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"I need a New PC!" 2012 Thread. 22nm+28nm, Tri-Gate, and reading the OP. [Part 1]
- Thread starter Hazaro
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creid
Member
Shoot, I'm getting a 560 Ti 1GB with the assumption I can do smooth 1080p with it. Is it not the case?
It's enough. Only a handful of games will really be eating into the available Vram and most of them will max out everything else before you hit the actual Vram roof as a bottleneck, especially on a 560. The only game I've ever had Vram issues with on my 580 is STALKER: CoP with I Work Alone. Massive Vram usage and spikes, I've had to limit the FPS. Battlefield 3 will also eat up a nice chunk of Vram but in my case, I'm maxing out every other limitation to keep my 50-60FPS before I hit the Vram roof.
My U3011 is arriving in a few days however, so now I can actually start worry about Vram
Hopefully Nvidia launches Kepler soon.
Theonik
Member
Unless you want to play something like BF3 with ultra textures even the 1GB of the 560Ti should be enough. (can shoot up to ~1.5GB in some cases on Ultra I believe) The number of games that are VRAM limited is quite small. You should be OK. The "in most cases" part was referring to cases of certain mods or supersampling. Even then, for these cases, you'd hit other bottlenecks on a 560Ti before VRAM is an issue.
So I'm considering to buy a new PC (current one is doing just fine but I am CPU limited in some games and I could also use the extra CPU power for video editing and PS2/GC/Wii emulation so I have less reason to ever set up those consoles again). I've got a super old PC I use for capturing footage, I could replace that one with the one I'm using right now.
Are these components okay? I don't really follow hardware releases so I'm not sure if any of these are bad brands.
Corsair CX V2 600W PSU
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3, Socket-1155
Intel Core i7 2600K Quad Processor
Corsair Vengeance 8 GB DDR3 1600MHz CL9
OCZ 60 GB SSD 2,5" S-ATA III TRIM/GC
Western Digital 3TB Green 3,5" S-ATA3
ASUS GeForce GTX 550Ti 1GB PhysX CUDA
Sony DVD-brenner AD-5280S
Are these components okay? I don't really follow hardware releases so I'm not sure if any of these are bad brands.
Corsair CX V2 600W PSU
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3, Socket-1155
Intel Core i7 2600K Quad Processor
Corsair Vengeance 8 GB DDR3 1600MHz CL9
OCZ 60 GB SSD 2,5" S-ATA III TRIM/GC
Western Digital 3TB Green 3,5" S-ATA3
ASUS GeForce GTX 550Ti 1GB PhysX CUDA
Sony DVD-brenner AD-5280S
I'd at least bump up the GPU to a 560
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. I have a 560 in my current PC. I was thinking I'd just swap the cards once I get the new PC.
mhayze
Member
The biggest improvements that Ivy Bridge will bring over current CPUs will be for laptops - faster integrated GPU and quad core in a smaller, lower powered package. For a dedicated gaming desktop PC + GPU, it's much less of a leap. Will you get more for your money in the future? Sure, that's always the case, but this is much less of a leap than say, Core 2 to 1st gen i7. I would say if you can afford it buy now and enjoy for the many months that you would be waiting otherwise.
Up PSU to XFX 550W
Replace these:
OCZ 60 GB SSD 2,5" S-ATA III TRIM/GC
Western Digital 3TB Green 3,5" S-ATA3
With:
Intel 320 or M4
Samsung 2TB (Just get two if you need to) 3TB failure is too high. 1.5TB drives are bad in general too
It's just used for watching video. It'll just be a holdover until the TV gets replaced down the road. I have a PS3 hooked up to it as well and the even games and blu-ray menus already have unreadable text
Edit: Ugh, got s-video out but it will only convert it to component not composite, which my TV does not have. Damn stone age technology.
I'd sell your blu-rays and some games and buy a HDTV. Get a nice LCD from Craigslist for $300.
This is pretty much what I read, but it is nice to get a second opinion. I think I will just take the plunge as my PC is a mess right now what with an old AMD motherboard, one ram stick (other one shorted) and XP operating system since I lost my Win 7 CD.
I've been spending the last hour on Newegg filling out a wishlist, and the 2500k just switched to In-Stock. Hurry!
Edit: Gone again.
Hawk269
Member
My new Samsung 256GB SSD arrives tomorrow. This will be my first SSD that I will have in my computer and just wanted to get some tips & tricks or anything that anyone feels would be usefull to a new SSD owner.
My plan as of right now is to have Windows, any of my driver software and bootup software on the SSD. I will also have some of my monitoriing programs like Afterburner, Fraps CPU-Z etc. also on the SSD. In addition, I plan to put my Star Wars, Rift and 1 or 2 other games on the drive for now. Steam and my Orgin games will go onto one of HDD's (I have 2 1 TB HDD's) since I have close to 220gb of Steam games I can put them onto the SSD.
Any usefull information would be great. I see people posting screens of write/read speeds, so I know I will have to look into that to ensure my new drive is running properly.
Thanks in advance for any information you SSD owners can share.
My plan as of right now is to have Windows, any of my driver software and bootup software on the SSD. I will also have some of my monitoriing programs like Afterburner, Fraps CPU-Z etc. also on the SSD. In addition, I plan to put my Star Wars, Rift and 1 or 2 other games on the drive for now. Steam and my Orgin games will go onto one of HDD's (I have 2 1 TB HDD's) since I have close to 220gb of Steam games I can put them onto the SSD.
Any usefull information would be great. I see people posting screens of write/read speeds, so I know I will have to look into that to ensure my new drive is running properly.
Thanks in advance for any information you SSD owners can share.
BoobPhysics101
Banned
Use this program to make sure everything is optimized (sometimes Windows doesn't do a good job.)
http://elpamsoft.com/Downloads.aspx?Name=SSD Tweaker
Also make sure to do a full reinstall on the SSD. Windows on an SSD = heaven. Everything is so fast.
Hawk269
Member
That is the plan. Doing a clean sweap of the 2 existing drives, disconnecting them temporarily, adding the SSD then booting up and installing Windows to the SSD. Once I get a virus protection program up and all the Windows update, I will reconnect the HDD's and begin the Steam downloads.
I will look into that program you linked. When you say Windows doesnt do a good job what do you mean by that? Does it do something to how the SSD runs or something?
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
I'd just wipe one, move your Steamapps folder to it, then wipe the other. Then you won't have to redownload all your Steam games, just reactivate them.
Although I didn't even wipe my old HDD, so I still have my old Windows installation on it and the new one on my SSD. Been nice to pull things from it on occasion.
I also wouldn't waste SSD space on games that aren't going to benefit from it. Put them on a HDD and use Steamtool to move individual games back and forth between the HDD and SSD.
Edit:Misread your previous post, you meant can't put them on the SSD. Well, either way Steamtool is useful for moving the handful of games that do benefit from SSD speed to the SSD while leaving the rest on the HDD.
Hawk269
Member
Thank you for the that. I will read up on Steamtool. From what little I understand, I can put Steam and all my steam games on the HDD, but if I wanted to have some games that benefit from having a SSD I could use that tool to have specific Steam games on the SSD?
-OR- Do I put the main steam on the SSD and then games that dont benefit put those on the hdd?
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Could go either way, I just put Steam and all the games on the HDD to start since Steam itself won't benefit from the speed of the SSD.
Edit: Conflicting responses! My Steam installation is with the rest of my programs not installed on the SSD and doesn't cause any problems. So there's that.
Edit2: Steam is like the only thing that loads from my HDD at startup, so I never have any problems with it taking too long. I guess if you have more stuff loading from the HDD that would slow it down. Then again I'm also not usually diving straight into Steam after a restart.
Steam is on my SSD so its startup isn't super painfully long. It can get pretty bad from my experiences. It's not a big deal though.
Alright, after messing around for a bit on Newegg I think I've got a plan on how to waste best utilize a chunk of the inheritance money the parents decided to hand out early.
The idea is to have an above-average gaming PC that will sit in the office one room over from the living room. A long HDMI cable will connect it to my 52" TV for use as a home theater.
(All prices from Newegg)
Clearly the HDD prices haven't recovered. That's probably double what I should be paying for 2 TB of storage, and the main reason I haven't actually purchased parts yet. I also can't figure out SSD prices. OCZ has several 60 GB drives but a wide price range for what appears to be similar performance. I got an Agility II two years ago that I'm very happy with, so I'll pick the Agility III here so long as it has that nice $70 discount.
The bluetooth mini-keyboard is my big splurge. I want a way to control the PC when I'm using the living room TV, and RF hasn't been without issue. Don't know if it's interference or what, but when I have trouble with a RF keyboard and mouse from eight feet away with direct LoS, I'm not too keen to try it with a wall in the way. The monitor is the only real item I may drop out. I have an old 19" display that isn't being used, so I may take that money and put it towards my non-existent sound system.
Any concerns, comments, or critiques would be appreciated.
The idea is to have an above-average gaming PC that will sit in the office one room over from the living room. A long HDMI cable will connect it to my 52" TV for use as a home theater.
Code:
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
$229.99 $229.99
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
$159.99 $319.98
SAMSUNG Black Blu-ray Combo SATA Model SH-B123L/RSBP LightScribe Support
$57.99 $57.99
ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
$189.99 -$10.00 Instant $179.99
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9W
$49.99 $49.99
EVGA 012-P3-2066-KR GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 448 Cores FTW 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
$289.99 $289.99
Corsair Carbide Series 400R Graphite grey and black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Gaming Case
$99.99 $99.99
ASUS VS Series VS228H-P Black 21.5" 5ms HDMI LED Backlight Widescreen LCD Monitor
$179.99 -$35.00 Instant $144.99
XFX Core Edition PRO550W (P1-550S-XXB9) 550W ATX12V 2.2 & ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
$69.99 $69.99
Logitech diNovo Mini Black Bluetooth Wireless Mini Keyboard
$149.99 -$28.00 Instant $149.99
OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-60G 2.5" 60GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
$169.99 -$70.00 Instant $99.99
Subtotal: $1,664.88Clearly the HDD prices haven't recovered. That's probably double what I should be paying for 2 TB of storage, and the main reason I haven't actually purchased parts yet. I also can't figure out SSD prices. OCZ has several 60 GB drives but a wide price range for what appears to be similar performance. I got an Agility II two years ago that I'm very happy with, so I'll pick the Agility III here so long as it has that nice $70 discount.
The bluetooth mini-keyboard is my big splurge. I want a way to control the PC when I'm using the living room TV, and RF hasn't been without issue. Don't know if it's interference or what, but when I have trouble with a RF keyboard and mouse from eight feet away with direct LoS, I'm not too keen to try it with a wall in the way. The monitor is the only real item I may drop out. I have an old 19" display that isn't being used, so I may take that money and put it towards my non-existent sound system.
Any concerns, comments, or critiques would be appreciated.
BoobPhysics101
Banned
What I mean is, sometimes Windows doesn't properly optimize itself for an SSD, i.e. turning off prefetch, disabling defrag, etc etc. This takes care of all that. It's a very simple, easy to use, effective program.
And install Steam on your SSD, and use Steam Mover to move the games you don't need on an SSD onto a big HDD. I keep Battlefield 3, Skyrim, stuff like that on my SSD.
BoobPhysics101
Banned
I don't recommend any of OCZ's offerings, even though I have a Vertex 2. Get a Crucial M4.
So I got my new PC last Friday. i5-2500k, HD6950, 8 GB RAM. right now, its working well and Ive enjoyed finally playing Arkham City as well as checking out some eye candy with BF3, Crysis 2 and Witcher 2. Its obviously a huge step up in performance from the consoles and my old windows partition on the 2009 iMac (4850M gfx)
but, man, I had some serious headaches to get this setup working properly. please excuse the following little bit of venting.
Microsoft wireless arc keyboard had jittery and unreliable performance, MS wireless arc mouse stuttery and unreliable. old, trusty logitech MX rev mouse stuttery and unusable. tried uninstalling and reinstalling drivers and changing USB ports for the dongles. no dice. solution: buy new corded peripherals like a chump (makes control from TV location more annoying)
no audio from SPDIF out when playing blu ray hooked to my external DAC. solution: switch to USB audio output.
desktop screen resolution randomly sets itself at 1280 x 720 immediately after playing game. there is no way to change screen res on desktop to 2560 x 1440 again without restarting machine. no solution yet but has happened 4 times in 2 days. fingers crossed it wont happen too often anymore. Im guessing weird AMD driver bug?
other minor annoyance: windows had 60 updates to install after running setup. jeesh, guys, cant they consolidate this better?
oh, and I got two BSOD after over clocking the i5 to 4.5 GHz (I had a massive fan installed by NCIX to help OC). so I had to drop it down to 4.2 GHz. I thought it was super easy to get 4.5 Ghz or more but I guess I didnt luck out with this chip (I had Vcore upped to 1.36 but it still crashed. I dont want to push voltage too high)
I also wasnt able to flash the bios on the 6950 to the 6970 version. I followed the techpowerup site instructions but I got error messages saying it couldnt be done. little bit of a bummer but I cant complain with the performance Im getting now.
I also had some games on steam crash on launch after transferring my old steamapps folder to the new machine. I had to redownload saints row entirely to get it to play, as one example.
when I unpacked the thing and was having all those problems with the wireless peripherals and the desktop resolution problem, I couldnt help shaking my head and telling myself this is the kind of stuff you left Windows for 8 years ago. did you forget already? youre just giving yourself more headaches with this PC
But, anyway, those thoughts faded away after spending over a dozen hours actually playing games the past couple days. For some games, its just a massive step up from the consoles visually. And seeing so many games at 60 fps again is great.
but, man, I had some serious headaches to get this setup working properly. please excuse the following little bit of venting.
Microsoft wireless arc keyboard had jittery and unreliable performance, MS wireless arc mouse stuttery and unreliable. old, trusty logitech MX rev mouse stuttery and unusable. tried uninstalling and reinstalling drivers and changing USB ports for the dongles. no dice. solution: buy new corded peripherals like a chump (makes control from TV location more annoying)
no audio from SPDIF out when playing blu ray hooked to my external DAC. solution: switch to USB audio output.
desktop screen resolution randomly sets itself at 1280 x 720 immediately after playing game. there is no way to change screen res on desktop to 2560 x 1440 again without restarting machine. no solution yet but has happened 4 times in 2 days. fingers crossed it wont happen too often anymore. Im guessing weird AMD driver bug?
other minor annoyance: windows had 60 updates to install after running setup. jeesh, guys, cant they consolidate this better?
oh, and I got two BSOD after over clocking the i5 to 4.5 GHz (I had a massive fan installed by NCIX to help OC). so I had to drop it down to 4.2 GHz. I thought it was super easy to get 4.5 Ghz or more but I guess I didnt luck out with this chip (I had Vcore upped to 1.36 but it still crashed. I dont want to push voltage too high)
I also wasnt able to flash the bios on the 6950 to the 6970 version. I followed the techpowerup site instructions but I got error messages saying it couldnt be done. little bit of a bummer but I cant complain with the performance Im getting now.
I also had some games on steam crash on launch after transferring my old steamapps folder to the new machine. I had to redownload saints row entirely to get it to play, as one example.
when I unpacked the thing and was having all those problems with the wireless peripherals and the desktop resolution problem, I couldnt help shaking my head and telling myself this is the kind of stuff you left Windows for 8 years ago. did you forget already? youre just giving yourself more headaches with this PC
But, anyway, those thoughts faded away after spending over a dozen hours actually playing games the past couple days. For some games, its just a massive step up from the consoles visually. And seeing so many games at 60 fps again is great.
cartman414
Member
How do you get Steam to d/l games on to the HDD?
Well, yeah, no contest. 1) It's just a tick in the middle of a period less oriented towards CPU performance gains, and 2) Core 2 to i7 really took things up a notch (quad cores more common, more cache to go around, higher clock speeds, etc.). There are a few things to look forward to for anyone with a few more months to spare: PCIe 3.0, native USB 3.0 (hope this means the Mac line finally sees an upgrade), and the first mobos with Thunderbolt.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
With my next machine (in five years or so), I'll probably put Steam Proper on my primary SSD (SSDs will also be much more the norm and stable by then).
Even better, get a Samsung 830...
Why no pimping of the Samsung 830 in the OP? It's a damn good SSD for the $$$ and has great reviews. Samsung's own controller and memory, too...
Wolf Akela
Member
Use symbolic links. Symlink Creator automates it. There's also one just for Steam.
Most of my Steam games are on my HDD except for a few favorites which are on my SSD.
BoobPhysics101
Banned
Don't have any experience with it, but I do dig almost anything Samsung puts out, they are what Sony SHOULD be when it comes to consumer electronics/hardware.
I read the review when it came out and was waiting for some time and usage to recommend it.
Unless something happens with the m4 right now the m4 is cheaper and seems as reliable and has been out longer so I favor it. Nothing wrong with getting an 830.
Cool. I've had a 256GB 830 in my late '11 MBP for months now...it kicks. Great price, too.
I recently bought a 560Ti and I'm not really that impressed with the results. I was hoping to basically max out everything @ 60+ fps (BF3, Skyrim Witcher 2, Arkham City etc), but I guess I was being a bit optimistic. What would I need to upgrade in my system to get there, or should I just start again?
My Specs:
Phenom II x4 955
Gigabyte GA-MA790
4GB DDR2 Ram
Seasonic M12 80plus 500Watt. PSU
GTX 560Ti
Cheers!
My Specs:
Phenom II x4 955
Gigabyte GA-MA790
4GB DDR2 Ram
Seasonic M12 80plus 500Watt. PSU
GTX 560Ti
Cheers!
·feist·;34283652 said:
Okay, I have no idea what I did, but I screwed something up on my computer. I had an m4 128gb SSD configured as my main boot along with a Hitachi 1tb HDD as a secondary boot drive. I was following the computer.net guide to optimizing a SSD, and now my SSD won't boot Windows 7. All I tried to do was Step 9, Disable Windows Write-Cache Buffer Flusing. I could not do that because it would not allow me. After I restarted my computer, I could not boot either drive. So I started disconnecting things to see what would happen. If the SSD is connected to my motherboard, I cannot boot either drive. If I disconnect the SSD, I can boot the HDD. Any suggestions?
You could get a new AM3+ motherboard with DDR3 memory and upgrade to a newer CPU down the road.
A 955 should be strong enough for most games but I think BF3 and Witcher 2 benefit from a faster quad.
Not sure on AC and Skyrim
Overclock your 955 if you haven't and see where you stand. Your PSU and GPU should not be a problem unless 'max' means ultra and 16xAA to you and not 'High and 4xAA'.
Not sure on AC and Skyrim
Overclock your 955 if you haven't and see where you stand. Your PSU and GPU should not be a problem unless 'max' means ultra and 16xAA to you and not 'High and 4xAA'.
Helps to know what resolution you play at too. I wouldn't bother upgrading to an AM3+ board though because the only real upgrade path you have is bulldozer and that isn't worth it.
You're ram isn't holding you back most likely. If you are playing at 1920 x 1080 then you might want to try overclocking the videocard.
Recently I installed a Zalman cooler for my 5870 and plan on overclocking it so I can play BF3 online on highest (I was before but I didn't like random dips to 25 FPS sometimes especially on 64 player Metro)
Wolf Akela
Member
There's no way you'll max out the most intensive games with that.
If you want constant 60FPS on max for BF3, you'll want a GTX 580 (or 7970, much better in value).
Skyrim is a bit heavy on the processor. You should try getting Skyboost which should fix some processor-dependent performance issues. A better quad would help here.
I don't think any system can run Witcher 2 at 60+ FPS on max with ubersampling on.
If you want constant 60FPS on max for BF3, you'll want a GTX 580 (or 7970, much better in value).
Skyrim is a bit heavy on the processor. You should try getting Skyboost which should fix some processor-dependent performance issues. A better quad would help here.
I don't think any system can run Witcher 2 at 60+ FPS on max with ubersampling on.
cartman414
Member
Does it fool Steam into downloading to HDD instead of SSD?
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
The ones specific for Steam with GUIs made for it are Steamtool and Steam Mover.
Games will install in the default location, so if Steam is on the SSD it will put the games on the SSD, but you can easily move the to the HDD using that those programs.
But you could use Symlink Creator to put the entire Steamapps directory on the HDD, then games would be installed on the HDD by default with Steam on the SSD, but then you can't move games back and forth (as easily at least, "I heard you like junctions, so I put...").
I ended up reinstalling Windows 7 onto the Crucial m4, and all is well. I used the opportunity to enable AHCI for the SSD since I did a clean Windows 7 install. Next time I will make certain to have either a restore point or a system image handy before I tinker around with my SSD
Well I took the plunge and ordered the following components today:
SAPPHIRE AMD RADEON HD 6870 1024MB GDDR5,
Intel Core i7 2600K,
Corsair Vengence 8GB DDR3 Memory,
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3P-B3 Motherboard.
This will be a massive leap forward for my pc and that will mean I will be able to get back into the pc gaming scene.
SAPPHIRE AMD RADEON HD 6870 1024MB GDDR5,
Intel Core i7 2600K,
Corsair Vengence 8GB DDR3 Memory,
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3P-B3 Motherboard.
This will be a massive leap forward for my pc and that will mean I will be able to get back into the pc gaming scene.
Im pretty sure youre right. For gaming, Ive never seen a benchmark where the i7 was noticeably better. the i7 smokes the i5 for multiple threaded video rendering tasks, though
I would think for the extra cash that upping the video card from the 68xx to the 69xx series would give immediately noticeable improvements.
I think its simply the case that the i5-2500k offers the best bang for your buck and you can use the savings to buy a better graphics card.
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