"I need a New PC!" 2011 Thread of reading the OP. Seriously. [Part 2]

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LordCanti, Soka, black_Vegeta

Thanks for the input! I had no idea all you needed was around 8 Ram... I was about to go hog wild for nothing. This machine I was building was going to be my weaker machine and was going to be for the house hold. I was going to build an even more powerful one with 32GB of ram and two 580 with SLI...

Im glad you guys saved me some money LOL
 
MisterNoisy said:
The Turbo Boost is only triggered when the system is under load, and the amount of 'boost' will vary based on how many cores are being taxed - the CPU is basically 'self-overclocking' to limits set by Intel, and the 3.4GHz speed is only really attainable when a single core is running full bore. You won't see it in the BIOS, since the system isn't under load.

Aha. That explains it. Thanks!
 
TheExodu5 said:
I pull out my keyboard tray more than it shows there. My head is about 3' away from my TV. It's the absolute perfect size, IMO. No need to turn my head at all, and it occupies just the right amount of my field of vision. I'm just far enough away that I don't see the pixel composition of the TV. It feels like I'm gaming on a movie screen. Once you get used to it, you can't go back. It's also much more relaxing for web browsing, since I can sit so far away from it and see so well.

How large is that TV? I sit with my head between 1' and 2' away from a 23" monitor and that's just right for me. Being further away unless the screen is significantly larger is hard for me to do now - certain desks don't work for me.

And yes, keyboard trays are awful. Mouse needs to be adjacent to the keyboard, and having both on a tray usually crowds out the mouse or is just too low to be comfortable.
 
SalsaShark said:
To counter this, as to show that its a "it depends" situation:

been building my new rig for almost a month now, spent close to $1000. Since the beggining i was getting an annoying high pitched noise that i reported here, since then i changed the PSU two times and its still making noise, PSU noise i thought, since it also does it when its turned off (as in coil whine). I would blame my power socket or so if it wasnt for the fact that my old generic PSU wasnt making this noise. The second PSU i tried after the generic one was a thermaltake that only did the noise when the PC was on, but now this new Antec one does the noise as coil whine when the PC is turned off, and i mean REALLY loud coil whine.

Now with this new one im also getting loud strange noises from my headphones, all sounds similar to high frequency whines that a dog would hear, only i can, and its really, really loud and annoying.

I also changed the case since then, noise persists etc. Driving me fucking INSANE

Disabled all power saving settings in BIOS, nothing changes.

Ive built more PCs more than once before and never ran into trouble like this, but this is my most expensive one and ive already wasted money because of this, shit's making me real sad tbh :/ gonna send it to where i bought the mobo tomorrow and leave it there for a day for their tech guy to check it out (guess he can try using other components etc), ignoring the fact that i hate other people touching my computer, but i really dont know what else to do.


Remove the power supply from the case and plug it into the wall, then turn it on. (Short the power on pin with a paper clip.)
If it makes the noise, try another power supply. If still noisy, try another cable. If still noisy, try another surge protector. If still noisy, try another outlet (on a different circuit). If still noisy, call an electrician. If any of the subsequent steps result in no noise, you've found your culprit.

If it doesn't make a noise outside of the case, put it in the (empty) case and try again.
Then add just the motherboard.
Then motherboard + CPU + RAM.
Then full system.
 
Ludovician said:
So with the new cards coming out soon, I'm left a bit perplexed regarding getting a new card or not. I've been looking into the high-mid range, and I've found the HAWK mega-clocked GTX 560Ti to be a great buy, seen how the extra clock makes it damn near a GTX 570, which comes in at a rather much higher price.

Then again, there's also the 6950 that can be soft-modded to 6970, around the same price. I am equally torn between those two cards that I am between getting a card now and waiting for the next gen of cards. But then I'm thinking that there usually can be some teething problems with a new gen, and that it would be desirable to wait for the second set of cards with the 28mm tech.

Is anyone able to input on this for me? It seems that the info I've read about the Keplar's performance is a lot of misquoted sayings of "four times the performance", which I think was "four time the performance per watt for double percision", initially. So how much more powerful is it going to be in gaming terms? Will I need it? I'll be gaming at 1980x1200 - and while I am not dying to play Skyrim, it sort of has to be done if I have a gfx card during the fall (ie, don't wait for the next line of cards). There's also Witcher 2 and Shogun 2 that I know I'll also be getting, so I guess it's a matter of being able to play those games at max with 1980x1200.

Requote.

Also, I see in OP that 500W PSU is sufficient for a single GPU - is it safe to assume this will be safe for most future GPUs, seen how power consumption is going down? Also, how can I judge the quality of PSUs? Is an "80 plus cert" indication that the PSU will be good overall?
 
So if I wanted to buy the next step up in motherboards over the Asus in the op, which would that be? If there is no reason to, I will just get the recomended one. Also I'm seeing two intel 120 ssd's at newegg and am not sure which one to get.
 
Turns out my motherboard has the Sandy Bridge issue with the SATA ports, but I honestly can't be bothered taking the machine apart and sending it back. Think I can live with 4 working ports anyway.

Amazon have impressed me with their customer service, one of the buttons on my mouse is dying and I sent an email an hour ago and they've replied and are sending a new one out already, and it's like Midnight here.
 
Ludovician said:
Requote.

Also, I see in OP that 500W PSU is sufficient for a single GPU - is it safe to assume this will be safe for most future GPUs, seen how power consumption is going down? Also, how can I judge the quality of PSUs? Is an "80 plus cert" indication that the PSU will be good overall?
You really can't go wrong. The high end this stuff nowadays is mostly for a few ridiculous titles, or for 3DVision/Eyefinity. All the cards you listed are great, and it just depends on what you want out of your system.

Kepler won't be out till Q1/Q2 2012 though.
Jtrizzy said:
So if I wanted to buy the next step up in motherboards over the Asus in the op, which would that be? If there is no reason to, I will just get the recomended one. Also I'm seeing two intel 120 ssd's at newegg and am not sure which one to get.
ASUS Sabertooth or Maximus IV Gene/Extreme.
 
So I made a purchase today mainly for BF3..

How does this look to run BF3 and maybe Skyrim and any other new games at 160%

Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair V Formula AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Gaming Motherboard with 3-Way SLI/CrossFireX Support and UEFI BIOS

GFX Card (2x): MSI N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDE00ZFBGRBOX

SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CML16GX3M4A1600C9B

I think is gonna be niiiceee, but I wanna hear from the experts
 
mkenyon said:
All the cards you listed are great, and it just depends on what you want out of your system.

How do you mean? I'm tending to lean more towards ATI - seems that the better tesselation performance would give it a tad better future-proofing. If I do get a GTX 560 Ti HAWK, it'd have to last me at least a year, easily.

EDIT: Meant Nvidia, not ATI.
 
ChiefKief said:
So I made a purchase today mainly for BF3..

How does this look to run BF3 and maybe Skyrim and any other new games at 160%

Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair V Formula AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Gaming Motherboard with 3-Way SLI/CrossFireX Support and UEFI BIOS

GFX Card (2x): MSI N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor HDE00ZFBGRBOX

SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 VTX3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CML16GX3M4A1600C9B

I think is gonna be niiiceee, but I wanna hear from the experts
Oh man, should have just waited 1 more month for Bulldozer. That thuban will perform about the same, if not slightly worse than the i3 2100 in games. You'll probably get decent performance out of it, but you certainly won't be able to put those sliders to max.
Ludovician said:
How do you mean? I'm tending to lean more towards ATI - seems that the better tesselation performance would give it a tad better future-proofing. If I do get a GTX 560 Ti HAWK, it'd have to last me at least a year, easily.
As in, do you want to put those sliders to max? Are you okay with turning a few things down and still getting good performance? Where do you draw the line on what is acceptable for you? Do you mostly play AAA graphic hogs or are those just more eye candy that you want to play in theory, but spend most of your time playing LoL?
 
mkenyon said:
As in, do you want to put those sliders to max? Are you okay with turning a few things down and still getting good performance? Where do you draw the line on what is acceptable for you? Do you mostly play AAA graphic hogs or are those just more eye candy that you want to play in theory, but spend most of your time playing LoL?

I'm ok with things like "if I just put this thing down, it'll run super-smooth", some of that really fancy stuff that is just too taxing, and doesn't really add as much as they tax. I'm not one that plays games for graphics alone. If I get a card now, I'd want it to work great with Skyrim, Witcher 2, Shogun 2 and Trackmania 2, off of the top of my head, at 1920x1200, and it seems like this card will be able to handle that. I'd just want to know that it'd hold up for the next year.

I thought my 8800GTS ran Anno 1404 at 1280x1024 perfectly, with just a thing or two set down - so that should be some indication of what I think is acceptable.
 
If you're upgrading from an 8800, you really can't make a bad choice between the 6950, 570, or 560ti. All of those should run those games just fine. You just have to pick what you are comfortable spending on.
 
BannedEpisode said:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0051OL8R4/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Just ordered this laptop for 599.99. Did I do okay?

I had a 20% off any laptop code so I save about 150 bucks and I get a free 360.

If I'm not mistaken the 540m is a pretty decent mobile graphics card.
There's a laptop thread somewhere on GAF, might be a link from the OP. Most folks in here (like myself) are clueless about laptop capabilities since everything is so different and proprietary.
 
mkenyon said:
Oh man, should have just waited 1 more month for Bulldozer. That thuban will perform about the same, if not slightly worse than the i3 2100 in games. You'll probably get decent performance out of it, but you certainly won't be able to put those sliders to max.

How come it'll perform about the same?

And why wouldn't I be able to put sliders at max?

Legit questions btw.
 
SnakeSlashRO said:
LordCanti, Soka, black_Vegeta

Thanks for the input! I had no idea all you needed was around 8 Ram... I was about to go hog wild for nothing. This machine I was building was going to be my weaker machine and was going to be for the house hold. I was going to build an even more powerful one with 32GB of ram and two 580 with SLI...

Im glad you guys saved me some money LOL

I've honestly never even heard of a home computer with 32 GB of RAM. I have heard of 2x 580s though!
 
mkenyon said:
There's a laptop thread somewhere on GAF, might be a link from the OP. Most folks in here (like myself) are clueless about laptop capabilities since everything is so different and proprietary.

Oh. My bad then.

Disregard this post, I only went here because the laptop thread seems more gaming oriented. I mentioned the graphics card but I honestly didnt buy it for gaming.
 
I thought I was done with my build but perhaps not. Is it worth to jump from the i5 2500k to the i7-950 and put down $50 more? Getting suggestions from other people but I'm trying to hold my ground, keeping myself on a budget for a reason.
 
Karmum said:
I thought I was done with my build but perhaps not. Is it worth to jump from the i5 2500k to the i7-950 and put down $50 more? Getting suggestions from other people but I'm trying to hold my ground, keeping myself on a budget for a reason.


For gaming, no. If you've already got a 2500 just wait. See how ivy is. Same goes for gpu in my book. If you're already running an NVidia 500 series card just wait till Kepler in January if you really need to upgrade.
 
Fuck, got an offer to trade my FT02 + 6950 + $280 for a TJ07 + 570 + Full WC kit.

Tempting but I don't want an NV card lol. And for the $280 I could just keep my current PC and do the WC stuff myself.

Decisions, decisions.
 
RS4- said:
Fuck, got an offer to trade my FT02 + 6950 + $280 for a TJ07 + 570 + Full WC kit.

Tempting but I don't want an NV card lol. And for the $280 I could just keep my current PC and do the WC stuff myself.

Decisions, decisions.

Why not?
 
So, as much as I love the thing, the scroll wheel on my Microsoft Sidewinder X5 mouse is sticking like hell. I tried opening it but there was nothing gunking it up that I could see.

Any suggestions for a nice mouse that's not $ridiculous?
 
Flying_Phoenix said:
RAID 0 mechanical drives would be less costly, 2TB vs. 64gigs, and just as fast. That 12.7 seconds would turn into 6.35. Stupid comparison, IMO. I wonder if he even used the same RAM.
ChiefKief said:
How come it'll perform about the same?

And why wouldn't I be able to put sliders at max?

Legit questions btw.
That proc is really long in the tooth, it's basically 3 year old architecture and not really any faster in games than even the 955 PII X4. Most games only use 1-3 cores, so 6 is silly unless you're doing something like a linux virtual machine in the background. The core series is newer architecture than the PII series, and we're already on the second generation of the core series, sandybridge being the newest.

Litereally, one month from now, the all new AMD procs are being released. Fortunately for you, you have the right kind of mobo for those procs (AM3+). Just means you bought a processor that is essentially the Walking Dead.

It'll run these new games coming out, I'm just betting that your CPU is going to end up bottlenecking your performance. This is coming from a guy who has two gaming rigs, both with PII procs (965 and 980).

Super nice motherboard though man, I hope you get out of that what it is designed for. I'm running the Crosshair IV, and am really familiar with the tools if you need any tips to get the most out of your system. You should be able to get that proc right around 4.0-4.2Ghz, which should help quite a bit in games, and delay the need for a bulldozer upgrade. Feel free to PM me anytime.
 
Update: high pitched noise "changes" frequency if i unplug the adsl cable, if i plug 360 wireless adapter in, etc.

Starting to look mobo related. Im gonna take it to the place where i bought the mobo tomorrow anyway, lets just hope there's an end to this shit.


edit: oh, the only issue with it being mobo-related is that i still get really loud coil whine even when the PC is turned off.. so i get i got a loud faulty PSU as well.. ? :/


Also should note that the noise changes, goes apeshit, up and down, does flips and whatnot when i launch say.. Crysis Warhead. What's weird is that it does this more during the loading/logo screens rather than in the game itself.

Not coming from the GPU, before you mention it. Its definetly coming from the PSU, but at this point after trying two different ones (and with the noise changes when using USB and other motherboard related aspects), im guessing its rather the "relationship" between the mobo and the PSU, so yeah.

Pulling shit out of a hat here, but i got nothing.
 
mkenyon said:
RAID 0 mechanical drives would be less costly, 2TB vs. 64gigs, and just as fast. That 12.7 seconds would turn into 6.35. Stupid comparison, IMO. I wonder if he even used the same RAM.

Load time reductions are really not that linear at all. My Vertex 3 does not load 5 times as fast as my Samsung F4, and it barely loads any faster than my old Intel X25-M. It really depends on the game, as well. Heroes of Newerth, for example, barely loads faster than on an HDD (like, maybe 10% faster).
 
How much bigger will games get in the next 5 years?

I mean what will be the typical size of a game to download on STEAM?

mkenyon said:
RAID 0 mechanical drives would be less costly, 2TB vs. 64gigs, and just as fast. That 12.7 seconds would turn into 6.35. Stupid comparison, IMO. I wonder if he even used the same RAM.

He's just comparing a SSD with a typical HDD. And the drive is $75.
 
Flying_Phoenix said:
How much bigger will games get in the next 5 years?

I mean what will be the typical size of a game to download on STEAM?



He's just comparing a SSD with a typical HDD. And the drive is $75.

They won't balloon suddenly, but there will be a gradual rise as always. SWTOR's beta, for example, is 30GB (give or take).
 
HotHamWater said:
Alright about to pull the trigger on this:



PSU/DVD Drive/Windows is getting carried over.

Anything wrong here?

I can't recall why, but I get the feeling you do not want the P8P67-M... I wish I knew why, I just seem to recall thinking that it's not a board you'd want.
 
I'm hoping to get a one up on an elder scrolls game, but my only real upgrade has been my video card (GTX460 1gig) in the last couple years. I'm still kicking 4 gigs of ram on a 2.1 dual core 32 bit system. It runs everything else new like a treat, Crysis 2 and Witcher 2 both beautifully.

But the Oblivion launch, it haunts me.
 
A friend of mine built a new computer and he decided to go with an Nvidia Quadro 4000. He is doing graphics work etc. But I also noticed he payed alot for his card and since I dont know much of what these quadro cards do, what is the difference between a quad 4000 and a 580?

Looking at his specs for the card, a 580 beats it almost in everything, so just wondering why a 4000 sells for almost 700 vs 500 for a 580.
 
Karmum said:
I thought I was done with my build but perhaps not. Is it worth to jump from the i5 2500k to the i7-950 and put down $50 more? Getting suggestions from other people but I'm trying to hold my ground, keeping myself on a budget for a reason.

Honestly, not really unless you're doing video encoding and heavily multithreaded apps. They're largely equal is terms of gaming performance with no noticeable difference except maybe in a game like Civ5 which is very CPU heavy.
 
Hawk269 said:
A friend of mine built a new computer and he decided to go with an Nvidia Quadro 4000. He is doing graphics work etc. But I also noticed he payed alot for his card and since I dont know much of what these quadro cards do, what is the difference between a quad 4000 and a 580?

Looking at his specs for the card, a 580 beats it almost in everything, so just wondering why a 4000 sells for almost 700 vs 500 for a 580.

Quadros are better at what they're designed for, multimedia apps such as video encoding and media design. 580s are undoutably better in terms of gaming performance because that's what they're designed for. It's really comparing cards that are meant for two different functions.
 
HotHamWater said:
Alright about to pull the trigger on this:



PSU/DVD Drive/Windows is getting carried over.

Anything wrong here?

iirc the Seagate 7200.12 have some sort of reliability issues and bugs. I'd go with a WD caviar black or samsung spinpoint F3. They should both be about the same price as the seagate.
 
Hey PC GAF, I'm looking at that NewEgg wishlist for both the $600 set and the $1000 set, and I'm wondering if anyone could give me a sense of what they're capable of, exactly.

I ultimately just want a computer for 3D modeling and rendering, which I don't think will be a problem with either set, but for gaming stuff I'm wondering how far these would be pushing things. Would the $600 wishlist specs be able to run BF3 ok? Or should I try to mix and match?

My main concern is whether the i3 in the $600 set is ok, or if the i5 is any better in significant ways.
 
HotHamWater said:
They won't balloon suddenly, but there will be a gradual rise as always. SWTOR's beta, for example, is 30GB (give or take).

I'm really starting to consider to just get a HDD for games for now and wait until a can grab a 512MB SSD in two years or so for $300.

How long until the next generation of SSD? Like the jump from SATA II to SATA III?
 
Soka said:
I can't recall why, but I get the feeling you do not want the P8P67-M... I wish I knew why, I just seem to recall thinking that it's not a board you'd want.
mATX vs ATX
Smaller, missing 2 slots or something.
Board is fine.
 
Flying_Phoenix said:
I'm really starting to consider to just get a HDD for games for now and wait until a can grab a 512MB SSD in two years or so for $300.

How long until the next generation of SSD? Like the jump from SATA II to SATA III?
I just bailed on the whole ssd thing for now. Seems to be a 4 or 5 second increase in load times. Not worth the extra two hundred bucks imo.
 
Ellis Kim said:
Hey PC GAF, I'm looking at that NewEgg wishlist for both the $600 set and the $1000 set, and I'm wondering if anyone could give me a sense of what they're capable of, exactly.

I ultimately just want a computer for 3D modeling and rendering, which I don't think will be a problem with either set, but for gaming stuff I'm wondering how far these would be pushing things. Would the $600 wishlist specs be able to run BF3 ok? Or should I try to mix and match?

My main concern is whether the i3 in the $600 set is ok, or if the i5 is any better in significant ways.

Well it certainly depends on what you're aiming for. For BF3 we simply don't know but indications are that it will be a CPU heavy game like BC2 and from alpha benchmarks (though with those you have to take with a grain of salt). Dual cores traditional lag behind quad cores for these games.

Right now, for most games the i3 2100 isn't a huge amount much slower than the 2500k but for future games if you want no CPU bottlenecking you'll likely want the 2500k since we're seeing more and more CPU intensive games.
 
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