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On August 14 2012 03:21 aBstractx wrote:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 2048MB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card for $430 @ microcenter http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125422 for $530 @ newegg. arent these the same product? the 530$ seems to be overclocked? and is that first card better than the gigabyte 7970 i previously listed? because they are the same price, and i will be stopping at microcenter anyway.
One's a GTX 670, and the other is a GTX 680?
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0391175
There are cheaper GTX 670s available, but those use louder and hotter reference-style blower coolers.
In some games, GTX 670 is better. In others, HD 7970 is better. GTX 670 uses less power (so less heat to deal with), so I'd rather have that.
On August 14 2012 03:26 cooked wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Hello to all the experts in the thread  Long-time reader here, looking to make a go at assembling a mid-level all-purpose PC. I've narrowed down each part to two or three options, and would love to hear the varying schools of thought. Thanks beforehand for the help. Budget: ~USD$800 Uses: media, gaming and medium-to-large-sized spreadsheet work (w/ Excel) Misc: no overclocking, no SLI, hoping to still be usable in 2-3 years, looking to emphasize low-noise CPUIntel i5-2400 ( $190) Intel i5-2500 ( $210) Motherboard ( are the more expensive boards just about more pci-e slots and other bells and whistles?) ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3 (x16) ( $90) Gigabite GA-Z68A (x16,x8,x4) ( $120) ASRock Extreme3 Gen3 (x16,x8) ( $125) GPU MSI Geforce GTX 560ti 1GB ( $220) HDD ( what's everyone's opinion on 2.5" drives in desktops? is there potential for lower noise level and power consumption?) Seagate Momentus XT 2.5" 500gb 7200rpm ( $70) WD Caviar Blue 3.5" 500gb 7200rpm ( $60) Memory GSkill DDR3 1600 2 x 4gb ( $46) PSU ( does anyone know how quiet these are?) Antec 550W 80 PLUS Certified Semi-Modular ( $69) Silverstone 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Full-Modular ( $90)
Any reason why you want a last-generation CPU and motherboard? Why not an i5-3xxx and B75 or H77 motherboard?
The kind of motherboard options you listed are already considered expensive and have more features that you'd use.
I'd double-check graphics card models for noise levels. I don't think there are many reviews of MSI GTX 560 Ti that doesn't use Twin Frozr.
Compared to total power consumption, the amount you save by using a 2.5" drive is insignificant. They're quieter though, but definitely there exist 3.5" models quieter than most 2.5" drives, even the 5400 rpm models.
You're getting ripped off about $5 on RAM, not so bad, but why?
I think the Antec is not that quiet, particularly on a heavier load (but you won't see anything that heavy with that kind of computer). I'm not sure about the Silverstone, but the Strider Plus 500W is a bad model for that amount of money. It's borderline in terms of the electronics; we'd prefer to see something designed better.
Does $800 include OS price?
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Hey, how's this computer looking?
http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/exOH
total noob here, so let me know if theres any major flaws or problems or if there are major upgrades for relatively low price(I want to keep the price in this range howerever.) thanks guys.
P.s. canadian prices and websites only
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On August 14 2012 03:36 Malgrif wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Hey, how's this computer looking? http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/exOHtotal noob here, so let me know if theres any major flaws or problems or if there are major upgrades for relatively low price(I want to keep the price in this range howerever.) thanks guys. P.s. canadian prices and websites only
What's the computer going to be used for? How much do you care about mail-in rebates vs. actual prices? Do you already have another hard drive, or is 120GB really enough?
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so the 650w power supply is perfect for sli with the gtx 670 x2 ?
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On August 14 2012 02:30 t0ssboy wrote:
can it run sc2 on ultra? can it stream sc2 on low with stable fps with an i5 2500k ?
Video card has zero effect on streaming. Zero. It only affects your in-game video settings (note that there are other settings, such as Physics, which depend on the CPU instead).
6770 is enough for Ultra at 1920x1080, you'd get ~55-60 FPS on average so it would be fine considering most monitors are 60Hz and you'll be CPU limited in big battles anyway.
Streaming is entirely dependent on the CPU and on the speed of your internet connection. If you have at least ~1Mb/sec upload, you'll be able to stream a watchable ~480p. With a higher CPU overclock and upload speed, stream quality can go up. Also, playing on High settings at most with low/medium CPU settings is recommended.
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On August 14 2012 03:44 Wabbit wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2012 02:30 t0ssboy wrote:
can it run sc2 on ultra? can it stream sc2 on low with stable fps with an i5 2500k ? Video card has zero effect on streaming. Zero. It only affects your in-game video settings (note that there are other settings, such as Physics, which depend on the CPU instead). 6770 is enough for Ultra at 1920x1080, you'd get ~55-60 FPS on average so it would be fine considering most monitors are 60Hz and you'll be CPU limited in big battles anyway. Streaming is entirely dependent on the CPU and on the speed of your internet connection. If you have at least ~1Mb/sec upload, you'll be able to stream a watchable ~480p. With a higher CPU overclock and upload speed, stream quality can go up. Also, playing on High settings at most with low/medium CPU settings is recommended.
2.51-2.68 the max i got.Can i overclock with the coolers that come with the cpu ?
Also is an i5-3470 as good as i5-2500k ? which one is better for streaming.
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On August 14 2012 03:44 Wabbit wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2012 02:30 t0ssboy wrote:
can it run sc2 on ultra? can it stream sc2 on low with stable fps with an i5 2500k ? Video card has zero effect on streaming. Zero. It only affects your in-game video settings (note that there are other settings, such as Physics, which depend on the CPU instead). 6770 is enough for Ultra at 1920x1080, you'd get ~55-60 FPS on average so it would be fine considering most monitors are 60Hz and you'll be CPU limited in big battles anyway. Streaming is entirely dependent on the CPU and on the speed of your internet connection. If you have at least ~1Mb/sec upload, you'll be able to stream a watchable ~480p. With a higher CPU overclock and upload speed, stream quality can go up. Also, playing on High settings at most with low/medium CPU settings is recommended.
One megabit or megabyte?
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i think he wanted to say megabit.
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Lowercase b for bit. Sometimes people make a mistake, but Wabbit did not.
You can overclock on default coolers for modern Intel builds, just not by a lot unless you get a particularly good chip (manufacturing imperfections mean that each chip behaves a little differently). Doing so is not really recommended. If you don't overclock, i5-3470 and i5-2500k have similar performance. If you do, i5-2500k doesn't have an arbitrary limitation imposed by Intel, so of course it can be much faster.
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On August 14 2012 03:39 Myrmidon wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2012 03:36 Malgrif wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Hey, how's this computer looking? http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/exOHtotal noob here, so let me know if theres any major flaws or problems or if there are major upgrades for relatively low price(I want to keep the price in this range howerever.) thanks guys. P.s. canadian prices and websites only What's the computer going to be used for? How much do you care about mail-in rebates vs. actual prices? Do you already have another hard drive, or is 120GB really enough? Light gaming, hopefully running guild wars 2, sc2, w/e on low smoothly. Primarily it'll be used as my personal computer so I'd like to be able to do all the basic stuff very well. Mail-in Rebate prices are fine, of course if the actual prices are low anyways that'd be great. And yes, I plan to cannibalize my current hard drive which is 500GB.
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ok so this is going to be able to stream sc2 on mid/high?:
Intel CORE i5-3470, 3.20GHz, 6MB, BOX, LGA1155
A-DATA 1333 mhz dd3 4 bg
Sapphire HD6670 DDR 5 HDMI PCI-E /BULK/
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On August 14 2012 03:57 Malgrif wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2012 03:39 Myrmidon wrote:On August 14 2012 03:36 Malgrif wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Hey, how's this computer looking? http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/exOHtotal noob here, so let me know if theres any major flaws or problems or if there are major upgrades for relatively low price(I want to keep the price in this range howerever.) thanks guys. P.s. canadian prices and websites only What's the computer going to be used for? How much do you care about mail-in rebates vs. actual prices? Do you already have another hard drive, or is 120GB really enough? Light gaming, hopefully running guild wars 2, sc2, w/e on low smoothly. Primarily it'll be used as my personal computer so I'd like to be able to do all the basic stuff very well. Mail-in Rebate prices are fine, of course if the actual prices are low anyways that'd be great. And yes, I plan to cannibalize my current hard drive which is 500GB.
If you're doing the PCPartPicker thing...
http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/ey1t
CPU is a bit better for gaming (well, it depends on the game), SSD is better and more reliable, video card is much better, and the power supply is a little better too. Total cost is lower too. You could save a bit more on the motherboard if you wanted, but you may as well get something with USB3 and SATA3, and so on.
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at a really shitty quality maybe. you arent going to get 720p. i had i52500k overclocked to 4 ghz and couldnt get med stream on 720p without lag
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On August 14 2012 03:56 Myrmidon wrote:
Lowercase b for bit. Sometimes people make a mistake, but Wabbit did not.
You can overclock on default coolers for modern Intel builds, just not by a lot unless you get a particularly good chip (manufacturing imperfections mean that each chip behaves a little differently). Doing so is not really recommended. If you don't overclock, i5-3470 and i5-2500k have similar performance. If you do, i5-2500k doesn't have an arbitrary limitation imposed by Intel, so of course it can be much faster.
Thanks. I am aware of the difference in notation, but seeing as how ISPs where I live tend to say "megabyte" when referring to speeds as opposed to megabit I am wary of it
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will i get stable fps on low ?
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anytime you watch a good stream on twitch, like whitera/desrow/maximus, theyre all usually overclocked like 4.5 ghz +
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On August 14 2012 04:27 aBstractx wrote:
anytime you watch a good stream on twitch, like whitera/desrow/maximus, theyre all usually overclocked like 4.5 ghz +
Yeah, White-Ra's is insane quality. One of the few 1080p+ :D I wasn't aware that streaming was so CPU intensive.
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On August 14 2012 04:20 t0ssboy wrote:
will i get stable fps on low ?
With over 2 Mb/s to work with, there's no way you can't run that on medium with 480p stream output. Everybody has unstable fps when there are large armies clashing, streaming or not.
You can always make the picture quality / bitrate worse by turning down the encoding preset, which reduces the load on the CPU.
On August 14 2012 04:19 Gumbi wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2012 03:56 Myrmidon wrote:
Lowercase b for bit. Sometimes people make a mistake, but Wabbit did not.
You can overclock on default coolers for modern Intel builds, just not by a lot unless you get a particularly good chip (manufacturing imperfections mean that each chip behaves a little differently). Doing so is not really recommended. If you don't overclock, i5-3470 and i5-2500k have similar performance. If you do, i5-2500k doesn't have an arbitrary limitation imposed by Intel, so of course it can be much faster. Thanks. I am aware of the difference in notation, but seeing as how ISPs where I live tend to say "megabyte" when referring to speeds as opposed to megabit I am wary of it
Are you sure you don't have that backwards? Most ISPs list Megabits because that gives a larger number.
And it's not just marketing. Technical staff use Megabits—more specifically, prefixes meaning powers of 10 (not 2) and bits rather than bytes. Those are the conventions in communications / networks engineering and related fields.
On August 14 2012 04:29 Gumbi wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2012 04:27 aBstractx wrote:
anytime you watch a good stream on twitch, like whitera/desrow/maximus, theyre all usually overclocked like 4.5 ghz + Yeah, White-Ra's is insane quality. One of the few 1080p+ :D I wasn't aware that streaming was so CPU intensive.
Proper video encodes for offline viewing (not done in real time, unlike streaming) are too slow for even the fastest processors to handle in real time. The frames processed per second can be pretty low. In other words, it's very CPU intensive. For streaming, encoders are just set to make some speed / quality tradeoffs so they can actually keep up with the frames as they come in. With enough speed / quality tradeoffs and 480p, you don't need anything near as good as an i5-3470 even.
That said, there are definitely diminishing returns on the better settings.
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I don't know what systems those guys have, but I'm willing to bet that they have LGA 1155 i7's (and I know at least one streamer - was it Destiny? - has an LGA 2011 i7 3930K). That helps a lot. They probably have really good upload speed as well. t0ssboy's ~2.5Mb/sec is pretty good to be honest. If he can maintain a stable 2Mb/sec to Twitch or whatever streaming service he decides to use, that's probably enough bandwidth for a nice/decent 720p without relying too heavily on the CPU and as such needing a high overclock or i7.
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On August 14 2012 03:28 Myrmidon wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On August 14 2012 03:26 cooked wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Hello to all the experts in the thread Long-time reader here, looking to make a go at assembling a mid-level all-purpose PC. I've narrowed down each part to two or three options, and would love to hear the varying schools of thought. Thanks beforehand for the help. Budget: ~USD$800 Uses: media, gaming and medium-to-large-sized spreadsheet work (w/ Excel) Misc: no overclocking, no SLI, hoping to still be usable in 2-3 years, looking to emphasize low-noise CPUIntel i5-2400 ( $190) Intel i5-2500 ( $210) Motherboard ( are the more expensive boards just about more pci-e slots and other bells and whistles?) ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3 (x16) ( $90) Gigabite GA-Z68A (x16,x8,x4) ( $120) ASRock Extreme3 Gen3 (x16,x8) ( $125) GPU MSI Geforce GTX 560ti 1GB ( $220) HDD ( what's everyone's opinion on 2.5" drives in desktops? is there potential for lower noise level and power consumption?) Seagate Momentus XT 2.5" 500gb 7200rpm ( $70) WD Caviar Blue 3.5" 500gb 7200rpm ( $60) Memory GSkill DDR3 1600 2 x 4gb ( $46) PSU ( does anyone know how quiet these are?) Antec 550W 80 PLUS Certified Semi-Modular ( $69) Silverstone 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Full-Modular ( $90) Any reason why you want a last-generation CPU and motherboard? Why not an i5-3xxx and B75 or H77 motherboard? The kind of motherboard options you listed are already considered expensive and have more features that you'd use. I'd double-check graphics card models for noise levels. I don't think there are many reviews of MSI GTX 560 Ti that doesn't use Twin Frozr. Compared to total power consumption, the amount you save by using a 2.5" drive is insignificant. They're quieter though, but definitely there exist 3.5" models quieter than most 2.5" drives, even the 5400 rpm models. You're getting ripped off about $5 on RAM, not so bad, but why? I think the Antec is not that quiet, particularly on a heavier load (but you won't see anything that heavy with that kind of computer). I'm not sure about the Silverstone, but the Strider Plus 500W is a bad model for that amount of money. It's borderline in terms of the electronics; we'd prefer to see something designed better. Does $800 include OS price?
Thanks for responding,
- $800 not counting an OS, just those six pieces plus a case, I may end up skipping an optical as well.
- About the CPU and motherboard - no not at all. I never considered the newer i5s, I'll look around for combos with the two chipsets you suggested.
- Cool, it's interesting to hear your thoughts on 2.5" HDDs, I may just try it if the prices end up about the same with coupons/sales.
- About the PSU - I really wanted to try a modular PSU with as few components as I'll probably end up using, I couldn't find too many in the 500-600W range with good 80+ ratings by a reputable brand.
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EPT
