After looking through some of the screen shots posted by users (over 2000 so far !), got to thinking how a persons gaming rig affects the level of quality and detail of the pics.
So I've started this thread for PC gamers to list the specs of the system they use, this info may well of been posted by some members in other topics but a one stop point of reference for old and new members may prove handy to people looking to upgrade their current system or invest in a new one.
RedRaven Rig
KN1 SLI motherboard.
AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ 2.21 GHz.
2.00 GB RAM (corsair).
GeForce 9500 GT graphics card (1024 MB).
HP w1907 monitor (1400x900 resolution at 60 Hz).
DirectX 9.0c
Windows XP + service pack 3.
With that I get an average FPS of between 15 to 40 depending on the game and graphics settings.
Good idea - one place to see hardware specs of OWG gamers so people can ask specific questions if they are considering hardware purchase.
PZ's gaming rig:
- i7 920 2.66 GHz
- 6x Blue ray disc burner
- EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 - 1792mb SLI
- EVGA x58 ATX motherboard
- Cooler Master HAF black steel ATX full tower case
- Corsair 850 SLI ready, Crossfire ready active power supply
- OCZ platinum 6 gb DDR3 tripple channel kit
- WD 300 gb 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor
- Logitech cordless RumblePad
- Logitech G15 gaming keyboard
- Razer eXactMat wrist rest
- Logitech G9 5 button tilt wheel Laser gaming mouse
- Saitek v.3 Cuborg Rumble Pad
- Vista-64 with all service packs and updates
I've been able to play just about anything fully maxed.
Art's gaming rig:
- i7 920 2.66 GHz
- 2 DVD rom
- June 04, 2011: added an external Blue Ray player from LG, a BE12
- Nvidia GeForce GTX260 - 896MB
- 3GB RAM
- WD 1 TB HD
Logitech G15 gaming keyboard- new: Logitech G19 gaming keyboard
Razer eXactMat wrist rest- new: Razer Vespula mouse mat with wrist rest
Logitech X518 5-button gaming mouse- new: Logitech G500 gaming mouse
- Logitech G25 racing wheel with 3 pedals and 6-gear H shifter
- XP32 Professional with all service packs and updates
- Win7 ultimate 32 bit with all service packs and updates, as dual-boot system
Onboard 5.1 surround, Logitech speakers- new: realtek onboard, Creative Labs Inspire S2 2.1 speakers
- new: MS LifeChat LX-3000 headset
- Fujitsu-Siemens 26" wide screen monitor
I've been able to play anything maxed out, but I never use AA and AF
GPFontaine's gaming rig:- Motherboard: Asus P6T Delux V2
- Processor: Intel i7-920 2.66 GHz (Overclocked to 3.4GHz)
- CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212+
- Video Card: HIS Radeon HD 5850
- RAM: 6GB G.SKILL Ripjaws Series DDR3 1600 (PC12800)
- Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
- Optical Drive: Sony Optiarc DVD Burner
- Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU-550VX (550W)
- Case: LIAN LI PC-61 (Aluminum)
- Keyboard: Dell Multimedia Keyboard
- Mouse: Microsoft Sidewinder
- OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit
- Monitor: Dual Dell 24" Ultrasharps
- Speakers: Altec Lansing ADA880
FC2 Benchmark Results:Settings: Demo(Ranch Long), 1920x1200 (60Hz), D3D10, Fixed Time Step(No), Disable Artificial Intelligence(No), Full Screen, Anti-Aliasing(4x), VSync(No), Overall Quality(Custom), Vegetation(Very High), Shading(Ultra High), Terrain(Ultra High), Geometry(Ultra High), Post FX(High), Texture(Ultra High), Shadow(Ultra High), Ambient(High), Hdr(Yes), Bloom(Yes), Fire(Very High), Physics(Very High), RealTrees(Very High)- Average Framerate: 63.61
- Max. Framerate: 104.65
- Min. Framerate: 28.11
Feels like I'm driving a 1973 beetle to a Ferrari race, but whatahell!!!
JRD's gaming rig(s)
PC
- Processor: Intel core 2 duo 2.1 GHz
- Windows XP SP3
- MoBo: ASUS can't-remember-which-model-but-it's-an-old-one
- GPU: GeForce GTX 9800 1GB
- RAM: 2MB DDR2
- Mouse and keyboard are ordinary ones... micrsoft!
Manage to run FC2 maxed out, Crysis on the last but one highest level (the highest wasn't even enabled for me), AC1 maxed out, OFP2 high settings, FUEL maxed out, ArmA2 - this one took a lot of effort and try and error to find the best setting, in the end it's a combination of high and medium settings. GTA IV... a resource hog, also gave a hard time finding the best setting, but still in slo-mo... will wait till I get a better processor and more RAM to finish this awesome game
Laptop
It wasn't meant to be a top notch gaming laptop, but one I could run some old games while away from home.
- Dell XPS Studio 13,3''
- Processor - Intel Core 2 Duo P9600 (2.66 GHz, 6 MB L2 cache, 1066 MHz FSB)
- Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 Original 64-bit
- 4GB DDR3 1067MHz (2x2GB)
- NVIDIA GeForce 9500M 256Mb
Can run STALKER SoC and CS maxed out, without dynamic lightning though, FC2 with high shadows and fire, but else, meduim to low, no A2, no OFP2, no FUEL, didn't even tried Crysis or GTA IV... can run about any pre 2007 game maxed out, which is what I was hoping to get for the price I payed for the lap top
JRD, on a sidenote, Crysis only gives you the highest level when you have DirectX10 (Vista was meant in that case) so WinXP only has DX9 and that's that. ;)
Thanks Art... it answers the question... :-X
Anyway, Crysis was flamed for being designed to game rigs beyond the 2007 state-of-the-art (no pun intended ;) ), so I guess most people didn't play Crysis maxed out on release!
I'm seeing a lot of similarities between PZ's, Art's, GP's systems and mine.
- Coolermaster HAF 932 Gaming Case(Big!) with 3 ea 220 mm fans(front/side/top) and 1 ea 120 mm fan in back, 11 USB ports, 7 additional bays for hard drives and a built in 12 in 1 memory card reader
- Intel Core i7 Processor 940 (4x 2.93GHz/8MB L3 Cache)
- Asus P6T Intel X58 Motherboard SLI Supported
- Thermaltake V1 CPU Fan(4 lbs of copper fins lol)
- 850 Watt Thermaltake Power Supply
- 6 GB (2 GB X3 DIMM sticks) DDR3-1333 Corsair Triple Memory
- eVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 1792MB(1.8 Gig memory)
- 320 GB hard drive, 7200 RPM, 16MB Cache
- 2 each LG 22X Lightscribe Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive
- Sceptre 24" HDTV 1920x1200 LCD Monitor 16:9 Wide Screen with 2 millisec refresh rate
- 64 bit Vista home premium
- Creative Lab Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series sound card and 250 watt speaker system
It's interesting how often the Coolermaster HAF cases have popped up.
For my application I went with the HAF ( high air flow) because my previous system had chronic over heating problems that would slam it down in the middle of processes.
My son who had independently without knowledge of my build and also selected an HAF says that if you have a cat it's a High Hair Flow.
So I built selecting components to run as cool as possible. Overclocking is extra heat so I've never considered it even though my mother board came with the utilities to push an i7 right to the edge. In the year I've been using this build I've never had a CPU or graphics card reading pop up on the tracking log I run in the back ground of higher than 115 F. I'm pleased to have made successful component selections.
I'm not tech savvy enough to run a benchmark or for that matter read the results but when I twist it's tail it screams like a panther and I'd better be holding on with both hands.
That's good enough for me. ;D
This is an excellent thread guys - now we know who to ask when we have a question regarding specific hardware issues. Console gaming is simple - you put in the disc and it plays, but PC gaming is not often that easy - there are many problems that can come up.
All I can say is, I am a happy owner of a good PC I was lucky to find. It came prefab and never overheated even when my PC room's temperature was around 38+ °C (around 100 °F) and it was comparatively cheap 1,200€ (~1,600US$) and considering it was Nov 2008, one of the first machines using an i7.
I really like the i7 - was able to render a movie in Windows Movie Maker while playing games with no degradation in performance.
Aw, man - after reading all of you guys' rig specs, I'm too embarrassed to tell you what I've got :-[ Call it "PC-envy" ;D It's like reading about your Ferraris while I'm still puttering along in my Vee-Dub ;D
But you've given me some great tips as to what to go for when I do get a decent gaming rig together. For that, I thank you most deeply, even though I can't afford any of it yet :-X :-X :-X
Ok here are my specs:
Chassi: Antec P182B
Mobo: MSI P67A-C45 B3
CPU: Intel i5 2500 @3,3 Ghz
RAM: 8 Gb (2 x 4 Gb) Corsair Vengeance 1600 Mhz
Graphics: Nvidia Geforce GTX 580 Windforce
HD: Western Digital WD 5000AAKS 500 GB
OS: Win 7 X64 Home premium
Logitech G510 keyboard
Qpad 5K mouse
PS
@ fragger: VW bugs are waaaayyyyy cooler than Ferrari´s anyway ;)
No. But I'd still allow him to use my garage ;D Fragger, don't worry about an old rig. I bet all of us were in the same position once, at least I was. Your time will come :)
Indeed fragger - at w@&k the people under me have better machines than I do, and my computer requirements are higher than theirs! The motto: old machines never die. ;D
Thanks for the reassurances, guys ;D :-X
I've decided to win the lottery this year, so all the info in this thread will come in very handy when the time comes ;D
There you go fragger. ;D
Maybe you'll be ready to replace right as the new 48 core systems hit and become affordable. Then your specs will make our 8core i7 CPUs look sickly. :P
We all buy the best we can when the chance is there and you have a turn coming. That's how it how it works out. ;)
Truth be known I fussed over the selection of the components for my computer for a year and a half on the IBuyPower web site. Adding and subtracting this or that feature and reading review page after review pages until I knew whether a component was exactly right and usually within a few months something new would come along and flip the table on a perfect build and I'd start over but with a better understanding of just what I would grab when the moment was perfect and the iron was hot enough to strike.
When I started looking the i7 CPU was just a rumor and my hot rod game card was a behind closed doors top secret and there's new goodies coming out all the time that you'll get to pick from.
Did you build your rig, mandru?
I actually had no desire whatsoever to build my computer. I just moved into a new house and had no cash for it. Unfortunately my system started to flake out and I had no choice but to replace it.
Since the problems I was seeing were electrical failure spawning data corruption, I couldn't run the risk of just replacing components. The AMD 64 1800+ had to go.
I have been building systems for a long time, so the actual build wasn't hard, but picking the best components for the price was time consuming. I spent 2 months researching every possible angle and actually went without a 3D graphics card for a month while I waited for the Radeon HD 5850 to be available.
Lucky for me, right after I got the rig running, Black Friday rolled around and Steam had a whole bunch of new games on sale.
I probably spent more time in research PZ than if I had planned on building it myself. I knew that I knew nothing about computers and had to learn. Bad selections had burned me in the past. :-[
I had the company IbuyPower build my system from the ground up. I started with one of their prepackaged systems that was closest to what I wanted to end up with but at each option I upgraded or in most cases switched to another offered selection to optimize for my applications based on my research of the components being offered stacked against hundreds of hours of pouring over reviews to make sure I wasn't including any element that came bundled with particularly nasty bad habits.
For instance I went with a small 320GB hard drive to get started because the HAF case has internal bays for 8 hard drives and I was trying to pinch pennies knowing that out of everything in my build, hard drives were the easiest to upgrade. That and I had pulled the hard drive out of my old system when it died to recover my files and installed it into an external USB case so I have a second 320GB drive for archival and portable storage.
Some people are ambidextrous but I've long ago figured out that I'm maldextrous or in other words equally bad with both hands. :P You can take my mechanical abilities and pack them into a gnat's backside and they would rattle around like a BB in a boxcar.
Though I did have one moment of triumph with this computer when it arrived. I got it all wired up to my peripherals but when I turned it on for the first time almost immediately a warning prompt filled the screen telling me that the CPU cooling fan was not functioning.
Pulling the case open I discovered that somehow my Thermaltake V1 cooling fan had been bent enough so that the blades were wedged into the copper fins and no amount of coercion or reverse bending could free them to spin properly. A quick call and a replacement was on the way but I would have to pull the existing fan clean the thermal paste off the CPU and reapply it before reinstalling the new fan.
I was sweating bullets because past experience has taught me how baldly I'm capable of fouling up simple processes but in the end it was a successful transplant and the patient survived none the worse for my efforts.
I guess you could say I built it but was smart enough to get good techs to handle the assembly. :)
Thanks for the detailed response mandru,
Threads like these will help other OWG members make decisions regarding PC purchases versus builds. With exception of my current gaming system, it has been years since I built a machine, and I was apprehensive about building the current machine. However, a person on another site gave me the encouragement that I needed to purchase and start building my own PC.
I have not seen another machine commercially produced that would fill my expectations, especially at the price I paid, so I'd recommend building your own if you have specific requirements (e.g., gaming) ;)
Some great system building articles from MaximumPC:
* How to Apply Thermal Paste (http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/howto_install_cpu_and_apply_thermal_paste)
* Build a gaming machine for $650 - Magazine Page 23 (http://dl.maximumpc.com/Archives/MPC0210-web.pdf)
* Build a Dream Machine, installation instructions - Magazine Page 38 (http://dl.maximumpc.com/Archives/MPC0909-web.pdf) (This one is a few months old, so the parts are not 100% accurate, but the instructions are very good)
There should be a new one coming out in the next PDF they release.
GPFontaine and mandru... these are great tips :-X
It wouldn't surprise me to see it evolve into a "tips to improve gaming performace" section / article here at OWG.
Myself, I am really curious about overclocking pros and cons ::)
hehe,
Pro: faster.
Con: shorter life span, system instability, and everything necessary to avoid any of those.
Quote from: JRD on March 22, 2010, 01:18:28 PM
GPFontaine and mandru... these are great tips :-X
It wouldn't surprise me to see it evolve into a "tips to improve gaming performace" section / article here at OWG.
Myself, I am really curious about overclocking pros and cons ::)
The pros and cons are pretty simple.
Pros: The computer goes faster if you OC the machine
Cons: You burn your parts out faster, and you might void a warranty.
The reality of overclocking is that it is for enthusiasts. If you enjoy your computer and want to see just how fast it can go, then it is a fun way to make your computer better.
It is never worth overclocking if you don't have the money to replace the hardware you might burn out.
As for my system, I chose a processor that has a good track record with overclocking. I chose a motherboard and ram that are known for working well with OC'd processors, and I chose a heat sync with thermal paste that will give me the best possible results within reason. I think I could have pushed the system to 3.7GHz if I really wanted to, but I am happy at 3.4. It is a huge improvement over 2.66 stock and I am not risking too much with the system's lifespan.
Quote from: GPFontaine on March 22, 2010, 01:38:24 PM
It is never worth overclocking if you don't have the money to replace the hardware you might burn out.
Which can also be read as
never OC a laptopThanks mate... a straighforward answer!! :-X
New MaximumPC Article up about do it yourself water cooling:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/howto_water_cool_your_pc
lol - reads like you're building the cooling system in a car! Excellent article, GP - thanks for posting. :-X
Having asked wexer9 about his new rig in a different topic, I think it's ok to post his specs here where we'd be more likely to look for it :)
Quote from: wexer9 on June 12, 2010, 06:05:19 AM
AMD Athlon II X3 440 3.0GHz
Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
Asus EAH5850 Radeon HD 5850
Cooler Master CM690 ATX
Corsair TX Series CMPSU-750TX
G.SKILL ECO Series DDR3 1600MHz 4GB (2x2GB)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 SATA 1TB (x2)
Asus DRW-24B1ST Black SATA
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Just wanted to mention this in case others have overheating issues:
My computer is about 5-6 years old and I've been upgrading the graphics card over time but I had major temperature issues (crashes at 70-80 celsius) with the Geforce 9800 GT 1GB until I found this card:
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/products/gaming/gv-n98tsl-1gi
my temps are down to 50 C and there's no noise to boot - one of the best cards I've gotten.
wow, a "fanless" card.. more typical for extra silent systems or those with extra potent fans built in :) No wonder you don't hear any noise from it ;)
If anyone is interested, my main computers system specs are as follows.
Case: BTX style Silverstone TJ06 with ..
...... Silverstone AEROSLOTS (No side window)
...... Thermaltake A2309 iCage 5.25" bay convert to 3 x 3.5" HDD Module
PSU : INFORMATION REMOVED as I will not do business with Corsair ever again.
Motherboard : Asus M2N SLI Deluxe ( modded ) to replace the stock NB/SB and power circuit heatpipe ..
..... Thermalright HR-05 SLI/IFX Northbridge cooler
..... Enzotech BMR-C1 Forged Copper BGA Ramsinks
..... Enzotech BCC9 / BMR-C1L Low Profile Forged Copper BGA Ramsinks
..... Enzotech MOS-C10 Forged Copper
..... Enzotech MOS-C1 Forged Copper Mosfet Heatsinks
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Brisbane 2.6GHz Socket AM2 65W Dual-Core Black Edition
Memory : INFORMATION REMOVED as I will not do business with Corsair ever again.
Video: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5
Sound : Soundblaster Live Gamer 5.1 (yeah I know, but I do all my gaming with headphones and what I have is more than capable)
Drives: 6 Seagate SATA2
3 = 149 GB
1 = 500 GB
1 = 320 GB
1 = 300 GB
1 Toshiba 1TB SATA2
Asus DVD_Writer w/ Lightscribe DRW-2014L1
Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster 2033SW
Nostromo N52 Gamepad.
WOLF KING TROOPER Gaming Mouse Laser 2200 dpi
your rig specs look like a manual for a spaceship ;D Nice rig :-X
That's quite a rig - I know who we'll be going to for advice ;)
And if we want to build a lunar lander ;D
Geez guys, :-[
To be honest, I just had to do my home-w@&k BEFORE I went to newegg.
I am impulsive sometimes, but I am not rich, so I really have to get the most bang for the buck.
I do have a system, like the other 7 or 8 I have built for myself, that is rock solid stable. And my systems last, because I pay attention to the details.
I have built probably 200 computers in the last 15 or so years for others, but .....
How can I say this gently? Some of the people I have built for, have more money than they have sense. As long as it is the most expensive, has the most bells and whistles, as long as it is the coolest 8), they are happy.
The point is, I have learned what works and what doesnt.
But thanks again.
And as far as a lunar lander, that made me chuckle.
One more note, that is why I am having such hell with getting this win7 installed. Everytime I am just about ready to put the DVD in and reboot to install, I find something else that is suppose to be a major problem. But I will w@&k it out, and then I will install.
Good luck with the W7 install :-X
;D Good luck, Stryker :-X
Ahem!
I guess I had to drop in something in this thread.
So....here goes....
ATX Cabinet: iBall B&S Gamer Designer PC Cabinet
Motherboard: Intel DG33FB
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.33 Ghz (I know I know I have to upgrade to an i7! ::) )
GPU: MSI Nvidia GTX 260 OC Edition, 896 MB
PSU: Coolermaster GX 650W
RAM: Transcend 2 GB DDR2
Monitor: AOC V22
Internal HDD: WD 160 GB
External HDD: WD My Passport Essentials 500 GB
Speakers: Creative 2.1 Channel
Keyboard: Logitech Multimedia Keyboard.
Mouse: Microsoft Basic Optical Mouse (for some reason, I like the ergonomics of this mouse...so have still stuck with it)
Headphone: Logitech Clear Chat Premium PC headphones.
I need to upgrade my PC a little...but can do it only in installments. Can play most of the games in Medium settings. Have to try out the max settings yet. Got the GPU last month.
a strong dual core CPU may be better than an eight core CPU (i7 actually is a quad core physically) because the GHz per core are more efficient.. my "8" cores are mostly useless because there are basically no applications that make full use of them. Most of the time only one or two cores are actually busy.
I know I`m tracking this thread very close to when I get my new PC ^-^
The real advantage that I picked up from the i7 CPU was that it had cooler running temps which was a first consideration when I was building my rig. I did well and have never had an occurrence of a CPU or other in case reading above 120 F.
I'm anxious for a game to come along that is actually programmed to harnesses those extra threads the i7 is capable of. I hope it's a good one. 8)
"Tetris 3D multi core"
Hahahahaha... or SUPERPONG ^+-+
^+-+ :-X
Quote from: Art Blade on August 05, 2010, 12:42:47 AM
a strong dual core CPU may be better than an eight core CPU (i7 actually is a quad core physically) because the GHz per core are more efficient.. my "8" cores are mostly useless because there are basically no applications that make full use of them. Most of the time only one or two cores are actually busy.
As I dont have an 8 core processor, I have a question.
Is it possible to set the affinity on cores 5 thru 8?
I know that you can set the affinity for programs on a 4 core system, just wondering if it is possible to do so with 8.
If so, you could get a REAL performance boost from assigning certain task and/ or applications to certain cores.
yes, from the task manager.. you can assign any running program a specific core from 1 to 8 in any combination and count (like 1,5,6,8)
* Thermaltake Soprano mid-tower case w/3 fans - one in front with a filter sucking in, one in the side blowing out (it was originally installed sucking in but I reversed it since I'm a smoker. It keeps the smoke away from my MB/CPU) and one in the back blowing out.
* Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H motherboard
* AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+ CPU
* 4 Gigs 800mhz Kingston Ram (2x2)
* MSI Radeon HD 4870 PCIE video card with 512MB of DDR5 ram
* Acer H243HX 24" monitor running at 1920x1080 at 60 Hz
* Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm 750G SATA HDD
* 3 button Microsoft mouse, old fashioned (works best for a left like me) Fellows keyboard
* Lister 4.1 speaker system
* Using onboard 106Db SNR AC889 HD Audio with Dolby
* LG GH22NS50.AYBU10B 22X cd/dvd reader burner
* Corsair HX620W Modular Power Supply with 2 PCIE 6+2 connectors
In less than a week, I'll be replacing the video card with a Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD5970 2GB card. In September I'll be moving up to an AMD Phenom II X6 1055T CPU and replacing the ram with G.Skill Ripjaws 1600 Mhz 2x2 Gigs.
nice rig already and impressive once you've got those upgrades in place :-X
Think it's time to post my Rig as well. Here it is:
Binnatics' Rig:
Motherboard: Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P
CPU: AMD Phenom II 955 black edition (quad core with 3,2 Ghz)
Graphicscard: ASUS ENGTX570 Direct-CU-II Recently upgraded
Int. mem: 2X2Gb Patriot Extr. Perf. Viper (pc3-12800 1600 mhz, 7-7-7-20)
Powersuppl: Cooler Master Real Power M620 (620 watt output
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 590 Midi tower (with nice shining blue leds in frontfan)
Sound: Logitech S200 black, 2 speakers and subwoofer
Headseat: Creative Soundblaster Arena Headset
Monitor: Brandless 19" 3-4 flatscreen (to be ungraded)
Hard disks: 2X 250 Gb in Raid 0 config.
Optical drive: Sony DVD-RW +/-
Keyboard: Microsoft basic Keyboard 1.0A
Mouse: Revoltec Fighting mouse Pro. (laser tech, for ultimate precision)
Oper.system: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit
Paper-device: HP Photosmart C5380 All-in-One
Well, that's it atm. I am planning on upgrading my monitor. I am still dreaming of a Solid State Disc. But since that would make a lot of w%&k installing and reconfiguring, it'll be a longterm desire ;)
Nice rig :) The monitor upgrade will be a huge step forward, perhaps a widescreen of at least 22" in screen size :) SSD are still young technology so don't rush it :)
Gotta have something like your 26", gonna check the prizes right away ;)
:-D
Indeed widescreen is the only way to go. I recall playing FC2 on the console first, then migrating to the PC where the extra width nearly took my breath away. It was almost like I was playing with horses blinders in comparison when playing on the PS3.
I just found this amazing screen: ASUS VE276Q. It's for sale for 311 euro, so I'll have to wait until may, tax refund will help me on that :)
Other monitors of that size are maybe 50 euros cheaper, but I think I'll stick to this one. And maybe in a month or 2 the price will reduce a little ;)
judging from the model/type name it is a 27" monitor.. whoa. :) :-X
We sure have enough power underneeth 'the hood' to blow the whole facility away i guess, let's see where we got so far...Spoiler
So far so good:
[smg id=3233 width=500]
It seems we were able to find our way to the primer testing labs. Let's find a way to get past all that garbage (http://openworldgames.org/owg/forums/index.php?topic=2187.msg38489#msg38489)
Yeah, woooha!!!! I hope it fits on my desk ;)
you might use it as a desk ^-^
^+-+
Nice rig you have there, Binnatics :-X
@ PZ, I was the same when I got my WS monitor and fired up FC2 on it. Wow, Cinemascope :-D
Very nice Rig Binnatics. With 3.2 Ghz quad core on your CPU you better be hanging on tight when you give it a nudge with the spurs. ;)
Thanx guys! :)
@Mandru: what is "a nudge with the spurs"?
pardon me if I'm a tad quicker and answer that question: By "a nudge with the spurs" mandru was referring to a horseman, a rider, who wants his horse to go faster. Spurs are those things you'll know from Cowboy films, what they wear on their boots that sounds like a bag full of spoons when they walk.. in other words, once your rig gets started properly, hold on tight :-()
Quote from: Art Blade on April 16, 2011, 04:30:07 PM
...sounds like a bag full of spoons when they walk
^+-+
Art covered it pretty well, sharp points worn on the heels that can be dug into a horse's flanks to encourage horses to run faster than they would typically want to.
Funny I thought "a nudge with the spurs" would be more universally understood than my original thought of saying "...you better be hanging on tight when you twist it's tail" which would mean tossing your computer into high revs for some demanding application. Or is that too slippery too? ???? :-D
"slippery!" ^+-+
In German we use an expression quite similar to "a nudge with the spurs", we say "dem Pferd die Sporen geben" (which would translate to "give the horse the spurs" while "give" in this case means something like "let him have it" or "use spurs on the horse")
I could have almost read "dem Pferd die Sporen geben" but would have messed up the present tense on geben for given or as in "the spur given".
Interesting though, the word for horse "Pferd" is very similar to our word ford which at the time it was coined through current time (not river current ;)) is a shallow place in a river that a rider on a horse or a horse drawn wagon can cross. Does any of that reflect back across the other way into German with amusement due to the automotive company Ford producing cars to ride in and the name being so similar to "Pferd" another type of ride?
Perhaps we've been mistaken this past century and the man's name was actually Henry Pferd ????
I can see the commercials now... drive the new Pferd Bronco
... nothing like riding in a Pferd Mustang
... introducing the world's first economy car, the Pferd Pinto!
Haha, I can imagine seeing a Pferd Pfiesta riding around ^+-+
In holland the name for Horse is 'Paard' and the word you mentioned as a place to cross a river is called a 'voorde' in Dutch. In eastern regions of holland the word for Paard sounds more like Peerd, pretty similar to the german Pferd.
We also say 'knol' to a horse, but I think they mean the big powerfull horses used to pull carriages.
Haha, Pferd Pfiesta ^+-+
I think Ford and Pferd have nothing in common.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ford (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ford)
QuoteO.E. ford "shallow place where water can be crossed," from P.Gmc. *furdhus (cf. O.Fris. forda, O.H.G. furt, Ger. Furt "ford"), from PIE *prtus (cf. L. portus "harbor," originally "entrance, passage;" O.Welsh rit, Welsh rhyd "ford;" O.E. faran "to go;" see port (1)). The verb is attested from 1610s, from the noun. Related: Forded; fording. The line of automobiles is named for U.S. manufacturer Henry Ford (1863-1947).
PZ's model names were pretty funny but Binnatic's Pferd Pfiesta cracked me up. :-X
Thanks for the feedback on that Art. :-X
^+-+
Upgrading my old rig... finally >:D
Here's what I got
- Processor Intel i3 2120 3,3GHz (2nd generation of the "i" series - still reading about it for in depth info)
- MoBo: Gygabyte P67A-UD3P with 2x2GB DDR3
- Power source Thermal Take TR2 500W Real.
Will keep my good'ole nVidia GT9800 1GB as it still has lots of fuel to burn >:D
I'm still missing a good coller for the rig but I can go with that for the time being
I think the i3 was a good choice for it's cost/benefit. An i7 would be much more than I can use and maybe the i5 would be the perfect choice, but it was twice as much as the i3. The MoBo is the one coming along with the processor having Intel technology in it... not many choices where I got it anyway.
Will assemble the parts this week and might have a gaming rig by the weekendb :)
That reminds me... I forgot to mention my cooler actually, the most beautiful part in my case. I've googled a lot to come to the decision what cooler I wanted. First I wanted the Scythe Muggen because of it's excellent cooling power and all the nice reviews all over the internet, but it was sold-out and had a delivery-status of... unknown. So I kept looking around, and fel in love with the cool Scythe designs.
Actually, I made my final choice on pure esthetical values: I finally chose the Scythe Kabuto 2. It's design is so nice, I couldn't imgane another cooler in my case anymore. After installing the whole bunch of hardware I only took a second look at it once (when I installed my new graphics adapter) and still I feel sorry for not having bought a transparant case ^-^
Look at the shiny design with these great heatpipes... I should buy a motorcycle once ;)
[smg id=3223 width=300]
JRD, even today a dual core is good enough for most things. Most of the stuff you see is a tad over the top so I think you made a good decision with that CPU :)
Binnatics.. you could still buy a show case :) That cooler looks splendid, indeed :-X
Uhh Binnatics... My Thermaltake V1 glows blue while it's running. ???
Just kidding Binnatics. Your Scythe Kabuto 2 looks amazing. :-X
My V1's glow adds nothing to temperature control but it does the job and I love it even though it's 3 year old tech. :-D
JRD, I came across an article the other day about CPU's and the state of the art and one of the things that surprised me was that the author of the piece still thought very highly of Pentium Dual cores (as Art stated just above) that were up in the speed ranges you described for you i3.
3.3GHz really is nothing to sniff at. :-X
The author's position was that it was rare to find any programs (almost never games) using the additional multi-threading capacity that the i5 or i7 have built into them so in gaming your CPU is going to post results that compare on a par with those more expensive relatives of your card. This also means that your 3.3GHz i3 would probably leave my 3year old i7 with 2.93GHz in the dust frame rate wise on some of our favorite games.
All that to say I think you'll be pleased with this new set up. ;D
@JRD: Congrats mate, hope you'll be happy with your new rig :)
@Binnatics: That cooler is a thing of beauty. I thought it was a piece of impressionistic sculpture at first :-() :-X
Quote from: JRD on April 25, 2011, 04:30:24 PM
Upgrading my old rig... finally >:D
Here's what I got
- Processor Intel i3 2120 3,3GHz (2nd generation of the "i" series - still reading about it for in depth info)
- MoBo: Gygabyte P67A-UD3P with 2x2GB DDR3
- Power source Thermal Take TR2 500W Real.
Will keep my good'ole nVidia GT9800 1GB as it still has lots of fuel to burn >:D
I'm still missing a good coller for the rig but I can go with that for the time being
I think the i3 was a good choice for it's cost/benefit. An i7 would be much more than I can use and maybe the i5 would be the perfect choice, but it was twice as much as the i3. The MoBo is the one coming along with the processor having Intel technology in it... not many choices where I got it anyway.
Will assemble the parts this week and might have a gaming rig by the weekendb :)
Nice JRD :-X, I would like to suggest though that you upgrade you graphicscard to a Nvidia 560 or AMD 5870 and a 600-750 W PWS in the future when your budget allows it. That will give you some nice futureproofing along with maybe an i5 processor (since it uses the same socket that´s an easy upgrade). Now I´m even more eager to get my taxrefund so I can get my Sandybridge upgrade :-()
Quote from: deadman1 on April 26, 2011, 05:25:44 AM
Quote from: JRD on April 25, 2011, 04:30:24 PM
Upgrading my old rig... finally >:D
Here's what I got
- Processor Intel i3 2120 3,3GHz (2nd generation of the "i" series - still reading about it for in depth info)
- MoBo: Gygabyte P67A-UD3P with 2x2GB DDR3
- Power source Thermal Take TR2 500W Real.
Will keep my good'ole nVidia GT9800 1GB as it still has lots of fuel to burn >:D
I'm still missing a good coller for the rig but I can go with that for the time being
I think the i3 was a good choice for it's cost/benefit. An i7 would be much more than I can use and maybe the i5 would be the perfect choice, but it was twice as much as the i3. The MoBo is the one coming along with the processor having Intel technology in it... not many choices where I got it anyway.
Will assemble the parts this week and might have a gaming rig by the weekendb :)
Nice JRD :-X, I would like to suggest though that you upgrade you graphicscard to a Nvidia 560 or AMD 5870 and a 600-750 W PWS in the future when your budget allows it. That will give you some nice futureproofing along with maybe an i5 processor (since it uses the same socket that´s an easy upgrade). Now I´m even more eager to get my taxrefund so I can get my Sandybridge upgrade :-()
That`s the idea, deadman... my faithful nVidia can still go a long way and it`s a 1GB GPU so I won`t be spending an extra cash unless it`s needed. For the future, a new GPU is on the top of my list and I`m considering to try some Radeon Sapphire series like the 5870 or something like this. I`ve always been a nVidia guy, but I`m open for new experiences ;D
Well the 560 will give you great "bang for your buck", don´t be tempted to buy a card in 400 series though even if they are on sale. They are a lot louder and the use a lot more power than the 500 series. Being a Nvidia fanboy myself I really don´t know how they perform but the 5870 has gotten some nice revues on the hardware fourms I read.
560/570 are supposed to be good, too
I have a 5870 myself, and the card is great. I never hear noises. It's quiet, not consuming much, and somehow the fan never gets to its top almost. I remember my 4890 (double gpu) was blowing like a boeing all the time, but this one is different. It handles dx11 with no problem. I'm only not sure how it will act when I upgrade my monitor. I'm using 19" now, and want to go for 26" or 27" widescreen. That might suck some extra power out of it.
I think I have the Sapphire, but I couldn't find the box around here.
I don't expect your card to get (much) louder once you've upgraded to 26" widescreen. Mine didn't :)
... and there'll be gunshots, portals being open, engines burning, aircrafts, and - in my case - even R'n'R on top of it all, so you won't tell the difference..... ;)
The only situations I'm becoming aware of the vents is when watching a film on DVD and a silent part comes up. The wheezing of the vents usually is something I don't notice except when I swich off my PC. Then the absence of that wheezing makes me become aware of that it actually had been there before :)
Quote from: JRD on April 25, 2011, 04:30:24 PM
Upgrading my old rig... finally >:D
Here's what I got
- Processor Intel i3 2120 3,3GHz (2nd generation of the "i" series - still reading about it for in depth info)
- MoBo: Gygabyte P67A-UD3P with 2x2GB DDR3
- Power source Thermal Take TR2 500W Real.
Will keep my good'ole nVidia GT9800 1GB as it still has lots of fuel to burn >:D
I'm still missing a good coller for the rig but I can go with that for the time being
I think the i3 was a good choice for it's cost/benefit. An i7 would be much more than I can use and maybe the i5 would be the perfect choice, but it was twice as much as the i3. The MoBo is the one coming along with the processor having Intel technology in it... not many choices where I got it anyway.
Will assemble the parts this week and might have a gaming rig by the weekendb :)
After a whole day with a geek fixing my rig, turns out my HD is damaged :D :'(
It read the disk but had to fix some issues, which windows did by itself. So the surgery went on as expected. Near the end, with the patient already closed the disk went boink. :-(
I now purchased a new HD - Samsung 1TB (man, those are cheap nowadays :) ) and a new DVD reader (any generic model and brand). All SATA as my old MoBo was IDE and so were some of those input and storage devices.
In the end I only kept the GPU (which was basically my last upgrade), monitor, keyboard, mouse and the CPU case... everything else is brand new.
A relief actually as now I know all parts are the same age and of good quality, so my rig should be operational pretty soon >:D :-X
It's allways good to have new gear. :)
New HD's ARE super cheap, compared to the rest of the hardware. Actually, only the HD's, DVD devices and the case I consider as supercheap.
1 Tb is a horrible lot of space. Can't imagine ever filling it up. I myself have 500 Gb and that's allready so much, I can hardly fill it up ever I guess ;)
good news, JRD :)
Binnatics, the thought "I'll never make use of all that disk space" will only last for so long. After 2.5 years you'll start to notice that those games you collected during that time actually use up some space.. I still have plenty of free disk space but the partitions need some working-on now. My games partition is coming alarmingly close to "full" ;)
Hope you're up and running soon, JRD :)
@ Art, it's true what you say about HD space. I too have a 500 gigger which I thought I'd never use all of. Three years later it's over 3/4 full, mostly games but also in my case a growing collection of 3D model and texture files, some of which can be fairly hefty.
But high-end games are generally getting bigger all the time. I remember when a 2MB HD was considered a huge volume of space that the average user would never fill. I can see a time in the future when gamers will say the same thing about a 2TB HD.
My maxim is: Better to have too much space than not enough :-()
This is the new rig I just ordered to replace the video-card eating Portal 2 monster that I have been using:
Chassis: Fortress FT02
Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth X58 MotherBoard
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core i7-960 3.20GHz 1366 8M CPU
RAM: 12GB (2GBx6) Triple Channel Memory 1600MHZ
Hard Drive: 256GB C300 SSD - OS
2nd Hard Drive: 1TB 7200RPM 3G SATA II Hard Drive
Optical: Blu-Ray/DVD-RW Combo Drive
Power Supply: 850 Watt ThermalTake Power Supply
Floppy/Media Card: ICR Ultra U12-40529 Aluminus 3.5" Internal Card Reader
Video: Two GTX 460 1GB SLI
Audio: Creative Labs SB X-FI Titanium Fatality Champ SC
Network: Integrated 10/100/1000 Network Adapter
Keyboard: Logitech K120 USB Keyboard
Mouse: Logitech B100 Optical USB Mouse
Other: Integrated Firewire
The geforce 460's aren't the high end at the moment, but two of them should suffice :) Had to add the Fatality soundblaster as a custom item as well as the card reader, which brought the total to just over $2600, build time I hope is less than two weeks, as I'm going on vacation the end of the month and would like to have it before then.
Damn Dweller, that quite a system you're making. I'm very curious what's your ideas about the SSD disk, that's on my wishing list too. I think 2 460's in SLI is at least ALMOST high-end. Those are powerfull cards. You should post a pic when you got it all essembled and working, I'm curious what it looks like ;)
Should be quite a machinary :-X
My goodness, that's nice, D_B - I particularly like the SSD/SATA configuration - exactly what I want to do. :-X
Quote from: Binnatics on May 05, 2011, 01:43:17 PM
You should post a pic when you got it all essembled and working, I'm curious what it looks like ;)
Should be quite a machinary :-X
Here it is
[smg id=3293]
... and this would be mine
[smg id=3292]
Note that mine isn`t bad at all, but there`s a tiny difference in... let`s say... combustion power... ::)
^+-+
That's a good one ;)
But seriously, these heavy combusting machines do look great with all the exhaust stuff all lighted up:
[smg id=3294 width=300]
damn fine machine, D_B :) :-X
Yeah, once I get it, I'll post a pic or two.
Upgraded my mouse. The revoltec Fighting mouse pro. I bought it for the extra buttons which you can manage with your thump. It also has a nice laser-controlled sensor which enhances the precision in fighting. You can push it to 3200 DPI, which is very precise. Nice looking by the way, and good aerodynamics ^-^
***Edit: Oops, I forgot to mention the nylon cord which is very handy since the cord is extreme lightweight and will not get in the way anymore :-()
And there's a weight-adjustment-system on board. I have an extra case with 7 20gr. halters in it, which I can atach to a magazin inside the mouse. Doing so I can upgrade the mouse's weight if I wanted to. I'm not a fan of heavy mouses so I don't use it, but it's still a nice gadget :P***
If the the legs are screwed... enhance hands... cool.... :-X ;D
>:D
;D
Seeking some advice regarding a new tower as its been couple of years and finding myself out of touch with PC tech and specs.
What would you guys recommend for the following -
Motherboard
Processor
Memory
Power supply
Graphics
Hard drive, Disc drive, Monitor and Interface I can deal with, and a case should be easy enough when a motherboard is decided upon.
Aim is for a system that will blitz FC3 and Stalker2 as far as gaming goes but can easily handle high quality A/V editing and vector graphic animation software.
Cheerz.
Quote from: RedRaven on July 19, 2011, 06:04:26 PM
Seeking some advice regarding a new tower as its been couple of years and finding myself out of touch with PC tech and specs.
What would you guys recommend for the following -
Motherboard
Processor
Memory
Power supply
Graphics
Hard drive, Disc drive, Monitor and Interface I can deal with, and a case should be easy enough when a motherboard is decided upon.
Aim is for a system that will blitz FC3 and Stalker2 as far as gaming goes but can easily handle high quality A/V editing and vector graphic animation software.
Cheerz.
Something like this maybe:
Mobo: MSI P67A-C45 B3
CPU: Intel i5 2500 @3,3 Ghz
RAM: 8 Gb (2 x 4 Gb) Corsair Vengeance 1600 Mhz
Graphics: Nvidia Geforce GTX 580 Windforce
I would recommend a P67 Mobo and either an i5 or i7 CPU, I would put in as much RAM as I could afford and had room for. The PSU are somewhat dependent on what graphicscard you use, check the minimum requirements for your chosen card and then add another 50 to 100 watt and I´ll think you´ll be ok.
Speaking of graphics, I would say get a 570 or 580 Nvidia, or a 6950 or 6970 AMD. As to the case I say go for one with a good number of fans and lots of room inside to ensure good ventilation. With a setup like that you should be set for the next couple of years :)
I`ll go with what deadman recommended but with a different processor.
Check out the i3 2120 series 3.3 GHz
http://ark.intel.com/products/53426/Intel-Core-i3-2120-Processor-%283M-Cache-3_30-GHz%29 (http://ark.intel.com/products/53426/Intel-Core-i3-2120-Processor-%283M-Cache-3_30-GHz%29)
The 2120 is the new series for the i family. This little guy can outrun a former i7 and is way cheaper... where I purchased mine the difference between an i3 and i5 was quite big and performance for gaming is very good with the i3 so I saved some cash to spend in other parts (or games :-D )
GPU: nVidia GTX560Ti. Best power for reasonable money
Good luck with your build RedRaven. :-X
I've been out of component comparisons for a couple years so I won't be much help there.
My disappointment with the i3, i5, i7 Intel processors isn't the processors themselves. :-(
The processor can only be as proficient as the software it's being fed.
It's frustrating to have sprung for a leggy i7 and yet all of the software I use is all single threaded and some sort of workload management protocol is completely missing. There is an online Java game I play a lot of and there are times I will receive a popup notice from my system that I'm approaching critical processor levels but when I open the process manager to see where the overload is coming from I have one of the 8 processor threads bouncing at around 80 or 90 percent max and the other seven threads are all hovering at about 8%. :D
It's kind of like highway construction crews that you often see where one guy's down in the hole with a shovel and the other seven guys are leaning on their shovels and shouting suggestions or commenting and evaluating the first guy's efforts. >:((
It appears that Firefox is grabbing a fair portion of the workload and then Java is being stacked in on top of that same thread instead of shifting the workload over to another idle processor thread. ???
Don't get me started on the creeping functionality that comes with every Windows update. When I bought my system I could be online within 15 or 20 seconds of power up and now after a couple years I may as well go get a cup of coffee and walk out for a smoke while the computer's getting it's self sorted out when I do a cold start up.
I would really like to find a list of unnecessary background process that can be permanently disabled without compromising system security. A site run by Black Viper had a good comprehensive list of that sort for XP but never followed up with more of the same for Vista.
Another thing to consider
If you want more than 4GB memory, either now or in the near future, consider a 64 bit OS. With 32 bits all you can manage is roughly 4GB which in fact falls to around 3,5 as some memory is needed to keep the system itself.
Make sure the processor and MoBo you purchase can handle 64 bits OS if you go for that too! ;)
Good luck mate... keep us posted!
Have been looking into the possibility of getting a laptop for gaming instead of another tower. What are your thoughts and opinions on gaming laptops in general ? And are there any to look out for or avoid like the plague?
Cheerz ;)
Gaming lap tops are usually overpriced as the state of the art components found for regular PCs (processors and GPUs) have to be engineered for it`s tiny little equivalents that will fit into a laptop :-\\
Besides, laptop = no upgrades, so in the long run is lost money :D
If you still want to purchase a gaming laptop try Alienware (http://www.dell.com/uk/p/alienware-laptops) ... they are custom made for gaming, with 17 inches screen and all for better gaming (a bit clumsy to carry on your rucksack though :-( )
To play games, you'd more than likely need to plug it in rather than use batteries. On batteries, you simply can't play long and need to recharge. Many of those laptops heat up in a way you couldn't stand putting it on the top of your lap. Keyboard is different from desktop PCs and you'd need to plug in a mouse rather than wanting to fiddle with the touch pad. In other words.. skip it ;D
Quote from: Art Blade on July 21, 2011, 02:57:18 PM
To play games, you'd more than likely need to plug it in rather than use batteries. On batteries, you simply can't play long and need to recharge. Many of those laptops heat up in a way you couldn't stand putting it on the top of your lap. Keyboard is different from desktop PCs and you'd need to plug in a mouse rather than wanting to fiddle with the touch pad. In other words.. skip it ;D
Yeah, had already thought of that. Even though it would be nice to take a trip into the countryside, find a nice big old tree to sit beneath whilst hunting mutants in Stalker. Would need a dozen or so spare batteries, kind of like ammo clips ;)
The search continues. . . . .
or just a few spare car batteries :-()
Alienware PCs aren't what they used to be since AMD bought the company. Try MEDION, they have good gaming rigs, the series is called ERAZER, I got one of those myself :)
I am not too much into the newest systems either atm. When I set up my system I use now, for let's say 3 years, I bought the fastest AMD processor available and fastest GPU ATI had to offer. CPU: quad fhenom II, all cores working on 3,2Ghz and GPU HD4890 (2 GPU's using 1gb of mem each).
The graph card was a desaster. Most games don't support multicore at least for GPU's and I don't know about the newest tech in software but the highway workers tale Mandru spawned is what is going through my mind as well.
I was at my fav. hardwarestore a few weeks ago and there was a guy buying 2 (!) HD6890 cards!! That's four of the most powerfull GPU's available atm!!! I wonder where he needed that for.
Last card I bought is a HD5870, which was the newest 1 year ago. It's good, and runs all stuff smooth. It won't cost a truckload of money.
Anyway, when you deside to go multicore for the graphics, it's best to buy 2 independent cards instead of a double GPU card I think. I've read stories about a comparison between HD4870 and HD4890 where the first one had better results playing a game like GTA IV. Somehow the second GPU on the 4890 was not doing a thing and slowed the total process since GTA only used one core. Weird stuff.
Plus: You can test one in your system, and if you want to upgrade just buy one extra (in case your software desires and handles that). Your mobo should support that then, but most mobo's do nowadays I guess.
One more thing: make sure you install a truckload of DDR3 memory on the system. It's cheap nowadays. I'd stack it up with at least 8GB and choose fo the 64bit system.
Had a look at the top end laptops and decided to stick with a tower.
So after days of looking around ended up with the following -
Intel core i3 processor (pretty sure its a quad core too)
4 GB ram
Windows 7 home premium
500 GB hard drive
All for a reasonable price, the only downside being on-board graphics, which as far as can figure out are only 64MB. Which is an easy fix with a PCI-E card
So far must say that windows 7 seems to be so much better than both Vista and XP (so far).
And considering the low level graphics have been playing S.O.C. at max settings with a couple of mods thrown in with pretty good results, the pics below show the quality and detail have managed to wring out of it.
[smg id=3549]
[smg id=3550]
[smg id=3551]
[smg id=3552]
[smg id=3553]
And even though it is running at only 15-18 fps it is still very playable as opposed to ARMA 2 which having problems with at even low settings.
Not bad for a straight out of the box system :)
Indeed good results there. And if you pimp it with an extra Graphics card it would all be supernice! Which game is S.O.C. by the way? It looks nice ;)
Indeed a good graphics card will boost your gaming there Red :-X
@Binnatics S.O.C. is Stalker Shadow Of Chernobyl... a rather old game with great gfx :-X
nice :)
aahhh, stalker. Isn't there just a new version of the game available? I should check that out.
newest game out next year, but the first three games are covered by boards here. :)
Yeap
1-Stalker: Shadow Of Chernobyl
2-Stalker: Clear Sky
3-Stalker: Call of Prypiat
Great shooters / RPG style... didn`t know about another Stalker title coming out next year though... thanks Red :-X
Quote from: JRD on August 03, 2011, 10:49:34 AM
Great shooters / RPG style...
You mean like Fallout maybe? I'm not the guy for RPG, allthough I had a lot of fun in Fallout. But that was mostly because of the great world and action-moments.
It`s a first person shooter, but you get to interact with NPCs and the outcome of your choices can affect how the game plays in the end. Actually there are 6 or 8 possible endings if I`m not mistaken (RedRaven?)
It`s not a deep RPG, it just have some aspects of role playing
hmmm, that sounds okay. I like the idea of influencing the storyline in that matter. If it's just a side effect and no major part of the gameplay it wouldn't bother me. I remember having to do the same conversations over and over again in Fallout to get some stuff in a shop or sell some. Aaargggh :-D
Well, you get to talk with a chap at a shop and buy/sell/trade/loot but it`s not a big part of the game. Most of the time you are out in the Zone, hunting stuff (and being hunted ;D ) getting closer and closer to the nuclear power plant. It`s a pretty good game full of action and with a good pace.
RedRaven is moderating the boards (http://openworldgames.org/owg/forums/index.php?action=forum;#c17) and is our expert in STALKER, having created a few mods himself. If you ever decide to give it a try make sure you have a chat with him in order to get the most out of this game! :-X
Cant recall if there are 6 or 8 endings :(
First game, Shadow of Chernobyl is the game that got me into FPS so always be a personal favourite.
All 3 a certainly worth checking out.
Just ordered a GPU, found a Geforce GT520 with 1 GB ram for almost £50 which will do me :)
should have it saturday or monday.
That`s a real bargain :-X
Your PC will fly now 8)
Which i3 is that? I got the 2120 which is a real good processor of this new multi core generation. or gaming purposes I`m sure you won`t be dissapointed. Having a decent combination of GPU + CPU is what matters today. It doesn`t have to be the top notch available to allow gaming with pleasure ;D
Indeed a great offer! Well done! That should w@&k fine with any game I guess. I have 2gb myself on my HD5870 but I never found a game that uses that much memory. 1gb should be plenty and I believe that these GT5** series really crack it! :-X
@ JRD - its the 2100 cpu, so only the tiniest of steps down from yours.
Regarding GPU the next step seemed to be the GTX 5** (or something along those lines) but they were around 4 times the cost. Recent email informs me that it has already been shipped so with any luck may get it with tomorrow's post (hahahaha!)
Last remaining set back is that it is not yet on the net as modem is downstairs, PC upstairs and not got a long enough cable so awaiting the arrival of a USB modem for it, getting too old to be running up and downstairs between gaming and online activity.
CURRENT RIG COMPONENTS
Intel core i3 2100 cpu
4GB RAM (2x2GB)
ASUS GeForce GT520 gpu
500 GB internal drive
2 TB external drive
On-board sound
Microsoft Natural ergonomic keyboard
Microsoft 5 button mouse
Logitech X140 speakers
HP L2151ws monitor
Windows 7 (64bit)
My Rig's Specs
Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP2
Intel Duo E7500 2.93GHz CPU
CORSAIR® Hydro Series H60 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler - Pre-filled, Closed-loop System,
Integrated Pump and Reservoir with 120mmm Radiator and Fan.
NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT Graphics Card
Onboard Sound
4Gig Ram
800Gig Hard Drive: C
230Gig 2nd Hard Drive: D
40 Gig External Hard Drive: G
MSI G31M3 Motherboard
17" AOpen CRT Monitor
A4 Tech 5 Button Mouse
I'm really impressed by the liquid cooling :-X
Can you adjust it to cool your graph processor as well, or do you need to buy an additional unit if you want to do that?
Nice rig by the way. Seems you and I have one thing in common: A monitor that needs upgrade ;)
Nope it cannot, it's sole purpose is to cool down the CPU, see the pic
Spoiler
[smg id=3605]
hmmm, that means you need to of these cases at the back of your system... or can you keep them inside the case? In fact, it looks like a fan... can you just mount it the way you mount an extra fan inside the case?
Anyway, there will be a good way of mounting them to your case as well. You won't cary it around all the time won't you :-D
First you must have a case that can house the 120mm fan, the spot would be in the back of the case, like any other fan this fan and radiator are attached together on the inside of the case with long screws included in the package, then the other unit screws in where the heatsink goes on top of the Processor, it comes as a unit as you see in the picture, no liquid topping up or anything, you install and forget about it, just keep the grill clean from dust.
I just had a look at my supplier's product list, Thermaltake manufactures cooling units for Memory cards and Graphics cards, have a look at some of the products.
Spoiler
Thermaltake® Cooling - NorthBridge WaterBlock
Thermaltake® Cooling - P500 Pump - WaterCooling Pump
Thermaltake® Cooling - AquaBay M2 , 5.25" 120mm Radiator with 120mm 1300RPM Fan
Thermaltake® Cooling - TMG ND VGA nVIDIA 6800/7800/7900 GTX WaterBlock
Thermaltake® Cooling - SR100, High Capacity Reservoir , 225cc
Thermaltake® Cooling - TMG ND4 VGA nVIDIA 8800 GTX WaterBlock
Seems to be getting quite popular allready. I remember when I bought my system, 3 years ago, it was only for the realtime tech-whizz-kids and hard to obtain. By that time I only found one liquid cooling product, that was a heatsink model for GPU, that could be connected to a liquid-cooling installation. That's why I imagined a kind of liquid-cooling-system that would serve the entire PC. My case has these holes made especially for 2 tubes for the liquid to go in and out the case. Maybe you can set up a system in a way that it's completely watercooled with only one liquid-reservoir outside the cache.
I'm really squeamish about liquid cooling coupled with electronic systems. ????
For how many years have the water pump on automobiles been mechanically driven by way of a belt on a power take off pulley instead of an electric pump? There's gotta be a reason for that.
My computer case has the reservoir for liquid coolant and there are even additional in/out ports in the rear of the case for an industrial rated external liquid cooler but I'll hang with air cooling for now. ???
Liquid cooling is an interesting idea but then so is picture windows in luxury suites for extended deep sea submarine tours. I'm just not ready to trust the structural integrity of either of those ideas. :-D
Luckely most MSI motherboards includes dual core center software whereby you can keep an eye on the CPU temperature, CPU clock, GPU clock, memory clock and a few other things,
Quote from: mandru on August 11, 2011, 04:22:44 PMso is picture windows in luxury suites for extended deep sea submarine tours. I'm just not ready to trust the structural integrity of either of those ideas. :-D
^+-+ Kudos +1 :-X ^+-+
Thanks Art. :)
mandru is full of punchlines... :-X ^+-+
I've upgraded my videocard, and chose an Nvidia based card this time. I've had an ATI high end card twice in a row, (both of the manufacturer Saphirre) and both cards crashed within the warranty period. ATI, and especially Saphirre, have done no good to me.
I asked my vendor if they had more customers complaning about these cards, and she said that indeed that last card of mine, HD5870 Toxic, had a very high 'bring-back-rate'. She also said it's a matter of luck, and that others swear with a brand that for others always works out problematically.
Well, anyway, I'm glad I've left ATI behind. Far too many trouble.
My new card, an ASUS ENGTX570 Direct-CU-II (that last extra part of the name stands for the cooling system) is about to make up a lot where ATI let me down.
It looks very solid. Even the cap around the cooling fans is metal; aluminum if I'm right. The whole cooling system is quite revolutionary. The copper heatpipes are in direct contact with the GPU. The (five) heatpipes come out if the core heatsink unit and then split into both directions alongside the card into two additional heatsink membranes (or whatever these metal structures are called) who both cary their own fan.
The complete cooling structure is so big that the GFX card is 3 slots thick :o
Here are some pics. The first shows the hugeness of the card, the second shows a bit of detail on the heatpipe-heatsink idea.
By the way; you also have a look at my Skythe Kabuto CPU cooler, with also quite some nice heatpipes ^-^ Man I love these copper contructions :-D
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Excellent. I know about the troubles you went through and do hope that nVidia manufactured a snug vid card for you to be happy with and that for a change lasts and doesn't cause crashes all the time (unlike ATI) :)
I've been very happy with my nVidia card - has not given me any problems (yet) ????
Impressive :-X
Hope it serves you well, Binn :) I've never had any trouble with any of my three consecutive nVidia cards so I'll be sticking with them come upgrade time.
I can second that, never had any problems with my nVidia cards :) :-X
nVidia is also very popular on this side of the globe, Congrats on your "new" rig Binn.....
Thanx guys!!!
Yesterday I payed a game of 'online free mode' in Liberty city with Art, and I was stunned, really completely shocked by the graphics I was shown. Everything was so detailed, so damn tranquil and serene (those were the words I was searching for yesterday, Art) and indeed fluid that it was the most relaxing and satisfying gaming exp. I've had in a long time. I remember I was staring at a boardwalk for e few minutes not really realizing what I saw there: I found out that the entrance-part of a building was made out of metal. I mean the small "own-ground" slice of the street where some grow a small garden and others have a piece of stone to show off. Metal! :o Who would make that part if his house/street out of metal? :o Anyway, it was cristal clear, even Art confirmed it. So it must be one of these Yankee habits I don't understand, but that's not the point. The point is: I've NEVER SEEN SO MUCH DETAIL in the game. And everything looks so beautiful: I've seen lots of things like 'for the first time'. I always thought I had a high-end card, but ATI seriously F*ed me there, that's for sure 8-X
Anyway, It was an amazing experience. I recall everything I've ever said about ATI cards and recommend NVIDIA to all form now on. Period!!
"even Art confirmed it who is the last guy on earth you'd expect to see that kind of detail and whose graphics card is so old it is short of a miracle he finds his way around in GTA IV at all and by all means, I'd never have asked him if there had been just anyone else around who was willing to just listen to me." >:D
:laugh:
Alright.. :-D It was a pleasure watching (and listening to) you enjoying your new vid card :)
No need to modify my post now, would I? :-D
??? Damn where did that come from! :laugh:
It's been a while since I updated my Rig info here, and I have dadicated an entire topic on the problems I had with my former (cursed) rig, so I thought it was about time to post my new rig now that it's installed and working!
Here we go Binnatics' New Rig:
Motherboard: MSI Z68A-GD80 (Gen-3)
CPU: Intel i7 2600K @ 3.4 Ghz
Graphicscard: ASUS GTX780 Direct-CU-II OC
Int. mem: 4X4Gb DDR3-RAM Corsair Vengeance (1600 mhz)
Powersuppl: Be quiet! System Power 7 600W (80 plus silver rank)
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 590 Midi tower
Sound: Logitech S200 black, 2 speakers and subwoofer
Headseat: Creative Soundblaster Arena Surround
Monitor: Acer S243HL, 24" FullHD LED widescreen
Hard disks: 2X SSD OCZ Agility 3 120Gb
2X Maxtor diamondmax 21 250 Gb in Raid 0 array
Optical drive: Sony DVD-RW +/-
Keyboard: Microsoft basic Keyboard 1.0A
Mouse: Revoltec Fighting mouse Pro. (laser tech, for ultimate precision)
Oper.system: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit
Paper-device: HP Photosmart C5380 All-in-One
I waited with posting the stuff here until I was 100% sure everything works like supposed, and after some testing I'm sure now that the curse is gone :-X ^-^
??? A freakin' SOLID STATE DISK!!! ???
Very nice rig there, Mr Binnatics :) :-X
Apart from that old hairy black and white cathode ray tube dinosaur of a 4:3 "monitor" that is.
:-D
How do you like the SSD? I'm thinking of installing one as my boot/swap drive.
@Art: You always manage to pin the vinger on the hurting spot :-D
That's gonna be the next upgrade, and now for sure ;)
@PZ: I love the SSD. It's blistering fast compared to my HDD Raid 0 array. That is fast allready, but this SSD thing leaves that array in the dust.
A complete install from scratch til internet access costed me like 15 minutes. Normally that takes over an hour. And updating my Vista until the latest update, that normally takes over a day, was done in, let's say 6 hours or so.
Rebooting is done within 2 minutes. I didn't exactly size the time but compared to what it was, it is damn fast now.
That goes for everything. I installed FarCry 2 on the SSD, for testing and because I wanted it to, and loading times have decreased to les then 2 seconds. Now that's what I call fast :-()
The space is limited though. I installed Steam on my HDD array, because the total amount of game-data exceeds 100Gb. I don't want to spoil my SSD with games I hardly play.
From now on, I put only games to the SSD which I play a lot. When I am done playing them, I will either install them on the normal harddisks or delete them.
My entire operating system and usual software (including Farcry 2) occupies 55Gb so the other half of the disk is free to put things on temporarily.
There seems to be a solution though, which makes it possible to access (or at least write) with the speed of an SSD to your HDD's. It's done with a small, 40Gb, ssd-like device that intermedeates between your SSD and your other HDD's. This way it's possible to keep working in fast speed. I think my mobo is ready for it, but I didn't figure out everything about it.
To be honest, for now it's not necessary. I'm totally satisfied with the setup I have ^-^
Sounds like a great rig! :-X
One of these days I'll probably invest in an SSD - when I'm not too lazy to do a new install. :-()
I installed my second SSD today. I'm so happy with it that I wanted a second one for music storage exclusively. Now that I have that network receiver, which can access all the files known by WMP, I want to upload my entire CD collection to that new disc so that I never have to switch a CD anymore. They will be all available as long as my PC is powered on :)
I might as well make a partition for Videos as well, since I can stream them to my bluray, but I don't do movie downloading yet.
The prices on most SSD discs have dropped significantly. The same SSD that costed me €135,- this January, now only costs €87,-. That's a price drop of at least 30 percent, in only 5 months time :o
Excellent! I've still not purchased my first SSD yet, but really want to .
I overlooked this thread looking for a place to describe the woes leading up to my pending rebuild. :-\\
I posted the story and description over here: http://www.openworldgames.org/owg/forums/index.php?topic=2730.msg54064#msg54064 (http://www.openworldgames.org/owg/forums/index.php?topic=2730.msg54064#msg54064)
I was hoping to have my new rig up and running by now, but I had to replace my 4x4's tyres :'(
This means I'll have to spread the buying of the new components over a three month period :(
and that's why I haven't purchased FC3 yet, will do so after the new rig is complete, then I can do FC3 and MOH Warfighter, maybe AC3 also ???
oh dear, and good luck :)
Gives you something to look forward to, nex :-X
Best of luck on the upgrades; I'm dreading (but needing) to do that one of these days. I'm still running on my old GTX 295 which is adequate, but not stellar when it comes to today's performance standards.
Tried playing MOH Warfighter, everything happens in slow motion, and the audio comes out weird and choppy ???
I'm looking at: one of
CPU
Intel® Core™ i5 3470 - 3.20GHz Quad Core, Ivy Bridge, Socket 1155, 6MB L3, DMI Bus, 22nm, x64, Intel VT, Intel HD Graphics 2500 @ 650MHz
Intel® Core™ i5 3570 - 3.40GHz Quad Core, Ivy Bridge, Socket 1155, 6MB L3, DMI Bus, 22nm, x64, Intel VT, Intel HD Graphics 2500 @ 650MHz
Intel® Core™ i5 3570K - 3.40GHz Quad Core, Ivy Bridge, Socket 1155, 6MB L3, DMI Bus, 22nm, x64, Intel VT, Intel HD Graphics 4000 @ 650MHz
Mainboard
MSI® Intel Big Bang M-Power Z77 Chipset, Socket 1155 @ 100MHz FSB, Core i3 / i5 / i7 /
MSI® Intel Z77A-GD65 Z77 Chipset, Socket 1155 @ 100MHz FSB, Core i3 / i5 / i7 /
GPU
MSI® nVidia GeForce GTX650 Ti PCI-Express
MSI® nVidia GeForce GTX650 Ti Power Edition
I believe the MSI® Intel Big Bang M-Power Z77 is a mean bugger
Considering FC3's graphical sophistication, it's not too demanding on hardware, especially if you stick to DX9. As with FC2, there are a lot of options for fine-tuning your graphics to get the game to run OK.
Of course, if you can see it in all (or in my case, most) of it's glory it's a real looker :-X I'm running it under DX11 with individual graphic options set to either medium or high (no AA) and it's smooth as.
Good luck though nex, hope to see you in the islands soon :)
Thanks mate, my nVidia GeForce 8500 GT Graphics card is just not good enough to run FC3
at least that's what the experts say :-\\
Just ordered the new components for my rig
Processor Intel Core Socket 1155 i5 3570K - 3.40GHz Quad Core
GPU MSI nVidia GeForce GTX650 T
Motherboard MSI Intel Big Bang M-Power Z77 Chipset, Socket 1155
Memory x2 Corsair Vengeance Memory - 8GB Dual Module Kit, 2x 4GB, DDR3-2400
Nice :)
The massive amount of memory indicates that you're going to continue using a 64-bit system. So you like vista64 and maybe going to get a w7/64?
Cool. :-X Congrats nexor. :)
Thanks mandru,
Art, I'm running both Vista and Win7 64-bit on two seperate hard drives, keeping vista because I have a few games running on it
I have MS Office 64-bit installed, so buying a new MS Office 32-bit is rather expensive so I decided to stick to 64, and yes, this machine is my main pc, I do run all my games from it
Nice, nexor :-X
... now you're gaming!
Thanks PZ, should be up and running by end of February
:-X Nice one nex, that should enable you to properly kick some in FC3 >:D
Thanks fragger, I would have liked to go for the Intel Socket 2011 cpu and motheboard combo, but then I need to replace the cpu cooler system, the system I have has adapter plates for the 775 and 1156, the 1156 and 1155 uses the same adaptor plate.
Then also, I like the specs and reports on this motherboard
Can't wait to read of your gaming impressions, and keeping fingers crossed for an easy migration to the new rig! :-X
Here's my rig:
AMD quad core 3.4ghz (water cooled) :-X
Gigabyte 890A-UD3H motherboard
4Gb Ram
ATI Radeon HD5700
RAT5 mouse
500Gb SSD (windows drive) :-X
2 X 1Tb Hard Drives
+ the usual (including a floppy drive :) )
Nice rig :-X
I just installed an SSD in a slate PC I have that I use at w@&k. Now I don't need to worry about moving drive parts! An added benefit is that the PC is totally silent. :-X
First of all; congratulations on your purchase Nexor! Looks great! I think you made a good choice with the GTX650. It's energy saving and does a great job at performance. I think it should be far enough to run FC3 on high res with DX11. Mobo looks solid. I love MSI, have one myself with the new Gen3 PCI tech. My graph card is still Gen2 though, but runs as a charm with it.
Have fun putting the parts together!! :-X :)
Lol, Abletile, a 500G SSD is impressive.... All you need, heheh
I have two 128G SSD's, one for the system and a few games, the other strictly for music, and maybe photo's in the near future. They are blistering fast, which is a grat performance boost compared to having the system on an old fashioned harddrive. Nice system :-X
Water cooled is also impressing. Isn't that a major installation next to the main chest?
I had an AMD system as well, but lost my appetite for it after lots of weird issues, that kept bugging me. I now run intel/nvidia combo.
Nice specs there, Abletile :-X
A floppy drive? A floppy drive? That is so 2001 :-() Actually, I'm kind of sorry that they're not around much anymore. They could be really handy for storing small files and stuff, instead of burning a whole CD or DVD just for a couple of Word docs, say, and their small size and protective case made them both convenient and durable. And that little sliding write-protect thingy was cool :-X Today there are Flash drives for the convenience factor, but floppies had soul 8)
Tell a young bloke today that you have a floppy drive and he'll offer to sell you his granddad's Viagra ::)
:-D
Very nice rig indeed.. what makes me smile is that I still have the same rig I started out with when I joined. And it serves me well, no problems at all, even with today's games. :)
Thanks peeps, the water cooling was no big deal to fit. I bought the Corsair Hydro H90 Water-Cooling CPU Cooler, very easy to fit and sooooo quiet (in full gaming mode it still only gets to 44 degrees C!) :)
The SSD was also bought for noise and speed (it goes off faster than a Jews forerskin!). I have tons of progs that start up with the pc and it still loadsn in 42 secs! Thats quicker than my old Z80, lol. :laugh:
As for the floppy, viagra was what was needed but my grandson is still too young to get me some :laugh:
Thanks Binn, the CPU and GPU was delivered on Friday, the Mainboard and mem cards should be delivered by coming Friday, just hope my supplier's tech guys are right by saying that my CPU water cooler will fit on the new board otherwise i'm gonna kick some asses :-\\
I can't complain Art, my rig is about six years old, the only reason I'm upgrading is because the PCI slot on the MB cannot house the new Graphics Cards, and I need to replace the Graphics Card.
Hopefully the new rig will also last about six years.
I'm using the same box, the component I'm taking out will replace the components in my other pc which in itself is still a very good rig, I started FC2 on that one, I'll probably put the components of that pc in my farther in law's pc, his is a P1 which I gave him when I upgraded my main pc.
I've always had two pc's and everytime I upgrade my main pc I pass the old components on to the second one and the second one's components I use to upgrade my farther in law's, he likes playing MS flight simulator and he's due for a newer flight sim version.
Lol, I do the same thing but pass it on to my friends who haver a lower spec than mine :)
I do tend to update every couple of years at least. Tech moves very quickly nowadays. (Moores law) is still valid :)
That's a good practice of handing-me-down the old components, chaps. Better those old components get re-used by someone than end up in a landfill. They still will eventually of course, but the longer it can be put off the better and someone will still get good use out of them in the meantime :-X
Unfortunately, I have nobody to pass my old components on to and I tend to hang on to them thinking that they may come in handy for emergency use or as spare parts one day, but of course they never do with the result that I end up with ten million bits and pieces filling up my odds-and-ends drawers until space issues compel me to chuck them all out, so that I can begin the process anew.
Do I ever learn from this experience? Of course not.
Let me tell you the definition of insanity...
Lol, anything I can't give away, I keep as well! Very rarely can I make use of all my old bits and bobs but once in a while I manage to fix a PC that would be defunct by now. Is it worth the storage etc? I'm not sure, I just can't bear to throw/recycle that should be useful :wink
Did I ever tell you about the definition of insanity!
Besides the two pc's I run full time, I have two more perfectly good complete P1's, one is fully operational just need to be plugged in and the other one is stripped and packed away in it's MB's box. :(
Been meaning to give them away to some under privileged group but just not getting there :-\\
Quote from: fragger on February 17, 2013, 06:39:28 AM
Unfortunately, I have nobody to pass my old components on to and I tend to hang on to them thinking that they may come in handy for emergency use or as spare parts one day, but of course they never do with the result that I end up with ten million bits and pieces filling up my odds-and-ends drawers until space issues compel me to chuck them all out, so that I can begin the process anew.
^-^
That's very recognizable 8)
:-D
Quote from: nexor on February 14, 2013, 03:09:40 AM
Just ordered the new components for my rig
Processor Intel Core Socket 1155 i5 3570K - 3.40GHz Quad Core
GPU MSI nVidia GeForce GTX650 T
Motherboard MSI Intel Big Bang M-Power Z77 Chipset, Socket 1155
Memory x2 Corsair Vengeance Memory - 8GB Dual Module Kit, 2x 4GB, DDR3-2400
Working on my rig at the moment and hopefully it will be up and running this coming weekend, only made one change to the specks...
Memory X4 Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3,
32GB Memory should do it I think
You're going to be gaming hard core now, nex!
If this rig can manage new up and coming games for the next six years like the old rig did then I'll be happy.
It's becoming very expensive upgrading rigs like what I'm doing now.
To me it looks as if things were slowing down indeed. Years ago I had to get a new rig about every two years in order to be able to run then recent games but the one before this had to be replaced after about three years and this one is about 4.5 years old and still running recent games nicely. :)
Yes that's what I'm hoping for, at least I can do various not too expensive upgrades with the new MB.
It can take a core7 CPU, it also have the option of running two Graphics cards, I have ample memory installed.
Damn!!! I have to do a complete new win7 installation, thought I could do a repair, but no way, oh well, see you guys in a while, lucky I still have this pc to log on to OWG
All the best with it nex, hope you're happily gaming soon :-X :)
Thanks mate, Win 7 is loaded, busy installing and upgrading a few essential programs at the moment, can't wait to try it out
ps. Hi guys from my new rig :cool
but now I'm going to finish all installations :-D
:)
Installing an OS and programs needed isn't that bad and done quite quickly. What I hate is customising all that crap.. that takes forever.
You right about that Art, lucky for me I haven't used win7 that much, so there's no software updates as yet, is just all the other junk that needs re-installing and then most of them have updates as well.
Most of them is done by now, busy installing Origin so I can re-install Battlefield 3 and MOH Warfighter
Quote from: Art Blade on March 08, 2013, 03:20:11 AM
To me it looks as if things were slowing down indeed. Years ago I had to get a new rig about every two years in order to be able to run then recent games but the one before this had to be replaced after about three years and this one is about 4.5 years old and still running recent games nicely. :)
Same here - I thought my rig's graphics unit would be too old for Simcity, but it is working just fine on ultra settings
Most of all my software is loaded, Origin is messing me around like it did awhile back, keep on telling me I must create an account, was hoping to play BF3 and MOH Warfighter but will wait for Monday to phone the guy from Origin to fix it :-\\
??? :( >:(( :D
Not again! Bloody Origin ::) :D Good luck on Monday!
I wish the joker who thought out this Origin thing will get an itch and his fingernails change to fishing hooks >:((
but on a lighter note, this is my new rig and I can't wat to try it out :-D
[smg id=5681]
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??? that makes the lunar lander look like scrap metal. Nice :-D
Great Googly Moogly nex! :o
For a second there I thought I was looking at a new Porsche turbine concept engine. :o
Yeah, you should be able to really rip things up with this rig. :-X
Nice rig Nexor, that mother should see you alright for a while :-D
Thanks guys, I played FC2 for awile. maxed all the graphics setting and using DX10, with all the memory installed this thing is blistering fast, and only by noticing that the pilot light on the front panel is on shows that the machine is running, that's how quiet it is
That's the beauty of water cooling :)
Man, I'm envious nex! My PC is screaming like a vacuum cleaner right now, and it only gets worse when the gaming starts. :laugh:
Man, this guy from Origin SA is good, fixed my problem in 20 seconds flat 8)
But now Origin is updating the games
So far 5 hours just on MOH Warfighter, game update 888MB :D
Then comes BattleField 3 updates :'(
@#$%& updates :D
Great Rig Nex!! :-X
I love MSI too!
Thanks Binn, comparing this new rig to the old one is like driving a Rolls Royce compared to an old VW Beetle
My turn now :-D
I just bought an ASUS gaming PC, it's still sitting in its cardboard box. Here the most interesting specs:
[smg id=6079 type=full align=left caption="ASUS gaming rig"]
CPU: i5 @ 4.1 GHz (overclockable, 4.1 is not OC) // was the ad. real it's i5-3570k @ 3.4GHz /3.9GHz OC
GPU: GTX660 3GB ??? :-() (always wanted a gtx660, I saw them with 1.5 and 2 GB but this is the first one with three! ^-^ )
RAM: 2x8=16 GB
HD: 1TB
SSD: 128GB
win8 64bit
Total: € 1.200,-
Well, I have two things to do.
First, I don't want that disgusting windows8. I can't use my w7 ultimate because it's 32bit which cannot use more than 3GB RAM, so I need to find a system builder w7 ultimate 64bit in order to be able to access all 16GB. Let's hope I can still get one.
Second, I don't want to lose my old 1TB HD full with all kinds of stuff, mainly games and media files. Then again, usually games require windows to "remember" having installed them, else you don't get the registry keys and all that. So I think I'll have to install those games that I wish to keep anew. Many of them are steam-based which should cause me tons of downloads.. argh. I am thinking about opening that new rig, opening my old rig, and do a transplantation as in add my old HD to the new rig, given I can get that to w@&k.
However, I had a feeling the time was right to get a new rig. So during my lunch break last Friday I happened to see an offer at my local store but went like, "nah, you're crazy, you don't really need a new rig," and went home. There it kept nagging me from the back of my head, so I checked for offers of that store on the net. I did find a better one than what I had seen but it required ordering and that would have taken two weeks until I could get it. But another general search on the net came up with that rig being offered in a branch of the same group and they operate a local store in my city, too. And it was available there, the offer on the net said. Today I decided to do it and went to get it. Only they didn't have it any more. What they did have, however, was generally speaking a better offer, it is what you see above.
I told the sales guy after the deal about my intuition to get a new rig now and he said the timing was perfect because in the summertime (here, now) especially around June/July, the prices were lowest (no new game releases during summer) and would go up from around August on when we'd host the GamesCon in Cologne and of course towards the end of the year. Heh. :-D
Now I got a monster waiting but I'm cool ^-^
Looks like a fantastic rig; I'm envious! ^-^
Great Rig Art!!! You're definitely going to smoke a hole in your bedroom wall there >:D 8)
Seriously, that graphics card must be a super advantage on what you have now, and the CPU running on 4.1Ghz in impressing too!! Hope you are still able to séé the detail it will offer, heheh :)
Enjoy mate!! See you at the show :-X
Very nice rig Art. :-X
I was hoping to get to be the first to say that your 4.1 GHz CPU was "Sssmokin'!" but when I flipped to the next page to read the rest of the comments there was Binn's post stomping all over my line. :'(
Pulling the old 1 Tb drive over for archival purposes sounds like a good idea. That choice also gives the added benefit (depending how full the old drive is) of serving as a partitioned separate place for file back up and additional storage. Just make sure your power supply has the wiggle room to carry the extra demand or all that wonderful speed you've paid for can suffer. :)
Looks good Art, I'm not too happy with my Nvidia 650GTX-Ti gpu, at some stage I will have to look at something better...... :-(
Thanks guys :)
By the way, today I went to the only store I could think of that might still have a 64bit system builder version of w7 ultimate -- the two big shops I checked didn't any more. MS is pushing w8 into the marked with full force. So I went to Atelco where I bought my 32bit version long ago. They didn't have it in stock so the guy checked his computer to see if he could still order one. Indeed, there was exactly just ONE version still there but, oh dear.. it was an English version, he said with a sorry face.
I was beaming. Not only was he able to order the last possible copy in this town but to my utter joy and pleasure, it was even in English!! One of the reasons why I wanted an ultimate version was the fact that it was the only version that legally allowed to install language packs. Right now, on my old rig, I am running a German w7 ultimate with English language pack and tweaked several settings to actually get every system message in English (installing the pack did turn most of the available texts into English but for example the boot screen still read, "Windows wird geladen" as well as the messages you get to see when doing windows updates that require a system restart, "Einstellungen werden konfiguriert, bitte schalten Sie den Computer nicht aus" or some such. Took me quite some searching to find the buggers and switch them to English, too. Also, I do have two folders with the same meaning, one "Dokumente und Einstellungen" as well as the corresponding "Documents and Settings" and more of that humbug.
Yesterday night I had the idea to dare ask for an English version in case I could get someone to order it and today the guy already had exactly that as the only option :laugh: Ordered, should arrive within two or three days and they'll call me or send me a text message. Nice. The price is 178.-€ while a "normal" (non-system builder) costs about double. Glad I already knew about that, now you know, too -- always ask for a system builder version of your windows and save about 50% :)
***
PZ, when we all started out with our rigs some four years ago, you had the upper hand with your home-built system, now it was time for me to catch up and get something nice, too ^-^
Binnatics, heh heh heh, I'll take extra care to keep my environment as it is, no need for burn holes :-D
mandru, I still regard your "Ssssmokin' " a very nice comment and it wasn't diminished by Binnatics's comment. :)
Nexor, originally I wanted a GTX660Ti but "only" got a 660 without that Ti but instead, I got three GB vid memory. I hope it will be a good card.
So, why are you not too happy with your vid card?
I'm a bit late here with the congrats, so - congrats, Art! :) :-X You should be able to max out everything on that baby, ought to keep you going strong for a while 8)
ta mate :) I reckon you'll be one of the next to come up with a new rig ;)
The real upgrade I keep hoping fragger will get is an internet connection that exceeds the bandwidth of a couple boy scouts learning semaphore or at the very least smoke signals. A Bugatti Veyron revving its engine in the show room would have been a real marvel had it popped up in 1910 but considering the conditions of roadways in those days where would you have driven the bloody thing?
The satellite TV dish company I use has added an internet service through an up link that promises 4G connection and download times and once I figure out how 4G compares to the 23 Mbps download/5Mbps upload my connection averages I may add the service.
I checked to see if there was any chance that it was available in Australia but all of Dish's geosynchronous satellites are over the U.S. :(
Quote from: mandru on July 10, 2013, 08:20:05 AM
I checked to see if there was any chance that it was available in Australia but all of Dish's geosynchronous satellites are over the U.S. :(
The NSA needs them all :laugh:
Sorry Abletile. :(
There isn't a funny come back for that.
I just realized it's not funny either :(
Today I received a text message from my local vendor telling me that my OS had arrived. Minutes ago I purchased it and now I'm ready to kick w8 out and do a fresh install with my "new" w7 ultimate 64bit >:D
This is going to be a milestone in my PC career. First time I'll be using 64bit and first time I'll see more than 3GB RAM in action, 16GB! Bloody six times more memory than before. And my vid card, more than three times the amount of memory than before. And slightly more than 50% speed than before (so far 2.67GHz and going to get 4.1GHz)
By the way, that rig also came with a Blue Ray reader.
Well.. Tomorrow is Friday, time to get the beast up and running, then ^-^
Can't wait to read of your experiences with the new rig! :-X
Rip her up brother! Rip her up! :-X
Enjoy your new venture into high end pc's Art. You should notice a huge improvement :-X :)
cheers, guys :) Off to w@&k now and on my return I shall commence setting it up :-() Will let you know as soon as I'm online with it. :)
Quote from: mandru on July 10, 2013, 08:20:05 AM
The real upgrade I keep hoping fragger will get is an internet connection that exceeds the bandwidth of a couple boy scouts learning semaphore or at the very least smoke signals. A Bugatti Veyron revving its engine in the show room would have been a real marvel had it popped up in 1910 but considering the conditions of roadways in those days where would you have driven the bloody thing?
The satellite TV dish company I use has added an internet service through an up link that promises 4G connection and download times and once I figure out how 4G compares to the 23 Mbps download/5Mbps upload my connection averages I may add the service.
I checked to see if there was any chance that it was available in Australia but all of Dish's geosynchronous satellites are over the U.S. :(
Thanks for the consideration, mate :) (sigh) Mps? I can only dream about such things - like a whizz-bang net connection, wining the lottery and bedding a Miss Universe. I'm lucky to see 200 Kps, and once or twice I've even seen a 300. My average is around 30 Kps (yep, Kays, that is).
The currently-being-rolled-out-with-glacial-slowness National Broadband Network that the local politicians have decided is worth turning into an election issue ( ::)) is a significant step in the right direction, but it's a slow motion step, a bit like when the Six Million Dollar Man runs. I'm hoping it will be complete just in time for me to reach retirement age, but by then it, like me, will probably be obsolete. Hopefully I'll still have enough strength to be able to satisfactorily thump something in frustration whenever it drops out.
I have my dreams :-D
On a happier note, I'm glad to hear that Art's newie is almost ready to launch :) All the best old bean, I hope you clear the tower without any major hiccups :-X
Hey guys :) This is from my new rig albeit (for the first time, though) using w8. At least I had to see it with my own eyes and guys, really, WHO needs windows 8??? My first reaction to the desktop after running through the unavoidable -- because of a prefab installation -- setup was..
IT LOOKS LIKE FUCKING TETRIS!
or a massive mobile phone. tons of "apps" and each flipping pictures like a bloody bill board or a cheap browser game.
OK, signing off again to slap in my beloved w7 ultimate... 64bit this time :)
(Hopefully) speak soon :)
:D
Believe me, I am a patient guy, but this is starting to upset me. ALL the time between my last post and now I have been trying to get that machine to boot and install from the disc drive. I did it before, many times. This PC, however, does recognise the disc and boots from it, nice: "loading files," but when the mandatory restart follows after the initial "starting windows" (7) the fricking thing resorts to the hard disk with w8 and starts that instead. For some reason, the bios keeps resetting itself every now and then and when I check, the boot sequence is back to the original installation HD as first boot option. And no, I did NOT forget to save on exit after changing the bios setting.
At first I thought it was just the bios setup which was set to RAID (which is ridiculous with a 128GB SSD and a 1TB HD) so I changed that to AHCI and maybe will try IDE. Oh, before that I found the bios setting "UEFI" turned on, and I tried all kinds of combinations to get the boot sequence to do: CD - restart - CD, so the installation might fucking finally continue. ONCE I got that far and I thought hell, that was the change from RAID to AHCI so I might reset the other stuff to what it was before and see if it still works. Which it didn't. Now I put everything back to what it was when it worked but hell, w8 popped up again and the next thing I did was check the bios which of course went back to what I didn't want regarding boot sequence. It did keep the AHCI rather than raid, though.
I want to bloody format the stuff and do fresh partitions of my liking but no, it keeps me from even getting there because it can't bloody boot properly from that disc. Or, it does, sometimes, but keeps falling back as described above. Now I'm going to tell the system that there IS NO HD to boot from and try forcing disc drive only.
Just letting you know, I'm still busy :-D
Dang that sounds bad, Art. How about creating a boot CD (or some kind of removable media) so you can manually format the main drive? It almost looks like you need to get rid of w8 to install w7. After all, from Microsoft's point of view, "what kind of fool would want to use one of our old operating systems?" This would not be the first time I have seen foolishness of this kind. For example, I have Vista Ultimate on my PC and wanted to "upgrade" to w7 Professional. I purchased an upgrade CD and when I tried to do the upgrade, it failed with the prompt: "You can only upgrade to a version similar to what you have" (or words to that effect). In essence, because I have "Ultimate" I needed to purchase an upgrade to w7 ultimate. What horseshite.
the problem was that I kept the SSD in the boot sequence and for some reason the boot sequence skipped the CD and went on with the SSD where obviously win8 was located. The next problem I encountered was the "OEM" installation occupied several "reserved" partitions where they had restore point stuff and backups and all kinds of things locked away and all I could do was delete those. Then I finally installed w7 on the HD so I could use the SSD for games and whatnot but now the SSD is not listed. When I check the devices that are connected it is there but it is not named or labelled or accessible (yet). Shouldn't be a problem to sort that out but right now I have a bigger problem.
The rig doesn't connect to the internet. I am currently on my old rig.
For some reason w8, as if it was nothing, connected happily and now w7 tells me there isn't a network adapter so I know it worked even without me doing any configuration or typing in user name and pw for it while w7 now behaves as if it really didn't find anything to connect with.
The beast definitely isn't all too easy to tame :) But eventually I'll get it to do what it's told.
I found the culprit and hope I got a solution: The system doesn't recognise the ethernet card hence "without hardware" no connectivity. Found a driver that should sort it out.. apparently when they set it up with w8 they added all necessary drivers. w7 doesn't recognise them and, of course, there's no driver disc. I'm just glad I kept this old rig alive so it can help me now. Damn, this is a chore right now :D :-D
Quote from: Art Blade on July 12, 2013, 03:46:32 PM
... The next problem I encountered was the "OEM" installation occupied several "reserved" partitions where they had restore point stuff and backups and all kinds of things locked away and all I could do was delete those...
This is true of every PC that I have purchased in the past few years at w@&k - makes for a difficult situation when you want to do anything creative. :D
Sounds like you have it under control however, and I suspect that you'll soon sort it out with the driver issue. :-X
Sorry Art your project is way over my head. I can't offer technical instructions but I know enough to search for solutions on Google when somethings beating me up. Finding the right search terms can make the difference.
I entered Removing Windows8
The first result was on PCMag.com linking an article called "How to Uninstall Windows 8, Install Windows 7 on Your PC".
Here's that link: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417359,00.asp (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417359,00.asp)
If nothing else it may warn you about pitfalls you haven't encountered yet. We're cheering for ya!
Gotta love those guys :-D Thanks, boys :) :-X
This is my new rig AND I am now, finally, using w7/64bit so I obviously solved the issues and sorted out those pesky problems ^-^
Mandru, killing any OS entirely and definitely is simple: delete the partition it's on >:D That's what I use to do :-()
PZ, you were right, of course :-D
I found out that I have one of ASUS's newest high-end mobos, it's a P8Z77-M Pro with intel Z77 chipset
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77M_PRO/ (http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77M_PRO/)
Also I have to correct my previously given information, my i5 runs at 3.7MHz and the case displays a blue glow BUT when I press the turbo button (at any given time) it will glow red which is called "defcon" and immediately OC it to 4.1MHz >:D
WELL...
I had to download 116 updates worth some 560MB and half an hour of installing those and I just noticed there's more to come.
At least I'm on it now >:D
Will keep you posted. :)
Glad you got it sorted. Now to test your games on ultra high everything >:D
Quote from: fragger on July 12, 2013, 04:31:08 AM
On a happier note, I'm glad to hear that Art's newie is almost ready to launch :) All the best old bean, I hope you clear the tower without any major hiccups :-X
Damn, I shouldn't have said anything :-D
I'm sorry you had all that grief with your new 'baby' Art. That is one of the reasons I have always had a floppy drive! MSdos is great for formatting, deleting partitions etc.
My new case has no floppy bay though, so I have to investigate the boot from usb pen drive options if required. I expect, if it works, it would be a lot quicker to load though ^-^
Glad you managed to 'crowbar' Win 7 onto your new rig :laugh:
:-D
It's not over yet. First off, I decided to install w7 anew, this time with the original bios setup which was a RAID configuration and this time I installed windows on my SSD and this time I didn't have any troubles regarding that installation and the SSD obviously is present.
However, my rig is so new that my "old" windows7 doesn't know certain components such as some "SM Bus Controller" and a few (not all) Universal Serial Bus (USB) controllers which is driving me bloody bonkers. It doesn't even know, despite naming it, where to find drivers for a G19 Gaming keyboard. Hell, it's an LG and well known, isn't it, so why can't it find drivers? At least that one isn't a problem for the human operating this machine but the rest still is.
GRRR going to GET this s#!t going >:D
PS: by the way, I found out they slapped some nice Kingston RAM bars into this rig.. nice one :)
You should have the drivers on your m/board disk. If you have no disk, go to the website of the m/board manufacturer. What make model is it?
Damn frustrating, driver issues............. :D
I am sure I
had them on my HD along with the pre-installed w8. But what good is a w8 setup if I want to use w7? And of course I did all I could to find the specs of minor components such as that ethernet card, which wasn't easy at all, but controllers? Not yet found.
What make and model? I posted that just a few posts up,
Quote from: Art Blade on July 12, 2013, 07:51:04 PM
I found out that I have one of ASUS's newest high-end mobos, it's a P8Z77-M Pro with intel Z77 chipset
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77M_PRO/ (http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77M_PRO/)
QuoteThe beast definitely isn't all too easy to tame :) But eventually I'll get it to do what it's told.
That's the spirit matey ^-^ :-X
You'll get it going anyhow. I remember you told me you never buy components, only complete systems, generally to protect yourself from given 'issues' and bothers. I think you got the whole system upside down and inside out already, and all that due to one lousy 'component', the operating system :-D
Look at it the bright way; you're learning to know your beast >:D you're taming it indeed, and once it's belly up, it'll do anything you tell it to, because you know just where to tickle it and when :)
The driver problem for windows to recognize you hardware, should be given by the hardware manufacturer. If not a driver issue, it might be required to update your BIOS, but be careful if you do so. You should read carefully what and how to do when updating the BIOS. Usually when you f@#k s#!t up there, there's no return. Maybe your Mobo BIOS needs an update in order to run smoothly in combination with W7 with given hardware like your keyboard or ethernet card. W8 might have been prepared for that connectivity, while W7 needs a little hand to sort things out.
I once had such a new CPU (AMD Phenom II X4 944 I guess) that my mobo didn't recognize it in its supreme being. It kept running at ultralow speed because the mobo didn't know how to handle it. When I updated the BIOS it went smooth.
The manufacturer People with the same problems explained this issue somewhere hidden on the net, and it took me a while to dig up the solution, but once the BIOS was updated, problems were over :angel:
Edit: Is it maybe an idea to split the struggle-part from the Gaming Rig specs topic, and create one that's called "Art's New Monstah"? ::)
thanks, Binnatics :) I'll keep the BIOS thingy in mind.
As to splitting this topic, I was thinking about it, too, but then again, this topic should have consisted of only a few post with specs alone but we're far from that for a long time now :-D So I'll just keep it. See, those guys who started a topic of their own caused that information given there to get shifted down the list of topics and out of reach if you don't know they posted about it. Anything posted in this topic here is easily accessible.
Meanwhile, I downloaded sniper elite v2 and GTA IV from steam -- getting my favourite games one by one. The steam game sniper elite actually did include my current save game so I could continue where I'd left, nice :) GTA IV is a third party game (Rockstar plus Games for Windows Live) and it didn't know I already played it, I had to go through the entire registration process again but at least I didn't have to type in the registration key -- it was already filled in and I just let it through on the nod.
I got excellent benchmark results on sniper elite, 1920x1200 screen resolution (my monitor's native resolution), directX 11, anisotropic filtering 16x, all other settings on ultra and high (when there was no ultra available) and all that but I had to skip the supersampling which loaded just too much of video data even for my card. I still got some 48 frames per second on average and some 21 fps as a minimum. And smooth as f*** :-D
It was a different story entirely when I loaded GTA IV. I had a screen res of 800x600 and warnings all over the shop that I exceeded or was about to exceed my graphic card's memory (which showed 202 MB out of 3GB). WHAT! ???
Did some research and came up with this
http://support.rockstargames.com/entries/20069778-Issues-with-GTA-IV-showing-video-cards-with-over-2GB-as-under-spec (http://support.rockstargames.com/entries/20069778-Issues-with-GTA-IV-showing-video-cards-with-over-2GB-as-under-spec)
OMG. I had to manually downgrade the specs using a command line parameter telling the game I had "only" 2GB. And it worked. Now I have everything maxed out and get some decent 60+ fps. The game looks NICE now :-()
All this reminded me of nexor who said he was unhappy with his gtx650. In order to get fast rendering results, I always check the nVidia control panel first and change my global settings to something called "performance" and additionally I change those settings so that they still offer quite good quality. For fun and giggles I tried the original settings and started the benchmark in sniper elite and only got some 30 max, 11 min fps. With everything tweaked, I got twice as many fps.
Alright, on we go.. :)
Oh and I want to add, I haven't used my turbo for this, so it's an i5 @ 3.7GHz "only" result :-D
And, the rig is SILENT! I can't believe it. The loudest thing is my blueray when I have a disc spinning up in it. Else.. it is so.. silent ??? I do hear it, though, but hell, it is a lot more silent than my old rig ^-^ :-D :-X
Just tested LA Noire. Oh MAN, with everything maxed out and on DX11 it is a dream. And here I was thinking it already looked good on my old rig. Now it is very close to an actual movie :)
Dang, I'm jealous! ^-^
Sorry, you really shouldn't be :) Instead, just change that into "Dang, I'm going to get one of those myself!" :-D
I just stopped by to get my cheats for FC3 (-GameProfile_UnlimitedAmmo 1 -GameProfile_GodMode 1 -GameProfile_IgnorePlayer 1) which is now installed. I had to take a look.. I turned everything on and set everything to ultra respectively the max and on DX11. Damn, this looks good :) And smooth as silk :-()
By the way, the UBI cloud worked, I got all three savegames, too. Just taking off where I left ^-^
That's perfectly alright; I can be envious, and yet be very happy for your fortune! ^-^ I'm afraid that I'm quite a bit like you and will squeeze whatever life I can out of my current rig ;)
Quote from: Art Blade on July 13, 2013, 09:16:50 PM
By the way, the UBI cloud worked, I got all three savegames, too. Just taking off where I left ^-^
That statement almost made me fall out of my chair; you mean it actually worked as advertised? ????
Sorry I didn't read properly your m/board make :-[
Your keyboard drivers and software are available from here http://www.logitech.com/en-gb/support/g19-keyboard-for-gaming?section=downloads&crid=404&osid=14&bit=64 (http://www.logitech.com/en-gb/support/g19-keyboard-for-gaming?section=downloads&crid=404&osid=14&bit=64)
All of your drivers including USB, manual and bios' etc for you m/board are here http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77M_PRO/#support_Download_30 (http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/P8Z77M_PRO/#support_Download_30)
I noticed there was a firmware update for the Intel Management Engine to run Win8! I hope this still runs Win7 ok after!
PZ, indeed, I was equally surprised. If nothing else, at least that feature worked :-D
Able, very kind, thank you! Re: BIOS, yep, I should hope so. Going to check those mobo downloads :) :-X
Glad to see that you're taming the beast, Art :-X Now to make it sit up and beg :-D
I'd love to see how those games you mentioned look on it 8)
I've been toying with the idea of getting a new machine together sometime next year, maybe. My current PC was upgraded not too long ago and I'm happy with it as it is, just as long as I don't try to max out everything. As you know I do a bunch of graphics stuff, and games being such resource-munchers these days I know that if a PC can run the latest graphically-intensive games it could handle my 3D graphics programs with one chip tied behind its back. So if I go for whatever can run games with aplomb, the rest will follow.
But what I DON'T want is W8. I've seen that and I don't think I could live with such a fugly desktop - I don't want something that looks like a dirty big smart phone sitting on my desk. I'd want to stick with W7, which would probably mean having to go through the same sort of hassles that you've been going through.
But whatever I might get, I know for sure that there's one thing that won't be improved - my internet access "speed" :D
Art I sometimes get funny looking images while in FC3, next time it happens I'll take a video clip and post it
nexor, thanks for the reply. That sounds.. weird. Like a heat problem, perhaps. If it doesn't overheat, it'd be an issue I'd consider a hardware failure. There shouldn't be any "funny" looking images produced by a device like that.
fragger, by the looks of it I daresay you're going to go through even more hassles than I have :-D MS is pushing hard at getting w8 out and on every bloody system they can get their virtual extended greedy hands on.
@ all
You may have noticed my absence of a sudden. It so happened that, after quite enjoying my new rig and myself, the next day it all came to a proper stop. My network was gone. Turned out wasn't my network gone ('cause my old PC did connect all leisurely) and I was really getting upset because I couldn't for the life of me get it sorted out. So yesterday I resorted to reading a good book by an author goes by the name of Joe Abercrombie and is his latest book (I got 'em all). Today I had my wits back together and stabbed at my new PC a bit until I decided to give it a complete overhaul and set my mind to yet another w7 installation. Funny thing is I chose "update" so I updated windows 7 to windows 7 which was about as logical as killing a man makes him stay dead. But it worked. The real problem was Microsoft .NET framework 4 was broken and needed fixing. I could have killed for less but JEEZ, how about a proper error message BEFORE I was slapping a whole new OS on the rig? Obviously it helped, I'm typing here. :)
Phew.
I tried various things to get the remaining hardware components unknown to w7 to w@&k and had downloaded tons of drivers and all from ASUS thanks to Able's links. I still have one USB controller missing out despite all the efforts.
I happened to find ASUS's own link to the rig I got: http://www.asus.com/Desktops/ROG_CG8480/ (http://www.asus.com/Desktops/ROG_CG8480/)
edit: can't be, 8480 has a 3770K processor. But it's next to impossible to find the correct one. ASUS TYTAN CG8480-DE010S is likely what it is. Motherboard is a P8Z77-V PRO
Try to see what hardware is in it. For example which motherboard. You won't find it. I know which because the shop I bought the rig had some specs on the net that gave an almost proper description and I found it after some digging (the one I posted a couple of posts up). Why do I keep believing things are easy when they never are? Such as getting a goddamned hardware list with a matching driver download option on the manufacturer's own damn support site? :D
At least I'm not exactly someone who gives up easily. :-()
OK guys.
Now I do think I'm back :)
Glad you got it sorted mate :-X
MS net framework is one of the most troublesome bits in windows (apart from driver issues), it takes ages to install/update :D
I have found 2 usb controller drivers on this page Art http://www.asus.com/Desktops/ROG_CG8480/#support_Download_30 (http://www.asus.com/Desktops/ROG_CG8480/#support_Download_30)
, I don't know if you already have them both?
Whenever an issue occurs it is always prudent to open a command promt (with admin rights) and run the "sfc /scannow" command (usually takes less than 10 mins). Then check for updates.
Thanks, nexor :) Tell me about it :-D
Thanks, Able :) I had found them, too, and I tried them both. Still, the one that's missing is very likely to be one responsible for USB3.0 for which I don't have any devices anyway so it doesn't matter yet.
Quote from: Art Blade on July 17, 2013, 12:14:47 PM
OK guys.
Now I do think I'm back :)
Glad to hear it, old fossil! ^-^
Quote from: Art Blade on July 18, 2013, 10:11:54 AM
so it doesn't matter yet.
I'm sure you
will need it! USB3 is soo much faster! Are your USB3 sockets active? (they are backwards compatible with usb2 devices).
PZ: :-()
Able, just now I'm guessing they won't be but I'll try it anyway, hold on..
No. The rig realised some USB device got stuck in one of those jacks and then miserably failed to install the software needed for my USB stick. More than likely because windows can't find the driver for the controller handling it. Which is what I said in my last post. And no, I won't be needing them unless I want to which I don't. I'll be waiting for a driver to pop up eventually as it obviously isn't exactly some type of wide-spread hardware yet. Everything I really need is working properly, though, which is more important to me :)
Quote from: Art Blade on July 17, 2013, 12:14:47 PM
fragger, by the looks of it I daresay you're going to go through even more hassles than I have :-D MS is pushing hard at getting w8 out and on every bloody system they can get their virtual extended greedy hands on.
Yeah I know (sighs), which is why I think I'll stick with this rig until it clags out, or I do :-()
Glad you're getting things sorted out though. I salute your doggedness :)
On the subject of Win8 I've heard that there was so much clamor over the missing Start Button in the bottom of the screen task bar that sometime this summer there will be a Win8 system update put it back into the OS options for those of us who lean on it so heavily. When that becomes available it will probably be the only time I ever allow my 20in Win8 tablet to access the update server or even the internet for that matter.
I'm really trying to avoid the inevitable loss of start up speed due to system updates. I don't want chronic Creeping Functionality that all Windows driven products are susceptible to infecting yet another system. ::)
cheers, fragger :-()
mandru, it's not the updates that cause a slow-down.
Usually that is caused by a messed-up registry which is caused by installing and uninstalling truckloads of demos, shareware, and random other programs. Most of the time you won't get a really clean uninstall. The programs and folders may be gone but their mucky legacy stays in the registry. Unfortunately windows will w@&k the registry and happen upon old entries and go, "ok, there's an application registered, let's find it. Hmm, can't find it.. let's make sure and try again.. hmm, still nothing.. ok, next entry." And so on. THAT slows down your system. In other words, either take every means possible to get a clean registry or, much simpler, think BEFORE you install anything. If you install something, just keep it. Like that, my systems have been about as quick as they were after a fresh OS installation, even after more than four years, without ever having to reinstall or clean up. :)
Other than the four games I've loaded and Irfanview all still on the system and the Windows updates I've not let anything else near my gaming system. There have been no trial ware, shareware, demos or random other programs loaded and then uninstalled.
If there's something being uninstalled leaving holes in the registry it's happening during either the Windows or the occasional Adobe updates. :knockout
then your system shouldn't be slower than before ????
Art is correct; the registry is the source of many of Windows woes. Because few ever look into the registry, MS evidently does not feel the need to make it clean and tidy - after if you can't see it, it can't hurt you, correct?
I've been using CCleaner (http://download.cnet.com/CCleaner/3000-18512_4-10315544.html) for a few years and it manages to somewhat keep your PC clean of foolishness, but there is absolutely no substitute for a fresh OS install to improve performance.
I've noticed that every time Windows 7 does an update, I can't play my Steam games offline (Civ V, Tomb Raider) until I reconnect with Steam. If I try to run those games offline after a Windows update I get some message about my Steam account user data apparently not existing on my PC and that I have to login to "check the status of the Steam server", or some such. So I login to Steam, and once I've launched the game while connected to Steam I can quit the game, logout from Steam then relaunch the game offline and all will be well - until the next Windows update. Then I have to do the above all over again.
Whatever it is that these updates do (and what exactly do they all do?), they apparently change something that interferes with my onboard Steam user data. I don't know if it involves the registry in some way or if it's got something to do with IE, which I never use anyway, but something pertaining to Steam evidently gets changed somewhere.
Mandru nice Avatar!!!! What the f*** made you identify with Rembrandt? :)
I was wondering that, too. That drawing looks like one of Wilhelm Busch's illustrations :)
Quote from: Art Blade on July 24, 2013, 01:44:14 PM
I was wondering that, too. That drawing looks like one of Wilhelm Busch's illustrations :)
I love Wilhelm Busch! I used to have several volumes of his works, and Max und Moritz were among my favorites.
Max und Moritz ^-^ :-X
From the first time (about 35 years ago) I encountered this picture I've loved this self portrait drawing of Rembrandt. The art book that I found this w@&k in gave it the title "Mouth open eyes popping" but whatever that translates from in his native language I was never able to locate it again until recently when Google had a day honoring Rembrandt's birthday.
I went to Google Images and within the first few view frames was reunited with this old friend. :)
A playful young Rembrandt, not afraid of presenting himself in an unfavorable light and wearing a facial expression that I can easily identify with and have worn myself. :-D
I like your last sentence, mandru. Made me smile :)
I love Rembrandt as well. I remember the first (and only) time I visited the Dutch National Museum in Amsterdam where they show "De Nachtwacht", his most famous painting. Its as big as a wall.
We want to visit the museum again soon; they renovated it and now it's my daughter's time to admire these great pictures ;)
maybe it could come to you Binn. ;)
Amsterdam - Rembrandt Flashmob - The Night Watch - HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiC2CXtCFxY#ws)
I saw this a few months ago and your post jogged it loose in my memory. :)
cool advertisement! :-X
Heh, indeed! ^-^ :-X
Update on my gaming rig issue regarding unidentifiable hardware:
Today I noticed my "Action Center" (w7 taskbar notification gimmick) had one message. It simply told me to download drivers for my USB 3.0 device. ???
I clicked on the message which opened FireFox and it immediately started a download:
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/K84HR/USB3_AsMedia_Win7_64_Z11480.zip (http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/nb/K84HR/USB3_AsMedia_Win7_64_Z11480.zip)
WTF >:(( Why doesn't windows download and install those drivers when it already knows they're needed and where to be found? Maybe because it's a zip file? :D
So I downloaded and installed those drivers from Asus and now I have no hardware issues any more.
:)
Leave it to Microsoft...
Yep. Typical... ::)
Nice one eventually! :-X
:-D
Man, I envy you for having such a monster rig, Art. 1,200 euros is a lot of money, I think few pc gamers spend that much.
Yes, we consider Art to be among the very few :-()
Well, I had to choose between spending it on say a 14 days holiday or.. so I opted for the "or." :-D
it's a very nice "or" indeed ^-^ Will last apparently longer than the holiday :-X :)
those were my thoughts, exactly. :-()
:laugh: I'll go for the "or" just about any time over a consumable!
Quote from: Binnatics on September 06, 2013, 02:39:37 PM
it's a very nice "or" indeed ^-^ Will last apparently much, much longer than the holiday :-X :)
Fixed. A very wise choice :-X
Just upgraded my 2TB HDD to 3TB and what a mission, win7 don't recognise above 2TB >:((
After a lot cursing and almost a whole day wasted trying to find a solution, I still haven't found one that resolved the problem :D
[smg id=6240 type=preview align=center caption="HDD"]
nexor, check this out
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2581408 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2581408)
Thanks Art I checked it out, instructions are pretty easy and accurate to follow up to a point then it goes haywire, vital steps they give that will complete the function don't exist so you're back to square one. :angel:
Seagate offer a program "Seagate Disk Wizard" for download, this program is developed by Acronis and have a couple of handy functions, one of these functions "Add A New Disk" removes the unallocated section of the hard drive but their clone disk function can only be successful when you purchase their full version "True Image 2013"
that you only find out when you attempt to clone your HDD.
But then I found another program "Mini Tool Drive Copy" this little program did a perfect clone of my existing HDD to the new one and now I have the full usage of the 3TB 8)
:) :-X
makes me wonder exactly why MS can't implement a simple option. Just something like a dialog, "for single hard disks with more than 2TB capacity: click here to make it your boot drive / click here if it won't be a boot drive" >:(( :D
???
*note to self buy two, three or four 2TB drives but never a 3TB or larger drive*
And now MS has taken over Nokia and Vodafone, Vodafone used to be Vodacom, the largest mobile phone network in Africa. :o
Not only do I have to put up with MS regarding my pc, now I have to put up with them regarding my mobile phone and as my service provider :D :D
You'll do well mandru :-D
Quote from: nexor on September 08, 2013, 02:51:27 PMNot only do I have to put up with MS regarding my pc, now I have to put up with them regarding my mobile phone and as my service provider
That's how world domination starts.. their OS already is spread out worldwide regarding windows PCs.
I can't believe some of the short-sightedness displayed by some developers. Here's something similar...
I've been using Photoshop 7 for many years, since it came out in fact. It never gave me any grief until I got my first 2TB HDD. When installing, Photoshop by default uses whatever volume it's being installed on as a "scratch disk" for temporary virtual RAM and has done so since its early days. Trouble is, in its early days a HDD with anything over about 2MB capacity was unheard of and the programmers apparently never thought that HDDs would grow to have the capacities that they have today.
Consequently, if you try to install Photoshop 7 or earlier on a volume that has over 1TB of space it apparently can't cope with all that room and will instead decide that the scratch disk (installation drive) is already full, will tell you so and won't install. There are several workarounds: 1) create a <1TB partition on your HDD and designate that as the scratch disk (I wasn't keen on doing that when I already had a big bunch of stuff on the drive); 2) fill up your single-partition >1TB HDD with junk to bring the available space down to under a TB, then designate it (in other words defeat the purpose of having more than a TB of space in the first place); 3) designate a second HDD as the scratch, if you just happen to have one on board (but it still has to have less than 1TB of free space); 4) use a removable USB storage device as the scratch (however this will have to be present whenever you want to run Photoshop - if it isn't, PS apparently can't tell the difference between a missing volume and a full one so you'll get the "Scratch Disk is full" message and Photoshop won't run).
Whichever option you choose, Adobe have conveniently forgotten to tell users that the only way to designate a volume other than the install one as the scratch disk is to hold down the Control key while the installation procedure commences. A dialog will then open allowing you to designate a scratch volume and installation will continue. If you don't know that, you're screwed - you'll get the "Scratch Disk is full" message and installation will be cancelled.
And the woes won't end there. Even after designating a different volume from the install one as the scratch disk, Photoshop will still not let you save any files from within itself on any volume that has over 1TB of space. Which means saving to another volume (usually whichever one you designated as the scratch) then copying the file via Windows Explorer if you actually want it on your >1TB HDD.
Admittedly more recent versions of Photoshop (such as CS) don't have this issue, but since a new version of PS costs thousands of dollars and I refuse to pirate, plus the fact that the newest version is cloud-only (sigh), I prefer to stick with 7. It's the one I'm most familiar with anyway. Which means a lot of file-moving whenever I want to w@&k with it. There are no patches to address the scratch disk issue as 7 is now unsupported by Adobe and I've never been able to find any kind of a crack to do the trick. Believe me, I've looked...
And all because some programmers apparently didn't realise that HDD capacities might get quite large in the future ::)
And I thought I had problems :-D
At least I managed to resolve mine, the procedure I used turned out to be quite simple :-\\
I've got a new 27" monitor. LG 27EA53 widescreen with IPS LED "life-like colour expression" technology, 1920x1080 native resolution (16:9) for €238.-- (not too shabby :) )
I wanted one extra, for use with my old PC and, when needed, for dual display usage with my new PC, so I needed two monitors with the same specs. The new one should have had the same res as my old one, 1920x1200 (16:10) but none of those about 50 monitors which that shop had on display (literally, hehe) had a higher max res than 1920x1080, that stupid Full HD factor. >:((
However, it looks a bit crunched but it is wider indeed, basically it means that you can watch CinemaScope films without black borders. Looking at this forum while typing also looks a lot wider :) Actually, it looks cool, a 16:9 mode in games makes them look a lot more like being in a movie.
Although I had to downsize the following pics to 1024x640 and 1024x576, the aspect ratio was maintained. Here a before/after or, old/new comparison (click on the pic to enlarge, only then will you see the difference, or click on it and then "details" so you get to see the media library, those pics are next to each other which means you'll see the difference even better) :
[smg id=6274 type=preview align=center caption="1920x1200"]
[smg id=6275 type=preview align=center caption="1920x1080"]
Impressive! :-X
Nice gear! Just in time!!! I mean... far too early. GTA V will only come out in PC months from here, heheh :angel:
time enough to configure all that new gear :-D Maybe I get a 2nd monitor of the same model, that would at least take care of a "synced" dual monitor setup. Two different monitors (particularly if they have different native resolutions) are not recommendable because one has to downscale. If they have a different build, like slightly different sizes and frames, it looks strange and is distracting (been there, done that)
Update on the dual monitor thingy. Today I connected my old 1920x1200 native res TF monitor and was surprised to see that I can actually operate both monitors simultaneously at their corresponding native resolution (the other one is 1920x1080). :)
I'm not sure whether it's a matter of what my vid card is capable of or what windows7 can handle or the combination of both. You know, I used to have two monitors before but it was with windows XP and with older vid cards so I don't know exactly why I couldn't operate two different monitors at different resolutions at the same time back then. However, now it works :)
:-X
Hehe, just experimenting. While I'm writing this on my 2nd monitor, I have another instance of firefox open on my 1st screen with a YouTube fullscreen vid running. :-D
I'm still on my old original Vista-64 machine, two monitors, each displaying different applications, and my video card (now old) is an nVidia 295 - not sure when things changed from XP
I upgraded my internal memory today. From 2x4 Gb Corsair Vengeance into 4x4 Gb Corsair Vengeance ^-^ :-X
Installing was so easy. Just plug in, secure, tur system on and MSI Quick-BIOS immediately detected the change and guided me to the main OC-config care that is easy accessible between regular boot menu and Windows launch. Didn't have to change a thing, since all Mem is same brand and type, and now I have a double size think-frame :-X :)
All that's left on my wish list is the Asus GTX780 DirectCU II 8)
Congratz, Binn! :-X
nice :)
Nice one Binn, went to one of my supplier's today, saw the techies install one of those into another rig, the thing looks mean ???
Two days ago lightning wacked the network chip on my big rig's Mainboard :'(
luckely it's still under warranty, so I hope they'll replace the MB without any paraphernalia :-( :-(
Eeeek! ??? Good luck with that, nexor, hope you'll be up to speed soon.
Sorry to hear that nex. ???
Hopefully the warranty will cover things.
Just got word....stop....network chip blown....stop....MB replaced....stop.... collecting rig in the morning....stop.... :-D
nice :-D :-X
Cool
The techies say the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 was also blown, not to my recollection, everything except the network was working fine, they replaced it with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 which is double the price as to what I paid for the 560, no charge :-D
Quote from: nexor on July 09, 2013, 12:19:34 AM
Looks good Art, I'm not too happy with my Nvidia 650GTX-Ti gpu, at some stage I will have to look at something better...... :-(
Now I see that your "650" was a typo. So it was a 560. OK, well, now you and I have the same CPU :) I'm curious whether or not you're going to have those "funky" graphic errors which originally made you wish to get a better card (that you've now got). By the way, how much video memory has that new card of yours got?
Oops sorry for that, they haven't given me the box, and I haven't checked yet, will post as soon as I have the info
Base Clock: 980 MHz
Boost Clock: 1033 MHz
Memory Config: 2 GB
Memory Speed: 6.0 Gbps Memory Bandwidth: 144 GB/s
don't worry about that. :) I've seen many offers that had 2 GB like yours but only one that had a 3 GB version which was the reason that made me buy my current rig. I once had a weird graphics glitch shortly after you mentioned it but never again since. I reckon it was only a driver issue because after that, new drivers apparently solved the problem so you should be good, too. :)
Quote from: nexor on January 24, 2014, 12:46:32 AM
The techies say the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 was also blown, not to my recollection, everything except the network was working fine, they replaced it with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 which is double the price as to what I paid for the 560, no charge :-D
Heck of a deal, nex!
Indeed mate, excellent warranty service there!! :-X :)
And nice card!!! I'm jealous with my 'old' GTX570 :-D
I was lucky this time for sure 8-X
Quote from: Art Blade on January 24, 2014, 01:37:34 AM
I'm curious whether or not you're going to have those "funky" graphic errors which originally made you wish to get a better card (that you've now got).
The "funky" errors I had on the 560 was a breeze as what this 660 did, within 5 minutes of starting, the game became completely unplayable, even updating the drivers (which the techies was supposed to do) didn't help, had they attempted updating the drivers they would have discovered the card was faulty.
Just got back from them now, graphics card was faulty, they installed another one and updated the drivers, all's well, machine working fine
Who says lighting only strikes once?
My observations is that it continues hitting the same spot over and over until it doesn't stick up any more. :D
Just the same nex I'm glad they've got it sorted out for you. :-X
So am I mandru, the next card up would have beeen an extra ZAR2000 ???
Graphics cards seem to be faulty more than I first thought. I bought a HD4890 back in 2009 and after a year it went belly up with the weirdest artifacts showing all over the screen when playing GTA IV. They gave me a newer replacement, the HD5870. One of the fastest single GPU cards than available from AMD. It worked fine initially, but after almost two years the same thing happened. Both cards were made by Sapphire. This time the shop only returned me the amount of money the card was worth at that moment, which was almost enough to buy my current; the Asus GTX570. This last card works fine now for almost 2 years already.
I have a feeling that Sapphire and I aren't a good match :angel:
Quote from: nexor on January 30, 2014, 03:40:42 AMThe "funky" errors I had ... all's well, machine working fine
Alright, thanks for replying. I hope your
new new card lasts this time :)
Yeah, good luck nex :)
Thanks guys, I need it, thunder and lightning's not over yet :-(
Quote from: Binnatics on January 30, 2014, 10:14:18 AM
Graphics cards seem to be faulty more than I first thought. I bought a HD4890 back in 2009 and after a year it went belly up with the weirdest artifacts showing all over the screen when playing GTA IV. They gave me a newer replacement, the HD5870. One of the fastest single GPU cards than available from AMD. It worked fine initially, but after almost two years the same thing happened. Both cards were made by Sapphire. This time the shop only returned me the amount of money the card was worth at that moment, which was almost enough to buy my current; the Asus GTX570. This last card works fine now for almost 2 years already.
I have a feeling that Sapphire and I aren't a good match :angel:
I have had 3 sapphire cards, all three of them have gone to RMA, always seem to happen, when I am starting up the computer, I get an electrical buzzing sound and then blue smoke.
Atleast we have good warranties that cover problems like that.
I've had one computer that had both a AMD CPU and graphics card and it probably would have worked better as a toaster oven. :D
In the last 13 years since that system I've switched three times to progressively better Intel CPUs and Nvidia graphics cards all of which have been EVGA branded. Since selecting that pairing of components (housed in an over sized case with plenty of good fans) my biggest concern about maintaining a gaming system has been reduced to remembering to crack it open occasionally to blow the dust out of it.
Good to know I'm not the only one having problems with Sapphire. I am very pleased with both MSI and Asus now. I use my second MSI mobo now, and it never failed me. It's totally matching my desires. Same for my last graphix purchase, the Asus GTX570. It has an outstanding cooler, the direct CUII. Compared to all other coolers on a variety of GPU's it always scores the coolest, one of the most silent and the best in both overclocking potential and performance-boost. My next purchase will be the GTX780 with that same cooler, even perfected to a higher level with a new type of fan. It's just a matter of time until I have the bucks to spend on it :-D 8)
So you're doing a fan dance now Binn? :-D ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MichelleLAmourFanDance2533.jpg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MichelleLAmourFanDance2533.jpg) )
Wait a minute I think I saw a fan that you had posted somewhere that was in your system and as I remember it was huge.
What? Are you going to hook a 30 gallon wet/shop vac to the exhaust pot and drag a tornado through your computer? ;)
:-D
I've never had any graphic card problems - maybe because I've never used any sapphire products. :-()
With that lady I could do a fan dance to the moon, and I don't need a wt vac for that :angel: :laugh:
Btw, I just ordered my replacement and will pick it up tomorrow!!!! ??? :o :-X :-X :-X :) :) :) :) (What I need here is a smiley with tornadoes in his eyes and sweat poring off his cheeks, smiling of course :-D)
you're getting a GTX780? ???
GTX 780 is good card, but I cant say that I would take DirectCU coolers, they score good thermal points in open cases/benches, but in closed cases they seem to have problems.
Also there have been so many posts in GFX forums, about those coolers not being installed properly and causing overheating. And to top that with the Asus Warranty "malfunction"
Got the monster laying on my desk ^-^
Will start with the installation tonight I guess, no time now. I don't worry about the cooler, the card won impressive rewards and I have experience with the cooler on my last card. My case has good airflow so as long as the cooler's properly installed, I foresee a lot of joy :) :)
780 Binn? My 680 has done a bang up job so it's hard to get my head around the performance jump that GPU will provide. Good luck on the install. :-X
Quote from: Stiku on January 31, 2014, 04:21:10 PM
GTX 780 is good card...they score good thermal points in open cases/benches, but in closed cases they seem to have problems...
This precisely reflects my theory on system builds of an over sized case with plenty of good fans. :-X
wow, nice! have fun, Binnatics :) :-X
Well, so far no fun with the new card. When I plug it in, my system doesn't even perform the POST. It hangs immediately. I do get to see a prompt and that's where it freezes.
Updated mobo BIOS and Drivers, tried to use the extra VGA 6-pin power connector on the mobo, uninstalled graph. driver, nothing seems to w@&k so far. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. All BIOS settings seem right, the card gets proper energy, enables the display, but lets my system hang in less than a second :angry-new:
I'll sleep over it and maybe tomorrow I get a bright idea. If not, I'll bring my system over to the shop, hoping that they will fix the problem. :-\\
That's sad :( Do you have a power supply unit big enough to deliver the wattage needed?
Quote from: Binnatics on February 01, 2014, 04:49:31 PM
Well, so far no fun with the new card. When I plug it in, my system doesn't even perform the POST. It hangs immediately. I do get to see a prompt and that's where it freezes.
Updated mobo BIOS and Drivers, tried to use the extra VGA 6-pin power connector on the mobo, uninstalled graph. driver, nothing seems to w@&k so far. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. All BIOS settings seem right, the card gets proper energy, enables the display, but lets my system hang in less than a second :angry-new:
I'll sleep over it and maybe tomorrow I get a bright idea. If not, I'll bring my system over to the shop, hoping that they will fix the problem. :-\\
Don't know your'e comps specs, so just throwing this "Windows Secure Boot", but that is a Windows 8 feature. :o
But sounds like a power issue as Art already posted. :D
Im running a 3770K and a R9 290 with a Corsair TX-850 (http://www.corsair.com/tx850w.html)
Recommended system requirements states a minimum of 600w power supply. That's what I have. Even adding extra power to the mobo's PCIe-connector doesn't make any difference.
That should not cause the problem. I think it still has to do with the BIOS, seems that the mobo doesn't recognize the new tech on board of the GPU. Will test it and see what it does ;)
Quote from: Binnatics on February 02, 2014, 07:26:29 AM
Recommended system requirements states a minimum of 600w power supply. That's what I have. Even adding extra power to the mobo's PCIe-connector doesn't make any difference.
That should not cause the problem. I think it still has to do with the BIOS, seems that the mobo doesn't recognize the new tech on board of the GPU. Will test it and see what it does ;)
That Extra PCI-E power is only 75W connector that gives the card more juice thru the PCIE connector, and that is usually for ppl who really push their hardware, or have a dual GFX system.
600W really doesnt tell anything, its actually more important to tell how much the +12V line has combined output, or just say the PSU make and model.
If the mainboard is fuzzied about the card it wouldnt either post at all, no image any time, or it would boot completly without the screen (IE windows boot sounds would play)
What im saying, give me youre comps specs so I can take a look :angel:
Thank you for your offer Stiku! :-X
Below are my system specs, with the latest changes included. Meanwhile I've been poking around and I found out that the "Live Update 5" program that MSI provides for updating your system including mobo drivers and BIOS, did not do a good job on updating my system. It only updated minor changes, without updating the Intel ME (from 7 to 8 ) and more important stuff that is available in the latest BIOS versions.
What I did was a manual update of the BIOS to the newest version, and that solved the problem!!!
Now another problem has risen, because the BIOS is no longer detecting my RAID array, where my entire gaming environment is on. Steam and all the games that I play through steam. So system is up and running, but no games available to test it on :-\\
Time to dig into updating mobo drivers as well, and reconfigure the RAID settings. I hope I didn't loose the content, otherwise I'll have to download at least 200Gb of gaming data, lol
Quote from: Binnatics on January 04, 2012, 05:47:46 AM
It's been a while since I updated my Rig info here, and I have dedicated an entire topic on the problems I had with my former (cursed) rig, so I thought it was about time to post my new rig now that it's installed and working!
Here we go Binnatics' New Rig:
Motherboard: MSI Z68A-GD80 (Gen-3)
CPU: Intel i7 2600K @ 3.4 Ghz
Graphicscard: ASUS GTX780 Direct-CU-II OC
Int. mem: 4X4Gb DDR3-RAM Corsair Vengeance (1600 mhz)
Powersuppl: Be quiet! System Power 7 600W (80 plus silver rank)
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 590 Midi tower
Sound: Logitech S200 black, 2 speakers and subwoofer
Headseat: Creative Soundblaster Arena Surround
Monitor: Acer S243HL, 24" FullHD LED widescreen
Hard disks: 2X SSD OCZ Agility 3 120Gb
2X Maxtor diamondmax 21 250 Gb in Raid 0 array
Optical drive: Sony DVD-RW +/-
Keyboard: Microsoft basic Keyboard 1.0A
Mouse: Revoltec Fighting mouse Pro. (laser tech, for ultimate precision)
Oper.system: Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit
Paper-device: HP Photosmart C5380 All-in-One
I waited with posting the stuff here until I was 100% sure everything works like supposed, and after some testing I'm sure now that the curse is gone :-X ^-^
Thank god, putting RAID settings back to normal in the BIOS solved the problem. RAID array was visible again and all that's on it as well. It made Windows think that Steam was a new program and had to be blocked, but besides that minor thing everything is working again ^-^
There's one tiny problem to be solved, my CPU fan is going crazy thinking my system is on load all the time. I try to put tit to act smart, but after every restart it begins again.
Edit: Problem solved. Another setting in the BIOS that had been set back to default. Now it's time to test my rig with some serious gaming :)
good to know that it's running now :)
:-X
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Also bought one of these
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impressive ??? :)
Uhh, what is a Lamptron? ????
That water cooler is very nice! But looks not even half as impressive as the heatpipes and fans at my airflow-cooler 8) Call me a Metal fetishist 8)
I had another problem occur after the installation; Microsoft found out I changed stuff to my hardware (mobo) and wanted me to activate windows again >:( When I followed the path they indicated me to do, I got a message that 'the windows key you introduced is already in use' :D :D
Had to re-activate through phone, and had to insert 54 digits in the phone, and then another 54 in my PC by listening to a breaking-up computerized phone voice. f@#k me! But it's activated again :angel:
Quote from: Binnatics on February 03, 2014, 12:44:41 PM
Had to re-activate through phone, and had to insert 54 digits in the phone, and then another 54 in my PC by listening to a breaking-up computerized phone voice. f@#k me! But it's activated again :angel:
??? Sounds just like B.... MS!
Quote from: Binnatics on February 03, 2014, 12:44:41 PM
Uhh, what is a Lamptron? ????
That water cooler is very nice! But looks not even half as impressive as the heatpipes and fans at my airflow-cooler 8) Call me a Metal fetishist 8)
I had another problem occur after the installation; Microsoft found out I changed stuff to my hardware (mobo) and wanted me to activate windows again >:( When I followed the path they indicated me to do, I got a message that 'the windows key you introduced is already in use' :D :D
Had to re-activate through phone, and had to insert 54 digits in the phone, and then another 54 in my PC by listening to a breaking-up computerized phone voice. f@#k me! But it's activated again :angel:
This is a Lamptron FC5 V2:
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LoginIts a Fan Controller (also a waterpump controller ( the FAN1 is the waterpump )
I can see "RPM" and "FAN" as well as temperatures so it ought to be a fan controller :) Although it looks like a space ship control panel :-()
Congrats on the new graphics card Binn :-X
Thanx Nex! ^-^
My first experience with the card was a short test in FC3. I put all settings to ultra and put on 4x aa. The quality was amazing. I looked at Dennis and almost saw a real person. I was flattered by the sun reflection in his glasses. What also pleased me was the fluid movement of the surroundings when walking or looking around. I think I had a high frame rate. When I entered a car and drove around, the framerate seemed to drop. Things moved less fluid. So I put the config back to 2 aa and it was much better. I do like the aa effect though, so I guess I'll have to figure out what to downgrade in order to keep the aa effect on.
Besides that, I haven't checked out the GPU tweaking options that came along. What is possible with the thingy when pushing it a bit further? Going to find that out next time when I have enough time to spend on gaming.
Right now my job is sucking too much time and energy out to have some left for a good gaming session, but that will change next week I hope ;)
Quote from: Binnatics on February 04, 2014, 01:49:32 PM
Thanx Nex! ^-^
My first experience with the card was a short test in FC3. I put all settings to ultra and put on 4x aa. The quality was amazing. I looked at Dennis and almost saw a real person. I was flattered by the sun reflection in his glasses. What also pleased me was the fluid movement of the surroundings when walking or looking around. I think I had a high frame rate. When I entered a car and drove around, the framerate seemed to drop. Things moved less fluid. So I put the config back to 2 aa and it was much better. I do like the aa effect though, so I guess I'll have to figure out what to downgrade in order to keep the aa effect on.
Besides that, I haven't checked out the GPU tweaking options that came along. What is possible with the thingy when pushing it a bit further? Going to find that out next time when I have enough time to spend on gaming.
Right now my job is sucking too much time and energy out to have some left for a good gaming session, but that will change next week I hope ;)
Try Geometry and Post FX, Post FX gives that motion blur and FXAA at high level, geometry actually gives more detail to the trees, leaves and grass.
I would myself start with the Geometry as nvidia 780 CUDA's are like two monkeys doing calculations regarding geometry instacing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometry_instancing)
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Login My glorious 6 months old rig >:D :-D
Specs
- CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K
- CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
- RAM: Team Vulcan 32 GB DDR3 1600 MHz
- GPU: MSI Radeon R9 290 Twin Frozr
- SSD: Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD
- HDD: WD Red 3TB 5400 rpm
- PSU: Corsair CX 600M
- Case: NZXT Lexa S ATX Mid Tower
- Optical drive: Asus DRW-24 F1ST
- OS: Windows 8.1 (Full version, 64-bit)
Handles GTA V quite good on ultra/very high (except the grass, got down to 17-30 fps when in the countryside with grass at "Ultra" :D). I was stunned by Far Cry 3 running at ultra/60fps :o ???. Couldn't
RETURN back to my potato.
Potential future upgrades (2-5 years): 1TB SSD, 4TB HDD, AMD Radeon R9 390X/390 (Crossfire?) If the card(s) are>10.5 inch long and my Lexa S isn't too small). I hope the sign of inequality is the right way :angel:
Quote from: PZ on March 19, 2010, 08:26:40 AM
Good idea - one place to see hardware specs of OWG gamers so people can ask specific questions if they are considering hardware purchase.
PZ's gaming rig:
- i7 920 2.66 GHz
- 6x Blue ray disc burner
- EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 - 1792mb SLI
- EVGA x58 ATX motherboard
- Cooler Master HAF black steel ATX full tower case
- Corsair 850 SLI ready, Crossfire ready active power supply
- OCZ platinum 6 gb DDR3 tripple channel kit
- WD 300 gb 10,000 RPM VelociRaptor
- Logitech cordless RumblePad
- Logitech G15 gaming keyboard
- Razer eXactMat wrist rest
- Logitech G9 5 button tilt wheel Laser gaming mouse
- Saitek v.3 Cuborg Rumble Pad
- Vista-64 with all service packs and updates
I've been able to play just about anything fully maxed.
I guess we need to change that to:
PZ's NEW, SELFBUILT gaming rig:
- CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor
- CPU Cooler: -Cooler Master Nepton 240M 76.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
- Motherboard: -MSI Z97-GAMING 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
- Memory: -G.Skill Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory
- Storage: -Samsung 850 Pro Series 256GB 2.5- Solid State Drive
- Storage: -Toshiba 3TB 3.5- 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
- Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 980 4GB STRIX Video Card
- Power Supply: Corsair Professional 850W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
- Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case
- Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer
- Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit)
;) :-D
:-X :)
I forgot all about this topic - thanks GKID :-X ^-^
No problem ^-^
you know you're growing older when "I forgot" is becoming a signature line when replying. :-()
Don't worry. You'll forget all about it in a minute :-D
:laugh:
Nice RIG GKID! And very sharp to remind PZ and actually post his 8)
Thanks :-D
Quote from: Art Blade on April 26, 2015, 03:41:30 PM
Don't worry. You'll forget all about it in a minute :-D
"You forget thousands things everyday. Make sure this is one of them" Michael De Santa (GTA V) ;)
Quote from: Art Blade on April 26, 2015, 03:41:30 PM
Don't worry. You'll forget all about it in a minute :-D
:laugh: :-X
:-()
Quote from: Binnatics on February 01, 2014, 06:21:53 AM
Got the monster laying on my desk ^-^
Will start with the installation tonight I guess, no time now. I don't worry about the cooler, the card won impressive rewards and I have experience with the cooler on my last card. My case has good airflow so as long as the cooler's properly installed, I foresee a lot of joy :) :)
I guess you have maxed most of the settings in GTA V? :-D >:D 8) ;)
Quote from: Stiku on February 03, 2014, 12:02:23 PM
Just got this waterblock for the R9 290, dropped the temps to 40°c from the usual 94°c.
Was it the reference version from AMD? ???? Using the MSI Twin Frozr IV R9 290. Idle temps is about 20-30C and it gets to 65 C when playing games :)
Finally... the monitor I want is in stock - should have it in a few days or maybe a week. ^-^
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/acer_xb270hu.htm (http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/acer_xb270hu.htm)
Cool :-D :-() Did you ordered it from the UK? :o ???
Quote from: PZ on April 28, 2015, 11:46:40 AM
Finally... the monitor I want is in stock - should have it in a few days or maybe a week. ^-^
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/acer_xb270hu.htm (http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/acer_xb270hu.htm)
Hope you wont get the 99% of the faulty units that Acer ships.
I've had 2 Acer laptops, and both have suffered a monitor breakdowns.
I hope so too - taking a chance, but newegg has a reasonable return policy just in case I don't like it. I'm mostly concerned about dead pixels as has been reported not too infrequently. I would have rather purchased it locally, but there is nowhere nearby.
^-^
BTW, here's some leaked specs of the 980 TI : http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-ti-detailed-has-6gb.html (http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-ti-detailed-has-6gb.html)
Received the new monitor and have placed it side-by-side with my original monitor - the bright crisp color is amazing. The old monitor now looks somewhat dim and gray in comparison. Not a single dead pixel.
Fired up GTAV, did the requisite 350 mb update, and checked the graphics settings - 2560 x 1440 and 144 mhz. Did the benchmarking routine in the game and fps varied from 48-78 fps - not exactly sure why. I guess I'll need to play with settings.
However, the movement was more fluid than anything I have ever seen on a computer screen - so smooth it seemed that I was actually flying the jet in the benchmark test. The screen is so large I don't need to use my regular reading glasses. No HDMI port, but several USB3.0 including a fast charge port. I'll just need to use the old monitor when I use one of the consoles.
great news, PZ :-X :)
I remember when I upgraded to a 26" Fujitsu-Simens monitor (as mentioned in my first gaming rig post) how nice it felt and when I upgraded to my current 27" full-HD wide screen monitor by LG (for some reason I don't seem to have posted about it but it's got to be some two years I reckon) how much better that was still. It is a bloody big screen, a 27", isn't it :-D
Thanks, AB, I was on pins and needles hoping I would not need to send the monitor right back to be replaced after what Stiku reported. I might even spring for the extended warranty after his experience.
Yes, 27 is a huge screen, I find myself moving my head WSAD just to take in all the real estate. I'm very pleased, and will arrange the screens today, and maybe even get a chance to play a little GTA
Cool :-X ^-^
Let the good times scroll. ;)
Quote from: mandru on May 02, 2015, 06:44:46 PM
Let the good times scroll. ;)
They see me scrollin', they lagging... :laugh: :-()
:-D
http://www.techpowerup.com/img/15-05-07/27a.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/img/15-05-07/27a.jpg) :o :o :o ??? ??? ???
http://www.techpowerup.com/212332/amd-fiji-xt-reference-pcb-as-short-as-gtx-970-reference-r9-295x2-performance.html (http://www.techpowerup.com/212332/amd-fiji-xt-reference-pcb-as-short-as-gtx-970-reference-r9-295x2-performance.html)
Leaked image of the Water-cooled R9 390X from Techpowerup.
Well, AMD announced the Fury lienup few mins ago, and the prices are :
Fury X will be available for 649 USD
the regular model Fury will be available for 549 USD
and also later this summer they will release the Fury Nano, which has 2x fiji core that is powering the cards.
reviews will be up next week.
I think you mean the "Quantum" which features two Fiji Nano GPUs ;) The "Nano" is a small factor Fury card. I wonder if it could be a worthy upgrade >:D
Btw, did you watched AMD's twitch livestream? ^-^ :-D
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Wow :o :-X
Late reponse to qkid, yes I did watch the livestream live.
Nice :-D ^-^ Btw the Fury X launched in Australia and NZ yesterday Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please
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Redditor TaintedSquirrel's rig with two Furys in CF: Guests are not allowed to view images in posts, please
Register or
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:-X
Normal for Aussies/NZ to pay more, but that is their own fault. :lol
Well the NDA are dropping tomorrow, so we can actually get some 3rd party reviews and benches.
That's our government's fault. I've been pushing for a revolution for some time now >:D
:-()
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202155&cm_re=fury_x-_-14-202-155-_-Product (http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202155&cm_re=fury_x-_-14-202-155-_-Product)
Sapphire Radeon R9 Fury X on Newegg :o
Guru3d Fury X review (http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/amd-radeon-r9-fury-x-review,1.html)
fixed./Art
Uhh, you need to fix the formatting :D 8-X
done. :)
:-X
:-X
The Fury X seems pretty impressive, taken all round. Not a gigantic increase in performance over other existing high-end GPUs, except maybe at the ultra-high end (which is where we'd all like to be anyway :-()) I like the idea of included liquid cooling. 4GB RAM isn't quite as future-proof as I'd like though, but it's still early days for HBM.
$979 AUD? My hip pocket just clammed up ??? I think I'll wait until prices come down and HBM becomes more widely established. Or I win the lottery.
For now, it is beaten by OC'ed 980/780 Tis IIRC. OCing of the Fury is also limited (voltage cannot be tweaked ????), but I guess we will see new drivers and the ability to OC in the future ^-^ Can't wait for DX12 Benchmarks :-D
I'm thinking about updating the Ram in my system. I currently have two 2gb sticks @4gb DDR3. I've not decided if I'm going to go up to 8gb or 16gb because I'm not sure of the difference between of installing 2 sticks vs 4 sticks in a system and if it really matters at all.
If I decide to go for 16gb ram would it be better to have four 4gb sticks or two 8gb sticks? Or even possibly being satisfied with two 4gb sticks for a total of 8gb?
I understand that the ram slots are paired 1&3 and 2&4 so the two 8gb stick option above would leave slots 2&4 open but what I don't get is if there would be a marked difference in performance speeds favoring one layout or the other.
The ram sticks are cheap so it's not a matter of cost for me at this time. I'll focus on cost (and latency) when I've gotten my head around the efficiency balance to better figure out what I want to do next.
While I'm aware this motherboard could expand up to 32gb with four 8gb sticks I see no reason to get silly about it. :-D
Would need to know your CPU and MOBO give more advice. This is to get the info for the max supported memory speed, and max supported OC memory speeds(1066/1333/1600/1866/2033/2300), and does the CPU support them. If you choose a lower speed memory, then low latency memory can compensate for the lack of bandwidth with faster data handling. Though 1600/1866 is actually more than enough for any app or game that is on the market, only benchmarks use the high level bandwidths.
Rule of thumb is that you should have same memory sticks on all slots to avoid problems, and there no performance benefits having 2 sticks over 4 or vice versa. But if you break one of the memory sticks, its easier to change one 4GB stick and one 8GB stick(price wise). dual memory channels w@&k in pairs as you mentioned allready, and doesnt matter if they are place 1&3 or 2&4.
Games and software will run easily with 8GB of ram, and pretty much all apps, memory intense apps will swap to harddisk if they run out of memory.
And to be silly about it, I got 32gb of ram at 1600mhz 7-7-7-21-1T, and yes Kingston HyperX ones.
I think we can all agree that Stiku is our resident IT specialist +1
Mobo is Asus Sabertooth P67 with a i7 -3770K 350GHz CPU. Current DDR3 mem sticks (two of them) are G.Skill 2 giggers for a total of 4gb. I don't remember the series name or the fancy numbers for the mem sticks. I do understand that the mem sticks need to be from the same production lot balanced in parity among themselves as well as balanced in placement on the mother board slots that they are installed in.
I also understand that the (as above described) mem sticks have a latency number that equates to the Lower the Faster.
What I don't understand is the 2 stick versus 4 stick comparisons or advantages when they are loaded and running at the same total gb level or if it makes any difference at all. I've heard that a 4 stick arrangement will use more power but I don't know if there is a speed advantage swap out for that extra power consumed.
There is no difference in performance between 2 or 4 sticks with your motherboard,the CPU is has a dual channel memory controller, also if you have 8 microchips in one memory stick and size is 4GB, and 16 chips on a another stick and size being 8GB, powerdraw will be the same.
2 or 4, its mainly the upgrade possibility for later and fault finding things that are different with these two. performance will be the same either way in your case.
OK, thanks Stiku. It's either two 4gb or two 8gb sticks that I'll be going with.
Since there's no performance enhancement to be gained by drawing on the dual channel memory controller I'll save myself a few pennies and not fill the ram slots.
Mrs. mandru and I were at the supermarket last night which is a rare occurrence because I tend to treat going shopping like it's a trip to the museum and she's in a hurry to grab and get out. Read that as I usually get left home. ::)
In view of my recent posts in this thread I encountered a product in the meat department that started me giggling. Somewhat annoyed at my drawing stares Mrs. mandru asked "What is it now?"
I pointed at a packaged Rack of Lamb and replied "I was just talking to the guys on OWG and this describes exactly what I want to upgrade on my computer."
Not getting it (or should I say stepping into my trap) she asked "What's that?"
I shrugged and replied "I was asking the guys about my computer's Lack of Ram." >:D
:laugh:
heh, spoonerism strikes again :-D
:laugh: Nice one mandru :-X
I want to know did she get what you were saying either?
Good one, mandru :laugh:
Sounds like you've been thinking about computers a few minutes too long. :-()
well.. as long as he doesn't try to install a rack of lamb into his rig, all is good. :-D
:laugh:
:-D
After 19 years together Mrs. mandru is fully aware and quick on the uptake of my quirky sense of humor. We'd have never survived otherwise.
She has admitted that my playing with and seeking out Spooner word pairs creates a somewhat contagious environment.
She's an instructor and seminar presenter for her job. It's not uncommon for her to come home at the end of her day and give me a mild scolding because of a tangled pair of words that have popped out during one of her presentation assignments. Often with results ranging from mildly embarrassing to the hilarious.
When that happens she's learned to wait a moment, then rein in her listeners, and blame me for infecting her with my punny musings. Then with a freshly awake audience she's able to move back into the more serious matters of her presentation.
hehe, the pun fart of a presentation.. :-D
???
That was very good Art. :laugh:
thank you. :-D
My old rig croaked so today I bought a new one.
lots of air intakes and big fans.. and some more stuff. :-()
+ 130 GB SSD from my old rig
+ 1 TB HD from my old rig
MidiTower CM Storm Trooper Black
730 Watt Thermaltake Smart SE
ASUS SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK S
Intel® Core i7-4790K 4x 4,000MHz Socket 1150 Haswell
16GB G.Skill Kit DDR3-RAM (2x 8GB DDR3-1600)
2,000GB HDD S-ATA III 64MB Cache
256GB SSD
Blu-ray/CD/DVD-ReWriter Drive (Blu-ray/DVD+/-R/RW, Dual Layer)
ZOTAC 4GB nVidia GeForce GTX 980 AMP! PCIe 3.0 DVI, HDMI, 2x miniDP
Realtek ALC1150 7.1 Channel
4x USB 2.0, 4x USB 3.0, 2x Gbit LAN, HDMI, Display Port 1.2, Audio Surround/SPDIF
Corsair Hydro H100i GTX CPU water cooling
Benchmark Result 15232 (3D Mark 2011)
Dimensions: 250mm x 605.6mm x 578.5mm
Paid 1,850 €
[smg id=8390 type=preview align=center caption="myrig 01"]
[smg id=8391 type=preview align=center caption="myrig 02"]
[smg id=8392 type=preview align=center caption="myrig 03"]
[smg id=8393 type=preview align=center caption="myrig 04"]
Sounds about just right :-D
Excellent choice man :)
ta. :-D
Now, that's some serious hardware >:D
I surely hope so :) Just had to add "GTX" to the wacoo :-()
What is that plating that covers your mobo? Is in aluminium, doing both the cooling part and protection against any "accidentally falling screwdriver"? Or something else? Never seen that before... ;)
You're right BinnZ, it is some sort of "Thermal Armour" that boosts heat dissipation ;)
ASUS' official website for the Sabertooth Z97 Mark S (https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH_Z97_MARK_S/)
:-()
Sweet :-X Nice looking piece of hardware Art, and impressive specs. That thermal armour is a cool innovation (literally :-())
Hope you have many happy hours of gaming with it 8)
Looks great Art. :-X
I've really enjoyed my build on the Asus SABERTOOTH P67 so with the few years between then and now the specs on the Z97 MARK S really appears to have brought some monster upgrades to the product line. :)
cheers guys :)
Another nice feature on Art's Z97 is that if you look at the first picture of the mobo next to its box in the link GKID7891 posted that every card slot on the board is protected with what the ad copy refers to as "White Dust Defenders - Repel the Dust, Expand the Lifespan".
The whole board (even the two second channel Ram slots) have removable covers that stay in place to (1.) help maintain and control the cooling air flow inside the shielding and also (2.) minimize the direct entry of dust inside the shielded board surface anywhere you have an unused card slot. The second picture of the board (on that link) shows all of card slots open and unprotected for comparison.
I think that particular feature all by itself is as cool as all get out. :-X
When I was looking to upgrade to my current mother board (on my last rebuild) I had actually ordered a previous iteration of the Sabertooth product line that also had the dust covers. Unfortunately the shop that did the build went with the cheaper Asus Sabertooth P67 without telling me and then went out of business quickly there after. Hence I didn't get a board with dust covers. :-(
One thing that had sold me on that key aspect of the board (the one I wanted but didn't get) was there was that in the Asus documentation while researching potential motherboards for my rebuild were key claims that the covers had been developed specifically to exceed military specifications for the durability of components to be used in desert combat situations. I know manufacturers make a lot of claims to hype a product but I still was impressed. :)
:)
The Storm Trooper case is also adding to the (as close as you may get to) dust-free idea by sporting removable dust filters. You remove them the way you'd open a drawer -- there's a handle and you pull them out, dust them off and push them back in. ^-^
Nice. :-X
Hardware certainly has come a long way since 2009, when I built my first gaming rig. Everything is more refined, and has a more solid feel to it's construction.
New version (http://www.kitguru.net/components/motherboard/matthew-wilson/asus-launches-new-tuf-sabertooth-z170s-motherboard/) of Mr. Blades motherboard for the Skylake CPUs (Intel Core ix-6xxx series)
Looks evenly impressive :-() :-X
:)
My comp is going into the shop Wednesday for a few upgrades.
Upgrades include:
* My 300GB hard drive is being swapped out after being burned to two 1TB hard drives Striped in Raid 0 (zero) that will run Win10 and host my gaming.
* One 3TB HD that then grab the data from those two Striped drives (stitch it back together) for back up should either of the two 1TB HDs fail.
* Adding two 8GB Ram sticks to the current 4GB for 20GB total Ram in DDR3
* Having my GTX 680 pulled out and stepping up to a GTX 980ti
That's the Win10 side of things
* To facilitate a Win10/Linux Dual Boot (on start up) I'm adding yet another 1TB HD loaded with Ubuntu and a suite of utility programs which will become my Browsing Platform.
Internet Explorer or Internet Exploiter?
In setting up my preferences in Win10 concerning the Privacy Settings (specifically when browsing) they expect us to toss our systems open to accept all cookies including those from Third Parties. I've always set my browsers so that all cookies are "cleared on window close" but it has become obvious that Win10 in the week since I upgraded is over reaching my browser preferences and recording my browsing history against my instructions.
MS calls it Personally Targeted Ads like it's a good thing and MS really wants to start profiting from it. And they seem to get really snotty about it if you don't want to allow cookies. The funny thing I've noticed is that even though I don't use the MS browser Internet Explorer and having my Firefox set to clear cookies on window close if I see something interesting and visit a site for a tech product or a clothing product line I'm still inundated with ads for those companies and their competitors days later. Even if I'm using Firefox in Privacy Mode. >:((
After verifying with the local shop (doing the upgrade for me) that the Win10 side of the dual boot will not be able to snoop into the Ubuntu drive I figured moving my browsing over to a Linux distro was the best way for me to put a thumb into corporate MS's eye.
Also on a side note I've noticed now after the Win10 upgrade that the Xbox App that MS has added to Win10's core functions (even though I have removed the Xbox App from being pinned to the system start up) is thrusting its way in between me and FC4 when I fire it up. I nor my games have ever been associated with Xbox and never want to be. I resent the damn intrusion.
More over I've come to understand that this infusion of Xbox into our PC gaming in Win10 will limit all games to 60 FPS.
A speed governor on our frame rates? Outrageous! \:/
Setting my own video preferences in my games, on my computer is my choice not Microsoft's! This intrusion runs contrary to the whole concept for why I'm a PC gamer.
So I will need to find some way to silver bullet Xbox and quick before I go into FO4. Maybe there will be a gamer at the computer shop that has already figured out how to pull Xbox's teeth.
Get a SSD rather than a HDD to boot from. You can disable the Xbox DVR on your PC by logging in with your Microsoft account. Maybe you could hold out for the Polaris/Pascal GPUs rather than buying the 980 Ti.
You can uninstall IE11 (not Edge) in W10 by going into the programs/windows features app. I've done so despite windows warnings with no ill effects to date (about a week or so)
You can also uninstall the xbox app and it's live tile, but will need to use the power shell. Definitely worth it in my mind, and I've uninstalled all the useless windows features cluttering up my start
In my opinion the 980ti is the mother of all good cards for a somewhat reasonable price, good choice :) I "only" got a 980 without "ti" because it wasn't available just then and boy, it wouldn't have come cheap, either.
You're going to be blown away with its performance when playing solitai.. er, FC2. :-D
Quote from: GKID7891 on February 09, 2016, 01:01:28 AM
Get a SSD rather than a HDD to boot from. You can disable the Xbox DVR on your PC by logging in with your Microsoft account. Maybe you could hold out for the Polaris/Pascal GPUs rather than buying the 980 Ti.
Thanks for the recommendations GKID7891 but I don't really trust SSD drives for anything other than disposable storage. In the last couple years here on OWG I've come across at least 3 tales of woe (two of those from Binnatics alone between him and his dad) about an SSD with the OS loaded on it snarfing out and turning the computer into a very expensive doorstop. And that's data collected from the small sample of posting members here on the forums.
Besides that 1TB SSDs cost around $300 U.S. dollars. That means just one SSD would be almost as expensive as the purchase and install for my three standard 1TB drives plus almost the full cost of the 3TB back-up drive.
As for the pending release of newer and more powerful graphics cards I'm wanting to get this done now while I can still enjoy it and at a price I can afford. :)
I have a MS account? ??? Why haven't they told me about this?
PZ the only thing I know about power shells are the ones the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles wear. >:D
Thanks Art I'm looking forward to giving this new card a run for its money. :-D
You could get a 250/512 GB SSD if you'd like. Having a SSD to boot means no way going back to HDDs for me (as boot devices) ;) My MX100 SSDs works great in my laptop/desktop (no issues with them). :)
If you need a GPU, no problem, but I believe 14 nm die shrinks and HBM2 is worth the wait: The Polaris is about 2x power efficient, a Polaris GPU sample equal to the GTX 950 used about 86 watt compared to 147 for Nvidia ??? ;)
A MS account is necessary to access Xbox Live.
I have my windows installed on a small SSD (120Gb) and have a raid0 config with 2 hd's of 250Gb which is where Steam installs my games.
120Gb is roughly enough to give space to windows and some 'normal' programs. No need for more imho. That's quite a cheap way of designing your HD space and RAID 0 really doesn't beat SSD by far ;)
I have a 256 GB SSD which covers my needs and a 3TB HDD for everything else ;) Next thing to do with my rig: Upgrade my MSI R9 290 to 2x R9 490X (CrossFire setup :-D) and perhaps a 1440p 144Hz freesync monitor :-()
Upgraded my keyboard yesterday (Bye bye Logitech K120, hello Corsair Strafe RGB) :-D (https://www.komplett.no/product/853862/datautstyr/mustastatur/gaming-tastatur/corsair-gaming-strafe-rgb-mx-brown)
I too use an SSD as boot drive, but just for the OS. If it goes bad, I'll just throw it out and get another. Just to squeak out a bit of extra life, I turned off automatic optimization, which is not needed on an SSD anyway.
It sure is nice to use the solid state drive - the boot to desktop feels almost instant.
nice keyboard, GKID. Cherry for the key switches is a good brand, I used to have Cherry keyboards
Thanks :) Will test it this weekend :-D
Glorious keyboard ^-^
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nice. :-D
:-X Colorful!
It can display 16,7 million colors so yes, colorful indeed :-D
Quote from: GKID7891 on February 11, 2016, 01:14:54 PM
It can display 16,7 million colors so yes, colorful indeed :-D
But does it play "Ja, Vi Elsker Dette Landet" when you turn your system on? ????
:-D
Don't give him ideas. :-D
Quote from: mandru on February 11, 2016, 02:15:52 PM
But does it play "Ja, Vi Elsker Dette Landet" when you turn your system on? ????
No it doesn't :laugh:
>:D
mandru just made me chortle :-D
I can probably make the lightning look similar to the Norwegian flag though :-D
Quote from: mandru on February 11, 2016, 02:15:52 PM
But does it play "Ja, Vi Elsker Dette Landet" when you turn your system on? ????
I admit it, I had to Google that one :)
Yuk yuk yuk :-()
But nice keyboard GKID :-X Makes mine look pretty dull and utilitarian. Probably because mine IS dull and utilitarian.
Fragger. "Ja vi elsker" (Yes, we love" is the Norwegian national anthem ;))
The keyboard can't play the anthem, but it can display our flag :-D >:D
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nice. :)
Yesterday I checked in on my local dealer and they sell that keyboard for 190 EUR which is bloody expensive. ???
??? I had a 20% discount on mine ;) Costs 1500 NOK usually, but the 20% discount made it 1200 NOK ^^
:-X
I was able to get my computer back from the shop with the upgrades I wanted. I am posting this from the Ubuntu Linux side of my system.
There was a three day delay on the completion of the w@&k on my rig because of my wanting to add Ubuntu as the Linux side of a dual boot rig. When I was picking my comp up the shop tech said that the Ubuntu load had fought them tooth and nail for three days getting loaded and working. The Ubuntu install when being loaded as the sole OS on the 1TB HDD insisted on creating a 10GB partition remaining blind to the remaining 990GB on the drive. ???
When I was receiving updates from the shop on their progress I'd gotten the impression that Ubuntu was so accustomed to being part of a dual boot on a shared HDD that it became paranoid of all the space present in a 1TB drive and in a state of panic huddled in the corner of it all by creating a safe little cubbyhole. I mentioned that to the shop tech when picking my system up and he'd admitted that was pretty much the case.
To get Ubuntu to run as the sole OS on a 1TB HDD he'd had to create three partitions. There's a 5GB partition housing the OS itself, then (if I recall correctly) a 5GB partition to act as a system directory, and finally the 990GB on the drive for usable storage. ::)
Along with the rest of my rebuild the shop had to revert from Win10 back to Win7 so they could install the two drives I wanted configured in RAID 0 and then with the Raid setup working re-access my free upgrade to Win10 so that they didn't have to charge me for a new copy. That process left me with the joy of having to spend a few hours resetting my preferences in an OS I've decided that I really don't like to start right off the bat.
I lost a lot of info on the swap over to the new drives like all my bookmarks and all previous loaded games and I'm sure there will be other amnesiac blind spots that I've not tripped over yet.
I reloaded FC4 (and Notepad++ for the cheats) so I could get in and dig around in game to check out the new graphics card with all settings maxed and my first impression is that all a faster GPU gives you is a lot more fog and crap floating around in the air so it's harder for you to see. I don't need atmosphere so thick I can taste it.
Otherwise everything is working very well so I suspect I'm the weak link in the process and that means I have some learning curve ahead of me.
that's quite a story mandru. I hope everything works the way you wanted it to, and good luck with getting used to all that :-X :)
:-X
:) :-X
Happy upgrade mandru, and may your temperatures be low and your frame rate high :-D
:-D :-X
Quote from: GKID7891 on February 22, 2016, 09:07:57 AM
Happy upgrade mandru, and may your temperatures be low and your frame rate high :-D
That could be a proper slogan for any tweaker enthousiast ^-^ :-X
:)
Quote from: Binnatics on February 22, 2016, 10:10:42 AM
That could be a proper slogan for any tweaker enthousiast ^-^ :-X
That's the PC master race reddit slogan :-()
Upgraded my power supply today :) Now, I run on platinum power (http://www.microcenter.com/product/470023/Platinum_760_Watts_ATX_Modular_Power_Supply). Next thing I need now: Two RX 480s and a new monitor :-D
:-X :)
Rockin' :-X
Dang, you're going to have a great rig!
Yep, let's hope the GPUs will actually fit inside :)
if it doesn't, use a bigger rig.. like, your room. :-D
He he, well, the dorms doesn't have internet and my computer is in our classroom 8-X
internet.. is there enough space on the rooftop for a football-field-sized satellite dish? :-D
Nope, but it doesn't really matter. I can game until 11 PM so I don't mind the lack of Internet in our dorms.
:)
Just received the latest price list from my pc component distributor.
There are two GeForce GTX 1050Ti cards, the one's base speed is 1290MHz and boost 1392MHz, the other one's base speed is 1354MHz and boost 1468MHz, so I think next pay day I will go for the faster one of the two, only ZAR200.00 difference in price........ 8-X
How are the prices on AMD cards in SA? Just curious. Which 1050 Ti model? MSI, Asus or EVGA? What is the amouth of VRAM in it?
Check this link out,
http://www.computersonly.co.za/amd_store.aspx?categoryid=35735 (http://www.computersonly.co.za/amd_store.aspx?categoryid=35735)
The specs on the one I'm thinking of getting. This one is the better of the two. Price is ZAR2840.00
EVGA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti GPU, 4.0GB GDDR5, 128-Bit Memory Bus, PCI-Express x16 3.0
Display Configuration: 1x DVI-D Port, 1x HDMI 2.0a Port, 1x DisplayPort 1.4
Clock Speeds: GPU: 1354MHz (Base) & 1468MHz (Boost) / Memory: 7008MHz
Features: EVGA Precision, NVIDIA® 3D Vision / Surround / GPU Boost 3.0 / G-SYNC™ / CUDA® / PhysX® / Adaptive V-Sync / DSR / TXAA, DirectX 12 (12.1 API), Vulkan/OGL
Damn, why is AMD expensive compared to Nvidia?
Nvidia is more popular
Ahhh I see :)
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LoginThis little fella arrived in my mailbox today :-D Welcome, Sapphire Radeon RX 480 Nitro+ (http://sapphirenitro.sapphiretech.com/en/480-8.html), we're going to have so much fun together >:D
Sounds like you're going to have lots of gaming fun!
Yep, now I can crank up Watch Dogs 2 to the graphical level it truly deserves :-D
Giveaway (https://sapphirenation.net/NitroYear/) from Sapphire, you can either win the same GPU or a copy of Civ 6. If I win the GPU, I'm going CrossFire >:D :-D
hehe, I can virtually see your town go completely dark when you start up that PC of yours. :-()
:laugh:
Hehe, the only thing I can imagine is a fire on my desk 8-X
well, that's something to start with. :-()
Or, start with a big bang >:D :-()
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LoginInstalled it yesterday! Man, it feels good to enjoy games in their highest quality now :-D The LED lights can have a solid colour assigned or a rainbow cycle :-()
Very cool :-X Happy gaming ^-^
nice. :-X :-D
Thanks, now I need a second one >:D
If you really want to boast, rent a cinema and connect the projector to your PC. :-D
I'd rather place RGB stuff (case fans, CPU cooler, motherboard and RAM sticks) in my PC instead :-D
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LoginGot myself a chrome gold Xbox One controller yesterday ^-^ At least this is how close I get to the "next-gen" consoles
nice, in my favourite computer shop I saw several different fresh controller designs among which there was something like yours, maybe the same type even. :)
Cool, well having something else than black and white is more enjoyable.
they were colourful (red and yellow the ones sticking out) but like yours, they were kind of themed, meaning some type of pictures painted across them. I'd prefer a simple colour without any theme.
Actually, it is plain coloured, it just reflects the objects on my desk. ;)
then I haven't seen anything like yours and then, I really like yours :-X :) The ones I saw had some weird, probably even pokémon-type of themes and so on, nothing I'd want to have on my desk :-() They were showcased and some design specials, at a price, of course.
:-D I had to order this from the UK. Took 3 weeks before it actually got here (lesson learned: I should never order stuff right after holidays if I want it fast) 8-X It works perfect and I don't need to worry about too many cables on my desk :)
Looks cool, GKID :-X
Does the xbox controller sticks w@&k in digital or analog way? I'm not sure I am describing correctly but what I mean is the graded or all-or-none way. When I use the controller on the PS4 to drive for example, it works in a smooth way - slight movement causes slight changes in vehicle direction. On the PC, I have a Saito controller which is all-or-none - when you move the stick even slightly it is the same as if you pushed the stick all the way.
those xbox 360 controllers for PC have got excellent analog sticks. No weird dead zone, they w@&k as intended. I got one of those, albeit black. :)
Excellent! Now I need to get one because there are instances where I like to use a controller. I remember D_B saying that he was using a controller on one knee while also using the mouse/keyboard. My skills are not that good - I need to use one or the other. :-D
The Xbox One controller works as the old 360. Mine is wireless, so I had to buy a separate wireless adapter to use it. Also bought a play and charge kit (gotta save the environment) Oh, it also turn itself off if I leave it idling.
The store (https://www.customcontrollersuk.co.uk/) where I got mine. They have some good looking PS4/Xbox One controllers for sale there.
By "wireless", do you mean Bluetooth?
Yeah, Bluetooth. Well, you could get a wired controller instead (cheaper). The play and charge kit USB cable works as a cable/charger on Win 10.
Ever since stiku (former member here) "made" me use a controller, I got better and better at it and now I can't imagine gaming without one. But. I always need mouse and keyboard at hand. My preferred way of gaming is: use the controller for everything but shooting :-D Then I'd put it aside, grab mouse/keyboard and do the shooting, then pick up the controller again. Most games these days are console ports anyway so they're by design better playable with controllers. Particularly the menus are usually very easily accessible using a controller while it feels sort of clumsy with mouse and keyboard. Unless it's a PC-based game. However, as long as I can hot-swap between mouse and controller, games are great. Which reminds me of FC3. Other than FC2, which allowed hot-swapping, FC3 would blank out mouse/keyboard as soon as you touched the controller. No going back unless quit/restart. WTF! So.. yeah, I like the 360 controller because it's just plug and play, it's not falling apart even if you dropped it and I like wire. Well, there are those cables and all that but at least it doesn't shut itself off when you least expect it nor does it require charging -- it's always there and will be even if gaming for 12+ hours straight. :-D
Thanks for the info, guys :-X
bloody hell, you're a fast reader! I almost only just left the "post" button :laugh:
and you're welcome ^-^
These controllers are awesome GKID!
Wonder if I could find a mouse with such a deco one day ;)
(and with analog buttons on the keyboard maybe ;)
Heh, I thought that was some kind of pattern on the controller as well, until GKID pointed out that it's actually reflections. I can see it properly now :-D That's really neat!
I believe Steelseries offers certain models in different colours. The majority of PC gaming gear tend to have RGB LED lighting instead (like my colorful keyboard I posted earlier) Yeah, I always dreamed about having a golden Xbox controller one day.
Binnatics, I googled your "keyboard with analog buttons" and found this (https://wooting.nl/). Comes with RGB lights, and is fully mechanical (click clack, clickety clack-clack). Might as well get this as my next keyboard when my Corsair Strafe needs to get a retirement :)
Interesting link Gkid :-X :)
Taking a closer look this certainly is a device that needs some more development. I wouldn't be surprised if I play GTA with it and suddenly my mouse isn't responding anymore.
I bet their tech will be adapted by big brands like logitech as soon as it's fully integrated, and then will be available at a lower price tag since there's only few buttons that need analog input for gaming.
It lacks the Numpad functionality and GTA requires that for flying. I wouldn't be surprised if this is developed for tournament gaming (CS:GO, DOTA 2, Legue of Legends) for now. I really hope they bring Numpad for it the future.
It will, I assume Corsair/Razer/Logitech and the other large gaming gear brands will throw themselves on that train.
Indeed. For now I am happy with my current setup ;)
I'm interested in that keyboard GKID, but yeah, it needs a numpad. I don't use the numpad much for gaming but I rely heavily on it for working with my 3D modelling applications.
I'm wondering how keyboards like these handle more mundane things like word processing and office w@&k. I can type fairly quickly and I'd be concerned that a mechanical keyboard might get tiring on the fingers after a while. I used to use a mechanical typewriter many years ago (pre-PC days) and it could make my fingers get achy after a while. Depends how much pressure is required to depress the keys, I guess. Probably nowhere near as much as an old typewriter.
The mecanical keyboards are lovely :) I have never returned to anything else after I got my Corsair Strafe with MX Brown switches.
A guide to mechanical keyboards (https://www.techjunkie.com/your-guide-to-buying-a-mechanical-keyboard/)