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"I Need a New PC!" 2014 Part 2. Read OP, your 2500K will run Witcher 3. MX100s! 970!

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RGM79

Member
I was actually looking at the Corsair 200R in a previous saved build, so I might go with that instead so I could save a couple bucks.



I was actually thinking about that. I do photography and video editing in my spare time, so I figured the i7 would be a better deal in the long run, and I can upgrade my video card once the 980 goes down. I'm stuck, because those are the two items I'm trying to get on Black Friday. Maybe I should just go for the i5 and the 970.
I've put together a build for you based on your parts and some other cheaper/better deals to be had, it's still missing a video card, though. If you have an old or spare video card, you may want to consider using that for now, buying a brand new 760 seems a bit pointless.There is this deal for $48 off the Gigabyte GTX 980. It involves a $20 mail in rebate and a 5% discount.. and appears to be ending very soon.


I'm looking to buy a GTX 970, and noise is a (big) factor for me.So which one out of these manufacturers has the less noisy card: Asus, Gigabyte, Gainward or Zotac?
Asus as far as I know, plus they advertise it by making it look like an owl.
I second the Asus. The fans automatically turn off when idle at low temperature, and won't turn back on until hitting a certain temperature, which makes it very quiet. The Gigabyte G1 Gaming is also very good. Here's a group review of noise.
 
Are you going to be reusing any parts from your old PC? The Define R5 is now out, it's a great improvement over the R4 but does cost $120-130. I think it could be in your budget if you're going to spend $1000 on a new PC.

Yeah, I'm going to be reusing the PSU and the HDD/SSD since those are the only things that still have compatibility with more modern day PCs; in terms of cases, I will look into the R5, but I as you might be able to tell, I am looking towards cases that are minimalistic and are very quiet.
 

RGM79

Member
Yeah, I'm going to be reusing the PSU and the HDD/SSD since those are the only things that still have compatibility with more modern day PCs; in terms of cases, I will look into the R5, but I as you might be able to tell, I am looking towards cases that are minimalistic and are very quiet.
Hexus has individual reviews of each case, and compiled results into this chart. Fractal's very good with minimalistic looks and the R5 does a great job of sound suppression and low noise. Otherwise, there's the Be Quiet! Silent Base 800 which does not seem to be available yet, the Cooler Master Silencio 652S for $105, and the cheapest, the Corsair 330R for $89.
 

miserable

Member

Dystify

Member
Hey, I have 8gb ram and needed to set my dedicated video ram higher for a game.
I read if I have 8gb ram I can set the dedicated video ram to 1024mb in the bios, but when I do this my screen gets all messed up after the restart which led me to believe my PC can't handle it? Why could this be? Is there anything I can do to make it work? 512mb works just fine.
In the pastebin are my system specs: http://pastebin.com/XQxn0uzN
I'm grateful for any help and sorry, I'm really unexperienced with all of these PC related things.
 

RGM79

Member
Hey, I have 8gb ram and needed to set my dedicated video ram higher for a game.
I read if I have 8gb ram I can set the dedicated video ram to 1024mb in the bios, but when I do this my screen gets all messed up after the restart which led me to believe my PC can't handle it? Why could this be? Is there anything I can do to make it work? 512mb works just fine.
In the pastebin are my system specs: http://pastebin.com/XQxn0uzN
I'm grateful for any help and sorry, I'm really unexperienced with all of these PC related things.

What game are you trying to play? You have only have integrated graphics, I can't explain why setting it to 1024MB makes the display go wrong. Could be BIOS problems, maybe reset to default settings will allow you to select 1024MB. Maybe you need to update the BIOS.
 

Dystify

Member
What game are you trying to play? You have only have integrated graphics, I can't explain why setting it to 1024MB makes the display go wrong. Could be BIOS problems, maybe reset to default settings will allow you to select 1024MB. Maybe you need to update the BIOS.

I updated the BIOS which put all settings to default (everything worked fine at this point), then changed it to 1024MB again but now my PC turns on and there's nothing? My screen won't even turn on anymore so I can't change any settings back... I'm posting this from my laptop. How do I reset the BIOS without even being able to see anything?

Edit: Found a way to physically reset the BIOS, gonna do that now.
 

ricki42

Member
Have any of you messed around with a touch screen monitor? I was looking at this 10-point touch monitor and wanted to know if I would be making a mistake by going this route.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...e=touch_screen_monitor-_-24-236-403-_-Product

What are you planning to use it for? I have a touchscreen on my Thinkpad X220 tablet, and I only use it if I want to annotate something with the stylus. That is convenient, but you would be difficult to do with that monitor (you'd have to lay it flat unless you can write on an upright surface with no hand support). For interacting with the OS I find it quite inconvenient, because I'd have to take my hands of the keyboard and mouse and reach across to the screen. Usually, mouse is just easier and you don't constantly have to hold up your arm, which can get tiring quite fast. I also don't like having lots of fingerprints on my screen.
Also, keep in mind that that screen is only 19.5" and 1600 x 900. If you are looking for a monitor for gaming, you'd be far better off with the ASUS VG248QE which is currently on sale at Newegg.
 

Dystify

Member
Yeah anyway, I had to open my PC to reset the UEFI. I still get the same issue even after updating it. I can select 1024MB on the UEFI, but when I do my PC simply starts but nothing else happens. My monitor won't even turn on and I can't do anything other than resetting the UEFI. So again my question: How can I set the dedicated video ram to 1024MB? I should be able to do it since I have 8GB ram. My system specs: http://pastebin.com/XQxn0uzN
 
What's the way of getting a Dual Shock 3 working on PC? Wireless preferred, but would use wired if that works.

I've tried Better DS3, but the controller isn't recognised (but is in Windows 7 control panel when it's wired).

Is MotioninJoy a better option?

thanks!
 

One-Shot

Banned
and just ordered my last part for my build. 500GB Sansung 840evo for 189.99. Now just have to wait till Monday................sigh.
 

LilJoka

Member
Cheers.
Unfortunately my ignorance around using a PC stumps me at step 2, something about copying an Archive. I'll see if there is a youtube video explaining it better.

It just means download the file from those links to a directory you won't forget. The file you download is an archive like a zip file.
 

BBboy20

Member
Any of you guys suggest solid state drives? I've been suggested to get one for the OS (Windows 7) and recent & bigger games. Don't feel like getting two of them so I'm more of interest of one with the biggest bang for the buck and trust worthy to not break down so easily.
 

Thrakier

Member
TBH, from my experience, the 2500k will run W3 but the question has to be "how"? I can't see 60FPS and that is what PC gaming is all about. The 970 seems also more like an "inbetween" solution, certainly not current gen safe. I guess I'll need to upgrade again in about an year, CPU and GPU.
 
Any of you guys suggest solid state drives? I've been suggested to get one for the OS (Windows 7) and recent & bigger games. Don't feel like getting two of them so I'm more of interest of one with the biggest bang for the buck and trust worthy to not break down so easily.

Crucial MX100 512GB
 

TMC

Member
I apologize if this is not the right thread for this question. I would greatly appreciate any help.

I was considering building a desktop but I got a sweet deal on the following desktop for $450

http://www.staples.com/ASUS-M32AD-R10-1TB-Hard-Drive-8GB-Memory-Intel-i7/product_1064975

Could someone help by telling me the best GPU I can put into this desktop for under $150? The power supply is 350w. I would consider replacing it if necessary but would prefer to get the best GPU at that price point.

Thanks a ton guys. Again, disregard if this is not the right thread for this question.
 

RGM79

Member
I apologize if this is not the right thread for this question. I would greatly appreciate any help.

I was considering building a desktop but I got a sweet deal on the following desktop for $450

http://www.staples.com/ASUS-M32AD-R10-1TB-Hard-Drive-8GB-Memory-Intel-i7/product_1064975

Could someone help by telling me the best GPU I can put into this desktop for under $150? The power supply is 350w. I would consider replacing it if necessary but would prefer to get the best GPU at that price point.

Thanks a ton guys. Again, disregard if this is not the right thread for this question.
I think the best thing you can put in there without upgrading the power supply is a GTX 750 Ti. Pick any of these models, you can't go wrong. Maybe spend the rest of the $150 budget on a CPU cooler like the Cooler Master Hyper Evo or something as long as it fits, I bet the desktop comes with a stock style small heatsink. one common issue with prebuilt computers is that they have minimal cooling or quiet fans, and can end up getting quite hot.

I've been looking to get a Crucial MX100 512GB as a second SSD for my machine. What's the best price for that?

It looks like Amazon has them for $189 right now while Newegg has them at $209.
Current price tracking says Amazon is the cheapest.
 

garath

Member
TBH, from my experience, the 2500k will run W3 but the question has to be "how"? I can't see 60FPS and that is what PC gaming is all about. The 970 seems also more like an "inbetween" solution, certainly not current gen safe. I guess I'll need to upgrade again in about an year, CPU and GPU.

I guarantee you my 2500k and 970 will get 60fps on witcher 3. It certainly won't be ultra and it likely won't even be high but I expect a nice mix of med/high settings. New cutting edge games should run well on current hardware but also push the envelope for enthusiast builds.

I understand the obsession with maxing things out but it is kind of silly to expect that with middle of the road hardware. What I DO expect is good performance with some lower settings. If you want cutting edge then you will ALWAYS be upgrading.

Or you can go console and your games will be patched to lower settings for you.
 

riflen

Member
I guarantee you my 2500k and 970 will get 60fps on witcher 3. It certainly won't be ultra and it likely won't even be high but I expect a nice mix of med/high settings. New cutting edge games should run well on current hardware but also push the envelope for enthusiast builds.

I understand the obsession with maxing things out but it is kind of silly to expect that with middle of the road hardware. What I DO expect is good performance with some lower settings. If you want cutting edge then you will ALWAYS be upgrading.

Or you can go console and your games will be patched to lower settings for you.

Cold as ice.
 

Thrakier

Member
I guarantee you my 2500k and 970 will get 60fps on witcher 3. It certainly won't be ultra and it likely won't even be high but I expect a nice mix of med/high settings. New cutting edge games should run well on current hardware but also push the envelope for enthusiast builds.

I understand the obsession with maxing things out but it is kind of silly to expect that with middle of the road hardware. What I DO expect is good performance with some lower settings. If you want cutting edge then you will ALWAYS be upgrading.

Or you can go console and your games will be patched to lower settings for you.

We'll see. I'm fine with mid to high settings, as long as the game just runs smooth. I'm not one of those guys who sees a big difference between high and ultra most of the time anyway. But there is a certain tendency for current game to run like shit and that you need again like 1000% more power on PC to force these things into 60FPS.

You could be right about TW3 because those devs showed that they can make well optimized PC games. But for all these shitty console ports which already run like shit on console...i52500k and 970 will have a hard time at some point.
 

ameratsu

Member
What do you guys think of this SSD for the price? Kingston Ssdnow V300 120gb $58

I posted about a refurb corsair last night, but someone advised against refurb. Thoughts on this, considering i'm Canadian and stuff will be a little more expensive than the US?
 

b0bbyJ03

Member
I need some advice people. My family wants to get me some PC accessories for the holidays and the top two items on my list are a keyboard and a gaming mouse. I already decided on the keyboard (Razer Black Widow), but I need some advice on the mouse. I mostly play with a controller for 3rd person games so the mouse will strictly be for FPS games only. With that in mind I'm considering two mice but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any advice for me. Right now I'm looking at the Corsair M65 or the Razer Mamba (I do couch gaming and the wireless option is a nice a bonus, but not necessary). I'm open to any advice so please chime in if you have any strong opinions on any particular mouse. Thanks!

P.S. I'm not really sure if I'm a palm or claw grip guy. I kind of do both, currently own a CM Storm Spawn because it was cheap and recommended in the OT.
 

garath

Member
I need some advice people. My family wants to get me some PC accessories for the holidays and the top two items on my list are a keyboard and a gaming mouse. I already decided on the keyboard (Razer Black Widow), but I need some advice on the mouse. I mostly play with a controller for 3rd person games so the mouse will strictly be for FPS games only. With that in mind I'm considering two mice but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any advice for me. Right now I'm looking at the Corsair M65 or the Razer Mamba (I do couch gaming and the wireless option is a nice a bonus, but not necessary). I'm open to any advice so please chime in if you have any strong opinions on any particular mouse. Thanks!

P.S. I'm not really sure if I'm a palm or claw grip guy. I kind of do both, currently own a CM Storm Spawn because it was cheap and recommended in the OT.

I'd recommend a Sensei Rival or a Zowie FK1

For FPS you want mice that track extremely well and both of those fit the bill. Personally I'd go Rival. I have a Sensei RAW and have been very happy with it. I play quite a bit of FPS games.
 
Any 2.0 or 2.1 budget speakers recommendations? Something sub-$200 and small/light because I'd be shipping it overseas (can't find anything decent worth a damn locally).

My current (and very old) HTiB seems on its way out (left speaker loses signal periodically).
 
I'm looking to get my little brother a 970 for christmas, since his 660 isnt doing much for him, and he bought that himself with his meager funds.

Any deals on 970/980's for BF/CM? I'd like to go with EVGA but a good deal could persuade me otherwise
 

b0bbyJ03

Member
I'd recommend a Sensei Rival or a Zowie FK1

For FPS you want mice that track extremely well and both of those fit the bill. Personally I'd go Rival. I have a Sensei RAW and have been very happy with it. I play quite a bit of FPS games.


Thanks! checking those out right now.

Edit: ok, looks like I'll be going for that Sensei Rival. I was hoping that the M65 would win out cause I like the look of it better but I checked out a bunch of reviews and the Rival seems to have the edge for FPS games cause it has zero hardware acceleration (which is all new to me, first year pc gaming). At the end of the day its all about how it feels not how it looks. lol. Thanks so much!
 

Dystify

Member
People in the U.S. should be waking up so I'll post again:

I have 8GB ram and needed to set my dedicated video ram higher for a game.
I read if I have 8GB ram I can set the dedicated video ram to 1024MB in the UEFI, but when I do this my screen won't turn on at all and I can't do anything on my PC and have to hard-reset my UEFI after the restart which led me to believe my PC can't handle it? Why could this be? Is there anything I can do to make it work? 512MB works just fine.
In the pastebin are my system specs: http://pastebin.com/XQxn0uzN
I'm grateful for any help and sorry, I'm really unexperienced with all of these PC related things.
 

garath

Member
We'll see. I'm fine with mid to high settings, as long as the game just runs smooth. I'm not one of those guys who sees a big difference between high and ultra most of the time anyway. But there is a certain tendency for current game to run like shit and that you need again like 1000% more power on PC to force these things into 60FPS.

You could be right about TW3 because those devs showed that they can make well optimized PC games. But for all these shitty console ports which already run like shit on console...i52500k and 970 will have a hard time at some point.

You're right that some games are going to be pretty terrible ports but for those games, even throwing raw power at it isn't always enough. We are at a weird time. Consoles just came out and the 900 series didn't exactly push the raw power of GPUs that far forward. It made getting good performance affordable which was great but not much else. CPUs have been stagnant for awhile. Hopefully the next few years bring us some good innovation in hardware.
 

Momentary

Banned
See anything that could be changed out for the better? I went from wanting a SLI water cooled rig to a SFF single GPU rig. I really thought long and hard about it and I'd really like to not deal with SLI profiles and be able to more comfortably move my set up around when I have to. I'd really like to take it to fightng games tournaments and now have to deal with a tower and risk having something get damaged.

skipped Kepler to wait on 20nm and I still feel like I'm jumping the gun with this. There is a die shrink planned for this architecture and DDR4 is out in the wild which will probably get implemented into ITX boards here soon enough along with a new socket. But playing games on my GTX 560m is starting to get to be a hassle. Sure I can sell the 980 for 300 bucks later down the road, but the mobo and CPU I feel will be harder to get rid of if I wanted to upgrade later.

ShoppingCart_zpsbedf55b8.png


I'm also thinking about throwing in a Proteus mouse to replace my Sensei. The Promos are actually free and were just thrown on their automatically by Newegg.
 

xMrSunshine

Neo Member
My GTX460 isn't cutting it anymore and I need an upgrade because I don't want to play FC4 with it looking like last a last gen console game. The thing is, I'm a university student with a (sort of) limited budget and I'd like to know whether I should go with the GTX760 (~220€) or with the GTX970 (~390€)?

From what I've read the difference is a pretty significant one but I'm wondering if it's worth almost double the money and if something else in my rig (info below) will bottleneck it. Also from what I've read it seems the 970 shines above 1080p resolutions which is above what I need probably for at least some years but if I'm lucky the more expensive option would last me at least 3-5 years making higher resolutions a possibility as well. So far I'm leaning towards the 970. I'll also take any recommendations on manufacturers. One of the most sold ones and also the cheapest one is a MSI.

Here's what I'm running + 650W PSU which I assume is enough to support either of the new cards.

31yvdra.png
 

TMC

Member
I think the best thing you can put in there without upgrading the power supply is a GTX 750 Ti. Pick any of these models, you can't go wrong. Maybe spend the rest of the $150 budget on a CPU cooler like the Cooler Master Hyper Evo or something as long as it fits, I bet the desktop comes with a stock style small heatsink. one common issue with prebuilt computers is that they have minimal cooling or quiet fans, and can end up getting quite hot.


Current price tracking says Amazon is the cheapest.


Than you so much for your input! I will also consider upgrading the power supply. What GPU would you recommend if I ended up upgrading the power supply with a <$200 budget?

I am mostly a console gamer (I know I know) and will only play pc games occasionally. I obviously am not looking to get the best of the best with that budget. What resolution (Current monitor is 1920x1200) and frame rate could I roughly expect with that video card paired with that i7 on newer games such as Far Cry 4?

Thanks again!
 

garath

Member
My GTX460 isn't cutting it anymore and I need an upgrade because I don't want to play FC4 with it looking like last a last gen console game. The thing is, I'm a university student with a (sort of) limited budget and I'd like to know whether I should go with the GTX760 (~220€) or with the GTX970 (~390€)?

From what I've read the difference is a pretty significant one but I'm wondering if it's worth almost double the money and if something else in my rig (info below) will bottleneck it. Also from what I've read it seems the 970 shines above 1080p resolutions which is above what I need probably for at least some years but if I'm lucky the more expensive option would last me at least 3-5 years making higher resolutions a possibility as well. So far I'm leaning towards the 970. I'll also take any recommendations on manufacturers. One of the most sold ones and also the cheapest one is a MSI.

Here's what I'm running + 650W PSU which I assume is enough to support either of the new cards.

31yvdra.png

I would get the 970 and overclock your 2500k to at least 4.2ghz. That'll set you for a few years.
 
My GTX460 isn't cutting it anymore and I need an upgrade because I don't want to play FC4 with it looking like last a last gen console game. The thing is, I'm a university student with a (sort of) limited budget and I'd like to know whether I should go with the GTX760 (~220€) or with the GTX970 (~390€)?

From what I've read the difference is a pretty significant one but I'm wondering if it's worth almost double the money and if something else in my rig (info below) will bottleneck it. Also from what I've read it seems the 970 shines above 1080p resolutions which is above what I need probably for at least some years but if I'm lucky the more expensive option would last me at least 3-5 years making higher resolutions a possibility as well. So far I'm leaning towards the 970. I'll also take any recommendations on manufacturers. One of the most sold ones and also the cheapest one is a MSI.

Here's what I'm running + 650W PSU which I assume is enough to support either of the new cards.

31yvdra.png

You can see a comparison here:

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1038?vs=1355

Judge for yourself whether it is worth the price difference. You'll also maybe get a free Far Cry 4 with the 970 with participating retailers.

Yes, your PSU is enough. The resolution isn't that big of a deal, and you can use downsampling anyway and that will have the same performance effect.

You should probably overclock your CPU though. I don't know whether you have a custom cooler on it, but otherwise you could get one for 20-30 and get 20% better clock speeds out of it.
 

duganator

Neo Member
Yeah, I'm going to be reusing the PSU and the HDD/SSD since those are the only things that still have compatibility with more modern day PCs; in terms of cases, I will look into the R5, but I as you might be able to tell, I am looking towards cases that are minimalistic and are very quiet.
If you're spending over 100 on a case then the 750D really should be on your radar. Its a much better case than the define and its very minimalist
 

duganator

Neo Member
My GTX460 isn't cutting it anymore and I need an upgrade because I don't want to play FC4 with it looking like last a last gen console game. The thing is, I'm a university student with a (sort of) limited budget and I'd like to know whether I should go with the GTX760 (~220€) or with the GTX970 (~390€)?

From what I've read the difference is a pretty significant one but I'm wondering if it's worth almost double the money and if something else in my rig (info below) will bottleneck it. Also from what I've read it seems the 970 shines above 1080p resolutions which is above what I need probably for at least some years but if I'm lucky the more expensive option would last me at least 3-5 years making higher resolutions a possibility as well. So far I'm leaning towards the 970. I'll also take any recommendations on manufacturers. One of the most sold ones and also the cheapest one is a MSI.

Here's what I'm running + 650W PSU which I assume is enough to support either of the new cards.

31yvdra.png
I'd pick up a cheap 290 if I were you.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
just bought a 27" 1080p monitor in the amazon sales this week, and I'm wondering whether I should sell my current 23" AOC monitor or run dual monitors. Desk space will be a little tight, but manageable - main concern would be whether the different pixel pitch would be off-putting when extending a desktop? On my work laptop I find it difficult to extend - that is a 15" screen with 1600x900 res, next to my 23" 1080p so the difference is probably a lot more pronounced.
 
I have a 2500K as well, factory clock. I'll probably look into overclocking first.

But If I were to upgrade, doesn't that mean I need to buy a new mobo first? Since the Haswell chips are LGA 1150?
 

xMrSunshine

Neo Member
Ty for the answer fellas. I went with the MSI GTX970. Figured it's worth the 390€ + Ubi game which I'll probably end up selling as only one of the three I'm interested in is FC4 which unfortunately is the game that put me to this situation in the first place.

Will definitely look into OCing my CPU. That was the other constant among all the adivce I've gotten. I'll wait on it for some time tho' because if I were to do it right away, I'm sure that introducing so many varaible to this equation would fuck something up real bad.
 

Fularu

Banned
I have a radeon 7950. Would going to a 290 or a GTX970 be a real improvement?

And please spare me your AMD/Nvidia fanboy drivel. I've been on AMD cards since the 850XT and never had issues :p

In short I need to know if upgrading makes sense or not
 
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