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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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T

tbhysgb

Member
I would but I got one already :/ lol.

I'm pretty happy with my card though. I figure next winter I'll be itching to upgrade.
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
Backwards and forwards compatible. You won't take a performance hit either as the 660 doesn't fully saturate the bandwidth on PCI-E 2.0.
 
C

cpp_is_king

Member
I know everyone always swears up and down that having vsync off is the way to go with high end systems, but I really can't stand all the tearing, it's just constant nonstop. Anything that can be done about this?
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
120/144Hz monitor.

The vsync on/off thing is totally preference though. It's kind of a give and take between engine fluidity and artifacts.
 
D

DTKT

Member
cpp_is_king said:
I know everyone always swears up and down that having vsync off is the way to go with high end systems, but I really can't stand all the tearing, it's just constant nonstop. Anything that can be done about this?
Click to expand...

Vsync is great when it doesn't create mouse lag. I assume that's input lag? I remember MW2 being a nightmare with vsync.
 
D

Demon Ice

Banned
cpp_is_king said:
I know everyone always swears up and down that having vsync off is the way to go with high end systems, but I really can't stand all the tearing, it's just constant nonstop. Anything that can be done about this?
Click to expand...

If I was running an Nvidia card and I didn't have a 120 Hz monitor, I'd be forcing Adaptive Vsync + Triple Buffering in every game. Gives you the best of both worlds, you're either at a locked 60 FPS with no tearing, or you're having dips below 60 but not the massive dips all the way down to 15-30 FPS you get with normal Vsync, and the tearing is pretty minor. Triple buffering takes care of the mouse lag in my experience.

Incidentally, since I run a 660 Ti on a 60 Hz monitor, that's exactly what I do and it works great for me, give it a shot.
 
K

kyongwon

Banned
I got a good deal on the 670 ftw.
V0jnspH.jpg
 
C

cpp_is_king

Member
Demon Ice said:
If I was running an Nvidia card and I didn't have a 120 Hz monitor, I'd be forcing Adaptive Vsync + Triple Buffering in every game. Gives you the best of both worlds, you're either at a locked 60 FPS with no tearing, or you're having dips below 60 but not the massive dips all the way down to 15-30 FPS you get with normal Vsync, and the tearing is pretty minor. Triple buffering takes care of the mouse lag in my experience.

Incidentally, since I run a 660 Ti on a 60 Hz monitor, that's exactly what I do and it works great for me, give it a shot.
Click to expand...

I'm running AMD, is there a similar option that I can force on with Catalyst Control Center? I guess I can always check, but I'm not at home right now
 
L

lmpaler

Member
mkenyon said:
Heads up, the Lian Li PC-7HX is on sale for $80.00. This is basically an all-aluminum Fractal Arc Midi. Great case.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112389
Click to expand...

Such a great case. I have it holding my parts, fantastic airflow and the hard drive cage is genius.

cpp_is_king said:
I know everyone always swears up and down that having vsync off is the way to go with high end systems, but I really can't stand all the tearing, it's just constant nonstop. Anything that can be done about this?
Click to expand...


I force Vsync with every game I play because I hate tearing. I see no input lag at all and so far I just turn everything up to the highest setting possible and am locked at 60fps.




I am curious though as I have the option of 59 or 60 Hz, what is the difference?
 
C

cpp_is_king

Member
kharma45 said:
you'll need to get Radeon Pro as i don't think CCC can do it.
Click to expand...

Interesting, never even heard of this. Why isn't all this stuff built into CCC? Why do we need a 3rd party utility to do it?

Should I uninstall CCC if I'm going to install Radeon Pro?

Edit: Also why does it say it's a preview? sounds suspiciously like "beta"
 
N

News Bot

Banned
kharma45 said:
Sorry for how long this has taken, kept getting distracted. I'll take you through some AMD options first. I know you didn't ask for anything bar the 7970 but these are good value and well worth a look

First up is this Club 3D 2GB AMD HD7870 Joker from Amazon for £170. 7870 you might think, meh, but this is one of the Tahiti LE 7870s where it's effectively a cut down 7950, they're near neck and neck performance wise. Overclocking wise techpowerup got their test card up to 1210 MHz core (24% overclock) and 1620 MHz memory (8% overclock) which put it just behind the stock 7970 in BF3.

Not bad for a £170 card.

Next is the 7950. There are reference models available which use the standard clock speed but to be blunt the coolers on them are pretty shite. For proper overclocking you want a voltage unlocked card which this Gigabyte WF 7950 for £240 from Dabs is. It'll OC very well and hit stock 7970 levels, just ahead of that 7870 Joker. You also get BioShock Infinite and Crysis 3 for free with the 7900 cards. 7800 cards get Tomb Raider free instead of C3 but Amazon aren't part of the promotion but interestingly do offer the Joker with the games for £12 more.

7970 wise they are getting very hard to find which aren't voltage locked. One I can confirm that aren't locked are the MSI R7970 OC (it has a noisy reference cooler), MSI R7970 Lightning and the Asus 7970 Matrix. The MSIs are very hard to get and the ASUS costs a bomb. The only MSI Lightning I can find that is in stock is from Aria and it's an open box one for £320. Gigabyte do a factory OC'd model (which I know you're against) but it's clocked at 1.1GHz and typically 1.2GHz is the best you can really expect from most of them so it's not far off being near the top of the tree.

Onto Nvidia options. These two are the cheapest 660s on the market but thankfully still have good coolers, the 2GB MSI TF3 660 from Ebuyer for £160 and the same again but the Gigabyte version.

Looking at the 660 Ti there is the EVGA 3GB model but unless you're looking to SLI I wouldn't bother with their cooler. Instead spend a bit more on the 3GB MSI TF3 for £260 from Scan. I would point out though at this price level AMD is the better value buy all round, and if you want a comparison using the latest frame latency benchmarks PC Perspective has a review comparing the 7950 and the 660 Ti.

For the 670 this 4GB Gigabyte model from Ebuyer for £380 would be the one I'd look to. There are cheaper EVGA ones but again only get them if you're looking to SLI as they're blowers. Lastly there is the 680 and Dabs want £480 for the 4GB ASUS one which is too much imo, £100 more for a card that is 10% better than the 670.

Hopefully this is of some use to you. I'm not sure what the craic is with the voltages on the Nvidia GPUs I'm only really knowledgeable about overclocking with the AMD cards. If it were me buying with my own money I'd look at one of the AMD cards as they offer the best bang for buck at present.
Click to expand...

Gotta say, thanks very much! I'm leaning heavily toward the Gigabyte GeForce GTX670 4GB. If all goes well, I'll purchase it next pay day. :)
 
B

BogartandMinerva

Neo Member
Hey guys,

Total beginner here but I'm looking to build a PC.

Went to pcpartpicker (Canada) and made the following build. Price wise I'm in the range I would like to be. If anyone can make any suggestions or let me know if I'm missing anything (other than keyboard) that would be great.

I want to use this machine for entertainment (music, movies, etc...) as well as gaming. I'll be playing EVE from the get go. I'll also be getting a Steam account and waiting for sales. Will also play the Tomb Raider game that comes with the GPU. Basically want a decent gaming machine that isn't totally nerfed for the future.

Let me know what you think: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/OGhG

Thanks.
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
koryuken said:
I can't believe no one posted this. Yes, enable triple buffering - no tearing and no FPS penalty.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_10.html
Click to expand...
There's a huge FPS penalty. You're stuck at 60!
BogartandMinerva said:
Hey guys,

Total beginner here but I'm looking to build a PC.

Went to pcpartpicker (Canada) and made the following build. Price wise I'm in the range I would like to be. If anyone can make any suggestions or let me know if I'm missing anything (other than keyboard) that would be great.

I want to use this machine for entertainment (music, movies, etc...) as well as gaming. I'll be playing EVE from the get go. I'll also be getting a Steam account and waiting for sales. Will also play the Tomb Raider game that comes with the GPU. Basically want a decent gaming machine that isn't totally nerfed for the future.

Let me know what you think: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/OGhG

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Drop the AMD processor, get an i3 system like the one in the OP.

Get an Anetc BP-550 if it's cheaper as well.

300R is a pretty shoddy case for the price as well.
 
T

theSlacker

Member
mkenyon said:
300R is a pretty shoddy case for the price as well.
Click to expand...

Is it? Thought I did good when I used it as the case for a friend's build. Only thing that made me mad was the front fan mounting area. Couldn't fit 2 ty141s because of how the space for the fans was sunken in, even though it had enough height and width.
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
The build quality is a bit worse than a lot of $40-50 cases. One of the details that sticks out in my mind when I did a build in one were plastic washers that were sloppily glued over hastily drilled holes in the top mesh. Looked like a mod gone wrong.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
shuri said:
So I finally pulled the trigger on a rig. This will be my official return to PC Gaming since 2001 or so. I used to be a super hardcore pc gaming from 1993 to 2000 until I gave it up for the dreamcast.

This is what I just ordered:

  • Intel Core i7 3770K Unlocked Quad Core Hyperthreading Processor LGA1155 3.5GHZ Ivy Bridge 8MB Retail
  • NZXT Havik Series 140 Compact Universal CPU Cooler 2011/1366/1156/1155/775/AM3/AM2+/AM2
  • MSI Z77MA-G45 mATX LGA1155 Z77 DDR3 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 SATA3 DVI HDMI VGA USB3.0 Motherboard
  • Kingston HyperX Blu Black Series 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1600 CL9 DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit
  • 2x MSI GeForce GTX 670 OC PE 1079MHZ 2GB 6.0GHZ GDDR5 2xDVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Video Card
  • NZXT Vulcan mATX Mini Tower Case Black 2X5.25 2X3.5 2X3.5INT Fan Control No PS Front Audio USB eSATA
  • NZXT Hale 82 650W ATX 12V 24PIN 80PLUS Bronze Modular Power Supply
  • NZXT Hue 3 RGB Color Changing LED Controller w/ 2 Meters LED Strip - Black
  • Microsoft Windows 8 64Bit English DVD *for NCIX PC Only*
  • Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB 2.5in SATA3 LSI SandForce Solid State Disk Flash Drive SSD
  • Nmedia ZE-C368 3.5IN Flash Card Reader Black W/ Front USB3.0
  • NZXT Fz LED Series 120mm Orange LED Case Fan 1200+/-200 RPM 59.1 CFM 26.8DBA 3Pin and 4Pin

I went for 'portability' and comfy couch gaming. Win8 was selected for its console'ish interface. The only weakpoint is the limited amount of ram, 8gb is a bit low but we'll see about that. The 120GB HDD is a bit small, but I won't be using this machine for storage, I have a 12TB NAS. This will be hooked to my lcd screen for maximum comfy couch gaming. This will be my first system without optical media.

My imac will remain my main machine, this will be for gaming only. This is a prebuilt system from ncix with a few upgrades. What's hilarious is that I work in IT and I can't be bothered with building my own PC at home, bahahaha.

Basically I wll be using this machine to play Arma2, MechWarrior Online and other pc exclusives, with some video encoding.
Click to expand...


No HDD? You planning to install games one by one on your SSD as you want to play them? Your NAS will be too slow for installing games on I think, and a 120GB SSD will be too small to install lots of games on. I'd either get a cheap 7200rpm HDD (500Gb-1TB) or a 240GB SSD
 
K

kharma45

Member
cpp_is_king said:
Interesting, never even heard of this. Why isn't all this stuff built into CCC? Why do we need a 3rd party utility to do it?

Should I uninstall CCC if I'm going to install Radeon Pro?

Edit: Also why does it say it's a preview? sounds suspiciously like "beta"
Click to expand...

It's just something AMD hasn't got round to sorting yet but they have afaik been in touch with the guy making it giving him kit, I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually bought the program and begun to work it into CCC.

It's WIP software, although I've had no issues with it.

News Bot said:
Gotta say, thanks very much! I'm leaning heavily toward the Gigabyte GeForce GTX670 4GB. If all goes well, I'll purchase it next pay day. :)
Click to expand...

It's a fine card, and Gigabyte has an excellent RMA service in the UK should you ever need it.

BogartandMinerva said:
Hey guys,

Total beginner here but I'm looking to build a PC.

Went to pcpartpicker (Canada) and made the following build. Price wise I'm in the range I would like to be. If anyone can make any suggestions or let me know if I'm missing anything (other than keyboard) that would be great.

I want to use this machine for entertainment (music, movies, etc...) as well as gaming. I'll be playing EVE from the get go. I'll also be getting a Steam account and waiting for sales. Will also play the Tomb Raider game that comes with the GPU. Basically want a decent gaming machine that isn't totally nerfed for the future.

Let me know what you think: http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/OGhG

Thanks.
Click to expand...

As mkenyon said consider the i3, however the FX 6300 is by no means a bad CPU and if it were me I'd still look into it as if all games head down the Crysis 3/Far Cry 3 route it'll pay dividends, but you can't predict what will happen. The i3 is very solid right now and is the better buy at this moment in time having said that.

I'd try to go for a 2GB 7850 as well if you can, and consider switching the 300R to a 200R to save money and it's from what I've been told a better case.
 
K

kharma45

Member
Hey I said right now that at this moment in time the i3 is the better buy, and that it's only a chance that they could turn out to be good down the line if (and it's a big if) games become more multithreaded.

If you're a big BF3 player than AMD is a great choice :p

bf3-99th.gif


bf3-beyond-16.gif
Click to expand...
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
Someone finally attempt to do some extensive benches on MP?

With the amount of variables that can happen, and with how extensive frame time testing is, it seemed an impossible task to me.

The benches you see of BF3 in reviews are of SP, which isn't indicative of the MP experience at all.

*edit*

Yeah, those are meaningless unless for some reason people like BF3 SP. :p
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
From what I've been able to gather, the better the per thread performance, the better the game runs (up to 4 threads).

Weird how they ranked them on that chart, with the i3 having a better average. There's also i3's that run at 3.3 and 3.5GHz.
 
K

kharma45

Member
Yeah the i3 should be up ahead of the 8150 at least even if they're doing it by min FPS, I presume they made a mistake.

Still, it's basically the only recent thing I could find bar benchmarks from the beta.
 
T

theSlacker

Member
mkenyon said:
The build quality is a bit worse than a lot of $40-50 cases. One of the details that sticks out in my mind when I did a build in one were plastic washers that were sloppily glued over hastily drilled holes in the top mesh. Looked like a mod gone wrong.
Click to expand...

Honestly don't remember that, but you could be correct about it's build quality compared to cheaper cases. Been a while since I was buying sub $100 cases. Last one I really liked was the 690II, and know that has been out of style for years.
 
T

theSlacker

Member
mkenyon said:
Funny you mention that. CM has revised it just about every year and it remains pretty much the best sub-$100 case.
Click to expand...

lol. Only reason I didn't go for it for my friend's build was no usb 3.0 at the time. Or rather the 3.0 was only on a new black and white case that wasn't easily available or something.
 
S

scogoth

Member
mkenyon said:
Funny you mention that. CM has revised it just about every year and it remains pretty much the best sub-$100 case.

Need a fancy apertureized close up of the connectors!
Click to expand...
Once they are in the case to hide the blemishes. Shrink is definitely not even across all the cables.

So wait for a PSU tester or just go for it
 
B

bro1

Banned
mkenyon said:
There's a huge FPS penalty. You're stuck at 60!

Drop the AMD processor, get an i3 system like the one in the OP.

Get an Anetc BP-550 if it's cheaper as well.

300R is a pretty shoddy case for the price as well.
Click to expand...
300r is a solid case. No mobo standoffs, tons if space, and great looking
 
S

Servbot #42

Unconfirmed Member
my radeon 7750 came in the mail today i installed it and updated the drivers but i get some amount of hitching in some games which sucks big times. I think the 2gb of ram may be the culprit, i think i should upgrade specially since the ram it's a kingstone value type (aka the cheapest stuff available). Anything i should keep in mind when shopping for ram?
 
C

comu

Neo Member
Second question:

Can a DVI-D (single link) cable be inserted into the DVI-I connector on the graphics card?
This is because I'll be using my current DELL monitor, which has DVI-D and VGA ports, for 1 month before I get the Samsung monitor.

Thanks again
 
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