EPTComputer Build Resource Thread - Page 1613
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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. | ||
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Gumbi
Ireland463 Posts
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mucker
United States1120 Posts
My machine that died this morning was a 2008 mac pro that I was running win7 on and had put an hd 6950 2gb in. So I have a video card already, I mostly play street fighter 4, civ 5 and path of exile these days, the card was running at minimum power settings in the mac and the graphics were fine for me. My wife told me to go ahead and spend whatever, there is no need for me to get by on a junker computer. I'm pretty sure this is a trap, there must be some crazy expensive shoes she wants or something. But anyways I'm looking to keep it under $1k but that isnt a hard ceiling. Want to get as fast as possible without having to mess with overclocking and watercooling, all that fiddling doesn't appeal to me. My desk is in the living room of our one bedroom apartment, i care more about the case being effective yet quiet than stuff like fancy lights. Basically I'm looking at getting a i7-4770k, need recommendations for a mobo, case, power supply, ram, ssd. The more usb ports the better and at least one esata port. Hope to buy from newegg or amazon (have prime acct), would love to have it built by tuesday. Thanks in advance... | ||
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skyR
Canada13817 Posts
On August 10 2013 03:22 mucker wrote:+ Show Spoiler + Hello fellas. Looking for a little help today as my motherboard died this morning. I haven't built a computer from scratch since the 90s as I had worked in IT since college and just gotten by with scrounging random old computers and frankenstiening parts together. Until recently my main games were BW and diablo2 so I had never needed much in terms of hardware. My machine that died this morning was a 2008 mac pro that I was running win7 on and had put an hd 6950 2gb in. So I have a video card already, I mostly play street fighter 4, civ 5 and path of exile these days, the card was running at minimum power settings in the mac and the graphics were fine for me. My wife told me to go ahead and spend whatever, there is no need for me to get by on a junker computer. I'm pretty sure this is a trap, there must be some crazy expensive shoes she wants or something. But anyways I'm looking to keep it under $1k but that isnt a hard ceiling. Want to get as fast as possible without having to mess with overclocking and watercooling, all that fiddling doesn't appeal to me. My desk is in the living room of our one bedroom apartment, i care more about the case being effective yet quiet than stuff like fancy lights. Basically I'm looking at getting a i7-4770k, need recommendations for a mobo, case, power supply, ram, ssd. The more usb ports the better and at least one esata port. Hope to buy from newegg or amazon (have prime acct), would love to have it built by tuesday. Thanks in advance... An i7 is not worth the premium over an i5 for gaming as games do not make use of the major benefit of the i7, which is hyperthreading. K suffix processors are also meant to be used for overclocking and overclocking is typically associated with tinkering so I'm not sure what your stance is on overclocking. Though the 4670k and 4670 are practically the same price right now so you should consider it. This totals to $818: Intel Core i5 4670k @ $219 http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-4670K-Quad-Core-Desktop-Processor/dp/B00CO8TBOW Asrock Z87 Extreme4 @ $140 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157369 G.Skill Ripjaws X 2x4gb 2400MHz @ $70 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231666 Fractal Design Define R4 @ $80 (w/ promo code EMCXMXP42, ends 8/12) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352020 Noctua NH-U14S @ $75 http://www.amazon.com/Noctua-NH-U14S-Sockets-Heatpipe-Cooling/dp/B00C9FLSLY Rosewill Capstone 450 @ $60 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182066 Samsung 840 250gb @ $174 http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-MZ-7TD250BW-Series-Solid-2-5-Inch/dp/B009NHAEXE If you want two eSATA ports than you can get a Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H for $160: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128592  | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
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neobowman
Canada3324 Posts
http://ncix.com/products/?sku=59615&promoid=1275 At a cheaper price if available. If not, I'll go with this. In Toronto, Canada. I love you guys. | ||
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mucker
United States1120 Posts
I'm sure you're right and the i7 is more than I'd make use of. Questions - the power supply, is 450 really enough? The spec for the 6950 says 500 minimum. - that case comes with 2 fans but has 7 fan slots, should I get a few more? Thinking maybe second front, side, and bottom.Or would that be too much coming in with only the back + psu blowing out? Ropid - Good looking out, white case for sure. It doesn't get the promo code but is listed cheaper anyways. | ||
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Craton
United States17274 Posts
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Rachnar
France1526 Posts
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
On August 10 2013 06:26 neobowman wrote: I'm back. Just need something equivalent to this. http://ncix.com/products/?sku=59615&promoid=1275 At a cheaper price if available. If not, I'll go with this. I love you guys. On August 10 2013 07:05 Rachnar wrote: link broken Just manually go around. sku=59615 --> XFX Core Pro 550W. ($65 before $10 MIR) It's the best thing available at that price or lower. @mucker, skyR probably missed this: On August 10 2013 03:22 mucker wrote: Want to get as fast as possible without having to mess with overclocking and watercooling, all that fiddling doesn't appeal to me. The two case fans are fine for that. So for no overclocking, there are some tweaks to get pretty much effectively the same thing but at a lower price. Core i5-4670 Samsung 840 250GB - combo total $387 http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1393102 MSI B85-G41 - $80 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130699 eSATA expansion card - $20 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132020 Geil EVO 2 x 4GB 1600 MHz - $53 (running RAM faster than this is overclocking) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820144614 Fractal Design Define R4 - $80 (w/ promo code EMCXMXP42, ends 8/12); same http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352020 Rosewill Capstone 450 - $60; same http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182066 | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20322 Posts
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
So the cost delta would be to a Z-series chipset motherboard plus the RAM difference. And benefits of higher-clocked RAM should be lower at lower CPU frequencies anyway. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20322 Posts
I don't have such a system, but I'm somewhat sure that Intel doesn't allow RAM overclocking (i.e. above 1600 MHz) on the non-Z chipsets My bad I knew this D: | ||
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mucker
United States1120 Posts
This thread is such a great resource, thanks to all of you that keep it going! | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20322 Posts
On August 10 2013 13:11 mucker wrote: Ah thanks Myrmidon but I'd already ordered stuff based on skyR's post in hopes of getting it monday. Seems like a lot has changed since I was last in to building computers and overclocking is much simpler these days, with products actually marketed with the intent of people overclocking them and whatnot. I can finally overcome my fear inspired by the 486 I burnt out as a teenager. This thread is such a great resource, thanks to all of you that keep it going! Good luck! And hang around if you want haswell OC help, me, Alryk, Gumbi and Mav451 have haswell, though gumbi and mav got more recently There's not a lot of good info out there for the CPU's, or why they behave why they do, and lots of people saying stuff based on misunderstanding, so it can be very confusing, it was a big mess a few months ago but nowadays you should be able to dial in 4.4-4.7ghz depending on your luck with the silicon lottery with such a build np. | ||
Antoine
United States7481 Posts
On August 10 2013 13:22 Cyro wrote: Good luck! And hang around if you want haswell OC help, me, Alryk, Gumbi and Mav451 have haswell, though gumbi and mav got more recently There's not a lot of good info out there for the CPU's, or why they behave why they do, and lots of people saying stuff based on misunderstanding, so it can be very confusing, it was a big mess a few months ago but nowadays you should be able to dial in 4.4-4.7ghz depending on your luck with the silicon lottery with such a build np. I still haven't been able to find a stable 4.4, even my mostly stable 4.3 crashes in dota2 (weirdly enough of all games) sometimes | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20322 Posts
On August 10 2013 13:40 Antoine wrote: I still haven't been able to find a stable 4.4, even my mostly stable 4.3 crashes in dota2 (weirdly enough of all games) sometimes Can probably fix/improve some settings Here's a random 4.3 shot i just did @1.15vcore, 1.65vrin (i can probs go a tiny bit lower) i wouldn't be too worried about pushing volts a little with an i5 and u14s, it'll take a lot to make it hot outside of avx synthetics This was a few degrees below 20 ambients, max 50,49,50,48c from one run. Linpack without AVX will take it about 5 degrees hotter from sustained full load, and that's basically the ceiling on your load temps for "real world" max loads, it's just avx stress tests that'd take you higher. AVX will be hot whatever you do on haswell. (click for full size) ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/CPYcqFO.png) *few notes on this -Core voltage etc snapped down quickly as i took the shot right as load dropped, and also, it's a low score because i wasn't running cinebench 11.5 on high priorityThe lesson here, is that on an i5 (no +8-12c from hyperthreading) with the best air cooling available, close to stock voltage is not hot at all. On previous CPU's, that would probably be common sense, but Haswell is kinda a mess from poor documentation of behaivour and lots of clusterf***ing around overclocking settings. It doesn't mean you can't make it hot regardless of what you do, but it'll never happen in a real world load, or a stress testing load, unless you decide to stress test with them (avx/avx2 synthetics) which i disagree with a lot unless there's a specific reason for it, because it doesn't seem to bring any benefit, while imposing a ridiculous overclocking ceiling (in the leagues of 1.3v for delid+high end cooling instead of 1.5v with ivy) | ||
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r.Evo
Germany14080 Posts
1) If I have 2 fan intakes at the front, 1 fan output at the back, should I put the PSU in so that it sucks hot air away from the gfx card? 2) My win7 pro will arrive sometime next week, I remember reading somewhere that you can install it from versions available online and only need to activate it within 30 days, where can I get such a version? Anything I need to watch out for when I put it on an USB stick? 3) Anything special I have to watch out for when setting up a SSD in terms of formatting etc? 4) The D3H has fan controllers on it, if I plug my case fans in there instead of the built-in (rather crappy) fancontrol my case has can I control them via software? Does this make sense? 5) Thermal paste. How to apply? I've seen e.g. this video, seen people spread it with a business card and a million weird ways to spread it out on the CPU first. Anyone got a video that shows how to do this shit correctly? 6) Any big newbtraps I should be aware of when building this thing myself for the first time in 10 years? Plan is to just go after videos and the manuals and just do it slow and steady. Cheers guys. <3 | ||
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Blaec
Australia4289 Posts
On August 10 2013 17:09 r.Evo wrote: + Show Spoiler + Alright most of my build (4770k / gigabyte D3H / 16gb ram / 770gtx) arrived so far and I have a couple of questions. 1) If I have 2 fan intakes at the front, 1 fan output at the back, should I put the PSU in so that it sucks hot air away from the gfx card? 2) My win7 pro will arrive sometime next week, I remember reading somewhere that you can install it from versions available online and only need to activate it within 30 days, where can I get such a version? Anything I need to watch out for when I put it on an USB stick? 3) Anything special I have to watch out for when setting up a SSD in terms of formatting etc? 4) The D3H has fan controllers on it, if I plug my case fans in there instead of the built-in (rather crappy) fancontrol my case has can I control them via software? Does this make sense? 5) Thermal paste. How to apply? I've seen e.g. this video, seen people spread it with a business card and a million weird ways to spread it out on the CPU first. Anyone got a video that shows how to do this shit correctly? 6) Any big newbtraps I should be aware of when building this thing myself for the first time in 10 years? Plan is to just go after videos and the manuals and just do it slow and steady. Cheers guys. <3 1. If you have bottom mount PSU and it has room to intake air from the bottom definitely mount the PSU with fan facing down. You don't want to make the PSU hot and the 770 should be fine temp wise. 2. Windows site I think? 3. Turn AHCI on in the mobo setting prior, though most mobos come with it on these days. Otherwise just dont defrag the SSD and you are set these days. 4. Yes, plug into mobo and then go into bios and set how aggressive you want the speeds to be. 5. Just put a large rice grain sized blob on imo. edit: just like that video, maybe a tiny bit less applied. 6. Great approach, just google things when unsure. Only install what is necessary from the mobo driver CD, Asrock especially puts tons of annoying crap on if you let it. | ||
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skyR
Canada13817 Posts
You can download the official images online from Digital River which hosts for Microsoft: http://www.w7forums.com/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-image-downloads-t12325.html Like Linus says, just throw away the driver cd and download the latest. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20322 Posts
1) If I have 2 fan intakes at the front, 1 fan output at the back, should I put the PSU in so that it sucks hot air away from the gfx card? As Blaec said, PSU should probably be drawing in air from under the case. Like Linus says, just throw away the driver cd and download the latest. Obligatory "but the driver cd has my ethernet drivers on it" realization  For thermal paste, put a VERY SMALL AMOUNT ON, do not spread it, it will spread itself. You want ricegrain shape. Even when i tried to use very little and knew what i was doing, it took me four attempts using less and less, it's very deceptive. The difference between my first mount and my best one was like 5c. ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oRxlAl4.png) You want the paste to be in this shape when it's fully "squished" (though you can't see it, dont lift heatsink after you put it down because air bubbles etc) because the die that you are trying to cool is shaped like this: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/mMH1i8w.jpg) Just a small, top to bottom rectangle, under the middle of the heat spreader. You're not trying to cool the whole square "heat spreader", just the silvery bit under it. Ignore the other stuff in the pic - it's just to illustrate how small the CPU die is, and how it's only in the middle part of the the heat spreader you're putting paste on. Despite its name, it's job is not really to spread heat any more, and you only need paste over the area where the die is, plus a little bit more. There are thousands of guides for applying thermal paste, and most of them are TERRIBLE, trust the extreme overclockers and delidders who fight for 2-4c, not the ones who spread 5x too much paste running stock settings and say "it'll be fine" in this regard. "Just fine" doesn't mean anywhere close to optimal, it just means that nothing went catastrophically wrong. If you google how to remove TIM and have a lot of it (i had a 4g tube of mx4.. which i've used for 4-5 applications plus like 3-4 tests and there's still a whoooole lot left) you probably want to apply, put the heatsink down, apply a little pressure (like it would be when screwed on) and then lift up, to see how it spreads, then clean off and re-do it once or twice. It's one of the hardest things to get right, but it also doesn't really matter too much if you get it a little wrong. Just don't get it massively massively wrong. Good luck! (: edit: Updated with better picture edit2: I watched your video, omg.. "There's no exact quantity that you should be aiming for here" while going from 5x too much to 6x too much paste | ||
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