The "Quick Questions that does not Deserve a Thread"...Thread. V3 - Hardware & Software

how good are the intel core i3 processors? thinking of putting together a cheap desktop for my little brother and am looking at the i3 2120. I have a spare 9800GT lying around. how would these two perform together? how are the pentiums, even?

i3 is the lowest you want to go with Intel really, otherwise you should be considering AMD Phenon 955 or A-3870k.

Get the new ivy bridge i3's.

[QUOTE=Zerokateo;37662846]Get the new ivy bridge i3's.[/QUOTE] I have been checking store catalogues and i don't think they are in my country yet. guess I'll wait. do you think the price will be higher?

It'll be about a 10 dollar or 6 euro difference.

i wanna get a hybrid tablet-netbook (the ones that have the flippy screens that you can use a stylus on) for taking notes in class and also doing schoolwork. someone told me i should wait till october for the new releases that have windows 8. what do y'all think

[QUOTE=gman003-main;37654341]Short answer: Kind of. Long answer: Right now, the number of native Linux AAA games can be counted on one hand. Indie games have much better support, but even there it's hit-or-miss. Java games and HTML games work fine, at least in theory. Anything open-source has likely been ported to Linux - all the old id titles have been ported, so you've got Doom and Quake. But those are native. Linux does have a way to "emulate" Windows - it isn't, technically speaking, emulation, but I don't think you want to get into it. The emulation is often imperfect, often slower than native, and can be tricky to set up, but it's there, and many games *do* run quite well (particularly Blizzard games - seems Linux users like WoW). But it's still a sub-par experience compared to Windows. In theory, though, Linux could be a good gaming OS. It's lightweight and efficient (hence why 99.7% of supercomputers run Linux), and it's easier to debug things since you've got the source to almost everything. But the actual software support is lacking. Now, Valve is working on this. They're porting over Steam and Source, and are really putting a huge amount of effort into it (it may be related to the rumored Steam console). They've actually gotten L4D2 running faster on Linux than on Windows. But so far, this is all unreleased, and the release date, as always, is "when it's done".[/QUOTE] lol linux on the desktop

I've looked everywhere for a good 13.3in machine that can game (Minecraft to Half Life 2 moderate settings) but quite cheap. I was thinking Lenovo because my old N200 is still running after getting dropped and stepped on by accident, thought it would be a good idea to get from them again. I'm getting into college so I'd need something decent for some subjects, 3D and video editing. Any suggestions? My budget is quite limited to £700 now

What's a good, somewhat cheap hard drive and PSU? I see plenty of good reviews on newegg, but i see alot of negative reviews for both of these parts.

Spinpoint f3 for cheap and reliable, WD Caviar black for god tier. Also how many watts do you need for your PSU so we can determine "Cheap"

[QUOTE=Zerokateo;37667880]Spinpoint f3 for cheap and reliable, WD Caviar black for god tier. Also how many watts do you need for your PSU so we can determine "Cheap"[/QUOTE] I don't know, here's my temporary build.: GT 550 Ti Intel i5 2400 Kingston 2x4 DDR3 Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM ASRock Z75 Pro3

[QUOTE=Cheesemonkey;37665551]lol linux on the desktop[/QUOTE] Watch out it's cheesemonkey prepare for baseless stupid arguments!

What is the best SSD I can get for $60?

Newegg had some high discounts on some lower end SSDs in their most recent junk mailing, but I'm very suspicious of SSDs in general that aren't the Intel cherryvilles, the samsung 830s, or the crucial M4s. Of those three, [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441]this[/url] is the cheapest. These two, of four, were the cheap ones in the mail. [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227728[/url] [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227551[/url] Note the reviews. M4s are generally considered to be very solid. I'd spend the 72.

I have a bunch of media files in various formats (mp4, flv, mp3, etc) and I want to convert them all to mp3. The problem is, they all play at wildly different volumes, and I don't want to have to keep adjusting my headphones every time I listen to a different one. Is there any way to batch equalize several mp3's?

[QUOTE=Ardosos;37671499]I have a bunch of media files in various formats (mp4, flv, mp3, etc) and I want to convert them all to mp3. The problem is, they all play at wildly different volumes, and I don't want to have to keep adjusting my headphones every time I listen to a different one. Is there any way to batch equalize several mp3's?[/QUOTE] mp3gain

[QUOTE=Zephyrs;37671406]Newegg had some high discounts on some lower end SSDs in their most recent junk mailing, but I'm very suspicious of SSDs in general that aren't the Intel cherryvilles, the samsung 830s, or the crucial M4s. Of those three, [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441]this[/url] is the cheapest. These two, of four, were the cheap ones in the mail. [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227728[/url] [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227551[/url] Note the reviews. M4s are generally considered to be very solid. I'd spend the 72.[/QUOTE] Thanks. I just need it for a windows boot because right now I am using a 40gb Spinpoint that is ancient, and I am going to use the SSD for windows, and the Spinpoint for random stuff that I wouldn't mind losing if it dies.

Ok, so I'm using a Windows Wirless Mobile Mouse 3500 (No clue if it matters, I just listed the name to be sure.) and it was working fine until about 6 days ago. Now all of a sudden, the computer no longer recognizes the USB connector. It makes the dinging noise that means a device was plugged in, but nothing happens after that. The mouse itself still works fine when a battery is placed in it, but the USB won't connect to the computer no matter what I try. I've cleaned all the ports on the PC, and the USB device itself. And trying to add the device through the control panel doesn't work. Is there something I can do to fix this, or should I just buy a whole new mouse?

Might be a bad receiver, or you may have a borked driver. Try googling how to uninstall drivers, find it, and remove it before giving up and either getting a new receiver, or new mouse entirely.

Apparently the 4th gen of core series processors is coming in 2013... Should I just get an i3 and a cheap z77 for now and then get the 4th gen when it comes out next year or should I just get an i5 and a good Z77?

the 4th generation is likely to be a new socket

I thought they planned to keep 1155 around for a while. I could be wrong though.

[QUOTE=Makol;37676377]I thought they planned to keep 1155 around for a while. I could be wrong though.[/QUOTE] They kept it for Sandy Bridge [b]and[/b] Ivy Bridge, what more can you want from Intel?

[QUOTE=gman003-main;37676850]They kept it for Sandy Bridge [b]and[/b] Ivy Bridge, what more can you want from Intel?[/QUOTE] I know, I'm just saying I thought they said they were keeping it around longer than just that. But again, I'm more than likely wrong about that.

I seem to be getting 1-2 second freezes every few minutes. This is what task manager looks like few seconds after: [t]http://puu.sh/15oEq[/t] CPU utilization just drops to near zero, while the temps seem normal enough [this is while running JC2]: [t]http://puu.sh/15oFk[/t] I think the problem started happening after I turned MSAA from 4x to x8 on PCSX2, which stopped the display adapter from working and slowed everything down for a while. Though I might be incredibly wrong here. Anyone have any idea what's going on?

How does a VPN work? [sp]I'm really networking illiterate[/sp]

[QUOTE=Pelf;37677922]How does a VPN work? [sp]I'm really networking illiterate[/sp][/QUOTE] Essentially you log into a remote server somewhere, and handle all of your traffic through them. Say you are browsing the web. You send a request for the web page to them, and they send it to the site, and then send the information back to you. Generally, this makes it look like you are wherever the vpn is hosted. In addition, the connection between you and your vpn is generally encrypted in some fashion or another. In other words, it's a proxy that handles all of your network traffic as opposed to just being web browser traffic. [editline]15th September 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Zerokateo;37676164]Apparently the 4th gen of core series processors is coming in 2013... Should I just get an i3 and a cheap z77 for now and then get the 4th gen when it comes out next year or should I just get an i5 and a good Z77?[/QUOTE] Probably just get the unlocked i5/i7 now. I'm in a spot to wait, but if you need to buy something now, I don't really see the point in buying something underpowered so you can get a haswell in ~6-8 months. If you have a 1155 mobo onhand, at least consider getting a 100 dollar i3, but if you have to spend more than, oh hell, I don't know, ~150 dollars, just say fuck it and get the complete kit and kaboodle. I seriously doubt haswell is going to provide a meaningful enough performance gain in that case, and it's not like you are going to die because you only have a 3570k. If we were talking mobile or server, it might be worth it since they are apparently aiming to have notably lower power ratings, and we've already got 14 core xeons confirmed, but for desktop use I'd argue the other way in all but some very specific cases.

[QUOTE=Zephyrs;37678106]Essentially you log into a remote server somewhere, and handle all of your traffic through them. Say you are browsing the web. You send a request for the web page to them, and they send it to the site, and then send the information back to you. Generally, this makes it look like you are wherever the vpn is hosted. In addition, the connection between you and your vpn is generally encrypted in some fashion or another. In other words, it's a proxy that handles all of your network traffic as opposed to just being web browser traffic. [editline]15th September 2012[/editline] Probably just get the unlocked i5/i7 now. I'm in a spot to wait, but if you need to buy something now, I don't really see the point in buying something underpowered so you can get a haswell in ~6-8 months. If you have a 1155 mobo onhand, at least consider getting a 100 dollar i3, but if you have to spend more than, oh hell, I don't know, ~150 dollars, just say fuck it and get the complete kit and kaboodle. I seriously doubt haswell is going to provide a meaningful enough performance gain in that case, and it's not like you are going to die because you only have a 3570k. If we were talking mobile or server, it might be worth it since they are apparently aiming to have notably lower power ratings, and we've already got 14 core xeons confirmed, but for desktop use I'd argue the other way in all but some very specific cases.[/QUOTE] You make a VPN sound like a Proxy. But it's far more than that.

[QUOTE=Zephyrs;37675541]Might be a bad receiver, or you may have a borked driver. Try googling how to uninstall drivers, find it, and remove it before giving up and either getting a new receiver, or new mouse entirely.[/QUOTE] I did this, and it worked until I had to reboot my computer to install an update. Then it stopped working completely. Now it doesn't register at all, no ding noise or anything. I've just given up at this point and I'll find a cheap mouse tomorrow.

Anyone know of free video editing software that will alow me to have two videos playing? Like for a facecam kinda thing? I tried camtasia, its awesome but i am NOT paying 300$ for it.