• 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. Ivy, SSDs, and reading the OP. [Part 2]

Status
Not open for further replies.
D

Deleted member 22576

Unconfirmed Member
Hola, como estas?

So I just got my two Samsung 830s in the mail. :eek: they're super cute.
Now all I need is my processor and its time to put this damn thing together finally.

So I'm reading through my motherboard manual (model no. in pic) and it says "due to chipset limitation, when set any of SATA ports to raid mode, all SATA ports run at raid mode together" which is a helluva sentence.

icHkrBHSeJnvy.jpg

What does that mean?
 

mkenyon

Banned
SATA controllers run in one of three modes. IDE, AHCI, or RAID. When you select one, it becomes true for all ports on the same controller. So, you can't run a RAID on a controller along with an additional AHCI drive as a storage device
 
D

Deleted member 22576

Unconfirmed Member
This is a reall dumb question, but it's not going to interfere with the optical drive right?
Muchas gracias, mi amigo!
 

n0n44m

Member
SATA controllers run in one of three modes. IDE, AHCI, or RAID. When you select one, it becomes true for all ports on the same controller. So, you can't run a RAID on a controller along with an additional AHCI drive as a storage device

got my two 830s in RAID-0 on the P8Z68-PRO Intel SATA6 ports set to RAID (obviously) , and on the regular SATA ports I've got the other 2 HDDs + optical drive

all those ports are on the same controller AFAIK :)

(I think RAID = AHCI with the option to create an array?)
 

cametall

Member
If my case weren't but a few months old I'd jump on the Newegg sale.

I really do dislike my Antec Gamer Series One. The front mesh panels vibrate, not much space for cable management, the bottom fan mount is so close to the PSU I couldn't mount a fan even if I wanted to.

It does have 2 front panel USB 3 ports though.
 

mkenyon

Banned
got my two 830s in RAID-0 on the P8Z68-PRO Intel SATA6 ports set to RAID (obviously) , and on the regular SATA ports I've got the other 2 HDDs + optical drive

all those ports are on the same controller AFAIK :)

(I think RAID = AHCI with the option to create an array?)
Sorry, I specifically meant:

You cannot run a third drive in AHCI mode (some benefits, like TRIM, used to only be supported by running in AHCI mode). The third drive would have to be in RAID mode, which isn't a big deal at all.

So, to answer the question: no, it will not affect your optical drive.
 
D

Deleted member 22576

Unconfirmed Member
While we're all here.. What's the best blu ray decoder/player/ripper? By best I guess I mean the one with the least frills. I'm gonna be ripping lots, but I can see myself actually just wanting to play one off the disc every now and then.
 

Mangotron

Member
While we're all here.. What's the best blu ray decoder/player/ripper? By best I guess I mean the one with the least frills. I'm gonna be ripping lots, but I can see myself actually just wanting to play one off the disc every now and then.

MakeMKV with VLC is what I use. MakeMKV is free (right now) and outputs a raw MKV rip of the movie, it's really fast for what it's doing too.

I have a quick question. I started using headphones with my PC and maximum volume isn't as loud as I want it to be. Would something like one of those Xonar DG's on newegg for $30 amp the volume up at all? I'm considering getting one anyway since my mobo doesn't allow connector retasking.
 

Salsa

Member
vY1VM.jpg


GYtN5.jpg


yay

and yes apparently I got the LE edition wich doesnt come with the factory OC.. but I think it's just 65mhz or so. Meh. All I wanted was the 680 PCB.

Installing Crysis 2 and Metro :p
 

mkenyon

Banned
If this trend continues with EVGA, they might use every single letter in the alphabet between their different 770s.
 

Salsa

Member
If this trend continues with EVGA, they might use every single letter in the alphabet between their different 770s.

yeah it's kinda ridiculous

but then again my P8P67 is also LE

what's funny is that they're always versions that are a tiny bit worse, but I supposed it stands for Limited Edition? should stand for Lame

edit: guess it could be "light"
 

clashfan

Member
I've decided to buy a new desktop after using my old one for 5 years. I want one of those WQHD resolution monitors. Is there a minimum memory amount for gpu that I need to buy to support those WQHD resolution monitors?
 

bj00rn_

Banned
Check if your CPU fan connector is speed controlled (check the mobo manual). It should be and thus automatically lower its speed at low temps. If it doesn't then that's weird.

do the noctua fans come with low noise adapters? (basically inline resistors which lower the speed by a fixed amount)? On my previous setup I just had all my fans running at a fixed speed (as I think noctua aren't PWM) with Low noise adapters to keep them slow

Thanks for the replies guys.

I figured out that the Noctua fans can't be speed-controlled by the MB because they come with 3-pin connectors compared to the required 4-pin..

But the good thing is that I also figured out that the Fractal Design R4 comes with built-in fan voltage control in the front, with 3-pin connectors.

So now I have them running at a fixed low speed (I got a CPU fan error, but managed to turn it off inside the bios). I can't even hear the PC running now, and the CPU is at 29 Celsius / 85 Fahrenheit :) My decisions regarding buying components to ensure a fast but silent setup seems to have paid off..

Anyway, how the hell is it possible for normal people to figure these things out, the case didn't even specify what the loose-end cables in the front are for.. Their web-page was pretty much useless. And this is a pretty popular case.
 
Got my first piece of the new system!

MicroCenter had the Intel 3930K 3.2GHz for $499 (in-store only) so I got it $70 cheaper than pretty much anywhere else online or offline. So sweet!
 

scogoth

Member
Thanks for the replies guys.

I figured out that the Noctua fans can't be speed-controlled by the MB because they come with 3-pin connectors compared to the required 4-pin..

But the good thing is that I also figured out that the Fractal Design R4 comes with built-in fan voltage control in the front, with 3-pin connectors.

So now I have them running at a fixed low speed (I got a CPU fan error, but managed to turn it off inside the bios). I can't even hear the PC running now, and the CPU is at 29 Celsius / 85 Fahrenheit :) My decisions regarding buying components to ensure a fast but silent setup seems to have paid off..

Anyway, how the hell is it possible for normal people to figure these things out, the case didn't even specify what the loose-end cables in the front are for.. Their web-page was pretty much useless. And this is a pretty popular case.

4 pin should still speed control 3 pin fans just its voltage control not PWM
 

Fantasmo

Member
I'm trying to connect the Gigabyte 670 GTX OC Windforce to the SeaSonic 520 and the bigger of the two PCI-E power connectors won't fit into the video card. WTF is going on? Is there a video tutorial anywhere? The first smaller set were fine but this second pair will not go in!!

HEEEELLLPPPPPP!!!
 

Salsa

Member
been reading about this LE thing. Basically they're cards that didnt reach the FTW standards so it's a smaller OC.

Basically:

regular 670:

Core Clock
915MHz
Boost Clock
980MHz

670 FTW LE (where im at):

Core Clock
941MHz
Boost Clock
1019MHz

670 FTW non-LE:

Core Clock
1006MHz
Boost Clock
1084MHz


I guess I should be pissed at the guy from having a regular FTW on the site. I called him about that and he told me he was sorry and didnt noticed (said the importer had it as the regular model on their page also) and would change the website. Told me he couldnt exchange it tho since those were all he had.

It's somewhat bothersome because it's a $10 difference or so in the US.. but what are the actual visible benefits from this anyway? 3fps?

could probably OC it to that manually too.. but it's probably not worth it
 

cametall

Member
4 pin should still speed control 3 pin fans just its voltage control not PWM

This, my Noctuas are controlled by the mobo, and they are 3 pin connected to a 4 pin header. It can read the RPM of the Noctuas too.

I'm trying to connect the Gigabyte 670 GTX OC Windforce to the SeaSonic 520 and the bigger of the two PCI-E power connectors won't fit into the video card. WTF is going on? Is there a video tutorial anywhere? The first smaller set were fine but this second pair will not go in!!

HEEEELLLPPPPPP!!!

Probably not any help at all, but I swear my Seasonic PSU has 3 PCIE power cables. One 6 pin, one 6pin/8pin, and an 8 pin that won't fit in any 8 pin PCIE video card because the shapes on the connectors don't match up.
 

Shambles

Member
This, my Noctuas are controlled by the mobo, and they are 3 pin connected to a 4 pin header. It can read the RPM of the Noctuas too.



Probably not any help at all, but I swear my Seasonic PSU has 3 PCIE power cables. One 6 pin, one 6pin/8pin, and an 8 pin that won't fit in any 8 pin PCIE video card because the shapes on the connectors don't match up.

You're probably trying to plug in the CPU power plug into a PCIE slot.
But how would your PC turn on?
 

DTKT

Member
PC-GAF.

Anyone know anything about printers? I'm just looking for a Black&White printer with wireless/Ethernet support. Good toner/printed pages ratio would be great too.

Anyone has any experience with that?
 

cametall

Member
You're probably trying to plug in the CPU power plug into a PCIE slot.
But how would your PC turn on?

Maybe that's what it is, an extra one. Though it might say PCIE on it (on the header). I have it taped to the back of my case anyhow.

I guess I should be pissed at the guy from having a regular FTW on the site. I called him about that and he told me he was sorry and didnt noticed (said the importer had it as the regular model on their page also) and would change the website. Told me he couldnt exchange it tho since those were all he had.

It's somewhat bothersome because it's a $10 difference or so in the US.. but what are the actual visible benefits from this anyway? 3fps?

could probably OC it to that manually too.. but it's probably not worth it

It's probably a chip that didn't bin well enough for EVGA to use in the higher end models. With a small voltage tweak you can probably get it to the next version's clock speed.

But you would be adding more heat to the card, which is probably why EVGA used in the LE at a lower OC in the first place. I'd say give the OC a shot.

EDIT: If you can tweak the voltage. Not sure if nVidia limited that or not on these cards.
 

Salsa

Member
I'd say give the OC a shot.

I probably will eventually when I feel it's not up to snuff (maybe go further than that), but I dont really feel like im gonna miss that small of an advantage on most games

a small annoyance, too bad im super touchy about this kind of stuff, but at least it's still better than the regular one, specially for the 680 cooling



edit: also I wonder if this has anything to do with the recent voltage control thing going on at Nvidia. Maybe the abundance of these cards is a response to that?
 

1-D_FTW

Member
PC-GAF.

Anyone know anything about printers? I'm just looking for a Black&White printer with wireless/Ethernet support. Good toner/printed pages ratio would be great too.

Anyone has any experience with that?

Once you go laser, there's no going back. Partial to Brother, myself.
 

cametall

Member
I probably will eventually when I feel it's not up to snuff (maybe go further than that), but I dont really feel like im gonna miss that small of an advantage on most games

a small annoyance, too bad im super touchy about this kind of stuff, but at least it's still better than the regular one, specially for the 680 cooling



edit: also I wonder if this has anything to do with the recent voltage control thing going on at Nvidia. Maybe the abundance of these cards is a response to that?

I'm touchy about it too. Always kills me to see people clocking the HD 7950 at 1200mhz on 1.1v but I can only seem to hit 1100mhz at that voltage... and my memory clock will not go higher than 1500.

It's possible there was a "bad" batch that resulted in lower binning chips. Not defective bad, but not as efficient as EVGA/nVidia would like for the higher end models.
 

bj00rn_

Banned
This, my Noctuas are controlled by the mobo, and they are 3 pin connected to a 4 pin header. It can read the RPM of the Noctuas too.

Hmm, then I'll have to re-visit this thing at some time. It's very quiet now, but mobo-controlled is the best way. Good to know.
 

Salsa

Member
I'm touchy about it too. Always kills me to see people clocking the HD 7950 at 1200mhz on 1.1v but I can only seem to hit 1100mhz at that voltage... and my memory clock will not go higher than 1500.

well whenever I feel bad about it i'll think about the people who are happy with a regular non overclocked 670 and how mine is still better :p
 

ithorien

Member
PC-GAF.

Anyone know anything about printers? I'm just looking for a Black&White printer with wireless/Ethernet support. Good toner/printed pages ratio would be great too.

Anyone has any experience with that?

I have a Brother DCP-7065DN at home and really like it. Only con is it's a little loud when it's warming up and before it sleeps, but it's not really anything bothersome. It was also super cheap when I got it. Would have gone color if I had the money then.
 

Fantasmo

Member
I figured it out guys. The 670 came with two hard drive power plug adapters that fit the video card. Those other ones were motherboard power connectors. Man, video cards get a LOT of power now huh? lol been so many years never seen this before.
 

ithorien

Member
I figured it out guys. The 670 came with two hard drive power plug adapters that fit the video card. Those other ones were motherboard power connectors. Man, video cards get a LOT of power now huh? lol been so many years never seen this before.

I think every card I bought in recent times has that PCI-E to molex adapter included, that the one?
 

Salsa

Member
man I sent a message to the hardware store asking if they could refund $10-20 for selling me the LE instead of the regular one

I feel like an idiot, lol
 
The 4th or 5th revision of my build, think it's about time I got some feedback on it. I have a horrible feeling I'll be on the 10th revision or so before I finally begin ordering parts.

A bit of preliminary info - I've never owned and certainly not built a desktop before ever, so I have learned everything in the last 3-4 weeks to just get this far. Will bold the parts I am almost certainly - 99% sure I am getting. Some components are more or less "cool, they are expensive and have large numbers included in their name, must be good!" which I will italicise.

ASRock x79 Extreme9_____________________269.99
Intel i7-3930K 3.2GHz ___________________442.12
EVGA GTX 680 4GB Classified_____________510.97
Samsung 830 2.5" SATA III 6GBps 128GB_____74.19
Samsung 830 2.5" SATA III 6GBps 128GB_____74.19
Samsung 830 2.5" SATA III 6GBps 128GB_____74.19
Samsung 830 2.5" SATA III 6GBps 128GB_____74.19
Corsair CWCH100 Hydro Series H100_________79.43
G Skill Ripjaws Z 32GB 2133MHz_____________214.98
Corsair Professional Series Gold 1200W_______204.97

Total____________________________________2019.22(GBP)

Planning to run the 4 SSDs in two RAID 0 arrays, one for boot drive and installed programs and one for current projects (assume I have an adequate back up solution, I know the risks with RAID 0). Probably will bump the two SSDs which will make up the data drive up to 256 each, but I'm still evaluating the necessity of this. I assume (hope) a total of 256GB for the system and programs drive is enough also?

My budget can go up to around £2500 but I think that might be unnecessary. All prices are from Amazon.co.uk, haven't looked into cheaper alternatives (probably won't be m/any) so prices are ballpark. Still need to decide on a case which I'd rather do once all the components are decided on. Speaking of components is there anything I have forgotten?

This is really only for CGI stuff but will no doubt install a few games on there. Will be overclocking whatever I can as much as I can. Anyways don't hold back on advice, have been researching into everything I think will even help me a tiny bit so any recommendations / advice won't go unappreciated and unresearched!
 

scogoth

Member
The 4th or 5th revision of my build, think it's about time I got some feedback on it. I have a horrible feeling I'll be on the 10th revision or so before I finally begin ordering parts.

A bit of preliminary info - I've never owned and certainly not built a desktop before ever, so I have learned everything in the last 3-4 weeks to just get this far. Will bold the parts I am almost certainly - 99% sure I am getting. Some components are more or less "cool, they are expensive and have large numbers included in their name, must be good!" which I will italicise.

ASRock x79 Extreme9_____________________269.99
Intel i7-3930K 3.2GHz ___________________442.12
EVGA GTX 680 4GB Classified_____________510.97
Samsung 830 2.5" SATA III 6GBps 128GB_____74.19
Samsung 830 2.5" SATA III 6GBps 128GB_____74.19
Samsung 830 2.5" SATA III 6GBps 128GB_____74.19
Samsung 830 2.5" SATA III 6GBps 128GB_____74.19
Corsair CWCH100 Hydro Series H100_________79.43
G Skill Ripjaws Z 32GB 2133MHz_____________214.98
Corsair Professional Series Gold 1200W_______204.97

Total____________________________________2019.22(GBP)

Planning to run the 4 SSDs in two RAID 0 arrays, one for boot drive and installed programs and one for current projects (assume I have an adequate back up solution, I know the risks with RAID 0). Probably will bump the two SSDs which will make up the data drive up to 256 each, but I'm still evaluating the necessity of this. I assume (hope) a total of 256GB for the system and programs drive is enough also?

My budget can go up to around £2500 but I think that might be unnecessary. All prices are from Amazon.co.uk, haven't looked into cheaper alternatives (probably won't be m/any) so prices are ballpark. Still need to decide on a case which I'd rather do once all the components are decided on. Speaking of components is there anything I have forgotten?

This is really only for CGI stuff but will no doubt install a few games on there. Will be overclocking whatever I can as much as I can. Anyways don't hold back on advice, have been researching into everything I think will even help me a tiny bit so any recommendations / advice won't go unappreciated and unresearched!

Raid two or four 256GB together. No need for two seperate arrays and its easy to manage and backup one logical drive.

As for that build theres not much you can do every is top of the line parts. What kind of cases do you like? Gaudy or monolithic?

FYI the classified no longer come with an evbot port meaning to voltage tweaking. Its just a high clocked board with big beefy blower style cooling.
 
Raid two or four 256GB together. No need for two seperate arrays and its easy to manage and backup one logical drive.
Thanks for the quick reply. I heard some stuff about how your system drive should be on the Intel controller, and on the X79 boards there is only two 6gb/s connectors provided by Intel and the others are provided by 3rd party. You can't RAID across two different controllers, so that seemed like my only option. Is that not the case?

Edit, sorry yeah I get what you mean now. Another question though, in general with a HDD set up you get performance increase by keeping your system and data drives separate right? Isn't this the same with SSDs as well?

As for that build theres not much you can do every is top of the line parts. What kind of cases do you like? Gaudy or monolithic?
Fractal R4 / Define XL, Corsair 600T (probably too small). They're unfortunately the only cases I really like the look of

FYI the classified no longer come with an evbot port meaning to voltage tweaking. Its just a high clocked board with big beefy blower style cooling.
So what does this mean exactly and how will it affect me?
 

sk3tch

Member
Hot damn...I think I may have finally lucked out when it comes to CPUs...have my new i7 3820 at 4.48 GHz @ 1.4v (x37 multiplier and 121 MHz bus) like it ain't a thang. Temps top out at 80C with the CM Hyper 212 EVO. Just running the AIDA64 Extreme system stability test...

So what does this mean exactly and how will it affect me?

Well, you may get lucky and get one that has the EVBot port. They're still in the channel depending on where you buy (it's luck unless you're buying from EVGA direct - they pulled them all to use for RMAs). It just allows you to go up to 1.35V. But you have to buy an EVBot for around $80 to even take advantage of that. If that wasn't in your plans - it has zero affect. You can use a custom BIOS that will get you up to 1.21V so it's not the end of the world. It's the best GTX 680 by far and runs so cool you don't even need to water cool.
 

scogoth

Member
Thanks for the quick reply. I heard some stuff about how your system drive should be on the Intel controller, and on the X79 boards there is only two 6gb/s connectors provided by Intel and the others are provided by 3rd party. You can't RAID across two different controllers, so that seemed like my only option. Is that not the case?

Edit, sorry yeah I get what you mean now. Another question though, in general with a HDD set up you get performance increase by keeping your system and data drives separate right? Isn't this the same with SSDs as well?


Fractal R4 / Define XL, Corsair 600T (probably too small). They're unfortunately the only cases I really like the look of


So what does this mean exactly and how will it affect me?

That is true but you can put all four on the add in controller (if it has 4 ports). The difference between 2 SSDs in raid and 4 is minimal for any normal workload (server stuff does scale) and SSDs eleminate the need for seperate drives for programs and OS because their IOPS (input output operations per second) are so high. Only real limitation od SSDs right now is space and size. So even going 2 512GB ssds would be fine performance wise.

Im boarding a plane right now. mkenyon, haz, sketch take over!
 

Celcius

°Temp. member
Hot damn...I think I may have finally lucked out when it comes to CPUs...have my new i7 3820 at 4.48 GHz @ 1.4v (x37 multiplier and 121 MHz bus) like it ain't a thang. Temps top out at 80C with the CM Hyper 212 EVO. Just running the AIDA64 Extreme system stability test...

Are you comfortable with 80C during stress tests since it will be cooler during gaming? What temps do you get during prime 95 blend?


Is anyone here good at cutting the mesh out of their cases (over fans)?
What tool would I need for this and how would you rate the difficulty on a scale of 1 to 10?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom