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"I need a New PC!" 2013 Part 1. Haswell, Crysis 3, and secret fairy sauce. Read da OP

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Sorral

Member
Oh I misunderstood kinda. So you want to make sure that going down in voltage isn't still locked like rising it. Wouldn't they be locked either way?

You can tell I still got waaays to go/learn.
 

mkenyon

Banned
Oh, I get it now.

You're asking them if you can raise voltage in a way that doesn't threaten your warranty :p

Or at least, that has to be what their customer service is thinking. Lowering the voltages won't reduce the noise/temp too much, as it's not exactly overvolted heavily at stock.

You could always flash the BIOS.
 

brentech

Member
Ugh. Replaced my PSU (which was working just fine, but wanted a more reliable unit to move on with and for future), and now I get nothing when I try to power up. I'll have to go over everything and make sure I'm connected up fine, but got damn. Never had this problem before.

Not even a whisper.
 
Oh, I get it now.

You're asking them if you can raise voltage in a way that doesn't threaten your warranty :p

Or at least, that has to be what their customer service is thinking. Lowering the voltages won't reduce the noise/temp too much, as it's not exactly overvolted heavily at stock.

You could always flash the BIOS.

Yeah I could but I think I'm still gonna go with the RMA. I got a fractal r4 and silent fans because I wanted to build a quiet high end gaming PC and the Vapor X isnt exactly quiet (it's inaudible at a certain point at 45% but beyond it gets quite noisy) and I tried so many ways to keep temps low but its no good. So I think I might get the gigabyte as its a pretty silent card.
 

Dave_6

Member
MPower is so gorgeous. The color combination is professional while remaining striking. As I was building Mr Pocket's PC, I was feeling a big time urge to do an MPower/Lighting/MPower RAM build. I'm a sucker for aesthetics though, and am so screwed up in the head that I view a $200 motherboard as inexpensive.

Yeah it's a great looking mobo. Should look good in my black R4.

Seriously, I would not wish upon my worst enemy ever to deal with Sapphire's tech support. They are just awful.

I didn't need to read this since I have a Sapphire 7970 on the way :/
 

Ty4on

Member
Yeah I could but I think I'm still gonna go with the RMA. I got a fractal r4 and silent fans because I wanted to build a quiet high end gaming PC and the Vapor X isnt exactly quiet (it's inaudible at a certain point at 45% but beyond it gets quite noisy) and I tried so many ways to keep temps low but its no good. So I think I might get the gigabyte as its a pretty silent card.

Change fan profile? You won't get a super high overclock and sub 60 temps, but you could get a much more silent computer.
 

mkenyon

Banned
Yeah, that's what I was going to suggest. You don't need to keep it super cool if you aren't pushing a heavy OC. Just turn down the fan and keep temps in the 70-80 range.
 
Yeah it's a great looking mobo. Should look good in my black R4.



I didn't need to read this since I have a Sapphire 7970 on the way :/

Which 7970 did you get?

Change fan profile? You won't get a super high overclock and sub 60 temps, but you could get a much more silent computer.

I'm awful at setting up fan profiles, do you know like what would be a recommended fan curve? I'm not going for a high OC, ive OC'd the core by like 100 mhz and I've reached 65c with a 66% fan load and it's damn loud. (thats on auto profile)
 

Ty4on

Member
Yeah, that's what I was going to suggest. You don't need to keep it super cool if you aren't pushing a heavy OC. Just turn down the fan and keep temps in the 70-80 range.

Yeah, that's a comfy range. Set the fan to ramp quickly above like 80C which will tell you if cooler is getting dusty, case is getting hot or if you raised the room temp. I love 25C room temp, but my GPU much prefers the sub 20 mornings.
 

asdad123

Member
Pretty sure my Sapphire 7950 just hit the fan today... Out of nowhere I got a bunch of white lines down the entire screen and then it went black. Turned off the computer and nothing but a black screen.

So I plugged my monitor into my Motherboard and it works perfectly fine.

The fans are still spinning on the 7950, but I cant seem to get a video signal from it (tried both HDMI and DVI). Fuuuuuu... Atleast I can still return it to amazon if needed rather than RMAing.

edit: Yep it is definitely the card. I received a second one for crossfire yesterday for my birthday and put it in today. Worked fine for about two hours. Then out of nowhere it went out with the white screen.

Tried with one card and the new card works fine, but the older one (less than two weeks old) gets no signal. Tried it in both pci slots and different PCIe plugs from my power supply. When I tried to boot with both cards, the display worked for about 15 seconds after booting into windows then went black, but only when plugged into the newer card. The older one didnt give a signal at all.

Theyre both Sapphire Dual X 7950s.
 

Xdrive05

Member
Pretty sure my Sapphire 7950 just hit the fan... Out of nowhere I got a bunch of white lines down the entire screen and then it went black. Turned off the computer and nothing but a black screen.

So I plugged my monitor into my Motherboard and it works perfectly fine.

The fans are still spinning on the 7950, but I cant seem to get a video signal from it (tried both HDMI and DVI). Fuuuuuu... Atleast I can still return it to amazon if needed rather than RMAing.

Sucks hard bro. How long have you had it?
 

mkenyon

Banned
Figure out what fan speed is acceptable to you, and then set that at 79C. Taper it down to the minimum value, and have it ramp up rapidly at 80C onward. If that isn't working out, increase/decrease the 79C point until it works out well.
This one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202008

Seemed like one of the top 3 to get...? :shrug:
It's a good 'un.

The troubles OriginofHysteria was having with customer service would exist with any of the companies. They would all assume he's asking how to overvolt the card while trying to be coy, even if it was truly wanting to know how to lower voltages.

The people at Sapphire are pretty great, with a ton of community support. They've been one of the major sponsors at PDXLAN for a really long time now too, which is pretty cool. They're like the EVGA of AMD, except with better coolers.

Only had to deal with their customer service once, and it was for a client/work PC, got the RMA back in the normal RMA time frame of 2 weeks.
 

asdad123

Member
Sucks hard bro. How long have you had it?

Itll be two weeks tomorrow. I already contacted amazon asking if Id be able to return it even though I already cut out and mailed the UPC for the rebate and they said no problem.

Already sent me a label and ill be dropping it off at UPS within the hour.

Atleast I got the second one for my birthday yesterday so Im not without a card haha. Wouldve been cool to play Bioshock with Crossfire though at 2560x1440 :(

Amazon cant send me a replacement because their sold out so my only option is a refund. I bought it when it was $290 plus a $20 rebate so $270 with Bioshock and Crysis so it was a nice deal.

Guess Ill look around for another one on sale.

Is crossfire 7950s worth it? Or should I just save my money
 

mkenyon

Banned
PSA

ASUS GTX580 RoG Matrix for $220. Amazing deal if you are in the market for a card at that price.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1377638/for-sale-asus-gtx580-rog-matrix
Itll be two weeks tomorrow. I already contacted amazon asking if Id be able to return it even though I already cut out and mailed the UPC for the rebate and they said no problem.

Already sent me a label and ill be dropping it off at UPS within the hour.

Atleast I got the second one for my birthday yesterday so Im not without a card haha. Wouldve been cool to play Bioshock with Crossfire though at 2560x1440 :(

Amazon cant send me a replacement because their sold out so my only option is a refund. I bought it when it was $290 plus a $20 rebate so $270 with Bioshock and Crysis so it was a nice deal.

Guess Ill look around for another one on sale.

Is crossfire 7950s worth it? Or should I just save my money
Save your money, crossfire is really janky right now.

*edit*

You could return the second card and go 7970 or even Titan. Maybe snipe a used one too.
 

Dave_6

Member
Figure out what fan speed is acceptable to you, and then set that at 79C. Taper it down to the minimum value, and have it ramp up rapidly at 80C onward. If that isn't working out, increase/decrease the 79C point until it works out well.

It's a good 'un.

The troubles OriginofHysteria was having with customer service would exist with any of the companies. They would all assume he's asking how to overvolt the card while trying to be coy, even if it was truly wanting to know how to lower voltages.

The people at Sapphire are pretty great, with a ton of community support. They've been one of the major sponsors at PDXLAN for a really long time now too, which is pretty cool. They're like the EVGA of AMD, except with better coolers.

Only had to deal with their customer service once, and it was for a client/work PC, got the RMA back in the normal RMA time frame of 2 weeks.

Good to know. I'm not going to worry about it; if something happens to it then I will deal with it then.
 

Sorral

Member
As far as I know, CRX is broken right now and they may fix it in July with the release of the new drivers.

Just got a 7950 and I feel like it's sagging but I'm not sure lol. What are you guys doing to fix that?

I haven't checked how yet. My 7950 is on the way and I think it will be sagging a bit as well.
 

brentech

Member
Ugh. Replaced my PSU (which was working just fine, but wanted a more reliable unit to move on with and for future), and now I get nothing when I try to power up. I'll have to go over everything and make sure I'm connected up fine, but got damn. Never had this problem before.

Not even a whisper.
Hope I didn't just install a DOA PSU, I'm racking my brain right now.
 

Xdrive05

Member
Itll be two weeks tomorrow. I already contacted amazon asking if Id be able to return it even though I already cut out and mailed the UPC for the rebate and they said no problem.

Already sent me a label and ill be dropping it off at UPS within the hour.

Atleast I got the second one for my birthday yesterday so Im not without a card haha. Wouldve been cool to play Bioshock with Crossfire though at 2560x1440 :(

Amazon cant send me a replacement because their sold out so my only option is a refund. I bought it when it was $290 plus a $20 rebate so $270 with Bioshock and Crysis so it was a nice deal.

Guess Ill look around for another one on sale.

Is crossfire 7950s worth it? Or should I just save my money

That's good of amazon to take it post upc-extract. I believe Newegg flat out won't.

I just got my MSI 7950 one month ago yesterday, so I'm in RMA territory now if something goes wrong.

I would avoid crossfire for now, and maybe pick up that 2nd 7950 in July when AMD releases the drivers that fix the crossfire jank.
 

asdad123

Member
PSA


Save your money, crossfire is really janky right now.

*edit*

You could return the second card and go 7970 or even Titan. Maybe snipe a used one too.

Cant really return the second 7950 as it was a birthday present from my GF. She'd kill me if I returned it lol.


That's good of amazon to take it post upc-extract. I believe Newegg flat out won't.

I just got my MSI 7950 one month ago yesterday, so I'm in RMA territory now if something goes wrong.

I would avoid crossfire for now, and maybe pick up that 2nd 7950 in July when AMD releases the drivers that fix the crossfire jank.


Yeah thats what I was really afraid of since there was no more UPC, but I talked to them on live chat and made sure to ask them if the fact that I cut the UPC out for the rebate and no longer had it on the box would be a problem for my return and they said no. They said "we only need the actual product inside the box". I made sure to screen capture that conversation incase anything comes up lol.
 
Which 7970 did you get?



I'm awful at setting up fan profiles, do you know like what would be a recommended fan curve? I'm not going for a high OC, ive OC'd the core by like 100 mhz and I've reached 65c with a 66% fan load and it's damn loud. (thats on auto profile)


With 65c under load (I'm assuming that's load, right?) you have quite some room to go for lower fan speeds. Try setting up a custom fan profile with MSIs Afterburner. Aim for sth. like 75c under full load (so lower the fan speed settings until you reach ~that point) and make sure to set the fan profile up in a way that it'll reach 100% at sth. like 90c (so if sth. goes incredibly wrong with your temperatures the fan will go full speed).
I'm on a different card (7870 Gigabyte Windforce), so it won't help you all that much, but that's my setup:
20% at 30c and everything lower than that (~zero noise at that fan speed)
36% at 50c (so a little less than 1% increase per c increase)
45% at 60c (a little less than 1% per c)
80% at 80c (a little less than 2% per c)
100% at 90c (2% per c)


Edit: If you are still not happy with the result Gigabytes Windforce coolers are amazing just btw. But you NEED to setup a custom fan profile. They are damn noisy @ default.
 

mkenyon

Banned
Try the paperclip trick, plug a fan into one of the molex connectors to ensure that it's powering on. A lot of PSUs won't turn the internal fan on if they are drawing under a certain % of their capacity.

If it works:

1) Trying powering on the system with the bare minimum. Use onboard video, no HDD/SSD, no fans other than CPU fan.

2) Reseat every single PSU cable, making sure they are nice and snug.

3) Make sure your power switch is plugged into the motherboard correctly, or even try jumping the two pins that it plugs into with a piece of (insulated where you hold it) metal.

4) If all else fails, try booting it up outside of your case.
Cant really return the second 7950 as it was a birthday present from my GF. She'd kill me if I returned it lol.
Protip from a married man:

It's easier to ask and receive forgiveness than it is permission.
 

Ty4on

Member
Edit: If you are still not happy with the result Gigabytes Windforce coolers are amazing just btw. But you NEED to setup a custom fan profile. They are damn noisy @ default.

Whoever programs modern fancurves should be shot. If I want my GPU that cool I'd watercool it and it should still last for years at 80C. Those silly dB graphs comparing them to reference designs in reviews also don't help. Video with some comparisons and please tell us if it's audible (without the ear up to it) because a quiet computer isn't.
 
With 65c under load (I'm assuming that's load, right?) you have quite some room to go for lower fan speeds. Try setting up a custom fan profile with MSIs Afterburner. Aim for sth. like 75c under full load (so lower the fan speed settings until you reach ~that point) and make sure to set the fan profile up in a way that it'll reach 100% at sth. like 90c (so if sth. goes incredibly wrong with your temperatures the fan will go full speed).
I'm on a different card (7870 Gigabyte Windforce), so it won't help you all that much, but that's my setup:
20% at 30c and everything lower than that (~zero noise at that fan speed)
36% at 50c (so a little less than 1% increase per c increase)
45% at 60c (a little less than 1% per c)
80% at 80c (a little less than 2% per c)
100% at 90c (2% per c)


Edit: If you are still not happy with the result Gigabytes Windforce coolers are amazing just btw. But you NEED to setup a custom fan profile. They are damn noisy @ default.

Im actually going to try out this profile. Thanks for your input!
 

brentech

Member
Try the paperclip trick, plug a fan into one of the molex connectors to ensure that it's powering on. A lot of PSUs won't turn the internal fan on if they are drawing under a certain % of their capacity.

If it works:

1) Trying powering on the system with the bare minimum. Use onboard video, no HDD/SSD, no fans other than CPU fan.

2) Reseat every single PSU cable, making sure they are nice and snug.

3) Make sure your power switch is plugged into the motherboard correctly, or even try jumping the two pins that it plugs into with a piece of (insulated where you hold it) metal.
Unplugged it all and reconnected the old PSU from outside the case. Connecting just motherboard and video card, fires right up =/

4) If all else fails, try booting it up outside of your case.
To lower my worries, I first reconnected my old PSU from outside the case. Just connected the mobo and video card and luckily that fires up right away.
So now I gotta see if I can test the new PSU on its own. Damn shame if it's dead, and quite aggravating.
 

bro1

Banned
Cant really return the second 7950 as it was a birthday present from my GF. She'd kill me if I returned it lol.





Yeah thats what I was really afraid of since there was no more UPC, but I talked to them on live chat and made sure to ask them if the fact that I cut the UPC out for the rebate and no longer had it on the box would be a problem for my return and they said no. They said "we only need the actual product inside the box". I made sure to screen capture that conversation incase anything comes up lol.
Amazon don't care! We buy everything from amazon, computers, beds, food and they are the best about returns.
 

MisterNoisy

Member
Just ordered the orange-framed mesh front panel to replace the solid one on my Prodigy build. The front fans are starved in the existing solid panel configuration.
 

kennah

Member
Until she comes home with a Louis Vuitton
She is totally non-materialistic. I won the lottery with this one.

Me too really. This new rig is going to be over 50% used parts.

Course that is what is going to keep it to around $1,000 instead of 1,500+

Oy spending too much money :)

Maybe I should spend more and sleeve.
 

HenryHSH

Member
Just finished a 3DMark 11 test on my Sapphire 7970 OC 3GB (stock) and got a 9274 Graphics score. Look like a decent score for stock... I think... Is it? lol
 

j-wood

Member
Hey GAF, I'm in a conundrum. I currently have a GTX 460 and a monitor that does 1680x1050. I want to get a new monitor that does 1080p.

Will bumping the res up that much while still keeping high-very high settings make that card struggle? I'm looking at upgrading to a GTX 660, but I don't think I have enough funds to get the monitor and the card at the same time.

In addition, this is the monitor I'm looking at picking up...it has good reviews, but are the panels and whatnot good here? I'm not too much up to speed on LED-LCD technology.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+...586474516&skuId=4964388&st=VS238H-B&cp=1&lp=1
 
Just got my new AMD card. I'm switching over from an Nvidia card so I wanted to ask to be sure...

I'm running driversweeper and cleaning out all things Nvidia. I've also uninstalled everything via control panel that has the name Nvidia on it. Is there anything else I should know? Should I be restarting in safe mode or something? I heard this could be tricky.

Edit: Ran driver sweeper and now I get no display when I reboot my computer. Seems expected. So should I pop the old card out and put the new one in now or what? Or has something gone heinously wrong?
 

Xdrive05

Member
Just got my new AMD card. I'm switching over from an Nvidia card so I wanted to ask to be sure...

I'm running driversweeper and cleaning out all things Nvidia. I've also uninstalled everything via control panel that has the name Nvidia on it. Is there anything else I should know? Should I be restarting in safe mode or something? I heard this could be tricky.

Edit: Ran driver sweeper and now I get no display when I reboot my computer. Seems expected. So should I pop the old card out and put the new one in now or what? Or has something gone heinously wrong?

See if you get a display signal when booting into safe mode. From safe mode go ahead and install the AMD *beta* drivers and see if it boots in normal mode then.

Had the same thing happen. That's what worked for me.
 
See if you get a display signal when booting into safe mode. From safe mode go ahead and install the AMD *beta* drivers and see if it boots in normal mode then.

Had the same thing happen. That's what worked for me.

Okay so I should plug the new card in and THEN boot into safe mode?

I tried going into safe mode before and I mashed the hell out of that F8 key to no avail. The keyboard on my machine takes a long time to come on for some reason so I wonder if I'm just missing the window of opportunity.
 
Nevermind think I found the problem. I had my tv plugged into the second dvi port and now that Nvidia control panel is gone it got confused. Popped in the new card and its working now.

After running the driver sweeper, I get a curious command prompt when i boot up and log in just saying something like "Nvidia: Are you sure? (y/n)"

Not sure what it's asking, but I can't seem to get the last remnants of Nvidia stuff to stop appearing when I analyse with Driver Sweeper. Am I doing something wrong?
 

Kyzer

Banned
Hey PC-GAF, I need your help. We're looking to build a new hackintosh and I'm new to the game. Can anyone help me out, with any resources or tips? Especially in terms of component compatibility? What motherboards can I use? We do a lot of graphic rendering so we have to be able to get a pretty nice GPU. Also, a guide to getting started with dual-booting (win would be nice) would be greatly appreciated -_-

Im sorry for being so needy
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
Hey PC-GAF, I need your help. We're looking to build a new hackintosh and I'm new to the game. Can anyone help me out, with any resources or tips? Especially in terms of component compatibility? What motherboards can I use? We do a lot of graphic rendering so we have to be able to get a pretty nice GPU. Also, a guide to getting started with dual-booting (win would be nice) would be greatly appreciated -_-

Im sorry for being so needy
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=hackintosh+compatible+parts+wiki&l=1

Kidding, knowing what keywords to Google basically turns you into a superhuman.
 
Hey PC-GAF, I need your help. We're looking to build a new hackintosh and I'm new to the game. Can anyone help me out, with any resources or tips? Especially in terms of component compatibility? What motherboards can I use? We do a lot of graphic rendering so we have to be able to get a pretty nice GPU. Also, a guide to getting started with dual-booting (win would be nice) would be greatly appreciated -_-

Im sorry for being so needy


I built a Hackintosh a few months ago...I love it.

My specs:
Gigabyte Z77 ud5h
Intel i5 3570k
GTX 670
128 SSD
2TB HDD for media
16GB 1333MHZ RAM

I suggest looking at

http://www.tonymacx86.com/home.php

Look at the forums and the Golden Builds.


*EDIT*

Can anyone recommend a decent wireless mouse? I'm using a Magic Mouse right now and while it's pretty good for general use, I've had too many accidental scrolls while working on After Effects
 
Amazon don't care! We buy everything from amazon, computers, beds, food and they are the best about returns.

One of the best things about amazon is their return policy. As in you can send anything back just about, and they provide the shipping costs. Be careful with overusing it though since I have heard stories of them just closing down accounts that always send to much stuff back.
 

bro1

Banned
Does this sound like a hardware or software issue? In Dirt 3 my PC hardlocks on exit to the desktop in both W8 and W7. This is on a GTX 670 and an i5 3570K (no OC). I have only had 1 other hardlock on my PC and that was in Sleepy Dogs 3 months ago otherwise it's been fine. I have run P95 for hours on end and Unigie Valley as well. Hell, I've run them together without a problem

So what say you, game or hardware? Two different OS's but the same game and it only happens wihen I exit to desktop.
 
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