New Computer Opinions

Hi guys,

My PC decided to give up over Christmas so am looking to build a new gaming rig (was about 4 years old anyway).

I only really play racing games such as rFactor 1/2 and Assetto Corsa plus have recently bought a GoPro so will do the odd bit of HD video editing.

My dilemma is whether I should go for a 1150 socket combo with DDR3 memory or should I wait and save for a new Socket 2011 combo with DDR4 memory?

Whilst that would allow more future upgrades is it total overkill for my needs?

Would probably be Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz vs Intel Core i7-5820K 3.30GHz setup. Ati Radeon R9 280x GPU with a couple of Samsung 840 Evo SSD's thrown in.

My previous setup was an i5 @ 3.0Ghz with 8GB 1033 DDR3, Ati Radeon HD 6870 1GB and a couple of OCZ Vertex 2 SSD's with a 500GB hard drive just for data storage.

DDR4 is highly unlikely to give any real gains for games... or anything meaningful really. Plus its really expensive compared to DDR3 at the moment, so the only reason to go DDR4 is if you go Haswell Extreme (which obviously requires it).

I'd discard the 4790K in favour of the cheaper i5-4690K (and bump the multiplier up a touch in the BIOS to around 4GHz - it takes a minute). It's essentially the same, but minus hyperthreading, which will harm the video encoding a little, but if that's deemed that important I'd go all the way and get the i5820K with the 2 extra cores. The i5820K will be slower for most games, as the vast majority of games aren't optimised for more than 2 cores, let alone 6, and GHz still count for lots. Obviously 6 cores really shine at video encoding though. The level of progress in CPUs has been next to zero in the last 6 years.

Me, I'd go down to the i5 and put the £100 saved towards a GTX 970. I'd don't say this often but go the extra mile and get the 970 - for once the extra is worth it.

Thanks gav will take a look at the i5, i did think speed over cores would probably be the case for more gaming. I totally forgot about how awesome intels overclock.

Ive got 8GB of DDR3 1333 from an old system i can use unless you think it will be a bottleneck at that speed?

I think the Samsung 840 will be fast enough? Also i have a 600watt OCZ PSU will i need higher for the newer GPUs?

Do you have an SSD at the moment? If not, I doubt you'd notice much difference between them, as they'd all be an immense step up from a hard drive, even the cheaper ones (Crucial MX100 for example).

The 8GB will be fine, but try not to mix and match sticks. For example 2x 4GB + 2x 8GB ought to be fine, but try to make sure the sticks are arranged correctly (the BIOS manual would tell you where to put the identical sticks to keep dual-channel mode - the slots are often colour coordinated anyway). 4x 4GB would be fine too obviously, but try to keep the identical sticks in the same channel.

The PSU should be OK, though I'm not sure how well it would accommodate a CPU overclock. The GTX 970 is a frugal beast. Same or better performance than a 780 TI, but at a fraction of the power. I went for the ASUS 970 as it turns the GPU fan off completely if the GPU temperature is under 40c (which it always is at idle) and is almost silent even when gaming. On that note, the recent ASUS motherboards are fantastic too, with awesome fan adjustment, either in the BIOS or Windows. It can automatically create profiles which will turn the fans off entirely under a certain temperature (if the fan allows it, which the software tests), and ramps them up gradually if needs be. It really has to be seen if you're after a quiet system.

I'm not suggesting a massive overclock, just bump it up to around the speed of the i7-4790K, which *should* be perfectly stable without any extra tweaks. Then you're just missing hyperthreading, which will have zero effect on 95% of what you do, and a minimal effect on video encoding (lets say a video might encode 10% faster, which in the grand scheme of things, isn't worth it, unless that's your career). Like I say, if video encoding time is that important do it properly and go Hawell Extreme.

I have to say that if I was buying a full system or on finance, I'd go for a custom built and overclocked system from Scan.co.uk or Overclockers.co.uk with the i7-5930K (6 core plus hyperthreading), but if I was simply upgrading I'd struggle to justify it personally. I want one of those ASUS motherboards, but a full system upgrade (motherboard, CPU, RAM) is a bit over the top for some fans which turn themselves off and on! I'm still rocking a i7 920 (price comparable with the i5-4690K) from 2008 and looking at benchmarks I don't see why I'd upgrade it - that's how little progress has been made with CPUs.

..very interesting,thx!

My old spec was i5 @ 3.0Ghz with 8GB 1333 DDR3, Ati Radeon HD 6870 1GB and a couple of OCZ Vertex 2 SSD's with a 500GB hard drive just for data storage so im hoping i will notice a small improvement with the 840's as there Sata III vs Sata II and i belive its more about the sustained write/read than the maximum?

I've always been an ATI guy but will have a look at the Nvidia as it sounds pretty sweet!

It will only be now and again I do a bit of HD video editing so the gaming is probably the most important factor, hyperthreading probably wont be a massive deal for me.

Quote
mika19b
im hoping i will notice a small improvement with the 840's as there Sata III vs Sata II and i belive its more about the sustained write/read than the maximum

SSDs are all about the access rates really. The sustained speeds can be important when loading large files or files copying for example. For standard use I doubt you'd notice an awful lot of difference to be honest. Have a look at some benchmarks and see what's what (ignore the synthetic benchmarks and go for timed or size-based benchmarks - real use ones).

Ordering in the next week Gav, think Im going to go for the 970 like you said. I only run 1920x1080 res so i take it iRacing etc run at pretty high settings?

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mika19b
Ordering in the next week Gav, think Im going to go for the 970 like you said. I only run 1920x1080 res so i take it iRacing etc run at pretty high settings?

In the 24 hour race I could have run iRacing at or near full (I was more interested in consistency), but I had to knock the settings down a bit stream to Twitch at the same time. If I'd had a modern i5 CPU I could have used the graphics portion on the CPU to do the Twitch bit and just let the 970 power iRacing, but I've got an 6 year old i7 920, so it wasn't an option I had and the 970 had to do both concurrently, which did mean an FPS hit (a bit too much of a one as things turned out, as the FPS dropped down to 50-60 on occasion).

If you do intend to stream, be aware that if you were to go for one of the i7 Haswell Extreme processors that there is no onboard graphics, so your dedicated GPU will have to bear the brunt of both gaming and encoding the video stream.

I don't ever stream really so I reckon I might be on to a winner there with a more modern cpu.

Gav is this the Asus GPU you have?

For £20 more than the Zotac is seems a steal with the extra features!

It is.

Sorry Gav but I need some more help!

Built my new PC up over the last couple days, turned it on got the first beep then nothing on the display. Had a look card looked seated okay and checked the connections to it, still nothing.

Removed the card, booted up with display first time running on the built in CPU graphics. Had a quick look in the BIOS and the pcie 16x is default.

This was late last night so had to leave it. Can you think of anything it could be? Im going to try put it back in tonight and i think i have my old Radeon 4870 somewhere i could try to see if that works? Really hoping its not the Motherboard?

Two ideas I have on that issue :

- did you connect your screen onto the good video output (the one of your new GC)
- if it's the very first time you run your new PC maybe your HDD isn't connected to the correct sATA port (this happened to me a while back).
The relevant port should be the one at the bottom right of the sATA block.

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You've got the power cables hooked up to the graphics card, yes?

EricMoinet Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Two ideas I have on that issue :
>
> - did you connect your screen onto the good video
> output (the one of your new GC)
> - if it's the very first time you run your new PC
> maybe your HDD isn't connected to the correct sATA
> port (this happened to me a while back).
> The relevant port should be the one at the bottom
> right of the sATA block.

I had the monitor connected to the graphics card then swapped it to the motherboard after I had removed the 970.

Will check the Sata connections but I *think* they are all in okay.

gav Wrote:
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> You've got the power cables hooked up to the
> graphics card, yes?

Yes power cable was connected, little LED light above the plug on the GPU was lit and the fans both spin when the computer is booted.

I did a google search earlier and some people cured it with a Bios update although it seems to be on older chipsets then mine.

How big is your monitor? What res? Is it DVI/HDMI/VGA/DisplayPort?

gav Wrote:
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> How big is your monitor? What res? Is it
> DVI/HDMI/VGA/DisplayPort?

Its a 22" screen that has VGA and DVI.

I tried my old Radeon 4870 and getting nothing on that either, really worried its the motherboard now? :\

Fixed it guys. Just reconnected everything and flashed the bios and it works on the GPU DVI now so must have been an error on my part somewhere. Will get windows on soon to make sure all is okay. Thanks for the help!