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[moltonasty]

It's plausible that the problem is just as the chap described. Is your PC in a tower case? In some cases those massive coolers can put too much strain on the motherboard and cause it to distort. Especially if they're not mounted as securely as possible. It could lead to a short, or even permanent damage.
BTW, you might want to edit your post to remove the casual racism. It's not relevant whether the guy is Korean.

The reason I mentioned him being Korean, is that since his English is poor, he couldn't understand when I tried to explain that the parts should work. I didn't mean it to be in any way racist, just that the language barrier is causing some difficulty with me explaining to him what needs to be done on the PC. I'll edit anyway, thanks.

Regarding the cooler, maybe I should go with a smaller liquid cooler? I'm looking at this one, can anyone recommend it?

http://www.microcenter.com/product/404942/Hydro_Series_H60_High_Performance_Liquid_CPU_Cooler

 

[theytookourjobz]

Building a new rig. Ordered a case and an HDD and SSD today. Looking around on Craiglist trying to save a few bucks on other components too. There's a guy selling an EVGA GTX 680 that's about 1.5 years old. (2GB version) If I can talk him down to $200ish, would it be worth it? Or should I just buy a new card?

 

[The Teachinator]

Building a new rig. Ordered a case and an HDD and SSD today. Looking around on Craiglist trying to save a few bucks on other components too. There's a guy selling an EVGA GTX 680 that's about 1.5 years old. (2GB version) If I can talk him down to $200ish, would it be worth it? Or should I just buy a new card?

If you're talking about me you can have it for $225.

 

[Nostremitus]

Hey, thanks a bunch for the reply - lots of useful info.

What socket is the motherboard that came in the lot? AM2+, AM3?

 

[Rawket Lawnchair]

Building a new rig. Ordered a case and an HDD and SSD today. Looking around on Craiglist trying to save a few bucks on other components too. There's a guy selling an EVGA GTX 680 that's about 1.5 years old. (2GB version) If I can talk him down to $200ish, would it be worth it? Or should I just buy a new card?

If you're gonna spend $200 on a 2-year old and used GPU, might as well spend 55$ more and get a new GTX 760.

Edit: thought you were talking about a 660. I don't know how the 760 fares against a 680, so yeah, wait for someone else's opinion.

 

[The Teachinator]

If you're gonna spend $200 on a 2-year old and used GPU, might as well spend 55$ more and get a new GTX 760.

Edit: thought you were talking about a 660. I don't know how the 760 fares against a 680, so yeah, wait for someone else's opinion.

The 680 is a much better card than the 760. The 680 is the 770.

 

[Nostremitus]

If you're gonna spend $200 on a 2-year old and used GPU, might as well spend 55$ more and get a new GTX 760.

Edit: thought you were talking about a 660. I don't know how the 760 fares against a 680, so yeah, wait for someone else's opinion.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/772?vs=854
Not well

 

[moltonasty]

In general, should I be ok going with a liquid cooler such as the Hydro Series H60 instead of the HC Evo 212, which apparently I can't use? What are the pros and cons between a liquid CPU cooler, and these gigantic heat sink type coolers?

 

[adamantypants]

Yeah, sometimes it completely disappears from the start menu. Sometimes the start button becomes unclickable on the desktop as well, so I have to resort to the Windows key in my keyboard.

That's weird, I've never heard of anything like this. Was anything strange installed like classic shell? Or maybe I'd just go with the other poster's suggestion and just install a third party start menu to see if that helps.

The only thing I can think of is I forgot to remove the old thermal paste and reapply the new one (I just applied the new paste on top). Could that be the problem? Any help would be extremely appreciated. I work almost all week and don't have a lot of time when I get home, so I'd like to figure out the problem ASAP.

Holy damn reapply your paste. It's possible that your CPU is overheating because it can't move the heat. I have a huge air cooler without issues and the cooler you have is a baby compared to mine. Reapply your paste, clean it well. NEVER apply new paste to old. Make sure all of your connections are solid too.

 

[Nebula]

Budget is £800 and this is the build I'm going for. Opinions and stuff welcome. Also hoping to find out peoples experiences shipping from the places I have down to make sure none of them are dodgy.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3MWlH

Or this http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3MWyF

 

[moltonasty]

That's weird, I've never heard of anything like this. Was anything strange installed like classic shell? Or maybe I'd just go with the other poster's suggestion and just install a third party start menu to see if that helps.



Holy damn reapply your paste. It's possible that your CPU is overheating because it can't move the heat. I have a huge air cooler without issues and the cooler you have is a baby compared to mine. Reapply your paste, clean it well. NEVER apply new paste to old. Make sure all of your connections are solid too.

Thanks for the tip, will reapply ASAP. The repair guy said that he got my PC working fine with a new cooler, so I guess that means the CPU isn't damaged (yet)? Hopefully. But at the same time, the cooler is pretty huge in my case. I'm wondering if it would be better to just go with liquid cooling instead. It seems much easier to set up as well.

 

[appaws]

What would be the best approach to getting somebody in the US a 1000 dollar complete system (KB&M; Monitor + Tower) these days? I'm tempted to target a high end processor and mid range vid card, but not really sure. The 800 dollarish build in OP looks like a good start, maybe remove the SSD as something they can add in later?

If the person is a gamer I would reverse that, put as much as possible into the GPU and mid-range the CPU

In general, should I be ok going with a liquid cooler such as the Hydro Series H60 instead of the HC Evo 212, which apparently I can't use? What are the pros and cons between a liquid CPU cooler, and these gigantic heat sink type coolers?

Sure. The pros of an AIO are looks and less space taken up. I guess also less stress on the motherboard. The cons are price and performance. What I mean is that they perform fine, but for the money the air coolers offer similar performance for much cheaper.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

In general, should I be ok going with a liquid cooler such as the Hydro Series H60 instead of the HC Evo 212, which apparently I can't use? What are the pros and cons between a liquid CPU cooler, and these gigantic heat sink type coolers?

Those giant heatsink coolers actually help with cooling other components around them. They will also keep cooling your CPU even if your fan stops working.

 

[appaws]

sorry for posting this again but didnt get an answer

how is this build and what can i improve?

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($257.75 @ Vuugo)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($84.99 @ Memory Express)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($164.99 @ Memory Express)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($169.99 @ NCIX)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($159.79 @ DirectCanada)
Storage: Western Digital WD Blue 1TB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($77.75 @ Vuugo)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB DirectCU II Video Card ($269.99 @ NCIX)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Titanium Grey) ATX Mid Tower Case ($119.75 @ Vuugo)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($89.99 @ NCIX)
Optical Drive: Asus BW-16D1HT Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($95.00 @ Vuugo)
Total: $1489.99 canadian

also what would the best method be for a tv tuner?
and getting a stupid windows 8 error that even microsoft cant help me with.

anyone have this problem and no what to do with it? im trying to reintall windows and have tried on multiple different connections and OS

Yeah, this thread moves so fast that posts get lost sometimes. I don't know anything about TV Tuners so I will leave that for someone else.

The build looks good. As far as improvements go, if I was building it I would do a few things differently:

1. I would wait for Devil's Canyon. Since you want Z97 and a "K" CPU, I assume you are interested in overclocking. It's only a few weeks away. In my fevered dreams, it is going to be Haswell IPC with Sandy's OC characteristics.

2. Chop some stuff to get a better GPU. Go down to 8gb of Ram unless you really need 16, and do you really need that Blu-Ray drive? You can always add things in later, but for a gamer it is GPU first.

3. That pretty windowed case...consider an AIO instead of the Noctua cooler. Not that there is anything wrong with it, it is an excellent cooler. But looks wise, who wants to see a big giant heatsink all the time.

 

[Rand0m TAG]

Yeah, this thread moves so fast that posts get lost sometimes. I don't know anything about TV Tuners so I will leave that for someone else.

The build looks good. As far as improvements go, if I was building it I would do a few things differently:

1. I would wait for Devil's Canyon. Since you want Z97 and a "K" CPU, I assume you are interested in overclocking. It's only a few weeks away. In my fevered dreams, it is going to be Haswell IPC with Sandy's OC characteristics.

2. Chop some stuff to get a better GPU. Go down to 8gb of Ram unless you really need 16, and do you really need that Blu-Ray drive? You can always add things in later, but for a gamer it is GPU first.

3. That pretty windowed case...consider an AIO instead of the Noctua cooler. Not that there is anything wrong with it, it is an excellent cooler. But looks wise, who wants to see a big giant heatsink all the time.

thanks.
i could chop the ram down to 2x 4gb sticks
i wanted the bluray player because planning on using the pc as a media center too
i wasnt going to put the noctua in either. just a placeholder to estimate my price.

 

[Chozolore]

So I was trying out overclocking for the first time, 4670k. I've settled at 4ghz, which sits through prime 95 fine. Tried 4.5 briefly, temp peaked at 95c quite rapidly, at which point I stopped prime 95. Any chance I've hurt it? all seems fine.

 

[riflen]

So I was trying out overclocking for the first time, 4670k. I've settled at 4ghz, which sits through prime 95 fine. Tried 4.5 briefly, temp peaked at 95c quite rapidly, at which point I stopped prime 95. Any chance I've hurt it? all seems fine.

You wont damage the CPU with it briefly sustaining 95 degrees. Modern CPUs all have a mechanism that shuts them down when the reach a dangerous temperature. It'll just turn off your PC at that point. For the 4670K I believe that temperature is 100c.

Putting too much voltage through the chip could damage it, but that is also difficult to do nowadays with protections the motherboard BIOS/EFI provides.

 

[adamantypants]

Thanks for the tip, will reapply ASAP. The repair guy said that he got my PC working fine with a new cooler, so I guess that means the CPU isn't damaged (yet)? Hopefully. But at the same time, the cooler is pretty huge in my case. I'm wondering if it would be better to just go with liquid cooling instead. It seems much easier to set up as well.

I'm sure the CPU is fine. If it's overheating like I think it is, that means the CPU is doing its job and shutting itself down before any real damage can be done. As far as going liquid, I would reapply the paste and cooler before spending more money. It'd be a waste to go through the hassle of buying another cooler to find out that it was some other issue. It doesn't make sense that your CPU/mobo wouldn't accept a cooler though. There's no software connection between the two at all. The only problem with a cooler would be that it's not actually cooling therefore shutting your CPU down.

So I was trying out overclocking for the first time, 4670k. I've settled at 4ghz, which sits through prime 95 fine. Tried 4.5 briefly, temp peaked at 95c quite rapidly, at which point I stopped prime 95. Any chance I've hurt it? all seems fine.

lol that's a helluva jump. You didn't damage anything.

 

[Seanspeed]

So I was trying out overclocking for the first time, 4670k. I've settled at 4ghz, which sits through prime 95 fine. Tried 4.5 briefly, temp peaked at 95c quite rapidly, at which point I stopped prime 95. Any chance I've hurt it? all seems fine.

Unless you've noticed anything untoward going on(which is unlikely), you'll be fine. Its usually running at high temps for long periods of time that will cause damage or drastically reduced longevity. 4ghz is a pretty safe and reasonable overclock for that CPU, assuming you've got a half-decent cooler on it. Should definitely provide a nice boost in any CPU-heavy games!

Today, I bought a Logitech C290 webcam and a Blue Snowball omnidirectional mic. The webcam will initially be used for recording guitar covers(to show off but also for motivation to master certain songs), but would also maybe like to video chat with friends back in the States. And I went with the microphone I did because I wanted something that will be all-round good for gaming, video chat and also instrument recording.

Will post impressions after I've used them a bit.

 

[Nostremitus]

Ok, so I've overclocked my Phenom II x6 1045t up to 3ghz using the FSB and auto voltage. This gives me ~54C after about an hour on Prime95. When I tried 3.1 it got up to about 58C before I stopped and dropped it back down.
What temps should I be looking for in a 24/7 overclock and should I be manually adjusting the voltages? I've found some people suggesting a 1.47 Vcore but that just seems really high to me...

I'm using a Zalman CNPS8900 Quiet with an additional 120mm fan blowing directly at it into the case as a side intake.

Edit: I should specify that my case mounts the motherboard upside down, so the CPU and the intake fan are both near the bottom of the case.

 

[mkenyon]

So I was trying out overclocking for the first time, 4670k. I've settled at 4ghz, which sits through prime 95 fine. Tried 4.5 briefly, temp peaked at 95c quite rapidly, at which point I stopped prime 95. Any chance I've hurt it? all seems fine.

To further clarify the somewhat ambiguous responses, I will say conclusively without a doubt 100% certain everything is totally fine, with no worries at all.

 

[adamantypants]

Today, I bought a Logitech C290 webcam and a Blue Snowball omnidirectional mic. The webcam will initially be used for recording guitar covers(to show off but also for motivation to master certain songs), but would also maybe like to video chat with friends back in the States. And I went with the microphone I did because I wanted something that will be all-round good for gaming, video chat and also instrument recording.

Will post impressions after I've used them a bit.

Might not be completely relevant, but I've had decent results recording my guitars with the Rocksmith cable if you happen to own that game. I plugged it in not unlike using an A2D converter with my normal setup. That mic though looks pretty serious, I'd be very interested to know how it fares.

 

[mkenyon]

This is why we always suggest overclocking. How does 15% performance for the price of a heatsink sound?

Sword of Doom's overclocking result, before and after:

 

[Ieu]

This is why we always suggest overclocking. How does 15% performance for the price of a heatsink sound?

Sword of Doom's overclocking result, before and after:

*Image*

Moron here; why does the 'before' score report a 0 MHz Turbo frequency when the 4670K goes up to 3800 MHz at stock?

 

[mkenyon]

Moron here; why does the 'before' score report a 0 MHz Turbo frequency when the 4670K goes up to 3800 MHz at stock?

Probably a holdover from having turbo boost disabled when overclocking. It won't make much of a difference, because the speed listed for Turbo Boost is only for a single core. It will not increase to that speed for all cores. It's something like 3800 MHz in single threaded applications, 3.6 with two cores, etc.

 

[Felix Lighter]

Haswell at 4.7 Ghz? I'm jelly.

 

[mkenyon]

Haswell at 4.7 Ghz? I'm jelly.

Delid!

(I don't think he did though)

 

[plasmawave]

Any good software to monitor CPU temp?

 

[M3z_]

This is why we always suggest overclocking. How does 15% performance for the price of a heatsink sound?

Sword of Doom's overclocking result, before and after:

To be fair 4.7 is an uncommonly high OC for haswell. Even still, OC your K series processors people, it is what you paid for.

 

[mkenyon]

I use HWMonitor, but there was one that was listed fairly recently by someone that was way better. I keep forgetting what it was called though

 

[Felix Lighter]

Delid!

(I don't think he did though)

I wish I had the balls. The i7 4770K I was dealing with this weekend lived up to it's hot reputation. I ended up settling with a very modest 4.1 Ghz overclock and even then the temps hit 80C during Prime95 @ 1.17v. It's not my machine so that's as far as I'm willing to go with a machine I can't regularly monitor. I'm still holding out for Haswell-E to replace my unstoppable i7 930.

 

[Skyzard]

I wish I had the balls. The i7 4770K I was dealing with this weekend lived up to it's hot reputation. I ended up settling with a very modest 4.1 Ghz overclock and even then the temps hit 80C during Prime95 @ 1.17v. It's not my machine so that's as far as I'm willing to go with for a machine I can't regularly monitor. I'm still holding out for Haswell-E to replace my unstoppable i7 930.

You guys are using nice thermal paste like arctic silver 5 right?

A simple watercooler like h100i would drop temps even more.

Also why do people bother with prime95...just intelburntest?

 

[mkenyon]

It really is way less scary than it looks, I swear.

I am stoked for Haswell-E as well though

You guys are using nice thermal paste like arctic silver 5 right?

A simple watercooler like h100i would drop temps even more.

Also why do people bother with prime95...just intelburntest?

TIM will give maybe a 3 degree difference, but AS5 is pretty mid-tier these days. It's about on par with most of the TIM that gets bundled with the popular heatsinks. The quality of the mount and how well the TIM is spread will have a greater effect than the quality of TIM.

H100i would not drop temps even more, because the issue with Haswell is between the actual die and heat spreader. They use crappy TIM, and might even have a gap between the TIM and the actual heat spreader. Pretty shoddy design, hence Devil's Canyon.

For example, I hit a heatwall at only 4.2GHz with an EK Supremacy waterblock, which is much more efficient than the H100i. After a delid, I mounted the block directly to the CPU die. Now it sits at a nice 65 degrees at 4.4/1.23V.

IBT is just too damn hot for Haswell, and will exacerbate the heatwall issue that shouldn't be a concern for even something as taxing as encoding. Small FFT covers that really well.

 

[plasmawave]

I use HWMonitor, but there was one that was listed fairly recently by someone that was way better. I keep forgetting what it was called though

Thanks!

 

[kiyomi]

This seems like a pretty good deal for anyone looking to get onboard Z97 with a full ATX motherboard.

Asus Z97 Sabertooth - £131.67 - Dispatched in 1 to 2 months.

To put it in context the Z87 with the "thermal armour" is £175.

I hope there's a similar deal on the Gryphon when it comes out, since I'm going mATX and that seems like the board for me.

 

[mkenyon]

Why the Gryphon in particular?

 

[Sword Of Doom]

To be fair 4.7 is an uncommonly high OC for haswell. Even still, OC your K series processors people, it is what you paid for.

Yes I lucked out with the CPU but even 4.2-4.4 is a significant boost and it really is fairly easy. One thing I would like to suggest is since Haswell runs so hot for people to stay away from prime95 if they're cooling with air. I personally have been using ROG bench which basically runs cpu intensive applications like handbrake to stress the system. Basically non synthetic stress testing Is what I would suggest.

 

[kiyomi]

Why the Gryphon in particular?

As a newcomer to this I like the 5-year warranty, it's something that's quite important to me and it just looks like an unfussy board from a hardware standpoint.

However it's far from perfect, it looks like it has pretty bog-standard audio and maybe not as much connectivity as some other boards. If I could afford it I'd move up to the Gene, and Z87M-Plus is only £10 cheaper. So the Gryphon sits in the middle of the Asus line and looks just.. solid.

I'll happily take any recommendations though, I'm waiting for Z97.

 

[Jordan]

Is anyone else in the UK, mainly London based struggling to decide on a Mechanical Keyboard, purely because of the lack of shops that sell them or have them out for testing?

I have used only red switches and would love to try others before committing to a keyboard, I don't want to have to order something and then decide that I do not like it and have to send it back.

On the other hand however, I am quite excited for the Corsair MX RGB keyboard - I know it is really gimmicky but it looks so cool:

Other than that, cannot decide on what keyboard I want

 

[Nzyme32]

I stumbled across this site that helps for PC building and pricing, particularly useful for beginners. Perhaps it will be useful to some of you.

http://www.logicalincrements.com/

 

[michaelius]

This seems like a pretty good deal for anyone looking to get onboard Z97 with a full ATX motherboard.

Asus Z97 Sabertooth - £131.67 - Dispatched in 1 to 2 months.

To put it in context the Z87 with the "thermal armour" is £175.

I hope there's a similar deal on the Gryphon when it comes out, since I'm going mATX and that seems like the board for me.

Waste of money - why spend so much when MSI gaming 5 or Asrock Extreme 4/Killer will have anything you need for good overclocking.

 

[adamantypants]

Yes I lucked out with the CPU but even 4.2-4.4 is a significant boost and it really is fairly easy. One thing I would like to suggest is since Haswell runs so hot for people to stay away from prime95 if they're cooling with air. I personally have been using ROG bench which basically runs cpu intensive applications like handbrake to stress the system. Basically non synthetic stress testing Is what I would suggest.

I'm not with popular opinion with air coolers here; IMO they're perfectly fine. The highest end air coolers are on par with a lot of the AIO water coolers while still being cheaper and usually quieter. Big caveat is the huge size of an air cooler. I have a Phanteks cooler and at 4.4ghz @ 1.23v after 2 hours of prime I never go higher than maybe low to mid 60s C. That's with my room temperature at like 85 F (stupid Vegas summers).

 

[kiyomi]

Waste of money - why spend so much when MSI gaming 5 or Asrock Extreme 4/Killer will have anything you need for good overclocking.

I'm just pointing it out as a reasonable deal considering how much they usually cost. I wasn't trying to vouch for the product or anything.

 

[Seanspeed]

Might not be completely relevant, but I've had decent results recording my guitars with the Rocksmith cable if you happen to own that game. I plugged it in not unlike using an A2D converter with my normal setup. That mic though looks pretty serious, I'd be very interested to know how it fares.

That's pretty interesting. I've been interested in Rocksmith to play around with, but its always seemed more geared towards beginners. But it looks like it'd be a fun little tool to mess around with the amps and effects it has and whatnot. I've seen it with the cord quite cheap and have been tempted but I might actually check it out knowing I can record stuff with it.

And yea, the mic I got isn't exactly budget, but its hardly a high end, or even studio quality mic really. Its just a good middle ground, I think.

I'll probably record some stuff with it and post it after I've dialled in a sound/mix that I'm reasonably happy with. I think Felix Lighter might enjoy some of the stuff I post, assuming it turns out alright!

Is anyone else in the UK, mainly London based struggling to decide on a Mechanical Keyboard, purely because of the lack of shops that sell them or have them out for testing?

Indeed I am in that situation. Never tried a mechanical keyboard at all and have a hard time understanding what's so great about them, but I also do spend a lot of time typing and using the keyboard in general, so would be interested in knowing what I'm missing out on.

I went through the same problem with monitors and ended up just having to take the plunge on something. I dislike having to return stuff myself, and I did have to do that initially, but in the end, after a bit of hassle, I found something I liked.

You'll probably just have to do the same thing here. Order from Amazon if you can help it, since they have such a simple and convenient return policy.

 

[LordAlu]

Is anyone else in the UK, mainly London based struggling to decide on a Mechanical Keyboard, purely because of the lack of shops that sell them or have them out for testing?

I have used only red switches and would love to try others before committing to a keyboard, I don't want to have to order something and then decide that I do not like it and have to send it back.

On the other hand however, I am quite excited for the Corsair MX RGB keyboard - I know it is really gimmicky but it looks so cool:

Other than that, cannot decide on what keyboard I want

You say it's gimmicky, but people would jump on it. In our showroom we have a Ducky Shine keyboard that is outfitted with four different Cherry MX key types and all the different colour LEDs Ducky do their keyboard in, and the number of people who ask how much it is is astounding - unfortunately it's a demo unit and not in production. I might get our purchaser to grab one of them for us as soon as they're released to display because I'm pretty sure that would sell easily.

 

[mkenyon]

As a newcomer to this I like the 5-year warranty, it's something that's quite important to me and it just looks like an unfussy board from a hardware standpoint.

However it's far from perfect, it looks like it has pretty bog-standard audio and maybe not as much connectivity as some other boards. If I could afford it I'd move up to the Gene, and Z87M-Plus is only £10 cheaper. So the Gryphon sits in the middle of the Asus line and looks just.. solid.

I'll happily take any recommendations though, I'm waiting for Z97.

I'd go for the GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 or Z97M Gaming for a full featured mATX board that isn't the Gene, which is my favorite too

I'm not with popular opinion with air coolers here; IMO they're perfectly fine. The highest end air coolers are on par with a lot of the AIO water coolers while still being cheaper and usually quieter. Big caveat is the huge size of an air cooler. I have a Phanteks cooler and at 4.4ghz @ 1.23v after 2 hours of prime I never go higher than maybe low to mid 60s C. That's with my room temperature at like 85 F (stupid Vegas summers).

I don't think anyone would disagree with your points.

IMO, they're just a giant pain in the ass. It says a lot when it's easier to work around a custom liquid cooled system than a Phanteks/Noctua/Thermalright monstrosity. I remember vividly the day I swore them off. I was swapping out a CPU on my Phenom II/Crosshair IV system. When unscrewing the Venomous X, it came loose and bent two rows of pins on the proc as it swung down. Then when installing the new proc, I forgot to plug the 8 Pin CPU power back in before getting the heatsink seated. So I had to pull the whole thing off again in order to make room for my hand to fit in there.

Fuck that noise.

I ended up using one on my bench rig (Megahalems), because that was obviously much easier to work around considering the motherboard was otherwise exposed.

 

[plasmawave]

Hmmm, so I've tried to play Deus Ex again and NOPE! The game shut down my PC when the actual game started. Same for Far Cry Blood Dragon.
I'm starting to think it's my PSU and hope it's not the CPU.

 

[dwells]

What socket is the motherboard that came in the lot? AM2+, AM3?

It's a GA-870A-UD3 - AM3 socket, compatible with DDR3 1866 MHz, USB 3.0, built-in function to unlock the Phenom II X2 555 BE, etc.

 

[kiyomi]

I'd go for the GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 or Z97M Gaming for a full featured mATX board that isn't the Gene, which is my favorite too

I'll check those out, thanks.

 

[Jordan]

Indeed I am in that situation. Never tried a mechanical keyboard at all and have a hard time understanding what's so great about them, but I also do spend a lot of time typing and using the keyboard in general, so would be interested in knowing what I'm missing out on.

I went through the same problem with monitors and ended up just having to take the plunge on something. I dislike having to return stuff myself, and I did have to do that initially, but in the end, after a bit of hassle, I found something I liked.

You'll probably just have to do the same thing here. Order from Amazon if you can help it, since they have such a simple and convenient return policy.

I've got a contact at Overclockers but unfortunately I will probably have to pay to return it if I didn't like it. Which is what's putting me off.

You say it's gimmicky, but people would jump on it. In our showroom we have a Ducky Shine keyboard that is outfitted with four different Cherry MX key types and all the different colour LEDs Ducky do their keyboard in, and the number of people who ask how much it is is astounding - unfortunately it's a demo unit and not in production. I might get our purchaser to grab one of them for us as soon as they're released to display because I'm pretty sure that would sell easily.

Yeah, I have been looking at the Ducky Shine 3 with Orange LEDs but it seems like such a simple keyboard and it's not all that aesthetically pleasing to look at.

The few I've got in mind are either not released yet or having never seen or heard of them before feeling a little nervous about putting the payment down.

Cooler Master Quickfire Rapid-I:

Corsair MX RGB:

Das Keyboard 4 Professional: