Currently the most efficient solution is to have both FAST-small storage and BIG-slow storage. Movies, music, documents, games not being played, junk files, porn, everything goes on the BIG-slow. OS, apps and current games go on the FAST-small. This is the best cost-benefit ration you'll get.
Of course, if you got a fuckton of money just gathering moss and you really want to have HUGE-BLINDING FAST, you should definitely go after that
Generally I consider 90c and above to be too hot. A lot of GPUs are fine up to above 100c but I prefer a conservative approach to heat.
That said I think my 1100mhz core 7970s didn't get much above 80c on air. they were just obnoxiously loud
My favorite route when overclocking a gpu is to bump my clocks by 50mhz increments and then play a few demanding games for half hour or so. If things are stable and temps are still good i'll bump clocks up another 50mhz and try again until it either becomes unstable or I get to the clocks I want
Day of the Bear on
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Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
Currently the most efficient solution is to have both FAST-small storage and BIG-slow storage. Movies, music, documents, games not being played, junk files, porn, everything goes on the BIG-slow. OS, apps and current games go on the FAST-small. This is the best cost-benefit ration you'll get.
Of course, if you got a fuckton of money just gathering moss and you really want to have HUGE-BLINDING FAST, you should definitely go after that
Well, I guess that settles it.
Time to get a 1TB WD Green drive, and stop being lazy and transfer files back and forth off of my SSD.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
For the love of god don't get a green drive. At the bare minimum get a blue. The greens are 5400 RPM drives, and you're not looking at "big and slow" you're looking at "big and glacial".
Because of these current storage discussions I'd like to say that I have such a large noticeable performance gain from SSD, even over a 1TB Black that I just grabbed a second Crucial M4 as a games drive. This will free up 30-40GB of space on my 128Gb OS drive and let me store more games on the quick drive, as playing off the WD spindle just didnt cut it anymore. An SSD is seriously one of the best PC upgrades I've done in ages, and I would gladly choose one over a moderate videocard upgrade if I didnt have one. Infact I opted for the second SSD over crossfiring 7870's because the quick load times between levels is soooo nice to have
Good God that thing took years to load into Windows. From off, my system takes about 11 seconds to boot to Win8 Start screen...
It is a damn slow boot in both regards, from complete shutdown my computer boots into windows login screen faster than my monitor can come out of sleep mode and it starts powering up immediately.
I get slow boot cold boots even on an SSD, because i have a raid device and a bunch of USB things that all have to initialize. Once i hit post it's pretty darn snappy though.
Because of these current storage discussions I'd like to say that I have such a large noticeable performance gain from SSD, even over a 1TB Black that I just grabbed a second Crucial M4 as a games drive. This will free up 30-40GB of space on my 128Gb OS drive and let me store more games on the quick drive, as playing off the WD spindle just didnt cut it anymore. An SSD is seriously one of the best PC upgrades I've done in ages, and I would gladly choose one over a moderate videocard upgrade if I didnt have one. Infact I opted for the second SSD over crossfiring 7870's because the quick load times between levels is soooo nice to have
I picked up the 500 GB version of this drive. Primarily because it was $400 off.
It was not cheap by any means, but I think it was vastly preferable an upgrade to building a new PC (and can be taken to a future PC too). It was an obvious upgrade, after my GPU and CPU, which were both much more effective upgrades (and also quite expensive). It's kind of interesting to see what games it doesn't really benefit (Skyrim or Silent Hunter III) versus which games where the difference is substantial (Shogun 2).
It's also a bit of a hassle to have one more level of organization to worry about (but then again, I'm kind of obsessive--I like to keep around 80 GB of free space), but hey, you need to put the effort in to get the benefit.
God damnit ubisoft. I got FarCry 3 and there's like 30GB of temp/archived/installation files that are swimming around in hidden directories. Why can't you install shit like a normal company?
Also, I noticed that I have the 500MHz bug on my card, like many other people do. Apparently if you're playing a game and have a second monitor/flash with hardware acceleration running it'll dump your clock to 500 MHz no matter what. This has been around since the 6-series, and they're just now addressing it in 12.11b drivers. It also goes away if you turn off Overdrive and force stock clocks.
Anyways, now that I can have Overdrive on, I'm at like 1100 MHz core clock and 1400 MHz memory, and still at 64*C. The only issue is that when I look at the usage in afterburner, my core clock kind of oscillates between 1100 MHz (my overclock speed) and 850 MHz (the stock speed). Is this normal? I sort of assumed it would just stay at 1100 all the time...
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AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
What about this? Now, price isn't anything you can help with since I am moored in Sweden, but I was wondering if you would personally change anything above.
Edit: Duly noted, I have heard that the i7 is pretty redundant from a gaming perspective, thank you for reminding me.
This here has an i5 and a GTX 670 instead - is the drop in performance there more than negligible?
proyebatGARY WAS HEREASH IS A LOSERRegistered Userregular
Well uh, do you need that i7? I'd rather go for the i5-3570k and either pocket the cash or get a bigger SSD. I am kicking myself in the ass for getting a 64GB SSD that can store about three games + OS. Steam mover gets boring really fast.
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AlectharAlan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered Userregular
Don't get a K series process and an H77 board. If you want to overclock that board won't let you, and if you don't want to OC you should just buy a cheaper, non-K quad core.
What are your options for the PSU? I'm not a fan of the CX series units. All you really need is something solid in the 520W-ish area, Antec has the High Current Gamer series, which I like.
If you're gaming at or around 1080p, the difference between the 670 and 680 is negligible.
Ran into an unexpected problem with my SSD install last night. Using my 2x2.5" into 3.5" adapter in a Corsair 550D puts the SSD's so close together that none of my 90* sata cables fit, and the wires from my PSU don't work well because instead of dumping the wires out the BACK of each plug, they come out on the top and bottom. I think I'm gonna go drop by an NCIX today and see if I can grab something like an extension cable that's setup how I need it.
Regardless, I've got it installed for now and the 256GB drive is a little over half filled. It's amazing, I now have 60GB free on my 128GB M4, 60GB free on my 256GB, and a few hundred on my western digital! I'd love to have my next move be to make that platter drive external so I can stop hearing the damn thing spin up every time I try to access it. Also, holy hell they're slow in comparison. Level load times in Black Mesa Source? 30 seconds on the 1TB black and about 3 seconds on the SSD.
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AbsalonLands of Always WinterRegistered Userregular
Don't get a K series process and an H77 board. If you want to overclock that board won't let you, and if you don't want to OC you should just buy a cheaper, non-K quad core.
What are your options for the PSU? I'm not a fan of the CX series units. All you really need is something solid in the 520W-ish area, Antec has the High Current Gamer series, which I like.
If you're gaming at or around 1080p, the difference between the 670 and 680 is negligible.
Those two lists are from finished rigs offered by retailers, so I am not sure if there are any options or how easy it is to replace later. Thanks for the advice!
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minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
Don't get a K series process and an H77 board. If you want to overclock that board won't let you, and if you don't want to OC you should just buy a cheaper, non-K quad core.
What are your options for the PSU? I'm not a fan of the CX series units. All you really need is something solid in the 520W-ish area, Antec has the High Current Gamer series, which I like.
If you're gaming at or around 1080p, the difference between the 670 and 680 is negligible.
Those two lists are from finished rigs offered by retailers, so I am not sure if there are any options or how easy it is to replace later. Thanks for the advice!
Then I wouldn't trust any retailer that offers a K series processor in an H77 board. That's screen-door-on-submarine dumb.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
The price difference between a 3570 and 3570k is only about $5, I would bet just for inventory's sake that most computer building shops only stock the K versions.
Don't get a K series process and an H77 board. If you want to overclock that board won't let you, and if you don't want to OC you should just buy a cheaper, non-K quad core.
What are your options for the PSU? I'm not a fan of the CX series units. All you really need is something solid in the 520W-ish area, Antec has the High Current Gamer series, which I like.
If you're gaming at or around 1080p, the difference between the 670 and 680 is negligible.
Those two lists are from finished rigs offered by retailers, so I am not sure if there are any options or how easy it is to replace later. Thanks for the advice!
Then I wouldn't trust any retailer that offers a K series processor in an H77 board. That's screen-door-on-submarine dumb.
That happens to be a retailer that seems to get good reviews for pricing but also seems to mess up orders and not really be very knowledgeable in terms of support and component optimization. They're not a devoted computer retailer, but they don't seem to be infamous for anything.
A more computer-centric retailer has this (sorry for the very busy-looking list with all the extraneous babble):
A dedicated forum/website has provided this slightly pricier arrangement (spoilered for my-posts-are-getting-a-bit-long), but this assumes you pick the lowest prices for each and put them together.
Every once in awhile when I touch the metal part of my desk I get a tiny static shock, the speakers in my wife's computer next to me pop slightly and a few seconds later I get a USB disconnect noise on my machine.
Every once in awhile when I touch the metal part of my desk I get a tiny static shock, the speakers in my wife's computer next to me pop slightly and a few seconds later I get a USB disconnect noise on my machine.
I presume this is probably bad.
It sounds like you've lost the ground on something, possibly your front-panel USB. Standard troubleshooting procedure: start eliminating possible causes. Try disconnecting the front panel stuff, see if you've still got the same issue. Generally speaking if your motherboard isn't properly grounded the PC won't boot, so that seems unlikely. PSU is unlikely because it probably would have slagged itself or shut off (or hurt you) if it wasn't grounded.
Whatever you do, be careful with the case while power is connected. If something's grounded itself on the case, you want to avoid being a part of that particular circuit.
Both basically come down to what slot it uses. Namely:
Today's videocards all use PCI-Express x16 (PCI-E x16). Version doesn't matter, as they're all inter-compatible.
Processors get a little more complicated, but the processor and motherboard should both say what socket they use.
For example, an intel i5-3570k fits into socket 1155 (along with a host of other processors).
AMD piledriver based processors (A4-5300, A6-5400K, etc) all fit into socket FM2.
It's just a matter of determining what socket your motherboard has on it (motherboards will only have a single socket type).
I posted a month ago and people suggested a 7850 or possibly gtx 660 for a gpu. I'm currently running a:
motherboard: EVGA 132-CK-NF78
processor: Intel Q9450
GPU: 2 9800 GTX+ in SLI
memory: 8 gigs
Windows 7 64 bit
running 2 monitors as well, if that matters.
I got some money for christmas and I have a birthday coming up soon, so I'm willing to drop 5-600ish to upgrade. Thoughts on what will give me most bang for my buck?
I've been considering a SolidState Drive for a bit now, mostly for when i get my new media box built (when a decent ITX board comes out for FM2 APU's).
I've been looking at the Kingston HyperX drives. I hear one of the things to make sure of is that the drives use a good controller, because not much else matters. Are there any decent places that benchmark the drives also? I've not been hunting for benchmarks on harddrives since the early days of SATA.
Controller and NAND type are generally the biggest determinant of performance. Firmware definitely has an effect, but most controllers that are used by multiple manufacturers end up with each manufacturer using largely the same firmware.
Right now I think that the previous-gen Marvell controller offers the best value drives (Crucial M4, Plextor M3, M3 Pro and M5S). They're generally quite inexpensive, stable, and while write performance isn't world-beating, that's really not an issue as read performance is generally more important for most people. Sandforce based drives (like the Kingston HyperX) still exhibit some of the best and most consistent performance when working with compressible data, but have some lingering stability issues and difficulties with TRIM. Overall, I don't think you really notice the performance in day to day use, but you definitely notice slowdowns due to TRIM not working correctly, or BSODs, so I'm not a Sandforce fan at the moment.
Among what I would refer to as "next-gen" controllers, OCZ and Samsung probably have the best (OCZ Vector and Samsung 840 Pro drives). Corsair's newest controller, found in the Neutron and Neutron GTX, is really impressive as well. New Marvell silicon can be found in the Plextor M5 Pro. If you don't care about how much money you're spending on a drive, I'd say go Samsung 840 Pro. If you want the cheapest good drive you can get, go Crucial M4. If you want a compromise between those two extremes, probably Corsair Neutron or Neutron GTX.
I'm finally biting the bullet and building a new PC for gaming and coding purposes. I know i've poked my head in here a few months back, but never had the cash till now. Current probable spec list looks like this:
I'm going to be powering either a 1440p or 1600p monitor with this rig, and am planning to overclock both the CPU and GPU. Future upgrades are probably going to be another 7950 for Crossfire, but that's hopefully not going to be necessary for a while, and a sound card for when I get a decent pair of headphones together.
Questions!
1. Choosing my motherboard - I didn't really see major differences between motherboards from different manufacturers at this price range, did I manage to miss any criteria that make the ASUS board unsuitable/suboptimal?
2. Graphics Card - I was torn between the 7950 and the GTX 670, as i've read that when overclocking, both cards end up at about the same level despite the price disparity. Considering the resolution I'll be gaming at, should I be looking at a 7970/670 instead?
3. PSU - Finally, I was told that I might be lowballing it a bit with the PSU I'm getting, but I'm also aware that extra power doesn't do anything. Thoughts?
Notes: I'm a student, so I already have a free copy of Windows 8, and I live in the Netherlands, so no newegg
I'm finally biting the bullet and building a new PC for gaming and coding purposes. I know i've poked my head in here a few months back, but never had the cash till now. Current probable spec list looks like this:
I'm going to be powering either a 1440p or 1600p monitor with this rig, and am planning to overclock both the CPU and GPU. Future upgrades are probably going to be another 7950 for Crossfire, but that's hopefully not going to be necessary for a while, and a sound card for when I get a decent pair of headphones together.
Questions!
1. Choosing my motherboard - I didn't really see major differences between motherboards from different manufacturers at this price range, did I manage to miss any criteria that make the ASUS board unsuitable/suboptimal?
2. Graphics Card - I was torn between the 7950 and the GTX 670, as i've read that when overclocking, both cards end up at about the same level despite the price disparity. Considering the resolution I'll be gaming at, should I be looking at a 7970/670 instead?
3. PSU - Finally, I was told that I might be lowballing it a bit with the PSU I'm getting, but I'm also aware that extra power doesn't do anything. Thoughts?
Notes: I'm a student, so I already have a free copy of Windows 8, and I live in the Netherlands, so no newegg
ASUS is a good brand. Assuming it has all the ports you want, I don't think anyone can say it's a bad choice. Thankfully, MB quality variation isn't nearly what it used to be.
For 1440p, you'd probably really want the 7970 but an OC'd 7950 will work well too. You may start getting slowdowns once the games built for next-gen consoles are out, but that's probably a 2014 problem and 2014 video cards will probably handle them just fine. I don't recommend Crossfire/SLI as an upgrade path, since these high-end cards tend to just disappear from the market rather than drop in price.
A 620W PSU is more than enough for your system as constructed. It could probably handle XFire'd 7950s too, though some people would recommend a bit more for that if you are sure that's in your future.
Every once in awhile when I touch the metal part of my desk I get a tiny static shock, the speakers in my wife's computer next to me pop slightly and a few seconds later I get a USB disconnect noise on my machine.
I presume this is probably bad.
It sounds like you've lost the ground on something, possibly your front-panel USB. Standard troubleshooting procedure: start eliminating possible causes. Try disconnecting the front panel stuff, see if you've still got the same issue. Generally speaking if your motherboard isn't properly grounded the PC won't boot, so that seems unlikely. PSU is unlikely because it probably would have slagged itself or shut off (or hurt you) if it wasn't grounded.
Whatever you do, be careful with the case while power is connected. If something's grounded itself on the case, you want to avoid being a part of that particular circuit.
I'll give it a shot, thanks. Any chance there is a program that can log USB connects/ disconnects out there?
Controller and NAND type are generally the biggest determinant of performance. Firmware definitely has an effect, but most controllers that are used by multiple manufacturers end up with each manufacturer using largely the same firmware.
Right now I think that the previous-gen Marvell controller offers the best value drives (Crucial M4, Plextor M3, M3 Pro and M5S). They're generally quite inexpensive, stable, and while write performance isn't world-beating, that's really not an issue as read performance is generally more important for most people. Sandforce based drives (like the Kingston HyperX) still exhibit some of the best and most consistent performance when working with compressible data, but have some lingering stability issues and difficulties with TRIM. Overall, I don't think you really notice the performance in day to day use, but you definitely notice slowdowns due to TRIM not working correctly, or BSODs, so I'm not a Sandforce fan at the moment.
Among what I would refer to as "next-gen" controllers, OCZ and Samsung probably have the best (OCZ Vector and Samsung 840 Pro drives). Corsair's newest controller, found in the Neutron and Neutron GTX, is really impressive as well. New Marvell silicon can be found in the Plextor M5 Pro. If you don't care about how much money you're spending on a drive, I'd say go Samsung 840 Pro. If you want the cheapest good drive you can get, go Crucial M4. If you want a compromise between those two extremes, probably Corsair Neutron or Neutron GTX.
thank you for the info. the only thing i really had to go by was reviews. im not looking to just drop a fortune on a drive, but i do want something in the 200+ Gb range. im hoping there might be a few new years sales. if something decent comes along, i might jump on it now that i have some good technical info to go on.
So I'm looking to build a mostly new PC while reusing some parts from my previous PC (pretty sure the motherboard went as a result of an iffy PS). Here is a list of new parts I'm planning on buying:
CPU : Intel Core i5-3570K
Motherboard : Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H
Power Supply : Corsair Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W
SSD : OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-128G
Memory : G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Case: Corsair Carbide Series 300R
Salvaged parts:
SATA DVD Burner
500 GB WD hard drive
XFX HD-485X-YDFC Radeon HD 4850 512MB graphics card
I'm wondering if the HD 4850 will be enough to handle current gen games with the new system? It's an older card but I was able to play stuff like Human Revolution with it pretty well before the last system went, but I remember it having trouble with the Old Republic beta. I'd like to save the $200-$300 on a new card if possible. I game at 1080p.
Also is that a decent SSD? I was gunning for the Crucial m4 but the price just jumped on newegg so I swapped it out.
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Of course, if you got a fuckton of money just gathering moss and you really want to have HUGE-BLINDING FAST, you should definitely go after that
Awesome thanks! What temperature would people usually consider the stopping point?
That said I think my 1100mhz core 7970s didn't get much above 80c on air. they were just obnoxiously loud
My favorite route when overclocking a gpu is to bump my clocks by 50mhz increments and then play a few demanding games for half hour or so. If things are stable and temps are still good i'll bump clocks up another 50mhz and try again until it either becomes unstable or I get to the clocks I want
Well, I guess that settles it.
Time to get a 1TB WD Green drive, and stop being lazy and transfer files back and forth off of my SSD.
Solid state is where it is at
Ignorance is bliss.
My worry is I'll try it and it'll be so fucking good that it will completely ruin me on regular drives.
That said, thanks to Boxing Day sales, I managed to score both a 120 GB SSD and a 1 TB regular drive, so best of both worlds.
Good God that thing took years to load into Windows. From off, my system takes about 11 seconds to boot to Win8 Start screen...
I picked up the 500 GB version of this drive. Primarily because it was $400 off.
It was not cheap by any means, but I think it was vastly preferable an upgrade to building a new PC (and can be taken to a future PC too). It was an obvious upgrade, after my GPU and CPU, which were both much more effective upgrades (and also quite expensive). It's kind of interesting to see what games it doesn't really benefit (Skyrim or Silent Hunter III) versus which games where the difference is substantial (Shogun 2).
It's also a bit of a hassle to have one more level of organization to worry about (but then again, I'm kind of obsessive--I like to keep around 80 GB of free space), but hey, you need to put the effort in to get the benefit.
Also, I noticed that I have the 500MHz bug on my card, like many other people do. Apparently if you're playing a game and have a second monitor/flash with hardware acceleration running it'll dump your clock to 500 MHz no matter what. This has been around since the 6-series, and they're just now addressing it in 12.11b drivers. It also goes away if you turn off Overdrive and force stock clocks.
Anyways, now that I can have Overdrive on, I'm at like 1100 MHz core clock and 1400 MHz memory, and still at 64*C. The only issue is that when I look at the usage in afterburner, my core clock kind of oscillates between 1100 MHz (my overclock speed) and 850 MHz (the stock speed). Is this normal? I sort of assumed it would just stay at 1100 all the time...
SSD : SSD 120GB Force 3
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G45 Z77
Processor: Intel® Core i7 3770K, 3,5GHz
Internal: 2 x Corsair 8GB Module DDR3 1600MHz
HDD : Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 600 - 5900RPM - 6
Optic: Samsung 22X DL - SH-222BB/BEBE
Graphics: GeForce GTX 680 2GB GDDR5 (1006Mhz)
What about this? Now, price isn't anything you can help with since I am moored in Sweden, but I was wondering if you would personally change anything above.
Edit: Duly noted, I have heard that the i7 is pretty redundant from a gaming perspective, thank you for reminding me.
This here has an i5 and a GTX 670 instead - is the drop in performance there more than negligible?
PowerSupply: Corsair CX 600W V2 80+
SSD : SSD 120GB Force 3
Motherboardt: MSI H77MA-G43 H77
Internal: 2 x Corsair 8GB Module DDR3 1600MHz
Processor: Intel® Core i5 3570K 3,4Ghz
Graphics: GeForce GTX 670 2GB DDR5
HDD : Seagate Barracuda 1TB - 6Gb/s - 7200rpm - 32MB
Optics: Samsung 22X DL - SH-222BB/BEBE
What are your options for the PSU? I'm not a fan of the CX series units. All you really need is something solid in the 520W-ish area, Antec has the High Current Gamer series, which I like.
If you're gaming at or around 1080p, the difference between the 670 and 680 is negligible.
Battle.net
Cheap options are the Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, or the Enermax ETS-T40
Regardless, I've got it installed for now and the 256GB drive is a little over half filled. It's amazing, I now have 60GB free on my 128GB M4, 60GB free on my 256GB, and a few hundred on my western digital! I'd love to have my next move be to make that platter drive external so I can stop hearing the damn thing spin up every time I try to access it. Also, holy hell they're slow in comparison. Level load times in Black Mesa Source? 30 seconds on the 1TB black and about 3 seconds on the SSD.
Those two lists are from finished rigs offered by retailers, so I am not sure if there are any options or how easy it is to replace later. Thanks for the advice!
Then I wouldn't trust any retailer that offers a K series processor in an H77 board. That's screen-door-on-submarine dumb.
That happens to be a retailer that seems to get good reviews for pricing but also seems to mess up orders and not really be very knowledgeable in terms of support and component optimization. They're not a devoted computer retailer, but they don't seem to be infamous for anything.
A more computer-centric retailer has this (sorry for the very busy-looking list with all the extraneous babble):
Power: Corsair CX 500W PSU BULK ATX 12V V2.3, 80 Plus, Standard. 2x 6+2pin PCIe, 5x SATA, 120mm Fan
Processor(s): Intel® Core *i5-3570K* Processor Socket-LGA1155, Quad Core, 3.4GHz, 6MB, 77W, HD4000, Boxed w/fan
Motherboard: *ASUS P8Z77-V LX, Socket-1155 ATX, Z77,* DDR3, 1xG3+1xG2-PCIe-x16, CFX, VGA, DVI, HDMI, UEFI
Memory: *Kingston DDR3 HyperX blu 1600MHz 16GB* 8GB 2Rx8 1G x 64-Bit x 2, DDR3-1600, CL10, 240-Pin DIMM Kit
Graphics: Gainward GeForce *GTX 670* 2GB PhysX CUDA PCI-Express 3.0, GDDR5, DVI-D+DVI-I, native-HDMI, DisplayPort, 915MHz
SSD : *Corsair SSD Force Series 3, 240GB* 2.5" SATA 6 Gb/s (SATA3.0), 550MB/520MB/s read/write, SandForce® SF-2281, w/bracket
Optics: Samsung DVD Writer, SH-224BB SATA, DVD±R: 24x, DVD±R DL: 8x, CD-R: 48x, Bulk, BLACK
A dedicated forum/website has provided this slightly pricier arrangement (spoilered for my-posts-are-getting-a-bit-long), but this assumes you pick the lowest prices for each and put them together.
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V
Internal: Corsair Vengeance LP 1 600 MHz (2x 8 GB)
Graphics: Alt. 1: MSI Geforce GTX 680
Alt. 2: XFX Radeon HD7970 Dual-Fan
CPU-Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC14PE
SSD : OCZ Vertex 4 (256 GB)
HDD : Seagate Barracuda (2 TB)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4
Power: Fractal Design Newton R3 (600 W)
Every once in awhile when I touch the metal part of my desk I get a tiny static shock, the speakers in my wife's computer next to me pop slightly and a few seconds later I get a USB disconnect noise on my machine.
I presume this is probably bad.
It sounds like you've lost the ground on something, possibly your front-panel USB. Standard troubleshooting procedure: start eliminating possible causes. Try disconnecting the front panel stuff, see if you've still got the same issue. Generally speaking if your motherboard isn't properly grounded the PC won't boot, so that seems unlikely. PSU is unlikely because it probably would have slagged itself or shut off (or hurt you) if it wasn't grounded.
Whatever you do, be careful with the case while power is connected. If something's grounded itself on the case, you want to avoid being a part of that particular circuit.
Battle.net
video card it would be if you had a pcie slot (and unless your computer is 10 years old, you do). and how good your psu is.
tell us your motherboard and budget and we can help get you the best upgrade you can.
Today's videocards all use PCI-Express x16 (PCI-E x16). Version doesn't matter, as they're all inter-compatible.
Processors get a little more complicated, but the processor and motherboard should both say what socket they use.
For example, an intel i5-3570k fits into socket 1155 (along with a host of other processors).
AMD piledriver based processors (A4-5300, A6-5400K, etc) all fit into socket FM2.
It's just a matter of determining what socket your motherboard has on it (motherboards will only have a single socket type).
motherboard: EVGA 132-CK-NF78
processor: Intel Q9450
GPU: 2 9800 GTX+ in SLI
memory: 8 gigs
Windows 7 64 bit
running 2 monitors as well, if that matters.
I got some money for christmas and I have a birthday coming up soon, so I'm willing to drop 5-600ish to upgrade. Thoughts on what will give me most bang for my buck?
which would crush what your currently running, and set you good for another 3-5 years or so.
I've been looking at the Kingston HyperX drives. I hear one of the things to make sure of is that the drives use a good controller, because not much else matters. Are there any decent places that benchmark the drives also? I've not been hunting for benchmarks on harddrives since the early days of SATA.
Controller and NAND type are generally the biggest determinant of performance. Firmware definitely has an effect, but most controllers that are used by multiple manufacturers end up with each manufacturer using largely the same firmware.
Right now I think that the previous-gen Marvell controller offers the best value drives (Crucial M4, Plextor M3, M3 Pro and M5S). They're generally quite inexpensive, stable, and while write performance isn't world-beating, that's really not an issue as read performance is generally more important for most people. Sandforce based drives (like the Kingston HyperX) still exhibit some of the best and most consistent performance when working with compressible data, but have some lingering stability issues and difficulties with TRIM. Overall, I don't think you really notice the performance in day to day use, but you definitely notice slowdowns due to TRIM not working correctly, or BSODs, so I'm not a Sandforce fan at the moment.
Among what I would refer to as "next-gen" controllers, OCZ and Samsung probably have the best (OCZ Vector and Samsung 840 Pro drives). Corsair's newest controller, found in the Neutron and Neutron GTX, is really impressive as well. New Marvell silicon can be found in the Plextor M5 Pro. If you don't care about how much money you're spending on a drive, I'd say go Samsung 840 Pro. If you want the cheapest good drive you can get, go Crucial M4. If you want a compromise between those two extremes, probably Corsair Neutron or Neutron GTX.
Battle.net
I'm finally biting the bullet and building a new PC for gaming and coding purposes. I know i've poked my head in here a few months back, but never had the cash till now. Current probable spec list looks like this:
CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LK
Graphics Card: MSI R7950 Twin Frozr
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint 1TB
SSD: Crucial M4 256GB
Case: CM Storm Enforcer
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB
PSU: Seasonic M12ii 620 Watt
Cooling: Hyper 212 EVO
I'm going to be powering either a 1440p or 1600p monitor with this rig, and am planning to overclock both the CPU and GPU. Future upgrades are probably going to be another 7950 for Crossfire, but that's hopefully not going to be necessary for a while, and a sound card for when I get a decent pair of headphones together.
Questions!
1. Choosing my motherboard - I didn't really see major differences between motherboards from different manufacturers at this price range, did I manage to miss any criteria that make the ASUS board unsuitable/suboptimal?
2. Graphics Card - I was torn between the 7950 and the GTX 670, as i've read that when overclocking, both cards end up at about the same level despite the price disparity. Considering the resolution I'll be gaming at, should I be looking at a 7970/670 instead?
3. PSU - Finally, I was told that I might be lowballing it a bit with the PSU I'm getting, but I'm also aware that extra power doesn't do anything. Thoughts?
Notes: I'm a student, so I already have a free copy of Windows 8, and I live in the Netherlands, so no newegg
For 1440p, you'd probably really want the 7970 but an OC'd 7950 will work well too. You may start getting slowdowns once the games built for next-gen consoles are out, but that's probably a 2014 problem and 2014 video cards will probably handle them just fine. I don't recommend Crossfire/SLI as an upgrade path, since these high-end cards tend to just disappear from the market rather than drop in price.
A 620W PSU is more than enough for your system as constructed. It could probably handle XFire'd 7950s too, though some people would recommend a bit more for that if you are sure that's in your future.
I'll give it a shot, thanks. Any chance there is a program that can log USB connects/ disconnects out there?
Nope. That was the part that worried me. They are separate machines, but connected to the same power outlet.
thank you for the info. the only thing i really had to go by was reviews. im not looking to just drop a fortune on a drive, but i do want something in the 200+ Gb range. im hoping there might be a few new years sales. if something decent comes along, i might jump on it now that i have some good technical info to go on.
CPU : Intel Core i5-3570K
Motherboard : Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H
Power Supply : Corsair Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W
SSD : OCZ Vertex 4 VTX4-25SAT3-128G
Memory : G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Case: Corsair Carbide Series 300R
Salvaged parts:
SATA DVD Burner
500 GB WD hard drive
XFX HD-485X-YDFC Radeon HD 4850 512MB graphics card
I'm wondering if the HD 4850 will be enough to handle current gen games with the new system? It's an older card but I was able to play stuff like Human Revolution with it pretty well before the last system went, but I remember it having trouble with the Old Republic beta. I'd like to save the $200-$300 on a new card if possible. I game at 1080p.
Also is that a decent SSD? I was gunning for the Crucial m4 but the price just jumped on newegg so I swapped it out.