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Topic: The 'Build Me A PC' Thread (Read 867210 times)
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Engels
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inflicts shingles.
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Also, what kind of monitor setup are you going to use? a 6950 is overkill if you're using a 1680x1050 monitor. It may even be overkill for a single 1980x1200 monitor. If you're using dual monitors, then yes, its gonna be worth it. Otherwise, maybe consider a 6870. Either way, don't be me, watch those thermals, since according to reviews, that thing under load gets up to the high 70Cs
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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dusematic
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Diablo 3's Number One Fan
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Also, what kind of monitor setup are you going to use? a 6950 is overkill if you're using a 1680x1050 monitor. It may even be overkill for a single 1980x1200 monitor. If you're using dual monitors, then yes, its gonna be worth it. Otherwise, maybe consider a 6870. Either way, don't be me, watch those thermals, since according to reviews, that thing under load gets up to the high 70Cs
1680x1050. I will take your advice into consideration and maybe drop it down to 6870. But from what I've read, no modern game on single monitor can bottleneck an i-5. So I don't want it to be my graphics card.
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MisterNoisy
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Posts: 1892
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This PSU would be fine for almost any budget-minded single GPU build, and it's fairly cheap. ($50 after MiR)
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« Last Edit: August 08, 2011, 04:23:15 PM by MisterNoisy »
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XBL GT: Mister Noisy PSN: MisterNoisy Steam UID: MisterNoisy
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Stormwaltz
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Got this and installed it this evening. And Shrike, thanks for the good word on my PSU. You're right, it works without a hitch. My desktop is 1920x1600. Compared to the old Visiontek Radeon HD 4870, the new card runs at half the volume, and a good 30C cooler. I had to crank up the fan controls to get the 4870 below 81C at idle in a room with air conditioning. Currently I have the AC off, and this card is idling at 48C.
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Nothing in this post represents the views of my current or previous employers.
"Isn't that just like an elf? Brings a spell to a gun fight."
"Sci-Fi writers don't invent the future, they market it." - Henry Cobb
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Engels
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Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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ATI vastly improved the idling speed of their video cards in the 5000 series onwards. Under load its expected that they reach the high 70s, but at idle, depending on your case's internal cooling efficiency, its quite possible to have the card idle in the high 30s.
Unfortunately for me, the one game I have been looking forward to for years and years, IL-2 Cliffs of Dover, is so poorly coded that it doesn't send the card the signal to start working at performance speed, so you need to get 3rd party software to prevent the card from idling down. Neither here nor there really, but I thought it an interesting tidbit about changing technology.
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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I had to crank up the fan controls to get the 4870 below 81C at idle in a room with air conditioning. Currently I have the AC off, and this card is idling at 48C.
And I thought I had it bad enough to add aftermarket cooling!
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Sky
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Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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Cut/paste from my reply to Mr Noisy's post in the 'whatchoo playin', playa?' thread. My plan is to hold off on my new build until the new AMD part drops in late September. At this point I'm still looking at the i5-2500K SB system unless Ivy Bridge a) actually comes out in the next few months and b) is a significant upgrade over SB and c) isn't $$$ over SB. So...probably building the SB system, hopefully shave a few bucks off due to the AMD part in competition. If not, I'm comfortable with where it's priced now and I hope RAM stays at depressed pricing like it is right now. The current upgrade spec: ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe $259.99 -$10.00 Instant $249.99 Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz$219.99 $219.99 CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600$74.99 $74.99 COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus $29.99 -$1.00 Instant $28.99 Nexus BASIC D12SL-12 120mm Case Fan$11.99 x4= $47.96 XIGMATEK CCA-EMFCB-U01 4 in 3 HDD Cage Extra Hard Drive Bay$24.99 $24.99 Total=$646.91 HDD cage for cooling in the upper part of the pc because it was originally set up for external venting of the gpu. New case fans because the current ones are getting a bit grindy. Z68 deluxe mobo because I just like the features and layout...but I do have a couple concerns. One is the tall heatsinks on the RAM not fitting with the hyper 212. The other is that it might be tight with my X-Fi in the lowest slot if I SLI another GTX 460 with the (awesome) aftermarket cooler on it. Also, there's the oddness with my current router where the wireless signal is much faster than the wired signal. Still haven't figured that out, and a PCI wireless NIC would not work with SLI. So maybe something like this, if my wired issues continue. Other options would be different mobos, mostly, though I do have to come up with an alternative RAM, given the possible issue I mentioned earlier. The GB Z68 is into the crazy expensive zone, but it also features full x16/x16 lanes, which should be better for SLI, yeah? GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 $349.99 $349.99 ASUS P8P67 PRO (REV 3.0) $189.99 -$10.00 Instant $179.99 ASRock P67 EXTREME6 (B3) $219.99 -$30.00 Instant $189.99
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MisterNoisy
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The current upgrade spec: (snip)
As far as I know, there isn't a huge difference between x8/x8 and x16/x16 at current GPU performance levels, but the differences are there - they're just so small that you'd be hard-pressed to notice them. If you're willing to use a board that runs SLI at x8/x8, I really like the ASRock Extreme4 boards in P67 and Z68 flavors - I just ordered (and am still waiting for) the Z68 Gen3, so I'll let you know how it goes. Corsair is now making low-profile versions of their Vengeance memory as well. CAS latency isn't quite as nice on the ones I see for sale on Newegg, but it's an option to consider.
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« Last Edit: August 16, 2011, 10:19:04 AM by MisterNoisy »
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XBL GT: Mister Noisy PSN: MisterNoisy Steam UID: MisterNoisy
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Engels
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inflicts shingles.
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Sky,
It may be worth examining the various kinds of Z68 boards the Asus has. The Deluxe is grand and all that, but after doing a feature for feature analysis on their site, I would have been content with the Pro version, shaving off some bucks. I ended up getting a Gigabyte board, more out of 'loyalty' than anything else.
I'm not sure if 16x16 is that important. What kind of monitor are you running? Remember, anything over, what, 50FPS, you're not even going to notice. Its a biological impossibility. Also, running two cards is gonna heat up your system, so you're gonna have to have leaf blower type action to get it into reasonable temp ranges. Trading noise for performance is ok if you play with headphones most of the time, so its a viable option.
Also, although you don't touch on it directly, ram speed differences after 1600 make little difference in Anand's benchmarks. Its not worth fussing over. Just get a 1600 rated board and you're golden.
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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Shrike
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Posts: 939
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I can almost guarantee the IB will be substantially more expensive than SB. Unless you need hyperthreading for something (or 8 real cores), the 2500K is about optimal.
If you're not going with an SSD, I'm not sure I'd bother with the Z68 and maybe not even then if the SSD is the system drive. I've read a lot on the Z68 and I'm still not sure what this really has to offer over the P67 boards. The SSD thing is its main feature, seemingly, but if you're not using one, I think the P67 would be indicated.
As for SLI, x8/x8 is enough for anything out there right now. Hardocp had some extensive tests on various lane configurations and differences between 16/16, 8/16, 8/8 were minimal.
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Sky
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Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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Well, the thing about Ivy is that it would be nice if I could pull the same longevity out of this upgrade as the original computer, which was built in Feb. 2007 (!). Honestly, it can handle just about any game pretty well, but the loong load times (and you know what in November) have me considering the upgrade, especially as I have a (very) small stash of dough that would cover it. But I also don't like skimping to save money, since longevity and performance are important...
The SSD feature on the Z68 is for a system cache, to speed up systems with SATA drives. I'm not intending on using it. I do like the board itself and I'm a whore for heatsinks, though I guess I could glue some of my own on and save a few bucks. That's why I have the P67 boards listed, I believe Gigabyte has a P67 board with x16/x16, though again, not really sold on that.
The RAM numbers I've seen are that the cutoff for performance gains for SB is at 1333, so I have been considering lower speed RAM, though I do like headroom, better bins and whatnot. GSkill seems to be the big name right now, I always thought that was just due to the cheap price, is the quality any good? I've always stuck with Crucial, but had a stick actually fail a couple years ago (the first ever failure of Crucial RAM for me, personally or professionally).
So, as an alternative...
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MisterNoisy
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Posts: 1892
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Well, the thing about Ivy is that it would be nice if I could pull the same longevity out of this upgrade as the original computer, which was built in Feb. 2007 (!). Honestly, it can handle just about any game pretty well, but the loong load times (and you know what in November) have me considering the upgrade, especially as I have a (very) small stash of dough that would cover it. But I also don't like skimping to save money, since longevity and performance are important...
The SSD feature on the Z68 is for a system cache, to speed up systems with SATA drives. I'm not intending on using it. I do like the board itself and I'm a whore for heatsinks, though I guess I could glue some of my own on and save a few bucks. That's why I have the P67 boards listed, I believe Gigabyte has a P67 board with x16/x16, though again, not really sold on that.
The RAM numbers I've seen are that the cutoff for performance gains for SB is at 1333, so I have been considering lower speed RAM, though I do like headroom, better bins and whatnot. GSkill seems to be the big name right now, I always thought that was just due to the cheap price, is the quality any good? I've always stuck with Crucial, but had a stick actually fail a couple years ago (the first ever failure of Crucial RAM for me, personally or professionally).
So, as an alternative...
I've heard bad things about the new MSI 'Click' BIOS on their P67/Z68 offerings from a usability standpoint, but generally you rarely need to enter the BIOS anyway, so I wouldn't worry about that too much. I've been happy with all of the MSI boards I've purchased in the past, and the one you've chosen looks good. I wouldn't worry too much about longevity with a 2500K. At stock clocks, the 2500K is enough for any game, and you can OC to 4.5 GHz easily with the Hyper 212 on it. G.Skill has replaced Corsair as my default memory supplier - I've bought something like 8 kits over the last year and a half from them and never had a bad experience - they've always performed well at their rated specs and often well beyond them, plus the prices are great. Any cash left over for a case replacement? I know you're enamored of your Antec, but the Fractal Design Define R3 would be a worthwhile upgrade - it's got most of the same silencing features, plus modern cable management functionality.
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« Last Edit: August 16, 2011, 01:53:57 PM by MisterNoisy »
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XBL GT: Mister Noisy PSN: MisterNoisy Steam UID: MisterNoisy
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Sky
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I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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Would really prefer to have to Marvell SATA3 for when I get around to throwing in an SSD. Getting real close to my buy point on those, though looking over the state of the market, it seems like I should almost get one now to get the 32nm drives, everyone is slagging the 22nm newer ones, apparently. But that $100 difference isn't going to really buy me anything I'd want, and I've used ASUS for over ten years (had an Abit once in the 90s). So I'll probably stick with my cadillac Z68 board but go with the GSkill just because it's lower rise and cheap to replace (or double). Not going to buy a new case.
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« Last Edit: August 16, 2011, 07:23:21 PM by Sky »
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Strazos
Greetings from the Slave Coast
Posts: 15542
The World's Worst Game: Curry or Covid
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Fuck water cooling - just something else to fail...and if it fails, it's catastrophic.
Also seems completely unnecessary.
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Fear the Backstab! "Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion "Hell is other people." -Sartre
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Hawkbit
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Like a Klansman in the ghetto.
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^ This is huge. I'm on my fourth or fifth PC build in the last 15 years, and each time I keep it simple. I rarely run into issues, in fact (knock on wood) this current build is four years old and has no failures. Besides dumping a coffee in my kyb, dammit.
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Shrike
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Simple is good. Whenever I got overly ambitious with a build, bad things tended to follow.
My present machine is a 2500K on a UD3 Gigabyte mobo. It has 8gigs of 1333 DDR3 (Crucial, if it matters), and a 580GTX vid card. Simple and it's hella fast. The goal was to drive a 2560x1600 monitor at good framerates. This it does quite well. The only upgrade I'm planning for it is to switch the vid card to a Kepler part when (if) they hit the shelves. And I might hold out on that for another three-four months past release. It does run that well.
Its predecessor (which is still running quite well after 3.5 years) is very similar. i5 750 on a Gigabyte mobo. 4gigs of Corsair RAM, and a 260GTX vid card. It drives an aging Philips 1920x1200 monitor. It's a little twitchy on networking, but runs great otherwise.
Simple is good.
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Sky
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Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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Forgot to mention in those posts that I'm on a 1080p monitor, see my greef tittle :) (even though George is technically retired to some redneck's trailer). George Jr is a 65" Mitsu 1080p 120Hz 3D DLPSo the GTX 460 is mostly cool for my resolution (especially with the aftermarket cooler), I'm cpu-bound like heck in a couple games, though (Civ V, notably, but Rift was a beast, too).
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Sheepherder
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I've been running G.Skill memory for a while now, and I've got no complaints.
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Engels
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Posts: 9029
inflicts shingles.
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Forgot to mention in those posts that I'm on a 1080p monitor, see my greef tittle :) (even though George is technically retired to some redneck's trailer). George Jr is a 65" Mitsu 1080p 120Hz 3D DLPSo the GTX 460 is mostly cool for my resolution (especially with the aftermarket cooler), I'm cpu-bound like heck in a couple games, though (Civ V, notably, but Rift was a beast, too). I'm curious; that 'monitor' is only 1920 x 1080, despite its size. Does that mean you don't need a particularly awesome video card for it, or does 'size matter', even if resolution doesn't?
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I should get back to nature, too. You know, like going to a shop for groceries instead of the computer. Maybe a condo in the woods that doesn't even have a health club or restaurant attached. Buy a car with only two cup holders or something. -Signe
I LIKE being bounced around by Tonkors. - Lantyssa
Babies shooting themselves in the head is the state bird of West Virginia. - schild
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SnakeCharmer
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Posts: 3807
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Fuck water cooling - just something else to fail...and if it fails, it's catastrophic.
Also seems completely unnecessary.
I've used the Corsair H-series watercoolers for the last...2 years? and have been exceptionally pleased with them. Plus Corsair will replace any/all damaged items as a result of failure (which has only happened a couple times from reading about them on their forums, hardforum.com and overclock.net). They're extremely easy to put in and perform well and really freaking quiet - plus they make for a clean install which appeals to my OCD. Currently running an i5-750 at 4.2Ghz with low-mid 30's at the idle, and low-mid 60's at full bore Prime95 stress testing. Not my PC, but the difference in looks (even if I only see it when I pop the case every other month or so to spray out the dust bunnies) is worth the price of admission: H50 Hyper 212 plus
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Rasix
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Posts: 15024
I am the harbinger of your doom!
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Why would you use ties on a hyper 212? I had no issues clipping the fan on and it's been running fine with just one fan on the heat sink. No heat issues at all here.
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-Rasix
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SnakeCharmer
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No idea why they did that. Was just an image I picked out of GIS.
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01101010
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You call it an accident. I call it justice.
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Ok that shot of the H50 is very clean and appealing. You fucker, now I am curious enough to spend the rest of the day reading about it.
Still debating a new build. My e8400 has been performing solidly for years now, I know it's starting to creep up on EOL with the SB stuff out now, but I wonder how much more I can pull out of it if I drop a new vid card in along with a bump in memory.
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Does any one know where the love of God goes...When the waves turn the minutes to hours? -G. Lightfoot
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SnakeCharmer
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Get the H60. Better rad design and better pump/CPU unit design. I'm going to pull mine apart the next couple of days and spray it out. I'll post up pics if I remember to do so.
I am tempted, oh so tempted, to pull the H50 out of mine, upgrade it to an H60, then see about hooking the "old" H50 it up to a GTX460 video card.
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MisterNoisy
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Posts: 1892
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I've always been a fan of giant air coolers - partly because I don't want to deal with the perils of water cooling (whether through a one-box solution like the H-series or a full custom water loop), but also because I just really like the look of big honking air coolers. Despite not wanting to do it myself, I'm always impressed with the work that goes into a full CPU/chipset/GPU water loop - it's just not for me. Also, Corsair recently released the H100 - a 2x120 rad self-contained solution.
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« Last Edit: August 17, 2011, 11:35:50 AM by MisterNoisy »
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XBL GT: Mister Noisy PSN: MisterNoisy Steam UID: MisterNoisy
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Sky
Terracotta Army
Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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I'm curious; that 'monitor' is only 1920 x 1080, despite its size. Does that mean you don't need a particularly awesome video card for it, or does 'size matter', even if resolution doesn't?
1080 can be tough on 40yr old eyes from 10' away :) But as far as a gpu, right now the 460 is doing pretty damned well with most games. It's desirable to have it run at 60fps so you can sync it, and the more bells and whistles, the better, I say. Also, as I mentioned about other things, I prefer a lot of headroom, less heat and stress on the parts. But 1080p is 1080p, whether it's 65" or 23". Imo, it's almost a perfect living room res, only gets tough on games that won't scale the UI (like Dawn of Discovery :( ). With your gpu, don't forget to cool the RAM and voltage regulators. The honking system I use is quiet and cool as hell, I may have gushed a bit about it Giving thought to the H60 idea. With the cage fan for the extra pull, it could make for a nice system. Still like the idea of 4 12cm fans across the top layer of the pc, though (if I were to go with a hyper212 with push/pull).
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SnakeCharmer
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Also, Corsair recently released the H100 - a 2x120 rad self-contained solution. Since I made my post earlier, I went browsing to see what new stuff Corsair had come out with and saw that. Sexy. It pretty much made up my mind that I am going to yank out my H50 and see about modding it to it a GPU.
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Sky
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Posts: 32117
I love my TV an' hug my TV an' call it 'George'.
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Again, I don't think cooling the gpu with that would be ideal. Hell, the main issue I've had with evga stock cooling is they don't properly cool the components other than the gpu.
And you need the right case for the H100, it's huuuge. For me, anyway, H60 would be about perfect, other than the fact that it will cut airflow out of the case, especially compared to putting in the hyper212, which would give me more room for push/pull on it (the old scythe ninja could work with push/pull, but barely). Having that honking radiator blocking the outflow fan is not insignificant when considering the other components in the case. Maybe if I top-mounted it, but I like the nice neat airflow of front to back without the top swirling that around.
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SnakeCharmer
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Stop being sensible and let me do crazy shit to GPU okay? ok.
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Strazos
Greetings from the Slave Coast
Posts: 15542
The World's Worst Game: Curry or Covid
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I've always thought that water cooling was certainly interesting, but...since I'm going to be moving around overseas every few years, that just doesn't seem practical.
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Fear the Backstab! "Plato said the virtuous man is at all times ready for a grammar snake attack." - we are lesion "Hell is other people." -Sartre
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Furiously
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Water is that scarce in Africa?
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Cyrrex
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I think it's because their water runs on a different voltage.
I bought a fancy new GTX570 (or whatever the proper nomenclature for the 570 is), but I haven't been able to try it out yet as we're still in the middle of an intergalactic move. Should be a nice upgrade for my GTX285 - which I should add has been quite an able piece of kit.
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"...maybe if you cleaned the piss out of the sunny d bottles under your desks and returned em, you could upgrade you vid cards, fucken lusers.." - Grunk
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Daeven
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Stop being sensible and let me do crazy shit to GPU okay? ok.
If money is no object you could get really psycho with one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130665I admit to being slightly tempted to sell off an organ or three so I could build a 990x system around that card, but it seems slightly silly.
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« Last Edit: August 18, 2011, 11:11:51 AM by Daeven »
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"There is a technical term for someone who confuses the opinions of a character in a book with those of the author. That term is idiot." -SMStirling
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion
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SnakeCharmer
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It's not that money is or isn't an object; it's that buying it already done like that defeats the purpose of doing it myself. Plus you'd have to buy the pump and resevoir and everything else putting it at or near 1,000 bucks.
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