Need to Buy a New Computer Little Lost -- Advice Appreciated

[SiegeTank]

I bought one of those years ago, at least I think it's the same model. I remember a bag full of various hoses and attachments. I seem to remember it didn't have enough power so I stopped using it and it's probably buried in all my defunct/redundant computer gear I box up and store forever in my cellar. I remember you could put the hose tip right up against dust that had been sitting on the bottom of the case for years and unless you used a brush or other tool to stir up the dust the vacuum didn't have enough power to suck it up. I don't know if it's a static thing but computer case dust is really "sticky" and clings to the sides and floors of the case, as well as to fan blades and filters. It seems to me blowing has a bigger effect.

I've used hose attachments for a standard Orek hand-held house vac and those are plenty powerful enough but then you have to worry about sucking up a transistor, a cable or something else you're going to miss.

And forget CPU fans, the only way to clean those TRULY completely is to remove them and wash the blades with alcohol. That dust really gunks those things up.

 

[McNukkah]

oops

I know you already built / bought your system, and while it is too late to talk you out of going with intel....I can at least make this recommendation since you pointed out that cooling was very important. Keep in mind I build / repair PC's, laptops, tablets, etc. for a living....


Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler

I use that cooler on all my desktops. Yes it is nearly $80, but it is keeping the most valuable part of your computer nice and cool....prolonging its life...etc.

I can easily run 9 instances of EQ and my core temps remain below 25 C. Remember that you can have tons of cores, overclock it, increase voltage, etc.---but none of that means a damn thing when it throttles itself down because it is running too hot, or when it gets so hot it destroys not only itself, but the motherboard entirely.

Most people who come into my shop and ask what the most important thing is in a computer never expect me to tell them that COOLING > All.

A hot computer component is slow, lethargic, sweaty, miserable...etc. This applies to all components of your PC / laptop.

I can't tell you how many thousands and thousands of dollars I've taken from companies simply because they buy powerhouse computers and then neglect the cooling, let it get dusty and clogged, etc....fast forward a year or so and I'm wrapping their hard drives in cooling packs so I can recover the data from the drive for them, showing them a burnt stick of ram, a popped capacitor on the mobo, or a fried graphics card.

That's all. Keep your fans clean and the air flow nice and open!

 

[aspire2008]

Why its so important to blow the dust out of your system each month. Personally, I prefer the Corsair liquid cooling though.

 

[JimJohnson]

I do agree with blowing out a PC with dust, just not monthly. Once a year should be fine as long as you don't have dirty house air vents blowing dust all over everything.

 

[devestator]

I do agree with blowing out a PC with dust, just not monthly. Once a year should be fine as long as you don't have dirty house air vents blowing dust all over everything.

I agree, once a year in a typical household environment should be more than enough, assuming you have your computer fans set up correctly.

This used to even be a problem with some big name PC manufacturers like DELL and AlienWare, although I think they've gotten better about it. A lot of people think that good air cooling means massive amounts of fans blowing into the case and nothing else. But that is incorrect, air flow is much more important than the number of fans or how much air you have. Route your wiring in the case well (use modular wiring for everything, it helps a TON) so that it isn't obstructing your airflow paths, and you have your fans configured in a way that makes the inside of the case act like a wind tunnel, also be sure your exhaust fans are sufficiently sized and you have at least as much exhaust as intake, if not more. Do this and dust will not be able to settle very much inside the case to begin with and so you will not need to dust it often.

I have my desktop PC in a 4U server chassis because nothing beats the air flow design these cases provide. Two front 120mm fans (in front of the hard drives), 3 120mm fans in the middle, and 2 80mm with 1 120mm exhaust fans (the 80mms are high output fans so that they move more air than the 120s even though they are smaller). This creates a negative pressure inside the case which basically sucks the hot air out while providing strong airflow over the cooling fins of all components and gives dust very little time to settle on anything. I still clean it out roughly once a year, but in 6+ years I've never had a single dust ball in the PC.

 

[Noah3]

I just seen this, I could add something.

I shop on Craigslist alot, and very often come out on top.. I purchased a gaming laptop not too long ago that works great for EQ for only $300..

I also get stuff from Tiger Direct.

I have built a few pcs for under your budget , that I still use... I bought this one 2 years ago with AMD octa core 5GHZ , 16GB Ram , case, motherboard, hard drive,optical drive Power Supply for only $400, I haven't been in need of anything for a while, but I am sure they have even better stuff now for similar price. I scored My GPU on CL for like $200 and then I priced matched some fans @ staples and found a water cooler for dirt cheap..

My other PC I got the entire set up off CL around the same time and it blows that PC out of the water and it came with 3 Monitors..

So the combo of Price matching , Tiger Direct and CL , and some patience and you can usually find some pretty decent stuff for a good price.

 

[wired420]

Don't bother with an SSD just for EQ. Only difference you'll notice is loading times may be 1 or 2 seconds faster(It doesn't have to spin up when starting to read the files). It already reads game files into memory faster than a regular HDD can go.

SSD is an over expense for EQ. It's meant for things that constantly read and write. Not something that only reads files when you zone every few hours.