Hardware Discussion Thread

Tea_Bag

Its the best OS MS has released to date besides 7, and even then people would argue for XP. I've looked into 8 and its terrible. Gonna skip a Gen again.

Brian

Win 8 with Metro disabled is pretty much 7 but lighter and faster. What're your gripes with it?

Tea_Bag

Baza210 wrote: »

Win 8 with Metro disabled is pretty much 7 but lighter and faster. What're your gripes with it?

Metro. I don't like where they're going with 'the future'

Brian

So just turn it off and enjoy +10% FPS in games.

deejer

So looks like we have a date and a price plan.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152390

This puts the 8150 about the same price as the 2500k. And the 8120 even undercuts the 1090T

Burgo

deejer wrote: »

So looks like we have a date and a price plan.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=152390

This puts the 8150 about the same price as the 2500k. And the 8120 even undercuts the 1090T

Sooner than I expected, would the release date over here be much different to America?

Unregistered.

popflop wrote: »

Regarding this again:

1)Im not fully aware of which SATA ports i have - sata2 or sata3 so im wondering do they differ in any way?

Your mobo has SATA2. SATA3 allows for twice the maximium transfer rate of SATA2. It's backwards compatible, so a SATA3 drive will work with a SATA2 port and vice versa.
If you really want to see the maximum read speeds of your new drive (the M4) then you can get a SATA3 PCI card or something. I wouldn't worry too much about it. You'll only ever see greater than SATA2 speeds if you're doing sequential read/writes to the drive (transfering large files). IMO, What makes SSDs stand out is their random read/write performance.

popflop wrote: »

2)Currently i have 2x500gb harddrives connected therefore i have no spare sata cables. So my question is where could i get these cables that would fit my motherboard(asus p6t-se) and the ssd im going to get(crucial m4)?

Anywhere really. Peats, Maplins, online. Your new drive might come with one.

Macker1

How comparable is the Superflower PSU to say the Corsair HX750 which is quite a lot dearer. I will be putting together a build in Nov as a Xmas present for the son. I understand the importance of not scrimping on the PSU due to the importance of reliability, quality and performance. A lot of recommendations on this forum have the Superflower PSU as part of the rig. How good is it given its much lower cost.

deconduo

Macker1 wrote: »

How comparable is the Superflower PSU to say the Corsair HX750 which is quite a lot dearer. I will be putting together a build in Nov as a Xmas present for the son. I understand the importance of not scrimping on the PSU due to the importance of reliability, quality and performance. A lot of recommendations on this forum have the Superflower PSU as part of the rig. How good is it given its much lower cost.

The Corsair is slightly better quality and has the advantage of being modular, however this is reflected in its much higher price. As long as you have a decent quality PSU it doesn't really matter, and the SuperFlower Amazons are really good quality. Thats the reason they get recommended so much, theres no need to spend more money on a better PSU, its better going into the CPU or GPU.

Trevor451

Macker1 wrote: »

How comparable is the Superflower PSU to say the Corsair HX750 which is quite a lot dearer. I will be putting together a build in Nov as a Xmas present for the son. I understand the importance of not scrimping on the PSU due to the importance of reliability, quality and performance. A lot of recommendations on this forum have the Superflower PSU as part of the rig. How good is it given its much lower cost.

The super flower amazon series of psu are very reliable. I have had mine since last December and it has never given me any problems. Build quality could be a tad bit better but then again its only €50 and its 80+ bronze certified :pac:

M00lers

The Corsairs also come with a juicy 7 year warranty which partly explains the premium charged.

Trevor451

Hi guys I got my replacement 6950 from amazon and the same sort of stuff is occurring. 3D applications still have the same sort of jagged edges on them as the first card I got and it definitely does not look right to me

I don't think its a case of low quality components as my VTX3D card seems to have the same pcb/cooler as this card here (VTX3D is owned by same parent company as powercolor)

Funnily enough one review on newegg mentions that the anti aliasing looks bad

so what is your opinion on this guys? Could it just be normal for a 6950? The games defiantly seem to be smoother / look better on my old 6850 and new 6870.

Macker1

Guys,

Looking for opinions on the following SSD Drive

http://www4.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=50240&agid=1145


My plan is to replace my current Hard Disk with this and do a fresh install of Windows 7.

How fast and most importantly how reliable would the SSD be?
Also would the 64GB be sufficient for the purpose of a primary / boot drive?

Thanks for input.

Unregistered.

Macker1 wrote: »

Also would the 64GB be sufficient for the purpose of a primary / boot drive?

Thanks for input.

It depends.

deconduo

Macker1 wrote: »

Guys,

Looking for opinions on the following SSD Drive

http://www4.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=50240&agid=1145


My plan is to replace my current Hard Disk with this and do a fresh install of Windows 7.

How fast and most importantly how reliable would the SSD be?
Also would the 64GB be sufficient for the purpose of a primary / boot drive?

Thanks for input.

Thats one of the best value SSDs at the moment, you'll see most people recommending it.

64GB is plenty, I have a 30GB SSD and windows takes up 20GB of it.

Macker1

Unregistered. wrote: »

It depends.

Please elaborate....

Unregistered.

Macker1 wrote: »

Please elaborate....

It depends on what you like to keep on your boot drive. You wouldn't want a huge amount of games for example.

Macker1

Unregistered. wrote: »

It depends on what you like to keep on your boot drive. You wouldn't want a huge amount of games for example.

It would mainly contain the OS along with some other files. The plan would be to install any games on a seperate drive.

Brian

Damn, my Samsung drive is a noisy git. I'm not sure what the hell is wrong with it but I can hear it over my PSU and case fans clearly.

I've made a recording, will upload in a minute. Would like opinions on whether or not it's atypically loud.

deconduo

Baza210 wrote: »

Damn, my Samsung drive is a noisy git. I'm not sure what the hell is wrong with it but I can hear it over my PSU and case fans clearly.

I've made a recording, will upload in a minute. Would like opinions on whether or not it's atypically loud.

Which model? My 500GB and 1TB F3s are almost totally silent, I never hear them.

marco_polo

Baza210 wrote: »

Damn, my Samsung drive is a noisy git. I'm not sure what the hell is wrong with it but I can hear it over my PSU and case fans clearly.

I've made a recording, will upload in a minute. Would like opinions on whether or not it's atypically loud.

Don't think it is typical I have a 500TB F3, a 1TB F3 and a 2TB F4 and I never hear a peep out of any of them even when transfering 100GB+ GB between them.

Brian

Here's the recording. Apologies for the two brief points of microphone buzzing (Sansa Fuze internal)

http://doublejump.eu/R_MIC_110623-165153.mp3

Microphone was resting on top of the case with internals as seen here:



It is a Samsung SpinPoint F3 HD103SJ

http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=28152&agid=689&lb

marco_polo

Baza210 wrote: »

Here's the recording. Apologies for the two brief points of microphone buzzing (Sansa Fuze internal)

http://doublejump.eu/R_MIC_110623-165153.mp3

Microphone was resting on top of the case with internals as seen here:

<<image snip>>

It is a Samsung SpinPoint F3 HD103SJ

http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=28152&agid=689&lb

That sounds way too loud :eek:, you really shouldn't be able to hear the drive unless you have your ear almost right up against it. And even then when the drive is busy, the loudest noise should be a clicky/grindy noise of the heads moving, not the whine of the platters spinning.

Trevor451

Baza210 wrote: »

Damn, my Samsung drive is a noisy git. I'm not sure what the hell is wrong with it but I can hear it over my PSU and case fans clearly.

I've made a recording, will upload in a minute. Would like opinions on whether or not it's atypically loud.

That's strange. I also have a Samsung spinpoint drive and I cant hear it at all. Did you run a HDD checking program just to make sure its not about to fail?

Also; what do you guys think about my 6950? (post is on the other page) I don't know whether or not this is common for a 6950 or should I just return it?

Brian

It's been this loud since I got it, just never really knew any better...

If I were to send it back to HWVS, would they refund me the difference on a 64 GB Crucial M4 (and take care of the shipping?). I have a spare 250 GB HDD from my microserver that tbh would do me fine for storage on my PC if I had an OS/TF2 SSD. The F3 was €44 and the M4 is €90.

Trevor451

Baza210 wrote: »

It's been this loud since I got it, just never really knew any better...

If I were to send it back to HWVS, would they refund me the difference on a 64 GB Crucial M4 (and take care of the shipping?). I have a spare 250 GB HDD from my microserver that tbh would do me fine for storage on my PC if I had an OS/TF2 SSD. The F3 was €44 and the M4 is €90.

Yep you can call them up (most of the staff speak english) and state that the drive is faulty and that you want a refund on the HDD and there should be no problems at all.

I think you may have to pay postage if the item is under a certain value though iirc. They arranged for my graphics card to be picked up and shipped from my house by UPS.

Brian

According to this post:

abk wrote: »

You need to drop them an email to various addresses for them to respond. From my experience with them, anything that costs less than €40, you will have to take care of the postage but anything above that they will refund you the postage or ask you to print a UPS label and ship it to them at no cost to you.

I should just about qualify, but that's anecdotal.

Unregistered.

Baza210 wrote: »

Here's the recording. Apologies for the two brief points of microphone buzzing (Sansa Fuze internal)

http://doublejump.eu/R_MIC_110623-165153.mp3

Microphone was resting on top of the case with internals as seen here:



It is a Samsung SpinPoint F3 HD103SJ

http://www2.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=28152&agid=689&lb

I have an F3 and it makes the same noise, only not as loud. It's possible that the case is amplifying the resonance. Consider taking it out of the case and turn it on to know for sure

Monotype

I don't hear much difference between them, I thought it sounded like the buzz/whine you sometimes get from PSUs. The only samsung drive I have is a green one and it's quiet even when moving large files, but it gets noisy when you copy lots of small files. I've installed the F3 before but haven't used it over long periods myself. Most drives in the past have been western digital drives and they've all been quite quiet.
It shouldn't really be making any noisy if it's idle. Even though the drive is still spinning and windows 7 may be automatically defragmenting or caching files, it shouldn't be loud or continuous.

I agree with unregistered, that it should be taken out and tested. Often the cases can make things worse. My last case was ridiculous for this. Every time the hard drive started spinning up, the case case would rattle like an old plane.

Brian

The PSU is definitely making some noise, but it's nowhere near as loud as the HDD. I will try taking it out of the case tonight.

Macker1

deconduo wrote: »

Thats one of the best value SSDs at the moment, you'll see most people recommending it.

64GB is plenty, I have a 30GB SSD and windows takes up 20GB of it.

Thanks for your answer. I have another question so please bear with me. My plan is to put this into my current PC with is a few years old. I just wondering about the Sata connections on my motherboard in regards to suppoting this drive.

Motherboards is a ASUS P5W DH Deluxe

Link...... http://www.maxitmag.com/hardware-reviews/motherboards/asus-p5w-dh-deluxe-motherboard-review.html

Storage/RAID


Intel ICH7R SouthBridge:

1 x UltraDMA 100/66/33
3 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s with Intel® Matrix Storage Technology with RAID 0, 1, 5 support

Jmicron JMB363 controller

1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66
1 x External Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s (ASUS SATA-on-the-Go) and 1 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s with RAID 0, 1, JBOD support

Silicon Image 4723 Hardware RAID controller (ASUS EZ-Backup)


2 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s with RAID 0, 1 support
Support RAID 10 cross Intel® ICH7R and Silicon Image 4723 controller

Based on the above info does it mean I will not fully benefit with the use of the SSD ???

Unregistered.

Macker1 wrote: »

Based on the above info does it mean I will not fully benefit with the use of the SSD ???

You'll get like 99% of the benefit. What you won't get is the maximum read/write speeds quoted by the manufacturer. It's not that big of a deal in reality because as a boot drive, for loading parts of the OS and launching programs etc would see no real benefit from such high speeds.
SSD's have a tiny fraction of the latency of traditional hard disks. So when it comes to seeking out thousands of files (like an OS would during boot), it pisses all over a HDD in terms of the time it takes to do so.

Calibos

Monotype wrote: »

I don't hear much difference between them, I thought it sounded like the buzz/whine you sometimes get from PSUs. The only samsung drive I have is a green one and it's quiet even when moving large files, but it gets noisy when you copy lots of small files. I've installed the F3 before but haven't used it over long periods myself. Most drives in the past have been western digital drives and they've all been quite quiet.
It shouldn't really be making any noisy if it's idle. Even though the drive is still spinning and windows 7 may be automatically defragmenting or caching files, it shouldn't be loud or continuous.

I agree with unregistered, that it should be taken out and tested. Often the cases can make things worse. My last case was ridiculous for this. Every time the hard drive started spinning up, the case case would rattle like an old plane.

.....and I'll be RMA'ing the Corsair HX1050 I just got from HWVS with my build for that very reason. Buzzes/whines during boot, 3D gaming and ....moving the mouse in a web browser????

Macker1

Looks like I will go with the following drive options for my current PC

This will be the boot drive

http://www.dabs.ie/products/crucial-64gb-m4-sata-6gb-s-2-5--solid-state-drive-7GL0.html

This will be for storage

http://www.dabs.ie/products/samsung-1tb-spinpoint-f3-7200rpm-sata-3gb-s-32mb-65QC.html

Decent prices with free shipping........

Any comments or thoughts on ordering from Dabs.ie

Brian

Where in Dublin city centre can I get an internet WLAN card tomorrow? Just moved into my apartment for the year, and the router is hidden away somewhere magically in the ceiling on the far side of the building, getting about 0.5 Mb up and down on my rubbish D-Link USB yoke.

Edit: Looks like Maplin's are open 12-6, I'll try to pick up one of them... hopefully they'll be decent. No idea what to do with my microserver though, that kind of needs teh ethernets.

Jonathan

Baza210 wrote: »

Where in Dublin city centre can I get an internet WLAN card tomorrow? Just moved into my apartment for the year, and the router is hidden away somewhere magically in the ceiling on the far side of the building, getting about 0.5 Mb up and down on my rubbish D-Link USB yoke.

Edit: Looks like Maplin's are open 12-6, I'll try to pick up one of them... hopefully they'll be decent. No idea what to do with my microserver though, that kind of needs teh ethernets.

I've got a USB 802.11G stick you can use till you get sorted. Uses the zd1211rw driver which is supported in the Mainline kernel.

EDIT: I've also got something like this from HWVS.


EDIT 2: But that's no good to use cause the Microserver doesn't have a PCI slot.

deconduo

Baza210 wrote: »

Where in Dublin city centre can I get an internet WLAN card tomorrow? Just moved into my apartment for the year, and the router is hidden away somewhere magically in the ceiling on the far side of the building, getting about 0.5 Mb up and down on my rubbish D-Link USB yoke.

Edit: Looks like Maplin's are open 12-6, I'll try to pick up one of them... hopefully they'll be decent. No idea what to do with my microserver though, that kind of needs teh ethernets.

I've got a random USB one from Amazon, not using it cos it doesn't work with 64bit windows. I could let you have it for cheap if it will work for you.

Brian

I'll have to talk to the landlord, see if I can get physical access to the router. Thanks guys. I will buy one of these for my desktop tomorrow.

This will work with the microserver if I cut it down http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0036AFAEW/

freeze4real

guys can someone tell me what my totals watts for my PC would be.


My motherboard is alivenfg6.

I use 2 x 2gb rams kingston pc6400 800MHZ

I have 2 dvd drives but not powered.

My unit will use 4 fans from ebay.
I can add links

my processor is AMD 64 X 2 5000.

My hard drive is seagate barracude 320GB.

My GPU is gainward 8500GT 512mb PCI-E.

My psu unit is coolermaster 450watts pscr.

Monotype

I'd say 250W or so. No more than 300W.

Is that a different PSU? You previously said that it was 430W PCAR.

The problem is that there's not really much info on that particular model of PSU. It's branded coolermaster but they use a few manufacturers for the extreme series of PSUs.
A previous search said it could be originally made by Hipro which might be better than the Acbel ones which are terrible.

Listed here, it shows a 430W PCAR under Acbel.
Here's a review for the 400W version. You can see when it was measured at 300W that it fails the ripple and noise test.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Cooler-Master-eXtreme-Power-Plus-400-W-Power-Supply-Review/957/7

The 430W has a higher rating but it could be the exact same PSU, which is often done with these kinds of units.


While it failed the tests, it still worked and didn't blow up.
It's pretty likely to work with your system. Most of the time, it will be using far below 300W, but I wouldn't use it myself.

freeze4real

sorry for the typo its Cooler Master (RS-430-PCAR) 430-Watt PSU.


I wont be using too much stuff, hopefully it will keep me going.

On the plus side i have used unknown psu models and i never had a problem.

Tea_Bag

CoolerMaster is releasing a new line of 'Hybrid' PSU's.

looks like it's coming in at 850w, 1050w and 1300w. 80+ gold rating and over 90% efficiency under load. It comes with a 5.25" fan controller which also allows you to manually control the 7v fan in the PSU or shut it off entirely and run fanlessly. it has a safety feature that automatically turns it on when exceeding 200w.

more here

deejer

Tea_Bag wrote: »

CoolerMaster is releasing a new line of 'Hybrid' PSU's.

looks like it's coming in at 850w, 1050w and 1300w. 80+ gold rating and over 90% efficiency under load. It comes with a 5.25" fan controller which also allows you to manually control the 7v fan in the PSU or shut it off entirely and run fanlessly. it has a safety feature that automatically turns it on when exceeding 200w.

more here

Nice idea. Will be expensive though when it gets here.

Tea_Bag

Yea looks like they're going to compete with thw likes of enermax etc.

Solitaire

So... rebadged Enermax eh? :pac:

Trevor451

Hi guys. Just want to know what you think of this video;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j3QiVjkk1I

I Just want to know does this look normal to you guys (be sure to watch in 1080p) I know mass effect and MC lack anti aliasing but I have played countless hours of both games on my 6850 and never noticed what I am getting on my 6950. Also its not specific to those particular games. I get the same sort of stuff in every game I have played.

I apologize for posting so much about this particular issue I am having I just don't want to be down €200 if I have a bad card (amazon returns deadline is next Wednesday)

I have stated before that I don't think its because its from a lesser known brand (VTX3D). It appears that its just a rebranded powercolor 6950 (makes sense considering they are owned by the same parent company,TUL corp.)

Monotype

I don't see any annotations.
Is it aliasing that I'm looking for? It still looks good but it might be drivers that were updated during your changeover which altered how the game looks.

Maybe try an nVidia card next time?

cherryghost

TBH I don't see anything on the video. You should take a screenshot instead.

Serephucus

It's hard to tell what's youtube compression and what's lack of AA.

As far as I know, MC doesn't support AA...

Trevor451

Sorry about that, I was in a rush to upload the video and I forgot to put the annotations on. I updated the video now.

Youtube does butcher the quality of the video and it does not look as bad as the original fraps video unfortunately. I am uploading a relatively small fraps file and I will update this post with D/L links.