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

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Ban Puncher

Member
How is the stock CPU cooler on the 4770K? Can I get away without having a custom heatsink such as the CM 212X or should I just harden up and learn to apply thermal paste like a civilised human?
 

Addnan

Member
How is the stock CPU cooler on the 4770K? Can I get away without having a custom heatsink such as the CM 212X or should I just harden up and learn to apply thermal paste like a civilised human?

If you want to overclock you need to. There really is nothing to it. Just a pea sized amount in the middle. No need to manually spread or anything.
 

LordAlu

Member
I'm quite limited with budget with 700$ maximum. The PCPartPicker estimates can be misleading since they often don't include shipping/taxes. I'm trying to get free shipping for everything so I'm a bit limited in terms of outlets.

I think I might stick with the i3-3220. It's going to be used for gaming but nothing too intensive and probably not at 1080p.
No problem, I understand - PCPP can be a little misleading. With a few tweaks you can get it down to $634 with an i3 which gives you a bit more wiggle room :)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4130 3.4GHz Dual-Core Processor ($129.00 @ Vuugo)
Motherboard: Asus B85M-G Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($78.93 @ DirectCanada)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($61.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.75 @ Vuugo)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card ($169.99 @ NCIX)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($53.13 @ DirectCanada)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($59.99 @ NCIX)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($15.79 @ DirectCanada)
Total: $633.57
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-11 03:34 EST-0500)

It's still Haswell which you should go for for slightly better performance per clock (and it really isn't any more money than Ivy Bridge) plus a better power supply that also has 6-pin and 6+2pin cables in case you decide to upgrade the graphics card in a few years time.

Anyone has a good site to calculate the approximate amount of power you need from a PSU?

I just want to make sure that 450W is enough for a i3-4330(no OC), GTX660, 8GB of DDR3, a few fans, HD and CD drive.
It is. You'd be drawing maybe 300W with that setup.
 
1. Does this significantly hamper it's performance?
2. Is there a way to (safely, easily) override this limit?
3. Is this still a recommended HSF? If not, what are some good alternatives in the same price range? For reference, I'm planning to buy the Intel i5 4670K, and probably will overclock it a little in the future. My case (Corsair 500R) is supposed to have good airflow.
1. No, it's not significant. You'll still be able to get a really decent OC going with this thing. I'd even argue that dropping the speed to 1600rpm is good move, because it kills some of the noise.
2. No. It's the fan's max speed. If you want faster, buy another fan. (And live with the noise.)
3. Yes. Still the best in class. To get significantly better results, you'll either have to go watercooled (H60), or move up to 140mm air coolers (NH-D14).
 

AndyBNV

Nvidia
VG248QE monitor, rip the back off, replace the scaler board with Gsync module, put the back on.

We'll have the install guide available online so you can see how involved it is before buying. IMO, if you can put together a PC you can do the upgrade with no fuss.
 

Chris_C

Member
Dear PC Gaf,

So I built a new PC to hook up to my 720P HDTV (a Samsung PN43D490) and use a gaming device, but I've run into issues with not getting any picture.

When I hook it up via VGA, I get a picture (it's 1024x768, but I gather that's normal over VGA on some sets?)

I've been trying for days to hook it up via HDMI though, and the TV doesn't seem to even detect the PC signal at all.

Here's my set up:

Core i5 4570
HD7950 Boost Edition
16GB Ram


A few details:

- I'm plugging the HDMI cable (which works just fine with other devices) into the HDMI port on the back of the card. This same output and cable works fine when outputting to a PC monitor.

- My TV has 3 HDMI in ports, I've tried them all.

- I've tried turning the PC off, connecting it to a monitor, lowering the resolution to the TV's native res, turning it off, and plugging it back into the TV then powering up, no dice.

- My TV is capable of accepting a 1080p signal and scaling it down as necessary (it does this with the PS3). Shouldn't this work for the PC?

- I'm not really looking to set the TV up as a secondary screen, I'd like it to be the primary display

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
 

kharma45

Member
Are the FX Series CPU's frowned upon around here? I'm building a new PC and I'm looking at purchasing the FX-8350. I understand the current Intel CPU's are unanimously better, but is it a huge difference? I'm looking to save some cash where I can to put it towards a much better GPU. Any comments?

Yes it is. AMDs stuff is on a par with Intel from 2009.

Grab a 3570K or a 4670K and don't look back.

I would like some opinions on upgrading my current set up. Given a $400 budget what would you do with this system? (you can include any upcoming black Friday deals and also the selling of old parts towards new ones)...

Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Processor: Intel Core i3-2120 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
Video card: GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA Series GV-R685OC-1GD Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
Power Supply: CORSAIR CX series CX500 500W ATX12V v2.3 80

The two things I'd look to change are the CPU and the GPU. With a BIOS update your mobo can take an IB CPU and there is room in your budget for a CPU cooler too

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($209.97 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($25.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $385.94
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-11 08:13 EST-0500)
 

LordAlu

Member
Dear PC Gaf,

So I built a new PC to hook up to my 720P HDTV (a Samsung PN43D490) and use a gaming device, but I've run into issues with not getting any picture.

When I hook it up via VGA, I get a picture (it's 1024x768, but I gather that's normal over VGA on some sets?)

I've been trying for days to hook it up via HDMI though, and the TV doesn't seem to even detect the PC signal at all.

Here's my set up:

Core i5 4570
HD7950 Boost Edition
16GB Ram


A few details:

- I'm plugging the HDMI cable (which works just fine with other devices) into the HDMI port on the back of the card. This same output and cable works fine when outputting to a PC monitor.

- My TV has 3 HDMI in ports, I've tried them all.

- I've tried turning the PC off, connecting it to a monitor, lowering the resolution to the TV's native res, turning it off, and plugging it back into the TV then powering up, no dice.

- My TV is capable of accepting a 1080p signal and scaling it down as necessary (it does this with the PS3). Shouldn't this work for the PC?

- I'm not really looking to set the TV up as a secondary screen, I'd like it to be the primary display

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Have you tried having both the monitor and the TV connected up at the same time? That way you should be able to look at your display settings for HDMI on your normal monitor and get them set to something that would work once that is disconnected?
 

Blimblim

The Inside Track
Just finished upgrading my Windows PC (linux is my main workstation, with a core I5). Went from a I7 920 with a GTX570 to a I7 4820k with a GTX770 (4G). I overclocked to CPU to 4.5Ghz without touching the voltage, which is pretty sweet. The 770 is already overclocked by default, so I didn't touch it at all. I only got 8 GB of RAM, I think I'll go to 16 soon so I get more memory bandwidth.
So far everything's working nicely, I didn't reinstall windows 7 and it all upgraded pretty smoothly.
I should get a review version of AC4 pc in a few days, so it's just in time :)
 

Renji_11

Member
Dear PC Gaf,

So I built a new PC to hook up to my 720P HDTV (a Samsung PN43D490) and use a gaming device, but I've run into issues with not getting any picture.

When I hook it up via VGA, I get a picture (it's 1024x768, but I gather that's normal over VGA on some sets?)

I've been trying for days to hook it up via HDMI though, and the TV doesn't seem to even detect the PC signal at all.

Here's my set up:

Core i5 4570
HD7950 Boost Edition
16GB Ram


A few details:

- I'm plugging the HDMI cable (which works just fine with other devices) into the HDMI port on the back of the card. This same output and cable works fine when outputting to a PC monitor.

- My TV has 3 HDMI in ports, I've tried them all.

- I've tried turning the PC off, connecting it to a monitor, lowering the resolution to the TV's native res, turning it off, and plugging it back into the TV then powering up, no dice.

- My TV is capable of accepting a 1080p signal and scaling it down as necessary (it does this with the PS3). Shouldn't this work for the PC?

- I'm not really looking to set the TV up as a secondary screen, I'd like it to be the primary display

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I have the exact same TV and never had problems hooking it up to the PC. Never did anything special to get it to display a picture. I did have problems getting 720p to resolution to scale correctly but that seems to be fixed on either with a driver update from AMD or something. In fact this TV won't even switch to an hdmi input unless something is plugged into the port.
 
Now, I'm thinking of going with the EVGA ACX 780ti Classified 3GB when it comes out. I figure the 3GB vs 6GB will give me a reason to upgrade to 6GB Maxwell :D
 

rossonero

Member
I got a 7950@800MHz that I sometime OC to 975MHz on stock voltage when needed. A Swedish retailer has a special offer on a Powercolor 7970 OC for 1999SEK (usually correlates to $199 when talking American prices),

I'm looking at getting more stable 60fps with even some AA thrown in, but it's not worth it right? Can probably sell the 7950 for something like 1600-1700SEK, but it's still better to wait?
 

kennah

Member
I got a 7950@800MHz that I sometime OC to 975MHz on stock voltage when needed. A Swedish retailer has a special offer on a Powercolor 7970 OC for 1999SEK (usually correlates to $199 when talking American prices),

I'm looking at getting more stable 60fps with even some AA thrown in, but it's not worth it right? Can probably sell the 7950 for something like 1600-1700SEK, but it's still better to wait?
Not a super huge leap in performance but if it's not going to cost much then go for it.
 
So I'm holding out till the r9 290 Non-reference cards come out. I know the rumor is that it'll be out around the end of November but will there be some sort of an announcement for the specific date they come out?

Right now I'm videocard-less in my cpu b/c I returned my 280x, so any news on this would be good.

Or should I just opt for the reference card? They run real hot and are real loud and isn't something I'm too keen about.
 

kharma45

Member
I got a 7950@800MHz that I sometime OC to 975MHz on stock voltage when needed. A Swedish retailer has a special offer on a Powercolor 7970 OC for 1999SEK (usually correlates to $199 when talking American prices),

I'm looking at getting more stable 60fps with even some AA thrown in, but it's not worth it right? Can probably sell the 7950 for something like 1600-1700SEK, but it's still better to wait?

Wait off for 20nm GPUs. Clock for clock there is little in it between a 7950 and 7970. Overclock it further and you'll be fine, with a voltage tweak hopefully you'll get it to at least 1.1GHz.
 

Seanspeed

Banned
So I'm holding out till the r9 290 Non-reference cards come out. I know the rumor is that it'll be out around the end of November but will there be some sort of an announcement for the specific date they come out?

Right now I'm videocard-less in my cpu b/c I returned my 280x, so any news on this would be good.

Or should I just opt for the reference card? They run real hot and are real loud and isn't something I'm too keen about.
Wait if you can, man, as tough as that might be. If you buy a reference card, you will probably regret it within a month, as soon as you start seeing aftermarket versions and their performance and noise levels.
 

crush7337

Banned
Worth upgrading from a 560TI to a 760 or 770, or should I wait for a better cooled 290 or the 800 series nVidia cards? I see they are $260 and $300 on Newegg and the 770 comes with Arkham Origins plus the Ubi games that the 760 also comes with so the price pretty much evens out since I was considering playing that anyway.

Figure the most taxing games I'll be looking to play over the next year are The Witcher 3 and Battlefield 4. Will the gain from upgrading to a 700 series be worth it or should I wait it out?
 

Randam

Member
anyone here with a reference 290/290x?
how does it performe?

i build a new gaming PC and I put a 290 in it.
the price was just to good.
PC will arive this week.

if it gets annoying I'll get an Accelero Xtreme III.
hope the add a few more heatsinks for the memory units.
 

Ensirius

Member
Worth upgrading from a 560TI to a 760 or 770, or should I wait for a better cooled 290 or the 800 series nVidia cards? I see they are $260 and $300 on Newegg and the 770 comes with Arkham Origins plus the Ubi games that the 760 also comes with so the price pretty much evens out since I was considering playing that anyway.

Figure the most taxing games I'll be looking to play over the next year are The Witcher 3 and Battlefield 4. Will the gain from upgrading to a 700 series be worth it or should I wait it out?

I'm on the same camp.

The new R9 290 is so very tempting though. Once the none reference cooled ones start coming out they're going to be irresistible.
 

AcridMeat

Banned
Worth upgrading from a 560TI to a 760 or 770, or should I wait for a better cooled 290 or the 800 series nVidia cards? I see they are $260 and $300 on Newegg and the 770 comes with Arkham Origins plus the Ubi games that the 760 also comes with so the price pretty much evens out since I was considering playing that anyway.

Figure the most taxing games I'll be looking to play over the next year are The Witcher 3 and Battlefield 4. Will the gain from upgrading to a 700 series be worth it or should I wait it out?
Exact same boat, though I don't care about the deal with the games right now. For me I decided I'm going to wait and get a 280 or 290.
 

Azulsky

Member
From what we know you won't see a new arch from Nvidia till Q4 2014.

You are either in a situation where you can get a strong card now and it will be fine down the road or you need one now to keep up with your monitor

Waiting is going to put you in a continuous cycle. If you need a card to play games now then get a card. Otherwise wait till you are in need.

That is the only reckoner that preserves your sanity
 
Saturday night, I finish up my gaming for the night and shut down my PC. Sunday afternoon, It no longer boots.

Through some testing, I determine that either my i7 920 or my motherboard went bad overnight--doesn't really matter which, because at this point replacing either means replacing both as well as RAM. So, with apparently more money than sense, and valuable game time going to waste, I jump in the car and head to Fry's to get whatever is in stock.

How did I do, GAF?

i7 4770k
Msi z87-g45
16Gb Corsair Dominator
$670

This all is currently paired with an aging 560Ti, but I'm waiting for Witcher 3 before upgrading that.
 

maneil99

Member
So I am able to sell my 780 GTX ACX for 479$ right now. Thinking of moving to a 290x Aftermarket soon. Really pissed off that I had to downclock from 1254 - 1241. Pretty much pushed me over the edge
 
How does the Black Friday/Cyber Monday season fair for PC builders? Mine is five years old and I'd like to do a completely new build soon as I forgo the next generation of consoles for a while.
 
Ok guys, I'm desperate, so please help a GAF brother out.

I need a triple monitor mount/stand. I'd prefer freestanding to clamp since my desk is thin and all that weight in the back would be worrisome, but I'll take what I can get.

It needs to be able to securely hold 3 22" monitors; being able to accomodate a future 27" in the middle would be great. I'd like the monitors to be able to be flush with each other, level, and angled inward, up to 30 or 45 degrees.

I was looking at this one, but there's no proper reviews for it I can find and it is really expensive.

I'd prefer cheaper, but fuck it. I bought a cheaper stand and it's been such a pain in the ass I'd rather just spend more and get something good. The one I have has no inward angling, the monitors all face downward from a loose tilt mechanism, and the monitors are uneven. Never again.
 

Sanctuary

Member
I must have "won" the 4670k lottery; shit end of the spectrum edition. So many people are posting overclocks of up to 4.5ghz without having to break beyond 1.25 vcore, and I can't even get 4.4ghz stable without it being at 1.34. Which is really on the unusually high side. I wanted to go for 4.5ghz, and I probably could reach it (my temps are actually fine), but I don't relish the idea of having to use a 1.4+vcore.
 
Can you buy Aftermarket GPU coolers (DirectCU 2, ACX, etc) without the card? I have a stock 780 but would like to push it a little more.

EDIT: No water blocks
 
There's not a ton of good options for VGA cooling, unfortunately, but I have the enormous Accelero Xtreme III on my 6870, and it does the job quite well. A bit expensive at full price, but I got it for $50, which seems fair enough.

That seems to be one of the (few) options that would work. Do you guys think it would be worth it to buy one of these type of coolers or just live with the stock one?
 
There's not a ton of good options for VGA cooling, unfortunately, but I have the enormous Accelero Xtreme III on my 6870, and it does the job quite well. A bit expensive at full price, but I got it for $50, which seems fair enough.

The best option for cheap GPU cooling is to use a closed loop water cooler like the Antec Kuhler 620 and use the zip tie mod to attach it. $50 and 20c+ temp drops. Extremely easy to do and way better cooling than and air solution. Since it's a closed loop next to no maintenance.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1203636/official-amd-ati-gpu-mod-club-aka-the-red-mod
 

sant

Member
So I am able to sell my 780 GTX ACX for 479$ right now. Thinking of moving to a 290x Aftermarket soon. Really pissed off that I had to downclock from 1254 - 1241. Pretty much pushed me over the edge

Are you from PoCo? I think I saw your listing on craigslist.
 

t-ramp

Member
The best option for cheap GPU cooling is to use a closed loop water cooler like the Antec Kuhler 620 and use the zip tie mod to attach it. $50 and 20c+ temp drops. Extremely easy to do and way better cooling than and air solution. Since it's a closed loop next to no maintenance.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1203636/official-amd-ati-gpu-mod-club-aka-the-red-mod
Considering there's a lack of good aftermarket air coolers for $50 and less, I'd agree. I'd still probably go with my Accelero Extreme III over an AIO liquid cooler at the same price, but it takes up too much space for CrossFire or SLI systems.

On a similar note, I used an Enzotech CPU block for a while on a GTX 480 that I had, which worked well. All I had to do was drill some new holes in the mounting bracket and use some compatible hardware to attach it to the card.
 

IMACOMPUTA

Member
GAF I need help.
I just recently got the xfx 1050w 90plus gold modular PSU.

When I first put the new PSU in I couldn't get it to boot. It would show the startup splash screen and take longer than usual and then either go to a black screen where it sits for eternity or go to a black screen with a white blinking cursor in the top left of the screen for eternity.
When I try to go to the bios it either doesn't , and it goes to a black screen or itll go to my "ezmode" bios but when I try to go to advanced it hangs up on a black screen.
I messed with it forever trying to figure it out and made sure everything was plugged in but it still wouldn't boot up. I tried using onboard video, reseated ram, unplugged everything except bare minimum. Nothing worked. So I tried my old PSU and it eventually worked. I think... I really can't remember. Eventually I just put the new PSU back in and replugged all the connections (on both ends because its modular ) and it worked.
Its worked for days now. Ive restarted a couple times and its worked fine.
Today I unplugged one of my case fans because there's something wrong with it and it makes a lot of noise. A couple hours later I had to restart because HDMI audio breaks sometimes when I switch displays.

After that restart its doing the same thing again. Black screen. Not booting. I'm wondering if there's some kind of short or something, but I unplugged all of the case fans and it still doesn't boot. I wanna say its some kind of protection thing that the PSU is doing.

EDIT: I unplugged the power cable to the PSU for like 2 minutes and jiggled my CM212 hsf before trying again and it booted.

I restarted it and now it won't boot again.


EDIT: Tried old psu and still won't let me in bios.

EDIT: changed out the cpu fan and it booted. Restarted and now its not booting again.
 

Red Comet

Member
So what is the deal with SSD's? I was eventually planning on buying a 1 TB SSD and replacing my HDD, but I see a lot of people using 250 GB or less SSD's in addition to a HDD. Is the idea just to put your games and/or OS on the SSD?
 

knitoe

Member
So what is the deal with SSD's? I was eventually planning on buying a 1 TB SSD and replacing my HDD, but I see a lot of people using 250 GB or less SSD's in addition to a HDD. Is the idea just to put your games and/or OS on the SSD?

It's cheaper and you get more storage space going with a smaller SSD and HDD. If you can afford a 1TB SSD, and it provides all the space you need, go ahead since it will provide the fastest performance. Personally, I went the SSDs and HDDs option. I have over 2TB of Steam games. No way that will fit on even the largest SSD. If I need the speed, I just move whatever game I am currently playing to the SSD, with programs lik Steam Mover. So, I still get the best of both worlds.

Current storage setup:
2X128GB Raid 0 Samsung 830 SSDs (OS and programs)
2X250GB Raid 0 Samsung 840 SSDs (Steam Mover games)
3TB Seagate HDD (Steam, Origin and etc.)
2X2TB Raid 1 Seagate HDD (Backup)
 
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