Hardware Discussion Thread

Unregistered. · 09-12-2010 7:10pm

MMiskella wrote: »

i'm planning to go the route of watercooling and looking to get a HD 6970 when it is released (next week) or early next year.

I wouldn't expect it to be affordable this side of the new year to be honest!

Solitaire · 09-12-2010 7:46pm

HD6970s might be affordable as AFAIK they're hitting the channel in volume; the catch being that this is the result of BIOS tweaks to borderline dies so for every extra HD6970 on the shelves you'll have one less HD6950, which may cause some odd pricing

MMiskella · 09-12-2010 8:15pm

Yep, the 6970's are hitting the market with big stocks so they should actually be near RRP as companies try to undercut each other and if that happens I may as well get one now instead of waiting for prices to drop when it will tend to increase as stock reduce.

Unregistered. · 09-12-2010 8:19pm

MMiskella wrote: »

...I may as well get one now instead of waiting for prices to drop when it will tend to increase as stock reduce.

I'd give it a week or two. Seriously.

MMiskella · 09-12-2010 8:51pm

Unregistered. wrote: »

I'd give it a week or two. Seriously.

Thats the only site to have the 6970 advertised right now but they do not have any stock. Overclockers.co.uk has a very large stock of 69**'s right now but can't advertise until the NDA lifts on the 15th which indicates that the French site is just trying to take advantage of people placing orders now while there is no reference price against other companys.

Also stocks in different country's depend on where they sell the most with Germany, America and the UK getting the largest bulk buys, therefore highest discount and lowest prices on the cards. So that site isn't too representative of what we will see next week.

With an expected date of the 23rd instead of the 15th seems pretty odd as well.

Unregistered. · 09-12-2010 9:22pm

It's pre-order only. Naturally, they will make a quick buck between now and *official release date*.

Hogzy · 13-12-2010 10:19pm

I need help deciding on what size PSU i would need.

Q6700
GTX 460 1GB
4GB DDR2 SDRAM
LG DVD+/-RW Disc Drive
1TB WD Caviar Green SATA
500GB Seagate Regular SATA
Asus P5Q Pro Turbo Mobo
Zalman 9700 CPU Cooler.

Would 500W be enough to power that or would i need 650?

Unregistered. · 13-12-2010 10:36pm

Hogzy wrote: »

I need help deciding on what size PSU i would need.

Q6700
GTX 460 1GB
4GB DDR2 SDRAM
LG DVD+/-RW Disc Drive
1TB WD Caviar Green SATA
500GB Seagate Regular SATA
Asus P5Q Pro Turbo Mobo
Zalman 9700 CPU Cooler.

Would 500W be enough to power that or would i need 650?

Overclocking (much)?

Hogzy · 13-12-2010 10:40pm

Unregistered. wrote: »

Overclocking (much)?

I plan to but im a complete noob to overclocking so it wont be overclocked by much.

Solitaire · 13-12-2010 10:52pm

600-650W. Q6700 and the GTX460 can be OCd lots and quite easily to boot, and as a result power consumption ramps up quite aggressively

The price of OCing a good PC into a great one I'm afraid!

Unregistered. · 14-12-2010 6:37pm

This comes with a proviso that in recent months I've found Fudzilla to be well dodgy with their reports on GFX cards and they don't supply any links to this information....
http://fudzilla.com/graphics/item/21210-radeon-hd-6970-to-cost-275-euro

Solitaire · 14-12-2010 6:57pm

AFAIK Fud became nVidia's b!tch a good while back. XBit only went over to the Pathological Liar dark side a few months back. Both tend to print very misleading articles about both manufacturers now (IIRC XBit was claiming the GTX460 was the most awesomest card ever and the HD6850 was inferior to the GTS450 a few weeks back!), nVidia just use them both as braindead attack sites like they did with Tom's a couple of years back :rolleyes::mad:

Tea_Bag · 15-12-2010 8:21pm

Is that Tomshardware you're refering to Sol?

i use them all the time for info, please dont tell me ive been wasting my time on them (ie are they're baised?)

Solitaire · 15-12-2010 8:45pm

Most of them are biased one way or the other, the average trend always tends towards nVidia and Intel simply as they're the first to pay bribes and/or withhold review samples or sue/spam/hack/attack anyone they don't like the look of. Not that AMD is an angel either, nor is it just the companies - fanbios will always be fanbois no matter whose side they're on - but AMD has always focused their investment on products first and dodgy "marketing" tactics second.

It can be damn hard to find an unbiased view at times, especially pivotal product launches. When the HD68x0 arrived you had some sites (was Anand one?) saying they were very nearly as good as the HD58x0 and others (most noticeably the former AMD-biased site XBit Labs) saying they were rubbish and no better than a GTS450 (lawl).

Unregistered. · 16-12-2010 10:20pm

Anand is one of the best out there. Really covers everything in a review

MMiskella · 17-12-2010 6:36pm

Unregistered. wrote: »

I'd give it a week or two. Seriously.

"286.43 €" Didnt that say like 480 before?
Pixmania has an ASUS one for 545 and a Gigabyte for 339...absolute madness.

Thankfully I got mine for 320 Euro and apparently AMD says they will rise in price in the new year after initial stock has diminished.

Unregistered. · 17-12-2010 7:00pm

MMiskella wrote: »

"286.43 €" Didnt that say like 480 before?
Pixmania has an ASUS one for 545 and a Gigabyte for 339...absolute madness.

Thankfully I got mine for 320 Euro and apparently AMD says they will rise in price in the new year after initial stock has diminished.

They prices look quite good on launch. 6950 being the best buy out there at the moment if you need something > a 6850

Tea_Bag · 20-12-2010 2:22pm

Sandy Bridge is out in parts of Malaysia

linky

interestingly enough, i5 and i7 are both running on LGA 1155

i love the look of the sabertooth p67 MoBo, but ill stick to AMD, thanks.

game4it70 · 20-12-2010 3:14pm

Tea_Bag wrote: »

Sandy Bridge is out in parts of Malaysia

linky

interestingly enough, i5 and i7 are both running on LGA 1155

i love the look of the sabertooth p67 MoBo, but ill stick to AMD, thanks.

Yeah shame there not the "K" versions though so we could get a better idea of the overclocking potential.

As for the sabertooth mobo they do say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" :P
I think the new gigabyte mobos look good.Its nice to see normal looking from them instead of the rainbow effect ones.

Tea_Bag · 21-12-2010 5:46am

LGA1155 MoBo's are up for sale on HWVS, most of them are out of stock, but some are in. no 1155 CPU's yet though.

Trevor451 · 22-12-2010 9:31pm

Just got my build running today! Thanks for all of your help and advice!

RoyalMarine · 27-12-2010 7:55pm

hey guys, im lookin for a new psu. 600 - 700w +.

needs to be reliable!

max budget €70

Deano12345 · 27-12-2010 9:01pm

RoyalMarineComm wrote: »

hey guys, im lookin for a new gpu. 600 - 700w +.

needs to be reliable!

max budget €70

You mean PSU am I right ?

What e-tailors do you prefer buying from and I'll take a look see whats out there

Solitaire · 27-12-2010 9:31pm

Not going to get much over 500W for that price range!

Add shipping, and... :eek:

I've seen Antec Earthwatts 650Ds going for around €70 but that's usually on HWVS

RoyalMarine · 27-12-2010 10:49pm

yeah meant psu lol

my bad.

i was thinking of going second hand, but then again....

for retaillers, id go with dabs, komplett, pixmania no problem.

hwvs, im not sure as ive never bought from them.

Tea_Bag · 27-12-2010 11:57pm

the only problem with HWVS is shipping is a flat rate of €30...

challengemaster · 28-12-2010 10:36pm

PSUs are fairly heavy so shipping costs are more expensive than usual...

Corsair Tx650 on dabs for €65.67 + €12.60 delivery (€78.27 total)
http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4RY9

44 in stock too, best I can find (~100 on pixmania)

Unregistered. · 28-12-2010 10:44pm

http://www.techpowerup.com/137140/AMD-Radeon-HD-6950-can-be-unlocked-to-HD-6970.html

Nollog · 29-12-2010 2:13am

Is the 6950 much of an improvement over the 59-whatever range?

Unregistered. · 29-12-2010 3:41pm

/\/ollog wrote: »

Is the 6950 much of an improvement over the 59-whatever range?

Your mileage may vary, depending on the games you play. But the 6950 usually has higher fps than the 5970 at high resolutions (extra gig of memory). At lower resolutions I've seen it just below the 5970 but more often tied or slightly better.

Nollog · 29-12-2010 4:19pm

All the 59 and 69 cards I've seen had only 1GB of memory.
I play at 1080p.

Unregistered. · 29-12-2010 5:58pm

/\/ollog wrote: »

All the 59 and 69 cards I've seen had only 1GB of memory.
I play at 1080p.

69** have 2GB as standard.

Trevor451 · 29-12-2010 8:27pm

Anybody know any good tutorials on how to unlock the 4th core on the AMD athlon x3 450?

Also if the 4th core does not unlock will the cpu be dead?

Thanks!

EDIT: Just had to go into bios and change the core unlock setting from disabled to enabled and it worked!

Tea_Bag · 29-12-2010 10:12pm

Trevor451 wrote: »

Anybody know any good tutorials on how to unlock the 4th core on the AMD athlon x3 450?

Also if the 4th core does not unlock will the cpu be dead?

Thanks!

EDIT: Just had to go into bios and change the core unlock setting from disabled to enabled and it worked!

i see your unlock, and raise you my L3 cache

Trevor451 · 29-12-2010 10:26pm

Tea_Bag wrote: »

i see your unlock, and raise you my L3 cache

Does the l3 cache unlock with the 4th core? or do you have to do something else to unlock it?

deconduo · 30-12-2010 1:30am

Some processors have the L3 Cache, some (like in your case) don't.

His one is only running at 800MHz anyway lol.

(I know its Cool'n'Quiet, but its still funny)

Unregistered. · 03-01-2011 2:45pm

I've been looking forward to reading up some reviews on Sandy Bridge for AGES now and the NDA seems to be up today. So for anybody who's interested, here's one such article which I'm about to read.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2011/01/03/intel-sandy-bridge-review/1

Anandtech also have a very good article on Sandy Bridge.

Deano12345 · 03-01-2011 2:48pm

Dunno if its been posted but JohnnyGuru's review on the CX430 is up, looks like a very good budget PSU. I know alott of people on boards werent too sure on these units for a cheaper build

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=214

Short Story is :

CWT is the OEM
YL Fan
So-so efficiency
Limited noise and ripple

Solitaire · 03-01-2011 6:37pm

The ripple measurements seem very wrong. I don't believe an overrated and broken PSU design filled with mediocre caps could stay below 30mV ripple on a 12V rail that was blatantly struggling. While the +5VSB was coming in at over 40mA... wtf?

I don't know what Johnny was up to, Wolfie would have ripped it a new one. Group regulation isn't an issue as there's ways to get around that, but supremely bad group regulation is. CL1 isn't an issue as you'll never see it nowadays, but in this 12V-based era of computing a normal PSU can easily verge on the same usage patterns as CL2 and... where's the 12V rail? Sitting somewhere below 11V. And a far-out-of-spec 5V too. Which means some of the protections aren't working - at least the under- and over-voltage protections circuits, as those readings were miles out of spec. A basic workstation - even a CPU-heavy one - wouldn't really be at risk, but if you took Corsair seriously about the 430V bit and added a mid-range graphics card... the 5V rail would not be loaded enough to prevent both it and the 12V rail from soaring out of ATX spec and potentially hurting the components for the scant seconds it stays on before the CPU and graphics crash the system. They're not really designed to run at well under 11.5V!

It is an odd one... bad caps not causing ripple, and presumably decent switching transistors backing them up, so there is little sign of anything amiss until you try to run a 12V-heavy rig on it and the whole thing goes crazy - yet ripple still doesn't budge. Are those scope shots kosher? Doesn't look like it tbh. Even if they weren't, the regulation figures suggest serious issues with the actual design of the PSU rather than an issue with the components on it.

To me its a very old topology not really designed to run anything newer than a first-generation AGP-based P4 rig, and the fact that Corsair chose to list a 350W unit as a 430W one speaks volumes about their new ethos. Nothing nice either.

Deano12345 · 03-01-2011 10:06pm

Now that you say it, its definitly worrying to see, like with them revising the TX series without notifying people. If they keep going the way they are, they'll into a real jack of all trades and I think if that happens then their PSU line as a whole will get hurt, as if the AX850 (not really beating the HX850 despite being more expensive) and the AX1200 (quality issues) havent hurt them enough !

Solitaire · 03-01-2011 10:51pm

I'm afraid they're only pulling the same grift that Antec and Coolermaster have been up to for donkey's years; turning every one of their PSUs under €60 (and even many of them up to €100!) into a mediocre poopbox that they can make a nice fat margin on :rolleyes: After all, look at the the smaller SF Amazon units or the refreshed Cougar A; too awesome to be sold for peanuts and make a hefty profit!

Its just bitterly disgusting to watch the same company who sold a modern, powerful 400W PSU for <€45 claim an overrated and fundamentally unstable 350W PSU is an improvement. Would you risk running a gaming rig pulling ~200-300W almost exclusively from 12V (thus crossloading the unit out of spec!) on this thing? Because I might be picky enough to insist that 250-300W systems are run from 450-550W PSUs but I doubt the average Q6700+8800GTX Dell user would, and those vast numbers of heavily loaded Delta 305/375W PSUs out there running those rigs will soon fail to keep up with the heavy power demands of those old-yet-well-performing pieces of kit thanks to capacitor ageing. If they're not very current with PSUs what cheapy PSU would they choose - a Cougar, Superflower or Corsair?

And what odds of tears before bedtime?

Trevor451 · 04-01-2011 4:46am

Unfortunetly the acer monitor I was looking at went up in price but there is a 23 inch monitor for only €20 more.

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/5985014/art/acer/p236hbd-23-tft-screen-5-m.html

What do you guys think of the specs? Does the screen have good picture quailty?

Thanks

Jonathan · 04-01-2011 4:00pm

I'm toying with the idea of upgrading my HD 4650 to a HD 5770.

What is the best deal going on a 512 MB 5770 and on a 1024 MB 5770 - is there much of a performance difference between them?

I'd rather not have to mess around with HDMI to DVI adapters, so a model with 2 x DVI would be preferred. VGA and HDMI is unimportant.

Solitaire · 04-01-2011 5:49pm

What resolution monitor are you playing on? If you're not running stuff at 1080p you don't even need a fully-fledged HD5770, let alone a 1GB model!

A HD5750 512MB would do just fine (and be a mammoth improvement in 3D over the HD4650!)

Jonathan · 04-01-2011 5:53pm

Solitaire wrote: »

What resolution monitor are you playing on? If you're not running stuff at 1080p you don't even need a fully-fledged HD5770, let alone a 1GB model! A HD5750 512MB would do just fine (and be a mammoth improvement in 3D over the HD4650!)

1680*1050.

It would be nice to get some 3360*1050 eyefinity going too, but I'm not sure how having a bezel right where the cross-hair is going to affect my gaming. :P

More a novelty, not essential.

Deano12345 · 04-01-2011 6:28pm

Trevor451 wrote: »

What do you guys think of the specs? Does the screen have good picture quailty?

Thanks

The IQ's on Acers seem fine from the ones I've seen. Contrast on them doesnt seem to be a strong point (those dynamic contrast ratios are a load of crap anyway) but anyway its a good screen and it'll serve you well !

Jonathan wrote: »

I'm toying with the idea of upgrading my HD 4650 to a HD 5770.

What is the best deal going on a 512 MB 5770 and on a 1024 MB 5770 - is there much of a performance difference between them?

I'd rather not have to mess around with HDMI to DVI adapters, so a model with 2 x DVI would be preferred. VGA and HDMI is unimportant.

Jonathan wrote: »

1680*1050.

It would be nice to get some 3360*1050 eyefinity going too, but I'm not sure how having a bezel right where the cross-hair is going to affect my gaming. :P

More a novelty, not essential.

Sol is right, 5750 would be fine at 1680x1050 and all reference 5750's and 5770's come with 2x DVI

Trevor451 · 05-01-2011 5:10pm

Just another quick question :P I was looking at the PC health tab in the bios and it says this: "DDR3 RAM 1.5V = 1.488 V" is that a normal voltage for the ram to be running at or is it supposed to run at 1.5V?

Unregistered. · 05-01-2011 6:07pm

Trevor451 wrote: »

Just another quick question :P I was looking at the PC health tab in the bios and it says this: "DDR3 RAM 1.5V = 1.488 V" is that a normal voltage for the ram to be running at or is it supposed to run at 1.5V?

That's fine.

Jonathan · 05-01-2011 9:42pm

Deano12345 wrote: »

Sol is right, 5750 would be fine at 1680x1050 and all reference 5750's and 5770's come with 2x DVI

Where is the cheapest place to source one including P&P?

I said to myself I can only justify it if I can get it delivered for €100. Don't think it's possible though.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/245511

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3805380/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-5750-1-gb-gddr5.html

http://www.dabs.ie/6JMNL8

Unregistered. · 05-01-2011 10:29pm

Jonathan wrote: »

Where is the cheapest place to source one including P&P?

I said to myself I can only justify it if I can get it delivered for €100. Don't think it's possible though.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/245511

http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3805380/art/sapphire-technology/radeon-hd-5750-1-gb-gddr5.html

http://www.dabs.ie/6JMNL8

Komplett have a 5770 for 104, delivered. No 5750's though.

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