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

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MrOogieBoogie said:
Just curious: What is THE most powerful gaming computer one could build today? Assume no price restriction. What would said monster look like?

EVGA SR2 board
LN2 Cooling
2 Xeon Processors
32GB RAM
Quad SLI 580s
SSDs in Raid
30'' Monitor

something along those lines.
 
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us


NVIDIA 285.27 BETA driver released. try em out if you were having issues with 280.26.

This is the first beta release from the Release 285 family of drivers. You can read more about this family of drivers on GeForce.com.

This driver package supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500-series desktop GPUs as well as ION desktop GPUs.

New in Release 285.27

Performance

Increases performance for GeForce 400 and 500-series GPUs in several PC games vs. v280.26 WHQL drivers. The following are some examples of improvements measured on Windows 7. Results will vary depending on your GPU and system configuration:

GeForce GTX 580:
Up to 5% in Call of Duty: Black Ops
Up to 7% in Civilization V with SLI
Up to 5% in Crysis 2 DX11 with SLI
Up to 7% in F1 2010 with SLI
Up to 5% in Lost Planet 2 with SLI
Up to 5% in Mafia 2 with SLI
Up to 13% in Metro 2033 with SLI
Up to 8% in STALKER: Call of Pripyat with SLI
Up to 5% in StarCraft II (Check out the finals of the GeForce StarCraft II Pro/Am Tournament)
GeForce GTX 560:
Up to 4% in Bulletstorm
Up to 5% in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 with SLI
Up to 6% in Call of Duty: Black Ops
Up to 5% in Crysis 2 DX11 with SLI
Up to 7% in Dragon Age 2 with SLI
Up to 7% in F1 2010 with SLI
Up to 5% in Just Cause 2 with SLI
Up to 5% in Lost Planet 2 with SLI
Up to 4% in Mafia 2 with SLI
Up to 7% in Metro 2033 with SLI
Up to 11% in STALKER: Call of Pripyat with SLI
Up to 7% in StarCraft II

NVIDIA PhysX

Updates PhysX System Software to version 9.11.06.21.

HD Audio

Updates HD Audio driver to version 1.2.24.0.

OpenGL

Adds support for OpenGL 4.2 for GeForce 400 series and 500 series GPUs.

NVIDIA 3D Vision

The 3D Vision Controller (USB) driver is included in this driver package. Users are no longer required to install the 3D Vision CD driver or a separate 3D Vision Controller driver. For more information, please view this knowledgebase article.
Adds support for viewing 3DVisionLive.com and YouTube 3D with NVIDIA SLI PCs. Please view this knowledgebase article for more information on 3D Vision Window Mode.
Window mode is now the default viewing option for the 3D Vision Photo Viewer.
Added the following 3D Vision game profiles:
Aion
Diablo 3
Dead Rising 2: Off The Record
Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) 2
From Dust
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2
Last Remnant Benchmark
Men of War Assault Squad
Stock Car
Update the following 3D Vision game profiles:
Dirt 3 – updated rating to Excellent

Other

Supports OpenGL 3.3 for GeForce 8-series and later GPUs.
Supports single GPU and NVIDIA SLI technology on DirectX 9, DirectX 10, DirectX 11, and OpenGL, including 3-way SLI, Quad SLI, and SLI support on SLI-certified Intel and AMD motherboards.
Supports playing back Blu-ray 3D discs when connecting your GPU to an HDMI 1.4 3D TV. Playback requires compatible software application from CyberLink, ArcSoft, Roxio, or Corel. For GPU and system requirements, visit the NVIDIA Blu-ray 3D website.
Supports the new GPU-accelerated features in Adobe Creative Suite 5 including Photoshop CS5.
Supports GPU-acceleration for smoother online HD videos with Adobe Flash.
Supports GPU overclocking and temperature monitoring by installing NVIDIA System Tools software.
Users without US English operating systems can select their language and download the International driver here.
 
MrOogieBoogie said:
Just curious: What is THE most powerful gaming computer one could build today? Assume no price restriction. What would said monster look like?

right now?

CPU : 2 * Xeon x5690 @ 4.5ish ghz
board : EVGA SR-2
GPU : 4 * GTX580 @ 950ish mhz corespeed
Memory : As much as fits? 32 gb?
Harddrives : Raid 5/6 SSD setup? OCZ PCI-e SSD?

everything watercooled ofcourse ... =]

Also for games that only use a small amount of cpu cores a 2600K @ 5ghz is faster, but the SR-2 board is probably a little more efficient than the few 1155 socket boards that do quad sli ...


Ayo said:

for the overclocking crowd? Yeah ...

for the gaming crowd? no we want benches lol

Celeron's also clock to 8ish ghz under LN2 ... not exactly fast processors still. The 8 ghz LN2 merely shows IMHO that they have less xtreme overclock restriction than the Sandy Bridge have (which are basically stuck at 5300ish mhz no matter what you cool it with). Remains to be seen if Bulldozer clock as good with air/water as the Sandy Bridges do though, not to mention the only somewhat complete looking benchmarks that have leaked showed a pretty huge performance gap to SB ...
 
I am about to give up on my GTX580 and 2600K gaming PC.
I am sick and tired of the stuttering in deus ex:HR and fallout new vegas and other games, I have tried everything and have had enough of tweaking configs and ini's to get them to run properly.
I am pretty sure BF3 will be the same. As much as I love batman:AA compared to the console version, I can see myself selling up and going back to console.
I can understand why devs and publishers throw everything at the console versions but it's getting ridiculousm my £ is just as good as the next persons.
 
Marco1 said:
I am about to give up on my GTX580 and 2600K gaming PC.
I am sick and tired of the stuttering in deus ex:HR and fallout new vegas and other games, I have tried everything and have had enough of tweaking configs and ini's to get them to run properly.
I am pretty sure BF3 will be the same. As much as I love batman:AA compared to the console version, I can see myself selling up and going back to console.
I can understand why devs and publishers throw everything at the console versions but it's getting ridiculousm my £ is just as good as the next persons.

Well let's cross certain things of the list.

DX HR suffers from actual stuttering that's going to get patched. I can't speak to NV since it was a broken mess that didn't even let me play.

You mention other games, but are you using D3doverrider ? It works like a universal remedy for the majority of stuttering issues in games.
 
I have tried D3D but to no avail.
I think playing fallout NV on my friends 360 last night convinced me, it was 30FPS but it was smooth. My version has this horrible stutter everytime it loads scenery.
I know Deus ex:HR is being worked on but I think I have just had enough, especially with the whole PC gaming is dying everywhere you read.
It appears that there is nothing but doom and gloom on the PC gaming horizon and I've had enough, either that or unplug my internet connection.
 
Zimbardo said:
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us


NVIDIA 285.27 BETA driver released. try em out if you were having issues with 280.26.

Will let others fall on the sword first. I'm sticking with 275!

Marco1 said:
I am about to give up on my GTX580 and 2600K gaming PC.
I am sick and tired of the stuttering in deus ex:HR and fallout new vegas and other games, I have tried everything and have had enough of tweaking configs and ini's to get them to run properly.
I am pretty sure BF3 will be the same. As much as I love batman:AA compared to the console version, I can see myself selling up and going back to console.
I can understand why devs and publishers throw everything at the console versions but it's getting ridiculousm my £ is just as good as the next persons.

Marco1 said:
I have tried D3D but to no avail.
I think playing fallout NV on my friends 360 last night convinced me, it was 30FPS but it was smooth. My version has this horrible stutter everytime it loads scenery.
I know Deus ex:HR is being worked on but I think I have just had enough, especially with the whole PC gaming is dying everywhere you read.
It appears that there is nothing but doom and gloom on the PC gaming horizon
and I've had enough, either that or unplug my internet connection.

First of all calm down.

Do you have a Asus 580?

Download MSI Afterburner and have it show on your screen. You'll be able to se GPU utilization, temps etc. Your GPU utilization should be in the 90s. If the framerate is going all over the place I bet it's because it's fluctuating from 90% on down, then going back up and making for a horrible experience.

Also check NV Control Panel and set power to maximum performance.
 
Marco1 said:
I have tried D3D but to no avail.
I think playing fallout NV on my friends 360 last night convinced me, it was 30FPS but it was smooth. My version has this horrible stutter everytime it loads scenery.
I know Deus ex:HR is being worked on but I think I have just had enough, especially with the whole PC gaming is dying everywhere you read.
It appears that there is nothing but doom and gloom on the PC gaming horizon and I've had enough, either that or unplug my internet connection.


this is almost like a trolling attempt.

games get patched and almost always fixed on the PC, either by the game developer/better drivers/ or the community ..which is more than i can say for consoles. i've played my share of both over the years.

you take the good with the bad on PC. games might have a slightly rockier launch on PC, but they are always better in the long run.

with consoles you're typically stuck with what you get on launch day for the whole duration ...ie, low framerates, low resolutions, etc ...just a low end version of the product all around.

if you're too impatient to either wait for better drivers, a patch, or a fix from the community via google, etc ...then stick with a console. and its not like EVERY game that's launched on the PC is fucked ...sheesh.

and i can't believe you'd buy into the whole pc gaming is dead bit. ridiculous.


edit: with regards to Fallout New Vegas ...i've seen slight stutter when using an Xbox360 pad with the game, but when using a keyboard/mouse its 100% smooth/perfect with and without SLI.
 
hmm some interesting potential with Amazon gold box. Too bad their prices are usually higher than Newegg. They've got a case as one of the options later today. May keep an eye on that.

@demigod the Crucial M4 256GB was $390 the other day on Amazon, and is $390 on Newegg. Not sure how that isn't a good deal :?

edit: ah it was the C300. Still not bad. C300 has really good 4k performance
 
knitoe said:
You should be sure about Asus Z68 LE. If it's anything like the P67 LE, they don't support CF/SLI nor have overclocking options in the Bios. For SLI, you probably need the Pro version.
SLI/CF isn't a deal breaker. Like I said, he is rocking a 5770 right now. When he gets a larger monitor he will probably want a new card anyways, but that shouldn't be for another 6-9 months (so 7000/600 series GPUs should be out).

Good to hear the BIOS has overclocking support though, I've never really liked software based OCing tools.
 
My 570 drivers keep crashing. It did it quite a bit in Deus Ex now it does it even when not in a game. They recover but it's really annoying losing all picture and waiting for it to recover. Should I just reinstall then?
 
MrOogieBoogie said:
Okay, cool.

Here's an image I posted earlier:

hwmonitor-1.png


This is idling.

Can you comment on everything besides the CPU and GPU temps? For instance, are my fans okay? Should I look into adjusting anything in my BIOS?

Sorry for reposting, but I had a very specific question. My case came with three fans. Why doesn't it seem like all three are being reflected in the reading?
 
MrOogieBoogie said:
Sorry for reposting, but I had a very specific question. My case came with three fans. Why doesn't it seem like all three are being reflected in the reading?

what did you connect them to? Motherboard? Direct to the PSU?

they can only be read out when connected to the motherboard, and sometimes only with the right software (HWmonitor works most of the time)
 
Marco1 said:
I am about to give up on my GTX580 and 2600K gaming PC.
I am sick and tired of the stuttering in deus ex:HR and fallout new vegas and other games, I have tried everything and have had enough of tweaking configs and ini's to get them to run properly.
I am pretty sure BF3 will be the same. As much as I love batman:AA compared to the console version, I can see myself selling up and going back to console.
I can understand why devs and publishers throw everything at the console versions but it's getting ridiculousm my £ is just as good as the next persons.

Bro, that's your problem. Forgo all that custom config and tweaking nonsense, turn up the regular settings, and just play. Too many new PC users get sidetracked by the ridiculous tinkering with every game. That's the least fun part of PC gaming, believe me.
 
n0n44m said:
what did you connect them to? Motherboard? Direct to the PSU?

they can only be read out when connected to the motherboard, and sometimes only with the right software (HWmonitor works most of the time)

Oh, okay. That makes sense. One is connected to the motherboard and the other two directly to the PSU.

Also, what's the difference between the Fans and Fans PWM categories?
 
Please forgive my ignorance, but what's the point of a RAID configuration for multiple SSDs? Right now I have an SSD for my OS install and a 500GB HDD for storage, but I don't have a raid set up or anything, they just see eachother and things seem to work fine.

Well, except for the SSD, which I think is to blame for several bouts of OS corruption and forced recoveries I've experienced since buying it. I am thinking about buying a 64GB Crucial M4 to replace my current SSD as the OS drive, and using the older seemingly messed up one as another storage drive. Just wondering why I should bother with RAID if I can just stick another drive in and be on my happy way with no special configuration?
 
MadraptorMan said:
Please forgive my ignorance, but what's the point of a RAID configuration for multiple SSDs? Right now I have an SSD for my OS install and a 500GB HDD for storage, but I don't have a raid set up or anything, they just see eachother and things seem to work fine.

Well, except for the SSD, which I think is to blame for several bouts of OS corruption and forced recoveries I've experienced since buying it. I am thinking about buying a 64GB Crucial M4 to replace my current SSD as the OS drive, and using the older seemingly messed up one as another storage drive. Just wondering why I should bother with RAID if I can just stick another drive in and be on my happy way with no special configuration?
There are different types of RAID. The most commonly used are RAID 0 (max speed) and RAID 1 (data backup).

I just bought 2 OCZ 60GB Solid 3 and going to use them in RAID 0. To simplify, it combines the 2 drive into 1 and double the performance. Thus, in theory, if each drive are 60GB, 500MB/s read and 450MB/s write, they become 120GB, 1GB/s read and 900MB/s write. Of course, there are overhead and other issues would make the write and read speeds lower.
 
knitoe said:
There are different types of RAID. The most common are RAID 0 (max speed) and RAID 1 (data backup).

I just bought 2 OCZ 60GB Solid 3 and going to use them in RAID 0. To simplify, it combines the 2 drive into 1 and double the performance. Thus, in theory, if each drive are 60GB, 500MB/s read and 450MB/s write, they become 120GB, 1GB/s read and 900MB/s write. Of course, there are overhead and other issues would make the write and read speeds lower.

Wow that's crazy. Does that work if one SSD is SATAII and one is SATAIII?
 
MadraptorMan said:
Wow that's crazy. Does that work if one SSD is SATAII and one is SATAIII?
Generally, you want to use the exact same drive because performance will be limited to the slowest drive in the RAID setup. For example, lets say you have 60GB with 300 read / write and 80GB GB 500 read / write. The faster drive will be limited to same spec as slower drive. Thus, you RAID 0 will be seen as 120GB with 600MB/s read / write.
 
Smokey said:
Negative. You can do quad 580s.
TheExodu5 said:
You sure? I've seen a quad-SLI 580 system before.
I dunno but Nvidia sez:
Code:
NVIDIA SLI®-ready                 3-way
NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready            yes
NVIDIA 3D Vision Surround Ready   yes
NVIDIA PureVideo® Technology      HD
NVIDIA PhysX™-ready               yes
NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology           yes
Microsoft DirectX                 11
OpenGL                            4.1
Bus Support                       PCI-E 2.0 x 16
Certified for Windows 7           yes
http://www.nvidia.com/object/product-geforce-gtx-580-us.html


And for SSDs in RAID, keep in mind that you'll get no TRIM support.
 
knitoe said:
You probably want 4X 3GB GTX 580 instead. Buy a custom watercooling blocks for CPU, video card, radiator and etc.. And, that case probably won't fit all the hardware and the watercooling setup.

Care to link to specific items from Newegg that I could add to my wishlist?

Of course, this is nothing more than feeding my curiosity. Wanna see how much a super PC costs.
 
Mudkips said:
And for SSDs in RAID, keep in mind that you'll get no TRIM support.
I believe Intel has update their drivers to support Trim in Raid. Even then, some controllers, Sandforce 2200, offers the same function without needing Trim.
 
Zimbardo said:
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx?lang=en-us


NVIDIA 285.27 BETA driver released. try em out if you were having issues with 280.26.

Yet another release by nvidia where performance has not improved in single card solutions. No thanks. I'm sticking with 275 for the time being. There isn't even a mention how this helps Deus-Ex: HR. The eidos guy in the forums was all hyping this driver that could potentially solve the "stuttering" issue. FAIL to both nvidia and eidos.
 
Smokey said:
EVGA SR2 board
LN2 Cooling
2 Xeon Processors
32GB RAM
Quad SLI 580s
SSDs in Raid
30'' Monitor

something along those lines.
You could probably go higher than that. Our high-end workstations here have at least quad multi-core CPUs and 40+ GB of RAM, for example.
 
XiaNaphryz said:
You could probably go higher than that. Our high-end workstations here have at least quad multi-core CPUs and 40+ GB of RAM, for example.

those don't yield the same performance per thread as an overclocked Xeon, for which you'll need the SR-2 board ... don't know any games which are that multi threaded that they'll use more than the 12 cores 24 threads dual Xeons offer :p

and those boards won't do SLI graphics either I suspect ;)

Gvaz said:
You can do quad 590s

2 590s yes but then 4 580s overclock much much better (and they're offered in 3GB versions)

4 590s will work for password forcing and rendering, but not for SLI gaming afaik
 
Minor deal but in case anyone is interested; Newegg is having a very minor sale on i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz With code: EMCKAJG23 $219.99 becomes $204.99 with free shipping.

Really hard to keep waiting to start my next build until end of this year/begining of next year.
I recently took my old PC build apart and put it back together.... I am a sick, sick man. MUST. BUILD.
 
Ive been recently playing more and more games on my computer and decided it was time for an upgrade.

Budget is $1000-1200.

I was checking NCIX for prebuilds and customizing and I came up with this.

Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K Quad Core Unlocked Hyperthreading Processor LGA1155 3.4GHZ Sandy Bridge 8MB
http://www.ncix.com/products/productdetail2.php?noheader=1&sku=57960
CPU Heat Sink: Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus Direct Touch 4 Heatpipe Heatsink AM2 AM3 LGA1366 LGA1155 LGA1156 120MM
http://www.ncix.com/products/productdetail2.php?noheader=1&sku=41337
MoBo: MSI P67A-G43 (B3) P67 ATX LGA1155 DDR3 2PCI-E16 3PCI-E 2PCI CrossFireX SATA3 USB3 Motherboard
http://www.ncix.com/products/productdetail2.php?noheader=1&sku=59095
RAM: Kingston HyperX KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9 Dual Channel Memory Kit
http://www.ncix.com/products/productdetail2.php?noheader=1&sku=58472
Video card: XFX Radeon HD 6950 XXX 830MHZ 1GB 5.2GHZ DDR5 PCI-E 2XDVI HDMI 2XMINI DisplayPort Video Card
http://www.ncix.com/products/productdetail2.php?noheader=1&sku=59117
Case: Coolermaster Haf 922 Mid Tower ATX Case Black 5X5.25 5X3.5INT Front Audio USB eSATA No PSU
http://www.ncix.com/products/productdetail2.php?noheader=1&sku=38996
PSU: XFX 750W PRO750W Core Edition Single Rail ATX 12V 62A 24PIN ATX Power Supply 80PLUS Bronze PSU
http://www.ncix.com/products/productdetail2.php?noheader=1&sku=59617
HD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5IN Dual Proc Hard Drive OEM
http://www.ncix.com/products/productdetail2.php?noheader=1&sku=50895
CD/DVD: LG GH22NS70 Super Multi 22X SATA DVD Writer Black OEM
http://www.ncix.com/products/productdetail2.php?noheader=1&sku=60731

Total: $1,019.00

My question here is... Is there anything immediately apparent to you guys of potential problems/bad parts?

Im at the lower end of my budget, would there be anything to consider changing/upgrading?

Thanks in advance.
 
unless you're doing media things, skip on the i7 and go for an i5-2500k instead

XFX has given me issues in the past on my 4890 with regards to overclocking. I don't know if that's true with their later cards.
 
Gvaz said:
unless you're doing media things, skip on the i7 and go for an i5-2500k instead

XFX has given me issues in the past on my 4890 with regards to overclocking. I don't know if that's true with their later cards.
Only thing that made me consider the i7 was that ill be doing a decent amount of solid modelling with Pro Eng, Solid Works and then some drafting using AutoCAD for projects. (Engineering)

I also decided to skip out on getting W7 through NCIX, my brother has countless (legit) keys that I can use. But is there a difference between Professional and the other versions for gaming applications? I've been using a Mac since they switched to Intel chips and sadly have become less familiar with the Windows OS.
 
yep, then it would be a good choice.

Those are graphics bound but a good processor definately helps. Not 100% if those will use all 8 threads
 
yes baby!

These new drivers seem great, unlike the 280.26 that almost blew up my pc :I

Temps are 1-3C lower
Just as stable, OC didn't crash during unigine
~3% increase in performance in ungine ( 1900 -> 1950 )

Gonna try hard reset demo again.

edit : also n0n44m told me the stuttering in deus ex has been fixed for him :O
 
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