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"I need a New PC!" 2013 Part 1. Haswell, Crysis 3, and secret fairy sauce. Read da OP
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CornBurrito
Member
That BitFenix Prodigy case looks amazing. I want it.
Looking at the SFF builds linked in the OP, the price is ~1600 for Enthusiast build. Is that because the parts are extremely high end, or because the small form factor necessitates using more expensive parts that aren't necessarily the best?
Also the ram listed is an 8GB Samsung 30nm which has since been discontinued.
Looking at the SFF builds linked in the OP, the price is ~1600 for Enthusiast build. Is that because the parts are extremely high end, or because the small form factor necessitates using more expensive parts that aren't necessarily the best?
Also the ram listed is an 8GB Samsung 30nm which has since been discontinued.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
Cleaned my fans and rad today for the first time in 2 weeks. I knew I let it go on too long plus this time I completely took the fans out and there was a little more white dust buildup than I wanted to see. I will be taking it apart like this from now on as I'm really trying to keep things as clean as can be or at least not some dust caked case.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
My Sabertooth X79 comes with ASUS SSD caching so that is very nice. It depends on the board but that's part of the reason I didn't really settle all that much when it came to the motherboard.
Speak of the devil and DP's
It's because there's a number of things that increase in cost rapidly to get something similar to the enthusiast build in the OP.
ITX boards have crappy sound, so you add on $100 DAC that would otherwise be included in a $200 mATX/ATX mobo. ITX cases need better fans to cool parts that draw more power, so you add $30 there. It all adds up quickly to be about $300 more than the comparative mATX/ATX build.
And yeah, it needs to be updated
For RAM, just get the same stuff listed in the OP. Low profile.
Just make sure you have positive pressure, as then the only way air goes in to the case will be through these filters.
ITX boards have crappy sound, so you add on $100 DAC that would otherwise be included in a $200 mATX/ATX mobo. ITX cases need better fans to cool parts that draw more power, so you add $30 there. It all adds up quickly to be about $300 more than the comparative mATX/ATX build.
And yeah, it needs to be updated
For RAM, just get the same stuff listed in the OP. Low profile.
Here you go
Just make sure you have positive pressure, as then the only way air goes in to the case will be through these filters.
Prodigy.
$79
PROS: Lots of room for Air and Hard drives and a 51/2 if you need it. Has plenty of niches that you can shove an SSD into. Cheapest of the bunch. The feet are cool.
CONS: Watercooling is a BITCH that can require heavy modification and particular parts. Won't fit a powersupply bigger than 160mm without looking stupid.
CaseLabs S3
$199 + Accessories
PROS: Will fit pretty much anything you throw at it, the flexbays are awesome, comes in Black, White, Blue, Grey or PRIMER (to paint any colour you want). Amazing build quality from a very well regarded company. This case is something you would get to be able to do anything you want, most flexible of the bunch.
CONS: "cheap" initially but when you enter the world of customizing it the price can really ramp up quick. Kinda large and 'boxy'.
CompactSplash
$150 + shipping
PROS: Specifically designed to be the smallest possible case that will accept a full custom watercooling loop. Each one custom built and custom named, can be ordered in any colour for an additional charge. Only available for a limited time!
CONS: Air cooling options limited. Will not take regular ATX powersupplies at all. Only fits two 2.5" hard drives (4 if you are watercooling your video card and literally tape two together), Only available for a limited time!
Fractal Node
PROS: Beautiful, super duper tiny. Supports 3.5" hard drives and regular sized powersupplies.
CONS: Powersupply outputs fit snugly against longer video cards. Aligning the CPU cooler can be tricky. Very tight space to work in. No 5.25bay.
Here's a couple other cases that aren't listed in the SFF Guide.
The motherboards tend to be more expensive for the ITX, and other parts are more particular (to fit). The Enthusiast build is geared towards the higher end of things. You could bring the price down quite a bit by going 3570K instead of 3770K. And 256gb SSDs are about $50 cheaper nowadays anyway. (And not getting the optional $120 sound card)
The Samsung RAM is amazing if you can find it, but any ram will do if you don't have plans to push its capabilities.
CornBurrito
Member
I know this was recommended for watercooling: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181017
How does that work? Also what do you mean by "looking stupid?"
Also a question in general: How often do I have to clean fans?
If you have a longer powersupply it will stick out the back of the case.
You have to clean your fans as often as you want to. Could be every week, could be never. Just depends on how dusty where you live is/how much you care about dust. I do mine like once a year.
The corsair will fit, but you will lose your 5.25 bay. That's what I mean about it being a bitch. You pretty much have to take the whole case apart and put it back together again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOi_vbyKLik
That is a great video about the Prodigy.
Is this a good IPS monitor for this price?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009483
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824009483
CornBurrito
Member
Then why does your build recommend the H100 lol.
I haven't a clue what a 5.25 bay is lol. But the thing sticking out of the back is bleh.
Thanks for the video.
god the case is so great. Reminds me of a gamecube with its compactness.
not sure I'd say watercooling is a bitch in the prodigy. If you don't need an optical drive you can fit a big radiator in the top which is probably overkill for the CPU anyway. Rear mount is fine for something like a H60.
Vestal
Junior Member
You can probably get it to 4ghz on stock fans as long as you have good internal cooling.
Please tell me you removed the stock thermal from the HS before applying your paste.
H60 is recommended, though the H100 is included for people who just like to buy the best stuff as a high end part. The optional parts for price increase dramatically drop the value quotient.
The Prodigy is also a bit bigger than it looks in pictures. Some comparison shots:
cpp_is_king
Member
Had a panic moment last night. Far Cry 3 kept locking up and / or crashing, and eventually it hung the whole system and I had to power cycle the machine. When it booted up it failed at POST and said "Overclocking failed, please change the settinsg in the BIOS". So I went into the bios and just put everything back to factory defaults. But that disabled RAID, so when I got back into Windows my RAID was gone. I was afraid I would have to re-stripe it and lose all my data, but luckily I just had to set it back to RAID mode and everything just magically re-appeared, so I got lucky.
Guess I'll be more modest with my overclocks from now on. I think I was at about 4.6GHz on a 3930k
Guess I'll be more modest with my overclocks from now on. I think I was at about 4.6GHz on a 3930k
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
If I could recommend you the one I went with then HERE.
It overclocks to 100hz as well. Best monitor I've had yet.
CornBurrito
Member
Ah. It is hard for me to tell if stuff is recommended because of quality or price. I assumed the H100 was the go to if you had the money, but I'll stick with the H60 then.
Also yeah, the video linked to me a bit ago showed the actual size quite well (with a ruler) so I know it is a lot bigger than in the pictures. But it is still pretty compact which I like/need. How heavy is it?
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I was looking at the Prodigy for some time, but in the end I thought it was just way too big for me.
Node 304 is substantially smaller, but then you run into the cons Kennah listed.
Node 304 is substantially smaller, but then you run into the cons Kennah listed.
That looks good, but it's also $130 more.
Thermal paste only conducts heat. If you put more on it will insulate and make it run hotter. It's safe to overclock when temps are reasonable (sub 70 usually) and the board has decent power delivery, but that is irrelevant as H77 doesn't support overclocking. Don't know if you can change base clock, but don't do it. Changing it from the stock 100 will make the system unstable.
Hopefully you guys can help me with my situation.
I have this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133380
Would like to know of a worthwhile upgrade under 500 bucks that consumes the same or less power. And advice would be appreciated.
I have this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133380
Would like to know of a worthwhile upgrade under 500 bucks that consumes the same or less power. And advice would be appreciated.
Son, I am crying right now: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-geforce-314-22-whql-drivers-released
You could buy anything in the NVIDIA line-up, right up to and including the GTX 680. Only things outside your limit is the dual-GPU 690 and the TITAN. All are more efficient than the 5xx line (power usage can be seen in the spec sheets on http://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus)
You'd be looking at a 670 or a 680 if you want the same power consumption. The 7970 is also a very good card but under load consumes around 50 watts more. AMD also offers the 7950 which is about the same power consumption as the two Nvidia cards.
A 4GB 670 is nicely within budget http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125449 however the 4GB 680 is $15 outside http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125448
7970 wise you'd be talking $450 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125439 and that includes Crysis 3 and BioShock for free. You also get those games with the 7950 for around the $300 mark http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125414, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202003 and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127667.
It'd probably be between the 7950 and 670 for me, both are well priced and offer good performance whilst staying well within budget, especially with the 7950.
What metric does NVIDIA use when quoting % performance increases?
Sanic
Member
I've only ever gone to nvidia.com
Nothing like what you quoted is mentioned there, but thank you regardless.
Metric?
Anybody? Reading different things on the web about it. The case is fairly well vented, I don't OC, and I have a 212 on the CPU (3570K) and a Silverstone PSU
Ended up with something entirely different. Had to put down another ~$70 compared to the previous build and in return I got two(!) monitors:
Motherboard: ASUS P6X58D-E
CPU: i7 920
Cooler: Hyper TX3 EVO
GPU: ASUS EAH6970/2DI2S/2GD5
Ram: 12GB Kingston DDR3 1600MHz
PSU: GX Lite 600W
Monitor: Acer P246H 24" (1920 x 1080)
Monitor: ASUS MK241H 24" (1920x1200)
Case: Antec New Solution VSK-4000E
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2 TB**
Optical Drive: LiteOn IHAS124
CPU: i7 920
Cooler: Hyper TX3 EVO
GPU: ASUS EAH6970/2DI2S/2GD5
Ram: 12GB Kingston DDR3 1600MHz
PSU: GX Lite 600W
Monitor: Acer P246H 24" (1920 x 1080)
Monitor: ASUS MK241H 24" (1920x1200)
Case: Antec New Solution VSK-4000E
HDD: Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2 TB**
Optical Drive: LiteOn IHAS124
I list everything on GeForce.com in our articles: http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/nvidia-geforce-314-22-whql-drivers-released
Results are the average frame rate, benchmarks are automated wherever possible, and hardware is kept consistent across releases.
That is an insane amount of work for the time we have between finalizing and launching a driver. Frame times are important to us, but we'll leave the likes of Scott W. to do the time-consuming testing (http://techreport.com/review/21516/inside-the-second-a-new-look-at-game-benchmarking)
I wonder why the 4GB ASUS GTX680 is only a two slot card, whereas the 2GB is the normal three slotter.
It's really not, there's even a tool to use on the frame time file to grab 99th percentile.That is an insane amount of work for the time we have between finalizing and launching a driver. Frame times are important to us, but we'll leave the likes of Scott W. to do the time-consuming testing (http://techreport.com/review/21516/inside-the-second-a-new-look-at-game-benchmarking)
Given the inaccuracy of second based polling/averaging, I'd really hope that the entire industry moves to this standard. There's so many websites dragging their feet on updating methodology, having NVIDIA set the standard for accuracy of information would seem like a huge swing in the right direction for consumers and hobbyists. Not to mention, it makes comparison benches between you guys and AMD look pretty spectactular (rightly so) at the moment.
Thanks for all of the advice with my build. I ended up going with:
- Thermaltake Chaser MK-I (VN300M1W2N) Black SECC ATX Full Tower Computer Case
- ASRock Z77 EXTREME 4-M
- Samsung 840 Series 2.5 inch 120GB SATA III SSD
- 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 ST3000DM001 3TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s
- GIGABYTE GV-N660OC-2GD GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0
- Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W
- Corsair Vengeance 8 GB ( 2 x 4 GB ) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800)
- Rosewill Tachyon Series Tachyon-650 Continuous 650W PLATINUM Certified
- ASUS 24X DVD Burner
- Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit (OEM)
Quote
Member
Do you guys have any recommendations on speeding up the booting process of a Windows 7 machine once it starts to load the OS? I've done the necessary msconfig stuff but it still take a good amount of time before I can start opening applications. I know a SSD will fix this of course but i'm looking for a temporary fix until I get one.
Sounds like you've done what you can.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
Someone in the BST thread is selling for 200 shipped. A fine deal and he just posted it.
Vestal
Junior Member
The timings will probably be tighter on the 4GB sticks.
Thanks for the input from both of you. I think ill go with the 4gb 680 15 bucks over my budget i can live with.
Another question while im upgrading my components; my PC has 8gb of ram is that still acceptable or should I go up to 16?
If you've got a LGA2011 motherboard then RAM can be set to run in quad channel rather than just dual channel however IIRC while there is a performance benefit to quad vs dual it's not like it's twice as fast or anything.
Excellent troll post. A++. 11/10.
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