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[Kayant]

You could get a wifi adaptor and install it later if you need it. A 500 watt power supply is recommended for the GTX 970, so 550 watts will handle it. I have some recommendations for power supplies:

XFX 550 watts for £45 - non modular
Corsair CX600M 600 watts for £56 - semi modular
EVGA Supernova G2 750 watts for £88 - fully modular, and high capacity in case you want to run a second GTX 970 in the future

For mATX motherboards, I recommend:

ASRock Z97M Pro4 for £76 - budget choice, solid price to performance ratio.
Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 for £110 - upper limit of your motherboard budget, but has lots of features like SATA Express and M2 support, and twin BIOS chips.

Sorry, I'm not knowledgeable about monitors. Are you buying that 4670K used?

Thanks for the suggestions. Am actually getting the i5-4690K made a mistake there. I thinking of taking advantage of the intel cashback offer atm

Think I will go for the Corsair CX600M for PSU and Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 for MB. One question the MSI Z97M Gaming is £3 cheaper on amazon is it worth going for that instead or is the Gigabyte board better?

Thanks again.

 

[ISee]

Well, I plugged my SSD and the hard drive on the sata port directly under my graphics card (I have two sata 6 ports and both are marked) and I unplugged ny hard drive, installed Windows 8.1 on the ssd and after installation of various drivers I plugged my hard drive again.
I'm not talking about formatting the ssd (which i should've mention in that post), I'm talking about my hard drive.

Edit: after plugging my ssd, i changed the settings to ahci mode (hot plug disabled) in the bios before i installed windows 8.1.

If you want to initiate/install a new hdd in win8 just use the disk management tool.If your disk is not initialized (as is sometimes the case with brand-new drives), you’ll be prompted to initialize it. If your disk is 2TB or more in size, select GPT (if you do not want to install another OS etc. on that hdd); otherwise, stick with MBR. Select a name, a partition size, do not quick format, disable compresion, format in ntfs (for win only users). Thats pretty much it.

 

[RGM79]

I'm not talking about formatting the ssd (which i should've mention in that post), I'm talking about my hard drive.

Best thing to do would be to back up the stuff from the hard drive and format it. If you don't have enough space, there are workarounds involving partitioning.

Thanks for the suggestions. Am actually getting the i5-4690K made a mistake there. I thinking of taking advantage of the intel cashback offer atm

Think I will go for the Corsair CX600M for PSU and Gigabyte GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 for MB. One question the MSI Z97M Gaming is £3 cheaper on amazon is it worth going for that instead or is the Gigabyte board better?

Thanks again.

After looking around... It seems the main difference is that the MSI lacks the SATA Express port but may be better suited for overclocking, if you intend to do that. Both will serve you well, you could go with either.

 

[roytheone]

No, if anything, you hit the nail on the head when it come to installing RAM. Most aftermarket coolers will only interfere with the RAM slot closest to the CPU, and maybe just barely touch the RAM in the second closest slot. Still depends on which CPU cooler you get. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo will definitely fit.

Alright, thanks. Another question, I looked at some guide about installing the Hyper 212 and after that checked the situation in my case, and I found that the bottom 2 holes in my motherboard are behind a black plate:

So that would probably mean i have to completely remove my motherboard to install an aftermarket cooler? Because that would suck a lot.

 

[RGM79]

Alright, thanks. Another question, I looked at some guide about installing the Hyper 212 and after that checked the situation in my case, and I found that the bottom 2 holes in my motherboard are behind a black plate:



So that would probably mean i have to completely remove my motherboard to install an aftermarket cooler? Because that would suck a lot.

Unfortunately, yes, you will have to remove the motherboard. What case is it? Motherboard tray cutout looks vaguely familiar.

 

[Yudoken]

Best thing to do would be to back up the stuff from the hard drive and format it. If you don't have enough space, there are workarounds involving partitioning.



After looking around... It seems the main difference is that the MSI lacks the SATA Express port but may be better suited for overclocking, if you intend to do that. Both will serve you well, you could go with either.

The hard drive still contains my windows 7 and all my games.
I've made a backup of it on my 3tb external hard drive and I'm going to use the hdd for most of my games.
Only a few games (Titanfall, Battlefield 3) are going to be installed on my ssd.
The thing is that I've currently only have 1gb data plan on my smartphone and have to tether because i can't access otherwise the internet to install ny games.
Some games (like GTA IV) delete my game folder and don't restore like most of my other games.
Hopefully I will have normal access to the internet at the end of december...

 

[roytheone]

Unfortunately, yes, you will have to remove the motherboard. What case is it? Motherboard tray cutout looks vaguely familiar.

Ugh, well, guess I will just have to keep my cpu on stock speeds for now then. Don't really want to fuck around with my motherboard when I plan to completely replace it and the cpu in about half a year anyway.

My case is a silverstone PS03:

 

[Aztechnology]

Thanks for the thorough answer, I am kind of in a hurry to upgrade myself, my 6870 just doesn't cut it anymore unfortunately.

I had considered the ASUS Strix model since I love my current ASUS card, but it required an 8-pin and I only have two 6-pins. I could upgrade the PSU of course, but if it came down to that or getting a card for the same price that only requires two 6-pins I will probably go with the latter.

Are you happy with the performance of the card?

The 970 is one of the best cards I've ever owned easily. It's overclocking capabilities are beautiful, and it keeps extremely cool. It's also running everything flawlessly.

As for your pin problem, you can buy an adapter very cheap that takes two 6 pin and converts it to an 8 pin. Sometimes it even comes with the GPU. My EVGA 770 FTW came with the adapter.

 

[RGM79]

The hard drive still contains my windows 7 and all my games.
I've made a backup of it on my 3tb external hard drive and I'm going to use the hdd for most of my games.
Only a few games (Titanfall, Battlefield 3) are going to be installed on my ssd.
The thing is that I've currently only have 1gb data plan on my smartphone and have to tether because i can't access otherwise the internet to install ny games.
Some games (like GTA IV) delete my game folder and don't restore like most of my other games.

Hopefully I will have normal access to the internet at the end of december...

Oh, I see. In that case you should hold off then. Steam games can be moved and restored very easily, others will depend on how they install.

Ugh, well, guess I will just have to keep my cpu on stock speeds for now then. Don't really want to fuck around with my motherboard when I plan to completely replace it and the cpu in about half a year anyway.

My case is a silverstone PS03:

Yeah, that's fine. No big deal.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Ok I'm now officially in full-on panic mode.

After previous woes, I purchased an MX100 SSD. Today it arrived. I installed Win 7 to it. It begins normally enough, but I'm worried because that first reboot still took longer than it should have, much longer. I install mobo drivers from disc, then restart it... now it blue-screens every time it gets to windows login screen after about 4 seconds. Even in safe mode.

Conclusions:

- I bought a new SSD for no reason, the old one is probably fine.
- Shit's fucked up, yo

My next thought is "maybe I have a bum install of windows!" I consider this to be a very long shot but oh boy would I love for that to magically be true to fix all my problems.

Possibilities:

- Ram is fucked / possibly corrupted?
- CPU is fucked?
- Motherboard is fucked?

To reiterate, the symptoms are:

- General instability
- Extremely slow boot times to windows
- Steam / Firefox / software / OS level stuff is laggy / crashy

Any ideas? I don't have another PC nearby to just swap and change all the components. What are some general ideas for testing? I'm going to google for memory test of some kind (for RAM I mean) but if I can't even boot into windows, that's going to be a bit of a tall fuckin' order.

 

[TiredGamer]

- Ram is fucked / possibly corrupted?
- CPU is fucked?
- Motherboard is fucked?

Don't forget your PSU.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Don't forget your PSU.

Do you have reason to suspect these symptoms of being PSU related?

 

[Acrylic7]

Use PCPartPicker. Here's a better optimized build based on yours. Roughly $400 savings while having a better video card, power supply, and case.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($299.98 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.99 @ Micro Center)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($96.48 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($123.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 280X 3GB Double Dissipation Video Card ($204.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: XFX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LG WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($49.99 @ Micro Center)
Total: $1008.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-12-04 19:19 EST-0500

You can get Windows for $20 from Reddit's microsoftsoftwareswap.

Thanks so much bro. You are saving me a ton of cash and making my build better.

Yea that is expensive, you can shave off some money by getting a cheaper Mobo, unless you need the Wifi option I don't see you needing that Mobo. Also look at the buy/sell/trade thread there's a guy in there with a Microsoft agreement with his business or school and can sell you Windows 7/8 at a fraction of the cost. Would you be willing to get a Micro-ATX Board or do you feel you need the extra PCI slots etc?

Take a look on Newegg and Amazon for a cheaper PSU. You can get a better PSU at a lower price, it will still be modular just not 100% modular which is usually fine since usually the only non modular cables are to the ATX mobo.

Edit: Unless you're completely set on getting an Nvidia card, I would also recommend you take a look at the AMD R9 280x which performs similarly to the 770 for only a little bit more than the 760.

Thanks for the tips!

 

[Servizio]

My first guess would be bad RAM, and I'd give memtest a try. From what I remember you can boot into it without having to load Windows.

My experience with bad PSUs and motherboards is the computer refuses to turn on at all, or boot all the way up, typically chirping out an error code.

 

[TiredGamer]

Do you have reason to suspect these symptoms of being PSU related?

A bad power supply can do that, but...

My experience with bad PSUs and motherboards is the computer refuses to turn on at all, or boot all the way up, typically chirping out an error code.

This is true too, it really depends on the circumstances. I've had both types of failures. Mainly I suggest it because you said you couldn't boot, but try the memtest first.

 

[riflen]

A bad power supply will result in precisely those symptoms, because it will affect everything you listed: CPU, RAM, motherboard, storage.

Actually, it wouldn't cause laggy/unresponsive programmes or a slow boot time, which is what he describes. Bad PSU will absolutely cause instability though; sudden crashes or resets when the machine is stressed.
Memory is the likely candidate based on what he's described in my opinion.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I have reformatted again using UEFI or whatever it's called. Probably just placebo / randomness (bad install before or something like that) but it's being more stable so far - it can boot into windows and restart after installing chipset drivers without crashing.

I feel like it's being slightly snappier but still boots slower than I feel it should into windows. I'm installing windows updates now. I have to get up in a few hours for my sister's birthday breakfast but I'll run mem-test in the morning if everything is still going ok.

Hoping that I can just rip out one of my 8 gig sticks if that's the cause of the problems. I can live with 8GB for a little while. I don't want to have to replace both if I'm planning to go to skylake and DDR4 in Q4 next year / 1H 2016.

 

[garath]

My first guess would be bad RAM, and I'd give memtest a try. From what I remember you can boot into it without having to load Windows.

My experience with bad PSUs and motherboards is the computer refuses to turn on at all, or boot all the way up, typically chirping out an error code.

Memory is my first thought too. memtest is a good start.

Bad memory can cause a LOT of instability issues along the lines he's seeing.

 

[pestul]

Here's a nice deal for CanadaGAF if you're looking for a SSD.

$89 Crucial M500 240GB SSD free shipping

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00BQ8RM1A/

 

[Diablos]

What's next from Intel for 2015? Anything compelling?

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

What's next from Intel for 2015? Anything compelling?

14nm Broadwell. Skylake in Q4 if we pray hard enough.

 

[Mobius and pet octopus]

I don't think a dual core is really acceptable as a gaming rig going forward. Even now several games that should run on budget rigs will run on a dual core, including DAI, evil within, and 1 + 2 other profile games.

I guess it all depends on what you want to do but getting a dual core now is really really not gonna last long at all.

 

[Oxn]

I want SkyLake-E so bad.

Please skip Broadwell-E so we can hurry this along.

 

[daninthemix]

Can anyone advise me on the most seamless method of moving from a mirrored 7200RPM raid to a single SSD by imaging one to the other? I presume the boot loader has to change, but what else? Any HDD driver issues that might trip me up?

 

[RGM79]

Ok I'm now officially in full-on panic mode.

After previous woes, I purchased an MX100 SSD. Today it arrived. I installed Win 7 to it. It begins normally enough, but I'm worried because that first reboot still took longer than it should have, much longer. I install mobo drivers from disc, then restart it... now it blue-screens every time it gets to windows login screen after about 4 seconds. Even in safe mode.

Conclusions:

- I bought a new SSD for no reason, the old one is probably fine.
- Shit's fucked up, yo

My next thought is "maybe I have a bum install of windows!" I consider this to be a very long shot but oh boy would I love for that to magically be true to fix all my problems.

Possibilities:

- Ram is fucked / possibly corrupted?
- CPU is fucked?
- Motherboard is fucked?

To reiterate, the symptoms are:

- General instability
- Extremely slow boot times to windows
- Steam / Firefox / software / OS level stuff is laggy / crashy

Any ideas? I don't have another PC nearby to just swap and change all the components. What are some general ideas for testing? I'm going to google for memory test of some kind (for RAM I mean) but if I can't even boot into windows, that's going to be a bit of a tall fuckin' order.

What were your specs?

I'd suspect the motherboard, given similar issues I've had in the past. CPU is very unlikely to be fucked, given how well protected from physical damage they are (sandwiched between motherboard and heatsink, thermal protection shuts off computer before CPU gets too hot, etc). Any idea what your computer's temperatures are like?

 

[Diablos]

14nm Broadwell. Skylake in Q4 if we pray hard enough.

Is 14nm Broadwell worth getting excited about/waiting for?

 

[Hironobu Sakaguchi]

noobish question
if i bought any 144hz monitor like viewsonic or any brand, and i used displayport instead of DVI cable to enjoy the sounds over speakers, will i be able to have the same refresh rate of 144hz or lower?

this is my GPU for reference:
SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X R9 280X 3GB GDDR5 OC

 

[riflen]

noobish question
if i bought any 144hz monitor like viewsonic or any brand, and i used displayport instead of DVI cable to enjoy the sounds over speakers, will i be able to have the same refresh rate of 144hz or lower?

this is my GPU for reference:
SAPPHIRE VAPOR-X R9 280X 3GB GDDR5 OC

Don't know if you can send audio signals over DisplayPort. DVI is also designed only for display signals, although I know with recent NVIDIA GPUs, you can send audio & video over DVI if it's adapted to HDMI at the receiving end (basically sending HDMI signals through the DVI connector).
Either way, that monitor will probably only support audio signal inputs through the HDMI ports and 3.5mm headphone jack. Can you explain your current setup as regards GPU to display connectivity?

 

[Durante]

Ok I'm now officially in full-on panic mode.

After previous woes, I purchased an MX100 SSD. Today it arrived. I installed Win 7 to it. It begins normally enough, but I'm worried because that first reboot still took longer than it should have, much longer. I install mobo drivers from disc, then restart it... now it blue-screens every time it gets to windows login screen after about 4 seconds. Even in safe mode.

Conclusions:

- I bought a new SSD for no reason, the old one is probably fine.
- Shit's fucked up, yo

My next thought is "maybe I have a bum install of windows!" I consider this to be a very long shot but oh boy would I love for that to magically be true to fix all my problems.

Possibilities:

- Ram is fucked / possibly corrupted?
- CPU is fucked?
- Motherboard is fucked?

To reiterate, the symptoms are:

- General instability
- Extremely slow boot times to windows
- Steam / Firefox / software / OS level stuff is laggy / crashy

Any ideas? I don't have another PC nearby to just swap and change all the components. What are some general ideas for testing? I'm going to google for memory test of some kind (for RAM I mean) but if I can't even boot into windows, that's going to be a bit of a tall fuckin' order.

I'd be most suspicious of the MB, but you should still run memtest like others have suggested. Don't even need to boot into windows for it.

 

[Diablos]

Okay so after reading about Skylake... I am thinking I should wait for that?

In the meantime I could sell my 6300 and put the money towards a FX-8320E, and use that until late 2015 when Skylake presumably comes out. UNLESS Skylake uses the same socket as an i5 (is this even known yet), then I could build an i5 machine early next year.

Decisions, decisions...

 

[Hironobu Sakaguchi]

Don't know if you can send audio signals over DisplayPort. DVI is also designed only for display signals, although I know with recent NVIDIA GPUs, you can send audio & video over DVI if it's adapted to HDMI at the receiving end (basically sending HDMI signals through the DVI connector).
Either way, that monitor will probably only support audio signal inputs through the HDMI ports and 3.5mm headphone jack. Can you explain your current setup as regards GPU to display connectivity?

while i posted my last reply, i searched a little and DP should really send audio like HDMI over built-in speaker, but i never used any cable more modern than HDMI

bout my current setup, it's on HDMI currently , but i dont own a 144hz monitor nor DP/DVI cables and i'm in another city for the time being

correct me if i'm wrong

 

[opticalmace]

Okay so after reading about Skylake... I am thinking I should wait for that?

In the meantime I could sell my 6300 and put the money towards a FX-8320E, and use that until late 2015 when Skylake presumably comes out. UNLESS Skylake uses the same socket as an i5 (is this even known yet), then I could build an i5 machine early next year.

Decisions, decisions...

There will always be something better on the horizon. Just upgrade when you need to and don't worry much about it.

 

[Anarkin]

So I finally bought a new CPU, Mainboard and RAM. Do I have to re-install Win 8 or is that not necessary anymore? My internet connection isn't very fast and the upgrade to 8.1 alone is over 2GB I think.

 

[Diablos]

There will always be something better on the horizon. Just upgrade when you need to and don't worry much about it.

Eh it's just that I hate having a FX build in 2014-2015. On the other hand Skylake is probbaly only a year or so off. So, I'd also hate building an i5 rig if Skylake is right around the corner. We're kind of late in the Sandy Bridge/Haswell game.

I'm stuck!

 

[RGM79]

Eh it's just that I hate being stuck with an FX build in 2014-2015. On the other hand Skylake is probbaly only a year or so off. So, I'd also hate building an i5 rig if Skylake is right around the corner. We're kind of late in the Sandy Bridge/Haswell game.

I'm stuck!

Both Broadwell and Skylake are set for sometime in the middle of 2015. Broadwell will be an unlocked upgrade CPU for socket 1150, while Skylake will be locked and on the new 1151 socket which will be incompatible with 1150 motherboards and CPU.

 

[Diablos]

Both Broadwell and Skylake are set for sometime in the middle of 2015. Broadwell will be an unlocked upgrade CPU for socket 1150, while Skylake will be locked and on the new 1151 socket which will be incompatible with 1150 motherboards and CPU.

Well, in that case, if it's really coming in the middle of next year, I will just sell my 6300 and put it towards getting the most out of this garbage AM3+ socket. MEH. I wish I built an i5 machine back in 2013 instead of being an AMD fanboy.

 

[riflen]

while i posted my last reply, i searched a little and DP should really send audio like HDMI over built-in speaker, but i never used any cable more modern than HDMI

bout my current setup, it's on HDMI currently , but i dont own a 144hz monitor nor DP/DVI cables and i'm in another city for the time being

correct me if i'm wrong

The DisplayPort standard can support audio, yes, but I'd suggest checking with the display manufacturer to see if it's supported by the monitor. I would not assume it'll just work. Sorry I can't be much help.

 

[Ashhong]

Would by R9 270 be able to power 2 1920x1200 24" monitors? I don't play too many high quality games, mostly league. But I definitely don't want to lose performance there. IM coming from a 22" 168x1050 screen. Will there be significant fps loss in other games like Crysis 3?

Anybody?

 

[kikonawa]

That card is really not suitable for double 1080p screens and gaming

 

[riflen]

Anybody?

Can a R9 270 run two 1920x1200 monitors? Yes. If you're expecting to play recent games at 3840x1200 though, I would think again. That card is a budget GPU intended for games at 1920x1080 or thereabouts. I think it only comes in a 2GB configuration also.

If you stick to old games (source engine stuff), then it might be bearable, but Crysis 3? Nope. I've no idea what League of Legends needs, so someone else will have to make a suggestion about that particular game. It'll definitely be slower than at 1680x1050 though!

 

[Shadowhaxor]

That damned upgrade bug is itching me again. Looking for some thoughts here.

I'm still running a i5-3570k which is overclocked at 4.2Ghz and a GTX 970, which handles everything I throw at it. However I've been eyeing a new upgrade but at the same time I want to wait until DDR4 / Skylake is released and would rather not have to do a huge upgrade again vs waiting.

Any specific reason why I should drop the i5, well other than it's a LGA1155 and even the i7 LGA1155 procs are overpriced or wait. The sad part is I do have another system, my HTPC which I fitted with a i5-4670s but is using a mini-ITX setup.

I know I should wait but it's getting harder and harder to wait it seems ;(

 

[Ashhong]

Can a R9 270 run two 1920x1200 monitors? Yes. If you're expecting to play recent games at 3840x1200 though, I would think again. That card is a budget GPU intended for games at 1920x1080 or thereabouts. I think it only comes in a 2GB configuration also.

If you stick to old games (source engine stuff), then it might be bearable, but Crysis 3? Nope. I've no idea what League of Legends needs, so someone else will have to make a suggestion about that particular game. It'll definitely be slower than at 1680x1050 though!

At most I would be gaming on only one monitor. Will the fact that I even have a second monitor connected slow down my games on the first monitor? Even if I'm only web browsing?

I could play Crysis 3 decently on my current monitor. I don't even play it but just want to know that I can lol

 

[riflen]

That damned upgrade bug is itching me again. Looking for some thoughts here.

I'm still running a i5-3570k which is overclocked at 4.2Ghz and a GTX 970, which handles everything I throw at it. However I've been eyeing a new upgrade but at the same time I want to wait until DDR4 / Skylake is released and would rather not have to do a huge upgrade again vs waiting.

Any specific reason why I should drop the i5, well other than it's a LGA1155 and even the i7 LGA1155 procs are overpriced or wait. The sad part is I do have another system, my HTPC which I fitted with a i5-4670s but is using a mini-ITX setup.

I know I should wait but it's getting harder and harder to wait it seems ;(

This is a classic "replace hardware for no reason" post. You don't give any details about what games you're playing or want to play and why you think your machine is not cutting it. i5 3570K + GTX 970 is better than 90% of PCs out there.

That said, we all understand the feeling. I'm still using a 3570k and I've considered dropping in a 3770k, but there's just no reason at all when you actually do the research. At best you'll see a few percent improvement in some games, most will perform almost identically. At worst, your new 3770k wont be happy at 4.2 and you could be worse off. My advice; play games and enjoy them and turn off the FRAPS overlay. =)

 

[RGM79]

So I finally bought a new CPU, Mainboard and RAM. Do I have to re-install Win 8 or is that not necessary anymore? My internet connection isn't very fast and the upgrade to 8.1 alone is over 2GB I think.

Yes, because motherboard drivers are a pain in the ass to get working like that. Maybe you can get someone else to download Windows for you.

Well, in that case, if it's really coming in the middle of next year, I will just sell my 6300 and put it towards getting the most out of this garbage AM3+ socket. MEH. I wish I built an i5 machine back in 2013 instead of being an AMD fanboy.

Well, assuming there are no delays. Z97 will be supported to the end of 2015 with the release of Broadwell, it seems. Beyond that, it's likely that 1151 will be the new platform to supersede and eventually replace 1150. You may want to see how much you can get for that FX-6300 CPU and the motherboard you have now, by the middle of next year, the resale value can only have dropped.

Anybody?

For a single 1080p screen the R9 270X gets 200-300 frames per second on ultra settings for League of Legends, as far as I can tell from youtube benchmark videos. Expect to get a bit less that that on a single 1200p monitor due to the 270 being a little weaker and 1920x1200 being slightly harder to drive due to higher pixel count.

Did you get dual monitors because you intend to play the games in multi-monitor mode? It's hard to determine the framerate drop there. I'd imagine it'd halve your framerate and a little bit more.. if it was as linear as that.

Crysis 3 is very dependent on CPU power. I have no idea what your specs are, so it's hard to say for multi-monitor setups.

At most I would be gaming on only one monitor. Will the fact that I even have a second monitor connected slow down my games on the first monitor? Even if I'm only web browsing?

I could play Crysis 3 decently on my current monitor. I don't even play it but just want to know that I can lol

Oh, in that case, you should be alright. For best results, run games in fullscreen, not windowed, fullscreen windowed, or borderless. If you want Crysis 3 at 60 frames per second or more, aim for medium settings. If 30 frames per second is fine, you could get away with high or even very high settings.

 

[michaelius]

To reiterate, the symptoms are:

- General instability
- Extremely slow boot times to windows
- Steam / Firefox / software / OS level stuff is laggy / crashy

Any ideas? I don't have another PC nearby to just swap and change all the components. What are some general ideas for testing? I'm going to google for memory test of some kind (for RAM I mean) but if I can't even boot into windows, that's going to be a bit of a tall fuckin' order.

Disconnect every other drive in pc and also try diffrent sata 3 cable.

I had something similar when my sata3 cable partially slipped out of drive so it was connecting but not 100%.

Also check sata mode in uefi.

 

[riflen]

At most I would be gaming on only one monitor. Will the fact that I even have a second monitor connected slow down my games on the first monitor? Even if I'm only web browsing?

I could play Crysis 3 decently on my current monitor. I don't even play it but just want to know that I can lol

Someone with an Eyefinity setup will have to chime in. I avoid multi-screen configs like the plague. You might have to play your game in borderless windowed mode and drag it to the display you need. So, it might not be possible in all games.

As long as it's possible to do, the performance difference playing at 1920x1200 as compared to playing at 1680x1050 should be pretty small.

 

[Ashhong]

For a single 1080p screen the R9 270X gets 200-300 frames on ultra settings for League of Legends, as far as I can tell from youtube benchmark videos. Expect to get a bit less that that on a single 1200p monitor due to the 270 being a little weaker and 1920x1200 being slightly harder to drive due to higher pixel count.

Did you get dual monitors because you intend to play the games in multi-monitor mode? It's hard to determine the framerate drop there. I'd imagine it'd halve your framerate and a little bit more.. if it was as linear as that.

Crysis 3 is very dependent on CPU power. I have no idea what your specs are, so it's hard to say.

Ok so league I don't need to worry then. I turn on vsync and cap at 60fps anyway, although I don't know if that's necessary.

currently I run a 22" 1680x1050 and a 21" 4:3 monitor of decent resolution that I forgot. I only ever play games on the bigger monitor, and browse/watch videos on the second. I guess what I'm asking is how big of a performance hit can I expect upgrading to two 1920x1200? I have an i5 4670k at 4.4ghz.

Edit: thanks for the replies. As long as I won't be taxing my gpu substantially more by upgrading my monitors I'm happy.

 

[Vizzeh]

Got a 980GTX clocked at 1510mhz, i7 4790k @4.7ghz stable, 2400mhz ram. Tempted to purchase another 980GTX, tbh I don't know why, I use a 72hz oc'd asus mx279h IPS 5ms, its a fantastic monitor, I run Dual monitor with a 47" wall mounted 16ms TV...

I guess I want to future proof the system further, however I am waiting for a 144/120hz GSYNC IPS which is apparently on its way, I don't really fancy a TN panel.

So basically does anyone have an argument of benifit for purchasing another 980GTX in SLI in the setup with the Asus IPS 72hz 5ms system? or should I wait until the dream panel listed above comes (the 144hz IPS),then add another 980GTX (or just sell my current 1 and add the "then" leading 'Single card' brand of new graphix card

 

[twerkitout]

Hoping to get a recommendation, I built a computer about 4- years ago

Antec 1200
Intel Core i7 920
Asus P6T Motherboard
HD4850
6GB RAM
SSD for OS
1TB for bulk storage
SeaSonic 700W power supply

Everything has held up well except for the video card and I am now looking to replace it. Am I going to be limited on power? What is a good, future-proofed card I could replace it with while staying within the power limits? I guess replacing the power supply could be an option, but probably a last resort. Thanks

 

[RGM79]

Someone with an Eyefinity setup will have to chime in. I avoid multi-screen configs like the plague. You might have to play your game in borderless windowed mode and drag it to the display you need. So, it might not be possible in all games.

As long as it's possible to do, the performance difference playing at 1920x1200 as compared to playing at 1680x1050 should be pretty small.

He's not running Eyefinity, just multiple monitors. Most if not all games will go fullscreen on the monitor with the taskbar, so it should be alright. I have a friend who had weird issues in the past with games opening on the wrong monitor, but it went away somehow. I myself run two monitors asymmetrically, one is a 24" 1080p in landscape, the other is a 19" 1280x1024 monitor in portrait view.

Ok so league I don't need to worry then. I turn on vsync and cap at 60fps anyway, although I don't know if that's necessary.

currently I run a 22" 1680x1050 and a 21" 4:3 monitor of decent resolution that I forgot. I only ever play games on the bigger monitor, and browse/watch videos on the second. I guess what I'm asking is how big of a performance hit can I expect upgrading to two 1920x1200? I have an i5 4670k at 4.4ghz.

Edit: thanks for the replies. As long as I won't be taxing my gpu substantially more by upgrading my monitors I'm happy.

Oh, with vsync enabled you probably won't even notice a difference in framerate then.

It doesn't matter if you have nothing going on in the second monitor. Even if there was a performance hit, it'd be very small, as there would be nothing happening on the second monitor, it'd essentially be a static image.

As for playing a video.. I can't say for certain what the performance hit would be like.. but I still doubt it'd do much to the framerate. Your graphics card is already capable of over 100 frames per second with maxed out settings in league of legends, and you cap it to 60 frames per second with vsync anyway. The R9 270 has power to spare, you likely won't see any performance hits when playing a video.