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"I Need a New PC!" 2014 Part 2. Read OP, your 2500K will run Witcher 3. MX100s! 970!

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Milly79

Member
This may be a really stupid question, but I'm looking to upgrade to 12gb of ram. I currently have this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231546

and am looking at picking this up:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...717&cm_re=g.skill_ares-_-20-231-717-_-Product

I notice the models are different, as well as some of the specs. Will I be able to throw this in with no problems?

Could anyone please answer this? I don't want to buy ram that isn't compatible with my other sticks.
 

Milly79

Member
I don't see any different specs. It looks like the same exact RAM, just in a 4GB variety.

Timing had 24 on the 4gb, I didn't see those on the other 4s I had. Plus, the model number was different. Regardless, I'm a noob when it comes to tech specs and I appreciate you responding quickly. :)
 

hipbabboom

Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
Nothing has gone wrong (yet?) but I'm becoming increasingly nervous I'm able to overcook my 3930K and the 290 off of a 500W fanless PSU with no consequences. Other people who've been running a similar config... does it last?
 

tarheel91

Member
Timing had 24 on the 4gb, I didn't see those on the other 4s I had. Plus, the model number was different. Regardless, I'm a noob when it comes to tech specs and I appreciate you responding quickly. :)

Reading the model number and thinking about what it means is what I do.

F3-1600C9S-4GAB
F3-1600 C9 Latency Single Slot -4GB AB (AB is Ares Series related most likely)

F3-1600C9D-8GAB

F3-1600 C9 Latency Dual Slot -8GB AB

The final timing is just missing from the 8GB card. Plus, you can manually adjust timings if need to be.

http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-1600c9s-4gab
http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-1600c9d-8gab

Nothing has gone wrong (yet?) but I'm becoming increasingly nervous I'm able to overcook my 3930K and the 290 off of a 500W fanless PSU with no consequences. Other people who've been running a similar config... does it last?

You're getting dangerously close. Max overclock on both brings you right around 500W. If you don't touch voltage you should probably be okay, but why not just get a bigger PSU.
 

hipbabboom

Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
Reading the model number and thinking about what it means is what I do.

F3-1600C9S-4GAB
F3-1600 C9 Latency Single Slot -4GB AB (AB is Ares Series related most likely)

F3-1600C9D-8GAB

F3-1600 C9 Latency Dual Slot -8GB AB

The final timing is just missing from the 8GB card. Plus, you can manually adjust timings if need to be.

http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-1600c9s-4gab
http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-1600c9d-8gab



You're getting dangerously close. Max overclock on both brings you right around 500W. If you don't touch voltage you should probably be okay, but why not just get a bigger PSU.

I'll leave the voltage alone. I dont want to pour any more money into this hardware. I've building a war chest for late 2015/2016. I hope this upgrade does well till then
 

mkenyon

Banned
Hello everyone, I have a few questions concerning water-cooling and monitors.

Firstly, is the Kraken X61 worth it? or should I just stick with the Kraken X41? I'm planing on overclocking my i5 3570k and I was just curious what kind of temperature improvements I'd see with the X61 vs the X41. I'm currently running an aftermarket air cooler.

Secondly, I'm looking at getting a new monitor and my original plan was to get an ASUS VG248QE and put a G-Sync unit in it later. My friend tells me that 1080 wouldn't be worth it and I should focus on saving for a 4k monitor (possibly something imported from Korea), but my issue with that is I'd loose out on the benefits of G-Sync unless I wanted to shell out the cash for a 4k monitor with G-Sync equipped. My question is which route should I take, buy the ASUS VG248QE and get G-Sync, buy a 4k monitor, or do something different? I currently only have a GTX 570, but I'm planing on jumping up to an 880 once Nvidia releases the Maxwell cards.

Another thing with the monitor... When something like Star Citizen comes out I'm guessing I wont be able to play it at 4k with settings maxed on an 880, but would I be able to do that on a 1080 monitor? I'd really like to see this game in all its glory, so would it be worth doing the 4k and a little less perfomance/graphical quality, or the 1080 with the game maxed or nearly maxed out?
My crystal ball says, "Ask again later." :p

For the prior paragraph, your 570 will not be able to push games at 4K at all. A good middle ground would be the RoG Swift that was just soft launched. 1440p/120Hz/G-Sync. Due out later this month. Your 570 is not G-Sync compatible though. You can still run it at 120Hz though, which already makes it amazing.
True. I'm just a little leery about the 8GB as I'm a big MMO gamer and I'm not convinced 8 will be sufficient.
You can add more RAM later. But as noted, CPU is really really important for MMOs.

*edit*

Specifically, CPUs that are clocked to the nines. Threads aren't needed, IPC is king.
 

tarheel91

Member
Nothing has gone wrong (yet?) but I'm becoming increasingly nervous I'm able to overcook my 3930K and the 290 off of a 500W fanless PSU with no consequences. Other people who've been running a similar config... does it last?

My crystal ball says, "Ask again later." :p

For the prior paragraph, your 570 will not be able to push games at 4K at all. A good middle ground would be the RoG Swift that was just soft launched. 1440p/120Hz/G-Sync. Due out later this month. Your 570 is not G-Sync compatible though. You can still run it at 120Hz though, which already makes it amazing.

You can add more RAM later. But as noted, CPU is really really important for MMOs.

*edit*

Specifically, CPUs that are clocked to the nines. Threads aren't needed, IPC is king.

Newer MMOs are doing a better job of using cores. Sony Online games (which used to suck) are a lot better now. Still very true/useful though.
 

The Llama

Member
Just got my BenQ XL2411Z 144Hz monitor, and oh my god. 144Hz gaming is so good. First thing I played was Titanfall, and somehow with everything maxed out plus 4x AA, my R9 290 kept it at 144Hz 95% of the time (lowest it went was like 120 fps), and wow it was so good.
 

Mrbob

Member
What say you, PCers?

R9 290 + 8GB ram

OR

R9 280x + 16GB ram?

1080p/60fps objective, fwiw.

R290 and 8GB of Ram.

True. I'm just a little leery about the 8GB as I'm a big MMO gamer and I'm not convinced 8 will be sufficient.

Is there any game that needs more desktop memory? Seems video memory will be more important in the future and the R290 has 4GB of memory. If you need 16GB of desktop memory it is pretty easy to add 8GB more in the future.
 
You can add more RAM later. But as noted, CPU is really really important for MMOs.

*edit*

Specifically, CPUs that are clocked to the nines. Threads aren't needed, IPC is king.

I'm deciding between the 4690K and the 4790K. Do you think the 4790K would make a difference in an MMO?
 
I want to venture into the land of 120hz monitors but I have no idea where to start. Going to upgrade to SLI in the near future so I figure why the hell not.

Is it worth getting a monitor with a native res higher than 1920x1080 as well as 120hz? Or can I get by with forced down sampling on a 1920x1080 monitor?
 

mkenyon

Banned
I'm deciding between the 4690K and the 4790K. Do you think the 4790K would make a difference in an MMO?
Not likely, no. Not in any current MMOs at least.

Well, at stock, a 4790K runs at 4.2GHz, so thats where the advantage would be. But clock for clock, there wouldn't be any difference. Ideally, get the chip as high as it can go, hopefully 4.5-4.6 GHz.
I want to venture into the land of 120hz monitors but I have no idea where to start. Going to upgrade to SLI in the near future so I figure why the hell not.

Is it worth getting a monitor with a native res higher than 1920x1080 as well as 120hz? Or can I get by with forced down sampling on a 1920x1080 monitor?
Depends on the SLI setup in specific. The only good 120Hz panel with >1080p res is the RoG Swift at $800 though.

The OP is a bit outdated, but, some good info here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=720113

Need to add in the XL2411Z, and drop the QNIX. There's a ton of recent reports on the QNIX not being able to go much higher than 75Hz.
 
So I took the plunge today and picked up an i5-4690k and ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark II Motherboard today from Microcenter to upgrade from my i5-760 and took a break to eat dinner.
And the power went out. Shit.
 

thecheese

Member
Alright, this is what I put together:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($249.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($74.24 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($169.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($109.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital RE 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($145.50 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital RE 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($145.50 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Arc Mini R2 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair RM 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1175.17
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

The two RE drives are enterprise quality. You can run them in RAID0 on your SATA 3GB controller. The Xeon is basically an i7, in terms of performance at the given frequency, and a lot less expensive. Fast memory + fast proc + solid start to storage = a system you can use for a loooooong time. It won't destroy games, but it will be a damn fine performer.

Good call on the Xeon, thanks for your help. Take a look at my build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/hGsJgs

Let me know if you think I should change something. I just went with one 2TB for storage, that should be plenty. Plus I have a 1tb external.. I may look into a RAID setup later, but I think I'll hold off for now.
 

Cels

Member
Nearly done ordering all the parts, just waiting for stuff to get here. I have just the cpu, psu, and mobo in hand right now.

CPU: i5 4690k (bundled with mobo for $300)
Mobo: ASRock Fatal1ty Z97
RAM: Haven't ordered yet
GPU: XFX Double D R9 280X ($230 AR)
SSD: PNY Optima 240GB ($70 AR)
HDD: Haven't ordered yet
Case: Carbide Air 540 Arctic (bundled with 3 Cougar CFV12H Vortex HDB 120mm Case Fans, $90 AR)
PSU: Seasonic S12G 650W ($70 AR)
Optical Drive: Haven't ordered yet
Cooler: CM Hyper 212 Plus ($20 AR)
 

Diablos

Member
IPC IPC IPC IPC.

Tons of games still benefit from higher clock speed. I know you dont think it makes a difference, but it really does. I swear it.

Basically you want a 4790K and probably a GTX 760 or 750 Ti. If you don't already have a NAS/RAID storage solution, then you'll need to account for that prior to figuring out the rest of the build.
Haha. I know it makes a difference. We always argued about how _much_ matters iirc. I will concede I was sticking to my AMD guns a bit too much previously. That said the 6300 is a great value. Amazed to see it still selling. I am actually kind of pissed; part of me wants to just replace my GPU. But what if my board and/or PSU is stressing components? The 970A-G46 is notorious for taking other components with it when it fails. I won't know until I spend another $250 at least on a new GPU if this is the case. Why risk that? Which makes me want to just forget about it and start from scratch. I wish I never bought this board. I really wanted to stick with the 6300 for another year or two. I guess I could find another board but that's just such a huge waste.


ARGH.
 

swoon

Member
so if we have a i5-2400 for whatever reason is it still OK to look to upgrade to a 750ti? or do i really need to overclock a 2500 to not bottleneck at the processor level.
 

vmartin

Neo Member
Hey, is the R9 280 a good value? Seems so at $220ish.

I haven't checked prices lately. But judging at what the 760 was last priced at... The non-X 280 is a great buy if you can find it at that price..

Edit: Yea, the Sapphire 280 for 220 is a excellent buy. Only 10-20 dollars more then a 270X which already trades blows with the GTX 760 which is already 50-60 more. Makes the R9 280 an easy choice @ $220.
 

Sir_JD

Neo Member
Gaf! I need your help.
New PC build is in the works (i7 4790K/R9 290 Tri-X), and having debated for far too long - with myself - on whether to go 1440 or 120Hz, I've finally decided on the former. The most competitive game I play at the moment is Ace of Spades, and I prefer quality videogame vistas to spinning smoothly in circles. Problem solved, right? Right?!...

Wrong. Now comes the long search for which 27" monitor to choose. I had my heart set on the Dell U2713HM, though some recent searching has brought up issues with crosshatching, which means the Viewsonic VP2770 is now my front-runner. Despite poor experiences with a 27" 1080P Viewsonic in the past.

My only major concern with any monitor is backlight bleeding and clouding. The less the better. It's the only thing that really bugs me, and I can become quite obsessive about it. Hence my hate/hate relationship with my previous 27" which suffered from serious cloudiness.

So, Gaf, any recommendations as far as 27" monitors are concerned? I'm hesitant to go with the Korean models given the horror stories I've heard. Sure, they may be one in a hundred, but I'd rather spend a little more for a little more peace of mind. Fire away!
 
Hey all, sorry for random questions, but the new build is acting a bit goofy, figured I'd ask around a bit.

I7 4770k
Gigabyte z97n-gaming 5
Samsung evo 250G SSD
seagate 650 g PSU

So I was able to install Ubuntu gnome to my SSD, then my system rebooted, and my bios doesn't acknowledge that my SSD exists. So I plug in my windows usb, and it doesn't see the SSD either.

I'm unable to find my Linux, and can't install windows. Weird.

So I'm checking my connectors to the SSD, I boot the pc, and it logs me into Ubuntu. So I'm pretty stoked because I figured it was a cable issue, I close that baby up, browse gaf for a bit, then shut down the computer.

Now I want to bask in the sweet glow of SSD installs, so I boot the pc up again, and bios can't find my drive.

Sorry for the long winded story, but I'm kind of clueless here.
 
Gaf! I need your help.
New PC build is in the works (i7 4790K/R9 290 Tri-X), and having debated for far too long - with myself - on whether to go 1440 or 120Hz, I've finally decided on the former. The most competitive game I play at the moment is Ace of Spades, and I prefer quality videogame vistas to spinning smoothly in circles. Problem solved, right? Right?!...

Wrong. Now comes the long search for which 27" monitor to choose. I had my heart set on the Dell U2713HM, though some recent searching has brought up issues with crosshatching, which means the Viewsonic VP2770 is now my front-runner. Despite poor experiences with a 27" 1080P Viewsonic in the past.

My only major concern with any monitor is backlight bleeding and clouding. The less the better. It's the only thing that really bugs me, and I can become quite obsessive about it. Hence my hate/hate relationship with my previous 27" which suffered from serious cloudiness.

So, Gaf, any recommendations as far as 27" monitors are concerned? I'm hesitant to go with the Korean models given the horror stories I've heard. Sure, they may be one in a hundred, but I'd rather spend a little more for a little more peace of mind. Fire away!

I have a brand new unopened http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009C3M7H0/?tag=neogaf0e-20 due to an error on amazon's part, hit me with a PM if interested
 

Staab

Member
Nice. Hope you manage the same results as here:

http://techreport.com/review/26735/overclocking-intel-pentium-g3258-anniversary-edition-processor

He managed to get 4.8GHz out of the G3258.
I actually still have the stock cooler, the one I wanted is out of stock, so I've been going at it conservatively for a bit :
tried keeping the voltage as low as possible, currently keeping it below 1.25V and I have the G3258 running @ 4.3 Ghz with temps hovering around 69°C under stress tests and RAM @ 1600.
Things are snappy, haven't noticed any issues and I was very pleasantly surprised with the couple of games I tried, steady FPS and almost double what I had with my Phenom X2 BE on the most recent ones.

So yeah, fairly happy with that at the moment, will get into heavier OCing once I get better cooling !
 

Lumine

Member
I'm about to delve into overclocking my CPU for the first time. The guide in the OP is really confusing to me though and many sections seem to be for options I'd rather not mess with anyway. I'd like to keep it simple if possible. Can I just increase the multiplier from 35 to something like 42 or 44 on my 4690k and leave everything as is? Will I be fine doing simply that or do I need to increase voltages and mess with other settings as well? Also how many degrees is fine for the cpu to run at? I think it runs at ~45 degrees celcius right now which seems a little hot already. I have an Asus Z97-A board by the way. Thanks in advance guys!
 

kharma45

Member
I'm about to delve into overclocking my CPU for the first time. The guide in the OP is really confusing to me though and many sections seem to be for options I'd rather not mess with anyway. I'd like to keep it simple if possible. Can I just increase the multiplier from 35 to something like 42 or 44 on my 4690k and leave everything as is? Will I be fine doing simply that or do I need to increase voltages and mess with other settings as well? Also how many degrees is fine for the cpu to run at? I think it runs at ~45 degrees celcius right now which seems a little hot already. I have an Asus Z97-A board by the way. Thanks in advance guys!

You'll likely need voltage increases for that. You can try, but it'll probs crash. Change to 40 would be doable without more volts.

CPU temp wise running Prime95 80-85c is as high as you'd want to go.
 

Pand

Member

kennah

Member
Hey guys, I'm building an HTPC for a friend of mine, could someone take a look at this build for improvements and to see if I'm missing something? It's the first time I'm putting together something like this so I'm not sure if I'm doing it right.

http://azerty.nl/winkelmandje/winkelmandje/?legen=1&product%5B634561%5D=1&product%5B7517%5D=1&product%5B528324%5D=1&product%5B620116%5D=1&product%5B613824%5D=1&product%5B629110%5D=1&product%5B688179%5D=1&product%5B383364%5D=1&product%5B678971%5D=1
That case only supports half height video cards and as far as I know there are no half height 750tis yet.
 
Hello GAF! I recently bought an off the shelf medion PC, which has an a8 5500 apu 8gb ram. It has a PCI slot for upgrading the graphics card and wondered if someone can recommend the best card that would work with it to play modern games at a mediumish level. I have between £150 to £200 to spend Has a 450w PSU. Thanks!
 

Dries

Member
I'm about to delve into overclocking my CPU for the first time. The guide in the OP is really confusing to me though and many sections seem to be for options I'd rather not mess with anyway. I'd like to keep it simple if possible. Can I just increase the multiplier from 35 to something like 42 or 44 on my 4690k and leave everything as is? Will I be fine doing simply that or do I need to increase voltages and mess with other settings as well? Also how many degrees is fine for the cpu to run at? I think it runs at ~45 degrees celcius right now which seems a little hot already. I have an Asus Z97-A board by the way. Thanks in advance guys!

Increasing your Voltage (Vcore) is something that you'll always want to do. A manual Vcore is always better than the "AUTO" Vcore. Basically what you're looking for: the highest clock ratio/multiplier running on the lowest Vcore. Your Vcore setting influences your temperatures a big deal, so that's why you want to be sure you Vcore is a low as can be while still feeding enough volts to keep your CPU stable. You can test stability with programs such as Prime95 and OCCT.
 
Hello GAF! I recently bought an off the shelf medion PC, which has an a8 5500 apu 8gb ram. It has a PCI slot for upgrading the graphics card and wondered if someone can recommend the best card that would work with it to play modern games at a mediumish level. I have between £150 to £200 to spend Has a 450w PSU. Thanks!
How many amps on your PSU's 12V rail? It should be listed on the side of the PSU.
 

Diablos

Member
Is there supposed to be a link with this? :)
Check newegg.

I haven't checked prices lately. But judging at what the 760 was last priced at... The non-X 280 is a great buy if you can find it at that price..

Edit: Yea, the Sapphire 280 for 220 is a excellent buy. Only 10-20 dollars more then a 270X which already trades blows with the GTX 760 which is already 50-60 more. Makes the R9 280 an easy choice @ $220.
Thanks. I really want a 770 or similar but hoping prices drop soon.

There's really no reason for the 660 to be sold anymore.

Do ATI's drivers still suck?
 

Lumine

Member
You'll likely need voltage increases for that. You can try, but it'll probs crash. Change to 40 would be doable without more volts.

CPU temp wise running Prime95 80-85c is as high as you'd want to go.
Increasing your Voltage (Vcore) is something that you'll always want to do. A manual Vcore is always better than the "AUTO" Vcore. Basically what you're looking for: the highest clock ratio/multiplier running on the lowest Vcore. Your Vcore setting influences your temperatures a big deal, so that's why you want to be sure you Vcore is a low as can be while still feeding enough volts to keep your CPU stable. You can test stability with programs such as Prime95 and OCCT.

Thanks guys. I guess I can just up the vcore a little and the core multiplier and see if it remains stable. Except when I took a look at the bios I left even more confused. Couldn't find the setting to change it at first, but I think it shows up when I change the XMP profile to manual? Not sure. I also somehow changed something else without realizing it and windows wouldn't load anymore. Had to reset to defaults. I guess this isn't going to be as easy as I hoped. :(
 

Pand

Member
That case only supports half height video cards and as far as I know there are no half height 750tis yet.

Alright, I'll look into that, thanks. I'll probably look for another case, then. This is turning out to be a real puzzle.
 

Dries

Member
Thanks guys. I guess I can just up the vcore a little and the core multiplier and see if it remains stable. Except when I took a look at the bios I left even more confused. Couldn't find the setting to change it at first, but I think it shows up when I change the XMP profile to manual? Not sure. I also somehow changed something else without realizing it and windows wouldn't load anymore. Had to reset to defaults. I guess this isn't going to be as easy as I hoped. :(

Which Mobo do you have? Different manufactuers have different layouts, so I can't really help you unless you have a GIGABYTE mobo.

Also, I wouldn't let your Vcore go higher that 1.35V at this point. Just to be safe.
 

Lumine

Member
It's an Asus Z97-A.

The XMP profile makes it seem that max ratio is already set at 44. Could it mean that by default the mobo/bios is already set to automatically overclock when busy? I somehow doubt it though.
 

Grums

Neo Member
Hey,

Can anyone recommed a decent CPU/MOBO for a budget. Main main concern is GPU and RAM, as its for 3D rendering. I currently have the old Q6600, would like a step up from this.

What is the i5 3570k like? Hows it compare to a i5 2500k? Also, what should I be looking for in a motherboard?

Thanks!
 

kharma45

Member
Hey,

Can anyone recommed a decent CPU/MOBO for a budget. Main main concern is GPU and RAM, as its for 3D rendering. I currently have the old Q6600, would like a step up from this.

What is the i5 3570k like? Hows it compare to a i5 2500k? Also, what should I be looking for in a motherboard?

Thanks!

You should be looking at the 4670K and 4690K over those two.

Motherboard wise any from the OP are fine. You want to match it with a Z97 board.
 
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