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DHelios

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About DHelios

  • Birthday Mar 05, 1983

Profile Information

  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    the Netherlands
  • Occupation
    Computer Repair Technician

System

  • CPU
    Intel Core i7-950
  • Motherboard
    ASUS SABERTOOTH X58
  • RAM
    Corsair XMS3 12GB DDR3-1600 triple-channel
  • GPU
    nVIDIA GeForce GTX970
  • Case
    Fractal Design Define R3
  • Storage
    Samsung 840 EVO 250GB, WD Caviar Black 640GB
  • PSU
    Cooler Master Silent Pro 800
  • Display(s)
    Iiyama ProLite B2403WS-B1
  • Cooling
    Phanteks, Noctua, NoiseBlocker
  • Keyboard
    Logitech G710+
  • Mouse
    Razer Naga Chroma
  • Sound
    Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium
  • Operating System
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Recent Profile Visitors

921 profile views
  1. The IT Crowd comes to mind... "Uh, the button turns it on?" "Yeah. You-- You do know how a button works, don't you? No, not on clothes..." "No, no, there you go. There you go, I just heard it come on." "No, no, that's the music you hear when it comes on." "That's the music you hear-- I'm sorry, are you from the past?"
  2. That's definitely a scam. They've probably collected a small amount of information about you from some hack or leak, and are using the call to try and social-engineer more out of you. These calls usually lead to the 'Microsoft engineer' asking permission to remote access your computer. From there they'll do some pseudo-technical things before recommending you purchase some software or service that will supposedly fix your supposed problem. Alternatively, they may use your system access to collect additional (financial) data or to encrypt your data and have you pay to get it back. It's sadly a common thing, which means that sadly, people fall for it. I've had to deal professionally with victims of such scams, and it's not pretty.
  3. The Ryzen 7s that have been released so far, are very competitive compared to Intel's Broadwell-E line of processors, not so much the Kaby Lake i7s. If gaming is your sole purpose for the machine, the Kaby Lake i7 is the way to go. If it's just for CS:GO, it may be interesting to see what the performance difference for that particular game may be to a Kaby Lake i5. That said, things may become interesting in a few months, when Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 3 come out. If, like Intel, AMD has higher clock speeds on their fewer-core processors, then the Ryzen 5 hexa- and quad-core processors may actually be a better match for Kaby Lake than the currently available Ryzen 7s. At least where gaming is concerned...
  4. That'd be a much nicer model, except it's priced like that because it comes without hard drive. Oh, and it won't turn on. Which makes it kind of useless...
  5. It's the same model MacBook with the white polycarbonate unibody. This one is just in a black hardshell case. Since the current bid is next to nothing, it's worth a bid. But keep in mind that the black case may be hiding exterior damage to the body underneath, and the other considerations still stand. The 500GB 7200rpm hard drive is likely a slight improvement over its stock drive, if only due to advances in HDD performance over time. Still a night and day difference with an SSD, though...
  6. You won't notice much of it during gaming or video editing because for those tasks the device will be bottlenecked by its CPU. For your 'everyday use' though, there is a night and day difference between using Sierra from a hard drive or from an SSD. Another thing to note: make sure the MagSafe adapter is included, or otherwise factor its purchase cost into your decision...
  7. It's the bare minimum of what I'd consider recommending to anyone. Take your time when doing anything, as Sierra is very much optimised with SSDs in mind. As soon as you can, you'll want to at least perform that upgrade. That said, if it's in good condition it's still a decent computer for not much money. Ar for things to check: See if the seller will run an app like Coconut Battery so you can get an idea of what state the battery is in (not much use to a mobile device that isn't mobile for more than five minutes) Check the underside. This model is known for its rubber bottom peeling off. If it's wavy it's likely to come off soon. If it's very clean and has no serial number printed on it (near the little embossed text) the bottom case has already been replaced, and you should be good. If you can get a Mid-2010 or newer MacBook Pro for not too much more it'll be worth the investment on the aluminium unibody alone. It'll also net you a GeForce 320M upgrade from the 9400M...
  8. I'm afraid the link you provided just points to a generic Google search for '2009 macbook', so I don't know which model you're considering. If it's the 'white' MacBook, keep in mind that the Early- and Mid-2009 models do not support Sierra, only the Late-2009 model does. It's the one with the polycarbonate unibody. If it's the aluminium MacBook Pro, the 2009 models only support up to El Capitan. You'll need a Mid-2010 model or newer for Sierra. As an added bonus, these will come with 4GB RAM by default instead of the 2GB of the 2009 models. The Late-2009 MacBook and Mid-2010 MacBook Pro models will serve you well for everyday use as long as you put an SSD in there. Gaming may still be an issue though, as the graphics adapters in these devices isn't much to speak of. MacBook Pro Mid-2011 models and newer have the upgrade from Core2 Duo to Core i5 and up, and are a great improvement over the 2009-2010 lot. If you can find one of those for a nice price (and still add an SSD in there) you'll have a good computer for every day use. Still entry-level for gaming, but definitely more capable for that video editing you want to do...
  9. Traditionally, cases that come with one fan have it set as exhaust, rather than intake. If however, you have a power supply with an active fan and mount it with the fan intake facing into the case, you can use that as an exhaust fan. In that case, having the case fan provide fresh air intake may help. Having a look at the SilverStone SG13, it looks like it was designed to have the front fan as intake, with a lot of passive venting towards the back...
  10. If the monitor is connected through VGA, then it's receiving an analogue signal. That means that you'll have to manually adjust your monitor to its input signal, line up the 'software pixels' of the input signal with the 'hardware pixels' of the display. This is an issue that does not occur when the monitor has a digital input such as DVI-D, HDMI or DisplayPort as the computer tells it what goes where. The options you're looking for to adjust this have different names from different vendors. You'll usually find them in the monitor's on-screen display. The only analogue-input monitor I was able to get my hands on just now was an old Samsung, where the OSD options you're looking for are called 'Coarse' and 'Fine'. I've seen monitors where these adjustments had different names, but it's been so long since I worked with analogue monitors that I forgot what they were called. Screens of vertical or horizontal straight lines used to be the best image to adjust these settings with. I'm sure there are guides out there on the web on how to adjust this! edit: There's a guide here: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/clock_phase.php Also, that reminded me of what other monitors call these options: 'Clock' and 'Phase'. They say that the monitor needs to be receiving a signal at its native resolution, but any even division of that should work (i.e. 1280x800 for a 2560x1600 display) as it lines the pixels right back up.
  11. Maybe a bit off-topic, but wouldn't it make more sense to downscale that monitor to 1280x800 rather than 1366x768? With a native resolution of 2560x1600 that'd be exactly quartered and it would uphold the 16:10 ratio rather than stretching 16:9. You might get a sharper, less-deformed image, and with 3% fewer pixels to drive you might even get higher framerates...
  12. Looks like you and your girlfriend will be eating well this month! And both Alternate and Afuture are places I'd gladly buy from, so you didn't even have to resort to dealing with skeevy online-only vendors... Glad you got your gaming problem solved. We'll see you two around in the Rift and Azeroth! And Draenor. And Outland. And OMGitsArgusIcantwaitImsoexcited!
  13. With the I/O, RAM and SSD out of the picture, your 600 bucks may yet net you a really nice gaming rig for your girl and food on the table! Don't forget Tweakers Pricewatch! Once you've got your component picked, it'll point you to the best place to buy it, and it actually takes into account Dutch prices. It's not the comparing convenience of Pcpartspicker, but it helps.
  14. That's actually a really nice setup, love the inclusion of the Ducky even with this budget! Wonder how well that price translates if we ask our local suppliers nicely. I love that no-one's jumped into the thread yet shouting that "you can't play games at 1080p without at least an i7 and a GTX1080 because of less than 60fps!!!11!!1eleven!". It almost feels like it's possible to be a gamer without spending a fortune!
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