Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, SpotTheCat, Nemesis
Sheepdisease wrote:I really like the Grandia GD08 so have gone with that, problem is that I need to find a CPU cooler which is 3.5cm in height or less
A. Single CPU processor: The height limit is 138mm and there is 8mm of clearance around the motherboard’s top edge.
B. If you use a dual CPU motherboard, the CPU in front may be placed under the 5.25” drive bays to the right of main hard drive bracket. However, compatibility is not guaranteed so please refer to the diagram below:
AutoCAD without any lag whilst rendering, using Photoshop, Lightroom, playing games
Chrispy_ wrote:For a start, Z68 is incompatible with the 4690.
The 4690 is a 4th generation socket 1150 processor, so you need a 1150 board to compliment it. The Z68 is a 1155 board to be used with 2nd and 3rd generation processors.
If you're not getting a K-series i5, there's no need for an expensive Z97 motherboard - you could use a B85 or H97 board instead as long as they have the features you want. However, I would seriously question what you hope to gain by changing from an i5-2500K; It's a fast chip and the 4690 is barely any quicker!
For the tasks you've mentioned:AutoCAD without any lag whilst rendering, using Photoshop, Lightroom, playing games
I can confirm from first hand experience that a 4690 will make so little difference to those tasks that I'd be AMAZED if you could spot any improvement in blind testing. We're talking less than 10-15% faster, at best, but more commonly 5% faster. If you want to multitask better, either upgrade to an i7 which can manage eight threads instead of four, or alternatively just change your processor affinity whilst rendering (via a shortcut icon, rather than manually each time) so that there is a thread free for other things to run smoothly whilst your renders run. Even on an i7 with eight threads you will experience lag in AutoCAD if all eight threads are in use for rendering. Our Visualisation team use processors capable of running twelve threads but they only ever render locally using ten threads so that there is some headroom to do other stuff (like email and modelling) at the same time. AutoCAD only uses one thread, so on an i5 2500K you should put three threads on rendering, and on an quad-core i7 you should put six threads on rendering.
As for the 970, it's a good card, and that's a good price, but the Strix is pretty huge (too tall for HTPC cases I think) and it just recirculates the hot air back into the case, which is bad for a horizontal HTPC case once you get over about 150W. The Strix 970 uses around 175W.
In my experience with HTPC cases, a quiet, exhausting blower is the better option and I've tried several different types ranging from open, to partial-blower, to full-exhuast varying from 140W to 275W. Basically, you don't want the graphics card to be dumping anything more than about 150W into the case, ideally far less.
This is better for the same money (cheap but reviews say it is quiet).
I'm using these which are super high-quality and near-silent, but you pay a bit more for them.
The 970 is a faster card than you need but a good investment, but if your TV is a 1080p TV you could easily save £100 or more by getting a GTX960 instead. At only 120W of peak power consumption I don't think you need to worry about an exhuasting blower and this one is on offer this week. I'd still recommend the £319 swanky GTX 970 from OCUK which uses the incredibly quiet GTX 980 reference cooler and top-quality components but it is almost double the price of that Gigabyte GTX 970 and it's definitely not twice as fast!