Computer parts suggestion #2065
So tax time has rolled around and I have some spare cash on me, so I thought it would be time to upgrade a few parts of my system to increase performance while developing and enjoyment in video games. Basically I'm just going to be upgrading 3 main parts; SSD, PSU and GPU.
Currently I have a Gigabyte GTX 570, the one with 3 quite large fans, and am wanting to get another one, however Umart seems to have stopped stocking them. Thus my question, which GTX570 is the better of them? With SSD, I'm looking at getting the Intel SSD 120GB 330 Series SATA III 6Gb/s for $110. I currently have a quite old 60GB OCZ vertex 2 which is running a couple steam games, but I really want to run my OS on one, but alas space on a 60GB gets eaten quite quickly. I was thinking of getting two, one for OS and one for games. My currently PSU is 650W, and I'm presuming I'll need to upgrade with a second GPU so figured 750W would be sufficient enough. Thoughts/advice? |
01:26pm 14/08/12 Permalink
ive had SLI video card before and wouldnt recommend it. I would spend the money on maybe a bigger SSD drive or just save your money. GTX560 can play pretty much all games at the moment i would wait till it cant and just buy new video card in the 6 series.
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02:16pm 14/08/12 Permalink
Should have noted that one of the other reasons for a new GPU is more then 2 monitors. Would like to try three 23-24" monitors for that surrealistic gaming experience.
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02:28pm 14/08/12 Permalink
I'd be looking at Crucial or Samsung for SSD, less expensive but just as reliable. 256GB's can be had for about $230ish delivered, I bought a Crucial M4 awhile ago from http://www.bhphotovideo.com, the delivery was $30 through UPS making them cheaper than Umart or even MSY.
I think Amazon also has pretty good prices compared to local dealers, certainly worth checking out if you aren't in a hurry. |
02:31pm 14/08/12 Permalink
^ i bought my 512gb crucial from there too for $399 i believe
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/874566-REG/Crucial_Technology_CT512M4SSD1_512GB_m4_SSD_2_5.html i still dont recommend buying a second video card though. i would wait until the video card you got now cant play games anymore. |
02:35pm 14/08/12 Permalink
First of all, don't get two video cards. It's a waste of power and money. Secondly, get a SDD that's at least 256gig or more. That way you can have your OS and a bunch of games on it without running out of space. You can get the Cricial 256gig one for $270 from CA's.
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02:36pm 14/08/12 Permalink
Would it be more worthwhile to go the Intel 520S 240GB for an extra $9 and 110 MB/s more read speed but 16GB less?
Alright so no to an extra graphics card, can understand it being tad useless right now when my GTX570 can do everything superb, was more for 3 monitor support. Might as well ask then, what's a good monitor? I've currently got a 23" LG at I think 5ms. |
03:22pm 14/08/12 Permalink
So what are the three monitors for anyway? Games, browsing and ? One video card could easily support two monitors if you if you can go without the third one.
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03:25pm 14/08/12 Permalink
http://umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=143&bid=2&sid=95560
27" for $299 Personally I'd get a 3D one though for 120Hz if I had the cash (currently running a 27" Asus) |
03:33pm 14/08/12 Permalink
my new gtx 670 has 2 DVI, HDMI does that mean i can support 3 monitors?
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03:46pm 14/08/12 Permalink
So what are the three monitors for anyway? Games, browsing and ? One video card could easily support two monitors if you if you can go without the third one.True, I think 3 monitors would only be fully used on a game that supported it, and that doesn't seem to be as common yet. http://umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=143&bid=2&sid=95560Man that is tempting, might grab two and ditch my 23". Are Samsung a good brand? |
04:13pm 14/08/12 Permalink
I honestly couldn't play a game across 3 monitors unless I took them apart and removed the bezel. I couldn't stand having that big thick black line in between the screens. I'd rather just get a cheap 60" LED TV & sit 1m from it, same kind of eye searing experience without the annoyance of having monitor borders.
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05:14pm 14/08/12 Permalink
pretty sure the nvida 6 series cards can do upto 4 monitors
so it might be worth getting a 670 eorl, more gpu power, and less power draw edit>>>> which means no need for a new PSU, which will no doubt cover the cost difference |
05:25pm 14/08/12 Permalink
I want to buy at least one 24" 3D monitor but I've found it pretty tricky.
I did some research and settled on a BenQ but then I couldn't find a damn supplier. I think I'm going to go for this one: http://www.scorptec.com.au/computer/44456-xl2420t |
06:11pm 14/08/12 Permalink
I hate 3D on a personal level, bastard owes me money for Pirates 4 in 3D, so I don't know what constitutes good 3D but surely the Samsung or LG 27" versions which are the same price or cheaper than that BenQ are a better option if only because they will give a better regular picture and have larger penis-I mean screen space.
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06:49pm 14/08/12 Permalink
I have a samsung 3d monitor, pretty disappointed with it actually. It's meant to have a wide viewing angle but the vertical viewing angle is about 1 degree. In fact just sitting with your face in the middle of the screen the colours at the top don't match the colours at the bottom. There's a noticeable colour shift from the whole screen. While showing blacks there's also rather terrible light bleeding from the back lights or edge lights or whatever the hell it uses.
On to the touch panel controls. What the f*** were samsung thinking? They're absolutely HORRIBLE to use. Sometimes they don't register at all so you just kind of have to keep touching it randomly around the area the buttons are marked and eventually it'll pick up. Samsung S23A750D <- avoid it at all costs. If I had to do it all over again, I'd gladly pay two or three times the price for an IPS panel if it meant I had better colour reproduction. I don't need perfect colours for graphics or anything but seriously, I'm sitting here looking at qgl and the top of the screen is a different shade of blue to the bottom. F*** samsung. |
06:59pm 14/08/12 Permalink
I have a samsung 3d monitor, pretty disappointed with it actually. It's meant to have a wide viewing angle but the vertical viewing angle is about 1 degree. The specs quote 170/160 degree viewing angle, which usually implies those angles at a contrast ratio of 5:1 (which is fairly low and dark - a hidden advertising trick). Any monitors that quote 178/178 automatically imply a better contrast ratio of 10:1 at those angles ... PLUS the contrast drops off much less sharply with angle past this point than the s***** panel. i.e. the Samsung is like a Ring of Light of 30 radius with sharp light boundary (i.e. you can't see s*** at 31 radius). The Dell U2412M provides double brightness/contrast at 33 radius after which point you have a very slow fade-out (i.e. may be able to see a total of 60 radius) - offering vast [stacked] improvement in dungeon crawling visibility. last edited by parabol at 20:23:07 14/Aug/12 |
08:15pm 14/08/12 Permalink
An SSD is the single biggest improvement you can make the the speed of a modern PC, if you're still on mechanical HDDs. They are sufficiently quick enough that there's now very little reason to use a desktop if you don't need loads of RAM, a fast GPU and multiple monitors.
I highly recommend the SanDisk Extreme SSDs. |
09:08pm 14/08/12 Permalink
Yeah I loved when I had my OS on the 60GB SSD, but because its a vertex 2 and the space was so small it just wasn't efficient enough with the huge amounts of crap games make in the documents folder. Definitely looking at getting the 240GB Intel 520S one as I've heard good things about Intel.
Would it be better though to get two 120GB ones or just one 240GB one? I'd have OS on one and games on the other, but I guess if that setup wouldn't impact too much on one SSD I might just do that. Also, I think I'm going to get two of those Samsung 27" monitors. They sound so delicious. However on the main website it says the display is 1920x1080, shouldn't that be larger for a 27" monitor? |
09:13pm 14/08/12 Permalink
Definitely looking at getting the 240GB Intel 520S one as I've heard good things about Intel. I have used TONNES of these and they are awesome (and 5 year warranty doesnt hurt). however equally awesome for low end users would be the patriot pyro series. I have used alot of these and they are quick and perform really well + CHEAP. Haven't had failures yet on either touch wood. I think the 120gb patriot pyros are going for $99 at the moment? |
09:29pm 14/08/12 Permalink
Would it be better though to get two 120GB ones or just one 240GB one? Well apart from the fact that it's cheaper to get a 240GB over 2x120GB, you'll have more breathing room with the larger drive. That's because you generally need to leave some free space for the wear leveling to work well (the drives internally have some hidden space for such use, but giving more space yourself helps for endurance/performance). So instead of leaving for e.g. 10GB free on both drives, you'll just need the one 10GB free for bursty writes. |
09:32pm 14/08/12 Permalink
http://staticice.com.au/cgi-bin/search.cgi?q=gtx+570+state%3Aqld&spos=3
I've got 2x GTX 470s, SLi is kind of s*** if y ou have more than 2 monitors. You keep swapping between running 3 and running 2.. I assume this is solved in the 6 series because it seems to be a monitor-per-card limitation. Mind you if you don't mind swapping between SLi and Span and go check my old thread on how to setup span mode to work like 3 independent monitors in windows (so a fullscreen window only takes up 1 etc) then you can actually quite enjoy them. TBH half the problem is my TV is connected as a 4th display so it's even more d***ing about :P Games are awesome though using 3 monitors. all FPS and racing games run brilliantly, even 3rd persons like Assassins creed and batman are fun, but the effect is lost a little and you feel a little 'bubbly' around the edges. Use your 60gig for windows, 120/240gig for steam+etc. Loading times in modern games is a little annoying with big beefy cards which have to load giant textures. Well, it's not, but hey you might as well give steam more space than windows. My steam folder is so massive i don't think it'd fit on an SSD. I would go 850w if i were you as a minimum. SSD's might not require much more power, but consider later if you add another media drive then 750w is cutting it kind of thin. You don't want to reach the max of a powersupply, a good rule of thumb is to have 20% more than the peak expected wattage draw. You can probably find a calculator for how much yours expects to draw. Again, span mode is awesome. SLi can be tempremental a little, but some of that is unique to me needing to turn it on and off to allow 4 monitors vs 3 in span, vs 1 in 1080p on the TV. Also just FYI when you start Spanning, you really eat up your VRAM quickly. You have more pixels than people with a 2550x1600 resolution. Usually because you're at something like 5760*1080 which will probably be eating more VRAM than you technically have. So you might find yourself a little disappointed with the results considering that the 570's only have like 1280mb. Also VRAM isn't additive. Naturally each card has to have a duplicate of the data in it's ram as it's parallel processing it. 1280 doesn't become 2560mb. |
09:33pm 14/08/12 Permalink
So just to bump this, are there any other screen recommendations? The Samsung 27" sounds really good, so I might grab two of those but if people have any other opinions I'm all ears.
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10:26am 16/08/12 Permalink
