Build/Buy Campater

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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Riot » Sun Apr 22, 2012 5:48 pm

So here's my updated build:

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Publi ... r=12551169

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7bKI < Another cool website for selecting parts.

This does not include an OS, so if you can find a good way to get a discount version please let me know, as I might jump on building this as well soon. You can use the building website to go in and look for different parts and sort by review/price, and then you can find links to Newegg or other sites if you want to read specific reviews. But since I'm hyper nerdy and just spend time reading Newegg reviews of graphics cards and processors for fun on my own time, you can trust me on all this stuff. Just mentioning if you wanted to look at different case designs or something.

ANYWAYS, yup, there you go. If I find a buyer for my current gaming PC for like 350-400, I will probably jump on this.
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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by BigBadOrc » Tue Apr 24, 2012 12:24 pm

Fluffyumpkins wrote:I am also looking to build a media (ie. fanfic) box for streaming and such. Tell me about your old PC (or maybe you already did.)
I just built one of these.

I got a tiny motherboard in order to use less power. Mini itx?
I don't have a hard drive for the OS. It boots FreeNAS off of a thumb drive. It does raid and is pretty easy to use, but it doesn't support encryption yet :(
I got a cheap power supply, and I think the fan on it is loud as hell.
So I can stream stuff from this to a laptop and then hdmi to tv. I think Brian's got a windows media server that can go directly to tv. And windows supports both encryption and raid so maybe I'll go that route eventually.

Also, I stopped by Fry's and bought a gigabit wireless router for it because that makes your LAN transfer rate about 40MB/s instead of something shitty like 10 MB/s.
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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by MonMotha » Tue Apr 24, 2012 4:13 pm

I use an Antec ISK 300-65 case with power supply. It's only a 65W supply, but this is more than enough for an Atom or Bobcat based system with a couple of laptop drives or SSDs, and the power supply is completely fanless. If you use SSDs or a flash drive, the only moving part is the case fan which, if set on its lowest speed (more than enough for an Atom and should be enough for a Bobcat E-350) is nearly silent. For an Atom or very low end Bobcat (C- or low end G- series, but these are not commonly found in Mini-ITX), you probably don't need the fan at all.

Oh, there's also a 150W version of this case (internal AC supply, so no brick), but I don't know if it has a fanless supply. Getting 150W of heat out of a box that small may also be a challenge.

I'm also amused that 10MB/sec is now "shitty". I remember upgrading to 100Mb ethernet and thinking it was amazingly fast. Then again, my hard drive could only do maybe 20MB/sec at the time, while 60-80MB/sec is common nowadays for spinning metal, and SSDs can easily be limited by the SATA bus.

Still, 40MB/sec isn't that great for gigE, but it's about all you'll get out of Windows networking or SSH (using AES encryption) on those low end boxes. Optimizing for a LAN environment (large TCP windows, jumbo packets, and no or basic crypto), I can easily push 90MB/sec+ on my LAN. Maybe it's time for me to upgrade to 10GbE :)

FWIW, you want a Bobcat APU for media streaming. The graphics are surprisingly decent, and there's full media decode acceleration. Atoms are a bit more limited in that regard due to the more primitive graphics, and the CPU is slower, too.
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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Riot » Thu Apr 26, 2012 6:22 pm

I just bought my parts! I kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinda pulled the trigger with an impulse buy. The new 680GTX has been impossible to find, and I randomly refreshed the Newegg page and saw it in stock, so I bought it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125422

Never bought the absolute top of the line before. Should be fun!
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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Pokebis » Thu Apr 26, 2012 10:27 pm

My friend just got one of those.
That is a lot of money, Riot. It won't be top-of-the-line soon enough and it'll be way cheaper. :-/
You can run pretty tech tests and push games to their limits, but devs themselves won't ever optimize for top of the line. Sure in time it'll be evened out, but so would the price by then.

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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by SoDeepPolaris » Fri Apr 27, 2012 12:48 am

Pokebis wrote:My friend just got one of those.
That is a lot of money, Riot. It won't be top-of-the-line soon enough and it'll be way cheaper. :-/
You can run pretty tech tests and push games to their limits, but devs themselves won't ever optimize for top of the line. Sure in time it'll be evened out, but so would the price by then.
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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Potter » Fri Apr 27, 2012 2:03 am

Pokebis wrote:My friend just got one of those.
That is a lot of money, Riot. It won't be top-of-the-line soon enough and it'll be way cheaper. :-/
You can run pretty tech tests and push games to their limits, but devs themselves won't ever optimize for top of the line. Sure in time it'll be evened out, but so would the price by then.
tha's not that much money. I just spent a tad more than that on a piece of glass. You'll understand when you have a job


"devs themselves won't ever optimize for top of the line"

what? what does that even mean? Faster graphivcs cards don't use magical new technology (well, sometimes ,dx10, 11, pixelshadevv900, etc). Faster clocks, memory bandwidth, etc = morew processcing power = turn your settings higher, at higher resolutions, and maintain a stable framerate


also, im drunk, and am usualyl much better at communicating about technology


tldr u jelly and riot i hope u have a really nice hi res accurate displayto take advantage of some of these new games wit hthat card, love me some immersion


oh yeah I need to dl mass effect!
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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Riot » Fri Apr 27, 2012 5:56 am

Well here was my thought process: I originally had a 560ti picked out for like $270. I pour over every benchmark, and this card would maybe only be 20% better than the 470gtx I have now. I looked around at the 350-400 price point next because I wanted to feel a significant difference in fps so it actually feels like a totally new build, cuz it will last for 4 years. There wasn't really a solid nvidia option in this range, as ATI rules it with the 7950, which I was about ready to buy. However, I didn't really want to leave nvidia because they have better drivers and stuff, and the 680gtx was clearly a better choice for gaming performance. For 100 bucks more, I figured oh well. They have been super in demand and out of stock for weeks so I was refreshing the page all evening and when I saw one go up I jumped on it. The new Kepler architecture is nuts... this beats sli 580s in some things which is crazy for single gpu.
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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Pokebis » Fri Apr 27, 2012 1:43 pm

Potter wrote:"devs themselves won't ever optimize for top of the line"

what? what does that even mean? Faster graphivcs cards don't use magical new technology (well, sometimes ,dx10, 11, pixelshadevv900, etc). Faster clocks, memory bandwidth, etc = morew processcing power = turn your settings higher, at higher resolutions, and maintain a stable framerate
Of course it does, but the devs still won't ever develop their games with the highest-end systems in mind. That means someone with such a high-powered rig will generally have to manually edit drawing distances or add their own post-processing effects or textures.
The point is you can make Skyrim look better, but you'd just be polishing a turd. The devs could totally make the game beautiful, but develop with consoles and lower-end systems in mind to reach the largest audience. Tech demos are going to be prettier than the games you play.

Also I have a job with a decent amount of money in my bank account, but the money is nothing compared to my college tuition. Even if I didn't have expenses like that (but did have living expenses) I'd imagine, unless I have a high-tier career, .5k is still gonna' give the wallet a good 'ol hit especially when it's on impulse.

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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Potter » Sat Apr 28, 2012 5:09 am

Are you kidding? have you PLAYED any recent games? Metro 2033 came out more than a year ago and still no cards can play it above 60fps with everything on ultra. It's not because of inefficient design either, it's because the devs gave you some dx11 options so high the crop of cards that existed during release couldn't do it whatsoever. Battlefield is another example. Almost every new game out right now has settings that will rape even the newest card, I'm not sure what you're on about. Your theory would make sense if it wasn't an absolute lie. Maybe you're just playing peggle or weird shitty looking RTS's or something


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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Potter » Sat Apr 28, 2012 5:15 am

but i love u, cuz you're the only person that stills posts here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhNFrPtbKGc
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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Pokebis » Sat Apr 28, 2012 6:34 pm

Potter wrote:Stuff
Keyword was most.
My rig runs most shit in ultra and I only have a Radeon HD 5700.
Plus my example was Skyrim and Skyrim doesn't work with your argument. There are certainly a few, but I wouldn't believe "most."

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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Riot » Sat Apr 28, 2012 7:50 pm

There's no way a 5700 plays most games in ultra unless you are playing a very low resolution.... I mean I guess in like 15-30 fps...

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/537?vs=555

This is a 5750 vs. a 680gtx just to see compared FPS. I have a 1920 x 1200 main monitor and a second 1650 x 1080 monitor for side applications while I play.

I wanted to feel a huge upgrade from my already very powerful 470gtx. 680 is basically double performance with a much better processor so I'm happy. If I spend every day on my computer for a long time, it's worth it to have a very good video card that will be top tier for a year or so and very formidable for 3-4. I wanted to play the single player for Battlefield 3 because the graphics and lighting looked crazy, so I wanna pick it up. Have no interest in the multiplayer that much though, since I don't like huge maps and vehicles. If it shows up for cheap, I'll probably snatch it. Otherwise, gonna be playing Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2, CS:GO, and probably some other high profile MMOs that come out over the next couple years.

http://www.guru3d.com/article/gigabyte- ... n-review/8

Has some cool new features like adaptive v sync and new AA tech
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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Potter » Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:26 am

Pokebis wrote:
Potter wrote:Stuff
Keyword was most.
My rig runs most shit in ultra and I only have a Radeon HD 5700.


LOL

some people have to play games on their big ole work monitors, playing at 1280x1024 isn't an option. doubling the resolution more than doubles your processing requirements
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Re: Build/Buy Campater

Post by Potter » Sun Apr 29, 2012 12:29 am

Riot wrote:I wanted to play the single player for Battlefield 3 because the graphics and lighting looked crazy, so I wanna pick it up. Have no interest in the multiplayer that much though, since I don't like huge maps and vehicles.=h
In the multiplayer filter, select infantry only. you'll get a big list of servers that usually run much smaller maps with no vehicles of any kind, I bet you'll like. It's really fun. You can then filter those down to just deathmatch or team deathmatch, so there's no flag capturing
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