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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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M

mkenyon

Banned
Cheeto said:
So I guess my i5 750 is not enough to stream and play games... No matter what I do I cannot get my games to run smoothly when I'm streaming. When do the next generations of processors come out, or should I just go for a sandy bridge i7 now?
Click to expand...
Should be out within the next few months, though it's not a huge increase by any means. More of an iteration than totally new.

Also, your 750 should do fine for streaming games. The program used changes things quite a bit. Any chance you've used Dxtory? A budy of mine was streaming his play on a AMD 970 at stock frequency for awhile without much of a performance hit.
 
C

Cheeto

Member
scogoth said:
Which games/streaming software? Are you using a scratch disk or SSD?
Click to expand...

Many different games... anything semi-current gets bogged down. My OS is on a SSD and my games are on a secondary drive. I thought this only made a big difference if you were rendering video to the hard drive?
 
S

Spl1nter

Member
Cheeto said:
Many different games... anything semi-current gets bogged down. My OS is on a SSD and my games are on a secondary drive. I thought this only made a big difference if you were rendering video to the hard drive?
Click to expand...

a bit OT, were you streaming a sc2 lan this past weekend?
 
C

Cheeto

Member
mkenyon said:
Should be out within the next few months, though it's not a huge increase by any means. More of an iteration than totally new.

Also, your 750 should do fine for streaming games. The program used changes things quite a bit. Any chance you've used Dxtory? A budy of mine was streaming his play on a AMD 970 at stock frequency for awhile without much of a performance hit.
Click to expand...
No I've only tried xsplit and FME... I'll have to look into that.
 
S

scogoth

Member
Cheeto said:
Many different games... anything semi-current gets bogged down. My OS is on a SSD and my games are on a secondary drive. I thought this only made a big difference if you were rendering video to the hard drive?
Click to expand...

The streaming software needs to cache the video somewhere before it pushes it out. But it with your setup that shouldn't be an issue.
 
C

cilonen

Member
mkenyon said:
Thanks! It's without a doubt my favorite do-it-all air focused case.

Also, for people who are interested, I posted an article about case selection as the first bit of content for my team's website.

http://teamzfz.com/technology/pc-case-guide/
Click to expand...

Nice read. I'm seriously thinking about trying to get an XSPC watercooling kit in there, I've done some research and I think I can get an RS240 size (slimmer than the 'extreme' version) radiator in the headspace and mount the two 120 fans above it kinda 'sandwiching' the case between the radiator and the fans.

I need to measure the case carefully before deciding though, I don't want to get the dremel out and have to actually mod it.
 
T

Tashi

343i Lead Esports Producer
Is your game in full screen windowed mode while streaming? That was a huge difference for me and Xsplit.
 
T

terrdactycalsrock

Member
Since I dont have any experience building computers, and would mess it up, Im thinking about buying a maingear pc. Has anyone ordered from them before? If so does their computers come with bloatware or is it just windows? also how easy is it to customize a vybe? The case looks pretty small
 
S

scogoth

Member
terrdactycalsrock said:
Since I dont have any experience building computers, and would mess it up, Im thinking about buying a maingear pc. Has anyone ordered from them before? If so does their computers come with bloatware or is it just windows? also how easy is it to customize a vybe? The case looks pretty small
Click to expand...

Boutique builders do a generally good job but you will pay a lot more money over building yourself. Its usually just windows, maybe some tuning and OC software.
 
C

cilonen

Member
The other thing I'm looking closely at right now are displays; I'm interested in giving 3D a go and was comparing the Samsung s27a750d / 950d and the ASUS 27" (everything I've read about the Acer 27" suggests it sucks).

I didn't realise until today (glad I did a bunch of googling) that choosing between the two essentially ties me in to video card hardware. Samsung isn't nVidia 3D Vision certified and uses it's own system which works with AMD HD3D / Tri Def drivers, whereas the ASUS is an nVidia based system. It sounds like there's a bit of a hack to get an nVidia card talking in stereoscopic 3D to the Sammy, but it's less than ideal.

I'm leaning towards the Sammy due to it's great 2D reviews, and in turn that will probably push me towards a 7970 gpu (I'm sticking to a single card setup).

Anyone have any thoughts or experiences on other solutions I could be looking at? (I guess just going for a regular monitor now and looking into a Sony head mounted 3d display could be an expensive option... but, 120Hz!). I guess I was kind of expecting stereoscopic 3D gaming to have made a bit more of a splash, I don't see many threads about it.
 
S

scogoth

Member
cilonen said:
The other thing I'm looking closely at right now are displays; I'm interested in giving 3D a go and was comparing the Samsung s27a750d / 950d and the ASUS 27" (everything I've read about the Acer 27" suggests it sucks).

I didn't realise until today (glad I did a bunch of googling) that choosing between the two essentially ties me in to video card hardware. Samsung isn't nVidia 3D Vision certified and uses it's own system which works with AMD HD3D / Tri Def drivers, whereas the ASUS is an nVidia based system. It sounds like there's a bit of a hack to get an nVidia card talking in stereoscopic 3D to the Sammy, but it's less than ideal.

I'm leaning towards the Sammy due to it's great 2D reviews, and in turn that will probably push me towards a 7970 gpu (I'm sticking to a single card setup).

Anyone have any thoughts or experiences on other solutions I could be looking at? (I guess just going for a regular monitor now and looking into a Sony head mounted 3d display could be an expensive option... but, 120Hz!). I guess I was kind of expecting stereoscopic 3D gaming to have made a bit more of a splash, I don't see many threads about it.
Click to expand...

For 120Hz 2D gaming both displays are worth it. 120Hz gaming is amazing. For 3D, if you are truly going to be gaming in 3D then 3d Vision has much better support. The tridef drivers do a sudo 3D mode that doesn't actually render a true s3d and their true s3d mode isn't compatible with a lot of games. If all you want is 3D movies then both are fine.
 
C

cilonen

Member
scogoth said:
For 120Hz 2D gaming both displays are worth it. 120Hz gaming is amazing. For 3D, if you are truly going to be gaming in 3D then 3d Vision has much better support. The tridef drivers do a sudo 3D mode that doesn't actually render a true s3d and their true s3d mode isn't compatible with a lot of games. If all you want is 3D movies then both are fine.
Click to expand...

Cheers, in terms of hardware / drivers I would prefer to go with an nVidia card anyway I think, thanks!
 
T

TheExodu5

Banned
In my experience Samsung monitors are incredibly overrated. People are wowed by a bright backlight and make no comment about the awful blacks or uneven backlighting. At least, that was the case with the Samsung PX2370. What a shocker it was when I took two of them home and found out they were awful.

I've only seen a few Asus monitors to date, but they've been solid. Very well calibrated off the bat as well.
 
C

cilonen

Member
TheExodu5 said:
In my experience Samsung monitors are incredibly overrated. People are wowed by a bright backlight and make no comment about the awful blacks or uneven backlighting. At least, that was the case with the Samsung PX2370. What a shocker it was when I took two of them home and found out they were awful.

I've only seen a few Asus monitors to date, but they've been solid. Very well calibrated off the bat as well.
Click to expand...

That's actually good to hear as I'm not a big fan of the funky asymmetric stand on the Sammy.

Edit: looks like the price through Amazon (UK) is better on the Asus too, let's hope it's still that way after payday.
 
S

Shambles

Member
TheExodu5 said:
In my experience Samsung monitors are incredibly overrated. People are wowed by a bright backlight and make no comment about the awful blacks or uneven backlighting. At least, that was the case with the Samsung PX2370. What a shocker it was when I took two of them home and found out they were awful.

I've only seen a few Asus monitors to date, but they've been solid. Very well calibrated off the bat as well.
Click to expand...

I've found the same with both their monitors and televisions. I've seen such a high failure rate of Samsung's within my circles that it's doubtful I'll ever buy one of their products. Unfortunately I feel that the vast majority of modern monitors are sub-par and have been stagnant the last ten years so I can't really offer a good alternative.
 
I

Isaccard

Member
Asus has the best everything. Cant speak for customer support though, never had to use it.

Which is a good thing, I would think.
 
C

cilonen

Member
Shambles said:
I've found the same with both their monitors and televisions. I've seen such a high failure rate of Samsung's within my circles that it's doubtful I'll ever buy one of their products. Unfortunately I feel that the vast majority of modern monitors are sub-par and have been stagnant the last ten years so I can't really offer a good alternative.
Click to expand...

For photo / video post production I know Eizo have a solid gold reputation for color rendition and a price to match, but I've no idea what input lag / response time for gaming on one would be.
 
T

TGMIII

Member
Ok so more monitor talk. I've been looking into the BenQ XL2420T as a screen with low input lag/no ghosting, I've heard nothing but good things about it but it's £260 in the UK. Anyone here have one that can give their thoughts on it.
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
cilonen said:
Nice read. I'm seriously thinking about trying to get an XSPC watercooling kit in there, I've done some research and I think I can get an RS240 size (slimmer than the 'extreme' version) radiator in the headspace and mount the two 120 fans above it kinda 'sandwiching' the case between the radiator and the fans.

I need to measure the case carefully before deciding though, I don't want to get the dremel out and have to actually mod it.
Click to expand...
I can confirm it fits. Installed one for a friend in a 600T. If you're interested, you could also cut up the top a bit to fit the rad out the outside of the metal cage, below the grille/plastic. Takes a bit of dremel work, but it allows you to have fans in a push configuration, exhausting out the top. It'll increase temps by a few degrees, but nothing significant. Did that to my recent re-build, except with an H100 cooler. (quick and dirty pic)

3gwoBl.jpg


If you're never going to consider GPU cooling, I'm really torn on the XSPC kits. There isn't much they offer over an H100 in terms of 24/7 overclocking. You can do a stable 1.45V @ 5.0Ghz with the XSPC, but I even had to question myself if it was really ever worth it or not. But, if you want to start small and get your feet wet (pun intended) then it's a great starting point before jumping into crazy land.

scogoth said:
Is ZFZ looking for BF3 players?

I know its not hugely competitive game but I thought I'd ask.
Click to expand...
Kev, (one of the two zfz head honchos) would like us to, but we're focusing on Tribes: Ascend now instead. I think he's the only person that likes the game, the rest of us despise it.
 
C

cilonen

Member
mkenyon said:
I can confirm it fits. Installed one for a friend in a 600T. If you're interested, you could also cut up the top a bit to fit the rad out the outside of the metal cage, below the grille/plastic. Takes a bit of dremel work, but it allows you to have fans in a push configuration, exhausting out the top. It'll increase temps by a few degrees, but nothing significant. Did that to my recent re-build, except with an H100 cooler. (quick and dirty pic)

3gwoBl.jpg


If you're never going to consider GPU cooling, I'm really torn on the XSPC kits. There isn't much they offer over an H100 in terms of 24/7 overclocking. You can do a stable 1.45V @ 5.0Ghz with the XSPC, but I even had to question myself if it was really ever worth it or not. But, if you want to start small and get your feet wet (pun intended) then it's a great starting point before jumping into crazy land.
Click to expand...

That's awesome. Many thanks.
 
C

clav

Member
Is there a reason why Mini ITX cases are so expensive?

I feel like something like this should be priced lower because you would think they would use less materials in terms of construction.
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
claviertekky said:
Is there a reason why Mini ITX cases are so expensive?

I feel like something like this should be priced lower because you would think they would use less materials in terms of construction.
Click to expand...
Depends on the case you're looking at, but they're generally more costly in terms of development due to the reduced tolerances for fitting as well as non-standard design. The Lian Li and Silverstone cases are more expensive because they're all aluminum, and they're both "premiere" brands which carries a bit of a tax much like BMW or Mercedes.
 
S

Smokey

Member
Kind of kills me that I have my FT02 just sitting here. I love that case, especially the aluminum finish that you were talking about.

:/
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
It's nice having a secondary gaming rig. You know that no matter how much you tinker and overvolt, you have a nice system as a backup. Total extravagance, but feelsgoodman. Race car drivers don't commute in their race car!

@Gunmonkey
We should start a pool on this.
 
S

Smokey

Member
mkenyon said:
Lots of people suggest the IKEA Galant.

I'm a firm believer in big heavy wood desk + wire rack. This allows you to place the monitors at the perfect height, and fairly close to you. They're basically above where my hands are when typing on the keyboard. Can also zip-tie some lights to the bottom of the rack, and get nice illumination with zero glare in a dark room.
Click to expand...

scogoth said:
Read OP and fill out form, jesus people not hard =)
Wait theres no "I need a New Desk thread" yet is there

What price/size restrictions?
Click to expand...

Well I want a desk that will be big enough to house a multi-monitor setup and enough room for my consoles for streaming.

I'm looking at the Galant on ikea website...is it a decent size for what I listed above?
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
zfz.Kev has 3 of those new 23" Samsung 120hz monitors on it, he seems to like it.

So you know, those wire racks are totally modular. You can get ones wide enough for three large monitors if you want.
 
P

Psychotext

Member
Hopefully someone can assist...

The onboard soundcard on my motherboard is utterly awful. I want to replace it with a reasonably high end discrete solution but I have no idea what I should be looking at.

I've seen these which all seem to get good reviews:

Asus Xonar Essence STX
Xonar DX
Xonar D2X

I'll likely never connect it to a receiver, or surround sound speakers. It will be plugged into a reasonably good set of 2.1 speakers and a very good set of headphones.

I do use the machine for gaming, so I guess it should support at least the basics for that. Not sure which is best of those three, or if I should be looking elsewhere.
 
C

Corky

Nine out of ten orphans can't tell the difference.
Psychotext said:
Hopefully someone can assist...

The onboard soundcard on my motherboard is utterly awful. I want to replace it with a reasonably high end discrete solution but I have no idea what I should be looking at.

I've seen these which all seem to get good reviews:

Asus Xonar Essence STX
Xonar DX
Xonar D2X

I'll likely never connect it to a receiver, or surround sound speakers. It will be plugged into a reasonably good set of 2.1 speakers and a very good set of headphones.

I do use the machine for gaming, so I guess it should support at least the basics for that. Not sure which is best of those three, or if I should be looking elsewhere.
Click to expand...

I have the Xonar DX and it works wonders with my Sennheisers 595, from what I understand the soundcard lacks (?) headphone amp, but if your headphones are easy enough to power then it should be no issue whatsoever. For reference, plugging my headphones straight into the soundcard I can't go above 12-15% on the windows 7 volume without reaching uncomfortable levels.
 
T

TGMIII

Member
awwyeahgurrl said:
Ok so more monitor talk. I've been looking into the BenQ XL2420T as a screen with low input lag/no ghosting, I've heard nothing but good things about it but it's £260 in the UK. Anyone here have one that can give their thoughts on it.
Click to expand...

Just as a follow up in case anyone else is looking for a low input lag monitor. Someone suggested the ASUS ML239H to me and it seems to have around 15ms which is within 1 frame of lag for something like SF4. Still deciding though, the ML239H is a lot cheaper but I'm being a bit of a whore and I find the XL2420T to be so much nicer looking.
 
S

Smidget

Member
I transferred my install of Windows from a HDD to a SSD and after reparing some boot sectors and stuff, it's working!

Now... I have games already installed on another drive, what's the best way of moving them over to the SSD without losing saved games? Probably on a game by game basis finding the save files and backing them up and restoring them afterwards?
 
W

Wolf Akela

Member
Smidget said:
I transferred my install of Windows from a HDD to a SSD and after reparing some boot sectors and stuff, it's working!

Now... I have games already installed on another drive, what's the best way of moving them over to the SSD without losing saved games? Probably on a game by game basis finding the save files and backing them up and restoring them afterwards?
Click to expand...

You can try using symlinks with Symlink Creator. Move game files to your SSD then create a symlink for them from HDD to SSD.

As for save files I don't know. If you've always been playing the games on that HDD then I guess it should be fine.

:(. Gaf my new computer keeps on restarting when I play games. Anything I can do to see whats causing it?
Click to expand...
What games? Does it happen for every game?

Try checking your temperatures. Something like Speedfan or whatever better software people use.
 
B

Branson

Member
Wolf Akela said:
You can try using symlinks with Symlink Creator. Move game files to your SSD then create a symlink for them from HDD to SSD.

As for save files I don't know. If you've always been playing the games on that HDD then I guess it should be fine.


What games? Does it happen for every game?

Try checking your temperatures. Something like Speedfan or whatever better software people use.
Click to expand...


It just started happening. I built it yesterday. It happened in BF3 and SR3.
 
H

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
List your specs and whats EXACTLY happening. How long? Forced restart? BSOD? CTD?

Download MSI-Afterburner and check your temps after you play, RealTemp or similar for CPU temps.
 
B

Branson

Member
Hazaro said:
List your specs and whats EXACTLY happening. How long? Forced restart? BSOD? CTD?

Download MSI-Afterburner and check your temps after you play, RealTemp or similar for CPU temps.
Click to expand...

Its about 30 minutes-1 hour into playing. Its a forced restart. It just reboots.

CPU: i5-2500k
CPU: Nvidia GTX 580 3gb
Motherboard: ASUS p8z68-PRO GEN 3
PSU: Corsair gaming-series 700w
RAM: G-Skill 2x4gb
SSD: Crucial m4 64gb
HDD: External for right now.
 
H

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
Check temps
See if your RAM is at the correct voltage (probably 1.5)
Run stress tests on cpu / gpu see if same problems
Run a memtest overnight

Usually it is a PSU issue, but check those first. Also could be some odd short somewhere.
 
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