EPTHow good are Nvidia reference coolers btw? The big ones on 780s that look like they're made out of metal (which they are) ?
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread - Page 300
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
How good are Nvidia reference coolers btw? The big ones on 780s that look like they're made out of metal (which they are) ? | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
But there's not too much point of reference. The only non-reference blower I can think of is on some HIS IceQX models, which are only on Radeons and kind of take up 2.5 slots. Like this: http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/his_radeon_7870_iceq_turbo_review,1.html | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
 Those designs don't necessarily have to be more quiet, but they are always stronger. If they are stronger, that means you can try to run the fans slower than normal to battle against noise. The cards are also often running faster, are somewhat overclocked compared to reference design. + Show Spoiler + Sometimes people talk about "reference card" and don't mean the cooler that comes with the card at all. "Reference design" can also only mean the way the card looks when it is naked, what chips are used and where they are placed exactly. That's important for people that want to use their own cooler on the card, for example a water cooling block that covers the whole front of the card. You can also buy air coolers for graphics cards that are very large and use large fans. When you want to buy something like that, those coolers are usually designed to not hit any parts on the front of reference cards and you can have issues with other designs, so you want reference design. | ||
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Foxxan
Sweden3427 Posts
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felisconcolori
United States6169 Posts
On May 29 2014 16:10 Incognoto wrote: I read they have some small teething problems. Something about heat pipes not fully covering the GPU. Bad memory modules as well? I think it might be only for AMD cards (if google is anything to go by): http://www.overclock.net/t/1468860/asus-290-direct-cu-ii-problem Take this for what you will... I have an R9 280x DCU-II TOPS card from Asus. I had to RMA it because it was causing screen twitching and some corruption in 2d draws, like the desktop. The cooling is nice, but apparently the fans on it have low tolerance for wobble - many complaints about fan blades catching on the heat sink and breaking. (Not covered by the way - "user caused damage".) After the RMA, the card hasn't had any further issues, and it has no problems heatwise though there are problems cited with an air gap between heat sink and VRAM - the fans rarely kick up from the 20% standby unless you poke them manually. I think Asus' biggest weakness is customer service, but since I complained in my Newegg review and they contacted me, my experience may not be typical. | ||
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
On May 30 2014 02:18 Ropid wrote: It's always unwise, especially for you as you are interested in building a very quiet PC. The cooler designs from the graphics card manufacturers are always improved compared to reference. That's the whole point of their work. Those designs don't necessarily have to be more quiet, but they are always stronger. If they are stronger, that means you can try to run the fans slower than normal to battle against noise. The cards are also often running faster, are somewhat overclocked compared to reference design. + Show Spoiler + Sometimes people talk about "reference card" and don't mean the cooler that comes with the card at all. "Reference design" can also only mean the way the card looks when it is naked, what chips are used and where they are placed exactly. That's important for people that want to use their own cooler on the card, for example a water cooling block that covers the whole front of the card. You can also buy air coolers for graphics cards that are very large and use large fans. When you want to buy something like that, those coolers are usually designed to not hit any parts on the front of reference cards and you can have issues with other designs, so you want reference design. But you want blowers for many multi-GPU builds (especially if more than two cards) on air cooling and certain SFF or specialty builds that would suffocate and recirculate air from an open-air cooler. Or if you value CPU temps a lot more than GPU temps / noise. And blower cooler options that aren't reference are scarce. For a single card in a mini / mid / full tower or similar, you almost always want non-reference cooling though, sure. | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
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Myrmidon
United States9452 Posts
I imagine you could make something better readily by using more height (distance from slot on up) or taking up more than 2 slots, but taking more than 2 slots is usually not very palatable because people want these things for cramped multi-card setups. I guess with extra height, you could use a larger fan? However, even with more height you need to funnel all the air out of the actual slots, which are a fixed height. Yeah, I don't think there's too much reasonably to be gained over Nvidia high-end reference. But that doesn't mean you couldn't have something slightly better sitting on an AMD card, right? You have to think there's at least a small market for a premium blower config that costs a bit extra on AMD high end. | ||
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YoiNk
Germany5 Posts
This is my first time building a custom pc. I am currently on a 5 and a half year old macbook and so I believe whatever I decide to buy should be a significant upgrade. I do some work at uni that involves model simulations so I believe a decently sized SSD (To install the OS, Programming library, do the I/O on as well as some games) and good processor should be included. What is your budget? 700 pound What is your monitor's native resolution? 1080p What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings? Starcraft hybrid settings, maybe higher. Diablo III, however high I can get it. What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming? Programming (involves model simulations) Do you intend to overclock? I wasn't actually planning to but it seems like it is quite possible and so why not? Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire? No. Do you need an operating system? No. Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget? No. If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify. No preferences. What country will you be buying your parts in? UK If you have any retailer preferences, please specify. Not really; from what I understand getting things from the same retailer will reduce Shipping costs and thus save money though. I have already looked around on PCpartpicker and made two builds (One with AMD FX8350 and one with Intel i5 4670K CPU): AMD build ~621 pound +shipping Intel Build ~666.68 pound + ~10 pound for shipping The AMD processor seems to be quite comparable in performance (the benchmarks seem to actually favour it) and it is quite a bit cheaper. I would generally like to hear any comments or suggestions on these builds but I have some specific questions already: 1. Are the motherboards adequate? For the one in the AMD build I have found a review on Amazon saying it only provides 100W while the CPU requires 125 and so the over clocking options are very limited. I could not find any information on this and it confused me a bit because I thought the power is supplied by the PSU (I guess the power is sort of routed through the motherboard?). 2. Is the additional cost of the Intel build validated by better performance? 3. Am I completely retarded for thinking it is a good idea to buy this now if there is a good chance I will want to move back to Germany in 4 month or so? In other words: is it a real hassle to move a pc? If I keep all the original packaging, would it maybe even be a good idea to just disassemble it into its parts again? 4. Is the graphics card a good choice? I know there are newer ones available but my reasoning is that this card will easily play everything I want to play now and if I want more in the future I can always get a new one then. Remember I am currently playing on an integrated Nvidia GeForce 9400M and so I think even a mid-range graphics card will be quite sufficient for me. This turned out to be a really long post but that is because I have spent quite a lot of time recently reading guides, picking parts and thinking about this. Thank you for any help you can give me! | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
http://www.overclock.net/t/1484890/looking-to-measure-up-my-i5-4670-no-overclock | ||
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skyR
Canada13817 Posts
You wouldn't need a 650w power supply for either build. A lower higher quality unit such as the Superflower Golden Green 450w would be more appropriate. If you are satisfied with a 9400M than you may want to look into getting a GTX 750 Ti (pending that it's priced reasonably), which should be a bit less expensive than the GTX 660 but a lot more power efficient, smaller, and still a heck of a performer. If the software you work with takes advantage of more than four cores than the AMD FX8350 should perform better but for software that does not take advantage of more than four cores, the Core i5 4670k will be king (by a long shot). Intel's Z series chipset is also better than AM3. | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
I'd put a monster cooler named "True Spirit 140 Power" in there for about 32 £ or so, but that does not fit into the case, is too high. EDIT: I just looked up the case on the Zalman website, and the FAQ section mentions the highest CPU cooler that fits is 150mm. The Hyper 212 EVO in your list is already too high for that! It's 159mm. Can you try to find a PSU with less Watts? Something like 450W would already be enough, so you might find something cheaper, or you could stay in the 65 £ price range and try to find something with better quality. 1. The AMD board, from what I could find, it's one of those boards where people have to try to point a fan at the VRM area to cool it for overclocking a lot, so something else might be a smarter. The only problem I see with that is that you then start to get closer to the price of your Intel version you looked at. About the Intel board, I remember someone mentioning that it has a limit for the voltage you can set. You will not run into that limit with the cooler you chose. You will always battle with the CPU temperatures instead. I feel it's still worrying, because they apparently thought having a limit is necessary. All other Z87 boards where you see a heat-sink on the VRM do not have any limits as far as I know. ["VRM" is the area close to the socket where you see a group of a lot of similar parts. Half of those are hidden under a heat-sink typically.] 2. Yes, there's normally better performance. I don't know about your modeling! The AMD has a lot more cores and might keep up very well or beat Intel. It might depend on your luck and how much voltage your particular CPU needs for overclocking. On the other hand, I've also seen someone doing financial modeling with his own programs run into severe issues with FX-8320 compared to i5. The difference did not make any sense on paper. As it was his own programs, he had access to the source and could try changing buffer sizes and stuff. The drop in performance looked like it would be data that does not fit into the CPU caches, but that couldn't be the case as all the caches in the AMD CPUs are larger than on Intel. The guy's goal was actually to build the cheapest possible machine using crappiest boards etc., and his Intel machines were beating the AMD one for price/performance. 3. You can move with it, but you could also ride your bicycle a lot the next four months or something as it's summer. You can try to put the whole machine into the packaging you got for the case, without disassembling. You can also remove graphics card, HDD, CPU cooler to feel better about shipping stuff.4. I use a GTX 560 Ti and it's still alright for me. You can always turn down graphics settings in games and you'll have a good chance for 60 FPS. The GTX 660 is internally very similar to the currently newest cards in the GTX 700 series, so you won't be missing any features. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
Most people also seem to prefer GA-970s for overclocking FX processors btw. So perhaps that would also be advisable? I'm not sure how good ASRock boards but a GA-970-UD3P is only £10 more. E: Here are some PSUs I might look at: What SkyR suggested: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flower-Golden-HX-80Plus-Netzteil/dp/B00H2ZZKB0/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1401463062&sr=1-1&keywords=Super-Flower SF450P14XE budget 550 and 450 W: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/550w-xfx-core-edition-p1-550s-xxb9-80-plus-bronze-1x135mm-fan-atx-psu http://www.scan.co.uk/products/450w-xfx-core-edition-p1-450s-x2b9-80-plus-bronze-single-rail-1x120mm-fan-atx-v231-psu You could also get either of these if you're looking to perhaps upgrade to an overclocked high end card. These are overkill for your current system but maybe an overclocked FX processor with an overclocked R9 290 would warrant these? http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009NY3QKK/?tag=pcp0f-21 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Super-Flower-SF550P14XE-Golden-Green-80plus/dp/B004ETOM4I/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1401463038&sr=1-1&keywords=golden green | ||
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Ropid
Germany3557 Posts
Best price I could find is HAF-XB and Lian Li PC-T60B, but I want cheaper. | ||
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Headshot
United States1656 Posts
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skyR
Canada13817 Posts
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lantz
United States762 Posts
http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/motherboards_d/Intel/D945PLNM/ I must of bought it a few years ago during a sale or something. Can I build a computer with it or is it better just to try to sell it on Ebay? Thanks! | ||
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Headshot
United States1656 Posts
On May 31 2014 04:05 skyR wrote: That would be the R9 270x (or the R9 270, same thing but with lower clocks) or GTX 660. What's the difference between the Sapphire/XFX Double D/MSI R9 270x? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202050&cm_re=r9_270x-_-14-202-050-_-Product http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150686&cm_re=r9_270x-_-14-150-686-_-Product http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127761&cm_re=r9_270x-_-14-127-761-_-Product | ||
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skyR
Canada13817 Posts
On May 31 2014 04:23 lantz wrote: Recently cleaning out my Room and I found a Intel® Desktop Board D945PLNM http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/motherboards_d/Intel/D945PLNM/ I must of bought it a few years ago during a sale or something. Can I build a computer with it or is it better just to try to sell it on Ebay? Thanks! If you have like a Pentium 4 and DDR2 laying around. On May 31 2014 04:30 Headshot wrote: What's the difference between the Sapphire/XFX Double D/MSI R9 270x? Mainly post-sale support / warranty is what matters for most people. The three heatsinks are similar but I'd lean more in the favour of MSI's Twin Frozr and Sapphire's Dual-X. Sapphire is the smallest of three if you care about length. XFX does two mDP ports whereas the other two does one full DP port, if that matters to you but I'm guessing it doesn't. | ||
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