Taking the dive into PC building

[Etra]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Then it's SLI, which actually handles microstuttering a bit better, but nVidia cards tend to be pricier so there's some price hunting to make.

Just check your motherboard online to see if it supports it, which mainly means it having 2 or more PCIe 16x (2.0+) slots available. If it has one 16x and another 8x then forget it, just buy a good single card even if ithe mobo supports SLI/Crossfire.

Yep. Newegg says it has 2.0x16, but they lied. Sigh. The board says 2.0x16 and 2.0x8 right on it. Wtf @ newegg.

I did research it some and most say it doesn't really matter much if there's a x8 in there. I'd still rather just have one good card, though. Just don't know when to buy one. :C

[Raydeus]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Then it's SLI, which actually handles microstuttering a bit better, but nVidia cards tend to be pricier so there's some price hunting to make.

Just check your motherboard online to see if it supports it, which mainly means it having 2 or more PCIe 16x (2.0+) slots available. If it has one 16x and another 8x then forget it, just buy a good single card even if ithe mobo supports SLI/Crossfire.

[Etra]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

I shouldn't have any PS issues. At least, not for some time. And as far as crossfire comes into play, I'm not sure if my motherboard can do crossfire. I only remember reading it being built for whatever the Nvidia version of that is.

Edit: Or maybe it was the other way around? Neither are listed on newegg as being supported. Confused. Newegg.com - Intel BOXDP67BGB3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

[Raydeus]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

There's no real answer because it's more like a balancing act between budget, power, games you are actually going to play with it and how long you are planning to keep the card before upgrading again. But then that also applies to most components in a PC.

What I personally do is buy a generation behind. For instance right now it's the HD7000 series for AMD, so I bought heavily discounted pair of 6950 for crossfire.

Also, depending on your motherboard's capabilities you may consider Crossfire to get more bang for your buck, but this may come at the expense of increased energy consumption depending on which cards you choose. You also need to consider the effects of microstuttering is you are using GPUs in pairs. But that's another issue altogether.


TL;DR See what games you are going to actually play, that will give you the most info about what you'll need. Then it's all about your budget and price comparison.

---------- Post added at 07:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:38 PM ----------

PS > Also consider that depending on your choice you may need to upgrade your power supply.

[Etra]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

More funfun questions!

So I want to replace the card I have for it (since it's a low-end thing that I've had for two years or something now.) When is the best time to buy a new card? I know new cards get released quite soon, and the older ones will drop in price... Just don't know when they all "goes down."

[Raydeus]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

That's exactly it, and the difference is so negligible that unless you want to keep your HDDs working for a decade or two it wont make any difference whatsoever either way.

Shaking your computer while it's on on the other hand can and will damage/kill your HDDs. So if you are tinkering with it and need to move it around always remember to turn it off before the move.

[Etra]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Will the HDD wear out faster if I turn off idle? Just a general concern. (Or will it wear out faster having to come out of idle so often?)

[Aeni]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Don't forget that power conservation in the hard drive can be configured in the BIOS as well as the on-board hard drive BIOS (yes, hard drives have these, especially SSD - it's just not documented and common knowledge) In fact, if it's configurable in BIOS, then Windows is not going to be able to do anything on its own. So check there (especially if there is a S.M.A.R.T. like technology used in the hard drive)

I would disable this ... games like FFXIV will slow down or hit "lag spikes" more if your hard drive goes to sleep if you just afk for a couple of minutes.

[Armando]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

I don't think I've ever had a hard drive go "click" but that's good to know for future reference.

[Etra]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Ah okay. Thanks! I thought that's all it was, but wanted to make sure it wasn't failing or something...

[Raydeus]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Yeah, no worries. It's just that Windows turns it off after a time of inactivity to save energy. So it has to start spinning again when you want to access files in it.

Just need to go to Config (the one you get to by right clicking on the desktop) > Screen saver > Energy configuration.

There you can choose High performance settings and fancy stuff like keeping your hardware on all the time! You big energy spender!


Yeah, just leave it all on and save yourself the trouble.

---------- Post added at 10:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:29 PM ----------

PS > The click sound is the reader arm unlocking from it's "locked" position.

[Etra]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Should I be worried that my HDD goes into idle mode, and when I need to grab files from it, it sorta does a weird boot up noise and a click? Most of the stuff I run is on my SSD.

[Raydeus]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

Naked and hairless, like a mole?

Leave your shyness at the door, along with all synthetic fabrics.

[Armando]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

@Aeni: That sort of thing makes me glad I live someplace humid where static buildup just doesn't happen.

[Aeni]

Re: Taking the dive into PC building

As long as you assembly it while naked to avoid static buildup you should be fiiiiine.

Naked and hairless, like a mole?