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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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I hope the builds in the OP are updated in the next weeks as new hardware is announced, returning to pc gaming after a decade and so lost dammit..

for starters, can anyone simplify the pros and cons of nvida/amd cards ? i have heard that amd is usually more budget friendly..

i am planning to build <1000$ rig that can will do me good to play current and early next gen games at medium settings with playable frame rate..just wanna taste the console/master race difference, doesn't have to be anything insane..is it possible ?
 
Total heat created by Ivy (and Haswell) is tiny compared to Nehalem or SB-E though. With the VRM on die with Haswell, volts will be even lower. The giant heatsinks I think are a passing trend.

A shame really. I've grown quite accustomed to seeing my D14. Well if it is one thing we can thank the giant heatsinks for is that they have kept ram maker's mind on their business. Imagine how much more tall and wild we would be seeing ram heatspreaders now if not for them.
 

floodgate

Neo Member
Hey guys, first post in this wonderfully informative and helpful thread. Seriously, thanks to everyone involved, it's the best ever.

About a month ago, I was given a fairly high-end PC (short story: I'm super lucky) that only lacked a video card. Knowing the 700 series was right around the corner I bided my time, and after a torturous week of waiting to compare the 770s & 780s, I actually pulled the trigger on a 780 today.

The thing that ultimately swayed me was the $200 in credit I have on Amazon, bringing the card to a very reasonable $500. I'm somewhat of a novice, and a little afraid of ruining my brand new card by pushing too far with overclocking (but not completely unwilling), so I went with the EVGA Superclocked 780 (with reference blower).

Given my timidity, would I be better off with one of the more factory overclocked models, like the ACX or Windforce? Amazon is OOS on all 780s at the moment, so I'm going to have to wait no matter what. If I can get a better card by waiting an extra week, I'd be totally willing to do it. But if I can achieve the same result without a lot of heavy lifting, that would be even better. Thanks!
 

Skel1ingt0n

I can't *believe* these lazy developers keep making file sizes so damn large. Btw, how does technology work?
Oh screw it... can't say no to a good deal. This bad boy will be replacing my 128GB M4 SSD as my boot drive in my new build.

8894984976_b9e6c8d601_c.jpg


That's 256 gigs for C:\, and 500 gigs of SSD goodness for games.
 

bro1

Banned
Ever since I bought an SSD and run into a PC problem that is software related I have just done a reformat as I can now completely restore my PC in 30 minutes. I love the speed! I keep a thumb drive of up to date drivers/chipset software, use ninite and rely on the cloud for almost everything else. It's awesome.
 

kharma45

Member
May have just nabbed a 7950 for £152, fingers crossed. Hopefully my 430w Be Quiet! can handle it and my OCd 2500K, it can put out 513w under full load so should be I think.
 

knitoe

Member
Oh screw it... can't say no to a good deal. This bad boy will be replacing my 128GB M4 SSD as my boot drive in my new build.

8894984976_b9e6c8d601_c.jpg


That's 256 gigs for C:\, and 500 gigs of SSD goodness for games.

My current storage setup:
Raid 128GB Samsung 830 (OS & programs)
Raid 250GB Samsung 840 (Steam & temp games)
Seagate 3TB (Games & Media)
Seagate 2TB (Storage)

PC gaming is a never ending upgrading endeavor.
 

appaws

Banned
I hope the builds in the OP are updated in the next weeks as new hardware is announced, returning to pc gaming after a decade and so lost dammit..

for starters, can anyone simplify the pros and cons of nvida/amd cards ? i have heard that amd is usually more budget friendly..

i am planning to build <1000$ rig that can will do me good to play current and early next gen games at medium settings with playable frame rate..just wanna taste the console/master race difference, doesn't have to be anything insane..is it possible ?

Simply speaking the state of the GPU "wars" is:

At similar price points they are essentially equal performance wise....with AMD having the value advantage because of game bundles.

Nvidia is alone at the top of the heap with the Titan and now the 780 ($650-$1000)

At the mid-high "enthusiast" level it gets more even between 400-450 bucks with the new 770 and the 7970 cards from AMD. The value decision seems to rest largely on whether you want the games in AMDs bundle...if yes, they clearly have the best value.

At the mid-lower end, we have the 7850 and 7950 vs the price equal Nvidia cards, again the bundles are quite awesome.

For single card setups drivers, support, etc. are equal these days. If your budget is about a grand (USA?) I would wait a week or two for Haswell i5 and a Z87 board recommended here in the OP, and then grab a 7950 if you want the games bundle. Presumably soon we will see the 760 and/or 760ti from Nvidia, so you could have a look at those too.

If your playing at 1080p, that would do you much better than medium settings and playable. You would be mostly at ultra-high settings, and maybe would turn down a few little things to lock in good solid 60fps.

My advice: Study the OP like the Torah...and listen to the guys here like Hazaro and Smokey and kennah and others...they know their shit.
 

Addnan

Member
It does. That's why I've jumped on it and queried it to make sure it is a 7950 and not what is in the picture. Still, a guy on HUKD claims to have had two delivered.
If that price holds for a few more days I could be tempted to xfire those. I know xfire is never recommended, but two 7950 for less than the price of a 770. Damn.
 

Soodanim

Gold Member
Oh lord, I'm going to keep an eye on this thread for that 7950. It's the card I was going to go for when I planned to build a rig at the end of last year (although not the same one I was going to go for; the gigabyte one with 3 fans), and that price would push me over the edge. It would even offset the stupidly high prices of that beautiful Samsung RAM. I can't believe it has gone from £35 to ~£60.
 

Addnan

Member
I want to believe that RRP is the price that SCAN are selling it for.

WKIaNfu.png


I stuck an order in, not like they are going to take money for a while.

and if it ends up being wrong, Amazon are easy to deal with.
 

mkenyon

Banned
Will do! I look forward to copying whatever the non-jank (i.e., non-SLI) uber-build is. :p
Here you go:

CPU - i7 4770K
Motherboard - Gigabyte G1 Sniper 5/MSI MPower/ASUS Maximus VI Gene (take your pick - Gigabyte will have the best audio FWIW)
RAM - 8-16GB of GSkill Ripjaw Z 2133 or 2400MHz
GPU - GTX 780 or Titan
PSU - Seasonic X660
SSD - 500GB Samsung 840 or Crucial m500
Case - Fractal Arc Midi R2, Fractal Define R4, (if mATX with the Sniper M5 or Maximus Gene, then Corsair 350D)
Heatsink - Corsair H60/H100i
I hope the builds in the OP are updated in the next weeks as new hardware is announced, returning to pc gaming after a decade and so lost dammit..

for starters, can anyone simplify the pros and cons of nvida/amd cards ? i have heard that amd is usually more budget friendly..

i am planning to build <1000$ rig that can will do me good to play current and early next gen games at medium settings with playable frame rate..just wanna taste the console/master race difference, doesn't have to be anything insane..is it possible ?
Pro for NVIDIA - easy supersampling, better 3D, better multi card support

Pro for AMD - better mult-monitor options, $:performance (less so now with 7xx), can overclock the crap out of them to increase performance by as much as 30%

Basically, you'd take the 'Enhanced' build in the OP, and swap in the Haswell i5 and most likely the Gigabyte D3H Z87.
 

Beefwheat

Member
Just wanted to pop in and say thanks; this thread was a huge help for the new PC I just ordered! (i5 + 16gb RAM + Radeon 7950, woo) The last thing my existing machine could run was BioShock (on low, barely) and I've been console gaming in the mean time. I look forward to getting caught up PC-wise. This is gonna be fun.
 
Whelp, I was going to go with a GTX 770, but haven't seen the reference coolers that I wanted available and just said screw it, going with the 780! This'll be the first time I've got one of the highest end cards - probably just going to run this thing into the ground for 3-4 years.

Now to wait and see if Haswell will be worth the upgrade from a 4GHz i5-760 or if I can stretch Lynnfield's life another year. Does anyone know if this could end up being a bottleneck anytime soon? I could use a boost for Dolphin emulation, but I'm not concerned enough about that enough to upgrade solely for that.
 

kharma45

Member
I want to believe that RRP is the price that SCAN are selling it for.

WKIaNfu.png


I stuck an order in, not like they are going to take money for a while.

and if it ends up being wrong, Amazon are easy to deal with.

See Amazon has the TF3 in another listing too...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00B06M0O2/

We'll see what happens.

Oh lord, I'm going to keep an eye on this thread for that 7950. It's the card I was going to go for when I planned to build a rig at the end of last year (although not the same one I was going to go for; the gigabyte one with 3 fans), and that price would push me over the edge. It would even offset the stupidly high prices of that beautiful Samsung RAM. I can't believe it has gone from £35 to ~£60.

Yeah I'm glad I jumped on that Samsung RAM when it was around £43 or so.
 

Oxn

Member
How come the 840 pro 256gig ssd that i bought for my sis is giving me a WEI score of 5.9 but my old 830 gives me like 7.7?
 

fallagin

Member
Looks like ill probably wait till next GPU gen 870/orwhtever to upgrade my 570. Yeah that sounds about right, every 3 gens is probably a good time.
 

Oxn

Member
5.9 would be more inline with a HDD. Have you tried other benchmarking programs?

Sure doesnt run like a HDD though. That boot up time is rediculously fast. Loads even before the the 4 corners of the windows icon fully comes together.
 

Smash88

Banned
Sure doesnt run like a HDD though. That boot up time is rediculously fast. Loads even before the the 4 corners of the windows icon fully comes together.

Stupid question, but is that the only HDD in the system? If there is another one, it may be conflicting. I wouldn't worry about Windows Experience Index crap (it is a terrible way to determine the true performance of someones system), if it seems fast, it's working fine.

It could also potentially be a UEFI/Windows conflict issue that may be causing the discrepancy.
 

jiffy38

Member
First part of PC build ordered. Samsung 840 pro 128gb ssd. Surprised the first thing would be the ssd but was a good deal and a good foundation I think. Now the excitement builds.....
 
First part of PC build ordered. Samsung 840 pro 128gb ssd. Surprised the first thing would be the ssd but was a good deal and a good foundation I think. Now the excitement builds.....

I got the same one last week. Be careful when you open that bad boy, they put all the literature on the bottom side, which, when opening the package, I mistook for the top, so the unsecured drive went crashing to the ground. I found comfort in a youtube video that showed a guy from Samsung dropping one off a 3 story building and booting it up just fine.

So I've been lurking this thread and the OP suggested the Antec BP550 Plus PS, which I've purchased. But now I'm wondering if that will be enough juice for Haswell and a 7950.
 

koji kabuto

Member
How big is the improvement of 4770k over 3770k?
Also i'm sure 3770k will have a price cut when 4770k start selling, isn't that makes a better choice ?
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
After some of the hype has died down, nVidia finally having a card at $400 is good.
AMD still has the insanity bundle of 4 great games however.

Looking forward to the 760Ti, although I'm guessing 5-10% more than 670 performance for $300 is all it will offer. Basically a price cut / update to the 670.
How big is the improvement of 4770k over 3770k?
~5%

Also i'm sure 3770k will have a price cut when 4770k start selling, isn't that makes a better choice?
No price cuts
 

teh_pwn

"Saturated fat causes heart disease as much as Brawndo is what plants crave."
How come the 840 pro 256gig ssd that i bought for my sis is giving me a WEI score of 5.9 but my old 830 gives me like 7.7?

I would run winsat via CMD to make sure everything is where it should be. Give it tons of sequential data to read/write. Should be 500 MB/s. If not, somethings wrong. Driver, SATA port used, motherboard fake SATA 6 Gb/s connections, etc.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc742157(v=ws.10).aspx

After some of the hype has died down, nVidia finally having a card at $400 is good.
AMD still has the insanity bundle of 4 great games however.

I'm not so optimistic. Something like Titan in performance should be available for $350 with 20 nm.

I think if you plotted price/performance over time, current GPU performance is pretty pathethic. It's like dollars have replaced # transistor bumps from Moore's law.
 

mkenyon

Banned
I think if you plotted price/performance over time, current GPU performance is pretty pathethic. It's like dollars have replaced # transistor bumps from Moore's law.
Everyone is engineering for mobile.

PowerEfficiency-650.png


Look at Intel processors too. Modest gains every single time, but continued focus on power efficiency.
Because WEI is stupid
Nevermind the more elaborate responses above, this is really the most accurate.
 

Beth Cyra

Member
Hey PC Gaf I could use some help.

My GTX570 is crapping out on me so I need to replace it. Thing is. I can't find my motherboard box to see which vid card can fit in its slot. Any ideas?

Also suggestions on a good to decent upgrade for this card on a 200-300 budget would be ace.
 

Piano

Banned
I recently completed a cross country move. I put my desktop inside of the case box, padded it, and then paid UPS to put that box inside of another box with packing peanuts (at their recommendation) and then insured the whole thing for the value of the computer.

I received the package yesterday and lo and behold...it's beat to shit. The box is in awful condition. When I took my PC out it had obviously been handled terribly - the hard drive fell out of its place and some connectors came loose. I fixed all that up and, unsurprisingly, it doesn't turn on. As in, no response at all when I press the power button.

I went through and unplugged and re-set everything short of the CPU and mobo itself, even using the mobo map to make sure everything was plugged in correctly and all power connectors were set right. Nothing. I even tried using a screwdriver to trip the power pins in case the button just got fucked up. Nope. Not receiving any power at all.

So I've narrowed it down to the issue being either the PSU or the mobo itself. Most likely the PSU - I suppose it makes sense that if you shake it as hard as they apparently did it could break. Is there anything else I should try?

In the mean time, I've filed a claim with UPS. They're going to get in touch tomorrow and then come out and look at the packaging. I'm stuck without a computer, which is bullshit, but if I do get my money (and I'll be livid if I don't!) I should wait until a few months to build my new computer, right?

I was just going to go ahead and replace most of the components except the ones that are almost definitely fine (RAM, DVD Drive, even HDDs and Video Card are probably fine) since I'm on AMD right now. In a few months time the new generation of Intel processors and mobos will be out?

I have a 660ti right now so I think I'll chill on that if it still works. But my Phenom X4 955 is getting long in the tooth.

Stupid UPS. Now I'm stuck with my laptop and Xbox and can't play Dark Souls for at least a few weeks......ARGHHHH!!
 

mkenyon

Banned
Hey PC Gaf I could use some help.

My GTX570 is crapping out on me so I need to replace it. Thing is. I can't find my motherboard box to see which vid card can fit in its slot. Any ideas?

Also suggestions on a good to decent upgrade for this card on a 200-300 budget would be ace.
Any. But, it's probably still under warranty.
I recently completed a cross country move. I put my desktop inside of the case box, padded it, and then paid UPS to put that box inside of another box with packing peanuts (at their recommendation) and then insured the whole thing for the value of the computer.

I received the package yesterday and lo and behold...it's beat to shit. The box is in awful condition. When I took my PC out it had obviously been handled terribly - the hard drive fell out of its place and some connectors came loose. I fixed all that up and, unsurprisingly, it doesn't turn on. As in, no response at all when I press the power button.

I went through and unplugged and re-set everything short of the CPU and mobo itself, even using the mobo map to make sure everything was plugged in correctly and all power connectors were set right. Nothing. I even tried using a screwdriver to trip the power pins in case the button just got fucked up. Nope. Not receiving any power at all.

So I've narrowed it down to the issue being either the PSU or the mobo itself. Most likely the PSU - I suppose it makes sense that if you shake it as hard as they apparently did it could break. Is there anything else I should try?

In the mean time, I've filed a claim with UPS. They're going to get in touch tomorrow and then come out and look at the packaging. I'm stuck without a computer, which is bullshit, but if I do get my money (and I'll be livid if I don't!) I should wait until a few months to build my new computer, right?

I was just going to go ahead and replace most of the components except the ones that are almost definitely fine (RAM, DVD Drive, even HDDs and Video Card are probably fine) since I'm on AMD right now. In a few months time the new generation of Intel processors and mobos will be out?

I have a 660ti right now so I think I'll chill on that if it still works. But my Phenom X4 955 is getting long in the tooth.

Stupid UPS. Now I'm stuck with my laptop and Xbox and can't play Dark Souls for at least a few weeks......ARGHHHH!!
Did you put packing peanuts *in* the case?

The only option you have is to disassemble *everything* and then put it back together to see if that'll boot it up.

As far as building a new PC, the new stuff is out next week. You're pretty much good to go after that.
 

Piano

Banned
Any. But, it's probably still under warranty.

Did you put packing peanuts *in* the case?

The only option you have is to disassemble *everything* and then put it back together to see if that'll boot it up.

As far as building a new PC, the new stuff is out next week. You're pretty much good to go after that.

Oh lord no. I put clothes on the in the box with my PC. And then that box went into a bigger box, surrounded by packing peanuts. Nothing IN the case. That would be hilarious.

Yeah, I'm not really all that eager to disassemble EVERYTHING. Don't let me down, UPS.

Thanks for the heads up!
 

Beth Cyra

Member
Any. But, it's probably still under warranty.

Did you put packing peanuts *in* the case?

The only option you have is to disassemble *everything* and then put it back together to see if that'll boot it up.

As far as building a new PC, the new stuff is out next week. You're pretty much good to go after that.
Hadn't thought of that. Should I just contact EVGA?
 
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