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Time for a new system is close. Currently I have a desktop PC (~3 years old) and a laptop (4 years old). Since I don't want to upgrade both systems, I've decided to stick to one, but I'm quite unsure which to choose.
I mainly use the laptop for the occassional LAN events, since I really only use a tablet for travelling and such now. So I'm leaning towards sticking to the desktop PC, also because you get more performance for your money.
But since I still need to take my PC with me sometimes, I was thinking about getting a small system. For this the The Corsair Graphite 380T (mini-ITX) case looks quite interesting, but I don't really know how well you can fit it with modern hardware.
So maybe some of you fine folks could help me out, please?
So here's my profile:
The life cycle of the system should be around 3 years.
What is your budget? €1000 ($1200). Can live with 20% more if there's a good enough reason.
What is your monitor's native resolution? 1920x1080
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings? Current game generation (mainly RPG/FPS). The higher the settings the better. Currently playing Dragon Age Inquisition for example. My laptop can't handle that game at all and my PC is lagging a lot.
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming? Nothing too hardware hungry, so that's not really important.
Do you intend to overclock? I hardly ever overclock, so not neccessarily important.
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire? Not neccessary.
Do you need an operating system? No (have Windows 7, maybe going for 10 when it comes out)
Do you need a monitor or any other peripherals and is this part of your budget? A bluray drive (can also be external) would be nice, apart from that I have everything. I usually reuse all my harddrives as long as they still work, but the current ones are quite outdated. So a new HDD is a must.
If you have any requirements or brand preferences, please specify. Intel CPU and NVIDIA graphics card (leaning towards GTX 960), apart from that I don't really care. If you give me a good enough reason for AMD CPU and GPU, I will consider it.
What country will you be buying your parts in? Germany, but for references country doesn't matter.
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify. No preference, usually going with the best deals.
I'm guessing this is not necessarily at comparable RPM's, but good video for hearing the type of noise (instead of just a flat decibel measurement)
That's from the article I linked you when I asked you about this. =P
Main reason I was looking for more was because I really dislike how most of these things are done. All I know for the CB test is "under load" but then everything else is left on auto. Clocks are different across the board and there seems to be no common temperature goal which means comparing fanspeed % to noise is also awkward. For example the more soothing noise the MSI has wouldn't matter if the G1 could hit the same temperature limit with less noise overall.
...in the end I caved and picked the more chill MSI even at max speed. Also you calling it "too quiet" some pages ago was a giveaway. Should arrive tomorrow or the day after, OCing it is basically turning up power to the max in afterburner and figuring out where it's stable right?
<3
If you have a problem keeping any 970 cool (and i mean REALLY cool), you probably have a major problem with case airflow. ^some tests pin them around 210w on sensor (that's ~170) but rly.. if you can do that with ~2250rpm on gpu fans..
@PandaCore - Have you thought about the gigabyte gtx970 itx card? I don't remember if there were any other 970 itx's, but if you want to wait for a 960 it would be cheaper+worse performance (obviously) with unknown specs and release time. Everything so far is just speculation but based on that. it's moderately likely that something with 8-12smm (1024-1536 cores) and 128-256 bit bus (with 2-4GB of VRAM) could release in the next month or so, though even if it does you're not guaranteed immediate itx models (more likely with smaller cards, i guess) I'm still asleep atm
If there's a 960-960ti on the stronger side of those specs, it would be pretty good. But if it's on the weaker side, it would be arguably worse for performance than going back 3 years and buying a 7950, and might not look so hot in even a few years (or just on launch.. 2GB VRAM in particular already kinda sucks for 1080p; a wave of games hit that need 3-4GB to run @1080p without turning down textures etc.. 3GB would be my minimum)
Comparing "this gen" to last, the 660ti/760 was the weakest cut-down gk104 available. If there's a 960 on gm206, it would be like comparing the gtx660 (different, weaker chip than 660ti+) to the 760, 770, 780-780ti - and that's just in the GPU tech available alongside it (no future gens). There's a lot of performance gap there.
Following that logic i think the 970 is the "new" 660ti as in the obvious upper-midrange tier card to get. There might be a 960ti etc with further cut down gm204 that could take that title, but there also might not be; gm206 could just release, be confirmed 100% as 128 bit and then if they don't release a further cut down gm204, you'd be stuck with a weak graphics card or buying a 970 anyway. Not particularly weak, but like.. not really better than 660ti-770, in a world where those GPU's area outperformed by 2x already, and that -might- become 3x in the next half year
On January 08 2015 02:02 Cyro wrote: @PandaCore - Have you thought about the gigabyte gtx970 itx card? + Show Spoiler +
I don't remember if there were any other 970 itx's, but if you want to wait for a 960 it would be cheaper+worse performance (obviously) with unknown specs and release time. Everything so far is just speculation but based on that. it's moderately likely that something with 8-12smm (1024-1536 cores) and 128-256 bit bus (with 2-4GB of VRAM) could release in the next month or so, though even if it does you're not guaranteed immediate itx models (more likely with smaller cards, i guess) I'm still asleep atm
If there's a 960-960ti on the stronger side of those specs, it would be pretty good. But if it's on the weaker side, it would be arguably worse for performance than going back 3 years and buying a 7950, and might not look so hot in even a few years (or just on launch.. 2GB VRAM in particular already kinda sucks for 1080p; a wave of games hit that need 3-4GB to run @1080p without turning down textures etc.. 3GB would be my minimum)
Comparing "this gen" to last, the 660ti/760 was the weakest cut-down gk104 available. If there's a 960 on gm206, it would be like comparing the gtx660 (different, weaker chip than 660ti+) to the 760, 770, 780-780ti - and that's just in the GPU tech available alongside it (no future gens). There's a lot of performance gap there.
Following that logic i think the 970 is the "new" 660ti as in the obvious upper-midrange tier card to get. There might be a 960ti etc with further cut down gm204 that could take that title, but there also might not be; gm206 could just release, be confirmed 100% as 128 bit and then if they don't release a further cut down gm204, you'd be stuck with a weak graphics card or buying a 970 anyway. Not particularly weak, but like.. not really better than 660ti-770, in a world where those GPU's area outperformed by 2x already, and that -might- become 3x in the next half year
I actually haven't considered it yet, but I'll look into it and try to make a few builds tomorrow. Thanks for the pointers I'm quite out of touch with hardware
Corsair 380T is rather large for a miniITX case, so it fits the longest graphics cards. You don't need miniITX version or small anything in there except the motherboard, which has to be miniITX. It's just relatively short and stubby compared to full towers.
Ultimately, you're paying a premium for the case and also an miniITX motherboard, which is more expensive than larger motherboards of comparable features. It's something some people would like to pay more for and not something others care about. For example, the microATX Silverstone TJ-08E is smaller (from being less wide), cheaper, likely better performing, and fits the same stuff and more, including normal 5.25" optical drives. It just doesn't have nearly the same watercooling support.
Anyway, there are many alternatives. Also look at the Fractal Design Node 304 and Core 1100, Cooltek U2 and U3, Silverstone SG09 and SG10, and BitFenix Phenom and Prodigy, just so you have an idea of what else is out there. The standard midtower-shaped, cheap Core 1100 is barely deeper than the Corsair 380T, for reference.
corsair 240 is actually my favorite matx case now and miniitx cases will generally case issues with heat distribution to an extent where I'd actually just recommend a caseless solution if you're running a high powered gpu unless you were willing to get something like the ncase m1
Keep in mind most of the mini-ITX cases with good airflow options are basically the same outside dimensions as micro-ATX cases but with more room on the inside for pumps/water cooling.
The really compact mini-ITX cases rely on a lot of airflow through the case for component cooling, yet also almost require CLC CPU coolers because large CPU heatsinks wont fit, and will be cramped for long GPUs. They are also basically just metal boxes, with pretty minimal exterior styling / room for windows and LEDs / fancy dust filters.
+1 for the Corsair 240 though, that case is fantastic and flexible (can be oriented two ways, supports extremely aggressive radiators setups or easy air options)
with gsync, there is (i hear) a driver/hardware level FPS cap(???) that stops you from rendering a frame faster than max refresh rate of the panel and having it sat in a buffer for a while; it's not supposed to add latency like vsync. For the freesync implementation, it seems like vsync is just forced on in the driver. I'm not sure how gsync actually works (just going from a few forum posts and memory) but that sounds pretty painful - the feature is just effectively disabled if you make a frame faster than monitor refresh rate, so it defaults to your vsync on or off setting and either tears and becomes less smooth, or it lags.
biggest issue is that, combined with the lower limit of how slow frames can go before it stops working. On a 60hz freesync panel, the feature is ONLY enabled between frames being made at a rate that would equal ~41-59fps. One of the biggest points for gsync/freesync, with the adjustable refresh rate and slave to GPU stuff, is to be able to remove the microstutter from framerates that are at a fraction of how fast the panel is but a variable rate (because when rendering games, the amount of time that it takes to complete a new frame is variable by at least ~2-3% usually but sometimes 10%, even if you're just staring at a wall and nothing is happening in your game). If the feature only works on frames that take 1/41 to 1/59'th of a second, then assuming 10% frametime variance (actually doing stuff ingame), it will only work properly when your game FPS meter says 45-54. That's just a ridiculously narrow range in my opinion and not nearly good enough.
The adaptive refresh monitors that i would consider using (and actually want) would be Gsync only so far, preferably the implementation that works @30-144hz (and repeats frames if there is no new one for over 33.33ms, uses smart buffering or FPS limit to not really add latency if you're brushing against the upper part) but even the ~30-60 gsync seems better than what is offered now by Freesync. My main concern for both, other than 45-54 being a way too small FPS range and making the tech be disabled most of the time, would be how a mouse with a static report rate would interact with it. Hopefully 1000hz would be ok, but i have heard both apathy there (from people who don't even notice a problem) to huge complaints and people sending back their monitors because of weird mouse feels caused by it
So.. even assuming a good case, 5% frametime variance at the same framerate, two scenarios:
1; Vsync on. FPS meter can say ~43-57, it it goes over that you'll start hitting increased latency on input, if it goes UNDER, you'll be on vsync and it will drop from ~42-43 to 30fps, or bounce back and forth between that 30 and 43.
2; Vsync off. FPS meter can say ~43-57 and variable refresh will work, smoothness will be enhanced, no tearing or lag - but go above/below and you'll run into tearing and lose the slightly enhanced smoothness
again i think the window is just too small. The tech obviously works far better when the range is 30-144 than it does at 40-60.
edit: Varies monitor to monitor? That's somewhat relieving
I received my regular Amazon.ca info and just noticed that there are some Audiotechnica on sale. I've read a few praise about them from various critics
ATH-AD500X 99$
ATH-AD700X 154$
ATH-AD900X 170$
Any of them are worth buying?
Me : Just a simple user, who wants to enjoy my music. I don't have a setup, I only have my motherboard soundcard + Ipod. What I have right now : Razer Electra.
I'm guessing this is not necessarily at comparable RPM's, but good video for hearing the type of noise (instead of just a flat decibel measurement)
That's from the article I linked you when I asked you about this. =P
Main reason I was looking for more was because I really dislike how most of these things are done. All I know for the CB test is "under load" but then everything else is left on auto. Clocks are different across the board and there seems to be no common temperature goal which means comparing fanspeed % to noise is also awkward. For example the more soothing noise the MSI has wouldn't matter if the G1 could hit the same temperature limit with less noise overall.
...in the end I caved and picked the more chill MSI even at max speed. Also you calling it "too quiet" some pages ago was a giveaway. Should arrive tomorrow or the day after, OCing it is basically turning up power to the max in afterburner and figuring out where it's stable right?
<3
If you have a problem keeping any 970 cool (and i mean REALLY cool), you probably have a major problem with case airflow. ^some tests pin them around 210w on sensor (that's ~170) but rly.. if you can do that with ~2250rpm on gpu fans..
Hmm.. how do you oc the voltage exactly? I ran Afterburner, unlocked control and monitoring in the options, added 25mV (more still results in 1250 obviously). However, after I run Heaven Benchmark for a minute or so the monitored voltage drops back down to 1225. If I make a change manually and apply it it hops back to 1250 for a minute or so and drops back down afterwards. Is that normal? Should I force a constant voltage instead (seems really out of place tho)?
Also, coilwhine. Any idea on when that actually happens besides the windows system assessment? That's where I could force mine to do it as well (mine sounds slightly... British tho. Like a teapot that's giving off that noise because of hot air escaping. It's not horrible but I'd hate to find out in a month or so that it happens during regular desktop work.
Temp wise I run like ~15°C hotter than yours at similar clocks but that's pretty much with system fans running super low and my system running hotter in the first place. Super happy with it. :3
On January 08 2015 23:04 XenOmega wrote: Looking for new headphones
I received my regular Amazon.ca info and just noticed that there are some Audiotechnica on sale. I've read a few praise about them from various critics
ATH-AD500X 99$
ATH-AD700X 154$
ATH-AD900X 170$
Any of them are worth buying?
Me : Just a simple user, who wants to enjoy my music. I don't have a setup, I only have my motherboard soundcard + Ipod. What I have right now : Razer Electra.
On January 08 2015 23:04 XenOmega wrote: Looking for new headphones
I received my regular Amazon.ca info and just noticed that there are some Audiotechnica on sale. I've read a few praise about them from various critics
ATH-AD500X 99$
ATH-AD700X 154$
ATH-AD900X 170$
Any of them are worth buying?
Me : Just a simple user, who wants to enjoy my music. I don't have a setup, I only have my motherboard soundcard + Ipod. What I have right now : Razer Electra.
Go with the Ath-M50x
+1 for m50
Although just got beyers dt770 since my m50s are out of commission and looooove them.
I'm guessing this is not necessarily at comparable RPM's, but good video for hearing the type of noise (instead of just a flat decibel measurement)
That's from the article I linked you when I asked you about this. =P
Main reason I was looking for more was because I really dislike how most of these things are done. All I know for the CB test is "under load" but then everything else is left on auto. Clocks are different across the board and there seems to be no common temperature goal which means comparing fanspeed % to noise is also awkward. For example the more soothing noise the MSI has wouldn't matter if the G1 could hit the same temperature limit with less noise overall.
...in the end I caved and picked the more chill MSI even at max speed. Also you calling it "too quiet" some pages ago was a giveaway. Should arrive tomorrow or the day after, OCing it is basically turning up power to the max in afterburner and figuring out where it's stable right?
<3
If you have a problem keeping any 970 cool (and i mean REALLY cool), you probably have a major problem with case airflow. ^some tests pin them around 210w on sensor (that's ~170) but rly.. if you can do that with ~2250rpm on gpu fans..
Hmm.. how do you oc the voltage exactly? I ran Afterburner, unlocked control and monitoring in the options, added 25mV (more still results in 1250 obviously). However, after I run Heaven Benchmark for a minute or so the monitored voltage drops back down to 1225. If I make a change manually and apply it it hops back to 1250 for a minute or so and drops back down afterwards. Is that normal? Should I force a constant voltage instead (seems really out of place tho)?
Also, coilwhine. Any idea on when that actually happens besides the windows system assessment? That's where I could force mine to do it as well (mine sounds slightly... British tho. Like a teapot that's giving off that noise because of hot air escaping. It's not horrible but I'd hate to find out in a month or so that it happens during regular desktop work.
Temp wise I run like ~15°C hotter than yours at similar clocks but that's pretty much with system fans running super low and my system running hotter in the first place. Super happy with it. :3
Just give it +87mv. The "extra voltage" is more of a suggestion to the GPU, it will do whatever it wants and just step up voltage bins (1.175, 1.2, 1.225, 1.25 are the approx steps for me) - setting +87mv will just keep it on the top bin. +50, or even ~+25 could have the same result, but there is some chip to chip variance in stock voltage AFAIK so +87 is a sure way of saying 1.25v.
Your drops to 1.225v are probably caused by you hitting the gpu boost 2.0 first temperature throttle, which is at 70c (but the internal gpu sensor is quite sensitive, your afterburner or gpu-z might not say more than ~67-68c when it triggers) and you can fix that by just keeping it below those temps at all time. It's "only" a ~2-3% performance loss, but it was frustrating to me as a bencher. That behavior exists on every card as far as i know unless you use a third party bios mod.. maybe the HOF has an ln2 bios without that behavior but it's like 20-30% more expensive than the g1 and otherwise doesn't really give better clocks on air
Here's my best Heaven score (extreme preset, it says Custom because i put it to fullscreen), see how close you can get to that FPS the 63c was at ~55-70% fanspeed (i think it was upper end of that, but my room was hotter than usual so i needed fan speed boost to stay low)
1528/8200 (i probably need to lower memory a little.. had infrequent soft and hard crashes with one screen turning a solid color and system response getting messed up)
Generally stuff at higher FPS than ~80 can start to trigger abnormal noise from GPU, but especially at ~500+. It varies a LOT gpu to gpu, there is evidence of it being reduced or fixed by running GPU for a while and also evidence of PSU quality affecting it, but mine still screams in windows system assessment (with a superflower golden green hx550, i have not seen review for this exact unit but the original golden green 450 was among the best units there (very tight 12v on both regulation and ripple)
1563/8100 - with that corespeed I can't push memory to 8200 or I get artifacts every 2-3 scenes. I also had a couple stable runs closer to 1600 before I started trying to push memory. Any rough idea how I should value memory speed vs core clock without doing a dozen benchmarks to find out?
The voltage drops came from just setting +25, stable at 1250 with setting +87. <3
You should value core at least around 5:1 to memory i guess. Memory is influential but not that important. I don't see any artifacts til like 8400-8500 but i still get those infrequent stability issues which might be vram related when i'm at 8200
The voltage drops came from just setting +25, stable at 1250 with setting +87. <3
If i make myself go over ~68-70c, with any voltage set it'll drop. You wouldn't see drop either way with temp at 59c, afaik
So I bought http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JST2QEW?tag=tealiq-20 along with all the other shit in the typical gamer build and it comes with that pre applied thermal paste. Do you think I could get away with that or should I just go buy the damn $5 tube of thermal paste?
You should have thermal paste around, because pre-applied thermal paste only works properly if you mount the cooler properly and then don't touch it/remount etc.
If you lift it up or have to mess with it, re-using the paste wouldn't be very good
So here's a few of my reasonings: PSU I'm not sure if I should make the leap to the i7-4790k. This would up the total by ~150€ for not so much gain per cost. On the other hand, might as well just buy something more futureproof.
GPU; I heard it's tough to fit certain GTX970 into the Air 240 case. The EVGA seems to be one of the few that fits.
RAM, I don't really know, just picked a brand I know in the lower cost section for 16 GB.
MOBO, also don't really know, but for the above processor a B85 chip seems to be sufficient.
HDDs I just wanted to pick a 256GB SSD (will also look for Crucial) and 2 TB SATA (have good experience with seagate).
CASE, I wanted a small case and the air 240 looks perfect for that
PSU, I don't really know if 600W are sufficient for that setup and I don't really know what to look for in a PSU in general, so I just picked a cheap one. Edit: just saw the EVGA GPU has a maximum power consumption of 145W, so maybe a smaller PSU will also do it.
On January 09 2015 15:02 Jerubaal wrote: So I bought http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JST2QEW?tag=tealiq-20 along with all the other shit in the typical gamer build and it comes with that pre applied thermal paste. Do you think I could get away with that or should I just go buy the damn $5 tube of thermal paste?
The difference between high end paste and pre-applied is only up to a few C difference, so unless you're really pushing for maximum OC you can just use that. That said, it's good to have some on hand in case you ever want to reseat the heatsink. I still have a usable tube of AS5 from 2007.
Paste should only ever be used once - once you lift the heatsink you want to remove the existing paste and reapply. If you don't, the contact will be terrible and your heat transfer will suffer significantly.
So here's a few of my reasonings: PSU I'm not sure if I should make the leap to the i7-4790k. This would up the total by ~150€ for not so much gain per cost. On the other hand, might as well just buy something more futureproof.
GPU; I heard it's tough to fit certain GTX970 into the Air 240 case. The EVGA seems to be one of the few that fits.
RAM, I don't really know, just picked a brand I know in the lower cost section for 16 GB.
MOBO, also don't really know, but for the above processor a B85 chip seems to be sufficient.
HDDs I just wanted to pick a 256GB SSD (will also look for Crucial) and 2 TB SATA (have good experience with seagate).
CASE, I wanted a small case and the air 240 looks perfect for that
PSU, I don't really know if 600W are sufficient for that setup and I don't really know what to look for in a PSU in general, so I just picked a cheap one. Edit: just saw the EVGA GPU has a maximum power consumption of 145W, so maybe a smaller PSU will also do it.
I have this motherboard. My experience with it has been consistent with some reviewers that claim that 2 of the RAM slots are prone to failure. It resulted in daily blue screening until i switched to using a single ram slot w a 8GB stick.
I would suggest spending a little more and getting something more reliable.
So here's a few of my reasonings: PSU I'm not sure if I should make the leap to the i7-4790k. This would up the total by ~150€ for not so much gain per cost. On the other hand, might as well just buy something more futureproof.
GPU; I heard it's tough to fit certain GTX970 into the Air 240 case. The EVGA seems to be one of the few that fits.
RAM, I don't really know, just picked a brand I know in the lower cost section for 16 GB.
MOBO, also don't really know, but for the above processor a B85 chip seems to be sufficient.
HDDs I just wanted to pick a 256GB SSD (will also look for Crucial) and 2 TB SATA (have good experience with seagate).
CASE, I wanted a small case and the air 240 looks perfect for that
PSU, I don't really know if 600W are sufficient for that setup and I don't really know what to look for in a PSU in general, so I just picked a cheap one. Edit: just saw the EVGA GPU has a maximum power consumption of 145W, so maybe a smaller PSU will also do it.
Unless you are absolutely sure that you will need the extra 4 threads provided by i7 in a way that i5 will fail, 150€ is a waste. If you want it for overclocking you can grab K version of an i5, in that case that mobo won't support it anyways (you need a Z mobo for overclocking). So find a better spot to spend that 150€ or keep it in your pocket, which I would advice since your build is already strong and expensive enough
EPT![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/eci8N.png)
![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/eeTsN.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/eH2ttug.jpg)
