Hardware Discussion Thread

challengemaster

More on the ARES II

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lb6X-2qWQFI

I think the most impressive point is.... you can run 6 displays off a single card

Tea_Bag

I think the most impressive point is that it's (almost) completely cooled by a single 120 rad. those fans must spin up an awful lot..

challengemaster

Tea_Bag wrote: »

I think the most impressive point is that it's (almost) completely cooled by a single 120 rad. those fans must spin up an awful lot..

Well yeah, that too

Double thick, so it's essentially a corsair H80i strapped onto it. Even still though, it's a dual 7970.... I suppose that they've dedicated air cooling just for the memory/pcb/vrm is helping. Either way it's just awesome.

challengemaster

Actually just as there's a bit of discussion about noise/fans etc already.... just how loud is everyones system running? I know mine is stupidly loud.

Not measuring this as an exact science - just with the iPhone decibel app.. 1ft from the side mesh on the 500r, it's about 54dB average...

Serephucus

Phones aren't good at all for measuring sound levels. Typically the mics are limited in what SPL they will pick up, and on top of that what frequencies they'll pick up which can also interfere with results. It's an interesting thought though. I wonder if there's an easy way we could come up with to compare machines?

Tea_Bag

at idle?!

just downloaded a sound meter app on my DesireHD. ive no idea how accurate it is, but apparently its calibrated with a dba meter..

its saying about 24dBA about 20cm away from my PC. thats idling though.

using a stock intel cooler for the moment, single GT1850 running very slow, and the hail mary of GPU quietness, the GTX690.

EDIT: to be fair, at idle, ive found the loudest fan in a PC is the PSU. the AX1200 was definitely my loudest fan, by a considerable margin. im using an AX750 in this rig, and tbh im not sure the fan is even on yet. it only power's up around 220W draw, and im yet to game :P

Serephucus

What app? I'll get the same one and try my server (not very quiet).

Tea_Bag

just called "sound meter" by smart tools. first hit when looking up decibel meter in the playstore.

challengemaster

Serephucus wrote: »

Phones aren't good at all for measuring sound levels. Typically the mics are limited in what SPL they will pick up, and on top of that what frequencies they'll pick up which can also interfere with results. It's an interesting thought though. I wonder if there's an easy way we could come up with to compare machines?

Well yes, but I wasn't trying to win the nobel prize in acoustics :P

Tea_Bag wrote: »

at idle?!

Yup, idle. Some fan, somewhere in there is remarkably loud. If I was to guess, I'd say its the stock fan on the tuniq tower

Serephucus

Cool. Well, it measures my server at around the 40dB mark. I'd the damn hard drives. One of them is resonating in the case, and I haven't had time to track down which one. It'll be the first thing I do after getting my watercooling going after the exams though (Next Friday can't come soon enough) On top of that, the fans in the case really aren't that great (I expected more from Fractal here) particularly the fan that came with the True Spirit 120.

I think I'm just spoiled from the GTs...

Tea_Bag

ill measure my server, but its going to be horrible. 7 HDD's, and one is starting to click to find the dodgy one is going to be a nightmare.


challengemaster do you have some PWM options in your BIOS to slow stuff down no?

i used to be all about MOAR FANS = cooler PC = better, so littered the case with them, but after working with so many dells that have horrible air flow ive completely eliminated any unnecessary fans in my builds.


going by the log scale of sound loudness, challengemaster's PC is 10 times louder than mine!!

Serephucus

And almost five times as loud as my (already too loud) server.

Dude, get some new fans, please. I'm in pain just thinking about that.

challengemaster

Tea_Bag wrote: »

challengemaster do you have some PWM options in your BIOS to slow stuff down no?

i used to be all about MOAR FANS = cooler PC = better, so littered the case with them, but after working with so many dells that have horrible air flow ive completely eliminated any unnecessary fans in my builds.

going by the log scale of sound loudness, challengemaster's PC is 10 times louder than mine!!

No idea about the BIOS.. don't think I've ever looked. And it involves rebooting...blah :pac:

There's 7 fans in the system overall. 1 inside the tuniq tower, 4 that come with the 500r, and 2 Arctic F12's, which I know aren't the problem.

Serephucus wrote: »

And almost five times as loud as my (already too loud) server.

Dude, get some new fans, please. I'm in pain just thinking about that.

Serephucus

No offence meant. If it doesn't bother you fair enough, I just know I'd have beaten the crap out of that machine long before now if it were me. :P

challengemaster

Serephucus wrote: »

No offence meant. If it doesn't bother you fair enough, I just know I'd have beaten the crap out of that machine long before now if it were me. :P

Oh trust me, you'll have to try a lot harder than that to offend me It's actually like a small hoover continually on.

I must have a lot of patience (It does bother me, though!)

Gbear

Just got the Cherry keyboard. It's lovely.

Overclockers threw in a couple of packets of Haribo, which is a nice touch!:D

Serephucus

I got the same thing when I ordered from Specialtech! Left over Christmas prezies for orders, maybe?

Tea_Bag

server is averaging 31dBA. it's actually not bad. it's louder when the disks are spinning, but it's boot drive is An SSD so nothing spins up on the desktop.

AX1200 and 2 SP120's are the only fans. one is intake on the HDDs and the other is an exhaust out the back. CPU and GPU are passive.

for a bit of comparison, my fridge is 40dBA.

Serephucus

Yeah, I can't accurately test here. It's in the one room, with the fridge about ten feet from the computer, and my girlfriend's laptop making a triangle, so stuff is pretty close together. The best I could do with the server was to have the phone under the table with most of me trying to block the other sound sources.

I tried running the CPU passive, but temperatures were a little on the high side for my liking - around 60°C max. That's with two Fractal fans in the front, and one in the back, along with the CPU and PSU fans. I'm going to see about relocating it in the room when my other machine is back up though. It was sitting pretty close to a radiator before.

Tea_Bag

60 isnt bad. mine maxed around 50-55 with the CPU and GPU under full load for 45min, an unrealistic scenario.

challengemaster

Right, I'm fairly confident the problem is the CPU fan, seeing as it's constantly at >1800RPM.

BIOS can't control it (****ty ASUS Q-Fan)
Speedfan can't control it.



At least the good news.... CPU idle temp is 18C :pac:

Tea_Bag

your bios has to have some form of fan control. what mobo is it??

granted i havent used asus in a quite a while so ive no idea what their current offerings are like.

is the fan running off the mobo 3/4pin or is it off a molex?

challengemaster

Asus Maximus Formula X38 (the original :pac:) it's nowhere near a current offering!

It's running off the motherboard too...

challengemaster

Ok I kind of solved it. It involved a lot of shuffling of fan headers, and speedfan.... down to 47dB. I've a feeling a lot of that is due to the 1800RPM idle GPU fan....

Main problem is most definitely the CPU fan. Looks like the CPU header on the motherboard just can't be controlled... so it was always at 100% Of course, now thats changed, idle temp is way up and it's clickey.... I may just order a damn Noctua

Serephucus

Yes! Finally!

Squeaky the Squirrel

I've missed all of CES so far, aaargh, these look like good round ups methinks!

Live at CES: Day 1

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/6/3844216/the-best-of-ces-2013

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/samsung/9794055/CES-2013-Samsung-unveils-smart-phone-that-can-bend.html

Grim.

RE the Corsair SP and AF fans I'm running them off this https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CB-079-AK and noticing no noise at all but when connected to a fan controller they do start clicking seems to be the same problem i was having with my Apaches a voltage issue I'm guessing.

Vicxas

Not sure if this has been posted already. But razer are having a sale right now on all their products on their website with 50% off using code: bestofces2013

ED E

H220 looks like the dogs bollocks. WANT.

Eboggles

ED E wrote: »

H220 looks like the dogs bollocks. WANT.

As do I. Along with a new motherboard and white 600t.

God, this PC upgrading stuff drains so much money it's not even funny.

smileyj1987

ED E wrote: »

H220 looks like the dogs bollocks. WANT.

I think it dominate the AIO cooler market and making it expandable really was the next step to take .

Squeaky the Squirrel

Eboggles wrote: »

As do I. Along with a new motherboard and white 600t.

God, this PC upgrading stuff drains so much money it's not even funny.

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/145465-pc-sales-are-in-decline-and-in-an-alarming-way-for-the-first-time

N64

don't know if you guys are subscribed to reddit's /r/buildapc but there is a good discussion over how the 8350 compares to the 3570K in gaming going on at the minute.

Link to discussion:
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/16cwmw/its_time_to_rethink_everthing/

People have pointed out discrepancies in the manner which the the benchmarks were conducted however the reviewer in question seems active in that thread, and is going to redo the benchmarks with the 670 instead of the 7870.

If what turns out to be true, it could be a interesting turn of events for new PC builds. The 3570k goes for roughly €20 more on HWVS and If I remember correctly, don't intel motherboards tend to be a bit more expensive in general than the AMD equivalent ?

The video in question:

smileyj1987

Logan used to do video's is forTigeredirect tv , He left them to start his own site for reviewing . If it turns out to be ture then he deserves a big pat on the back because it might actually help AMD in some ways .

http://teksyndicate.com/

Tij da feen

N64 wrote: »

don't know if you guys are subscribed to reddit's /r/buildapc but there is a good discussion over how the 8350 compares to the 3570K in gaming going on at the minute.

Link to discussion:
http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/16cwmw/its_time_to_rethink_everthing/

People have pointed out discrepancies in the manner which the the benchmarks were conducted however the reviewer in question seems active in that thread, and is going to redo the benchmarks with the 670 instead of the 7870.

If what turns out to be true, it could be a interesting turn of events for new PC builds. The 3570k goes for roughly €20 more on HWVS and If I remember correctly, don't intel motherboards tend to be a bit more expensive in general than the AMD equivalent ?

The video in question:

AMD boards tend to have more as standard on them like SATA 3 ports and more PCI-e slots once you start spending a bit more on the motherboards so generally they're better value.

I really hope this turns out to be true. It would be good for some more competition with the CPUs as Intel is dominating right now and their prices have been static for ages now. Couple that with having another line of processors on the AM3 platform it'd be hard to recommend an Intel build at this point if it all turns out to be true.

marco_polo

The Fx 8320 is the much better value AMD gaming chip over the Fx8350 tbh. His Metro 2033 results seem strange, although piledriver does quite well with that engine, as it does with most of the most modern multithreaded engines like frosbite and cryengine 3.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/amd_fx8350/8.htm

Aside from that its not really surprising that it is just as good in CPU intensive games such Crysis 2 when paired with a HD7850 is it?

I have made plenty of budget 965 Phenom builds precisely because the successor to the Fx 8350 should be a very solidupgrade path.

Monotype

The 8320 is a good bit cheaper than the 3570K and 8350. I think it's a better choice if you want to push more funds into a graphics card for games (or SSD etc). It's also still a black edition. The 8350 could be a higher grade bin, but most of the time, this doesn't have a huge impact.

Edit: Whoops. I'd forgotten that I'd opened this tab over two hours ago - said by marco already; I agree.

tuxy

challengemaster wrote: »

Thats very strange, I know it's a good while since I bought my card but I couldn't fault anything at the time

Forgot to reply back to this. The card it's self runs perfectly but I was just saying the packaging is the cheapest I have ever seen on any graphics card.

glynf

Vicxas wrote: »

Not sure if this has been posted already. But razer are having a sale right now on all their products on their website with 50% off using code: bestofces2013

Many thanks for the heads up, got an Ouroboros for €80.50 shipped

BTW there's a decent article worth a look here on eurogamer re. 4K gaming.
They got a few games running at 3840x2160 using a GTX 680, thought the FPS was limited to 30 due to using HDMI.

Viewsonic are releasing a 30" 4K by years end, only catch is the $10,000 price tag. hopefully if they start making these things in bulk, the price will drop over the next few years.

Link

challengemaster

Right, say someone hasn't been paying attention....

What's all this 4k stuff?

marco_polo

challengemaster wrote: »

Right, say someone hasn't been paying attention....

What's all this 4k stuff?

Its just a resolution in the region of 4096 × 2160 pixels (not sure if hdtv is exactly the same as cinema version)

Serephucus

4K is the buzzword for resolutions using approximately four thousand pixels horizontally. An example of this is UHD resolution, which is 3840x2160.

Headshot

Suppose to be the next big thing in tv quality. Much better picture quality than HD but the funny thing is there is nothing like dvds, games etc that can take advantage of 4K at the moment

At least it wont be as bad as the 3D gimmick, which didnt even show up at CES lol

glynf

The new Res standard for ultra high definition television, its double the horizontal and vertical res. of the 1080p. Thing is its a bit of a non runner in a way as a lot of TV transmission stuff is jumping straight to 8K instead.

The good news is manufacturers are bringing out 30" displays at 4K/3840×2160.
Which is a sh!t load of pixels indeed, ideal for editing etc. but also gaming.

challengemaster

Serephucus wrote: »

4K is the buzzword for resolutions using approximately four thousand pixels horizontally. An example of this is UHD resolution, which is 3840x2160.

Strange, as usually resolution goes by vertical pixels... (720, 1080, 1440)

glynf wrote: »

The new Res standard for ultra high definition television, its double the horizontal and vertical res. of the 1080p. Thing is its a bit of a non runner in a way as a lot of TV transmission stuff is jumping straight to 8K instead.

Lol. It's a bit of a non-runner in another way too, considering the vast majority of content on TV isn't in HD yet...

AlmightyCushion

challengemaster wrote: »

Lol. It's a bit of a non-runner in another way too, considering the vast majority of content on TV isn't in HD yet...

Most TV content isn't even HD let alone 1080p yet but that hasn't stopped most TVs on the market sporting 1080p panels. Once they start coming down in price they'll eventually start taking over regardless of if TV content has caught up yet or not.

glynf

True, I don't care less about the TV functionality but what I like about 4K res on a 30" screen-high pixel density. Brilliant for games and a pair SLI'ed GTX 670's or greater should comfortably run games at 3840×2160.

Its becoming super easy to make high-DPI displays so for TVs is more of a 'why not' thing.

OLED is hitting the market and long term could be a major threat to LCD so one way for LCD to stay relevant is to put the R&D into super-high resolution now while OLED manufacturing is still struggling with yield on 1080p panels.

So in a couple of years time you have an amazing looking 1080p OLED and a ****ty-looking 4K LCD for the same price; dumb consumer looks at the numbers and goes for the LCD in a repeat of the Plasma vs LCD war.

Serephucus

Yeah, personally that's what I'm waiting for: 27" 1080p OLED panel.

Squeaky the Squirrel

glynf wrote: »

Thing is its a bit of a non runner in a way as a lot of TV transmission stuff is jumping straight to 8K instead.

Where you see that?


First Ultra HD channel goes live in Europe

And the new codec to keep file sizes same or smaller size ready to go aswell.

Need big TVs just to see the difference I'd imagine aswell. Be near a decade before this is anyway mainstream with content and prices. Would need to be OLED aswell or you'd be getting one of those 14 stone 85 inch yokes samsung rolled out awhile back. 14 stone!!!

Anyone have shares in Dell? Looking to be taken off stock exchange, big price jump today. Back to it's glory days of a decade ago. I'm still using speakers, Keyboard and Mouse from a Dimension 2400. 10 years old (ish)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-14/dell-is-said-be-in-buyout-discussions-with-private-equity-firms.html