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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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gutterboy44

Member
n0n44m said:
@gutterboy44 - nice job on the cables ! I like how you put the GPU cables straight down the HDD cages instead of bending them around behind the tray :p
Click to expand...

Thanks, I spent a lot of time playing with different routing configurations and the only cable I had to buy an extension for was the HD Audio. So happy with the rig so far. Likely going to buy a 64GB SSD and throw it in front of the RAID 1 array as a SRT drive.
 
E

elfinke

Member
mkenyon said:
That'll be totally fine. IB runs a bit hotter than SB does, so you are perfect. There is no game that will come close to stressing your CPU like P95.

@guy building rig for dad (on phone sorry)
AMD A Series was made for this purpose. Check out a socket FM1 motherboard and an A6 processor.
Click to expand...

Thats what my gut instinct was as well, so I was a bit disappointed to see almost no $ benefit over the i3 going that way, and hence why I popped p in here for suggestions.

For the same coin as the i3 above, I can get the A8 3870k, but annoyingly, only have 2 FM1 motherboards to choose from to put it in (that's all that is stocked at pccasegear.com.au, which is where I'll be buying it). A review over at hardcanucks lingers strong in the mind to go with Llano chipset, based on the IGP performance, too.

Hmmm, will have a better dig around the review sites today.

Thanks!
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
The benefit is that you don't need a GPU, and it's a *lot* stronger in video performance than the i3 with onboard. It'll even play Source games with playable frames.

I think the A6 is a better buy for someone not interested in gaming though.
 
E

elfinke

Member
mkenyon said:
The benefit is that you don't need a GPU, and it's a *lot* stronger in video performance than the i3 with onboard. It'll even play Source games with playable frames.

I think the A6 is a better buy for someone not interested in gaming though.
Click to expand...

Yeah you could be onto something. I remember what really put me off when I was creating wish lists earlier - the cheapest Llano motherboard is twice the price of the equivalent 1155 motherboard. Still, I don't think a paltry $50 is going to upset anyone at home!
 
G

gutterboy44

Member
So I just got my Benq 24" 120hz monitor, it is great so far. My setup is the BenQ as my primary monitor on my desk via DVI-D and then an HDTV in the middle of the living room running off HDMI (60hz Samsung LCD HDTV). I often extend my desktop to go on to the HDTV when watching Netflix or whatever. When I enable 120hz on my BenQ it makes the frame rate when watching video on VLC on the HDTV all choppy and jittery, like the frame rate is off.

Is it possible to run mixed refresh rate monitors at the same time or is this a normal symptom?
 
S

Shambles

Member
Question for Seattle PC Gaf: Where's the go to place to find good deals in the area? I'll be here for the next week and may potentially want to pick up some parts. However there is no Microcenter here, other than that I can't think of any other american store that gets a lot of praise.
 
S

Smokey

Member
gutterboy44 said:
So I just got my Benq 24" 120hz monitor, it is great so far. My setup is the BenQ as my primary monitor on my desk via DVI-D and then an HDTV in the middle of the living room running off HDMI (60hz Samsung LCD HDTV). I often extend my desktop to go on to the HDTV when watching Netflix or whatever. When I enable 120hz on my BenQ it makes the frame rate when watching video on VLC on the HDTV all choppy and jittery, like the frame rate is off.

Is it possible to run mixed refresh rate monitors at the same time or is this a normal symptom?
Click to expand...

I have my 120hz monitor as a secondary to my 60hz panel...no issues.
 
D

Deleted member 22576

Unconfirmed Member
I have a redundant array of independent disks question for y'all.

If I do a raid 0+1 setup with two SSDs working in chorus backing up to a mechanical hdd am I going to be bottlenecked by the hdds speed? So if I have two 512 gig SSDs working together and backing up to a terabyte hdd will it be slower than just the two SSDs on their lonesome?
 
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gokieks

Member
Jtwo said:
I have a redundant array of independent disks question for y'all.

If I do a raid 0+1 setup with two SSDs working in chorus backing up to a mechanical hdd am I going to be bottlenecked by the hdds speed? So if I have two 512 gig SSDs working together and backing up to a terabyte hdd will it be slower than just the two SSDs on their lonesome?
Click to expand...

RAID-0+1 requires 4 drives, as it is a striped (RAID-0) array mirrored (RAID-1). If you instead mean RAID-5, which can be done with 3 drives, then yes, the performance will be lower with the 1TB mechanical HDD as part of the array compared to if you had 3 SSDs in RAID-5 or 2 SSDs in RAID-0.

Edit: You really shouldn't be doing RAID-5 with 2 SSDs and one mechanical HDD.
 
G

gutterboy44

Member
Smokey said:
I have my 120hz monitor as a secondary to my 60hz panel...no issues.
Click to expand...

Turned out to be a strange MKV codec issue with VLC only. Even other file types in VLC worked fine. Seem to be an active thread on the VLC support forums so hopefully in a patch or two it will go away.

Edit: Never mix drives in a RAID array if you don't have to, let alone SSD and HDD. Even mixing different model HDDs can be problematic in some RAID arrays. In my opinion the most cost effective way to get SSD performance with RAID redundancy is to put a 64gb SSD in front of a RAID 1 or 5 array and set it to be a SRT drive. It is a great set it and forget it setup. Once your data is cached on the SRT SSD it achieves almost full SSD speeds if it were a stand alone SSD especially if you set it to max mode. I would recommend not doing max as a crash or power failure can cause data loss, same with write back cache on a normal RAID array. I set up SRT SSDs on two friends gaming rigs and they haven't had a single problem and windows and games boot just as fast as mine on my standalone SSD.
 
C

Costcosaurus

Banned
My new SSD arrived today, and I'm going to be adjusting things inside my case again to install the drive and route all my cables. I have a couple questions I would like to ask before I begin my work. These questions are based off of the Fractal Design Arc Midi case.


1. On the back panel of the case, there is a lone PCI slot that seems to be reserved for the included fan controller. I wanted to install this on the first go, but I soon recognized that my screwdriver did not have enough room to remove the thumb screw on the PCI slot plate because of one of the fans that is on the top. Would I have to remove this fan in order to remove the screw?

2. One day I noticed that my headphone and microphone jacks on the front panel of the case were not working when I plugged things into them. Does this mean I missed one of the front panel connections for the motherboard? Which connectors did I miss if that is the case?

3. Anyone have any general tips for cable management in this case? I don't want to make things too complicated for myself, so I just want to be able to route all my cables out of the way and onto the side panel. (Isn't this what cable management is all about anyway? lol)


Thanks to anyone that answers these questions for me, greatly appreciate it.
 
C

cackhyena

Member
Okay, I'm about ready to take the plunge on the necessary parts I need to get now. Just wondering if there are any tweaks you guys would recommend. I have already received my optical drive, The Fractal R3 case is on it's way, I will be using my 4870 till I have more funds for a beefy new card, and SSD and PSU ( Corsair 750 ) are making the transition. Here's what I have lined up, ready to pull the trigger.

Intel Core i5 3570k 3.4 Ghz
Asus P8Z77 -V LK
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB 1600 mHz
Samsung F3 1TB
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

That's all I can think of. Anything I might be missing?
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
mkenyon said:
i3 @ 3.3 -> i5 @ 4.5 is a huge upgrade. That difference is linear performance increase.

Any game that is CPU bottlenecked is all about raw horsepower, not cores. n-threaded or multithreaded games for four threads are efficient enough that they are rarely a bottleneck. Check out BF3 or Civ V benches to see what I mean.
Click to expand...

Multithreaded applications are rare, let alone games.
 
P

professor_t

Member
This is a little off the beaten path (sorry), but I'm not aware of a more appropriate place to ask. My PC that I use almost exclusively for gaming purposes is connected to a panasonic plasma TV (the st50 series).

Everything has been great so far, but the image from the PC does not fill up the entire screen. There's a roughly 1 cm black border that runs around the perimeter of the image, and I have no idea how to make the image fill the entire screen (I've fiddled with the options on the TV and in the GPU control panel, but nothing seems to work).

I'm using an Nvidia card (GTX 670).

Any suggestions are much appreciated.
 
C

catabarez

Member
So I have a GTX 670 FTW and I am looking to overclock it, what are the best settings that I should use? This is my first overclock for my graphics card.
 
C

CambriaRising

Member
professor_t said:
This is a little off the beaten path (sorry), but I'm not aware of a more appropriate place to ask. My PC that I use almost exclusively for gaming purposes is connected to a panasonic plasma TV (the st50 series).

Everything has been great so far, but the image from the PC does not fill up the entire screen. There's a roughly 1 cm black border that runs around the perimeter of the image, and I have no idea how to make the image fill the entire screen (I've fiddled with the options on the TV and in the GPU control panel, but nothing seems to work).

I'm using an Nvidia card (GTX 670).

Any suggestions are much appreciated.
Click to expand...

Are you connecting through HDMI by any chance? If so this is most likely overscan compensation.
 
S

Salsa

Member
http://www.samsung.com/mx/consumer/monitor-peripherals-printer/monitors/lcd/LS23B300BS/ZX

jbd0Xy5xkHpPH9.jpg
Click to expand...


thoughts? I'd go for 2ms and 120hz if I could believe me, but I think that's the best I can get at a reasonable price.

other monitor I was looking at is this:

AOC-E2343FK.jpg


AOC E2343FK

mostly cause I really dont like big frames, I prefer monitors that are pure screen. This one's also crazy thin

monitor-aoc-e2343fk-5.jpg
Click to expand...


but yeah at the end of the day I just think sammy is a better brand
 
metalshade

metalshade

Member
Hey guys.
I received delivery of my HDD and my bluray/disk drive, and neither of them came with SATA cables, is this normal?
I havent received delivery of it yet, but will my Asus P8Z77-V LK ATX LGA1155 Mobo come with any I could use, or will I have to get some when I visit town today?
 
K

knitoe

Member
metalshade said:
Hey guys.
I received delivery of my HDD and my bluray/disk drive, and neither of them came with SATA cables, is this normal?
I havent received delivery of it yet, but will my Asus P8Z77-V LK ATX LGA1155 Mobo come with any I could use, or will I have to get some when I visit town today?
Click to expand...

Cables comes with your MB, 4-6. They almost never comes with a storage drive.
 
S

Stubo

Member
metalshade said:
Hey guys.
I received delivery of my HDD and my bluray/disk drive, and neither of them came with SATA cables, is this normal?
I havent received delivery of it yet, but will my Asus P8Z77-V LK ATX LGA1155 Mobo come with any I could use, or will I have to get some when I visit town today?
Click to expand...

knitoe said:
Cables comes with your MB, 4-6. They almost never comes with a storage drive.
Click to expand...

I have this motherboard, it only comes with 2 SATA 6GB cables, which seems to be normal from the listing on this page.
This will be fine for 1 HDD and 1 Optical drive, but for anything additional you'll need to pick up some more cables :)

Edit: I also forgot to announce in this thread that I took delivery of my parts and completed my build this week!

I must have caught the bug because already I'm contemplating throwing an extra case fan in the front and top and perhaps getting some more storage so I have ample space for the future.

Another thing I should probably ask about here is keyboard and mouse. For the moment I'm using a generic keyboard and my old Logitech VX Nano from my laptop. I have pretty massive hands so I was looking at the Razer Deathadder and Logitech G500 as mouse options, does anyone have any opinions or recommendations on this?

For a keyboard I thought perhaps the Logitech Illuminated Keyboard, but I don't really know a huge amount about mechanical keyboards aside from the concurrent key presses thing. Sell me on them, Mechanical GAF :p
 
K

knitoe

Member
Stubo said:
I have this motherboard, it only comes with 2 SATA 6GB cables, which seems to be normal from the listing on this page.
This will be fine for 1 HDD and 1 Optical drive, but for anything additional you'll need to pick up some more cables :)
Click to expand...

I stand corrected. I have never bought the lower tier MBs. Guess, by only giving you only 2 cables, it's another way for them to save some money.
 
S

Stubo

Member
knitoe said:
I stand corrected. I have never bought the lower tier MBs. Guess, by only giving you only 2 cables, it's another way for them to save some money.
Click to expand...
It was perhaps not the wisest place to skimp for my build, but it seems to be doing the job just fine so far. Long may this continue!
 
metalshade

metalshade

Member
Stubo said:
I have this motherboard, it only comes with 2 SATA 6GB cables, which seems to be normal from the listing on this page.
This will be fine for 1 HDD and 1 Optical drive, but for anything additional you'll need to pick up some more cables :)
Click to expand...

Thanks dude. I only need 2 atm, keepin it simple for my first build lol.
How did you find it, are you pleased with it?

Edit: You linked me to the LX, I am getting the LK, but now I knew what I was looking for, yeah, 2 SATA 6GB cables included, thanks mate.
 
S

Stubo

Member
metalshade said:
Thanks dude. I only need 2 atm, keepin it simple for my first build lol.
How did you find it, are you pleased with it?
Click to expand...
It had been a long while since my last build, so it was an interesting (nervous) process.

Putting the CPU and RAM in were both tense moments since I had to put pressure on the board. Credit to it though, everything went in fine and seems to be working perfectly!

I can't really have any complaints with it as far as ports go, all of my parts have gone in fine and don't conflict with each other. The board is well labelled and the manual fills in any gaps, such as front panel connectors. You should be fine!
 
C

cackhyena

Member
cackhyena said:
Okay, I'm about ready to take the plunge on the necessary parts I need to get now. Just wondering if there are any tweaks you guys would recommend. I have already received my optical drive, The Fractal R3 case is on it's way, I will be using my 4870 till I have more funds for a beefy new card, and SSD and PSU ( Corsair 750 ) are making the transition. Here's what I have lined up, ready to pull the trigger.

Intel Core i5 3570k 3.4 Ghz
Asus P8Z77 -V LK
Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB 1600 mHz
Samsung F3 1TB
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO

That's all I can think of. Anything I might be missing?
Click to expand...
Anyone? Just checking in one last time before I go ahead.
 
D

DeadRockstar

Member
What cases and fans are you guys using? I'd like the build I'm doing to be quiet but it doesn't need to be silent. Deciding whether a more porous case with quiet fans and coolers would be better than a dampened case with higher temps is a hard choice.

Not sure whether to go with a Fractal R3 or something a bit more performance oriented. If any of you have builds you think are acceptably quiet without using a dampened case like the R3 I'd love to hear what you used.
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
Shambles said:
Question for Seattle PC Gaf: Where's the go to place to find good deals in the area? I'll be here for the next week and may potentially want to pick up some parts. However there is no Microcenter here, other than that I can't think of any other american store that gets a lot of praise.
Click to expand...
Fry's in Tukwila has tons of stuff, not as good as microcenter. Otherwise, maybe my hall and office closet. Not very many options here.
Costcosaurus said:
My new SSD arrived today, and I'm going to be adjusting things inside my case again to install the drive and route all my cables. I have a couple questions I would like to ask before I begin my work. These questions are based off of the Fractal Design Arc Midi case.


1. On the back panel of the case, there is a lone PCI slot that seems to be reserved for the included fan controller. I wanted to install this on the first go, but I soon recognized that my screwdriver did not have enough room to remove the thumb screw on the PCI slot plate because of one of the fans that is on the top. Would I have to remove this fan in order to remove the screw?

2. One day I noticed that my headphone and microphone jacks on the front panel of the case were not working when I plugged things into them. Does this mean I missed one of the front panel connections for the motherboard? Which connectors did I miss if that is the case?

3. Anyone have any general tips for cable management in this case? I don't want to make things too complicated for myself, so I just want to be able to route all my cables out of the way and onto the side panel. (Isn't this what cable management is all about anyway? lol)


Thanks to anyone that answers these questions for me, greatly appreciate it.
Click to expand...
1) Can you use your thumb and index finger? It is indeed a thumb screw. Other option is to get a smaller screwdriver.
2) HD Audio connector. But don't do it. So much interference and quality loss. Only use it if it your only option.
3) OP cable management guide is in an Arc Mini. That should help tons.
Grief.exe said:
Multithreaded applications are rare, let alone games.
Click to expand...
I don't think multithreaded means what you think it means.
DeadRockstar said:
What cases and fans are you guys using? I'd like the build I'm doing to be quiet but it doesn't need to be silent. Deciding whether a more porous case with quiet fans and coolers would be better than a dampened case with higher temps is a hard choice.

Not sure whether to go with a Fractal R3 or something a bit more performance oriented. If any of you have builds you think are acceptably quiet without using a dampened case like the R3 I'd love to hear what you used.
Click to expand...
It is all on component choices. Porous doesnt't make much of a difference unless you have some crazy positive pressure setup. If you want quiet, start with the CPU cooler and a really quiet videocard. Those will always be the loudest parts unless you have them under water. Cases like the R4 help dampen those noises even more. Its certainly not a case where airflow is an issue unless you are talking about SLI non-reference coolers and some huge CPU heatsink.
 
longdi

longdi

Banned
DeadRockstar said:
What cases and fans are you guys using? I'd like the build I'm doing to be quiet but it doesn't need to be silent. Deciding whether a more porous case with quiet fans and coolers would be better than a dampened case with higher temps is a hard choice.

Not sure whether to go with a Fractal R3 or something a bit more performance oriented. If any of you have builds you think are acceptably quiet without using a dampened case like the R3 I'd love to hear what you used.
Click to expand...

air cooling performance and clean look = silverstone rv02e but it is a very extreme case. it is really really good at some things and really really inconvenient at others.
 
LightofRohan

LightofRohan

Member
So I need some help and if someone that knows their stuff can provide me some aid, I'll gladly gift you a steam game (cheaper sale one of course).

I got my stuff together (took me a bit -- not as knowledgable as I once was) and I'm ready to buy! But just need some help on certain parts of my build and am open to any alternatives and suggestions. (I want to order this boy already!)

This is going to be heavy for CG/rendering as well as hard core gaming, but I want to spend ~$1,000

So here's what I got so far:

(all Newegg -- Microcenter is cheaper, but I don't want to drive that far)

CPU: Core i7 3770 3.4GHz LGA 1155 Processor
$320 (http://tinyurl.com/cnldkjl)

MOBO: ASRock Z77 Pro3 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel
$95 (http://tinyurl.com/7m82rln)

GPU: MSI N570GTX Twin Frozr II GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP
$250 (http://tinyurl.com/bpe8afe)

RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
$105 (http://tinyurl.com/7wpw2f3)

PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80
$110 (http://tinyurl.com/3q462e7)

HDD: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5"
$90 (http://tinyurl.com/nn5mzk)

Plus $20 Optical drive and I've already got a LARGE case (my Original comp goes to GF)

My Questions (very much appreciate the assistance!)
1. Is it all compatible together? And is that motherboard any good for its price?
2. Is the Nvidia 570 worth it? AND is MSI a good manufacture choice?
3. I'm looking for a good Westinghouse HDD that's equivalent to the samsung, any suggestions?
4. Any other suggestions?

Thank you very much for the help, also let me know your steam ID! :D
 
R

Razek

Banned
Hey guys,

I'm looking in the neighborhood for some form of backup for my hard drives. I want to be able to backup my steam games, videos, pictures, ect. I'm looking for something around 1.5-2TB. I should only need to do an initial backup once, and then maybe update with newer stuff every year or so.

What is the commonly accepted backup method as of now, external drives? Does anyone have any decent recommendations?

Also, any suggestions for a reliable and cheap internal 500gb/1tb drive?
 
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