I have a pretty old setup --

AMD Radeon HD 6670 1gb
AMD FX-6100
Gigabyte 970A-DS3
Crucial M4 SSD
Thermaltake TR2 600w
G.Skill Ripjaw DDR3 8gb

I'm thinking about upgrading the video card to a single GTX 960 (somewhere around $200-$300 budget), and thought I had to upgrade the mobo & cpu too... but ideally, I'd like to put that off until the end of the year

Bottleneck for sure.. But get the R9 380. Better value.

Is it worth grabbing a Gtx 970 or a R9 290? Having trouble deciding between the 2. Read that 970 is actually 3.5gb vram

It's worth it in the long run. Don't worry about the RAM issue.

So I am adding a SSD drive to my laptop and a 1 GB storage drive. For the storage dive I have 2 options. The 7200 RPM drive that came with the laptop or a Seagate SSHD hybrid drive that I have. Whats the better choice?

It's a storage drive, so I don't see any point in using a hybrid drive for that. Your storage drive doesn't need to be that fast. Just make sure you don't get anything smaller than 240GB for your SSD.

Plus, the hybrid drive is only "fast" for 1) things that it can cache in its SSD portion, and 2) the file has to be unchanged. If you are really using the storage drive as a storage drive, it is unlikely that you'd be able to meet both requirements and benefit from the extra speed.

Thanxs the SSD is 480GB.

cant really find a quick answer and it's going to be a lot of work for me to rig this up so..

i have a Radeon 6900 series card, it has the two DVI inputs then 1 HDMI

is it possible to have 3 displays on this card? 2 monitors and a TV? or am i limited to the two only at a time

It should be fine since it supports Eyefinity

i have a 6900 series and running 4 monitors on it. 2 dvi and 2 minidp

I'm currently looking at two different laptops for work use, the HP EliteBook 755 G2 and Lenovo ThinkPad W550s. Can anyone tell me if there's a significant difference between the A10-7350B and i7-5500U, because with what I've looked at they're pretty close. With the laptops spec'd about the same the Lenovo ends up being a grand a piece more expensive (I assume because a lot of things are upgrades for it but default on the HP), so if the processors are fairly close I'm leaning towards the HP.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare...cmp[]=2470


The Lenovo is a Workstation class laptop. What type of work are you going to be doing?

A variety of things since everyone will be running the same model of laptop. Accounting, 2D CAD, and PLC programming will be the main things (all running multiple instances of software), and they'll get taken out to do field service work in Albertan winters. What's supposed to be the difference between a workstation class and a standard laptop? The Lenovo is coming out at $2400 and the HP is $1400 with the specs and dock that I want so I need a good reason to justify an extra grand a pop for the same basic specs.

The Lenovo X, T, and W series of laptops are made with high quality, more durable parts (hinges, keyboard, chassis). I think those doing accounting work will appreciate the number pad on the Lenovo. The Lenovo W550s laptop has much 8 hrs battery life compared to the HP's 4hrs. In addition, batteries can be swapped out to further increase battery life. Imo, although an additional 1k over the HP might seem a lot, I believe that the Lenovo laptop will outlast the HP machine.

I personally own a Lenovo Thinkpad E420 (entry level model with worse build quality than the X/T/W series laptops) from 2011 and I am still using it till this day. Same cannot be said for my buddies who bought other laptops from that time.

Here's two reviews for you as well!

HP EliteBook 755 G2 (J0X38AW) Notebook Review - NotebookCheck.net Reviews
Lenovo ThinkPad W550s Workstation Review - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

Workstation laptop will be better for CAD work. It will have a certified graphics card that will actually work well with CAD.

For accounting you can get away with using the E series. I usually just get the laptop and put in a ssd to speed things up a bit.

I forgot about the graphics, the HP has Radeon™ R6 and the Lenovo has a K620M. Reading the reviews it sounds like the Lenovo will stomp on the HP pretty hard. I work for a pretty small company so for convenience I'll just get everyone the same thing, it'll be overkill for the one person doing accounting but less headache for me.

you might want to give microsoft surface pro 3 a try for accounting. if they are mobile they will love it since its so light

Looking at a new monitor. Requirements are must be 27" and 2560 x 1440.

Any suggestions? Been checking out the Dell U2715H.

Usage would be for light gaming, CAD, browsing web.

99% of the time all of them will be in docking stations hooked to a full size monitor, the need for a dedicated dock (not a universal one) and W7 Pro has really limited me.

Ok next stupid question, how can I tell if a monitor has a glossy or matte screen when buying online?

its usually listen on the specs if its glossy or matte

you typically can't
google model number matte or glossy/find reviews/post a question on its amazon product page.

Otherwise you can buy from Lenovo directly and chat with the sales rep about the screen and ask for a discount :P

Hey guys looking to upgrade my vid card.. currently have a gtx 460 what do you recommend in the $200-300 range.

thanks!

I'm in the same situation. Right now I think the top 2 contenders are the R9 380 and the GTX 960.