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On November 18 2012 16:38 Belial88 wrote:[ Show nested quote +Would it also be worth it to upgrade the i3 to an i5 or to get a better monitor.
How much would the i5 affect performance for gaming. Is it worth the price increase? Depends what games your playing. And, what cpu you get depends on what monitor you have (kinda funny, in your case). What are you doing? If it's for general gaming, I'd recommend get the cheapre cpu so you can upgrade your monitor. The i3 is more than powerful enough for today's games and tommorow's games, while a nicer monitor can be appreciated by any of today's games. Gaming performance is generally more about the GPU anyways, with the exception of a few cpu based games like sc2 (in which case minimum and avg fps is cpu dependent, but the ability to run higher graphics is gpu dependent, although sc2 is so outdated now any gpu will be fine
So i think i will just spend the extra cash since i have it. Along with the holidays coming up i will have more than enough anyways.
What I5 processor would you recommend i get. or is it really not needed? If i need it for games other than sc2.
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4+1 phase VRM is perfectly fine for moderate overclocks, the overclocks anyone sensible is going to do. It can probably do higher overclocks if you're sensible about it. What era do you live in? We live in the era where Intel processors overclocked at 4.7ghz@1.35V draw a similar amount of power as a stock Phenom II X6. VRMs are basically a non-issue for a typical user.
Really depends on the quality of the phase. Generally any 8+2 power phase is going to be fine, it's kinda rare for 8+2 blow outs on any board or overclock. 4+1 is a little more complicated, as it could be okay, or it could be total shit, really depends on the quality of the phases. I'd say a nice, high quality 4+1 with OCP, low rds on, and passive cooling, isn't going to be blowing generally, but the very common 4+1, no ocp, NIKOS mosfets, will possibly blow on, even on stock settings if the chokes and capacitors and pwm are bad enough.
I'm not saying you necessarily need to spend more money, but just do some research on the board your looking at to see if VRM failure is common, and compare the board to other boards at a similar price level. There's so many motherboards out there that you can probably find better and worse VRM quality at every price level. Really, just pick the lowest price level motherboard, and within that budget, find out which board has the best VRM.
I'm not saying spend a ton of money on this, but when comparing two motherboards, it's the biggest factor that matters. SLI, chipset, how many fan headers the board has or usb ports, are not really important for a motherboard, or more specifically, they aren't going to cause huge price increases.
I mean, it can be confusing to pick out a motherboard. What difference is one motherboard from another, what does it matter? Well, there isn't much difference at all, except the VRM quality. There's not much other reason to pick one mobo over another. I mean obviously if you need/want SLI, go for it, but it's not like your going to pay a huge premium on SLI and there's still hundreds of motherboards that are sli capable.
Want to do a build for my little sister for christmas, just need CPU, RAM PSU and storage
i'm on a low budget at sec so wanted your opinion if this is good enough or should i wait for something more (the computer will just be for gaming)
so AMD athlon II X3 450 (for games like crysis, COD, skyrim, etc...), going for a phenom II x4 955 is 20€ more if i could avoid it
random 2x2 gb ram
PSU is where i'm most sceptic about, would something like the ANTEC basiq 350 be enough? (hd6870 for gpu)
and for the storage as she already has a 500gb external hdd
so i was thinking, getting a cheap SSD (crucial V4 64gb?mb128? its not that much more, 50 vs 70€ if i recall right for somewhat a lot of space), and using the external HDD for storage?
Athlon ii x3 450 is $55 on newegg and tigerdirect, they really dropped the price. Just a week ago it was $70. It forced me to sell my used athlon ii x3 450 for $55 instead of $65 (i was lucky to get $55 for it, no idea why the guy bought my used one with no hsf instead of a new one with fresh warranty, tim, etc). At that price level, I'd pick that over the phenom 955.
PSU is more about quality than wattage - or to be more specific, about how much of the specified wattage, is on the 12v rails. The problem with budget PSUs is there's just a ton of shitty ones that will be ~200-500w, but in reality have nothing on the 12v rails. This is because PSUs in the past used to have more power on the lower rails, 5.5v, etc, instead, so it's basically selling outdated PSUs as new ones, when they aren't proper.
So don't go by wattage, exactly. I mean technically, a 350w PSU will be more than enough power to run any non-overclocked, single GPU system (and even then, might allow some overclocking or a fermi), but in reality, most 350w PSUs on the market would die doing that because they have no wattage on the 12v rail.
First off, you should get at least 80%+ bronze certified efficiency. Generally, such PSUs are higher quality too. I know you want to stay cheap, I see your 350w for about $28, but it's only got 23amps on the 12v rail ( https://www.google.com/search?q=23 x 12&oq=23 x 12&aqs=chrome.0.57j60l3.1495&sugexp=chrome,mod=1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 ) so its closer to a 270w PSU than 350.
With 23amps on the 12v rail, you aren't going to get far with that PSU. There's plenty of 80+ PSUs just slightly up that would be fine. Antec earthwatts 380, corsair builder (seems like a great deal this one, actually)...
Getting an SSD for an athlon (or am3 for that matter) system is a bit goofy. That $50 to go for the phenom 955, or hell you know what would be a HUGE increase boost from both the athlon ii and phenom ii, go for a sandy bridge pentium g6xxx or g860 or g2120 if possible, or better GPU, would be a much bigger improvement to her system than a SSD would be.
And yea, any random RAM would be fine, for the most part. Just get any 1.5v, CL9 RAM basically. I'd say it's preferable you get a major brand, especially one with a lifetime (or very long) warranty, but RAM is so cheap that finding a reputable brand with lifetime warranty, and the cheapest 1.5v CL 9 RAM, should be one and the same. Corsair Ballstix Sport are seling for really cheap right now. Sometimes running dual channel can limit an overclock on an AMD CPU due to IMC headroom, not always, but with some chips (like mine for example, man that was frustrating to find out it was dual channel limiting my cpu clock).
So i think i will just spend the extra cash since i have it. Along with the holidays coming up i will have more than enough anyways.
What I5 processor would you recommend i get. or is it really not needed? If i need it for games other than sc2.
Can you be a little more specific about what other games you play, and plan to play in the next few years (if you can)? Most video games don't rely on the CPU much at all, like Call of Duty and Battlefield games, they dont really care much about the CPU, they are very heavy on the GPU. You know, graphics = GPU. It's very intuitive. Sc2 and RTS in general are just huge pains in the ass in that they are very CPU-dependent.
But let me put it this way - Whether you are on low or high graphics, a CPU will be a limiting factor in your minimum fps, and average fps. But raising the graphics settings is all on the GPU, and for Sc2 really isn't that graphically intensive for today's hardware. And SC2 was outdated by hardware standards when the game was released 2 years ago, it's quite outdated by today's standards.
So no, you dont need an i5 to play sc2. An i3 would be fine. And an i3 would be more than enough power for today's and tommorow's games. If the budget came down to CPU, GPU, Monitor, pick 2 of three, you should go with GPU+Monitor - unless, you only play sc2, in which case you should go CPU+Monitor, i guess you could go i5, i mean its your money. An i3 really is more than powerful enough for sc2 and today's games, there's really not much reason to go above an i3.
Other people could recommend an i5 better than I could if you really wanted to spend money on it though. No one buys an i3 for gaming and complains it's too weak. No one really complains about the i3 or i5. I ran an athlon ii x4 system (think pentium 600 series) and was able to stream 720p sc2 on ultra just fine, and play crysis 2.
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Hi,
I posted a while back and received some helpful comments about what to get. Over the last two weeks I've been acquiring parts as sales pop up on the "buildapcsales" subreddit on reddit. I've bought everything I need except a CPU and mobo. So far I have:
-8gb 1333mhz ram
-Nvidia gtx 560 TI 1 GB
-Antec Neo Eco 520w PSU
and a bunch of other parts. I was planning to finish out with an i5. Thanks to buildapcsales I'm under budget (got that video card for $95, for example) and could get the i5 3570k and z77 chipset and overclock if I wanted. Does the premium you pay for that ability justify the cost? I figure it would probably cost me ~$90 over a regular i5 and basic mobo if I got the cpu, cooler, and mobo through my local microcenter. Also, could my psu handle it, and would the memory be a bottleneck?
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On November 19 2012 10:22 Nightops wrote:?
You can make a better computer for under $300.
There's a guide on how to install that heatsink right on the the webpage you provided, and there should be an instruction booklet inside it... it's not very complicated to search for. Just don't do anything stupid - make sure there's thermal grease between cpu/heatsink contact (i mean should be obvious, probably has pre-applied thermal grease just to idiot proof it, as closed loop water systems generally are made expressly to be idiot proof for something very simple), dont put anything between the cpu and heatsink...
But I dont think you can overclock with your system? And in such case, you really shouldn't use that water cooling on your HP system. The stock cooler is more than capable for stock settings, and the problem with switching to water or tower cooling is that while they do great cpu cooling, your RAM, chipset, VRM are no longer getting residual cooling from the stock cooler. Motherboards and pre-built PCs and such are all rated specifically for the stock, 'radial' (blows down onto board instead of like water cooling or tower cooling) cooler.
Now I'm sure you'd be fine with the water cooler, but pre-built OEM pc's tend to lack cooling on the motherboard and have shit motherboard components (even so called 'high end' pcs). Really, none of it matters, if you are at stock settings, do whatever you want, but I'd recommend you keep your stock cooler - by using the water cooler, you are only bringing heat to your system (and while you may cool your CPU, your CPU isn't running hot right now so it doesnt need it, you don't put NOS into an old volkswagon beetle, get it? or i suppose, you dont get a super awesome radiator for cooling on a beetle), voiding any warranties, and lowering the value of your new parts by turning them into used parts.
That RAM is DDR3, while your HP is ddr2, it won't plug in, quite simply.
You can't really upgrade pre-built PCs that much (you can though more than mac, at least you dont have to pay $100+ to upgrade to a piece of shit 4 year old outdated gpu), hence why they are such rip-offs...
No one answered your questions because frankly, they are quite ridiculous. You should be able to build a system for under $300 that can easily take advantage of the loot you won. I'd recommend you just sell the gear you won, really, there isn't much use for them for you. RAM is 99% about just having enough of the stuff that fits, you really won't notice any difference from the cheapest ram out there, and the most expensive RAM overclocked, in general usage, and closed loop water coolers, while aren't taht great (but are awesome if you can get them cheap enough, like you did), are a bit too much than you need even for average overclocking (which it doesnt sound like you know how to do).
and a bunch of other parts. I was planning to finish out with an i5. Thanks to buildapcsales I'm under budget (got that video card for $95, for example) and could get the i5 3570k and z77 chipset and overclock if I wanted. Does the premium you pay for that ability justify the cost? I figure it would probably cost me ~$90 over a regular i5 and basic mobo if I got the cpu, cooler, and mobo through my local microcenter. Also, could my psu handle it, and would the memory be a bottleneck?
I've heard some people say the 2500k is better for overclocking, but I'm not really qualified to speak on which intel i5's to buy. It is cheaper though, which may be why you would want to get the i5 - 'better' overclockability so arguably an equal or better chip than the 3570k but at a lower price.
Intel is a little different because they are bastards and you can only overclock a few of their chips, and the very very expensive ones at that. I don't know if it's worth getting, say, an i5-2500k when you are originally planning to get an i3 or pentium, but if you are planning to get an i5-2500, its definitely worth it to get a i5-2500k edition instead for a little more, get a slightly better motherboard, and a $30 heatsink (you can just overclock a little bit to get the value of much more than the cost of the K, and then buy a new heatsink far in the future and tweak some more, and tweak some more, and so on).
NeoEco is great psu, your golden on such a psu. It's more about 12v rail wattage, than the PSU wattage, and the neo eco has some power behind it's 12v rails. Making it more comparable to a much higher rated PSU.
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Belial88, it literally doesn't matter. There is no trick to 4+1 phase motherboards. They overclock worse so don't push them too hard and they probably won't blow. I'm surprised you're not railing against Asus because their Sandy Bridge motherboard fucking sucked and failed hard when they did.
People spend money for expensive motherboards for features. An enthusiest is not going to spend the bare minimum on a motherboard. Neither would I for that matter if I was looking for something specific considering the majority of lower end motherboards have shitty hardware and software support (remember that Biostar motherboard you bought? how are the drivers?). If you're going to SLI, you are probably going to want shit like NF200 chips and whatnot and that stuff costs money.
But we already recommend the bare minimum for most people. So what's your point? That people in this thread overbuy? Because that definitely doesn't happen unless you want everyone to adopt Pentiums and join you in your glorious low resolution, bare minimum budget gaming because expensive stuff is for suckers who don't know anything.
Other people could recommend an i5 better than I could if you really wanted to spend money on it though. No one buys an i3 for gaming and complains it's too weak. No one really complains about the i3 or i5. I ran an athlon ii x4 system (think pentium 600 series) and was able to stream 720p sc2 on ultra just fine, and play crysis 2.
While playing at an obscenely low resolution that someone with a shitty Best Buy laptop would use. Was it 1366x768 or was it 1920x1080? Because I'm pretty sure it was 1366x768.
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Okay thanks for answering the question, I don't know much about computer components unfortunately even though I have been trying to learn. This computer is approaching 5-6 years old and the only thing that has gone wrong with it is the graphics card randomly dying the other summer. Do you think it would be in my best interest to invest in building a computer?
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Belial88, it literally doesn't matter. There is no trick to 4+1 phase motherboards. They overclock worse so don't push them too hard and they probably won't blow. I'm surprised you're not railing against Asus because their Sandy Bridge motherboard fucking sucked and failed hard when they did.
What do you mean 'they overclock worse'? 4+1 boards aren't universally worse than 8+2 boards, it depends on the quality of the phases.
I'm not really railing against anyone, I guess it sounds a little harsh what I said about MSi, perhaps I should be clearer and say avoid MSi at the budget level and only with high TDP processors (maybe just amd phenoms x4 and x6 really). I moreso meant to focus on VRM quality than brands, ie avoid 3+1 power phases at all possible costs, avoid nikos mosfets.
From what I understand, boards don't really limit overclock much more than maybe 20-50mhz at most. The VRM needs to run cool/tolerate high heat (ie its okay if you reach 125*C if the phases are strong enough, but if they aren't high quality then they need to run cool, ie low rds or more channels), and the power needs to be consistent (which pretty much will be true if the VRMs are cool enough, as power inconsistencies only tend to happen at high temps).
There's plenty of 4+1 boards that overclock fine, because their VRMs are high quality. Generally, 4+1 is not as good as 8+2, but not always.
(remember that Biostar motherboard you bought? how are the drivers?).
Drivers are perfectly fine, i was just a little surprised at what was going on there.
If you're going to SLI, you are probably going to want shit like NF200 chips and whatnot and that stuff costs money.
SLI starts to cost some money, not going to disagree with that. But even with SLI, that still doesnt really narrow down your selection of motherboards. There are tons of motherboards and brands for every price point and every feature (overclockability, sli, form factor), VRM is the biggest factor in narrowing down which board to get at a price point.
But we already recommend the bare minimum for most people. So what's your point? That people in this thread overbuy? Because that definitely doesn't happen unless you want everyone to adopt Pentiums and join you in your glorious low resolution, bare minimum budget gaming because expensive stuff is for suckers who don't know anything.
No I wasn't really making a statement on what people buy when it comes to motherboards. I'm just saying how to choose a motherboard.
As for budget builds, please. 95% of the people here are playing video games, they aren't folding@home, SETI, CAD, etc. People are often buying i7s and the like that is more suited for servers than for video games.
On top of that, this is a starcraft 2 forum, where many of the people building PCs are playing solely SC2, not top of the line games. Starcraft 2 was already outdated hardware-wise by years when it was released, which has been years ago now. Furthermore, many people who play sc2 here, play on low settings, for more performance.
There's no reason to spend more than $600 (i'd say 200-300, but some people might want a sdd, nicer case, etc) on a PC just to play video games, much less starcraft 2.
You want to do folding or benching, go ahead and buy that i5, 500+ PSU, 8+ GB of RAM. Otherwise, it's a joke that people are buying 16GB of RAM, 500W PSUs, SLI, anything other than the cheapest RAM, i5's, just to play starcraft 2. It's fine if you want to play at 1200 and high graphics or want to stream, and some people here are specifically asking for that, and that's fine. But you still dont NEED an i5 to do that.
I'd only say i5 is you dont have a budget, experienced in overclocking, streaming on high resolution, are playing modern games, not just sc2, and want the absolute best in graphics. Otherwise a pentium/athlon/phenom/i3 (hell phenoms are a great, low cost chip that would be better than a g2120 if you plan to stream on a budget build) build is more than enough power.
Okay thanks for answering the question, I don't know much about computer components unfortunately even though I have been trying to learn. This computer is approaching 5-6 years old and the only thing that has gone wrong with it is the graphics card randomly dying the other summer. Do you think it would be in my best interest to invest in building a computer?
If your just playing starcraft 2 and your getting 80fps I don't see any problem that needs to be fixed here. Core2Quad is quite old, but is actually a pretty good chip. It's still competitive with today's chips at the budget level. If you want to build a computer better than what you have now, your going to have to pay a pretty penny, as your PC really isn't too bad. Someone paid way too much for a PC 5-6 years ago. The one advantage is you can last a year or two more with it.
I'd say you should just upgrade when your PC stops working well for what you want to do. It is clearly fine with sc2 and is going to be fine with sc2 for a long time, and your PC will be okay with modern games too. If you one day decide to start streaming or want to pay a huge premium for a slightly improved graphics settings or in a couple years when games require more hardware, that's when you should upgrade.
My comments earlier about building a better computer moreso meant you could build an equivalent/slightly better computer for under $300. My point was not to say your computer was terrible, it was to say that upgrading parts to your computer is kind of goofy (upgrading the GPU is fine, since it can be a huge performance boost and is easily swappable).
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I'm also playing bf3 and other newer games as well, I get about 50fps on all low/turned off settings though. I'm just wondering how long this computer will last me with the sales that will be coming up and it would be nice to have high/er settings on the games I play haha.
I payed about 1500 dollars w/ the monitor included tax free right before school started. Okay, yeah I haven't really had any problems, would my computer be able to stream or no?
I was also 14-15 at the time so.. -_- youthful ignorance
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Your GPU is a little bit on the low end. I know this sounds a bit silly to say, but graphics settings are all about the GPU (and most games, especially FPS where each frame is a limited area, as opposed to an entire map drawn out, and calculations in a certain, small area as opposed to a large area, ie sc2 entire map 200 vs 200 as opposed to running and gunning in tiny rooms and corridors).
You would see a substantial benefit in graphics settings if you just got a better GPU (something others here can help you with, and many posts have been made about already here). If your minimum or average fps is low on lower graphics settings, that is a CPU problem, but if you can play smoothly on low graphics (but not on high) that's a GPU issue.
With a simple GPU upgrade, your pc will last quite a while at medium to high settings on upcoming games. You wont pull off ultra, and if you try to stream you might have to do some tweaking/sacrificing to make it work, but otherwise your PC will be okay for a little while longer before you really need to upgrade or before you can get a significant upgrade at a relatively low price.
I payed about 1500 dollars w/ the monitor included tax free right before school started. Okay, yeah I haven't really had any problems, would my computer be able to stream or no?
I was also 14-15 at the time so.. -_- youthful ignorance
A 500 pc then and 500 now would just be so much more performance. No matter how high-end a PC you get, the idea of future proofing is just ridiculous. Everything gets outdated in roughly the same time. See Wom, that's why budget > high end imo. Just buy an i3 today and upgrade to an i5 or i7 in a few years.
Streaming is 95% on your CPU and upload network connection. I've been able to stream on an athlon ii x3 450 cpu (which has a nearly identical cpu mark score at stock settings, although i overclocked my cpu so your cpu would be a little slower than what i had running) system with 4mb/s up just fine (720p@45fps, although i only played at ~720p resolution so that contributed to why it was so smooth for me).
That said, I think you should be able to stream with a few tweaks. But you should test it out yourself, worst that can happen is you just alt-tab for a split second in the middle of the game / paused and turn it off. If you have a really high upload connection, 5mb/s+, you should be able to stream 720p with good fps comfortably, otherwise you might have to sacrifice some settings, but you should stream 480 easily and 720 passably.
I mean to be honest, your system is right on the limit of possible to stream 720p comfortably. But, hopefully, with good upload and connection quality, and the right settings, you should have a stream that looks just as good as anyone else's (720p streams tend to look better than 1080, so the upside is you can have a decent looking stream on a low end system).
Also, your quad core cpu should actually do well with streaming. Streaming loves extra cores, it's the one application where AMD athlon/phenoms could be preferable to Intel based systems (arguably).
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Yes, whenever I do plan on replacing this computer I will definitely be building it from scratch. Right now with my monitor I'm using 1920x1200 resolution native and in games, would that have to be changed if I were to stream? Also, I'm looking at buying a new monitor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=24-236-205&SortField=3&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=(keywords)#scrollFullInfo to use dual monitors. That new one would be my main one, so would I have to use a resolution smaller than the native on that (1920x1080) to stream comfortably?
I have another question about making computers, when I open this thing up to dust it out everyone once in a while it just looks so messy. Is that because it's a prebuilt? I was wondering if I would be able to put it in a nice new case or something, just for the sake of a nice looking base and it being neat. I am going to do what you said and sell the new gear that I won since there isn't any point in using it. Also, on the topic of overclocking; so there isn't really any way for me to OC the CPU? What about the GPU? I've run into the problem of my PC getting really hot to the touch when I play really intensive games such as bf3 that I have to slide the computer out of my desk (its like an open drawer where you can put printers) so that it can cool off. That's why I was wondering about the liquid cooling which unfortunately I can't utilize.
I'm going to try and see if I can run the graphics at a higher level, there was some driver update about a month ago and I've noticed a 20ish? fps leap since then.
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On November 19 2012 11:14 Belial88 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Belial88, it literally doesn't matter. There is no trick to 4+1 phase motherboards. They overclock worse so don't push them too hard and they probably won't blow. I'm surprised you're not railing against Asus because their Sandy Bridge motherboard fucking sucked and failed hard when they did. What do you mean 'they overclock worse'? 4+1 boards aren't universally worse than 8+2 boards, it depends on the quality of the phases. I'm not really railing against anyone, I guess it sounds a little harsh what I said about MSi, perhaps I should be clearer and say avoid MSi at the budget level and only with high TDP processors (maybe just amd phenoms x4 and x6 really). I moreso meant to focus on VRM quality than brands, ie avoid 3+1 power phases at all possible costs, avoid nikos mosfets. From what I understand, boards don't really limit overclock much more than maybe 20-50mhz at most. The VRM needs to run cool/tolerate high heat (ie its okay if you reach 125*C if the phases are strong enough, but if they aren't high quality then they need to run cool, ie low rds or more channels), and the power needs to be consistent (which pretty much will be true if the VRMs are cool enough, as power inconsistencies only tend to happen at high temps). There's plenty of 4+1 boards that overclock fine, because their VRMs are high quality. Generally, 4+1 is not as good as 8+2, but not always. (remember that Biostar motherboard you bought? how are the drivers?). Drivers are perfectly fine, i was just a little surprised at what was going on there. If you're going to SLI, you are probably going to want shit like NF200 chips and whatnot and that stuff costs money. SLI starts to cost some money, not going to disagree with that. But even with SLI, that still doesnt really narrow down your selection of motherboards. There are tons of motherboards and brands for every price point and every feature (overclockability, sli, form factor), VRM is the biggest factor in narrowing down which board to get at a price point. But we already recommend the bare minimum for most people. So what's your point? That people in this thread overbuy? Because that definitely doesn't happen unless you want everyone to adopt Pentiums and join you in your glorious low resolution, bare minimum budget gaming because expensive stuff is for suckers who don't know anything.
No I wasn't really making a statement on what people buy when it comes to motherboards. I'm just saying how to choose a motherboard. As for budget builds, please. 95% of the people here are playing video games, they aren't folding@home, SETI, CAD, etc. People are often buying i7s and the like that is more suited for servers than for video games. On top of that, this is a starcraft 2 forum, where many of the people building PCs are playing solely SC2, not top of the line games. Starcraft 2 was already outdated hardware-wise by years when it was released, which has been years ago now. Furthermore, many people who play sc2 here, play on low settings, for more performance. There's no reason to spend more than $600 (i'd say 200-300, but some people might want a sdd, nicer case, etc) on a PC just to play video games, much less starcraft 2. You want to do folding or benching, go ahead and buy that i5, 500+ PSU, 8+ GB of RAM. Otherwise, it's a joke that people are buying 16GB of RAM, 500W PSUs, SLI, anything other than the cheapest RAM, i5's, just to play starcraft 2. It's fine if you want to play at 1200 and high graphics or want to stream, and some people here are specifically asking for that, and that's fine. But you still dont NEED an i5 to do that. I'd only say i5 is you dont have a budget, experienced in overclocking, streaming on high resolution, are playing modern games, not just sc2, and want the absolute best in graphics. Otherwise a pentium/athlon/phenom/i3 (hell phenoms are a great, low cost chip that would be better than a g2120 if you plan to stream on a budget build) build is more than enough power. Okay thanks for answering the question, I don't know much about computer components unfortunately even though I have been trying to learn. This computer is approaching 5-6 years old and the only thing that has gone wrong with it is the graphics card randomly dying the other summer. Do you think it would be in my best interest to invest in building a computer? If your just playing starcraft 2 and your getting 80fps I don't see any problem that needs to be fixed here. Core2Quad is quite old, but is actually a pretty good chip. It's still competitive with today's chips at the budget level. If you want to build a computer better than what you have now, your going to have to pay a pretty penny, as your PC really isn't too bad. Someone paid way too much for a PC 5-6 years ago. The one advantage is you can last a year or two more with it. I'd say you should just upgrade when your PC stops working well for what you want to do. It is clearly fine with sc2 and is going to be fine with sc2 for a long time, and your PC will be okay with modern games too. If you one day decide to start streaming or want to pay a huge premium for a slightly improved graphics settings or in a couple years when games require more hardware, that's when you should upgrade. My comments earlier about building a better computer moreso meant you could build an equivalent/slightly better computer for under $300. My point was not to say your computer was terrible, it was to say that upgrading parts to your computer is kind of goofy (upgrading the GPU is fine, since it can be a huge performance boost and is easily swappable).
I thought the discussion was about new purchases, and mostly for gaming builds.
High TDP processors don't exist for this market. Let's be real: how many builds require more cores and can't afford an i5 or better?
As for the other concerns, most people would rather spend the budget they envision than penny pinch on the low end. i5s are better (even in SC2 due to Turbo Boost and more L3 cache), and the time it takes to replace motherboards (OS reinstall, programs reinstall) often more valuable than money, video cards a lot more easy to replace, so lots of builds here that aren't starved for cash get i5s. Whenever the budget is obscene, like above $1200 for a gaming build, we tell them that... We're the ones telling everybody that future proofing is impossible.
I think you're really overestimating the utility of in-socket CPU upgrades. Unless somebody's usage pattern changes, they're not going to need more cores for what they're doing. Getting more cores and slightly higher clock speeds or cache is pretty much all you get within the same socket.
On November 19 2012 11:43 Nightops wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Yes, whenever I do plan on replacing this computer I will definitely be building it from scratch. Right now with my monitor I'm using 1920x1200 resolution native and in games, would that have to be changed if I were to stream? Also, I'm looking at buying a new monitor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=24-236-205&SortField=3&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=(keywords)#scrollFullInfo to use dual monitors. That new one would be my main one, so would I have to use a resolution smaller than the native on that (1920x1080) to stream comfortably? I have another question about making computers, when I open this thing up to dust it out everyone once in a while it just looks so messy. Is that because it's a prebuilt? I was wondering if I would be able to put it in a nice new case or something, just for the sake of a nice looking base and it being neat. I am going to do what you said and sell the new gear that I won since there isn't any point in using it. Also, on the topic of overclocking; so there isn't really any way for me to OC the CPU? What about the GPU? I've run into the problem of my PC getting really hot to the touch when I play really intensive games such as bf3 that I have to slide the computer out of my desk (its like an open drawer where you can put printers) so that it can cool off. That's why I was wondering about the liquid cooling which unfortunately I can't utilize. I'm going to try and see if I can run the graphics at a higher level, there was some driver update about a month ago and I've noticed a 20ish? fps leap since then.
Prebuilt systems vary in terms of interior layout, how clean the wiring is. Most cases you can buy these days are larger and have more cable routing holes and other conveniences, sometimes decent dust filtration.
There's no way to overclock the CPU on that motherboard.
If you want better SC2 performance, you need a new motherboard and CPU. If you got a new motherboard, you may as well use the RAM you bought.
If you want better performance in some other games, you'll need something better than your current graphics card. A slight overclock there isn't going to help in a worthwhile way.
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On November 19 2012 11:24 Belial88 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Your GPU is a little bit on the low end. I know this sounds a bit silly to say, but graphics settings are all about the GPU (and most games, especially FPS where each frame is a limited area, as opposed to an entire map drawn out, and calculations in a certain, small area as opposed to a large area, ie sc2 entire map 200 vs 200 as opposed to running and gunning in tiny rooms and corridors). You would see a substantial benefit in graphics settings if you just got a better GPU (something others here can help you with, and many posts have been made about already here). If your minimum or average fps is low on lower graphics settings, that is a CPU problem, but if you can play smoothly on low graphics (but not on high) that's a GPU issue. With a simple GPU upgrade, your pc will last quite a while at medium to high settings on upcoming games. You wont pull off ultra, and if you try to stream you might have to do some tweaking/sacrificing to make it work, but otherwise your PC will be okay for a little while longer before you really need to upgrade or before you can get a significant upgrade at a relatively low price. I payed about 1500 dollars w/ the monitor included tax free right before school started. Okay, yeah I haven't really had any problems, would my computer be able to stream or no?
I was also 14-15 at the time so.. -_- youthful ignorance A 500 pc then and 500 now would just be so much more performance. No matter how high-end a PC you get, the idea of future proofing is just ridiculous. Everything gets outdated in roughly the same time. See Wom, that's why budget > high end imo. Just buy an i3 today and upgrade to an i5 or i7 in a few years. Streaming is 95% on your CPU and upload network connection. I've been able to stream on an athlon ii x3 450 cpu (which has a nearly identical cpu mark score at stock settings, although i overclocked my cpu so your cpu would be a little slower than what i had running) system with 4mb/s up just fine (720p@45fps, although i only played at ~720p resolution so that contributed to why it was so smooth for me). That said, I think you should be able to stream with a few tweaks. But you should test it out yourself, worst that can happen is you just alt-tab for a split second in the middle of the game / paused and turn it off. If you have a really high upload connection, 5mb/s+, you should be able to stream 720p with good fps comfortably, otherwise you might have to sacrifice some settings, but you should stream 480 easily and 720 passably. I mean to be honest, your system is right on the limit of possible to stream 720p comfortably. But, hopefully, with good upload and connection quality, and the right settings, you should have a stream that looks just as good as anyone else's (720p streams tend to look better than 1080, so the upside is you can have a decent looking stream on a low end system). Also, your quad core cpu should actually do well with streaming. Streaming loves extra cores, it's the one application where AMD athlon/phenoms could be preferable to Intel based systems (arguably).
80% of what you say is bullshit. Truthfully you should stop posting in this thread until you read up on current technology.
AMD is plain and simply terrible for desktops and gaming in general. And where the performance is close comparatively Intel wins again because AMD takes twice as much power to get the job done.
On Budget > High End.
![[image loading]](http://media.bestofmicro.com/7/Y/348910/original/image028.png)
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/System-Builder-Marathon-August-2012-GTX-670-Kepler,3280-11.html
NUFF SAID.
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I have another question about making computers, when I open this thing up to dust it out everyone once in a while it just looks so messy. Is that because it's a prebuilt? I was wondering if I would be able to put it in a nice new case or something, just for the sake of a nice looking base and it being neat. I am going to do what you said and sell the new gear that I won since there isn't any point in using it. Also, on the topic of overclocking; so there isn't really any way for me to OC the CPU? What about the GPU? I've run into the problem of my PC getting really hot to the touch when I play really intensive games such as bf3 that I have to slide the computer out of my desk (its like an open drawer where you can put printers) so that it can cool off. That's why I was wondering about the liquid cooling which unfortunately I can't utilize.
Computers get dusty, they just attract it. Your fan settings and case ventilation a bit to do with it too, as well as how dusty the place you are at, is. Just clean it out, not much too it. That stuff does add a ton of heat and just slowly kills computers though.
Getting a new case might help a little bit, but only if you got a bunch of fans. Honestly, a prebuilt PC is set up to run just fine, you dont need to worry about it. You aren't overclocking, it's not a big deal. Just get something like HWMonitor, you can see how your temps are and just google where they are supposed to be, if you are worried. Temps only become an issue once you start increasing voltages when overclocking.
You might be able to overclock, google your pc on it, but i doubt it. OEMs deny that sort of stuff because they dont want people crying about their fried out PCs and getting replacements for it. That's a large part of the price premium on overclock parts, warranties that cover reasonable overvoltages.
Overclocking the GPU can be done through software, and is recommended too (as opposed to cpu/ram/everything but the gpu), actually. ATI and the brand that made your GPU should have software on that actually, or use MSi Afterburner. I'm sure your PC gets warm during gaming, but it should be okay.
I think you're really overestimating the utility of in-socket CPU upgrades. Unless somebody's usage pattern changes, they're not going to need more cores for what they're doing. Getting more cores and slightly higher clock speeds or cache is pretty much all you get within the same socket.
Well, an athlon ii x2 is a reasonable CPU for a budget build, and going up to a 955 or 1090 is a reasonable upgrade. But, the lga 1155 socket is awesome, there's huge leaps from the pentium 6xx to 2120 to i3 to i5, all of which are great CPUs to game on.
But I'm not sure exactly what you are addressing. I'm not exactly saying buy a system with the intention to later upgrade to an i5 or something. I'm saying that an i5 is really the absolute top end of a gaming system, and isn't really necessary unless you want to stream modern games at high-end settings. My argument was mainly that given a certain price point, pick the motherboard with the better VRM quality, and in general, go for intel pentiums or i3's for gaming builds.
80% of what you say is bullshit. Truthfully you should stop posting in this thread until you read up on current technology.
AMD is plain and simply terrible for desktops and gaming in general. And where the performance is close comparatively Intel wins again because AMD takes twice as much power to get the job done.
Chill out buddy, what I say is true because I only speak on what I have experience with.
AMD being 'terrible' is totally subjective. Do I think anyone should ever buy AMD for a system? 99% of the time, no, the only time I've ever recommend AMD is if you plan to stream, and are on a tight, tight budget, and plan to overclock, in which case I'd recommend a phenom deneb and even then, if you said 'no way bro, pentium dualcore is still better for streaming/video encoding", I would not argue against you.
However, an Athlon ii/Phenom ii system can play starcraft 2 just fine. This isn't because AMD chips are awesome, it's because starcraft 2 was made off of hardware from like 5 years ago. It's an old game. It really doesn't require much by today's standards.
Same goes with all games, really. Most games are GPU dependent, not CPU dependent, and an athlon ii/pentium both are going to play video games pretty well. Intel is obviously a better value at every level for games, but that doesnt mean an amd system isn't going to be able to work.
So is Intel better than AMD in every and every price point? I'd say so (except, arguably, for video encoding due to multi-threaded applications). Are they shitty chips? No, I wouldn't say so, just because Intel shits on them, doesn't mean they are 'bad' chips.
Would you call a Mustang, or a Cadillac, a 'shit' car? No, of course not. A mustang is nowhere near as good as a ferrari, or a charger might be a much better value for the same price, but the mustang is still a nice car. The cadillac might be a GM 'piece of shit', and a lexus or BMW might be a much better car, but that cadillac is still a smooth ride.
Tomshardware is a joke. lol.
and your a troll. nowhere did i ever say buy amd instead of intel.
and Ive got hours of vods of streaming ultra graphics 720p@45fps on an athlon ii system, comfortably.
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5930 Posts
Yes as I said, you play at a resolution of 1366x768. Play at 1920x1080, the resolution basically everyone uses these days because any half decent monitor has this resolution, and tell me how well you stream.
What do you mean 'they overclock worse'? 4+1 boards aren't universally worse than 8+2 boards, it depends on the quality of the phases.
They overclock worse. More power phases generally means each phase handles less load, which means less heat, voltage and current rise duration is better, etc. All of this, in turn, results in better overclocking performance (i.e. higher frequencies on lower voltages). That's the problem with most 4+1 motherboards - they overclock like shit compared to slightly more expensive models with more power phases.
They are universally worse assuming both motherboard designs are fine (i.e. not Sandy Bridge Gigabyte). But since no one is going for high overclocks and no one is using insanely high draw processors so any 4+1 motherboard is pretty much fine. There's no need to dig deep into VRM brands and whatever unless the motherboard has the exactly same failure.
If you are going to spend money on a motherboard, you're going to look at stuff that you obviously don't care about like service, BIOS quality (i.e. motherboards from Zotac have broad voltage and frequency adjustments), port selection, and chipsets used. No, I don't think anyone would say that the driver support you got from Biostar is remotely good.
I'm not really railing against anyone, I guess it sounds a little harsh what I said about MSi, perhaps I should be clearer and say avoid MSi at the budget level and only with high TDP processors (maybe just amd phenoms x4 and x6 really). I moreso meant to focus on VRM quality than brands, ie avoid 3+1 power phases at all possible costs, avoid nikos mosfets.
As mentioned by a previous poster, processors with high power draw don't exist anymore. Overclocked Ivy Bridge processors draw the same power as stock Phenom II X6s.
Also I haven't seen a 4+1 motherboard in a long, long time. Its like...you're in a completely different era.
So is Intel better than AMD in every and every price point? I'd say so (except, arguably, for video encoding due to multi-threaded applications). Are they shitty chips? No, I wouldn't say so, just because Intel shits on them, doesn't mean they are 'bad' chips.
AMD chips are comparatively shit. Something no one takes into account is the chipset. Modern Intel chipsets have always been better in every way. AMD's SATA and USB implementations have always been awful and most AMD BIOS features have always performed worse than Intel equivalents.
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They overclock worse. More power phases generally means each phase handles less load, which means less heat, voltage and current rise duration is better, etc. All of this, in turn, results in better overclocking performance (i.e. higher frequencies on lower voltages). That's the problem with most 4+1 motherboards - they overclock like shit compared to slightly more expensive models with more power phases.
They are universally worse assuming both motherboard designs are fine (i.e. not Sandy Bridge Gigabyte). But since no one is going for high overclocks and no one is using insanely high draw processors so any 4+1 motherboard is pretty much fine. There's no need to dig deep into VRM brands and whatever unless the motherboard has the exactly same failure.
If you are going to spend money on a motherboard, you're going to look at stuff that you obviously don't care about like service, BIOS quality (i.e. motherboards from Zotac have broad voltage and frequency adjustments), port selection, and chipsets used. No, I don't think anyone would say that the driver support you got from Biostar is remotely good.
Oh, i see what you mean. At the extreme ends, 4+1 doesnt overclock as well.
I wasn't suggesting to spend more on a motherboard, I was simply saying of the 20 motherboards available at a certain price point with the correct holes, pick the one with the best VRM. I mean, maybe spend a bit more, if just to avoid 3+1 nikos, or rather, dont buy the cheapest motherboard you can if the VRM is obviously absolute shit.
Also I haven't seen a 4+1 motherboard in a long, long time. Its like...you're in a completely different era.
Different price point. Plenty of lga1155 boards with 4+1, no low rds on, 4 pin cpu connector.
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Looking to splurge and make myself a new PC, anyone know what (if any) online stores are doing Black Friday deals?
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5930 Posts
I typed that incorrectly. What I meant is that I haven't seen a single 3+1 motherboard at all. Even the vast majority of H77 motherboards from half decent companies have 4+1 power phases and they can't overclock at all.
I wasn't suggesting to spend more on a motherboard, I was simply saying of the 20 motherboards available at a certain price point with the correct holes, pick the one with the best VRM. I mean, maybe spend a bit more, if just to avoid 3+1 nikos, or rather, dont buy the cheapest motherboard you can if the VRM is obviously absolute shit.
Yes, go through lists and lists of rather inconsequential information and try to parse difficult to understand information. Again: power phases are only a problem with AMD systems. Again, a stock Phenom II X6 draws the same amount of power as an overclocked Ivy Bridge processor during load.
Oh, i see what you mean. At the extreme ends, 4+1 doesnt overclock as well.
Even then that's not really true. Even at the low ends, it overclocks worse for the exact same reasons. Needs more voltage to get same clocks and all that. That's why the lowest end MSI boards are kind of shitty but they still work perfectly fine unless you get unlucky and the board blows.
Anyway, what Skyr said is still true. Any moderate overclock on the Ivy Bridge platform (we're talking 4.5ghz max) is not going to need a robust VRM setup. You can get to 4.5ghz, or extremely close, off stock volts so if a motherboard with 4+1 power phases can't handle that, then I don't know what to say. If ask "why not overclock more", Intel systems typically hit a brick wall once you need to start ramping up the voltage significantly so its not worth the effort.
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Yes, go through lists and lists of rather inconsequential information and try to parse difficult to understand information. Again: power phases are only a problem with AMD systems. Again, a stock Phenom II X6 draws the same amount of power as an overclocked Ivy Bridge processor during load.
You have to do that with most equipment. RAM, different models of the same GPU, HDD, lots of PC components that have 50 other ones selling at the same price and you have to choose which one is the best buy. If your going to pick a $100 motherboard with SLI and 6 USB slots and whatever else features that you need, atx, lga 1155, etc, pick the one with the better VRM.
I'm not disagreeing with what you are saying. But the VRM IS the motherboard. I'm not saying you need to pay more for a motherboard, I'm saying that there's going to be a dozen motherboards at $75.28 with your form factor/pci-x slots/socket and pick the one with the better vrm. And you probably shouldnt buy the cheapest motherboard, ie micro-atx 4+1 nikos.
Even then that's not really true. Even at the low ends, it overclocks worse for the exact same reasons. Needs more voltage to get same clocks and all that. That's why the lowest end MSI boards are kind of shitty but they still work perfectly fine unless you get unlucky and the board blows.
that's the VRM quality. Lower quality VRM means inconsistent power supply, more ripple, less than specified voltage reaching the chip. And it's not necessarily the chip requires more vcore, it's that the voltage isn't reaching the chip when it would on another motherboard (semantics). Heat also causes degradation of performance.
Getting a higher quality VRM not only makes sure no blow-out occurs (granted, rare on intel and modern systems), it helps with overclocking. A moderate overclock might not need it, but a high end overclock will.
For all i care, buy the cheapest motherboard. Just of the many motherboards at the cheapest price, pick the best VRM. I'm not saying anything controversial here, and I'm not trying to be alarmist in any way. But a motherboard is not the colors it's painted, the pci-x slots it has, how many ram slots it has. It's the VRM, and to a lesser extent the chipset.
If someone wants to be an uneducated buyer that's perfectly fine. Have fun blowing a ton of unnecessary money, or getting a sub-optimal motherboard for your price point. I'm just trying to educate.
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Are we talking about buying parts now or not?
Low-end VRMs can handle low-TDP processors on stock settings fine. Lower ripple and higher levels of control would be nice, but it seems pretty unimportant on a motherboard that doesn't let you overclock (B75, H77). On stock settings, there's just so much margin in terms of power delivery. If there were Z75 and Z77 motherboards that couldn't handle ~4.5 GHz overclocks or at least get a couple Megahertz (which is honestly not a big deal) from the wall, then you would have a bigger point. But they can, even the lower-end models, even with those 4+1 phase old-school D-PAK MOSFETs and junky chokes, because those high clock speeds can be achieved on reasonably low voltage and power draw on modern silicon. That said, all else equal including cost, nobody's suggesting that they wouldn't want the better VRMs.
Slots, ports, features, support are a bigger deal, in the context of what most people need and want—i.e. no tweaking for the sake of tweaking, obsessing over one hundred Megahertz or even less.
It's not good education if you give a false impression that something is more important than it actually is.
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EPT
