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA68V21E0645" rel="nofollow">$9 above</a> the budget, but I think it's definitely worth it.</p>

1368

2015-11-26T13:30:06.780

|desktop|power-supply|quiet-computing|

<p>Currently I plan buying the components below:</p> <ul> <li>MSI Z170A GAMING PRO (Z170 3xPCI-E DDR4)</li> <li>Intel i5-6500 3.20GHz 6MB with 212 EVO</li> <li>A-DATA 240GB 2,5'' SATA SSD Premier SP550</li> <li>GeForce GTX960 4096MB 128bit OC (Armor 2X)</li> <li>Fractal Design Define S case</li> <li>4 SHIRU 140mm (8.9 db) fans</li> </ul> <p>I <a href="http://outervision.com/power-supply-calculator" rel="noreferrer">calculated</a> that a 430W - 500W PSU is optimal. What PSU would you recommend? I'm specifically interested in low noise.</p> <p>Budget: 100$</p>

The quietest PSU under 100 USD

<p>I recommend the <a href="http://www.cclonline.com/product/179361/P1-550G-TS3X/Power-Supplies/XFX-TS-Series-P1-550G-TS3X-550W-Power-Supply-Unit-Easy-Rail-Plus-with-Full-Wired-Cables/PSU0837/" rel="nofollow">XFX TS 550W 80+ Gold (P1-550G-TS3X)</a>, which currently sells for £55 at CCL online. It is a non modular unit manufactured by Seasonic and rated 80+ Gold. Crucially, there are 2 6+2 pin PCIe connectors and another 2 6 pin connectors, for a total of 4 PCIe connectors; therefore it will not only support your current 970, it will also be capable of handling (subject to capacity limitations) another GTX 970 in SLI, should you choose to upgrade. It also has a 5 year warranty.</p>

1372

2015-11-26T19:23:50.403

|power-supply|

<p>Bought a GTX 970 yesterday - just arrived, turns out I don't have the connectors required. Tried to bodge it with a 4-pin molex to 8-pin connector, that doesn't fit either.</p> <p>Any ideas on a cheap-ish (max £60) power supply that could power this GTX? I have no idea about these connectors. I've found <a href="http://www.ebuyer.com/713453-seasonic-s12-ii-620w-80-bronze-certified-psu-jap-caps-12cm-ss-620gb" rel="noreferrer">this one</a> but I'm not sure it has the connectors I need - all I know is that I need at least one 8-pin and one 6-pin (not sure of the differently terminologies here).</p>

Power Supply for nvidia GTX 970

<p><strong>EDIT:</strong> Another official Cherry MX Blue RGB option has become available recently, the Cooler Master <a href="http://amzn.to/2m0YfBE" rel="nofollow noreferrer">MasterKeys Pro L/S</a>. This keyboard is not exactly new, but I ignored it for some time after the Cherry MX Blue versions were originally delayed. The keyboard is currently out and available for anyone looking at options besides the Corsair keyboard.</p> <p><s><strong>EDIT:</strong> Since I first wrote this answer, <strong><em>Corsair has surprisingly brought back the <a href="http://amzn.to/1S5VxmH" rel="nofollow noreferrer">K70 RGB</a> in Cherry MX Blue switches.</em></strong> They were available on Amazon a few days ago, but quickly sold out.</s> Unfortunately, it seems these aren't going to be restocked, meaning the Strafe RGB is likely the best option for Cherry MX Blue.</p> <p>The <a href="http://amzn.com/B014W1YLAM" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Corsair Strafe RGB</a> is available in Cherry MX Blue switches, and is a great option if you cannot wait for the K70 RGB Blue. The reviews for this keyboard have improved over the last few months, and the one I tried had no problems.</p> <p><s>One of the previous answers mentioned the G.Skill KM780 keyboard, and the <a href="http://amzn.com/B0186W6PGQ" rel="nofollow noreferrer">KM780R RGB</a> is now available for preorder, unless Amazon is lying to us.</s> The RGB version of this keyboard probably will never be available for Cherry MX Blue switches. The Amazon pages for the KM780R MX Blue RGB no longer exist.</p> <p>There is also the <a href="http://amzn.to/1WNWaJw" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Poseidon Z RGB</a> keyboard, which is relatively cheap for an RGB keyboard. This keyboard does <strong>NOT</strong> have genuine Cherry MX switches (Kalih Blue), and I would only buy this as a last option, because some complain about the switches breaking after awhile of use.</p>

1378

2015-11-27T10:19:32.270

|keyboards|

<p>I'm looking for a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_(keyboards)#Cherry_switches_in_consumer_keyboards_.28circa_mid_2016.29" rel="nofollow">Cherry MX Blue</a> keyboard with RGB backlighting. I'm using a <a href="http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-blackwidow-2013" rel="nofollow">Razer BlackWidow 2013</a> first revision, and I love the switches on it. I have tried <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_(keyboards)#Cherry_switches_in_consumer_keyboards_.28circa_mid_2016.29" rel="nofollow">MX Brown</a> switches, but I'm not happy with the click.</p> <p>It's not for the near future, so if you know keyboards that are going to launch with it be sure to add it. I have an UNLIMITED budget for this keyboard.</p> <p>It's going to be used for games, but mostly for the typing of stuff. I'm a heavy typer so I would like to get one where the legs don't pop off.</p>

Cherry MX Blue mechanical keyboard with RGB backlighting

<p>I recommend the <a href="http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=PS-HCG750M" rel="nofollow">Antec High Current Gamer HCG-750M</a>, a 750W, semi modular, 80+ Bronze PSU made by Seasonic. This will support any single GPU system and most dual GPU systems, with some light overclocking (up to GTX 980 or R9 380), though two of the higher end AMD GPUs will require additional capacity. The power supply is the <a href="http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&amp;op=Story7&amp;reid=357" rel="nofollow">same platform as the M2II Evo</a>, a very high quality PSU.</p> <p>80+ certification measures the efficiency of the PSU. Silver and Gold PSUs are a few percent more efficent that Bronze PSUs, which are at least 82-85% efficent, depending on load.</p>

1400

2015-11-28T13:37:24.773

|pc|power-supply|

<p>I am currently under the dilemma of choosing the right PSU for this build:</p> <ul> <li>CPU: <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/88191/Intel-Core-i5-6600K-Processor-6M-Cache-up-to-3_90-GHz" rel="nofollow">Intel Skylake, Core i5 6600K 3.5GHz</a> </li> <li>RAM: HyperX Fury Black 8GB DDR4 2133MHz CL14 Dual Channel Kit </li> <li>Motherboard: <a href="http://www.msi.com/product/motherboard/H170A-PC-MATE.html" rel="nofollow">MSI H170A PC Mate</a></li> <li>Some SSD + HDD, not sure at the moment how much (irrelevant)</li> <li>Water cooling for the CPU (have not decided yet).</li> </ul> <p>My budget is around $120-$130.</p> <p>I must note that I will also get a GPU in the future, and I want the PSU to work <em>with upgrades</em>, instead of replacing it.</p> <p><em>Also I have to ask this:</em> What is with the bronze/gold/platinum labels on the PSUs?</p> <p>Any help is greatly appreciated!</p>

Power Supply For my future build

<p>The <a href="http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/yoga-laptop-series/yoga-3-pro-laptop/" rel="nofollow">Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro</a> will be perfect for you. It only costs $699.99. Features it has:</p> <ul> <li>3200 x 1800 display</li> <li>13.3 inch screen</li> <li>Intel Core M CPU</li> <li>256/512GB SSD</li> <li>Good battery life</li> <li>Backlit keyboard</li> <li>8GB of RAM</li> </ul> <p>Another device that fits your price range is the <a href="http://store.hp.com/us/en/pdp/Laptops/hp-spectre-x360---13-4110dx-%28energy-star%29" rel="nofollow">HP Spectre x360</a>. This is slightly more at $799.99 ($100 more than the Yoga 3 Pro). This is the major differences between this and the Yoga 3 Pro:</p> <ul> <li>Lower resolution screen (1080p)</li> <li>Better CPU (5th Gen Core i5)</li> </ul>

1401

2015-11-28T15:01:41.280

|laptop|tablet|

<p>I'm looking for a laptop/tablet with the following abilities &amp; specifications:</p> <ul> <li><p>Ability to play lower-intensity games like <em>Civilization V</em> and <em>Planetary Annihilation</em> (confirmation from someone who has actually played those game (s) on that particular model is a bonus)</p></li> <li><p>Detachable (e.g. MS Surface Book) or folding keyboard (e.g. Lenovo Yoga). Full keyboard is a plus, but if someone makes a convincing case for one with a keyboard like the Surface Pro, I'd consider it</p></li> <li><p>Minimum of 11" screen (12"+ preferred), minimum of Full HD, prefer 1440p-ish</p></li> <li><p>Good battery life (5+ hours minimum)</p></li> <li><p>Microsoft Windows OS (full edition, not Windows 8 RT)</p></li> <li><p>Full size Solid state drive, minimum capacity of 128GB, prefer 256+</p></li> <li><p>Cost of $600-800 preferred, max of $1000</p></li> </ul> <p>Not looking for a high-end 'gaming' tablet, just one that will play videos and lower intensity games reasonably well with a nice screen and good battery life. DisplayPort output is a plus but not required. Not particular to any hardware manufacturer, but it cannot be Android-based or an Apple.</p>

Convertible tablet/laptop for multimedia/light gaming

<p>I would say you would be better off building a new computer. Here are the reasons:</p> <ul> <li>Your CPU is probably only good for one more upgrade then it can't go any further. With a new build, you could choose a socket that you could upgrade possibly 2 or 3 more times, depending on how often and what performance you desired</li> <li>As you mentioned, your computer uses DDR2 RAM. DDR3 and DDR4 RAM are much faster and will be avaliable for future upgrades.</li> <li>A 650W power supply should be sufficient for awhile whether you upgrade or build a newer machine, provided it is of good quality</li> <li>Your current build only has a PCIe 1.1 or 2.0 slot. From what I have read (I'm not 100% on this), a PCIe 3.0 card will work in a PCIe 2.0 slot without being slower except for very high end configurations such as the highest end cards or multi-card configurations such as SLI or Crossfire. Still, upgrading would provide you the option of upgrading the graphics several times.</li> </ul> <p>As someone else pointed out, the only parts worth saving are the power supply, optical drive, and hard drive. The case would depend on how easy it would be to put new parts in the case.</p> <p>My recommendation then would be to build a budget system, picking out the processor/chipset you want to keep and making sure the motherboard is something that will be good for awhile, as that is the component that is the biggest pain to upgrade. <em>However</em>, if you thought just upgrading the graphics card would get you by for awhile, then you could buy that as most cards will probably work in the system. Then you could take the card into a new build down the road when you thought you were ready. Keep in mind that you are more likely to bottleneck somewhere else in this instance, with a modern GPU but much older CPU and RAM.</p> <p><strong>EDIT: In response to the question update:</strong></p> <p>Motherboard and processor: You first need to decide on which socket you want to use. There are <a href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/what-are-intels-lga-processor-sockets/" rel="nofollow">a couple viable options</a>: LGA 1150, LGA 1151, and LGA 2011. Of these, LGA 2011 is older, but has seen a recent update (LGA 2011-v3, which is <em>not</em> compatible with the older LGA 2011 socket); LGA 1150 is the least advanced but the most available; and LGA 1151 is the newest, but also more expensive. The good news is that virtually any modern Core i5 or i7, and a good amount of Core i3s, that fit these sockets would be faster than a Q6600. As far as future upgrades:</p> <ul> <li><p>LGA 1150 will probably see the fewest future upgrades, both to chipsets and faster processors. It uses DDR3 memory exclusively, and also has the fewest USB 3.0 and 3.1 compatible motherboards. However, most motherboards range from $50-200, with a significant portion under $150, and has the most motherboards to choose from (211 on newegg.com, for example). </p> <ul> <li>Processors that fit this socket as good as a i7-4790: i7-4790K, i7-5775C, i7-4770K. <em>Note: some high-end i5s, such as the i5-4690K, when overclocked can beat a stock i7-4790 in performance or be so close as to be indistinguishable</em></li> </ul></li> <li><p>LGA 2011 is a more narrow spectrum of processors, and more high end. Advantages include DDR4 memory, dual full-speed PCIe 3.0x16 lanes on some models, and 6-core processors with large caches. However, many of these advantages are more noticeable in rendering applications rather than gaming, or only in very specific cases. Additionally, most of these processors carry high price tags, and there aren't really entry level processors in this group (the cheapest retails for over $300)</p> <ul> <li>Processors that meet your requirements: i7-5960X, 5930K, and 5820K.</li> </ul></li> <li><p>LGA 1151 provides probably the most future upgrades, provides DDR4 memory support, a fairly large selection of motherboards, and much more ubiquitous support for features like USB 3.1. Downsides are that the motherboards are predominately slightly more expensive (more between $150-200), but they do offer more entry-level processors, such as i3 and i5 processors for between $120-220.</p> <ul> <li>Processors that meet your requirements: i7-6700K, i7-6700 (limited selection of processors currently, more likely to come).</li> </ul></li> </ul> <p>Graphics: According to <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html" rel="nofollow">this GPU hierarchy</a>, The lowest end card that is an upgrade that is nVIDIA is either a GTX 660 Ti or a GTX 760, but neither are readily available (old). The best value in a low end nVIDIA card is a GTX 950, which will run you about $135-150. An integrated Intel card <em>could</em> provide you with more performance, but it wouldn't be much of an increase over your current card and even the cheapest dedicated GPUs avaliable now would outclass it.</p> <h1>Conclusion</h1> <p>You have two routes that I see as viable both now and longer-term: save a little money now and go with LGA 1150, or go with LGA 1151 and have a longer viable lifespan. Keep in mind that you can still build a really really good machine on LGA 1150 that will still produce impressive gaming results for years, but if you will want the possibility to stay with the latest and greatest, LGA 1151 is probably a safer bet.</p> <p><strong>Specifics</strong></p> <ul> <li>Virtually any modern motherboard supports at least 8GB of RAM - indeed, I don't know of any that use either of the chipsets that support less than <em>16</em>. Basically all of them at least have a single PCIe x16 slot, which is sufficient for basically any graphics card, provided there is physical room in the case and on the board. Also, 6 SATA ports and 6 USB ports (counting connections for a front case header) are virtually standard, as is a 100MBps Ethernet connection. As far as SD slots go, virtually any will support them (usually through a SATA connection), but you'll have to be such a reader separately. With that said, I've picked a board that meets your requirements:</li> </ul> <p><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128841" rel="nofollow">Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI</a> ($129.99). It supports: </p> <ul> <li><p>LGA 1151 (Core i7-6700K)</p></li> <li><p>64GB Dual Channel DDR4 RAM (4 slots). Can be overclocked up to 3466 MHz.</p></li> <li><p>Three PCIe x16 slots (supports 3-way Crossfire and 2-way SLI)</p></li> <li><p>6 SATA 6Gb/s connectors, 3 SATA Express</p></li> <li><p>6x USB ports on the back (mix of 2.0, 3.0, and 3.1). also includes 4 USB headers for the front and a USB Type-C port on the back.</p></li> <li><p>10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet</p></li> <li><p>Front panel audio header (headphone/mic)</p></li> </ul> <p>Keep in mind I don't have specific experience with any LGA 1151 board - I picked this one because it was fairly well reviewed and met all your requirements at a decent price.</p>

1407

2015-11-29T03:49:07.823

|gaming|motherboard|desktop|

<p>I'm currently running an <a href="http://h20564.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=c01183906">HP Pavilion m9047c</a>, except that I've replaced the video card with a <a href="http://www.diamondmm.com/4870pe5512-diamond-amd-ati-video-graphics-card.html">Diamond Radeon HD 4870</a>, and upgraded the power supply to (I believe) 650 watts. I never added any RAM over the 3GB it came with, due to the 4GB limitation of the 32-bit OS. This video card has provided solid performance so far, but newer games are starting to demand much more than it can deliver.<br> Add to that the fact that support for Vista has ended (now I can't even get updates for Chrome anymore), and I know it's time for some upgrades.</p> <p>I want to build a new desktop system, mostly for gaming (including modding and emulation), with a fair amount of general Internet use as well - shopping, YouTube, maybe the occasional video chat, etc.<br> I don't anticipate doing any video/sound editing, but might retouch photos now and then. I may also want to delve into some minor programming and/or web development.</p> <p>I don't have a specific overall budget set, but my plan is to start with a base system - the lowest price possible without being inferior to my current machine - then making subsequent upgrades to improve performance (in particular, the CPU and GPU will both be upgraded as soon as funds allow).</p> <p>For the motherboard, however, I would like to get something that I can run with for not just those imminent upgrades, but for several years to come.</p> <h3>Requirements:</h3> <ul> <li><p>Able to support all hardware listed in the "Recommended" system requirements for Fallout 4:</p> <ul> <li>Intel Core i7 4790 3.6 GHz, or better (doesn't necessarily have to be the LGA1150 socket, if it can socket a better Intel CPU. I've been out of the marketplace for so long, I don't know how to compare two CPUs unless they're identical except for clock speed, or same architecture + more cores = better. That, and Intel is better than not-Intel. :-)</li> <li>8 GB RAM (or more, as much as possible up to the point at which this begins to significantly impact price). High speed for RAM is also important.</li> <li>NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB (honestly, I'd like for it to support a GPU that I spend $400-500 on, 2-3 years from now, as well)</li> </ul> <p>Note that I will not be starting off with that CPU &amp; GPU; they're my short-term upgrade goals.</p></li> <li>Nothing about the motherboard makes it inferior to the IPIBL-LA board in my old Pavilion. In particular, the Pavilion has 6 SATA connectors, 6 USB ports, 100Mb/s Ethernet, a headphone/mic jack, and an SD-Card slot. But I don't care about the PS/2 mouse &amp; keyboard ports, surround audio, 1394, or SPDIF jacks.</li> </ul> <h3>Optional:</h3> <ul> <li>Supports SLI</li> <li>Gigabit Ethernet</li> <li>More USB ports</li> <li>Whatever other bells &amp; whistles the kids are putting on their motherboards these days</li> <li>Cool-looking - I may get a windowed case</li> </ul> <h3>Not Required:</h3> <ul> <li>Integrated video (except if a board with integrated video that moderately outperforms the Radeon HD 4870, costs <em>less</em> than the sum of a comparable GPU and a similar board with basic/no integrated video - but this seems unlikely)</li> <li>Wi-Fi</li> <li>Bluetooth</li> <li>Small Form Factor. I am planning to get a nice, roomy case so I can add expansion cards, more drives, etc., so I'm fine with a full ATX board.</li> </ul> <p>$50-150 seems like a reasonable range for the motherboard.</p>

Motherboard for the long run, in an otherwise (initially) low-end gaming system

<p>According to <a href="http://ark.intel.com/products/82931/Intel-Core-i7-5930K-Processor-15M-Cache-up-to-3_70-GHz" rel="nofollow">Intel ARK on the Intel® Core™ i7-5930K Processor</a>: </p> <ul> <li>Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type): 64 GB</li> <li>Memory Types: DDR4 1333/1600/2133</li> <li>Max # of Memory Channels: 4</li> <li>Max Memory Bandwidth: 68GB/s </li> <li>ECC Memory Supported: No</li> </ul> <p>So, I won't be able to use 128 GB.</p>

1416

2015-11-29T18:10:46.297

|motherboard|memory|

<p>I have a question about a motherboard and RAM compatibility.</p> <p><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130836" rel="nofollow">MSI X99A XPOWER AC LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard</a> </p> <p>and</p> <p><a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233814" rel="nofollow">CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 128GB (8 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2800 (PC4 22400) Desktop Memory Model CMD128GX4M8B2800C14</a></p> <p>I couldn't find this RAM in the supported list on MSI's website. I have a feeling that the page is not updated as it doesn't even list any 16 GB modules. Similarly, Corsair's website lists only two motherboards as supported, ASUS X99 Deluxe and Rampage V Extreme. pcpartpicker.com does not list this RAM when this board and Intel i7-5960 Haswell-E are selected.</p> <p>I wanted to double check before investing almost $1,700 on these two components.</p>

X99 2011-v3 Motherboard and 128 GB DDR4 RAM Compatibility

<p>I would upgrade the memory to at least 8GB. </p> <p>An SSD would be a good idea to put the OS on, as well as a few programs/games that you want to start up fast.</p> <p>Another thing that will help a lot when gaming on high quality is graphics memory. If the game textures are big, they can't fit on graphics memory, and are stored in normal memory instead. That makes things a lot slower.</p> <p>You should probably get a reasonably new graphics card with at least 4GB of memory on it. Something like an r9 390, or 380 if you don't have the money.</p> <p>As for the PSU, <a href="https://pcpartpicker.com/forums/topic/94836-will-an-r9-390-work-with-600-watts" rel="nofollow">apparently</a>, it's fine.</p> <p>As for the processor, it's probably fine.</p>

1418

2015-11-29T21:01:05.157

|gaming|desktop|

<p>I am planning to improve my current PC. I am already going to buy a new RAM stick, to get 8GB of RAM, and I am going to add a SSD (probably a 120gb drive). Beyond those, I have about £300 to make some more improvements. My current PC specs:</p> <p><a href="http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/yh7899">http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/yh7899</a></p> <blockquote> <p>CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor</p> <p>Motherboard: MSI Z87-G41 PC Mate ATX LGA1150 Motherboard </p> <p>Memory: Kingston Blu 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory </p> <p>Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive</p> <p>Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card </p> <p>Case: NZXT H230 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case</p> <p>Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply</p> </blockquote> <p>I would like to swap the 7870 for a R9 390. My goal is to able to play pretty much any 2014 game on Ultra (I am mainly interested in Starcraft 2, Dota 2, and Dark Souls 2) or at the very least on Very High at 1080p. My only issue is my PSU: would the CX600 be enough to power this rig if I used a R9 390?</p>

Would this be a good improvement for this rig?

<p>The best answer here is to put into this what it is worth - which is basically a low-end gaming system by today's standards. Dropping one of the hexacore CPUs into this will likely represent an investment simply not worth the returns, since those CPUs are highly sought after now that they are out of production and <a href="http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&amp;_sacat=0&amp;_nkw=phenom%20hex%20core&amp;_sop=15" rel="nofollow">command a high price on a resale circuit</a> - so much so that <a href="http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp%5B%5D=393&amp;cmp%5B%5D=1781&amp;cmp%5B%5D=793" rel="nofollow">newer, cheaper chips from AMD and Intel beat them out</a>. </p> <p>However, given that the above is not actually the ANSWER to your question, the ANSWER lies on the <a href="http://www.gigabyte.in/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=3645" rel="nofollow">CPU support page for your mobo's revision level</a>: <strong>the most powerful processor available to you is the Phenom II X6 1090T</strong>. The <a href="http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Phenom%20II%20X6%201100T%20Black%20Edition%20-%20HDE00ZFBK6DGR%20(HDE00ZFBGRBOX).html" rel="nofollow">AMD Phenom II X6 1100T</a> May also work, but it is not officially supported by the BIOS, so I can't say definitively that it will work. It will <em>probably</em> work. Be careful, because there are <a href="http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Phenom%20II%20X4%20965%20Black%20Edition%20-%20HDZ965FBK4DGI%20(HDZ965FBGIBOX).html" rel="nofollow">Phenoms made which exceed the TDP rating for your board</a> and could easily damage it.</p> <p>What GPU will be bottlenecked/not bottlenecked by this CPU? All of them; that's not how bottlenecking works. Different programs place different strains on different parts of a computer, so even a high end CPU can be the bottleneck of a low-end GPU if it is trying to do something like downscale an h.265 video transcode, which is highly CPU-intensive, or play a game like Civilization 5, which is notorious for its high CPU usage in the late game but places relatively low demands on GPUs.</p> <p>Because the CPUs available to this board are somewhat weak compared to modern offerings in a similar price bracket, it makes sense to get an Nvidia GeForce GPU instead of an AMD Radeon GPU, because historically Nvidia driver overhead (the load placed on the CPU when the GPU is running) has been higher for AMD products. This is not a major consideration, however, so price is a major determinant.</p> <p>The onboard GPU is of no consequence for your purposes unless you want to attach a second screen to it; then it would make a little more sense to go with Nvidia for your primary GPU just so you could have a driver environment all from one supplier, which should be a little more stable (not necessarily though, since you will need to run two separate drivers and that old motherboard GPU may not have Windows 10 compliant drivers).</p> <p>With a 1090T CPU and a decent overclock to something like 4ghz on all six cores, given a Titan X GPU (not a recommendation, just a removal of most GPU bottlenecks for hypothetical purposes); this system should be able to handle most modern games at maximum settings; a notable exception would be any title which is heavily single-threaded and demanding on the CPU (most bad console ports, for example, of which Assassin's Creed: Black Flag and Unity are shining examples). In general, the CPU is less a limiting factor in gaming PCs than the GPU. Tests have been done showing the lowly Athlon 5350 <a href="https://youtu.be/8LVYgtGW32k" rel="nofollow">performing admirably when paired with a midrange modern GPU</a>. Where you are comfortable in that gradient of performance is largely up to personal taste.</p>

1425

2015-11-30T05:39:37.133

|gaming|graphics-cards|processor|motherboard|windows|

<p>I've recently acquired a <a href="http://www.gigabyte.in/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3645" rel="nofollow">GA-M68MT-S2</a> motherboard, which was lying unused with a friend. Just as a project, I want try and build the most powerful system possible using this as a base. This is only a hobby project, so suggestions to upgrade the board and overall system isn't what I'm looking for. I'll probably just experiment to see what games I can run at max or high settings. I'll be using Windows.</p> <p>What I'd like to know is: What's the highest CPU and GPU this can take? I believe the Phenom II x6 (Socket AM3) is supported. What GPU will not be bottle necked by this relatively old base config? Since the on-board GPU is an NVIDIA® GeForce 7025/nForce 630a chipset, can I go for an 8- or 9- series? Is a Radeon a better choice?</p> <p>I haven't been a PC gamer for over a decade, but I'm keen on getting back into it.</p>

What's a good PC config based on an AM3 motherboard that won't be bottlenecked?

<p>As Paul Taylor already mentioned, <strong>Lenovo X220</strong> was chosen.</p> <p>According to the OP's requirements:</p> <p>☑ Dislay: 12.5" (1366x768, LED backlight, wideview, <strong>anti-glare</strong>, anti-<strong>reflective</strong>)</p> <p>☑ Weight: 3.5 pounds with 6-cell battery (~1.6 kg)</p> <p>☑ X220 will handle popular Linux distros with ease (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/2te1m8/best_linux_distro_for_x220/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Source 1</a>, <a href="https://senk9.wordpress.com/2014/02/21/lenovox220/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Source 2</a>). </p> <p>☒ Most often X220 has Windows on the board but it can be also (in specific cases) available without an operating system (<a href="https://askubuntu.com/questions/43494/where-can-i-buy-a-lenovo-x220-with-ubuntu-preinstalled">related link</a>).</p> <p>☑ Powerful enough to learn programming and play simple games</p> <p>☑ SSD is available in some builds (up to 160 GB - <a href="https://shop.lenovo.com/ISS_Static/ww/wci/us/ww/pdf/x220_datasheet.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">datasheet</a>).</p> <p>☑ It's in your budget</p> <hr> <p>Some of the people don't really like the gritty touchpad but you can replace it on your own for ~$13.</p> <p>This <a href="http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&amp;t=98352" rel="nofollow noreferrer">topic</a> may be useful.</p> <blockquote> <p>I have found a very perfect solution for the ones that do not like the touchpads on newer Thinkpads. On my Thinkpad T400s i just peeled of the old surface, which is just a sticker, cleaned of the glue by rubbbing it off with my finger, and then put on a new smooth touchpadsurface from the company skinstyler</p> </blockquote> <p>and</p> <blockquote> <p>I recently replaced the worn gritty touchpad on my Lenovo T420S.</p> <p>For those wondering around this I have attached a pic. <a href="http://1drv.ms/1pacMv8" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://1drv.ms/1pacMv8</a></p> <p>Process was easy, and removing the existing skin remarkably easy. My pad was pre-cut according to T420S size. I would recommend doing it - the old worn pads do look tacky.</p> </blockquote> <p>Protection skin mentioned in the topic is available <a href="http://www.skinstyler.com/pc/black-for-pc-touchpad-protector-skin-p-281.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>.</p> <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOUyhqnaGcU" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Related video</a></p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/0TP4Q.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/0TP4Q.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

1432

2015-12-01T16:26:38.893

|laptop|

<p>I'm looking for a small notebook for 9 year old to run Linux powerfully enough for programming and runing Minecraft to buy my son for this Christmas. I'm based in the UK.</p> <ul> <li>Small enough to suit a 10 year old, a 13" screen would be fine</li> <li>Not too heavy, he will only be using it at home but I want it to be easy for him to move around the house.</li> <li>He wants to learn basic programming</li> <li>He also wants to play Minecraft</li> <li>For these reasons, and because it requires less resources then Windows, I want to install Linux, preferably Ubuntu. </li> <li>Would better if it came installed with Linux, not Windows.</li> <li>It doesn't need to be super powerful, but at the same time it should be powerful enough to do the tasks mentioned above.</li> <li>A matte screen would be a bonus</li> <li>An SSD would be a bonus</li> </ul> <p>To be clear, I do want a proper computer with a hard drive, <strong>not a Chromebook</strong></p> <p>Ive had a look at Acer, Asus and Lenovo - I think there might be a solution there, but I'm struggling to understand the range, nor can I see anything without Windows installed.</p> <p>I'm looking to spend about £300.</p>

Looking for a small notebook for 9 year old to run Linux powerfully enough for Minecraft

<p>While this may not be the best solution depending on your case airflow, the <a href="http://www.arctic.ac/worldwide_en/accelero-s3.html" rel="nofollow">Arctic Accelero S3</a> may interest you. Passive cooling is more common on server components, but the Accelero S3 is a GPU heatsink that can support 135W TDP, or 200W with its "Turbo Module" (but it's just a fan, which rather defeats the purpose of the heatsink). While the Twin Frozr V is very quiet, it can't really beat not having fans at all. With good case airflow, <a href="http://www.overclockers.com/arctic-accelero-s3-passive-graphics-card-cooler-review/" rel="nofollow">the temperature is significantly higher, but not worryingly so</a>.</p> <p><strong>Why you may not want this:</strong></p> <ol> <li>It costs $55 dollars, which, while still being under budget if you pick one of the cheaper 960s to mod, this is a pretty hefty investment.</li> <li>Other fans have to work harder, so the gains may not be obvious</li> <li>This will probably void your warranty</li> <li>It doesn't eliminate coil whine</li> </ol> <p>So, <strong>why would you want this?</strong></p> <p>If you're serious about wanting a silent PC, and have already chosen a soundproofed case, quiet fans and a good CPU cooler, this is a good option. Otherwise, don't bother, there are easier and cheaper ways of quieting your PC.</p>

1434

2015-12-01T22:58:30.980

|gaming|graphics-cards|quiet-computing|

<p>In <a href="https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/1233/ultra-graphics-performance-for-a-penny">this question</a> I received the response to which graphics model should I go with. Now, as I started calculating using <a href="http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-coherentsources.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this decibel calculator</a>, the fact that I am trying to buy quiet 8.9 dB fans (total = 20.9 dB) will be negligable if a graphics card will generate 36 dB (which is what I found <a href="http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/msi-geforce-gtx-960-gaming-oc-review,10.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>) - than the total noise will be 37.081 dB. However, on <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960,4038-11.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Tomshardware</a> I found this to be more nuanced, but also incomplete (no MSI card).</p> <p>What graphics card manufacturer would you recommend for GTX960 noise-wise, provided the price differences are negligible? Or maybe there are other considerations under 250$ for gaming setup (i5-6500, 8GB ram, 240GB SDD, 4 140mm fans, MSI170 pro gaming mobo, 1280 x 1024 res) that are significantly quieter?</p> <p><strong>[EDIT]</strong> I am aware of 'silent mode', where fans turn off on idle, which is apparently implemented by all manufacturers in GTX 960 (<a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-960,4038-11.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">source</a>). The question is about the fan noise under load.</p>

Graphics card with quiet fans

<p>I recommend the Pioneer 6x Silver External Slim Portable USB 3.0 BD/DVD/CD Burner Model BDR-XD05S, currently <a href="http://Pioneer%206x%20Silver%20External%20Slim%20Portable%20USB%203.0%20BD/DVD/CD%20Burner%20Model%20BDR-XD05S" rel="nofollow">$85 + $2 shipping at newegg.com</a>.</p> <p>It is compatible with USB 3 Super Speed mode, which virtually guarantees the burner will work at full, rated speed. It does, however, require a second USB port <em>if</em> the drive is connected via USB 2.</p> <p>If price is a issue, the SAMSUNG USB 2.0 Slim Portable Blu-ray Writer <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151272&amp;cm_re=external_blu_ray_drive-_-27-151-272-_-Product" rel="nofollow">($70 + $2 shipping at newegg.com)</a> is a cheaper option that lacks support for quad layer Blu-ray (according to newegg anyway) and amd USB Super Speed.</p> <p>It's a single port model, which means that you won't have any trouble with compatibility. Unfortunately, it only supports USB 2.0 (High Speed), so if you were burning a movie, it could take a while.</p>

1436

2015-12-02T00:46:06.090

|laptop|blu-ray|dvd-player|

<p>The latest Apple notebooks do not have any built-in DVD drive, and Apple only sells a DVD drive. </p> <p>Is there any external drive which is similar to the external SuperDrive for the MacBook Pro, but is able to read (and possibly write too) Blu-ray discs?</p> <p>I found several Blu-ray drives, but they do not look so "portable" as you need a separate power adapter.</p> <p>I am wondering if it would be possible to have a drive like the Apple External SuperDrive DVD which is powered just by a USB cable.</p> <p>UPDATE: I found few drives in USB 2.0 (like the answerers), but I would prefer to have USB3 or Thunderbolt interface. I am surprised there is not such devices with a faster interface than USB 2.0. I found only the <code>Asus BW-16D1H-U PRO</code> but it needs an external power adapter (and 1kg could not be considered so portable).</p>

Blu-ray player for Retina MacBook Pro (USB powered)

<p>Finally, I opted for a different model, because it seems to have better support for Japanese language (which I also needed). However, for more general cases I think @Andy's answer is the best choice. </p> <p>I bought this Japanese Bluetooth wireless trackball keyboard: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00GM5VMPY" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Miyoshi's TK-BT01</a> <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/j8idn.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/j8idn.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>

1444

2015-12-04T03:30:43.020

|keyboards|trackball|

<p>I want a keyboard to use with my gaming/htpc. </p> <p>I will use it from the sofa so a wireless, mini keyboard would be best.<br> I feel game controller sticks a comfortable device, therefore I want a trackball (that I think feel closer to a stick) in the keyboard, rather than a trackpad. I will not use the trackball for gaming, I play games with a controller.<br> Finally it would be great if the keyboard came with a kind of charging dock (so that I can just grab it and use it), but this last requirement is not a priority. </p> <p>Can you think of any models that fit those conditions?</p>

Recommended Wireless Mini Keyboard with Trackball

<p>Dell recently came out with the <a href="http://www.dell.com/us/business/p/latitude-e7270-ultrabook/pd" rel="nofollow">Latitude E7270 series</a> which seems ideal.</p> <blockquote> <p>Small and lightweight, 14" or smaller, no more than 2224 grams</p> </blockquote> <p>12,5" display, starts at 1260 grams.</p> <blockquote> <p>Linux support (I don't mind if it comes with Windows but every hardware component should work well under Linux too.)</p> </blockquote> <p>They come with Windows 7/10 but we have good experience running Linux on former dell Latitude models, so it's probably fine. (We have some issues with the Dell E-Port Replicators, kernel 4.5.3 freezes after docking while the notebook is sleeping.)</p> <blockquote> <p>32GB RAM support</p> </blockquote> <p>They have 6th generation Intel Core processor which supports 32 GB of memory. The notebook has two memory slots and 16 GB modules are available but Dell says that it supports only 16 GB memory (2x8GB).</p> <p>Anyway, my E7270 (as well as my colleague's E7470) runs well with 32 GB memory. It has two 16 GB Kingston KCP421SD8/16 modules.</p> <blockquote> <p>Can handle three external displays (Currently I have three displays, all of them has DVI input and VGA too, but I'd prefer the digital one. Using DisplayPort->DVI and/or HDMI->DVI conversion cables are also fine for me.)</p> </blockquote> <p>6th generation Intel Core CPUs also support that and our Dell docking stations have three display outputs.</p> <blockquote> <p>Faster than my current Intel Core i5-3230M CPU @ 2.60GHz</p> </blockquote> <p>It can come with Intel Core i7-6600U which seems faster.</p> <blockquote> <p>Matte display</p> </blockquote> <p>Anti Glare LCD seems fine.</p> <blockquote> <p>Compatible with our Dell E-Port Replicators</p> </blockquote> <p>It's compatible. The packaged <a href="http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&amp;l=en&amp;s=bsd&amp;cs=ukbsdt1&amp;sku=452-BBID" rel="nofollow">Dell Docking Spacer for E7x40</a> is also handy.</p> <blockquote> <p>Budget: ~$2500</p> </blockquote> <p>Price on dell.com is between $1000-$2000.</p>

1447

2015-12-04T13:24:16.580

|laptop|linux|development|

<p>I'm looking for a new laptop (for a Java developer who runs multiple virtual machines and some heavyweight server applications too) with these musthaves:</p> <ul> <li>Small and lightweight, 14" or smaller, no more than 2224 grams</li> <li>Linux support (I don't mind if it comes with Windows but every hardware component should work well under Linux too.)</li> <li>32GB RAM support</li> <li>Can handle three external displays (Currently I have three displays, all of them has DVI input and VGA too, but I'd prefer the digital one. Using DisplayPort->DVI and/or HDMI->DVI conversion cables are also fine for me.)</li> <li>Faster than my current Intel Core i5-3230M CPU @ 2.60GHz</li> <li>Matte display</li> </ul> <p>Nice to have features:</p> <ul> <li>Compatible with our Dell E-Port Replicators</li> </ul> <p>Budget: ~$2500</p>

Small developer laptop with 32GB memory

<p>Chromebook would be ideal for this. I have the asus c300 chromebook and installed linux on it, works perfectly. You can see a review of chromebooks here: <a href="http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/best-chromebooks-top-5-chromebooks-in-the-us-1233696" rel="nofollow">http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-computing/laptops/best-chromebooks-top-5-chromebooks-in-the-us-1233696</a></p> <p>It's silent, has long battery life and is cheap.</p> <p>You can see how to install linux on a chromebook here: <a href="http://lifehacker.com/how-to-install-linux-on-a-chromebook-and-unlock-its-ful-509039343" rel="nofollow">http://lifehacker.com/how-to-install-linux-on-a-chromebook-and-unlock-its-ful-509039343</a></p>

1460

2015-12-05T19:05:39.773

|laptop|quiet-computing|fanless|

<p>I'm looking for a laptop without any mechanical moving parts (don't need CD; will use SSD), particularly without a fan because a fan is noisy or becomes noisy after a while.</p> <p>Preferably 13-15'', around 8gb ram, that can run xubuntu comfortably. Touchscreen or screen flipping are unnecessary. Could also be a tablet+ keyboard, if fast enough.</p> <p>Under $800.</p> <p>Are there any laptops these days like that?</p>

Quiet, no moving parts laptop/tablet that can run Linux?

<p>Depending on your needs I've added a few various cameras. All are great choices and meet the specifications the question provided, but it's up to you to decide which one you think fits your needs best.</p> <hr> <h1>Sony Action Cam - $115 - $198</h1> <p>I'd recommend Sony's <a href="http://www.sony.com/electronics/actioncam/hdr-as20" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Action Cam</a> line up.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/JVRU5.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/JVRU5.png" alt="Sony Action Cam"></a></p> <p>Sony's Action Cam offers a <em>wide</em> variety of features, a quality build, and all at a reasonable price.</p> <p>Sony offers a wide variety of their Action Cams, but I'll be recommending the <a href="http://amzn.com/B00R1COCVI" rel="nofollow noreferrer">AS2000V</a>. The Sony "Action Cam"s can take 1080p @60fps and great 8.8MP photos. It supports 240fps slow-mo, and a great microphone. It supports 60m waterproof. It also has video stabilization with SteadyShot which I've heard <em>great</em> things about.</p> <h3>Alternatives</h3> <p>I <strong>highly</strong> recommend you take a look at the wide variety of Action Cams, these don't get too expensive and offer many features. An example is the <a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B0090EC5MS" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Sony AS15</a> which is only $128 on Amazon and offers a similar set of features. Also, be on the lookout for discounts as these frequently go on sale.</p> <blockquote> <p>This camera has a lot to offer with it's wide variety of features making it a great choice if you'll be doing some shaky video, low-light filming, or for general use.</p> </blockquote> <h1>GoPro, $129 - $199</h1> <p>The popular GoPro is a popular choice for a sports and action camera. While price ranges, GoPros have a wide range of accessories and mounts to choose from.</p> <p>The GoPro I'd recommend is the <a href="http://shop.gopro.com/cameras/hero/CHDHA-301.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><strong>GoPro Hero ~$129</strong></a>. If you want, a WiFi equipped model which also offers <em>slightly</em> better specs, it's starts at <a href="http://shop.gopro.com/cameras/heroplus/CHDHC-101.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">$199</a></p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/cxhzP.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/cxhzP.jpg" alt="GoPro Hero picture"></a></p> <p>The GoPro Hero can take 1080p @30fps (60 WiFi model) video, photos can be taken at 5MP (8MP WiFi model), and supports up to a 32GB MicroSD. It's also waterproof up to 40 meters.</p> <h3>Alternatives</h3> <p>I've already talked about the HERO with WiFi but the <a href="http://shop.gopro.com/hero4/hero4-session/CHDHS-101.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">HERO4</a> Session also the same specs as the HERO with WiFi at the same price. The HERO4 though has a much simpler design, which can work great for hobby use but may lack functionality for power-users.</p> <blockquote> <p>I'd recommend the GoPro if you'll take advantage of it's wide-array of mounts and accessories</p> </blockquote> <h1>ISAW, $100 - $189</h1> <p>The <strong><a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/B014MO8AOC" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ISAW EDGE ~$189</a></strong> seems to be a perfect fit.</p> <p><a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/oFLIp.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/oFLIp.jpg" alt="ISAW EDGE Picture"></a></p> <p>The ISAW EDGE can take 1080p @60fps, and even 4K. It can take up to a 64GB Micro SD card and can take 16MP stills. It features underwater capabilities up to 40m.</p> <h3>Alternatives</h3> <p>The <strong>ISAW Air</strong> runs at 1080p @30fps, takes 12MP photos but requires a case for waterproof (~$25)</p> <p>The <strong>ISAW WING</strong> runs at 1080p @30fps, takes 12MP photos and features a 40m waterproof housing.</p> <blockquote> <p>The ISAW offers well balanced specs at a reasonable price, it has a relatively easy-to-use graphical interface.</p> </blockquote>

1463

2015-12-05T19:32:57.523

|video-camera|

<p>I'm looking for an action/sports camera (used for recording while snowboarding/biking etc).</p> <ul> <li>It should record at 1080p - 60fps but 1080p - 30fps works as well.</li> <li>Must have underwater case</li> <li>Supports at least 32Gb microSD/SD card.</li> <li>Should have the option to also take photos</li> </ul> <p>My budget would be around $150-$200.</p> <p>If you have any knowledge about some, what it's good to look at, please share it.</p>

1080p Action/Sports Camera Recommendation

<p>The i7 5820K would be much faster than the i7 6700K. None of the programs you will use will benefit from an i7 5820K or even an i7 6700K for that matter. An i5 6600K will be enough for what you are doing. The 5820K will only benefit from much larger multithreaded workloads (such as virtualization or video rendering) and where more PCIe lanes are needed (allows up to 24 PCIe lanes). Your GPU will also bottleneck your system if you perform any slightly GPU-intensive tasks (such as gaming or video editing). </p>

1466

2015-12-06T12:34:33.207

|pc|processor|motherboard|desktop|

<p>Asus X99-A with USB3.1 Motherboard And Intel Core i7 5820K CPU <strong><em>Or</em></strong></p> <p>Asus Z170-A Motherboard And Intel Core i7 6700K CPU</p> <p>The rest of the build (the same for both):</p> <p><strong><em>Cooler:</em></strong> Noctua NH-U14S.</p> <p><strong><em>RAM:</em></strong> 32GB (2x16GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black, 2666MHz, CAS 16-18-18-35, 1.2V.</p> <p><strong><em>Storage:</em></strong> 250GB Samsung 850 EVO.</p> <p><strong><em>PSU:</em></strong> 650W Corsair RMx, Modular, Silent, 80PLUS Gold - Any Single Graphics Card</p> <p><strong><em>GPU:</em></strong> 4GB MSI GTX 960 GAMING 4G.</p> <p>I will be using the build for mainly programming. Most important programs I will use:</p> <p>Android Studio.</p> <p>IDE such as Eclipse.</p> <p>Which combination of motherboard + CPU will give me better performance. Will the programs I mentioned benefit significantly from the 5820K's extra cores and threads?</p>

Which of these two PC builds would offer better performance?