Hardware Discussion Thread

deano546

Im looking to get a 500gb HDD just for storing games, I'd like it to be fairly quiet as I'm used to the sweet sound of silence with my M4
Would this be fine? Or would there be better deals out there?

Monotype

Should be quiet enough. WDs usually have some of the quietest drives... at least until they're on the way out. The again, nearly every manufacturer has quietened down their drives recently. If you want to get something quieter, the green drives are the best. They're usually a little cheaper, but at the 500GB range on amazon, they're actually dearer. You might find more balance with higher capacities. Of course this low noise level is because they run a little slower. Not very slow now, as they're still much faster than older drives.
Another alternative I see is that the scorpio blue 500GB is nearly the same price at £54.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Western-Digital-Internal-Playstation-Compatible/dp/B0037NYQ6Q/r
A bit slower too, but more compact and should be low noise.

Edit: You shouldn't notice noise either way. Windows will power down the drives while you're not using them so it's unlikely to bother you whatever you buy unless you're constantly moving around files.

_AVALANCHE_

Gigabyte grabs Ivy Bridge CPU overclocking record at 7.032 GHz

AMD FX-8150 Gets Pushed Over 9GHz in Extreme Overclock


Don't Mess With The Fighting Robot PC Case Mod

Eboggles

1GB Radeon 7850 is on hardwareversand, yay nor nay? It's over €20 cheaper than the other 7850's.

Linky.

Monotype

It's the 1GB version. I remember reading about in the AMD launch plans. Reviews will probably show up in a while.

I'd say you won't notice a whole lot of difference in most situations. The 6950 didn't have much between the 1GB and 2GB versions. They were a bit closer priced though. Nearly €40 is a considerable range. I think someone said that BF3 uses a lot of VRAM, and of course if you're working above 1080P, you'll start to notice it.

Edit: Actually BF3 apparently eats a lot of RAM, although a lot of it may be just caching so the impact might not be huge. It will be interesting to see what the reviews say here. If someone was going down the crossfire route, they should definitely take the 2GB version.

Tea_Bag

there is no way I'd get a 1gb GPU these days if you're a dedicated gamer. BF3, skyrim (with mods) and metro2033 are just the tip of the iceberg in a quest to eat your vram. by next year I suspect 2gb will be a min requirement.

I've been watching my vram usage for a while now cause a GUI has been built into the newest beta MSI afterburner. in playing BF3 on ultra (at ultra high def admittedly) I hover at 3.7gb (vram!!) used and get spikes up to 3.9gb occasionally. its very odd actually cause I was under the impression that a 6990 can only address 2gb of vram (out of 4gb) due to crossfire (and SLI) architecture.

I should hopefully still have a screenshot of it. I'll check when I'm on my PC again.

AlmightyCushion

A 6990 (or any sli/crossfire configuration) will still address all the memory but each card needs it's own copy of the data it's working on so everything is stored twice meaning that while you have 4GBs VRAM, it performs like a 2GB card VRAM-wise.

Tea_Bag

yea that's what I understand. address was the wrong word to use on my behalf.

why does afterburner say max is 4gb though? wouldn't it be easier to say 2gb instead of me having to half the displayed number myself?

still though, its crazy thinking that I'm occasionally using 1.8gb of vram on a single monitor. well I run dual screen but the second is only running monitoring tools.

next upgrade will be 3gb+minimum. or the 4gb 680. definitely not the 2gb edition anyway.

AlmightyCushion

Tea_Bag wrote: »

yea that's what I understand. address was the wrong word to use on my behalf.

why does afterburner say max is 4gb though? wouldn't it be easier to say 2gb instead of me having to half the displayed number myself?

still though, its crazy thinking that I'm occasionally using 1.8gb of vram on a single monitor. well I run dual screen but the second is only running monitoring tools.

next upgrade will be 3gb+minimum. or the 4gb 680. definitely not the 2gb edition anyway.

I guess it shows 4GBs because it technically does have and uses 4GBs VRAM. The card you are thinking of buying (4GB 680) will have the same amount of memory as my gaming computer. That's mad.

Tea_Bag

as it stands, 4gb isn't enough for me. I've 8gb, and while gaming I'm using at least 5.5gb, and I don't even have any browsers open. I can max my ram fairly easily actually. I'll be moving to 16gb next time I'm ordering from HWVS, while its still cheap enough.

I think deciet mentioned that on his eyefinity rig, 8gb of RAM became his bottleneck. crazy stuff. I remember when having 2x512mb sticks was 1337, and that wasn't long ago.

glynf

Here's the answer people. I'm waiting to pick up 2 of these babies, According to J. Freeman from EVGA (via twitter) 4GB FTWs will be available in the next two weeks.

I think Nvidia was being scabby with the 2 GB on the stock 680, in 12-18 months it will barely cut it with A titles. Just not an acceptable lifespan for a 450+ GPU.

Tea_Bag

why not just get an 8gb 690? cheaper, better looking, less driver issues, and more future proof.

glynf

That would be ideal. Don't think there will be an 8GB 690, read somewhere they don't have enough room on the PCB for > 4gb & there will only be reference boards produced.

Fluffy88

Just for fun on my GT 555M I stuck on Battlefield 3, overclocked the card and put BF3 on Ultra without any of the AA and motion blur stuff to see how much of the 3GB VRAM it would use and it stayed around 700MB according to MSI Afterburner.

Same with Skyrim.
The only way I could get above 1GB was to run Skyrim and BF3 at the same time.
Not sure why it wouldn't go above the 1GB for either of the games but they were both running above 30fps.

glynf

That's a mobile GPU, so I'm assuming you are on one screen, try the desktop equivalent with three screens

Tea_Bag

NTMK just started playing Max Payne and when you turn up the settings it shows the vram usage at the bottom.

at 2560*1440 on ultra with 8x AA it warns that it needs 5.8gb of vram :cool:

glynf

oooof, be a while 'till he's running 16 X then, or start saving for 2x 7990's

deejer

Tea_Bag wrote: »

NTMK just started playing Max Payne and when you turn up the settings it shows the vram usage at the bottom.

at 2560*1440 on ultra with 8x AA it warns that it needs 5.8gb of vram :cool:

I remember reading a few weeks ago that Max Payne is meant to be the new "Crysis" in terms of testing setups. Sounds about right.

Fluffy88

glynf wrote: »

That's a mobile GPU, so I'm assuming you are on one screen, try the desktop equivalent with three screens

It is just one screen but that's running at 1920x1080 so it's still a pretty high res. Unfortunately I don't have the ability to run three monitors but it does show for the average user you don't need any more than 1GB yet.

Sholden

Just wondering will the BitFenix USB 3.0 Front Panel work with this case and this motherboard? I assume it will work with the case but I'm not sure about the motherboard. And does it come with the cables etc. or will i have to buy them separately?

Skylinehead

It will work. Not sure on cables though.

glynf

Sholden wrote: »

Just wondering will the BitFenix USB 3.0 Front Panel work with this case and this motherboard? I assume it will work with the case but I'm not sure about the motherboard. And does it come with the cables etc. or will i have to buy them separately?

The front panel looks to come with 600mm cables:

http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/accessories/usb3-front-panel#overview


and here


The panel is a standard 5.25" so will fit fine.

Sholden

glynf wrote: »

The front panel looks to come with 600mm cables:

http://www.bitfenix.com/global/en/products/accessories/usb3-front-panel#overview


and here


The panel is a standard 5.25" so will fit fine.

OK then thanks.

Monotype

Good article here on PCI-Express scaling. They measure performance of the 680 and 7950 at x4 x8 and x16 bandwidths for PCI-E 1, 2 and 3.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/1.html

Performance summary
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Intel/Ivy_Bridge_PCI-Express_Scaling/23.html

Basically, PCI-E 2 x8 is still enough for modern cards. PCI-E 1 x16 is actually still doing well, although if you were using this, you'd have a hard time finding a CPU to keep up.

_AVALANCHE_

Razer rolls out Taipan ambidextrous gaming mouse

glynf

_AVALANCHE_ wrote: »

Razer rolls out Taipan ambidextrous gaming mouse

Happy days, as a leftie its Great to have a bit more choice.

7970x2 at computex:

6GB VRAM 7970 :eek:

N64

Hi guys I am looking for a GPU in the sub €220 mark. Would the 7850 from piximania offer the best "bang for buck" ? Thanks

Skylinehead

N64 wrote: »

Hi guys I am looking for a GPU in the sub €220 mark. Would the 7850 from piximania offer the best "bang for buck" ? Thanks

Short answer, yes. Long answer.......yes :pac:

TheZestyLemon

When ordering from hardwareversand, what should you put in for the zipcode? I mean, Ireland doesn't use zipcodes, so what should be used instead?

N64

TheZestyLemon wrote: »

When ordering from hardwareversand, what should you put in for the zipcode? I mean, Ireland doesn't use zipcodes, so what should be used instead?

I don't think the post code matters much as anpost will know where to deliver it once it reaches Ireland (DHL only looks at the country when its being transported to Ireland)

Wait until further clarification from another boards member just to make sure