CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Non-Audio Stuff => The Geek Cave: Home Theatre, Computers, and More! => Topic started by: Marvey on December 07, 2013, 08:53:36 PM
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I have an Intel i7-860 OC'd to 3.5 (stable) and a GTX670. I have not been keeping up with PC gear for several years. AnandTech and Tomshardware are no longer decipherable or readable to me. They have sold out like everyone else.
Is it finally a good idea to get a new CPU/mobo? Any good recommendations for the sweet spot of the curve?
Also should I get another vid card or go SLI?
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Are you experiencing power shortages? I don't think you need to change anything. I am using a I7 860 also and have considered an upgrade, but there just isn't any need. Also a GTX670 is still pretty potent. There is room to upgrade if you feel you need it, but it should be good enough for max settings on a single 1080p monitor.
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Yeah, I don't see any need for a new CPU or board if you're just gaming and doing normal things that people do. My roommate is still gaming on the Q6600 based PC I handed down to him and his biggest bottleneck is still the video card (HD4850).
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Unless you're into cutting edge gaming on 1440p+, your rig is more than fine and you won't see noticeable improvements with a new GPU OR CPU in the majority of applications and games. SLI a second 670 if you want to game on higher resolutions.
The new-ish intel Haswells are mobile-focused chips, if anything - their only redeeming features are power savings and the decent integrated graphics on certain SKUs. The thermal solution on Haswell chips is embarrassing and the new enthusiast/2011 socket class chips (Ivy Bridge-E) are overpriced unless you need the PCI lanes for SLI, the extra memory channels or the extra cores on your CPU.
If you're desperate to upgrade, I would suggest an E3 Xeon on a consumer Haswell (1150 socket/Z87 chipset) board and add a second 670 you can find on sale.
But unless you have money to burn, upgrading seems mostly pointless with your current rig.
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CPU performance hasn't budged much since Sandy Bridge, and performance per core probably won't go much further given Intel's mobile bent. You would mostly be getting it for the new board and features.
The 670 is still a fine card for 1080, at 1440p you'd have to turn down AA and some other stuff from max. I don't quite see the value in a rig upgrade.
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Yeah maybe another graphics card considering that that my case already begs for it. I have a 2560x1600 screen, and I know I could use more GPU power for sure. I can't seem to find my SLI connector. Can I even buy these things? I got an EVGA card.
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Easy enough to get a new one, they go for about ten bucks. An SLI bridge is an SLI bridge, it'll work fine.
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Yeah maybe another graphics card considering that that my case already begs for it. I have a 2560x1600 screen, and I know I could use more GPU power for sure. I can't seem to find my SLI connector. Can I even buy these things? I got an EVGA card.
If you buy another GTX 670, that should come with an SLI bridge. No need to buy one separately.
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Sandy and Ivy Bridge are pretty much as far as you'd need to go for your CPU.
With regard to GPU power, I wait for Dell to do their 20/25% accessories coupon every year, buy the highest end card they have, then sell it the next year for what I paid and buy the next one. Sometimes I'll SLI/Crossfire, but I never end up down much of anything. The higher end GPUs don't plummet until the next generation is launching and with the 20/25% coupon, I have always been able to recoup my cost on GPU sales.
If you're running 2560x1600 and you're playing anything serious, I'd seriously look at upgrading your GPU. I use three of the Korean 1440p monitors and the crazy taxes takes my overvolted/overclocked 780ti even on a single monitor. Tried BF4, I was dipping under 60fps quite often.
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Wait, you still have microcenter locally? Fuck all the other advice, go there, get a 4770k for like $200 when it goes on sale and get the $50 off a motherboard while you're there.
When Microcenter closed down in Santa Clara, baby Jesus cried. At least I made out with a 3770k before then.
Now you guys are making me think of abandoning my hacked up ITX case so I can run two 780Tis in something, keep buying games, looking at them for 4 minutes to benchmark, then never play them.
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Indeed I do. The local Microcenter has the best deals on CPUs. I actually get a lot of my stuff there for work when they go super sale. Microcenter is awesome for specific purposes.
Now you guys are making me think of abandoning my hacked up ITX case so I can run two 780Tis in something, keep buying games, looking at them for 4 minutes to benchmark, then never play them.
That's the point of SLI. No other. You are not supposed to be playing the games.
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Here's a deal on a 770:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125473
$350 AR with assassin's creed 4, splinter cell blacklist, and Arkham Origins bundled.
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The i7 860 should be pretty solid for most things, but you will definitely see noticeable gains if you regularly use multi-threaded applications and/or a gamer. In that case, you'll at least want to go with Sandy Bridge. You can get the 2600K or 2700K for rather cheap these days, and I've heard they're easier to OC than IVB or Haswell because the latter two generations no longer have the CPU soldered to the IHS. So, the newer Intels are harder to sustain low temperatures on when OCing. You're not going to see a huge jump with IVB or Haswell...realistically 5-10% jump in performance each generation. When OCed, even a 2500K won't leave you wanting and should provide noticeable gains over the 860.
As mentioned, Microcenter is going to be your best option. You can save some cash and go for the mid-tier IVB or Haswell CPUs or go for something like the 4770K, which is a really solid CPU. If you can swing the cash, the i7 is generally worth it (see benchmarks in BF4 for i7s vs i5s).
I'm assuming your GTX670 is a 2GB model. If so, I would recommend you upgrade to a card with at least 3GB of VRAM. Newer games are starting to use well over 2GB of RAM, especially at 1600p and with high settings (why else do you have a GTX 670? haha). Having a memory bottleneck with your GPU is NOT fun. You could SLI, but you'll still only have 2GB of usable VRAM. If it's one of the 4GB models, SLI would be a good choice.
You're not going to see a huge jump in performance unless you go with a GTX 780, R9 290X, etc. My heavily OCed GTX 780 (1250/6500) is just about right at 1440p/120Hz. With that and my 4.5GHz 2500K, I get about 60-70FPS pretty easily on a busy BF4 MP server on ultra settings (100% scaling, no AA).
Anandtech is still a good place for computer hardware news and reviews. I go to TechReport for most GPU reviews, as they were one of the first places to identify the need for frametime analysis and not just average framerate. Many other sites are starting to adopt those practices. Really, though, I aggregate reviews from a lot of sites to get a better idea of how hardware actually performs.
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Hans, no offense, but that is 100% wrong advice.
A single screen of the resolution he is using won't use over 2GB of video memory, and unless it's a particular game on a small but growing list, multi-thread performance will do jack squat for gaming. In fact, unless the game is on that small list, there is virtually no difference between an i5 and i7 at the same frequency for gaming. Most games right now are GPU bound, so his i7 860, while dated is actually not going to bottleneck him. Unless he's playing Civilization or something like that with huge CPU load, there's no reason to upgrade CPU.
GPU is also likely to be fine. Looking at some reviews when the GTX670 came out, 2560x1600 with 4x AA (maxxed settings) in BF3 (no BF4 yet) was a very playable 43FPS average. AA is notoriously heavy on GPU load, drop to 2x or 0x and you'd never have to worry about minimum frame rates. Even the original Crysis fully maxxed is only 33FPS average. If you are willing to sacrifice AA, I doubt any game at maxxed settings will drop below 50FPS average, which is perfectly playable. If you have to have that AA, I hope it's worth the $100-200 (after sale of the GTX670) you'll spend.
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And I think your advice is a tad bit outdated and shortsighted. :)p3
But, realistically, it all depends on what Marv's needs are. Does he not need AA at all? In that case, you're mostly right...games probably won't use 2GB VRAM for a while, even at 1600p. However, most PC gamers I've talked to IRL and online prefer at least 2x MSAA on 1440p or 1600p. Sure, even BF4 today at 1600p, ultra settings, 2x MSAA probably won't use 2GB of VRAM...though most analysis I've seen put that somewhere between 1.8 and just over 2GB of VRAM usage. Without AA, BF4 at ultra 1600p uses around 1.6-1.8GB VRAM, but I find the aliasing to be too distracting even at high resolutions without AA (the foliage...OH GOD, THE SHIMMERING FOLIAGE). And FXAA looks too much like mud...
Now, there are some things to take into account. First, the vast majority of GPU reviews do NOT account for VRAM usage, nor will FPS charts indicate a VRAM bottleneck necessarily. FPS in general is a just a poor way to determine a GPU's performance (frame time analysis is much, much better).
And don't get me wrong...SLI GTX670s will be beastly assuming an application doesn't need more than 2GB VRAM.
In relation to the above, I tried playing a Skyrim at 1080P (no AA) on my 2GB GTX 680 with some graphical mods, mostly HD textures and a light ENB setting (no AO). I understand that the HD mods aren't always perfectly optimized, but that game with mods chew through VRAM like no other. With those mods, my game stuttered like a real bitch any time I turned around! But, hey, the FPS results were excellent...too bad the game still ran like crap. VRAM bottlenecks are not a fun thing...much easier to deal with a bottlenecked GPU core.
And don't try to tell me to play Skyrim without graphical mods. That game can be really ugly at times and uses a crappy lighting system! :P
Most modern games these days are multi-threaded. Saying better multi-threaded performance will do "jack squat for gaming" is becoming outdated quickly. Is it as good as it should be? Not yet, but I get the impression it's more common these days to see a multi-threaded game over a single-threaded game (though, poorly implemented multi-threaded games can be rather common).
You must also remember that the new consoles (minus the Wii U) are running 8-core x86 CPUs with 8GB RAM. That brings heavily threaded games with very large textures, detailed models, heavy graphical effects, etc. This is most certainly going to translate into PC gaming as well, given the amount of multi-platform games these days. Things are going to change very quickly with the new generation, especially once developers focus only on PC/Xbone/PS4.
So, thinking ahead, 2GB of VRAM just isn't going to cut it in the near future for 1440p/1600p at high settings, and most folks still want at least a bit of MSAA (post-processing AA can be real hit-and-miss). However, as mentioned, it all comes down to what Marv needs and prefers. If he's the type that upgrades his GPU yearly OR doesn't mind probably having to turn down memory-related graphical settings to avoid VRAM bottlenecks within the next couple years, then a 2nd GTX 670 is a perfect choice (unless you're worried about SLI incompatibilities, bugs, micro-stuttering, etc.). If he wants to keep top-notch settings and run a bit of AA at 1600p for the next couple years, 2GB VRAM is really stretching it and will probably necessitate another purchase within 2 years.
Also, you should read more reviews of recent PC games and CPU-related performance. The Sandy Bridge Intels offered a noticeable jump in IPC and single-threaded performance over the CPUs that came before. Benchmarks clearly show this (not necessarily in every game on earth ever). Modern games LOVE at least having Sandy Bridge, and it shows. There's much less of a gap between the i5s and i7s, sure, but you can usually get the i7s for a great combo deal at Microcenter. The i7s do show noticeable gains over i5 in games like BF4, though that is one of the games in that small list like you mentioned.
We are both offering good points and good advice. Neither of us is necessarily wrong, but neither of us really asked what Marv wants and needs. I'm basing my recommendations more on what I want out of PC gaming, and you seem to be offering it more on what you want out of PC gaming. For all we know, he could only want to play BF4 and modded Skyrim at the absolute highest settings, or maybe he only plays games that use very little VRAM and need a beastly GPU core. Maybe he thinks 30fps is smooth, maybe not. Maybe he notices stuttering, maybe not.
I think together, we've probably painted a clear enough picture to help Marv decide whether or not he needs new hardware.
Edit: Marv, one good site for GPU comparisons is TechPowerUp. With each GPU review, they have a list at the end that averages the benchmarks and compares it to almost all other cards in terms of performance per resolution, performance per cost, performance per watt, etc. It's a fast, easy way to check your options to see what sort of avg. performance gain you'll get by moving up to various other solutions.
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Marv, I'm assuming this is for gaming?
2560x1600 is just so demanding on GPUs that SLI or a 780ti is almost a must. I cringe when you mentioned using an EVGA GPU. Those blower coolers are just awful!
A new CPU and mobo would definitely be nice but not necessary. SATA III, USB 3.0, higher quality VRMs, and PCI-E 3.0 are a big step for 1150 chipsets. Plus an i5-4670k and Gigabyte Z87 UD4H is relatively cheap at MC. GBT definitely has the best motherboards for 1150.
Are you running SSDs yet? This is definitely the biggest boost in performance in the last 5 years of computing.
I'm knowledgeable on silent computing. If you want a quieter computer, just ask!
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It's true, SSD should be your first upgrade if you haven't done that yet (unless you only care about gaming performance).
ohhgourami, I had an EVGA GTX 680 (it was slightly OCed out of the box) with the blower cooler. It actually performed rather well. Surprisingly quiet, good cooling performance, at least in games. It would get a bit loud when stressed with Heaven Benchmark, 3DMark, etc., but only during long-period stability tests. Even then, the Fractal Design Define R4 case helps isolate some fan noise.
VRAM aside, I'm very happy I jumped to a GTX 780 before I got my 1440p monitor. Can't stand lower than 60fps on PC (consoles, eh, have to deal with it...), prefer 80FPS+ when I can (monitor is OCed to 120Hz). Also can't stand stuttering of any kind. I get a very ill, uneasy feeling very quickly if my games don't have nearly perfect, smooth motion with a high framerate and low/consistent frame times. I also don't like playing on anything other than close to the highest settings in games. Yes, I spend way too much money on my PC for that last ounce of performance and graphical goodness.
But, really, hitting that VRAM limit when you want eye candy is so, so infuriating.
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Your surprisingly quiet would probably be unbearably loud. I only game on 1920x1200 so my GPU requirements aren't as high. I run a GTX 670 OCed to 1350mhz and I don't even game anymore. I just have a 2k facebook machine :)p13 But I have a massive aftermarket cooler on my GPU that can even run passively.
The most important thing about computing these day is noise. That is the one thing many people overlook! We spend so much money on audio gear and creating a black background while loud PC noises erase all that!
This is my open case PC which is completely inaudible during idle and remains VERY quiet at full load:
(http://cdn.overclock.net/e/ed/900x900px-LL-edcfd89f_936387.jpeg)
The whole thing only has 4 moving parts which are quiet fans. No annoying HDDs.
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Isn't it a bit counter-intuitive that you want a quiet PC but have a completely open case? :P
But, yes, with that setup, I think it shows my "quiet" is probably "loud" to you, haha. It's hard anyway to hear my computer over the background noise in my apartment, generally.
That is a great GPU cooling setup, though. Love it! Also love when people strap the AIO CPU cooling units to GPUs.
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You can't isolate noise that doesn't get produced. :p
Open case means no restrictions and perfect airflow, which means more cooling without the need for case fans, thus less noise.
GPU produce by far the most noise. Blowers are good for not mixing the hot air back into the case but are damn loud. Other coolers are quieter but traditional cases usually trap the hot air inside for remixing. Open case just makes sense!
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You can't isolate noise that doesn't get produced. :p
Open case means no restrictions and perfect airflow, which means more cooling without the need for case fans, thus less noise.
GPU produce by far the most noise. Blowers are good for not mixing the hot air back into the case but are damn loud. Other coolers are quieter but traditional cases usually trap the hot air inside for remixing. Open case just makes sense!
I see your point. I've always wanted an open case, but there's just too much animal hair floating around my place. Plus I don't want the cat to think it's a new bed.
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Sorry for being a little hostile, Hans. I just think it's silly these days to play the 'spend $1000-1500 a year to keep myself at top specs' game, buying new near top of the line video cards and CPUs. I used to do this about 10-15 years ago when it really made a huge difference, but modern computers are so fast by default that it's hard to justify the expense. Buying a good video card and CPU every 2-4 years is plenty.
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It's all good! I sometimes forget to ask what people are looking for first before assuming they'll want what I would want. I know everyone approaches their computing needs at least a little bit differently. Lately I've been buying near TOTL GPUs and sticking with the fairly reasonable 2500K. I only end up spending a $200-300 a year to upgrade the GPU once I sell the previous, but that's something I find fun I guess. I'm also all about high framerates, low and consistent frametimes, smooth motion, and not sacrificing image quality for it. Maybe I'll care less down the road, but I'm actually finding it very exciting now that I'm out of school and have a big boy job.
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Marv's CPU and mobo probably give enough performance, but I think the features of 1150 can be well justified (in addition to the ~30% performance increase). He could easily sell what he has now to some kid on craigslists. All he has to do is "bling" that up with some gaudy LEDs in some crap $30 case and sell the CPU and mobo for like $150. I say the wait for Skylake is a bit of a stretch so this isn't a bad time to upgrade.
Then every couple years, just upgrade GPUs. 2560x1600 is high upkeep so he put himself in this position!
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Is Skylake (guessing that's the next desktop core) supposed to be yet more mobility aimed improvements or more actual processing power increase? If it's more mobility crap, I might make the step (to Haswell) myself.
Just read a little about Skylake. Earliest estimates put Skylake Xeons coming out early 2015, more likely mid to late 2015 and Consumer versions will lag by 2-3 months after. Looking like 2016ish for a Skylake chip, and a new motherboard (chipset) will be required due to DDR4. 2 years is a while. I'll have to think about it. Maybe get a Haswell now, and get a Cannonlake (Skylake die shrink to 10nm) in 2017ish.
Reading a bit about Broadwell (Haswell die shrink to 14nm), though. Might wait for that then plan for Cannonlake or something even later. Nevermind, Haswell just came out a few months ago. Broadwell will be late 2014.
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If you're itching for an upgrade, Skylake won't be released until sometime mid to late 2015. We know nothing in regards to it being performance oriented or not. It's obvious that Intel's plans are to make their chips more efficient in order to dominate the mobile market (tablets then phones).
Honestly, whether or not Skylake will be a huge boost in CPU power doesn't matter all that much, but DDR4 and SATA-Express becoming mainstream is a good enough reason for me. For sure hardware should be relatively more expensive for that upgrade so getting Haswell in order to hold off til Haswells successor is a good idea.
It's already been announced that Broadwell won't have any CPU upgrades, only iGPU which will take another huge leap similar to Ivy > Haswell.
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OK. Real quick. CPU and Mobo recommendation. The i5-4670k? Is that a good sweet spot?
I could use moar CPU for faster jpg display, un-raring, or video editing of HD porn.
I could use moar FPS for SWTOR on a 2560 x 1600 display.
Vid card. To SLI or not current GTX670
I'm keeping my case. Silverstone FT02. Already have SSDs, at least for the most often used porn.
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Sell gtx 670, resale is still high. Get s single higher end GPU on Newegg open box sale or dell 25% sale when its running.
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I haven't kept up w/ Intel's latest alphabet soup tick-tock clock rock, but make sure you get hyperthreading if you go i5, if possible even. I recall you had to go up the ladder to have it enabled. Intel always seems to hold back some juicy feature for the overly cost conscious. I'm also looking at mobile i7 primarily because my desktop is fine since I built the Eddie current PC and haswell forward has been mobility centric for improvements, and mobile GPUs/Intel HD likes as much CPU as you can give them. The only real benefit to getting a new CPU I'd say is if you need more powah for desktop graphic/video editing and CAD. The latest and greatest GPUs from ATI and Nvidia are where I'd dump my CPU money.
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i7 is a must if you do a lot of video editing and un-raring. Desktop i5 don't have hyperthreading, but if you only occasional video edit then an i5 could suffice. The cost of an i7 4770k compared to an i5 4670k isn't much too.
If you want more FPS, might as well sell the GTX 670 then. One powerful single card is almost always better than SLI equivalent.
Yeah keep that case. It's a nice case. I guess you can get higher capacity SSDs for more porn.
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The most important thing about computing these day is noise. That is the one thing many people overlook! We spend so much money on audio gear and creating a black background while loud PC noises erase all that!
Aint that the truth. As far as I'm concerned if I can hear the computer from more than a foot away, it's too loud. Running open is an interesting idea, but I wouldn't want to have to deal with the dust build up. Even closed cases that are unfiltered will eventually become just disgusting. I prefer to run closed, fully dust filtered cases with Acoustipack lining to deal with whatever small extra noise I may be introducing with more restricted airflow. It works.
Fan choice is everything. There are plenty of quiet fans out there, the trick is a quiet fan that has as much air flow per dB as humanly possible. My favorites are Noiseblocker Multi-frames.
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OK. Real quick. CPU and Mobo recommendation. The i5-4670k? Is that a good sweet spot?
I could use moar CPU for faster jpg display, un-raring, or video editing of HD porn.
I could use moar FPS for SWTOR on a 2560 x 1600 display.
Vid card. To SLI or not current GTX670
I'm keeping my case. Silverstone FT02. Already have SSDs, at least for the most often used porn.
That's almost a carbon copy of my current rig: 4670k, GTX670, FT02.
AMD seems to be the sweet spot if you're going that high res, especially the R9 290. 280X or GTX 770 if you want to save $100. Not worth the hassle of multi-GPU, especially on a RAM limited card like the GTX 670. In all honesty, the GTX 670 will probably be fine, but if you can sell it for a decent price + don't mind spending some cash, the new GPUs aren't that bad of a value proposition.
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Aint that the truth. As far as I'm concerned if I can hear the computer from more than a foot away, it's too loud. Running open is an interesting idea, but I wouldn't want to have to deal with the dust build up. Even closed cases that are unfiltered will eventually become just disgusting. I prefer to run closed, fully dust filtered cases with Acoustipack lining to deal with whatever small extra noise I may be introducing with more restricted airflow. It works.
Fan choice is everything. There are plenty of quiet fans out there, the trick is a quiet fan that has as much air flow per dB as humanly possible. My favorites are Noiseblocker Multi-frames.
Absolutely! I better not hear it.
Open case is quite clean. Most of the dust tends to just blow through the heatsinks and not get caught. The micro layer of dust on the heatsinks is unavoidable though. Every couple months I just lug this thing outside and blast it with compressed air.
The layout of traditional cases really bothered me. Any type of intake air is almost always blocked by stupid drive bays! Why must have a case have 4+ ODD bays?! ODDs are almost obsolete for me. SSDs can be mounted almost anywhere too! Why must the intake fans be so far away from the CPU and GPU coolers? Why must the PSU block a perfect spot for a fan? Why does a case even have to be that shape or laid out for vertical mobo mounting? All of these questions and I could not find the perfect case at the time. I wanted something minimalistic and compact, but make complete sense in terms of air cooling. Form factor was also important in that I can stack it on top of audio gear too. Open test bench fit that perfectly.
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The layout of traditional cases really bothered me. Any type of intake air is almost always blocked by stupid drive bays! Why must have a case have 4+ ODD bays?! ODDs are almost obsolete for me. SSDs can be mounted almost anywhere too! Why must the intake fans be so far away from the CPU and GPU coolers? Why must the PSU block a perfect spot for a fan? Why does a case even have to be that shape or laid out for vertical mobo mounting? All of these questions and I could not find the perfect case at the time. I wanted something minimalistic and compact, but make complete sense in terms of air cooling. Form factor was also important in that I can stack it on top of audio gear too. Open test bench fit that perfectly.
No argument here. The classic ATX design of intake fan on the bottom, hdd bays in the middle and ODD bays on top is absolutely terrible. It's just what everyone knows how to do. Things like side panel intake fans are just hacks to try to get around the problem. The perfect case design would be a two layer cube with PSU, hdd, and ODD bays on the bottom, and mobo tray on top. That would allow the upper front panel to be 100% unrestricted and provide maximum airflow to the CPU and GPU with the shortest possible distance between fans and components. Aerocool and Lian Li and BitFenix are kind of stumbling towards this, but they haven't gotten it right yet. The closest is the Coolermaster HAF XB, but they designed it for max airflow above all else, and it will be a dust nightmare. It's also kind of a fugly mess.
(http://static.techspot.com/articles-info/636/images/Images_02S.jpg)
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OK. Real quick. CPU and Mobo recommendation. The i5-4670k? Is that a good sweet spot?
I could use moar CPU for faster jpg display, un-raring, or video editing of HD porn.
I could use moar FPS for SWTOR on a 2560 x 1600 display.
Vid card. To SLI or not current GTX670
I'm keeping my case. Silverstone FT02. Already have SSDs, at least for the most often used porn.
The 4670K is certainly a great sweet spot, just like the two i5s before it. Realistically, HT on the i7 isn't going to make a difference in most applications, but it does in some. The 4770k is at a good price on Microcenter, but you'd have to look up benchmarks to see if the i7 will benefit you in applications you use.
You'll notice a nice difference with a new CPU across the board at stock settings, but Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, and Haswell all excel at overclocking. You should be able to get 4.2GHz easily. Some folks delid the IHS and replace the TIM or apply the heatsink directly to the CPU die to help with temps and overclocking. I've been extremely happy with my 2500K, which does 4.5GHz easily.
With SWTOR and a new CPU, you'll notice more of a benefit in minimum framerate than avg or max framerate than anything else. You'll probably see bigger performance gains with more GPU power, though, because I don't think SWTOR is particularly CPU limited.
If you don't play many games, getting a 2nd GTX 670 for SWTOR is probably going to give you the biggest performance increase for the money over any other GPU, I think. I think you'll find it difficult to break the 2GB VRAM barrier that way. You might also consider OCing the 670 if you have not already, as I've heard they're generally pretty solid OCers. That might get you the extra performance you want. But, if you want to play some of the newer, prettiest games at make-my-eyeballs-bleed settings, the 2GB VRAM limit would make me hesitate if I'm going to be making a new purchase to last for 2-3 years.
AMD seems to be the sweet spot if you're going that high res, especially the R9 290. 280X or GTX 770 if you want to save $100. Not worth the hassle of multi-GPU, especially on a RAM limited card like the GTX 670. In all honesty, the GTX 670 will probably be fine, but if you can sell it for a decent price + don't mind spending some cash, the new GPUs aren't that bad of a value proposition.
I believe this is more the case at 4K or multi-monitor resolutions, not so much around 1600p. I could be misremembering,though. I'd hesitate to recommend the 280X or GTX 770, because they're really just rebadged HD 7970s and GTX 680s with some minor hardware and software tweaks. They're great and priced well, sure, but I'm not sure it'd be a huge upgrade from a GTX 670 (and OCed 670 does well against a 680). He'd either want to go SLI 670 (downsides are potentially limited RAM, potential SLI bugs and incompatibilities) or go to an R9 290 or GTX 780 at least (downsides are likely less performance increase for the money, but more VRAM, don't have to deal with SLI issues, etc.).
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No argument here. The classic ATX design of intake fan on the bottom, hdd bays in the middle and ODD bays on top is absolutely terrible. It's just what everyone knows how to do. Things like side panel intake fans are just hacks to try to get around the problem.
To be fair, while it's not an optimal design (the Fractal lets me take out a good chunk of the bays in the middle), you can still get excellent cooling and noise performance from a classic ATX case. That, and it takes up less floor or desk space at the expense of using more vertical space.
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Yeah, I figured if I OC'd, I'd be turning hyper-threading off. I do convert movies to tablet format for my kids.
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No argument here. The classic ATX design of intake fan on the bottom, hdd bays in the middle and ODD bays on top is absolutely terrible. It's just what everyone knows how to do. Things like side panel intake fans are just hacks to try to get around the problem. The perfect case design would be a two layer cube with PSU, hdd, and ODD bays on the bottom, and mobo tray on top. That would allow the upper front panel to be 100% unrestricted and provide maximum airflow to the CPU and GPU with the shortest possible distance between fans and components. Aerocool and Lian Li and BitFenix are kind of stumbling towards this, but they haven't gotten it right yet. The closest is the Coolermaster HAF XB, but they designed it for max airflow above all else, and it will be a dust nightmare. It's also kind of a fugly mess.
For an enclosed "bench style" case, the HAF XB has a perfect layout, but that things damn ugly!!! I bet if I shoved that thing in front of the designer's face, he would wince! Now if Silverstone would play with that layout with some higher quality materials, it would be something worth buying.
Besides my gripe about the aesthetics and materials, I don't like that side panel. It doesn't work well with my 4 slot GPU. :)p13
The 4670K is certainly a great sweet spot, just like the two i5s before it. Realistically, HT on the i7 isn't going to make a difference in most applications, but it does in some. The 4770k is at a good price on Microcenter, but you'd have to look up benchmarks to see if the i7 will benefit you in applications you use.
You'll notice a nice difference with a new CPU across the board at stock settings, but Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, and Haswell all excel at overclocking. You should be able to get 4.2GHz easily. Some folks delid the IHS and replace the TIM or apply the heatsink directly to the CPU die to help with temps and overclocking. I've been extremely happy with my 2500K, which does 4.5GHz easily.
It is recommended you delid Ivy and Haswell! It's actually very easy and foolproof if you using the hammer and vice method. If upgrading, get Haswell as the motherboards have great features.
Yeah, I figured if I OC'd, I'd be turning hyper-threading off. I do convert movies to tablet format for my kids.
i5 5670k is enough then.
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To be fair, while it's not an optimal design (the Fractal lets me take out a good chunk of the bays in the middle), you can still get excellent cooling and noise performance from a classic ATX case. That, and it takes up less floor or desk space at the expense of using more vertical space.
True. Another route is to make a taller, shallower version of the ATX design with ODD on top, board in the middle, PSU on the bottom ala the Lian Li Tyr cases. Someone else should take on that idea without the dumb sideways ODD bays. Provided you don't mind a 24"+ tall case, it works very well.
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Open case +
(http://www.digitaltechmedics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/DustOff1.jpg)
Easier than fooling around w/ filters. Plus an open case is the best air cooled solution you can get.
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For an enclosed "bench style" case, the HAF XB has a perfect layout, but that things damn ugly!!! I bet if I shoved that thing in front of the designer's face, he would wince! Now if Silverstone would play with that layout with some higher quality materials, it would be something worth buying.
Lol yup. Still better than the PC-V358 though. That's a much better looking case but LL completely botched the design. Most of the direct cooling is on the bottom, and the rest is CPU exhaust. The GPU basically gets no cooling at all, just a vent. Aerocool's Dead Silence cube is probably the slickest looking of the cube cases, but they screwed up the front intake to make room for completely unnecessary ext drive bays. Seriously, somebody needs a 3.5" ext bay in 2013? That, and it's a little too short for its own good, there's not enough room for a proper PSU. Something just a little bit longer with no ext bays and a 2x 140mm intake would be just about perfect.
(http://www.spire.co.uk/images/product/CAM-ACOOLCUBEBLACK_4.jpg)
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I'm done with enclosed cases, at least until I have a kid.
Even then, it's still easier for me to work around that...
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Or cats! This is the first cat I've had (and I love her), but it's definitely one of the "If I fits (or, you know, even if not), I sits" type situations. She once crawled into a bag of water bottles. Couldn't fit. Looked uncomfortable, thought she might have trouble breathing in there. She fell asleep. Not gonna risk a computer!
Also have to worry about times I decide to drink. Usually there are no problems, but...
Yeah, I figured if I OC'd, I'd be turning hyper-threading off. I do convert movies to tablet format for my kids.
You know, you talked an awful lot about porn just before this...What are you showing your kids? Better not be any of this: )(
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I'm done with enclosed cases, at least until I have a kid.
Even then, it's still easier for me to work around that...
Dubstep Girl agrees :)p5
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I'm digging this little guy a lot. One smartest ITX gaming cases I've seen yet.
(http://www.cooltek.de/media/image/4250140369109-7.jpg)
(http://www.3dnews.ru/assets/external/illustrations/2013/12/25/790560/Cooltek1.jpg)
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No thanks. For an air cooled gaming rig without space requirements, I'll stick with my trusty and true FT02.
(http://www.maximumpc.com/files/u90693/silverstone-guts_full.jpg)
There's no replacement for displacement of air. Nothing beats cu ft per second for cooling. The 180mm fans are quiet when run on low, and you can feel the air being pushed up and out when you put your hand over the case.
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There's no replacement for displacement of air. Nothing beats cu ft per second for cooling. The 180mm fans are quiet when run on low, and you can feel the air being pushed up and out when you put your hand over the case.
There's no replacement for a really good motor and bearing design. I'll take 140 over 180 any day of the week because there's a lot of really ultra high quality 140mms available on the market to choose from. Who makes 180mm fans? Nobody. For my requirements, a computer that is audible is a computer that is too loud. Most of the really big 180+ fans out there are made by a tiny handful of companies, and they are either noisy double ball bearings, or shitty sleeve bearings which are prone to failure.
Until there are Noctuas and Gentle Typhoons and Noiseblockers at that size, I'm not interested. The Cooltek W1 I pictured has a 140mm intake and 140mm exhaust, and you can put two additional 140mm exhausts on top, although putting one over the CD drive isn't likely to do much. All intakes including the side video card vent are filtered, and it will fit large ATX PSUs, 120mm tower heatsinks, and full length video cards in a box 1/4 of the size and 1/4 of the weight of the FT02. Unless you're going to be doing heavy overclocking, using SLI or Crossfire, or you need more than 5 hard drives, it's hard to argue with. The issue is there's no distributor in the US, which is a problem with a lot of the new interesting cases that are coming out lately. Instead we keep getting the same boring crap from Fractal Design. I know I can't wait for the Define R5, which will be 99.99% the same as the Define R4. Whoohoo!!!
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Those three 180mm fans are quieter than any 140mm Noctuas or Noiseblockers. They can push way more air at 500rpm at lower sound levels. How do I know? I had another PC in a case with x2 140mm Noctuas and x2 Noiseblockers (The noctuas are way overrated BTW, unless they changed their design recently.) The FT02 replaced this older case. I got sick of hearing the 140mm fans despite running them at 700-800rpm. Yes, these 140mm fans are "higher tech" than the 180mm fans. But the 180mm fans get the job done. With the FT02 I only hear air movement noise - no mechanical noise. The noisiest fan is actually the CPU fan - because I used a cheapy 120mm and have been to lazy to replace it.
The FT02 has been the quietest case per temperature period by far that I've used. I've been through most of the high-end cases, i.e. Coolmaster, Li Lian, etc. The fact that the FT02 blows hot air upwards in unobstructed manner probably helps.
That ITX case is a joke with too many airflow obstructions. Even with the drive bay not loaded, there are two plates from the front to the back; and then there the necessary solid obstruction (DVD drive) at the top. I bet if you bench / measure CPU, GPU, mobo temps that thing, it's going to be a hot case, despite whatever fans you put into it. Maybe you can get it to be semi-cool, but you would need to run four fans at 2000rpm, and despite how advanced the Noctuas or Noiseblockers are, that's going to be loud.
I run now 5 drives (OS mirrored x2 SSD) and (Data RAID x3 HD). I usually have a virtual machine with network scanning tools installed. A moderately OC'd CPU and vidcard in that ITX case running Nessus scanner and me playing SWTOR at the same time would die in my 90 degree room in the summer. Nessus, depending upon the build, has a tendency of crashing CPUs. I can't afford to run network vulnerability scans over and over and over with what I do.
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I run all gentle typhoons on my rads due to their size and have used almost every major touted case fan, fluid bearing or otherwise in existence. Only a moron would take a 120mm or 140mm fan over an undervolted reasonable quality larger fan. Larger fan = more air displacement. Science is working against you with a smaller fan.
Also, I can almost guarantee you the Cooltek will have similar or worse thermals to the Prodigy for 3x the price. And yes, I know the small computing space more than the folks who've spent 30 mins in the [H] SFF section. I sacrificed my 800D and my phase change setup for an ITX system in a gutted Q25 with a single GPU running all water to see what I could squeeze out of a small server case. I've built dozens of small gaming systems for coworkers who got married and needed something that could fit on or under the mantle. In every case, the use of larger fans has always been preferable and I'd rather mod the case to accept something bigger than use the options in the 120mm to 140mm space.
Dave, I'm also surprised that you haven't mentioned needing to mass load most of these cases to all hell. I've never worked in a Fractal Designs case that didn't require work to keep it quiet outside of just fan choice.
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It depends on what you need the computer to do of course. In your case I would probably not recommend ITX of any stripe. I'm currently running a micro-ATX cube case with 120mm Noiseblocker Multi-frames, with an SSD for the OS and a single 3.5" hdd in a sealed enclosure. There's no sound from it at all. No motor noise, no bearing noise, no air movement noise, nothing. If you put your head literally right next to the fans you can hear a bit of air movement. From a foot away it's soundless, which is what I expect out of my systems these days.
With something like a Core i5, particularly a 65W S model, a 120mm tower heatsink should be more than enough at stock clock speeds in that case. The CD shelf can be removed to allow for 240mm or 280mm radiators on top. The HDD rack may also be removable, I'm not sure.
The FT02 is definitely a good design, in fact it's much better than anything Silverstone has done since. The problem with big cases is that the further away from the hardware you pull the fans, the less effective they are. The FT02 solves this by basically flipping everything on its face, while Lian Li hit the same basic goal in the Tyr cases by splitting the hardware into separate zones instead of having the HDDs in front of the rest of the hardware.
The little Cooltek may actually work very well by having fans that are big enough basically right on top of the heat zones. It's definitely something I'd like to try. The biggest issue I have with the FT02 by far is the weight. 33lbs is just ridiculous, and that's EMPTY.
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On a related topic, I nixed the idea of an AIO PC for my wife and instead wanted to go for one of the Prodigy ITX cases. I have a few questions:
- Any good sources for a ITX board so I can re-use my i7-860 processor?
- Will I be able to use an older Nvidia graphics card (regular length - not long schlong, double girth)?
- Are slim DVD drives required?
- Are special power supplies required?
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In regards to finding a motherboard, I have no idea if you can find good choices at Newegg, Amazon, Micro Center, etc. Usually in those situations I buy used from reputable sellers on Anandtech or your tech forum(s) of choice. Sometimes eBay is a good place to check as well.
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On a related topic, I nixed the idea of an AIO PC for my wife and instead wanted to go for one of the Prodigy ITX cases. I have a few questions:
- Any good sources for a ITX board so I can re-use my i7-860 processor?
- Will I be able to use an older Nvidia graphics card (regular length - not long schlong, double girth)?
- Are slim DVD drives required?
- Are special power supplies required?
1) The surge in good ITX motherboards came with 1155. I've tried to build previously and it was mediocre at best. It wasn't until Sandy was in full swing that the options weren't shit.
2) Remove the drive cage and hell yes. I've stuffed a 580 lightning XE in one of these.
3) Supports full sized 5.25" optical drives
4) You need a shallower PSU (140mm or less). That being said, I've cut up the case on one and removed the bottom drive cage to fit ridiculous PSUs in there.
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On a related topic, I nixed the idea of an AIO PC for my wife and instead wanted to go for one of the Prodigy ITX cases. I have a few questions:
- Any good sources for a ITX board so I can re-use my i7-860 processor?
The i7-860 was socket 1156 right? That's a bit of a problem. There are loads of 1155 boards, but 1156, not so much. You can still buy 1156 based Mini ITX boards, but probably not from the usual suspects like Newegg or Amazon. Even Logic Supply doesn't seem to have any.
As for which one, Intel DH57JG maybe?
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Looks like Corsair wants to get in on the ITX cube market as well. Cooling definitely shouldn't be an issue with this guy thanks to the 200mm intake. It seems designed more for closed loop water than air, but you could still definitely fit a large down draft cooler with a 140mm fan along with twin side intakes. The 5.25" ODD slot is really unnecessary these days, but fortunately the tray for it is removable.
http://youtu.be/AxaJVRayA8M
(http://images.anandtech.com/galleries/3294/250D_Close_up_hydro_series_install_575px.png)
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Looks like Corsair wants to get in on the ITX cube market as well. Cooling definitely shouldn't be an issue with this guy thanks to the 200mm intake. It seems designed more for closed loop water than air, but you could still definitely fit a large down draft cooler with a 140mm fan along with twin side intakes. The 5.25" ODD slot is really unnecessary these days, but fortunately the tray for it is removable.
Too small. Doesn't fit my 4-slot GPU. :)p13
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FT05 then. Looks like Silverstone learned their lesson after the FT04/RV04 debacle.
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FT05 then. Looks like Silverstone learned their lesson after the FT04/RV04 debacle.
I'm very happy with my Lian Li T60. No point of anything else.