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On May 19 2015 03:59 Cyro wrote:
Probably just a meaty GPU. We're only one major gen ahead of the 2500k (though in ~3 months, it'll be 2 gens)
what clock is CPU at and which PSU model do you have?
CPU clock is stock speed (3,3ghz) i have however just now been looking into overclocking it. I read getting it to 4k shouldnt be too risky or difficult on air cooling?
PSU is a Cooler Master GX 650W, have the P8P67 asus mobo.
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
On May 20 2015 23:04 unkkz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2015 03:59 Cyro wrote:
Probably just a meaty GPU. We're only one major gen ahead of the 2500k (though in ~3 months, it'll be 2 gens)
what clock is CPU at and which PSU model do you have? CPU clock is stock speed (3,3ghz) i have however just now been looking into overclocking it. I read getting it to 4k shouldnt be too risky or difficult on air cooling? PSU is a Cooler Master GX 650W, have the P8P67 asus mobo.
People have been whining for the last 2 years about 4'th gen CPU's clocking around ~4.6ghz because 2500k's generally did a little bit better than them  (not that much though)
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yea my mainboard is too old (AS Rock 870 Extreme3) that I cant use the first restoration of my 840 evo (most likely the 2nd too). However I am going to buy some stuff if skylake is out so that I can finally feel the real speed of a ssd.
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New build time (for another friend lol... I guess I just end up helping friends spend their money).
What is your budget?
$1,500 (Canadian)
What is your monitor's native resolution?
Unnecessary
What games do you intend to play on this computer? What settings?
General new games on higher end if not near top (perhaps with exception of like Arma III).
What do you intend to use the computer for besides gaming?
Mostly gaming but there is some video editing but not to the point requiring 16gb of ram.
Do you intend to overclock?
Yes he will
Do you intend to do SLI / Crossfire?
No but wont rule out possibility down the line
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.
Nope
What country will you be buying your parts in?
Canada
If you have any retailer preferences, please specify.
Newegg but depends on cost.
i5-4690k - Due to the budget and not necessary for an i7, I went with the higher end of the i5. Also bear in mind, this is with overclocking in mind.
Motherboard - It was a tossup between this one and another. Went with Z97 since there will be overclocking.
Ram - Did not think 16GB ram would be necessary so went with two 4GB. Would not be surprised if suggested a higher one than 1600 though.
SSD - Most a personal preference. I am not liking kingston and do not seem them as reliable, although intel is my preferred choice, it is a bit more expensive.
GPU - Was originally thinking GTX 980 but with this budget, even if quite a bit, a lot of the other hardware would suffer in attempt to meet budget. So went with 970 instead (it comes with Witcher 3, New Batman as well and MSI Gaming GPU usually are a safe bet for me.
Those are the primary components. The parts I am not always sure about is the PSU, case, and cooling (since there will be overclocking). For example, I never personally used a cooling system so unsure if with the case it will fit. The case seemed reliable, the GPU fits without issue (allegedly can fit 17in GPU).
So yeah, let me know what you all think and suggestions if you see any glaring issues that may arise.
http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/dM63XL
Edit: Just changed the ram from 1600 to 2133, same brand, with $3.00 difference.
Edit 2: Changed Mb.
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
Thats 2133c11 RAM, you should really try to get ~c9 at 2133 (or ~c10-c11 at 2400)
970 is much higher performance/$ than 980 and the msi gaming is one of the better cards. The price premium from 970 to 980 is pretty ridiculous right now, nvidia likes to milk people when they have an edge in the market
For a single card and all high OC's, you should get a higher quality ~450w PSU. For dual, 650w is fine but you need four pci-e power connectors native if possible.
The case looks alright, but it's probably worth grabbing a couple more fans to fill the slots. The u14s is pretty tall so you can just check the max CPU cooler height for the case and then the height specified on the noctua info page for the u14s
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Thanks for the advice. Can you explain the ram bit for me (I will acknowledge, the ram and Mb tend to be my weakest point of understanding). For example, when you mention c11, c9, etc., I do not see that or understand the differences.
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
That's the cas latency, it's listed quite clearly usually in the title and/or specs for the RAM on whatever page you're buying from. RAM latencies are quite important for how it performs. There's a huge list of them that do different things, but there's usually four timings listed with it (like 9-9-9-27) which are the primary timings.
They're measured in clock cycles. Since one cycle at 2400mhz is 1.5x faster than one cycle at 1600mhz, 2400c15 and 1600c10 are approximately the same latency. There's a lot of confusing and intricate stuff that i don't really understand well myself, and i'm not sure how to start explaining from the ground up for a new person >_>
For a very rough measure of performance, you can just do frequency/timing - some examples:
1600/9 = 178
2133/11 = 193
2133/9 = 237
^the higher the number, the harder it usually is to stabilize too (more voltage, better RAM required) - a lot of 1600c9 rated RAM can do 2133 at c11 with a voltage increase, but they can't really do 2133c9 anywhere near as easily.
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edit: whoops ninja'd
The "c" is an abbreviation for CAS latency, with the number being the number of clock cycles, so lower is better. CAS stands for Column Access Strobe, which probably doesn't make sense unless you have at least some basic knowledge about computer architecture. RAM is a big array of storage units organized in rows and columns, so fundamentally this is about the time it takes to access and work with data in RAM (not to be confused with the data rate).
Lower latency can mean faster overall system performance for some tasks where data needs to be cycled in or out of RAM. Note that this is frequently not an issue because other parts of the system could be the bottleneck, and CPU designs have gotten very clever at every trick under the sun to avoid the situation of twiddling thumbs while waiting on RAM access.
So it's just another aspect that can influence RAM performance other than the clock speed. Differences are likely to be slight enough to be unnoticeable in real usage, but spending very slightly more here may be worth it for someone overclocking the CPU.
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
There have been times in the last few years where ~2133-2400 RAM with good timings has been cheaper than 1600 stuff on pcpartpicker because of offers/10% off codes etc
usually very small price gap. If you're going for fast RAM, a very loose 2133 kit @1.5v is only half of the way to high performance+ and for Arma(i think) and Starcraft, it actually matters. Funny how nobody benches the games that are typically CPU bound and actually scale with RAM performance when making those gaming RAM videos
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Thanks for all the info. It did help. Already changed the ram to a 2133 with cas of 9. I will suggest more fans (since they are usually not that expensive anyway) and the case allows for a multitude of either 120 or 140mm fans.
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
It has like three with it, but a few more open slots iirc
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On May 19 2015 06:19 darkness wrote:
I'm considering Crucial MX550...
Don't do it. Yet.
I have one, and it's really fast and everything, but it gives me a blue screen every month or so... just annoying. The reliability in these drives isn't where it should be yet.
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On May 19 2015 05:00 Kupon3ss wrote:
Any PSU that supported the 560TI should do fine with a 970 and that's probably the singular upgrade to go for if you plan on playing the witcher, especially if you haven't bought the game already since the purchase comes with the game (and batman) for free
The 2500K, though old, is still a solid processor that should be more than enough for gaming
Ah yeah, just letting u know, bought the MSI gaming version of the GTX 970 as the GIGABYTE one wouldn't fit inside my case i bet(and i was right, had like 2mm to spare with the MSI one) and running The witcher 3 on high settings with 50+ stable FPS in a city. Previously i had like 25ish with everything on low. Totally worth it, damn this game looks good. Ty for the tips.
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
On May 23 2015 03:37 unkkz wrote:Show nested quote +On May 19 2015 05:00 Kupon3ss wrote:
Any PSU that supported the 560TI should do fine with a 970 and that's probably the singular upgrade to go for if you plan on playing the witcher, especially if you haven't bought the game already since the purchase comes with the game (and batman) for free
The 2500K, though old, is still a solid processor that should be more than enough for gaming Ah yeah, just letting u know, bought the MSI gaming version of the GTX 970 as the GIGABYTE one wouldn't fit inside my case i bet(and i was right, had like 2mm to spare with the MSI one) and running The witcher 3 on high settings with 50+ stable FPS in a city. Previously i had like 25ish with everything on low. Totally worth it, damn this game looks good. Ty for the tips.
Witcher 3 is a bit of a mess with the graphical settings. I gained like 30fps from turning off hairworks, from a baseline of 80 (shadows low, some other settings medium). A solid ~30-40% FPS increase, even though only ONE CHARACTER WITH HAIR was in the entire scene (the player character, with camera at max distance).
The hair setting actually uses a pretty obscene tessellation factor, and then it uses 8x MSAA on the hair - so it's understandable why it behaves like that. Since you can't have it on anything unless it's also on the player character, i think there's no reason to leave it enabled until it's fixed up. That might be in the patch coming in like ~3-5ish days.
I had little problem playing at ~120fps (so ~100fps with a 970 on same settings) with most visuals intact
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/hSDOv.png) ^137fps ![[image loading]](http://puu.sh/hSw31.png) ^122fps
Foliage rendering range was another hard hitter, iirc. Not sure about city performance, i barely played aside from checking out hardware usages and settings. It seemed light on the CPU, i could get >250fps with a 4770k@4.5ghz on that balcony without becoming CPU bound.
When people say ultra on Witcher 3, they mean a bunch of settings with little visual impact like the player character hair that your game would run that 30-40% faster without. That's how people get "30fps on 1080p with Titan X" even though it runs fine @~100/120fps on a single 970/980 without compromising really hard on visuals. I think there will quickly be more settings added though!
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ahahahaha "use your witcher senses to find the key to bedroom door" with yennefer in the same room. i've read the books a bit, that's pretty amusing
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
i don't know characters
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i'm knowledgeable~ about the lore since i liked the game enough to dabble in the books
anywhoo that's off topic
on topic, it's nice to see a gtx 980 get 120 fps with some concessions on ultra settings, good thing. i've heard kepler cards got hit hard though
i find it strange however that high end games are so dependent on the quality of drivers from manufacturers
how did they even develop the game?
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
They released the patch early, it's already up
Improves stability in gameplay and the UI
Improves performance especially in cutscenes and gameplay
Fixes grass and foliage popping that could occur after density parameters were changed
Improves Nvidia Hairworks performance
Boosted texture anisotropy sampling to 16x on Ultra preset
Sharpen Post-process settings extended from Off/On to Off/Low/High
Blood particles will now properly appear after killing enemies on the water
Corrects a bug where player was able to shoot bolts at friendly NPCs
Improves menu handling
Corrects an issue with Stamina regeneration while sprinting
Fixes a cursor lock issue that sometimes occcured when scrolling the map
Generally improves world map focus
Improves input responsiveness when using keyboard
Corrects some missing translations in the UI
Corrects an issue in dialogue selections
Rostan Muggs is back
Minor SFX improvements
on topic, it's nice to see a gtx 980 get 120 fps with some concessions on ultra settings, good thing. i've heard kepler cards got hit hard though
Maxwell is better at tessellation. Hairworks probably nuked everything else if they were testing with it on. I didn't see ANYTHING aside from people literally maxing every setting and then testing
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well you can't legitimately just max settings and expect games to run well these days ^^
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United Kingdom20345 Posts
Witcher 3 was an anomaly. It's not a case of max settings being too intense for a given card, it's that they tessellated from 1000 to 100'000 hairs and ran 8x MSAA on them whenever the main character is in frame if you had the setting enabled. Of course it's gonna bring your card to its knees.
You can absolutely max settings and expect stuff to run, especially with a flagship card on 1080p. Developers have gone soft on the graphics settings these days - people are content with "new console" (high end from 2007) stuff, or if they have actually powerful hardware they're usually shooting for 144hz at 1440p or 4k - which are both 4x more demanding than 1080p60.
That greatly lessens the demands for actual graphical progress. It's more about sitting still and waiting for our hardware to get 4x faster before actually making effective use of the power to make stuff pretty; we don't have any games that bring GM200 to its knees on a 1080p screen for good reason - it only ever happens because of this crap like 100k tessellated hairs with 8x MSAA on them.
Those graphics settings that i posted above? ~200fps on a Titan X at 1500mhz. I was on like 1420mhz because of stupid GPU bios crashing low load stuff.
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EPT
