Tech Things You Dont Know But Are Too Afraid To Ask.

[joelthezombie15]

Hey @Glenwing when is this gonna be pinned ;)

 

I am so surprised how far this thread has gotten though. 22 pages in 6 days.

[Vitalius]

The more space you devote to storage, the less space there is for battery.

4GB IDE SSD. 

These things are awesome for servers. My workplace has one. :P

These things are a few years old though.

[David_Chrisp]

Micro stutter. All I know is that it's caused by a crossfire configuration but why does it happen?

[christoi]

Micro stutter. All I know is that it's caused by a crossfire configuration but why does it happen?

 

With a dual-card setup, each card is essentially rendering the alternate frame. There tends however to be a slight variance in speed between the two cards, so one may be pushing more frames than the second, causing problems with syncing and causing micro-stuttering.

 

At least, at a basic level. There's a couple more complications involved depending on the implementation, but that's essentially the cause.

[Vitalius]

Micro stutter. All I know is that it's caused by a crossfire configuration but why does it happen?

Also, AMD recently (like this week, I believe) released a driver update to fix the horrible micro stutter that happens on multi-GPU solutions for them.

Their single GPU solutions had the same problem for a very long time before it was fixed (last year? August-ish?).

[Glenwing]

With a dual-card setup, each card is essentially rendering the alternate frame. There tends however to be a slight variance in speed between the two cards, so one may be pushing more frames than the second, causing problems with syncing and causing micro-stuttering.

 

At least, at a basic level. There's a couple more complications involved depending on the implementation, but that's essentially the cause.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself.  It's basically just difficulties with synchronizing the GPUs.  NVIDIA does a better job of mitigating this than AMD at the moment (they have dedicated hardware in their stuff) but AMD will be addressing it with a driver update pretty soon.

[Glenwing]

Also, AMD recently (like this week, I believe) released a driver update to fix the horrible micro stutter that happens on multi-GPU solutions for them.

Their single GPU solutions had the same problem for a very long time before it was fixed (last year? August-ish?).

 

I thought it was just an announcement that they will release it in a few weeks.  I could be wrong though.

[mr-nipples]

What does a Hyper Threading do?

 

Watch this - It's really simple to understand!

[target39]

You could also use RadeonPro.

[Vitalius]

Couldn't have said it better myself.  It's basically just difficulties with synchronizing the GPUs.  NVIDIA does a better job of mitigating this than AMD at the moment (they have dedicated hardware in their stuff) but AMD will be addressing it with a driver update pretty soon.

Would clocking the cards to the same speed separately help or would they do this on their own when put in Crossfire?

 

I thought it was just an announcement that they will release it in a few weeks.  I could be wrong though.

Ah, my bad. The driver they released for the 7990 is a prototype.

 

[Glenwing]

Would clocking the cards to the same speed separately help or would they do this on their own when put in Crossfire?

 

Ah, my bad. The driver they released for the 7990 is a prototype.

 

 

No, it's not related to the GPU frequency, but the timing at which they push out frames.  And depending on which frame they render some could take longer than others.

 

And, thanks for the link.

[stevv]

OK this is going to so sound utterly stupid, but I am totally confused with this as there are so many different ways and ugh everyone says the other is bad But How do you correctly apply thermal paste/compound. I have seen more than 10 different ways of doing it all claiming which one is better i trust Linus and Logan with the pea technique but is it really the best?

 

I go by this article, pages 3, 4, 5.  I think for people who do a testing, best would be the one that's most consistent, if not the best performing.  "Perfect" application would require more time and patience (which I imagine would be frustrating if one is testing a bunch of coolers or cpus).  

 

I think linus also mentioned the thermal paste he uses for the testing rigs because of it's consistency.

[Vitalius]

OK this is going to so sound utterly stupid, but I am totally confused with this as there are so many different ways and ugh everyone says the other is bad But How do you correctly apply thermal paste/compound. I have seen more than 10 different ways of doing it all claiming which one is better i trust Linus and Logan with the pea technique but is it really the best?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hNgFNH7zhQ

[DOME2DOME]

What are the rules for picking out a PSU when you have decided what components you want in your build? 

[Godlygamer23]

What are the rules for picking out a PSU when you have decided what components you want in your build?

Should come from a reputable brand, provide enough wattage, and have features you want, such as being modular or having a certain level of efficiency.

[David_Chrisp]

Thanks guys for the feedback, very helpful as i have 6870s with a little bit micro stutter. nothing too bad

[target39]

Thanks guys for the feedback, very helpful as i have 6870s with a little bit micro stutter. nothing too bad

Like I said, try using RadeonPro, and follow guides on youtube. It will make your game a lot smoother. It's not a gimmick either, tests have shown that the delays are smoothed out and decreased. As long as you have the right profile, you should be good to go.

[Vitalius]

I have a tech (somewhat) related question.

Why is PC so starved for JRPG's/RPG's?

[DOME2DOME]

Should come from a reputable brand, provide enough wattage, and have features you want, such as being modular or having a certain level of efficiency.

What about picking a wattage?

[IdeaStormer]

4GB IDE SSD. 

These things are awesome for servers. My workplace has one. :P

These things are a few years old though.

 

They are pretty cool and small, before those we had the IDE ribbon cable to a Flash Card on a PCI slot holder (not plugged into the PCI slot), well more than a Flash Card holder but same result.

[target39]

What about picking a wattage?

Make sure you have enough to power your components and some headroom. I recommend using this calculator. As you can see, it provides the minimum and recommended PSU wattage for your system after you fill it out. Some PSUs actually cannot supply the amount of power they advertise, so check out the reviews for that power supply from customers and professionals such as techpowerup.com, or jonnyGURU.com.

[christoi]

What about picking a wattage?

 

General rule of thumb is to aim for an average load level of 50%, as detailed here. That usually means for a single-GPU gaming-oriented setup a 450-550w unit is sufficient, 750w for dual cards.

 

Also, brands are almost meaningless with power supplies, since most units are just rebranded. General indicators you can find from reviews are low ripple, high component quality (such as high-quality caps) and good voltage regulation. Anything with ±40mV ripple, ±3% regulation and Japanese caps (teapo is also ok) is what I consider to be very good, but that's only in general terms. A lot of it is really a per-case basis, so you'll have to look into some reviews yourself and compare prices.

 

Also when looking through reviews, stick with sites that actually know how to test power supplies.

[Aphexx]

not quite a tech question but the airflow nerds from the fan section would probably be able to help a lot..

 

to cool my house which gets really hot from top down I've tossed in a box fan to blow into the attic crawl space to push the hot air out before it mingles and fills my house top to bottom.

the problem is that it is a small door to the crawlspace an ideal fit for a single fan but would doubling up the fans help airflow?

in my head I think it would only increase it by a small amount like 10% because I'm only decreasing the 'resistance' of airflow and not increasing the velocity by much. 

[Glenwing]

What about picking a wattage?

 

550W for single GPU, 750W for dual GPU, 1000W of triple, 1200W for quad.

[Vitalius]

550W for single GPU, 750W for dual GPU, 1000W of triple, 1200W for quad.

Roughly.

A 4770k with SLI 780's peaks at near 750w.