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On February 28 2013 16:37 azngamer828 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On February 28 2013 14:30 Myrmidon wrote:
Storm Enforcer has same interior layout as HAF 912. It's just about aesthetics and what they include, like fans. Either should be okay.
i5-3570k and Hyper 212 EVO are fine. I wouldn't worry about small differences in RAM. As long as they're bundling DDR3, which they are, it's not a big deal. GTX 660 is fine, though which graphics card with that chip are you getting?
CX600 is pretty useless. Quality is okay but not great. You probably wouldn't want to run two graphics cards on that, so there's not really any good motivation to get that over CX500 or CX430. Might as well spent similar money and get something much higher quality, that also has overkill wattage for the system, like a Rosewill Capstone 450W.
If you're not scared off by the price and value having more SSD space than whatever else (better GPU, less money into the build), 250GB sounds fine to be. You don't need any other storage than this?
Do you need MS Office for working with others, compatibility? There are free alternatives that are mostly worse but serviceable for many people, but compatibility with Office is the real killer. first of all thank you for replying back on this. i really appreciate it ^^ 1) ill still be deciding between the two cases 2) i wont be using two graphics card, just one gtx 660 i do not understand when you asked which graphics card with what chip i was getting. can you explain more on that please? 3)i will be looking at other power supplies and post an update on this thread 4) when you stated, "having more ssd space than whatever else" are you saying to get a an ssd card with more gb? for other storage, i was thinking about using the hard drive i have on my computer. I still have alot of space because i do not really use much space 5) I do not understand what you mean by compatibility? I only meant that i would need microsoft office for my computer and what other programs i would need haha i guess thats just something i would personally need to find haha the numbers are based on the replies on each paragraph to make it easier on you :D
There's lots of GTX 660s to pick from, ASUS Direct Cu II, MSI Twin Frozr III, EVGA, and so on... which one are you getting?
He's saying that you could get a smaller SSD and save the money or put it towards a better GPU. If you don't use that much space than what's the point of getting a 250gb SSD anyways?
There's free word processing, spreadsheet, and other office apps like Open Office and Google Docs so there's no point in wasting $140 for Microsoft Office.
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
On February 28 2013 10:49 Gumbi wrote:
I can almost make 4.4ghz on stock voltage, it's just slightly unstable. I must have a good chip. I have 4.2ghz on stock voltage no problem, haven't bothered overclocking more as my performance is fine right now. I can probably get 4.5-4.6 easily.
Stock voltage on a 3570k is often something like 1.2v and slight instability doesnt really exist =P
Its either stable or its not
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Are you referring to the fact that the voltage is automatically set?
Yeah, you're right about the stability thing:D
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
Stock voltage is not the same for all CPU's and motherboards, it varies quite a bit but it's common for it to be as much as 1.15-1.2v.. I can do 4.6ghz on that, you cant really compare it to using a set manual voltage and starting low for 4-4.2ghz, you are basically undervolting pretty hard at that point while getting a significant overclock, just because stock voltage is usually way overkill, actually more than you'd want once you start ramping up frequency (temps up), maybe add some LLC so it's closer to what its set as under load etc
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
Personally id go with a hd7970/gtx680 if you have the extra budget - its a choice, but if you want to throw 2k at it, that's one upgrade path - its not a big price gap. If you really wanted to go all out, you could get a Titan for $1k - its bad for price/performance, but it is, by far, the strongest performing single-GPU, beating the 7970/680 by 40-50% IIRC and avoiding all of the issues with microstuttering, performance, drivers etc that come with multi-GPU systems. Its pretty crazy though - the 7970/680 is the "best" GPU in both lineups - the titan is just for crazy people with lots of money who want the best single-GPU while throwing price/performance ratios out of the window - it costs something like 2.5-3x as much for 1.5x the performance.
A more sane upgrade path would be 3570 (K) and a good heatsink, good case, some case fans - you can take the CPU to 4.2ghz no problem without any of this, 4.5ghz pretty easily with it and if you are lucky, 4.8-4.9. Once you have a case with a couple fans and clearance for an NH-D14, its pretty much just luxury stuff though.
Its hard to add performance once you come towards the best single-GPU's and you have i5, 8gb RAM, ssd, hence the $1k build above.
Overclocked 3570k, ssd, 8gb RAM and strongest single-GPU you can afford is the king of gaming builds
i7 adds hyperthreading - more expensive CPU's add cores but sacrifice a little bit of performance in each core for it if you are overclocking - In the end this means that unless a task can utilize more than 4 cores well (very few games fall into this category - sc2 puts something like 80% of its work on a single core), nothing on the planet beats the 3570k unless you beat its overclock.
Going from stock 3.4ghz to 4.5 would show as ~30% more performance in many CPU bound cases, some more extreme people take them to 5-5.2ghz 24/7, if or however much you overclock, its pretty much just more performance in one area that nobody can ever match, no matter how much cash they throw at the problem unless they also overclock, its pretty sweet. Buying a 3960x with 6-cores does not make any of your cores run faster, so it wont help you run sc2 better - whereas a 30% overclock on a 3570k could increase your minimum framerate by 30%.
Many games are CPU bottlenecked, in which case its all about the 3570k, how much you overclock, etc. The ones that are GPU bottlenecked, its just a hierarchy of GPU's, 660ti, 670/hd7950, 680/hd7970, GTX Titan. The better you have the more performance you have.
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I am going to have to disagree with some of the points made in the post above (but he is BLUE!)
1- If you are serious about streaming, then the suggested 3570k + cpu cooler is good as I had mentioned.
(But Im going to be a party pooper and remind you that not alot of people if any are going to watch you stream unless you are entertaining + good and you have to realise that in Canada, there are even more costs associated to streaming due to our ISPs charging for Data.)
2- At your resolution, I dont think there is a point going for a gtx 680 (which start @ around $450 after MIR), a 7970 might be beneficial (which start @ around $350 after MIR).
680 vs 7950 (check your resolutions + intrested games) http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/555?vs=550
3- Personally, I would spend money on a good monitor(s) and chair before getting a GTX Titan.
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
I figured it was kinda odd to allocate $2k budget to a system without a 1920x1080 monitor, but all true
edit: He said 1920x1200 - its pretty binary these days, either you are CPU bound and you get more performance from overclocking CPU or you are GPU bound and you get more performance from having a stronger GPU - what is "neccesary" for maxing 1920x1080 or 1920x1080 is a matter of opinion, the 7950 is a great choice, but in GPU bound cases the 7970/680/titan will simply give you more FPS and tighter, more consistent frametimes - its not a case of zero benefit for upgrading, like if you were to compare a 3570k to a 3960x in single threaded performance.
A 7950 might be "enough" in one persons eyes, but my point is its well worth considering going further if you have such a solid system at half of the original budget, you will hit bottlenecks, it's just a question of how much you would notice having the lower/higher framerates or not and how much value you assign to that additional performance.
Titan is of course completely overkill and a joke for a standard user, but where's the fun in ignoring it (: Some people just want to watch the FPS meter burn
At this budget, i would hint towards either a 2560x1440 60hz screen or a 1920x1080 120hz model, too, again IF you want to spend more than $1k. That's another step which makes additional performance more noticeable
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A 7950 is definitely enough for 1200p, and serviceable but not incredible at 1440/1600p. OP, If you're looking to shell out $5-700 on a monitor with the rest of your budget, definitely go 7970 or GTX 680 and take advantage of your budget.
CPU performance is enough of an issue these days (and, if you're on this site there's a good chance you play Starcraft II, which is reason enough to get 3570k) that going a little further on 3570k+Heatsink is worth the price -- you can increase framerates by 50% or more lategame by spending the extra in the "sweet spot" for extra frames. Going from 25 to 40fps is a big deal.
EDIT: Also there's no case up there. Did OP say somewhere that he already has one? Zalman Z9 @ NCIX is a good deal.
http://www.ncix.ca/products/?sku=57910&vpn=Z9 Plus&manufacture=ZALMAN TECH&promoid=1324#Specifications
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
Well again "enough" is a very personal thing. You cant really define it very easily, you could say above 60fps at all times in every game that wont drop below that for CPU or other reasons, but then again, 60fps is not equal to 16.67ms frametimes, you often need 100+fps to keep frametimes below that threshold.. and even then, it depends how you look at it.. do you want 95% of frames below 16.67ms or 99%? etcetc.
While nvidia cards are more expensive than radeon at the high end right now, they also have much more consistent frametimes, even with the newer v12.whatever drivers.. that's something that will be noticable to someone sensitive to performance in many games, and obvious to anyone in a few select bad ones - FPS is not the only benchmark metric
1920x1080 120hz starts a lot cheaper than 1440p i think as well
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Both Rogers and Bell offers unlimited now... if you didn't know.
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Not sure if you are referring to something other than the $30 more per month for unlimited but that comes to 350 per year. Not a life changing amount but definetly something to consider as part of streaming cost.
I had included a case in the cart/ total amt but must have forgotten to post it
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alright I played around with the bios for a bit, and set the offset value to negative (-.020) and the temps dropped to 40-50C and the voltage was at 1.128 on 4.2ghz. however, the computer felt choppier for some reason >_>
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On March 01 2013 05:30 xeo1 wrote:
alright I played around with the bios for a bit, and set the offset value to negative (-.020) and the temps dropped to 40-50C and the voltage was at 1.128 on 4.2ghz. however, the computer felt choppier for some reason >_>
Maybe check your ram timings, they are often set to auto by default.
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
If your CPU is stable then lowering voltage wont make things randomly get choppier, unless you are unstable with the new voltage
are you crashing yet? Because if you are not crashing all the time in testing until you fine tune voltage (slowly going up), you are not going low enough (:
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I could also use some help overclocking. I have problems being confident about stability as I'm usually getting a BSOD days after the first round of testing. Could I force the issue somehow? Putting a blanket over the PC case or something, and testing like that?
About that voltage reading (I have the same asrock pro4-m as xeo1), the motherboard reports that wrong (probably). I actually checked it out with a multimeter after I've seen people complaining about other asrock motherboards (extreme4) and making photos explaining where to measure on the backside of the board. While cpu-z was showing at most 1.186, the multimeter reading was 1.208. The multimeter reading stayed stable in the middle of one step of IntelBurnTest, while the cpu-z number was jumping around a lot (1.180, 1.172, 1.186, etc.).
Interestingly, HWMonitor pretty much came up with about the same reading as the multimeter in its "max" column after running tests for a while.
The board has no fixed vcore stuff, and has offset and turbo voltage. I've written this down:
multiplier 43, offset voltage +0.005, turbo voltage +0.004
multiplier 44, offset voltage +0.005, turbo voltage +0.012 ---> vcore 1.176 (cpu-z shows 1.160)
multiplier 45, offset voltage +0.005, turbo voltage +0.043 ---> vcore 1.208
I'm not sure those settings are stable. Everything went through eternities of prime95 and intelburntest, but I still got random blue screens or calculations errors when starting intelburntest or prime95 on a whim while leaving the PC alone for a while. I don't know how to proceed from here. Best idea I had was taking those settings and using them for a lower multiplier (43 settings for 42 multiplier, etc.) and basically giving up.
4.6 GHz wasn't possible for me. I went up to +0.090 for that turbo voltage setting to get it stable, but the CPU started throttling. This was while it was reporting 90 C core temperature, which I thought should still be working. Would something like this be a case of cheap motherboard? Perhaps the vcore voltage is spiking for a split second and that's when the CPU decides to throttle?
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
Dunno why either of you bought that motherboard with an unlocked CPU o.0
You can test how far temperatures in your case are rising - if you have case fans etc they shouldnt go up very much compared to outside air, as temperature difference inside vs out increases, heat transfer will speed up so it will level off pretty quickly.
If you are reaching 90c core temps pretty easily (and not just spiking 1-2 cores past the 80's occasionally) then you probably need better cooling or a lower overclock. I pretty consistently saw instability around 93-94c, even if a core spiked to that for a few seconds, so even reaching the 90's is worrying unless its a really hard stress test, many hours of testing under worst conditions, windows closed getting ambient temps up, etcetc - if you are reaching the 90's, 5c more will ruin your day. I lost p95 stability 21 hours into testing because somebody moved PC and closed the door to the small room it was in - ambients went up something like 10-15c in however many hours it was like that and system crashed on a spike into the 90's, even though it was on its third loop of fft lenghs and through other testing (50 runs very high IBT and a lot more) completely stable
You should do IBT, use >90% of your available RAM for something like 20-50 runs - if you are prime95 testing after do custom blend, >90% of available RAM, high priority in task manager (i think there's a 1-10 priority thing or something inside p95? I didnt check it, but i meant to before. I keep hearing to use priority 10)
If you are stable through 24 hours of that, its pretty much certainly just temp related crashes. If you are reaching them in the first place, you either have some issue with heat building up over an extended period of time, or you are just OC-ing like 5-10c+ too hot.
I actually heard about a couple of asrock boards using wrong (too high) voltages today too. CPU shouldnt throttle with vcore, people overclock with ivy's using 1.3vcore+ all the time. Delidded, as much as 1.5v for 24/7 overclocks, though thats a little insane - but i have no idea how that board or offset voltage would behave. I'd really suggest if possible for both of you to return it and get something decent.. My p8z77-v does the job fine, but you could probably get something cheaper and just as solid. 4.4ghz 1.13v in bios reads as solid 1.128 in CPU-Z with 75% llc completely stable with temps around 85c max using something hardly better than the stock cooler, seriously just a little 120mm fan radial cooler that came free with the CPU, not even a tower heatsink in a system with a tiny case and literally no case fans, just the side clicked off + Show Spoiler +After finishing IBT, a minute or so after starting P95 load ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/xVOp03a.png)
Its also possible that you have a problem with stability and voltages ONLY when applying/dropping load (is transient the right word? sure i heard that before) which is inherently a pretty big problem with offset voltage that im not sure how to work around
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I bought it cos someone credible recommended it here :D and it was really cheap. $60 I think.
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
Maybe a good really really cheap board, but not good for overclocking
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Yes, I bought it because it was the cheapest.  I didn't actually plan to overclock over 4.2, just got addicted to trying to find the lowest possible settings for each multiplier, etc. I'm actually pretty content for the price. I did choose from the cheapest options for pretty much every part I bought. 4.4 GHz can stay below 80 C. http://i.imgur.com/ytmbcNL.png
What you said about the CPU switching between load and no load and missing voltage resulting in a blue screen sounds like it makes sense.
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EPT
