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yea if you dont overclock there's no reason to get z77, just get the cheapest board really. i dont understand why anyone would buy a non-k edition chip though, the value from just setting 4.5ghz on a $20 cooler is pretty big, if you dont want to get too involved just turn 4.5@1.3.
If you are overclocking then there are basically three tiers of motherboards to look at:
-Cheapo Z77 board. Something like an MSI z77-g41, which can only do a basic overclock (its ability to increase voltage is severely limited), but it can do a light, low-end overclock & is cheap ($90-100).
-Not-gimped Z77 board. Something like an Asrock z77 Pro4, which can handle any normal person's overclocking urges, is more than enough oomph for most people. Some of these can handle two or even three video cards, which you don't need to worry about. (~$110-$170, depending on how many video cards you want to stick on it).
-Top-of-the-line Z77 board. Every feature under the sun, designed to be able to overclock using any cooling solution, including liquid nitrogen. If you could make use of the features on one of these you'd already know what motherboard to buy. ($250 & up).
I'd put the pro4 on the same level as the g41, low end boards that it's hard to do a simple, low 4.5ghz overclock on and lacks a lot of features. I'd say those are both budget boards, then you got midrange which is basically extreme4, asus p8z77-v Lk/le, d3h series (z77-d3h, z77x-d3h, z77x-ud3h), biostar tz77xe4, msi g45 (although i woudnt count that). Boards like the extreme6 and ud5h kinda fit into upper scale of these full feature boards, that generally always have sli (le doesnt) and a decent vrm and no locked options or features (msi lacks offset voltage so useless for 24/7 overclock).
Then you got high end boards where you can do tri or quad sli/crossfire, mainly. Basically boards with a PLX pci chip, as intel natively cannot do tri or quad SLI. Has to do with pci-e bandwidth, basically. SLI/Crossifre is the other big thing people pick motherboards on. There also much higher quality VRMs, but that gets into overkill because the ud3h you can do ln2 benching on just as easily, better onboard sound, better usb and sata management, slightly better everything but nothing too important. Often you'll find overclock conveniences like an onboard cmos, power, reset switches (so when doing lots of benching outside of a computer case, on a test bench, or if you pull open your side panel because so many of the overclocks are unstable and you have to do cmos resets so often), dual bios, backup bios, all little things that make it more convenient for overclocking (or really benching more so than overclocking). It's just like a car, a $100,000 car won't have bad tires, everything sort of gets bumped up. ie a mustang has slightly better engine, seats, leather, interior, a/c, sound system, than a civic.
Edit: Regarding Belial's post above. The motherboard does a lot of distributing power to various components (CPU) & moderating that power to the right amounts, etc. This produces heat. VRMs are short for what on the motherboard is there to serve as a heatsink for itself. It's really not that big of a deal for Intel chips since they don't demand that much voltage & thus the motherboards don't generally run hot. Much bigger deal for AMD processors. So since you're smart & buying Intel, you can pretty much ignore those. Long story short, the cheapo z77s will have crappy VRMs but it won't matter since you can't OC all that much on them, the not-gimped z77 boards will generally have decent ones but don't try to burn your chip to get a few more ghz. And if you're not overclocking it really doesn't matter..
I don't really agree with this. I don't know that much about what exactly is going on in there, but your VRM gets hot based on the voltage that flows through it, not the power requirement of the chip (in my experience, but given my understanding of how the VRM works, it makes logical sense that it's not about power requested but voltage supplied as that's what the VRM does). So 1.4v is the same on the VRM regardless if it's AMD or Intel. Just seems to be my experience that doesn't matter how cool or low power the chip is, high voltage gets hot.
And Ivy bridge VRM quality is just as important as any other chip. On a low end board like the msi z77a-g41, you'll approach 80-90* even on as low as 1.25v, which is almost stock voltage, meaning just running near-stock voltage you can cause permanent, long term damage to the board as you brown the PCB. Not to mention you'll get coil whine around 90*+, which is obnoxious and definitely means the coil is significantly degrading in performance. If you want to do any reasonable overclock, ie above 4.6ghz, 4.7ghz, you are going to need a higher quality board, and just a very basic, very low overclock on the g41 borders on dangerous. Many people report that even the Asrock Extreme4 will limit a basic overclock (and there are many other reasons to avoid that board).
It's just like a power supply. You can go cheap on a power supply, like the cx430 will probably work fine, but as you get cheaper and cheaper you get near a line where going past it, and you'll have serious problems, the psu will blow out easily, it won't power your stuff right, you'll have instability as the system can't provide power quickly enough, etc. So you spend a bit more on a PSU, but you don't need to buy the best psu in the world. But I'd say motherboard is a bigger factor than psu in overclocking, system, etc (both are important and a low quality of either can short out the system, literally the VRM is a mini-psu on the motherboard, and that's basically what you are evaluating when choosing a motheboard).
You aren't going to see a board with high quality VRMs with a terrible sound chip or bad build quality, most boards have all that other stuff covered in general, so really when picking a motherboard VRM should be everything to you. Then, if you need more sata ports, more gpu slots, etc, you can buy a higher model.
SI bought an MSI Z77A-G41, but that was because it was specifically for someone who doesn't overclock and doesn't know anything about this stuff, an older client, so I did a 4.4ghz overclock just for value, threw on an nzxt havik for $30, and the case used came with thermal diodes that I placed onto the VRM. Even on stock voltage the VRM approached extremely high temperatures, and I had to drop the overclock to 4.4ghz from 4.6, plus I couldn't even do 4.5ghz because it wouldnt let me raise my voltage enough (wouldnt go past 1.33). The board lacked LLC and had a low quality VRM, so the voltage required for the same overclock took at least .07v more with the same chip. Then, there was very little ram control so I couldn't overclock the RAM or change the RAM timings past the main ones, there was no phase controls, and the board felt flimsy and low qualty. So the msi z77a-g41 is like buying some OEM psu, it's pretty bad and it'll nearly blow out on low loads.
Likely any board with 4+1 that is heatsinked, should be okay for lower overclocks, but not all 4+1 can do the higher overclocks.
and yea if you aren't overclocking, doesn't matter since you won't be increasing voltage. just get the cheapest of anything.
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On March 22 2013 17:57 waffling1 wrote:
are the i7-3770k and the i5-3570k pretty much the cores to consider in that tier range? the other i7 and i5s are inferior in performance/price? If so, you can assume these two cores when talking about motherboards.
You can only overclock those two CPUs you mentioned. The other i5 and i7 on socket 1155 are locked and cannot be set higher than what their max Turbo speed is. You can for example run a locked i5 that's sold as 3.4 GHz with 3.8 GHz at most.
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Hello
I am thinking about getting a laptop that I can carry around when I travel. But I want it to be able to play sc2-HotS on low settings and be able to watch streams at 720p.
How much approximately would I have to pay to get such a laptop? I do not care about looks.
What CPU and GPU would be good enough for low settings for HotS? (Low settings without lag)
I was thinking 15". But any options that are reasonable just throw them at me.
NB: I'm on a budget. Not specifically. But the lower the better.
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I'll consider liquid cooling if it helps significantly when overclocking. Maybe I can buy pieces that will accommodate it at a later time and swap out cooling systems. (is scraping and reapplying thermal paste bad?
Liquid cooling is kind of a waste unless you are willing to do extreme voltages, like 1.55v+ (or if you are buying it for illogical reasons like aesthetics). Otherwise air cooling will be fine. It also depends on your chip. Bear in mind that over 50% of ivy bridges are just terrible overclockers, like you won't be able to do more than 4.6ghz on less than 1.4v. I think it's something like less than 10% can do 5ghz on less than 1.5v.
My point is that it's a huge waste of money to get liquid cooling if your chip turns out to be a total dud and can't do more than 4.5ghz on reasonable voltage, on the flip side if you get one of the new ivies that is capable of 5.2ghz on near-stock voltage, then it'd be a crime not to have custom water cooling. It's hard to tell how good your chip is without using an aftermarket cooler (boot at 1.3v, use software to overclock, if you can get up to or past 5ghz then it's a good chip, if it freezes at around 4.7 its bad... not sure if you can do this on stock cooler, you might be able to, just make sure not to use any programs as you dont want to put any load on the chip during this type of test if you dont have aftermarket cooler).
Heat is definitely the problem with ivy, not voltage, as technically ivy can take voltages up to at least 1.6v, if not higher, for 24/7 overclocks - but the issue is that you need some very, very heavy duty cooling to get past 1.35v. There is plenty of mods you can do to actually 'solve' this problem (you can google delidding), but i wouldn't get water cooling unless you knew for certain you had a good chip, were buying multiple ivies so you could use the best of X, and were comfortable pushing extremes.
Right now I'd strongly recommend the Zalman LQ320 at newegg for $39 AR. It's a high end heatsink that outperforms even the h100, it's probably the best heatsink deal of the year.
It's very easy to replace thermal paste, you just wipe it off with a towel, maybe use some isopropyl alcohol to wipe it off. Always better to buy liquid cooling later if you realize your chip needs it.
are the i7-3770k and the i5-3570k pretty much the cores to consider in that tier range? the other i7 and i5s are inferior in performance/price? If so, you can assume these two cores when talking about motherboards.
i5-3570k and i7-3770k are the only 2 chips you can overclock, and overclocking is such a huge value to price that those are really the only 2 chips people talk about. The i5-3570K is all you need for gaming, it's basically the #1 top king cpu for gaming - there are higher end chips, like the i7-3770k or the sandy bridge extremes, but the extra features they have ('false' extra cores via hyperthreading, larger memory cache on-die, 2 more real cores) are not utilized by games at all, they are only utilized by very specialist programs and even those programs don't necessarily really appreciate such the features (ie high price for little more performance, basically).
The i7-3770k does beat the i5-3570k in gaming, but it's because it has a slightly larger cache - as in an extra 100mhz overclock on the i5-3570k would make it perform the same, if there was even a difference to begin with. For maybe $40 more, it'd be okay to buy, but given that it usually costs $100+, it's completely not worth it.you say you do some heavy work like 3d modeling but if your old chip was pretty good, the i5-3570k will blow it away, then i wouldnt really recommend the i7. The i5 is extremely powerful at multi-threaded, specialist applications, you really have to maxing out said programs to justify the i7 over the i5.
The i5-2500k/i7-2600k are good chips, sure. ivy bridge 3xxx are basically only 7% better, so if you can find them significantly cheaper, you can get those instead. Generally speaking, most places don't really carry the sandy bridge cpu's for a price low enough that justifies getting it over ivy bridge, even with ivy bridge being a very little improvement over sandy (well the real improvements in ivy bridge are in overclocking, but that requires high end ram and delidding your chip).
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+ Show Spoiler [VRM power/temp, not too important] +On March 22 2013 18:13 Belial88 wrote:
I don't really agree with this. I don't know that much about what exactly is going on in there, but your VRM gets hot based on the voltage that flows through it, not the power requirement of the chip (in my experience, but given my understanding of how the VRM works, it makes logical sense that it's not about power requested but voltage supplied as that's what the VRM does). So 1.4v is the same on the VRM regardless if it's AMD or Intel. Just seems to be my experience that doesn't matter how cool or low power the chip is, high voltage gets hot. MOSFET conduction losses while switched on are I^2 * R_DS(on), where I is the current (to the processor, which is going through the MOSFET) and R_DS(on) is the effective resistance between drain and source terminals when switched on. For most of a cycle for a VRM phase, the low-side MOSFET is conducting. More power draw means higher load current I, so more power losses for a given MOSFET. High-side MOSFET also sees conduction loss of I^2 * R_DS(on), but switching loss is I think more relevant for that because it's not on very much when converting 12V to something low like 1.25V. Switching losses are proportional to I, also increase with higher load. If you're willing to accept even more hand-waving, people talk about the efficiency of the conversion process (which in reality doesn't scale linearly with load power consumption). Use more power, and if the efficiency didn't change by a lot, then that means more losses in the power conversion. e.g. 90% efficiency delivering 60W means 6.67W lost as heat in the VRMs. 90% efficiency delivering 100W means 11.11W lost as heat in the VRMs. Higher voltage means more current, as the processor is consuming more power. Anyway, try setting a higher voltage, keep CPU at idle, check VRM temps. Then set lower voltage, load up CPU, check VRM temps.
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On March 22 2013 18:22 llIH wrote:
Hello
I am thinking about getting a laptop that I can carry around when I travel. But I want it to be able to play sc2-HotS on low settings and be able to watch streams at 720p.
How much approximately would I have to pay to get such a laptop? I do not care about looks.
What CPU and GPU would be good enough for low settings for HotS? (Low settings without lag)
I was thinking 15". But any options that are reasonable just throw them at me.
NB: I'm on a budget. Not specifically. But the lower the better.
Something with an i3-3xxxM would be fine for low settings, no dedicated card would be required. Any modern computer can decode 1080p videos fine.
Like this for example for $450.
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On March 22 2013 20:57 Rollin wrote:Show nested quote +On March 22 2013 18:22 llIH wrote:
Hello
I am thinking about getting a laptop that I can carry around when I travel. But I want it to be able to play sc2-HotS on low settings and be able to watch streams at 720p.
How much approximately would I have to pay to get such a laptop? I do not care about looks.
What CPU and GPU would be good enough for low settings for HotS? (Low settings without lag)
I was thinking 15". But any options that are reasonable just throw them at me.
NB: I'm on a budget. Not specifically. But the lower the better. Something with an i3-3xxxM would be fine for low settings, no dedicated card would be required. Any modern computer can decode 1080p videos fine. Like this for example for $450.
I need it to be playable as well. As in not dropping a lot of frame-rate. Would that I3 with HD Integrated graphics be enough? I am only going to play 1v1 HotS online at Low settings on 1920x1080 resolution
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On March 22 2013 18:31 Belial88 wrote:Show nested quote +I'll consider liquid cooling if it helps significantly when overclocking. Maybe I can buy pieces that will accommodate it at a later time and swap out cooling systems. (is scraping and reapplying thermal paste bad? Liquid cooling is kind of a waste unless you are willing to do extreme voltages, like 1.55v+ (or if you are buying it for illogical reasons like aesthetics). Otherwise air cooling will be fine. It also depends on your chip. Bear in mind that over 50% of ivy bridges are just terrible overclockers, like you won't be able to do more than 4.6ghz on less than 1.4v. I think it's something like less than 10% can do 5ghz on less than 1.5v.
That's very daft of you. One of the main reasons that people go liquid cooling (custom loops) is noise while overclocked. With a half decent setup you can have a silent computer regardless of the load. Also another big sell is that you'll be stable at lower voltage at any given overclock.
CLC is just terrible though.
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United Kingdom20322 Posts
Also another big sell is that you'll be stable at lower voltage at any given overclock. Temps are not significantly better going from high end air to water, unless you're talking about a pretty powerful custom loop. If someone has to ask if reapplying thermal paste is bad, chances are they wont be suited for running a custom loop powerful enough to pull 20c+ ahead of a high end air setup in the next couple years for this to even start to be a factor
llIH, i'd say get lower end dedicated graphics - if it were haswell integrated (which does not release until q3 or q4 mobile i think..? unsure) or a resolution like 1280x720 you might get away with integrated but it's not a very good option unless you are on a really tight budget
A current gen laptop i3 will give you great minimum framerates in sc2 - far better than, for example a desktop core 2 duo or first gen i3, i5, i7 at stock, better than an athlon II / phenom II at stock - so in CPU bound situations (basically - higher supply) your framerates will be good relative to other systems, GPU does not play a big part in this, but you need something adequate for low settings to have a good experience (fps not always floating around 30-40 when it could be 100++ due to not having much supply around etc, or losing FPS in intensive situations due to gpu strengh when it could be avoided easily)
Something like a 540m, 630m would be great i guess - of course, better GPU if you want a better GPU - its important for many games - but its not super important for sc2, especially especially on lower settings.
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On March 23 2013 01:30 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote + Also another big sell is that you'll be stable at lower voltage at any given overclock. Temps are not significantly better going from high end air to water, unless you're talking about a pretty powerful custom loop. If someone has to ask if reapplying thermal paste is bad, chances are they wont be suited for running a custom loop powerful enough to pull 20c+ ahead of a high end air setup in the next couple years for this to even start to be a factor llIH, i'd say get lower end dedicated graphics - if it were haswell integrated (which does not release until q3 or q4 mobile i think..? unsure) or a resolution like 1280x720 you might get away with integrated but it's not a very good option unless you are on a really tight budget
Temps are significantly better (>15c) at a given overclock with an entry level custom loop (240/360rad) compared to high end air. Stop associating CLC with Custom Loops as their performances are sooooooo far apart. CLC uses ethylene glycol which is terrible, while Custom Loops use water which is the best. The performance is in two different leagues.
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United Kingdom20322 Posts
Ok, replace "water" with "liquid" and replace "pretty powerful" with "decent" if you want and thats pretty much exactly what i said.
I am aware of (most of) the differences
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On March 22 2013 17:57 waffling1 wrote:i'll repost my "ticket" since it's a few posts back and people helping are asking about it. Thanks bilial, misterfeed, and everyone before, and future people. I'll consider liquid cooling if it helps significantly when overclocking. Maybe I can buy pieces that will accommodate it at a later time and swap out cooling systems. (is scraping and reapplying thermal paste bad? Show nested quote +Info:- looking to spend around $600 for the additional components i need. - I do want to overclock, but not hard core. - No 2nd GPU necessary. - Building it in the next few weeks - Upgrade cycle - 5 or so years. relatively low. - US California Orange County. I live close to Frys and Microcenter. I like Amazon and Tigerdirect, Not so much Newegg b/c the prices aren't that good on top of having to pay sales tax and usually there is no free shipping - but i'll consider Newegg. Usage: - SC2, - Dota 2, - mad internet browsing. - I do CAD solidworks 3d modeling. (Modeling is handled fine on my old rig, but rendering those models is not as fast. It would be nice to be able to keep a rig for a long time and have it be able to render those 3d models at a decent pace. I don't use CAD all the time, nor do i need it to render instantly. ) General questions I have:1) PSU: How do i determine how much wattage I need? What is the typical power usage when running a game / browsing with a few programs? EDIT: how much headroom wattage do i need for overclocking my setup - is 450W enough? 2) Mobo: + Show Spoiler +3) CPU: i understand the differences between intel cores well, + Show Spoiler +but i want to understand how to judge one cores of the same "architecture" if you will (e.g. one i7 core different from another i7 core). Thanks a bunch in advance! are the i7-3770k and the i5-3570k pretty much the cores to consider in that tier range? the other i7 and i5s are inferior in performance/price? If so, you can assume these two cores when talking about motherboards.
We did seem to get distracted by your request to help you decide how to choose for yourself. Here's what I'd recommend in terms of hardware:
PSU: yes, 450w is plenty for overclocking an Intel chip with a single GPU. Not a lot of good deals. Go with the pretty good quality XFX Core 450w for about $55 or the excellent quality Rosewill Capstone 450w @newegg for about $68.
http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=63238&vpn=P1450SX2B9&manufacture=XFX&promoid=1257
Mobo: Asrock z77 Extreme4 ($95)
in-store @ microcenter. Price above includes a $40 bundle deal for buying it with the CPU. If they don't give you the bundle deal right off, have a fit until they do.
Mobo: Gigabyte ga-z77x-ud3h ($115) same comment as above. Change made as Cyro below has quality concerns about the Extreme4.
CPU: i5-3570k ($190)
in-store @ microcenter
CPU Cooler: Xigmatek Gaia ($20) Enough for a moderate overclock, not as loud as some other good options.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233082&Tpk=xigmatek gaia&IsVirtualParent=1
Total: ~$400-$420. If you want to spend another $100 or so you can get an i7-3770k, which will probably cut down on rendering time a little bit, maybe 10-20% compared with the i5-3570k? Your call if that's worth it.
Whether or not you want to add other upgrades is questionable. If you're fine with your current amount of RAM, good. Similarly for SC2 & Dota 2 a video card upgrade would not be that significant. Other games, sure.
RAM: How much depends on how intensive your Solidworks projects are. Probably not that intensive, given you're doing fine with 2x2gb right now. You can get 2x4gb Crucial RAM for $48 @ microcenter with a $5 in-store discount for buying with CPU or 2x8gb for $90.
http://www.microcenter.com/product/382101/Ballistix_Sport_8GB_DDR3-1600_(PC3-12800)_CL9_Dual_Channel_Desktop_Memory_Kit_(Two_4GB_Memory_Modules)
http://www.microcenter.com/product/385182/Ballistix_Sport_16GB_DDR3-1600_(PC3-12800)_CL9_Dual_Channel_Desktop_Memory_Kit_(Two_8GB_Memory_Modules)
Video Card: Probably want to stick with AMD Radeon cards here, as they seem to to a tad better in Solidworks for the price than their competition. Again, not a priority unless you run games OTHER than Dota 2 or SC2, which are not very demanding on GPU. This Sapphire 7870 ($220) would put you a bit over budget, but is the card I'd recommend:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202025
Don't forget to thank your e-sports sponsors if you buy from them:
Asrock (team Incredible Miracle)
Gigabyte (various mid-range tournaments)
Intel (various)
Sapphire (Evil Geniuses, Dreamhack, other?)
even Newegg itself now (team Complexity Gaming)
P.S. For Windows 7: if you still have the installation files for the "upgrade copy" you downloaded, you might just be able to re-use them if you put them on a flash drive. Many "upgrade" versions of Windows are just the full version labeled differently. If what you downloaded is not in fact a full version, then you could just download an image of a Windows 7 installation CD & use windows own tool for putting it on a flash drive (google/windows website search). Note the important point here is whether or not the upgrade is a full license or an OEM license. Ordinary Windows licenses allow you to use the program on multiple generations of computers (not unlimted), so you're in the clear. However, OEM licenses (including some upgrades) are valid ONLY for the current computer (defined by hardware, generally motherboard). If that's the case, then the above downloading recommendation would be pirating & would be illegal, which makes for big frowny faces here at TL tech support.
P.P.S. Technically you're a tax evader if you don't pay CA state taxes on your online purchases. In practice this means precisely jack. But hey, don't knock newegg too much, they charge you CA sales tax but don't make you a criminal!
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I'm getting a new computer for the main purpose of playing starcraft 2 and streaming. The setup I will be using uses two Asus 24inch monitors. My budget is quite flexible, but obviously the cheaper the better.
Goals:
Play Starcraft 2 on highest settings
Stream Starcraft 2 with decent quality
Use 2 monitors
I'm going to need everything, including a case. If someone knows an deal for an already built computer I wouldn't mind looking at that either.
Side question: is >This< laptop able to run Starcraft 2 well on medium settings while streaming at decent quality?
Thanks
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On March 23 2013 02:27 Lncognit0 wrote:I'm getting a new computer for the main purpose of playing starcraft 2 and streaming. The setup I will be using uses two Asus 24inch monitors. My budget is quite flexible, but obviously the cheaper the better. Goals: Play Starcraft 2 on highest settings Stream Starcraft 2 with decent quality Use 2 monitors I'm going to need everything, including a case. If someone knows an deal for an already built computer I wouldn't mind looking at that either. Side question: is >This< laptop able to run Starcraft 2 well on medium settings while streaming at decent quality? Thanks
Fill out the questionnaire in the OP. Also make sure to mention if you ever play other games (including which games: this is will have an impact on what video card is recommended).
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What's the best outlet for a high-performance laptop ($2,000-2,500)? Sager? Malibal? Any others? I'll also be using this professionally, so I don't want it to look like a gaming laptop (ie, no Alienware).
With regards to laptop graphics cards, is something like the 680m worth it? I was talking with a friend of mine, and he said that the biggest limitation on laptop performance is inadequate heat dissipation. In other words, laptop hardware is often throttled down due to overheating issues. Any comments on this?
Lastly, I'm waiting for Haswell before I make the purchase. Will the 680m still be the best card available at that time? Will there be anything else coming out in that time frame?
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United Kingdom20322 Posts
Mobo: Asrock z77 Extreme4
I'm really not comfortable reccomending the z77 extreme4 because of the issues (mainly quality and vcore reporting/overvolting) are you unaware of them or just reccomending anyway (knowing of them)?
Curious as to if it's a mistaken reccomendation or still the best option. Im not sure, but the asrock z77 boards are a big red flag to me, especially the extreme4 after spending some time reading up.
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Throttling or at least performance decreases are big issues with laptop performance. These days, it's not just throttling per se, as you want the CPU to use Turbo Boost to run at clock speeds far higher than nominal, which should be possible with adequate cooling. Few laptops have cooling systems that can handle a heavy CPU and GPU load simultaneously—then again, most users won't actually encounter that situation in normal usage except maybe in certain games.
Looks like GTX 680M would still be tops out of stuff that can be found; new releases, if they happen, probably won't cover the range above that. I don't think the GTX 680MX exists outside of the iMac. What are your requirements for professional usage? What are you using it for? What programs would you be using?
A lot of the smaller brands are just using designs by Compal, Clevo, etc., meaning there's not much to distinguish them so you needn't look through them all. Sager is all Clevo IIRC.
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On March 23 2013 02:48 Cyro wrote:I'm really not comfortable reccomending the z77 extreme4 because of the issues (mainly quality and vcore reporting/overvolting) are you unaware of them or just reccomending anyway (knowing of them)? Curious as to if it's a mistaken reccomendation or still the best option. Im not sure, but the asrock z77 boards are a big red flag to me, especially the extreme4 after spending some time reading up.
Unaware. A link to a discussion of the problems would be highly appreciated.
Edit: I did know it didn't have the highest quality VRMs, but meh, it's ivy bridge.
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On March 23 2013 02:54 Myrmidon wrote:
Throttling or at least performance decreases are big issues with laptop performance. These days, it's not just throttling per se, as you want the CPU to use Turbo Boost to run at clock speeds far higher than nominal, which should be possible with adequate cooling. Few laptops have cooling systems that can handle a heavy CPU and GPU load simultaneously—then again, most users won't actually encounter that situation in normal usage except maybe in certain games.
Looks like GTX 680M would still be tops out of stuff that can be found; new releases, if they happen, probably won't cover the range above that. I don't think the GTX 680MX exists outside of the iMac. What are your requirements for professional usage? What are you using it for? What programs would you be using?
A lot of the smaller brands are just using designs by Compal, Clevo, etc., meaning there's not much to distinguish them so you needn't look through them all. Sager is all Clevo IIRC.
I'm not doing anything "professional" with the laptop in the sense of design work or anything like that. I just want a gaming laptop that doesn't look like one so that I am not raising any eyebrows when I pull it out in front of old dudes.
As to your comments on the throttling, do you recommend just skipping a 680m and getting something like a 675m instead because the performance is unsustainable? Do you have similar recommendations with regards to the processor (ie the "best" models aren't worth it because you can't actually use them due to throttling issues)? I'm just trying to get a sense of what I'd actually get if I went all out with the high end stuff.
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Building a new computer so here it goes...
What is your budget? 1500 or so
What is your resolution? two 1920x1080 (dual monitors)
What are you using it for? Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and streaming of both
What is your upgrade cycle? every 2-3 years
When do you plan on building it? would like to start this month
Do you plan on overclocking? not sure
Do you need an Operating System? no
Do you plan to add a second GPU for SLI or Crossfire? not sure
Where are you buying your parts from? either online or local, no real preference. whatever ends up being cheapest!
Original post:
I'm getting a new computer for the main purpose of playing starcraft 2 and streaming. The setup I will be using uses two Asus 24inch monitors. My budget is quite flexible, but obviously the cheaper the better.
Goals:
Play Starcraft 2 on highest settings
Stream Starcraft 2 with decent quality
Use 2 monitors
I'm going to need everything, including a case. If someone knows an deal for an already built computer I wouldn't mind looking at that either.
Side question: is >THIS< laptop able to run Starcraft 2 well on medium settings while streaming at decent quality?
Thanks
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EPT
