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[Jeffrey]

What are the decent g-sync 1440p monitors people are into today? Seems like every IPS one is plagued with build quality issues? Kinda don't want to deal with RMAing stuff that cost $800...


I'm looking at the dell s2716dg, TN panel, but $530 on amazon and reviews seem fairly positive?

 

[Tenacious-D]

http://www.nofancomputer.com/eng/products/CR-95C02.php

http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=347

Can't beat the 0dB options

Do those actually work? Looking at some info about the No Fan one, it seems that a lot of people install a fan anyway. Some reviews also mention idle temps of 70C. That's not good.

Getting of HDDs is a good idea for reducing noise. Do you have your SSDs yet? 1TB Mushkin is really cheap compared to the rest...I ended up going with that.

I got an H110i, but I recommend going with an air cooler. The water coolers perform really well, but the minimum noise level is definitely higher than an air cooler. Both the Noctua and Be Quiet will be great. If you're going for ultimate silence, you'll probably also want to keep your overclock a 100-200MHz below your maximum...so aim for 4.5 or 4.6GHz.

You might want to look at getting a fan controller if you want the ultimate control over your cooling, though you can usually achieve the same or similar results using your motherboard or resistors if your fans are connected directly to your PSU. My previous build had a fan controller and I had all my fans running at 400RPM. It was glorious.

Also, you'll want to use a non reference GPU cooler. If you're in the market for a new GPU, the bigger and more fans there are, the better. It will dump a lot of hot air into your case, but as long as your airflow is adequate, it will be a lot quieter than the reference blower style coolers.

I haven't bought them yet, mainly because my current mobo only has support for SATA 3Gb/s. I bought it in 2011 when Sandy Bridge came out, it only has 4 SATA ports anyway, and I'm using all of them at the moment. Unfortunately, there's no local supplier for the Mushkin's here. I have access to almost every other brand though. Looking at Amazon, they're damn cheap, $200 for a 1TB, but if I were to import one using Amazon, the price almost triples to the equivalent of $550. Thanks governmental import duties! /s

Great, thanks for the info!

My Fractal Design R5 has a 3 stage fan controller built in, with support for three fans. I usually keep it on setting 2 for normal use, and bump it up to setting 3 for the majority of games.

I've actually never owned a blower style cooler. They usually don't make it over here, only the aftermarket ones by Gigabyte, MSI, Asus ect do.

 

[Vaettir]

Do those actually work? Looking at some info about the No Fan one, it seems that a lot of people install a fan anyway. Some reviews also mention idle temps of 70C. That's not good.

If you never put a significant load on the CPU and are at least using a power efficient one, they work well as passive heatsinks. However they are more reliable if you have good airflow within your case.

 

[ACE 1991]

Welp, I got a killer deal on a 980ti FTW. $375 after tax and rebate as an open box item at my local micro center, I couldn't say no.

Does it require much more power than a 970? I should be fine with my 620w PSU and 2500K (@4.0) setup, right? I'll be upgrading to Skylake soon too.

 

[DjRalford]

Welp, I got a killer deal on a 980ti FTW. $375 after tax and rebate as an open box item at my local micro center, I couldn't say no.

Does it require much more power than a 970? I should be fine with my 620w PSU and 2500K (@4.0) setup, right? I'll be upgrading to Skylake soon too.

600w Recommended PSU, you'l probably be on the limit if you overclock the card along with your CPU

 

[TheFlow]

The cpu is great. So no need for that.

Only other thing to consider is the psu, what is yours?

750

 

[ACE 1991]

600w Recommended PSU, you'l probably be on the limit if you overclock the card along with your CPU

My 2500K is lightly OC'd at 4.0ghz and I'm not going to OC the card.

 

[DjRalford]

How close can an i5-6600K get to a 6700K when overclocked? How far away is it from a 6700K when both are overclocked?

Surely it would depend on if the things your running are multi thread intensive, as 4 threads vs 8

 

[DBT85]

How close can an i5-6600K get to a 6700K when overclocked? How far away is it from a 6700K when both are overclocked?

The difference is in hyperthreading.

If you only need 4 threads then it should be close enough.

This review has both cpus in and they clocked a 6700k to 4.7 and a 6600k to 4.5. Only tested in games at 1080 though.

http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/luke-hill/intel-core-i7-6700k-i5-6600k-skylake-cpu-review/8/

 

[ACE 1991]

If i'm replacing my 970 with a 980ti, I don't need to uninstall and replace the drivers right?

 

[ISee]

If i'm replacing my 970 with a 980ti, I don't need to uninstall and replace the drivers right?

No, you don't need to uninstall your drivers.

 

[ACE 1991]

Nope. You're good to go.

Thanks!


I'm a little concerned about my PSU (it's a high quality 620W) and the new GPU being too much. I remember the requirements of the 290 being overblown, so I imagine I should be plenty ok using this 980TI even though I have a modestly OC'd CPU (@4.0ghz).

 

[Onemic]

The difference is in hyperthreading.

If you only need 4 threads then it should be close enough.

This review has both cpus in and they clocked a 6700k to 4.7 and a 6600k to 4.5. Only tested in games at 1080 though.

How many games use 8 threads? Is it a lot?

And how many games do you think will be using 8+ threads by the time the successor to skylake releases?

 

[ISee]

Thanks!


I'm a little concerned about my PSU (it's a high quality 620W) and the new GPU being too much. I remember the requirements of the 290 being overblown, so I imagine I should be plenty ok using this 980TI even though I have a modestly OC'd CPU (@4.0ghz).

620W is more than enough. You're good to go.

How many games use 8 threads? Is it a lot?

And how many games do you think will be using 8+ threads by the time the successor to skylake releases?

There is a nice video from DF about the 6600k vs 6700k topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhaB1dqYv_I

Especially CPU heavy games with the ability to handle 8 threads profit from the it 6700k. If you're looking to get a high end GPU now or in the future (something like a 980ti, 1070 or 1080) going for the i7 6700k may be a good idea.

Also if you're going to upgrade your CPU, get ddr4 ram with a high clock speed. Intel CPUs seem to profit greatly from ram with high clock speeds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er_Fuz54U0Y

 

[RedSwirl]

Oh, and I have a question about HDDs. Because a lot of the files on my computer are in an HDD (but not Windows itself), sometimes my computer locks up while waiting for the HDD to wake up. What I'm asking is, if there's a way to just keep it constantly spinning, is that a lot less safe for the hard drive itself? It's a pretty old HDD. I've probably been using it for like six years. I guess I should check and see if 1TB SSD prices are low enough for me to just clone it over.

 

[DBT85]

How many games use 8 threads? Is it a lot?

And how many games do you think will be using 8+ threads by the time the successor to skylake releases?

Not a huge amount right now, but a few. With the Xbone and PS4 using 8 cores more games will be better optimised for them, but its going to be a long long time before its the norm.

The 6600k is a fantastic chip to game with and will be for a long time yet. The 2500k is still a great chip and it's 5 years old.

I've had a 2500k since launch and today my 6700k arrived, I spent the extra on the 6700k over the 6600k because I do more things that will use the threads, and I won't now upgrade again for probably 4 years as that's the cycle I've gotten into.

EDIT: actually posted the review above lol.

 

[ACE 1991]

620W is more than enough. You're good to go.

Right on!

I know this isn't the thread, but I'd sell my Gigabyte 970 for $215 shipped if anyone is interested.

 

[LilJoka]

Oh, and I have a question about HDDs. Because a lot of the files on my computer are in an HDD (but not Windows itself), sometimes my computer locks up while waiting for the HDD to wake up. What I'm asking is, if there's a way to just keep it constantly spinning, is that a lot less safe for the hard drive itself? It's a pretty old HDD. I've probably been using it for like six years. I guess I should check and see if 1TB SSD prices are low enough for me to just clone it over.

Just change the HDD power down time in the power settings in control panel. You have to select the plan (balanced/performance etc) and then edit the plan and go into advanced settings. Set the time to 0 for hdds never to spin down.

 

[comu]

Hey guys!

I'm a software developer and will soon start working from home after agreeing this with the company I work for.

I currently have an "ASUS VE247H 24 inch LED Widescreen Full HD 1080p 2ms" monitor. Ideally I want to go for the same one, but it's three years old now and I'm not sure if I can find the exact one.

Can you guys recommend a monitor of similar size with HDMI and DVI? I'm in the UK and my budget is roughly £200 for each monitor. I've taken a look at the ASUS VG248QE, but I'm not much of a gamer so I wouldn't need the added Hz.

Thanks!

 

[DjRalford]

Hey guys!

I'm a software developer and will soon start working from home after agreeing this with the company I work for.

I currently have an "ASUS VE247H 24 inch LED Widescreen Full HD 1080p 2ms" monitor. Ideally I want to go for the same one, but it's three years old now and I'm not sure if I can find the exact one.

Can you guys recommend a monitor of similar size with HDMI and DVI? I'm in the UK and my budget is roughly £200 for each monitor. I've taken a look at the ASUS VG248QE, but I'm not much of a gamer so I wouldn't need the added Hz.

Thanks!

Your monitor, 6 in stock at Novatech £110

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...=google&utm_medium=base&utm_campaign=products

 

[NeOak]

Anyone selling their Radeon Fury X to get a 1080/1070?

620W is more than enough. You're good to go.



There is a nice video from DF about the 6600k vs 6700k topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhaB1dqYv_I

Especially CPU heavy games with the ability to handle 8 threads profit from the it 6700k. If you're looking to get a high end GPU now or in the future (something like a 980ti, 1070 or 1080) going for the i7 6700k may be a good idea.



Also if you're going to upgrade your CPU, get ddr4 ram with a high clock speed. Intel CPUs seem to profit greatly from ram with high clock speeds.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er_Fuz54U0Y

Pretty much. When my brother gifted me his 2500k to replace my i5-2400, I got 16GB 2133 CAS10 DDR3 to go along with it, since I did not want my old Samsung 1.35v 1600 to be a bottleneck.

Got the 2500k to 4.5 Ghz stable, Not bad for a "free" CPU.

 

[Wag]

New BIOS out for my MSI X99A SLI Plus motherboard that supports Broadwell-EP and "upcoming CPU" (whatever that means).

Getting my money out of the X99 platform. I don't foresee me upgrading my 5820k any time soon, but it's nice to know I can do it sometime down the line.

 

[Rizific]

im looking for advice on a simple work pc build for my wife. more specifically, i have no idea what socket is new right now. id prefer an intel cpu. budget is 2k, but obviously wont spend anywhere near that.

edit: google fu found me this
http://techbuyersguru.com/500-home-office-pc-build

any objections? gpu wont be going in, will replace the 240gb ssd with a smaller 120ish gb and maybe up the 1tb to 2tb.

 

[draughn101]

So I ordered a 6700k and a CM 212 evo and I just want to verify that one of those come with thermal paste? Don't want to be caught with my pants down on Thursday.

 

[Zackat]

Internet high five.

Was it the bios in the end?

Actually what it ended up being was you had to have it in there in a weird arrangement that I had never done before (Slots 1,3,6,8). Basically I didn't read the manual closely enough before I tried putting it in. The BIOS was fine apparently. That's also why it only worked in the 1 and 3 slots when I tried it alone to test if the memory was working.

Read your MOBO manual people, or else you may almost flash your MOBO when you don't have to.

All worked out well in the end.

 

[Blitzhex]

So.. Berry, Tangerine or Lime.



Time to upgrade to mATX

The new caselabs matx is nice, but it only accepts sfx psus. Matx cases were never about sfx before. Makes it completely unusable for me. The caselabs s5 still exists though.

 

[e90Mark]

So I ordered a 6700k and a CM 212 evo and I just want to verify that one of those come with thermal paste? Don't want to be caught with my pants down on Thursday.

It does.

 

[draughn101]

It does.

Woot. Thanks bud

 

[darkwing-buck]

Hey gaf I need help, my pc turned off out of nowhere and I can't get it to turn on again. I've tried pluggin my pc into different outlets but it won't work. Sorry for vague details rn cause Im lost. My power supply is a EVGA 600 B.

 

[Onemic]

Not a huge amount right now, but a few. With the Xbone and PS4 using 8 cores more games will be better optimised for them, but its going to be a long long time before its the norm.

The 6600k is a fantastic chip to game with and will be for a long time yet. The 2500k is still a great chip and it's 5 years old.

I've had a 2500k since launch and today my 6700k arrived, I spent the extra on the 6700k over the 6600k because I do more things that will use the threads, and I won't now upgrade again for probably 4 years as that's the cycle I've gotten into.

EDIT: actually posted the review above lol.

I already have an i5-6600K. Just thinking about upgrading to the successor of the i7 when that hits next year

 

[DjRalford]

Hey gaf I need help, my pc turned off out of nowhere and I can't get it to turn on again. I've tried pluggin my pc into different outlets but it won't work. Sorry for vague details rn cause Im lost. My power supply is a EVGA 600 B.

Leave it unplugged for about 15 minutes before trying to turn it on again.

 

[manny10032]

DDR4-3000 or DDR4-2400?

How big of a difference between the two?

 

[opticalmace]

Faaack. Spilled some coffee on my (mechanical) keyboard.

Tried to clean it up, let it dry. Some keys aren't working. Anything I can do? Or just replace it?

 

[draughn101]

Faaack. Spilled some coffee on my (mechanical) keyboard.

Tried to clean it up, let it dry. Some keys aren't working. Anything I can do? Or just replace it?

I think once theyre done they're done. Replace and gargle with peroxide.

I grabbed a K65 off the BST thread for $60

 

[DjRalford]

Faaack. Spilled some coffee on my (mechanical) keyboard.

Tried to clean it up, let it dry. Some keys aren't working. Anything I can do? Or just replace it?

I think once theyre done they're done. Replace and gargle with peroxide.

I grabbed a K65 off the BST thread for $60

Yeah it's done, coffee sets to a sticky residue, not as bad as coke, but close.

 

[opticalmace]

Alright, well I'll give it a couple days and use an old keyboard for now, just in case.

If not, guess it's time for an upgrade...? ~_~

At least it didn't hit the tower.

 

[MikeE21286]

Any reason I should have an issue with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus instead of the Evo with an i5 6600k?

I'm not sure as to the differences but I already have a Plus from a previous build that I never used.

 

[DBT85]

DDR4-3000 or DDR4-2400?

How big of a difference between the two?

Not much.

http://www.legitreviews.com/ddr4-me...nding-the-best-ddr4-memory-kit-speed_170340/5

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8959/...-3200-with-gskill-corsair-adata-and-crucial/6

Same as DDR3, Just doesn't make much difference.

If you so choose you should be able to overclock it anyway. I've seen enough reviews of 2666 kits reaching 3000 without even changing the timing.

 

[ACE 1991]

So my PSU has a 6 pin connector and a 6+2 pin connector. The 980ti I have requires two 8 pin. Do I use the 6+2 pin on one of the slots then use the 6 pin to 8 pin converter that came with my 980ti? I'm sure this is right but I don't wanna blow anything out.

 

[darkwing-buck]

Shit I think my motherboard is fucked up. My PSU works perfectly fine without it plugged into the MB. I have a Gigabyte LGA 1151 Z170 2-Way SLI UEFI DualBIOS ATX DDR4 ATX DDR4 NA Motherboards GA-Z170XP-SLI, anyone know Gigabyte's warranty policy? I've only had it for 3 months and I bought it from amazon. Amazon says I can't return it.

 

[catabarez]

So I bought a Noctua PPC 140mm to see how it fits in my DH-N15 cooler. I never realized the included 140mm fans had the mount holes similar to a 120mm fan. This meant the bracket to mount the fan had to be stretched further to fit the PPC fan.

The fan has a more snug fit on the cooler than the stock fan so it is a bit more difficult to remove.

I brought the RPM down to about 1800 so the sound is more reasonable. Overall I like the way it looks and it pushes more air than the stock fans, so I may upgrade the other fan to really cool the CPU.

 

[RedSwirl]

Just change the HDD power down time in the power settings in control panel. You have to select the plan (balanced/performance etc) and then edit the plan and go into advanced settings. Set the time to 0 for hdds never to spin down.

Won't that wear down the HDD more quickly though?

 

[LQX]

Shit I think my motherboard is fucked up. My PSU works perfectly fine without it plugged into the MB. I have a Gigabyte LGA 1151 Z170 2-Way SLI UEFI DualBIOS ATX DDR4 ATX DDR4 NA Motherboards GA-Z170XP-SLI, anyone know Gigabyte's warranty policy? I've only had it for 3 months and I bought it from amazon. Amazon says I can't return it.

What you do you mean by perfectly fine? It powers up another system? It might be the PSU and not the motherboard.

 

[kennah]

Pretty much. When my brother gifted me his 2500k to replace my i5-2400, I got 16GB 2133 CAS10 DDR3 to go along with it, since I did not want my old Samsung 1.35v 1600 to be a bottleneck.

Got the 2500k to 4.5 Ghz stable, Not bad for a "free" CPU.

... that 1.35V Samsung RAM is among the fastest DDR3 there is. Stuff overclocks like crazy. I had mine running at 2400 in a Z77 board. Do you still have it? It's pretty valuable.

 

[blitzkrieg184]

If you want to build it by August than please wait before buying anything at all. AMD is going to launch its new Polaris GPU architecture soon (couple of weeks) and this might be something for you. According to rumors AMD doesn't want to compete with Nividas high end gpus but they want to shake up the mainstream and lower budget sector witch cards performing @ 390/970 levels but at a lower price, lower power consumption etc.
And the outlook is promising atm, but of course we'll have to wait for benchmarks/reviews first!

For the rest an skylake i3 build is most probably the way to go for you. But it's too early to put something together now. Prices will change a bit till August. (+/- a couple of bugs here and there can change a lot on a small budget build).

Thank you! I'll take a look! I don't know much but it seems the i3-6100 is pretty highly thought of for the most part! It can be a starting point anyway!

 

[MikeDown]

So my friend is looking at buy this PC from CyberPower, doesn't look too bad. Though I'm not familiar with their brand, so I want to get opinions before I tell him anything. THanks

 

[DjRalford]

So my friend is looking at buy this PC from CyberPower, doesn't look too bad. Though I'm not familiar with their brand, so I want to get opinions before I tell him anything. THanks

A 4ghz i7 with just 8 Gigs of ram and a 950 is a waste imo, double the ram and get a 970 at least so he can use it for a couple of years before needing an upgrade.

 

[daninthemix]

I'm looking for some advice. I'm rebuilding my system towards to middle to end of this year, once Pascal, Polaris and Kaby Lake (Is Kaby even a word? Should have called it Kirby ) out.

In terms of acoustics, what the quietest option for CPU coolers?

Something like:
a Noctua NH-D15 or BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 3 OR
a Noctua NH-U14S or a BeQuiet Dark Rock 3 OR
a watercooling solution like the H100i, but with Noctua fans instead of the stock ones? Would that not be noisier as I'd have to remove the moduvents from my Fractal Design R5 to mount the radiator?

My current system is probably already quieter than 80% of other systems, but I want my new build to ridiculously quiet. I basically live in a forest, and well... I like the quiet.

I'll be getting rid of my 3 HDDs, they're going into my NAS. So I'll be running two SSD's: a 250GB for windows and a 500GB for storage. I'll probably get an i5 K chip, push to 4.0Ghz and pair it with either a 1070, or a Polaris 11 card. I'm leaning towards AMD because I want to use FreeSync with the LG 21:9 monitor I have my eye on. Even if a Gysnc one existed, it would cost double than the Freesync one thanks to SA prices.

Anyone have any other tips related to stupidly quiet builds?

I have the Noctua U14S (that's the slim one, right?) plus two matching Noctua case fans (I believe all three fans are identical).

I have all three setup to spin at the minimum speed (less than 300RPM) until the CPU hits 50 degrees C.

Unless I'm playing games, my system is completely inaudible. I'm not exaggerating - my wife cannot tell whether my PC is turned on or not when she's in the room.

 

[NotMyUsername]

Two questions:

- My computer has been crashing this past week periodically while gaming. It did it once mid-game and then upon rebooting it would do it rapidly right when starting games. I thought maybe my external drive was dying since that's where I have Steam and all my games and upon reboots it wasn't coming back up. I swapped the USB port while trying things and it worked fine. But it just crashed again. The drive is quite full so I'm not sure if maybe it has to do with being nearly at capacity since I rarely get drives that full. Could this be a dying drive or is there something else that could cause a computer that's been solid for nine months or so to suddenly crash repeatedly when trying to play games?

- Secondly, I have an internal 1TB drive I added when I build this PC awhile back and it has never been recognized by the computer in terms of showing as available. I often forget I even installed it but I've checked the cables and everything seems fine. I grabbed HWinfo in the OP of this thread to check temperatures (everything seems to be around 35-45c which I would assume is fine?) but strangely I see the 1TB drive listed! What gives? How come this program picks it up and lists it but it doesn't show anywhere else? When adding new internal drives do I need to enable it for some reason in Bios or something? This makes no sense.

Anyhow, any tips would be good. I don't have that large of a SSD but I may move over a couple games that have crashed onto that and see if they still crash. If I get that 1TB to finally function I could move over quite a few to there, too.

Edit: It had crashed in Guild Wars 2, I write this message, restart Guild Wars 2, and at what was the end of it loading into the world it crashed again and rebooted my computer. It tends to always happen after initial loading into a game past the opening menus. Not sure if it's simply needing to take a minute to crash or the act of it trying to load is doing it in or something else.

 

[LilJoka]

Two questions:

- My computer has been crashing this past week periodically while gaming. It did it once mid-game and then upon rebooting it would do it rapidly right when starting games. I thought maybe my external drive was dying since that's where I have Steam and all my games and upon reboots it wasn't coming back up. I swapped the USB port while trying things and it worked fine. But it just crashed again. The drive is quite full so I'm not sure if maybe it has to do with being nearly at capacity since I rarely get drives that full. Could this be a dying drive or is there something else that could cause a computer that's been solid for nine months or so to suddenly crash repeatedly when trying to play games?

- Secondly, I have an internal 1TB drive I added when I build this PC awhile back and it has never been recognized by the computer in terms of showing as available. I often forget I even installed it but I've checked the cables and everything seems fine. I grabbed HWinfo in the OP of this thread to check temperatures (everything seems to be around 35-45c which I would assume is fine?) but strangely I see the 1TB drive listed! What gives? How come this program picks it up and lists it but it doesn't show anywhere else? When adding new internal drives do I need to enable it for some reason in Bios or something? This makes no sense.

Anyhow, any tips would be good. I don't have that large of a SSD but I may move over a couple games that have crashed onto that and see if they still crash. If I get that 1TB to finally function I could move over quite a few to there, too.

Edit: It had crashed in Guild Wars 2, I write this message, restart Guild Wars 2, and at what was the end of it loading into the world it crashed again and rebooted my computer. It tends to always happen after initial loading into a game past the opening menus. Not sure if it's simply needing to take a minute to crash or the act of it trying to load is doing it in or something else.

In the start menu search partition
Should see something like create and format drive partitions.
Open that, right click the 1TB disk and format it.

Won't that wear down the HDD more quickly though?

Depends if you think that running a HDD constantly is worse than parking the head upon idle. Personally I'm not bothered either way.