EPTComputer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread - Page 207
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RiSkysc2
696 Posts
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Cyro
United Kingdom20318 Posts
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RiSkysc2
696 Posts
What kind of motherboard would you suggest, does it even matter? What mini ITX case is objectively the best for maximum portability and performance? Maybe im posting in the wrong place, it'd be really helpful if someone could propose a build for me. | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
Sizes in mm (height / depth / width, though I could have messed height/depth up): BitFenix Prodigy - 404 x 359 x 250, weird flex handles, ATX power supplies no longer than 160, fits 240 rad EVGA Hadron Air - 305 x 308 x 169, includes a 1U power supply, fits 240 rad Corsair Obsidian 250D - 290 x 350 x 277, fits 240 rad Lian Li PC-TU100 - 250 x 260 x 170, fits 120 rad Silverstone Sugo SG08 (also SG07) - 190 x 351 x 222, limited stock WC support, included power supply Silverstone Sugo SG06 (also SG05) - 177 x 286 x 220, fits 120 rad, included SFF power supply, limited graphics card clearance of roughly 240 mm Cooler Master Elite 130 (also see 110, 120) - 205 x 378 x 240, fits 120 rad Fractal Design Node 304 - 210 x 374 x 240, fits 120 or 140 rad Silverstone TJ08-E (also PS07) - 374 x 385 x 210, fits 120 rad, microATX, actual good cooling Silverstone SG10 (also SG09) - 295 x 354 x 220, fits 120 rad, microATX Note in some of these, if you fit a radiator where the fan would go, that requires removing hard drive mounting options. Also note that some may require slimmer radiators and/or motherboards that don't stick out too high in certain places. Notice how the large ITX options are as big as the SG10 or more. I think there exist 180 -> 140 brackets so the Silverstone cases with 180 fans could maybe fit a 140 rad there instead. Practically I don't think the thick 120 or 140 CLCs are that much worse than the 240 CLCs, but I haven't checked the reviews in a while. edit: that far in the future, there could be more case options. There also could be a new generation of graphics cards. Also Haswell refresh, but I doubt that will be much. i5-2500k is likely still good then, and that's probably still going to be true for the HD 7950. | ||
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RiSkysc2
696 Posts
Mobo- gigabyte GA Z77N , this allows overclocking right? PSU -Corsair CX 500M ( 500W, is this enough?) | ||
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MisterFred
United States2033 Posts
On January 31 2014 00:34 Myrmidon wrote: With respect to Mantle, from the start they were talking about the overheads of DirectX API draw calls. If the GPU is already pretty much 100% busy even without Mantle doing useful stuff (note: GPUs don't have all the space and power consuming trickeration CPUs do to keep themselves busy and guessing at what to do), how is some more efficient API going to keep the GPU even more busy? e.g. AnandTech: "to this day the number of draw calls high-end GPUs can process is far greater than the number of draw calls high-end CPUs can submit in most instances." i.e. it's helping out the CPUs http://images.anandtech.com/doci/7371/FBMantle.jpg Of course, some other benefits too maybe, but that wasn't the focus. Also, low-level stuff, even if not Mantle specifically, is of course what can help out those puny Jaguar cores in the consoles. It is also quite possible that programmers have enough trouble porting their stuff to Mantle that they have not really found time to do all the "low-level optimizations" that would speed up things on the GCN GPU. Better utilization and exploitation may come with time. I haven't read the articles yet though, so... From your description of the technology, it looks like super-users might want to pay attention to the next tri-fire & quad-fire reviews to see if Mantle also has benefits for the extreme enthusiasts (assuming that 4 GPUs would have even more problems keeping themselves busy & waiting for CPU commands? | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20318 Posts
Ok thats what i thought, it needs to be noted that ill be travelling in september or december 2014 and moving to uni in 2015, do you think the i5 2500k and 7950 will still be enthusiast level components at that point? The 2500k and 7950 are still enthusiast level components now, in that there's not much to upgrade to. OC vs OC, average 4670k is only a bit faster than 2500k - like way under 20%, probably. 7950 is one of the highest end GPU's. It's very close to the 280x (which is a 7970, basically) and there's nothing to replace it unless you spend like $500 on a 290 or 780 which massively increases power consumption and heat output as well as performance. Both of those GPU's rely quite heavily on cooling performance to make them worth it, if you can't take 300 watts from the gpu alone, it's not really cost effective or great to buy them, IMO. There is no new GPU gen, no new process technology for better power efficiency etc. If this is for late 2014 to early 2015 though.. We'll have 20nm GPU's by then, as well as broadwell. On the CPU/Mobo front, you'd probably want to hold until Skylake cpu+mobo with ddr4 in ~2015, but on the graphics card front you could upgrade for more performance and power (heat) efficiency some time this year Last comment: 120mm clc's are not terrible in limited space, but they run with far higher delta temperatures than 240mm with only one fan on them. Second fan helps a lot, i've seen >10c quoted a few times. CLC's are not the most noise efficient when you're squeezing every bit of performance out of them, and that's more neccesary on 120mm rad space than 240 | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
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Cyro
United Kingdom20318 Posts
My hope is that stuff is more clear with how performance will be etc, that i can actually see variable refresh and what will happen with mantle, before being forced to make such a choice. If there's no game that i particularly want that runs it, it might be ok to go without. If a dozen MMO/RTS games or cool games from other genre's are announced with mantle support and there's no way for anybody without a radeon card to see such performance, then that hurts a lot. | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
Of course Blizzard probably won't touch anything about rewriting their stuff, so probably won't help the SC2 example.  Thinking of things like G-Sync tying the cards and the monitor together gives me cancer. Mantle is also annoying regarding getting locked into something. All of this shit should have been worked on in the open.  There are guys working on open source OpenGL drivers for AMD and NVIDIA cards on Linux. Those open source drivers are between kind-of-crappy and useless depending on the feature you're looking at. It's actually crazy that the drivers work at all, as NVIDIA keeps nearly everything about the actual inner workings of their stuff secret. I think it's all pretty much built on what could be learned by reverse-engineering and experiments. What would be fun is if those guys could build Mantle drivers. If Mantle does very little complicated work compared to OpenGL, that might actually produce a competitive result for an open source version of a driver? | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
On January 31 2014 05:22 RiSkysc2 wrote: Ok thats what i thought, it needs to be noted that ill be travelling in september or december 2014 and moving to uni in 2015, do you think the i5 2500k and 7950 will still be enthusiast level components at that point? What kind of motherboard would you suggest, does it even matter? What mini ITX case is objectively the best for maximum portability and performance? Maybe im posting in the wrong place, it'd be really helpful if someone could propose a build for me. Take a look at the Silverstone Raven RVZ01. Link to the manufacturer's page: http://www.silverstonetek.com/raven/products/index.php?model=RVZ01&area=en A review where they used an air cooler and showed how the parts fit together: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Cases-and-Cooling/Silverstone-Raven-Z-RVZ01-Mini-ITX-Case-Steam-Machine-Chassis I have no idea how a CLC cooler would fit into that case, but there were reports of the prototype of this case being shown with water cooling on some trade show half a year ago. Regarding the motherboard for your 2500k, that can be a real problem. ASUS builds one or two Z77 boards where the VRM area (the parts that transform voltage and provide power for the CPU) are on a tiny extra board. I think that board is something you should definitely look into, because your 2500k will use a lot of power if overclocked thoroughly, which you can do with the strong CLC coolers you are thinking of. If you don't want to overclock a lot, you can get away with air cooling and use something that's a bit small and perhaps not that scary regarding being moved around. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20318 Posts
It might also be very neat if it can fix problems like those single slow frames that you whine about regarding SC2 for example. Thanks And to be honest, i'm surprised that it's not a more well known problem, what with it being experienced by every single person that i have seen look for it, and sc2's playerbase being 6 or 7 digit number. It's not as annoying as the massive microstutter when moving camera around lots of units though, which most people probably just interpret as bad performance | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
I definitely understand the ecosystem problems Mantle may create, it's a tough nut to crack. Nvidia and AMD have been even for a while now, if that balance is skewed, who knows what the hell will happen. | ||
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Deleuze
United Kingdom2102 Posts
This thread has been incredibly helpful to me in the past several months – it’s helped me turn from a know-nothing novice into a know-slightly-more-than-nothing novice, which I hope you will appreciate is always the biggest step – thank you. I would be internally grateful if you would mind taking a look at my planned build below and offering comments/thoughts, any suggestions re graphics card would be much appreciated too: CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 - purchased (a gift from my awesome wife) Mobo: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard - £34.21 RAM: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory - £64.99 Storage: WD Blue 250GB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive - £35.82 Wireless Network Adapter: Asus PCE-N15 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter - £15.99 Power: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX - £36.79 OS: Windows 8 - £49.99 Case: CM Storm Scout: I got this already 2nd hand for £20 Total: £237.79 What is your budget? ~£250.00 GPU budget: ~£150.00 (see below) What is your monitor's native resolution? 1080p What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings? SC2, DOTA2 high/max settings. Not interested in Triple-A-Max-Settings, but having a PC of this nature I can see myself picking up a bunch of indie titles in steam or cheap older games, and might pick up a triple A or two for mid settings at most. If this is too vague please tell me! What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming? Internet browsing, YouTube and streaming watching Do you intend to overclock? Nope Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire? Nope Do you need an operating system? Yep What country will you be buying your parts in? UK If you have any retailer preferences, please specify. None Question 1): My plan is to have a working PC ASAP as my laptop has died, I intend to purchase a graphics card however would prefer to build PC first to use and then add graphics card in a few months once I have saved up more money. My question is, would the Intel HD Graphics 4600 be able to handle SC2 on low(est) settings? I've checked a benchmark and it seems yes, but I'd like a second opinion. Question 2): This concerns my choice of graphics card. Originally I was looking at a Geforce GTX 650 Ti Boost chipset, but that was quite a few months ago. I’m looking at GeForce GTX 660, Radeon HD 7850 and Radeon R9 270 chipsets now, comparing Asus GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card with the Asus Radeon R9 270 2GB Video Card how important is the extra 50Mhz clock speed in the later? My budget for this is £130-£150.* Also, if you spot anything mad with my build please do point it out. My intention with the Wireless adapter is that this will be principally for web-browsing and then I’ll use hardwire for gaming (i.e. cables running up the stairs). Thank you all!!!! *I appreciate that recommendations will have changed by the time I'm ready to buy, however narrowing it down to chipset would be of great help. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20318 Posts
OCUK has some RAM @2x4gb for £60 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?catid=8&groupid=701&subid=1517&sortby=priceAsc Yes, integrated can hold up on low fine These are probably among best perf/£ depending on if you want nvidia or amd card http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009KFT1ZG/?tag=pcp0f-21 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-msi-gtx-660-gaming-twin-frozr-iv-pcie-30-(x16)-6008mhz-gddr5-gpu-1033 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-msi-radeon-r9-270-gaming-2g-28nm-5600mhz-gddr5-gpu-900mhz-boost-975mhz-1280-streams-dp-dvi-hdmi Most of the GPU's are reasonably close together in price, but a 2gb card is nice comparing Asus GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card with the Asus Radeon R9 270 2GB Video Card how important is the extra 50Mhz clock speed in the later? Clock speed is not really important for performance, it is important but a bunch of other stuff is more important (architecture, number of shaders/cores as well as other stuff) Comparing say one 270 to another 270 (same gpu), clock speed would be a somewhat approximate measure of performance. +10% clockspeed on one card might perform like 7% better in a certain application, but mostly you can just manually type in the clock speed yourself - you don't need a factory OC to do it *I appreciate that recommendations will have changed by the time I'm ready to buy, however narrowing it down to chipset would be of great help. Hard to say honestly, between a whole bunch of cards at lower/midrange. Depends on day to day prices even, and especially if you want Nvidia or AMD card - there's some features unique to each now that are relevant. Nvidia has shadowplay which is great for recording gameplay, as well as g-sync coming up (which probably isn't super important to you as it would require a new monitor to use) - while AMD cards have access to the Mantle API, which significantly improves performance in cpu bound situations in Battlefield 4 and future mantle-supported games (by like 50% in bf4, potentially 200-300%+ in a game with thousands of units and ai that had it implemented) Being probably GPU bound with a 4670 and a GPU like 650ti/660/270, it's probably not very useful right now either - but brand choice is somewhat more important than just "pick which one has the most fps/£", at least a little now | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd10ezex Otherwise listen to Cyro, best advice I could give you. | ||
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rei
United States3594 Posts
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883258049R ? | ||
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Flaiker
Germany235 Posts
Requirements: - run Office and CorelDraw somewhat decently - play movies at 1080p - needs HDMI port - OS (Win7 propably) also needed I dont think I'll need to say anything about overclocking, SLI/Crossfire in this pricerange Sites for german €-prices: www.mindfactory.de , www.hardwareversand.de | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
That's about € 50 + 50 + 60 + 40 + 100 which is about €300. No optical drive? If optical drive, then add €20. This is the rig I built my parents and it's hooked up to the TV and they're quite happy with it. Much music, all movies on it. As well as it being an actual computer. Throw everything into a budget case. Edit: fuck me forgot ram. 4 Gb of RAM should be more than enough for this rig. | ||
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