Desktop Computers

What kind of heat are you getting on that RAM when overclocking it? I'd be a bit wary upping the default voltage when that RAM doesn't have any heatsinks on it at all, its just bare circuitboards & chips.

joeboo_sl said:

What kind of heat are you getting on that RAM when overclocking it? I'd be a bit wary upping the default voltage when that RAM doesn't have any heatsinks on it at all, its just bare circuitboards & chips.

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Probably less heat than standard 1.5v ram, since this is a 30 nm fabrication, more efficient and cooler. Also probably cooler because it doesn't have heat spreaders. I'm not convinced most of the spreaders these companies use do anything at all for thermals and are mostly to make it look pretty. I would even bet that some of those spreaders cause the ram to run hotter since the chips themselves aren't getting any direct airflow. Shrug. Never had a problem with heat output from ram. Just don't overvolt it (> 1.5v) and no problemo.

One more edit: You can totally run faster timings on this ram while keeping the voltage at 1.35v if you want. I'm not sure why Samsung uses such conservative timings. Marketing no doubt. This stuff can keep up with and outperform most, if not all, of the more expensive, 1337 heat spreader covered ram from enthusiast companies. A lot of that ram is samsung under the spreader anyway (hynix, samsung and micron are the three main chip fabricators if I remember right).

joeboo_sl said:

What kind of heat are you getting on that RAM when overclocking it? I'd be a bit wary upping the default voltage when that RAM doesn't have any heatsinks on it at all, its just bare circuitboards & chips.

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Heat spreaders on DDR_x ram are for looks only. They are left over from the days of RAMBUS ram where the active module got hot and needed to spread the thermal load to the other IC's.

spronk_sl said:

Does anyone here run SRT? Is it good/worth it? My mobo supports it and I have a spare SSD but no idea if its worth the extra hassle.

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I use it. I have a SSD boot/app drive, with a HDD storage that I cache with a 20GB SLC drive. It is noticeable, but not pure SSD speed (even with writes cached). I also run a couple games (WoW/D3) off of my main SSD, so my HDD/cache sub-system is mostly used for random Steam games. With the falling prices of SSDs the need to cache lessens. I wouldn't build a system if the cache drive was the only SSD is use, but if you have an extra/old drive go for it.

The hassle is that you need to set the Intel controller to RAID mode in the BIOS to enable caching, which will cause issues with existing OS installs. If you don't plan to reinstall your OS, I'd research it heavily before making the switch on an existing system.

Intrinsic_sl said:

Was talking to a friend the other day about the build I put together the end of last year and he asked me about video editing machines. Since mine was built mostly for gaming I really have no idea which components translate well for editing vs. gaming. i7s are better than i5s? Or AMD is better than Intel? Larger 2 TB+ drives for storage and forgo SSDs? Etc... Not really looking to build this and support it for him, but if we could piece something together on ibuypower or another site that'd be a start.

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http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...n,3370-15.html

i7s are going to be your best bet if you want to game AND have great video editing performance. High-end AMD FX processors start to come back into the picture for video/audio editing, as being arguably better than i5, but generally not better than newer i7s. Check out the Handbrake and Totalcode benchmarks in the link above. The AMDs perform well because of their higher default clock speeds, a 3.9ghz AMD FX 8170 basically performs the same as an i5 3570K at 3.4 ghz. Clock that 3570K up to 3.9 ghz as well and I bet it pulls ahead slightly.

And honestly, if I was doing a lot of video editing work pretty often, I'd probably get a nice 180 or 240GB SSD to use for nothing but that. SSDs are going to be great for that purpose over conventional hard drive, I'd maybe just store all the TBs of finished video on old-school hard drives, but use SSDs for all the active work/editing.

two questions -

1. someone recommended me a baller ass case on the other forums, it was huge, expensive and awesome. anyone know what I'm referring to? it seemed quite popular.
2. are any barebones setups or complete desktops out there worth a damn without being a big loss of value? my inboard sound is going out, my video card is is from 2006. I'm still playing and streaming everything fine, but I feel like a new build is in order.

I did upgrade the cpu and mobo a few years ago though, so it's not a total dinosaur

ham_sl said:

two questions -

1. someone recommended me a baller ass case on the other forums, it was huge, expensive and awesome. anyone know what I'm referring to? it seemed quite popular.
2. are any barebones setups or complete desktops out there worth a damn without being a big loss of value? my inboard sound is going out, my video card is is from 2006. I'm still playing and streaming everything fine, but I feel like a new build is in order.

I did upgrade the cpu and mobo a few years ago though, so it's not a total dinosaur

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Honestly, you could easily get a few more years use out of that setup with a new video card, and you could easily slap in a sound card to make up for the on-board sound crapping out. My only concern would be if the onboard sound is crapping out, there's a good chance something else that isn't as easily replacable might go next. You're good on RAM, and the CPU is alright, you'd get good gaming performance with a better video card. I don't know that I'd spend a ton on a video card, I might not bother going with a 670 or 680 because they will be bottlenecked a little bit by your CPU, but a mid-range card like a 660Ti or 7950(both can be had for well under $300) would still serve you well with your CPU for the next couple years if you don't want to mess with a new build right now.

So basically, you could probably invest $300 in that setup(vid card + sound card) and make it another 2-ish years just fine, or do a whole new build for the long haul(3-5 years)

meStevo_sl said:

There any reason to wait on the ~$350-ish video card market for the next big thing? Considering targeting aGTX 670for a little more than that as early as a week or two from now if not. Might try and get it before a LAN party at the end of the month.

Also, wow the hyper212 is big compared to everything else in the case. When I turned the computer back on I expected it to just say '42'

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I can't remember what your current video card is, but if it's still performing decently for you, it might not hurt to wait a couple months. The new AMD 8000-series cards should be announced/releasing this Spring, so I'd expect 7000 series cards, and possibly even Nvidias 600-series cards to start to drop in price as a result. Unless your current card is a total POS, then I wouldn't wait much longer when you could be using it now with huge improvements.

Anyone have any interest in a couple 460 1gb (not matching, one EVGA and one Gigabyte) or a 4870x2? Any suggestions on what to do with them? Not really worth anything, anymore.

I might be interested in buying a 460 off of ya(assuming you'd sell them seperately, rather than as a pair), I want to give my old computer to my nephews but its missing a vid card since I re-used my newish 660Ti in my new machine. I have no idea what shipping costs are like from Canada to the US to even know if it would be worth bothering with or not though. I know the US Postal Service has flat-rate boxes that the card would probably fit in that they charge like $11-$15ish for, but no clue what the pricing would be like originating from Canada with whatever services are available to you where you are at.

joeboo_sl said:

I might be interested in buying a 460 off of ya(assuming you'd sell them seperately, rather than as a pair), I want to give my old computer to my nephews but its missing a vid card since I re-used my newish 660Ti in my new machine. I have no idea what shipping costs are like from Canada to the US to even know if it would be worth bothering with or not though. I know the US Postal Service has flat-rate boxes that the card would probably fit in that they charge like $11-$15ish for, but no clue what the pricing would be like originating from Canada with whatever services are available to you where you are at.

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Look in to the shipping and get back to me. Free to good home if they will see use. They'd be shipping from Edmonton, Alberta.

Big nice cases are the Corsair Obsidian series. Check out the550dthe650dor the800d(you really don't need this one unless you're water cooling some dual cpu tri sli monster).

Not a fan of the Antec gaming cases because of the mesh usage that will not protect your shit from dust and sucky noise isolation. If you like Antec, I'd go with the Performance series like theP280orP183.