Gaming your Machine
 

Thought we had a thread on running & assembling gaming rigs, but seems not.

I'm a noob at this, but will have many a question over coming months, so thought I'd slap em here for the knowledgeable.

Here's some ongoing tittle tattle...

(About whether I can get some decent mileage out of a straight GPU upgrade)

Oo, that is much more in my budget range :D. I was looking at the 970 and it looks like a beast - that's a whole next gen price tag in one go though pretty much. Would also have to up my power source by the looks, I'm on 450W

I've mainly got an eye on Battlefront as the next AAA I want to run, so might just nurse GTA for now (see how the patches go etc) and then see how prices are on 970s, maybe get a tie-in giveaway there? :)

And Tatty.... didn't you just buy a new case recently? :D

I...think? :laugh: I thought it was a little slower, but I'm not too far. I can double check when I get home.

The GPU you recommended has worked quite well--some occasionally stuttering on GTA V, but nothing disconcerting. It does seem to be "on" a bit more, but then, it's just got the one fan and it's a lot smaller, so I think that's to be expected. I'm definitely pleased with it so far, so I'll toss in a seconded recommendation if Gol's considering it.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Ok then, what we need is a synchronised golg and boss benchmark. Identical settings, 1080p, then see how the 960 stacks up against golg's card. ;)

Benchmark results are in the Rockstar folder in My Documents.

And yes, I got a new case about 18 months ago when I built the new PC. This one

After a few months I realised I'd gone for form over function in a big way - It's a dust trap, not particularly easy to work on and I had to choose my last GPU very carefully because my initial choice wouldn't fit. The shoddy quality of the front USB ports made my mind up for me.

I've bought a Silverstone Kublai. It'll take a 16" GPU if such a monstrosity were ever to exist. ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I ran some kind of in-game benchmark when I first installed the game, and the game crashed. :laugh: Though it got through a couple of minutes first.

I've heard this from a handful of reviewers, about the game actually running really well on PC, but just crashing sometimes.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Oo they give you a results breakdown? Nice, ok will run post-patch one tomorrow and see how it looks :)

Cool, you're making me feel better about the capacious ugly box I plumped for :D

*EDIT* Yods the benchmark test often crashes at start because the story intro also starts as well. If you run it now should be fine I think.

PS No worries if the comparison is a faff, I think I know already that my card is meant for lesser things ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Yep, the benchmark did the same with me when I loaded it up initially. Start from your latest save in Story Mode then run it again and things should be fine.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Dig. If I play this evening I'll run it again and letcha know.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I'm posting in this thread because eventually I'll be upping my specs or something... perhaps by year's end to get ready for Obduction, if nothing else. I want that game to SING!

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Ok, here's my benchmark results - http://pastebin.com/tKnADBAk

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

There we go. Although that's me on sub-pretty settings, so poss not that great for a like-for-like comparison.

I guess this fits here.

New case ..... installed! 2 hours and reasonably painless - I need a SATA power extension cable for the DVD Drive (which I only fitted while I'm transferring my DVDs to the NAS so I'm loath to spend the money) and the HDD light seems permanently on, which will need me to swap the jumper cables around.

Old case gutted:

http://i.imgur.com/gyV0HTH.jpg

Innards cleaned:

http://i.imgur.com/J6TsUo9.jpg

Transposed into new case:

http://i.imgur.com/FAK5DV0.jpg

Which has some nifty SSD mounts:

http://i.imgur.com/50ywddU.jpg

Finished!

http://i.imgur.com/HxRwxJe.jpg

I'm giving the old case to a friend so that's worked out well. Was intending to remove the silent fans (two 140mms and a 120mm) from the old case but the new one seems to be really well cooled natively, with only one 120mm fan needed. Did a quick stress test and it's only 1C higher than with 3 fans running and today's a warm day inside.

If anyone's after a solid case, this Silverstone seems fantastic. I bought it mainly on this review, and it hasn't disappointed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ws2EtXXtPg

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Woo, puter porn :D

Liking the window - that'd really itch my laggardy defluffing tendencies. (Prob shouldn't mention fluffing in this context tho ;))

Do you reckon it just has really good airflow / layout / aeration then, to work with just one fan?

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

That's the first case I've ever bought with a window. Where it's sitting right now you can't see it anyway but it's definitely handy for seeing if your fans are working - the case is so quiet now with just one fan (although I'll probably swap it out for one of my 140mm silent ones as I'm not mad keen on the existing one's LED) that I had to check and make sure I'd plugged the CPU fan in. ;)

I've given it a much longer stress test - GPU and CPU - and am getting similar temps to the last case so I'd say it's much more efficient. You can see from the third picture that there's no obstructions between the front fan and the motherboard. There's normally a hard drive caddy sitting on top of the bottom one (as seen in the video) which can also be suspended from the optical drive cage - I didn't need it at all so removed it creating room for the John Holmes (well, you were talking about fluffing :p) of GPUs.

You can see the HDD caddys in the old case. They weren't removable and definitely disturbed the airflow.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

If you're after a GPU upgrade, golg, have a look at this - Link

Ok, the power that thing draws will probably dim all the street lights on your road and it's pretty elderly tech right now but for pure brute force for the money it's immense value. ;)

To put it into perspective it's a bit more powerful than my 780 but over £100 cheaper...

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Holy crap 600W :D

But that does look worth upgrading the power supply for, for sure :)

Cheers man, that's def on the list. That's the sort of thing I was hoping for, a slightly out-of-date monster that's slipped into being affordable :)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I still think the more sensible route would be to spend a few quid more on a 970. It's much more modern, will give you probably the same performance at 1080p and will cost you £50 less a year to run in terms of your electricity bill. A monster like that 290X would probably mean you getting a new case and certainly a new PSU whereas the 970s draw a lot less juice and you can buy them in low profile, single fan iterations.

Heck, listen to me being all responsible. You should totally buy an R9 295 X2! TWO 290Xs on a single board and its own water cooler! ;D

*cough* Sorry. 970 all the way. ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I think I may already have sold myself on the 960 to be honest. Not sure I can justify spending much more than that, and I'm not really trying to future proof, just play some specific AAAs solidly (and a whole ton of old releases fantastically :)). Of course I'll probably change my mind when something new and sparkly slides over the gaming horizon...

Reckon I'm gonna hold fire until I know the specs for Battlefront (and whether or not it's likely to be good), and then go for that mid-range sweetspot ;). (GTA is actually behaving surprisingly well - definitely playable. Patch seems to have helped with my water-at-speed issue too :))

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Wait until Yoda posts his benchmark, too. The 7850 was a decent card (equivalent to probably an Nvidia 750ti in today's money) and I suspect the CPU is holding it back.

Have you tried overclocking it?

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Nope haven't tried yet, but did read pre-purchase that it takes well to it. Got the '2C cooler than default' fan too. I don't actually know how you guys monitor heat etc so would have to look into that if I start playing I guess. Don't wanna fricassee the poor thing!

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I use MSI Afterburner now (you don't need an MSI branded card to use it) mainly because Nvidia's native overclocking tools are awful. EVGA Precision is another popular one.

From my time with my last card, the HD7950, I remember the native CCC to be pretty decent for overclocking. There are plenty of tutorials but it's always best to go in small steps until you find the sweet spot between performance gains and temperature. Finally, I'll run Unigine Valley at max settings for 10 or 15 minutes to see what the temps are like but be ready to ALT+F4 if you feel them getting uncomfortably high.

Valley's a good benchmark tool for seeing what improvements overclocking brings, too. Get a benchmark before you start. ;)

EDIT - I've been running my 780 overclocked from almost day one. It's rocking 780ti levels now and is solid as a rock. I needed to create a custom fan profile in Afterburner though - The card was hitting 75C on Valley without it but 65 with the fan turned up a bit.

I'm definitely not the best guy to ask, but if you're a complete noob - the basic things you need to run games on a PC are - enough RAM, a strong enough CPU, and a strong enough graphics card. There's a handy website called "Game Debate" which will tell you if a game is compatible with your system setup.

That's really the extent of my knowledge on it. I'd really recommend buying a console and sparing yourself the headache unless you're very into PC or online gaming. I don't own a console but I only play games on the same PC I use for work (meaning I just find games which meet my default system specs rather than spending the time and money on upgrades even if I miss out on all the latest games), so again not the best person to ask.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Golg's a bit further down the road than 'will I run it?' websites. ;)

PC gaming's a strange one. The hardware is more expensive (although games are generally cheaper, even new releases, and online is free) but games will run and look better and backwards compatibility is increasingly becoming a thing of the past.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Yeah I'm more looking to avoid having to spend on a next gen console - reckon I can get more for less this way. With PC you seem to get a wider spread of game releases, and the whole sweep of historical games like Tatty says. Plus mods :). It is definitely more of a headache - there are some days when I'd like to just plug and play rather than go through the 'mini game' of getting it to run nice ;). On the whole though I"m digging PC gaming right now :)

*EDIT* Oh and it's worth mentioning the deals! Sure for consoles you can rent etc, but prices never seem to drop dramatically. Between sales, humble bundles & old games I keep picking up gems for around £2 quid. The main problem is finding time to play them all! :D

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Nice little vid with a selection of GPU benchmarks for GTAV:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K5uWT8h6EQ

The 960 seems pretty solid. I'd say your 7850 would be similar in power to the 750ti they tested, golg, with yours maybe being a sliver better. ;)

You're right about PC having a lot more variety - not to mention Steam has lots of great sales that you'd never be able to find with the consoles. There are also quite a lot of good free indie games out there that you can't get on consoles, like these for example:

http://www.blackmesasource.com/

http://www.soronline.net/sorr.htm

I've gone full on 'pimp my PC' recently.

http://i.imgur.com/Wv7uZc4.jpg

Sadly it's only until I get a couple of resistors for the Noctua case fans I bought. They're a bit grey and boring compared to the Corsair ones (from an old case) I put in there in the mean time.

http://i.imgur.com/AzNL3bA.jpg

Almost silent though, and I'll take that over bling every time.

I had to take the photo, though. For posterity. :D

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

So, let's say I was hypothetically to go mad and buy a 970.....

The specs state it needs a 500W power supply. I've got 450W (Corsair VS series). Looking at walkthroughs on changing PSUs it looks a proper faff, but do-able. But ruffians like the Reddit Master Race lot, and about half of the TomsHardware crowd seem to think it's do-able at 450W if your set-up isn't too monstrous (My CPU draw is sub-100 at 65W for example, which helps. The card itself only requires 225W)

Craziness? Or thrifty sense? Should I just get stuck in and buy a simple £40 500W PSU?

*EDIT* So I stuck some basic stats into this calculator. Couldn't figure how to factor in things like the CPU cooler, but a very minimalist build I put in, including the 970, reckoned I'd only need 352W. So.... maybe? Anyone know of any way to measure current W usage? (Bit worried the PSU's 'total amperage available' might not be up to it too, as that seems to be key, but can't seem to figure it out from their specs).

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Heh, I spent this afternoon rebuilding a PSU. First time I'd ever done it. ;)

The latest Nvidia GPUs are extremely power efficient but I'd go for at least a 500W 80 Plus Bronze PSU - You never know when you need the headroom and a failing PSU can destroy your motherboard and everything attached to it.

Aha, those are exactly the sorta things I was worried about :D

Cool, think I'll make the move when the time comes. No harm having the headroom, and I do seem to have an ever-increasing number of peripherals plugged in. Cheers man :)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I spent a while yesterday cleaning out the spare PC, which is less than 5 years old now - I built it in prep for Skyrim. One can of compressed air later I was happy ... until I booted the thing up.

The PSU was making a noise like a garden strimmer so, with a heavy heart, I ventured on to Amazon to look about a new one. Was about to buy a Fractal Design Edison M 750W when I thought "What the heck, I'll strip the old one down and replace the fan".

Turns out that I'd managed to remove the dust from the case, CPU cooler and GPU but only succeeded in clogging up one entire corner of the inside of the PSU. Lint porn...

Anyway, it's now quieter than it has been in years and still has the original fan. ;)

I'll buy a new PSU (and stick it in my main PC, the OCZ 750W from it will go in the spare) next month.

Currys has some good PSU prices if you've got one near you. I regularly check Currys/PC World before buying online because they sometimes have great prices - I got my PSU for £59.99 from there when it was nearly £80 on Amazon.

They're WAY off usually for GPUs, however. ;)

Here's the Corsair Builder 500W and for 99p more a Coolermaster 550W semi-modular PSU.

Corsair's a known quantity for PSUs but Coolermaster is a respected component brand too and the 550W gets good reviews on Scan, which is where I've found myself buying my PC gear from recently.

I'd plump for the Coolermaster personally because of its semi-modular design. You'll be able to keep cables you don't need out of your system which is great for airflow and general cable management. My PSU isn't modular (whereas the one I took apart yesterday was) and it's a bit of a pain re-routing stuff. Semi modular means that the motherboard, CPU and GPU cables are hard wired - makes sense as you're always going to need those.

I'm looking at Fractal Design PSUs because the cables are not only modular, but flat. ;)

Well I've gone and done it. I've let my inheritance cash erode my moral fibre, and have now got a 600W Corsair Bronze PSU (came in cheaper than 500s etc elsewhere weirdly) and.. may the lords of frugal living forgive me... a GTX 970 on the way :D

I thiiiink I've done my due diligence. Finally opened up the beasty today and, aside from marvelling at the sheer chunk of the CPU cooler, I reckon I've got the space and connections all set.

http://i.imgur.com/oln7r0K.jpg

I've moved the hardrive (far right) down to accommodate the extra 7cms of 970-ness. (Lord knows figuring out the dimensions of everything was perplexing at times. Didn't help that I used Amazon's specs at one point, which was talking about the box size :D. And 'dual width' GPUs? Shouldn't that be depth?? Why must they **** with me so :D)

Anyways, yeah, I still have to prep for the power installation, and I've got em on cheapy free delivery so will be a while, but I'm looking forward to not ****ing this up :)

*EDIT* Oh and because the new PSU is modular does that mean I won't need the neat little wiring netting that's been used here? Or is that still a good idea? (And how do you figure out which airflows you shouldn't be blocking? Does that just mean keep wires away from any/all fans? Ta for any knowledge transfer :D)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Nice one! You're talking about the black cable sleeving? That's pretty standard on good PSUs now - Looks better (if you've got a windowed case) and should protect wires a bit more.

The trick is to tuck and route as much cabling behind the motherboard (ie - open up the other side of the case, not actually underneath the mobo) which will help greatly with airflow and access. I'll grab my camera and show you. :)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

The theory is to have as much clear air between the front and the back of the case as possible:

http://i.imgur.com/nk6Y5ov.jpg

It doesn't really matter about the other side as no one will ever see it ... until now. :p

http://i.imgur.com/BxQ2PfV.jpg

I've done some tinkering again recently - Bought one of those Corsair hybrid coolers. It was awful with the stock fan - barely cooler than the air cooler and far noisier - but I'm now running it with a Nonoxia Deep Silence 120mm on the radiator and a Noctua 120mm as an exhaust at the back, both speeds are linked to CPU temp.

The whole thing is practically silent now. ;)

PS - Zip ties are your friends for life now. :D

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Ahh ok, nice one :)

Yeah cable ties for sure :D. Gonna catch up on some installation vids over the next few days, but I imagine the main other issues = plug correct power cables into correct devices / uninstall graphics drivers before GPU swap (I'm assuming you then launch in safe mode or something to install the new).

I'm properly salivating at the thought of seeing GTA V clipping along in nigh-full pomp :). And I noticed that Witcher 2 had me down on very sparse settings - hopefully can top that up a bit :)

Will see if my slightly paltry CPU is still an issue, but I guess Dying Light (higher min spec for CPU) will be a good test of that :D

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Your GPU is of a similar power to mine and, since the last patch, I'm struggling to get Witcher 3 below 70fps with nearly everything on Ultra. ;)

Yep, uninstall the old GPU's drivers before removing it, then use a cleaner like CCleaner to get rid of any left over junk. I wouldn't just delete all your AMD folders though, as you've got an AMD CPU. They might be kinda important. ;)

No need to boot into safe mode with the new card. The Windows legacy drivers will give you display of some kind (probably not 1080p display but enough to see what you're doing) before you install the Nvidia ones. Also, and I've done this before, make sure the GPU's power points are connected before booting up for the first time.

I was briefly going nuts when that happened. ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

By power points you mean make sure it's plugged in to the power supply? :D

(I am so capable of this and will not mock until I've messed up in my own personal fashion ;))

Yep. ;)

I first ventured down this damnable rabbit hole by swapping my PSU and GPU as you're about to do, and look at the state of me now...

First time I built a PC, it wouldn't boot. I'd not connected the motherboard headers correctly so it wasn't recognising the power switch.

Took me about three hours to figure things out.

My original PC's motherboard USB and PS/2 connections had failed so, like most ordinary normal people, I went down to PC World and bought a completely new system. When I was there I noticed cases, motherboards, fans etc and wondered how hard it would be just to transplant the innards of my old rig to a new mobo.

Turns out it was pretty easy and within a day I had two perfectly functional PCs and only one of me. That was the last time I bought a complete unit. ;)

Here's the best build-a-PC guide I know of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvNnv7nh2Es

Yeah I'm now fearful that one day I'll have to change out my motherboard, as the current one won't accept much fancier CPU than what it's got. (Not to mention decoupling that Borg-like cooling block in the process). I'm not sure I'm ready for that... :D

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

It looks like you've got a Micro ATX mobo which isn't the best for access.

I'll probably go down that route next time I build a PC. Now that I know the small water coolers aren't just gimmicks and the current GPU gen aren't power hungry monsters I think I can get away with a much smaller form factor.

I didn't realise the Strix variant of the 970 was so strong on the silence front. This overview is making me very happy :)

I now have a thoroughly moral reason for having bought it ;)

(Please don't have coil whine, please don't have coil whine...)

---

What do you do about old parts? Sell on eBay? (I'd expected massive depreciation, but looks like there's still a market for second hand cards etc. Might actually recoup a bit if I'm lucky).

Although I've realised my motherboard seems to have more PCIe expansion slots:

I'm almost tempted to keep the old card and combine it if/when 4k or VR comes beckoning. Would that work? Having AMD & Nvidia cards in tandem? (That's if it's even possible. The 7850 says it requires a 2.1 PCIe, so maybe that rules it out of the second slot? Which looks pretty tight anyway, assuming it's the vertical yellow motherboard slot visible in my pic).

Anyway, fun times :)

PS What have you done to meeee :D

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

The new gen Nvidia cards have their fans off when the GPU is idling. Even more silence. ;)

Sell your old card - You can't combine the two and nor would you want to. There's a bit more leeway in doubling up on AMD cards but you'll need a Crossfire/SLI compatible motherboard, a beefy PSU and the patience of Job for whenever there aren't any SLI profiles released with a new game, which is often these days.

I got £120 for my old 7950 and even managed to get £40 for a broken 6870 a few months ago which I thought I'd RMA'd back in 2011. :blush:

Re: Coil Whine. My 780 is the only time it has been noticeable in a card for me but I've seen a lot of reports of 970s having it. On the 780 it only rears its head when frame rates are super high - over 150 or so. I use Nvidia Inspector (a great tool which you should 100% download) to cap the rates to 120 or even 60.

EDIT - Looks like the new gen of AMD cards, at least the top-of-the-line Fury GPUs, are a bit lukewarm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CDFNOTZy8o

980ti prices with 980 performance...

I'm really digging the form factor though.

Ah ok fair play, I had heard dual GPUs were a pain in the arse on that front ay.

I'm girding my loins for coil whine, which can apparently be fixed in 970s by: trying a different PSU (buggered if I'm doing that), running an intense stress test overnight (often only a temporary fix), and yeah capping performance. Cheers for the Nvidia Inspector tip :)

Yeah, it does feel like the time to bail from AMD GPUs all told.

(By form factor you mean... how it looks?... God this is all so confusing :D)

It looks like a 1980s radio grill to me!

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Form factor's the length, in this instance - It's a 980ti rival (and I've seen a different set of benchmarks since which show it beating the 980 at 4k) which is 7 inches long. They're even bringing out a slightly less powerful, air cooled R9 which is the length of a PCI slot.

These are going to be great for Steam Machine type under-TV PCs.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Ahh ok. Yeah would be great to see Steam Machine's getting off the ground with a broad audience. Having a 'console' with all the PC's 'unwalled garden' advantages could be really interesting. I do fear that it's too niche somehow to really take on the big boys though. Or at least that it will be hard to get public attention (and if it does gain some ground, may well cause further 'Xbox'/'PS4' first style arrangements, at the expense of PC etc).

Having a pre-baked console+ variant that's def above current Xbone/PS4 specs would def be interesting though ;)

You'll have one tomorrow. Well above. ;)

Price is going to be the hardest sell. I'd say you're talking 7-800 quid for a PC that'll play the latest AAAs in a way that would persuade console owners to trade up. The little streaming boxes are only going to be of interest to those who already own a decent machine, too.

Steam streaming is impressive but there's still a latency there that would stop me using it with anything action-y, which is why I bought a 25m HDMI cable to hook up directly to the TV.

I'll be really interested to see what performance you get with the 970 and your current CPU. It should be a pretty noticeable upgrade, especially when you look at the latest GPU hierarchy chart.

They say to go three levels above your present GPU for a meaningful upgrade, and you're going up four. :D

And lo, it is done :)

http://i.imgur.com/3pSOXFc.jpg

Got home from work around 11pm. Went to bed... a lot later :D

I had all those heart-pumping incidents along the way that make DIY engineering so stimulating ;). Realising you're working without being earthed (again!)... spending sweaty minutes trying to fathom the hidden GPU clip... realising at the last second that 6 of the GPU power points aren't actually flush (and narrowly staving off its immediate demise I suspect). Fun ;)

And lord was the card a tight fit. I've no idea what the wee board sticking out of the mobo is under the GPU here, but... I hope it's relatively heat-proof!

http://i.imgur.com/eiQHS8v.jpg

I've heard some people prop up the far end of the board. Not sure how they're doing that though.

Turns out the reduced PSU wasn't actually modular either, and my cheapy box doesn't really have any tidy holes to run wiring round the back, but reckon it's just about clear enough.

Anyways, a mountain of faffing under way to get the games to run sweet, but initial impressions are very favourable :) (early hours of the morning favourable ;))

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Woo-hoo! Gawd bless her and all who sail in her. ;D

Is that card under your GPU a sound card or some USB ports? If it's covering the intake fan (or even half a one) I'd be very quick to remove it. Sadly that's the trade-off with the mini motherboards - I've got 5 or 6 PCI slots below the GPU and one above it.

Monster card sag (it's probably glandular) is caused by a less than rigid case, usually, not the PCI-E slot. ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

*EDIT*

Oo good call, it just seems to be some old firewire ports that I never use. Got them as they've been useful in the past for loading footage from cameras, but not really an issue these days. Pretty sure I can dump em.

And yes, I think my case is made from recycled Citroens or something ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

As a Citroen owner, I can sympathise. Lovely car... built from egg boxes...

They might be USB3 ports or something? If they're blue then it's USB3.

Now all you need to do is download Unigine Valley, turn everything up to the max, VSYNC off and show us your frames! Mine benchmarks at 67 on 1080p. I'm interested not because of the E-Penii aspects but it's been mentioned everywhere that the 970 has basically the same grunt as my 780.

Think my CPU is holding it back ;)

http://i.imgur.com/0qr6w0e.png

I'm assuming Vsync is off natively on the card as my screen is 60hz. Haven't found where to faff with that yet in the card or Nvidia software. Didn't seem to be a Vsync option in the freebie Unigine.

Bit disappointed not to be hitting 60, but not totally surprised on full ultra considering the architecture. I'm sure there's some more frames to be squeezed out of it tho ;)

If it was a stark choice between ultra at 45 and visibly less gloss at 60 I think I'd probably go for the former. Hopefully I'll be able to massage each game to give me something damn pretty at 60 though :)

*EDIT* Dammit, looks like CPUs really can make a difference. Couple of YTers with i5s but same stock Strix GPU hitting 60. Meh. (Seems my score isn't that unusual though going by forum threads).

Looks like it might be time to play with the overclocking facility... :D (It came with GPU Tweak bundled, which looks quite natty. This thread is intriguing me :))

*EDITEDIT* Gah, even using settings hedged up towards his I'm still only getting 51 :(

Drivers are all fresh n sparkly. Not sure what else would explain the slight lack of umph beyond the CPU. Possibly some AMD stuff still lingering (I've stripped out most of it but bit leery of anything that might affect the CPU as you say). Other users on that thread saw a 12fps rise in the test so looks like I've still got some detective work to do...

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Damn, I thought as much but hoped it wasn't gonna bottleneck that much. That benchmark seems pretty CPU dependant though - It's hitting 60-70% CPU load throughout. You'll not notice as much difference on most games.

I wouldn't think about overclocking until you ever find that performance in a particular game isn't what you expect. My card's a monster - Here's the two benchmarks with stock settings and what I normally game at:

Stock
http://i.imgur.com/OZQaxMr.png

Overclocked
http://i.imgur.com/F9Yf71x.png

EDIT - My overclock settings. I'd recommend MSI Afterburner.

http://i.imgur.com/6HcVqcC.png

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

The i5/i7s are REALLY tough to beat right now. What a great chip...

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Yep, my 4670k is another monster - I've overclocked it really conservatively and even then it's running at 4ghz with temps under 60c at load. I could get 4.5-4.7 easily but there's no need to stress it as I've had no performance complaints.

My 8 core AMD owning mate can't get it through his head that my i5 is a better gaming CPU. Games are about single core performance - I'd take a beefy quad core every day over an 8 with the same output specs.

Have you thought about overclocking your CPU? The AMD gaming chips are the Black Editions with unlocked multipliers (their equivalent of the Intel Ks) but you should probably be able to wring something extra out of a non B-E. There will probably be a software overclocking program bundled with your motherboard drivers if you can't do that in BIOS, which I'd always recommend.

RAM's dirt cheap these days, too. 16GBs of really fast DDR3 will set you back about £75.

It won't make a difference in gaming but should speed up general desktop work.

Ah ok that's something :). Yeah gaming wise the experience has been pretty swish, although noticeably 'sub 60'. I was just slapping everything on max last night though ;)

I think once I knock a few select things down I should be skirting 60 in a lot of them. Dying Light excepted :D

(Nice to know I can go gung ho and get a few more frames if I need them with the overclocking though. I've got a preset set aside)

God, 30fps minimum though. Droooool. I've gotta look into what other CPUs could fit in the ungainly slot I have [AMD Socket FM2+ Athlon]. Seems to be limited to a 4 core if I'm understanding it correctly, but the Intels do seem to get more out of each core compared to the AMDs, so may still have some room to manouver. (Just no morality left if I spend any more cash ;))

Will see how the parts sales go.... :D

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

A quad core will definitely give you a boost over your dual .... although an i5/Z87 mobo bundle (you can keep your RAM) would set you back around £200 and if you're going that far I'd recommend you get a new case as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, the rabbit hole. :D

Actually, your experience mirrors mine almost exactly when I bought my last card (a 7950) to liven up my below-par CPU. I got a significant boost in performance but knew it was bottlenecking. I ran the 7950 with the new i5 for about 6 months and found a 20-30% framerate improvement over the old PC. ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

My current is a quad, but I notice that when you get minimum specs it'll say Intel quad / AMD 8-core, so I'm assuming it's do to with that different way Intel uses the cores, as you mention.

Also... I'm petrified of fitting a new mobo ;). And of spending any more money. I'm definitely definitely definitely making do for now.

Definitely.

For now ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

The x2 in your CPU benchmark specs indicates a dual, no? APIs confuse me, to be honest. Maybe that's referring to the onboard graphics.

EDIT - Ignore me, it's a quad core. :D

EDIT 2 - Apparently overclocking's not great on that chip, sadly.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Here's a handy website for BritFos looking to buy PC parts - http://www.pcpricechecker.co.uk/

I see that 980 GTX prices are dropping like a stone, so much so that it's beginning to look decent value. £395 for an MSI version which is a drop of around £100 in a matter of months. £50 more and we'll talk. ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I'm getting really good at taking things apart now. Putting them back together is improving too!

Bought a new mouse last year and the general consensus was that the Logitech G502 was top of the shop. I picked one up and mostly agreed - The scroll wheel, however, was among the worst I'd ever used: Loose, rattly, slippery and so bad that I boxed the mouse up and bought a Razer Deathadder.

Turns out there's a mod to replace the wheel with one from the earlier Logitech G500 so I picked up a brand new spare from eBay for a couple of quid and set about destroying a £45 mouse which still had an intact warranty. It's now one of the best mice I've ever used. ;)

From this:

http://i.imgur.com/SQ4qvnI.jpg

To this, in about half an hour:

http://i.imgur.com/XmHpXXe.jpg

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Hah nice :)

Come on now, Elite pilot chair (preferably suspended in a rotating globe). You know you can do it :D

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

How's your 970 on the noise front? I was that close to buying a 980 this morning - It had dropped to £334 on Amazon but after I'd gone away to think about things, it had gone back up to £440.

It won't be the last time things drop this low, I expect.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Pretty sweet actually. Obv only kicks in at 60C+, and AAAs only seem to take it to around 70C (so seems airflow ain't too bad in the box), but yeah it's noticeably quieter.

Now my gf rags me about the keyboard clicks instead ;)

*EDIT* Oo and that was a mighty drop. Yeah, daresay it won't be the last.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I wish the damn things would stay at £500 so they won't tempt me. :p

A silent keyboard? Something with Cherry MX Reds and large O-rings would be my choice but still would sound a bit clacky clacky when pommelled.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Nah sod it, then she'd tell me to stop giggling. I'm not wearing a gag ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I think I've done a bad thing...

Firstly, does anyone want to buy an MSI GTX 780? £150 ono...

I've only gone and bought one of these:

http://i.imgur.com/m9CD1vU.jpg

In my defence, it was kind of an experiment - Since I've become decrepituded (had to sell a house, mountains of debt etc) I've not had so much as a credit card but decided the time was right to test the financial waters. 980TI for £19 a month over 3 years? Sign me up!

So I signed, digitally, and they accepted.

Should have it, all being well, by Wednesday. Scan Computers, if anyone's interested. ;)

You are incorrigible sir :D

Nice way to do it tho, especially when it's all about future proofing :)

I'm still waiting on my eBay auction to see if I've clawed back some of my crazy outlay... (Got a handy 25 quid for the 450w PSU, but the card sale is def the main event! 12 watchers, 19 hours to go...)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

The market for second hand PC tech never ceases to amaze me. You'll probably end up with £40 for that PSU.

I sold 8GB of four year old RAM a while back with one of the sticks having a cracked heatsink (fully disclosed in the auction, natch) and got nearly £45. You can get 8GB of the same speed new on Amazon for under £40 today, sometimes under £30. ;D

I might just keep the 780 - The world's most overpowered PhysX card? Nah, I think the new GPU will swallow whatever PhysX the five games released with it in the next three years all on its own. In fact, at 1080p (and I've got no intention of going to a higher res), this card should do me until well after it's paid for.

When you look at it like that, it'll eventually save me money!

EDIT - The only 780 I see on eBay coming to the end of its auction is at £151 and it's for a Zotac model which has noisier fans and a worse heatsink than mine. I'll start the auction, though, at £100.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Hah yeah, I got some endearingly confused questions from my PSU buyer after the event, about whether it could run the GPU he wanted. (It could - but def got the impression he hadn't quite done his research ;))

I'd be surprised if I get a grandiose amount for the 7850, but I have jumped '4 levels', so there was always gonna be outlay involved ;). Will be fun to see if the auction takes it somewhere silly :). I'm thinking I'll prob get 50 quid for it though.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

£20-30 for the 7850 maybe? Although I got £30 for a 'broken' 6870 which I'd forgotten I had recently.

Turns out it's running perfectly for the new owner.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I've started it at £35 :D. It only takes a few out of the 14 to lose their heads, but yeah not expecting much more than that really ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Yeah, there are loads of people who just want to be able to connect their PC to a monitor and we sometimes forget that VRAM and terraflops don't matter to them.

My old 560ti is going strong in my old PC. I'd thought about swapping it with the 780 (and selling the 560) but there's no reason to - I don't game on it and I'll get more for the newer card.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Woo, £47.70 in the end for the 7850 :). I'm happy with that. Now I've only spent slightly over 200 quid. Totally ethical... ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

It's kinda scary great that you can justify it like that. ;D

The 980ti is now ensconced in my case.

Old:

http://i.imgur.com/SAFO1yT.jpg

New:

http://i.imgur.com/K3KvL5v.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/aaa7hwC.jpg

It's the first time in years where I've not bothered to check the dimensions of the GPU before buying it. This case is gonna be the longest serving part of my rig, I venture, although the 980 is the same length and only a smidge wider than the 780. The new Nvidia 'no fans below 64c' thing is an added bonus. Thankfully there's an LED'd logo on the side which tells me it's actually working when I boot - My OCD would kill me otherwise...

I'd realised that the card would only really pay off in a year or two, such is the diminishing returns in performance between top end GPUs. Then I ran the Valley benchmark:

780, pretty highly overclocked:

http://i.imgur.com/Nfew3rK.png

980:

http://i.imgur.com/Tq9njmH.png

Wow.

I'll be playing around with this for a bit. :D

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Dear god, the copper! All that steampunk... and all those frames :D

To save you any future expense I'll post you my Google Cardboard (it folds flat ;)) and you can check out Elite in VR :D

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Heh, yeah. It has crossed my mind that I now have a machine running the recommended specs for Oculus but I'm expecting that thing to cost £500 on its own...

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Yeah it's gonna be a long while before those beasts are anywhere near affordable. Still, at least you're set up ;)

(Now that I've got a card interface that allows me to change the native aspect ratio I could actually have a go at fudging Google Cardboard into working - the Elite dual eye view is stretched and correcting for it is a load too much. Adds an extra layer of faff to an already extraordinarily faffy process, but I am intrigued to see what even a very basic version of VR would be like :))

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I'm immensely intrigued by VR but, living where I do, doubt very much that I'll be able to try before I buy. Many many reviews will be consumed, especially those by glasses-wearers ... and people who couldn't see those magic eye pictures so common in the 90s. ;)

Talking of Elite, I've been playing around in GeForce Experience. It's a tool I don't use unthinkingly but it's useful when you're struggling to run a game adequately - Comparing notes to your own best settings with those Nvidia say you should use is interesting. For me. :p

GeForce Experience tells me that I should be using dynamic super resolution for Elite, just like it did with the 780. On the old card I was getting massive amounts of lag with 1500p downsampled (probably because I had half the VRAM I do now), not any more! It's also recommending DSR for Dark Souls 2.

That setting was unplayable for me before.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I'm running most of my games on the Experience preferred settings at the mo, with the exception of GTA. (I'm not convinced it takes my poopy processor into account to be honest). It is a bit annoying when it tries to reset your custom set up every time it updates the ideal settings (I've got it set to 'ask me'), but I quite like most of the plug-and-play results so far. It's got Elite on downsampling too and it looks grand :)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

How's your 970 for the dreaded coil whine? My 780 had it but only at super high framerates - I ended up moving the PC a bit further away so I couldn't hear it above the speakers.

The 980 seems ok. Could hear it a bit during the GTAV benchmark (which was frigging colossal at max settings minus the advanced graphics stuff) but compared to the 780 it was basically silent.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I genuinely haven't noticed it. Bizarrely GTA only takes it up to 60C as well (I must have been too kind in my setting snaffling ;)). Far Cry 3 maxed seems to work it more, going up to 70C. I've mainly been playing with headphones on for that so possibly it's there and I haven't noticed. I think I might have lucked out though and got a balanced one! (Fingers crossed!)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

One thing I've noticed about GTAV is that when I run it in 60HZ display mode my GPU is only running at 50%. When it's set to my usual 120HZ the 980's at 90%+ most of the time and temps are in the 70s.

120HZ is great if a game can manage it all the time but for beefy stuff like GTAV (where it's jumping between 70 and 100 a lot of the time) a locked 60 is fine.

Must give Far Cry 3 a spin actually. It was a real pig when first released but subsequent patches have smoothed things out. Unfortunately for the game, the patches came too late for me as my 'don't care any more' moment had long since passed.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

My screen is 60hz so it's a no brainer for me ;) (I like no-brainers! :))

(Yeah I think a few hours in I might be pretty much done with FC3! I do really like the way they've handled the animals and the island, but the story hasn't really caught me. It never helps that the story missions often tend towards being linear / dull. I'll probably give it a few more goes, see what else there is to do, but might just have got my 3-quids-worth out of it :))

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Yep, the FC3 story is awful. Playing as a dislikeable dude-bro is alright if he's some kind of anti-hero I suppose but not when it's played straight like this.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Decided to keep the 780 and put it in the old PC. May as well have something decent as a backup if something happens to the main rig. ;)

I ran the Valley benchmark for a giggle and got results pretty similar to yours - low 50s average whereas the 780 was getting mid 60s in the main PC with standard clock speeds. AMD processors are sh*te, basically...

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Shhhhh, I could fit a decent Intel CPU quad into my machine. BUT I MUSTN'T!

Luckily the giant AMD liquid cooler is still sitting there like a blocky moral guardian. He won't make it easy ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

This is the kind of thing you'll be looking at but that combo should give you quite a few years before it becomes a bottleneck. ;)

Personally I'd go for a full ATX mobo (which won't cost much more, if anything) but not sure how well it'd fit in your case.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Phew.

Random PC instability? First thing I look for is a dodgy PSU.

I'd been having occasional GPU crashes recently, both on the new card and the old one, but thought nothing more of it apart from the latest Nvidia drivers weren't great. PC started locking up yesterday and I figured it had to be the PSU.

New power supply arrived this morning and it seems to have cured the problem. In fact, I went as far as to install my old PSU in my second PC (which is rockin' a really old budget one) and it crashed after 20 minutes. I guess that it was giving me inconsistent power outputs or something.

I ended up with a 750W Fractal Design Integra M for under £60. Didn't really want to spend any more money on my PC this month but this one was a necessity. ;)

Oo good catch. Nothing is allowed to go wrong with mine! I'm probably over my monthly budget about 20x over ;)

That said...

I'm eyeing up a new headset for down the line. My current pair are an old work set held together by packing tape, with a microphone that makes me sound like a tiny Brian Blessed in a giant tin of pebbles.

I've still got the structural remains of my old Turtle Beach set, which actually had a pretty decent mike (still use it for voice-dubbing), but they do seem to be famed for fracturing into shards.

I've got an 8 channel / 7.1 soundcard (Realtek ALC887-VD) so reckon I'll plump for some budget 7.1 capable ones. The Plantronic GameCom 788s are probably the best that I've seen to date. Ideally I'd like to spend a little bit less, so long as I can get something robust and 1.7-ready.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I had a pair of those, so does Yoda. ;)

Decent quality but my fat old head found them really uncomfortable. If you're at all normal you should be ok, though. :p It's got Dubly Headphone built in so you don't need to worry about your soundcard being 5/7.1 headphone compatible although I think I prefer native stereo now as opposed to algorithm surround.

Razer do a free surround headphone program that you can try out with any headphones to see if you like it. http://www.razerzone.com/gb-en/surround

I use standard audio headphones - Audio Technica M30X - which are a step up in quality from any all-in-one set I've used. My mic is an overkill Snowball but I picked it up for £30 in a 24hr Amazon sale a while back.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Yeah saw it could be USB or 3.5 - there seemed to be some general blather on the net about running native being a bit better, but I'll go with whatever works :)

Cool cheers will check out the software. I've got a feeling I get along with it, as I think my Turtle Beaches were running 7.1 via the USB. Certainly soundscapes in games like Elite felt much more alive and positional before those headphones tanked it.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I had a pair of Triton headphones years ago that had multiple speakers in them for 'true' 5.1.

They were awful and got returned within a day. ;)

I've become really snobby about the way things sound in recent years, hence a pair of studio monitors for my PC and the same as headphones. The sound's not for everyone, to be honest.

I'm definitely not in the connoisseur range (decades of drumming have put paid to that ;)) but I do know my office hand-me-downs are like listening with half an ear, which is covered in marshmallow :D

So what's lacking with simulated 7.1 for you? Is there a trade off with quality?

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

The sound of studio monitors isn't for everyone, I mean. I'm all about purity, maaaaan. :D

The Dolby Headphone (and Razer equivalent) stuff is very impressive and I actually preferred that to the 'real' surround of the Tritons. My soundcard has Dolby Headphone built in but I never use it. Just prefer good stereo to manufactured surround, I guess.

I'm not even much of a fan of Dolby ProLogic on the TV. ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Trying to figure out whether the Dolby Atmos stuff being used in Battlefront is something I'll be able to access with headphones. (I like the idea of having not just simulated 'surround sound' but also the upper horizontals in games like that, for hints on where incoming danger is. Battlefield was always very good at signalling the jingle of kit and the environment of shots etc).

You'd think it'd be for expensive amp & ceiling speakers only, but it seems they've got a simulated version for headphones too, using the cunning 'what part of my body has this bounced off' trickery. As far as I can figure out the next-gen tablets running it have inbuilt hardware support, but there's some software called 'Jaunt' which allows machines with the necessary processing umph to decode the info too.

TLDR - Don't think I'll be buying any kit for this :D

*EDIT* Will be getting the Windows 10 freebie though. Possibly the basic Dolby 7.1 software it comes with will help.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Did you try the Razer software? The digital bouncing actually works. ;)

I've decided to get a new PSU for the spare PC as well now - It has become a Frankenstein Steam Box and with the 780 inside, the old 700W cheapo PSU is struggling. It's not failing like the one from a few posts up (and it's 7 or 8 years old as opposed to the recently binned one's 4) but under the 780's mighty heft the fan is going 100% and it doesn't sound happy. Better safe than sorry, especially if I'll now be using this PC more often.

I bought the 650W version of the Fractal Design PSU which is in the main PC.

Incidentally, I'd recommend Flubit for anything you intend to buy from Amazon. Flubit price for the PSU: £48, Amazon price: £65!

It sounds like a group of Amazon merchants who're partnered with a company who takes less of a cut from their profits than The Man. I've had stuff from Flubit arriving in Amazon packaging... ;)

EDIT - Yep, I'll be getting W10 for both my PCs as well. Played around a bit with the preview and liked what I saw - It's W8 with a proper start menu, essentially.

Also - DX12 and wireless functionality with the Xbone controller. ;)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Nah still haven't tried Razer, I'm not gonna get much computer time over the next few weeks.

Oo, Flubit looks very natty :)

(PS, if I ever start building a second computer, stop me! Or play loud dazzling noises in surround sound :D)

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

I'm not building it, as such, just repurposing old stuff from whatever PC is the newer one. I've done it for years as part of my 'rolling upgrade' process - Chance a bit of your PC every year or two so you're not facing one huge bill when you find that everything has become obsolete at once.

If I could, I'd get a smaller case for the Steamy Box but it's got a full size motherboard so will probably not get anything more compact than what's currently wrapping it. It can sit in the corner behind the sofa and bookcase with a long HDMI cable connecting it to the TV and bloody well like it! :D

Flubit's great ... when I remember to use it. The 6 things I've bought from them have saved me £35 compared to Amazon prices which isn't bad because Amazon's usually pretty keen.

Re: Gaming your Machine
 

Just remembered this - If you're still after a headset, the one getting great reviews is this.

HyperX are usually RAM manufacturers, with names like Fury, Savage, Beast and Derek. Oh, gamers. :rolleyes: