Build Thread

[Guest Slinky]

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/asus_rog_swift_pg278q.htm

 

:wowey:

 

Solution for v-sync lag has been long overdue. Nvidia G-sync seems to work well, still waiting to see how AMD's adaptive sync will do. Kinda hoping AMD's version works at least just as well as it doesn't need any extra chips in monitor and it's a part of DisplayPort standard so it's not limited only to AMD, unlike G-sync which is nvidia only

 

And my current monitor supports DisplayPort 1.2a so keeping my fingers crossed adaptive sync will work with it.

[Sarex]

This is what I'll be getting mid august.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/LtyQcf

 

Parts I already have are:

PSU:Seasonic 660x gold

GPU: Asus 560ti

SSD: OCZ Vertex 4 128gb

Monitor:Samsung SyncMaster T220

Cooler: CoolerMaster V8 (if I can find where I put the box with the 1055 brackets for it)

 

After this I will probably change the GPU when I get the money for it, then after that I will save for a new monitor(probably a 4k panel by then).

[Sarex]

This is what I'll be getting mid august.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/LtyQcf

 

Parts I already have are:

PSU:Seasonic 660x gold

GPU: Asus 560ti

SSD: OCZ Vertex 4 128gb

Monitor:Samsung SyncMaster T220

Cooler: CoolerMaster V8 (if I can find where I put the box with the 1055 brackets for it)

 

After this I will probably change the GPU when I get the money for it, then after that I will save for a new monitor(probably a 4k panel by then).

 

Whops, wrong motherboard. This is correct now:http://pcpartpicker.com/p/8Qq2WZ

[Bartimaeus]

What makes you choose the Deluxe specifically, out of curiosity?

[Sarex]

What makes you choose the Deluxe specifically, out of curiosity?

 

Mostly from the review on guru3d, it's not that much richer feature wise, but supposedly it uses higher quality components on the board and most importantly it's not that much more expensive then the pro version.

 

Do you think I'm making a mistake? What board would you recommend?

Edited July 24, 2014 by Sarex

[Bartimaeus]

From what I can see, it seems to be a fairly good board. 8 true phases, high quality gold chokes...normal/good quality everything else. Really, my only complaint is its price...and that there's at least one other Asus board (not mentioning other manufacturers) that has roughly equal build quality, (i.e. the Maximus VII Hero - which seems to be made of mostly the same stuff, with the exception of the transistors...where its are higher quality, but there are less compared to the Deluxe, weirdly). At $250, I was kinda expecting at least three PCIE 3.0 x8 slots, if not four...maybe 2-3 more fan connectors, etc.   

 

(To be perfectly honest, I don't think most users...essentially, unless you are running a crazy build like 2 super high end GPUs or 4 regular high end GPUs with 4 sticks of high speed RAM and/or doing some *crazy* CPU overclocking - which is becoming harder and harder to do as CPU die sizes get smaller and smaller, by the way...I don't think are going to ever be able to notice any difference between a $120-140 board and a $200 board in terms of motherboard build quality.  The only reason I got my Maximus VI Hero was because it was ridiculously cheap for its quality at the time, and matched the price and not so minorly exceeded the quality of the board I was gonna get instead, the ASRock Extreme4).

Edited July 24, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Sarex]

From what I can see, it seems to be a fairly good board. 8 true phases, high quality gold chokes...normal/good quality everything else. Really, my only complaint is its price...and that there's at least one other Asus board (not mentioning other manufacturers) that has roughly equal build quality, (i.e. the Maximus VII Hero - which seems to be made of mostly the same stuff, with the exception of the transistors...where its are higher quality, but there are less compared to the Deluxe, weirdly). At $250, I was kinda expecting at least three PCIE 3.0 x8 slots, if not four...maybe 2-3 more fan connectors, etc.   

 

(To be perfectly honest, I don't think most users...essentially, unless you are running a crazy build like 2 super high end GPUs or 4 regular high end GPUs with 4 sticks of high speed RAM and/or doing some *crazy* CPU overclocking - which is becoming harder and harder to do as CPU die sizes get smaller and smaller, by the way...I don't think are going to ever be able to notice any difference between a $120-140 board and a $200 board in terms of motherboard build quality.  The only reason I got my Maximus VI Hero was because it was ridiculously cheap for its quality at the time, and matched the price and not so minorly exceeded the quality of the board I was gonna get instead, the ASRock Extreme4).

 

So your advice is to go for Maximus VII Hero? (it's 60 euros cheaper)

[Bartimaeus]

If you don't have need of the Thunderbolt port...or the other small things the Deluxe has in favor of the Hero, I can't see any reason why not.

[Sarex]

Hmm you got me stumped, I will have to think about it. Now that I read up on the Hero VII, it a great board, even though it's light on the features.

[Bartimaeus]

What features are you going to miss from the Deluxe, (you said it wasn't all that great on features before, so now I'm curious)? I see a Thunderbolt card, integrated Wireless and Bluetooth, ...more back panel USB ports, I guess...and Sata Express port. Hero has an integrated VGA port that the Deluxe doesn't have, so that's neat, I guess...not that you'll probably find any use for it, I'm sure. So I guess there might be a few scenarios where the Deluxe would be better, but I don't really see it for most typical users.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Sarex]

I like that the deluxe has the wireless+bluetooth, dual lan, and hdmi+display port, but on the other hand the rog board is a better overclocker (almost every site I read confirms this) and is cheaper. As said I will have to think about how much those features mean to me.

[Humanoid]

Bit dodgy how they don't actually publish the rating of the wireless module, only that it's wireless-ac. There are multiple possible speed ratings for it, the maximum being 1.3Gbps. Anandtech's review has it listed as a 867Mbps module.

[Sarex]

For the wireless seeds:http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/asus_z97_a_and_z97_deluxe_motherboard_review,21.html

[Humanoid]

That article is not only lacking the spec, but it's also flat out wrong in stating that their router can even theoretically do 1.75Gbit. For slightly questionable reasons, wireless ratings for dual-band AC products state the sum of both the maximum theoretical speed on the AC band (5Ghz) and the legacy N band (2.4GHz). But the thing is, you can't actually use both connections to the same client at the same time. An AC1900 product means that it can connect at 1.3Gbit using the AC standard, and at 600Mbit using the N standard. An AC1750, which is what I have, and is what they would have, connects at up to 1.3Gbit in AC mode, but only 450Mbit in N. Both these products, plus AC1600 and AC1450 would all allow the maximum potential of Wireless AC, with varying speed support for older devices that you might own. Implying that any of these implementations has any maximum speed advantage is flat out deceptive.

 

So yeah, it's a stupid convention, because you have to infer both numbers that make up that total. And it gets even murkier once you drop under AC1450. What is AC1200? It's 867Mbit AC + 300Mbit N, which means it's technically overstating its capabilities. But the point is you know this only because it's the closest combination between the common implementations of AC (1300, 867, 433) and N (150, 300, 450, 600) to 1200.

 

 

EDIT: It's even worse if you think about AC1300. D-Link sell such a product. What is it? Is it a pure single-band router that only does 1.3Gbit wireless AC and no support for legacy N devices? Hah, nope, it's 867Mbit AC + 450Mbit N, rounded down. Because having AC1300 be 1300Mbit and creating an AC1317 for this other product would be too sensible I guess.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Humanoid

[Sarex]

Yeah I just visited the D-link site, they even said 1300mbit+450. What a stupid mistake to make on a professional hardware review site. Though I think that the speeds they got from the mb still stand, as the router should not be the bottle neck in this case.

[Humanoid]

Not at all since results are resuilts and my own experience is similar: I get 600-700Mbit across about 10m, through two walls. This is with a TP-Link Archer D4 router (AC1750) and an ASUS PCE-AC68 PCI-E wireless card (AC1900) in my HTPC, which has an external 3-antennae dongle. Both devices are capable of the maximum specification of Wireless-AC, so there's no restriction in that regard. USB or purely internal solutions fare significantly worse though, my laptop has an Intel wireless AC adapter rated at 867Mbit. And as far as I know, no vendor has released a USB wi-fi adapter that is specced above 867Mbit. At the same distance as the HTPC, the laptop will only do about 200Mbit. Not surprising given it's just a little internal thing. Hell, held directly next to the router it still didn't help much - I forget what I got but it was probably 300-400Mbit.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Humanoid

[Sarex]

So Humanoid what do you think, should I go for the Hero VII or the Deluxe z97?

[Humanoid]

I've always been the type to just buy a near-basic level board, so I'm not used to the world of high-end ones. So I'm coming at this from a position of relative ignorance, and am pretty much just using the Asus website's comparison tool only.

 

I guess the chief consideration is how highly you rate the Wi-Fi adapter and the SATA Express support on the Deluxe. I'm not ready for SATA Express SSDs, in my view the state of SSDs today is still the same as it has been for the last few years, capacity is the only meaningful metric, performance is just simply not an issue with today's offerings, certainly not worth more than say a 10-20% price variance. More capacity over more performance every single time for mine.

 

As for the wireless, it's superficially obvious perhaps, but here's the thing: despite it being "only" a 867Mbit adapter, it's still got an external antenna and therefore will outperform any other 867Mbit product. To get a product that's clearly superior to that, you will likely need to spend nearly an extra hundred dollars to get an AC1900 PCI-E adapter. On the other hand, you might be happy with the speed of a $15 Wireless-N adapter - since I'm also guessing you will need to buy a new ~$150 router if you go the AC option. So depending on how important the wireless requirement is, the it's either totally wasteful or good value. I'd just go with the lower total package price.

 

I guess there's a bit of a wildcard with the sound chip on the respective boards. The respective sound specs for each is just a bunch of incomprehensible marketing jargon to me, but a review might be able to shed some light on which is actually better. Assuming, that is, you don't plan to use a sound card, an external DAC or even a full AV receiver.

 

 

 

(I know this is missing the point, but personally I'd just buy a cheap 'C' version, reuse my Essence ST soundcard and not worry about wi-fi, but that's just my personal priorities.)

Edited July 25, 2014 by Humanoid

[Sarex]

Both boards use Realtek ALC1150 codec, so the sound should be the same. The wireless isn't a priority, but it's something I would like to have. The SATA Express I would consider future proofing.

 

The main problem is that I want this rig to be able to last. My last rig, the one I'm still using (Q6600 and Asus P5K+some random ram), is close to 6 years old. So I don't really want to cheap out on the motherboard.

 

For me the breaking point between these two boards is better overclock ability vs. more features.

 

Tbh, I would have liked to go for a X99 board and a 5820k, but it seems that it's beyond my reach, as the DDR4 ram prices are going to be severe.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Sarex

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, the only difference between the audio chips is that the ROG boards are supposed to have better shielding from internal interference or something or another, (all the Realtek chips seem to sound exactly the same to me regardless of their "specs" and anything the manufacturers do to "enhance" them, but your mileage may vary, I guess).

 

Unrelated: does anyone know what the consequences of popped/deformed capacitors might be? I have an old FX-55 housed within this thing, and seems to be working fine, (and has been), but more than half of all the capacitors on the thing are wrecked. I'm wondering if I should be worried about that... 

Edited July 25, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[Sarex]

My friend had that problem too, for him it worked until it stopped working which didn't take very long. I wonder can those capacitor be changed?

[Humanoid]

Maximising longevity is a reasonable enough position to take, but in general I feel for the most part it's not really something these type of comparatively minor decisions even meaningfully effect. There's two parts to determining longevity, being reliability and obsolescence. And my feeling these days, is that the former is mostly pot luck. If a part's going to fail, it's overwhelmingly likely to fail because of a manufacturing or design fault rather than any variance between specific models. I doubt even a comprehensive statistical analysis would show a different between models. Maybe a particularly poor choice of PSU would show; other than that it'd all just be statistical noise.

 

As for obsolescence, I think the last time anyone had to even make a decision that genuinely made a difference in the lifespan of their systems was during the Q6600 vs E8x00 days. The choices made between the other components available in that day don't even register, it's not even a footnote. It's been six years now since Intel introduced the i5, and in doing so introduced the 'choice' of having hyperthreading for $100 or whatever. And in each of those years I've recommended against it, and I don't think there'd have been any genuine cause for regret for anyone who took that path. This is probably the first year since then where I think I can say it wouldn't be a waste of money, but it's hardly a recommendation either. It's still nowhere near the magnitude of that C2D vs C2Q decision. Further than that, even the graphics market is far more static these days than it was back then. Adding it all up, it really does feel that everything is a muchness, there are no decisions that would make a notable difference. The tech will hold up. Any reasonably built system today will.

 

 

Now to wander off completely off-topic, I'll say this: I may hang around here a lot, but am actually pretty conservative on tech. Give me a $1000-1500 budget and I'm happy, put it up to $2000 and I'll spec something with some nicer bits and bobs. Put it up to $3000? $4000? I'll tell whoever to get the exact same $2000 thing and think instead of some other things that would make for a better experience today. All the SSD space to install all the games without even having to thing about it. A bigger, better screen. More of those bigger and better screens. The nicest chair you can find. Hell, spend that entire $1000 on a Herman Miller chair, it's a better investment than any PC component could hope to be. A nice big desk. Mahogany if you feel like it. Feel like a high-flying executive, or like Captain Kirk as you lean back and survey your domain. Furnish the entire room, all the comfort add-ons and all the storage that'd ever be needed. *That's* how I honestly feel about spending priorities.

 

 

---

 

If you can still read the writing on a capacitor, it means you can theoretically go out and replace said capacitor. Whether it's worth doing so.... well I wouldn't.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Humanoid

[Bartimaeus]

My friend had that problem too, for him it worked until it stopped working which didn't take very long. I wonder can those capacitor be changed?

Oh yeah, they should definitely be able to be changed - I mean, I can't see how you couldn't. Funny thing is, a lot of the caps on the board had been popped for years, and I'm wondering why the board hasn't exploded yet...or at least have more problems than it should. It does admittedly crash if I even so much as unlock the CPU for overclocking - not even overclocking, just setting it so I could - but that's a relatively small problem for a board and CPU of their age and condition, (it's still using the default HSF...and I doubt it's had thermal paste reapplied in over five years, at the very least).

 

@Humanoid: I can't even imagine spending $1000 on a computer - much less double that. $800 is pushing it for me...$600-700 is a very good amount, with $500 still being close to enough. I spent less than $400 on this computer sans the video card, which I'm still to buy at some point...although I did buy parts that were very steeply discounted - but if I hadn't been able to, I would've never gotten them, so. 

Edited July 25, 2014 by Bartimaeus

[ShadySands]

Parts are slowly trickling in and everything should be here by Monday

[ShadySands]

Now I'm just waiting for my video card and the RAM to come in.

 

Thinking of going ahead and getting that second video card since I saved a bunch of money by switching to stuff that fell off a truck*

 

*actually I got some great sales and promotions and got some liquid cooling doohickey for free. I just hope it doesn't suck