Desktop Computers

spronk

spronk

FPS noob
22,612
25,664
meStevo_sl said:
i7-920, 6gb of RAM, 128gb SSD, HD5870... so if I'm looking to improve the performance a bit on this box my best bet is going with a new video card for now, no? Before just starting all over, since I went with the bleeding edge dead end architecture for some reason 3 years ago?
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fwiw I was running a i7-920 (no OC, stock, 6GB, 570gtx) until this week. Built myself a new pc for xmas, ordered parts over blackfriday, cybermonday, etc and assembled it all this week while family was out shopping.

To be honest I am disappoint, while it runs great I don't have that "holy shit!!" moment from logging in the first time that every past PC has given me. It doesn't "feel" that much faster. Yeah, all the specs say its ultra fast and it boots a lot faster and I'm getting 150+ fps in every new game, but it just doesn't feel that much different from my 920.

I bought a 3820 @ 3.60, nvidia 680 gtx, 2x 240gb intel SSD, 32GB RAM, liquid cooled corsair, coolermaster 922 case - around $2500 in parts. One thing that is nice is that is insanely quiet, I bought egg carton foam and glued it to some of the areas of the case. The liquid cooling is great too, the CPU and GPU are more than 30 degrees cooler than my 920.

So yeah, if you have a 920 I don't think you will see a huge impact from the new CPUs, maybe I will feel different once I start OCing (not sure I want to bother). Windows 8 is also taking a bit to get used to. Mostly I just did all the things that I wish I had last time, like liquid cooling and push/pull fans and noise reduction and cable management. The only time so far I have felt the system faster is when I ran wow, gw2, and TSW simultaneously - I could do it on my 920 but they would drop to 10 fps, on the 3820/680 they are all running at 60fps (vsync on) with a video playing on another monitor.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
Overclock that 3820! There's no point in using anything beyond the stock heatsink/fan if you aren't going to overclock. With a good water cooler(did you get an H100/H100i?) could easily push that thing to 4.5-4.875ghz

Honestly, you may not see you max average FPS in games effected much from the overclocking, but there's a good chance it keeps the low-end of your FPS higher. Average Frame Time will probably stay lower(which is good), versus average FPS, which is becoming more of a focus. A lot of CPUs and halfway decent graphics cards can push games to average over 60fps, but there can be a massive difference on how often a CPU lets a game dip below 60fps, however brief, because that's going to be a noticeable stutter.

Decent article on the difference:http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/13...ng-performance

tl;dr: CPUs are more important than many of us have thought in gaming performance, FPS maybe isn't the best measuring tool anymore.
 
Barellron

Barellron

Trakanon Raider
698
1,376
joeboo_sl said:
tl;dr: CPUs are more important than many of us have thought in gaming performance, FPS maybe isn't the best measuring tool anymore.
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I will have a testimonial to this effect when I take my 560TI out of my circa-2007 desktop (Nvidia 780i board, 1333 DDR2 RAM, Core2Quad Q6600) and move it in to a new environment (Z77 board, 1866+ DDR3 RAM, i7 3770k OC'd) on Jan 1st.
 
Gravel

Gravel

Mr. Poopybutthole
36,381
115,606
Ok, I'm getting ready to build a new PC because the one I've got has been acting up for a while now, and this morning wouldn't boot into the BIOS until after about 10 tries. I built it back in 2007, so it's really time I just scrapped the whole thing and start over. I'm basically keeping the case and fans.

I've got a few questions.

1. I know on FoH people had said to stay away from certain brands of SSD's. The only one I remember that was on the "good" list was Intel. I'm thinking of going with ~120, so anyone got any recommendations?

2. Video cards. I'm wanting to spend maybe $150 or so.

3. I'm going to need a new PSU. I'm getting an i5 Ivy 77W CPU, 8Gb (2x4) RAM, 2 SATA hard drives and an SSD (above), and whatever is recommended for video card. What wattage, and what make? I have used a Corsair PSU for a long time and it's held up well, but I don't know if they're still legit.

I've also got $150 in gift cards from Newegg, so if there are any accessory type things you could recommend (mouse maybe?), that'd be awesome too. Oh, and finally, I've been using a hacked copy of Windows 7 for...well, forever. I'm thinking of finally going legit, and wondering if I should go with 7 or 8. I've only seen 8 on an HTPC and it looked pretty awful. I haven't worked in IT in several years, so I don't keep up with this stuff anymore. I appreciate the help!

Also, posting below what I've got so far if anyone wants to tell me I'm retarded and to get something else:

MB:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157304
CPU:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116506
RAM:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231314
 
F

Flank_sl

shitlord
499
0
Df~_sl said:
Not sure if this should be in the desktop or laptop section...

In either case:

Looking for a 256GB SSD.

Either an Intel or a Samsung (from what I been reading, they are pretty good, even if a big expensive).

I wont be able to actually use it until the end of February, however, I can purchase it at anytime.

Any good time to buy or ugprades coming out in the near future I should plan my purchase around?
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OCZ have some really good value SSDs at the moment. I ordered one of these yesterday, but it wont arrive until january.

http://www.ebuyer.com/353112-ocz-256...x4-25sat3-256g
 
Barellron

Barellron

Trakanon Raider
698
1,376
Elurin_sl said:
1. I know on FoH people had said to stay away from certain brands of SSD's. The only one I remember that was on the "good" list was Intel. I'm thinking of going with ~120, so anyone got any recommendations?
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There seems to be a lot of negative press about OCZ but honestly you aren't likely to get a "bad" SSD these days so long as you keep your firmware up to date. I can personally recommend the Samsung 830 and the Crucial M4 because I've used both, but that doesn't mean a Kingston HyperX or an OCZ won't serve you just as well.

Elurin_sl said:
2. Video cards. I'm wanting to spend maybe $150 or so.
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The best cards in that range are the Nvidia 560ti 1GB and the Radeon HD 7850 1GB.

Elurin_sl said:
3. I'm going to need a new PSU. I'm getting an i5 Ivy 77W CPU, 8Gb (2x4) RAM, 2 SATA hard drives and an SSD (above), and whatever is recommended for video card. What wattage, and what make? I have used a Corsair PSU for a long time and it's held up well, but I don't know if they're still legit.
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Newegg has apower supply calculatorthat can give you a rough idea. If you never plan to have more than 1 video card, something in the 550-650W range should do fine. I wouldn't go short of 720W for SLI/Crossfire.

Elurin_sl said:
I've also got $150 in gift cards from Newegg, so if there are any accessory type things you could recommend (mouse maybe?), that'd be awesome too. Oh, and finally, I've been using a hacked copy of Windows 7 for...well, forever. I'm thinking of finally going legit, and wondering if I should go with 7 or 8. I've only seen 8 on an HTPC and it looked pretty awful. I haven't worked in IT in several years, so I don't keep up with this stuff anymore. I appreciate the help!
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Get your power supply from Newegg. Power supplies are one of the more prone-to-fail-outta-nowhere items. If that happens to you in the next few weeks, you want the ease of the Newegg RMA. They can turn it around in 2-3 days. I just gotthis one.

Elurin_sl said:
Also, posting below what I've got so far if anyone wants to tell me I'm retarded and to get something else:

MB:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157304
CPU:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116506
RAM:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231314
Click to expand...
You'll get good performance on the dollar for those components, especially if you're coming from a Core2Quad+DDR2 like I am. If you live near a Micro Center and feel you might do some overclocking, I would throw an extra 30$ at aZ77 Motherboardand get thei5-3570k.
 
S

Silence_sl

shitlord
2,459
4
Barellron_sl said:
There seems to be a lot of negative press about OCZ but honestly you aren't likely to get a "bad" SSD these days so long as you keep your firmware up to date. I can personally recommend the Samsung 830 and the Crucial M4 because I've used both, but that doesn't mean a Kingston HyperX or an OCZ won't serve you just as well.
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The reputation for crapware OCZ cultivated is no myth; high costs of warranty returns cost the founder his company. This isn't to say they aren't working on getting their shit together with their new products, but it's too early to tell.

Beyond that, for SSD's: anything Intel, Samsung 830's (many reports of 840's being flaky), Crucial M4's. Further, it seems the industry as a whole is getting their shit together in terms of reliability, but I'm only referring to products that I've used.

As far as firmware is concerned, always let other people beta test them before jumping in. Crucial released a blooper over the summer, so even the big guys can fuck up every now and again. If it ain't broken, don't fix it really applies well to BIOS and other firmware updates.
 
Hekotat

Hekotat

FoH nuclear response team
12,040
11,507
Barellron_sl said:
Z77 Motherboardand get thei5-3570k.
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I picked up thisZ77the other day and it has one of the coolest lighting features I've ever seen, it went really well with my red/black setup. I can post pictures if you're interested.


I also grabbed the OCZ 128gb SSD prior to reading all the bad reviews and was worried it would suck, so far no issues but it's only been a few weeks.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
Barellron_sl said:
If you live near a Micro Center and feel you might do some overclocking, I would throw an extra 30$ at aZ77 Motherboardand get thei5-3570k.
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Can't recommend Microcenter enough for buying your processor + motherboard, if you live near one. Regardless of what you buy, and how much they cost, you get a $40 instant discount for purchasing a processor+mobo together from them. Not to mention they generally sell processors dirt cheap for some reason. A month ago I bought my i5 3570k from Microcenter, and it was $169 there as opposed to $215ish from both Newegg and Tigerdirect. The savings on the processor and the $40 off bonus damn near paid for my $105 ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 motherboard.

About the only reason Microcenter wouldn't be the best deal is if you're spending $500+ on a processor + motherboard, then the no sales tax of buying online would outweigh the $40 off at Microcenter.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
I'll 2nd the mesh chair recommendation. I bought a Herman Miller Aeron off of Craigslist(normally retail for about $700, got it for $250 new on Craigslist), and it's the best chair I've ever owned.
220px-Aeron_chair_JN.jpg
 
Malkav

Malkav

French Madman
2,686
1,583
joeboo_sl said:
I'll 2nd the mesh chair recommendation. I bought a Herman Miller Aeron off of Craigslist(normally retail for about $700, got it for $250 new on Craigslist), and it's the best chair I've ever owned.
220px-Aeron_chair_JN.jpg
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We have the same ones at work and god damn they are a dream.

Wish I could have one at home.
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Barellron

Barellron

Trakanon Raider
698
1,376
Hekotat_sl said:
I picked up thisZ77the other day
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Very cool. The next machine I build is going to be either MicroATX or Mini ITX. What kind of case are you putting that in?

So everything has arrived now and I'm picking up my processor next weekend when I'm closer to Micro Center.This motherfuckeris huge, glad I decided to go with aslightly wider case. Hopefully I'm not sitting on any DOA items. Will post some pictures in the new year.
 
W

Wolfen_sl

shitlord
746
12
Herman Millers are the best, but too expensive. I call the $400 Office Depot chair a poor man's version of it. The OD chair used to be $299 but they raised the price for whatever reason.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

Molten Core Raider
8,157
140
The one I bought on Craigslist pretty much had to be stolen. Guy on the phone asks me how many I want...Uhh, I just want one for $250. No idea how many he actually had. Meet him in a parking lot and the van he drives up in isn't worth as much as the chair is at full price. Was brand new though, unassembled, still in plastic. I didn't ask where he got it, I just wanted my cheap chair
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H

heyholetsgo_sl

shitlord
11
0
I have a computer I built back in 2008. Just wondering what your guys' thoughts are in where the bottle neck would be:

Mobo: EVGA X58 SLI LEhttp://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16813188074
CPU: Intel Core i7 920http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...16819115202CVF
RAM: Corsair Dominator DHX+ 1600MHZ 6 1 gig sticks CM3X1G1600C8D Can't find a link for it.
Video Card: Nvidia GTX 670 Just upgraded from a nvidia gtx 285 a couple months ago.http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX39375
Power: Antec 850 watt cant fina a link.
HD: Western Digital 300gig 10k rpm + a tera byte 7200 rpm storage drive

also got a scyth kabuto cpu cooler on the cpu.
 
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