Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

Unless you buy some specific (read more expensive) models and mainboards, you pretty much cannot overclock an intel CPU these days.

On the upside, you can go with even a very cheap mainboard without sacrificing performance (if you don't overclock).

More expensive models are necessary for overclocking, and/or if you need a gazillion drives, USB devices and gadgetry already on the board.

Even a €60 board like this

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/B85 Pro4/

will probably have more connectivity options than you will ever use.


You will need a USB device or PCI(e) card for WLAN connectivity, that's about another €20
 
To those of you who use facebook, have you come across this (super annoying) behaviour on the site recently?

Say you're looking through your newsfeed and have scrolled down a bit. You see a picture you want to take a closer look at.. You click it.. it comes up larger, you enjoy the view. Then you click out of it.. What used to happen was the picture disappeared and you were back on the timeline.

What happens now is facebook refreshes the timeline, so you're back at the top and have to scroll down to find your spot.. if it's even there anymore, the newsfeed could be different now, and you could be SOL.

So far this doesn't seem to be browser or location specific, so rather than a random glitch it appears to be an actual feature that they put in. Has anyone seen this and/or know how to turn it off?
 
Just tried it on mine, works fine for me. I.e. it just disappears and i'm back on the same place in the timeline, not refreshed or scrolled to the top.
 
Good. I'll just take the cheapest possible ATX MoBo to LGA 1150 then :p!

Moving forward to GPUs. I checked some benchmarks and I think that for 180€ budget the AMD Radeon R9 280 is the best choise for me. I think that it doesn't matter much who has cooled and overclocked the card so I'll just take the cheapest options.

Right now there's 3 very good and CHEAP choises in Mindfactory.de in the moment:

PowerColor Turbo Duo

HIS IceQ

VTX3D X-Edition

Are they any good?
 
If you plan to built the system at the end of the year, no point in looking up video cards now.
The next generation will be likely be out till then (that's the reason those AMD cards are getting that cheap now).

If you won't wait, I would rather go with

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_i...3x-OC-Aktiv-PCIe-3-0-x16--Retail-_956574.html

That €5 more will get you a much cooler, slightly faster and less noisy card.
Under normal circumstances you would have to pay like €20-30 more for those custom cooling models.
 
Thanks a lot buddy :)!

I really like that Gigabyte plan even though "turbo duo" title was something that I'd call legendary potential :p. I'll take Gigabyte to my shopping cart which I'll share with you soon.

Edit: And yeah, you're right. This is not smart to plan parts for a build you'll do after a year or half because then those things are only something you can play frisbee with... maybe. However I'm interested into these lil' guys so I want to learn building badass computer lineups now :)! Let's say I'm making my version of ~600€ gaming com parts combo.
 
I would get a notch higher with the mainboard, to get some headroom for future upgrades. E.g that Asrock board, it's almost as cheap:

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_i...1150-Dual-Channel-DDR3-ATX-Retail_854976.html
I especially like the second high-bandwidth PCIe slot, but that's probably just me. 2 more SATA ports, 2 more RAM slots, just in case

Add a SSD. Seriously. At least plan to upgrade at the earliest opportunity.

That PSU is slightly dubious, again i would go at a notch higher:
http://www.mindfactory.de/product_i...e-Non-Modular-80--Bronze_640838.html#techdata

As for the case, you need a large one for that moster of a video card, and preferably one with a good airflow. E.g.
http://www.mindfactory.de/product_i...-Midi-Tower-ohne-Netzteil-schwarz_787620.html
Fairly positive review from anandtech.

A good case will stay with you probably for a decade, so it makes some sense to invest a bit more here.

Memory, CPU and GPU are fine, but you would need the boxed version of the CPU if you don't want an aftermarkete heatsink/fan.

With the 302, you very likely won't need an additional case fan.
 
How compatible is RAM in terms of slightly different specs. I'd like to add more to my system but the ones I got are out of stock and production. So just buying more of the same isn't an option.
Looking at the available RAM its surprisingly hard to find an exact match in specs.
I don't mind having a speed penalty due to my older RAM but I'm worried about instabilities to my system.
 
I took some really cheap parts in but didn't save in CPU and GPU. What do you like?
Agree with Tokala's recommendations. :goodjob:

Should be a fun build and plenty of power. :drool:

How compatible is RAM in terms of slightly different specs. I'd like to add more to my system but the ones I got are out of stock and production. So just buying more of the same isn't an option.
Looking at the available RAM its surprisingly hard to find an exact match in specs.
I don't mind having a speed penalty due to my older RAM but I'm worried about instabilities to my system.
What are you looking for that is so rare?
 
How compatible is RAM in terms of slightly different specs. I'd like to add more to my system but the ones I got are out of stock and production. So just buying more of the same isn't an option.
Looking at the available RAM its surprisingly hard to find an exact match in specs.
I don't mind having a speed penalty due to my older RAM but I'm worried about instabilities to my system.

Should generally be fine running at the speed of the slower sticks.

I've only run into problems trying to combine multiple "overclocking" sets together, where I've had to dial back the speed on the combined sets to JEDEC spec.

What are you looking for that is so rare?

Not really a matter of being rare - any RAM that was produced 2+ years ago is almost certainly out of production by now, and even if the SKU is still around, it's probably using different actual chips.
 
I would get a notch higher with the mainboard, to get some headroom for future upgrades. E.g that Asrock board, it's almost as cheap:

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_i...1150-Dual-Channel-DDR3-ATX-Retail_854976.html
I especially like the second high-bandwidth PCIe slot, but that's probably just me. 2 more SATA ports, 2 more RAM slots, just in case

OK. Just noticed that the MSI- motherboard I suggested didn't even have PCIe 3.0 x 16 slots so where the heck I'm supposed to put my video card then?? :p! The ASRock is fine.

Add a SSD. Seriously. At least plan to upgrade at the earliest opportunity.

Probably can't afford that at first but yes, it is useful and I surely would add it later when I get even more money. Actually the whole point of being so stingy budgetwise is that I don't have money to do this. That's the whole point of this discussion. That's why I'm saying I'll buy the parts later. I'm actually just 16, not in a dayjob so I must fund the project with summerjob money and things like birthday bonus. I've been counting that I'll have 850€ for this in XMAS - February timeline. I need the whole package: OS 100€, Screen ~125€, Com ~625€ including the shipping ~30€. When the time comes, the parts won't maybe be quite same, but hey, this is just like checking what could I get for the €.

That PSU is slightly dubious, again i would go at a notch higher:
http://www.mindfactory.de/product_i...e-Non-Modular-80--Bronze_640838.html#techdata

OK. Agreed. I could afford a bronze title product but that's almost the most expansive one of ~500w bronze stuff. How about this?

As for the case, you need a large one for that moster of a video card, and preferably one with a good airflow. E.g.
http://www.mindfactory.de/product_i...-Midi-Tower-ohne-Netzteil-schwarz_787620.html
Fairly positive review from anandtech.

A good case will stay with you probably for a decade, so it makes some sense to invest a bit more here.

Memory, CPU and GPU are fine, but you would need the boxed version of the CPU if you don't want an aftermarkete heatsink/fan.

With the 302, you very likely won't need an additional case fan.
OK, point taken. However, can't get that one. Its over 80€ in Finland and if you order it from Mindfactory, they'll send it in a 2nd pack and take another 30€.. I must downgrade the GPU a little to afford CPU boxed, case and PSU and a WLAN- card I forgot earlier. This any good? If Neos is no good for this GPU either and 302 is a bit expensive, is there anything cheaper? Like other BitFenix stuff. Outlaw? Shinobi Core? Comrade? Marc Alpha? Outlaw has upsidedown MoBo mounting to keep GPU cool.

Thanks a lot for the help and sorry for being difficult :)
 
I could afford a bronze title product but that's almost the most expansive one of ~500w bronze stuff. How about this?
It's a bad idea to try to save a few $/€ on the PSU. Yes, it's a bit more expensive, but you get a better quality and less chance of a (potentially catastrophic) malfunction.
It's not the bronze or silver or whatever label that's important, but rather a manufacturer and series that has build a reputation for consistent quality over the years.

As for the CPU, boxed and tray are usually pretty much the same price.

The Neos might be able to technically accomodate such a big video card, but for such a power-hungry card I really would prefer a bit more breathing space.
You will have to decide for yourself what features and build quality you would like and can afford in a case, and check professional and user reviews for a few candidates.
If you are fine with navigating the mf shop, you will probably also also fine with our geizhals product finder, too:
https://geizhals.de/?cat=gehatx&sort=p&xf=4211_1~2634_300&pg=2
It's extremely useful for finding parts taylored to specific requirements.

As a cheap case with decent features, size and user ratings I found this one
http://www.mindfactory.de/product_i...ohne-Netzteil-schwarz_838875.html#description
but there are probably a lot more that will work fine.


A 270X would be fine, too.
But pretty much all cards in the €100-200 range will deliver very good value for money, they simply get faster, more expensive and power hungry more or less proportionally.
 
OK, thanks a lot mate! You are a kind person, I would probably be too impatient to help a serious noob like me :)!

OK, I'll get the Seasonic. Checked a review of that today and it really was praised. I see you know what you're talking about.

I'll take a closer look at the entry lvl cases now and deside what is the best quality for my very strict budget. However my main focus is in Bitfenix cases because they seem to be really good for the price. They also look the best for my eyes. I like symmetrical and its just awesome looking stuff. Neos is just a bit small and not the best cooling. However the Comrade is damned cheap too but looks a bit bigger and cooler.

I'll post other build suggestion in a few days. Thanks again :)!
 
I'd try to get sticks that are specced to run at the same voltage as your old ones.

How much leeway do I have in this, because as I said finding exact matches is hard. Even my current RAM shows 2V on the spec sheet but CPU-Z says it runs at 1.8V:confused:
 
The amount of leeway you have is iffy - the sticks have to run at the same voltage/timings/speed when they're in the PC. If they're specced for certain speeds and timings at a 2.0V, you don't necessarily know what they'll be able to do at a lower voltage, if they're specced at 1.8V, they might not run stable at a higher voltage.

CPU-Z gives the voltage just under the SPD tab, right? That's just what the timings chip on the RAM is programmed for, it's not what the RAM is necessarily running at. You need to check the BIOS if you want to see what the voltage is actually set to.

However, manufacturers often program conservative (i.e. 1.8V, regardless of what the RAM is specced for overvolted, so that you only get the 2.0V voltage/timings if you set them manually in the BIOS) voltage/timing settings into the SPD chip - you should be able to run the RAM at whatever voltage/timings are specified in the timings table in CPU-Z, so you just need another set that's no slower than whatever column of voltage/timings you want to use.

edit: Bolded the important bit.
 
Back
Top Bottom