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"I Need a New PC!" 2015 Part 2. Read the OP. Rocking 2500K's until HBM2 and beyond.
- Thread starter Hazaro
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Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
I have a i7 of some sort and a GTX 650 that came with the computer I bought last year which I am using. Is this better than my Ps4? If not, what kind of card should I get? I'll probably need to upgrade my power source if I get a new card. I'm also considering getting a Steam Link.
opticalmace
Member
I'd say maybe. What video card do you have and what resolution do you play at?
gt 730 perhaps?
970 SLI.
opticalmace
Member
I'd lean towards no probably. What resolution?
opticalmace
Member
I assume also 60 Hz. I would lean towards a new monitor, maybe a 1440p 144Hz g-sync one, instead of a cpu upgrade.
In terms of average framerate you'll probably see little to no difference, but you might get smoother overall experiences with lower frametimes. If I were you, I'd just save my money and not bother upgrading the CPU.
Depends on your actual PC specs. If you don't know what they are, you can find out most of them with a program like Speccy. To find out what power supply you have, you'll need to take off the computer's side panel and look at the information label on the side of the power supply.
Your graphics card could be upgraded if you like. Eurogamer does a lot of PC to console comparisons, and they usually tend to recommend the GTX 750 Ti as a baseline card that can achieve console quality graphics in their articles for games like The Witcher 3 and GTAV. Do you know if you have the GTX 650 Ti or just the GTX 650? Whichever one you have, clicking on those links will show you a general comparison of how well each card compares to the GTX 750 Ti.
I agree with opticalmace, if the computer has integrated graphics, that should work just fine for her needs. Any model numbers you see on the computer on the inside or outside?
Can you check the back of the PC to see if there's a video connector on the motherboard, separate from where the graphics card is installed? If there is, you can remove the dead 8800GT and plug the monitor into that other video connector to get the PC working again.
Well, laptop parts are also engineered for higher energy efficiency, lower power consumption, and to specifically run straight from a single battery. If you break it down to the most basic parts, you will find that you will have a hard time trying to power a desktop PC with a battery as the motherboard and other parts in the computer need to have at least three different voltages (3.3V, 5V, 12V) for various purposes.
And if you want a portable desktop PC, you'll find that higher performing parts invariably generate more heat under load, which means you'll need better cooling and ventilation. Small PCs are nice, but there's always some sort of drawback. Building a larger PC is easier and cheaper than a compact PC.
CharpyImpact
Member
Hi All,
I have been RMAing my Gigabyte for the last 4 months (4th time now). They gave me a 280X, which again failed to work. They are now offering me a 960 or 380. From the looks of it, they are less powerful than the 280x. Is it worth getting either of these, or should I just ask for them to send me a different 280x?
-Dan
I have been RMAing my Gigabyte for the last 4 months (4th time now). They gave me a 280X, which again failed to work. They are now offering me a 960 or 380. From the looks of it, they are less powerful than the 280x. Is it worth getting either of these, or should I just ask for them to send me a different 280x?
-Dan
opticalmace
Member
Out of curiosity, what kind of failure? Have they verified that the video cards they sent you were defective? With that many failures I would suspect something else in your rig is the culprit.
The Athlon X4 processor is quite underpowered, you will have a difficult time playing the latest games at 2560x1080. What's your budget? I assume you want to purchase everything from Digitec.ch?
If you're sick and tired of going through the RMA process, just go with either of the new cards. The difference between the 280X and GTX 960/R9 380 isn't that great that I feel it's worth going through 4 months of RMA procedures. TPU's performance chart at 1080p says the 280X is only marginally faster than the R9 380.
Finaika
Member
Wait for Pascal.
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Is there any software out there that can test a hard drive without an OS?
As in: put it on a USB stick and make it bootable?
As in: put it on a USB stick and make it bootable?
Lots. You can put operating systems onto a USB drive and run it on the PC without needing a hard drive at all, like Ubuntu or countless other distros of Linux. Or were you looking for tools to test a hard drive to see if it was damaged or not working?
industrian
will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
Tools to test a hard drive.
There's a Linux OS called 'Parted Magic' that can be installed on a USB stick and it runs without being installed to a HD. It contains tools to do a lot of things like run diagnostics, zero-fill drives, format / partition, web browsing etc etc etc.
It used to be free but nowadays costs something like $9 but I think it's worth it. Some people just torrent the latest version (2015_11_13) but let's not talk about that since it's against the rules and kinda shitty.
JHoNNy1OoO
Member
It's a Dell XPS 420 with a Q6600 chip, bought the PC off a friend for $300 quite awhile ago. I checked for a DVI or even a VGA and nothing is on that motherboard. So I have to buy a video card. I know I can just choose whichever sub $50 and it'll do the job but I rather have some people who have been keeping up with the tech to recommend one to avoid underpowered cards or crappy rebranded ones at that price.
Thanks again.
There's Seatools for DOS that will boot from a disc or USB drive and work for any hard drive. Western Digital also has their Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for DOS program, but it will only scan WD hard drives.
Unfortunately, most common hard drive testing programs only run in Windows. One way to get around that is to get a bootable copy of Windows and put that on a USB drive. Once you have that running, then you can run any hard drive testing programs you want. Here's a Windows 10 PE that will load from USB drive that you can run programs with.
Unknown Soldier
Member
I received my
I can't wait to put it in my PC and gain
I can't wait to put it in my PC and gain
opticalmace
Member
2016 thread won't be up on 1st so hold your horses
holiday ruined
Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
What is the best card I can get for around 250 or less? Should I wait for a price drop? How often does Nvidia drop prices?
Also I would add a section that will be updated throughout the year: 'VR Gaming Build'.
Right now all we know is that Oculus has set the standard at 4690K + GTX970. I bet there'll be a lot of discussion had throughout 2016 about tweaking a good build for VR. For an example apparently SLI is being supported really well (80% + increase in FPS) and also people will want to know what issues to avoid, which AMD parts to buy etc.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Nothing really new or exciting, Intel still has supply issues, HBM2 isn't out
The good news about Intel's Skylake supply issues is that people are discovering the (relatively) excellent value and performance of Haswell-E. I don't know if Intel planned it that way but it's hard to complain when the 6-core 5820K costs less in a lot of places than the 4-core 6700K.
Maybe buy something like
XFX Radeon R9 380X R9-380X-4255 DD XXX OC Video Card
MSI GeForce GTX 960 DirectX 12 GTX 960 2GD5T OC Video Card
When Pascal comes around next summer, buy a card from that generation and sell what you buy now.
j0hnny_385
Member
I would like to see this, too.
I suggest something like:
"Hazaro Seal of Quality"
"RGM79 - VR ready"
on the builds.
'bout time we start branding this thread, brehs.
<3 you PC GAF.
Have a great new year and may the sillicon gods bless us in 2016!
ISee
Member
Not too often. Prices for high end nvidia cards are even going up a bit, at least in europe. As mentioned by komplanen you have two options. The 380x and the 960. The 380x is the faster card though. So in this price segment I'd recommend the amd card to be honest, but if you plan to go with nvidia get at least a 960 model with 4gb of vram. Also spending the extra 20-30 bucks for a good costume design is worth it.
sapphire r9 380x
ASUS STRIX GeForce GTX 960 Overclocked 4 GB
DF 380x vs 960
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJpy9hlfIkA
Thanks to everyone who helped me, my build is now complete! Between this and my PS4 I now feel like I don't have to miss anything that I might enjoy. Another question I have though is what is GAF's choice for monitoring temperatures? Looking to keep an eye on that for at least a bit.
Aztechnology
Member
Hey Gaf, I've recently been playing a lot of sim games, chiefly Arma III and Star Citizen. I also stream and have simply come to realize my current CPU the I5 4670k just isn't cutting it for these games, much less both concurrently. I know Skylake-E isn't that far off, but I'm not sure I'll be able to afford that upgrade when it drops anyway. So in the meantime I'm currently looking at a newegg bundle for a Intel 5820k. I tried to have them price match the CPU to Micro Center ($319.99 currently), but they declined. They did however offer my a $25 gift certificate as a trade off. Is this a good deal for me? Is there a better alternative I'm missing, or should I grab it?
Important Notes
*GPU Isn't the issue, I have a 970 and the games get next to no performance increase when lowering graphics settings, even to very low.
*I've got a healthy overclock of 4.6 ghz running at sub 45c temps when under %100 usage (Which I hit frequently). So Overclocking won't get me any farther.
Important Notes
*GPU Isn't the issue, I have a 970 and the games get next to no performance increase when lowering graphics settings, even to very low.
*I've got a healthy overclock of 4.6 ghz running at sub 45c temps when under %100 usage (Which I hit frequently). So Overclocking won't get me any farther.
Wowfunhappy
Member
While there's pretty much no way you'll be able to power a desktop with a battery, I'm not sure that your original idea was flawedyou certainly can build small form factor PC's, they just need to be plugged in to an external power source. Since you were planning on being able to plug in a monitor anyway, I'd imagine this wouldn't be a deal breaker...?
A laptop might still end up being better, but it's worth investigating. Also, while you can't build this yourself, have you looked into something like an Intel NUC?
Aztechnology
Member
I feel the need to rant.
I built a new Skylake PC three months ago with money from a new job I started about half a year ago. It has an i7 6700K, NH-D15 cooler, GTX 980 Ti, and an Asus Z170-Pro Gaming motherboard. All of the parts came together at around late September.
It worked just fine, and then in late November one day, it crashed at the desktop and reboots. It stops booting to Windows. When it gets to the loading screen of any OS, it just turns to a black screen after a few seconds and reboots. It can get to the BIOS menu, but not much else. I swapped out all the parts I could and I couldn't determine why. Tried every BIOS setting that seemed relevant, as well as loading default BIOS settings and flashing many BIOS updates, but nothing worked. It fails to even boot to any bootable USB drive. Utilities like the custom USB drive boot menu and stuff like Memtest can be loaded, but the PC won't load any OS. Safe mode worked for a while but then even that stopped loading.
I reasoned that it could be the RAM (somewhat likely), PSU (somewhat likely), the motherboard (most likely), or the processor (unlikely). Memtest86+ tells me no errors, the RAM seems fine. For a while I thought something could be shorting the motherboard, but it remained stable no matter how long it was at the BIOS, it only failed when it tried to boot to an OS. For one brief shining moment I managed to boot into Windows again when I swapped power supplies with an Antec Earthwatts 750 watt PSU I had lying around. Then I couldn't get it to work again no matter what. I ruled out the power supply because my handheld PSU tester tells me there's nothing wrong with either of them, and neither do the BIOS menu readouts for voltages.
I RMA'd the motherboard. There's complaints online about it not being stable, so I figure it'll probably solve my issues. Asus accepts my RMA, I paid $30 for shipping costs, and I wait. I get the replacement motherboard in the mail a week or two later. Got back a different motherboard of the same model. I can tell it's different because it has a different serial number and well, it seems to be completely new. It also comes with all of the expected accessories like SATA cables and whatnot, so I guess I get a little something for my $30. Asus never told me if they found anything wrong with my initial motherboard, the support ticket doesn't tell me anything.
Nothing changed, I still have that damn problem. Can't boot to anything. I get discouraged and go back to my old PC, but use my new parts with it. It's funny having a Pentium G3258 and a GTX 980 Ti together.
Anyway, I think maybe it's still the motherboard. I'll try a different manufacturer. I waited for a sale and ordered a Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI and it arrived yesterday. I put everything together about an hour ago, press the button.. And it still fails to boot. Reboots by itself at the exact same point. Goddamn it all to hell.
Well, I start exploring the BIOS because I'm interested in what Gigabyte UEFI looks like. I've had my fill of Asus' and MSI's UEFI BIOS after building PCs for other people, but haven't seen Gigabyte's BIOS in action yet. I'm looking at the CPU tweaking section and I see the multipliers. I figure there's no harm in trying, so I set the multiplier to 25 so the CPU runs at 2.5GHz. I restart the PC.
It fucking works. I am awestruck. At this point, I am thinking that the CPU must be defective. It will boot an OS at lower clock speeds but fail at stock speed? No idea why. There's nothing wrong with the cooling. Neither motherboard reported high CPU temperatures and at this point, I've reseated the NH-D15 heatsink and reapplied thermal paste an annoying number of times. I try a multiplier of 35 and it works. Okay, this is getting weirder.
I set a multiplier of 40 (which is the default) and it works. I am annoyed as hell but also happy at having a working PC again. Maybe it's the BIOS settings? I set everything back to default settings and it works again.
I have no idea what happened. I have no fucking clue whatsoever. I just happened to change something that shouldn't make any difference and it now works again. It is currently 2:26AM and I have stuff to do tomorrow. I'm gonna come back to this later.. and.. well shit, I have an extra motherboard on my hands that I probably don't need. I need to check and see if I can return it or possibly sell it to someone.
Edit: new plot twist, the PC will boot to OS if the CPU is set to 1.15V. The default voltage of 1.30V doesn't work. I'm still confounded.
Anyone with an i7 6700K overclocked or not wanna share their voltage settings?
I built a new Skylake PC three months ago with money from a new job I started about half a year ago. It has an i7 6700K, NH-D15 cooler, GTX 980 Ti, and an Asus Z170-Pro Gaming motherboard. All of the parts came together at around late September.
It worked just fine, and then in late November one day, it crashed at the desktop and reboots. It stops booting to Windows. When it gets to the loading screen of any OS, it just turns to a black screen after a few seconds and reboots. It can get to the BIOS menu, but not much else. I swapped out all the parts I could and I couldn't determine why. Tried every BIOS setting that seemed relevant, as well as loading default BIOS settings and flashing many BIOS updates, but nothing worked. It fails to even boot to any bootable USB drive. Utilities like the custom USB drive boot menu and stuff like Memtest can be loaded, but the PC won't load any OS. Safe mode worked for a while but then even that stopped loading.
I reasoned that it could be the RAM (somewhat likely), PSU (somewhat likely), the motherboard (most likely), or the processor (unlikely). Memtest86+ tells me no errors, the RAM seems fine. For a while I thought something could be shorting the motherboard, but it remained stable no matter how long it was at the BIOS, it only failed when it tried to boot to an OS. For one brief shining moment I managed to boot into Windows again when I swapped power supplies with an Antec Earthwatts 750 watt PSU I had lying around. Then I couldn't get it to work again no matter what. I ruled out the power supply because my handheld PSU tester tells me there's nothing wrong with either of them, and neither do the BIOS menu readouts for voltages.
I RMA'd the motherboard. There's complaints online about it not being stable, so I figure it'll probably solve my issues. Asus accepts my RMA, I paid $30 for shipping costs, and I wait. I get the replacement motherboard in the mail a week or two later. Got back a different motherboard of the same model. I can tell it's different because it has a different serial number and well, it seems to be completely new. It also comes with all of the expected accessories like SATA cables and whatnot, so I guess I get a little something for my $30. Asus never told me if they found anything wrong with my initial motherboard, the support ticket doesn't tell me anything.
Nothing changed, I still have that damn problem. Can't boot to anything. I get discouraged and go back to my old PC, but use my new parts with it. It's funny having a Pentium G3258 and a GTX 980 Ti together.
Anyway, I think maybe it's still the motherboard. I'll try a different manufacturer. I waited for a sale and ordered a Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI and it arrived yesterday. I put everything together about an hour ago, press the button.. And it still fails to boot. Reboots by itself at the exact same point. Goddamn it all to hell.
Well, I start exploring the BIOS because I'm interested in what Gigabyte UEFI looks like. I've had my fill of Asus' and MSI's UEFI BIOS after building PCs for other people, but haven't seen Gigabyte's BIOS in action yet. I'm looking at the CPU tweaking section and I see the multipliers. I figure there's no harm in trying, so I set the multiplier to 25 so the CPU runs at 2.5GHz. I restart the PC.
It fucking works. I am awestruck. At this point, I am thinking that the CPU must be defective. It will boot an OS at lower clock speeds but fail at stock speed? No idea why. There's nothing wrong with the cooling. Neither motherboard reported high CPU temperatures and at this point, I've reseated the NH-D15 heatsink and reapplied thermal paste an annoying number of times. I try a multiplier of 35 and it works. Okay, this is getting weirder.
I set a multiplier of 40 (which is the default) and it works. I am annoyed as hell but also happy at having a working PC again. Maybe it's the BIOS settings? I set everything back to default settings and it works again.
I have no idea what happened. I have no fucking clue whatsoever. I just happened to change something that shouldn't make any difference and it now works again. It is currently 2:26AM and I have stuff to do tomorrow. I'm gonna come back to this later.. and.. well shit, I have an extra motherboard on my hands that I probably don't need. I need to check and see if I can return it or possibly sell it to someone.
Edit: new plot twist, the PC will boot to OS if the CPU is set to 1.15V. The default voltage of 1.30V doesn't work. I'm still confounded.
Anyone with an i7 6700K overclocked or not wanna share their voltage settings?
j0hnny_385
Member
I build PCs for ~20+ years and this is one of the craziest stories I've read. Goddamn...
Can image the frustration, especially since it's an expensive, top notch build. Ouch.
Nothing better than carefully building a PC over a couple of hours, flicking the switch only to be greeted by the merest flicker of the fans.
Big Q here. Front room gamer @ 1080p. I've been using an i5 3550k for a couple of years now with an nvidia 660. I was anticipating a card upgrade at some point next year. Safe to assume the CPU is pretty much ok for the time being?
Big Q here. Front room gamer @ 1080p. I've been using an i5 3550k for a couple of years now with an nvidia 660. I was anticipating a card upgrade at some point next year. Safe to assume the CPU is pretty much ok for the time being?
CPU is fine. Pascal GPU should be your next upgrade. Wait until then.
EDIT: And yes, I know 1080p/60Hz TV gaming wouldn't require anything above a 970 but it's still better to wait.
Finaika
Member
Glad that its finally working for you.
Really amazed that horror stories like this could happen even to the most seasoned PC enthusiast.
I'm having a frustrating problem with my new Skylake build as well at the moment. Just installed a Sound Blaster Z a week ago and my PC randomly couldn't shutdown/sleep/hibernate properly (the screen goes black but the fans and lights are still on). Is it because of the sound card? I ordered another Sound Blaster Z (waste of money I know) just in case because I really need the sound card.
Holy FUCK, brother. I would have given up. Damn!
I'm currently having an issue with my 980ftw (evga). But I got free advanced rma because I was able to point them to the forums where the issue I was having was well documented. Even a moderator was posting on their forums about it.
Only thing is, the holidays suspend all RMAs, so I have to wait for the 5th of January to have the process start "step 2".
My GPU works, it just has an unstable clock (boost mode and in low utilization situations causing video signal loss until manually shutdown). From what I understand, the card "shuts down" because it is trying to protect itself.
And that was after building it earlier this year as well. If I had not done any research, I would have been shit out of luck.
But yea, I feel your pain brother.
ohyouagain
Member
My budget is 800 dollars and yes, I plan on buying everything from there since we lack a clear competitor in Switzerland.
The comparison is interesting, thank you. I thought the AMD CPU could hold its own against the Intel offerings around the same price range but it looks like I was wrong.
CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 (LGA 1150, 3.20GHz, Unlocked) ($78.00 @ Digitec)
CPU Cooler: -
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI (LGA 1150, H97, Mini ITX) ($119.00 @ Digitec)
Memory: HyperX Fury Black (2x, 4GB, DDR3-1600, DIMM 240) ($48.40 @ Digitec)
SSD: Crucial MX200 (250GB, 2.5") ($99.00 @ Digitec)
Video Card: MSI R9 380 OC 2GD5T (2GB) ($201.50 @ Digitec)
Case: Fractal Node 202 (HTPC, Schwarz) ($99.20 @ Digitec)
Power Supply: Silverstone SST-ST45SF (450W) ($74.30 @ Digitec)
Optical Drive: -
Case Fan: -
Total: $715.20
Thanks for the tip ! That helped me raise the performance with no effect on the price.
Do we have an estimate when Pascal will be available in gaming-GPUs?
I seem to remember NVidia usually releases new tech and architectures for pro-hardware. I don't expecially want to wait till november to upgrade my GPU...
Current estimates are 'Q2 2016' is 'summer 2016' or somewhere in between. Of course it is impossible to know for sure.
You could buy a brand new GPU right now, use if for maybe 6 months and sell it to buy a Pascal. You'll bleed money doing so but of course there's a value in having a better GPU even for just half a year. If the launch takes longer, you'll feel like a winner.
no. Not unless you are actually running the game (via in game resolution settings) at 4k. your games will output whatever you set it too. Everything else will display at what your desktop resolution is (web, etc).
Rendering games at 1080p will tax your computer the same even if you connect it to a 4K TV.
However when looking to buy a 4K TV you should really make sure you buy one with low input latency. This is information you will find in many professional reviews. When you think you've narrowed down a budget for your TV purchase, start checking reviews online and make sure you pay attention to the input lag and how it was measured. Input lag is not information the TV manufacturer will provide.
I don't have a skylake, but 1.3 shouldn't be anywhere near stock voltage. People usually do ~4.5ghz ocs at 1.3v on skylake, and around 4.7ghz ocs on haswell at 1.3v core. Skylake has higher voltage than haswell because cache(uncore/ringbus) and core voltage are now linked on em and die size, but it shouldn't be that much higher. That 1.15v should be nearer to stock voltage ± 0.05v. Something is messed up, it could be that the psu is defective and not providing clean power. Too much ripple from the psu can cause this or the cpu is defective.
Or it could be something entirely different and unrelated :/ Try borrowing some parts from your friends and trying them out is my suggestion.
None. Don't do it. Sound cards are only useful for headphone use.
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