Recent content by nafets

1. Get yourself a better heatsink/fan for your CPU. Take that E8500 at or over 4.0GHz. 2. Trade in or sell that HD4890 for an HD5850/70. Done.

Raidmax is garbage, plain and simple. I'm sure the allure of something that cheap is tough to fight, but I recommend you save your hard earned money for a better brand PSU. Most anything from Seasonic, Corsair, Enermax, Antec, Silverstone, and even the newer BFG, OCZ, and XFX units.

You can download a .zip file from Adobe that includes all the archived releases of Flash Player 10 (ActiveX, Plugin, and Standalone), right up to and including 10.0.45.2. http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/installers/archive/fp10_archive.zip It's around 160MB right now, but you...

The fan setup of the Vapor-X HD5870 looks to function the same as the Vapor-X HD4870/90 cards. The shroud funnels the air in both directions, although this time more of it will likely go back into the case as the exhaust vent is much smaller now on the HD5850/70. The fan isn't designed to...

Those are probably leftover files from WindowsUpdate. Turn off Automatic Updates. Boot into safe mode and then try deleting...

While having heatpipes soldered to the base or fins can certainly lead to more effective/efficient cooling, it's only a small part of the overall heatsink design. Heatpipe size and amount, fin surface area and design, base flatness, and the fan(s) used are much greater aspects to consider...

It's not recommended to flash your cards with those 2D GPU/MEM speeds. You will encounter onscreen flickering/shaking whenever the cards go from 2D to 3D state (and vice versa). You will have to continue using ATT to run at those 2D GPU/MEM speeds...

See if you can spot the differences (Revision 1.0 on the left, Revision 2.0 on the right); Most noticable - Revision 1.0 uses SB600 southbridge / Revision 2.0 uses SB700 southbridge Revision 1.0 has no AM3 support / Revision 2.0 has AM3 support Revision 1.0 back panel has serial...

If you can visually notice a difference from 5-5-5-15 to 4-4-4-12, then you must be a robot. The only reason to go high with memory speed is for the CPU OC. Usually tighter timings are better than higher memory speeds. Either way, stick with whatever "feels" faster. The only time I see a...

An HDD shouldn't have any effect on your FPS. The only thing that would change is how long it takes to load up the game/maps/levels. As far as performance goes, the main things to figure out with an older HDD is the RPM and platter density. Obviously 7200RPM is usually better than 5400RPM...

You're better off sticking with the stock reference cooler. You need to set it higher than 34% duty cycle though (your last OC attempt). It may not be quiet but it does a good job on both the GPU and VRMs, when properly set. Aftermarket cooling is more for running a quieter setup. Add to...

This pricing speculation is useless without some performance results, or even some actual specifications of the cards... :/

The Matrox AGP video card is a Millennium G400. An excellent 2D (decent 3D) card back in the good old days of early PC gaming hardware. :)

What are your VRM temps? If the GPU core is at 90C, I'd venture to say your VRM temps are even higher. If the card is stable, then 90C is fine, but not great. You're just asking for trouble, in the long run. Since you're sticking with such a moderate fan speed, something will have to give...