Build Thread

[Keyrock]

I don't understand: what's the purpose of these special, rather obnoxious looking keys?

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.

[Sarex]

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.

 

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.

[Keyrock]

 

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.

 

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.

[Sarex]

http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=compatibility_gen&products_id=68&lng=en

[Keyrock]

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. 

Edited June 1, 2014 by Keyrock

[Humanoid]

If you look at the screenshot of my NAS setup up there, the cooler is slim enough to not block the DIMM slots. It's a Silverstone Argon AR-01, my budget cooler of choice, with a Nexus fan, fairly standard 120mm fan. If even that is too borderline, it's not a huge deal to get a slimline fan instead, or just move the fan to the other side of the heatsink. An option with some coolers is to shift the fan up along the cooler, though this is possible only with some fan mounting systems (easy on my Megahalems, not much on my AR-01).

 

Even better, though more costly, might be the Scythe Ashura. Scythe products are hard to get in the US because they lost their main distributor there a while back, but Amazon sells some models. The new slimline Kotetsu doesn't seem available yet, but I see the very clever Ashura is. It's an asymmetrical model, it's very skinny on the memory side, but has more metal overhanging on the far side, making it perfect for tall RAM heatspreaders. Check out the photos on SPCR, plenty of room.

 

 

(I just finished building my new Haswell HTPC over the weekend, but I didn't even consider using the stock cooler, so this is not a helpful point. I installed a Scythe Big Shuriken 2 on it for what it's worth, which isn't much because it's the complete opposite of what you need - it's a low profile cooler, top-down blowing cooler that has a massive horizontal footprint but is ideal for slimline cases)

Edited June 2, 2014 by Humanoid

[Keyrock]

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.

[Keyrock]

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)?

 

 

[ManifestedISO]

Too bad there isn't a penguin laying on its side with a bloody headshot, stamped Fatal1ty. 

 

Otherwise, the second one. 

[Bartimaeus]

First unless you correct the white around the second's Steam symbol to be whatever it was before you pasted it on the penguin. Then maybe that.

[Sensuki]

IBM Model M all the way. I will not be purchasing a different keyboard.

[Keyrock]

IBM Model M all the way. I will not be purchasing a different keyboard.

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!

Edited June 2, 2014 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

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.

[mkreku]

If you look at the screenshot of my NAS setup up there, the cooler is slim enough to not block the DIMM slots. It's a Silverstone Argon AR-01, my budget cooler of choice

 

I just realized that that's actually the cooler I use too. It's surprisingly efficient. My CPU hovers around 36-38C.

[Agiel]

Uggghhh... hate how the transition to the new console cycle moves the hardware goalposts so much.

 

Looking into an AMD FX 9350 that seems to give top-end-ish performance for even less than a mid-range i7, but all the Newegg reviews give me the impression I will spend as much just to keep it properly mounted, ventilated, cooled, and powered up. Looking for something for a build <$600 but will still last me a really, really long time (my budget for the video card is whatever is the Geforce x60 GT model is).

Edited June 2, 2014 by Agiel

[Keyrock]

Uggghhh... hate how the transition to the new console cycle moves the hardware goalposts so much.

 

Looking into an AMD FX 9350 that seems to give top-end-ish performance for even less than a mid-range i7, but all the Newegg reviews give me the impression I will spend as much just to keep it properly mounted, ventilated, cooled, and powered up. Looking for something for a build <$600 but will still last me a really, really long time (my budget for the video card is whatever is the Geforce x60 GT model is).

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.

[ManifestedISO]

Huh, for a budget build, that X4 and a 270X could push a 1080p single panel nicely. I just did a perusal for parts to go with it, but less than $600 is a challenge. At least when adding SSD for OS, and memory, god, memory is twice what I paid at the end of 2012. New consoles really are a bargain.

 

 

[Agiel]

Yeah, the SSD part is happily already covered.

[ShadySands]

Hmm, good info. I may be looking to build a new PC in a month or two and I'm starting to price it all out

[Humanoid]

Final leg of my project is just throwing together the parts from my old HTPC into a new case to use as a backup PC. It's a BitFenix Prodigy M. This case is ....terrible. It's a mATX case, sure, so I expect cramped conditions, fair enough. But it's a pretty big case by mATX standards, yet it's an absolute pain to work in. The "front panel" is on the side door, but I knew that and fair enough, running all the front panel cables - the buttons, LEDs, USB ports, audio connectors - was a mild inconvenience. On the other hand, 2.5" drives have to be mounted either directly onto that same door, or on a metal bracket that forms a 'bridge' behind the door. Terrible access.

 

The final kicker is the PSU installation, and it's a double whammy: in one orientation, the retaining bracket for the PSU hasn't been cut away at the right points so having all four screws installed in the PSU prevents it from being mounted in the case. Secondly, the external power plug to the PSU literally CANNOT BE ATTACHED. It's a sideways L-shaped connector which causes the cable to bump up hard against the case, and it can't be realistically bent enough to fit without risking damage to the cable (and a damaged cable running mains power is something that'd likely kill me). Looks like what's happened here is the designers assumed all PSUs had the same power socket orientation and failed to allow for any other configuration. Well screw you too BitFenix. I can get around this by routing a straight-connector power cable directly to it, and this bypasses the 'neat' internal routing the case was designed for.

 

(If this is hard to picture, what's happening is that the PSU is mounted internally such that the exhaust points to the floor. The problematic internal power cable is nothing more than an extension cable that reroutes the PSU's power connector back through the case and terminates in a connectors on the rear panel)

 

 

EDIT: Or just take a picture, Captain Obvious.

 

Edited June 3, 2014 by Humanoid

[Keyrock]

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.

Edited June 3, 2014 by Keyrock

[Sarex]

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.

 

Then I'm probably going to go for the 5820k version with a mid-range 2011 motherboard.

[ManifestedISO]

Whew, loving these images of the new S-frame InWin case today. Open-air, yet not, black with Iron Man-red accents. Only 500 will be made, $799. 

 

 

Edited June 3, 2014 by ManifestedISO

[ManifestedISO]

5.5Ghz on air-cooling. I think you should return that Xeon and plunk down for the devil. I don't even like Intel and I want a Devil's Canyon. 

 

[Keyrock]

Nah, the Xeon will work for me just fine until Broadwell comes next year.  Don't get me wrong, 5.5 GHz on air cooling is impressive, regardless how many hundreds of dollars this particular air cooling setup cost, but I don't feel like playing the silicon lottery.

Edited June 5, 2014 by Keyrock