There were a few changes.  On the $1800 and up computers the Intel CPU recommendation changed from the Core i7 920 to the 930 and the modular power supply recommendation from a Thermal Take to a Corsair power supply. On the $1200 computer we upgraded the AMD CPU from the 955 3.2GHz to the 965 3.4GHz CPU.  On the $1800 and $2300 computers we upgraded the video card recommendations.  On the $800 computers both the Intel and AMD motherboards had been discontinued so we did some research and found a few solid motherboards in the same price range, both of which are more recent versions of the discontinued boards.

The rest of the changes were in the prices of the components.  The changes were mostly down.  RAM prices in particular have dropped in the last few months.  

You might have noticed I haven't been posting here for awhile.  The day after my last post we left for a two week vacation in Tennessee.  My wife is from there and we haven't been there in a few years so it was about time.  It was a good trip, but with a 17 girl, 7 and 6 year old boys and 3 month little girl I wouldn't categories as restful. At least not for me and my wife. Both boys contracted a rash that comes from going into an unclean hot tub.  The hotel was nice enough to pay the medical bills.  We won't be staying there again.  We left Tennessee at the end of last month about 11PM because it was time to leave the next morning anyway and we didn't want to stay in that hotel.   We spent 24hrs on the road, a straight through, no sleep, drive back to Texas.  If I wasn't exhausted before the trip I sure was after it.  I was up for 42 hours.  No, I didn't transpose the numbers.  24hrs plus I was up all day before we  left Tennessee that evening. Did I mention the 7 year old was sick the entire way back and oh yeah, he threw up a few hours into the journey.  The pore thing was in misery.

We got back to the house about 2am and everyone crashed.  The next day, after a good night sleep, we woke up and realized the AC wasn't cooling the house.  After several quick fixes I was able to get it working pretty well, but with 105 degree heat it can only do so much.  Then we noticed the refrigerator stopped cooling.  I got it working but it failed again the next day.  Did I mention the roof on the house needed to be replaced?  We arranged for a new fridge and scheduled the roofing guys to do the work which they assured us would take one day.  The new fridge broke.  We arranged for a swap out and left for the day to avoid the roofing noise.  We went to grandmas house.  

We didn't hear from the roofing guys all day and came home to an unfinished roof and an AC that wasn't cooling at all.  There were roofing nails, little circular metal things and staples all over the outside AC unit which wasn't running. The roofing guys agreed to put us up in a hotel for the night.  The next day after driving around and sitting in the car all day the AC was fixed and the roof was finished.

This brings me to about 5 days ago when I was able to get back to work.  Then we got the water bill and it appears one of our toilets was running the entire time we were in Tennessee.  The water usage was 3 times our usual and the bill was about $120 more than we normally pay.  I spent the afternoon completely replacing every part of both toilets in the house.  Then I got back to work again.  

I have been working on some new videos about upgrading computers.  If you've built your computer already you may think these videos won't be worth watching but there are lots of issues that arise when you upgrade a computer that you don't have to worry about when you build from scratch.  The first series will be RAM upgrades.  I should have the first video online in a few days.  I will also be posting here again on a regular basis and will update all of the Computer Parts Lists tomorrow. 

The videos on two separate DVDs.  They wouldn't fit on one with good quality and I figured most people would want either the AMD or Intel videos.  

The price for either DVD is $14.95.  If you're an existing customer you can log into the site and use the Your Subscriptions tab on the left side of the page to order your copy.  New customers please use the Buy Now link.

The GTX 460 is based on Nvidia Fermi chip. Where the high end GTX 480 has 480 Stream Processors the GTX 460 has 336 Stream Processors. The other specs are downgraded as well from the GTX 480.  

The high end GTX 480 is around $500. These cards will cost around $200 for the 768MB version and $230 for the 1GB version.  For the money these cards are well performing quiet and cool in comparison.

These GTX 460 cards are faster than the ATI cards at the same price point.  

Anandtech has a solid review of the GTX 460

Anandtech did a second vendor specific review with overclocking results from the different card makers. 

Guru3D.com has a round up of GTX 460 cards

Extremetech.com has a shorter, get to the point review of the GTX 460 

In this last lesson we show how to combine the overclocks of the CPU, CPU Northbridge, HT Link and memory into a complete system overclock.  We show how to do this with a Black Edition CPU and with a non Black Edition CPU.

Lesson 08 - Combining the Overclocks of the CPU, CPU NB, HT Link and RAM into a Complete System Overclock

This is the last AMD Phenom II based CPU Overclocking video.  Please let me know if you have any questions about overclocking, or the videos. help@homepcbuilder.com or 866-508-1113.  Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

This video shows how to overclock the RAM and or lower the CAS timing settings to improve performance.

Lesson 07 - Overclocking the RAM and lowering the RAM's timings

We recommend overclock the the RAM is you have 1333MHz memory and lowering the times if you have 1600MHz memory.

Up Next: Lesson 8 - Putting all of the overclocks we've done of the CPU, CPU Northbridge, HT Link and Memory together in one configuration.

In this lesson we show how to overclock the CPU Northbridge and HT Link.  

Lesson 06 - CPU Northbridge and HT Link Overclocking

The CPU NB controls the on-board memory controller and is very important to overclock if you have 1600MHz memory.  Overclocking the HT Link frequency can give you better performance in memory intensive programs.

Up Next: Lesson 7 - Memory Overclocking 

You can find the main page of the parts lists here 

It was mostly price changes with a few parts that needed to be replaced, either because a new better part had come out, or the model was discontinued.

This is the video lesson where the big performance improvement comes into play.  This lesson shows how to overclock both Black Edition and Non-Black Edition AMD CPUs.

AMD Phenom II Based CPU Overclocking Video Lesson 5

We got our AMD Phenon II 955 Black Edition CPU to 3.855GHz.  Can your AMD CPU go faster?  

Up Next

Lesson 6 -  Finding your CPU's maximum CPU Northbridge and HT Link Frequency 

In lesson 4 we show how to find your motherboard maximum stable reference clock speed.  The reference clock in a key tool we will use later in the series to overclock the other components.

AMD Phenom II Based CPU Overclocking Video Lesson 4

The video also shows how to remove a stock AMD CPU cooler and replace it with a 3rd party cooler.  Specifically the video shows installing an Arctic Cooler Freezer 64 Pro.

Coming Up Next

Lesson 5 - Overclocking the CPU to 3.8GHz