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[qa_engineer]

Follow up question, whats my best route for install Windows 10? The build I am making will not have a CD drive.

32 bit or 64?
Home or pro?
Buy a USB with windows 10 or buy 7 / 8 then free upgrade after initial setup is complete?
Directly from MS store or somewhere like Amazon?

Honestly this is one of the most confusing parts of the entire build for me!

If all you're doing is basic computing (gaming, surfing the web, word docs, excel,consuming media etc.) then the home version is more than enough. I would personally buy the USB version of 10 on Amazon, Newegg or similar online retailers. You can buy through MS as well but I prefer other big name retailers because they often have sales and free shipping.

Once your machine completes POST, and assuming you've connected all of the USB ports correctly, you should be able to access BIOS and force the computer to boot from USB. From there its as simple as one or two clicks and you'll have Windows installed. Building PC's these days is the easiest thing as the parts and OS just work out of the box. I remember building PC's in the late 90's early 2000's and it was a much more involved process.

 

[thenexus6]

If all you're doing is basic computing (gaming, surfing the web, word docs, excel,consuming media etc.) then the home version is more than enough. I would personally buy the USB version of 10 on Amazon, Newegg or similar online retailers. You can buy through MS as well but I prefer other big name retailers because they often have sales and free shipping.

Once your machine completes POST, and assuming you've connected all of the USB ports correctly, you should be able to access BIOS and force the computer to boot from USB. From there its as simple as one or two clicks and you'll have Windows installed. Building PC's these days is the easiest thing as the parts and OS just work out of the box. I remember building PC's in the late 90's early 2000's and it was a much more involved process.

And then if I want to do a clean install later down the line I can just use the same USB?

What is the point of buying Windows 10 Pro then?

One last question do I need to buy anything like thermal paste or any things for cable management or need and special tools? I have a set of torx screwdrivers and normal ones.

 

[rinse82]

So what's the best branded R9 390 to buy?

I read Sapphire is good as they exclusively make AMD cards, MSI also good.

Are there any to stay away from?

 

[e90Mark]

I thought SATA 3 was fast, but I just installed my 950 PRO and holy crap.. Lol.

 

[CrashPrime]

So what's the best branded R9 390 to buy?

I read Sapphire is good as they exclusively make AMD cards, MSI also good.

Are there any to stay away from?

XFX @ Best Buy has lifetime warranty.

Tri-X GPU cooler on Sapphire cards are a little quieter.

Those are my picks.

 

[Oxn]

I just cloned and replaced my Samsung 830 Pro 256g GB SSD with a Samsung 850 EVO 1TB.

Good decision? Its running great right now. Never cloned before.

 

[Theonik]

I thought SATA 3 was fast, but I just installed my 950 PRO and holy crap.. Lol.

SATA3 is slow as hell. SSDs have smoked it since 2011 really.
Welcome to the 950 Pro club!

 

[Max_Po]

Finally, I think I have been able to achieve stable clock... This is my first PC since like 98. .. I must admit, the whole Silicon lottery thing is fucking bullshit and so is Haswell. After reading countless boards I think its a real bitch to over clock properly.

- 4.3 ghz and 4.0 ghz uncore - Core is at 1.22460938 V

My rams are at 2400 mhz so I don't think I can achieve anything higher unless I significantly lower the frequency of the RAM.

The temperatures are quit low

 

[Arulan]

SATA3 is slow as hell. SSDs have smoked it since 2011 really.
Welcome to the 950 Pro club!

I'm planning a build once Pascal and Broadwell-E release, but I haven't yet decided on storage. Do the 950s make a significant difference for gaming, or do other bottlenecks impede it?

 

[qa_engineer]

And then if I want to do a clean install later down the line I can just use the same USB?

What is the point of buying Windows 10 Pro then?

One last question do I need to buy anything like thermal paste or any things for cable management or need and special tools? I have a set of torx screwdrivers and normal ones.

-Correct. That USB drive can be used on all future builds.
-The CPU you're getting will come with a cooler that has thermal paste already applied so additional paste is not necessary.
-You may want to look at getting some small zip ties for cable management, but fractal cases are known for their amazing cable management systems... I have the fractal define r5 so I know.
-Standard screw driver set is sufficient/


Win 10 pro vs home

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/feature/windows/windows-10-home-vs-windows-10-pro-uk-difference-3618710/

 

[qa_engineer]

double post

 

[LilJoka]

Finally, I think I have been able to achieve stable clock... This is my first PC since like 98. .. I must admit, the whole Silicon lottery thing is fucking bullshit and so is Haswell. After reading countless boards I think its a real bitch to over clock properly.

- 4.3 ghz and 4.0 ghz uncore - Core is at 1.22460938 V

My rams are at 2400 mhz so I don't think I can achieve anything higher unless I significantly lower the frequency of the RAM.

The temperatures are quit low

I would see how far you can push the CPU OC without such a large RAM OC. Because the RAM OC is giving a tiny performance boost, whereas the CPU OC would give more gains.
Test the RAM at 2133Mhz CL10 or 1866Mhz CL9.

 

[RGM79]

Just got an msi gaming 7 mb. When updating the bios do I a e to grab them all in order or can I just download the latest which should contain the fixes from all the previous?

The latest is fine.

Current Rig: FX 6100 @ 4.1GHz, 16GB Ram, Radeon 7770

Which of the following 2 upgrade options is a better idea?

AMD FX 8300 (Prices on these really dropped lately)
AMD Radeon R7 370

I'm leaning towards a GPU upgrade, I think the OC'ed 6100 should carry me for a year or so yet.. I mostly play last generation's PC ports still, but would settle for playing current gen games at mid quality levels and 1080p..

How much do they cost?

 

[Brandon F]

I'm planning a build once Pascal and Broadwell-E release, but I haven't yet decided on storage. Do the 950s make a significant difference for gaming, or do other bottlenecks impede it?

I have a 950 Pro installed, and honestly the difference for "gaming" from a standard SSD is totally negligible. I mean it is faster but in real-world testing I have barely seen that much of a change.

The real purpose for these drives benefit most from productivity needs where large amounts of data need to be transferred on a regular basis(video editing/archiving and such). Loading up a map or level in a PC game...well my old SSD was practically just as snappy.

Windows 10 does load a few seconds faster on boot, but the difference is also minor compared to the jump from a standard HDD to an SSD. Limit expectations is all..

 

[DryvBy]

G502 was meant for palm. I love mine. Only con is that it's on the heavier side.

I'm fine with that. And thanks! Excited to have a palm again.

 

[Max_Po]

I would see how far you can push the CPU OC without such a large RAM OC. Because the RAM OC is giving a tiny performance boost, whereas the CPU OC would give more gains.
Test the RAM at 2133Mhz CL10 or 1866Mhz CL9.

See the problem is, these are my Ram,
http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-2400c10d-8gtx
I am running them at default ....1.65 v which they are configured for ??
I just sent XMP and they show up automatically at 2400 mhz !!!

 

[OriginofHysteria]

So I picked up the NH-D15 cooler...man this thing is massive. Coming from a h100i, not hearing the pump noise anymore was a refresher. One thing I noticed though was that my GPU ran 60 on idle with the h100i but dropped down to 43 on idle with the noctua cooler (and this is with no fans running). Does the heat sink actually help with overall case temps?

 

[lostsupper]

So I picked up the NH-D15 cooler...man this thing is massive. Coming from a h100i, not hearing the pump noise anymore was a refresher. One thing I noticed though was that my GPU ran 60 on idle with the h100i but dropped down to 43 on idle with the noctua cooler (and this is with no fans running). Does the heat sink actually help with overall case temps?

A little bit if you were using your h100i as an intake.

 

[thenexus6]

Yikes, I just spend £500 on components... my first ever build! Nervous but excited.

This will be goodbye the the Mac after eight years together.

Just need to confirm the last thing to order is Windows 10

This is the correct proper version?

 

[teokrazia]

So, these were my max temps while I was briefly playing Dyng Light, KF2 and Far Cry: Primal, twitching 1080p@FPS with my 5820K pushed to 4.1 GHz:



Same applications, now:


The secret?

Spoiler

Just come back home:

And never leave Mother Noctua anymore.

 

[e90Mark]

SATA3 is slow as hell. SSDs have smoked it since 2011 really.
Welcome to the 950 Pro club!

Thanks, I think it was worth the money. I recently sold my PS4 and grabbed the 256gb 950 Pro.

I'm planning a build once Pascal and Broadwell-E release, but I haven't yet decided on storage. Do the 950s make a significant difference for gaming, or do other bottlenecks impede it?

Probably no significant difference other than load times. It does load stuff really fast, but outside of that probably not much difference.

You might as well get one since you're going to be building on the bleeding edge of platforms, at least for a boot drive/most used apps since the smallest drive is 256gb. The 512 seems a bit much for the space, IMO.

 

[Theonik]

I'm planning a build once Pascal and Broadwell-E release, but I haven't yet decided on storage. Do the 950s make a significant difference for gaming, or do other bottlenecks impede it?

Games don't really take advantage of the performance benefit of a 950 Pro but you can see improvements across the board in system loading and response times. Honestly where this sort of drive shines is situations where you might hit it with a lot of load like multi-user scenarios or working with big datasets and some more advanced productivity applications. But for gaming it might not be worth it and you'd be better off waiting for newer NVMe drives when they drop in price.

Two more things to note. NVMe has a very big performance advantage in parallelisation so you will see an increase in performance moving between say an i5 and i7 or 6/8 core. Also if you are thinking of getting the 950 Pro and want to subject it to heavy workloads, especially the faster 512GB version you need to ensure it is adequately cooled as its performance makes it so it thermally throttles. A heatsync and/or a fan can help here. This shouldn't matter in real world usage unless you are doing very big transfers at full tick.

 

[jwhit28]

What's a good target for 970 overclocking? I'm at 1500MHz effective rate for the GPU clock, and 2000MHz (8000MHz) for the memory after bumping up the voltage to 1.25V. I'm not even hitting 60C temperature but the power limit only goes up to 110% and I seem to be throttling if I increase anything.

 

[Arcteryx]

What's a good target for 970 overclocking? I'm at 1500MHz effective rate for the GPU clock, and 2000MHz (8000MHz) for the memory after bumping up the voltage to 1.25V. I'm not even hitting 60C temperature but the power limit only goes up to 110% and I seem to be throttling if I increase anything.

Look into modifying your bios. I had to go that route to avoid throttling with a 1550MHz non-boost OC (~1680MHz boost), as my power limit was screwing things up.

The guide I used: http://www.overclock.net/t/1553510/...for-most-cards-if-you-want-a-stable-overclock

Obviously, follow at your own risk (I would ONLY do it if you have a multi-bios card).

 

[jwhit28]

Look into modifying your bios. I had to go that route to avoid throttling with a 1550MHz non-boost OC (~1680MHz boost), as my power limit was screwing things up.

The guide I used: http://www.overclock.net/t/1553510/...for-most-cards-if-you-want-a-stable-overclock

Obviously, follow at your own risk (I would ONLY do it if you have a multi-bios card).

I have a the EVGA ACX 2.0, it has 2 BIOS. Should I do the experimenting on the 2nd one? Does it matter?

 

[bbd23]

hey guys what are some good SSD brands?

im sure my hard drive is failing (loud noise +beep) lol

ugh

 

[roadrunn3r]

hey guys what are some good SSD brands?

im sure my hard drive is failing (loud noise +beep) lol

ugh

Samsung, Crucial, Sandisk are all good.
Just make sure to not buy products with bad reviews. The performance difference is not very noticeable most of the time unless you go for the high end ones. (you really don't need to)

 

[woodland]

Did you install 32bit Windows? It can only use 4 gig of RAM.

Nope - 64bit Win10.

Update: Still only uses like 2gb of my 8gb stick. RAM usage between 75-100%, with disk usage at 100% when doing anything.

This makes browsing the internet impossible - Dota failed last night today. But somehow, Rocket League runs fine?!? How?

 

[roadrunn3r]

Nope - 64bit Win10.

Update: Still only uses like 2gb of my 8gb stick. RAM usage between 75-100%, with disk usage at 100% when doing anything.

This makes browsing the internet impossible - Dota failed last night today. But somehow, Rocket League runs fine?!? How?

Is the bios updated? Could be some weird RAM compatibility issue. Tried to change the slots you've installed them? Try a CMOS reset also.

 

[woodland]

Is the bios updated? Could be some weird RAM compatibility issue. Tried to change the slots you've installed them? Try a CMOS reset also.

Just installed the BIOS the other night for the first time - should be as up to date as the latest driver. I'll try to redownload the driver too just in case.

 

[bbd23]

Samsung, Crucial, Sandisk are all good.
Just make sure to not buy products with bad reviews. The performance difference is not very noticeable most of the time unless you go for the high end ones. (you really don't need to)

thank you!

 

[roadrunn3r]

Just installed the BIOS the other night for the first time - should be as up to date as the latest driver. I'll try to redownload the driver too just in case.

Does your graphics card have 2GB of VRAM by any chance? Cause it all makes sense then, it's a 32 bit Windows which means 4 GB usable minus the Vram (which is accounted in the 4 if I recall correctly)

 

[LilJoka]

See the problem is, these are my Ram,
http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-2400c10d-8gtx
I am running them at default ....1.65 v which they are configured for ??
I just sent XMP and they show up automatically at 2400 mhz !!!

Just configure them manually

 

[Mad Season]

where on Intels site do I register my i7 6700k? that site is a mess and cannot find the location to do so

 

[Hazaro]

I would question both upgrades. The GPU upgrade is such a minor one that I personally don't really see the vlue in doing so.

7770 to a 370 is massive.

 

[Sarcasm]

So I have:

I7 3770K
Asus P8 Z77-V LK
Crosair CX750 — 80 PLUS® Bronze Certified Power Supply
16GB of DDR3-1600
TM Hyper TX3 CPU Cooler


How capable am I in OCing my CPU to at least 4.2? I think it is 4.2 I have never OC'd before and I am wondering about my PSU being able to.

 

[Mad Season]

are these temps ok when gaming?

i7 6700k with hyper 212 pro installed (not overclocked)

EVGA GTX 980 SC (not overclocked)

*EDIT I put an EVGA precision fan profile on and now under load it's around 56 degress celsius. The GTX 980 fans run at 2300 RPM. Is that an ok speed?

 

[LilJoka]

are these temps ok when gaming?

i7 6700k with hyper 212 pro installed (not overclocked)

EVGA GTX 980 SC (not overclocked)

*EDIT I put an EVGA precision fan profile on and now under load it's around 56 degress celsius. The GTX 980 fans run at 2300 RPM. Is that an ok speed?

Your going to kill the fan sooner than needed.
Aim for 70c load temp.

 

[LilJoka]

So I have:

I7 3770K
Asus P8 Z77-V LK
Crosair CX750 — 80 PLUS® Bronze Certified Power Supply
16GB of DDR3-1600
TM Hyper TX3 CPU Cooler


How capable am I in OCing my CPU to at least 4.2? I think it is 4.2 I have never OC'd before and I am wondering about my PSU being able to.

4.2ghz is a tiny oc for this chip, the psu won't even break a sweat.

 

[Oxn]

4.2ghz is a tiny oc for this chip, the psu won't even break a sweat.

I got same chip, and i go 4.4 on a 550w psu easy

 

[Tektonic]

7870 2gb, what kind of improvement would I see with a R9 380?

Worth it, or wait for newer cards?

 

[daninthemix]

With the new build completed, I'm thinking about upgrading to Windows 10 now.

Any suggestions / warnings before I start?

 

[hooijdonk17]

7870 2gb, what kind of improvement would I see with a R9 380?

Worth it, or wait for newer cards?

I would wait for pascal the improvement would be marginal. If you were on a 1gb 7850 it would have been worthwhile though.

 

[hooijdonk17]

Thanks!

My current gpu is 1gb 7770. 2gb R7 370 should be a decent boost if only for more cus and vram? 1gb just doesnt work with new games anymore.. At least mid level options would be nice in say quantum break or tomb raider etc.

How much do they cost?

Around USD140 for fx 8300 and USD170 for r7 370.

 

[LilJoka]

See the problem is, these are my Ram,
http://www.gskill.com/en/product/f3-2400c10d-8gtx
I am running them at default ....1.65 v which they are configured for ??
I just sent XMP and they show up automatically at 2400 mhz !!!

Don't set XMP, just set it all manually
Ram freq 1866
Ram voltage 1.6v
Primary timings 10-10-10-28 2N

 

[crazepharmacist]

What are some of the top ATX mid tower cases out now? Looking to replace an old Haf 922

 

[Tektonic]

I would wait for pascal the improvement would be marginal. If you were on a 1gb 7850 it would have been worthwhile though.

Thought so, thanks.

 

[thenexus6]

Okay so last things to address, again sorry if I sound incredibly stupid asking these..

I am going with this Windows 10:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0111YEBY4/

I saw online that this USB can be pretty slow / buggy. So would I still be able to create my own bootable USB and just use the license key that comes on the box with the MS one?

Also this is a key which I hold onto ownership of right? I read the OEM one is tied to the motherboard and can't be used in future for fresh installs etc.

I purchased a 120GB SSD with the intention of installing the OS and some room left for my most used apps (maybe 60GB each)

Does anyone have a good guide for creating a partition when I am installing Windows? I looked online but couldn't really find anything.

 

[RayStorm]

7770 to a 370 is massive.

It seems to be between 70 to 100% more powerful. While I don't know if I'd qualify this as 'massive' I reckon it is significant enough to be worthwhile. I must have misremembered how comparatively weak the 7770 actually was even back then.

 

[MikeE21286]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KJGY3TO/?tag=neogaf0e-20

that a decent 4k monitor for the price?

It's a TN panel, so not sure if you're holding out for IPS.

This Dell one is an IPS monitor. It was recently on sale for the same price as the ASUS you linked to on Amazon (no longer currently is on sale though) for about the same price ($470) and it is IPS. Might be worth keeping your eye on to see if it goes on sale again.

http://slickdeals.net/f/8581134-27-...ee-shipping-dell?src=SiteSearchV2_SearchBarV1