iWearKiltz

Yesterday Oriental Empires released for Early Access on Steam. The game has a $30 MSRP but a 20% launch promo discount to $24 on Steam right now. That said it's cheaper elsewhere. GMG put the game on their site today with an even better discount worth 36% off. The trick is you'll need to login or create an account to see that 36% discount. On top of that, you can apply coupon code  VIP3 at checkout and take about a dollar more off making the final total only $18.71 or 38% off. Not bad a day after launch for one of the top selling games on Steam.
 
Oriental Empires (Steam) — $18.71 (list $30) Login to see discount Also use coupon code: VIP3

Excellent composition
Id give it a 9 could be a touch darker for me
 

 
 

yes it will

The VIII Hero supports PCI-e aswell as SATA M.2 M-KEY solid state modules.
The 950 Pro will work

Yep, it has an M.2 slot
 
It's a good, but expensive MOBO. If you really need all the features that it provides, its a great choice.

Okay guys I have seen a lot of people on here is starting to wanting to buy amps and dacs and let me just explain to you guys why you need one and why you don't need one. This is going to be very basic and generalised.
 
Reasons to get a DAC.
 
1. Noise in your sound
2. Your onboard makes the sound warm or cold sounding
3. Over all low quality sound coming from your onboard
4. Can look nice
5. You want more detail and higher audio quality
 
Reasons to NOT get a DAC.
 
1. No noise.
2. No coloring in your onboard.
3. You already have "transparent" sound. ( kinda the same as Nr. 2)
4. Takes up space.
5. You will need to buy an amp.
 
Reasons to get a amp.
 
1. You can't power your headphones. (your headphones don't get loud enough)
2. Your headphones sound muddy only at that pc (kinda the same as Nr. 1)
3. Can look nice.
4. You want to try tube sound. (they get really hot, so do NOT touch them.)
5. You want better audio quality (though keep in mind that if your source is bad then it won't suddenly sound good with a better amp)
6. Less noise
 
Reasons to NOT get a amp.
 
1. You can power your headphones.
2. Takes up space.
 
Most motherboards on the market to day can power 90%-95% of all the headphones on the market. A DAC and amp will not make your headphones a lot better if you already have "transparent" sound and they are powered properly, they can bring out more detail and overall better audio quality, but I wouldn't recommend getting a DAC and amp if you don't have good headphones, I would rather recommend that you save the money and get better headphones, expecially if you are unhappy by the sound you have in your headphones, because no DAC and amp is suddenly going to do any major change the signature of your headphones.
 
Ohm does not say if your headphones are hard to drive or not.
 
You can have 600 Ohm headphones that are easier to drive than 32 Ohm headphones. It is the sensitivity and efficiency that matters the most.
A very quick exsample of this would be the K612 and the HE 560. The K612 has a ohm rating of 120 Ohm and a sensitivity rating of 101 SPL/V, while the HE 560 has a Ohm rating of 45 Ohm and a efficiency rating of 90 SPL/mW. Using a online calculator we get these results, which shows that the HE 560 will need more power than the K612, despite the K612 having a Ohm rating that is almost three times higher than the HE 560's.
I used this website to calculate the power needed http://www.digizoid.com/headphones-power.html
 
Wnat to know how much power your headphones need and the math behind it? Look here
 
Different explanations (keeping it simple)
 
Before you go buy an amp for some headphones you just orded wait get the headphones and test them with your onboard before you go spend money on a amp.
Before you go buy an DAC amp combo, if you already has transparent sound and you have nothing wrong with your onboard DAC then you will not notice a difference between your onboard and a DAC and if you buy an DAC you will need an amp.
 
Remember sound is not black and white like some people say it is, there are more to sound than just specs.
 
Only look down here if you really need an DAC and amp or just an amp
 
Why get anything else than the cheap products?
What is a DAP? (Digital Audio Player)
 
I have used amazon.de and amazon.com for every product that is not from Schiit where I used their own webshop
 
Before looking at tube amps
A tube amp is best with headphones that have a high impedance because it is there they have their power, while a normal solid state amp normally has the most power in the lower ohms. I highly recommend not getting a tube amp for let's say 35 Ohm headphones, but rather a tube hybrid amp which is a mix of a tube and solid state amp, you get the sound of tubes while still having the power in the lower Ohms and having a lower output impedance.
 
My recommendations for desktop amps:
 
My recommendations for desktop DACs:
 
My recommendations for desktop Combos:
 
My recommendations for small Combos that run on usb only:
 
My recommendations for DAPs (Digital audio players)
 
Where do I buy schiit in EU?
http://www.schiit-europe.com/
http://schiit.eu.com/   (UK)

Where do I buy Soekris?
https://www.modhouseaudio.com/ (USA)
http://www.soekris.eu/shop/index.php (EU)
 
 
Lastly if you have interference look at this guide SSL has made.
 
If you have suggestions about gear and explanations.
If you have some gear that you would like to see added then there are 4 options.
 
Comment the gear you would like to see added and why or send me a PM, I will then look into it very thoroughly when I have time and if I find it worthy, then it will be added. Often I will get a loaner unit and test it.
 
If you want a explanation to something, then comment what you would like explained or send me a PM and then I will look into it.
 
FEEL FREE TO ASK ME ANYTHING ABOUT THIS POST
Remember there are no stupid questions, I am here to help.
I hope that this post helped you and cleared some things up for you 

Ok so the airflow wasnt too good and my processor temps were 80 when running aida64 gpu+cpu stability test. I noticed that if i removed the front panel, that front fan was able to push a lot more air.

Dremel tiems follow
 

 
So the ghetto factor just rose a bit on this build. Oh well.
 
Temperatures went 10C down tough so i call this a succes!
 
I tested* the air pressure in the case and now its more or less neutral rather than previous when it was certainly negative pressure. (*tested as in removed one optical cover and held a lighter there to see if it pushes or pulls the flame)

I just tought about posting this upgrade process for some lulz, sorry for my english.
 
So like a lot of guys, I'm running an "anchient" "gaming" pc because I'm a student with no money. When Rainbow 6 Siege came out, it was the first game that really didnt run even acceptably on my setup so i needed to look into some options.
My rig at the time was:
ASUS P5Q
Intel E8500 3.16->4.25ghz
4GB 800mhz->887mhz DDR2
AMD R270X
5xsome random HDDs 
550w BeQuiet PSU
 
Some time ago I upgraded that GPU since my friend had that lying around and I bought it for 50€. My previous GPUs were GTX260, GTX280, HD6850, GTX560Ti. I literally have paid 60€ for all of them combined since i have been able to recycle them to friends for some money.
 
Now for the upgrades. 
Like a godsend my friend was helping his parents move and found his fathers old workstation PC and asked me if there is anything valuable there, to wich i kind of nodded and told him that its so old its probably trash. Turned out it was kind of a beast machine at the time and there was a QX6850 inside. You have my attention now.
 
So obviously I asked him for the chip and he gave it to me (these are about 60€ on ebay I think?)

That piece of s*it of a case is antec sonata II i think. Worst. Airfolw. Ever. (and no removable back panel so please excuse me for that rats nest.)
 
Luckily 7 years ago when i bought this, i bought that Noctua cooler so i could overclock that E8500 and now the xtreme edition
Guess wich one is the xtreme edition.
After CPU upgrade i realized my storage configuration was total trash.
a 500GB WD, 80GBMaxtor, 320GB samsung and WD 2½" laptop drives synced for backups and 160GB WD Raptor all old as hell and ripped from dead machines.
So obviusly i ditched that Maxtor since it didnt even support AHCI, which is needed for my next upgrade.
(credits for ghetto mounting storage?) Thats an Samsung 850EVO 250GB.
 
Now I must say that converting an old windows install from HDD to SSD and changing the BIOS storage type from IDE to AHCI is a bit annoying process since windows does not support changing that after installation (the fix was easy when I found some forum thread for it)
 

 
Now my peripherals are quite new since I broke my orange G15 by spilling coffee on it  and I was so mad i went and bought this Razer Blackwidow, which is quite good, tough I think i should have bought the G710+
As for the mouse, I was using the Logitech MX518 which was great for its time and for the ergonomics but it was old and I got a deal on cyber monday for Mionix NAOS 8200 for like 40€.
 
Headphones were a bit hilarious story since my mother vacuumed my old headset (Crative Fatal1ty :s) while I was visiting
Luckily my friend had these AKG K272HD headphones with broken cable and gave them to me so i could easily fix it  by cutting 15cm from the cable and soldering it back.
 
Yesterday i got this old desklamp for my mic (Blue Snowball) stand
 
Yes that coaster is an intel heatsink
 
OC was necessary to achieve playable framerates so I overclocked the CPU and GPU and here are the current stable overclocks:

 
CPU is overvolted, multiplier changed and FSB freq has been upped a bit to achieve the best overclock possible. Someone on the interwebs was saying that this chip would only go to 3600mhz by changing the multiplier but I found out that it's better to keep the multilplier a bit lower, upping the FSB and lowering the DDR2 strap a bit to achieve a bit higher stable OC.
GPU is just trial and error. Someone told me that this asus R9 270X would go to 1200mhz but mine is not stable above 1152mhz. Memory would overclock a bit tough to 1500mhz.
 
Temps were a bit high in this setup and this case has 1 fan slot so i had to make some haxoring to the case

 
I added some cardboard to prevent air from just circulating around the fan. (The cardboard was appropriately from a salt box for all the saltiness)
 

Also to the back to prevent dust
 

 
Soo this is the setup I use to play R6Siege and stuff. If only I could find some 800mhz DDR2 for reasonable price I would be golden for a year or so.
 
Hopefully someone finds this interesting and decides to upgrade their old computer since its not that hard or expensive.
If not I just wasted too much time writing this

Not a lot of posts here, so I thought I should post something just for fun.
I'm currently a student studying computer engineering at UIC, and as a final project for a class last semester I made two LCD mini-games. 
I wired and programmed the whole thing myself over the course of a month or so.
 
 

With enough dumpster diving you can find pretty sweet gear

because if you dont need much storage a 128GB ssd is around the same price of a decent hard drive, and MUCH faster.
 
even on a crappy netbooks SSDs are a considerably boost in performance.

they used 2400 mhz there.
ive already veiwed that for resaerch before asking here. my plan is to buy 1866MHz. and it has a much better apu
my friend has the same build as mine and He used a gskill 2400MHz ram and his system is unstable he had to sell them rams and buy a dual channel 1600MHz

The United States Postal Service certainly had a weird way of delivering a package. I live in an apartment complex, meaning that packages that cannot be put in the mailbox get held at the office. It's why I typically have packages shipped UPS or FedEx where possible and have those packages redirected to a place with better hours. On a Saturday, it means my hours are even more limited.
 
But when I saw them delivering mail, I checked the mailbox and found some mail, but no package despite it being listed as "Out for Delivery". So I checked with the apartment manager to see if the package had been left with them despite not receiving a package notice as that's happened before. No luck. Then closer to 4PM, approaching the time the apartment management office closed, I checked the listing again:
 

 
This time I had the SSD in my hands. For a while I started to worry they delivered it to the wrong apartment as I've received mail for other apartments. Thankfully no packages, but I wouldn't put it past them to do something like that.
 

 

 
So with the SSD in my hands, I installed it into the mainboard. Note to Samsung: change the label orientation on the drive. Initially the Windows 10 installer didn't want to install to it, but a quick "Load Optimized Defaults" and a few small modifications -- disabling the serial port and onboard audio -- managed to get the installer detecting it as a bootable drive.
With that out of the way, the only thing left to do was get naked.
 
Note: When using the 950 Pro, be sure to download and install the Samsung driver for that device to ensure optimal performance and stability. I actually had a hard time getting a fresh Windows 10 install to remain stable until I discovered that driver.
 
Stripping down
 
Since my wife still actively used Absinthe while I was testing the new hardware, I obviously needed to coordinate with her on making the upgrades since this was going to mean several days of downtime.
 
Saturday was spent finishing the testing on the hardware while also grabbing the water I knew I'd need to flush out all the components. I already had four gallons of distilled water before buying an additional six. Ten gallons should be plenty, and if it's not I can always grab more. I've had as much as 14 gallons stocked before -- that was ahead of building Desert Sapphire.
 
I also reinforced the pine table under her desk. The board had some flex to it and it made me uncomfortable given how much weight would be resting on it. So I took some slimmer pine boards -- 3" wide by 3/4" thick -- and made crossbeam supports going across the width of the panel underneath it, just screwed and glued in place.
 
Sunday was crunch time. After coordinating with my wife, we disconnected everything and got the case within reach. Not being able to access the system in order to keep it clean has definitely taken its toll, meaning the move to below the desk will
certainly be beneficial, not just in terms of airflow.
 

 

 

 

 


 
Once everything was shut down and disconnected, I first wanted to take care of the software side of things. That meant migrating her Windows 8.1 Pro license to the X99 Pro system. I had already installed Windows 8.1 Pro to the system the night before, so it was just a matter of activating it. Once activated, I upgraded the license to Windows 10 Pro, made note of software key for a fresh install, imaged the drive, and shut everything down.
 
Next came draining the loop and taking it all apart. And I took everything out of the system to get as much of the dust out as possible. I re-assembled the system by the end of Sunday as well, with the exception of the water loop. I saved assembling the loop for Monday since I knew there were going to need to be some changes.
 

 

 
Assembling the loop
 
Monday had the new water block coming for the CPU. One other thing about the Watercool block to enjoy: the instructions say the alignment of the block doesn't matter. And the mounting system for the block is very, very easy for LGA-2011 and LGA-2011v3 sockets. I mounted the block with the outlet downward as I feel that makes draining the system much easier since it means the CPU block isn't going to be a fluid trap.
 

 
Now this meant that going from the CPU back to the reservoir was going to require a new line. But I decided to try something a little different and use PETG, using a 40mm extension fitting to raise up a 90-degree fitting enough to get a straight line to a 90-degree dual-rotary fitting. I also replaced the line across the front on top of the bottom radiator with PETG as well. This was left over from the stock I ordered for building the cabinet in Desert Sapphire.
 
Now most of the rest of the copper tubing runs could be re-used. The runs going from the graphics card to the top radiator and top radiator to CPU could not due to the memory slots between the rear I/O and the CPU -- slots which aren't present on her previous Sabertooth board.
 
But the change in approach was pretty straightfoward: right-angle bend between the graphics card and top radiator, dual 90-degree bend to get from the radiator to the CPU. Only I didn't have a lot of copper left and I ended up messing up the bending trying to measure it and account for the radius in my tubing bender. So rather than buy another coil of tubing, I opted for a different approach that required overnight shipping.
 
Out with the copper, in with the PETG
 
AlphaCool and Bitspower make 90-degree fittings that are female-to-female G1/4" threaded. This allows you to screw hardline fittings into them and use those to make the 90-degree bends instead of trying to bend tubing. They can work with Type L or Type M hard copper pipe along with PETG and acrylic tube. I ordered six of the AlphaCool fittings from Performance-PCs along with more PrimoChill fittings.
 
And once they arrived, I sought to change the loop over from copper to PETG. It didn't take long, thankfully, and part of the reason is how easy PETG is to cut to length. The same tubing cutters I've used previously for soft tubing can cut cleanly through PETG without any problem. So after some careful measurements and cuts, all of the copper was replaced with PETG.
 

 

 

 

 

 
And with that, the loop was leak tested and filled with coolant. I did a clean install of Windows 10 Pro to the system and imaged the drive, then turned it over to my wife to install everything else. We still have the external enclosure, and that will be connected later to recover her other profile-related items before the drive is set up as a backup unit.
 
And the Green Fairy takes hold, the green glow of her enchanting spell that inspires this project's namesake will surely captivate my wife again, drawing her deep into its temptation. Listen closely and you can almost hear her calling out for you.
 

 
Final specifications
 
System specifications
CPU: Intel i7-5820k
Mainboard: ASUS X99-PRO/USB 3.1
RAM: 16GB DDR4 (will be upgraded to 32GB eventually)
Graphics: XFX "Double D" R9 290X
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO
Power: Corsair RM1000
Chassis: Corsair 750D with Airflow Edition front panel
Sound: Creative Labs SoundBlaster Z
 
Water loop specifications
CPU block: Watercool Heatkiller IV Pro
Graphics block: Aquacomputer kryographics Hawaii with passive backplate
Radiators: AlphaCool XT45 360mm (top) and 240mm (front), AlphaCool ST30 240mm (bottom)
Pump: AlphaCool VPP655 with AlphaCool HF D5 clear acrylic top
Reservoir: Bitspower Z-Tube 100mm with Z-CAP I and Z-CAP II (acrylic)
Fittings: PrimoChill Revolver 1/2" OD, AlphaCool HF L-connectors, Swiftech 90-degree elbow fittings
Tubing: PrimoChill 1/2" OD PETG
 

A few months ago, I purchased an ultrawide monitor on Black Friday. With a 2560x1080 resolution, an IPS panel, and an incredible gaming experience, it was perfect. Or was it?
 
When I first built frostbyte, my personal rig, during the summer, I chose the GTX 960 from MSI, as I thought AMD cards were terrible from biased reviewers. The 960 was a great card at 1080p, but after my upgrade, I began to notice severe frame drops and performance issues, especially in games such as Far Cry 4, which only ran at 40fps on medium settings, with frame drops everywhere. I eventually realized that the problem was that my GPU was running out of VRAM and using system RAM instead, causing the stutter. Armed with this (in hindsight, apparent) information, I began to hunt for a new GPU for less than 300 dollars. In the new market, I found things like the R9 380x and GTX 970. Still having the bias against AMD, I considered the 970. Nvidia's blatant lie about the 4gb of VRAM just didn't sit right with me, though. In the future, I reckoned that games would begin to tap into that much slower 500mb of VRAM, causing the same stutter I was trying to avoid. So back to the 380x. Although it had a full 4gb of VRAM, performance tests showed marginal improvement over a 960 at 1440p. The 380x would have set my back 250 dollars. So I began to look into the used market. I saw cards like the GTX 780 and 780ti for around 240 and 300 dollars respectively, but they only had 3gb of VRAM. In the interest of futureproofing, I started to look at cards like the AMD R9 290 and 290x. After watching this amusing video about AMD's reference cooler design, I decided that I definitely needed an aftermarket cooler, as I wanted my family to be able to hear each other when I ran a game. I always liked Sapphire's coolers, as they delivered great cooling performance while looking incredible. One day, I found a 290x tri-x model for 300 dollars on ebay. Immediately, I was interested. "Just for the LOL's," I offered him 230 dollars. He countered at 270, so I offered 250. He offered 265. I offered 260, which was accepted. I now had my 290x. (I also paid 17.50 for expedited shipping, which was ridiculous).
 
For those who have never even thought of buying a used GPU, here are my thoughts. Never buy off Craigslist unless you have proof (video footage or seeing the card on a testbench), of the card successfuly completing a benchmark (firestrike, heaven, valley, etc.). If an offer is too good to be true, it probably is (a Titan X for 200 dollars? Sign me up!). Buying from Ebay, you have more protection if the card is DOA. Since you probably paid for the GPU through Paypal, you can demand a refund if the card doesn't work.
 
On Wednesday, I recieved my card
 
Cracking open the box, I found...GASP....ANOTHER BOX!! WHAT IS THIS????

BOXCEPTION!!

Inside this box, luckily, was one pristine Sapphire R9 290x tri-x. What a gorgeous card...

Here are some more photos of the card.
When I got it, the first thing I noticed is how BIG this card was. Seriously. This thing was almost as big as the national debt.
Here's just how big the card is. GTX 960 and NZXT S340 for scale.

Yeah. It's a pretty big card. But that cooler is definitely necessary for a card of this power and TDP.
 
Naturally, the first thing I did was uninstall my display drivers. I used DDU, which you can download here. It's a pretty simple process, as I had done it before to fix some performance issues I encountered.
 
After I did this, I encountered the most feared obstacle when installing a new graphics card. The PCI-E lock. Now if you don't know, most (if not all) modern motherboards have a clip that holds onto the GPU so it doesn't pop out during intense gaming sessions. This one lock took my 15 minutes to release. I had to eventually resort to a screwdriver, which wasn't the best idea, but I had to put an uncomfortable amount of force on this tiny lock to finally release my gpu from its resting place.

 
nce I finally released my 960 from its prison, I had to attach another PCI-E power connecter to power the 290x. I didn't really have to, but it makes the cables look soooooo much nicer. As I have written before, I bought a Corsair HX750i to replace my CX500m. The HX unit is fully modular, which is a pain in a case this small with a psu shroud. Basically, I tied my cables down so tight to the motherboard tray to allow the side panel to close that the PSU would not come out unless I disconnected the motherboard, PCI, molex, and cpu connecters, which is very hard in an S340 (first world problems). Once I finally severed the Cthulu's maw of cables, I attached another PCI-E power cable, reconnected all cables, and stuffed the psu back under its shroud of shame.

After about 30 minutes of failing to do simple tasks, it was finally time to install the 290x. I firmly grasped the thickest part of the card, and pushed it down into its slot until it uttered a moan as it connected with the PCI slot. The final click occured, and the 290x was so overcome with excitement that it overheated.
With this...shall we say...delicate procedure complete, I reconnected my 2 PCI connecters, one 6 pin, and one 8 pin connecter, closed my side panel, and hoped that I didn't have a 260 dollar paperweight.

 
And, lo and behold, the PC booted and the BIOS screen flashed up on my monitor. As soon as I got into the OS, I installed AMD'S drivers.
 
As soon as this completed, I immediately opened up MSI afterburner and started to see how much of an overclock I could get out of the card. The card comes stock clocked at 1010 MHz on the core, and 1250 MHz on the core. At first, I got the card to 1100 MHz on the core, with 1400 MHz on the memory with no extra voltage. But I knew I could push the card further, unlike a reference 290x, which runs into a thermal limit more quickly than Chris Christie dropped out of the Presidential race. I managed to get 1150 MHz out of the card with 100 mv added to the voltage, but kept the memory at 1400 MHz. Unfortunately, I was clockblocked when I tried to go any higher than 1150 MHz, getting artifacting and random crashes. So, how much performance did I get?
You can check out my spreadsheet here, but overall, I was blown away by both the fan speed of the card and the performance.
 
In 3DMark Fire Strike Normal, we saw
9495 at stock (1010 core/1250 memory)
10060 at 1100 core/1400 memory
10308 at 1150 core/1400 memory
 
You see an improvement of 565 points between stock and 1100 core, and 248 more points at 1150 compared to 1100.
I must also mention temparatures and noise. The 290x is a hot-running card, as I'm sure you're aware, hitting around 80 degrees at stock during FireStrike. At 1100/1400, I saw temps about 5 degrees higher, but the card was noticebaly louder, as the fan speed was much greater to keep the card cool. At 1150/1400, the fan noise was almost unbearable, and temperatures hit almost 90 degrees during my tests. So far, 1100/1400 seems like the best balance of performance and acoustics.
 
In Tomb Raider 2013's benchmark utility on the Ultimate Preset at 2560x1080, we saw
 
At stock (1010/1250)
Minumum: 54.3
Maximum: 86
Average: 70.7
 
At 1100/1400
Minimum: 58
Maximum: 96
Average: 79.8
 
At 1150/1400
Minumum: 60
Maximum: 102
Average: 79.8
 
As we can see here, you get about 10 more fps with 5 minutes of work. Does it make or break the gameplay experience? No. Temps and noise were high on all clocks, but stayed under 90 degrees, hovering in the mid to high 80s in all runs. Noise was high on all clocks, but especially so on 1150/1400, which is a continuing trend.
 
In Far Cry 4, I ran the opening mission from when the doors open until the point your truck gets pushed off the cliff. I ran the game at the Ultra preset at 2560x1080.
 
At Stock (1010/1250)
Minimum: 54.3
Maximum: 81
Average: 67
 
At 1100/1400
Minimum: 50
Maximum: 83
Average: 70.2
 
At 1150/1400
Minimum: 54
Maximum: 88
Average: 71.5
 
Unlike Tomb Raider, you only get about 4 fps more with 5 minutes of work. In my opinion, running any overclock in Far Cry 4 is not worth the extra heat and noise you generate as a result. Temps were reasonable, staying again in the 80s and never going above 90. My max overclock was noticably louder than the other 2 clocks.
Moving on to GTAV, a difficult game to run on any hardware, especially at 2560x1080, performance was mind-blowing compared to my old 960, which would run out of VRAM faster than Usain Bolt. I ran tests at 2560x1080, all settings maxed except grass, which I ran at very high, and AA, where I used FXAA. No advanced setting were used.
 
At Stock (1010/1250)
Average: 65.6
 
At 1100/1400
Average: 67.8
 
At 1150/1400
Average:69.7
 
I only listed averages as max and minimum framerates were all over the place. As we can see, the 290x produces incredibly enjoyable framrates in one of the best open world games ever made. Similar to Far Cry 4, we see about 4 more fps overclocked compared to stock. Temperatures were in the low to mid 80s, never hitting more than 90 degrees. As for noise, it was loud on all three clocks, with stock being (slightly) quieter.
 
In Metro: Last Light, I ran the built-in benchmark utility with everything maxed except Phys-x.
 
At Stock (1010/1250)
Minimum: 2.7
Maximum: 78
Average: 36
 
At 1100/1400
Minimum: 2.3
Maximum: 69.2
Average: 38
 
At 1150/1400
Minimum: 2.6
Maximum: 78
Average: 39
 
Metro: Last Light was an interesting benchmark. You can see the incredibly low minimums, although I could not percieve any stutter when the benchmark ran. We got 3 more fps albeit at the penalty of higher temps and noise, which is probably not worth it if you value your eardrums.
 
And finally rounding out our benchmarks is Unigine's Valley. I ran the benchmark at 2560x1080 with everything maxed out.
 
At Stock (1010/1250)
Minimum: 17.6
Maximum: 93.3
Average: 48
Score: 2008
 
At 1100/1400
Minimum: 13.4
Maximum: 100.1
Average: 51.6
Score: 2160
 
At 1150/1400
Minimum: 14.9
Maximum: 103.6
Average: 53
Score: 2218
 
As we can see, you gain about 5 fps and 210 points by overclocking. Is it worth it? If you want to show all your friends (real or virtual, I won't discriminate) your amazing benchmark scores, then you can live through the 5 loudest minutes of your life.
 
There we have it. The Sapphire R9 290x Tri-X. A massive card with a massive TDP and massive performance.
So what can we determine from this large quantity of numbers? The 290x is an incredible deal for a card that will deliver an incredible gaming experience at 1440p, if you don't mind high temperatures and noise. But please, if you decide to Crossfire two of these beasts, run a custom loop. But if you spent all your money on your 290x and had to sell your oven, never fear. The 290x can cook your dinner while you enjoy a great gaming experience.
 
 
 

Mine literally lit on fire.. oh and sapphire denied me RMA.

And hate money as well as audio quality.

Yes it's fine. You can throw an SSD and it won't give a fuck.

I cant OC the i7 2700k because I have a p8H61 mobo... But if i buy a new one a Z170 I can

The monitor may be switching color and scaling modes to "TV"-optimized defaults whenever you switch to a " TV" resolution like 1080p or 1366×768. As suggested before make sure in the NVIDIA control panel you've set scaling to be performed on the GPU, not display. Set it to "Aspect Ratio" as well.

I can vouch for the G430

Some guy had a similar problem, turns out he accidentally turned on shadowplay desktop capture. So check for that.
 

is this $100-150 for all of them, or each?

You need outdoor rated Cat6 cable, conduit, and appropriate tools. Your budget converts to ~70USD. You are not going to get it done for that budget.
 
Why are interior runs not an option?
 
Powerline may be an option?

my 450D works amazingly well for cooling. would recommend

980Ti OC'd owner checking in. I run triple AAA titles 60FPS 4k
 
980Ti != 980