EPTComputer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread - Page 345
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Jer99
Canada8160 Posts
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yido
United States350 Posts
I have a budget of around $200-500 and I would like to either buy a monitor, upgrade peripherals, or minor upgrades for my rig. However I am not sure if there is much I could get or if it would be worth it for my rig so these are my specs: ASRock Extreme 4 motherboard, N670GTX graphics card, i5-3570k CPU, 16 GB RAM. I have a cooling system by coolermasters for my CPU but I am overclocking my system so it is kind of useless atm. Also I am not sure what power source I have as I am using one I ripped out of my friend's computer (I haven't had a problem with it at all and it wasn't very old when I ripped it out). Would any of these parts be worth it to upgrade to enhance graphic performances in graphic intense games/entertainment system? I am currently using a hp Pavilion 23xi IPS monitor and a 30+ inch Samsung TV as monitors. I'm kind of debating on buying a 4k monitor but I think they are bit pricey and will go down drastically in less than a year or so. I am using <$100 mouse and keyboard and probably a slightly cheaper chair. Would a better seat or a headset be more worth it? | ||
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nosliw
United States2716 Posts
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Blazinghand
United States25563 Posts
On July 14 2014 07:52 yido wrote: Hello guys. I wish to upgrade my PC and would love some suggestions on it. /snip/ I am currently using a hp Pavilion 23xi IPS monitor and a 30+ inch Samsung TV as monitors. I'm kind of debating on buying a 4k monitor but I think they are bit pricey and will go down drastically in less than a year or so. I am using <$100 mouse and keyboard and probably a slightly cheaper chair. Would a better seat or a headset be more worth it? So from what I've heard, 4k monitors have some drawbacks. We have one at the office I work at and there are some issues with it that prevent it from being extensively used. Windows has issues scaling up icons and buttons to actually be visible on a mid-size 4k screen, and a our devices have issues actually producing enough resolution at enough fps (and over the correct cord) to actually drive the screen. Make sure your 4k monitor actually is what you want, and you can handle small size for some fonts and icons. In terms of keyoard, mouse, chair, headset, this is really a mileage may vary kind of thing. My chair is fairly cheap, but it's reasonably ergonomic, I sit straight in it, and my monitors are on reams of paper so they're at eye level. My desk has a platform thingie attached to it that my keyboard and mouse rest on so they are at elbow level, so my elbow bends 90 degrees and my wrists are straight. whether you want a better headset depends on how much you care about sound quality. | ||
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Craton
United States17303 Posts
Since 1080p is pretty much the industry standard right now you're virtually guaranteed that everything is going to look right on that resolution. You'll also have an easier time keeping a good FPS than with 1440p/1600p/2160p (4k). I think 4k are way overpriced right now and demand too many resources for a single monitor. A 4k monitor is about 80% of three 1440p monitors in terms of pixels rendered. There are several really nice looking 1440p monitors, but usually they're a bit slower than the 1080p choices and I think will have less support (or longer until supported) for new features like G-Sync / strobe / etc. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20345 Posts
On July 14 2014 14:37 Craton wrote: As someone who owns several 1440p monitors, I think the best size for PC gaming is still 1080p. There are way more good options for 1080p than any other size and the price point is really strong (24" 1080p is best value imo). Since 1080p is pretty much the industry standard right now you're virtually guaranteed that everything is going to look right on that resolution. You'll also have an easier time keeping a good FPS than with 1440p/1600p/2160p (4k). I think 4k are way overpriced right now and demand too many resources for a single monitor. A 4k monitor is about 80% of three 1440p monitors in terms of pixels rendered. There are several really nice looking 1440p monitors, but usually they're a bit slower than the 1080p choices and I think will have less support (or longer until supported) for new features like G-Sync / strobe / etc. Some prices are coming down though, for example in uk, gsync/144hz 1080p's will cost £300 while there are now several 4k 60hz at like £480 ROG swift cost 1.5x as much as that 4k 60hz gsync monitor that released | ||
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y0su
Finland7871 Posts
On July 14 2014 14:20 Blazinghand wrote: So from what I've heard, 4k monitors have some drawbacks. We have one at the office I work at and there are some issues with it that prevent it from being extensively used. Windows has issues scaling up icons and buttons to actually be visible on a mid-size 4k screen, and a our devices have issues actually producing enough resolution at enough fps (and over the correct cord) to actually drive the screen. Make sure your 4k monitor actually is what you want, and you can handle small size for some fonts and icons. In terms of keyoard, mouse, chair, headset, this is really a mileage may vary kind of thing. My chair is fairly cheap, but it's reasonably ergonomic, I sit straight in it, and my monitors are on reams of paper so they're at eye level. My desk has a platform thingie attached to it that my keyboard and mouse rest on so they are at elbow level, so my elbow bends 90 degrees and my wrists are straight. whether you want a better headset depends on how much you care about sound quality. You totally snipped out the part where he has all the equipment to OC... Why did you spend the extra if you're not going to? As to what you could spend money on... Do you have an SSD? Or, just save the money so you feel safer OCing. | ||
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Craton
United States17303 Posts
On July 14 2014 19:42 Cyro wrote: Some prices are coming down though, for example in uk, gsync/144hz 1080p's will cost £300 while there are now several 4k 60hz at like £480 ROG swift cost 1.5x as much as that 4k 60hz gsync monitor that released I might not've been entirely clear with my point: part of the 'costs way more' comes from simply needing better hardware to get equal performance at that resolution/framerate (versus at 1080p@60h). I would imagine you're still going to incur added cost trying to run at e.g. 120fps, but I don't know how that compares with the added demand of 1440p/2160p. For those who do have any aspirations for tri-monitor gaming I think you really want to take a hard look at staying with 1080p@60h. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20345 Posts
On July 15 2014 11:16 Craton wrote: I might not've been entirely clear with my point: part of the 'costs way more' comes from simply needing better hardware to get equal performance at that resolution/framerate (versus at 1080p@60h). I would imagine you're still going to incur added cost trying to run at e.g. 120fps, but I don't know how that compares with the added demand of 1440p/2160p. For those who do have any aspirations for tri-monitor gaming I think you really want to take a hard look at staying with 1080p@60h. 1080p144 is at least right about as graphically demanding as 1440p60 (it's more pixels/sec, but at lower resolution, probably less demand on video memory?) but it's also way more demanding on CPU, because forcing a game to run near 144fps is a ton harder than forcing it to run near 60. You can always buy a midrange GPU and cpu and run 1440p low settings near 60fps, so for that reason i'd rate 1440p60 easier to run than 1080p144, with 4k60 being the most expensive to run at a reasonable level for most games with some level of demand 1080p60 is ezmode compared to any of them, you can always run 1080p60 on ok settings if you have decent hardware. Unless you have like a console or something, that's the go-to for a cheap system as far as i'm concerned (g3258/fx6300, 750ti etc or similar/better) | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
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Gabreael
United States7 Posts
Gpu - Geforce Gtx 660ti 2gb Cpu - Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-Z77-DS3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard Power Supply - Rosewill Stallion Series RD500-2DB 500W ATX12V Power Supply Ram - Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 RAM Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Bare Drive any suggestions will be great! thanks guys ^_^ | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20345 Posts
On July 15 2014 17:16 Gabreael wrote: I am trying to build a gaming pc to run HoTs plus other games on ultra. I am not Tech savvy and most talk goes over my head but I have managed to fumble my way into creating this build and am looking for help and feed back. Gpu - Geforce Gtx 660ti 2gb Cpu - Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-Z77-DS3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard Power Supply - Rosewill Stallion Series RD500-2DB 500W ATX12V Power Supply Ram - Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 RAM Hard Drive - Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Bare Drive any suggestions will be great! thanks guys ^_^ That CPU, GPU, Motherboard are from ~2011-2012 and discontinued probably easier to fill in the new build template thing for somebody else to make a full build | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20345 Posts
On July 15 2014 14:31 Incognoto wrote: You can't encode 1080p48 video recording without a good CPU though, I've finally come to realize this. Not sure what is more CPU taxing, high resolution, fps or high bitrate? I'm thinking that 720p48 at a high bitrate might look better than 1080p30 at a lowerish bitrate. "Better" is very subjective, giving up resolution and a ton of sharpness etc for less visible encoding artifacts is a big trade-off to make Bitrate means little in terms of CPU usage, for a quick approximation you can just multiply resolution by FPS - etc 1920*1080*30, vs 1280*720*48. | ||
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yido
United States350 Posts
On July 14 2014 23:47 y0su wrote: You totally snipped out the part where he has all the equipment to OC... Why did you spend the extra if you're not going to? As to what you could spend money on... Do you have an SSD? Or, just save the money so you feel safer OCing. I spent it because I thought I might want it OC to run Rome 2 Total War/Tera Online. However both games didn't stress the CPU nearly as much as I thought it would. (fps doesn't drop on max graphic setting) Does SSD mean solid state drive? I have a Samsung SATA? Is that it? I was thinking about getting a new hard drive for it, any suggestion on one? I can get to a Micro Center and reside in the US. Since I can OC I can use a 4k monitor without trouble? Thanks for the responses guys, I really appreciate it and sorry for a late reply. | ||
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Cyro
United Kingdom20345 Posts
I spent it because I thought I might want it OC to run Rome 2 Total War/Tera Online. However both games didn't stress the CPU nearly as much as I thought it would. (fps doesn't drop on max graphic setting) I've seen terrible numbers for Rome 2 and heard about Tera, so your FPS is probably pretty low at times but just not low enough for you to be bothered by it with your standards. It's still nice to take 2-3 hours and throw on a good OC, though | ||
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ChanceT
United States1 Post
What is your budget? Preferably 550-600 may be willing to go higher only if this isn't doable. What is your monitor's native resolution? No monitor yet. Will be getting it along with keyboard on a seperate budget or taking a friends. What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings? Starcraft 2, league of legends, and maybe more but those 2 for now. Preferably on medium-high settings. What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming? School work and possibly streaming videos. Do you intend to overclock? No? Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire? Probably not. Do you need an operating system? No have windows 8. 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 here. What country will you be buying your parts in? Usa If you have any retailer preferences, please specify. None, but reliable well known sources is preferable. | ||
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Incognoto
France10239 Posts
On July 15 2014 22:26 Cyro wrote: "Better" is very subjective, giving up resolution and a ton of sharpness etc for less visible encoding artifacts is a big trade-off to make Bitrate means little in terms of CPU usage, for a quick approximation you can just multiply resolution by FPS - etc 1920*1080*30, vs 1280*720*48. ok that makes sense to me | ||
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Gabreael
United States7 Posts
Probably between 800-1000 What is your monitor's native resolution? 1920 1080p What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings? Sc2, League, Hearthstone, D3, WoW, plus more. What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming? Streaming while gaming, school, web design. Do you intend to overclock? No? Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire? I don't think so.....only if absolutely needed... 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 brand preferences and anything reliable and good and able to run on highest settings possible. What country will you be buying your parts in? Usa If you have any retailer preferences, please specify. None, anything reliable and good Thanks for the help in advance guys ^_^ | ||
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yido
United States350 Posts
On July 16 2014 01:34 Cyro wrote: I've seen terrible numbers for Rome 2 and heard about Tera, so your FPS is probably pretty low at times but just not low enough for you to be bothered by it with your standards. It's still nice to take 2-3 hours and throw on a good OC, though hmm. ok I'll try it on and see if it is better. Honestly, I might play less sc2 if Tera loooks any better than it is now. Which mods do you use on Rome 2? I never seen fps even waiver on the largest army size and highest graphics. (I rarely play siege battles but when I do it is the only time I've seen the visual performance waiver) What would be a good way to find out if I have all the OC gear working properly? N670GTX GPU, Core i5 CPU, and CoolerMaster (I think Evo 212). I have the CoolerMaster attached to the CPU. So am I trying to OC the GPU instead? or both? Do you need anything more specific on my specs to know? or do I need to run an executable to test validity of the OC? Or should all this be on GPU drivers? | ||
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domane
Canada1606 Posts
Pentium G3220 GTX 750 Mini-itx Motherboard 2 x 4GB 1600Mhz Memory 120 GB SSD What would be the wattage sweet spot for energy efficiency (assuming it's the exact same 80 Plus rating)? | ||
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