Hardware Discussion Thread

Eboggles

stevenf17 wrote: »

Getting a new laptop for college soon and going to replace the hdd right out of the box.
Do ya's think the 830 worth the extra 6 quid over the m4?

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/Solid-State-Disk/56863/Samsung+SSD+830+256GB+SATA+III+Paper+Box.article

http://www1.hardwareversand.de/Solid-State-Disk/53777/Crucial+M4+Slim+256GB+SATA+6GB%27s+6%2C4cm+%282%2C5%29.article

I've already had a 128gb m4 in my desktop for the past year and its a great drive, I've no complaints, but just wondering do yas think there's any benefit going for the Samsung drive other than a little faster write speeds?

For the sake of €6 I'd get the Samsung.

stevenf17

Eboggles wrote: »

For the sake of €6 I'd get the Samsung.

Grand, cheers!
Suppose when ya consider i'll be spending +1000 quid on the laptop before I even put the ssd in, the extra €6 won't make much of a difference.

Eboggles

stevenf17 wrote: »

Grand, cheers!
Suppose when ya consider i'll be spending +1000 quid on the laptop before I even put the ssd in, the extra €6 won't make much of a difference.

Exactly .

freeze4real

Hi again,

I might be buying a cpu off a seller who doesnt know if its working or not, its an i3 cpu.

The threads look fine.

What risk am I letting myself into if the CPU doesn't work ?

Procrastastudy

freeze4real wrote: »

Hi again,

I might be buying aa cpu ff a seller wo deosnt know if its working or not, its an i3.

The threads look fine.

What risk am I oetting myself into if the CPU doesn't work ?

Don't they open holes in the space time continuum?

If you mean will it damage other parts on my PC - Unlikely.

Monotype

Make sure it's for socket 1155. Socket 1156 won't work.

CPUs rarely don't work - they're one of the least likely components for failure, unless you're manhandling by touching the contacts.

If the CPU doesn't work, then it doesn't work. You usually won't get half working ones and there's little danger that it will take down other components.

freeze4real

GCDLawstudent wrote: »

Don't they open holes in the space time continuum?

If you mean will it damage other parts on my PC - Unlikely.

thanks mate you got me wondering as to what your 1st sentence meant, I'm left with a **** laptop to surf the net while I gather some parts for my next build and the keys physically are laggy as feck.

freeze4real

Monotype wrote: »

Make sure it's for socket 1155. Socket 1156 won't work.

CPUs rarely don't work - they're one of the least likely components for failure, unless you're manhandling by touching the contacts.

If the CPU doesn't work, then it doesn't work. You usually won't get half working ones and there's little danger that it will take down other components.

thanks unfortunately I didnt get that P8P67, seller dealt off theread and sold it, but i'm looking to get P7-55M, that uses 1156 SOCKETS.

Monotype

Oh, well that's unfortunate. Socket 1156 is two generations old and only ran for one generation. Some good CPUs there but wouldn't give you anywhere near as good options at the 1155. On the other hand, with a good motherboard, you can overclock any CPU. Probably not really much better than the AMD board you mentioned earlier. I'd be careful with my money investing in this technology.

freeze4real

Monotype wrote: »

Oh, well that's unfortunate. Socket 1156 is two generations old and only ran for one generation. Some good CPUs there but wouldn't give you anywhere near as good options at the 1155. On the other hand, with a good motherboard, you can overclock any CPU. Probably not really much better than the AMD board you mentioned earlier. I'd be careful with my money investing in this technology.

oh lord, seems its back to the drawing board.

bloody hell and I thought I got a good bargain P7P55M and 4Gb RAM for 55euro.:mad:

Genghiz Cohen

freeze4real wrote: »

oh lord, seems its back to the drawing board.

bloody hell and I thought I got a good bargain P7P55M and 4Gb RAM for 55euro.:mad:

H61(Non Overclockable) Socket 1155 mobo - €45
4GB DDR3 RAM - €20

Any good?

EDIT: Maybe throw a €40 max on this.

freeze4real

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

H61(Non Overclockable) Socket 1155 mobo - €45
4GB DDR3 RAM - €20

Any good?

EDIT: Maybe throw a €40 max on this.

thanks for the links man, I will definitly bid on the Asus mobo, if I dont get i've spotted a few under 55 on dabs.ie.

Monotype

Quick guide on socket 1155 motherboards:

H61, H67 = Lower end, can't overclock. Often come without USB 3 or SATA 6Gbps.

P67 = Can overlock 'K' CPUs. Can not use integrated graphics.

Z68 = Integrated graphics + overclocking 'K' processors + some other stuff.
Z68 Gen 3 = Slightly newer (more bandwidth for graphics cards).

Z77 = Newest chipset, newer features, overclocking, integrated graphics.

There's a few others like Z75 and H77 too.

Skylinehead

Monotype wrote: »

Quick guide on socket 1155 motherboards:

H61, H67 = Lower end, can't overclock. Often come without USB 3 or SATA 6Gbps.

P67 = Can overlock 'K' CPUs. Can not use integrated graphics.

Z68 = Integrated graphics + overclocking 'K' processors + some other stuff.
Z68 Gen 3 = Slightly newer (more bandwidth for graphics cards).

Z77 = Newest chipset, newer features, overclocking, integrated graphics.

There's a few others like Z75 and H77 too.

Nice little chart here:

http://www.techspot.com/guides/519-intel-z77-panther-point-chipset/page2.html

Only for the Ivy Bridge variants though, no Z68/H61 etc.

Tea_Bag

AMD announces more price cuts on the 7900 and 7800 GPUs on the way.

New Pricing Structure:

Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition: US $499
Radeon HD 7970: US $429
Radeon HD 7950: US $349
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition: US $299
Radeon HD 7850: US $249

the 7950 is starting to look like reasonable value for money now. only $50 more than the 7870 with more RAM etc etc.

it started at $450rrp

www.tomshardware.com/news/Radeon-HD_7800-HD_7900-Price-Cut-Cheaper,16303.html

Eboggles

Tea_Bag wrote: »

AMD announces more price cuts on the 7900 and 7800 GPUs on the way.

New Pricing Structure:

Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition: US $499
Radeon HD 7970: US $429
Radeon HD 7950: US $349
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition: US $299
Radeon HD 7850: US $249

the 7950 is starting to look like reasonable value for money now. only $50 more than the 7870 with more RAM etc etc.

it started at $450rrp

www.tomshardware.com/news/Radeon-HD_7800-HD_7900-Price-Cut-Cheaper,16303.html

Did Anandtech not report that last week?

Monotype

^^ Yep. Not new news. It would be very interesting if they reduced the 7850, but they're probably raking in the cash at that point and just hoping it will push people to look at the now closer 7870.

Fluffy88

It's a real pity they didn't reduce the 7850. There is nothing out to replace the 6870 and I would imagine it's one of the highest selling cards.
Hopefully nVidia pull the thumb out soon and give us a 660ti or 650ti that will be in the price range.

N64

New hardware return stats for June 2012 were recently published:
http://www.behardware.com/articles/862-1/components-returns-rates-6.html

One figure that really surprised me is the 1.90% return rate ASrock boards have. In the past, ASrock were generally considered to be the low end division of ASUS.
Also funny to notice how the twin frozr iii 6950 (which I had to RMA) has a high return rate even though it is the most expensive 6950 out there. One of the worst graphics cards I ever owned :mad:

SSD return rates are also listed on the 7th page. No surprises here but both Crucial and Intel have low return rates (0.82% and 1.73%) while OCZ have the highest (7.03% :eek::o)

Monotype

Asus P67 boards were a bit of a mess. A lot of memory problems so not that surprising they've been falling back. Their high end boards have been good, as always, but their mid ones have really falling in quality over the last few years. Well done Asrock though.

Wasn't the Twin Frozr III 6950 one of the ones that was supposed to unlock extra shaders? I wonder if people were returning them because they were unhappy if they got an unlockable one or if they were flashing bad BIOSs onto them.

Corsair CX series looking relatively crap, but that's what you're paying for. FSP are looking a lot better now. They've been getting good reviews lately alright after having a lot of duds in recent years. Their PSUs make their way into quite a few other brands.

Look at how high return rates are for hard drives in general. Shower of bastards cutting their warranties!

Very nice work by Crucial there taking the top spots with 0.23% for their RAM and SSDs at 0.82%. No surprise that Intel has climbed with the SSDs after taking on the Sandforce drives. They did a better job with them and at least Corsair had the guts to recall their 120GB ones when they new things were going awry. A lot of vertex 2 drives though from last generation not lasting it out though. It's amazing how on many forums everyone was shouting that these were the drives to get and that you didn't need to consider anything else.

Procrastastudy

So you've all seen the Ghettotastic but I'm thinking of changing the case and cooler. So I'm looking for a bit of advice (sorry if I should start a thread tell me)

My place is very dusty so I could do with good dust filters
Cable management is very important
I'd like something that can take a H100 or similar (any suggestions on the similar) Fan noise isn't too much of an issue but can change them if needed.
Cooling has to be uber for sill over-clocks on GPUs
Needs to last about 10 years! Well 5.

Genghiz Cohen

Fractal R3?

/noob guess

Skylinehead

500R is pretty much designed for the H100. Good cable management too.

glynf

GCDLawstudent wrote: »

So you've all seen the Ghettotastic but I'm thinking of changing the case and cooler. So I'm looking for a bit of advice (sorry if I should start a thread tell me)

My place is very dusty so I could do with good dust filters
Cable management is very important
I'd like something that can take a H100 or similar (any suggestions on the similar) Fan noise isn't too much of an issue but can change them if needed.
Cooling has to be uber for sill over-clocks on GPUs
Needs to last about 10 years! Well 5.

What's the budget? I have the H80, and no issues with it. Be warned though, the fans it comes with are horrible, cheap, noisy b@stards so factor in a few decent ones as well. I looked at the H100, but the double rad would not suit my case. The 80 works well, AI suite says my CPU is at 26 deg C right now, and CPU averages early 50's under load.

I had an Antec Kuhler 920 but RMA'ed it because the pump was crap-lots of noise and it seemed to be a common fault at the time. The only way to stop same was to tape a small magnet to the casing, so I think it was an issue with the bearings or whatever gubbins inside.

Procrastastudy

Probably want to get it all* for under €250 but if there's a compelling reason to go higher then thats grand. That said lower is better!

*Case, Cooler, Fans and something for the dust.

Skylinehead

500R or 600T, H100, 2x Gentle Typhoons (1150RPM) should fit that budget.

Procrastastudy

Skylinehead wrote: »

500R or 600T, H100, 2x Gentle Typhoons (1150RPM) should fit that budget.

Thanks!

Do you exhaust out the top btw?

Skylinehead

GCDLawstudent wrote: »

Thanks!

Do you exhaust out the top btw?

Better to do that (IMO) than pull cool air into the radiator that then goes onto the motherboard a hell of a lot less cool.

Procrastastudy

Any truth to the theory that the H100 is no better than some good Air Cooling solutions?

Skylinehead

GCDLawstudent wrote: »

Any truth to the theory that the H100 is no better than some good Air Cooling solutions?

It's not hugely better than the likes of the Noctua NHD14, but it looks a lot better :pac: