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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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M

mkenyon

Banned
scogoth said:
Yes it is. Real liquid cooling that is.
Click to expand...
*whistles innocently*
AkuMifune said:
Haven't had a gaming pc in 10 years. Been studying all kinds of parts and custom builds for maybe a month and the more I learn the less I know. :)

Think I'll just go with avadirect and throw $1000 at them. Won't be amazing, but will meet my needs. Just feels like such a crapshoot with all of the different options available as far as vendors and brands.

But leaning towards Hazaros 'best overall' build. Thanks for those! Will probably pull the trigger in a couple weeks when the tax return comes in. Can't wait!

Luckily I've been keeping up on Steam sales all these years and literally have dozens of games in that backlog.
Click to expand...
Buy an Alienware X51 at that price point. Or have someone here build it for you. Or, just spend the couple hours of research and do it yourself. It's easier than legos.

Any chance you are in the Pac NW? SoCal?
 
A

AkuMifune

Banned
mkenyon said:
*whistles innocently*

Buy an Alienware X51 at that price point. Or have someone here build it for you. Or, just spend the couple hours of research and do it yourself. It's easier than legos.

The Any chance you are in the Pac NW? SoCal?
Click to expand...
Austin. Thought about the X51, but would like to upgrade easier and also use it for some video editing. Besides, fuck Dell. :)

But really I also like the custom PC builds in the worksheet. Some cool stuff. And avadirect has a three year warranty, unless they're kinda frowned on? I found them from the link in the OP and can basically build what I want...
 
GHG

GHG

Gold Member
Angel Abaddon said:
So I've been considering a 670 recently to replace my awesome, but slightly ageing 6870, and Novatech have thrown a spanner into the works - a 7970 for £270 with 6 games (The 4 games pack which I'll sell on, plus Bioshock Infinite and Crysis 3, both of which I was looking at buying anyway). Two questions:

1) Is it worth going for an AMD nowadays? Heard a few stories about them not doing so well. Benchmarks seem to be on par with the 680 otherwise.

2) I was interested in trying out Splashtop Nvidia streaming, to get around figuring ways to run cables in my rented flat to the TV in the living room (no drills). Has anyone tested it, is it just a gimmick, or would it be viable in a Nvidia Shield way?
Click to expand...

For that price get the 7970, no question. Thats a fantastic deal. You get a card that will be able to outperform the 680 with some light overclocking and you get a good amount of bandwidth and 3gb of vram. 7970's will outlast a lot of cards over the next few years because of their raw power.
 
C

CrashPrime

Member
Koroviev said:
I would take advantage of the Micro Center deal. Otherwise, focus on getting that SSD.
Click to expand...

What's the Z77 Micro Center deal you were recommending?

I just put down some money for a pair of 670's for a new build, and I was strongly considering going for an FX 8150 to pair up just due to the vastly better deals for 990FX motherboards when comparing feature wise to Z77 motherboards, and the outstanding closed system water cooler bundle available with the 8150.

I really have no allegiance to Intel/AMD, I am just looking for bang-for-buck performance.
 
Koroviev

Koroviev

Member
CrashPrime said:
What's the Z77 Micro Center deal you were recommending?

I just put down some money for a pair of 670's for a new build, and I was strongly considering going for an FX 8150 to pair up just due to the vastly better deals for 990FX motherboards when comparing feature wise to Z77 motherboards, and the outstanding closed system water cooler bundle available with the 8150.

I really have no allegiance to Intel/AMD, I am just looking for bang-for-buck performance.
Click to expand...

Intel is the only performance option with respect to processors right now. And the deal is that if you pick up a 3570k, you get $50 off of a compatible motherboard.
 
Stuggernaut

Stuggernaut

Grandma's Chippy
So last year I was going to build a new PC and then changed jobs so I bailed.

Now I have $1200-$1500 sitting in my pocket (thanks Casino!) that my wife said

"Build a new computer with that money, I am tired of you bitching about your old system"

My question is not what to get...I have 2-3 builds I constantly tweak.

But when?

Is this a good time of year to build one? Are prices going to be stable for a while?

I understand the depreciation factor for PC parts, but I don't want to build a system and then next month there is a trade show I did not know about where new tech is released and the old tech I just bought is now way cheaper.

I am basically looking for the optimal trigger pulling time in the next 2 months.
 
Koroviev

Koroviev

Member
Smokey said:
It's great. If you've been using 1080p you wont even notice a difference besides how incredibly smooth things are when using the monitor.
Click to expand...

Yep, 1080p. I love eye candy, but I have to prioritize anything that reduces headache-inducing blur :p
 
Koroviev

Koroviev

Member
Is there any interest in an MSI 7850 Twin Frozr III and a 25" 1080p Hannspree TV (used as a PC monitor)? I will probably have these two items up for sale next week, so please feel free to PM me if you'd like to call dibs. I'm looking to make quick sales, so I'm fairly flexible :)
 
Z

Zeth

Member
I'm already toying with the idea of selling my 660Ti for an upgrade, but I feel it would be a lateral upgrade unless I go all in for a 680 or something. Or just wait for the next bunch of cards/price reductions. That might be better :lol
 
Koroviev

Koroviev

Member
Wait, I've had my 7850 for less than a month. I was browsing Frys return policy and I don't see anything singling out GPUs. Suppose I could return it for close to full value?
 
D

DTKT

Member
Katyusha said:
It should be good enough. I mean, it's not 120hz but it has a 2ms response time.
Click to expand...

Someone can correct me on this, but isn't Gray to Gray "easier" for most monitors? So it might really be a 5ms monitor when it does Black to Black. On the other hand, I'm not sure there is a difference between 2ms and 5ms. I'm using a VG236H.
 
Rentahamster

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
LGA 2011 is going to be used for the upcoming Ivy Bridge-E CPUs too, right?

I want some more CPU power, but I feel like if I go with LGA 1155, I can't really upgrade that since Haswell uses a different socket.
 
Z

Zeth

Member
Koroviev said:
Wait, I've had my 7850 for less than a month. I was browsing Frys return policy and I don't see anything singling out GPUs. Suppose I could return it for close to full value?
Click to expand...

Interesting, if Microcenter has a similar policy I'd be in luck. Only 2 weeks out. Will look into that.
 
GHG

GHG

Gold Member
Zeth said:
I'm already toying with the idea of selling my 660Ti for an upgrade, but I feel it would be a lateral upgrade unless I go all in for a 680 or something. Or just wait for the next bunch of cards/price reductions. That might be better :lol
Click to expand...

What about getting another 660Ti and going sli? :p
 
A

aristotle

Member
Well my build is up and running. I have a few wiring issues (nothing worth noting). Need to tidy up the insides and cram that back panel on tight. Works great though!

bgpmWKq.jpg


No images of the build right now though. Just that crappy cellphone pic. :p
 
LiquidMetal14

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
aristotle said:
Well my build is up and running. I have a few wiring issues (nothing worth noting). Need to tidy up the insides and cram that back panel on tight. Works great though!

bgpmWKq.jpg


No images of the build right now though. Just that. :p
Click to expand...

Hey, don't forget to disable the page file among other tips.

READ THIS

And don't for about Rapid Storage like I mentioned in my PM.
 
E

electricpirate

Member
AkuMifune said:
Well I think so! But then I see some of the other builds people have going here and it's nuts. Liquid cooled, SSD's, crazy rigs... you can spend as much as you want and just keep going.

The funny part is that this all started with Hotline Miami, a game I got for $4.99.
Click to expand...

If you deal hunt, you could do a closed loop liquid cooling thing and an SSD quite easily :).

Man, that avadirect, their 1000 build, could be done for about 700, that's nearly a 40% markup.

I mean, certainly, you can go that route, and save a couple of headaches, but if you do a build on the OP it's going to be way cheaper. 3 hours to build, and a couple hours for software, and it's all yours.

So yea, just figure out if your time is worth their markup.
 
joeygreco1985

joeygreco1985

Member
So here's a quick question:

Is the upgrade from a first gen i7 940 to an ivy bridge i7 3770k worth it? I'd have to buy a new mobo to go with it though. It would go with the sli 670s I have now.
 
A

AkuMifune

Banned
electricpirate said:
If you deal hunt, you could do a closed loop liquid cooling thing and an SSD quite easily :).

Man, that avadirect, their 1000 build, could be done for about 700, that's nearly a 40% markup.

I mean, certainly, you can go that route, and save a couple of headaches, but if you do a build on the OP it's going to be way cheaper. 3 hours to build, and a couple hours for software, and it's all yours.

So yea, just figure out if your time is worth their markup.
Click to expand...

I guess I could do it. It's been awhile and I'd be worried I was forgetting something or not wiring it as efficiently as possible or something....and I'd have to learn where the thermal paste goes...but what the hell.
 
Z

Zeth

Member
GHG said:
What about getting another 660Ti and going sli? :p
Click to expand...

This is probably the most cost effective solution. I'm assuming that won't be doubling my performance, but it should be a nice bump, right? I'm kind of afraid of SLI oddities with some games, though they don't seem overly common.

edit: Shit, sounded like a great idea until I remembered I have an Antec BP550 PSU [Damn you Hazaro!]. Not sure if it'll handle two 660Tis + 3570k @4.2Ghz. Back to the 680 + sell 660Ti idea...
 
I

iavi

Member
My 7950 started throttling again earlier. I've found that it doesn't handle any voltage boost past the manufacture OC--1125, otherwise it'll throttle down to 850mhz.

In turn, I've had to drop the clocks--1050 gpu/1400 mem--otherwise the screen would go black for a few min, and I'd get an 'dx11 device removed' error every time jt hit load, as if the card was taken out the case.

That's just a boost of 125mhz over Sapphire's gpu/mem OC.

I thought I got lucky :(.

If there was a way to remove the throttle, I'd still think I was. With the voltage raised, when it was hitting a consistent 1200 GPU clock, temps never went over 58~59c, iirc. It can do so much more.
 
C

Camp Lo

Banned
aristotle said:
Well my build is up and running. I have a few wiring issues (nothing worth noting). Need to tidy up the insides and cram that back panel on tight. Works great though!

bgpmWKq.jpg


No images of the build right now though. Just that crappy cellphone pic. :p
Click to expand...

Specs look great dude.
 
N

Nekrono

Member
LiquidMetal14 said:
Hey, don't forget to disable the page file among other tips.

READ THIS

And don't for about Rapid Storage like I mentioned in my PM.
Click to expand...

This is regarding RAM correct? Not some SSD stuff? Mind answering why?

I ask because when I upgraded to 8GB from 4GB RAM I saw that the page file used a lot of it and I wasn't sure If I could turn it off, limit it or leave it as is because when I googled it I found info all over the place.
 
C

CrashPrime

Member
Can someone explain the large price gaps in z77 boards? I really don't know why there is boards around $100 like the ASRock Extreme 4 for example and a huge jump up to almost $300 and beyond for the Asus Maximus V and others with lots of good reviews for both. I don't know what features are driving the price and if I would benefit from them.
 
C

cartman414

Member
Mr Pockets said:
So last year I was going to build a new PC and then changed jobs so I bailed.

Now I have $1200-$1500 sitting in my pocket (thanks Casino!) that my wife said

"Build a new computer with that money, I am tired of you bitching about your old system"

My question is not what to get...I have 2-3 builds I constantly tweak.

But when?

Is this a good time of year to build one? Are prices going to be stable for a while?

I understand the depreciation factor for PC parts, but I don't want to build a system and then next month there is a trade show I did not know about where new tech is released and the old tech I just bought is now way cheaper.

I am basically looking for the optimal trigger pulling time in the next 2 months.
Click to expand...

Haswell is due in late May/early June. We should also be seeing the new generation of gfx cards real soon.
 
I

iavi

Member
I have to say, I'm having transformative experience after transformative exp with this new machine. Before this, I had yet to use an actual PC with an SSD. Now this thing boots from the cold in three seconds at most. I don't even see the little blue windows loading sign; I see the bios splash screen, then the Win8 login screen. I love it so much.

This is also my first time using a high-end card. Always been a budget gamer, and granted it's not the flagship in being the 7950, but it's OC'd to be right there with one, and it's crushing every single thing I've thrown at it so far. MSAA out the ass, 1920x1080, 60fps, etc. The CPU only being clocked at 3.4 is holding it back.
 
LiquidMetal14

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
electricpirate said:
After operating systems class, the idea of disabling a page file is terrifying to me. I guess with 8 gigs of ram, your system never bumps into it... but yea...
Click to expand...
Only disable it on the SSD. I manually allocate 16-16000mb on my 1tb HDD.

Nekrono said:
This is regarding RAM correct? Not some SSD stuff? Mind answering why?

I ask because when I upgraded to 8GB from 4GB RAM I saw that the page file used a lot of it and I wasn't sure If I could turn it off, limit it or leave it as is because when I googled it I found info all over the place.
Click to expand...

You can turn down the page file but make sure you hit the "set" button to make the changes take. Might ask you for a reboot.

I'm also referring to virtual memory in advanced settings.
 
K

keuja

Member
A bit off topic, but I was wondering about what to expect for future console ports.
In terms of raw hardware power, what would be the PC build equivalent to the rumored Orbis specs?

LIVERPOOL SOC

Custom implementation of AMD Fusion APU Arquitecture (Accelerated Processing Unit)
Provides good performance with low power consumtion
Integrated CPU and GPU
Considerably bigger and more powerful than AMD’s other APUs

PU:

Orbis contains eight Jaguar cores at 1.6 Ghz, arranged as two “clusters”
Each cluster contains 4 cores and a shared 2MB L2 cache
256-bit SIMD operations, 128-bit SIMD ALU
SSE up to SSE4, as well as Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX)
One hardware thread per core
Decodes, executes and retires at up to two intructions/cycle
Out of order execution
Per-core dedicated L1-I and L1-D cache (32Kb each)
Two pipes per core yield 12,8 GFlops performance
102.4 GFlops for system

GPU:

GPU is based on AMD’s “R10XX” (Southern Islands) architecture
DirectX 11.1+ feature set
Liverpool is an enhanced version of the architecture
18 Compute Units (CUs)
Hardware balanced at 14 CUs
Shared 512 KB of read/write L2 cache
800 Mhz
1.843 Tflops, 922 GigaOps/s
Dual shader engines
18 texture units
8 Render backends
Click to expand...

Assuming that Sony can fully utilize the 8 core and the GPU, I imagine we'd need a fairly high end PC to match it? Like a I5 3570K + HD 7970 3GB / GTX 670 4GB?
 
I

iavi

Member
It'd probably be better to go off MS' specs. If it's true that they're making devs go thorugh Dx11 for the console anyway, shouldn't we have our ports right there?
 
M

mkenyon

Banned
After one evening, I've narrowed down my workstation failure to either the motherboard or PSU. The PSU gets tested tomorrow, and if it checks out, then to RMA my motherboard goes.

keuja said:
A bit off topic, but I was wondering about what to expect for future console ports.
In terms of raw hardware power, what would be the PC build equivalent to the rumored Orbis specs?



Assuming that Sony can fully utilize the 8 core and the GPU, I imagine we'd need a fairly high end PC to match it? Like a I5 3570K + HD 7970 3GB / GTX 670 4GB?
Click to expand...
8 cores in two clusters?

It'd make more sense if it were 8 cores in clusters of two, which could be the case and this website didn't understand that. Especially since that is how AMD's current architecture works.

This means that it either will act like a dual core processor, a quad core processor, a dual core processor with 8 threads, or a quad core processor with 8 threads. None of those options are 8 cores, because that's not really what the processor is.

1.6GHz. One. Point. Six. Gigahertz.

Sandy/Ivy will continue to go untapped. No amount of pixie dust can make up for that per-thread performance weak sauce.

*edit*

An Alienware X51, with a low power vid card and a crap clocked i5 has 2.56 Tflops of power. Durango and Orbis aren't trying to match the high end. They want a low power (and therefore low heat), affordable console with a huge leap in graphics capability.

But, an AMD A10 with on-die GPU is a huge leap in graphics capability over the current consoles.
 
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