Keyrock

Hoo boy, this thread is heading down this path YET AGAIN. *sigh* Allow me to leave this here and unsubscribe for at least a day while this runs its course. HUNT: Horrors of the Gilded Age http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt1n5ZkZReQ Alternate title: Left 4 Dead: Old-Timey Edition

So, the embargo has been lifted, the official announcement has been made, and Devil's Canyon has been launched and should be available for purchase in about 3 weeks (Newegg has it listed as 6/25/14). I've seen a couple of reviews so far from places that managed to get their hands on a sample (other sites are still waiting for theirs), and, to be quite honest, I was not at all impressed. Hexus did a review, but they didn't overclock in their review, which is odd, to say the least, since the i7-4790K is specifically aimed at overclockers, it's the exact demographic that Intel is targeting with this chip and advertising it to. In fairness to Hexus, they mentioned that the chip they got had trouble staying stable at the stock max boost of 4.4GHz, so you could forget about overclocking it using the stock cooler and I guess they didn't want to (couldn't be bothered to) overclock it with aftermarket cooling. Regardless, that doesn't bode well, especially since engineering samples are usually cherry picked. Jagat also got their hands on a chip and with a little help from Google Translate I discerned that they did indeed overclock using a Noctua NH-U12S cooler. They managed to get it stable at 4.8GHz at 1.35V (which is frankly a scarier voltage than I'd feel good about running full time, I don't think I could bring myself to run at over 1.325V full time) with a $70 aftermarket cooler. They got it to 5 GHz on a 1.4V (yikes!) on a max clock run (no way in hell would I run a chip at 1.4V full time, I'd soil myself from worry). Granted, this is a very small sample size, but, again, I'm not impressed. The stock speeds are impressive, but the overclocking potential seems like it's barely higher than i7-4770K, and, honestly, if you're buying a K chip then you're looking to overclock. Plus, it seems that the silicon lottery is still very much in effect for these chips, as it was with the first round of Haswells. With that in mind, I decided to go with Plan B and ordered a Xeon E3-1231v3. 3.4GHz base, 3.8GHz max boost, hyperthreading, no completely useless IGP, lower TDP (due to not having to share TDP with aforementioned completely useless IGP), and all for $100 cheaper. Add to that another $40 or $50 I save by not buying an aftermarket cooler (no need if I'm going to run at stock speeds). So rather than wait another 3 weeks, spend $140 to $150 more and pay a buck or three more a month on electric bills, all to get to 4.7GHz, maybe 4.8 GHz max boost, if I get lucky in the silicon lottery, or as little as 4.5GHz if I don't, I'll get this much cheaper chip and be happy with it. Then, roughly a year from now, when Broadwell comes out, I'll take a look at it and see if the die shrink and architectual improvements are enough to warrant an upgrade. If so, I'll sell the E3-1231v3 on eBay for somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 less than I paid for it (I might be able to get more), and put that money toward a Broadwell chip. Honestly, I should have gone this route from the beginning, but I wanted to see if, by some miracle, Devil's Canyon was going to be some magic overclocking machine. Turns out it seems barely better than a 4770K, which isn't really a surprise.

Chillin'

No idea what either of those are, so probably nothing I ever cared about I'm guessing Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six. Not my type of games, though Ubi did put out Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars, admittedly a very different type of GR game, for 3DS a few years back and I loved the bejesus out of that game.

Check out Tom's monthly best gaming CPU for each budget article. The embargo on Devil's Canyon gets lifted tonight, it will be about 2:30 AM my time, so, shortly after I wake up tomorrow morning, I should have an idea of whether I'll be getting DC or not.

http://www.crytek.com/games/homefront/overview Windows/OSX/Linux/PS4/XBone - Sometime 2015

Well, i7-4790Ks are starting to pop up for order at a bunch of European retailers. Most of them are saying something along the lines of "we should have them in about 10 days". I don't know how reliable that is, but, if true, I can live with that. I can wait until the middle of this month to get my SteamOS Monster Rig finished.

That's actually quite lengthy for a FPS, particularly modern day ones. Most modern day FPS single player campaigns clock in well below 10 hours.

Here are my results: The first part they got correct, American (standard), the second part they're sort of off base since Polish is my native language, however I have spent the better part of my life in 'Murica and speak way better English than Polish, so it's not that far off.

Got my Witchblade up to level 17 in Grim Dawn and reached Burrwich. Not far to go to reach Warden Kreig now. I'm excited to see how the laboratory looks with the shiny new graphics, and even more excited to see what the act 2 area looks like. I'll probably cross that bridge and check the new area out a bit before going back to Burrwich to deal with The Warden, and if the monsters there prove to be much too high level for me, I'll just tuck my tail between my legs and run back to Devil's Crossing.

I posted that trailer in the Random Video Game News thread. Not sure if enough people care about this game here for this to warrant its own thread, but we'll see. Yeah, the 2D concept art definitely looked better than the 3D stuff shown in that trailer. I'm sure Inafune has his reasons for going with 3D. I still think it looks nice, just not as good as the concept art. Keep in mind that this game is still a year away from completion, so this is still very early alpha footage and there is a lot of room for tweaking and beautifying. The one section in the beginning of the video was definitely too close up for my tastes, but later on they showed another area where the view was more far away, at about the distance that would be my preference. Hopefully most of the game happens in that view.

LOL Yes, you can absolutely target specific demographics, if you so choose, for your vigilante justice. I try to be choosy whose bank account I'm siphoning. I try not to take money from cancer patients, people who volunteer at soup kitchens, that sort of thing. But, if you're so inclined, you can make it your mission to rid Chicago of all Scientologists, or whatever strikes your fancy. That's always the best part of sandbox games like this, making your own game out of it.

Ah the ol' buckling spring design switches. Classic. I prefer Cherry MX Brown switches myself, but tons of people love the buckling spring switches, and with good reason. Those IBM keyboards are built like a tank. You could fire a mortar shell at them and they'd still function. There are a ton of people that use IBM Model M keyboards dating back to the 80s still to this day. The 80s!

Which custom logo should I print out for the rig (I didn't draw these just swiped images off the net and pasted them together all amateur like)?

Yeah, moving the fan to the other side of the block and turning it into a pull instead of a push setup is always an option, but in my experiences, push works a lot better than pull on a CPU cooler (push/pull is obviously best). I'll look into those coolers you listed and take another look at the measurements of the Noctua Sarex listed before I make any decisions.

Yeah, I haven't played in several months, since B12, I think (they're on B18 now), and tons of stuff has changed. Heck, I haven;t even reached the new act 2 area yet (though I did rebuild the bridge, just haven't had the stones to cross it yet). I started a new character rather than picking up one of my old characters since it's been so long. THey added a whole bunch more dialogue and lore into the game. I'm sure a lot of people just skip through that stuff so they can get back to hacking and slashing, but I enjoy reading every piece of lore, even in a loot em up. I hope B19 comes soon, we should get 2 handed melee weapons in that next build. The graphics certainly aren't bad, especially if you can push max settings. The HBAO+ lighting effects during the day are pretty amazing. My biggest gripe is that the game looks a bit disappointing at night. Not bad, certainly, it's just that I played Sleeping Dogs recently, and that game looks amazing at night.

I was thinking about getting this Cooler Master liquid system. All the professional reviews I've read say it does a great job keeping the CPU ice cold, even under heavy load (In one video review the guy ran Prime95 for 3 1/2 hours and it never broke 38 degrees). The one negative everyone mentions is that the fan, when at full speed, is very noisy, but that can be easily remedied by spending 10 bucks to get a better 120mm variable speed fan. Most reviews also mention that the Hyper 212 Evo air cooler works just as well, is less noisy, and even costs less, the problem with that, same as the problem with the Noctua Sarex linxed, is that it will interfere with at the very least 1 of my RAM slots, and I want to avoid that at all costs. The water cooling system avoids that completely since the water block and pump are not much bigger than the chip itself, and I can get a better fan and mount a push/pull system on the radiator in conjunction with my existing 120mm exhaust fan at the fack of my case, which should keep the radiator super frosty, which in turn should keep the chip super frosty, which in turn should allow me to overclock to my heart's content. I'm really thinking I may have to go liquid cooling, since with all the good air coolers I keep running into the same problem of the cooler (usually the pan pushing the air through the block) likely interfering with my RAM slots because my OC'd RAM sticks have the giant heat spreaders on them.

Are you going for air? If so then definitely go after market, you won't go wrong with a Noctua. There is even a new edition out that has pmw fans and is molded to clear high ram modules. I need to make sure I get a cooler that's either pretty slim and/or spreads out high enough above the chip that it gives me about 2" of clearance. I have OCed RAM with giant, tall heatspreaders. With the current 2 stick configuration in slot 2 and 4 it won't be a problem if I lose slot 1 due to the cooler, but I'd like to have the option to slot in 2 more sticks to go to 32GB in the future.

For reference, my settings. All maxed except AA, AF, and shadows (as an aside, I know it reads Intel HD Graphics, but I can assure you it's running off my GeForce GT 650M): My pops would love this cave. Look at all those mushrooms to pick! I'm about to have a smashing good time with that giant mosquito Probably not jams and compotes

Who knew Prosper worked at a creamery?

Mostly aesthetic. Having the WASD keys be a different color, like the bright red, makes them easier to pick out and can help you not hit the wrong key in a tense game, though my fingers generally sit right on top of theose keys by default when I play games. As for the super keys, purely aesthetic, as the super key is not something I'll be pressing during a game anyway. I suppose it might help me not hit it by accident, since the orange key will be super easy to see and differentiate from the other keys, but I doubt it will make any difference. Anyone here running Haswell care to comment on the stock coolers they come with? I'm wondering whether it might be wise to spend 30 or 40 bucks on an aftermarket cooler.

Do they make wired versions? I don't like wireless controllers. I may scoop up a wired Xbone controller in the future if they make wired ones, once they work on PC and once the Linux folks reverse engineer a driver.

Since my cheap ass aftermarket 360 controller bit the dust (The right trigger broke. I had previously glued the piece back together but it broke again. I have a one fix policy, I'll try to fix it once, if it breaks again in the same spot, it's telling me to get a new product), I'm setting Watch_Dogs aside until the new one I ordered (an actual real deal Microsoft one, this time) gets delivered, since driving with m&kb is not something I want to do. Instead, I started playing Grim Dawn again, after having taken a several month break from the game. The game has changed a whole bunch since I last played it. Not only did they add the second act, crafting, new item types, artifacts, new quests, and so on, along with the constant balancing that goes into making a successful loot em up, but they also significantly improved the graphics while also making the game run a lot better than it did before. The game looks really really nice now. The textures are really sharp and the colors are really vibrant, which I actually kind of like in a dreary desolate wasteland type setting. There are also much better particle and lighting effects now than pefore. Really good work by the folks at Crate Entertainment. I'll take some screenshots when I get back from my bike ride and play the game some more.

I ordered a pair of orange super key keycaps printed with the Tux logo. Sort of like the black one in this picture except orange like the keycap next to it:

/bites knuckle Excuse me, I'll be in my bunk