Hardware Discussion Thread

Macker1

deconduo wrote: »

Thats one of the best value SSDs at the moment, you'll see most people recommending it.

64GB is plenty, I have a 30GB SSD and windows takes up 20GB of it.

Thanks for your answer. I have another question so please bear with me. My plan is to put this into my current PC with is a few years old. I just wondering about the Sata connections on my motherboard in regards to suppoting this drive.

Motherboards is a ASUS P5W DH Deluxe

Link...... http://www.maxitmag.com/hardware-reviews/motherboards/asus-p5w-dh-deluxe-motherboard-review.html

Storage/RAID


Intel ICH7R SouthBridge:

1 x UltraDMA 100/66/33
3 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s with Intel® Matrix Storage Technology with RAID 0, 1, 5 support

Jmicron JMB363 controller

1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66
1 x External Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s (ASUS SATA-on-the-Go) and 1 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s with RAID 0, 1, JBOD support

Silicon Image 4723 Hardware RAID controller (ASUS EZ-Backup)


2 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s with RAID 0, 1 support
Support RAID 10 cross Intel® ICH7R and Silicon Image 4723 controller

Based on the above info does it mean I will not fully benefit with the use of the SSD ???

Unregistered.

Macker1 wrote: »

Based on the above info does it mean I will not fully benefit with the use of the SSD ???

You'll get like 99% of the benefit. What you won't get is the maximum read/write speeds quoted by the manufacturer. It's not that big of a deal in reality because as a boot drive, for loading parts of the OS and launching programs etc would see no real benefit from such high speeds.
SSD's have a tiny fraction of the latency of traditional hard disks. So when it comes to seeking out thousands of files (like an OS would during boot), it pisses all over a HDD in terms of the time it takes to do so.

Calibos

Monotype wrote: »

I don't hear much difference between them, I thought it sounded like the buzz/whine you sometimes get from PSUs. The only samsung drive I have is a green one and it's quiet even when moving large files, but it gets noisy when you copy lots of small files. I've installed the F3 before but haven't used it over long periods myself. Most drives in the past have been western digital drives and they've all been quite quiet.
It shouldn't really be making any noisy if it's idle. Even though the drive is still spinning and windows 7 may be automatically defragmenting or caching files, it shouldn't be loud or continuous.

I agree with unregistered, that it should be taken out and tested. Often the cases can make things worse. My last case was ridiculous for this. Every time the hard drive started spinning up, the case case would rattle like an old plane.

.....and I'll be RMA'ing the Corsair HX1050 I just got from HWVS with my build for that very reason. Buzzes/whines during boot, 3D gaming and ....moving the mouse in a web browser????

Macker1

Looks like I will go with the following drive options for my current PC

This will be the boot drive

http://www.dabs.ie/products/crucial-64gb-m4-sata-6gb-s-2-5--solid-state-drive-7GL0.html

This will be for storage

http://www.dabs.ie/products/samsung-1tb-spinpoint-f3-7200rpm-sata-3gb-s-32mb-65QC.html

Decent prices with free shipping........

Any comments or thoughts on ordering from Dabs.ie

Brian

Where in Dublin city centre can I get an internet WLAN card tomorrow? Just moved into my apartment for the year, and the router is hidden away somewhere magically in the ceiling on the far side of the building, getting about 0.5 Mb up and down on my rubbish D-Link USB yoke.

Edit: Looks like Maplin's are open 12-6, I'll try to pick up one of them... hopefully they'll be decent. No idea what to do with my microserver though, that kind of needs teh ethernets.

Jonathan

Baza210 wrote: »

Where in Dublin city centre can I get an internet WLAN card tomorrow? Just moved into my apartment for the year, and the router is hidden away somewhere magically in the ceiling on the far side of the building, getting about 0.5 Mb up and down on my rubbish D-Link USB yoke.

Edit: Looks like Maplin's are open 12-6, I'll try to pick up one of them... hopefully they'll be decent. No idea what to do with my microserver though, that kind of needs teh ethernets.

I've got a USB 802.11G stick you can use till you get sorted. Uses the zd1211rw driver which is supported in the Mainline kernel.

EDIT: I've also got something like this from HWVS.


EDIT 2: But that's no good to use cause the Microserver doesn't have a PCI slot.

deconduo

Baza210 wrote: »

Where in Dublin city centre can I get an internet WLAN card tomorrow? Just moved into my apartment for the year, and the router is hidden away somewhere magically in the ceiling on the far side of the building, getting about 0.5 Mb up and down on my rubbish D-Link USB yoke.

Edit: Looks like Maplin's are open 12-6, I'll try to pick up one of them... hopefully they'll be decent. No idea what to do with my microserver though, that kind of needs teh ethernets.

I've got a random USB one from Amazon, not using it cos it doesn't work with 64bit windows. I could let you have it for cheap if it will work for you.

Brian

I'll have to talk to the landlord, see if I can get physical access to the router. Thanks guys. I will buy one of these for my desktop tomorrow.

This will work with the microserver if I cut it down http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0036AFAEW/

freeze4real

guys can someone tell me what my totals watts for my PC would be.


My motherboard is alivenfg6.

I use 2 x 2gb rams kingston pc6400 800MHZ

I have 2 dvd drives but not powered.

My unit will use 4 fans from ebay.
I can add links

my processor is AMD 64 X 2 5000.

My hard drive is seagate barracude 320GB.

My GPU is gainward 8500GT 512mb PCI-E.

My psu unit is coolermaster 450watts pscr.

Monotype

I'd say 250W or so. No more than 300W.

Is that a different PSU? You previously said that it was 430W PCAR.

The problem is that there's not really much info on that particular model of PSU. It's branded coolermaster but they use a few manufacturers for the extreme series of PSUs.
A previous search said it could be originally made by Hipro which might be better than the Acbel ones which are terrible.

Listed here, it shows a 430W PCAR under Acbel.
Here's a review for the 400W version. You can see when it was measured at 300W that it fails the ripple and noise test.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Cooler-Master-eXtreme-Power-Plus-400-W-Power-Supply-Review/957/7

The 430W has a higher rating but it could be the exact same PSU, which is often done with these kinds of units.


While it failed the tests, it still worked and didn't blow up.
It's pretty likely to work with your system. Most of the time, it will be using far below 300W, but I wouldn't use it myself.

freeze4real

sorry for the typo its Cooler Master (RS-430-PCAR) 430-Watt PSU.


I wont be using too much stuff, hopefully it will keep me going.

On the plus side i have used unknown psu models and i never had a problem.

Tea_Bag

CoolerMaster is releasing a new line of 'Hybrid' PSU's.

looks like it's coming in at 850w, 1050w and 1300w. 80+ gold rating and over 90% efficiency under load. It comes with a 5.25" fan controller which also allows you to manually control the 7v fan in the PSU or shut it off entirely and run fanlessly. it has a safety feature that automatically turns it on when exceeding 200w.

more here

deejer

Tea_Bag wrote: »

CoolerMaster is releasing a new line of 'Hybrid' PSU's.

looks like it's coming in at 850w, 1050w and 1300w. 80+ gold rating and over 90% efficiency under load. It comes with a 5.25" fan controller which also allows you to manually control the 7v fan in the PSU or shut it off entirely and run fanlessly. it has a safety feature that automatically turns it on when exceeding 200w.

more here

Nice idea. Will be expensive though when it gets here.

Tea_Bag

Yea looks like they're going to compete with thw likes of enermax etc.

Solitaire

So... rebadged Enermax eh? :pac:

Trevor451

Hi guys. Just want to know what you think of this video;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j3QiVjkk1I

I Just want to know does this look normal to you guys (be sure to watch in 1080p) I know mass effect and MC lack anti aliasing but I have played countless hours of both games on my 6850 and never noticed what I am getting on my 6950. Also its not specific to those particular games. I get the same sort of stuff in every game I have played.

I apologize for posting so much about this particular issue I am having I just don't want to be down €200 if I have a bad card (amazon returns deadline is next Wednesday)

I have stated before that I don't think its because its from a lesser known brand (VTX3D). It appears that its just a rebranded powercolor 6950 (makes sense considering they are owned by the same parent company,TUL corp.)

Monotype

I don't see any annotations.
Is it aliasing that I'm looking for? It still looks good but it might be drivers that were updated during your changeover which altered how the game looks.

Maybe try an nVidia card next time?

cherryghost

TBH I don't see anything on the video. You should take a screenshot instead.

Serephucus

It's hard to tell what's youtube compression and what's lack of AA.

As far as I know, MC doesn't support AA...

Trevor451

Sorry about that, I was in a rush to upload the video and I forgot to put the annotations on. I updated the video now.

Youtube does butcher the quality of the video and it does not look as bad as the original fraps video unfortunately. I am uploading a relatively small fraps file and I will update this post with D/L links.

Monotype

I don't see anything in minecraft but I did notice the vertical lines earlier. I think you're dissecting it a bit much and I don't think that you have a bad card. You get discrepancies now and again between systems.

What was the situation again? Your 6850 broke and you got a 6870 which was getting crashes/jagged lines when you forced AA so you got the 6950 which has similar issues?
You could try a driver cleaner program on the graphics drivers and you might see some difference. I think it's nothing to be worried about and just limitations of the game engines which behave slightly differently with different cards.

Trevor451

Monotype wrote: »

I don't see anything in minecraft but I did notice the vertical lines earlier. I think you're dissecting it a bit much and I don't think that you have a bad card. You get discrepancies now and again between systems.

What was the situation again? Your 6850 broke and you got a 6870 which was getting crashes/jagged lines when you forced AA so you got the 6950 which has similar issues?
You could try a driver cleaner program on the graphics drivers and you might see some difference. I think it's nothing to be worried about and just limitations of the game engines which behave slightly differently with different cards.

Yeah. I figured it might be normal and I am paying too much attention to it maybe I had a 6850 for a while and then the screen started to split vertically in two, sent it in for a RMA and got a 6950. 6870 always worked fine.

Monotype

There's a review for the Bitfenix Merc Alpha on anandtech.

It falls short in a few areas but pretty good overall. I think it confirms our previous conclusions that it's well worth the ~€32 on HWV for budget builds, competing against the Asgard.

deconduo

Monotype wrote: »

There's a review for the Bitfenix Merc Alpha on anandtech.

It falls short in a few areas but pretty good overall. I think it confirms our previous conclusions that it's well worth the ~€32 on HWV for budget builds, competing against the Asgard.

Yeah, the biggest advantages over the asgard are the 4 front USB ports and the bottom mounted PSU. That's enough to swing me to recommend it. I think the Beta is probably a better choice as the top fans holes will mess with airflow if they aren't filled and extra fans aren't something you'd really add in a budget build.

Monotype

deconduo wrote: »

I think the Beta is probably a better choice as the top fans holes will mess with airflow if they aren't filled and extra fans aren't something you'd really add in a budget build.

That's a good point. There's room for more fans on the side, front and bottom anyway. I suppose the Alpha only really makes sense if someone planned a lot of upgrades or specifically wanted the top slots. 8 case fans would make a heck of a noise.

deconduo

Monotype wrote: »

That's a good point. There's room for more fans on the side, front and bottom anyway. I suppose the Alpha only really makes sense if someone planned a lot of upgrades or specifically wanted the top slots. 8 case fans would make a heck of a noise.

Also means if you have the misfortune of spilling something on top of the case it won't go directly to the CPU/motherboard :pac:

deejer

I have just been looking at some of the overclocks people have been doing with the FX-8150 and the power draw as a result of this. I see one water cooled, clocked at 5ghz at 1.475v, and with a power draw under load of 500w which I thought was high.

Got me wondering what my system is pulling from the wall and what is the best way of measuring it if I want to know what a specific part of hardware is doing. Anyone?

cdb

deejer wrote: »

I have just been looking at some of the overclocks people have been doing with the FX-8150 and the power draw as a result of this. I see one water cooled, clocked at 5ghz at 1.475v, and with a power draw under load of 500w which I thought was high.

Got me wondering what my system is pulling from the wall and what is the best way of measuring it if I want to know what a specific part of hardware is doing. Anyone?

Lidl had a plug in energy meter that displayed in Watts the overall power drawn by the system. It was a special buy and they come up from time to time, or if you wanted one sooner you could look for something like this

At idle and with no overclock my build was drawing around 200 watts in total. When overclocked and running at full tilt while gaming this climbed to around 500 watts.

There is a handy power calculator that gives an indication of the overall consumption that also allows you to measure individual components.

Power supply calculator

marco_polo

If measuring from the wall you will also need to account for the approximate efficency of the PSU.

deejer

marco_polo wrote: »

If measuring from the wall you will also need to account for the approximate efficency of the PSU.

Ya thats why I am wondering is it possible to measure power draw from the other side of the PSU if you know what I mean...........