1329 replies to this topic

[Gremlich Johns]

the Antec 300, 900 or 1200 cases are worth the money. Even the DF-85 is worthy of consideration.

[Conraire]

I'm confused as to why you recommend the Level10GT over the InWin Buc at the same price point. If you read the anandtech review, the Buc pretty much dominates everything else in the review in the same price point. And right now, both versions of the BUC are on sale for less than 100$

[Vulpesveritas]

Conraire, on 25 November 2012 - 11:55 AM, said:

I'm confused as to why you recommend the Level10GT over the InWin Buc at the same price point. If you read the anandtech review, the Buc pretty much dominates everything else in the review in the same price point. And right now, both versions of the BUC are on sale for less than 100$

Because I don't account for sale price, this guide only uses sale price. Sales are a nice thing, but they're not always there, hence I can only recommend what the MSRP would suggest it would be.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 25 November 2012 - 04:19 PM.

[Zephonarch II]

I'm using my second Windows 8 Toshiba i5-3210, 2.5Ghz, 8GB RAM, Quad-Core Laptop, pretty much everything meets recommended specifications. AND It is my second laptop because of compatibility errors with some games I installed ((XP games to newer games like Borderlands, the Steam Client, MWO)). This caused the stupid new emoticon BSOD. I couldn't reach the BIOS or use a recovery disc at all, like all the data was erased. NOW, I Don't know, which game had no proper virtual signature which caused the stupid SECURE BOOT and UEFI features to kick me out for good, but I need to know if Windows 8 supports MechWarrior. All the comments I've seen about this issue are outdated either involving the demo version of Win8, and comments saying "Just use Windows 7 and avoid the crap from Windows 8". please, Does MWO have a signed signature with Windows 8?

Edited by Zephonarch II, 25 November 2012 - 05:51 PM.

[Conraire]

Actually both of them have been at those prices on newegg for some time, going to assume it's not a sale. InWin Buc has been at $79.99 for a while now it seems. And the BUC 101 has been at $89.99. Even then when it's at msrp at $104.99 is still cheaper than the level10 series GTS, and quite clearly beats the level10 in the reviews.The BUC actually outperforms the level 10GT which is the $230 version of the case.

[Yes I Can]

I dug out an old Sidewinder Precision Pro (the version before the advent of USB) and wanted to use it with an old XP machine that still has a game port. The joystick was at first detected as it should be, and drivers installed. When I attepmted to calibrate it, it asked me to press some of the buttons, and then to move the rudder up and down. That did not quite seem to give the desired results (a blue bar supposed to empty or fill according to the movement of the stick jittered and was not really responsive to what I did), and then suddenly I received a popup message: "The device does not seem to be properly installed. Please check installation" or something to that effect. I deleted the stick and reinstalled several times, but the error persisted.
Would anyone have an idea what I could try to bring the joystick back to life?
Thanks!!!

[Swiss Beats]

I recently built a new computer and bought the first case in years since my Coolermaster CM Stacker. With so many new cases on the market by a number of old and new manufacturers it was dizzying trying to find the right case. I have a CompUSA locally so after a lot of trips back and forth surveying, taking notes, reading reviews etc. I decided on a Cougar Evolution case. At the time of purchase it was on sale at NewEgg for $69 after a MIR and CompUSA matched it, they were offering a $10 in-store instant promo.

I was really impressed and surprised being I had never heard of Cougar until now. The fit and finish was really good quality and considering it is a black interior case I figured it would be sprayed and missing areas that were not going to be visible but it was carried throughout the case. It has two 120mm fans included and I took up the remaining available slots adding my Panasonic fans from my previous build. I absolutely love Panasonic fans and have been using them since my watercooling days, they are champs.

Using a eATX motherboard I found it easy and roomy inside and with dual 660Ti cards as I have now I do not find it lacking space, adequate ventilation as well. I think my favorite though has been the hard drive cradles which are leagues better than what I was accustomed with in my CM case. I can pop them out with ease, swap drives and move them around in any sequence without a hassle, I love tool-less hard drive cradles. I have SATA and an SSD and both went in like a breeze. Cable routing can be hidden if that is your flavor which is also a plus for airflow in the case and the motherboard tray has a large cut out to access your CPU from the rear.

Lots of other stuff which for some is fluff, I have yet to use the top access hard drive dock or the integrated fan speed controller but I have them hooked up and eventually will get into that when I have more time. In all it is a great case for the money and if you are in the market it really deserves a good look.

[Kill Dozer]

I have an Antec 900 case (version 1) and while it doesn't have quick disconnect fittings for the hard disk trays it has excellent airflow. I'll continue to use it when i next upgrade my MB/cpu/ram.

[JadeViper]

I highly reccomend my coolermaster HAF full-tower case.

Its loud, but has fantastic cooling. (Loud because of the 4 maaasive case fans on the front, top, and side. plus the usual extras the rear!) The case itself isnt totally loud in and of itself, but I can hear my GPU fans easily. easy, easy access into the side panel to get inside, but secure and strong. Sealed runners inside to hide your extra cabling and keep it out of the case air-flow. The interior of the case will have no wires hanging around. a Brilliant airflow design, and a custom comp builder's dream. PSU is located at the bottom of the case, so rear-exhaust PSU's only.

It will fit any hardware you need. I pack 2x GTX460s 2gb each. Those are known to have heating problems, but with a HAF and MSI afterburner (free GPU custom fan controls) she runs cool and strong. Side case fan actually funnels the air current through the vid cards. Absolutely great performance and airflow. Tiger has them at $130.

Edited by JadeViper, 28 November 2012 - 06:14 PM.

[Vulpesveritas]

JadeViper, on 28 November 2012 - 06:08 PM, said:

I highly reccomend my coolermaster HAF full-tower case.

Its loud, but has fantastic cooling. (Loud because of the 4 maaasive case fans on the front, top, and side. plus the usual extras the rear!) The case itself isnt totally loud in and of itself, but I can hear my GPU fans easily. easy, easy access into the side panel to get inside, but secure and strong. Sealed runners inside to hide your extra cabling and keep it out of the case air-flow. The interior of the case will have no wires hanging around. a Brilliant airflow design, and a custom comp builder's dream. PSU is located at the bottom of the case, so rear-exhaust PSU's only.

It will fit any hardware you need. I pack 2x GTX460s 2gb each. Those are known to have heating problems, but with a HAF and MSI afterburner (free GPU custom fan controls) she runs cool and strong. Side case fan actually funnels the air current through the vid cards. Absolutely great performance and airflow. Tiger has them at $130.

The Rosewell Thor has same specifications and airflow for $10 less on a regular basis, with a lower MSRP at stock. (Which this guide is based on MSRP, not on sales / MIR/ etc.)

The Haf series is still good though.

[Sen]

http://www.newegg.co...65&Tpk=haf%20xb

$99, fits up to dual 140mm Rad, doubles as a test bench, and can fit E-ATX boards [barely, from experience]

Twice the stability and half the height. The downside? only room for 2 x 3.5" drives.

[Vulpesveritas]

Sen, on 29 November 2012 - 04:57 AM, said:

http://www.newegg.co...65&Tpk=haf%20xb

$99, fits up to dual 140mm Rad, doubles as a test bench, and can fit E-ATX boards [barely, from experience]

Twice the stability and half the height. The downside? only room for 2 x 3.5" drives.

Yeah the new XB is pretty awesome. It is taking the cooling spot at $100 once I update this thread in a month or so. Unless something comes out to beat it in that time of course.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 29 November 2012 - 05:33 AM.

[TheFoxyShortBus]

Myth 2: Isn't actually a myth, but its a "myth" to most people.

There is a saturation point on PCI-E lanes. Most people won't see it with a dual GPU set up, and you most definitely won't see it on a single GPU set up (the cards will choke before the lanes do.) This is only a problem at extremely high resolutions, ie triple 1920x1080 monitors on triple to quad card set ups. This has been proven by tech power-up as well as tom's. You can see a performance decrease in frame rate from over saturation of the lanes and therefore not enough texture data is making it through. With 16 PCI-E 2.0 lanes you will not see it on dual cards, but if you are running a large display with cards running with large memory interfaces and buffers there is evidence proving there is a performance drop. (they showed this by switching to a 32x lane board and saw a significant increase in FPS for same system (roughly, as it usually shows a cross over in CPU's but they were comparable.)

So while 90% of the gaming community will never see anything related to it (as the card(s) will be overwhelmed first, or HDD, etc etc) There is issues at very high resolutions that there just isn't enough bandwidth at 16 lanes to drive high textures at resolutions that high.

Here is some source material.

http://hardocp.com/a...16x16_vs_x8x8/3
http://www.anandtech...ocking-and-msaa
(granted there could be user error, but it looks pretty through to me)

Like I stated earlier, this is only apparent at extremely high resolutions where there is a large amount of data being passed through with textures and what not. Hence why it appears to be a myth.
Just stating my knowledge on this fact, you can take it with a grain of salt if you desire, but the evidence is there.

[Vulpesveritas]

TheFoxyShortBus, on 30 November 2012 - 02:13 AM, said:

Myth 2: Isn't actually a myth, but its a "myth" to most people.

There is a saturation point on PCI-E lanes. Most people won't see it with a dual GPU set up, and you most definitely won't see it on a single GPU set up (the cards will choke before the lanes do.) This is only a problem at extremely high resolutions, ie triple 1920x1080 monitors on triple to quad card set ups. This has been proven by tech power-up as well as tom's. You can see a performance decrease in frame rate from over saturation of the lanes and therefore not enough texture data is making it through. With 16 PCI-E 2.0 lanes you will not see it on dual cards, but if you are running a large display with cards running with large memory interfaces and buffers there is evidence proving there is a performance drop. (they showed this by switching to a 32x lane board and saw a significant increase in FPS for same system (roughly, as it usually shows a cross over in CPU's but they were comparable.)

So while 90% of the gaming community will never see anything related to it (as the card(s) will be overwhelmed first, or HDD, etc etc) There is issues at very high resolutions that there just isn't enough bandwidth at 16 lanes to drive high textures at resolutions that high.

Here is some source material.

http://hardocp.com/a...16x16_vs_x8x8/3
http://www.anandtech...ocking-and-msaa
(granted there could be user error, but it looks pretty through to me)

Like I stated earlier, this is only apparent at extremely high resolutions where there is a large amount of data being passed through with textures and what not. Hence why it appears to be a myth.
Just stating my knowledge on this fact, you can take it with a grain of salt if you desire, but the evidence is there.

All that goes to show is that there is no loss of performance outside of a considerably reasonable margin of error on the fastest currently available single chip GPUs on PCI-e 2.0 x16 or PCI-e 3.0 x8 or x16.

How many people are running 690s or 7990s? (Especially seeing as they're not as cost effective or perform as well as a standard crossfire / SLI setup)

[Achaian]

so with a sapphire 6670 GDDR5 does the game run smooth at a 1080p resolution?

[Youngblood]

Achaian, on 30 November 2012 - 09:04 AM, said:

so with a sapphire 6670 GDDR5 does the game run smooth at a 1080p resolution?

Depends on your CPU. If you're running it with an AMD Trinity APU, it's highly likely you will get 30 FPS+. Just so you know, even with an overclocked Phenom II X4 Black Edition I can't get the game to stay at 60FPS all the time even on my 7970.

[Vulpesveritas]

Achaian, on 30 November 2012 - 09:04 AM, said:

so with a sapphire 6670 GDDR5 does the game run smooth at a 1080p resolution?

In hybrid crossfire, maybe on low, but in all likelihood you're going to need a more powerful card to run the game smoothly at 1080p, at least a AMD Radeon HD 7770 / Nvidia Geforce GTX 650ti.

[Swiss Beats]

EVGA GTX 660 Ti 2GB here, it is smaller, runs cooler and at high settings with v-sync off I average 40+ frames.. across three 24" monitors at 5960 x 1080. If I mess around with the user.cfg manually I am sure I can peg it at 60 like I do at medium settings. On a single monitor, high settings it is off the charts.

[Gremlich Johns]

currently using an OC'd FX-4100 (stock 3.6 GHz now at just 3.974 GHZ on a 750W pwrsply w/liquid cooler - more OC next week - some have gotten an FX-4100 to a "stable" 4.4 GHz), M5A97 mobo and a single GTX560 Ti fermi superclocked (driving 2Xmonitors at 1920x1080 w/35-45 FPS on the one monitor used for gaming).

[Sinluien]

thanks for this, maybe i wont have to argue as much with people now. good thread!