Desktop Computers

meStevo

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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joeboo_sl said:
I had 2 Hanns-G 1920x1200 27.5" LCD monitors and they are solid, but I just upgraded 1 to a Qnix 2560x1440. Holy crap. For the extra $40 over the Hanns G, do it. The HannsG is $250, the Qnix is $290, both no tax, free shipping.

Although, looking at ebay right now, I'm not seeing any Qnix monitors for $290 + free shipping, maybe they pop up irregularly as various places get them in and out of stock. I think its definitely worth watching for one for a few days at least.
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spronk_sl said:
yeah i second the korean QNIX 27" 1440p monitor from eBay, I got a pixel perfect version for $320 shipped. Its better than ordering from newegg or amazon crazily enough, it arrived 3 days after I ordered it and has worked flawlessly. This is the second one I ordered, the last one (shimian) was a year ago or so and also same experience. The koreans ship out hundreds of these monitors daily and there are a lot of websites that talk about it so its a pretty safe deal-io.

The only thing I'd say is replace the stand, the default one just suuuuuucks bad. I ordered this one from monoprice, for under $20 its working out great. Gives me height adjustment and has a nice solid V base. I will move to a dual 27" setup with a single clamp stand next year sometime, just waiting for a gSync compatible 1440p before I order two.
Adjustable Tilting SINGLE Desk Mount Bracket for LCD LED (Max 33Lbs, 10~23inch) - Black - Monoprice.com
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Which did you guys get? Evolution II? Or the first one that you can OC?

$320 on Ebay and $350 for the pixel perfect version, in the market after donating my 24" Playstation panel to my toddler's bedroom leaving me with just a Dell 2405FPW.

http://m.ebay.com/itm?itemId=130933173797

http://m.ebay.com/itm?itemId=321222997974
 
spronk

spronk

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the one i ordered was this one
Perfect Pixel 27 Slim Qnix QX2710 Evolution II LED PLS 2560x1440 QHD Monitor | eBay

the prices can fluctuate wildly due to hurricanes, christmas shipping, etc. you can definitely get a regular for $290 and a pixel perfect for $310, don't be afraid to use make an offer and offer the last lowest purchased price (see bid history).

this is the website I use to test for dead pixels
LCD Dead Pixel Test Backgrounds

just load up 3-4 patterns and fullscreen (F11) and look around for any stuck pixels. 0 on the perfect pixel I ordered, which comes with a zero defect sticker too (bullshit or not, dunno)

these Wakandans here are insane about monitors and you can spend all day just reading various opinions, good way to get informed
Monitors and Displays
 
meStevo

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Yeah, I found that a few pages back and have poked through it. Was checking again and noticed a few people with the Qnix monitors so thought I'd ask, since people debate over getting the Evolution II or the first one with only DVI in so they can overclock it. Looks like that seller hasn't sold one for $290 since at least October, heh, but might be able to save a little based on recent auctions. Would have never checked that, thanks. Probably order tonight/this week.

Edit: oh, that's the buy it now history, can't see the make an offer history, still though. I see what you mean now though, I'll offer him the lowst he's sold it recently at the buy it now price, worst he can do is say no and I don't save $20.
 
Nemesis

Nemesis

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hey gang... it's about time to upgrade the video card (I know, I shoulda done it during the Black Friday sales...)

current PC specs are:

Case - Thermaltake Armor 8000BWS
Processor - Intel Core i7 920 @ 2.7ghz (stock)
Motherboard - ASUS P6T Deluxe LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX
RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
VIDEO - MSI Twin Frozr III Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16
POWER SUPPLY - Thermaltake ToughPower 850W
AUDIO - Onboard
OS HD - OCZ Vertex 3 128GB SSD
Data HD - Western Digital WD Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HD (x2)
OS - Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
OPTICAL - LG Black GGC-H20L BR/HD/DVD
DISPLAY - Acer G24 (run @ 1920x1200)

it would seem that my curent bottleneck is the video card, as it's usually the first component of a new build to be upgraded...

should I be looking for a new monitor as well? This monitor has minor but noticeable color shift from top to bottom of the screen from a fixed viewing angle, and color/saturation vary drastically from different viewing angles (not that much of a problem unless I'm trying to design something color specific with someone sitting next to me, in which case we don't see the same thing)

anyway, back to the video card issue.. I'm looking at the following cards as potential upgrades. Please help me spend and upgrade wisely!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...24%24%24%24%24
 
Sterling

Sterling

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Just got a couple things finally on Friday delivered from Newegg and they sent me the wrong MOBO. They sent me a 1155 mobo instead of the 1150 one I ordered. So annoying having to deal with that shit.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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Nemesis_sl said:
hey gang... it's about time to upgrade the video card (I know, I shoulda done it during the Black Friday sales...)

anyway, back to the video card issue.. I'm looking at the following cards as potential upgrades. Please help me spend and upgrade wisely!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...24%24%24%24%24
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Well, decide on the monitor first. If you are definitely keeping your monitor, save yourself $50-$100 or so on the video card and just get a 2GB 770. 1920x1200 won't push a card beyond 2GB. If you think you want to go up to a 2560x1440 monitor then yeah, going over 2GB could be beneficial down the road.

Just kinda depends on if you want to spend ~$330(2GB 770) or $700 (Korean 1440p + 4GB 770)
 
Nemesis

Nemesis

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thanks for the quick reply, Joeboo.. the thing is, I want the upgrade to last as long as possible.. so if there's any chance I'll be upgrading my monitor within the next 3 years, then I've gotta go with the 4gb 770.

I would like to up the resolution of course, but is the 1440p on 4gb 770 performance gonna be comparable to that of the 1200p on 2gb 770? it makes sense to me that upping the res would bottleneck the card faster

also, it seems like all the Korean 1440p monitors I see are 8ms response, vs the 2ms I've currently got on the G24.. is this not a big deal?
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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No, 1440 performance is going to take a significant hit, yeah 4GB would probably help mitigate that a bit in some games, but you're going to take a hit regardless of RAM. I would guess that your would see your FPS drop anywhere from 25-33% depending on the exact game, settings, etc.

So if you can pull 60FPS in a game at 1200p, expect 40-45 FPS at 1440p.

Here's a shitload of benchmarks on a 770 at various resolutions
AnandTech | Bench - GPU13

You can see quite a few benchmarks between 1080p and 1440p, which will be a reasonable approximation of the difference of 1200p to 1440p. 1080p and 1200p aren't drastically different, most video cards will maybe drop 5-10% in performance going from 1080 to 1200, so the 1080 to 1440 comparisons will still give you some reasonable ideas of what to expect.

And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as to not wanting to upgrade for 3 years, that's going to REALLY be stretching almost any video card that you buy now. It'll start to show its age by the year 2 mark, and be really dogging it by the year 3 mark. Of course there's always the option of adding a 2nd 770 say at the 1.5 or 2 year mark, the card would probably be half the price it is now by that point, and that will buy you some more time to where you won't have to play new games on medium settings during that year 3

edit - and as far as response time, I really can't comment on that. My 1200p monitors were 8ms response time and I was always fine with it but I'm not a big FPS player, and especially not competitively or anything.
 
Nemesis

Nemesis

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fair enough.. thanks for taking the time to splain it out for me!

wow.. looking at those benches, this card almost feels like a sidegrade.. diagonal at best!
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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Well, a 6950 to a 770 is a BIG upgrade...I couldn't find a benchmark directly comparing the two since they are a couple generations apart, but the performance of a 6950 is real close to a 7850, and here is a 7850 vs a 770

AnandTech | Bench - GPU13

The only thing is, if you are upgrading to a 770 AND 1440p at the same time, you might end up with not a very large jump in performance over your 6950 at 1200p. comparing similar resolutions the card is a BIG upgrade, but you're going to give a big % of those gains back with the resolution jump. But don't get me wrong, things will run faster at 1440p on a 770 than they do at 1200p on your 6950, just don't expect to double your framerates while jumping resolutions too, or anything crazy like that.
 
spronk

spronk

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meStevo_sl said:
Was checking again and noticed a few people with the Qnix monitors so thought I'd ask, since people debate over getting the Evolution II or the first one with only DVI in so they can overclock it.
Click to expand...
The evolution II is dvi-d only, only a single input, so it overclocks easily (mine can do 120hz and maybe higher, but I have it set to 90hz since above that the contrast isn't as tight). I believe the difference between the first one and the EVII is whether you get a glossy screen (good in bright light rooms) or matte screen, but I am not 100% sure on that.

re: video cards, don't overspend. GDDR6 is coming out next year, vendors will probably deal with UMA (unified memory like PS4/xbone), and no doubt other stuff like Mantle, gSync, etc will have impacts on GPU tech. 99.99999% likely whatever card you buy, a much better and same price will be available in 12 months and virtually no game will ship out in the next 12 months that won't look really good on anything that is $250 or less. Also as bitcoin mining moves to more specialized ASIC cards it should lower the artificial demand that is out there at the moment for GPUs.
 
Fight

Fight

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Traditionally, is the Newegg New Years sale about the best of the year? I am trying to decide whether or not to pull the trigger on one of the before Christmas sales or wait till after?
 
Nemesis

Nemesis

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Spronk, Joeboo... thanks for the info, guys.

It seems, going by your suggestions, that the thing to do right now might be to just get a 2gb GTX 770 and keep my current monitor around- least investment burden up front, and the most short term benefit while still leaving me some room to jump up when the next gen hits.

I've always ridden my monitors til the pixels fell off, so why stop now, right?

Murry Crissmiss!
 
meStevo

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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spronk_sl said:
The evolution II is dvi-d only, only a single input, so it overclocks easily (mine can do 120hz and maybe higher, but I have it set to 90hz since above that the contrast isn't as tight). I believe the difference between the first one and the EVII is whether you get a glossy screen (good in bright light rooms) or matte screen, but I am not 100% sure on that.

re: video cards, don't overspend. GDDR6 is coming out next year, vendors will probably deal with UMA (unified memory like PS4/xbone), and no doubt other stuff like Mantle, gSync, etc will have impacts on GPU tech. 99.99999% likely whatever card you buy, a much better and same price will be available in 12 months and virtually no game will ship out in the next 12 months that won't look really good on anything that is $250 or less. Also as bitcoin mining moves to more specialized ASIC cards it should lower the artificial demand that is out there at the moment for GPUs.
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Gotcha, for some reason I was thinking the EVOII was the one with multiple inputs, no OC, etc.

Unrelated, my semi-annual question... when do folks smarter than I think I should start planning to upgrade from an i7-920? Got a GTX670 last year (replaced a 5870, so ended up not being a HUGE upgrade) and am guessing my next 'upgrade' is probably a rebuild. Agree/disagree?
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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Honestly for gaming, your CPU isn't bottlenecking you at all. If you do any serious productivity stuff like heavy duty photoshop or video editing/encoding work then a CPU upgrade could be huge, but for gaming, not so much.

Battlefield 4 is known as one of the more CPU-reliant games, and here is how it shakes out across different CPUs

Battlefield 4 Benchmarked: Graphics CPU Performance > Benchmarks: CPU Performance - TechSpot

CPU_01.png

While that is a 290x video card, most cards wont put out that kind of FPS at 1920x1200 on high settings, you get the general idea of how much the CPU effects gaming performance(not much at all, unless you have an old AMD cpu or a pre-i7 era Intel)

Even if you upgraded to a brand new 4770k, you wouldn't even get a 10% performance gain.
 
meStevo

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Thanks joeboo.

Offer accepted on that QNIX at $319 spronk, now to fidget until it gets here. In fact he already have me + feedback
tongue.png
 
L

LennyLenard_sl

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Wasn't sure if to post this question in the Computer Issues thread, but figured it was a bit better here since it's hardware related.

So I bought one ofthesein Oct 2012.

The fan on it has started to rattle. So I'd like to replace it.

I'd like to replace the fan only, as the unit has been working just fine (until the rattle started). I'd like to keep it silent as well.

I've attempted to contact Cooler Master support, but have not been able to get a reply from them.

Any suggestions on which fan to get? I imagine I might be over thinking this, but I've never had to actually replace just a fan on a CPU fan/heatsink, and I rarely bother beyond stock case fans, so I'm not too familiar with fan options. Thanks.
 
Jovec

Jovec

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LennyLenard_sl said:
Wasn't sure if to post this question in the Computer Issues thread, but figured it was a bit better here since it's hardware related.

So I bought one ofthesein Oct 2012.

The fan on it has started to rattle. So I'd like to replace it.

I'd like to replace the fan only, as the unit has been working just fine (until the rattle started). I'd like to keep it silent as well.

I've attempted to contact Cooler Master support, but have not been able to get a reply from them.

Any suggestions on which fan to get? I imagine I might be over thinking this, but I've never had to actually replace just a fan on a CPU fan/heatsink, and I rarely bother beyond stock case fans, so I'm not too familiar with fan options. Thanks.
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Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15are the old (3-pin) faithfuls.

If you want a PWM fan (4 pin, better mobo control of fan speed), look at Noctua, likethis model.
 
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