Taffycat
Crunchy Cat
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2006
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My trusty rig, (from PC Specialist, custom-built) has now just entered it's 6th year, so unsurprisingly, it's slowing down a bit. It still crunches 24/7 and recent forrays into Guild Wars 2 has shown that it can still perform adequately. Do you sense a "but" coming...?
BUT, when I close GW2, everything grinds to a halt and is slow to "recover."
Also - a tad worryingly, I got this message when I opened GW2's client to update it this morning. "We've detected that your computer does not meet the minimum system requirements. Continuing to play may result in side effects, such as reduced client performance, visual artifacts, and crashes. Please refer to our support forums for minimum system requirements." I've re-checked and it is within the minimum requirement parameters set out on the GW2 website... but there's a disclaimer which says "Note: Due to potential changes, system requirements may change over time and you may be required to upgrade your current system (or obtain a new system) to continue to play the game." So perhaps that's happened....
Anyway, I realise I could probably poke about and perform a RAM-ectomy or even reinstall Vista (yes, I did say Vista, lol) But it's still only 32-bit, so fairly major (for me that-is) upgrades would be needed, to bring it more up-to-date and inject a bit of oomph!
.....I've also been saving-up and quite fancy getting a new one.
So cutting to the chase, I'm basically seeking opinions on this build please. Is anything glaringly "wrong" that I've not noticed? I will be using it for games (such as, GW2, Assassin's Creed II, Elder Scrolls,) music storage, photos, crunching, etc.
If you notice, it has a SSD Hard Drive, plus a SATA HD, which, as I understand it, will speed-up not only booting-up, but regularly accessed programmes, etc.
Processor Description : Intel Core i7 3770 Processor
Cache : 8MB
......
Clockspeed : 3.40Ghz
Manufacturer : Intel
No. of Cores : 4
Memory Description : 2 X 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz Memory
Speed : 1333Mhz
Harddrive Description : 1TB 3.5" 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
Description : 128GB SSD Hard Drive
Interface : SATA
Interface : SATA Case
Description : Novatech ATX Gaming Case
Colour : Black & Silver
Dimensions : 200(w) x 440(d) x 430(h)mm
Drive Bays 3 1/2" : 6
Drive Bays 5 1/4" : 4
Optical Drives Description : 22x DVD Writer
Interface : SATA
Graphics Description : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 TI 1024MB Graphics Card
Motherboard Form Factor : ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 21.5cm
CPU Support : Support for Intel Core i7 processors/Intel Core i5 processors/ Intel Core i3 processors/Intel Pentium processors/Intel Celeron processors in the LGA1155 package
Chipset : Intel Z77 Express Chipset
Audio : Realtek ALC887 codec
IO : 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
1 x D-Sub port
1 x DVI-D port
1 x HDMI port
4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
1 x RJ-45 port
3 x audio jacks (Line In/Line Out/Microphone)
LAN : Atheros GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Socket Type : LGA 1155
USB : Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)
Up to 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers)
RAID : Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
SATA Ports : 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0/1) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
3 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2 2/3/4) supporting up to 3 SATA 3Gb/s devices
PCI : 2
PCI-EX : 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)
2 x PCI Express x1 slots
Max FSB : DDR3 2400(OC)/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
Memory Slots : 4
Max Memory Capacity : 32GB
Operating System : Windows 7 Home Premium (plus disc.)
It's tempting to return to PC Specialist, as I've had no cause to complain about my current PC. But on the other hand, Novatech are just a few miles away and when I compare builds, Novatech seem to offer slightly more more bang-for-your-buck. (Also, we have another PC of identical age to this one, purchased from Novatech - absolutely no complaints about that either.... and still working well.)
Sorry this is so long... but thank you for reading.

Also - a tad worryingly, I got this message when I opened GW2's client to update it this morning. "We've detected that your computer does not meet the minimum system requirements. Continuing to play may result in side effects, such as reduced client performance, visual artifacts, and crashes. Please refer to our support forums for minimum system requirements." I've re-checked and it is within the minimum requirement parameters set out on the GW2 website... but there's a disclaimer which says "Note: Due to potential changes, system requirements may change over time and you may be required to upgrade your current system (or obtain a new system) to continue to play the game." So perhaps that's happened....
Anyway, I realise I could probably poke about and perform a RAM-ectomy or even reinstall Vista (yes, I did say Vista, lol) But it's still only 32-bit, so fairly major (for me that-is) upgrades would be needed, to bring it more up-to-date and inject a bit of oomph!
.....I've also been saving-up and quite fancy getting a new one.

So cutting to the chase, I'm basically seeking opinions on this build please. Is anything glaringly "wrong" that I've not noticed? I will be using it for games (such as, GW2, Assassin's Creed II, Elder Scrolls,) music storage, photos, crunching, etc.
If you notice, it has a SSD Hard Drive, plus a SATA HD, which, as I understand it, will speed-up not only booting-up, but regularly accessed programmes, etc.
Processor Description : Intel Core i7 3770 Processor
Cache : 8MB
......
Clockspeed : 3.40Ghz
Manufacturer : Intel
No. of Cores : 4
Memory Description : 2 X 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz Memory
Speed : 1333Mhz
Harddrive Description : 1TB 3.5" 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
Description : 128GB SSD Hard Drive
Interface : SATA
Interface : SATA Case
Description : Novatech ATX Gaming Case
Colour : Black & Silver
Dimensions : 200(w) x 440(d) x 430(h)mm
Drive Bays 3 1/2" : 6
Drive Bays 5 1/4" : 4
Optical Drives Description : 22x DVD Writer
Interface : SATA
Graphics Description : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 TI 1024MB Graphics Card
Motherboard Form Factor : ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 21.5cm
CPU Support : Support for Intel Core i7 processors/Intel Core i5 processors/ Intel Core i3 processors/Intel Pentium processors/Intel Celeron processors in the LGA1155 package
Chipset : Intel Z77 Express Chipset
Audio : Realtek ALC887 codec
IO : 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
1 x D-Sub port
1 x DVI-D port
1 x HDMI port
4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
1 x RJ-45 port
3 x audio jacks (Line In/Line Out/Microphone)
LAN : Atheros GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Socket Type : LGA 1155
USB : Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)
Up to 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers)
RAID : Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
SATA Ports : 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0/1) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
3 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2 2/3/4) supporting up to 3 SATA 3Gb/s devices
PCI : 2
PCI-EX : 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)
2 x PCI Express x1 slots
Max FSB : DDR3 2400(OC)/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
Memory Slots : 4
Max Memory Capacity : 32GB
Operating System : Windows 7 Home Premium (plus disc.)
It's tempting to return to PC Specialist, as I've had no cause to complain about my current PC. But on the other hand, Novatech are just a few miles away and when I compare builds, Novatech seem to offer slightly more more bang-for-your-buck. (Also, we have another PC of identical age to this one, purchased from Novatech - absolutely no complaints about that either.... and still working well.)
Sorry this is so long... but thank you for reading.
