Hardware Discussion Thread

Tea_Bag · 25-08-2012 10:04AM

I'm confused sorry, didn't realise there were 2 troubleshooting threads in here.

well that comment was for both of ye.

Monotype · 25-08-2012 04:26PM

GTX 660 on the way early next month.
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/jules/new-nvidia-gtx660-specs-and-cheaper-radeons-readied/

Serephucus · 25-08-2012 05:42PM

Pity they didn't include price there.

Eboggles · 25-08-2012 06:20PM

Serephucus wrote: »

Pity they didn't include price there.

HD7870-esque? I'd like to see launch day prices in HWVS no higher than €250.

Eboggles · 25-08-2012 10:00PM

If anyone's interested, AMD are dropping prices on their CPUs and APUs. These range from 23% to 1% as stated in the article:

Article here.

For people on phones:

AMD today updated A-Series, FX-Series and Phenom II pricing pages, lowering prices on full range of "Llano" APUs, and high performance K10 and "Bulldozer" CPUs. The pages shows effective date August 27, which suggests that the price drops will happen next Monday. Overall, the prices were cut by 1% - 23%. The biggest price reductions were for Phenom II 955, which dropped by 23% from $105 to $81, and Phenom II X4 965 BE, slashed by 21% from $115 to $91. Many Phenom II processors received only symbolical cuts, 2% or less. On the other hand, there were pretty significant cuts across full A- and FX-Series lineups. On average, AMD "Llano" processors will be cheaper by 15.7%, and FX CPUs will be 11.9% less expensive. Big price discounts for older products usually point to impending release of newer and better products. In this case, AMD "Llano" APUs will be replaced by "Trinity" accelerated units in one or two months, and faster FX CPUs will be also coming in the 4th quarter. Full list of price changes is provided further below.

The only processor, launched today, is quad-core FX-4130. This model is based on Bulldozer architecture, and comes with 3.8 GHz stock and 3.9 GHz Turbo Core frequencies. The CPU has 4 MB L3 cache and 125 Watt TDP. The FX-4130 was available for pre-order in US starting this week. Pre-order price of this SKU was identical to current price of FX-4100, that has an advantage of lower 95 Watt TDP and larger L3 cache, and disadvantage of lower clock speed. However, official price of the FX-4130 is slightly higher, $112 as opposed to $101 for the FX-4100.

ShadowHearth · 25-08-2012 10:13PM

Will 8150 be cheaper then 2500k now? I hate those prices in dollars. It's always very different story when it comes to old world.

Eboggles · 25-08-2012 10:17PM

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Will 8150 be cheaper then 2500k now? I hate those prices in dollars. It's always very different story when it comes to old world.

It's already €20 cheaper than the i5 on HWVS.

2500k: €204

8150: €182

ShadowHearth · 25-08-2012 10:30PM

Eboggles wrote: »

It's already €20 cheaper than the i5 on HWVS.

2500k: €204

8150: €182

So if that goes down to 160eu maybe we could see some AMD gaming rigs? Should be interesting

Monotype · 25-08-2012 10:31PM

I didn't know that they were still making those Phenoms!

Why on earth are those X2s so dear?
Actually that's not a bad deal with those 955/965 when you compare them to the i3s which are dearer.

The 8120 has actually been pretty good value at around €150 lately and this will bring it to ~€140. You can't even buy an i5 at that price and so long as you're going to use threading at least somewhat you get an 8 'core' vs Intel's dual core + HT. Even thinking of it as a quad core with extras, it's not bad.

I'll have to reconsider AMD for budget builds again. The thing that concerns me most is the available upgrade paths which seem more uncertain with AMD.

smileyj1987 · 25-08-2012 10:39PM

Monotype wrote: »

I didn't know that they were still making those Phenoms!

Why on earth are those X2s so dear?
Actually that's not a bad deal with those 955/965 when you compare them to the i3s which are dearer.

The 8120 has actually been pretty good value at around €150 lately and this will bring it to ~€140. You can't even buy an i5 at that price and so long as you're going to use threading at least somewhat you get an 8 'core' vs Intel's dual core + HT. Even thinking of it as a quad core with extras, it's not bad.

I'll have to reconsider AMD for budget builds again. The thing that concerns me most is the available upgrade paths which seem more uncertain with AMD.

You could do that but I would go with a 955 after todays rounds of price cuts and use the money saved to buy a board that will support piledriver because AMD are claiming it should be much better then Bulldozer and doubt they are lying because they need to get it right this time around or they will never be able to catch intel ever again .

Eboggles · 25-08-2012 10:41PM

Monotype wrote: »

I'll have to reconsider AMD for budget builds again. The thing that concerns me most is the available upgrade paths which seem more uncertain with AMD.

For the first time in the last 18 months? Ever since SB hit it's been Intel all the way, which isn't very good for competition.

I'm pretty sure PD (coming out soonish?) is on AM3+, but I'm not sure about Steamroller and Executioner.

What violent names

What's pretty interesting are the results of an engineering sample for the upcoming chips: http://www.overclock.net/t/1291114/coolaler-amd-piledriver-fx-vishera-engineering-sample-benchmarks

It seems to be nearly on par with SB...

smileyj1987 · 25-08-2012 10:49PM

Yep PD is AM3+ so will more then likely need to have a mainboard with the Amd Chipsets SB950 + 990FX . I wonder will we now see a price drop on the mainboards to go with the CPU's .

Monotype · 25-08-2012 11:13PM

I assume Piledriver will be something like the few Trinity results we've seen although they'll probably come with more cores. Results are nothing to be amazed about - Trinity improves over Llano performance per core easily enough. Llano was built on the althlon/phenom architecture and we didn't see an improvement going from that to bulldozer. It might not be beating Sandy Bridge in performance per clock but should be better than Nahelm, but that doesn't matter as long as they can offer something at a good price and do their work somewhat efficiently power-wise.

Executioner? Hahaha, I hadn't heard that one.

Are AMD bringing out any new chipsets with the new CPUs? I know that it's staying with the same socket, but I was wondering if they might throw PCI-E 3 out there since their graphics cards support it. Not that it's that necessary really as the high end AMD boards usually have two full x16 slots on a 990FX vs the typical x8 + x8 on socket 1155.

Tea_Bag · 26-08-2012 02:34AM

the other great thing about AMD is that their motherboards aren't ludicrous money. I bought this board a few weeks ago for a mate and I can't believe how much you get for the price:

www2.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/52889/ASRock+970+Extreme3%2C+AM3%2B%2C+ATX.article

that paired with an 8120 will be a pretty decent budget rig, and costs about the same as just the 3570K!

Monotype · 26-08-2012 12:13PM

Yeah, I agree. Their boards are good. Intel have come down in price a bit with them though. Sandy Bridge early on and socket 1156 boards were quite expensive relative to AMD.
I like the way that they have all sata 6Gbps ports on any reasonable board. I don't know what Intel are thinking still trailing out with SATA 2. You're unlikely to have a load of SSD drives, but now that they've allowed TRIM and RAID, more people will be wanting to use them.

You can get a good board for SLI/Crossfire for less than €100. Two PCI-E 2 x16 slots running at full speed.
http://www2.hardwareversand.de/DDR3/52891/ASRock+990FX+Extreme3%2C+AM3%2B%2C+ATX.article

ShadowHearth · 26-08-2012 09:45PM

So looks like AMD is back in game for some builds. Good to hear.
So do AMD GPUs do work better with AMD CPUs? Or that's another promise AMD ****ed up a wee bit? We do recommend AMD gpus a lot, so maybe 8120 paired with 7850/7870 can be quite a decent setup for people on mid budget?

Craig B · 26-08-2012 09:48PM

If piledriver is as good as SB and the face that AMD boards are cheap would it not be better to buy an 8120 system and use it until the new CPU's are released?

N64 · 27-08-2012 12:36AM

how much is the top of the range AMD processor rumored to be? I don't feel as silly for buying an AM3+ motherboard now

ShadowHearth · 27-08-2012 06:20AM

Craig B wrote: »

If piledriver is as good as SB and the face that AMD boards are cheap would it not be better to buy an 8120 system and use it until the new CPU's are released?

That pile driver ( what a stupid name ) wil be on am3+ too? I would still go for 2500k or ivy version of it over 8120/8150 on highish budget, but if you want a good balanced system and can't afford Intel then bulldozer looks like a great option.

Still need too see what new CPU are about. AMD is great at dropping the ball.

Tea_Bag · 27-08-2012 08:28AM

pile driver is 100% AM3+.

we'll be bloody lucky if it catches the 2500K though. its just not going to happen.

at its prices now though, it'll be better than recommending the 2400 I think. yea hoping on Intel leaves room for upgrade, but how many people go from 2400 to a 2500K at €200 just so they can OC essentially the same chip anyway?

AMD gpus don't get any advantage when working with AMD cpus.

Craig B · 27-08-2012 12:33PM

ShadowHearth wrote: »

That pile driver ( what a stupid name ) wil be on am3+ too? I would still go for 2500k or ivy version of it over 8120/8150 on highish budget, but if you want a good balanced system and can't afford Intel then bulldozer looks like a great option.

Still need too see what new CPU are about. AMD is great at dropping the ball.

I'm not going down AMD road but for some budgets it might be good.

Monotype · 27-08-2012 01:51PM

AMD's new lineup:
http://www.techpowerup.com/171151/AMD-quot-Vishera-quot-FX-Series-CPU-Specifications-Confirmed.html

I presume the FXs are socket AM3+ while the rest are FM2.
O.O 4GHz is quite a high clock speed - I hope they don't guzzle at that.

I wonder why they throw in eyefinity in there. I has no direct relevance to the FXs, unless they're talking about the motherboard - three monitors powered by one APU possibly, if the board has enough connections? Looking forward to seeing their video conversion acceleration.

sink · 27-08-2012 05:57PM

I just took delivery of a new CPU cooler to go with my HTPC but it doesn't fit

.

It is a be quiet! Shadow Rock Topflow SR1 and i'm going to return it to Hardwareversand unless by chance any of you are looking for one. As it's going to cost delivery to return it I would be willing to let it go for €30. If you want it get in touch with me by tomorrow as I will not be holding on to it.

Tea_Bag · 27-08-2012 06:16PM

Monotype wrote: »

AMD's new lineup:
http://www.techpowerup.com/171151/AMD-quot-Vishera-quot-FX-Series-CPU-Specifications-Confirmed.html

I presume the FXs are socket AM3+ while the rest are FM2.
O.O 4GHz is quite a high clock speed - I hope they don't guzzle at that.

I wonder why they throw in eyefinity in there. I has no direct relevance to the FXs, unless they're talking about the motherboard - three monitors powered by one APU possibly, if the board has enough connections? Looking forward to seeing their video conversion acceleration.

4.0ghz is pretty impressive for a base clock. maybe they do want to compete with sandy/ivy.

doubt there's much headroom for overclocking though, as suggested by the 200mhz turbo. time will tell

Monotype · 27-08-2012 08:09PM

I think that they should be able to take on the similarly priced products, like a 2400 or a 3450. It's the overclockability of the 3570K that will really halt it. If Intel doesn't price the Ivy Bridge i3s very aggressively, Piledriver should be a valid option to pick for someone out of the range of the 3570K. That's kind of a big if as Intel can afford to move around prices quite a bit if they want to.

Effluo · 27-08-2012 09:04PM

sink wrote: »

I just took delivery of a new CPU cooler to go with my HTPC but it doesn't fit .

It is a be quiet! Shadow Rock Topflow SR1 and i'm going to return it to Hardwareversand unless by chance any of you are looking for one. As it's going to cost delivery to return it I would be willing to let it go for €30. If you want it get in touch with me by tomorrow as I will not be holding on to it.

You should throw it on adverts.ie someone will definitely buy it for that price

gooch2k9 · 28-08-2012 08:44AM

Anyone know much about the Club3D GPUs? Their 7870 is 40 euro cheaper than the ASUS one.

Monotype · 28-08-2012 09:15AM

They're usually a slightly cheaper brand. They've been around for quite a while and are a somewhat major brand. I haven't heard anything outright bad about them.
Just have a look into their warranty to see if they have a European headquarters that you could RMA to if you the cards fails and compare cooling or try to find reviews describing noise and effectiveness of cooling.

Procrastastudy · 28-08-2012 11:02AM

Interesting the hex core and a much lower clock speed and a lower boost - issues with it being to close in performance to the octacore perhaps?

Monotype · 28-08-2012 01:25PM

They're just trying to segment it a bit more, but you're probably right. Most programs wouldn't see any difference between those CPUs at the same speed.

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