IlijaPlayerP

For movies and gaming? Bigger 1080p screen wins every time because of two things: SIZE! And also you'll run games at more FPS (or you can get away with a slower GPU and won't have to upgrade as often). And it's more immersive. I've had a high-res monitor and a 1080p tv, I enjoyed the TV much more than the more pixels and a smaller size. She also said she prefers big over tiny...

I cover the whole chip with a thin layer of thermal paste. I put one rice-sized grain in the middle and spread it with my finger to cover the whole chip, and the rest of the thermal grease which is now on my finger, I put it on the heatsink. So cover the chip fully (but a thin layer, don't put too much) and try again. If you ask me, it's better to have more thermal grease than to not have enough. A balanced amount is the best though. After this if you don't see any changes either don't worry about it because that card runs hot anyway, or remove the plastic shroud and mount quiet 80mm fans on the fins (they will be much better than a blower fan), OR if you want a fun project and you don't need any of the PCI slots, buy two Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVOs and put them on your card. It will look sooo beastly .

Your PSU is sufficient. The artifacting could be AMD driver-related maybe, I'm not sure though.

I'd just keep the i7 2600K @ 5GHz, there's something about high frequency that makes me happy.

Or a soft toothbrush with isopropyl alcohol and rub/brush the slot, wait for it to dry and then try again. EDIT: Also clean the contacts on the RAM modules as well. Just in case...

For general performance and to reduce bottlenecks, also because there's a lot of difference in some games with OC vs stock speeds.

Hello CPU: Intel Q9550 Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-X48-DQ6 RAM: 8GB Kingston DDR2 800MHz 6-6-6-18 GPU: GIGABYTE GTX 560Ti HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache ODD: LG GH22NS40 DVD+/-RW SATA II Chassis: Cooler Master 690 III with windowed side panel CPU cooling: Cooler Master V8 PSU: Cooler Master Silent PRO M 700W Display: SONY KDL-42W650A Audio: Homemade loudspeakers Keyboard: Genius KB-320e Mouse: CM Storm Sentinel Advance Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 64-bit Country: Macedonia

Well, I just entered (got the confirmation email too) and I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to the OCC staff and the sponsors for all these cool prizes - they are truly amazing. I've never won anything in any OCC contest it sure would be nice to win something . Good luck to everyone and I wish you all a merry Christmas and happy holidays

I don't think the Windows will see the new BIOS version as a new board. Even if it does (which is very unlikely) you can just call Microsoft and they'll sort it out for you.

In case you need to lubricate the O-rings, use dielectric grease AKA silicone grease. It can be found in auto parts stores and on ebay/amazon.

Glad to hear that.

So it's not a coil whine issue, it's a fan issue. Well you have two options, basically, either disassemble the graphics card and put a drop of oil on the fan shaft, or you can just RMA it and be done with it. Just to be on the safe side, you should probably RMA it. That's what I would do.

Well yes , but as soon as new CPUs are out everyone forgets about the old ones and is like drawn to the new ones. I know that the Core 2 Extreme is three generations old, but it's still a decent chip, I would say. And I understand that it's not worth investing into an old platform, but maybe the guy likes that (like he said, he'll keep his X38 platform and make a new system build with an X79 platform). My point is: While it's good of us to suggest "the smarter thing to do" and still answer the OP's original question, it's not not good of us to force the OP to do the the smarter thing and not answer the OP's question. No hard feelings, I just felt like the idea of buying an i5/i7 was too strongly suggested to the OP and I felt like that wasn't very polite. Maybe it's just me

Agreed.

While what you guys said is good advice, but that still didn't answer his question. http://ark.intel.com/products/33921/Intel-Core2-Extreme-Processor-QX9650-12M-Cache-3_00-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB (click on Ordering / sSpecs / Steppings) I can't answer your question accurately, but I'd take SLAWN one witch C1 stepping.