PC Building, Upgrading, and Parts Picking: Everything is pretty fast now (except AMD)

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > PC Building, Upgrading, and Parts Picking: Everything is pretty fast now (except AMD)

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

You changed poo poo in my OP! I would have never agreed to you taking over the thread had I known that. Fucker.

Seriously though, I dig the changes.

Crackbone fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Apr 8, 2014

# ¿ Apr 8, 2014 17:09

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 04:36

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Coxswain Balls posted:

What's wrong with the knockoff units? The one I got from DX has worked great for over a year and didn't force me to buy another controller I didn't need. The only hassle is a slight modification to the official device driver so it sees the 3rd party unit, but otherwise it functions exactly the same as the first party adapter.

They're knockoff units, so there's no certainty they'll work. It's good you got a good one but it's not typically that simple.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2014 18:37

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

DrAlexanderTobacco posted:

Unless I've missed it in the (Excellent) OP, Logical Increments is a fantastic site to get a good idea of what components are in what price range, and what they'd go well with WRT other components.

Sorry, logical increments is poo poo. It tries to flowchart a PC in discrete categories of cost, which doesn't work, and it doesn't take into account what you're doing with the PC, which is more important.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2014 18:39

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

smelly cabin filter posted:

Ok to follow up from this post I dug out the box for my psu which is apparently a seasonic s12.

To be fair a friend did give me it because he planned a build and then went out and bought a different powersupply so this one was never used, but it is way older than I realised. Although it sat completely unopened in the box for years, I dont think its going to be haswell compatible.

But after googling, the xfx offering in the op doesnt appear to be compatible either? So would this one be any good?

What do you mean not compatible, are you talking about Haswell compatiblitiy? Haswell compatible just means it supports a new sleep mode. As long as you don't enable that sleep mode any modern PSU will be compatible with your equipment.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2014 20:09

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

ShaneB posted:

Looks like I won't recommend that motherboard again. Although I know that it's an isolated incident... it doesn't make me happy.

If you take out any board somebody in this thread has gotten DOA, you won't have a parts list. It sucks but DOAs happen to every brand/model.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2014 11:34

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Howard Phillips posted:

Gaming keyboards worth the price tag?

I like tactile feedback as much as the next guy but $120.00 for a keyboard seems a little excessive when I could spend the extra money on going from a GTX 760 to a 770.

The Corsair Vengeance K70 has some pretty awesome red backlighting but other than that wtf do I need it for?

"Gaming" keyboards are kind of a misnomer, as there's lots of different keyboard features that you may or may not want to pay for, that typically end up bundled into high-end models.

- Mechanical switches, which typically feel better to type on than rubber dome keyboards.
- Backlit keys
- N-key rollover, which is a fancy way of saying you can press lots of keys on the keyboard at once
- Additional keys like media controls
- Built in Macro capabilities

It's really up to the individual. Typically though a good keyboard with mechanical switches will last longer than a rubber dome keyboard.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2014 12:41

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Serephina posted:

So, let's talk RAM.
To me, it's always been an issue of having enough of it, rather than how fast it worked. I mean, paging and associated disk thrashing causes slowdown, not waiting for stuff to read out of RAM.... right?

Been looking at the various brands, and I've learned that anything above 1.5v @ 1600mhz has custom timings that overheads the memory controller (bad). But what about CAS latency? Does the read time difference of a few ns actually make a real-wold difference? CL 11 v CL 8 noticeable? The warning not to use multiple sticks over a single for a single-digit performance drop.... in what exactly? Boot speeds? Game FPS? Synthetic tests to read off the stick?

It's all basically bullshit. RAM speed (1333, 1600), doesn't matter as much as you'd think as long as it's fast enough for the system you're using, and everything else (timings, CAS, # of sticks) has no appreciable effect. RAM is a commodity; buy the cheapest poo poo you can find with the right voltage/speed.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2014 11:55

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Caddrel posted:

Are Seagate HDDs to be avoided? Their 7200RPM drives are significantly cheaper than WD and Hitachi, especially 2 to 3 GB and up. And yet they are noticeable absent from the OP's recommended HDD brands.

http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/internal-hard-drive/#t=7200&S=3000000,6000000&sort=a10

I will have an SDD, but want to run a linux partition off a separate, cheaper disk, so I'm guessing I want 7200RPM. Is Seagate fine or are they not worth the $30 - $40 savings over WD/Hitachi?

There's a distrust of Seagate, mainly based off reports of them failing sooner than WD/Hitachi. I don't know how reliable those reports are though - if I remember correctly, the early failure rate came from Backblaze, an online storage company that runs 40+ hard drives in a super-vibration heavy custom case with 24x7 usage, which isn't really comparable to home use.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2014 22:20

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:

If I'm currently on a q6600 with 4gb of DDR2 ram and a GTX 460SE and game at 1680x1050 and plan to stay on that resolution would I be fine just keeping the 460SE until I upgrade the monitor too?

Edit: Thinking of going up to 8gb and a 4670K as well as switching to an SSD.

What do you mean by "fine"? It will work, but it's going to limit your gaming performance (as I recall the SE was a cut-down 460, which is pretty drat old now).

# ¿ Apr 12, 2014 22:27

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:

Would just upgrading the CPU/RAM/drive improve that noticeably and maybe let me turn on some of the shinier features?

Not really. Everything in your system is a bottleneck but games mostly rely on GPU power (there are odd ducks out there). Generally speaking you'll stay the same or maybe see a very slight increase in performance moving to a new cpu but keeping the same gpu.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2014 22:35

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:

I guess I'll just grab a 750TI for now since I doubt I'll be upgrading my monitor any time soon.

Looking at this build for now (re-using my current optical drive and 1 year old WD Blue 1tb drive)

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3qCQA

Check benchmarks before you start spending - the 460se is old but the 750ti is basic entry level video card for gaming. It's possible the 460 could still be better.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2014 22:54

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Peanut3141 posted:

Tom's has the 750 Ti 4 tiers above a 460SE. Not sure how that translates as I'm having difficulty finding benchmarks that span 3 generations of Nvidia.

That's pretty significant, as I recall- I just hate assuming anything will be better just because it's newer. Nvidia in particular is notorious for launching OEM cards with misleading naming conventions.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2014 23:05

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:

Even if its only a marginal improvement I'm going to see pretty big improvements in power consumption. On the other hand it's only a $100 jump to a 760. It's just that I was hoping to hold out spending "real" money on a GPU for when 4K monitors start getting more reasonable and for cards that can actually handle 4K to hit the market.

That's not going to happen. If you want 4k performance it's sli or $500 or more single card solutions. Anything above 1900x1080 performance is going to command a huge premium for the next few years minimum.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2014 23:09

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Alereon posted:

Reminder: Memory is installed in matched pairs. Installing only one module will cut memory bandwidth in half, severely impacting system performance.

This hasn't been true for a good long time.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2014 16:20

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

ShaneB posted:

They more or less do. It's just one of those things where I can't see the reason you would halve the memory bandwidth to save like a dollar. Especially for some level of actual potential future-proofing by increasing memory bandwidth.

You are looking at, real-world, less than $5 saved by getting a single 8GB vs 2x4GB of DDR3 1600 RAM. You can then step up to DDR3 1866 RAM for $10 more than 1600. There's really no reason to get a single stick vs two sticks.

I certainly wouldn't recommend hat somebody go single-stick on purpose to save a piddling amount of money. But I also don't like the assertion that going single channel is a significant performance hit for average users without some benchmarks. I understand that the distinction probably isn't important and I might be getting a little :spergin:

about this though.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2014 16:03

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

BusinessWallet posted:

What's the consensus on wireless vs powerline networking? I can't run ethernet in my apartment easily, but it's a big open loft, so wireless signal isn't going through any walls or anything.

Powerline is really only useful in places where wireless isn't usable. Powerline is slower on average and it can be very fussy depending on the electrical layout. A good dual band N router and client can be had for the same price as good powerline adapters but will be way faster.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2014 19:35

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

BusinessWallet posted:

Even for transferring large files and streaming? That was my worry.

It depends. :shrug:

If you get a good router/adapter and have a good signal environment, then file transfer isn't a problem at all. Online streaming is fine; for x264 media wireless N might be okay, and from what I've heard AC is even better.

The big issue is powerline is even more variable than wireless in bandwidth. I've got a very good Netgear 500Mb powerline adapter in a building without shared electrical and I max out at about 40Mb. Under ideal circumstances you shouldn't expect more than 1/10th of advertised bandwidth for powerline adapter. On the plus side, if you have a good connection, you'll see less packet loss/drops so streaming video is less likely to drop.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2014 20:26

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

smelly cabin filter posted:

Can anyone recommend a decent pci express wireless card that doesnt have huge leads or antennas sticking out the back?

You kind of need those to get a good signal from an enclosed wireless card.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2014 11:38

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Serephina posted:

Might as well ask since we're talking about them; What's so wrong with a itty bitty USB wireless adapter the size of a peanut? Poor reception I'll take for granted, but that's usually a total non-issue as the modem is nearby. Lower max transfer speeds? What?

Nothing other than what you mentioned, but those are kind of a big deal since they're the criteria you use to judge if a wireless adapter is good or not.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2014 12:42

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Anecdotal, so take it for what it's worth:

I have a dual-band Wireless N (Netgear 3700, best at the time it came out), fairly direct path to my machines. Multiple USB adapters on both 2.4 and 5Ghz, I would do 40Mb on average, peaking at about 80Mb on a good day, with lots of dips down into 20-30Mb. I switched to Intel Centrino PCIe card with the antenna "tail", and now I average closer to 70Mb with much, much higher consistency.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2014 14:13

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

The 750ti is really only preferable in circumstances where you don't have PCI-e power plugs available. It's a great card but it's mostly for people with prebuilts in the context of this thread.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2014 16:47

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Grumio posted:

Can I connect multiple components to each cable?

Yes.

quote:

My GPU, a GTX 760, needs both a 6 pin and an 8 pin power connector.

I also have a cable with 2 2+6-pin connectors (one, then the other, linked by cable like the other image). Can/should I use this one cable to hook up the GPU

Yes.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2014 11:56

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

GODSPEED JOHN GLENN posted:

So it's time for me to build a new pc, but I have a question. this is a moderate budget build, and I like gaming, so would you suggest a GTX 750 ti with an SSD, or should I ditch the SSD and get a faster GPU?

What's your budget? Assuming there is literally no option between a video card and SSD, I would get the video card if you want to game. You really cannot play modern games on integrated graphics, unless you're talking about Humble-bundle stye indie stuff.

But again, really depends on budget.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2014 22:43

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

ShaneB posted:

Can someone tell me why we talk about anything less than, say, a 270x when it comes to suggesting gaming video cards? I see the numbers "750" so often in this thread but it's not something I would want to suggest for anyone remotely interested in contemporary gaming. Am I just thinking too ree$h?

The 750 and 750ti are the best cards available in no PCIe power plug configs. They're ideal for people going for super-budget rigs (like Dell Outlet cheap) or systems that have low-wattage PSUs.

...that's kind of spelled out in the OP.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 23:22

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

BurritoJustice posted:

VRAM limits, by and large, do not create differences in FPS. They do, however, change the experience hugely because VRAM stutter is loving bullshit and constant at high res low ram. For example, I have sli 570s and play at 1440p. On ultra I average 50fps in BioShock infinite but the game is literally unplayable with the amount if VRAM stutter happening. For basically all games I run low texture quality now as VRAM stutter is a game ruining experience.

EDIT: Cards with too low VRAM at higher resolution look like the the pink line in this
http://media.bestofmicro.com/K/J/432307/original/assassins-creed-ftv-sample.png

Don't recommend low VRAM cards for high res, and certainly don't say it doesn't matter.

To be fair though, the only circumstance where more vram over the mfr. standard matters is high-res (1440p+) with dual card setups.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2014 00:33

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

KOMI posted:

I was advised that I should post this here:

I've been an AMD guy since the late 90s but am now making the jump to Intel and I haven't built a gaming PC in ages. Also I've always had NVIDIA brand video cards but am now jumping to Radeon. Are they still a respectable brand? To be honest I'm rusty on what's the 'Hot' hardware nowadays in general, and I'd like to not make any mistakes since I'm on a tight budget and this is a pretty big buy for me. Here's what I'd like to grab from my computer store this coming Wednesday:

Antec HCG-900 High Current Gamer 900W Power Supply - $159.99

Asus Z87-DELUXE Socket Gaming Intel Z87 Chipset ATX Motherboard - $289.99

Intel Gen 4 Core i7 4770K Quad-Core 3.5Ghz CPU - $369.99

Kingston Hyper-X RED 16GB Kit (2x8G) Dual Channel DDR3 1600Mhz CL10 - $179.99

Intel Generation3 530-Series 240GB SSD - $209.99

MSI AMD Radeon 270X Gaming 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 Card - $254.99

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Subtotal: $1464.94

I have a pretty nice case already and sound system and all that jazz so luckily I just need to upgrade the guts as mentioned above. Would this build be sufficient/recommended so I'll have little to no issues playing the latest games on high(est) settings? I'd like to stay around the price mentioned above if possible.

Read the OP. And buy win 8.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2014 13:16

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

KOMI posted:

Ya, I jumped the gun and posted before fully reading the OP. My bad. After sitting down and reading peoples posts I have made revisions to my build:

Antec HCG-620M High Current Gamer Series 620W ATX12V v2.3/EPS12V - $94.99

Asus B85M-E/CSM Socket 1150 Intel B85 Chipset Micro ATX Motherboard - $92.99 *Is this an acceptable choice for this build?

Intel GEN 4 Core i5 4670K Quad-Core 3.4Ghz CPU - $254.99

Kingston Hyper-X RED 16GB Kit (2x8G) Dual Channel DDR3 1600Mhz CL10 - $179.99

Samsung MZ-7TE250BW 840 EVO 250GB SSD - $184.99

with the money I saved from the Mobo, PSU, and SSD I figured I would up the Video card:

ASUS GTX770-DC2OC-2GD5 Nvidia GTX 770 Chipset (1058Mhz) 2GB (7010Mhz) PCI Express 3.0 - $389.99

I've had bad luck in the past with PSUs that were below 750W which is why I may have wanted to aim higher (originally 900W). I'm probably still overshooting on the RAM so I could just come down on that when I see what selection my local computer store has.. Like I said I'm not too bright on hardware so this is huge for me. I already have a Windows 7 64-bit license so I'd prefer to not have to buy Windows 8 if at all possible.

Definitely better. The reason you've had bad luck with PSUs in the past was probably because you were buying lovely quality units that actually can't deliver their rated power. The system you've posted will consume ~300w total under full load.

If you've got Windows 7 license available, you're fine, it looked like you were going to be buying a new copy.

Also, you should be able to get 16G of ram for ~ $120 online, and it's a commodity part, I definitely would not pay a $60 upcharge for it.

# ¿ Apr 27, 2014 14:10

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Grayshift posted:

Quick and informative, thanks! Okay, stepping away from AMD in case I get any on me...

Agonized between scratching the SSD and going underbudget, or upgrading it to 250GB and tossing the disk. Finally settled on the latter, putting me just 8 cents below $800. I'm usually pretty conscientious about pruning old files anyway, I'll just need to keep it below 200GB, which ought to be doable. After doing some pruning on this machine, I scrimped down to 224GB used without trashing anything I'll ever use again, and that's with years of junk accumulated in corners.

Stumbled is a little erroneous - I just read the OPs assiduously and love dickering with the filtering options regardless of whether I fully understand what they mean. For instance, the Quick Picks non-overclocking mobo link has a few more restrictive filters set than the System Suggestions link, so I used that as a baseline.

Gracias!

I'd plan on getting a HDD at some point, if not right now - you've got a video card in there, presumably for gaming, and game installs will eat up a lot of space on your drive. Games are also one of the things that get the least benefit from SSDs, so it makes sense to segregate them off to mechanical storage.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2014 13:01

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

sebmojo posted:

I love this thread roughly as much as my daughter and don't want to start a fight, but I tried win 8 on my wife's laptop and hated it to death even with a start menu mod - it kept popping itself up and being assy, whereas win7 just gives me exactly what I want all the time. When the performance improvements are fairly modest, I don't think it's unreasonable to want an OS that doesn't constantly piss you off.

(For calibration, I thought Vista, while inferior to Windows 7, was pretty much fine once they sorted out their driver issues).

EDIT: What exactly did it be "assy" other than the start menu? It's literally Win 7.1. I want details, because other than the start menu there is next to nothing that's changed - and most of it is either for the better or not something the average user would ever notice/have to deal with.

Also, Win 8 is their newest OS and will get the lion's share of patches/attention. If you're buying new there is literally no sane reason to spend the same amount of money for a depreciated product.

Crackbone fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Apr 29, 2014

# ¿ Apr 29, 2014 00:53

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Black Dynamite posted:

What's a good price on a used Asus Radeon 290 4gb video card?

This model specifically:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0140430233603:s

I am bidding on one on ebay and am looking to go around $260. Is that too high for used condition?

edit: assuming "use" means like 2-4 months.

I wouldn't touch a used Radeon right now with a 10 foot pole. Any used Radeon at this point, particularly the high end were likely used as Bitcoin/Altcoin mining rigs. That means they were run at full load 24/7 for the entire time the original owner had them.

# ¿ May 1, 2014 01:12

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Logicalincrements is poo poo.

# ¿ May 21, 2014 01:19

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

Daviclond posted:

Is SLI less lovely than it used to be? I'm probably a few years out of date, but last thing I knew all SLI setups posted in here got laughed out of the thread as a waste of money. It's kind of weird hearing people talk about it as a viable option

It's fine, just in very specific circumstances. To be exact, 1440p or higher resolution, or 120Hz monitors for 3d. Even the top-tier single card solutions can struggle, and they're wildly overpriced vs their performance.

Most people are going to be gaming on a single 1080p monitor, and SLI is a colossal waste of resources for something with that low of a pixel count.

# ¿ May 23, 2014 18:22

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

CheeseSpawn posted:

I was thinking about getting another GTX 670 to SLI with my existing 670. Is this a good idea? I wouldnt mind the second card to be dedicated to running phyx processing if needed. I havent heard anything new down the nvidia pipeline.

Why do you want to do it? At 1080p your 670 is still pretty drat good. SLI is best reserved for resolutions higher, and being willing to deal with annoyances of dual card setup. Having a 2nd card dedicated to PhysX is a horrible idea.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2014 13:01

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# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 04:36

Crackbone: May 23, 2003; Vlaada is my co-pilot.

DemonMage posted:

The real question is whether it's worth going to a 4GB GTX 760 given how Watch Dogs recommends 3GB of VRAM for Ultra and the default for the 760 is 2GB. Takes the EVGA one I was looking at up from $240 to $305~ with the 4GB version, which is basically the price of a 2GB 770.

Watch Dogs is horribly optimized, even with that ram it doesn't fare well. Furthermore, the default amount of ram on a card is almost always the correct amount - nvidia and ATI know what they're doing, and something that requires more vram than a card has is likely to just bottleneck it another way, even if you up the ram on said card.

Further furthermore, quit trying to run newly released AAA titles on Ultra settings.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2014 19:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > PC Building, Upgrading, and Parts Picking: Everything is pretty fast now (except AMD)