AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Honestly just about anything was going to be faster compared to my last CPU, which was an Intel Pentium 4.

My roommate is buying a $1,300 mac with a whopping 120 gb ssd and 8 gigs of ram...

Now he/she can do nothing faster and more beautifully than ever before.

Is it a Macbook Air? Those aren't necessarily bad if you just look at the specs and ignore Apple's business practices for a while, I sometimes see folks on /g/ use them, but what is bad is when people buy them for the logo to use as Facebook machines. There's a niche group of people out there that has a use for ultrabooks despite their numerous drawbacks but they're overshadowed by university students spending way more on a computer than they need to, taking notes doesn't require a $1300 investment.

So the mobile i7 was a bit slower than the desktop i5 from roughly the same line? Would I be safe to assume my 4th gen i5 beats out the i7 in question, then? I've just always seen i7s as an unreachable plateau, but finding it in a Mac changed my perspective a bit. (haw)

As in, does it beat my i7? Definitely, it's two generations ahead and uses more power. Assuming we're talking about a desktop i5 here.

i7's with hyperthreading disabled are generally on par with i5's and have a worse price/performance ratio even with it enabled. HT has few applications for mainstream users, it's mostly rendering and such that benefits from it.

Example: http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/583/In ... 3770K.html

As a side note, I played around with 7zip on my laptop today and freaked out when I noticed that the CPU hit 99c at worst after 25 minutes. I have no idea how that happened, I ran Prime95 not too long ago and it capped at 78c after 15 minutes, and that's supposed to be way more stressing.

Hmm.



I think your computer may have attempted suicide.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD A8-6600K 3.9GHz Quad-Core Processor ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI FM2-A75MA-P33 Micro ATX FM2 Motherboard ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($67.19 @ Amazon)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card ($135.66 @ Newegg)
Case: Apex PC-389-C ATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Cooler Master Extreme 2 525W ATX12V Power Supply ($23.25 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Acer G236HLBbd 60Hz 23.0" Monitor ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $633.04
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-18 12:42 EDT-0400)

Critiques would be helpful.

Reddit thread:
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/commen ... ng_for_it/

Looks fine otherwise but I'm not 100% sure about that APU. You should consider the FX-6300, it has the same price point but performs noticeably better: http://cpuboss.com/cpus/AMD-FX-6300-vs-AMD-A8-6600K

You've got a dedicated GPU there, no real reason to go with an APU. And people on the internet agree based on a few searches I made.

Obviously this would require you to switch out the motherboard as well but that's hardly an issue, just find one with an AM3+ socket.

Okay so I installed all the helvetica fonts but for some reason ' is í, ... is Ö, etc
How do change

Arg, I'm trying to install a really old 32-bit game, which could run on my pc, but I think it has a 16-bit installer so it won't install on Windows 7.

Anyone know an easier way to get it working without having to install and figure out VirtualBox?

Virtualbox is not hard to figure out. I'd be pop flyin' to help you use it if need be.
I think there's a compatibility mode tab in .exes' Properties in Windows 7, but I don't know if that would be of any help.

What game, specifically?

Castle of the Winds, an old roguelike. It's freeware now and I used to play it all the time, so I like it for nostalgia's sake.

@Obnosim I have messed around with the compatibility settings, no dice though. And yeah I have no idea how VirtualBox works and the manuals I've found aren't exactly in layman's terms. I could probably trial and error my way through it but that'd be a lot of trouble for an old game.