I could have saved some money on a few parts if I was willing to wait, however this is what I was able to pull off with what my local store had in stock.
Went ultra wide instead of multi-monitor... This actually caused me to step my video card up big time after doing some research.
PCPartPicker part list (http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/6qNdK8) / Price breakdown by merchant (http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/6qNdK8/by_merchant/)
CPU: Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor (http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80662i56400) ($265.98 @ Newegg Canada)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz170md3h) ($158.98 @ Newegg Canada)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/gskill-memory-f42400c15d8gvr) ($64.99 @ NCIX)
Storage: A-Data Premier SP550 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/a-data-internal-hard-drive-asp550ss3240gmc) ($89.99 @ NCIX)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 390X 8GB SOC Video Card (http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-video-card-gvr939xg1gaming8gd) ($582.00 @ Amazon Canada)
Case: Corsair 100R ATX Mid Tower Case (http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-case-cc9011075ww) ($72.98 @ NCIX)
Power Supply: Thermaltake TR2 600W ATX Power Supply (http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/thermaltake-power-supply-tr600) ($64.99 @ NCIX)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro OEM (64-bit) (http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/microsoft-os-fqc08930) ($207.99 @ NCIX)
Monitor: LG 29UC97C 60Hz 29.0" Monitor (http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/part/lg-monitor-29uc97c) ($577.98 @ Newegg Canada)
Total: $2085.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-22 04:44 EST-0500
Aww, its only a 60hz monitor? Hopefully it can be overdriven.
Nice computer. Much better than my old desktop :(
Old PC was from 2011 (http://forums.righteouswrath.com/index.php?topic=8060) moving that one to the kids .
FPS and Refresh rate are related but not the same (unless vsync is on), past extreme gaming going past 60hz didn't seem like a good option vs getting a really nice curved display that better filled my field of view.
Gratz
Quote from: Lazybones on January 22, 2016, 10:27:16 AM
Old PC was from 2011 (http://forums.righteouswrath.com/index.php?topic=8060) moving that one to the kids .
FPS and Refresh rate are related but not the same (unless vsync is on), past extreme gaming going past 60hz didn't seem like a good option vs getting a really nice curved display that better filled my field of view.
I suppose. Though I've heard people say that you really can't know what 120/144hz is like till you've tried it, and you'll never want to go back.
I'm hopefully getting a new desk this weekend. my current setup disagrees with triple 24" monitors. It might be a manual sit/stand desk, though the version of the same desk that doesn't have the crank is like half the price or less, so we'll see.
Quote from: Tom on January 22, 2016, 11:06:50 AM
Quote from: Lazybones on January 22, 2016, 10:27:16 AM
Old PC was from 2011 (http://forums.righteouswrath.com/index.php?topic=8060) moving that one to the kids .
FPS and Refresh rate are related but not the same (unless vsync is on), past extreme gaming going past 60hz didn't seem like a good option vs getting a really nice curved display that better filled my field of view.
I suppose. Though I've heard people say that you really can't know what 120/144hz is like till you've tried it, and you'll never want to go back.
Again that is for a HEAVY gaming focuse... It makes squat all difference for everything else I use the PC for, TV and Movie content.
I found a few comparisons online for 60vs 120 and even 144Hz, however in nearly all cases they needed to slow down the video to illistrate the difference between the two, at normal speeds both seem smooth. Yes, there is a diffence but as long as I do not currently preceive it that doesn't bother me.
Quote from: Lazybones on January 22, 2016, 11:22:18 AM
Quote from: Tom on January 22, 2016, 11:06:50 AM
Quote from: Lazybones on January 22, 2016, 10:27:16 AM
Old PC was from 2011 (http://forums.righteouswrath.com/index.php?topic=8060) moving that one to the kids .
FPS and Refresh rate are related but not the same (unless vsync is on), past extreme gaming going past 60hz didn't seem like a good option vs getting a really nice curved display that better filled my field of view.
I suppose. Though I've heard people say that you really can't know what 120/144hz is like till you've tried it, and you'll never want to go back.
Again that is for a HEAVY gaming focuse... It makes squat all difference for everything else I use the PC for, TV and Movie content.
I found a few comparisons online for 60vs 120 and even 144Hz, however in nearly all cases they needed to slow down the video to illistrate the difference between the two, at normal speeds both seem smooth. Yes, there is a diffence but as long as I do not currently preceive it that doesn't bother me.
Indeed. I assumed because of the mid-high end gpu, stellar screen, and fancy cpu you were going to mainly game on it.
Lazy back gaming... colour me /shocked
Quote from: Tom on January 22, 2016, 11:25:50 AM
Indeed. I assumed because of the mid-high end gpu, stellar screen, and fancy cpu you were going to mainly game on it.
Well that is the funny thing, by going with a single wide monitor with a high native resolution, I needed to seriously boost the video card to ensure smooth native resolution playback vs gaming just on my old primary which was a standard 1080p 16:9 display. I did a little research and found I was probably going to have a bad time if I went lower than the 390, I only ended up with an 390X because they didn't have any stock for the regular 390.
Tomshardware has a fairly good recommendation guide (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gpus,4380.html) for different ranges of cards and resolutions.
While gaming isn't a the absolute focus I didn't want to build something new that failed to play current titles really well.
Quote from: Lazybones on January 22, 2016, 11:38:27 AM
Quote from: Tom on January 22, 2016, 11:25:50 AM
Indeed. I assumed because of the mid-high end gpu, stellar screen, and fancy cpu you were going to mainly game on it.
Well that is the funny thing, by going with a single wide monitor with a high native resolution, I needed to seriously boost the video card to ensure smooth native resolution playback vs gaming just on my old primary which was a standard 1080p 16:9 display. I did a little research and found I was probably going to have a bad time if I went lower than the 390, I only ended up with an 390X because they didn't have any stock for the regular 390.
Tomshardware has a fairly good recommendation guide (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gpus,4380.html) for different ranges of cards and resolutions.
While gaming isn't a the absolute focus I didn't want to build something new that failed to play current titles really well.
Yeah, totally makes sense. And sometimes the 390X isn't actually much more than a 390. I almost with I got the X version but I got the 390 on sale. And I suspect it'll do me for a few years :) Even with dual 1080. I wont get triple 1080p out of the 390 most likely, but that's ok :) I'd need a 980ti or FuryX, or the new AMD card thats due mid 2016. (not the Fury X2) Once the new card drops i can probably pick up a second 390 and try some CrossFire :D muahahaha.
Quote from: Tom on January 22, 2016, 11:42:04 AM
Yeah, totally makes sense. And sometimes the 390X isn't actually much more than a 390. I almost with I got the X version but I got the 390 on sale. And I suspect it'll do me for a few years :) Even with dual 1080. I wont get triple 1080p out of the 390 most likely, but that's ok :) I'd need a 980ti or FuryX, or the new AMD card thats due mid 2016. (not the Fury X2) Once the new card drops i can probably pick up a second 390 and try some CrossFire :D muahahaha.
I wanted to ensure the 5 year ish longevity I have enjoyed with my last two systems with minor upgrades along the way.
Skylake + DDR4 support drove me two LGA 1151 motherboards and the new i5 as the base (i3 is only 2 core). The display resolution drove the video card, which then drove the PSU, I can't believe the power connections those things need now.
The board also has an M.2 socket on it for future SUPER fast SSDs... I almost went that way for the initial build but the current M.2 SSDs that I could afford where not any faster than the SATA 6 Gb/s ones. I look forward to when those 32 Gb/s SSDs start to arrive, I can snap one directly to the board, no power and SATA cables to deal with.
Looks like it'll be a very nice machine for the next five years. The curved screen will be quite neat to use when sitting close, I wonder what it's like to use a curved screen as a TV where you're sitting further away.
$2,085 / 60 months = $34.75 / month. Not really breaking the bank there, either.
...
I'm a little jealous, but happy for you.
Quote from: Thorin on January 22, 2016, 12:13:59 PM
Looks like it'll be a very nice machine for the next five years. The curved screen will be quite neat to use when sitting close, I wonder what it's like to use a curved screen as a TV where you're sitting further away.
$2,085 / 60 months = $34.75 / month. Not really breaking the bank there, either.
...
I'm a little jealous, but happy for you.
Went way over budget, I worked out various options such as building a budget kids PC etc. However after adding monitors etc it became a significant investment and I just decided the current PC would be great for the kids and it was time to build a new long term system.
The curve is actually fairly subtle on this display but since it is so wide it it nice when turning your head a little to look at the far corners. A number of large TVs are also curved now... Looking at them at Bestbuy they look good at a distance accept at extreme angles.
The monitor it self is almost 1/3 of the cost and I suspect will be in service longer than 5yrs unless it gets replaced by Hololense or some form of VR.
VERY nice
Testing out minecraft with shaders and chromahills 64 textures.
Of note to Toms comment on refresh rate shearing is visible if the framerate is to far out of step with the monitor... I have been playing with around with some games and sometimes Vsync produces a much smoother looking image, others turning it off isn't a problem.
Edit: If you look at the specs for the monitor you will find it has speakers but they are very tinny and kinda poor in general... I am still using my previous sound setup which is a logitec two speaker with subwoofer setup that is now on its 3rd PC... Some parts have a much better life span then others.
hahaha, all that, and we're still using Minecraft to check if it looks good :)
And yes, stereo equipment just hasn't changed nearly as much as visual display equipment.
Duuuuuuuuude which shader pack is that?
Quote from: Mr. Analog on January 22, 2016, 01:59:03 PM
Duuuuuuuuude which shader pack is that?
This is the following:
OptiFine 1.8.9 HD U H2 (enables sharders now built in)
SEUS-v10.1-Standard
Croma Hills 64x64 Resource pack http://www.chromahills.com/forum/downloads.php
Quote from: Thorin on January 22, 2016, 01:57:31 PM
hahaha, all that, and we're still using Minecraft to check if it looks good :)
And yes, stereo equipment just hasn't changed nearly as much as visual display equipment.
I haven't really purchased any cutting edge games recently for PC since they would have looked sad on my old one... Hell even Fallout 4 isn't considered graphically advanced by PC standards. I think I might install some mods on Cities Skylines later... I can sure see a hell of a lot of the map now.
Funny thing about Fallout 4, Cities, and Minecraft, they are all mostly CPU bound. :D
If you want to get some stress on your machine (and some fun) try running GTA V with ultra settings + mods :D
So my system has started to FREEZE solid when playing more challenging games... After a bit of research the CPU / Motherboard might be at fault.
Apparently skylake processors have a not so nice math bug in them.
The issue can apparently be patched via motherboard, however even updating to the latest beta BIOS for my board I am still seeing the issue.
Poking around forums other users particularly of my board / same chipset are having issues.
So sad right now.
That bug should only ever happen under VERY specific circumstances. Like running prime95 with a very specific key/start or something. If its happening in games, its a much more serious bug than most people even thought.
Quote from: Tom on January 30, 2016, 04:29:54 PM
That bug should only ever happen under VERY specific circumstances. Like running prime95 with a very specific key/start or something. If its happening in games, its a much more serious bug than most people even thought.
Well apparently it is two bugs, 1 being the CPU 2 being DDR4 RAM related.
Ether case seems to result in a system FREEZE... not even a BSOD.. the RESET button doesn't even work I have to hold the power button to free the system from that state.
Quote from: Lazybones on January 30, 2016, 04:44:05 PM
Quote from: Tom on January 30, 2016, 04:29:54 PM
That bug should only ever happen under VERY specific circumstances. Like running prime95 with a very specific key/start or something. If its happening in games, its a much more serious bug than most people even thought.
Well apparently it is two bugs, 1 being the CPU 2 being DDR4 RAM related.
Ether case seems to result in a system FREEZE... not even a BSOD.. the RESET button doesn't even work I have to hold the power button to free the system from that state.
:(
I feel you. both my desktop and laptop have been acting up. Laptop is deff a hardware problem. Desktop may be mostly a Software problem.
Quote from: Tom on January 30, 2016, 05:20:05 PM
Quote from: Lazybones on January 30, 2016, 04:44:05 PM
Quote from: Tom on January 30, 2016, 04:29:54 PM
That bug should only ever happen under VERY specific circumstances. Like running prime95 with a very specific key/start or something. If its happening in games, its a much more serious bug than most people even thought.
Well apparently it is two bugs, 1 being the CPU 2 being DDR4 RAM related.
Ether case seems to result in a system FREEZE... not even a BSOD.. the RESET button doesn't even work I have to hold the power button to free the system from that state.
:(
I feel you. both my desktop and laptop have been acting up. Laptop is deff a hardware problem. Desktop may be mostly a Software problem.
The thing that bothers me is that the reset button doesn't work when it happens.. Essentially the reset button should tell the motherboard to cut the CPU power and force a reboot immediately.. the fact that isn't working is concerning.
Quote from: Lazybones on January 30, 2016, 05:21:47 PM
Quote from: Tom on January 30, 2016, 05:20:05 PM
Quote from: Lazybones on January 30, 2016, 04:44:05 PM
Quote from: Tom on January 30, 2016, 04:29:54 PM
That bug should only ever happen under VERY specific circumstances. Like running prime95 with a very specific key/start or something. If its happening in games, its a much more serious bug than most people even thought.
Well apparently it is two bugs, 1 being the CPU 2 being DDR4 RAM related.
Ether case seems to result in a system FREEZE... not even a BSOD.. the RESET button doesn't even work I have to hold the power button to free the system from that state.
:(
I feel you. both my desktop and laptop have been acting up. Laptop is deff a hardware problem. Desktop may be mostly a Software problem.
The thing that bothers me is that the reset button doesn't work when it happens.. Essentially the reset button should tell the motherboard to cut the CPU power and force a reboot immediately.. the fact that isn't working is concerning.
The motherboard would have to still be alive. I've hung machines bad enough that the motherboard is locked up as well. Like it's onboard io processor thing that handles all the low level stuff gets locked up as well. If that happens, nothing works. Not even holding the power button down for 5 seconds.
I know you're a pro at PCs and stuff, but just in case, make absolute sure you haven't shorted the motherboard to the case in any way. Like having an extra standoff or you forgot to use standoffs all together (seen that happen :o).
A reset button used to be a 5V draw to cause the system to reboot between two pins. Now-a-days a reset button is a software eprom system that tells smart PSUs and Mobos to reboot, but still with the same two pins. So if the Mobo is locked up the software may not be responsive at all.
Ran into this with Dell OptiPlex 7040s and was fixed with a BIOS flash in later releases.
Quote from: Tom on January 30, 2016, 05:24:52 PM
I know you're a pro at PCs and stuff, but just in case, make absolute sure you haven't shorted the motherboard to the case in any way. Like having an extra standoff or you forgot to use standoffs all together (seen that happen :o).
Ya ill double check but the symptoms seem to match several other users so I am fairly sure this sites with a general board issue that MIGHT be fixed with a BIOS update.
I don't really want to rip the board out for a different one since I am sure I will have issues re-activating Windows since I purchased a clean OEM copy for this build.
MS's support is pretty groovy about reactivating windows, even OEM copies. They even have an app now and it may do it automatically for you. It didn't work when i tried it but there was some weirdness with my install and the fact that I didn't actually have a valid Win10 key yet (I was in the middle of redoing my PC including an upgrade to win10 using the win8 key i bought for like $15. hahaa)
So I downgraded the BIOS to the last stable release before the BETA releases that have the skylake, prime 95 and other "FIXES" oddly enough I haven't had a freeze since!.
I should note the one feature I am most impressed with between my MB, SSD and Windows 10 is fast and ultra fast boot modes.
From powered off the system will start in as low as 2 seconds, from a full shut down it is still under 10s!
Yeah, those new UEFI/Intel fast boot modes are amazing. They somehow manage to make a cold/hibernate boot almost as fast as suspend to ram. It's basically a form of hibernate, but i think they tweaked it a bit.
I've seen my Linux machines get to a desktop in like 5 seconds. It still amazes me that they've managed to get cold linux boots that fast. Partially I think its all the work they put into parallelizing hardware initialization (they don't store hardware configs like windows does, so it has to go through the entire detection/init dance every single time, where as windows has the hw layout cached, and just inits). They've also been working on removing all big locks in the kernel, which speeds things up a lot as well. All I know is, I don't have time to get a drink when booting. It's up before I even notice. lol.
Speaking of new PCs, I did get a new 512GB ssd for my desktop. before I was using a 128GB and a HDD for my linux install.. Then I RECENTLY upgraded linux to a brand new Samsung EVO 256GB SSD (it was on sale! gotta love boxing week), and just picked up a sandisk 512GB ssd. I was smart and setup LVM for my root and home partitions, so all I had to do was add the new drive to the volume group, and extend the root and home partitions, run resize2fs, and everything was setup all online. Super slick. :D Windows has its own SSD as well, but I may take the old linux ssd and move it to the windows install for game storage and the like. Might move windows to a dynamic disk partition setup so I can just extend C: onto the new disk.
I had to dial down the ultra fast options as I could not run any USB based boot tools without the USB keyboard enabled lol.
My board however does have a windows tool that lets you set the bios on next boot so I am tempted to set it back... It goes so fast that reboots are nothing!
Part of it is the SSD, that speeds up reboot times by orders of magniute even in older Windows versions.
Now you just gotta keep it free of any start-up programs that'll drag the reboot time down.
Quote from: Thorin on February 01, 2016, 12:52:36 PM
Part of it is the SSD, that speeds up reboot times by orders of magniute even in older Windows versions.
Now you just gotta keep it free of any start-up programs that'll drag the reboot time down.
The SSD plays a big role, but the FAST and UltraFast boot modes take advantage of the fact that your OS ultimately inits nearly all peripherals and the bios doing it is redundant and slow so instead the BIOS just hands off to the OS as fast as it can.
Again if I don't want USB storage or keyboard / mouse I can have the BIOS skip them and BAM it fires right into launching windows, and as Tom pointed out Windows 10 uses a special hibernate type mode to basically dump a core system image back into RAM and show you a login screen. Then the OS starts working on those slow startup apps, which may still be slowly starting if you login quickly. They parallelized a bunch of things, you also get a report of apps that are startup slowdown offenders, the report has improved steadily since windows 7.
Ran https://novabench.com/ on my system and it seems like the major components are performing within expectations
Quote from: Tom on January 22, 2016, 08:49:10 AM
Aww, its only a 60hz monitor? Hopefully it can be overdriven.
Apparently it support 75 Hz if I use Displayport instead of HDMI... I have ordered a cable and will check it out.
Oddly NO LOCAL STORE has stock of a simple male to male NORMAL Displayport cable over 3FT.. Mini Displayport all over the place but not the standard cable.
Amazon ship from a warehouse really close to me, so with any luck I will get my order very quickly even with free shipping.
Sadly I can't push my monitor past 60 Hz at full resolution... It does work with some lower resolutions at up to 75 hz.
O well, that isn't what I purchased it for, but I was excited I might be able to push it.
Monitor died, but lucky me within the first 30 days.. NCIX did not have the same model in stock and did not have a simmilar curved one. However they did have a much bigger 34um67 on sale for the same price and let me exchange for it.
Now I DO have a 75Hz freesync monitor.. YAY
Awesome!
Sent from my SGH-I317M using Tapatalk
On the down side I do miss the curved display. At the wider aspect ratio and size the corners are actually further from your eye and it is noticeable.
However it is huge so I moved it further away and seems to help.
Also pro tip, if you have an AMD card and are looking at a freesysnc monitor to get it enable you will likely need to explicitly turn on freesysnc in the monitors OSD and in the video card drivers. It took me a bit of googling to figure that out.
I'm worried about a curved monitor as I've heard its not great for productivity. You tend to notice the curve on straight lines a lot.
I think it depends on how deep the curve was. The monitor I just had was not curved that deep. Laying flat you could probably barely get two quarters under it.
So the system freezing might be an under spec PSU.
Although reading the specs the R9 390 should only need a 600W PSU and I have little else in this build I have found several forum posts indicating the same HARD FREEZE on most PSUs under 700W.
OOPs well this will cost more to fix now :( I hope this is the problem but I don't feel like pulling all those power feeds out again.
Well that sucks, I hope it is indeed just the power supply, then at least it's a less-needing-to-troubleshoot fix (imagine if it was a bad diode on the card, or something, that would take forever to figure out).
Well so far the system has only hard froze in Star Citizen and Ashes of the singularity. Both of which push the video card to its max.
On the flip side I have been able to play Torchlight II for hours as well as regular desktop use without issue.
Apparently the R9 390X uses a tad more power Max than most Mid range cards. Toms Hardware has some interesting Graphs.
New PSU, still freezes...
Grrrrrrr
:C I hope it's not the mobo or something
I know one case I had it was a wire touching the chassis, that took a while to figure out
Sooooooooooo feeling really dumb.
Since the PSU wasn't the issue, I went around re-testing things and then I saw it..
CPU temps were rocketing under load and would freeze the system at 90C
1. I thought these always caused a shutdown or reboot
2. I have no case buzzer/speaker on my case so no alarm output with this mother board combo
3. I had tested temp when I built it but had not been looking at it closely.
Checked the CPU heatsink and found it had come loose... re-attached.
Temps look good, and so far no repeat of the lockup.
Also keeping the new PSU, it is modular so no extra loose cables and it is rated better to handle the video card per numerus recommendations... The previous PSU was boarder line.
Modern CPUs throttle first, then if there's some kind of hardware error it can cause the OS to freeze. As long as it's below the max temp of the cpu, it won't shut itself off (assuming it still can).
Reminds me of my Q6600 box, i didn't install the stock heatsink properly, and it throttled to what felt like 500mhz.
SWEET
I guess I better figure out how to play Torchlight II!
Quote from: Mr. Analog on February 29, 2016, 09:35:47 PM
SWEET
I guess I better figure out how to play Torchlight II!
Well depending on your player class two of them click your mouse buttons wildly and mow though mobs. However I am around level 30 now and the game is tossing in many more elite style mobs that I need to back away from sometimes.
Torchlight II is rather light on my system, hell I wasn't even having issues with it while my heat sink was loose.
Haha, true enough