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did some research on PSU and a calculator said with all my peripherals and such I could be using 974 watts under 90% load which would necessitate a 1200W powersupply. Then went and looked for real world voltages and the conclusion was with a 780GTI, and a 4770k I could expect to be using at most 400W under 90% load with the test setup.
From that I've extrapolated that when I add another 780GTI, 3-4 more harddrives, another blueray drive, and the 10ish USB peripherals, I could get by with an 850W PSU. the problem is most powersupply's are rated at 20%, 50%, and 100% load with 80% efficiency. so I could get by with 850 but it would be cutting it close I think, so I could recycle my Silverstone Strider 1000W gold or buy another one which is priced the same as the 1300W PSU.
This is a hard one for me to grasp because I am on a flat rate electrical bill. I don't pay anymore or any-less each month, so a 1300W running inefficiently costs me the same as a 1000W running efficiently. eliminating the environmental argument from the situation, I honestly don't know which way to go on it.
Ok so I'm considering a new PC. Problem is, I don't know much about them, and I always hear people scream that I'm an idiot if I don't build the PC myself (as opposed to buying a pre-built PC).
The PC i currently own i bought from iBuyPower, I selected the parts and they built it and sent it to me. It's been good to me for the past 5 years or so, but its starting to slow down, and I really want to upgrade.
I really don't want to take the time to learn how to build my own PC (I work too many hours and have a wife to tend to).
With that said, I would say my budget is ~$1,500.
My goal is to be able to play any game on its highest settings without a hitch. I also want anything that will give me the most out of my Bose speakers I have hooked up. I will also be using Microsoft Office for school and other projects I may be tasked with. I use two monitors, and it would be nice to play Blu-Rays as well. I have no preference on brands or anything like that.
Like I said I would prefer to just put the computer together on a website like iBuypower or something comparable. So if someone could give me a good build I would much appreciate it. Or if someone has a better route that still does not include me putting the PC together, I'm open to the idea.
did some research on PSU and a calculator said with all my peripherals and such I could be using 974 watts under 90% load which would necessitate a 1200W powersupply. Then went and looked for real world voltages and the conclusion was with a 780GTI, and a 4770k I could expect to be using at most 400W under 90% load with the test setup.
From that I've extrapolated that when I add another 780GTI, 3-4 more harddrives, another blueray drive, and the 10ish USB peripherals, I could get by with an 850W PSU. the problem is most powersupply's are rated at 20%, 50%, and 100% load with 80% efficiency. so I could get by with 850 but it would be cutting it close I think, so I could recycle my Silverstone Strider 1000W gold or buy another one which is priced the same as the 1300W PSU.
This is a hard one for me to grasp because I am on a flat rate electrical bill. I don't pay anymore or any-less each month, so a 1300W running inefficiently costs me the same as a 1000W running efficiently. eliminating the environmental argument from the situation, I honestly don't know which way to go on it.
I currently own a silverstone psu and I can't say it has been anything but reliable. However I do like having a powerswitch on my powersupply.
There are no power supply calculators to my knowledge that calculates load. If you used Outervision Extreme Power's or any retailer calculators such as Newegg's than those gives you the recommended power supply wattage, not the actual load figure.
An overclocked 4770k + GTX 780 Ti SLI setup would realistically use around 600w, maybe 700w if you are doing some heavier overclocking.
It's silly to worry about USB peripherals or drives. The CPU and GPU, the two most power hungry components in a system by a long shot, draws power from the 12v rail. USB peripherals draw power from the 5v rail and most peripherals use less than 1w, that includes the mouse and keyboard. Drives use a combination of the 5v and 12v rail but their power consumption is a small fraction of the CPU and GPU's, and they will be idle for the most part.
Don't buy Corsair RM, unless of course you like Corsair. It's overpriced for what it is.
EVGA SuperNova is your best option there imo, it's performance is superb (rebranded Super Flower Leadex Gold), it's like ~$210 (~$200 after mail in rebate) after price match, and a ten year warranty with excellent post-sale support. The 850w variant of the SuperNova is also a good option, everything about it is the same, just about ~$50 less expensive and less capacity.
Ok so I'm considering a new PC. Problem is, I don't know much about them, and I always hear people scream that I'm an idiot if I don't build the PC myself (as opposed to buying a pre-built PC).
The PC i currently own i bought from iBuyPower, I selected the parts and they built it and sent it to me. It's been good to me for the past 5 years or so, but its starting to slow down, and I really want to upgrade.
I really don't want to take the time to learn how to build my own PC (I work too many hours and have a wife to tend to).
With that said, I would say my budget is ~$1,500.
My goal is to be able to play any game on its highest settings without a hitch. I also want anything that will give me the most out of my Bose speakers I have hooked up. I will also be using Microsoft Office for school and other projects I may be tasked with. I use two monitors, and it would be nice to play Blu-Rays as well. I have no preference on brands or anything like that.
Like I said I would prefer to just put the computer together on a website like iBuypower or something comparable. So if someone could give me a good build I would much appreciate it. Or if someone has a better route that still does not include me putting the PC together, I'm open to the idea.
NCIX offers assembly for $50 though probably not worth it over Ibuypower or whatever low-end boutique
Core i5 4670 ~ $220 H81 or B85 or H87 ~ $70 GTX 780 ~ $500 2x4GB 1600MHz ~ $70 ~500w power supply ~ $70 Case (cheap) ~ $40, (good) ~$90 Samsung 840 EVO 250GB (or another ~250GB SSD) ~ $140 Western Digital Blue (or Seagate) 1TB ~ $60 Sound card ~ $40+, depends on what you want Windows ~ $100
That's about ~$1500 though GTX 780 may be a bit overkill in a non-overclocked system.
Also you should mention resolution.. because 2560 x 1440 or 2560 x 1600 is a lot more demanding than 1920 x 1080.
And if you want to play games without a hitch on max settings, you should probably build it yourself and overclock... "don't have time" I find is a very poor excuse because there's numerous guides on Youtube that guides you through the process and lots of resources at your disposal if you do come across a problem. The process itself takes maybe two to three hours for a first time builder, and if you don't have three hours to spare... I don't know how you have time to game?
Building it yourself also saves you money since you could carry over your case, drives, power supply, heatsink, sound card, Windows, etc onto the next build instead of wasting money on these components again.
Ok so I'm considering a new PC. Problem is, I don't know much about them, and I always hear people scream that I'm an idiot if I don't build the PC myself (as opposed to buying a pre-built PC).
The PC i currently own i bought from iBuyPower, I selected the parts and they built it and sent it to me. It's been good to me for the past 5 years or so, but its starting to slow down, and I really want to upgrade.
I really don't want to take the time to learn how to build my own PC (I work too many hours and have a wife to tend to).
With that said, I would say my budget is ~$1,500.
My goal is to be able to play any game on its highest settings without a hitch. I also want anything that will give me the most out of my Bose speakers I have hooked up. I will also be using Microsoft Office for school and other projects I may be tasked with. I use two monitors, and it would be nice to play Blu-Rays as well. I have no preference on brands or anything like that.
Like I said I would prefer to just put the computer together on a website like iBuypower or something comparable. So if someone could give me a good build I would much appreciate it. Or if someone has a better route that still does not include me putting the PC together, I'm open to the idea.
NCIX offers assembly for $50 though probably not worth it over Ibuypower or whatever low-end boutique
Core i5 4670 ~ $220 H81 or B85 or H87 ~ $70 GTX 780 ~ $500 2x4GB 1600MHz ~ $70 ~500w power supply ~ $70 Case (cheap) ~ $40, (good) ~$90 Samsung 840 EVO 250GB (or another ~250GB SSD) ~ $140 Western Digital Blue (or Seagate) 1TB ~ $60 Sound card ~ $40+, depends on what you want Windows ~ $100
That's about ~$1500 though GTX 780 may be a bit overkill in a non-overclocked system.
Also you should mention resolution.. because 2560 x 1440 or 2560 x 1600 is a lot more demanding than 1920 x 1080.
And if you want to play games without a hitch on max settings, you should probably build it yourself and overclock... "don't have time" I find is a very poor excuse because there's numerous guides on Youtube that guides you through the process and lots of resources at your disposal if you do come across a problem. The process itself takes maybe two to three hours for a first time builder, and if you don't have three hours to spare... I don't know how you have time to game?
Building it yourself also saves you money since you could carry over your case, drives, power supply, heatsink, sound card, Windows, etc onto the next build instead of wasting money on these components again.
If the YouTube route is as do-able as you say, maybe I will attempt.
Then went and looked for real world voltages and the conclusion was with a 780GTI, and a 4770k I could expect to be using at most 400W under 90% load with the test setup.
From that I've extrapolated that when I add another 780GTI, 3-4 more harddrives, another blueray drive, and the 10ish USB peripherals, I could get by with an 850W PSU. the problem is most powersupply's are rated at 20%, 50%, and 100% load with 80% efficiency.
A 1000w PSU that is 80% efficient will deliver 1000w, not 800w - it'll just draw 1250w from the wall to make that 1000w
An overclocked 4770k + GTX 780 Ti SLI setup would realistically use around 600w, maybe 700w if you are doing some heavier overclocking.
The power limit on an unflashed 780ti is ~270w when increased to max. You have to add a bit more over this for vram usage etc - so you can say maybe 300, max.
In worst case power draws with extreme overclocking and crazy cooling you can draw a TON of power from all of these parts - like 550w per GPU. They don't use anywhere near that much power at the normal voltage limit of 1.212v though, and they are power limited to throttle them some even there.
Then went and looked for real world voltages and the conclusion was with a 780GTI, and a 4770k I could expect to be using at most 400W under 90% load with the test setup.
From that I've extrapolated that when I add another 780GTI, 3-4 more harddrives, another blueray drive, and the 10ish USB peripherals, I could get by with an 850W PSU. the problem is most powersupply's are rated at 20%, 50%, and 100% load with 80% efficiency.
A 1000w PSU that is 80% efficient will deliver 1000w, not 800w - it'll just draw 1250w from the wall to make that 1000w
An overclocked 4770k + GTX 780 Ti SLI setup would realistically use around 600w, maybe 700w if you are doing some heavier overclocking.
The power limit on an unflashed 780ti is ~270w when increased to max. You have to add a bit more over this for vram usage etc - so you can say maybe 300, max.
In worst case power draws with extreme overclocking and crazy cooling you can draw a TON of power from all of these parts - like 550w per GPU. They don't use anywhere near that much power at the normal voltage limit of 1.212v though, and they are power limited to throttle them some even there.
I'm not really concerned about fully loading a powersupply what my concern is about is the low end. Matching the PSU to that is more important to me because I will only on few occasions hit max power draw from the unit. It's more the idle/ low end task power consumption that becomes somewhat necessary to match it too. that is if I cared about my electric bill. Which I don't so therefore I will likely be getting the 1300PSU. But at this point its a conversation about matching the PSU for anyone who might be interested in the answer.
I wouldn't be surprised if more then half of your computer's life if it was sitting there using less then 10% of your CPU / Videocards and therefore its idle or low power efficiency would be more important. Watching this video:
was abit eye opening despite what is recommend by manufacturers, you can it seems get by even with a system as loaded as the test system in the video get away with a smaller powersupply. It was interesting for me as well because he was at about 350ish watt's and using a 750watt psu so he was utilizing only about 46% of his PSU while fully loaded. looking at the cert its 80% efficient @ 20,50,100 so his 750 wasn't being efficient there. So rather then looking at theoretical full load, I think its just as important if not more to consider where you can actually expect to sit given these tests. Adding another GPU and a few more harddrives I think I'd realistically be sitting at 600W while fully loading both the CPU and gpu's. That is of course assuming power usage only doubles when using 2 cards in SLI. So my happy place for 100% load would be a 1200W PSU and that would be ridiculous because I am probably gonna be sitting at idle or a little above idle power usage more then half the time.
Sometimes knowing more is worse then knowing less because it presents more questions then answers, so for the sake of simplicity I think that the purchase of PSU should be based upon your 50% and theoretical 100% load, even though you'll probably never realistically push that envelope even with an 850W unit.
It was interesting for me as well because he was at about 350ish watt's and using a 750watt psu so he was utilizing only about 46% of his PSU while fully loaded.
350w from the wall with an 80% efficient PSU = 280w from the PSU. A hair over 50% load on a 550w rated PSU.
A 680 @1.2v doesn't use much power though. Maybe 180 watts - a pair of 780ti's at the same voltage (which is a normal, not really pushed clock speed) would use like 3 - 3.5x as much power as that 680, possibly (hard to say exact numbers)
680 has 8 SMX - a pair of 780ti's have 15 SMX each. That includes shader cores, texture mapping units etc. That should give an idea of relative power - i'd rather have a single 780ti than a pair of 680's.
and to re-iterate because it was said wrong in that video: If you have an 80% efficient 1000w unit, it doesn't mean that it can only output 800 watts. It will output 1000 watts - that's what it's rated for - but that 1000 watts outputted will be just 80% of the wall draw (1250 watts)
From what I've seen in reviews, the PSUs seem to be most efficient if used somewhere around 50% load. It gets less efficient towards 0% and 100%. So if you want to balance it, I'm not sure what best to do. For someone that really only plays games a lot when at the PC, has the PC off whenever away, I guess a PSU that's too large would be best for getting the most efficiency out of it. The idle thing you mentioned makes a smaller PSU smart for efficiency.
That said... I bet the idle thing is not very important at all with a quality PSU. See these two reviews here, first PSU 750W, second one 1300W:
It's a bit annoying that the low load test in the second review is already about a massive 130W load. My UPS has a software tool that's supposed to show what the UPS is doing at the moment. While I'm typing this post, it says the UPS is at 5% or 10% or 15% load. The UPS can supply somewhere between 400W and 500W at most. If those 10% are correct, that should be very little power use for the PC. The monitor is also plugged into the UPS.
So because the second review has 130W for the low load test, one can only guess that it probably behaves very similar to the smaller PSU model if a 75W test would have been done, would have similar efficiency at that load. If I'm guessing right, you'd be able to buy the larger model without losing out on efficiency at idle and you'd get great efficiency at something like 750W.
It would perhaps still be better use of the money to search for a smaller "platinum" efficiency PSU instead of buying the 1300W "gold" model of this PSU over the 750W one.
It was interesting for me as well because he was at about 350ish watt's and using a 750watt psu so he was utilizing only about 46% of his PSU while fully loaded.
350w from the wall with an 80% efficient PSU = 280w from the PSU. A hair over 50% load on a 550w rated PSU.
A 680 @1.2v doesn't use much power though. Maybe 180 watts - a pair of 780ti's at the same voltage (which is a normal, not really pushed clock speed) would use like 3 - 3.5x as much power as that 680, possibly (hard to say exact numbers)
680 has 8 SMX - a pair of 780ti's have 15 SMX each. That includes shader cores, texture mapping units etc. That should give an idea of relative power - i'd rather have a single 780ti than a pair of 680's.
and to re-iterate because it was said wrong in that video: If you have an 80% efficient 1000w unit, it doesn't mean that it can only output 800 watts. It will output 1000 watts - that's what it's rated for - but that 1000 watts outputted will be just 80% of the wall draw (1250 watts)
So under load he was realistically taxing only 280W of the 750W its rated for; either which way it is stated the video showed that with his configuration his 750W PSU was overkill for what he was actually drawing/ needing.
Power efficiency I will confess has never really been of pressing importance to me because I've always had a flat rate electrical bill and a somewhat overkill powersupply.
I think the closest I ever came to loading a PSU was when I had a 4400+ with a pair of 7800GT's in crossfire+ 4 harddrives etc... years ago.
Despite the incorrect statement about 80+ and its meaning in the video; I see a value in the video for showing plainly what that system actually uses. If I was building that system when the 680 first came out I wouldn't have thought twice about throwing an 800W PSU in it and would have thought that if you put 2 in SLI an 800W would be barely adequate.
I'm not sure if it was you who stated it earlier or another person but the statement was peripherals use much less power then you'd think. And yes that's true; however I think its better to say from the real world testing alot of our computer components use much less power then we'd think. Therefore it becomes hard to truly justify the massive PSU's were seeing right now in non server/ triple/quad SLI/crossfire setups. The bigger number becomes purely for marketing and bragging rights.
I'm very new at this, so I don't know if I'm in the correct place, but could someone please critique this build for me? I'm trying to build a gaming PC with a budget of 850-900$ (I already have the monitor I want), and this is the build that was recommended today on r/buildapcforme.
He recommends the i3 to keep me under budget, but I definitely want to get the i5 I think and I definitely want the SSD. And I still would want to buy a disc drive.
The difference between i5 and i3, besides clock speeds, is that the i5 has 4 physical cores whereas the i3 has 2 physical cores and hyper-threading (total of 4 virtual cores). Hyper-threading helps if you're doing things that rely on parallel workload, ie video encoding (streaming/video encoding), compiling (programming), etc. These tasks are well-threaded so hyper-threading helps you with that. Otherwise, if you're doing things like gaming or running multiple, different programs at the same time (OBS/a game/web-browser/music player/word), then you want real, physical cores. That's what the i5 will get you. Obviously, at well-threaded tasks, the i5 remains superior to the i3 given that 4 real cores are better than 2 with hyper-threading.
i3 is a fine processor generally speaking; if you're looking to stream, video record and just do hefty tasks in general I would recommend getting the i5. You're looking at $200 price tag for a 4690 though. You could probably get by with an i3 anyway though.
That PSU sucks, get the Rosewill Capstone 450.
Otherwise things look fine to me. The case is a great one for budget, it's got two fans in it, nice and wide. Good choice.
Hey again So i have one card left in my puzzle build. The graphic card. What iam very worried about is the silence part. Some review say it sound like nothing. Its extremely quiet. Some other reviews says it sound like shit.
Before i jump to the graphic card: My motherboard says SLI support only. It means i can connect two Nvidia cards, right? If iam wrong, please say so.
This is the graphic card i am thinking about: EVGA GeForce GTX 770 2GB SC ACX AT Gpu maker it says, Nvidia. Am i doing the logic right?
The silence part has to do with the case, right? NZXT H440W Silent Ultra Svart <- thats the chase
And iam getting aNoctua NH-U14S for the processor
Iam adding those things incase things like this can affect the sound. Anything else in the computer that can make the graphic card sound high?
Will i get a silence graphic card with these things? Should i get an extra fan to the computer? Can this be good if its room? If i put over $100 extra on the case. Can this be a good thing silence wise?
Iam so worried that it will sound. I hate high sounds. Help me?
I have another thing i need some help with. The 2GB part of the graphic card. I know its fine for all games more or less, but what about editor work? When do i need 4GB. I read the front page, it says when you wanna use higher resolution than 1900x1000 or something.
But when do someone wanna do that when it comes to editor work? Its important?
On May 28 2014 03:37 Incognoto wrote: The difference between i5 and i3, besides clock speeds, is that the i5 has 4 physical cores whereas the i3 has 2 physical cores and hyper-threading (total of 4 virtual cores). Hyper-threading helps if you're doing things that rely on parallel workload, ie video encoding (streaming/video encoding), compiling (programming), etc. These tasks are well-threaded so hyper-threading helps you with that. Otherwise, if you're doing things like gaming or running multiple, different programs at the same time (OBS/a game/web-browser/music player/word), then you want real, physical cores. That's what the i5 will get you. Obviously, at well-threaded tasks, the i5 remains superior to the i3 given that 4 real cores are better than 2 with hyper-threading.
i3 is a fine processor generally speaking; if you're looking to stream, video record and just do hefty tasks in general I would recommend getting the i5. You're looking at $200 price tag for a 4690 though. You could probably get by with an i3 anyway though.
That PSU sucks, get the Rosewill Capstone 450.
Otherwise things look fine to me. The case is a great one for budget, it's got two fans in it, nice and wide. Good choice.
Thank you very much. Would you recommend that I buy a disc drive to install everything like the OS and the graphics drivers simply, or should I just save money and do it all through USB.
On May 25 2014 21:58 Kotreb wrote: Does anyone have Dell E-series E2414H monitor? Thinking about getting one. Reviews ahve been mostly positive, but i want to hear more opinions. How are the colors? Is it sharp enough (one reviewer mentioned that pixels tend to bre grainy when working in word and since i'll be doing a lot of that i'm wondering if it's true)?
Hmm. Sorry, have a P2314H here, but I can say they work pretty well.
On May 28 2014 03:37 Incognoto wrote: The difference between i5 and i3, besides clock speeds, is that the i5 has 4 physical cores whereas the i3 has 2 physical cores and hyper-threading (total of 4 virtual cores). Hyper-threading helps if you're doing things that rely on parallel workload, ie video encoding (streaming/video encoding), compiling (programming), etc. These tasks are well-threaded so hyper-threading helps you with that. Otherwise, if you're doing things like gaming or running multiple, different programs at the same time (OBS/a game/web-browser/music player/word), then you want real, physical cores. That's what the i5 will get you. Obviously, at well-threaded tasks, the i5 remains superior to the i3 given that 4 real cores are better than 2 with hyper-threading.
i3 is a fine processor generally speaking; if you're looking to stream, video record and just do hefty tasks in general I would recommend getting the i5. You're looking at $200 price tag for a 4690 though. You could probably get by with an i3 anyway though.
That PSU sucks, get the Rosewill Capstone 450.
Otherwise things look fine to me. The case is a great one for budget, it's got two fans in it, nice and wide. Good choice.
Thank you very much. Would you recommend that I buy a disc drive to install everything like the OS and the graphics drivers simply, or should I just save money and do it all through USB.
Disc drive would be if you're like me who has a ton of music CDs from their parent's library you want to put on your computer, or you want to play old games, or if you want to watch the DVDs you bought. Stuff like that. That's your call.
Graphics card drivers should be downloaded from the web in their most recent form. The OS can be installed from a USB stick actually.
I find it nice to keep an optical drive around just for convenience when it comes to hardware drivers (e.g. mobo suite) and old games I play (still rocking Alpha Centauri 15 years later...). You can get a USB one for a little extra cost and just plug it in for the instances you actually need the optical drive.
You can get an optical that also plays Bluray, so if you're into movies and are one of the people who actually get Bluray discs you might find it nice for that, also.
If money is tight then you might just consider skipping it in favor of a little extra hassle at times.
On May 28 2014 03:33 skyR wrote: Can't get the price much lower unless you want to pirate Windows or get it through your school.
280 instead of 280x saves money, better price/performance ratio and definitely worth dropping a tiny bit in GPU performance for the CPU performance gain and having i5
The silence part has to do with the case, right?
The most important things for silence at very high loads are the combination of the GPU cooler, your case airflow and the fans in your case. Having a nice airflow setup with a bunch of ~800-1200rpm fans so that you can keep your GPU cool at low GPU fan speed is probably ideal. 770's are not particularly hard to cool - a 780ti at 1.25-1.3v draws like twice as much power using the same coolers that 770's do, so they're way harder. High end, overclocked cards on air are way harder to keep quiet and cool than *cough* "midrange" like 760-770/280 - for example with great airflow like 65c at 50% fanspeed on the GPU is a thing on a 770 @1.212v and max OC. You only have to keep it below 80c.
You should be careful running a gaming system inside of a "silent" case, because this often means they have only a few low performance and quiet fans, along with noise filtering which can limit airflow - and the noise that they gain here by doing this is often just added onto your GPU, and then some, when you have to increase your GPU fan speeds for the same temperatures you'd have if you simply had better airflow to it in the first place. Quiet fans, less fans, noise filtering - it's all good, but you need to be sure that you have the right amount of airflow in the right places, still.
A system with four ~1000rpm fans and a GPU is way quieter than a system in a closed box with no fans, because the GPU fans have to max themselves out when the case heats up, instead of staying at like 40-50%.
Would you recommend that I buy a disc drive to install everything like the OS and the graphics drivers simply, or should I just save money and do it all through USB.
Not sure of best methods for getting windows on a system, i just borrowed an optical drive or installed on an SSD then moved it system to system (takes like 15 seconds) but stuff like graphics drivers can and should be downloaded online to have latest versions. They update at least like once a month, usually, sometimes more
EPT
