Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500W power supply : Cooler Master is a respected brand for power supplies and cooling, so I gravitated towards their products. With a decent CPU and GPU, I predicted that 500 watts should be more than enough to power the entire system. I could’ve probably gone with a 400 watt power supply without any issues, but I wanted to be completely sure. At just under $45, it’s not a bad price anyways. If you’re unsure about which power supply to get for your custom budget gaming rig, Matt explains everything you need to know about power supplies and how to pick o
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If everything went well, your computer should be starting now! If not, don’t worry. Just check each component to ensure that you did everything correctly. Make sure that you look at any appropriate manuals or other instruction pamphlets of each component for highly detailed instructions on installat
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) also throttle traffic from Steam and other providers. They do this to prioritize specific data types, such as online shopping and social networking over high bandwidth activities such as online gaming, downloading, and video stream
This isn’t really anything too special, considering that you can just connect to those video or podcast streams yourself, but by adding all of those media stream links to your Subsonic server, you can keep everything organized on one computer system and then access it from anywhere. No longer will you have to wonder where you saved that podcast link, or where you saved that music file that you downloaded. Just log into your Subsonic server and it’s all th
Another way to speed up Steam is to play over a VPN. The thinking behind this is straightforward: ISPs throttle traffic, but managing encrypted traffic is a different matter. If your Steam download speed is slow, connecting a via a VPN is a smart option. It can even enhance speeds with online gaming mouse reviews|https://pcbuildinsight.com/ and provide access to game servers you wouldn’t normally re
The benefits of SSDs are not in question. But how do you install one? Actually, installing a hard drive is one of the easiest upgrades possible. Anyone with two hands and a screwdriver can do it. Here’s
Once you have Subsonic running, you can either access the system by going to ” http://localhost/ ” on the PC itself, or open up a browser on any other computer on your Wi-Fi network and type in the IP address of the server PC where Subsonic is runn
Have you ever got tired of cleaning out your PC’s dust bunnies? Or have a rattling fan that just ruins your concentration? Believe it or not, fixing both problems can cost just dollars and the results provide coolness, silence and easier maintena
Screw the metal standoffs into the case in the corresponding holes (the same ones the motherboard ends up using) so that the motherboard won’t be directly touching the side of the case. Place the motherboard on top of the standoffs and screw it in. Make sure that you also have the I/O panel (the back panel where you connect everything) pressed into the back of the panel before screwing in the motherboard. You want the female connectors to be visible and accessible through the holes in the I/O pa
Once open, locate the drive bays. These are usually at the front of the case below the large optical drive bays. The bays themselves are usually just metal brackets with screw holes, though some more expensive cases will custom “tool-less” mounting system. If your case has such a system you may need to refer to it for mounting instructi
I hope that you enjoy your new solid state drive. You’ll no doubt notice that programs load much more quickly than before. Boot times will also be quicker. Because SSDs tend to have small storage capacities it’s a good idea to manage data so that only important files and programs are on new drive. See our SSD management guide for m
Getting started requires only one of the following – machine lubricant, a PC dust filter or pantyhose, although you can use all three if desired. However, keep in mind that these methods mostly apply to desktop PCs. For laptops, while you can easily build your own dust filter and grease its fan, you are better off first applying conventional methods because of their complex inner worki
Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 GHZ 1 GB DDR5 HDMI/DVI-I/DP PCI-Express Graphics Card 11201-17-20G : AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards are pretty much head to head, so I just stuck with a graphics card from AMD because I have plenty of past experience with those. I actually picked the graphics card last, because I wanted to spend as little as possible on the remaining parts, and then spend the rest of the remaining $500 budget on the graphics card. Placing such an emphasis on the graphics card is important because plenty of games today tend to be GPU-limited, so major improvements in the CPU will only yield an extra frame or two per second at best. With approximately $113 dollars left to spend, the Radeon HD 7770 was the best graphics card I could find. Based on the specs that it includes, it’s already better than the Radeon HD 6950 that I use for my own gaming desk