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"I need a New PC!" 2012 Thread. Ivy, SSDs, and reading the OP. [Part 2]
- Thread starter Hazaro
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Multi touch screen makes me feel like my fingers are made of marshmallow
The Frankman
Banned
The Frankman
Banned
Ah, gotcha. I once had a big glass of milk and Strawberry Nestle Quik... I tell ya, I was flying!
...
*cough* *cough* well anyway, checking a few guides on SSD tweaks for a Crucial m4 (including everything in the OP). Is there anything more recent anyone has seen that is a must-have?
How much did you get your Crucial m4 for?
I'm in Olympia, which is the rainiest city (of like 50K or more people) in the country. It almost never snows here. I had like two inches at my house 3 days ago, but I'm a good 750ft higher than Oly.
It's just rained non stop for like 3 days.
The Frankman
Banned
I got it from Sunrise NanoTech (Amazon Store), 64 GB CT064M4SSD2 for $59.95, first store listed. Of course after I bought one they increased the price two bucks. Shipping was very fast.NoRéN;45628605 said:
EDIT: ok 2 left at 61.95 total.
I've been contemplating going PC for the next gen (or at least until next gen consoles are on their last leg) so here's my criteria:
Your Current Specs: None, own a laptop and I'm gonna build a desktop
Budget: $2000
Main Use Rate importance on a 1-5 scale. (5 Being highest): Gaming = 5, Emulation = 3 (I wanna do Dolphin), HD Streaming = 1, General Usage = 5 (Word, Web, 1080p playback). Monitor Resolution: New monitor so whatever will suffice for most of next gen
List SPECIFIC games that you MUST be able to play: Dark Souls at Max Settings, I'm not even remotely sure what the max settings of a next gen game would be but I'd like to be able to do the first year's best with ease, if that makes sense.
When will you build?: I'll buy piece by piece most likely
Will you be overclocking?: I dunno?
Your Current Specs: None, own a laptop and I'm gonna build a desktop
Budget: $2000
Main Use Rate importance on a 1-5 scale. (5 Being highest): Gaming = 5, Emulation = 3 (I wanna do Dolphin), HD Streaming = 1, General Usage = 5 (Word, Web, 1080p playback). Monitor Resolution: New monitor so whatever will suffice for most of next gen
List SPECIFIC games that you MUST be able to play: Dark Souls at Max Settings, I'm not even remotely sure what the max settings of a next gen game would be but I'd like to be able to do the first year's best with ease, if that makes sense.
When will you build?: I'll buy piece by piece most likely
Will you be overclocking?: I dunno?
You could go for the OPs enthusiast build, and then some.
How is nvidia surround? Is your main game just bf3?
Infinite Justice
Member
WTF is going on here?
Infinite Justice
Member
but he supposedly said it "looks better" and just left it there.
If it was that AA offers some tradeoff in framerates and stuff that would make it easier to parse and not misunderstand
It works pretty well for most games. Main game are BF3, various racing games and SCII. Starcraft doesn't work in surround (unfair advantage) and doesnt likevwin8 so I run it in windowed mode.
I remember when Eyefinity was first announced. Bought a 5870 day one to get a bigger screen in HoN. It was the same image just stretched across the screens. Then I realized that yeah, they would want to prevent people from having an FOV advantage.
Even without a FOV advantage having 90 degrees over three screens looks a lot better then 90 over one screen. SC2 should have triple screen support just not for ladder matches.
I saw mention of it in the release notes for beta 11 that it happened in Linux but it has been fixed, couldn't see anything else.
It'd be worth filling this out in the mean time http://www.amdsurveys.com/se.ashx?s=5A1E27D20B2F3EEE
Try updating to the latest beta if you're not on it, and if that doesn't help maybe roll back to a release driver. I'm still sitting on 12.8 with my 7850 and I'm just gonna wait off until 12.11 is properly released before updating rather than faffing around with beta drivers and potential problems that could occur.
Oh shit! Our very own insane man Sk3tch was featured on EVGA's facebook wall!
http://www.facebook.com/TEAMEVGA
And the link on their Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/TEAMEVGA
And the link on their Facebook.
I already have the latest beta I believe. do I need to run driver sweeper or any shit like that or just uninstall the package and then install the 12.10 package?
Oh sk3tch.... I just realized his website URL http://1pcent.com/?p=93
HappyPuppy
Member
Greetings Gaf, I need help picking a PSU. Something solid and good bang for the buck.
Going to build my pc in like 6 months hopefully but right now i need a PSU since the one I was using died in my old setup, so the question is
What is a good PSU that would serve me well in 6 months time when I decide to build my pc (building something modest like a 250$ or 300 video card)
Thanks gaffers.
Going to build my pc in like 6 months hopefully but right now i need a PSU since the one I was using died in my old setup, so the question is
What is a good PSU that would serve me well in 6 months time when I decide to build my pc (building something modest like a 250$ or 300 video card)
Thanks gaffers.
Infinite Justice
Member
Antec BP550 is usually recommended at that level you want (a decent priced single card, anything highend or multiple cards for SLI/Crossfire will need a larger PSU)
The PSUs from Seasonic gets good praise in this thread
The Corsairs (save for the CX version) also gets good praise
XFX Core Editions are getting recommendations now due to basically being rebadged Seasonic PSUs.
Most of these are in the builds listed in the OP so check it out.
You will have other posters weighing in.
The Frankman
Banned
Thanks to the SSD tweaks in the OP I picked up over 8 GBs of free space. Thanks guys! Still more work to be done.
Question: Should I just map all my programs from my HDD to the Start Menu of Windows 7? Which is better to have Antivirus (AVG 2012) stuff on? I know the bottom is that if I lack space, only putting Apps on the SSD that will benefit from the speed like games/multimedia need would make sense...
I guess I answered my own question then. I'll leave it on the HDD.
Question: Should I just map all my programs from my HDD to the Start Menu of Windows 7? Which is better to have Antivirus (AVG 2012) stuff on? I know the bottom is that if I lack space, only putting Apps on the SSD that will benefit from the speed like games/multimedia need would make sense...
I guess I answered my own question then. I'll leave it on the HDD.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
Sent you a PM.
The Frankman
Banned
Sent back.
I'm going to post Windows Rating/SSD Benchmark in a bit, hopefully it rates out ok.
Hah, it is such a perfect url/name. Love it.
fatigues_gasolini
Member
Ok, I think I ask this but never followup but what is a upgrade from a 560ti 448?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207013
Should work out at $40 using the promo code and rebate.
assuming you mean the whole system
realistically ?
Unigine Heaven 3.0 at max resolution / max settings to stress your GPU(s) to 99ish %
Prime 95 in the background at 2 of your 4 (or 4 of your 6) cores (set using affinity in task manager, then adjust #threads used in Prime to half #cores or half #cores*2 if your CPU has hyperthreading) --> if you don't have enough CPU power available for Heaven it will not come close to maxing out your GPU , and GPUs these days are more power hungry and thus heat generating than CPUs so they should be priority
unrealistically ? (my favorite
)Furmark to toast your GPUs into oblivion & Intel Burn Test (or other LinX based tests) to get your CPU red hot. In this scenario your PSU will also start squealing like a pig unless you got a sufficiently oversized one for your setup
I'd recommend the realistic approach for most users
for individual components the programs I mentioned work fine as well, with again the notion that Prime 95 & Heaven are more realistic than the torture test of Furmark and IBT
Soodanim
Gold Member
Back again. Thanks to Ty4on, kharma45, mhayze, and especially x3r0123 and dinzy.
The build I'm with now, which I'm fairly content with, is mostly what x3r0123 put together.
PCPartPicker part list
CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor (£81.65 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Pro4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£84.61 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Samsung 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.53 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£45.54 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£79.97 @ Dabs)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card (£193.02 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.29 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£66.91 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On DS-8A8SH DVD/CD Writer (£20.68 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£59.94 @ Aria PC)
Total: £757.14
I've decided to forget about emulation, at least powerful/smooth emulation. One of the games I wanted to play the most is SMG, but it turns out it's one of the most demanding. That translates to paying roughly £100 more to play a couple Wii games with proper audio.
Thanks to that realisation, I've decided to go with an i3. The most demanding game at the moment seems to be BF3, and I have no plans to play that. Especially 64 player multiplayer. I know the trend will move more towards quad core CPU-requiring games, but right now I don't really want to spend close to a grand.
Anyway. As you can see, I threw in a 128GB SSD. The motherboard is still a Z77, and I'm not sure whether to stick with it and leave myself an upgrade path at the cost of [I can't imagine it's that much] or whether to downgrade it and spend the money on a better graphics card...
Which leads me to my final questions: I've noticed in some reviews that Radeons (well, at least the 7950) seem to suffer from render times that are all over the place. But Radeons seem to be recommended left right and centre in this thread, so am I paying too much attention to Tech Report's reviews? The other question is regarding drivers. I've always gotten the impression that Nvidia's drivers are much better than ATI's. Is there anything to this?
Actually, there is one more thing. Optical drives. Google provides me with cases of some of the cheaper drives not opening or failing fairly soon. Are there any cheap-ish drives (preferably DVD writing) that are reliable? PCPartPicker's list is tiny.
The build I'm with now, which I'm fairly content with, is mostly what x3r0123 put together.
PCPartPicker part list
CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor (£81.65 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Pro4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£84.61 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Samsung 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£35.53 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£45.54 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£79.97 @ Dabs)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 2GB Video Card (£193.02 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.29 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£66.91 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On DS-8A8SH DVD/CD Writer (£20.68 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£59.94 @ Aria PC)
Total: £757.14
I've decided to forget about emulation, at least powerful/smooth emulation. One of the games I wanted to play the most is SMG, but it turns out it's one of the most demanding. That translates to paying roughly £100 more to play a couple Wii games with proper audio.
Thanks to that realisation, I've decided to go with an i3. The most demanding game at the moment seems to be BF3, and I have no plans to play that. Especially 64 player multiplayer. I know the trend will move more towards quad core CPU-requiring games, but right now I don't really want to spend close to a grand.
Anyway. As you can see, I threw in a 128GB SSD. The motherboard is still a Z77, and I'm not sure whether to stick with it and leave myself an upgrade path at the cost of [I can't imagine it's that much] or whether to downgrade it and spend the money on a better graphics card...
Which leads me to my final questions: I've noticed in some reviews that Radeons (well, at least the 7950) seem to suffer from render times that are all over the place. But Radeons seem to be recommended left right and centre in this thread, so am I paying too much attention to Tech Report's reviews? The other question is regarding drivers. I've always gotten the impression that Nvidia's drivers are much better than ATI's. Is there anything to this?
Actually, there is one more thing. Optical drives. Google provides me with cases of some of the cheaper drives not opening or failing fairly soon. Are there any cheap-ish drives (preferably DVD writing) that are reliable? PCPartPicker's list is tiny.
Optical drive you could change to this and save £7 or so http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007267YRC/
I'd change your SSD too as the 840 isn't all that good a drive. Samsung's 830 and 840 Pro are great, 840 not so much. Novatech are one of the few places with the 830 still in stock http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...al/solidstate/128gbandabove/mz-7pc128neu.html
GPU wise Overclockers are doing the ASUS 7870 with two free games https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-288-AS They're also doing the 7850 version of that card for £150 which would be my choice as it's only marginally slower and would allow you to get nearer to adding a 3570K to your build over the i3. My problem with the 7870 is it's very close to the 7950 price wise but it's a large enough jump up to make it worth recommending, so for me either go down to the 7850 or up to the 7950.
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-289-AS
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-275-AS
Lastly I'd change the PSU to an XFX Core as it's just a rebranded Seasonic http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005TDTV0S/ or http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/powersupplies/p1-550s-xxb9.html
Also look into a TopCashBack account (I can refer you if you wish) to get some money back on purchases, some of those stores should offer a few percent back.
So to sum up what I'd do is change your SSD, DVD drive and PSU. That will all save money and you could also drop the 7870 to a 7850 and that might free up funds to go for a 3570K.
n64coder
Member
I probably would not get an enclosure yet. I would suggest getting a IDE/Sata to USB adapter like this one You make the connections and then plug the power cord in and the USB to your computer. It's a good way to test/use drives outside the computer. You could use this to see if your drive is still good.
weremichael
Member
I am thinking about building a new PC for the home theater. I will use it for videos (we don't have cable/sat), gaming (DayZ, maybe Far Cry 3 (already own it on 360), Civ 5, Diablo 3, etc.). Here is the build I've come up with:
SilverStone Sugo Series SG07-BW
XFX Double D FX-785A-CDFC Radeon HD 7850 2GB
Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo)
Crucial m4 128GB 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive
Could use a recommendation on a motherboard/ram/cooling.
Suggestions??
SilverStone Sugo Series SG07-BW
XFX Double D FX-785A-CDFC Radeon HD 7850 2GB
Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo)
Crucial m4 128GB 2.5-Inch Solid State Drive
Could use a recommendation on a motherboard/ram/cooling.
Suggestions??
Revengeance
Member
Talk me down, PC Gaf. I'm thinking about getting a second 7850 to crossfire with my current one. $200 on Newegg for the same model I'm using already, plus code for Far Cry.
Is this even necessary? I haven't overclocked anything (I have a i5-3570K).
Is this even necessary? I haven't overclocked anything (I have a i5-3570K).
What resolution are you playing at? I'd say no tbh, if you want any more juice from your system overclock your CPU and your 7850, when OC'd it's not far off a stock 7950.
Felix Lighter
Member
I'm the kind of guy that would take the lesser performance of a single HD 7970 over the potential Crossfire issues of 2 7850s but it seems like SLI/Crossfire setups are becoming increasingly common and I would hope less problematic.
Revengeance
Member
Playing at 1080, and tbh, most of the games I play are not super graphics intensive (LoL, torchlight, etc). I'll pick up Far Cry 3 at some point during the steam sale (hopefully), and if I'm not happy with the framerate I'll look into overclocking.
Thanks for the advice, I had a feeling it wasn't really necessary. Just got hit with a case of the Christmastime itchy buy-finger
Playing at 1080, and tbh, most of the games I play are not super graphics intensive (LoL, torchlight, etc). I'll pick up Far Cry 3 at some point during the steam sale (hopefully), and if I'm not happy with the framerate I'll look into overclocking.
Thanks for the advice, I had a feeling it wasn't really necessary. Just got hit with a case of the Christmastime itchy buy-finger
Yeah definitely just stick to the one card
only way I'd advocate Crossfire would be if there was an absolutely stonking bargain on a 7850.
Csokis
Member
I'm buying a new PC.
ASUS P8Z77-V
Intel Core i7-3770 (non-K) (OC @ 4.1)
16GB Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 2x8GB Kit
Which CPU cooler to buy? Max. 65-70C full load (Prime/LinX!), and price is max. 52€/69$!
Thank You!
ASUS P8Z77-V
Intel Core i7-3770 (non-K) (OC @ 4.1)
16GB Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 2x8GB Kit
Which CPU cooler to buy? Max. 65-70C full load (Prime/LinX!), and price is max. 52€/69$!
Thank You!
Why non K? Are you gaming or doing media work? If it's just gaming and general use save your money and go for a 3570K.
Cooler wise I quite like Noctua's (although they're not exactly pretty) stuff but you could go lower cost like a Hyper 212 and still get good results.
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