Inspired by this Tom's article on getting the most from your SSD, I decided to finally try to get my SSD running with AHCI.
I followed the directions in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922976 and changed the values in the two registry subkeys Msachi and IastorV to 0 (making backups beforehand). I was still able to reboot after that.
Then I rebooted and answered "yes" (finally) to the question in startup whether I wanted to convert SATA to AHCI. I'd been ignoring the question for almost a year, scared to make a change.
That generated a boot error. So I tried to go into the BIOS and make sure the boot drive was set to SATA manually. Still not making it through windows loading. After a few more experimental BIOS changes and changes back, I still wasn't in so I did a system restore to a point from yesterday.
Still no go.
<sigh>
Any thoughts? I'm mildly panicked.
EDIT: Okay, reset my BIOS to "optimized defaults" and at least I'm able to get back in. Phew. So what exact BIOS setting am I supposed to change to enable AHCI? Is it one setting or are there several? There are more than one that have SATA, IDE and AHCI as settings.
AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
edited June 2011
Do you have the latest drivers and BIOS?
Edit: Also, that was a good recommendation on my part, I'm almost surprised given the hit or miss nature of AM3 boards and the fact that I knew virtually nothing about VRMs back then.
Hum. Thanks for the feedback. Now feeling slightly sad that I bought the intel board, but hopefully it's not too great a disparity in performance.
Additionally, the only reason I'm not running in higher res is because my monitor gets stroppy about them (out of range) and it's difficult to programme upscaled custom resolutions due to the weirdness of my native one. Hence thinking about getting a new monitor at some point.
As I said, the problem with SLI is that it will cost me my wireless card or my soundblaster. Given that I can't lose my wireless care it would have to be the SB that went, but ideally I don't want to give up either of
I figured the 6990 might be overkill... What would you recommend as a single card option that would last me a good few years (at max settings) even if I wanted to start playing at high res?
Thanks for the help, really appreciate it.
Either flavor of the 6950 is a good bet. After that your options are Radeon 6970, GTX 480, GTX 570, then GTX 580. The 6970, 480, and 570 all trade blows fairly solidly at (roughly) the same price point, with the differences being mostly based on which game you're looking at. The 580 is unquestionably superior to all three, but is significantly more expensive.
If you can keep it cool, go GTX 480, otherwise either 6970 or 570.
Even with the 6950 you're looking at fairly playable frame rates for really demanding games (Metro 2033 for example) at really high resolutions (2560x1600) with all the shit turned up. With the settings backed down to "wish I lived in there" rather than "so beautiful my eyes are bleeding," my bet is that you'd have a very smooth gameplay experience, with virtually no trouble on titles that scale well on older/less capable hardware like Source titles and most Blizzard games.
It's got great cooling but without massive amounts of noise
It's only two slots with no overflow. I was tempted by other options, but they were 2.5 or 3 slots wide which would mean scrapping my sound card as highlighted before.
It's a decent price point, and due to overclocking, is comparable to mid-range GTX 580 models
What do you think; a good shout?
I'm going to take your word for it that the price is reasonable, the pound seems to make absolute fucking hash of comparisons to USD values for stuff, partially because of how valuable the damn thing is within your own borders (buying paperbacks in the UK hurt me on the inside, the exchange rate is brutal but you guys just price things like we do with USD) and partly because your component pricing can be wildly different from ours.
But yeah, assuming it's a solid value, that's a good choice.
Sadly, yes. It's expensive as all hell here - this is the price list for 6970s. The same card from NewEgg is £64/$103 cheaper than over here =(
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AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
Hum. Thanks for the feedback. Now feeling slightly sad that I bought the intel board, but hopefully it's not too great a disparity in performance.
Additionally, the only reason I'm not running in higher res is because my monitor gets stroppy about them (out of range) and it's difficult to programme upscaled custom resolutions due to the weirdness of my native one. Hence thinking about getting a new monitor at some point.
As I said, the problem with SLI is that it will cost me my wireless card or my soundblaster. Given that I can't lose my wireless care it would have to be the SB that went, but ideally I don't want to give up either of
I figured the 6990 might be overkill... What would you recommend as a single card option that would last me a good few years (at max settings) even if I wanted to start playing at high res?
Thanks for the help, really appreciate it.
Either flavor of the 6950 is a good bet. After that your options are Radeon 6970, GTX 480, GTX 570, then GTX 580. The 6970, 480, and 570 all trade blows fairly solidly at (roughly) the same price point, with the differences being mostly based on which game you're looking at. The 580 is unquestionably superior to all three, but is significantly more expensive.
If you can keep it cool, go GTX 480, otherwise either 6970 or 570.
Even with the 6950 you're looking at fairly playable frame rates for really demanding games (Metro 2033 for example) at really high resolutions (2560x1600) with all the shit turned up. With the settings backed down to "wish I lived in there" rather than "so beautiful my eyes are bleeding," my bet is that you'd have a very smooth gameplay experience, with virtually no trouble on titles that scale well on older/less capable hardware like Source titles and most Blizzard games.
It's got great cooling but without massive amounts of noise
It's only two slots with no overflow. I was tempted by other options, but they were 2.5 or 3 slots wide which would mean scrapping my sound card as highlighted before.
It's a decent price point, and due to overclocking, is comparable to mid-range GTX 580 models
What do you think; a good shout?
I'm going to take your word for it that the price is reasonable, the pound seems to make absolute fucking hash of comparisons to USD values for stuff, partially because of how valuable the damn thing is within your own borders (buying paperbacks in the UK hurt me on the inside, the exchange rate is brutal but you guys just price things like we do with USD) and partly because your component pricing can be wildly different from ours.
But yeah, assuming it's a solid value, that's a good choice.
Sadly, yes. It's expensive as all hell here - this is the price list for 6970s. The same card from NewEgg is £64/$103 cheaper than over here =(
And yet the i5-2500K is roughly equivalent in pricing, accounting for the exchange rate (150 pounds being fairly close to the $225 it's priced here).
Crap, Iolo, I was wrong, Device Manager is ass.
It won't really hurt anything if you install the newest chipset drivers and you already have them, though.
Huh. Just read the reviews for that card on that Newegg page I linked (here). Back to the drawing board, I guess.
edit: You know, I'm far too easily swayed by looks. I simply cannot tolerate some stupid, sexist, poorly-rendered sticker slapped on to a card. I almost want to go for the Asus HD 6970 OC just because it actually looks presentable.
Sigh. Compare, compare. Currently looking at the MSI lightning which seems like a fantastic card (review), but need to start thinking about benchmarks and whether, if I'm going to look at something over £300, I should just stack it and spend the extra 50 on a GTX580.
Charts I need charts.
*continues reading review
edit 2: Dammit, this one needs two 8-pin PCI connectors. My PSU is 2x PCI-E 6-Pin + 1x 2-Pin. Another one to write off and another thing to consider. Goddamn compatibility.
The Antec Sonata, in all flavors and variants, is a godawful fucking case. Antec is taking some kind of principled stand against cable management, good design, attractive interiors, and toolless mounting of any kind. Antec is like the needlessly defiant old guy of case design, they won't move forward with the times, and for the life of me I couldn't tell you why. You can buy a vastly better case for fewer USD than it costs to buy a PC game.
The Sonata is not fucking godawful. Unless you're a hamster and you live in your PC case, or unless you live in the desert and need the inside of your case to be like the wind tunnels that Boeing uses to test airplane designs, it doesn't matter whether you have good cable management and attractive interiors. I'm not sure what "good design" is but I'm very happy with the two Sonata's I've used (Sonata and Sonata III), and as for toolless mounting, it's annoying once every 4 months when you open up your computer and irrelevant for 99% of your life. Can you buy cases with much nicer features for the same price? Yes, because they haven't bothered dropping the price at all, presumably because it's an old, depreciated case. Does it blow chunks? No, and by the way, it's super quiet and nice and small and light, which it slightly annoying when you're building it but awesome the rest of the time when you don't have a massive computer that you can't move.
Pretty much my only gripe is that the little rubber feet on the bottom fall off fairly easily, but most cases don't even have the feet so who cares? The fan filter in the front that you can take out and clean keeps me from having to blow the dust out of my case as often as I would have to otherwise, and the hard drive trays are in a nice place, not to mention the hard drive mounting things with their cushioning that makes the computer extremely quiet.
If I were building a new computer today, I wouldn't go with a Sonata because I don't care about noise levels or size anymore (my computers were built many years ago), but that doesn't mean that the Sonata sucks. It is fairly expensive, though.
edit: wait no I'm an idiot, it's expensive because it comes with a great PSU.
Huh. Just read the reviews for that card on that Newegg page I linked (here). Back to the drawing board, I guess.
edit: You know, I'm far too easily swayed by looks. I simply cannot tolerate some stupid, sexist, poorly-rendered sticker slapped on to a card. I almost want to go for the Asus HD 6970 OC just because it actually looks presentable.
Sigh. Compare, compare. Currently looking at the MSI lightning which seems like a fantastic card (review), but need to start thinking about benchmarks and whether, if I'm going to look at something over £300, I should just stack it and spend the extra 50 on a GTX580.
Charts I need charts.
*continues reading review
edit 2: Dammit, this one needs two 8-pin PCI connectors. My PSU is 2x PCI-E 6-Pin + 1x 2-Pin. Another one to write off and another thing to consider. Goddamn compatibility.
If your PSU only supports 8 pin PCIE power connectors, then something tells me the big-game cards will be off the table. I could very well be wrong here, but I think the most powerful card with an eight-pin is a 6850. Crossfiring those would be a good bang for your buck, though.
HardtargetThere Are Four LightsVancouverRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
ya I can confirm the 6950 uses 2x6pins as I have one (the 2gig version not that it matters)
thankfully my PSU has specific 8pin adapters where you can (on purpose) bend back 2 of the pins and convert them into 6 pins.
basically what I'm saying is corsair CPUs are the best
So here's the new system I'm working on. My budget is high, but obviously, I'd like to keep the price as low as possible. More than anything else, I'm trying to future proof for a long time to come. Furthermore, I prefer to just build a new computer when it's time to upgrade rather than replace parts piece by piece, so I'm trying to avoid having a significant bottleneck that will be an issue in 4-5 years time. That being said, here's what I'm working with so far:
Any glaring issues? Any alternatives that can squeeze out a bit more performance? Any parts just massive overkill (the 590, for instance)? Do I need to look at liquid cooling? Any and all suggestions welcome.
If your PSU only supports 8 pin PCIE power connectors, then something tells me the big-game cards will be off the table. I could very well be wrong here, but I think the most powerful card with an eight-pin is a 6850. Crossfiring those would be a good bang for your buck, though.
I've been checking this as I go. So far, so good - to my own surprise, too. Most take 6 + 8, which is what my PSU supports.
Huh. Just read the reviews for that card on that Newegg page I linked (here). Back to the drawing board, I guess.
edit: You know, I'm far too easily swayed by looks. I simply cannot tolerate some stupid, sexist, poorly-rendered sticker slapped on to a card. I almost want to go for the Asus HD 6970 OC just because it actually looks presentable.
Sigh. Compare, compare. Currently looking at the MSI lightning which seems like a fantastic card (review), but need to start thinking about benchmarks and whether, if I'm going to look at something over £300, I should just stack it and spend the extra 50 on a GTX580.
Charts I need charts.
*continues reading review
edit 2: Dammit, this one needs two 8-pin PCI connectors. My PSU is 2x PCI-E 6-Pin + 1x 2-Pin. Another one to write off and another thing to consider. Goddamn compatibility.
If your PSU only supports 8 pin PCIE power connectors, then something tells me the big-game cards will be off the table. I could very well be wrong here, but I think the most powerful card with an eight-pin is a 6850. Crossfiring those would be a good bang for your buck, though.
Well, my EVGA GTX 570 came with two molex to 6 pin converters so if your PSU didnt have a 6 pin you could still use the card. While I am unsure if that is actually safe (although I have no reason to assume its not), its an option should your card come with the adapters.
Any glaring issues? Any alternatives that can squeeze out a bit more performance? Any parts just massive overkill (the 590, for instance)? Do I need to look at liquid cooling? Any and all suggestions welcome.
don't do this for the love of god. Get 2 sticks of 4, no reason to fill all your DIMM slots for no reason and then you can also upgrae to 4x4 down the line if you want 16 one day
also why isn't your case a corsair 600t? i mean come on man
Anyone having any "gaming" keyboard reviews? My current one seems to keep disconnecting from the new computer I set up. It'll only be recognized in the 3.0 slot.
I use the logitech G110 and it's been serving me extremely well since I got it.
I had a razer one that was terrible. I got a logitech g510 instead and it's been great.
I got a G15 I never really use the macro keys and the LED screen stopped being useful once I got a second monitor but it is a real solid keyboard.
I use one of these and it's excellent, I never use the macros either but I use the LCD for teamspeak/vent/mumble overlay and it's wonderful. My buddy got a G510 and it's more or less the same thing with some different polish on it, the volume control in particular is really nice. Functionally they are identical as far as I can tell.
I'm still using a Saitek Eclipse that I bought 5 or 6 years ago. Easily the best keyboard I've ever used.
Apparently Saitek took the original Eclipse, painted the keys black instead of silver, and are now calling it the Cyborg. That's pretty much what I use.
Both the same price, pretty much. Both have great reviews. Despite the tiny edge on the MSI card's overclock, I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte offering - but has anyone got any thoughts/experience/advice?
They're expensive, but after spending all day trawling through the myriad options available, I've decided these offer the best long-term value and are most suitable to my particular setup. I can totally live on £7 a day for a month, right?
So here's the new system I'm working on. My budget is high, but obviously, I'd like to keep the price as low as possible. More than anything else, I'm trying to future proof for a long time to come. Furthermore, I prefer to just build a new computer when it's time to upgrade rather than replace parts piece by piece, so I'm trying to avoid having a significant bottleneck that will be an issue in 4-5 years time. That being said, here's what I'm working with so far:
Any glaring issues? Any alternatives that can squeeze out a bit more performance? Any parts just massive overkill (the 590, for instance)? Do I need to look at liquid cooling? Any and all suggestions welcome.
"Massive overkill" is being generous to the GTX 590. You'd get more bang for your buck by purchasing an entire company and telling all the employees to yell "bang." For the price of that card you could buy a fantastic 3d card now and a fantastic 3d card in 3 years when your current 3d card can't run everything at max.
Any glaring issues? Any alternatives that can squeeze out a bit more performance? Any parts just massive overkill (the 590, for instance)? Do I need to look at liquid cooling? Any and all suggestions welcome.
don't do this for the love of god. Get 2 sticks of 4, no reason to fill all your DIMM slots for no reason and then you can also upgrae to 4x4 down the line if you want 16 one day
also why isn't your case a corsair 600t? i mean come on man
I suppose 4GB sticks aren't much more expensive. Might as well.
"Massive overkill" is being generous to the GTX 590. You'd get more bang for your buck by purchasing an entire company and telling all the employees to yell "bang." For the price of that card you could buy a fantastic 3d card now and a fantastic 3d card in 3 years when your current 3d card can't run everything at max.
I thought that might be the case. A 580 looks like the best choice then if I'm taking a step down from the 590/6990 price range. Looks to me like I can squeeze a bit more out of the 580 than from AMD's offerings at that price range. Is there any way to estimate just how future proof this setup will be? I know it's not an exact science, but any guesses? I've never built a PC quite so high-end as this one, so I'm not really sure what to expect.
Congratulations, Vi. You've hit the exact same spot that I've been agonizing over for the last day. Look up to see my last two choices.
If you have the cash, though, I don't think there's any point going for the high end 6970 stuff as the 580 range eclipses it. Within that, the Gainward card has a good rep.
Congratulations, Vi. You've hit the exact same spot that I've been agonizing over for the last day. Look up to see my last two choices.
If you have the cash, though, I don't think there's any point going for the high end 6970 stuff as the 580 range eclipses it. Within that, the Gainward card has a good rep.
I went for a 6950 because ATI cards apparently make less heat than nVidia. Less heat = less fan noise. Not saying everyone should get ATI all the time, but it's at least one point.
Still, a lot of what's said on that review still applies. Just need to ascertain the length of it to make sure it fits in my case - but looks good from where I'm sitting.
AnteC: Fair dues, but that's why I'm going for the heavily tricked-out cooled option I'm going for. Thing is apparently about 60-80 at full load but still super-quiet (34.5 dB to 42 dB on load (!)) which is great news for me.
So, I really want to upgrade, but if I'm not able to get my stuff from the U.S., I will have to buy it locally.
Locally, the ASUS P67Pro goes for over $300, which is god damn stupid. However! Gigabyte boards have decent prices, so, what's a good Gigabyte P67 board, and what am I missing out, compared to the ASUS board?
Fffffffffffffff. Just thought I'd have one more check before I placed my order, and that card was 11". I have been peering in to my case, which has the 10.5" 8800GTX with about, oh, half an inch to spare.
Too close, could't risk it.
Went for the MSI card instead which happily matches my current card for length almost exactly. I just hope that I won't be among those who experiences problems with it.
I'm looking to upgrade my computer soon. Currently I have a core 2 duo @2.4ghz and 6gigs of ram. I am heavily into photography, and probably video in the future.
I pretty much know what I want, but would like some feedback on the mobo. I currently have another gigabyte 'ultra durable' mobo and it has served me very well with no problems int he last 3 years I've had it. But, there's a ton of different ones, some cheaper. So many different features it is rather confusing. I've been out of this scene for years and so much has changed. Mobo choice has always been the hard part for me anyways. This total (~$650) is doable, but a little more than I really want to spend. but i'm not really sure what I will be missing if I go to a cheaper model.
That sounds fine, the CX600 shares a 12V wattage with quality 520W supplies, but it's still a solid (if overrated) supply.
Also, all of the MSI boards you'd be looking at (GD53-GD65, I assume) are not as well built or laid out as the ASRock Extreme4, but are roughly equal in quality to that Gigabyte board, just with the oft-mentioned stupid layout of MSI P67 boards.
Would an (effectively) 520W PSU handle a decent 2500k OC and dual 5770s?
Yes, but I'm not in love with dual 5770s, really, unless you already have one. Assuming you spend roughly $220 on dual 5770s by the end of things (which, given supply, seems like a low estimate to me), you could have had a 6950 1GB, which will outperform them pretty handily, for about $25 more, and have the possibility of going for dual 6950s later (presuming you stick with the previous 650W supply). Obviously, you'd have split up the cost on those cards, but I feel like the value on the 5770, at least for higher budget applications, really isn't there like it used to be.
I'd say either integrated GPU and save up for a 6850, or cheap out on the card a bit more (5670, maybe) and use the savings toward an "upgrade my GPU" fund.
On RAID : Making a RAID 5 array the way your buddy is suggesting is a godawful fucking idea, Casually Hardcore. The volume size on each component in a RAID 5 array can only be as large as the smallest disk, so your 1TB drive will only have 64-90GB of useable space in the array. The best solution for backup/redundancy in a situation like this is some kind of scheduled backup to a large internal/external mechanical drive whose reliability you are confident in. RAID won't do much for you.
iammattpleevee: Your question was fine, I missed your post till now.
Alright so. I'm looking to uprgade my computer. Here are my specs
Vista Home basic 6.0
Processor: AMD Sempron LE-1300 2.3ghz
Memory: 2046mb RAM
Directx Version: Direct X 11
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GS
I already have a monitor, mouse, and keyboard. I'd like to future proof it if possible and be able to upgrade it later. I plan on using the computer for gaming, I'd like to be able to run most things on the highest settings. I'm not sure if that is possible on my budget which is $700 maximum.
My resolution is 1024x768.
Thank you in advance.
This is a link to a wishlist with what I'd recommend. It's plenty of muscle for your current resolution, and has the capacity to be upgraded for higher ones, with a solid enough board (not overclocking friendly, but it won't likely blow up) with Crossfire/SLI support, and you can always add new GPU(s) and upgrade your CPU. That PSU will handle 2 GPUs with a single 6-pin each for power (5770s, 6850s). After shipping it's a few bucks shy of $600, I left $100 in your budget free so you can pick up a copy of Win 7.
Alternate possibilities are a different motherboard with a single slot and a higher end GPU (there's a cheap 460 GTX 1GB from Zotac at the moment). If you can/will run your Vista install then we can do something with that $100, but that's up to you.
The Antec Sonata, in all flavors and variants, is a godawful fucking case. Antec is taking some kind of principled stand against cable management, good design, attractive interiors, and toolless mounting of any kind. Antec is like the needlessly defiant old guy of case design, they won't move forward with the times, and for the life of me I couldn't tell you why. You can buy a vastly better case for fewer USD than it costs to buy a PC game.
The Sonata is not fucking godawful. Unless you're a hamster and you live in your PC case, or unless you live in the desert and need the inside of your case to be like the wind tunnels that Boeing uses to test airplane designs, it doesn't matter whether you have good cable management and attractive interiors. I'm not sure what "good design" is but I'm very happy with the two Sonata's I've used (Sonata and Sonata III), and as for toolless mounting, it's annoying once every 4 months when you open up your computer and irrelevant for 99% of your life. Can you buy cases with much nicer features for the same price? Yes, because they haven't bothered dropping the price at all, presumably because it's an old, depreciated case. Does it blow chunks? No, and by the way, it's super quiet and nice and small and light, which it slightly annoying when you're building it but awesome the rest of the time when you don't have a massive computer that you can't move.
Pretty much my only gripe is that the little rubber feet on the bottom fall off fairly easily, but most cases don't even have the feet so who cares? The fan filter in the front that you can take out and clean keeps me from having to blow the dust out of my case as often as I would have to otherwise, and the hard drive trays are in a nice place, not to mention the hard drive mounting things with their cushioning that makes the computer extremely quiet.
If I were building a new computer today, I wouldn't go with a Sonata because I don't care about noise levels or size anymore (my computers were built many years ago), but that doesn't mean that the Sonata sucks. It is fairly expensive, though.
edit: wait no I'm an idiot, it's expensive because it comes with a great PSU.
I'll grant that my epithet was somewhat hyperbolic. The Antec Sonata is a serviceable case, in the sense that any case that can actually hold components while not falling apart is serviceable. Build quality is likely higher than your average cheapo HEC case. And I'm sure it's quiet, with only 1 fan and less vent space than some aforementioned HEC cases, it would be a freaking crime if it weren't. The Sonata is the kind of case I would use to house a low-end web-surfing, iTunes watching type build for my less than tech-savvy parents, the kind of system that would never need more than the cooling a single fan negative pressure system could manage. Even then the PSU, case size and form factor would likely be overkill.
And for an asking price of $130 (and $160 for the upcoming Sonata IV) there's no conceivable way it's a good value. The Earthwatts 500W unit it comes with isn't a bad supply, but it's not particularly good either. Adequate and Mediocre are the bywords here. To make matters worse, there's nothing in the case itself to justify that price premium. You're dismissive of a host of helpful features that the case lacks, and if all you want is the bare minimum "it didn't shoot me in the face during use and my computer works" experience, then you can spend significantly less and have virtually the same computing experience.
Furthermore, as an enthusiast case, it's simply inadequate. I, at least, am in my computer a lot, I change things, I clean it out, I overclock and I game. Enjoying all that means I demand a nicer case, with more features and better cooling capacity. I tend to choose "wind-tunnel" like cases, but with research and a little bit of know-how, you can find a nice enthusiast enclosure that won't break the bank, or your eardrums. NZXT, for example, is releasing the budget friendly Source 210 soon, with a vented but otherwise solid front panel and fairly limited mesh (cutting down on noise), plenty of room for fans if you choose, cable management, and a relatively roomy interior. It lacks tool-less features, but it's set to be very cheap (sub-$50 cheap, iirc) and there will be a marginally more expensive "Elite" version that includes those features.
So is the Sonata godawful? Maybe not, it's not like it gives you cancer, but it's still a poor value and an outdated design, and virtually regardless of intended usage, you can do better.
AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
edited June 2011
Nobody should be buying Cooler Master PSUs, at best they're adequate, but mostly they're just terrible.
Stregone, I'm not sure when we'll see 8GB DIMMs. As for Gigabyte boards, the main issue for me with Gigabyte is that the Z68X boards don't feature the GPU virtualization features (that is, switchable graphics) that really help make the Z68 chipset worth your time, and as far as I know all the high-end Gigabyte boards are from that particular product family. I prefer ASUS and ASRock on the Z68 front, but if you're willing to accept the limitations, then the Gigabyte boards on the high end are quite nice overall.
Vi Monks: That Thermaltake cooler looks nice, but performance wise you're better off with the more common tower style coolers. Budget options for moderate overclocking include the Xigmatek Dark Knight, Xigmatek Gaia, and Cooler Master 212+. The 590 is indeed huge overkill. A really nice single card or a nice SLI/Crossfire setup of lower end cards can give you all the performance you'll need for a long time at significantly less cost to you. Also, that motherboard is on the low end, really, and is poorly suited for overclocking. I'd recommend a higher end board if you plan to go with the 2600K.
AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
edited June 2011
I just went ahead and started the new thread and PMed Moe to lock this one when he got the chance. I'll keep track of both of them in the meantime in case you need a question answered.
Posts
GIGABYTE GA-790XTA-UD4 (per your recommendation last year
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
Edit: Also, that was a good recommendation on my part, I'm almost surprised given the hit or miss nature of AM3 boards and the fact that I knew virtually nothing about VRMs back then.
Battle.net
Probably not. Can I check that from Windows or do I need to be in BIOS?
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
CPU-Z lets me check my current BIOS version, and drivers you can check in the Device Manager.
Battle.net
Are all the "ATA Channel" and "Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller" items the ones to check for the mobo?
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
And yet the i5-2500K is roughly equivalent in pricing, accounting for the exchange rate (150 pounds being fairly close to the $225 it's priced here).
Crap, Iolo, I was wrong, Device Manager is ass.
It won't really hurt anything if you install the newest chipset drivers and you already have them, though.
Battle.net
edit: You know, I'm far too easily swayed by looks. I simply cannot tolerate some stupid, sexist, poorly-rendered sticker slapped on to a card. I almost want to go for the Asus HD 6970 OC just because it actually looks presentable.
Sigh. Compare, compare. Currently looking at the MSI lightning which seems like a fantastic card (review), but need to start thinking about benchmarks and whether, if I'm going to look at something over £300, I should just stack it and spend the extra 50 on a GTX580.
Charts I need charts.
*continues reading review
edit 2: Dammit, this one needs two 8-pin PCI connectors. My PSU is 2x PCI-E 6-Pin + 1x 2-Pin. Another one to write off and another thing to consider. Goddamn compatibility.
The Sonata is not fucking godawful. Unless you're a hamster and you live in your PC case, or unless you live in the desert and need the inside of your case to be like the wind tunnels that Boeing uses to test airplane designs, it doesn't matter whether you have good cable management and attractive interiors. I'm not sure what "good design" is but I'm very happy with the two Sonata's I've used (Sonata and Sonata III), and as for toolless mounting, it's annoying once every 4 months when you open up your computer and irrelevant for 99% of your life. Can you buy cases with much nicer features for the same price? Yes, because they haven't bothered dropping the price at all, presumably because it's an old, depreciated case. Does it blow chunks? No, and by the way, it's super quiet and nice and small and light, which it slightly annoying when you're building it but awesome the rest of the time when you don't have a massive computer that you can't move.
Pretty much my only gripe is that the little rubber feet on the bottom fall off fairly easily, but most cases don't even have the feet so who cares? The fan filter in the front that you can take out and clean keeps me from having to blow the dust out of my case as often as I would have to otherwise, and the hard drive trays are in a nice place, not to mention the hard drive mounting things with their cushioning that makes the computer extremely quiet.
If I were building a new computer today, I wouldn't go with a Sonata because I don't care about noise levels or size anymore (my computers were built many years ago), but that doesn't mean that the Sonata sucks. It is fairly expensive, though.
edit: wait no I'm an idiot, it's expensive because it comes with a great PSU.
If your PSU only supports 8 pin PCIE power connectors, then something tells me the big-game cards will be off the table. I could very well be wrong here, but I think the most powerful card with an eight-pin is a 6850. Crossfiring those would be a good bang for your buck, though.
thankfully my PSU has specific 8pin adapters where you can (on purpose) bend back 2 of the pins and convert them into 6 pins.
basically what I'm saying is corsair CPUs are the best
Case: Coolermaster HAF 922
CPU: Intel i7 2600K
CPU cooling: Thermaltake
Mobo: Gigabyte Z68A
GPU: GTX 590
PSU: Coolermaster 850W
RAM: Corsair 1600 8GB (four sticks of 2GB)
Any glaring issues? Any alternatives that can squeeze out a bit more performance? Any parts just massive overkill (the 590, for instance)? Do I need to look at liquid cooling? Any and all suggestions welcome.
I've been checking this as I go. So far, so good - to my own surprise, too. Most take 6 + 8, which is what my PSU supports.
Well, my EVGA GTX 570 came with two molex to 6 pin converters so if your PSU didnt have a 6 pin you could still use the card. While I am unsure if that is actually safe (although I have no reason to assume its not), its an option should your card come with the adapters.
don't do this for the love of god. Get 2 sticks of 4, no reason to fill all your DIMM slots for no reason and then you can also upgrae to 4x4 down the line if you want 16 one day
also why isn't your case a corsair 600t? i mean come on man
I'm still using a Saitek Eclipse that I bought 5 or 6 years ago. Easily the best keyboard I've ever used.
Apparently Saitek took the original Eclipse, painted the keys black instead of silver, and are now calling it the Cyborg. That's pretty much what I use.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 OC Special Edition 1536MB GDDR5
vs
MSI GeForce GTX 580 OC Twin FrozR II 1536MB GDDR5
Both the same price, pretty much. Both have great reviews. Despite the tiny edge on the MSI card's overclock, I'm leaning towards the Gigabyte offering - but has anyone got any thoughts/experience/advice?
They're expensive, but after spending all day trawling through the myriad options available, I've decided these offer the best long-term value and are most suitable to my particular setup. I can totally live on £7 a day for a month, right?
I suppose 4GB sticks aren't much more expensive. Might as well.
I thought that might be the case. A 580 looks like the best choice then if I'm taking a step down from the 590/6990 price range. Looks to me like I can squeeze a bit more out of the 580 than from AMD's offerings at that price range. Is there any way to estimate just how future proof this setup will be? I know it's not an exact science, but any guesses? I've never built a PC quite so high-end as this one, so I'm not really sure what to expect.
If you have the cash, though, I don't think there's any point going for the high end 6970 stuff as the 580 range eclipses it. Within that, the Gainward card has a good rep.
Thanks to all for the help. Looks like I'll be having free lunch at work for the next month, though...
I went for a 6950 because ATI cards apparently make less heat than nVidia. Less heat = less fan noise. Not saying everyone should get ATI all the time, but it's at least one point.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-081-GI&groupid=701&catid=1914&subcat=1812
Still, a lot of what's said on that review still applies. Just need to ascertain the length of it to make sure it fits in my case - but looks good from where I'm sitting.
AnteC: Fair dues, but that's why I'm going for the heavily tricked-out cooled option I'm going for. Thing is apparently about 60-80 at full load but still super-quiet (34.5 dB to 42 dB on load (!)) which is great news for me.
Locally, the ASUS P67Pro goes for over $300, which is god damn stupid. However! Gigabyte boards have decent prices, so, what's a good Gigabyte P67 board, and what am I missing out, compared to the ASUS board?
Too close, could't risk it.
Went for the MSI card instead which happily matches my current card for length almost exactly. I just hope that I won't be among those who experiences problems with it.
Also, I am now poor.
I pretty much know what I want, but would like some feedback on the mobo. I currently have another gigabyte 'ultra durable' mobo and it has served me very well with no problems int he last 3 years I've had it. But, there's a ton of different ones, some cheaper. So many different features it is rather confusing. I've been out of this scene for years and so much has changed. Mobo choice has always been the hard part for me anyways. This total (~$650) is doable, but a little more than I really want to spend. but i'm not really sure what I will be missing if I go to a cheaper model.
i7 2600k cpu
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD5-B3
2x4GB ram
I wish 8 gig ram sticks were out, i'd love to be able to upgrade to 32 gigs more easily down the road. Any word on that?
Raptr profile
thank you
Battle.net: Matt 3999 or iammattpleevee@gmail.com
PSN?: iammattpleevee
I'll grant that my epithet was somewhat hyperbolic. The Antec Sonata is a serviceable case, in the sense that any case that can actually hold components while not falling apart is serviceable. Build quality is likely higher than your average cheapo HEC case. And I'm sure it's quiet, with only 1 fan and less vent space than some aforementioned HEC cases, it would be a freaking crime if it weren't. The Sonata is the kind of case I would use to house a low-end web-surfing, iTunes watching type build for my less than tech-savvy parents, the kind of system that would never need more than the cooling a single fan negative pressure system could manage. Even then the PSU, case size and form factor would likely be overkill.
And for an asking price of $130 (and $160 for the upcoming Sonata IV) there's no conceivable way it's a good value. The Earthwatts 500W unit it comes with isn't a bad supply, but it's not particularly good either. Adequate and Mediocre are the bywords here. To make matters worse, there's nothing in the case itself to justify that price premium. You're dismissive of a host of helpful features that the case lacks, and if all you want is the bare minimum "it didn't shoot me in the face during use and my computer works" experience, then you can spend significantly less and have virtually the same computing experience.
Furthermore, as an enthusiast case, it's simply inadequate. I, at least, am in my computer a lot, I change things, I clean it out, I overclock and I game. Enjoying all that means I demand a nicer case, with more features and better cooling capacity. I tend to choose "wind-tunnel" like cases, but with research and a little bit of know-how, you can find a nice enthusiast enclosure that won't break the bank, or your eardrums. NZXT, for example, is releasing the budget friendly Source 210 soon, with a vented but otherwise solid front panel and fairly limited mesh (cutting down on noise), plenty of room for fans if you choose, cable management, and a relatively roomy interior. It lacks tool-less features, but it's set to be very cheap (sub-$50 cheap, iirc) and there will be a marginally more expensive "Elite" version that includes those features.
So is the Sonata godawful? Maybe not, it's not like it gives you cancer, but it's still a poor value and an outdated design, and virtually regardless of intended usage, you can do better.
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Stregone, I'm not sure when we'll see 8GB DIMMs. As for Gigabyte boards, the main issue for me with Gigabyte is that the Z68X boards don't feature the GPU virtualization features (that is, switchable graphics) that really help make the Z68 chipset worth your time, and as far as I know all the high-end Gigabyte boards are from that particular product family. I prefer ASUS and ASRock on the Z68 front, but if you're willing to accept the limitations, then the Gigabyte boards on the high end are quite nice overall.
Vi Monks: That Thermaltake cooler looks nice, but performance wise you're better off with the more common tower style coolers. Budget options for moderate overclocking include the Xigmatek Dark Knight, Xigmatek Gaia, and Cooler Master 212+. The 590 is indeed huge overkill. A really nice single card or a nice SLI/Crossfire setup of lower end cards can give you all the performance you'll need for a long time at significantly less cost to you. Also, that motherboard is on the low end, really, and is poorly suited for overclocking. I'd recommend a higher end board if you plan to go with the 2600K.
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It'd also free up room to bung more info in the first post if you wanted to.