|
When using this resource, please read the opening post. The Tech Support forum regulars have helped create countless of desktop systems without any compensation. The least you can do is provide all of the information required for them to help you properly. |
On December 08 2014 15:29 Mordanis wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I have a bit of a question about upgrading: I play some games, but mostly not incredibly graphically intense (SC2, CSGO, the odd KSP, maybe some Dragon Age Origins or 2). I'm also an undergraduate Physics & Astronomy Student, so I do a fair amount of programming that is pretty hard on my hardware as of now.
What I have right now is an i3 2120, an HD 6870, an SSD, a 1 TB HDD, and 4 gigs of RAM. So I'm wondering, is it worth it for scientific computing to upgrade to an i5 4690K? Also, I write in C, Fortran, and MATLAB. Does the graphics card help at all with scientific computing in these languages? Ideally I'd spend less than about $400 in total.
There are some libraries you can use that involve some amount of extra effort and may or may not be applicable to your workloads that are GPU-accelerated. By default, the GPU is not involved. I'd guess you'd probably not need to investigate that as an undergraduate, but it really depends on what you're doing. Also, are there any department-wide or school-wide or other computing clusters and resources you can use remotely? Do you really have to be loading up your own computer?
How well threaded is the stuff you're running now? How about in the future? I think you're in a better position to make a determination about the resources you actually need than we do because the range of possibilities is very broad.
An i5-4690K means you're overclocking and getting a Z97 motherboard, right? That and an aftermarket heatsink would already be close to $400. Otherwise there's no reason to get it and not a socket 1150 Xeon of comparable price. But a Xeon and even a consumer motherboard that supports it would already not leave room for a GPU upgrade anyway.
On December 09 2014 02:19 Anomek wrote:+ Show Spoiler +What is your current build?
Intel i5 (I actually don't remember how much GHz and can't check it witout GPU Oo)
MB P7H55-ML X
8GB ram
PSU Modecom 580W
What is your monitor's native resolution?
1280 x 720 (considering upgrade to monitor with full HD)
Why do you want to upgrade? What do you want to achieve with the upgrade?
OId GPU went bogus and I need to replace it.
PC is used for gaming but not exensively and mostly for older titles. I think that Dota2 will be most requiring game.
Recently 2 GPUs from 2 PCs in home just straight up stopped working, both around 2.5 years old. Livespan will be most important feature (but I know it's mostly luck here). Also 3 year warranty
What is your budget?
around 500 PLN = 120 euro
What country will you be buying your parts in?
Poland
If you have any brand or retailer preferences, please specify.
Retailer -> local brand (komputronik). They are a bit more pricy if you compare with other retailers, but I had only good experience with their RMA.
I have already selected 3 models that might be good:
Radeon R7 260X Asus 1GB DDR5 DVI&HDMI&DP (PCI-E) OC 489 PLN = 118 EUR
Radeon R7 260X Gigabyte 2GB DDR5 DVI&HDMI&DP (PCI-E) OC 493 PLN = 118 EUR
Radeon R7 260X MSI 2GB DDR5 DVI&HDMI&DP (PCI-E) OC V1 460 PLN = 111 EUR
(I don't want to OC, but there are no models without 'OC' tag)
Any suggestion which one will be best? Or are there any better choices?
If you're concerned about longevity, you need to get rid of the Modecom right now, so get a new power supply with that budget as well. You don't need something with a high claimed wattage, just a power supply that is honestly marketed that is built and designed to a higher and acceptable standard of quality.
So perhaps the MSI R7 250 (313 PLN) and XFX Core TS 430W (180 PLN):
http://www.komputronik.pl/product/204061/Sprzet_komputerowy_/Podzespoly/Radeon_R7_250_MSI_2GB_DDR3_DVI_HDMI_DP_PCI_E_.html
http://www.komputronik.pl/product/250669/Elektronika/Sprzęt_komputerowy/XFX_Core_TS_430W_80_Bronze_120mm_Single_Rail_.html
|
Blazinghand
United States25555 Posts
Thanks for all the help, computer Build, Upgrade, and Buying Resource Thread! I've completed my PC and it runs great.
I did some careful shopping over Thanksgiving break, and here's what I ended up getting:
CPU: i5-4690k - $210
GPU: MSI R9 280x - $120 (used, from a friend)
HSF: CM 212 Evo - $30
Memory: Vulcan 2x8 1600 - $105
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 "Fatal1ty Killer" - $100
SSD: Samsung 840 Evo 240gb - $110
HD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB - $77
Case: Rosewill Thor V2 - $70
PSU: Corsair RM 650 - $110
Monitor: Dell U2412M - $220
Subtotal: 1152
Total: 1255
Including my new IPS monitor, tax, and shipping, everything comes in under $1300!
I've learned a bit about computer assembly, since I haven't done it in years. I stripped a couple standoffs trying to attach the motherboard, for example. The actual assembly was a breeze, with the only nerve-wracking part being the installation of the CPU and HSF. Everything you do in assembling a PC is pretty much undoable unless you physically break or bend something, even installing the HSF, but it's such a pain to apply thermal grease and tighten down the HSF that redoing it would be awful-- especially since you'd have to take the mobo back out of the case to do it. I ended up going for a modular PSU and am actually pretty pleased with the decision. My previous PSU, an EVGA 430W, was non-modular and having extra cables lying around always bothered me. I would worry that they'd hang out and get caught in fans. It was trivial to cable-tie them, of course, but still. The modular nature also helped me later on when I discovered some irregularities with my computer.
So, I started running into problems basically right away. For some reason, my R9 280x would lock up under any serious load (doing Heaven Benchmark). I figured either there wasn't enough power going to it, it was overheating, or it was somehow borked in some other way. SpeedFan assured me that temps were fine. The card being borked was a legit possibility since it was one of 6 my friend had just lying in his closet left over from a bitcoin mining rig. It had seen hard times and he had no idea whether or not it was still operational. The possibility of a faulty PSU bothered me, but RMAing it wouldn't be the end of the world, especially since I bought it in person and wouldn't have to redo my cable management since it was modular-- I could just unplug the cables on the PSU end and put in a new PSU. I ended up determining that it was an issue with an AMD feature called ULPS -- Ultra-Low Power State. Basically, it's like a sleep mode for the GPU so that when it's totally idle instead of drawing like 10W it draws 0W. I went into regedit and set ULPS from 1 to 0 to disable it, and the GPU worked fine thereafter.
The next problem that took place was that, when playing a serious game, sometimes about 10-30 minutes or so into a game, the game would crash. No blue screen, just a process termination. Windows would remain stable. Low-stress applications like Google Chrome wouldn't cause this issue. I ran Memtest and determined there was a memory problem. I unseated and reseated the memory and the problem went away (ran Memtest overnight with a bunch of passes, no errors this time). Easy, right?
No. When I tried gaming again, the problem reasserted itself. I decided to run Prime95 to see how my CPU was holding up, since the GPU seemed stable under really stressful GPU benchmarks. Prime95 started throwing math and rounding errors after just minutes. Agh! So there are plenty of possibilities here. Prime95 tells me it could be CPU overheat, Memory DIMMs not up to spec, or PSU issues. As a side note, it says that if you're overclocking, then it's possible that you've undervolted for your clock speed. Well, I know my memory is working fine, and my CPU temps were fine all throughout the test-- sub 50 C, even. I have a monster HSF and am not OCing. That leaves PSU issues. I was pretty sure this PSU was fine (since, if the PSU was the problem, it's likely it would have caused the GPU issue as well, rather than it being unrelated). After some thinking, I decided that the default clock settings must be borked. By default my ASRock motherboard was providing 0.89Vcore and clocking the 4690K to 3.5Ghz. I decided to gently nudge that up to 1.0 and keep the clock speed at 3.5gHz. Most people like to put as much as 1.25 through the 4690K so I felt pretty confident doing this. Also, since my problems resembled the problems of someone who increases clock speed beyond what the voltage will support, I felt confident this would resolve the problem. It did.
I gradually pushed up clock speed and voltage to 4.2gHz at 1.1 Vcore-- 20% beyond the base 3.5gHz, at a very reasonable voltage! I ran Prime95 overnight and the cores never went beyond 60 C. No math errors either. I'll check back on it when I get home form work, but I think all my problems have been resolved. For significantly less than any gaming laptop. It effortlessly runs all my games, from CPU-intensive GPU-easy games like Sc2 and KSP, to more GPU-intensive games like Far Cry, Mirror's Edge and Skyrim, at max settings for 1920x1200 resolution. I cry with joy at the beauty before me. When I have the spare cash to pick up another Dell like the one I have, I'll be even happier.
|
|
|
I'm pretty sure this isn't the right thread for this but I'm not really sure where this would go and this isn't thread worthy on it's own.
I need a portable laptop to be used almost exclusively for writing, maybe the occassional youtube video (doesn't need to load instantly or be HQ though). This is primarily going to happen on google docs (for collaborative purposes) but I'd like to be able to use it away from wifi as well. I'd like the keyboard to be decent quality, I'm okay with it being small though (I've used a chromebook with an 11.6" screen before and the size didn't bother me). Battery life is more important, needs to last at least 4-5 hours for a year or so. I dont really want to spend more than ~$300 on this. I have a 500GB external hard drive I can use as well, so storage capacity isn't an issue. I'm buying from the US. I'd prefer it if it doesn't have touchscreen.
Basically I want to know if a netbook or a chromebook with a writing program on an external hard drive would be better. Will the chromebook offer me significantly higher specs per price? Could I get away a model like this comfortably? Does anyone have any reccommendations? Thank you!
|
|
|
Blazinghand
United States25555 Posts
|
Blazinghand,
If that memory and mobo come with the XMP standard I'd select that in the BIOS. Running an overclock before you get stuff stable isn't the best way forward! 
Get it stable, stress test it, when all is good, go ahead and mess about with overclocking.
|
Blazinghand
United States25555 Posts
On December 09 2014 08:08 fruity. wrote:Blazinghand, If that memory and mobo come with the XMP standard I'd select that in the BIOS. Running an overclock before you get stuff stable isn't the best way forward! Get it stable, stress test it, when all is good, go ahead and mess about with overclocking.
Ah, it wasn't the memory clock that was having issues. All memory problems were solved by unseating and reseating the modules (I think I didn't push them in all the way at first). For the later problem, Memtest showed no issues, and the problem was entirely resolved by increasing the voltage to the CPU.
|
United Kingdom20322 Posts
I gradually pushed up clock speed and voltage to 4.2gHz at 1.1 Vcore-- 20% beyond the base 3.5gHz, at a very reasonable voltage! I ran Prime95 overnight and the cores never went beyond 60 C.
If you're running newest version of prime (28.5?) with avx working (you need service pack 1 for windows 7 to support it) then those temperatures are really low - maybe just because you're using a really low Vcore. Since you have a hyper212 you can experiment with what you can do around 1.25-1.35vcore depending on temps, but it's better to not use the latest versions of prime or linpack with Haswell.
On December 09 2014 08:08 fruity. wrote:Blazinghand, If that memory and mobo come with the XMP standard I'd select that in the BIOS. Running an overclock before you get stuff stable isn't the best way forward! Get it stable, stress test it, when all is good, go ahead and mess about with overclocking.
XMP (especially with ~2400-3000mhz memory) can sometimes create stability issues, and also they often use rather extreme tweaks to some voltages (like +0.3v offset on system agent) - for starting OC, i would just manually set the memory to its rated voltage and primary timings, something like 1600 9-9-9-24 @1.5v, test to make sure it passed stuff, then set uncore/cache to 33x@1.15v, set input voltage LLC to a high level and then start tweaking, with the only variables left over being 1; Core frequency, 2; Vcore, 3; Input voltage.
For most overclocking you can usually keep llc'd input voltage 0.6 higher than vcore and assume that it will work, but it needs more careful tweaking sometimes and the amount you need varies depending on both the motherboard and the individual CPU (somehow affected by silicon lottery, maybe the extra capacitors on devil's canyon etc)
GDDR5 is much better, but you should really try to get a 260x because the 250 is very weak in comparison (maybe less than half performance)
|
Hi, im looking at building my first computer. I was looking at the OPs suggested builds and I was wondering how updated are they? Thanks
|
Blazinghand
United States25555 Posts
On December 09 2014 08:14 Cyro wrote:Show nested quote +
I gradually pushed up clock speed and voltage to 4.2gHz at 1.1 Vcore-- 20% beyond the base 3.5gHz, at a very reasonable voltage! I ran Prime95 overnight and the cores never went beyond 60 C.
If you're running newest version of prime (28.5?) with avx working (you need service pack 1 for windows 7 to support it) then those temperatures are really low - maybe just because you're using a really low Vcore. Since you have a hyper212 you can experiment with what you can do around 1.25-1.35vcore depending on temps, but it's better to not use the latest versions of prime or linpack with Haswell. Show nested quote +On December 09 2014 08:08 fruity. wrote:Blazinghand, If that memory and mobo come with the XMP standard I'd select that in the BIOS. Running an overclock before you get stuff stable isn't the best way forward! Get it stable, stress test it, when all is good, go ahead and mess about with overclocking. XMP (especially with ~2400-3000mhz memory) can sometimes create stability issues, and also they often use rather extreme tweaks to some voltages (like +0.3v offset on system agent) - for starting OC, i would just manually set the memory to its rated voltage and primary timings, something like 1600 9-9-9-24 @1.5v, test to make sure it passed stuff, then set uncore/cache to 33x@1.15v, set input voltage LLC to a high level and then start tweaking, with the only variables left over being 1; Core frequency, 2; Vcore, 3; Input voltage. For most overclocking you can usually keep llc'd input voltage 0.6 higher than vcore and assume that it will work, but it needs more careful tweaking sometimes and the amount you need varies depending on both the motherboard and the individual CPU (somehow affected by silicon lottery, maybe the extra capacitors on devil's canyon etc)
hmm, okay, I didn't take a look at these settings at all in the EUFI/Bios. I'll take a look when I get home. Thanks for the advice!
On December 09 2014 09:23 Santi wrote:
Hi, im looking at building my first computer. I was looking at the OPs suggested builds and I was wondering how updated are they? Thanks
Looks like the example builds are about 5 months old, judging by the edit date on the post. They're probably reasonably close to what you could build now, but don't just build that build-- do some research and figure out what your budget and goals are, and get something that meets your need. I recently built a computer pretty similar to "High-End Gamer" for about the same price, though the components were a bit newer and I had a bit more memory and storage.
|
United Kingdom20322 Posts
hmm, okay, I didn't take a look at these settings at all in the EUFI/Bios. I'll take a look when I get home. Thanks for the advice!
You can just read all of this - http://www.overclock.net/t/1411077/haswell-overclocking-guide-with-statistics (including the spoilers) and ask questions, or i could talk you through on skype etc (it's really not difficult or much more complex than stuff i wrote like last post, but a lot of people still manage to do things wrong by not following scientific methods or making bad assumptions)
|
On December 09 2014 09:23 Santi wrote:
Hi, im looking at building my first computer. I was looking at the OPs suggested builds and I was wondering how updated are they? Thanks
Looks like the example builds are about 5 months old, judging by the edit date on the post. They're probably reasonably close to what you could build now, but don't just build that build-- do some research and figure out what your budget and goals are, and get something that meets your need. I recently built a computer pretty similar to "High-End Gamer" for about the same price, though the components were a bit newer and I had a bit more memory and storage. [/QUOTE]
Thanks for the reply. I plan on using the build as a guide to take to my local computer shop tomorrow and see what parts they can offer me aswell and what prices they have for same/similar parts.
|
On December 09 2014 08:14 Cyro wrote:
XMP (especially with ~2400-3000mhz memory) can sometimes create stability issues, and also they often use rather extreme tweaks to some voltages (like +0.3v offset on system agent)
I want to read up more on this. Please provide
Until I do so, I can't see how the base settings in the XMP standard would be wrong. As you know Cyro (but for those who might not) All this means is that the memory tells the motherboard what setting to use for timings and voltage control. If this isn't correct is it the XMP standard to blame or someone messed up inputting data to the modules in manufacture?
Adding .3v to a module which has a default of say 1.6 would probably (heck almost certainly) Fry it straight off the bat, it's like an 18% increase, I can't see how any mobo manufacturer is going to allow such an extreme setting.
Though I'll agree that you'll get a better over clock to tweak the timings yourself once you go for an overclock. But overclocking before it's stable is like running before you can walk.
edit: I cant see how you'd need to add voltage to get it stable at stock speeds. Hence suggesting to use XMP.
|
|
|
United Kingdom20322 Posts
On December 09 2014 10:57 fruity. wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2014 08:14 Cyro wrote:
XMP (especially with ~2400-3000mhz memory) can sometimes create stability issues, and also they often use rather extreme tweaks to some voltages (like +0.3v offset on system agent)
I want to read up more on this. Please provide Until I do so, I can't see how the base settings in the XMP standard would be wrong. As you know Cyro (but for those who might not) All this means is that the memory tells the motherboard what setting to use for timings and voltage control. If this isn't correct is it the XMP standard to blame or someone messed up inputting data to the modules in manufacture? Adding .3v to a module which has a default of say 1.6 would probably (heck almost certainly) Fry it straight off the bat, it's like an 18% increase, I can't see how any mobo manufacturer is going to allow such an extreme setting. Though I'll agree that you'll get a better over clock to tweak the timings yourself once you go for an overclock. But overclocking before it's stable is like running before you can walk. edit: I cant see how you'd need to add voltage to get it stable at stock speeds. Hence suggesting to use XMP.
System agent voltage is a CPU voltage, not a memory voltage. The memory manufacturers, knowing that some CPU's will not have as easy of a time running memory at high speeds, choose to use excessive voltages on some stuff related to IMC so that it has a much lower chance of being unstable with no tweaking
|
So got my heatsink. Installed it. Started over clocking.
I'm stable at 4.2 GHz at 1.1v but can't even get 4.3 GHz with 1.2v without a BSOD. The sensors seem to be working now because both hwinfo and cpuid with the sensors turned on load now.
|
United Kingdom20322 Posts
On December 10 2014 00:27 Brettatron wrote:
So got my heatsink. Installed it. Started over clocking.
I'm stable at 4.2 GHz at 1.1v but can't even get 4.3 GHz with 1.2v without a BSOD. The sensors seem to be working now because both hwinfo and cpuid with the sensors turned on load now.
for starting OC, i would just manually set the memory to its rated voltage and primary timings, something like 1600 9-9-9-24 @1.5v, test to make sure it passed stuff, then set uncore/cache to 33x@1.15v, set input voltage LLC to a high level and then start tweaking, with the only variables left over being 1; Core frequency, 2; Vcore, 3; Input voltage.
For most overclocking you can usually keep llc'd input voltage 0.6 higher than vcore and assume that it will work, but it needs more careful tweaking sometimes and the amount you need varies depending on both the motherboard and the individual CPU (somehow affected by silicon lottery, maybe the extra capacitors on devil's canyon etc)
You can just read all of this - http://www.overclock.net/t/1411077/haswell-overclocking-guide-with-statistics (including the spoilers) and ask questions, or i could talk you through on skype etc (it's really not difficult or much more complex than stuff i wrote like last post, but a lot of people still manage to do things wrong by not following scientific methods or making bad assumptions)
those two quotes apply to you too. You won't run into those kinds of problems if you set the proper voltages, and it's useless running current versions of stuff like prime95 unless you're an advanced tweaker to be able to fix problems that might make you unstable as you raise overclock where adding vcore will not fix instability
|
On December 09 2014 08:14 Cyro wrote:GDDR5 is much better, but you should really try to get a 260x because the 250 is very weak in comparison (maybe less than half performance)
I must reconcider budget then since new PSU is kinda must as far as I understad. If I get to buy 260x which one of them would be best? Can I just go with cheapest one?
Radeon R7 260X Asus 1GB DDR5 DVI&HDMI&DP (PCI-E) OC 489 PLN = 118 EUR
Radeon R7 260X Gigabyte 2GB DDR5 DVI&HDMI&DP (PCI-E) OC 493 PLN = 118 EUR
Radeon R7 260X MSI 2GB DDR5 DVI&HDMI&DP (PCI-E) OC V1 460 PLN = 111 EUR
|
Am I going to need a bracket to install my SSD into my Antec 300? Also if I install windows 8 to my SSD and then install that to my computer and boot from that will I be able to use my HDD that I'm currently using normally?
Got my RAM in yesterday. So much better.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
