The 'Build Me A PC' Thread

[Chimpy]

DDR4 is quad-channel, for performance you want to have 4 sticks.

At least that is what it is like in server land 

[KallDrexx]

Saw a Sapphire Nitro R9 Fury for $350 on amazon (CamelCamelCamel shows it almost never going below $500).  With my amazon credit (and after taxes :-/) it only cost me $330.  Excited to get that today.

I wonder if I'll win the silicon lottery and be able to flash it into a Fury X.

*Edit:* Jesus graphic cards are (physically) massive these days.

[MisterNoisy]

DDR4 is quad-channel, for performance you want to have 4 sticks.

At least that is what it is like in server land 

On Skylake/LGA1151, you're still using dual-channel memory controllers to the best of my knowledge.  You need to step up to X99/LGA2011-v3 for quad-channel.

[Chimpy]

Thus my disclaimer. I buy servers much more often than I deal with desktops.

[MisterNoisy]

I hear yas - I just wanted to make sure that SurfD wasn't limiting his options is all.  Anyway, all else being equal, I'd probably go with a 2x8 kit if only because it means that you can add more RAM later without having to remove the sticks you already have in there.

[SurfD]

So.  New Computer Get!
Next Step: New computer Build.

That being said: first time building with an SSD.  Standard prociedure is to install the OS to the SSD, install your frequent / fav games there for the speed boost, and dump everything else on the normal platter drive?  Do you set the OS up to use the Platter drive for the system cache to avoid lots of unneeded write to the SSD? or is that not a thing?

[Chimpy]

Let all OS functions hit the SSD, resiliency on even the consumer grade SSDs is not really a concern anymore. Just put pictures, documents, music, and videos on the platter if you need the space.

[SurfD]

Cool.  Popped this question into the  Win 10 thread, but might as well ask here:

If I want to do a Fresh Win 10 install on the new machine, will I be able to activate it using my current Win 7 key as an "upgrade", or will I have to do something stupid like first install Win 7 then upgrade over top of it?

[SurfD]

Posting from  new machine:   In the process of creating a USB install disk for Win 10 right now :P

Had to install win 7 on the new machine, because appearently  I dont have enough free disk space on my old C drive to download the files needed to make the Win 10 install disk, and it wont give me an option to  run the thing from one of my other drives......

Interestingly enough, it let me authenticate my version of Win 7 on the new computer, so I am going to go ahead an update overtop of the damn thing, then wipe it clean for a proper fresh re-install once I know win 10 will properly validate on it.

[KallDrexx]

I love the quality of graphics my R9 Fury puts out, but holy crap it noticeably heats up my office while gaming.  I know understand why people have concerns about Wattage :-/.

Using some HWMonitor, it looks like my GPU stays at an ok temperature (max of 67C) but my CPU is maxing at 82C (though it seems to be brief, it seems to be stable around 78 or so).  I'm wondering if I should just splurge for a Noctua NH-D14 (right now my 3570k is on a stock cooler).

Of course if it does actually drop my CPU temperature way down from I wonder if it's worth trying to overclock it up from 3.5Ghz to 4+. 

[Trippy]

Uh yeah that's pretty hot and yes getting something like that Noctua will help a lot. I have the smaller NH-U12P on my 3570K and my CPU temp maxes at around 57C running cpuburn or equivalent.

Edit: my CPU is not currently OC'd

[schild]

Doesn't the shutoff failsafe kick in at 90c? It sounds like your cooler is toast.

[KallDrexx]

Uh yeah that's pretty hot and yes getting something like that Noctua will help a lot. I have the smaller NH-U12P on my 3570K and my CPU temp maxes at around 57C running cpuburn or equivalent.

Edit: my CPU is not currently OC'd

Well I am more trying to figure out if it's worth splurging for the Noctua or getting something cheaper like a cooler master 212 Evo.  I really want to get my temps down as much as possible and try to quiet things down a bit.

Doesn't the shutoff failsafe kick in at 90c? It sounds like your cooler is toast.

Yeah I think you are right about 90c.  It was dusty as hell when I put my graphics card and intel's stock coolers are impossible to clean without compressed air (which should be coming today). 

[Trippy]

The EVO is much more difficult to install than a Noctua. It cools about as well as the 120mm Noctua (assuming both have single fans, mine has dual fans).

Edit: spacey

[schild]

I love the quality of graphics my R9 Fury puts out, but holy crap it noticeably heats up my office while gaming.  I know understand why people have concerns about Wattage :-/.

Using some HWMonitor, it looks like my GPU stays at an ok temperature (max of 67C) but my CPU is maxing at 82C (though it seems to be brief, it seems to be stable around 78 or so).  I'm wondering if I should just splurge for a Noctua NH-D14 (right now my 3570k is on a stock cooler).

Of course if it does actually drop my CPU temperature way down from I wonder if it's worth trying to overclock it up from 3.5Ghz to 4+. 

What processor do you have?

[KallDrexx]

What processor do you have?

I5-3570k, which is apparently LG 1155 which isn't supported by that specific Noctua anyway.  I'd have to go for this model instead which Noctua says will work with my motherboard.

[schild]

Urgh, shame you can't use the latest Intel cooler which is absolutely spectacular.

[Father mike]

About two pages back, gaming laptops were discussed.  Unfortunately, I'm in the market for a school laptop for a teenager, and don't want to drop $1400 on a machine that only has a 66% chance of making it thru the year.

Anybody got any recommendations?  I'm completely open to refurbs, open box, etc.  Only real requirement (outside of basic office/school stuff) is that is has the horsepower to do music mixing.  She sings, has her own recording hardware, and wants to be able to mix on her own machine.
 

[MahrinSkel]

The low end of the gaming laptops will probably fill your bill. Look for something with a 870M or 960M GPU, and you should find options in the sub 1k range. Music mixing doesn't need a lot of horsepower until you get to compression (which will be the last stage, and still not as demanding as the equivalent for video). More ram and the oft-recommended SSD is more on point for that purpose.

--Dave

[Chimpy]

If she has an external digital audio interface, you can pretty much get any laptop with decent RAM or CPU and have no problems with mixing.

[Sky]

Depends on what hardware she uses, is it standalone or an interface? Does she already use DAW software, does her hardware have software requirements?

Reaper is an awesome cheap DAW, I used to use Audacity but I've adopted Reaper these days. I mostly record on my digital standalone recorder and import the .wavs to edit in Reaper. But I got a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 on a deal a couple years ago and eventually want to hook that to a laptop.

[Father mike]

She has an H2N microphone from Zoom.  I'm pretty sure it plugs in thru a USB port.  She had a MacBook that was leased thru the school, but those had to be turned back in when she left middle school.  On the MacBook she used GarageBand (and was shockingly proficient).  I downloaded LMMS and Audacity for her, but she's resisting the more opaque interfaces.   I'll look at Reaper and see if she thinks she'd use it.

As far as hardware, you guys are still thinking too rich for my blood!  I was looking more in the vein of this guy.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834315345
  or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834296884
But if those are glorified doorstops that'll crash when loading a .PDF that's longer that 15 pages, I need to know so I can get her something functional. 

I know it never ends well trying to do hardware on the cheap, but 1) this machine is for a teenager to take notes and watch lesson videos, 2) being carried by and surrounded by teenagers, the likelihood of loss and/or damage is pretty high.  So, yeah, I'm trying to convince myself that I can get away with doing hardware on the cheap.  This is going to cost me around $750 to $850 isn't it?

[Sky]

Well, you luck out because she's doing things the 'low tech' (ish) way, like I currently am - she's using a field recorder and transferring tracks to the computer to work on.

I definitely would reject the 2nd laptop, 4GB just isn't going to cut it. 8GB should be ok as a baseline, but 16GB would be better if she's going to be doing anything approaching serious (lots of effects/tracks/processing). I'm not up on current gen cpus to know where the cutoff lines would be for those. SSD is a good thing, cutting latency is a factor.

Tell her to learn Reaper, it's cheap (not free, but generous eval period) and cross-platform, so if she goes back to a mac she doesn't need to learn a new interface. A good step up from GB to Reaper to learn a 'real' DAW, too. Audacity is way more opaque, I hated it (and I actually went to school for recording...in 1991 heh).

[Chimpy]

For a high school kid, either of those would probably be fine though neither will be super-awesome-sauce.

The Dell is probably a better quality one, and it has a 3year warranty instead of 90 days, but the screen is small and the RAM is not easily upgradeable (4GB is underwhelming).

[MahrinSkel]

At that price point, anything portable with a true GPU is pretty much out unless you're snagging it off Craigslist (at which point the question of whether it fell off a truck becomes relevant). If this is just for videos and music mixing and portability is the highest single factor, then any kind of ultrabook with 8-16gb of ram and a >240gb SSD should do the trick. But it will also die the first time it gets dropped or sat on.

Frankly, you should probably get her an Alienwware Alpha booksize or equivalent for the music mixing, and a good tablet ($200-250) for carrying around. Maybe a used iPad, so she can keep that Apple street cred.

--Dave

[KallDrexx]

Wow, it's amazing how much better aftermarket coolers work.  Got the Noctua installed, now gaming (and even running prime95) I'm not seeing sustained temperatures above 60, with less than 1 second peaks at 61/62.  

*Edit* Went into my BIOS and saw some "OC Tuner" option.  Apparently it's some voodoo that ASUS motherboards have to (conservatively) determine a safe overclock.  I tried it out and I seem to be stable going from 3.4Ghz to 4.2Ghz with temperatures maxing out at 66C.  I may try and play with it and see if I can get the voltage lower to get it a little cooler, but figuring my CPU has lived in the 70s for god knows how long I'm not too worried about that temperature.

[Strazos]

So I'm going to be going to Egypt for a year for work, and will not bring my PC with me. It will stay in my parents' house, but they will not use it.

Would it be better if I just left it completely unplugged, or does it make sense to leave plugged in for some reason?

[Chimpy]

So I'm going to be going to Egypt for a year for work, and will not bring my PC with me. It will stay in my parents' house, but they will not use it.

Would it be better if I just left it completely unplugged, or does it make sense to leave plugged in for some reason?

If it is going to be powered off the whole time there is no reason to plug it in.

[Goreschach]

Keep in mind an SSD can suffer data corruption if it's left unpowered for long periods. A year would probably be ok, but you'd probably want to back up anything important to be sure.

[Miguel]

Keep in mind an SSD can suffer data corruption if it's left unpowered for long periods. A year would probably be ok, but you'd probably want to back up anything important to be sure.

I designed flash memory chips for 10+ years and have never heard of anything like this.  Do you have a source?

[Trippy]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2925173/debunked-your-ssd-wont-lose-data-if-left-unplugged-after-all.html

[Rendakor]

Keep in mind an SSD can suffer data corruption if it's left unpowered for long periods. A year would probably be ok, but you'd probably want to back up anything important to be sure.

I designed flash memory chips for 10+ years and have never heard of anything like this.  Do you have a source?

Appropriate avatar.

[Goreschach]

Keep in mind an SSD can suffer data corruption if it's left unpowered for long periods. A year would probably be ok, but you'd probably want to back up anything important to be sure.

I designed flash memory chips for 10+ years and have never heard of anything like this.  Do you have a source?

You designed flash memory for ten years and never heard of charge leakage?

https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~omutlu/pub/flash-memory-data-retention_hpca15.pdf

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2925173/debunked-your-ssd-wont-lose-data-if-left-unplugged-after-all.html

Did you read the article you linked to? They state "That’s not to say that SSDs aren’t immune from failures and data loss." and link to a second article that goes into more detail.

If you store your SSD someplace that averages 72 degrees Fahrenheit, a far more likely scenario, you’re talking two-years-plus according to this table...

Several of the SSD vendors I talked to said they’d expect their consumer products to do better, as in several multiples better, than this chart would indicate. But even 10 years is hardly an archival timespan, and SSDs simply shouldn’t be relied upon for long-term storage.

I specifically stated that whatshisname would probably be okay with leaving an ssd unplugged for a single year, since at room temps a modern ssd would probably last several years before any unrecoverable read errors show up. But that would depend on what kind of flash it was, how old it was, the peak number of block erases, etc. And I could be wrong, but I believe some of the shitty earlier ssds, maybe the jmicron ones I remember everyone hating, didn't even have wear leveling and/or overprovisioning. Regardless, it's not just for cost reasons that you're never, ever supposed to use ssd's for archive and long term storage.

[Trippy]

The data retention numbers in the charts are for SSDs that are end-of-life:

“I wouldn’t worry about [losing data],” Cox told PCWorld. “This all pertains to end of life. As a consumer, an SSD product or even a flash product is never going to get to the point where it’s temperature-dependent on retaining the data.”

The second PCWorld article you refer to was written before the one I linked. I.e. it was based on the incorrect information that the data retention numbers apply to non-end-of-life drives as well but for whatever reason they don't mention that in the newer article I linked nor do they include an update in the older article. I guess eyeballs is eyeballs.

[Miguel]

You designed flash memory for ten years and never heard of charge leakage?

Which has nothing to do with the device being powered or not: it's a physical property of the silicon, and subject to "trapping" which is directly proportional to the number of erase/write cycles the given cell has undergone.

In any case, the 'original' article references end-of-life devices meaning they had been written to well past the point that ECC and spare block substitution cannot save them.  It is a minimum JEDEC spec to be adhered to, as in "we all agree to perform at least as well as this".