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[Spiritreaver]

Alright, I did it. Don't laugh at me. I know I asked about Crossfire a few weeks ago, but with the 280X specs and prices falling, I bit the bullet and got another 7970.

Yeah yeah yeah, I've got plenty of aspirin for the next few weeks!

Amazon should have me covered if a sale or price drop hits, but if not. I don't care. IT'S DONE.

 

[kennah]

We all do things against better judgement. *looks at his incredibly expensive SFF build*

 

[jbpaz]

So whats the verdict on the R9 280x?

 

[Skel1ingt0n]

Alright guys - soundcard advice!

I'm thinking the Soundblaster ZxR and either

Beyerdynamic DT990 600ohms version or AKG Q 701.

Thoughts? I want to have the best sound possible coming from Battlefield 4.

 

[Sleeping Lesson]

So whats the verdict on the R9 280x?

It's a 7970GE, even moreso than rumored.

 

[Durante]

So whats the verdict on the R9 280x?

It's a 7970GE. Not just vaguely or approximately, it simply is.

 

[kennah]

So whats the verdict on the R9 280x?

Who knows. it's not out yet.

Spoiler

Probably rebadged 7970. The only new cards are the 260X and 290/X

 

[Crisco]

Alright guys - soundcard advice!

I'm thinking the Soundblaster ZxR and either

Beyerdynamic DT990 600ohms version or AKG Q 701.

Thoughts? I want to have the best sound possible coming from Battlefield 4.

I have Q701, they are amazing. Granted,the rest of my setup is totally different. I have an old X-Fi gamer with optical out to external DAC and amp. CMSS-3D works really well with Battlefield 4.

 

[jbpaz]

It's a 7970GE. Not just vaguely or approximately, it simply is.

Sweet. Should I get it?

 

[Felix Lighter]

Is upgrading Windows 7 to Windows 8.1 in place without a clean install a viable option now or is a clean install still basically mandatory?

 

[Durante]

Sweet. Should I get it?

If you're looking for a card in that price range, sure. (You should check if you can get a deal on a 7970GE before they are gone though)

 

[Kintaro]

We all do things against better judgement. *looks at his incredibly expensive SFF build*

Wait, don't say that. I'm about to pull the trigger on a SFF build. Is something wrong with yours?

 

[kennah]

Wait, don't say that. I'm about to pull the trigger on a SFF build. Is something wrong with yours?

I almost love it too much. Mine is a full watercooled, custom case kinda thing.

Www.craftograph.com/compactsplash

Is the case I have.

 

[Ty4on]

but the FX is cheaper and has more cores. I want this processor to last for 4-5 years.

Yeah, but this is how powerful those cores are:

The 8350 in this benchmark runs at 4.2Ghz while the i3 3220 at 3.3Ghz and the i7 3770k 3.9Ghz so overclocked it will look similar or more Intel favored if you delid. All Intel iX 3XXX on 1155 use the same Ivy Bridge cores hence the similar results.

The 8350 is also made up of four modules where each have two cores that share some resources. Here you can see the difference in Cinebench from running four threads over two modules or four modules. I think the 8C 4M one is running four threads and letting Windows figure out where to spread the load.

The scaling is much better than what hyperthreading does (which is just 30%), but still not perfect and adding in the more powerful Intel cores the i7 beats the 8350 in nearly every benchmark, is waay better in older games or games from smaller studios that aren't threaded and uses half the power which will keep your case cooler and reduce stress on mobo and PSU.

 

[NinjaCatfish]

It's a 7970GE. Not just vaguely or approximately, it simply is.

I wonder if this means we'll be able to flash 280x firmware onto 7970s.

 

[h#shdem0n]

Can an i5 3570 (not 3570k) still be overclocked? Is it just harder, or impossible?

 

[Durante]

Can an i5 3570 (not 3570k) still be overclocked? Is it just harder, or impossible?

Almost impossible. At best, you can get 5% out of it.

Because Intel hates us.

 

[Kintaro]

I almost love it too much. Mine is a full watercooled, custom case kinda thing.

Www.craftograph.com/compactsplash

Is the case I have.

Niceeeeeee.

 

[Hazaro]

Who knows. it's not out yet.

Spoiler

Probably rebadged 7970. The only new cards are the 260X and 290/X

As it turns out the 260X isn't even new. They put in TrueAudio on the 7790's and never enabled it. GG

 

[kharma45]

As it turns out the 260X isn't even new. They put in TrueAudio on the 7790's and never enabled it. GG

7790 was an oddity, I'd class it as new as it's based off what is Hawaii isn't it?

 

[Ty4on]

Can an i5 3570 (not 3570k) still be overclocked? Is it just harder, or impossible?

You can "overclock" a little bit if it can turbo (i5 and i7 can). I think you can go to 4Ghz on all cores and 4.3Ghz on one.

It's not harder because Intel locked down the base clock which was used in the past. The base clock in 1155 controls so much that messing with it will make everything unstable.

 

[Gaf_SentMe]

Oh shit PC Gaf. I here now! Got my PC for free. I sold it to my friend a year ago for $550, but he has decided to just keep the GPU (EVGA GTX 670) and give me the rest. He knew I was in the market for a brand new PC.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($79.32 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($223.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Phantom 410 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($84.50 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($65.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($95.88 @ Amazon)
Total: $769.66
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-08 13:12 EDT-0400)


Now I need your help if you may.
Will a 770/780 or R-280x/R-290x be bottlenecked under that motherboard/CPU?
How soon will Newegg/Amazon have the R-series pre-orders?

Happy gaming people. Thanks in advance.

 

[Dawg]

All of the monitors you're talking about have nothing much in common besides panel type perhaps. Asus doesn't make it easy, I don't blame you. I only started to learn this after being asked this a billion times at work what the difference is between X, Y, and Z.

The Asus VN247H you have is apparently a 1ms TN monitor so they're completely different. The problem is that because its a 1ms TN monitor, the chances are that it is suffering from severe reverse ghosting. Reverse ghosting occurs when the manufacturer is too aggressive with overdrive/response time compensation.

Another possibility is that the monitor has some funky PWM frequencies that is some really neat multiple of 60. Two things you can try is turning the brightness to max and see if the ghosting changes. Also, dig through the OSD and see if you can find some "trace free" setting. Play around with the numbers but, generally speaking, Asus monitors have the best motion performance when it is set at 40 or 60.

Anyway, the monitor you have and the monitor that Digital Versus reviewed are completely different: the Asus VS247H is a completely different model from the VN247H. Furthermore, the Asus VS247H is completely different from the Asus VS247H-P which is the model referenced in the OP. The fundamental difference is the model with the -P suffix has the trace free setting, which allows you to control the amount of overdrive/response time compensation you have. The model without the -P suffix does not have this.

If we're talking about alternative monitors to recommend, most of these cheap 60hz TN monitors are all kind of duds. There's probably a decent one out there but no one does proper reviews on them and so much of low end monitor market, amusingly, is all about marketing and specsheets. The availability of the trace free setting in the Asus VS247H-P, at the very least, gives the end user the ability to fix whatever awful job Asus did regarding the default overdrive. This is the primary reason for the recommendation, though its possible that its a complete dud of a monitor as I haven't actually taken a good look at it.

That's some helpful info. I already tried trace-free on my monitor btw, but the ghosting didn't really change as I adjusted the setting from 0-20-40-60-80-100. Every setting had it.

Wouldn't surprise me if it was some severe reverse ghosting or PWM tbh, the ghosting really looked like that.

Sucks that the 60hz market is so focused on marketing and buzzwords (G2G is a great example, 1ms G2G seems like some king of high-end stuff, while a lot of those monitors have worse pixel response rate than cheaper monitors or older models). Trying to find a good gaming monitor with little ghosting or any other problems is really difficult tbh.

 

[Annubis]

I lost power yesterday at home while I was at work and came back to a dead computer.

Pressing the power button starts the fans and LEDs inside and I can hear the drives, but it seems to be stuck in a limbo after that.
The screen never gets a signal and I don't hear any BIOS warning beeps (may not boot up to that point I'm guessing).
After this, the frontal power button is ignored and I can only shut it down using the power kill switch at the back.

Considering I have a surge protect powerbar, it is most likely the low power or quick loss and back of power that killed it.

What do you guys think busted?

ASUS Sabertooth x79
Intel Core i7-3820 Quad-Core
ASUS Radeon HD7870
Corsair Dominator 4x4
Cooler Master (not sure what model)

 

[kharma45]

Oh shit PC Gaf. I here now! Got my PC for free. I sold it to my friend a year ago for $550, but he has decided to just keep the GPU (EVGA GTX 670) and give me the rest. He knew I was in the market for a brand new PC.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-V/GEN3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($79.32 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($223.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Phantom 410 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case ($84.50 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($65.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($95.88 @ Amazon)
Total: $769.66
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-08 13:12 EDT-0400)


Now I need your help if you may.
Will a 770/780 or R-280x/R-290x be bottlenecked under that motherboard/CPU?
How soon will Newegg/Amazon have the R-series pre-orders?

Happy gaming people. Thanks in advance.

So you have all those bits already? Mobo won't bottleneck that stuff, 7970/280X would be my choice over the 770, need to wait until the 290X launches to evaluate it.

 

[Gaf_SentMe]

So you have all those bits already? Mobo won't bottleneck that stuff, 7970/280X would be my choice over the 770, need to wait until the 290X launches to evaluate it.

Yes I do. Just need the GPU.

 

[JimPanzer]

I feel like my PC is overall a bit underperforming considering its parts.

here's my full system:

CPU: i5 3570k @ 3.4 GHz
Motherboard: MSI B75MA-E33
GPU: Gainward GTX 760 Phantom (2GB)
Ram: 8 GB 1600 Mhz (no name, one bar, single channel)
PSU: Sharkoon 650W

I get around 7930 points in 3D Mark 11, while others with the same CPU and GPU go up to 9000. Is my mobo bottlenecking the other parts? will dual channel ram increase the systems performance?

*bump*

 

[Hazaro]

same problem.

maybe it's my mainboard causing these issues? I feel like my PC is overall a bit underperforming considering its parts.

here's my full system:

CPU: i5 3570k @ 3.4 GHz
Motherboard: MSI B75MA-E33
GPU: Gainward GTX 760 Phantom (2GB)
Ram: 8 GB 1600 Mhz (no name, one bar, single channel)
PSU: Sharkoon 650W

I get around 7930 points in 3D Mark 11, while others with the same CPU and GPU go up to 9000. Is my mobo bottlenecking the other parts? will dual channel ram increase the systems performance?

Others are running your CPU at 4.2Ghz and GPU at +25% overclock. Dual Channel (should?) your 3DMark numbers. As for day to day use I'm not sure if it matters that much if you don't need that bandwidth.

 

[Whiteshirt]

That's some helpful info. I already tried trace-free on my monitor btw, but the ghosting didn't really change as I adjusted the setting from 0-20-40-60-80-100. Every setting had it.

Wouldn't surprise me if it was some severe reverse ghosting or PWM tbh, the ghosting really looked like that.

Sucks that the 60hz market is so focused on marketing and buzzwords (G2G is a great example, 1ms G2G seems like some king of high-end stuff, while a lot of those monitors have worse pixel response rate than cheaper monitors or older models). Trying to find a good gaming monitor with little ghosting or any other problems is really difficult tbh.

Only consumer 60hz monitors that are gunning for specific demographics really do this. Cheapass consumers, very often gamers, are unable to distinguish A from B from C. Which is perfectly understandable because what the fuck does Philips 238C4QHSN even mean? The only way for them to wade through this mess is by looking at specsheets...which don't mean anything in real life as you probably know by now but its an easy way to convince people that X monitor is better for gaming than Y monitor.

If you want the best, 120hz TN is the way to go no doubt. 60hz anything just isn't good enough. The best options are all in the OP as they're pretty much the only options. Options like that one from Acer should be disregarded as its shit. If 60hz is what you want, refer to Prad.de and TFT Central for reviews. Be careful with input lag values from TFT Central since until recently, their input lag values can be quite wonky.

Anyway, you'll find that business monitors generally make better gaming monitors than most budget gaming monitors strangely enough. IPS is not really any slower than TN - the only thing that makes TN faster is very aggressive response time compensation. As for input lag, it depends on the monitor. Monitors like the Eizo CG246 have 10ms of input lag and they're crammed to the brim with features like uniformity compensation and in-built hardware calibrators.

 

[oxidax]

Ugh i just got a vapor X yesterday and now i want a 280x cus its less money.

 

[rafbanaan]

I did a memorytest (Windows memory test) and it didnt had any errors.

My pc is running now for a straight hour and it didnt shut down automatically once.. The previous days he did this after 15mins, 30mins running. What kind of sorcery is this.

Fingerz crossed that I dont get an auto boot this night or im back at zero.

 

[kennah]

I want to switch to a smaller build, so Im putting these parts up to see if anyone is interested. Will only sell if all of the parts are accounted for.

Asus P8Z77-V Mobo with Wifi Go - $120 Shipped.. Will sell with a 3570k with unused stock heatsink for $300 Shipped

Sapphire 7950 3gb Boost Flex - $190 Shipped

H80i CPU Cooler - $55 Shipped

PC Power & Cooling Silencer MK III 850 Modular PSU - $110

Define R4 White with Side Window - $75 local pick up in North Jersey, or $75 plus shipping cost.

Take it all for $700 plus shipping cost or $680 local pick up in North Jersey.

All these parts were purchased brand new in March/April 2013 and will include a copy of the receipt for warranty purposes (Most of them were purchased on the same receipt)

Some good deals in the BST thread.

 

[Cryst]

Ugh i just got a vapor X yesterday and now i want a 280x cus its less money.

Hopefully you got that with the Never Settle promotion (which the R9/R7 series don't seem to have at the moment), so you're breaking even or coming out on top. (gotta assuage that buyer's remorse any way you can, )

 

[oxidax]

Hopefully you got that with the Never Settle promotion (which the R9/R7 series don't seem to have at the moment), so you're breaking even or coming out on top. (gotta assuage that buyer's remorse any way you can, )

I did and a $20 rebate which i haven't used. The problem is that i already own every single game on the promotion lol
If i return it they gonna charge me a restocking fee =/
I dont even kno why i got it because im not even going to tweak the voltage cus 1st is locked and 2nd im only interested in overlocking it with stock voltage.. which i can do with the R80x and probably reach a good OC

 

[NoRéN]

Sapphire 7950 3gb Boost Flex - $190 Shipped

Some good deals in the BST thread.

better than this deal?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127737&nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL100813&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL100813-_-EMC-100813-Index-_-DesktopGraphicsVideoCards-_-14127737-L08A

 

[IMACOMPUTA]

What is the best upgrade path for this processor http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103962
And 2x6950s
12gb ram
For bf4
And how will this processor run bf4?
What's the intel equivalent to this processor?

 

[Chris R]

Those 280x reviews are tempting... Just need to keep telling myself that my 670 is good enough and that it will last me

 

[JimPanzer]

Others are running your CPU at 4.2Ghz and GPU at +25% overclock. Dual Channel (should?) your 3DMark numbers. As for day to day use I'm not sure if it matters that much if you don't need that bandwidth.

but I would want a new mobo to do that?

 

[SniperHunter]

New PC I am gonna build early next year! ^_^

 

[Tablo]

New PC I am gonna build early next year! ^_^

I assume you're in the US? If so we can put together a much better build, with Haswell, which is ludicrous to avoid in favor of Ivy Bridge.

What's your budget? Are you ok with a smaller Micro ATX or Mini ITX build?

 

[catabarez]

What's a good aftermarket CPU cooler that isn't overkill like that giant Noctua?

 

[Addnan]

Those 280x reviews are tempting... Just need to keep telling myself that my 670 is good enough and that it will last me

670 to 280x really is not a big leap.

What's a good aftermarket CPU cooler that isn't overkill like that giant Noctua?

CM hyper 212 EVO

 

[Crisco]

Whatever happened to Thermalright anyway? Their HSF used to be the shit.

I wonder if there's a way to get my IFX-14 mounted to an LGA2011 socket.....

 

[Sethos]

Whatever happened to Thermalright anyway? Their HSF used to be the shit.

No king rules forever, my son.

 

[metareferential]

I assume you're in the US? If so we can put together a much better build, with Haswell, which is ludicrous to avoid in favor of Ivy Bridge.

I believed the consensus is that there's no real performance increase in going from Ivy to Haswell, especially considering Ivy's overclocking potential (which doesn't face heat problems like Haswell).

If emulation is one of the reasons for a new build though, better to go Haswell.

 

[jbpaz]

i7-4770K or i5-4670K for Arma 3 and Battlefield 4? Is the i7 worth the extra money?

 

[Erebus]

Is Haswell that much faster at emulation compared to Ivy? It is brought up very often in this thread, so I'm curious.

 

[catabarez]

670 to 280x really is not a big leap.



CM hyper 212 EVO

Thanks!

 

[Chris R]

670 to 280x really is not a big leap.

But mantle

 

[Addnan]

But mantle

Wait for Mantle to come out and see what it actually does. Right now its just PR hype. Plus we have to see just how many devs support it outside of BF4.