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"I need a New PC!" 2013 Part 2. Haswell = #IntelnoTIM, but free online. READ THE OP.

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brentech

Member
I only use CoreTemp because rainmeter supports it and it's part of the small theme I have. Otherwise there's nothing special about it.
 
Is the Cooler Master Hyper 212X available in the US? I can't find it online. Would a Corsair H60 v2 or Hyper 212+ perform better on a 4670K using Asus Z87 Pro, 8GB G.Skill Sniper low voltage RAM and a Corsair HX620W?
 

Lethal

Neo Member
I've been using hwinfo64 for a while now. I prefer it because it starts with Windows and I can add parameters into RivaTuner's OSD easily with it.
 

Kambing

Member
I game on a 1440p monitor and have been itching for DAT upgrade. Currently running with a gtx 670 and 4.7ghz 2500k. My question to those who use a similar resolution is what are my options at achieving 60fps?

My main concern right now is running modded Skyrim, which as it stands plays at 30-34fps at 1440p. I considered getting a 2nd 670 and doing SLI but holy shit, my desktop as is produces quite a bit of heat so i am reluctant do it. Does heat increase a lot when doing SLI? I am also kind of worried about micro stutter and or other issues related to SLI... I've also looked at benchmarks for TITTAN and gtx 780, but as a single card solution, seems to fall 5-10 fps of achieving 60fps at 1440p.
 
AMD 8 Core FX8320 4.0Ghz Turbo Boost The Newest Vishera Core $230
Rock Solid Biostar 960 D+ AM3+ Motherboard $95

8GB of memory. DDR3 1600Mhz. Team Vulcan. $85
Sapphire Radeon 7870 2GB GDDR5 Graphic Card $270

Please take a look at the bench mark chart You can max out Metro 2033 Far Cry 3 Bioshock Infinite borderland 2 Tomb Raider F1 Total War Shogun and pretty much every game in ultra setting with MAX Frames Out

1.5TB Seagate SATA 6.0 7200 RPM Hard Drive $140
500W Coolmax SLI Crossfire and 80 Certified Power Supply $150

24x DVD Burner with LightScribe $25
Large aftermarket CPU cooler. Whisper quiet. Keeps temps below 50C. $60
Corsair C-70 White or Black Case $200 I can Add like picture Optionally additional $60
3 of 120mm Case Fan $100

^

Thinking about buying the above for 790.

Is it a decent rig?
 
What originally started out as a basic cpu+motherboard+ram upgrade cascaded into a new case, sound card, power supply, and heatsink. But it's done.

I love the design and working with this Fractal case, but I'm not overly impressed with it's cooling, despite the stupid amount of fans I'm running. But I will say that these Fractal fans are pretty nice - very quiet with a pleasant air noise. When I had moved over these components from my Lian Li, my cpu temps went up about 7-8C - pushing low 80's. This of course led to this Phanteks monster, which, jesus, saw a drop of about 15-20C under load. That made me happy.

I think I like my FT03 build a little more, for it's originality and sheer cooling power, but I like how this one turned out, despite being a bit of a money pit.

Outside_zps8de2e8db.jpg~original


 

tilting_msh

Neo Member
Such an awesome thread. So much good info, you guys are amazing.

I'm in the planning stages for building my first gaming rig, I'm really excited - so far I'm leaning towards mkenyon's Prodigy i5 SFF build. Couple quick questions tho:

1) Would it be beneficial to swap the HD 7950 with a GTX 760? I'm most likely too scared/stupid to OC my GPU, and I'm pretty sure I'll stick with 1080p unless higher res monitors get a lot cheaper in the near future. Reviews for the 760 seem good, and it's a bit cheaper I think, though $ isn't the issue. Only thing that worries me a bit is the 2gb vs. 3gb.

2) How much will I miss not having a sound card? I will be using headphones, I have the old Turtle Beach DSS with Dolby Headphone, would this work alright with onboard sound? I'd like to stay SFF but a Xonar DGX sure sounds nice. I'm not looking for audiophile quality sound but I'd be bummed if onboard sounded awful.

Any advice appreciated :)
 

Roland1979

Junior Member
1.5TB Seagate SATA 6.0 7200 RPM Hard Drive $140


I remembered something about problems with 1.5TB HDD's, so maybe choose 1 or 2TB, or models you know to be safe.
I personally go with one 250GB Samsung 840 SSD and the Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS.
I chose the older ST31000524AS model since it's predecessor supposedly has some problems as well.
If all this gives you a bad vibe you can go with Western Digital, like the Caviar Black models.
 
AMD 8 Core FX8320 4.0Ghz Turbo Boost The Newest Vishera Core $230
Rock Solid Biostar 960 D+ AM3+ Motherboard $95

8GB of memory. DDR3 1600Mhz. Team Vulcan. $85
Sapphire Radeon 7870 2GB GDDR5 Graphic Card $270


Please take a look at the bench mark chart You can max out Metro 2033 Far Cry 3 Bioshock Infinite borderland 2 Tomb Raider F1 Total War Shogun and pretty much every game in ultra setting with MAX Frames Out

1.5TB Seagate SATA 6.0 7200 RPM Hard Drive $140
500W Coolmax SLI Crossfire and 80 Certified Power Supply $150

24x DVD Burner with LightScribe $25
Large aftermarket CPU cooler. Whisper quiet. Keeps temps below 50C. $60
Corsair C-70 White or Black Case $200 I can Add like picture Optionally additional $60
3 of 120mm Case Fan $100

^

Thinking about buying the above for 790.

Is it a decent rig?

You should be able to find much better prices or parts on the products bolded.
 

knitoe

Member
I game on a 1440p monitor and have been itching for DAT upgrade. Currently running with a gtx 670 and 4.7ghz 2500k. My question to those who use a similar resolution is what are my options at achieving 60fps?

My main concern right now is running modded Skyrim, which as it stands plays at 30-34fps at 1440p. I considered getting a 2nd 670 and doing SLI but holy shit, my desktop as is produces quite a bit of heat so i am reluctant do it. Does heat increase a lot when doing SLI? I am also kind of worried about micro stutter and or other issues related to SLI... I've also looked at benchmarks for TITTAN and gtx 780, but as a single card solution, seems to fall 5-10 fps of achieving 60fps at 1440p.

At 1440p or above, you will need to go SLI or CF to achieve 60fps and max settings (minus insane AA). I run [email protected] with SLI Titans. A single Titan wasn't enough.
 
I'm finally moving out of my parent's house and into my own studio apartment. Since my college laptop is starting to deteriorate, I figure this is the perfect time to build a PC, which I have always wanted to do. I don't have a TV (nor do I watch cable television), but I do watch Netflix and the occasional DVD, so this PC will serve as my apartment's media station. Anyway, here's my basic info from the list in the OP:

Your Current Specs
HP dv7 laptop — Intel i5 CPU (2.40Ghz) — 4GB RAM — 600GB HDD — 17.3" screen — Windows 7 64-bit

Budget
Around $1,300 (USD) is my goal.

Main Use
General usage + Media (music/Netflix/DVD) + Gaming — I play TF2, Dota 2, & Smite. I don't plan on playing Crysis 3 on max settings, but since I only own a Wii, I could see myself playing some of the 360/PS3 games that got PC ports. Speaking of my Wii, I'd like to be able to play it on my monitor, since I don't have a TV. Is this difficult to do?

Monitor Resolution
I don't really understand resolution. But I looked at some of the monitors in the OP and I liked the ASUS VS247H-P. It says the ratio is 1920 x 1080 2ms and it has 50000000:1 (ASCR). 23.6" is a pretty good size; my apartment is quite small so that should be a big enough screen to watch Netflix/DVDs from my bed (about 10 feet away).

List SPECIFIC games or applications that you MUST be able to run well
I'd like to be able to run TF2, Dota 2, and Smite on high or at least medium-high settings at 60 FPS. As far as the potential 360/PS3 games I'd buy, I'm not a graphics whore so if they could run at least 30 FPS on medium settings, that would be fine.

Looking to reuse any parts?
Well I have an ~8 year old Logitech Mx 510 mouse that still works fine. And a big Steelseries mousepad.

When will you build?
I'd like to have it built by at least mid August. My friend is here for the summer and he's built several PCs, so I'd like to have him around to help before he goes back to college.

Will you be overclocking?
No, I'm not great with computers and it seems like extra stuff to worry about.

Final Notes
I like Hazaro's "Excellent - Best Overall" PC build for the $1,000+ category. I'm thinking I'll use most of the stuff on that. The only immediate differences I'm thinking for my own PC would be:

- The Corsair 200R instead of the BitFenix Shinobi. I liked the reviews for the Corsair better.
- To skip the SSD and just have the 1 TB HDD. I'm still a little unsure about SSDs so I'm thinking I'll just use the 1TB and wait a year or two until SSDs are less new and a little cheaper.
- The optical drive listed on this build (ASUS DRW-24B1ST) should be just fine for playing DVDs right?

Also, I'd like to have speakers (headphones hurt my ears), are there any recommendations for PC speakers in here? For voice chat, that Logitech USB Mic seems like it would get the job done.
 
I'm finally moving out of my parent's house and into my own studio apartment. Since my college laptop is starting to deteriorate, I figure this is the perfect time to build a PC, which I have always wanted to do. I don't have a TV (nor do I watch cable television), but I do watch Netflix and the occasional DVD, so this PC will serve as my apartment's media station. Anyway, here's my basic info from the list in the OP:

Your Current Specs
HP dv7 laptop — Intel i5 CPU (2.40Ghz) — 4GB RAM — 600GB HDD — 17.3" screen — Windows 7 64-bit

Budget
Around $1,300 (USD) is my goal.

Main Use
General usage + Media (music/Netflix/DVD) + Gaming — I play TF2, Dota 2, & Smite. I don't plan on playing Crysis 3 on max settings, but since I only own a Wii, I could see myself playing some of the 360/PS3 games that got PC ports. Speaking of my Wii, I'd like to be able to play it on my monitor, since I don't have a TV. Is this difficult to do?

Monitor Resolution
I don't really understand resolution. But I looked at some of the monitors in the OP and I liked the ASUS VS247H-P. It says the ratio is 1920 x 1080 2ms and it has 50000000:1 (ASCR). 23.6" is a pretty good size; my apartment is quite small so that should be a big enough screen to watch Netflix/DVDs from my bed (about 10 feet away).

List SPECIFIC games or applications that you MUST be able to run well
I'd like to be able to run TF2, Dota 2, and Smite on high or at least medium-high settings at 60 FPS. As far as the potential 360/PS3 games, I'm not a graphics whore so if they could run at least 30 FPS on medium settings, that would be fine.

Looking to reuse any parts?
Well I have an ~8 year old Logitech Mx 510 mouse that still works fine. And a big Steelseries mousepad.

When will you build?
I'd like to have it built by at least mid August. My friend is here for the summer and he's built several PCs, so I'd like to have him around to help before he goes back to college.

Will you be overclocking?
No, I'm not great with computers and it seems like extra stuff to worry about.

Final Notes
I like Hazaro's "Excellent - Best Overall" PC build. I'm thinking I'll use most of the stuff on that. The only immediate differences I'm thinking for my own PC would be:

- The Corsair 200R instead of the BitFenix Shinobi. I liked the reviews for the Corsair better.
- To skip the SSD and just have the 1 TB HDD. I'm still a little unsure about SSDs so I'm thinking I'll just use the 1TB and wait a year or two until SSDs are less new and a little cheaper.
- The optical drive listed on this build (ASUS DRW-24B1ST) should be just fine for playing DVDs right?

Also, I'd like to have speakers (headphones hurt my ears), are there any recommendations for PC speakers in here? For voice chat, that Logitech USB Mic seems like it would get the job done.

For the games you want to play on high @ 60fps would not need a 1K Pc build, but you could always go with one if you want to play more demanding games or downsample. I would say you should always plan to OC your GPU. Even though you do not want to right now, the benefits once you learn how to would be great.
 
Hi guys, I'm looking for upgrade advice, specifically, which component to upgrade first.

Right now I'm rocking an X4 955, an HD 5850, running games at 1920x1200, and I'm looking to move over to a GTX 760 and (probably) a 3570k. I'm leaning towards grabbing the 760 first, since it's cheaper than the mobo+CPU combo, but I'm curious how much the 955 will bottleneck it. In particular, I'm looking to get The Witcher 2 and Battlefield 3 running better, both of which are quite CPU intensive.

Your thoughts?
 

kennah

Member
Get an SSD. They are far from new and a 250 gig 840 can be found for $170. It is the single fastest thing you can do for your computer.
 
Hi guys, I'm looking for upgrade advice, specifically, which component to upgrade first.

Right now I'm rocking an X4 955, an HD 5850, running games at 1920x1200, and I'm looking to move over to a GTX 760 and (probably) a 3570k. I'm leaning towards grabbing the 760 first, since it's cheaper than the mobo+CPU combo, but I'm curious how much the 955 will bottleneck it. In particular, I'm looking to get The Witcher 2 and Battlefield 3 running better, both of which are quite CPU intensive.

Your thoughts?

Upgrade the CPU because it will bottleneck if you upgrade the GPU. You really should just look into upgrading them both to be honest.
 

knitoe

Member
How does a PC benefit from a SSD as opposed to an HDD? Just wondering since I'm putting together my first build.

Almost ZERO seek time when accessing data. The longer the seek time, the less snappy and responsive the computer will be. In simple terms, on a SSD, when you click on something, it opens / appears without lag compare to a HDD. There's a reason why once you go SSD you will never go back to just HDD.
 
For the games you want to play on high @ 60fps would not need a 1K Pc build, but you could always go with one if you want to play more demanding games or downsample. I would say you should always plan to OC your GPU. Even though you do not want to right now, the benefits once you learn how to would be great.

Thanks for the info. Yeah I kinda figured that the $1,000 build would be overkill for the games I currently play, but like you said it seems like a good idea to have the extra power in case I want to play more demanding games. Especially 360/PS3 games like, say, Far Cry 3.

Get an SSD. They are far from new and a 250 gig 840 can be found for $170. It is the single fastest thing you can do for your computer.
Yeah, I just don't know man. Even on my aging laptop I rarely have trouble with loading times for stuff. I don't use very demanding programs. Would it be a hassle to just use the 1 TB HDD now and then switch everything over to a SSD later, in like 2 years?

HDDs aren't exactly reliable these days anyway
Really? Part of the reason why I'm hesitant to buy a SSD is because I've heard they have higher failure rates than traditional HDDs.
 

kennah

Member
Hard drives have the higer failure rate now. There was a run of bad controllers but that was a couple years ago and those problems have been fixed/everything recommended in the OP are the ultra reliable ones.

You don't have problems with seek times because you've never used a computer with an ssd. Everything is faster.

Everything.
 

Roland1979

Junior Member
Yeah, I just don't know man. Even on my aging laptop I rarely have trouble with loading times for stuff. I don't use very demanding programs. Would it be a hassle to just use the 1 TB HDD now and then switch everything over to a SSD later, in like 2 years?
Not if you don't mind installing Windows (I assume?) again. Since the greatest benefit from a SSD comes from installing the OS and programs/games on them. Use the HDD for bulk storage of music, video, etc. NOT the other way around.
EDIT: but i agree with others, go with just a SSD of 250GB or more first. It's much easier to just add a HDD later for bulk storage. So for now, just delete a movie after you watched it :)
 

Koroviev

Member
Hard drives have the higer failure rate now. There was a run of bad controllers but that was a couple years ago and those problems have been fixed/everything recommended in the OP are the ultra reliable ones.

You don't have problems with seek times because you've never used a computer with an ssd. Everything is faster.

Everything.

It's painful to use a PC without an SSD.
 

I remember doing a build on this board yesterday and remarking how obnoxious the side orientated USB3 ports were. Plus they're more fragile. I know they think it's convenient but it's really not that much more neater than having a hemispheric fold over and the connector is way more delicate than a vertical one.

It's painful to use a PC without an SSD.

Yeah. I did an install on a 1TB HDD without an SSD or cache and it was so slow. Like the god damned middle ages. All-flash has absolutely spoiled me.
 

Mad Max

Member
Hi guys, I'm looking for upgrade advice, specifically, which component to upgrade first.

Right now I'm rocking an X4 955, an HD 5850, running games at 1920x1200, and I'm looking to move over to a GTX 760 and (probably) a 3570k. I'm leaning towards grabbing the 760 first, since it's cheaper than the mobo+CPU combo, but I'm curious how much the 955 will bottleneck it. In particular, I'm looking to get The Witcher 2 and Battlefield 3 running better, both of which are quite CPU intensive.

Your thoughts?

From those parts: Upgrade the GPU first, it will be bottlenecked in some games by the CPU but the improvement will still be huge compared to the 5850.

But like kennah said: you should also put an SSD in there, it will be an incredible improvement for general usage.
 
Could someone tell me what I am doing wrong with trying to OC a 3770K?

I am using the Asus P8Z77-I DELUXE mobo

I changed the the multiplier to 45 like so:



but when I get into windows and run Prime95 the multiplier will not go past 41:


If I do the one-click overclock button in EZ mode it will put it up to 4.2GHz but I would like to try to get it up to 4.5GHz
 

Addnan

Member
I remember doing a build on this board yesterday and remarking how obnoxious the side orientated USB3 ports were. Plus they're more fragile. I know they think it's convenient but it's really not that much more neater than having a hemispheric fold over and the connector is way more delicate than a vertical one.

Yeah, hated that. It was quite hard to get it in and then it puts a lot of strain on the socket.
 

knitoe

Member
Could someone tell me what I am doing wrong with trying to OC a 3770K?

I am using the Asus P8Z77-I DELUXE mobo

I changed the the multiplier to 45 like so:




but when I get into windows and run Prime95 the multiplier will not go past 41:



If I do the one-click overclock button in EZ mode it will put it up to 4.2GHz but I would like to try to get it up to 4.5GHz

What does it show in CPUZ?
 

GHG

Member
Hi guys, I'm looking for upgrade advice, specifically, which component to upgrade first.

Right now I'm rocking an X4 955, an HD 5850, running games at 1920x1200, and I'm looking to move over to a GTX 760 and (probably) a 3570k. I'm leaning towards grabbing the 760 first, since it's cheaper than the mobo+CPU combo, but I'm curious how much the 955 will bottleneck it. In particular, I'm looking to get The Witcher 2 and Battlefield 3 running better, both of which are quite CPU intensive.

Your thoughts?

Whats your cooling and have you overclocked your 955? If not try getting it to 3.8. That should be enough to handle a single 760 and you can then upgrade the rest later.
 

maneil99

Member
Here is an issue I'd like you guys to help me with. Okay lets go back 3 months, my UD3H Bios dies and I RMA it sell it and get a Gene V. I also RMA the CPU (3570k) I uninstall all the previous junk from the old mother board and test out the new chip running windows 7 SP1. I find I need 1.280 vcore to be stable ( Using Offsets ) with LLC at Ultra High. I run into random freezing issues where my computer would freeze for a few seconds, unthaw with a beep through the computer speakers and return to normal. I reformated to basic windows 7 no SP1 and managed to get my OC to 1.256v however there was vdroop, it hit 1.248v in rpime and 1.256v in normal use. Here is the weird thing it was the exact same offset as before, nothing was changed between formats. So I had network and ping issues so I did some windows updates, lo and behold vcore returns to previous levels, vdroop disappears and random freezes return.

So I have isolated the reason for the Vcore, it is related to AVX, a Intel Instruction Set for windows 7 SP1 and Windows 8. I just upgraded to windows 8 and found out I was using the ASmedia Sata Port and kept getting BSODS. Switched to Intel and its fine now. So I think that accounts for the Freezing.

Back to AVX, when I use a command line to disable AVX things go back down ( freezes still happen this is how I knew it was not an OC issue) temps I get at 73c after 9 hour test 100% fan speed with AVX, 69c with 50% without AVX



What I want to know is

Why does my vdroop disappear? Is this good or bad? Anyone using offets experience this?

Should I leave AVX on or off?

How much time have I killed off my chip by running prime regularly for the last month and a bit?

I have my HDD plugged into the top slot of the intel sata row? it should not effect performance right? (Only have 1 HDD )?

I get 65c max in LoL vsync off (100% CPU Usage) which seems high but considering it was maxing out my CPU I am not sure
 
What does it show in CPUZ?

well I flashed the BIOS and even tho it was already up to date that seemed to have done the trick. After running Prime95 for about 10 min with it clocked at 4500MHz I'm getting temps in the 85 - 90 range which is a little higher than I would prefer but I think in normal every day use and playing games it will probably never go up that high
 

longdi

Banned
AMD 8 Core FX8320 4.0Ghz Turbo Boost The Newest Vishera Core $230
Rock Solid Biostar 960 D+ AM3+ Motherboard $95

8GB of memory. DDR3 1600Mhz. Team Vulcan. $85
Sapphire Radeon 7870 2GB GDDR5 Graphic Card $270

Please take a look at the bench mark chart You can max out Metro 2033 Far Cry 3 Bioshock Infinite borderland 2 Tomb Raider F1 Total War Shogun and pretty much every game in ultra setting with MAX Frames Out

1.5TB Seagate SATA 6.0 7200 RPM Hard Drive $140
500W Coolmax SLI Crossfire and 80 Certified Power Supply $150

24x DVD Burner with LightScribe $25
Large aftermarket CPU cooler. Whisper quiet. Keeps temps below 50C. $60
Corsair C-70 White or Black Case $200 I can Add like picture Optionally additional $60
3 of 120mm Case Fan $100

^

Thinking about buying the above for 790.

Is it a decent rig?

Amazon sell only US$144

For the PSU, get the Seasonic G550W.
 

Akai__

Member
Any big reason to go an 8gb kit (2x4gb) ram over a single stick. Won't be over clocking etc.

Always run RAM in pairs, because you will have double the bandwidth.

---

A bit off-topic, but how do you set up a capture card to record your PC? Using HDMI cables and I have a black screen in the capturing program and a yellow'ish screen on the monitor. Using the Black Magic Intensity Shuttle and I tried every resolution, aswell as every possible configuration, I can think of, but I'm obviously doing something wrong...
 
My bro gave me a nice 6970 Twin Frozr. Top of the line at the time. Thing could kill a man, it's even bigger than the GTX 780 he replaced it with. I gave him a Windows 8 pro key I got for $15 in return :)

Amazing how much card sizes have gone up. Go look at pictures of like a Ti4200. It looks like a modem card or something. Similarly, my 4890 is dwarfed by this 6970.

Anyways, it's not running Crysis Warhead just THAT much faster than my old 4890. IIRC that was running it in the 20's to low 30's FPS all enthusiast settings. This 6970 often is in the 40's, but still bottoms out occasionally at high 20's, which I consider fully playable, but is a bit disappointing. I'm pretty sure my CPU (Q6600 at stock) is starting to limit me.

Still it's enough to play it on all enthusiast settings at 1080P. Too bad the game is literally starting out so boring I cant play it for more than 5 minutes without giving up.

I want Metro Last Light pretty bad, especially after loving World War Z last week so much I'm all about zombies and semi-scary games. But everywhere I see it, it's still a full $50 :( Not willing to pay that. Also I still may pick up a Nvidia card anytime despite this 6970, and some still have the game bundled, so I dont want to potentially screw myself by buying it separate just yet.
 

Kambing

Member
At 1440p or above, you will need to go SLI or CF to achieve 60fps and max settings (minus insane AA). I run [email protected] with SLI Titans. A single Titan wasn't enough.

Thanks for the response... I don't know about dropping that much dough on cards though, titans would be at least 2k, and gtx 780 sli 1.8k... Yeah i might just have to wait this out a bit lol.
 
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