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[appaws]

Is the Asus boost tool in the BIOS any good or should I just manually overclock my 4690k.

Those things might do an OK job.....

I will say though that I have heard around the internets that auto-overclocking features have been getting better and better recently.

But I have to say that as a rule I would just do it myself manually. It's better because the process of doing it is the process of learning the limits of your equipment and familiarizing yourself with what it can do, learning all the different functions, etc.

I also note that the auto-overclocking functions have a tendency to use more voltage than they really have to....I guess going for stability. You can do it better yourself if you put in a little time.

 

[turnernader]

I just got a nzxt phantom 410 case from a friend the other day to finish my build off. i currently have a 450 power supply, a gtx 650 ti graphics card, 6 gb of ram but just really need a motherboard and a cpu on a budget. under 200 hopefully. any help would be great.

 

[Noctix]

I would build myself.

If I had to pick one of those I would go with the second one, with the 980s and the Enthoo case.

But seriously, I would build myself. It's easy and way better.

I can't build myself, I am not very techy + the price difference in buying all the parts from pccasegear/msy and building it myself is like <100$ give or take. I just want to buy a computer and then not worry about it for the next 3-5 years. I looked for benchmarks and most of them show 295x2 beating 980sli or is there something i am missing. Sorry in advance for noob questions

 

[Dalibor_San]

Okay after many alterations and pissing off my local store I finally made the last change and the parts should be shipped in 2 days when the Corsair H105 arrives.

Here is my final build:

PC Case : Corsair Graphite 760T
CPU Processor: Intel Core i7 5820K Haswell-E 6-Core LGA 2011-3 3.3GHz
Motherboard: Asus X99 Deluxe
Memory: Crucial 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 2133MHz
Hard Drive(1) : Samsung 840 EVO 250GB
Hard Drive(2) : Samsung 840 EVO 1TB
Hard Drive(3) : Western Digital WD4003FZEX WD 4TB Black 3.5&#8221; 7200RPM
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000W P2
Video Cards: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 G1 Gaming 4GB SLI
CPU Cooler: Corsair H105 Water Cooler
Optical Drives: LG 12x Internal SATA Retail Blu-Ray Combo Drive

I was going initially with the MSI GTX 970 however the Windforce edition was the same price, so I said to myself why the hell not.(I own the GTX 670 windforce edition and it is amazing)

So my system is complete, This will be a great summer and some great games are coming to test this system out, GTA V/Witcher 3.

No problem buddy. I just wish you could get the new 780T down in the land down under. Your build looks great.

Yeah man, it sucks badly, however I'll stick with the 760T until maybe a 790T or 800T or whatever comes out from Corsair and then I will get a new cooler with it as well.

 

[Dalibor_San]

Gaf I need help. I finally have decided to pull the trigger and buy a new pc. Money is not really a big issue so it's either this:

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=29172

or

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1411&products_id=29121

Please advice

Money might not be an issue however being ripped off should be, try Mwave and click dream PC and select the parts yourself, they build it for you and you pick much better parts for your money.

http://www.mwave.com.au/cpc/dreampc

However if you are dead set on getting one from PCCASEGEAR, then definitely the PCCG RADIOACTIVE 980 for $3500, the GTX 980 in Sli is too good to pass up.

Here is a benchmark for the GTX 970 in SLI which keeps up or even beats the Radeon R9 295X2 8gb: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_970_SLI/6.html

Actually here is the GTX 980 in SLI against the R9 295X2 8GB: http://www.pcgamer.com/2014/09/19/n...-and-single-gpu-benchmarks-and-impressions/2/

So the GTX 980 in SLI will be the better money spent, however adding parts yourself and Mwave building it for you is a better choice IMO, PCCaseGear is the better shop, however they no longer build the system for you, only pre-built.

 

[ricki42]

Is the Asus boost tool in the BIOS any good or should I just manually overclock my 4690k.

If by boost tool you mean their 'EZ Tuning WIzard', then don't. I tried that on the Z97-A, and afterwards it didn't even get into the BIOS anymore. Had to clear the CMOS to get it to boot again.

 

[Atraveller]

Before I installed my sound card, my USB soundbar and on-board sound can work together. Meaning I can plug in my earphone, and the soundbar would automatically mutes itself, if I disconnect my earphone, my soundbar would start to play again.

Now, if I set the soundbar as the default device, the soundcard won't work, and if I set the soundcard as default, there's no sound coming out of it. How can it make it both work at the same time?

 

[xBladeM6x]

If I want to minimize the chances of my computer just rejecting my 980, any steps I should take before trying to swap GPUs?

(I asked this before, and was told it was cool to just power down, swap, and done. However I figured I'd ask one more time, for any other input.)

 

[kennah]

It isn't an organ transplant...

 

[matrixman92]

idk if this is the right place to ask or whatever...but for some reason this pc I built in March blue screens anytime I try to update my Nvidia graphics card. I finally got around to reinstalling windows today because I thought that was the problem...it wasnt, it is still doing it. Really sucks because I want the new driver for alien isolation and what not. Does anyone know what the problem could be?

 

[xBladeM6x]

It isn't an organ transplant...

With some of the errors people seem to get by doing small changes like this, you'd think it was.

 

[Fedelias]

How much would you guys recommend the ASUS VG248QE? Does it have good colors/image quality?

 

[neurosisxeno]

If I want to minimize the chances of my computer just rejecting my 980, any steps I should take before trying to swap GPUs?

(I asked this before, and was told it was cool to just power down, swap, and done. However I figured I'd ask one more time, for any other input.)

The day it arrives follow this order of operations;

1. Download newest Nvidia Drivers available.
2. Uninstall current drivers.
3. Power down computer.
4. Unplug computer and push power button to cycle any power out of the system.
5. Take out old GPU.
6. Put in new GPU.
7. Make sure everything is plugged in properly.
8. Boot computer.
9. Install newest Nvidia Drivers.

Easy as pie. Even if you currently have an Nvidia card sometimes just swapping out a GPU can lead to issues. Better to just remove everything and start over.

 

[Valravn]

My pc sometimes freezes. You can see it happening. The pc slows down and sound gets distorted before it freezes and sound will loop. It never happened during gaming, only when listening to Spotify and watching videos.
No bsod, so I have no clue what is causing it.
Any ideas?

I replaced the soundcard and it didn't help. The cpu is new. It's a 4790k on a z87 mb.

 

[neurosisxeno]

My pc sometimes freezes. You can see it happening. The pc slows down and sound gets distorted before it freezes and sound will loop. It never happened during gaming, only when listening to Spotify and watching videos.
No bsod, so I have no clue what is causing it.
Any ideas?

I replaced the soundcard and it didn't help. The cpu is new. It's a 4790k on a z87 mb.

What soundcard were you using and which one are you using? Could be faulty RAM, could be a bad GPU, could be really anything.

 

[Hazaro]

idk if this is the right place to ask or whatever...but for some reason this pc I built in March blue screens anytime I try to update my Nvidia graphics card. I finally got around to reinstalling windows today because I thought that was the problem...it wasnt, it is still doing it. Really sucks because I want the new driver for alien isolation and what not. Does anyone know what the problem could be?

What's the BSOD error?

I'd make sure you have a backup then give CCleaner and DDU a shot.

My pc sometimes freezes. You can see it happening. The pc slows down and sound gets distorted before it freezes and sound will loop. It never happened during gaming, only when listening to Spotify and watching videos.
No bsod, so I have no clue what is causing it.
Any ideas?

I replaced the soundcard and it didn't help. The cpu is new. It's a 4790k on a z87 mb.

Usually a memory or Windows installation / HDD problem. First thing to do is update your Flash and Java and Browsers.
Do a backup and give Memtest a run then Spinrite (Falcon Four or other resource CD will have it).

 

[mordecaii83]

I tidied up my cable management as much as I could, I think the inside looks better now. Took me 2 hours to redo it all, so I'm definitely not planning on touching it again for a while!

 

[Valravn]

What soundcard were you using and which one are you using? Could be faulty RAM, could be a bad GPU, could be really anything.

I was using a Soundblaster Z and replaced it with a ROG Phoebus.

I did replace the cpu but i cant recall if i reinstalled Windows. Should i?

 

[Knch]

Heh, those look interesting. But really, I've been using Microsoft ergonomic keyboards for over a decade, both at work and at home. I can work on "normal" ones, but not as fast -- and I simply don't like it as much.

A fear of mine is that one day my keyboard breaks and MS doesn't make any of this type anymore. But, considering that recently in every second "game developer workplace" photo I see someone is using one of them it appears they are still more popular than I thought!

I have the exact same keyboard at home and at work (that F-lock-key though... fixed in Windows, but pressing F8 at boot is a pain.) Also, they were like 4€ at the time, so I couldn't possibly resist

I'd love to get a Matia Ergo Pro, but the release date seems to keep getting pushed back.

 

[LilJoka]

How can you disagree with a statement of fact? I just did move my Windows installation to a different MB/CPU without issues. I just needed to install all the chipset drivers afterwards of course (including network, which obviously needs a USB stick). I did the same thing with Vista many years back.

Obviously, you can reformat if it makes you feel better, just like you can keep a swap file if it makes you feel better. But really, if you have a complex software stack/setup it's such a huge waste of time. You can always reformat in the unlikely event that you actually do experience unresolvable issues migrating - you don't lose that option.

Sometimes issues can crop up in the future, but this is what i did at work because i was lazy (and it was just for fun), same OS over these chipsets:

Install for X58
Move to H61
Move to Z77
Move to X79
And then back and forth between them. Each time i installed the chipset driver if it was a new chipset. No issues whilst i was playing around with the system.

 

[cartoon_soldier]

What is the power requirement for GTX 970?

 

[Nezmins]

Hi Everyone,

I had a question about building a system. I got a budget of € 1.200,- and am interested in building a system. This consist of only the core parts needed within the main system so no keyboard, monitor or whatever. Should I follow this guide and build on now of maby wait for upgrades that are being made availible in the coming months like the haswall chip set?

Any guidance you can give me is appriciated.

TNX!

 

[Ashes]

Hi Everyone,

I had a question about building a system. I got a budget of € 1.200,- and am interested in building a system. This consist of only the core parts needed within the main system so no keyboard, monitor or whatever. Should I follow this guide and build on now of maby wait for upgrades that are being made availible in the coming months like the haswall chip set?

Any guidance you can give me is appriciated.

TNX!

Things always get better in the tech world. What will you be waiting for? a 10% boost?

For your budget, you'll be fine getting whatever it is that you think you need.

 

[ricki42]

How much would you guys recommend the ASUS VG248QE? Does it have good colors/image quality?

I like it. I never had a IPS or VA panel though, so I'm probably not the best judge.
Just make sure you do this:

Here you go!

I think I followed this exactly as it is.

Loading the icc colour profile makes a big difference.

What is the power requirement for GTX 970?

145 W according to Nvidia.

 

[Azzurri]

Any point going for X99? Is it high OCability?

Besides the cost of the ram right now it isn't much more $ than a z97.

 

[tarheel91]

Any point going for X99? Is it high OCability?

Besides the cost of the ram right now it isn't much more $ than a z97.

6/8 cores. Quad channel ram.

 

[TheNamelessOne]

Any suggestions/experiences with any of these motherboards?

http://www.inet.se/produkt/1902645/asus-maximus-vii-ranger-z97-atx
http://www.inet.se/produkt/1902724/asus-gryphon-z97-armor-edition-matx
http://www.inet.se/produkt/1902710/asus-sabertooth-z97-mark-2-atx

Do you guys have any other mobos I should take into consideration? SLI is a must.

 

[Soodanim]

What seems to be the preferred 970 at the moment? Asus? MSI? Gigabyte? I'm willing to spend money on the more expensive ones. The one that has the fan turn off at idle is intriguing for noise especially, the Gigabyte always seems to be a good choice with that cooler, although don't they have weird default fan settings? The other one, I think it's the MSI, got great reviews and is £20 cheaper in most places.

I'm also not sure whether to to for the Fractal R4 or an ITX case. Some of those smaller cases look very nice, but the R4 has that built in sound dampening and dust filters, which would save a lot of time in my dusty room.

So, after doing cable management in my PC I spent basically an entire day also doing cable management outside of it. I even got a separate shelf for it. Admittedly, a large part of that day was spent cleaning my desk in preparation.


I realize this still doesn't look exceptionally clean, but (a) you should have seen it before and (b) you have to realize that there are 14 power plugs, 5 Gigabit ethernet cables, 4 HDMI cables, 1 DVI cable, a TV antenna cabe and a collection of USB cables going on there. Oh, and all the cabling involved in surround sound. I'm pretty happy with the result considering all that.

That part on the left where the consoles are is exactly what I need! But I need it in black or walnut. Where did you get it from? It's been surprisingly difficult to find something like that.

 

[garath]

What seems to be the preferred 970 at the moment? Asus? MSI? Gigabyte? I'm willing to spend money on the more expensive ones. The one that has the fan turn off at idle is intriguing for noise especially, the Gigabyte always seems to be a good choice with that cooler, although don't they have weird default fan settings? The other one, I think it's the MSI, got great reviews and is £20 cheaper in most places.

I'm also not sure whether to to for the Fractal R4 or an ITX case. Some of those smaller cases look very nice, but the R4 has that built in sound dampening and dust filters, which would save a lot of time in my dusty room.


That part on the left where the consoles are is exactly what I need! But I need it in black or walnut. Where did you get it from? It's been surprisingly difficult to find something like that.

I'd go with the Gigabyte or MSI 970. The Gigabyte is cooler and quietest under load (though they're all pretty quiet!) and most likely the best overclocker. The MSI has the silent idle setting and probably the second best overclocker but it's also cheaper and smaller. Make sure you can fit the monster 12.5" Gigabyte in whatever case you choose. The MSI is only 10.5".

 

[fifasnipe2224]

I currently have an Asus VE278Q monitor, an EVGA 570 video card, and an EVGA X58 mobo.
1) Is there any way to get more than 60 refresh rate on an Asus VE278Q?
2) Should I upgrade both my monitor and video card or stick with the monitor and buy two 970s?

 

[Smokey]

If I want to minimize the chances of my computer just rejecting my 980, any steps I should take before trying to swap GPUs?

(I asked this before, and was told it was cool to just power down, swap, and done. However I figured I'd ask one more time, for any other input.)

Just update to the latest Nvidia driver and then install. You should be fine.

 

[luxarific]

How can you disagree with a statement of fact? I just did move my Windows installation to a different MB/CPU without issues. I just needed to install all the chipset drivers afterwards of course (including network, which obviously needs a USB stick). I did the same thing with Vista many years back.

Obviously, you can reformat if it makes you feel better, just like you can keep a swap file if it makes you feel better. But really, if you have a complex software stack/setup it's such a huge waste of time. You can always reformat in the unlikely event that you actually do experience unresolvable issues migrating - you don't lose that option.

Durante, I'm thinking of doing this when I put my new build together next week (after backing up the data of course). I'm a little worried since I have an OEM license for Windows 7 Pro though - my guess is that a reactivation will be required and the key I have won't work.

Did you follow any particular guide, or did you just uninstall all your old chipset/GPU drivers, then installed the mobo/CPU, attached the OS drive, and then rebooted and let windows do its thing?

 

[opticalmace]

Woohoo, ordered up a 144Hz monitor for the first time. It's a BenQ XL2411Z, which I just realized is in the OP.

Got a good price on it and I'm damn excited to get it!

 

[Dave_6]

The day it arrives follow this order of operations;

1. Download newest Nvidia Drivers available.
2. Uninstall current drivers.
3. Power down computer.
4. Unplug computer and push power button to cycle any power out of the system.
5. Take out old GPU.
6. Put in new GPU.
7. Make sure everything is plugged in properly.
8. Boot computer.
9. Install newest Nvidia Drivers.

Easy as pie. Even if you currently have an Nvidia card sometimes just swapping out a GPU can lead to issues. Better to just remove everything and start over.

I'm going to be doing the same thing except I'm switching from AMD to Nvidia. Same process would work for me?

 

[bigkrev]

So I have had my PC running nicely for about 8 months now, and want to give it a minor tune up. While I bought a K processor and a Z MOBO, I didn't get an aftermarket cooler because it appeared to be the scariest part of the build, I was cutting costs, and wasn't sure if I'd actually want to overclock.

Now, I think I'm ready to OC a bit, and want to install an aftermarket cooler (replacing the packaged Intel stock cooler). What is my best option for something that fits in my case, isn't too expensive (50 dollars or less preferable), and is as pain free as possible to install? And is the thermal paste that comes with the heatsink good enough, or do I need to buy my own?

Relevent parts of PC
Case: NZXT H230
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 770 2GB
Mobo: ASUS Z87-A
CPU:Intel i5-4670K
PSU: Corsair CXM750 750 watt

 

[opticalmace]

I currently have an Asus VE278Q monitor, an EVGA 570 video card, and an EVGA X58 mobo.
1) Is there any way to get more than 60 refresh rate on an Asus VE278Q?
2) Should I upgrade both my monitor and video card or stick with the monitor and buy two 970s?

1) At 1080p its max is 60Hz. It's possible to overclock monitors (lol) but basically you're stuck at 60. The specifications say it can hit 85Hz but that's only at like 800x600 or something low.
2) At 1080p SLI 970s would be insane overkill IMHO. I think a 570 is pretty good for 1080p (60Hz) depending on how much you want to crank things up.

 

[fifasnipe2224]

1) At 1080p its max is 60Hz. It's possible to overclock monitors (lol) but basically you're stuck at 60. The specifications say it can hit 85Hz but that's only at like 800x600 or something low.
2) At 1080p SLI 970s would be insane overkill. I think a 570 is pretty good for 1080p (60Hz) depending on how much you want to crank things up.

I want to crank things up to max and have a higher refresh rate. So would a single 970 be good for 1080p, max, and at 120 fps? (for a 120Hz monitor).

How does that work... if I get a 120 or 144Hz monitor, for me to get its full benefit do I need to produce 120/144 FPS?

 

[Durante]

That part on the left where the consoles are is exactly what I need! But I need it in black or walnut. Where did you get it from? It's been surprisingly difficult to find something like that.

The entire desk was custom made ~12 years ago, I actually designed it for my purposes together with my father. Still looks almost new.

Durante, I'm thinking of doing this when I put my new build together next week (after backing up the data of course). I'm a little worried since I have an OEM license for Windows 7 Pro though - my guess is that a reactivation will be required and the key I have won't work.

I'm using a university license, so I'm not sure how that works, sorry :/

Did you follow any particular guide, or did you just uninstall all your old chipset/GPU drivers, then installed the mobo/CPU, attached the OS drive, and then rebooted and let windows do its thing?

I actually did even less. I moved the new drive to the system, booted and installed all the chipset drivers. Done.

 

[opticalmace]

I want to crank things up to max and have a higher refresh rate. So would a single 970 be good for 1080p, max, and at 120 fps? (for a 120Hz monitor).

How does that work... if I get a 120 or 144Hz monitor, for me to get its full benefit do I need to produce 120/144 FPS?

I should leave this to someone else, as I just ordered my first high-Hz monitor. AFAIK you want to be close to 120 fps to take full advantage of it, but then there's G-Sync, where you can run at say 45 fps and it'll still look very smooth.

If I were spending lots of dough I would probably go with a 1440p g-sync/970 setup, but only after the g-sync monitors drop in price. Too pricey for me right now.

 

[Sir Abacus]

Anyone know when ROG Swifts are coming back in stock?

 

[appaws]

I can't build myself, I am not very techy + the price difference in buying all the parts from pccasegear/msy and building it myself is like <100$ give or take. I just want to buy a computer and then not worry about it for the next 3-5 years. I looked for benchmarks and most of them show 295x2 beating 980sli or is there something i am missing. Sorry in advance for noob questions

If you are set on that, cool. It's really easy and you don't have to be a techie....but I won't nag you anymore.

Nothing really wrong with a 295x2....but I just thought that the setup with the Enthoo case (which is really excellent) and the two 980s was probably a better bet. New technology, less power consumption, etc. I am not a big believer in SLI/Crossfire anyway....I would prefer to stick with a single card solution. But if you are spending all that money, I guess it will be worth it.

I hope you have a nice 2560 by 1440 monitor to take advantage of all that power.

 

[Prez]

Not so sure about the AMD 5350 mini ITX anymore. Lack of USB 3.0 headers and too few SATA slots really put me off.

Any CPU + motherboard suggestions that are $120 or less? I'd like to compare the 5350 to:

- another mini ITX option (Intel?)
- a microATX option
- Motherboard with integrated CPU

 

[LilJoka]

Not so sure about the AMD 5350 mini ITX anymore. Lack of USB 3.0 headers and too few SATA slots really put me off.

Any CPU + motherboard suggestions that are $120 or less? I'd like to compare the 5350 to:

- another mini ITX option (Intel?)
- a microATX option
- Motherboard with integrated CPU

Intel NUC been considered?

 

[xBladeM6x]

Woke up to a day early on shipping surprise.

 

[luxarific]

The entire desk was custom made ~12 years ago, I actually designed it for my purposes together with my father. Still looks almost new.

I'm using a university license, so I'm not sure how that works, sorry :/

I actually did even less. I moved the new drive to the system, booted and installed all the chipset drivers. Done.

Ok thanks. Think I will try this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/292068-make-windows-7-bootable-after-motherboard-swap.html

 

[tarheel91]

Looking for a 2+ GB hard drive for storing media. Looks like WD Blues don't go above 1TB and I'd like a reasonably quiet drive since performance isn't critical, making Blacks impractical.

 

[xBladeM6x]

Looking for a 2+ GB hard drive for storing media. Looks like WD Blues don't go above 1TB and I'd like a reasonably quiet drive since performance isn't critical, making Blacks impractical.

Are WD Blacks really that loud?

 

[Prez]

Intel NUC been considered?

Has no (full-size) optical drive. Maybe just a MicroATX AM1? But then I don't really see the point since I'll have to get a much bigger case, an Intel would probably be better then? How future proof is the 5350 for just browsing and music (spotify/vlc)? Would it still run smoothly in 4-5 years? Is it better to get a motherboard with integrated CPU if I don't plan on upgrading the CPU? I'm pretty clueless here.

 

[LilJoka]

Has no (full-size) optical drive. Maybe just a MicroATX AM1? But then I don't really see the point since I'll have to get a much bigger case, an Intel would probably be better then? How future proof is the 5350 for just browsing and music (spotify/vlc)? Would it still run smoothly in 4-5 years? Is it better to get a motherboard with integrated CPU if I don't plan on upgrading the CPU? I'm pretty clueless here.

NUC + USB external DVD drive?

 

[Prez]

NUC + USB external DVD drive?

All external dvd drives I can find are slim, I'd prefer not to use those to rip my CD collection.