StarPlatinumTheWorld
Member
So my mobo and cpu definitely need upgrading first? I guessed as much.. Think I may go sli 970 eventually, just because.
"I Need a New PC!" 2015 Part 1. Read the OP and RISE ABOVE FORGED PRECISION SCIENCE
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So my mobo and cpu definitely need upgrading first? I guessed as much.. Think I may go sli 970 eventually, just because.
StarPlatinumTheWorld
Member
Ok that's good, is my choice good enough?
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: Asus Z97-PRO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
What's the consensus on external optical drives? I was going all digital download; but with my slow isp, canceling cable Tv, and data cap, I've been thinking of an external drive and doing something I haven't done since 94. Purchase pc games on cd/DVDs! Any recommendations for a good external drive, doesn't have to be a rw, just something that could install games as fast as possible. My pc case doesn't have a bay for internal drives.
Cool beans, noted about the PSU.
EphemeralDream
Member
I've been getting a lot of "running low on memory" warnings on my home desktop these past couple of months with only a few Chrome tabs open. The physical memory % on Task Manager will go over 80-90% until I close some tabs. My total The machine is Win7 PRO 64-bit with 4 gigs of RAM and a 2 gig pagefile.
Meanwhile at work at my laptop I probably have even more tabs open, Outlook, Excel, etc. with the same amount of ram and a bigger pagefile (4 gigs) and never have these notifications.
Any recommendations? I guess I could up the pagefile but it's a small SSD with only 5 gigs free left.
Meanwhile at work at my laptop I probably have even more tabs open, Outlook, Excel, etc. with the same amount of ram and a bigger pagefile (4 gigs) and never have these notifications.
Any recommendations? I guess I could up the pagefile but it's a small SSD with only 5 gigs free left.
EphemeralDream
Member
I''ll think about getting more memory but I've browsed like this for so many years without these issues. I guess I'm wondering if there is anyway to slim down Chrome in mem usage since I assume it's the main issue.
Check your extensions. You can see how much each extension is using if you launch the Chrome Task Manager.
jim2point0
Banned
And recommendations for a solid state hard drive n00b? This is the first time I'm considering buying one, but I have no idea what brands are good and what specs to look for.
I was thinking about this one.
I don't want to spend more than $250.
Are there any potential motherboard incompatibilities I need to look out for as well?
I was thinking about this one.
I don't want to spend more than $250.
Are there any potential motherboard incompatibilities I need to look out for as well?
You ideally want a Motherboard with a SATA III 6Gbps port. But SATA II 3Gbps also works although the SSD won't be able to stretch its legs.
The Samsung Evo 850 is fine, Crucial MX200 also works. BX100 if you want to spend less.
StreelyDan
Member
Samsung drives are great, I have the 840 evo and its been solid. They also have a nice software suite for monitoring performance and drive cloning. If you're on a budget however, I would recommend going for the 250gb version for less than $100 and using the rest to get a large HDD for more storage.
blainethemono
Member
I've never been able to get my 2500k/Asrock P67 Extreme4 Gen3 to get past 4.3, I always just get a blinking cursor or the windows splash screen. I got it to boot at 4.5 once by also messing with the current/short/long duration power limit and turning C-state settings off, but it was still unstable and I was too lazy to mess with it. 4.3 with an offset of +0.025v has been stable though.
Pics of my settings. I'm admittedly a noob and don't know if i've done something terribly wrong, so it's possible i've overlooked something
Sadly I don't live near a microcenter
opticalmace
Member
I have a legit cd key for Office 2010 Pro Plus, but I can't find where to download it (didn't come with a disk). I couldn't find it on the MS site?
I've used this key before and it was fine, but I reformatted during the holidays and forgot about it. Any ideas where I can get the installer from?
I've used this key before and it was fine, but I reformatted during the holidays and forgot about it. Any ideas where I can get the installer from?
840 Evo is a broken SSD =( That speed degredation bug still exists, for that I tend to side with Crucial.
Maybe you guys can help me make up my mind.
I currently have a GTX 970 and a TX650 v2 PSU. I want more GPU power, basically.
Two options:
SLI is going to be way more powerful than a single 980, and it'd still be cheaper even with having to buy a new PSU as well.
I'm just really worried about only having 3.5GB of VRAM for upcoming releases. I'm playing GTA V at 1080p with everything mostly maxed except AA and I'm getting 3.2GB of VRAM usage with my 970 now.
If the 970 actually was 4GB, I'd SLI in a heartbeat. Any thoughts on all this?
I currently have a GTX 970 and a TX650 v2 PSU. I want more GPU power, basically.
Two options:
- Buy another GTX 970 for SLI, along with a EVGA 750w G2 PSU to power it (cause my TX650 v2 isn't enough, especially since my 2500K is at 4.5GHz)
- Buy a GTX 980
SLI is going to be way more powerful than a single 980, and it'd still be cheaper even with having to buy a new PSU as well.
I'm just really worried about only having 3.5GB of VRAM for upcoming releases. I'm playing GTA V at 1080p with everything mostly maxed except AA and I'm getting 3.2GB of VRAM usage with my 970 now.
If the 970 actually was 4GB, I'd SLI in a heartbeat. Any thoughts on all this?
Turn off C States
Switch "Load Line Calibration" to High or Extreme
Don't use offset, just use straight CPU VCore at 1.35V.
opticalmace
Member
If I were you I would just hold out for now and possibly upgrade to the 1080 or 980 Ti or whatever it is later.
I don't think it's worth doing either of those options.
Big waste of money. Overclock the 970 and try a custom Bios. I wouldn't recommend 970 SLI for reasons you've mentioned. Some day you'll want to run 1440p and then that 3.5GB maybe an issue. Or even 1080p with some MSAA. Basically the SLI gets you higher fps but you can't really use higher settings. 980 is ludicrously priced compared to the 970.
That makes a lot of sense.
I'm not familiar with custom BIOS for GPUs outside of what you could do with a 6950 years ago. What would that allow a 970 to do that it couldn't do prior?
blainethemono
Member
I'll try that. LLC settings are Level 1 through 5 though. I think Level 1 is denoted by a straight line in the graph next to the setting
from one of the guides i initially used
edit - tried it at LLC Level 1, C-states off, 1.35V fixed. Still won't boot above 4.3. No idea how I managed to get this to work the last time
jim2point0
Banned
My motherboard has 6x 6GB SATA ports (Asus Maximus V Extreme). So it looks like I'm good there
I currently have a 750GB storage drive as my main, and a 1.5TB storage drive as a backup. So I'm happy shelling out the money for a 500GB SSD as I don't really need any additional backup storage.
I think I'll go with the Samsung 850 then. Thanks guys!
It raises the internal clock speeds which had some impact, but also allows removing the power limit and modifying the voltage for each clock bin (74 of them). I've got my MSI Gamer 970 to 1545/3900mhz at 1.23v (1.21v stock). It uses the stock fan curve hitting about 64c in GTA V. These clocks allow you to match a GTX 980 in Firestrike benchmark or just about beat it.
You can get some idea of how good your 970 is by opening GPUz and right clicking the top window bar to show the ASIC, mine is 78% so on the better side.
Mine's at 73.2%.
We have the same 970, the MSI Gamer. I've OC'ed mine as well, but not as much as yours. Mine is at 1448/3903 with stock voltages. I haven't tried to OC it further than that. I really haven't tried to OC it all really. I just threw the clocks up the day I got it along with the power limit to 110% and it just worked. My drivers have never crashed nor have I ever seen artifacts so I guess it's stable, ha.
What you mentioned about SLI 970s just giving me more FPS, but not higher settings just kind of clicked in my brain. I'm going to wait and see what the 980 Ti price and benchmarks are and then probably upgrade to that. I hope my TX650 is enough power for that though.
borborygmus
Member
I'd avoid the Samsung drives in general, on principle. They use TLC NAND which means they cram 3 bits per cell. That's generally less reliable than MLC (2 bits in each cell) and SLC (1 bit per cell). Consumer grade SSDs tend to be MLC or TLC. The Crucial MX200 and BX100 recommended above use MLC NAND, for instance.
I can't say for sure that TLC actually does cause issues, but there's been some documented cases of weird reliability issues with TLC NAND (Samsung 840 Evo long term data degradation, iPhone 6/6+ issues on units that use TLC...)
Disclaimer: I could be wrong. I'm happy to be corrected if someone has better information than I do.
Its right to think that MLC is preferred, but TLC itself isnt the cause for the degradation. Samsung wont say, but imo its aggressive wear levelling to get those benchmark scores. Maybe if they let the drive work at bench speeds all the time it would have lower MTBF. They have been 'fixing' it though firmware so that tells some of the story.
Try to reduce the RAM frequency to 1333Mhz.
borborygmus
Member
Thanks for the info.
I read in more than a few places (such as here) that Samsung has been using sneaky methods to increase their benchmark scores, one of which involves reporting write operations to RAM, rather than the actual write to the SSD (which happens later over time as a buffered write). You end up getting sequential read/write that exceed what SATA III is even capable of.
Really shady stuff. :/
Nah that is using the Samsung Magician Software, it might automatically enable a RAM Drive upon "Optimization".
Never know why anyone would install software to manage an SSD though, but some people get Samsung SSDs for the Magician Software. Seems counter intuitive to me as i consider it bloatware.
borborygmus
Member
Oh so it's a straight up RAM Drive? Didn't know that.
Yeah, You can ead a bit here, its a 1GB RAM Drive
http://techreport.com/review/25282/a-closer-look-at-rapid-dram-caching-on-the-samsung-840-evo-ssd
Funny thing is it has no impact at all in real life...
lordfuzzybutt
Member
blainethemono
Member
nope, same thing
4.3 is good enough for me anyway for the most part, but I know I somehow got this thing to boot at 4.5 a while back
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Planning on a new build in the next couple of weeks. Don't really need much advice in terms of parts (although finding a case I'm happy with is a pain--I'm looking for quiet, large enough to fit 6 hard drives and ideally with convenient internal drive mounts, although my understanding is that this has come a long way in the 7 years since I last bought a desktop case, and other than that a rectangular black box with as few lights or flourishes as possible), but I do need advice about buying.
Most of my money is in Canadian dollars, but I'm currently residing in the US (and have USD bank accounts) so the parts would be shipping to the US. What's my best strategy here? Convert to US dollars and buy from US sites? Buy from Canadian sites in Canadian dollars but ship to the US? Buying from US sites with Canadian dollars makes no sense, because the currency conversion during purchasing will be no better and probably worse than what I'd get from converting to US dollars beforehand and then buying. I guess what I'm trying to say is "do Canadian sites have better currency-conversion-adjusted prices than US sites right now?"
From brief searching it looks like it's about the same either way, but I want to make sure I'm not missing on an opportunity to pull an arbitrage scam.
Also wanted to take this opportunity again to thank kennah for helping me out by sending me a DVI->HDMI adapter a year or so ago when I needed one. He's a cool dude!
Most of my money is in Canadian dollars, but I'm currently residing in the US (and have USD bank accounts) so the parts would be shipping to the US. What's my best strategy here? Convert to US dollars and buy from US sites? Buy from Canadian sites in Canadian dollars but ship to the US? Buying from US sites with Canadian dollars makes no sense, because the currency conversion during purchasing will be no better and probably worse than what I'd get from converting to US dollars beforehand and then buying. I guess what I'm trying to say is "do Canadian sites have better currency-conversion-adjusted prices than US sites right now?"
From brief searching it looks like it's about the same either way, but I want to make sure I'm not missing on an opportunity to pull an arbitrage scam.
Also wanted to take this opportunity again to thank kennah for helping me out by sending me a DVI->HDMI adapter a year or so ago when I needed one. He's a cool dude!
Define R5, NZXT 440
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
Yeah, looks like the Define R5 is ideal. Thanks.
Hey guys, I made this build back in 2011 and now I want to do some upgrades for Witcher 3. I have about $700, any recommendations?
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (Don't know how to OC)
GPU: PNY GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB Video Card
Mobo: MSI P67A-G43 (B3) ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (Don't know how to OC)
GPU: PNY GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB Video Card
Mobo: MSI P67A-G43 (B3) ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case
matrixman92
Member
does a 970 work with this motherboard? Does it depend on which 970 I get?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157304
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157304
Most US prices beat Canadian prices by 5% or more, even with conversion. In some cases like with the i7, it's a ridiculous difference.
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Aria PC got a good UK price on the 4790k for £233 right now.
Yes it will work.
No it doesn't matter what graphics card you buy or what brand in terms of compatibility.
metsallica
Member
My brother is looking to get into current-gen gaming and rather than have him pick a side I'm going to work with him to upgrade his PC. His birthday is coming up and I want to buy him a GTX 970. Can anyone recommend a particular model? The fact that each manufacturer has 5+ SKUs with useless comparison engines is mind-boggling to me. I'm generally an EVGA fan, should I just go with a nice OC'd version on their 2.0 cooler? I love that even with that specified there are like 4 choices. Sigh. Willing to try any other manufacturer if someone points me in that direction!
EVGA, ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI are the ones to stick around due to warranty, and resale value because of warranty.
Once you have one of those picked, just do Core Clock Speed:$ to find the best buy. Generally you can get pretty much any card to most of the factory OC'd cards levels, but that does require tinkering, which it sounds like your brother is not equipped for.
ohyouagain
Member
You can keep that CPU and motherboard. According to MSI website, you should be able to fit in 32 GB of RAM and that CPU is more than enough for The Witcher 3 (I actually have it and I have a relatively similar GPU, and I don't plan to upgrade).
For the money you have, you could potentialy buy a GTX 970, 8 GB of RAM and a 2560 x 1080 panel. That's what I would do at least.
edit : you can even have The Witcher with it !
There's no downside or benefit to mixing sizes, so long as you install the RAM correctly. Three sticks of RAM still work for dual channel - 2x4GB+1x8GB is a perfectly valid RAM configuration as long as you put them into the correct slots.
How did you get the product key for Professional Plus in the first place? If you bought it online from a place like Microsoft Home Use Program (back when they were offering Office for $11) then you should contact their customer service. I remember buying 2010 Professional Plus from them and I just checked my order email which had a download link, and the download link is dead. Look for that email, you'll need the order ID.
Living in Canada and doing builds in American money, I've always felt that US computer parts prices were generally better, at best Canadian prices just matched US prices except for the odd deal here and there.
Definitely overclock if you have a 2500k!
If you're looking for absolutely maximum performance for the Witcher I'd go for something like this:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
Memory: Kingston Fury Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($57.89 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($108.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB FTW ACX 2.0 Video Card ($539.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $706.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-24 19:04 EDT-0400
You could also go for a 970 and use the savings to add in some other nice things like a bigger SSD, extra ram, a new cooler or nice peripherals etc.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
I have everything picked except a motherboard.
I went to PC Parts Picker and picked my processor's socket, the number of RAM slots I needed, the number of SATA ports I needed, that I wanted onboard ethernet, that I wanted to pay from $0-200, I don't need SLI, narrowed down the brands to brand names I recognized, picked ATX, wanted a Z87 or Z97 chipset, wanted USB3, narrowed to 4-5 star reviews... In other words, I selected absolutely every filter I could select.
https://pcpartpicker.com/parts/moth...=4,12&K=6,10&c=89,99&f=2&s=24&R=5,4&X=0,20573
... and I still have like 30 choices remaining.
I have no idea how to pick between them, and all the advice I can find is all gibberish. "Better motherboards have better components" (no description of how I can tell what better components means or what better motherboards are). "Better motherboards are better at overclocking" (what is better at overclocking? Safer? Lower temps? Higher possible clock speed?). "Better motherboards have better power delivery" (what is better? More consistent? Less like to short or surge? More power?) "Better motherboards have better heat sinks" (Does this matter? Is motherboard temperature really a concern?) "Make sure you pick a good brand" (no evidence that brands differ or how I could tell which is good, and everyone who says one brand is better than another seems to just be offering a personal anecdote about how they like the one they have or they had one that failed). "You want higher quality components" (how do I tell? what does quality mean?)
One guy suggested I get an SLI-capable board because "they have better components" (how do I tell what better components are?) even if I don't want to SLI. Which might be accurate, but how would I know?
Here are some motherboards that meet my requirements in terms of RAM/ports/sockets:
https://pcpartpicker.com/parts/moth...=4,12&K=6,10&c=89,99&f=2&s=24&R=5,4&X=0,20573
(ATX, LGA1150, at least 32GB RAM, 6+ SATA, ethernet, USB3, don't care about colour, need a PCI-E X16 slot, don't care about SLI, 4/5 * rating, $0-200, Z87/Z97)
Rather than picking one for me, I'd really appreciate advice on how I'd learn to pick. If the answer is just "any of those will be fine, don't worry about it", then that's pretty helpful. Assume I'm the kind of guy who hates astrology and audiophile garbage, and I want a rational explanation of how I can tell which is best. What am I looking for?
Thanks (thanks to others too!)
I went to PC Parts Picker and picked my processor's socket, the number of RAM slots I needed, the number of SATA ports I needed, that I wanted onboard ethernet, that I wanted to pay from $0-200, I don't need SLI, narrowed down the brands to brand names I recognized, picked ATX, wanted a Z87 or Z97 chipset, wanted USB3, narrowed to 4-5 star reviews... In other words, I selected absolutely every filter I could select.
https://pcpartpicker.com/parts/moth...=4,12&K=6,10&c=89,99&f=2&s=24&R=5,4&X=0,20573
... and I still have like 30 choices remaining.
I have no idea how to pick between them, and all the advice I can find is all gibberish. "Better motherboards have better components" (no description of how I can tell what better components means or what better motherboards are). "Better motherboards are better at overclocking" (what is better at overclocking? Safer? Lower temps? Higher possible clock speed?). "Better motherboards have better power delivery" (what is better? More consistent? Less like to short or surge? More power?) "Better motherboards have better heat sinks" (Does this matter? Is motherboard temperature really a concern?) "Make sure you pick a good brand" (no evidence that brands differ or how I could tell which is good, and everyone who says one brand is better than another seems to just be offering a personal anecdote about how they like the one they have or they had one that failed). "You want higher quality components" (how do I tell? what does quality mean?)
One guy suggested I get an SLI-capable board because "they have better components" (how do I tell what better components are?) even if I don't want to SLI. Which might be accurate, but how would I know?
Here are some motherboards that meet my requirements in terms of RAM/ports/sockets:
https://pcpartpicker.com/parts/moth...=4,12&K=6,10&c=89,99&f=2&s=24&R=5,4&X=0,20573
(ATX, LGA1150, at least 32GB RAM, 6+ SATA, ethernet, USB3, don't care about colour, need a PCI-E X16 slot, don't care about SLI, 4/5 * rating, $0-200, Z87/Z97)
Rather than picking one for me, I'd really appreciate advice on how I'd learn to pick. If the answer is just "any of those will be fine, don't worry about it", then that's pretty helpful. Assume I'm the kind of guy who hates astrology and audiophile garbage, and I want a rational explanation of how I can tell which is best. What am I looking for?
Thanks (thanks to others too!)
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