obobski
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Posts posted by obobski
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Not to state the obvious, but at 10ft is there any reason you can't just buy a 15-20ft Ethernet cable? (In fact, is there any good reason you aren't doing this from the beginning?)
Anyways, to the specific problem - have you checked to ensure that the drivers for your laptop's WiFi controller were properly re-installed, and then check for updates? Have you ensured Windows itself is updated?
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I didn't mean second hand. I mean cheapper brands like sapphire. Same r9295x2 was $1000 for the sapphire and $1500 for the Nvidia EVGA or w/e it was on amazon. I was told this is because the "aftermarket" (the term was used to me) GPU's are usually more likely to break (cheaper parts?) or burn up.
I think I see part of the confusion, seeing the R9 295X2 at $1000 from those brands. There was a price drop recently to $999, so all 295X2 should be $999 or under. Sapphire and XFX are two of the best choices for AMD-based cards, and have been for a number of years. As far as I know XFX still offers a lifetime warranty on the card, I don't know about Sapphire.
I agree on non-reference boards tending towards quality, to a point. One thing that can be obnoxious is finding replacement coolers - for example I have a non-reference HD 4890 (Powercolor PCS) that will not mount the standard 4870/4890 cooler because of the placement of some components. That also can make some full-coverage waterblocks not fit. Otherwise it's a fantastic card (and the stock cooler on it isn't bad; I'm just using it as an example).
Ok, so Sapphire is good. Got it. That actually helps me a lot. What about XFX? Sorry for just throwing another name brand out there when you specifically said it's about reference vs non-reference but it doesn't exactly say "reference" or "non-reference" as a system spec when looking at the different GPU's online. If you don't mind, there's these two video cards I was looking at:
The Titan Z I was hoping to get for about 1100 already has bids up to 1175 and 3 days left so I won't be getting that one (price will probably go up to 1250-1300). I'm considering one of the above cards now as I can sell my current 780 for $400 or so. Selling that and buying a new 295x2 will give me more bang for my buck rather than spending 500 bucks on a new 780 for SLI (right?) Especially with Skyrim i think. So, for about 4-500 bucks (8 or $900 for the 295x2 minus the money I'll get selling my 780 = 4-500), I'll be getting a great video card that should easily smash Skyrim and any game with 4k graphics for the next year or so. All the comparisons I found on google showed the 780TI sli to be better than a 295x2, but I didn't find any comparisons with the regular 780 I have in SLI vs the 295x2. If I can get a titan Z for about 11-12 I will, but am considering the 295x2.
Now I have to think about the 295x2 vs gtx980. I think the 980 is faster, but the 8gb Vram is kinda sexy. A lot of people will say 8gb is unnecessary and they are right. In fact, I'm running even games like witcher 2, dark souls 2, metro 2033, all with ultra maxed out graphics seamlessly already with my 3gb780. But, I actually can, and certainly will, push that 8gb to it's limit if I get it.
EDIT: Just found THIS THREAD where these GPU's are refered to as "aftermarket". However, I'm not arguing that reference vs non-reference isn't a more appropriate conversation/terminology. I'm still learning about all this. I did quite a bit of research before putting my first rig together, but I'm surprised how much there is to learn about this.
Also, as an aside, sorry for the two posts in this forum about the GPU's, I thought they were different questions, and a couple days apart so I didn't think to just add a new question to my old thread. I will consider that possibility next time, especially in a forum like this one that isn't very busy. There certainly are other websites and forums for hardware questions, but I like asking hardware stuff here because I trust this community and I know you're gamers like me interested in the same games. I had a bad experience in the chat room here the other day, but other than that I've only had good experiences on Nexus. I really appreciate everything everyone in the Nexus forum community does. Not trying to be cheesy, but thanks
You do realize that the Titan Z and R295X2 are dual-chip designs, right? You don't actually get 8GB or 12GB or whatever of memory for the application to use; you get half of that (effectively) because they're (they = AMD/nVidia marketing) stating total memory for both GPUs. So it's like saying GTX 780 SLI is "6GB" of RAM - from the application's perspective it isn't, it's still 3GB. Not that Skyrim could ever approach needing that much memory (some other games may, but worry about them in the future when and if they come out).
Personally you couldn't *give* me another dual-GPU card (I've owned a few over the years); permanent multi-GPU is not a good thing imho (and at least with CrossFire, you can probably expect some issues in Skyrim), nor is the extra heat production. If you want multi-GPU, add a second card to whatever you already have. Price-to-performance wise, adding another GTX 780 to your GTX 780 would be better than 295X2 or Titan Z etc because a GTX 780 should cost under $800 in pretty much any circumstance. nVidia also (still) has better frame-pacing, which is something to consider with multi-GPU.
IMHO if you're really running everything you like without problems, leave well enough alone, put your money away, and wait until a game comes along that crushes your system, and then worry about upgrading. Things like Titan and 295X2 are an awful value proposition right now, because they're fairly dated (but that hasn't (and probably won't) "caught up" in pricing). If you really want to buy something new today, GTX 980 wouldn't be a bad choice, but the performance improvement over GTX 780 is not huge. Alternately the R9 290 and 290X are becoming very affordable relative to their performance, and could make an intresting multi-GPU system (you can almost do triple-GPU for the price of the 295X2, assuming your motherboard, PSU, etc will support something like that (actually that's worth talking about even in context of the 295X2, with its 500W TDP)).
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A MARS that isn't thousands of dollars and limited production? And it will fit in a normal case? And doesn't have an external power brick? What is the world coming to. :teehee:
For those who don't get what I'm referencing, this is how nutter-butters Asus dual-GPU boards have been in the past:
http://images.numerama.com/img/s/h124831-360-360-asus-extreme-n7800-gt-dual2dhtv.jpg
http://www.dvhardware.net/news/2012/asus_rog_mars_iii_dual_gtx_680_tpu.jpg
:dance:
I will give it that it only costs $650 and is actually available for purchase, and brings more performance than Titan, 780, etc without running the price even higher. And that kind of sanity is certainly needed in the modern GPU landscape (high-end cards really don't need to be $1000+). But otherwise I don't see the appeal over buying a pair of GTX 760s - it costs $150 more and has less monitor connectivity options and more rigorous cooling demands. If it ran more like $500-$550 I think it'd be a much better overall "thing" methinks; maybe it'll drop with time.
Honestly I'm surprised nVidia has not released a reference-design dual GPU board for the 700 series yet; I've heard rumors about a "GTX 790" but have not seen anything materialize. I'm also surprised Asus went with GTX 760s and made a reasonable product; I was actually half expecting them to put together a dual Titan in a 3-4 slot, 500W+ monstrosity... :facepalm:
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Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 - $60 - plenty of airflow and a decent amount of space for future upgrades
PSU: XFX Core Edition 550 Pro, full wired - $61 - quality SeaSonic-made unit, offers plenty of upgrade room (won't run CF/SLI but will power any single-card configuration, and you can't even have CF/SLI on that crap of a mobo).
Graphics card: ASUS GTX 660 - $220 - The EVGA superclocked Rennn mentioned is 3% faster while using a reference cooling solution (reference cooling sucks), ASUS GTX 660 is one of the best 660s around for the price point, runs cool and quiet and overclocks great to boot.
In case you want to spend $320 on the card alone, there's only one candidate in that price range - Gigabyte Windforce GTX 760, you're $20-25 short of the 770 ($340), has same clocks as that EVGA Rennn mentioned but runs cooler and can overclock better cause of that.
Has 4GB VRAM, people seem to worship VRAM for some reason, the 2GB model will perform the same for $40 less cause 760 is too slow to utilize 4GB VRAM. That amount of memory on a 760 is only useful for GPGPU workloads and multi-monitor setups (3 and up, on which 760 can't run games well anyway).
All excellent suggestions, as well.
Buy yeah, 4GB of VRAM is nearly useless. I only recommended that because *technically* Skyrim can use 3GB of RAM, meaning 3GB is also mirrored into VRAM on DX9. People claim to get performance returns from above 2GB on a 760 when they use ridiculous amounts of HD textures in Skyrim. Not sure if it's true, but that was also one of the only overclocked 760s I could find so I suggested it. The 760 you recommended would almost certainly perform better.
You've got that backwards. Skyrim can use up to 3GB of system memory (with IMAGE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE and 4GT configured under 32-bit Windows; under 64-bit Windows the same will allow up to 4GB (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa366778(v=vs.85).aspx)), but the overall application system memory footprint is NOT duplicated in VRAM. What is loaded into VRAM must, however, be backed by system memory under DX9 (and older). VRAM holds things the GPU chews on - not the entire application (that's what the system memory is for). You do not need more VRAM to allow the application to consume a lot of system memory; you do need a lot of system memory to let the application consume a lot of VRAM.
Here's a comparison between 2GB and 4GB GTX 770s:
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/gtx-770-4gb-vs-2gb-tested/3/
The 4GB card does nothing but cost more and look slick.
Werne is absolutely right - there is no reason to need 4GB of VRAM unless you're doing GPU computing or workstation applications; for the most part even 1GB is entirely sufficient for Skyrim, as long as the GPU behind it is up to the task (as a random example, the HD 5870). But marketers have ostensibly "won the hearts and minds" of customers, and now we've got all sorts of hooplah about how 2-3-4GB is required just to browse the web, run an HD monitor on the desktop, etc. It has truly gotten out of hand...
Something that I noticed in the first post: the system as-is has mismatched memory modules, so it almost certainly is not utilizing dual channel RAM. Might be worth taking a look at, long term, especially if the motherboard is being replaced. the "fix" is to have equal DIMMs in each channel, and it will increase overall memory bandwidth. Replacing the graphics card is a much more important task at the present time, but the memory configuration would be a "next up" upgrade if it were me.
The point about "other TES games" also seemed a bit pertinent to address - in general if it can run Skyrim, it will run Oblivion and Morrowind better (because they have lower overall system requirements and are less complex). However that doesn't mean that Morrowind will magically become a model citizen and close its memory holes and run stable, or that some of the biggest/most ambitious mods for Oblivion won't still grind things to a halt because the engine just doesn't want to draw 400 NPCs all in one cell or deal with moving references or whatever else. Point is - yes you can (and should) upgrade, and yes you will realize considerable performance improvements, but some mods just wreck performance and the titles do have limits to what they'll handle smoothly. Just food for thought.
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Well I finally got my computer ordered and built and am now download the drivers and such. http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Voice_Of_Autism/saved/3FQ9 This was my final build, I got up to the wiring part and couldn't figure it out so I took it to fry's electronics and had them fix it for me and it's now running really great, hopefully I'll be using fallout with a few mods tomorrow my other account was closed but thanks for the help from everyone here is a picture of the finished product.
Epic build... But I just hope you don't regret that monitor. :3
After my last 2 cheap monitors, I've made it a rule to spend as much on a monitor as I do on a video card, to balance the visuals. A $500 video card is a bit of a waste on a $200 monitor, for example. Your card will be putting out details and colors that you won't be able to see. :s
Very nice build indeed! No idea if the monitor is good or not - have no experience with Asus monitors. That having been said, monitor quality doesn't seem to have a lot to do with price in my experience: I've got a Hannspree on the desk that cost (no joke) $89.99 and it has fantastic color/response (let me put it this way: it's good enough to run in a triple-head configuration with flat CRTs and not stand out). Granted the price was probably helped along by its design, but the hardware is solid. On the other hand I've seen $500+ monitors be complete and utter pieces of junk. I'd say it depends more on who made the monitor than how much it cost, but there's probably evidence to refute that claim too.
I guess report back and let us know if the Asus works out or not - hopefully it's good. :blush:
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6790 changes everything - that's a lysdexic moment on my part. Doh!
Yes, 270X is a biggun upgrade over that (roughly double-over internal throughput, memory bandwidth isn't quite double though), but I agree with Werne on the 7870 - they're almost identical, so save the money by getting a 7870 (if possible). If the 4GB card is really only a few dollars, why not? Don't expect it to be a big performance gain over the 2GB model, but again - for a few dollars, why not?
Having said that, I'd still look through your modlist, load order, see if anything needs cleaning, etc - you may find some performance improvement there too.
I'll say PowerColor is very good - I'd put them on par with Sapphire. Both have been around for ages, and both make good cards. PowerColor may be better known as the TUL Corporation (PowerColor is a sub-brand), if that helps international members identify them.
Werne - I think Thor is probably onto something with the card pricing going up due to bitmining and distributed computing; supply and demand and all that. It's also probably "allowable" because of the runaway train that has been nVidia pricing in the last few years.
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HD 6970 should not be struggling with Fallout 3/New Vegas or Skyrim - not at all. Here's a TPU review of the 270X that has the 6970 included for comparison in Skyrim:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_270X/21.html
He's running mods, and we have no idea how many.
That said, mods can easily bog down any PC. Upgrading his graphics card might give him great performance, or it might do almost nothing. Really it depends on what kinds of mods he's running and how many.
I think we're basically on the same page here - more information is needed about the software and potential conflicts (or bad load order) before we can talk hardware upgrades. I'd add that the specific choice of the 270X is unlikely to do much - the performance difference between them is very narrow.
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HD 6970 should not be struggling with Fallout 3/New Vegas or Skyrim - not at all. Here's a TPU review of the 270X that has the 6970 included for comparison in Skyrim:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/R9_270X/21.html
270X is *slightly* faster, but both are putting out very playable frame-rates (both are over 60 fps at 1600x900 - higher than your target). 68 vs 78 fps is not worth a few hundred bucks - you won't notice it, and if vsync is on it won't matter at all. If you have something going on that's dragging performance down hard enough to see stuttering/lag on the 6970, the 270X will very likely hit the same wall. I'd look at your load order, modlist, etc - there's probably something in there that's killing performance; a slightly faster graphics card is unlikely to resolve that (it may not give you any measurable benefit, depending on what's causing the hang-up, or it may give you a marginal improvement (as it would in the base game) which may or may not get you above the stuttering)).
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I currently have:
2GB GTX 660 GC (factory overclocked)
AMD Phenom II 955 X4 at 3.2Ghz
8GB Gskill Ripjaw RAM at 1600mhz
750w Antec Earthwatt modular PSU
Asus M4N68T-M V2 micro ATX motherboard
Asus Xonar DG sound card
1TB Hitachi HDD at 7.2Ghz
I'm looking at upgrading, for many reasons. I suspect the motherboard is failing after a poorly advised overlock, I want to switch to an Intel CPU, and I need to upgrade my CPU since it's continuing to bottleneck me in some games. Also, my current HDD is notoriously unreliable and I don't want to still be using it if/when it fails. One of my requirements is a regular ATX motherboard, not micro ATX again. There's no space to move my fingers when I install stuff on my current board. I also need a mobo with USB 3.0 support, since my case has several built in USB 3.0 slots that I can't use right now. I've planned upgrades before, but the money always got sidetracked to some emergency or something. :blink:
But within a few months I think I'll finally be able to upgrade, so I'm putting together a final plan.
I'm looking at these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148910
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157370
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116898
I particularly want to know if that CPU is has a good cost/performance ratio. I considered going for an i7, but I suspect that would inflate the cost without much of a difference in game performance. True/false?
Any suggestions to lower the price while maintaining as much performance as possible, or increase performance for a small price increase?
Honestly I can't say I'm surprised about the hard-drive - they've been known as "DeathStars" since the 1990s for a reason (and every time the division gets sold, it usually gets worse; first it was IBM, then Hitachi, now WD (as "HGST a Division of WD")). Go with Seagate or WD - consistently more reliable, and they'll replace the drive if it comes DOA. I would be very leery of "hybrid" drives - you're lashing an SSD to a mechanical drive, so now you have the reliability concerns of both all rolled into one, and it lives or dies as one. If you want an SSD, get a separate SSD - you're using a desktop, and you have no reason to need to fit everything into a single 2.5" bay (like a laptop would).
On the rest - no reason not to go Intel if it's what you want. 4670 should have no problems whatsoever. ASRock makes good boards, but I don't have experience with that specific model - I'd assume you shouldn't have problems though. You may also want to consider a board with more larger PCIe slots - not necessarily for graphics cards, but for other kinds of expansion cards (x4 and x8 cards aren't as rare as they once were, and boards with an x4 or x8 slot wired into an x16 physical aren't that rare either - means greater compatibility with whatever you might need to hook up).
On the PSU compatibility thing - I'll defer to werne; I'm not very familiar with the issue.
Gaming performance, as Werne points out, is generally GPU limited - sure if you had a really really terrible CPU (like a first-generation Athlon64) it would be a big bottleneck, but the GPU makes a much bigger difference at the end of the day (e.g. if you put a GTX Titan with said Athlon64 it would still probably have a chance, whereas if it had a GeForce 6200 it'd have no chance - but having a newer CPU along with that Titan would be the best situation; by contrast having an FX-9590 with a GeForce 6200 would still have no chance). I'd look at upgrading the graphics card if/when possible - wouldn't worry so much about "generations" (unless major technical changes (e.g. API updates, major hardware fixes (like GF6->7 was a big deal), etc) happen, it's mostly marketing in action - sure "newer is faster" is often true, but by how much and whether or not it's worth the money is another story); just look for something faster. GTX 770 for example (which is basically a GTX 680 under all the branding - its clocked a nudge faster) would be faster, so would one of the higher-spec Radeon R9 cards. If you aren't playing at very high resolutions + the very newest games, you may not need this upgrade however (that doesn't mean ignore replacing unreliable/failing parts).
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Build looks better, but I still have a few nits to pick (sorry!):
1. I'd drop the 4GB graphics card. You don't need that much video memory - nothing will benefit by it. Go with a 2GB 770 and save your money. Here's a comparison between them: http://alienbabeltech.com/main/gtx-770-4gb-vs-2gb-tested/3/
4GB doesn't look like it's doing a whole lot of anything besides costing more. You can even get an OC'd 2GB card and still save $100: http://www.amazon.com/PNY-GeForce-DisplayPort-PCI-Express-VCGGTX7702XPB/dp/B00CZ7Q028/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1391963606&sr=8-5
(Why PNY? Because I've always had good luck with them - that doesn't mean they're the only show in town though; this is truly just going with what I know - Asus, Gigabyte, PowerColor, XFX, HIS, etc all make good cards too)
You could save another ~$20 if you drop to a conventional GTX 770 (they're right around $300)
2. The RAM is good - I have the same stuff in my machine and it's been great.
3. Windows 8 is a fine choice - no problems there.
4. Motherboard should be a fine choice - Asus has a good reputation over time, and it's also helpful if you know someone who has the same (or similar) hardware; can make troubleshooting a lot easier. Same goes for the monitor - I forgot Asus made monitors actually. (Doh!)
5. As far as tutorials go - some of the stuff you've mentioned will be handled automatically within Windows (like defrag, updates, etc) since Vista (and remember: we do not defrag SSDs - they don't need it, and won't benefit (but may wear faster due to it; it should not instantly kill anything though)), other stuff I'd say just look up an answer on a per-issue basis. If you've never worked on a PC before (like, at all) there's some "day one" stuff I'd suggest, like:
1) Don't work on it with it plugged into the AC outlet
2) Don't mount the motherboard raw to the case; use standoffs or you'll short it (and it won't start)
3) Be mindful of ESD
4) Go slow, be careful, etc - don't force things, if things aren't going how they should, stop and consider why; most hardware is pretty fragile at the end of the day (plan a few hours for a complete build, especially your first)
5) When it comes to case fans, less is often more
6) Windows installers write the MBR in real-time, so be sure you're making the changes you want to make (with brand new HDDs you don't need to worry about this hardly at all, but it's worth keeping in mind - it isn't like Ubuntu or similar where it will ask you to confirm before it writes)
7) Make sure any important data is backed-up before you do anything potentially damaging - losing hardware or hardware configurations is one thing, having it eat your 300 hour Skyrim save-game or term paper is an entirely different story.
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GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Forum software ate my reply!!! :mad:
So now to retype it!
1. Looks good.
2. Won't work exactly that way - usually if features come down the development cycle that outmode hardware, its based on hardware feature support - the entire GTX 700 series would fail together, not just the less-expensive parts. The benefit of the top-end cards is higher performance with maximum IQ/resolution settings - if you need to support a very high resolution (QHD or 4K or multi-monitor) gaming environment the GTX 780 or Titan would have advantages, but otherwise I'd save the money and go with the 770. Take that money and put it in the bank - in 2-3 years if you need more graphics power, you'll do much better buying a new card (which will likely be double-over the performance of the 770) than having spent it all on the 780.
3. Unless you want to watch Blu-ray movies on your PC (which is a hit-and-miss experience), I'd probably dump it; just go with a DVD drive - it'll let you load software with no problems, and it'll handle physical media for games (I'm not aware of any game that uses BD-ROM).
4. See these articles on Wiki for comparison:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8_editions
If you're going with Windows 7, Home Premium or Professional are good choices (64-bit either way), for Windows 8 I don't remember Pro costing much more, so I'd probably splurge on it (I think it's only a $20-$30 upgrade). Both have relatively long support life-cycles on the current Microsoft roadmap; Windows 7 isn't "doomed" anytime soon.
5. In my experience, Dell, Samsung, and Viewsonic are good places to start. Unless you really want a very high resolution display, I'd probably stick around 1080p - it'll mean less performance requirement on the graphics card, and still gives you a big enough display for work. If you need more workspace, I'd go with a second monitor, as opposed to a larger single monitor.
6. What do the bad reviews say, and where are they coming from? Also, do they seem rooted in a specific time period - if they're all from say, 8 months ago, and you read positive things now, the issue was probably fixed via BIOS update (and new shipping boards probably have that update too). The hard-drive configuration looks good to me - you may find you need more space down the road, but you can always add later. I'd put Windows on the SSD, and probably your favorite or most demanding games and applications (whether or not they realize benefits from it is dependent on how they access data from disk - but most applications will see at least some benefit from faster read and lower latency access times). For recording, you can go software (like the paid version of FRAPS) or hardware (like capture devices from Diamond (inexpensive and simple) or Matrox (expensive and complex)) - I'd probably start with software (it costs less) and move to hardware if you need the extra functionality and performance.
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I'm confused...
What are you talking about?
The soundcard output impedance has absolutely nothing to do with the speakers as the speakers amplifier is there. The amplifier is which decides the output impedance to the speakers, not the soundcard!
Line-level (100ohm-600ohm output impedance) is as good as 2ohm for speakers.
The SBZ headphone amp is nothing spectacular, it's output impedance is 20ohm etc. Schiit Magni and O2 beat it easily without breaking a sweat.
I seriously hope you are not reading Coconut-Audio...
I'm not entirely sure where you're going here, but output impedance is not a measure of quality for an amplifier (be it for speakers or headphones).
Thor - I think the confusion is coming from the article you linked in context of what you're posting; the article is about impedance selection for car audio speakers, not anything to do with the quality of source electronics or home audio speakers. Nominal impedance (or any other kind of impedance; output, input, etc) doesn't dictate or speak to the quality of a speaker or sound system - it's just a specification that's useful for matching components to one another. Judging the quality of a pair of speakers is a somewhat more involved process - unfortunately there's no simple metric like WEI or 3DMark for that, at least currently.
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The Quality rating of the headphone amp is rated 6
What's that? First time I hear the term.
I'm with you on this one...
I've re-read the post 3 times and still come away going "huh?" :wacko:
I'm guessing by "ohm rating" what's meant or being read is the speaker's nominal impedance, and on the sound card either the rated impedance loading spec or its output impedance, but none of that is a direct measure of "quality."
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I don't even know how they'll handle reloading with dual-wielding. Seriously, I don't think it's possible (unless they make it so the guns are just lowered beneath screen and the sounds play, CoD style).
With that in mind, perhaps they won't make dual wielding.
Serious question: Have you ever played (or are you familiar with) Hitman or Tomb Raider? In both games the protagonist dual wields pistols, and while it isn't the most accurate representation of either weapon handling or reloading (Tomb Raider probably is more convincing, since she has the "ammo backpack" thing (they did it in the movie too), whereas Hitman seems to just produce the magazines from thin air (even in the movie...)), they're videogames after all (and if you're going to suspend disbelief enough to accept the premise of either, the fact that Agent 47 and Lara Croft can handle a pair of .45s isn't that much of a leap).
Now whether or not Bethesda can/will pull it off just as well as IOI and Eidos have in the past, that's another story. But from a technical standpoint, I don't see why they couldn't if they really wanted to, given that it's been done before in a number of games (there are 5 Hitman games, and at least as many Tomb Raider games; both franchises have been around for a long while too).
Alternately - what's to say it has to be dual-wielded guns? Why can't my character pick up two knives? That's a legitimate fighting tactic in some parts of the world. Or two sticks? Or why can't I box with two power fists? :devil:
Finally - why should the game be a nanny and prevent my character from doing reckless things? I mean, I get that with something like Fallout 3 there are probably technical limits that prevent multi-weapon wielding, okay I can accept that. But if it could be done, why not? It lets you do all sorts of other reckless things, like consume massive quantities of addictive drugs and alcohol, pick fights with significantly stronger and better equipped enemies, climb around on rusty and unstable rubble piles, release dangerous and unknown viruses into a fragile ecosystem, etc. Is pulling out a pair of guns really that much worse? Also nuclear rocket RPGs (that the user survives at short range), drugs that instantly reverse the effects of radiation, and radioactive mutant soldiers are okay, but pulling out two guns and waving them around is too far? I guess I don't get it. :ohmy:
If you don't want to use it then don't use it simple as that.
No it's not, if the game is balanced in such a way that you end up at a disadvantage by not dual wielding then its inclusion has had a negative effect on anyone not wishing to run about like John McClane. If they must include dual wielding then there should be a significant accuracy penalty for using it, sadly I don't think Bethesda will go for that, all they care about it is things looking cool.
I honestly doubt this would be the case - Skyrim includes dual-wielding and it is not required to play the game, nor are characters who don't build the skill at any significant disadvantage; it does not have a negative effect by not using it. It does incur its own penalties (you can't block), and the game's little "helper hints" even encourage you to weigh the pros and cons of increased damage output relative to not being able to block. Whether or not you dual-wield is based on your personal preferences and playstyle, but it certainly isn't required. I really could not foresee Bethesda doing something that so dramatically reduces the ability of players to play the game their own way.
Also - what's the problem with things looking cool? It's a game after all - isn't that part of the point? (you know, to be fun) :blush:
I'm not arguing that in real life it's a bad thing to do with your pistols (there's even a MythBusters episode that tests it, so that you don't have to waste your own ammo trying it out), but if I wanted to shoot guns off with perfect realism, I could just go shoot guns off (I don't know if this true in all parts of the world, so I guess this might be an overly broad statement - but in my situation, going to a shooting range isn't an unreasonable proposition). It's all the other stuff that I can't do and reasonably expect to survive - like fighting a mutated bear with a sledgehammer or taking on an army of robots with a BB gun. Being able to have two guns out at the same time doesn't seem like that much of a leap.
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Looked it over - few thoughts come to mind:
1) What's up with the RAM? You have two different sized modules going on there. It would work, but you'll get better performance with two of the same size module running them in what's known as "dual channel" - I'd probably get two 4GB modules in a kit (you can snag such a thing on Amazon for $69.99 too).
2) Do you really need a GTX 780? To determine: what games do you really want to play, and at what resolution?
3) Do you really need Blu-ray read/write capability? A DVD read/write drive would be less than half that price. (And Blu-ray recordable media is very expensive for its size)
4) Do you really need Windows Ultimate? Most users are generally more than covered with Home Premium; Professional edition adds some networking and crypto features that very few people will likely ever touch, I honestly forget what Ultimate adds beyond that - my point is, I'd probably cut down to 7 HP or 7 Pro and save $40-$100.
5) I'm unfamiliar with the maker of the monitor you selected (by itself probably doesn't mean much), but it seems like quite a lot of money for a monitor. ~$200 for a Samsung is probably more than good enough; if you want something ritzy (and with an equally ritzy warranty) look at the Dell Ultrasharp monitors.
The PSU and Case look fine, and the CPU/mobo combo are compatible, and will give you good performance.
You don't seem to have a storage hard-drive in there; a single 128GB SSD is pretty limited. If you're right up against it on the budget, I'd probably cut the SSD and replace it with (at least) a 1TB hard drive. On the other hand you could trim some of the "fat" off the machine (e.g. drop down to a less expensive version of Windows, a DVD writer, sort out the RAM, drop to a GTX 770, etc) and keep the SSD and add in some big hard drives for storage (or upgrade to a larger SSD or multiple SSDs, etc; you have a reasonably large budget and have a lot of options as a result).
Oh, I meant to link some resources for building a PC too...
This is somewhat older, but has some good info and a lot of pictures: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/how-to-tech/build-a-computer.htm
Also, I'd be very cautious about suggesting or dealing with Systemax (this means Tiger Direct, Circuit City, CompUSA, etc); in recent times their ResellerRatings rating has gone into the absolute toilet:
http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Tiger_Direct
(last time I pulled that up it was still over 2.5...sheesh)
They used to be a great company to deal with, and I have no idea what happened, but apparently it was pretty significant.
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Regarding the panel resolution you're seeing - you may not even be able to drive the TV at that resolution; most TVs have a video processor that sits between the inputs and the panel, and takes whatever input (480i, 1080p, whatever) and makes it work for whatever the panel actually is. On higher quality sets this is usually pretty seamless, on cheaper sets it may not look perfect if you're asking it to scale a very low resolution source (like VHS) up to a very high resolution (like 1080p). It's safe to assume that outside of Blu-ray into a 1080p TV, a degree of conversion is necessarily going to take place; if you can't live with that, go to PC gaming - as long as the GPU(s) are up to it, you can render into whatever your monitor's native resolution is and map everything 1:1.
Thank you for the advice, but you're making the assumption that I'm not already into PC gaming. I have a medium-grade gaming PC (2GB GTX 660 GC, 8GB RAM, AMD Phenom II x4 at 3.2Ghz) and a 1080p LED monitor. Needless to say, I run all my PC games at the native res of 1920x1080.
I'm only looking for a low resolution screen specifically so that I don't have to subsample consoles any more than necessary. I don't mind if the image is downscaled, but I don't want it to be upscaled.
True, I did make that assumption. :blush:
Anyways - you aren't going to accomplish precisely what you want with the PS3 - it will give you 720p as a result of whatever happens internally (and that's that). Since you seem almost allergic to resolutions higher than 720p, you should probably go with an SDTV. A small computer monitor will still be 1368x768 or 1600x900 (it would work fine, but you've stated this is not acceptable), and most 720p TVs will not give you 1280x720 natively. Your best bet there is to go with something used; I'd look for a Wega (as previously stated). KV-32FV16 (and smaller KV-27FV16 etc) is a good choice - has the 16:9 mode, will be under 720p, produces a sharp picture and good color (and can tweak its output), and is a big-ish screen. Will be glorious with the PS2; not so much with the PS3.
There's a big list of various models on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FD_Trinitron_WEGA
Note that all of the resolutions are interlaced. A lot of them don't have HDMI either.
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Multi-quote didn't work so well, so I'll just reply by name:
I agree with FMod on the hard-drive, RAM, and going with a less expensive motherboard if overclocking isn't a priority.
I agree with Werne on the RAM thing - 8GB is more than enough for a gaming system; there would be nothing wrong with 16GB if it didn't cost better than twice as much, but when most games are still 32-bit applications, it won't do a whole heck of a lot for you. If your (Odioss) 3D modeling stuff requires the extra memory, however, I would say go for it (you probably know your specific requirements better than I do). On the graphics card, even running 3-4 monitors does not require 4GB of VRAM - there's absolutely no benefit to it, and anything that would require it will be likely beyond what a single GTX 770 can do (at least in real time; they load Keplers up with tons of RAM and sell them for big-data, but they aren't generally expected to produce results instantaneously).
Some other thoughts:
- You can save around $10 buying Windows from Amazon (I bought a copy for $89.99 not a week ago).
- You can save $5 to $15 going with a different brand of RAM - while G.Skill is good stuff, it isn't the only show in town. See:
or:
Or for the same money you can get faster memory from the same manufacturer:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231455
- You can get a more efficient power supply for the same money:
Newegg also sells it (Same price but not free shipping): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151118
Or save a few bucks on a SeaSonic Bronze unit:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151095
I'd also suggest considering an after-market cooler for the CPU to quiet things down a little bit; Arctic would be a good choice based on past experience. Shouldn't cost a whole lot either.
If you went with the "maximum savings" route you'd chop $45 off the top, if you went with the "maximized spending" route you'd save probably $10 (on Windows), and end up with a more efficient PSU and faster RAM (neither of these is really a huge deal, but it doesn't cost you any more to do it).
ASRock is, in my experience, a good choice for motherboards - and while it's a little expensive, I'd rather over-spend on the motherboard and PSU than pay for it later.
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I figured out a solution to the problem, i have a free pci e 16x slot available. So i used it instead, the creative soundblaster z supports up to 16x pci e slots. Its part of my single video card gaming htpc setup.
i have a Cooler master Haf xb case on the floor next to my tv. Steam box aka HTPC gaming setup. Its one of the few sound cards that supports Toslink DTS spdif passthrough. It upscales any source to 5.1, including the stereo content.
Unfortunately there is no sound card on the market that have OHM rating of 8, the max you can get is 6 at max.. It has to do,
Any PCI Express card can be used in a "greater" slot - so any x1 card would work in there. Just make sure you securely mount the card, so it doesn't "tilt back" in the slot (it's essentially unsupported on the rear of its shoe, because there's extra slot there). Usually the screw on the I/O shield is enough to do this, but I'd suggest double-checking if you plan to plug something heavy into it (like a 1/8" to 1/4" adapter and 1/4" headphone jack - in that specific example I'd run a 1/8" extension off and put the adapter somewhere where it can sit on the floor, but you get thei dea).
Every soundcard I'm aware of that has S/PDIF in/out can do passthrough - meaning if you, for example, have a DVD player plugged into it, whatever it takes in, it will spit back out (even the M-Audio 2496 can do that). Internal passthrough is also pretty common. The Z does, however, also offer DTS Connect - which will convert audio the computer is generating into DTS 5.1. Use either DTS Neo:PC or Creative's own CMSS to scale stereo up to 5.1; play around with the settings in SBX Pro to get the sound where you want it. Alternately, if you're plugging into a receiver, the receiver might perform this conversion (and may have A LOT more options) - so sending out a stereo PCM signal (assuming you're sourcing from stereo) may be a better idea there. If you're gaming, set things to 5.1, enable DDL or DTS:Connect, and let it ride.
The part I absolutely am not following: "Ohm rating of 8" - what?
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I agree with the suggestion to build it yourself, but if you aren't willing or able (and I do understand the sentiment - I'm not passing a value judgment on your choice of how to spend your money), I'd honestly say please pick someone better than CyberPower/iBuyPower - over the years I've heard nothing but consistently TERRIBLE things about them. They usually cheap-out on the parts you aren't being explicitly told about - like the power supply, wiring, fans, etc.
If you want to buy something that's basically off-the-shelf turnkey and will be handled by the manufacturer in the event ANYTHING goes wrong (from it burning itself out running the latest Skyrim ENB or your kid sister spilling a pop into it), as the saying goes: "dude, you're getting a Dell!" Their warranties are absolutely top-notch (and if you pay the ~$70 extra, they really will cover your kid sister spilling a pop into it), and in some cases it does mean they send a tech to your house (I know for their professional equipment (Precision and OptiPlex; your budget is actually enough to cover a mid-tier Precision, but you'd have to buy a separate graphics adapter and install that yourself, because as far as I know they will not ship the thing out with a GeForce or Radeon card under the hood (and the Quadro or FirePro that will give you high performance in games costs more than you have to spend)) it really does work this way - next-day replacement or repair is a legitimate feature).
Anyways, regarding what you specifically want:
Quiet and powerful can work, but you have to better qualify "powerful" - what games do you actually play? What games do you forsee yourself playing in the future? (I know this is like asking you to pull out a crystal ball to an extent, but think about it: do you keep up with the latest Battlefield releases? Or are you still happily playing Skyrim and half-heartedly following the rumors surrounding Fallout 4?) How quiet does it really have to be? (absolute silence ain't gonna happen, and I'm guessing you don't want a rack server either, so that leaves you somewhere in-between - figure out where exactly your limit is) And finally, what kinds of compromises are you willing to make with respect to game play? (Does everything have to run full max ultra with maxed AA and AF just to be "tolerable" or are you okay running things at medium settings or turning down draw distance here and there (especially if this means you get closer to quiet)?).
Oh, and another all-important factor in the discussion of performance: What are you plugging this PC into? A TV? A monitor? That isn't really what matters - what actually matters is what resolution does it need to output realistically.
The quick'n'dirty to the above questions: If you're happy with somewhat older titles (like Skyrim), don't need the latest and greatest new games, are okay turning settings down here and there, and aren't trying to drive a super high resolution monitor, you can get away with a lot more pedestrian hardware - which means that you will spend less, and have a quieter machine. If you need the latest and greatest at full max ultra you're gonna have to budge on either your budget (double or triple it) or the noise requirement.
I agree with the first guy (hoofhearted4) on the PSU thing, and would add that realistically by the time you'll probably need to upgrade the graphics setup to improve performance, you will probably be better off replacing the card you started with vs adding a second card for SLI/CrossFire (which means your power requirements won't change a whole lot - high end graphics cards have run right around 200W for the last 5-6 years, while performance-per-watt has improved pretty dramatically).
Another thing I'd add, and I know this isn't a popular opinion, but: I'd drop the SSD. I know, I know, "it's a big deal, it's a huge difference, you need an SSD - it makes the system so responsive!!!" Well, yes and no. A quality SSD can read and seek faster than a conventional mechanical drive, which means that data stored on it can be accessed faster - usually the biggest "wow factor" here is that you can get Windows to start up faster (because it can load itself into RAM faster); big. deal. That doesn't do a *thing* for gaming performance. If your games are stored on the SSD, they can potentially benefit with faster load times, faster start times, etc depending on how the game (more specifically the game engine) handles file read/write operations (remember the system still has RAM and cache and developers are well aware that ROM is comparatively slow). But the SSD will not (and can not) influence things like MIPS, fill rate, etc - your processors will still process at whatever their abilities are. If you had an unlimited budget, I'd say go ahead and get SSDs - they're neat, they're quiet, and having your machine boot up super-duper fast is cheeky. But you don't have an unlimited budget - you need to efficiently spend your ~$1300, and you also want the thing to be reliable; buying a cheapo small SSD isn't a good way to do that. Put the money into an equivalently priced hard-disk that will offer you substantially more storage, and probably be more reliable in the long run (note that I'm not saying all SSDs are unreliable - but the really cheap ones usually aren't all that great (speed OR reliability)). Down the road when you have ~$200 to spend on the thing, you can do it right and add in a nice Intel/Samsung/etc unit and see what's up.
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I don't follow your question - you say "PCI not PCIE" but then "PCI x1" and mention the Sound Blaster Z (which is PCI Express). What exactly do you need to plug into? PCI Express or PCI?
Anyways, "best" is kind of subjective, but in general all of the Creative cards back through Audigy can support Dolby Digital Live (although older cards will require DDL licensing to be purchased - last I checked it was like $2). Audigy and X-Fi are PCI, X-Fi and "SoundCore" (Recon3D, Sound Blaster Z) are PCI Express.
Asus cards also fulfill your needs and as far as I'm aware they still offer both a PCI and PCI Express version of every card they make (if I remember right, all of their cards actually use PCI native chipsets, so the PCI Express versions are just the PCI card + a bridge to PCI Express; this should not impact performance/quality in the least, but it does mean they can offer multiple versions of the same board).
Asus vs Creative is where it gets pretty subjective - some folks will say Creative, others will say Asus. Either way you should be set though.
Other manufacturers exist, but it's much more of a mixed bag. If you want to go with some other brand, figure out who makes the chipset on the card (it will almost certainly be either VIA or C-Media; if it's C-Media, go Asus (that's where they source their chips from), if it's VIA you're probably better off going with someone else - I think M-Audio is the only manufacturer still hanging on, and last I knew their drivers still have not "come back" to where they were ten years ago, and they also don't produce gaming/multimedia cards anymore).
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In response to CRTs looking awful - I'd say it's a matter of experience. CRT quality varied WILDLY over the whatever 5 decades it was the reigning tech for displays, which is something a lot of CRT proponents fail to recognize. There are a lot of just really dreadful TVs and monitors out there (with all manner of geometry, color, etc issues). There are (were?) plenty of high end models that look absolutely great though - most of them are made by Sony. If you aren't opposed to used hardware, and don't mind hefting a TV that may weigh up to 200 lbs around, I'd say look around in local classifieds and similar for a Sony Wega. Note that there are a variety of different HD and SD models, and that just because the TV is 4:3 physically doesn't mean it can't do 16:9 (a lot of the Wega TVs can scan 16:9 which gives you all of their effective lines for widescreen viewing; some will automatically detect widescreen content). You will probably lose HDCP support for the PS3 though, unless you get one of the very last models produced - this shouldn't have any impact on games (it hasn't been an issue for my PS3), but it may get in the way of Blu-ray playback.
As far as a brand-new TV - the other posters are right that you pretty much have to live with whatever the PS3 does internally. I would suggest that you steer away from a low res plasma; they're usually the cheapest possible tubes, and you will burn them in with gaming; even the high-end Pioneer and Panasonic plasmas will burn-in if you aren't careful. That leaves LCDs (LED is LCD; and unless you're spending serious bucks (many thousands of dollars) all it gets you is lower power consumption) - from there I'd basically figure out how far you want to sit away from the thing, and size it based on that (further away = it needs to be bigger). If you can't find what you want as an HDTV, and assuming you don't need to sit 20' back, there are a variety of computer monitors with HDMI inputs that could accomodate the PS3. The PS2 can connect via VGA if memory serves (I'm fairly sure you can select RGB output under the advanced video options) although you may need adapters to physically get everything together.
Regarding the panel resolution you're seeing - you may not even be able to drive the TV at that resolution; most TVs have a video processor that sits between the inputs and the panel, and takes whatever input (480i, 1080p, whatever) and makes it work for whatever the panel actually is. On higher quality sets this is usually pretty seamless, on cheaper sets it may not look perfect if you're asking it to scale a very low resolution source (like VHS) up to a very high resolution (like 1080p). It's safe to assume that outside of Blu-ray into a 1080p TV, a degree of conversion is necessarily going to take place; if you can't live with that, go to PC gaming - as long as the GPU(s) are up to it, you can render into whatever your monitor's native resolution is and map everything 1:1.
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From the bottom up:
- No, it doesn't mean you have 50W left to spare. Power supply requirements/suggestions are written with overhead in mind - basically, "have a power supply of X size and you shouldn't have problems as long as you don't have a ton of extra stuff hiding in the machine that you aren't telilng us about" (like 20 hard disks or something).
You can get a better estimate of your power supply needs here:
In general the more accurate you can be in filling it out, the more accurate it can be in estimating your power requirements. You should not plan to run your PSU at greater than 80% of its rated output as a long-term solution. If the calculator says you need 630W of power for what you want to pull off, I'd suggest upgrading your PSU - what you have now will probably start the system fine, but when you have a chance, upgrading to something like say, 850W, would be a good choice (for a few reasons: efficiency, reliability, and future expansion support).
- Your board supports SLI, so assuming the power supply is AOK you just need the second card (try to buy from the same manufacturer if at all possible; I know it's supposed to work heterogeneously, but years of experience tell me not to roll the dice if you don't have to) and the bridge (should have come with the motherboard if I'm not mistaken; they can be bought for a few bucks aftermarket if you don't have one). From what I could get off the Asus site (Asus' site always loads very poorly for me) you will want to use the first blue and first white PCIe slots for your graphics cards - and ensure that the BIOS properly sets them to dual x16 (if you have an expansion card that needs PCIe and isn't a graphics adapter, move it out of the bottom slot if possible, or the board will run 16/8/8) for the best possible performance.
Other things to consider:
- A second graphics card means more heat, is your case cooling up to that? It may be as simple as moving the case into a better venilatated spot in your room, but you may find that you need another case fan or something as well. Keep on an eye on the GPU temperatures (ideally whatever temps you have now for a single 770 should not change very much with two).
- Is SLI something you "need" (obviously you don't need it like you need food or air, but I mean is it the best solution for whatever your ultimate goal is?)? You may or may not be better off either going with a more powerful single card (like a GTX 780 Ti) or waiting for the next generation of cards, as multi-GPU setups have some intrinsic quirks related to SMP (that is, they don't always provide a performance gain in all applications, the performance gain is not consistent across all applications, and in some cases they introduce additional compatibility problems). This isn't to say that multi-GPU solutions are bad - but they are not without flaws. I'm just suggesting that you make yourself aware of any potential flaws, and consider your other options (like a faster single GPU) to ensure you're making the best choice for your specific system's needs.
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I think $2200 for everything you've listed is a little steep. It would certainly do what you want though. I'll add that Better Cities probably will still run a little slow in some parts (I remember bottoming out at around 25 fps in a few parts of the modded Imperial City; my machine does 60+ FPS across the board in Skyrim - both games run full max settings (and I play at higher than 1080p)). I think it's just due to the number of objects and NPCs that BC adds. Having said that, it's really a great mod, and I wouldn't shy away from it due to the performance hit (you can also tweak how it installs to make it less demanding - see the documentation for more details about that).
Looking around on the Dell site, I think you can probably save about a thousand dollars and still have what you want - I'm looking at an Alienware X51 with an i7-4770 and GTX 660 for $1099. I'm guessing you have a monitor and other stuff already, so it should be pretty much set at that price (it even comes with Windows 7).
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This is way too much thermal compound. There should be literally visibly bare spots where contact is direct. Unless the heatsink is very uneven, you don't need this much.
Agreed.
I'd agree with trying another base install of Windows. Another question: is there any fan blowing towards/onto the graphics card itself? It looks like you have water-cooling for the CPU, and I don't see any other case fans - it may simply be that the card/case/etc is not exhausting the heat its generating, which is causing the overheating.
Psu dillema!
in Hardware and software discussion
Posted
If it said "fulfilled by Amazon" Amazon will handle returns like normal, but if it was Corsair "through" Amazon (or Amazon Payments on another website) you're limited by whatever their return policy is (probably means not free shipping to send it back). Of course if they do something really jakey, Amazon CS tends to be pretty good, but honestly I'd be *amazed* if Corsair was bad to you.
The PSU you picked is a little "cheap" for a TOTL build, but capacity wise it should be fine (IOW there should be nothing wrong with it, but usually for TOTL builds you see more expensive boxes), and I doubt you'll have issues unless you just receive a bad unit,which can happen with anything; and Corsair tends to be well made stuff so I wouldn't be too afraid of that. Of course if the box arrives and looks like it was run over by a tank, I wouldn't try plugging in the remains of the PSU, but if it's all in one piece, not dripping wet, etc it should be fine.
Of course if you're hooking up like 16 hard drives, TECs, etc blah blah you should have a more robust PSU (or two), but I'm assuming you have a pretty conventional build with a single graphics card, CPU, some RAM, a mainboard, and that's probably about it.