Deroven

lol reminds me of the AMD I bought 2nd hand. There was so much paste, and the damn magmachamber had been _kinda_ tortured, the cooler wouldn't come off of it. Just would not come off. In the end I went fuck it mode, and sure enough the CPU came off still attached to the cooler... Yeah, retention arm be damned. Well, after some work to remove the old (Not so gentle, I'll admit) and de-attach the CPU from the cooler... Swapped the cooler, applied my own paste and voila the CPU started humming happily (Technicaly the fan is the one making the noise but... y' know). Moral of the story? They aren't that fragile. Untill they are, and when that happens... you'll be happy you were careful. I'd never do something like that for anything that actually wasn't mine and I knew was expendable.

Mhmm, it'd be easiest and safest to recommend the 970, all aboard the hypetrain. But at the same point AMD's VERY aggressive with the pricing and in Finland you can get a factory refurb r9 290x for odd 200€ and new ones for around 300€. Well, personally I don't much like the magmachambers so Nvidia it is. But your mileage may vary.

Aye, as said. It depends on whether you want to build a watercooled PC or not. Basically, will you have more fun fiddling with the coolers and stuff, or playing games with your SLI cards, and not fiddling with your PC? Building PC's higher than the "normal" specification really makes no sense in the long run, but it's an hobby... I guess.

Huh, I've understood that even today stuff like 980's and alike suffer at day 1 or so gaming, where SLI doesn't work properly. I suppose I could be mistaken but... 5. Sufficient airflow doesn't mean good. And as I said, adding a card that'll still exhaust somewhat might force me to adapt the current setup. By that I mean force more air trough the front filter and perhaps tailor an filter for the side intake, just over the graphics card. But that really shouldn't be a huge issue (And it'd be a project for me to do, so I get to fiddle inside my computer! Yay :wub: ). But at the same time I can't help but to wonder if I'll ever arrive at a junction where I need more GPU horsepower before next update, where I could just go pick up a 2nd 980 down the line should I go with one now, of course all the other concerns included if I do that. Well I'll take it into consideration. It'd be my first dual-GPU setup so I suppose it has that going for it, as well. Now... I'll edit this to the OP as well but... Let's imagine I do go with dual GPU setup, what type of a cooler would be optimal? The logical thinker in me thinks that it oughta be a leafblower, so it'll make sure to exhaust the hot air and not seep into other components, namely CPU. Also furthermore; if blower, the side panel vent should be intake I assume. Should it be outlet if they are cards like strix or windforce, to exhaust from around the GPU more effectively? I know I might come trough as a bit paranoid, but it's not that. I just enjoy my dust free interior and to a degree it might be because over-engineering this stuff is fun. You should see me at KSP. B)

For the CPU; As I said I won't be upgrading it, but rather I'll be entering it to the burn phase. CPU and accessories will be in turn next year. 620 is currently in use. I have considered 2x 970's but most coolers wouldn't leave that much of a space between the cards in the Sabertooth for adequate airflow I think? I'd have to find SLI benchmarks with temps of both cards. Might look into it a bit more but then there's the whole issue of SLI profiles and all the other fiddling that comes along with SLI setups. If you have experience with them by all means, do the profiles get updated on launch? Are there cases where profiles for modern cards exist but those in previous or even one before that have came in later than current gen? These are somewhat important questions, especially the later one, if I'm to even consider SLI setup. Not to mention how's the overclocking SLI cards, as I've understood they need to be running on a similar settings which would mean that my luck in the silicone lottery would limit me to the weaker of the two? Then to return to the airflow; The issue becomes the case airflow. As it stands my Define R3's over-pressurised trough the front filters, it's just a guess but 2 GPU's would mean I need a new case to keep the setup on a positive pressure, or alternatively higher airflow (More noise) fans? As it stands I can just clean the filters once a month and I've yet to find dust inside the case. I'd hate that to change. As for Finnish retailers, they suck beyond everything and anything you could envision. I was considering buying trough online retailers or alternatively buy it in US to an US address and then have a friend ship it over (Handily this might prevent me from paying double-taxes, first VAT on US and then here once it arrives to customs). But as for acquiring the card it'll have to wait for the decision to be made. And no, I'm not joking about the sucky part, none of the high-end factory OC's are available at Finland. Or well, I suppose I -should- mention Inno3D but... Ain't snowball's chance in hell I'll trust a company that I can't find any information about. But I suppose that's why I'm asking here. If people have personal experience then I'm eager to hear it. Having said that I might not say no to SLI if I could get 2x 970's with decent specs and a case for a price of 980, but I doubt that's happening.

Good mornin'! I figured I've dragged my feet long enough about making this post. It's been in the works for the... uh, past month or so but never really got the train of tought to a point where I'd register and make it. Well now that I finally regged, let's do this. SItuation The build isn't yet antique but at the same time I can't seem to drag the sliders up as much as I want or were used to. So I'm starting to weight the options seeing how here in Finland we just got tax refunds. i7 3770K at stock (More of this later, trust me it'll get OC'd.) coupled with a AIO Kühler 620 Asus gtx 680 TOP Asus Sabertooth Z77 16gb of Kingston HyperX Blu, @1600 (4x4) 750W psu, Fractal. And it's all built in a Define R3. What I'm looking at? To set up a bi-yearly update schedule. A sort of a tick-tock system much like Intel's, but instead ticks being GPU's and tocks being CPU's, motherboards and assorted other purchases. Each tick 'n tock would have around 500-800€ budget allowing me to maintain somewhat good system for relatively sane price. Whereas I'm aware that 680 is adequate for 1080p as it is, and in all likelihood for quite some time still, but adequate isn't enough (And I want to go 1440p Soon™). Far as the remaining parts after every update is, I figured I'd enter them into a burn cycle of sorts. So update GPU now? OC the CPU and make it suffer. If it gives in, update time came a bit earlier. If it doesn't? I figured I'd be able to offset the generation gap by burning the part's lifespan. Is this feasible? Perhaps do this with the GPU after CPU update as well, and memory? Mmm, I'll see what I can get myself into doing but again... Please share experiences if you have any. So as for the first update, I figured I'd keep everything else intact and swap the 600 series to a 900 series, namely 980. But that's where I ran into first hitch. There's too damn many of them and worse still, getting them to Finland is a pain. Our stocks seem to be quite bad and since 900's are quite new there isn't a lot of user experience so I figured I'd ask around the Internet™ for some user-experience with their respective makers. I'll list the options I've looked into in the order that I'd currently rank them, if you know anything of any of them, please let me know what you think about their products, build quality, longevity, possible OC's you've done? 1 - GALAX GeForce GTX 980 "Hall of Fame Edition" So far seems to be the best option far as raw power is considered, and it is. But at the same time I worry since GALAX seems to be a merger of two companies (Galaxy & KFA2) I've got no previous experience either. I've never even seen them or GALAX before looking into the 900's so... I'm cautious, to say the least. 2. EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Classified ACX 2.0 Not much behind 1., but from more reputable brand albeit at higher price. Nothing much to say here, it's an EVGA factory OC, what can I say? 3. ASUS, Strix? Now I am somewhat of an asus fanboy. I'll freely admit it as I've never had an bad asus experience even if some do doubt them and even on these forums there's been a bit this and that about them. But you know, I'll be a fanboy until I get burned personally. Y' know, human nature 'n all that. Having said that, since my 680 I haven't really been keeping up with them. And only the Strix seems to be popping up in any of the stores I visit. Have they done away with TOP and other tiers? 4. MSI/Gigabyte I'll admit I've never even used these in any of the builds I've done so I've no good or bad experience. Generally both compare favourably far as references go but that's all I know. Enlighten me? What I'm not looking at (Afraid of?) The next gen of GPU's popping off month or two after I've upgraded. I've heard all sorts of rumours and where I'm sceptic of good 'ol Cap'n jack, I should hope next gen of Nvidia cards is a year or so in the future but if captain decides to put up a good fight we might be seeing another 780ti style of launch mid-way in just to keep that flagship at top? Additional notes As might be obvious I've not had much experience in a long-term solution like this, nor in OCing stuff. I've always just thrown too much at the wall and seen what sticks so I'm finally trying to be financially responsible and plan this ahead. It'll probably not work all that well too long into it 'cause I might just go nuts 'n buy stuff on impulse but... I'm trying! Thank you if you took the time to read it, and even more so if you took the time to response. - Leo

I would if I had one. But at the same time, the parts I used back before I even knew what anti-static meant, were so much larger proportion of my income than the ones I currently use, it kinda feels pointless to jump trough the hoops to get one as we don't have an actual physical store to pop in and get some. So I just touch the case and/or similar metal object and sod it. Having said that, wouldn't mind having one when working on a friend's computers. Just so I can say it wasn't me. But if I were to break theirs I'd probably foot the bill anyway, since it was me who broke it.

Had a prebuilt Dell that fried it's GPU back in summer of 2002. Did some troubleshooting and figured that part out. I had never even opened a computer, something that became VERY clear to me as soon as I did open it and figure out why it fried itself... Oh god I still see nightmares of the dust. Well then I was off to shop a 2nd hand GPU, found one with a custom after-market cooler and stuff. I didn't know anything but I knew I absolutely, desperately, wanted to play BF1942 when it was comming out, and since it was expensive it surelly could run it! Well, it did. And mods for it. But at the same time it was ATi card somethingsomething which was unlocked to somethingother, which meant that ATi drivers wouldn't work so I used, I think they were called at least, omega drivers. With that came all the dohickery of the red team and I've been a PC enthusiast ever since. But boy was it nerve wrecking, I didn't have expendable cash back then so everything was just scraped together and had it broken, which I very well knew was a realistic possibility, would have left me completely computerless. Fate worse than death for those who had tasted the sweet freedom of ADSL. Or well, that's off the memory. We all know how wildly inaccurate it can be so any discrepancies between reality and the story can be attributed to that.

Well for what it's worth I've never had my PC parts sold to me as listening and/or filming me 247 as a feature that's "required". Aight, I get it. Trying to take jabs at xbone is ridiculous and picking on the weakest kid on the block isn't cool. So I'll speak about PS4 instead. I actually kinda wanna buy it. I own the original PlayStation, and back then I had that and Amiga (I know, amiga was ancient when PS came out but.. Flashback, wing commander, too many good games!) and fell in love with GT series. As well as multitude of other games not least which are the annual "Please give us money" releases from EA, I don't think PC comes near in terms of "Games you can play with people sitting at the same couch". I know that's a roundabout way to put it but that's how I feel, even at this day and age with steam trying it's best to give us big picture and whatnot. Would I ever buy a PS4 to play high-end eyecandy? We both know the answer to this is 30fps, come to whatever conclusion you want based on that. Would I buy one to have party games and undeniably my favourite franchise of racing games (Aka exclusive titles)? Yup! Now I do feel that console situation would be a lot better were we in a situation where Sony and Microsoft had opted in for the traditional way of doing things, aka take a beating on the console itself and opt for better hardware, trading that bit of initial profit for longevity and gamesales which is the way I believe they went about it before. And I do believe I'm not alone in this. But in the frustration of bad ports and console being the lead platform (Whether this is due to monetary reasons or because otherwise you'd be unable to port it to consoles as it'd be too demanding) in ahh so (too?) many games, we've come to see it as the devil itself. The times I feel that we're handicapped by them is too common to even keep track of. Not to mention how things COULD be, given free reign to developers. But at the other end, I suppose I should be happy to get 4 or more years for a lifespan of a build... But that just makes me kinda sad. Because I know I could be looking at something that doesn't look quite like anything I saw 4 years ago... And this in the end might be what makes PCMR take their joke a bit too serious for some people, it's not necessarily bad thing either. Money talks and unfortunately the current gen sales have been good. I was hoping they wouldn't be, so they'd wake up and slap decent hardware to the next system, if such a thing comes by. Guess I was hoping for nothing. TLDR? I don't hate consoles. I hate console hardware in current gen.

The ammount of innuendo from "How to touch your parts" is not something the internet could take. Expect global blackouts should he ever find the thread. Now with my limited experience (7 builds so far <3), I'm just overly cautious. Being gentle has never broken a part before, I don't think, and it's unlikely to start soon. So I prefer to stick to the sides of motherboards, on backplates and coolers of gpu's, et cetera. Also, it might not be good idea to touch any of the contact surfaces in either CPU or cooler. Something to keep in mind when you're popping the GPU out of the covers. But that's just me, so manhandle your junk as you want, if ya know what I mean. Just, y' know, as they've said remain grounded.