Speaking of water coolers, any notable models?
My gf’s computer overheated from streaming the other day and i’m considering on helping her look for a cooling unit.
You don’t need liquid cooling, ever, in a personal desktop PC unless you’re doing extreme (read: unwise) overclocking. I have a 33% OC’ed i7 and a $40 Zalman heatsink keeps it at 50-55 under load. I could go to 50% easily. Your girlfriend was probably just using a stock heatsick, or went too long without replacing her thermal compound.
The only real reason you’d go liquid is because it’s quieter, and it looks nicer. Or if you’re using a microATX case where space is tight. Don’t underestimate the importance of air flow in your case, a good case can reduce temperatures drastically.
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Add me already! I will buy KoFXIII Steam Edition just to play with you! hehe’
I want to show you some sick Elizabeth HD combo i came up with, it’s not practical in a real match but does crazy damage if you were to get lucky enough to land one in
a real game. =]
Word, my pc never goes above 64c. No overclocking and I put an aftermarket heat sink in it. I also have a case with good air flow. Gets dusty fast.
Not sure if I should put this here or in the pc gaming thread, so here it goes.
I’m thinking of building a basic computer that can at least run DOTA2 and/or LOL comfortably (but if other games work, then why not). The laptop I use can technically run them, but there are three things I don’t really like about using the laptop for even basic gaming:
- Cramped Keyboard
- Intel HD Graphics
- Overheating
Does this build sound good, or is it too good to be true (too many compromises)?
The build isn’t bad, but get a better CPU, i5 or i7. Also it seems like that graphics card is overpriced, similar cards on Newegg for $20-40 less.
For $400, that isn’t worth it imo. Might as well get a PS4.
Dumping $600-700 on a PC is ideal right now. You’d be set for next-gen by spending that much. If you only want to play DOTA2/LoL, then that $400 PC is fine. Otherwise, it’s worth it to spend the extra dough, especially if you want to play next-gen ports with good performance and high settings.
Edit: Oh yeah, a USB keyboard could be a temp-fix to your laptop KB.
I have a question for you guys. So early this summer I built my first gaming pc. I’m content with everything that in it aside from the processor which is some dual core AMD cpu. I am planning to upgrade it around black friday/cyber monday but I’m not too sure where to go from here. The best processor for my board out right now I believe is this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113331
I’m not too sure about this processor though as I currently have a 7870 so the apu would just be going to waste and also I’m not too sure how long i will be satisfied with it. My only other option would be to upgrade my motherboard along with my processor. I really do like the look of something like this set up http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1440379
My main concern is I see a lot of recommendations for a intel processor and I’m not too sure which one could be considered a equivalent or better to this one. Can anyone help?
who here is getting the surface pro 2 this October?
If you’re going to upgrade your MOBO, then yeah, definitely go with an Intel processor. When it comes to price, AMD can’t be beat, but you’ll lose out on a bit of performance and will occasionally run into games that have issues with AMD GPUs/drivers(this why even though AMD is powering next-gen consoles, people with NVidia GPU’s aren’t too worried, because NVidia is always up to date on their drivers and optimizations, which is why games run better on NVidia cards a majority of the time. They also moneyhat certain publishers/devs to get games working better on their cards. Right now NVidia has a deal with Ubisoft, and AMD has a deal with EA and Battlefield 4.)
Snag an i5 or i7 with hyperthreading if you don’t care about spending some extra dough. If not, that 8-core AMD processor+mobo combo is pretty awesome, if I had seen that last year I might have had an AMD CPU/GPU instead of my Intel/NVidia. The price/performance of AMD parts is no joke. Sony went AMD this gen because NVidia fucked them a bit by being greedy bastards and under-delivering on their card, so they went with AMD to save money, and Msoft went with AMD with the 360 and Xbone since NVidia fucked them originally with the OG Xbox.
**Higher-end Intel CPU’s are better than AMD’s because of their clock speed. At first glance i5’s and i7’s only appear to have 4 cores, but the thing is with hyperthreading, each core can handle 2 tasks at once, making it work like an 8-core processor and some games and programs will even detect the processor as an 8-core because of this. This is why AMD CPU’s get beat out by Intel ones, because overall, those 4 faster cores with hyperthreading(making them 8 cores) > AMD’s 8 core CPU’s. **There are other little things too, like the extra “caches” Intel CPU’s have, but I don’t know much about them, other than its a feature that AMD CPU’s usually lack and that they help processing by holding data in these “caches”(I believe that’s how it works anyway, anyone feel free to correct me, that’s not something I’m a 100% on.) Most games don’t use more than 2-4 cores anyway, but one thing to keep in mind is that processing power is becoming more and more important the more ambitous games get. Intel processors are smaller as well and require less power to run/less power from your PSU as well.
Your GPU is pretty good though, it should last a few more years at least, at most you’l need to start lowering settings for certain games+whenever next-gen ports start to require crazier and crazier specs.
TLDR: Intel CPU’s > AMD CPU’s because of hyperthreading(mainly.) AMD and NVidia GPU’s are almost equal these days though, AMD just needs to step up their processors a bit since they’re lagging behind on that front. Other than that, AMD prices can’t be beat, so if you’re looking to build a budget rig, AMD is the way to go.
^AMD has some serious driver problems for their GPUs. I think you are underscoring how bad it can be. It it does screw up for you, you’re not going to be comforted by possibly saving a few bucks on the component.
Their CPUs also have some issues with RAM timings, a lot of RAM is designed for Intel chips so you have to play around with the timings for AMD. I don’t really think most people asking about budget rigs want to have to deal with that, but I dunno.
I think in the long run you are always going to be better off being selective on the Intel/Nvidia components but picking those two. AMD only works out for the super budget builds, but if money is that tight for you, then a console will be your best bet and can actually run the budget stuff better anyway. The entire point of PC gaming is you can customize things and take it to a higher level. If you don’t care about that either and just want to run really low level games, then it’s actually much cheaper to buy a pre-built regular PC because those manufacturers get better deals because of bulk purchases than an individual consumer can.
If you’re set on a gaming PC you have to understand that the only benefit is picking higher quality components. It’s not to save money.
^ Yep, I always hear about how ass their driver support is. Makes me glad I went Intel/NVidia(with the ability to easily upgrade) because of this. Wasn’t Crossfire support fucked up until very recently, as well?
I often hear about people with AMD GPU’s having to deal with severe issues on the releases of certain games. When Metro: Last Light came out, AMD users were saying they were having constant stuttering and framerate issues to the point where the game was unplayable. This got fixed eventually, but I’m not sure if it was in the form of a patch from the Metro devs or from a newer AMD driver.
NVidia is always on point with their drivers and optimizations. Always. They have the money to do so, and their main market is the PC market, which is what they always focus on, moreso now since they have nothing to do with any next-gen consoles. AMD’s closing the power gap recently though, which is good for us as consumers. Hopefully early into next-year we can see some serious price drops on some GPU’s and CPU’s once DDR4, AMD’s new GPU’s and Intel’s new processors all get released. I’m happy with my rig now(handles everything I throw at it fine not called Crysis 3 without me toning down the settings) so I’m going to stick with it for(hopefully) a few more years before I upgrade. That all depends on my money situation though as well as the deals I see going on.
@CloudEnvy If you go Intel, try to snag a processor with a “k” in the name. This typically means it can be overclocked. So, i5 2500k, i7 46XXk, etc. etc. That little “k” means something else as well, but I forget. Typically, the version with the “k” in it has better performance than a processor without it.
^ Check that out, pretty interesting stuff. There’s even a price/performance comparison sheet too, practically all you need to know when comparing CPU’s.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/
^ Its sister site for GPU’s.
#1 thing to remember when building your PC or upgrading it…do some research. If I researched my current rig a bit more, I would’ve spent a bit more money on it and got a different mobo(this one is great but lacks SLI support, though I don’t see myself sporting 2 GPU’s anyway. Still, it’s a feature I’m missing out on) as well as maybe having a slightly beefier GPU/CPU.
My PC case, PSU, RAM and HDD are all fine though. I plan on re-using them for a long time in all my future builds/upgrades.