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"I need a New PC!" 2012 Thread. 22nm+28nm, Tri-Gate, and reading the OP. [Part 1]

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Hawk269

Member
Can anyone that has a water cooling loop set up take a look at the picture below and let me know your thoughts?

Thank you!

xigmatek_rad_flow.jpg
 

PGamer

fucking juniors
Well I checked out my drive again and it's not showing anything to recover this time so I might be good.

Use Ccleaner.

More passes the better although that will require time.

One pass is not enough.

I thought one pass was considered sufficient for hard drives?

From Wikipedia:
Wikipedia said:
According to the 2006 NIST Special Publication 800-88 Section 2.3 (p. 6): "Basically the change in track density and the related changes in the storage medium have created a situation where the acts of clearing and purging the media have converged. That is, for ATA disk drives manufactured after 2001 (over 15 GB) clearing by overwriting the media once is adequate to protect the media from both keyboard and laboratory attack."

According to the 2006 CMRR Tutorial on Disk Drive Data Sanitization Document (p. 8): "Secure erase does a single on-track erasure of the data on the disk drive. The U.S. National Security Agency published an Information Assurance Approval of single pass overwrite, after technical testing at CMRR showed that multiple on-track overwrite passes gave no additional erasure." "Secure erase" is a utility built into modern ATA hard drives that overwrites all data on a disk, including remapped (error) sectors.

Further analysis by Wright et al. seems to also indicate that one overwrite is all that is generally required.
 

Pandemic

Member
Hi hi, so I'm considering in building a new PC. And so in saying that, is anything from these components from my current PC worthwhile in using in my new PC?

OS Version: Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium, Service Pack 2, 64 bit
Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor, AMD64 Family 16 Model 2 Stepping 3
Processor Count: 4
RAM: 4093 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT, 512 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 953865 MB, Free - 524237 MB;
Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd., GA-MA78G-DS3HP
 

clav

Member
Well I checked out my drive again and it's not showing anything to recover this time so I might be good.



I thought one pass was considered sufficient for hard drives?

From Wikipedia:

I usually do more than one pass just to ensure it's erased.

Interesting to know it's supposed to not make a difference, but I guess I run on old methods.
 

n0n44m

Member
Can anyone that has a water cooling loop set up take a look at the picture below and let me know your thoughts?

Thank you!

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh596/Stateless269/xigmatek_rad_flow.jpg

don't make it so complex; water temperature hardly changes between components (I think I saw a 2c difference between CPU in and GPU out when running IBT+Furmark...)

so just go for what is the easiest to route the tubing; I guess pump->front rad->top rad->cpu->gpu->res.

As long as you keep the reservoir higher than the pump every kind of loop works though :p

also the way you've drawn it the bottom gpu won't get flow; i.e. the water will run right through the ports thereby skipping the entire block

also top rad might perform better when switched to intake, but then again it might result in too much overpressure inside the case :p I'd leave it on outtake to be sure, even if you lose a couple of degrees C
 
My computer has been acting weird lately. With certain games it will lag abnormally but with others no problem.

I decided to boot up SSFIV AE and have a few round with my son and noticed it was lagging a lot and I know this game runs incredibly smooth. I booted Burnout Paradise and again it lags in certain places. I decided for the hell of it to boot Skyrim and its going 20fps! WTF!?

But when I play Diablo 3 or The Witcher 2. Runs smooth as usual. I am totally baffled, help me please.


Specs:
2500k @ 4.8ghz
ATI 6950 2gb
16gb 1600 DDR3

Running games in 1080p.
 
Can anyone that has a water cooling loop set up take a look at the picture below and let me know your thoughts?

I would add another pump but that's just me. 2 360mm radiators, cpu block, and 2 gpu blocks is a lot of twisting and turning. Plus if its all in the same loop, your computer won't melt down if one of your pumps dies.
 
I've been having some issues with my HD 7850 after installing the Catalyst 12.4 drivers. First thing I noticed after the install was the known glitch with the driver stating it's still 12.3, however after running the heaven benchmark I noticed flickering on the textures and shadows that I don't remember being there before (on stock settings). Thus I immediately unstalled the drivers and reinstalled the 12.3 version I was using before, however the problems are worryingly persisting.

Is there a chance I missed a step when it came to uninstalling the drivers (just used the uninstall command on the driver file) or am I screwed/have to hope it will be fixed with future drivers?
 
Did you tweak anything in CCC? (don't)

I did about a week ago, but I just disabled everything and I still have the same problems. :\

Going to use driver sweeper and reinstall the latest drivers. Hope this works!

Update: I used driver sweeper and installed the drivers and it's working fine.

Thanks for the help.
 

surly

Banned
What is you guys' opinion on sleep mode for hard drives in a desktop PC?

I have an SSD as my main Windows/software drive and a 2TB hard drive for data. I'm using the default power management settings, so the hard drive turns off after 20 minutes of inactivity. Having Googled it, most of the posts on tech forums say that this is a bad thing, as the drive spinning up and down lessens its lifespan, but I don't know if that's just one of those myths that people repeat. Does anyone have any solid info on this? Thanks.
 

Hawk269

Member
don't make it so complex; water temperature hardly changes between components (I think I saw a 2c difference between CPU in and GPU out when running IBT+Furmark...)

so just go for what is the easiest to route the tubing; I guess pump->front rad->top rad->cpu->gpu->res.

As long as you keep the reservoir higher than the pump every kind of loop works though :p

also the way you've drawn it the bottom gpu won't get flow; i.e. the water will run right through the ports thereby skipping the entire block

also top rad might perform better when switched to intake, but then again it might result in too much overpressure inside the case :p I'd leave it on outtake to be sure, even if you lose a couple of degrees C

Yeah, I posted this over at the Evga Mod Rigs forum and they said the same thing as you have. I just never did water cooling and thought that once it leaves the CPU it would be hot and not benefit the GPU's.

I also noticed that the 2nd cpu the path is wrong...lol

Others have suggested that possibly only one pump wont be enough...what are thoughts on that? If I add a 2nd pump, ideally where would it go?
 

ProXimity

Banned
haha well, I do have one problem: I got one bad stick of RAM. That's better than four, three, or two, though. Shouldn't be too hard to replace. I'm still unable to get sound to work through the front headphone jack (it only works through my Turtle Beach PX21 USB headset).
 
Quick question. I'm looking to replace my aging LCD screen with something new, but I haven't decided what model I want to get yet.

But can anyone tell me how big of a benefit going from LCD to LED would be? Are there any noticeable improvements in general? Aside from the the lower power usage LED's appear to have.
 

mkenyon

Banned
haha well, I do have one problem: I got one bad stick of RAM. That's better than four, three, or two, though. Shouldn't be too hard to replace. I'm still unable to get sound to work through the front headphone jack (it only works through my Turtle Beach PX21 USB headset).
Have you set your microphone to the front panel in 'recording devices'?
 

LordAlu

Member
haha well, I do have one problem: I got one bad stick of RAM. That's better than four, three, or two, though. Shouldn't be too hard to replace. I'm still unable to get sound to work through the front headphone jack (it only works through my Turtle Beach PX21 USB headset).
Do you have a sound card or on-board audio? Your front panel might have come with two audio connectors (AC'97 an HDAUDIO) and you want to connect the HDAUDIO one to the sound card, or if you don't have one the appropriate motherboard slot. Also, you'll need the correct drivers installed - my Xonar DG wouldn't output sound to the front panel until I'd installed the Xonar software.
 

MooMoo

Member
Okay, cool. Is there a preferred temp to keep under? I noticed that for short-ish sessions I stay around low-mid 70C but when I have longer play sessions I tend to peak at around 80C. I guess it doesn't help too much that my room tends to be 27-28C (which tbh, kinda makes playing games uncomfortable D:).
 

Pandemic

Member
Apoligies in asking this again, but is there anything with these spec's that are worth keeping and using for my next PC..? Or should I just build a whole new PC?

Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor, AMD64 Family 16 Model 2 Stepping 3
Processor Count: 4
RAM: 4093 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT, 512 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 953865 MB, Free - 524237 MB;
Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd., GA-MA78G-DS3HP
 

MrBig

Member
Okay, cool. Is there a preferred temp to keep under? I noticed that for short-ish sessions I stay around low-mid 70C but when I have longer play sessions I tend to peak at around 80C. I guess it doesn't help too much that my room tends to be 27-28C (which tbh, kinda makes playing games uncomfortable D:).
Under 80 is fine under normal use.
Apoligies in asking this again, but is there anything with these spec's that are worth keeping and using for my next PC..? Or should I just build a whole new PC?

Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor, AMD64 Family 16 Model 2 Stepping 3
Processor Count: 4
RAM: 4093 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT, 512 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 953865 MB, Free - 524237 MB;
Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd., GA-MA78G-DS3HP

No, you're looking at a whole new build. You could keep the GPU if you don't plan on playing many games, or the HDD as a non-primary if you got it recently.
 

Danielsan

Member
I recently build a new PC and it runs most games like a charm. However, for certain games I'd like to display the FPS so I can tweak accordingly. I installed Radeon Pro (I have an HD7850 OC) and in the options it says that you can display/toggle an FPS counter, but I simply can't get this to work. Do any of you know what I need to in order to get the fps counter running?
 
Apoligies in asking this again, but is there anything with these spec's that are worth keeping and using for my next PC..? Or should I just build a whole new PC?

Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor, AMD64 Family 16 Model 2 Stepping 3
Processor Count: 4
RAM: 4093 Mb
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT, 512 Mb
Hard Drives: C: Total - 953865 MB, Free - 524237 MB;
Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd., GA-MA78G-DS3HP

Definitely keep the hard drive, at least as a data drive. If I'm reading that right and it's a 1TB with ~500GB free.
 

Ledsen

Member
I recently build a new PC and it runs most games like a charm. However, for certain games I'd like to display the FPS so I can tweak accordingly. I installed Radeon Pro (I have an HD7850 OC) and in the options it says that you can display/toggle an FPS counter, but I simply can't get this to work. Do any of you know what I need to in order to get the fps counter running?

Download FRAPS.
 

Mr_Elysia

Member
Underdog build with many F's and X's.
Processor: AMD 8150-FX Black w/ Noctua NH-D14
MB: Sabertooth 990FX
GC: XFX 7950 Black Double D
RAM: Kingston HyperX Genesis 16G (4x4) DDR3
SSD: Kingston HyperX 120G
HD: WDC Black 1TB
OS: W7 Pro
PS: Corsair 850W
Case: Corsair Obsidian 800D
Other inconsequential things. Final Tally: Somewhere just south of nineteen hundred dollars.

In case you're frothing at the mouth and raging at your keyboard to tell me about AMD's inferiority just know that that's kind of why I decided to go AMD. I was all set up until this smug nerdgeek, that worked at the place I was buying from, started bashing AMD about how they sucked and they were dying and praising intel like an apple fangirl, trying to upsell me. How could I not go AMD? He persisted and told me what a mistake I was making as they only made one to sixty amd to intel builds, and none of them for gaming. I wondered if he was willing to forgo his commission to convince me because, after all, this chip was cheaper than the original one he talked me out of. After that I knew it was a Radeon graphics card too as they're behind in the game. I don't really care, it's sufficient for my purposes. I know there's no honour in fighting a losing battle but honestly...how could I not?
 

n0n44m

Member
Yeah, I posted this over at the Evga Mod Rigs forum and they said the same thing as you have. I just never did water cooling and thought that once it leaves the CPU it would be hot and not benefit the GPU's.

I also noticed that the 2nd cpu the path is wrong...lol

Others have suggested that possibly only one pump wont be enough...what are thoughts on that? If I add a 2nd pump, ideally where would it go?

one pump should be enough, flowrate doesn't really matter anyway once you're above 40 l/hour in terms of temperature , and that setup would do much more than that with a single D5 pump. Multiple pumps can also dump more heat in the system, which means that temperatures basically don't improve at all.

However they are more reliable ofcourse, as the 2nd can still easily power the setup if the first dies for whatever reason.

For pumps like the D5 or the smaller Laings there are many integrated pump tops which allow you to nicely fit 2 pumps in one housing. Swiftech even has the mcp35x-2 or something, which is two mcp35x pumps in one without modding. Benefit of these last pumps is that they are PWM speed controlled, so you can attach them to the CPU fan header on your motherboard and dial them down to decrease vibration noise

In my new setup (9*140 rad, CPU, 2*GPU, motherboard, filter) I'm going to use two pumps, but mainly "just because I can" ;)
 
Alright guys, i'm on a strict budget and I need absolute maximum value for money build. Since I only use my home PC for banal tasks and some medium-gaming, just need to do 1920x1080 at respectable settings. Here's what i've got, choosing the best price/performance parts I can find:

CPU: i3 2120
GPU: Sapphire 7850 OC
RAM: 8GB Ares 1333
PSU: Corsair CX500
SSD: Sandisk Extreme 120
MOBO: Asrock Z77-Pro4-M (More than I need but I want to keep my options open)
CASE: Fractal Design R3 Mini

My only concern is potential bottlenecks between the CPU and GPU. I'm not willing to pull the trigger on a quad though as its almost double for the 2500k (in high demand) or the 3570k and i'm not going to get double the performance out of it. My other option would be to get a G850 or something and upgrade in a years time, would it hold on a game like D3 however?
 

Danielsan

Member
Alright guys, i'm on a strict budget and I need absolute maximum value for money build. Since I only use my home PC for banal tasks and some medium-gaming, just need to do 1920x1080 at respectable settings. Here's what i've got, choosing the best price/performance parts I can find:

CPU: i3 2120
GPU: Sapphire 7850 OC
RAM: 8GB Ares 1333
PSU: Corsair CX500
SSD: Sandisk Extreme 120
MOBO: Asrock Z77-Pro4-M (More than I need but I want to keep my options open)
CASE: Fractal Design R3 Mini

My only concern is potential bottlenecks between the CPU and GPU. I'm not willing to pull the trigger on a quad though as its almost double for the 2500k (in high demand) or the 3570k and i'm not going to get double the performance out of it. My other option would be to get a G850 or something and upgrade in a years time, would it hold on a game like D3 however?
Why not switch to the Asrock Z77 Pro 3 and spend the savings towards an i2500k?
 
I've been having some issues with my HD 7850 after installing the Catalyst 12.4 drivers. First thing I noticed after the install was the known glitch with the driver stating it's still 12.3, however after running the heaven benchmark I noticed flickering on the textures and shadows that I don't remember being there before (on stock settings). Thus I immediately unstalled the drivers and reinstalled the 12.3 version I was using before, however the problems are worryingly persisting.

Is there a chance I missed a step when it came to uninstalling the drivers (just used the uninstall command on the driver file) or am I screwed/have to hope it will be fixed with future drivers?

As an update to this here's a video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNT9akRx0f0&feature=youtu.be

The quality's pretty terrible as I've never recorded/compressed/uploaded anything before. However you can clearly see some flickering at 10-12 seconds in. Has anybody got any ideas on if there's anything I can do about it?
 

LordAlu

Member
As an update to this here's a video of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNT9akRx0f0&feature=youtu.be

The quality's pretty terrible as I've never recorded/compressed/uploaded anything before. However you can clearly see some flickering at 10-12 seconds in. Has anybody got any ideas on if there's anything I can do about it?
Whenever I uninstall graphics drivers, I like to use Driver Sweeper to get rid of everything, as uninstalling never usually does this. It might help to uninstall again, reboot and head into Safe Mode and use Driver Sweeper, then reboot again and install your 12.3 drivers. Unfortunately there's not much you might be able to do other than that :(
 

Hoplatee

Member
It's time for me to build a new pc. I decided on most of the stuff but I am 'stuck' on the CPU & GPU.

My purpose is to just game at 1920x1080 res @ 60fps. I am not interested in multiple monitor setups and that is where my confusion/doubt kicks in when looking at benchmarks and stuff. I can not decide between the GTX 670 or the GTX 680. The chart in the OP doesn't mention the GTX 680 either so I am starting to wonder if it really is worth the extra 100 euro.

SLI/CF is something I am not interested in.

CPU I am 'stuck' on deciding between the I7 3770K 3,5ghz and the I5 3570K 3,5ghz. The difference between those 2 is (again) 100 euro.

Are there any huge benefits over picking those 2 more expensive options or would it be smarter to just keep those 200 euro and spend them on eh.. Well, other things!

For what it is worth - my budget is around 1100 euro. I do not need to buy a new monitor, mouse/keyboard/sound card/OS and stuff so that gives me plenty of spare cash to buy a proper system. My current system is kinda old. E8500, 4gig DDR2 ram, Radeon 4870x2.
 
Whenever I uninstall graphics drivers, I like to use Driver Sweeper to get rid of everything, as uninstalling never usually does this. It might help to uninstall again, reboot and head into Safe Mode and use Driver Sweeper, then reboot again and install your 12.3 drivers. Unfortunately there's not much you might be able to do other than that :(

I read up on driver sweeper and it seems like there's an issue with it installing adware? That's led me to be a little wary over using it. Am just a little annoyed that everything was working perfectly before the driver update, now on top of that I've got issue with Windows restarting sometimes as it's loading up after trying to rollback in hopes of fixing the issue.
 

JB1981

Member
Great. Just installed it and tried it out.
As expected, framerate doesn't really reach a stable 60 when playing games such as The Witcher II and Alan Wake with all settings on high. Mostly around the mid 40s and high 50s in those games.

What resolution ??
 
I said id never go back but i have ...

Bought myself a 7850 2GB, i wanted to check out just how powerful this thing was considering its apparent low power consumption, quietness and heat etc.

Im rather impressed ! Card is tiny (compared to most), handles Crysis/Warhead on Ultra no problem, BF3 on Ultra quite nicely (althought i had a strange occurance one on the Seing Crossing level, the performance was abysmal, next time i played the level it was smooth sailing, maybe because i was adjusting settings while in the game ?) all the while with a fan that doesnt want to chew my ears off, and it only requires 1xPCI-E connector to power it.

Still some oddities with games that i never have with nVidia hardware (MW3 menu stutter for about 10 seconds when loaded up, and a bit in game until i look around the map a bit, GTAIV while smoother than what i remember on ATI cards, still cant max out and play smoothly, while my GTX 480 did), along with 12.4 not liking being installed from a clean format (would always show as having 11.5 installed, had to install 12.3 then 12.4 to get them to load up properly, this has happened on 3 computers i recently formatted on too), and the control center never remembers my settings (that ATI icon keeps coming back to haunt me).

Oh and Diablo 3 runs like a champ, but not like i need this card to do that ;)
 

MrBig

Member
It's time for me to build a new pc. I decided on most of the stuff but I am 'stuck' on the CPU & GPU.

My purpose is to just game at 1920x1080 res @ 60fps. I am not interested in multiple monitor setups and that is where my confusion/doubt kicks in when looking at benchmarks and stuff. I can not decide between the GTX 670 or the GTX 680. The chart in the OP doesn't mention the GTX 680 either so I am starting to wonder if it really is worth the extra 100 euro.

SLI/CF is something I am not interested in.

CPU I am 'stuck' on deciding between the I7 3770K 3,5ghz and the I5 3570K 3,5ghz. The difference between those 2 is (again) 100 euro.

Are there any huge benefits over picking those 2 more expensive options or would it be smarter to just keep those 200 euro and spend them on eh.. Well, other things!

For what it is worth - my budget is around 1100 euro. I do not need to buy a new monitor, mouse/keyboard/sound card/OS and stuff so that gives me plenty of spare cash to buy a proper system. My current system is kinda old. E8500, 4gig DDR2 ram, Radeon 4870x2.

680 is a waste of money, there is hardly any practical difference (a stock Asus DCU2 670 TOP can beat a stock reference 680) between it and the 670, that is why it is not recommended. 3770k is useful for hardware rendering applications, but that's about it at the current point in time; if you're just gaming get a 3570k or a 2500k.
 

mclem

Member
I think this is the best place to ask this, but it's specifically an audio question rather than a full PC question.

Edit: It wasn't. Sorry! Moved to tech support thread.
 

MrBig

Member
I think this is the best place to ask this, but it's specifically an audio question rather than a full PC question.

I have a reasonably powerful laptop which sits downstairs with an HDMI-out for comfy couch gaming. I'd like to figure out how to get 5.1 from it to my amp.

My amp is old, though, and doesn't have any HDMI ins. My original plan was to plug the HDMI into my telly then use the optical out from the TV into the amp, but my TV seems to only want to do stereo passthrough, and as far as I can tell there's no way to force 5.1 passthrough - I can find quite a few responses that suggest that it's not possible with my telly, and rare with televisions in general.

The single cheapest option would be to pick up a 3.5mm optical cable or convertor and use that, but I'm curious about other options - particularly because I'm running out of inputs on my amp.

Any suggestions as to how to get a 5.1 signal from HDMI to my amp without breaking the bank?

I use an HDMI to my TV, then optical to my amp just like you tried and 5.1 works fine for me, that sucks. You could try looking for a USB DAC/amp that has an optical out you can hook up to your Stereo/amp.
I didn't do any research on it but googling brought up this.
 
Finally assembled my new parts. Was pretty smooth overall, I did add an extra fan to my hyper 212 and 2 front fans for the case.

Now I want to OC my 3570k and somehow figure out a way to get my RAM to 1600 instead of the 1333 that it's currently showing.

Once again thanks to Hazaro, mkenyon and the rest of the people here for helping me figure out the parts&build.
 

Ace 8095

Member
Finally assembled my new parts. Was pretty smooth overall, I did add an extra fan to my hyper 212 and 2 front fans for the case.

Now I want to OC my 3570k and somehow figure out a way to get my RAM to 1600 instead of the 1333 that it's currently showing.

Once again thanks to Hazaro, mkenyon and the rest of the people here for helping me figure out the parts&build.
There should be an options in the bios to change the ram multiple from 13.33 to 16.
 

Hoplatee

Member
680 is a waste of money, there is hardly any practical difference (a stock Asus DCU2 670 TOP can beat a stock reference 680) between it and the 670, that is why it is not recommended. 3770k is useful for hardware rendering applications, but that's about it at the current point in time; if you're just gaming get a 3570k or a 2500k.

Thanks! You just saved me 200 euro!
 
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