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Factory Factory posted:That's the old Core 2 architecture.... Each of those beefy chips is matched by the Intel Atom chip found in 8" Windows tablets these days. Is this hyperbole or is this really the case? I had been considering a J1900 system as a sidegrade from my current (albeit heavily overclocked) Pentium E2160 until you talked me into a Pentium G3258. That will probably still be the right call when I do it soon, for other reasons than sheer performance, but I'm curious on this point.
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Oct 14, 2014 05:18
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Alright, I think I'm ready. I'm carrying over a Win 8.1 license, video card, and capture card to this HTPC build. PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($69.99 @ Amazon) Motherboard: ASRock Z97M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Newegg) Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($43.24 @ Amazon) Storage: Intel 530 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($128.99 @ Best Buy) Case: Antec Minuet350 MicroATX Slim Case w/350W Power Supply ($97.98 @ Newegg) Total: $430.19 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-14 15:42 EDT-0400 Only thing I'm not as sure about is the case. It does have an 80+ PSU that'll be more than sufficient for this build. And everything I have should fit since my add-on cards are low profile. Just not sure how good the cooling will be, or need to be, since it's going to be in a TV cabinet. It has an open back and is in the corner, so it has plenty of air flow that way at least. I was thinking with a Pentium G3258 and my existing Radeon 6550 I wouldn't be producing a whole lot of heat in the first place so I can probably get away with it, but some advice on that front would be appreciated, as well as any other potential problems anyone sees. Could be talked into an 840 EVO once the fixed firmware is out, just depends on the day-to-day price. I had added the Intel SSD when it was a little cheaper than this; just noticed it had gone up a bit. Winifred Madgers fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 20:55
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Factory Factory posted:Hm. The PSU in the Minuet is not good. As well, Antec hasn't really kept up with the times in terms of case engineering. I would really consider a Silverstone Milo ML03 or ML04 instead, plus an appropriate PSU. That Silverstone case plus the 300W Seasonic from the OP should work then, and not cost much more. RAPID isn't a huge deal to me; coming from a 640 GB HDD should already be a huge step up, and for my uses I probably wouldn't even notice the difference. Thanks as always for the advice. The Lord Bude posted:Power supplies that come with cases are seldom good, and Antec cases are pretty poo poo. Get a coolermaster N200 and a decent power supply. Minimal gaming; the only reason I'm making any concessions to gaming at all (Pentium vs. a Celeron J1900, and staying with mATX due to needing two expansion cards) is I want to actually play Portal 2... time and other circumstances permitting. I've actually owned it for a few years and it's perfectly playable even on the ol' Conroe Pentium, but the monitor is the TV, and I need a better mouse/keyboard setup to comfortably play on it. I guess I should probably ask about those too, what's a good reliable wireless keyboard and mouse combo? I'd also like recommendations for a remote control-sized HTPC keyboard; I saw a few a long time ago in this thread but I didn't make note of them. Are the Intel integrated GPUs on a Pentium the same as with an i3 or above? I was under the impression they were lower performing. If I will see comparable gaming performance to my low-end Radeon then that opens up ITX as a possibility, since I would only need one expansion slot for my capture card. Anyway here's the build as it stands. PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($54.99 @ Amazon) Motherboard: ASRock Z97M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Newegg) Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($43.24 @ Amazon) Storage: Intel 530 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($129.98 @ OutletPC) Case: Silverstone ML03B HTPC Case ($56.45 @ NCIX US) Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($42.98 @ SuperBiiz) Total: $417.63 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-15 21:41 EDT-0400
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Oct 16, 2014 03:19
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The Lord Bude posted:Don't quote me on it, but I think it would outperform a low end radeon of that age. It is a weaker integrated GPU than the i3 however. If you're using a low profile case with minimal airflow you may not be able to overclock the G3258 adequately - I'd consider an i3. You know, Factory Factory floated the AMD balloon the first time I posted about this build when I was starting to save the money a few months ago. I should really see if it will run on my netbook then; that's a 1 GHz A4 APU (I got it free from the eMachines class action settlement, don't judge). It's actually considerably faster than the current desktop in multithreaded apps at least, like batch transcoding music files. I don't know if it can match it thread-for-thread; I suspect not, but it seems it's worth trying. All I need is "good enough" anyway.
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Oct 16, 2014 13:22
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Alright guys. I installed Portal 2 on my AMD A6-1450 netbook and got quite surprisingly acceptable performance. I'm thinking the Celeron J1900 is going to be good enough after all. PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant Memory: Crucial 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($43.24 @ Amazon) k Storage: Intel 530 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($129.99 @ Amazon) Case: Silverstone ML03B HTPC Case ($59.99 @ Amazon) Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($42.98 @ SuperBiiz) CPU/Motherboard: ASRock Q1900M ($72.98) Total: $349.18 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-17 21:47 EDT-0400 If (and it's still a big if) I were going to go with an AMD APU, what's the one you would suggest for my low power HTPC/very light gaming use? I get most of my current PC knowledge from this thread so I really am nearly completely ignorant of AMD's offerings. Or is there anywhere else I can trim some more cost? A 120/128 GB SSD is only about $20 cheaper so I'm going to stick with the 240/256 size range.
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Oct 18, 2014 02:55
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Rather than overclocking a Pentium G3258, would it be a viable option in a smallish case to undervolt it instead, for better temps? Or with the frequency regulation and other power saving options, would it make much difference anymore? I remember trying to see how low I could go on my current CPU, but this is probably approaching 8ish years ago and I know things have changed substantially.
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Oct 18, 2014 19:17
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Factory Factory posted:Yes, you could undervolt it, too, and IIRC Haswell has good results. But you could also just get a Core i3 4130T that already has a 40% power drop, 3 GHz clock speed, and Hyperthreading to help alleviate dual-core bottlenecks. Well then I'm spending twice as much as for the Pentium and that's not what I want. I am really trying to keep cost down as much as possible since this is going to see such light use, hence the consideration of the J1900. It's looking like the difference between that and the Pentium is going to be about 70-80 bucks, and in the long run that's not much, for a chip that should give me a lot more mileage. I need to stop waffling and just make a choice already so that's what I'm doing. I needed to explore the options and talk it out though, so thanks to you and Bude for all your feedback.
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Oct 18, 2014 20:25
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Alright, this is what I'm going with: PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant CPU: Intel Pentium G3258 3.2GHz Dual-Core Processor ($59.99 @ Micro Center) Motherboard: ASRock Z97M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Newegg) Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($38.25 @ Newegg) Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($128.99 @ Amazon) Case: Silverstone ML03B HTPC Case ($59.99 @ Amazon) Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($43.98 @ Newegg) Total: $421.19 Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-19 10:28 EDT-0400 The RAM looks like it has BDH (Big Dumb Heatsinks) but it had a 15% promo code that made it the cheapest 2x2 GB DDR3-1600 CL9 at 1.5V, and I'm using the stock cooler so I should be fine, right? Winifred Madgers fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Oct 19, 2014 |
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Oct 19, 2014 15:33
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The Lord Bude posted:That case has no fans for airflow, how are you going to overclock that G3258? Adding 80mm fans will be noisier than a case that comes with 80mm fans. If you don't plan to overclock, you shouldn't be getting a g3258. Something like a Silverstone GD05B-USB3 would be a better option. Oh hm, I didn't even notice it has no fans; I picked it on the recommendation of Factory Factory but he was probably trying to help me stay at my chosen price point. My latest bright idea was to try to mildly undervolt/overclock; I posted in I think the AMD thread that there's a little bit of a vanity aspect to the overclocking side of things for me and that's partly why I was going with the 3258. Hypothetically, if I already purchased the case due to posting this build a few times and that fan issue not being noticed, what fans should I get? I know 80 mm fans are kind of anathema but it will be behind a glass door (TV cabinet, in a corner, with an open back so it does have good room for air) and I have four kids so noise frankly isn't a huge factor.
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Oct 19, 2014 16:14
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Oh wait! Good news: I haven't bought it yet. I bought the Newegg portion but I have some Amazon gift cards back at home and I was going to wait and use them when I get back tonight. I thought the case was a Newegg purchase but I must have been thinking of the power supply. I'd rather not spend an extra $50 so is there another option in between those two? It looks like a nice case but that's getting into "ouch" territory for me. Edit: dang, that's 10 inches high as opposed to 4 inches for the ML03. I might just get a 3-pack of those Noctuas and call it good. I have the shelf in that cabinet set high to accommodate the receiver, but 10 inches is probably really pushing it. Winifred Madgers fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Oct 19, 2014 |
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Oct 19, 2014 16:23
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The Lord Bude posted:Does it have to be a low profile HTPC style case? Those are unfortunately quite expensive for good ones. Also your stated preference for mATX also eliminates the majority of them. If you were willing to go mITX, there would be a number of compelling choices. I'm constrained by a few things - budget obviously, but space within reason, and I need two PCI-E slots due to the video card and capture card. If I could be sure the integrated GPU on the Pentium is enough to replace the existing Radeon 6550 that would open up mITX. But if that's going to significantly increase my cost it's moot anyway.
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Oct 19, 2014 17:40
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I think my plan just got shot to hell. I didn't even consider that these cases might not fit. I was going to place the HTPC on the same (bottom) shelf as the receiver, which would give it about 9+ inches of clearance, which is more than enough... vertically. Horizontally I get about 16 inches, and that would be just barely. All of these HTPC cases are at least 17 inches wide. I have a 2-year-old so my plan was to have all of the components behind the cabinet doors, but now my choice is basically to have either the receiver or the HTPC on top. Or go mini-ITX and hope the Pentium's GPU is good enough.
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Oct 20, 2014 03:52
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The Lord Bude posted:This leads me straight back to why aren't you getting say an AMD A6-7400K, which costs $80 and definitely has enough grunt for you GPU wise? Then you could get an ITX mobo for 75-85 dollars, and a cheap ITX case. Thanks for all your patience with me by the way. I wanted to lead off with that. I know you and FF had both advised me AMD might be a fit for my weird scenario, but I don't know anything about AMD lately and I didn't know what chip to pick. I did ask, but I didn't get any specific recommendations - and I was more focused on the Intel options anyway. I did already order the Newegg portion of my build, which included the Z97 motherboard, and it's too late to cancel it on the site at least. I think if I move the shelf down and put the Wii U on top of the blu-ray player I can still make my Pentium plan work though. I'll probably go with the Silverstone GD09B since it's not too much taller, and has three 120mm fans set up for positive pressure. Sound better to you?
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Oct 20, 2014 16:38
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Alright guys, I put my new system together tonight and it powers on, fans all spin and so forth (except chassis fan 2, don't know if that's relevant) but I get no video from either the onboard or my video card. I mean when I power on, my TV stops displaying No Signal and just has a black screen. Pentium G3258 ASRock Z97M-Pro4 2x2 GB RAM, tested together and individually in multiple slots already, no change Radeon 6570 carried over, known good HDMI cable to TV, known good. The 4-pin ATX 12V reads 12.29V on my multimeter when powered on, so the PSU should be fine. I've checked that the 24-pin and 4-pin are both connected. What else should I be looking at? Re-seat the CPU? There is no speaker and no LED trouble light that I can see for a code.
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Oct 29, 2014 04:40
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Rexxed posted:Take out the video card and see if it works with just onboard video first. If so, next step is to figure out why it doesn't like the video card. Look for BIOS updates, weird bios settings, check if it is set to turn off onboard video when a pci-e card is present, etc. I actually tried it first without the video card because getting the 4-pin connector was going to be pulled really tight with it in, and I didn't want to risk the wires in it so I was just planning on using the onboard while I ordered an extension or molex adapter. Then when that didn't work I put in the video card to test that. As an aside, I do have a molex to PCI-E adapter, but I can't use that for ATX 12V, can I? It fits in the slot but it only has 3 wires instead of 4. If I can avoid ordering a cable I'd prefer using something on hand.
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Oct 29, 2014 13:10
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Rexxed posted:The PCI-E and 4 or 8 pin atx cpu power cables are wired differently. Don't trade them. As for troubleshooting your system do you get any BIOS error beeps or LEDs? If nothing's working the easiest thing to try is to re-seat all of the components you can, although it sounds like that's pretty much going to be ram and maybe CPU if the video card is already out. I hadn't wanted to dig down deep and re-seat the CPU, but I did that just now and that seems to have been the problem. I'm installing Windows as we speak. I didn't see any bent pins or anything so I don't know what I did wrong the first time. Also should the PSU fan be this loud? It's much louder than my old one for some reason. I have the 300W Seasonic from the OP.
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Oct 29, 2014 14:57
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Mierdaan posted:I bought a Sapphire Radeon R9 270X and 2x Dell U2414Hs. Poke around in the Catalyst Control Center options for overscan compensation and turn it to 0%. I have had this happen with the last two ATI/AMD cards I've owned; it must assume a monitor on DP but, on HDMI, it assumes for safety (i.e. so you will be sure to see the edges of the screen, including the taskbar where the settings to change it reside) it assumes a TV or other display that might overscan.
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Nov 1, 2014 17:42
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Couple of follow-up questions. First, I need a way to extend or adapt the 4-pin ATX 12V connector because it's too short from my power supply. I'm running on the integrated graphics because the PCI-E slots are between my power supply and the appropriate socket, and if I put in my graphics card, I don't have enough slack to go over or around it. Do I need an extension or can I use any old molex to 4-pin adapter? I've found the latter online but not the former. Will that compomise anything as far as overclocking capability with voltage regulation, or is all that run by the motherboard? Second, my case manual says I should be running all three 120mm fans as intakes, like so:  It does have spots in the rear for two 80mm fans but I have not used that option. I have it set up with two intakes on the right (it's a horizontal HTPC) and one exhaust on the left. What's the consensus on this? Finally, my power supply fan never shuts off or moderates its speed, and it's by far the loudest component in my build - making the new machine significantly louder than my old one. It's the 300W Seasonic in the OP. Is this normal or is there something I'm missing? I didn't see a connector to hook up that fan to anything that could control its speed.
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Nov 3, 2014 05:00
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I may be looking to upgrade my parents to a Celeron G1840 or maybe a Pentium G3240. For the Haswell Refresh chips, pretty much the only way to guarantee you'll have a BIOS that recognizes it is to get a H97 or Z97 board, right? I'd like to keep costs down so I was looking at H81 and B85, but I want to have HDMI and it looks like that rules out H81 anyway, so I was leaning toward the Celeron to offset. Is a couple hundred megahertz worth the $15 difference for a mom computer, or is there some other noticeable difference between the Haswell Celerons and Pentiums?
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Nov 15, 2014 18:23
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