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PC Upgraded - Thanks!
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Markku Laaksonen
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#21 - 2014-05-08 23:03:28 UTC
Right now I'm looking at the GTX 750 Ti on the grounds that it meets my budget, and shouldn't need a PSU upgrade. That seems best. I could upgrade the PSU, but then I would need a cheaper graphics card.

Here's the card.
And here's the current video card that came with the PC.

Now the question is the performance gain. I don't know enough to know if the new card will give me a noticeable gain over the old one. For me to figure it out, I would need to actually buy it and try it. Would the GTX 750 Ti even be worth the hassle or should I hold out a bit longer to build a new PC?

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Caleidascope
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#22 - 2014-05-09 02:58:58 UTC
http://www.hwcompare.com/17371/geforce-gtx-750-ti-vs-radeon-hd-5570/

750 blows 5570 out of the water.

Life is short and dinner time is chancy

Eat dessert first!
Markku Laaksonen
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#23 - 2014-05-13 23:23:41 UTC
Op success! New EVGA GTX 750 Ti is installed and running great! :D

Now I'm doing more research for a full PC build. I may or may not reuse the 750 Ti, but it's not SLI compatible afaik. The full build will happen within the year. I'm aiming for a respectable CPU and graphics card with a more expensive motherboard. My thinking is that the higher end mobo will be compatible with newer parts for a longer time.

As far as mobos go, I'm thinking...
socket 1150
Z97 chipset
plenty of USB 3.0 ports with connections for case front panel USB 3.0
sata rev. III and sata express ports - not to sure, but it looks like sata express drives will be around at the end of the year and have transfer rates around 10gb/s
at least 2 PCI-E x16 slots in case I decide to start with / upgrade to 2 way SLI or Crossfire.

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Akita T
Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force
#24 - 2014-05-14 04:07:32 UTC
Intel has had a "tick-tock" approach in CPU development in the last decade or so, in which they come up with a new tech one year, and the next year they downscale it to a better fab process, rinse and repeat (might be a year and a half sometimes).
The mobo chipset design pretty much follows the "tock", which basically means an old motherboard becomes totally obsolete in 2-3 years and merely slightly outdated in 1-1.5 years.
DO NOT hope to keep the mobo and upgrade the CPU unless you plan to do it only once, and in less than a year (so, basically, not a chance).
So, basically, my advice would be "DO NOT spend a lot of money on a mobo".
Get the cheapest you can find that meets some minimal specs you pre-select (like, say, chipset type, form factor, slot availability).

As far as two video cards in SLI mode (NVIDIA) or Crossfire mode (AMD//ATI), my very strong advice is DO NOT BOTHER (especially not with AMD cards).
Long story short, you might get a better "on paper" performance for any certain amount of cash, but... let's just say you want to google "microstutter".
Also, you really don't want to bother to keep looking for SLI profiles or similar things so that the game you want to play actually works like it's supposed to with your setup, especially if it's a more obscure game.
And those are not the only drawbacks, but they should be enough for you.
More than 9 out of 10 times, you're not-even-questioningly better off buying a single more powerful video card than two weaker ones.

Akita T evewiki profile | | | Build your own EVE-ready PC
Markku Laaksonen
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#25 - 2014-05-15 01:43:43 UTC
Thanks Akita! I didn't know that about Intel development and motherboards in general. I see my thinking was a bit off, especially about SLI / Crossfire. Sounds like more hassle (and money) than I'm willing to put into it.

Going along with that, here's a build I've muddled about with. Let me share my thoughts.

My (loose) goal is based financially against consoles. A console typically costs anywhere between $300 - $600 and lasts anywhere from 4 - 8 years. (When I say 'lasts' I mean until a new console is introduced. I have 10yr+ functioning consoles.)
Worst case, I'd like to spend not much more than $600 and have the computer last at least 4yrs.

On longevity, I'll admit I know nothing. Future-proofing a PC seems to be an exercise in futility. Throwing more money at the build seems to be the best option, with only a slight guarantee that your machine will still be capable 4 years down the road. Please, share some experience with me on this issue.

On price, I struggled to stay under $1,000 and keep a good graphical experience (i.e. no problems with maintaining at least 30 fps on highest settings.) Here's what I did. A lot of research was watching videos on youtube (especially newegg TV for general knowledge, linustechtips, etc.) I read 'Best... for the money" articles from Tom's Hardware which breaks down various tiers of hardware based on price/performance.

From the Tom's Hardware recommendation, I went with the Intel i3-4130. Tom's best pick was an i5-4570, but that's about 80 more than the i3. Also, an i5-4670K is only a bit more expensive than the 4570, but can be overclocked, which I don't plan on doing. If I was going to get the 4570, I would just shell out ~$20 more for the 4670K. I could be convinced going with the 4670K and overclocking if anyone thinks that has merit.

Also from Tom's, I got the GTX 750 Ti that I upgraded my current PC with. I've been happy with it so far and could recycle it in a future build. Is this worth it? I could also recycle my 300W PSU and case.

The SSD is a luxury that I could drop. Are the fast load times for the OS and a few games worth the price tag?

I'm partial to larger RAM sticks, so I went with 8gb stick. I'm also interested in RAMdrives, and with 16gb installed RAM I could use 8gb for my system and 8gb for a RAMdrive. This is also the one area where I'm sure it would be worth the higher cost. More RAM now will mean not buying more RAM in the future when I inevitably need it, right? (And in my case, my current PC has 4 RAM slots that are all occupied with 2gb sticks. To upgrade at all, I'm going to be letting at least some of those sticks gather dust.) Also, speaking of memory, what about dual channel? Is that a must? i.e. if I want to take advantage of it, do I have to buy RAM in a two pack, or two individual sticks if that's a cheaper option? Do they have to be identical? To what extent can I mix and match RAM?

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Aspalis
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#26 - 2014-05-15 02:47:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Aspalis
Do not skimp on your PSU.

I will repeat it once more for you.

Do not skimp on your PSU.

That is some seriously strange you build put together.

Marcus Gord: "Aspalis is an onion. Many layers, each one makes you cry."
Markku Laaksonen
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#27 - 2014-05-15 02:57:45 UTC
I've heard it before, but I really don't understand what it means to 'skimp' on the PSU. The only bit I really understand is that it needs to supply enough wattage, and that 80+ certification reflects the PSU's efficiency, how much it's pulling from the wall compared to how much it's supplying to the machine. Also it needs to fit in the case.

The PSU that came with my out-of-the-box PC is a 300W unit, and according to pcpartpicker the build I put together should only require about 230W.

Modular PSUs are neat, but that looks like a purely convenience factor for cable management at an increased cost.

That's about the limit of my understanding, though. Am I skimping on the PSU? How? What areas do I look at other than wattage and efficiency? What other areas of quality should I look at when picking a PSU?

As an after thought, along with RAM, a PSU is one area where it seems like future proofing would make sense. A 1000W PSU will always be able to deliver up to 1000W, so if I do a build 10years from now that's more demanding than this one, I could recycle that PSU (assuming it physically fits.) Is that a fair assumption?

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Aspalis
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#28 - 2014-05-15 03:08:40 UTC
I threw something together for you.

I feel this is more balanced for your needs and while it is cheaper, you could go with a 120GB Intel SSD for Windows and perhaps EVE while keeping everything else on a mechanical hard drive.

Marcus Gord: "Aspalis is an onion. Many layers, each one makes you cry."
Aspalis
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#29 - 2014-05-15 03:21:48 UTC  |  Edited by: Aspalis
Markku Laaksonen wrote:
I've heard it before, but I really don't understand what it means to 'skimp' on the PSU. The only bit I really understand is that it needs to supply enough wattage, and that 80+ certification reflects the PSU's efficiency, how much it's pulling from the wall compared to how much it's supplying to the machine. Also it needs to fit in the case.

The PSU that came with my out-of-the-box PC is a 300W unit, and according to pcpartpicker the build I put together should only require about 230W.

Modular PSUs are neat, but that looks like a purely convenience factor for cable management at an increased cost.

That's about the limit of my understanding, though. Am I skimping on the PSU? How? What areas do I look at other than wattage and efficiency? What other areas of quality should I look at when picking a PSU?

As an after thought, along with RAM, a PSU is one area where it seems like future proofing would make sense. A 1000W PSU will always be able to deliver up to 1000W, so if I do a build 10years from now that's more demanding than this one, I could recycle that PSU (assuming it physically fits.) Is that a fair assumption?


With skimping, I mean that power supplies are a serious business. It is a key component in your system and you should always buy them from trusted manufacturers instead of finding the cheapest one available (like the CoolMax) because we are talking about shoddy components and a product that don't follow appropriate safety certifications that can and will break at some point that might only damage your components but in a worse case scenario, start a fire.

Marcus Gord: "Aspalis is an onion. Many layers, each one makes you cry."
Winterblink
#30 - 2014-05-15 03:24:56 UTC
Aspalis wrote:
With skimping, I mean that power supplies are a serious business. It is a key component in your system and you should always buy them from trusted manufacturers instead of finding the cheapest one available (like the CoolMax) because we are talking about shoddy components and a product that don't follow appropriate safety certifications that can and will break at some point that might only damage your components but in a worse case scenario, start a fire.

A fire is a rare possibility, but still a possibility. Shoddy components are more likely to introduce system instability, which can be awfully annoying to nail down as being the PSU's fault.

Relevant to the build, an underpowered crummy PSU will simply not have enough power to run the hardware you put into it. It's always best to leave a *healthy* bit of headroom on wattage. Yeah it's extra cost, but you can always use a good PSU again in a future build.

warp drive active
Aspalis
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#31 - 2014-05-15 03:28:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Aspalis
Winterblink wrote:
Aspalis wrote:
With skimping, I mean that power supplies are a serious business. It is a key component in your system and you should always buy them from trusted manufacturers instead of finding the cheapest one available (like the CoolMax) because we are talking about shoddy components and a product that don't follow appropriate safety certifications that can and will break at some point that might only damage your components but in a worse case scenario, start a fire.

A fire is a rare possibility, but still a possibility. Shoddy components are more likely to introduce system instability, which can be awfully annoying to nail down as being the PSU's fault.

Relevant to the build, an underpowered crummy PSU will simply not have enough power to run the hardware you put into it. It's always best to leave a *healthy* bit of headroom on wattage. Yeah it's extra cost, but you can always use a good PSU again in a future build.


It is worthwhile to point out that PSU failures aren't covered by your other components' warranty.

Marcus Gord: "Aspalis is an onion. Many layers, each one makes you cry."
Webvan
All Kill No Skill
#32 - 2014-05-15 04:03:39 UTC
Winterblink wrote:

A fire is a rare possibility
"Rare" is an understatement. You would need a sustained load at high temps as it fries, you would almost need to force a PSU to catch fire these days, totally bypassing surge protectors and such. Batteries, yes, I always power down laptops and tablets when I step out for a while, and drain before storing. Be very careful with Laptops.

Some PSU's are better than others in quality and DC regulation. Server grade PSU's can be very nice, high-efficiency (e.g. HP PSU's). Main thing is you just want power to handle the heaviest load for your desktop computer, otherwise your system can start going unstable and even reboot periodically. This could cause damage to the system. So you need to calculate your heaviest load carefully (including USB devices), then use a suitable PSU. Always research brands and models before buying, weed out problem equipment.

I'm in it for the money

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Aspalis
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#33 - 2014-05-15 21:30:02 UTC
Webvan wrote:
Winterblink wrote:

A fire is a rare possibility
"Rare" is an understatement. You would need a sustained load at high temps as it fries, you would almost need to force a PSU to catch fire these days, totally bypassing surge protectors and such. Batteries, yes, I always power down laptops and tablets when I step out for a while, and drain before storing. Be very careful with Laptops.

Some PSU's are better than others in quality and DC regulation. Server grade PSU's can be very nice, high-efficiency (e.g. HP PSU's). Main thing is you just want power to handle the heaviest load for your desktop computer, otherwise your system can start going unstable and even reboot periodically. This could cause damage to the system. So you need to calculate your heaviest load carefully (including USB devices), then use a suitable PSU. Always research brands and models before buying, weed out problem equipment.


No, you only need a sustained load for a brief period of time to see if it breaks or not. Read this review for yourself.

Marcus Gord: "Aspalis is an onion. Many layers, each one makes you cry."
Akita T
Caldari Navy Volunteer Task Force
#34 - 2014-05-16 05:15:14 UTC  |  Edited by: Akita T
1. Cutting costs further

1.1. You can drop the aftermarket CPU cooler, if you don't plan on overclocking (and I personally prefer not to) then the stock cooler that comes with the CPU is more than enough.

1.2. You can select a smaller SSD, and you actually have TWO choices there: either a ~60 GB drive to be used wholly as "SSD cache" to your main (slower) HDD offering you (read-only) SSD-like speeds (eventually, with use), or you could manage with a ~120 GB SSD which would be reserved solely for the OS plus apps that can really benefit from SSD speeds (frankly, you could probably just about manage even with a 80 GB drive).

2. The PSU issue

2.1. Power use
A stock 750 Ti has a TDP of 60W, but you selected a HEAVILY factory-overclocked model, which could occasionally draw up to or even over 90W.
The power draw of the CPU should theoretically be 54W, but it can go over that occasionally even under default circumstances, so let's round that up to 60W just to be safe.
Not quite sure what the energy draw of the mobo chipset + RAM + leftover parts might be, but let's put it at a worst-case-scenario of around 80W.
So, theoretically, yes, the total "regular use" power draw might be somewhere in the vicinity of 230W.
HOWEVER, you should note the possibility that you might decide to buy a more powerful video card later on as an upgrade.

2.2. PSU aging
PSUs constantly lose maximum output capacity as they get used, and the closer to their peak rated power they are used, the faster the max output drops. A power drop of ~10% per year is fairly normal for a slightly oversized PSU, and could get even twice as high if you're too close with your usage to the max available at the time for too long.
So, for a PSU you expect to last for, say, 5+ years, you probably should oversize it by at least 40%, possibly even by 70% if you're into paranoia mode (a 400 W PSU is fairly well into the sweet spot already for your current build).
However, in your case, even a 300W PSU will only have a decent chance of causing problems about 3 years later on, which might not be that bad, especially if the PSU was dirt-cheap and you really don't mind replacing it - which goes double in case you upgrade to a much more powerful GPU, for instance.

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