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"I Need a New PC!" 2015 Part 2. Read the OP. Rocking 2500K's until HBM2 and beyond.

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R

Ridli

Member
Hey gaf, got a question about powersupply. I'm looking for a GPU upgrade, probably GTX 970/980. Am I going to have a problem with a 520W power supply? <current PSU>

For that matter, any particular recommendations for a specific 970 or 980 with regards to low temp/low sound, or are they fairly similar among different vendors?

I'd be running 2 SSDs, optical drive, and an i5-3750k if any of that matters for other power draw. Thanks!
 
B

Barajas_201

Member
Its been one week since I've got my 750 ti and after installing all the few games I have for Steam, GOG and Origin, I am amazed and convinced of PC gaming. I have what I thought to be a very crappy HP desktop since I got it for soooo cheap, it has a triple core AMD CPU at 3Ghrz with 4gb of slow RAM and before having the card I could barley run PS2/XBOX era games but now I'm able to max out 60fps at 900p previews gen games like Battlefield 3, Crysis 2, Dead Space, Sniper Elite v2. All this with a 240W power supply, I really am at amazed but I come here to ask if I should upgrade the RAM to 8gb? Will my rig be able to handle current gen games like Dark Souls 3 and Fallout 4?
 
W

Wowfunhappy

Member
Whether or not more RAM will make a difference really depends on the game (like many things). However, going from 4 -> 8GB of RAM is pretty much always a worthwhile upgrade, if only because of how economical it is.
 
B

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
Woo! Successfully installed my 950 PRO NVME drive.

Only real speedbump I hit was after cloning my windows C:/ drive (which took a lightning fast 4 minutes to transfer ~90GB from my old SSD to the M.2 NVME).

After completing the data clone migration, I tooled around in BIOS to set the boot priority, but had issues getting the system to run off the NVME(errors and such), at least until I physically removed my old SSD drive from the system. Once only the M.2 NVME and my storage drives were connected(my old SSD unplugged) everything went swimmingly. BIOS recognized it as a Windows bootable disk, and Windows took a record time load. I mean I don't even see the Windows logo after POST really given this drive has got no time for that!

Oh and doing a quick test in Samsung Magician, I was getting 1.5gb/s read and nearly 950mb/s write speeds. Nuts.
 
M

M3z_

Member
Cross post incase anyone is interested.

M3z_ said:
GTX Titan X 12GB VRAM $760 Shipped US48

ouhgHy4l.jpg
Click to expand...
 
T

Turrican3

Member
RGM79 said:
It's perfectly fine. [...] It's been difficult to find a decent B150/H170 motherboard with USB 3.1 and type C, for example.
Click to expand...
Thanks!
May I ask why is this type C so important? I've seen it mentioned quite a bit...

EDIT As per OP, is it safe to assume a good 550W power supply would be ok for the aforementioned system (i5 6600 + 16GB RAM + 970 + SSD + HD + DVD/BD writer), plus the occasional external USB powered HD ?

Hey Im Patrick said:
I have 6600 with 16gb ram as well. I went with a MSI B150A Gaming. Because I like pretty lights.
Click to expand...
^__^
 
L

LilJoka

Member
Ridli said:
Hey gaf, got a question about powersupply. I'm looking for a GPU upgrade, probably GTX 970/980. Am I going to have a problem with a 520W power supply? <current PSU>

For that matter, any particular recommendations for a specific 970 or 980 with regards to low temp/low sound, or are they fairly similar among different vendors?

I'd be running 2 SSDs, optical drive, and an i5-3750k if any of that matters for other power draw. Thanks!
Click to expand...

That PSU is enough.
 
E

e90Mark

Member
Brandon F said:
Woo! Successfully installed my 950 PRO NVME drive.

Only real speedbump I hit was after cloning my windows C:/ drive (which took a lightning fast 4 minutes to transfer ~90GB from my old SSD to the M.2 NVME).

After completing the data clone migration, I tooled around in BIOS to set the boot priority, but had issues getting the system to run off the NVME(errors and such), at least until I physically removed my old SSD drive from the system. Once only the M.2 NVME and my storage drives were connected(my old SSD unplugged) everything went swimmingly. BIOS recognized it as a Windows bootable disk, and Windows took a record time load. I mean I don't even see the Windows logo after POST really given this drive has got no time for that!

Oh and doing a quick test in Samsung Magician, I was getting 1.5gb/s read and nearly 950mb/s write speeds. Nuts.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good impression. The price for the 256 is pretty attractive compared to the 512 in USD.

Now whether to buy one.. lol.
 
T

teokrazia

Member
Any good recent [or not so recent] in-game benchmark?
As far as I can recall: Far Cry Primal, GTA V, Rainbow Six: Siege, Shadow of Mordor.
Others?
 
R

RGM79

Member
teokrazia said:
Any good recent [or not so recent] in-game benchmark?
As far as I can recall: Far Cry Primal, GTA V, Rainbow Six: Siege, Shadow of Mordor.
Others?
Click to expand...

Look up some graphics card reviews. Some websites still use Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, others use GTAV, The Witcher 3, etc.

Turrican3 said:
Thanks!
May I ask why is this type C so important? I've seen it mentioned quite a bit...

EDIT As per OP, is it safe to assume a good 550W power supply would be ok for the aforementioned system (i5 6600 + 16GB RAM + 970 + SSD + HD + DVD/BD writer), plus the occasional external USB powered HD ?


^__^
Click to expand...

USB type C is the connector of the future that should hopefully become the preferred way of plugging in most things. It's small and reversible yet supports a ton of stuff, like monitors, laptop charging, and whatnot.

Yeah, a 550 watt PSU will work just fine. Refer here (click on "see full content") for a guideline as to what power supply brands and models to look for.
 
B

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
e90Mark said:
Sounds like a good impression. The price for the 256 is pretty attractive compared to the 512 in USD.

Now whether to buy one.. lol.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind this shaved like a couple seconds of boot time into Windows off my old SSD(which was already speedy). Not very dramatic...but in my case I just needed a larger SSD footprint for my system boot drive. 500gb felt overkill since I have large storage drives for data, games, music, etc... 256gb felt like a sweet spot and I figured I'd pay extra for the pure curiosity of m.2 over getting the more popular 850 Evo or Pro.

Can't say that those read and write speeds feel impactful in general use, so hard to recommend unless you are transferring large data regularly or just don't mind the premium cost over a 2.5 inch SSD.
 
S

SlaughterX

Banned
Just ordered the 1TB Mushkin SSD for $210 on newegg and a mount for hooking it up in my desktop. Now I just need a good new wireless keyboard. I'm thinking maybe the logitech solar keyboard since no one makes wireless gaming keyboards.
 
C

CivRab

Member
I'm looking to build a new PC for the HTC Vive is there a specification list out for a recommended build? Would one 980ti suffice or would it be better to do SLI-VR on two cheaper cards using one card to render each eye??
 
S

Sky Chief

Member
CivRab said:
I'm looking to build a new PC for the HTC Vive is there a specification list out for a recommended build? Would one 980ti suffice or would it be better to do SLI-VR on two cheaper cards using one card to render each eye??
Click to expand...

SLI-VR is not a real thing yet
 
W

Willing

Neo Member
Am I correct in assuming that a GTX 960 would not be a significant upgrade over a 7950 HD Boost?

Seems like a worthwhile step might be HD 7950 Boost -> GTX 970, but I think this card might actually tide me over until Pascal.
 
E

e90Mark

Member
SlaughterX said:
Just ordered the 1TB Mushkin SSD for $210 on newegg and a mount for hooking it up in my desktop. Now I just need a good new wireless keyboard. I'm thinking maybe the logitech solar keyboard since no one makes wireless gaming keyboards.
Click to expand...

Maybe look into a wireless mechanical keyboard?

Pretty tempted to order that 1TB Mushkin SSD to replace my 3 year old Seagate HDD. It hasn't failed yet, but I just wanna solid state all the drives.
 
T

teokrazia

Member
RGM79 said:
Look up some graphics card reviews. Some websites still use Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, others use GTAV, The Witcher 3, etc.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I've just discovered that The Division has one and I forgot to mention Arkham Knight [but I don't wanna trust it :p ]

BTW, my CPU has arrived.
My first system upgrade since 2011.


It's happening! :D
 
R

RGM79

Member
Willing said:
Am I correct in assuming that a GTX 960 would not be a significant upgrade over a 7950 HD Boost?

Seems like a worthwhile step might be HD 7950 Boost -> GTX 970, but I think this card might actually tide me over until Pascal.
Click to expand...

The GTX 960 is newer and might be faster than the HD7950 Boost in some games, but the HD7950 can sometimes even be on par with the GTX 960. At 1080p gaming, Techpowerup puts the non boost HD7950 at 90% the performance of a GTX 960, and Anandtech's bench shows the HD7970 as being mostly equal if not generally faster. I couldn't exactly find any benchmarks that pit the HD7950 Boost against the GTX 960 in a head-to-head showdown, but I would wager that they are fairly evenly matched most of the time. Therefore I'd highly advise against upgrading to a GTX 960 because it's not much of an upgrade if at all for how much money it costs.

Is your HD7950 Boost having any issues running games at the settings you want to play at?

CivRab said:
I'm looking to build a new PC for the HTC Vive is there a specification list out for a recommended build? Would one 980ti suffice or would it be better to do SLI-VR on two cheaper cards using one card to render each eye??
Click to expand...

The official minimum recommendations would be an i5 processor and a GTX 970 or R9 390. As far as a "recommended" build goes.. the more power you have the better, because VR can and will be very demanding. A GTX 980 Ti is the best graphics card you can get at the moment and I'm not sure how viable it'll be in the future if you're interested in playing at the highest possible settings.
 
Golgo 13

Golgo 13

The Man With The Golden Dong
Shadowhaxor said:
Considering that price and the fact that you can't get those parts for under that price, I say it's a good deal. I just priced a build to see where it would add up and i'm looking at 200-300 more for the parts.
Click to expand...

RGM79 said:
As far as price goes, that's pretty decent for $850 or so. As with all prebuilt PCs, areas to worry about are cheaper motherboards and power supplies. Cheap motherboards can lack expansion options and certain features, but if you have no desire to overclock or aren't looking for a specific feature, odds are it'll be adequate for your needs. The power supply is sometimes just so-so in terms of quality and often have just enough wattage to power the parts in the PC as is - if you want to do any upgrades in the future, you may have to consider replacing the power supply as well
Click to expand...

Appreciate the help guys! Turns out the coupon I had doesn't work on PCs, but nevertheless I still have found that this is a great deal on a prebuilt gaming PC so I'm probably going to jump in. I can always upgrade the power supply later if need be. Thank you!
 
R

rrs

Member
Just OC'd my 2500K to 4.1GHz, I'm ready to take on the new video games

Willing said:
Am I correct in assuming that a GTX 960 would not be a significant upgrade over a 7950 HD Boost?

Seems like a worthwhile step might be HD 7950 Boost -> GTX 970, but I think this card might actually tide me over until Pascal.
Click to expand...

yeah, as stated above wait it out for pascal as it could bring a new generation of price fighting rather than the 970s having the same price for the last year or so. I wish I could wait, but my 6870 had other plans
 
S

SecretMoblin

Member
During the process of upgrading/swapping my hard drive, I noticed when I opened my case that the fan for my CPU cooler, a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO I think, wasn't working. It's definitely connected as it twitches occasionally, but it's not spinning. Is it just a cleaning issue? I've blown air into it while it's attached to the heatsink because I'm wary of disassembling it for the first time in 3+ years, but the air did nothing.

How easy would it be to replace? Are standalone fans sold that would fit properly? If the connection is the issue, could I connect the 4-pin thing into a 3-pin thing on my motherboard? The computer functions, but I'm worried about overclocking again if the fan isn't spinning.
 
Inno

Inno

Member
TriniTrin said:
Hey guys!
Quick question for ya! I am looking to perhaps upgrade my memory from ddr3 16gb 1333mhz ram to ddr3 16gb 2333mhz ram.

I watched that digital foundry video about the 2500k and how you can get some extra performance from memory. I wanted to see if you guys think it would be worth it to upgrade the speed of the memory for a few extra frames. Thanks for your help!!
Click to expand...

I just did this exact upgrade after reading the digital foundry article and thread. Got some nice improvements in both min and max framerates as well as frametimes. I'm on a i7 2700k and GTX 680. Considering it was a pretty cheap upgrade I'd recommend it.

However I ran into a problem that was not mentioned by digital foundry. Since Sandy bridge the memory controller is built into the processor. And SB was really designed for 1333Mhz. So running faster ram is actually out of spec and so compatibility depends on the imc. My 2700k would not run 2133Mhz stable. Even with extra juice supplied to the memory controller. After searching around a bit on several forums I found that this is not uncommon. I had to downclock the ram to 1866Mhz. Still had nice improvements though.
 
R

RGM79

Member
SecretMoblin said:
During the process of upgrading/swapping my hard drive, I noticed when I opened my case that the fan for my CPU cooler, a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO I think, wasn't working. It's definitely connected as it twitches occasionally, but it's not spinning. Is it just a cleaning issue? I've blown air into it while it's attached to the heatsink because I'm wary of disassembling it for the first time in 3+ years, but the air did nothing.

How easy would it be to replace? Are standalone fans sold that would fit properly? If the connection is the issue, could I connect the 4-pin thing into a 3-pin thing on my motherboard? The computer functions, but I'm worried about overclocking again if the fan isn't spinning.
Click to expand...

The 212 Series of coolers use either metal clips or plastic brackets to attach the fan to the heatsink, simply undo the clips from the side of the heatsink and gently pry it off. Any standard 120mm fan will work as a replacement, as the mounting holes are the same. You just need to reuse the clips with the new fan. Yes, 3 pin fan connectors work with 4 pin fan connectors and vice versa.

Inno said:
I just did this exact upgrade after reading the digital foundry article and thread. Got some nice improvements in both min and max framerates as well as frametimes. I'm on a i7 2700k and GTX 680. Considering it was a pretty cheap upgrade I'd recommend it.

However I ran into a problem that was not mentioned by digital foundry. Since Sandy bridge the memory controller is built into the processor. And SB was really designed for 1333Mhz. So running faster ram is actually out of spec and so compatibility depends on the imc. My 2700k would not run 2133Mhz stable. Even with extra juice supplied to the memory controller. After searching around a bit on several forums I found that this is not uncommon. I had to downclock the ram to 1866Mhz. Still had nice improvements though.
Click to expand...

How much did it improve by? I've heard that Sandy Bridge can be finicky with overclocked RAM, but if the changes are drastic, maybe it is worth recommending after all.
 
E

electroflame

Member
teokrazia said:
BTW, my CPU has arrived.
My first system upgrade since 2011.


It's happening! :D
Click to expand...

Nice! My 5820k should be here today as well. Just waiting on a few more parts before I start on mine.

SlaughterX said:
Just ordered the 1TB Mushkin SSD for $210 on newegg and a mount for hooking it up in my desktop.
Click to expand...

e90Mark said:
Pretty tempted to order that 1TB Mushkin SSD to replace my 3 year old Seagate HDD. It hasn't failed yet, but I just wanna solid state all the drives.
Click to expand...

That SSD is pretty tempting -- anyone know how it compares to the 850 EVO? It looks like the Mushkin is slower and has less features, but I'm not sure if the boosts from the 850 EVO are worth the premium.
 
E

e90Mark

Member
electroflame said:
That SSD is pretty tempting -- anyone know how it compares to the 850 EVO? It looks like the Mushkin is slower and has less features, but I'm not sure if the boosts from the 850 EVO are worth the premium.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much it. Reliability is also kind of a factor, if you read reviews. The price is definitely right, to replace any storage HDDs though.
 
E

electroflame

Member
e90Mark said:
That's pretty much it. Reliability is also kind of a factor, if you read reviews. The price is definitely right, to replace any storage HDDs though.
Click to expand...

Yeah, going off of reviews it seems like there are quite a few that die quickly and suddenly. Not to say that the 850 EVO doesn't have those kind of reviews as well, but it doesn't seem to be as prevalent (not to mention that the 850 EVO has significantly more marketshare).

It looks like the 850 EVO is ~$100 more than the Mushkin, currently, so it's still a pretty hefty premium. Definitely going to have to do some more reading, I think.
 
S

SecretMoblin

Member
C

Coma Ecliptic

Member
Is Das Keyboardthat good? I know I saw someone mention it a few pages back.

Also, I remember reading where folks are getting their Win10 keys, but searching that has been a nightmare. Where are you guys getting Win10 keys? Any point to not saving some money and getting a 8.1 key and using it for 10?

Edit:

Found it, it was Kinguin
 
joecanada

joecanada

Member
I just bought a new pc package through newegg but my windows 10, which was included is saying "not activated" on my desktop, it won't go away. in the activation tab it says the key is no good. Is there a fix I should try for this or did they straight up sell me a used copy of windows? :mad:
 
H

Hands of Stone

Member
How's Gigabyte customer service? Gotta RMA this mobo and I'm hoping it's not too much of a hassle.

BTW, can someone explain how plugging in a USB could have shorted it? I've never heard of that happening.
 
Bboy AJ

Bboy AJ

My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Should be some GPU Pascal news next week at GDC.
 
R

rrs

Member
evil_rad said:
I'm building a new PC and I can't decide between the R9 390 and the GTX 970.
Click to expand...

970: less power required, Nvidia exclusive thingies
390: double VRAM, more speed in DX12 programs???

woodland said:
Right now I have the AMD Phenom II X4 3.2Ghz.

http://www.amazon.com/AMD-HDZ955FBGMBOX-Phenom-3-2GHz-Retail/dp/B002TQYUAE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1457482261&sr=8-1&keywords=amd+phenom+ii+x4
Click to expand...

Yeah, I would go with the i5+960 as a GPU can be easily upgraded while a CPU not so much. Also, Pascal is coming so you can get everything except the GPU then upgrade that later
 
W

woodland

Member
thecharrr said:
Yeah, I would go with the i5+960 as a GPU can be easily upgraded while a CPU not so much. Also, Pascal is coming so you can get everything except the GPU then upgrade that later
Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks so much. One last question, what mobo would you recommend for an ATX case and the i5? Only had AMD's in the past so I dunno a good, not too pricey mobo for Intel CPU's.
 
THE:MILKMAN

THE:MILKMAN

Member
I would like to upgrade my PC and change from AMD to Intel. It would only initially be for basic use/Netflix etc, but may add a budget GPU later if I decide not to go for a NX.

Budget isn't really a problem and I think I would prefer to get higher quality components with more features/possible future upgrade paths. I definitely want a SSD.(250GB)

Current system:

Fractal Design ARC Mini (M-ATX)
ASRock FM2A75 Pro4-M
AMD A6-5400K
8GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3
Sapphire Radeon 6850
Corsair CX-430M

I'm also completely confused about Windows 10. I upgraded from a (cleanly installed) Windows 7 Pro retail upgrade disc (I think). Will I definitely need to buy a new key?

Thanks.
 
R

rrs

Member
woodland said:
Awesome, thanks so much. One last question, what mobo would you recommend for an ATX case and the i5? Only had AMD's in the past so I dunno a good, not too pricey mobo for Intel CPU's.
Click to expand...

I don't really know myself, last time I built a PC was over 4 years ago
 
Bloodember

Bloodember

Member
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