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When using this resource, please read FragKrag's opening post. The Tech Support forum regulars have helped create countless of desktop systems without any compensation. The least you can do is provide all of the information required for them to help you properly. |
Does this mean you have absolutely no case fans except for the PSU being installed at the top rear and moving some air with its fan? It could be your PSU shutting itself off because of some kind of overheating protection. The graphics card and CPU maybe heat up the air inside the case too much while Civ V is running.
A case fan at the front should help a lot if that's happening, and a new cpu cooler would also need fresh air to do its business. You should have at least two places prepared for fans in your case, so it's easy to install. One at the bottom front, and one in the rear where the motherboard has the outside ports. If your case has the mounting holes for 120 mm fans, those are the ones that you'd probably still find useful in the future whenever you build a new PC.
If you can find places where the metal of the PC case gets pretty warm on the outside when running Civ V, case fans will definitely make a big difference. You can also try looking at what kind of sensors programs like "HWMonitor" can detect on your PC. It should be able to show temperature of your hard disks, cpu, graphics card and various motherboard sensors.
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Hi guys. Buying a new comp and been out of the loop for ages, so I would appreciate your approval of my basic build 
Budget: between 1300 and 1400 USD ideally
Resolution: 1920x1200 and not planning to change it any time soon
Uses: Gaming, Linux desktop, virtual machines
Upgrade cycle: I usually buy a full machine every 4 years, and give away my current one to charity. I usually double my RAM somewhere around 3 years, mostly for VM's
Build Time: ASAP
Overclocking: No
OS: Not needed
SLI: Don't like SLI. I prefer a nice GPU to begin with that will last at least 3 years.
Store: en.ksp.co.il, relatively cheap Israeli vendor.
my build so far:
Intel Core i5 3570K 3.4Ghz s1155 6MB, GPU Core, Tray
Zalman SZ CC92HS CPU Cooler
Asus P8H77-V LE s1155 Core i3/i5/i7, Intel H77, DDR3 XMP, 2xPCI-E, VGA, DVI, HDMI
Corsair 2x8GB Vengeance DDR3 1600MHZ Dual Channel CL10-10-10-27
Asus GTX660 OC 2GB GDDR5 DX11 2xDVI HDMI DP PCI-E
Samsung 840 Series 2.5'' 250GB SSD SATA III (will add my current platter disks for media storage)
Samsung SH-224BB DVD±RW x24 Black Sata
Thermaltake Litepower 500W Active PFC 12cm Fan (Retail)
Thermaltake Commander MS-I Snow Midi Tower White Case (No PSU)
Things im wondering about:
1) are there any inefficiencies in that build in general?
2) is 4x4 better than 2x8, and if so, how much better? i don't want to fully occupy all the mem slots, so i can retain the option of another 2x8 in the future
3) i chose case/PSU at random - are they any good? i should mention i would put down more money for quietness. the comp is in my room and i want it to be as quiet as possible when im not heavily using it.
That's pretty much it. Hope for some insights from the HW guru's in the thread
Thank you very very much!
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If you're not overclocking, I'd ditch the CPU cooler. With the build as is, I'd just buy the Z77-V LE instead because it's only slightly more expensive and would let you OC later if you'd like, or an equivalent Z77 board.
You can definitely do better on the PSU as well. I'd probably go with this Seasonic given your choices:
http://en.ksp.co.il/?uin=18383
1155 Ivy Bridges only support 2 channel RAM, so there's no difference between 2x8 and 4x4.
Why the Asus GTX 660 over the MSI Twin Frozr GTX 660? They're pretty much equivalent and the MSI is 10% cheaper where you're buying.
The rest of the build looks good.
EDIT: Also what kind of virtualization? It's possible an i7 could be worth it but it depends on what you're doing.
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edit to above: DirectCU may be slightly quieter, Zalman cooler is probably decently quieter than the stock... both are arguable maybe. The Seasonic you linked looks like the OEM version of the G series. I'm not sure about that one in particular, but usually the gray Seasonic OEM power supplies have shorter cables and worse capacitors inside; I'd pay a little extra for the regular branded G series, even at 360W. But the 450W there would be me next choice of the options there.
Take the i5-3570 over the i5-3570k. The k lets you overclock (on Z75 / Z77), which you're not doing, and it's more expensive. Also, for whatever reason, it doesn't support VT-d whereas the i5-3570 does.
4x4 might be cheaper than 2x8; otherwise, not better.
Thermaltake Litepower is not that good. If you want something high quality and quiet at lower and mid loads, there's the Seasonic SSR-360GP:
http://en.ksp.co.il/?uin=16764
It could be worth spending up on a case with much higher build quality and sound dampening. e.g. Antec Solo II:
http://en.ksp.co.il/?uin=14829
It doesn't fit more than three 3.5" hard drives though, at least normally. There are other options too.
Asus P8H77-V LE is probably a bit overkill but not that much priced higher I guess. You could probably just use Gigabyte H77-DS3H instead:
http://en.ksp.co.il/?uin=15414
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He chose the CPU sold as "tray", not the normal end consumer box. That's why he needs the Zalman cooler.
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On March 28 2013 05:24 Ropid wrote:
He chose the CPU sold as "tray", not the normal end consumer box. That's why he needs the Zalman cooler.
I kind of wonder about that. Almost every listing says "tray", which would be pretty unusual if that really means OEM tray packaging with no cooler.
http://en.ksp.co.il/?select=1027..2..41
Point still stands about i5-3570 vs. i5-3570k.
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Ew, I thought it was the G, wasn't looking close enough. Yeah, in that case Myrmidon's 360W unit will be fine, especially if you're not overclocking for the foreseeable future.
With your budget I still think it's worth it to give yourself the option of overclocking, even if you don't take advantage right away. In 2 years, you might appreciate the performance jump (and a year or so of overclocking, even fairly aggressively, probably won't put you in danger of burning out your chip. It would only cost you about $20 US to get you the ability to overclock to about 4.3-4.5 ghz depending on the silicon lottery and your choice of cooler.
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First of all, thank you very much in general guys, much appreciated!
and more specifically:
thanks Myrmidon, I'll use your recommendation for the case. I only have 2 more disks in addition to the SSD, so I think it will be fine. But of course I'll make sure first.. I'll also switch to the Seasonic SSR-360GP PSU (either that or the 450 one that upperbound recommended)
Upperbound, I'm generally using a lot of virtual machines to create Linux IT labs, so they're not actually doing a whole lot of processing. So it's more about RAM than anything else so I can create 5-6 machines easily.
Thanks to Ropid as well!
The jury is still out on OC, but I may actually stay with the k and keep my options open for the future..
Thank you so much yet again, you guys rock!
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On March 27 2013 19:02 Ropid wrote:
Does this mean you have absolutely no case fans except for the PSU being installed at the top rear and moving some air with its fan? It could be your PSU shutting itself off because of some kind of overheating protection. The graphics card and CPU maybe heat up the air inside the case too much while Civ V is running.
A case fan at the front should help a lot if that's happening, and a new cpu cooler would also need fresh air to do its business. You should have at least two places prepared for fans in your case, so it's easy to install. One at the bottom front, and one in the rear where the motherboard has the outside ports. If your case has the mounting holes for 120 mm fans, those are the ones that you'd probably still find useful in the future whenever you build a new PC.
If you can find places where the metal of the PC case gets pretty warm on the outside when running Civ V, case fans will definitely make a big difference. You can also try looking at what kind of sensors programs like "HWMonitor" can detect on your PC. It should be able to show temperature of your hard disks, cpu, graphics card and various motherboard sensors.
lol nah, not quite that bad. He installed the two exhaust fans, but kept the optional intake fans for himself (I ordered the 3 replacement fans along with the cpu heatsink/fan). I've monitored my GPU and it's definitely fine, BIOS reads my cpu to run very hot though. Even idling it runs 50-55c. After playing Civ V and shutting off, it reads 80c when I reboot. I thought I had remedied the problem earlier when I cranked up my case fans, but it has started happening again, so maybe you are right that the intake fans could solve it? Can't hurt I'm sure.
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I'd guess there's something off with the CPU cooler. The CPU should not be much above case temperature when idle, for example 30-35 C, not 50-55 C. Does the standard cooler for AMD use push pins like Intel's? Perhaps a pin popped out and the cooler isn't pressing on the CPU anymore.
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On March 28 2013 08:25 sorvin wrote:
[...]
The jury is still out on OC, but I may actually stay with the k and keep my options open for the future..
Keep in mind you also need a Z77 motherboard to overclock and a better cooler than the Zalman for a moderate overclock.
On March 28 2013 08:34 screamingpalm wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2013 19:02 Ropid wrote:
Does this mean you have absolutely no case fans except for the PSU being installed at the top rear and moving some air with its fan? It could be your PSU shutting itself off because of some kind of overheating protection. The graphics card and CPU maybe heat up the air inside the case too much while Civ V is running.
A case fan at the front should help a lot if that's happening, and a new cpu cooler would also need fresh air to do its business. You should have at least two places prepared for fans in your case, so it's easy to install. One at the bottom front, and one in the rear where the motherboard has the outside ports. If your case has the mounting holes for 120 mm fans, those are the ones that you'd probably still find useful in the future whenever you build a new PC.
If you can find places where the metal of the PC case gets pretty warm on the outside when running Civ V, case fans will definitely make a big difference. You can also try looking at what kind of sensors programs like "HWMonitor" can detect on your PC. It should be able to show temperature of your hard disks, cpu, graphics card and various motherboard sensors. lol nah, not quite that bad. He installed the two exhaust fans, but kept the optional intake fans for himself (I ordered the 3 replacement fans along with the cpu heatsink/fan). I've monitored my GPU and it's definitely fine, BIOS reads my cpu to run very hot though. Even idling it runs 50-55c. After playing Civ V and shutting off, it reads 80c when I reboot. I thought I had remedied the problem earlier when I cranked up my case fans, but it has started happening again, so maybe you are right that the intake fans could solve it? Can't hurt I'm sure.
What case? If there are two exhausts there's no way temperatures should be that high unless it's some kind of nonstandard cramped SFF layout or something strange. Intake fans are unlikely to help that much for most setups. A classic scenario is say somebody running Antec 300 (120mm back exhaust, 140mm top exhaust), adding two 120mm front intake to it, and getting ~3C better temps on CPU or GPU. (depends a lot on layout, fan speeds, and more)
It's probably more like the stock heatsink wasn't installed that well and/or got slightly loose during transport. If you replace the heatsink or even remount the current one, it would probably be okay.
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On March 28 2013 08:57 Ropid wrote:
I'd guess there's something off with the CPU cooler. The CPU should not be much above case temperature when idle, for example 30-35 C, not 50-55 C. Does the standard cooler for AMD use push pins like Intel's? Perhaps a pin popped out and the cooler isn't pressing on the CPU anymore.
That's sort of what I'm thinking might be going on. Not really sure what you mean by push pins, but when I looked at it, the latches seemed to be in place. The heatsink didn't really feel warm to the touch, so I think something is wrong there. I figure with a good aftermarket cooler, it will give me an option to overclock in the future as well. Also have read a lot of rants about AMD's heatsinks, and even moreso for upgrades to what I have, such as phenom 2 x4, etc .
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On March 28 2013 09:00 Myrmidon wrote:
What case? If there are two exhausts there's no way temperatures should be that high unless it's some kind of nonstandard cramped SFF layout or something strange. Intake fans are unlikely to help that much for most setups. A classic scenario is say somebody running Antec 300 (120mm back exhaust, 140mm top exhaust), adding two 120mm front intake to it, and getting ~3C better temps on CPU or GPU. (depends a lot on layout, fan speeds, and more)
It's probably more like the stock heatsink wasn't installed that well and/or got slightly loose during transport. If you replace the heatsink or even remount the current one, it would probably be okay.
Antec 300 :D
There's also an intake on the side, which seems like it would give even better cooling (in theory).
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On March 28 2013 09:07 screamingpalm wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2013 09:00 Myrmidon wrote:
What case? If there are two exhausts there's no way temperatures should be that high unless it's some kind of nonstandard cramped SFF layout or something strange. Intake fans are unlikely to help that much for most setups. A classic scenario is say somebody running Antec 300 (120mm back exhaust, 140mm top exhaust), adding two 120mm front intake to it, and getting ~3C better temps on CPU or GPU. (depends a lot on layout, fan speeds, and more)
It's probably more like the stock heatsink wasn't installed that well and/or got slightly loose during transport. If you replace the heatsink or even remount the current one, it would probably be okay. Antec 300 :D There's also an intake on the side, which seems like it would give even better cooling (in theory).
Usually, depends.
Actually, this is a decent read:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/02/10/the-big-cooling-investigation/
In other news there are stories on GPU testing on various sites today after Nvidia lifted an embargo on some utilities they wrote, but PCPer's might be the most interesting and comprehensive (also check AnandTech for better writing and theory, not so much testing yet):
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-Dissected-Full-Details-Capture-based-Graphics-Performance-Testin
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^^Yeah I saw that earlier today.
TBH, it's just long LONG overdue. Tech Report figured this out nearly 1.5 years ago, and finally changed their GPU methodology in September 2011. It's with a certain bit of irony that Anandtech has a lengthy piece on it, when their own reviews could have benefited from this years ago haha.
Anyway, PCPer's article was a far better though read and really should get people interested in truly identifying GPU performance. It is pretty sad how few sites provide more analysis than slapping some average fps graphs on a bar chart and calling it a day. Anandtech, of all sites, should have realized this far sooner, but it seems their site has shifted 30-40% of its focus to smartphones 
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On March 28 2013 09:50 Myrmidon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2013 09:07 screamingpalm wrote:On March 28 2013 09:00 Myrmidon wrote:
What case? If there are two exhausts there's no way temperatures should be that high unless it's some kind of nonstandard cramped SFF layout or something strange. Intake fans are unlikely to help that much for most setups. A classic scenario is say somebody running Antec 300 (120mm back exhaust, 140mm top exhaust), adding two 120mm front intake to it, and getting ~3C better temps on CPU or GPU. (depends a lot on layout, fan speeds, and more)
It's probably more like the stock heatsink wasn't installed that well and/or got slightly loose during transport. If you replace the heatsink or even remount the current one, it would probably be okay. Antec 300 :D There's also an intake on the side, which seems like it would give even better cooling (in theory). Usually, depends. Actually, this is a decent read: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/02/10/the-big-cooling-investigation/
Interesting read, thanks! Actually, I think the side fan wouldn't be a good idea in my case- I remember now, reading that it is good for GPU cooling, but my issue is CPU of course. Additionally, I operate in a really dusty room as it is. :D
Clearly though, at least in this case, you seem to get better value from a side panel fan as it matches the roof (B) and rear fans for CPU cooling while also offering better GPU and chipset cooling. The one caveat here of course is that side panel mounts rarely come with dust filters, so you’ll be drawing more dust into your case than if you used a front intake or a rear exhaust position for the fan.
Thanks for the replies, I feel like I am on the right track at least.
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In what ways has PCP&C power supplies gone down in quality since OCZ bought PCP&C?
I can't find anything regarding this besides what someone posted a few pages ago in this thread.
I saw 1% (p-p) ripple for silencer for PCP&P's Silencer Mk III 400W.
It's nice that a company actually lists that important spec, but I don't have any baseline to compare it to.
It's rather tough and tedious hunting down ripple values from suppliers' homepages.
what are typical ripple values for PSUs of
1) absolute best tier
2) high quality tier,
3) decent quality tier,
4) cheapo but not terrible,
5) terrible
?
can anyone who owns a rosewill capstone comment on this review excerpt regarding the noise?
"NOISE: In theory, this should be a near-silent power supply. It has a large 140mm fan instead of the typical 120mm or 80mm. Large fans can be run more slowly. It has high efficiency, so it doesn't need to dissipate much heat. And yet, at a 50W load, it spins the fan at 900 RPM or more. There's a fair bit of vibration and an obvious whoosh from a few feet away even bottom-mounted in a case. You can open the unit and replace the fan with trivial effort, but doing so will void the warranty. The noise isn't objectionable in character. I didn't detect any buzzing or coil wine. It would probably blend well with case hum caused by spinning disks and may well be covered by an overactive video card fan. For a silent and quiet systems, though, this unit is a non-starter." http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-CAPSTONE-Certified-Modular-CAPSTONE-450-M/dp/B0081XXIHK/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_t
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My computer is dying currently, and I'm looking into replacing it. Here's are the responses to the questions in the first post!
What is your budget?
About $1200-1500 after the graphics card, though I'm reusing one I recently purchased for now, so that part of the computer will be purchased at a later date.
What is your resolution?
Either 1920x1080 or 1920x1200. My current monitors are 16 , though a friend found some potential good deals on 16:10 monitors that I may partake in if they end up good.
What are you using it for?
Gaming, streaming (Magic Online, Guild Wars 2, Dota 2, other such games), and programming.
What is your upgrade cycle?
About once every 3 years, with ram upgrades in between.
When do you plan on building it?
The sooner the better, but spread out over the upcoming month. I'm willing to sit on my graphics card for a good deal though.
Do you plan on overclocking?
Nope!
Do you need an Operating System?
nope!
Do you plan to add a second GPU for SLI or Crossfire?
I've considered it, but I don't think I need three monitors tbh. If it's not too much more expensive, it couldn't hurt to get a MOBO that could support it I suppose.
Where are you buying your parts from?
There's a nearby Fry's (I live in Seattle), and I can always buy off of Newegg and Amazon as well
Thank you in advance for helping out!
-Mutant
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On March 28 2013 11:50 waffling1 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +In what ways has PCP&C power supplies gone down in quality since OCZ bought PCP&C? I can't find anything regarding this besides what someone posted a few pages ago in this thread. I saw 1% (p-p) ripple for silencer for PCP&P's Silencer Mk III 400W. It's nice that a company actually lists that important spec, but I don't have any baseline to compare it to. It's rather tough and tedious hunting down ripple values from suppliers' homepages. what are typical ripple values for PSUs of 1) absolute best tier 2) high quality tier, 3) decent quality tier, 4) cheapo but not terrible, 5) terrible ? can anyone who owns a rosewill capstone comment on this review excerpt regarding the noise? "NOISE: In theory, this should be a near-silent power supply. It has a large 140mm fan instead of the typical 120mm or 80mm. Large fans can be run more slowly. It has high efficiency, so it doesn't need to dissipate much heat. And yet, at a 50W load, it spins the fan at 900 RPM or more. There's a fair bit of vibration and an obvious whoosh from a few feet away even bottom-mounted in a case. You can open the unit and replace the fan with trivial effort, but doing so will void the warranty. The noise isn't objectionable in character. I didn't detect any buzzing or coil wine. It would probably blend well with case hum caused by spinning disks and may well be covered by an overactive video card fan. For a silent and quiet systems, though, this unit is a non-starter." http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-CAPSTONE-Certified-Modular-CAPSTONE-450-M/dp/B0081XXIHK/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_t
Since OCZ took over PCP&C, they mostly used cheaper designs (but nothing any bad). For a while they were still trying to sell them at premium prices though. Now they sell pretty decent to top units with sometimes pretty reasonable prices.
A lot of times manufacturer-listed values are way off. Btw 1% ripple is the max ATX spec for +12V (120 mV) and +5V (50 mV), though more stringent than +3.3V spec (50 mV). It's saying it can beat that, which it does by a lot. Most Seasonic-made power supplies beat ATX ripple spec by a lot, even the ones that aren't particularly good at voltage regulation.
On top tier you're looking at around maybe 0.1%. Cheapo but not terrible often gets close with 1% on high loads, though some decent designs that are otherwise pretty strong also get close to ATX spec.
As for the Capstone, I don't own it but I think somebody does. So AFAIK... fan speed is up to Rosewill, but 900 rpm min on a 140mm fan would be unusual for something made by Super Flower, also way way overkill for the cooling an 80 plus gold power supply needs at low loads, honestly... (it uses a 1200 rpm fan, for reference. it'd be really unusual for a speed curve to go from 900rpm to 1200rpm only. Super Flower sells 80 plus bronze units that have fans that run at ~600 rpm min). Sometimes weird things happen with some samples, temp sensor in wrong place, or whatever.
Almost everybody says the fan is pretty quiet, though it's hard to judge based just on that. It wouldn't be considered really quiet on low loads, but 900 rpm? I wonder how the user got that figure. Is 900 rpm just a bad guess, is that sample different than others, or is it really 900 rpm?
On March 28 2013 12:55 mutant wrote:+ Show Spoiler +My computer is dying currently, and I'm looking into replacing it. Here's are the responses to the questions in the first post! What is your budget?About $1200-1500 after the graphics card, though I'm reusing one I recently purchased for now, so that part of the computer will be purchased at a later date. What is your resolution?Either 1920x1080 or 1920x1200. My current monitors are 16 , though a friend found some potential good deals on 16:10 monitors that I may partake in if they end up good. What are you using it for?Gaming, streaming (Magic Online, Guild Wars 2, Dota 2, other such games), and programming. What is your upgrade cycle?About once every 3 years, with ram upgrades in between. When do you plan on building it?The sooner the better, but spread out over the upcoming month. I'm willing to sit on my graphics card for a good deal though. Do you plan on overclocking?Nope! Do you need an Operating System?nope! Do you plan to add a second GPU for SLI or Crossfire?I've considered it, but I don't think I need three monitors tbh. If it's not too much more expensive, it couldn't hurt to get a MOBO that could support it I suppose. Where are you buying your parts from?There's a nearby Fry's (I live in Seattle), and I can always buy off of Newegg and Amazon as well Thank you in advance for helping out! -Mutant
The budget is obscenely overkill to get the parts you need for that.
What's the current graphics card? There's plenty of money to get a new one.
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