Build Thread

[Sensuki]

I'm waiting for 27" 1440P 120Hz+ at 8-bit or better colors. There's an ASUS panel coming out in June that does all of those, but it's still a TN panel.

 

I tried the Korean brands, great if you can get a perfect one. The first one I had had a bright spot, and the warranty replacement I got had a dead pixel and a bright pixel. So I sold it.

[Keyrock]

I wound up getting a Seagate 600 Series 480GB SSD.  Surprisingly, Tiger Direct, who is usually slightly more expensive than Newegg, has this about $130 cheaper than Newegg.   

[ManifestedISO]

Holy low-priced solid-state speed balls!

[Keyrock]

Holy low-priced solid-state speed balls!

Yeah, as soon as I saw that price I got quite happy.  Every professional review for the Seagate 600 series I've seen is quite positive.  I was just hoping to not go far above 50 cents per GB, this is less than 46 cents per GB. 

[Humanoid]

Hell, at that price I'd buy two and forget having a spindle drive. :D

 

But seriously yeah, that's a performance-oriented SSD for a budget SSD price.

[ManifestedISO]

I see the 10k Raptor 1TB is $30 off this weekend, to $169. I want it, but I want solid-state more, for the money. 

 

What a great deal that Seagate was, I never thought Tiger Direct did stuff like that. 

[Keyrock]

I kind of wish I could justify spending another $220 and getting a second one to set up RAID 0.  The performance would be insane. 

 

Alas, I'll just have do deal with the sorta blazing fast performance of using just one.  I'll put the OS and the games on the SSD and keep all the stuff that I could care less about read/write speed (music, videos, documents, etc.) on my archaic 7200 RPM HDDs.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

So, seeing as I spent about 30-40 bucks less on the SSD (and got a better one than I expected to boot) than I planned, I used that money to get this mechanical keyboard rather than a cheap ass membrane keyboard.  10 keyless, which is fine since I never use the numpad anyway and it saves space.  Cherry MX Brown switches, which are my personal favorite since they're almost as light as MX Reds but have the nice tactile bump without the really loud click of the MX Blues (not to mention the heaviness of the MX Blues, or the MX Blacks, for that matter).  After the rebate it will only set me back about $57, which is quite cheap for a Cherry MX Brown keyboard. 

Edited May 24, 2014 by Keyrock

[Sarex]

Is there any point to a mechanical keyboard? I have been using the Logitech wave keyboard+mouse combo for more then 4 years, never had an issue (with the keyboard).

Edited May 24, 2014 by Sarex

[Keyrock]

There are advantages to mechanical keyboards.  Reduced, or completely eliminated (with PS/2 input) key ghosting.  Potentially faster response times (particularly on the lighter types like the red and brown).  Better double tapping precision.  Potentially less typing fatigue as you don't have to bottom out the keys to register presses (this is especially true with the tactile varieties as it'a a lot easier to tell when your keystroke registered).  Also, they tend to last a lot longer, though care/abuse will play heavily into that.

 

A mechanical keyboard is something you'd probably never think you'd need (and you'd be essentially right) until you've owned and used one.  Once you've used a decent mechanical keyboard you won't want to go back to a membrane keyboard, even though you can get by with a membrane keyboard just fine.  A mechanical keyboard is definitely a luxury rather than a necessity.

Edited May 24, 2014 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

I wound up getting this 16GB of DDR3 2400.  Tiger Direct tossed me a $15 off offer so long as I spent over $100 and did so within the next 2 days.  Not sure why, probably because I haven't shopped there in forever until I got that sweet SSD recently and they want my business back.  Whatever, I'm not complaining.  Anyway, I highly doubt I'd get 16GB of very high speed DDR3 any cheaper than $130 (heck, I doubt I'd get 16GB of regular old DDR3 1600 cheaper).  Now I just need to make sure the mobo I get supports 2400 MHz XMP profiles.  All I have left to get is the mobo and the CPU and the build will be complete.

 

Soon, my precious, soon.

 

Edited May 24, 2014 by Keyrock

[ManifestedISO]

Speaking of keyboards, this one might be the worst thing I've ever seen ... it makes the most ridiculous noises ... I don't want this at all. 

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=49ldFDQCzao

 

 

[ShadySands]

Not a big fan of virtual keyboards in general. I've only tried 2 and while they are really cool looking it's hard to type on because you can't rest your fingers on the keys, it's really easy to hit the wrong key, and they aren't very responsive which sucks if you are a really fast typer or a gamer

[Keyrock]

Speaking of keyboards, this one might be the worst thing I've ever seen ... it makes the most ridiculous noises ... I don't want this at all. 

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=49ldFDQCzao

 

That would probably be very fun to play with for an hour or so and to show off to friends.  Beyond that, it would collect dust on my shelf.

 

Not a big fan of virtual keyboards in general. I've only tried 2 and while they are really cool looking it's hard to type on because you can't rest your fingers on the keys, it's really easy to hit the wrong key, and they aren't very responsive which sucks if you are a really fast typer or a gamer

Yeah.  I don't even much like typing on my Android phone.  It just feels weird typing without any sort of feedback, or at least something physically getting pushed down.

[ManifestedISO]

This seems too good to be true, especially because it may not require an investment beyond upgrading firmware. 

 

New way to write data triples SSD transfer speeds up above 1.5GB/s using 60% less power. 

 

http://www.neowin.net/news/ssd-breakthrough-means-300-speed-boost-60-less-power-usage-even-on-old-drives

[Bartimaeus]

Very interesting. I, too, am curious as to whether it's true. If it is, well...previously, I was uncaring as to whether I'd end up getting a Z87 or a Z97 board for my 4770k, since it's unlikely I'd upgrade my CPU within the next five years with it. However, if it is true and actually begins to be implemented, the new speeds would completely ruin current SATA 3 capabilities - nevermind what they'll be in a few years - necessitating a jump to SATA Express/M.2 that I previously thought was not worth it. Even those might not be enough for the next few years if it's really as good as that article makes it out to be. I'll have to keep an eye on any further developments in the next few weeks as I'm considering a motherboard purchase.

[Sarex]

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/intel_devil%E2%80%99s_canyon_delayed_to_late_september_2014.html

 

It's not confirmed or official.

Edited May 25, 2014 by Sarex

[ManifestedISO]

Wow, air-cooled 5 GHz. Delayed four months ... ouch.

 

The gentleman builder in this thread may be inclined to gnaw at their faces.   

[Sarex]

Hopefully it's just a rumor.

[Sensuki]

This looks to be the monitor I'll get for Pillars of Eternity.

 

ASUS PG278Q

 

http://pcmonitors.info/asus/asus-pg278q-2560-x-1440-g-sync-monitor

 

27" 1440P 144Hz 8-bit TN panel. 

[Keyrock]

http://www.guru3d.com/news_story/intel_devil%E2%80%99s_canyon_delayed_to_late_september_2014.html

 

It's not confirmed or official.

 

Let it be a lie!

[Humanoid]

Could always just buy a cheap Pentium or whatever as a stopgap if it comes to the worst.

[Sarex]

Could always just buy a cheap Pentium or whatever as a stopgap if it comes to the worst.

 

I was thinking the same thing. Buy a second hand cheap-ass Haswell and plug it in until the k versions come out.

[Keyrock]

Yeah, hopefully this is just a false rumor made by some retailer or Intel itself as a ploy to sell off the remainder of the 4770K and 4570K stock.  If it isn't, though, I ain't waiting for September.  I haven't gotten a mobo yet, so I could always say go **** yourself, Intel and go AMD.  The problem with that, though, is that AMD is so uncompetitive in the mid to enthusiast desktop segment (they have all but admitted defeat in that segment by not even releasing an FX line of chips based on Steamroller).  The best I could do with AMD is getting the top of the line Vishera and I'd have to overclock into the 5.5 GHz regions (turning my mid tower into a space heater in the process) to even come close to matching the performance of an i5, never mind and i7.  That would be tantamount to curring off my own nose to spite my face.

 

If this is true (Grrrrr), then what I'll wind up doing is I'll still get a Z97 mobo, then I'll scoop up an i5 for about $200.  Honestly, for gaming, it will make zero difference in 95% of cases.  Some of my other applications and multi-tasking will be slower, obviously, because of the lack of hyperthreading, but oh well.  Then, I'll skip Devil's Canyon altogether, hold on to that until Broadwell comes out (all indications are that Broadwell will be compatible with 9-Series mobos), eBay the i5 for half the price I paid for it, and get a Broadwell i7.

 

It's so sad Bulldozer wound up being such a collosal failure.  AMD has even lost much of their edge in the integrated GPUs department, with HD4600 and Iris Pro closing the gap considerably.  Honestly, if HSA doesn't wind up being the game changer that AMD has been touting it as, and if the architecture that succeeds Excavator (by all reports the final of the Bulldozer-based architectures) doesn't wind up being waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better, AMD may die as a CPU company and essentially become ATI, only putting out GPUs.  That would really really suck.  Intel would be raping our wallets and dragging their feet in the desktop segment even worse than they are now.  *sigh*  I miss the days when Athlon64s were mopping the floor with the Pentium 4 space heaters and forcing Intel to scramble, innovate, and drop their prices to be competitive.  Those were the days.

Edited May 25, 2014 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

If Devil's Canyon does indeed get pushed back my backup plan will be to get the Xeon E3-1230v3 that Slink talked about some months back.  No useless IGP, 3.3GHz clock, turbo to 3.7GHz, the extra cache and hyperthreading of an i7 while priced like an i5.  Locked, so no (easy) overclocking, but if I plan to sell the chip in the future then I won't OC it anyway as I wouldn't feel good selling someone a chip that ran aqbove stock speeds.  Then I just keep that until Broadwell comes out in the Spring of 2015 (or whenever that happens).  So, while I was initially upset when I saw the rumors, I have a backup plan and if Devil's Canyon gets pushed back it's no big deal.

 

Edit:  Whoa, my 780Ti came with a cool poster.  

 

 

I'm not sure if that's supposed to be a Qunari?  It's not branaded as Dragon Age anything, so maybe not?  Maybe it's a demon centaur or something?

Edited May 26, 2014 by Keyrock