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"I need a New PC!" 2013 Part 2. Haswell = #IntelnoTIM, but free online. READ THE OP.

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maneil99

Member
chance are even if you go with a 4gb card revision its not gonna help because by the time games use that most ram your gpu will be outdated
 

knitoe

Member
Not every card.

Alright then give me some solid evidence then about the 760 for example using all that 4GB where i was arguing against it for (1080p single monitor), and user created content does not count.
As I already stated, 99% of games are code limit to 2GB VRAM. Finding a game that uses all 3-4GB would be impossible unless they are running insane resolution and AA. At that point, even quad SLI Titans couldn't run it well. More practical to look at games runnings on 2GB vs 3GB. For that, I suggest you read the Bioshock Infinite thread. Hint: Major stuttering 2GB. Fine >2GB.

Anyway, people seem to be tired of us going back and forth. If you want to continue, pm would be better.

chance are even if you go with a 4gb card revision its not gonna help because by the time games use that most ram your gpu will be outdated
Here we go again. One, PS4 GPU weaker than 760. Two, Killzone SF uses 3GB VRAM. Add it up, 760 too weak to use >2GB...What...
 

kharma45

Member
As I already stated, 99% of games are code limit to 2GB VRAM. Finding a game that uses all 3-4GB would be impossible unless they are running insane resolution and AA. At that point, even quad SLI Titans couldn't run it well. More practical to look at games runnings on 2GB vs 3GB or more. For that, I suggest you read the Bioshock Infinite thread. Hint: Major stuttering 2GB. Fine >2GB.

Anyway, people seem to be tired of us going back and forth. If you want to continue, pm would be better.

So just one game.
 

Windam

Scaley member
For gaming it might be. I don't think it's worth the extra money.
Oh, and if it has bandwidth similar to PS4 then it should be fast enough to support 4GB.
But if you are loading data for rendering, and the application uses the GPU for that, then it can be very beneficial. One example would be using Blender for rendering. Having the extra GPU memory available lets you load larger scenes. In my case, for an extra $24, I might as well go for it. Now if I hadn't missed that $222 2GB GTX760 slickdeal a few days ago I wouldn't be getting a 4GB card.

I'll pretty much just be gaming at 1080P. I don't do any rendering or anything of the sort.
 
Missed the Prodigy M news.

Is it bigger than the Prodigy? Fits an mATX board, cool. But the only advantage I can see right now is for people with multi GPU systems, or am I missing something?
 

chronomac

Member
As of right now, I use a laptop for most of my gaming needs and it plays indie games and older stuff fine but it struggles with newer games. It's a pretty fast notebook with an i5 processor and 8 GBs of RAM, but it uses onboard Intel graphics, which suck. I was thinking about hooking up a graphics card with the PC express slot using a ViDOCK. Does anyone have experience using something like this?

It'd be really nice if I could just come home from work, hook up my laptop and play something like Skyrim, even at low or medium settings.
 

TheD

The Detective
I decided to remove and remount my heatsink and give it a bit of a clean while I am at it in hope of improving my temps that I have always been a bit disappointed in (I have put doing this off for a while due to not being sure how much it would help).
It turns out that my Hyper 212 + was not as tight on the mounting as it should of been and the AS5 had kind of dried out, fixed that and now my temps have dropped by 10C!
Very worth the time it took.
 
I've been fine with my GTX 670 running games @1080p, but now I'm going to get into Twitch streaming. Traditionally, streaming required more cpu power/cores. With OBS's game capture, it uses more gpu than cpu, so I've read. I have no money right now, and any money is going towards the PS4 and possibly Xbox One, but I"m looking at future potential upgrades. One plan is to get Ivy Bridge E and a Titan based system sometime next year. Another is to keep with the 2600k oced for as long as possible and upgrade to a Titan. I'm not interested in the consumer Ivy Bridge or Haswell with the shit Tim and I don't have the balls or tools to delid them myself. I'd appreciate any feedback.
 

TheD

The Detective
I've been fine with my GTX 670 running games @1080p, but now I'm going to get into Twitch streaming. Traditionally, streaming required more cpu power/cores. With OBS's game capture, it uses more gpu than cpu, so I've read. I have no money right now, and any money is going towards the PS4 and possibly Xbox One, but I"m looking at future potential upgrades. One plan is to get Ivy Bridge E and a Titan based system sometime next year. Another is to keep with the 2600k oced for as long as possible and upgrade to a Titan. I'm not interested in the consumer Ivy Bridge or Haswell with the shit Tim and I don't have the balls or tools to delid them myself. I'd appreciate any feedback.

Upgrading your graphics card will have no effect with OBS.
Game streaming is CPU limited due to encoding the video.
 

kennah

Member
I hear you. But, I am a guy with SLI Titans. Not sure many have disposable income that allow then can buy video cards anytime they want.
No disposable income here. But my advice goes for all levels of income. Really my main recommendation is to never buy high end. Ever. Always stay a generation behind in the mid level. Hell until I bought mkenyons 670 I had never paid over $200 for a video card.

Basically I suggest every two years to get the best GPU you can get for $200. Whether it is used or new or whatever.

But I'm also cheap and never buy games in the year they were released either. Steam sales and the vast number of quality games make it pretty easy to get a solid backlog that will work on any mid range system while performing quite well.

The whole futureproof-vram-highend-performanceratios-memorybandwith fight means nothing to me because things always change. A computer will stop performing at an acceptable level eventually.

That said, we are in a fucking Golden Age right now. The hardware is so far ahead that CPUs from THREE YEARS AGO are still a perfectly viable option on the high end. Coupled with the fact that everything is so cheap! Hell the facts that the 3570K costs as much as the bottom end pentium/core cpu back in the day and quality motherboards can be found for $100 are incredible!

But I'm just an old man :p
 
Missed the Prodigy M news.

Is it bigger than the Prodigy? Fits an mATX board, cool. But the only advantage I can see right now is for people with multi GPU systems, or am I missing something?
The original Prodigy is a little big for ITX, but that allows for pretty stellar cooling. The Prodigy-M on the other hand is barely bigger and looks a little cramped. Kinda worried about air cooling performance, especially for SLI/CF.

prodigy_m_black_inside_1_575px.jpg


Really curious about the reviews.
 
Do you need wireless? The extra button mouses are only need for comfort in MMO no other reason really.

Don;t absolutely need it, but it is much preferred since the PC will be in the corner with my gam consoles and I already hav too many cables all over the place :p

What are the diasadvantages? Very slight lag and battery life, I imagine. I'm willing to pout up with that if so :D
 

Addnan

Member
Don;t absolutely need it, but it is much preferred since the PC will be in the corner with my gam consoles and I already hav too many cables all over the place :p

What are the diasadvantages? Very slight lag and battery life, I imagine. I'm willing to pout up with that if so :D

There will be lag and lag isn't good for gaming especially online games like Dota 2.

Can't really recommend anything though, never look too much into wireless stuff. I'm sure someone else can give their opinion.
 

knitoe

Member
No disposable income here. But my advice goes for all levels of income. Really my main recommendation is to never buy high end. Ever. Always stay a generation behind in the mid level. Hell until I bought mkenyons 670 I had never paid over $200 for a video card.

Basically I suggest every two years to get the best GPU you can get for $200. Whether it is used or new or whatever.

But I'm also cheap and never buy games in the year they were released either. Steam sales and the vast number of quality games make it pretty easy to get a solid backlog that will work on any mid range system while performing quite well.

The whole futureproof-vram-highend-performanceratios-memorybandwith fight means nothing to me because things always change. A computer will stop performing at an acceptable level eventually.

That said, we are in a fucking Golden Age right now. The hardware is so far ahead that CPUs from THREE YEARS AGO are still a perfectly viable option on the high end. Coupled with the fact that everything is so cheap! Hell the facts that the 3570K costs as much as the bottom end pentium/core cpu back in the day and quality motherboards can be found for $100 are incredible!

But I'm just an old man :p

I fully understand not buying highend. I use to be like that. Now, I recommend low high end.

Here's why: (Sorry about the formatting. Doing it on iphone)
Let's say it will cost $100 per year.

1st year ====2 year =====3 year
$200 mid ====low======new mid...repeat
$300 high====mid======low....repeat

They price out to be the same every 3 years. At least with high card, you get to enjoy highend performance for 1 year, while with the mid, you will always be stuck on average land.

And, I don't see it as a golden age. Lack of CPU advancement is due to AMD being weak and hardly challenging Intel. Lack of competition is a bad thing. Intel use to be tick then tock. Now, we are just to getting ticks then ticks. As for graphics, consoles having such a log cycle, holding down ports, and thus, graphic cards advancement. Given nextgen consoles are much weaker than what's on the PC, it could be worse in the future. I hope I am wrong. I like my tech to advance quickly.
 

kharma45

Member
And I thought this was the PC buying advice thread... All I see is bickering and arguments. :-

Yep. People need to hear both sides. Back then, just like when most were saying all you will ever need is 1GB @ 1080p and 1.5GB overkill, I recommended 2GB. Today, I am recommending 3GB or more.

This is healthy!

Yeah I wouldn't say we're bickering, just debating and arguing both sides. Stuff like this does need to be discussed and might as well do it in here as anywhere else.
 
Screw it, I'm getting impatient, this XFX 550w isn't going to arrive for ages yet. Some of you recommended Be Quiet PSUs above. Are they a trusted PSU brand? What's the difference between the L7 and L8 530w Be Quiet PSUs?
 

mkenyon

Banned
@the K-name argument

UE4 is supposedly using dynamic adjustment of VRAM, similar to Frostbyte.

Knitoe, using a game that is very specifically designed for PS4 is pretty disingenuous. KZ4 shouldn't even enter an argument here. Neither should how things worked in the past. That's an Argument to Tradition, which is a fallacy.

Ultimately, this argument isn't going anywhere as it's all speculation. As games start moving off of UE3's outdated mess and towards new engines, we might see some big changes.

Add in the fact that this Fall's releases are almost definitely going to be made to release on the current consoles, and we're looking a ways out before they start aiming at a big jump in VRAM usage on cross-platform AAA graphic hog releases. However, that 1ish year out time frame is when people will still be using cards they bought, so it's worth some thought.

I know people have a really really hard time saying, "I don't know, and we can't know yet", but that's the only honest answer right now. Embrace the ignorance.
I've been fine with my GTX 670 running games @1080p, but now I'm going to get into Twitch streaming. Traditionally, streaming required more cpu power/cores. With OBS's game capture, it uses more gpu than cpu, so I've read. I have no money right now, and any money is going towards the PS4 and possibly Xbox One, but I"m looking at future potential upgrades. One plan is to get Ivy Bridge E and a Titan based system sometime next year. Another is to keep with the 2600k oced for as long as possible and upgrade to a Titan. I'm not interested in the consumer Ivy Bridge or Haswell with the shit Tim and I don't have the balls or tools to delid them myself. I'd appreciate any feedback.
Capture card is what you want. Avermedia Live Gamer HD.
 

Seanspeed

Banned
I fully understand not buying highend. I use to be like that. Now, I recommend low high end.

Here's why: (Sorry about the formatting. Doing it on iphone)
Let's say it will cost $100 per year.

1st year ====2 year =====3 year
$200 mid ====low======new mid...repeat
$300 high====mid======low....repeat

They price out to be the same every 3 years. At least with high card, you get to enjoy highend performance for 1 year, while with the mid, you will always be stuck on average land.

And, I don't see it as a golden age. Lack of CPU advancement is due to AMD being weak and hardly challenging Intel. Lack of competition is a bad thing. Intel use to be tick then tock. Now, we are just to getting ticks then ticks. As for graphics, consoles having such a log cycle, holding down ports, and thus, graphic cards advancement. Given nextgen consoles are much weaker than what's on the PC, it could be worse in the future. I hope I am wrong. I like my tech to advance quickly.
Would you consider a GTX660 to be low end today? If not, then I'd say that midrange cards are viable for longer than you're saying.
 

kharma45

Member
Screw it, I'm getting impatient, this XFX 550w isn't going to arrive for ages yet. Some of you recommended Be Quiet PSUs above. Are they a trusted PSU brand? What's the difference between the L7 and L8 530w Be Quiet PSUs?

They'd better be

Be Quiet! are a trusted brand, I can assure you of that. The L7 isn't modular, not sure what other differences there are. I'll take a look now.
 
The original Prodigy is a little big for ITX, but that allows for pretty stellar cooling. The Prodigy-M on the other hand is barely bigger and looks a little cramped. Kinda worried about air cooling performance, especially for SLI/CF.

prodigy_m_black_inside_1_575px.jpg


Really curious about the reviews.

Yeah I have the original Prodigy. One thing I just noticed is that in the M it's not possible to mount a fan in the front, the PSU sits there now.

Reviews will be interesting.
 

Coldsnap

Member
I say buy high end if you can afford it. I'm on my third build and past two were about middle of the road $1,000 builds. I spent way way over that on my new build and I'll probably stay on an aggressive update schedule for awhile.
 

kharma45

Member
Screw it, I'm getting impatient, this XFX 550w isn't going to arrive for ages yet. Some of you recommended Be Quiet PSUs above. Are they a trusted PSU brand? What's the difference between the L7 and L8 530w Be Quiet PSUs?

Comparison of the L7 and L8 http://www.be-quiet.net/forum/showthread.php?403-Pure-Power-L7-and-L8-CM-information&

I'd lean towards the L8 for modularity and having sleeved cables.

Have you a Maplin nearby? They used to sell the XFX 550w on their site, some stores might still have stock left.

Fractal also do a 500w 80+ Gold unit at £60 http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009NY3QKK/ with a review for the 650w variant here http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Fractal-Design-Tesla-R2-650-W-Power-Supply-Review/1711 and there are loads for the 1000w version. I'll keep looking at more units to see.
 
Comparison of the L7 and L8 http://www.be-quiet.net/forum/showthread.php?403-Pure-Power-L7-and-L8-CM-information&

I'd lean towards the L8 for modularity and having sleeved cables.

Have you a Maplin nearby? They used to sell the XFX 550w on their site, some stores might still have stock left.

Fractal also do a 500w 80+ Gold unit at £60 http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009NY3QKK/ with a review for the 650w variant here http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Fractal-Design-Tesla-R2-650-W-Power-Supply-Review/1711 and there are loads for the 1000w version. I'll keep looking at more units to see.

I went ahead and ordered the L7. The modularity I'm fine without. What's the benefits of sleeved cables?
 

mkenyon

Banned
To the guy that sent me this email:

Your Current Specs:
Clevo W150ERM.

Budget:
2400 US Dollars / Sweden.

Main Use:
Gaming - 5 / Emulation - 4 / General Usage - 3.

Monitor Resolution:
1920x1080 although I'm somewhat interested in downsampling from 3840x2160.

List SPECIFIC games or applications that you MUST be able to run well:
Well, I'd like to run most if not all games at 60 FPS at high-ultra settings but I don't mind dropping a setting or two down to medium.

Looking to reuse any parts?:
No.

When will you build?:
Whenever I have the parts in front of me.

Will you be overclocking?:
If it is as easy as they say and if the motherboard UEFI isn't too complicated then yeah.

I'd like to add that I'm a huge fan of the minimalistic and color-coordinated approach so if you could cook something up with that in mind, I'd be ever grateful! : )

I'm getting an undeliverable message upon replying.

I'll post it here once I have it figured out, as Swedish prices are much much different.
I went ahead and ordered the L7. The modularity I'm fine without. What's the benefits of sleeved cables?
They look sexy:

 

kharma45

Member
Post for UK guys, some decent GPU deals atm

With OCUK you have, and Scan are overdue for stock http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-...915mhz-core-boost-980mhz-gddr5-6008mhz-memory

Your choices now at roughly £200 are

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 Windforce 3X NVIDIA Graphics Card - 2GB - Gigabyte has by far the best RMA service in the UK, 3 day turnaround on stock. - £200

Asus GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II OC Gamer 2048MB - £186

Asus GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £200

MSI GeForce GTX 670 OC Twin Frozr Power Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - £192

And from AMD

SAPPHIRE AMD Radeon HD 7950 Dual-X BOOST 3GB GDDR5 - £210

This is due stock soon MSI HD 7950 Twin Frozr III Boost Edition 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **NEW REVISION** with FREE GAMES - £190, awaiting stock.

BONUS ROUND

7970 for £260 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-204-MS

The AMD ones also come with three games, and you can choose from the following soon when the Never Settle bundle is refreshed. You don't have to redeem the game codes straight away, you've until December 31 so doesn't hurt to wait for the new bundle

 

Grumbul

Member
Capture card is what you want. Avermedia Live Gamer HD.

If CreepingFear is as specific as he is stating for his requirements (streaming as opposed to capturing) then the Avermedia is not necessarily the right choice to make here and I see this quite a bit on various forums.

The Avermedia is great for taking the encoding burden away from the CPU but it is often overlooked that it uses H.264 encoding and this is not the same as the x264 that OBS and XSplit use.

When comparing image quality at a standard bitrate then x264 is very clearly better than H.264 and this would most definitely be noticeable on a sub 3000 bitrate stream.

The Avermedia is fantastic for capturing high resolution gaming footage with a small footprint but for streaming it really does not offer much.

That is not to say it isn't worth looking into but you are not going to get the stream quality for the bitrate "cost" that you would using x264. In other words you might be better off overclocking your CPU or investing in a better one - both of which might be cheaper options as well.
 

knitoe

Member
Would you consider a GTX660 to be low end today? If not, then I'd say that midrange cards are viable for longer than you're saying.

First, I was responding to someone recommending spending $200/2 years. I suggested $300/3 years would be better. As to how long a card can stay viable, it's up to your tolerance on game settings and performance, video card advancements and new software demands. And, yes, one year in, a gtx660 is inching toward low end. AMD is going to release their 9000s around October. That should push the 7950 to $200 (mid) level. And, if the gtx660 not classify as low end by then, it definitely would be on Sept. 2014 (2 years). Of course, maybe, my perspective of cost level could be wrong coming from a Titans user.

How do you find out if your router operates at 2.4 Ghz?
Look at the specs? If you want to know what you are connecting to, give different SSID names to 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Thus, you will know which one by connecting to it.
 

kharma45

Member
First, I was responding to someone recommending spending $200/2 years. I suggested $300/3 years would be better. As to how long a card can stay viable, it's up to your tolerance on game settings and performance, video card advancements and new software demands. And, yes, one year in, a gtx660 is inching toward low end. AMD is you to release their 9000 around October. That should push the 7950 to $200 (mid) level. And, if its not classify as low end by then, it definitely would be on Sept. 2014 (2 years). Of course, maybe, my perspective of cost level could be wrong coming from a Titans user.

I'd say that is what is happening :p the 7950 will be in no way a low end card by that stage, not a chance at all.

Bah, if it's just appearances and convenience I'll do without.

What about making my PC wifi ready? What kind of adapter do I need? I'm seeing ones on amazon that cost les than a tenner.

Have I, or anyone else, mentioned Home Plugs to you yet instead of going wireless? http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004INVKP4/
 

mkenyon

Banned
If CreepingFear is as specific as he is stating for his requirements (streaming as opposed to capturing) then the Avermedia is not necessarily the right choice to make here and I see this quite a bit on various forums.

The Avermedia is great for taking the encoding burden away from the CPU but it is often overlooked that it uses H.264 encoding and this is not the same as the x264 that OBS and XSplit use.

When comparing image quality at a standard bitrate then x264 is very clearly better than H.264 and this would most definitely be noticeable on a sub 3000 bitrate stream.

The Avermedia is fantastic for capturing high resolution gaming footage with a small footprint but for streaming it really does not offer much.

That is not to say it isn't worth looking into but you are not going to get the stream quality for the bitrate "cost" that you would using x264. In other words you might be better off overclocking your CPU or investing in a better one - both of which might be cheaper options as well.
Thank you for pointing this out. I looked a bit more into it, and you're 100% correct. I talked to my buddy who streams constantly (twitch.tv/kudochop), and he's offloading everything to a second PC which handles the encoding on the CPU rather than having the capture card doing the encoding.
 

knitoe

Member
I'd say that is what is happening :p the 7950 will be in no way a low end card by that stage, not a chance at all.



Have I, or anyone else, mentioned Home Plugs to you yet instead of going wireless? http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004INVKP4/

You misunderstood. I said a 7950 is going to push to $200 (mid) once 9000s are out.

And, yes. Many people recommend powerline. 200mbps is kinda slow. Probably ~2.5MB/s. Personally, after going wireless AC setup, it destroys powerline. I am getting >50MB/s vs 5MB/s even on 600mpbs powerline.
 

mkenyon

Banned
That's what he said :/
And, yes. Many people recommend powerline. 200mbps is kinda slow. Probably ~2.5MB/s. Personally, after experiencing wireless AC setup, blows powerline away. I am getting >50MB/s vs 5MB/s even on 600mpbs powerline.
Max bandwidth is only a piece of the pie, and an actually much less important piece of pie when it comes to online gaming. It's all about consistent latency. Wireless just can't hang in that regard.
 

kharma45

Member
That's what he said :/

Yeah but he also said "That should push the 7950 to $200 (mid) level. And, if its not classify as low end by then..." which is where I'm getting confused.

You misunderstood. I said a 7950 is going to push to $200 (mid) once 9000s are out.

And, yes. Many people recommend powerline. 200mbps is kinda slow. Probably ~2.5MB/s. Personally, after experiencing wireless AC setup, blows powerline away. I am getting >50MB/s vs 5MB/s even on 600mpbs powerline.

I've had 6MB/s down the 200mbps ones.
 

knitoe

Member
Yeah but he also said "That should push the 7950 to $200 (mid) level. And, if its not classify as low end by then..." which is where I'm getting confused.



I've had 6MB/s down the 200mbps ones.
You must have little interference. I have a 300mbps kit and was getting ~2.5MB/s. Many reviews on Newegg are saying 600mbps only getting ~5MB/s.
 

valouris

Member
I took the plunge on a Sapphire 7870 2gb Ghz after all (it was only 10 euros more than a decent 2gb 7850), but I am having thoughts on its wattage requirements..

I have a (I bet I'm gonna hear it for this) Xilence 580W, and currently it powers my mobo, a Phenom II X4 955, a 4870, 2x2 @ 1600, 2 HDDs @ 7200, an optical disc drive, a wi-fi receiver PCI card, plus, whatever USB devices I'm using (3?).

The official page of the card says it requires a 500W PSU.

I have never had any trouble with my PSU (its roughly 3 years old)
Do you think it is going to handle it? Should I risk it?
 

knitoe

Member
That's what he said :/

Max bandwidth is only a piece of the pie, and an actually much less important piece of pie when it comes to online gaming. It's all about consistent latency. Wireless just can't hang in that regard.
My 2+ K/D ratio in COD, BF3 and etc. says I don't have problems playing wireless. Ping from wireless PC to wired PC ~5ms. That hardly adds to much when talking you are usually getting >100ms total for online gaming. So, yeah, I'll gladly take max bandwidth and a little latency any day. Of course if all you do is gaming, powerline, even better do Ethernet cable, is the way to go.
 
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