Personal computing discussed

Moderators: renee, JustAnEngineer

 
Pax-UX
Gerbil Elite
Topic Author
Posts: 792
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:33 am
Location: Ireland

Building advice for Small gaming rig

Thu Jul 04, 2013 4:37 am

Looking to build a new system, needs to be very small but still pack a punch and host a GTX 780 (no SLI requirement). Was thinking mATX but have never built a system in that size class. Overclocking isn't important but it's something I might do down the road, so will be picking up the K part. Already have some parts, so not a complete fresh build.

Big question is what Case to use??? It needs to be as small as possible but still fit...

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K
Mobo: Asus GRYPHON Z87 S1150 or Gigabyte Z87MX-D3H or Need some advice
Sound: Not sure what to do; Good on board will do me, or if it's small and fits into the case; then a good cheap card.
PSU: >650w What to get? needs to be compatible with Haswell power stuff
RAM: Corsair 16GB (2 x 8GB) Vengeance Pro Red DDR3 1866MHz CL9 (still to purchase)
HDs: (3) 1x 256MD SSD; 1x 150GB Raptor (TEMP/Pagefile/Dump); 1x 3TB Storage (already have)
GFX: nVidia GTX 780 (already have)

Going with 16GB (2x8) RAM modules, so have the option to move to 32GB at a later point; so will be using Windows 8.1 :( This is purely a gaming rig, do all my day to day stuff on a laptop.
"What luck for rulers, that men do not think"
 
Diplomacy42
Gerbil
Posts: 63
Joined: Sat Sep 01, 2012 2:56 pm

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Thu Jul 04, 2013 6:21 am

are you looking for a cube, an xbone or a vcr type profile?

honestly, I wouldn't get the k chip, btw. not worth it for the extra 200 mhz. there are good deals on non-k chips.
 
Pax-UX
Gerbil Elite
Topic Author
Posts: 792
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:33 am
Location: Ireland

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Thu Jul 04, 2013 7:49 am

Diplomacy42 wrote:
are you looking for a cube, an xbone or a vcr type profile?

Haven't really got a preference, was looking at something like the Zalman ZM-T1 Mini-Tower Black, but it has issue with non standard PSU sizes from reading reviews. Would looking for something like a Mini-Tower, not a VCR / Desktop type design.
"What luck for rulers, that men do not think"
 
JustAnEngineer
Gerbil God
Posts: 19673
Joined: Sat Jan 26, 2002 7:00 pm
Location: The Heart of Dixie

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:27 am

Your GeForce GTX780 is 10½" long. Be certain that the small cases that you consider will accept a two-slot graphics card of that length.

Micro-ATX's four PCIe slots provide sufficient room for most enthusiast PCs (provided that you don't suffer from Crossfire-X/SLI insanity). My micro-ATX gaming PC is working very well in a Silverstone Temjin TJ08-E, reviewed here. Ventilation in this small case is excellent thanks to a giant 180mm fan at the front. All of the air inlets have filters that can be cleaned easily. Are you wanting the micro-ATX case to be small to make it portable? The SUGO SG04-FH includes a carrying handle. The SUGO SG10 reviewed here isn't as tall.

If you go down to the mini-ITX form factor (going from four PCIe slots to just one with something like the ASRock Z87E-ITX reviewed here), consider the Silverstone SUGO SG08.
· R7-5800X, Liquid Freezer II 280, RoG Strix X570-E, 64GiB PC4-28800, Suprim Liquid RTX4090, 2TB SX8200Pro +4TB S860 +NAS, Define 7 Compact, Super Flower SF-1000F14TP, S3220DGF +32UD99, FC900R OE, DeathAdder2
 
Chrispy_
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4670
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 3:49 pm
Location: Europe, most frequently London.

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:43 am

For mATX towers, look at the Silverstone TJ08-E or the Fractal Arc Mini. I love Corsair's mATX box but it's significantly larger than your average Full-ATX tower.

For Cube cases, most of the newer Silverstone Sugo cases are good, though fussy to build in. Otherwise look at the Coolermaster Elite 120.
Congratulations, you've noticed that this year's signature is based on outdated internet memes; CLICK HERE NOW to experience this unforgettable phenomenon. This sentence is just filler and as irrelevant as my signature.
 
Airmantharp
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6192
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:41 pm

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Thu Jul 04, 2013 9:40 am

Diplomacy42 wrote:
are you looking for a cube, an xbone or a vcr type profile?

honestly, I wouldn't get the k chip, btw. not worth it for the extra 200 mhz. there are good deals on non-k chips.


This is lunacy; probably why no one else has mentioned it. Do you know what forum you are posting on?
 
Chrispy_
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4670
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 3:49 pm
Location: Europe, most frequently London.

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Thu Jul 04, 2013 1:39 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
Diplomacy42 wrote:
are you looking for a cube, an xbone or a vcr type profile?

honestly, I wouldn't get the k chip, btw. not worth it for the extra 200 mhz. there are good deals on non-k chips.


This is lunacy; probably why no one else has mentioned it. Do you know what forum you are posting on?


Uh, exactly.

Even in a small gaming case with a mediocre air cooler, Haswell still overclocks above 4GHz, pretty much guaranteed. Unlike Ivy and definitely unlike Sandy, Haswell starts to need extra voltage and cooling at anything north of 4.4 based on various early reports from forums here, at Anand, THG (shudder), [H] and Bit-Tech.

So, if 4.3 BASE clock is a reasonable expectation whilst maintaining sensible voltages, temperatures and noise levels, why would you settle for 3.4GHz? The only advantage to non-K is vPro and VT-d which are no use for gaming whatsoever.

The useful thing for gaming is definitely clockspeed - because that is your limiting factor on the (typically) single thread bottlenecking the game engine, and also the reason that higher-clocked Bulldozer/Piledriver dual-module/quad-core processors like the FX4350 massively outperform their lower-clocked quad-module/eight-core siblings in games.
Congratulations, you've noticed that this year's signature is based on outdated internet memes; CLICK HERE NOW to experience this unforgettable phenomenon. This sentence is just filler and as irrelevant as my signature.
 
Pax-UX
Gerbil Elite
Topic Author
Posts: 792
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:33 am
Location: Ireland

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 4:52 am

@JustAnEngineer Wow! that SG04-FH is small, it's a pity the PSU goes over CPU, otherwise that would be an awesome case. The SG10 looks a near perfect fit for what I'm trying to build will have to see where I can pick one in Ireland.

@Chrispy_ That Fractal Arc Mini looks nice, but am pretty sure the internal drives will be in the way of the GFX card. Had the same problem with a Gigabyte case.

Anybody built a rig using a Cooler Master N200? http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product ... _name=N200 It's half the price of a similar SilverStone case and has most of the features?
"What luck for rulers, that men do not think"
 
Chrispy_
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4670
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 3:49 pm
Location: Europe, most frequently London.

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 8:25 am

Pax-UX wrote:
@Chrispy_ That Fractal Arc Mini looks nice, but am pretty sure the internal drives will be in the way of the GFX card. Had the same problem with a Gigabyte case.


If you are are seriously interested in the Arc Mini, the drive cage is split in two, the top three drive bays can be taken out to give longer cards more space.
Congratulations, you've noticed that this year's signature is based on outdated internet memes; CLICK HERE NOW to experience this unforgettable phenomenon. This sentence is just filler and as irrelevant as my signature.
 
Pax-UX
Gerbil Elite
Topic Author
Posts: 792
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:33 am
Location: Ireland

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 8:32 am

Chrispy_ wrote:
Pax-UX wrote:
@Chrispy_ That Fractal Arc Mini looks nice, but am pretty sure the internal drives will be in the way of the GFX card. Had the same problem with a Gigabyte case.


If you are are seriously interested in the Arc Mini, the drive cage is split in two, the top three drive bays can be taken out to give longer cards more space.

Ahhh! I missed that
"What luck for rulers, that men do not think"
 
DPete27
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Posts: 3776
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:50 pm
Location: Wisconsin, USA

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 8:52 am

Pax-UX wrote:
CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K

Obviously you have a pretty high budget (GTX 780), but did you know that i7's don't perform much better than i5's for gaming?

Pax-UX wrote:
1x 150GB Raptor (TEMP/Pagefile/Dump)

Why?

Pax-UX wrote:
PSU: >650w What to get? needs to be compatible with Haswell power stuff

How about a Seasonic X650 Gold?

I see you're in Ireland? Where do you shop for components?
Main: i5-3570K, ASRock Z77 Pro4-M, MSI RX480 8G, 500GB Crucial BX100, 2 TB Samsung EcoGreen F4, 16GB 1600MHz G.Skill @1.25V, EVGA 550-G2, Silverstone PS07B
HTPC: A8-5600K, MSI FM2-A75IA-E53, 4TB Seagate SSHD, 8GB 1866MHz G.Skill, Crosley D-25 Case Mod
 
Pax-UX
Gerbil Elite
Topic Author
Posts: 792
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:33 am
Location: Ireland

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 9:26 am

@DPete27
I normally buy high end stuff, that way I do a refresh about every 2 years, sometimes skipping a Gen. Might overclock, but there's very little between i5 / i7; except for the price. I might still go i5-4670k. IMO we will see better use of Mutli-core in future games because of the XB1 / PS4 are x86_64 mutli-core.

Have a 5 year 150GB Raptor from the days before SSD, an old boot drive / game drive. I now us it in my current gaming rig as pagesys / temp system. Also games I want to keep available but don't play much I install onto that device, while my SSD 256GB gets all the new games or stuff I'll be using for a long time.

Cool will have to do some reading up on that PSU.
"What luck for rulers, that men do not think"
 
Pax-UX
Gerbil Elite
Topic Author
Posts: 792
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:33 am
Location: Ireland

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 9:27 am

Oh, forgot.... Get my stuff from places like Dabs, Komplett and Amazon.co.uk never buy anything in store in Ireland; overpriced most of the time.
"What luck for rulers, that men do not think"
 
DragonDaddyBear
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 985
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2009 8:01 am

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 10:23 am

Chrispy_ wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
Diplomacy42 wrote:
are you looking for a cube, an xbone or a vcr type profile?

honestly, I wouldn't get the k chip, btw. not worth it for the extra 200 mhz. there are good deals on non-k chips.


This is lunacy; probably why no one else has mentioned it. Do you know what forum you are posting on?


Uh, exactly.

Even in a small gaming case with a mediocre air cooler, Haswell still overclocks above 4GHz, pretty much guaranteed. Unlike Ivy and definitely unlike Sandy, Haswell starts to need extra voltage and cooling at anything north of 4.4 based on various early reports from forums here, at Anand, THG (shudder), [H] and Bit-Tech.

So, if 4.3 BASE clock is a reasonable expectation whilst maintaining sensible voltages, temperatures and noise levels, why would you settle for 3.4GHz? The only advantage to non-K is vPro and VT-d which are no use for gaming whatsoever.

The useful thing for gaming is definitely clockspeed - because that is your limiting factor on the (typically) single thread bottlenecking the game engine, and also the reason that higher-clocked Bulldozer/Piledriver dual-module/quad-core processors like the FX4350 massively outperform their lower-clocked quad-module/eight-core siblings in games.


Depending on budget and intention to OC, the K is not an ideal choice. I'll have to go AMD, non K-series, or the $$ platform because I'd like to be able to do VM's and play with other OS's. Now, if it's only for gaming, sure, go for the K chip. But also remember that very few games are CPU bound these days, too. Depending on the budget, moving to a non-K or down to an i5 may be an option.

The Bitfenix Prodigy is a highly regarded small-tower Mini-ITX case worth considering, too.
 
Pax-UX
Gerbil Elite
Topic Author
Posts: 792
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:33 am
Location: Ireland

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 10:46 am

My current gaming rig is i5 3570 with the vm tech and is being moved over to run as a VM rig, has 16GB. I work with DBS and java middleware so plan to run lots of Linux vitrualboxes on that older kit. Great for sand boxing

Next system is gaming only and needs to be small. for starters it will running on a 120hz 22" 3d monitor. I might in the future connect it up to a tv if I can find a 120hz dvi 1080p 52 inch led with no input lag. I have hated 60hz tech for years, always gamed at 100hz on CRT. Good aa and 1080p at 120hz is more important then 4k or other high res displays. I don't do DTP so that extra real state is wasted on me and game texture are low even for 1080p
"What luck for rulers, that men do not think"
 
DPete27
Grand Gerbil Poohbah
Posts: 3776
Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:50 pm
Location: Wisconsin, USA

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 10:54 am

Pax-UX wrote:
I normally buy high end stuff, that way I do a refresh about every 2 years, sometimes skipping a Gen.

Complete system refresh every 2 years? Buy an i5 since that's whats needed now and save the $100 for an i7 in 2 years if the difference between 4c and 4c/8t performance in games have improved.
Main: i5-3570K, ASRock Z77 Pro4-M, MSI RX480 8G, 500GB Crucial BX100, 2 TB Samsung EcoGreen F4, 16GB 1600MHz G.Skill @1.25V, EVGA 550-G2, Silverstone PS07B
HTPC: A8-5600K, MSI FM2-A75IA-E53, 4TB Seagate SSHD, 8GB 1866MHz G.Skill, Crosley D-25 Case Mod
 
Airmantharp
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6192
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:41 pm

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 12:20 pm

"Very few games are CPU-bound these days"

This is the BS spewed by someone that only reads reviews, and then doesn't really understand what benchmarks actually mean.

Benchmarks cannot benchmark playability, yet that's exactly what you're building a gaming computer for. And yeah, games are definitely still CPU constrained, just not as much as they have been. That's still no reason to leave performance on the table, when Intel makes it so easy to get the most out of their CPUs. And they will still run VMs just dandy, by the way; they just won't support them as well as a non-K CPU would. Real production VMs would be run on Xeons.
 
JustAnEngineer
Gerbil God
Posts: 19673
Joined: Sat Jan 26, 2002 7:00 pm
Location: The Heart of Dixie

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 5:56 pm

For your small case, you want a power supply with modular cabling. You might also look for 80+ Gold or Platinum ratings just for the higher efficiency. Higher efficiency = less heat generation in the PSU.
· R7-5800X, Liquid Freezer II 280, RoG Strix X570-E, 64GiB PC4-28800, Suprim Liquid RTX4090, 2TB SX8200Pro +4TB S860 +NAS, Define 7 Compact, Super Flower SF-1000F14TP, S3220DGF +32UD99, FC900R OE, DeathAdder2
 
JustAnEngineer
Gerbil God
Posts: 19673
Joined: Sat Jan 26, 2002 7:00 pm
Location: The Heart of Dixie

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 6:11 pm

Pax-UX wrote:
That SG04-FH is small, it's a pity the PSU goes over CPU, otherwise that would be an awesome case.
Here's how someone solved that problem:
http://www.slideshare.net/MLROlson/silv ... -matx-case

Silverstone recommends the NT06-E.
· R7-5800X, Liquid Freezer II 280, RoG Strix X570-E, 64GiB PC4-28800, Suprim Liquid RTX4090, 2TB SX8200Pro +4TB S860 +NAS, Define 7 Compact, Super Flower SF-1000F14TP, S3220DGF +32UD99, FC900R OE, DeathAdder2
 
DragonDaddyBear
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 985
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2009 8:01 am

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 10:13 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
This is the BS spewed by someone that only reads reviews, and then doesn't really understand what benchmarks actually mean.
Show me some metric that shows that games are CPU bound these days and I'll beleive what you say. See TR's ground-breaking latency test as an example.
http://techreport.com/review/24879/inte ... reviewed/9
Although it might not seem so since four of the five CPUs tested average 60 FPS or higher, Crysis 3 is actually a fairly CPU-intensive game, at least in spots. The biggest frame time spikes in the plots above happen at the two places where I unleash an exploding arrow at the bad guys. Those spikes tend to be larger on the slower processors. The Core i7-4770K isn't much faster than the 2600K or 3770K, but it does reduce the duration of the slowdowns encountered with every one of the CPUs. Trouble is, the differences are really small.
*Bold is my emphasis
Yeah, I don't play the latest games, but I find TR to be a reputible source of information.

I bring up VM's as an issue because many of us are IT focused and may want to train on a VM at home (I have) and the lack of VT-d is an often over-looked feature. Judging by the fact the individual buys new hardware every ~2 years, OC, I would think, is not a high priority. It turns out the individual has a plan for VM's but using old hardware that has VT-d. I still think, however, since it's mini-ITX there won't be a lot of OC unless more exotic cooling is used. But that's my opinion, which they asked for, and what ever makes them happy is fine by me.

+1 for modular PSU and Gold Rating. I've also seen PSUs fail and kill motherboards and other parts, so a high-quality unit is a high priority IMO.
 
DragonDaddyBear
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 985
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2009 8:01 am

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Fri Jul 05, 2013 10:17 pm

Pax-UX wrote:
Mobo: Asus GRYPHON Z87 S1150 or Gigabyte Z87MX-D3H or Need some advice
Sound: Not sure what to do; Good on board will do me, or if it's small and fits into the case; then a good cheap card.


TR just reviewed an ASRock board. I personally like decent audio. But space is an issue with your build, so this is an option with decent audio.
http://techreport.com/review/25013/asro ... d-reviewed
The somewhat finicky nature of ASRock's software and firmware make me hesitant to recommend the Z87E-ITX to newbies—the overall experience isn't what I'd call user-friendly. However, the mix of hardware and features is spot-on for an enthusiast-grade Mini-ITX board. And, if you know what you're doing, the firmware is powerful enough for serious system tuning. For discerning PC fans, this looks like the Mini-ITX Haswell board to beat
 
Airmantharp
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6192
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:41 pm

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Sat Jul 06, 2013 9:18 am

Losergamer04 wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
This is the BS spewed by someone that only reads reviews, and then doesn't really understand what benchmarks actually mean.
Show me some metric that shows that games are CPU bound these days and I'll beleive what you say. See TR's ground-breaking latency test as an example.
http://techreport.com/review/24879/inte ... reviewed/9
Although it might not seem so since four of the five CPUs tested average 60 FPS or higher, Crysis 3 is actually a fairly CPU-intensive game, at least in spots. The biggest frame time spikes in the plots above happen at the two places where I unleash an exploding arrow at the bad guys. Those spikes tend to be larger on the slower processors. The Core i7-4770K isn't much faster than the 2600K or 3770K, but it does reduce the duration of the slowdowns encountered with every one of the CPUs. Trouble is, the differences are really small.
*Bold is my emphasis
Yeah, I don't play the latest games, but I find TR to be a reputible source of information.

I bring up VM's as an issue because many of us are IT focused and may want to train on a VM at home (I have) and the lack of VT-d is an often over-looked feature. Judging by the fact the individual buys new hardware every ~2 years, OC, I would think, is not a high priority. It turns out the individual has a plan for VM's but using old hardware that has VT-d. I still think, however, since it's mini-ITX there won't be a lot of OC unless more exotic cooling is used. But that's my opinion, which they asked for, and what ever makes them happy is fine by me.

+1 for modular PSU and Gold Rating. I've also seen PSUs fail and kill motherboards and other parts, so a high-quality unit is a high priority IMO.


Slow your roll there kiddo. When one of us posts here, we do it with TR as a reference.

I'd been waiting for someone to test the way they (and Anandtech) did for over a decade. It's the only way that makes sense, but it's still not complete. There's more work to be done, and that's a whole different discussion. PM me if you like.

Also, please don't ask for 'numbers' to justify a subjective 'experience' metric. You don't benchmark 'playability', you experience it (or you don't). If you want to discuss it, bring your own examples; mine will be BF3 Multiplayer, and the reality is, from experience, that you need clockspeed. Period. The more the better, really, until you start sacrificing too much stability, or start generating too much heat or noise, or can't get your hands on enough liquid nitrogen, if that's how you roll. Because no matter what you do, your experience won't be 'smooth', it will either be more smooth or less smooth. CPU clockspeed is the main determinant of 'smoothness' in high-action situations, so you really need as much as you can get- and Intel's 'K' series are the best way to get it. AMD is simply non-competitive.

And note that CPU cooling doesn't have to be extreme. Integrated water-coolers have many advantages, with overclocking just being one of them, and those advantages multiply in the SFF arena. You can get the same cooling that you'd get with an expensive tower cooler while being able to put the heat exchanger anywhere. You can have a small, quiet system with a decent overclock very easily, and at only slightly more expensive than a full-size system, due to the increased cost of the board and most decent enclosures over their mATX and ATX equivalents.

Last, VMs- we trained on VM's with dual-core Phenoms running Windows Vista with 1GB of RAM. Couldn't have had a worse testing base, yet we set up domain controllers, exchange servers, and simulated routing and switching equipment along with client sessions to test it all. It was slow as hell, but we did it, and I so fail to see how the extra virtualization instructions are 'make or break' for an enthusiast setup. VMs will be fast either way, and you're not going to be running production VMs from your gaming rig at home. If VMs are that important (as in, they're making you money), you've either got a box dedicated to that function with all of the proper hardware, or you're incompetent.

You do not run production services on consumer hardware. If you want to test them, sure- do whatever you like. But I cannot see the point in having that level of support, nice as it would be, as being a solid counterpoint to giving up the ability to overclock on a gaming rig. Real games need every MHz you can get them.
 
flip-mode
Grand Admiral Gerbil
Posts: 10218
Joined: Thu May 08, 2003 12:42 pm

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Sat Jul 06, 2013 9:37 am

Airmantharp wrote:
Also, please don't ask for 'numbers' to justify a subjective 'experience' metric. You don't benchmark 'playability', you experience it (or you don't). If you want to discuss it, bring your own examples; mine will be BF3 Multiplayer, and the reality is, from experience, that you need clockspeed. Period.

Heh, that's problematic. All I need to counter your experience is to claim an experience of my own. I rather lean on hard numbers whenever possible. TR's latency-based testing does an excellent job of benchmarking "the experience". Having said that, the shortcoming of any benchmark exercise is that it absolutely must limit the testing in order to complete the task, so not all games, levels, and scenarios can be benched.
 
Airmantharp
Emperor Gerbilius I
Posts: 6192
Joined: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:41 pm

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Sat Jul 06, 2013 10:00 am

flip-mode wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
Also, please don't ask for 'numbers' to justify a subjective 'experience' metric. You don't benchmark 'playability', you experience it (or you don't). If you want to discuss it, bring your own examples; mine will be BF3 Multiplayer, and the reality is, from experience, that you need clockspeed. Period.

Heh, that's problematic. All I need to counter your experience is to claim an experience of my own. I rather lean on hard numbers whenever possible. TR's latency-based testing does an excellent job of benchmarking "the experience". Having said that, the shortcoming of any benchmark exercise is that it absolutely must limit the testing in order to complete the task, so not all games, levels, and scenarios can be benched.


Oh, definitely. I could point someone to the [H] for their 'neutral' playability benchmarks, but they're not so well regarded around here. Good place to start though, and I can at least attest that their 'subjective impressions' match(ed) my own, and they were the first ones I saw that called AMD out for bogus frames. They didn't have data to prove it, but it was mentioned in every benchmark involving Crossfire; they repeatedly ran Nvidia SLI setups at settings that caused lower reported framerates from FRAPS and explained that the 'experience' was the same or better as the AMD setup, and postulated that there was something wonky going on with Crossfire.

So yeah, it's a hard thing to do, and I can only really offer a couple of decades of experience in building these machines and playing games on them. I just feel that 'losergamer' isn't speaking so much from experience as he is trying to formulate advice from reviews alone. Getting advice from reviews is great, but it must be tempered by and evaluated through the lens of experience.

For example, most review houses don't review BF3 in a multiplayer setting, and they tend to claim as their single-player data shows that the game isn't terribly CPU limited. And it's not CPU limited, in single-player. But that's the exact opposite of the experience you get when you hop on a 64-man server. There, you can set your graphics as low as you'd like to get your target framerate at your target resolution, but your experience will never be 'smooth' if you don't have the CPU to back it all up, and in that setting, the more the better.
 
DragonDaddyBear
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 985
Joined: Fri Jan 30, 2009 8:01 am

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Sat Jul 06, 2013 1:08 pm

All I was trying to do was point out some things that get overlooked. The individual did not initially indicate this was their only PC or if they will ONLY game. My systems always get reused for other things. And I"ve been playing with SELinux and virtualization a little bit. My systems never do just one thing and get reused a lot. But, it was pointed out that they don't need this feature because they have other hardware for it. They asked for an opinon and I gave mine. It's obvious that it's not important to the person asking for our opinon so let's drop it.

If they are going to go beyond stock cooling, and based on what I now know, then a K-serries is great.

I'll admit, I didn't know about BF but most games are not highly CPU bound. Some may be. If they know the games they are playing are indeed CPU bound then OK, sure, get the highest clock you can.

If he's wanting all-out performance for just gaming, then everything you people are responding with is spot-on. It's been my experience that people usually a "gaming" system for more than just that, though. That's why I have responded the way I did
 
End User
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2977
Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2004 6:47 pm
Location: Upper Canada

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Sat Jul 06, 2013 2:56 pm

Pax-UX wrote:
Looking to build a new system, needs to be very small

Pax-UX wrote:
This is purely a gaming rig

I'm a fan of SFF (my primary setup is a 2012 Mac mini) but for gaming I focus on good airflow and that means a good mid-tower case.
 
Pax-UX
Gerbil Elite
Topic Author
Posts: 792
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:33 am
Location: Ireland

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Sat Jul 06, 2013 6:31 pm

JustAnEngineer wrote:
Pax-UX wrote:
That SG04-FH is small, it's a pity the PSU goes over CPU, otherwise that would be an awesome case.
Here's how someone solved that problem:
http://www.slideshare.net/MLROlson/silv ... -matx-case

Silverstone recommends the NT06-E.

That's Genius!! It's great to see clever engineering at work
"What luck for rulers, that men do not think"
 
Chrispy_
Maximum Gerbil
Posts: 4670
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 3:49 pm
Location: Europe, most frequently London.

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Tue Jul 09, 2013 7:27 pm

End User wrote:
I'm a fan of SFF (my primary setup is a 2012 Mac mini) but for gaming I focus on good airflow and that means a good mid-tower case.


CPU's barely register on the scale, in terms of cooling needs; 100W for a mildly overclocked i5 with a chunky cooler sporting dual 120mm fans is barely worth considering compared to a 250W card forced to dissipate all of its heat in something that has to fit both the fans, the heatsink and the whole PCB in (typically) only 1.5" of double-PCIe-slot space, with enough room for the card next to it (SLI/x-fire) to also breathe. Worse still, the space you'd want to use as an exhaust is usually cluttered up with DVI, HDMI and Displayports.

Getting a mITX box typically means you want a blower. The 680 or 780 blowers are generally decent quality (especially if you get a 780 or 770 with the titan-style blower on it). Your case doesn't get hot because cool air goes in and most of the hot air leaves the box for good. If you don't get a GPU with a blower design, I'd be inclined to agree that airflow is far more important and an mATX or even full-ATX case is usually the better option.
Congratulations, you've noticed that this year's signature is based on outdated internet memes; CLICK HERE NOW to experience this unforgettable phenomenon. This sentence is just filler and as irrelevant as my signature.
 
End User
Minister of Gerbil Affairs
Posts: 2977
Joined: Fri Apr 16, 2004 6:47 pm
Location: Upper Canada

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Tue Jul 09, 2013 10:37 pm

 
JustAnEngineer
Gerbil God
Posts: 19673
Joined: Sat Jan 26, 2002 7:00 pm
Location: The Heart of Dixie

Re: Building advice for Small gaming rig

Wed Jul 10, 2013 4:32 am

The Obsidian 350D micro-ATX case is a huge 41.65 liters vs. a compact 22.97 liters for the SG10. It does not belong in this discussion.

The Obsidian micro-ATX case is comparable on the outside to typical ATX cases.
Corsair Carbide 200R (ATX) = 45.05 liters
Antec Sonata III (ATX) = 40.34 liters
NZXT H2 (ATX) = 52.07 liters
Fractal Design Define R4 (ATX) = 56.30 liters
CoolerMaster CM Force (ATX) = 40.06 liters
Rosewill LINE Glow (ATX) = 35.57 liters
· R7-5800X, Liquid Freezer II 280, RoG Strix X570-E, 64GiB PC4-28800, Suprim Liquid RTX4090, 2TB SX8200Pro +4TB S860 +NAS, Define 7 Compact, Super Flower SF-1000F14TP, S3220DGF +32UD99, FC900R OE, DeathAdder2

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest
GZIP: On