Building a computer? Need advice/suggestions? Come here!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Amit

So what do you guys think of the Haswell line up? I'm thinking about building another PC before the year is out. Maybe something a bit smaller in a mATX case, but with more performance than my current machine. I'm not sure about it yet, though. I'm still skeptical about going back to Intel when it comes to future upgrades considering there's a new socket for this generation of Core processors.

---

As Warsaw said, if you already have a Sandy or Ivy system the Haswell chips aren't worth the upgrade. If you're building a new PC though, you might as well take advantage of the new tech.

Personally, I plan to build the most powerful gaming rig I can fit into a Mini ITX box later this year... Likely going into a BitFenix Prodigy or Silverstone FT03. LANBox for when I go to the various local LANs I plan to, and when I'm at home using my soon to be completed beast it'll be a Folding@Home rig. When friends come over they'll have a system to game on as well. I will likely be using a Haswell i7 for this rig (would of gone i5, but F@H benifits from the i7), in addition to a dual GPU card like the GTX 690 or HD 7990.

Anybody else see AMD's new 220W Piledriver parts? 4.8GHz base, 5.0GHz turbo...fucking nasty in both good and bad ways.

They've been rumored for many months now. Stupidly hot and hungry cpus for the enthusiast. :/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Warsaw

Anybody else see AMD's new 220W Piledriver parts? 4.8GHz base, 5.0GHz turbo...fucking nasty in both good and bad ways.

---

Can those even be cooled traditionally?
I mean, wouldn't AMD have to include vapor chamber sinks or something just to ensure they don't melt in default retail configuration?

I have no idea, but I hope nobody tries air cooling with that. Without a doubt, these will require certified motherboards to use. Seeing how scalar AMD's current architecture is, though, I'm excited to see the numbers.

I'd expect one of those all in one water coolers to come with the cpu, if any heatsink at all. Looking forward to whatever AMD puts out, and Intel's response.

Intel won't have to respond since their existing shit (Or Ivy Bridge-E) will perform better anyway. Not to mention that 5GHz is easily attainable on a delidded Haswell.

^ that was my understanding since Sandy Bridge.

As if Intel will ever launch Ivy-E ... lmao

They don't care about the enthusiast :(

Isn't it supposed to be on the next smaller process?

Picked up an XFX HD 7850 1GB today. Runs everything maxed at 1680x1050 upwards of 50fps average haha. Arma 3 and PS2, here I come.

PS2 favours Nvidia, just a heads-up.

I know.

Got a new case for my current rig (not the new one I'm building):

Where's your other card at?

In my new system until I get my first Titan. X79 has no IGP, so I had to use my second 470 in order to do any testing.

Ah nice.

Probably going to sell the second 470 once my new system is up and running anyway. Won't need it since the plan for my current system = semi-mobile headless file server. I'm going to buy 3 x 4TB WD RE drives and put them in a small RAID 5, copy my existing 7.2 TB to it, selling the 5 x 2TB drives I have now, then slowly buying more 4TB drives and expanding the array as I can afford to.

I feel like I'm one step closer to joining the modern world.

http://i.imgur.com/sFWDvBF.png

And I'm still looking over parts for my step-dad's computer. I haven't ordered anything yet, but I'm still open to suggestions. Please prevent me from being stupid, Modacity. thnx <3

EDIT: I've been using my new drive for fifteen minutes and I don't know how I'm going to use all this space. Pretty much my reaction right now.

I got commissioned by my friend to put together a desktop with gaming in mind for $600-$700. I haven't kept up to date with hardware for a few years, so any suggestions on parts would be great, otherwise I was just going to pick the top choices on Newegg and Tigerdirect that fit within my price range.

It will be $600-$700 for the tower only, so I don't have to worry about the display, speakers, peripherals, or anything else like that. I'm thinking it should have at least a current gen i5 quad core, 8 GB RAM at 1333 MHz or even 1600 MHz if I can manage the price, 500-550 Watt PSU, and an nvidia card that can be bought with whatever is left. I would also like to get an ATX full sized case with a raised mounting panel for wire concealment, and a 1TB 7200 rpm HDD from a respectable company. Let me know if you guys know of any good prices out there, or if you guys have had good experiences with specific cases that aren't too pricey.

Browse through here and you can find some nifty things
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/

Some thing:

I only see one titan are you poor lmao

send me the other one :-3

BTW are you a chick, or do you just like pink ponnies?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zeph

BTW are you a chick, or do you just like pink ponnies?

---

.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1363440/n...#post_20234459

Heh

Kinda PC related but..

Does anyone know of any good gaming headsets? I have the turtlebeach earforce x11s currently and theyre causing the biggest headaches while playing. I'm looking for a good set with good quality for no more than $100 if possible.

Logitech G930
Logitech G35

Also,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awl9JtwvpGI

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PlasbianX

Kinda PC related but..

Does anyone know of any good gaming headsets? I have the turtlebeach earforce x11s currently and theyre causing the biggest headaches while playing. I'm looking for a good set with good quality for no more than $100 if possible.

---

I use Turtle Beach Z6As and I think they are great. They will require analogue 5.1 jacks, a mic jack, and a free USB port to function, though. If you want to use them with the Brobox, you're going to need their adapter. The headphones themselves have a break-in period; you'll get some slight headaches after extended play until they've conformed to your head.

So with NVIDIA Control Panel forcing FXAA and VSYNC off, I run Halo CE at the following FPS:
Avg: 454.479 - Min: 264 - Max: 770

I don't think it's high enough I'll have to disable FXAA.

That's probably for the better because FXAA is horrid. That blur. :(

My girlfriend got me these for our anniversary. Headphone problem solved

I own a pair and are wearing them right now. They're super comfortable and the sound is pretty great.

Picture time! Build still isn't completed, but all the important hardware is installed now!

http://i.imgflip.com/2hyrl.jpg

hate those camera angles xD

also, it's all black. some green (cables?) matching the titans would have been nice :P

I have that exact same case! Its nice!

Also, anyone have any good monitors? I'm looking for something relatively cheap but still good; going to need 2 to 3 of em.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cortexian

So with NVIDIA Control Panel forcing FXAA and VSYNC off, I run Halo CE at the following FPS:
Avg: 454.479 - Min: 264 - Max: 770

I don't think it's high enough I'll have to disable FXAA.

---

Only 770?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Patrickssj6

hate those camera angles xD

also, it's all black. some green (cables?) matching the titans would have been nice :P

---

My plan is green cables, but I'm not going to worry about cable management until I get may water cooling stuff.

be sure to get two more titans so you can play games faster

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Warsaw

Only 770?

---

I may be wrong but I don't think SLI is supported by some older games which results in less than fantastic results.

I get more frames per second in Halo than that, though. Went over 900 last time I played a non-Sauce game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by =sw=warlord

I may be wrong but I don't think SLI is supported by some older games which results in less than fantastic results.

---

The Halo stats I posted were with one Titan.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Warsaw

I get more frames per second in Halo than that, though. Went over 900 last time I played a non-Sauce game.

---

I thought it was a well known fact that Nvidia and Halo PC/CE don't mesh as well as AMD does with Halo. Think about it, the camo doesn't even work properly on Nvidia cards.

Is that even still true? I mean, Source favoured ATI officially but it runs better on Nvidia...and now it endorses Nvidia.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Warsaw

Is that even still true? I mean, Source favoured ATI officially but it runs better on Nvidia...and now it endorses Nvidia.

---

Probably. The whole cammo thing was from the way DX9 drivers worked with the API on shader models. ATI had something similar to what was used on the xbox and nVidia did not.

Code:

---

2013-07-21 00:18:10 - haloce
Frames: 162074 - Time: 141790ms - Avg: 1143.057 - Min: 572 - Max: 2102

---

Is that better?

Hey guys, I know the front page of the thread hasn't been updated in ages, and I've been out of the loop for two years (le gasp!) and my only computer worth anything is in California and it's about 6 years old. I'd probably just upgrade the mobo and CPU if I had it with me, but that's not an option right now.

I wanted to pool in the tech resources we've got, and take a look at some good computer options. I've got about 4-6 months to have the computer parts shipped in and built, here we go:

Goals:
I'm looking at the $1,000 to $1,500 dollar range. This is going to come out of my own pocket, so either you can talk me up in terms of quality, or down considering I don't need much.

I already have a (cheap) keyboard and mouse, and old computer case + power supply. Seeing as how the usb 3.0/ Thunderbolt war currently going on I'm looking for either a dual purpose mo-bo OR just using the PCI slots to add expanders if the mobo is only one or the other.

OS - Windows 7. Not going to deal with Win 8. I have an iso of my own legal Win 7 I can use.

If I go cheap, I plan on upgrading, FO' SHO'

What will it do? I plan on doing light, light gaming and development for the Oculus rift which is planning on shipping /eventually/
I'm thinking:

$75-125 for PS,
$300 for a single video card,
$100-200 for a motherboard (I'm an AMD Fanboy tbh and I'm not going high-end, CPU so it fits imho) i'm curious of server motherboards, as long as things like multiple CPUS are optional to use - i'm interested because server mobo's seem to be more upgradeable. -what high-end desktop mobo options are there that would be compatible with a medium CPU? (I plan on upgrading at one point)
~$150 is as high as I think is reasonable for ram
I'm planning on the highest single stick of RAM possible within my price range. The minimum is 8 GB of RAM per stick, I'd like 16 gigs but from my searching, within my price range, 8 GB GDDR3 is likely...
http://www.pcnation.com/web/details.asp?item=DW4934
so far we're at ~$775.

So far, thoughts? Ideas on parts I can pick up? the first decision, imo, is the MoBo, because that decides the type of graphics card and CPU I can use.

I'm looking at:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819113287 or:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819113327 for the CPU

(I'm an AMD fanboy, deal with it)

Edit:
This actually looks like a fairly decent combo... Or am I hallucinating?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1400908

The combo is pretty decent, but I would definitely want to get the FX-8350 if you want to consider they 8-core models. 4.0 GHz base clock, a slightly more efficient pipeline, still unlocked, and only $30 more. Might as well get the best, no? (FX-9-series doesn't count...unlike their Intel Extreme counterparts, they are simply overclocked versions of the more mainstream items).

I would also go with this motherboard because ratings and it does everything you need. I also have had good experiences with Gigabyte in the past. If you plan on overclocking, you want Asus, even if I think they are a load of over-hyped shit. Maybe the Sabertooth. They just have the best UEFI implementation around.

Also, I think your memory link is broken. It's taking me to a single-stick of 32 GB server memory priced at $1355. I don't think that's what you wanted. That said, wow has RAM gotten expensive since they shut down some of the manufacturing. I got 16 GB (4x4 GB) for $94. The same set is now almost $190. Fucking insane. Anyways, you can get the 8 GB version for about the same price I paid for 16 GB, and I do recommend them because they are small enough to fit under most cooling solutions and they have nary a hiccup in sight. AMD also likes faster RAM more than Intel, so if you want to push up to 2133 that would be a wise move.

That combo is the original bulldozer CPU which was very hot and power hungry. You're looking for the FX-8350 if you want AMD's 8 core. If your programs are highly multithreaded you should go with the 8350.

300 dollars for the GPU gets you a 3GB 7970 which is huge overkill for "light" gaming

here this might be of some help http://pcpartpicker.com/builds/?sort=rating#s=4&c=8

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by InnerGoat

That combo is the original bulldozer CPU which was very hot and power hungry. You're looking for the FX-8350 if you want AMD's 8 core. If your programs are highly multithreaded you should go with the 8350.

300 dollars for the GPU gets you a 3GB 7970 which is huge overkill for "light" gaming

here this might be of some help http://pcpartpicker.com/builds/?sort=rating#s=4&c=8

---

Well, by light gaming, I mean infrequent. I plan on playing games that are heavily taxing on a system, such as Crysis, etc. I just won't be doing it super often. It will also allow me to expand into the high resolutions when the Oculus Rift gets some upgrades and as games get more and more advanced. (We're rendering 2 separate 3d images/scenes at 1200x800 currently I believe)

Even then, though, I could do with a price drop i'm sure. I took a peek at that link... Here's my idea for the video card:
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/ati-video-card-100505610

it only has 512 MB memory, but that's the best I could see.. Let's see, what my old ATI Rad 4850's stats were... brb.

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=FX-8350BOX

@Warsaw, the link's not broke, it was a joke.

I'm also very conscious of how bad the heat might turn out to be- I don't want to to do water cooling if I don't have to... This computer's going to have to make several moves as I'm going to college come Jan/Feb.

@ Warsaw, I love that Motherboard you sent! Good price. I love the idea of 4 PCI-E Slots, too!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128514
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=FX-8350BOX

Or this combo with the 7950:

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=XFX-795NFC

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-vi...d7950dc23gd5v2

Good idea on the drop in GB Inner Goat, I'm looking at the Radeon Sapphire right now, I think this would be a fantastic fit: The biggest difference I see is the memory drop and price drop. Lost a good $100 bucks. I'm not against NVidia cards if they're price/perf competitive, though.

http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?name=AT-787GHZ2

When you say you will be playing demanding games infrequently, do you still want them at full-tilt settings? I would just go with the 7970 GHz Edition. Honestly, the extra overhead is worth it, and it's going to make a difference at higher resolutions. To put it in perspective, one of my 7970s (pre-GHz Edition, they are OG reference models) has a hard time running Metro 2033 at 2560x1440 completely smoothly. I bring this up because the Oculus Rift is supposed to be displaying two images at 1080p in stereoscopy. That is a lot of pixels to push. Even bringing it down to 1280x720 each, that's still the same amount of pixels as a 2560x1440 display.

Heat, well...you did want AMD. It's not going to be Intel cold, but if the CPU couldn't take the temperatures it generates, it wouldn't be on shelves and have great reviews. Also, I wouldn't be against liquid cooling. That closed-loop unit the FX-9370 comes with is the same one I have on my i7, and it does a remarkable job. It's also the same unit used by Corsair and others, I believe. Your idle temps will be higher than on air, but your load temps will be way better than the stock HSF that comes with the FX-8350. It's also really, really quiet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Warsaw

Heat, well...you did want AMD. It's not going to be Intel cold...

---

Okay, you made me want to google and see if there are any temperature benchmarks on heat- here's an article i've found on yahoo:

http://voices.yahoo.com/processor-te...l-3440928.html

Edit: So, that article didn't have any benchmarks. Let's take a peek at Tom's hardware.

I'm at minimum a month or two out from ordering the whole computer, so I'm not terribly concerned about doing the research to get best perf per dollar. If there's a big enough difference, I may just go with Intel.

Double post: I've been looking, and i'm leaning towards the quad-core CPU's as opposed to the octo's, because I'm not really sure that the future is here yet to need 8 cores. In fact, wouldn't those 8 cores slow down older games designed for 1 core? or do you think the CPU's are just that fast so it doesn't matter?

I have never had my quad core slow down an older game designed for one core. If it actually does theoretically have an impact on the performance, the quad core is so damn fast anyway that you won't notice it. If it ever actually did have an issue, you can set a process to run on only certain cores. I think it's an option called "set affinity" when you right click on a process in windows task manager. We used to do that back in the day for sapien when dual cores were becomming a lot more common. I never had an issue there either, but I guess sapien didn't play nice with a lot of dual core processors.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dwood

Double post: I've been looking, and i'm leaning towards the quad-core CPU's as opposed to the octo's, because I'm not really sure that the future is here yet to need 8 cores. In fact, wouldn't those 8 cores slow down older games designed for 1 core? or do you think the CPU's are just that fast so it doesn't matter?

---

you're already using multicore comfortably whether you realize it or not. The individual cores on an 8-core chip would far outperform a single core chip from years back. Even should you set affinity to a single core, your operating system still benefits from the remaining cores. As for your yahoo (lol yahoo news for computers) link, the only reason you need to worry about heat is if you've done your thermal paste wrong or you grossly overclock your hardware beyond what's stable for the tdp.

I know you said you were an AMD fanboy, but why not the following:
i5-3570k ~220
Asus Z77 mobo ~ 230 (bought an earlier version of this as a gimmick, but lol that heat shield works very well)
EVGA 760 ~ 320
4x4GB RAM ~ 160 (I know you said you wanted larger DIMMs, but I'm doing serious productivity and haven't used more than 12GB yet. You should at least make use of the extra channels for memory bandwidth.
Corsair PSU ~ 130 (overkill on the voltage, but has some of the nicest retail packaging I know of)

I assume you can canibalize everything else you need, such as hard drives, case, etc.
Just enters the lower end of your budget. Would handle the new branch of cryengine with rift support very well. If you're gonna bump anything up, bump the cpu up to an i7.
Anandtech doesn't have a bench on the 6350, but if you're comparing it against a 4300 I expect it to not be much of a difference. The i5 here does far better than the 4300.

The usb 3.0 and thunderbolt war isn't really a thing.
Thunderbolt was Apple's attempt at marketing a high speed standard proprietary to them so they could act like they had a leg up. It won't ever make a market share for itself, but publicly die quietly into an intel bus standard.
The usb design committee has already finalized specifications for a 10Gb/s standard for usb named 3.1 (I think). It's backwards compatible with all other USB and will start getting into the market in a year or two.
Dont buy into the hype, because neither clearly haven't started stocking the shelves of your local walmart.

Holy moses Zeph is that a powerful GPU !

You actually have me interested in the heat cover, though. I'd be interested to looking into what else there is. I'm guessing that list is coming out to about ~1000.

I've actually looked on pcpartpicker which InnerGoat posted, and I can get a similar build for about $800: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1vsEK

I'm REALLY interested in the 4GB vs 2 GB, to see how big of a difference that could make. I mean, that could run crysis 3 twice holy freak. I think 2 of those monsters would be PLENTY, let alone one... I'm practically sold on the stats of that beast. Is there anything that has similar stats under $300? I saw some 3GB's for $250 I think, maybe xfiring or sli'ing them would be good.

I want this computer to be ready for the Oculus rift and other type of hmd's in the horizon (running them at 'full tilt'), and not likely purchasing a computer any time soon... I don't expect games to improve in quality exponentially, but rather I expect the devices that we use to get immensely better. /pcgaminsuperiority - it WILL win out eventually.

Yeah, I thought about it, and the earlier thing about usb 3.0 vs. thunderbolt isn't like hd-dvd vs blu-ray. I'm not even going to worry about it- taking a guess at usb 3.0 being the winner, as well, tbh.

You shouldn't ever really be buying a gpu based solely on the RAM it has. A GTX 550ti with 8GB of RAM wouldn't beat a GTX 760 with 4GB. Nor would a 550 run twice as many games as once.....


The GTX 750 will probably be between 200-250 when it comes out, but I'm not sure when that is.
If you're looking at using the Rift seriously, I'd consider getting a 760 minimum with a 770 as safety for games that try to brute force the rendering.

Sorry, I just glanced it over, didn't actually look at the specs in depth... :shrug:

Quick question: Do video cards/mobo's do sound passthrough these days? I knew they were starting to do that around 2010/2011 for output via hdmi cables.

and 2nd: if so, do those hdmi outputs do surround sound as well? Or just stick with headphones?

3rdly: sound card?

yes
yes, personal preference (do you like headphones for those late night gaming sessions or noise cancelling? Or do you like speakers for their sheer awesome and other attributes?)
no

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cortexian

yes
yes, personal preference (do you like headphones for those late night gaming sessions or noise cancelling? Or do you like speakers for their sheer awesome and other attributes?)
no

---

Headphones for immersion, surround for movies/blu ray... all of the above? While headphones would be more practical in the immediate situation (i'm talking like super nice dr. dre's or something, no in-your-ear crap) eventually I would like to experiment with surround (the home I live in has a receiver and full surround)

Edit:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1vxSl

So far, looking at $750. With that kind of price, I'm thinking of adding either a nice gaming keyboard or monitor. Midrange monitors anyone?

I may look at more nVidia GPU's, as well, as con suggested. I want to get an oculus rift and play Amnesia: Dark Descent on it. :)

Edit x2: I realized there's a computer with a working PSU in my basement I can salvage. BRB, checking wattage- i'll run it by you to see if it'd be enough.

X3: wattage on it is crap, 350W. I'd consider using perhaps 2 in one machine, but it's huge already, I don't think it would fit.

I assume by Dr. Dre you mean "Beats". They're ridiculously overpriced. You can get better stuff for a lot less. Or at least my friend says so, and he has llike 20000 dollars worth of audio equipment, so I'm inclined to believe him.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Donut

I assume by Dr. Dre you mean "Beats". They're ridiculously overpriced. You can get better stuff for a lot less. Or at least my friend says so, and he has llike 20000 dollars worth of audio equipment, so I'm inclined to believe him.

---

Does he have any suggestions?

Edit, check my current build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1vK7e

i took out the monitor because i won't get it until after the computer is build, most likely. I'd love to have my other monitor that's in california b/c it was super nice. It wouldn't eliminate the need for a new one, but would alleviate it for a time.

Yeah don't get the Beats or the new Monster audio stuff. If you want a good headset for gaming use, look into the Logitech G35/G930 or some of the offerings from Razer (Tiamat, etc).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dwood

Does he have any suggestions?

---

$200 - 300 price range, he says Beyerdynamic DT880s, AKG K701, or K702 are nice. They would likely please you if you like the aesthetics of beats. He also says the K702 has a better sound stage, so those might be good if you're looking for super immersive sound (i.e. the headphones handle all ranges of sound frequencies well). You can probably find them used for 175 bucks, and if the ear pads are nasty you can replace them cheaply. Buying used also "opens the drivers", which I guess is the equivalent to "breaking them in".

Something cheaper, in the 70 - 160 dollar price range, Grado SR80i or SR60i, AKG K240, or Sony MDR-V6. He didn't say much about how those perform, but I was looking to buy an SR60i a while back. As somebody who takes a competitive approach to game play but also appreciates the fullness of game sound (as well as music), those SR60i's seemed to fit the bill really well. Plus they're less than 100 bucks, whereas a lot of those other ones are 200+ (which is fucking crazy if you're not an audiophile imo).

If Flibit was still here i'd pester him- surely someone has flibit on steam?

To Zeph you should listen. Save you he can!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Warsaw

To Zeph you should listen. Save you he can!

---

I am I am, it was harder than I thought to find (updated) GPU benches. Now I've seen that the Nvidia cards destroy ATi in almost every benchmark, i'm looking it up.

The latest ones are on anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/bench/GPU13/583

Edit: I'm looking for the best price/perf ratio. I have a CD/DVD drive alread, so let's drop the Blu-Ray for now. What else can I canibalize? My thoughts are to buy high-end CPU/GPU/MoBo w/ a decent PSU, and the rest doesn't really matter. I want performance before function!

Phase-building a computer is harder than I thought. I'll take a peek at the benches of intel vs AMD in the proc section, as well.

AnandTech's GPU Bench isn't to your liking?

Best price/performance will come from an Intel/ATI combination, though it also depends on your performance target. I think Nvidia has some better mid-range options.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Warsaw

To Zeph you should listen. Save you he can!

---

This is especially true since I've watched Empire twice today.

Phase building only works if you buy the best of something in each phase since by the time you wait for the next phase something better has already come out putting an even larger performance gap between best and worst available.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Warsaw

AnandTech's GPU Bench isn't to your liking?

Best price/performance will come from an Intel/ATI combination, though it also depends on your performance target. I think Nvidia has some better mid-range options.

---

Anandtech is great. I'm used to relying on Tomshardware, and oddly the most recent benches they have are workstation benches, not gaming :/ Sad reality of the current gen is this: a lot of pc games these days are ports from consoles, so they don't take advantage of a lot of the power offered by PC's...

@ Zeph:

Yeah, I got that. I'm putting apps in for a bunch of jobs. If I can get another job or two, it will open the doors for me in getting a significantly better computer. If I were to spend a whole $300 on a single card, I'd want the perf ratio to be the best possible. Like, I don't want to pay $700 for an ati 7990 when I can pay ~600 for two 7950's and get similar performance.

I'm looking at benches- Essentially what's the most powerful game out there, and then let's take a recognized 3d bench, and see how much we're paying for that fps. If the Nvidia titan, for example, comes out to less FPS/Dollar, then I may as well go with the titan. It's not a perfect way to compare, but we've got time to go with the price/perf. ratios.

Or rather, Why go with the Nvidia Titan when the Powercolor 7990 is ~$650-$700 and beats out the titan in nearly every aspect? Then again, though, If I get a Powercolor 7990 those things are heat beasts, so i'd want a more powerful cooling unit.

I don't know what cards to compare against what cards tbh. That's making it kind of HARD. Like, what's the equiv. of an ATI 7950?

Why get the Titan? Because a single-GPU card will have less issues than a dual-GPU card. And then you can get another one later and be just as well off. Also 7990s are loud. Very loud. I have two 7970s, and those are very loud, too.

Also, for comparisons:

HD 7970 to GTX 680/ GTX 770

HD 7950 to GTX 670/ GTX 760

I'm less sure about the GTX 7-series, but I'm positive about the GTX 6-series.

Also, frame-rate should not be your only measuring criteria. Equally important is the frame-time. A high frame time will result in a jittery image, even if the frame rates are high. AnandTech has recently started looking into this, but TechReports has been doing it for a good long while. Head over there and do some reading.

As for benches, you need to look at the games you play and form your own averages. There is no "one game to fuck them all." Metro 2033 would be it, except it favours AMD cards. If you don't play that game, it's not that useful to you. BF3 favours Nvidia. Skyrim favours Nvidia. Source favours Nvidia but is so easy to run that it doesn't mean shit.

This really isn't a question about a new build, but I'm posting this question here because I don't want to start a new thread.

So I have a setup right now where I've got my laptop hooked up to a 1080p TV via HDMI. I am only running the single display on the TV and have the laptop display disabled whenever I have the TV hooked up. I have windows desktop resolution set to 1920x1080. However, when I run games, I have them set at 1600x900 through the ingame menus. I do this hoping that it'll be less of a strain on my laptop's GPU as opposed to running them at 1920x1080. In order for the TV to have no black borders when running at 1600x900, I had to enable GPU scaling in CCC and mess around with the over-scaling slider. Effectively, my GPU is still outputting a signal at 1920x1080 but is scaling a 1600x900 image up to the higher resolution. I imagine it is like taking a low resolution picture image and setting it as your desktop background, and having it stretched to fit your screen. The result is a more pixelated and lower quality image.

So my question is this: would I be better off just running the games in 1920x1080? The GPU still has to use its own resources to upscale the 1600x900 image anyway, so maybe the reduction in load is smaller than I think. Perhaps I am not gaining any reduction in load at all??? If I run them at 1920x1080, the image quality would certainly be better, but I don't want my laptop to melt.

Well, the only way is to test, tbh. If you can, what I suggest is to get your GPU temp at the lower resolution stretched, and then to get the non-stretched temperature. If the stretched temp is, on average, higher- THEN try the higher res to see if it compares to the stretched image.

Most GPU's should have some firmware or software suite that tests such things.

I ordered a UtechSmart 8200 dpi mouse b/c the one from GE I bought was NOT working out. Here's quick review: I open the box, it's super convenient, nice packaging. The mouse is usb and comes with 6 led weights. It has blue led lights, one for power, another to show the setting it's on for dpi. The mouse, without the weights, is EXTREMELY light, like feather-light. Below the scroll wheel it has a +/- button for changing the dpi manually. It has 4 side buttons, 3 on the thumb side, one on the right side.

Its curvature is very form-fitting to the hand, and comfortable. It probably has the nicest usb cord I've seen in a mouse, it's some kind of braided cloth covering the usb cord, and has a good length in my opinion. It may not be long enough if your desk is significantly higher than your computer, but for the most part the length fits my purposes.

So far, i'd give it a 5 out of 7 stars- mouse feels like it's made out of plastic and easily breakable. (I haven't tested it on any games up to this point, but I desperately needed a mouse that was much more effective, especially in normal usage) It retails for about $30.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/me...cal-explosion/

CRAP. Ordering DDR 3 right now, maybe a new gfx card... Couldn't have come at a worse time. Might wait and deal with the price increase? IDK how long it will actually take though, for the prices to impact the market?

the prices are already rising, when the hard drive thing happened prices doubled.

they tried to oc the Titan for the OC edition and that is what happened

Add me on Steam, dwood15 I've gotta get a card before the prices sky rocket for gpu's too.

Looks like the fire didn't damage the fab itself in the clean room, but was something in air purification system. Prices will spike quickly from the drop in continuous supply, but they should lower after production resumes relatively shortly.

Whelp, at least now I have 16 GB of ram and a new GPU with GDDR5 on the way... LOL. Went with a Sapphire Radeon 7970. B/c of going with Ati, most likely getting an intel board now...

Also, for PSU's, would you recommend the be quiet! brand of PSU's? I want the PSU to be pretty darn quiet, and the company has some good reviews, especially for what they're going for.

Here's a list on ncix us

It might take some saving, but I'm looking at a 750 W PSU (I think 1,000 is overkill, but 750 would be good for OC'ing, as well as the 7970. If the cooler is too loud in the 7970, and i've put some time into saving money, I'll probably go with water cooling.

I'm thinking an Intel Core i5 for a CPU, I don't reckon an Octo-core is going to make much of a difference, so a quad is probably what i'm getting. Suggestions on a good Intel/AMD cpu? I know it won't be super cold if I get AMD, but their AM socket architecture is very robust, and seems to last between multiple generations of CPU's whereas intel needs a new mobo with almost every generation.

Thoughts?

Double posting, but what do you guys think of this brand of power supply? I was trying to find a quiet PSU with a reasonable price, and this is the best I could find. 850-Watt PSU seems reasonable for the computer i'd like to build (an upgrade from the current 460 which would get crushed by the 7970 that just got in)

Get one of the newer Corsair power supplies, the fan doesn't even turn on unless the system is under enough load and the PSU gets hot enough.

Shit that sounds awesome. Probably expensive as usual, though. Then again, quality is worth it.

150

Not too bad, especially for the 80 plus gold cert. I think I might just go with that psu tbh. 850w had ought to be plenty for a 7970 some hdds and a disc drive tbh. Any reason why a 1000w would be better?

Nope. 850 is already way more than enough.

Well, the higher the rated wattage the easier it is for the PSU to power your componenets. That could mean less noise from fans kicking in, and/or longer lifetime for the PSU since it's not working as hard.

That's why I always go for lolhueg PSU's.

I use a 1080W HEC PSU that cost me around $80. I have always skimped on PSUs. Want to know how many times I've had to actually replace one? Twice. After many, many years of service each, and I suspect that thoroughly vacuuming one of them would have fixed it right up.

I got a Corsair 850W Semi-Modular for about $100 (gold rated, mind) the ASRock 990 FX, and the ATi 7970, as well as the AMD FX 8-core ("Vishera") Even though I'm more partial towards less cores, faster clock (If it weren't for a deal i made with a friend, i'd be using a 6-core just because I'd rather have the higher clock benefit each core more).

Currently not going to install Windows onto the machine. An Ubuntu 13.04 iso is currently downloading. While i'm not a fan of the new ui, it is what it is. A 120 GB TLC SSD is on its way. I've got a 250 GB HDD for the mass storage (I honestly don't use that much data. Maybe steam will fill it all up? lol)

I know this is completely ridiculous, but I am honestly eyeing either the Asus pq321 or a Cintiq I know, you might say they're overkill, but I refuse to be stuck with these crappy lcd monitors. It will take some saving, but I will get one.. ONE DAY. EDIT: the 13" cintiq isn't a bad idea, either, actually.

I'm totally Scrimping on the case, though. Just re-using an old one my parents have lying around.

EDIT: UBUNTU is a pain in my rear, and doesn't have support for my gaming mouse. Sorry guys, but picking up a non-sucky os. I'll still dual boot Ubuntu, but I don't have any desire to run into the support issue over and over again. Bye bye yet another $200. (win 7 pro - 16 gig ram limit? You gotta be kidding me) I'm picking up a quieter fan for 30 bucks on top of it as well.

Anyone know of any reasonably priced monitors? Looking into getting two new ones because im using a TV as my primary and it sucks :/

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/QNIX-QX271...item19dcc63b9c

Korean 27" 2560x1440 monitors. Research 'em.

Uh, Dwood, Windows 7 Pro 64-bit has a 192 GB limit...yeah...

Anything else is a hardware limitation...or Home Premium. Don't get Home Premium.

I meant home prem. getting pro.

Lol pro. ULTIMATE ALL TEH WAI

I got Pro for free. Not complaining.

Had win7 free legally once but lost the cd key. :/ Win7 is worth it. Not paying for win8, nor am I even going to pirate it. Not worth either.

Also, don't diss- I'm not going to be staying stuck with 16 GB's of RAM. As soon as there are larger single sticks than 8GB, that's what i'm going for. I'd spend $200 for two 16 GB sticks. Heck, id spend 100 for one 16 gb stick.

Or you could save yourself the trouble and buy into a platform with 8 DIMM slots...not that you'll ever need it.