Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, JustAnEngineer
Tharbad wrote:Would your VM applications benefit from the VT-d support in the non-K Intel processors?Intel Core i7-3770K Tray - 433$
Tharbad wrote:This should work fine. You might get similar performance for $37 with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo.Antech KUHLER H2O 920 - 107$ Is this too much for the 3770K?
Tharbad wrote:If you're going to get 16 GiB, why not get 2x8 GiB instead of 4x4 GiB?Memory: G. Skill Ares 4x4GB 2133MHz - 210$
Tharbad wrote:Why should that take 2 graphics cards?GPU: I need 2 GPU (3 Monitors + 1 TV to connect).
JustAnEngineer wrote:Tharbad wrote:Would your VM applications benefit from the VT-d support in the non-K Intel processors?Intel Core i7-3770K Tray - 433$
Do your applications benefit greatly from hyper-threading, or would the cheaper Core i5-3570K provide almost equal performance with its four true cores?
JustAnEngineer wrote:Tharbad wrote:This should work fine. You might get similar performance for $37 with the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo.Antech KUHLER H2O 920 - 107$ Is this too much for the 3770K?
JustAnEngineer wrote:Tharbad wrote:If you're going to get 16 GiB, why not get 2x8 GiB instead of 4x4 GiB?Memory: G. Skill Ares 4x4GB 2133MHz - 210$
JustAnEngineer wrote:Tharbad wrote:Why should that take 2 graphics cards?GPU: I need 2 GPU (3 Monitors + 1 TV to connect).
Radeon HD7850 for $235-15MIR can drive 1 DVI + 2 DisplayPort + 1 HDMI output easily
superjawes wrote:Sort of a side question because I'm curious...there's no need to match GPUs if you're just doing multi monitor setups, correct? (I ask because it came up.)
DPete27 wrote:1) Not sure why you're even considering SSD caching. With a 128GB SSD you should be installing the OS on it which will be much faster than using caching.
DPete27 wrote:2) The 7770 and 7850 are hardly similar in terms of performance. It looks like you'll be doing eyefinity gaming? If so a 7950 with 3GB of memory should offer a decent amount of mulit-monitor gaming longevity for around $360.
DPete27 wrote:3) If you're interested in quietness, you should be looking at ASUS boards as they offer by far the best fan controls of any manufacturer.
DPete27 wrote:4) Yes the 3770K will overclock to around 4.5GHz without any voltage increase. The performance gains by having HT vary depending on what task you are performing. Make sure the difference is significant before you spend $200 more for it as opposed to a 3570K. (Ed. Have a glance through this article. You won't see any difference in gaming)
DPete27 wrote:5) You wont keep a 3750K or 3770K at 40c under full load even with water if the ambient temp is 30c.
DPete27 wrote:6) Are you REALLY into overclocking? If not, the performance difference between 2133MHz and 1600MHz RAM is only about 4% or less in many cases.
glacius555 wrote:I'd go with Seasonic X-760, or X-series in general, probably best you can get for a price that is still reasonable.
JustAnEngineer wrote:Your first monitor can use DVI. Your second one can use either DVI or HDMI. Monitors three and four must use DisplayPort.
If your monitors lack a DisplayPort input, you can use an active mini-DisplayPort to DVI adapter.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812200944
Note that the single-link DVI adapters are only good up to 1920x1200. If your monitor has a higher resolution, you'll need a more expensive dual-link DVI adapter.
Bensam123 wrote:Some important notes.
You don't need an amazing cooler if you don't plan to overclock. Pretty much any of the big radiator type coolers are adequate for low noise levels. There isn't a huge concern as far as how hot they get. I've seen mine around 55c and that's normal (i7 -820). Even if it starts overheating, which it wont with the stock heatsink unless you're building a mini-itx system with absolutely zero airflow, it will clock down the CPU. Spending $100 on a cooler is a waste IMHO.
CPUs now days are a lot more effecient then they used to be and heatsinks now days are a lot better then they used to be as well. Cooling is past it's prime unless you're overclocking like I said.
Bensam123 wrote:You don't really need to use Intels smart caching thing. Just get a good SSD
Bensam123 wrote:Get 2x8GB dimms so you have room to expand in the future. Almost all memory is made the same, unless you're overclocking it. Really expensive memory doesn't make it better.
Bensam123 wrote:Radeons only support two monitors at the same time. If you want to use three or more, each additional monitor after needs an active display port adapter. They're about $30-$40 a piece. You can find these on Amazon. This was present in the 5XXX, 6XXX, and 7XXX series. I don't know if it'll be that way for future graphics cards. Displayport can be converted to DVI or HDMI with cheap adapters, also found on Amazon.
7950 is a pretty good price point or the 7870, I suggest looking at the articles on the front page if you need help deciding on this.
Bensam123 wrote:You don't need a ultra-uber-mega-overpowered PSU. A 500w PSU from a good reputable company would be good enough for such a setup. If you're doing crossfire or sli you probably want around 700w. Get one that is 80+ gold with active PFC.
End User wrote:You don't need VT-d to run a VM. All you really need is VT-x (which is a feature of the 3770K). You do need VT-d if you want to directly assign hardware to a VM:
I/O MMU virtualization (AMD-Vi and VT-d)
"An input/output memory management unit (IOMMU) enables guest virtual machines to directly use peripheral devices, such as Ethernet, accelerated graphics cards, and hard-drive controllers, through DMA and interrupt remapping. This is sometimes called PCI passthrough."
source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT-d#I.2FO ... nd_VT-d.29
JustAnEngineer wrote:You can just plug your regular DVI cable into the mini-DisplayPort to DVI active adapter.
Tharbad wrote:glacius555 wrote:I'd go with Seasonic X-760, or X-series in general, probably best you can get for a price that is still reasonable.
You're saying it because of the 80+ Gold and all the certifications or something else?
Bensam123 wrote:Not so.Radeons only support two monitors at the same time.
DPete27 wrote:Use a power supply calculator to determine the recommended wattage of your system. Make sure you input for things that you may be planning down the road also (ie crossfire). The recommended wattage is roughly twice what your actual system will draw. Thats because PSU's are most efficient at/around 50% load. I'm getting around 550W recommended for dual 7950's and an i7-3770K.
DPete27 wrote:Use a power supply calculator to determine the recommended wattage of your system. Make sure you input for things that you may be planning down the road also (ie crossfire). The recommended wattage is roughly twice what your actual system will draw. Thats because PSU's are most efficient at/around 50% load. I'm getting around 550W recommended for dual 7950's and an i7-3770K.
My understanding is that multi-monitor setups benefit from more graphics memory and additional memory bandwidth. Hence going with a 7950 with 3GB of 384-bit GDDR5 would be advantageous over 2GB of 256-bit.
I'll second Bensam that water cooling isn't worth it. Sure you get an extra 5C of cooling and they look neat, but you have to consider the dangers of leaks and such. An air cooler will never destroy your computer. I recommend getting a Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO for $35 (look at all the 5 star reviews!!!)
DPete27 wrote:As far as I know, ssd caching only applies to the hard drive which has the OS installed.
DPete27 wrote:You're being counter-intuitive with your cooling mindset. If you want a quiet system, you can certainly buy low fixed rpm fans and run them at 100%. But if you want the cooling performance you're talking about, you need fans that can spin up when the system gets hot under load. Then while you're playing games with your headphones on, your fans can spin up and keep the system nice and cool and return to silent when you're done.
DPete27 wrote:Perhaps someone else can chime in to the necessity of 8 threads as opposed to 4 for VMs. That's not my area of expertise, but I thought storage throughput and have enough memory were more important than how many CPU cores you had.
DPete27 wrote:It just sounds to me like you're going with unnecessary overkill for your needs with almost everything in this build.
glacius555 wrote:Tharbad wrote:glacius555 wrote:I'd go with Seasonic X-760, or X-series in general, probably best you can get for a price that is still reasonable.
You're saying it because of the 80+ Gold and all the certifications or something else?
I'm saying it because of the Seasonic's impeccable reputation - best components, highest build quality and long warranty. Basically, I am recommending something that is unlikely to fail in the long run, along with having enough and extra juice for whatever you may throw at it. Actually, I'd go with Corsair AX750 instead, it is based on the same platform and has 7-year warranty.
If it was me, I'd buy SeaSonic Platinum-860 for $189 on newegg TODAY, last day when it is down from $219. This series is what sets the highest level of quality at the moment, 7-year warranty.
Make no mistake, these are the units reviewers of power supplies would probably use themselves.
glacius555 wrote:DPete27 wrote:Use a power supply calculator to determine the recommended wattage of your system. Make sure you input for things that you may be planning down the road also (ie crossfire). The recommended wattage is roughly twice what your actual system will draw. Thats because PSU's are most efficient at/around 50% load. I'm getting around 550W recommended for dual 7950's and an i7-3770K.
Not really. Reviews I am seeing show that units he wanna buy show efficiency above 80% at any load.
Tharbad wrote:The 80+ certification Check PSU at 20%, 50% and 100% load. The 80+ score (bronze, gold and so on) is determined by the 50% load.
I have no idea why they use 50% and 75% like in servers...
JustAnEngineer wrote:Bensam123 wrote:Not so.Radeons only support two monitors at the same time.
With the Radeon 7xxx series, you get:
one dual-link DVI port
one single-link DVI port or one HDMI 1.4a port (only one of these can be in use at a time)
two or more mini-DisplayPort 1.2 ports (these can support active hubs to split to even more monitors)
The simplest solution by far is to purchase a good monitor with DisplayPort inputs (like the Dell UltraSharp U2410, U2711 or U3011), but active adapters will work with DVI or HDMI.
Tharbad wrote:I want to overclock, but just a little (to 4GHz). Is it worth it?
Tharbad wrote:I'll use a SSD for the OS but my games will be installed on a black cavier. I thought that if I'll add SSD caching for the cavier, I'll get better performance for games. As it appears from recent replies I may be wrong. So for that specific use of SRT, I'll get any benefit?
Tharbad wrote:
OK. So should I chose the Ripjaws X or the Ares?
Tharbad wrote:This is a question that I cant answer. Based on the recent replies I think I'll take one 7950 or 7870 now and another one next year when the price fall.
For better Crossfire, I need the same model?
Bensam123 wrote:You followed up a blatantly false statement with some contradictory statements (which merely repeated what had been posted three messages prior to yours). I was trying to get the truth out there.JustAnEngineer wrote:You didn't read like the sentence after it before replying.Bensam123 wrote:Not so.Radeons only support two monitors at the same time.
With the Radeon 7xxx series, you get:
one dual-link DVI port
one single-link DVI port or one HDMI 1.4a port (only one of these can be in use at a time)
two or more mini-DisplayPort 1.2 ports (these can support active hubs to split to even more monitors)
The simplest solution by far is to purchase a good monitor with DisplayPort inputs (like the Dell UltraSharp U2410, U2711 or U3011), but active adapters will work with DVI or HDMI.
Bensam123 wrote:Tharbad wrote:I want to overclock, but just a little (to 4GHz). Is it worth it?
Chrispy_ wrote:Just an FYI:
You will not run games realeased in four years time across 3 1080p monitors with a card bought today; People are moaning about stagnation of graphics in games because of consoles, but BF3 pushes the envelope and there will always be games that need more power.
Four years ago, the most powerful card you could get was a GTX280. Today, running BF3 on high details, that GTX280 would struggle to average 25fps on just one, average-looking 1080p screen. The words you are looking for are "choppy", "unplayable" and "depressing"
Buy the cheapest card that will handle todays games at today's resolutions and upgrade it when you NEED to. Doing anything else is a waste of your money, unless you consider "having a big e-peen" valuable;
That $650 GTX280 in the summer of 2008 was already slower than a $150 GTX460(768) a paltry two years later. That's a mere two years for $500 of depreciation, and two whole years of having a hot, noisy, power-guzzling, top-end GPU sitting in your PC when a G92 (9800GTX) would have done the same job for a third of the price.
Tharbad wrote:OK. So should I chose the Ripjaws X or the Ares?
glacius555 wrote:DPete27 wrote:Use a power supply calculator to determine the recommended wattage of your system. Make sure you input for things that you may be planning down the road also (ie crossfire). The recommended wattage is roughly twice what your actual system will draw. Thats because PSU's are most efficient at/around 50% load. I'm getting around 550W recommended for dual 7950's and an i7-3770K.Not really. Reviews I am seeing show that units he wanna buy show efficiency above 80% at any load.
Chrispy_ wrote:You will not run games realeased in four years time across 3 1080p monitors with a card bought today
DPete27 wrote:glacius555 wrote:DPete27 wrote:Use a power supply calculator to determine the recommended wattage of your system. Make sure you input for things that you may be planning down the road also (ie crossfire). The recommended wattage is roughly twice what your actual system will draw. Thats because PSU's are most efficient at/around 50% load. I'm getting around 550W recommended for dual 7950's and an i7-3770K.Not really. Reviews I am seeing show that units he wanna buy show efficiency above 80% at any load.
What I said was that peak efficiency occurs around 50% load, which you can see in almost any anandtech PSU review. Shooting for 50% PSU load now also gives you a little reserve wattage in case of heavy usage or future unpredicted hardware additions.
KinCT wrote:Sorry, jumping in very late to the conversation.
Tharbad, sounds like you do VM's now, but perhaps on another (older?) PC? What I do in this regard is have 1 primary rig that I use for BOTH gaming and VM work. I just have my SSD split into 2 partitions - one for Win7, one for Win2k8R2. Obviously, I use the Win7 partition for the fun side of life (gaming, whatever) and the Win2k8R2 partition to run VMWare Server on. That way, my most powerful PC in the house does both jobs - really well. My current "PC/Server" is 25 months old - AMD 1090T (6 core), 16 GB RAM, 120 GB SSD (OSes), 2x 2 TB drives (RAID 0). I have a lot of VM images (different OSes, different software releases, different DBMSes). This is the route I take vs a dedicated "server". Usually, after 2 years, I "food chain" the PC to the other members of the family. Currently running elsewhere in the house are an Intel Q6600 box (8 GB RAM) and an Opteron "172.5" (an overclocked Opteron 165) with 4 GB RAM.
If your VMware usage is intensive and varied (like mine), RAM is absolutely key (having lots of VMs running at once), CPU threads is extremely important (more=better!), and disk capacity is also really important (e.g. keeping backups of VMs, just having a number of VMs out there).
Current primary rig is also used for Eyefinity - I have a 5870 in there with three IPS monitors (NEC Multisync EA231 WMi). I like Eyefinity a lot.... Even on the Win2k8 side, I use the three monitors to have many things running & showing at once.
Tharbad wrote:About the RAM: It's appears that I was wrong and there are only 1333MHz 2x8GB DIMM so I'll use 4x4GB.
Tharbad wrote:About the water cooling: The cooler is quieter than the Evo?