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[Hausmeister]

GAF, quick:

Core i5-750 (4x 2,67 GHz)
Geforce GTX 260 (216 Shader-ALUs, 896 MByte)
4 GB RAM (G.Skill DDR3-1333)
Mainboard Gigabyte P55-UD3 (1156)
Samsung HD502HJ F3-Series 500 GByte

is 450 Euro a good Deal for this system (used, but in good shape)? Will it play most of the newer PC games properly?

 

[Hazaro]

GAF, quick:

Core i5-750 (4x 2,67 GHz)
Geforce GTX 260 (216 Shader-ALUs, 896 MByte)
4 GB RAM (G.Skill DDR3-1333)
Mainboard Gigabyte P55-UD3 (1156)
Samsung HD502HJ F3-Series 500 GByte

is 450 Euro a good Deal for this system (used, but in good shape)? Will it play most of the newer PC games properly?

I'm guessing it comes with a case and power supply too?
If so good deal AND good parts.

And yes it'll play PC games just fine.

 

[Hausmeister]

Yeah, case and power supply are included So... StarCraft II, here I come

 

[Corky]

Well, this tale of mine is really taking all kinds of wierd twists...

Preface :

1) Bought a pc from a dude. Hooked it up, got crazy errors, bsods, hardlocks, couldn't boot at all.

2) Turned out the RAM was bad, RMA-d the RAM and used some old , 3gb worth, ram.

3) The bsods almost went away fully. I had this wierd problem that my pc HAD to have a hardlock ( after reboot , error-msg said it was a Blue screen error ) the 1st time I turned it on for that day. The problem was kinda like this :

" Wake up, turn on pc, log onto steam, start crysis, load a game, play for 10 seconds fire a gun then it crashed. Reboot Pc, turn on steam, start crysis, play for 10 hours without a problem. "

4) Decided to try to solve the problem, did a clean/fresh install of motherboard drivers and gpu drivers ( a couple of editions older, maybe from june 2010 ).

5) My PCs "crash-system" went away, that is the whole " crash the first time when you play a game for the day " - problem.

6) But all is not good in the kingdom of crap that is my life. This problem I've gotten now instead MAY only be related to DoW2 but I haven't tried out crysis that much in order to ascertain that.

Anyways the problem I have now is that, this has happened twice, I get a green artifact screen at random moments ( again only happened twice as of yet but I fear it'll happen much more).

This green screen, crashes the pc and loops the audio until I reboot manually.
I was quick on my camera and I snagged a shot of the screen.

Everest says my temps are : 70 C for gpu and 50 C( i recall ) for the cpu.
Memtest says the current ram is good
Intelburn says the cpu is good after 20 passes
and I guess playing crysis at the highest for like several hours straight without any graphical problems should indicate that the gpus are ok.

Oh speaking of which, if my setup has SLI enabled does that mean that I dont have to worry about games being " compatible " or things like that for the SLI to work as it should?I.e is it "on" at all times?


Anyways here is the picture of my screen, at first glance you'd think it's GPU-related but wouldn't that be wierd? I mean RTS' are CPU-dependant by nature right? If so why would DoW2 trigger this but not crysis?(thus far)

 

[John]

Cool screensaver bro

 

[Corky]

Cool screensaver bro

bleh, saw the thread and hoped someone actually had some input.

Well, cool joke...err...bro

 

[Felix Lighter]

bleh, saw the thread and hoped someone actually had some input.

Well, cool joke...err...bro

Any messages in the event log after the crash?

 

[Corky]

Any messages in the event log after the crash?

nope nothing. Other than the obvious " windows didnt shut off correctly last time, do you want to : start normally, safe mode, bla bla etc ".

Didn't even got a log, like it didn't even happen oddly enough. And I have to rephrase, the wierd thing is that right after it happened I rebooted immediately and played for a good 2 hours straight with no nothing.



I've done some reading fearing that it MIGHT be the gpu.

First and foremost I want to make sure this happens in other games aswell , so I'm not gonna play dow2 for a couple of days and stick to Crysis and Sc2 for a while and see if it happens in those games aswell.

If it does. I'm going to :

1) Try the Gpus one at a time to see if problem occurs with one but not the other
2) Underclock and or raise fan RPM ( not that overheating was an issue )
3) RMA


I really want to just be able to pc-game like a normal human being but this is killing me. Hopefully someone will have a genius brain-fart and realize what my problem is and hopefully the solution does not involve RMA.

Hopefully...

 

[Inkwell]

My guess is that it's a gpu issue. It could be some strange driver issue, but i don' think that's very likely. I guess we really won't know much until you test out other games as you've said you will. Good luck, and keep us updated as always.

 

[Corky]

My guess is that it's a gpu issue. It could be some strange driver issue, but i don' think that's very likely. I guess we really won't know much until you test out other games as you've said you will. Good luck, and keep us updated as always.

Inkwell, my knight wrapped in knowledge and computercomponents, oh how I get a little smile on my face whenever I see you post !

Again sorry for turning this thread to a diarrhea madness of tech-help...

My next step will be as stated earlier, playing some other games to see if they crash and give me the same screen. I did some sleuthing online and stumbled upon the nvidiaforums where people discussed problems somewhat similar to mine. One gentleman suggested a gpu-test program to my delight, this might sound odd but I didnt really think there was such a thing >-<.

Anyways the reason I'm writing this is to ask you guys if any of you have any familliarity with this OCCT test : http://www.ocbase.com/perestroika_en/index.php?Download ? This tool seems perfect, because it tests 2 of the last things for me to test. My GPU and PSU.Btw, will this program test both of my cards since they're running in SLI?? Or how does it work?


Erotic brainmassage for whoever helps me.

 

[kinggroin]

Just press "I"

That turns off night vision.

 

[Corky]

Just press "I"

That turns off night vision.

no dice my large-equipped mammal.


Anywhoooo

Wish me luck, I just started the OCCT 1h gpu stresstest. After that I'm going for the gpu VRAM test.

I'm monitoring the temps on the gpus, 6minutes in and the cards are both at 80 C and 76 C

GAF, when should I abort the test if the temps get too high? That is : at which temps should I stop the test before the cards recieve any damage?

omg omg omg 87 C / 82 C , is it gonna blow?

 

[Smokey]

So I finally made a stop into Microcenter in Houston yesterday...




my god.

It was PC nerd heaven. PC stuff everywhere, games, TVs a fuckin physical newegg that is 20 minutes away from my house and I never bothered to stop in.

One of the guys there helped me compare my newegg builds with the prices at Microcenter. Some stuff newegg had beaten others MC had the advantage. Really I didn't know they had so much shit so I'm almost positive I'll head over there and get my stuff since it is only 20 mins away.

 

[Hazaro]

I'd want to keep the temps under 90C for sure, but it won't kill the cards outright.

Also I don't know if you can see artifacts or not so I'd download MSI Afterburner so you can set fan profiles and use Kombustor to stress test (aka FURMark).
Just do the trouble shooting you said and slowly work out the problem.

I mean it sucks to deal with all of this, but you did get a computer for like 35% the going rate :lol

 

[Nabs]

So I finally made a stop into Microcenter in Houston yesterday...




my god.

It was PC nerd heaven. PC stuff everywhere, games, TVs a fuckin physical newegg that is 20 minutes away from my house and I never bothered to stop in.

One of the guys there helped me compare my newegg builds with the prices at Microcenter. Some stuff newegg had beaten others MC had the advantage. Really I didn't know they had so much shit so I'm almost positive I'll head over there and get my stuff since it is only 20 mins away.

Microcenter is how I got so heavy into PCs. It was my candy store as a kid. It still is.

 

[Corky]

I mean it sucks to deal with all of this, but you did get a computer for like 35% the going rate :lol

I hear that man, the only reason I'm sticking with this...

WELP :

for both cards, I'm going to test them out individually now. Sigh , the ass never ends

 

[The_Inquisitor]

Ok GAF. As long as my GPU arrives today as it is suppose to I am building tonight.

Quick question

For the GA-P55A-UD3 & i5-750 combo.

How do I change the multiplier in order to get my ram to 1600mhz versus 1333. I OC my processor and that unlocks the multiplier?

 

[Haint]

Ok GAF. As long as my GPU arrives today as it is suppose to I am building tonight.

Quick question

For the GA-P55A-UD3 & i5-750 combo.

How do I change the multiplier in order to get my ram to 1600mhz versus 1333. I OC my processor and that unlocks the multiplier?

If you don't want to manually set them yourself, or attempt to O.C, your mobo should have an option called X.M.P which is a predefined "profile" that will auto adjust the multiplier and BCLK to maintain the processors stock speed but allow your RAM to be set higher than intel's 1333 Core i5 barrier. That is if your RAM support the XMP feature.

 

[CrushDance]

Alright, I'll go shopping around for an Asus then. I can probably get a republic of gamers for cheap these days.

 

[Hazaro]

Ok GAF. As long as my GPU arrives today as it is suppose to I am building tonight.

Quick question

For the GA-P55A-UD3 & i5-750 combo.

How do I change the multiplier in order to get my ram to 1600mhz versus 1333. I OC my processor and that unlocks the multiplier?

To get your RAM speed, there is a multiplier used against the bclk. Typically 6/8/10/12 depending on CPU. So, if you run 200 bclk and set the RAM multiplier to 10 you'll have 2000MHz RAM, etc.

So, at 200bclk, your only RAM options are 1200, 1600, 2000, or 2400. You can't set the RAM to a specific speed.

The multipliers are set up like 2:6, 2:8, 2:10, and 2:12. Technically, the multipliers are 3/4/5/6, but you have to multiply be 2 for DDR anyway and that would bring them back up to 6/8/10/12.

To get 1600, so you can run a bclk of 200 and the 2:8 multiplier for 1600. (200*20 = 4Ghz)

Running them at a lower timing at 1333 (say 7-7-7-20 or 21) is about the same as 8-8-8-24 @ 1600, so if you exceed your RAM speed you can drop down timings to make it up. Performance gain is negligible 0.5%-3% for most programs.

 

[MiniBossman]

So I finally made a stop into Microcenter in Houston yesterday...




my god.

It was PC nerd heaven. PC stuff everywhere, games, TVs a fuckin physical newegg that is 20 minutes away from my house and I never bothered to stop in.

One of the guys there helped me compare my newegg builds with the prices at Microcenter. Some stuff newegg had beaten others MC had the advantage. Really I didn't know they had so much shit so I'm almost positive I'll head over there and get my stuff since it is only 20 mins away.

And if Microcenter doesn't have what you want, you can make a quick trip down 59 toward Stafford and hit up Fry's, which is also chock full of OMG electronics.

 

[CrushDance]

I found the Asus maximus formula for $265 CAD. I'll compare around after work, but it seems to be the best for the money.

 

[Hazaro]

I found the Asus maximus formula for $265 CAD. I'll compare around after work, but it seems to be the best for the money.

Wait. What?
Why are you doing this.

You can get an i5-750 and a 1156 board with USB3/SATA6 for $330CAD.

 

[·feist·]

Alright, I'll go shopping around for an Asus then. I can probably get a republic of gamers for cheap these days.

Are you still referring to 775 motherboards? I've gotten mixed reactions from Asus's ROG 775 boards. Last I checked, a number of them were still going for $2-300+, which is ridiculous.

Have you considered Gigabyte's GA-EP45-UD3P?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2717

Some customer reviews and pics:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128358


Newegg no longer carries it and Amazon's pricing is a bit high at about $150. Ewiz seems to have the best price (when it's in stock/listed) with it running for about $140 + free shipping with a re-occurring coupon code that takes another $15 off.

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name...04eee66ab673d997f4e2f1d95015b9c86fc8afb566acf

At the moment they don't have it listed at all, but the board goes off and on their site. You could always call them for availability info.

 

[Felix Lighter]

I took SuperAwesome's advise and lowered my CPU multiplier from 22 to 21 and upped my bclk from 175 to 186. So I went from 3.850 GHz to 3.9 GHz, rock solid stable without a voltage increase. So I did what any person would do, I bumped the bclk to 192 to see if it would remain stable at 4.0 GHz and of course it fails after 10 minutes of OCCT.

What is up with that 4.0 number. I can hit it and remain stable but I have to raise the voltage and while 100 Mhz isn't really going to gain me any real performance, I feel compelled to do it. It's like a sickness.

 

[Hazaro]

I took SuperAwesome's advise and lowered my CPU multiplier from 22 to 21 and upped my bclk from 175 to 186. So I went from 3.850 GHz to 3.9 GHz, rock solid stable without a voltage increase. So I did what any person would do, I bumped the bclk to 192 to see if it would remain stable at 4.0 GHz and of course it fails after 10 minutes of OCCT.

What is up with that 4.0 number. I can hit it and remain stable but I have to raise the voltage and while 100 Mhz isn't really going to gain me any real performance, I feel compelled to do it. It's like a sickness.

I got over it in a day.
3.8Ghz at lower volts > 4.0Ghz at higher volts

*I also was browsing some forums and see i5's going for $150... Must not upgrade :lol

 

[Felix Lighter]

I got over it in a day.
3.8Ghz at lower volts > 4.0Ghz at higher volts

*I also was browsing some forums and see i5's going for $150... Must not upgrade :lol

Yeah, the extra wear and tear just isn't worth it. Plus I'm sick of running stress tests, which is just adding more wear and tear and wasting time that I could be playing StarCraft. I just needed to hear the voice of reason.

 

[Felix Lighter]

From the StarCraft 2 OT, in case anyone missed it:

ATI Hotfix for AA: http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/ATICat107aBetaDriver.aspx

Hit about an hour ago. Installing now..

Is this new thread worthy? I would like to get some feedback from other user before installing the driver and that might be lost in the Official Thread shuffle.

 

[Milabrega]

This Sapphire 5850 is $285 with free shipping until tomorrow, good deal or are we anticipating a 5850 drop to compete with the 460?

Haz where are you seeing i5's for $150? Best I've seen is i5-750 for in store pick up only at $170 microcenter and i5-760 for $190 at NCIX.

 

[PjotrStroganov]

I hear that man, the only reason I'm sticking with this...

WELP :


for both cards, I'm going to test them out individually now. Sigh , the ass never ends

Get an xbox.



Or just read up on stuff. Really, google should tell you what temps are good for your card.

 

[Sanjay]

Microcenter is how I got so heavy into PCs. It was my candy store as a kid. It still is.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0331303

WHY SO CHEAP

 

[Hazaro]

From the StarCraft 2 OT, in case anyone missed it:

Is this new thread worthy? I would like to get some feedback from other user before installing the driver and that might be lost in the Official Thread shuffle.

Sounds good to me.

This Sapphire 5850 is $285 with free shipping until tomorrow, good deal or are we anticipating a 5850 drop to compete with the 460?

Haz where are you seeing i5's for $150? Best I've seen is i5-750 for in store pick up only at $170 microcenter and i5-760 for $190 at NCIX.

HardOCP code gets you another $25 off.
Still not worth it imo, but it comes down to preference at that point.

Used i5-750's. On the plus side people tell you how they clock
9.75% tax kills me buying PC parts. I would have jumped on the Dell deal by now probably.

 

[SuperAwesome]

I'm pretty sure the answer to this is 'yes', but I need some self assurance...In the memory section of CPU-Z, is the DRAM frequency displayed only half of the actual speed due to the nature of DDR?

 

[Hazaro]

I'm pretty sure the answer to this is 'yes', but I need some self assurance...In the memory section of CPU-Z, is the DRAM frequency displayed only half of the actual speed due to the nature of DDR?

yes

 

[Milabrega]

Sounds good to me.

HardOCP code gets you another $25 off.
Still not worth it imo, but it comes down to preference at that point.

Which code is that? Why do you say its not worth it?

 

[Hazaro]

Which code is that? Why do you say its not worth it?

I'm still biased towards nVidia drivers. :/ I really shouldn't be, but I still am.
Solid deal, but I wouldn't go on it myself.

And apparently the [H]OCP code I though existed doesn't... weird. Must of been another one of the 20 deals I was watching yesterday.

*XFX 5850 for $245 w/ Free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150494
"VGA58594"

 

[Eteric Rice]

So I'm thinking about building a new gaming PC, but I want it to be small. The one I have now works fine, but I'll have to change it up eventually.

When I'm talking small, I mean about the size of this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...004&cm_re=nvidia_ion_2-_-56-173-004-_-Product

Can a good gaming PC that size be done? I've looked into the nvidia ion boards, but they seem to be limited on how much RAM you can put on em. I wanted around 6 gigs.

 

[brain_stew]

So I'm thinking about building a new gaming PC, but I want it to be small. The one I have now works fine, but I'll have to change it up eventually.

When I'm talking small, I mean about the size of this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...004&cm_re=nvidia_ion_2-_-56-173-004-_-Product

Can a good gaming PC that size be done? I've looked into the nvidia ion boards, but they seem to be limited on how much RAM you can put on em. I wanted around 6 gigs.

You don't want something with an Atom, they struggle with Microsoft Word ffs. Completely useless for any 3D game from the last 5+ years at anything approaching decent settings.

Get a M-ITX case that will fit a full size GPU (plenty of options) a M-ITX H55 mobo, a core i3/i5 dual core and something like a 5770 (heck a GTX 460 may not be out of the question) and you'll be set.

Why were you ever considering pairing an Atom with 6GB of RAM anyway? You do realise a single core Atom is about on par with a 1ghz Pentium 3, right? Not being able to pair more than 4GB of RAM to the thing would be the least of your concerns. A dual core i3/i5 should be at least an order of magnitude faster.

 

[Eteric Rice]

You don't want something with an Atom, they struggle with Microsoft Word ffs. Completely useless for any 3D game from the last 5+ years at anything approaching decent settings.

Get a M-ITX case that will fit a full size GPU (plenty of options) a M-ITX H55 mobo, a core i3/i5 dual core and something like a 5770 (heck a GTX 460 may not be out of the question) and you'll be set.

Why were you ever considering pairing an Atom with 6GB of RAM anyway? You do realise a single core Atom is about on par with a 1ghz Pentium 3, right? Not being able to pair more than 4GB of RAM to the thing would be the least of your concerns. A dual core i3/i5 should be at least an order of magnitude faster.

No, I haven't kept up with PC stuff in a few years, so I have no idea what I'm doing anymore.

I like that case. :O

 

[brain_stew]

No, I haven't kept up with PC stuff in a few years, so I have no idea what I'm doing anymore.

I like that case. :O

Yeah, well just don't buy anything that's Atom based, they're completely useless.


You'll have to go a little bigger to get something that will play games but you'll be able to use standard desktop parts, perform easy upgrades and get more than an order of magnitude better performance. I like this m-itx case personally.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163149

 

[·feist·]

I like that case. :O

Unless you intend on gaming at very low resolutions/settings, what you're asking just isn't feasible.

I like this m-itx case personally.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163149

Great case. The updated versions of the SG-05 and SG-06 (black interior, 450W higher-rated PSU) have been available for months now and still no word as to when they'll be available on sites like Newegg.

 

[Darkatomz]

There aren't supposed to be any major video card announcements for the rest of this year right? I know ATI is supposed to announce something at the end of the year, but it's unclear if they'll make it out by year's end. Am I missing anything else?

I'm asking this because I just got my SC2:CE in the mail from GameStop and there was a little code inside that lets me take 20% off EVGA products directly from their site, meaning I can get the GTX460 1GB for $192.

Spoiler

To be honest, I can't run SC2 very well right now, and I WAS going to wait until around Black Friday to drop ~$1800 on a new tower. If I can get the GTX460 at a decent price now from EVGA, I might just do it instead of praying for better prices then...

 

[DrForester]

OK I'm ready to order. (Once I nail down which of those cases to get, probably going with Coolermaster). Last minute input appreciated.

Cheapest is the 3 day shipping. How Fast to they get orders ready? I want to try and time it so it gets Delivered next Thursday. Order now or wait till Sunday evening so they see it first thing Monday?

 

[Hazaro]

OK I'm ready to order. (Once I nail down which of those cases to get, probably going with Coolermaster). Last minute input appreciated.

Cheapest is the 3 day shipping. How Fast to they get orders ready? I want to try and time it so it gets Delivered next Thursday. Order now or wait till Sunday evening so they see it first thing Monday?

I'd just go for standard shipping. Newegg is very fast with shipping and orders.

Do you plan on SLi in the future? If not get the GA-P55A-UD3. If you do plan on SLi later, combo the i5 and that mobo to save $15 or $20.
I bet you can combo the PSU and 4GB of G.Skill to save $10-$15 as well.

 

[ChoklitReign]

Definitely go with the CM case. You could save $100 by getting a cheaper PSU (your system won't ever go over 400W under load) and motherboard. And no combos, really? You're just wasting money.

 

[brain_stew]

Unless you intend on gaming at very low resolutions/settings, what you're asking just isn't feasible.


Great case. The updated versions of the SG-05 and SG-06 (black interior, 450W higher-rated PSU) have been available for months now and still no word as to when they'll be available on sites like Newegg.

You're not even going to be able to do that with an Atom rig. The Atom significantly bottlenecks any modern integrated graphics solution, its completely useless for gaming.

 

[MiniBossman]

Installing the Hyper 212 took forever. Not really difficult, just a lot of time consuming meticulous steps.

Time to hook things up and boot!

 

[·feist·]

MiniBossman,

Good luck and don't forget to post pictures. All of you new build guys have realy been slacking on that end.

You're not even going to be able to do that with an Atom rig. The Atom significantly bottlenecks any modern integrated graphics solution, its completely useless for gaming.

Heh. I was originally going to say "at smart-phone resolutions," but maybe he wants to fire up something like Ultima, or some simple indie games...

 

[evil solrac v3.0]

So I finally made a stop into Microcenter in Houston yesterday...




my god.

It was PC nerd heaven. PC stuff everywhere, games, TVs a fuckin physical newegg that is 20 minutes away from my house and I never bothered to stop in.

One of the guys there helped me compare my newegg builds with the prices at Microcenter. Some stuff newegg had beaten others MC had the advantage. Really I didn't know they had so much shit so I'm almost positive I'll head over there and get my stuff since it is only 20 mins away.

godd damn, why aren't these stores in NYC!??!?!?

 

[DrForester]

Love microcenter, but for my build newegg seems cheaper on everything.

Last black Friday, bestbuy/target/walmart hd an older model Sony 32" tv on sale. Microcenter matched the price, but with the current model. Was awesome.