Build Thread

[ManifestedISO]

You're good, they're PCI-E connectors for the graphics card ... the listing I'm looking at for the TX-750 says it comes with four 6+2 PCI-E connectors, where you plug in just the six and leave out the two, for 6-pin connections. 

[Gorgon]

I think I'm comming down in favor of the XFX ProSeries P1-750X-XXB9.

http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page625.htm

http://products.xfxforce.com/en-gb/Power_Supplies/ProSeries_750W_PSU/P1-750X-XXB9

 

It's probably Seasonic on the OEM side since the 400W model is listed. It's cheap compared to the others I've considered. I don't know that the distance from a bronze+ to a platinum+ rating warrants a doubling in price. If I'm reading that chart right It hits 32 Decibels in cooling mode (maximum) which is comparable to other gold and platinum rating PSUs I've been looking at. Although it appears the pages for the silver and bronze model is missing ?. 

[Humanoid]

Goes 85% - 89% - 92% - 94% respectively from Bronze to Platinum. Those are minimums. I don't really worry so much about the efficiency as much as the other perks of the higher-end models, so if it covers the nice little conveniences you're after then it's plenty good enough. Talking about stuff like modular cables (which is listed as "hybrid"  for the XFX, I guess that means some cables are modular and the essential ones not). What going for an X-series Seasonic got me for example is that it shuts down the fan and operates in passive mode when load is low. A luxury feature, so yeah, perfectly fine going with the Bronze.

[Gorgon]

Well too late to change anything now. I'll be putting the legos together Thursday or Friday hopefully. 

[Gorgon]

So everything fit together nicely. With the case closed the CPU is hovering around 42-43 degrees in the Bios, 39-40 with the case open, which probably means airflow is not ideal, but it should be fine. Everything is really quiet, except my GFX, but I think I can reduce fan speeds in the control center. Sometimes it's hard to predict how fans react to eachother and you get a perfect storms that create nuissance noises. I hope I won't have to look into another cooler for the GFX. It sounded quieter in the old case.

[Gorgon]

Yes, it was a just a matter of installing the driver.

[Gorgon]

Took me  a while to figure out why my SSD was almost maxed out on a clean format and install.  The windows swap disk was a whopping 64 gb. x2 of the ram per default. lol.

 

It's quite the leap in performance from what I'm used to. There are practically no load times all the places I'm used to seeing them.   

[Walsingham]

Query:

 

Would it be both possible and easy to auto-compile a computer rigged to run last year's top games, and then price compare for those specs?

 

My own PCs typically run games two years behind the curve, and everything's dandy.

[samm]

Autocompile? I don't know about that, have only seen websites that allow you to manually select items for comparison... some price comparison sites offer the possibility to compare products, as well as specific vendors' sites like Dell's

[ManifestedISO]

I'd like to skip Windows and build a low-level API machine only for Steam games. I mean I think it sounds good ... Linux and/or Steam OS, both on an SSD ... perhaps with Kaveri/270 hardware, nothing bonkers ... and Mantle, if it proves to be worthwhile. No DirectX, no Internet Explorer, no high-level Windows bloat getting in the way ... I love the idea. Should be plenty of games available, too, by then, from what I'm seeing, even AAA. With any luck, at 1080p that R9 270 might perform like a 280 will under Windows.    

[Gorgon]

If ATI's API turns out to be a landslide that would help undermine the windows stranglehold, if games nolonger needed directx. ...

 

One can dream. 

[Gorgon]

All is not well with the new system. I have had two blue screens of death since I put it together. The event manager gave me this code

 

 

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-US;2028504#method3

 

 

That's entirely too general to be of any use. Can a mere mortal make any use of the dump files. It killed my Enemy Within Ironman save. That is just.... unforgivable. 

It does suggest that the PSU is to blame. 

[Humanoid]

Doing anything in particular when the BSODs happened? My first instinct would probably be Memtest, and also system file checker to check your OS install is okay (open a command prompt with admin rights, type sfc /scannow).

[Gorgon]

I ran memtest twice, no problems detected while it was running the test, and it gave a no 'memory problems' message. The second time it completed the test and I had another blue screen just after windows loaded. The ram are set by the (I forget the name) profile in the bios automatically, I haven't fiddled with it otherwise. 

 

 

 

sfc /scannow found corrupt files, could not complete fixing them. 

 

 

 

The Chicken or the egg then ?. I mean the corrupt files could have been caused by the blue screen and vice versa. 

[Humanoid]

Hard to say, might be worth trying a repair install of Windows (you don't lose everything, but a fair bit of re-updating). Perhaps run some diagnostics on your system drive - assuming it's the Samsung, their SSD Magician utility is very good.

[ManifestedISO]

Anyone else with a tech chubby for this WD dual drive ... a distinct 120GB SSD inside the same 2.5" case as a 1TB pair of mechanical disks. It's not a hybrid, the OS recognizes two different drives in one, on one SATA III port. $299 MSRP. Sounds perfect for that low-bloat Linux Steam Machine I'm investigating. 

[Humanoid]

Missing the link there, I assume this thing is what you're talking about? It's a standard 1TB laptop drive with some NAND stuffed in the crevices? Have to say it seems pointless to me. For the price you can just about get 500GB of pure SSD which I'd think would work more nicely. Or for the same or possibly lesser price, pick up an SSD of the same capacity *and* a 2TB 2.5" spindle - I've think even the smallest ITX cases have room for a couple 2.5" disks at minimum. (Or if it didn't, just some room in general to double-sided-tape an SSD onto)

Edited November 26, 2013 by Humanoid

[Spider]

Yeah, that things is a bit suspect. The only use I see for it is in a laptop with only one slot for a HD, where it may be preferrable to a 500 GB SSD, but barely.

[Humanoid]

Especially if it's a decent laptop which should have an mSATA or M.2 port for additional storage. I'm a bit annoyed at the schism between those two standards though, like the mini-USB versus micro-USB standards, it just makes it harder for the end user.

[ManifestedISO]

Oh, yep, that price does negate a bunch of the charm. Funny how I didn't really connect the dots at first, but damn, three hundred bucks is bonkers. I think I subconsciously compared the total cost to that of a straight SSD.

 

Oh well, solid-state memory will never come down in price, I guess. If only they would fire-sale my other favorite drive, the 10k rpm Raptors. I want a 1TB for the PS4 and another to stick in this box ... but more than $200 for an HDD is equally bonkers.    

[Orogun01]

Question, how do you pass the time while waiting for your new rig to arrive next week thanks to the god forsaken holidays?

[Humanoid]

My solution to online shopping anxiety, waiting for that one delivery to arrive, is to instead buy new things every day such that new loot arrives every day.

[Guest Slinky]

I just think how horrible it's going to be to reinstall everything again from scratch so my mind will block out the whole thing,

[Orogun01]

I just think how horrible it's going to be to reinstall everything again from scratch so my mind will block out the whole thing,

This may be weird, but I kind of like reinstalling all my programs on a new computer.

[Humanoid]

I don't mind it either. Actually at the moment I'm debating whether to do an upgrade to 8.1 on this machine (convertible netbook thingie), or instead nuke everything and do a clean install sans-OEM-bloatware. But rationally, this machine is used for nothing but web browsing, so the logical thing would be to not do it at all.

 

It'll be relevant when I receive my serious new machine (the Thinkpad) though. Apparently Lenovo aren't doing 8.1 default on their business-oriented machines until next year. Blah.

 

 

Sort of relevant - one thing I'm liking about my recent reinstall onto a new SSD is that 2.5" drive power requirements mean it's trivial to transfer the old data over without messing around in the case. Simple SATA-to-USB cable and basically my old SSD is just a gigantic USB stick.

Edited November 27, 2013 by Humanoid