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On September 06 2014 06:56 Cyro wrote: You're running your RAM at 1690mhz due to a base clock overclock of 133mhz to 141.1mhz, it seems (or maybe it was just bugged there?)
Was that directed at me?
If so, I don't know what that means.
Edit: I am guessing me. The charts seems to be fluctuating between 133 and 141, even spiking as high at 170'ies.
Is this bad?
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United Kingdom20322 Posts
It's probably a bad sensor then, i'm not really sure
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UPGRADE QUESTION:
Current Build:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 MB: GA-770T-USB3 RAM: DDR3 12 GB GPU: NVIDIA GTX 670
While playing sc2, initially in the early and mid game I get around 120-140 fps, however in the late game I can get around 40 while controlling muta ling baneling, for example. The folks over in "Easy Questions Easy Answers" suggested that upgrading my CPU could help out my problem. Though they explained that in general its not as simple as a system being bottlenecked by a specific component. In general I get rather good performance. I can run games like far cry 3 really well on ultra settings. But on LOW settings, sc2 does not run as well as I would like. 1. Does upgrading the CPU for my setup make sense for my problem? 2 If so, which part would you suggest?
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Far Cry 3 is GPU dependent whereas Starcraft II is CPU dependent so yes you'd be looking at upgrading to an Intel Core i5 4690 (or 4690k if you are looking to overclock) for better CPU performance. Or even a Core i3 or Pentium if your budget does not allow for a Core i5, still a lot better than the ancient Phenom II X4.
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On September 06 2014 14:11 Justice569 wrote:
Note that for now, you can use custom graphics settings instead of Low if you feel things are too ugly. The Low preset sets everything to low, including stuff that only depends on the graphics card, so it makes things uglier than they have to be.
You can start out with the High or Ultra preset, then mouse over all individual options below that and read the tooltip. Set everything to the lowest possible setting that mentions something about CPU. The end result should run with very similar FPS as the Low preset but will still look nice.
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Thanks skyR, Though is it the case that my motherboard socket type determines what my options are for CPU's? It doesn't look like the Intel Core i5 4690 is compatible with my motherboard.
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A CPU upgrade generally entails a new motherboard as well so if you are not willing to get a new motherboard as well, you actually don't have any upgrade options that would be worth it. Your only option in that case would be to get an aftermarket heatsink and overclock your X4 965 a bit.
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On September 07 2014 05:40 skyR wrote: A CPU upgrade generally entails a new motherboard as well so if you are not willing to get a new motherboard as well, you actually don't have any upgrade options that would be worth it. Your only option in that case would be to get an aftermarket heatsink and overclock your X4 965 a bit.
He can always get an H81 motherboard and subtract the cost of $45-50 (the cost of the motherboard) and get an i3 instead of an i5, maybe? A fast i3 should do all right, I think.
Still, a new motherboard isn't that expensive. I'd really consider it:
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-Computer-MicroATX-Motherboard-H81M-E33/dp/B00F42W70A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410037576&sr=8-1&keywords=H81
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United Kingdom20322 Posts
for sc2, h81 + pentium, or something that can use >1.2vcore with a pentium g3258 is where it's at. i3 is a step up for multithreaded loads but it costs like twice as much sometimes, and it's no replacement for a 2'nd-4'th gen i5
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I hadn't considered replacing my motherboard for whatever reason. Just browsing on Newegg it seems like they range in price quite a bit. I would need a motherboard the same size as the GA-770T-USB3, and it would need to be compatible with all the parts I already have. Any general recommendations or ideas for things to consider that I might not know of? If a motherboard is the same size as my current one is it guaranteed to fit inside of my case?
I know absolutely nothing at all about overclocking. I would be willing to look into it if it would actually make a significant difference. My current heatsink is a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO.
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On September 07 2014 07:29 Justice569 wrote: [...]
I know absolutely nothing at all about overclocking. I would be willing to look into it if it would actually make a significant difference. My current heatsink is a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO. It would make your CPU the same or better than the other CPUs you could buy for your board, so would definitely be a smarter choice than just upgrading to a new CPU. Here's the list of CPUs that work in your board:
http://www.gigabyte.com/support-downloads/cpu-support-popup.aspx?pid=3320
There's one quad-core 3700 MHz CPU on the list, so you'd expect the board can run at least that kind of overclock without the power delivery parts getting too hot. The Hyper 212 EVO is pretty strong so you don't have to buy a new CPU cooler.
I feel you should look into it before buying new stuff as it might make you happy enough. You said you've seen 40 fps. Overclocking can't do magic, but I bet you could turn that into 50 fps.
Overclocking does not cost you money, but it's not free if you count the time you waste on this. You'll have to read up on how stuff works and that might take a while. You might have to experiment a lot until you get everything running stable. If you notice temperatures are too high compared to what you look up online, you might need to reapply thermal paste a bunch of times if it's too old or you didn't do it perfectly when you installed the cooler.
On the other hand, you might find out that working on this is fun to do for you.
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I think the real question is: what's your budget?
If you're looking to spend as little money as possible I'd definitely overclock and see how things go from there. Depending on the amount of money you're willing to invest to upgrade though, it might not be so bad to look at Haswell processors.
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I'm looking for a cube type mATX case and I'm mostly trying to decide between the bitfenix phenom or prodigy cases. Does anyone have experience with either or something else they might recommend?
(I think the only major difference is aesthetic)
Thanks Cryo, the air240 was incorrectly listed from one of the bigger retailers here so I didn't give it a second look before. Not bad but a bit more expensive.
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United Kingdom20322 Posts
air240 is mentionable i think, but i'm not sure if it's any good. I heard concerns of it flexing due to being more lightly built than the 540 and some other cases, but it's definitely a cube shaped matx case, pretty much exactly what you said
To highlight size.. 240 (matx) next to 540 (atx)
![[image loading]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/iLT-rAfpUcs/maxresdefault.jpg)
that.. is not a very flattering picture, lol. I think it's a screenshot from that youtube video showing off the 240, so that's probably a good place to look if you want basic info.
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mATX cube? There's also the Fractal Design Node 804. It's bigger, but the Prodigy / Phenom and Air 240 aren't even that much smaller anyway. The Aerocool Dead Silence (the case, not the fan) is also on the larger side; it has a layout like the mITX Prodigy with the power supply below the horizontal motherboard.
It's not a two-chamber design, but the Lian Li PC-V354 is another option. It's relatively short and squat because of a layout that puts the power supply above the motherboard area. The Jonsbo V4 (Rosewill carries it in NA and I think Cooltek might also in Europe) takes that idea and shrinks everything by killing the hard drive cages and reducing airflow, if performance is not a concern. It's much smaller than the other things mentioned.
Silverstone SG09 and SG10 are kind of cube-ish as well and compact by putting the power supply up front and top. Airflow is fine even with the weird pathways because of brute force cooling.
Depends what you're actually looking for, really. What kind of build are you going to be putting in it? Some of the options are much more limited than others on drive support, CPU cooler support, watercooling support, etc.
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I was looking at the cooltek C2 (Jonsbo) but the quality looked a bit cheap (and I do want better airflow). Most of the others are also a bit more expensive than the bitfenix cases. Probably will end up going for the phenom.
Just going to rebuild my gaming rig in a nicer (looking) case - mainly for LANs. Non OC i5, matx mobo, standard psu, single 3.5 hdd, ati 4890. (GPU will be upgraded when I find a suitably cheap mid-range card.)
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Hey guys was wondering if you could help me out. I have an i5 4670 Haswell with a stock fan for the cooler. Recently I have noticed my CPU temps jumping up towards 60-70 degrees celcius when gaming / having bunch of tabs open in google chrome. I know these temps aren't in the danger zone yet but I am not comfortable with those temps.
Anyways, I have a few extra funds now and was wondering if $30-40 could get me a better cooler for my CPU? I'm guessing i would need thermal paste as well to apply after taking off the stocked fan.
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United Kingdom20322 Posts
60-70c is normal operation.
If your case temp is 25c and max operating temp is 100c.. you have 75c of headroom and you're only using 40 of it.
CPU's don't just die because their cores are running too hot - the main problems with heat are probably..
1; an upper limit on operating temperature, which you're not hitting
2; resistance of the chip (thus power consumption) increasing with temperature, which is just physics and it's not a problem with operating or a major factor in cooling or power costs unless you are a niche user (such as somebody doing mass litecoin mining)
3; The big one - degradation being dependant on load put on the CPU, as well as voltage and temperature. Intel runs those i5 CPU's are very low voltages though, and give them warranty for running at 100% load all day and night for X years at as close to 100c as you want. Overclockers have even taken the same CPU's, ran them at voltages that would degrade them 5x+ faster, and then used them (or similar CPU's) for long enough to say that you could probably use one of those at those stock voltages and those temperatures for 20 years in a system gaming 15 hours a week if you wanted to, maybe eventually requiring a slight increase in voltage or drop in clock speed to stay stable, but nothing even worth mentioning for anything even remotely resembling a regular user, even one who does not want to replace parts until long after they are considered ancient.
If you dont like stuff running at anything but really cool temperatures, you're far more likely to be concerned with GPU; they rarely run that cold and there's a lot harder and more noisy to keep cool.
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On September 09 2014 07:50 Cyro wrote: 60-70c is normal operation.
If your case temp is 25c and max operating temp is 100c.. you have 75c of headroom and you're only using 40 of it.
CPU's don't just die because their cores are running too hot - the main problems with heat are probably..
1; an upper limit on operating temperature, which you're not hitting
2; resistance of the chip (thus power consumption) increasing with temperature, which is just physics and it's not a problem with operating or a major factor in cooling or power costs unless you are a niche user (such as somebody doing mass litecoin mining)
3; The big one - degradation being dependant on load put on the CPU, as well as voltage and temperature. Intel runs those i5 CPU's are very low voltages though, and give them warranty for running at 100% load all day and night for X years at as close to 100c as you want. Overclockers have even taken the same CPU's, ran them at voltages that would degrade them 5x+ faster, and then used them (or similar CPU's) for long enough to say that you could probably use one of those at those stock voltages and those temperatures for 20 years in a system gaming 15 hours a week if you wanted to, maybe eventually requiring a slight increase in voltage or drop in clock speed to stay stable, but nothing even worth mentioning for anything even remotely resembling a regular user, even one who does not want to replace parts until long after they are considered ancient.
If you dont like stuff running at anything but really cool temperatures, you're far more likely to be concerned with GPU; they rarely run that cold and there's a lot harder and more noisy to keep cool.
Ok sounds good then no worries on the cpu front then. I have gtx 760 evga it has a single fan but it has run really well so far for the past few months.
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