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United Kingdom20275 Posts
On March 23 2013 12:10 waffling1 wrote:
ic. that's insane. i didn't realize stock fans were that bad.
Belial mentioned ivy bridges (3rd gens) don't overclock well. And then he seemed to say they overclocked well. I'm sure he was referring to different aspects. Could you clarify?
Stock fans are not bad, they are just designed to cheaply run the processor at non overclocked speeds - they are very small too, they dont take up much room - which compromises performance, but guarantees they will work in pretty much all form factors etc
Belial was probably referring to most ivy bridge cpu's getting stuck around 4.5-4.6ghz at reasonable voltages, needing more than 1.3-1.4v which is difficult or impossible - you can get chips that will do 5ghz 1.4v if you are really lucky, that would be considered a great overclocker, but most ivy bridge cpu's stick around 4.5ghz which is a great overclock for most people (as stock is 3.4-3.5ghz), but mediocre for some advanced who could potentially otherwise go further
![[image loading]](http://cdn.overclock.net/0/0b/500x1000px-LL-0b3ae521_Picture59.jpeg)
vs
![[image loading]](http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/wp-content/uploads/xigmatek-gaia-sd1283.jpg)
You see it's not really a competition. The stock cooler is a lot smaller than it looks even in pictures like this.
Myrm's link shows 90c for stock cooler (top), 61 for gaia (bottom) so yeaa.. My ballpark maybe slightly exaggerated 30c figure was pretty accurate.
Or a better figure - Gaia 44c hotter than air outside of case - Stock cooler 76c hotter. Those are delta's, pretty much the numbers you want.
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On March 23 2013 12:10 waffling1 wrote:
ic. that's insane. i didn't realize stock fans were that bad.
Belial mentioned ivy bridges (3rd gens) don't overclock well. And then he seemed to say they overclocked well. I'm sure he was referring to different aspects. Could you clarify?
Check my edit above for a reference.
And recheck Belial's post for how Ivy Bridge can be physically altered to overclock better. Not particularly something that everybody is doing, and for some good reason maybe. Benefits are there for those who care; most don't want to knife up something that costs over $200.
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The sales rep mentioned how GB motherboards have software locks that make it not friendly for overclocking. does the one you recommend not have that problem, or isn't a big deal?
Sales reps are not technicians. Bless the staff of microcenter, the ones I talked to all were quite clueless.
Gigabyte boards do not have software locks, per se. Almost ALL budget boards have software locks that make them unfriendly for overclocking. Literally, every single sub-$100 board (new, no sale price that is) besides Biostar, will be locked in software overclock features. Some, like the asrock pro series, it may be something as simple as lacking manual voltage control (which isn't necessary for 24/7 overclocks, only in benching or ease of finding your overclock), and that's okay (but their quality and price makes them not worth it, generally).
For gigabyte, only the DS3H and hd3 boards on Z77 are locked in features.
Yes, it's very confusing. Check this list to try to break it down:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1354973/list-of-motherboards-by-overclocking-options
They had a lot of ASUS boards. are those any good?
Asus on z77 is good, not great. And Asus boards really aren't worth buying except at the higher price points, at which i'd argue that gigabyte is still much better (ie g1 sniper, up5, vs sabertooth, pro). At your price point asus isn't even worth considering unless there is some microcenter special (like when the LK was only $64 and the cheapest gigabyte board at the time, the ud3h, was $99, at that price difference, yea i'd go with the much lower quality asus given the cost savings). Like I said, the Z77X-UD3H at microcenter right now, or lower quality but slightly cheaper Z77-D3H, Z77X-D3H, are all you'd need and the best buys at the moment.
If you really want to cheap out though, the MSI Z77A-G41 is $34 at microcenter right now. You'd be saving a ton of money. It's a crap board, honestly, I have one (i paid $19 for it brand new though, thats why), and you can do a mild overclock, but no serious overclock. Now over 50% of ivies are bad overclockers and can only do 4.5ghz, 4.6 on air, so playing the odds, the msi g41 would be all you need, along with a hyper 212+ $19 heatsink and you got a good overclock for a good value. I mean that's a ton of money saved. If you think you'll enjoy overclocking, don't get it.
If you don't care about overclocking, if you are like myrmidon and think overclocking is a chore, and just a simple way to get value and you just want to spend as little time as possible overclocking and just be done with it, and you really don't like the idea of stressing components to their limits and such, then get the MSI Z77A-G41 for $34, set it to 4.5ghz@1.3v and call it a day (the msi z77a-g41 will be pushed to its limits on such a low overclock but it'll do that fine).
There's a reason everyone goes with gigabyte for z77 right now, they just really outdid themselves. Gigabyte boards on p67/z68 were actually crap, guess they took all the feedback for z77. You generally don't find boards with the amount of quality that gigabyte pulled for z77, on such low prices.
Great. $20 is pretty cheap.
Approximately how much difference in will there typically be compared to having the stock fan when under large usage load? if degrees are used, please be sure to specify C or F
Gaia/hyper 212+ will do a low overclock, like if you go with the msi z77a-g41, it'd be a great combo. Unfortunately, it won't be powerful enough to really handle higher overclocks, like above 4.6, 4.7, if your chip is good enough. It'd be a bit silly to buy a Z77X-UD3H and only a hyper 212+, is what I'm getting at.
The Zalman lq320 at microcenter is a way better deal. For twice the price you get way better cooling performance, literally over double. It's basically a $100 performing heatsink, for $40 on sale, because it's brand new they are trying to promote the heatsink.
I'll stick with my RAM for now. If my RAM says 1600, is that the max, or can it go beyond that when overclocked?
In want to say those sticks are hynix, so they might do more. It depends on the ram (basically, there are only 5 different types of ram, based on the chips used, which they don't exactly advertise, you just have to find out by googling or remove the heatspreader yourself and look). I'm sure with enough voltage you could get a performance boost out of them, but yea just stick with them if that's what you have. I'm sure you could at least tighten the timings by a step or two with enough voltage (ram can take a ton of voltage, like at least 1.8v).
how exactly do i do this? lol.
email them. I always email whomever I buy parts from, and if the product didnt include stickers, I'll ask for them. So far only corsair, mushkin (both awesome RMA support, on my used products too), nzxt (never responds to anything, rebate taking forever, terrible support) did not send stickers. and ducky and yate loon (but they are in asia so understandable, although noctua is in austria and they mailed me stickers)
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ic. that's insane. i didn't realize stock fans were that bad.
Belial mentioned ivy bridges (3rd gens) don't overclock well. And then he seemed to say they overclocked well. I'm sure he was referring to different aspects. Could you clarify?
Sorry if that was confusing, I did say that lol.
Ivy is great overclocker, but the silicon lottery for the chip means that most ivy bridges are poor overclockers compared to other ivy bridges. Ivy bridge can overclock to 4.5-5.1ghz on ambient cooling, and has an amazing IMC meaning you can do over 2400mhz easily (sandy bridge's IMC is much worse). Which is awesome. My 5ghz chip has a passmark of about 13,500, which puts it in line with $1500 chips (i paid $209 for my i7-3770k).
But over 50% of ivies, can only do 4.5-4.6ghz on a reasonable voltage, so that's the 'poor overclocker' part. Only a very, very small minority of ivy bridge chips can do more than 4.6ghz on a reasonable voltage. I wasn't lucky either - of the 3 ivy bridges I bought in the last 2 months:
i5-3570k: 4.4ghz@1.33v
i5-3570k: 4.6ghz@1.42v
i7-3770k: 5ghz@1.488v (1.499 on the multimeter; basically my chip is one of the worse chips amazing enough to do 5ghz as most do it on 1.41-1.46)
It's 100% luck - if you are like most people, you will be unlucky and get a chip that can only do 4.5-4.6ghz (you could maybe do higher, but you are already using extra voltage and to do 4.7 on 1.45v would just be silly and not worth it). If you are lucky, you can do 4.8, maybe more, on just 1.35v, and it's as easy as that. You might have to fight the system to get 4.5ghz stable on a voltage because you need to use more and more voltage because the chip is so bad, or you might find 4.8ghz is easy to do on a relatively low voltage. It's all silicon lottery, and for ivy the lottery is pretty bad.
Furthermore, the whole delid issue - meaning you basically won't be able to get above 1.3v unless you delid, and you NEED to go past 1.3v in order to go above 4.7ghz, unless you have some seriously heavy duty cooling.
So there are some pros and cons to ivy bridge, in how it overclocks. For an enthusiast like me, who doesn't think twice about sticking metal razor blades into sensitive computer components and taping shit to their motherboard, I love it (and I've always been like this, it's just something, as a person, i'm comfortable doing, has little to do with actually knowing what im doing lol). For someone who is nervous about these kinds of things, ivy isn't as great.
I mean with sandy bridge, 5ghz at 1.488v would be extremely dangerous because there have been many reports of sandy bridge degrading or even dying on above 1.4v. Furthermore, sandy bridge is really hot (being 32nm instead of 22nm), so 5ghz@1.488v on sandy, would require an extremely high end custom loop that'd cost over $200, 300.
Ivy Bridge, technically, is actually much cooler than Sandy bridge, since it's 22nm process design instead of 32nm (basically the nanometer circuitry is much much smaller in ivy, meaning less electricity needed, more efficiency, less 'waste', less electrical friction). Just the whole delid, solder, tim, issue makes ivy bridge practically hotter.
I'm a gutsy person, I love modding, has nothing to do with me being more or less knowledgeable on computers components, I'm just someone who doesn't have a lot of money, and is willing to mod computer components. So Ivy bridge is perfect for me - by sticking a knife back and forth into an extremely delicate piece of techno-art, I'm able to get the cooling and the overclocks that is normally reserved for people with lots of money and $200-300+ custom water loops, with just a razor blade, a $43 on ebay, high end heatsink, and some high grade thermal paste.
anyways this is derailing this thread and way beyond the scope of TL, if you have any questions, just PM me or we can discuss it in a thread about it if you'd want to start one, or a blog (or post in my blog, in my signature).
Delidding obviously is dangerous (although most delidders will tell you that you are more likely to break your motherboard by bending the pins when re-installing the cpu, or cutting yourself, then breaking the chip... which a few people have done lol).
edit: before it seems like i'm an asshole for saying i have no money yet i have multiple ivies, i buy new computer components on extreme sales all the time and then sell my current one off, so i'm perpetually upgrading my system and pocketing money at the same time. I'm always selling my current computer, and then building a new one with a bit of profit, and i build computers professionally.
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lol. yes you did say that. =]
and I've always been like this, it's just something, as a person, i'm comfortable doing, has little to do with actually knowing what im doing lol).
LOL
So a "bad" chip will get you 4.5GHz? seems plenty enough for me.
i didn't see a liquid cooler for $40 at microcenter, but i'll check again.
Delidding dangerous? for me or for the chip? I'm more concerned for the chip. lol.
you have to solder too...hrm
So get:
MSI Z77A-G41
Xigmatek gaia / hyper121+
or
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H
Zalman lq320
If my core ends up not being able to break 4.5 GHz, then the 2nd option's components aren't really good for anything (except maybe the liquid cooler), right? But in order to even see if it can break 4.5, you'd have to get the better motherboard.
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On March 23 2013 08:45 Lncognit0 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2013 05:21 MisterFred wrote:On March 23 2013 03:09 Lncognit0 wrote: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 + Show Spoiler +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 You should overclock with your budget & purposes (though it's not strictly necessary & does cost $100 or so). It's nice for streaming StarCraft. So this build reflects that. Core components: $581 i5-3570k - $220 gigabyte gaZ77x-ud3h - $140 Thermalright HR-02 Macho - $55 G.Skill Ripjaws 2x4gb RAM - $56 HiS Radeon 7770 - $110 (this is why I asked about other games you play - this card is ok for running shooters & other graphically intensive games, though you could afford better. Will max out SC2 & Diablo 3 though, so no reason to spend more.) + Show Spoiler +Supporting components: $331 Fractal Design R4 - $100 (warning: white. also comes in other colors) XFX Core 450w - $53 Samsung 840 120gb - $90 Seagate 1TB - $70 DVD-burner - $18 (warning, black, which could clash) + Show Spoiler +Total: $912. You'll notice this comes considerably under budget. I didn't skimp on quality anywhere. How to spend more if you want to: Get high quality speakers/headphones. Get a big 27" 2560x1440 monitor. Double the size of your storage with a 250gb Samsung 840 & a 2TB Seagate Barracuda (also at us.ncix.com, will cost about $115 for both upgrades). Get a better video card like a Gigabyte 7950 from us.ncix.com (fairly useless for Blizzard games). Spruce up your desk chair mouse (Mionix Naos 3200, hup, hup) or other peripherals. Also, if you were SUPER into streaming, you could consider a fancy capture card like an Avermedia c985 or even what the pros do: the same card + a separate encoding/streaming computer. Last, don't forget to thank your e-sports sponsors! Intel (various) Gigabyte (mid-level tournaments) Samsung (WCG) Asus (various) Newegg itself (team Complexity Gaming) So you would say a GTX660 and i7 3770k would be unnecessary to run two monitors and stream on one? On occasion I'd like to be able to say, watch a movie on one monitor, while playing Diablo 3/Starcraft 2 on another.
A second monitor adds essentially zero demands to a video card (assuing you're only gaming on one, using the other to manage stream, surf, watch a movie, whatever). So no problems there. Not sure if integrated graphics can routinely run two monitors yet, but any modern discrete GPU can. Similarly streaming does not use GPU resources at all. The only thing you're doing with the GPU is running the game. And a cheap 7770 like I listed can easily run SC2 & Diablo 3 at absolutely max graphics. A GTX 660 is extreme overkill - the extra cost over the 7770 will get you exactly nothing for your stated purposes. For playing a shooter like Battlefield 3, well then the 660 is going to show you a major improvement over the 7770. But not for Blizzard games.
As for processor, an i7-3770k can sometimes show very minor improvements when streaming. But honestly streaming programs do not use hyperthreading well, which is the i7's only benefit over the i5. The $100 spent upgrading from i5 to i7 is better spent paying for half of an Avermedia c985 capture card if streaming performance is your goal. Outside of streaming you'll see no benefit at all (games don't use hyperthreading).
@waffling1
You're welcome.
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
But honestly streaming programs do not use hyperthreading well, which is the i7's only benefit over the i5
They do, but this is not the problem. Hyperthreading might allow you to encode at, for example, 20% higher resolution - but if you take an i7 and an i5 both at 4.5ghz and run the same game, same settings, same everything - you have practically identical FPS and performance in the game, so it has not actually really helped you.
It can give you the option, for example to run 60fps instead of 50 at the same resolution without maxing out CPU - but that extra 20% encoding power from HT is kinda cutting edge, and very few people are that close to the edge of usability on encoding settings that they would even notice it was there in the first place.
Basically it raises the ceiling for settings in two ways, maybe allow for you to drop 1 preset which means going i5 to i7 is completely unnoticable for the streamer - very minor gain at best if even visible for stream watchers, OR or gives you the option of encoding higher resolution and/or framerate, but by increasing resolution and framerate you are lowering game FPS, so you have awkward paradox where i7 can go 60fps - but 50fps vs 50fps, i7 vs i5 will run the game identically - if you go to 60fps on the i7 (assuming you cant on i5), you have 60fps stream, but the game runs notably worse too
Difficult to explain i dont even really understand very well, but tl;dr is for game playability while running a normal stream (1920x1080, 40fps - 1280x720, 60fps or below, for lets say decently overclocked ivy) you dont gain anything by going from i5 to i7. Framerates wont change.
In terms of capture cards, AFAIK Destiny no longer uses his Avermedia card because he said performance was not better than OBS game capture - though his stream shows his FPS in LoL floating around the ~70-100 mark, while my system (i7 950@3.8ghz currently, gtx260) is able to more than double that with the game maxed without streaming - indicating he does take MASSIVE performance losses from streaming process - i did not hear many good things about single PC streaming and performance, and am not entirely sure how dual pc works with capture card - are there losses, if so how much, how does it feel vs no capture card, why the sometimes horrible screen tearing exists with such cards etcetc
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So a "bad" chip will get you 4.5GHz? seems plenty enough for me.
i didn't see a liquid cooler for $40 at microcenter, but i'll check again.
Delidding dangerous? for me or for the chip? I'm more concerned for the chip. lol.
you have to solder too...hrm
Yes, a bad chip will only do 4.5ghz, but the majority of ivies (and sandies) are 'bad' chips in that sense. 4.5ghz on ivy is still a ton of power, that's like 4.8ghz on sandy. 500mhz doesn't make a huge difference in a lot of things (it does for streaming though).
Microcenter won't have the lq320 for $40AR:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118136&Tpk=zalman lq320&IsVirtualParent=1
Looks like it's up to $54AR, which is still an insanely good deal and worth buying. it was $39 yesterday.
Delidding is dangerous, your sticking a knife in it. But there have been very few failures, as long as you use the right type of razor blade, and take it slow, you should be fine. To put it in perspective, no one has ever messed up delidding when they used the right razor blade. There are a few people who messed the chip up, but they used the wrong razor blade and were idiots (no really, they were idiots, i talked to them). I think only 2 actually killed the chip, most of the delid failures just couldnt run dual channel ram, it was only able to run single channel. But you shouldn't delid just to delid, you should delid because it's something you enjoy doing. I wouldn't recommend you, on a first computer build, do it, but if you are interested, there are huge clubs at ocn and anandtech that talk about delidding. Most delidders usually spend a few months in the clubs before they actually go through with it, like I did. There have been a few people who have seriously cut themselves during delidding (no hospital as far as I know, but scarring). I cut myself during my 2nd delid but it wasn't bad at all.
There's no soldering, i think you got confused when i mentioned that sandy bridge is soldered whereas ivy is not soldered, which is part of the problem and why ivy gets so hot, and why you need to delid to really push the chip.
A second monitor adds essentially zero demands to a video card (assuing you're only gaming on one, using the other to manage stream, surf, watch a movie, whatever). So no problems there. Not sure if integrated graphics can routinely run two monitors yet, but any modern discrete GPU can.
I think a second monitor consumes more VRAM though, right? And RAM?
Great post though, as always from fred.
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MisterFred is like the amazing first grade teacher (i'm the first grader) who can explain things very concisely, and foresees every concern and answers them.
Belial is like the professor who has a wealth of insights that become finally open to you, once you get past first grade
xp
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actually myrm i think that 5ghz@1.5v on i7-3770k is drawing way over 150w. not sure exactly but i'm thinking 200w might be what's up. Especially with temperatures affecting power consumption:
![[image loading]](http://www.overclock.net/content/type/61/id/1366249/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL)
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On March 23 2013 11:55 waffling1 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On March 23 2013 02:13 MisterFred wrote:
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:
No worries. I think i may have overemphasized the learning part. I think the best way to discuss is to have recommendations reasons, and alternatives with supporting reasons, as you foresaw.
CPU: i5-3570k ($190)
in-store @ microcenter
I will go with this one - most likely from microcenter for their $40-off deal. Even with 8% tax on $300 (includes mobo price), it still nets positive savings.
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.
I think mobo is the only thing I need to pick now. The sales rep mentioned how GB motherboards have software locks that make it not friendly for overclocking. does the one you recommend not have that problem, or isn't a big deal? They had a lot of ASUS boards. are those any good? reminder: i'm only using 1 graphics card. I'm not sure what features I will be using or not using besides that. There's overclocking of course. Can you recommend any other options along with your excellent reasons/comparisons like before?
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.
that's exactly the kind of info and easy-to-adjust recommendations I was hoping for. Thanks I did the final price for both, and the final comes to an 8 dollar difference of $76 to $68 (even less difference if i buy more stuff in one shipping from newegg). I'll go with the capstone. Great. $20 is pretty cheap. Approximately how much difference in will there typically be compared to having the stock fan when under large usage load? if degrees are used, please be sure to specify C or F. I'll stick with my RAM for now. If my RAM says 1600, is that the max, or can it go beyond that when overclocked? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145260Video 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=N82E16814202025I will be sticking with my 5830 GPU. it's serving me fine. But would my graphics be the bottleneck with this build for future upgrades? I had no idea about Radeon cards being a better value for Solidworks. You must read a ton.
Don't forget to thank your e-sports sponsors if you buy from them:
how exactly do i do this? lol.
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.
ooo i'm not sure if i have the files. I checked the download link (which is years old), and it's not available. I got it from Digital Rivers, an authorized reseller. I recall that they allowing a few hardware switches, but I could be wrong. Is there any way to recover this without forking over another $100 just to transfer it over to my SSD? If not, don't rack your brain over it too much. I've contacted them, and maybe I can just live with having it on my hard drive. Ohhhh wait. The new mobo might trip the machine licence cock block anyway...
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!
lol, ok. Nice Newegg, good Newegg.
Belial covered most of this, but:
Most gigabyte boards don't have limited bios features. Some low-end ones do. You might be able to find a cheaper decent option than the one I posted (which I KNOW is decent enough). I didn't see anything appealing looking through the microcenter website (limited to the Orange County location), but its possible I missed, for example, a cheaper Gigabyte board that has all the normal overclocking options.
Note us.ncix.com has free shipping for orders over... $50? $100? Used to be $50 but they may well have changed it.
Everyone and their dog covered heatsinks, lol, and better than I could have.
The speeds RAM is rated for are the speeds that it will default to & that the manufacturer are confident it (and by it, I mean basically every stick of it they make, allowing for some variation in quality) can handle. You can overclock to higher speeds. But honestly I don't know if that would be worth your time.
Solidworks: quick google search. There was a Tom's hardware benchmark showing FirePro cards (AMD professional GPU) dominating, a Radeon 7750 & the entry level Quadro card (Nvidia professional GPU) following up, and everything else far behind. These things are very program specific.
Bottlenecks: stupid, stupid term. In the spoiler below is an response to another post I often copy to show why your question is meaningless.
+ Show Spoiler +There's a difference between different definitions of bottlenecking that makes the term almost meaningless. To answer your question, if you mean the correct (according to me) definition, then no.
Correct definition: A bottleneck is a result of one piece of hardware not permitting another to function at its full capacity in any circumstance.
Correct definition example: You have a SATA3 SSD plugged into a SATA2 port on your motherboard. The SATA2 port is bottlenecking your SSD - you can never get faster than SATA2 speeds out of it, even though the SSD could perform much better.
Solution: Plug the SSD into a SATA3 port, possibly requiring a motherboard upgrade.
HOWEVER, lots of people use a different definition of bottlenecking. According to me, the incorrect one.
Incorrect definition: A bottleneck is when one piece of hardware is not performing up to its maximum potential in a specific task because another piece of hardware can't keep up.
Incorrect definition example: You have a 5850, which is capable (or nearly so) of displaying SC2 at maximum graphics settings at your monitor's resolution & maximum refresh rate (best possible image quality at maximum effective FPS), however, because your CPU (i5-3470) cannot run SC2 at maximum FPS (your monitor's refresh rate) when large armies are on the field, you aren't getting maximum theoretical potential out of your 5850. People then (confusingly) say the i5-3470 is bottlenecking your Radeon 5850.
The difference is that the second (incorrect) definition is task-specific. Sure in SC2, there's a CPU "bottleneck," but for the vast majority of games it's the opposite: your i5-3470 is more than enough power to do everything you want other games to do, but your 5850 will hold you back.
So to answer your question:
Your system has no bottlenecks (first, correct definition).
Your question is meaningless without giving us context in terms of what software you're running (second, more common but incorrect definition).
The reason the term bottlenecking bugs me so much is that people hear they have a bottleneck (incorrect definition) and assume they have a bottleneck (correct definition) and that there are magic hardware configurations that will never have bottlenecks (incorrect definition) when that outcome is, in fact, impossible.
Thanking sponsors:
Go to their website, find the "contact us" link. E-mail someone appearing to be from marketing/sales in the correct region. I don't put too much effort into making sure the quick e-mail goes to the right guy. If you want to be really snazzy you can post on their facebook page. I'm always afraid I'll be sucked into some facebook app vortex, lol, though that's paranoia.
Getting the old windows files: if you lose a legit copy of windows, you can get a backup the same way you get images of Windows install CDs illegally, essentially. This is why I made a big deal about the license, Team Liquid tech support does not like illegal activity.
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On March 23 2013 14:21 waffling1 wrote:
MisterFred is like the amazing first grade teacher (i'm the first grader) who can explain things very concisely, and foresees every concern and answers them.
Belial is like the professor who has a wealth of insights that become finally open to you, once you get past first grade
xp
Lol, yes exactly. I'm not the most knowledgeable or consistent of the posters here. But I'm pretty good at speaking to those who are uneducated about tech stuff.
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Basically it raises the ceiling for settings in two ways, maybe allow for you to drop 1 preset which means going i5 to i7 is completely unnoticable for the streamer - very minor gain at best if even visible for stream watchers, OR or gives you the option of encoding higher resolution and/or framerate, but by increasing resolution and framerate you are lowering game FPS, so you have awkward paradox where i7 can go 60fps - but 50fps vs 50fps, i7 vs i5 will run the game identically - if you go to 60fps on the i7 (assuming you cant on i5), you have 60fps stream, but the game runs notably worse too
But what if you ran the i5 at 60fps? So basically the i5 is going to have a slight stutter in-game on 60fps, but then the i7 can do it. Or would the i5, rather, game would be fine, but stream would stutter?
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United Kingdom20275 Posts
I did not really experiment with that, just the ceilings of CPU potential without cores maxing or passing 80/90/95% too often during spikes (on first gen i7 @4ghz, this occurs at about 1920x1080, ~40-45fps, veryfast), If your encoder can only keep up with 48fps or whatever during fast camera scrolling you're not going to have a smooth 60fps stream during fast camera scrolling, im not sure what would happen aside from at best FPS instability. Best to avoid what you cant sustain, especially with presets.
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Second monitor is not much relative to VRAM size.
1920 x 1080 = 2.0736 x 10^6 pixels
2.0736 x 10^6 pixels x 32 bits / pixel x 1 byte / 8 bits ~= 7.91 MiB
Don't know how many frame buffers there are for that second display, but if it's one or few, it's not much when you've got say 1 GiB or 2. You can just check VRAM usage on a multi-monitor setup and with a single monitor if you really want.
On March 23 2013 14:23 Belial88 wrote:
actually myrm i think that 5ghz@1.5v on i7-3770k is drawing way over 150w. not sure exactly but i'm thinking 200w might be what's up. Especially with temperatures affecting power consumption:
~1.5V, hyperthreading, stress test, high temps, sure. I was assuming much lower voltages. Most peoples' cooling wouldn't allow these levels. I hope anybody dreaming of these things isn't considering street price ~$100 Z77 mobos, that's all. For most setups it would be difficult to reach 150W. And even if the cooling is there, it's not every day-to-day load is going to take it past 150W (that wasn't the original point though; I was talking stress tests too).
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you're plenty good, misterfred!
let's coin a separate term. "weakest link" or something to that effect
i understand what you're saying about mobos, but what i'm lacking is the knowledge of which mobos are considered "low end". The OCN list doesn't help with that directly.
Should i just make everyone's life easy and go with the msi g41? what's comparable? and which key features am i looking for?
There really needs to be a noob friendly comprehensive guide to parts - key features, buzz words, decision trees. I think you'd be great at putting one together, misterfred.
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I think what you're really asking is "why?" usually?
The motherboard is the place where you put the CPU, RAM, and expansion cards (including video card), and then a whole bunch of copper interconnects, ports, accessory controller chips (for say handling network, audio, USB, etc.), and other auxiliary hardware to make the system run.
Some motherboards have more or better controller chips so maybe more SATA ports / fan headers / whatever other features.
Another job of the motherboard is to convert voltage from the power supply to a lower voltage that the CPU uses—actually, multiple ones, and another for the RAM as well—done by the voltage regulator modules (VRMs). This hardware consists of a controller chip, drivers, power MOSFETs, capacitors, and inductors. Better hardware here can handle higher CPU power draws, and they may be more consistent in power delivery as the CPU power consumption changes (which it does, very rapidly). A higher-end motherboard may use a higher-grade PCB, more PCB layers, higher quality parts even outside the VRMs, could be less likely to fail but maybe not really.
There are also UEFI (BIOS) options to specify different aspects of the power delivery, as well as other things like maybe fan control. A higher-end board may have more features. A lower-end motherboard usually does not have good voltage regulators, so they don't allow the kinds of settings that would clearly burn them up.
Usually high-end motherboards will have more features and ports as well as better hardware, but it's more of a correlation because those are the products the market expects and buys, rather than any kind of causation or technical reason. I mean, it would be possible to design a super overclocking motherboard with a low-end audio chip / minimum number of SATA ports / no SLI multi-graphics support, but they don't do that. On the other hand, there exist fairly feature-packed H77 motherboards that don't allow CPU overclocking at all. A low-end motherboard has fewer features and worse hardware, which can be determined by... looking at the feature list and parts onboard.
Something like Z77A-G41 has maybe the lowest-end VRM I've seen for a Z77 motherboard, but because of the moderate power draw of Ivy Bridge at typical settings, you can still get a low-mid overclock on it. edit: hm the AsRock Z77M could be worse; need clearer high-res pictures
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~1.5V, hyperthreading, stress test, high temps, sure. I was assuming much lower voltages. Most peoples' cooling wouldn't allow these levels. I hope anybody dreaming of these things isn't considering street price ~$100 Z77 mobos, that's all. For most setups it would be difficult to reach 150W. And even if the cooling is there, it's not every day-to-day load is going to take it past 150W (that wasn't the original point though; I was talking stress tests too).
Yea, i'm going to look more into power consumption, but it seems even 1.4 is going to cross 150w
![[image loading]](http://www.overclock.net/content/type/61/id/1366250/width/500/height/1000/flags/LL)
That guy is on ln2 so power consumption is like add another 20-50w i think. I mean that's possible on like a pro series or lk/le, the z77-d3h. I mean really, no one here recommends the lower end z77 boards, so all set-ups are good for crossing 150w as long as it's mid-range, high end cooling. Stress testing will definitely get it higher than general usage though... i'll look more into it, maybe 150w is near limit of most users, most overclocks, in general usage. Just surprising to see that 5ghz@1.55v on ln2 is consuming 200w at 30C.
i understand what you're saying about mobos, but what i'm lacking is the knowledge of which mobos are considered "low end". The OCN list doesn't help with that directly.
I tried to include low end boards on that OCN list. In fact that list is ONLY low end boards, as higher end boards tend to have all the options and a quality vrm, the list is mainly on boards having restrictions in software, not actual quality of the boards.
Should i just make everyone's life easy and go with the msi g41? what's comparable? and which key features am i looking for?
I mean it's up to you. Do you think you'd enjoy overclocking? I mean if it's just a chore to you, you don't care much about it, you just want value, then get the msi-z77a-g41. I mean for value, that'd really be the best bet. Usually the board is too crappy to justify for it's price, but since it's only $34 at microcenter right now, it's worth getting if you are that kind of user. Like normally that board is $80-90, so why would you get that when you could get like an extremely high quality Z77-D3H. But if there's like a $60+ price difference, it's worth considering.
Normally the board is like $50+ at microcenter, they just have a limited extra extra deal on the g41 right now at $34. Making it a considerable board if it's good enough for your needs. I mean it's a really, really crappy board, but if you are just going to do a light overclock and you don't really care about overclocking in and of itself, it's fine. Like if you didn't overclock at all, you could just get the cheapest POS and be fine, make sense?
It's probably comparable to the asus p8z77-v lx, biostar tz77a, asrock pro3, ds3h. Just those boards are either more expensive and/or are locked in ways the msi z77a-g41 isn't (like the ds3h is a more capable and higher quality board, but it's locked in voltage control so effectively it's worse)
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The MSI g41 is exactly what they think of when it comes to "low-end". It can only handle a light overclock - both in terms of its inherent design and in terms of the amount it allows you to modify the voltage going to the CPU. If you're fine with a light overclock, go for it.
I don't know what models exactly are comparable to it. It's a great price for what it is. If you want to get something that doesn't have the drawbacks above for reaching a moderate-level overclock, then you need to get something like what I recommended. Rather than a decision tree, I took a different approach. I limited myself to the selection at the Orange County microcenter, for the $40 discount.
The g41 is an obvious choice for being so cheap - the next motherboard that stood out at a decent price point is the Gigabyte ga-z77x-ud3h in the category of mid-range board. The boards in between were discarded for being similar to but more expensive than the g41 (like gigabytes ds3h), or questionable quality/user friendliness (Asrock & Intel brands. Yes Intel is oddly bad at making motherboards). The Asus p8z77-V LK ($95 after combo deal) is actually also a pretty good option, but I saw the Gigabyte -ud3h ($115 after combo deal) for less than I expected, so recommended that.
At other retailers there are other boards I'd recommend, but that $40 off rules all.
For your perspective you're basically just choosing if you want a very light 4.1-4.3ish overclock for cheap or go for a higher 4.5-4.7 overclock with the better motherboard. It's not a huge choice.
As for other key features - there's not really any to worry about for you. Basically no casual user is worried about having 6 usb 3.0 + 2 usb 2.0 connections on the back panel instead of 6 usb 2.0 + 2 usb 3.0 connections...
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Belial, link to source of graphs? How is power measured? Software reported, at EPS12V connector, from wall?
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On March 23 2013 16:14 Myrmidon wrote:
Belial, link to source of graphs? How is power measured? Software reported, at EPS12V connector, from wall?
Unrelated but my computer pulls 364w from the wall under full synthetic load. Terrible I know.
Also there is no software that can accurately measure power consumption of specific components.
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EPT
