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Ah. Yeah, since your post had a full shopping list, I didn't scroll through the pages looking for your name, usually those come with some sort of reference to other posts if they've been made.
Sounds like a reasonable build, particularly for mixing school, business, and pleasure. Skimping on that wouldn't make sense in my book.
But then, most of these guys would tell you I overspend on PCs, by their standards, so you may or may not want more input than mine.
Your motherboard is a bit ridiculous, and you don't really need a factory OCed GPU unless you just want a better binned chip to OC further with, since OCing a GPU is a cakewalk.
A less obscene mobo and a stock 560 Ti can probably shave you about $120-150 without losing anything important.
@epik: Are you OCing with the turbo multiplier? If so, it should only show under load.
That's what I'd assume, at least. I'm on a 930, and that doesn't have any kind of unlocked multipliers. Hard way, all the way.
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As far as I can tell, this motherboard is very similar to the other one I chose, with one less pcie (and I think I will only need 2 anyway, since I will probably add a wireless card in addition to my graphics card), and it saves me $120. It also doesn't have bluetooth, which the other one does, but that hardly matters to me. Thanks for your advice!
Asus P8Z68-V LE Socket 1155 Intel Z68 Chipset Dual-Channel DDR3 2200(O.C.)*/2133(O.C.)/1866(O.C.)/1600/1333/1066 MHz 2x PCI-Express 2.0 x16 GLAN 8-CH High Definition Audio 4x SATA 3.0Gb/s 2x SATA 6.0Gb/s 4x USB 3.0 12x USB 2.0 DVI/VGA/HDMI ATX
139.99
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I am overclocking with the CPU Ratio, and it locks at 3.3 GHz regardless of the load, even with Prime95 and on idle.
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On August 26 2011 13:49 camconnor wrote:
As far as I can tell, this motherboard is very similar to the other one I chose, with one less pcie (and I think I will only need 2 anyway, since I will probably add a wireless card in addition to my graphics card), and it saves me $120. It also doesn't have bluetooth, which the other one does, but that hardly matters to me. Thanks for your advice!
Asus P8Z68-V LE Socket 1155 Intel Z68 Chipset Dual-Channel DDR3 2200(O.C.)*/2133(O.C.)/1866(O.C.)/1600/1333/1066 MHz 2x PCI-Express 2.0 x16 GLAN 8-CH High Definition Audio 4x SATA 3.0Gb/s 2x SATA 6.0Gb/s 4x USB 3.0 12x USB 2.0 DVI/VGA/HDMI ATX
139.99
This one is even cheaper, and just as good (or better, I think that's the LE version that's a little worse) http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=26_722&item_id=038863
You only need one pcie slot, the graphics card goes there, 2+ is for a SLI/CF configuration running 2+ cards, which isn't recommended (additional heat issues, scaling, reliability). A wireless adapter will go in a pci slot, of which this board has enough of.
At that budget, I would recommend getting a SSD especially for some of your bigger applications for the finance work. Between your OS and work programs on the SSD, your computer will be much faster. Intel is a relaible brand, samsung and crucial aren't too bad either. OCZ might have some reliability issues. Both of the mobos have SATA III (6Gb/s) so you can utilize the newer SSDs if you want.
You can save more money by going to a lower wattage PSU, you won't need 500 W, let alone 750, but Myrm could give you better recommendations.
You might want to pick up a GTX 560-Ti graphics card, it's only slightly more than the non-TI you picked out. Graphics cards are easy to OC, so you can save money buy OCing yourself and not getting factory OC.
Finally, it's up to you to decide whether you'll benefit from hyperthreading on the i7-2600k. Gaming doesn't use it, so unless your other programs would benefit, you could save yourself $100 for a nearly identically performing i5-2500k.
The WD caviar black HDD comes at a high price due to its 5 year warranty. If you still want a speedy HDD (I'd recommend it, put programs that don't need SSD speed on it) the samsung spinpoint f3 1TB is an option for around $60, but I couldn't find it on that site (which is a bitch to navigate, so few sorting features).
You may be able to save some money by price matching or just buying at ncix (saving even more money than what shipping may cost) but I'll leave that to Skyr who is more familiar with Canada.
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Thank you for clearing up the pci slot issue! I like the look of that motherboard too so I definitely have some deciding to do. I don't know much about how SSD's work however.
Also, I took your advice on the graphics card.
Thanks for everybody's help so far!
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On August 26 2011 14:37 camconnor wrote:
Thank you for clearing up the pci slot issue! I like the look of that motherboard too so I definitely have some deciding to do. I don't know much about how SSD's work however.
Also, I took your advice on the graphics card.
Thanks for everybody's help so far!
SSDs are hard drives that are very fast. So anytime your computer is limited by accessing the hard drive, they help out. Basically, windows startup, loading times on games, the delay between when you tell you computer to open a file and it actually opens, these are all sped up, because they're all times your computer is loading information from the hard drive into RAM.
But when your computer isn't accessing the hard drive, they of course do not help. So computation, graphics rendering, play experience after game levels or maps are loaded - this will all be unchanged.
I think the previous poster specifically recommended one for you because of your large budget and your mention of using large financial data files. Presumably when you open one of those files you have to wait a tiny bit. An SSD will reduce that wait time, make everything seem smoother, and thus could be a minor increase to your work productivity rather than purely a luxury. On the other hand, if you never notice or are bothered by hard drive access delays, it's pretty much worthless.
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I would never suggest a Caviar Green as a main hard drive, those are low performance "storage" drives, not as your main hard drive.
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the main drive is a ssd
the drive is for storage of data
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i would also never shop from canadacomputers
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On August 26 2011 11:41 camconnor wrote:
The reason I would get canada computers is that I can literally walk to the store, and completely eliminate shipping costs.
:S
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I tried many programs such as CPU-Z and Everest but everything says my speed is at 3.3 MHz regardless of load.
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5930 Posts
Try these settings, I don't have a Sandy Bridge processor or a Biostar BIOS but I think I know how it works. Your BIOS should have most of these settings (this is from an Asus motherboard) under a different name but it shouldn't be too hard to see which ones correspond to which.
Clear CMOS so you get the raw stock settings. Set these values:
Turn off:
PLL Overvolting
Load line Calibration (voltage overshoot when downclocking v.bad thing)
CPU Spread Spectrum
Turn on:
Enhanced Speedstep (why would you turn it off? we have power saving features for a reason)
CIE
Turbo Ratio and set "Select By All Core"
Set:
Phase Control to Extreme
Manually set whatever multiple (probably 42 since you want 4.2Ghz?) you want in the 1/2/3/4 Core Ratio Limit.
Duty Control should be T-Probe, as its the safer option
Manually set vcore to whatever works.
CPU Current Capability to no more than 100%
This *should* work better than a typical overclock. Intel implemented a pretty smart overclocking system, overclocking through turbo is probably a better idea in general anyway. Under load, through Prime95, the frequency should jump from 1.6Ghz to whatever you set pretty quickly.
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It's less than $1 / GB; SSD's are usually in the $2 to $2.5 per GB range, but it's mediocre speed for a SSD and OCZ is one of the least reliable SSD manufacturers.
EDIT: It would be a pretty good choice for an SSD on a budget, I would say. It does have a 3yr warranty and isn't that likely to fail. There are faster SSD's but I think this one would be fine as a OS boot drive + a few applications. I'm actually considering getting it just so I can put some extra games on it (I have a 40GB Intel SSD and a regular ol' HDD)
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As the product page says, it's an Indilinx Barefoot-based SSD, so two generations old. At least it has TRIM support. I don't see why reliability would be worse than other Indilinx Barefoot drives. I don't think OCZ would be using a custom design/firmware though maybe you can check on that. This was before OCZ bought Indilinx. I mean, maybe OCZ uses worse flash than others use in Indilink drives or does worse QC, but I wouldn't necessarily suspect that.
Although performance, particularly in random writes (random reads not too hot either), is not that good compared to modern SSDs, it's still a lot better than a mechanical drive.
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5930 Posts
I doubt any of the Sandforce drives would exclusively use Tier 1 memory because that Micron shit is probably solely used by Micron themselves + their BFFs. Just like how it is with memory, most companies fight over the scraps so to speak. Personally though I don't see why I would support OCZ but I suppose their failure rates are highest because they're the most popular with enthusiasts...?
Not sure about other Sandforce drive provider but I know OCZ uses Spectek stuff fairly often in their lowe/mid range drives. Not like it matters too much, since all of them should be marked as working within spec, but its worth noting that they do ship potentially shittier drives than the competition.
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OCZ has had documented chip supply issues in the past, they discontinued their memory because so much of it was shit. Not to say they don't try to clean up their messes, but they've had DOA issues a bunch of times. I think they try too hard for enthusiast stuff off of mid-range parts, and screw themselves over.
Mind you, when their stuff works, it works well, the problem is that they've had high fail rates a bunch of times before, and earned a bad reputation that they haven't cleaned up yet.
My RAM is a good example, running at CL6 1600 on stock VDIMM, but that was from post recall on that line.
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Sorry that did not help my problem, thanks though. It is still capped at 33 for the CPU Ratio, and it is not possible to set the ratio by core for my motherboard.
Also could you please elaborate what disabling Loadline does?
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On August 27 2011 04:13 epikAnglory wrote:
Also could you please elaborate what disabling Loadline does?
Ensures that your system is more stable when OC'ing. LLC is bad, VDroop is good.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2404/6
(You should read page 5 first really, but the 3rd paragraph from page 6 explains what can happen when you enable LLC.
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EPT
