So Prime95 testing went well, temperatures flatlined around 65C, so I'm happy. Might try pushing the processor above 4.0 Ghz later this week.
0
21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
God that was the terriblest thing I had to do, putting that heatsink on. At least it seems to have lowered the "idling" temperatures from 40 to 30-ish Celsius. I'm probably gonna buy a couple 200mm fans for increased airflow and lower temps. Testing Minecraft again and it certainly seemed to have gotten lower temps.
Oh, wait, no it seems to have stabilized at around 40 while idling again. I think I'm gonna get more airflow.
What's Prime95? Some sort of benchmarking program?
What I'm looking for is something that will let me run current games at higher settings with a fast framerate, and will be able to do the same for games coming out in the next few years. Right now, I'm leaning toward the GTX570. The (admittedly limited) research I've done seems to indicate that it's the second-best card out there, and it's over $100 cheaper than the absolute best, the GTX580. From what I can tell, the extra power of the GTX580 doesn't seem to be much more than the 570, so it doesn't really seem worth it.
Let me know what you guys think.
I haven't gotten a response to this, so I thought I'd post it again. I'm still leaning toward the 570, but I'd like to get people's opinions anyway. I'd also appreciate a recommendation for a good power supply to get for the 570 if I decide to go that route.
what is the appropriate procedure if you think there's a shorted or fried component in your build? left to his own devices towards the end of putting his computer together, my buddy attempted to power the machine on and was rewarded with a puff of smoke. when i head over there tonight to investigate i want to make sure i'm a) being safe and b) cause no further damage.
second question: if it's a toasted motherboard or cpu, is it possible to RMA those items? the mobo was bought through newegg, and the cpu through microcenter.
followup:
1) the lead from the cpu fan to the motherboard was hidden in between the fan and the heatsink, so he didn't have that plugged in.
2) the case fans each have a molex power connector. the silverstone strider plus 500w has a modular cable with three molex outputs that terminates in a 4-pin connector. at one point when trying to power the case fans, my friend tried hooking up each fan to one of the molex connectors, and then plugging the 4-pin into a fan slot on the motherboard. which i've read is very bad for your board. it's believed that this was the configuration that caused him to get a puff of smoke.
3) now, when trying to power on, the component fans spin up for a second and then everything powers down. i double- and triple-checked all the connections, and checked the case for shorts as best i could. i tried this with only the cpu/hsf in, and got the same result, so i can rule out the gpu/ram as the source of the issue.
it seems like the most likely scenario here is a fried motherboard, followed by a fried psu. i doubt the cpu was ever powered long enough to overheat, even when the heatsink fan wasn't receiving power.
quick questions:
1) would you recommend trying a new PSU first, or a new mobo first?
2) can i rma the motherboard to newegg even though it's likely user error that caused the malfunction?
21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
Hmm, Griswold, you're making me nervous. I took out the molex adaptor and plugged the case fans into my mobo because I had trouble plugging the molex plugs to the power supply's cables...
I'm thinking of buying two more fans for more airflow and i was thinking I'd plug those in the mobo as well since it has, like, 2 more free 3-pin fan plugs, I think. Would that be a bad idea?
So I have decided to either upgrade my existing PC, or buy a new one for some games coming out in the near future (SWTOR, Diablo 3, BF3). I have been looking at a lot of barebone kits, and they frequently come with the GeForce GT 520 GPU. I know little about the specifics of video cards, so maybe someone can clue me in. I have heard this card called everything from "powerful" to "entry level".
All I really need to know is if it's a suitable card to play games that are coming out in late 2011 and 2012.
In the build I did in a haf case recently I had two 200mm and three 120mm fans all running off motherboard headers. This on an asrock extreme 3 gen 3 motherboard.
You should be fine so long as you don't plug either a very high rpm fan or all your fans to the same header
0
21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
In the build I did in a haf case recently I had two 200mm and three 120mm fans all running off motherboard headers. This on an asrock extreme 3 gen 3 motherboard.
You should be fine so long as you don't plug either a very high rpm fan or all your fans to the same header
Benjomonster: You can do much better than a gt520.
will it run stuff? That depends on what res you play at and how far down you're willing to turn graphics options.
21st: the little three and four pin fan plugs scattered around your motherboard. They should all be labeled system fan or auxilery fan or something like that.
This is a motherboard fan header (it's just where the fan plugs in):
From a quick look a the board on Newegg, you've got at least 5 headers. The goal is to not run a bunch of fans off a single header. You might want to get a fan controller (they run about $25) if you're going to run a bunch of fans. I've got an NZXT Sentry because it matches the HAF 912 so well. It also means you don't have to run the fan power through your motherboard. That said, you can run them off the motherboard just fine, I believe there are programs that will let you control fan speed off the mobo too (not sure about that though).
Thanks Bear. Knowing that, I will probably elect to just buy a kit w/o a GPU and put it in myself. That being said, my budget is around $800. I've been looking at a lot of the Core i5 barebones kits on Newegg and I'm pretty sure that's what I'm going with. (about $600). This puts my GPU budget at around $150-200. Any suggestions? things to avoid?
edit: or would I be better off dropping like $700 on my barebones (possibly a Core-i7) and getting a GPU for somewhere under $100?
These are some examples of things I am considering:
21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
Guys, is there something i've done wrong regarding Speed fan? It's consistently showing that my CPU is at -60 Celsius... and it's not showing me all the relevant temperatures, it seems and i can't resize the window... I don't think I'm using Speedfan correctly.
What is your main usage going to be? If its just gaming, web and light productivity type work anything more than an i5 is overkill.
around the two hundred mark the 6870 and 560 are both solid cards, if you want to spend a bit more a 6950 or 560ti will give you some more oomph, but they're more in the 230plus range on newegg.
@TheBenjomonster
Given your price range, I'd suggest an i3 or i5 build. I'd really go for at least the 6850/550Ti (~$130) or 6870/560 ($170). You're better off weighting your spending towards the GPU if gaming is your primary purpose for the machine.
@21stCentury
That's...odd. It should just work. You can try CoreTemp, that's what I generally use.
0
21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
@TheBenjomonster
Given your price range, I'd suggest an i3 or i5 build. I'd really go for at least the 6850/550Ti (~$130) or 6870/560 ($170). You're better off weighting your spending towards the GPU if gaming is your primary purpose for the machine.
@21stCentury
That's...odd. It should just work. You can try CoreTemp, that's what I generally use.
I like Coretemp, but it doesn't show me the GPU temps...
Gah, i just freak out about temps for no good reason here. I'm just too obsessed.
@TheBenjomonster
Given your price range, I'd suggest an i3 or i5 build. I'd really go for at least the 6850/550Ti (~$130) or 6870/560 ($170). You're better off weighting your spending towards the GPU if gaming is your primary purpose for the machine.
@21stCentury
That's...odd. It should just work. You can try CoreTemp, that's what I generally use.
I like Coretemp, but it doesn't show me the GPU temps...
Gah, i just freak out about temps for no good reason here. I'm just too obsessed.
RealTemp will show you both CPU and GPU temperatures. I think the most recent version is 3.69.1.
I knew there was another program on my desktop that showed both! Yeah, RealTemp is good, I often leave it open when I'm feeling paranoid.
It has a super minimal footprint so I leave it running all the time, for some reason I really like knowing my CPUs temp. Shit, thats the entire reason I run iStat Pro on my laptop.
Parts ordered! Thanks for all the help community. One last question. I'm thinking of setting up my computer in an area of the house where it would be ideal to use wireless instead of a direct cable from the router (like I do currently with my laptop). Does anyone have suggestions on what a good card is to purchase for this? Ideally, I'm going to use it to game online with. I don't know if different ones do different things (i.e. better signal etc.).
**Edit**
Does the fact that my motherboard says it has blue tooth mean it should be able to connect to my router wirelessly (if it supports Bluetooth) with out the need of a wireless card? I've been out of this environment far too long.
********
I'm finally able to put some money down on a not totally shitty computer. It's been a long long time since I've actually looked into building one and so far I've come up with:
Parts ordered! Thanks for all the help community. One last question. I'm thinking of setting up my computer in an area of the house where it would be ideal to use wireless instead of a direct cable from the router (like I do currently with my laptop). Does anyone have suggestions on what a good card is to purchase for this? Ideally, I'm going to use it to game online with. I don't know if different ones do different things (i.e. better signal etc.).
**Edit**
Does the fact that my motherboard says it has blue tooth mean it should be able to connect to my router wirelessly (if it supports Bluetooth) with out the need of a wireless card? I've been out of this environment far too long.
********
No, Bluetooth is not a reasonable wireless connection. My suggestion is to pick up a wireless adapter. I like my Belkin N, which runs about $20. I was pushing >3 MB/s with it, so it's more than fast enough. Choose something from a company you trust and you can't go wrong.
Shoggoth: I assume this is for a gaming machine primarily? Do you have a budget in mind for this build?
For gaming performance right now AMD chips really don't compare to intel. Go with a 2500k and a p67/z68 motherboard.
850 watts is overkill for a PSU, probably even if you want to run two GPUs.
The ram is fine, although you might consider getting low profile vengeance sticks instead, for compatibility with air coolers.
without knowing more about your budget and such I can't say how suitable that video card is. It'll certainly run stuff just fine at pretty much any resolution you want, but you can probably step down to a 560ti or a 6950, depending on how much you're looking to spend.
most benchmarks tend to put it a handful of fps lower than the 6970, between 3 and 8 in most of the ones I'm digging up via google. also about a hundred bucks cheaper.
the 6970 is definitely the more powerful card, but if you're looking to trim your costs a bit the 6950 will play anything out now, and probably for a while yet to come. Metro 2033 and crysis on ultra high settings may give you some troubles, but those games are basically there to choke machines.
I'm running a 2gig 6950 and can run bf3 on high settings across the board at 2540x1600 res at extremely playable framerates. I only notice slowdown in situations where all 64 players are crammed into a very small space(lookin' at you metro conquest)
I'm glad I have metro, just so I always have a game on hand that can bring my machine to it's knees
Yeah, it still blows my mind that my computer can run BF3 on ultra with 64 people doing their shit at a stable 45fps, but it shits a brick with Metro 2033 on the highest settings and all Im doing is walking through dark tunnels.
IanatorGaze upon my works, ye mightyand facepalm.Registered Userregular
I went to Vegas this weekend! Yay!
I didn't make it to Fry's. Boo!
Anyways, I went over the suggestions from Alec and emp. I'm only going to use one card (I'm bumping up to a 560 Ti), but the 550W you linked and the 620W I picked are the same price right now so I'm not sure if full modular is worth the 70W. I'm also boosting the SSD and changing the mobo accordingly.
On a final note, I watched a video with the new Asus X69 boards and was swayed by the promise of 64GB of RAM and the potential of RAM Drives. Then I looked at how much a 8GB sticks and Sandy Bridge-E processors go and sobered up damn quick.
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YamiNoSenshiA point called ZIn the complex planeRegistered Userregular
edited November 2011
New computer actually booted up on the first try! Only 2 problems left.
-Need to get a mounting bracket for the SSD
-The Mobo doesn't seem to recognize the keyboard and mouse and do video output until Windows is starting. This makes it kinda hard to get into the BIOS.
Edit: Also, the aftermarket CPU cooler is FUCKING MASSIVE. It also bit me, but all good builds require a blood sacrifice.
Anyways, I went over the suggestions from Alec and emp. I'm only going to use one card (I'm bumping up to a 560 Ti), but the 550W you linked and the 620W I picked are the same price right now so I'm not sure if full modular is worth the 70W. I'm also boosting the SSD and changing the mobo accordingly.
On a final note, I watched a video with the new Asus X69 boards and was swayed by the promise of 64GB of RAM and the potential of RAM Drives. Then I looked at how much a 8GB sticks and Sandy Bridge-E processors go and sobered up damn quick.
X79 is the new chipset, but close enough.
If you're a student, or know any students, or somehow have access to a student e-mail address, you can get Windows 7 Pro for $30.
Thanks for all the advice folks, still kind of weighing my options on different websites. One more question I do have is about CPU fans. If I dont plan on doing any overclocking or processor-intensive tasks, will the fan that just comes w/ my processor be ok? Or is it worth the 30-50 bucks to buy a separate one?
You can't seriously overclock with the stock heatsink. Just grab a Hyper 212, they're about $25. This assumes you're getting an i5-2500K or i7-2600K (since they're the only overclockable processors).
If you're not overclocking, the stock heatsink should be just fine.
Posts
this is gonna go on sale today at 1:00 PM PST, seems to have pretty solid reviews.
On the black screen
Oh, wait, no it seems to have stabilized at around 40 while idling again.
What's Prime95? Some sort of benchmarking program?
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
Handy program which (in this context) is used for stress testing. Warms up a CPU like not much else does.
hmmmm
On the black screen
I haven't gotten a response to this, so I thought I'd post it again. I'm still leaning toward the 570, but I'd like to get people's opinions anyway. I'd also appreciate a recommendation for a good power supply to get for the 570 if I decide to go that route.
Here's my current system again, in case it helps: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883113089
followup:
1) the lead from the cpu fan to the motherboard was hidden in between the fan and the heatsink, so he didn't have that plugged in.
2) the case fans each have a molex power connector. the silverstone strider plus 500w has a modular cable with three molex outputs that terminates in a 4-pin connector. at one point when trying to power the case fans, my friend tried hooking up each fan to one of the molex connectors, and then plugging the 4-pin into a fan slot on the motherboard. which i've read is very bad for your board. it's believed that this was the configuration that caused him to get a puff of smoke.
3) now, when trying to power on, the component fans spin up for a second and then everything powers down. i double- and triple-checked all the connections, and checked the case for shorts as best i could. i tried this with only the cpu/hsf in, and got the same result, so i can rule out the gpu/ram as the source of the issue.
it seems like the most likely scenario here is a fried motherboard, followed by a fried psu. i doubt the cpu was ever powered long enough to overheat, even when the heatsink fan wasn't receiving power.
quick questions:
1) would you recommend trying a new PSU first, or a new mobo first?
2) can i rma the motherboard to newegg even though it's likely user error that caused the malfunction?
thanks again for all your help.
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I'm thinking of buying two more fans for more airflow and i was thinking I'd plug those in the mobo as well since it has, like, 2 more free 3-pin fan plugs, I think. Would that be a bad idea?
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
All I really need to know is if it's a suitable card to play games that are coming out in late 2011 and 2012.
In the build I did in a haf case recently I had two 200mm and three 120mm fans all running off motherboard headers. This on an asrock extreme 3 gen 3 motherboard.
You should be fine so long as you don't plug either a very high rpm fan or all your fans to the same header
An ASUS P8z68-V Pro. What's a header?
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
will it run stuff? That depends on what res you play at and how far down you're willing to turn graphics options.
21st: the little three and four pin fan plugs scattered around your motherboard. They should all be labeled system fan or auxilery fan or something like that.
From a quick look a the board on Newegg, you've got at least 5 headers. The goal is to not run a bunch of fans off a single header. You might want to get a fan controller (they run about $25) if you're going to run a bunch of fans. I've got an NZXT Sentry because it matches the HAF 912 so well. It also means you don't have to run the fan power through your motherboard. That said, you can run them off the motherboard just fine, I believe there are programs that will let you control fan speed off the mobo too (not sure about that though).
edit: or would I be better off dropping like $700 on my barebones (possibly a Core-i7) and getting a GPU for somewhere under $100?
These are some examples of things I am considering:
Core i5 = http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.679878&cm_sp=DIY_PC_Combos-_-679878-_-Combo
Core i7 =http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.765925&cm_sp=DIY_PC_Combos-_-765925-_-Combo
AMD X6 = http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.759542&cm_sp=DIY_PC_Combos-_-759542-_-Combo
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
around the two hundred mark the 6870 and 560 are both solid cards, if you want to spend a bit more a 6950 or 560ti will give you some more oomph, but they're more in the 230plus range on newegg.
Given your price range, I'd suggest an i3 or i5 build. I'd really go for at least the 6850/550Ti (~$130) or 6870/560 ($170). You're better off weighting your spending towards the GPU if gaming is your primary purpose for the machine.
@21stCentury
That's...odd. It should just work. You can try CoreTemp, that's what I generally use.
I like Coretemp, but it doesn't show me the GPU temps...
Gah, i just freak out about temps for no good reason here. I'm just too obsessed.
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
RealTemp will show you both CPU and GPU temperatures. I think the most recent version is 3.69.1.
It has a super minimal footprint so I leave it running all the time, for some reason I really like knowing my CPUs temp. Shit, thats the entire reason I run iStat Pro on my laptop.
**Edit**
Does the fact that my motherboard says it has blue tooth mean it should be able to connect to my router wirelessly (if it supports Bluetooth) with out the need of a wireless card? I've been out of this environment far too long.
********
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128510
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102918
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145345
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.760634
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811235027
Thoughts? I only vaguely know what I'm doing. Suggestions greatly appreciated.
No, Bluetooth is not a reasonable wireless connection. My suggestion is to pick up a wireless adapter. I like my Belkin N, which runs about $20. I was pushing >3 MB/s with it, so it's more than fast enough. Choose something from a company you trust and you can't go wrong.
For gaming performance right now AMD chips really don't compare to intel. Go with a 2500k and a p67/z68 motherboard.
850 watts is overkill for a PSU, probably even if you want to run two GPUs.
The ram is fine, although you might consider getting low profile vengeance sticks instead, for compatibility with air coolers.
without knowing more about your budget and such I can't say how suitable that video card is. It'll certainly run stuff just fine at pretty much any resolution you want, but you can probably step down to a 560ti or a 6950, depending on how much you're looking to spend.
the 6970 is definitely the more powerful card, but if you're looking to trim your costs a bit the 6950 will play anything out now, and probably for a while yet to come. Metro 2033 and crysis on ultra high settings may give you some troubles, but those games are basically there to choke machines.
I'm running a 2gig 6950 and can run bf3 on high settings across the board at 2540x1600 res at extremely playable framerates. I only notice slowdown in situations where all 64 players are crammed into a very small space(lookin' at you metro conquest)
Get the 6970 if you absolutely must have the best. Get the 6950 if you just want to be able to play everything on high.
Yeah, it still blows my mind that my computer can run BF3 on ultra with 64 people doing their shit at a stable 45fps, but it shits a brick with Metro 2033 on the highest settings and all Im doing is walking through dark tunnels.
I didn't make it to Fry's. Boo!
Anyways, I went over the suggestions from Alec and emp. I'm only going to use one card (I'm bumping up to a 560 Ti), but the 550W you linked and the 620W I picked are the same price right now so I'm not sure if full modular is worth the 70W. I'm also boosting the SSD and changing the mobo accordingly.
The new loadout:
PSU: SeaSonic M12II 620 - Keepin' it.
Mobo: ASUS P8P67 Pro 3.1 - By suggestion.
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K - Obviously.
Cooling: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus - No liquids for Ianator!
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB DDR3 - As before. Blue!
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB - I am not going to get this all at once. I can wait.
SSD: Corsair Performance 3 series 128GB SATA III - I may have chose this thanks to watching lots of Newegg TV.
Video: MSI N560GTXTI Twin Frozr II 1GB - Heard good things about the Twin Frozr.
Optical: ASUS 24x DVD Burner - As before.
Monitor: ASUS VH236H 23" Widescreen LCD w/ Speakers - Also as before. What if I want to plug in my stereo?
OS: Win 7 Pro 64 bit OEM - I don't know why, but Pro compels me. It might be because I went from XP Home to XP Pro in my last switch.
On a final note, I watched a video with the new Asus X69 boards and was swayed by the promise of 64GB of RAM and the potential of RAM Drives. Then I looked at how much a 8GB sticks and Sandy Bridge-E processors go and sobered up damn quick.
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-Need to get a mounting bracket for the SSD
-The Mobo doesn't seem to recognize the keyboard and mouse and do video output until Windows is starting. This makes it kinda hard to get into the BIOS.
Edit: Also, the aftermarket CPU cooler is FUCKING MASSIVE. It also bit me, but all good builds require a blood sacrifice.
X79 is the new chipset, but close enough.
If you're a student, or know any students, or somehow have access to a student e-mail address, you can get Windows 7 Pro for $30.
If you're not overclocking, the stock heatsink should be just fine.