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[A Dog Chasing Cars]

Plug your monitor into your GPU not your motherboard

When I do that it wont actually display anything at all. Could my GPU not be hooked up correctly? The fans spin and it seems to be plugged in fine as far as I can tell

 

[brentech]

When I do that it wont actually display anything at all. Could my GPU not be hooked up correctly? The fans spin and it seems to be plugged in fine as far as I can tell

Might be an issue with the card. Pull it out, inspect, reseat the card in the system and try again.
Your card likely has a 6 or 8 pin power connector that needs plugged from the PSU, is this done? If not it's not receiving all the power it needs to run properly.

If your plugging into the motherboard then you aren't making use of the video card which makes no sense. Gotta make sure it's working.
So plug the hdmi into GPU.

 

[chickdigger802]

My computer seems to have a habit of coming back up when asleep. Sometimes it's bsod.

How to debug?

 

[brentech]

My computer seems to have a habit of coming back up when asleep. Sometimes it's bsod.

How to debug?

There's no special easy way to debug that. I used to have the same problem on my old laptop. After a ton of research and looking through the error log, I found out it had to do with the wireless driver. Apparently it would fail on wakeup. But that wasn't the driver that I thought was causing it.

So, write down BSOD error code and look it up, or go sniffing through the windows error log and see if you can find the last few times it happened and if those give an error code.

Can take some time to narrow it down.

 

[Hazaro]

Updated the previous listing to this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: SilenX EFZ-120HA5 86.0 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($134.98 @ Outlet PC)
Memory: Kingston 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($91.38 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($89.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($89.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Crucial M4 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($191.99 @ Adorama)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 680 4GB Video Card ($519.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($119.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 850W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer ($55.06 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 Full (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1742.32
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-03-26 16:01 EDT-0400)


Will probably order it all up next week. Still waffling on upping the CPU to an i7, that'll probably be a last minute change.

Very good list.
I'd swap the SilenX cooler (Because they horrendously lied about their fan specs a while back) out of principal for a 212 + or EVO.
Then decide if you really need a 4GB 680, or if a 4GB 670 or 7970 will do you.
And fit in the i7 that way.

My computer seems to have a habit of coming back up when asleep. Sometimes it's bsod.

How to debug?

Do you have an SSD? There are some compatibility things on sleep mode and some BIOS settings I can't recall off the top of my head.

Should I be concerned with using a HD 7850 with only 1GB VRAM? I just built my pc earlier this month and want to see if I can wait to upgrade and stick with this card for a while.

Should be good until the next batch of cards come out. Just don't expect to run all those high res texture mods or stupidly heavy AA. Both of those fall in line with what good performance you can expect out of the card though so it's not that big a deal.

I've been using a GTX260 for quite a while now, and though it's held its own for a long time, the massive frame drops in Bioshock Infinite are trying to tell me it might be time to upgrade.

I've also been out of the videocard loop for quite a while. I have no idea how the GTX260 compares to the cards on the market now, and I have no idea how much I'd have to spend to see a decent performance boost. Would I be happy moving from a GTX260 to, say, a GeForce GTX 650 Ti?

A brute hardware compare makes it look like the 260 is still the better card, but I'm not sure how that actually translates to performance.

---

Hmm, it looks like that might not be a great option. It sounds like performance is pretty similar.

That the 650 which is a piece of crap. The 650Ti is still not great, and Andy posted something about the 650Ti BOOST which looks like a real actual card. The 7850 1GB still is a better buy, but if you want nVidia you can look at that card or a 660.

 

[ss_lemonade]

Does Frys do the never settle amd bundle thing when purchasing an amd card?

 

[kharma45]

Does Frys do the never settle amd bundle thing when purchasing an amd card?

Not listed here so I presume not http://sites.amd.com/us/promo/never-settle/Pages/nsreloaded.aspx

 

[Jafku]

Should be good until the next batch of cards come out. Just don't expect to run all those high res texture mods or stupidly heavy AA. Both of those fall in line with what good performance you can expect out of the card though so it's not that big a deal.

Awesome. Thanks for responding!

 

[ss_lemonade]

Not listed here so I presume not http://sites.amd.com/us/promo/never-settle/Pages/nsreloaded.aspx

Ok thanks, didn't know there was a list.

 

[Kickz]

Need some help, I am on a shoe string college budget and was wondering if this would be a good offer; $100 on craigslist for this PC;

http://www.used-pcs.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=47459&idcategory=5

Complete noob here and I want to know if I can use something like this for MMOs/other steam games/Wii emulation. And if not what upgrades could I get to make it so.

 

[kharma45]

It'll struggle a lot with Wii emulation, it's pretty dated overall.

Save your money a bit more if you can.

 

[iavi]

Mkenyon will love this use of frametime.



AMD Comments on GPU Stuttering, Offers Driver Roadmap & Perspective on Benchmarking

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6857/amd-stuttering-issues-driver-roadmap-fraps

Longish article, so best to just read it.

Sounds like they have an extensive update coming up. That work on Crossfire sounds great.

Give me a reason to buy another 7950, AMD.

 

[Orca]

Heh I guess it's always easy to do, that's how my budget build doubled in price What sort of stuff are you using your PC for again?

Some video capture and editing, photo editing, things like that. Mostly for gaming, but I'd do some work things on it as well.

 

[kharma45]

Some video capture and editing, photo editing, things like that. Mostly for gaming, but I'd do some work things on it as well.

Well, I'm not going to say don't get the i7

I'd listen to Haz and stick in the Hyper 212 and move to a 4GB 670 or 7970 (depends on what video editing software you're using, Vegas is good for AMD cards and Premiere for Nvidia) which should then let you get the i7. The 670 is only about 10% worse than the 680 overall.

 

[mrklaw]

Long shot, but I'll try.

Is there any way to get audio out of the motherboard HDMI,but the picture from the GPU HDMI? I've pulled my prodigy into the living room for a while, and want to hook up to my receiver but it doesn't support 1080p/60. So I need to connect direct to my TV but would like multichannel audio.

If that isn't possible I'll need to look into multichannel analog cables but I don't have any and would like to avoid the expense.

 

[comu]

Hello

My WD RE4 1TB hard drive and Samsung optical drive didn't come with any screws.

Does the Define R4 come with screws that will let me mount them? or do I need to buy some myself?

Thanks

 

[Ty4on]

for some reason, my parents think me leaving my desktop on at night with monitors off is killing me or something with radiation. Any validity to that?

I remember crt monitors were known for radiation and people put that thing over the monitors... but nothing else of recent .

CRTs spew out some x-rays, but it's very small.

CRTs can emit a small amount of X-ray radiation as a result of the electron beam's bombardment of the shadow mask/aperture grille and phosphors. The amount of radiation escaping the front of the monitor is widely considered unharmful. The Food and Drug Administration regulations in 21 C.F.R. 1020.10 are used to strictly limit, for instance, television receivers to 0.5 milliroentgens per hour (mR/h) (0.13 µC/(kg·h) or 36 pA/kg) at a distance of 5 cm (2 in) from any external surface; since 2007, most CRTs have emissions that fall well below this limit.

Radiation is also like light (light is radiation and look how harmful it is) and only harms you if it can hit you. When people talk radioactivity from like Fukushima they're really talking about isotopes that can enter the body and decay releasing radiation (this time in bigger particles that can even go through some paper, but hit very hard) inside your body.

When we are talking radiation it is important to know that a little bit of radiation isn't harmful and really unavoidable. There's stuff coming from the skies, the rocks and lot's of food.

Spoiler

That was maybe a bit OT... Computers release no ionizing (the dangerous change-DNA-one) radiation and neither do wifi/phone antennas

 

[Infinite Justice]

Hello

My WD RE4 1TB hard drive and Samsung optical drive didn't come with any screws.

Does the Define R4 come with screws that will let me mount them? or do I need to buy some myself?

Thanks

Isn't the R4 tool less though?

IIRC usually its the case that comes with them so check the screws that came with the R4 and see if any of those were included. Also the manual should tell you the exact screws that came with the case.

 

[comu]

Dunno, I haven't got it yet

Saw a youtube review of it and the guy screwed the hardrive into place.

 

[Lighthouse]

Isn't the R4 tooless though?

IIRC usually its the case that comes with them so check the screws that came with the R4 and see if any of those were included. Also the manual should tell you the exact screws that came with the case.

From what I can see the R4 is not tool-less. The 3.5/2.5" drive bays require a standard #6-32 screw that is not included.

 

[brentech]

Long shot, but I'll try.

Is there any way to get audio out of the motherboard HDMI,but the picture from the GPU HDMI? I've pulled my prodigy into the living room for a while, and want to hook up to my receiver but it doesn't support 1080p/60. So I need to connect direct to my TV but would like multichannel audio.

If that isn't possible I'll need to look into multichannel analog cables but I don't have any and would like to avoid the expense.

Ugh, I dunno man. I don't see it working. That's usually a conflict issue.
Like if you had an audio card and tried to use your on board audio that can sometimes prevent any sound all together (or just disables the on board, when the mobo detects the actual card). I'm kind of assuming it's going to be the same deal, but I could be wrong since I've never heard of this particular issue with hdmi.

 

[Zeth]

Dunno, I haven't got it yet

Saw a youtube review of it and the guy screwed the hardrive into place.

R4 comes with lots of extra screws, you should be good to go. I think there's a big list of them somewhere, either on the box or manual.

 

[kewlmyc]

Hello PCGaf, I'm going to be updating my PC this weekend. The budget is $1500 and I'm going to be replacing everything except the power supply, heatsink CPU fan, case, and hard drive. Here is what I want my computer to do:

3D gaming: 4/5
3D movies: 5/5
Streaming: 4/5
PCSX2 and Dolphin Emulation: 5/5
Playing modern games (Bioshock Infinite, RE6 PC) on ultra settings: 5/5
Most if not all games at 120fps: 5/5
Virtulization: 4/5
Dual Screens: 4/5

Here's the parts I'm keeping:
Power Supply: Thermaltake Black Widow W0319RU 850W ATX 12V v2.3, EPS 12V v2.91 CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two V3 Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Gaming Case

Heat Sink: COOLER MASTER Hyper N 520 RR-920-N520-GP 92mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with Intel 1366/1155/775 and AMD AM3

Here's the new parts:
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K Quad-Core Processor 3.5 GHz 8 MB Cache LGA 1155 - BX80637I73770K
OR
Intel Core i5-3570K Quad-Core Processor 3.4 GHz 4 Core LGA 1155 - BX80637I53570K

GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2048MB GDDR5, DVI, DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort, 4-way SLI Ready Graphics Card Graphics Cards 02G-P4-2680-KR
OR
EVGA GeForce GTX 680 FTW 4096MB GDDR5, DVI, DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort, 4-way SLI Ready Graphics Card (04G-P4-3687-KR) Graphics Cards 04G-P4-3687-KR

Motherboard: AS Rock LGA1155 DDR3 SATA3 USB3.0 Quad CrossFireX and Quad SLI A GbE ATX Motherboard Z77 EXTREME4

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory (CML8GX3M2A1600C9)
OR
Buying two of them so I can have 16GB of memory

SSD: Samsung 840 Series 2.5 inch 120GB SATA III internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-7TD120BW

Disc Drive: LG Electronics UH12LS29;BLACK/BULK Internal SATA 12x Super Multi DVD Blue with 3D Playback

Other: NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 Wireless Glasses Kit

Sorry if it's a bit lenghty, but I'm trying to get this done by the weekend since it's the only time I'll have for this in a while. Out of the items that I have two choices for, which would be the best for my needs? Are there any incompatibilities that I may have missed? Any better choices to go with? Any of my old parts that I should replace?

Thank you for your time.

 

[kennah]

1. Are you going to be just gaming or are you going to be doing multimedia work? If just gaming get the i5

2. If you can afford it go with the 4gig version of the video card. You may also want to look into the gigabyte, msi and asus options as they are quieter and cooler

3. Get the PRO version of the 840

4. More than 8gig of ram won't make much difference in what you have listed.

 

[killertofu]

Accidentally bought a PATA drive -____________-

 

[scogoth]

Accidentally bought a PATA drive -____________-

Wha--- how.... Why do they even still sell those?

 

[Infinite Justice]

Accidentally bought a PATA drive -____________-

WUT?

Where are you located

 

[killertofu]

It was 24$ on NewEgg (refurbed but I just wanted to put Windows on the side for my Hackintosh)

ughghghghghgh

 

[Orca]

Well, I'm not going to say don't get the i7

I'd listen to Haz and stick in the Hyper 212 and move to a 4GB 670 or 7970 (depends on what video editing software you're using, Vegas is good for AMD cards and Premiere for Nvidia) which should then let you get the i7. The 670 is only about 10% worse than the 680 overall.

I'm leaning towards just bumping it to the i7 without taking away from anything else. Budget isn't really that much of a concern.

 

[mkenyon]

Some video capture and editing, photo editing, things like that. Mostly for gaming, but I'd do some work things on it as well.

Might want to look into a capture card. Avermedia Gamer HD can capture and broadcast at 60FPS with no negative effect to frame times.

I'd say $100 on that is better spent than on an i7.

 

[xJavonta]

Might want to look into a capture card. Avermedia Gamer HD can capture and broadcast at 60FPS with no negative effect to frame times.

I'd say $100 on that is better spent than on an i7.

Wait, you can capture content from the same PC you're playing on with that? And NO effect on frame rate/time? How?

 

[killertofu]

Do people use those harddirives anymore? Newegg isn't letting me return it

 

[mkenyon]

Wait, you can capture content from the same PC you're playing on with that? And NO effect on frame rate/time? How?

Yeah, with a capture card. You 'duplicate' your primary monitor via HDMI to the capture card in the same PC. That capture card takes the video, encodes it to whatever format necessary for your streaming service, and then shoots it back out.

 

[scogoth]

Do people use those harddirives anymore? Newegg isn't letting me return it

No they don't I'm surprised they had any in stock in the first place

 

[Orca]

Might want to look into a capture card. Avermedia Gamer HD can capture and broadcast at 60FPS with no negative effect to frame times.

I'd say $100 on that is better spent than on an i7.

I already have a couple of Blackmagic ones.

 

[lmpaler]

Sexy pants, RMA parts will be here by Friday and I can finally get this rig built and start the fun!

 

[RapidCancel]

Thanks for everyone who helped me out! Just waiting for my 7850 to come in this week and I'm set! Ended up getting a Noctua heatsink since I had some extra Amazon credit. So glad I got an SSD, it is soooo quick.

 

[kewlmyc]

1. Are you going to be just gaming or are you going to be doing multimedia work? If just gaming get the i5

2. If you can afford it go with the 4gig version of the video card. You may also want to look into the gigabyte, msi and asus options as they are quieter and cooler

3. Get the PRO version of the 840

4. More than 8gig of ram won't make much difference in what you have listed.

The only thing other that gaming that I'll be doing is watching 3D movies and virtualization.

 

[xJavonta]

Yeah, with a capture card. You 'duplicate' your primary monitor via HDMI to the capture card in the same PC. That capture card takes the video, encodes it to whatever format necessary for your streaming service, and then shoots it back out.

Ahh okay. So the processing is all being done by the card, instead of the CPU. Makes sense, now I need a capture card lol PC recording and console recording, best of both worlds.

Thanks for everyone who helped me out! Just waiting for my 7850 to come in this week and I'm set! Ended up getting a Noctua heatsink since I had some extra Amazon credit. So glad I got an SSD, it is soooo quick.

That rig. So small. I love it!

 

[theSlacker]

How long will the 680 last me? Halfway or fully through the PS4 generation or not even?

That is a bad way of trying to do things imo. You buy flagship cards because you have the money to spend, they will never be as cost effective as just upgrading more often with the mid range card. Not to mention that we really have no idea how the new console generation is going to effect the pc market.

 

[lmpaler]

That is a bad way of trying to do things imo. You buy flagship cards because you have the money to spend, they will never be as cost effective as just upgrading more often with the mid range card. Not to mention that we really have no idea how the new console generation is going to effect the pc market.

This, plus you could always buy another card and try for CF or SLI.

 

[mkenyon]

This, plus you could always buy another card and try for CF or SLI.

Never buy a card with this intention unless you need SLI right away, IMO.

 

[TaKeRx]

I'm have a very weird issue with Crysis 3's Multiplayer.

I can consistently play a couple of rounds just fine, but I noticed that if I go back to the menu to customize my classes and all my GPU clock decreases from 1050 to 500. This is fine, because it doesn't need to be that high in the menus.

The problem lies when I go back to join a game again. The GPU clock does not change and it's like I'm playing in slow motion now. I'm forced to restart the game in order for the GPU to take change and all is good until I repeat the process.

I have a Vapor X 7970 GHz. Anyone has this issue?

 

[Celcius]

Thanks for everyone who helped me out! Just waiting for my 7850 to come in this week and I'm set! Ended up getting a Noctua heatsink since I had some extra Amazon credit. So glad I got an SSD, it is soooo quick.

Looks great, love the size

 

[Hazaro]

Need some help, I am on a shoe string college budget and was wondering if this would be a good offer; $100 on craigslist for this PC;

http://www.used-pcs.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=47459&idcategory=5

Complete noob here and I want to know if I can use something like this for MMOs/other steam games/Wii emulation. And if not what upgrades could I get to make it so.

It's a computer.
It'll struggle with just about anything demanding. Don't sink any money into upgrading it beyond some low power PCI-E card.

Hello PCGaf, I'm going to be updating my PC this weekend. The budget is $1500 and I'm going to be replacing everything except the power supply, heatsink CPU fan, case, and hard drive. Here is what I want my computer to do:

Streaming: 4/5
PCSX2 and Dolphin Emulation: 5/5
Playing modern games (Bioshock Infinite, RE6 PC) on ultra settings: 5/5
Most if not all games at 120fps: 5/5
Virtulization: 4/5
Dual Screens: 4/5

Here's the new parts:
CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K Quad-Core Processor 3.5 GHz 8 MB Cache LGA 1155 - BX80637I73770K

GPU: Gigabyte/ASUS/MSI dual fan style GTX 680 4GB. eVGA staying on blower is a crime.

Motherboard: AS Rock LGA1155 DDR3 SATA3 USB3.0 Quad CrossFireX and Quad SLI A GbE ATX Motherboard Z77 EXTREME4
While the Extreme 4 is a good value, I'd lean towards an MSI MPOWER or ASUS Gene V. They are very nice boards and you need every bit of extra CPU power.

SSD: Samsung 840 Series 2.5 inch 120GB SATA III internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-7TD120BW
While I can pass the 240GB 840 for being a good value, you should get an m4 or 840 Pro instead as they are more robust.

Other: NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 Wireless Glasses Kit
Gimmick and you ruin 120Hz

Last thing is see if your N520 will cut a high overclock or not.

 

[scogoth]

And leave to Anandtech to bring some real discussion about the benefits and limitations of FRAPs and frame times. Half way through and wondering if they will take pcper's uber frame recording setup into account when talking about limitations of recording frame times.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6857/amd-stuttering-issues-driver-roadmap-fraps

 

[Skel1ingt0n]

Hey mkenyon.... yo, when you gonna update your build log? I need more sexy pics like this...

 

[ruxtpin]

Welp. It's all on it's way; made a few minor changes after some advice received here...

Case: Temjin TJ08B-E (miniATX tower)
PSU: SeaSonic M12II 750W
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K 3.5GHz
MoBo: ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z
RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB)
GPU: ASUS GTX670 4GB
Storage 1: Western Dig 1TB 7200RPM
Storage 2: Crucial m4 256GB SSD
CPU Cooler: Zalman 120mm fan

*Trying to see if I can get Windows from my school, even tho I graduated last year.

 

[scogoth]

Quick summary on the Anandtech article

• FRAPs is a limited tool for frame times because of the way it operates (DirectX Present calls, not buffer swaps)
• It is adequate for showing major frame time issues, like those in AMDs drivers
• AMD has fixed DX9 games and DX10+ is a work in progress
• Avoid crossfire like the plague until new drivers in July
• FRAPs totally inadequate for multi-GPU frame times (kind of knew this already due to "runt" frames issue from PC Per's analysis)
• Anandtech IS aware of the benefits of frame time analysis and will be using a new tool that they can't talk about that will more accurately measure frame time and frame latency

Hey mkenyon.... yo, when you gonna update your build log? I need more sexy pics like this...

I second this inquiry but I don't think mkenyon has gotten much work on it recently. You know being PACNWPCGAF's (whew thats long) official builder and all

 

[RkOwnage]

Doing a little bit of cable management for my PC (long overdue) and was wondering. I have an EVGA 670, and it has two 6 slot power slots on the top of the card. My power supply has two cords each with 2 of the 6 piece adapters. Can I just use one cord with the two 6-pin adapters or should I use one each from the two cords?

Does it make a difference? Am I making any sense at all? After reading it, I confused myself, but maybe someone can help me!