• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

Status
Not open for further replies.
M

mkenyon

Banned
SalsaShark said:
gtx 670 FTW

exactly what im doing, coming from a 560ti also
Click to expand...
FTW is a bad model of a good graphics card. Its not AMD and EVGA, its AMD and NVIDIA.

*edit* Don't mean to pick, it's just that EVGA's cards are really behind the times. It's beginning to be that same situation where people continued to buy Antec products because of name recognition, despite putting out an inferior product by all comparisons.

Gigabyte Windforce, ASUS DCII, and MSI Twin Frozr are better cards in every aspect.
 
S

Salsa

Member
mkenyon said:
Gigabyte Windforce, ASUS DCII, and MSI Twin Frozr are better cards in every aspect.
Click to expand...

fair enough, but there's a different price tag involved

I wouldnt call it bad either, just not as good as some other manufacturer cards with extra features like more fans and whatnot

FTW card is still better than the regular ref
 
I

Iacobellis

Junior Member
mkenyon said:
FTW is a bad model of a good graphics card. Its not AMD and EVGA, its AMD and NVIDIA.

*edit* Don't mean to pick, it's just that EVGA's cards are really behind the times. It's beginning to be that same situation where people continued to buy Antec products because of name recognition, despite putting out an inferior product by all comparisons.

Gigabyte Windforce, ASUS DCII, and MSI Twin Frozr are better cards in every aspect.
Click to expand...

Should have been called the 670 WTF.
 
Pingoreous

Pingoreous

Member
@CambriaRising yeah its that same card. Bad draw i guess

@mkenyon do you think Nvidia is to blame with the OCed variant of the 670? Its not just EVGA's FTW card that has that crash to desktop problem. All manufacturers have reports of this bug or whatever it is. I was looking into Asus and Gigabyte Variants. I like the Asus heat sink and heat pipe design.
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
SalsaShark said:
fair enough, but there's a different price tag involved

I wouldnt call it bad either, just not as good as some other manufacturer cards with extra features like more fans and whatnot
Click to expand...
Gigabyte Windforce, which has the best cooler out of all 670s, is the same price as the FTW.

The extra features like more fans (meaning a completely different cooler) is the only major differentiation between the cards.
Pingoreous said:
@CambriaRising yeah its that same card. Bad draw i guess

@mkenyon do you think Nvidia is to blame with the OCed variant of the 670? Its not just EVGA's FTW card that has that crash to desktop problem. All manufacturers have reports of this bug or whatever it is.
Click to expand...
It's a driver issue, for sure.

I mean it's a bad card because it's loud and hot.

*edit*

Use the 680 in this picture as a reference for the FTW.

GTX-670-GB-47.jpg


670 FTW is pretty much in line with the reference 680 and 670 here, because it's literally a reference 680 cooler on it.

GTX-670-GB-87.jpg
 
S

Salsa

Member
Pingoreous said:
Its not just EVGA's FTW card that has that crash to desktop problem. All manufacturers have reports of this bug or whatever it is.
Click to expand...

what's this?

if every card has it it's probably a driver issue


mkenyon said:
Gigabyte Windforce, which has the best cooler out of all 670s, is the same price as the FTW.
Click to expand...

not here

mkenyon said:
I mean it's a bad card because it's loud and hot.
Click to expand...

still not as loud and hot as the ref
 
I

Infinite Justice

Member
kinda bummed hearing about the 660ti pricing (though i had a gut feeling that the price would have been too good to be true) :( .

Might have to see how the non ti 660 fares
 
S

Salsa

Member
mkenyon said:
It's literally as loud and hot as reference, because it is a reference card.
Click to expand...

check online to see lots of people having issues with how loud the original ref cards were compared to the FTW. Maybe there was just a bunch of faulty cards but ive read pretty much everywhere that the regular ones had issues that the 680 cooler fixed.
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
Reliability is a total crapshoot. Every manufacturer is going to have problems. As far as customer support goes, there's really no difference between the lot of them. It's a week when a part goes bad, depending on how close you are to the RMA department geographically.

The only customer service I've dealt with that actually surprised me with speed and communication is Seasonic.

SalsaShark said:
check online to see lots of people having issues with how loud the original ref cards were compared to the FTW. Maybe there was just a bunch of faulty cards but ive read pretty much everywhere that the regular ones had issues that the 680 cooler fixed.
Click to expand...
Was coil whine. The 680 PCB with different capacitors or VRMs or whatever magical electronic equipment that creates coil whine (I'm no electronic engineer) reduced it. It's not something that is generally picked up as loud with dB measuring equipment, but sticks out due to the high frequency.

Coil whine has been a part of computers since forever. I think people are starting to notice it more nowadays as fan noise is reducing considerably with modern equipment. When that goes down, the electronic buzzing noises become more apparent.
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
CambriaRising said:
There is such a minimal difference here that it was barely worth posting that link.
Click to expand...
The minimal difference is why I posted the link. It shows why the FTW model is loud and hot, because it operates the same as the reference cards, as it is a reference card.

In the name of transparency though, Hexus.net has some bad reviews, their numbers are generally way off from everyone else. It's just the only one that has any sort of numbers on the FTW model. Me just saying 'its a reference card' generally doesn't get the job done.
 
S

Salsa

Member
mkenyon said:
Was coil whine.
Click to expand...

aaahh I see, coil whine's a bitch. Still somewhat justifies the FTW.

Honestly I just dont think i'd call it a BAD card. It's pretty much the only one I can get around here and you're bumming me out :( lol

It certainly could be a lot better with parts that reduced the heat and noise, but that makes it worse than competitors, not straight up bad
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
It's not a 'bad' card. There's just too much EVGA love. Brand loyalty that goes beyond rational thinking when evidence to the contrary is as easy as a two second google search just bugs me. Slightly tipsy as well after a long meal with the in-laws, so part of my brain filter isn't functioning properly.

FWIW, I bought an EVGA 670 for my ITX build because the PCB is tiny. With a waterblock on it, it's literally the length of an ITX board. Plus the PCB is a really nice pretty black. Yeah, I play 'dress me up barbie' with my PCs.
 
S

Salsa

Member
yeah, I agree at least from what ive read. I never even owned an EVGA card before so im just going by reviews and word of mouth (+ the few stuff that's available around here). Last 2 cards were a Zotac 9600GT and now an Asus 560ti Twin Frozr II.
 
F

FoxMcCloudDS

Member
hey guys I have an ASRock Z77 Pro4 motherboard, and my date/time keeps changing and going wacko on me. I have tried a million and one things with it, and I think it must be the battery on the mobo.

my bios is fine, my "interent time" and everything works fine. I can't put my finger on a problem anywhere.
-My bios changes time too though, so it may be a problem there.

anyone know what kind of battery to replace it with? Anyone have any other ideas? I would love it if my gaming pc could tell me the correct time :p
 
C

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
Question : I squeezed out a stable +700 mhz offset on my memory clock on my 670 but I didn't see any performance gain compared to +600, should I just stick to +600 then?
 
R

RibbedHero

Member
Corky said:
Question : I squeezed out a stable +700 mhz offset on my memory clock on my 670 but I didn't see any performance gain compared to +600, should I just stick to +600 then?
Click to expand...

Whenever my memory overclock stops producing gains I stick to the lower OC. The reason being that the lower OC keeps temps down and is less likely to wear and tear the card. With no performance difference it's always better to stick to the lower clock IMHO.

Example: My old HD6850 would memory OC to 1300Mhz, which was absolutely fantastic, but it provided essentially no gains to performance over 1250Mhz while temps were slightly higher (can't remember the exact values, but it was small but certainly significant).
 
C

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
RibbedHero said:
Whenever my memory overclock stops producing gains I stick to the lower OC. The reason being that the lower OC keeps temps down and is less likely to wear and tear the card. With no performance difference it's always better to stick to the lower clock IMHO.
Click to expand...

Oh definitely, I'll be sticking to the lower OC but what I was surprised about was the fact that going from 600 to 700 affected the benchmark score a whopping 0.0%.
 
N

n0n44m

Member
Corky said:
Question : I squeezed out a stable +700 mhz offset on my memory clock on my 670 but I didn't see any performance gain compared to +600, should I just stick to +600 then?
Click to expand...

every +100 MHz gave me exactly 1 fps more in Heaven 3.0 1080p maxed out

so if +700 is the same as +600, your sweet spot is probably somewhere in between these two :)
 
C

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
n0n44m said:
every +100 MHz gave me exactly 1 fps more in Heaven 3.0 1080p maxed out

so if +700 is the same as +600, your sweet spot is probably somewhere in between these two :)
Click to expand...

Ah there you are <3!

Also, for the sake of ventilation I had to distance my gpu from my cpu fan and thus put the gpu in my x8 pci-e slot, will that bottleneck me somehow?
 
A

Almyn

Member
I'm sure you guys hate questions like this, But I need to start somewhere :)

I am seriously considering a new pc. The last time I bought a machine was when World of Warcraft was released. I am still using that machine for WoW and internet use but it has slowed to a crawl recently and I have a bit of money and really want something shiny and new.

I need some help to get me going in the right direction, I have been reading through the first post but it's mostly nonsense to me :) . I know nothing about current hardware. I will most likely be buying a pre built machine and I am currently looking around for prices.

I have a budget of £600. I also need a new monitor. The only new game I'm interested in running is Guild Wars 2. I'm interested in catching up on what I have missed from the PC side for so many years and continuing with WoW and Diablo 3.

Here are two pre built machines I was looking at. Are they overkill for what I want to do? Or far too expensive for what they are?

http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/Mass-Effect-i5-3450-94p1369.htm

http://www.meshcomputers.com/Defaul...P_INTEL_GAMING&UTM_CAMPAIGN=homepage_dtbox2_1
 
K

kharma45

Member
Both of those aren't great, and I'd steer clear of Mesh. Out of the two the DinoPC one is better but we can look around and see what else is out there.

Is £600 your max for the PC? Does that include monitor? Would you be looking to overclock or anything with it?
 
A

abunai

Member
Corky said:
Ah there you are <3!

Also, for the sake of ventilation I had to distance my gpu from my cpu fan and thus put the gpu in my x8 pci-e slot, will that bottleneck me somehow?
Click to expand...

There's a difference, but it's in the region of < 1%. Not "tangible" at all.
 
A

Almyn

Member
kharma45 said:
Both of those aren't great, and I'd steer clear of Mesh. Out of the two the DinoPC one is better but we can look around and see what else is out there.

Is £600 your max for the PC? Does that include monitor? Would you be looking to overclock or anything with it?
Click to expand...

£600 is about my max, Yeah. I could go slightly over if needed but I am on that sort of budget. Ideally I would like to include a monitor into that £600 and I'm not really thinking about overclocking as I wouldn't know where to start :)

What is it about those two systems that is not so great?
 
K

kharma45

Member
Almyn said:
£600 is about my max, Yeah. I could go slightly over if needed but I am on that sort of budget. Ideally I would like to include a monitor into that £600 and I'm not really thinking about overclocking as I wouldn't know where to start :)

What is it about those two systems that is not so great?
Click to expand...

Mesh one is made by Mesh who have a pretty bad rep, it's got a woeful PSU and GPU.

Dino PC one is a good bit better but I still think you can do better for that money, the 550 Ti isn't the best card either, a 6850 would be much preferrable.

I'll have a look at some other pre-builds for you once I get access to a computer.
 
C

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
abunai said:
There's a difference, but it's in the region of < 1%. Not "tangible" at all.
Click to expand...

Gotcha :)


I remember and old-ish article on [H] I believe where they showed the, or rather lack thereof, difference between SLI running in x16/x16 vs x8/x8. I just thought that maybe these new cards were going to change that, guess not I'm all good :).
 
D

drexplora

Member
hey guys!
Im coming across a nice bonus next week and am almost 100% sure i want to upgrade my current evga 570gtxSC.
Its a great card, but im addicted and want more >:]

I plan on selling my 570 for around $200 to offest the high price of a high end card.

At first i thought a 670 would be a nice upgrade, then i realized with another $100 or so i could go all out and get a 680!
Ive never had the pleasure of owning the fastest single gpu card out, i usually only go as high as second place within a series (nvidia 6800gt, 460gtx, 570gtx).

I figure nows the time to splurge as i might not have the chance again, so i have decided on going 680!!
WOOO!

BTW, my specs are:
i7 870 stock, with aftermarket cooler.
p55 asus sabertooth
8gb ddr3 1333
evga 570gtx
corsair tx650 1st ver.

Now to actually choose a card.

Ive usually defaulted on an EVGA card as ive owned 3 and havent had any issues other then my 6800gt dying after 5-6 years of use (a capacitor or 2 seemed to have broken off somehow). So i checked out their cards and i seemed to have found a decent offering

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130771

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130797

Both of those seems like solid choices, kinda leaning torwards a backplate version (any temp benefits?)

But then i also thought about other brands with more radical cooling options like this badboy!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121635

I just dont know if ill be able to fit something like that in my case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112099

Any thoughts GAF?
 
A

abunai

Member
Almyn said:
Fantastic, Thanks a lot.
Click to expand...

Is there a reason you have your heart set on buying a pre-built? You are going to be paying so much more money for a big drop in computing power with pre-builts. It's a waste of money, being honest.

I see you're in the UK too, if you buy components that we can pick out for you I can walk you through the building process on an IM client or something. It's not difficult at all.

A quick build which I didn't put much thought into (link) is magnitudes more powerful. Much better performance per £. You could also overclock it in the future, which I'm aware you said you weren't interested in, but with modern platforms it's easy to a silly degree. You boot into bios, change two numbers and make sure you have sufficient cooling. Done.

If you're still wanting to get a prebuilt, fair enough, it's your choice. Just figured I'd say.
 
A

Almyn

Member
abunai said:
Is there a reason you have your heart set on buying a pre-built? You are going to be paying so much more money for a big drop in computing power with pre-builts. It's a waste of money, being honest.
Click to expand...

I don't really have my heart set on a pre-built machine, It's more about convenience and the fact I am more afraid of screwing something up.

However, I am open to the idea of building it myself. As I said earlier, I don't know what I should be looking for, But then that's why I am asking here.

So fire away with suggestions of what parts I should be looking at, Please. £600 and ideally I would need a new monitor. Is it unrealistic to also expect a monitor for that price? It's something I could pick up at a later date as I still have a working monitor, It's just pretty low res. 1280x1024. And yes, I am in the UK, Northern Ireland.
 
I

Infinite Justice

Member
Almyn said:
I don't really have my heart set on a pre-built machine, It's more about convenience and the fact I am more afraid of screwing something up.

However, I am open to the idea of building it myself. As I said earlier, I don't know what I should be looking for, But then that's why I am asking here.

So fire away with suggestions of what parts I should be looking at, Please. £600 and ideally I would need a new monitor. Is it unrealistic to also expect a monitor for that price? It's something I could pick up at a later date as I still have a working monitor, It's just pretty low res. 1280x1024. And yes, I am in the UK, Northern Ireland.
Click to expand...

the poster you are replying to had a link with the parts

http://www.abload.de/img/untitledqjssc.png


I think its a great selection imo (although someone might go for a another PSU).


And there are some in here who would be willing to help you build/respond to your queries (plus the OP has videos and a guide also)
 
S

Shady859

Member
After stalking and beating around the bush for what seems like forever I am going to finally jump in. I've become tight and hate spending my money which is why i've stuck to my consoles for so long.

Used the OP list and Newegg+ local Microcenter:

i5 3570K 3.4GHz - $189.99
ASRock Z77 Pro4 - $59.99 (combo deal with processor)
Vengeance 8GB DDR3 1600 CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 - $44.99
Antec vp-450 power supply - $34.99
Cooler Master HAF912 Case - $49.87
Cooler Master 212 plus - $29.99
----------------
$429.90 w/tax

Using a HD and DVD drive I already have, plan to get myself a SSD for Christmas or tax return time.


QUESTION:
Which card would you guys recommend? 6870 1gb or 6950 2gb price is almost exactly the same when you figure in free BF3, bigger card is $14 cheaper.

Details:
Graphics card I was leaning toward either:
XFX 6870 $175
or
dual fans model $185
Plus a $30 rebate comes with both and of course buy BF3 right away.

I see NewEgg this weekend has on sale a 6950 2gb for $208 with FREE BF3 AND the same $30 rebate.
XFX 6950 2gb - HD-695X-CDFC


Will be a single monitor gaming system, thanks much.
 
A

abunai

Member
Almyn said:
That's what I get for skimming over stuff. Looks good. I have lots to think about then. I'll take a proper read of the OP.
Click to expand...

Like i said, if you need someone to walk you through the building after having read stuff, i'm up for skype or whatever. It'd take like 30 minutes, tops. Your monitor would be fine for a while, I'd recommend getting the better PC first and then a monitor later. Wiser than skimping on the PC just to squeeze a monitor in.

$hady said:
stuff about graphics cards
Click to expand...

With the power supply you've listed, it only has one PCI-E 6pin connector (according to newegg). Both cards, HD6870 or 6950 require two 6pin connectors to function. However, GPUs come with a molex-PCIe adaptor, so you would be okay. I don't like using the adaptors personally but it would work fine.

The HD6870 is the best performance/price card, right now. It'll run things very well but don't expect to max out BF3 etc at 1080p/60fps. However good that card is for perf/price ratio, I'd go with the 6950 of the two, for the 2GB VRAM. Even then, if you're venturing for a HD6950, I'd actually go for a HD7850 as it performs better and uses less power. I took a quick look at newegg for you, there are also some HD7850's with rebates on them, bringing the price down to around ~$200. I'd get that.
 
S

Shady859

Member
Thanks for the info everyone, i've been out of the pc game forever. I'll look at the 7850 cards and here I thought I had it all figured out till today and seeing that 6950 deal.


For those wondering the 6950 promo code is: EMCYTZT2036
Your Price: $207.99
$177.99 After $30.00 MIR

Free BF3 and Deus Ex
 
M

MrBig

Member
drexplora said:
hey guys!
Im coming across a nice bonus next week and am almost 100% sure i want to upgrade my current evga 570gtxSC.
Its a great card, but im addicted and want more >:]

I plan on selling my 570 for around $200 to offest the high price of a high end card.

At first i thought a 670 would be a nice upgrade, then i realized with another $100 or so i could go all out and get a 680!
Click to expand...

The 680 is really not worth $100 more than a 670. The performance of the two are near identical. Something like a Asus DCU2 670 can actually perform better that a 680.
 
D

d[-_-]b

Banned
Maybe it's good to ask here, my GTX460 doesn't let my PSU start up when it's plugged in tested with both my 600W (OCZ Stealth X Stream?) and my 530W (Raidmax RX-530?), so should I just assume it's the card that's gone?
 
S

Salaadin

Member
Got my TV connected to my PC and have a question:

WHen I switch from my 1920x1080 monitor to my 1280x720 TV, my PC will auto detect the best resolution and change for me. However, switching from the TV to my monitor, my PC will stay at 1280x720 until I manually change it back. Any way to get this automatic?


Another funny thing going on is that my TV wont detect my PC. The TV shows up in windows and I am able to extend or switch to that display but my TV itself wont show my PC under the HDMI input. My only way around this way to use an HDMI switch and attach my satellite box to that, turn it on, and then switch over.
 
B

big_z

Member
i have an original thermalright ultra 120 eXtreme with 800rpm fan. i can buy a mounting kit so it fits a 3770k or i can buy a hr-02 macho and run the fan at low rpm.

would the hr-02 be an upgrade? mainly looking for ultra low noise but still good cooling. no overclocking for now.
 
M

MrBig

Member
big_z said:
i have an original thermalright ultra 120 eXtreme with 800rpm fan. i can buy a mounting kit so it fits a 3770k or i can buy a hr-02 macho and run the fan at low rpm.

would the hr-02 be an upgrade? mainly looking for ultra low noise but still good cooling. no overclocking for now.
Click to expand...

The Macho is fantastic. The fan makes no noise and the spacing of the heatsink is large enough that it creates zero noise as well. I can't specifically hear it even when I put my ear right next to it. Cooling is also fantastic, mid 60s in p95, 3570k at 4.4ghz
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

"I Need a New PC!" 2024. 240 Hz OLEDs, PCI-Gen5, Path Tracing & Ray Reconstruction.
8 9 10 11 12
560
32K
3liteDragon replied
The Last of Us: Part II Remastered [Review Thread]
2 3 4
171
14K
Paulxo87 replied
PC build, is it worth it for 1080p gaming going forward?
Social Hardware Platform 2
62
4K
Rossco EZ replied
[DF Tech Interview] How God of War Ragnarök was ported to PC
Game Dev
24
1K
Skifi28 replied
Mark Cerny: When making consoles, we're not trying to build low-cost PCs
Opinion Game Dev Hardware 2 3 4 5
238
17K
Seider replied
Top Bottom